Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 14

Some DYK's are really strange
DYK's can often be extremely facile and useless. I am writer on European history, and I have always wondered how some of this stuff gets posted. I noticed that Józef Piłsudski is described with one word: "dictator". He was actually Poland's liberator from the Russians, a self-taught military genius (his defeat of the Red Army at the gates of Warsaw was epic) and the greatest man his country produced since King Jan Sobieski. While he did stage a coup at one point, it was one of those "failed politics" situations that happen in many newly independent countries. He did not intended to set himself up as dictator but eased his own way out of office and died his country's grand old man. (He was also a vocal opponent of anti-Semitism.) 68.5.64.178 04:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Limiting self-nominations?
discussion moved from Template talk:Did you know by Peter Isotalo 08:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * ...that self-nominations constitute, like, 90% of DYK? Shall we do something about this? `'mikka (t) 07:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't see why we should. It encourages people to make non-stubby articles with good sources and interesting facts. I see nothing wrong with that. - Mgm|(talk) 10:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with Mgm. Of course I am biased:). All but one of mine have been self noms. But shouldnt this go to WPT:DYK? -- Lost (talk) 10:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It's the content and relevance of the article that is interesting to the readers, not the humility of the authors. / Peter Isotalo 16:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * First of all, this is an issue for Wikipedia talk:Did you know, secondly, if we relied on editors scouring WP for new articles to nominate for DYK, we would have probably had one or two rotations a week only! Bravada, talk - 20:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I made this remark because I noticed that some editors simply flood DYK with their creations. It is not that they write bad articles. This simply creates a bias. My suggestion is to introduce a quota: no more than 42 self-nominations per week, or something. `'mikka (t) 02:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think this will have an adverse effect. We will be limiting creation of relatively well written articles -- Lost (talk) 09:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? 42 self nominations per person per week, 42 self nominations on the template per week or something else? I see no problem with self nominations. The people who know that a good article has just been written are the ones who wrote it. More variety on the did you know template would probably be a good thing but I don't think this is a good way to achieve it. --Cherry blossom tree 16:45, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * This is nonsense. Have you ever sifted through the new articles being created on Wikipedia - I often do to look for OK articles for DYK - on the whole it is disturbing and not worth the time. If someone creates a good article it is far easier for them to just nominate it, than it is for someone to randomly happen upon it and nominate it for DYK.--Peta 02:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * agree with PETA DYK needs the nominations, if its appears bias then limiting those that are already contributing both to DYK and creating substancial articles on wikipedia isnt the way. If DYK is struggling for fresh nominations then reconsider the criteria so that articles that have under gone substancial edits can also be highlighted. Gnangarra 06:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Some of us are self limiting. I did not suggest Norman Blacklock 10 days ago because I only had one reference (only one obituary published then). Another has just been published, but it is too late now. Sigh. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I also don't nominate such short articles as Vladislav Ozerov. Imagine my surprise when I saw Mancs on Main Page, complete with the picture! -- Ghirla -трёп-  16:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

DYK talk message template
The talk message template currently displays as follows,

"An entry from Arki, India appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 13 September 2006"

Is it possible to add a link to the text that was displayed on the Main page. I would like to know what interesting fact was mentioned on the DYK (without having to search archive pages). Suggestions and comments? - Ganeshk  ( talk ) 06:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You have to look through the archive. Updating DYK is a long enough process as it is.--Peta 22:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Did you know? Well no, of course not, how the hell would I expect to know?
This is more of a personal ramble than a constructive comment, but ever since I was on Wikipedia and saw the "Did You Know"s, not once have I ever known anything in the DYK section, apart from the handful of stuff that I had added to it. Has anyone else actually known anything that has been on DYK prior to seeing it there? I'd guesstimate the average person would have known less than 1% of all things ever been asked if they know. It's a rhetorical question, I gather that, but it seems a bit silly as a title. "Did You Know...?" - practically nobody knows anything on this page. I guess it's a credit to Wikipedia that pretty much all the stuff worth knowing is already in Wikipedia, and all the new stuff nobody really gives a damn about. So I'd casually advise renaming the section something like "Stuff you wouldn't have known before" or "The best bunch of the hundreds of new entries to this encyclopedia". Or maybe it doesn't really matter what it's called. --Dangherous 11:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, no, but that is really the point. Isn't "Did you know" is a traditional name for this sort of column?


 * But, looking back at Recent_additions_1 - look how pithy and concise the DYK entries are? Seldom more than one line, few commas.  Nominators, take note (and I know I am one of the bad ones). -- ALoan (Talk) 12:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That should be "nominators and updating admins, take note", as updating admins can and should improve upon the nominator's wording if possible. --Sam Blanning(talk) 12:19, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This is simply not true. Changing the messages of others is bad manners. Please check the archives for prior discussions of the issue. -- Ghirla -трёп-  12:23, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Sam Blanning, but updating admins are few and far enough apart that I would not want to add to their burden. Any admin can edit T:DYK to make the entries better.  This is a wiki. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It's a pity that most nominators are not admins. There is no page where they can voice their disgust at the merciless carnage of their nominations. On the other hand, we have a nomination page where all proposed changes to the nomination should be discussed before implementing them. -- Ghirla -трёп-  12:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Merciless carnage? Really? Well, there is the nomination page to discuss beforehand, and WP:ERRORS to discuss while they are live. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Nihilartikel
Has a nihilartikel ever been put onto DYK? --Dangherous 13:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Editprotected
I just had a quick look at recent history for the submissions page and noticed that an anon had added an editprotected template to the top (which was swiftly reverted, probably due to the all-caps edit summary). Thinking about it, would it be worth the time for us non-admin page-watchers to actually start doing this ourselves if the next update is well overdue? Is there a chance it'd either get some new admins involved in updating the template (always a good thing), or be noticed by the current update-team more quickly than the clock currently on the Suggestions page? I'd view either as a success, personally. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) &bull; 16:40, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Non-Existant DYK's??
I've noticed right now that Heckler & Koch MP5 in popular culture, which was a DYK for 10 May 2006, got deleted and no consensus that was apparent in the was made to have the article deleted. What the heck happened? --293.xx.xxx.xx 10:25, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * See Articles for deletion/M1911 in popular culture. --Cherry blossom tree 10:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Y'know, if their gonna do that kinda stuff, at least do a good job of it and cleanup properly. Also, by default, shouldn't the DYK nomination also be deleted as well?--293.xx.xxx.xx 11:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Which areas are weakly covered?
According to User:Gmaxwell, the highest contributors to WP are US, UK, CAN, AUS and then GER. I didn't find much at DYK about Germany, so I asked the German board to be more bold and nominate themselves (NP is unfeasible as 40% of the stuff there is deleted, and 45%+ have NPOV, too short, no refs, etc, etc, and that is even before we can find something remotely interesting in any of them). As such I can see that there are lots of Polish, Russian and Indian stuff, due to the high number of superb quality article writers from that part of the world who enjoy sharing knowledge with us. Perhaps we should go and see if there are any French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, etc contribs who aren't aware of DYK and encourage them to take part. Similarly, I see next to no stuff from China or Japan. Aside from that, I was wondering which WikiProjects were very active and to ask those ones to get involved some more. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 01:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd been meaning to remind the regional noticeboards; thanks for reminding me. I'm not really keen on inviting projects since they tend to work on just one type of article, and we don't need a glut of one type of article.--Peta 02:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

A large source of potentian DYK items
The following message was just left at Wikipedia talk:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board:
 * The DYK section featured on the main page is always looking for interesting new and recently expanded stubs from different parts of the world. Please make a suggestion.--Peta 02:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

There are quite a reasonable number of project portals (such as Portal:New Zealand) which have their own series of "Did you know?" facts - surely it would be a good idea to regularly look around those for potential main page DYK facts. The New Zealand portal has been adding its own DYK facts at the rate of one or two a week... even if only a dozen or so portals were doing that, it would keep the main page perpetually supplied with new facts. Grutness...wha?  04:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The NZ portal doesn't appear to be using new aricles for their DYK. Newness is the primary criteria for DYK articles on the main page.--Peta 04:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Priority is given to new articles on the NZ portal DYK page - probably 50-60% of the items appearing there are new. It doesn't take more than a few moments to check which ones are. In any case, as your initial comment stated, not all of the items here are new - some of them are just recently expanded stubs. Grutness...wha?  05:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it would be a good idea for someone to check the DYK entries on those portals, if they select new or significantly expanded articles that for some reason don't make it to DYK. It probably makes the most sense if the existing readers and contributors of those portals pick out the most interesting articles and suggest them for the Main Page.  -- ALoan (Talk) 10:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not aware of any process of suggesting or assessing DYK entries for individual portals. Currently, even the featured portals (such as Portal:War) take their DYK entries primarily from the Main Page. I don't believe that we lack suggestions for the Main Page template, as well. As it is, the template is often a backlog. -- Ghirla -трёп-  10:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Indeed - the portal in which I take most interest, P:UK, picks appropriate entries in the Main Page DYK archive to appear in its DYK. But if some, such as P:NZ, do something else, the contributors there should be encouraged to funnel any eligible ones to the main DYK. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Todays Image....isn't remarkable.
Ostkreuz's image on the front page, in my mind, doesn't look interesting to me. I mean, theirs a shot of a number of stools in a room in a B&W colorscale, an ornate bowl, and a manuscript illumination, and yet a photo of a near empty train station got chosen above those? --293.xx.xxx.xx 23:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Refreshment instructions
Hey, I'm a Commons admin but not a en admin. I can see an error in the description of the refresh instructions. They say: However, the only users who can upload a local image over a commons-hosted image are sysops. Non-admins get an error message if they attempt to do so. There may be benefit to protecting the en page (to protect the description from vandalism) but the image itself is protected by the software. I don't want to make the change myself, partly to raise awareness of this issue and also to ask: do we need to protect the image description on a main page image? With the POTD the answer is "YES" but its not so clear with the others...--Nilfanion (talk) 01:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * If you are an admin at Commons, you may protect the Commons version of the image, and add  there. However, you  must  also add    on the English Wikipedia's image description page and protect the image here to prevent vandals from uploading a local version.


 * Well, one problem is that many en: admins (e.g. me) are not necessarily commons: admins, so can't protect images at commons, and will have to upload locally to protect anyway. How many commons admins are involved in DYK updating?


 * I just did my first update - I hope I didn't screw anything up! -- ALoan (Talk) 15:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, of course en: admins without the commons bit should c-upload (unless they can find a commons admin to poke that is). I'm just saying that the optional para there needs a rephrase (someone familiar with DYK want to fix it?).--Nilfanion (talk) 11:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Coordination with other portals?
Does anyone know whether it would be possible to inform any of the other portals automatically about changes to the main page that might relate to their work? It would certainly decrease the amount of time spent on maintaining portals, and might even increase the number of people and amount of time involved in the main page itself. Also, it would reduce the need for individual nominations to each portal. Badbilltucker 18:35, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

DYK is not just Eurovision
Yeah I know, but it seems almost every other day there is a Eurovision-related article but can't we add something else? Many deserving nominations are left hanging while the Eurovision nominations almost always gets picked. -- Howard  the   Duck  04:57, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That's just not true. The number of eurovision suggestions has decreased from one a day, to about two a week. Almost everything suggested makes it on to template; except articles that obviously don't meet the criteria.--Peta 05:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Ahem, but I did see one Eurovision entry yesterday. And I'm seeing more nominations at the suggestions page. I wonder what up for tomorrow :D -- Howard  the   Duck  05:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * We often see a series of articles on similar topics when an editor builds up a head of steam to improve our coverage in a particular area (I did several famous animals a while ago; lots of lists of things have redlinks that need filling - for example, there are plenty of redlinked World Heritage Sites). Any of these streams will eventually peter out.  If you are concerned, why not create some new articles on "something else" and nominate them?  As Petaholmes says, almost all nominations are selected in the end. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm annoyed at the proliferation of Eurovision nominations, primarily because they normally have no hook and are of little interest to adult readers, particularly those living outside Europe. If it may be classed as a "stream", it is the longest-running DYK stream ever. -- Ghirla -трёп-  11:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to disagree. both BigHaz and myself are outside of Europe. Eurovision is actually watched around the world. We are adults as well. Your point about the hook is true though - since Lar stopped updating we haven't policed the hooks much (or at all).Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 23:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I take the point about contributing items to DYK, but the proliferation of Eurovision items is particularly noticeable- and not just a little embarassing. The point of the main page is to showcase the encyclopaedia and its content- so many items about one (not overly significant) subject is I suspect not helping our credibility. It would be far better to leave DYK items "live" for longer, if that is what it takes to raise quality and diversity, IMHO. Badgerpatrol 00:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Its always interesting how people that don't partipate in the process have so many opinions The quality and diversity of articles that appear on DYK is generally good and many are excellent; there are a lot of good suggestions and I'd rather have a frequently updated template that an overdrawn selection process. Most suggestions sit on the suggestion page for about 4 days; during that time anyone could comment on, object to, or help improve the text of a nominated articles "factoid"; I can think of one editor who copyedits suggestions on a regular basis and a few that help improve the wording or focus of the factoids.--Peta 01:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * See my edit here. This idea that certain editors or groups of editors should be restricted from expressing their opinion is becoming distressingly prevalent on Wikipedia. Those who add to this debate are participating, in a fundamental way, to the DYK process. I'm not talking about an overdrawn selection process, I'm talking about leaving items up for longer so that there actually is some kind of filtering out of repetitive or less meritorious material. Do we really want "almost everything suggested" to make it on there? Let's not forget, we're talking about one of the most viewed pages on the planet here. The wording and the copyediting are fine- it's the selection itself that should be scrutinised. I agree that any interested party can and should participate in this, however. Badgerpatrol 01:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You're not really making any point. DYK is supposed to feature new articles that meet several basic criteria; there is no criteria for merit and I don't think you'll convince anyone to implement one. Suggested articles sit on the suggestion page for up to 5 days - if you want to effect what appears on the template then make some effort to comment on the suggestions.--Peta 01:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * If you think I'm not making a point, then you haven't read what I have said. But apart from that, your suggestion is a good one, but with one teensy-weensy flaw- if "almost everything" makes it through anyway, then what's the point in commenting? Badgerpatrol 01:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * So that the terrible, flawed, embarassing to Wikipedia, articles that people like you are complaining about get filtered out if they really are that bad.--Peta 01:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * err, where did I say that any of these articles are terrible, flawed or embarassing to Wikipedia? Badgerpatrol 01:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "Eurovision items is particularly noticeable- and not just a little embarassing".--Peta 01:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * And, in context, "the proliferation of Eurovision items is particularly noticeable- and not just a little embarassing". It is the repetition of items pertaining to a particular topic- especially since it is a somewhat esoteric (and yes, perhaps stigmatised) one- that is the embarassing problem. One way to alleviate this in the short term would be to increase the lag between updates, thus automatically increasing the effective pool of available material and allowing more exacting selection (and this could and should be combined with Blnguyen's laudable efforts to drum up more material for the long term). I've got no particular problem with the articles themselves, which for all I know could be the most scintillating examples of the Wiki craft. I certainly have no reason to believe that any of the articles in isolation are flawed, terrible etc- please try not to mischaracterise the argument. Badgerpatrol 01:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that Eurovision is noticed so often because it is stigmatised. I made 7 Eurovision DYKs since July 20, Bravada 2, BigHaz 21 User:BigHaz/DYK Collection. so 30 over 82 days= 2.56 per week. So there is no particular crisis. About 7*(~15) perhaps 105 things get on DYK per week, so there is no crisis. It would be better if we slowed down and maybe 1-1.5 per week simply to keep it consistent and last longer, but due to RL necessity:exams, etc, people do not edit at the same level consistently. There is no pandemic, the best way is to simply find more coverage of neglected areas. Hence my post below. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 01:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * 2.56 a week on one very, very, very small subject is too much. Wikipedia has a lot of new articles everyday, and many of them are deserving at the DYK section. Even 1-1.5 per week is too much. Sifting through the suggestions page, there were more facts that were more interesting, like the Curse of Colonel Sanders (not my nomination), heck I even saw that on Time magazine several years ago). I think each item in the DYK should have separate subjects, like one for science, once for math, one for society (Eurovision included), etc. During the past weeks almost every other day there is a Eurovision-related DYK. -- Howard  the   Duck  08:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

If I may speak in my own defence regarding Eurovision noms, the way I see the situation is this (apologies for possibly flogging a dead horse):
 * Wikipedia did not have much coverage of the Contest until recently. This is improving through the work of a number of editors, but there's still a fair amount of "front-end" which needs to be done. Eventually, we'll reach the point where the only articles which need to be written up are bios of the singers, a few words on the songs and the year's contest itself. We just aren't there quite yet. The same can (apparently) be said for other fields. I don't know much about Indian independence movements, but there were a lot of figures and events in that field which got nominated and DYKd in the last few months, so presumably that's a field in a similar situation.
 * Eurovision entries, by their very nature, make great pithy little articles. You get a language, lyrics, a performance and a result. All over and done with pretty quickly and a nice discrete thing (even in the context of all the songs at a given contest). Because of the nature of the beast, a lot of songs do something unusual, which helps considerably when thinking "is this going to be a good DYK?" Likewise, because it's a competition, you get your lists of firsts, lasts, leasts, mosts and so on.
 * I nominate the articles, but it's not my call if they appear. Neither would it be my call if I were an admin. I can think of at least three articles which I rather liked and which didn't get frontpaged.
 * The reason for a "glut" at certain times is perhaps due to the way I write the articles. I'm going through competing countries alphabetically and then from their first entry to their last. Thus, if a song from this year's event is interesting and so is the first song which the next country entered, there'll be two nominations in succession. Alternatively, of course, there might not be a nomination for a week or so while I write up a series of comparatively uninteresting entries (or entries which are possibly interesting but don't have enough sources to really get a full article). My practice has been to nominate at least one entry per competing country (whether or not it gets featured), but I've only had the hang of the system since near the end of F, so there are a number of good nominations which have gone begging. Obviously a country like Germany (50 competing entries) is going to be garnering more nominations than a country like Morocco (1 entry), so there's some variance there.
 * Finally, as Blnguyen rightly points out, the "glut" goes through phases. If anything, I'm writing articles more slowly now than I was earlier on this year. Last month, for example, I had exams and couldn't write as much - so we got stuck in Luxembourg for a while. Since then, we've moved to the start of N and I'd cautiously expect to be at about P or R by Christmas. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You deserve a medal for that sort of dedication. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Samir gave me one the last time this issue came up (back when I was writing up 5 articles a day with no infoboxes and in the middle of a lot of small countries). The difference, of course, was that I'd taken a month off work to recover from a really gruelling semester of uni then. Juggling work and infoboxes at the moment, I'm flat out getting three a day done. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 23:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Length and quality
I feel that the length requirement on DYK needs to improved as I feel that the current regulations allow too many shortish articles to be let onto DYK. Yes, DYK is for improving, up-and-coming articles, but I feel that the baseline is too low
 * Herbert Witherspoon and Naval Brigade seem like the current lower limit
 * I would like to see the bar improved to standard of, eg, Mahinda or Moggaliputta-Tissa

Thoughts? Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 02:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Without refs, Herbert Witherspoon is 1863 characters, Naval Brigade is 2243, Mahinda is 2917 and Moggaliputta-Tissa is 3774. I'd be in favour of increasing the character limit from 1000 to 2000 characters. -- Samir धर्म  20:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * How much of Naval Brigade is due to the dot-point list though. I think that we should look at main body text...Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Outsider comment. If I ruled the world (and we're all elated that I don't), I might even be willing to waive the 2000 in some cases. I'm thinking specifically about book series. They might have all the titles in, which would increase the length beyond 2000 characters, but if that's all that it has it is definitely a stub. There might be other similar cases with, like, politicians, where the userboxes increase the length over 2000 characters, but where the article itself is only a sentence or so. Badbilltucker 20:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the size is tantamount to quality. I would rather see on DYK a shorter article about a World Heritage site than a longer article about some Pokemon creature. Is the purpose of this proposal to cut the number of nominations? -- Ghirla -трёп-  06:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Not really about cutting nominations. At the moment we are short on updaters so I have to be more ruthless. But when there are more updaters - it is to make sure better quality work is on the main page. At the moment we pick almost anything that doesn't violate the rules, rather than ranking the best ones as it may generate too much controversy...we may also want to legislate against crufty articles as well then....Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I wrote it, and I agree that Naval Brigade is on the short side, and I would not want to see anything much shorter picked. (You should see the really short new articles that I don't nominate - thinking man's crumpet? Perhaps not!)


 * On the other hand, I think Naval Brigade is an eminently suitable topic for DYK, and I think it is just about long enough. I'm not sure why the bullet point list should be discounted - the list could be set out as examples in continuous prose, but it would be less clear.  The article could be longer, of course - there were permanent Naval Brigades in some Australian ports; Naval Brigades were used in small engagements in the 18th century and possibly earlier; Naval Brigades were used in the American Civil War; and the role of the Naval Brigades in the listed conflicts could be expanded.  Feel free to contribute.


 * I'm not sure there is really a problem at the moment, but perhaps the criteria need to be updated to reflect evolving practice. Would a 1,000-character new article be accepted now?  Probably not - particularly short articles seem to be spotted by the reviewers or updater and rejected.  The threshold seems to be around 2,000 characters, with some latitude for the updater to pick slightly shorter deserving candidates.  A strict limt may be counterproductive, in encouraging articles that are padded out to meet the criterion. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)