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This is where the Did you know section on the main page, its policies and the featured items can be discussed. However, proposals for changing how Did You Know works are currently being discussed at Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals.

2011 DYK reform proposals

Numerous threads moved to the Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals subpage:

• Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Good articles redux
• Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Proposal - minimum character requirement increase from 1500 to 2500
• Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Some thoughts from a semi-regular
• Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Proposal to replace DYK with new Good article DYKs and demote the current system to a sub page
• Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Multiple RFCs confusing, simply remove DYK from the mainpage
• Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals#Brainstorming related to RFC

Daily DYK scandal

There's always one, whether faulty sources, plagiarism, or sensationalism, but y'all have exceeded even your own low standards with:

A fact from Did you know appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 21 July 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: "Did you know ... that Texas State Representative Wayne Christian obtained passage of an amendment in 2009 that allowed him to rebuild his own beachfront property damaged by Hurricane Ike?"

reporting one negative fact based on one source which places the subject of a BLP in a negative light. Have you all no shame, or simply no processes for assuring you don't trash the main page? All one has to do is take a daily glance at DYK to realize it's gotten worse and worse. By the way, who verified the hook this time, because the source says he "may" be able to, not that he did. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

For reference: this hook was moved to the prep area here. Ucucha 02:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Ucucha: am I reading that correctly? It appears to me that TK verified the *first* hook, and yet DYK *ran* the second (alternate) hook. If correct, amazing. How did that happen? Get it off the main page, folks-- it's a debacle. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Done by Dom. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yup, Dominic got to it before me (or MZM, apparently!). Nice catch Sandy. Ed  03:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(But you both got here in time to edit conflict me!) Yes, I removed it. I intended to replace it with the other hook, but it seems that it wasn't chosen because there was an issue with self-published sources being used. I'd rather leave it for more experienced DYKers to decide what to replace the spot with, whether it's another one from that article or something new. Dominic·t 03:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, all, but can y'all go back and figure out how that happened? Am I correct that the first hook was the one verified by TK, yet for some reason the second hook was chosen even though it wasn't checked? Y'all have got to find a way to plug these holes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No, TK didn't specify which hook he verified; so in effect, he verified both. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As far as I remember there was a hook about a water board. How can you see from this diff that there were two hooks there? Once these are processed they're gone. At any rate, if there was an alt hook, which looking back at the page, I see there was, I wouldn't have expected it to run unless I suggested it, which I didn't. In my mind alt = something wrong with first, and I never commented on the hook, I was focusing on the content. But at any rate, am prepared to admit I screwed up here. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 04:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

From reading the discussion, it does not appear that TK was looking at the alt hook, and no where in this mess of a process can I understand WHY Crisco chose to run the second hook. Another user (OCNative) ce'd it in the prep area 1, and then Materialscientist moved it to queue. None of those people saw the problem? There is a systemic breakdown here. You've got one person proposing a hook, another reviewing, another moving to prep (Crisco somebody), another copyediting the hook (OCNative), another moving to queue (Materialscientist), and no one saw the problem, or noticed that apparently TK verified the first hook, not the alt? How is Crisco empowered to choose the alt, based on that discussion? Are you all simply pushing through too much volume to pick up things like this? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No, TK's first review of the DYK submission was here, at which point there were already two hooks there; he put his comments (which discussed various aspects of the article, not just hooks) underneath the second hook. There was nothing to suggest he wasn't looking at the second hook. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Absolutely correct. TK did not specify which he checked, or which he agreed with, so I chose the hookiest hook. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• DYK can be as obtuse as you all want for as long as you want, but it doesn't take any amount of effort to read the discussion there and realize that TK (a new reviewer) did not verify the alt hook. But, at least Crisco has now told us why he chose the alt hook in spite of that-- he prefers the sensationalist hooks, which is another big problem driving the DYK daily scandal. One editor can put a debacle on the main page, that three other editors up the DYK line don't catch. No accountability, no transparency, no archives, no institutional memory, no decency wrt human beings. And you're still putting BLP vios from the same editor who wrote this one on the main page. Tsk, tsk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• I said hooky / sensational, not sensationalist. Please do not twist my words around. Naturally, if one hook reads "... that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii?" and the other reads "... that President of the United States Barack Obama has won two Emmys?", the Emmy hook is hookier. As for the reviewing process, please feel free to join in the reviewing process. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Or, for an example of a somewhat negative hook, "... that President of the United States Barack Obama smoked marijuana as a teenager?" Still hookier than "was born in Hawaii" Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Perhaps there was an error in the review here, which is certainly worth checking, but I believe the DYK hook used is well-verified and the subject of many news reports in Texas. Its not even that shocking really. Too many DYK hooks are totally boring bollocks, at least this allows readers to check into the controversy and understand it.--Milowent • 03:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed - in fact, the first hook here was indeed extremely dull (and yes, maybe even close to "boring bollocks"), which may be what encouraged choice of the second hook. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have one, just once in a while, just one discussion about the obvious problems at DYK that focuses on solutions? A BIG part of the DYK problem is the desire for sensationalism which leads to junk like his being run on the mainpage. Choosing one negative sensational fact from a BLP, based (in the article) on one source isn't the way we should be doing things. Again, are you all trying to push through too much volume, with too many hands in the pot, no accountability, no archives, no means of checking, that things like this can too easily get through? Boring is better than the sensationalist crap that often makes it into DYK-- and that article for darn sure did not allow any readers to check into the controversy and understand it-- the entire controversy is reported from *one* source in the article. Please stop the drive for sensationalist hooks, and institute a process where there is some accountability for what goes on the main page, instead of too many cooks in the broth, no archives, complex processes, and no one in charge. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

There is almost never a good reason to put even true and cited negative facts about living people on the main page of Misplaced Pages, and certainly not recent controversies for local politicians still in office. Putting a negative claim about a living person on the main page, which gets millions of hits, without the context of the rest of the article gives an incredible amount of undue weight to that aspect of the biography. Dominic·t 03:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The DYK rule is that hooks must not focus "unduly" on negative statements about a living person: "Articles and hooks that focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals or promote one side of an ongoing dispute should be avoided." Let's get a grip on what actually happened here. Somebody approved a hook the described an amendment Christian verifiably supported, one that was verifiably limited to beach property in the exact area of his own beach property. There is nothing in BLP that says you can't mention a verifiable fact about somebody that others might perceive in a negative way. The bar is set higher for a DYK hook because it is short, and you can't typically balance something negative once it is mentioned. This was a mild infraction at DYK of one of DYK's own rules. It was not a "scandal." Sharktopus 03:48, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, to answer just one of your questions, yes I think you all are trying to push through too much volume. There's a proposal above, at Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know#Good articles redux that would reduce that volume by a small amount - what should in my opinion be an uncontroversial amount. But it doesn't seem to get much support. Some more thoughtful input there would be useful. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:51, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The basic problem is the number of submissions we get, fiddling with the means of dealing with them will not alter the workload, because someone still has to vet every submission and make decisions about it. Tightening the criteria for DYK would be the only way to reduce submissions, but no-one seems to want to do that and there is no guarantee it would change anything, since many of the people who do most of the work now would probably just see it as a means of reducing their own workload.

In any case, this is not such a big deal, DYK only has occasional slip-ups but they occur in every part of the project, and there seems to be some disagreement over whether this hook should have been pulled anyway. Debate is healthy, but let's not blow things out of proportion. Gatoclass (talk) 04:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It is a big deal, and should be taken more seriously as it's a BLP. Yes people make mistakes, but then again, people should learn from them and not make them again and again. AD 11:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

What Aiken drum just said. This is not a minor glitch that should be swept under the carpet. A negative fact about a living person was put onto the most viewed page on the fourth largest website on the internet. There was no need for that and it should be taken seriously. Worm · (talk) 11:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Except that there's a steady turnover of people so that mistakes are made by those less experienced. And while I agree that the hook probably breached our rules, it was on the main page for less than three hours. Gatoclass (talk) 11:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)::

So let's look at solutions that deal with these mistakes so they don't hit the main page? Don't just accept it as a problem. I see this as a very good reason to reduce the number hooks on the front page, so only the best get on (something I wasn't really for before). NB In 3 hours, the page is seen by ~600k people. Don't underestimate that power. Worm · (talk) 11:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As I just said, reducing the number of hooks will not reduce the number of submissions, so it won't reduce anyone's workload and won't make the end result more reliable. This kind of thing happens once in a blue moon, occasional mistakes are always going to occur, they occur even with FA from time to time, and they are not a reason for proposing radical changes. Gatoclass (talk) 12:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, TCO mentioned to me that he was after some data on DYK, I'll do my best to get that together before commenting further. I've done a fair amount of DYK work myself, I'd almost consider myself a reg and I've seen enough that I think that some sort of change is needed. Worm · (talk) 12:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Catching up on multiple: Dominic has it just right, and anyone who doesn't get that shouldn't be working on anything that goes on the mainpage. Gatoclass has a very valid point about the high turnover of people working here-- there's a new crowd of people in here about every three months, so the old mistakes keep repeating, even though MANY of us have been harping on the same things for years now. Perhaps good and experienced editors eventually leave this area because the turnover is too high, the workload is too high, the process is too complex, or they become embarrassed when they realize the poorly sourced sensationalism and plagiarism they often put on the mainpage? It is NOT an occassional mistake-- any time one chances to look at DYK (as I did yesterday), one can find something egregious-- whether plagiarism, copyvio, non-reliable sources, inaccurate representation of sources, and now gross BLP situations. You all need to figure out how to fix this-- editors are NOT entitled to have time on the mainpage, and the volume of turnover needs to be reduced. You also need, IMO, a directorate made up of experienced editors-- a place where the buck stops and someone is responsible when this happens. I think it's pisspoor to blame this on TK, even if she accepts responsibility, when it's quite clear from the discussion that she vetted the first hook, yet the second ran. Will someone PLEASE tell us what possessed that Crisco person to run the alternate hook? What is your process? Who is in charge? Nothing has changed even though many of us have been harping on this for years, and Gatoclass points out why (there's a new crowd in here every three months claiming there's no problem when the problems go back years, the Shark character is the latest DYK apologist in a long stream of same)-- you all know best how to fix it-- others from outside can't pretend to tell you how, but you do need to fix it. You need lower turnaround and accountability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

If I may, Sandy, I would suggest it's not helpful to use this as another stick with which to beat DYK over the head or to blame a specific editor. Everybody here has acted in good faith, but mistakes have been made—I think we all agree on that much. So instead of insulting DYK (regardless of whether it deserves to be insulted or not), why don't we have a collegial discussion about how (or even whether) DYK can be improved. Without that discussion, we'll all waste a lot of space discussing these issues every time they come up. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought that's what we were trying to do, and who is trying to blame any specific editor? Or better stated, who is trying to brush this under the rug? This cannot be blamed on TK-- it took multiple (systemic) process failures to cause this. Until some regular denialists here start looking at the process problems, and considering for how long this has been happening, it may be time to take up a stick rather than drop it. As soon as the regulars here start discussing much needed change, rather than resisting it, I'll be glad to unwatch for the gazillionth time after finding egregious DYK issues on the main page. And until DYK begins to seriously discuss how to change the problems, rather than deny them and claim they are occassional, it may be time to start assigning blame. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Have started reading this whole discussion, starting from this section and working down to the recent RfC at the bottom, and I'm trying to concentrate on the issues at play here, but the tone of the discourse is varying wildly from person to person, so it is difficult to avoid getting distracted by comments like "that Crisco person" and "the Shark character". Can we use people's usernames rather than dismissive terms, as failing to follow the basic courtesy of using someone's username properly only distracts from the systemic issues you are trying to get people to see? I agree there are systemic issues, but it seems to me to be people having different standards and not agreeing on what is a reliable source, or having the time to explain to users how to write properly from sources and what needs rewriting or not. Just pointing something out is sometimes not enough. Sometimes you have to demonstrate by editing the article what should be done instead. Carcharoth (talk) 09:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Break

• One feature that all Main Page programs rely on is Misplaced Pages:Main_Page/Errors, where people swiftly report problems to get swift correction. I encourage everyone to look at the history of that page to search for past "scandals", let alone daily scandals, at DYK. Errors occur in all the Main Page features. This page is commonly used to suggest changes in DYK process, many of which have been or are being implemented. This particular article was reviewed by a novice reviewer. I had proposed a while ago that some more experienced reviewers make a practice of reviewing Prep instead of reviewing individual articles; I would be happy to see that proposal reconsidered. Another recent proposal to help novice reviewers resulted in cmadler's very kindly posting a reviewer's guide to help new reviewers. I just added a more prominent link to that guide and a strong suggestion to new reviewers that they read it before proceeding. The rule about "unduly negative" BLP hooks is in there. It is regrettable that mistake was missed by the more experienced people who made up Prep and Queue, but I am betting they don't make that mistake again. Sharktopus 12:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• I'd advise you not to put money on that-- every mistake made at DYK recurs quite regularly, and has for years, because there's a new crowd of editors in here every few months. ERRORS should be for errors-- not systemic, long-standing, well-documented, ongoing process failures. Please stop glossing this over and pushing it under the rug. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

First of all, I apologize for this, and take full blame. Whoever said I was a novice reviewer is partially correct; I don't review often at DYK. This particular situation arose from this discussion where Demiurge1000 challenged me to review a DYK. Honestly I was only looking at the content and made two very serious mistakes. One is that I assumed the article creator would scrub all the problems after a spotcheck, and two I assumed the first hook would be used, as it seemed fine and no reason to go to the alt hook, about which I didn't comment. We all know what happens when a person assumes, and for that I'm completely culpable. Not much more to say, otherwise. Oh, except to thank Sandy for being on the ball, to thank whomever pulled the submission from the frontpage. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:28, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No, you're not completely culpable-- it is QUITE clear from the discussion that you reviewed the first hook, yet for some reason, that Crisco editor chose the second hook. The problem here is too many queue turnovers and no one in charge-- after you reviewed the first hook, three different experienced DYK editors worked to put the alternate hook on the mainpage-- it took multiple cooks in the broth to cause this to happen, and therein lies the problem-- no accountability even as an obviously bad hook moves up the chain. Further, that this could have happened with an experienced editor (TK, who did NOT review the alternate hook, yet it ran anyway) only highlights the problem-- that is, DYK requires nominators to review regardless of their editing experience, so you get inexperienced reviewers, who are even MORE likely to make a mistake than an experienced editor like TK. Bad, bad process here. I hope you all will decide how to fix it, and stop relying on faulty RFCs-- you need to DO something. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:23, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

After so many edit conflicts (and a cuppa tea :D) - TK, you're a link in a chain. The nominator, the reviewer, the "prepper" and the admin who moved it to the queue all failed. Worm · (talk) 13:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• • Well I'm afraid it's not working—at least for DYK it's not. And as far as I'm concerned, Sandy is right: daily is no exaggeration. Do we need to start a public DYK bloopers page to convince people that the current system makes the safe, secure, functional reviewing of DYKs virtually impossible? Apart from the dangers to the main page, there can be no proper role of mentoring less experienced editors and inducting them into the process of improving articles from scratch. It's painfully obvious that the system needs to be reformed in several ways to ensure that DYK fulfills its own objectives and those of the whole project. The number of hooks per day needs to be reduced, and the system of nominator reviews needs to be a little more demanding than tick tick tick, count the characters. The time has come to drop the inflexible coloured ticks and crosses that assume lightening quick reviewing, and to create a proper checklist of the urgents that need to be OKed before exposure. Tony (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but we're not GAN, and there's never been a requirement that DYK articles have to be perfect or anywhere near it. The basic idea of DYK is that it's a process that is accessible both to new users and to prospective users who might read one of our new articles and think "I could do that!" DYK articles are not supposed to be perfect.

As Sharktopus pointed out, there is a page here specifically designed to catch and rectify mainpage errors, which occur routinely in EVERY mainpage project. Why DYK gets singled out for this negative attention I don't know, but I suspect it's because some users just don't like the format and philosophy behind it. We've had many attempts to change the working of DYK in the past and they have all failed, most people like it the way it is. Gatoclass (talk) 13:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No one is asking for perfect, but we don't need apologists for plagiarism, sensationalism, and BLP issues. It is NOT acceptable to put this level of debacle on the mainpage. As an experienced DYK editor, I hold you and other experienced DYKers responsible for fixing them, not denying it or apologizing for it. Your process stinks; fix it. DYK deserves this negative attention-- it is NOT an error, it is a sytemic process failure that has been going on for years. You're on old-timer here-- work on it, or take your lumps. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As someone who contributed to DYK in the past - but only extremely rarely now - it seems to me that the problems have worsened significantly since the decision was made to require self-nominators to also be reviewers. What that meant is that some nominators found an easy hook to skim-review, with little concern for the article's accuracy or for finding the best or most appropriate hook. So long as they could tick the "reviewed another article" box, their own hook was likely to be promoted. But there has never been any reason to assume that new article contributors would have any expertise or interest at all in reviewing other people's articles or hooks. The system worked better when reviews were in the hands of experienced and dedicated (albeit, I'm sure, overworked) reviewers who took the responsibility seriously. But, of course, it's also true that far, far too many articles are promoted through DYK. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:48, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm afraid I've been largely inactive at DYK for quite some time. The main reason is that I got tired of the almost total lack of support for combating POV pushing in the I-P topic area. Many users either don't see the problems (presumably due to systemic bias), or else run a mile when they see a dispute in contentious areas come up - some admins won't touch politically sensitive submissions as a matter of policy. I guess at some point I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth the hassle.

So I can't pretend to have my finger on the pulse of the project as it currently exists - possibly standards have slipped somewhat due to the implementation of QPQ, as admins have come to rely on it too much instead of verifying hooks themselves. DYK is a constant grind and it's usually left up to just a handful of admins to run it. Sometimes I think WP should have some sort of roster system where admins were encouraged to take part in one part of the project or another for a set period - there are lots of areas that are short of manpower. Gatoclass (talk) 14:07, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

But if those are, in fact, the identifiable issues (quid pro quo and too much volume), why can't both of them be solved? Eliminate the QPQ reviewing, get a directorate, and reduce the turnover volume to one queue per day. I don't mean to propose solutions-- you all should know best-- but who is the "you all" at DYK, if knowledgeable editors move along and denialists and apologists move in? Who will fix this? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Not being an old hand at DYK, I dont understand this statement "Eliminate the QPQ reviewing, get a directorate". Could you please elucidate, SandyGeorgia? AshLin (talk) 14:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I too was a bit lost in the shorthand introduced in Gatoclass's post, but I assume that when he used QPQ he meant Quid Pro Quo reviewing. DYK instituted in the last year a process that requires nominators to review another editors' hook (QPQ)-- I believe that to be a big step in the wrong direction, and it is something we have studiously avoided at FAC, for a number of reasons that I would think are obvious, but I will elaborate if necessary. By directorate, I mean that FAC, FLC and others have directors and delegates in charge, so that some real person is responsible if repeat issues aren't corrected. We had one bad, and well publicized instance, of copyvio at FAC, and we took responsibility and got on it and corrected the problem. By directorate here, I mean a core group of experienced knowlegdeable editors who are where the buck stops before a DYK is put on the main page-- in this case, it took at least five editors to contribute to the mistake, but there is no one "in charge", no one "responsible", no bottom line of accountability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As I've said, reducing the number of hooks which appear on the main page does nothing to reduce the workload, because the number of submissions remains the same. We could increase the DYK requirements but such proposals have always been shot down in the past.

I guess one thing that could be done is to have greater accountability at the update level, where admins have to actually sign off on some sort of boilerplate statement saying they have checked all the hooks thoroughly for compliance with DYK rules before loading them. ATM admins have the option of signing off on the update, but they are not obliged to vouch for its quality. Just a simple change like that might go a long way toward improving the output. It would discourage admins from treating the update process as nothing more than a series of mechanical actions. Gatoclass (talk) 14:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Gato, whatever you all decide to do, another thing to consider is the kind of thing we had to do at FAC to address the backlog from repeat offenders: if a FAC is archived, the nominator can't bring another for two weeks. If you make some kind of change, perhaps whenever you find a problem, that person then either can't review or can't submit for several weeks-- that may help slow down the high level of submissions, and encourage folks to get it right the first time. Just an idea, that may or may not be applicable here as it is at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, that could also work at T:TDYK level too - if users verify hooks that turn out to be problematic, they could be banned from submitting any more DYKs for a set period of time. That would be one way to increase the quality of reviews, especially QPQ reviews. Gatoclass (talk) 15:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

But take care not to phrase it as "banning" or "sanctions", as that can be off-putting. Allow them to save face-- frame it as a means to reduce the backlog and assure adequate review and give nominators and reviewers time to address previous mistakes, rather than as some kind of penalty, ban or sanction. Honestly, we had to put a FAC rule change in place to deal with one nominator's abuses, but it isn't helpful to call attention to individuals and their mistakes-- it's more helpful to simply put processes in place that improve quality and encourage better submissions without blame. If nominators know that an archival means that can't come back for two weeks, they will hopefully bring increasingly better prepared articles to FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:51, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

What's an "archival"? I'm inclined to agree that wording is important - I was shocked at the amount of resistance just to QPQ, which was seen as an unreasonable imposition by some contributors. We wouldn't have to be confrontational about it, but the point would need to be made clear. Gatoclass (talk) 15:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

A FAC is either "promoted" or "archived" (we used to call it failed, but that's hard on nominator ego :) The problem we had was that some nominators were serial offenders, bringing repeatedly ill-prepared articles to FAC that sapped a lot of reviewer time. As soon as one was archived they put up another, equally deficient FAC that just took reviewer time and increased the backlog. So, we added the two-week wait after archival. See my suggestion in the section below for implementing something similar at DYK. FAC has also seriously rejected-- and will always reject AFAIK-- QPQ reviewing. Nominators are not necessarily good or experienced reviewers, and personal motivations may become an issue. I think doing that at DYK has directly resulted in lower quality: only experienced editors should be vetting mainpage content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the explanation. FYI, QPQ is not a requirement for every nominator - only those who have at least 5 DYKs to their credit already. The assumption is that anyone who has accumulated five DYKs knows enough about the process to review other noms - but whether they are all bothering to do so adequately is obviously another question. I'm thinking that auto-rejection of their next nomination would be an effective method of improving reviewers' concentration, although I have little doubt after the QPQ experience that there would be howls of outrage from some quarters over such a proposal. Gatoclass (talk) 16:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Glossary for those who are confused by the TLAs (my interpretation) -

• QPQ Reviewing = Quid pro quo reviewing, as part of your nomination you are required to review another nomination, certain editors believe this causes sloppy reviewing. <-- Current situation
• Directorate = A group of editors "in charge" of reviewing, who have the experience to do so and the accountability if something gets through. Certain editors believe this will cause a backlog.

Hope that helps AshLin ;) Worm · (talk) 14:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oops, sorry for the repeat above :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

  Thanks SandyGeorgia and Worm That Turned for the explanations! Whenever I have reviewed a DYK I was conscious to try to follow the rules & additional rules to letter and spirit. I was not aware there was a QPQ involved - I thought that unless the other person reviewed my DYK in return for my reviewing his, no QPQ was involved. AshLin (talk) 15:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

  Correct-- I would not have labeled it QPQ, but QPQ is a potential side effect of requiring nominators to review, which is one of many reasons we have always rejected that proposal at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Seeing as my choice of the ALT for this DYK is causing more problems than a volcano in downtown Los Angeles, I will try and explain why I chose the ALT. As DYK regulars have probably noted, I prefer the more sensational (a.k.a. hooky) hooks. In this case, the original hook was something that could apply to any old politician. Meanwhile, the ALT was something quite unique (and which I honestly did not see as too negative). As TK did not state which hook he preferred, I went with my gut. Preppers are not required to double check the referencing of hooks, so I assumed it was okay. Sorry for any misunderstandings. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Instructions/rules additions needed

One part of the problem here, is that the reviewer approved the nomination apparently without checking (or even looking at) the alternative hook. Their assumption was that the alternative hook wouldn't be used unless there was some sort of problem followed by a further review, and that therefore they only needed to look at the first hook. This might seem obviously wrong to someone experienced with DYK, but not to a novice reviewer. More to the point, alternative hooks, despite being a well established and widely used practice, aren't mentioned at all (that I can find) in Misplaced Pages:Did you know or in Misplaced Pages:Did you know/Additional rules. They are mentioned in Misplaced Pages:Did you know/Onepage under "Proofreading Template talk:Did you know" ("you need to check ALT's, some of which occur in the middle of a paragraph full of comments. Just because an ALT isn't formalized as an ALT, doesn't mean someone can't copy it to a preparation area") and under "Glossary" ("Often an ALT is selected instead of the original version"). Really, there should be some mention of this in the other DYK instruction pages; it might have prevented the problem in this instance. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

You're quite right. I looked at the plagiarism, and as it happens didn't even catch all the plagiarism on the page. I also looked at the hook which seemed appropriate and no need for an alt hook, so let it be at that. I've apologized. There's nothing wrong with the instructions; you challenged me to review a page, I did, and screwed up. Happy? All this after your quite frankly disparaging comments that continue above. I did look at the hook - am not that stupid. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

With respect, I don't think more instruction creep is the solution-- this process is already so obtuse and hard-to-follow, that it's unlikely that adding to it will address the recurring issues. A complete revamp of the process is needed-- this whole business of nominate, prep, queue, move to mainpage, no archives just makes for no accountability or transparency, and this is something we've been discussing for at least a year. Someone needs to take the bull by the horns and revamp the technicalities of how DYK works-- it's impossible for an outsider to follow. And my opinion is that that task would be much eaiser if you reduced it to one queue per day. Everyone who writes a DYK is NOT entitled to mainpage exposure if we don't have enough peoplepower to assure mainpage quality-- tighten the requirements, reduce the submissions, go for one change a day, get a directorate, and if you can avoid these kinds of issues under an improved system, then move back to four queues a day. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I find it astounding that no one seemed to notice this problem. I suggest a simple new rule: Each did you know needs two "good/assume good faith" reviews. Thoughts? Hurricanefan25  15:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That would just destroy the whole point of QPQ, which was to reduce the reviewing burden on the regulars.

IMO, if a double-check system was to be implemented, it would make more sense, as Sharktopus suggested above, to implement it at the Prep level rather than at T:TDYK. But I've already suggested a less onerous alternative to this, which I think should be tried first. Gatoclass (talk) 15:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Continuing

Um, POV on the mainpage is also something we should watch for. The same editor who put up the nasty BLP that led to this has another DYK today, which raises eyebrows at least. Hollis Downs. Looks like a pattern of editing with an agenda to me: YMMV. And can someone tell me why we use a primary source to discuss his $250 contribution to the Republican party? Have reliable sources mentioned it? Houston, don't look now, but you've got big problems. Also, I can't locate any info about the reliability of the source for the hook; perhaps I'm missing it, but I've reviewed their entire "About" page and don't find anything qualifying them as a reliable source. Who reviewed this time? Does DYK really want to continue in the business of allowing such clearly biased content to be put on the mainpage, because someone claims to have checked one sentence? We have another purely negative, unbalanced article on a politician on the mainpage-- now a pattern. Please someone consider whether it should be removed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm not seeing any great problem with that hook or article. There is nothing wrong with primary sources, AFAIK there is nothing sinister about the Republican National Committee, and I don't see how supporting an "anti-bullying bill" represents an attack on a politician. Gatoclass (talk) 16:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting-- the problem is more systemic than I thought. Well, it must be a good time to go the ballgame and unwatch DYK, which is rather clearly beyond help. See y'all next time round. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh come on, that's a total copout, apart from being a slight on my own capabilities. Please explain the nature of your objections so that I at least have the opportunity to defend myself. Gatoclass (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Dominic will come along, and perhaps some CUs will come along. I'm afraid it looks like DYK is part of a much larger systemic problem than even I thought. Honestly, clean up your act. If you don't know the problem with using primary sources and non-reliable sources in political bios, I can't help you. What's going on here is alarming in how long it's been happening, but plainly disgusting in the levels to which it has reached. I'd much rather go to the ballgame now, bye. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I concede that I've missed the public figure/primary source issue up to now, it's the kind of nuance that as a regular FAC contributor you would be well aware of but you shouldn't assume everyone has the same level of familiarity that you and your fellow FAC contributors have accumulated. As for unreliable sources, of course we don't accept them. Had I reviewed this article myself, I would certainly have raised questions about it, however, many articles get promoted that I myself would not promote, and one cannot get too far out of step with one's colleagues. It seems you are trying to bring FAC standards to a process that is radically different - we simply can't give articles that kind of scrutiny. I can't possibly go through every source in every article in every update to ensure that every fact is verified - one has to rely on the wider process to some extent. Gatoclass (talk) 17:19, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

And BTW, referring to the contributions of other good faith editors as "plainly disgusting" is uncivil in the extreme - I must say I am deeply disappointed with your attitude and your comments in this thread. Gatoclass (talk) 17:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Without disparaging the legitimate concerns that Sandy's raising--I agree that this hook's the Wayne Christian hook's appearance on the main page was a problem and we should discuss how to better prevent its recurrence--the have you no sense of decency tone strikes me, too, as both off-putting and likely to generate more heat than light. -- Khazar (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for any confusion created by my comment above; I lost track of where I was posting. It's the Christian hook that seems objectionable to me, not the Downs. -- Khazar (talk) 18:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the particular article in question in this thread, I'm having trouble following Sandy's description of it as "purely negative", "clearly biased", "plainly disgusting", etc. The language describing Downs' history and legislation seems to me neutral and (for the latter) to give due weight to both sides of arguments, and while I agree that the mention of the donation to the RNC was silly and rightly deleted as irrelevant, I have trouble seeing how it was an attack. The guy's a Republican state representative; why would anyone be surprised by this? If anything, I think this article makes Downs sounds rather good. I see no reason to remove it from the main page. -- Khazar (talk) 18:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Question: Do you mean the creator or the prepper? If you mean the prepper, I will let you know that I have no opinion on US politics, especially on the state level. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:42, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The author of this article has something like 800 DYKs to his credit, and though his contributions have been serially problematic in one way or another, I've never heard anyone accuse him of "having an agenda" against Republicans - AFAIK his political bios are almost exclusively on Republicans, and I've always made the assumption the writer is a Republican himself. So I think Sandy is just plain wrong on that score. I agree that the bio is a little rough, but so are lots of DYKs, perfection is not the goal here, these are Misplaced Pages's newest articles and it's expected that there will be room for improvement. Judging by Sandy's dummy spit in this thread, what our most trenchant critics are expecting to see at DYK is FAC- or at least GA-level rigour, if that's what they want then we should just hand DYK over to the GA process and scrap this process altogether, because we don't remotely have the resources for that level of reviewing and never will. Gatoclass (talk) 02:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Gato, that's alarmingly like what Rlevse said to me when I first questioned his approving of nominations where almost all of the article was basically copy and pasted from a single scouting website of unknown provenance. "These articles can be tricky to source", and "this isn't GA you know" ... and onto the main page they went. No-one else saw a problem with it, and I was too new to put up a fight. Are we sleep-walking to a new disaster? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 07:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Not at all. I wouldn't for a moment endorse putting plagiarism or copyvio on the mainpage, and in the past I've argued for the strongest possible sanctions for those who submit such articles, proposing that any such articles be automatically disqualified and that repeat offenders be banned. As usual, I got little support for my views. As for Rlevse, I had ongoing serious misgivings with the quality of his reviews, but made few comments since (a) he was at the time a sitting arbitrator who ought to have known what he was doing, and (b) he was a prolific contributor whom I didn't want to alienate. In retrospect, it's clear we all should have been more vigilant, but let's not forget that Rlevse's plagiarism also got a free pass for an extended period at FAC, where there really is no excuse. Gatoclass (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Despite making a mistake on the hook, I didn't make a mistake on the close paraphrasing issues with Wayne Christian. The Downs page has the same problems, fwiw. I'd think this would be case where an editor should have a greater level of scrutiny, or something. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:54, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Am I crazy or did we not have a discussion awhile back about the author of this article (Billy Hathorn (talk · contribs)) and plagiarizing? Or was it sourcing? Either way, this is a really really bad thing to find in someone who has written so many pages. Ed  07:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Billy has an ongoing problem with the use of substandard sources for his articles, it's not that all the sources he employs are substandard but he doesn't exercise much discrimination. He also used to have a problem with writing articles on people who failed WP:NOTE, although he has improved in that regard.

I'm not aware of any plagiarism issues in his articles, if this is a recent concern I've missed it. He appears to have good language skills and is able to put things into his own words and usually does in my experience. If he's starting to take shortcuts, obviously that's something that will need to be addressed but I'd have to see some evidence of that. Gatoclass (talk) 09:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

No, this would have been awhile ago. It was probably over sourcing. Anyway, TK above says that she found close paraphrasing in two of his articles – that's what I was going off of. Could you (TK) provide some examples? Ed  18:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Next scandal of the day, keep 'em coming

The sourcing problems, BLP problems, and plagiarism are easily found, including in today's DYK-- that no one here is aware of them in someone with this many DYKs is not surprising, considering the history of serial plagiarizers who have gotten away with it for years at DYK with no regulars here detecting the problems. But, again, plagiarism and copyvio are not the only problems DYK is showcasing on the mainpage-- poor sourcing is an equal concern.

Have some easily found examples (we can go on for pages and pages, but perhaps one of the good folk here will get off their duffs and open the copyright investiation on the work enabled by this process):

Gordon Dove (Louisiana politician) nominated for DYK on July 12.

Article:

• Young Dove's vehicle careened across the highway, crashed into the right guardrail, and overturned several times. His seat belt was not fastened. Partially thrown out the back window and pinned beneath the SUV, he died at the scene.

Source:

• The SUV careened back across the highway, crashed into the right guardrail and flipped several times. Dove, who police said was not wearing a seat belt, was partially thrown out the back window and pinned beneath the vehicle. He died at the scene.

Article:

• Dove is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and works to raise awareness of the importance of coastal passes and barrier islands. He supports the north-south corridor for hurricane evacuation and the funding of the hurricane protection system from Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico. Dove also supports the state charity hospital system by removing the Medicare and Medicaid caps placed on the hospitals

Source:

• As chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Dove will be a coastal floor leader for some years to come. In particular, he is interested in raising awareness of the importance of coastal passes and barrier islands. ... On health care, he supports funding the state’s charity hospital system by lifting existing Medicare and Medicaid caps placed on the hospitals. On coastal protections, the planned north-south corridor for hurricane evacuation and the funding of the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane protection system are top objectives.

Deny away. DYK has got more than one prolific editor who doesn't know reliable sourcing, doesn't know BLP, and doesn't know how to paraphrase content in their own words, and you have no mechanism for preventing this systemic issue from being displayed on the mainpage. Why, again, is it that we MUST display new content, rather than vetted content, on the mainpage? And why is it that DYK has no directorate, no one responsible for these messes? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't see this as a scandal but a controvery in which Mr. Christian prevailed. Billy Hathorn (talk) 19:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I did do some rewording to minimise some of this - looks like some more would be prudent. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't think of a way to equate "careen" with something else, nor "north-south corridor", "raise awareness of the importance" should be doable. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:57, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that the second example does not deserve to be called a "copyright violation" based on the evidence shown. "raising awareness of the importance of coastal passes and barrier islands" may be a long word-for-word similarity, but in political terms it may have significance that would be lost with a rewording; it sounds like the sort of language one might find in the summary or even the title of a bill. Likewise "north-south corridor for hurricane evacuation" is a specific technical term, and obfuscating it risks losing the meaning - especially if it turns out (I didn't check) that it isn't really that directly north-south but the road is just numbered that way. (I also have a bias that we just shouldn't mess with anything that risks confusing people about disaster safety) Finally "Medicare and Medicaid caps placed on the hospitals" might be reworkable, but there aren't that many options. Could it steer clearer? - probably. But it doesn't deserve to be branded. The first example may also be hard to reword in places, but overall it is harder to defend. Wnt (talk) 15:31, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Next

• Chuck Kleckley. After removing all the text in a BLP not cited to reliable sources, does it still meet the size needed for DYK? How can you all be passing DYKs on size needed without checking that sources are reliable, and why are you putting BLPs on the mainpage with non-RS? More importantly, why are you still passing DYKs from this particular writer, given the number of issues already identified? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Nexxxxxt

• The Paul Winchell Show; I'll let some other genius spot the close paraphrasing, plagiarism, or whatever you want to call it, but the article is built almost entirely from non-reliable sources, so how does it meet the expansion criteria? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Sandy, your hyperbole on this page is becoming increasingly irritating. More than once now you have described articles with minor flaws as "egregiously bad". The supposed "BLP violations" you are finding are at best technical, and at times questionable (what is wrong with votesmart.org?). There's a difference between constructive criticism and mudslinging, the latter only causes resentment so please try to exercise some restraint. We are already discussing ways to improve the process so this ongoing documentation of alleged errors is just becoming a distraction. Gatoclass (talk) 06:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Gato. What's next? Something like this?

  "The End of Misplaced Pages is Upon Us! Erwin Gutawa has a Typo! DYK can be Blamed for all of Our Problems on Misplaced Pages! Get that Misspelled Stuff Off the Main Page!"

You have raised valid points, which has ignited a longer discussion than most threads in the history of DYK. I think that participating in said discussion, rather than adding trivial or questionable mistakes to the "list" here, would be a better way to improve Misplaced Pages. As Gatoclass said, there is a difference between constructive criticism and mudslinging. Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Hyperbole might apply if you all weren't continuing to put serial plagiarism, BLP vios and faulty sourcing on the mainpage YEARS after this discussion has been going on, and if you weren't continuing to do exactly the same in every single DYK queue since this first came to light, thanks to TK's unfortunate dip into the mess here. It 'might be hyperbole if you all were doing a single thing to stop it. You're not: you're enabling it and continuing it and several DYK regulars have evidenced that they have no clue or concern for Misplaced Pages policies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the copyvio really needs to be addressed. From the source : 'in which contestants would have to guess the identity of a celebrity based on a few given clues.' From the article: "and a section called "What's My Name?", in which contestants sought to guess the identity of a celebrity based on a few clues. This from the first sentence I've checked. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 11:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

That is a somewhat close paraphrase, but information cannot be copyrighted. I don't think it would qualify as a copyvio, as there is paraphrasing. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

No, you are wrong. Simply changing a few words most certainly can constitute copyvio. I don't know what you mean by your statement that information cannot be copyrighted. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:33, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not trying to deny the seriousness of problems like copyvio and close paraphrasing, and the examples raised are valid and will require action, but many of the other supposedly "egregiously bad" examples are relatively minor and in some cases, nonexistent. This particular article, for example, hasn't even been reviewed - and yet it's being used as an example of DYK's supposedly broken processes. Threads like this are just becoming a distraction when we are already discussing methods of improving the system. Gatoclass (talk) 13:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

In one sentence (5 words out of a total of 15 or so)? No. A few words in a whole article? Most definitely. As for information, perhaps facts would have been a better term. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

@Crisco - I looked at one sentence from one source in one article. We don't count words - we look at similarity. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how to rewrite source material that I find worrying. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand that, but using one example that is only one sentence long is not the best way to show a possible violation. Numerous structural and lexical similarities would be best. Naturally, if we are worried about it we could rewrite the article, with more paraphrasing and whatnot. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Pretty big problem here when two DYK regulars don't understand the seriousness even when it's black and white. No, people who don't get this should not be working at DYK in *any* capacity-- we cannot be putting this kind of thing regularly on the mainpage, and the reason it hasn't been fixed in more than a couple of years of awareness is the the DYK regulars either don't get it or don't care. I don't know if this is incompetence or indifference, but it's quite alarming. By now, someone should have started a copyvio investigation on the Billy editor doing this (and no, Carcharoth, I can't keep all the players straight here, nor do I presume to remember in the midst of a discussion that Crisco is 1942-- there's something to be said for choosing a username others can remember). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

An investigation of the nominator would be acceptable, although I take offence at the suggestion that I do not understand basic copyright law. As I have noted above, facts cannot be copyrighted; it would be ridiculous to try and copyright the fact that Misplaced Pages was founded in 2001, for example. The wording of the facts themselves may be copyrighted, but a single sentence is not always indicative of a violation, especially when efforts were made to paraphrase it. As for the user name, I have had it for nearly 5 years now and the meaning is explained explicitly on my userpage. You are the first to complain that it is too hard to remember, and if you feel so please call me Crisco. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:03, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Using a single sentence is called spotchecking. It's how it's done. If I were a teacher or a professor, spotchecked and found that, I'd know all I needed. This is pretty much best practice for finding copyvio. We have 3 million or more articles - the best that can be done is spotcheck a few at a time. That's how it works, and the example is quite clearly copyvio. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I am quite clear on what spotchecking is; I've done it myself with my students. However, spotchecking and demonstrating copyright violations are two completely different balls of wax; a spotcheck helps to find the copyvio, but numerous similarities prove it. You seem to have submitted the above as proof of a copyright violation. Perhaps a link to the tool's readings would help? I forget its name. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The tool is my eyes. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

This tool would help show possible copyvios much more thoroughly. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

It gives this, which doesn't convince me of anything but a close paraphrasing. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh for gosh sakes, stop the obfuscating: DYK puts serial plagiarizers on the mainpage, all the time, and even when they know it, they continue to do it. That's a bigger point than the fact that many regulars here don't consider it their job to stop enabling writers to violate Misplaced Pages BLP, sourcing and copyvio policies. Focus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:24, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm highly tempted to hat most of this discussion so that we can focus; we have 7 (and counting) sub sections to this thread. Yes, you are showing good indicators that we have a problem of close paraphrasing, which as mentioned somewhere on this talk page is a guideline and not a policy. As to whether or not it is close enough to be called a copyvio, we have numerous editors who could be called in to weigh in on it. However, the I doubt the actions of a single editor should be used to waterboard the entire DYK community. Perhaps you would like to check some of the other articles featured today and then let us know if it is DYK that is at fault or the one editor. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Hatting it shoves the problem under the rug. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Very well then, could someone please choose which subsection we should continue this discussion in? Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion is done. Sandy brought up the article; I spotchecked and found problems. You seem to believe this kind of writing is acceptable for main page content. There's nothing more to discuss, but the section should stay as documentation. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Crisco, might I inquire if you were involved over the years the numerous times we've had this same discussion, and nothing has been done about it-- in fact, it's gotten worse? Last time it was other editors, the same denialists and enablers denied the problem, hence the problem is still here. Next week it will be another editor, because your the DYK process is deficient, you've DYK has done nothing to correct it, and it only got worse after last year's Halloween debacle. No, you won't hat it-- as long as every queue has blatant policy violations, and you all do nothing about it, and five (at least) RFCs are running, I will continue to highlight that you've DYK has done zilch, for many years, except shoot the messenger and complain that I'm highlighting yourthe faulty process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I would appreciate using a less ambiguous term than you, because if you are referring to me (the editor) then I am beginning to consider this a borderline personal attack. I have not done zilch for years, as I have been active at DYK for only a few months; I have not become an enabler (I have tried to review thoroughly); I have tried to correct it, which is why I am here discussing this at 9pm on a Saturday night; I have not "shot the messenger" (I have offered that you try reviewing a couple current noms at least twice, to catch problems before they become problems). As for the copyright issue, I have already noted numerous times; a close paraphrase cannot be considered a blatant copyvio. I have offered a link to the tool to help TK prove his/her statement, although the results seem ambiguous to me. I have also tried to forgive your twisting of my comments. Please, can we discuss this in a neutral and less standoffish manner? None of us right now are stellar examples of civility. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:51, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Good point about my generic vs specific use of "you"-- I have corrected above, it's a frequent fault of mine (as is not knowing full editor names and shortening them, even on TK, an editor I know well). Anyway, once again, you may consider my tone harsh if you think this is a stand-alone incident: it's not, it's a repeat month after month, year after year, that DYK does not address. THe only thing that changes is a new crop of serial offenders and a new crop of enablers/denialists every few months. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick reply and fix. I've noticed a general distrust of DYK held by numerous editors (especially those active in FA), but this is the first truly contentious debate I have participated in. Right now Billy's hooks are in the process of being double checked. As for the further changes... I do not know. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Also, the essay on close paraphrasing may be an essay, but it is not so much a stand-alone essay, as a practical interpretation of a very firm and pretty universal policy on copyvios and plagiarism. I agree we need to do something here. I think the first thing is to check if it is more generalised or not. Agree we should all work together and maybe all take a breather. Ha, it's 1 am where I am. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

PS: I guess it also highlights the tightrope walking of content contribution, too close to sources and we veer close to copyvio, too far and it's into OR or synthesis. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

It's actually 10... I must have lost track of time Indeed it does, and it is something we need to worry about. However, I don't see a firm definition of when paraphrasing becomes too close. My interpretation is that the article or section would have to be based mostly on one source to be closely paraphrased; if it uses numerous reliable sources, with paraphrasing, to paint a complete picture of the subject, it would be a new creation. Methinks, at least. A cup of tea would be nice... Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) Just to clarify here, Misplaced Pages:Close paraphrasing is an essay, but it was built to clarify a point of policy that causes confusion: "Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Misplaced Pages, so long as you do not follow the source too closely." (It used to say paraphrase too closely, but that was simplified for users who may be less familiar with the term some time back.) Whether a paraphrase is close enough to reach the level of copyright infringement or not is always going to be complex and based on a number of factors (if taking is substantial in size or importance and the use is not justifiable under fair use or other legal defense, it's a copyvio), but Misplaced Pages tends to be somewhat conservative on its use of non-free content; obviously, that's a line we don't want to test. :) Articles that follow closely on nonfree sources (one or multiple) are usually tagged for rewriting or, if taking is extensive, blanked with {{copyvio}} for rewriting and listed at WP:CP. (I'm not sure exactly what you mean, Crisco, that "a close paraphrase cannot be considered a blatant copyvio"--if you mean in terms of a speediable vio under WP:CSD#G12, I think that's generally true, unless the paraphrase is very close; however, the courts have tended to have little difficulty in finding infringement in close paraphrasing cases.)

In any event, it's best to catch these articles before they develop too far, which puts DYK into a good position to help here. If we catch problems when they are fresh, we give the contributor an opportunity to learn the way Misplaced Pages utilizes non-free content ("in your own words", except for brief, explicitly marked quotations), hopefully retaining an enthusiastic contributor. And we keep other contributors from inadvertently investing a lot of time into an article that is fundamentally unretainable (at least without extensive rewriting). I wonder if it would be helpful to occasionally revisit the question of close paraphrasing here, to give reviewers some pointers about what to look for and reminders about why? (Maybe it would be helpful to revisit the unique challenges of sourcing BLPs, too.)

I have not had an opportunity to review concerns in these articles yet beyond what's written here. I'm on my laptop at the moment, away from home, and I'm much more comfortable on my desktop. :/ If there are extensive concerns, a WP:CCI might be a good idea to make sure that problems are identified and addressed. --Moonriddengirl 20:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Responded on MRG talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure how Sandy was using blatant, but speedy was my interpretation of it, yes. As I mentioned above, I believe those close paraphrases could still be rewritten. Thanks for the quick, well-worded, thorough reply. Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Since Crisco does not see a problem with close paraphrasing (I believe TK set him straight on that, hopefully), he's not the person to be opining on Misplaced Pages Copyvio. A CCI on Billy Hathorn is needed, but so is an ANI or an RFC; he should not be editing without mentorship or admin oversight. But that is not our issue here: our issue here is that DYK enables and encourages the creation of content that does not meet Misplaced Pages policies, in fact, DYK regulars are rarely aware, and infrequently concerned, that DYK routinely violates Misplaced Pages policies. What is DYK doing about content CURRENTLY going on the mainpage that does not meet policy? Until there is some accountability for the admin who puts the content on the mainpage, there will be no long-term change here: this discussion will die away as they always do, and a year from now we'll still find DYK providing endorphin highs to editors who can't write to meet GA or FA standards or even Misplaced Pages policies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I do believe that I stated numerous times that it could/should be rewritten. Please do not base comments on selective memory. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The show goes on, next again

Today's DYK: Thomas G. Carmody. First, does anyone here care to explain why several of those sources are reliable, or how you can qualify as having expanded an article based on non-reliable sources? More importantly, why, in the midst of this discussion, is DYK STILL doing same ???

• Source: Carmody first made a name for himself in the community in 2003 by pushing for an independent review of the police-related shooting death of Marquise Hudspeth, which made national headlines at the time.

• Article: In 2003, councilman Carmody pushed for an independent review of the police-related shooting death of Marquise Hudspeth, which at the time acquired national headlines.

This is BLATANT. I didn't even check the rest of the article-- that one was only the first I saw. Who approved the hook? And Cas, I'd like to know why you put it on the mainpage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:21, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

My name came up as the DYK giver as I moved the batch from the prep area to the queue. I wasn't aware of the issues at that point. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:31, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Cas-- I appreciate the explanation, because the system and lack of archives here is MUCH too complex for an outsider to understand. So, the next question is, what is DYK doing now to shut down this editor, and who will bring in the copyvio people? He's got hundreds of DYKs that need looking at by people who know copyvio. Must I do everything? SandyGeorgia (Talk)

He still has numerous noms at T:TDYK, which could be double checked. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that is a good place to start, and a friendly word. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:57, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, all of those should be put on hold until someone explicitly takes responsibility for checking them for close paraphrasing problems. Are there any in prep and the queues? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

At least one: Ricky Templet in Queue 5. I'll add more if I see them. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Mike Futrell in Prep 3 Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I queried MRG, and now I must get on with my day. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Sunday July 24

Today's DYK deficiency (quick glance only). My prose size script isn't working today, but another recurring problem in DYKs is that the expansion/size crit are being met by padding articles with text from non-reliable sources and text that doesn't belong in the article. How can DYKers continue to claim that they only need to verify the hook? How are you all determining that crit. are met without checking all sources and reviewing the whole article? DYK encourages and enables the creation of faulty articles. From today:

• Pole Creek Wilderness
  • What makes this a reliable source?
  • Why is this text in the article at all?
    • Wilderness areas do not allow motorized or mechanical equipment including bicycles. Although camping and fishing are allowed with proper permit, no roads or buildings are constructed and there is also no logging or mining, in compliance with the 1964 Wilderness Act. Wilderness areas within National Forests and Bureau of Land Management areas also allow hunting in season.
      • That information belongs in a link about Wilderness Areas.
• So, if you subtract this extraneous or poorly sourced info, does the article meet minimum expansion requirements?

  How does Misplaced Pages benefit from DYK enabling and encouraging new and old users alike to create content that does not meet Misplaced Pages policies and will eventually need cleanup? Except for those who continue on to GA or FA, my experience with most DYKers is that they abandon the sloppy stubs after they create them, and they are never cleaned up. DYK has no useful purpose on Misplaced Pages, and in an environment of declining editorship, we can ill afford this creation of deficient articles.

  I didn't even look for plagiarism today, since as of yet I do not see anyone here doing anything about that already identified. It is apparent that this problem is going to go unchecked, even as I have demonstrated it's been going on for more than three years, because DYKers want their endorphin high from being on the mainpage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:42, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Continuing the topic of articles being padded to meet DYK expansion requirments, look at one of the current examples of copyvio, already offered for your non-consideration:

• Gordon Dove (Louisiana politician)
  • Dove's only son, Gordon "Bubba" Dove, Jr. (June 7, 1986—March 29, 2009) had helped his father in the operations of the family holdings. At the time of his death, he was the president of Blue Marlin Oilfield and Equipment Rentals, Inc. The younger Dove died at twenty-two in a sport utility vehicle accident on Interstate 310 near Destrehan. He was returning to Houma from a charity concert for Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans. Young Dove's vehicle careened across the highway, crashed into the right barrier, and overturned several times. His seat belt was not fastened. Partially thrown out the back window and pinned beneath the SUV, he died at the scene.
• Besides that the content was previously copied, why is this extensive commentary about his son even in this article? And by the way, since when its rootsweb.ancestry a reliable source? How can DYK continue to enable and support and encourage this kind of article creation? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:52, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I can't go along with your push to purge "extraneous" information from DYK articles. That just sics a bunch of deletionists on a new article to be mean. If I looked up Pole Creek Wilderness I definitely would want to know if I'm not allowed to bike there, etc. - and I don't want to hear that I should have known to look up Wilderness Area and assume that some statement there about biking would apply to the area I'd be going. A certain amount of redundancy is allowed between articles under the WP:Summary style organization of Misplaced Pages, and that means that brief blurbs containing useful information are always acceptable even if a more detailed article exists. Wnt (talk) 15:39, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Friday, July 29, spot the issues

I'm on vacation, and have firm plans to be waterskiing within the hour. When I get back, I will check to see if I need to blank Dougie (dance), remove the issues myself, of if the DYKer responsible for putting it on the mainpage has beat me to the punch. Spot the issues before I finish waterskiing. If it's not addressed this afternoon when I return, I'll see what I can do, but the person who put it on the mainpage is really the person who should deal with it. Hint: try reading these sources:

• http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2080312,00.html
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703805004575606731553244978.html

with a few seconds time, you just might encounter some very familiar text. And does DYK really allow expansion of articles based on WP:TRIVIA? PS, where's that handy-dandy new archive system that will let me figure out who reviewed this hook, who put it on the mainpage, etc? I don't see one, but them I'm not as bright as the average DYK citizen. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hehe, I was rephrasing a few sentences of concern in the lede, knowing that I would eventually come back to the article featuring a trivia section. Those things make my head explode. But it was simultaneously edited out, thank you MW software and other editors! SandyG, a) have your issues been addressed? and b) yeah, we all know how dumb and unproductive you are, you're practically useless around here. :) Ease up a bit maybe? A consistent message is important, but stridency just pushes people away from thinking about the issues, instead they focus on the dark hag from some other weird place. (I've seen lots of this wiki, FAC is actually a pretty weird place too). Regards! Franamax (talk) 18:12, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I have an unabiding hatred for that sort of trivia section, and I was happy to remove it! cmadler (talk) 18:37, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the archiving: Dougie was nominated almost two weeks before I started the new system, so unless what you want is for me to go back in time and update thousands of DYK nominations to fit the new system, it's not going to be in the new archive. I explained how the new archiving system will work twice, here and here.

If you want to know who reviewed it, who promoted it, etc., it's not very hard. Here it was nominated, here it was accepted, here it was promoted to the prep (you can also look at that diff to see the rest of the review discussion), and here it was moved from the prep to the queue. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:22, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the diffs, Rjanag-- no, without an archive, it's not easy-- one has to step back through diffs on multiple pages. SO, anyway, we find recurring themes-- Panyd, Sharktopus, and Enclopetey should all know better by now. What is DYK doing about educating reviewers about what to review for? And how is the expansion crit. for a DYK met by adding trivia? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

"I don't see one, but them I'm not as bright as the average DYK citizen." (emphasis mine). Two suggestions, Sandy: first, get thee to the waterskis and lay off the sarcasm; second, if you insist on being sarcastic anyway, don't make goofy typos in the process. Daniel Case (talk) 20:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I always make goofy typos (those "in the know" know that my edit count is so high because I make so many). So, the water was great. Did anyone fix the close paraphrasing (is that what we call blatant cut and paste here at DYK?) So, why are we still missing these cases? No change yet? Has anyone notified the nominator and the reviewer about close paraphrasing, plagiarism, and copyvio so that they can be educated and this can be avoided on other noms and reviews? This is such a frequent occurrence at DYK that someone might want to design a template for educational purposes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

On a quick glance only, I still see at least this (there may still be more):

• Article (note that it has a curly quote, which is a cut-and-paste tipoff, since they come from word processers)
  • ... performed the Dougie from the pulpit, and other attendants danced in their seats during a tribute video.
• Source Time magazine
  • did her own version of the Dougie from the pulpit, and funeral-goers danced in their seats during a tribute video ....

Structure is taken from the article, and several word-for-word sections were there the last time I looked. Anyway, of greater importance is whether DYK will educate the nominator and whether there will be institutional memory to check subsequent nominations from the same editor. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:37, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I notified everyone involved (I think?) of this discussion. DYK should really have a template, which will help educate, since this happens so often. This was rather shameful and uncalled for (an admin making a pointy threat to block?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Oops, Daniel, I can conceive that information theft causes outrage, but please note that we need to educate editors, too, and some may come from cultures that have blind-spots about the western notions of copyright (a major problem when foreign students pay to study at anglophone universities). A firm hand is required, but perhaps with a note of encouragement, or "please ask if you have any questions"? Tony (talk) 03:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

OK I'll bite. I moved this approved hook to prep. I did not check the article for copyvios before moving it to prep, but I did, obviously, try to make it better, since I edited it myself. Trivia sections are not forbidden, much as some people hate them. I removed one uncited list item from Dougie Dance and put the rest in chronological order to tidy it up. Every item I left on the list was "notable" enough to have a source cited. I thought the list was interesting, amusing, and relevant, a service to whatever readers of ours might be interested in clicking Dougie Dance.

The overlap of the version of Dougie Dance I approved with wsj is minimal aside from material directly quoted and cited to the source.

The overlap with the other source Sandy objects to: Yeah, I see one objectionable close paraphrase here, 19 words long: "he was the best at doing the dance and on tour he was always the one in the forefront" -- bingo, a direct quote from the source it is copied from with a citation to it. "He helped bring it to the masses" same thing, bingo direct quote, cited to the source. In my opinion, the amount of material taken from each source was not "infringing." Sharktopus 21:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Sharktopus about the trivia thing. Plagiarism and copyvio are serious issues; trivia, not so much. Sure, an article would be better without it, but cleaning up trivia sections shouldn't in of itself be a requirement for DYK, just as "brilliant prose" and comprehensiveness shouldn't be. That's just taking DYK one step closer to mini-GA. DYK already has a requirement that articles meet core WP policies and guidelines (e.g., verifiability, NPOV, copyvio); it should not be necessary to meet every single guideline that's out there. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that, while I have a deep hatred for that sort of trivia list, cleaning them up is not a DYK requirement. It's also worth noting, in response to Sandy's question ("And how is the expansion crit. for a DYK met by adding trivia?") that, since the trivia was properly formatted as a bulleted list, it didn't count toward article size for DYK purposes. In less time than it is taking to type this sentence, I checked the article history and saw that it was created on July 12, so it was nominated not as an expanded article but as a new article. cmadler (talk) 23:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The point has been missed again, which is that, in spite of years of discussion, copyvio, plagiarism, close paraphrasing et al can routinely be found in any DYK queue, and it takes only a few minutes' glance to find them. But the other point, still unanswered, is not whether you like or dislike TRIVIA sections or whether DYK articles should be "perfect", but how do you determine if the expansion and minimum character counts are met if/when articles are puffed up with non-reliable sources, off-topic text, trivia, and the like? Isn't a verification of expansion or character count a part of the process?

On another point, there were multiple RFCs and changes discussed at once, and occurring in multiple places; could anyone summarize what changes/improvements have been made over the last week, since these discussions started, in one place? Is DYK still saddled with the requirement that inexperienced editors review hooks here (Quid Pro Quo reviewing), which still seems to be one of the biggest problems here, and is there as yet any sort of accountability, directorate, or panel of admins responsible for not putting copyvio and content that doesn't meet Misplaced Pages's most basic policies on the main page? A summary of what DYK has done to stem the tide of problems would be most appreciated (and a templated checklist is NOT going to stop these issues). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

As I already mentioned once, directly above Sandy's comment, a bulleted list does not count toward article size/expansion, because it is not considered "readable prose". Further, as I also mentioned directly above Sandy's comment, this was obviously submitted as a new article not an expanded article. Sandy, you might do well to actually read what others are writing before your respond. cmadler (talk) 11:23, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes to QPQ, no to directorate. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, QPQ is gone??? Thanks Rjanag ... Cool beans ... that should help a wee bit (not enough though), archives will add some accountability, but without full accountability, we're going to be right back here in a few months. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

No, QPQ is not gone. I was saying yes to "Is DYK still saddled with the requirement....". rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

• I for one welcome our new overlord and look forward to Sandy's coming back from waterskiing so I can learn about another major emergency that requires us all to stop building an encyclopedia and race around searching for infractions of policy so terrible that Misplaced Pages will die if they hit the front page. And pointing angry fingers at volunteers whose crime is that we did the actual work to make DYK happen, but didn't put in extra hours required to find every flaw that could be hyperexaggerated for campaigning against DYK. Did people here notice that User:Khazar has now quit, not just DYK, but Misplaced Pages? Sharktopus 15:56, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

• Is personalizing of issues and attacking the messenger a regular DYK thing, or is it just the domain of a few regular DYKers? How about do something useful-- go look at the latest queue and find the latest copyvio before I have to. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

• It saddens me that Khazar's left, this is what I've said repeatedly over the last few months that would happen. That good contributors will leave the project because of all the aggression that's been going on. I remember back when users were encouraged to make DYK nominations, and blossomed as contributors because of their involvement with the project. Right now we're heading down a steep hill, step by step. Manxruler (talk) 16:56, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

• I'm unclear why some remember the "Good old days" of DYK; I seem to have missed those, as I've been hearing how many issues there were here for at least five years, and every time I've tipped my toe into the DYK section of the mainpage, I've seen exactly why. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you, Sandy. That's pretty much what I was talking about. In my view you're overestimating the problems with the DYK nominations. The issues at DYK are no greater than at the rest of Misplaced Pages, in fact DYK is one of the very best parts of Misplaced Pages, because it involves a wide spectrum of contributors, and an equally wide field of topics.

Should Misplaced Pages, as you have promoted, get rid of DYK, it will lose a vital part of what makes the project as good as it is. I would guess that along with DYK would disappear a not unsubstantial number of very competent contributors, people like the aforementioned Khazar, who contributed articles to an important and under-represented field. Several others have also already thrown in the towel. These were competent content contributors, not copyright violators, or the often-mentioned editors "playing DYK" by creating articles that only barely make the DYK standards. Who are these editors, anyway? I look at DYK quite often, and I seldom see such articles. Most of the articles I see are actually quite good, created by good contributors who are now being told that they've been failing in improving Misplaced Pages. But, it's all for the best, right? Manxruler (talk) 01:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Saturday, July 30, the debacle continues, more than a week in

• DYK: Elisabeth Croft as it appeared on the main page
• Source: The Independent obit (mislabled in the sources, btw :)

OK, would someone here like to:

1. spot the issues,
2. correct the issues,
3. figure out who reviewed the hook, who passed it to prep, and who put it on the main page
4. notify the article talk, the nominator, and all of those people?

I'm beginning to realize that DYK does not care about copyvio, plagiarism, close paraphrasing, or anything, because every queue has 'em. Perhaps placing the daily debacles on the main page errors reports will draw more attention to the fact that DYK is unable to address the issues. I'm aware that you all either don't care to address the issues or are unable to even do the most cursory review of what is going on the mainpage, but seriously ... this is getting embarrassing.

Has anyone yet developed a DYK copyvio template that can be used for notification and education, since this is a daily occurrence and posting personal notes to all the editors who contributed to putting copvyio, plagiarism and close paraphrasing on the main page is a repetitive task-- you may as well have a bot do it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Looking here, I've tagged the page, as it should be scrubbed from history. Folks, please, whose job is this and why are you rewarding this kind of work and doing nothing about it this far in ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I just spent the last 30 minutes rewriting and was edit conflicted out of saving. It's a short article and can easily be rewritten. And yes, it is copyvio. Anyway, I guess it's okay to leave the tag. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:45, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Look at the first edit: a complete copyvio. I think (but someone should ask MRG) such clearcut copyvio has to be scrubbed from history, and we don't do Misplaced Pages or the offending editors any favors by fixing them, since the copyvio remains in history. What is ... ahem ... intriguing is that the reviewer noted it was all from one source originally, so there is NO reason for that reviewer not to have seen the blatant copyvio. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right, it should be taken out of history. I didn't actually look at the edits; saw your post, looked at the page, and started rewriting. Anyway, this should not have slipped by. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:56, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I do hope you all realize that I am only checking one a day, if that-- I shudder to think how much copyvio is going up that no one is even looking at. I find one by looking a mere ten minutes per day, so that's a good indication of how serious the issues probably are, and again, that NO ONE here is checking what is going on the main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:54, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

It's good fun, isn't it? I also sometimes correct issues with DYKs that make it on to the main page, so it seems that the system is working quite well. Imagine if those copyvios hadn't had the main page exposure - they could have sat in those articles for years. Yomangani 22:05, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Good fun? A sense of satisfaction in catching it, but let's make no mistake, this is BLP territory, it's a death, which makes it more emotionally charged, and the text-theft is from a biggie. Our reputation is at stake if this kind of thing keeps popping up on the main page. Tony (talk) 03:26, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• I notice the creator of this only claims 1 DYK on their user page, plus 1 GA and 5 GA reviews. Johnbod (talk) 03:51, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• Am I reading the wrong user page? That is incorrect? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• ] User boxes 2-4 Johnbod (talk) 16:48, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• Look further down the page, at DYK's Written/Expanded. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• • The GA, Dotty Cotton also has issues:
    • Source: It was decided she was too old for that character, but producers liked what they saw and offered her an audition for the part of Dottie.
    • Article: Conlin had auditioned for the part of Tiffany Dean but it was decided that she was too old for the part, but the producers liked what they saw and auditioned her for the part of Dotty. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:39, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• Actually Yomangani has a point. Blaise Pascal stood as a core FA, and a copyvio, for 6 years, and it would stand like that for ages if an anon won't bring this up recently. I also agree that DYK articles are better on average than others. Did anyone raise a point that most articles linked (unbolded) from the main page are in much worse, and often disastrous, state and that this should be the priority in the main page cleanup; that there is a mainpage culture of wlinking any uncommon term without looking what is being linked? Materialscientist (talk) 04:07, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

MS, a very good reason to link only very judiciously to secondary targets on the main page. I've been calling for this for some time, both for policy-compliance and quality-checking reasons, and to avoid diluting hits on the actual subject articles that have been properly scrutinised. Tony (talk) 04:14, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not that simple. ITN articles are not scrutinized even when bolded. Many, if not most, fresh ITN articles have bare-url refs and problems with sourcing and prose, and get cleaned up quickly while on the main page. My point is that WP is work in progress, and that main page helps fixing the problems ASAP. That only a part of main page content and links is actually screened. Materialscientist (talk) 04:29, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Well ITN needs a clean-up if not even the subject articles are checked for copyvio, plagiarism, RS, and other basic compliance. "main page helps fixing the problems ASAP"—are you suggesting that the main page is a dumping ground to stimulate proper auditing? If so, I think it's around the wrong way: the auditing should occur before main-page exposure. Tony (talk) 04:36, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that if someone wants WP main page to represent its best content, they should start a WP-wide RFC proposing a global redesign; providing scrutiny for every main page section (which is nearly non-existent now). What is happening now, is that DYK is picked up as a scapegoat and is being suppressed entirely. Does main page get better - not really, because of junk in other sections. Does WP get better - no, because proper writers, our best asset, get driven away from WP, not just DYK. The key is, off course, we need to cleanup copyvios, factual errors, etc., but we should do that with a smile, showing personal example, and helping good-faith editors who simply don't know how. Most time should be spent on articles, leaving brief notes here when you needs help. The opposite is happening - highly capable editors are spending most of their time on talking to each other. Materialscientist (talk) 05:34, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, everything on the main page needs a cleanup, but who is going to do it? Everyone is always in favour of higher standards as long as it's somebody else doing the work. The reason plagiarism is rife on the encyclopedia is because finding it is a tedious chore that nobody wants to be stuck with. If somebody would like to pay me $25 an hour, I'm happy to spend several hours a day cleaning up plagiarism - otherwise, I'm a volunteer, doing the things I like to do, and if you try and impose your chores on me, I will just find some other area of the project to participate - or maybe just find a new hobby altogether. Gatoclass (talk) 04:57, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Gato, I see nothing wrong in what you do, only the opposite, and thus believe nobody should tell you what to do. Pessimists are to be ignored, as unconstructive :-). Materialscientist (talk) 06:17, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

That wasn't intended as a personal statement, my point is that this is how users are going to react if you try to force them to jump through too many hoops - they are simply going to take their contributions elsewhere. Tony is a professional editor, he doesn't seem to understand that this is not a professional publication where people get paid, it's a volunteer project, and you can't require volunteers to do things they're not interested in doing.

Speaking personally, I'm not quite at the stage where I'm willing to walk away from DYK, otherwise I wouldn't be contributing to discussions about its future. However, if I think the conditions imposed on this project become too onerous, I certainly will walk away from it, and find some corner of the project where my contributions are better appreciated. And I think I'll be far from alone in doing so. Gatoclass (talk) 11:14, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think cleaning up the mainpage, or any significant part of Misplaced Pages, is remotely doable, since I don't doubt that 85% of Misplaced Pages contains copyvio, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. Discussing the global problems of Misplaced Pages is a distraction from the specific problem of DYK, which is that it *rewards* copyvio and plagiarism by putting repeat offenders on the mainpage, over and over, for years, without educating them in better editing and Misplaced Pages policy, and creating thousand of deficient articles that are never cleaned up, in fact, often abandoned as soon as the editor gets their bauble.

Has anyone yet written a template that can be used each time these instances are found? Something is needed that links the offending editors and reviewers to all of the relevant educational pages, notifies DYK, notifies the article talk, notifies mainpage errors, etc. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting that, a week in, the "reward culture" of DYK hasn't got much of an airing. I would have thought that would have been a prime topic for discussion, but apparently which way a template should be orientated trumps it. Yomangani 01:25, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

History

Recapping the October 2010 debacle, which began with these cases:

• Malta Test Station; plagiarism, stayed on mainpage with copyvio tag, got almost 3,000 hits, ANI
• Spring Canyon, Utah; WP:Close paraphrasing and non-reliable, commercial source, found at RFA
• Jameela Jamil; non-reliable sources, BLP, on mainpage but DYK pulled it as soon as I let them know, DYK Talk
• Black Eyed Kids; non-reliable sources, notability not established, only one RS, I alerted DYK and they still ran it on mainpage with maintenance tags, DYK talk Was previously deleted, then recreated, still no reliable sources, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Black Eyed Kids (3rd nomination)
• William S. Stevens; WP:Close paraphrasing and structure, SG talk discussion during RFA

culminating in the discovery of copyvio in a former arb's former FA (Grace Sherwood), an event which seems to have obscured memories about the seriousness of the issue at DYK. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, Sandy, that was an interesting discussion to read. I'd like to list here what I found most valuable, a series of statements all made by MoonRiddenGirl.

• • Something may be both a copyright problem and plagiarism. It may be only a copyright problem, if the content is fully attributed but still violates our copyright policies (as with overly extensive quotations). It may be only plagiarism if the content that isn't attributed is public domain. Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:20, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• • From a copyright standpoint, very close paraphrasing is only okay when (a) content is not creative or (b) the close paraphrasing meets fair use. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:12, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

• • As others have pointed out, DYK is not the cause of the problem; the cause of the problem is contributors who either don't understand how to use sources or don't care to try. (If DYK were the cause, we wouldn't have dozens of WP:CCIs of people who've never been near DYK. If only. :/) DYK is actually a really good forum for locating these contributors so that their misunderstandings/wanton disregard can be detected and appropriately addressed. It could become a very valuable teaching/screening tool if the DYK reviewers are willing and able to watch out for copyright/plagiarism concerns. I know this would increase the onus on them, and I can't really volunteer to help out with that screening because I have my hands more than full with known copyright problems at WP:CP and CCI. It would be helpful here if we could improve and perhaps elevate to guideline Misplaced Pages:Close paraphrasing. I routinely point to it and to the writing suggestions under "Avoiding plagiarism" at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches when dealing with people who have this issue. It can take some time to teach people who to rewrite properly, but I've seen contributors overcome the problem. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• • I think scrapping DYK would be a mistake. Copyright infringement and close paraphrasing that may not quite cross the line into copyright infringement but remain problematic are rampant on Misplaced Pages. (Frankly, if I were going to close something down for copyright issues, it would be articles related to television shows. People copy and paste content into them all the time. But I wouldn't suggest that, either; we just need to keep educating people.) I see the occasional former DYK show up in CCI or at CP, but I don't think I see them in high enough percentage to suggest that DYK is a significant contributing factor here. We probably do need to be more aggressive in blocking copyright infringers. (I myself gave a two week block recently to somebody I should have indeffed. :/) But copyright is complex, and people who show an effort should be given latitude to learn. Plagiarists, by contrast, can so easily repair the problem that only people who are willfully ignoring attribution requirements or flatly incompetent should persist after one or two warnings anyway. To help prevent this in the future, DYK reviewers might just be aware of potential issues. Certainly, they should see if content is copied in the hook when they verify it (if it isn't a print source). Other red flags that they could keep an eye out for: (1) in a new article, was there a Corensearchbot notice placed early in history? (2) Are there changes of competency in writing, with some content seeming professional or near-professional quality while other text is far beneath that standard? (3) Are there changes of tone in writing style, which might suggest that content has been copied from editorials or personal webpages? (4) Does the contributor have a history of copyright warnings? Honestly, I think one of the best things to do might be to create some kind of DYK problem template whereby a reviewer who finds such red flags can request additional review of the material in comparison to sources. That way, contributors who find red flags that worry them can get assistance from those who feel more confident researching such issues. The challenge would be creating an environment where the tag is not a deadly insult to the content creator. Not sure if that's even possible. People have a hard time responding dispassionately to plagiarism/copyright concerns. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:41, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Again, thanks for bringing this material to the attention of people who missed the discussion first time around. Sharktopus 15:04, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Thursday, August 4

I haven't reviewed DYKs for several days (last time I dipped in, I got sidetracked by Really Poor Prose, but I don't consider that a DYK issue, since the articles are new and not supposed to be to standard). Anyway, I looked at the latest queue:

• Techno Cumbia
• Text expansion by Ajona 1992
  • I see that work was done (but I think no subpage yet, if I'm reading correctly?)
  • Not a DYK issue per se, but the lead is WAY too long, and there is uncited data in the lead. If the expansion crit. is met by padding the lead, shouldn't that be flagged as not meeting expansion crit?
  • A whole lot of {{failed verification}} is present-- WAY too much to tag, but makes it dubious that the expansion crit. is met.
  • Serious prose issues: sample. While the remix version had instrumentations such as the piano, keyboards, horns and largely on beats.
  • Before I continue, a whole ton of text is cited to
    • a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t "Techno Cumbia music chart history on Billboard". Billboard. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
      • Since expansion is one of the criterion at DYK, could someone please locate the text from the cited source?
  • I hoped to check for copyvio on Spanish sources, but find none of them available (yet), still looking, but got sidetracked by the numerous failed verfications. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The Billboard reference appears to be just a bunch of charts; it doesn't have text. In the article, all references to it that I checked are plain statements about the song's chart positions at various times. I don't see any problems with that. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:00, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Billy Hathorn

Since several recent articles submitted by this user have been found to include examples of close paraphrasing, all his submissions will need to be thoroughly checked against their sources before being promoted. As a precautionary measure I have tagged all his current submissions at T:TDYK while this issue is under investigation. Gatoclass (talk) 15:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Two articles need to be removed (from the queues and preps respectively) for double checking, as I've mentioned above. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I've done that, and returned them to the top of T:TDK until someone finds time to check them. Gatoclass (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

It's a bit alarming to discover just how old this problem is and how little has changed: this has been going on for years, DYK has known about it for years and done nothing about it:

• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_34#User:Billy_Hathorn
• Misc

or the other sourcing issues:

• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_32#Proposed_rule_change

Perhaps someone here understands 1) why DYK has allowed this to continue, when it was a known problem, and 2) why there have been no sanctions? Who cleans up all the DYK-enabled plagiarism now? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:02, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I explained how it happened, in my case at least, at the bottom of this RfC discussion about the "proper checklist" proposal. In short, the DYK criteria currently encourages meeting specific bars for length and newness, at the expense of quality; it's quantity over quality. A major overhaul of DYK's mission and criteria are urgently needed. NickDupree (talk) 02:12, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The proposed rule change in Archive 32 appears to have been rejected on the basis that, per WP:RS, a source need not always be independent/third-party; in some cases (limited, to be true) a primary or self-published source is suitable. Other concerns raised in that discussion have been since addressed. For example, DYK requires the entire article to be sourced with in-line citations (rule of thumb: at least 1 per paragraph). It might seem obvious that all sources should be reliable sources, but we've recently explicitly added that to the DYK rules. The section about Billy Hathorn in Archive 34 appears to concern his failure to cite reliable sources, which is both a DYK problem (that such articles were allowed through) and a Misplaced Pages problem (that such articles exist at all). As I mentioned, we've recently added an explicit statement in the DYK rules that sources must be reliable. There appears to be no mention at that time of any concern about plagiarism or close paraphrasing; in fact, one editor wrote, "Billy, your composition is not being disputed. The reliability of the IMDB source is unacceptable." The only mention of plagiarism or close paraphrasing by Billy Hathorn was by Iridescent, eight months ago, on his/r own talk page -- hardly evidence that "DYK has known about it for years and done nothing."

Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means suggesting that this is acceptable. Billy Hathorn is a long-time editor who should absolutely know better. I haven't checked those articles myself, but accepting your word that they contain plagiarism and/or close paraphrasing (I assume you hatnoted them as such), I'd favor a strongly worded warning to the user indicating that if he submits any further such article, no matter how much time passes, he will be (duration?) topic-banned from DYK. As for the reviewer(s) who gave approvals, I don't know. As a start, if they have nominations in Prep/Queue/Nominations pages, we may want to pull/reject 1 nomination per bad review. cmadler (talk) 04:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

As can be seen from the 2008 thread, Billy's use of substandard sources is a very longstanding problem, not just for DYK but for the project as a whole. His submissions here always require additonal scrutiny for their sourcing, and in my experience that usually happens. I've seen quite a few of his submissions get rejected for poor sourcing.

I haven't been very active on Misplaced Pages at all for the last eight months due to RL issues, and have had little participation here, but it seems clear that Billy is currently submitting a large number of articles and it appears he is cutting corners by lifting phrases almost unchanged from source. Obviously he is not getting the close paraphrasing issue and that needs to be pointed out to him. His employment of substandard sources is unfortunately a chronic problem and reviewers just have to remain aware of it. Gatoclass (talk) 05:23, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

But how are new reviewers (of which there should be a fair number, after all this process is partly to encourage newer contributors) going to know that they have to remain aware of that - especially after all this gets archived away? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Cmadler's response seems more to the point. There is no way we should be giving people license to throw dubious content against the DYK process over and over and over. If they aren't stopped and sanctioned appropriately, this scene will continue to play out year after year. Choess (talk) 22:52, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about other reviewers, but ever since 2008 what I did when I encountered Billy's reviews was basically take a zero-tolerance approach: if I saw any thing questionable (whether it be reliability of sourcing, close paraphrase issues, questionable notability, etc.) I just failed the nom without discussion, knowing that Billy already knows better and that he rarely makes a wholehearted attempt to respond to concerns. However, I don't think I ever sought anything more than this (blanket sanctions over all his nominations or anything) because occasionally one or two of his nominations didn't have glaring problems like that. Of course, given that most of the reviewers at DYK are newbies, they don't all know Billy's history and thus probably won't adopt the same zero-tolerance attitude towards his noms, so maybe the time has come to impose more formal restrictions on him. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

My attitude has always been that Billy is a prolific contributor to Misplaced Pages in spite of his issues with sourcing and that I'd hate to do anything to discourage his participation. The close paraphrasing is an additonal concern however - I found a disturbing amount of it in an article of his I looked at yesterday. Billy needs to be made clear that this kind of thing is totally unacceptable and that he must put things in his own words and not simply lift phrases from his sources. If he can't comply with that as a requirement, then clearly further steps will need to be taken. Gatoclass (talk) 03:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Given the level of ongoing copyvio/close paraphrasing coming from this editor, I wonder if Misplaced Pages:Contributor copyright investigations might be the way to go. Even failing the nominations seems insufficient, as someone needs to clean up the mess (or it will remain a problem on Misplaced Pages -- just not at DYK), and Billy's continued addition of this sort of material needs to stop. (I say this having just come across more such problematic material in Hunter Greene, another DYK nomination by Billy.) cmadler (talk) 14:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Billy is a prolific contributor to Misplaced Pages in spite of his issues with sourcing and that I'd hate to do anything to discourage his participation. The close paraphrasing is an additonal concern. Perhaps there is a chance that just one or two are not problematic, making his contributions worthwhile. Would it be any less acceptable if we had a bot that prolifically creates articles by copying from one or other external source? From what I read here, it seems that the community is waking up to the fact that Billy might be becoming a liability instead of an asset to the project. A copyright investigation may well be in order; perhaps also a 6-month ban on DYKs ought to accompany that. --Ohconfucius 06:32, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

• In continuing to check the sources of Hunter Greene, it appears to me that sources 7 & 12 in that article both contain cut-and-paste copyvios from Mr. Greene's own website. Of course, it's not Misplaced Pages's problem, except that in the case of source 7, the cut-and-paste copyvio contains the material being cited here (and in that case, I think it's material that we could reasonably just site to his own website or cut from the article: information about his religious and sporting activities), but it raises concerns about the reliability of two more sources in this article. We are nearing the point where, if not for WP:POLITICIAN, he might be considered non-notable. cmadler (talk) 14:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I've also rejected Alan Seabaugh for extremely close paraphrasing verging on cut-and-paste. The "Background" section of the article follows his law firm bio in both structure and often wording. I will probably request a Contributor copyright investigation tomorrow. cmadler (talk) 20:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

When I used to be more involved in reviewing hooks, I always gritted my teeth when I encountered Billy's. I totally agree with Gatoclass that his contributions are a net positive, but I often either had to say as gently as possible that sometimes they were dull hooks, not quite in accord with the source, or I rewrote them a little bit to avoid the close paraphrasing issues (Reviewers in the Old Days used to be more willing to do rewrite work on an article ... perhaps that could be more strongly encouraged?) Daniel Case (talk) 15:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

• As promised, I've requested a CCI on Billy. See Misplaced Pages:Contributor copyright investigations#Billy Hathorn. cmadler (talk) 13:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Thank you for doing that. I'm two days behind, but just checked about half a dozen his most recent edits, and while a CCI is in order, the sourcing issues are also a very big concern. IMO, this person should not be editing Misplaced Pages at all, and ANI is where this should be.

    The DYK issue is, why did all of you allow this to continue? We have more than hundreds of articles which need to be basically gutted, and why are any of you saying he is a net positive? Based on the articles I just looked at, there is almost nothing salvageable of this person's edits.

    The much bigger problem is that, at DYK, it's Billy Hatorn this week, someone else next week, someone else last month, someone else last year, but there have ALWAYS existed editors who are enabled to continue by the reward of DYK, and DYK has never picked them up. This is a recurring, systemic problem-- Billy Hathorn is only the latest example. How many of you here can even name the top DYK editor who was a serial plagiarized for years, creating 100s of DYKs? I'll wager none of you can :/

    Even if more stringent review standards, and an elimination of QPQ, is put in place, without a directorate or accountability, what will get DYK to stop being the feeding ground where this kind of editing is enabled and encouraged? Who will be responsible? Look how long you all let this go on, look how many purely garbage articles were created, and who is going to clean it all up? I checked about half a dozen articles and didn't find much besides garbage. Why was this not taken to ANI years ago, why were sanctions not put in place, given the number of DYK editors who knew this was going on, and yet this editor continued to get DYKs? There is a systemic problem at DYK. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

    • I'm not really that familiar with ANI; it says that it's not the appropriate venue for content disputes, which is what I think sourcing is, so I'm hesitant to take this there. If you think that's the place, feel free to open a discussion there and I'll chime in. cmadler (talk) 14:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
      • It's not a content dispute, it's a long-standing behavioral dispute-- he doesn't/hasn't acknowledged or addressed past issues. If I ever get caught up (which is unlikely to be today), I'll start the ANI myself. DYK hasn't addressed the issues, so outside admin involvement may help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

"IMO, this person should not be editing Misplaced Pages at all". Sandy, a real Wikipedian would be asking themselves and the community how they could help Billy out, not stating their intention to run him off the site. Once again, you have gone out of your way to demonstrate withering, icy contempt for not only Billy but all of us, no matter how involved we are or not, who believe DYK to be a valuable part of the Main Page despite its imperfections. Daniel Case (talk) 14:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Wrong on too many levels to address. It is abundantly clear that he hasn't addressed these issues for many years, but right now I'm more concerned about the systemic issues prevalent at DYK than addressing one symptom (one editor) that DYK enables, when this one editor is merely the latest in a long string.. Rather than dissing me, why don't one of YOU deal with the issues YOU have created. Yes, DYK has a long-standing systemic problem; no, it shouldn't be on the mainpage until/unless these issues are addressed, and neither should other editors be responsible for addressing and cleaning up DYK-enabled messes. Have you taken a look at the length of the CCI page? Who's going to clean up all of the Hathorn articles, and why didn't you all put an end to this years ago? You've known about it for how many years now ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

We need to know what lessons can be learned from this to enable DYK to identify and monitor problem cases at an earlier stage. The closer reviewer procedures being rolled out now might be a start, but only a start. Do you have any suggestions, Daniel? It is very serious when such flagrant breaches slide under the radar with great ease for a lengthy period. Is "icy contempt" an interpretation of the frustration that dedicated WPians are likely to feel when they see systemic problems unaddressed for years? Other editors have been indeffed for relatively trivial breaches. Tony (talk) 15:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Tony, you have earned my reply to you, not her, because she has done nothing except continue more of the same shrill whining and broad-brushed insult. You are still assuming good faith ... I think I can no say I no longer assume good faith on her part regarding this issue since she demonstrates a complete, almost willful, lack of awareness as to how she comes off.

Perhaps I would be on better grounds offering suggestions had I not reduced my involvement with DYK two years ago when I was writing a book and, well, in the name of time management, one of my usual warm-up tasks had to go. Conveniently, it happened around the time we were automating so much of the process which, as I have said, is part of the problem since that reduced a lot of human involvement which was keyer to catching these things. It might work to go back to that, but anyone who remembers how chaotic DYK used to be doesn't want to do that (And, I admit, back then no one treated it as some sort of quantitative index of their editorial skills. However, that genie's not going back in the bottle, either).

I'm not objecting to the review checklist, bureaucratic as it is in some respects, because it will be an improvement ... although I just realized I'm going to have to set aside a half-hour for a review under my first submission after it went live since it will be my responsibility to review not only the hook but the entire article for possible plagiarism (for which, presumably, it will be my fault as a reviewer if it lifts from proprietary, closed sources (cf. Spears, Carol) that I don't have access to, or God forbid offline ones in libraries half a world away, because if I don't do this I will be barred from submitting new DYK noms for ... two weeks, or some other indeterminate time frame, no matter how extensive and proctological I was. And then, should I find plagiarism, I am supposed to ... what? Rewrite it? Publicly call out an editor I know nothing about who might be new to this and believe that "everyone can edit" but who never had the benefit of having this plagiarism thing properly explained to him or her in school?

"It is very serious when such flagrant breaches slide under the radar with great ease for a lengthy period" ... agreed, but this is hardly unique to DYK, it's a Wikipediawide problem. I'm sure you find as much of the mess as I do that, unfortunately, I have little time to fix beyond a tag and some quick edits.

Yes, it's obvious Sandy's frustrated, but she shouldn't be writing with that frustration; I'd prefer if she used her cool intellect and perhaps did a little more research on who the problematic reviewers/nominators are and who aren't. Anyone with as much knowledge as she claims to have about these problems ought to be specific rather than use this as some sort of platform for self-aggrandizement ... her continued refusal to do so is sending a message that she's not going to be possible to please.

What we really need is not some sort of DYK directorate but a Main Page directorate ... I mean, we've had our share of atrocious FA blurbs which none of the regulars there seem to have been too concerned about. Daniel Case (talk) 19:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

That's an interesting tangent, Daniel Case, but it's not at all clear why I-- or any other editor-- should be required to spend my time documenting what I already know about a system that uses no archives and requires outsiders to search diff by diff to understand where the faults are occurring. I don't think any review list will accomplish anything, since so many regulars here don't seem to know Misplaced Pages policies, and there is no accountability and no method for tracking the hundreds of deficient articles that are created as a direct result of this process. And I have been *quite* specific, but thank you anyway. Perhaps at some point someone will explain to me why DYK has gotten worse on the score of padding of articles with non-reliable sources so the expansion crit. can be met. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, for once, you drop the snideness and I actually feel like replying :-). I have felt for a while that we needed to archive the noms the same way we've done with FAs, FARs PRs ans GAs, as some discussions were becoming expansive enough to have identified issues with the articles that future editors might like to have a record of (In fact, we should have done it at the time that noms were accorded their own sections. But at that point I was not really involved in setting policy anymore, since as I said I stopped making bulk reviews back in 2009 for a variety of reasons). I'm glad we are finally starting ... this will make it easier to catch issues like those you have been concerned about.

As for your second point, I agree that's happened. A couple of times I've submitted noms of NRHP listings that used, as many do, one source primarily ... the nomination form (where I was unable to find anything else, which believe me I do try on every NRHP article I write), which despite the errors that sometimes get through in them are considered reliable sources. And then, people who seemed to feel that, to the exclusion of all else, we should not pass articles with one source, went and added things to the article with questionable sources.

For one example, take Top Cottage: I finished my expansion here and then nominated it, whereupon another user, Mrs EasterBunny (who turns out to have been an Archtransit sock ... wow!), went and frantically added all sorts of stuff in the belief that it hadn't been adequately expanded, producing, ultimately, this, with a long irrelevant personal history of FDR and his son (and, possibly, some borderline sources). Another experience that left a very bitter taste in my mouth was St. Paul's (Zion's) Evangelical Lutheran Church where because I only had one source (the nom) I was pretty much accused of making the whole thing up at one point, photo notwithstanding ... even after I had added some other sources. There were even more I could have included when I searched, but I had to exclude them all as unreliable. So I do see how articles padded with tangential material from questionable sources could get through, especially when people are primarily concerned with the hook facts and whether they're adequately sourced. Daniel Case (talk) 18:27, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

After finding another likely copyvio, I have opened the CCI at Misplaced Pages:Contributor copyright investigations/20110727. MER-C 07:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

To offer my own opinion about why this has gone on so long ... from my experience in the past, Billy would contribute a bunch of articles, nominate them ... and then just disappear for weeks or months at a time before coming back, so not everyone reviewing was aware of the issues as a continuing thing. And those issues, in my experience as a reviewer, did not generally include plagiarism because we were only concerned about the hook, and in those situations where it was a little too close to the source I usually just rewrote it myself. I did, as I stated above, have some issues with the hook writing checks the sources couldn't cash (as it were) or just being dull. And when you did bring those issues to his attention, he was very nice about it and tried to fix things (That might have something to do with it).

I do plead guilty to letting the hooks for some of the plant articles that Carol Spears submitted through (you needed JSTOR access or something like it to check the sources fully, and as mentioned we only tried to verify the hook fact, which I either had to AGF on or sometimes could find it in the article abstract). And I do remember another user we had, can't remember his name, whose articles showed an extreme dependence on his sources when you checked them out. We were all commenting on it on the page at the time, and he was getting real apologetic. Daniel Case (talk) 04:07, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Catching up on 99 posts since I last read here ... OK, so all of this highlights why the problems are systemic at DYK. There is no instituional memory, no "real" person who remembers the who's who of DYK abuse and can watch for subsequent issues, no archives that new reviewers can check, and complex processes without a nom page that make it harder for new (and old) reviewers alike to know about past trends. And all of that means that when someone who has followed the seriousness of these issues for years comes in alarmed that nothing has changed, a whole new crop of newcomers thinks there has been an overreaction or there is no problem :) How on Earth can anyone here check the archives (oh, right, there aren't any) to see just how long and how serious the problems are, and how much worse they have become since QPQ reviewing was instated. A directorate, some accountability, and some archives will help address these problems. Problem nominators and reviewers can be identified and educated before they enable the creation of thousands of policy-deficient stubs that are never improved beyond the stub level, and which encourage the creators to continue the abuse, and which fail to educate either creators or reviewers about policy-compliant Misplaced Pages editing. The problem is, it's Billy Hathorn today, someone else next month, someone else next year-- but the process doesn't pick these editors up or deal with them, because there is no accountability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:34, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I will meet you halfway here ... DYK had a stronger institutional culture at least as of two or three years ago since it was a) a smaller group of people, mostly admins, who did all the reviewing and the manual process of putting queues together and notifying nominators both when there were problems with their hooks and (sometimes) the articles as a whole and when they got on the main page, as well as uploading and protecting the pictures ... all things done more or less by the bot now (This phenomenon of a switch to more automated systems reducing the opportunities for vigilance is discussed at length in a book I cannot recommend highly enough, Edward Tenner's Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (ISBN 9780679747567)). Back then, it was easier to keep things like this in check. I do admit that I think the QPQ reviewing system, although it may have ended any risk of being caught short of articles for the main page (a problem, believe it or not, we once had on more than one occasion) and does remind contributors their job is as much to review others' submissions as it is to create their own content ... don't you at least ask FA nominators to consider reviewing other FACs?), further destroyed the institutional memory we once had. I can live with QPQ, but I could just as easily live without it.

The larger amount of available, reviewed submissions may also not help ... when you knew a hook was likely to go on the main page within 24 hours, you had to make sure it and the article were presentable. Daniel Case (talk) 03:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

don't you at least ask FA nominators to consider reviewing other FACs? I don't know if you're asking me, or in general, but I believe in either case, the answer is "no". We encourage *good* reviewers to review more, and we remind nominators who complain about the backlog that one way to help lower it is to review more nominations. We specifically do *not* require nominators to review because 1) we want to avoid the very QPQ that has taken hold here, and 2) not all good FA writers are good FA reviewers-- they are sometimes different skills. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Daniel and Sandy, it's sounding as though a DYK directorate is almost essential to make the system work well. The buck has to stop somewhere, and we need admins with a brief to coordinate the reviewing, prep area, queuing, and archiving. What about an election for ?four directors. Tony (talk) 04:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Prep area is and always has been handled by just about anyone (and most of the proposals for oversight/extra reviewing have been proposing it at the area of prep-to-queue, not the area of T:TDYK-to-prep). Archiving, as I explained below, is very simple and can also be done by anyone (as it is, removing empty days is done by whoever happens to stop by and notice it, as is adding new days; the archiving system I described below is not really any more complicated than either of those things). I don't see a need for admins or a directorate in either of those areas. As for "coordinating" reviewing and queuing, maybe; right now there doesn't seem to be consensus about that. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:45, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

<indent>I have a strange feeling that a few editors decided that WP has a problem because those particular editors believe so; that the system should be changed so that they can find a diff of a certain edit. In other words, I see the recent activity mostly as self-serving exercise aiming to satisfy a few regulars rather that help writers create high-quality content. The growing complexity of the system repels even regulars like myself. The most important issue in getting proper reviews is to attract reviewers, not to drive them away. So yes, the inflow of noms will be reduced by designing cumbersome rules, as desired, but I see no benefit for WP in all that. On directorate. Tony, note that those who actually compose the sets and promote them are hardly active here. That it is one of the least pleasant roles on wikipedia. So we've got Sandy running around with a flamethrower, looking for someone to scorch and you're trying to find those for her :-). Smile. With all that seriousness of "shoot anyone who makes a mistake" we are killing all that positive atmosphere which existed here and which Daniel partly reflected above. Let me give one example, we had a couple of editors who were regularly going through the T:TDYK lists　and helping the nominators, fixing their articles. Materialscientist (talk) 05:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you missed the entire ANI subpage last year, or the fact that almost every archive you check here mentions copyvio, sourcing, or plagiarism issues. Denying the problem isn't the way forward. Whether it's called a directorate, or a panel of admins who are allowed to put content on the mainpage after cursory checks, or whatever DYKers choose to do, some kind of accountability at the prep or queue level is needed, since without it, we will again be having this discussion in six months, with a new crop of DYK denialists and a new crop of offenders. Again, without accountability, a template will do nothing. How are articles accepted at DYK when the expansion text is padded with non-reliable sources, and who is going to keep track of the next batch of serial plagiarizers? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

He might have missed the AN/I subpage because, contrary to what some Wikipedians think, not everyone hangs out there (I often wonder what it would do to, or rather for the Misplaced Pages community if we just completely banned new AN/I posts for a week), some of us are too busy trying to create and improve content and generally think AN/I is a waste of time and a giant living vampire quid that sucks the life out of Misplaced Pages. Daniel Case (talk) 03:59, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more, but in this case, a relevant discussion of DYK issues was underway. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Hathorn update

August 2, update, copyvio continues even after warnings. I won't have time to keep up with this regularly, but I suggest that admin intervention is needed at this point, and I do hope that some "institutional memory" will be present if another DYK from this author is presented. Checking through his recent contribs, I also see inaccurate representation of sources, non-reliable sources, and padding of articles with irrelevant info. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• OOPSIE! Double checking, I misspoke. The copyvio was not introduced in today's editing, (it was there before), although neither did he clean it up when he revisited. He added that copyvio back in January. So, editing issues continue today, but the copyvio predated this discussion. I did find one instance of too close paraphrasing that I was able to edit myself, as it also contained irrelevant article padding. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
  • All DYK submissions by Billy Hathorn were tagged-and-bagged on July 23 by DYK-regular Gatoclass, see the top of this thread. A CCI thread was filed on July 27 by DYK-regular cmadler. Checking for copyvio/plag/cp in DYK submissions is part of the new review template being used here, and now takes a large fraction of the time to do a review. It would be great to see some recognition from Sandy that DYK collectively took xer complaints seriously and has been working hard to detect/prevent copyvio/plag/cp. Sharktopus 15:43, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
    • The problem is that at least two were still in there two days ago and one marked okay. I checked both at that time and both had copyvio. Here's one marked 'legit' and another one. Both from the same night. Both when I was told not now; not important. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
      • It appears that both of the hooks you linked to were already rejected and removed from the Suggestions page. Cbl62 (talk) 16:01, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
        • No, they were still on the suggestions page and one marked okay. This is one of the problems, finding diffs is hard - I don't see any way of showing that this was on the suggestions page when I edited it. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 16:21, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
          • • I don't see the problem here, perhaps I'm being dense. The suggestions page is full of noms that aren't up to standard as that's where they are checked before being approved. Both of those were checked by you, found wanting, and removed as rejected less than 3 hours later. The "looks legit" comment was in passing and certainly wouldn't have been mistaken for an approval. Yomangani 16:52, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
              • This is in response to the assertion they'd all been removed when in fact they hadn't. I was surprised to find them there; thought they had been removed. I realize the looks legit isn't a stamp of approval, but obviously it wasn't legit as shown when I pulled the first source. That's all. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 17:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
                • They were marked with a notice saying they had to be checked for copyright problems. They were eventually rejected. I don't see what's to complain about. On one of them, someone made a passing comment after a cursory glance at the article and, as far as I can tell, was never claiming that he had done a full review; again, I don't see the problem here. This attitude of eagerness to eat everyone alive is exactly the thing so many people are complaining about here now. It seems like you want to discourage people from ever contributing to any discussions here unless they're willing to stake their firstborn child on it. Again, the article was not passed, what do you have to complain about? rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:07, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
                  • Don't eat her alive in response. Yomangani 17:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
        • After marked legit and then reviewed by TK, hence her point. I'm still struggling to understand the new archive system: where is the archive for this nom? Without an archival file, what accountability is there? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:07, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
          • • • • • The expression "marked legit" was TK's shorthand way to describe someone's in-passing comment "this looks legit," meaning, one guesses, this looks like an article worth a formal review rather than one to be discarded out of hand. The comment "this looks legit" was not a formal review, and certainly not a formal approval. TK was objecting to something I said, also so informally as to be misunderstood. Billy Hathorn's articles were all marked for special scrutiny on July 23, which I loosely described as "bagged and tagged", meaning, grouped into a category (bagged) and labeled for special scrutiny (tagged). I am guessing TK misread my careless remark as a claim that all of them were pulled off T:DYK on July 23. She rightly points out they were not pulled off T:DYK but were still available for review, which afaik not one of them passed. 19:44, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
          • There is no archive for that nom as it was submitted before the new system was in place. Yomangani 16:20, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
            • Thanks, but is there a file of all (weekly or monthly or whatever?) archives? That is needed for accountability. Anyone can review FAC archives, and see *everything* that has gone through FAC, observe trends, generate stats, and criticize or praise as warranted. There is a record of FAC's work, and delegates are accountable. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
              • Category:Passed_DYK_nominations_from_July_2011, Category:Passed_DYK_nominations_from_August_2011, Category:Failed_DYK_nominations_from_July_2011, Category:Failed_DYK_nominations_from_August_2011. Yomangani 16:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

                Thank you, Yo-man! I'm not fond of this system, but have bookmarked it on my userpage so I can remember how to find other months in the future. The problem with Cats is that you have to click on Every Single Nom in the category to glean or gather stats on what happened in a given month-- unlike FAC, where you can review an entire month in one file. But it's better than nothing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

                • Sandy, I already explained the archiving system to you twice, most recently here, where you never responded. I also explained to you here that nominations posted before I introduced the new system are not archived and I have no control over it. I don't want to explain these things to you again; if you didn't understand what I was saying, or weren't satisfied with the archiving system I described, you should have said so days ago. It's not very fun trying to deal with someone who says they don't care enough to comment and then comes back a few days later to complain about the very things I tried to help them with. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
                  • Don't worry about it, the new system is excellent and Sandy will get the hang of it in a while. Yomangani 17:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
                    • She won't if she keeps abandoning these discussions before bothering to read the responses. I'm going to try her talk page. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:13, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
    • It's a nice thought, and I have several times acknowledged improvements that have been noticed in the last two days, but we still disagree on just what has improved and what is still needed (and we certainly disagree that all contributors here took this issue seriously-- it took some serious hammering to get some to tune in :) Unless there is accountability and institutional memory, what new reviewer or admin passing articles to the mainpage is going to remember that Hathorn is banned from DYK six months from now? And a checklist will not accomplish anything as soon as memory fades; in fact, I found (and lost in edit conflict) an example of problems just two days ago. Checklist checked, close paraphrasing still present. A checklist will do nothing in the long run. Would the checklist have prevented the suicide hook? I believe we are allowed to disagree on what has actually improved, right? (VERY happy to see subpages), even as I do acknowledge that, for today anyway, an egregious hook was prevented from running on the mainpage (I was tempted to ask if I wanted to slit my wrists, if I should do it horizontally or vertically, or if I wanted to shoot myself, should I go for the mouth or head  :/  :/) Is there accountability yet? Is there an educational template yet for notifying offenders? When I re-appear saccharin-sweet six months from now with the same egregious issues, will a whole new crop of DYK regulars shoot the messenger? I disagree that the checklist will help: disagreement is allowed here, I hope. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• (ec) I agree with Sharky. I spent an hour-and-a-half doing a review the other day, combing through the sources to try to identify close paraphrasing and to improve prose issues. The nominator was very responsive, and the result was good. If handled appropriately, the more intensive review process can serve an invaluable mentoring function for new and experienced editors. Will some mistakes continue to happen? Of course. But a little "praise" mixed in with the "pillorying" would be nice. Cbl62 (talk) 15:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Again, I've acknowledged some improvements, but disagree that the fundamental issues have been addressed long-term. As the GA folks can attest, praise will come when it's due. Let's have, maybe, a month with nothing egregious on the mainpage, and then talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Sandy, you asked above if new editors will "remember that Hathorn is banned from DYK six months from now"; I may have missed it in the mass of activity here, but I don't recall any such decision being made. (Not that I'd necessarily disagree with it!) cmadler (talk) 17:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you-- I'm glad I'm not the only apparent DYK idiot. I don't think the folks who hang out at this page realize how really awful the DYK pages are to negotiate (and I'm told they weren't this confusing, historically)-- sheesh, no archives and multiple pages to negotiate, along with multiple queues, prep areas, etc-- it all just seems intended to obfuscate responsibility and make it impossible for newcomers to negotiate. I certainly never saw any discussion of him being banned here, and thought I had missed it, again. And I saw some discussion above that "appears legit" wasn't a passing review-- how are newcomers supposed to know that, and considering QPQ reviewing is required here, shouldn't these pages be opaque to newcomers? They Are Not; I thought that review (mentioned above by TK) was passed. And some folks might stop jumping on me for not getting it, because if an experienced editor has a hard time negotiating these pages, what happens to a new editor who is *required* to review by Quid Pro Quo reviewing, or an experienced editor like TK who comes over here to review in good faith, and gets eaten alive? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
• OK, I see the confusion now: someone said "tagged and bagged", not "tagged and banned". I misread or misunderstood. Since there were no archives, it's hard to follow-- what does "Tagged and bagged" mean? Someone checked each one of his noms and found copyvio, or what? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not sure who told you the DYK pages used to be less confusing. You can take a look at what the page looked like before September 2008 (i.e., before User:Backslash Forwardslash, User:Suntag, and I created the template now used for nominations); there were no headers for each nomination, the whole page was just a bulleted list and each nomination was one bullet. Back then, there were no queues and only one prep area, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was simpler, it just meant only one update could be prepared at a time (and thus ever 6-8 hours someone would have to get online and scramble again). rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:16, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• "Less confusing" was an oversimplification of that conversation. When I tried to learn to follow DYK during the October 2010 Debacle, I found that the talk page template, prep area, and four queues led to no accountability and no way to track a nom through DYK (something that your subpages have now somewhat addressed), but the four queues was the worst part of it. I multiple times highlighted problems in noms that were already in queue, and that no one fixed before they went on the mainpage (for example, I highlighted a subsequently deleted non-notable article at DYK on talk, and it ran on the mainpage anyway!!!). The four queues were what made it most unnegotiable to me then, and someone told me it hadn't always been that way-- that that was done to help admins pass the queues to the mainpage on time. My take on that is that only obfuscated responsibility, since admins can pass queues to the mainpage without even reading the bad hooks-- look at the original egregious Hathorn hook that led to all of this, and no admin even recognized that the hook hadn't even been reviewed, but that is old history now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:23, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Billy Hathorn concerns, and feel free to add comments there. cmadler (talk) 16:38, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Regarding the looks legit comment: As I've noted below, I did a search by looking for some sentences on Google. They came back negative, but I had to ABF considering the editor's history. As noted by TK above, it was not legit and so it was rightfully removed. It was not a formal review. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:52, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Helpful tools to identify plagiarism/copyvios

In regards to the peristent copyvio/plagiarism problems at DYK, I wanted to list some helpful tools for reviewers. These work best with websites. For books, the ol' search or side-to-side comparison is needed.

• Duplication Detector
  • Can compare two different URLs and/or files.
  • For the best accuracy, use the current article revision, not the default URL. I.e http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Channel_(geography)&oldid=440965051 not http://en.wikipedia.org/Channel_(geography).
  • Always read the non-bolded words around the matched text in a comparison. Although a few words may only match, close-paraphrasing may be apparent.
• The Earwig Copyright Violation Detector
  • Just be careful of mirrors.
• Internet Archive's Wayback Machine
  • Very helpful in determining the age of a webpage. With this you can determine whether another site mirrored one of our articles.
  • Works best with websites based in the U.S.

A great how-to guide can also be found here.--NortyNort (Holla) 04:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The Duplication Dictator is lots of fun. Hmmm, let's see... random Geography GAs... nope, nope... nope ..., here is one (Ein Avdat from here). Close enough to check same editor's others articles... yup: Al-Muallaq Mosque almost verbatim from here. And let's see... and , Rochdale Town Hall from here and here, not as bad but definitely in the "close paraphrase" territory. This too I think . So about 30 mins of searching yields 3 potential copyvio/close paraphrase GAs + 1 old DYK (and I notice lots of these GAs have a buttload of deadlinks)Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Before we cast too many aspersions at the clearly-failed GA process, I've personally been the 'victim' of the reverse effect: a website copies the prose from Misplaced Pages verbatim without credit or reference. The team history on the Oklahoma Thunder official website seems darned familiar, for example, because I wrote it here and they copied it there. - Dravecky (talk) 20:26, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

That's an excellent point, which I've also encounted, hence Volunteer Marek's suggestion to use the Wayback Machine to check for that exact issue. cmadler (talk) 12:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

One thing that should be done, if using these checking tools, is to not to state anything purely on the results obtained, but to take the time to open the sources and read them together with the article, and to make sure you can justify any conclusions you come to. Blithely stating that something is a potential copyvio/close paraphrase is a bit of a cop-out. It either is or isn't, or you are not sure. Saying it might be, based purely on an automated check is not that helpful if not followed up. And if you conclude that it is problematic, you need to be able to justify that based on a reading of the sources and the article, not just a regurgitation of what an automatic checker has picked up. This is, though, time-consuming for longer articles. If an article is fairly long, it should be acceptable to say that spotchecks have been done (and there is a page around somewhere with tips on how to carry out spotchecks). Carcharoth (talk) 04:29, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Better still ... (sadly, CorenSearchBot not working now)

We have a great bot that searches new articles for copyvio. Why can't it, or a similar bot, be programmed to search articles that have suddenly undergone expansion as well? This is a greater issue than DYK; doing so would benefit the entire project since, obviously, copyvio or plagiarism isn't just introduced when an article is created. Daniel Case (talk) 04:10, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Good tool I forgot to mention. You can manually check articles as well. The bot has been down the past few days though.--NortyNort (Holla) 13:56, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, that helps, but it is severely limited: you get false positives from sites that derive material from Misplaced Pages (particularly for expand noms, since those tend to have been around longer), and false negatives, for example where the source used is offline. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

No one said it was perfect ... those have always been issues with plagiarism. Perhaps the bot's programming could be altered to exclude known mirrors, or put them in a separate list. And there's really nothing we can do about plagiarism of offline sources, but not all plagiarists are that smart. Daniel Case (talk) 14:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

• Sad to say, Coren's searchbot is out of service and has been since July 25:User_talk:Coren#CSBot_down. The free API it was using disappeared and Coren is working to get a new one going as of his most recent post on the topic today, August 1. Sharktopus 13:45, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Corenbot's usefulness is limited-- it won't address DYK's problems. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Separating out reform discussions

Just a note to say that the separating out of the reform discussions to Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals. is not yet finished. If no-one else does it, I hope to carry on doing it tonight. But it is possible the archive bot may sweep up some sections and dump them in the archives if this is left too long. The sections can be retrieved from there, but it would be better if the moving of various sections from here to there carried on. Also, note some people are starting to edit that other page, so people here need to watchlist that page as well. Carcharoth (talk) 08:31, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Turned out I had no time this week for anything on Misplaced Pages. What do people here want done with the threads at Misplaced Pages:Did you know/2011 reform proposals? Currently, some of the threads that I had intended to move there have ended up in the archives (due to the archive bot). If you want those threads that I moved to the subpage to be archived in the archives, I'm happy to do that. I do think that some list of the reform-related threads should be made and a summary written to help keep track of all this. But what I want first is to get everything in one place, rather than the half-moved stuff (which is my fault really, for starting and not finishing, though that was because I underestimated how long it would take and how much there was). There is a partial list of the reform threads at the top of this page. Carcharoth (talk) 11:35, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

If no-one replies before this section is archived by the bot, I'll do my best to tidy up what I started, probably by just adding the subpage to the archive box above (along with the partial list at the top of this page) and making clear that it is incomplete, and that other reform discussions are present in the archives. Carcharoth (talk) 13:36, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Moving forward II

I am probably going to lose access to the net for a week or two shortly, so I thought I would summarize some of my ideas about what needs to be done from this point.

• Firstly, I would like to see Rjanag finish the checklists he was working on. I'm not sure what their status is right now - I left him a message on his talk page but so far he didn't reply. I think these checklists should be the basis of the new checklist system.
• Regarding the proposed requirement for QPQ reviewers to do a check for plagiarism, I don't think we can reasonably expect them to thoroughly check every source. I would suggest a spotcheck on one or two sources chosen at random, preferably the main online source or sources used by the article.
• There will need to be a page somewhere outlining the new reviewing requirements and giving some basic instructions.
• Several users have proposed the notion of an admin directorate to oversee DYK. While this notion sounds good in theory, in practice I don't think we have the manpower. However, I do support the notion of more accountability for admins loading the queue. My suggestion would be for the loading admin to be required to sign off on some sort of boilerplate statement confirming that he has made a series of basic checks to the update. This would include scanning each hook for comprehension, grammar and hookiness, and scanning each article for obvious problems like NPOV and BLP violations, and source quality. Possibly we could include a requirement to scan the discussion that led to promotion of the hook, but that would only be feasible IMO if links to the discussion were included directly on the update page. I'm concerned that some admins may have started treating uploading as merely a mechanical process, an obligation to sign a statement would help remind uploaders of their responsibilities and return the oversighting function to the process.
• A couple of years ago I proposed automatic disqualification for articles containing copyvio, plagiarism or close paraphrasing. The proposal did not achieve consensus then but I think it may be time to revisit the idea. As long as there are no consequences for close paraphrasing, there's no real disincentive not to engage in it. If users know their articles can be disqualified for it, they are far more likely to make the effort to ensure their prose is original.

There are probably some additional issues, but these are the main points I wanted to make ATM. Gatoclass (talk) 14:05, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Gato, these are helpful and informative. The spotcheck idea would be especially practical now that CorenSearchBot is busted. Reviewers need to take responsibility, but we need to make our demands on them clear and finite. I really appreciate the way Tony1 and others are creating practical tools to reduce copyvio and too-close paraprase.

I think permanently disqualifying an article for CV/CP/PLAG would be a good disincentive the SECOND time the same author got called on one of these issues. The first time, I think, we should AGF and just make them fix it before it could run. Sharktopus 15:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

If you are reviewing an article and find CV/CP/PLAG, how do you know if it a first, second, or subsequent instance for that editor? cmadler (talk) 15:45, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I am reluctant to veto an article by somebody new, whose common beginners' mistake then gets tagged with the same hurtful/embarrassing/shameful terms as a willful dishonesty of repeat offenders. How about this instead -- if the person has more than 5 DYK credits, we reject any CV/CP/PLAG. But let's recycle some of the polite/unhurtful language the MoonRiddenGirl uses for notification. Sharktopus 16:54, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I certainly agree that we don't want to get bitey with new editors, and I'd accept giving a truly new editor the chance to fix such an error. But any editor who's been around long enough to get more than a couple DYK credits, or probably even a single GA, FA, FL, etc. should know better. cmadler (talk) 18:02, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

As someone who is a new administrator here (e.g. approving hooks and moving things about), can I also make a few suggestions? Please bear in mind that this is as I said, coming from an utterly bewildered standpoint:

• Yes more accountability for administrators - but less fear of God please - Ok, DYK being on the front page is a very big deal, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason there aren't more administrators volunteering for this job is a combination of sheer effort involved and the threat of crucifixion. If we could be more encouraging to administrators, rather than scaring them, there may even be enough for a directorate, which would then mean lots more accountability but with a shared responsibility.
• More editor participation - again, it's a question of coaxing people. No one appears willing to move approved nominations to the prep areas and this appears to be again, because of the fear of God. Let's try and reduce that so that both workload and responsibility are shared with the entirety of the DYK community.
• A clearer page at T:TDYK - Tony1's new system is awesome, but there are still many discussions which reach multiple paragraphs and people don't appear to be willing to look at these. That means that when a hook gets moved into the prep queue and editors are willing to look at it, they disagree with the discussion or find something they don't like, and it's a duplication of efforts. Not good.

Anyway, just a few ideas. Friendship and happiness and all of that. Panyd 18:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

For my part, I've gone to T:TDYK a few times lately intending to do some reviews or even just some light housekeeping, but found myself so lost in the maze of templates that I've just given up. Combine the substantially increased complexity of reviewing through multiple levels of templates with the ongoing harassment of reviewers who let sub-GA-quality articles through and it just doesn't really seem worth the effort. cmadler (talk) 19:12, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

But the templates themselves help people to review under the new system. So wouldn't just clearing up the page, maybe making everything a header leading to a sub-page, be a good idea? Panyd 19:22, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

That's a worthwhile collection of suggestions. Thanks to Gatoclass for getting this discussion started. Some semi-random thoughts:

• I agree that reviewers cannot be expected to check all cited sources for plagiarism. The point should be to have your eyes open to the possibility, look for it, and document it if it is found.
• A shortcoming in our review process, both for hook sourcing and for plagiarism checking, is our willingness to "assume good faith" regarding offline and foreign-language sources.
• Based on my experience, the biggest challenge in dealing with plagiarism and similar issues at DYK is not likely to be in detecting it, but rather fending off the social pressure from the contributor -- and sometimes the contributor's friends -- to "be a good egg and quit your hard-ass routine." That social pressure is real, and given the dynamics of the Misplaced Pages community, I imagine it has a powerful effect on some of our colleagues. (I'm particularly mindful of this as an issue because one of the users who was most vocal in opposition to my RfA, and managed to talk some other people into !vote "oppose", was someone whose only previous interaction with me had been over a DYK nom that I tried to reject because the article was a mess of material copied verbatim from sources. The fact that someone else approved his DYK only helped give him ammunition.) Measures that reduce reviewers' potential susceptibility to social pressure are desirable.
• I don't see the value in requiring administrators to sign off on some boilerplate statement when we approve a queue. When I approve a queue, including copying the hooks to the queue slot and adding the "botdo" template (which I don't add until I've finished all of the other steps), my name is in the history and I'm accountable. The only "benefit" from adding a boilerplate statement to sign is that I'm likely to be less willing to load queues, because there will be one more step.
• Like others, I'm reluctant to blanket-reject problematic DYK noms because of issues with the articles. Review and improvement of DYK noms with relatively minor problems is often a good opportunity to help the contributors improve their work and get lessons for the future. However, I propose creating some categories on DYK contributors, based on the quality of their past work:

• Validated journeyman DYK contributors. These are contributors who are "known" to the DYK community, based on an evaluation of their multiple DYK contributions (more than 5) and their past review work -- or possibly their article contributions elsewhere, as people who generally understand and follow the rules. Their suggestions should be reviewed carefully (nobody's perfect all the time!), but DYK reviewers can be comfortable AGF-ing their offline sources and will not be hyper-concerned about searching for plagiarism-type issues.
• Probationary DYK contributors. These are contributors with a record of submitting hooks for articles that are copyvios, writing hooks unsupported by the articles or sources, passing off as "new" content from another source, etc. Their work will be closely scrutinized (viewed with suspicion) -- and rejected if there are questions the reviewers can't resolve satisfactorily without significant effort (for example, we might choose not to AGF their offline sources).
• Banned DYK contributors. One level worse than probationary!!
• Regular DYK contributors. This group is everyone else, including newbie DYK contributors, users who do good work but haven't bothered to try to become "validated journeymen," and users who formerly were on probation. Their work may get more careful scrutiny than the work of validated journeymen (for example, we will be less casual about AGFing offline sources), but as a general rule, they will treated as good-faith contributors.

I guess this user classification system (which is still poorly defined) would be in lieu of an admin directorate (which I think would be impracticable), but it would necessitate som new bureaucracy... It would, however, begin to address the "AGF" problem, and I think it would reduce the influence of social pressure on the process. --Orlady (talk) 02:07, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment on your other suggestions for now, but I really do think we need a detailed sign-off for admins moving updates into the queue. The problem IMO is that there has been an increasing reliance on the process rather than on personal responsibility. I know from my own experience that there have been times when I've been too lazy or too busy to do much checking on the individual noms and decided to rely on the process, and I'm quite sure I'm far from alone in this. But I also know that if I was confronted with the necessity of confirming that I have actually completed a checklist, I will make those checks because I take my responsibilities as an admin seriously and I'd feel very uncomfortable about signing my nic to a falsehood (to say nothing of the potential embarrassment at letting a howler through from failing to run a check).

Most admins are responsible people. The point though, is that sometimes it's necessary to remind people of what their responsibilities are, otherwise they will inevitably take shortcuts. Gatoclass (talk) 03:00, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

You'll forgive me I hope if I suggest that there needs to be a carrot to go with that stick other than no one yelled at me today. Panyd 12:45, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Most admins are responsible people. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:45, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see it as a stick - on the contrary, I see it as a way of encouraging greater engagement. I think part of the problem has been that the process has become so automated, that many of the admins who used to hang around no longer bother because they don't feel needed anymore. Give them something to do and I think we will quickly see a new crop of admins pitching in to help keep the updates running the way they used to do. Gatoclass (talk) 13:26, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

It will be interesting to see if that's true. I'd think that adding another step in the process would discourage participation rather than encourage it. Yomangani 14:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

It may initially discourage it. However, once it becomes clear that hooks are not being loaded in a timely manner, I'm confident that admins will step in to help out. And if this continues to occur, they will get used to the idea that this is something they need to keep an eye on. This is basically how the system worked when I first got involved several years ago, and I was drawn into contributing here in precisely the manner described - and so were many others. Gatoclass (talk) 16:17, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to once again be the bearer of bad news, but without accountability at the admin level and a means of developing institutional memory based on knowledge of copyvio and plagiarism, neither the template nor this user rating system are going to work. Some of your "best" reviewers are still passing close paraphrasing under the new template system, and several of the editors at the top of the leading DYKer list are serial plagiarizers, so if you confer some sort of status based on number of DYKs without the rest of what is missing, you're just continuing the same ole same ole-- giving license for serial plagiarizers to continue doing what they did on hundreds of DYKS. Furthermore, it's not really DYK's "job" to decide how to handle serial offenders; you put the copyvio tag on the article and notify CCI and the editor as specified in the tag-- it's their job to decide what action is needed. DYK is in an optimal position to identify those who don't know copyvio/plagiarism/close paraphrasing early on and bring those editors to the attention of the CCI people-- it's not your place to decide how to handle them ala "punishment". It's not about "punishment"-- it's about "education", and the CCCI folks have the tools to check all of that editor's contribs. I assure you that if someone opened a CCI on some members of the top DYKer list, we'd tax the system or break the internet :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

My wording regarding the "validated contributors" was incomplete. I have added some clarification in bold. I never intended that to be based solely on DYK count or edit count or review count, but rather an evaluation by the DYK community of the quality of their body of work. There are several productive DYK contributors that I would not support for such a status because their work too often has been sub-par. --Orlady (talk) 14:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia - Education is all very well and good, as is accountability, but if we're not nicer to newbies to DYK then we won't have any soon enough. Being abrasive is a very different ball game to constructive education. Panyd 17:48, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

@Orlady, regarding your comments about AGFing offline and foreign-language sources: I think AGFing most of these sorts of sources is inevitable. Some offline sources are difficult to get one's hands on at short notice (may require interlibrary loans or something like that, and that's assuming the reviewer even has access to a good library—some don't), and I don't think it's feasible for reviewers to gather up several noms' worth of books on a weekly or daily basis, unless we turn this into FA lite. (I think even many GA reviewers AGF offline sources; for that matter, I've had FACs in which I don't think any reviewers checked my offline sources, but just took my word for what I said was in them.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

• I had also been thinking about some sort of DYK contributor rating system. I'm not sure how it would be implemented, but given that reviewing time is finite, it would make sense to spend more of it with new editors (who may not yet be aware of all the issues) and problem editors (e.g. Billy Hathorn), and less time on editors whose body of contributions indicates an understanding of (and willingness to work within) applicable constraints. This is similar to Sandy's comment about FAC, where unknown (to her) editors get close scrutiny, while known editors who have proven themselves get just a light check. This doesn't necessarily apply just to AGF of offline sources, but to the general level of scrutiny given. cmadler (talk) 18:18, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
  • What it sounded like to me was a system similar to WP:Autopatrolled status, whereby participants can "apply" for this status and be reviewed by more senior participants. Beyond that, though, I'm not sure how one would keep track of who has what status, except by having a list somewhere and hoping reviewers remember who's on it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:26, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

@Gatoclass - I completely believe you when you say that you're responsible and take your duties seriously. For that reason, I would ask that you move some hooks into the prep areas and then the queues - doing all of the necessary footwork that comes along with that - and then tell me that it's automated. You could do it in an automated fashion, but you'd make so many mistakes that SandyGeorgia would murder you whilst you slept. As it stands, I've made a few mistakes myself learning this process and been told I should know better amongst other things in a rather abrasive manner. Now I don't consider myself to be doing this lightly or with an automaton-esque stance, it takes a good hour or so to make one prep work, let alone four of them. Something needs to be done to address the workload vs. payoff issue. Especially when, when a mistake is even thought to have been made, the first question asked is not What am I missing here? but Who approved this. It's a witch-hunt I tells ya! Panyd 12:22, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Problems at Template_talk:Did_you_know/Tatanua_mask

The article Tatanua mask was based on a translation of an article in Indonesian Misplaced Pages. I found some copy/plag issues that turned out to originate in the Indonesian article, which was (if one removes the infringing paragraph) no more than a stub.

Victuallers, who had nominated the article, listed the creator of the Indonesian article as DYK-Maker, a credit I feel should be removed from the template. I "struck" the DYK Make credit and put Victuallers, who has been doing a substantial rewrite, as DYK maker. The Template page does not reflect this, however, and I don't know how to change it.

I also am also unclear what our policy is for including translated wikitext in the minimum character count required for DYK. IIRC, copied PD stuff isn't included but a translation does seem closer to "new." Sharktopus 16:43, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Translated material has generally been accepted as "new" content. Keep in mind that normal rules regarding sourcing still apply however, regardless of how well (or poorly) sourced the other-language Misplaced Pages article is. cmadler (talk) 17:33, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

But translated material can still be a copyright violation (this is part of the reason why so many translations of non-English literature into English suck so badly - no competition, but that's OT) if it's done verbatim or literally. You STILL need to paraphrase the info when translating - which is what I think the issue was here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:48, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Victuallers withdrew the nom. Sharktopus 02:20, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I was responding specifically to Sharktopus's last comment ("I also am also unclear what our policy is for including translated wikitext in the minimum character count required for DYK."). If the foreign-language content is free (so there's no copyvio issue) and is given as the source in the edit summary (so there's no plagiarism issue), a translation is counted as "new" content for DYK's newness/expansion purposes. Obviously a translation of non-free material remains non-free, as a derivative work, and so can't be accepted on Misplaced Pages; I thought that went without saying, but I guess not. cmadler (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Just a note-- verbatim translations are copyvio (or plagiarism as the case may be), too; I've noticed a number of Indonesian translations, and wonder who is consulting the original source to make sure they aren't copyvio (if anyone ever wants a Spanish-language copyvio check, pls ping my talk and I'll gladly do it. Titoxd or Yomangani can also do those, but someone should be checking translations). WP:NONENG discusses how to handle non-English sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:42, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

When we say "verbatim translations are copyvio", are we talking about translations of the original-language articles, or original-language articles which themselves may have been copypasted from another source? My understanding (I've seen a fair amount of articles I've written translated into German and other languages, largely as I wrote them, from those languages that I can read) is that in the former case all the licensing requires is acknowledgement that it was translated from the corresponding article on the other-language wiki, whereas in the latter our usual procedures would apply. (There have been some major plagiarism incidents on the other wikis ... in addition to all that stuff from the old East German encyclopedia that found its way onto dewiki, the frwiki article on "Freedom" was found to have been largely copied from a school textbook some while back. So of course we have to be careful).

And how "verbatim" does it have to be (to the extent that anything other than the most mechanical machine translation can be called "verbatim")? Even the most rudimentary translation requires making syntactical shifts, accounting for idioms, changing prepositions and whatever other adjustments are necessary in order to render the text accurately into the target language ... all things that, when done with source text in English, help avoid close paraphrasing. Is there some clarification somewhere on what degree of this in translation is necessary? Daniel Case (talk) 19:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Addendum: OK, here it is:

Translations of copyrighted text, even from other Wikimedia projects, are derivative works, and attribution must be given to satisfy licensing requirements. When translating material from a Wikimedia project licensed under CC-By-SA, a note identifying the Wikimedia source (such as an interlanguage link) should be made in edit summary and a link left to the original at the article's talk page. The template {{Translated page}} is available for this purpose.

Daniel Case (talk) 22:23, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Geeeeez, that is just so wrong on so many levels. Never mind that the very principle of translating without reading sources violates VP:V, because other Wikis are not reliable sources. Anyway, that's not a discussion for this page. Poor sourcing of translations, or verbatim or plagiarized translations aside, if anyone wants me to look at Spanish sources to check for copyvio, plagiarism or close paraphrasing (a process which is EXACTLY like it is in English), please do ping my talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:06, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Translating articles from other-language editions of Misplaced Pages without looking at the sources does have problems with WP:V, but it's not the same problem as plagiarizing or violating copyright. In particular, if the translator leaves the text unreferenced, then it's already clear that references need to be added, and thus the end result isn't really any worse than writing content without adding references anyway (which, again, is not in line with WP:V, but also not something someone needs to be tarred and feathered over unless they have a long history of it). It's perfectly acceptable to use translated text from another edition of WP as a starting point and then reference and improve it over time; Misplaced Pages is not finished. For example, when I created Suanmeitang I started by translating much of the text directly from Chinese Misplaced Pages, attributing, adding sources to statements when I could find sources, and adding to statements when I couldn't; there are still a couple statements tagged as needing citations, and anyone is welcome to improve the article if they want, and I don't think I've broken the wiki. — Rjanag 02:21, 3 August 2011 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

but it's not the same problem as plagiarizing or violating copyright. I don't think so ... if there was copyvio or plagiarism in the other Wiki, we'll be importing it into en.wiki. Again, without reading the sources, one doesn't know, and we should never be writing articles based on other non-reliable sources (other Wikis)-- we should be writing articles based on soures. If the other Wiki had a copyvio, we are continuing the copyvio, and you don't know that unless you read the sources. We also don't know if we're accurately representing the sources, but that's another problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:37, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I know it's been said before by other editors, but the hostile attitude of these discussions is getting a bit old. I want to improve the encyclopedia as much as anyone else, but I don't appreciate the veiled accusations that anyone whose articles aren't perfect from the very first edit, or whose ways of editing aren't the same as the FAC crowd's, is just as bad as a copyright violator or a plagiarizer. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:21, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Copyright violation is a legal issue; it's not about whether articles are perfect or not, it's about whether someone is breaking the law and Wiki is allowing, condoning, enabling it. If you translate and import plagiarism because you haven't checked reliable sources, there is no personal animosity, but I don't know how to embrace with open arms the lax attitude at DYK to such editing. Of course, the "hostile attitude" may have been nipped in the bud way back when Truthkeeper88 was dissed soundly here, or at "namby-pamby newbie"-style personal attacks being thrown around here by regulars. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

+1 to your first graf ... that's how this is supposed to work. The GFDL/CC is meant to encourage that sort of translating in order that knowledge propagate more freely. I write most of this; someone at the Spanish Misplaced Pages translates it (at least an earlier version of the article). I don't need to be Sandy the Spanish expert to see that it was clearly a close paraphrase over there, and without any citation (There actually was once something crediting that, something about an attempt to translate all our GAs, but it seems to have disappeared. Whatever; that's the editors' problem over there. Not mine; although no doubt Sandy will go over there and do her best Sofia Vergara impression to shape them up. I cited my sources, they can check them and add them too).

Certainly when translating, we should follow all our own policies with regard to editorial material ... why would we not? But if something is properly sourced in French or Russian, say, (where I would be most comfortable reviewing source material), I see no reason why we would have to reinvent the wheel if an editor at one of those wikis has written an effective article or section that would meet our standards once translated and properly attributed. Daniel Case (talk) 03:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

that's the editors' problem over there. Not mine; although no doubt Sandy will go over there and do her best Sofia Vergara impression to shape them up. ' Did someone mention "hostile attitude" somewhere on this page <cough, cough>? Seriously, if I had a last name like "Vergara", I'd see a judge about having it changed (threw that in just to see if Yo-man is still reading, since he *does* have a memory). Query: if you import a copyvio or non-reliable text into another language Wiki, where it is even less likely that editors who don't speak that language will detect it, how do you feel good about adding that to "the sum of all human knowledge"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

You don't find being compared to her flattering :-)? Anyway, what I wrote over here had sources; the editor at the Spanish Misplaced Pages chose to import it there and translate it without them. Is it supposed to be my responsibility now that he or she did so?

Most texts here that get imported to other-language wikis are imported by editors from that wiki; it's their job to bring over the sources and footnotes as policies on that wiki require.

And would I just import and translate text from one of the other wikis? Certainly I would check sources. In fact, the most recent time I was doing this (over a year and a half ago, actually), I pretty much just wrote away in English based on the source cited there because the original was just a stub with that one source at that point. But, with more developed original-language prose, once the source is verified, I see no problem with just translating, citing the same sources, making whatever editorial changes we need for our policies and attributing properly. Daniel Case (talk) 04:52, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing/plagiarism/copyvio in the template

The template has a field for plagiarism/close paraphrasing, and another field for copyvio. I think it's one too many fields. Many editors are still confused about the difference between plagiarism, close paraphrasing and copyvio, so I think it's hard for everyone to know how to fill out the template. I'm not entirely sure if this is this right course, but I'm inclined to suggest removing the copyvio field and leaving the close paraphrasing/plagiarism field. Input? Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Remove copyvio or merge the two fields. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:54, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The other template has them merged. Just sayin'. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:19, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

That's better. I'd suggest it be renamed as "spotchecks" or something like that - if plagiarism is checked, does that mean there's none, or it exists? Also, plagiarism doesn't cover the issue of close paraphrasing. Anyway, I was going through filling in the existing templates on the page where apparently no spotchecks had been done. Somehow we have to come to terms with the correct terminology. And also of the reviews I have done tonight I've found problems although some had been ticked good to go, fwiw. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:34, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

"Spotchecks" is too vague and might mean anything. It should be clear that "plagiarism" also means copyvio/close paraphrasing, that can be spelled out elsewhere - in a hidden comment if necessary. A tick means a pass, I think reviewers will learn that quickly enough. Gatoclass (talk) 03:08, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Right. Point taken. And btw, I disagree that people will know that copyvio includes close paraphrasing. I'm trying to help here; I don't need to; I have other things to do with my time, and other thing I'd rather be doing on wikipedia. All I'm doing is making a suggestion, but I get the clear feeling that I've been lumped in with the the so called "fac crowd" and am not welcome, which is fine. In the meantime, I've marked issues with some submissions tonight; some of them had been passed, without having spotchecks, and spotchecks undercovered plagiarism and copyvios. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:32, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you got that impression TK, but I can assure you in my case at least there were no such sentiments - I assumed your comments were made with the best interests of the project in mind and that is how I interpreted them. Constructive criticism will always be welcome here as far as I'm concerned, though of course I'm not obliged to agree with it :) But please don't let that deter you from participation, criticism is necessary to the health of the project and it is only through discussion that problems can be identified and rectified. Gatoclass (talk) 03:56, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Remarks that I'm a novice reviewer and don't know what I'm doing started it. Then when I offered to spend time spotchecking , that offer was ignored in this answer . The response above that spotchecks doesn't mean anything is only true if we refuse to define the phrase and don't embed it in instructions. And no, plagiarism does not mean close paraphrasing and that's where the disconnect comes in. Until the people here familiarize themselves with WP:Close paraphrasing, and I'd suggest reading the very useful discussion at the bottom of the talk page, submissions will be continued to be passed that contain copyvio. These terms are difficult to understand, but we need to make an effort to teach the distinctions, and in my view DYK is a place to do so. The response that ticks mean a pass is problematic because I had to overturn two ticks (passes) last night in submissions where the articles had either outright plagiarism or close paraphrasing. I happen to like DYK, but won't hang around to help if suggestions are routinely ignored. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Well I don't recall ever saying you don't know what you're doing, so I hope I'm not copping the blame for that. Please try to keep in mind that there is a lot of exasperation around at the moment due to the heated debate that's gone on at this page for the last couple of weeks, I can assure you that you are not the only one who has had cause to take offence at some of the things being said. And I'm sorry for missing your offer to check for plagiarism, but I had bigger fish to fry at the time. Of course we would welcome such assistance.

In regards to the "spotcheck" suggestion however, I still don't like it, I think it's important to remind QPQ reviewers of what they are looking for, we don't want them claiming they thought they were only supposed to be spotchecking for grammatical errors for example. "Plagiarism" may not be a completely accurate term but we need a concise term as the template doesn't have room for extended labels, and as I said earlier, we can add the fine distinctions in a hidden text message output by the template. "Plagiarism" seems like the best term to me ATM but if necessary there can be a discussion about it, however I'd prefer not to get into an extended discussion about labelling right now because there are more important issues to resolve. Gatoclass (talk) 14:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't share your sentiments about "exasperation around at the moment"; in fact, I get a sense today that some readers here are finally paying attention and trying to move forward. However, your statements above are a step backwards and quite alarming. Sloppiness in terminology and space requirements/needs are not an excuse to continue misconceptions and lack of education about the differences etc between plagiarism, close paraphrsing, copyvio, etc. You don't seem willing to take these matters seriously enough-- they are not one and the same, and labeling it all "plagiarism" does a disservice to wikipedia and the uneducated editors who commit these. Copyvio is a legal matter; too close paraphrasing, when copyvio is not also present in history, is more of an ethical issue, but it's important to know the differences and how to search history. Continuing to misinform about the seriousness of copyvio with sloppy "plagiarism" terminology is wrong, and is also more likely to offend editors, since plagiarism is such a loaded term. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:27, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't share your sentiments about "exasperation around at the moment" That's rather ironic, because with that post you just added considerably to mine. Yes, we were starting to make progress until you turned up, but now it's immediately back to attacks on the competence and integrity of the DYK peasants. I did suggest to you several days ago that if you couldn't participate here without constantly personalizing the issues, it would be better if you didn't participate at all. I wish you would take that advice, one way or the other, because this hostile, bullying attitude of yours is totally unhelpful. Gatoclass (talk) 16:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thus speaks the real "hostile bully". How ironic. Malleus Fatuorum 16:07, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm wondering why you read "hostile, bullying attitude" into attempts to highlight the importance of understanding copyvio/plagiarism/close paraphrasing and early attempts at educating editors on same at DYK, where they often occur, before they grow into a serious problem affecting hundreds of articles. Which jogs my memory. My apologies if my memory is faulty, but weren't you one of the group of editors who advocated that cut-and-paste from DANFS was just fine, and who got a number of DYKs doing just that? If that is the case, and again my apologies if I'm mis-remembering, then your opinions on these matters might be skewed. Before the 2009 push to educate on these matters occurred, I too would have thought that kind of editing to be OK for Misplaced Pages, but those education efforts (the Dispatch) had some effect on my perception. You might consider how many of the authors of that Dispatch are still editing, and consider which of our truly finest left Misplaced Pages in disgust over DYK. Just a thought-- perhaps some of us know of what we speak, and have actually been quite gentle on you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm wondering why you read "hostile, bullying attitude"

Well let's see now, my actions are alarming, I'm taking a step backwards (as opposed to nameless others who unlike myself are making progress), I'm sloppy and making excuses, not willing to take seriously, doing a disservice to wikipedia, misinforming and offend editors, but your post was not hostile at all. I guess I just imagined all that. Gatoclass (talk) 16:34, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Gatoclass as far as I know we've never interacted. All I know about you is that your name occasionally showed up on my page with DYK notifications. I've made an offer - to make time for spotchecks - and a recommendation regarding terminology. You dismissed both, quickly. People have to be able to make recommendations, otherwise they'll disappear, and it will be business as usual around here. My fear is that if that's the case, business as usual will tank DYK. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 16:41, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Truthkeeper, with respect, I most emphatically did not dismiss your offer to do spotchecks - I simply missed it on the first occasion, and when you brought it to my attention, welcomed it. In regards to your terminology recommendation, I did not dismiss that either, I simply disagreed with it - and in fact signalled a willingness to discuss the issue, but preferably not at this time when there are more basic problems to resolve. However, if you insist on having the discussion now, fine, let's do it. Only for me personally, it will have to wait until tomorrow as I'm very tired and about to log off. Gatoclass (talk) 16:57, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the main point, which I'm about to give up with, is that problems exist here with copyvio. When Sandy uncovered the first Billy Hathorne article, that I reviewed, the mantra was, "well it doesn't matter because that's what happens with novice reviewers" and no one admitted the real problem. When I offered assistance, the response was a little bitey and long the lines that I lied about FAC. When I raised the issue of terminology, the response was to disagree. The issue that has been ignored and continues to be ignored, is that issues exist with the quality of the submissions. After my reviews last night, I'm not seeing changes. I'm seeing problem submissions checked as good to go. In my view the most basic problem at DYK at the moment is to minimize the number of submissions that make it to the main page with copyvio still in place. I'm fairly good at spotchecking, have done a lot of it, but if it become an issue of "not at this time" that's fine. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 18:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Another one bites the dust :) We see frequent lamentations of DYK writers leaving when they were caught plagiarizing or violating copyvio, but very few mentions of very good reviewers who left DYK in disgust (in fact, even left the project in disgust) at the level of plagiarism at DYK, or the fact that trying to change it is like banging your head against a wall. Anyway, Gatoclass, no answer on DANFS? Should I assume that means that you continue to create articles by cut-and-paste from DANFS, which means you have a pony in this race, which could explain why you are so defensive and assume that every word written is directed at you, hence take things so personally? Perhaps you can set your own conflict/bias aside, and let general discussion of the problem happen; it appears to be you deciding that the shoe fits, not me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have no "pony in the race", IIRC I haven't authored an article solely based on DANFS for literally years. But there is no issue with direct use of DANFS text in any case provided the text is properly attributed, so I can't imagine what point you think you are making. And please, stop misrepresenting my position; I am not preventing "general discussion of the problem", in fact the last thing I said before logging off last night was fine, let's have the discussion, I could hardly have been more explicit. Gatoclass (talk) 03:21, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Back to the template

Re Rjanag's template: It doesn't mention hook length, which is traditionally an important aspect of review... (Please add.) --Orlady (talk) 02:53, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

*Sigh* I deliberately left that out as a minor issue that might be better left aside given the additional complexity already being added. I suppose you have a point though. Gatoclass (talk) 04:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The template is still a work in progress: I made it clear days ago that I was open to suggestions about precisely what things to include in it, but everyone was too busy calling each other names to give feedback. As for hook length, if it is included I would prefer just wrapping it up in a more general "hook format" box or something like that...I was hoping to try to keep it as simple as possible, rather than listing tons and tons of things in it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

My suggestions for the hook fields were Clarity | Neutrality | Citation(s) | Interest . I guess you could add a Format field to the start of the list, which would cover all the format issues, if that's what you mean. Gatoclass (talk) 05:30, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry if I add to the sighs, but (as mentioned above), the Plagiarism field is logically a bit inconsistent: if I sign off "length", I say the the length is good, If I sign "Plagiarism" I would say plagiarism is good, or not? I started "no pl" but would prefer it to be worded differently. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:34, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

From the template documentation: "|plagiarism= refers to whether the article is free of copyright violations" rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I suggest to say so explicitly: "free of pl", it's only 8 more chars, and much more to the point, at least to me, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:29, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

If the "plagiarism" field is used to refer to both plagiarism and copyvio, it needs to be made clear in instructions, because an article can be free of copyvio and still contain plagiarism, and vice versa. cmadler (talk) 12:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, what I had in mind was not to make a huge template listing every single possible thing that could be wrong with an article. Plagiarism, copyright, and close paraphrasing are obviously very similar problems, and obviously checked for in more or less the same way. I know the differences between them, but for DYK purposes an article that has any of the three is treated much the same way. I thought it made sense to merge them all into one field, since I created the template is a quick-and-dirty aid to reviewing, not a full list of every tiny thing that every person wants to have reviewed. It is still possible (and I encourage it) to leave real comments below the template, so if anyone is concerned that it's not clear enough they could always X (or just not sign off) the "plagiarism" field, and leave a comment below explaining the specifics of their concern and whether it has to do with plagiarism, copyvio, or close paraphrasing (personally I don't see why the distinction matters in this context, any one of the three leads to a unless the article is rewritten). For that matter, the lack of one field in the template never precludes anyone from reviewing that; people can always leave comments in words below the template. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, when a process is reduced to a checklist, the checklist will start to define the process. (If the process has many steps and one is omitted from the checklist, that step is likely to be overlooked and may end up being forgotten.) I like the idea of "hook format and length" (or some variant) as a checklist item. --Orlady (talk) 18:33, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Last time 'round, DYK instituted QPQ reviewing, which made things worse. This time, instead of address the problems, they were camouflaged with the addition of a burdensome checklist and template. Neither will work, both will make problems worse, there is still limited (but somewhat improved) accountability, but folks here will carry on as if the problems were addressed. Hasta la proxima vez anyway, when there will be a whole new crop of nominators and reviewers who don't know the history of how DYK came to be what it is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:03, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• As I understand it, copyvio includes plagiarism and CP. As suggested by Crisco and others, I merged copvio into the former two in the template, but now I'm not so sure. Reviewers should be mostly able to just sign against each bullet, and if checking for image copyright/fair use is included now in the same line as plagiarism and CP, that assumes the reviewer has checked both text and images. What to do? Tony (talk) 03:19, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

  They are not necessarily a subset. "Attribution" (authors and permissions attributed correctly) would cover all three but might be a bit obscure at first glance. Yomangani 09:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Hook length, compliance, and formatting should be in the single template: a one-stop shop. Tony (talk) 03:28, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

How to spotcheck

• I've noted that some of my reviews are included in the ones TK looked at. I was wondering, would google searching random sentences (without quotation marks) count as spotchecking, or would one have to manually check each reference? I went the google route, 3 sentences per article for those I reviewed from scratch. I AGFed the ones that had already been reviewed. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

• You should manually check books and journals. Other sources can be found easier in Google searches. Dependent on the article size, I usually check about three or so 'blocks' of text from three different references. If an editor copied/close-paraphrased text from one, it is likely they did it for others. You can also compare references to the article in the Duplication Detector which can also give you an idea if there is close-paraphrasing.--NortyNort (Holla) 13:26, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
• (edit conflict)The way to spotcheck is to find a random sentence in the article and look at the language used. Then pull the source that cites the sentence and via a find command check to see if the same language exists in the source. In the two you checked I found them in the first sentences I looked at. I only checked the second one because you'd ticked off the Billy Hathorne one, and all of his I've looked at contain close paraphrasing. To answer your question: googling doesn't work. The sources are in the articles and we need to look at the sources. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:29, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
• (ec) IMO, those methods don't work and are too prone to misses; here is an old thread from my talk page discussing ways to spotcheck. I think it essential to pull up at minimum the most-oft-cited online reference and read it-- when there is plagiarism/copyvio/close paraphrasing, that almost always pulls it up (a frequent plagiarism source on DYK is online obits). You could also go to the first few edits on the article, where you will often find that plagiarists chunk in the text directly from a source, and then on the next series of edits just move a few words around (we can't do that-- if it's in the article history, it's still copyvio). I found one of those yesterday from a recent reviewer that signed off using the new template, so I still hope we have some accountability at the prep or queue level in terms of who is putting the info on the mainpage, and that they are doublechecking the review, and not assuming that some *esteemed* reviewers caught the plagiarism. Also, as DYK gains a means of developing "institututional memory" on frequent nominators and reviewers, spotchecking will become easier (I also target nominators and reviewers who are known to have committed plagiarism or copyvio or missed it on prior reviews for deeper looks, and don't look at all on nominators whose work I know very well).

  As pointed out many times by MoonRiddenGirl in the October/November threads, DYK is in an optimal position to educate new and old editors alike about plagiarism/copyvio/close paraphrasing and to catch it before those editors create hundreds of copyvios. I still hope that DYK will develop a notification template that can go to the creator, the reviewer, the admin who put it on the mainpage, DYK talk and article talk, linking at minimum to the offending article, WP:COPYVIO, WP:PARAPHRASE, and the Plagiarism Dispatch. The point of asking "who did this" (which we can now get from Rjanag's new template (with the exception of the admin who put it on the mainpage, which is still missing) is to educate so it will stop happening. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:38, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

In addition to the most-often cited online reference, I recommend also looking at any online reference that's given as the sole source for a large chunk of text. That's how I've found close paraphrasing in several of Billy's articles. cmadler (talk) 13:56, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree, and that can be particularly helpful on the very first, or first few, edits to a new article. Look at the first few edits, and if they are one source only, read the source and compare it to the text. Copyvios should be scrubbed from history; the copyvio people know how that is done, which is why you should tag those articles with Template:Copyvio and let those who work in that area deal with it from there. It is a mistake to try to clean up a copyvio without scrubbing the history, as TK can attest to from her experience at attempting to do that on a serial plagiarizer. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that when information is plagiarised then by definition its source won't be listed. Yomangani 14:40, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

That's completely untrue. Malleus Fatuorum 14:45, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I suspect TAO (The Adorable One) of tongue-in-cheek. I think he's saying that my method will miss plagiarism/copyvio when the creator didn't indicate the source, whereas a google or some other check may turn them up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:47, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Only slightly tongue-in-cheek. Plagiarism is presenting someone else's ideas without crediting them sufficiently. If you cite them as a source you can make the argument that you have given them sufficient credit; you aren't passing the ideas off as your own. Copyvio and close paraphrasing might be caught by these spotchecks, and straight lifts can be caught by Googling most of the time, but if there is plagiarism and close paraphrasing or plagiarism of the ideas without the text, you'll only really be able to detect it if you know the subject or do some research. If you suspect plagiarism you can, of course, ask for a reference: if the editor can't provide one then we are looking at OR (which we hate more than Marmite). Yomangani 15:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

We are in violent agreement; have a vegamite sandwich on me (don't I still owe you half a pretzel?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought it was a whole one; I hope you aren't defaulting on part of your payment: that would be a scandal. On the spotcheck matter: if I see an uncited section in a heavily cited article I become suspicious. Yomangani 15:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Your co-competitor stole the other half right out of your mouth when he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a gracious response. I'm defaulting for other reasons, though; NYC is out. Uncited sections-- yes, helpful to google suspicious phrases. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks for the quick replies. A couple replies:

@NortyNort: Yes, I knew about the tool, but it isn't useful for Google books. I figured the G-search would be useful because it also searches the books. Thanks.

@TK: As I noted on the edit summary, I wasn't sure (because of the history). That's also the reason I didn't add a tick. Thanks for letting me know the better way to check it.

@Sandy: Indeed, education is paramount right now. That history method sounds interesting. (Side note, would a copyvio revision be revision deleted to if the article had already been expanded enough, with enough creative input, to make it non-copyvio? )

Thanks everyone. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Crisco, I can't really answer that-- MoonRiddenGirl is the expert on how Misplaced Pages deals with them, and my understanding may be incomplete. But my understanding on why it's important to notify CCI is that they need to scrub it ASAP, before further improvements hide the copyvio. I say that because they indicated many times that on Grace Sherwood, because it had been through FAC and underwent many improvements, going back and scrubbing the original copyvio from history was much harder. But if productive discussion is now underway here and these matters are being taken seriously now, you may want to ping in MRG and ask her input, since she is far more knowledgeable than I am on how Misplaced Pages handles copyvio. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:30, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed she is. I've gone to her multiple times when I come across headscratchers. I think your answer is good enough, and if I see anything like that I will let MRG know ASAP. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

An RD1 is best suitable for an article in which there is a likelyhood that the copyvio may be restored or it has a short single-author page history. If a copyvio was inserted in an article 1000 edits back, rev del'ing would be unnecessary given the extensive history and other editor's or the same editor's non-infringing contributions in the period. In addition, if there is the possibility that other copyvios exist in the article, an RD1 would make it difficult to investigate that in the future.--NortyNort (Holla) 21:55, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

CopyVioSpeak: I have no idea what any of that means (which is why I leave it to the folks who work there). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Rejected article: suicide by hanging

I created suicide by hanging on 31 July, and nominated it the same day. It was reviewed by two editors; one apparently approved it fully (see Template talk:Did you know/Suicide by hanging). On 1 August Panyd expressed disapproval, and a while later Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry unilaterally rejected the article (without giving time for improvements etc.) They said, "Completely unacceptable hook. Borderline inappropriate as an article: the topic is fine, but we're not supposed to be writing a how-to guide", further explaining on my talk page that "the use of the word 'recommended', as well as the general 'how-to' nature of the article, makes it unsuitable for a front page space." I think the article meets Misplaced Pages policies and DYK rules (I don't know any DYK rules that would exclude the article), which the above explanations don't seem to be based on. Even if they were, that is still no reason to completely remove the nom, without even allowing it time to be improved. The Cavalry then filed a strange AfD on the article, which has four keeps and zero deletes. I would like to get consensus here for the nomination to be reinstated. Discussion about Stone's reliability, the hook, etc. can then take place on the subpage. Christopher Connor (talk) 01:26, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll take a look. Article looks decent to me. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I have no comment about the article, but I agree the hook first proposed was extremely inappropriate. I wouldn't have qualms against reopening the DYK nom but requiring a new hook that's not a how-to guide. The topic is not in of itself inappropriate for DYK, as long as it's approached in an appropriate way. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:07, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed about the hook, definitely not something we can use. Something about hanging being the most common method of suicide would be more appropriate, or perhaps the Chinese hauntings. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:10, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Quick note: this was the article when I saw it. It may be appropriate sourcing for an article, but putting a hook which openly advises people on the best way to commit suicide on the front page is completely unacceptable. I know of several Wikipedians who have attempted suicide in the past year, and of at least one who has been successful. I deal with occasional emails from users who feel suicidal, and I look after someone who is irrationally suicidal. I have a wealth of experience in this, and I am convinced that putting this article on the main page will result in people harming themselves. I'm also certain that - given your interests - you're active on alt.suicide.*, which worries me further, especially when I come across posts in your name like no, use a gun, this and disown your family. Given your past blocks, and past editing history, your sense of judgement on these topics does not fill me with confidence in your ability to make decisions on this sort of thing - you were blocked for "Using nazi imagery in entirely inappropriate places", and you edit unusual socially-unacceptable topics - such as paedophilia and suicide - more than usual. I'm all for assuming good faith, but I simply cannot do so if assuming good faith means that vulnerable people might be hurt. Putting this on the front page shows, in my opinion, a distinct lack of editorial judgement on whomsoever places it there. The Cavalry (Message me) 03:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

There may well be an appropriate hook in this article, but recommending types of rope for a suicidal person to use? That's repulsive. (If that comes down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT then so be it.) LadyofShalott 03:16, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is WP:NOT a how-to guide, and this is an inappropriate use of Misplaced Pages's mainpage. I'm glad that the new subpages allow us all to follow what happened here without having to dig through a gazillion diffs, and glad to see some review of hooks catching now the obviously abusive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:05, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Here here to both of the above comments! Panyd 10:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with several of the above commentors that, while the article itself is suitable, the suggested hook is not; however an alternate hook should be found, rather than rejecting the submission out of hand, so the nomination should be reopened. At this point it will also need to wait for AfD conclusion, which is looking like an easy keep. cmadler (talk) 12:38, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

There are questions regarding the suitability of the article aside from the hook formulation and open AFD. Yomangani 13:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Carly Foulkes DYK credit

I just want to make sure that if people think Gerardw (talk · contribs) deserves some sort of credit he gets it for the upcoming Carly Foulkes DYK which is on the queue page. He stubbed the article out so some might give him a credit. I am not sure what to do and want to make sure if he deserves credit he is given it.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. His contributions during the expansion period were minimal. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Why? Is it even/ever customary to credit a three-sentence stubber?? --Ohconfucius 06:15, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I posted this thread after receiving this unusual bitter post on my talk page from a person claiming I forked his image description page without giving him credit. I just wanted to make sure my thinking was properly calibrated. Thanks for the bit of reinforcement that I am not madly taking over other people's work.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 12:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Your heart is in the right place, but there are no worries regarding DYK. Although it is not written (I think), it seems that the only people who receive DYK credit for a nomination are those who participate in the expansion, as measured from the time expansion starts until the nomination is made. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:41, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
• when receiving message like that, you could diplomatically link to this in your reply. ;-) --Ohconfucius 04:14, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure we can all accord him whatever credit he deserves (I've mentally given him a little ripple of applause. Just a ripple, mind) Yomangani 10:35, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Proportion of noms with images

Just a mechanical query to the queuing admins: over time, are there too many, too few, or just the right proportion of hook noms with images? Tony (talk) 07:36, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I assume there are not too few, given that we've never (to the best of my knowledge) been forced to run a set without any image at all. Sometimes images are not used, which I don't think means there are too many (having exactly 6 images a day would not be "just right", as it would leave us with no choice of which one to use). Anyway, the people who would know this are not the queuing admins (since they don't actually assemble the queues), but the editors who move hooks from nomination pages to prep areas. rʨanaɢ (talk) 07:44, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Generally we get far more than we need. ATM for example, there are 45 images at T:TDYK, enough for 45 updates, but there is probably only 20 updates worth of hooks on the page. Gatoclass (talk) 08:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Some images are not interesting at a low resolution, or otherwise unsuitable. Some, like the Iceland Penis Museum, could be controversial and/or attached to a hook that is great as a "quirky". Luckily, we have far more images coupled with nominations then we need. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:14, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we generally get far more images than we need, but this is a good thing in that it allows us to comfortably eliminate lower-quality or otherwise unsuitable images and use a variety of image (e.g. not run a bunch of buildings consecutively). cmadler (talk) 12:41, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

If day

There has never been a Nazi invasion of Winnipeg, therefore there has never been bloodshed during such an event. The current proposed hook is simply untrue. Fiction or simulation should be clearly identified as such. Kevin McE (talk) 09:18, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a link to what you're referring to? None of the editors here are mind readers. rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:25, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

It's about the article If Day linked as "Nazi invasion of Winnipeg" in Q6. Materialscientist (talk) 09:28, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Done Panyd 10:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

3 article hook to 2

Sharktopus nominated a hook with 3 articles we both worked on, now suggests to keep one separate, which I support. Question: should the subpage be moved to one for only 2. I guess so, for clarity, especially since the third is going to appear on its own. But thought I better ask. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd create a new nom and post the single article there, with a note on the original nom page mentioning that an article was relisted as a single. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:15, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but what to do about the remaining 2? Move? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:28, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

If you want to, sure. But there's no need, methinks. That's why I suggested leaving a note on the original nom page. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:45, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Crisco, I did just that. And I also removed Make credits for the third article from the (now) two-article page. You wouldn't think it, but Paul Speratus and his hymn Es ist das Heil uns kommen her had way too many hooky things to use, quite aside from his being sentenced to burn at the stake when he wrote it in jail. Martin Luther burst into tears when he first heard the song, from a beggar outside his window, and it may have inspired him to start the first Lutheran hymnal. (First Lutheran hymnal is the third article that got moved to a different nomination.) Sharktopus 13:06, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Glad I could help and you've hooked me... time to read the articles. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

What Sharktopus did is probably the best way to handle it. No need to move the page; just remove the one article from the hook (or at least unbold it), remove the credits related to it, and re-nominate it elsewhere. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:38, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Error got through: how will the report get back to reviewers?

I reported an error in a hook heading for the Main Page. It's now logged on:

• Template_talk:Did_you_know/HMS_Prince_Charles_(1930)

Defects in units of measure are *much* simpler to spot than copyvios. Units of measure were mentioned three times during review but nobody spotted the defect. It isn't a one-off issue. Does anybody read these post-selection comments in order to improve the process? Lightmouse (talk) 16:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I would assume not (though editors who've watchlisted the sub-page might); once a nomination is closed as "promoted" and added into a prep area or queue, the nomination sub-pages is considered archived. cmadler (talk) 16:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Like Bencherlite already pointed out, the article talk page and user talk pages. If you want to chide a reviewer, you can go there. I'm not sure why Bencherlite added a note about it to the archived nomination page, given

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know, unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page). No further edits should be made to this page.

rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:15, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't want to chide anyone. I just wondered if error reports added any value. Lightmouse (talk) 17:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, they get the error fixed, which is the main point. Anything else you want to do (i.e., explaining it to the writer so they don't make the same mistake again, or explaining it to the reviewer so they don't let that kind of mistake through again) would best be done by leaving a message at that user's talk page. I don't think most editors watch WP:ERRORS or T:DYK, so they probably don't notice reports or changes made there. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:33, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

(after 2 edit conflicts) I didn't say that the matter should be taken to the article talk page. I added a comment to the nomination discussion as an experiment and so that there was a record on that page of the two problems with the approved hook, because that seemed the best place to note it. OK, so there's an archive box around the pre-selection discussion - big deal. I started a new section for that reason. Recording the problem on that page at least has a chance of showing up in the watchlist of nominator, reviewer and promotor; editing the article talk page (and remember, there might be more than one article talk page involved) may not do so, and is off-topic as far as the article is concerned; mentioning every problem at WT:DYK is overkill. Not mentioning anywhere means it just gets forgotten. I'd appreciate it if my note was reinstated, thanks. Bencherlite 17:37, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but the note should not be reinstated. First of all, it's not necessary for the nomination discussion page to serve as record of all changes that happen to the article or the hook after the nomination discussion is closed; the nomination discussion page is for evaluating the article and accepting or rejecting it for DYK, and if there is a need at all or a permanent record of all changes to the hook (I don't think there is) this is not the place to have it. I assumed all you wanted was to educate the reviewer about his/her error, which can be done with a private not at his/her user talk page.

Secondly, would you leave comments on an AfD after it closed and think it's ok just because you left them below the box? That is never acceptable at AfD, why should it be acceptable here?

Thirdly, there are technical reasons why comments should not be left below the box. The nomination discussion is still transcluded on T:TDYK, but the contents of the box are hidden using <noinclude> (see, for instance, Brandreth Pill Factory on T:TDYK). Adding extra comments outside of that, after the discussion has already been closed, adds unnecessary clutter to T:TDYK.

Apologies for putting words in your mouth regarding the article talk page; I didn't read the discussion at WP:ERRORS carefully. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Apology accepted. For the rest, I frankly don't care enough any more about DYK to want to discuss it further. There was I thinking that I'd found an extra way to help DYK through an additional small role for the nomination page, one that didn't involve rebuking people on their talk pages and that also left a centralised note of a minor issue for future reference, if needed, but clearly not. Regards, Bencherlite 18:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

My views are somewhat similar to those of User:Bencherlite. Lightmouse (talk) 18:39, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't know what I can tell you guys. I already explained three reasons why extra comments shouldn't be left on the page after it's archived, and you guys haven't responded to any of them. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you insist... (1) The page could serve that purpose – there's no reason why it can't. You don't think it should, but I (and Lightmouse, it appears) think it can. (2) AFD is a completely different set-up. At ANI, for example, if a new issue arises after a section has been archived, the discussion can be continued below in a new section. Similarly, if an admin returns a DYK hook to the discussion page from the queues or main page, the nomination would be unarchived. Neither situation is comparable to AFD. (3) So all I need to do in such circumstances is to add "noinclude" tags, and we're fine? Good. Bencherlite 20:19, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised no-ones spoken to me about this discussion, or left a note on the article talk page. The 150 tons figure is available in either source 2 or 3 - I forget which. I simply forgot to add the source to the end of the sentence. In future I'll be more careful. The Cavalry (Message me) 20:51, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• If you want to bring an issue to the attention of DYK reviewers, this page is a good place to comment. Not everybody reads this page, but a lot more people read this page than read archived pages for old DYK hooks. Sharktopus 22:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think it's going to be impractical to add every discussion about a nom to the nomination page, because such discussions typically can and do occur anywhere (for example, this page, mainpage errors etc). As a compromise, I suppose we could allow links to discussions at other pages to the nom page if somebody wants to add them. I think if a hook is actually pulled from the queue, discussion could either continue here or the archive could be reopened, depending on how extensive discussion is likely to be. Gatoclass (talk) 04:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I think if a nom is returned from prep, queue or Main page, it would make sense to reopen the nom archive consistently - or perhaps still have it open, close only after it appeared, together with archiving. - Btw, Nels Running was returned from a queue (no template then), waiting to be reconsidered, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Generally it's good if us reviewers are told of any misjudgements or glitches we make. I know it's more work for whoever is managing the system, though. Tony (talk) 07:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

This would be automatically accomplished by continuing the nom template that reviewer hopefully will keep watching, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

What about adding subsequent comments on the talk page for the nomination subpage? If the nominator, reviewer(s), and promoter are still watching the nomination subpage, an edit to the talk page will show on their watchlist also, but that way we don't have to worry about it being transcluded onto T:TDYK. cmadler (talk) 12:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the nom subpage is already a talk page (Template talk:Did you know/some article). It is possible to change the setup so the nom subpage is a regular page, although that will break some minor things (little things like having the article talkpage and user talkpage credit notices display links to the nom subpage) and I don't think it's worth the trouble given that hooks that get pulled or changed later on via WP:ERRORS are a vast minority. (Multi-hooks are also a vast minority, so I am not very worried by someone's comment above that "leaving a comment on the article talk page doesn't work when there are multiple articles.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

That is most frequently what is done at FAC and FAR (but be sure to add a link to the new discussion from the mainpage, so that folks will know that discussion continued on talk). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Prior to the introduction of separate nom pages, a hook removed from the queue went back to T:TDYK for further discussion. I don't see any reason why we should do things differently under the new system. Gatoclass (talk) 16:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

This is what I had in mind, too. I intentionally changed the wording of the "please do not edit this page" archivebox message to allow for the possibility of the nom being reopened via discussion at WT:DYK. (The easiest way to do so would just be to undo the edit that archived with it, since it involves template subst'ing and stuff.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Could an admin please fix a few hook issues in current queues?

Miss Mary Jane Marchand, whom 12-year-old Sharktopus long ago greatly admired, would say you should change these:

• Queue 2: ..."can only move and burrow backwards" should be "can move and burrow only backward".
• Queue 3: Misplaced modifier on the hook for Berlian Hutauruk. Nobody compared her vocals on an album to a vampire, somebody compared her voice to the voice of a vampire. How about instead "that Berlian Hutauruk was described as having a voice like a Kuntilanak (a female vampire in Indonesian mythology) before becoming a very successful singer?"
• Queue 3: "high school football, and was considered" should be "high school football and was considered" (remove comma)

These are not grammar issues, but just just suggestions on style:

• Queue 2: "people in Florence abandoned their sick relations" How about "sick people were abandoned by their families"? I think this is one of the rare cases where a passive construction is better than the active one.
• Queue 2: "had to row four miles to find medical assistance" How about ""had to row four miles (6.4 km) to get help"

By the way, that failure to add a metric conversion is Sharktopus's fault entirely, so if somebody repairs it they will be fixing what I did wrong. Sharktopus 01:45, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Added all proposed corrections to Q2 (leaving backwards which sounds slightly better to me, but correct me if ..). Leaving Q3 because I have to run :-). Materialscientist (talk) 02:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Comma removed. Panyd 02:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

imported and translated - bottom line

OK, I read the discussion above, I want to cut to the chase here. If I import and translate (probably machine assisted) an article from another subdomain wikipedia, the article is eligible of DYK as a new article, right? Questions of sourcing and copyvio are no dfferent than for an English work, although they might be harder to identify; but the bottom line is a translation is fine. I intend to import some articles so there will be no attribution issue at all - the entire non-English edit history will be present as well as the import log entry.--Doug. 08:19, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Correct. cmadler (talk) 12:08, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Eligible for DYK is a low bar to set for your editing; the bigger concerns are 1) are you importing plagiarism or copyvio because you didn't check the sources, 2) are sources accurately represented, 3) are you concerned about importing text from a non-reliable source (that anyone can edit), 4) do you know if you're importing POV, 5) are you fluent in the language you're importing from, 6) if you're not, how do you know if the sources used in the other Wiki are reliable, and 7) are you concerned about all of the potential WP:V (policy) violations of writing articles when you haven't read the sources? That DYK may allow this shouldn't really be an experienced editor's question; is it in line with our core pillar of WP:V, not to mention COPYVIO, is more relevant. Anyone reviewing a DYK hook or article from a foreign language can ask for a translation of the original source per WP:NONENG, and they well should, to check for copyvio and correct representation of sources. By the way, I speak fluent Spanish and I have *never* even encountered a machine translation of anything that was even remotely accurate, so even if there is no other WP:V or COPYVIO breach, how do you know the translation is good? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

PS, I've just discovered the "index" function on the talk page archives here (hurray !!!!). Do an index search on "translat" and you may agree with me that the lax attitude displayed on the current talk page here has not always been the case. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:49, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding machine assisted, I have often found that Google will render German or French in an intelligible manner that can be used as a base point. I would never go the other way as I would be sure to create unintelligible output; but I am knowledgeable enough in German and French grammar to be able to untwist what the machine spits out and get the same meaning in English. Obviously, the result needs complete rewriting; but it's often a lot quicker than translating direct from the source without a guide would be. For example (though irrelevant to DYK), I imported a portion of Grand Lodge of British Freemasons in Germany and all of United Grand Lodges of Germany from de.wp and used Google to assist me in my translation. I wouldn't try the same with es.wp as I don't know more than two dozen words of Spanish and don't know enough about the grammar to be able to untangle what I get. The sources there are poor to start with. Checking for copyvios is relatively easy, since the German text that was translated is in the en.wp edit history as I imported the whole history. I find the machine translation is a guide in the same way that an alternative translation can be; but I would always check back against the source.--Doug. 13:37, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Sandy is correct. Past discussions have raised issues with blindly using machine translations of articles from foreign wikis. See Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know/Archive 37#Translations as "new" content from 2008 and Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know/Archive 16#Translations from 2007. Cbl62 (talk) 02:48, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

(Just in case you wish to know my experience :). Google translations always require copyediting, but save time. Language is easy to fix, most problems came from errors in facts and references. I have regularly had those problems with FAs/GAs from German and Russian wikis, which are among the strongest for factual/referencing standards. Other wikis often don't even source the texts, even at FA level. German wiki is often Ok, but their prose standards are somewhat different from en.wiki. Materialscientist (talk) 03:12, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Sarah Dixon (currently queue 2)

"survivors had to row four miles (6.4 km) to find medical assistance" We know that they rowed 4 miles: the article does not turn that into a claim that they needed to do that, and neither should the hook. We will never know whether assistance might have found its way to them if they had rowed one mile or three. We should stick to what we know happened, and not speculate as to what would have been necessary: "survivors rowed four miles to find medical assistance".

The estimate of 4 miles is most unlikely to have been intended to be accurate to the nearest 140 yards, and so there seems little justification for rounding to equivalent to the nearest 100 m. Kevin McE (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

"Survivors rowed four miles" is less hooky, and "had to row" is not inaccurate. Most of your corrections in the prep areas have been good, but here I think you're taking an overly literal interpretation of the wording. I don't know if this is an AmE/BrE difference (based on other comments you have made, I assume you speak BrE), but in my experience "had to X" is a common phrase and doesn't necessarily entail "was forced to X by somebody". Anyway, the point is, if they could have rowed 1 mile to find medical assistance they would have; if they rowed 4 miles, that implies that they had to. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, bear in mind that if we had left off a conversion of four miles to metric, we would have been attacked for the error of violating WP:MOS. Sharktopus 17:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I would hope that truth would be a greater priority than sensationalising for the sake of "hookiness". Wew know what they did: what was absolutely necessary is pure speculation. Kevin McE (talk) 21:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

It is the unjustified rounding to 2 sf that I commented on, not the inclusion of metric equivalence: c. 6 km would be more appropriate. Kevin McE (talk) 21:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Pacific sand crab (currently queue 2)

Why is there thought to be any contradiction between direction of propulsion on land, and the ability to tread water? The link to the activity only describes it as a human activity: is it really meaningful to ascribe the action to a crab? Kevin McE (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no contadiction, and the addition of the last phrase turned an acceptable hook into a poor one. Cramming unrelated facts into hooks is poor writing, which continues to be ignored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.253.146.89 (talk) 03:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Jason Kinpis (currently queue 3)

The reader who does not know what sport the Cleveland Indians play (the vast majority of the non US population of the world) will not know whether the sport he played at college (incidentally, is this football or football?) is the same game or not. If I am told that someone is a good receiver, I would assume that their expertise is in commercial accountancy. Kevin McE (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

At the very least, "Cleveland Indian" should be changed to Cleveland Indians, and "receiver" should be wikilinked to wide receiver. cmadler (talk) 12:36, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 13:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

"Receiver" still needs to be linked to wide receiver. cmadler (talk) 13:11, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Better? Panyd 13:26, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

That works for me, thanks! cmadler (talk) 13:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Basket ferns (currently prep 3)

Why is it to be assumed that a non-venomous snake should be a nasty surprise? Kevin McE (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but since this has since been moved into Queue 5 it will now require an admin to fix. cmadler (talk) 12:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 13:08, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Rodney Blake (currently prep 4)

St Joseph's is not a very uncommon name for an educational institution: it seems unreasonable to name it without identifying it. Kevin McE (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)  Done The prep areas are not protected; anyone can fix problems there. cmadler (talk) 12:26, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Dick Gordon (currently prep 4)

"got his nickname for first reporting golfer Bobby Jones's retirement in 1930": did he subsequently report in in other years? Suggest "got his nickname for being the first to report golfer Bobby Jones's retirement..." Kevin McE (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)  Done The prep areas are not protected; anyone can fix problems there. cmadler (talk) 12:27, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible for a nominator to withdraw a hook at this late stage, for rewite? (set to appear in about six hours)? The hook doesn't do justice to my intention, which was to honor the longevity of his career, the basis for his notability and my interest in rescuing the page from deletion. I don't want to edit in the live queue, but I'd be willing to do the work immediately. BusterD (talk) 15:13, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

ALT2: ...sportswriter Dick "Scoop" Gordon earned his nickname for reporting at The Daily Princetonian in 1930, then filed his last sports story for the Villager in 2008?

ALT3: ...sportswriter Dick "Scoop" Gordon filed his last sports column for the Villager in 2008, after earning his nickname reporting for The Daily Princetonian in 1930?

These are two hooks which meet the review process already undergone. I've truncated the anecdote instead of the career durability (from whence the notability derives). As is, the hook is merely trivial and not as interesting, IMHO. Hope this late interjection improves the DYK list of hooks with which it appears. In any case, thanks for the great work you folks do here to maintain the main page and promote pageviews on new article space. BusterD (talk) 15:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict, I see you did what I wanted to recommend, but please sign) It's now in Queue 6, to appear in 8 1/2 hours to my calculation. Only an admin can make changes to the queues. I would propose an alternative hook here and hope. (I had suggested to keep the nomination template open until after it appeared, for such things, but it's not (yet?) in place.) - If the hook won't be changed, don't worry too much, to my experience the hook doesn't have to summarize the article. If it's interesting people will click and read more. Congratulations to rescuing "him" from deletion. I had an article relisted for deletion the second time today ..., --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:36, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I've done as you suggested. I've explained my rationale above. FYI, the page was written as a memorial (perhaps by a relative), and I was working my way through AfD lists when I came across it. Searching through sources briefly, it was reading the fellow's writing which inspired me to pursue the rescue. I got lots of help, so the DYK credit goes to the pagecreator (who might actually join us as a wikipedian) and another sports-loving editor who liked the story too and sourced the heck out of it. BusterD (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I replaced it with ALT2. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:38, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! The elipsis doesn't look right, does it? BusterD (talk) 17:02, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

That then looks distinctly odd: the word usually suggests a much more immediate sequence of actions. and would fit better. Sports rather than sport is US English, and we are exhorted to avoid phrases that are odd to either variety on the main page: can we not just drop the word? Kevin McE (talk) 20:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed "then" to "and". I don't agree that "sports" needs changed or removed. The article subject is an American and standard practice on WP is generally to use the variety of language that corresponds to the subject when possible (e.g., using BrEng for British topics and AmEng for US topics). If we avoided all US- or Brit-specific terms on the main page entirely, we would also have to remove "football" from the Scotland national under-16 football team hook in the same queue (since we Americans don't call it that). rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:37, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

It's better. Thanks to everyone involved. BusterD (talk) 21:58, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I would draw Rjanag's attention to the whacking great boilerplate at the top of WP:ERRORS, and to WP:ENGVAR. Nobody has said that such phrases can be avoided completely: in this case, the intended emphasis, that Gordon's journalistic career spanned 78 years, would not be compromised by this change. What do you believe is added to the hook by inclusion of the contentious word? Kevin McE (talk) 00:45, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The boilerplate at the top of WP:ERRORS specifically includes the disclaimer "Some spellings, grammar, or terms used on the Main Page may be different or absent in your variation of English." Furthermore, ENGVAR specifically says "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the English of that nation", like I explained above. Anyway, I don't think anyone but you will consider this word "contentious"; I'm waiting to see other comments in this discussion. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:28, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

That is extraordinarily selective reading. The boilerplate goes on to make a suggestion based on the observation which is the only bit you choose to quote:Misplaced Pages recommends the use of words that are common to all varieties of English. Similarly, ENGVAR also says Misplaced Pages tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English...Universally used terms are often preferable to less widely distributed terms...Terms that are uncommon in some varieties of English, or that have divergent meanings, may be glossed...Use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference You cannot cherry pick the sentences of a policy that suit you. And I note that, for at least the third time in recent days, you have tried to personalise a discussion about accurate and MoS compliant material on the Main Page. I really think that this is entirely unsuitable for an admin. Kevin McE (talk) 07:49, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "personalising a discussion". Just as was the case in the discussion of #Leal Garcia v. Texas, you raised a complaint about a word you disagree with, and so far no one else has expressed any concerns about it. I have nothing further to say here. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:23, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Seeing as how this has come and gone on the Main Page, it's now largely a moot point. However, since the words are nearly the same, and each is easily intelligible to all, I'd suggest that is more akin to a difference of spelling (e.g. theater v theatre) than to a difference in terminology (e.g. truck v lorry). There is no problem with using the term, and the spelling should follow ENGVAR rules. cmadler (talk) 16:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed (currently prep 1)

"is the second person in two years to die while in the custody of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission" The 2 year period began with a death on 16 July 2009: the two year period is therefore over, so it should be "was the second..." Kevin McE (talk) 12:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)  Done The prep areas are not protected; anyone can fix problems there. cmadler (talk) 12:31, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, this one needs to be discussed because I reverted Kevin in this issue before. (He neglected to describe the full background of this issue.) Personally, I think Kevin's rationale above is an overly literal reading of the hook and change is not necessary. Using "is" makes the hook more specific time-wise (if changed to "was", it would refer to any two years—he could have died in 1950 or whatnot—and therefore the hook feels less recent). rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:05, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Rajang is right: using the present tense does make it more specific: it specifies a current period. So what two year period are you referring to? How is baulking at describing the past as though it were the present being "overly literal"? Given that the two year period is not current (it expired in the middle of last month), the verb must be past tense. The "full background" is that Rjanag reverted without explanation, and appealed to procedural issues rather than trying to establish accuracy. As with one of the issues above, this seems to be pushing for "hookiness" over truthfulness. Kevin McE (talk) 21:39, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Again, I think this is being overly literal. "Two years" doesn't need to mean exactly two years. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

In casual chat, two years could sometimes mean more than 670 days, but that is not the case here: no-one disputes that the two deaths occurred within a 24 month period. When a specific mathematical claim in an encyclopaedia "within two years" is made, then anything outside accuracy is error. If the second killing had been on 18 July 2011, we could not say that he was the second in two years. Do you accept that once the two year period has expired, it is more appropriate to talk about it in the past tense? If you are concerned that it makes it look like old news (as though that would be a bad thing), then rephrase it to incorporate the date: "... that the death of Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed in April 2011 was the second death of a person in the custody of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission in two years?" That has the added benefit of avoiding a redirect. Kevin McE (talk) 00:24, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the wording with "is" sounds better, you don't, and I doubt either of us is going to change our minds. I don't really have anything more to say, and the hook is already the one you prefer (Cmadler changed it before the discussion here began, since you failed to mention that there was disagreement over this change) so I don't see any reason to continue discussing it.

For what it's worth, there is no redirect in the current hook so I don't see why you are concerned about avoiding one. I think you are confusing a piped link with a redirect. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:36, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Queries timely or unnecessary?

I asked a series of questions about the current state of play at DYK in response to a query by Dr. Blofeld at my talk page. I suppose I didn't put them here because I wondered whether they were too wide-ranging, inappropriate, or numerous, to be useful or appropriate at the moment. Do they need to be asked, and should they be pruned or filtered? Tony (talk) 12:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I took the liberty of fixing the link to the questions, as it was pointing to another Talk page. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:40, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd put them up here for wider discussion. Panyd 13:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

OK. Tony (talk) 13:27, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I've spelled out these questions without prejudice so that the community might consider them. I haven't formed clear opinions on some of them, and I haven't formed strong opinions on most. Tony (talk) 13:39, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, a number of these are valid questions that I too have had on my mind, but I haven't raised them yet since I've been waiting for Rjanag to finish his alternative checklist. I'm still not sure what the status of that is ATM.

In relation to the last, however, I'll respond to that now - we don't have the manpower for a directorate such as the one you are suggesting. That's why I suggested an enhanced process for admins loading updates into the queue as an alternative. It's the most we can hope for IMO, but even that has been queried by Yomangani as possibly too demanding. Gatoclass (talk) 13:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I've informally asked around about this and it appears that most administrators are too scared or bewildered to touch DYK. I think that putting together an official proposal for a directorate which clearly outlined the responsibilities of administrators moving hooks and gave a shared responsibility amongst them would help solve the manpower issue quite rapidly. Panyd 13:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Should there be an expectation that a single person review every aspect of a nom?

And specifically, now that the expectations of DYK have risen—both in explicit scope and intensity—if the QPQ reviewing system is to continue should it be modified to recognise that an entire review to promotion or rejection by a single (QPQ) reviewer is impractical, given the goals of DYK? Is an explicit set of aspects the way to go for QPQ reviewing?

• The problem now is that the checklist is taking DYK reviewing into territory that is not the domain of DYK, and is too burdensome, while there is as yet no assurance that DYK *is* reviewing for things within its remit-- specifically, that the expansion is based on reliable sources. I have yet to understand how reviewers are determining that the expansion criterion is met if they are not checking (minimum at least) reliability of sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:59, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• I agree with Sandy. I think we need to take a step back and consider, item by item, exactly what should be included in a DYK review. Personally I favor something like Yomangani's suggestion, but I'm open to discussing it. The proper order to do things is first to figure out what is to be done, and then devise a checklist or automate it. Creating a checklist while there is ongoing disagreement over what is to be checked has just created chaos. cmadler (talk) 14:09, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Adding my comment in support of Sandy. We especially can't expect new users (and there can be users with under 200 edits who still have more than 5 DYKs) to be able to sufficiently check for the trickier aspects of copyright violations and source reliability. Panyd 14:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

So who is going to do it? There are very few people who want to check for copyvios. If we don't insist on QPQ reviewers doing all aspects, we are going to end up with dozens of hooks that are only partially verified. Additionally, many DYK contributors do have plenty of experience and should know how to check for copyvio like anyone else. Those who don't know can learn, and DYK can help facilitate that. Gatoclass (talk) 14:40, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Who is going to do it? The idea that you *must* insist on QPQ reviewing is wrong on every level, as is the checklist, as you have no assurance any of it is being done *correctly* by unqualified, inexperienced reviewers (but we do know that this template checklist is placing an additional burden on DYK). The solution is what it has always been: reduce the volume at DYK, and allow for experienced editors to review for what matters (copyvio, reliable sources-- crappy prose is not a DYK issue, it can be solved by letting others edit, and it is not a policy violation). There is no rationale for this sense of entitlement, that every new or expanded article *must* be on the mainpage, and it has resulted in DYK being a breeding ground for faulty editing. Find a way to limit nominations, and then qualified reviewers will be able to handle the reviews needed, and give them the attention they deserve. A checklist only means unqualified QPQ reviewers are ticking boxes that they don't understand (and some very esteemed qualified reviewers are doing same as we speak, btw). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:52, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, why is it so strange to expect that some people will be interested in reviewing DYKs whilst not being interested in submitting them? I mean, look at Tony for a start. Maybe having clear roles for people means they'll find a niche they're good at and like, rather than thrusting people into a role they're not suited to. Panyd 14:56, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

It's strange to expect it because it goes against the history of the project. I've been working at DYK longer than most, in all the time I've been here we have rarely had enough reviewers. I can't see that more reviewers are going to magically appear just because we have a snazzy new checklist for them to play with. Gatoclass (talk) 15:12, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

And speaking as someone who has reviewed a lot of DYKs over the years, the snazzy new checklist is likely to deter me from doing reviews -- particularly if the checklist takes as much vertical space on my screen as it does now. I have often done partial reviews of hooks. For example, I might determine that article length is insufficient and leave a quick note to that effect. In another case, I might visit the article, read the sources, add some citations to the article to support uncited content, edit text to eliminate content that is too close to the source, and suggest a couple of "ALT" hooks, but leave the DYK unapproved because a large part of the article doesn't cite any sources and I can't figure out where it's from. A template, particularly the more complex templates discussed here, actually would discourage me from doing those kinds of reviews, partly because they make it so hard to skim the list of nominations and partly because they create the appearance that I "own" the review and need to be on call for the next week to monitor the nomination. --Orlady (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

But there's that problem now, I mean look at the backlog! I don't think we've fixed it by making newbies review articles to a level they can't possibly be expected to achieve. Panyd 15:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Gato, you say "It's strange to expect because it goes against the history of ". Well, some things need to adapt to new circumstances, and in terms of QPQ, that history isn't very long, is it? There are compelling reasons that QPQ should be retained as only part of the checklist: (1) induction/training of newish editors; and (2) the advantage of having some of the more straightforward aspects done. So why not require for QPQ:

(a) the top four items in the checklist for the original hook (surely nominators need to have a stab at that; they're hardly burdensome—I'm happy if they can suggest why a hook needs to be updated by an ALT, even if they don't say what the wording of the ALT might be); plus

Article length and article vintage.

That leaves space for specialist reviewers to go through filling the gaps. Tony (talk) 16:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm having no problem doing the full monty, as it were, but then again I've got a lot of reviewing experience. I do like the idea of bifurcating the checklist into essentials and non-essentials.

I'm sort of pleased and surprised to see that Sandy feels we went too far with this, and that we now have some clarification as to what she thinks is really necessary. However, part of the reviewing ambit has always been whether, as a whole, this was something we wanted or didn't want linked from the Main Page (I remember once rejecting an otherwise OK hook from an article on some road in Saskatchewan because it was so poorly formatted and written that I would have been embarrassed for us to have it get even one more click than it would have if it had never been linked from the Main Page). I still think reviewers need to keep that in mind. Daniel Case (talk) 19:17, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Re Tony: I don't think having straightforward aspects of reviewing (e.g., article length and age) checked by QPQ is a huge benefit. That aspect of reviewing is so quick and easy it was never a major burden on reviewers anyway (in a crunch, I or any experienced reviewer could check 50 or more noms for article length, history, and whether the hook was cited, in just a couple hours). The part of reviewing that takes a longer time is checking for text issues (by which I mean plagiarism/copyvio/close paraphrase) and other potential cleanup issues, as well as sometimes getting into lengthy discussions over the hook. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:44, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

"I don't think having straightforward aspects of reviewing (e.g., article length and age) checked by QPQ is a huge benefit." That is just about all that QPQ reviewers have ever done. How will you ever know that the other aspects have been checked out unless there's a checklist to expose this with blanks or comments or signatures? This is what the community has demanded: see the RfC. If you want to persist with this "one reviewer owns each review", you can't have QPQ, since it defies a central notion of DYK that every nominator be able to review for all aspects. Tony (talk) 07:22, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say QPQ reviewers were doing a good job of doing more than that; I just said I don't think QPQ reviewing of that stuff is alleviating a huge burden anyway. I also didn't say there shouldn't be a checklist (I didn't mention the checklist issue at all in my above comment). Also, I don't think anyone here said that "one reviewer owns each review". The question above is should a reviewer be expected to finish a review he starts, not should other reviewers not be allowed to comment on an article someone else has started reviewing. rʨanaɢ (talk) 07:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, it should be expected that a single person conduct a full review. For most articles (short articles with a short history) this is not difficult; even checking for plagiarism can usually be done within a few minutes by sampling a few sentences and a few sources (I never check every single sentence, I just either check until I'm confident that the nominator knows how to write without plagiarizing, or I check until I'm not—and then I tell them they need to get someone to rewrite it). In the past I have spoken in favor of people being able to do partial reviews on things they are interested/knowledgeable in (similar to at FAC, where some people specialize in image reviews, link reviews, etc.), but have found that in practice that doesn't work well here. Often, once someone reviews one part of an article, other reviewers are afraid to touch it (unless a juicy dispute arises, in which case everyone suddenly wants their hands on it). rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Agree with Rjanag; yes, it is perfectly possible for a single person to conduct a full review at DYK, which does not have the same remit as FAC, but it is not yet clear that the correct things are being reviewed for here. DYK should be putting articles expanded from reliable sources that correctly represent the sources without plagiarism or copyvio on the mainpage-- anything beyond that is getting into GA or other territory. Prose, for example, is not a DYK issue, although it should be possible to fix glaringly gross typos and grammatical errors on short(er) DYKs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:56, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think that a single person should always be expected to conduct a full review. Just as no one owns an article, no one owns a review. If I find in my initial review that the article does not meet minimum qualifications for DYK (for example, it's an insufficient expansion), it's not worth my time to see if the hook is adequately supported, etc., etc. If someone later fixes the issues with the article that disqualified it (this often happens), maybe I will stop by and review it again, but any reviewer should be able to pick up where I left off, and there should be no expectation that I will make myself available at instant notice to finish the review. (In particular, I don't want to feel like a DYK review obligates me. In the past, I felt that I could help out by doing some DYK reviews the day before I'm heading off on holiday, as there would be no obligation for me to be available to follow up. Lately, it seems like a DYK review creates a longer-term obligation.)
  From a practical standpoint, some of the DYK submitters (both newbie submitters and some DYK veterans who never previously did reviews) who have done reviews because of QPQ have been lousy reviewers, so it is important for someone else to check their work (or do it over). However, I think that it has been beneficial to have those people doing reviews because it may make them more clueful in the future. --Orlady (talk) 20:17, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure, you don't have to finish a review right away, I'm just saying that there's an expectation on QPQ reviewers (or indeed any other) that once you start a review you will finish it. This doesn't mean someone else may not come along in the meantime and finish it for you, but if you start a review you should obviously keep an eye on it to see what responses you get, because it often happens that once you begin, other reviewers will avoid it in the expectation that you have taken charge of it, and it's not fair to nominators to have them waiting an extended period for someone to realize that's not going to happen and finish the review for you. Gatoclass (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

What is the role of the pre-existing system of icons? Should another system be developed?

The question is somewhat premature IMO since we dont have Rjanag's alternative checklist yet. Gatoclass (talk) 14:44, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Is the watchlisting system working well?

• Too new to say, since editors are still getting accustomed to it. In principle, it's a good idea, but it's possible that we may need to tweak the implementation. cmadler (talk) 14:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• I don't really know what this question means. Just like any other page in the encyclopedia, people can choose to watchlist nominations or they can choose not to. I don't know what you mean by "is it working"—what's it supposed to be doing? rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• I like the subpages and watching them for my own noms. I miss seeing the activities on the noms of others unless I make an effort and mark them. Of course I mark the ones I reviewed. But in general, the page is less interesting than before, its history doesn't show areas of interest anymore, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• It is possible to follow changes on a page that transcludes items by using 'related changes' (should be on your sidebar under the toolbox heading) and selecting a particular Misplaced Pages namespace. In this case, template talk namespace. This method works at WP:FAC if you click related changes and select "Misplaced Pages" namespace, and it works here as well. Use this link to follow changes over all the transcluded DYK nomination subpages present on the nomination page. Carcharoth (talk) 11:45, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you, learning. Thanks also for pointing me here! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

It does make it easier to check on the status of noms, and communicate with the reviewer when there are issues, when the nom subpage is transcluded onto the talk page. We lose an incidental benefit of making people go over to the main nominations page in that might see something in another hook that needs to be noted while they're looking, but I don't know how much that actually happens/ed. Daniel Case (talk) 19:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Being able to add a DYK nom to one's watchlist is a big improvement. I now do that with those that I'm interested in and find it to be very helpful. Cbl62 (talk) 21:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Are nominators advised in the instructions to watchlist their nom? Tony (talk) 07:24, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Do the instructions need to be revised in the light of 1–3?

Assuming that some of the recent proposals are adopted, I think the answer is an obvious yes. Gatoclass (talk) 14:47, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Which instructions? DYK has a lot of instructions. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• DYK has too much instruction creep and too many pages, and as far as I can tell, the point is being lost (expansion or new text based on reliable sources), so that we sometimes see only non-reliably sourced text padded so that the crit. is met. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:58, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Our existing guidelines could do with some rationalization, so the problem of "instruction creep" is not IMO insurmountable. Gatoclass (talk) 23:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think instruction creep is insurmountable, I just think we need a good amount of ruthless chopping and design prioritisation to fix it. Panyd 01:04, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Should a review template be integrated into the nomination template at DYK?

(Section title shortened from "Should the template—or an equivalent template that does justice to the community-endorsed RfC result—be integrated into the automatic nomination template at DYK?")

• I'm not aware that there was a "community-endorsed RFC result"; my memory may be faulty, but it seems to me that the template was put into place only a few days after the launch of the RFC, and based on "voting" not "discussing", which isn't the way RFCs should be run or interpreted. Perhaps someone can verify time from launch of RFC to implementation, and I believe there were less than 40 respondants. I consider the template to be a very big step in the wrong direction, a wrinkle on top of the last step in the wrong direction (QPQ reviewing). I think the template should be scrapped, as it's already giving a false sense of security while creating too much of the wrong kind of work. Reviewers should be checking that expansion is based on reliable sources; checking the boxes without knowledge of RS or COPYVIO isn't helpful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:03, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Just to clarify, DYK rules say the article and hook must be "based on" RS. There is no DYK requirement to eliminate from consideration (as part of expansion) information that WP policy permits as per WP:SPS and WP:ABOUTSELF, so long is these aren't the basis of the article or the source for the hook. Sharktopus 16:10, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure what you're clarifying, since SPS and ABOUTSELF are not unreliable when used correctly. I'm talking about the grossly marginal sources we regularly see at DYK, even in BLPs-- things like blogs, non-medical sources for medical text, tourist webpages, and the like. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• As per above, I agree with Sandy on this. The entire RfC process was malformed. First we must reach agreement on what reviewers should be checking, then can we consider any kind of checklist (template or otherwise). cmadler (talk) 14:12, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• If we are going to have a checklist, it should probably be integrated into the nom template. One possible argument against doing so is if we decided to have a choice of templates as they do at GAN for example. Gatoclass (talk) 15:17, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
  • There is no basis for this assertion: the community voted overwhelmingly in favour of the explicit checklist in the RfC text. With the sole exception of the last bullet ("Obvious faults in prose, structure, formatting"), every single item is in the DYK rules, which leave open no doubt. Sandy, you appear to be coming from the angle that DYK should be terminated—throw the baby out with the bathwater—but the community clearly !voted against this. I say, make DYK live up to its own rules: find a way, even if fewer hooks are exposed on the main page for longer as a result. The community has recognised that the checklist is the only way of ensuring that DYK rules are followed. Tony (talk) 16:30, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
    • As both Gatoclass and Sandy have repeatedly pointed out, the RfC was malformed for a variety of reasons. Further, as several editors have repeatedly pointed out, the RfC asked whether reviewers should explicitly confirm that they had checked a list of items. The specific form of the template was not part of the RfC, and we've wasted an absurd amount of time debating this because you refuse to "get the point". cmadler (talk) 17:19, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
      • What we have now is a checklist template by fiat. Malformed RFCs also got us into the current mess of ArbCom; I must commend editor Mike Christie for making sure that no RFC has ever been launched at FAC without a thorough discussion *before* so that we knew what the RFC was supposed to measure, the wording was clear, and clear outcomes were obtained. We do not have that here: we have a template by coup, that no one has appeared willing to revert. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

A review template should eventually be integrated, but not until there is consensus about which one to use. There are several threads above discussing the checklist issues, and my reading of them is that, while most people agreed in the RfC that a checklist should be used, not everyone agrees on what the format of it should be. The fact that Tony has been adding his checklist to almost every nom in spite of that lack of consensus doesn't mean that it has been adopted. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:38, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree but I also think it's a good temporary measure to let people know what they should be checking for. Panyd 00:19, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Has the role of the queuing admins changed?

Who should shoulder the responsibility of ensuring policy compliance and quality on main-page hooks? Should this be shared among the admins, the reviewers, and the nominators? Should anyone still be permitted to load noms onto the prep pages?

I think that not only should everyone be allowed to move noms to the prep pages but that everyone should be encouraged to do so. It spreads responsibility which can only be a good step towards ensuring that more mistakes are caught (even questions of taste and grammar can be solved quite easily). Panyd 14:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Quality control must be shared between reviewers and admins - admins certainly can't be expected to be responsible for every aspect of every DYK, there aren't nearly enough of them active on this project. Gatoclass (talk) 14:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• The role of the queuing admins has always been a janitorial one, not a filtering one. They happen to be able to edit the queue whereas other editors can't. The point of reviewing, and the prep areas (where usually an article is passed to the prep area by someone different than the reviewer) is to be the filter. Queuing admins never were expected to be fully responsible for what articles go to the main page; that responsibility belongs to every editor who participated in the process (writing, nomination, review, promoting). rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• We may have a difference of opinion here. I think the queuing admin has some responsibility for quality control, although they can't be expected to check for everything. This may be due to the fact that when I started at DYK, the queuing admins often moved hooks to the main page within minutes after assembling the set, so there was more of a sense of responsibility in that role. I have always thought that the queuing admin was responsible for at least a superficial review of the hooks -- looking at each linked article for obvious issues, checking the eligibility of the image and making sure it will be protected when it goes to the main page, checking the hook wording for clarity and potential controversy, reviewing the hooks for balance within the hook set, checking the main page appearance, etc. I generally think it unnecessary to look at the review history for the hooks, but I have done that on occasion when I had concerns about a hook. Once I found that a hook in the prep area was basically an advertisement that had been reviewed and moved to the prep area by newbie users who probably were in cahoots with the article creator; IMO queuing admins need to watch for things like that. --Orlady (talk) 20:32, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Blatant advertising yes; but there have been some things in the prep areas with regards to controversial topics like fringe psychology which anyone not familiar with the field wouldn't be able to pick up on. That's an issue. Panyd 00:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

They need to take on more reponsibility. Tony (talk) 07:27, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

How exactly? Their names are already plastered all over everything. I really don't understand. Panyd 12:10, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Should there be a normal limit on the number of DYKs in a single hook?

(Original title was "Should there be a normal limit on the number of DYKs in a single hook? It seems that each DYK article in these noms needs to be examined separately."

• Not only should there not be a limit on the number of qualifying articles in a single hook, but where practical, we should encourage nominators to combine related articles into a single hook, since this reduces complaints about having too many related articles on the Main Page within a limited time. Yes, each qualifying article needs to be examined. cmadler (talk) 13:58, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Per cmadler, I would add however that while every article in a multi should be checked, I think only one should be checked for copyvio, and if checklist templates are used, one reviewer should be able to use one template for multiple articles, although more than one reviewer may help check the articles, ie one template per reviewer rather than one template per article. Gatoclass (talk) 14:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't understand Cmadler's point "since this reduces complaints about having too many related articles on the Main Page within a limited time". There are three strong reasons to resist multi-hooks, especially those with eight (or 11, perish the thought):

    (1) it adds significantly to the burden of reviewing, which people are already complaining about (especially Sandy); (2) it dilutes the likelihood that any one DYK article, prepared and reviewed with considerable effort, will be visited; (3) a huge tranche of bolded, linked text looks visually awful and overbalances the neighbouring DYK hooks. I'd hate to have my DYK article hooked in a set that includes an exploding supernova. Tony (talk) 16:36, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

    • For discussions on the most recent occurance of this sort of complaint, see Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know/Archive 66#Dan_Savage, Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know/Archive 67#Removed some of my self noms, and Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know/Archive 67#DYK with hypothetical COI, the latter of which you (Tony) participated in. This was less than two months ago, speaking of lack of institutional memory! cmadler (talk) 17:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
      • @Tony: Like Cbl62 says below, what "reduces complaints about having too many related articles on the MP within a limited time" means this: suppose I just wrote 30 boring cookie-cutter articles about roads. At 6 updates per day, I could have at least one road article on the MP for five days nonstop (and soon people would come a-running saying, "Why does DYK have such a thing for boring road articles?"). Or I could make, say, 2 hooks with 15 articles apiece, or 3 hooks with 10 apiece, and get them out of the way much more quickly, without giving the idea that DYK has a "thing" for road articles. (Or, if the articles are terribly boring I could just not submit them, but a lot of people seem to feel this is not an option—I think some people think any article that meets the objective criteria is "entitled" to a DYK. At the moment I have no comment on that issue, it has been discussed elsewhere.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:19, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
        • "if the articles are terribly boring I could just not submit them, but a lot of people seem to feel this is not an option—I think some people think any article that meets the objective criteria is "entitled" to a DYK." This is at the root of the malaise in the DYK culture. People need to stop thinking of their main-page serotonin surge as a right. Tony (talk) 07:37, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
          • If there is one complaint I do have with DYK since I backed off active reviewing, it's that we have way too many dull hooks. I like to find something interesting or unusual that can be reliably sourced in every new article I create or expand, but that's not a given. For example, I couldn't find anything in W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite that would have been interesting enough, so I just did the minimal expansion I could. Daniel Case (talk) 16:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• The issue of limiting multi-article hooks has been proposed elsewhere. The consensus has repeatedly been that they should be allowed. On the other hand, practically speaking, reviewers are probably more reluctant to review a multi-article hook, so nominating one almost guarantees your "new content" will have to wait in line longer to get reviewed. Sharktopus 16:49, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• As cmadler mentioned, multis serve a useful purpose in minimizing overload on a particular topic. I recall one where there was an outcry about 15 or 20 cookie-cutter articles being submitted on a closely related topic. The issue was resolved by combining into 2-3 multis. Cbl62 (talk) 21:52, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• It's often not much more effort to review multi-hooks as they tend to use the same sources and duplicate text. I don't believe there should be a limit. That said, I also think nominators should ask themselves why they are putting forward huge multi-hooks. Most of the time I think it is for the benefit of something other than the encyclopedia, the readers, or the articles themselves.Yomangani 22:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

A great many of my submissions have been multis and the reason is twofold; firstly, that in researching one topic I often find a bunch of related topics to write about, and secondly, putting them in a multi saves space. I'm quite sure that many of my submissions would get a lot more hits if I submitted them on an individual basis, if only because I could usually come up with better hooks for individual articles, but I submit multis as a space-saving measure. Gatoclass (talk) 01:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

It's a space-saving measure if you think it necessary to submit every article to DYK. I don't blaming you for doing that - it's in the tradition of DYK - but when articles are closely associated and interlinked I don't really see it serving any purpose to put more than two or three up. Anyway, that's a minority view, it's never going to be a rule, and it wouldn't be enforceable if it was, so I'll shut up. Yomangani 01:56, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Should DYK encourage more work on articles, after main-page exposure?

(Original section title: "Does DYK have a role to play in encouraging further work on articles, after main-page exposure? Should there be more official support for a trajectory from DYK to GA to FA/FL?"

• Not directly. To the extent that suggestions are made during the DYK review, that may form the basis for next steps. But once an article passes through DYK, we are generally done with it. I'm not aware of GA having a post-review role with articles either (beyond periodic GA review) to push them toward FA. I can see a potential value to some sort of organized article trajectory project to help editors with WP:Article development, and DYK would have a role in that, just as GA and FA would, but that goes beyond DYK itself and should be organized separately. cmadler (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Can't see any point to this. If someone is not working to improve one article, he's working to improve another, there is nothing special about DYK articles that they should get priority. Gatoclass (talk) 14:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• The role is to expose the article to wider views, and get it on some watchlists. That's it. Johnbod (talk) 15:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Plus, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, some things can't get to GA or FA. That's ok! They can be good DYKs instead. Panyd 15:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• A fine idea for somebody's separate project, as cmadler says. There is a contradiction between claims that DYK is not doing enough to watch out for xxx and claims that DYK should be expanding to promote yyy. Sharktopus 15:38, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• No, this is not the purpose of DYK. Do ITN, OTD, or TFA do this? They don't. Continuing work on articles is nice, but DYK's job is not to do every single nice thing that is possible in the entire project. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• Agree with Rjanag. Cbl62 (talk) 21:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• It's not the purpose of DYK but it's a cool idea. Maybe not getting it to GA standard but maybe informing the relevant project that it's gone on the front page? Or is that too complex? Panyd 22:19, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Not all articles have a relevant project. For something like tracking articles for a given project that have been on DYK, the best way to do this would be to add something to the WikiProject banners that go on talk pages (I assume there's a "meta" template for those; someone would have to first edit that to add some sort of |dyk= parameter, and then we would have to edit our bot to fill that in when giving credits). rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Should there be a directorate?

What would be the disadvantages and advantages of having one? If the community decided the latter outweigh the former, presumably it should be elected; how big? What roles? For example, should the directors number four (my guess) and be admins (almost certainly). Should their role be:

(a) to keep all aspects of DYK running well, including nominations, reviewing, archiving, promotion/rejection, transfer to prep rooms, queuing, exposure, and archiving?

(b) to liaise as necessary with other editors who run the main page and its forums to ensure that the needs of the main page remain the primary driving force?

(c) to encourage article improvement after DYK main-page exposure?

(d) to advise if ever necessary on programs in which DYK might participate that benefit the project, whether prompted by WP editors, the WMF, or Foundation chapters?

In relation to the last, however, I'll respond to that now - we don't have the manpower for a directorate such as the one you are suggesting. That's why I suggested an enhanced process for admins loading updates into the queue as an alternative. It's the most we can hope for IMO, but even that has been queried by Yomangani as possibly too demanding. Gatoclass (talk) 13:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Gato, I had in mind status and responsibility more than a significantly increased workload for directors. A directorate might bring the potential of DYK together into a cohesive whole more easily. Tony (talk) 13:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I've informally asked around about this and it appears that most administrators are too scared or bewildered to touch DYK. I think that putting together an official proposal for a directorate which clearly outlined the responsibilities of administrators moving hooks and gave a shared responsibility amongst them would help solve the manpower issue quite rapidly. Panyd 13:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• I'm wary of the "directorate" idea, though frankly I don't think it's sufficiently defined to form a solid view. Tony posits that the role should be one of "status and responsibility more than a significantly increased workload." What does that mean? The (b)-(d) points above don't seem particularly compelling. Point (a) goes to the core of what DYK admins do, and I'm not sure what the role of a proposed directorate would be in performing/supervising those tasks. Over the past three years, many admins have been heavily involved in DYK at various times. The ones who have remained consistently active in doing the point (a) tasks over the long haul have been Gato, MatSci, and Rjanag. More recently, others like cmadler (if not an admin, should be) have been more active. People come and go as their time and interest levels permit. I do believe there is a leadership role that can be played, and is played, by the long-established DYK admins. For this reason, folks tend to give greater weight to the views expressed by Gato, MatSci and Rjanag -- which I find appropriate. But in the end, decisions are made by consensus with all voices being heard and counted -- which I also find appropriate. My skepticism about a "directorate" is that it seems to run counter to the democratic/consenus orientation of Misplaced Pages. If a "directorate" were to be proposed, there are many details that would need to be fleshed out before it could be considered. Are there other examples of "directorates" within Misplaced Pages? If so, can someone provide a link to the by-laws (or whatever they may be called) governing those directorates? What powers and responsibilities would a directorate have? Would they have the power to change DYK policies? Would they act only as a group and by consensus of the group (as in the case of a corporate board of directors) or would directors have power to act individually? How would they be chosen? How could they be removed? For how long would they serve? The latter points may be best addressed further down the road, but there needs to be a clearer picture of the core purpose/powers/responsibilities of the proposed directorate. Cbl62 (talk) 15:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• I'm afraid I just don't see how a directorate would work at DYK. Directorates work fine where there is unlimited time to ponder and work to improve articles, as with FAC and GAN, but for a process where you are fielding dozens of articles a day, there simply isn't time for prolonged discussions. I think at best we can do what I proposed earlier, which is to have, in effect, a more detailed checklist for individual admins to sign off on as the hook goes to the queue. Gatoclass (talk) 15:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Well I agree with that. I'm just not sure how else to solve the problem of fear, and I think it is a very real problem. We need more manpower! Panyd 15:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Problems with a directorate idea -- DYK covers a lot more articles and goes faster than GA. Isn't that too much of a workload for four volunteers? Who would be willing to do it, if the main role of a director is to take blame for failures? If Panyd, Gatoclass, cmadler, Rjanag, MaterialScientist, Khazar, etc. wanted to put on a hat that said "director", I would be fine with that. If we get people with plans to remake DYK "running" for election, with their friends popping by to vote for them, I would not be fine with something like that. Sharktopus 15:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• I would support some of the admins above putting on the director hat. I was more thinking that we outlined a specification and people could then register interest for a trial period; maybe with 4-5 administrators sharing the role of 'director'. Panyd 15:55, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happy with the current crop of admins who are doing the job. I just think the system is multilayered if it's going to work responsibly and be accountable (e.g., proper archiving, please), and the process needs to solidify around a directorate that will gain respect in WP. FAC and FLC have solid, very successful directorates: they've kept complex mechanisms running properly, they make their systems accountable, they respond to queries where they haven't been solved otherwise, and they represent the process in the project at large. Don't forget that these processes resemble DYK in many ways, including main-page exposure, adherence to rules, nominators/reviewers, promotions/rejections. Tony (talk) 16:44, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Looking at Tony's list above a, b, c, and d. Item a is about directors who use the mop, as admins do. That would be great. Item b is about directors who liaise with others about Main Page issues. People claiming to speak for the needs of the Main Page speak with many voices. We just went through months of complaint that DYK hooks were too boring for the Main Page, but we also get complaints that DYK hooks are too sensational. We got yelled at yesterday for a hook that did not include a metric conversion and we got yelled at today for a hook that did include a metric conversion. Let the instructions say our directors listen and respond, but not that our directors promise to please every spokesperson talking about the Main Page –that's undoable.
• Items c and d are proposals wrt starting new programs at DYK. Item c demands that directors plot a trajectory for post-DYK articles. Item d asks that directors advise on unspecified new programs that might be suggested for DYK. These seem unnecessary demands to put on directors. If new programs are suggested, including the recent one about post-DYK articles, directors will or won't express an opinion like anybody else. Would we fire a director who was doing a great job with the mop because xe didn't advise yes or no one every single DYK-modification somebody dropped by this talk page to propose? Let's keep it simple. Sharktopus 18:37, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Just seeing as people appear to be going here anyway, I wrote a draft of the directorate proposal here, based on Tony's suggestions. If people could please edit it with their thoughts that would be awesome. Deleting things is fine, as is adding them. Getting something built by consensus would be brilliant. Panyd 19:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Strikes me as premature. Cbl62 (talk) 22:51, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Definitely for a) (there was already an informal directorate for this anyway) and maybe b), although as I've been arguing the time has come, the walrus said, to have some sort of overall Main Page directorate or, if you will, czar, and that would work only in that context. c) and d), as noted, are separate projects. Daniel Case (talk) 19:29, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• Could someone link to whatever rules, mission statement, guidelines, by-laws (whatever terminology is used) for the other "directorates" that have been referenced above at GA and FA? It would be helpful to see what has been done elsewhere to see what might or might not be appropriate in the DYK context. Cbl62 (talk) 21:46, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• I see no merit in this suggestion. The only purpose it would serve would be to add a layer of bureaucracy and perhaps make 4 (or another equally random number) admins feel like they had a higher status. a) and b) are done already - successfully or unsuccessfully, there is no reason to believe the competency standards would change as a result of having DYK overlords - and c) and d) recast the role of DYK. Let's be careful this discussion doesn't go the way of the checklist RFC. Yomangani 22:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• Again I go back to my fear and bewilderment point. I mean, how many new admins have you seen here? Or casual administrators for the matter? Panyd 22:55, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• But how does a directorate help with that problem? Cbl62 (talk) 23:03, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• I don't understand why you think appointing a Directorate would solve that problem. Responsibility for running DYK would inevitably coalesce around the Directorate. Yomangani 23:05, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• I think clearly laying out the responsibilities involved for potential adminsitrators would help. I could be wrong but I honestly believe that. Does anyone have other ideas? Panyd 23:09, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• That sounds like an excellent idea. The question posed here is very different. Yomangani 23:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Can we twist it into being that? That was sort of my aim. Panyd 00:18, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes (I'm sure there is probably a dingbat for an arrow pointing down, but just imagine it)Yomangani 00:35, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

To the first question (late into this, again): I think if as many people as possible would carry out the four functions described, DYK would be better off than with a few selected ones with a title. This includes the ones aspiring to the title, smile, just do it, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:43, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Although I originally pushed the idea of a directorate, or panel of capable and experienced admins, there is no evidence that such a panel exists among the regulars at DYK, so I no longer think my idea workable. An acountable panel would have to, at minimum, understand sourcing and the gravity of copyvio and sourcing breaches here, and I don't think we currently have membership to make up such a panel and assure mainpage integrity of DYK articles. I don't know what the solution is, but since DYK doesn't seem able to get its house in order, the prognosis seems dim. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:34, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It's much easier to find Wikipedians who pretend to be copyright lawyers, than Wikipedians who really are. Art LaPella (talk) 17:15, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Being informed that all of us are unworthy is such an effective motivator! --Orlady (talk) 19:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• I don't like the idea of a directorate, largely because the need for administrator attention at DYK is so frequent. It's impractical to expect any small group of administrators to commit to the necessary level of activity. The informal arrangements of the past, wherein a large number of administrators each "work" various aspects of DYK regularly but on an intermittent basis, have generally functioned well and do not need to be replaced with a formal arrangement. --Orlady (talk) 19:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Should there be a statement of the responsibilities of the DYK admins?

Panyd thinks some statement of what is expected of the admins working here would help with recruitment. I tend to agree with her. Anybody else? Yomangani 00:35, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Sandy was just complaining of instruction creep so that's a consideration. But it wouldn't hurt to give it a try I suppose. First of all though, we'd have to work out exactly what the admins' duties are, as that is a topic currently up for discussion. Gatoclass (talk) 01:01, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• It would be easy enough to add a subsection to WP:DYK rules#The DYK process describing the various duties done by various sorts of editors here. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:31, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Ayudhapurusha (Queue 4)

I think this needs "the" added before "Hindu". cmadler (talk) 12:38, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Added. Materialscientist (talk) 13:13, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Leal Garcia v. Texas

Do we really need to construct sentences such as to present puerile double-entendres on the front page. I know its the school holidays, but... Kevin McE (talk) 12:49, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm obviously missing something there. What is the puerile double-entendre to which you refer? It seems very straightforward to me. cmadler (talk) 13:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

What? What on earth did I miss there? Panyd 13:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Kevin may be seeing a double entendre as the Leal Garcia v. Texas hook is in the "quirky" spot of Queue 5, and since we usually put the rather "naughty" hooks there... I don't see a double entendre though. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but what is the double entendre he's seeing? cmadler (talk) 13:55, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, if I twist the meaning of "relationship" really badly I can see imagine some things that we wouldn't want on the main page (orgies, multiple partners, swingers)... brain bleach. But you'd have to do a lot of stretching to get that kind of double entendre out of the hook. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Crisco, for figuring out what it was. I am also concerned that in Queue Two one of the hooks includes the word "title." Whose puerile effort was this to make people think of a certain three-letter word? Sharktopus 14:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I am so confused. Panyd 14:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Kevin, not only are we not mind-readers, but most of us don't do cryptic crosswords either. You need to make your comments far clearer and use links like everybody else. Johnbod (talk) 15:05, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I've already told him this a few times in a few places. It's probably not going to happen. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

err: acts of congress? Sorry if this was not intended to be a double entendre, or if the phrase is not considered ambiguous in some circles; maybe people should be aware that it can look like euchemism, even if none was intended. However, I extend no apology to Rjanag, who has taken a rude approach to my observations and a very unconstructive approach to my attempts to improve what is proposed for the Main Page. His attitude seems most unbecoming for an administrator. Kevin McE (talk) 21:46, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Act of Congress. It's a common term in American English. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:09, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that's the legal phrase for them....Panyd 22:12, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Gotta love the variations in our supposedly shared English language. I doubt 1 out of a 1000 Americans would have seen the sexual connotation in "Acts of Congress." Cbl62 (talk) 23:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, as the connotation exists in other realms of Anglophonia, could it be rephrased? Kevin McE (talk) 00:17, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I honestly don't believe that even English speakers outside of the US will see that connotation. I'd be happy for another administrator to prove me wrong though. Panyd 00:23, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a Yank, and this connotation certainly didn't occur to me. "Act of Congress" is a familiar phrase even outside the US. But I think it's a poor hook regardless. Gatoclass (talk) 01:10, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• blank stare* Never occurred to me... Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:39, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Jacquie de Creed

An article which was pulled from DYK at a late stage due to apparent paraphrasing issues. I intend to revisit the article and tweak it, then wish to resubmit it. I also wish to register my displeasure at the disingenuous way I feel this matter was handled. The editor who pulled the article failed to bring the matter to my attention, which I feel is only a polite and courteous thing to do in such circumstances. Although she subsequently posted a comment to the talk page, I believe protocol dictates that those involved in the issue should be informed. Certainly on previous DYKs where there have been issues, editors have posted to my talk page. Is this no longer the case? Are we now becoming like the corporation which announces redundancies to the media before they inform their employees? If so it's certainly a step in the wrong direction. If that is the direction we're going in, I will be taking this matter higher. TheRetroGuy (talk) 20:44, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The editor who removed the article did leave a note on the article talk page (although she didn't specifically say she had removed it, she just said there were issues).

As for resubmitting, I think once an article has been on DYK (even for a short time) it's ineligible to reappear. But there may be loopholes for this situation; we'll see what others have to say.

As to "taking this matter higher", I'm not sure what you mean. Are you going to tattle to Jimbo on us? Sorry, but there is no "higher", in that there's no one who can tell DYK they have to repost your article. DYK is a WikiProject and as such it doesn't have to answer to Jimbo or ArbCom or wherever else you are thinking of "taking this"; it's just governed by community consensus, like most projects. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:03, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, my issue with taking things higher is not about whether or not it is reposted, I'm just very angry at the lack of consideration that was shown to me. Maybe it was an oversight on her part that she didn't inform me, who knows? I certainly felt quite insulted by it. I made my displeasure known to her and she has lead me to believe I can resubmit the article once the issues are dealt with, and says this has been done before (though gave no examples), so I would like to do that if possible. Had this matter been raised earlier while the article was still up on the talk page,it could have been saved and all this unnecessary bad feeling avoided, but now the time limit has elapsed and I've missed the boat, so to speak. Can you blame me for being annoyed by that, especially after the amount of work I put into the article? As for taking it higher, well Jimbo wasn't my next port of call, but I might have got there in the end. TheRetroGuy (talk) 21:35, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Again, Nikkimaria left a note at the article talk page. I don't think she meant to insult you (and I don't think any other editor would feel insulted at this); she probably just assumed you were watching the page.

As for complaining to Jimbo...let me just go out on a limb and tell you right now that Jimbo almost certainly doesn't care about this particular matter and it would be better not to waste his time with it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:05, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe life is too short. I've just had a stressful few days in the real world and so was bound to be tetchy. If I can resubmit it, then great. If not, then life moves on. Not sure whether I'll submit anything else here though (but not because of this incident, but because since the process changed I personally find the whole thing a bit of a head%^&* - the old system was far easier to navigate in my opinion). TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

What part of the process do you find difficult? There have been several changes implemented at once, some with prior discussion and some without. If you mean the process of nominating pages (creating a subpage and then adding it here) is difficult, that is the part of the process that I am working on and you can make suggestions to me. If you mean something else, it is probably outside of my control. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

On a separate note: the article never made it to the main page (it was in prep 4 when it was pulled) so it would still be eligible. As far as I can see, the nomination wasn't reinstated on the nominations page though. Yomangani 23:11, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

A couple quick notes: I did post to article talk, but should have explicitly said that I had removed it from prep. My understanding is that since it was on prep and not on the main page it can be re-added to T:TDYK (as Yomangani mentions); RetroGuy, one example of this is Nels Running, removed from queue under similar circumstances and currently on the noms page. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:05, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Nikkimaria, common practice when pulling a hook from a prep area or queue is to leave a note here (WT:DYK) and if the problem can be fixed, to return the item to T:TDYK. cmadler (talk) 03:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Okay, here's a note: removed another article for similar concerns. This case is more egregious than the one discussed earlier in this section, so I will not re-add it to T:TDYK. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:09, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Another one. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. If it hasn't already been re-added I'll put it back on TT:DYK and fix the problems that were highlighted to me. Sorry about getting stressed out over this yesterday. It was a very difficult day for me. I had to give away my dog because he was too badly behaved and I couldn't cope with him any more. He's gone to a good home though, but I'm quite sad that I had to make that decision. Then this happened and it was all too much. But I've had a good night's sleep and I'm feeling a bit better now. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 11:22, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been following the concerns raised on these two articles, and I'd like to point to Talk:Patrick Lawlor as an example of how editors can disagree over close paraphrasing concerns. What I think is needed is for those who point out concerns to not only quote from source and article, but to say how they would write things to avoid close paraphrasing. I am about to post there saying that more discussion and suggestions are needed on actual wording for the article, rather than just pointing out similarities and identical wording. Just pointing people to a guideline doesn't really help that much. Carcharoth (talk) 12:48, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

How a DYK suggestion makes its way to the main page

Here I kind of rewrote WP:DYK#How a DYK suggestion makes its way to the main page. I don't know if anyone ever reads this, but I thought maybe it would clear up some people's confusion over why there are preps and queues and stuff, which seems to confuse some editors. Also, much of the stuff in that section was pretty out of date. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:03, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

How to archive days?

The talk page says to send them here but the bit at the top says to archive them here. Help? Panyd 23:19, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The former. Sorry, I just changed it up; see User talk:Mandarax#New DYK days. I'll update the instructions at the beginning of the page; guess I missed those. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

But, if there are no new-style noms on a give day, it should just be removed, not archived. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I see there is one new-style nom under July 14, so that day is ready to archive.

Just to be clear: For dates up to and including August 4, archive them by pasting them to Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/YEAR MONTH DAY. For August 5 and later, it's going to be a bit different; I'll update the instructions when it's time to switch over. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:46, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The archiving you just did looks correct. Thanks, rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:59, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you guys for the help! Panyd 00:17, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Perp Area 2

On the last hook, could someone else just clarify that this is ok? I thought it was but I'd like someone else to give feedback before I move it to a queue. Panyd 00:32, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know but that hook is more boring than some of the others. i would put eating insects at the end, not poker placements. Sharktopus 00:41, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. Panyd 00:44, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Review checklist templates

Much of the discussion above is about how most of us agreed an explicit review checklist should be used but we don't all agree on what its format should be. Right now most noms have Tony1's template, {{DYKrev}}, shown below:

Please add a comment and signature (or just a signature if endorsing) after each aspect you have reviewed:

Hook

• Length, format, content rules –
• Source –
• Interest –
• Image suitability, if applicable –
• ALT hooks, if proposed –

Article

• Length –
• Vintage –
• Sourcing (V, RS, BLP) –
• Neutrality –
• Plagiarism/close paraphrasing –
• copyvio (files) –
• Obvious faults in prose, structure, formatting –

After some discussion (mostly with Gatoclass—see #Another template and User talk:Rjanag#Review template—although I've had input from a few others as well) I've made {{DYK hook checklist}} and {{DYK article checklist}}. (The rationale for breaking it into two checklists was to allow for separate reviews of individual hooks--in the case of many ALT hooks-- and/or separate reviews of individual articles--in the case of multi-noms).

As I have said many times before, the exact list of checks in this template is not set in stone, and I'm open to suggestions about checks that should be added, checks that should be removed, or checks that should be merged. Likewise, whether or not to link the various checks to corresponding rules/guidelines is also open to discussion; right now, the documentation pages for {{DYK hook checklist}} and {{DYK article checklist}} include explanations of what each field refers to, if any are unclear. The reason I'm posting this now is mainly for discussion about whether the format of this is desirable. Feel free to play with it in your sandboxes; below is an example of what it would look like (with a fake nomination; this nomination is fake and this review is fake, so please don't get worked up over the content of it).

{{*mp}}... that ''']''' is made of ''']'''?
created by some user
<!--
credits
-->
{{DYK hook checklist
|format={{subst:DYKY}}
|citation={{subst:DYKY}}
|neutrality={{subst:DYKX}}
|interest={{subst:DYKY}}
}}
:*Hook fact checks out but this reads like an advertisement for water to me. ~~~~
{{DYK article checklist
|length={{subst:DYKY}}
|newness={{subst:DYKY}}
|adequatecitations={{subst:DYKY}}
|formattedcitations={{subst:DYKY}}
|reliablesources={{subst:DYKY}}
|neutrality={{subst:DYKY}}
|plagiarism={{subst:DYKY}}
|article=Water
}}
{{DYK article checklist
|length={{subst:DYKX}}
|newness={{subst:DYKY}}
|adequatecitations=
|formattedcitations=
|reliablesources=
|neutrality={{subst:DYKY}}
|plagiarism={{subst:DYKY}}
|article=Ice
}}
:*The article ] is still a stub. ~~~~

• ... that ice is made of water?

created by some user

• Hook fact checks out but this reads like an advertisement for water to me. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• The article Ice is still a stub. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

The reason I used {{subst:DYKY}} and {{subst:DYKX}} rather than just signatures is that it allows us to differentiate between things that have been checked and marked ok, things that have been checked and marked bad, and things that have not been checked at all (just using signatures alone doesn't provide any easy way to tell the difference between bad things and unchecked things, although people should be able to tell by looking at comments below the table). If people don't like this setup, it's possible to go back to using just signatures (an earlier version of this template, visible at User:Rjanag#Samples, did just that). If people don't like the titles of those little DYKY and DYKX templates, that is also very easy to change, so please don't get hung up on those minor details.

The major difference between this setup and Tony's is that these templates do not encourage lengthy comments within the checklist itself (the idea is that the checklist is a quick visual aid to see the status of the hook, and things that warranted an ✘ have it explained in the discussion below the template); I've found that Tony's template is somewhat confusing in that, say, I leave a comment about a problem in one line, sometimes people respond to me directly beneath that (making the review checklist get stretched longer and longer) and sometimes people respond below the entire template. The other main difference is that I tried to compact the checklist and make it take up less space. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:27, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Template discussion

I think I'm seeing mojibake boxes instead of whatever character is supposed to be displayed. As a result, the only difference between the DYKY and DYKN is color, specifically red/green, which is the most common form of color-blindness. I suggest that either images should be used to ensure proper display regardless of what character sets editors have loaded, or more common characters (perhaps as simple as "Y" and "N") should be used. Other than that, I like the concept. cmadler (talk) 19:23, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I was worried about that; right now it's using the first character in Tick (check mark) and the second-to-last character in X mark; perhaps browser support for these is not as widespread as I thought. Do any of the alternative characters in those pages show up for you?

If those don't work, bold Y and N would also work. I think that would be better than images, which might increase page load time for T:TDYK (although that has been discussed many times and I don't think we ever narrowed down exactly what things had a big effect and what things didn't). rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:57, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

So in sum, I think the options are:

• Some other tick and X characters that show up for everyone (do ✓ and ✗ show up for you?);
• Y and N;
• Y and N

rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:01, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I like the Y and N. Panyd 21:42, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Really, more templates (in the form of {{subst:DYKX}} and {{subst:DYKY}})? Does anyone else feel a bit overloaded with all the code? Why wouldn't it be possible to just write |length={no, x, n, yes, y, etc.} so that they will generate what is necessary. It's not really necessary to know who exactly reviewed each point if everyone is signing their name at the end anyway, right? I can hardly keep up with all the curly brackets, and I registered my account four years ago. Do you really think that editors new to DYK are going to stick around and try to learn it? Or is it more likely that they will take one look at it and run screaming? NW (Talk) 22:19, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I tried to design a version that just took |length={no, x, n, yes, y, etc.} and added both the check/X mark and the signature based on that. Unfortunately it wasn't possible (see User talk:Rjanag#Technical stuff). If people want both checks/Xs and signatures, this is pretty much the simplest ways to do it in this sort of table format. The other options are to just have signatures without checks and Xs (in which case people could just use tildes rather than {{subst:DYKX}} and stuff like that), or to have just checks and Xs without signatures (I agree with you 100% that signatures shouldn't be necessary, but I don't know if everyone else feels the same way). Both of those are also options I have tried (again, see User talk:Rjanag#Technical stuff) but until I know what people really want out of this checklist, and how they expect it to be used, I won't know what is the best design for it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the mojibake, I edit primarily on two different computers. All the characters display fine using this one; I'll check on the other (where I initially saw mojibake) tomorrow morning and let you know what I see. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 21:06, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Back on computer #1, and of the three pairs in Rjanag's comment at 20:01, 5 August 2011, the first pair show as mojibake, but the second and third are fine. cmadler (talk) 12:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I like it because I think it's less confusing when scrolling down the page. The current adopted system of underlined shoulder headings looks too similar to the main headings to me and I find it a right pain in the proverbial when I'm looking for the right place to click 'edit'. This one at least differentiates. TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Logic: I still think if I say Y (or whatever) to Plagiarism, there IS plagiarism. Or not? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:21, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

We can discuss these issues (e.g., what the names of the various criteria should be) after the more basic issues are settled. To be frank, this issue is trivial and easily solvable, and right now what I am looking for is input about the format of the template (particularly the issue NuclearWarfare mentioned above about signatures). rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:24, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

The concept is good, and obviously I have given my opinion about signatures (include a separate box for reviewer(s) maybe?). "Adequate citations" and "reliable sources" should probably be merged in the interests of space, and perhaps even "Formatted citations" too. NW (Talk) 01:47, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the issue of the {{subst:DYKX}} and {{subst:DYKY}} templates being too much... for what it's worth, the documentation samples (at {{DYK article checklist}} and {{DYK hook checklist}}) include <!-- {{subst:DYKY}} or {{subst:DYKX}} -->, so users wouldn't have to remember all that--they can just paste in the sample and use the text that's already there. Likewise, if there is consensus to use this template, it can be preloaded in the page so it's automatically there and users don't have to personally type in {{subst:DYKX}}. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:09, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I like the boxes and the coloured ticks and crosses. I really don't like the unintuitive and hard-to-remember 14-character syntax, which is just as hard as those for the old system of coloured icons. If you have to scroll up and copy a syntax from above the edit-box, it's a hassle. Can't the template provide all but the final letter (y, n) for reviewers to type in, so that a box remains blank without a final letter, or produces the tick or cross with a y or n added, plus the signature via four tildes? And if it's not possible to reverse a previous reviewer's tick or cross, it should be an accepted part of the use of this template that this can be done via written-out objections below. DYK reviewing should be as easy as possible. The signature really must be there or we're back to the old "review all or none of the nom" that has been the recipe for poor reviewing practices (namely, the "good to go", when we know very well the basic policies and DYK rules haven't been checked out—better to admit that partial reviews are appropriate for QPQ and other reviewers). Tony (talk) 08:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

"DYK reviewing should be as easy as possible." Support! "The signature really must be there." Oppose. If someone wants to do a fast approval, the kind you despise, that one will do 9 or so signatures (almost as) fast and brainless as so far. I doubt that a mandatory template will prevent that. For those who do a review with brain the template is not needed. It is a good tool (!) if a reviewer does only a partial review, to show the next one what was checked and what not. (I said all this before.) I am not shy to go into lengthy discussions for a review, for example I defended Mykola Leontovych which is now a GA. I was asked (below) to give examples: one I passed: Template talk:Did you know/Highland Cottage, one I received: Talk:Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir#Decent review framed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:39, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

An example of both review ways in parallel: Template talk:Did you know/Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, BWV 9. You can see where I prefer the free style: It's coming as a dialogue, whereas the template has a "teacher/student", "pass/fail" attitude which I want to apply only if necessary, rarely that is. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC) It wasn't nec here but I did it table style anyway: Template talk:Did you know/Julia Voss --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:38, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

You seem to want to revert to all of the worst things about DYK non-reviewing, which brought the forum close to being dismantled by the community. Tony (talk) 11:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

But remember how close we are to being dismantled anyway: I count 27 approvals left on the nominations page, 17 of which are done your way. Art LaPella (talk) 14:33, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Tony on this one - it's useful to see who has checked what via the sigs. I also agree with Tony about the syntax - I've suggested an alternative on Rjanag's talk page which would just involve adding a "y" or "n" to a field to pass or fail it. Gatoclass (talk) 12:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the preloaded template can include, e.g., <!-- {{subst:DYKyes}} or {{subst:DYKno}} --> in every field, so there wouldn't be a need to cut-and-paste. As for the issue of just adding a y or n and getting the template to produce both the doodad and the sig, I already explained a couple times (in a couple places) that it does not seem to be possible; I spent hours trying it and asked several people, with no luck. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Why not just the double curly brackets enclosing just subst:DYK? Then you add "y" or "n"? Tony (talk) 11:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

A variation of this was already suggested at User talk:Rjanag#Review template (2). It's just as complicated (if not more) as what I already have in place, and has other shortcomings as well. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:04, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Tony1's template has been making me crazy (if for no other reason than that all those bold headings make it very hard to scan the suggestions page), so almost any of these versions would be an improvement.
  Like Gerda Arendt, I would like to be able to sign off some reviews without separately filling each cell in a template. For example, if an article is completely based on offline foreign-language sources, I likely will search for online validation during my review, but I will "AGF" most aspects of the review. In those cases, I fully expect to leave most parts of the template blank and sign a blanket approval statement below the template -- and if an obsessively bureaucratic person insists that I'm doing a deficient job of reviewing, I will tempted to make some evil remarks.
  I think that each box that's filled in needs both a signature (to say who made the judgment) and a symbol indicating what judgment the reviewer has made (because there's often more to communicate than just "yes" or "no", and symbols can help with that). Apparently that means Rjanag's version 1. Judgments that I imagine wanting symbols for are "OK" (or "yes", or a checkmark), "no" (or "X"), "AGF", "NA," and "?". --Orlady (talk) 19:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The template no longer bolds the headings. The community has demanded a checklist, with good reason. Tony (talk) 11:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect, it does still bold the headings; mere minutes after you claimed it didn't, you were going around pasting in more templates with bolded headings. This is just one more instance of your insistence on completely ignoring feedback on this page. This page is full of complaints about the format of the checklist you keep adding and you clearly have no regard for the opinions of anyone at this page, or for the effort I'm making in trying to solicit feedback and actually make a checklist that works the way the DYK community wants it to work. I know you're an editor with some standing around WP, but this behavior of yours is getting very tiring. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:04, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

In that case, it might be better to just continue using the same icons we have been using, along with regular signatures, and fill out each field with, i.e., |length={{subst:DYKtick}} ~~~; maybe people will find that more familiar than what I showed below.

I don't see a need for an "NA" parameter unless the checklist is expanded to include a lot of unnecessary things. In the versions I sampled below, every parameter is (I think) one that should be reviewed every time (for instance, even if all sources are foreign-language, it's still possible to check whether they seem reliable--are they books, journal articles, news stories, blogs, personal websites?). I intentionally avoided including parameters that wouldn't be needed every time, like image suitability. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:27, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the issue of skipping the review checklist for some noms: I'm just going off the results of this RfC in which there appeared to be support for a requirement that people explicitly go through the checklist every time, even in these cases. I'll leave it up to others to argue over whether this RfC is valid and stuff like that; I'm not really interested in that, I'm just trying to take what people claim they wanted and actually make it happen. (I'm not sure how much people actually wanted this and how much people were just pile-on-supporting to get their piece of a nice juicy argument, but that's neither here nor there...) rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:34, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, Rjanag. And if the review process involves long syntaxes, I think I'll ignore them. Tony (talk) 11:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Samples

I'll try to make this a bit clearer. Here are what the three options are; I'm also including fake discussions below to try to give a feel for how they would actually be used. (Particularly, you can see that even without signatures it's clear who checked what--not necessarily clear at a quick glance, but clear if you read the discussion.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:34, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Version 1: signatures and doodads

{{*mp}}... that ''']''' is made of ]?
created by some user
<!--
credits
-->
{{DYK hook checklist
|format={{subst:DYKY}}
|citation={{subst:DYKY}}
|neutrality={{subst:DYKX}}
|interest={{subst:DYKY}}
}}
:*Hook fact checks out but this reads like an advertisement for water to me. ~~~~
{{DYK article checklist
|length={{subst:DYKN}}
|newness={{subst:DYKY}}
|adequatecitations=<!-- {{subst:DYKY}} or {{subst:DYKN}} -->
|formattedcitations=<!-- {{subst:DYKY}} or {{subst:DYKN}} -->
|reliablesources=<!-- {{subst:DYKY}} or {{subst:DYKN}} -->
|neutrality={{subst:DYKY}}
|plagiarism={{subst:DYKY}}
|article=
}}
:*Article history looks ok and I didn't spot any editorial issues (checked for neutrality and text issues), but as of now the article isn't long enough. ~~~~
::*The nominator has added some text, the article's long enough now, checked it off. Still haven't checked the other stuff. ] (]) ~~~~~

• ... that ice is made of water?

created by some user

• Hook fact checks out but this reads like an advertisement for water to me. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Article history looks ok and I didn't spot any editorial issues (checked for neutrality and text issues), but as of now the article isn't long enough. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• The nominator has added some text, the article's long enough now, checked it off. Still haven't checked the other stuff. Some other user (talk) 16:35, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Version 2: signatures only

{{*mp}}... that ''']''' is made of ]?
created by some user
<!--
credits
-->
{{DYK hook checklist
|format=~~~
|citation=~~~
|neutrality=
|interest=~~~
}}
:*Hook fact checks out but this reads like an advertisement for water to me. ~~~~
{{DYK article checklist
|length=]
|newness=~~~
|adequatecitations=
|formattedcitations=
|reliablesources=
|neutrality=~~~
|plagiarism=~~~
|article=
}}
:*Article history looks ok and I didn't spot any editorial issues (checked for neutrality and text issues), but as of now the article isn't long enough. ~~~~
::*The nominator has added some text, the article's long enough now, checked it off. Still haven't checked the other stuff. ] (]) ~~~~~

• ... that ice is made of water?

created by some user

• Hook fact checks out but this reads like an advertisement for water to me. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Article history looks ok and I didn't spot any editorial issues (checked for neutrality and text issues), but as of now the article isn't long enough. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• The nominator has added some text, the article's long enough now, checked it off. Still haven't checked the other stuff. Some other user (talk) 16:35, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Version 3: doodads only

{{*mp}}... that ''']''' is made of ]?
created by some user
<!--
credits
-->
{{DYK hook checklist
|format=y
|citation=y
|neutrality=n
|interest=y
}}
:*Hook fact checks out but this reads like an advertisement for water to me, so checking off everything but "neutrality". ~~~~
{{DYK article checklist
|length=y
|newness=y
|adequatecitations=
|formattedcitations=
|reliablesources=
|neutrality=y
|plagiarism=y
|article=
}}
:*Article history looks ok and I didn't spot any editorial issues (checked for neutrality and text issues), but as of now the article isn't long enough. ~~~~
::*The nominator has added some text, the article's long enough now, checked it off. Still haven't checked the other stuff. ] (]) ~~~~~

• ... that ice is made of water?

created by some user

Hook review

Format	Citation	Neutrality	Interest
Y	Y	N	Y

• Hook fact checks out but this reads like an advertisement for water to me. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Article review

Length	Newness	Adequate citations	Formatted citations	Reliable sources	Neutrality	Plagiarism
Y	Y				Y	Y

• Article history looks ok and I didn't spot any editorial issues (checked for neutrality and text issues), but as of now the article isn't long enough. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• The nominator has added some text, the article's long enough now, checked it off. Still haven't checked the other stuff. Some other user (talk) 16:35, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Biological screw joint (currently Queue 4)

Scientists may have first discovered it in this species of weevil: that is a long way from being proof that it is the first time nature has evolved such a device. And "first ever" is a tautology. ... that scientists first discovered the biological screw joint in the Papuan weevil Trigonopterus oblongus? Kevin McE (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:39, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Battlefield Heroes (currently Queue 2)

This is a severe misrepresentation of the interview referenced in the article. The relevant phrase is "I wanted to show that 1,300 years ago, when China was Tang dynasty, that these superpowers had exerted an enormous amount of power over Korea, thus causing a lot of internal conflicts within Korea." The USA was decidedly not a superpower in the eighth century. Suggest that the director of Battlefield Heroes wanted the film to show that powerful neighbouring countries affected Korea in the past, as they do now? Kevin McE (talk) 20:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

So despite being flagged up here, and on WP:ERRORS, a gross misrepresentation of someone's comments appeared on the Main Page of Misplaced Pages for eight hours. Clearly the processes that should prevent this are not fit for purpose. Kevin McE (talk) 08:50, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:ERRORS is badly broken. Not enough people with admin privileges watch it. I've reported errors before and waited hours before they were fixed. Prioryman (talk) 09:24, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Cutting through the...stuff

We need more people. Really. And a happier, healthy atmosphere of growth and learning, rather than finger-pointing and bickering. For this reason I suggest we start looking for some fresh faces, full of happiness and good faith, to bring into here. My suggestion is that we make templates out of this and this and make us some advertising campaigns! But then I am incredibly new here. So feel free to tell me to go to Hades. Panyd 21:39, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I should probably make one of those for admins as well...Panyd 21:41, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I like that idea. I probably will only nominate new member's articles for DYK from now on like I did with an article today. Joe Chill (talk) 23:47, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been mulling coming back. I only ever used to nominate articles where there was a hook fact I thought people would find interesting. But the new nomination procedure is daunting and there is still a lot of . . . stuff. I left because I was used as a bad example for having almost 50 DYKs. I can be pretty thick-skinned—I know people have differing assumptions and preferences—but I felt I was suddenly a liability for DYK. I believe it was MaterialScientist who suggested we try to recover the old spirit of mutual responsibility and get-stuck-in (my formulation) around here. How can we do that? The way it's been, I would be leery of asking a new person to contribute. The students in the Psych class are an example (I was the one discovered that.) If this page hadn't been demanding so much attention to arguments and if so many people hadn't been driven away, I have to think someone would have spotted the group of submissions earlier. As it is, I am still finding submissions from that group that, while they got accurate and thoughtful feedback on the order of "There are still big problems with this article" and "You didn't complete the process of making this nomination" didn't get any message to the effect of "I see you are very new. I've copyedited the article but it still needs better referencing. . . see the talk page." It isn't DYK's fault that this class group slipped through the safety net, but it's a big blinking red light, in my view. I've been looking in at the submissions page and I see a lot of "The article needs copyediting"; occasionally I've stepped up and done that. It used to be part of the culture to do that, especially with articles by relatively new editors or editors who clearly don't have English as their first language. It saves a lot of grief and talking back and forward, IMO. Similarly with sticking a copy of the obvious ref at the end of the hook sentence. (Reviewing always did include checking a reasonable sample of the references, so unless the hook fact is genuinely unsupported, it's not hard to see where it came from and dot the i's and cross the t's in that respect, too. If we can agree that we want to go back to that kind of spirit and make DYK more user-friendly—right now it is a pretty harsh gauntlet, and remember, most editors' first experience of having an article nominated at DYK is when it's nominated by someone else—then I'd support encouraging people to come back and to try it for the first time. If not, then I don't think it would benefit DYK for me to come back, and I don't think it would benefit new editors to be encouraged to try here. [[User:

vadottir|Yngvadottir]] (talk) 21:59, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Welcome back! I was afraid I had to include you in my sad list but then saw the Sugar Museum and started to hope. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:13, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that a new user would have to be insane to try DYK in its current climate, but I also just logged in tonight to see that a new user had been lectured and warned by her appointed ambassador for the "inappropriate" behavior of trying to review one of my pending noms at WP:GAN; when the new user pointed out to her ambassador that the top of the GA page explicitly invited any registered user to participate and that this invitation might be changed if it was inaccurate, she was, of course, met with silence. Maybe it would be easier if Misplaced Pages just agreed project-wide that new users shouldn't bother, and left it at that? Madness. -- Khazar (talk) 07:47, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Did you see my remarks about the current climate. Nonetheless, the addressee also finds it too cold at the moment. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:09, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

No I didn't. And that poor new user :-( The thing is, what can we do? Here are a couple of radical ideas I have just dredged out of the depths of my underslept brain. Maybe they will knock loose some more feasible radical ideas.

1. Let's form a volunteer directorate of Helpers: people who will check the nominations page for articles that a reviewer says need copyediting/reference placing on the hook fact/re-wording of the hook/other fixable stuff, and go to the article and do it. I'm not sure whether the current nominations system makes it possible to also see nominations where the process wasn't completed so they don't show up on that page, but it would be good to be able to fix that too—as helpful people and bots do with incomplete AfD noms, for example.
2. Let's have a clear statement somewhere right near the top that pages nominated for DYK need to adhere to all Misplaced Pages's policies: they must be NPOV, adequately referenced, and contain no plagiarism and copyvio, and they should be ready for publication (no empty sections, no unencyclopedic stuff like addressing the reader, an acceptable standard of spelling and English usage), but they may use any form of referencing, any suitable variety of English, and have an infobox or not and a picture or not as seems appropriate to those who work on them. Concerns are being raised about DYK articles that apply to all articles; being new doesn't exempt an article from policy. On the other hand, requiring articles to use citation templates is simply wrong. They are completely optional. It's only suggested that articles use consistent referencing format (a recommendation honored more in the breach than in the observance, IME). There are project and MOS guidelines for specific groups of topics, but Misplaced Pages articles overall have considerable latitude in style and presentation; however, reviewers don't necessarily know that. Length also falls in here. Policy last time I looked was that the length of the article was supposed to be related to its notability. In practice, it relates to how concisely it can be written up: the requirement is for it to be ready (not finished, but not obviously deficient). The current minimum length requirement for DYK is shorter than the majority of articles I've written, but some science/tech articles have trouble meeting it. In describing a species, for example, it's not appropriate to pad the article out. And it's actually against policy to encourage it. We don't want only certain kinds of articles, in fact we want as many different kinds as possible.
3. If you are willing to do a thorough review of a submission and finish by judging it ready or not, explaining clearly why or why not (so that someone else can see if you forgot something, or disagree), you should be allowed to remove the reviewer checklist, because that obscures such a clear statement. Conversely, if you want to do a driveby review of just one aspect of an article, you should make it clear that that's what you are doing, and either use that item on the checklist or otherwise limit your review. So that others know the article needs the rest of it to be looked at.
4. Have people undertake to liaise with the WikiProjects to get people with special knowledge over to the nominations page fast to review specialized articles like, for example, the recent psychology crop. IMO we don't have enough scientific DYKs, and we have even more of a deficit in tech articles. My impression is that many of the projects are not responsive when you put a request on the talk page for eyes on an article or a group of articles, and we have a problem because DYK has a time limit, and a rapid one at that. So let's work through personal relationships and build a list of contacts and do it that way.
5. Extend the above to challenging members of projects to nominate an article to DYK every week or month, to get more articles on subjects they find interesting—and more articles they deem well written—into DYK. More fun than being in reaction mode trying to deal with AfDs, I think. I wonder if banners would work for this? Not necessarily Wikipetan banners like the ones suggested above, and I'd make them less wide and with less words, along the lines of: "Written a good new article in the past week? Seen a good new article lately? Expanded an article lately? With something interesting to say? Good. DYK wants it!".
6. Informally schedule who fills the next prep. Do you know how to do it—or feel you could manage it if someone showed you how—but you really only have time on Saturdays? or between the hours of 8 pm and midnight your local time on your workdays? If we can get it pencilled in who will normally handle it when, we can have more lead time to fix problems in the preps. And probably get more people to learn how, because they'll be joining an informal team not rushing into a burning building.
7. A mini-WikiCup for new contributors. This was an idea of Kobnach's because this year's WikiCup severely downgraded DYKs, making the Cup a game for the very experienced. Their suggestion was that the New Editors' Cup be for those who hadn't yet achieved autopatrolled, and start on July 1 to be maximally time-offset from the WikiCup. Have it be just a DYK contest, leave in place the strong statement the WikiCup already has that anyone who produces substandard work just to rack up points will be chucked out, and it could be fun. It might be better to have a far lower upper limit on eligibility, because autopatrolled status is now way hard to get unless some sympathetic admin notices you (as one did me). Say: have created a maximum of 20 non-DAB new pages. we have the WikiLove button and lots of creative people to help us create barnstars for participants who give us lots of DYKs . . . this could be really fun and net us very fresh and unpredictable articles.

Yngvadottir (talk) 16:22, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the last suggestion (having a DYK contest) is a good idea. Contests would likely just increase the amount of poor-quality nominations--especially plagiarism/closeparaphrasing/copyvio nominations, which are what started the entire mess that's been going on for the past few weeks. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:26, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Told you they were wild and woolly ideas '-) That one isn't even mine. The thing is, we're always going to get poor submissions. Otherwise there would be no need to review them. I really think we need that strong policy reminder in a prominent place - both the bits about what policy does require, including not infringing copyright or plagiarizing, and the bits about what it doesn't require. If we want to encourage newbies, we have to truly welcome them, and they come in all flavors, from ex-academics like me to young kids, and from people with extensive editing experience here or on another wiki who are just doing DYK for the first time, or writing new articles for the first time (not everyone registers an account in order to create a new article, although it is common) to people with a shaky grasp of keyboarding. We've all seen a vast range at the suggestions page. If they come over the transom, we can work on 'em. If we never see 'em, we can't. And it's not as if the contest would bestow valuable prizes or even tremendous bragging rights. It would just be fun. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:05, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I recently edited the rules page so that the list of rules was closer to the top. That list does include "within policy" as one of the criteria for DYK articles. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:19, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I still think it should say briefly and clearly somewhere that DYK articles should adhere to all WP article policies . . . and that they should not be expected to adhere to non-policies (such as particular citation formats). Maybe that statement belongs in the guide for reviewers? (I also note that the lists of admins and non-admins below there is way out of date.) In any event, this section on this page is about attracting new people to DYK. The main thrust of my remarks was and is that when a reviewer mistakenly asks for something more, or different—such as highly polished prose, untypable dashes, or citation templates—this is discouraging, and if someone else sees that happening, they could fix the problem for the submitter if it would improve the article—and ideally the reviewer should do so—and if it's strictly a matter of taste, that should be pointed out at the article review.

Also . . . what about my other suggestions, and let's have some other people's ideas. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Dwarf sphaero for August 9th

Just a friendly reminder to whomever prepares the preps next: we have an article scheduled for August 9th, the Virgin Islands dwarf sphaero. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:17, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Patriarch Dionysius I of Constantinople (currently Queue 2)

Almost everyone I see every day allows me to see at least part of their flesh, but it offers little clue as to whether they are circumcised. Per WP:EUPHEMISM and WP:NOTCENSORED, perhaps we ought to say that he showed his penis; if we are going to retain the euphemism (which would be my preference), it should be in quotation marks. And I'm intrigued as to what the reference might mean by "but rather a small piece of skip..." Kevin McE (talk) 08:15, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Special care when including information from the Arab/Israeli field

On the 4th of August the following appeared in Wiki's DYK section.

• ... that the Arabic translation of Mein Kampf has been a bestseller in parts of the Middle East?
  

If anyone had checked the Mein Kampf in the Arabic language talk page at that time, they would have noted that the "bestseller in parts of the Middle East" was a controversial claim. Could editors please exercise special care when including information from the Arab/Israeli field, as information is notoriously unreliable in times of war/conflict. Thanks Prunesqualor billets_doux 10:35, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Main page. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:26, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

It's also troubling that the article history shows that (after major battles over POV) on August 4, the day it main-paged, the nominator popped in an extra three paragraphs of anti-Arab POV . Sharktopus 15:32, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we've had problems like that at DYK before with anti-Arab POV being added while the article is on the main page. I thought some measures or rules were put in place to prevent this happening again? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:11, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "measures". Misplaced Pages already has a guideline against general protection or semi-protection of articles on the main page, and it's not DYK's responsibility to review all edits to all articles as they are on the main page. We already have a policy not to promote articles that are "unstable" due to being in the middle of an edit war. In this case, it looks like the discussion about the "bestseller" thing only began on August 4 (the day the article was featured, and thus long after it had been reviewed and approved) and, likewise, the objectionsable content (although I'm not sure what makes that "anti-Arab POV") was added while the article was on the main page, after the review was completed. DYK didn't do anything wrong here. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:19, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Questions where being asked about the validity of information in the Mein Kampf in the Arabic language article almost as soon as it was created- (see here). By 24th of July the article's talk page already contained a comment (made by myself) expressing doubts about the statement: " …it achieved best-seller status throughout the Arab world" (admittedly not identical to the DYK claim but similar enough to ring some distant alarm bells I would have thought). Aside from factual reliability and controversy issues- If Wiki has a policy, not to promote articles that are "unstable" due to being in the middle of an edit war, why was this article even considered for DYK inclusion (on the day that the DYK went to press an editor was hauled before Wiki arbitration based on edits made to the article before that date). I think this warrants my original plea ie- "Could editors please exercise special care when including information from the Arab/Israeli field, as information is notoriously unreliable in times of war/conflict." Prunesqualor billets_doux 11:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Israel-Palestine topics and the local politicians should be excluded from DYK. Whoever approves these hooks spends very little time reviewing the articles relative to core policies especially NPOV/BLP, accepting almost any political rag or opinion piece uncritically as RS. I bet that if had I submitted only the positive (top) part of Eurabia it would have been accepted. FuFoFuEd (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Help needed with Template talk:Did you know/Arthur Seymour

This nom template has some wikicodes missing. I was about to promote this to P1, but don't know what to do with {{DYKsubpage... etc. missing. This is no Template talk talk:Did you know/Arthur Seymour to talk about the template talkpage, so I am leaving a note here and also immediately below the nom on T:TDYK. I don't understand programming. Can someone help fix this, please? Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 11:26, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I seem to have fixed it. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:54, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

It looks like what happened (judging by the first version) is that the editor correctly created the subpage but then, instead of using the preloaded template, just pasted in his own code (perhaps some frequent nominators keep filled out versions of {{NewDYKnom}} in their personal sandbox or something and didn't notice the changeover). Usually in these cases I noticed earlier and left them grumpy messages "asking" them to please use the preloaded template. I think what Crisco added should fix this nom. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Crisco. --PFHLai (talk) 18:52, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Minor help needed here, too.

• Template talk:Did you know/Bruce McLenna
• Template talk:Did you know/Mike Keller

The link to these noms sit at T:TDYK#Bruce McLenna and T:TDYK#Mike Keller without indication if the hook was "Promoted" or "Rejected". I suspect the closing admin forgot to type in "yes" next to "|passed=". Not sure how to fix this after the fact. Can someone help get them fixed, pls? Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 11:59, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Fixed.

@Rjanag: Could we possibly have a reminder in hidden text in the template, like <!--Enter yes if promoted or no if rejected when closing-->? Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. Added, rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you again, Crisco. --PFHLai (talk) 18:53, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome, twice over. Thanks, Rjanag. Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing as a two-way street

Wanted to make the point here that reviewing should be a two-way process. Reviewers are not perfect editors (no-one is) and can end up learning from editors they interact with. What I would hope to see in every discussion about concerns over article (especially the more subjective aspects, such as close paraphrasing) is that the reviewer lays out clearly what the concerns are, and is prepared to come back and discuss with specific examples, and to even propose new wording if needed (though in most cases, you would want the editor to do the rewrite to get a feel for themselves for how to do such rewrites). Equally, if a reviewer is being overly sensitive to concerns (again, especially with subjective ones such as close paraphrasing), that can be a valid outcome to a discussion as well. It should be an open, frank discussion, with everyone learning from it, and improving their writing skills and reviewing skills.

Such discussions also need to reach closure as well, with parts of the article rewritten (if needed) and the reviewer stating explicitly whether their original concerns have been met. This may need a period of close engagement with the article and other editors, but that is what reviewers may need to do if that is what is needed. No-one should review something if they are not prepared to engage to that extent (or at least they should point people to where they can get further help). Drive-by nominations are not helpful, but neither is drive-by reviewing.

The outcome should ultimately be that the editor of the article about which concerns were raised ends up improving as a writer and the next article they work on benefits from this, and the reviewer gains from getting feedback on their review and has examples of rewriting to point to at their next review. Carcharoth (talk) 13:26, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• Hear hear! Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:02, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Hear hear hear! Related concern -- if a hook/article is rejected with the X tag, the rejecting reviewer should not immediately pull it off T:TDYK. A lot of times people have rescued articles others thought past saving. There should be at least a 24-hour delay between rejection and vanishing, IMO. Sharktopus 15:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Along those lines, a hook/article rejected by one reviewer usually should not be removed from the page (or "archived", under the new system) by the same reviewer, unless a long time has passed or if the issue is extremely obvious (e.g., the article is clearly not new or expanded or recently moved from userspace). It's usually better to wait and let someone else do it--this gives someone else an opportunity to make sure you made the right judgment, and it looks "fairer" to the nominator. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:16, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK navbox

I'm trying to brainstorm ways to make the DYK rules look less creepy and scary for newcomers, and particularly to make the 4 basic rules easier to find and understand.

Would it be helpful to edit {{DYKbox}} (the navigation box at the top of this and other DYK pages) such that "Additional rules" renamed to "Supplementary guidelines"? I think newcomers are probably confused at why we have 'rules' and 'additional rules', and "supplementary guidelines" would probably better represent what WP:DYKAR is anyway (it exists mainly as a quick way to answer perennial questions and avoid perennial arguments, but as it says at the top of that page it's not necessary to know all those rules to participate in DYK; they are supplementary to the real rules and many of them are just guidelines that are more flexible than the real rules). rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

For that matter, perhaps we could also remove the link to WP:DYKSTATS, which is not necessary for the day-to-day running of DYK. The link to WP:RA, labelled as "Archives", is also not particularly useful I think. (That "Archive" is actually just an archive of every update of the main template; archives of the nomination discussions did not exist before the new system was in place, and now they are sarting to be made at Template talk:Did you know/Archive. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I like all those suggestions. Thanks for thinking of these improvements and even more for making so many improvements yourself. Sharktopus 23:28, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The review checklist, redux

At #Review checklist templates above I posted a proposal for a new template to handle the reviewing checklist. Discussion there seems to have petered out, but I would still like feedback regarding this, especially since a lot of people are complaining about the way the reviewing checklist is being handled and the whole reason I've taken time to make this is to try and help those people.

In particular, I'm hoping for feedback regarding whether you guys think it's necessary for signatures to appear within the review checklist itself or not (see the discussion near the bottom of that thread, with NuclearWarfare, regarding this issue). Beyond that, the only real issues are minor typographical ones, so once this signature issue is settled we can discuss the possibility of putting some sort of review template into the preloaded nomination template (so it shows up automatically in every nomination). As I have stated elsewhere, I don't want to include any review template in {{NewDYKnom}} until there is community consensus on what it should be. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:48, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Whether signatures are needed

• I think this is important element in the responsibilisation of the review process. Unless it is clear that one reviewer is taking responsibility for the whole review, signatures within each little box should be mandatory. --Ohconfucius 03:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I've left a sample above (#Samples) of how a box without signatures could be used but still be clear about who did what part of each review. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:42, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Whether the checklist should be used in all nominations

I think a review checklist is a good idea for some cases, but for others which can be approved by one person in a few words of prose it's a burden, therefore I vote against an inclusion in every nomination. It's good to have the checklist table and include it if one person can't complete a review or if questions are open. In that case, what do you think of a short signature like in some newspapers - for example I would use "ga" - in the checklist table, and then add one full signature at the bottom? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:29, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I think some people want there to be an explicit checklist used every time (that is to say, some people think there should never be reviews like "Everything looks good ~~~~", but that every item of a checklist should always be checked off, even if it seems obvious).

As for the matter of short signatures, this is not really possible because of technical limitations, which are explained in more detail at User talk:Rjanag#Technical stuff. If people want to have Ys and Ns appear in the template, it's either going to have to be without signatures at all, or through a design such as the one I showed samples of in #Review checklist templates above.

1. Actually, there is a slim possibility it could work, as in |length=y GA which could be made to display "Y GA" in the template. But because MediaWiki's string manipulation abilities are quite limited, this would be very costly in terms of server resources and might cause T:TDYK to open extremely slowly; furthermore, it would be prone to errors and easy for people to break, for instance if someone wasn't thinking and entered |length=y ~~~~ it would create an extremely ugly error message. So, to make a long story short, this is not an option.

(edit conflict) I am aware that some people want it in every nomination, and some people - including Yngvadottir (s.a.) and me - don't want that, I heard the term bureaucracy. - If everything DOES look fine - this happens! - why make it complicated? It seems a waste of time and clutters the nominations page. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:54, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

This comes from #RfC proposal: a proper reviewing checklist. I know there is controversy over whether these RfCs are valid, but anyway the motivation for including an explicit checklist in every nomination is that. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:00, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• Stating 'I have checked and have not found any copyright violations' has a different value (in terms of commitment to the quality of the process) to 'I think everything is OK'. Perhaps Gerda could give me a concrete example which would highlight her concerns? Furthermore, assuming I have correctly read Gerda's request to be able to not use a standardised template for every (implying some will still use it) what criteria would be used to determine which reviews carried the template and which not? --Ohconfucius 03:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Not sure where to put a comment so I'll put it here at the bottom. There have been so many RfCs at this page that with the best will in the world, people have stopped commenting, or not been able to find their way through the thicket. The checklist is IMO a net negative. It clutters up the page, it gets in the way of the kind of responsible discussion of the nomination that the "two-way street" section just above references, and as I said above, pages proposed at DYK should adhere to Misplaced Pages policies anyway; the nominator should have made a good faith effort to see that they do, and the reviewer should, too. Also a checklist tends to imply that all points are on the same level. Not having plagiarism/copyvio, for example, is a major point of policy. Not having glaring syntax errors is a matter of standards—whether the page is ready. Having well written prose is nice, but optional. Three different levels of concern. I like the rows of checkmarks/Xes better because they take up less space, but if a checklist has to appear at all—and I don't think it should, for the above reasons—I think it should be strictly optional. Second best choice: removable by a reviewer who wants to take the responsibility to do a complete review—part of which is being open to people then making comments on the whole or part of the nomination and review. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Seconding Yngvadottier, I'm arriving here late because there are too many RfCs. But this one seems a practical suggestion. The checkboxes in a row are good. Putting things of different values together as if they were of equal importance is hard to avoid. The option for a reviewer to check of "all of the above" in one place seems good also. Sharktopus 23:34, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

"Daily log" setup

In case anyone didn't know, I recently changed the way individual days' worth of nominations are handled on T:TDYK; see #How to archive days? and User talk:Mandarax#New DYK days. Basically, the setup is now more AfD-like; each day is not a subsection of T:TDYK, but is actually its own subpage transcluded on T:TDYK. In other words, each subpage looks like

===Articles created/expanded on August 7===
<!-- After you have created your nomination page, please add it (e.g., {{Template talk:Did you know/YOUR ARTICLE TITLE}}) to the TOP of this section (after this comment).
When this section is complete, remove {{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 August 7}} from the nomination page (Template talk:Did you know). -->
{{Template talk:Did you know/Skin cancer in horses}} 
{{Template talk:Did you know/Thelma Pressman}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Peter (dog)}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Whorlton Castle}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Muslim Mosque, Inc.}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Battle of Pakchon}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Theropod paleopathology}}

(e.g., see Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 August 7). And once all the old nominations are off and everything is in the new system, the whole T:TDYK page will look something like

==Older nominations=
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 1}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 2}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 3}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 4}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 5}}
== Current nominations ==
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 6}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 7}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 8}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 9}}
{{Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 September 10}}

This change makes archiving a bit easier (since, technically, new nominations are posted directly into the archive; the only thing that changes is that later on the "archive" is no longer transcluded on T:TDYK). One possible shortcoming I thought of, though, is that it's no longer easy to monitor when new nominations are posted. The old way, I could just check the history of T:TDYK and see the diff of any nomination recently posted. Now, however, all these diffs are going to be in the subpages for the individual days. (For example, nominations of articles created/expanded today are in Revision history of Template talk:Did you know/Daily log/2011 August 7.)

Is anyone concerned by this? I don't know if it's a big deal or not; I guess mainly the issue is whether the convenience of the newer way of archiving (which really just amounts to one or two fewer button presses, since it removes the need to paste a day's worth of old noms into an archive) outweighs the loss of being able to track newly-posted noms. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:14, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anybody is concerned. If there is a problem with it later, people will complain about it then. Could we just have a round of DYK support here for Rjanag to proceed with things he thinks are improving the process, with a plan that others will feel free to notify him/us if a problem is created? And the NOBODY will feel free to flame Rjanag if a problem is created, since obviously he is doing a lot of hard work for free here with the best intentions in the world and NOBODY codes perfection on the first go. Maybe you just include an ongoing single thread on this page "Coders' Corner" for announcements and questions and etc. Sharktopus 23:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Prep1

For the Arthur Seymour article, ALT2 was ticked off, but the original hook has been promoted. Given that I have submitted this DYK, I thought I shouldn't meddle with it myself, but will bring it up here. With future noms, I shall strike out those hooks that have been rejected, so that this doesn't happen again. Schwede66 23:50, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Changed to ALT2. Materialscientist (talk) 00:14, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

You know DYK is dying, right?

The queue will probably go empty by morning U.S. time. There are few articles being approved, and most of those few don't explicitly comply with the RfC. Based on that slow rate, here are the realistic options: 1. Pay lip service to the RfC, and change the Main Page once a day. 2. Enforce the RfC, and change the Main Page once a week. 3. Muddle through, and change the Main Page manually, whenever possible. Art LaPella (talk) 02:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem I see is that one very hard-working admin (Panyd) who was not only updating queues but also doing many preps, is offline. Plural people need to step up to fill her shoes. I am in transit and really can't right now. You don't have to be an admin to make up Preps, and a lot of preps are empty. You do have to be an admin to move items from Prep to Queue. Right now, we have one full Queue and the rest empty. There is a full Prep that could be moved up to Queue. There are a bunch of empty Preps that need to be filled. Another problem is that the number of picture-hooks approved is very small. 03:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Is the problem not enough noms, not enough reviewing or not enough moving to and fro?Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree that DYK is dying. I've spent the last two hours dealing with noms and preps; I don't have a broom, so I can't deal with queues. At the very least we have enough queues and preps for a few days now. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:27, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

We have 140 noms and 31 passed noms, the number of noms is down but it's far from the worst I've seen, I've seen T:TDYK with no more than 60-80 total noms, and that was when we had no queues at all and just the single prep area, right now we also have at least three prepared updates as well. However, it's clear that recent changes - especially, I think, the rush to employ Tony's checklist - has had a significant deterrent effect on nominations. More than likely the tougher criteria some reviewers are trying to employ has irritated some contributors too - I myself might think twice about nominating an article in the current environment. I think things will eventually settle down again over time however. But if necessary, we can throttle back the number of updates to two or even one per day until noms start picking up again. Gatoclass (talk) 08:45, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Alas, but for days since the new nomination template was introduced, the counts on the Queue page include a lot of noms that have already been pushed to the queues or rejected. For example, the count for July 25 shows 22 noms, but only 4 of those are still actually waiting on the suggestions page. --Orlady (talk) 14:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I take heart from what you say about past experience—I haven't been around here very long. But I think going below three preps a day would set a dangerous precedent and in turn discourage people from nominating articles (and from reviewing them promptly and clearly). Let's instead see what we can do to encourage people, both to write/rewrite (I've been working on the same DYK-inappropriate article for a while; I'm trying to decide whether to bother to do a DYK-possible one next) to submit to DYK (see above section on cutting through the . . . stuff) and to do the reviewing (see various above sections, especially the two-way street one). Let's get the momentum building again; then it will be feasible (and less rude) to say "This nom shouold wait till it has a more interesting hook," for example. --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It appears to me that the critics have driven a stake through the heart of DYK. The problem is not a shortage of administrators, but shortages of submissions and reviews. The new nomination template does seem be discouraging submissions, although I find it actually makes it easier to submit nominations. I imagine that the brutality of some recent DYK reviews probably is discouraging nominations -- when nominations are getting criticized and possibly even rejected for allegedly "obvious" problems in the article such as too many wikilinks, why bother to nominate? --Orlady (talk) 12:42, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

They forgot the garlic. I agree with both you and Yngvadottir: we need to deal with major problems first and foremost. Copyvio, close paraphrasing, too short articles, attack pages, and whatnot. Boring hooks could wait a bit. Wikification should never be a breaker, unless an article is not wikified at all. Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying the new scrutiny is necessarily a bad thing, but there is no way I'm touching the queues in the current environment—frankly, I don't have time and can't be bothered to read through half a dozen articles that are at least 1500 characters long each, then and conduct a review worthy of an FAC before I can can even consider moving anything into the queue. Then if I get it right, people complain loudly that DYK is shite, and if I miss some slight error in the article, people complain even louder that DYK is shite and call for my head on a stake. Sorry, I'd like to help, but that's not my idea of fun! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:22, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Hence why I try to be a duck. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Update - have moved along three preps to Q's and asked at commons for images to be protected (they're usually pretty quick with these). Am off to bed now as late here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I like the new structure with nominations on their own sub-pages, but am doubtful about the more formal checklist, which is a bit forbidding to a potential reviewer. If 99.6% of articles accepted under the old system had no serious technical problems, and moving up to 99.7% means doubling the review effort or halving the number of nominations, it is not worth it. No checklist will ever catch selective bias, where important aspects of the subject are not mentioned and trivial aspects are given undue weight. My guess is that many articles have this or other serious defects that only an expert would catch. Maybe we are doubling the review effort so we can move from 70.6% up to 70.7% on the quality scale. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Orlady has hit the nail on the head: all the new requirements have made it significantly more difficult to contribute, and that's largely due to the critics' complaints. When articles that qualify under the rules get rejected simply because their hooks are "too boring" or for other minutia that are unrelated to the rules, that's a big downside. Moreover, I don't have much time anymore to do DYKs — I have enough time to write, but I generally don't have enough time to write and then do one or more reviews on top of it. Until policy absolutely requires me to do it, I will not use the new template: the rules don't require it, and it makes this too much like GA or FAC, which (contrary to a few people's opinions) is not the purpose of DYK. Nyttend (talk) 05:48, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

off-topic discussion

on-topic discussion

...a 1,500 character article thrown off in a couple of days is unlikely to give balanced and thorough coverage of the subject. If we want to limit main page links to quality content, a more formal DYK review checklist is not going to have much effect. The checklist just formalizes what reviewers should be looking at anyway. The real problem is that a review by someone like me who knows nothing about a subject and relies entirely on online sources may miss serious defects in an article. The only way to significantly improve DYK quality is to allow more time to develop more complete and balanced articles and to improve the articles based on considered expert review. It takes time to get quality.

Many readers (and some nominators) think DYK is just a collection of curious factoids. We could change DYK to be just that. Forget the "new" criterion, replace it with "B Class", or something like that, and concentrate on debating and deciding on the interest level of the factoids. "...that the Higgins wood-boring beetle is most active in the summer?" "...that Jamie Higgins was booted out of three reality shows before he turned 16?" "...that S.S. Higgins was the first copper-hulled trawler to be sunk by U boats in the North Sea?"

But before we fix it, is it broke? Do we have any statistics on reader feedback? Maybe they like seeing random articles in their embryonic state. Maybe it does encourage new editors. Maybe the occasional poor quality article serves as a useful reminder that Misplaced Pages is not a reliable source. Aymatth2 (talk) 03:38, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Just use some common sense. Whenever you see articles about local politicians or controversial topics quickly hatched, it's safe to assume they aren't NPOV unless they've been reviewed by a substantive number of editors. Misplaced Pages is used for WP:ACTIVISM more often than not these days in certain areas (and perhaps that was always the case, but I wasn't around). Pay a visit to WP:AE if in doubt. FuFoFuEd (talk) 05:26, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Good question about reader feedback. I find the stars at the bottom (article feedback) rather questionable if not downright worthless. Anger management, this version, was rated as 5 five stars across the board by about 8 editors at one point. I'm not sure what triggered the flood of reviews thereafter (I discussed it with one of the editors that seem very involved in the feedback project), but the current stars don't reflect the current article either, because I deleted most of it and added one sourced paragraph. FuFoFuEd (talk) 05:34, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Chinese Indonesians (queue 2)

"Being bad luck" and "bringing bad luck" are two separate concepts. According to the article, Prince Diponegoro thought that Chinese Indonesians brought bad luck. Kevin McE (talk) 09:59, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Rephrased. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 10:42, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Temple Owls (Queue 3)

Mr Killings has a forename, Dwayne. We do not refer to people simply by a surname on first mention. The suggestion that he "directed" the team is also contestable: he is listed as one of three assistants to the coach, Fran Dunphy. Anyone would think that rules of presentation and statements of fact are being stretched to make a cheap pun based on potential misinterpretation of a name. Still, nothing funnier than death, is there. Kevin McE (talk) 09:59, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Rephrased. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 10:42, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Followup at main page errors; why isn't there a template to notify article talk, since this happens so often and the errors are left standing at the DYK template on article talk? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Now that DYK is halfway there on accountability (a record is kept of noms), has anyone notified all of the participants in this mainpage mess? QPQ reviewing doesn't work, but editors and reviewers are more likely to become better writers and reviewers if they are notified of their misses. Since they are such a frequent issue at DYK, there should be a followup template. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:46, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Paul Speratus

The double nom for Paul Speratus and Es ist das Heil uns kommen her was not even approved a while ago and is now in queue 6. Please add the title of the hymn as he wrote it, linked and highlighted, and leave the English as a translation (which it isn't, saying "all" unstead of "us") or rather a common version. I explained here but things moved too fast. ALT4: ... that Paul Speratus was in prison, sentenced to death by fire, when he wrote the hymn Es ist das Heil uns kommen her (Salvation now has come for all)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:46, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Trying harder: what's now in the queue is not true and (perhaps worse in WP, smile) not supported by the sources. Paul Speratus wrote Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, Catherine Winkworth wrote Salvation hath come down to us, an unknown poet wrote Salvation now has come for all. Please, admin, change! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:12, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Pinged an admin. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:52, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Please confirm that the hymn name is in italics. Usually, song titles are not italicized, but are placed between quotation marks, like in the current version. Materialscientist (talk) 07:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

On First Lutheran hymnal, now on the Main page, the eights songs are italic, this is one of them. A 1524 influential hymn is not exactly what is called a song today. I think it works both ways but should be consistent. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:11, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Changed. I also couldn't find the guidelines for the hymn title and leave this to others :). Materialscientist (talk) 07:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit notice is not appearing on newer sections of the suggestions page

The edit notice Template:Editnotices/Page/Template talk:Did you know appeared for a while to people who tried to edit each date-specific section of the suggestions page, but it is not appearing on the more recent pages. (I've only checked August 6, August 7, and August 8.) I think it needs to be there -- otherwise it's too hard for an infrequent contributor to figure out how to create a nomination. I would add it myself, but I don't know how... --Orlady (talk) 16:34, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Good catch, I'm on it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It's going to be a bit harder than I thought; I had to ask something at WP:VP/T#Group edit notices.

I guess this is another unforeseen consequence of #"Daily log" setup. If there's not a way to fix it, it may be best just to go to the old way of logging (having each day on T:TDYK rather than in its own subpage). rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:04, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

This page is now ridiculously long

Didn't old conversations used to get archived? In the interest of using this page for "discussing improvements to Misplaced Pages:Did you know", it should be used for current discussions of improvements. Sharktopus 22:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

They're archived by a bot after a certain amount of time passes without new comments in a given section. There has been a lot of activity here lately, so all the conversations still left on the page are ones the bot considers "active" (i.e., they've had comments within the past 7 days). The archiving is still happening as usual. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of "current discussions of improvements", I'm still waiting for feedback at #DYK navbox, #"Daily log" setup, #The review checklist, redux, and #Samples. A week ago everyone had so many opinions about so many things; now that some people are trying to actually make some of those things happen, suddenly no one wants anything to do with it anymore... rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Some old specific threads that are resolved can be archived manually - might do that in a moment. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I made an attempt at that, but there was so much stuff I ran out of time and patience. See Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know#Separating out reform discussions. If you want to finish up what I started there, please feel free. Also, don't forget the list at Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know#2011 DYK reform proposals above. Carcharoth (talk) 05:43, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Did I review this correctly?

This is my first time reviewing an article with the new set up. Did I review Template talk:Did you know/Charybdis (IRCd) correctly? Joe Chill (talk) 01:40, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. I wouldn't sweat the review setup too much right now, since the precise format of the review setup is under discussion (see e.g. #Review checklist templates). rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by your edit summary of shameless advertising? I'm not assuming anything bad at the moment. Joe Chill (talk) 01:54, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

(I just mean trying to get more people to comment on my threads above) rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK in wrong category, 2001 instead of 2011

Earl Best, the Street Doctor, should be in Category:Passed DYK nominations from July 2011, not Category:Passed DYK nominations from July 2001. However, I see I'm not supposed to edit the page. What now? Trilliumz (talk) 03:20, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I just fixed it. Sorry about that; looks like a typo when it was promoted. These errors should be less likely to happen now, because the template now preloads the date (this was one of the first nominations to be posted under the new system, so many of those kinks weren't worked out yet). rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:25, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to ban Billy Hathorn from DYK

It was suggested at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Billy Hathorn concerns that User:Billy Hathorn should be banned from DYK, and I agree. I propose that Billy be indefinitely banned from editing all DYK project pages for reasons documented higher up in this discussion, in the AN/I discussion, and in the many past discussions linked from AN/I. He may request that the ban be reconsidered any time after 3 months, and no more frequently than every three months, upon demonstrating an understanding of WP:N (particularly as relates to biographies), WP:RS, WP:COPYVIO, and WP:PLAGIARISM (including close paraphrasing), and the DYK community will reconsider the issue at that time. cmadler (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Makes sense to me. Billy has made some good contributions here (some of his DYKs that I reviewed were OK, or at least I was able to make them OK without enormous effort), but the positive value is now greatly outweighed by the problems created by his poorer-quality contributions. I can imagine one exception to the proposed ban: If another contributor happens to nominate one of Billy's articles for DYK, he should be allowed to participate in the review discussion. --Orlady (talk) 20:24, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I didn't consider the possibility of another editor nominating Billy's articles. I would go so far as to say that, as part of the DYK ban, his articles should simply be deemed not eligible. cmadler (talk) 12:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• Agreed with Cmadler. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support, perhaps with some of the conditions Orlady suggested at AN/I: Billy be required to create articles in his userspace for others to review first, and submit images to FFU. Daniel Case (talk) 01:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• Comment While I'm sure any discussion here should be limited only to Billy's DYK-related activities (this is not the place to ban him from all unsupervised article creation) it would be beneficial if the discussion were made a top-level item in the talk page's table of contents and moved to the bottom of the page for ease of location by interested editors. I was surprised to find this discussion ticked away so far back on the page, given the forward chronological flow. - Dravecky (talk) 01:38, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Moved section to a top-level item at the bottom of the page, as suggested. cmadler (talk) 12:10, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support Not just as nominator but also as "maker" of an article somebody else nominates. Maybe reconsider in six months, if he can show he's reformed. For now, I don't want to see re-working his work and then giving him credit drain off even one reviewer's time here. Sharktopus 17:19, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Since comments here seem to have petered off, and there seems to be support for a DYK ban, I'll turn the question around: is any at DYK opposed to a ban of Billy Hathorn from DYK, both as a nominator and as creater/expander of an article nominated by someone else, open to reconsideration after 3-6 months if Billy demonstrates an understanding of the applicable issues? cmadler (talk) 11:52, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

He's got (at least) three nominations up now (who's watching the store here?), I continue to find sourcing, copyvio or plagiarism issues, his nominations and reviews demonstrate amply the problems with this new templated checklist (not limited to the fact that his nominations aren't identified), and not only should he not be nominating DYKs considering his history of not understanding Misplaced Pages sourcing policies, he is not qualified IMO to be reviewing them either. How do we check off the list that sources are reliable when text is not cited? How do we determine that expansion/size crit. is met when articles are padded with uncited text? Anyone can check the templated checklist: hopefully DYK will have reviewers checking that list who understand Misplaced Pages policies. I support a ban from DYK all together: nominating and reviewing, and ANI action should be next if copyvio continues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:01, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• He has three submissions on the nominations page at the moment: Template talk:Did you know/Dan Taylor (rodeo), Template talk:Did you know/Biff Baker, U.S.A., Template talk:Did you know/Chris Roy, Jr., so if he is banned somebody should tell him. Yomangani 10:39, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the heads up. I have rejected all three and left a note on his talk page. As Sandy says, his three reviews should probably also be re-done, but I will leave it to somebody else to flag that one, as I have a work/travel day to get started on. Sharktopus 12:00, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Update, I did also flag his 3 reviews as needing to be redone. One review in particular he had marked the "plagiarism/close paraphrasing" checklist item as "NA". Good grief. Sharktopus 12:24, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
      • He marked one as N/A where I was able to find the source, there were numerous issues including uncited text and text not representing the sources correctly. When sources aren't given, there's nothing wrong with asking the nominator to quote some of the source (although it's not that hard to find them). And I'm curious why there are so many nominations without signatures identifying the nominator. The checklist is still silly-- anyone can check anything, as Hathorn is doing. Scrap the checklist; address the problems: QPQ reviewing doesn't work, accountability is needed, DYK is pushing through too much volume and needs to reduce the number of queues, and experienced reviewers should be reviewing for DYK criterion (is expansion based on reliable sources, are sources accurately represented without copyvio) before crappy stubs gain mainpage exposure. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:30, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
• The nominator is separately identified only in cases where the nominator is not already listed as one of the authors. Sharktopus 12:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• On his nom pages I saw no author or editor or anything: what did I miss? By the way, I slightly disagree with your post to Hathorn; DYK has not come under criticism *because* of Hathorn. The problems have long been prevalent and long criticized-- he is only the latest example, the difference being that DYK was more reticent this time in addressing the problems than it has been in the past, and the problems were exacerbated by QPQ reviewing. Hathorn is not the cause-- he's a symptom and byproduct of a broken system. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:39, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - I haven't actually seen that much evidence that Billy is a serial plagiarizer, and a "three month ban" sounds too harsh to me for someone who after all is a prolific contributor. My suggestion would be a temporary ban while someone helps explain to him the issues involved. I don't see any reason for a long ban provided he clearly demonstrates that he understands what he is doing wrong and makes a commitment to reform. Misplaced Pages is not in the business of punishing users for past sins, but if someone has a problem the solution is to educate them to do things properly, only if they prove incapable of learning should we be talking about extended bans. Gatoclass (talk) 13:14, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• I haven't actually seen that much evidence that Billy is a serial plagiarizer, ... Nothing short of amazing-- is it that you haven't looked, or you don't think cut-and-paste is copyvio? And what steps has DYK taken to do said education? And what is your take on the years-long efforts to rehabilitate and educate this user? You did read the ANI links, no, and review his talk page ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say there wasn't any evidence, I said I hadn't seen much - no evidence, at least, that he's been doing this for a long period - although the probability is that he has. I didn't read the AN/I threads, and there is no evidence presented on Billy's talkpage - just a few assertions. Certainly I accept that he's been caught engaging in close paraphrasing in a number of recent articles, but when I looked at his CCI, very few of his contributions had actually been checked. Regardless, that is not the issue. The issue is what to do to ensure he does not continue to close paraphrase or engage in copyright infringement. Billy is one of Misplaced Pages's most prolific contributors, I don't want to drive him away with draconian sanctions, I want him to keep contributing, but in a way that conforms fully with policy. Gatoclass (talk) 14:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, you chose your words carefully! It seems like you are burying your head in the sand... so is it that you chose not to look so as not to find? I'm not sure there's much we can do to help him wise up. We're all adults here, and if he still doesn't 'get it' after a 3 month DYK ban, that ban can be extended and widened. --Ohconfucius 06:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

So you don't want to drive away a serial plagiarizer and routine violator of copyright just because he does so prolifically? Why not ban him until he cleans up the mess he made? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.253.133.40 (talk) 21:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear anonymous, step up and sign up or shut up. Dear Gato, you are a great collaborator and a compassionate human being. I happen to disagree with you on the topic of Billy Hathorn. My wish is not to "punish" Hathorn or drive him away. My concern is for our finite resources here at DYK of reviewer time and energy. I haven't seen any signal from Hathorn that he appreciates how much extra effort has been spent here reviewing his articles, and rewriting great chunks of them. DYK reviewers spent the time, Hathorn got the credit, and DYK got the incoming torpedos. DYK needs reviewers' time. If somebody wants to spend time mentoring Hathorn, god bless that somebody. He has not responded to many requests in the past to stop copy/paste creations. Maybe an interruption in DYK credits will be the signal he needs to get serious. Sharktopus 01:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

An interruption to his DYK credits - fine. A three month-to-indefinite ban - not.

I appreciate the fact that Billy has shown little interest in cleaning up his act in the past - however, I think it's also the case that there has been little in the way of a sustained attempt to get him to do so. A ban on his articles at DYK should be a useful way of getting his attention and impressing on him the importance of this issue. But a long pre-emptive ban, which is essentially punishment for past transgressions, would be neither helpful nor appropriate in my view. He should be given a chance to rectify his approach first, if he proves unwilling or incapable of doing so, that's the time we should be talking about extended bans. Gatoclass (talk) 03:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

If temporarily banned, it shouldn't be lifted until those hundreds of articles are checked and cleaned. CCI is a copyright area that in particular has an enormous back-log.--NortyNort (Holla) 04:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

There's a thought: ban to be reconsidered not after three months or six months, but at the conclusion of the CCI? cmadler (talk) 12:59, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

How many other users are banned from contributing to Misplaced Pages until their CCI's are complete? It doesn't seem to be the prevailing practice, so I don't see why Billy should be singled out for sanctions. Gatoclass (talk) 04:36, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support I've already said so earlier. --Ohconfucius 06:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - does anyone know if Billy Hathorn plans to respond here? I've been holding off until I see some sort of response from him, but I've seen nothing so far. That doesn't impress me. If someone is a prolific contributor, they need to make sure they aren't making work for others, and if they are, that they respond to those concerns to either rebut them or acknowledge them, and that if they accept that the concerns are valid, that they then make changes and improve as an editor over time. I've looked at his contributions to article talk pages, and there are very little. Does he always discuss article concerns when they are raised? He has only ever made nine edits to the Misplaced Pages talk namespace. Over 5 years, a massive 94.62% of his edits (95064) are to article space, with around 8000 in other namespaces. What seems to be needed here is less editing and more discussion of areas where people have raised concerns. Carcharoth (talk) 09:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. One of the problems with Billy is that he's difficult to engage. He tends to respond only minimally if at all to concerns of other users, he's totally focussed on content creation. That's why I said that something needs to be done to get his attention, such as suspending his right to submit DYKs until he does respond appropriately. Gatoclass (talk) 10:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Consideration should also be given to removing his name from the showcase Misplaced Pages:List of Wikipedians by number of DYKs as it would appear many of the articles have copy vio problems. Jim Sweeney (talk) 11:54, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Ummmm, don't look now, but if you removed all of the copyvio DYKers from that list, DYK might be known as Plagiarism Central. Oh, I forgot ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC) PS, Gato, oh, you didn't bother to look, but you see no evidence of long-term plagiarism. Do you see anything wrong with your logic? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Have you asked those editors you think are copyvio DYKers to address the problems you saw in the articles they submitted and the problems in the way they write and edit? If not, then they have no way of knowing that you have these concerns. I realise that your concerns are that DYK as a system is enabling this sort of editing, but surely you can see that without specifics it is difficult to assess such claims as the ones you are making. It would help greatly if for each example of a "copyvio DYKer" you have a diff where someone pointed this out to them and also a diff where it was pointed out to the DYK editors. This would be far more helpful than generalised hand waving. Carcharoth (talk) 12:30, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't support removing anybody's past DYK trophies. This thread is about banning Hathorn from DYK with the purpose of motivating him to change and saving DYK reviewers from wasting time until he does. Please let's keep this thread on-topic so it can converge. Discuss other matters in a different thread. Sharktopus 13:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

@Sandy - my previous comment was inaccurate, in fact I did read the AN/I thread, but since you've chosen to make an issue out of it, I've gone back through all the threads presented to ensure I didn't miss any, and my opinion is still the same - quite a few assertions but not much concrete evidence. Once again however, I have to wonder why it is you want to focus on a couple of casual comments I made rather than on the issue at hand, which is what to do about Billy.

Since I'm still not sure of the extent of the problem, I'm reluctant to go with draconian solutions that may have the effect of driving a prolific contributor from the project. We need to tread carefully here. Billy may just need some firmer guidance than he has received in the past, the acrimony generated on this page over the last couple of weeks has already driven a number of valued contributors away, I don't want to see yet more collateral damage. Gatoclass (talk) 13:17, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

@Gato: Yes, he may well be a 14-year-old kid who loves creating articles, whether for the DYK brownies or for its own sake. He probably reads about a topic elsewhere and then searches to see if there's already an article, and sets about copying it into WP only making small adjustments. He's been active on WP for five years, so by that first assumption he would have been about 9 at the time. He doesn't engage on talk pages, including his own, and I don't know if anyone has attempted to email him. As you seem to be all too willing to continue assuming good faith in light of the revelations, perhaps this is an additional avenue for you to pursue? --Ohconfucius 01:54, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

As I understand it, he's not a "14 year old kid", he's an academic, so he surely has the capacity to contribute appropriately if he puts his mind to it. Gatoclass (talk) 02:38, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Then why does he not understand the idea of copyright? Malleus Fatuorum 03:45, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Why ask me? I can't read his mind. But I don't think it's important to know why he does something - what matters with regard to this project is that he conforms to our standards and policies, and not to some other notion of what is or is not acceptable. Gatoclass (talk) 04:32, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Quite. And he clearly doesn't, so let's get rid. Malleus Fatuorum 04:35, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

If it's true that he's an academic, then there really is no excuse. By not communicating and continuing to contribute copyright violations after repeated warning, he is not demonstrating any modicum of emotional maturity compatible with this project. --Ohconfucius 04:45, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Just for the record, WP:Close paraphrasing is not even a guideline, it's only an essay. Does Billy even know it exists? Has anyone pointed it out to him? Should we be slapping bans on somebody who has apparently only breached the recommendations of an essay? Perhaps the situation isn't quite so black and white as you think. Gatoclass (talk) 04:44, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes Billy has been informed of the existence of the essay, and has been provided with a link to it and to other relevant pages. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:17, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

That diff is from only two weeks ago, and it's clear he is yet to be persuaded he's done anything wrong. I already acknowledged that Billy is harder to engage than most, but he has demonstrated an ability to modify his approach in the past, so there is reason to believe he can do so again, provided of course that the problems are pointed out courteously. Gatoclass (talk) 05:47, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Support ban. Take a strong line on this. Tony (talk) 12:12, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal by Demiurge for a temporary ban

This discussion seems absurdly disjointed. On the one hand, we've got people who agree that Billy shouldn't contribute any more articles to DYK until he is prepared to discuss the problems properly; but don't want an "indefinite ban" or even a lengthy one. On the other hand, we've got people who advocate a lengthy or indefinite ban because Billy won't discuss the problems properly. So, rather than make this contentious decision now (three months, six months, indefinite, indefinite+20days, whatever)... why not simply agree that no more nominations of Billy's articles will be accepted until he is prepared to discuss the problems properly? Call it "indefinite" (until conditions are met), call it a temporary injunction, call it what you want, but basically everyone here is already agreed that it needs doing. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:47, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

• I support Demiurge's proposal--which is a de facto temporary ban, of course. Drmies (talk) 04:00, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support Demiurge's modification/clarification of the initial proposal to ban Hathorn's articles. I think we had near unanimous support for the previous unspecified ban proposal. What I understand this to be saying is that the question of undoing the ban can be proposed here by anybody at any time to see if consensus has changed, which will presumably happen after some acceptable demonstration by Hathorn that future articles will be informed by Misplaced Pages policies regarding CP/CV. Sharktopus 05:05, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I've rejected his three nominations already. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:10, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. as potentially being more constructive in arriving at a satisfactory outcome for all concerned. --Ohconfucius 06:07, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Another question has arose

I nominated an article that I started for DYK Ants of Kansas. I was told by someone who is experienced in species articles that it still counts as a list. If it still counts as a list, but has enough content for DYK, is it allowed? Joe Chill (talk) 19:05, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The relevant rule is Length: lists are allowed as long as they have 1500 characters of prose.

Yours looks like it does, although some people might think the Ants of Kansas#Kansas ants section looks like a list in prose format. Personally I think it's ok. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:26, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I use the handy dandy page size tool - 1,533 characters. If someone says that the Kansas ants section is a list in prose, I will try to ease their concern. Joe Chill (talk) 19:31, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Are species articles not very popular on DYK?

I'm asking because I have noticed that species articles on DYK seem to not get very many views while on the main page for DYK. My question is - what type of interesting hooks do you think that I can use for species articles that can grab an average reader's attention? I thought that the hooks on articles I worked on and nominated for DYK were really interesting especially in 2010 with ".. that when in danger of predation, the harvestman Leiobunum rotundum can self-amputate its legs, but they will not regenerate?" and "... that the beetle Dermestes maculatus attacks and eats live turkeys?". A spider that self amputates its legs to escape predators even though they will be gone for good! A beetle that eats LIVE turkeys! Pretty cool in my opinion, but their views while on DYK weren't impressive. Joe Chill (talk) 01:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Getting a lot of hits is very enjoyable, but creating a good article that improves Misplaced Pages is really what DYK is supposed to promote. Those hooks you mention would certainly have motivated me to click on them! I've had numbers of hits that pleased me on biology hooks, not just for penis-fencing flatworms and zombie ladybirds but recently for Timema stick insect species that haven't had sex for a million years. Yet there have been articles I was proud of creating that got incredibly low numbers of hits. The score measures something, but it doesn't measure everything. Sharktopus 02:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I am proud of my DYK articles no matter how small or big they are. I am also proud of my stub articles because I know that I accomplished creating an article that is notable and didn't already exist on such a huge encyclopedia. I guess you're right that a lot of hits is just an extra bonus. Joe Chill (talk) 02:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Surely DYK's remit is new articles, not good articles? Malleus Fatuorum 02:51, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I think he meant good as in well-written, not GA, though I'm never sure what people mean when they say 'good' (I suspect you meant good, not GA and would have said GA if you had meant that). I sometimes wish GA had a different name. But while some newly created articles are no more than stubs that just meet the criteria, some people do try and produce really nice, long, comprehensive and well-written articles straight off. I found Oscar Clayton a delight to read. The other thing is that if you expand a stub fivefold, that tends to produce a better article than what was there before (well, hopefully). I've always thought that expanding existing articles should be encouraged more, as long as that is done correctly of course (see what Sandy wrote elsewhere about padding that sometimes happens). And people should be encouraged to take good DYK articles further, and those that create stubby article and then don't do anything more with them after DYK should be encouraged to work on them more and discouraged from building up too much of a backlog of stubs that they are leaving to others to expand, though giving others some time (e.g. a year) to pick up a stub and run with it is reasonable. After that time, though, the initial creator really needs to bite the bullet and go back and work on it. I have a back-catalogue (if you like) of stubs, and I'm slowly starting to work through them, trying to improve them. I suspect nearly every editor here has stubs in their early history that they created and never went back to (click the 'articles created' link on anyone's contribs to see what I mean). It's how most people start off with article creation here on Misplaced Pages. Carcharoth (talk) 09:04, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it's natural that biology articles, some history articles, articles about churches, and even some political articles, will draw less clicks. On the other hand, as has been said, the clickthrough numbers aren't a total measure of the value of a hook or article. If the main page was filled solely with articles related to royalty or celebrity marriages, recent sports events and favourite flavours of political controversy, then I might well have wandered off in disgust long ago, and maybe a few others would take the same view. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:06, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

To answer Joe Chill's question, bioology articles often get low hist everywhere - look at the TFA statistics. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

If you are only interested in the hits, anything related to sexuality will draw clicks. For Batara Kala, for example, we used one of his origin myths (conceived by a fish swallowing Shiva's sperm) and received nearly 11,000 hits. However, you would probably want to vary it a bit. Unique quotes, like calling someone a "damn fool", seem to work well too. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:25, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Pictures usually help a lot. Interesting ones. I tend to find myself only creating and nominating articles for DYK these days if and only if I find a picture of them somewhere. Though in general, I find that having a picture encourages me to expand an article more, whether it's intended for DYK or not. Then there's the time factor, DYK's coinciding with the best times on the western hemisphere will usually get more hits.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 06:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I've actually looked over the top 30 or 40 most viewed while at DYK articles once and wrote about it somewhere else. Surprisingly it's not sports, celebs (not many of those anyway) or sex that sells views. It's "war and morbidity", followed by "cute animals doing cute thins" followed by "food". Sex actually doesn't do all that well - probably because there's a buttload of competition out there on the internets.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:47, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Insects aren't cute - too bad. Joe Chill (talk) 11:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

...so *some* species articles - of interesting, gross, or cute animals - do indeed get lots of hits.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:47, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Another thing that sells is stuff from other cultures, if it is not the same as what is common in western cultures. Cat rice had lots of hits, mainly because the name is ambiguous (it would probably be read as "rice made from a cat", even though it really means "rice that is portioned for a cat"). Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The full binomial names certainly don't add click-appeal Jebus989 13:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Building preps

Hi everyone. I was wondering if somebody could help with the building of preps. I have done a few recently, but some approved hooks I've had to skip because I reviewed them or because they were my nominations. I will do some more reviewing, but I'd appreciate if someone other than myself built one or two preps (including the ones I am not allowed to pass) Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll have a go at lunchtime (4 hours), unless I can't get back online; it will be a good opportunity to learn the new process. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 07:44, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help Hassocks. I have to go to bed now, but there seems to be about a queue's worth of approved hooks in the older articles. Any help would be appreciated. Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:07, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I filled up Prep 3, but am about to lose internet myself. More help still needed! and many thanks to Crisco for stepping up. Sharktopus 17:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Now I've got the new method figured out (not too difficult, really), I hope to go back to doing this more regularly. Sadly my browser was crash-prone today! Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 23:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to both Sharktopus and Hassocks. I have done quite a bit more reviewing today, so hopefully we won't have to deal with the queues running out. Help with preps is still appreciated, naturally. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:31, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Slalom (Queue 2)

"The first" means the first: "the very first" is redundant hype. Kevin McE (talk) 08:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Changed to first, thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 08:14, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Medal of Honor DYK 8/10

"... that US Army Master Sergeant Ernest R. Kouma won the Medal of Honor (pictured) in the Korean War for singlehandedly killing approximately 250 North Korean troops?" One does not "win" the MOH. You receive it. It's neither a contest nor a competition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.163.255.1 (talk • contribs) 14:38, 10 August 2011 UTC (UTC)

Copied to WP:ERRORS. —Bruce1ee 14:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Prep 3 issue

Sorry to raise this here, but I appear to have had no choice, because the hook was promoted almost instantly after the first review, giving me no chance to comment. The current hook for an article I wrote and nominated, referring to a Willamette River railroad bridge, or Did you know/Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1, is inaccurate or at least misleading. (It was shortened from all of my suggestions, all under 200.) Portland, Oregon has eleven "Willamette River bridges" and three alone are railroad bridges. The hook needs to include "of BNSF Railway" or "of BNSF", because without that the name given in the current hook is an incorrect name. See my comments at nom (made 12 days ago) for more. The newly created hook is 170 characters, so I see no good reason for leaving out "of BNSF Railway", which would make it 190 (or 182 without Railway). I know the current shortage in the queue is rushing things, but I checked the nom just 6 hours ago and it had yet to receive its first review; now, it's already in Prep with a significantly changed hook! (Note: I'll only be online for about the next 20 minutes, if any questions arise). Thanks to anyone who takes this up. SJ Morg (talk) 20:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Anybody can edit a hook in prep but since you are distressed and about to go offline, I have removed your hook from Prep 3 and will replace it onto the nominations page for more discussion. Sharktopus 20:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. SJ Morg (talk) 20:14, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I've replaced it on the noms page (or at least I tried to; putting a hook back was so much easier in the old days) and suggested a new alt hook that I think will address the issue. --Orlady (talk) 20:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Awaiting an OK from the author. I will happily move it to Prep (but not Prep 3, which I just refilled) once that happens. Thanks so much, Orlady, for your helpful intervention. Sharktopus 20:27, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Straw poll on signatures in the review template

Discussion at #Review checklist templates (and related discussion at #The review checklist, redux) seems to have come to a halt without any firm conclusions. As best as I can tell, editors are divided about whether signatures are necessary in the review checklist or not. To speed things up, I'd like to just do a quick poll to see what people think about this issue; for examples of what I'm talking about, see #Samples above. If you have an opinion, please sign your name in the Support or Oppose section, or leave a comment.

Also, please note that this poll is only to get feedback about the matter of whether signatures should be included. If you have other issues with it (for instance, with the specific items that are included in the template, or with the names of those items), those issues can be addressed after this.

Thank you, rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:35, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Support checklist with ticks/crosses and signatures

1. At minimum one signature, for accountability. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:42, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

   With respect, I don't think that's a !vote in favour of signatures in the checklist. I think it's a given that reviewers will be signing off on their reviews below the checklist, but that's not what this poll is about. Gatoclass (talk) 05:53, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

   I will give a little clarification. If one does the entire review on one's own, a signature at the bottom would be enough. If one does only a portion of the review, one should note that somewhere (either by signing what was reviewed or noting at the bottom). Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:57, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

   Ok, thanks or the clarification. I think that sounds most like what I had in mind with version 3. Anyway we'll see what others think about it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:01, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Support checklist with ticks and crosses only

Comments

WARNING: DELIBERATE BREACHING OF RFC CONSENSUS

The bulleted checklist that has been included in DYK nominations for some weeks now has the explicit endorsement of the "checklist" RfC. While it is not the only checklist that could be produced in line with the community's overwhelming decision, it follows the wording of the RfC text closely: text that the community has endorsed.

It has come to my attention that User:Rjanang has been unilaterally, without consensus, (1) removing the template from DYK nomination pages, without substituting another template that does justice to the community's insistence on a checklist; (2) fiddling with the original template (created by Carcharoth) by inserting "noinclude" to blank it out in display mode; and (3) revert warring over the past half hour when I attempted to reinstate the checklist. This is despite Rjanang's noinclude admission that the RfC produced "consensus to include a checklist". Rjanang has used several spurious reasons to justify his actions. Among them are "there is no rule that the decision of every RfC needs to be implemented immediately" and "You don't have consensus to force this version of your checklist on everyone, until you actually ask if there is consensus for it." The latter is despite the fact that the checklist comprises what the community decided on, plus a few DYK rules for convenience and thoroughness, and which need to be ticked off explicitly in any case.

The proper course of action for Rjanang would be to hold an RfC to reverse or modify the community's overwhelming decision only three weeks ago that a checklist is required before main-page exposure.

If Rjanang's behaviour persists, I will launch an AN action against him within 36 hours, since he is clearly going against strong community consensus, and in a way that again renders DYK liable to serious breaches of policy. I believe that nominations stripped of the checklist (or any template that satisfies the consensus of the "Checklist" RfC without replacing it with another checklist that also satisfies the community's demand should 'not be moved to a prep room. They are, in effect, rendered illegitimate by his actions.

Another alternative would be to terminate DYK altogether. I'm not averse to that option, even though I've put considerable work into shoring it up against the many editors at WP who are complaining vociferously about it. Tony (talk) 06:12, 11 August 2011 (UTC)