Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 13
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"Pictured" and italics
"Did you know"'s handling of pictures is inconsistent with "On this day" and "In the news."
"On this day" and "In the news" both used (pictured) recently AFAIK, while "Did you know" recently used (pictured) or (pictured) or ommited it altogether.
Could "Did you know" use (pictured) consistently, please? --Kjoonlee 03:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Expansion of non-stubs
I'm a little confused about the selection of Harbhajan Singh, which even weeks ago was far from a stub. Has the policy or its interpretation changed, or was this just a one-off? I'm just wondering whether I should submit other articles which have simply had a few paragraphs added to them. Stevage 09:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
DYK
I'm pretty sure that "speciemens" should be "specimens" in the "Did you know..." section of the WP main page. Please see Banksia epica and http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/speciemen. Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC) (copied from WP:VPA) -- Lost(talk) 18:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
DYK-Refresh
Recently, Tim Starling introduced a new function for performing date and time conversions. This has several advantages over the much more complicated mathematical method currently used in things like Template:DYK-Refresh. For instance, it allowed me to vastly reduce the size of the templates used to make those little 'next day' and 'prior day' links on dated sub-pages like Wikipedia:Tip of the day/September 1, 2006.
I've been pondering an overhaul of DYK-Refresh to adapt it to this new feature, but wanted to run it past the folks actually using the template. With the new function it would be alot easier to display the 'earliest time for next update', but the 'hours remaining' and 'hours elapsed' figures would be just as complicated as they are currently. Are those important or would the 'earliest time for update' be sufficient? In any case, the template would be made considerably less prone to people breaking it by editing a sub-template they don't fully understand and we could switch to using {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} format times like '20240827193850' in the 'DYK-Refresh' call rather than the somewhat more esoteric Julian date format (e.g. '2460550.3180556') used currently.
Let me know what you think or if there is something else which would work better. --CBD 22:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks CBD. I'm a firm believer in keeping things simple. I think having only the 'earliest time for next update' is perfectly adequate. I haven't been updating much recently, but when I do I never bother checking the 'hours remaining' and 'hours elapsed'. Making the templates less prone to inadvertant breaking is definitely a positive improvement. Go for it I say. --Cactus.man ✍ 10:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
- Speaking of which, at 23 hours it's a bit overdue now, don't you think? Eixo 18:49, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
- I made the change. The 'DYK-Refresh' template now does not rely on any other templates and works off a standard Wikipedia {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} time code. I'll continue pondering if there is an easy way to compute 'elapsed time' with the new functionality in case people want those, but in the meantime the template should now be a bit easier to maintain and much less breakable. It should even be possible you manually adjust the timestamp if need be - because it is just <year><month><day><hour><minute><second> rather than a computed julian date value. --CBD 15:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
(copied from User talk:CBDunkerson) I found the time elapsed line extremely useful. Why did you comment it out? - Mgm|(talk) 12:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- I commented it out rather than removing it entirely because I thought there might be different views on this. As you can see from the discussion above there are some stability advantages to not having the 'elapsed time'. As it is now, the 'DYK-refresh' template does not rely on any other templates... so it can't be broken by someone changing the way the {{max}} works and other such things which have caused problems in the past. You may also have noticed that the template now loads more quickly since it isn't transcluding a dozen others... though that page loads slowly anyway so it may not make much difference. Since it now uses 'CURRENTTIMESTAMP' format rather than julian dates the existing 'elapsed time' logic would not work and would need to be 'reprogrammed'. I could try to do that, but it re-introduces some complexity. What about the 'hours remaining' value? Do you use that also or just 'earliest time' and 'hours elapsed'? --CBD 13:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- Mainly hours remaining. It gives me a quick indication about when to update without comparing two times or worrying about timezones. - Mgm|(talk) 19:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Since I do not live in GMT and in fact visit different time zones quite regularly, I get easily confused by trying to do relative date calculations in my head. So I found the "hours since last refresh" functionality very useful. I applaud efforts to make this template (and all other templates) simpler, but if there is any way to retain this functionality that would be very helpful, thanks! However weigh my words less than others as its been some time since I've had the 40 min in a row it akes me to do an update... ++Lar: t/c 14:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree that its a useful template. Incidently, it doesn't appear to be working at the moment.--Peta 14:05, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- Hmmm? I couldn't see a problem with it, but let me know if there is something wrong with the new version.
- I restored the 'elapsed time' indicator by switching over to multiple parameters (i.e. {{DYK-Refresh|<year>|<month>|<day>|<hour>|<minute>|<second>}}) and passing those to the Julian date template. That means the template now relies on others again, but much less so than it used to and only for this 'elapsed time' value... the 'earliest time' is still calculated wholly within the DYK-Refresh itself with no outisde templates involved. Let me know if there are any problems or other changes are desired. --CBD 20:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- Great job on the new template CBD. Working great to date -- Samir धर्म 07:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Updates
I know this issue has been discussed before, but I'd like to bring it up again. It seems a bit unfair that editors should put a lot of work into an article - with the prospect of having it featured on the front page providing at least part of the incentive - then having it dumped simply because administrators can't be bothered to update. Surely it should be possible to update the DYK more than once every 24 hours? Eixo 22:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
- Looks like a lot of people are away on weekends. I myself update on weekdays but am away on weekends. Seems like Samir is also away on weekens. So we need people on the weekend shift.Blnguyen | rant-line 23:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks. I appreciate the work admins do, but maybe the process could be better organised, to avoid this from happening? Eixo 13:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
- What do you suggest? Unlike FA, we can't even queue up articles very far in advance, as they would be stale, we have to do the updates manually at the time (or so it seems so far). The process takes a lot of time. Perhaps it's time to refloat the notion of a team effort, that is, having someone else do the article talk page bannerizing and notifying (those can be done after the fact and could even (not desirable but COULD) pile up if the selected noms were saved. I did some .js automation to help with the placing of banners which helps a little. But I haven't done an update in weeks, have been too busy on other wikitasks... ++Lar: t/c 14:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Quality of entries on DYK
This message was originally posted on Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors.[1] Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
- Also, how about "most impressive remains" and NPOV? I am afraid the updating admins are becoming overly careless, not forcing the nominators to work on the wording, pithyness etc. of the DYKes but rather copying them as they are. I know it is a lot of repetitive and tedious work to update DYK every time, but I believe that since it is a Main Page item, we have to maintain high standards! Bravada, talk - 18:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
- How about at least requiring that the articles be here for the fucking reader rather than for the author's vanity or the chip on his shoulder? Today we have Poverty in Pakistan and Stereotypes of animals. Please come forward, all of you ready to defend these as the hand-picked contributions of a user valuable to Wikipedia's front page. Guys, it's a website, and one 10,000 people are working on. If you find some task unworthy of your careful attention, odds are you can find someone willing to do the job for you. --einexile 11:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I know i'm a little late, but the Stereotypes of animals benefitted from alot of contributions after it was DYK. However, I don't know if giving it DYk helped it. --293.xx.xxx.xx 07:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Old entry on the main page
Onion dome is about 1-1/2 years old. How did it get on the main page? —Michael Z. 2006-09-09 16:55 Z
- This feature allows recently destubbed articles. This article was recently destubbed (increased in size by about 5x mainly in these edits by Ghirlandajo.) --Cherry blossom tree 21:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
- The article was technically eligible for DYK in February 2005, with over a thousand characters when it was a day old. It had two short sections and two excellent photos a month later, and it had over 2,250 characters nine days before it was added to DYK.
- That said, this was an excellent entry linking to a really good article - both the authors'/'s effort was worth rewarding, and it was a good example of an article to be linked to from the main page. Additionally, it had one of the best images to be used in TDYK I have seen in some time. Given how many really apalling examples of both DYKs and complete articles got featured of late, it would be better to give quality precedence over strict principles here, IMHO. Regards, Bravada, talk - 01:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- I agree that the article is a gem. But that's not what DYK is for. Flaunting the rules, somewhat brazenly I must say, to raise the quality of DYK will just let some yahoos try to justify flaunting them to push for their personal favourite crap articles—the result will be flame wars, out the window with the rules, and a significant drop in quality.
- Good articles is what WP:FA is for. They tend to be long, but that is not a requirement, and I think there ought to be more short articles like this one featured. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-09-11 03:56 Z
- I disagree somewhat. The article went from a short article without sources, to a well written and sourced article within 5 days. I think it meets with the spirit of DYK -- to encourage new, sourced information contained in articles -- Samir धर्म 07:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- What rule is it flaunting? The project page states that "...former stubs, redirects, or other short articles that have been greatly expanded are also encouraged". This is a former stub that has been greatly expanded in the last five days. I can't see what the problem is. --Cherry blossom tree 09:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- Good articles is what WP:FA is for. They tend to be long, but that is not a requirement, and I think there ought to be more short articles like this one featured. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-09-11 03:56 Z
- You boys are a riot! Samir just added "or other short articles" to the rules eight minutes before replying to the discussion here. Regardless of the revisionism, onion dome was eligible for DYK for five days only, which ended just over eighteen months ago. The spirit of DYK is to showcase new articles, not to feature any significant editing session on the main page.
- And please don't make significant policy changes, without consensus, just to support an argument. —Michael Z. 2006-09-11 16:10 Z
- Wasn't to illustrate a point, just illustrating what's being done. I've been updating T:DYK for the past 2 months now, including pretty much solo for every weekend in August, and this is what I've been promoting -- Samir धर्म 16:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- I also take umbrage to you calling my edits disruption. There's no disruption going on here -- Samir धर्म 16:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry, I take that back. But the middle of a discussion is a funny time to unilaterally update the rules in question to fit your side of the argument.
- I also take umbrage to you calling my edits disruption. There's no disruption going on here -- Samir धर्म 16:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- Wasn't to illustrate a point, just illustrating what's being done. I've been updating T:DYK for the past 2 months now, including pretty much solo for every weekend in August, and this is what I've been promoting -- Samir धर्म 16:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- And please don't make significant policy changes, without consensus, just to support an argument. —Michael Z. 2006-09-11 16:10 Z
- Pushing the bounds of policy is only sometimes a justification for changing it. The undefined "or other short articles" is easily interpreted as any article below average length, which would make half of Wikipedia eligible for DYK in one fell swoop. DYK is an important main page feature, so best get consensus before radically changing its scope. —Michael Z. 2006-09-11 16:39 Z
- I think your opinion would be a minority one. Roughly 20% of all proposals that end up on the mp are expansions like this: old articles (usually stubbed, sometimes not) that are expanded. 3 of the 6 on the current T:DYK are old articles. Onion dome is admittedly on the larger side of the spectrum. I know of only one old expanded stub (Hepatorenal syndrome) -- out of 45 or more -- that was rejected for this reason over the past 2 months. I'm also not sure that the contributors to DYK would be in favour of limiting it exclusively to new articles. -- Samir धर्म 17:06, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
What is the problem here? Did the selection of onion domes push a better DYK candidate off the Main Page?
I think we can by-and-large trust:
- nominators to only nominate articles that are eligible (i.e. less than 5 days old, or newly destubbed);
- WT:DYK readers to object to articles that are too old or otherwise not suitable; and
- updaters to only update the Main Page template with candidates that they think are suitable, having passed through the above filters.
The objection over "technical eligiblity" does not carry much weight with me, although this case is right at the margins of what I would consider acceptable (indeed, I have refrained from nominating articles similar to this because I thought the article was too large before I expanded it - a case in point is Charlie Williams (comedian), which was reasonably well-developed, if a little stubbish, before my recent expansion of it).
As Samir says, he has been doing a large part of the updating for months (which is a horrible faff), and this is the way he has been doing it. Given the lack of complaint until now, there is the consensus. In any event, if the blurb does not reflect the way things are done in practice, it is time to update the blurb - policies are generally descriptive, not prescriptive. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- There are two problems here. One: that this article was not eligible, as I have explained above. Two: that Samir was making a significant change to the rule, without thinking through the implications in my opinion, without discussion, without demonstrating consensus, and during a discussion about the very rule.
- Here is a WT:DYK reader objecting to an article that was too old. Sorry that I only spotted it after it was on the main page. Since I posted a comment at talk, didn't receive a response, so then removed the article, it has failed to pass through the filters you describe. Sorry, I haven't been checking over Samir's shoulder, but just happened to spot this one. That doesn't mean that I have been lending my vote in support of his previously unwritten interpretation of the rules. If this has been his habit, then someone would object to it sooner or later, wouldn't they?
- It would have been a good idea to post the suggestion to the discussion here, then update the rule. This whole exchange wouldn't have occurred. I had to go by my past experience with a rejected submission and by what I read in the rules and on this talk page, not by a this consensus you tell me has existed for months. The question was mentioned recently (#Expansion of non-stubs), with no response. It was also raised twice a month earlier (#A question, #Boy Scout nomination), with no evidence of support for a change. If there was consensus for Samir's procedure, then it was very well hidden.
- If the criteria are to be widened to increase the quality, so be it. But it's wrong to speculate that there is consensus in support of a change in the procedures which no one is aware of, and which discussion participants haven't bothered to mention when someone asked about it. —Michael Z. 2006-09-11 19:42 Z
- Well, I am sorry that you are objecting, but as far as I can see there is plenty of support for Samir's actions over recent weeks and months, and few others supporting for your objection.
- We have been accepting expanded stubs for ages, and I am prepared to give the nominator, DYK reviewers and DYK updater the benefit of the doubt here. As I said, I think this was at the outside margin of the cases where rewritten or expanded articles should be accepted. Just because onion domes was over some arbitrary character limit, and was not labelled as a stub, does not to my mind make it "ineligible". An article would not need to be very much longer than this for me to object if I noticed it. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- Since the consensus "short article" criteria have been kept very quiet over the last two months, may we submit some short articles that have been substantially augmented during this time? I'm sure there are editors who have withheld excellent articles based on the (apparently obsolete) written rules, and may feel they've been given short shrift if they found out that their contributions could have appeared on the main page.
- I've even got one: pronunciation respelling for English, which had a major section added with 4,500 characters of new prose, plus tables, during Aug 15–17. Previously, it was a short article with only 1,600 characters of prose, plus a table and notes. Does this qualify as a candidate to be listed on the main page under the legend "From Wikipedia's newest articles"? I can probably come up with a few more.
- If it had been nominated within 5 days, it would have had a fair hearing. We are a pretty easy-going lot on WP:DYK - almost any nomination will get selected, unless someone spots a serious problem with it. Looking at the edit history, that article was built in three main phases, in February 2006, then June 2006, and finally the recent expansion in August. It was in pretty good shape by the end of July, so I imagine that there would have been objections if it had been nominated. It is clearly too old now - that "newest articles" means created or significantly expanded within 5 days has been a firm rule for quite a while. We don't give editors 5 days to post all of their new articles after they find out about WP:DYK, and I don't see a case for making an exception here. Sorry.
- However, if you want to give Samir and the other updaters a hand with the updating (which could in theory be done 4 times a day, but is rarely done more than twice) then I am sure that we would all be ecstatic. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
It's not suprising for me that, out of 1000 admins, Mzajac and David Levy admirably revealed the latest of Ghirlandajo's disruptions. I did not post on this page, so as not to hurt Mzajac's feelings (as I always try to do, according to him). Nevertheless, I'd like to point out that destubbed articles have been featured in DYK at least since my entry Veduta, which replaced this page. At first I was told by the updating admin that my article was not new and failed to meet the guidelines. Then I pointed out that the previous entry was plain nonsense and spoof and the article was promoted. If we are to follow Mzajac's logic, a troll who put dribble in place of Spanish Baroque precluded this article, once I submitted it, from participating in DYK. I don't think it's fair. As for the size of onion dome, I tend to agree with ALoan that it was a borderline case and that I could have looked better, but I've actually got an impression that the previous stuff (partly by me) was completely replaced (except for the lead). Furthermore, that article did not look like a stub because of huge images only. Even after my reworking as of 29 June 2005, someone still labeled it as a stub. --Ghirla -трёп- 18:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- Not everything is about you, you know. I think you made a great article here, which I found posted at the Russia portal, and it was a pleasure to read it and edit the copy. I don't think you've done any disrupting here and I don't know who David Levy is.
- The comments I made elsewhere were my honest opinion, and they were relevant to Wikipedia's well-being and to the specific issues raised there. This has nothing to do with that. —Michael Z. 2006-09-11 19:42 Z
I think we have some differences as to what the goals of DYK are. If the goal of DYK is to promote new, well-written articles, then the answer is to only allow new articles on DYK. If the goal of DYK is to promote new, well-written information, then the answer is to allow short articles that are expanded significantly to also be on DYK. My personal view is that the latter helps us improve quality of poorly written stubs, and allows more already-existing articles (that may appeal to more people) to be on the front page -- Samir धर्म 00:02, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
- Even though sneaking in a change in the rules was not the best practice, I agree with Samir in principle - i.e. let's not focus on formalities and let the spirit of the DYK, and more importantly, common sense, vanish from sight. Over the past weeks, a number of atrocities passed, including totally unreferenced, POV-filled, poorly-written or articles, not to mention some that were written in barely comprehensible English. Additionally, there is an increasing number of three- or even four-line-long DYKes that tell en entire story rather than be pithy and even remotely interesting. Not to mention a number of infinitely amusing "DYKes" like "Did you know that John Doe is a guitar player in the group Guitar Players?" - no, I didn't know that, but this is not anything that would make me click the link...
- The bottom line is - among so many real problems there are with DYK (including 40+ hour periods between refreshments), I believe it is pretty pointless to bicker about a slight stretch of the rules on behalf of an experienced updating admin. There would be no issue if not for Mzajac removing the onion domes for reasons only known to himself. I believe it should be up to the discretion of the updating admins to deal with "borderline" cases. Cheers, Bravada, talk - 03:29, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I object to this being characterised as a "significant" change to the rules, or "sneaking" in a change to the rules. The basis is simple and has remained pretty constant - we highlight articles that either did not exist or that were poor but have had significant improvement in the past 5 days. But I am sorry if the page does not explain that clearly enough, so you have failed to suggest a DYK. But then I am sorry that many editors don't bring their new or significantly expanded articles to DYK at all.
On "atrocities", all I can say is (i) give some examples, and (ii) {{sofixit}} - read the suggestions page and the articles posted on it, and participate in updating. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Data
Here is the data from the last week: User:Samir (The Scope)/DYK. All new articles are at the top (70) and all stub expansions (regardless of initial stub size) are at the bottom (24). Five administrators edited the template in the past week, and all put stub expansions (24/94 = 25.5%) on the main page. Mind you, this is all stub expansions, not the ones that were stubs. -- Samir धर्म 23:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- I'm sorry 25/95 = 26.3%. I missed Onion dome -- Samir धर्म 23:31, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I have full confidence in Samir's conduct. Please, everybody is allowed to criticise articles, the updating admins aren't going to get 10 articles line them up side by side and try and rank and critique them all for 3 hours at a time. Everybody is welcome to comment.Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 03:53, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I too agree with Samir. The responsibility should lie more with the DYK readers to point out why an article cant make it. This will make the updating admin's task that much easier -- Lost(talk) 04:06, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Expansion inclusion guidelines
Since people seem to want to make it an issue, I think it might be useful if we add some guidelines for expanded articles to the DYK guidelines. My only suggestions are that
- The article has been (a) significantly exapanded and improved from a stub or (b) completely rewritten from a poorly written article
- That in the case of an expanded article, it has been increased from less than 1000 bytes to greater that 2000 bytes with original text (although I find the numbers pretty meaningless)
We might ask the suggestors to flag if the article is new, or if it has been expanded, and specifiy that is should be listed on the date that the major expansion took place. However I'm not really in favour of anything that would make the process more complicated. Something I'm finding vaguely odd is people creating a stub and the same author later expanding the stub and listing it as a DYK (it seems weirdly dishonest to me), but I don't know if we should also specify that the original have been created by someone different to the expander. Any comments?--Peta 12:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
- I am not convinced that setting a precise character count is going to help anyone, and I doubt whether any DYK reviewers or updaters are going to count characters either. The core principle is surely that the nominated article must be a new non-stub article, or one that has expanded significantly from a stubby article. We don't have to define an elephant to know what it is. But I agree that nominators should flag expansions - in my experience, people often point out that they are old anyway if the nominator doesn't.
- What is wrong with filling a redlink with a stub, and then coming back some days or weeks later with more information to round it out? That sounds like the wiki process in action, to me. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:18, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
- FWIW, previously the rule was that the improvement, i.e. expansion has to be 5X (we can argue why expansion is improvement and excision is not, but it is a different story altogether and can be taken up some other day) and the original stub had to be written by someone else. The genesis of expanded stubs making it to DYK came about this way: Someone who had been working for 15 days off Wikipedia (Presumably on MS Word) on a well developed article for DYK found to his consternation that an anon created a stub just 2 days before this fellow wanted to update it. This person brought it up and it was felt that he had a case for his article to be updated to DYK. This was institutionalised later, saying that the improvement shd be 5X and the original stub must be created by someone. When I updated DYK for some 4 months, I found the second rule impractical - it may so happen that I may create a stub today but find better sources later and hence expand it at a later date. I'd always give preference to new entries in DYK; if there is space in the pipeline, the remaining order in priority would be stubs expanded 5X by non-creator, stubs expanded 5X by creator, other articles (non-stubs) vastly improved. I rarely updated the last class and always gave preference to new ones. The idea of having DYK is that the visibility on main page would help in their improvement. DYKs are work in progress - to give hope to newbies to get some of their own asap. FAs in contrast are closer to perfection - to set an aspiration to others in achieving the same level of standard. The selection process for DYK and FAs have largely adhered to these unwritten but collectively understood philosophies. --Gurubrahma 13:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
- I will incorporate expansions back into the rules then. If anyone want to be more explicit about the degree of expansion, please be my guest. As a note to Michael Z, it's probably best to research things a bit better before being critical of those who are more familiar with current goings-on in a part of the project. We're all volunteers here, and it's very easy to turn off volunteers for something as tedious as updating this particular template. I know I probably won't be editing the template for a while -- Samir धर्म 06:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- FWIW, previously the rule was that the improvement, i.e. expansion has to be 5X (we can argue why expansion is improvement and excision is not, but it is a different story altogether and can be taken up some other day) and the original stub had to be written by someone else. The genesis of expanded stubs making it to DYK came about this way: Someone who had been working for 15 days off Wikipedia (Presumably on MS Word) on a well developed article for DYK found to his consternation that an anon created a stub just 2 days before this fellow wanted to update it. This person brought it up and it was felt that he had a case for his article to be updated to DYK. This was institutionalised later, saying that the improvement shd be 5X and the original stub must be created by someone. When I updated DYK for some 4 months, I found the second rule impractical - it may so happen that I may create a stub today but find better sources later and hence expand it at a later date. I'd always give preference to new entries in DYK; if there is space in the pipeline, the remaining order in priority would be stubs expanded 5X by non-creator, stubs expanded 5X by creator, other articles (non-stubs) vastly improved. I rarely updated the last class and always gave preference to new ones. The idea of having DYK is that the visibility on main page would help in their improvement. DYKs are work in progress - to give hope to newbies to get some of their own asap. FAs in contrast are closer to perfection - to set an aspiration to others in achieving the same level of standard. The selection process for DYK and FAs have largely adhered to these unwritten but collectively understood philosophies. --Gurubrahma 13:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I like the older definition... that the article had to be new, or a true stub, and the expansion or creation of it had to be enough to increase it by at least 1000 chars and take it out of being a stub. I'm not sure I want to see DYK opened up to "just any improvement", philosophically. (not that that is what is being advocated here but...) But whatever consensus arrives at is fine with me. ++Lar: t/c 15:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- I stopped following the discussion, but I agree with Lar in principle - new, stub expansion (from below 1000 to over 2500) or other expansion, but I'd like the expansion to be defined as "fivefold" if not falling under the "stub expansion" category. If we agree on "by 1000 characters", one could have the same article effectively nominated every week. It's just that there are some articles with more than 1000 characters (not stubs) sitting around for ages and then somebody finally affords them a grand expansion - and I believe this should be honored. Anyway, I believe the updating admin should be given the right of choosing noms at his discretion, provided he/she does not abuse the rules. If a nomination is "borderline", like in the case of "onion domes", it should be up to the admins to decide whether it's OK or not. So, if one admin chooses such nomination, it should not later be removed from DYK, unless it is a really outright breach in rules (like an article that is not new at all). Bravada, talk - 17:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- How is this, Bravada? -- Samir धर्म 17:41, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- To be brutally honest, it sounds a bit clumsy to me (forgive me for not having a constructive idea for how it might be worded better at the moment), and changing the wording on the main page without previous approval here might not be best practice... I mean - I wholeheartedly support the change in policy as outlined above or in the version which you put on the main page, it's just about formalities... Bravada, talk - 22:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- How is this, Bravada? -- Samir धर्म 17:41, 15 September 2006 (UTC)