Just that really, I'd be interested in all your opinions about the DYK project pages, as it seems a lot of people are falling foul of it and been on the receiving end of problems for posting their work and ideas there.

In my experience, DYK is the easiest of the four ways to get "recognition" on Wikipedia (the others being GA, FA and editcount), so it tends to attract a lot of people who want recognition and/or see WP as an MMORPG, but don't want to put in the effort/don't know enough about a particular subject to write high-quality articles. While some very good writers submit things to DYK, because DYK is a measure of article-creation rather than writing ability, it seems to get a disproportionate share of newcomers who don't really understand what WP is after in terms of writing quality, and hence a disproportionate share of drama and editwars.

Because most of the "easy" articles now exist, I suspect that those articles being created now are far harder to source than new articles a couple of years ago, when many major corporations, animal species, historic structures etc didn't yet have their own articles; consequently, there's a temptation for some new editors to use dubious sources and/or write on subjects they don't really understand, to a far worse degree than a couple of years ago. That is purely a personal impression with no particular evidence to back it up.

IMO, DYK has served its time and should be quietly dropped from the main page, as the focus should be on improving and cleaning up the articles we already have, not on creating ever more stubs. That is just my personal opinion and I'm sure many (most) of the regulars wouldn't agree.

You left out the other one:




He's tanned, rested, and ready!

Hmmm, they needed to give him the menu with pictures... probably explains a lot.

I liked DYK if only because the articles I was interested in were topics that got little-to-no mainstream attention, and it seemed like the best way to get the 6-8 hours of glory they deserved.

If DYK gets more people making more articles, good. That's only a net benefit.

I thought that was standard in a Sambos.

His wine glass needs refilling and all the other glasses appear not to have been used. What's up with that?

This photograph movingly depicts the schnorrer's dilemma; our protagonist really wants that second bottle of Opus One but has begun to question whether the Foundation will reimburse him this time. Really, Jimbo, it's our treat.

Back on topic... I agree with Eva in terms of article creation. About half of my DYKs have been through (fivefold or more) expansion and I think they should be trying to give that more weight in future.

The biggest problem now with DYK is all the arcane rules, and who is and is not affected by the rules. plus, it is all a matter on how the admins over there feel like, and if one is available or not. It's not as user-friendly as it once was.

Good post. I don't think DYK's days are numbered just yet, as there are still hundreds of thousands of taxonomy articles still redlinked that could easily be blue, given time (and editors interested in creating them). There are still many list-type articles on Wikipedia which are still mostly red. Finding editors willing to fill them out is such a slow process.

I've only written a few DYKs, mostly when a "hook" seemed very obvious: the first X, the last known Y, the only Z. I think many current DYK "hooks" are kind of a stretch, but I think this has more to do with (as you indicated) the editors currently submitting DYKs rather than the number of redlinks shrinking. I think there's just a sub-set of editors slowly removing redlinks, so you don't notice them as often. And the number of stubs that could quickly be expanded five-fold (per the DYK rules) is probably close to a million, though I haven't seen any stats recently.

**non-sequitor, off-topic, so sorry.



I have a few joke-replies to that question, related to:

• Syncophants salivating and not requiring fluids
• Crazy people frothing at the mouth
• When a sacred or holy person, King or God-king (Jesus, a King, the Pope, Jimbo) drinks or eats, no one else does. They just watch.

But none of them seem adequate. I notice that the pic was taken in Hungary, so vampire jokes also come to mind. Nothing perfect either.

I wonder how many readers would be interested by seeing a taxonomy-related DYK every day.

If it were interesting (as Firsfron says, "the first, the last, the only...") I'd see no problem. The real problem with the current DYK is that at the moment, it often translates to "Did you care?". With all due respect to the actual article, which I'm sure is fine, I'm not convinced that "the Rufous Songlark is an Australian songbird that sometimes ends up as roadkill" (currently on the main page) is exactly going to lure the reader in.

No DYK today concerning Polish military history. Rare.

Lol yes quite- the one day I looked at the submissions they seemed to be mainly about stately homes or historical subjects, and things like that. Abit dry for my taste. But I can see why people want to "play it safe" with their submissions.



Lol. Doesn't every species of bird sometimes end up as a roadkill? Unless they're some sort of charmed species or live somewhere very remote?

What I see a lot of are American Civil War articles. For a while it was one every update for a week, or so it seemed like.

DYK really doesn't harm anyone or anything, or hurt the project. It's like Good Articles and FAs. Like someone said, it's the easiest of the three to do, and encourages writing. That's not a bad thing. Is some of the content fluff or crap? Sure. I just think the recent nonsense like with Bedford has everyone looking at it cross-eyed.

No it's not that, it's that people such as User:Wilhelmina Will have had her contribs picked at due to contributing there, as do others.

Things on the main page get picked at more because more people see them. However much A Certain Other User might rant and rave about WW being singled out by The Cabal, that's all it is. Nobody's stalking her, but if an inaccurate page and/or copyvio temporarily becomes one of WP's most visited pages, people will notice.