Template talk:DYK talk

message: The objective in creating this template is to accord some mileage to a DYK entry, and thus, improve the quality of DYK suggestions, leading to creation of better articles in the first place. Vaoverland's comments elsewhere about listing DYK facts on talk pages inspired me to design this template so that some of the grunt work is removed. I envisage that this template would be used voluntarily by updating admins AND that it should not be made compulsary for them; as it is, updating DYK is strenuous. Even if the admin does not add them to the talkpages, the creators of the article themselves can do so. Suggestions to improve this template are welcomed. --Gurubrahma 10:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestions

message: It seems to me this template is pretty useless talk page spam as it currently stands, but could be useful if it provided a hard link to the revision of DYK which shows the DYK entry of the page in question. Thoughts? --kingboyk (talk) 22:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it really should do that, but the DYK history page is so complicated, its impossible to find any previous entries older than a couple days. --haha169 (talk) 20:58, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to a revision of DYK showing the DYK entry 

message: Please switch content between the  with . I already created the documentation page using the content that you will be deleting. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 20:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done --Elonka 20:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Documentation

message: Given that dates are now no longer to be blue linked, could someone please remove the links around the dates in the template? Thanks. It Is Me Here (talk) 15:13, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 04:58, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! It Is Me Here (talk) 09:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please delink the dates in the template 

message: 
The template is not formatting International dates properly; its adding a comma between month and year (see WP:DATE). Can someone remove the comma, or better yet use a date meta-template to handle formatting? I think  would work well. Thanks – Ikara talk → 02:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I simply removed the comma. I checked about ten transclusions of this template and all were using DD MONTH YYYY. --- RockMFR 22:11, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date formatting 

message: Consider adding a version-link to the word "appeared", 
...  on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on  ....
Usage example: ...|version=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know&oldid=255844585
This would allow people to click on the word "appeared" and see the DYK page as it looked at the time.
I haven't tested this, there may be syntax errors there, but you get what I'm trying to say.  davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:24, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consider adding hard-link to DYN as a parameter 

message: I scanned all articles that use the template and redirects and found 35 instances which use |entry=, since the DYKBot adds the string as an unnamed third parameter does anyone have an opinion on whther it should be changed to 3?  I've removed the 35 instances of |entry=, but left the comments as I added most of them. If there's no opposition I'll put in a editprotected, unless an admin watches over here. §hep  •  ¡Talk to me! 00:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer it the other way around, but that's just because I'm a named-parameter bigot.  Go ahead and make the change if it improves the functionality.  davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:07, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Would it be better to just ask the owner of DYKbot to change his/her code to use ? J.delanoygabsadds 18:37, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I asked Ameliorate! awhile back and he said he was busy.  But since the bot has already done hundreds of entries using  and from my searches it appears users who used to add dyktalk never included the entry at all. (Only 35 instances my scan turned up and a good deal of them were my additions to the template)  It appears that since everything will be automated from now on, we shoudn't have any problems with users trying to add |entry=.  I'll do another scan now and see if anyone's added an |entry= in the past 9 days.  In short, I think this would be the best way to do things or 100s talk pages would need to be modified. §hep  •  ¡Talk to me! 19:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Finished scanning all templates. Found 4 instances. One was previously removed by me (readded by Elonka), 2 were added by Davidwr, and the fourth by Elonka again. §hep  •  ¡Talk to me! 01:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I added them to enable the missing functionality.  When  works, I will remove them.  davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I wasn't implying that the additions were a bad thing, more for statistical purposes than anything. §hep  •  ¡Talk to me! 03:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

text: That should make everyone happy.  Thank you for your assistance. §hep  •  ¡Talk to me! 05:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  How about putting the DYK text in  in quotes, so that it's easier to spot? Right now, it blends right in with the rest of the template text at first glance. Gary King (talk) 19:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replace {{{entry}}} with {{{3}}} 

message: Just thought I'd let someone know that when  was added [[Talk:Other BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards
|here]] it placed "...%28pictured%29..." instead of "...(pictured)...". Not sure if this is a DYKadminBot or a template problem but I thought that I should make someone aware of this. Many thanks, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 20:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the bot. Gary King (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brackets 

message: Could we italicize the entry to make it stand out more? Right now, it just flows too well with the rest of the text that at first glance it's hard to spot where the entry begins. Gary King (talk) 20:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Please propose code in a sandbox somewhere. Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 08:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italicize the entry 

message: I'm probably going to regret asking this, but I need to know the answer.  Where should this template appear on the talk page?  Above the project templates, or below? Viriditas (talk) 23:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been putting it between the  (which is generally the first template) and the WikiProject banners. It seems to be closely related to  since that template also has a DYK section in it. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 04:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Placement 

message: I've made some suggestions for DYK-related changes to the  template. Please do comment on them at "Template talk:ArticleHistory#Option for adding DYK hook (redux)". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 19:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  DYK-related changes to ArticleHistory template 

message: Hello. Is it possible to add interwiki cs:Šablona:Zajímavost ? Thanks. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 16:47, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The template documentation ("Template:Dyktalk/doc") is not protected. Go ahead and add the interwiki. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 08:21, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  interwiki 

message: It is normal for this page to show "Expression error: Unexpected < operator".
Why is it normal to show that something is wrong when nothing is wrong? 
Åkebråke (talk) 20:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This code appears only on the template page itself, not on the pages where the template is used (if it does, we do have a problem). This is because of some complex code in the template that is interpreted in a weird way here. Ucucha 20:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Easily fixable; see below. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 21:03, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expression error  

message: I suggest that we start using a modified version of this template, currently in the sandbox. The main reasons is that it reflects changes made to Template:ArticleHistory after a long discussion over there. The changes would be:
*It takes up a bit less space on the talk page.
*The link to the entry is automatically generated from the date.
*The words "fact from this article" are linked to the archive, instead of requiring a separate sentence.
*An anchor to the correct day is automatically appended.
*The text of the entry is displayed without the line break (which I think looks quite unsightly)
*The default image (Wikipedia logo) is removed from the right side. It has no meaning or purpose, I believe.
There is a comparison shown in /testcases. Any comments are welcomed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the line break for two reasons: 1) it's how the hook appeared on the Main Page, and 2) if someone's skimming the talk page (which everyone does) the line break draws more attention to the hook. Shubinator (talk) 18:29, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, how about if we move the "Did you know" down to the next line as well? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's better, but I still prefer the "Did you know" on the line above. Also, I don't like the italics. Shubinator (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to update this template 

message: http://stats.grok.se/en// does not always link to the correct place, if the article had a different name during the DYK time. There should be an optional parameter, e.g. , so that the code can be replaced with http://stats.grok.se/en//.  Cs32en Talk to me  23:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely that is what the  parameter is for. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! I should have seen this myself, indeed. The  parameter seems not to be included in the documentation right now.  Cs32en Talk to me  17:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to article view statistics 

message: Please change the word 'fact' to 'quotation' in this template.  Wikipedia doesn't deal with 'facts', but with Reliable Sources.  And recently one of these 'facts' was incorrect/unfactual or at the very least strongly POV. -- Avanu (talk) 03:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done for now: Could  I ask you to discuss this and get consensus for the change? It's not always the best idea to change something in response to one incident. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

text: They are at least purported to be facts, and they are certainly not quotations, since the text of the hook does not need to be in the article. Of course, we could change the text to "This article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column" or something like that. Ucucha 12:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from Avanu, 13 July 2011 

message: Hello, the format of Wikipedia logo is PNG. The same logo exists in SVG format. Please change Wikipedia-logo.png to Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg. Nodulation (talk) 17:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:31, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  png → svg 

message: Could someone please change  to ? Thanks, --Σ talkcontribs 18:28, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request 

message: The link to Template:Dyk talk/Views disclaimer should instead be Template:DYK talk/Views disclaimer. The current link is an accident from  about a week ago, attempting to avoid a different redirect to the same page. The "disclaimer" link is red in transclusions of this template (e.g. Template:DYK talk/doc#Examples) but still works when clicked. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 10:31, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. By the way, the red link could probably have been turned blue by purging the page. Ucucha (talk) 10:35, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, yes. When I edit at 2:30 in the morning, sometimes such things elude me. Thanks. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 10:53, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request: fix red link transclusion / avoid redirect 

message: That we have one parameter for the day and month and a separate one for the year is in part a sad hang over from the bad old days of date linking and in part an example of sub-optimal template writing.  It was written this way so that the day and month could be linked like this, , and the year could be linked like this, .  However, we could instead have simply used a single parameter and got the dates linking like this, .  Now, though, we're not even linking the dates at all so it makes even less sense to use two parameters for the date.  I propose to combine day, month and year into a single parameter so we'd write, for example,  instead of .  The hook would become  and the image .  Backward compatibility is no problem since the years are numbers and the hooks aren't so we just check whether  is a number. JIMp talk·cont 06:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Day, month insert a pipe and year 

message: Currently, the template displays the text:
:A fact from Some article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on (some date), and was viewed approximately (some number) times(disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: "Did you know
Would there be any objection to rephrasing this as (magenta indicates changed portion):
:A hook from Some article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on (some date); this article was viewed approximately (some number) times(disclaimer) (check views). The hook was: "Did you know
This proposal is designed to be more accurate:
* The word fact seems too harsh for text which is occasionally whimsical.
* Distinguishing between being read on the main page (which we cannot know) and reading the article itself is clearer.
* I learned in writing to avoid the phase as follows.  Just skip that and follow!
Clarity and brevity.  —EncMstr (talk) 07:03, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  template phrasing tweak 

message: Template:DYK talk/sandbox adds the following:
}} {{ifnumdate
A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/.
:Note: The above isn't rendering properly, so please copy directly from the sandbox!
I've updated Template:DYK talk/doc accordingly but the comments will need removing.
*This is needed because the basic  parameter seems to have been dropped in favour of year/date archiving. A test is at Template:DYK talk/testcases#Sandbox. -- Trevj (talk) 10:31, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we could do this automatically by taking the month and year out of the first parameter? Then a new parameter would not be needed. I can code this for you if you wish. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:51, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent (assuming it'd remain compatible with the old usage of numbers in the parameter too)! I didn't even try to cater for 2 formats in the same parameter, so will be interested to have a look at the change when implemented. Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 11:45, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've put some code on the sandbox. Perhaps you could take a look and make sure it is working properly in all situations (because I am not familiar with DYK), and then we can deploy. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:52, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Almost there. I've put 3 test cases in. Not quite working because of the difference in separator: the old archives use a space, the new year/date uses a slash. Prefixing the year/date param with a slash doesn't help because the space is still included. Hopefully you can fix this. Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 17:29, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The idea is that num should only be used with the old system, i.e. Wikipedia:Recent additions nnn. If this is omitted it will work it out automatically from the date. Please check the testcases again. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:11, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for my misunderstanding - that's wonderful. I see how the cumulative changes work (although I couldn't code them myself). I've added an old testcase with no num specified, which works fine and doesn't give a redlink to a nonexistent page. The 6/7 April anomaly with the example I used is a separate issue from the code here (bot update for 6th but archive listed under 7th) which I may investigate elsewhere. Therefore, I think your work is OK to move to the main template. I'll update the doc afterwards. Thanks so much for doing this! -- Trevj (talk) 08:01, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, deployed! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:01, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

text: How far back does this subpage system go back? We could put a check to make sure the relevant page exists, i.e. to prevent redlinks. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:07, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  The short answer to that question is "I don't know." There seem to actually be some redirects in place, e.g. Wikipedia:Recent additions 255 (listed at Wikipedia:Recent additions 1). The first of these seems to be Wikipedia:Recent additions 242, which was 3 years ago. I'm fairly new to DYK myself, so perhaps it would've been wise for me to check with some regulars fist. Sorry. I've now pointed them here. -- Trevj (talk) 19:39, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

text: Maybe. Hopefully someone else will come here in response to this note. In the mean time, I've updated the /doc page to reflect the current arrangement. From the few article talk pages I've checked, the template seems to be including the dated num page just fine with no parameter. -- Trevj (talk) 07:51, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Originally there was only a numbered archive system, then the monthly archive system was created when I made DYKHousekeepingBot to go through and tag all the DYK pages (DYK pages were being tagged, but those from the first few years of DYK existence hadn't been). Background: fruition, planning, before launch, switch-over. You noticed the slight discrepancy with dates on day-boundaries - this happens when the hook was placed on the Main page on a certain date (reflected in the DYK talk template) and taken off of the Main page on a different date (reflected in the archives). Coming back to present, I think it's possible to remove the numbered system. There might be other projects that rely on the numbered system however (the triple crown comes to mind). Shubinator (talk) 12:36, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for filling in with useful historical info which puts things into context. I don't know that it'll be safe for the num parameter to be removed completely, although there is some duplication in archiving, e.g. 2009/February, 241, 240, 239. Shubinator, it seems to me that some instances of the template will refer to numbered archives which don't have a corresponding date archive - is this correct? Thanks. (And thanks for clarifying the date boundaries/archive removal time too.) -- Trevj (talk) 14:08, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

text: Articles such as Talk:Berton Roueché (216) map OK to 2008/April, but I don't know about earlier instances as I've not searched for linking pages from every numbered archive. -- Trevj (talk) 14:18, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Recent additions 219 seems to be the first page where entries are grouped by date ... Before this there is apparently no way to tell when the item appeared on the main page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:37, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, the numbered archives didn't show the date for a long time, partly because DYK was more of a "rolling" process in the past, much like ITN today. Every DYK entry in every numbered archive should be in a corresponding date archive. The date archives are relatively recent, but the bot delved back to the beginnings of DYK and then moved forward in time, automatically generating the archives as it went. Shubinator (talk) 16:47, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I selected a random sample of 10 and all but 1 were correctly listed in the date archive. (This one was missing apparently because it was removed individually at a separate time from the others.) So based on this I think we should remove the num parameter from this template completely. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:02, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not opposed. Shubinator (talk) 02:29, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on the above, I'm not opposed either. Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 06:00, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

text: I've pre-emptively removed it from the /doc page. -- Trevj (talk) 07:15, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fixing num now using year/date 

message: Even though I have the rights to edit this, I am not able to do so. In light of that, would someone please add a link to the new labs aggregate site, so that we can include both views in the page? Additionally, if we could update the stats.grok link and make them both appear as they are on this template (which also holds the source code for the mentioned link), that would be wonderful. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:15, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: Sorry, but this request is a bit too vague for me to understand exactly what you're asking for. Could you add your proposed code to Template:DYK talk/sandbox and reactivate the request? Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 07:30, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected edit request on 15 March 2014 

message: This template adds the page to :Category:Wikipedia Did you know articles, which is fine when the template is added to article talk pages, but not when the template is on user pages (e.g. User:Barkeep) or user talk pages (e.g. User talk:Ae9000ae).  Could someone please tweak the code so only article talk pages are categorized?  Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 04:02, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:37, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected edit request on 28 February 2016 

message: I propose a change to the template that would either: 1) create a new optional parameter called article name, which would allow an editor to enter the name of the article that was featured on the DYK and would replace the default entry that is the current page name. For example, this would change the bolded default page name after "a fact from" to whatever is entered in the parameter; or 2) making whatever is entered in article perform the same function as was just described. Ergo Sum  18:02, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Bumping this proposal. Ergo Sum  19:39, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed edit 

message: So over at WP:FOUR the symbol used for DYK is this:  
I propose that we change the image of the question mark on this template to match - its brighter, more consistent and generally, I believe, looks better.
To see the full test suite, visit testcases, but here's a sense of the change:
∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 05:56, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: no objections, so changed.  you may want to change Template:Article history as well. Frietjes (talk) 16:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed change - image 

message: I added a hack to strip any leading bullets from the entry since the bullet is added by the template, so having a leading bullet makes a spurious double bullet.  any transclusions which are auto fixed will be listed in :Category:Pages using DYK talk with a spurious bullet for inspection.  once that category has time to fill up, we can fix any problem transclusions and then remove the hack.  please let me know if there are any problems! Frietjes (talk) 15:22, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added leading bullet fix with tracking category 

message: Currently, this template is transcluded onto article talk pages by the DYKUpdateBot when a new DYK set is added to the Main Page template, with a copy of the hook for the corresponding article. However, DYK hooks are occasionally modified while they're on the Main Page. That said, should the DYK talk template be updated on the article talk pages to reflect new changes, or should they be left as they are when first posted? The former, I think, should be a more logical answer, as hooks might contain factual errors that are rightly corrected; the final version of the hook should be recorded on the talk pages, not a possibly defective one. Just looking for some input on this question. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 03:42, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  On use of this template 

message: I noticed that the "check views" link from Talk:The Analytical Language of John Wilkins was broken, but that the one from Talk:Kitty O'Brien Joyner works. Looking closer, I see it's because it uses a different site based on the date. However, the grok.se server is down (I don't recall if it's permanent, but I thought I heard that it was). Does the main pageviews tool not work with older dates? What's the reason for retaining the older tool? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:43, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why link to grok before a certain date -- seems broken? 

message: See sandbox Special:Diff/1158484275. Changes:
* Reduced vertical height and potential visual overwhelm by removing unnecessary sentences
* Removed: . Maintained clarity by enclosing the entry in 
* Removed all the sentences below the entry that only served to explain the purpose of links; piped those links to make their purpose self-explanatory; formatted these links as a horizontal list
* Removed generic Wikipedia logo from image_right; image_right only appears if an image is passed-in
DFlhb (talk) 10:45, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Out of courtesy, I'll link to Template:DYK talk/testcases, where the changes can be seen clearly. Sorry for forgetting that. And I forgot to state the motivation: to reduce the template's vertical height without losing any functionality. I think banners with less text are more likely to be read and not ignored. DFlhb (talk) 02:39, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redesign proposal 

message: Just noticed this while updating some statistics: the template should have a way to input a pagename to override the automatic link to the pageview tool. A few of my DYKs have been renamed, so the link throws up an error (as the Pageview Analysis tool does not automatically redirect to the new page). SounderBruce 00:23, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parameter for page names in the event of a move