Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 16

message: What is the reason for the current backlog? Christmas vacations? The new system of updating without enough non-admin volunteers to do the work? --Ghirla -трёп- 18:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Christmas/other holidays definitely have an impact. I'm back at my parent's house for the next two weeks, so I'm stuck sharing the computer with the rest of the family – no time for full updates. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 08:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like more good noms flowing in too... ++Lar: t/c 19:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Just an advance notice that as of about 6 UTC 21 December, I will not be updating DYK due to a lack of access to a computer until perhaps January 4. Thanks in advance. Blnguyen  (bananabucket) 23:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On a similar note, I have limited access at the moment and will most probably have no access at all from 23-28 December (although not due to holidays) Yomanganitalk 10:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ...and I'm probably going to be 3RR blocked in a minute (lapse of concentration), so won't be able to do any updates today. Yomanganitalk 10:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

text: God forbid. --Ghirla -трёп- 18:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Forbid what...?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Both of you know better than to bicker. Please don't. ++Lar: t/c 22:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lar, what bickering? I don't think my first post here was 'bickering', and my second is a civil, I think, request to clarify a brief remark which I failed to understand?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

text: All DYK enthusiasts please go to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Piotrus and implore Piotrus and Ghirla to do what they do best: Write top quality articles ! Blnguyen  (bananabucket) 06:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Backlog 

message: I'm not sure whether this is the right place to post, but I think today's DYK about the Welsh courtier should use the Welsh form of Owain Glyndŵr's name, and not the Anglicisation Owen Glendower. I don't expect that the latter has much currency among scholars any more, except when they're discussing the Shakespeare character. [talk to the] HAM 13:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Sir John Donne]]

message: One of the DYKs that just got posted on the main page is:
"...that Portuguese Josefa de Óbidos was one the few women dedicated to painting (pictured: still life by her) in the Baroque era?"
Isn't the grammatical error obvious? "one the few women" doesn't make any sense. It should be "one of the few women". Her picture, as I read from the article, is called "Still-life", not "still life". Moreover, the "(pictured..)" should be located next to the name, not "painting". The whole DYK is confusing and, I feel, shameful for Wikipedia. If we can't even make what we put on the main page at least grammatically correct, we can hardly guarantee users the other 1.5 million articles are of any encyclopedic quality at all. Aran|heru|nar 13:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar 

message: Stublike articles getting onto the main page? More stringent reqs should make articles look at lease start or B-class to get on. I even saw one article with two paragraphs that got on DYK.Bakaman 19:17, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been away for over a week (got called back yesterday evening by the vet as my dog needed an operation), so I've not been updating. I'm sure I'm not the only one away from the computer at Christmas - the section should start to pick up again soon. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 10:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why are?

message: Shouldn't we be encouraging sourcing of articles rather than new articles? -- Jeandré, 2006-12-25t21:20z
:What we should be encouraging is new articles that are already well-sourced. This is what DYK should be- and, in my view, generally is. -- Kicking222 02:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: From newly referenced info instead of new articles?

message: There's currently a note at WP:ERRORS that the image on DYK isn't matched with an item with "pictured", and I can't figure out which it fits.  Could someone take a look? Thanks, BanyanTree 18:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Resolved. Thanks, BanyanTree 20:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Image:Laurel1.jpg]] 

message: The main page has "Lake" and "Chaubunagungamaug" linking separatly to the same article. I know it's soon to be removed, but maybe it can be fixed beforehand. | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 21:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I had to do it or else it would ruin the Main Page DYK box width. The full name actually made the left column 75:25 with the right column, so I had to shorten and separate it. Nishkid64 18:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Lake Chaubunagungamaug]] 

message: Stop it with the portraits already!! DYK is also about landscapes, inanimate objects, and paintings. I don't wanna see some guy that bit the dust decades ago on DYK. I want to be educated and enticed to get drawn in. Enough with the dead dudes. --293.xx.xxx.xx 08:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The last update had a picture of A Christmas Story House as the lead item. The other day the Library of Parliament made the lead. Portraits are more common as you can be fairly certain whether they're public domain or not. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 12:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enough with the Portraits already. 

message: I believe this article needs to better sourced before we put something this controversial on the Main Page. This –
The namus of a man is violated, if., e.g., his daughter is not dressed "appropriately" or if he tolerates an offense without reaction.
In most conservative interpretation, if a woman is raped, she is not seen as a wictim. Instead, it is considered that the namus of the whole family was violated, and to restore it, a honour killing of the raped woman may happen (estimated 5,000 victims yearly). In other cases, the raped woman under a social duress to restore namus commits forced suicide.
For a woman, namus is in obeyance, faithfulness, modesty (in behaviour and in dress), "appropriateness" ("she knows when to sit and when to stand up"). 
For an unmarried woman, the utmost importance is virginity before marriage, and "proof of virginity" in the form of bloodstains on a bed sheet is required to proudly demonstrate after the wedding night.
– should be sourced. -- tariqabjotu 15:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you on this one. We can't have an unsourced controversial section in the article. I'll put it off to the bottom of DYK/N. Nishkid64 20:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Controversial section? What is so controversial here? All is referenced. The guy with the name 'Tariq' should know better. This topic is all over Turkey and Germany. Whatever. I added plenty of references and expanded in no time. `'mikka 00:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You ought to be ashamed for posting a comment like that. You knew exactly what I was talking about, given the fact that I pasted the entire paragraph here. I know you'll respond with a that's not what I meant, but I know exactly what you're implying with the statement that The guy with the name 'Tariq' should know better. Sorry mikkalai, but the article was indeed poorly-sourced; that's a fact, as you acknowledged with all these changes, that has nothing to do with what you perceive as my name, ethnicity, or religion. Please keep your prejudices off Wikipedia. -- tariqabjotu 04:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Namus]] 

message: ...that Bruce Campbell was removed from office as a Circuit Court Judge in the United Kingdom after being convicted of importing whisky and cigarettes without paying customs duty on them?
At first glance, the article seems to link to Bruce Campbell, not Keith Bruce Campbell. Only by clicking on said link shows the redirect. Nothing in the article supports the useage of the former use of the name. Was this intentional to garner page views, or just an honest mistake?--293.xx.xxx.xx 20:30, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, when I was copying and pasting from next update to DYK, I saw that it was a redirect. I think it was unintentional. Nishkid64 22:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Properly title article links please!! 

message: You may be aware that a small=yes parameter has been added to the templates, per Wikipedia:Talk page templates#Small option.  I just switched over Talk:Maraba Coffee so one can see the table of contents on the first page, and found myself in a bit of a quandary with the DYK tag.  The person who had added the tag had signed the post.  In order to keep the sig and tag associated, I put the sig in the box, but now it kind of looks weird.  Do the DYK folk have a preference for how they want the formatting in these cases handled? - BanyanTree 22:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  DYK tags in the small=yes format 

message: At least one or more articles were not archived. I went here looking for my entry from December 31st, but the article is not shown on this page or one of the recent pages of the archive. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-01-02 14:16Z
:I guess that periodically happens. I personally vouch for my own archiving, so don't blame me :D. =) Nishkid64 22:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing articles from archive

message: I've taken it on myself this past day to edit the hooks that are on the Template:Did you know/Next update page.  Some were more like a opening paragraph than a "hook".  Here's the one that made it to DYK before I got my hands on it: 
... that the Ayles Ice Shelf at Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago collapsed in less than an hour in August 2005, setting a 66 km² (25 mi²) ice island adrift in the Arctic Ocean, but the collapse was only discovered during the recent analysis of satellite images captured by MODIS?
 To me, that is not a hook!  (great choice for a DYK, however).  I would have changed it to something like: 
...in 2005, the Ayles Ice Shelf in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago collapsed in less than an hour?
or... 
...the Ayles Ice Shelf in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago collapsed in 2005 but was only recently discovered by analyzing satellite images?
Does anyone else feel strongly that these hooks need to "bite"?  And while the subject is on the table, does anyone else notice the word "that" at the start of almost every DYK is an unneeded filler word?  Here are examples from today:
*Did you know (that) Elizabeth Margaret Chandler introduced the famous abolitionist image of the kneeling female slave with the slogan "Am I not a Woman and a Sister"?
*Did you know (that) despite Irish neutrality, weather reports from Met Éireann were used to plan the D-Day landings?
*Did you know (that) Scottish language prodigy James Murdoch, after participating in a failed communist commune in Paraguay, was hired by the Australian Ministry of Defense as an expert on Japanese issues?
*Did you know (that) the Ira Goldstein, advertisement campaign character for the ASB Bank in New Zealand, drives a metallic-brown 1979 Leyland Princess 2000 HL? 
*Did you know (that) former New Jersey Representative Henry Helstoski was charged with receiving bribes from illegal aliens in 1976?
See how removing "thats" doesn't change the meaning in the slightest?  I hope these suggestions/observations are helpful. ◄HouseOfScandal► 20:06, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know some of the recent DYK's have been quite verbose, to say the least. Surprisingly, the DYK's I put were quite short. Anyway, getting back to the point. The word "that" is implied in DYK's, but I still think it is nice to put it there. I wouldn't mind it being removed, but I feel it might need to be used in some DYK's in order to convey the proper meaning. Nishkid64 22:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I believe that the word that is unnecessary due to the fact that the word that conveys nothing that the sentence could convey on its own. Additionally, I believe that the excessive use of the word that gives an unprofessional tone that Wikipedia should be avoiding. -- tariqabjotu 05:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hooks

message: ...let's wait until we get more agreement on the whole deal with the hooks and the word "that" before making any changes to DYK. Also, I'm starting to dislike this whole shortening idea. Sure, it may make them sound better, but I preferred them when they were interesting and had dates and other particular names. I just lost interest in some of the articles, because the hooks seem so dry, as compared to the original DYK's. Nishkid64 03:47, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Too short?

message: If you add or remove articles from the next update page, please remove or replace the article on the suggestions page. If they aren't removed it becomes more difficult to manage the next update, and if they are removed from the next update page and not replaced on the suggestions page they are effectively thrown away without explanation.
If you make a change to the hooks please add an edit summary so the next editor has some idea why you have made a change.
I'd also suggest we take hooks in vaguely chronological order, i.e. let's not take them from yesterday when we have a queue of articles that are likely to expire in the next 24 hours. Yomanganitalk 10:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem with the chronological order has already been dealt with, and I also totally agree with the need for edit summaries. That would surely help make things easier. Nishkid64 15:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Updating "Next Update"

message: On , we have six items. Five are United States-related. Now, I'm not the type who complains when a third, or even half, of the items on one of the mainpage templates are American. But five out of six? I'm going to see what I can do about replacing some. Picaroon 02:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *But all I can write about is sports, politics and current events. =( Nishkid64 02:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

text: * The theme repetition is always a problem, as editors always go and have a week or two, where they concentrate on a group of related articles, before moving onto another theme. I think at one stage in late August, I managed 4 Indian cricketers in one week, but people don't notice until you do about 7-8 of them. There's nothing you can really do, unless the standard goes high, eg to GA type level, so that the same guy can't write an article per day. Blnguyen  (bananabucket) 03:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of balance on next update