Is DYK a joke?, DYIK - a fast way to amass millions Options

[chrisoff]

"There is actually another problem there as well: DYK has become a factory for mainpage credits. There seems to be a large number of DYK junkies who mass-produce totally boring articles and put them through DYK. As a result, every single article currentrly gets only a few hours on DYK, and readers have been conditioned to ignore it entirely as it routinely breaks the promise of providing interesting information. Unfortunately, the lobby of DYK abusers has so far prevented reform. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=429004222



For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dr._Blofeld

This post has been edited by chrisoff: Sat 14th May 2011, 12:27am

[Malleus]

"There is actually another problem there as well: DYK has become a factory for mainpage credits. There seems to be a large number of DYK junkies who mass-produce totally boring articles and put them through DYK. As a result, every single article currentrly gets only a few hours on DYK, and readers have been conditioned to ignore it entirely as it routinely breaks the promise of providing interesting information. Unfortunately, the lobby of DYK abusers has so far prevented reform. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=429004222



For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dr._Blofeld

Seems like there's at least one thing we can agree on.

[melloden]

DYK is good for giving the dumbass children something to work toward that's easier than an FA.

[EricBarbour]

If you'd like to know the biggest DYK whores, check the hall of fame.

Oh looky, Ottava keeps popping up.

[Zoloft]

Not whores.

Whores get paid real money and the best deliver delight in a creative fashion.


DYK is more like elementary kids getting their gold stars on the homeroom wall next to their name after they make macaroni art.

[radek]

Not whores.

Whores get paid real money and the best deliver delight in a creative fashion.


DYK is more like elementary kids getting their gold stars on the homeroom wall next to their name after they make macaroni art.

Not really. With DYK you get main space exposure which means a lot more people read your articles. Which is really what motivates a lot of editors.

Anyway, on this one I disagree with Hans, though I usually agree with him. Not that there isn't some truth to it. Yeah, a lot of of those DYKs I'd consider boring too. But De gustibus non est disputandum and all that. I'm sure lots of folks consider topics which I find fascinating to be totally boring too. There might be some there which really are boring in some absolute, platonic, sense but there's still plenty of interesting stuff. And I think empirical data would support it - if readers really found them boring and were conditioned to ignore them, then they wouldn't get a huge views boost.

I also disagree with the DYK vs. GA thing. Some topics are important, but just not broad enough for a GA sized article. It's not an either/or kind of thing, they both have their place.

The problem with DYK though, in a way, is that it has been TOO successful, hence some people churning out these things factory style. Rather than incentivizing the creation of ever more new articles, DYK should be altered to promote "most improved" articles.

[radek]

DYK is good for giving the dumbass children something to work toward that's easier than an FA.

That's a stupid observation. Not very article on Wikipedia SHOULD BE an FA.

[melloden]

Not really. With DYK you get main space exposure which means a lot more people read your articles. Which is really what motivates a lot of editors.

If you get over 1,000 hits and an edit or two, you're lucky these days. Only noobs are motivated by the "exposure"--because everyone else knows six hours (or is it eight now?) amidst a hundred other links is totally a lot of exposure.

That's a stupid observation. Not very article on Wikipedia SHOULD BE an FA.

It's a correct observation, if you look at all the children writing DYKs to become an administrator these days. (Actually, most of them can't be arsed to write more than one before running--see Logan's current RfA.

Also, I never said every article SHOULD BE an FA. I simply said that DYK is for kids who want to have "article writing" or "content work" experience to level up and show off, but are too stupid to be able to write FAs. Seriously--other than Juliancolton and maybe one or two other child editors, how many of Wikipedia's under-18 group have one or two DYKs but no FAs?

This post has been edited by melloden: Sat 14th May 2011, 11:31pm

[radek]

Not really. With DYK you get main space exposure which means a lot more people read your articles. Which is really what motivates a lot of editors.

If you get over 1,000 hits and an edit or two, you're lucky these days. Only noobs are motivated by the "exposure"--because everyone else knows six hours (or is it eight now?) amidst a hundred other links is totally a lot of exposure.

That's a stupid observation. Not very article on Wikipedia SHOULD BE an FA.

It's a correct observation, if you look at all the children writing DYKs to become an administrator these days. (Actually, most of them can't be arsed to write more than one before running--see Logan's current RfA.

Also, I never said every article SHOULD BE an FA. I simply said that DYK is for kids who want to have "article writing" or "content work" experience to level up and show off, but are too stupid to be able to write FAs. Seriously--other than Juliancolton and maybe one or two other child editors, how many of Wikipedia's under-18 group have one or two DYKs but no FAs?

Well, to be honest, I haven't had time to spend much time at DYK recently so maybe it degenerated to the point you describe. But I do know there are several good editors who still throw their work up there and I'm mostly objecting to you lumping them in with "the children".

1K views ain't that bad all things considering. That's probably more than 900 more views than it would have gotten otherwise. Is this a "obscure topics" criticism?

[Kelly Martin]

DYK is one of the few community practices in Wikipedia that makes sense. Of course people "game" it, but the gaming benefits the project, by getting lots of fairly innocuous articles written about topics that might not otherwise get written about. The grousing is coming from people who think that their writing is better than that of the other people they're competing with for DYK time, and thus it's unfair that these inferior authors get the same recognition that their obviously far great genius, and are thus cutting into their due recognition. It all makes sense when you remember that these authors are customers of Wikipedia, and remember just what it is they're buying from Wikipedia. From their point of view, this is nothing less than bait and switch.

[chrisoff]

DYK is one of the few community practices in Wikipedia that makes sense. Of course people "game" it, but the gaming benefits the project, by getting lots of fairly innocuous articles written about topics that might not otherwise get written about. The grousing is coming from people who think that their writing is better than that of the other people they're competing with for DYK time, and thus it's unfair that these inferior authors get the same recognition that their obviously far great genius, and are thus cutting into their due recognition. It all makes sense when you remember that these authors are customers of Wikipedia, and remember just what it is they're buying from Wikipedia. From their point of view, this is nothing less than bait and switch.

But but Jimbo and Dr. Blofeld disagree!!

My own view, which I think I may have never expressed out loud before, is that it is no longer wise or useful to restrict DYK links on the front page to new articles. At one time, this may have been a good way to incentivize people to write new articles on interesting topics, now it may be leading to unnecessary recentism as well as limiting the scope of what ought to be one of our most amazing and charming front page features. -Jimbo

Maybe there should be a restriction against recentism then as DYKs, or at least stricter assessment of those related to current affairs. I have nothing against it in principal but what alarms we is how wikipedia is increasingly becoming a newspaper on many topics rather than an encyclopedia. . . . I believe we have to make bigger restrictions on the trend towards recentism on here. Wikipedia is NOT a newspaper . . . -Dr. Blofeld

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=429245852

[melloden]

DYK is one of the few community practices in Wikipedia that makes sense. Of course people "game" it, but the gaming benefits the project, by getting lots of fairly innocuous articles written about topics that might not otherwise get written about. The grousing is coming from people who think that their writing is better than that of the other people they're competing with for DYK time, and thus it's unfair that these inferior authors get the same recognition that their obviously far great genius, and are thus cutting into their due recognition. It all makes sense when you remember that these authors are customers of Wikipedia, and remember just what it is they're buying from Wikipedia. From their point of view, this is nothing less than bait and switch.

But but Jimbo and Dr. Blofeld disagree!!

Jimbo and Blofeld are twats.

But I do know there are several good editors who still throw their work up there and I'm mostly objecting to you lumping them in with "the children".

1K views ain't that bad all things considering. That's probably more than 900 more views than it would have gotten otherwise. Is this a "obscure topics" criticism?

I'm more saying that the children are ruining DYK, much like Kelly said about inferior writing and such.

I like obscure topics, but six hours of airtime is not nearly enough for them to get publicity. After all, what's the point of writing about an obscure topic if it'll only stay obscure for another hundred years?

[Silver seren]

I don't think any of my DYKs were on topics that could really be accused of recentism. *checks*

Nope. But I think that's because all of my DYK credits and most of the articles I edit are about subjects and not events. The only DYK that would be somewhat attributed to recentism is the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, because it was in a Wikileaks leak. But the article itself was created at least a month after the leak, so it wasn't really recent at that point.

[radek]

DYK is one of the few community practices in Wikipedia that makes sense. Of course people "game" it, but the gaming benefits the project, by getting lots of fairly innocuous articles written about topics that might not otherwise get written about. The grousing is coming from people who think that their writing is better than that of the other people they're competing with for DYK time, and thus it's unfair that these inferior authors get the same recognition that their obviously far great genius, and are thus cutting into their due recognition. It all makes sense when you remember that these authors are customers of Wikipedia, and remember just what it is they're buying from Wikipedia. From their point of view, this is nothing less than bait and switch.

Another benefit is that the sourcing standards are higher for DYK articles than they are for regular articles - if for no other reasons then that there actually ARE sourcing standards and somebody (at least in theory) checks them. Of course it's not GA or FA but it is a fairly simple and straightforward way of making at least some new articles have sources in'em.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that a lot of these DYKs on "obscure" topics are hella better written and sourced then a lot of old articles on "major" topics.

[radek]

I'm more saying that the children are ruining DYK, much like Kelly said about inferior writing and such.

I like obscure topics, but six hours of airtime is not nearly enough for them to get publicity. After all, what's the point of writing about an obscure topic if it'll only stay obscure for another hundred years?

Gotcha. I'm pretty sympathetic to the idea of limiting the number of DYKs per day and so increasing the length of main page exposure and obviously this has to be done by setting some kind of higher standard. I would very much be opposed to having that standard be whether or not some reviewer thinks a particular nomination is "interesting enough" - since that's always gonna be in the eye of the beholder (and what "the people" will find interesting is fairly unpredictable)

In fact I've tried to get them to up the min length requirement to at least 2500 characters (from 1500) as well as think of a way of expanding the process to "most improved articles" rather than just new ones. But yeah, it fell on deaf ears.

[Silver seren]

Hey, Marek, I supported your initiative in that. It would lead to higher quality articles with better sourcing. 1500 characters is really short if you think about it.

[Kelly Martin]

The comment of Jimbo's quoted above isn't in disagreement with my comments. Nothing about what makes DYK potentially beneficial for Wikipedia would be significantly impaired by allowing DYKs to refer to articles that are not strictly "new".

What Wikipedia should do is decide how many DYKs per week they'll run, allocate them out in some way between the various topic areas, and allow each topic area's editorial board to select its DYK items. (Yes, I know, Wikipedia has no editorial boards. I'm talking about how they should do it.) What they'll actually do, of course, is create some "committee" that promotes items based on the political connectedness of proponents (the exact same trajectory we have already seen for both FA and GA). Another example of how Wikipedia's lack of functional leadership bites it in the ass.

[melloden]

What Wikipedia should do is decide how many DYKs per week they'll run, allocate them out in some way between the various topic areas, and allow each topic area's editorial board to select its DYK items. (Yes, I know, Wikipedia has no editorial boards. I'm talking about how they should do it.) What they'll actually do, of course, is create some "committee" that promotes items based on the political connectedness of proponents (the exact same trajectory we have already seen for both FA and GA). Another example of how Wikipedia's lack of functional leadership bites it in the ass.

It's not a leadership issue, Kelly. Your proposal is just too complicated for their peabrains to understand.

Another benefit is that the sourcing standards are higher for DYK articles than they are for regular articles - if for no other reasons then that there actually ARE sourcing standards and somebody (at least in theory) checks them. Of course it's not GA or FA but it is a fairly simple and straightforward way of making at least some new articles have sources in'em.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that a lot of these DYKs on "obscure" topics are hella better written and sourced then a lot of old articles on "major" topics.

Well, sourcing's improved recently, although I do remember a certain breaching experiment a while back...

A Wikipedia paradox, is the whole "obscure article quality" point. You'd think that Travel (T-H-L-K-D) would be better-referenced than, oh, I don't know ... Gropecunt Lane (T-H-L-K-D). But it's not.

[Silver seren]

One of the main things with the example you mention, "Travel", is that it's generally just seen as a generic word. It's rather hard to find proper sources and figure out the right organization for such an article.

Such effort is one that is seldomly taken because it is not a topic that would be of personal interest to someone so they would put forth the effort.

[EricBarbour]

Such effort is one that is seldomly taken because it is not a topic that would be of personal interest to someone so they would put forth the effort.

Oh hell no. Your fellow Wikipedians don't care about "boring" subjects, of the type one might find in a real encyclopedia. Like travel. Or river. Or sewing.

But they sure as hell love to talk about My Little Pony.
They evidently consider Klingons to be a critical subject.
And they feel no encyclopedia should be without massive amounts of information about Babylon 5.
Or Kirby. Or Wyandanch.