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

[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.

[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?