View source for WP:Did you know/Supplementary guidelines

{{DYKbox}}

These are the '''supplementary rules''' (formerly called '''additional rules''' or '''unwritten rules''') of Did You Know; that is, they are supplementary to [[Wikipedia:Did you know#DYK rules]] and [[Template talk:Did you know#Instructions for nominators]]. These rules provide detailed explanations for commonly asked questions regarding the basic rules. It is not necessary to be thoroughly familiar with every one of these rules, but if you have a question regarding interpretation of the basic rules, you will probably find the answer here.

These rules are meant (as said in G4 below) to describe consensus that has been reached among the DYK community through previous discussions of issues that have come up repeatedly.

==Supplementary article length rules<span id="A"></span>==
*A1<span id="A1"></span>: The 1500-character minimum includes letters, numbers, punctuation, and spaces.
*A2<span id="A2"></span>:  It includes only "readable prose"; it does not include the table of contents, section headers, image captions, block quotes, auxiliary sections such as "See also" and "References", citation callouts such as "{{fake reference|6}}", tags such as "{{citation needed}}", and so on.
*A3<span id="A3"></span>: ''DYK qualifying characters:'' To count the number of characters in a piece of text, you may need to use a JavaScript extension like [[User:Dr pda/prosesize.js]] (instructions on the talk page), a free website like [http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/charcount.shtml this], or an external software program that has a character-counting feature. Prosesize.js is the preferred counting method, and usually carries the most weight at DYK, because it counts only the prose as defined by Did You Know rules, thus avoiding mistakes and providing an impartial settlement of disputed counting.<ref>There are other ways to count characters if you don't have prosesize.js installed (although it is fast and easy to install).  For example, if you are using Microsoft Word, select the text from the [[Wikipedia:articles|article]] page (or, in the case of "Did you know" nominations, the [[Template talk:Did you know|DYK talk page]])&nbsp;– not the [[Wikipedia:How to edit a page|edit]] page containing [[Wikitext]]&nbsp;– then [[Cut, copy and paste#Copy and paste|copy and paste]] it into a blank document. Click "Tools" ("Review" in Office 2007), then "Word Count", and note the "Characters (with spaces)" figure. Other word-processing programs may have a similar feature. For Mac users, Apple has a [http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/calculate_convert/wordcounterwidget.html Word counter widget] available for Mac OS X 10.4 or later.</ref>  '''The character counts indicated on "Revision history" pages are useless for DYK purposes.'''
*A4<span id="A4"></span>: [[Wikipedia:Did you know/Fivefold|Fivefold expansion]] is calculated from the last version of the article before the expansion began, no matter how bad it was (copyvios are an exception), no matter whether you kept any of it and no matter if it were up for deletion. This may be a bad surprise, but we don't have enough time and volunteers to reach consensus on the quality of each previous article.
*A5<span id="A5"></span>: New text seven days old or less can only count toward the 1500 character minimum in one article; if it is duplicated in other nominated new articles, it is ignored for the purpose of character count. If some of the text in a nominated article was copied from another Wikipedia article, and the copied text is ''more'' than seven days old, then the copied text must be expanded fivefold as if the copied text had been a separate article.<ref>For discussion removing the 2X BLP criteria, please see [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_146&oldid=829508690#Hook_BLP_compliance Archive: Feb 26, 2018 - Remove the 2x BLP criterion] </ref>

==Supplementary article link rules<span id="B"></span>==
*B1<span id="B1"></span>: The hook must link to a qualifying article. "Qualifying" refers to the many rules (including these supplementary guidelines) regulating the quality of that article.
*B2<span id="B2"></span>: Don't capitalize your article as it appears in the hook, just because that's how it appears in the article. Capitalize it only if the word would normally be capitalized, even if you weren't linking it.
*B3<span id="B3"></span>:  Many hooks are better when the link is [[Wikipedia:Pipe|piped]], and show on the Main Page that way. Disambiguated article titles like '''[[Gene Green (baseball)]]''' are always piped like this: <code><nowiki>'''[[Gene Green (baseball)|Gene Green]]'''</nowiki></code>.

==Other supplementary rules for the hook<span id="C"></span>==
*C1<span id="C1"></span>: No <span style="color:#C244">[[:Wikipedia:Red link|redlinks]]</span> in the hook.
*C2<span id="C2"></span>: Don't assume everyone worldwide knows what country or sport you're talking about.
*C3<span id="C3"></span>: A hook introducing more than one article is an exception to the hook length rule: subtract from the overall count the bolded characters for each additional new article beyond the first. If the result is 200 or less, the hook length is probably acceptable. Otherwise the hook ''may'' still be acceptable (on a case-by-case basis) if it is reasonably compact and readable.
*C4<span id="C4"></span>: No space before the question mark.
*C5<span id="C5"></span>: No [[Wikipedia:External links|external links]] in the hook.
*C6<span id="C6"></span>: If the subject is a work of fiction or a fictional character, the hook must involve the real world in some way.
*C7<span id="C7"></span>: If the hook uses a possessive apostrophe after the qualifying article, use {{tl|`}} or {{tl|`s}} to keep the bold text and the apostrophe distinct e.g. "... that '''[[John]]'''{{`s}} house (etc)?" If the article is in italics (e.g. a ship's name), use the slightly different templates {{tl|'}} or {{tl|'s}} e.g. "... that '''[[HMS Hood|HMS ''Hood'']]'''{{'s}} anchor (etc)?"
*C8<span id="C8"></span>: The three ellipsis points and the space before "that" do not count towards the hook length.
*C9<span id="C9"></span>: No parentheses in the hook unless absolutely unavoidable. The ''(pictured)'' (or equivalent) for the image slot is an exception.
*C10<span id="C10"></span>: Enclose non-English text in {{t|lang}} e.g.
::<code><nowiki>... that Luciano Berio based '''''{{lang|it|[[Quattro versioni originali della "Ritirata notturna di Madrid"]]}}''''' on Boccherini's ''{{lang|it|[[Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid]]}}''?</nowiki></code>
:In the example, ''it'' is the code for Italian. Other common codes are ''fr''=French, ''de''=German, ''la''=Latin, ''es''=Spanish; see [[List of ISO 639-1 codes]].<!--do we /really/ expect people to put any little bit of Latin in {{lang}}???--> Note also the use of <code><nowiki>''</nowiki></code> for ''italics'' and <code><nowiki>'''''</nowiki></code> for '''''bold-italics'''''.

==Other supplementary rules for the article<span id="D"></span>==
*D1<span id="D1"></span>: Items that have been on DYK before are ineligible.<section begin=Citations />
<noinclude>*</noinclude>D2<span id="D2"></span>: The article in general should use [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Inline citations|inline]], [[WP:CITE|cited  sources]]. A rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph, excluding the lead, plot summaries, and paragraphs which summarize other cited content.
<noinclude>*</noinclude>D3<span id="D3"></span>: Sources [[Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 29#Reference section|should be]] ''properly labelled''; that is, not under an "External links" header. References in the article must not be [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]] (e.g., http://example.com or [http://example.com]), but can be automatically completed with the [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks|Reflinks tool]] or the [[WP:reFill|reFill tool]].
<noinclude>*</noinclude>D4<span id="D4"></span>: Wikipedia, including Wikipedia in other languages, is not considered a [[Wikipedia:reliable source|reliable source]].<section end=Citations />
*D5<span id="D5"></span>: Articles nominated for deletion must go on hold until they have survived the deletion process.
*D6<span id="D6"></span>: The article is likely to be rejected for unresolved edit-warring or the presence of [[Wikipedia:Template messages/Disputes|dispute tags]]. (Removing the tags without consensus does not count.) A list can be found at [[WP:DISPUTETAG]]. An orphan tag is not a dispute tag.  
*D7<span id="D7"></span>: There is a reasonable expectation that an article—even a short one—that is to appear on the front page should appear to be complete and not some sort of work in progress. Therefore, articles which include unexpanded headers are likely to be rejected. Articles that fail to deal adequately with the topic are also likely to be rejected. For example, an article about a book that fails to summarize the book's contents, but contains only a bio of the author and some critics' views, is likely to be rejected as insufficiently comprehensive.
*D8<span id="D8"></span>: "Seven days old" means seven days old in [[Wikipedia:article space|article space]]. You may spend as long as you want writing/expanding an article on a [[Wikipedia:Subpage|user subpage]]; the seven days start when you move it into article space. Such moves are often overlooked when enforcing the seven-day rule, so we may need a reminder. But if you merge the edit history when you move, we might not see that you moved it. 
*D9<span id="D9"></span>: The "seven days old" limit should be strictly enforced only if there is a large backlog of hooks. Otherwise nominated article may still be approved if it were created or expanded after the oldest date listed in [[Template talk:Did you know#Older nominations]].
*D10<span id="D10"></span>: If an article contradicts an existing article, the contradiction should be resolved one way or the other before the article is approved.
*D11<span id="D11"></span>: If an article otherwise qualifies for DYK, it is not a stub, and any stub tag should be removed before promotion.
*D12<span id="D12"></span>: Multiple sources are generally preferred, though more leeway may be given for more obscure topics.
*D13<span id="D13"></span>: To some extent, DYK approval is a subjective process. No amount of studying rules, almost-rules, and precedents will guarantee approval; nor will violating any rule guarantee disapproval. Just because an unfamiliar criterion is not listed does not mean a nomination cannot be disqualified. The subjective decision might depend on an attempt to circumvent the details of the rules, especially if the attempt does not address the underlying purpose of improving the hook and article.

=="Rules" sometimes invoked but lacking a consensus<span id="E"></span>==
<section begin="Noconsensus" /> <!-- transcluded on [[Wikipedia:Did you know/Lore]] -->
*<noinclude>E1<span id="E1"></span>:</noinclude> Does the first word always have to be "that"?
*<noinclude>E2<span id="E2"></span>:</noinclude> Can there be multiple sentences in a hook?
*<noinclude>E3<span id="E3"></span>:</noinclude> Is IMDb a [[Wikipedia:Reliable source|reliable source]]? [[Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 28#IMDb|Previous discussion here.]]
*<noinclude>E4<span id="E4"></span>:</noinclude> Occasionally someone objects to linking an unfamiliar word to Wiktionary on the front page, but such objections have always been overruled.
*<noinclude>E5<span id="E5"></span>:</noinclude> Do the 11 characters in "<u> </u><u>''(pictured)''</u>" or the 27 characters in "<u> </u><u>''(specific object pictured)''</u>" (i.e. including an introductory space) count towards the 200 character limit?<section end="Noconsensus" />

==Rules listed elsewhere but often overlooked<span id="F"></span>==
<section begin=Overlooked /> <!-- transcluded on [[Wikipedia:Did you know/Lore]] -->
*<noinclude>F1<span id="F1"></span>:</noinclude> There must be a space after the [[ellipsis]].
*<noinclude>F2<span id="F2"></span>:</noinclude> The link to your article should be in '''bold''' (e.g., <nowiki>'''[[Manx cat]]''')</nowiki>.
*<noinclude>F3<span id="F3"></span>:</noinclude> The hook should end with a question mark.
*<noinclude>F4<span id="F4"></span>:</noinclude> For a hook with an accompanying picture, the string ''(pictured)'' is all in italics, ''including'' the parentheses.
*<noinclude>F5<span id="F5"></span>:</noinclude> For titles or words with dashes see [[WP:DASH]].
*<noinclude>F6<span id="F6"></span>:</noinclude> For hooks containing numbers see [[MOS:NUM#Numbers as figures or words]].
*<noinclude>F7<span id="F7"></span>:</noinclude> Make sure your article title conforms with [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)]]
*<noinclude>F8<span id="F8"></span>:</noinclude> A 'new' article is no more than seven days old. This does not include articles split from older articles, although an article sufficiently expanded from a section of an older article can be a fivefold expansion. The word "fork" is sometimes used to mean [[Wikipedia:Splitting]].
*<noinclude>F9<span id="F9"></span>:</noinclude> Fix redirects in hooks{{snd}}see [[MOS:DYKPIPE]].
*<noinclude>F10<span id="F10"></span>:</noinclude> [[WP:NOTADVERTISING]]<section end=Overlooked />

==Other recurring issues<span id="G"></span>==
*G1<span id="G1"></span>: Authors often complain that requests for changes don't come until the time for responses is about to expire. However, most reviewers prefer to review the beginning of the list, because the oldest hooks are the first priority, and they can't keep up with the volume of submissions. That isn't the ideal situation, but it explains what happens. Similarly, authors wonder if their submissions are rejected or forgotten. But as the submission is still on the page, it will stay there until it is either approved and accepted, or until there is an [[Image:Symbol delete vote.svg|18px]] for rejection, or until there are other negative comments, which should be promptly answered to preserve the hook's eligibility. Hooks for the updates are usually chosen from near the top, even though they are marked as "Older nominations". [[Template:Did you know/Queue#Current number of hooks on the nominations page|Some relevant statistics here.]]
*G2<span id="G2"></span>: To calculate fivefold expansion since a specific day, using July 18, 2008 for this example: (1) Count the characters in the prose-only portion of the current version. (2) On the history screen, click the latest time stamp ''before'' July 18, not the first time stamp for July 18. (3) Divide by the prose-only characters on that screen.

:To explain Step 2, which might seem counter-intuitive, the difference between an edit's ''change'', which you see by clicking "last" on the history page, and an edit's ''result'', which you see by clicking the time stamp on the history page. Although an edit's change and result are listed on the same line, the change really comes between that result and the previous edit's result. Similarly, a result comes between that edit's change and the next edit's change, even though a change and a result are shown on the same line.

:Example. On January 1, 2006 a 100 character stub is created. At 1:00 on July 18, 2008, the 100 characters are expanded to 1000 characters. An hour later at 2:00 July 18, 2008, the article is further expanded to 2000 characters. Putting it that way, the expansion is clearly 20× and qualifies for DYK. But to count the 100 characters, they wouldn't be listed as 1:00 July 18. The 100 characters existed on July 18 before 1:00, but the 100 characters were the ''result'' of the previous edit. So you would have to click the 2006 edit to count the 100 characters, even though 2006 is much too old for DYK. If you made the mistake of clicking the first edit for July 18, you would get the ''result'' of that first edit and therefore miss the ''change'' of that edit, and count 1000 characters, resulting in 2× expansion and an unjust disqualification.
*G3<span id="G3"></span>: So why don't the supplementary guidelines combine with the other rules? (1) They're combined with the other rules with a link. (2) There's no consensus on what to put into the integrated rules. See [[Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 29#5x expansion]].
*G4<span id="G4"></span>: These supplementary guidelines are intended to describe the consensus, not to prescribe it.

==Rules for evaluating other people's hooks and articles<span id="H"></span>==
*H1<span id="H1"></span>: You don't have to be an [[WP:Administrators|administrator]] or a DYK regular to comment on a hook, to use a symbol such as [[Image:Symbol confirmed.svg|18px]] or [[Image:Symbol delete vote.svg|18px]], or even to edit one of the [[Wikipedia:Did you know/Glossary#preparation areas|preparation areas]]. However, the judgments of regulars are less likely to be challenged.
*H2<span id="H2"></span>: You're not allowed to approve your own hook or article, nor may you review an article if it's a recently listed Good Article that you either nominated or reviewed for GA (though you can still ''nominate'' it for DYK). DYK novices are strongly discouraged from confirming articles that are subject to active arbitration remedies, as are editors active in those areas. Use common sense here, and <u>avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest</u>. A valid DYK nomination will readily be confirmed by a neutral editor.
*H3<span id="H3"></span>: If the article is sourced entirely to offline or foreign-language sources in such a way that you cannot verify that the subject of the article actually exists or that contentious material is accurate, don't verify the article; instead, leave a note explaining your difficulty below the hook. This will alert other users to the fact that the article lacks basic verifiability and a discussion can then be had as to whether or not to promote it.
*H4<span id="H4"></span>: Where a hook has more than one new or expanded article in it, an article-for-article [[quid pro quo]] (QPQ) is required: one article reviewed for each bolded article in the hook. The consensus is that hook-for-hook reviewing is not acceptable in case of multiple nominations. As soon as a new nominator's hook includes articles beyond their fifth DYK credit, each of those require a separate QPQ review.

==Rules of thumb for preparing updates<span id="J"></span>==

Users are encouraged to help out by preparing updates in the [[Template:Did you know/Queue#Prep areas|seven prep areas]]. Promoting your own articles is generally discouraged, and promoting your own articles before they have been independently verified is not allowed. Updates should be filled from the [[Template talk:Did you know/Approved|approved nominations page]], including those being held for specific dates in the Special occasion holding area at the bottom of the page.

Here are a few rules of thumb for preparing updates:
*J1<span id="J1"></span>: The accepted number of hooks per update changes from time to time, and is usually determined by consensus at [[WT:DYK]]. The currently accepted number is embedded into the prep and queue pages by the number of "* ... that ..." strings, so that updaters only need to replace each "* ... that ..." string on a prep page with a full hook to add the correct number. Occasionally a very long multi-nomination hook (with more than 200 characters) will take up extra space, in which case the overall number of hooks in that particular update can be reduced to compensate.
*J2<span id="J2"></span>: Make sure you choose a varied selection&nbsp;– don't choose half a dozen biography hooks, for example, or a bunch of hooks about one particular country or topic. Variety is the spice of life. (However, see the following clause for an important qualification).
*J3<span id="J3"></span>: Because of the preponderance of submissions on US topics and biography hooks, it is usually appropriate to have up to 50% of hooks in a given update on both US and biography topics. That is, in an eight-hook update you should have up to four hooks per update on US topics, and four on biography. These are not mutually exclusive; for example, if you have two US bio hooks that would count as both two US hooks and two bio hooks. As a general rule you should never have ''more'' than 50% of hooks on US-related topics, biographical topics, or any other topic, except when it seems unavoidable. More than one hook on any country other than the US or UK looks unbalanced and in most cases should also be avoided.
*J4<span id="J4"></span>: Mix your hooks up. Try to avoid having two hooks of the same general type next to one another in the update (for example, two US hooks or two bio hooks together). Putting several US hooks next to one another in an update makes the update look US-centric; this appearance is reduced if you interleave the US hooks with hooks about different countries. In the same spirit, try to avoid putting two bio hooks together, or two hooks on any other subject.
*J5<span id="J5"></span>: Try to avoid putting hooks that would be inappropriate next to one another. For example, don't put a hook about a tragedy or iniquity next to a funny one; it looks incongruous and jerks the reader uncomfortably from one emotion to another. 
*J6<span id="J6"></span>: Hooks on the [[T:TDYK|nominations page]] that include images often get verified first. Users sometimes then just go and grab a bunch of the nearest verified hooks from the [[Template talk:Did you know/Approved|approved nominations page]] for the next update, which can often include several of these verified picture hooks. Not every submitted picture can be featured in the picture slot of course, but since only one picture can be featured per update, try to leave the ''good'' picture hooks behind for another update if possible.
*J7<span id="J7"></span>: Consider picking a funny or quirky hook if there is one available and putting it in the last (bottom) slot of the update. Just as serious news programs end on an upbeat note to bring viewers back next time, ending on an upbeat or quirky note rounds an update off nicely and encourages readers to come back next time for more. An update can have more than one quirky hook, but the best examples should probably be preserved for the bottom slot. 
*J8<span id="J8"></span>: Don't be afraid to ruthlessly trim hooks of extraneous information and clauses. A lot of people who submit hooks tend to overestimate the amount of information required, but the end result is a hook that has too much information and is difficult to understand. We don't want our readers to work hard, we want to make reading the DYK section as accessible and enjoyable an experience as possible! In general, the shorter and punchier the hook, the more impact it has. As it says on the nominations page, the 200 character limit is an outside limit not a recommended length—the ideal length is probably no more than about 150–160 chars. However, some hooks cannot be reduced in length without losing essential information, so don't assume that ''every'' hook that is 200 characters long requires trimming.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

{{Main Page topics|state=collapsed}}
[[Category:Wikipedia Did you know rules]]