This page serves as an archive of summaries of the past month's events at Did you know. They are stored in reverse chronological order (i.e. newest first).
Welcome back to the DYK wrap, everyone! It's definitely been a while since I've had the opportunity to hop back on this horse, but the saddle's comfy and I'm quite excited. Hopefully, y'all have been doing all right as well, and my thanks to Bruxton for covering for me while I was out :) We've got a lot of ground to cover, but first, a shameless plug word from our sponsors:
@DYK admins: Are you an admin who regularly finds yourself hard at work, moving sets to DYK's queues? Do you often get wrapped up in all that cutting and pasting and incrementing? There's got to be a better way! Here at the Prep Set's Half Assed Workbench, our new, patent-pending technology (pictured) can do all that heavy lifting for you–
–Okay, the infomercial bit is getting a little tired :) I added a new feature to PSHAW, so it'll now automatically handle the manual bits of moving sets to queue. It can't do any verification work, obviously, but it'll move the set to queue (with the {{DYKbotdo}}), clear it out, and increment the prep counter so that you don't have to do that on your own. You can find it under the "more" tab in the prep set you wish to promote. You can install it at WP:PSHAW – happy queueing!
Whew, glad that's over. Now, of course, to our best performing hooks in the last four months! Did you know...
| Article | Date | Image | views | vph | DYK hook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Navy State Funeral Gun Carriage | 2022-09-20 |  |
61,966 | 2,581.9 | ... that a coffin carriage used in British state funerals (pictured) has been pulled by sailors since an incident at Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901? byMsrasnw and Dumelow |
| Jack Johnson vs. James J. Jeffries | 2022-10-18 |  |
26,765 | 2,230.4 | ... that The New York Times claimed that if Johnson beat Jeffries (fight pictured), black people would "misinterpret his victory as justifying claims to much more than mere physical equality with their white neighbors"? byOnceinawhile |
| Elver Eating World Championships | 2022-09-06 |  |
26,036 | 2,169.7 | ... that no elvers (examples pictured) are eaten during the Elver Eating World Championships?byDumelow |
| Shieling | 2022-10-14 |  |
25,696 | 2,141.3 | ... that the isolation of shielings (examples pictured) might have given opportunity for "sexual experiment[ation]"? byChiswick Chap, nominated by LordPeterII |
| Flag families | 2022-11-19 |  |
45,668 | 1,902.8 | ... that most national flags belong to a flag family with similar designs? byNotAWittyFish |
| Ring theory (psychology) | 2022-09-09 |  |
22,166 | 1,847.2 | ... that Susan Silk developed ring theory (pictured) when a colleague said that Silk's breast cancer wasn't just about her? byValereee |
| Mutilated chessboard problem | 2022-10-22 |  |
21,647 | 1,803.9 | ... that if you remove two opposite corners of a chessboard, you cannot cover all squares with dominos?byDavid Eppstein |
Notes
2022-09-20, of course, was when DYK ran its hook set commemorating the death and state funeral of Elizabeth II. The set received significant pushback from those who saw the commemoration as undeserved, but the set was never pulled or moved regardless.
DYK has undergone... (yeesh) quite a few RfCs in the time the DYK wrapped has been away, especially the past month. By my count, we've gone through three: Sdkb started one on 2022-11-07 that ran relatively quickly, garnering a quick consensus to reverse a 2015 policy blocking article from appearing at DYK if they've been at ITN or OTD before. That came out of an IAR exemption request in which we discussed whether a pending DYK nomination for Thurgood Marshall (a new GA!) really should be closed because he appeared at OTD years back. We even discovered the Glass story, how it appeared at DYK after being promoted to a featured article, running at TFA, getting demoted, and then qualifying as a newly listed good article. The exact details of implementation of the new rule are currently being decided in a follow-up RfC.
Well, that's only two. Our third – and longest – RfC of the recent period was borne out of a hook being pulled from queuebyAmakuru, who questioned whether or not one hook really met our "interesting to a broad audience" criterion. One huge discussion snowballed into an even huger RfC; rather than gaining consensus to relax the guideline, the discussion actually slightly tightened the guideline after a late stage proposal from EEng gained consensus in a second Runoff! that dragged maybe a liiitle too long. Proposals for an RfC to determine whether this RfC needed a formal close went nowhere (presumably after an RfC determined that that RfC RfC would not be appropriate).
We've even had some non-RfC drag-out discussions – Maile66 started a discussion to move-protect articles at DYK after they and I bemoaned the logistic mishaps that occur when bolded articles at DYK get yoinked out from under our feet; and we discussed whether those dang Swifties had taken over DYK and abused their privileges. (Spoiler alert: not really.)
I also want to give a big hand to RoySmith, who have been doing fantastic work in promoting and nominating since they joined up recently. Welcome to the crew! Beware of the burnout. But let's go to our lovely-yet-unappreciated quirky hooks :) did you know...
| Article | Date | Image | views | vph | DYK hook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rockstar Lincoln | 2022-11-05 | 3,570 | 297.5 | ... that Rockstar Lincoln used to keep live tarantulas at its offices? byIceWelder – there was a joke going around on the Wikimedia Discord that some of these tarantulas could be send to the WMF, but that obviously definitely probably shouldn't happen :) | |
| WJZR | 2022-10-15 | 3,449 | 287.4 | ... that North Coast Radio went silent after playing the song "In a Silent Way"? bySammi Brie | |
| British logistics in the Western Allied invasion of Germany | 2022-10-05 | 6,517 | 271.5 | ... that British logistics in the Western Allied invasion of Germany involved buffaloes, duck bills and weasels?Hawkeye7 | |
| The Faulkland Quiz | 2022-11-01 | 3,006 | 250.5 | ... that Delaware weekly newspaper The Faulkland Quiz was founded, edited and published by an 18-year-old? byBeanieFan11 | |
| Archbishop William Henry Elder | 2022-09-13 | 2,857 | 238.1 | ... that artist Thomas Eakins remarked "I think you've got a heap of impudence" upon receiving the Temple Gold Medal for his portrait Archbishop William Henry Elder? byPetropoxy (Lithoderm Proxy) | |
| Hani al-Rahib | 2022-08-05 | 3,649 | 152.0 | ... that Syrian novelist Hani al-Rahib had a deaf-mute father and an illiterate mother? byRuwaym |
Notes
That's all I've got for this time around, folks! I should probably... stop procrastinating on studying for finals. Until next time, hold onto your hats, and thanks very much for contributing to DYK!
