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Wikipedia:Did you know

Main
(T:DYK)
Rules (WP:DYK)
Suggestions (T:TDYK)
Queues (T:DYK/Q)
Archives (T:DYK/A)
Discussion (WT:DYK)

Wikipedia:Did you know (DYK) is the project page for coordinating the content of the "Did you know..." section on the Main Page. The DYK section gives publicity to interesting facts from Wikipedia articles, as a way of thanking the editors who work on those articles and to encourage other editors to contribute to and improve that article and the encyclopedia.

More general discussion of the main page takes place at Talk:Main Page, and errors are reported at Wikipedia:Simple talk.

DYK participants

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Any editor may volunteer to help with DYK. The following editors have significant DYK experience and currently are active in contributing to DYK's operations:

Currently not active

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Users here used to participate in DYK, but are currently not active with the process.

How a DYK suggestion makes its way to the Main Page

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A DYK suggestion goes through three steps before appearing in the Did you know section on the Main Page.

  1. First, an editor can nominate an article and a hook for that article at the DYK discussion page.
  2. Then, another editor will review it and will decide if the hook and article meets DYK criteria to appear on the Main Page.
  3. If it is approved without disagreement, then the hook will be moved to Queue 6.
  4. When it is time for the live Main Page DYK template to be updated, which is twice a month on the 1st and 16th, an editor who is autoconfirmed can activate FehuBot on this page. If for any reason the bot is down or unable to edit it can be manually updated.
  5. Old DYK entries that are removed from the Main Page are archived.

Volunteers to help are welcomed!

Rules

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  • Only one article can be nominated for a Did You Know hook.
    • This does not mean there can only be one link in the hook. It means the hook is to feature one article.
    • This main article is the link which is in bold. This article must meet the DYK rules.
    • Any other links in the hook are minor links.
  • Information presented in any article nominated for DYK should be verifiable and unbiased. There must be a citation of a credible source to support the fact contained in the hook.
    • Articles that are tagged for bias with {{NPOV}} or for lack of accuracy with {{Disputed}} are not suitable for DYK.
    • Articles where facts are questioned with {{fact}} tags may not be suitable.
  • The article linked should be easy to read.
  • Articles nominated for DYK should not be too short.
    • Three-sentence stubs are not suitable.
    • The text of the article must be at least 800 characters. The number of characters can be measured with this tool.
  • The hook used to encourage people to read the article should be interesting to read. Information mentioned in the hook should be in the article text (not in a footnote, or in a linked reference, or in an infobox).
    • Whether a hook is not interesting should not be a matter for only one reviewer to decide. The first reviewer marks as {{DYKalmost}} if they feel the hook is not sufficiently interesting, with wording like "Is there a more interesting hook?". If 2 assessors (including the initial one) agree that the hook is uninteresting and no alternative has been put forward, the nomination is rejected with {{DYKno}} and advice to the nominator that "2 reviewers feel that this hook is not interesting, please suggest an alternative hook."
    • Articles may be re-nominated, but a different hook must be chosen. Also, two different hooks of the same article should not be added to the same update or updates that follow each other.
  • DYKs should not be very good articles (VGA) already as VGAs already get their own spotlight on the Main Page as the "Selected article".
Proposed facts should
Suggested facts (also known as hooks) should be
Suggested pictures should be
Have in-line citations Interesting From Wikimedia Commons
Articles on living people must be carefully checked to make sure that no unsourced negative information is in the article Short (less than about 200 characters, including spaces) Small (100x100px)[1]
Articles with good references and citations are needed. Neutral Already in the article
  1. ↑ Formatting for pictures is: [[File:image name |right|100x100px]] and placed above the suggested fact.
  • Editors may only nominate up to four hooks at any one time. If more nominations are desired, existing nominations must either be removed, promoted to one of the DYK queues or placed in the holding area.
  • Hooks cannot be moved to a queue or removed from the nominations page until they have been there for a minimum of three days from the date they were originally posted. The only exception to this are hooks that can be "snowed". Hooks can also be removed if there has been no input from the nominator after five days from the last review. Unreviewed hooks however cannot be removed until there has been a review.


Recognition

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The article will be recognized as contributing to DYK through the credit templates posted by DYK on the article talk page.

The following template is used to give notice on the article talk page that the article appeared on the Main Page:

  • Article talk page: ({{dyktalk}}) {{dyktalk|21 December|2024}} (check if small style templates in use, if so add the small=yes parameter)

Tips to remember about DYK

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  • DYK is NOT a general trivia section.
  • The title of the new article should be BOLD.
  • Generally limited to FIVE items depending on how many hooks are backlogged at Template talk:Did you know.
  • Try to pick articles that are ORIGINAL to Wikipedia (not 1911 or other data sources) and that are INTERESTING.
  • The "Did you know?" fact must be mentioned in the article.
  • Images should be sized to 100x100px
  • Sounds may also be used.
  • Currently a bot named FehuBot updates DYK whenever it is activated by an autoconfirmed user on this page.
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