Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Gibraltar-related DYKs: Difference between revisions

Lifting the restrictions on Gibraltar-related DYKs

In September 2012, a set of temporary restrictions was implemented for DYK nominations for Gibraltar-related articles. They involve:

• Restricting who can review Gibraltar-related articles;
• Placing new nominations in a special holding area;
• Requiring new nominations to be reviewed by two editors instead of the usual one;
• Requiring that COI and POV issues be explicitly addressed in the review;
• Restricting the number of such articles appearing on the Main Page to no more than one per day.

This was in response to a controversy about the GibraltarpediA project, part of which involved a competition to write or expand articles about Gibraltar and the surrounding areas of Spain and Morocco. The restrictions were only intended to be a short-term measure to deal with the controversy.

After the restrictions were imposed, the number of Main Page DYK hooks mentioning Gibraltar fell sharply from a peak of 16 in August to 5 in December (see graph 1 below). There was an uptick in January 2013 due to a post-Christmas drive to clear backlogged DYKs on all topics, falling back to 5 in February to date. However, there are now no more Gibraltar-related DYK nominations listed for review. From this point on, there is likely to be only a minimal number of further DYKs in this topic area - likely to be no more than one or two per month at the most, as there is no further impetus for article creation now that the competition has ended. This assumes that more such DYKs will be nominated, which has not yet happened. If there are no further nominations, the monthly rate will fall to zero.

The number of DYK hooks mentioning Gibraltar has always been modest in any case. It has been considerably less than on a number of other topics appearing over the same time period, such as Indonesia, mushrooms, racehorses, the Olympics and Paralympics (see graph 2 below - Gibraltar is represented by the thick orange line).

• 
  1: DYK hooks mentioning Gibraltar, Mar 2012 – Feb 2013 with predicted trend for Mar 2013
• 
  2: DYK hooks on selected topics, Mar 2012 – Feb 2013

Wikimedia UK's involvement with GibraltarpediA was reviewed by independent consultants and a report on its governance was published on 7 February 2013. It can be read here, along with a chronology of events in 2012. The report has received a minimal amount of media coverage and no further controversy.

The original circumstances which led to the restrictions are now no longer applicable:

• The GibraltarpediA article-creation competition ended on 26 December 2012.
• There is no further impetus for article creation in this topic area.
• Since 1 January 2013, only one Gibraltar-related DYK has been nominated.
• There are currently no new Gibraltar-related DYKs at all and no further Gibraltar-related DYKs waiting to appear on the Main Page.
• The number of new DYKs being created in this topic area is likely to be minimal going forward.
• There is no ongoing public controversy about Gibraltar on Wikipedia and there hasn't been for months.
• Not a single Gibraltar-related DYK, at any time, has attracted any controversy during or after its appearance on the Main Page.
• No COI issues have been identified with any Gibraltar-related DYK during the period of the restrictions.
• Victuallers, who was restricted from reviewing these DYKs, has indicated that he will voluntarily refrain from reviewing similar DYKs in the future.

In addition, the restrictions have caused unnecessary collateral damage to at least 27 other WikiProjects, expecially Wikipedia:WikiProject Gibraltar and Wikipedia:WikiProject Spain, both which was established at the same time in February 2007 and have no connection with GibraltarpediA. The overly-broad wording has restricted any DYKs related to Gibraltar, whether or not their creation had any connection with GibraltarpediA or the now-concluded GibraltarpediA contest. The author of the restrictions has stated that this was unintentional.[1]

I am proposing that these restrictions should be lifted in full as they are no longer necessary and are excessively broad. Gibraltar-related DYKs would thus revert to the situation prior to September 2012 of being treated the same way as any other topic. Please indicate below whether you support or oppose this proposal.

Support

1. Strong support I am not convinced that extending the restrictions would help the project. Ryan Vesey 21:55, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
2. Support Naturally I support, but I can't see this being successful.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
3. Support I don't see any reason to continue the restrictions. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
4. Support The restrictions are stupid and impede consensus. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 22:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
5. I admit to raising an eyebrow at the fact that we're back here yet again, discussing Gibraltarpedia and its effect on DYK, again, led by the same person who's been leading most of the discussions about lifting the sanctions, again. At the same time, though, it seems that the article-creation drive and its resultant mass of DYK nominations have passed, and the continuation of the restrictions would affect pretty much only articles not brought about by GBPedia. Given that (and unless there's some aspect of the case I'm missing - if so, someone please point it out to me), it seems to be useless to continue restrictions that will only penalize articles that have little or nothing to do with the apparently-no-longer-extant massive imbalance that led Gibraltar articles to be a problem. That said, however, if the restrictions are lifted I would absolutely expect there to be no new rush to nominate Gibraltar articles that have been banked until this time, and if such a deluge does happen, I would support the restrictions being restored indefinitely (as in, until users can be trusted not to flood the system). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 22:15, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
6. Support This has gone on long enough, and was never a great idea to begin with. --BDD (talk) 22:17, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Please let's not start this topic all over again… :( --Aschmidt (talk) 21:51, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
2. Premature. This whole distasteful affair brought considerable disrepute on the project. I have no confidence that the governance changes will have the required impact without seeing that they have done so. In the meantime, keeping the whole mess from having a chance of dominating Main Page once more seems a good idea for another few months at least. What's the rush? --Dweller (talk) 22:07, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

I think that it's rather disingenuous to compare the number of DYKs for Gibralter (pop. 29,752) with the number for Indonesia (pop. 237,424,363). Phil Bridger (talk) 22:15, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The DYKs for Indonesia (pop. 237,424,363) have been entirely the work of Crisco 1492 (talk · contribs) (pop. 1). What is the population number for mushrooms or racehorses? Prioryman (talk) 22:21, 13 February 2013 (UTC)