Wikipedia:Did you know/Monthly wrap/February 2022

DYK's February wrap, 2022

Donna Moss (Janel Moloney): My value here is that I have no value?

Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford): You have enormous value to me. You have no value to Eastern Europe.

From The West Wing's "The Lame Duck Congress" (2000)

By the grace of the Whatever high atop The Thing, this one's somehow on time. Welcome to another installment of the DYK wrapped, everybody! It has been quite a month here, and I do hope you all are as jazzed to start this next one as I am, because I'm really not going to stop making these write-ups until someone tells me the joy is long dead. Let's hop to it with our most viewed hooks of the month! (Did you know...)

... that Francesco de' Medici enjoyed sitting inside the head of the Apennine Colossus (pictured) and fishing through its eyes? by Paradise Chronicle – 33,232 views in 12 hours
... that the pie house (pictured) gained media attention from a viral TikTok that received more than one million views? by PCN02WPS – 43,343 views in 24 hours
... that Mothica (pictured) credits TikTok for the success of her career as a musician? by ezlev – 20,032 views in 12 hours. Where'd you go, ezlev? I miss ya, friend
... that the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany (pictured) is considered to be the most severe persecution of LGBT people in history? by Buidhe – 37,778 views in 24 hours
... that the naturally formed arch of Marsden Rock (pictured) collapsed in 1996 following a winter of storms? by Unexpectedlydian – 15,714 views in 12 hours

Before we get to anything substantive that happened this month, has the SOHA been moved yet?

no.

Excellent, moving on. Last week, the world's political climate was upended with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The shock of the offensive has rippled around the world, so it's no surprise that we've seen some waves here in this corner of the internet. In particular, Kingsif had raised the notion that running hooks that could be seen as commentary on the conflict, whether or not they are neutrally written, could be construed to run afoul of DYK's rule against hooks that promote one side of an ongoing dispute. The DYK nominations for Russia (nom), Attack on Snake Island (nom), and Yulia Tolopa (nom) are all on hold while this discussion continues on multiple pages. Not running our entries for German victory parade in Paris (1871) and Lazar Bicherakhov was also considered, but both ran in the end in the set that's currently on the Main Page as I write this.

We started the month off running two sets a day, but it looked like we were getting pretty close to dropping below 60 approved hooks; on the third of the month, I put some hooks in some sets, and announced that we had dropped below 60 hooks. That, as it turned out, was in error; I had misjudged the way the bot would count the number of approved hooks and made an inaccurate prediction as to how my changes would play out. By the time the error was discovered, dropping below 60 again was out of reach, so we reverted back to two-a-days. Five days later, by 9 February, we had (really that time) dropped below 60, so I put out another announcement, with the diffs to show that I wasn't jumping the gun. Because of the special occasion swaps that were required at the time, we ended up waiting a couple of days before making the switch.^[a]

For some of our quality quirkies that went unappreciated by our readership: (Did you know...)

... that Cheok Hong Cheong sold bananas for a decade, after which he became superintendent of the Church of England of Melbourne? by Kingoflettuce
... that the 2013 novel Body Offering was described by a critic as "more erratic than erotic"? by DanCherek
... that at WSTA, the first radio station in the U.S. Virgin Islands, goats and chickens sometimes wandered in during broadcasts? by Sammi Brie
... that to promote the Paramount Hotel, its operator mailed out apples? by Epicgenius
... that squatters in Hamburg briefly occupied the former Erotic Art Museum? by ~~Munfarid1~~ Mujinga :D
... that the private members' club George has a bespoke menu for pet dogs? by No Swan So Fine
... that Phil Williams served in the Alabama state legislature at the same time as Phil Williams? by Kafoxe
... that ~~the~~ Claudia Quintet was born out of an incident at alt.coffee? by me—that "the" is just gonna annoy me until the end of time.

In other news, we had a brief idea from Schwede66 to shoehorn in a secret "special occasion" hook on the bio of someone who was going to win an award, but the way in which it was proposed and executed gave quite a few editors pause. I tried to get y'all in on some ideas that I had written a bot to perform, which (with the exception of the hook modification notification system) received the delightful response that is absolute silence. So, that discussion is probably coming back if I ever have the wherewithal to write it. Our prep-set builders' class of SL93, Kavyansh.Singh, and I ruminated on the difficulty of attracting new prep set editors. And we had quite a few discussions on the role of misdirection in DYK hooks.

Welp, that's all I've got; super excited for International Women's Day coming up. Mark your calendars, this March 8th! I'm really, really hoping to get my West Wing character of choice in on time. As always, a huge thank you to all the admins that keep the queues running. See y'all next month, and have a lovely and springy March! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 07:58, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

^ See, I was worried at the time that by waiting two days, we would bleed hooks too fast, making it difficult to build prep sets. In the end, we only dropped below 25.

[1] See, I was worried at the time that by waiting two days, we would bleed hooks too fast, making it difficult to build prep sets. In the end, we only dropped below 25.

[a]