Frequently asked questions

How do I write an interesting hook?

Successful hooks tend to have several traits. Most importantly, they share a surprising or intriguing fact. They give readers enough context to understand the hook, but leave enough out to make them want to learn more. They are written for a general audience who has no prior knowledge of or interest in the topic area. Lastly, they are concise, and do not attempt to cover multiple facts or present information about the subject beyond what's needed to understand the hook.

When will my nomination be reviewed?

This page is often backlogged. As long as your submission is still on the page, it will stay there until an editor reviews it. Since editors are encouraged to review the oldest submissions first, it may take several weeks until your submission is reviewed. In the meantime, please consider reviewing another submission (not your own) to help reduce the backlog (see instructions below).

Where is my hook?

If you can't find the nomination you submitted to this nominations page, it may have been approved and is on the approved nominations page waiting to be promoted. It could also have been added to one of the prep areas, promoted from prep to a queue, or is on the main page.

If the nominated hook is in none of those places, then the nomination has probably been rejected. Such a rejection usually only occurs if it was at least a couple of weeks old and had unresolved issues for which any discussion had gone stale. If you think your nomination was unfairly rejected, you can query this on the DYK discussion page, but as a general rule such nominations will only be restored in exceptional circumstances.

How to promote an accepted hook

Handy copy sources:

How to remove a rejected hook

• Open the DYK nomination subpage of the hook you would like to remove. (It's best to wait several days after a reviewer has rejected the hook, just in case someone contests or the article undergoes a large change.)
• In the window where the DYK nomination subpage is open, replace the line {{DYKsubpage with {{subst:DYKsubpage, and replace |passed= with |passed=no. Then save the page. This has the effect of wrapping up the discussion on the DYK nomination subpage in a blue archive box and stating that the nomination was unsuccessful, as well as adding the nomination to a category for archival purposes.

How to remove a hook from the prep areas or queue

• Edit the prep area or queue where the hook is and remove the hook and the credits associated with it.
• Go to the hook's nomination subpage (there should have been a link to it in the credits section).
  • View the edit history for that page
  • Go back to the last version before the edit where the hook was promoted, and revert to that version to make the nomination active again.
  • Add a new icon on the nomination subpage to cancel the previous tick and leave a comment after it explaining that the hook was removed from the prep area or queue, and why, so that later reviewers are aware of this issue.
• Add a transclusion of the template back to this page so that reviewers can see it. It goes under the date that it was first created/expanded/listed as a GA. You may need to add back the day header for that date if it had been removed from this page.
• If you removed the hook from a queue, it is best to either replace it with another hook from one of the prep areas, or to leave a message at WT:DYK asking someone else to do so.

How to move a nomination subpage to a new name

• Don't; it should not ever be necessary, and will break some links which will later need to be repaired. Even if you change the title of the article, you don't need to move the nomination page.