User:Art LaPella/Long hook

Your "Did You Know" hook is long. Please make it shorter. Template talk:Did you know#Suggestions states: "Suggested facts should be...short and concise (fewer than about 200 characters)".

Frequently asked questions:

Q: My article is 1500 characters. Isn't that long enough? Why should it be shorter?

A: The hook is not the same as the article. Template:Did you know lists several hooks, typically beginning with "...that". Generally speaking, hooks should be short and articles should be long. In the rule quoted above, "Suggested facts" means hooks, not articles. They are called hooks because they are intended to hook readers into reading the article.

Q: My hook is so good that it should be longer than 200 characters. See Wikipedia:Ignore all rules.

A: Whatever. I just count characters. The selecting administrator is free to ignore my count. In practice, that seldom happens.

Q: I count about 40 characters less than you do.

A: Then you aren't including the spaces, as specified at Template talk:Did you know#Suggestions. For what it's worth, I don't count the "...".

Q: So just how do you count characters?

A: See the Template talk:Did you know#Suggestions paragraph that begins with "To count the number of characters..."

Q: It's the selecting administrator's job to make hooks concise, regardless of the character count.

A: Yes it is. It's also his job to select, and a hook that doesn't need reworking is probably more likely to be selected.

Q: So what is the rule about who shortens a hook?

A: There isn't any. Often the author does it. Often a third party suggests a shortened version. Often it goes unshortened. Maybe a selecting administrator will shorten it, and maybe it just won't be used. Overlimit hooks on the Main Page are rare.

Q: If you have time to count characters and write objections, why don't you just shorten it?

A: I do various kinds of copyediting, but I don't write or rewrite much text (unless it was obviously written by someone whose first language isn't English) as my text tends to get rewritten or removed. I don't consider myself much of an author. Besides, if you shorten your own hook, you get to choose what stays and what goes.

Q: That hook is only half that long. Didn't you notice where the question mark goes?

A: Hooks usually end with a question mark, but there is no official rule requiring it. If succeeding sentences appear to be intended as part of a hook, the characters should be counted. Usually, a second sentence will make the hook too long, so extra sentences appear most often in hooks that need to be shortened before appearing on the Main Page.