The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 15:16, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• ... that the Ukrainian film Cyborgs dramatizes the myth of the superhuman defenders of the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport?

• ALT1: ... that dialog in Cyborgs is in Ukrainian and Russian, showing the diversity of the defenders of the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport? Source: Glavcom Interview with director (in Ukrainian). Quote: Саме через цей контекст 40% наших героїв розмовляють російською мовою. Це було зроблене, аби підкреслити, що в Донецькому аеропорту, серед захисників було дуже багато людей, які не розмовляють українською мовою, але ми все рівно одна нація. Translation: "It is because of this context that 40% of our heroes speak Russian. This was done to emphasize that at the Donetsk airport, among the defenders there were a lot of people who do not speak Ukrainian, but we are all exactly one nation." and Griza et al, "Changes in the representation of heroes in contemporary Ukrainian cinema", Journal of European Studies 53(4) p 388. doi:10.1177/00472441231206550 Quote: "The film’s major goal is to demonstrate the diversity of those fighting for Ukraine."
  • ALT1a: ... that the filmmakers of Cyborgs attempted to show the diversity of the Ukrainian soldiers who fought to retain possession of Donetsk International Airport in the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport by having the main characters' dialog in both Ukrainian and Russian?
  • ALT1b: ... that the filmmakers of Cyborgs used dialog in both Russian and Ukrainian to show the diversity of the Ukrainian soldiers who fought to retain possession of Donetsk International Airport?
• ALT2: ... that the Ukrainian film Cyborgs was released on the third anniversary of the battle it depicts? Source: Sources: Euromaidan Press "Story of the "cyborgs": Ukraine's Donetsk airport defenders to hit big screen" quote: "The theatrical release of the “Cyborgs” is symbolically planned for 6 December 2017, the third anniversary of the fall of the old Donetsk airport terminal."
  • ALT2a: ... that the Ukrainian film Cyborgs depicts the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport and was released on the third anniversary of the collapse of the airport's old terminal in that conflict?
  • ALT2b: ... that the Ukrainian film Cyborgs depicts the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport and was released on the third anniversary of the Ukrainian withdrawal from the airport's old terminal in that conflict?
• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Devizes Plot + Template:Did you know nominations/International Register of Electors

Reidgreg (talk) 15:37, 27 May 2025 (UTC).[reply]

• Article was promoted to GA three days before DYK nom. It's of a suitable length and generally meets quality requirements. I have some WP:PUFFERY concerns that the article uses wikivoice to refer to the soldiers (apparently both real and the film characters) as heroes and defenders more than once: should be easy enough to replace these words. Now, for the hooks, all of which could see improvement either at the article or in the hook, or both.
  Alt0 just gives a plot summary (saying it is based on a real thing is still a plot summary), which falls foul of WP:DYKFICTION. There's some other minor issues: the wikilinked Cyborgs (Donetsk airport) article in the hook doesn't mention its link text "superhuman", so could be considered an WP:EASTEREGG. And the film article doesn't actually make it explicit that the plot summary is as described in the hook, so for the hook fact to be present in the article it relies on connecting a paragraph from the context section (which mentions the real myth of the soldiers being superhuman) with parallels in the basic plot summary. I feel like there's not much to be done with this hook, unless there's a way to connect it more to the real world through more focus on the real propaganda mythmaking of "superhuman/cyborg" soldiers, but this would probably require article edits to equally explain/connect this.
  Alt1's fact is kind of in the article, but could be improved. I originally wrote a lot more here about the related content in the themes section, but we'll just focus on the sentence in development and writing that says Two-fifths of the heroes speak Russian, reflecting that many of the airport's defenders did not speak Ukrainian. Presumably this is what the hook is based on (elsewhere in the article it is properly established that there is dialogue in both languages, to confirm that). Here's my issue: the hook presents having bilingual dialogue, and showing diversity, as separate things (the former being used to do the latter is the 'interesting fact') - with this being fundamental to its 'hookiness'. I am unsure if the phrasing of the sentence in the article really makes the idea the film intended to show diversity clear (in that, it kinda presents the fact just as a group supposed to speak one language containing some people who don't, not as a group having linguistic diversity and nothing about showing personal diversity more generally): I was going to say it's fairly common sense that presenting different language speakers is showing some diversity so we can take it, but because the hook's hookiness relies on that not being common sense/obvious (and that we can't use half the hook to source the other), I don't think I can. I think a tweak in how the sentence at the article is written here would resolve it, perhaps more content from the sources presented at this nom could help. As an aside, writing it as 40% would probably be better than "two-fifths" - numerals should be used where convenient.
  Both alt0 and alt1 may have a hook issue in using the positive-connotation/heroising-language term "defenders", as mentioned above, rather than "soldiers".
  Alt2 just needs to be more specific. The battle lasted from September 2014 to January 2015, the film was released on 7 December (2017), which the article more accurately describes as the date of the fall of the airport's old terminal.
  This is long, so to summarise: alt0 is a no-go; alt1 needs one sentence in the article to have some tweaks and more content from sources to make both parts of the hook and their connection actually stated (and minor hook clean-up); alt2 needs the hook to be accurate to the article. I consider alt1 and alt2 to be interesting enough hooks, and I don't think it'll be much work to get article/hooks suitable and matching. Kingsif (talk) 02:25, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  ALT0 is the weakest so we can let that go. Reworked a paragraph of the article to better support ALT1 hook fact. Proposed ALT1a and ALT2a, which are more neutral and specific but longer. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:25, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• @Reidgreg: Approving alt1a. I have one question about alt2a before that should also be good: did the airport terminal actually collapse, rather than fall in the ‘lost ground’ sense? Kingsif (talk) 22:00, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Kingsif: Russian sappers used shaped charges (demolition explosives) to collapse the upper floors onto the Ukrainian forces below. (The article used to mention this under Context, but as it was not depicted in the film the GA reviewer felt it strayed too far off topic.) Along with this literal collapse, the Ukrainian defence collapsed; there wasn't really anything left to defend.

  I've struck ALT1a as it was 262 characters; proposed ALT1b at 186 characters. – Reidgreg (talk) 20:16, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• @Reidgreg: Could I ask for a brief mention of that at the article - the release section could say "third anniversary of the destruction of the terminal and resulting collapse of the defence" or similar? However, I am happy to approve alt2a now, as well as alt1b. Kingsif (talk) 20:24, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Dang, I got the above wrong. It was the new terminal that the Russian sappers collapsed onto the Ukrainians, on 21 January. The old terminal (ruins) fell to the pro-Russian forces in early December. I've footnoted some context on the old terminal. Sorry about that. @Kingsif: could you check Alt2b? – Reidgreg (talk) 16:34, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Alt2b checked and in article, note for promoters that alt1b and alt2b are the approved hooks. Kingsif (talk) 02:33, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]