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→Negativity bias, especially towards developing countries: Rm; that would probably be a SNOW oppose
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→Negativity bias, especially towards developing countries: I don't see what actionable proposals could emerge from my post; removing altogether so people can focus on practical proposals already presented
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::Agreed, which is where the "encyclopedic" standard comes into play. If it's not possible to get the article up to a decent quality in the fashion of how we prefer things to be written on Wikipedia, then it probably doesn't fit the bill. --'''[[User:WaltCip|⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper</span> ]]'''-''<small>([[User talk:WaltCip|talk]])</small>'' 17:31, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
::Agreed, which is where the "encyclopedic" standard comes into play. If it's not possible to get the article up to a decent quality in the fashion of how we prefer things to be written on Wikipedia, then it probably doesn't fit the bill. --'''[[User:WaltCip|⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper</span> ]]'''-''<small>([[User talk:WaltCip|talk]])</small>'' 17:31, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
:The so-called DICE standard still suffers from a big issue with the current "significance" criteria, in that all points, save for the last one, are still subject to an incredible amount of ambiguity. I mean in real terms, almost every oppose vote on [[WP:ITN/C]] is based upon at least one of these four variables (e.g, "this is not major news in X part of the world," "this wont't have any ipact despite killing hundreds of people," "this action by Russia against Ukraine is just dick-measuring," "this item is not encyclopedic enough for an undisclosed reason," etc. in - [[User:Knightoftheswords281|<span style="font-weight: bold; background-color: #000000; color: #00b7ff;">Knightoftheswords281</span>]] ([[User talk:Knightoftheswords281|Talk]] '''·''' [[Special:Contributions/Knightoftheswords281|Contribs]]) 23:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
:The so-called DICE standard still suffers from a big issue with the current "significance" criteria, in that all points, save for the last one, are still subject to an incredible amount of ambiguity. I mean in real terms, almost every oppose vote on [[WP:ITN/C]] is based upon at least one of these four variables (e.g, "this is not major news in X part of the world," "this wont't have any ipact despite killing hundreds of people," "this action by Russia against Ukraine is just dick-measuring," "this item is not encyclopedic enough for an undisclosed reason," etc. in - [[User:Knightoftheswords281|<span style="font-weight: bold; background-color: #000000; color: #00b7ff;">Knightoftheswords281</span>]] ([[User talk:Knightoftheswords281|Talk]] '''·''' [[Special:Contributions/Knightoftheswords281|Contribs]]) 23:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

== Negativity bias, especially towards developing countries ==

Most of our ITN content involving developing countries is negative (natural disasters, terrorist attacks, crowd crushes; civil wars). It's also superficial, as we highlight many negative events with no lasting significance, that fail to give people a neutral understanding of how a region is evolving. Even though it's true that media bias is a factor, it's a far smaller factor than you might think, since media coverage for most of these countries isn't negative ([https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1742766520946465 study]). This likely has an undeserved negative effect on people's perceptions of developing countries ([https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/107769900408100209?journalCode=jmqc study]), and results in an ill-informed perception of these countries ([https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446250266 textbook]). This negativity bias can also cause or amplify depression and anxiety in some readers ([https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000056 study], [https://doi.org/10.1111/J.2044-8295.1997.TB02622.X study]). Encyclopedias are meant to stimulate intellectual curiosity, so our international coverage could look more like a blend of [[Stratfor]] and the [[Financial Times]], rather than being both superficial and disproportionately negative. [[User:DFlhb|DFlhb]] ([[User talk:DFlhb|talk]]) 09:26, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Revision as of 10:27, 28 April 2023

Click here to nominate an item for In the news. In the news toolbox

Potential removal of March Madness from ITN/R

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
No consensus for the proposal. Thanks for all your inputs. Ktin (talk) 21:55, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Following recent consensus that the College Football Playoff National Championship should NOT be added to WP:ITN/R, I think that what we should do is remove March Madness from ITN/R completely, while audience in CFB is higher than CBB, I don't think both are necessary options to add to ITN/R and due to the fact that they're more less known than the NFL or NBA worldwide. NBA has a lot of international talent like Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic while college basketball are mostly born in America. As I said, there's no point in adding March Madness in the ITN section each year. 2600:1700:31BA:9410:9CE6:94D8:E140:7B1E (talk) 04:54, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sincere question from a non-American: why? GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:17, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sincere answer from a non-American: This seems to be more popular than the NBA Finals to Americans themselves. The NBA does not play on the day of the final, if that means something.
Also, until the "open era" of basketball, the NCAA tournament was the highest-level tournament in the the U.S. recognized by FIBA. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:22, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a general factor of the overall viewership and interest in the tournament. As opposed to most other college sports, March Madness is more consistently watched over the course of the tournament, versus other sports where the main interest is who won. March Madness I would say is more discussed and generally draws more interest (at least from my perspective) than other college sports appear to be. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:03, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, seeing as it seems this discussion has real teeth now, I'm officially an oppose under my aforementioned premise that if there is to be any college sporting event in ITN, it should be this one. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:06, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion last month was not a formal proposal and no one saw it as such, as you would note the near absence of votes. Also, bear in mind that we consider the quality of arguments not the count of votes, so you folks voting SNOW are not helping your cause. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:59, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 98#Verify status of NCAA Basketball for ITN/R - "the near absence of votes," there were 10 votes of about 15-18 replies and it ended in no consensus. In fact, your own opinion was the nonsensical argument to remove it due to our removal of The Boat Race, which, besides having a wholly different nature than the NCAA tournament, did achieve consensus for removal. The Kip (talk) 17:46, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the personal attack. Nonsensical, Christ. Countless editors have pointed out the incongruity of this. But sure, if you don't agree, it's nonsensical. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:00, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A good old appeal to the stone... or is that an appeal to the snow? --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove because we need consistency. If The Boat Race doesn't merit inclusion because it's an amateur competition, then the same should be the case for this league. It's simple as that. Whether it attracts higher audience is completely irrelevant (the number of people watching a television broadcast of the 2022 final was nothing more than a regular football match involving one of the strongest clubs in a domestic league). The biggest paradox, however, is that the WNBA Finals are not on ITN/R, but the women's NCAA league is.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That's perhaps the most nonsensical argument I've ever heard. By your logic, the finals of World Chase Tag should be included because it's a professional league and other professional leagues are included, or we shouldn't post the Nobel Prizes because we don't post People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. Just because one thing is amateur and another thing is amateur doesn't mean they're of the same level of notability, news coverage, or impact.
    Also, WE JUST HAD THIS SAME DISCUSSION LAST MONTH. This whole thing is beyond absurd. Kicking222 (talk) 12:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The biggest paradox, however, is that the WNBA Finals are not on ITN/R, but the women's NCAA league is" Not a paradox at all. Per WP:ITNSPORTS, Entries which refer to events where men's and women's events are concurrent (unless otherwise specified) are generally posted as a combined blurb. Incidentally, the NCAA women's championship draws ~4M viewers.[2] —Bagumba (talk) 12:55, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kicking222: I'm talking about the most popular sports in the world. Football and basketball are, whereas parkour is not even near. And please read WP:AGF and WP:NPA. @Bagumba: I know that's the reason for the fallacy, but it's in no way a justification for it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:27, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't follow, what is the alleged fallacy? —Bagumba (talk) 13:37, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    WNBA is the top-flight competition in women's basketball. Isn't it?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:38, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I see. That's the paradox for non-Americans: that non-professional competition for college (i.e. university) sports can be as or more popular than its professional counterpart. For example, the NCAA men's title games generally have more viewers than an NBA Finals game.[3]—Bagumba (talk) 13:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    We don't post items based chiefly on popularity. This is the English Wikipedia with readers and editors from all over the world, and we tend to use standards that are globally applicable and mutually comparable. If we divide the world into English-speaking zones so that different criteria apply because of the local preferences, then there's nothing that could prevent The Boat Race from being removed as it really is more popular and traditionally more significant than professional rowing competitions in the UK. It's interesting how things are changing here: firstly, The Boat Race was an ITN/R item; then, the NCAA was added with arguments drawn from the comparison to The Boat Race; and finally, The Boat Race gets removed because it's an amateur competition, but the NCAA stays because it's more popular for Americans than professional competitions. This is not how an encyclopedia should be built.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:19, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You lost me on "popularity", when earlier you told Kicking222 that you were talking about the most popular sports in the world. I was merely informing you that the WNBA might not be as "top-flight" as you possibly believe, merely because it is a professional league. —Bagumba (talk) 17:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It depends on the context. When comparing different sports, popularity is measured through the global presence, the number of people practicing the sport, the ability to attract wealthy sponsors and other similar measures; but when comparing two competitions within a sport, then we come down to popularity as measured through the size of the audiences. As for the top-flight part, WNBA is indeed top-flight when it comes to overall quality. You’ll have very hard time to find reliable sources that the players in the women’s NCAA are more skilled than those in the WNBA and that the games they play are assessed better. There are maybe more interesting games in the women’s NCAA (this may be true because the WNBA to me is really boring without the excitement the NBA offers), which contributes to its elevated popularity above WNBA, but that doesn’t make it less “top-flight” (unless you mean top-flight with regards to popularity).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:02, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    ...but when comparing two competitions within a sport, then we come down to popularity as measured through the size of the audiences: Then I'm not sure why you brought up "top-flight" to begin with.—Bagumba (talk) 18:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    ... because, as stated above, I don't think that popularity measured through the size of the audience is the right criterion. A similar argument can be made for inclusion of the FA Cup, EFL Cup and even the EFL Championship play-offs because their finals set records in viewership in the UK every year that are not matched in the Premier League. We have to draw a line somewhere and adopt globally applicable criteria.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:58, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I would LOVE for you to read NPA and tell me where you think I'm personally attacking you. Calling an argument ridiculous has nothing to do with your political opinions or race or career, not least because I neither know nor care about those things. You said "X doesn't belong because Y doesn't belong" when X and Y are completely different things, end of story. Kicking222 (talk) 22:18, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The Boat Race was removed as it's a fixed competition between two schools every year. March Madness is not. Please quit this nonsensical argument. The Kip (talk) 17:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That’s absolutely not true. If you carefully take a look at that discussion, you’ll find out that it wasn’t the case. Yes, it was mentioned that it’s a race between two fixed teams every year, but it wasn’t the dominant argument for removal. Tho majority made arguments that it’s an amateur competition and not top-flight in the sport, which triggered the discussion to verify NCAA’s status on ITN/R immediately below it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:12, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove - The arguments to remove make sense to me. Non-professional sporting events should be pulled from ITN/R. Jusdafax (talk) 14:51, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There was an RFC less than a month ago that concluded the exact opposite. The Kip (talk) 17:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    If a discussion concluded to keep it less than a month ago, it doesn’t mean that the consensus cannot change. To prevent this from happening, the closer had to impose a moratorium.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:12, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Consensus doesn’t take a month to change without significant events happening. To attempt to do so would reek of effectively being a sore loser because one’s opinion ended up not the consensus one. The Kip (talk) 19:25, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be true only if the discussion were open for the same people who participated in the previous one. However, it's possible that some editors didn't notice that discussion or didn't have enough time to contribute and therefore failed to take part in it. I'm an example of someone who didn't participate in that discussion. That being said, arguing about procedural closure just because a group of people discussed the same matter in the recent past doesn't hold.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    While I think it unlikely that the consensus regarding all non-professional sporting events will have changed in the past month (my opinion certainly hasn't), that doesn't mean anything regarding whether any specific non-professional sporting event has or does not have consensus, indeed from memory evaluating each on their own merits was the consensus of the general discussion.
    While @Jusdafax's second sentence is a (presumably) valid statement of their opinion, it doesn't hold much weight as it is contrary to the recent consensus. Their first sentence however does speak (loosely) to the arguments regarding this specific event and so the !vote should not be completely ignored by whoever closes this discussion. (FWIW I don't currently have an opinion regarding March Madness). Thryduulf (talk) 14:03, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    To elaborate in response to the courtesty ping, INT/R is an advisory list, and does not guarantee blurb inclusion, since all blurbs require consensus.A look at the current list shows it is dominated by sporting events, not news. Many are or were specific to one country, like The Boat Race which I and others successfully !voted to remove. I recognise the difference between a static event and a multi-week college tournament, but feel INT/R is seriously bloated with sports and that most if not all of the sporting events should be delisted, as they can be !voted on individually. Since I, like Kiril Simeonovski did not notice the previous discussion, I did not participate. In the final analysis, sports fans by definition have strong views. Since consensus among ITN participants here to just remove all sports completely from the list, which would save countless hours of passionate debate, is unlikely at present, then in my view trimming the list as possible seems the best course. I hope this clarifies my !voting rationale, and would deeply prefer not to participate in this particular discussion further. Best Wishes and Happy Equinox! Jusdafax (talk) 16:46, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    ...it is dominated by sporting events, not news. Most newspapers have sports, sometimes on the front page (for those with hard copies or tablet reader version). —Bagumba (talk) 17:04, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Most news events are not regular occurrences. Besides elections, and guess what else is in ITN/R? nableezy - 18:49, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The arguments about the Boat Race are so over the top I dont get how anybody is making them. Having the Boat Race here would not be similar to having March Madness on ITN/R, it is similar to having Notre Dame vs Michigan on ITN/R. Just one figure shows how wildly out of touch those comparisons are. March Madness revenue: 1.1 Billion USD. TBR revenue? 16.7 million USD. The coverage of the two is wildly different as well, with coverage of the tournament, of the lost productivity, of the chase for a perfect bracket. All that said I dont really care here, but the if the Boat Race does not qualify than neither should March Madness is saying if since I did not make it to the NBA then neither should Michael Jordan have made it. nableezy - 17:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure if I speak for everyone here, but just my two cents: I believe this is more important than the Boat Race, and arguments against this cannot be sustained in the world where TBR was on ITN/R. However, now that TBR has been removed, we can entertain these arguments without being hypocritical. It doesn't mean it has to be removed, but arguments are more valid in this context. GreatCaesarsGhost 00:25, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, you can argue against including March Madness. But that is independent of the Boat Race. It simply is not in the same realm of event in terms of participation, amount of coverage, impact on the economy both in terms of revenue generated and productivity lost, television ratings, enrollment of universities involved, basically any metric besides number of years it has existed. nableezy - 04:36, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I think its a bit silly to support removing this because of The Boat Race being removed. March Madness does seem in my opinion like an event important enough to support posting. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:41, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - March Madness and the Boat Race are on entirely different planes of existence when it comes to popularity, impact, and financials. March Madness very much meets the ITN benchmark of events with wide interest + the bullet points at our purpose, and should be posted every year (quality dependent). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:33, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It's been posted every year since it was added to ITNR initially, and was posted on the merits for several years before that. Nearly all of the removal votes are non-sequitur reasons that have little to no connection to ITN standards broadly. It's a major sporting event that is covered, in depth, by reliable sources at a level that indicates it will be so covered every year. Given that level of extensive coverage, I find no reason to need to re-assess significance every year. --Jayron32 17:51, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Motion to close as keep before the final Monday, so this is not a matter of distraction in the ITNC nom. The arguments seem fairly evenly split even if we disregard the SNOW close non-voters (who might be read as "no action/keep"). GreatCaesarsGhost 12:32, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (I didn't !vote in the Boat Race removal) The continued arguments for "consistent" removal of amatuer events is disappointing given the opposition to blanket removal at Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 99 § (Closed) Request for Comment: Amateur sporting events. But this thread remaining open is indicative that we have a bureaucracy here (see recent Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 98 § Verify status of NCAA Basketball for ITN/R), WP:NOTBURO aside. Some details on the event's impact beyond immediate college basketball fans is sourced at NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament § Popular culture. I think there's some English-variation misunderstanding that American college means university. And some might apply a local perception because amateur sports is never notable in their part of the world.—Bagumba (talk) 02:07, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I believe sports events should be judged based on international coverage, and we should remove any event that only one country really cares about. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:52, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    QuicoleJR Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#Please do not... Oppose an item solely because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is generally unproductive. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The 2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball championship game has recently been nominated and labelled as an ITN/R item. I took a look at the article and it is full of red links, which may be because the players aren't notable enough or because no-one dared to write articles about them. Do we really want to post links to such articles on the main page?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:13, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wholly separate from this, maybe, but this points to a recent gender gap paper and the issues with Wikipedia covering women's topics. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Women_in_Red#“Too_Soon”_to_count?_How_gender_and_race_cloud_notability_considerations_on_Wikipedia. That many of the NCAA women's players are not considered notable or that no one has bothered to write articles about them, while nearly all the men's are, is a problem that perhaps ITN should not escalate. Masem (t) 12:25, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Gender gap is a serious problem, but it shouldn't be used as justification to make concessions. My remark was, however, mostly on whether the NCAA is more significant than WNBA. For some reason, almost all players in the WNBA do have articles. If the NCAA is really more significant than the WNBA as Bagumba claims above, then Wikipedia should clearly reflect it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I just googled a random few of the redlinked names, and all clearly meet GNG. The topic specific WP:NBBALL needs some work itself, as it excludes all amateurs and some hall-of-famers. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't deny their notability, but they still don't have articles, and this is one of the main reasons why WikiProject Women in Red exists. Yet, it doesn't mean we should make concessions. It's debatable whether ITN should be used as means to get rid of the red links.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You just doubted their notability in the comment I replied to: "may be because the players aren't notable enough." But as you are now conceding this point, the matter is settled. The presence of red links "to a term that could plausibly sustain an article" is not just acceptable, it is desirable. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:29, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't say they're not notable in my first comment and didn't concede any point. I just mentioned two possible reasons for that. But that has nothing to do with the fact they still don't have articles. As for the red links, I replied to Bagumba's comment below that there's no mechanism in place to tell incomplete articles and articles lacking accessible reliable sources apart, so not all stubs exist just because someone wanted to write an article with very little effort. If it were better to have red links than stubs, the English Wikipedia would have more than five million articles less.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:46, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, you did; I quoted you. But no matter. Your comment has nothing to do with the matter at hand which is red links within an article are not a mark against the quality of that article. "Do we really want to post links to such articles on the main page?" Yes, absolutely, we want to post such articles. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:40, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Per WP:ITNSPORTS:

    Entries which refer to events where men's and women's events are concurrent (unless otherwise specified) are generally posted as a combined blurb, as long as both articles are of a sufficient quality.

    WP:REDDEAL doesn't seem like an "orange tag" showstopper.—Bagumba (talk) 13:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia rules are often contradicting so that it's difficult to find lex specialis, and it's relatively easy to support a view by existing policies. I don't buy the argument that it's better to have red links than stubs as long as there's no clear way to tell incomplete articles and articles lacking accessible reliable sources apart.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There is nothing wrong with red links, and this just seems like another artificial roadblock. Whether or not you buy the argument isnt relevant, we have established policy on when to retain red links, and all of these are fine. nableezy - 16:52, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Red links aren't allowed on the main page per WP:REDNO, which doesn't directly apply to this case, but is a strong indicator that something is wrong with articles full of red links. I'd assume that editors adding excessive red links intend to work on those articles in the future, so it makes sense to wait until most of them turn blue before posting. After all, we're all in favour of posting quality content that links to existing content on the main page. Aren't we?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There wouldnt be a red link on the main page. And no, that is not a strong indicator of anything besides we dont link to non-existent articles on the main page. Again, there is nothing in any policy or guideline that supports any part of what you are saying, and this remains in my view an artificial roadblock erected for transparent purposes. nableezy - 17:16, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove I dont think college/amateur/non professional sport, whatever you want to call it should be in ITN/R period to be honest. The tournament's international recognition is quite limited and we already have both FIBA and NBA tournaments which are tournaments that carry a much higher name recognition.✨  4 🧚‍♂am KING  16:01, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    An RFC last month concluded against the blanket removal of amateur sports. The Kip (talk) 16:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Keep in mind that the Olympics were, until recently, an amateur sporting event. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    But the olympics, in its current form (since 1896) were always an international competition that have worldwide recognition. I should reword what I said, in that I don't feel like domestic amateur sport competitions without much appeal outside of a single nations national borders meets any sort of notability bar for me, and on the contrary thats like a double whammy for unnotability. I recognise that some of these competitions are on ITN/R, and thats why I don't comment on those nominations when they come up, but if you asked me about them being "in the news", id say no. ✨  4 🧚‍♂am KING  21:34, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    People forget the highest form of basketball in the United States recognized internationally until 1990 was college basketball. Americans used to send college kids to play against fully-grown Europeans in the Olympic basketball tournament, and win. Howard the Duck (talk) 22:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Christian Laettner was included on the Dream Team despite being solely a college player as well. The Kip (talk) 16:17, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Anthony Davis was on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team with only college experience.—Bagumba (talk) 21:48, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove seems to be a US-centric event, here in the UK it doesn't trouble the headlines. If the precedent (set with the Boat Race, which is huge news over here) is that amateur sports events of national significance are not worthy of being ITN/R, then it should be removed and individual nominations should be discussed on their individual merits. 2A02:C7F:2CE3:4700:65B7:BD17:DEA:A478 (talk) 18:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. ITNR should only be for events that would find clear consensus in all cases. BilledMammal (talk) 18:13, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Kind of ridiculous to do this only six weeks after the last one. Should this stay kept, do I need to set a six week timer for the next one, too? The notability and prominence of this has been repeatedly established above, and all of the arguments about how "if X didn't get in why is this in??" are weak, at best. Parabolist (talk) 19:24, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove on significance. A minor event with limited international coverage. Harrias (he/him) • talk 21:01, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a major event and international coverage is not required for ITN. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:05, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think there is a general consensus to remove here. Requesting someone takes care of it.134.6.56.115 (talk) 16:57, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Besides that there isn't anything remotely resembling a consensus, many of the remove arguments (and I say this as an admittedly biased party) are purely WP:OTHERSTUFF, which I think any closing admin would dismiss pretty rapidly. Kicking222 (talk) 23:21, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    People used the same arguments to get rid of The Boat Race, such as If we're going to shut down discussions about college football, then that raises questions about sports events that seem to have a similar level of importance. Comparisons to other stuff are inevitable because of how relative and subjective our significance standard is. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:34, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    But people have also made plenty of arguments about the considerably broader impact of March Madness- the billions of dollars taken in, the thousands of players involved, the tens of millions of people watching, the lord-knows-how-many-times-more news mentions (even a cursory Google News search gives six times more results for "March Madness" than "Boat Race")- that others seem to ignore. Kicking222 (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    ding ding ding. Shocking development in that users who felt that a rowing race with a fraction of the coverage of this tournament, that is not a national championship, that has only two possible winners, is significant enough to merit ITN/R feel that an event with many times more participation, revenue, and worldwide coverage (eg the Guardian has a whole section on this tournament) doesnt. I think the term best used to describe such a surprising turn of events rhymes with Powerade. nableezy - 19:26, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I think there is a lot of kneejerk reactions to this one due to the removal of Boat Race. I have to agree with Bagumba's statement above regarding significance. Curbon7 (talk) 17:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as I didn't explicitly !vote to do so above. This is a major event that has consistently been posted for the last several years, and I see no good reason to remove it.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 19:22, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The article tends to be one of quality, the event is well covered and is widely watched. Moreover, the tournament features international players from multiple countries. SpencerT•C 05:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Moreover, the tournament features international players from multiple countries: Yes. As of 2019–20, ~15% of NCAA basketball players (men's and women's) were international.[4]—Bagumba (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Is an admin available to evaluate consensus on this one? My read says that there is no consensus here to remove. But, would appreciate an admin’s eyes. Ktin (talk) 16:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Personal opinion !votes

When looking at blurb proposals, it seems that a significant portion of the !votes are based on the personal opinions of editors, saying what they find interesting or important rather than any policy-based discussion. Even more importantly, it seems that these are being used to create consensus. I'll remind anyone closing discussions that, per WP:CONSENSUS and WP:CLOSE, any !vote that's just the editor's opinion about "significance" should be disregarded. Doing a pure vote count is generally not permitted on Wikipedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How else can we determine significance but via anecdotes of editors or via their own made-up criteria? Howard the Duck (talk) 22:29, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, WP:ITNCRIT is open-ended: It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting. —Bagumba (talk) 23:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I refer to what's mentioned at WP:ITN#Significance. Unfortunately there really isn't much of any criteria to gauge significance, and significance itself is subjective. What one person might find significant, an other might not and so forth. As such it's basically impossible to come up with a standard that is universally applicable, such is the nature of ITN. ✨  4 🧚‍♂am KING  23:17, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"universally applicable" = people want a back door to get "their" blurb posted. —Bagumba (talk) 23:22, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, everyone above is being dishonest by selectively quoting the ITN criteria guidelines to only include the single sentence that supports their thesis, while ignoring the bulk of the text. What it actually says that is relevant to the discussion of how to assess significance is very important, and yet ignored, by everyone above. Here is what it says that we should be assessing and commenting on. That includes the following clear list of criteria.
  • The length and depth of coverage itself (are the articles long and go into great detail, or are the articles short and cursory?);
  • The number of unique articles about the topic (does each major news source dedicate its own reporting staff to covering the story, or are they all simply reposting the same article?);
  • The frequency of updates about the topic (is the article posted once and forgotten about, or is it continuously updated, and are new articles related to the topic appearing all the time?);
  • The types of news sources reporting the story (is the topic being covered by major, national news organizations with a reputation for high-quality journalism?).
If you want to demonstrate that something is significant, comments should focus on things that anyone can assess on their own, not based on your own internal emotional response nor on your own personal knowledge or experience with the subject. --Jayron32 12:38, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This list is excellent and I wish editors would actually support or oppose items based on these qualifiers. I don't think I've ever seen any of these arguments used. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:53, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then you haven't read any of mine. --Jayron32 13:09, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
These ideas don't work in practice because Wikipedia editors still prefer to insert their own opinions. For example, the recent Gwyneth Paltrow skiing case attracted a huge amount of detailed media coverage which would have passed all of those tests but would have stood no chance at ITN. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:47, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, everyone above is being dishonest by selectively quoting the ITN criteria guidelines to only include the single sentence that supports their thesis, while ignoring the bulk of the text: That's referring to the "bulk of the text" that's generally not cited in ITNC discussions, which leads to the "personal opinion !votes" the OP refers to. —Bagumba (talk) 14:18, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It should be reminded that ITNC works like any other consensus based process so !votes that are essentially "I like it" or "I don't like it" without any further justification should be ignored by admins attempting to determine consensus. On the other hand, one can oppose with personal opinions but explaining each part that justifies their opinion. One can say "I don't want to see Trump's indictment posted as that would be giving him more unneeded publicity" (a reasoning that is not a standard one at ITNC) which is a perfectly fine !vote for consideration.
This is why we do have to be aware that when a topic gets a large number of !votes and from non-regular ITNC commentors, admins must go through and judge comments a bit better. The posting of Betty White as a blurb was unfortunuately the result of a lot of drive-by !votes for posting without substance in signifigance for why to post, for example. Masem (t) 12:43, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Thebiguglyalien:: You are dead right; in the end, it comes down to this: Since a lot of these items force an admin to use their own discretion to determine whether a consensus exists to post something, in reality significance is usually defined by a head count. I wish that we would adhere to Jayron32's criteria, as it's the most objective and straightforward way of reaching consensus. But today, it seems like ITN has become more opinion-based than ever, particularly with !voters effectively giving the middle finger to the "Please do not..." infobox, the latter being our flimsy attempt to try and rein in some of this hyper-subjectivity. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:17, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not my criteria. It's been sitting there in WP:ITNCRIT for years now. It's ITN's criteria. It's just the criteria.--Jayron32 13:21, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know that, but they aren't a hard and fast rule. Preceding the area you just quoted from is a qualifier to preface that section: Other principles may be helpful (bolded mine). This type of wording is consistent throughout the entire Significance section, "generally", "rarely helpful", "has tended to", "usually". The section has been very carefully written to specifically be descriptive and not prescriptive. In fact, there's a blurb that just states outright: Any user may, of course, support or oppose a candidate for any reason. So there is nothing in WP:ITNCRIT which can be taken as a foundation for how discussions take place on ITN/C. Taken into context, Jayron32, looking at the section you quoted, yes, that is a great way to assess things. I wish we would all do it that way. But no user nor admin is required to assess blurbs upon those terms, and I daresay that a good chunk of ITN/C's users and contributors don't know that WP:ITNCRIT exists, much less what is in it. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:37, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course they aren't hard and fast rules; nothing at Wikipedia is a "hard and fast rule", but there are guidelines that, if followed, result in more smoothly-running processes that are in general, more efficient and more fair and in general result in a better encyclopedia. If there were "hard and fast rules", we wouldn't need people, a computer algorithm could decide everything. But without guidance, it's just a bunch of people who only have opinions based on their own personal experiences, and the ethos of Wikipedia is to ignore personal experience and instead base decisions on source material. The ITN sections source material is the reliable news sources, and we should follow the lead of them; again, not slavishly parrot them, but at the same time, not ignore everything about them. To deliberately consider what is written, how it is written, and where it is written as the primary criteria for assessing significance, not "I don't understand this, so we shouldn't post it". --Jayron32 13:42, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can't really dispute your argument; your reasoning is sound. I just tend to think that there is a great deal of softness in ITNCRIT compared to some of Wikipedia's other guidelines and ground rules, and I've despaired over the years in how flagrantly they seem to be ignored. (Kind of surprises me that we don't have an WP:ATA for ITN.) --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:11, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is definitely what's made the issue as bad as it is. If I had a magic wand to change ITN, I would make the rest of it more like recent deaths. The bar for "significance" would be WP:Notability (events), we'd do away with blurbs in favor of a simple list, and the end result would be that we display our highest quality recent events articles rather than the ones that editors feel are "significant". A nice side effect would be that Notability(events) might actually start to see some enforcement. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:27, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the problem is the lack of awareness around NEVENT and NOT#NEWS in general. There is far too much creation of small, disparate event articles that are generally not going to have enduring coverage, but editors see a burst of coverage as reason to create such articles, and that leads to poor nominations Eg we have had a spat of disaster articles but which in hindsight do not merit to events like major quakes or terrorist attacks, which do have a long tail of coverage. So we do have to play some guesswork both on creating these, znd at ITNC to shift through what are the clearly more enduring stories that we should cover rather than.was is being reported the loudest on sources (the reason we are not a news ticker because not every news story is one that we'd have enduring coverage of). Masem (t) 14:39, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Burst of coverage, well stated. Curbon7 (talk) 14:44, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's essentially what I'm getting at. If we we were more consistent about applying notable standards to event articles, then we could assume notability here the same way that we do with recent deaths. I also wouldn't object to a purge of past events articles to clean up the non-notable events (either through deletion or through merging into "List of X events" articles). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:26, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thebiguglyalien should please provide some examples. What I've seen from them is mostly assertions such as "Attacks on embassies are significant" with no evidence or policy-based support. Please provide some model examples to demonstrate what you're expecting or hoping for. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:47, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The ITN conundrum with events is stated at WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE: However, this may be difficult or impossible to determine shortly after the event occurs, as editors cannot know whether an event will receive further coverage or not. That an event occurred recently does not in itself make it non-notable. —Bagumba (talk) 11:24, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

At the bottom, you know how it says "nominate article"? Well, what if there was a link to Wikinews next to it? AugustusAudax (talk) 19:38, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather someone pipe it in at the top, right where it says "In the news", nice and natural. A link to the current events portal could also work. It should link to somewhere, dammit, a clicking readership is an engaged readership. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:00, 8 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rather than Wikinews, even a clear nomination to Portal:Current events would be a win. Unfortunately, it is currently hidden as an WP:EASTEREGG behind the “Ongoing” text. Fixing this should be a relatively easy fix. It was tried a few times here and all proposals have failed so far. Hence, we are here. Ktin (talk) 23:46, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should we move to transclude ITN nominations?

Title says it all. It's a bit strange that ITN/C is the only main page nomination page that doesn't feature transclusions IIRC. Should we move towards doing that? - Knightsoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 00:23, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If it isn't broken, don't fix it. NoahTalk 02:36, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but maybe you could provide a response detailing why it isn't a good idea rather than fire off a dismissive thought-terminating cliché. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 11:44, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Normally the onus is on those proposing a change to state some reason as to why it's a good idea, something I'm not seeing here beyond "other sections of the main page do it"... Anyway, the main thing I'd say is that having individual templates for every nom would be overkill at this project. Unlike DYK, there isn't a lot of process for ITN. Someone nominates something, people support or oppose, and it's posted or not. Often all on a single day. The current system seems to handle this work flow well and is easy for editors and admins to follow.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the proposer has to explain why it's a good idea as well, but I don't think that justifies a snarky seven-word response if there is a good reason not to do it. For what it's worth, I'd concur with your reasoning regarding not having transclusions, particularly given the fact that RD has such a high volume of nominations on a daily basis. That being the case, I'm still interested in hearing the reasoning from the nominator of this idea. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:18, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be diplomatic, both the proposer and initial responder should take away these notes for improvement. —Bagumba (talk) 13:26, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@WaltCip while @Noah's response was terse, I don't see any particular issue with it. When proposing a change to the status quo, unless you clearly identify:
  1. What the issue is with the current way of doing things
  2. why it is an issue
  3. What exactly your change is
  4. How it will resolve the identified problem
  5. Any issues that will arise from the change
  6. How you will mitigate these isues
Then you cannot expect people responding to the proposal to go into any detail. Of the 6 steps you've sort of done one of them (3), but not even attempted to address the others. Unless and until you do so I see no benefit to even discussing the suggestion, let alone enacting it. Thryduulf (talk) 13:26, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like this question is: Should we required every ITN nom to create a new wikipage? I don't think this is necessary, most of these discussions are quite short and that method prevents general page watchers from seeing updates (as they would have to know and watchlist every new page in there). What problem is this trying to solve? — xaosflux Talk 14:57, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And FWIW, I think that Template_talk:Did_you_know has always been a hot mess if that is what this would become. — xaosflux Talk 14:59, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One problem with the current structure is that the monthly archive files are huge and so difficult to load and search. For example, see Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/March 2023.
Having a separate file for each nomination would require a naming standard which is not obvious. Perhaps we might have a separate file for each day but that would complicate the process of moving entries between dates.
Andrew🐉(talk) 10:22, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Edit: I forgot to add my reasoning and that seems to have derailed the entire discussion, so I'm remedying that. It was very similar to @Andrew Davidson's reasoning. @Xaosflux @Thryduulf @WaltCip @Hurricane Noah @Amakuru. @Bagumba
The main issue with having nominations be apart of the INT/C page proper is that the current system results in archives becoming excessively long. It often takes a hot minute for me to load an archive, and practically the first (as in first chronologically) quarter or even third of an archive at this point can't even be fully conveyed since their size is exceeding the template limit, meaning that once you start heading towards the bottom of a page, the {{ITN candidate}} templates stop transcluding. This could be solved by removing all the text from the page proper and moving individual nominations into their own wikipage, thus reducing the size of the article and allowing for archived nominations to be 100% fully viewable.
Transcluding nominations will also make it easier to directly link to specific nominations. {{ITN Note}} for example has parameters linking towards the nomination discussion for the subject article, however, these links frequently get broken when discussions are marked as "ready," or "Attention Needed," or "Closed," since its interfering with the section link. Sure, we could {{anchor}}, but those aren't entirely full proof either for similar reasons. It will also allow us to directly link to nomination discussions in article history sections and {{ITN talk}} without having said links be broken due to rolling off into the archives. Additionally, in ITN discussions, it would be easier to link and access said links to ITN discussions since the pages would load much easier (so in other words, finding the discussion would be easier since folks wouldn't have to wait years for an archive to load and instead just hop towards the discussion).
There are other reasons like it combating accidental interference in other discussions or parts of the page, or possibly being a critical part in providing a more streamlined nomination process maybe similar to DYK or POD, but these two are the primary reasons. I think it would be a positive move that would make ITN more easier to navigate, sort, and use in general. @Amakuru stated that it's not a good reason to adopt something just because other sections of the main page do it, and while in of itself, that is true, I find the fact that we seem to be the only part of the main page content nomination process that doesn't really telling. In fact, although I'm relatively new here, from reading archives of this talk page, ITN has generally been slow to adopt what we today see as common sense (for example, ITN only adopted a main page nomination link in 2014, after years of being shut down because in at least one instance, people were making huff puff about it open[ing] the floodgates to misguided nominations and we should be aiming to include content that readers will find interesting and/or useful, not using it as a recruiting exercise for any aspect of Wikipedia). @Hurricane Noah, just because it ain't broke (which I honestly semi-contest), that doesn't mean we cannot be better. - Knightsoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 03:07, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No thank you. I see no possible benefit that couldn't otherwise be gotten by doing a different change to the archiving system (like I don't know, just doing March 2023 1/March 2023 2). This is a correct diagnosis of a legitimate issue, but an absolutely out-of-scale solution that would require a ground-up restructuring of ITN/C. Regarding the point about {{ITN note}}, so what? That's such a minor inconvenience. Curbon7 (talk) 03:28, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, to be fair, I firmly believe that ITN is long overdue for a well-needed overhaul in terms of nominations, policy, philosophy, and practice in general. We can't just be stuck in the current gridlock we are in rn, since, as I'm sure you, a prolific contributor here will almost certainly have noticed by now, the status quo is not working. As for {{ITN note}} point (and I'm assuming you're also referring to article history and {{ITN Talk}}), reducing it to a minor inconvenience is basically saying that these templates don't matter, but they clearly do as they help keep a historical account of an article that can be used for future references in discussions across this site. Again, to echo my point about special wikipages as a whole, there's a reason why TFA, TFP, TFL, DYK, and OTD talk notices all contain links to their specified discussion page (as well as Xfds, GA-related discussions, etc.). You may as well take them to WP:TFD and nominate them for deletion with that mindset. - Knightsoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 04:03, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to be dismissive, because I can see what you're seeing, which I'm assuming revolves around a simple-to-use tool/script like User:SD0001/DYK-helper but for ITN. However, the current method is also simple, just copy-and-pasting the template at the top of the edit box; not as sexy as a slick tool, but it is still simple. A shift to a script/tool would also largely lock out IP users from nominating, unless they want to go through the kit-and-caboodle of manually creating the subpages and transcluding, which a lot of drive-by IP contributors frankly would not have the competence to do.
As no one has said it yet, thank you for your proposal. It is not easy to put yourself out in front of everyone. Curbon7 (talk) 11:31, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The archives issue is real, but moving to daily subpages would just make it worse at we'd have to transclude more things. The actual solution is to just do two archives a month, or perhaps one archive per week - which would need to be done anyway if we implemented your one page per nomination idea. I also fail to see how making the nomination process more complicated (create a page, transclude a template, then transclude that on the main page) can reasonably be described as "more streamlined"? Opinions of (mostly) different editors about a different issue 9 years ago would struggle to be even less relevant than they are. In short I see disadvantages and no advantages to the proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 08:23, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is indeed a minor inconvenience with the archiving process, but I don't see how splitting those archives into separate pages for every single nomination would make it easier to search or browse old proposals. If there are problems with the archived templates and load times, we could either split the archives into more pages (maybe the 52 weeks in the year?), or examine whether the templates can be simplified to reduce the number of parser calls, or substituting the templates when archived. Meanwhile, a more complex proposal system would make ITN/C more difficult to use. Modest Genius talk 12:07, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I am reading this wrong, implementation of this solution, one way or the other, would have no impact on the usability of WP:ITNC. This is a change to back-end archiving process and frequency that is being recommended. Ktin (talk) 17:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple US sports items

I'm disappointed that we have golf and NCAA champions at the same time. I don't mind the occasional sports ITN blurb, but I wish there was a guideline discouraging more than one at a time. I'm afraid it will attract more sports enthusiast !voters and get worse over time. Sandizer (talk) 12:45, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia operates on consensus. —Bagumba (talk) 12:50, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I thought golf was a Scottish sport? Howard the Duck (talk) 13:03, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And this tournament, while taking place in America, was won by a Spaniard!
Anyway, saying "I don't like that two things in the same field, which happen to be near each other on the calendar, are both on ITN simultaneously" is ridiculous, whether it's two sporting events or two elections or two Nobel Prizes or two anythings. Kicking222 (talk) 20:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) It is a recurring issue that we do have on ITN which is that sports articles tend to have the most editors working on them, bringing them up to par and thus making them suitable for posting from a quality standpoint. One could also make the argument that WP:ITNR favors those types of sporting events by allowing them to bypass the significance standard, but these items are (usually) on ITNR in the first place because a firm consensus was reached a long time ago that these items didn't need to be debated every year. It can be a bit jarring to see sports items juxtaposed with disasters repeatedly, but right now as Bagumba says, that's as a result of the meta-consensus that ITN/C currently operates under. There's no way to ad hoc remove sporting events from ITN just based on saturation. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How is Golf a US sport? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:09, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is basketball a US sport? A Canadian invented it! Howard the Duck (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And gridiron football? First played at the University College, Toronto, also in Canada! --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:17, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What constituted as the first football game is subject to plenty of scholarly debate. Checkmate Cancucks! - Knightsoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 04:14, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Basketball was not invented in Canada; James Naismith was born in Ontario, but emigrated to the United States and never returned. But like many other Canadian-American inventors, this has been spun by the Canadian patriotic industrial complex as Canada being responsible for basketball. The lengths Canadians go to try and claim people as their own merely because they were born there when they are American as apple pie is laughable. The great Canadian WaPo journalist and YouTuber JJ McCullough described this as the "Hotel California complex of Canadian identity;" you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave.
Or was this a giant joke that soared above my head? - Knightsoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 04:12, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I said basketball was invented by a Canadian, not that it was invented in Canada. Heck Naismith coached at the most American of places (Kansas). Howard the Duck (talk) 06:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Point taken, but three out of the four men's championships are played in the US, including the Masters Tournament. I'm just suggesting that a multiplicity of sports blurbs may attract more sports enthusiasts, compounding their nominations and trivializing what is one of if not the most prominent public face here. Sandizer (talk) 13:20, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sandizer: You could fix this. You just have to make sure that articles relevant to other news stories which are not U.S. sports are of a high enough quality to post on the main page. A sizable amount of what gets nominated doesn't get posted because no one makes the articles good enough, and an even greater amount of candidates never get nominated at all. The way to fix any kind of imbalance in coverage of topics is to improve other topics you find are under-represented. There's really nothing, short of deliberately ruining the articles on American sports, that would make them not get posted. That seems like a bad idea. However, they would roll off the main page faster if people like you spent time improving a wider-range of article topics for us to post. You don't need to do any of that, but understand that if you don't, nothing will happen to fix the problems you note. --Jayron32 13:22, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah. I don't think me improving Philippine college volleyball articles to FA standard will increase its chances of being posted here. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Picking an odd example where it is unlikely to get posted based on significance seems odd. Reliable news sources, by and large, do not cover Philippine college volleyball events. However, every day there are likely a half dozen candidate news stories which likely would pass any significance bar, and we don't post those stories mostly because they either a) are not nominated b) do not have a quality Wikipedia article to highlight. You could pick any of those to improve and nominate at ITN instead. Again, lobbing angry retorts about problems you see at ITN are easy, but ineffectual. Fixing the problem yourself takes more effort, but has the benefit of actually working. You get to decide which is more important to you, and ultimately which course of action (i.e. either angrily complaining OR improving encyclopedia articles) results in a better Wikipedia. --Jayron32 14:42, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd be more inclined to believe your idealist language if not for the fact that the Boat Race was unnecessarily dragged through the muck both when it was removed from ITN/R and when it was nominated on ITN/C. Unfortunately, we have become increasingly hostile to such stories which don't meet our doggedly high significance threshold. I thought the Pentagon Papers 2023 leak would be a big deal due to its extensive news coverage, but people didn't seem to think so. But I'll go ahead and do an experiment; I'll nominate half a dozen bona fide stories each day that I think would be newsworthy, bring the articles up to par if need be, and then see how people judge them in terms of significance. I'm honestly curious to see how it will pan out. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:49, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The significance threshold is met when the source material is analyzed. It is not met because of the highly individual and disparate life experiences of the people who happen to be around that day to comment. What I have experienced in my life, what my personal interests and likes and dislikes are have really no bearing on whether or not a story is significant (except in the highly narrow sense of to me, which is not relevant to Wikipedia in any way). All I should do is put my own personal feelings aside (which are not in any way universal) and instead base my commentary on an analysis of evidence which anyone else can also analyze. --Jayron32 16:33, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • To be fair, the golf story is an international sport event that just happens to take place in the USA. But we get this issue all the time; for example, UEFA Champions League and Premier League are usually about a week apart (and La Liga and Bundesliga are in that month as well and are ITN/R, but often don't get posted for quality). Black Kite (talk) 15:09, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For an international sport event, The Masters has an unfortunate logo, basically a map of the United States with golf hole flag in it. An outsider could be easily confused. HiLo48 (talk) 00:22, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do feel like we've hit point zero here. ITN/R items will always be more likely to be posted, as they are (by definition) foreseeable. That allows the article to be put into a good shape as it happens, rather than reacting to incoming news about a subject that may, or may not be notable enough for ITN. You can work around things at DYK and TFA etc, because firstly it doesn't matter when the item gets posted, and secondly, the date of the thing happening doesn't matter. Sports generally run as a part of a season (so much so, that some sports run at different times just so they can get coverage through the summer, etc). So, they inevitably finish around this time of year. Either we say that sporting events aren't suitable for ITN, in that they are just another result in a long list of results, but then you'd have the same deal with politics. The only difference with politics is that they happen infrequently.
    If there was an earthquake in Australia, and a hurricane in New Zealand, you wouldn't say the main page was natural disaster heavy... The question is, is that because it's uncommon, or because sports hooks are inevitably less newsworthy (for our purposes)? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:21, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The latter. Sports is popular because it's a diversion from the weightiness of matters of serious importance, i.e., the rest of the news. In my opinion, it's only a trivial distraction for people outside of the profession or athletes' closely connected circles. I feel strongly about this but I'm not going to argue about it. I will repeat my suggestion that ITN would benefit from a guideline limiting sports hooks to one at a time. Sandizer (talk) 03:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We are already having a hard time adding hooks, now you are suggesting to limit a kind of hooks one at a time? Howard the Duck (talk) 06:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My big worry here is that we are now working on a "your item is less newsworthy because it doesn't effect your everyday life" territory. Which, isn't exactly how the news works. Dependent on your location and interests, something may be super important, or not at all. A politicial election in a country that you don't live in might be of basically no interest.
I suppose the question is - do we have too many things being promoted to ITN? If we don't, who cares what subjects they are? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:45, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most ITN items stay up in excess of 7 days. The current oldest blurb is 11 days old. I leave it to others to decide if 11 days is too long or too short for an item posted in ITN to remain there. --Jayron32 10:58, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I scrolled through the previous ITN archives and ran a quick estimate of how many stories were posted then versus now.
  • March 2010: 33 posted stories.
  • March 2015: 22 posted stories, 20 posted RDs.
  • March 2018: 27 posted stories, 42 posted RDs.
  • March 2020: 9 posted stories, 73 posted RDs.
  • March 2023: 13 posted stories, 45 posted RDs.
So we've posted more RDs, but the number of actual stories that we've been posting has been on a very significant downward trend. I think this is a sign of progress. The less we post, the better! --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a symptom of the failure to improve quality articles to the point where they are main-page ready. The reason why RD postings have generally trended upwards is that people have mostly focused on improving the quality of those articles so the can end up on the main page. Wikipedia is not a news source, it is an encyclopedia, and anything that results in better encyclopedia articles is a good thing, and any process that doesn't is a symptom of a problem for Wikipedia. If ITN had more raw material to work with, we'd have more blurbs being posted at a higher rate. --Jayron32 14:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, so far this April, we've nominated nine stories and posted just two of them. We're off to a great start. I certainly don't think we have less news in 2023 than we did in 2015 or 2018, but I do believe that we have driven away editors who would be willing to contribute to ITN because many of them are sick of the gatekeeping that goes on. The reason why RD postings have generally trended upwards is that people have mostly focused on improving the quality of those articles so the can end up on the main page. Also, per WP:ITNRD, they are not subject to any sort of subjective head-count of significance. You and I are probably not going to come to a common agreement on this, though, so I will leave it at that. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:29, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure where you're getting your numbers from, but so far in April, we've had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 new blurbs, not 2. There have been many more nominations that didn't get posted; I'm not going to try to count those, but my quick check shows your methodology may be a bit off... --Jayron32 18:57, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Jayron32: Sorry, you're right. I stupidly counted just based off of the ITN/C page not realizing of course that it only displays the last seven days of nominations. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 19:05, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't been around ITN long, have you? So I'm guessing you don't know how awful the drought of stories is at the moment. As HTD says, you're proposing making the drought worse. It's not merely throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it's throwing out the bathtub as well, and the faucet for good measure. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, I have not. Could you please explain why the standards for what is worthy to be linked from the main page are more important than having more stories per month? I would think that the !voting consensus process would naturally balance those conflicting criteria. Sandizer (talk) 15:32, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Article quality is the most important standard because the main purpose of ITN is to highlight quality articles (which happen to be about recent events). So, there are minimum standards of quality that all main page articles (Not just ITN, but also DYK and OTD sections) are held to. --Jayron32 12:46, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What to do regarding ITN archives?

Although there was little agreement regarding my personal proposal of transcluding ITN nominations, clear consensus has been established in the discussion regarding the fact that something ought to be done about the current structures of archives. Long story short for those who don't know, ITN archives can get quite lengthy, resulting in nomination templates failing to render, the page taking forever to load, and a general bad user experience interacting with them. So, what should we do? I still maintain that transcluding nominations would be the best way to solve this, however, that would have to accompany a massive grounded shift in ITN as a whole to really work efficiently, and since we don't know what that could be (or in my honest opinion, would be), I want to see what perhaps may amount to a temporary bandage be implemented.

Pinging those involved in the prior discussion (@WaltCip, @Curbon7, @Modest Genius, @Thryduulf, @Xaosflux, @Andrew Davidson, @Bagumba, @Hurricane Noah, @Amakuru. - Knightsoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 02:21, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As mentioned by several people in the section above, the archives issue can be solved very simply by starting a new archive page more frequently.
We'd need to choose the new frequency - the most logical options I think are (a) two archives per month, or (b) one archive per week. Once we decide what frequency we want to archive, we need to decide a naming convention for the new archives (and, if we go with the weekly option, whether we want Sunday-Saturday, Monday-Sunday or something else; coincidentally but conveniently 1 May is a Monday), ask the bot operator to make the changes and then wait until the next archive starts. Thryduulf (talk) 03:55, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems reasonable. How would it show in the archives section though? April - I, April - II, April - III and April - IV? How would you handle when a month ends in the middle of a week?
alternately consider twice a month. The archives link then breaks it to April - I and April - II. The bot can be configured to run on 15th or 16th of every month. Do we know if fifteen days of archives will break the template? Ktin (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How would you handle when a month ends in the middle of a week? The suggestion is to use bi-monthly or weekly archives. In the case of the former archives would run from e.g. May 1-15 and May 16-30 regardless of what day of the week those days are. In the case of the latter, archives would run from e.g. April 23-April 29, April 30-May 1, etc. So each archive would span 7 days, regardless of whether there was a month break in the middle or not.
Do we know if fifteen days of archives will break the template? looking at the past few months worth of archives, templates work for 25-30 complete days so it would take an extraordinarily busy month to break after less than 15 days. Thryduulf (talk) 12:11, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It would be rather cumbersome to have a page for each and every nomination when it doesn't give much overall gain and we would still run into the problem of transcluding large amounts of material on one page. I like the idea of doing 52 weeks for the year where each week gets an archive since it eliminates the issue while keeping the noms easy to edit. I think it would be best to have the week start on Monday as recommended. NoahTalk 11:01, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first thing we should try is removing the Portal:current events boxes from every day of the archive - they're unnecessary and I doubt anyone looks at them. They also take up a huge amount of rendering time, download size and template calls, then just sit there in collapsed state. Secondly, is there a way to speed up the load and rendering times by making {{ITN candidate}} more efficient? I don't know enough about template coding to tell. Or would it help if the bot substituted that template when it moves nominations to the archives? Simply splitting the archives over more pages is a crude solution, I suggest doing so only if there isn't a better way. Modest Genius talk 11:22, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I often read the Portal:current events boxes as they are a good guide to what's going on. Archives should capture the state of pages as they were as they would otherwise distort them. They don't do this currently as they contain a full month of ITN/C whereas ITN/C only ever contains a rolling week. Weekly archives would therefore be a more natural and accurate representation of ITN/C history Andrew🐉(talk) 08:54, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the question to ask is — do you want to retain Portal:Current Events for each day as a part of the archives? Ktin (talk) 23:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Apply RD standard to blurbs

Recent deaths posts currently say Recent deaths of any person, animal or organism with a Wikipedia article are always presumed to be important enough to post (see this RFC and further discussion). Comments should focus on whether the quality of the article meets WP:ITNRD. This system has worked: RD posts are organized, civil, and productive. Compare that to the system for blurbs. There is constant arguing about what is "significant", and editors usually end up making up their own standards, sometimes with questionable arguments.

I propose that we append a similar quote to each blurb proposal on ITN, stating that any event with a Wikipedia article is presumed to be important enough to post. If an article is of sufficient quality for the main page, then post it to the main page. If it's not a notable event, then someone will nominate it for deletion. ITN had this same conversation in 2016, it was implemented for RD, and all of the worries proved unfounded. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:41, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Predicted this back in 2016 [5] /shrug. Banedon (talk) 07:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been thinking the same thing for a long while, and it's near the criteria I am already using in my own !voting. There's lots of complications in here (see movie releases, for just one example), while there's also lots of ways in which this streamlines things (such as with state funerals). It might require more stringent deletion of new articles on smaller accidents and massacres, but we'd still end up posting many more of those. We'd also be posting many more award ceremonies and the like. Article quality would become a major (if not the main) part of whether an article will be featured. I personally like this idea a lot, but it goes completely against the editorial ideas of most other editors here, who aim for the canonical worldwide newsticker first and foremost. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree if we also increase the mandated size of the update related to recent events. As I note in the Phantom of the Opera nom, if a long quality article can sustain an substantial update to reflect recent events, that event may be of some significance. Absent this addendum, this proposal removes all standards of the significance of recent events, which is a bridge to far. The comparison to RDs is not apt as the death of a article subject is per se significant for that target. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:54, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible oppose, at least right now with how broken WP is when it comes to NOTNEWS, NEVENTS, and article ownership. There would be, for example, topics dealing with nonsense, everyday US politics that get wide coverage and have decent articles, but that would never be the type we would never feature in ITN as currently, such as the mess around Clarence Thomas's reporting of gifts. The article is in good shape, it is widely covered, but at this point, it has no encyclopedic relevance because the end point that we should be interested in is if he resigns or is expelled from the seat.
ITN should not be the filter to determine NEVENTS applicability - editors should be doing that on their own before creating a new article or using NOTNEWS/RECENTISM before creating massive new sections in other articles (eg Twitter has been really hard to keep focused since Musk's takeover). And of course at the end of the day, ITN is not a news ticker, which this approach is basically arguing for. Masem (t) 12:07, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm highly doubtful that what you say will happen will in fact happen, because that assumes there are editors that participate in ITN who, the moment the walls come down, will be motivated to post every instant of trivial political or celebrity minutia that happens in the U.S.A. And for as long as I've been here, I haven't seen any evidence of this. Either way, we can avoid that by using GCG's and Maplestrip's sub-proposal which instead focuses more on having substantially updated articles. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:17, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Except the proposal is to do away with the significance criterion, and so anything that is nominated would be posted subject to article quality alone. All of the following would (probably) have been posted in the last 7 days but were not:
  • A peace deal happened 25 years ago
  • Another bit of self-driving car technology gets legal approval
  • Cyclone nominated before landfall that was less severe than it might have been
  • Diplomatic "crisis" that wasn't actually a crisis
  • Japanese prime minister is not injured
  • Minor incident in ongoing war
  • Musical closes
  • Opening of a nuclear power plant
  • Routine military posturing
  • Strike at a single university
  • US gun violence
  • US gun violence again
And the following were nominated and would have been posted if article quality had been better:
  • Apartment fire
  • Death of the former prime minister of Kuwait's son
  • Rocket launch that didn't happen
Which of these should be on ITN? If your answer is anything other than "all of them", how would you filter based on article quality alone? Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A key part that, at least for myself, our goal at ITN should be is to try to cover a diverse set of topics. Geographically and topically (eg science, sports, politics, arts, etc.) ITNR helps to a degree but there's a lot of space for other topics that fill in voids. We know things like US and UK topics will generally be more plentiful being en.wiki, and we often focus on disaster articles (natural and manmade) since these are generally build up well and have typically represented the best of article creation and ITN working together. This proposal asks us to ignore this attempt at diversity and post anything that is in the news and meets quality goals. I can tell you easily that will further push coverage to US and UK topics nearly exclusively (see how long it takes disasters in third-world countries to get to sufficient length due to poor reporting); this reflects the typical news sources but as we're not a news source, we shouldn't worry about that. Masem (t) 12:43, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal asks us to ignore this attempt at diversity - I don't quite see how what we're posting now is diverse, based on recurring efforts to refuse those items that don't fit within a preconceived mold of significance. If you go back to ITN in 2010 or 2015, you will see far more diversity in the stories that were posted compared to now. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:18, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm constantly confused by the idea that promoting diversity doesn't mean "improve articles about underrepresented topics" but rather means "hamstring all articles about topics we already post a lot of". That doesn't make any sense to me. Of course, both technically work, but only one of the two methods (improve underrepresented articles or destroy overrepresented articles) results in an overall better encyclopedia. I would prefer if instead of "Let's make sure that we post less articles about overrepresented things" we instead decided "Let's post more articles about underrepresented things". If your response is "But we don't have enough quality articles about those things" my answer is "You're allowed to fix those articles up. No one is stopping you". --Jayron32 15:19, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm constantly confused by the idea that promoting diversity doesn't mean "improve articles about underrepresented topics" but rather means "hamstring all articles about topics we already post a lot of"
Yes. Thank you for saying this. Everyone complains about why X type of stories aren't posted, but when X stories are nominated, they don't bother to fix these articles. I think one benefit of implementing this would be encouraging people to actually fix nominated articles since they would have a better stake in it. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 18:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of these may still not have been posted, because the event itself does not have an article (there's no article on Jaber Al-Mubarak's death or funeral), or because these articles would be more likely to get nominated for deletion. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thryduulf, virtually all of those are either not articles about events or are routine news that fail WP:Notability (events). A couple of them are things that were not "in the news" (i.e. they hadn't happened yet). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I wouldn't be opposed to a situation where there are categories of events that always get posted (subject to article quality and a sufficient update) - sort of like ITNR for categories of events rather than specific events. I strongly oppose removing the significance criterion completely, otherwise ITN will be full of trivia about pop culture, sports results, political scandals, gun violence and the like. Exactly which categories of events would be included I don't know off the top of my head, but looking at the current state of ITN the only event that rises to what I would consider significant but which doesn't have a consensus to post currently is Kourakou and Tondobi attacks, but all but one of the opposers are doing so on quality grounds so would not be posted under the proposed regime either. Thryduulf (talk) 12:24, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
People are already free to !vote as you proposed. Per WP:ITN: It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting. In the meantime, WP:ITN should only reflect common practices, a status this proposal has not reached (yet). —Bagumba (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I've ever hated a good-faith Wikipedia proposal this much. The result would be stories nobody cares about taking up space (of which there is little), while stories that matter to a wide population (and get a lot of traffic) rolling off in a few hours. It would also heavily bias the Main Page toward people who spend their time at ITN and can churn out eight-sentence articles over articles that naturally get updated because they're more important. The current ITN system is far from perfect, but it's a heckuva lot better than this.
Not that it's necessary to spell out, but strong oppose. Kicking222 (talk) 11:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But we don't even blurb all RDs. Kirill C1 (talk) 23:02, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So, if in the next month editors improve 2023 Fermanagh and Omagh District Council election to the same standards which would get a RD posted, it could get a blurb? And the same goes for the 130 or more other districts on the same day? That seems highly impractical and unwanted. Fram (talk) 12:43, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent question! Maybe yes? Such articles rarely ever get to a high quality bar, so it would be cool when they do! But there's a risk of spammy-ness here too, despite the quality requirements, so it's definitely a valid concern. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:12, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, it would move ITN to being simply a record of what people have taken the time to improve that day. If someone does identikit C-class articles for every distrrict election in Northern Ireland, then they'll all be featured. FWIW I don't hate this idea, I think a more objective system for promoting stories, and an increase of the number of such stories, might be a good way to showcase WIkipedia content, but as written the proposal is not that workable.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An example of a way to limit this issue, would be to only allow a max of two items per person per week, for example. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 15:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the "every nomination with a good enough article gets posted" can become quickly unworkable, but I would support a greater emphasis on observable evidence, and less emphasis on assertions and feelings presented without evidence. After all, my own perspective on what is "important" is entirely based on my own experiences, and if I only supported stories I cared about, that's hardly an equitable and useful way for me to vote. If, instead, I only voted after reading the available source material and checking the content of the article, I can base my vote on things anyone can check, and thus we have a common set of evidence to discuss from. Much more productive discussions can happen. --Jayron32 15:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose I understand the nominatior's "mission statement", that is to lower the amount of fighting that goes on in blurb discussions. However, the solution to that isn't to make it an absolute free-for-all, where every little election or run-of-the-mill shooting that gets to C-class gets posted. This is the most nuclear of the nuclear options. Curbon7 (talk) 21:31, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Reducing the fighting is a relatively low priority compared to getting rid of the constant WP:OR. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:34, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible support - I would like to sincerely thank @Thebiguglyalien for doing what I've been contemplating about doing for a while and what I was finally about to do after @Fakescientist8000's request in the Finland nomination. I would also like to thank @Snow Rise's comment under my Tyre Nichols post (see the bottom of the nomination) for really ushering in this thought into my mind. Just like them, I have become completely appalled with how unanchored Wikipedia:In The News/Candidates has become from WP:OR, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:WEIGHT, and something that he didn't mention, WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.
ITN's criteria regarding significance makes the grave mistake of not outlining what defines significance and literally admits that it is all up to the subjective and arbitrary reasonings of editors. In effect, stories are not getting posted because of real "significance," they're getting posted based on which editors show up before an admin posts. This has lead to a fundamental lack of structure and order on this part of the free encyclopedia. There's no such thing as long-established consensus on here since the result of older nominations are frequently overridden by newer ones based on the emotions of the !voterbase at the time. It's what has lead to the situations where obscure dart championships are photo-blurbed on ITN for weeks on end, meanwhile events being covered by major WP:RS sources with major ramifications are not being featured for poorly concealed WP:IDONTLIKEIT reasons. I find it worrying that its become accepted that every voter on ITN can have wildly different standards for inclusion. @WaltCip basically has no standards at this point. @Thebiguglyalien thinks that it ought to pass WP:NEVENTS. @Masem thinks that we have to be fighting the bias of MSM outlets (a point I'll get to later). @DarkSide830 and @The Kip have exceptionally high (but not clearly defined) standards. @Curbon7 and @Ad Orientem are more middle of the ground types of folks. @Alsoriano97 is reflexively opposed to anything from the United States. @Editor 5426387 just !votes for the popular opinion. @Andrew Davidson is focused on quality and significance. @Maplestrip only cares about quality. @Nableezy is biased towards American topics. How did anyone expect ITN to properly function when its contributors are all over the place?
Not only that, but with almost every significance-related argument, there are substantial holes. Most are extremely poorly defined and completely untethered from any real Wikipedia or ITN policy, with many very clearly being poorly concealed IDONTLIKEIT violations. To use as an example, I'm going to use the argument utilized by your @Masems and @Alsoriano97s (I hate to call them out, but it ought to be said) of ITN: that on ITN, we're supposed to combat bias by western/American media. We're supposed to not promote stories that are inflated by the media and instead focus on "quality (again, a term that is not clearly defined) and academic subjects from across the world." The issue is that there is nowhere in ITN's criteria where this is even stated, with it in many cases actually indicating that such points are to be opposed. What is defined as quality is essentially anything that editors that are proponents of this philosophy of !voting is basically whatever they think is an overcovered story, which is an egregious violation of WP:OR and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Wikipedia is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia, not a place to WP:POV push and vent your frustrations about MSM. For the people that complain about how news media is blowing these stories out of proportion, you know what we call those outlets elsewhere on Wikipedia? WP:RELIABLE SOURCES. I find it funny that people have been shunned, blocked, topic banned, and all that for going against WP:RS in talk pages and articles, but here, its effectively standard practice.
All these debates about significance have predictably wounded up in the complete derailment of discussion at ITN/C. I get the general impression that we're the laughing stock of the English Wikipedia. I find it telling that the four purposes of ITN (with the exception of one) have been de facto ignored by the community for years at this point. To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news - this is basically been deprecated in all seriousness. Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but its not to far off from the truth. How many major news stories - stories with extensive RS coverage with detailed and dedicated articles have we failed to post to ITN because of basically original research, editors not liking the story, and the like? I've seen people say "ITN is not WP:25," which although true, it is an argument that is often poorly used. Stories that receive widespread coverage frequently get featured in WP:25, which indicates that readers are interested in a news story and would be aided by a direct link on the Main Page. Although, I'm not calling for WP:25 to replace ITN, I find it ludicrous that to even use it as a reference source is looked down upon by large parts of the community. Just because @Andrew Davidson uses it a lot? It's very clearly an attempt to counter any arguments about readership of an event on Wikipedia if a group of editors are opposed to a story being posted for whatever reason. I find it absurd that on In The News, nominations for stories that are objectively In The News frequently wound up getting bogged down in needless discourse about "how this is not notable," "how this is overblown," "how this doesn't meet the standards for ITN" (whatever those are at this point). I've seen users unironically use WP:NOTNEWS as a rationale for opposing an article's inclusion on In The News (mind you, this was towards a blurb on ITN, not regarding the notability of any nominated article), a position so clearly self-aggrandizing and obdurate that I struggle in many cases to WP:ASSUMEGOODFAITH.
To point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them - this frequently gets ignored all the time too, and is a place of great contention. With the significance argument in play, how many stories that are receiving large amounts of coverage get shut down because people deem it "insignificant?" I'd argue in fact that the significance clauses come into direct conflict with this ITN purpose.
To emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic resource - well, it can't be a dynamic resource if blurbs only get posted once a week.
The only one that of the ITN purposes that is supported is To showcase quality Wikipedia content on current events, which is very indicative of why we should move to basing story nominations off of quality rather than made-up, unclear criteria regarding "significance." With all the bickering on ITN, that's the only thing we can agree on, and is much more objective than the rather abstract significance-based system we are currently cursed with today. There would so many benefits to moving towards quality. Not only would it lessen bickering, it would also provide great incentive to improve articles that have been nominated. I find it hilarious that there's an enormous contingent on ITN that opposed stories for being "too Euro/America/Anglo-centric," yet when articles regarding incidents in the rest of the world are nominated, many of which are in too poor of a state to be nominated, these same people never actually contribute to actually get the article shaped up for positing. By moving the quality, we implement a more hands-on approach that incentivizes against something I really detested on ITN - the massive contingent of editors who will nitpick and bicker about an article's quality, and then fail to do anything to actually remedy the situation, meanwhile the article, if it gets saved at all, is rescued by 1-3 editors who pour their time into building up these articles. I know, WP:OBLIGATION and all, but I really loathe how people will gripe about quality, not do anything to save the articles, and then often times later complain why said topics aren't being featured on ITN more. With a quality-based system, more people will be incentivized to work on articles, thus meaning that we can post a greater degree of blurbs.
With less bickering and more co-operation and content creation, we can actually turn ITN around and actually become the In The News section of the English Wikipedia once more, instead of Wikipedia:The list of abritraily selected news events that we feature on the main page based on the whims of 20 to 30 Wikipedia editors who vote emotionally and dramawhore themselves out to each other like the world's biggest orgy. You know, I hear @WaltCip, like many people his age (he's in his 50s right?) harp about the days of yore - in this case, 2011 ITN. I went there, and was shocked. Conversations were much more civil, the frequency of posting stories was much higher, there were no wild personal standards for posting that were completely unattached from any real Wikipedia or ITN quality, people weren't trying to POV push, right great wrongs, and in general, In The News was actually about stories that were In The News. It's funny how people make fun of some of the stuff that gets featured on ITNR, since they get featured on the main page in the place of more serious stories, and I point I've realized is that since most ITNR topics have been established for close to a decade in many cases, they fitted in an ITN that was regularly updated, and only now really pop out now that ITN has entered into gridlock. I see people like @Fram, @Thryduulf, @Jayron32, and the like making similar arguments to what people were saying about the 2016 RD proposal. "Oh, there are far too many articles, it would swiftly become unatonable?" "What's next, celebrity news?" "ITN will actually be updated on a regular basis just like the rest of the main page?" Just like the opposition for the 2016 RD proposal, I believe these to be wrong, because they look purely at the theoretical possibilities and not what occurs practically. In reality, as 2011 ITN showcases, focusing more and quality and less on abnormally, idiosyncratic standards for "significance," does not lead to the flood of nonsense on the main page, but instead a section of the main page, showcasing stories receiving widespread coverage form reliable sources, stories that are intriguing and enriching to the mind, and stories of quality, all woven together in a beautiful nexus that was and shall be Wikipedia:In The News. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 04:15, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm flattered, but I'm afraid you've over-aged me a fair bit. 😊 I was in my teens when I was first editing ITN. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:44, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, no Im not, and please dont ping me again if you are going to say something silly and evidence-free like that. Thanks in advance. That I opposed some of your sillier nominations and that you apparently dont understand why is a you problem, not a me problem. nableezy - 14:09, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, what would be "clearly defined standards"? I've made my point quite clear that I tend to desire events showing lasting impact. That is why I've opposed certain recent events such as the Dominion settlement (as I've noted, the impact related to an out-of-court settlement is not always significant) and the spy balloon incident (because it never was, and really still isn't, clear what will come of that situation), or why I've supported recent measures to roll back some of the rocket-related ITN/R items (because "first launch of x type" doesn't track as particularly significant). Honestly not really sure what in specific would stand as "clearly defined standards" - I like to believe I've been fairly consistent historically. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:12, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem many people have with that is the somewhat inherent vagueness of "lasting impact," which frequently becomes a way to masquerade poorly conceived WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:OR, WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, etc. arguments. Admittedly, you're one of the more consistent bearers of this line of thinking, but it still is problematic that you and I can have near-polar opposite opinions of each other. An organization cannot function effectively once core aspects are left to be vague and unclear, since you effectively disregard the idea of consensus. Because of this, ITN is less about WP:CONSENSUS and more about who happens to turn up before an admin makes a verdict on the story. How many times, for example have stories been posted based on a "consensus" from the !voterbase from one part of the world was awake at the time? - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 15:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And an organization can not function when groupthink runs rampant. There is nothing wrong with dissent, as long as it doesn't devolve into unpleasant infighting, personal attacks, etc. I have not and will not ever deny that I am innately something of a contrarian - I won't deny that - but I do believe in what I am saying and believe my rationale for my statements is well-based. In fact, you would probably find a don't disagree with you as much as you think, but in many cases I simply won't vote on noms that appear to be set to pass or fail by a landslide wherein I agree with the majority sentiment. I think you make a good point in regards to the time for which many noms are up. I believe we should keep noms open for longer in a general sense, especially if they aren't INT/R or RD (where the main concern is simply quality). DarkSide830 (talk) 16:45, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Darkside: The standards aren't that complex, it's just that certain people don't want them to be standards, because then they don't get to be the cultural gatekeepers at ITN, which is what they want to be. The standards should be "Is this the sort of story which is prominent in reliable news sources", which is to say "do we expect a sizable number of people who are paying attention to the news learning about this story". If its the sort of story that lots of reliable news sources are dedicating significant resources to cover, then it should pass the significance hurdle. The problem is that people think that they themselves are better arbiters of what is "important enough", rather than following the sources. If we followed the standard of "follow the sources" then we have some standard we can compare to. There would still be disagreement, to be sure; not everyone is going to have the same level of "enough coverage" from reliable news sources, and we can hammer that out in discussions, but at least the discussion would be focused around evidence which is available to everyone to assess, rather than on "stuff I like" or "stuff that is important to me". --Jayron32 16:20, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wholeheartedly agree that the standard is that it should be prominent in reliable news sources. And we definitely should be focusing on the concrete question is this something that news sources are treating as significant, demonstrated by depth of coverage and placement of that coverage. But things like Finland opening a new nuclear reactor are not. Things like a Black teenager being shot in the head for knocking on the wrong door are. But the voting pattern for these two events have the opposite emphasis placed on them that news sources have placed. That is, the gatekeeping goes towards both promoting niche subjects that some people want to promote, and towards knocking down those that, for whatever reason (and I have my opinions on those reasons), they want to dismiss. I think ITN nominations should be judged on a basic criteria, is this story front page news at least somewhere, and is our article sufficient to be on the main page. nableezy - 16:52, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how you'd reach that conclusion about me unless you've only paid attention to the last several days; if anything, I vote support more often. The Kip (talk) 16:43, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like we might need to workshop a revised guidelines/ruleset for this, so that we have something specific to form concensus around. Some complications have been mentioned in the discussion above, which would be nice to iron out in a collaborative fashion. Currently, any supports and opposes are based on our gut-instincts of what this guideline change would look like, but I don't think that's very helpful. Where should we create such a draft? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps start an essay. If their shortcuts become oft-cited, it'd be straightforward to promote a de facto guideline. —Bagumba (talk) 13:55, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose effectively because this could open a slippery slope of extremely minor events getting posted to ITN simply because they have an article slightly longer than a stub. Could also end up demolishing the idea of the ongoing section. The Kip (talk) 11:57, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah this is why I suggested drafting a detailed proposal, because I don't think any of this is the case at all, if guidelines are designed with it in mind. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:04, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose per all above. Small election article is created, two or so media sources pick up on it. Article is then expanded to a mid C tier, and all of a sudden this is allowed on the Main Page. Hint: that isn't good. Cheers! Fakescientist8000 14:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. This is a terrible idea. We're not DYK - posting every minor update to every current-ish event would destroy the purpose of ITN. Many other issues have been discussed above. IF anything, we should be tightening up the ridiculously permissive RD criteria, not copying it for blurbs. Modest Genius talk 14:21, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    No ones advocating for posting minorly updated articles - we're arguing for a more streamlined process for article posting. I imagine that even under this, an exception would have to be made for article relating to updated articles, since I will admit, completely abandoning standards in that regard would make way for plenty of clueless noms (even if the potential effects are being exaggerated). But aside from that, I don't see how this will destory the four purposes of ITN (as if they haven't been violated enough at this point), and I don't think that making RD standards more strict will help, especially considering how well it's worked. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 15:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I've heard people such as @Modest Genius, @Fakescientist8000, and @Curbon7 object to proposal such as this with the argument that "it would allow minor stories to get onto ITN." May I ask why exactly that's a bad thing? Are more minor stories forbidden or detrimental? They are outlined under ITN's purposes as being able to be included even if readers aren't actively looking for them. I understand the point that is being attempted to be made, but considering we frequently have three-week old photo-blurbed stories, the vast majority of which I'd argue at that point are way more stale and insignificant than fresh "minor" stories, I can't agree. Besides, as I've stated multiple times in the past, why is it that ITN sticks out as a sore thumb on the main page in that we often stay relatively stagnant for weeks on end, as opposed to everywhere else which received daily updates? - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 15:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. I emphasize in a general sense with the desire to achieve more consistency, but this is simply going too far. This is the position of a WikiNews or even Current Events. ITN does not need to nor should need to post more items. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This is a bad idea because significance is the main criterion to tell news of wide interest and trivia apart. It implies that a niche event documented in a short but stable and well-referenced article would be posted ahead of an important event documented in a long article with some issues, which is an example of inefficiency that we'd like to avoid. I also oppose the current rules of posting to RD regardless of significance because of the exact same problem, but it's not time for it now.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:53, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's outlined in ITN policies that items shouldn't be posted purely because the current items are stale. The Kip (talk) 16:45, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - significance doesnt have to be arbitrary, we can institute some standards so as to end the votes like "gun violence is endemic in America" or "prime ministers not lasting their terms are endemic in the UK", but that does not mean every random story one finds in the news is either a. interesting or b. something that people are coming here looking for more information on. nableezy - 17:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose good faith nom per most of the above. Looks a lot like WP:CREEP. Beyond which it moves ITN uncomfortable close to being a news ticker, which I suspect was more or less the point. Community discretion admittedly has its drawbacks and can result in inconsistencies. But it is vastly preferable to an arbitrary standard that ignores or drastically downplays significance. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:52, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ad Orientem: Thus far, I read "news ticker" as "a single line of news that has no substance behind it"; as in, just posting blurbs without caring about the article that it is featuring. But that doesn't seem to be how you use it here? To me, ITN currently feels more like a news ticker, and this would make it less so. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    In discussions of ITN, "news ticker" almost always means posting any item that is nominated without any filter for significance - indeed this is the most extreme version of that I can recall being suggested (normally proposals are more restricted in subject area). I don't see how this proposal would make any difference to whether ITN is or is not a news ticker using your definition of that term, as there is no proposal to change the quality requirement. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    As per discussion above (mostly my own comments I suppose), this change in philosophy would hopefully encourage higher expectations for quality or a greater focus on the extent of the update. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:40, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Good-faith suggestion, but this is a massive over-correction. GenevieveDEon (talk) 10:50, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support (unless and until a more tailored counter-proposal is made which at least attempts to harmonize guidelines and behaviour for ITNC with core project policies). I'm not a ITN regular--I think I could probably count on two hands the number of posts I have made at ITN since it has existed--so weight my opinion as you will. But what I will say is that every time I have peeked into this space in recent years, I have been fairly astonished at just how massively subjective and based in absolute WP:original research a substantial portion of !votes are, for a large proportion of candidates. Beyond not comporting with basic content policies like WP:NPOV/WP:WEIGHT, there is a pretty flagrant refusal to even adhere to ITN's own inclusion criteria. To be perfectly blunt, if this were almost any other space on the project, I think a non-trivial number of editors here (of both the inclusive- and exclusive-leaning varieties) would have been topic banned a long time ago for refusing to WP:DROPTHESTICK on pushing their idiosyncratic, POV-oriented criteria (or just disabused of the practice). To the extent that I would honestly recommend WP:ANI as the logical next step for arresting these issues, but for the fact that I recognize that it is actually the wishy-washy, far too suggestive/semi-elective tone of the ITN guidelines that is propagating these behaviours.
But something clearly needs to change here to bring these processes more in line with the policies that normally define what is WP:DUE and WP:NOTABLE for purposed of inclusion on this project. I recognize that this is a unique space with a unique function on the project, but that does not obviate it from operating in a fashion that is consistent with core policies, including by maintaining standards which respect WP:NPOV by predicating inclusion in some sort of objective reliable source-based test, rather than the subjective whims of whoever happens to be here for a given !vote. This space has just clearly become far too (and forgive me, this is a little hyperbolic, but its the most apt wording I can think of) lawless, with a free-for-all on every controversial candidate, problematically enabled by this ill-defined non-standard of "significance", which, being completely untethered from sources in a very un-wikipedian way, has instead become a kind of Rorschach test for every user invoking it, morphing to become whatever it needs to be for them in order to rationalize personal POV on what they think is an important enough thing for a person to want to know about. Just a big no from me to that continuing to be the standard operating procedure in this space (or any on this project for that matter).
And if ITN regulars really want to have the greatest amount of input on what that weight test looks like in the particulars, they should act now to formulate them before the wider community realizes just how out of control things have gotten here and imposes the rules with less built-in discretion. That's precisely what eventually happened at the Reference Desks after many years of inaction on the glaring issues that persisted there without being internally addressed, and that space is very similarly positioned to ITN, in terms of having a unique function, but still not being free to toss basic policy to the winds. Sooner or later, this will land at the village pump if the regulars here don't self-regulate and find a source-based standard. Take my word for it. And probably on the sooner side of things. If you want to bake in as much flexibility as possible to avoid overinclusion while still keeping the test based in something other than personal sentiment, the time to act is now. In the absence of such nuanced rules, I support the proposed solution as necessary to bring this corner of the project into compliance with global community expectations, per my thought here, as well as those of Thebiguglyalien, Jayron, and Knightoftheswords above. SnowRise let's rap 21:28, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your points are well-reasoned and well-intentioned, and I completely agree that the way stories are discussed and posted should be changed- I would be happy to judge nominees based solely on the amount of news coverage and quality of article- but this is an absolutely gigantic overcorrection. The Reference Desk and the Main Page are extremely different beasts, and we don't need three-paragraph C-class articles with single-digit view counts about county elections or semi-pro sports leagues clogging up a page seen millions of times per day. I also don't believe that this proposal would in any way impact the outsized influence of people who frequent ITN; rather, it would simply allow some of those people to spend ten minutes writing an article and then getting it pushed to the Main Page. Kicking222 (talk) 01:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it so difficult to convince people that three-paragraph C-class articles simply should not meet our quality requirements for ITN. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 06:41, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly agree with that. Make no mistakes, my !vote is definitely based on a lesser of two evils analysis. I'd be very happy to see a standard promulgated which greenlights only candidates that meet a certain threshold of coverage. But the ITN regulars have had a very long time to get that done and make the process here consistent with pillar policies, and collectively they just haven't taken the importance of making standards that work within those policies seriously enough to get that done. I'm not keen on opening the floodgates to overinclusion, but I think it's more defensible under policy than the alternative of indefinitely allowing the entire process to be completely defined by ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT--which is absolutely and unambiguously what the vague significance standard is, so long as it is un-tethered to coverage in reliable sources and !votes as to whether a candidate is "significant" are instead predicated on the idiosyncratic impressions of individual contributors as to what qualifies as an important topic.
Now the good news for your perspective is that it looks like the current proposal is likely not going to pass, unless there is a radical shift in the !votes as things run along. But I still want to provide feedback that identifies what I think the priorities ought to be here. And I think making the process consistent with the expectation of neutrality as it is meant to operate on this project is the more important factor than fear of overinclusion. Because the middle road option that is undoubtedly the best one (a test based on sources but requiring a significant coverage threshold) shouldn't be put off much longer. I honestly think its best if that conversation be well informed by ITN regular input, so that the exact amount and type of coverage needed for inclusion is calibrated by editors with experience in this space. And if there is much more dilly-dallying, and someone eventually gets frustrated enough to take this to VPP in a couple of months, the ITN voices are going to get a lot more diluted. It'll take some work, but it shouldn't be impossible to create a standard that guards against overinclusion while making sure the call is always based on sources, not feelings. But it will require some here to let go of a frame of mind that personal impressions about the importance of a topic can be a part of a Wikipedia inclusion criteria. That's just not how it works on this project. SnowRise let's rap 22:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sooner or later, this will land at the village pump if the regulars here don't self-regulate and find a source-based standard. – Just to make this clear, this was my original intention. The issue has been raised regularly and the majority of participants at ITN have shown little interest in reform or in compliance with policy. This proposal was a last ditch effort to get this corner of Wikipedia to reintegrate with the community before pushing for external reform. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:19, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that ITN is not a news ticker, which is why a source-based standard can't work, at least as a primary criteria. ITN is on the main page to showcase high quality articles that happen to be in the news, and thus we expect that either a fresh new article to be of good quality, or an existing article of good quality receives a reasonable update. All why ITN was created and given a carve-out on the Main Page.
The Current Events page is set up to handle news that comes out of a sourced-based approach, but it doesn't worry about article quality, which is why it can't be directly on the Main Page. Masem (t) 16:34, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Masem, your rationale does not track for me here at all--to the point where I am not sure I am even divining the meaning of what you are trying to say. It what ways does the fact that "ITN is not a news tracker" (as a predicate) lead to the conclusion that we should not use a test based in sourcing, as expected for every other standard for inclusion on this project, and as required by a pillar policy? If anything, establishing a source-based test seems more likely to keep the section from becoming an arbitrary list of events, not less.
Similarly, you're presenting a false choice by suggesting we're talking about either a quality standard or a weight standard, when there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't be employing both--for the obvious reason that neither is really negotiable under core policies. And certainly in no way does the current vague "significance" test and the various idiosyncratic, subjective opinion pieces it invites from contributors on virtually every candidate lead to a guarantee of quality, or more or less of a "ticker" feel to the section; rather, all it does is shift discussion to non-objective debate based on the biases of contributors as to what is "important" enough topic to be included. As much as in any other space on this project, we are expected to formulate methodologies to remove the sentiments of editors from the process, and the way we do that on Wikipedia is by looking to the sources, rather than our personal perspectives. SnowRise let's rap 10:33, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"May I ask why exactly that's a bad thing?"
Because ITN is for major news, change of governments, Oscars, Superbowl, Death of Queen. Kirill C1 (talk) 23:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One is entitled to that opinion, but it's not an WP:ITNCRIT restriction. —Bagumba (talk) 01:50, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Super Bowl is major news now. A decade ago the discussions on adding that to ITN were longer than the actual articles. Progress, I think? Howard the Duck (talk) 02:19, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Exception to staleness

In some cases, the facts surrounding an event are slow to emerge. This may be due to limited news resources in developing countries, or active censorship by governments or other parties. This tends to impact those places that we are trying to cover more to counter BIAS. My proposal is that we update the guidance to allow nominations for stale events if the nominator provides an argument for why the item could not have been nominated sooner (much like we allow RDs today using "death announced on this date"). The decision to grant an exception would be subject to the same balance of arguments as quality and significance. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:14, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would rather see ys recognize that a significant event in the part of the world with poor media cover may not let us het to the ~1500 chars we'd want in an article. So we allow that criteria to be put on hold in itn discussions. What can be discussed should be high quality and now have only 2 lines about the event and the rest being fluff in background and reactions. Masem (t) 15:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Staleness is assessed by when a story is in the news not by when it happened. If the news isn't covering it, it isn't In The News. If I discover something from news stories that ran two months ago, but no one bothered to nominate it then, why should we ignore the staleness criteria if it isn't in the news right now? --Jayron32 15:22, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My issue is more like a combination of what you and Masem are saying: something happens, and there is very light coverage in the following days. Then 2-3 weeks later, someone jumps in with more thorough coverage that took awhile to flesh out. GreatCaesarsGhost 18:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would support this, if in addition to this, staleness will no longer be a facet for denial. I don't get how we disqualify stories for "staleness," merely because they happened seven days before, when there are three week old photo blurbs on {{ITN}}. The requirement for staleness should be that the story is older than the current blurb. Of course, the seven-day rule was implemented in a time where ITN wasn't in a state of near permanent gridlock for most of the time, and if me an @Thebiguglyalien's proposal to shift requirements for posting a blurb passes, it may not be as necessary when blurbs get posted on a semi-daily basis. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 18:39, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It would be reasonable to base staleness off of when the bulk of news sources are writing about a subject, rather than when the event actually occurred. This is already how Recent Deaths works, as deaths might be reported a week or two after occurring. Some news stories need to work their way up to the big publications. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 06:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think this can be addressed by the simple expedient of making a WP:IAR nomination. Post the nom under the current date and explain that it is IAR and why you think that an exception to our customary practices and guidelines should be made. Obviously, this is unlikely to fly in routine situations. But I agree that there are and have been some stories that only really gained traction well after the initial event. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Minimum duration for a discussion prior to closure

I think many regulars on here are probably aware of stories that were closed way to quickly, just because they received an initial flurry of (usually) oppose votes. I know, WP:SNOW exists, but firstly, that's not an official guideline, and secondly, are we really finna decide what consensus is in a few hours? For example, my nomination of Ralph Yarl was closed in three hours, just because of a flurry of oppose votes. On the flip side, the Dominion v. Fox nomination was posted within half a day. Looking in ITN archives, I've seen discussions be closed in like 45 minutes just because of an initially large opposition. As @Black Kite correctly pointed out, this spurs issues relating to global time zones. Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia, and the English Wikipedia, being the Wikipedia for the world's lingua franca, has contributors from all over the world. Thus, when we shut down discussions in less than an hour, that's effectively flipping the bird to folks who were sleeping at the time, working, etc. Besides, just because there may be an initially large opposition, doesn't mean that consensus has been developed (e.g, LeBron James' record nom [even if that fiasco was also influenced by drive-by voters]).

I propose that we implement a minimum 24-hour moratorium on closing discussions. The exception would be in cases such as the start of a war, or some other major, news-of-the-year type event, in which there would be clear consensus to post immediately (e.g, to use the past, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US presidential elections, or the use potential events, a PRC-ROC war, US civil war, etc.). Even then, said consensus shall be heavily evaluated by a trusted admin, so that this clause doesn't get abused as a loophole around the moratorium. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 18:08, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Youre basically asking to make in the news post things that after they are no longer in the news. No, I dont think we should do that. nableezy - 18:12, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is pretty damn close to a perennial proposal, and the answer has regularly been no, usually for WP:CREEP reasons. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:22, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would also suggest, gently, that it might be best to disengage from the proposals for a bit, so as not to be viewed as editing tendentiously. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:29, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The issue with any sort of proposal like this is getting agreement in specific standards. I'm not sure we can create such a policy, in spite of my agreement with you in the prior discussion. Ideally, this should be more of a recommendation to Admins to keep nominations open (or to discourage non-admin closures, which have been quite frequent lately). There is no real need to close nominations, particularly in the "oppose" direction, early. In fact, in general, I believe we should simply empower Admins more on choosing when to close, what votes should be considered, etc. That would be a great way to keep voting relevant while also discouraging "poor voting" as well. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thats a WP:PEREN for ITN. There are good reasons for fast closure that no ruleset would be obvious. Masem (t) 19:47, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • More WP:CREEP. Speedy closures are not all that common and when they do happen, they are justified in all but very rare cases. In those instances where a discussion is speedily closed if there is a disagreement, it can be boldly reopened. I will note that if it was closed by an admin or very experienced editor, you will probably want to want to take a deep breath and talk to them first. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Elsewhere on Wikipedia, discussions are customarily held open for 7 days or more in order that everyone has an opportunity to have their say and so ensure a good consensus. This period of a week is the standard guidance of WP:WHENCLOSE, " It is unusual for anyone to request a formal closure by an uninvolved editor unless the discussion has been open for at least one week." A week is also the period used for archiving of nominations at WP:ITN/C and so a week is the natural period for discussions here too.
The contrary practise of rushing to claim a consensus or lack of same is natural for breaking news but we're supposed to be an encyclopedia not a news site and so we should resist the temptation to make hasty decisions in order to be first or get a scoop. See festina lente. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:02, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine waiting a day (or a week!) to post about 9/11. nableezy - 17:41, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's Andrew, considering his opposition to ITNR as a whole I'm not sure I expected different. The Kip (talk) 06:14, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's a stretch to argue that wanting to make admins wait a week to post major news with a clear consensus is a POINT. -- Kicking222 (talk) 13:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - News is (or ought to be) fast-moving. We can handle excessively fast closures on a case-by-case basis. I think we should resist further instruction creep. GenevieveDEon (talk) 10:48, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:CREEP, etc. The nature of these things is that they need to be kept current. The only time we should worry about a posting is if the highlighted article is itself wrong, badly written, inaccurate, badly sourced or otherwise below quality. Every other possible objection is "I'm mad this got posted because it's something I'm not interested in myself", which isn't really a reason to pull something off the main page. If you notice a posting which is inaccurate or wrong, of course you can (and should) raise a stink. If your objection is "I didn't get to torpedo this posting because the subject isn't important enough to me" then I have zero sympathy. --Jayron32 12:50, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per all above. WP:CREEP applies, and sticking a minimum discussion time on something even when it's obvious it won't pass effectively runs counter to SNOW itself. The Kip (talk) 06:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose While I do think closings can be premature, 24 hours is too long, and any exception to a minimum would need to be clearly defined. For example, if something is unquestionably covered on ITN/R, should it be exempt? What about an unquestionably major event (say, Country A kills hundreds in Country Z with a surprise bombing) that isn't ITN/R? What if a nation merely declares war? Where's the line?
Funny enough, this discussion could be SNOWed. -- Kicking222 (talk) 13:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Make WP:SNOW closures a little later.

This is just a minor proposal really but should there be a set amount of time before we close a nomination based off of WP:SNOW. I'm bringing this up because I just remembered about the existence of the (2023 New South Wales State Election nomination) and saw that this nomination was SNOW closed in right around an HOUR and this was justified based off of three opposes. Now, I would've voted oppose for that nomination regardless (not a fan of subnational elections on ITN) but is it really necessary to be able to close a nomination in an hour?

My proposal is essentially, wait at least 6 hours before a nomination can be SNOW closed. Onegreatjoke (talk) 00:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Rule creep, not needed. There is no need to keep a show going when it's clear where it's heading. This is also basically a duplicate of the thread immediately above this one. Curbon7 (talk) 00:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's technically a duplicate but in reality, it's covering two different issues. The above thread concerns allowing a 12-hour or 24-hour minimum for threads to be discussed before a consensus to post is decided upon, so that the rest of the world (but more often than not, the "rest of Europe") has a chance to weigh in on items. The idea behind that seems to be that for any U.S.-centric events that are voted upon while other regions are asleep, that the U.S.-located !voters cannot be dispassionate when weighing the significance of those types of events. In those particular instances, an administrator is making the decision to post an item, and therefore that becomes a WP:CREEP issue since admins are well capable of exercising their own judgment without adding additional rules to their work.
This is a different matter, because WP:SNOW closes aren't made by an admin. They're usually a result of two or three voters saying "oppose and snow close" and then the item immediately gets locked by another "impartial" non-admin !voter. I think this is right lousy. When the 2023 French pension reform strikes were posted to ongoing, the first !vote on that item was "Speedy SNOW close Article is on the verge of being a stub". When the Gualaca bus crash was posted, the fourth !vote was "Bus plunges off a cliff into the WP:SNOW". That !vote was six hours into the nomination. There are instances in which SNOW is obvious but an actual consensus needs to take time to develop, and we need to get editors weighing in on an item rather as opposed to a roving Council of No shooting down anything that doesn't immediately fit their mold of significance. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:36, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This was not a matter specific to Europe, this goes for everywhere; though it is true that this issue is disproportionately raised by Europeans since they're the ones that tend to complain about "US-centrism." - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 23:15, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It might be tempting to associate the vast majority of "the world isn't awake yet" !votes with European nationality, but in spite of my offhand statement, I would hesitate to do so because it may not always be the case, and because it unhelpfully paints a broad brush as to the position and identity of those !voters. There are a good number of European !voters who don't care when something is nominated and thereafter posted. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:49, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do we need to invoke CREEP for every proposal that suggests more rules be put in place? It's not helpful. DarkSide830 (talk) 14:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The NSW one wasn't SNOWed solely because of the three opposes, but because subnational elections are almost never posted, as per long-standing policy/consensus/whatever you'd like to call it. The Kip (talk) 04:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support proposal for reasons I'll go into momentarily, but which mostly amount to the impossibility of actually measuring consensus in an hour and the fact that some users aren't always the best judges of when a SNOW consensus has been reached. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 11:14, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just reopen if you want to support the nom. If you oppose the nom (as you did here), there's no reason to suggest the SNOW was premature. While bad closures happen, the type of noms that get snowed are either by veterans who are being pointy and should be sanctioned for it, or newbies who should be shielded from the pile-on opposes. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:59, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the latter part is what bothers me most of all. We have good-faith contributors who have never edited at ITN before, show up to nominate something they believe is newsworthy, and then get oppose !votes spewed at them with rationales like "Seriously?" or "so what?" or "this isn't US-pedia", which doesn't really help abate the widespread consensus that ITN/C is a toxic place to be. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ITN/C isn't a toxic place though. A small handful of editors who frequent can be controversial or flippant, but I wouldn't say it's entirely toxic in the same breadth, say, ANI is. The Tesla launch, for example, was a contentious candidate and yet nearly every comment was sound. Curbon7 (talk) 15:00, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do actually agree with Walt (which is not something that happens too often) on this point- everyone should be welcome in all areas of WP, and even if ITN isn't a 10 on the toxicity scale, it's still like a 6, which is bad for everyone and especially for new contributors. I have definitely seen comments akin to "so what?" many times, when it wouldn't be much harder to spend two minutes reviewing sources and instead say "good-faith nom, but the level of news coverage isn't sufficient for ITN posting". Kicking222 (talk) 15:44, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

VPM Discussion

Can we take a straw poll here (non-binding of course) regarding ITN? Because I'm a strong oppose on posting a ceremonial coronation for a succession we already posted. GreatCaesarsGhost 18:52, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Think thats going to have to wait for the inevitable nomination. But same, and the past nominations of inaugurations for heads of state (and the US president is that) would, in a rational world, inform debate of one in the UK (eg Trump, Biden). nableezy - 18:58, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, no; I understand that. But there is a presumption in the VP that ITN is going to post this, which seems unlikely to me so I'm curious what the usual gang of idiots thinks. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:00, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The coronation ceremony and the ascension to the throne are two separate things, so I don't see why it would be precluded because we posted the ascension. Curbon7 (talk) 19:02, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because we routinely decline to post events that are the direct consequence of things we have already posted. Eg a change in the leader of a country's government when it has already been blurbed from the result of an election. Or, in the exact corollary to the coronation of a new head of state (but with more consequence because it is not a ceremonial role), the inauguration of the US president. nableezy - 19:04, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Honestly, I originally wanted to be a "Strong Oppose" on this, especially out of a personal fear of the Anglospheric bias that I believe can be present in ITN, but considering it has been over 70 years since the last coronation of a British monarch, I think there is something to be said about Charles's coronation being worthy of posting. However, I would say I am, in general, opposed to coronations more or less under the policy that Nableezy has noted. DarkSide830 (talk) 20:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see any reason why we would prevaricate on our usual criteria. If the event meets the standards of significance (however subjective), reliable source coverage, and quality article updates, then it should be posted. We can't control how the other Main Page sectors behave. And I'm not keen on hosting a "pre-vote" ahead of time on the ITN Talk Page where there's fewer eyes. -⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 22:28, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe this thread was started in good-faith. However, I would recommend that discussion be had at WP:ITNC once the nomination is made. Ktin (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Considering that its been decades since the coronation of a British monarch, I' not sure applying the same set of rules regarding official ceremonies regarding normal transfers of power should be applied. I also question the underhandedness of this discussion; I agree with @WaltCip that this low-key feels like a backdoor nomination to shut down the conversation early, even if @GreatCaesarsGhost is being WP:GOODFAITH. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 13:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't feel like you are assuming good faith when you say it "low-key feels like a backdoor nomination" when I explicitly said "straw poll" and "non-binding." You could just assume I meant a non-binding straw poll. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:49, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I for one can't fathom why someone floating an idea here must always be struck down as attempting to subvert consensus. This page is for discussion. We are discussing. What is wrong about that? One could argue the whole concept of INT/R is an attempt to do the same thing. I wouldn't agree, but some past INT/R adversaries have felt this way. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:49, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have any problem with the discussion. I said I wasn't keen on a pre-vote, mostly because of the lower participation here as opposed to ITN/C, but I don't have any intention on blocking it as it is non-binding after all. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 19:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're being good faith, I just don't really see the point of a non-binding straw poll for an event that hasn't even been occurred. As WaltCip proclaimed, there is way less participation here, which not only means there's less community input, but also gives more leeway to the inevitable poster of the coronation. We all know that Charles III's coronation is finna be nominated, why not just wait a week to argue and debate about it instead of attempting to probe consensus this early (especially considering WP:CCC)? - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 21:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the reason it matters here is because theres a related discussion about how other sections of the main page are going to be largely themed around the coronation (the ony Roy linked to), and it assumes that this section as well would have material related to the coronation. So whether or not we also would have that coverage may inform that discussion. nableezy - 21:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Theres no transfer of power here. And our usual criteria is not to post material that is the result of something we already posted. But can argue this in a week I suppose. Honestly, we could have a binding decision here to include in the ITN/R section on Elections and heads of state and government that it include coronations of heads of states that have already been blurbed. Though I am at a loss as to how the president of Cuba or the Cuban elections were knocked down as being undemocratic and merely a coronation for the Communist Party's chosen successor with little actual power does not apply here. If you guys operated with any consistency here you wouldnt even consider this. nableezy - 16:08, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Main page balance

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Marking closed. Taken care of. If there is a subsequent conversation that needs to be had about the whole premise of main page balancing — please consider opening a new thread / discussion. If someone feels strongly about not closing this one, please feel free to revert my closure. Ktin (talk) 00:51, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The Japanese ship blurb was on the main page for less than seven hours (Hello, Goodbye). Could an item from OTD not have been removed instead, considering we have just three blurbs up now? Curbon7 (talk) 05:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • The supposed balance of the desktop main page is broken. Currently, ITN's content is squeezed into just 100 square centimetres (16 in2) while the sprawling FP section wastes 150 square centimetres (23 in2) of white space. The problem seems to be that no-one is in charge of the overall composition and the admins sacrifice ITN content to promote other sections, giving them far more space.
None of that matters in the mobile and app views of these sections, which provide a more compact presentation which automatically eliminates white space. So ITN loses out in those views because it has less content due to the desktop sacrifice. And it's the mobile view which gets the most readership. The tail is wagging the dog. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:14, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Establishing notability for current events

Motivation

The "In the news" (ITN) has recently seen several nominations of varying notability within the United States itself. These nominations have attracted a faction of users—myself included—who believe it is not ITN's responsibility to cover every event regarding a particular geographic region. Detractors of this school of thought have pointed to the ambiguous nature of WP:ITNSIGNIF and the suggestive tone of the signifiance of ITN nominations, that it is merely guidance to avoid submitting geographically isolated stories, or the classic line, "Please do not oppose an item solely because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is generally unproductive". While any user may suggest a newsworthy topic, it is clear that there is established consensus that some stories hold more weight than others; such consensus will be discussed in several paragraphs.

Establishing notability extends beyond the recent U.S. nomination imbroglio. In March, a user nominated the release of GPT-4 to ITN. The overwhelming response was against posting; aptly, "Companies doing company things". This consensus was formed on the collective belief that product releases are not suitable for ITN. While I argue not that it is in any regard incorrect, how did this consensus form, lacking an official guideline?

Rationale

The responsibility is ultimately within the Wikipedia community to establish consensus themselves, and textbook policies—as I will describe—are not to be treated as absolutes. However, the ambiguity around ITNSIGNIF will, and has, intensified discussions. The solution is to establish a policy in which all editors can follow.

The work of establishing notability guidelines for ITN is neither feasible nor easily done. There are currently several principles for nominations, verbatim:

  • The length and depth of coverage itself
  • The number of unique articles about the topic
  • The frequency of updates about the topic
  • The types of news sources reporting the story

These principles omit several glaring guidelines; for one, triviality remains to be seen in these principles. Remaining deliberately broad here is not an oversight in the system, but an intentional decision to ensure equitable nominations, and I respect that.

Implementation

The use of "historically" in ITNSIGNIF suggests that a majority of users, at the time of writing, believed in notability across all regions of the Earth. Building off of this consensus, it is fair to say that there must be clear notability from a variety of geographically isolated sources. In spite of such a restriction, it may still be advantageous to some users to insert even one article from outside of the source country in order to meet this. It is then that this must be taken with WP:COMMONSENSE. It behooves English Wikipedia to eliminate systemic bias, including its coverage of notable events. It is, of course, not inherently despicable to nominate an article from one's home country, but one must understand how Wikipedia used worldwide. It is then increasingly difficult for corporate news to enter ITN.

It is also of the interest of these "conservative users", again, myself included, to accomodate for a growing number of new users who seek to make an impact in ways ranging from constructive to destructive. This should be met with appreciation, but reserved accomodation. If ITN shifts towards the consensus of a U.S.-focused majority, it is the larger role of systemic bias to blame for this shift, not the policy in which these users developed and contributed to this bias. One must also note here that there may be a personal or self-centered reason for nominating ITN articles that extends beyond "making an impact", but such a conclusion may only be made with clear evidence, and it is often that making an impact leads to pride, especially among a younger editorship.

I cannot commend a recent trend of bruteforcing one's way through a nomination through excessive sources, however, which is why it should also be stated that the breadth of a news item is not the only deciding factor in determining notability, although broad coverage certainly enhances an already strong news topic. One can pull up dozens of local news sources in the U.S. to attempt to push an article through, but it should not be seen as anything more than "the bare minimum". It may often be that a user does not see the global impact of a news item, in which case several external sources may be helpful, but the level to which the source list is inundated with internal sources is not particularly beneficial. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 06:10, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments (notability for current events)

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time understanding what sort of guideline or even philosophy change you are proposing here. Are you simply asking for people to stop opposing articles that relate to specific subject matters or specific countries? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat)

The given rationale's 4 points all belie that WP is not a newspaper and ITN is not a news ticker. While how much a topic is covered in a range of sources can be important, we have to recognize that some topics promoted by the media are day-to-day stories and are not the types of enduring topics that WP nominally writes about, and that's before even applying what should be our attempts to minimize systematic bias that favors English language and Western topics. If we go back to why ITN was established - to feature new articles written to a reasonably high quality of standard within days of a significant event (eg 9/11) - our goal should be focused more on looking at article quality (if new), or the significance and update of an existing high quality article to reflect new events. Sourcing is important, but that should be towards how well those sources can be integrated into the new article or the update. --Masem (t) 12:11, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Masem, when you say the given rationale's 4 points all belie that WP is not a newspaper and ITN is not a news ticker, I want to be sure I understand what you mean when you say "belie". Are you suggesting that those four principles are unsatisfactory for determining encyclopedic significance due to the fact that they would be used to push through items that are more useful for a news ticker than for ITN? Because if you are saying that, then we need to exorcise or modify those four principles entirely because that's what is currently listed on WP:ITNSIGNIF. The last thing we want to do is confuse new contributors who experience cognitive dissonance when they see a difference between rules and application. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:40, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Its being argued to use those as the only controls, when really those need to be backed off significantly. It is what sourcing is there to be able to develop a good new article or a good, reasonable sized updated to a topic that should be starting point, and that's how news sourcing gets reflected in the selection of blurbs. Masem (t) 12:23, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I half feel like this was intended to preempt a proposal I had just sent to Jayron32 a few days ago. In any case, I think this is the wrong way of going about it. First of all, I don't actually understand what it is you're implementing. Second, what we instead need to focus on is defining what we actually mean when we say "significance" so that there are consistent standards we can apply to all news stories, without actually drastically altering our process. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:35, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • I too have no idea what the OP is going on about. They mention something about a "recent U.S. nomination imbroglio", about which I only remember the OP making demonstratively false claims about an overabundance of U.S.-based postings (at a time when there was exactly 1 such posting at ITN). Other than that, I don't read any actual proposal to enact in the entire WP:TLDR wall-of-text above. What exactly are you proposing? --Jayron32 13:16, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I feel obliged to respond to this since it seems to be at the very least subconsciously directed to me to a large extent.

Like @Maplestrip and @WaltCip, I still don't understand what exactly you're attempting to implement. However, I do have to point out a critically false statement in the implementation section: that ITNSIGNIF was created to facilitate stories with wide-ranging notability across the earth. That is not true; for example see what was getting posted to ITN a decade ago. Stories were getting posted with much less "significance" (whatever that means) and at faster speed. Likewise, and I will always say this to the "we need to eliminate systemic bias on ITN" crowd, there's nothing stopping you from nominating a story from an under covered part of the world. Something that always irks me is that these folk are always complaining about how we need to be less Euro-centric in our story-posting, yet users from this clique rarely, if ever actually posts any story from non-western areas; always in stead opting to express their anti-Euro/US-centrism via voting oppose on American/Western stories. Likewise, when these stories do get posted (ironically enough, usually by people outside of this group since this group tend to have ostentatiously and or idiosyncratically high standards for what should be posted on ITN), and they need quality improvement, these folks, who supposedly have a vested interest in expanding ITN's coverage, never participate in whipping up these articles into shape (and if said articles ever are, its rarely done by the clique). That is in fact a grave issue on ITN and frankly a lot of Wikipedia. The few people who complain, talk, dramawhore, and stonewall the most are the ones that contribute the least to actually improving ITN, whereas the the silent majority of editors are the ones who actually improve ITN and article content.

Also, I'm not sure why we need to place greater emphasis on "global coverage" considering that this is the English Wikipedia, and the vast majority of our userbase is from the Anglosphere. I understand that English is the lingua franca, and so we will get an additional amount of people outside there, far more than other Wikipedia's get from areas outside the core base of their respective languages, but still, the statistics show that the vast majority of our readers are from the Anglosphere, and I think that the whole "we need to lessen systemic bias" argument is partially propagated by how since Enwiki is the flagship version of the WMF's flagship site, in relation to being the lingua franca, article size, etcetera, there's a disproportionately large amount of active Enwiki editors from outside the Anglosphere, who a) make it seem there are more non-Anglo users than there are for folks in the Wikipedian bubble, and b) are more disconnected from the Anglosphere and thus view stories from here as of less significance. Other wikis often times focus exclusively on their linguistic base (e.g, when COVID was placed in ongoing on the Indonesian Wikipedia, it linked to COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia). Also, and this is something I've been meaning to ask for a while now, what does implementing "stories of significance on a global scale" even entail? Because if you were to interpret that statement literally, ITN would be updated probably barely over ten times per year. Additionally, considering that what counts as "consensus" on this part of Wikipedia is basically a count of the emotional votes of who decides to show up to a nomination prior to its posting/closure, I highly doubt that "past consensus" would be rigorous enough metric to effectively use.

As for bruteforcing one's way through a nomination through excessive sources, considering that people (including you) routinely use the location of the outlets used for sources as an argument in of itself, I don't see any issue. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 14:29, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To go off on the second part of the first section, as one of the opposers of the mentioned GPT-4 nomination mentioned, well, product releases had never been brought up on Wikipedia as far as I knew, and if product releases were to be allowed, then the ITN box would have at least one product release, or two, or three, or even the entire box, because major companies will continue to make products, because that's what companies simply exist to do.

To go on a more broad view on how consensus form, a simple mixture of Wikipedia policy, and the personal opinion of the editor. The editor has a thought, and it is reined in by policy, I suppose you can say. GPT-4 I find is an example of the latter, because there was no policy about products being released and how that would affect ITN, so it was chosen based on the opinion of the editors, consensus thus forming. Maybe what I'm saying is a massive load of bull, though, you can disagree. TheBlueSkyClub (talk) 15:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can't verify that it's the most recent case, but the most recent product launch that I can recall was the posting of GTA V being the biggest entertainment launch ever in 2013, and obviously, that was about a record, not the mere launch. Personally, I was totally fine with that blurb, but I'm not sure that I could get behind simply "X is released". Kicking222 (talk) 11:27, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, I feel like we should be talking more about DYK and its criteria. I know a lot of people hate the "DYK material" oppose, but records ARE better suited for DYK. The obvious barrier is the fairly (and perhaps prohibitively) high bar for DYK inclusion. Instead, DYK currently focuses on (at least in my opinion) a lot of things to which I feel compelled to respond "who cares"? I'm sure the DYK people would disagree, but the issue clearly is a lack of places to put certain news items that aren't up to ITN standards but may not fit in Current Events either. Personally, I would love if DYK became more of an "interesting news" section over what it is now (i.e. factoids about something that you probably have never heard about and likely don't care about). DarkSide830 (talk) 15:00, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
DYK is a different project with it's own standards. It isn't the "ITN rejects bin" and this forum is not the correct place to discuss changes in DYK processes. Take it up at WT:DYK. --Jayron32 12:00, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just floating it. This is a talk page after all. Just talking. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:08, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Expand the number of RDs we display?

I've been looking at the number of RDs we have marked as ready lined up and noticed as well that given we only have 5 RDs on display on ITN at one time, potentially we could have the sitation where an RD could get pushed out within 24 hours (indeed Len Goodman's looking like he'll have less than 48 hours). So May I propose that it might be prudent that we expand the number of RDs we display (to 7 or 10 perhaps?) to ensure that all articles have reasonably consistent lengths of time on there and less likely to get bumped if we have a large influx like we do now? The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 11:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • We have 6, not 5; also, the readys aren't all posted at the same for that very reason, the admins know to space it out. 24 to 48 hours seems to be the ideal amount of time, not too short and not too long. Curbon7 (talk) 12:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    We also cannot control when people die, so there will be periods that maybe 10 RDs are nominated in a day, while others, 1 or 2. We don't give any RD any extra weight unless it can be argued as a blurb. The Recent Deaths link links to all known RDs (not just those nominated at ITN) so people can check there. Masem (t) 12:21, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's already pretty packed as it is. I don't think adding more would be a good idea without also coordinating the activity of other Main Page areas to ensure we don't create a balance problem. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:03, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, Christ almighty, I've just now noticed we have like 5 or 6 different proposals on WT:ITN just these past two weeks. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:05, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to WP:ITN/A, "There is a limit of six RD items at a time in the section." Where did this number of six come from? It doesn't seem a particularly good fit. When I look at the desktop view, it's a line and a bit, with lots of wasted space. In the mobile view, it's two lines and a bit with most of a line being wasted again. I reckon any entry ought to get a minimum of 24 hours, even if that makes the section a bit longer for a while. Main page balance is a non-issue as it's not our problem, doesn't affect the mobile view and the current entries are tiny.
But what's really needed is one line per entry with a short description of each person as you get on other language editions such as German and Spanish. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:30, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The number six came from adding two to four. And if you want to know how we got to four, well that was by adding one to three. And if you want to know how we got to three, the answer is by adding three to zero. --Jayron32 16:05, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Main page balance is partially in ITN'S realm. the new Vector skin has introduced a number of fun challenges Masem (t) 18:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • ITN is already overly dominated by RDs- we post far more of them than blurbs and it produces a real problem with balance. If we're posting so many RDs that even with six slots they're getting less than 24 hours each, then I think we need to look at reducing the number that are being posted, not increasing the number of slots. I would prefer more of our time and attention to be spent on blurbs, not RDs. Modest Genius talk 15:47, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The current problem was created when the posting rules for RDs were modified about a year ago exactly 2 years, 4 months and 7 days ago. Previously, RDs were posted on a strictly chronological basis by order of death (or, in the case of a significant gap in reporting, by order in which the death appeared in the news. 99% of the time this was less than 24 hours discrepancy, so it wasn't really an issue, and only came up on an IAR-level of occurrences. But I digress). So what that meant was, if it took too long for people to clean up the article, they would miss the window when it would appear in the RD list. Sometime about a year ago, we changed it to be "Put the most recently passed nomination on the top, and take the last one off the bottom" What this has meant is that deaths which are not particularly recent still get posted to the top of the list, and get to ride on the list for longer, often bumping down more recent deaths. It's become a bit of a mess. Under the old system, there were less RDs posted, because if you waited around too long to fix up an article, it would be stale. Now, we post stale deaths all the time, and it has made the list run through far too fast. I would propose we return to the old system, which was as follows:
    1) Deaths are listed by date of death (in the case where two people die on the same day, put the later posting on top, though)
    2) If a nomination passes, but there is already a more recent death on the list, slot it underneath, where it would belong in chronological order
    3) If a nomination passes, but it turns out the oldest death on the list is already more recent than the nomination, tough shit.
    I think we need to go back to this system. While it meant that some deaths didn't make the list (because it took too many days for someone to either nominate it, or to clean up the article to where it was good enough to make the list), it DID result in most deaths staying on the list at least 3-4 days, which is better than the current system. Basically, we need to be less forgiving of stale nominations. Put them back in chronological order, and if you get it in too late, oh well. --Jayron32 16:15, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Support that reversion, it doesnt make sense to bump whats news for whats old news in our in the news. nableezy - 16:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The change was agreed to over two years ago. —Bagumba (talk) 17:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    So corrected. --Jayron32 18:06, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Some of us had done this analysis some months ago and RDs is absolutely not a problem. In fact the number of articles being improved and brought to homepage levels of quality and posted is an absolute WIN for the project and the encyclopedia at large. We also saw the data tell us that posting within the 7 day window had resulted in more articles surfacing to homepage levels of quality and being discovered. If left to me, and I have made the case in the past, that RDs should potentially be expanded to 7 or even 8 - given that the incremental cost is zero. But, there was no consensus for that proposal. C'est la vie. That said, we have other genuine problems including stretched admin capacity and we had seen clear numbers on this front. We need to solve for that and not interrupt what is a good thing. Ktin (talk) 18:25, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You know, maybe I'll take back what I said about going back to the old standards. If the goal is "being fair to the RD posts so they appear on the main page longer" vs. "Maximizing the improvement of article quality" I'll go for the second option everyday and twice on Sundays. Thanks for changing the perspective on that. --Jayron32 18:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the goal should be to have the most up to date quality articles in the section regardless of length of time that it is there. nableezy - 21:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    However, if there is a tension between maximizing up-to-dateness and quality, quality should always win. I get that we want both, but if I had to chose only one, quality is the most important thing. All else is secondary. --Jayron32 11:57, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah I agree there is a minimum in terms of quality, but if we assume to get posted to RD means youve met that quality requirement anyway, the next most important criteria is newest first imo. nableezy - 15:41, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Minimum quality of a death update for a blurb

I would like to encourage discussion on elaborating the minimum quality of a death update for a blurb as there’s nothing precise at WP:ITNRD. Given that the death is the main story when posting a death blurb, notability and overall article’s quality cannot be the only criteria if there’s only a one-sentence update, which is exactly what we have as a death update for any ordinary person. My suggestion is to set a quality criterion that would require a couple of basic information that a death blurb must include so that it can be distinguished from ordinary deaths. This information includes: 1) the death itself, 2) commemorations/reactions and 3) funeral. Your opinions on this are welcome.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 06:16, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This neeeds to be balanced with WP:NOTDIARY and a random collection of thoughts and prayers and eulogies.—Bagumba (talk) 06:37, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the biography articles for which we've recently posted death blurbs, such as Pelé, there's a lot of relevant information related to the death that can be added in line with WP:NOTDIARY. After all, if a person truly deserves a blurb, there should be information of encyclopedic value in reliable sources to support content beyond a one-sentence update (in case we agree on a quality criterion of this sort, we'd have an efficient way to make a cut in contentious discussions).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:03, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My first thought is that there should be at least a paragraph of encyclopaedic prose about the subject's death and/or the reactions to it, explicitly excluding quotes and lists of obituaries. If there is less than that to be said then we shouldn't have a blurb. Thryduulf (talk) 09:56, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We've... already got this. Twice. WP:ITN#Updated content: "a five-sentence update (with at minimum three references, not counting duplicates) is generally more than sufficient, while a one-sentence update is highly questionable. Changes in verb tense (e.g. "is" → "was") or updates that convey little or no relevant information beyond what is stated in the ITN blurb are insufficient." And later in WP:ITN#Blurbs, "it is generally inadequate if the entirety of the update is only a sentence, such that no more information is in the update than would be in the blurb." —Cryptic 10:10, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I know that we've got it for the blurbs in general, but it'd be beneficial to have an additional clarification at WP:ITN/RD.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:30, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It says "Of sufficient quality to be posted on the main page, as determined by a consensus of commenters." with "sufficient quality" linked to the ITN quality standards; thus the same standards apply. I don't see any need to develop a separate set of standards just for RD links. --Jayron32 11:59, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yesterday an admin marked and later re-marked a nomination for a death blurb as ready for posting even though there's only a one-sentence update. If we have admins, not ordinary editors, who don't follow the guidelines, then something needs to be done.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:11, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When you spoke with said admin, what did they say? --Jayron32 13:14, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't approach them directly. My last comment on the nomination addressed quality before the nomination was closed.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:21, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In general, where you have a problem with what one person is doing, the only reasonable approach is to directly engage them. If a person is doing something counter to guidelines, a friendly and approachable conversation to that effect is the only useful way to fix the problem, or at least, the best first approach. Instead of spending all this time here discussing the policy itself, the time spent in collegial conversation with the admin in question would have been more useful. --Jayron32 15:17, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve always had collegial conversations with other editors, but it’s not about a particular person and their actions at all. It’s a growing chronic problem that admins cannot divorce from their subjective judgement and bypass quality just to get a blurb posted (some time ago, another admin posted a blurb by changing the bolded article, which has eventually become a precedent). I’ve tried knocking on doors to no avail multiple times in the past, and the explanation has always been that our rules doesn’t strictly prohibit their actions or require something else. So, the only way to change things seems to be by clarifying guidelines because what we currently have leaves editors with a lot of excuses.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:23, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I actually think we should not add a minimum “death update” standard — neither a qualitative one (reaction from peers, communities, etc) nor a quantitative one (number of lines of update, sources being cited etc.). At the end of the day, we post someone’s death as a blurb in recognition of a life lived, of the accomplishments, and of the impact had during the lifetime. If that is the case — the article showcasing the life and accomplishments should be the relevant section of the article and should be a) comprehensive from a breadth of coverage standpoint, and b) levels of quality that stands to our homepage standards. If many years down the line, one were to read an article — while knowing that “A, B, and C expressed their condolences” is nice to read, reading the actual accomplishments during the life would be the main takeaway from the article.
Now, the other side of the argument is — if someone had truly lived an impactful life, there would definitely be reactions to death of the “A, B, and C expressed their condolences” kind. But, if that were not added as well, the quality of the article by itself does not lack anything about the life lived. Ktin (talk) 01:02, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Workshop: Defining significance

Yes. It's another proposal. Yes, it's our seventh in as many days. But based on the reaction to "Apply RD standard to blurbs" and "Establishing notability for current events", I think it's worth discussing a way to get rid of the ambiguity when it comes to how we define significance.

First of all, I recognize where I stand relative to the rest of everyone here. I know my criteria for significance is on the more lenient end of the spectrum, compared to others who are stricter. I know I've butted heads a couple times too, and I respect everyone's differences. But my intention is not to prescribe criteria, nor to ram through a raising or lowering of the bar for significance. Rather, it's to find ways to be more definitive in our significance for the benefit of new ITN/C contributors who want to know why we're posting some stories and not posting others.

Purpose

The Wikipedia:In the news significance criteria currently states that the following principles are useful for assessing consensus:

  • The length and depth of coverage itself
  • The number of unique articles about the topic
  • The frequency of updates about the topic
  • The types of news sources reporting the story

In my opinion, these principles would be excellent in determining whether a story is worth posting. However, in practice, we rarely see consistent adherence to these principles leading to the unfortunate outcome that consensus is usually based on a head count. Indeed, the threshold for "length and depth of coverage" could be narrow for some users (like myself) and wide for others. It's clear that demolishing the significance standard outright would not be workable either, for it risks creating the perception that WP:ITN is a news ticker. Yet at the same time, the current standard is contentious and the divides between users are deep and in some cases irreconcilable.

This thread seeks to workshop the idea of what a less contentious, less subjective criterion would look like. There is no point in attempting to prescribe a change to our procedures or guidelines as to what kind of items we should be posting to ITN, because there would never be any consensus to achieve this. Instead, the goal should be to find a common ground on rewording the current standard so as to reorient users towards a less adversarial approach to ITN/C.

Background

Let’s look at the things that presumed notable items do have in common, and those things that presumed non-notable items have in common. Note that all of these would have reliable source coverage:

  • Examples of notable items: National elections, national or international sporting events with large viewership, disasters that affect lots of people, first rocket launches for a nation, wars, assassinations of a major political figure.
  • Examples of non-notable items: Celebrity gossip, subnational elections, political intrigue, athletic records.
  • Examples of grey area items: Lawsuits between two major companies, business mergers, archeological or scientific discoveries, United Nations directives, moderate disasters in areas that are known for disasters.

By categorizing these items, we can see the following commonalities:

  • Notable items impact large amounts of people on a wide scale, whether it’s the population of a country or the whole world. They do not necessarily have to be injured or killed in order for this to happen, nor does there necessarily need to be international crossover, but it is an item that grabs public attention and may impact daily life in a significant way for those concerned
  • Non-notable items are usually ignored because they don’t affect as many people. Or if they do affect people, the impact is not very tangible and at times the news coverage outsizes the actual notability.
  • The grey area items fall somewhere in the middle, in that they affect a lot of people, but the actual degree of the impact is difficult to pinpoint for those outside of that sphere. This is the area that causes the most contention at ITN.

Proposed standard (DICE)

Therefore, it seems that rather than a significance standard, we should be assessing based on an impact standard. This would not change how we operate at ITN/C, as the assessment method is still the same. However, the focus would change to determining the degree and scale as to how people are impacted. We can measure this by assessing the news coverage and answering the following questions:

  • Impact: How does the story define the impact on people in the region affected, if there is any?
  • Consequences: For the news category this story is posted under (politics, art, science, sports, etc.), what sort of ramifications are there?
  • Encyclopedic: Is this a suitable item to either update or create a standalone Wikipedia article?

Functionally, the types of items that are being posted to ITN would not change, as we are still assessing the significance of the stories, but we now have a clear standard in which we can review items as opposed to an abstract personal assessment. In making the criteria more specific and objective, we qualitatively assess based on the above criteria, by actually reviewing the news coverage and exploring the details within it. From there, we can reach a consensus around whether these criteria have been satisfied rather than based on a head count.

The other advantage to this is that as we continue to use the DICE standard, the global consensus on ITN around what items are posted becomes clearer and more definable, which will help other users who might not understand what is required in order for a newsworthy item to actually be posted. Furthermore, we can document the changes over time as consensus changes.

Feedback

I hope that my ideas are clear and that they can gain some traction. If there is any further explanation needed, or any changes that would be most useful, I'm open to hearing them. And it may very well be that things ought to stay the same, per WP:CREEP and per WP:AINT. But I think this is still worth trying. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:30, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I’m afraid that quality is gradually becoming a more important problem than significance (see my thread immediately above this one), so I think any modelling of significance should start off from how well the newly created or updated article demonstrates significance.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:28, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, which is where the "encyclopedic" standard comes into play. If it's not possible to get the article up to a decent quality in the fashion of how we prefer things to be written on Wikipedia, then it probably doesn't fit the bill. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:31, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The so-called DICE standard still suffers from a big issue with the current "significance" criteria, in that all points, save for the last one, are still subject to an incredible amount of ambiguity. I mean in real terms, almost every oppose vote on WP:ITN/C is based upon at least one of these four variables (e.g, "this is not major news in X part of the world," "this wont't have any ipact despite killing hundreds of people," "this action by Russia against Ukraine is just dick-measuring," "this item is not encyclopedic enough for an undisclosed reason," etc. in - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 23:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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