Wikipedia talk:In the news

Generating a proposal

For those interested, I have opened a discussion at the VP Idea Lab regarding changes to ITN; it is at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Changes to ITN. 331dot (talk) 16:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Your opening line has inspired mine. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:14, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Intended as an alternative idea, by the way, not a better one. I don't have better ideas. This archive can prove it. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

There's also a discussion at Talk:Main Page. The problem is not a lack of discussion; it's that there's an inability to act on the ferment of ideas. That's because ITN is locked down by protection. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:06, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, when we're discussing ITN's issues on like 5 different pages, lack of discussion isn't shocking. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:41, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

ITN Product / Feature Backlog — NEED scripting ninjas

Hey all, I see there are many discussions going on in multiple groups concurrently on reinventing ITN. My fear as with many conversations, we do not see clear ‘actionables’ emerge from these conversations. I am convinced that we need technical expertise / scripting ninjas. Without them, all of the conversation is just wasted effort. (Pardon my tone in the last statement).

My backlog of requests that we need scripting / technical support on are:

1. Trending topics support
2. Photograph rotation script
3. Automatic queuing and promotion (doing away with the need for admins to promote non-contentious articles like RD, allowing editors to do this and hence freeing admin capacity)
4. Template edits to seek inputs on quality separate from significance (which is more than half the daily battle between editors)
5. And, replacing the easter egg link that has "Ongoing" linked to portal current events.
6. (Added on 9/5): Automatic tagging of the article's tag page with Template:ITN note upon nomination at WP:ITNC (h/t: user:Cryptic and user:Khuft)

Ask: Do we have anyone here who has some scripting expertise to even get started with a mockup of the above features?

Ktin (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I definitely agree. I'd like to add to your request list the proposal from @Patar knight from the above RD discussion: "Perhaps the ITN nomination template should have separate sections for quality and blurb suitability, the latter of which would be in a hidden comment for RD noms that says to not unhide unless you genuinely believe it should be blurbed. That would be clearer than the hodgepodge we have now."

This suggestion had 4 supports (including my own) and no opposes, so I'd like to take steps to refine the idea and see what it will take to implement it, assuming wider support from the ITN community. SunsetShotguns (talk) 15:20, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Separating the quality/significance makes no sense, editors need to consider both when !voting, and separating them will make it far too complicated and will decrease participation. Masem (t) 15:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I think they were suggesting that it is still within one nomination section, but it's somehow divided into one subsection about quality and another on significance. —Bagumba (talk) 08:34, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Which still is a problem, even if we're talking two adjacent subsections. !Votes should be considering both quality and importance, and in the past we have had lots of problems with editors !voting only on importance. This is part of why ITN has problems is that editors are only considering one side of the reason to post, and we need them to be looking at both. Masem (t) 12:31, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

@Masem- This proposal is specifically for RD. The idea was to separate standard RD discussions on quality from the significance discussion on whether a given RD merits a blurb. Regular ITN submissions would be assessed for both as they have always been. SunsetShotguns (talk) 13:40, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I think in the limited case, a script is not really necessary. If it is clear that a blurb is being discussed but the RD is ready to go, the just adding a subheadings line to show the RD was posted and discussion on the blurb should continue. But that needs to be judged by admins, not automatic by scripts. Masem (t) 14:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Where has this backlog been agreed by the community? Stephen 07:42, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

As noted above, this is specifically my backlog. Feel free to add, or subtract. Either way, all of these are DOA sans the aforementioned scripting ninjas. Ktin (talk) 03:24, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Idea to alert non-ITN veterans to participate in discussions

This idea came to me following the various discussions that were recently happening in a variety of forums on ITN, however I decided to wait for the nomination on BRICS I had started to fall off the roster of nominations so as to reduce bias. One of the various criticism wielded against ITN is that a "coterie" of veterans is mainly involved in adjudicating the merits of nominations, and there's little participation from outside. One easy way to bring in more externals would be to post alerts on the Talk pages of articles (both bolded and not) that are being nominated for ITN blurbing. This would ensure a) that people working on these articles are encouraged to improve the quality of the article, so it meets main page quality levels, and b) that people working on these articles participate on our discussions here, be it to strengthen the case pro or contra these nominations, be it to become aware of the deficiencies others still see in the articles. I'm not an expert, but I assume it wouldn't be too complicated to implement such a rule? After all, we put a lot of emphasis on crediting people, which is nice and all, but overall a vanity exercise, while it would be much more helpful for the project overall to notify the respective areas / pages as soon as discussions on these articles get started? Happy to hear the thoughts from all of you on this. Khuft (talk) 20:11, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

We could even put a link to semi-automatically make the edit it into our nomination template to make it more convenient, and label it something like "tag". —Cryptic 20:30, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

What would actually be helpful is if someone were to commit to making sure, for each new nomination, that those tag links - which, yes, are already there - got clicked. I nominate Khuft. —Cryptic 21:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

It's very kind of you to nominate a person who, in his decades-long career of lurking on Wikipedia, has achieving a single nomination on ITN... I frankly had no clue about this tagging functionality, and I'm not sure others know it either... Can we somehow promote it a bit more? Khuft (talk) 21:28, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

(and not make it's use solely dependent on me) Khuft (talk) 21:28, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

It could stand to be better documented, I agree,[ack - it's already in the steps at WP:ITNC#How to nominate an item, and I missed it too - though this kind of proves the point I make in my next paragraph] and perhaps the label could be tweaked ("notify talk page", maybe, but that's a bit long).

On the other hand, my experience at WP:DRV - which has similar notification steps, which are if anything overdocumented there - is that they get forgotten anyway about half of the time, unless someone manually checks each new nomination and does it. Over there, for a long time now, that "someone" has usually ended up being me.

Unlike the DRV tags, though, {{ITN note}} seems like it could be automated. There's no need to check whether the closing admin has already been notified in prose or has already participated in the discussion (like there is with {{drvnote}}), and no potential for confusion as to which page to tag (as there is with {{delrevxfd}} - drv nominators are often pretty bad at putting the right discussion in the nomination template over there, unlike with article= and article2= in {{ITN candidate}} here). A bot request might be pointful. —Cryptic 21:44, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Maybe label it "notify" instead of "tag"? But yes - ideally a bot could automatically perform the notification... Khuft (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I would not be opposed to this idea, but I do worry about whether or not there would be canvassing concerns in play here. My personal opinion would be the best way to improve ITN participation is to encourage cross-language ITN participation so as to include more perspectives. The idea being that we could diminish the concern related to Euro or American bias in postings by incorporating a more diverse group of people in the discussion. DarkSide830 (talk) 20:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, the BRICS page was tagged on 24 Aug.—Bagumba (talk) 14:00, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Ok, so there seems to be a functionality there already to tag article talk pages. My bad - I really wasn't aware of it. Still - how much is it currently used? And would it make sense to be able to tag other articles too (e.g. articles that would also be linked to, even if not bolded? Khuft (talk) 21:37, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Should we make the notices at the bottom of RD and ITNR noms more noticeable?

Some editors, especially those who are inexperienced with ITN, vote on RDs and ITNR noms with supports without a statement on article quality, which is meaningless and makes the actual discussion on quality more difficult to see. Same when something gets nominated for a death blurb and some editors say "support RD" without saying anything about the quality. Should we make the notice at the bottom on the ITN candidate template which says that notability doesn't matter more visible, to prevent these problems? There's also a relevant discussion on the template talk for the template, which doesn't seem to have gained any attention. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 12:54, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I suggest proposing the exact change you want. As an aside, clear or not, some people will just not read or miss it. For newbies, WP:AGF and just remind them. Frequent violators, if any, should be dealt with by the community.—Bagumba (talk) 13:44, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, I was thinking if it was important to keep the text in the same format to put it on the top instead, so it’s the first thing you read. If not, then changing it to normal font size or bolding it might help. I'm also aware that this wouldn’t stop it entirely, I was just wondering if it would have any noticeable effect, or if we could try it as an intermediate step between the other proposal of separating RD from ITN. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 13:47, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I think it’s clear as day and prefer to keep it on the bottom with no changes. Some editors are simply not aware of the minimum quality required because the quality requirement for posting to RD (and ITN in general) is above the average quality of a random Wikipedia article. So, a newcomer in an ITN discussion is very likely someone who leaves large unreferenced swathes of text across articles and believes that’s fine given that their content added hasn’t been removed. I wish such notices had more effect on the quality of editing, but it’s the lack of comprehension that matters more than their noticeability.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Fair point. Anyway I don’t have any better ideas to refine this proposal and it probably isn’t necessary so if someone wants to close this discussion now feel free. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 18:26, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

9 RD Items marked ready and pending admin attention

@Admins willing to post ITN: Are we short of admin availability? How can others help? Ktin (talk) 22:28, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

PS: On a somewhat related note, I am convinced that we need to move to a promotion script that can be operated by non-admins (somewhat similar to Wikipedia:Did you know) which would promote items to a holding page and an admin clicks a button to send from there to main page or send back to candidates page. Sigh. Need some scripting ninjas. See above. Ktin (talk) 22:42, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

They say that if you'd like to help with admin tasks, then the best thing to do is to become an admin and that adminship is also no big deal. Of course, they also say RfA is a toxic, broken public humiliation gauntlet so make of that what you will. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:19, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately, this will not work in my situation. If editors can help any other way, let know. For sure we need to expand the list of posting admins or work a plan where we can take off from the workload of current posting admins. Ktin (talk) 19:27, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Archive of ITN postings

Hello. Is there an archive that contains all blurbs that have been posted to ITN? I am aware that ITN/C has an archive, but that also includes all unsuccessful nominations, which makes it harder to find just the ones that made it to the main page. The closest thing I am aware of to what I want is the revision history of Template:In the news, but that's not in an easily digestible format. 98.170.164.88 (talk) 16:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

No so far. People typically either use the search button in the archives or the browser's own search bar to find or pinpoint posted items (e.g. by typing "posted" in any given archive which makes it easier somewhat). Brandmeister^talk 19:13, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if there's an automated bot we could request to run across a date range that would create a list of blurbs and the date they were added, as long as there is a large enough character diff in between revisions. Then we can create such archives (even if not perfect) and have monthly new archive pages. Masem (t) 12:56, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't have the energy myself, but building such an archive does seem like a worthwhile project. Does the ITN recognition template we (sometimes remember to) put on article talk pages have a category associated with it? That could help too. --Jayron32 13:01, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I've tossed a request at Bot Requests for this. Masem (t) 13:15, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that! It would be quite useful to be able to see all the stories that appeared on ITN in a given week/month/year or to search through the full archive. (Discussion link for convenience: Wikipedia:Bot requests § Creating archive page for added ITN items, permalink.) 98.170.164.88 (talk) 04:10, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

For those following this, there is a test version of a bot producing searchable output from when things were added to ITN. It doesn't see the diff in changes to blurbs from the addition of blurbs, but I think that's something we can deal with. I would ask those to look and comment there if they see anything else. Otherwise I was going to this bit to create by month archives from past changes, and then run once a month to create new monthly ones. Masem (t) 17:38, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea. It has good statistical/analytical implications as well to have the individual blurbs that have been posted, as we can then start tracking or tagging these by region or subject matter. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we have a category for articles with the ITN talk template called Category:Wikipedia In the news articles. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 14:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

There is also Wikipedia:Main Page history, though that is for all of the Main Page, not just ITN. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 01:34, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

• @Masem the bot does see the diff, that's how it extracts the editor's username, and timestamp If you guys need a diff, then I think this would be possible too. But it will clutter the archive page. Kindly let me know if you guys have any suggestions or requests regarding the archive. We should discuss the technical side at WP:BOTREQ#Creating_archive_page_for_added_ITN_items to keep it in one place/ease of access. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:51, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Usernamekiran, you could make the timestamp into a piped link to the diff, e.g. [[Special:Diff/1174852896|2023-09-11T03:03:52Z]]. Then it would be clickable but wouldn't take up any extra visual space. Edit: You could also do that with the verb ("added", "removed", "modified") instead of the timestamp, which may even be better. 98.170.164.88 (talk) 01:20, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

why was this nomination SNOW closed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates&diff=prev&oldid=1174495455

This nomination is about the presidential centers of 13 past presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, dating back nearly a century, expressing their concerns that American democracy, the largest and most influential democracy on the planet, is in a fragile state. This is unprecedented. See also: Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds

Barely an hour after being nominated, this was SNOW closed because:

• Editor 5426387: "this is not ITN-Material, this does not affect anything outside of the United States, and this is not significant enough"

How is "ITN-Material" defined? Does every ITN post need to have a global impact? Why is this not significant enough relative to other ITN noms and posts?

• Masem: "This is day-to-day politics"

No, it's clearly not. It's unprecedented. I don't understand the rest of what Masem said.

• WaltCip: "Huh? Truly hard to see how this is not only newsworthy but frankly even neutral"

Huh? Apart from the newsworthiness, how is it not neutral? Republicans and Democrats alike signed this communiqué.

• Alsoriano97: "so..."

So ... what?

• Amakuru: "this stands no chance of being posted, and might as well be put out of its misery sooner rather than later"

I later asked Amakuru to explain at their Talk and they replied:

the story in question is definitely below the sort of bar we would consider. It's hard to even define why, but the rationales for the opposes should give you some idea as to why this isn't really considered an impactful enough story

I find "the rationales for the opposes" to be exceedingly weak, barely distinguishable from WP:IDONTLIKEIT.

Just sayin' soibangla (talk) 13:44, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

@Soibangla: You are free to re-open it. The SNOW closure was an NAC, and frankly, I feel it was too fast as well. However, you fell victim to the WP:ITNSIGNIF criteria, which as outlined in WP:HOWITN, states quite simply: "The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting."

Yes, the opposes (including mine) did fall into WP:IDONTLIKEIT territory, but because of how ultimately subjective that WP:ITNSIGNIF is, the latitude for vote rationales is far wider than almost any other part of Wikipedia. Indeed, it is one of the recurring complaints about ITN/C but one for which A. there is no consensus towards a clear solution, and B. many people feel that it is a feature rather than a bug. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:37, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

isn't consensus determined by the quality of arguments rather a straight arithmetic vote count? or does ITN operate under different principles? if it's the former, I'd say this oppose "consensus" fails miserably soibangla (talk) 15:34, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

It is sometimes determined by the quality of the arguments. When it comes to a majority of discussions, the weight of numbers is what determines whether something is or isn't considered for posting. Barring a unique consideration like WP:ITNR, 10 opposes with a rationale of "this is just a local story" will win out against one or two well-reasoned "supports", every time. On the other hand, if it's a close call with a relatively even support-oppose split, then admins are more likely to assess the quality of the arguments. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:47, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

@Soibangla: Before reopening, consider at least addressing the WP:ITNUPDATE concern:

The decision as to when an article is updated enough is subjective, but 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.

—Bagumba (talk) 15:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Bagumba, this is critically important. If the article doesn't meet the necessary quality update, it doesn't matter at all whether there is a unanimous consensus to post something on the significance front. Our goal is to display quality encyclopedic content for the benefit of readers of Wikipedia, and a couple of sentences added to an article does not meet that criterion. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:27, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

the nom was SNOW closed, I reopened it and it was quickly SNOW closed again after Amakuru called for it. this nom is thus tarnished such that now it could never pass, so I have no intent to reopen it. I am simply calling attention to what I believe was a botched process here. soibangla (talk) 15:39, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

• If the nomination had not been closed, I'd be surprised if it got more than 10% support. Banedon (talk) 16:08, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

• One thing's for sure – democracy is in a fragile state in Wikipedia. And that's official! Andrew🐉(talk) 17:39, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Looking specifically at this news item (which I had read about before the nom), it's basically a empty declaration with zero weight to it - the presidential libraries are not necessarily representatives from the president in question, and they have zero power. These type of stories are generally not significant for ITN's type of coverage. If anything, we'd be looking at something like the UN making a statement that has major scientific or expert backing, such as their reports on climate change impacts or on declares of war crimes, and even then, these are rarely posted. We tend to post stories along these lines where it is expected to have some type of impact in the long term. Masem (t) 17:41, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

these type of stories are generally not significant for ITN's type of coverage by what policy or guideline, or by what consensus, by whom? A clique of ITN habitues? All I see is a bunch of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Oh well, I'm done here. soibangla (talk) 18:26, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Its from experience which is really hard to document in any way that would be gamed or get people upset over it. I have long suggested a casebook of where rough consensus usually sits, but this should not be taken as an absolute when it comes to ITN. Masem (t) 18:40, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

There's actually a discussion going on right now about changes to ITN at the Village Pump - [1]. You could try to change something there. Banedon (talk) 00:16, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I concur with Masem that it's hard to explain. I think the gist is that "In the News" does not mean "everything that is in the news"; because it is interpretive, different people draw different lines, which is where conflict arises. Curbon7 (talk) 00:36, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Does in the news issue corrections?

Are corrections every issued for this section? I just stumbled up on the version from May 29, 2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:In_the_news&oldid=1025771429. Can anyone notice what's wrong here? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:40, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

No and no. Curbon7 (talk) 02:46, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

To add: we go by what reliable sources report. Very rarely, reliable sources get a story wrong. It happens. We do not have rose-tinted goggles, nor can we retroactively change an entry. Curbon7 (talk) 02:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

There is WP:ERRORS for issues with items currently listed in the box. But we don't change past entries. Masem (t) 02:49, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

If there's still any doubt, I'm talking about the first item, regarding the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which advances a false claim. I'm not suggesting we change a past entry. I'm thinking, perhaps, we should acknowledge the error at some point in the future. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:52, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

• The article indicates that the burial site has not been confirmed or disproved by excavation. The original nomination does not seem remarkable. Wikipedia generally covers itself against potential error by posting a disclaimer at the foot of every page. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:45, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The May 29, 2021 claim that "A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children is found" is patently false. No mass grave was found at that time. Rather, it was merely speculated that a mass grave could be found there. Even if a mass grave was found there tomorrow, the claim made in 2021 would still be false. Jweiss11 (talk) 11:57, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh well. It happens. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 11:59, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Oopsy! Jweiss11 (talk) 12:04, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The news was presented originally as a finding and we just followed the sources. The OP doesn't present any sources themself to support their position so I had to go hunt myself. There's a detailed review at A Fact-Check Two Years Later which indicates that the story was overblown/mistaken but that's not the last word. it appears that there are already editors at the Kamloops Indian Residential School article disputing the matter and dismissing this revisionism as "denialism". ITN will have to wait on further news... Andrew🐉(talk) 14:11, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

This is why it's pointless to do something such as issue a correction for a still-developing story. For example, the correction itself may end up being false, and from that point on, you're assigning a reputation or responsibility to ITN that it never purported to have in the first place. Per WP:ITN, [events] are added based on a consensus on the ITN candidates page, using two main criteria: a) the quality of the article, including material added or updated to reflect the recent event, and b) the general significance of the developments. Although we do our best to use the reliable sources available at the time, we don't posit ourselves as truth-tellers or as fact-finders, because that's not Wikipedia's purpose. The purpose is to direct editors to quality encyclopedic articles they may have seen or heard of in the news, and from that point, it's up to them to decide what is best done with the article's content. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:00, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Great claims require great evidence - it looks like the media didn't dig deeper. As a compendium of the media we are at risk of this kind of stuff CNN "remains found" Secretlondon (talk) 16:20, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the close of the Biden Impeachment candidate

Anarchyte closed the discussion on Biden in good faith, but I then reverted them and reopened, as is reasonably common at ITN/C, because there's ongoing recent discussion regarding the precedent of the Trump 2019 impeachment. Now Jalapeño has reinstated the close. I don't think this is right. It's fine for closes to take place after discussions have run their course but my comment about the Trump parallel was only introduced quite late in the discussion, and others have concurred that the situations are largely the same. With ongoing discussions and a potential WP:NPOV issue at stake too, I think we deserve to continue this for some while longer.

Just to be clear - the discussion on Trump took place here [2] on 24 September 2019, when the inquiry had been announced, but a full month before it was formally begun with a vote. I opposed it at the time, and I would have opposed this on the same grounds, but I fail to see why there was strong consensus to post that one and not this one. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 13:33, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Masem who nominated the 2019 inquiry, opposed this one noting some differences that seem to make this one more of a preliminary inquiry into if the whole House should do an impeachment inquiry. I'm no expert in US parliamentary rules, but that seems like significant difference if true to justify the differing result. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 13:44, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

OK, so Masem's comment in the nom was "This was a decision to give a house committee the go-ahead to investigate if there is sufficient evidence for an actual inquiry". But that doesn't appear to match what the article Impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden actually says. According to that, the actual inquiry has begun. The "actual inquiry" is already underway. The only difference appears to be that (according to the article) McCarthy doesn't plan to ask the House for permission to run the inquiry through a vote, something which Pelosi did do in 2019, around a month after we added the item to Ongoing. Likewise I'm no expert, but it seems that in both cases the inquiry is genuinely launched, and not sure if it can or will be easily rolled back in this instance... Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:54, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

In hindsight of what has happened in USpolitics since 2019, I would have not likely nominated the Trump inquiry. Even if this is the same event, the biggest difference is that nearly all sources claim there is no tangible evidence and that a vote to impeach will likely never happen, and that this was McCarthy appeasing the Freedom Caucus. Whereas the Trump inquiry already had plenty of evidence if wrongdoing and was expect then to end with a vote in the House. The press are basically treating this Biden inquiry as a joke and just the disfunction of the GOP. That is a wholly separate reason not to post. Masem (t) 14:14, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

@Masem: thanks for the clarification, that satisfies my concerns. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:49, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

...but I fail to see why there was strong consensus to post that one and not this one: It's a product of WP:ITNSIGNIF being left to be so subjective. —Bagumba (talk) 14:08, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, well that's very true. This is one of very few venues when votes are the be all and end all, with policies absent. It does make for some tricky optics at times though...  — Amakuru (talk) 15:49, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Meh. This just feels like normal government practice at this point, sadly. And if I'm honest, I think we might eventually need to reevaluate even posting impeachments that don't actually result in removal from office as well. Just get a feeling that we'll see a lot more of these going forward. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:16, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Since Jayron32 didn't want to humor my request (seriously, I think this is far from the only example of a discussion continuing after the closure of an ITN item, non-admin or otherwise), I'm copying over the post-posting discussion regarding the impeachment nomination (_{Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:56, 14 September 2023 (UTC)}) :

• Although I do recognize that WP:ITNSIGNIF holds that only a consensus of users is all that is required in order to determine whether to post or close a nomination, I do strongly believe that this was closed too soon and that the reasons for opposing are not equitable with how ITN has handled prior news items of this sort. Regardless of what any of us here think, this is a major political turning point in the United States, affecting the highest office of the land, and turning our eyes away from it on a matter of wording (Vote? Announcement? Authorization? Directive?) doesn't seem to be in keeping with our usual assessment process. To admins: If you need to remove this comment, please at least copy it to WT:ITN. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:20, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
  • I don't think this is "a major political turning point". It's a natural escalation based on their months of their investigation committee. It's one step in the process that will likely result in Biden's impeachment, but we're not at the end point yet. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:47, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
    • Muboshgu: I think I should like to know what that end point is, or at least have us come to a consensus as to what would be appropriate to post. The formal beginning of proceedings? A House vote? A Senate vote? Conviction? I think these are questions that need to be answered because, as DarkSide830 pointed out, we haven't seen the last of these things and especially in the United States. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:57, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

      I don't think it would be crazy to try and codify this in ITN/R. Given prior precedent (even if we are limited in the number of cases), it would seem any US impeachment would rise to ITN levels. Conviction, in a sense, is ITN/R already because it's a removal from office, thus a change of the holder of the office of president. I would then consider a proposal to codify impeachment of the chief executive, though differences between countries may make this harder to get through, and a single proposal regarding the impeachment of a US president alone would probably generate pushback as biased, even if ITN/R generally tends to operate off established precedent. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:30, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

• If you believe this had any chance at all of being posted on the main page, then you really haven't been paying attention to ITN for years. I stand by my decision to close this a second time. It wasn't going to be posted. It just wasn't. It didn't need to be left open for more oppose votes to roll in, even it would catch one or two support votes with extra time, there was no way letting this play out any longer. The meta-discussion doesn't belong on the ITNC page either, that page is solely for deciding if the story should be posted; this one wasn't. If you want to have the meta-discussion here, feel free to. This is the appropriate venue. But the item was not going to be posted, no matter how long we let the initial discussion run. If you don't believe me, re-open it, but if you do, and if I'm right, at least allow me the joy of being able to cackle rudely in your face and say "I told you so", and maybe call you a couple of rude names too. I would certainly allow you the honor of doing so to me if I were so catastrophically wrong. --Jayron32 16:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)