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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 98.170.164.88 (talk) at 00:04, 13 December 2023 (→‎Archive of ITN postings: Reply). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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

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)[reply]

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). Brandmeistertalk 19:13, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
I've tossed a request at Bot Requests for this. Masem (t) 13:15, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Yes great idea but we will have a problem what will the category Name going to be that's the problem we will have 41.114.234.69 (talk) 18:11, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • @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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
  • a question: is <small> used in ITN? —usernamekiran (talk) 16:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Usernamekiran: Best I know, not in normal postings to the template. The only special text is the bold (for featured article) and italics for the picture reference if used. Masem (t) 18:16, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Masem: Hello. The program is almost finished. so far:
    • If a new line begins with *[[ or * [[ then the bot considers it as a recent death. If it begins with <!--, it considers the entry as news.
    • the bot excludes lines beginning with | (if there is a white-space after the pipe)
    • based on the date of first addition (from diff), the program adds the entry to header of corresponding date, including diff, editor, and time. If a news entry is updated (eg death toll), then the bot adds the new updated entry below the original entry.
      • in case the entry was first added on 30 September, and death toll was updated on 2 October, then the update entry will go in September's page.
    • so far the only issue is with "currentevents". They are being treated as normal news. But if we change MOS, then it can be resolved. eg, if current events begin with *<!--CE Mar 09 2022-->, then bot can differentiate between ongoing events, and news.
    • I created four archive pages with that logic: complete March 2004 (starting from second entry, as there is no diff for creation. we can add it manually), complete April 2004, few days of May 2004. I was paying my attention to other things, so I did not realise the timestamps in headers. I have corrected the timestamps in archive of Sept 2023.
    • as there were no particular standards/MOS back in the day, the archive pages of the early days will look a bit odd.
    • please let me know if you want more features/functionalities. I think one request is to add wikilink to archive page's day header (eg "September 23"), to corresponding date header of Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates. Is that correct?
  • I think we should keep the discussion here, so that it will be visible to more editors that are involved in ITN stuff. —usernamekiran (talk) 17:36, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The archive from September 2023 looks very clean and organized, I like it! The bottom of the March 2004 archive is somehow formatted wrong, though. I think you might need to add code to balance out unclosed HTML tags so they don't affect later entries.
    I'm not sure what's going on with the images. The March 2004 archive has them but the September 2023 one doesn't. Personally I'm fine with it either way as long as it's handled consistently.
    Great work. 98.170.164.88 (talk) 19:44, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @98.170.164.88, as ITN was started in March 2004, there were no guidelines. The bottom of March 2004 is because of that. Apparently, "float right" was used with the entries. The tags were closed properly, but the bot gets entries for archival from diffs, the tags were misplaced. I dont know when the styling of ITN was formalised/stabilised, but from that point the archive pages would be neat. I have intentionally It is also very difficult to go through all the revisions and check for inconsistencies, and create code/exceptions for that. The better approach would be to first create all the archive pages, and then repair the archive pages with AWB, and similar tool. Regarding images, I thought they were not necessary, I think I could add the pictures.
    About Masem's functionality regarding linking the archive date header to headers of "Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/archive", I am not sure if it would be possible, or how to approach it. The blurbs/entries are not always added to template:ITN on the same day as of they are posted/nominated at the candidates page. So the headers' date would be a mismatch. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:31, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    after observing source of ITN another time, adding images to the archives will not be good idea as there would be a lot of mismatches (caption of older picture going to newer one, or other way around), and breakages as well. As we are providing diffs, I think if someone wants to see particular image(s) then it would not be very difficult. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:39, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, there's just an easier solution than the diffs and that's just to have the header of these results pages link to the ITNC archives, like Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/April 2005. That simplifies that - if the user needs to see a more detailed edit history they can then do a normal page search to the period themselves. Masem (t) 00:21, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Usernamekiran: Omitting images is fine by me, but for some reason the March 2004 archive has them included (maybe because the code used was "image:" instead of "file:"?). As for the HTML issue at the bottom of the page, there definitely is an unclosed tag in the wikicode that's affecting all subsequent entries. This section has three <div> tags and no </div> tags. As a result all blurbs that follow, even ones that never had anything to do with the float-right code (e.g., the story about Korea Train Express), are being affected. You're probably right that the best solution is probably to create the archives first and then work out the problems like this, as there may be a lot of different kinds of issues and writing code to handle them may take more effort. Btw, I notice that in the March 2004 archive a lot of blurbs are wrongly classified as RDs. In the September 2023 archive this problem does not occur.

    Regarding references to ITN/C: As a very simple solution that would save coding effort and capture most of the value, I think it's sufficient to just have one link at the top of the monthly archive your bot generates, where it currently says "ITN archive page for September 2023", that links to the associated ITN/C monthly discussion archive (maybe with clickable arrows going to the next and previous ITN and ITN/C discussion archives as well). I think this is Masem's idea directly above. Actually, it's perhaps even a better idea to make an "ITN archive header" template, so that if we decide the header format needs to be changed it can be done in one place instead of requiring every archive page to be updated.
    If you want a more complicated solution that I'm not sure is actually worth implementing, but might be slightly more convenient, here's my idea: handle it on a per-story basis, instead of a per-day basis. Every time a new story is encountered in the ITN page history (i.e., only when "added"), check the month's ITN/C discussion page (and if needed, the previous month's), find where the bolded article or RD name is linked/mentioned, and get the closest section name above that. If the link doesn't occur anywhere in the ITN/C archive, then skip it I guess. So then the output might look like:
    Again, not sure it's worth the coding effort, but it seems technically feasible to implement. 98.170.164.88 (talk) 00:36, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @98.170.164.88 second one is actually an impressive solution! I am okay with coding it, but I am not sure if it would be well taken at "bot request for approval", I mean, that is a lot of resources for an archival page (as the bot would run from toolforge/wikimedia server). So our best option would be to go with the first one. —usernamekiran (talk) 00:50, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    in older archives, the images are being added because I am excluding the images by excluding the lines that begin with | This method also excludes a lot other unnecessary stuff. In current days, the images are included in another template "Main page image/ITN", and it has a pipe in the beginning, similar to an infobox. —usernamekiran (talk) 01:40, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • update: kindly check the following archives, this is how the bot will create them, unless there are some other requirements. November 2022, December 2022, and partial January 2023. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:43, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Masem, Brandmeister, Jayron32, WaltCip, MonarchOfTerror, and Patar knight: do you have any suggestions, or should I finalise this format/bot? —usernamekiran (talk) 20:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I should have checked this one earlier — but was busy offwiki. Do we think this is more valuable if we present a snapshot of how the ITN box looked on a particular day? If there was a reason we went with this — please ignore my comment?
    On an unrelated note, given that we have this granular data (which is great btw) can I ask for a separate request of dump of a csv, or a table with the following fields — article name, posted timestamp, rolled-off timestamp. Some of us were doing this manually, but, would be great to have a script do this! Thanks! Ktin (talk) 20:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ktin: Hi. I am not sure where to get the data from (article name, posted timestamp, rolled-off timestamp). also, you said that was done before. Can you please provide a link, or example edit as to what you want. Sorry, I am not much familiar with the ITN stuff. Also, your userpage is very interesting. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:03, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks much! You already have all of that information in those links that you shared earlier — E.g. “RD <Article name> posted by <admin name> on <timestamp>”, “RD <Article name> removed by <admin name> on <timestamp>”. So, in these two examples the first time stamp is the “posting timestamp” and the second one is the “roll-off timestamp”. Ktin (talk) 21:29, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ktin: oh, got it. But the thing with this bot task is, if an ITN entry/blurb/RD is updated or removed, then it looks for the matching entry in current month's archive, and in previous month's archive. ie, when a current event/RD is added, we get only "RD <Article name> added by<diff> <admin name> on <timestamp>". We do not get the corresponding "updated by"/"removed by" entry for a couple of days. So we cant use the same program for the task you suggested. However, a separate task can be created. So to create the dump, we will have to wait for at least two months (I think). I mean, in October, we should create create dump for August, and previous months, but not September, and later months. But given the simplicity (everything will be present on the archive page), a user script would be easy to create, and a better option. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:44, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Remove sign parameter from Template:ITN candidate

Currently, {{ITN candidate}} has a |sign= parameter that almost everybody uses. However, I don't see why this should be in the template instead of having the proposer just add their signature after the template (which is what this currently displays as) and handling such signatures that are parameters inside the template is quite harder for many discussions scripts to do. For example, Convenient Discussions would mistakenly reply inside the template. I don't see at all why this exists and I want to remove this. My topic on this at Template talk:ITN candidate got no replies and I'm not comfortable changing such a widely-used template, so I proposed it here based on Cryptic's suggestion from WP:VPI so we can hopefully discuss this and next steps. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:33, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The "nom cmt" and "sign" parameters to this template don't actually do anything except prefix "Nominator's comments:" to stuff that would appear after the template anyway, and maybe - maybe - make it less likely that very new users forget to sign. I can't see how that's worth the genuine problems it causes with tools; if it means we have to paste in {{xsign}} templates a bit more often, there's enough extremely experienced users watching ITNC to do so. —Cryptic 02:57, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If it is the case that the signature in the template screws up the newer tools used for replying, then we should get rid of it or change something (I think doing a template subst might be overkill). We'll also need to make sure that experienced users are reminded to add their signature outside the template when nominating. Masem (t) 00:04, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Cryptic also proposed that when/if we make this change, we also update the examples to remove the mention of |sign= and |nom_cmt= since most users appear to be copy and pasting from the examples. Should I do this right now? Aaron Liu (talk) 01:35, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, because we still need a way for editors to sign nominations, or at least to make sure they are aware of the steps they need to comment and sign nominations. Masem (t) 01:59, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I forgot to mention also including <!-- Additional comments go here -->~~~~ at the end Aaron Liu (talk) 02:03, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yes, in the two copy-paste boxes we have. Yes, I think we can make that change then, but check our guidance doc to make sure that's not also in there. Masem (t) 02:22, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would change it, and run it as a pilot, keeping a close eye on new nominations for a couple of weeks to see if problems arise. And be prepared to revert if it causes unforeseen problems. Stephen 02:16, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(I actually proposed changing the example usage without immediately changing the templates, so the old format still worked. Obviously the examples will need to change if we remove the parameters entirely.) —Cryptic 02:21, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, that brings something else up - we'll need to do something about the existing transclusions. Either leave the parameters there forever, which defeats the purpose to some extent, or subst the existing ones both on WP:ITNC and all the archives. I'd vote for substing, if that works out cleanly, since most of the archives are over the transclusion limit already. —Cryptic 02:24, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've just merged the sandbox, which aims to optimize around transclusion limit and also removes altblurbs 5 and 6, into the main template Aaron Liu (talk) 02:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There've been times when there have been five or six altblurbs proposed and discussed before, and you've just made those invisible in the archives. —Cryptic 02:48, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, let's undo this, that's going to cause problems. We may have to make a new template to avoid that. Masem (t) 03:10, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Preserving the appearance of the archives is the most important thing as they are huge and are often searched and referenced. And I already find it confusing when the older archives don't work properly due to some other structural change. In this case, the signature parameter seems unimportant as it is usually defaulted and so I'm not seeing a good reason to fiddle with it.
Note also that the title for this section currently contains a spelling error: "parmater" while at the template talk it's misspelt "paramter". Editors who make but do not notice such glaring errors should not be messing with templates as they will tend to break their syntax. See The Era of “Move Fast and Break Things” Is Over.
Andrew🐉(talk) 10:07, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is relevant, how, exactly? Fixing templates isn't editing articles; two of the most brilliant programmers I've ever worked with couldn't spell worth a damn. —Cryptic 04:39, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An obvious simple workaround would be to create a new nearly identical template. This preserves the integrity of the archives, and I think everyone just copy/pastes the parameters from the candidates page anyways. Curbon7 (talk) 10:18, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have updated the examples. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:59, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So far, we’ve got one person who did it correctly and one person who didn’t. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:41, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just created a nomination at ITN/C. I did so by copying the example in the documentation at {{ITN_candidate}}. The main work required was to identify the relevant article, compose the blurb and identify the updaters. The signature required no effort at all. So, my experience is that this isn't a problem that needs fixing and so we should do nothing.
Note also that the template currently says emphatically that "This template should not be substituted." per {{nosubst}}.
Andrew🐉(talk) 15:14, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do not understand your argument. Why can’t we change the example? Aaron Liu (talk) 15:20, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that, since this is both not substed and the signature appears within the template parameters rather than after it, any attempt to reply using discussion scripts also puts the reply in the template parameters. You using the template isn't the problem. The person responding to you using the template is. —Cryptic 04:36, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Govvy @Kiwiz1338 @Golan1911 Is there any reason y’all aren’t signing your nominations and any way we could make the hint more intuitive? Just asking. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:00, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, hiya there, I think I fail to copy the last line from the RD template, sorry about that. Govvy (talk) 18:24, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, it’s ok. Is there some way we could make it better? I tried making the template close on the same line as the last line, but that evidently hasn’t worked out. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:37, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wait a second… I’m crazy! They’re on different lines! I’ll try that first. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:38, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stale blurbs?

All of the ITN blurbs currently displayed are at least a week old, with the oldest (2023 Nepal earthquake) being 13 days old. Furthermore, there are no new ITN blurbs being suggested/voted on (not including RD). Should some of them be allowed to leave, or is it a matter of the news cycle not being especially eventful this week? ChaotıċEnby(talk) 16:07, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't seem like anything new of major national or international scale is really making the news lately. Most newsmedia coverage is focused on the current Israel-Palestine War and its periphery covered in ongoing. JM (talk) 16:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There've been plenty of blurbable events, enough in the past week alone to fully replace T:ITN. Some of the articles aren't in good enough shape. More aren't worth nominating given the disfunction at ITNC. —Cryptic 16:45, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most of these seem to be covered by the ongoing wars (Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar), local politics, or elections (like in Madagascar or Liberia) for which the results aren't there yet.
Also genuinely asking, what's the dysfunction about? If it's related to people not !voting for lesser-known topics, I feel that having them at least nominated would be a good first step? ChaotıċEnby(talk) 16:51, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually this is a great argument, and I don't even think we have an issue. It might be time to abolish the whole "included in ongoing" argument as it's nebulous what is included in ongoing and to a certain extent, why should it matter? Side note, where is this policy written anyway? I can't find it in ITNCRIT. DarkSide830 (talk) 20:49, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely a point I agree with. If these are the most high-profile ongoing events (unfortunately wars) with many developments, why are they relegated to a small link each with no news, much less visible than "mere" blurbs?
A solution that could work and avoid overflooding while giving a reasonable amount of place to these news would be to give a small update (one line or a few words, maybe just a link) to the last "event" part of that ongoing. Like:
ChaotıċEnby(talk) 21:32, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IMO I would like this as opposed to the current usage of the bottom half of the box for the traditional "Ongoing" and RD sections. Maybe use the Ongoing section and drop RD down to one line. I know people love RD, but we already link Deaths in 2023, and given the debatable nature of what constitutes an "Ongoing" event, targeting 2-3 key ongoing events as you've described may be more desirable. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:58, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There needs to be a limit, but yeah, I definitely think we could do with some laxing on the whole “covered by ongoing” point, especially considering that there are certain stories where the community decides is blur worthy even if related to an ongoing event. — Knightoftheswords 17:58, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is it's gospel to some. Yes, war generates notable events en masse as part of the larger event, but many events within larger conflicts are massively notable, and simply saying that we are "already covering it" is lacking key nuance in my mind. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:55, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I thought of nominating the Indian bus crash but figured it was pointless because the community just rejected an Indian train crash on the basis that they happen all the time now. JM (talk) 17:01, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should slowly roll off some of the blurbs if they are around 2 weeks old, but it seems like the current status quo is to keep blurbs until they get bumped by other topics.. Natg 19 (talk) 17:27, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot control when news happens or doesn't happen. That leads to periods where blurbs may only be on the list for a day, or when we have stale blurbs. There is nothing we can really do about this. Masem (t) 22:42, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are stories out there, but I can see them being shot down as domestic politics only (Rwanda asylum plan) or not quite up to main-page quality (2023 Spanish government formation). I'd let them through, but only because the blue-capped NASCAR chap is beginning to Fernando Lugo me. Moscow Mule (talk) 23:10, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Same, I just want to still submit them because that blue guy being there for over a week is getting annoying. ChaotıċEnby(talk) 23:40, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And the deed(s) is/are done. OK, let's see how it plays out. Moscow Mule (talk) 00:36, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are definitely stories that are also off the normal path of politics, wars/conflicts, disasters, and elections. For example, today the UK was the first in the world to approve a CRISPR-developed medication, which is well covered in mainstream sources, but the only place I see this mentioned on WP is over at 2023 in science. I have enough scientific knowledge to know this is important but not enough to write about this, so I don't see any way it can be promoted as an ITNC. And that's a volunteer problem too. Masem (t) 03:03, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to add it to the CRISPR article so it can be submitted as a blurb! ChaotıċEnby(talk) 21:32, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Update: CRISPR gene editing feels like a more natural choice! ChaotıċEnby(talk) 21:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Created a nom for the Indian tunnel collapse and ongoing rescue. Surprised this was not nominated, but maybe it is too small scale. Natg 19 (talk) 22:01, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:ITNSIGNIF:

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.

The community has full control to nominate and allow new items to be posted, replacing older items. However, the status quo has been to be restrictive to the extent of sometimes having old posts linger.—Bagumba (talk) 01:35, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The community is in charge" is a complete non-answer to a very real issue: except for sports (thanks to ITN/R), there are very few news actually getting posted on ITN, with even major events being relegated as "local news". ChaotıċEnby(talk) 23:27, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
'The community is in charge' is a complete non-answer... Wikipedia operates on consensus, for better or for worse. What would you propose as an alternative? —Bagumba (talk) 01:27, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that no-one is really in charge. Editors can't do much because the key page is protected. And the admins can't do much because there's quite a few of them and so they tend to be cautious and conservative. The discussions which supposedly power and drive the process are hopeless because key issues like significance are based on personal opinions rather than objective criteria and evidence.
There are many ways that this might be done better. These can be seen operating just fine elsewhere and include:
  • Portal:Current events which has much the same goal and works better because editors are free to edit it.
  • Deaths in 2023 which is likewise a page that anyone can edit – the way that Wikipedia is supposed to work.
  • Did You Know which runs so many new articles that it is often overloaded. Its process is based on clear criteria and a checklist. Other key features are that there's usually just a single reviewer per article and the set building doesn't require admin powers – admins push a button to promote the prepared queues in a more automated way.
  • The trending topics pages which are based on readership stats which are readily available. See WP:TOP25, Top Views and the Official App to see some examples.
Of course, these other examples are not perfect but they don't have to be. As Churchill said,

The maxim "Nothing avails but perfection" may be spelt shorter, "Paralysis."

Andrew🐉(talk) 23:45, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but consensus is built at different levels, and we have various guidelines and criteria to know what we should or shouldn't do. My point is, the debate shouldn't have to be had from scratch at every nomination. ChaotıċEnby(talk) 18:52, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Revising sports recurring items - Motorsport

Hello everyone - I had a look here WP:ITNSPORTS and I was left wondering how could such a specific sport as motorsport be featured most often? There are 150 countries where association football is the most popular sport while there is not a single one where motorsport is [1]. How could they be on equal terms on Wikipedia then, I don't understand. Below is the summary table with all the sports featured more than once per year, and you can see that all of the sports below are Olympic, but not motorsport. Moreover, looking at top-50 2022 sport events in the US[2] you can see that it's comparable to basketball, baseball, hockey – sports that are featured much less frequently on Wikipedia.

Therefore I would like to hear community's opinion on why it is so. I suggest maybe that the allocated spots for Motorsport are revised to 3-4 per year. The freed spots could then be reallocated to some other sports which are never featured at all, such as for example figure skating

Sport Entries per year
Football (ass.) 6.5
Motorsport 6
Golf 4.5
Rugby union 4.25
Horse racing 4
Tennis 4
Basketball 3.25
Football (other) 3
Baseball 2.25
Events 2.25
Cricket 2

demistalk 10:30, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • The problem with motorsports is that it's not just one sport. Formula One, rallying and Motorcycling are obvious three completely distinct sports that just happen to share the fact that there's a motor vehicle involved. The one that stands out as being removable is the Indy 500 - yes it's an iconic race, but it's just one of a series of races leading to a championship that actually isn't ITN/R itself! It's always struck me as a bit odd, and I think the nearest similar example is The Boat Race, which we removed not long ago. Black Kite (talk) 11:07, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure about other motor sports but Formula One is huge now globally and so there's an argument for reporting each Grand Prix, like the current ballyhoo in Las Vegas. The main problem there is that it would soon get repetitive as it has either been "Lewis Hamilton wins again" or "Max Verstappen wins again" for years.
As such sporting results are so formulaic (pun intended) and there are so many of them, then it would make sense to put them all on a separate line like Ongoing and RD. That's what professional news media usually does – put the sports into a separate section.
Andrew🐉(talk) 11:12, 20 November 2023 (UTC) (edit conflict)[reply]
Tried to make it work, here's a preview if you want! ChaotıċEnby(talk) 19:08, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That looks quite nice! I'd like it if icons were put before each row, but I also get that the main page doesn't have items and this looks good enough. Perhaps the sports section could be put above ongoing or below RD so there is a clear separation between seriousness. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:11, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Overall, there are too many sports blurbs compared to other news blurbs. Some of the problem may be too many ITN/R sports events, but some of the problem may also be that there are not enough other blurbs. JM (talk) 14:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, the priority should be getting more "other" blurbs rather than removing sports blurbs, although I also like Andrew's plan of putting them on a separate line. ChaotıċEnby(talk) 17:14, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Something like:
Sports: Grey Cup (Montreal Alouettes) · Cricket World Cup (Australia) · NASCAR Cup Series (Ryan Blaney)
ChaotıċEnby(talk) 17:19, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's really diminishing the relative importance of sports blurbs. We can argue there's too many, but we shouldn't try to treat them as substandard. What's next, doing the same for the various awards? or natural disasters? or elections?
The issue is the volunteer problem of developing and nominating quality articles about topics that happen to be in the news (not necessarily groundbreaking news stories) that would be appropriate to post, as to dilute the sports area more. Masem (t) 19:32, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support doing both, actually. It's not treating sports as substandard any more than RD is treating deaths as substandard - just cutting through the fluff, as most sports blurbs are formulaic and nearly always structured the same. Plus, this allows us to both fit more sports events and leave breathing space for other blurbs (see demo). ChaotıċEnby(talk) 20:02, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But the issue is that we aren't getting additional blurbs, and thus when sports events happen back to back, they appear to dominate the ITN box for some time. It would be different if we were rotating blurbs off daily, and still has an excess of sports blurbs, then this solution makes sense. But that's just not the case. Masem (t) 22:10, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very good point! Agree that the priority should be getting other blurbs up and running. Maybe get more people on Wikipedia to participate in ITN? ChaotıċEnby(talk) 01:13, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat echoing what Masem said, but the problem is twofold:
  • ITN, already not exactly diverse in content, effectively becomes a disaster/politics ticker with the occasional unusual story sprinkled in.
  • As a result of the that, complaints are then magnified further over the already-existing issues of:
    • How it’s just a disaster/politics ticker, even more barren of content than the current accusation of disaster/politics/sports ticker.
    • How blurbs become on average even more stale than they already are, because there’s fewer new blurbs to push old ones off.
I can certainly see the argument for paring down the list of ITNR sports (I myself voted to remove The Boat Race from the ITNR list some months ago), but to reduce it to a singular RD-esque line is to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and in turn make existing problems worse. The proposed solution of “well, just have people contribute other blurbs” is overly optimistic at best and poorly thought out at worst; we don’t control the news, and we can’t just simply force people to come up with new blurbs. The Kip 02:11, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The solution of "have people contribute to other blurbs" isn't perfect but there is definitely work to be done, especially since important news are often missed by ITN. A few days ago, I proposed a blurb for the first CRISPR gene editing drug being approved, which got exactly one !vote and got stale... ChaotıċEnby(talk) 02:34, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, we can't force people to come up with new blurbs, but we can definitely put up a message to encourage them to suggest unusual blurbs outside of the sports/disasters/politics trio. ChaotıċEnby(talk) 02:36, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with this concept. We shouldn't be striving to post news because it's interesting - DYK is a perfect venue for that. Politics and disasters are important. Maybe sports aren't, but I don't think we should be intentionally posting less. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:13, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Bagumba. Motorsport is a family of sports involving a motor vehicle in the same way as football is a family of sports involving kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. For better comparison, we expect to post 10.5 football stories a year if you include the American, Australian, Canadian and Gaelic variants. Nonetheless, one thing worth discussing is why we’re inconsistent in presenting the ITN/R items on these clearly different sports, i.e. why we use bullets for the motor sports and sub-sections for the variants of football.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:03, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's completely irrelevant if rugby union should be added as a variety of football or not, and whether we'd have 10.5 or 17.25 football stories per year. The point is that we're inconsistent in presenting the ITN/R items. Separating them in sub-sections is better, but that's not the case with the motor sports. The least we could do is unify the style so that we don't need to discuss this again in the future.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:09, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's probably some changes that should be made to ITNSPORTS – like, do we really need eight rugby events, but only one for American football? I've always found it puzzling that we don't list the college football championship which is regularly one of the most-viewed sports events (no. 2 in the US each year, per chart in the opening comment), even moreso than the college basketball championship which we post each year – at User:BeanieFan11/random notes I've started comparing the viewership of different events listed to see how popular each is. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:26, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think "rugby" covers a few different sports (rugby league with 13 players and rugby union with 15, plus variants) but you do make a good point. Great job with the viewership statistics, by the way! ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 09:54, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Number is not a reason to pare down ITN/R. Personally, there are a lot of things in sports that seem kinda silly to me, and the motorsport events are not among them. Do we need snooker, darts, handball, volleyball, or yachting? Can't say I know a single person who has ever said they had any interest in watching these sports, or that they did. And if we want to go after quantity, do we need 8 rugby items? The 6 motorsport items are all different types of motorsport. I don't see what the issue is with this. DarkSide830 (talk) 19:31, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yet snooker and darts are incredibly popular participation sports and the finals of those ITNR entries get big TV audiences; also, they're only contributing 1 story a year so I don't really think they're the problem. My knowledge of handball, volleyball and yachting is fairly minimal, so I'm not going to talk about those. I do notice, however, the one of the biggest participation sports in the world, badminton, doesn't even feature. Meanwhile, I do think we could trim some of the others. I don't think we really need;
  • The three national soccer leagues; yes, the Premier League does get massive audiences worldwide and that would be the one to keep if any, but all three of those often don't get posted because the articles are terrible.
  • The European Rugby Champions Cup or Super Rugby; that would leave us with the World Cup (4-yearly) and the two premier Northern and Southern hemisphere yearly tournaments, both of which get huge audiences.
  • Japan Series Baseball (as per the soccer leagues above)
  • EuroLeague Basketball
  • Do we need the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown (which the former is a part of)?
  • The Indianapolis 500, as I said above - yes, iconic, but so are a number of other single races (i.e. the Monaco GP)
  • American college sports, though we all know that's unlikely to happen
  • On a strictly numerical basis, the Triple Crown seems pretty harmless to include. It's only been won 13 times in the past 104 years, with some large gaps. That also makes it a lot less predictable and formulaic than most other ITNR items. 98.170.164.88 (talk) 10:05, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Handball and volleyball are internationally popular Olympic sports. Snooker and darts may not be internationally popular, but there are large audiences in the English-speaking world with growing popularity elsewhere. Yachting is a form of sailing, which is another Olympic sport.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 23:23, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree that being an "Olympic sport" makes something worth including. The Olympics have a lot of sports, many niche. I don't think that handball, volleyball, snooker, and darts are not popular, it's more of interest in the professional game. ie, I enjoy playing volleyball and darts and really couldn't have told you for sure without looking at the list that there was a world championship for volleyball or that the professional game for darts was very popular. I'd retain snooker and darts based on Black Kite's analysis though. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:51, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree that being an "Olympic sport" makes something worth including. Yes, that line of thinking once made all Olympic athletes inherently notable, which has since been removed by consensus from WP:NSPORTS. —Bagumba (talk) 02:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @DarkSide830 and Bagumba: Olympic sports are globally widespread and internationally popular—that’s why they’re Olympic. The thing is that being Olympic, i.e. globally widespread and internationally popular, isn’t the sole criterion for inclusion. You can make an argument that American or Canadian football are more popular than handball or volleyball, but that’s simply not true unless you live in an area where no-one watches those sports. Handball and volleyball are amongst the main school sports across Europe (except the British Isles), most of Africa, Iran, East Asia and parts of Latin America. Volleyball is also a popular sport in the United States. Those areas have much more population than the areas where American or Canadian football are played. In addition, one of the main surprises at the 2023 World Men's Handball Championship was the United States team primarily composed of US-born players, who were complete underdogs but qualified for the second group stage and scored two wins, which clearly indicates that the sport has growing popularity there. So, your call to revisit the ITN/R status of those sports just because you don’t know anyone who watches them should be dismissed (in the same way, Indians may argue that basketball should be revisited because it’s likely that they don’t know anyone watching that sport).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:05, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    So, your call to revisit the ITN/R status of those sports just because you don’t know anyone who watches them should be dismissed: Except I never said that. What I did comment on is over inflating an ITNR item because the sport happens to be an Olympic sport. —Bagumba (talk) 10:28, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The quoted line was addressed to DarkSide. I don’t say that the Olympic status should be the main criterion, but it’s an indication of international popularity, which is exactly what weakens DarkSide’s argument above. I personally don’t know anyone watching Gaelic football or even rugby, but that’s not a reason to call for revisiting their ITN/R status.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:40, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think Olympic status should matter - flag football is going to be an Olympic sport: are we going to post the IFAF Flag Football World Championship (something that I, a massive football fan, had never even knew existed until recently)? BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:31, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Olympic status is an indication that a sport is globally widespread and internationally popular, but it’s most definitely not the only criterion for inclusion. I mentioned it in response to DarkSide’s argumentation above, not that it’s the main criterion that we should hang on.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:27, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    But "popularity" is A. debatable and B. does not confer interest by involved parties in related world championships or the professional game. That was the gist of my earlier comment on darts and volleyball. Do most that participate in these sports have an interest in viewing their top-level competitions. Seems to track for darts, I'd say, but the point is general popularity as far as it relates to ITN is debatable. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:36, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Breakdancing is also an Olympic sport as of next year, and I doubt there’d be any support to add that to ITNR. The Kip 17:49, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dealing with "popular" or "well-known" deaths

Ignoring the question of a blurb or not, and the issue it being pulled and then reposted, the Kissinger death ITNC shows a long-standing problem that we have people that generally don't come to ITNC and !vote support just because the people is someone well-known, famous, beloved, or a whole host of other reasons related to fame and popularity. We can't prevent editors from throwing support votes this way, but we do have the problem is that is all they are !voting on without considering the quality of the article, which in this case, led to pre-mature posting (only 3-4 !votes made comment on quality and of those, they were all warning about CN tags).

What's happened with the Kissinger nom doesn't matter in the end, but it is this pattern that is too too common about drive-by !votes that only want to throw a support for someone they recognize but do not even both to talk quality. It would be different if multiple earlier !votes said the quality was fine, then we don't need every single other vote to point that out, but we need more eyes to look at quality - yay or nay - before the focus on importance for posting. We have the disclaimer in the template box but that's not clearly being seen.

Is there any way we can guide infrequently !voters to say more than just a "Support" and get quality issues addressed sooner than later? I don't know, I'm trying to brainstorm here. Masem (t) 05:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We do have WP:ITNCDO/DONT, but it could be a good thing to add at least a short version of them to the page's editnotice, which for now is only useful for people wanting to add a new topic (i.e. not at all the majority of editors only voting). ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 05:46, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How about we just have Admins do their job properly, and ignore inappropriate posts supporting the nomination? As for the blurb, this must also apply to all those posts that effectively said nothing but "OBVIOUSLY deserves a blurb". (MY emphasis.) Obviously is NOT a reason. HiLo48 (talk) 05:52, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support InedibleHulk (talk) 07:40, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLUESKY. nableezy - 15:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also concerning was the nominator's comment, which said nothing but "Been waiting for this day" instead of, you know, actually commenting on the significance of the event or quality of the article. It got no better when they gave a !vote on their own nomination of nothing but "support obviously as nominator". This was followed by, as you said, a parade of !votes all being variations of "support, well known highly influential major figure" ignoring the 10+ CN tags it had at the time. Amazingly, 3 different people !voted support for the blurb with the sole justification being "obviously". The admin was right to pull at the time, consensus was not reached as CN concerns voiced by multiple editors were not addressed at the time. I don't exactly see a way to address any of this except to just have other editors call people out for these things. ITNCDO/DONT is already at the top of the page. JM (talk) 06:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ITNCDO/DONT is neither at the very top of the page, nor as an editnotice, which may be a problem for people directly skipping to the relevant section without reading the wall of text in-between. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 06:11, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's in the lead above all the nominations and the archives. I would call that "the top of the page" but whatever. JM (talk) 06:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is not in the lead at all? It's in the third section of the article, below the table of contents and a bunch of text, and doesn't show up when you load the page. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 06:35, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused, are we talking about the same thing? On ITN/C on desktop, I see an introduction followed by a big blue box containing "How to nominate an item", "Headers", and "Voicing an opinion on an item" which consists of ITNCDO and ITNCDONT. Underneath that is archives followed by nominations. Off to one side is the ITN toolbox and template, and off to the other side is the table of contents. Definitely shows up on my page. JM (talk) 06:43, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is that you're assuming these editors are !voting to support in ignorance of the quality issues, rather than deciding that the quality issues are not sufficient to prevent posting and !voting despite them, which is permitted by the wording of WP:ITNQUALITY.
I don't feel that is appropriate - and by extension, Spencer's decision to pull was, I feel, an inappropriate super vote. BilledMammal (talk) 06:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Spencer's pull was fully appropriate. A few CN tags in an otherwise fine article is acceptable, 10+ is not. Curbon7 (talk) 07:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) If y'all have a concern with my admin actions, my talk page is open and you're free to ping me. There's no need to type obliquely. I've already explained my reading of consensus over at ITNC, but to repeat myself, WP:ITNQUALITY allows citation needed tags to appear in blurbed articles. Moreover, editors are free to !vote support without explicitly declaring their assessment of an article's quality. That comes with the territory of being a free and open wiki. In this case, I assessed that there was overwhelming support in favor of posting, and that those individuals were clearly not concerned that 5% of the article being tagged violated the minimum quality standards as they are written (even if, as became apparent, it did not measure up to what a few editors think they should be written). To the larger question raised by Masem in the OP, I do think it would be helpful to encourage editors to explicitly state their position on the article's quality in addition to its significance, even while !votes that miss one or the other should not be automatically discounted. Rather than adding more content, perhaps a solution may be found in shortening the wall of text that leads the page (nearly 1000 words, by my count). Ed [talk] [OMT] 06:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's an admin issue too (and not just Ed but for all admins that post these without taking into account the quality issue or when these concerns are raised by a few !votes, hence why I am not addressing that), but the larger issue is non-regular editors that appear when a popular or well-known person is up for RD/blurb, or even for popular blurbs. Maybe a few of these could be read as an implicit support acknowledging the quality is fine, but knowing the typical arguments we've seen in the past from non-regulars and regulars, most support !votes lacking a statement about quality are only considering the significance factor and are not taking into account quality (whether good or bad). Masem (t) 13:07, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This isnt some walled garden where the "regulars" decide to overrule the wider community. It is good when we get non-regulars involved here, maybe it will turn this place into something that reflects actual consensus instead of the handful of people willing to stomach the the nonsense that happens here. That isnt how this or any other page on Wikipedia work, this is not your fiefdom and you and nobody else gets a bigger role in deciding what gets posted than anybody else. nableezy - 15:33, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I.have no issue with non regular participation, its just non-regulars not being well versed on what we expect from !votes. Its trying to figure out how to make them better informed. Masem (t) 15:47, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Nableezy seemed to take that comment completely the wrong way for some reason. JM (talk) 15:49, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing in what we expect for votes however. There is no substantive or overriding criteria for this page. It doesnt exist, there are only editors who seek to impose their idiosyncratic views on what must be done. There is, for example, you claiming that the historical reason for ITN was to showcase quality work of the encyclopedia that happened to be in the news, not to present material that people may be looking for more information on because it is in the news (wrong, for the record, it began with an update about 9/11 shortly after the first plane struck, dont believe we had a well-cited and written article at that point), there is elijahpepe saying we must not have US-centric news (wrong for the record, almost everything we post is one-country specific). I have repeatedly tried to establish some sort of objective criteria for this, and Im open to discussing anybody else's suggestions. But that has been shot down, repeatedly, including by yourself precisely because the lack of any overriding objective policy or guideline to help determine how !votes should be weighed allows for their not-based-in-policy-or-fact personal criteria to continue to have the weight of their vote. You want to rule out votes that dont meet a standard? There is no standard here. nableezy - 16:08, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ITNCRIT exists for a reason and support !votes that do consider all parts of ITNCRIT not already reasonably demonstrated should be considered questionable. We are talking the equivalent issue of ATA for AFD, where editors often pile on keep !votes for the wrong reasons. Masem (t) 20:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's a large difference between AfD, which operates on policy, and ITN, which operates similarly to a WikiProject. Ed [talk] [OMT] 20:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And whenever Jimmy Carter dies there will be an even larger flood of editors ignoring WP:ITNCDONT. JM (talk) 12:43, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the answer is a simple template. Similar to what’s used at the DYK side of the house.
Blurb notability: Y/N
Quality: Y/N
Comment: Additional comments
Signature.
if someone can templatize it - I would say, go for it. Ktin (talk) 20:50, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense JM (talk) 00:24, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There’s an easy remedy that I’ve applied once or twice, and other editors followed on a couple of more times. It’s called moderation. Just close the discussion on significance with a note that it’s been clearly established and direct editors to improve quality. By doing it, you give a warning sign that posting would be pre-mature because of article’s quality, and you also guide editors to focus on quality and stop with the drive-by votes based on significance.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:43, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is a great idea. I participated literally only because there were people saying it wasn't significant enough for a blurb. I wouldn't have bothered to participate if the significance could have been marked as established while we work on the article. Valereee (talk) 14:47, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think this method can do more harm than good if it ends up prematurely ending a discussion. Not long ago we had that beatles song nomination that had like 10 supports and 0 opposes, was posted, and then had like 17 or something post-posting opposes and was pulled. The point being that you close a discussion on significance it prevents people from later coming in and opposing based on significance, and same for quality, and you end up doing something the community may not want once all is said and done. JM (talk) 14:53, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That’s not a problem. Once quality is improved and the article is posted, the discussion on significance will be re-opened so pulling wouldn’t be impossible if a number of well-justified oppose votes accumulates. After all, we all strive to improve quality, and temporarily putting significance on the back burner shouldn’t be harmful.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Quality checks I'll note that WP:ITN/A makes no mention of quality. However, I've always done cursory checks (no orange tags, minimal Cn tags, RD with sourced death, etc), and don't post if not met, often posting a related oppose/comment about the finding in the nom as well. The question for the community is whether to codify some minimal quality into ITN/A, which I believe is generally already the de facto practice by admins. For example, ITNA does have explicit instructions on images not to post at Wikipedia:In the news/Administrator instructions § Images—Bagumba (talk) 07:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This has been my practice as well, and it is not uncommon to have a nomination with nearly all supports or marked as "ready" with significant quality issues that requires some TLC prior to posting. SpencerT•C 16:16, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It would probably be a good idea for us to discourage some of the marking that is done right now for this reason. Between that and the people making comments such as "the vote is x-y, when is this going to be posted/closed", it feels like there's a lot of attempts almost to supervote and push noms along by prodding Admins. Not that I believe most of it is malicious or anything, but I think attempting to limit these actions may improve the posting process. Given Admins are busy, maybe even having an ITN specific Admin group who can handle this stuff, which means the Admins can just focus on validating consensus and the actual posting of noms. Just an idea. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:15, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive the phrasing here, I wasn't paying perfect attention when I made that reply. Not on my game today.DarkSide830 (talk) 00:16, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It might be an exaggeration, but if anyone in a "ministerial" post like State of Secretary could come as close as possible to effectively running a country in terms of its foreign and global policy, that person would be Kissinger. He does fit the sui generis standard, there are very few famous Secretaries of State (save for those who would themselves eventually become President). That being said, I think we did ITN a huge disservice this day. Not because he should not have been posted; he absolutely should have been. But the posting happened about 70 or 80 minutes after nomination when it was far from clear that we had a unanimous consensus on quality and significance. Then it was pulled. Then re-posted. Then closed outright at 07:15 GMT by a non-admin, Curbon7. The silliness could all have been avoided if we had suggested (not mandated, just suggested) at least a 12-hour discussion window considering this was far from a sure shot. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

12 hours to post something obviously worthy is a waste of about 11 hours. nableezy - 15:30, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do get it, though. Time zones, and the general level of feeling that American editors overestimate significance of US-related topics. Valereee (talk) 15:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is no deadline. We should not be in any rush. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:53, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I get it too, Im the one that raised that UK/EU editors were still sleeping. But the Elizabeth blurb was posted in seven minutes. You really want to say anybody would have demanded twelve hours for that? That there is no deadline and no rush? nableezy - 15:58, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think Elizabeth's article had unsourced statements regarding the impacts of her bombing campaigns at the time of her death. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So? Whats that have to do with considering significance? Whats that have to do with Walt's suggestion that we have a 12 hour window? Youre going to say well some cases are obvious for significance? This case was obvious for significance. And by the way, I fixed that, and a bunch of other cn tags, before I suggested it be restored. nableezy - 16:11, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't talking about significance. I was talking about article quality. IIRC, Elizabeth's was that good that we posted it that quickly. Kissinger's was not that good and the initial post was too soon. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure fine, but that isnt what I was responding to. nableezy - 17:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely. If it's a FA, particularly a recently promoted one, and it can be quickly determined that updates regarding death can be added and reliably sourced, then there is no need to thrash around. We have very quickly and rightly so posted death blurbs that were slam dunks/home runs/hat-tricks/7-10 split conversions for that very reason; the process is not required. That was not the case here. Things were far from perfect on both criteria. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:13, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, Diego Maradona was posted in eight minutes. Not a GA much less a FA. Pelé in 23, though that was a GA. Where exactly are you going to draw the line on what is or is not clear. And no, the significance of Kissinger is clear, I cannot take seriously somebody who disputes that. Like I really am trying my best, but I have yet to see a single argument about his significance to take seriously. nableezy - 16:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nor I. Yet we must wait, because of our subjective consensus-finding process and even as you said: There is no substantive or overriding criteria for this page. It doesnt exist, there are only editors who seek to impose their idiosyncratic views on what must be done. Until we have such a criteria for where we can quickly tick off the boxes, subjective arguments must be addressed and considered and at the same time we need to be careful about the quality of the articles being posted, in a fashion that is orderly and not post-pull-post. It's unfortunate but articles for sportsmen tend to be in much better shape for quality and sourcing, partly due to the attention they get, partly because the figures tend not to be as controversial.
I do think it's a little comical how blatantly we tripped over ourselves to post Maradona and Pelé, even considering the shape of the articles. And while I don't disagree with their posting, I conceive just as you do that there is a bizarre standard being applied when the posting of Kissinger, one of the most (I would say the most but someone would surely cite Gandhi) influential politicians of his era, is dogmatically considered to be "U.S.-centric". Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:30, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any reason why we can't mandate a 12 hour (or 6 hour) period for any ITN blurb, regardless of what the topic is, whether it is the death of the queen or Pele, or some other significant event. There should not be a "race" to get things posted. Not sure if the average reader even cares that we "rush" to get things up on ITN. Natg 19 (talk) 19:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been thinking of a proposal that relates to my comments below on having a sliding scale of "quality" relating to the relative "staleness" of the event, ie we enforce the utmost quality standards to post something immediately, and maybe tolerate a more lax standard for staler blurbs. That way we get events posted, but encourage continued improvement of target articles. DarkSide830 (talk) 19:58, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I don't think this was some sort of absurd crisis. Two Admins disagreed on quality. Ed believed it was there and Stephen did not. If the calculations were true and it was in fact ~5% uncited, I can see how that would be a grey area. I voted against quality at the time the nom was pulled, but it was more or less out of abundance of caution. Personally, I see no need to rush to post an item that isn't of the very best quality. ITN gives you roughly 7 days to improve a new nom's quality. I'm behind what HiLo's putting down - Admins are empowered to ignore a wave of "supports" when quality is not present. I think that principle just needs to be applied more consistently. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:44, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it was Spencer, not Stephen. JM (talk) 15:46, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Deepest apologies to Spencer on that one. Knew I should have made sure I got the right name on that one. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:57, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@DarkSide830: I used WP:PROSESIZE to get the total word count, and copy/pasted the the text tagged with CNs into a word counter to get to the 5% number. Very manual process, but I'm confident it was correct at the time I said it. Ed [talk] [OMT] 19:06, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have nothing against your process, results, or even your assessment thereof. I know enough about stats to understand how 5% can both be small, but still also significant. Corrections were made and the result is the posting happened with a slight delay and slight improvements. Personally, I don't think the actual results were much different nor were a big deal. Just pointing out that it is, in fact, a grey area. DarkSide830 (talk) 19:56, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All good. I thought I read an open question in "if the calculations were true", and figured I should answer it in case others want to do a similar calculation in the future. Ed [talk] [OMT] 20:10, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was more that I wasn't going to die on that hill if it were actually, say, 2%, or 10%. I naturally tend to qualify things. It was more about being lawyer-like then anything else. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Does Wikipedia need to start pre-addressing suitability for ITN (on an individual basis) for "old person dies" blurbs? The quality issues aside, a few editors seem to think it was rushed or inappropriate to post a blurb and are suggesting that "support blurb, obviously" comments be discounted. Which is backwards; the stronger the case for a blurb, the less of an argument is needed. Also, it would be much easier to limit these discussions to "article quality" if the "Not a head of state, not a head of government, so not sufficiently notable" style comments did not have to be rebutted. 217.180.228.138 (talk) 16:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Or, if that is too distasteful, there could just be two headings for discussion on "RD/Blurb" discussions; "quality" and "blurbiness". 217.180.228.138 (talk) 16:07, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I raised this earlier in the year as a possibility and other people have raised it since then. Having a quality section and a significance section under RD/Blurb discussions naturally forces people to consider both as discrete issues instead of the jumbled mess we often get with these nominations. The obvious downside is that people will have to make two edits/split their one edit over two sections. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 19:31, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is honestly a great idea, and could even be expanded to all nominations with "quality" and "notability" (except ITN/R, of course). ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 04:55, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's a different argument altogether. Arguing the significance of Henry Kissinger is a subjective matter and I feel that consensus worked as it should have there. The issue was regarding the readiness of the article, and I wonder whether posting admin in this situation tend to overestimate the quality of the article if the pull of significance is overwhelmingly strong. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:16, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This concept was proposed before and voted down for some reason. DarkSide830 (talk) 17:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Of what value is any death blurb, and to whom? Can anyone complete this sentence: If we blurb a significant recent death, then ______, but if we don't blurb it, then ______. Because I don't get the point. Seems like one of those things where Wikipedia creates something to argue about so people have something to argue about. Levivich (talk) 22:39, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Same point as any news story I suppose. nableezy - 22:41, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, of what value is any death blurb, as opposed to an RD? Levivich (talk) 22:45, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Same answer. Some deaths are as big a story as any other class of news stories. RD is for any death of the subject of an article. But unless we want to say that no death merits a blurb, and again I don’t think that is true, or that only unusual deaths like Kobe Bryant merit one, and again I don’t think that’s true, then we need to determine what differentiates between merits a blurb or doesn’t. But Elizabeth brought about a full orgy of royalism across the main page and that was old lady who didn’t do anything dies peacefully in her sleep. So I don’t think that’s what people actually want, unless they just admit they only want it for some stories and not others. nableezy - 23:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I'm asking why does any death merit a blurb? (Putting aside death-as-events, eg assassination, helicopter crash, etc.)
What is it that blurbing, eg Kissinger, accomplishes? Can you fill in the blank: If we blurb Kissinger then _______ but if we only RD Kissinger then ______? What is the value or purpose of the blurb? Levivich (talk) 15:12, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In my own personal usage of Wikipedia, blurbing Kissinger puts an emphasis that he has died - featuring the "event" of his death. 90% of the list of names in RD, I have never heard of, and they are in a list format which is harder to notice. The blurb draws much more attention to the death, especially if it is the top blurb listing and the ITN image. Whether this is valuable to others or not (or is the intent of ITN/RD) is debatable. Natg 19 (talk) 18:24, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's also all I could come up with--blurbing draws more attention. But we only blurb people who are, for lack of a better word, super famous--the very same ones where we don't need to draw attention because they're already receiving extraordinary attention. So, "if we blurb Kissinger then readers will see it, but if we only RD Kissinger then readers will miss it" doesn't seem to wash for anyone we'd blurb. In which case... what is the value of blurbing the death of a very famous person, and if it has little or no value, why have recurring arguments discussions about death blurbs at all? I'm curious if anyone sees a value to death blurbs beyond "brings more attention [to a person who is already getting a ton of attention]". Levivich (talk) 18:40, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RD blurbs don't even follow normal blurb guidelines, where people usually call for lasting impact. The deaths of neither Kissinger nor Day O'Connor have lasting impact, neither of them were in charge of anything and both of them have been retired for decades. Whenever someone dies who a lot of people care about, people will start saying "oh well his/her life had such a huge impact on others in the 70s/80s and the effects continue today" ...which in no way affects the significant lasting impact of their death, which remains 0. JM (talk) 00:22, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So you're saying if the death itself doesn't have some significant impact, it's not a significant death? Valereee (talk) 00:53, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
yes JM (talk) 00:59, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What kind of an impact are you talking about? I mean, Kissinger was writing a book. It probably won't get published now. Likely many readers in many countries would have read this book. So that's an impact, I guess. I'm not sure it makes his death more significant than it would be if he'd been between books. Valereee (talk) 01:08, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't !vote to blurb GRRM if I was around and he dies writing Winds of Winter, and that book would almost certainly be more widely-read and discussed than anything Kissinger was writing when he died. A book is not significant enough. I mean like "are you a major leader in the middle of major leading, or were you assassinated". Your death itself must be blurbable as a normal ITN blurb meeting normal ITN levels of significant lasting impact, which the lack of a publication of a book does not meet at all. I'm not the only person who thinks this, as far as I know at least orbitalbuzzsawgang is on roughly the same page, as well as a few others. JM (talk) 01:16, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So then no sports outcome should probably be blurbable? Not really a significant impact on anything, unless there's a riot or something, I'd agree. Valereee (talk) 01:25, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sports outcomes are ITN/R so I can't really argue against them when they're nominated. (It seems like sports are in a different category than normal ITN blurbs, like deaths used to be before RD. And some people don't even support blurbing riots, see the recent Dublin nomination). The primary target of my meta-arguments on ITN are RDs and death blurbs. JM (talk) 01:32, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but sports outcomes are routinely posted as clearly sig enough, by previous consensus. I suspect you'd find yourself in the minority if GRRM dies before finishing the series. Valereee (talk) 01:43, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, sports outcomes seem to be in a different category, because there are things far more significant which are not blurbed (Russian SC banning "international LGBT movement", George Santos' expulsion from US Congress, Mike Johnson becoming US Speaker, Nicaragua leaving OAS, and Sam Altman's OpenAI drama are all more significant than the outcome of any sports event, and not a single one passed). And really it's irrelevant as to whether I would be in a minority of opinions, ITN has multiple longstanding disagreements. JM (talk) 02:06, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah but that’s true for almost all stories. The Super Bowl isn’t super famous? The World Cup final? Most of the stuff we post are things people already know of, the point being to give them encyclopedic coverage of what they are interested of because of the news. But then again I kinda doubt most people come from ITN as opposed to Google anyway so what’s the point probably has an answer of "none" for ITN as a whole. nableezy - 00:34, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Levivich, clearly the reason we blurb some deaths and not others is to have grounds to argue whether we're too US- or western-centric. Try to keep up. Valereee (talk) 00:58, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What is it that blurbing, eg Kissinger, accomplishes?: As ITN is currently structured, it allowed his picture to be on the MP. —Bagumba (talk) 01:43, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The two factors for a death blurb that I consider as close to objective as possible, beyond standard quality and being reported, is that the article is at a GA or better quality, and that there is a section dedicated to the impact or legacy the person had on the world. The GA/FA quality would mean we're showing some of WP's best work, and the latter helps the reader why they should care about that person's death. Eg for Kissinger, the "Public perception" is doing that job for a legacy/impact section. This is a distinction between having a blurb for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, while not one for Sandra Day O'Connor (all other facets being equal). Masem (t) 01:59, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like this might not be as big an issue if some of our regulars didn't also value perceived notability over quality of the update. In my exerperience here, quality is pretty much always the secondary concern after whether something is important enough toeven be worth considering, and any drive-by editors are likely to pick up on that. Though I'll grand that this might partly be a subjective experience coming from me; in looking for an example I'm immediately seeing regulars oppose for quality and newcomers support for importance... so I guess this problem might be right on the mark indeed... ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:51, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As a means of observation, Sandra Day O'Connor just passed, and I expect this one to also have a lot of these non-regular pile-ons for support, when there are a few quality issues in the article. --Masem (t) 15:16, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A simple approach would be to instruct admins to consider any vote that does not comment on quality to be considered neutral on the subject (which they usually are), so that objections to quality are given more weight. GreatCaesarsGhost 16:32, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agree JM (talk) 00:19, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I stated with my "Quality checks" comment earlier, WP:ITNA makes no mention of quality. If we don't want to rely on "common sense", the community should codify guidance there. —Bagumba (talk) 09:59, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification requested on consensus on how to deal with citation needed tags in recent deaths and other ITN

There have been a couple of discussions on the candidates page regarding whether RDs with {{citation needed}} tags are suitable for posting. In the criteria notes WP:ITNQUALITY states "Articles should be well referenced; one or two "citation needed" tags may not hold up an article, but any contentious statements must have a source...". However, this does not apply to RDs per the next sentence WP:ITNQUALITY in "Biographies of living persons are held to higher standards of referencing because of their sensitive nature, and these rules also apply to those recently deceased." Historically, {{citation needed}} tags of RD articles must be addressed before posting. I recall spending a lot of effort sourcing Olivia Newton-John's discography/filmography etc because of this! From my recollection, this was the consensus at least 12 months ago. If this is to change then a formal discussion and update to WP:ITNQUALITY is needed. Personally, any nominator should try and address unreferenced statements on any article, regardless, but that's neither here nor there. What's the consensus for tags in RDs? Polyamorph (talk) 18:27, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My 2c: I don't see a problem with posting articles that have CN tags, though it depends entirely on what is tagged -- not how many tags. One CN tag might be too much if it's a controversial statement about a BLP. Conversely, I have no problem with 10 or 20 CN tags if they're all for easily sourceable noncontroversial items in an article with hundreds of refs. Conversely, 10 tags might be too much regardless of what the content is if there are only 10 or 20 citations total. So it's a case-by-case totality-of-the-circumstances analysis for me. I also believe that putting something on the main page attracts editors and that speeds up article cleanup. (I don't believe that showcasing quality articles should be a purpose of ITN, so CN tags don't matter to me from that angle.) The guiding principle for me is "are we sufficiently certain that what the article says is true?" I don't care much about quality of articles posted on the main page (beyond a dyk-level minimum), I care more about accuracy. Levivich (talk) 18:41, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A few thoughts. First, I'd like to mostly endorse Levivich's thoughts above, and I'm glad ITNQUALITY has the wiggle room to allow for CNs. Second, I don't think the second ITNQUALITY quote entirely obviates the first. BLP makes a distinction between "contentious" material and what I'll call regular content. Something like a filmography would fall into the latter category. Third, there's an ongoing discussion over whether BLP automatically applies to recently deceased people, and in my view should go to a RfC. If that happens, ITNQUALITY should track with whatever consensus emerges. Ed [talk] [OMT] 19:07, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll put my views here too (mostly taken verbatim from the discussion which led to this section): WP:ITNQUALITY one or two "citation needed" tags may not hold up an article. There was just an argument about this in Kissinger's RD/blurb discussion, where Vanilla Wizard said the following, which is important context for Polyamorph's citations which seems to invalidate their interpretation: WP:BLP does not apply to the recently deceased when their death is confirmed by reliable sources. Any extension to BLP on such an article "only apply to contentious or questionable material about the subject that has implications for their living relatives and friends, such as in the case of a possible suicide or particularly gruesome crime." In the Kissinger discussion, from what I saw it seemed to be 4v1 in favour of BLP not applying to confirmed deaths, and a 5th editor seemed to have no problem agreeing that ITNQUALITY was not an issue for a few CNs (feel free to look at the kissinger discussion yourselves). And as far as I can tell, BLP doesn't say we can't have any CN tags, just that contentious material must be sourced to RS. JM (talk) 19:19, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I find it a slippery slope not to insist on content being verifiable before posting an article to the main page. @Levivich: you claim to be concerned about accuracy, but how can you ensure an article is accurate without sufficient source. Take the filmography example, by not insisting on each credit to be sourced makes it a lot more difficult for any reader to assess its accuracy. It could be completely made up. I recall in the Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/August_2022#(Posted)_RD:_Olivia_Newton-John several users Masem, WaltCip, Alsoriano97, PFHLai, The Rambling Man insisting on a fully sourced article. And rightfully so. Polyamorph (talk) 19:48, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    By looking it up. If a filmography is not cited, it's still fairly easy to verify (for some, like a mainstream Hollywood actor). Imagine Charlie Chaplin is an RD (I'm avoiding picking any BLP/BDP as examples), and the filmography section just lists three movies: The Kid, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator, with no citations. It's tagged {{incomplete list}} and {{cn}}. I would post it to the main page. It's trivially easy to verify that those three movies are indeed Chaplin movies. It doesn't matter that no one has done the work of actually putting a citation in -- someone should do that work, but it's no reason to keep it from the main page. Same with it being incomplete. If we put that one the main page, the chances that someone will add citations and complete the list go up significantly, than if we don't. So that's an example where, despite being tagged, the article is accurate even if it's not sourced. Levivich (talk) 19:53, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Who's going to do the verification? Someone at ITN. In which case why not provide that source to save anyone else the bother? The whole point of sourcing is to prove its verifiability. You picked a very simple obvious case, for more obscure biographies with longer credits it's clearly not so simple. Polyamorph (talk) 20:03, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I would do the verification before I voted, or I might take the word of someone else who said they did (depending on who it was). The reason not to provide a source is because it takes much more time to add the source than it does to know, or even just look up, the information. For example I don't even need to look up those three Chaplin titles, I already know that they're Chaplin movies. But finding and adding a source would take much more time. For more obscure biographies with longer credits, I might think that the CN tags need to be cleared before it's posted. Hence, case-by-case, totality-of-the-circumstances. The whole point being: some CN tags aren't a problem, while others are, it just depends on the circumstances of the particular situation. Levivich (talk) 20:18, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, thanks for clarifying that. Polyamorph (talk) 20:25, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Are those pings? It would be detrimental to the conversation if this is canvassed, even unintentionally. JM (talk) 19:56, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You want to know the long-standing consensus. These users will be able to provide this. This is not a poll or RFC. It's a talk page discussion. Polyamorph (talk) 20:06, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    But you explicitly only got the editors who agree with you. I specifically avoided even naming the people who I got my position from, but since it's OK then I'll name them as well so that we can have a full discussion: Vanilla Wizard, The ed17 (who has already expressed his view above), BilledMammal, and Freedom4U all seemed to be in agreement against Masem that BLP didn't apply and ITNQUALITY allowed CNs (as far as I can tell), and Queen of Hearts seemed to agree that ITNQUALITY allowed CNs. These users may be able to clarify their positions expressed in the Kissinger debate I previously referenced on ITNQUALITY and BLP when it comes to RD. JM (talk) 20:16, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    In that discussion, they had to convince me! I have no problem with your pings. Polyamorph (talk) 20:21, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That's still canvassing. You can't show the "long-standing consensus" by only pinging users from one side. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 13:20, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    True, but there was no "other side" in that discussion I was referring to, apart from me! There are now multiple pings to the "other side" in any case. It would be better to concentrate on the discussion at hand. Polyamorph (talk) 15:11, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know Polyamorph from Adam, nor do my views at ITN have any synergy with his. If that was an effort at canvassing, you certainly wouldn't know it by me. I don't see why people are kicking up a fuss. We all agree that ITN/C is a highly subjective forum to begin with, and the interpretation of our idiosyncratic guidelines varies from person to person, to the point that it hardly makes any difference who gets pinged or canvassed to which discussion for what reason.
    Chaotic Enby and JM2023: Rather than jumping to assume bad faith, can we not instead focus on the matter at hand; I think Masem's point below is probably the most important one, which is that WP:BLP applies no matter how "important" it is that we post that person to RD, and in some cases, it applies even more knowing the eyes of the world may be upon that person's Wikipedia page. Our careful judgment in adhering to those existing policies should take precedence. Is there a point where it's not reasonable to insist on a citation for every line; yes, I'm sure there is, but take those case-by-case. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:46, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Fully agree on the point that BLP is especially crucial for people we're posting on RD. My apologies to Polyamorph for assuming bad faith. I'm not against you or him in that debate, I just was afraid of the consensus being artificially one-sided. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 16:22, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    No worries at all, thanks Chaotic Enby. Polyamorph (talk) 16:24, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I thought BLP doesn't apply to RS-verified dead people per Vanilla Wizard, The ed17, BilledMammal, and Freedom4U in the Kissinger discussion. Also, me raising the canvassing issue is not meant to read as assuming bad faith, which I why I specified even unintentionally. JM (talk) 09:19, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RDs are to follow BLP, which means they should be well-sourced. Maybe 1 or 2 CN tags if there are 200+ sources might be reasonable, but we should strive to have all CNs resolved before posting. Masem (t) 20:22, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • If inline citations were important then we'd put them right up front on the main page, but we don't – nothing there has a citation. And this policy of treating citations as unimportant continues as one goes deeper. For example, consider the following current ITN headline:

Somalia is admitted as the eighth member of the East African Community

There's no immediate citation for this. If the reader clicks through to the bold article then, in its lead, they will find

The member states are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Federal Republic of Somalia...

There's no immediate citation there either. There is a citation at the end of that paragraph but that is dated 2009 and just seems to verify the date when the organisation was re-established. If the reader presses on, they will next look through the many section headings and are likely to choose the section Partner states. This has a table listing the members and there's an entry for Somalia showing its accession in 2023. But again, there is no citation for that or any of the other members.
So, having drilled down three levels without finding a citation, the reader is likely to conclude that there isn't one and that Wikipedia normally presents such facts without them. If they actually want to confirm the fact, the sensible reader is likely to Google for it instead. That's usually a better way of providing independent confirmation and it gives quick results in this case. For example, if you Google somalia east african community, you immediately get lots of relevant hits and so are spoilt for choice. The top news story is currently Somalia minister kicks up a storm after addressing a conference in Swahili. I identified this important issue of language in the nomination discussion. Does our article say anything about the fact that Somalis don't normally speak or understand Swahili? Of course not. Tsk.
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:30, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you're ultimately trying to say. The fact that ITN blurbs are not sourced in the very articles linked is not good. This should be a basic requirement for ITN entries, in the same way that hooks must be sourced for DYKs.Polyamorph (talk) 09:45, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. This one really should have had a citation, just added one in the lead paragraph from the EAC website. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 13:17, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A frequent culprit is mass death blurbs, where the death count in the blurb is updated, but the article source has not been similarly edited.—Bagumba (talk) 15:00, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:LEDECITE does not require the lede to have sources as long as they are in the body. Masem (t) 17:10, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a problem with the blurb not having a cite and the lead not having a cite when there's an entire cited section in the body. Levivich (talk) 19:32, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I suggested in the prior section, a sliding scale may be best practice. ie we will wait to post items that are of less then perfect quality, but maybe if an item is languishing and is good enough then we post then. This comes into play with our deaths blurbs a lot because a lot of content was written years ago and not cited then, making citing harder. This is less of an issue with new content as it can be easier to prove or disprove the veracity of questionable statements, granted, but because they are rapidly being updated, maintaining a lack of CN tags can be hard still. DarkSide830 (talk) 04:27, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summary So if I can summarize, the historic consensus seems to be that one or two {{citation needed}} tags are ok for ITN provided that they are not for contentious info and the rest of the article is well sourced. This is usually only going to apply to larger articles with many citations. For RDs, we consider WP:BLP still applies and we expect a higher standard of sourcing, {{cn}} tags might still be allowable but only for the most inconsequential statements. Please let me know if I've read this consensus correctly or not. Polyamorph (talk) 09:16, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ITN checklist

Is there any reason why ITN does not use a checklist, like {{DYK checklist}}? Recently I discovered copyvio in a proposed RD. Despite highlighting this issue prior to posting, the RD was posted anyway and my protestations were ignored by the posting admin until another admin finally stepped in and pulled the article and helped initiate a copyvio case. I think an ITN checklist, representing a minimum standard for posting regardless of support or oppose !votes, will provide greater transparency and help facilitate full copyvio and sourcing checks prior to posting. In particular, as the thread above highlights, all blurbs should be sourced in the linked articles, in the same way that DYK hooks must be cited. Polyamorph (talk) 09:58, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A copyvio is a quality issue supposedly covered by WP:ITNQUALITY and as such this brings us to the thread above on how to make quality requirement more visible for some. Brandmeistertalk 12:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but if quality issues are being missed then would a checklist not be a good idea? To ensure checks are actually done. Polyamorph (talk) 13:10, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support that idea, a checklist would make the pending quality issues more explicit for people wanting to participate. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 13:18, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like and use the {{DYK checklist}} but its use is quite optional there and many reviewers just post a free-format summary of their findings. The main difference between DYK and ITN is that, at DYK, you have a specific reviewer who is expected to make a detailed and formal quality check covering several aspects – those itemised in the checklist. But at ITN, the emphasis is more on shallow, drive-by voting than reviewing. And so the issues that usually get considered at ITN are the superficial ones which can be established by a quick glance rarher than a careful reading. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:15, 3 December 2023 (UTC) (edit conflict)[reply]
  • But at ITN, the emphasis is more on shallow, drive-by voting than reviewing this is the problem. If copyvio issues can get actively dismissed by a posting admin after they've been raised, then ITN has serious problems. Use of the template or a free-format summary are both fine. The important thing is articles are actually subject to some more than superficial (DYK standard) review before posting something with serious problems to the main page. Polyamorph (talk) 13:28, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note For reference, the nomination in question was Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/November 2023 § (Pulled) RD: A. S. Byatt—Bagumba (talk) 14:15, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have always wondered why we don't have a checklist. Setting aside how the collective interpretation of ITN's guidelines already seems to be a free-for-all, I think one answer lies in the fact that the checklist presumably would necessarily need to cover all three ITN criteria - quality, significance, and reliable sources - and you can't come up with a checklist for WP:ITNSIGNIF beyond just "consensus exists". I tried myself; it was known as the "DICE standard", but it didn't catch on because it's a lot easier for someone to just !vote "I don't think it's significant".
Even outside of significance, it's a bit tricky because the degree to which an article needs to be improved or sourced for a news event varies from article to article. If you wanted to be detailed to cover those scenarios, you'd need a different checklist for a recent death; a different one for a disaster; a different one for sporting events, et cetera. Some may find that to be unnecessary makework. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:59, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should. I advocated for it a couple of times including recently upstream. The elements of the checklist should include atleast the following a) notability for blurb (if applicable) b) quality -- copvio check c) quality -- references d) quality -- completeness. Ktin (talk) 18:54, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If someone knows how to create a template for a checklist {{ITN checklist}}, I am happy to work with them on this one. I have a few thoughts. Ktin (talk) 22:11, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the checklist as used at GAN/FAC or DYK is that usually only one reviewer is updating that. ITN being more of "gather everyone's input" makes the checklist approach far more difficult to do, even if the idea of someone making sure what's there and what's not at the start of the nomination process might be helpful. --Masem (t) 23:03, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about this earlier and the answer might be that every contributing "vote" should follow the template. e.g. {{ITN checklist vote| vote=support, conditional support, oppose, comment | notability for blurb = Y, N, NA | copyvio = Y, N | references = Y, N | completeness = Y, N | neutrality = Y, N | notes = The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog | Sign = signature}} Ktin (talk) 00:37, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The more complicated the instructions, the less participation we will get. Masem (t) 03:18, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. But, what's there currently is not tenable. Once editors get used to it -- this should be a simple copy / paste. For e.g., today the nomination is based on a template, and we do get a reasonable dose of nominations. Ktin (talk) 03:21, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Alternately, we combine copyvio, completeness, and neutrality into a single field. So, there are only three fields (i.e. notability for blurb if applicable, references, article hygiene). Ktin (talk) 03:25, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Masem we don't want a template used every time someone !votes. My thought was simply let's have an initial checklist, completed by someone other than the nominator. A prerequisite for posting is that this checklist is completed, at some point. If it fails at the start if a nom, it can be updated, but must be by someone other than the nominator. Polyamorph (talk) 06:59, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are two items here a) evaluating an article holistically, and b) ensuring that the votes (specifically on popular posts — see thread immediately above) are covering both notability (for blurbs) and article hygiene.
The assertion for b) from above is that when there are popular articles there is a piling on of “support” votes stemming primarily from well-meaning groups of editors who refuse to see that the reason for the holdup is because article quality is not up to snuff. I am sure they are frustrated that an article that by all accounts is “popular” and in their minds ready to go to the main page is not making its place there. And, similarly, the other side of editors / admins who are holding off on getting the article to the main page because quality is not up to snuff are surely annoyed at the support votes not paying heed to the article quality.
The best way, in my opinion, to address both sets of the crowds is to ensure that every contributing vote is chiming in on notability for blurbs (if applicable) as well as on article hygiene. Ktin (talk) 01:29, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To go back to my OP post - the problem is when we have lots of non-regulars suddenly appear for a popular item, they will simply want to post their support !vote to stress something getting posted and move on. A checklist can do that but I suspect that something that complex will severely harm participation at ITN.
We need something that is clearly visible to remind editors (old and new to ITN) that we judge on both quality of the article (including the update) and the significance of the item (The third branch, that the topic is in the news, is something that should be demonstrated in the nomination header), and that their !vote should make sure both are reasonably addressed, if it is not clearly already addressed by preceeding !votes. But whatever it is, it should not force a whole new learning process to the editor.
The checklist idea is great if you're the admin trying to collate votes and determine whether to post, but it is very very hard on the voters, which there are far more of than admins. Masem (t) 01:35, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the only way a checklist at ITN could work is if it is required to be completed by an admin at the time of assessing whether it should be posted. The items would be something like (I'm explicitly not proposing exactly this):
  • Consensus the story is significant
  • Consensus the article quality is good enough
If either of the above are not true, do not post to the main page. Commenting and/or further evaluation is optional. If both are true then proceed to:
  • No red or orange banners on the article
  • No obvious copyright problems
  • At most a few missing citations, with all potentially contentious claims cited
  • No other major quality issues
If all four are true then post to ITN. If any are not true then post "Not ready" to the nomination with an explanation of why.
Something exactly like that will not work, but something along those lines is about the only thing that could work. Whether it would work and/or whether people think it is worth putting effort into refining into something testable are open questions. Thryduulf (talk) 03:21, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, a pre-posting checklist is essentially what I was thinking. It can include whether any significant concerns already highlighted by !voters have been adequately addressed (to prevent the copyvio situation I mentioned from happening again). Polyamorph (talk) 09:01, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, this is already covered by your second bullet point (although could explicitly include if there is any residual contention). Your proposal is nice Polyamorph (talk) 09:48, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that such a checklist be integrated into Wikipedia:In the news/Administrator instructions first. It seems that there should be guidance on how to handle a hypothetical case with say 10 supports which mention nothing about quality, 1 that supports and thinks quality is OK, and 2 that oppose due to too many Cn's. —Bagumba (talk) 09:58, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I know we have already established that hard and fast numbers for sourcing is CREEPy, but I still think some general numeric guidelines would be good, because "a few" when it comes to CN tags can be very subjective, as we have established with the Kissinger nom. Like a suggestion for a high-end % of the text that can be uncited. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:32, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I actually don’t think an admin needs to fill this checklist prior to posting. We do have a set of regular admins who are pulling more than their due by posting given our admin shortage. So, I do not think we should be adding to their workload by adding a checklist prior to posting. In fact I am hard pressed to find instances where an admin might not have done their due diligence prior to posting. It is the editor votes and more importantly the pile
-on editor votes that we should be looking at, imo. Ktin (talk) 06:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's extra work, as you says admins are doing the checks anyway and so substituting a template instead of simply writing posted is no extra work. But what the template provides is the ability to highlight outstanding issues that are barriers to posting, and provides transparency to the checking process. Polyamorph (talk) 09:06, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, transcluding a checklist of sorts onto nominations would make explicit the requirements for posting and hopefully make it clearer for non-regulars why a given nomination they are interested in has or has not been published. It could either be posted to every nomination (perhaps as part of the nomination header template?) or only if needed (sort of like AfD's {{not a vote}} template). If doing this I'd expand the list above with a "no unsourced sections" item and a short list of (no more than ~5) examples of common quality issues such as excessive proseline, missing information, etc. If done only when needed, then it could be included multiple times in a long nomination discussion to reflect the (un)changing state of the article. Thryduulf (talk) 11:32, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Instituting a sliding quality scale for ITN items

No consensus for the proposal is likely to emerge. ——Serial 16:44, 4 December 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.

Recently, ITN has dealt with concerns over when an item is up to the standards of ITN. As noted and discussed in prior discussions, CN tags are one of the biggest concerns. To this end, I believe codifying the allowable number of CN tags that are allowed in an article is in order, but how many is quite debatable, so I believe a compromise between more lax and more strict standards would be a good idea. I believe instituting harsher standards on article quality for recent nominations is a good idea, and then going from there. More or less, classic ITNQUALITY standards would apply throughout the process, but the allowable number of CN tags would increase over time, obviously not to an unreasonable number, but the goal would be to make sure articles posted to the Main Page are of the highest quality, but that articles aren't ultimately missing the cutoff in the end due to high standards. Said process would also further empower Admins to slow down posting noms that have received a wave of notability votes, but very little votes addressing quality, and would allow for a standard for them to point towards when those involved with the voting process are getting fed up that the Admins actually care about quality. Ideally, in my mind, this would involve enforcing a complete citation rule for the time of posting within the first 24 hours of a nomination being created, with the number of allowable CN tags increasing over time (I'd say this is best measured as a percentage of the text, maybe increasing to 5% as a maximum after x number of 24 hour periods), and with allowed exceptions for noms that have been up for less time, but are to roll off soon. I'm more or less just requesting feedback on this plan and the particular parameters that people think would best apply, but I think a system such as this one is a great way to resolve the issue of borderline quality postings, as well as prior concerns of people flooding noms with non-quality votes. DarkSide830 (talk) 04:44, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose per WP:CREEP. This looks like a solution in search of a problem. If the article is poorly sourced, then we don't post it. Why do we need to turn everything into an exercise in legalism? -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:58, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Various proposals lately have effectiely just been ways to make things way more complicated and difficult than they have to be JM (talk) 05:58, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I'm very confused. All these votes show is that we DO need a rule. There is in fact a "problem" and codifying a generally nebulous role isn't exactly CREEP. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose We shouldn't be allowing any articles with CN tags pass, though I can appreciate the IAR-type exceptions when an article has hundreds of citations and one or two CN tags on non-contentious statements. As soon as you speak to weakening expectations for certain types of articles, that's just going to be gamed more. --Masem (t) 06:13, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    that wouldn't even be IAR considering WP:ITNQUALITY says one or two "citation needed" tags may not hold up an article JM (talk) 06:17, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    More likely to apply for larger articles as opposed to ones barely beyond a stub. —Bagumba (talk) 14:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Which is why I think applying a percentage is better. This came into play with Kissinger, for example. The 5% of the prose that was uncited included several CN tags. The current standard is biased towards small articles, many of which tend to be borderline NOTNEWS content. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose verifiability is a founding principle, knowingly accepting unsourced content is a slippery slope. Polyamorph (talk) 06:54, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There's regular tag bombing at ITN which distorts the number of {{cn}}. The core principle of WP:V is that citations are only required for controversial claims and quotes. The idea that absolutely everything requires a footnote is mistaken. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:07, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It's an exaggeration that reviewers generally want "everything" cited. WP:ITNQUALITY does say that ...having entire sections without any sources is unacceptable. The actual practice is arguably that each paragraph is often expected to be cited, at a minimum. There's nothing wrong with ITN having higher standards than WP:V, if that's what the community chooses. For example, WP allows stubs, but ITN doesnt. —Bagumba (talk) 14:16, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It's no exaggeration. For a fresh example, see Glenys Kinnock where we see a demand that her publications be cited. This was absurd because such publications are sources and so their authorship is self-documenting. They are not controversial but, in any case, were already confirmed by the {{authority control}} which links to numerous great libraries. In this case, an editor was put to the trouble of adding inline citations but those are just clutter because they duplicate and repeat an authority control entry. That's making the article's quality worse rather than better.
    In many cases, such demands cause quite famous people to be omitted from ITN. This year, for example, these include people like Michael Gambon, David McCallum and Joss Ackland. This doesn't have much effect on our readers because they turn out in large numbers to read those articles regardless and few of those readers look at references. But it makes ITN's quality look bad when it chooses to highlight nobodies and novelties while denying the greatest actors, artists and authors.
    Andrew🐉(talk) 16:14, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose the "acceptable" number of citation needed tags will depend on the article. An article of 2,000 characters with 2 citation tags may have a high percentage of unsourced content, but an article of 50,000 characters with 2 citations tags would more likely be fine. This should be done on a common sense basis, rather than setting hard limits which would discriminate against longer, better quality articles. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:20, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per above and if this is an actual !voting thing then it looks like its headed for a snowclose. JM (talk) 16:23, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppodr per above. It also matters what is uncited - it matters much less if there are a bunch of unreferenced claims about something inconsequential than there being a single unsourced statement about something highly contentious. Thryduulf (talk) 16:28, 4 December 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.

This place is broken

I can live with nominations I make not being posted- this isn't about me- but what really shows this place is now broken is that we would rather have nothing current that post a quality article about a current event that is widely in the news. We have drifted from our stated purpose:

  • To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news.
  • To showcase quality Wikipedia content on current events.
  • To point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them.
  • To emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic resource.

We also note "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."

There is something wrong when an event that occurs six times in nearly 250 years that receives wide coverage is insufficient for posting. People aren't expelled from Congress every day. What would Mr. Santos have to do to get posted if being expelled from a national legislative body isn't enough? I know people say "it's the US" but I would love to support nominations about people being expelled from other national legslative bodies- if people update articles sufficiently, nominate them, and such expulsions are in the news. I can't speak for anyone else. But I would do it. It's like people are afraid to actually learn something or help other people learn something. Isn't that what we are here for?

Ideally I think this place would function just fine if it was more like RD. Too many postings is not our problem. I've considered formally proposing that and posted at the VP idea lab awhile back- but I don't think such a proposal would make it so I haven't bothered. But something needs to change here. OK- that's it, thanks for reading. 331dot (talk) 12:54, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As others have noted below, you've probably chosen a bad example to make your point. In November 2017 I made a similar nomination regarding an Australian MP leaving parliament, however you opposed the nomination. I recognise that the MP in question resigned rather than being expelled, but as I stated at the time, that is just a technicality - he preempted his probable expulsion by resigning before it happened. Chrisclear (talk) 12:26, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I opposed it "until the government falls" which is an additional impetus on top of a mere resignation. If Santos has resigned, I would not have nominated it as he had been pressured to resign for months. But explusions are a very rare event as I've said already, and as such would be of interest to readers. 331dot (talk) 12:31, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but the 'mere resignation' of Alexander was just because he knew how the High Court would rule, based on its decision in Re Canavan one month earlier. It was functionally equivalent to expulsion ordered by the High Court. Chrisclear (talk) 12:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because we're also a global encyclopedia and we're trying to avoid the systematic bias of English-based media sources that focus heavily on US and UK politics. If we only focused on what made headlines, what gets written about quickly by editors, and ignored the bias that would be introduced, ITN would devolve to a US/UK political news ticker. We are trying to encourage a broader range of topics and that might mean something that seems like a rare politic event is something we ignored. This is not just saying "its the US", its just recognizing that anything that happens in US politics gets overly magnified by the press and editors jump on that. That's part of our broader problem with WP:NOT#NEWS in that editors are far too excited about writing for current events and flooding those pages with excessive details but are forgetting the bigger picture to do a better job of summarizing the events and putting such things in content of the larger picture. As such, items like Santo's expulsion may seem huge and gets written up in depth, but on the global picture, its not a massive restructure of American politics as McCarthy being voted out as Speaker. Masem (t) 13:14, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Systemic bias should be addressed by working on underserved areas, not by suppressing stories. Kissinger has been up for far too long, but we would rather have that than something more current. 331dot (talk) 13:18, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Until we have editors that volunteers to work on news from underrepresented regions (as well as media to better support that), such that we are not hurting for selections of stories from those regions, the only other tool to combat global bias is to use a higher bar for stories from the US or UK , using stories that would likely be covered and/or posted if they happened in other countries. Masem (t) 13:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We can't control the media, nor can we control volunteers. If we are going to have a discriminatory criteria for this part of the main page, then that should be spelled out in policy. 331dot (talk) 13:31, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And I could kinda understand this if we were flooded with US and UK related nominations and posting right now, but we aren't. The only US story up right now is Kissinger, and I'm not really seeing a lot of US nominations in my quick glance. 331dot (talk) 13:33, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, although it's important that we avoid systemic bias, I disagree with Masem. We are not serving our readers by posting less of everything while we "wait" for the rest of the world to sprout stalwart citizen journalists to cover regional political or scientific news from Indonesia or Lithuania. I think most of our readers are more likely to notice nuisances such as a race car driver being the face of ITN for 10 days, rather than whether or not news from the US/UK comprises more than 33% of the items on the template on any given day. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:33, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also strongly disagree with suppressing US stories. The only weight on the scale should be regarding "RS coverage = significance" where coverage will always be greater in the US/UK. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:16, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"We are not serving our readers by posting less of everything ..." Hear, hear. Ed [talk] [OMT] 20:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been a proponent of posting significantly more and reorienting our project to the quality of articles written for a long time now. We're failing at least half of the ITNPurpose points by not celebrating detailed updates of more niche articles in this section. This type of discussion has been rumbling for years without any change, though. I'm still not sure if there's a consensus not to shift our values, or if these conversations just always derail and expand before fading out unceremoneously... ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:47, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, it's like people are afraid of learning something new or in helping other people do so. 331dot (talk) 13:58, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am of two minds about this. First, I believe you chose the wrong news item to make your point. We necessarily need to have a high bar on political news, particularly U.S. politics, since there's a pervasive belief that the news media has been conditioned to view even the most inane bit of political trivia as headline news/breaking news content to get clicks. That means our standard for this category of news is much higher than most of the others. The expulsion of George Santos from Congress will not go down as a historical event, compared to something such as the censure of Joseph McCarthy, whose dubious infamy left a major footprint in the political landscape. A lot of things do tend to happen for the first time in years, or even the first time ever, but that does not confer inherent notability.
Now that being said, I think all of the points you are making are valid. It is ludicrous that we post so few articles that are actually "in the news", and we've debated the title of this section many times, but "in the news" implies... new things, and we haven't been good about pushing content. And certainly I believe in loosening the WP:ITNSIGNIF criteria so that we don't get bogged down that way. However, our system as it currently exists is simply not configured to do so. Much as with RfA, many agree that there are issues with ITN, but most of us cannot agree on exactly what the issue is, let alone how to fix it. Quite a few editors, both regular and non-regular, feel that not posting the Santos story was an example of ITN/C working as it should have, and that posting it would have been evidence that ITN is severely broken, helpless to the marionette-strings of systemic bias.
It seems to me that a straw poll with one simple question: "Is WP:ITNSIGNIF working?" might help us make progress. Getting a consensus on that simple question would determine if there's even a stomach to make changes in the way that you are suggesting we do. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:28, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And I do think that if there is going to be a "higher bar" for US/UK stories, that needs to be specifically spelled out in policy. 331dot (talk) 14:46, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) It might also be worth asking the question: "Does ITN currently post too many, too few or about the right number of items?" to see what the consensus of those who don't regularly contribute to this talk page is. Thryduulf (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This has been raised as a question numerous times, and it's always proved to be a point of contention. WP:ITN clearly states that the two main criteria are quality and significance. The last attempt to get insights on which of these two is more important was perhaps this straw poll, which effectively divided opinion with arguments on both sides. I think the problem is not whether we're able to make an exception and post an event with disputed significance on the merits of article's quality, but that those exceptions make precedents that people hang on to in the future when similar events happen again or anywhere else. In reality, people almost never digest the substance of the nomination to discern why something was posted and merely focus on the result. A very recent example was the death of the SCOTUS judge Sandra Day O'Connor, which was considered for a blurb in a discussion with support votes based on the fact that we blurbed Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So, it stands to reason that quality and significance should remain complementary criteria.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:10, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Santos is one of 435 people in a single legislative body. The reality is his impact is very little and this situation is a classic example of how the media is biased towards US topics. As a few others noted, there is an interest in taking noms for expulsions from other legislative bodies as well. I would say it's more of an "exclusion" based approach to bias rather than an "inclusion" based one. I would say I generally fit into this camp. I think rather then forcibly lowering the bar, we need more noms. One example is the CRISPR story that was nominated recently. That one unfortunately went stale before we could come to a conclusion on posting, which sucks. I don't think posting less items fails ITNPURPOSE, and honestly, citing this policy can in theory be used to support the nomination of ANY news item with any meaningful degree of coverage, which is a lot of news stories because there are so many news agencies that report on so much news each day. I will reiterate what I've said in the past - what we need to do is encourage more ITN participation - more nominations and more votes. If we are worried about community consensus, then the best way is to actually get enough participants in any discussion. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There has been very few expulsions in the history of the US, and most of them were due to the Civil War. You can count on one hand the rest of them. My point here is less about my nomination specifically and more that we would rather not be current than post quality articles about subjects because, apparently, due to some unwritten rule holding US/UK noms to a higher standard. That should either be made a written rule, or we need to loosen up and actually fulfill our stated purpose. 331dot (talk) 16:58, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. My point on the Santos nom is the only reason it was nominated and got so much engagement was because it was a US story and therefore heavily covered. It was mostly voted down for being internal politics, and while we don't have recent context to say another such story in another country would get voted down in the same way, I have a feeling it would have. As I said, Santos was just over .2% of the total composition of a legislative body. I daresay this is not too far from the sort of thing we talk about when we discuss the concept of avoiding "celebrity drama" at ITN. US politics might as well be at this point, though examining some of the recent political news at ITN, I can't see this isn't true elsewhere as well. And for what it's worth, the historical context of expulsions in the US is interesting, but that is a great fact for DYK. DarkSide830 (talk) 17:16, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We specifically warn against "it's a US story" as a reason to oppose a nomination. This is either "in the news" or it isn't. We had a great article to post and we apparently would rather leave Kissinger up than put something more current. This is deeply troubling. If we are going to have a discriminatory policy that US/UK stories have a strike against them before they are even nominated, that needs to be written down. This isn't the place to right the great wrong of geographic bias in the media itself. Wikipedia itself, we can do something about, but not the media. 331dot (talk) 18:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I categorically disagree that countering media bias is a WGR concept. We are not and should not be beholden to how well or poor the media covers a story. Yes, breadth of coverage is needed for article-level notability, but that is not what we are doing here. We in no way are required to nor should be required to cover what publications think is notable. Let's call it like it is - news agencies wish to make money. They made money due to readership. They care about what people will read, whether it's notable or not. Man bites dog is quite popular for this reason. I don't entirely disagree that we may be seeing stories from Anglosphere miss the cut because they are borderline and we are trying to avoid this bias, but I do not believe that are nearly as common as is claimed by some. I don't think there is any real case of us not permitting a Anglosphere item while blurbing something on the same scale outside of it. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:24, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The main problem we have in changing ITN is that there is a big divide between the two groups here. There are some here that believe that ITN works as intended, to showcase quality articles that happen to be in the news. I disagree that ITN works as intended. I believe ITN should be a dynamic "ticker" type of project with quality articles. It is odd to me that ITN is the only project/portal on the main page that is not consistently updated. Though TFA, DYK, TFP, and OTD have different processes and teams, ITN should work to be like them and have more daily/weekly updates. Recent Deaths (RD) works well in this regard of being a dynamic resource.
Though we obviously cannot "make news", there is no shortage of news, as evidenced by Portal:Current events. At a minimum, ITN should have at least one or two new blurbs a week. But the current status quo is that there is usually a flurry of new blurbs (usually ITNR), and then blurbs stay stale for weeks.
I somewhat agree with others about the George Santos situation - that it is "not what is typically posted at ITN". But I feel this kind of reasoning just detracts from the bigger issue that ITN is often too stale. Natg 19 (talk) 17:37, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've stressed the issue that WP editors, as volunteers, typically are not writing quality articles on topics outside of politics, sports, and disasters. Coverage of stories from science and medicine, business and entertainment, and other broader topics is typically poor. We want to have a broader spectrum of topics but the bodies of quality articles for those are just not there. Masem (t) 19:40, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My concern isn't the broader spectrum of articles. It is the number of articles. Unfortunately, "politics, sports, and disasters" are typically what is in the news. ITN shouldn't be as static as it currently is. And maybe that is a participation problem, or maybe it is a stringency problem with the way that nominations are "!voted" on. Natg 19 (talk) 19:47, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is a case of how ITN can also be leveraged to help improve articles as well. Nominating an item for ITN tends to bring attention to the article's issues. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:27, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll give the most recent example of an "offbeat" topic that was well in the news but lacked an article, that being the first CRISPR-developed vaccine approval from about a month ago. There was not even a decent place in CRISPR to include that information. We're discouraged from bringing topics that lack articles or significant updates to ITN, and that definitely happened there. We've also had cases of some of the Nobel prizes this year fail to be posted because no one could work on improving the articles of the awarded researchers. (In the past I've been able to help but I really don't have that time availability that it would take for some of those articles). But, the latest political scandal in the US or EU and that's detailed with 400+ references. We've got the wrong focus as a body of editors overall. Masem (t) 00:58, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That one missed because it ended up becoming older then the oldest blurb before there was a consensus, right? I'm not sure where quality ended up being on whatever the eventually chosen target was, granted, but that one was harmed by being nominated late and getting buried by other stories. Your point isn't invalid though. I think part of the problem is sports and election articles, as well as disasters to some degree, are formulaic. Personally, I'm not a profuse editor myself, and tend to focus on talk pages and editing. But I will say, updating stats, results, or death counts tends to be a lot easier then writing main-body material on a scientific article. And it doesn't help when a lot of editors see the science in question just fly right over their heads. I find myself not participating in some science noms because it's, well, beyond me to deduce what is actually being explained in them. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:01, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we often don't post stories that we probably should, but I can't agree that the Santos story was the poster child for that. This wasn't the fact that it was "just in the US", but for the 95% of the world outside the US it was utterly irrelevant ("who?"), and thus uninteresting, and it appears it was fairly irrelevant to many Americans as well. Consider; there are 350m people in the US, and the maximum pageview on any day was 350k (i.e. 0.1% of the US populace even if they only clicked once each), and it fell off quickly afterwards. And yes, I'm 99.99% sure that an equivalent story from any other country, even the UK, would have been voted down as well. Hang on, you'll say, what about elections in very small countries, they're ITN/R? Well, yes, but that's a discussion for ITN/R. Black Kite (talk) 19:39, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I think I am on record opposing anti-posting US news bias I feel exists here, but something being rare doesnt make it a. interesting or b. important. Of all the stories to make the poster child for "ITN is broken", this is the worst one to choose. This was a kardashian and cspan crossover story basically. Who cares? Yes, ITN is broken, but is it broken because we didnt post the expulsion of one of 435 members of the House, a member who did absolutely nothing of note in his entire time as a congressman? Nah. nableezy - 19:54, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. The clown car still has plenty of clowns. This story is a nothing burger. Jehochman Talk 20:08, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nominations do not have to have Earth shattering impacts to be posted. 331dot (talk) 12:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's broken not because any particular nomination was not posted, but because we would rather be not current and topical rather than post something. If that's what we are doing, then this has ceased to be In the news and is just "what some group of Wikipedia editors think you need to know about that has an article". 331dot (talk) 12:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Current and topical would include all sorts of crap we would all decline to post. Celebrity gossip being the most obvious. You would certainly draw the line somewhere, but disagreeing where others draw the line doesnt mean that they are wrong. nableezy - 14:25, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference between news and gossip(though Taylor Swift was just named Time magazine Person of the Year) but we shouldn't be afraid of working to improve articles about topics in the news and posting them. If it's not encyclopedic enough for ITN, it shouldn't be in this encyclopedia at all. 331dot (talk) 14:32, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Huh. She was named over... just about anybody else? Didn't even know she was in the news recently for anything. Normally Person of the Year awards are for people who have had a major impact on the events of the year. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:00, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I very much like the argument "If it's not encyclopedic enough for ITN, it shouldn't be in this encyclopedia at all." ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 15:20, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thats not really a good argument. There are topics that are encyopeduc and are reported in the news but would never make sense forITN. Example is the announcement of Grand Theft Auto VI. Its all over the news, it will be an encyclopedic topic, but we'd never cover it at ITN barring a possible game of the year award following release. In part that we aren't using ITN for commercial promotion (we rejected stories on the latest iPhone for similar reasons). Masem (t) 15:29, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that is silly. "Encyclopedic" is criteria for articles, not ITN. We are not and should not be nominating items because they are "encyclopedic". DarkSide830 (talk) 16:55, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For all the worrying I tend to hear about how lowering significance standards would open the floodgates to celebrity gossip being posted, not once in the past few years on ITN/C have I ever seen such content unironically nominated, unless you count Trump which was a different "celebrity" altogether. I don't think there's an appetite for tabloidy content even if we do relax our standards. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:03, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't think there is either; I think such fears are overblown. 331dot (talk) 15:11, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I remember one nomination when a celebrity got diagnosed with a terminal illness. That's pretty much it. I'm sure people consider the Beatles' final song a sort of celebrity trivia tho. There was also a book publication by a member of the British royal household. Either way, it's an overstated concern, I think. I liked those articles more than some of the other things we post. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 15:20, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Someone should run a "feedback RfC" at the pump asking "how is itn doing?" I suspect we'll learn that the local consensus at itn about what itn should be doing doesn't match global consensus about what itn should be doing. Levivich (talk) 00:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You can be that someone! I have no idea to do what you are mentioning. Natg 19 (talk) 00:50, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Someone else can be that someone :-) Instructions for opening an RFC are at WP:RFCOPEN. Levivich (talk) 01:56, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also what I mean is I have no idea what you mean by "feedback RfC". Natg 19 (talk) 02:01, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One that asks a broad open ended question, rather than making a support/oppose or multiple-choice proposal. Levivich (talk) 02:23, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We just had a recent straw poll within the year that tried to determine if ITN should focus on quality or newsworthiness, and the !votes were split down the middle. I don't think that CCC within just a year on that. Masem (t) 02:19, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, hence why I'm suggesting the opposite of a straw poll. Levivich (talk) 02:26, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the wonderful world of ITN, where everyone knows something is broken, but nobody can agree on how to fix it. Banedon (talk) 02:30, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is actually that nobody can agree on what is broken about it. For example some people see not posting stories about things that get a lot of article views but are not actually that significant as a bug, others see it as a feature. Similarly the focus on article quality is for some people what ITN gets right and for others what ITN gets wrong. Unfortunately there are proportionately too many people who just seem to think that if they keep pushing their preference then maybe this time everybody will see how right they are, preventing any kind of resolution. Thryduulf (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my 2c. We should have different editions of ITN, like news bureaus do with international and US or UK or regional editions. You can set a user preference if you want which edition which would skew the selection slightly but it will still appear on ITN and be otherwise ITN, just there will be more ITNs. Andre🚐 06:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And the vast majority of readers are either IP editors or casual users who won't know that they can set user preferences for this. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 20:40, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Pushing their preference" – Hrm, I do do that, I apologize... In a way, I'm not sure what else to do. How can we get to a consensus on any changes from the status quo when everyone has a different view of what ITN is/should be? Me repeating my stance every time it comes up doesn't serve much purpose, which I should've seen earlier. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:10, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If we can agree that it's broken but can't agree on how or how to fix it, then maybe it's time to hang it up. 331dot (talk) 10:28, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A wise idea. I wonder if we ought to apply the same logic to the continued existence of WP:ANI or WP:RFA. Though why stop there; as Douglas Adams himself said, “In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” It's not that I am opposed to disbanding ITN, but at one point in time, ITN was "unbroken". It had operated well for several years without major issues.
One big difference between then and now is one of consensus and culture, rather than a broken process, as !voters apparently did not struggle to quickly collectively agree upon the significance of news items. Things most likely began to sour when more ideological !votes began persistently entering the picture, with not only the inherent disruption caused by the !votes themselves, but then later outside observers and new contributors reading the discussions and unconsciously assuming that such picayune demagoguery is an intended modus operandi for ITN/C. That's where we get the whole recurring argument about anti-American/pro-American bias on ITN; I myself have found that the temptation to become embroiled in those squabbles can be hard to resist, so I know I'm partly at fault for the environment we have created.
So I believe it's possible that the culture can be changed over time if we began more readily discounting ideological or tendentious !votes when weighing consensus. Of course it's true that ITN/C's criteria is subjective, but such !votes in general do not contribute to the consensus-building process, and in my opinion limiting their appearance will hopefully lead to discussions that are more amicable and better-focused. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:42, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think most of us agree that changes can and should be made, but is the bathwater so bad that the baby must be thrown out with it? DarkSide830 (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's what I should've written: "... but nobody can agree on what is broken (if anything is broken), let alone how to fix it." We've had this kind of discussion for years and years, and nothing changes, because when there's no consensus for change the status quo prevails. That's surely what will happen this time as well, hence I'm not bothering to opine; it's all pointless. Banedon (talk) 14:31, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The broken, dysfunctional state of ITN has been discussed in detail before. But there's one issue which the OP doesn't explain or address. ITN is primarily controlled by admins because they are the ones who make the decisions and update the template. The admins who do this are self-selected rather than being appointed or elected. The OP is an admin but their editing of the template has been quite limited so they are only #69 in the list of ITN admins. If they and other admins like Banedon think that the decisions being made are not correct or optimal then why don't they step up and be the one to make those decisions. What's stopping them? Andrew🐉(talk) 23:07, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    You can use my name, it's okay.
    I've made no secret of the fact that I haven't been around as much as usual. But this isn't 331dot's ITN. It's run by consensus, and I can't just declare something to be wrong and do what I want. I wouldn't support me having the admin tools if I did that. That's partly why I'm here now. I believe George Santos should be posted, but I nominated it, and even if I didn't, there was not a consensus. Admins just interpret the consensus. 331dot (talk) 00:02, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    ...why don't they step up and be the one to make those decisions. What's stopping them? Everyone is a volunteer here. Nothing is required, much like nobody can force non-admins to apply for the mop. —Bagumba (talk) 01:54, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I wouldn't blame admins.
    I think we're seeing the same problems that had led to the recent problem with civility, and that itself is tied to a different population of editors from compared to 7 or 8 years ago. Certainly there was contention in what was considered significant prior to that point, but it feels the issue of newsworthiness factors and trying to cover what was heavily covered by news first and foremost, rather than by quality, have been an increasing issue over these years and in part led to the incivility issue. (This also was about the time we started considering US mass shootings as too routine to include but I have no obvious evidence that's the case, just a gut feeling). But this also simply may be tied to how we've gone too far on the pendulum swing with respect to NOT#NEWS, due to the rising growth of right-wing extremism that has lead to a greater attention given to news, particularly political ones.
    How we fix that, I don't know, beyond knowing that we now look like we have two distinct camps of what ITN should be, and that's not any the fault of any individual or group. Masem (t) 01:56, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree a change in demographics of editors has changed things a lot here overy the past decade or so.... especially when it comes to discussions. Also think being dominated by Americans who do not get as much international news like smaller nations is always been a concern here. Always a new mass shooting or newly celebrated celebrity that deters American Media for reporting international news. But all that said..... Americans are our primary readers. Moxy- 02:33, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    (Minor note, don't underestimate how many Indian readers we have) ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:38, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Raw data Moxy- 15:20, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, as the number one in the list of ITN admins, I can only apologise for breaking ITN. Stephen 21:22, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I did not mean to suggest that any one person is responsible for this. I don't believe that; it just happened, I think. 331dot (talk) 21:42, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Absolutely no need to apologize. I have had my fair share of gripes and run-ins with many admins, but, if there is one reason this place continues to move forward (in whatever state) is because of the tireless efforts of 2-3 (or maybe make it 3-4) admins. Each one of them should feel proud of the work that they are doing. You all know who you are. Ktin (talk) 17:31, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    "admins make the decisions" is a pretty obfuscating way to put it, given that admins close the discussions based on consensus rather than based on their own personal preferences. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 20:37, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The significance criterion is not set in stone anywhere, so it is not necessary to run an RFC to lower it. If you want more stories to get posted, lower your personal standard for significance when you vote. If enough people share your opinion, more things will get posted. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:28, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Ongoing" should be unlinked and the link to Portal:Current events can be added to the bottom, next to "Nominate an article", as a small link saying "Other current events". Currently, this is a WP:SURPRISE that "Ongoing" links to the current events portal. I remember this being discussed before, but I don't remember why nothing came about of it. Natg 19 (talk) 18:25, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support for adding a “current events” link at the bottom. I personally have brought this proposal at least three times and it has failed all of those times. Let’s see if the fourth time (or is it fifth time?) is a charm. Ktin (talk) 20:36, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have no strong opinion on this personally. I think the setup is fine as it is, and I don't think it's exactly a surprise that a bluelink associated with the word "ongoing" links to a page about events that have occurred recently. However, I think switching the word "Ongoing" to "Current Events", or even adding the link to the CE portal on the same line as the nomination link, but at the left of the box would be nice additions. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:16, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The template already has this behaviour when there are no ongoing items, a link to Other recent events appears. Stephen 21:25, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am pretty sure we've said we should do this, but we've never figured out the right way to replace it. I think an issue is that if there are no ongoing stories, the template does not show that line, otherwise, it should be straight forward to replace "Ongoing" with "Other Current Events" linking to Portal:Current Events. Masem (t) 00:54, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Data can be our friend. Change the ongoing link to “Current Events” see the spike in visits to the current events portal (if any). Change to “Current Events Portal” and see the spike in visits to the current events portal if any. Lastly add a link with the text “Current Events Portal” or “Other Current Events” to the left of “Nominate article” link and check the spike in visits. After trying these, change to the one that is best for users. This is clearly an easy and low hanging fruit. Ktin (talk) 06:09, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, its not being a matter of wanting to do that (you can check the archives but I'm highly confident that there was agreement this should be changed), its a matter of the WP template system. The "Ongoing" line disappears if there's no ongoing stories, so just changing "Ongoing" to something else would mean that when we have no ongoing, the link to P:CE vanishes. It may just be better to link it off the bottom line and not worry about the way the Ongoing line is set up. Masem (t) 13:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IIRC when the ongoing line disappears — an explicit link to other current events is added to the bottom row. Ktin (talk) 15:25, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as I said above. We should just remove the code tying it to ongoing, and have it always displayed. We're going to have at least one ongoing item as the norm now. Stephen 20:49, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is a fine solution to me. Can you make this change then, Stephen? Natg 19 (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not up to amending Template:In the news/footer, but if someone creates a sandbox version I'll copy it across when it's been tested. Stephen 23:42, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Did some quick testing and made changes to the code here: Template:Template_sandbox and User:Natg 19/sandbox. I swapped the positions of the "Recent deaths" and "Other recent events" in the footer line because for some reason I couldn't get the horizontal list to work otherwise, but this should do what we are looking for. I assume it will be rare when there are no RDs for the "Recent deaths" text to show up. I did not unlink ongoing from the current events portal, as that seems fine as long as there is a clear "Other recent events" link. Natg 19 (talk) 02:32, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ping Stephen. Natg 19 (talk) 17:20, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah this diff (when there is no ongoing) is exactly what I was proposing: a "other current events" link. Natg 19 (talk) 21:01, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, and this [3] is how it would appear today if we had no ongoing. Stephen 23:39, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To me, this looks good. If we now go this route for having the text "other current events" at the bottom even when we have ongoing events, I think it would not be bad. Yes, we would have the minor issue of ongoing also linking to the same portal -- but, I think that is fine. Ktin (talk) 01:43, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Hiding the link to Portal:Current events seems like deliberate obfuscation contrary to WP:TRANSPARENCY. As the portal works so much better than ITN, it should be given more prominence. For example, yesterday, 16 news items were listed there for Dec 6 while ITN didn't list any new blurbs and so had to rerun all the same blurbs from the previous day. The portal helps readers find what's actually in the news rather than stale reruns. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:37, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really know why this has to be done. If it's not badly needed, would it really be advisable to make a change to a template on the Main Page? The law of unintended consequences and all of that. Templates can be deceptively easy to break. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:48, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Echoing this. It feels like an unnecessary change for the sake of change, and I'm not particularly sold by the arguments above, especially with one from a noted contrarian. The Kip 08:56, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Game Awards are not newsworthy

Are we really going to claim that "the game awards" is worthy of an international headline? Is this something on the front page of English-language newpapers in Japan? In the Congo? In Argentina?

I mean, seriously? Why is English Wikipedia, one of the most trafficked websites in the world, being used to prop up an industry back-patting event overwhelmingly aimed at people in Western societies, and more specifically, America? Are we reporting on news headlines, or creating them? GrandMote (talk) 21:53, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Have you reviewed the nomination discussion at WP:ITNC? 331dot (talk) 22:27, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Game Awards have now been posted three consecutive years. It's probably time for someone to nominate it for WP:ITNR. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:56, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reactions like these are why ITN blurbs are updated only every couple days on average (I'm guessing). Ed [talk] [OMT] 00:53, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, the "I don't like it" brigade, clutching their pearls at the demise of the site. Stephen 01:02, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
in Netherlands it is,[1] maybe also many other languages Shadow4dark (talk) 06:37, 11 December 2023 (UTC).[reply]
Look, I detest this awards show but an industry bigger than movies or music or books is worthy of at least one mention. I would absolutely prefer a different awards show get mentioned (Game Developers Choice Awards or gaming BAFTAs for instance) but I regret to inform you WP is not a place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Even in the case of the awards show the media and gamers grant the most authority. Omnifalcon (talk) 19:08, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, this is what I was getting at with my last remark, yeah. We end up featuring the events with the most money going through it, because they get the most attention. It's all per our guidelines, but the advertisement engine of it all leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Wish we could feature smaller events alongside these. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:35, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A few weeks ago I nominated the 2023 League of Legends World Championship, the largest annual esports event by far, but the nomination went down in flames. Curbon7 (talk) 22:02, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ https://nos.nl/artikel/2500795-belgische-studio-grote-winnaar-van-game-awards
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