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Current Portal talk:Current events archives

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Old Talk:Current events archives

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Other old Talk:Current events archived discussions

Vote on tense

Setting the context

Too much analysis

Ongoing events

Original Current events GFDL

See Portal:Current events/October 2003 (history)

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Description of the older archives

All the monthly archives currently begin with the text "This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from <month> <year>". The page Portal:Current events was created in June 2006, so from that month onwards the text is fine. From, I think, January 2002, the content was compiled day by day, as the events unfolded, but on some other page - the logs and history are rather complex, but see the edit summary here. Those archives need a different heading, perhaps "This is an archived version of Wikipedia's coverage of current events from <month> <year>". All the pages before that aren't really archives at all; they were compiled months or years after the events listed in them, and are still being created today. Questions:

• Have I got the dates right?

Tough call. I haven't done any research into Changelogs to know if the dates are right, and I doubt anyone else here knows without doing the research (which you've obviously started). — RossO (talk)

• What heading should be shown on the pages from January 2002 [or thereabouts] to May 2006?

I like your "This is an archived version of Wikipedia's coverage…" verbiage. — RossO (talk)

• What heading should be shown on the pages before January 2002?

Since the other messages are actually disclaimers of the sourcing, perhaps there doesn't need to be a message? I'm not sure the messages even mean much in their own right since they basically say 'These CE pages are compilations of facts gathered by Wikipedia editors..." which is assumed. — RossO (talk)

@RossO and Malmcp85: -- John of Reading (talk) 10:26, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

@John of Reading: Answers provided inline. — RossO (talk) 21:45, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

If you want the oldest "surviving" versions, they are 44 deleted edits from Nov-Dec 2001 at Current events/Temp. They should probably be restored and stored somewhere. Rmhermen (talk) 06:12, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Is Sputnik News A Valid Source?

Under the heading Syrian Civil War, there is a link to a story from Sputnik News. Does Wikipedia consider that organization to be a valid news source? 159.83.54.2 (talk) 17:26, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

An answer may include Russia–United States relations as in Portal:Current_events/2017_December_5. Also what about journalistic integrity? The ultimate source is a faithful description of the mere facts. Wakari07 (talk) 08:39, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

You may be interested in this. Wakari07 (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2017 (UTC) I guess this is PoV. Wakari07 (talk) 09:17, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Rossiya Segodnya is a government-controlled press agency, of which there are many examples around the world. 09:26, 9 December 2017 (UTC) Wakari07 (talk) 12:56, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Should we start a page valid source? Wakari07 (talk) 17:56, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

There's a LOT of government supported news sources on Wikipedia. C-SPAN, PBS, Voice of America, the British Broadcasting Corporation, or Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Deutsche Welle, Al-Jazeera, etc. The same policy should hold for those others too. CaribDigita (talk) 03:49, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

You say "government supported". The WP article on Rossiya Segodnia currently writes that it is "wholly owned and operated" by government. Would here be a clue? Is this not (simply, basically) political difference, the existence of a plural number of "cities" on one planet? Wakari07 (talk) 13:03, 14 December 2017 (UTC) Otherwise we'd maybe end up with only one source. I think that's not preferable, for now. Wakari07 (talk) 13:08, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Did you check Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources? Wakari07 (talk) 14:08, 14 December 2017 (UTC) Also Wikipedia:POLCON, the WP policy & guideline on conflicts between advice pages. Wakari07 (talk) 14:10, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Four basic criteria for staying power: WP:PRIMARY, WP:AGENDA, WP:SPECULATION, WP:CLUTTER. But that may be my WP:POV. Wakari07 (talk) 15:11, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

For instance, I consider it a valid, reliable source in the Iran-US bit on the January 13's current events, in order to answer exactly who said what (in this case, the MoFA, in a now twice-sourced statement translation). Wakari07 (talk) 12:25, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

White space between boxes are back...

Looks like the same issue that hit us back in October, as per this archived Talk page topic, is back again. I'm going to go ahead and ping Mr. Stradivarius and John of Reading as they seemed to figure out the problem last time. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:03, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

@IJBall: This one was easier: I've tweaked the "pp-vandalism" notice at the top of three daily subpages. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:03, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Extension to before 1997

A user named Malmcp85 decided to extend the portal backward all the way to Portal:Current events/December 1994. That user, however, put many events in the text of the pages themselves rather than in transcluded daily subpages. Also, on some of the pages, such as Portal:Current events/January 1996, the user did not even put any events on the pages at all. All of the necessary subpages have now been created, with some copying events added on the month page itself, but most just copying events from the corresponding section of the year article. We cannot extend the portal backward forever, however, since December 1981 and many earlier months since January 1900 are well-sourced articles. Perhaps an RfC is needed to determine where we should set a cut-off point for this portal. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 02:20, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Iranian protests?

Why are Iranian protests on the main page as "ongoing", but not the 2018 Tunisian protests? Smells a bit biased, "Iran is the bad guy to the US, so let's cover their problems, but we don't care about Tunisia". FunkMonk (talk) 00:08, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

FunkMonk It's a little confusing, but this isn't the right talk page for that. The place to discuss the "Topics in the news" template is Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates or Wikipedia talk:In the news. Cheers, -- irn (talk) 04:36, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Alright, I'll go there. FunkMonk (talk) 07:05, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Re: Tsunamis

I think we should be very careful as to whether to mention a tsunami in Wikipedia's current events section. We need to understand that not every tsunami is on the scale of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami. Tsunami statements actually happen more than most people think. Most of them get cancelled pretty quickly. Nevertheless, if a tsunami warning, advisory, watch, or threat is issued. PLEASE take it seriously. Get to high ground if you are by the coast. Tsunamis can move up to 500 miles per hour. And yes, a tsunami warning was issued in this instance.

What I am concerned about is the use of Wikipedia as a hazard warning system as it is operated by amateurs who are not tsunami experts. With tsunamis, warnings can be issued and cancelled within hours. On Wikipedia and on Current Events, citing sources is important, but we need to remember that newspaper articles are timebound and limited to the time of publication. Currently, something is written on there in present tense in a warn-the-masses kind of thing. If we do wish to use Wikipedia to be an alert relay system, perhaps Wikipedia should collaborate with tsunami warning centers. I think the warning has been cancelled, but I'm not an expert* on this, so I don't have the wisdom as to whether it should be taken down. I don't want to remove it if I shouldn't, but I don't think it should have been up there in the first place.

Regarding different tsunamis: Whenever there is an earthquake underwater, there is a risk of a tsunami. This happens relatively frequently. An issue arises when the earthquake is very strong. The Alaska earthquake was 8.2 according to one source, and that is a level of intensity we need to pay close attention to, as that magnitude creates great potential for an enormous tsunami. Yet the type of fault and amount of plate motion involved is what truly makes tsunamis giant (ie. the Indian Ocean one 2004.) This Alaskan earthquake was at a strike-slip fault which means that things move side to side (with very little up and down vertical action), which has the least danger for a giant tsunami. The Indian Ocean tsunami was an underwater Megathrust earthquake at a subduction zone (meaning where an oceanic plate is colliding and sinking beneath another plate, which involves vertical action ). These kinds of earthquakes are extremely dangerous for tsunamis at megathrust earthquakes because the plates move a considerable bit and tsunamis happen because of displacement of water. Strike-slip earthquakes don't displace much water. But a seismologist was surprised that this was a strike-slip earthquake as typically earthquakes in this area are thrust earthquakes

To give you an idea of the contrast between this earthquake and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, In the Indian Ocean earthquake, 1000 miles of fault moved 50 feet. This created 100 foot waves in some places. I do not have data on how much the fault moved in Alaska, but the waves created were maximum 0.7 feet.

Because tsunamis travel at 500 miles per hour (800-some kilometers per hour), there is very little time to evaluate if there will be a significant wave, so the priority is taking action right away.

David Hale, a lead decision maker at the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska said this, "We don't have the luxury of time to be able to gather the data necessary to determine whether there is or is not a wave," Hale said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Note: I am NOT trying to undermine the authority of tsunami warning centers. LISTEN to them. Follow their instructions. Get to higher ground. If the sea recedes, do NOT go into the area to collect seashells. That means the wave is about to inundate.

My concern is that using Wikipedia for tsunami alerts is that it is not run by professionals, usually, information changes by the minute, and without proper constant, up-to-the-minute updating, it could be wrong, only serve to cause panic, and other implications. At least people know tsunamis are dangerous and should be cause for concern and action; however, in a disaster, communication matters. Not only are lives at stake, trust is at stake, and this trust can save lives at other times. I don't think most Wikipedians are qualified to properly convey a tsunami threat. Even though I have a considerable amount of knowledge and insight on this, I do not consider myself qualified to be an emergency communications manager for when there is a tsunami. I would like to hand that over to the professionals. I'm also concerned that if one tsunami gets into Wikipedia's current events section, then there is a potential for every single tiny and cancelled tsunami to make it onto the page. Are there exceptions where we should put things about an ongoing tsunami on Wikipedia Current Events? Sure. If we had another incident like the 2004 event, where there is immediate damage and is going to spread globally with devastation, we need to go right ahead and put something on there. But we need to use proper discretion. Anyways, I'm not an expert on this or the warning process system. I have studied plate tectonics in depth, but I have not worked in a tsunami warning center control room, so take this with a grain of salt, I guess. Bottom line is to listen to tsunami warnings if they are issued and get to higher ground.

I think all warnings have been cancelled, but if we get to a point where we are sure, we should change the text from

2018 Alaska earthquake A 7.9 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Gulf of Alaska. A tsunami warning is issued for coastal Alaska and British Columbia, and the entire U.S. West Coast is placed under a tsunami watch. Areas of Alaska remain under a tsunami advisory. It is tied as the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded in the United States, but there are no reports of significant damage or fatalities.

to

2018 Alaska earthquake A 7.9 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Gulf of Alaska. A tsunami warning was issued for coastal Alaska and British Columbia, and the entire U.S. West Coast was placed under a tsunami watch. A tsunami advisory was issued for parts of Alaska. All warnings, watches, and advisories have been cancelled. It is tied as the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded in the United States, but there are no reports of significant damage or fatalities.

So I think at some point we should clarify this, but in the future, I think we should be more careful before putting tsunami information down.

Thanks, -TenorTwelve (talk) 09:07, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Current events categories

What are all the categories for news items? Alex of Canada (talk) 18:46, 7 February 2018 (UTC)