Wikipedia talk:In the news

Disambiguation of recent deaths on a case-by-case basis

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I think we have a consensus in principle on disambiguating deaths to avoid confusion, but with ITN's very existence being discussed further below, the implementation of this will probably have to wait until a later date. --WaltCip-(talk) 13:04, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

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I propose henceforth that, in the event of a recent death where the name of the decedent is shared by that of another living person:

• If there is the possibility for confusion as a result of the living person being immediately recognizable to the reader, or
• If the living person comes up on an initial Wikipedia search where the link to the decedent is only available through a disambiguator at the top of the article,

Then under these circumstances, it is desirable and recommended to include a parenthetical indicator of the decedent, so as to properly identify to the reader who the decedent is.--WaltCip-(talk) 14:22, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Suggested revised wording per Jayron32: Any recent death of a person whose article title has a disambiguator should not be pipelinked per WP:EGG.--WaltCip-(talk) 15:11, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Even if the others are dead?—Bagumba (talk) 15:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Support

• Support as nominator.--WaltCip-(talk) 14:22, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support Current way of doing it violates WP:SURPRISE and WP:EASTEREGG. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:34, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support in principle. I think the wording could be simplified; if we just said that we never pipelink out a parenthetical disambiguator, I'd be okay with that. --Jayron32 14:56, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support but I think it is fine to pipelink out a parenthetical disambiguator if everyone else with the same name has been dead for a few years. —Kusma (talk) 15:14, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support. We've got to do something here that involves simple, common sense help to avoid confusion. 331dot (talk) 15:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support the way it is now is the kind of clickbait that should be on WP:DYK on April Fools Day, not breaking recent deaths. It reminds me of a newspaper that stated that Pope wanted to ban a video game [1] before in smaller text saying that Pope was a politician's surname. Harry Kane (hurdler) has just turned 89 and in all due respect will likely be here before Harry Kane, one of the most famous living people in Britain. Would admins really pull off the stunt of announcing on the front page of this website that "Harry Kane", nothing more or less, has died? Unknown Temptation (talk) 16:45, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support in principle. I like how that section is organised on the German Wikipedia’s main page, but that would require more room and probably slight rearrangement so that “Ongoing” is moved to the top of the box.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:23, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support Needless confusion on the front page is not a good look for what is supposed to be an encyclopaedia. DuncanHill (talk) 20:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support All articles are now getting short descriptions and it's easy to display these by using {{annotated link}}. Providing a brief standard description of such subjects is exactly what these are for. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:26, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

  There would need to be safeguards for backdoor vandalism to the MP.—Bagumba (talk) 14:49, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

  Agree on this one with Bagumba. I have seen short descriptions vary quite a lot, and are not consistent either. Would recommend holding-off on using annotated link. Ktin (talk) 00:42, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

• Support We should not be tricking people by not having parenthetical disambiguators when they are not the PRIMARY TOPIC. Doing so is very Easter EGGy which is against our guidelines (MOS:EGG, MOS:LINK) and doing so is WP:ASTONISHing. Some recent examples where this was brought up include [2] Sam Smith (basketball, born 1944) being displayed as just Sam Smith causing confusion for the PRIMARY TOPIC alive singer Sam Smith. Also [3] where Amanda Holden (writer) was simply displayed as Amanda Holden causing confusion for the PRIMARY TOPIC alive celebrity Amanda Holden. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 14:07, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose I honestly dont think it's a major issue. Readers figure it out and know names are not always unique. A less prominent Bobby Brown was posted in 2021 with no qualifier, and there was no complaints. As prominent as Wikipedia is, there should surely be some criticism in reliable sources if this was a thing.—Bagumba (talk) 15:12, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Well, in this clickbait news environment, that isn't really the thing that grabs RS-reader attention so much as, say, Larry Sanger saying Wikipedia is publishing known falsehoods. But perhaps I am more cynical about that sort of thing. In any case, my position should always be that we adhere to the principle of least astonishment even if there is not necessarily a measurable outcome from it. WaltCip-(talk) 15:15, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't think it's major issue either, and I struggle to see any BLP violations. No-one has the exclusive right to a name. (And does anyone really think if THE Sam Smith had died at the age of 30, that it would just be in the RD line and not be a blurb?)-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:18, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  We routinely put very famous people in the RD and blurb regionally unknown persons. Readers who don't contribute at ITNC wouldn't clock the difference. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:39, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose we'll be looking for community consensus to agree on what the disambiguation is and this will result in further debate and delays to posting. Let admins "do their jobs". The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:35, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - Just making sure I understand this correctly. Are you are all talking about the main page and the "In The News" section where we list recent deaths by name only? I always thought that was a poor way to do "In the news." Since 90% of those names mean zero to readers I always felt a one/two-word descriptor should always be present to give a minimal understanding of the person who died. Just a name is pretty weak. It should be actor John Doe * politician Fred Zip * baseball player Xander Xylophone... I think the problem is bigger than just a disambiguation issue. Today's In the news I knew none of the names but at least a descriptor would give minimal context to who just died. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  That was in essence what I just proposed. Why are you opposing? Because I didn't suggest giving a descriptor for all recent deaths? WaltCip-(talk) 18:37, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  It is not really what you proposed. We don't really need parentheticals unless you do it after the name, and it seemed you wanted it for people who shared a name with someone else living rather than helping out "all" names for our readers. You'll note the "In the news" doesn't say "Ukraine", it says "Russian invasion of Ukraine." I little bit goes a long ways and should be standard procedure for "all" names of recent deaths. We're talking about helping our readers understand something, and that is always my prime objective. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:57, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  I could support Fyunck's egalitarian approach, pending a suitable Main Page layout. I oppose the subjective "immediately recognizable" or relying on imperfect primary topic history.—Bagumba (talk) 19:10, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose We only should consider this when the confusion is with a readily-recognized name (famous or household) - its that "panic" we're trying to avoid when a name with nearly worldwide recognition appears but the famous person with that name is still alive. When the issue is naming conflict between two or more bios in which all involved lack that fame with their name, then it doesn't make sense to add a disambig term since its not going to cause the same type of panic. --Masem (t) 17:28, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose We pipe them in other articles, it reads more naturally and saves space here, too. Also, briefly thinking a beloved celebrity is dead is a good thing. Revealing the truth with a click is cathartic, helps us hold on to what we've got. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:42, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

• For a concrete example, does this mean if the hurdler Harry Kane dies, we use "Harry Kane (hurdler)" or "Harry Kane (hurdler)", not "Harry Kane", to avoid people thinking that the football player Harry Kane has died? —Kusma (talk) 14:34, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
  • The example I was about to bring up is Donald L. Trump. I think it's patently obvious that neither the article title (disambiguated solely by middle initial), and certainly not piped as Donald Trump, would be appropriate to post. —Cryptic 14:39, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Yes. That is the intention. WaltCip-(talk) 14:51, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• By what standard to we judge "If there is the possibility for confusion as a result of the living person being immediately recognizable to the reader". I am inclined to vote support if we know how we are to assess "immediate recognizability". Where can I look to find such data that would lead me to conclude that one person is immediately recognizable, while another one is not? --Jayron32 14:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  One indicator could be if a person is primary topic for their name. —Kusma (talk) 14:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  I don't know if that is sufficiently restrictive, nor even useful, as many primary topics are long since dead, and other "primary topic" persons are themselves only marginally well known at all. --Jayron32 14:43, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  I think that alone would be restrictive enough. Even if the primary topic is long dead, disambiguation will forestall the potential confusion of "wait, I thought this person died already". The primary topic test is my preferred test for the purpose of this RFC. I recognize that the wording of my original RFC is subjective, and that is because ITN is, on the whole, a subjective, consensus-based process. Ultimately, if the people responsible for discussing an RD agree through consensus that it would be beneficial to disambiguate, then we should honor that consensus. WaltCip-(talk) 14:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  If someone else is the primary topic i.e. the article with no disambiguation is for a different person, as is the case for singer Sam Smith, then I believe we must disambiguate. On ITN RD, it looks like singer Sam Smith has died, when it was actually someone else- and you had to click through to find that out. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:51, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Part of the problem I have is the implicit assumption that all editors at Wikipedia (and all readers as well) has a such a common set of experiences that we can presume everyone knows what is (and is not) widespread and well-known enough to trigger this condition. I would prefer if we started with the opposite assumption (one that I operate under for all of my decisions at Wikipedia), which is that literally no one has the same experiences I do, and I should presume that literally no one necessarily knows what I know. If we defended our decisions and policies by pointing at stuff people can read or verify themselves, if they are unfamiliar with something, that is much preferable to assuming they know something merely because I know it. --Jayron32 14:55, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Maybe we should always disambiguate when there is a living person with a Wikipedia article and the same name. —Kusma (talk) 18:44, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Per the recent discussion at ERRORS, the primary topic Sam Smith wasn't even the one most of the participants there even thought of. If EGG and BLP are the real concern 1) we can't assume readers are necessarily thinking of the unqualified primary topic 2) we should display a qualifier in all cases—even the primary topic—lest those thinking about a "less notable" person of the same name are also shocked and confused.—Bagumba (talk) 15:22, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Prior discussion was at Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news/Archive_85#What_to_put_in_the_RD_line_for_cases_where_there's_a_well-known_individual_of_that_name?—Bagumba (talk) 15:04, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  I think that one had a soft consensus for using the disambiguator, although it was so close that it's not surprisingly that it did not close with a consensus. WaltCip-(talk) 15:10, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  All depends if "consensus" is 51% or closer to 65-70. —Bagumba (talk) 15:44, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• It's not a major issue unless you are the one with the name posted as having died. This causes needless grief and confusion. 331dot (talk) 15:35, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Perhaps, but even showing Sam Smith (basketball, born 1944) wouldn't have been very distinguing for Sam Smith (basketball, born 1955) followers.—Bagumba (talk) 15:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Surely people are aware that those with the same name as them may die occasionally. Any grief or confusion would be extremely brief and limited. Pawnkingthree (talk) 16:19, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Existing primary topic limitations We all know that some current primary topics are not really the "true" primary topic. Many times a newer more notable article is created, but many editors just disambiguate the new topic instead of dealing with moves and the tedious relinking caused by WP:USURPTITLE. Or there is no primary topic, but nobody has noticed to do an WP:RM or a bold move to put a dab at the base.—Bagumba (talk) 15:56, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I thought this was already the case, that if ambiguity existed, we then sought consensus for modifying what was in the RD listing. Do we really need a guideline to be included to cover this? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Apparently we do, because of the squabbling that takes place on WP:ERRORS any time an edge case shows up. WaltCip-(talk) 16:53, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Per WaltCip, I too am flummoxed that this is an issue, but my personal lack of understanding as to why it is a problem does not have any bearing on whether or not it actually is a problem; the matter comes up too often at WP:ERRORS to not be dealt with. --Jayron32 16:58, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  But unless a concrete objective way of disambiguation is agreed upon, then it will just devolve into discussion each and every time, as it does now. Dealing with issues on a "case-by-case basis" is simply how Wikipedia works by default when problems are raised. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:06, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Appropriate written guidance on how we should interpret issues of disambiguation, even if allowing latitude, at least gives us a principle to keep in mind when making the determination as opposed to just giving any administrator free reign to interpret the issue as they wish. For example, under the current environment, if Bagumba were posting an ITN item, he probably would just post the name as it is; if 331dot were posting it, he might not. The idea is to eliminate broad ambiguity and provide a guideline for decision-making. WaltCip-(talk) 17:13, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  This is probably the beginning of the "add their notability" into RD moment. We don't need to give admins instruction on how to avoid confusion, that's why we made them admins. And as you've noted, if these admins are posting ambiguous titles, then they shouldn't be. I concede there's a tiny issue here, but I can't see how this will eliminate or even mitigate ongoing discussion as to how these ambiguous cases are described. That will require its own consensus. E.g. individuals could be sportspeople, then actors, then diplomats etc. We'll need a consensus to pick which one is most appropriate. This just shifts discussion to another forum. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:19, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  ...if Bagumba were posting an ITN item...: AFAIK, it has been standard for posting admins to pipe disambiguated titles, but exceptions have been made per one-off ERRORS reports.—Bagumba (talk) 17:24, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment 2 the proposal says "decedent is shared by that of another living person" I guess this should be "decedent is shared by that of another living person with a Wikipedia article", right? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:21, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
• Kiril Simeonovski de.wiki is all very well (it's run by basically one or two editors and no consensus or RS or whatever are required for posting to the main page) but we'd I see you're advocating for exactly what I noted above, "add their notability" which would also need consensus to determine in many cases what an individual's notability was.... The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:28, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Like when a person I think of as an actor has "is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and film director" in their lead (see MOS:ROLEBIO) —Bagumba (talk) 17:31, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly. We're literally just creating another bone of contention. We can't indoctrinate this in guideline. We should rely on the competence of our admins to deal with this. I see no major problem with ERRORS being the venue either. Putting the discussion at ITNC will just delay consensus and promotion. Exactly not what we want. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:34, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  I think it’s good to have a guideline (not a rule) to make clear which disambiguator to use in a particular case. If we let admins decide themselves what’s the best way to deal with, we may easily end up in the simultaneous use of parenthetical disambiguators and middle initials as the most commonly used disambiguators so far. Other than that, my best choice would probably be to adopt the in-line listing of RDs with very brief explanation from the German Wikipedia at the very least.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:21, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  de.wiki is a one man show and no care is paid to BLP, we'll have endless debates over whether e.g. Kevin Spacey is an actor or a director or a criminal. This is not helpful to a section of the main page where timeliness is of the essence. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 19:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment As I mentioned in the Oppose section, this is a bigger problem than simply the disambiguation in the suggestion. Just throwing up names is inherently confusing to readers. It would be like reading an obituary in the New York Times with no context whatsoever except the person's name. I always felt that was a poor way to do "In the news" recent deaths. Since 90% of those names mean zero to readers I always felt a one/two-word descriptor should always be present to give a minimal understanding of the person who died. Just a name is pretty weak. It should be: actor John Doe * politician Fred Zip * baseball player Xander Xylophone... I think the problem is bigger than just a disambiguation issue. Today's In the news I knew none of the names but at least a descriptor would give minimal context to who just died. Sure there might be a well know actress or government official that really doesn't need a descriptor, but I think we should get in the habit of always including a pre-name descriptor for the sake of our readers. It will add minimal length to the section. And if a person is know for multiple endeavors we only need one listed... just something a reader can grasp to give minimal context to something other than a name. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:37, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  The question is what readers care about. If you only care about people you know, seeing the name is enough to figure out whether to click or not. If you care about all recently deceased cricket players, including those you have never heard of, you need a "cricket player" descriptor. —Kusma (talk) 19:03, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  So there we disagree. It should not be about what people care about. It is what is best and helpful for our readers. My guess is most people see a list of these indiscriminate names, don't know anyone, and they move on...never clicking on any of them. It's what I usually do. But if it says "scientist Eugene Parker" it gives context and may have a few more hits because of the subject matter. Look, I know it would help me, and maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but I always felt we needed a tiny bit more than just a list of six to ten names for anyone in the recent deaths list. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:08, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  There also the "I don't know, so I click" and occasionally read something I surprisingly find interesting, versus the bias that I can see the subject area already, now I won't even bother clicking (and expand my horizons).—Bagumba (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  Hey that could be true... but if most folks are like me, they see the list of unknown names and skip right over it. Where if a subject matter is presented I think it would actually lead to more hits. But I wouldn't really do it just for hits, it always seemed like something was missing from the list that could help our readers. Anyway, I had gotten a talkpage feedback request to visit this conversation and try and help so I added my two cents in what bothered me about the way we presented things. We can do better than the requested change request. I guess I'll see the results in the coming weeks when I visit the main page. Cheers to all. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:17, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - I realize there's a great deal of support in principle. I also recognize that some of the proposed wording I have used for this RFC may either be too wordy or imprecise. To that end, for those who supported this proposal, I welcome any ideas as to how to make a more consolidated guideline while also factoring in criticism from the oppose group.--WaltCip-(talk) 14:06, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

  I didn't support, and I think only differentiating the "less popular ones" ends up looking a bit demeaning (yes, we have WP:PRIMARYTOPICS, but that's to save most readers one click on a dab; not the case with RD). I'd propose adding a qualifier to all names, something like: · Ray Liotta (actor) · Oemarsono (politician) · Joe Pignatano (baseball) · Horst Sachtleben (actor) · Achmad Yurianto (bureaucrat) ·Mpho Moerane (politician) Should only take up an extra line of real estate. The RD nom template could have suggestions for the qualifier, useful in some cases where there are multiple roles in the lead sentence.—Bagumba (talk) 14:45, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

  I'd personally have no objection to that. It would remove the need for a case-by-case determination, which TRM says is currently redundant. WaltCip-(talk) 15:22, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

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.

How to keep this project civil and polite? (constructive feedback only)

As a bystander, I just can not come to terms with the extent of bickering and aggressive comments that get peddled around here, specifically on the blurb conversations (from both sides of the pond)! I speak for myself, when I say that this behavior frankly makes this place too toxic. What can we do to keep this place more civil? Constructive feedback alone. Ktin (talk) 00:08, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• I'd say delete it. There's been a 20-year debate over the purpose of ITN. Some say it's to "provide news to the people" and others say "it's to point people to quality articles". Then there's the bias, we have Americans trying to post every single mass shooting while we ignore bombings in warzones with masses of casualties. Then we have people saying how *stale* the ITN process is as it doesn't update regularly enough, yet those very same people then object to WP:ITNR items because they personally deem them trivial. It's a dead duck. ITN is dead and buried. Unless we come up with a proposal that pleases all of the people all of the time, I can't see a way it survives. So while civility is important (e.g. see one of the project's policies, WP:CIVIL), it's somewhat part and parcel of the fact that ITN is no longer viable really. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 00:16, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Let's not pretend there isn't heavy UK bias on ITN either. The problem with ITN is the subjectivity of us, the people who vote on nominations. Too many personal opinions and WP:IDONTLIKEIT votes lead to stalemates and negativity. If we could find a more objective measure of what is "in the news", that might help. I have no idea if that's possible. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:23, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  My observation is that conversations very soon seem to be devolving into a "you people" vs "we people" conversation and there is name calling and then hand-to-hand street fighting levels of comments exchange. Clearly we can do better by avoiding that portion of our exchanges? I personally like what some uninvolved editors have been doing by closing off-topic conversations with a box around them. Is that the answer - that we do more of those? Or should we really ask folks to be polite to fellow editors and call them out when they are not being so? What else can we do to keep interactions between people more civil? If it was IRL, I would say person A and person B go get a beer / beverage of your choice together. But, something has to give here. Ktin (talk) 00:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with your observation. Hatting the off topic sniping helps, and we should encourage people to do it more. We tend to be polite enough unless it's a contested nomination, where people seem to be judging them by completely different metrics. Like how some nominations get oppose comments because it's "expected" that it happens. Well, that's the case for every ITN/R nom, isn't it? There were some opposes of that nature on the platinum jubilee nom. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:54, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  So nominate mass shootings in the US at ITNR so we can stop the mindless debates every few days. Strangely, though, I interpret "expected" in the sense of ITNR as "scheduled" or "predicted", not "everyday events" like mass shootings in America, in schools or hospitals or shopping malls or wherever. Those aren't scheduled/predicted, but they are regular and predictable in the sense that they happen daily and nothing is ever done to stop them. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 06:52, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  • I'd disagree that the purpose or debates about it are the problem. There are a few individuals that are purposely contrary to what the general attitude is around ITN, which typically are the ones that stir up the incivility problems. They should know who they are but I would name names if pressed. These editors also tend to bring out the worse in other editors which compounds the situation, and it is often best to avoid anyone to "take the bait" when that happens.
  • It's also whenever the non-existance MINIMUMDEATHS is brought up. We should be acting as the loss of any human life is a tragedy, but recognize that not all such losses have the global significance that others have, regardless of the fashion of those losses, whether by natural or man-made disaster or more violent means (eg mass shootings in the US). We should be not trying to argue past ourselves on the relative importance of who lost their live, but consider each story as it generally pertains to ITN practices, meaning does it have significant news coverage (keeping in mind that routine situations should require more discrimination on what ones we post, just like how ITNR is meant to avoid floods of certain types of articles), and is the article updated. There will remain debate about when that significance is met, but that can be handled civilly without deriding other editors or broader groups beyond Wikipedia. --Masem (t) 00:28, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

    I agree that not every mass death event, be it natural causes or a US mass shooting, will be posted. But the absolute callousness of some editors around mass shooting nominations is appalling. I am not calling out any one person, there are many who post regrettable comments. This has been an ongoing problem for years. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:52, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Off-topic. Levivich 17:36, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
No, you're mistaken. There's no "callousness" about mass shooting nominations. They happen every single day in America and that makes it commonplace, a war zone, and not encyclopedically newsworthy. Every single one is tragic and we all know that, but practically every single one is avoidable and yet dealt with in exactly the same way, thoughts/prayers/more guns. It's a unique problem to America and should not ever be allowed to overwhelm this, English language Wikipedia's front page, with its barbaric repetitiveness. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 06:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC) This type of comment directed towards the US and its gun problem (eg "a war zone") is the type of thing that does not need to be at ITN and is part of the lack of incivility. That US gun violence happens with too much frequency to feature each one at ITN is absolutely a fair call, but that doesn't mean editors should go down the trail of speaking demeaning of the country or the people that live in it. We're discussing the appropriateness of a shooting event, not here to vent off political commentary. --Masem (t) 13:16, 3 June 2022 (UTC) I couldn't agree more with Masem here. There is callousness in these mass shooting noms, and then there's TRM calling the US a "war zone". That is just beyond the pale. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC) I can't think of anywhere else on planet Earth that children are regularly shot to death other than (a) in the US and (b) in warzones. So there you go. Not callous, just fact. You have my thoughts and prayers though, because apparently that's the only possible solution. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:50, 3 June 2022 (UTC) Like I said, beyond the pale. Maybe the solution to civility at ITN is for TRM to just pretend like we deleted it and the rest of us can go on without their snide comments. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:53, 3 June 2022 (UTC) There's nothing snide about stating facts. Where else are children routinely shot to death then? What did I miss? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC) It is not a fact that the US is a war zone. I just drove through part of it--no, no war zone, even though I live in fear for my own children. The rhetoric is just not helpful. Drmies (talk) 17:28, 3 June 2022 (UTC) Sure, just point me to where else children are routinely shot to death other than in the US and war zones, that's the point. Deary me, it boggles the mind that you are trying to interpret this as a "literal" claim. Perhaps it's an ENGVAR thing. You guys. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Ktin that this is a serious problem. I also agree with TRM that the best thing to do is to shut down ITN entirely, and possibly replace it with something that doesn't require !voting on nominations. Levivich 01:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

There will always been a requirement to !vote on article quality, so pretending to hide that "ITN can't have civil discussions" under this is not the way to go. --Masem (t) 01:06, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

The whole idea of "let's vote on which news stories to feature on the main page" is naïve; of course that's just going to lead to endless arguments and poor decisions. Crowdsourced encyclopedia sort of works; crowdsourced news aggregating not so much. Levivich 01:09, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

As soon as you remove the process of consensus selection of stories, ITN becomes a news ticket and will suffer systematic bias. The whole point of !voting is to fight the systematic bias of news reporting and feature a broader range of topics that some get buried in news headlines. If you just want to see news stories without that filter, Portal:Current Events has that covered. --Masem (t) 01:15, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• Well, what IS the purpose of ITN? Is it simply to highlight stories that are in the news and of interest to our readers? If so, does systemic bias matter? -- Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 02:29, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes, because then it would focus on "popular" news topics like US politics and celebrity gossip, while pushing aside scientific breakthroughs and other "less popular" news topics as well as important stories from other areas of the world. --Masem (t) 02:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
    • Playing the devil's advocate here... is that a problem? We say it is because we're a worldwide encyclopedia, but we're an English-speaking encyclopedia first and foremost. Other Wikipedias seem to focus only on what would be of interest to their primary audience (for example, the Indonesian Wikipedia focuses on COVID-19 exclusively for Indonesia, as their readers are from there). I'm NOT saying that we should ignore systemic bias, but it is an idea. -- Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 02:35, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
      • We can have the biases of mainstream news media, or we can have the biases of editors who !vote at ITN. Those are the options. Levivich 02:42, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
      • Even if we considered what English-only language sources post (which is against our sourcing policy, we have no biases against foreign sources), consider what makes headlines in most Western, English sources - politics of the US or UK, for the most part. Which is typically just tiny progressive updates on larger stories. (Eg, the current debate in Wash DC on gun control laws in the wake of the last month). Newspapers are targeting a very different audience than what we as an encyclopedia try to target, and it is far better to apply a consensus-based filter - even if that leads to civil debates - to avoid that. If readers are looking for news, their better sources are sites like CNN, BBC, or NYTimes, not WP's front page. --Masem (t) 05:42, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

        Newspapers are targeting a very different audience than what we as an encyclopedia try to target...: There no firm consensus on the audience ITN is targeting.—Bagumba (talk) 06:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

        Right, my understanding is that ITN exists as a helpful way for readers to go directly to articles relating to things they have heard of in the news. -- Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 06:16, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

        WP:ITN leads off that it is to provide access to articles of "wide interest", which is not what newspapers serve, they provide highly national or regional coverage of topics. --Masem (t) 13:11, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

        Except WP:ITN is nondefinitive on what "wide interest" entails, hence the division. —Bagumba (talk) 15:10, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

        And many of the items that we try to post to reduce systemic bias aren't of wide interest, while many stories that are of wide interest, like Depp/Heard, would maintain systemic bias and are not posted. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

        "Wide interest" does not mean "popular". Science news is rarely ever popular, but have wide interest by academics across the world. --Masem (t) 18:15, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

        You are free to get that codified at WP:ITN. —Bagumba (talk) 18:23, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

        For all purposes, this already is, the bullet point starting "Arguments addressing how many international newspapers/news channels..." Masem (t) 18:43, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

        Sorry, there's nothing objective in that section on what constitutes "wide interest". It's merely a bunch of gotchas that could pretty much be used to justify posting or not posting the same exact blurb. —Bagumba (talk) 10:16, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia's target audience (everybody) is the same as news media's. I think Covid established that Wikipedia can be, is, and is expected by readers to be, an encyclopedia of current events (along with everything else). It's WP:NOTEVERYTHING, but it is everything significant for everybody. It's WP:NOTNEWS, but it is current events.
    The purpose of ITN is and should be, primarily (IMO), the first bullet point at WP:ITN#Purpose: "To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news" (like Covid). This includes not only current events but also background information, like articles about related people, places, etc. The background information has always been in Wikipedia's "wheelhouse", but I think in recent years we've seen that Wikipedia can provide reliable summaries of current events information as well. ITN (or its replacement) should help people find both kinds of information. Levivich 06:20, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia's audience is nowhere close to the same as mainstream newspapers. We're aiming for an academic audience, not those that are trying to keep up on current events. It's why we need the ability to allow stories that would not headline newspapers but are academically and educationally important (such as the Booker prize as a recent example). --Masem (t) 16:12, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

      I have no idea where you get the idea that we are aiming for "an academic audience", nor do I know what an academic audience is. Wikipedia is written for everyone, not just academics, not just students or teachers, everyone. The writing level is supposed to be aimed at a teenage English speaker. (I forget what page that's documented on.) Levivich 16:40, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

      I always feel that ITN items should be what we'd expect to see in a published encyclopedia of the "year gone by". And if we were being generous, we'd maybe have 1,000 entries, so perhaps three for every day. Forget "target audience" and think "historical evidence". The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:18, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• The points under "the following arguments have historically not garnered much support" at Wikipedia:In the news#Significance are often what lead to incivility. The community can choose to police these better, or (continue to) not.—Bagumba (talk) 05:18, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• I'm for deleting ITN, which would solve this issue too. Banedon (talk) 08:24, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
  • How would we go about deleting ITN? Just run an MFD? Or propose its deprecation with a WP:CENT RFC?--WaltCip-(talk) 12:20, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
    • Propose mark historical and remove from main page with a CENT RFC, I would think. Unless someone wanted to propose a replacement instead of just removal. I'm not sure what's best. Levivich 15:09, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• Comment without hard requirements ITN is left up to the interpretation of vague guidelines resulting in a petty tit-for-tat of !votes and comments between regulars (of which I'm as guilty as any). We're featuring arcane awards, pointless disaster stubs, and a litany of sports stories based more on an unstable detente among a handful of Wikipedians than on actual news coverage. ITN should be wound down, and replaced with a listing from the WP:TOP25 where the next days listings are reviewed in advance for quality and references in a similar fashion to WP:OTD. The top 25 is generally driven by the news cycle anyway. In this proposal, "recent deaths" would remain as it's actually functioning pretty well. Wikipedia is allowed to evolve, to change, to improve and to make mistakes. Lets accept that ITN doesn't work anymore, and try something else. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:20, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  We're featuring...pointless disaster stubs...: But they're so easy to create.—Bagumba (talk) 15:02, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• I don't know how, but ITN should be more like RD with less room for disputing notability. Maybe TOP25 is the way to do that, I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I do think that irrespective of ITN, RD should continue as is. 331dot (talk) 15:08, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  It could be based mostly on it being a quailty page. However, we would need objective criteria on what falls under "being in the news". New articles on new events could have a time limit e.g. within the last X days. Trickier would be news from something that's been ongoing e.g. the planning of Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II, the trial of Depp v. Heard, etc. Worst case, those remain under the current system. —Bagumba (talk) 15:19, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  I second the idea of leaving less room for disputing notability. I'm not sure what that looks like specifically--maybe "the story was a recent headline news item by at least one reputable international news website" (with a defined list of "reputable" international news websites) and "the event merits its own wikipedia article" is all that we need to establish notability. NorthernFalcon (talk) 22:09, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I think ITN plays a useful role, in helping direct Wikipedia users to articles that the users are likely interested in due to being featured in the news. I think that ITN performs a useful secondary role, in motivating users to create articles about current events, and in improving the quality of such articles. I also think that, other than articles going stale, ITN currently fulfills its primary purpose. Thus I think the primary problem at this point is incivility, and therefore the solution should be focused on the incivility problem, not on the existence of ITN itself. Maybe we just need a few rules to enforce a higher standard of conduct on the ITN pages. NorthernFalcon (talk) 15:11, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. Irrespective of how this project evolves, I am going to ask that editors have to be civil and polite to each other and that should be a non-negotiable tenet of the project. If editors go on an off-topic attack or indulge in abusive language, we should clip it right there. Perhaps close the discussion by hatting (is that the term for boxing the comments?) or even send the editor on a time-out. The thing I compare this to is a message board at your workplaces / schools. Wouldn't we be polite to our colleagues at work / school? Our behavior here should be the same. Thanks again for listening to me. Ktin (talk) 15:28, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Sure, but one person's workplace/school might be different from another's.[4] —Bagumba (talk) 17:12, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed. Censorship should really not be tolerated. We are all entitled to our opinions, even if they're not popular in the United States. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:14, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Ktin was talking about being "civil and polite". That doesn't mandate that an opinion needs to be "popular". —Bagumba (talk) 10:36, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment the notion that we're not a news ticker is often repeated here, and these days I also argue that myself at many nominations,on the grounds that if that's the standard then it needs to be applied consistently. That doesn't mean it's the right approach, however. The "purpose of ITN" statement says that ITN exists to take readers to articles about subjects which are in the news. If that's the case then we should be a news ticker, at least for stories that are notable enough to satisfy GNG. We could decide to go down the same route that we have for RD, and simply post anything of suitable quality if it meets the "in the news" criterion. And perhaps use JavaScript or similar to make it scroll continuously through the stories. Thus is there are 30 active at a time, they can all be seen. I wouldn't necessarily be averse to this notion if the right proposal were made.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
  • +1. We already have "the raw materials" for a news ticker in Portal:Current Events, and the WP:TOP25. RD and Ongoing are two ticker-like parts of ITN, and they are the two parts that work well (unlike blurbs). I do think that a news ticker is probably the best way of fulfilling ITN's purpose of directing readers to articles that are in the news. Levivich 16:07, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
    • Using either of these would fail the requirement that front page target links must represent high quality standards of writing for WP. So this is not an option. --Masem (t) 16:10, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

      Consensus can do anything it damn well pleases, including changing any requirements we have. So yeah, it's an option. And, anyway, we can filter entries in a news ticker by article quality. !Voting on article quality at ITN works fine (in fact, it often leads to rapid improvements in articles, so it kind of works great); it's the !voting on significance that doesn't work. Levivich 16:38, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

      We already filter RD entries for quality, so any potential news ticker idea could simply follow the same sort of process. And it's not like we check for articles being "high quality" right now. There's a minimum standard of being fully cited and not omitting major detail, which is the same standards we have at DYK and OTD, and that's about it.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  • the notion that we're not a news ticker is often repeated here...: A relevant question is "by how many people"?—Bagumba (talk) 16:14, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

    Well I don't know exactly how many people say this, or indeed if it's the view held by a majority of participants here, but it's certainly said often enough to give it the air of an unofficial policy. And the regularity with which we reject encyclopedic stories in the news (e.g. Vauxhall helicopter crash, Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, Megxit and numerous shootings in the US and bombings in the middle East, to name a few which immediately spring to mind) suggests that an RFC is needed if a new way forward is to be attempted.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:15, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

    One thing we try to avoid is inclusion of news stories (even with quality articles) that would set an overly-broad consensus to include equivilant ones. For example the Kavanaugh nomination would mean that for every other country that has a similar process to name individuals to the nation's top course, we should include all of those, but that's going to be far too many stories. Hence, why that was a non-starter. The same rational for why we avoid pointing every single US gun shooting. We also purposely avoid celebrity gossip for that same reason, hence the non-posting of Megxit. --Masem (t) 17:20, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

    Celebrity gossip ≠ celebrity news. Most gossip is already filtered by WP:BLPGOSSIP and WP:RSBREAKING. The celebrity topics that have a standalone article e.g. Depp v. Heard—as opposed to a mere one- on two-line mention in a bio—at least seem like viable candidates for discussion.—Bagumba (talk) 17:41, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

    Still, we try to avoid celebrity news because 1) that's an area given additional focus by the media due to systematic bias and 2) in most cases, the effects have little impact on the rest of the world, the Depp/Heard case being a prime example of a lot of ado that affects only two people. --Masem (t) 17:47, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

    "Impact" is subjective. Many got as much (if not more) entertainment from Depp/Heard as they do from our sports/entertainment ITNRs. And the platinum jubilee should be fair game for systemic bias criticism.[5] —Bagumba (talk) 17:57, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

    "getting entertainment out of news" is the entire reason we don't post celebrity news like that. Yes, the Depp/Heard trial is a valid encyclopedic topic, but we should treat it encyclopedically and not as a spectacle of entertainment. Masem (t) 18:46, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

    We didn't post it because there wasn't consensus. There's no rule or guidance at the WP:ITN page that specifically precluded that from being posted. Just like there's no rule about "not news ticker", "global importance" or "being transformative". As it currently operates, it's mostly a !vote count, as there's little grounds to discount !votes, given the vague and subjective guidance. —Bagumba (talk) 10:09, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

    All those points you claim are not in ITN explicitly fall under the lede para "ITN supports the central purpose of Wikipedia—making a great encyclopedia." That includes fighting the systematic bias of mainstream media, among other aspects that fall under WP:NOT. That all implies we should be selective of what types that posted as blurbs rather than falling into the routine patterns of how news works.

    We did make the reasonable consensus that RDs should be posted as long as there's an update as to avoid a lot of discussion as to RD blurbs, and ongoing was made to do the same for long-tail news events. We also have ITNR to make sure that we have a broad selection of topics of various academic interests so that we're highlighting important parts of non-politics and non-entertainment news that will ofter go overlooked. All these are facets that support why we want to be selective on what blurbs we post. Masem (t) 17:58, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

• Last I checked, ITN isn't a fiefdom exempt from WP:5P4. -- Vaulter 17:13, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  And don't underestimate the effectiveness of WP:TBANs. —Bagumba (talk) 17:20, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah but we also shouldn't underestimate the difficulty in obtaining them for veteran editors. Levivich 17:21, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Or those telling the awkward truth. Yes, very difficult. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:23, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Nothing worth having comes easy. —Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Plus always a bit awkward to seek topic bans on people providing their personal opinions during debates. Sounds a bit like censorship, or fascism perhaps. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 18:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Ideally, people's opinions wouldn't matter in ITN. But it's impossible to create an objective bar for a blurb. Also, topic bans for opinions isn't fascism (although it is silly), as Wikipedia is not a government. -- Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 21:33, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  I was aiming at the "forcible suppression of opposition" angle of fascism, obviously. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• Personally, I feel there needs to be a discussion like this regarding the future of ITN. As TRM mentions above, it seems to be devolved into people who want to show things that are in the media spotlight, and those who wish to show of quality articles. I think I vere towards the quality end of the discussion, but I have seen some truly ridiculous comments at ITN recently. I've seen many arguments of WP:NOTNEWS posted to be against a specific nomination. If we were to take NOTNEWS to heart, ITN should be discontinued. We have RD items that are being opposed because !commenters suggest the subject isn't well known, despite a consensus, and ITN/R items shouldn't be posted, but then no conversation ever happens at ITN/R. There is a need for certain arguments to be struck. There also (unless I've never seen it) not really a criteria as to when to mark something as (ready). Can this really be done by anyone? I've seen it done by people who were in the discussion, as well as nominators! DYK by contrast has very strict rules on how nominations and blurbs can be dealt with, and usually have to go through two people before they get into a prep set. Maybe I've misread how ITN operates, but from the above, maybe it's worth hiring up some co-ordinators for the project, or at least get some better notes on how what arguments are invalid. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:06, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  DYK is an interesting (and consistently short-staffed) model. They had some smart-ass little kid develop a "prep promoter" which means fewer sets of hands and better sets of eyes when actually mounting preps. Very small cadre of vastly experienced hands over there. Those little kids will run the foundation one day. If we're fortunate. BusterD (talk) 21:10, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  We definitely need to pick some automation from projects such as WP:DYK. Our project relies a tad too much on a very few admins. I remain in awe of the work that some of them put-in, but, we should reduce our reliance on a very few. Ktin (talk) 02:07, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  Some are misapplying WP:NOTNEWS, a policy about not turning every news items into a standlone Wikipedia article. It doesn't apply to ITN blurbs, which is "in the news".—Bagumba (talk) 17:13, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  ...get some better notes on how what arguments are invalid.: The existing ones at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Please_do_not... are routinely ignored. The burden is on admins to discount them when determining consensus.—Bagumba (talk) 17:20, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  ...not really a criteria as to when to mark something as (ready): I haven't noticed this being problematic. It's just an indicator; ultimately, the posting admin needs to do some due diligence and not just blindly post a "Ready". If anything, marking "Ready" seems underused (for RD at least); people often ask why XYZ isn't posted yet, but haven't taken the step to mark it ready to draw attention. —Bagumba (talk) 17:25, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  NOTNEWS doesn't say we can't cover current events, but we should be trying to cover them in an encyclopedia fashion, meaning we should be trying to take into account of the 10-year view of topics. (Wikinews is for those that want to write more as a newspaper style). That may mean that some news events are really non-events that can be incorporated into other topics, while for others a standalone is reasonable, but we should initially focus on the objective facts of the events instead of overloading it with reactions and the like. From ITNs standpoint, that's why for some topics we focus on one key point in the larger story (the point of a conviction, the point when a business merger is accepted by both companies and announced) rather than on each individual step. --Masem (t) 17:28, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• User:The Rambling Man helps us enormously when their first words in a thread about civility (requesting only constructive feedback) are "I'd say delete it." We thank you TRM for demonstrating the kind of problem we're facing. Some contributors simply jump to extreme comments out of the box and then badger the discussion which follows, finding some of their comments hatted for being off topic. I'm actually not biting TRM here, who I generally regard as an ally. Ascribing intent aside, honest disagreement keeps me awake and thinking. Perhaps there should be a group participating in discussions here who have proved they can be trusted to argue without heading for the highest peaks of disruption. Perhaps certain demonstrated disruptors can be limited in the number of comments they can make in a thread in this board. There are lots of valid issues to discuss in the thread above but proven and demonstrated disruptors should be effect-limited in some way. BusterD (talk) 17:58, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  I really mean it. It's clearly not fit for purpose as it stands, basically a ticker for mass shootings, not long back a ticker for Trumpisms, etc. It's just generally a popularity contest rather than an encyclopedic endeavour, and that's not what this overall project should be about. Oh, and if we're talking about "disruptors" then we should start with people who object to ITNR based on notability rather than quality. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 18:01, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Many of the regulars do try to fight against the consensus discussions from becoming popularity and fame contests, and I think that we need to stress that ITN is not there to feature stories about popular/household names in the news (including blurbs for such "beloved" RDs). We do not want ITN to mirror headlines and thus become a US news ticker. --Masem (t) 18:13, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Hear, hear, TRM. There seems to be a growing number of people who believe that the primary method to express disagreement with a consensus, rather than following the guidelines and procedures set out through years of consensus-building, instead choose to be deliberately disruptive in the name of an often misused and misapplied policy. ITN is the way it is through years of consensus precisely because of our mission to feature quality, notable content while not falling into the pitfalls of systemic bias. Discussions like these are the correct way to make changes, as opposed to metaphorically pissing on the wall and making a scene of one's self. WaltCip-(talk) 19:45, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  The "UK bias" stuff is nothing but a conspiracy theory. Americans getting upset over things being nommed that are bigger on an international level than say, the Super Bowl, need to back down. Yes, the Jubilee is bigger than the Super Bowl. Deal with it. --2.30.55.86 (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Here we must thank the IP contributor (whose only edits thusfar have been disruptive) to break the streak of serious posts and demonstrate the potential value in indefinitely semi-protecting such a forum, to repel contributors which have absolutely no dog in this hunt. BusterD (talk) 21:19, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  I should add one can certainly whack a mole, but the potential for holes expands exponentially when the universe of all misguided and immature unregistered ground-dwelling mammals is made unavoidable to the forum's ears. As I'm waxing poetic I'm starting to convince myself. BusterD (talk) 21:28, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Except those "years of consensus" building has lead to problematic or contradictory guidelines that cannot be fixed without...more consensus! The project has changed over the years, but the bureaucracy we've set up makes it hard to correct errors of precedent from years ago. So it stays broken. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:58, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Claiming the past consensus guidelines are "in error" isn't true. ITN draws new editors who may read ITN process but come away with their own desire for what it should be and then (to the point at hand) try to insist their new way us the right way. If there is a perceived issue with older approaches the right solution is to propose that here rather than to try to ran the change through on nomination discussions. Masem (t) 15:33, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  "cannot be fixed without...more consensus!" I hate to break it to you sir, but that's how Wikipedia operates. And as Masem said, the talk page discussions are there for a reason, to prevent mob mentality from dominating our processes, like when we had a group of editors try to stop an ITN/R item from being posted because their favorite cyclones weren't getting blurbs. WaltCip-(talk) 16:32, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  See, you're proving my point: in one breath defending the sanctity of consensus, and in the next referring to a consensus you disagree with as a mob. I'm not talking about differences of opinion. I'm talking about when the rules tie themselves in knots, and editors advocate the rule the fits the outcome they want while ignoring others. You literally are trying to advocate ITNR guidance over IAR, insisting that the other guy just doesn't understand the rules. GreatCaesarsGhost 18:53, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree, "mob mentality" and "their favorite cyclones" is exactly the kind of language that is a problem at ITN. It's dismissive of those with a different opinion. Levivich 19:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  They are more than welcome to have a different opinion. But they don't get to disrupt an established process just to make a point. Several of them explicitly stated in their rationales that they were responding because cyclones and storms they had (or hadn't) nominated were not posted. I allowed them to raise their concerns about America's Cup being on ITN/R by creating a discussion on the talk page to remove the item. Hardly any of them showed up. They just weren't interested. So yes, being POINTy en masse is mob mentality. WaltCip-(talk) 19:15, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  If the consensus at a higher traffic page believes something on ITNR is not worth posting, it should not be posted and it should be removed from ITNR. Your insistance that consensus must be ignored and debate moved to a lower traffic forum is a clear violation of WP:NOTBUREAU. I understand this is an "established process" but it is a garbage process at odds with WP:5P. Our guidelines are meant to make discussions at ITNC more productive; not subvert them. GreatCaesarsGhost 16:55, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

  It is disruptive on any process page on WP to come in and brigade about something wrong or the like in the wrong part of the process when there is usually a talk page intended for that discussion. Eg I would not use a random AFD to assert AFD was broken. The point of ITNR items and the list is well established so arguable about the ITNR process at a random ITNC is disruptive, particularly when several like-minded editors who are not regulars to IRN suddenly participate that way (that is approaching CANVAS). We have had far too many ITNC discussions go well beyond the scope of whether the specific ITNC merits posting and we need to push out if scope discussions to this talk page. --Masem (t) 17:20, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment ITN clearly has problems, primarily due to the few consistent contributors and the fact many who do contribute have zero involvement in other areas of the wiki. The same people come day after day to do battle with their enemies in this walled garden. Many of those involved here openly admit they see ITN as a nationalistic battleground: "anti-American bias" accusations are basically a daily occurrence - yet fail to see ITN has a bias towards including topics from both the UK and US. Here is a perfect example of childish, pointy behaviour from April that demonstrates conduct completely at odds with a collaborative project. Perhaps internal politics like that drive other editors away from ITN. WP:ITNR is a confused, subjective mess and should probably be scrapped or opened for wider discussion and major revision. Many items have been listed with minimal discussion. I don't think the answer is to shut ITN down. Our readers clearly come to us for non-paywalled, reliable information on topics that are in the news. We really need more competent, level-headed editors who have experience across the project to become involved. We also need to actually have enforcement of policies regarding no personal attacks and unacceptable disruptive battleground behaviour. AusLondonder (talk) 15:55, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  That discussion is a clear example of editors trying to be purposely disruptive, and what absolutely needs to be stopped to help improve civility. There's too much "reverge" type comments involved with that case, and if one wants to challenge the status quo, then that's what this talk page is for. --Masem (t) 17:02, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I definitely agree with AusLondonder with the frustration with those who don't do any work and just come to lobby for more emphasis on their favoured topics, especially the saying certain countries are more important or have more readers so should be favoured. eg to take a blast from the past Mwalcoff (talk · contribs). It would be good if people who don't do work get ignored Bumbubookworm (talk) 22:57, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Awwww you called me childish and pointy, while being such a toxic and nasty person yourself, how sweet. Know what's work? Reading the articles, reading the guidelines, and applying the two is work. That was a good-faith nom to pull something from ongoing when irrelevant incremental updates to the same story were going up as blurbs. Guess what? The later stopped happening. We have a specific guideline against opposing an item from just one country yet routinely items from the US are shot down as being "us-centric". We have a fake requirement for "global significance" which doesn't seem to apply to trash articles about a building fire in Bangladesh or a church shooting in Nigeria. ITN has guidelines and they've gone completely and utterly out the window. Maybe what we need is for POV warriors to stop boosting (or booing) stories they think should (or should not) be in the news. It's a thought, doomed I know, but a thought. --LaserLegs (talk) 10:38, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

  If you believe that there's a disconnect between the guidelines and how practice actually works, that's a good reason to start a talk page discussion. That is not a good reason to be purposely disruptive on every ITNC, which is a failure of WP:POINT and other civility guidelines, particularly when those posts of disruptive approach personal attacks against others. --Masem (t) 12:08, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you for the bold text, I would have missed that word without it. "every ITNC"? Show me where it's "every" or maybe correct your what I'll assume for now was an accidental inaccuracy. I literally wrote an app to catalog content updates to ongoing items, shared the results at ITN/C, and still struggled to get the guidelines actually adhered to. I have to listen to people call me pointy and disruptive? Which of you actually put in that level of effort? I think the two of you might need a trip over to AN/I for the insults and lies. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:29, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• Here is an example of incivility in ITN/C discussions: a clear and gratuitous ad hominem by The Rambling Man against Andrew Davidson. No, it doesn't have profanity, it's not a racist or sexist comment, but it is a blatant "poke" directed at another contributor, not at all on topic, not at all about the article subject. And that's during this discussion. Now I know that a half dozen admins are going to read that thread, and one of them will close it. Will anyone do anything about it? Will anyone besides me even say anything about it? No, because we tolerate this level of discourse. I guarantee that at least one person will respond to this by saying that the comment I'm linking to is not uncivil. Levivich 19:09, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I mentioned that there were a handful of individual editors that generally behind problems of civility on ITN. These type of back of the hand insults - which are extremely hard to call out from an admin standpoint for any action given the wide tolerance that WP as a whole uses for civility - are what needs to be better tempered overall. We could say that this thread should be seen as a type of last warning for civility manners with any future problems to be taken to ANI, but that's really hard to do. It would better to outline what are not helpful comments at ITN in the process page (such as debating the merits if ITNR at an ITNC discussion, complaining about lack of other posts, or edging on personal attacks, with then admit stopping such discussions quickly. If repeat behavior by one or more individual editors continues that way, then ANI becomes more reasonable to seek action. We do need to though allow reasonable counterarhuments at times, which can be indistinguishable from these poor behaviors, so that complicates matters. Masem (t) 19:28, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with everything you've written, except that we already have an outline about what are not helpful comments at ITN, e.g. WP:ITN#Significance says Arguments about a story relating to a particular geographic region, country, ethnicity, people group, etc. are generally seen as unhelpful. This point has already been made in this discussion, but we all know that routinely people oppose a story because it only affects a particular nation and is not international. Yet these oppose !votes are never discounted, or at least I've never seen them be discounted in a closing statement. In fact, I don't think I've ever read an ITN/C closing statement that discounts !votes for any reason at all. So while I hate to lay this at admins' feet, it kind of is at the feet of, well, if not admins, at least closers, who are not enforcing the rules already written. They don't discount "bad !votes" anymore than they do anything about incivility. BTW, "doing something" doesn't mean blocking people or TBANing them or even using admin tools at all. Just a simple warning on a user talk page would be helpful, but nobody really does that, either. (And I agree that not every instance of a heated compliment or backhanded slap needs to be addressed, sometimes you just ignore it and let it slide, but we seem to let it slide every time.) Levivich 20:00, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Admins are generally bad at leaving closing statements. I'm not sure if it's any worse at ITN than at other venues. For that reason, it's hard to say when discounting takes place or not, but I'm going to guess that few get that close to make a difference (not to say it doesn't happen). —Bagumba (talk) 20:17, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  ...anymore than they do anything about incivility. BTW, "doing something" doesn't mean blocking people or TBANing them or even using admin tools at all: What you are saying is that this is something everyone can be doing, admins and non-admins alike (WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, of course) —Bagumba (talk) 20:43, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly. Levivich 22:34, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  It's far from ad hominem and it's actually a reflection of the fact that Davidson continually disrupts ITN with objections to ITNC and ITNR on grounds which he does nothing to change. There's nothing "backhanded" or "insinuated" in my comment. I think Andrew is being deliberately disruptive, on one hand he continually rails against ITN as being out of date and stale, and on the other he objects routinely to INTR items which would transition ITN a little bit quicker. Jesus, what is wrong with people here? Just because I object to mass shootings in the US? Just because I'm fed up with seeing mass shootings in the US nominated? Sounds like the censorship is on its way up. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Comment - After some further reflection, I recognize that in terms of incivility and combative behavior at ITN/C, I have been one of the regular offenders in that regard as I have tended to be dismissive of contrary opinions - whether or not I believe these opinions to be founded in policy or otherwise. If our goal is to improve ITN, I don't want to be part of the reason that this cannot be done. So I am more than willing to disengage from ITN/C indefinitely (a self-imposed topic ban, I suppose) in order to ensure that this can take place. Whatever outcome might arise from the above discussion, I do agree that maintaining civility and enforcement of the existing rules plays a huge role in being able to ensure that collegiate discussion can occur when proposing news-related items for posting on the main page. I regret that in many ways, in my 10+ years of tenure as an ITN editor, I contributed negatively to the atmosphere here. Do note I am not trying to fall on my sword nor solicit pity. But I do hope for continued long-term improvement of ITN to where it can become a model process on Wikipedia rather than a stain on the community, and that's ultimately what I'm aiming for, and I apologize greatly to those whom I sparred or insulted through my commentary and invective. --WaltCip-(talk) 20:08, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you for saying this; it's upstanding. FWIW, as someone who just criticized you up above, I do not think your absence from ITN/C would improve ITN/C; we're better off with your participation than without it IMO, and this is true for like almost everybody. (Notwithstanding that everyone should feel free to take a break from anything at anytime if they want to do so.) If we all come out of this discussion being more careful about what we say at ITN/C, then I think that would be a great success. Levivich 20:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Walt, you're one of the very few voices at ITN I have any time for, your absence would make the place substantially weaker in keeping the US ticker tide at bay and I urge you to continue commenting, please. The last thing this project needs is an overwhelming US-centric ITN ticker. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 00:05, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for sharing. No need for swords here. "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts". —Bagumba (talk) 04:13, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I won't be changing how I approach ITNC, and I won't be made to feel guilty about my personal feelings. I reiterate that censoring opposition voices is fascistic. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:49, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I generally agree with you at ITN but I do think everybody needs to tone down the battleground rhetoric that is contributing to the problems at ITN. AusLondonder (talk) 09:05, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

People should not be threatened with censorship for holding and voicing their own opinions on the encyclopedic significance of topics at ITN. All I'm seeing here really is an attempt to hush people and threaten them with TBANs/ANI etc because their opinions are believed to be "callous" or "specious" or whatever phrase you wish to throw into the mix. ITN has always been (and will probably always be) a US-centric, death-centric ticker which doesn't reflect encyclopedic content, but also doesn't reflect "what's popular" i.e. WP:TOP25. It's fallen into the crevasse in between. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 10:12, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

That said, at the same time, we don't need to talk down to editors that are expressing the opinions, which is nearly an assured thing right now on any US shooting ITNC. Editors are free to express "but this is a major shooting!", and the right way to approach that is to say "Shooting in the US happen too often to make posting of every single one an impossible task for ITN, so we only focus on exceptional ones", and not "you Yanks are gun-crazy!" ITN comments should be free of any personal politics and ideological statements, heck there's just a few of these in the Boris Johnson recall vote nomination, as those themselves can lead to enticing editors that feel strongly one way or another on a topic. --Masem (t) 12:15, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

We just has the BJP comments which have caused a serious diplomatic row & the no-confidence vote for Boris Johnson rejected for posting. Not sure I’m seeing much of an anti-US bias here, which keeps being repeated. Is their anything concrete in these claims? If so, provide evidence to such.80.194.73.125 (talk) 13:15, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

ITN tends to focus on stories that are "points of no return" or where the status quo has been upended. The BLJ comments is just political sword rattling and not a transition so it is not really a good news story, much less ITN. The Johnson no-cinfidence vote resulted in the status quo upheld, so there's not much to say there on ITN. --Masem (t) 13:20, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I marveled how on one day on ITN/C, I saw two separate comments for two separate postings within a day of each other: one claiming ITN had a horrendously obvious US bias, and another claiming ITN was biased against US stories, both apparently meant in all sincerity. We must be doing something right. WaltCip-(talk) 13:29, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I think there's ITN equivalents akin to WP:AVOIDYOU. It's fine to make a comment on the specific event or class of events. Avoid sweeping generalizations of a country or its people, which an editor is liable to take personally if they have a connection to said country. "U.S. shootings", "British boat contests" fine; "those Americans", "them Brits", "there goes <country> again"—not so much. —Bagumba (talk) 12:43, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Though as another point, there are those that also question items that are ITNR (boat race) and even after being told that ITNR are based on prior consensus they still argue that, which also tends to become incivik. Editors are expected to know the practices, outlined st the main ITNC page at least, and contribution without that awareness is not helpful. Masem (t) 13:38, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I'll excuse the non-regulars. The rest, I don't know who intends it as a joke versus a WP:BATTLEGROUND for some past unsuccessful post(s). If it's policed, people are deemed uptight; if we leave it as a free-for-all (like we have), resentment grows, some perhaps driven off. —Bagumba (talk) 13:49, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Currently, there is no US news in ITN (although I do agree, it is quite death-centric) (also, today might not be proportionate) and about the US mass shootings thing, I think we've only blurbed two of them after making it almost halfway through the year (and those two shootings definitely got more coverage than anything that's on ITN right now).

And yes, ITN's article quality standards are very low compared to anywhere else on the main page. Imposterbruh (talk) 16:17, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Not always. Gilbert Gottfried did not get posted to ITN because his filmography was not sourced. A similar issue almost prevented the posting of Ray Liotta. Our standards aren't low, just uneven; although we are very susceptible to emotional pressure to "POST THIS RIGHT AWAY!!!!" if a story is of particular regional importance, and that doesn't help with the quality side of things. WaltCip-(talk) 16:46, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

What those cases show is that editors working on bios of creative individuals (actors, musicians, etc.) have broadly ignored the requirements of BLP which require stronger sourcing in general, including sourcing of every major film, book, etc. That's sadly the norm across the board that these -ographies tend to be missing sourcing. Masem (t) 16:50, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

WP:BLP requires inline citations for "material challenged or likely to be challenged." I don't believe filmographies and the like qualify as such, but that's really a conversation for a different thread. -- Vaulter 17:39, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

If they were only major characters in film, that would be reasonable, but most of the time it is minor roles and guest/cameo apperences in film and television that are the major problem since these cannot be readily validated except to IMDB which as we know is an unreliable source. I'm just saying that this is a years-long problem with BLPs and editors thinking that these should not be sourced properly. Masem (t) 17:49, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I think the practice is for ITN to be on par with DYK minimums. Per Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewing guide:

The article in general should use inline cited sources. A rule of thumb for DYK is a minimum of one citation per paragraph...

—Bagumba (talk) 00:57, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment You've all made wonderful points! InedibleHulk (talk) 14:55, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I’ve been contributing to ITN in different capacities (e.g. voter, nominator, article creator, updater, nomination closer etc.) for more than 12 years now and my impression is that things are getting worse. There‘s an increasing number of editors who take it personally and get offended when you oppose an item, tease every single editor if they don’t agree with their opinion, put pressure on editors to change their mind with a caustic tone, downplay the significance of stories from underrepresented regions and many other things that shouldn’t happen at ITNC. Not that this wasn’t the case long time ago, but it was definitely less pronounced. All in all, it seems that ITNC has become a battlefield of egos instead of a place that should help stimulate diversity and break barriers. Should it be closed is a valid question but probably not as long as there’s interest to work on it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  Closing it would be punting on the core problem: people's behavior. —Bagumba (talk) 01:01, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

  Closing it isn’t a solution. Discussions on talk pages are more confrontational, but that doesn’t mean we should close them all. For a start, increasing the level of tolerance in a such environment is a must because, in many cases, those complaints regarding civility are so trivial that can be properly considered an instance of trolling elsewhere on Wikipedia. Whether someone compares the US with a war zone is an extremely minor issue that no rational editor cares about. There have been discussions in which bombings in Pakistan were treated similarly, China was subject to stereotypes and Putin was called a dictator, but no-one even dared to complain about the tone of those comments even though it wasn’t much different than the one in the critical opinions on the US-related topics. After all, it’s really rare to see personal attacks at ITNC, with most of the contentious comments being stereotype-driven generalisations. In the grand scheme of things, that’s an easily solvable problem.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:39, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

  The biggest issue I see with policing civility and generalizations on ITN/C is that most everyone here who isn't an admin lacks the authority to condemn another user for incivility without themselves becoming embroiled in tu quoque argumentation. As one who has confessed above to poor behavior, I'd have no problem going out of my way to hold other editors accountable out of the sake of upholding WP:CIV, but I don't know how I could go about it in a way that doesn't come across as rank hypocrisy. WaltCip-(talk) 14:08, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Next steps

Thank you everyone for this conversation, I think this has truly been a constructive dialog in terms of surfacing issues that are fundamental to our ways of working. More importantly, to me atleast, this thread has shown that we have a few things to do.

1. Civility and user behavior: In reading all of the comments above, it is evident that almost all of us want to get this project to being civil and polite. We want this place to be a welcoming to new editors, and a place that energizes existing editors. We should do all that we can to enable that. As next steps on this front, we all have a few things to do. We need to watch for when our comments on threads / topics / nominations are impolite and stop that right then and there. There are always going to be topics that are more contentious than the others, even there -- no reason to not showcase our disagreements in a polite manner. I go back to my own metaphor of workplace / school discussion boards (e.g. slack). Our behavior, comments, and language here should be no different from how we would behave at our workplaces or schools. I am also a big fan of Nudge theory as a behavioral change enforcer. Perhaps there is something there that we could explore. Some examples - Update the edit box to explicitly throw an alert -- "Is your post keeping with civility guidelines of the project?" when we sense a potential issue. We also need to call out other editors (politely ofcourse) when they are deviating from these principles. There is a bit of a tenure issue that can come up with folks not wanting to show the mirror to relatively tenured editors. This is where we will need the assistance from other tenured editors to collectively get us to a good place.
2. Evolution of the ITN box: In reading the comments, it does appear that while some editors want to shutdown (my words not theirs) the project, most editors do not seem to think that we need to shutdown the project just because we are not able to sort our own behavioral issues. In my own thinking that would be like cutting the nose to spite the face. That said, collectively re-imagining the future of WP:ITN is not a bad thing to work toward. During my day-time off-wiki, I talk a lot about disruption. It truly requires mature organizations to disrupt themselves in a way to continually stay relevant, while resisting all sorts of status quo pressures. Toward this goal, if there is an appetite for re-imagining WP:ITN as either a mix of WP:TOP25 or Portal:Current events or something else, perhaps more visual, I would strongly encourage the editors to work this and prototype a few suggestions and bring it back to the group. I personally like the iOS version of the Wikipedia app's homepage. That app has a fundamental rethink of the homepage in a way that requires some element of grounds-up thinking. If editors have an appetite for that (i.e. redesigning the homepage with a reimagined WP:ITN), I would strongly encourage a spin-off working group to flesh the idea and bring it back to the group here.

Let's get working on these and always remember to WP:BEKIND! Cheers. Ktin (talk) 18:58, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

• Proposal I'd like to suggest that one way to improve civility and update the ITN box would be to create more specific significance requirements. I'd suggest the following, but with room for modification if editors would rather see something different:

1) If a story appears as a major headline on an approved news website outside of the countr(y/ies) where the story took place, then it passes on significance. We would need to generate a list of approved news websites, and we would want to make sure that said list of news websites has regional representation so that we don't end up with a America/Europe bias. We would need to be somewhat forgiving with the "major headline" requirement, since those can change frequently throughout the day; as long as it was a major headline at one point it's fine in my opinion, but editors are free to disagree with that.

2) If a story has an expected outcome occuring in the near future, then a blurb should be postponed until the expected outcome occurs. For example: rather than post that an election is occuring, we would post that an election has occurred and what the outcome was. This is already the policy of the editors who vote at ITN, but it isn't currently part of the official ITN criteria, so this would simply formalize that principle.

3) The event should merit its own Wikipedia article, according to the notability guidelines. This point might be obvious enough that it doesn't need to be a rule.

I'm not completely happy with these rules because it doesn't address how to judge science, art, awards, and some sport stories, as those rarely make world news headlines, but perhaps another editor can figure out a fourth rule to address that. NorthernFalcon (talk) 20:06, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

The first one cannot work because it will immediately favor Western sources, even if you make sure non-Western website are added. Any type of basis that is simply "has appeared on a news site" is a stumbling block. I'm all in favor of making sure that we don't dismiss stories that appear in non-tradition but high quality news sources in non-Western countries (including overcoming any foreign language aspect) and making sure editors don't dismiss such stories due to that reason (that has lead to civility problems), but we already have a problem with editors rushing to create articles on anything that looks like a news event that this would create a major problem. It would also lead to things we rather discourage, like gossip around the Depp/Heard case, to be considered for ITNC. We still need appropriate review and discrimination of what are actual appropriate news stories for the main page. Masem (t) 20:15, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, I believe that significance as measured by placement in sources is an absolutely unsolvable. There will always be many more stories that meet this criteria than we can post. I think a workable solution would be to treat significance more as a binary (placement in numerous reputable sources) and focus debate on the quality/quantity of the recent improvement to the encyclopedia. This will help limit impacts of bias. GreatCaesarsGhost 18:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I definitely concur with this. The problem I have seen when weighing significance subjectively is that for a lot of stories, you will have equal parts of editors saying "this is newsworthy" versus those who say "this is not newsworthy". Because these votes essentially boil down to petitio principii, an admin is left simply weighing which side has more editors !voting in favor for or against posting based on newsworthiness. This runs totally contrary to how consensus is usually weighed on Wikipedia, which I think goes a long way towards explaining general editor frustration with how ITN/C is run, especially when editors flagrantly oppose ITN/R items based on significance. I think we ought to pick a standard and stick with it. WaltCip-(talk) 13:26, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Likewise. I mean, a mass shooting in the US (for example) with two or three deaths will be reported by BBC News, of course. But it doesn't make it encyclopedically significant by default. This overview would suggest that somewhere between 40 to 70 mass shootings per year would end up on ITN (because, believe me, the BBC or CBC or whoever, will continue to report these kinds of things, despite their lack of notability). We don't need this kind of thing. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:35, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

• I think it would be more constructive if we separated the discussion on how to address incivility from the discussion on, well, everything else (national bias, minimum deaths, etc). I don't believe changing the notability requirements is step one in changing the types of behavior we see at ITN. I'll only be commenting on civility here.

I'm very late to this discussion, but that's partly because I don't check ITN/C nearly as often as I used to. I've been an on-and-off editor there for a while with occasional bursts of regular activity, but stopped for the very reasons why this thread exists in the first place. Civility (or more accurately, the lack of it) is a real problem with the culture that's formed at ITN. There's not many other corners of the encyclopedia where I can expect to receive nearly as many dismissive or vitriolic comments from other editors. I'm glad this issue is finally getting some attention.

I fully support little things like an "is your post keeping with civility guidelines of the project?" notice. We also need to give some teeth to the "Please do not..." bullet points under "Voicing an opinion on an item." It lists five behavioral issues (commenting things like "who?" or "meh", opposing items for only relating to a single country, accusing others of only supporting because of a US bias, not reading relevant articles before !voting, or !voting without regard for the criteria because you disagree with it) and yet I still see all of these from editors far too often. There needs to be some enforcement mechanism for this.

We need to make it easier to temporarily topic-ban editors from ITN when they routinely disregard behavioral guidelines and make ITN/C a worse place for editors to be. We need to have less tolerance for personal attacks, callousness, obscenities directed towards ITN as a whole (attacks that use the plural "you" instead of being directed at a single editor), and frequent, baseless accusations of bias (i.e., inserting a rant about bias in every !vote, derailing every conversation). We need to be willing to excise from the project editors who damage it by making others leave.

In short: have more reminders to nudge editors towards better behavior, but have clear guidelines clarifying that the appropriate response to editors routinely raising the temperature at ITN is an AN/I discussion resulting in a topic ban, temporary or indefinite. Let editors know that if they want to contribute to ITN/C, they can't foster an environment where other editors want to quit contributing.

Hoping something positive comes from this discussion before it gets stale and archived.

 Vanilla  Wizard 💙 22:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

^^ This, with bells on it. WaltCip-(talk) 12:08, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Proposal: Move the focus of ITN criteria to quality

Per the discussion above, I think much of the incivility at ITNC comes from unresolvable differences of opinion on significance. So just as an exercise, can we discuss what it would be like to change the nomination process to strictly focus on quality? As a draft criteria, "Editors at ITNC will determine if a substantial, high-quality improvement has been made to the target article reflecting recent events." Some thoughts:

• Significance would somewhat take care of itself. A quality update would necessitate citation to multiple reliable sources.
• There should be less pressure to force through "really big" noms with lousy articles. Similarly, conflicts involving ITNR should lessen.
• Regionial bias and IDONTLIKEIT becomes less of a factor.
• We may have an issue with truly insignificant gossip noms. However, I think it would be difficult to compose a quality update if nothing substantial has occurred.

GreatCaesarsGhost 00:02, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

• Support in principle, but the wording might need tweaking. This is working great for RD for years. --LaserLegs (talk) 09:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose As I pointed out above, we still need something that acts as the discrimination on news systematic biases. Significance is not enough because there are clearly cases of well-documented events that we'd normally not include, such as many topics on mundane US political events or stuff like the Depp/Heard trial, while major topics of import that are outside the norm of what Western media, which already struggle to get basic quality articles, would still flounder. --Masem (t) 12:49, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Why? The WP:ITN guidelines say nothing about fighting bias no matter how often that made up criteria is cited. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:58, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

The Significance section implies this between the lines (such as "To point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them."), but realistically this should be part of that, that we are purposely selective to fight systematic bias. --Masem (t) 17:15, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

No, it doesn't imply that at all, you've just decided it should. Get it added as a purpose or requirement, until then it's totally made up. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:48, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

That's why I said "implies", I didn't say it did explicitly. --Masem (t) 01:51, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

You make it sound unreasonable to suppose that the goal "To point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them" might imply something of bias. To be looking for only a specific subset of information is basically the definition of confirmation bias, at least, even if it hardly encompasses all of what may be called bias as a whole. The idea that something be "nonetheless of interest," seems to suggest that we favor stories that are surprising--ie. that they are news to us. Merely replicating the editorial spin of commercial publishers would not do that. Moreover, the philosophy of Wikipedia as a whole and it's neutral point of view would also seem to suggest that it's not our job to provide a digest of commercial news coverage click-bate. 142.126.80.63 (talk) 20:32, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose on the contrary, we should remove the quality criterion. Banedon (talk) 13:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

  Can't remove the quality criteria if we are going to have topics given focus on the Main Page. That's a non-starter (a requirement beyond the scope of ITN) Masem (t) 13:25, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

  Then we should remove the entire main page and redirect to https://www.wikipedia.org/. Banedon (talk) 14:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

  Which, if you click the English, goes to the Main Page. We need a landing page, and the Main Page works, but we do want that to show what an open-wiki, crowd-sourced work can produce, and that's going to focus on quality over quantity. --Masem (t) 14:20, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

  Then make another page that looks like https://www.wikipedia.org/ but is for the English Wikipedia only. You could argue that the Main Page "shows what an open-wiki, crowd-sourced work can produce"; I'll still say the Main Page shows a censored version of [what an open-wiki, crowd-sourced work can produce]. Banedon (talk) 01:10, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose It is embarrassing enough whenever we post some tiny ITN/R sporting event or some election in San Marino when the breaking news of the day gets held up because of quality problems in one section in a 200,000-byte article. No need to make this even worse. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:47, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. We should be focusing on events with long-term significance, that are covered in major global news sources, and have high quality articles. However, I do agree with King of Hearts that quality should become less important than more significant the event is; for the most significant events, like the invasion of Ukraine, this already happens, but we should codify this. BilledMammal (talk) 00:11, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
  • ITN was founded because of the ability for us to create a fresh new article in the wake of a major event (9/11) that was actually good in quality. And that's been repeated for many other breaking events. If anything, the "breaking news" articles (created on the day of the event) that fail quality are those that are beyond the usual scope of western reporting, and there I think we recognize that a minimial 500 word article is going to be about as good as we usually can get. What is usually disappointing is the number of BIOS/RDs, elections, and other ITNRs that are created well before the event occurs that are poor in quality and do not get improved, and this is common to both western topics and those outside that sphere. We want the quality to weigh as important as the news importance because its supposed to show how fast we can come to either creating or improving such an article in the short time that ITN is meant to cover. --Masem (t) 01:58, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
    • My point there is that sometimes it is not possible to get events up to sufficient quality, but the events are so significant that we must post them; the example of the invasion of Ukraine is one where the event is so significant that quality is almost irrelevant. However, I'm not particularly worried about codifying that; we already do that, and if such a change would be controversial then I would prefer to focus on the more important change of strengthening the significance requirements, though the addition of "long term", and the requirement for it to be widely covered in major global news sources. BilledMammal (talk) 02:10, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

      I have yet to see the case of a serious event with major worldwide implications not have legions of editors working to build and improve within the hours of confirmation of the event. You may have minor edit warring going on, or renaming or other things that happen in that immediate wake, but those articles which have serious reperussions at the global stage

      It is the events that are far less world-reaching but still significanSo we definitely can still look to quality for these events, these have never had problems. And remember that WP as a whole is not a newspaper, we prefer waiting to resolve quality than posting as soon as news breaks.t, and which happen outside of the Western world that tend to have the problem with getting the new article to quality in a short amount of time. Masem (t) 12:06, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• I feel like one of the lonely Jacobins railing against a monarchy built on the fundamentals of quality and significance. Nevertheless I am inclined to throw my lot in as a support in principle, in the hopes that one day this can be done and help solve the dysfunctional and subjective process that is determining significance. WaltCip-(talk) 00:16, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
• Increase quality standards irrespective of what happens to importance - At least that will force the legion of people who do nothing vote and bleat to contribute to WP instead of waiting for the *peasants* to present their world view for them. Even if the quality requirement was raised by 50-80% it's still extremely basic Bumbubookworm (talk) 01:42, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose because it actually needs to be in the news, removing significance means that we could just spend our time posting celebrity gossip if the article is good enough. Joseph2302 (talk) 07:49, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  Are that many celebrity gossip articles of amazing quality compared to recent events? 142.126.80.63 (talk) 20:37, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I'd support for recently-created articles, and already try to !vote at ITNC this way. Per WP:ITNCRIT:

  Conversely, an editor may write an in-depth update on a topic normally considered marginal, thus convincing commenters that it is deserving of inclusion.

  However, I think it's more subjective on the "importance" of updates to an existing article, quality or not, so would keep the status quo for those types of incremental updates. The tricky part is how "recent" an article needs to be to be judged only on quality.—Bagumba (talk) 09:16, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per King of Hearts. Jusdafax (talk) 00:22, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• Support. This is an encyclopedia. News is not the focus. There are times when the significance of an event makes it possible to create a high-quality article quickly enough that it qualifies as news, and celebrating those occasions on the main page is appropriate. For the vast amount of topics, there are not going to be enough sources to create a quality article until quite some time later, and that's okay, too. Just because we have an "in the news" section doesn't mean we need to have something to post there every day, even. When an article is quality and newsworthy, hurrah! it's a special occasion. However, anything on the main page must be notable as established through verifiable, reliable sources.--~TPW 02:00, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• Neutral I can as easily argue for or against something being so grey and nebulous as "(high-)quality" on the same subjective grounds I (and certainly others) already contest the true meaning and supposed intent of enigmata like "significance", "purpose" or "relevance". Not saying I will or won't, just saying this won't be some great leap forward in civil obedience, much less utopia. As long as the updates have those fairly solid references and explain why the moment matters without misspelling anything, business as usual. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:32, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• I'd absolutely love this if I were an editor being paid by some company notable enough to get occasional news coverage, but not notable enough that it wouldn't get a boost from a link on Wikipedia's main page. After all, I'd be updating my client's page anyway. —Cryptic 17:31, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• Support The first purpose of the main page is to feature high quality articles. Given that purpose, we should be less concerned about whether an article is about a little-known event, and more concerned about whether it features the kind of article quality we want Wikipedia to be known for. NorthernFalcon (talk) 05:31, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I doubt this would solve the problem of incivility raised in the earlier talk page section. -- Vaulter 16:54, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I feel that if we prioritized only the best-quality articles while dropping the "notability" requirement, articles about transfers of power in small countries would never be posted again. It's true that one of the core purposes of ITN is to feature quality Wikipedia articles, but its purpose doesn't end there. ITN's purpose is featuring quality Wikipedia articles to educate readers about significant events and featuring quality Wikipedia articles to provide ease of access to subjects that they're likely looking for more information on. In this context, "quality" means that it's better than stub class, properly sourced, and is overall serviceable. If "quality" were the only requirement, we would prioritize GA-class articles covering gossip over start-class articles covering elections. ITN is meant to be a useful tool for readers, not just an opportunity to show off how good some of our articles are.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 19:57, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Support. I agree having a more mechanical/objective criteria for significance, leaving the subjectivity for quality, would be an improvement at ITN/C. That doesn't mean dispensing with the significance criteria altogether, just making it more objective, to reduce the subjective arguments. Levivich^[block] 17:01, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Clarifying the requirements for ITN

Currently, requirements for ITN are very vague, and this results in issues with determining what is and is not appropriate; LaserLegs put it well when they said without hard requirements ITN is left up to the interpretation of vague guidelines resulting in a petty tit-for-tat of !votes and comments between regulars.

To partially address this, I would propose the following changes. I would support all of them being made, but I also believe they could be beneficial individually.

1. To be posted, an article must not be stub or start class
2. To be posted, the event must be covered in major global news sources
3. To be posted, the event must have long-term significance
4. To be posted, the event must not be recurring unless listed on WP:ITNR
5. To be posted, the event must be more current than the least current item on the list

1 is an attempt to address disaster stubs and similar; it is intended to raise the quality of articles we post, and prevents us from posting events that we lack sufficient information to create an article that would satisfy the casual reader.

2 and 3 are attempts to address debates about whether an event is significant enough for posting by providing a clearer definition of what is "significant"; significant is events that will matter in the long term (Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is while 2022 Missouri train derailment isn't, for two recent examples), and that are covered by major global news sources.

4 attempts to address consistency of posting, questions about which often causes issues in discussions such as those on Supreme Court nominations - this proposal means that either there is a consensus to post these consistently, or there is not

5 addresses the occasional situation where the oldest item on the list is weeks old, but we reject one eight days old for being stale. BilledMammal (talk) 12:47, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

• This proposal doesn't work primarily because of 3: "long-term significance" requires having a crystal ball to determine whether the event will have a lasting impact beyond its initial headlines. For some events, it seems obvious. But for others, it will simply result in a similar struggle that we are already seeing, where two editors will simply disagree on whether or not something is significant.--WaltCip-(talk) 12:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I don't believe that the entire proposal needs to be implemented to improve ITN; if individual items, like #3, are rejected, then I still believe that the remaining items will improve the system. As for #3, it does require a crystal ball to a certain extent, but I still believe it is an improvement on the current process as it provides some guidance on what sort of "significance" we are looking for - specifically, whether the event is likely to be relevant in the long term. BilledMammal (talk) 13:14, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Point 4 doesn't make any sense at all. The way recurring items are supposed to get on ITN/R in the first place is to be nominated and posted for a number of years consecutively at ITN/C. Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:55, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm not convinced there is any clear process for getting items on ITNR; it isn't documented anywhere I can find, and there are events on the list that I don't believe have ever been posted, such as Any meteor storm or FINA World Aquatics Championships, while no one appears to be aware of other items on that list, such as Arrival of spacecraft (to lunar orbit and beyond) at their destinations, given that the arrival of the James Webb Telescope to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point was rejected or The first and last launches of any type of rocket, given that Starliner was rejected.

  I believe a clear process that emphasises the role of discussion and consensus building in the process would be beneficial, which is what #4 proposes. In addition, the system as you describe has issues with being self-fulfilling; some events are opposed because they are not regularly posted, which results in the not being regularly posted and thus not included on ITNR, regardless of whether there would be a consensus for or against their regular posting. BilledMammal (talk) 13:26, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

  The thing about #4 is that sometimes a reoccurring event is only notable once, or is suitably in the news because of something that happened at that event. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

  I have added to ITNR that changes to the list should occur here. Masem (t) 15:53, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Opposed to #2 I see no reason to limit ourselves to "globally significant" items that's a made-up criteria used to keep "US-centric" stories off the main page and it need not be codified. #4 is problematic for the reasons given. Support the rest. WP:10YT is a good idea. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:37, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

  Agree that #2 is a problem. Many election results are not well covered globally but are covered by more narrow national sources in that country, and those should be fine. Masem (t) 15:43, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm a bit unsure why we would suddenly restrict ourselves to non-start class articles. We do look for quality, in terms of being longer than a stub ~1500 and being well cited. I'm worried if we write "no start-class", people will either deny because it's not had the assessment updated, or, otherwise that people will simply upgrade their articles to C. I've seen many FACs be nominated at start class. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:36, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Comment an article must not be stub or start class start class articles seem fine for ITN, particularly RD (which has a higher %age of start class articles). the event must be covered in major global news sources- isn't that what we already do? If not, we should be doing this, as how else do you objectively define "importance". the event must have long-term significance How would be ever be able to judge the long-term effect of an event that's just happened? We can't, without resort to a WP:CRYSTALBALL. the event must not be recurring unless listed on WP:ITNR Nope, that breaks the whole process of how to get anything onto WP:ITNR, and is unworkable. Some recurring events will get more coverage in some years than others. the event must be more current than the least current item on the list This we already do, otherwise it gets rejected as stale. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:00, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose #2 per Masem and the very long-standing consensus that not everything must be globally significant - if there was a major earthquake in Los Angeles or Tokyo or Istanbul tomorrow there would almost certainly be very strong consensus to post but they would be unlikely to have global significance. Thryduulf (talk) 16:09, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose #4 for the reasons given by PawnKingThree and Lee Vilenski. It would also prohibit the posting of the first edition of something that will (or is intended to) become recurring - it obviously cannot be on ITNR if it's never happened yet, and if we can't post it at ITNC because it's recurring it will never be posted. The way to stop people incorrectly opposing things because they aren't on ITNR is not to make them correct. Thryduulf (talk) 16:09, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Support #5, although this is at least de facto the case anyway. Thryduulf (talk) 16:09, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose all I feel that this would only worsen the problem it's trying to solve. Figuring out what's notable is currently more straightforward than it would be with these requirements. We already don't post stubs until they're improved to start class, and I don't think it's realistic to expect all articles are at least C class. "Major global news sources" would worsen US/UK/west bias (which media outlets are the major global news sources?) and raise new barriers for articles about significant events in smaller countries. The "long-term significance" requirement would require a WP:CRYSTAL ball (and no doubt lead to more bickering over what it means for an event to have a long-lasting impact). #4 is problematic for reasons other editors described better than I could and #5 is unnecessary at best and an arbitrary restriction at worst. I appreciate that you took the time to come up with these proposals to better ITN, but I don't believe they'd be positive for the project.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 19:34, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose all. 1) There is no objective definition of "stub or start class". This just takes the current subjective standard of "substantial update" and replaces it with another subjective standard. 2) There are plenty of WP:ITN/R events that do not meet this criterion, but that we should post anyways. 3) "Long-term significance" is an even more subjective standard than what we have currently. 4) The way to get recurring events onto ITN/R is to have several successful consecutive ITN/C nominations; ITN/R is meant to codify consensus that is believed to already exist rather than form a new consensus to post something. The lack of consensus to add to ITN/R does not imply consensus that such events should never be posted. Also, it is possible that a particular individual event in a series is more important than the others, e.g. the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival. 5) WP:CREEP, this is common sense and I have not seen anyone attempt to act otherwise. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:57, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Support #1 – I think this requirement is particularly good. The distinction between start-class and c-class is arbitrary, as King of Hearts noted. However, I do believe that ITN serves as a spotlight for Wikipedia's quality coverage. This criterium would move discussions regarding quality to the talk page of the relevant article, I hope. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:42, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose #3 and #4 – "long-term significance" is exactly the stumbling block of a lot of these discussions. It's WP:CRYSTAL by nature: we can't know which (smaller) disasters have longer-term significance. 2 and 5 look good. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:42, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Proposal: The sanity rules

This proposal does not seek to codify any sort of guidelines as to what items are notable, significant, or high-quality enough for posting on ITN. However, this proposal does seek to lay down ground rules by which these sorts of discussions can be held with minimal disruption. The intention is not to state what are valid arguments, but rather, what are not valid. The issue with civility in ITN/C discussions goes back to the fact that irrelevant or disruptive conversations/side-discussions are allowed to take place which have absolutely no bearing on an item's qualification for posting.

Therefore, I propose that the following !votes, statements, or arguments should be removed or hatted by an editor or admin if they arise during the course of an ITN/C posting:

• Speculation with regards to consensus of the very existence of established ITN guidelines (such as ITN/R or ITN/RD).
• Speculation with regards to the legitimacy of verified, reliable sources surrounding an item.
• Speculation with regards to whether an article for a nominated item should exist (this should be handled strictly at the article's talk page or at WP:AFD).
• Speculation with regards to the stance or motive of a nominator.
• Soapboxing about political circumstances surrounding a nominated item.
• POINTy arguments solely to disrupt or challenge the posting of a prior item.

And there should be no need to seek admin approval to summarily remove arguments of these sort if they should come up, since they have absolutely no bearing on whether something is "in the news" and, at best, function as an irrelevant side discussion.--WaltCip-(talk) 15:52, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

• Discussion about the notability of a target article (point 3) is very much fair game for ITN as that's part of making sure the minimum article quality exists, and if there's doubts about the need for the article, that can be initiated at ITN through obviously an AFD would require deletion. The other points seem all fair. --Masem (t) 16:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I'm not attached to that one as much as I am the others. The intent was more to avoid existential discussions that would be more appropriate for AFD than in a forum that is deciding only whether the article meets the necessary quality to merit posting on ITN. WaltCip-(talk) 16:04, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

  Oh, I'm completely on board the others for maintaining sanity and civility. All those other points rarely are actionable in regards to promotion of storis at ITN. Masem (t) 16:29, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

  It notability is an issue, AfD it. Often, it's just inuendo, like "why wasn't there an article before their death?" That was pretty much the rationale at the failed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zeke Upshaw.—Bagumba (talk) 07:32, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think Bagumba sums up pretty much the argument for including point 3. There really should be no middle ground between "this article is notable" and "this article should not exist" where !voters can complain, bludgeon and hinder a nomination without themselves taking action on the article (I think the appropriate term for this is "paper tiger"). First of all, it doesn't actually accomplish anything useful even as it makes a lot of noise. Second, as much as being distracting from the process, it fosters a continuously adversarial atmosphere on ITN. With regards to the counterpoint of "well, point 3 will just take the argument to AFD and stop the article from being posted" - yes, but someone repeatedly bringing notable articles to AFD would be considered disruptive and attract admin attention if it's the same user or users doing this continuously. This is in contrast to the current state where being argumentative on ITN/C is not considered an action worthy of admin attention even as it might cause actual disruption. WaltCip-(talk) 12:41, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I don't think a DYK nom is ever deadlocked on notability without nominating it for AfD. —Bagumba (talk) 13:49, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

• Regarding point two, assessing the sources is part of assessing quality; WP:SOURCEDEF means that even if it is green at RSP, there can be issues that mean it isn't an appropriate source for what it is used for.

For point one, what would that involve? While challenging ITN/R or ITN/RD in general would not be appropriate per WP:CONLEVEL, it can be appropriate to challenge the posting of individual items, as guidelines permit occasional exceptions.

I also share Masem's concerns about point three, and I would also note that preventing such discussion here would require editors with such concerns to open an AfD, which would usually prevent an article from being posted - it is better if we leave open the possibility of those concerns being addressed here.

4, 5, and 6 look reasonable. BilledMammal (talk) 16:22, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

I meant to follow up on this, but essentially point one is to prevent people who show up to a nomination for, say, the Super Bowl to simply say "This is not notable", or even "This is not notable and I don't care if it's on ITN/R" without any further supporting premises. Of course there are always exceptions in which there is a point to be made, but the folks in the aforementioned example are generally not interested in outlining specific nuanced objections. Instead they're just complaining for complaining's sake. Hatting prevents further back-and-forth arguments from ensuing but also serves as a reminder that we have these guidelines in place for a reason, and that there are proper venues to have discussion regarding ITN/R-worthiness rather than planting a battle flag on an otherwise uncontroversial nom and posting. ... It's similar to RFA and why we send extended !vote discussion to an RFA's talk page. How many nominations have we seen where a single oppose !vote against a near-perfect candidate ensues a firestorm of toxic and uncivil arguing? And what's actually accomplished by having the arguing out in the open? Not much; if anything, it results in a more negative outcome. WaltCip-(talk) 12:51, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment if WP:CONSENSUS is not a WP:VOTE count then this is already being done by admins who are considering the consensus of a nomination (assuming it's not speedy closed in just a few minutes - a practice that really needs to stop). I would suggest adding something to the effect of: * Application of non-existent guidelines. IDK if it's worth writing down though. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

  It's not enough in my mind that admins are discounting disruptive !votes. The issue is that these disruptive votes then turn into disruptive conversations which drive off contributors from ITN/C, which is what gives this place such an awful reputation. The goal is to nip them in the bud before they reach a point of agony. WaltCip-(talk) 17:57, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

  This is a perfect example of how it should be done, and you did it, to me no less. Just make that common place but I'd suggest citing WP:MWOT instead since it's not judging the content. Doesn't solve the !votes that just ignore the criteria, but it'll at least help solve the distracting walls of text. --LaserLegs (talk) 19:42, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

• Definitely support 4, 5, and 6. I think #1 could be workable if it's reworded to be a guideline against derailing ITN/C nominations with arguments over what the guidelines should be. The "please do not..." section somewhat covers this already, but only in cases where people oppose ITN/R items because they disagree with what's covered by the ITN/R criteria (I feel like this probably has something to do with the boat race). A broader guideline against bickering about criteria in the wrong place could be beneficial as long as it doesn't prohibit occasional exceptions like Masem mentioned.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 21:15, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
• Add to the list "discussing shootings in the United States in discussions about articles that have nothing to do with shootings in the United States" since there is a bit of a problem with that happening --LaserLegs (talk) 17:24, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

  I'm going to say in general that when it comes to any type of disasters, trying to compare with similar disasters in other nations as to support or oppose posting is bad form. We consider the disaster itself and for that country if that's common (For example, there is massive flooding in China and India each year which can have overall death tolls in the 100s+, but we rarely post those) Masem (t) 17:38, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

• Some of the recent responses to the mass shooting nominations on ITN/C dictate the problem we are facing. People bitching and moaning about political biases on ITN and how shootings are "routine" in some countries or another - those people are not part of the solution. They are part of the problem. They either need to be notified that this discourse is uncivil or unhelpful, or they need to have their !votes suppressed. I see no other way around it if we are going to do anything about incivility in this space. WaltCip-(talk) 19:04, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

  We need a proper guideline on this though. We consider the disaster itself and for that country if that's common sounds like sensible advice, and could apply to mass shootings, and other similar events, too. The more we agree on basic principle for ITN, which could be applied in wide ranging scenarios, the less we need to rely on people's interpretation of ITN worthiness rules, which is where lots of the unsavoury comments come from (from all sides and opinions in ITN nominations). Because right now, there seems to be many people "calling out ITN for biases" (sometimes for polar opposite "biases"), so making the process easier to discern should remove some of the polarising of opinions. Joseph2302 (talk) 19:30, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

  Walt, I respect you among more than most among this bunch, but your link just typifies how the rest of the world views that particular subject matter. The rest of the world has pretty much given up being horrified or even surprised that people and children are routinely killed in their tens of thousands in a "civilised country". Nothing there really amounted to anything disruptive in any sense, it was a personal opinion (and ITNC is about that to an extent when determining encyclopedic notability). Sure, if it had said "all Americans deserve to be shot to death" or similar, that'd be disruptive, but saying that one is bored of seeing mass shootings being nominated is absolutely fine. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:43, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

  I guess you're right. I realize I'm fighting a losing battle here, but I can't be the only one who thinks the current atmosphere isn't workable either. WaltCip-(talk) 18:19, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support 4-6, Oppose 1-3. The spirit here is fine, but the remedy provided is untenable censorious. #1 - the "very existence" clause seems to save this rule, but is likely to be ignored. This will block reasonable discussion on if a target is covered by ITN/R. #2 - it's reasonable to question the reliability of a source; this allows any single editor to obliterate opposition. #3 - AfD routinely deviates from WP:N in granting leeway to new items or those with recent activity, which naturally aligns with articles that concern us. Specifically, they allow for retention of articles where RS are not demonstrated but merely speculated to exist, or where a subject does not currently pass notability but may eventually. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:11, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

  ...and AfD debate is moot anyway if we are following quality standards. AfD merely requires that a subject be notable. ITN's quality standards mean that a subject must be notable and that notability is demonstrated by current inline citations to RS. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:36, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

  Problem with a lot of 4-6 is that ITNC is a vote about what items are considered newsworthy and encyclopedic enough for ITN. That often requires substantial discussion on both sides as to why one story should (or should not) be posted including bringing in a lot of evidence and previous postings. It's pretty clear that just allowing anyone to hat/archive sections of such debates will lead to complete chaos. We have admins, they're the ones we're supposedly trusting to keep order around here, don't make things more complex and doubtless more disruptive by enabling disgruntled users to just hat things they don't liked under the guise of soapbox or point, especially when it relates directly to the discussion over whether items should be posted on the main page of English language Wikipedia. (although 4 I'd be more inclined to keep, the number of times I've been told I "simply don't understand the situation" in any given nomination, insulting at best, NPA at worst...) The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:20, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

  If the admins are supposed to be preventing users from creating disruption on ITN/C, then how the hell have we gotten to this place where pretty much everyone is in agreement that not enough is being done to make ITN/C a not-unpleasant place to work? WaltCip-(talk) 16:35, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

  Because we don't have enough competent admins. Just look at WP:ERRORS, stuff can sit full of bollocks on the main page for the whole day, even if it's been noted the day before. Admins are too busy doing (something else). The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:38, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

(Closed) Question re: Trump 2024 announcement

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.

---

Multiple sources are now reporting that Trump plans to announce his 2024 presidential election bid this month ([6],[7],[8],[9]). I would prefer to avoid a drawn out discussion at the time of that event and settle in advance whether this announcement is ITN-worthy. I think it would be, considering that it would be the first time in a century that a one-term former U.S. President announced a bid for reelection to the office. I would note, by the way, that a substantial draft has already been created for this event at Draft:Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign. BD2412 T 00:33, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

• Nope, we don't consider the announcement of an election campaign anywhere to be ITN worthy. --Masem (t) 00:55, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
• No, as was frequently said during his time in office, we are not a Trump ticker. Pawnkingthree (talk) 01:02, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
• No, we don't post announcements of plans to do something, we don't even post plans to do something, we post when things are done. Thryduulf (talk) 02:07, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

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.

Mass shootings

I think it's well recognised that a massive issue, both in terms of civil discourse and recognisable notability, comes from articles about mass shootings, predominantly in the US. I am one of those editors with deep-seating feelings about how we treat such articles, and have received regular notifications from others that I just "don't understand the culture" or that I am "belittling" the regular occurrences, or indeed that I am trivialising events or the deaths of school children etc, in events that I perceive personally to be routine and of little encyclopedic value. I wonder if there is a possibility that we can find some objective indicators for mass shootings in the US that we can all agree on, such that perhaps it could be enshrined at ITNR as "beyond notability discussions", e.g. "most deaths in a single shooting for a decade" or "largest school shooting for five years". I'd take any ideas on board, but the continual bi-weekly inclusion of barely notable mass shootings in the US needs to stop. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:14, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I think that if you stopped making the uncivil and belittling comments that you make, disregarding nominations from the U.S. because they are from the U.S., the discourse will improve and we can actually debate the merits of each individual nomination. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:23, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm concerned that you consider the presentation of factual information to be "uncivil" and also highly concerned that you believe that mass shootings in other countries where they simply don't occur to be "belittling". Your presentation of your version of your interpretation of gun laws in America is all very well, but it's not fact, it's just your opinion. You're not right, you're just angry and upset because of what happens in the US almost every day. We need to work past that. I supported the school shooting in Uvalde, from the get-go, so you're completely wrong about my motivations. You need to slow down and realise that outside the US, the entire world looks on with complete ambivalence and disgust to what is happening. But thanks for coming into this discussion which I opened in good faith with all guns blazing. How a propos. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:30, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I am concerned with how you present the information, not the information you present. I and other in good faith think that the Highland Park shooting should have been posted. You can disagree with that contention without being disagreeable. Yes, the U.S. has a much higher per capita rate of gun deaths. Yet it seems that was your only point for nominating the Copenhagen shooting? Just that it has a low rate? How about looking at the actual coverage in news sources and article quality? Those should be the two most important things at ITN/C and those topics of discussion are lacking. What the "rest of the world" thinks about the U.S. and its gun violence should have no bearing on an ITN/C discussion. The impact of the event is what should be discussed. Instead, you're casting aspersions about how I feel about U.S. gun laws. And yes, "guns blazing". I found it odd to see you opening this thread, especially without taking any responsibility for what you bring into these discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Wow, you are triggered. I opened the discussion in good faith because frankly I'm sick and tired of being lectured to by people like you who tell me that I have no idea about the gun culture in the United States. So I thought I'd do a decent thing and open a debate here to try to get to some objective solutions. The information I (or anyone else) present when dealing with the daily firearm death toll in the US is objective, and usually based on RS to give perspective on the regularity of such events. The US Senate itself has decided that three or more people killed or injured constitutes a mass shooting, hence why we have such a massive article at List of mass shootings in the United States in 2022 (and previous years). More than 100 people per day are killed in the US through firearms, and per the previously linked article, there's around one mass shooting per day in the US. This is probably more than in the rest of the world combined, but then again, the point is that "what the rest of the English-speaking world" thinks about it is vitally important to this project. This isn't American Wikipedia. I've read hundreds of reports on mass shootings, even the one at the concert that killed nearly 100 faded into nothing because nothing was ever done. Federal funding into determining the root cause of shooters has only just been unfrozen, after two decades, thanks to the NRA. Telling me I don't "get it" is patronising, insulting, an NPA, and actually false. I bring reality to discussions like this. If you don't like it, change the reality. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 00:15, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm quite calm; you seem to be projecting. Did you say that you nominated the Copenhagen article to make a WP:POINT? If you're not going to address your behavior then there's no point in engaging with you. You can have the last word, as you always do. Maybe the below editors can have a discussion. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

No, I didn't. As noted, firearms deaths in Denmark are around 1/10000th of those in the US so it was notable on that alone. Of course. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 08:56, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Wow, you are triggered. is exactly the kind of uncivil discourse that is the problem at ITN. Levivich^[block] 17:07, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Not really. There's a special place for people who think just about every mass shooting in America is notable enough for ITN, and this bizarre narrative of no-one outside the America really "understanding" it is truly patronising and insulting. That's part of the problem. I don't know how much "external" news people get in America but pretty much the entire rest of the globe think that what goes on there with respect to gun "control" and mass slaughter of children routinely is bonkers. To attempt to suggest that a mass shooting in America with half a dozen dead people is somehow equivalent in notability to a mass shooting in Denmark where fewer people are killed in a year than in a morning in America is utterly incomprehensible, and getting triggered to point of trying to defend the indefensible needs to be called out in case our other non-American editors think it's just fine to perpetuate this curious myth that more guns means more control and Jesus told us we could do it etc etc. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

"Calling out" people for being "triggered" is not only unnecessary, it's exactly the kind of uncivil discourse that is the problem at ITN. Levivich^[block] 17:44, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I was going to suggest that maybe what we need is to raise the bar on any disaster, not so much a MINIMUMDEATHS, but making sure that we aren't posting "run of the mill" events for the country that they happen in, often are forgotten about in the weeks that follow, thus ITN's excessive focus on these when they happen should be reduced a bit. For example, the Copenhagen shooting has now been ruled not as terrorism but a person with mental health issues, so its more a domestic event. As such, we shouldn't post that. If it was an event tied with international terrorism, that would be more significant and likely be reason to post. This of course would also apply to US shootings (eg in my mind that we'd not post the parade shooting but would have posted the Ulvade school shooting). But this would also apply to natural and man-made disasters. A hurricane that makes landfall and kills maybe a dozen in the US is "routine" for all purposes, just as spring flooding in China may kill hundreds. I don't want to flat out propose what this limits are at this point, I'm just suggesting that if we agree that the bar on these can be raised so that we are posting less, that's going to calm the waters around these articles. --Masem (t) 00:35, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

The standard we should be looking to is the level of coverage in reliable sources. The vast majority of mass shootings in the US are not notable in Wikipedia terms in that they do not get much media coverage, so do not get Wikipedia articles and are not nominated at ITN. But it seems that some editors regard every mass shooting in the US as "predictable", "routine" etc when that is not the case. The shooting of young children in an elementary school is not routine, nor is a sniper at a 4th of July parade, which is why the Uvalde and Highland Park shootings made the front page of every newspaper in the US. It can be difficult for editors outside of the US media market to judge the level of coverage a shooting is getting, so perhaps more effort should be made by nominators to demonstrate that the coverage has risen above the "routine". Pawnkingthree (talk) 00:44, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Exactly this. Nomination discussions should not be brining up per capita death rates by country. There are two questions to ask and answer: (1) is it in the news, and (2) is the target article of sufficient quality? Everything else is noise that detracts from the purpose. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:04, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Celebrity weddings and babies make the news. Some will be mentioned in excellent quality articles. They don't belong in ITN. So we DO make judgement calls on these sorts of things all the time. HiLo48 (talk) 04:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

There's generally a higher bar for a blurb regarding a mere update on a subject versus a (relatively) new standalone article. —Bagumba (talk) 05:56, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

No, not just coverage in RS, otherwise we'd be an American news ticker, obviously. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 08:56, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

A point of discussion is whether the spirit of the WP:PROPORTION policy applies to blurbs:

...should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject.

—Bagumba (talk) 09:07, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

So there was yet another mass shooting yesterday in Indiana, three killed and seven wounded, and it is ALL OVER the US press (CBS, CNN, NPR, etc). I'm assuming that would pass the RS bar for most Americans here to be posted, right? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 10:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

My previous comment was regarding balancing "American news" in general, not on shootings specifically. —Bagumba (talk) 10:46, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

But the point being made above is that if it receives sufficient coverage, it's inherently notable enough for ITN. Yesterday's mass shooting has received plenty of coverage in US media so presumably it's good to go. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 10:50, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

At a minimum nobody has nominated it. AFAICS, it's not "front-page" news, unlike the one on Independence Day. It can be hard to gauge remotely, when there's less of a concept now of a front-page or a leading news story. —Bagumba (talk) 11:01, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

No, sure, it can't be posted unless it's nominated, I agree. But apparently the coverage it's received makes it inherently notable for some here. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 11:03, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, there's always going to be "some" with an extreme view. But we don't need unanimous support, and we should all be careful not to overgeneralize based on the views of a few. —Bagumba (talk) 11:22, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Everybody gave IntoThinAir a heck of a lot of grief for creating a Wikispace essay titled WP:MINIMUMDEATHS because it tried to assess and explain the consensus by which mass shootings or other disasters would or would not be posted to ITN (and not, contrary to popular belief, to codify that arbitrary consensus into written guidelines). But the fact is that whether we try to or not, yes, we absolutely hold countries to higher or lower standards for whether they receive the dubious honor of having a mass shooting publicized on ITN/C, and one of those standards is the death toll. I've always felt this is somewhat of a macabre exercise, but I've also been guilty enough to take part in perpetuating this dichotomy. The other problem we are running into is that, as Masem and Pawnkingthree have pointed out, there are specific characteristics of each shooting which someone will always point to in order to justify that this shooting is far more notable than others - characteristics that are, in my view, trivia. We will always be able to find something unusual about any widely-publicized mass shooting by the fact that anything involving mass murder is not in itself a typical event in any society. Most Americans don't watch someone get shot, bombed, stabbed every time they make a trip to the grocery store.

The current process certainly doesn't seem to be bearing fruit. Neither Copenhagen nor Highlands had a clear-cut consensus to post or not to post, they simply devolved into back-and-forth mudslinging from which no consensus could ever hope to be achieved. I think we need to ask ourselves - is our goal to post encyclopedic content that is in the news, or is it just to post content that is in the news, period? Until we answer that question, I don't know if there's any workable way forward on resolving the great gun debate.--WaltCip-(talk) 12:03, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Regarding WP:MINIMUMDEATHS, its RfD didn't have consensus to keep. The nom brought out a technicality of it being a redirect to a userspace essay, but really the !voters seems perturbed that an essay was being cited and often. I'm not seeing how that's any different from citing any of a number of other essays that are popular. So what if we create an essay, perhaps a subpage of Wikipedia:In the news that's not a cross-namespace redirect. There is a concept of MINIMUMDEATHS, whether one agrees with it or not. It seems better to have a balanced view of it for newbies, then have it be a cited red link. —Bagumba (talk) 12:38, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I like the idea of that, as well as polishing up the essay to make it function more as guidelines to orient new and not-so-new ITN contributors. In its current state, the essay that IntoThinAir created (and I tweaked) seems to be more of a "look how ITN can't seem to make up its mind", which is really just a commentary on the nebulous nature of Wiki-consensus in general more than anything else. WaltCip-(talk) 13:08, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Noting for the record that I have, in fact, started work on this essay. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Most noteworthy point in your essay:

Landslides: 7 is enough in Norway. But 113 is not enough in Ethiopia. 142.126.80.63 (talk) 20:58, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

It is sad that there truly is a regional bias when it comes to disasters. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 22:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Just, someone explain to me one thing: A lot of Americans seem to resent the notion that their country is rife with gun violence and massacres. The perception seems to be that this is a skewed misperception of their country. Why is it that these same people are the ones who want to use the English-language front page to advertise every mass gun killing their news networks deem fit to sensationalize? Is there a desire to advertise America as a hotspot of firearms-related killings just so that foreigners may be scolded when the impression made be this constant stream of reports takes hold? 142.126.80.63 (talk) 15:16, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Again, this an issue that could largely be addressed by a focus on quality. As LaserLegs frequently points out, most of these articles are lousy. There is a direct line from the real world significance of an event to the depth of coverage in RS that provides the pool of facts for the article. A shooting that kills a lot of people leads to more and wider coverage, which could lead to a better article if someone chooses to write one. Instead, we say "all the facts are there" and try to argue the significance angle. This is a cop out. We are not serving our purpose if we simply vomit facts rather than provide an encyclopedia-like collation of information. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:58, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

There is something to this considering how ITN was started (the ability of the community to rapidly create an article on 9/11 as it was happening). Too many if the disaster topics we post tend to be stub like and requires a concerted effort to get past that. But this also is a geographically biased problem, since large disasters in smaller countries tend to get little coverage and thus impossible to expand much on, while small disasters in Western countries get excessive coverage that expands and article with tons of reactions. So there is some balance here to consider. Masem (t) 14:06, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Which leads to the two differing schools of thought on systemic bias; those being positive action or negative action. Positive action would dictate that those stubby articles in less represented regions should be posted even if the article might not be as detailed as a first-world counterpart. In contrast, negative action says we should simply deny posting those more well-represented disasters in the West/U.S./U.K. because we wouldn't post something similar happenning in Djibouti, Turkmenistan, or Papua New Guinea. None of these options are ideal, but it's a battle that is fought on ITN/C day-in and day-out with, at any given moment, two users complaining about both anti-U.S. bias and pro-U.S. bias on ITN/C at the same time, sometimes even on the same nomination. WaltCip-(talk) 14:12, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:BIAS is about improving our coverage of topics under-served due to one's own bias. It is not about ignoring poor quality in promoting some topics or good quality in subverting others. The proper way for ITNC to employ anti-bias is for editors to try to improve articles outside of the area of interest. Coverage being insufficient is not a reason to abandon our basic purpose. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:36, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

BIAS also deals with systematic biases which include how sources tend to focus on Western topics or give more of a Western view, which we are supposed to try to work around, too. Masem (t) 14:45, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Americans seeing American news headlines should not be the criteria by which an encyclopedia determines the international notability, usefulness, or interest of a news story. Massacres are a constant in the United States. That Americans care does not make it news for the rest of us, no more than Americans seem to care when Canadians, Europeans, Asians, Africans, South Americans, etc., die on mass in far more surprising manners than an American gun massacre. We don't run stories for every COVID development, or every development in the Ukrainian war despite being far more interesting and important to most of the rest of the world. We are affected by pandemics and wars. America's political choice not to maintain rule of law is strictly local in its significance. American news caters to American biases which should not be reflected on Wikipedia. I think that at best, the ongoing increase of American mass shootings might qualify as a single ongoing event we can tuck away along with COVID and Ukraine. Because the shootings are ongoing, the particular sub-events no longer provide substantial new information. Even still, if American mass killings are relevant to the rest of the world, perhaps we ought to report on Chinese mass arrests. It's true that neither Chinese nor Americans will report on them, but but they probably have much more of a human toll. If Americans want to read about American news, there are many sites that cater to that. Let's face it, the significance of gun violence in the American news is but a political debate within the culture war. The business model of American news is to stoke the tensions involved in these conflicts. Wikipedia is supposed to remain politically neutral. It should steer away from a topics which have been elevated into News as a proxy for political debate. To pump toxic American political rhetoric into the rest of the Anglosphere is dangerous and irresponsible. The gun issue should not be made into a debate in places where it doesn't exist. The American gun debate does not exist in Canada. I don't want Wikipedia to be covering it as though it were an international issue, because American news is a gateway to dangerous extremism in my own country. Because of American's poisoning people's mind with Q-Anon and donation funding, I had to put up with Freedom Convoy occupiers threatening me with violence in my home city. Reporting on this aspect of America right now is like giving equal voice to climate deniers. American gun violence is a fringe phenomenon which should not be elevated for the rest of the world. Can Americans understand that? Can they understand their news is political, and that the politics involved is inherently an extremist fringe on the world stage not worth the consideration of foreign civil society? 142.126.80.63 (talk) 17:44, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

"international notability" I stopped reading your wall of text after that. What does that mean? Where is it codified as a requirement? --LaserLegs (talk) 19:08, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I made it a little further than you, to Massacres are a constant in the United States. I get the caricature of Americans all shooting each other while we eat Big Macs and drive gas guzzling SUVs, but it's not accurate or helpful. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Problem is, that's exactly how the rest of the world view the US, especially when it comes to mass shootings and you know it. Even one of the recent shootings prompted a governor to declare that mass shootings in the US were now a "tradition". We're not here to right great wrongs, especially not in America. A lot of us do understand gun culture in the US which is precisely why we are now no longer conceding ITN to be a mass shooting ticker. Yanks shoot yanks, all the time, hundreds and hundreds per week. Nothing is ever done. This only happens in America and war zones. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:54, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

This type of demeaning attitude related to US gun politics (which no one claims is fine and dandy) is part of the larger civility issue. We don't need it every time a US shooting (or any other mass shooting) news item is proposed to retread that US gun laws suck; take it as implicit that it is known at this point. What we do want/need is to establish that there should be a much higher bar for US shootings (as well as others as I've suggested) so that editors are aware before they post a nomination to make sure it is very significant, or to make sure when commenting on other shootings, not to try to complain "but we didn't post X!" We need a baseline that it is taken for granted on the state of US gun laws so that shouldn't ever enter the discussion about any ITNC item. Just as we're not supposed to criticize the lack of notability/importance of those ITNR events. Masem (t) 21:20, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Exactly right. This condescending attitude is a big problem. It's possible to oppose posting a U.S. mass shooting nomination civilly, I've seen it done on every single one. TRM either can't or won't, though. The best course of action would be for TRM to simply abstain from commenting on U.S. mass shooting nominations, but he's made his WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality clear. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:04, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

At the same time, I see the point of why he's doing that. That the U.S. media heavily publicizes mass shootings each time they occur, for whatever unique reasons they might be publicized, does not inherently grant them notability to those outside of the U.S. Yes, it's taken as known that shootings are now "routine", "tradition" or whatever humdrum word you want to use. But the news still jumps on each one as though it were a shocking, unusual event, which then leads to someone nominating it on ITN/C, which then means we need to explain - again, ad infinitum - why not every one of these shootings is notable. So either we follow whatever the media does no matter what, or we apply a bit of discretion and realism. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 18:58, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Each time they occur? No, that's not correct. As The Washington Post says today, There are too many mass shootings for the US media to cover. Many mass shootings in the US go uncovered or barely covered. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:10, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

That depends on which definition you use, since there are so many Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States#Definitions or List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2022#Definitions --LaserLegs (talk) 10:09, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

It is not demeaning to tell the truth. Or, if you please, do explain what Americans would consider a polite way to tell them that reports of their omnipresent gun violence are no more news than reports of tornados in tornado alley. 142.126.80.63 (talk) 18:47, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Except gun violence is not "omnipresent"? --LaserLegs (talk) 10:11, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/15/1099008586/mass-shootings-us-2022-tally-number

A mass shooting a day sounds pretty omnipresent to me. 20,000 gun deaths a year likewise. I guess if you're of the mindset that if a million people died a year they still wouldn't be common because less than 1% of people would be shot to death, but the rest of the Anglosphere has a different sense of what makes a crime common. 142.126.80.63 (talk) 15:08, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

If massacres are not a constant in the United States, are you proposing that there is some season for them unknown to me? 142.126.80.63 (talk) 19:26, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

First: ITN only operates based on what is nominated, not because we inherently favor American news stories over others (we generally don't). Second: Paragraph breaks might be something to consider in the future. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 19:41, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

• TRM you and I go way back, a mostly acrimonious way back but I've tremendous respect for you and the work you do for this project. You'd build a lot more goodwill if you'd stop bringing up shootings in the US in articles that have nothing to do with shootings in the US. --LaserLegs (talk) 19:09, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not here in general to build goodwill. I'm here to call out this bizarre idea that weekly mass shootings in the US are somehow even considered to be newsworthy. Cheers though, Legs, it looks like you're on borrowed time once again, so enjoy what time you have left. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:49, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  Nah, I'll be alright. Thanks though. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:50, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose regarding notability guidelines, what we have is fine. Is it in the news? Is the article of high quality? If yes, then it's fine for ITN. We're going to start setting WP:MINIMUMDEATHS it needs to be for the whole galaxy of dog shit User:LaserLegs/Disasterstub articles we post from irrelevant plane crashes that will never affect air transport to storms in storm season doing storm things. Is that what we want? --LaserLegs (talk) 19:25, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  As I said, I've no problem codifying that MINIMUMDEATHS essay into a Wiki-space article, if for no other reason than to highlight the idiosyncratic state of ITN/C for newcomers who can't understand our decisions to favor some news stories over others, especially when it comes to disasters. I think this sort of morbid behavior needs more attention if we're going to ever change anything around here. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 19:38, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  It shouldn't be codified, it should be stopped and support !votes which are either "significant loss of life" or support !votes which lack a justification both ought be ignored by admins evaluating consensus. Come up with a real reason why this occurrence of whatever routine disaster has taken place is notable. This would cull the prison riots, floods, literal bus plunges and yes school mass shootings from getting posted to the main page. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:05, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  On the flip side, we also need to ignore the oppositions to posting that focus solely on arguments that "it's not relevant here" or "parochial". It says at WP:ITN/C#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, and yet those oppose votes happen all the time. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:10, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  Well, generally when that happens, they're not opposing solely because it's a single country. They're opposing because they also believe it isn't notable. So technically not a violation. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 21:46, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  If the only explanation given is "one country" then the explanation is invalid. We have a PDN about !votes without reasons as well. LaserLegs (talk) 22:12, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  It's not simply that these events are parochial, it's that they're not even important in the area in which they take place. Importance implies that an event has taken place that will change the status quo, even if only in people's imaginations. None of the constant shootings that occur in the United States is likely to change anything. Most countries have non-news is that is widely reported on within them.

  If it is not a mark against an event that it is of no significance except locally, it's local significance certainly shouldn't be considered an argument for it. Rather, an event's significance should tell us something encyclopedic about the world. US gun violence is of statistical interest, but the individual data points describing it are not. 142.126.80.63 (talk) 19:00, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think the solution that we need to go for is to set a higher bar for disaster articles, even for non Western areas, as to eliminate the hostile discussions present over these smaller events. We should be looking at disasters that are not common and are clearly going to have longer term results. Eg, a.hurricane making landfall and killing a dozen is not really that significant, but in the case of Hurricane Maria that killed dozens and raged the infrastructure of Puerto Rico we do want to feature. This is being more selective across the board so that we don't constantly have these belittling discussions on smaller events. Masem (t) 20:06, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

  Tone is a huge part of this. We understand that shootings in the US are not going to result in anything happening, but having people use such aggressively callous language hours after a massacre is triggering. If the purpose of our vote is to contextualize the event in an encyclopedic framework, language should reflect that: "In light of similar events in the past, the circumstances here do not suggest historical impact." GreatCaesarsGhost 15:31, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  Particularly in the last week where we had both the Copenhagen shooting and the Illinios one, editors were trying to compare the two events and getting into petty battles about the nature of the events. It is hard to just compare on the number of deaths (about the same in both) because the motives/situation behind either event are far different making the assessment different that just death toll. But by raising the bar, in that neither of these events would have been considered for ITNC in the first place, we only focus on major disasters that have a significant impact (and thus likely to have a more substantial article at the end of the day), and hoping that would bring down the level of bickering over more "minor" shooting events at ITNC. If anything, we need to emphasis more the link to the Current Events Portal which has covered both of these (and several other smaller mass shootings in the US) so that if readers come here and don't see the blurb immediately, can look there for more "news-ticker" type headlines. Right now, though, that link is easter-egged under the bold Ongoing. Masem (t) 15:49, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  We should adopt WP:10YT as a guideline for notability. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:54, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  I don't believe any language would suffice to tiptoe around a "triggering" topic like this. Nor is it our job to provide emotional support or counseling to Americans who feel personally invested in events they see on the news. It is equally valid to suggest it is Americans being impolite when every concern that a local killing is not notable is met with an inflated complaint of personal injury because of course the death of one of their own nationals carries far more significance than that of a foreigner--look at how our news frames it!

  Why do American's feel justified in believing these sorts of articles are important by default and acting as though any criticism of their notability is some sort of collective personal affront? After having read dozens of such articles over the years with declining interest, I think that at some point the onus should be on those nominating them to show to skeptics that they are notable. 142.126.80.63 (talk) 19:18, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

  That's a good question, and I don't have an answer to that. As a few people have said, our bar at ITN/C is about significance. And here mass shootings in America are like Charlie Brown and the football. Every time people insist that this massacre is different, that it will indeed have some longer-term impact. And it never happens! This is no sign of cultural or constitutional change. We understand that shootings in the US are not going to result in anything happening. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:47, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

  I'm an American who is opposed to posting all but the most extreme mass-shootings, exactly for the reasons you state. I've no objection to the opposition. I've an objection to people equating the slaughter of innocents with a comic strip gag. I've an objection to comments that homicide victims "died because of their own poor decision making." These comments are incendiary and cruel, and they do not further the project's purpose. There are editors that consistently oppose these noms without resorting to this language, and others (yes, the OP here is one) who seem to relish in throwing salt on the wound. There is no need to "tiptoe," just don't aggressively be an asshole. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:35, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

  What in the original opening to this thread was salt in the wound to you? It has certainly been accused of being such so some more guidelines might be necessary if these sorts of articles are to be challengeable without offending Americans. 142.126.80.63 (talk) 12:58, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

• Needs Closing The OP knows that topic-specific guidelines are nearly never adopted and it seems to be the case again. Just close this tragedy, please. it's run its course. I would do it but I'm involved. --LaserLegs (talk) 10:30, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

  I'd do it, if I generally did such things, which I don't. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:54, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The problem about "mass shootings" is the term, "mass shootings". "Mass shooting" is a very broad, and very superficial term, that encompasses all sorts of things. Let me explain a few things to help everyone understand what is a mass shooting, what the different kinds are, and why some are notable or significant and others are not.

• "Mass shooting" means different things according to different WP:RS. There are a few major RSes for mass shooting statistics in the US, a few recognized "mass shooting counters", and they include the US government, the Washington Post, and several other organizations/websites like the Gun Violence Archive. They have overlapping but different definitions of "mass shooting". See Mass shooting#Definitions for some of them. I'm not going to talk about whose definition is best, but I will talk about the differences:
  • "Mass" is about how many people are shot, typically it's 3, 4, or 5
  • "Shooting" can include a killing or a wounding, depending on the source. Hence, a "mass killing" or "mass murder" is a subpart of "mass shooting", but when people say "mass shooting", they almost always mean multiple people getting killed, not just shot and wounded
  • Some sources include the shooter in the "bodycount", others exclude the shooter.
  • This means that, under some definitions, a person who shoots two other people and then shoots themselves has committed a "mass shooting".
• "Mass shooting" encompasses all kinds of motives. For example:
  • A guy finds his wife in bed with another guy, shoots both of them and then shoots himself. This is a "mass shooting" under some definitions.
  • Familicide, where a guy kills his entire family and then kills himself, is a "mass shooting" under some definitions.
  • A gang member shoots and kills 3 rival gang members on the street. This is a "mass shooting" under some definitions.
  • A guy walks into an elementary school and shoots and kills everyone they can find, including children and adults. This is a mass shooting, but very different from the other three examples above.
  • It matters whether the victims are known to the shooter, whether they were selected by the shooter or are random. There's a difference between a person killing four other people who he knows and has specific motivation to kill, and a person just spraying a concert with bullets. They are both "mass shootings" but they are not the same thing.

There's a similar problem with "school shootings". Whenever one person shoots another person at a school, that's a school shooting. When a teenage gang member shoots a rival teenage gang member in a school or on school grounds, that's a school shooting. If they shoot multiple rival gang members, that's a "mass school shooting" under some definitions. If there is a shoot-out among 3 gang members and they all die, that's a "mass school shooting" under some definitions.

So what's common/uncommon, significant/insignificant, in the US, when it comes to mass shootings? Here are some recent statistics: [10]

• Deaths-by-gun are more common in the US, even per capita, than anywhere else in the world. But most of those are suicides and accidents. Gun violence doesn't necessarily lead to death, and gun murder is still more common in the US than anywhere else.
• "Mass shootings" are extremely common... if you include gang violence, jilted lovers, familicide, and that sort of thing.
• The weaponry makes a difference. Handguns are ubiquitous in the US, as is handgun violence. Someone shooting 3 or 4 or 5 people with a single handgun is, unfortunately, very common. But someone setting up a sniper's nest with multiple rifles and unlimited ammo, as happened in Highland Park recently, or years ago in Las Vegas, is extremely uncommon.
• Similar to the above, it matters whether the shooting was planned (or "premeditated") or not.
• Rampage shootings are not common. These are the significant "mass shootings". It is common for there to be a shooting in a school; it is not common for someone to walk into a school and try to kill as many adults and children as they can. It's not common for people to indiscrimintely spray gunfire at a concert, parade, movie theater, etc.
• Large bodycounts are uncommon. It's rather common for a 3-death shooting, which is why many sources set the bar at 4. 4-death shootings are also very common, which is why many sources set the bar at 5. The shooter getting killed is common--and there are moral problems with including the shooter in the count of "victims"--which is why many sources exclude the shooter from the bodycount. The reason some sources require 5 non-shooter deaths to count as a "mass shooting" is because they're trying to distinguish rampage shootings from other kinds of mass shooting. It's unfortunately relatively common in the US for a person to shoot two other people they know and then shoot themselves. It's very uncommon in the US for someone to kill 10+ people randomly.

This is why the school shooting at Uvalde was significant and rare. It's random, it's a high body count, it's at a school. It's a rampage shooting, and those are the kinds that are significant. Anyone who says what happened at Uvalde is common in the US is simply not being accurate. Anyone who says it repeatedly, after the error has been pointed out to them, is being disruptive. Levivich^[block] 17:49, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a great analysis, and does cover the heart of the issue. The U.S. has a lot of gun violence, but it's not all the same. Most mass shootings don't get Wikipedia articles. Only a few of the mass shootings that get articles are nominated at ITN/C. It's already filtered down before coming to ITN/C. Looking at List of mass shootings in the United States#2022, there were four mass shootings in June 2022 that got standalone articles. One of them was nominated at ITN/C, and it was not posted. It is not asking too much for commenters at ITN/C to keep an open mind about the mass shooting articles that are nominated. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:04, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

(Closed) Bias

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.

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Very disgraceful, and telling of the sort of manipulative SJW bias this column is under, that there is nothing about the Sri Lankan crisis, just as there was nothing about the similar ripples in Bulgaria, nothing about the Netherlands; not to mention that the inane news about the third-rate dictatorial communist Santos now gets the top spot (died at 79, of natural causes), after the barely noted Abe assassination -- which would be a quite unique event in political history, affecting a major power, were it not for Abe's right-of-center political views (and his assassin's leftism), which seem to make it "forgettable". Dahn (talk) 14:19, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Wait, there's something happening here in the Netherlands? Do you mean the farmers' protests over nitrogen-oxide-related laws? I wasn't aware it had an international impact. I will note that the Abe assassination got the most prominent spot it could've gotten, other than maybe getting an "ongoing" spot which would be unheard of for a single death. If you believe that the consensus presented in the discussions for which news stories to blurb is the result of a political bias, I'm sorry to hear that. It's possible that the ideology of active people on this project doesn't overlap well with your own. I can invite you to join these discussions from here on though, if you want to help balance this possible bias out. :) ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:42, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Dahn, I just posted the Sri Lanka crisis. It wasn't posted previously because the article content was not high enough quality. Nothing has been nominated regarding Bulgaria or the Netherlands; we cannot consider what is not nominated. Abe's assassination has gotten the same prominence as every other posted nomination. This rant is not helpful. Please try to understand how ITN works before making ridiculous accusations, and otherwise try to participate in the process by nominating events that haven't been nominated. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:21, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Farmers' protests, as covered by a string of international sources, certainly have more of an international impact than Santos' death.

"Got" the most prominent spot -- now it is surpassed by Santos' death, which has no business even being there at all.

"It's possible that the ideology of active people on this project doesn't overlap well with your own." -- Not that I was making an ideological point. I could have any ideology, and still note, honestly, that even the assassination of a despicable Abe is still more newsworthy than Santos' death in hospital. They are both former national leaders, but only one led a world power and was assassinated (note: not just a death event, but an assassination). Ideology in itself should not be a problem, if people active here do not follow their ideology in deciding what is news. First one reports, one gives people some semblance of what may interest them at a world scale, and then, somewhere, and preferably not on wikipedia mainspace, one discusses how it affects one and one's ideology. Supposing I were right-wing or far-right, I would still have commentary to make on events that I dislike, rather than burying my head in the sand and ignoring that they exist altogether. There is something deeply unsettling when we are no longer giving people the news that might interest them because that would not suit our ideology.

Even if I were entirely out of the loop about how ITN works, I would still be expected to comment on how and why people nominate articles, which amounts to the same issue of bias. The same goes for how event are featured -- Santos' death, again, as the leading event for today. (It is almost a month since the government of Bulgaria was brought down, over issues strikingly similar to what is happening in the Netherlands and in Sri Lanka. Was there anything in ITN over this?) Dahn (talk) 15:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to participate at WP:ITN/C and nominate those events that you mentioned. As it currently stands, your complete inaction in participating is in itself perpetuating systemic bias. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Probably, but the first step is acknowledging the issue. I am currently working on immense improvements on Wikipedia for articles I enjoy writing about more than these; I do however have a duty to point out that the bias exists and is a problem. Dahn (talk) 15:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Items are posted chronologically, not based on subjective importance. They are not posted if they are not nominated, so you can solve the issue by participating, which will be more effective than complaining about "SJW"s. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:12, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Subjective importance still determines how they are nominated, tho. But are we in agreement that this is an issue? Dahn (talk) 16:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Oh yes, it's always been an issue. Hell, HiLo48 was pointing out systemic bias in ITN/C as far back as 2011. And I've had my disagreements with him, but for the most part, he was generally right. We've made some steps to course-correct on that (removing the significance criteria for WP:ITN/RD was a start) but we're far from finished. You can look at the thread above this one and its fruitless discussion about significance of mass shootings to see how wide of a gulf there is. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:49, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

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.