Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 19

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Removal of 2007 civil unrest in Villiers-le-Belises (France)

I'll cut to the chase: I don't think that the civil unrest in Villiers-le-Bel deserves to make "In the news". Granted, the riots are rather "spectacular", but in the grand scheme of things, they're pretty minor. I don't think that two nights of minor riots in a couple of small cities deserve to make the front page. This isn't L.A., after all. What's more, the front page of EN had nothing about similar events. (Attacks against police in Etampes in March, attacks against police , firefighters and public buildings in Saint-Dizier in October. Sure, the events in Villiers-le-Bel Monday night were on a larger scale, but things are really limited geographically. Aside from one significant incident in Longjumeau, in the Essonne, this stuff is pretty much confined to the Val-d'Oise. And with no prejudice against that département, I'm just not sure that this qualifies for front page status. Especially since things calmed down a bit last night. Let's not aim for the sensational in our selections for "In the news". --Zantastik talk 14:58, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see it stay up there; I've rarely seen anything on ITN about France. Its nice to see stuff other than sports and killings and such.--Isignbooks7 (talk) 00:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

ITN reflects Wikipedia articles, relevant to current events, that have been updated. It's not about listing the absolute top news stories in the world. 193.1.100.109 (talk) 14:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This highlights a persistent problem on the main page - the title In the news which people keep thinking is a news service. Simply renaming it Articles in the news or, better still (and tied in with the {{Current}} template), Articles on current events. Bazza (talk) 16:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed - the title "In the news" not quite appropriate. "Articles reflecting news" would be better ("current events" is too long, and "Articles on current events" isn't correct as it may be an article on a general subject, like a person, that has been updated with info about current events (i.e. updated with news). "Updated with" is two words, "reflecting" gets across the same meaning. zoney ♣ talk 18:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think "reflecting" is particularly clear. "Current events" seems fine, though. I don't understand why you think it doesn't cover all articles which have been updated to reflect recent events around the world. Bazza 13:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Please see archived discussion Template talk:In the news/Archive 8#Biting the bullet on the name issue. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 21:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

An archived discussion from over a year ago isn't much help now. The bullet wasn't bitten, which is why there are still people getting confused about the purpose of the misnamed "In the news" section. Bazza 13:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually there was a more recent albeit very brief discussion here Template talk:In the news/Archive 18#Proposal to rename In the news to Current events. While I could be wrong, I think the point anon was trying to make is that it's helpful to consult the history and see what has been proposed before. If Monotonehell is correct and there was almost a consensus for 'Current Events''Read more about' then it may be helpful to start from there rather then proposing a different name which may or may not have already been rejected and may not be necessarily more acceptable this time. Whatever the case, it's usually wise for people proposing changes to be familiar with previous discussions even if the discussion didn't eventually lead somewhere and the problem remains. Nil Einne 06:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC) (Strike out fixed on 20:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC) to avoid confusion)

Thanks. Just bringing attention to past discussions. Not everyone knows the history. --74.14.20.57 18:26, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Sudanese teddy bear blasphemy case

Please note this now its own separate article. Someoine might care to link to it in here. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:01, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Sports records

Sports records are broken literally every day (the New England Patriots are on their way to shattering a half dozen). I honestly don't see why the Muttiah Muralitharan mention is there. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I know very little about cricket (and sports in general, for that matter), but this appears to be a highly notable personal achievement (perhaps similar in importance to Barry Bonds breaking Major League Baseball's home run record). As such, it would appear to meet the inclusion standards that we apply to sports. —David Levy 05:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of bias for cricket on Wikipedia; if we allow cricket records, then we should post something like "The 2007 New England Patriots break an NFL record twenty-two team records and three individual records." — Deckiller 07:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Is that a record with international interest? Whereas Bonds and Murali have both passed iconic records in their sports, the Patriot's records seem more of parochial interest to Patriot's fans and, at a push, followers of the NFL. We clearly can't include all sports records, but those that make headlines internationally are probably worth a mention. 137.222.184.150 08:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, Test cricket is the highest form of the sport, this was deffinitely one of the two or three biggest records in that sport, and the sport is followed and played by people all over the world from England to New Zealand and many other countries throughout the world. The Patriots records were team records, and for the record (no pun intended), if they go 19-0 that will definitely go in ITN. Grant.alpaugh 09:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Well that is sort of a given since all past Super Bowl results have been included on ITN. --Holderca1 ^talk 14:18, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, Test cricket is the highest form of cricket. Murali is a bowler, so it is akin to him having thrown the most strikes ever or something, or some guy setting a world record of the most goals in World Cup Football (soccer) etc. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

A better analogy would be the most strikeouts, which if that record were broken would merit inclusion. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 01:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Concerning the USA-Peru free trade agreement

Why do we have the passing of a single bill by a national legislature on the main page? I mean, sure there are going to be some implications for two countries in the world, the US has enacted many kinds of similar laws with other countries over the last few years, and unless it's something multilateral like CAFTA or the like i really don't think this merits any mention. I'm sure that very few people in either country even know about this law, and this is reflected in seeing nothing on either CNN, MSNBC or (as a control) BBCNews websites concerning this. Maybe it's not ITN significant. Thethinredline (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. See my comments on the candidates page. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 01:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Mall shooting

This is a very bad choice of articles - utterly lacking in global significance, and not tied to any significant subjects that we can meaningfully use to add context. I wish we would remove it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't count on it on being removed -- it stayed in the Main Page for a long time already and admins won't really remove an item unless Jimbo himself does (when did Jimbo participate in ITN? Never, LOL). --Howard the Duck 15:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well I second the opinion anyway. Potatoswatter (talk) 16:08, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm wondering whether or not to link "shopping mall" to Westroads Mall, where the shooting happened. The Chronic 16:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

As long as WP:EGG isn't violated, of course. violet/riga (t) 18:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I would like to contest the idea that this is "utterly lacking in global significance" on the grounds that this could well produce a chilling effect on American holiday shopping. For better or worse, Americans are "super consumers" and their shopping habits especially during the holiday season significantly affect the economies of dozens of countries and billions of people. Even a shift toward internet shopping and away from brick and morter stores would cause significant damage to the US economy. This issue in addition to the discussion about violence in America and gun control make this worthy of inclusion ITN, at least IMHO. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 18:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

While I don't know if I agree with the view it isn't ITN worth, it seems to me your claim is extremely speculatory and crystal bally, not really a good reason to keep something on ITN (it reminds me of the time people we trying to claim some motorway pileup in the US was going to have a chilling effect on world commerce. Sure like that happened...) Anyway, how about this? Maybe an Indonesian competitor at the SEA games will lose to a Burmese competitor. This competitor will get so infruated that he or she will hold a grudge against the whole of Myanmar for the rest of his or her life. After obtaining the presidency of Indonesia, he or she will lead the country in an arms race eventually developing nuclear and biological weapons which said competitor will then use against Myanmar. These weapons, will undoutedly affect China and India who will retaliate. Seeing this, the US will panic and launch nukes against China and India who will likewise retialiate against the US. A doomsday scenario. Failing to mention the SEA games which started the whole mess is surely a significant shortcoming on our part, right? Okay I admit, this is a lot more far fetched then your story but in the end, they're all completely speculatory stories by wikipedia editors of what may happen because of some event. Nil Einne (talk) 19:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

When the mall shooting first happened, I observed that it was the top story (not just a top story, but the top story) on multiple news outlet websites from around the world, including the BBC and al-Jazeera. The story may not impact the international community, but it was certainly was of interest to it. -- tariqabjotu 20:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't recall anyone questioning having the Finland school shooting on here a few weeks ago. ~Sasha Callahan _(Talk) 21:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You're reasoning, while humorous is not A might reasonably lead to B which was mine, but instead was A might lead to B which might lead to C which might lead to D. Hardly the same thing. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 21:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

While I agree, my stories is more far fetched then yours (as I pointed out earlier), in the end the are both the same thing. They are speculatory and crystal bally stories by editors about what might happen because of something that we have established did happen completely unsupported by any reliable sources. Also your characterisation of your story is inaccurate. We have only establish that a mall shooting happened (just as in my story we have established that a competitor from one country will lose to a competitor to another country in the SEA games unless you're trying to deny that this will definitely happen in a large scale multisport sporting competition). You're claiming that as a result of this American's might be so intimated in this shooting in one mall out of the thousandas and thousands of malls in the US and so they might shop less in the Christmas season which might mean the US will import less goods from overseas which might have a negative effect on the producers who produce these goods. Or alternatively you're saying they might shop more online in whichc case this will somehow negatively effect the US economy (rather then simply changing it) which again somehow after a long line of mights is going to negatively effect the world economy. In the end both have a long chain of might and may be-s. And as I have pointed out, even worse this is all coming from editors. We don't select stories based on editors opinions of what might happen no matter how cool or for that matter 'plausable' their stories sound to other editors. N.B. I reemphasise that I'm not arguing against the story being on ITN, just that the reasoning given by Grant for having it is IMHO seriously flawed Nil Einne (talk) 07:17, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, but we'd better take a closer look at these SEA games.... Tempshill (talk) 16:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

The only way for malls to lose money on the holiday season is when a big-time terrorist attack happens on U.S. soils (like what happened in 2001 -- it was the longest holiday season in a long time), not on a random shooting in the middle of nowhere. (The SEA Games example was cute though.) --Howard the Duck 16:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

For God's sake take this down already! He's had more than the 15 minutes he wanted. Potatoswatter (talk) 23:45, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Tempshill (talk) 16:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

ITN photo proposal

File:WikipediaNewstoday 1.png

Following the discussion on this thread (link will go bad when it's autoarchived in a day or so) over the last few days on the main page's talk page, I propose an addition to ITN criterion #7, about the picture:

When the first ITN item no longer matches the picture, the picture must be removed from ITN.

The reason for this modification is that it is probably the simplest way to eliminate the nagging ITN problem in which the headline often does not match the photo, making it look like we have made a mistake (in the way that the algorithmically generated Google News sometimes offers irrelevant photos to accompany its stories).

Most people at that thread seemed to agree that this cure is indeed better than the disease - we will have fewer pictures over time, but no news website in the world intentionally shows pictures that are irrelevant to the top story cited right next to it. It simply looks like we've made a mistake, every day. Tempshill (talk) 16:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a problem really. Yeah, I know some people get confused but they're a minority compared to those that can actually read "(pictured)". I really wouldn't want to see the day that both FA and ITN are devoid of images - we're not telnet! violet/riga (t) 17:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

People scan things, they don't read entire sections in detail. It looks immediately like a mistake, is the problem. Tempshill (talk) 04:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the comparison you've made is interesting. What if when the FA doesn't have a picture, we were to keep displaying the last picture used for the FA? That would surely create confusion, just as it does with ITN. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 17:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a silly comparison, given the fact that only one article is featured at a time (apart from links to recent entries).

Any confusion regarding ITN stems from the mistaken belief that it's a news wire with the "top story" listed first. As had been discussed on several occasions, a title change (to remove the word "news") would help. —David Levy 18:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

ITN has no "headline" or "top story" (in the traditional sense). We need to address this confusion, not play to it. —David Levy 18:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of restarting the move/rename discussion but if I remember correctly, last time we may have reached consensus except the discussion died out over the Christmas/New Year period so it would seem restarting it now is just asking for the same thing to happen again Nil Einne (talk) 19:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I recall that there was significant support for the renaming idea, but we experienced difficulty coming up with a suitable new title. Did we ever arrive at one? —David Levy 19:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I never read the discussion :-P I was relying solely on Monotonehell's comments Template talk:In the news/Archive 18#Proposal to rename In the news to Current events in which he stated 'Read more about' almost reached agreement. Having looked at the discussion he referred to, there does appear to be agreement except that the discussion only appears to have involved about 4 or 5 people so I'm not sure if the agreement will remain when it's exposed to the wider community Nil Einne (talk) 20:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Completely OT but I just realised I haven't seen monotone for a long while and looking into his contrib's he's been gone since September, ironically just after his successful RfA Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/monotonehell. I think he was saying sometimes he was getting too busy to edit wikipedia, maybe his success made him realise he really was spending too much time :-P Nil Einne (talk) 20:49, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Re initial, I don't think it would work with the first ITN, but it would be nice that no picture is sitting there more than 48 or 72. How to do it? We can't rely on a bot for this. Marskell (talk) 20:52, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

How about putting the picture "with" the item it's associated with (so it's slightly further down the box if it's associated with the third one) rather than at the top of the box? —Random832 15:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

That's been tried, and as I recall, it caused problems on other pages where this template is transcluded. —David Levy 18:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

So what? Split them off into a different template, or just make the decision to get rid of the main-page picture when it doesn't match the first bullet. The main page of Wikipedia looks like it's got a big prominent error on it 90% of the time, and you're worried about complete compatibility of template transclusion? You need to re-evaluate your priorities here. Tempshill (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Because I disagree with you that this is a problem? Oh, I remember now. My opinion is "wrong." —David Levy 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Main Page FAQ#Why are the images on "In the news" and "On this day" not aligned next to each relevant entry? mentions why your first suggestion won't work which you appear not to have read despite being linked to it once. It also hints why your second suggestion will be a problem. The ITN template is used in a large number of places including Main Page alternatives. If we follow your suggestion then we will have to decide for each case which template to use. Worse perhaps if neither template works well in some cases we will have to make a new template Nil Einne (talk) 00:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You appear to be nitpicking and speculating on what articles I have read, instead of answering my core argument. My core argument is this: Every day (nearly), it looks like there is a prominent error on the main page of Wikipedia. I think this should be fixed. You appear to believe that it (a) is a bad idea to fix because of the inconvenience to the "large number of places" where ITN is transcluded other than the main page; and (b) it doesn't look like an error because the word "(pictured)" exists somewhere in the ITN section. I think that's a pretty accurate summary of your position on this. If I may respond again, my response to (a) is, so what? The main page of Wikipedia should not look like it's got a big prominent error on it, even if this is fixed by causing a template change on these other pages. The inconvenience to those other pages is worthwhile. My response to (b) is, people who read websites or newspapers scan. They have spent their entire lives reading captions under pictures, and they've spent their entire Web-reading lives with either captions, or with text next to the relevant picture. They do not read a whole section in order to discern what a picture might be regarding. Hence, it looks at first glance (which I will wager is the only glance for most users) like a mistake, and we look like amateurs. Tempshill (talk) 17:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree with proposal at top. As it is, it looks amateurish. Find an image to go with the top story, if an image can't be found, then no image is shown. --Bob (talk) 20:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "top story"? —David Levy 21:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

In a bulleted list, there is a top of the list, and where there is a top, there is a bottom. The top story is the top bulleted story. Name it what you will - no doubt this will now veer off into a semantic argument about my naming the first item "top story"... but I am referring to the first listed story - the top, or most recent story. Semantic argument will now follow below. --Bob (talk) 21:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

EXAMPLE

• Systematic food safety irregularities are revealed at ICA, the leading grocery chain in Sweden (store pictured), prompting a criminal investigation.
• A state of disaster is declared in South Korea's Taean county, after the country's worst ever oil spill.
• The Afghan National Army and the International Security Assistance Force launch an assault near Musa Qala in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, against Taliban insurgents.
• A gunman kills nine people, including himself, at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
• A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate concludes that Iran's nuclear weapons program was halted in 2003.
• Komlan Mally is appointed Prime Minister of Togo after the October elections.

Why not just put the news item that has the words see picture at the top of the list? It's a simple matter of taking one item out of chronological order and putting it in logical order. --Elliskev 22:09, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a reasonable option, but people have raised objections (such as the increased appearance of bias that would result and the potential for prolonged listings). —David Levy 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

That's an understandable objection. However, I'd counter that the inclusion of a picture for one item and not others is just as likely to appear as a 'bias'. --Elliskev 23:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

That's true, but this would build upon that perception. —David Levy 23:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

(EC) My view which I think is still on the Main Page talk page is that continually highlighting on item at the top is likely to be seen as a lot worse then simply keeping a picture. Bearing in mind that the pictures we are most likely to have are US ones there's a strong risk of greatly increasing the perception of selective bias. Think about it carefully. If we follow this there will be one item that will always be at the top associated with a picture. All the rest of the stories will be in chronological order. That just screams 'this is our most important story'. In certain cases such as the Chavez case which gave rise to all this, this top story will be our 'top story' for 5 days. This seems far more likely to raise objections about our decision to choose the Chavez item as our top story then simply keeping the picture will following chronological oder. Nil Einne (talk) 23:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Not from me - As was noted on the main page discussion, people expect text about a picture to be immediately next to the picture. Nobody expects to have to read through a bunch of bullets in order to infer what the picture might be about, which is the weak argument being presented on why the current 90% error rate is acceptable. Has nothing to do with whether ITN counts as a "news site" or something else. Tempshill (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

People are actually being asked to read the text?! Oh noes!

Regarding your claim that people with whom you disagree are arguing that a "90% error rate is acceptable," please see our begging the question article. —David Levy 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

They are bulleted items. Bulleted lists exist to save the reader from having to do to much reading. That's their purpose in life. Don't deny them their raison d'etre (pardon my French, which is probably wrong somewhere - doesn't the e have a hat in that?). --Elliskev 23:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. I just read the article on bullets and it seems that bullets don't necessitate brevity. I never knew that. --Elliskev 23:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

We're only asking people to read the bulleted list. (Well, we'd like them to read the articles, but they need only read the bulleted list to identify the image's subject.) Or, they can simply read the image's alt text. —David Levy 23:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, well. I've weighed in. I hope a consensus builds. --Elliskev 23:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

(EC) They are to save the reader from having to do much reading. Not to stop the reader doing any reading at all. If we don't want the reader to have to do any reading then why put the text at all? Obviously we put the text because we expect the reader to actually read the text, not just look at the picture and go what a cool picture Nil Einne (talk) 23:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Obviously, they need to read the text. My point is that it's set up to be concise and at-a-glance convenient. Maybe even useful. An out-of-alignment picture (which I'm beginning to think doesn't really have any place in the ITN box at all) just throws me off. When I have to say "what the..? OH! I get it..", I'm not so sure that I've been on the receiving end of any of the benefits of succinctness. --Elliskev 01:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I merely wanted to know what you meant by that (because more than one connotation exists). I don't know why you would assume that I was attempting to instigate an argument. —David Levy 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Just an aside. German Wikipedia doesn't seem to have this issue. Neither in the news section, nor in the On this Day section, which has the picture not at the top. Same with the French. That's all I bothered checking... --Elliskev 01:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

There! That's perfect. I have no issues with that at all. Thanks Elliskev. Tempshill (talk) 17:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

That is indeed better, and including the dates makes it better also! Can we include dates as well as correctly aligning the photo? For instance, the shootings in Omaha happened almost a week ago yet are still on ITN as of today. --Bob (talk) 17:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

If I'm correct in believing that the current suggestion is to move the picture down with the article, then I support such a suggestion. (That looks to be what the French WP is doing. Please correct me if I'm wrong.) I don't know that it's a huge problem, but it is jarring when they don't match. I've chuckled about it more than once, and I'm sure some folks are confused. – Scartol • Tok 18:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, that's a second and a third. How do we start? Tempshill (talk) 04:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Will this layout work on Portal: Current events or Wikipedia:Main Page alternative (PDA version) with a picture that goes with the 4th or 5th bulleted item? You might get quite a bit of unsightly blank space. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 22:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Then we fork the pages so there's a separate version for those platforms that need it. It is worth changing this so we don't look like Mistaketown, Amateurville. Tempshill (talk) 20:09, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess you should find out how they did it and implement it in a sandbox. Then try this out with each page that uses the template and work out how to either get it so that the template works with each page or make two templates and work out which one each page should use. Once you've got it all worked out and working fine, then propose it, probably the the main page talk. N.B. I emphasise you here because I'm not that convinced this will work and nor does it appear a number of other people so it is unlikely we'll spend much time on it so it is indeed up to those who think it will work to get it working Nil Einne (talk) 14:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

ICA?

This hardly looks like main page worthy to me:
Systematic food safety irregularities are revealed at ICA, the leading grocery chain in Sweden (store pictured), prompting a criminal investigation.
--Gerrit ^CUTEDH 21:46, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Plus, the photo is of a generic convenience store; and besides, I doubt that particular store is where these criminal irregularities occurred. Tempshill (talk) 22:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

That's an ICA store. If you read the article, you'll learn that while only a small number of stores (of which this is not one) have been implicated, the scandal affects the entire chain. —David Levy 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the concerns. We say "store pictured", but we do not know (at least, I don't) if this is one of the four ICAs involved in this matter, or just a generic ICA. I'm not sure if this is libellous, but it certainly could be misinterpreted. Let's compare it to a plane crash. When a plane has crashed, we only add a picture of the plane in question, never a picture of another plane of the same airline. Aecis^Brievenbus 22:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The stores in question are explicitly identified in the article, and no, this isn't one of them. But the item contains no claim that it is (and again, our article explicitly confirms that it isn't). The entry pertains to a scandal affecting the entire chain (of which the pictured store is part). —David Levy 23:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

You have been able to find that, because you knew where to look. But imagine the average reader, who hasn't heard about this case before, and doesn't really know how Wikipedia works. Because there are more people who don't really know how Wikipedia works, than people who know exactly where to look. He or she sees the blurb about systematic food irregularities at ICA, sees the picture of an ICA store, and reads about the repackaging of out-of-date meat. Is it so strange of me to think that such a reader might connect the dots? We only say in the ITN picture tag (?) that this store is in Norrköping, this picture is not used in the article, I'm not sure how many readers see the tag, and the information on which four stores have been involved (and the fact that Norrköping was not one of these four) is halfway through the article. Aecis^Brievenbus 23:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, let's err on the side of caution. Pending the availability of a better image (for any of the ITN entries), I've expanded the wording to clarify the photograph's nature. —David Levy 23:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

And while we're at it, why would we use a picture on ITN if we aren't even using in the article itself? Aecis^Brievenbus 23:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The photograph is used in the ICA article. —David Levy 23:49, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Would you care to explain why this "hardly looks like main page worthy"? What criterion or criteria do you believe haven't been met? —David Levy 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

It has no significance outside this chain's clientele, and nobody outside Sweden has the faintest idea what it's saying? I just assumed it would be a well-known disease outbreak, or at least selling brains or glass shards. But it's just rancid. OK... so throw it out and don't buy any more! Nobody is seriously injured, much less dead, all parties may be compensated, done deal. I would have to take argument with the assertion that this scandal is "in the news". Update - now there's a clumsily worded disclaimer about the photo. What... the... hell... this is turning into Wikinews. If you need convincing, google "ICA meat scandal" and "korea "oil spill"". And otherwise, probably no scandal is really ITN worthy unless it has significant political ramifications. If it's a slow news day, don't post anything new... Potatoswatter (talk) 03:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly dispute your assertions that "it has no significance outside this chain's clientele, and nobody outside Sweden has the faintest idea what it's saying." I understand the controversy quite well, and one of this magnitude is of potential interest to anyone worried about the safety of the meat (or even food in general) that they purchase.

While the four implicated stores are in Sweden, the chain has a significant presence in Norway. Additionally, Ahold (one of the parent companies) is a major supermarket operator in several countries, and its failure to identify and address the issue sooner is of potential interest to its customers.

But most of all, this sort of story makes people wonder whether this is merely the tip of the iceberg. How many supermarkets are doing the same things and not getting caught? This certainly isn't the first time that such a scandal his arisen. Will it be the last? —David Levy 06:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, little recognition outside Scandinavia. But the commonality of this is a counterargument for notability. Yes, I believe this sort of thing happens all the time, hence it should not be on ITN. There isn't going to be a global crackdown because every town has good supermarkets and bad ones. Yes, meat is dangerous to buy - so is produce, which can be bought in moldy condition at a sizable proportion of all supermarkets. If it's cooked thoroughly and still tastes funny, don't eat it!

We have different standards for significance. I think if the US or EU came up with a fundamental new way to quality assure markets, that would be possibly significant. But still probably not the kind of thing that makes international headlines, and belongs on ITN. As it is, less people will probably get hurt or punished than an everyday drug bust. Is the visibility of this scandal due to its effect on the company's television advertising? Does the incident belong in Wikipedia at all?

Just recently I read an article on permanent neurological damage suffered by butchers at a pig processing plant in the Southern US at one of the few plants that still packages and sells pig brains for human consumption. The cause is unknown. Now there's an incident that might ultimately mean the end of a delicacy, having definite significant impact on many people's lives. But as international news, it's still more of a curiosity than anything. Potatoswatter (talk) 16:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

A scandal that affects the entirety of Sweden's largest grocery chain (pertaining to the deliberate sale of expired meat) absolutely warrants a Wikipedia article. This does not "happen all the time" (even if the underlying alleged misconduct does), my recollection of one similar controversy notwithstanding.

You now acknowledge that this topic is of Scandinavian (id est international) interest, so which of the inclusion criteria isn't/aren't met? —David Levy 17:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

That is a silly definition of international to be using here. I didn't even notice any inclusion criteria. You just said you were being bold before anyone voted on the candidate page. I guess it makes ITN more of a cross section of all WP to have local articles, but you're deluded if you think adding Norway to Sweden makes a difference. And this is a cheap grocery chain which got busted. If it were a quality boutique that would be interesting, although still not WP:N, but this is just a crappy "hyperstore" acting characteristically crappy. What do you expect for rock bottom prices? I've bought meat at Wal-Mart a couple times, but always carefully. Even if it's not re-packed, carelessness the first time can still compromise longevity. Potatoswatter (talk) 22:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

1. What definition of "international" is silly? The contextually relevant one is "of or pertaining to two or more nations or their citizens."

2. A link to the page containing the inclusion criteria appears near the top of this page.

3. When did I say that I was "being bold"? Do you have me confused with someone else?

4. Are you suggesting that Sweden and Norway shouldn't be counted as separate countries? Should we also lump together the U.S. and Canada?

5. What do I expect for rock bottom prices? Not relabeled, expired meat. I don't think that many people expect that. —David Levy 23:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

1. "International" news is synonymous with global news. ITN is designed to appeal to a majority of readers. If you neglect that, the "2 country minimum" is arbitrary and meaningless.

2. Okay, I see that. I believe the international criterion would better be stated as "global".

3. I stand corrected again... it was Aecis.

4. Debate over the scope of audience of articles is a recurring theme. Many ITN pieces clearly only relate to a single country, especially political ones. Right now half the ITNs besides this one involve the UN or NATO. If the UN or NATO occupies ICA, then I will pay attention! The oil spill is obviously an entirely different level than possible food spoilage and the mall shooting IMO does not belong - but it's clearly a completely different kind of tragedy.

In any case Norway and Sweden are relatively small countries (4.8 and 8.7M people respectively) and shaped such that a geographically centralized grocery chain will straddle the border.

5. I expect less quality in general. This is extreme and they'll be prosecuted, but not fundamentally different from many practices I would expect, like not washing instruments (which become contaminated with expired product). Simply not being an explicit expectation does not make it ITN material. Potatoswatter (talk) 03:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

1. Despite its name, ITN isn't a news ticker, and I'm unaware of a rule stating that it's designed to appeal to anyone other than readers interested in seeing what articles have been written or substantially updated to reflect news.

2. Then you seek to change the criteria. In the meantime, this story meets them.

4. When a new head of state/government is elected, overthrown, embroiled in scandal (et cetera), I care, even if this occurs in a country other than my own. Perhaps you don't care, but many other people do. That these and other major political events "clearly only relate to a single country" simply isn't true.

5. Being a large, international scandal about which we have an article makes this ITN material. —David Levy 04:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

1. If you want to disregard the factor of general appeal on the front page, well OK then.

4. That is a semantic argument. What implies I don't care.

5. This is not a large scandal and it's international because the countries involved are long and narrow. It is both international and local. Get over it. Potatoswatter (talk) 04:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

1. ITN has general appeal. That doesn't mean that it's a news ticker or that each and every item must be of interest to a "majority of readers."

4. Huh?

5. A scandal impacting the largest retail company in the Nordic countries to this extent is large. Feel free to disagree. —David Levy 05:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

"Long and narrow." Looks like bad news for Chile, Italy, Norway, Panama, Sweden, Vietnam (oh no SEA Games! LOL), Malawi and even Japan since they won't make it in the ITN due to their length and narrowness. --Howard the Duck 14:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a moot case now, as there are enough new stories to knock this one off the template... Unless the powers at be want to keep selected stories in the template for over a week like they have previously, depsite them not being In the news anymore... --Bob (talk) 15:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. In any case, personally I think we need to better definte this long and narrow category. Do we have an agreement of what kind of ratio we're talking about here for example? 5:1 maybe? Would New Zealand fall into the long and narrow category? Would for example something that happens in Kerala be discounted because it's a long and narrow Indian state or is it okay because India is not long and narrow? How about say something do to with a river? Nil Einne (talk) 17:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, I do think I understand what he meant by that. As I'm seeing, what's he's saying is that we're dealing with fairly local events, just local events in a locality that happens to straddle a boarder. Which, quite frankly, is something worth discussing rather than mocking.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't bother to really read what was said, was just commenting on what HtD said. Having said that, now that I have read it, I don't really agree with the point being made, it was a little 'silly' IMHO and I'm not surprised HtD poked fun at it. The fact that the countries are 'long and narrow' really has nothing to do with it. As I understand it, the actual meat scandal was only in Sweden. ICA operates stores in Sweden and Norway. The Norwegian business was started by someone else which ICA later bought and made there own. ICA operates through Sweden and Norway not just in one central area. It's not as if ICA decide they wanted to expand west into Norway rather then north and south into the rest of Sweden. Rather they decided they wanted to expand (after they were already fairly large I think) and bought stores in a neigbouring country. The fact that the countries are long and narrow is therefore completely irrelevant. If both countries had been more or less 'perfect squares' it wouldn't have made much difference since the only thing that matter was that ICA wanted to expand and bought into a neigbouring country. This is by no means uncommon. When companies are already fairly large in their home markets and they want to expand, a neighbouring country is often the first choice. For example many New Zealand companies are owned by Australia companies, Australia companies often expand into New Zealand and New Zealand companies expand into Australia too. The similarities in the market place, the many agreements between the countries, the fact that both countries are neighbours etc are the cause, nothing to do with the shapes of the countries involved. The same is true of things in the US and Canada (and often Mexico), Singapore and Malaysia or the whole of South east Asia. In terms of the more general argument about whether a major scandal involving a major company operating predominantly in only two (relatively small) countries is sufficient for ITN, well I won't comment but I do think if we want to discuss something we need to frame it properly and think about what we are really talking about Nil Einne (talk) 10:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I really didn't know what Bob was referring to "long and narrow" countries when I posted my reply. I really thought he was referring to the shape of the countries (both Sweden and Norway are shaped like hotdogs). After Fyre2387's post, I now understood what "long and narrow" meant. However, lemme say this: a lot of people think ITN should be about global events, but it really isn't about that -- it's about international events. It either means that the event must affect two or more countries, or it is reported in two or more countries.

The "report" criteria is a lot easier to maintain especially in the age of the Internet where lots of news reports is broadcast as it happens so many people would refer to several news websites to know which news events are their "top stories". So if a news report isn't a "top story" it has lesser chance of being posted at the ITN. --Howard the Duck 15:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't that what he was referring to? I'm confused now... I thought he was saying that because the countries were relatively long and narrow (which they are, I checked before commenting on this from the beginning) it's not surprising that we have cross border events. But as I have suggested their geographical shape doesn't really affect it in any way. Nil Einne (talk) 14:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Earthquake

I think it should be apropriated to put the news about the Earthquake of 4.9 points in the Richter scale that occoured in Brazil. It's the first earthquake in the country with registered deaths.

ManecoWifi (talk) 15:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Does it have an article? Tempshill (talk) 04:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Mall shooting

The article is called "Westroads Mall shooting", not "Westroads Mall massacre". Someone should probably fix that.   jj137 ♠ Talk 01:23, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe better to displace this old news with newer items from WP:ITN/C. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 17:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Doubt it will be replaced... there seems to be a current tendency to keep old news items on US events whilst ignoring current events from the rest of the world which have articles on them... --Bob (talk) 17:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

While I'm not denying there is occasionally a problem where an admin adds an item, of relating to the US without any real discussion when the item is of dubious international interest and/or the article is no where near up to ITN standard this doesn't seem to be an issue at the current time. The only articles which have been proposed to ITN which is definitely of ITN standard and probably of of sufficient international interest is Tropical Storm Olga (2007). Unfortunately this were proposed before the article was ready (first one was still in the sandbox) and has now been forgotten (which isn't uncommon). François al-Hajj and Dragomir Milošević are getting there but I'm not sure if they're the yet (and François al-Hajj definitely wasn't suitable for ITN at the time, the article had 2-3 sentences). The best thing we can do to avoid this unfortunate systemic bias (although bear in mind we only have one ITN item relating to the US at the moment) is to get the articles up to scratch as soon as possible and when they are, draw admins attention to them (preferably not before but if it is done before, do it again). I (with the help of others) did this with the South Korean oil spill for example and it was resonably successful. Complaining about articles not being on ITN when the articles are clearly in no shape to be on ITN is not usually particularly successful, articles don't just magically happen Nil Einne (talk) 08:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey, the Stanley Cup story was removed when other articles were added during the routinary ITN rotation. Oops, NHL isn't American, move along... --Howard the Duck 14:24, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Mitchell Report (baseball)‎ entry

{{editprotected}}

The ITN entry on the Mitchell Report should be written as "Mitchell Report" (with quotes). The official title is Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball which is obviously too long, and the "Mitchell Report" is an informal title, so the quotes are needed. Thanks. --Edward Morgan Blake (talk) 23:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, but I don't think it's that big of a deal if it doesn't get changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grant.alpaugh (talk • contribs) 04:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done.—Random832 04:11, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Mid-December 2007 North American Winter storms

I could have put it there myself but I prefer comments and inputs from others, but the recent extreme weather in North America was responsible for at least 55 deaths weather-related and still counting. Should a line about this week's extreme weather (ice storm in the Midwest and snowstorms this weekend across a wide area) be put in the main page's recent news (yeah I know I may be late a bit but since the storm is not completely over in Canada I though it is not late enough)? It had international coverage with still the BBC and Reuters having coverage of the event [1] [2]JForget 01:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This should've been posted earlier but it seems too late. --Howard the Duck 04:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll post this to WP:ITN/C but how about, Winter storms leave at least 50 people dead throughout North America Merry Christmas _{from Sasha} 23:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Date error?

I recently noticed at the bottom of the template where it says Recent deaths that its actually: [[Deaths in 2007|Recent deaths]], shouldn't it be [[Deaths in {{CURRENTYEAR}}|Recent deaths]] so as to prevent conflicts in the new year? Or I am confused?  — Noah¢s (Talk) 20:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Schengen Zone

I think that the statement "the Schengen Zone of the European Union" is incorrect because there are some members of the Schengen agreement that are not members of EU (Norway, Iceland).85.1.31.49 (talk) 15:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Benazir Bhutto

We have these pictures: Image:Benazir_bhutto_1988_cropped.jpg (this one good for ITN), Image:Benazir_bhutto_1988.jpg, in addition to the one that has been on her page for some time. There are a couple more on Flickr under suitable creative commons licenses. --Aude (talk) 14:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

David Hicks

A prison release for a convincted al-Qaeda operative? I can see how it might be of international significance, but I don't believe it's something so unique that it deserves mention on ITN. Thoughts? Nishkid64 (talk) 06:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I nominated it because it is very important in Australia and its International relations. It had ramifications on Australian elections and foreign relations as well as many international human rights agencies. He was the first convicted under new laws etc. Make up your own mind. But it marks the end of a very significant event - not just for Australia. 124.183.120.229 (talk) 07:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I think a value judgement such as "a prison release for a convicted al-Qaeda operative" is unsound to be honest - the circumstances are to date absolutely unique, in that all the others in his position were freed years earlier as their governments had, despite alliances with the US, taken a strong line on their citizens being held at Guantanamo and Australia's government had failed to. The whole thing came to an end only with the increasing desperation of the Government here in Australia which was on the nose after the rise of a new Opposition Leader three months earlier who (in the end successfully) threatened its 11-year hold on power locally, and it clearly was feeling the need to eliminate an electoral issue which had galvanised opposition to it within its own constituency. Orderinchaos 10:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for bringing that to light. I can now see how this is a major international event. Nishkid64 (talk) 18:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

No worries :) Orderinchaos 00:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

New England Patriots

^^ Nishkid64 was concerned above about the possible insignificance of David Hicks story appearing on ITN. Fair enough because a lot of people may not know who Hicks is and the story behind it.......but the New England Patriots???

It's American football for gods sake..... not exactly international news worthy is it?!?

AussieNickuss (talk) 12:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello. There is a conversation about this at WP:ITN/C. --Edward Morgan Blake (talk) 17:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

No argument against the inclusion of this, but the 16-0 phrasing is very much U.S. usage: to other English language users, 16-0 in the context of a sports related piece would look like the score in a particular fixture. Could I suggest In American football, the New England Patriots, with 16 wins in 16 matches, become the first NFL team to finish a regular season undefeated since 1972.  ? Kevin McE (talk) 18:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The American bias is ITN is getting more and more blatant. Minor records in a domestic league of an extremely insignificant sport is more important than the political situation in Pakistan? Loom91 (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Nothing to do with more important. Benazir's Bhutto's death was longer ago then the record and there have been no significant developments since then (which is probably a good thing). ITN is in chronological order, not in order of importance. Nil Einne (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Iowa?

We never really reached an agreement IIRC on including the results of the primaries (i.e. the candidate names) but that one I could at least understand even if I didn't agree with. But including mention of the start of the primaries? That's really going a bit far isn't it? Nil Einne (talk) 06:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. We always post the final result of most elections, but certainly not the start of the election process. --Stephen 07:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

First of all, it appeared in the news way before any voting actually takes place. That makes little sense. Second, there's no way we'd ever focus on primaries for any other nation, so there's a bit of U.S.-centricity going on. ~ UBeR (talk) 11:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Iowa and N.H., no; when either party announces their candidates, yes. --Howard the Duck 12:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This item clearly lacked international significance; I strongly support its removal. For the record, please note that it was added by Jacoplane, who is not American. —David Levy 13:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

So long as we don't include in ITN the results of the rest of the primaries (until the nominees are selected) then I have no problem with it. I do, however, have a problem with having a continual commentary of the US Presidential election process. The start and end of the primaries should do. - Mark 04:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm neutral on whether these primaries deserve mention, they are certainly local in situation but global in importance. However, a conversation on IIRC should have no bearing on what decision is reached here. Joshdboz (talk) 03:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

IIRC = If I Recall Correctly, not Internet Relay Chat. - Mark 13:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I interpreted that wrongly. Apparently I'm ignorant of what IIRC stands for. Joshdboz (talk) 00:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Iowa? Again

Apparently someone took it upon themselves to add the results of the Iowa caucus, but I don't see anything different from the above discussion. It's one of caucus, which would never, ever get attention here if it were from some other country. Perhaps which candidate the parties finally nominate, but definitely not one caucus. ~ UBeR (talk) 04:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

One, two, three, four, I see an E D I T W A R :-( Zzyzx11 (Talk) 07:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I've removed this item from ITN. AFAIK, ITN does not present presidential elections from any country till we have the final official results, unless there is something notable, such as election-related violence, the first ever female finalist, a long jailed dissident released and allowed to run, ...etc. Not sure why USA is so special that a primary, a very early step, gets on ITN. If there's something special, please say so in the headline on ITN. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 07:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above and strongly support the item's removal. —David Levy 07:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree. ITN cannot, and should not be US-centric. As PFHLai has already stated, we should not be presenting every little aspect of the US Presidential race. nat.utoronto 08:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Which article is thought to have been sufficiently expanded to warrant inclusion on ITN? There is very little comment about the results in either of the two bolded articles. I would say that the inclusion fails in that regard as much as anything else - we really should only include things in ITN that show a good amount of coverage in the article(s). violet/riga (t) 11:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to drop a line here, as I saw a bit of an edit skirmish in the history with regards to the US presidential election thing. I have to agree with PFHLai and nat that the Iowa results should stay off the template. I'll not be "reverting" anyone that adds it back in, but perhaps we should try to find some general consensus in favour of adding it beforehand, as reverting one another will only reflect poorly on us. gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 12:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I had to go to Wikipedia to find out how Ron Paul did in Iowa (no, I'm not a supporter of his, just curious), because I couldn't find out anything about that in this morning's Washington Post. So it's a bit surprising to me that the Main Page doesn't even have mention of a political event that is the front page of the International Herald Tribune. I wouldn't put it first in the ITN section, but at least near the bottom seems reasonable. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Things are always added in chronological order to ITN. Nil Einne (talk) 14:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

From Talk:Main Page

Iowa Caucus results should be added to the latest news--mitrebox (talk) 02:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

What, one fiftieth of the nomination for the election of the US president? Don't be ridiculous - the presidential race would be up there non-stop for the next 11 months! Maybe when the two candidates are confirmed, and again when one of them wins the actual election, but not a single caucus. Modest Genius ^talk 04:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Pls remove the local news from ITN! --74.13.126.155 (talk) 04:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the Iowa caucus is one of the most important caucuses in the presidential election, even more important than say, the California one. - Koweja (talk) 04:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

This is hardly "local news" any more than the violence in Kenya is "local news." FCYTravis (talk) 04:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Top story on BBCWorld is not local news. End of discussion. —Verrai 05:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

A couple of days ago the top story on BBC World was 'New years celebrations go with a bang'; (I paraphrase). That doesn't mean it was deserving of ITN. Modest Genius ^talk 05:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Until you get to the final two, one from each party, this election is local news with little interest from outside USA. --74.13.129.44 (talk) 06:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to play Devil's advocate... What exactly is the Kenya story if not local news? --Falcorian ^(talk) 06:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

If an undefeated sports season qualifies, then a significant US political caucus should qualify as well. Bizzako (talk) 07:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

There have been various reports and concerns that the Kenyan situation may degenerate into genocide and another Rwanda. There is a definite ethnic component of the horrific violence that's occuring in Kenya. And although Africa is sadly not new to violent struggles, Kenya was thought of as a relatively stable country until now. (As one report put it, Kenya was the place where refugees ran to not the place their ran from) There is definitely a big difference between the Kenya story and a result in on US caucus, a result which will basically mean absolutely nothing if Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee don't end up gaining their parties nominations. Do you honestly think 2 years from now anyone will care who won the Iowa caucas outside of any effect it may or may not have had on who eventually won the election? However even if the violence is Kenya peters out (we can only hope) the people who have been killed will still be dead and Kenyans and likely much of the world will remember the time when Kenya was on the brink of disaster Nil Einne (talk) 10:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I'm against this being on the Main Page, but this is rather heavily followed in international circles (in fact, CNN International canceled their regular programming to carry CNN USA's coverage). This isn't the Super Bowl which is arguably parochial; the POTUS affects foreign policy of most countries. --Howard the Duck 14:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• One, two, three, four, I see an E D I T W A R :-( Zzyzx11 (Talk) 07:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I was rather surprised to see the caucuses on the main page, and I'm something of a US political junkie-- have been watching it on CNN all night. National elections belong here. The Iowa Caucus does have certain implications for the US political process... but in the end it is a *preliminary* election carried out by the state of *Iowa*-- local news indeed, and definitely nowhere near as important as violence over a national election in Kenya. Fishal (talk) 08:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - whatever your opinion of this matter, it's helpful to note that many Americans have opposed the inclusion of this item and many non Americans have supported it. This is clearly not just a matter of Americans thinking they're the world. So anyone thinking of arguing from that POV should reconsider. Nil Einne (talk) 10:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• How is it that this event is more insignificant/less world-impacting than the New England Patriots football game that currently graces ITN? Cjs2111 (talk) 17:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• Note that the German and Portuguese Wikipedias put the caucus results on their main pages. Redquark (talk) 19:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • That's quite interesting, actually. I wonder how good their article(s) on the results are. violet/riga (t) 19:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

so no one sees the international signifigance of a 95% european-heritage state choosing a 1/2 Kenyan with muslim heritage, for the first time, in a nation with long-standing racism against Africans and African-americans? i never can understand why you guys are so excited to delete stuff. and yes it is top story in many international media outlets, if not WP.66.220.110.83 (talk) 19:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps because WP isn't an international media outlet (wikinews is, I suspect it's a top story there)? BTW, if he actually wins the nomination (which is all that really matters) I think there will be little disagreement with mentioning it (I'm personally unconvinced about mentioning if it's just say John Edwards and Rudy Guiliani but that seems unlikely, we'll probably either at least get first female or first black candidate from a major party) but he's still a very, very, very long way away from that. BTW, according to Racial demographics of the United States the U.S. is only 75% white... (sorry thought meant country when you said state) Nil Einne (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Although the increasingly front-loaded primary-season schedule means that the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary are the two most crucial events in the choosing of US presidential nominees, and whoever wins the two of them will almost certainly end up as one of the two people who have a chance of becoming the next US president, this caucus is basically NN. The United States of America, unlike Malta or the New England Patriots, is a fairly small nation whose president has had next-to-nil impact on the rest of the world for the last seven years. To me, the real question is whether we should be maintaining articles on local celebrities like Obama and Huckabee in the first place. Obama is a senator from Illinois, only one of fifty states, and Huckabee is a governor of another one of these states. To my mind, this sort of thing is basically electioncruft and primarily of local interest. It's unencylopedic to include this sort of shit, IMO. Who really cares who becomes the next president of that shit country? I don't really care if a bunch of major media outlets on other continents carried it as front page news - they probably feel obligated to do that, and no one really even wants to read it. Also, so what if Obama is black in a nation that has never had a black nominee before, and got a strong majority in a nearly all-white state? It doesn't really matter who wins; the winner will just be a puppet of the US corporate-military cabal behind the scenes. Bravo, Nil Einne and other men of character, for keeping this sort of information off the Wikipedia front page and limiting it to where it belongs: the front pages and lead stories of various fraudulent house organs of the international capitalist class, from the BBC to Der Spiegel. Now, how about those New England Patriots? Speaking of grievances that I have, why the extremely short run for the following important ITN item: "Queen Elizabeth II formally opens the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link and London's St Pancras terminus, the new home for Eurostar trains (pictured) linking London with Paris and Brussels." This seems like some heavy stuff. And yet it only ran for a few days on ITN, only about ten times longer than news of the likely US presidential nominees, despite being about one hundred times as important. WTF? 65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

In all of history, I have found only one example where an event in an ongoing and lengthy process of government formation was included in ITN: "Belgian King Albert II intervenes to take state reform off the table in the 2007 Belgian government formation, which has lasted a record five months." This is the only example, ever. To be honest, I only clicked on one historical version of ITN to conduct my search and found this example without any effort at all, but it is likely the only example of its kind. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

What I don't understand is why USA-Americans feel the obsessive need to dominate this encyclopedia with their own localism, just as they feel the need to dominate other countries. As long as USA-Americans are allowed to edit here unfettered, this encyclopedia will be no more than a compendium of their various local obsessions and complexes, as they understand little outside of their own borders. And as long as they are allowed to contribute to ITN, it will be cluttered with babbling about the lengthy process of their government formation, and free of important information about trains in England (=important country, very European these days), events in the lengthy process of government formation in Belgium, and the New England Patriots. I think we seriously need to consider some sort of action.65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

It's gone from the front page; stop beating a dead horse. If you feel that ethnocentricism is a problem in general, this is not the place to discuss it. Try the village pump instead - Chardish (talk) 01:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

You might want to read what I said above. Specifically quite a few non-Americans have supported the inclusion and quite a few Americans have opposed it. This clearly isn't just 'USA-Americans feel the obsessive need to dominate this encyclopedia with their own localism'. Nil Einne (talk) 10:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Apologies for my entire outburst; the ban I received for talk page stuff was deserved. However, the entire thing was extremely sarcastic, and I was protesting the removal (most outrageously, it came after the initial inclusion) of the Iowa caucus info. It seemed like it was done to make a point, and much less important items are included with much less controversy. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 00:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Price of oil

This seems like non-news, for the following reasons:

1. Oil is traded on the dollar, yes, but other currencies should be considered too in the interests of neutrality - would it be considered news when the price of oil hits 100 euro?
2. 100 dollars isn't a remarkable figure and isn't more remarkable than 99 or 101. People have a fascination with big round numbers but an increase from $99 to $100 isn't more remarkable than an increase from 98 to 99.

My 2 cents. Or, my 1/5000th of a barrel of oil ; ) - Chardish (talk) 21:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Good points. ~ UBeR (talk) 22:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, just to give my 2¢, US$ 100 per barrel is significant because, and this is according to several news programs I saw, the 100 dollars used to be considered the invisible barrier that the price of oil will not pass. If you think about it, the price of oil has gone from US$15 in 1999 to US$100 just a couple of days ago; all in less than 10 years. nat.utoronto 22:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Why no coverage of a barrel of oil hitting 67.85 euros? I feel that this is a story which is vastly more important than the artificial $100 mark for oil prices, and also much more important than this parochial USA electioncruft about a rigged contest where some local figure emerged as a likely candidate for US president. A story about the breach of the 67.85 barrier would be a SWEET-ASS story. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, ITN reflects what's in the encyclopedic articles, and Oil price increases since 2003 doesn't say much about the European market.... I don't think the US dollar figure is that important. It's still a record high, no matter what currency you exchange/convert that into. --PFHLai (talk) 01:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

But not every record high is notable. In fact, I would conjecture that no record high is notable enough for the main page. Numerical figures are not notable simply because they're bigger than any other figure of the same type. - Chardish (talk) 03:27, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually it's not the simple (although I don't disagree with the inclusion). Whether it's a record high or not does depend on the currency. If a currency has significantly improved in recent weeks, it's easily possible oil price was higher in that currency prior to this Nil Einne (talk) 10:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

That's another good reason this item needs to go - it's not a record high everywhere. - Chardish (talk) 17:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Aren't oil futures traded using American money? --Howard the Duck 04:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this was noteable. It definitely seemed to get a fair amount of attention in the media and as others have mentioned the US$100 seemed to be a psychological which many people were wondering whether or when it would cross. Perhaps this doesn't make sense but I'm not an economocist so it's not up to me to decide whether this does or doesn't. And the US$, even if this is stupid is still a key currency for much international trade including oil. Even if this is dumb, it is the main currency that matters at the current time and the one that people monitor for many goods including oil Nil Einne (talk) 10:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Really all this talk about records in tosh. $100 was inevitable because of inflation. Value of the dollar goes down, prices go up. Compare the price increases to the euro which hasn't seen as much inflation, and it really doesn't seem like a spectacular news story. Nonetheless, people here seem to like to focus on the trivial. ~ UBeR (talk) 07:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Venezuelan L-410 tragedy

Why no coverage of this event? 18 dead, 4 injured. As far as I know, 236,000 people may have participated in the rigged Iowa caucus, and millions around the nation may have watched, and newspapers around the world may have put it on their front pages, but not a single person died. Why are the non-deaths of USA-americans considered so much more important than the deaths of 18 Venezuelans? Think about what that says about our priorities. The L-410 tragedy may be a random event with no wider impact, but 18 more people are dead than in the USA-American "caucus" event. Why no main-page coverage of L-410? It would make for a SWEET-ASS story. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

If you wish to see something included in the In The News section of the Main Page, you can propose it at WP:ITN/C. Aecis^Brievenbus 23:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

65.190.89.154, please be reminded that ITN is not a news service, but a place on MainPage to feature encyclopedic articles well updated with current news materials. Is there an article about this plane crash in Wikipedia? Please consider contributing in that article, and post a link in the headline at Portal: Current events. Please let us know on WP:ITN/C when the article is ready to be featured. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 01:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The Iowa thing was briefly added but was long removed which not much support for it to remain so it's kind of irrelevant. Nil Einne (talk) 10:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Try expanding Transaven January 2008 Venezuela Crash and then submit a headline to WP:ITN/C. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 14:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Dakar Rally

Shouldn't 2008 Dakar Rally link link to 2008 Dakar Rally, not to Dakar Rally? Visor (talk) 16:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

In theory yes. The problem is both articles are a bit of a mess with the main article at the time not even saying the event had been cancelled IIRC. Personally I'm not even sure this should have added given the current state but I'll just leave that as is Nil Einne (talk) 16:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, the main article had a section on the cancellation, and at the time of posting the specific article had a factually dubious tag. It's all better now though, hence the bold link was changed. --Stephen 02:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have been clearer. By main article I mean 2008 Dakar Rally as this is the main article about the ITN item which is about the 2008 Dakar Rally Nil Einne (talk) 07:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Search Wikia

It appears Search Wikia is going to launch a day from now (7th January). What do others feel about mentioning this? While it may depend on the coverage and article (the article currently only covers search wikia briefly probably as it should although things could change with the launch), I'm leaning towards no... Nil Einne (talk) 17:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it an international news story? That's what you should be asking. ~ UBeR (talk) 07:32, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

No. It's just a product launch with unknown significance. When they acquire Google we may post it then. --Stephen 02:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Iowa caucus results was big news and it should have been on ITN.

For two reasons, the first-ever female leading candidate for a presidential nomination in a major US political party was knocked out of leading status, replaced by the first ever black leading candidate for the same nomination. In addition this is the English language Wikipedia, and politics relevant to anglophones probably should have a wider scope for consideration for inclusion onto ITN. (Narkstraws (talk) 20:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC))

So Obama and Clinton showed that race/gender aren't barriers to performance in US national politics, and you want to highlight this because before them some people had assumed the system was racially/gender biased? If the land of the free is all that it claims to be, then I don't see how being the first candidate of X type is important. Also, one of your two "leading"s is erroneous. Prior to Iowa, there were no votes. Personally, I consider it a little silly to assign "leading" status based on polling data alone. However, if you do want to trust polling data, then Clinton still is the leading candidate by a significant margin based on National Polls. So either you have to assume that Clinton was and still is the leading candidate (though by a smaller margin than before), or you have to assert that Obama is the first candidate to lead this race.

Regardless, I don't think ITN is well-suited to rolling election coverage of every minor caucus (Iowa represents only 1.4% of the nominating delegates). Dragons flight (talk) 21:00, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

The story isn't important to most people outside of the U.S. Who wins the actual nomination, perhaps. ~ UBeR (talk) 21:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

It was front page news on the BBC, an English speaking, international oriented site. So I think that claim is wrong. I understand Wikipedia seeks to achieve a non-US centric perspective, but I don't think having included this as news would have been a problem. I'm not contending that every state's primary be listed in ITN. I think something very important happened in Iowa. (Narkstraws (talk) 00:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC))

Is the result of the Iowa caucus something you'll expect in the main page of an encyclopedia? In the main page of CNN and BBC, yes. In Wikipedia, no. --Howard the Duck 06:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It was truly historic, no doubt, but I think we'll be better served if we wait at least until the party nominations are official. Grandmasterka 06:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Are the nominations pretty much a formality if a candidate wins the majority of the Super Tuesday primaries? --Howard the Duck 06:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Candidates need to win a certain number of delegates to clinch the nomination, it's possible to do that on Super Tuesday. I don't recall exactly how it needs to play out for that to happen.Grandmasterka 07:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

After reading Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008 again, it seems impossible for someone to clinch on Super Tuesday. But it probably would be pretty much a formality if someone takes a Super Duper share of Super Duper Tuesday. Grandmasterka 08:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

When is the time that the nomination becomes a formality? After what caucus/primary? --Howard the Duck 09:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

When the other candidates quit, or when someone reaches 2,025 delegates (the clinching number, since there are 4,049 total delegates on the Democratic side. The Republicans have only about 2,000 total.) Grandmasterka 09:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this a better way of reporting the U.S. election, when they reached the clinching number of delegates, not a blow-by-blow account of every primary/caucus. --Howard the Duck 09:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

...And, of course, if neither of those two things happen, then it's whoever wins a plurality of delegates. But I think the losing candidates have always just quit when they realize that they're beat. Grandmasterka 10:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I say we wait to the conventions and formal nominations. ~ UBeR (talk) 10:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

But it won't really be news anymore if the nominee is too obvious already. --Howard the Duck 11:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. By the time this thing is formally "clinched", it will barely be "In the News". We could cover the clinching, which will almost certainly be an unnoticed non-event, or we could cover the nomination, which should probably be covered separately and is a different type of event (massive/ceremonial, as opposed to actual news). Or we could recognize that there are several key points in the US presidential campaign process, and that the very few key points of this process should each be covered, as the US presidential campaign is worldwide, not local, news. Those key points are: 1.) the Iowa caucuses, 2.) the New Hampshire primaries, 3.) Super Tuesday, 4.) The nominating conventions, 5.) election day. Considering that the process lasts for almost a year, covering each of these events as it occurs would not be excessive. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 01:02, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

No, you missed the point. If the candidate has enough delegates then it'll certainly be news since s/he has virtually clinched the nomination. Then we don't have to wait for the D/RNC since everyone knows who'll be nominated anyway. The NBA season is a long process, preseason, regular season, playoffs and Finals; we only mention the when there's a final result already. --Howard the Duck 02:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(Not sure how far to indent). It will be truly notable if either party doesn't have a clinch-nominee on/by February 2. --Elliskev 01:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Dakar Rally

The road race cancellation has been the top item for 2 or 3 days now. Isn't it time to retire it? --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

You should know that the only way that happens is if we add new news, of which none has been nominated. --Golbez (talk) 22:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Please, please, let us cover the results of the New Hampshire primary

I staged a sarcastic public freakout here after information about the Iowa caucus was included and then deleted, and for that I apologize. Let me try to communicate in a more civil fashion why news of the New Hampshire primary should be included in ITN:

• The US presidential campaign process lasts almost a year, and it is worldwide news with an international impact. During this increasingly ritualized process, there are several discrete key events: 1.) the Iowa caucuses, 2.) the New Hampshire primaries, 3.) Super Tuesday, 4.) the party nominating conventions, 5.) election day. In the current campaign, any realistic observer will tell you (based on this campaign and recent ones) that no other events are likely to reach the same scale. Considering the length of the process, coverage of each of these events would not dominate ITN excessively.
• Winning the New Hampshire primary would make Barack Obama the undisputed frontrunner and very likely nominee, a historical first. You could argue, "Oh, we'll cover it when he clinches the nomination," but the actual clinch-point is usually not an actual news item and receives little attention, because it is already obvious by then. You can also say, "Oh, we'll cover the nominating convention instead," but the conventions are ceremonial in the modern era and determine nothing. Given the size of these ceremonial events, we may wish to throw some coverage at them anyway, but they aren't news. The time to cover this is now, when it's news, and keyed to an event observed around the nation whose outcome is genuinely uncertain. It's in the news right now, not at the clinch-point.
• Major news organizations around the world saw fit to give heavy coverage to Obama's Iowa caucus victory. Wikipedia did so, too...and then erased it, despite having covered far less important things before, and despite immediately turning its attentions to...the Dakar Rally. I think this shows that the original exclusion of the information - which actually went live before being awkwardly jerked off of the front page - was done mostly to make a point. Although my own immature reaction was uncool, the whole affair strikes me almost as a WP:POINT violation, where the encyclopedia and ITN were to disrupted to make a statement against American ethnocentrism, a statement mistakenly supported both by Americans and by others. This statement was made at exactly the wrong time, when a major event was occurring in the United States and receiving front-page coverage in many countries...and the next story in line was...the Dakar Rally. The removal of this item was ideological, I'm sorry.
• The New Hampshire primary is more important than the Dakar Rally and will receive international coverage and blanket US coverage. It is one of the few key events in a long and highly notable leadership-selection process in a major world power. It looks very bad, conspicuously bad, to avoid covering it. To the average visitor to the WP main page, it doesn't look like the natural exclusion of unimportant local news for the benefit of more important events of international significance (the Dakar Rally, say) - it looks like an example of ideology at work, or a bizarre omission. It looks like an intentional blackout.
• There has been over a year of run-up for the twin events of the Iowa caucus and NH primary, and little ITN mention during that time. It is natural to cover the climax of this long process, which is the major subsection of the US election.
• Judging from the comments about the initial inclusion of the Iowa story, many people from around the world do not understand how notable Iowa and NH are in the nominating process, and how silly it is to say, "We'll cover it when they clinch the nominations". This is another reason we should cover it: to inform these people. Their comments are demonstrating how widely confused people are about the US system (like the fellow who held that Iowa was "one fiftieth" of the process), and how much it needs to be cleared up. In general, the schedule for coverage of a lengthy news story of worldwide notability should not be dictated by people who do not understand the ins and outs of that story, and the inherent notability or non-notability of the events within it. The schedule for coverage should be dictated by: 1.) reality (i.e. the reality that Iowa and NH are crucial and, say, North Carolina does not matter, 2.) presence in the news (the nominations are a larger presence in the news than they will be again, as they are actually uncertain right now).
• As seen directly above this post in the comment section for the Dakar Rally, news is slow and no new items appear forthcoming. If Wikipedia continues its blackout of the US election process through tomorrow, this situation will become increasingly embarrassing, as a major national and notable international event occurs without mention and the Dakar Rally continues to sit as the top story on Wikipedia.

For these reasons and others, I urge coverage of the New Hampshire primaries. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 01:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Nah, it won't be embarrassing, unless you perceive the ITN as CNN, when it isn't. --Howard the Duck 02:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Do we cover every stage of the convoluted election process and choice of party candidates in the UK, FRance, Germany, Canada, Russia, Australia, China, Middle East, etc., etc? And as the poster of the Dakar item, it was not ideological, it was simply next in the queue with a consensus to post. --Stephen 03:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying the Dakar Rally thing was ideological. I'm saying that the removal of the Iowa caucus news, already posted, was ideological. In any of the above countries, a key step in the choice of a candidate for a long-term leadership position is obviously bait for ITN. As I pointed out above, ITN formerly dealt with a key part of the government formation process (5ive months long) in Belgium. When a long-running and extremely important news story comes to a key and climactic point (or several in a predictable series), that should be here. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 04:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason why the Belgian government formation made it was that because it took a long time to form a government, something that is rare in parliamentary democracies (meaning, it really is news since it was "unexpected" that'll it take 5 months long). In the U.S. in which a presidential system, is used, the term government formation is never used since once a president is elected, there's no need for "government formation". Nor is the process of nominating presidents per party, an ordinary occurrence in the U.S., is what you call "government formation" in the strictest sense of the word. --Howard the Duck 04:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

No, not CNN, but as a set of links to articles on Wikipedia which are "in the news". The NH primaries are very much in the news. And the articles in question have been updated to reflect news events, which is the whole point. What's embarrassing, specifically, is the level of bias one sees when looking at the current list of ITN items (Dakar Rally, New England Patriots, etc.) and realizing that, in the meantime, the USA has narrowed down its choices for the presidency on two highly eventful days, and that numerous articles have been updated to reflect these news events. This clearly meets the criteria for inclusion, but will be excluded to make a point. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 04:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Not all events which are "in the news" gets to be posted at the "In the news" section otherwise the Britney Spears situation would've made it, heck British news agency Sky News covered it live. --Howard the Duck 04:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's not forget the Anna Nicole Smith case last year or New Year's day a few days ago Nil Einne (talk) 12:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The New Hampshire primaries, just as the Iowa caucuses, should not be ITN. ~ UBeR (talk) 03:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, and neither should the nomination or election of a US president. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 04:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The final choice of candidates will be posted (if there's an updated article, which is highly likely), and the November election result is a shoe-in. But do we post Iowa, NH, SC, and the next, and the one after that, and Super Tuesday, and all the other state results, and Clinton dropping out, and Ron Paul coming from behind to win the candidacy (I made the last one up)? --Stephen 04:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

If you really can't understand why there is a big difference between the result of one primary and the final result i.e. the selection of the candidate and the selection of the person who will probably be the president of the USA for 4 years well I really don't know what more can be said. BTW, in the news isn't really about what's in the news. Many people have pointed out it's a bad choice of name but we haven't got around to renaming it. Nil Einne (talk) 12:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

You definitely didn't help your cause by violating WP:POINT. Particularly since most of your claims were outrageous and no one seemed to actually support your POV. Even the majority of those who did support the exclusion of Iowa didn't in fact support most of what you were saying so it was really a Straw man. BTW, no one removed the Iowa to make a point. Perhaps you don't understand how ITN works. Admins post items when they feel it meets the criteria. If it turns out a sufficient number of people don't agree with the opinion of this one admin then items are removed by other admins. ITN is not some sort of super archive news site where once something has been 'posted' it must stay. This is not the first, nor will it be the last time that something was 'posted' and later when a sufficient number of people felt it doesn't belong on ITN, it was removed. Nil Einne (talk) 11:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I oppose the inclusion of an item pertaining to the New Hampshire primary. As interesting as the outcome is to me (and other Americans who follow politics), its significance stems from its eventual impact on the actual nominations. If Obama or Clinton is nominated, that will be a historic first of international interest. (At least, I know that I'm interested when such events occur in other countries.) Until then, I perceive this as little more than an internal process with no importance beyond many others from around the world that we routinely omit from ITN. —David Levy 17:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The results of each individual primary are too insignificant on a long-term, international scale to warrant inclusion in ITN. Barring dramatic developments, I suggest we put on no more primaries results until the National Conventions. The Conventions are of international significance, not the individual primaries. - Mark 03:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Golden Globes? New England Patriots? Cjs2111 (talk) 06:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Can't comment on the Golden Globes but from what I can tell (not being an American I rely on what I've read on wikipedia and been told by people here) the NEP thing was a very significant record in American football, one which is liable to be remembered by many Americans and even a number of non-Americans long after most people have forgotten who won the New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucus of 2008. The only thing that's problematic about the NEP is it arguably only a stepping stone since if they win the SuperBowl or whatever then people will remember the fact they remained completely undefeated. (On the other hand if they lose at some stage people will remember them as the ones who won everything except when it really counted). Whether people like it or not, sport is a significant part of many cultures and people often remember sports records and talk about sports records, but the only time I ever hear people talking about something like who won the New Hampshire primary is in the next election when they discuss the chances of the current crop of candidates Nil Einne (talk) 08:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's my ranking of recent events in the U.S. by importance:

1. Clinton and McCain win New Hampshire primary
2. LSU wins national college football championship
3. New England Patriots finish regular season 16-0
4. Golden Globes show canceled

For some reason, we have 3 and 4 but not 1 or 2. That said, if we do include the New Hampshire primary, we have to decide how many times the American election is going to make ITN. Super Duper Tuesday sounds like a given, then when the number-two person in each race drops out, then again at the conventions? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 08:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally, the NH Primaries shouldn't be at the ITN for the same reason as the NEP should've been omitted - they were merely stepping stones for something more important. As for the BCS Championship, it seems to have been largely parochial event and is of significance for Americans only (actually I noticed this year's game has a lot less buzz when compare it to 2006's game.

As for the Golden Globes, remove it too. If the Oscars or Grammys get canceled, it can be posted but the Globes aren't that important, unless you'd want to see a gay dude squeeze Scarlett Johansson's breasts. --Howard the Duck 09:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Alas, determining the importance of sports-related news is notoriously difficult. You say the BCS championship is parochial. I say it's bigger than the Indian cricket team's tour of Australia. You say the cricket controversy involves two countries. I say the two countries between them have fewer English speakers than does the U.S. You say yes, but India has 1 billion people in total. And so on, and so on. But you are right on two points: The buzz around the BCS championship had diminished somewhat in recent years, and the Golden Globes don't deserve to be on ITN. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 11:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey, don't ask me about that cricket item, I also opposed its inclusion in the main page. If we'd follow the "racism" card then Shaq's "Ching chong" statement against Yao Ming could've been very well be posted. --Howard the Duck 11:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was being hypothetical. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 12:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the Golden Globes being on the template has less to do with the show itself then the fact that it is the first major awards show to be cancelled due to the Writer's strike. At the very beginning of the whole thing onr of the biggest questions were "Will the Globes be cancelled?". It's a major awards ceremony, so what's the problem? It's probably as important internationally as the Patriots were. --Plasma Twa 2 (talk) 04:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but how important really is the strike itself? So what if a few of us aren't being as entertained as normal? To say nothing of the awards show-- if this is the "first awards show to be cancelled"-- is this really such a big issue? And the GG's are rather low-prestige when compared with other awards anyway. It is soft news at best. Should be removed. Fishal (talk) 23:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, it pretty much effects all of television and movies, so... yeah. Much more important then a primary or a sports record. The Golden Globes are one of the top enterainment awards (Behind the Oscars and maybe the BAFTAs) in the world. --Plasma Twa 2 (talk) 23:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I can think of very few strikes that would be reported in this way. Just because it's a glamourous industry? Fishal (talk) 01:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Should we even cover the Presidential nominees being selected?

I'm sure the answer is going to be a resounding "yes", but hear me out. I've been following the US presidential campaign process fairly closely, and am under no illusions about the eventual outcome's importance to the rest of the world. But it is only the election of a new President that has worldwide implications. Even if, say, Barack Obama gains the Democratic party nomination, we still won't know who the next President of the United States is. Yes the outcome of the nominations will increase the likelihood the US will have their first black/female/Mormon/actor President, but saying something might happen is just speculation, and nothing will be decided, or even have any bearing on the rest of the world, until November. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 16:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but the US election process is so drawn out, that it _is_ big news when the nominees are announced. It's still months from the actual election, so it won't be as though we are inundated with US Pres news. Fishal (talk) 23:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not worried about being inundated with US President news, but why make the exception for the US? We wouldn't do this for any other country. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 00:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

For starters, every country is interested about the U.S. elections since the U.S. is the sole remaining superpower. We can omit American sports, cultural and entertainment news but not this. Heck, even Kenyans are so in to it. --Howard the Duck 03:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. International importance for the nominations may be debatable, but C3 also mentions international interest, and that most definitely exists.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough; I don't doubt the international interest. Just as long as we don't mention any more primary results... Hammer Raccoon (talk) 12:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I was originally opposed to mentioning this but I've changed my mind and can't really be bothered arguing the point in any case. Besides that, I don't think this is likely to be much of an issue. There is a general agreement if there is something particularly notable and unusual, for example the selection of the first female or African American/black candidate for a major party then we should mention it (as we did with France last year). It seems rather likely we will get one of these (yes I know no crystal ball and all that...) so I don't think there will be much dispute. This doesn't of course explain why we should mention the Republican candidate (barring something like first LDS candidate) but I guess mentioning one but not the other is just asking for a very, very ugly lengthy debate about wikipedia bias Nil Einne (talk) 17:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Renaming, and precedents

If the recent hullabaloo over whether ITN should report the results of the Iowa caucuses has taught us anything, it is that "In The News" desperately needs renaming. I know I'm the millionth person to suggest this, but the name really is a fundamental misrepresentation of the service, and it needs to be sorted. Having said that, I really don't have the answer right now.

Secondly, I believe that the amount of debating and repetition of the same arguments could be cut significantly if we had a page listing precedents of what has and has not appeared on ITN. My first ever suggestion to ITN was last years FA Cup final (see May 19 here). It was put up, but I was told that "common practise" was to not include such events. This is fine, but we should really write down somewhere said common practises. I originally brought up this idea here but I don't think I put it in a prominent enough place, so I mention it here. I really think this would be a real timesaver. Does anyone else think this a good idea? Hammer Raccoon (talk) 17:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

What is the purpose of the service then, if not to report news? Fishal (talk) 23:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

To provide access to encyclopedic information about current events. In that sense, ITN is similar to regular news media, but we're not a news ticker. Aecis^Brievenbus 23:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. It took me a while to get why if something was all over the news it wasn't necessarily ITN material, but I do now. Which is why the name needs to be changed sharpish, so we don't get arguments along the lines of "but look, its on BBC, CNN etc". News websites are 24 hours, and it is their sole purpose to report news, whereas we can pick and choose the most important stories, from an encyclopaedic perspective, when they come along. Anyway, the regular contributors know this, and I guess the reason "ITN" has stuck is because a suitable alternative hasn't been found. But someone must of suggested something better in all those discussions, surely? Any comment on the precedents idea? Hammer Raccoon (talk) 00:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

How about "Wikipedia on Current events"? Too long? "Current Events?" Im not a regular contributor here, so I feel ill-equipped to comment on the precedents idea. Fishal (talk) 01:10, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

We've come up with a pile of these in the past. My favourite simple nip-and-tuck change would be to call it Topics in the news, which wouldn't connote that there's been a substantial change (because there hasn't) but add a little clarity about the importance of encyclopedicity in inclusion rather than simple newsworthiness. The other day Topical topics popped into my head--shades of potent potables, I guess. The Tom (talk) 05:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

How about New Developments? Potatoswatter (talk) 06:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC) Or Major Developments? And would it be a bad thing to give non-current WikiProjects a showcase for clusters of articles as well - like the featured article but less singular and less featured? Potatoswatter (talk) 06:10, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Topics in the News makes it sound much more like an encyclopedia and less like a news outlet, in my opinion. Fishal (talk) 14:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Editors may want to check out #Removal of 2007 civil unrest in Villiers-le-Belises (France) and discussions linked to from there. Particularly Template talk:In the news/Archive 11#Proposal: restructure the section (User:Monotonehell) Nil Einne (talk) 17:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Edmund Hillary

One of the pair who were first to climb Mount Everest, Edmund Hillary has died. Is this an item that would be of interest to this section? Does his death require a separate article on its own to be covered here? Is it actually "in the news" enough to be worth covering? I would list it at "suggestions" but I am not sure it qualifies. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 23:17, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

• That's what WP:ITN/C is for, to see whether it qualifies, so you're free to suggest it over there. For the criteria for deaths, see Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page#Criteria for adding entries (#5). Aecis^Brievenbus 23:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. It doesn't appear he meets any of the three criteria. Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk 00:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

That's too bad. I would've added it if I were an admin, though if I ignore the rules. --Howard the Duck 03:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I added him under the ignore all rules clause and the belief that he was a historic figure and that this is more important of a story than the Indian cricket team's current problems in Australia. — MJCdetroit ^(yak) 04:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm removing the item. In previous discussions about this matter, people agreed that deaths of famous individuals should not be added to ITN if it was not unexpected or sudden. No disrespect intended to this heroic man, but he was going to die sooner or later, considering his old age. Nishkid64 (talk) 05:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I propose we ignore the "not unexpected or sudden" rule at least for this case. --Howard the Duck 05:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Why does the rule need to ignored for Edmund Hillary? Why doesn't his death compare to the old-age deaths of a number of other famous people in recent times? Nishkid64 (talk) 05:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Lets put it this way: In the history of humanity, the about 90% of the "firsts" were done ages ago. First person to discover fire, to discover calculus, first to fly over the Atlantic, first to discover telephones, first to become president of a country, etc. In our day and age, only a few firsts are still relevant, like the first person to step on the moon, first person to climb Mt. Everest, etc. That's why for today's people, Hillary's death was rather a big loss. --Howard the Duck 05:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be in the minority, have a look at Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates#January 11. I think the general view is that wikipedia will not collapse if WP:IAR is invoked in this case. - Shudde ^talk 05:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Without looking at specific examples, maybe because his worldwide fame has already passed. Although he might be a timeless hero in the Himalayas, he hasn't been a public figure. Unlike say the queen mother or Ronald Reagan. Potatoswatter (talk) 05:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Bring the discussion to the talk page here, and get more people to weigh in. We had similar instances where people added the deaths of James Brown and Milton Friedman. Both men have been the "first" to do something, but it was still determined, that if their death was not controversial or unexpected, then it's not worth mentioning at ITN. Think about the future precedent this will set. People will be arguing to have their country's favorite son mentioned on ITN because of this situation. Nishkid64 (talk) 06:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Not many countries have a near universal favourite son, and they certainly don't have them die very often. If that was allowed, I don't think we'd have a flood of death related ITN items. Like I said before, there doesn't seem to be very much opposition at all to this being up there. Why is this being discussed here btw? There is page for discussion of ITN candidates? - Shudde ^talk 06:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

This is being discussed here because it directly involves ITN rules. Nishkid64 (talk) 06:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

So what happened in the other cases? They were removed early? I second that motion here. There must be thousands of national heroes like Hillary. Come on, he's just Norgay's sidekick in the one part of the world that popularly remembers him. Many towns have Norgay St... not so many Hillary Streets. The ITN rules are pretty clear: Reagan and Queen Mother in, by a hair, and those past their prime are out. Potatoswatter (talk) 07:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

We've got our priorities wrong, the cheapest car that isn't really news gets in, while the death of the first person (actually one of the two as he'd put it) to summit Mount Everest gets omitted. With all due respect to James Brown and Milton Friedman, their achievements and "firsts" pale in comparison. --Howard the Duck 06:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there any kind of objective argument for that? I'm pretty sure Milton Friedman accomplished more than Edmund Hillary. Both Friedman and Brown were celebrities for four solid decades, without a break. Potatoswatter (talk) 09:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Well the discussion is split between two talk pages, and that is not good. I hate rules that just stifle making the project good. WP:IAR exists for this reason. We have an item on a cricket controversy that has died down considerably, and a car that really is of no importance at all (if I make a production car for $2,400 can that be on the main page?). Then we have one of the many many awards shows this year on because it's been cancelled. Rules aren't perfect, and that's why IAR exists. So why not use it? - Shudde ^talk 06:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they ignore the ignore all rules rule? --Howard the Duck 06:43, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The $2,500 car is quite significant in the international automotive world. It's been covered as a major news item in a number of international news sites. Nishkid64 (talk) 06:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's on the BBC News website but you'd have to press page down to see it (as a matter of fact, you'd rather press ctrl+F then type "car" to find it (in other words, it's not that big)). Guess what CNN (I)'s top story is? --Howard the Duck 06:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

ITN is not CNN, and that car is a glorified moped. It has a 33 hp engine and a four-gallon tank. It appears well suited to its market except for riding very low. I wonder how the suspension will hold up. I wonder if something so underpowered is in fact safer than a motorcycle in a busy Indian city. I wonder if the utter lack of criticism from the major news outlets relates to Tata being a stock market darling while the West faces a financial crisis. Potatoswatter (talk) 09:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

ITN is not CNN, but when it's not found at CNN, then it shouldn't be at ITN either. Lets say, not everything on CNN gets to ITN, but when it isn't at CNN, then it can't be at ITN. --Howard the Duck 05:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason this is inappropriate for this template is because the article has not been significantly updated. There is only a short paragraph about this death. JACOPLANE • 2008-01-11 08:14

A car may be important in the automotive world, but doesn't matter too much outside of it. Sure, it earns mention, but I think someone who conquered one of the last great challenges of mankind deserves this bit of respect since it is not just mountclimber news or New Zealander news, it is full on international news. The359 (talk) 10:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but ITN is not a news ticker. We are not a news medium, and therefore use other criteria than news media. Edmund Hillary was definitely notable, yes, but his death was neither unexpected nor tragic, nor is it expected to have a significant influence on current events. Aecis^Brievenbus 10:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, ITN is not a news ticker, but it seems like items of minimal importance stay on that thing for days. I doubt that the Indian Cricket team's racism in Australia in going to have significant influence on current events. I am not against something like that being on the ITN, but does it need to be on there for up to day tens? In the same line, does a story about the death of Hillary need to be on there for any longer than 2 days? No. However new items like this should be added more frequently and have shorter stays on the template because in my opinion this template has become very stale. — MJCdetroit ^(yak) 13:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

What you're describing sounds an awful lot like a news ticker. Only articles that have been significantly updated due to current events qualify, and if there are no good candidates, so be it. JACOPLANE • 2008-01-11 13:58

ITN would just become a battleground if you arbitrarily chose when to remove and replace items. And as Jacoplane said, ITN would essentially become a news ticker, which isn't what we want. Nishkid64 (talk) 17:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Suharto

Incidentally it looks like Suharto may die soon. I'm guessing we're headed for some even more nasty debates if he ends up being on ITN and Edmund Hillary isn't. Personally I'm not convinced Ronald Reagan or Suharto's deaths should have been/be mentioned on ITN. Nil Einne (talk) 17:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Not that I feel someone with Suharto's past deserves much by way of respect, but I can't help but feeling a little weird talking about the merits of including his death on ITN before he's actually all the way gone.

Anyway, he's looking like a no, because though he's notable, his death doesn't seem to be on track to be particularly consequential--it won't create an immediate vacancy in some political office, or (unfortunately) interrupt a human rights trial process, or leave us all wondering whether he might have broken the world record in the 100m if only he'd lived long enough to make it to the Beijing Olympics. Now, if this triggers riots in Indonesia or the immediate release of some tasty intelligence information, we can certainly reopen things. The Tom (talk) 19:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I figure this will be brought up sooner or later, so I'll just mention it now. Augusto Pinochet's death was included on ITN in December 2006 because although his death was not unexpected, it came right in the middle of a major internationally-significant criminal trial. Pinochet was facing over 300 charges, such as human rights violations, tax evasion, embezzlement, etc. Nishkid64 (talk) 20:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

It would have made sense to have that article on ITN since Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial would have had to be significantly updated following his death. As far as I'm aware there are no current legal proceedings Suharto, so if he dies of natural causes that would not qualify the article for ITN. Btw, the death of Gerald Ford was also not used was used, but subsequently removed from ITN, but the discussions about Ford and James Brown being included are still relevant today. I suggest people read through them. JACOPLANE • 2008-01-11 20:32

Well I understand that but with multi organ failure it seems likely it'll be a matter of days; and coming hot on the heals of Edmund Hillary I thought it might be helpful to discuss it beforehand. (wikinews for example as with other news sites pre-writes obits) In terms of legal cases, IIRC and based on the article they had basically been ruled out because of his poor health (and perhaps lack of political will). It appears civil cases are ongoing but his death may not make a difference to that since I presume they will continue against his estate. The point of riots etc is well taken. I had been considering mentioning Ariel Sharon here for additional perspective (since he was one of the only significant former political leaders I could remember who appears to be resonably close to death) at the beginning but felt his case was different enough as it may result in significant reactions from a variety of parties. Nil Einne (talk) 20:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Suharto wasn't the first dictator nor was he the first to leave office after much controversy so we can't really compare him to Hillary. --Howard the Duck 06:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

No but the death of prominent political leaders appears to sometimes be mentioned even if it doesn't otherwsie appear to meet the criteria which was why I brought this up. I'm primarily thinking of Ronald Reagen here, there may have been one or two other examples which I can't remember, I may have been thinking of Gerald Ford too since I'm not sure how active I was at the time so I may not have realised he was eventually removed. There appears to be consensus not to include it which IMHO is good. Nil Einne (talk) 07:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I dunno about Suharto, but Reagan may have changed foreign, political and economic policies of several countries. Same as the Russian president who died last year that escapes me. That was a fine time to invoke WP:IAR (as a matter of fact we're actually having a politician-bias when invoking WP:IAR in these cases). --Howard the Duck 08:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

That would be Boris Yeltsin. Nishkid64 (talk) 17:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Reagan was included as there was a separate and substantial article on his death and state funeral. I don't suppose that there's any chance that there'll be a significant enough circus around Suharto to warrant a separate article? GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 14:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Rupees to Euros?

Today, the first item is talking about the cheapest car from India. It mentions 100,000 rupees, and then says what it is in euros. Many people here are in the USA, more people than in Europe. It would make sense to use dollars, wouldn't it? Soxπed Ninety Three | tcdb 22:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

I agree with Soxred93, this is the English Wikipedia, thus euros make no sense, we either need USD's or British Pounds. Euros make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 23:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

It's been using dollars instead of euros until just recently. I came here to find out what happened. I say that if we can't settle on one currency translation, just keep the rupees and make people do their own conversions. Maybe Euros and Dollars? Wanna through Pounds in there? I don't know... -Platypus Man | Talk 23:02, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's what OldakQuill, who changed it, said: "USD -> EUR; Being bold - USD is too volatile to make reference to. I think more people can relate to value of Euro" Just thought you might want to know. -Platypus Man | Talk 23:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that also doesnt make sense. Basically Euros just make no sense, I mean could you imagine if it said 100,000 rupees (2000000 Yen)?? It just doesnt make sense, if we do convert it should be something that makes sense to the Wiki we are at.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 23:06, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Surely the currency that "make[s] sense" is the currency that most of our readers can relate to. The English-language Wikipedia is not a US national project - it is an international project. I would say that most of our readers (or editors, at least) do not live in the US. We have readers from many English-speaking countries and many readers from predominantly non-English-speaking countries. As someone who lives in the UK, I can understand better what 1 EUR is than what 1 USD is or what 1 YEN is. --Oldak Quill 00:35, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

And from what Ive seen on the Wiki, and about everywhere else on this planet, USD are used when there is a conversion, because the dollar is used almost everywhere. But like I said British Pounds would at least make more sense than Euros.
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 23:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Essentially, the only European country that has a significant amount of people here would be the United Kingdom. Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and more all have a very little amount of English speakers, which does not add up to the USA. This does not make any sense at all. Soxπed Ninety Three | tcdb 23:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a fundamentally flawed statement. There are an extremely large number of contributors on the English Wikipedia from countries where English is not the first language. European Wikipedians who do not come from the UK outnumber UK Wikipedians by a factor of ten at the very least. We Europeans tend to speak pretty good English even though it is not our mother tongue. JACOPLANE • 2008-01-11 23:40

"The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions" (United States dollar). USD isn't going to change that much over the short period it is in "In the news", especially if given as an approximate value. --Phirazo 23:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Changed back to US dollar currency. I agree with Phirazo. The value of the dollar will not fluctuate so drastically over such a short period of time. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Nishkid64!
Gonzo fan2007 ^{talk ♦ contribs} 23:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

My reasoning wasn't that it would change so much in a week that the statement would be meaningless. It has changed a lot in the last few months, and it is for that reason that many people outside (and within) the US wouldn't understand what a dollar is worth. Sterling is an unstable currency too. The euro is changing, but is more stable than the dollar or sterling. It is also not true to say that the USD is the international currency anymore - the PRC, which holds the largest foreign currency reserves in the world, recently abandoned the dollar as the currency it stores most of its wealth in. The English-language Wikipedia is not a national project, and the standard currency it uses shouldn't necessarily belong to a predominantly English-speaking country (though, if you count second-language speakers, Europe easily rivals the US in numbers). --Oldak Quill 00:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that reasoning is that it'll confuse people in the US, where the majority of people here are. When looking at that, I had absolutely no' idea what that was in USD, and I am sure a lot of the 200 million other people in the USA were wondering that too. Soxπed Ninety Three | tcdb 00:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you missed OldakQuills point... I tend to agree that this project is not a US project, the majority of readers/contributors, whereever they may be from, isnt nessisarily relevent, This is often a big topic with ITN entries, keep it international and not US/UK/whatever centric. People argue over the silliest petty things (like suggesting things like a US reader wont understand "match" in a sports game, or "row" to mean fight, well I sure hope US readers arnt that ignorant, if they are, hopefully their not understanding will encourage them to learn). Anyways, the argument "most people here are from the US" holds zero weight. That said, I do think OldakQuill changing it from USD to euros without a discussion was a bit heavy handed. Likely USD is more appropriate, look at the article itsself, most of the supporting references use USD. Most of the times on ITN to date when a currency is used USD is whats been used unless its a more local thing. I do agree that in these days, and times to come, USD as a international standard is part of the past, even if it once was the standard. But right now, there is no clear standard, so its easy to get into fights about the most appropirate one to use (not just on ITN, but throughout WP). This conflict should actually be part of a larger WP wide discussion on the use of national currencies, particularly when refering to them in the present rather then in historic sense. Russeasby (talk) 01:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, American English doesn't use "row" in that context at all, so the reason I brought up that point was to prevent confusion, not to enforce my dialect or style on the encyclopedia. Everyone who understands English understands controversey, dispute, disagreement, etc. so I asked that it be changed to one of those words. To the larger point, the Pound Sterling is the most stable currency on the planet, while more countries use the US Dollar (un)officially than any other currency, so I don't see why its outrageous to ask that the price be displayed in those two currencies. Everyone in Europe has a better idea of what the Pound is than People outside of Europe have an idea of what the Euro is. I would be happy with either the Pound Sterling or the US Dollar. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 03:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if some really smart person can create a currency converter template that can give three or four outputs? Any takers? --Elliskev 01:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should have any conversion at all. As far as I know, the car is only going to be sold in India initially, and will most likely only be that price in India, so why do we need to have a currency conversion? In regular articles, only the actual amount in the original currency is given, and no equivilents. Yes, the USD is apparently most used currency worldwide, but that doesn't mean people outside America neccessarily know what its value is. Soxred93 said a few comments above that not having a USD equivilent will be confusing for Americans - which is silly because you could also say that not have a GBP equivilent will be confusing for the British. 203.208.109.169 (talk) 12:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Except for the fact that there's four or five times as many Americans as there are Brits. Nonetheless, I think we can all agree that the rupee is not a common currency for the majority of English wiki users, so we should either put both USD and GBP or one of the two. Personally I don't think it matters which we use because at the moment conversion between the two is very easy. 2 USD = 1 GBP so using one makes the coversion to the other rather easy. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 16:09, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of the size of the U.S. and the state of its currency, the American dollar tends to be the most commonly used currency in international media. That may change someday, but at the moment, it's the currency whose value is best known around the world. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Ireland is an English-speaking country that has the Euro as its currency. And I think it's unwise to write off the Euro as being irrelevant: from what I learnt in my studies, the Euro is emerging as the world's second most-quoted currency in international foreign exchange (probably replacing the GBP at the same time). - Mark 14:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Death criteria and ITN

Cases like the Hillary case, as well as others such as Pavarotti, Friedman, Vonnegun, Brown, Ford et al recently have highlight the controversy of the ITN death criteria. So far, we have this proposal to reform the death criteria: Nil Einne (talk) 11:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The person had made pivotal contributions in his field of expertise or work and/or was in it a pioneer, and had profound influence on the culture and/or society of his time in his lifetime, it being very probable that that influence shall not at all wane after his passing? --Ouro (blah blah) 09:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

What do people think? While I'm not opposed, IMHO having read through some of the current arguments and the old arguments (I would strongly recommend contributors read through Template talk:In the news/Archive 11#Gerald Ford? and the section after that (which is a previous proposal I wasn't aware of), I don't really think this proposal has will gain consensus. I think if we really want to reform the death criteria, we need to overhaul ITN probably something like as proposed in Template talk:In the news/Archive 11#Proposal: restructure the section (User:Monotonehell) Nil Einne (talk) 11:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I will read through what you listed when I get the chance, right now I want to work a bit. Open to discussion on this proposal, it's just a suggestion to brainstorm over. However, I think it is important. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 11:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The sports criteria needs made over too, but that is a different day. So if Gerald Ford would be included under that new proposal, what about other former leaders? Former UK Prime Ministers? What about former leaders of countries where English is not the majority language? ---CWY2190^TC 15:29, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think that there is anything wrong with having the occasional sports story on ITN. If it pleases government/politics wonks that we make elections sacred, then I don't think there is anything controversial about having the occasional sports story ITN. Grant.alpaugh (talk) 16:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm for more sports stories on ITN. I just think we need a set in stone list because I get sick of every time a US sporting event gets suggested, the "US bias" card gets played. The fact that some think the FA Cup should make it but the Super Bowl shouldn't is...well, disturbing. ---CWY2190^TC 22:47, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The fact that Hillary has been added illustrates a key issue that has come up as of late. Hillary did not meet any of the key existing criteria for deaths, but the criteria were either changed or Ignore All Rules was invoked in order to include him. This was of course because of the extraordinary importance of Hillary to New Zealanders and his contributions to the exploration of the earth. This can quite easily be compared to the issue of whether to include the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary results. The existing criteria stated that an item of sufficient international interest and import can be on ITN, but the decision was made that the rules on elections were hard and fast, and only the results of a national election can be included. Despite the arguments of many that this was of clear international coverage around the world and of significant international importance given the first African-American to win a primary in the United States, this item was left off ITN because again the rules were hard and fast. I understand that each candidate on ITN is treated independently, but given how close these examples came and how incredibly different they are in real international importance, I think that this is an interesting showcase of the need for a revamp of ITN. I don't think there's anything wrong with both of these items being included, but for a set of criteria to exist where the Hillary is included and Iowa and New Hampshire are not is absolutely shocking. Might I suggest that if Hillary wasn't from the Commonwealth, but instead a US citizen, his inclusion would be laughed off, rather than championed? Grant.alpaugh (talk) 17:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for it, but we should kind of put a limit on, for exsmple, which former presidents and prime ministers can make it on. The way it looks now givs me the impression that every single former-head-of-state will make it on. I think it should be something like what someone said in a coversation above; they need to have a article about their death and funeral, like Ronald Reagan and Pierre Trudeau have. --Plasma Twa 2 (talk) 19:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that is, by the time the funeral and so forth has rolled around, it'll really be old news, I'd think. Honestly, I'm not sure just doing any former head of state is a bad idea. Humm...have to give that more thought.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

How much weight should comments by government leaders and other prominent public figures have? For instance, here the PM of NZ is quoted as saying Hillary was "probably the best-known ever New Zealander". Orpheus (talk) 10:13, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

My view is that the primary criteria should be whether the article has been extensively updated, and that this should be able to over-ride normally disqualifying criteria. Eg. the recent stubs about an election result were embarassing. Even though they qualified, a "death" ITN (for instance) should have received priority if it had been updated. Also, new additions should be different in type from existing entries, or replace existing entries if one already exists. eg. Remove an old election entry if putting a new election entry up, remove a death entry if putting a new death entry up, and so on. The primary reason for restricting some types of entries is because there are lots of them and they overwhelm ITN if they are all allowed. A set of "topic queues" within ITN would address this problem. Carcharoth (talk) 17:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Changed wording of KMT victory

Whether KMT goes over or nearly 3/4 depends on whether or not you include NPSU as part of the pan-blue coalition or not.

Roadrunner (talk) 00:04, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

but the wording "and its coalition allies" implies this, unless you want to argue to 4 NPSU and 1 independent arent pan-Blue....--Jiang (talk) 00:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Mark D. Siljander

Is it just me who doesn't see the international interest for this story to be on ITN? It's not like this happened when he was a congressman, which might have made it bigger news. Also, it is considered acceptable for admins to unilaterally add stories to ITN without discussion? I know Wikipedia isn't a democracy, but it might be courteous to see if there is a consensus, especially on something that isn't completely obviously ITN material. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I had no idea about it until I came here. It is a top 5 story (maybe?) in the US. Probably not much international interest on this one. Maybe Raul has an opinion why it should stay? ---CWY2190^TC 21:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not mentioned on BBC News' Americas section, and I wouldn't say that it warrants inclusion. violet/riga (t) 21:37, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. ITN didn't even note when a sitting Congressman was indicted. [3]. The indictment of an ex-Congressman seems less notable still. Coemgenus 22:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not notable international news. It's not even the top story in the U.S. right now. What Raul thinks is irrelevant. ~ UBeR (talk) 23:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Concur, removed. --Stephen 23:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

MY Steve Irwin

This article seems entirely irrelevant from a global perspective. Detainees are taken every day. Was there something notable about these particular people? If so, what? Are there any major news sources reporting this in the U.S. or Europe? If someone can't satisfy notability / relevance shortly, I'll be removing the entry. Far bigger events have gone without an entry in ITN. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree completely and support reverting this edit specifically. - auburnpilot talk 03:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

CNN, which I would consider a major news source in the U.S., reported on it,[4] as did the BBC (which considered it a top Asia-Pacific story)[5] and AFP.[6] ~ UBeR (talk) 03:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Australian Antartic waters, US organisation, Australian and British detainees, Japanese whalers. Seemed to have international interest. I'm not fussed if it's removed but ITN is a little stale lately. But I don't agree with reverting the specific edit that would put Siljander back. --Stephen 05:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I've left it in simply because ITN would be too short without it. Shame there isn't more actual news, we really seem to be reaching lately... --MZMcBride (talk) 06:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Al Jazeera also consider it the top Asia-Pacific story (permanent link). Xia Hua seem to consider it the top world news story (permanent link. On the other hand neither Spiegel nor DW World mention it on their world/main pages at all (neither have Asia Pacific sections). Nil Einne (talk) 08:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

On CNN, it has a total of 10 seconds of airtime, at least on the broadcast I saw. On BBC, it's either they didn't broadcast or I didn't catch it. I didn't even bother to check FNC since either they'll ignore this or they'll broadcast it on their top-of-the-hour bulletin (I watched TV in the U.S.'s overnight hours). --Howard the Duck 13:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Causing no fatalities

Append the words "causing no fatalities" to the end of the sentence describing the British Airways plane crashes. Most plane crashes are severe tragedies; this one is relatively minor. The notability question is an issue for another day, but since "plane crash" carries with it a connotation of a large number of deaths, it is important to point out that this caused no death. - Chardish (talk) 06:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. - Mark 07:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks for your attention : ) - Chardish (talk) 07:16, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Bobby Fischer

Just an issue about famous deaths and the news - what makes some people more notable? I'm just coming from understanding, but being disappointed about Sir Ed Hillary's non-inclusion. Now i'm sure Bobby Fischer was famous in his own right ... but was he a hero to millions? Was his death really that 'unexpected'? No offence to Mr. Fischer's memory but I feel slightly offended... as i'm sure the opera world were with Pavarotti's non-inclusion. My only solace is in the fact that Sir Ed wouldn't have given a toss about memorialism - he just did things with bugger to consequence. I feel the news section needs some work. Boomshanka (talk) 09:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I second that. The suggestion that the death itself must have some impact and article development sounds pretty good about now. And shame on whoever added this. I think we should replace it with Bush's speech about how the economy is tanking and socialism is the answer. (But not in those words.) Potatoswatter (talk) 09:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

For the record, from memory, Pavarotti was on ITN. Not sure for how long though. I missed the Hilary debate, but surely someone put him on briefly? Personally, I would be happier if there was more throughput on ITN. DYK is updated several times a day - if the criteria for ITN were relaxed (ie. only the most important one left in - that the article had been substantially updated recently), and more people made suggestions, then we could cycle through them quicker, and even the controversial ones would be off the template before the debate had even got going. Carcharoth (talk) 10:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Very much agreed. Articles that remain in the news would have further developments as days go by and thus can be readded if it had disappeared. violet/riga (t) 14:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree too. It's often weirdly stale. Haukur (talk) 18:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Sir Ed? Doesn't that familiarity (used by New Zealanders I think) reveal a bias? As for dear old Bobby (I'm being sarcastic there), see what I wrote here. I have no opinion on Lucca. Carcharoth (talk) 17:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

---

Responding to the comment (re-adding Bobby FIscher. "the deceased was a key figure in their field of expertise, and died unexpectedly "), his death has been imminent for three months according to his article (due to a longer-term illness), and although he was an expert in chess, he was no more "key to the field" than a top athlete is to a sport. He didn't revolutionize competitive chess for everyone else, he was just good at it himself. The fact that it went on as before after he was banned proves he was not key. Potatoswatter (talk) 17:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

---

And in response to the above comment that states: he was no more "key to the field" than a top athlete is to a sport. He didn't revolutionize competitive chess for everyone else, he was just good at it himself. The fact that it went on as before after he was banned proves he was not key. I have this to say:

Fischer revolutionized chess, and single-handedly make chess a fad in the U.S. in the 1970s. He was at the time of his World Championship a Cold War hero in the U.S. That he was banned does not disqualify him from being KEY. Pete Rose is banned from baseball, but is a key figure. The Bible was banned in the Soviet Union, but is a key text.

As for his death being unexpected, I (a chess fan) did not know he was about to die. His death was "news to me." Kingturtle (talk) 18:17, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Please don't shame me for making an edit in good faith. Kingturtle (talk) 18:17, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

It was unexpected news even to fairly close friends of his, judging from media coverage here in Iceland. Haukur (talk) 18:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Fischer's death plainly merits inclusion, even by our own insufficient guidelines (which anyway are guidelines and not rules: if that difference is to mean anything, then we must violate the guidelines now and again). — Dan | talk 22:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

When I saw your original edit, Kingturtle, it struck me as a borderline addition likely to generate disagreement. I was unsure of whether the entry should stay or go, so I left it in place. It was obvious that you were a chess fan (and not a regular ITN editor, given the fact that you were "not sure how to protect Image:Bobby Fischer - March, 2005 (7347390).jpg" and labeled the edit "minor"), but I never doubted that you were acting in good faith (and I don't see anyone else doing that, let alone trying to "shame" you). Such disputes arise fairly often, and they typically stem from honest disagreements/misunderstandings.

My advice to you (if you wish to avoid this sort of conflict in the future) is to go through the normal channel (and I see that there's quite a lengthy discussion there now), especially when the item's subject is something of particular interest to you (rendering it more difficult for you to maintain impartiality). And if an entry is removed following discussion, unilaterally restoring it probably isn't the best idea (though I'm sure that you were acting in good faith).

On a related note, we really need to clarify and/or modify the ITN inclusion criteria to prevent this sort of situation from arising. In this instance, the current wording can reasonably be interpreted either way. —David Levy 22:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we should only add articles related to deaths when the article has been substantially updated due to the death of the person. In the case of Fischer there was only a short paragraph about his death, so I don't see why we should add it to ITN. I comes down to the problematic naming of this template. The real name should be something like "Articles in the news that have been significantly updated due to current events" rather than "In the news".... JACOPLANE • 2008-01-20 01:46

Everything's relative. I've seen entries added when the subjects' articles literally contained a single sentence mentioning their deaths. We really should draft criteria of greater specificity. —David Levy 02:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

In fact, the death of Heath Ledger was just added with only a single sentence about it in the article. —David Levy 22:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, that article has been quite dynamic recently. When I first went to that article, for example, I saw that the death wasn't even noted in the intro or the infobox (as if he was still alive). I was about to remove the item and make a similar comment, but then realized the article was just undergoing frequent editing. -- tariqabjotu 23:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

David, thanks for explaining your thinking. I appreciate it.

The opposition to including Fischer that I read was based less on Fischer personally and more on a disappointment that Sir Ed Hillary was not included in an earlier news story.

The questions posed in opposition to Fischer were "was he a hero to millions?" and "was his death really that unexpected?" Yes, he had been a hero to millions and yes his death was unexpected. When his story was removed from ITN, the summary said "removing bobby fischer, he died of natural causes, so his death does not meet the ITN criteria." So I re-read the ITN criteria more closely, to double check myself, and I found my position supported by "the deceased was a key figure in their field of expertise, and died unexpectedly," which is what I put in my summary when I re-added the Fischer story.

Lastly, my comment about shame was a response to Potatoswatter who said "shame on whoever added this." Kingturtle (talk) 06:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Marking the edit minor was a typo. :) Kingturtle (talk) 06:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the biggest opposition to the addition had nothing to do with Edmund Hillary but all to do with the fact that this wasn't an unexpected death. The criteria is perhaps a bit confusing but this isn't what is meant by an unexpected death. Sure some people were surprised (but then that's true for all deaths including Edmund Hillary) but when a 64? year old man who had been sick for a while dies that's not an unexpected death, even more so when the sickness has been reported (albeit not widely and in not much detail). If the death wasn't unexpected, then the only reason we should include it is because it's Bobby Fischer so let's just ignore the criteria (which some people have suggested). It's here where other people come into it. No we shouldn't include the death for the same reason we didn't include Edmund Hillary, Luciano Pavarotti, Milton Friedmen et al. N.B. I'm sure it says somewhere if you accidentally mark an edit minor you should make a dummy edit to clarify. Also, I agree with David Levy here. You should almost definitely never, no matter how sure you are of yourself and especially when there is an extensive discussion ongoing revert someone who removed your edit ITN on anywhere else of the main page. That's a wheel war, and a wheel war between two people is the worst kind of wheel war particular when it's over something that's hardly urgen (things on ITN tend to last a long while and a few hours or even a days difference doesn't matter much). Nil Einne (talk) 03:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's what makes people like Heath Ledger more notable: if you turn on the news and they're talking about a person's death, and they keep talking about it for days... that's notable. I haven't heard anything on Fischer outside of Google Groups obits and Wikipedia, but Ledger's death has been all over the place. It's the same with people like Steve Irwin, Anna Nicole Smith or Ronald Reagan. If you didn't mention their deaths in the news section on the Main Page, people would think this site was totally out of it. If you're not going to report the news, then you shouldn't have a news section. --From Andoria with Love (talk) 21:42, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

That is not an example of notability, thats an example of the medias and the publics obsession with hollywood and entertainment celeberties. I find it hard to imagine anyone can come up with a plausable suggestion that Ledger is more notable then Fischer. Sure hollywood names are often more well known, even lesser actors then people in other fields, but that is a measure of celeberty, not notability. If your going to compare Fischer to an actor, then the likes of Bogart and Brando come to mind. Russeasby (talk) 21:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, having thought about it, since "recent deaths" is linked in the news template, perhaps it would be best not to mention any deaths at all, short of, say, world leaders (i.e. presidents, queens, etc.). Basically any deaths that would have a major impact on a country's culture, society or politics, like an assassination or something. All other deaths, however, can be found in the recent deaths page. --From Andoria with Love (talk) 17:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Serbian presidential election

The Serbian presidential election first round appears to have been placed on ITN without discussion. It appears that the first round was rather perfunctory, with everyone knowing who was going to make the second round. Shouldn't we wait until the second round to have the election on ITN? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

It's obvious the two would go, but all the votes haven't even been counted yet in detail, and there is no final result.

I don't understand why do election results appear here seconds after the actual election? This is not Wikinews. We have got to wait for the final results every time. At least that's my proposal. What do others bid? --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 10:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

It's still up there. The article was never listed on Candidates, so there's no place for discussion. Is there another page at which I can try to have the matter discussed? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

No here is the best place to have a discussion Nil Einne (talk) 01:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

how about a new picture?

That plane crash image has been there for a while. How about adding the incredible image of MESSENGER's first image of the side of Mercury which was never seen by Mariner 10? Kingturtle (talk) 15:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That image was already there, before the plane crash picture. Indeed a far better picture (and one of the coolest on ITN in a very long time). But not sure there is much precedent to go back to a picture that was already shown. You wont hear me complain though if its changed back! Russeasby (talk) 16:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That airplane image has been there for over four days. Can we put Image:Coat of arms of Serbia.svg or Image:Robert Hunter 01 Pengo.jpg? Kingturtle (talk) 16:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Your a bureaucrat, why are you asking us? Just be bold and change it! Russeasby (talk) 16:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

We generally don't like to put up images from older ITN items, even if the ITN image has been up for a while (although 4 days isn't really that long) so I wouldn't have recommened Robert Hunter. Coat of arms may have been okay, traditionally some people have objected to the use of such symbolic images since they consider them meaningless or not particularly illustrative but these objections seem to have disappeared in recent times. My suggestion would have been to try a combined (side by side) image of Boris and Toma. Perhaps it wouldn't have worked at 100 pixels but perhaps it would have been okay Nil Einne (talk) 14:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Because the last time I was bold here I was admonished for it. So I am choosing not to be bold. Kingturtle (talk) 16:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Heath Ledger

Just curious... why isn't the death of Heath Ledger in the top news, since that has basically been the top news item for the last two days? --From Andoria with Love (talk) 20:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• That's more like it. Thanks. :) --From Andoria with Love (talk) 20:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Time to get rid of the stock market crash story

The stock market has been going up for the last 2 days, yet we still have an article on the main page saying that "stock markets fall". That was right on Monday (but please use the past tense fell) though it should be noted that the US markets (the largest in the world) were closed. So for the DJIA -1.1% on Tuesday (not really all that large). up 2.5% on Wednesday, up 0.5% so far today. That's higher than last Thursday ==> no crash story needed.

In general I'd suggest that stock market stories shouldn't be put in the news here - markets move too fast.

Smallbones (talk) 20:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki admins please stop linking current event news to newly created pages. This has happened twice in the last two days (stock and OMFG GAZA CRISIS 2008!!!!) with both pages having questionable notabiliy on their own. Link the event to a subsection of an approprate existing page. Linking to a new article just creates a bad article of dubious nature that is almost impossible to get rid of. If something becomes notable on its own and large enough, we'll spawn a new page. --mitrebox (talk) 00:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It annoys me to no end when people blame irrelevant problems on administrators. We're not the only ones who can edit around here; just about anyone can create an article, like 2008 Gaza crisis, or merge a page into another article if a new article is not needed. So, how about you actually do something about what you see is an issue instead of coming here and complaining to people who have nothing to do with the articles you talk about. -- tariqabjotu 17:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It is part of the subprime mortgage crisis, which is a fountain of legitimate news, but you're pretty right. Potatoswatter (talk) 05:04, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Reading through here I noticed some discussion on ITN "criteria." Are they listed formally anywhere? I'd like to make sure that nothing like that crash story ever happens again on ITN. It was a disaster - not the market, the story! Lots of bouncing UP and down in the market, but the market ends the week higher, lots of selective sourcing in the article (stressing the downs), along with words like "crash" (and a crash template) "panic" "Black Monday." In short the article in substance (if not always in form) was investment advice, and the advice was spectacularly wrong. ITN had the story featured for a full week, and 55,000 readers saw the article. This does matter - if just 2% of the readers traded on this advice, and lost just $1,000 each, that's over $1,000,000. Why would we want to do this to our readers?Smallbones (talk) 15:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a criteria page, linked from the template at the top of ITN-related pages. It leads to Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page. -- tariqabjotu 17:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok that is a pretty formal page, clicking on the "discussion" tab puts me right back here. Is this the proper place to discuss changing the criteria, in order to prevent ITN from putting panic style financial news on the main page again? I did edit the article in question and would have argued for deletion, except a) that takes too much time, and b)there would be a circular arguement "if it's in ITN, it must be notable." So is there a serious place to discuss this?Smallbones (talk) 22:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Before anyone changes it back...

...the Societe Generale entry was changed due to (my) libel concerns. Here's what I wrote on the errors section on Talk:Main Page:

The wording of the Jerome Kerviel entry is extremely problematic.

We say he "is alleged to be responsible for the loss of €4.9 billion as a result of fraudulent trading." This is dangerous on libel grounds. Under American libel law, you have no protection if you simply say someone "is alleged" to have done something. If you attribute the allegation to an official source, like the police or a court, you're OK.

Secondly, the sentence is simply bad journalism (and ITN is written like news briefs). You've got to tell readers who's doing the alleging; otherwise, you're only telling half the story

I'm going to post a note about Kerviel and libel danger on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Hopefully, that will become a central discussion point for the issue of what to write about Kerviel on the various pages. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it better to say he admitted to it? Potatoswatter (talk) 05:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

We don't know he admitted to it because he hasn't shown his face. Come daytime in France, the police are likely to charge him, and then we can say that. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It is entirely accurate, though, to say that he is accused, ITTRW, by SG of causing the loss. While it is true that American caselaw does permit actions to be brought for what we might generally term "contributory libel" (in part, for repeating allegations made by another), there are only certain fact sets under which such actions may be advanced, and repeating allegations made to, inter al., law enforcement authorities is not, where those allegations are sworn, even if only by what we might generally term "citizen-informants" (that is, people who report crimes they believe to have been committed to police under such circumstances as they might be charged criminally were they to lie), as against by individual law enforcement officers, or, by and through district attorneys, grand juries, or courts, the state, and have become public records, is generally not actionable. BLP, further, would not act to constrain our identifying Kerviel here, and any concerns about the legal liability of the Foundation or individual contributors are probably properly addressed to Mike Godwin; objections to the present incarnation of BLP (as being insufficiently strict, from a legal perspective, in situations such as this) may, though, it is true, be appropriate for VPP. 69.142.58.232 (talk) 07:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I should have read the VPP discussion before writing here; the discussion there already focuses on certain of the issues I raise, so all of what I wrote may safely be disregarded. 69.142.58.232 (talk) 07:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

AO

Novak Đoković wins his first and Serbia's first Grand Slam title in Melbourne on Australian Open. --Avala (talk) 16:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

You can propose new ITN entries over at WP:ITN/C. Aecis^Brievenbus 16:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Important?

"Denmark wins the 2008 European Men's Handball Championship, beating Croatia 24 - 20." - is that really important? I'd say it should be removed. - Simeon87 (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Without a doubt. A continental championship for a relatively minor sport (yes, I know it is an Olympic sport) should not be added. The UEFA CL should be the only continental championship added. ---CWY2190^TC 17:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The H-Cup is also mentioned annually. --Howard the Duck 06:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Just about the least noteworthy ITN I can remember seeing. Is this a major sport in any country? Even the winning nations? QmunkE (talk) 18:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Especially since Suharto died. That seems like a big news story. I know that he's no Heath Ledger but the guy was pretty important. --JGGardiner (talk) 18:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems that Heath Ledger and Euro Handball are more important than Suharto and Australian Open. --Avala (talk) 19:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Someone with the ability to do it should remove this news item... - Simeon87 (talk) 19:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the others, this is a continental tournament in a relatively minor sport, certainly not fit for ITN. I seem to recall that this was proposed and rejected last year as well. Aecis^Brievenbus 20:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm European, and I didn't even know there was a Handball championship (let alone care). Get rid of it. --Joowwww (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It has become clear from the discussions here and over at WP:ITN/C that there is no consensus to include this. I have therefore taken the liberty to remove this item from ITN. Aecis^Brievenbus 23:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, you seem to know surprisingly little about sports in Continental Europe. In the Nordic countries and parts of Central and Eastern Europe handball actually is a major sport. The story is also important enough to be mentioned on both the German and Danish main pages. You really shouldn't call it a minor European sport. --Thrane (talk) 16:02, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

In the Netherlands, speed skating is massive, but in the grand scheme of things it is a tiny sport, so we don't include it on ITN. Pesäpallo is very big in Finland, floorball is big in Sweden, etcetera. That's irrelevant. All in all, handball just doesn't cut it. Aecis^Brievenbus 00:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Why is the EUR symbol Wikilinked?

Seems a tad pointless and perhaps even patronising to me. Martinp23 17:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Because people outside of Europe might not know what a "€" is. ---CWY2190^TC 17:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Some people outside of America might not know what the "$" is, or at least which sort of dollar it refers to. No "oh-in-case-you're-stupid-here's-a-wikilink" is provided there. Martinp23 18:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It should always be listed as "US$1500". If not, then it should be corrected. ---CWY2190^TC 18:05, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Vraiment? OK, makes sense then, however I do think it appear slightly strange to have just one character linked. Perhaps "€45435 [[euro|EUR]])" would be better? Martinp23 18:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia should always try to help the broadest possible audience at the risk of appearing patronizing to the worldly. Hopefully, the people in the second group will realize things like the wikilinking of the euro symbol (which most Americans have never seen) for what it is and not as an insult to their intelligence. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Australian Open link

Link should be provided to 2008 Australian Open rather than the year 2008 and the Australian Open tournament. Also, could someone rate this article? Yohan euan o4 (talk) 18:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

"2008" links to 2008 Australian Open. ---CWY2190^TC 18:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Suharto

I think the blurb should note the length of his presidency, which is why he's ITN material:

Suharto, president of Indonesia from 1967 to 1988, dies at the age of 86.

Mwalcoff (talk) 00:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you mean 1998 Nil Einne (talk) 08:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a clear typo. Anyway, it should be changed -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)