Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 73

Recent Death section and disambiguation

Going to the main page today, I was surprised to see Bobby Brown in the death list. I was thinking that Bobby Brown, the rapper, had died, which is probably not an uncommon reaction, given that article has the primary (un-disambiguated) article title.

I realize space is limited, but especially in cases like this where the decedent is less well-known than others with the same name, shouldn't we make an attempt to disambiguate, like maybe Bobby Brown^{(b. 1923)}? (Apologies if I missed a discussion about this in my preliminary search.) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 12:43, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Something like this has been discussed but I think only in the context of non-humans who were creating obvious confusion. I don't think this is necessary for human names however. Bobby Brown^{(b. 1923)} and Bobby Brown (footballer, born 1923) are both not the name of the person, only Bobby Brown is. In article titles, we are using the qualifiers only because of technical constraint, that constraint does not exist when we are making a list like that of RD listing. I am open to accept the change though, if people believe it's worth implementing. – Ammarpad (talk) 17:10, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I can see an IAR where we have a name of an RD that can be easily confused with a highly recognized person who is still alive, that adding a brief disambiguation statement in the RD line makes sense. By "highly", I would mean an A-list celebrity, athlete, or politician that is or approaches the concept of a household name. If the still-living person is someone otherwise obscure, this is not needed. --Masem (t) 17:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

This will only create more argument and endless debate. This situation occurs more often than we are being led to believe here. I also had this initial shock, but a minor move of my index finger was enough to tell me otherwise. Let's not make the mistake of thinking we are fixing a problem and give ourselves a much bigger problem. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 19:40, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I had brought this up on Main Page talk. Sorry, but the 21st-cent. rapper Bobby Brown is the only one many readers know—more so after his life with an internationally popular singer. The announcement of his death will shock many. I don't see how space is at such a premium: here, it requires a few characters (footballer, b. 1923) and could appear in <sm> type. As for such a disambig-plus-birthdate "not being the name of the person, only Bobby Brown is," the title of the footballer's WP biography has all that and it's not the name of the person either. Mason.Jones (talk) 20:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

It has. I already said that. But that's due to a technical necessity; there's no such necessity when listing the name on mainpage. – Ammarpad (talk) 21:36, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Mason.Jones, there is also the question of where do we draw the line? Is Andy Cohen famous enough that if Andy Cohen (architect) dies, we should do this? Some would think so and some would not. This is an unworkable proposal. For whom do we make exceptions and for whom we do not? --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 20:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• All the recent deaths should provide more context because a list of names is not informative. Most of them are unfamiliar and it's unreasonable to expect readers to click through to find out who they are. For example, from the current list, Liang Jun tells me nothing but Liang Jun (tractor driver) would be quite interesting. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:37, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

  FWIW, there were 25,000 viewers on the first full day of its posting, as opposed to the daily average of a few thousand in the 4 days after his death and before posting.—Bagumba (talk) 08:33, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

AlanM1, I had the same reaction, wondering if the rapper had died. Clicking the link, I saw it was a different Bobby Brown. Unfortunately, I think the status quo is our best option, as space is indeed limited. Maybe this will get people with common names more page views that they'd otherwise get. That's not a bad thing. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:43, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

By the way, it's not always necessary to click. Simply pointing to the link produces a disambiguating pop-up and this is what WP:POPUPS is designed for. Brandmeister^talk 22:02, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Brandmeister, I forget what is default and what is something I specifically opted into. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:41, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Firefox and Opera display a mouseover disambig by default, per article's title (when logged in and an expanded pop-up for IPs and logged-out users). This should help when readers point-click the link to check which Bobby Brown or John Smith died. Don't know about mobile version though. Brandmeister^talk 22:53, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm a Chrome user. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:11, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I see a popup on Chrome desktop when not logged in.—Bagumba (talk) 08:37, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• I don't think we need to change anything. The point of the links is to take readers to our articles, so it's no bad thing if they have to click through to find out who it is. And disambiguators are there for page titling reasons, they are not intended for use in links.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:22, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I have no idea who any of the Booby Browns listed here are (and none of them are whatever a wrapper is) so instead of trying to accommodate on individuals confusion, and interested party can simply click the link and within the first sentence or two know who has passed and decide if they care or not. Neat! --LaserLegs (talk) 00:43, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
• Has this become a straw poll? Add disambiguation then. I'm not sure it speaks well of the opposers to proudly brag I am not inclined to give much credence to LaserLeg's comment about not knowing what a "wrapper" is (see Wikipedia:Systemic bias), but such sentiment badly underestimates Bobby Brown the musicians's notability. Recent pageviews for the musician are in the range of 5k-10k daily pageviews, with occasional spikes to 20k+. Pageviews for the footballer, before he died, were in the range of 5-25. That is a difference of 1,000 times more pageviews, or 3 orders of magnitude. While I agree that in 98% of standard cases, disambiguation shouldn't be added to an RD link, there's really no choice in this particular case; it's the 2% exception. The "bad thing" is, in reference to Muboshgu's comment, that people who don't click the link will mistakenly assume that the famous Bobby Brown is dead, and distributing misleading information is against Wikipedia's ethos. We should either add disambiguation, or remove this RD link entirely. SnowFire (talk) 05:53, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

  As a black person, who actively works to fight systemic bias and for more representation of people of color,[1][2][3] I do not appreciate my opposition to this proposal being lumped together along with ignorant comment above. Only a single editor made such a comment. The rest respectfully opposed for good reason.

  This is an unworkable proposal. If you want to add descriptors to all RDs, then we can talk. However, making an exception in this case is not a solution. It creates a much bigger problem from which we may never rid ourselves. It is best to nip this idea in the bud. We simply cannot make exception for some WP:PRIMARYTOPICs and ignore other PRIMARYTOPICs. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:19, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

  Apologies, edited to be more specific. I still stand by this specific kind of case being a valid exception to the rule, though. I don't think it'll be a problem to say "we don't use disambiguators for RD unless there's a primary topic 1000x times as well known as the RD." It'll come up once a year at best. SnowFire (talk) 12:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• I think I have suggested before that we could expand this section and provide a little more context for each entry, something similar to Spanish Wikipedia. Compare es:Plantilla:Portada:Actualidad. This would solve the problem — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:50, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose all suggestions so far. Not enough space for disambiguation, bound to be argument over what two-word phrase is used to describe each individual, placing data in small or superscript text doesn't sit well with accessibility. Nothing here works and I don't have a suggestion for what does at this time. P.S. Never a good idea to hold other Wikipedias up as exemplars for what to do, those Spanish RDs are pretty much all BLP violations, none of which should be posted anywhere near a main page under any circumstances. Even if we just looked to follow their "design", we'd need a drastic reworking of the main page here to accommodate such a uplift in text requirements. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 10:57, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
• I say we maintain status quo. There is not a major issue as such (especially with the default popups). The reason we should keep it as-is is to not exacerbate the endless debate with who requires a disambiguation and who does not. The most simple option would be to always use the article name but as people stated above, we have limited space, making status quo the best option. --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:31, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

  We only have "limited space" because we force it upon ourselves. Why do we force the Main Page into a limited space when we don't do that for other pages? Why do we impose a two column layout that requires us to balance sections in one column against the others? Abolish the two column layout, let the sections reach the sizes they need to fulfill their purpose, and use full article titles for RD notifications. Problem solved. --Khajidha (talk) 12:25, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• -angrily shakes a stick- Dadgummit, why fix what ain't broken?--WaltCip (talk) 13:11, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) ITN Ongoing removal nominations by LaserLegs

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Moved from Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § Ongoing removal Citizenship Amendment Act protests

Comment At the risk of this becoming an ad hominem argument... @LaserLegs: Please explain your continuous effort to remove items from the Ongoing tab on ITN. This seems like something you have made a pet project for a while now, and most of the time, consensus is fiercely against you, as it is here.--WaltCip (talk) 15:00, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@WaltCip: we can discuss this at WT:ITN, at my talk page, or at WP:ANI if you think I'm not behaving appropriately -- I don't think this is the right venu.— Preceding unsigned comment added by LaserLegs (talk • contribs)

• The question posed by WaltCip is very valid and I would like a detailed answer. Please answer the question above instead of skirting it. In addition I would like to understand how you judged that an article that received more than 43 KBs of updates in past week (diff) as "No update". This is very concerning. I believe that this is something that has been going on for long and needs to be addressed by you. If there are WP:CIR issues here, then probably some formal/informal sanctions might be necessary. --DBigXrayᗙ 15:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• LaserLegs edits only ITN related pages, which is fine, we're all volunteers etc, but lately they have been on something of a quest to remove "Ongoing" items [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]. LaserLegs interprets "updated with new pertinent information" very strictly and it's hardly surprising that they receive pushback from other editors who feel the articles are being updated sufficiently. Perhaps LaserLegs you could slow down a bit with the nominations? It's fine if an event is quite clearly stale, but I don't think that's the case with most of your noms.-- P-K3 (talk) 15:33, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

P-K3 can you also be kind enough to append the result of the nominations whose diff you posted here. It will be useful for the discussion here. --DBigXrayᗙ 15:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I may have missed some nominations, but of the five I quoted above: Citizenship Amendment Act protests (first attempt) - still being discussed. Bush fires: Removed. While not unanimous, consensus is that the article has not received constant updates, which is needed to keep the article in Ongoing. Arguments reporting that the subject is still in other news sources were considered, and if the article is updated with new information, should be renominated for ongoing. Citizenship Amendment Act Protests (first attempt): Closed without action per consensus. Clearly events are still happening from a quick news check, and a lack of update in only 2 days is far too insufficient to claim "lack of updates". Hong Kong protests - Removed. Maltese protests - Removed at the second attempt. So it's not the case that consensus is always against, but the number of nominations does seem excessive to me.-- P-K3 (talk) 16:14, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@WaltCip: @Pawnkingthree: There is no automatic removal for an ongoing item. Every few days, I look at the OG items, and read the updates. I'm looking for pertinence to the subject (in particular to the rationale for posting in the first place), looking at the quality (proseline vs paragraphs), and the overall quality of the article. These things tend to sit in the box for months, growing and growing with factoids not summarizing the events -- the longer it sits in the box generally the worse it gets. I brought up WP:V vs WP:NOR once at VPP in an effort to get some clarity around the appropriateness of these kinds of articles. I don't count diffs because they're often ref fixes, content tweaks, minor expansions, etc -- the requirement is "regularly updated" not "regularly edited". I actually read the article text and consider it against WP:ITN#Ongoing_section which is especially tough when articles aren't broken down chronologically. Ultimately my goal is to see if keeping the article in the box is doing a service to our readers: is the article approachable, is it easy to find new information and how pertinent is that information. Generally I'll wait a week between nominations or longer of course if the updates are actually up to spec -- and I scrutinize articles with a finite end (like impeachments or sporting events) less because they won't fester forever. @Pawnkingthree: actually left out one of the tougher removals: the Venezuelan presidential crisis. It would go a week without an update, I'd nominate it as stale, someone would pile a bunch of text into the article and it'd survive for another week. A month with a handful of updates it was actually kind of sad and my motivations were challenged then as well. Understand that if someone reads the same article I do, evaluates it against WP:ITN#Ongoing_section and comes to a different conclusion, then that's ok -- it's how consensus works. That's the explanation of what I'm doing here, and why. You can take it or leave it. --LaserLegs (talk) 17:04, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It has been my experience that your removal nominations are just a few days too early. I do appreciate the fact that they should be removed but I only wish you had waited maybe 2 or 3 days after your first instinct to nominate for removal. I voted to keep the Bush fires and a few days later changed my vote to remove. I think those few days in between were important.

In a related subject, I also wish DBigXray would remove timelines completely from their writing style. It is a horrible writing style for an encyclopedia. I am tempted to vote to remove the CAA protests article for just that reason. Timelines grow exponentially offering little value. They progressively degrade an article to the point that it is unfixable and WP:TNT is the only option. WP:SUMMARY and PROSE must rule supreme if ITN is going to produce good quality articles. We are not here to keep our readers up to date on minor indiscriminate updates to a news story. Like in every thing we do, we are here to build a great encyclopedia. We should always strive to prune the garden and build towards an article that can be GA or FA sometime in the future. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs, This is not "My style". Moreover this is not related, but it is completely off topic, please raise it on the article talk page. DBigXrayᗙ 18:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I apologize if I was mistaken. I assumed since you have continued to add to it and you are the largest contributor to the article that it was your chosen style.--- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• A good portion of the noms succeed, and many that don't are torpedoed by bad faith arguments and pointy updates just to keep the article up. Anyone following LaserLegs editing history will see they have contributed positively to the project for years. If you would AGF, you'd probably guess that they were doing this because they saw a need for it. GreatCaesarsGhost 20:00, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Concur with GreatCaesarsGhost above. Because the status quo for Ongoing is to remain on the template indefinitely, I find what LaserLegs is doing to be helpful for healthy turnover of items and considering whether an item is meeting criteria to stay. There needs to be a better process in place to consider how long Ongoing items will remain on the template. Spencer^T•C 21:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• For everybody's reference, here is what the, WP:ITN Ongoing says, especially note the last line.

• In order to be posted to ongoing, the article needs to be regularly updated with new, pertinent information. Articles whose most recent update is older than the oldest blurb currently on ITN are usually not being updated frequently enough for ongoing status.

The second sentence gives people an idea of when to consider an ongoing as stale. Now consider the CAA Protest removal Part 1 nominated by LaserLegs. He claimed that the article was not updated for last 2 days, so it need to be removed. First, this claim was not true, as the article was getting regular updates, the community agreed and LL's nomination failed. Second, LL said, on the same nomination on 13 January "Last update (outside the proseline mess) is "On 11 January. The requirements for Ongoing are "continuously updated" but at this point the updates for the article are sporadic and inadequate. So clearly, LL agrees that the article was last updated just 2 back and yet he goes ahead and nominated it for ongoing removal. This is again problematic in my opinion.

• PK3 said, "LaserLegs interprets "updated with new pertinent information" very strictly and it's hardly surprising that they receive pushback from other editors who feel the articles are being updated sufficiently." Indeed I agree with PK3 and it is clear that it is not just the quality of updates LL seems to be disputing but also the time duration to wait before calling the update as stale. And it is clear that despite community clarifying this again and again by trashing his nominations, he is not changing his stance on when to nominate for ongoing removal.
• Perhaps LaserLegs you could slow down a bit with the nominations? It's fine if an event is quite clearly stale, but I don't think that's the case with most of your noms I think it is the assessment that it is problematic. He seems to be enforcing his own strict version of ITN ongoing criteria without getting a community consensus first.
• LL says above, Generally I'll wait a week between nominations or longer of course again, this is problematic. There is no ITN criteria of nominating an article every week for removal as you have been doing recently. the Criteria is written above and it should be followed.
• @LaserLegs I am yet to get a detailed response from you on this question. "I would like to understand how you judged that an article that received more than 43 KBs of updates in past week (diff) as "No update"?DBigXrayᗙ 22:28, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• I think LaserLeg's nominations can be quite silly (not to mention distorted) - e.g. DBigXray's objection above. However, people should be free to nominate what they want, and if the nomination really is silly then it'll just get snow closed quickly. Those who don't want to argue with him can just ignore him after voting. Banedon (talk) 00:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• LaserLegs' explanation is satisfactory to me. I never intended to accuse him of tendentious editing or being disruptive or anything like that; I merely just wanted to understand his thought process behind the continuous ongoing removal nominations.--WaltCip (talk) 01:18, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• (edit conflict)This is a case of good faith editing behavior helping more than it hurts, even if it can appear to toe the line of being constructive. I agree with Banedon, the ongoing articles aren't going to get removed without some consensus, so no harm done on the odd premature or misjudged one, and LL is getting dwindling or messy articles out of the box when it's not everyone's first thought. Kingsif (talk) 01:20, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• I don't alway agree with LaserLegs, but I agree what they're doing is in good faith, and I don't think this discussion is necessary. One can simply just oppose the nomination if they disagree with their argument. And that's all. – Ammarpad (talk) 03:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

If something is silly, it must be discouraged. There is a concern here that LaserLegs is enforcing his own unwritten version of criteria for removing ITN Ongoing that seems to be outrageously stricter than the community supported criteria noted in WP:ITN. Inappropriate nominations wastes community's time, that could have been used at other places. DBigXrayᗙ 07:38, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Nothing silly or distorted, just enthusiasm to maintain standards, a belief in themselves and real consideration for our readers. Perhaps we should look at people whose nominations consistently fail as well? Daft. I think this section is a little "silly", nothing is noteworthy here and if it is considered that real disruption is taking place, this is not the right venue. Suggest this discussion is now closed and effort is expended improving the encyclopedia. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 13:29, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

  The Rambling Man, ... maintain 'which' standards  ? The community supported or the one based on personal whims/bias ? DBigXrayᗙ 13:39, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

  It's obvious, to me at least, it's LaserLegs' interpretation of the standards. As proven very early in this thread, results of such noms have been varied, so I think it's time to respectfully move on. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 13:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• LaserLegs is doing nothing wrong, and I don't understand how in less than 24 hours, we already have a thread this long. They are not being disruptive in their nominations, and other than a brief (and already-dealt-with) dust up in one of their nominations yesterday, have always behaved perfectly cordially and respectfully in these discussion. I frequently (though not always) disagree with their nominations, and am quite willing to provide evidence and rationale either way whether I agree with them or not, but that's not a problem. Perhaps they have a different means of interpretation of our standards for an item to be posted to Ongoing; there is nothing wrong with that. Having different interpretations than other people is not a crime, and not something that even requires discussion, one does not need to be in lock-step agreement with everyone to be allowed to give their opinions here. I welcome viewpoints contrary to mine, so long as they are presented dispassionately, with evidence and rationale to support them, and LaserLegs has rarely had any problems with any of that. --Jayron32 13:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

LaserLegs always cordial and respectful? Is that not a bit over the top here? Yes, most of the time they are cordial, of course, but during some of the ongoing nominations or some regular nominations where consensus goes against them, they can get very unpleasant. Being right, or feeling in the right, does not give anyone carte blanche to be an arse. That much at least should be said. Not to get them sanctioned in any way of course. But take this for example, i got yelled at by them in plain childish attacks (although i am not sure if there were more outbursts like that, and if, too few to really matter). Also, sometimes their rationales are... not the best thought out and/or plain pointy. That particular "argument" was made by them before as well as i recall, but i cannot remember when it was, probably one of the attacks in Europe though, maybe in a US mass shooting nom... If they just cut out the pointy crap and hold their tongue once every 500 or so edits when they disagree with someone... But make of this what you will, i hardly contribute here anyway, so my opinion is not very important. 2003:D6:270E:83AF:81AD:8105:A514:C237 (talk) 19:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Brexit

Is it worth a discussion (a week out) on how to handle the upcoming Brexit and to get the wording right and decide which articles to link (the alternative to the main article would be European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill 2019–20)? There have been a fair few discussions of Brexit-related ITN nominations over the years, and this may well be the last one! The key will be votes in the UK and in the EU institution (I forget which one) that needs to formally approve the exit. News articles will appear about that in about the middle of next week, I think. It is not WP:ITN/R, but the closest precedence (new countries at the point of attaining independence) tend to feature on ITN if the articles are good enough and there is lots of coverage (as there will be here). Carcharoth (talk) 12:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• I would hate for Brexit to be the article we choose. That article is a mess and my hate for timelines would lead me to oppose its appearance on the Main Page. I think we are still missing an article on Brexit implementation which would make a great target article. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 12:57, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • The template has a group of articles under the title 'Brexit process', but no summary article for that. Is 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum in a good enough state to refer to in the wording for the ITN entry? Maybe also refer/link to Withdrawal from the European Union (Article 50)? Might also be a case for referring to the referendum date and the date Article 50 was triggered. Carcharoth (talk) 13:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

There is no "independence" here, the UK was, is and is remaining a sovereign state which is leaving a trade bloc. Agree with C&C that Brexit is a huge, unwieldy mess. Expanding the Legislative History section of European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 a bit would do the trick nicely, I think. --LaserLegs (talk) 15:19, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, expanding European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 would work. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 15:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

That is a good idea. I never meant to imply that there was any "independence" here. I actually used the words 'the closest precedence'. So any actual wording to suggest? Maybe (this needs work!) one of the following?

Anything from the simple:

• "The United Kingdom leaves the European Union"

...to the more complex:

• "The Withdrawal Agreement comes into effect, marking the formal departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union"

...to the possibly excessive (though mentioning the transition period would be a nice touch, IMO):

• "The United Kingdom and the European Parliament approve and enact their Withdrawal Agreement marking the start of a transition period as the UK leaves the European Union following the referendum held in 2016"

FWIW, details here and here on what happens on the EU side, with their key formal vote on 29 January, formally 'Withdrawal Agreement of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community'. Not sure if the Council of Ministers also formally signs off on it - maybe that bit has been done already? Carcharoth (talk) 16:37, 23 January 2020 (UTC) PS. The blurb should probably use the word 'Brexit'! Carcharoth (talk) 16:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It may help to have news articles related to this to help get the wording right, such as Brexit: EU leaders sign UK withdrawal deal (BBC News, 24 January 2019). Carcharoth (talk) 10:40, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

There is no question that this will be posted, and a blurb will emerge through consensus at ITN/C pretty quickly. The best thing to do now is get a decent article about the withdrawal up to scratch so that when it is nominated, there are no issue with quality holding it up. --LaserLegs (talk) 12:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not convinced that a blurb will emerge that quickly through consensus. I do think it would help to give some thought to it beforehand, but I can see there is little interest in that here. It will be interesting to see which of the relevant articles there is most editing activity at next week. Carcharoth (talk) 14:10, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• FWIW, I think the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 is the correct target from logistical standpoint, the omnibus "Brexit" article is problematic, and I appreciate having a more focused article. If one were looking to help in this regard, however, that article has some cleanup issues that could (and should) be taken care of before we get to that point so as to smooth-along the process of posting. Here's my review of it.

  1) There's some developing WP:PROSELINE problems that we need to clean up. As a general rule-of-thumb, NEVER start a paragraph (and to a lesser extent a sentence, though it is sometimes unavoidable) with the "On XX Month, Year..." It's horrible. Also, lots of choppy one-sentence paragraphs add to that problem. Instead, consider writing a more comprehensive narrative that tells a story and has flow to it. A bunch of single sentence paragraphs that follow the same boilerplate format is ugh...

  2) There's a few quality tags (according to whom? needs update) that need addressing.

  3) There needs to be some writing about the wider context of the event, though this isn't a killer for me. The article is a bit dry, as it lacks anything that tells the reader "why should I care". There's a wide sense that this event is one of the most significant in Britain's history and will have a major effect on Britain's future, and this article makes me want to go to sleep. Perhaps some context would be useful.

• Those are my suggestions. --Jayron32 16:35, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • It is an article on the actual legislation, on the bill passed in parliament - it is meant to make you go to sleep. The wider context should really be at Brexit withdrawal agreement. Yes, the forest of Brexit articles is confusing to navigate. I can't really make a difference. I get that the articles need to be in shape, but my focus is more on the wording used on the Main Page and ensuring the wording does not misrepresent this. And about it being a key point in Britain's history (true), we are too close to the events in time to put things in their proper context - we only have news reports, not academic analyses. You might as well try and pass a historical verdict on the Trump presidency... Hopefully the articles can be improved structurally and content-wise, and a suitable target will become apparent. Carcharoth (talk) 16:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
    • I would be OK with Brexit withdrawal agreement too, but it has its own cleanup issues. FWIW, I have the opposite opinion as you on this. Our focus should be on finding a good article and making sure it is mainspace ready. The blurb, AFAIAC, is entirely unimportant and will work itself out. The big thing we should care about is good quality articles. It is the only thing that matters at Wikipedia, ultimately, and if our focus is on that, everything else is just gravy. --Jayron32 17:09, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
      • @Jayron32: when would be the right moment to create a nomination? An early nomination (say on the Thursday when some news stories might start to appear) might prompt work on the target article. There will be lots of news stories on the Friday, and more over the weekend (as the pre-prepared longer news pieces are published). I suspect a nomination on Friday (to go up at some point over the weekend after the actual exit time of 23:00 GMT on Friday - midnight European time) would work best. Some work will be needed to update various articles on the status of the UK and European Union, so that might also cause a delay. I predict a nomination will go up on Friday, but earlier is probably too soon. Carcharoth (talk) 13:10, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
        • Everyone seems to think that early nominations are useful. In my experience, they are almost never useful, the fastest way to ruin an otherwise good nomination is to get it up 2-3 days early. What happens is you get a series of early opposes, either because the event hasn't happened yet, OR the article is not good enough to post, and then the nomination gets pushed to the bottom of the page where it gets lost and never posted. It is more important for a nomination to be ready AND at the top of the page, and the best way to do that is to wait until the article is actually good enough to post AND that the date of the event has actually passed. You can't do much about making time go faster, but any user interested in seeing an article posted can work on it to get it "up to snuff" so when the nomination does get to the best time, it's ready to go. --Jayron32 13:17, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
          • Yes, all good points. I don't have the time to do the work myself, and I won't be able to post at the weekend, so will try and contribute if someone starts a nomination on Friday (or maybe someone could point to what I suggested above). The news articles are starting now, as the final formal vote is today (Wednesday), see European Parliament: MEPs set to approve Brexit deal in historic vote. Apparently (it is a fairly low-key departure):

            The main send-off will happen on Friday, when the president of the European Parliament will deliver a joint statement alongside the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission. The British flag that flutters outside the parliamentary premises will be lowered in the early hours of Saturday morning, before it's displayed in a museum.

            Those are the sorts of updates that will be needed to the relevant articles. Feels quite real now... Carcharoth (talk) 10:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

• EU has approved the Brexit withdrawal agreement - the question is, this appears to be the point of no return for Brexit and would be a point to post, but shall we wait until the actual day of departure? --Masem (t) 20:29, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
• People understand that there have been and will be a series of steps/deadlines along the way (some of which will not be complete for a year), but this date of 1/31 is fairly seared in the public mind. Given that we're now ~34 hours out, it may be the more poetic thing to wait until tomorrow night. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:53, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Tweak ongoing criteria

When the ongoing criteria was updated five years ago the updater advised we "tweak as needed". I suggest removing the wording "Generally, these are stories which may lack a blurb-worthy event, but which nonetheless are still getting regular updates to the relevant article." -- or at least requiring a "blurb-worthy" event to get into the box in the first place. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support as nominator --LaserLegs (talk) 01:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose If something is blurb worthy, shouldn't it be posted as a blurb ? If the events gets extended, it may rolldown to ongoing. DBigXrayᗙ 03:48, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose there was an event posted today to ongoing, as there was no significant hook for posting a blurb. Stephen 10:53, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Well that's sort of my point: if the article lacked a "blurb-worthy" event should it be in the box at all? Why is ongoing for "lesser" stories? --LaserLegs (talk) 12:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• If I could suggest a more palatable option: when an ongoing item is nominated for removal, consensus should be required to keep rather than remove. If a consensus to keep is found, a removal request shall not be made again for X days. GreatCaesarsGhost 05:17, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @GreatCaesarsGhost: That I could get behind, and the X days is 7, which is how long noms stay up at ITN/C, since we don't allow 2 noms for the same subject anyway it becomes self-solving. --LaserLegs (talk) 11:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

RD Kobe Bryant

The helicopter crash blurb was removed as the more recent bullets were added, so Bryant should now be added to the RD list. —Aᴋʀᴀʙʙıᴍ ^talk 16:50, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Bryant's death, if an RD, would only fall as the last or second last in the list given what is currently in RD, and there's at least one newer RD candidate that would likely knock that off sooner, so it doesn't feel necessary here. --Masem (t) 17:01, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Bryant died 5 days ago, there is nothing "recent" about it, and it's already fallen out of the news cycle. It won't bring him back. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:13, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

LaserLegs: I thought that your remark, "It won't bring him back," was awfully callous. It was uncalled-for, and should have been left unsaid. Ubzerver (talk) 08:37, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Meh, I'm unfazed, people act like somehow any of this is important. Thanks for your feedback though. --LaserLegs (talk) 10:43, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

A case could have been made at the time of his blurb's removal, when another victim of the accident was still on RD.—Bagumba (talk) 01:40, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

If anything, his death should be moved to ongoing, because it is still in the news. Aside from the tributes to him, the causes of the crash and the reliability of the helicopter involved are both under investigation. WaltCip (talk) 20:49, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Nah, that'll be too much for some people. News about Kobe's death has subsided already below the levels we require for ongoing, anyway, excepting the mews coverage for the Indian protests. Even the BBC gave Kobe more airtime last week. Howard the Duck (talk) 04:03, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

The New York Times has a whole portal dedicated to his death.--WaltCip (talk) 13:14, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Sometimes, we have to use more common sense than the media. Bryant died at near the height of his life, it is tragic, and there are questions raised about any technical and operator fault, and we can be more than certain that as the NBA heads into the finals in a few months, Bryant's name will be repeated over and over. But he wasn't the type of transformative figure that we'd want to give that much attention to ourselves. I don't believe we had ongoing when Mandela died, but that would be have been a rare case of the prolonged tributes to him after his death could have been a blurb. I can fully expect when Queen Elizabeth dies that that will not only be a blurb, but could also go as ongoing should it be needed for similar reasons as I'd expect most of the Commonwealth states to be in mourning for at least a week if not two. --Masem (t) 14:23, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

nocurrenteventslink

Since the last edit to {{In the news/footer}} in Nov 2017, this parameter has since become unused, so should be removed.  Nixinova   T   C   19:34, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) I don't know how, but could someone put 2020_Iowa_Democratic_caucuses on here?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Thanks. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:42, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Peregrine Fisher You are welcome to make a nomination at WP:ITNC, but I don't think this would be successful, as it is just an internal party process to choose people from one state who will choose the presidential nominee of one political party. 331dot (talk) 20:49, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I'll nominate it for you but as 331dot mentioned odds are it'll be declined. Banedon (talk) 00:01, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

See [9]. Banedon (talk) 00:04, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RD count

Historically, we've had one line of RDs (4 or 5 individuals) which very rarely stretched over to two if there was a rash of postings. Now, it seems we permanently have one full line and one additional person all by themselves on the second line. Displays will vary of course, but I don't think this is just me. Was there some change that I missed? GreatCaesarsGhost 13:16, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

The instructions say 5 - 6. I remember a discussion about this at some point but I can't find it. --LaserLegs (talk) 14:31, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion is here.-- P-K3 (talk) 14:37, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Okay, but that says 5-6 and a maximum of two lines. Now we have one alone on the second line at all times, apparently in the service of having six at all times. I can't be the only one who thinks this layout looks janky? GreatCaesarsGhost 12:56, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

It's not an elegant solution, but it was necessary because we were having so many RDs at a time. Until someone builds a better mousetrap, I think we're stuck with it.--WaltCip (talk) 13:30, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

+ it's pretty dependent on your screen size how it displays - I see three and three in the two lines. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:49, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Is WP:ITN policy?

Apologies in advance, because I am fairly certain I've raised this elsewhere (but cannot locate). Today an admin said in reference to WP:ITNRD "it was a bad idea for me to cite that page anyway, as it was written two months ago by one editor and may not necessarily represent what actually happens on the ground." It is true this page was created two months ago, but it was created by forking [10] material from WP:ITN. This latter page is routinely cited as if it were policy, though it is not labelled as such. Question: did the forking of RD criteria to a new page change it from policy to something "less than?" GreatCaesarsGhost 17:34, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Nope. Neither is WP:DYK. I think we're fine, maybe remove that banner from WP:ITNRD. --LaserLegs (talk) 17:55, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

ITN is neither policy or guideline, it a process-defining page (which at best could be considered a guideline). It should only be used within talking about this process, not anywhere else on WP. (eg would not bring it up at an AFD, for example). --Masem (t) 18:07, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Should animation and video, anywhere on the Main Page, be automatic, optional or prohibited?

Terminology

Automatic: This is the status quo. If an animation or video file has been posted to the Main Page, it is loaded and played by default, whenever the page is opened. The user has no control over this process.

Optional: Only still images would be loaded and displayed by default. If animation or video is available for one of those images, the user would be asked whether he would like to load and view that animation or video. The user interface for controlling this process should be discussed only if a consensus in favor of this option emerges.

Prohibited: Only still images would ever appear on the Main Page. An animation or video file would never be accepted.

Note: The picture for the "In the news" section of the Main Page is transcluded to the "Topics in the news" section of the Current Events Portal. Consequently, the policy concerning the handling of animation and video on the Main Page would apply to the Current Events Portal as well.

Background

Origin of the question

This issue originated on 14 January 2020, when David Levy prepared an animation file of the recent eruption of the Taal Volcano in the Philippine Islands, and posted it as the picture for the "In the news" section of the Main Page. The file loaded and played automatically whenever the page was opened. The running time was only 5.2 seconds, but the animation repeated endlessly.

An earlier discussion

That discussion was entitled, "Web animation on main page." It ran on Talk:Main Page from 16:19, 14 January 2020‎ (UTC) until it was closed at 20:46, 15 January 2020 (UTC). It is now archived. It contained six comments, summarized by Ubzerver as follows:

Objected to animation, but did not indicate the preferred policy: Androsynth, WaltCip, Jayron32

Supported continuation of automatic animation and video: Coffeeandcrumbs, Fox

Ambiguous comment: Sca

Discussion of this policy question

Note: New comments should be added to the end of this subsection. To facilitate taking the poll when this discussion is closed, please include the word Automatic, Optional or Prohibited, and set it in boldface type.

Optional. I enjoyed the video clip of the Taal Volcano eruption. However, my Internet access is through my smartphone, at four to five Mbps, so downloading the page took noticeably longer. The clip didn't consume a sizeable percentage of my monthly data allocation, which is four GB, but I am concerned that this clip might be the proverbial nose of the camel. Let's remember that not everyone has unlimited Internet access and a 30 Mbps connection. Only a still photo should have been displayed on download. The caption should have included the instruction, "Click here for an 8-second, 12 MB video." Ubzerver (talk) 10:36, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I see a lot of talk about using various methods to reduce the file size, but I don't see anyone talking about the basic issue which I raised: should animation/video on the Main Page or the Current Events Portal be compulsory or optional? It seems to me that we could make everybody happy by making it optional. Let only a still image be downloaded and displayed by default, but empower the user to accept animation/video of specified duration and file size. If it will repeat in endless-loop fashion, that also should be stated. The "Accept" button should not be the large, white, rightward-pointing triangle, superimposed on the image, which is conventionally used to start playback of a video file. That would spoil the image for those users who don't want the animation/video version. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of other topics

Configuring a smartphone to block unwanted video

I have the option on my phone to stop automatic playback of video- do you not have that option? 331dot (talk) 11:01, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

331dot: I was viewing the page on my laptop computer, not on my smartphone. I have a Samsung smartphone which runs under Android. I use Android's Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot feature to put my laptop on line. I don't think that my phone's video limiting capability can help me in this situation. If there is a way, please let me know. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Minimizing the file size

This was not a video but gif. For some reason, it was 61.73 MB while the original video it was created from was only 758 KB. There was no need to convert it to gif. That was the issue that precipitated all the complaints. Converting to gif is a Web 1.0 mentality that should be abandoned. Almost all browsers these days support video embedding with no difficulty. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 11:21, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

The gif is not optimized. Working on it. --Masem (t) 18:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Without switching to dithering or any other lossy method got it down to 43mb instead of 62mg. There's other ways to optimize. If we are talking a front page image where we aim to be 100px, we can always remake a scaled-down image specific for front page use. Testing a few things here even though the image has since fallen off the front page. --Masem (t) 18:10, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

And perhaps just throwing this out there, perhaps for any main page image, the amount of bytes delivered to the user for that image should be at most 1-4 megs. This allows for reasonably short webm's, and I bet with some work and lossy conversion, I could make this gif to within that size. --Masem (t) 18:12, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Best I was able to do was to get the 100px width image to 4.5mb - still large but no longer 'my bandwidth!" large. I'd still agree that if we can use the webm instead - which uses lossy compression methods - that's tons better than gif tweaking. --Masem (t) 18:32, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to David who made added the clip, for his comments. Stephen 03:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

There appears to be some confusion.

I didn't transclude the GIF linked above. Had I done so, the thumbnail would have been a still frame.

As noted on the description page, "due to technical limitations, thumbnails of high resolution GIF images such as this one will not be animated." According to the MediaWiki documentation that I read, the limit is 12,500,000 pixels total (width × height × number of frames).

We customarily display a 4:5 image at the resolution of 120 × 150 pixels. Ideally, the base file is a minimum of 240 × 300 pixels, enabling enhanced support for high-DPI displays.

For these reasons (and to keep the animation reasonably short and the file size reasonably small), I reduced the resolution to 240 × 300 pixels and the number of frames to 173 (240 × 300 × 173 = 12,456,000). At a rate of 33 ⅓ frames per second (the closest approximation of the original video's frame rate possible under the GIF standard), the resultant playtime was 5.2 seconds.

The base file, Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020 (reduced).gif, is 6.45 MB in size. On a standard-DPI display, the ITN thumbnail was 1.96 MB. (I assume that Ubzerver's "12MB" figure was a guesstimate, but even the high-DPI version was much smaller than that.) Pinging Masem to communicate these details.

Clicking on the thumbnail led users to File:Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.webm (not the larger GIF) for the full video.

Coffeeandcrumbs: As explained above, I didn't use File:Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.gif. You mentioned "all the complaints", but this is the first instance in which any issue has been brought to my attention. The only feedback that I received from you on the matter was thanks for the edit in which I transcluded the animation. Please point me to the other complaints that arose (of which I was unaware).

Stephen: I appreciate the ping (now and whenever such concerns arise). —David Levy 06:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@David Levy: I apologize for not pinging you. You often ignore my pings so I assumed you would not want to hear from me again. That was an error in judgement which I will avoid even if it makes me uncomfortable to continuously ping editors that do not respond to me. That is your choice and it is my responsibility to ping users when their actions are being discussed. You are right as well that you did embedded the reduced file and the version that displayed was even further reduced to 120px. "All the complaints" was a bad choice of words. There was only 1 other complainant. Sorry for all these errors. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 06:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs: I don't purposely ignore pings (and I'm very sorry to have given you an impression to the contrary).

I recall multiple instances, such as this one, in which another editor fulfilled your request (which you then removed) before I arrived to read it.

If you're referring to instances such as this, I didn't realize that a reply was expected from anyone other than the user to whom the question was addressed (who did, in fact, answer it).

If I've edited the site without responding to pings pertaining to ongoing issues in need of my attention, I assure you that this was unintentional and apologize for the oversight. Please don't hesitate to contact me whenever you deem it appropriate. I can't promise that I'll always be available to address your concerns in time, but I can promise that I won't mind hearing from you.

Note, also, that my previous message was intended to encourage such engagement and ensure that all of us were on the same page, not to complain about any deficiency on your part. Thanks for providing the discussion link. —David Levy 07:42, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! There is a concern I raised at Talk:Main Page that I think only you can understand. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:04, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

David Levy, ping, Facepalm. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

David Levy: Both the "8 seconds" and the "12MB" figures were guesstimates. When I wrote my original comment, the video was no longer available for me to time, and I didn't know how to obtain the actual file size. I still don't know how to do that, but maybe I will figure it out after I read this discussion a few more times.

Coffeeandcrumbs: In the Talk:Main Page discussion "Web animation on main page" to which you referred, I count four complainants who objected to animation or video on the Main Page. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

A proposed user interface for controlling optional animation or video

Agree with C&C that adding 'gif' popups isn't going to gain consensus. Such a feature would be needlessly distracting, IMO – which was the point of my somewhat oblique comment at "Web animation on main page". – Sca (talk) 15:23, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that a popup screen would be too distracting. Fortunately, for this purpose it is unnecessary. What I have in mind is a user interface which is simple, intuitive and unobtrusive. It is just a one-line field which appears at the bottom of the picture's caption. The left side of the field is a line of text. The right side is a button. The following table describes the behavior of the field under each of four conditions:

Status line	Button label
For a 5.2-second, (non)repeating, 1.96-MB video,	Click here
Loading...	Cancel
Playing...	Stop
Stopped	Resume
Completed	Repeat

Coffeeandcrumbs, Masem, Stephen, David, Sca, The Rambling Man: What do you think of this user interface, and the basic idea of making animation and video, anywhere on the Main Page and on In the News, optional rather than automatic? Ubzerver (talk) 09:36, 25 January 2020 (UTC); edited 10:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Ubzerver, what you are proposing now is a fundamental change to MediaWiki. We are just lowly editors on the English Wikipedia. There are thousands of websites that use MediaWiki. We cannot dictate its software from here. I have previously attempted to suggest the reduction the size of the Play button for videos. That was 4 months ago and no response from the developers. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 09:54, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Popups are the bane of the internet. – Sca (talk) 14:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Other comments

Androsynth, WaltCip, Sca, Jayron: I feel that The Rambling Man closed the discussion "Web animation on main page" prematurely. It was only two days old, and there had not been a response from anyone who was in a position to change the policy on the issue under discussion. Fortunately, a very similar question is being considered here. This discussion is still open, and technical experts are definitely involved. So, if you like my proposal to make animation/video on the Main Page or the Current Events Portal optional, at the discretion of each user, then this is the time and place to say so. Ubzerver (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Closing comment: "Already descending into condescension." – ? – Sca (talk) 14:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Indeed it was. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

"anyone who was in a position to change the policy" Do you have any understanding of how setting policy works at Wikipedia? No one single person or small group of people is on charge of changing policy. We all are collectively. Also, we don't need policies to tell us what to do and what not to do. I mean, if you want to have a discussion to write some best practices for the use of animation at Wikipedia, please do that. But no one at Wikipedia should ever be afraid to do something useful because there's no policy that says they can. We should not be getting upset at people who used animation if that is what was useful to illustrate the article on question. I rather liked it. If you really think we need guidance, start a discussion at VPR and see where it goes. The closed discussion was not that. It was drive-by bitching and no more. This discussion may be marginally less so. But really, if you want to write some best practices down, do it right. --Jayron32 19:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I assumed the talk page was the correct place to talk. I now have no desire to learn the correct procedure because every experience I have had discussing on wikipedia has ended with a Jayron32 type shouting. I don't edit wp anymore and I don't donate anymore because wikipedia is the best site on the internet, but pull back the covers and it's a toxic waste dump. I no longer care if the editors and admins want to move the main page in the direction of an ad-based NYT-esque, animation-heavy, click-baity publication (the "did you know..." section is already distastefully click-baity). I don't intend to post again. Androsynth (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I can see how getting shouted out here by long-standing users would upset you. Apologies for that. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs: If an editor wants to ping you, how can he prevent your username from appearing in red, indicating that the "page does not exist"? Even if the pings are getting through to you, the red text is a little distracting. Ubzerver (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I have received both your pings. Sorry I did not respond to your first; I had nothing relevant to add. I am not sure what you are suggesting. If it is to add a popup screen, asking if the user wants to load the gif, whenever we have an animation, I don't see that proposal gaining consensus.

About the redlink, how exactly is it distracting? It may be unusual but distracting is something else entirely. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 14:36, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of a not direct article.

A judge just approved of a merge between T-mobile and Sprint. Check Portal:Current events/2020 February 11 and (NBC). I do not know how to nominate that type of suggestion as it isn’t a specific article.Elijahandskip (talk) 13:47, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Elijahandskip I think this was nominated when announced and did not gain consensus- business news, especially of mergers, usually has a tough time at ITNC because it is usually the announcement that gets more coverage than formal approval of a merger. That said, you could nominate the article about one or both of the companies. 331dot (talk) 13:51, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

More specifically, the merger has to be huge - Disney-Fox-level of huge (which we did post). --Masem (t) 14:49, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

On entertainment ITNR awards

See the current discussion about the 92nd Academy Awards at WP:ITNC for origins of this, but basically, what we have been finding lately is that entertainment awards like the Grammys, BAFTAs and Oscars, all ITNR, generally have articles that are mostly tables and lists of nominees, winners, and presenters/performers at the ceremonies, with little else that is written about the ceremony. This has recently led to question what type of quality and update is expected from these. But the target per ITNR has been the ceremony page

In contrast, our ITNR academic awards : Nobel, Booker Prize, etc. which lack the same type of formal ceremony, usual identify the award recipient(s) as the target. Which means we are usually getting a significant update or otherwise will already be at quality and only needs to document the award (based on my experience in updating Nobel winners).

I would like to suggest that for entertainment awards, we do the same: the target should be the article on the key winning item(s) as currently listed at ITNR, instead of the ceremony itself. So for example, for the Oscars, this would mean the film that wins Best Picture. This means the quality of that work , actor, or whatever should be good enough for main page, and the award updated on that page. This would 1) eliminate questions of what quality we actually expect award ceremonies to be at) and 2) focus on the actual winners for ITN. --Masem (t) 17:59, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

This needs a bit of thought. Each Nobel prize has 1-3 winners, so it's possible to bold link them all in a single blurb. For something like the Oscars, is Best Picture alone enough for an ITN blurb, rather than the article that lists all the winners in various categories? I'm not sure either way, given that it could still be linked in the blurb, just not bolded. A related question is why these award articles aren't getting prose updates; given the vast amount of column inches in mainstream media sources, there must be something that can be written about them, beyond a mere table. Perhaps critical reaction, quotes from the winners etc. Shifting the update requirement onto the individual winner article will still need more than a one-sentence update. Modest Genius ^talk 18:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

In the scheme proposed, we'd still link to the ceremony page, but it would not be a bold target anymore, as to eliminate questions of its quality/update.

When you compare to Nobel winners or other academics, if the Nobel winner's article is already in good shape before the Nobel is given, then the update is going to be generally a sentence or two (but 90% of the time, the article needs a significant sourcing and content overhaul from experience). So I would say the same would apply to a actor/director/film/whatever , if it is in good shape before the award is given, the update likely will not be much.

As for what else could be added to the ceremony articles, in general: we don't want to cover "trivial" matters like the Red Carpet and fashion aspects, and generally the speeches are interesting and certainly could be documented, but rarely have any importance beyond the night itself. I am sure there's a few acceptance speeches that have been memorial in past ceremonies with longer-term effects, but generally not always. Additionally, when you get to something like BAFTAs over Grammys/Oscars/Emmys (the latter being overproduced ceremonies, the former a more traditional affair), sometimes there's just not much to give. --Masem (t) 18:47, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I like this idea. It seems like bolding the winners is more useful than bolding the awards ceremony, as it directs readers to the higher quality article. I think we should go with that; perhaps a note at ITNR noting that for awards of any type, we should bold the winner and not the ceremony or award name, but that we should normal-link the award ceremony instead. --Jayron32 18:59, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment same debate often for sports (especially season endings vs single games) and elections. So what if it's mostly tables? Vast amounts of relevant information can be communicated efficiently with tables. I've never understood the fixation on a "prose update" for articles where a table of values are just fine. Instead of worrying about a different bold target, lets just stop fretting about posting lists. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:33, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Sounds great. So every time Templeton Prize or similar comes up, we can post it if the update to the list is satisfactory. Sounds good to me. After all, it abides by one of ITN's core tenets, to direct readers to things they might be looking up.... The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:38, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Nope, not the same thing at all actually, but thanks for suggesting. We could do it for `select rand() from worlds_most_important_soccer_tournament` though --LaserLegs (talk) 20:55, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  What a weird response to a normal comment. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 22:57, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

For a sporting event, eg: Super Bowl, World Cup final, while there may be tables like box scores and individual stats were relevant, the article should be dominated by prose of events leading to that final match, like site selection, promotion/marketing, the route the final competing teams got there, etc. And so just presenting box scores and say "that's it" is a bit weak, a recap is reasonable to add. For an election, the same type of argument applies: basis for election, principle candidates, how they got there, things like debates/etc. (which in some nations may be subpages, etc.) but again, to not follow up the election results table with some small recap is weak. But in both those cases, the progresses are generally transparent - we can follow them and write about them. When we get to either entertainment or academic awards, the process is much more opaque. We may not even know the shortlist of nominees (Nobel). As such, while there's a number of things we can set up ahead of time, like with the Oscars, some info on the ceremony, it is hard to be as detailed as sporting events and elections since we don't exactly how nominees got to be nominees. Hence its a different approach that is needed here. --Masem (t) 22:13, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I would also note that widespread, indepth, and broad coverage of both sporting events and elections exists out in the wild for people to use to write and expand and create very detailed prose synopses of both sporting events and elections. Award shows don't have as much to say about them. For awards specifically, I think that the target article(s) we need to care about is the winner(s) and the presentation event is less important. That is not true of sporting events or elections, where it is quite possible (and desirable) to create an extensive prose-based article about them. --Jayron32 13:21, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Taking the Oscars as an example, in the run up to the event there were huge numbers of newspaper articles and television reports that profiled the nominees, discussed reasons why they may or may not win etc. Then once it happened, there were more articles about why Parasite was a worthy winner, the implications of a foreign-language film winning etc. Why couldn't those be used to write a single prose paragraph in the awards article? Modest Genius ^talk 16:14, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Specifically with the Oscars, I would generally not consider the pre-guesses of who would win encyclopedicly significant unless there was a strong clear consensus of a given film being the likely frontrunner or why certain nominations fell the way they did. If it is just a bunch of random, disjointed speculation, that doesn't help in the long-term. The post-analysis, here the importance of Parasite's win, are in articles that have come out a couple days after the event, which I'd would expect, just as there was some additional coverage of production choices for the show (which I did add already for this year's). Again, part of the issue is that the awards process for entertainment awards is nowhere close to the transparency as sporting events, which 90% of the article can be written before the event runs. An award presentation can maybe get to 50%, add another 25% the day of the ceremony, but the other 25% is stuff that comes days later as things settle out. --Masem (t) 16:50, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. I was surprised that the current Academy awards blurb was posted as quickly as it was, as the article did not seem to me to have enough prose or interest -- I quickly navigated away from it and towards the much more informative press coverage, and I suspect other readers would too. I'd strongly oppose changing the ITN/R rules so that we could post bald lists like this one more readily; it encourages editors to leave our articles in a stubby state when abundant sources are available to improve them. On the other hand, I've no objection to making the winning entity a target article, if that article is sufficiently developed and updated. In general, we need to return to the purpose of ITN -- not a news service, but a way to direct our readers to well-developed encyclopedic content that puts the news in context. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:05, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Again, a fair question to ask is "What encyclopdic information can be added based on the abundant press coverage of the event to the existing article?" Anything involving the red carpet and the afterparties are not encyclopedic, so we're left with what is covered by the ceremony, and that becomes to what level of detail is excessive. We could briefly describe every acceptance speech but that has little encyclopedic value. --Masem (t) 01:08, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

Based on the above discussion, which seems to be stalling, let's see if we can get a rough consensus for an addition to the instructions. Let's say we add something along the lines of:

For ITNR items related to the winning of awards (including, but not limited to, Nobel Prizes, Academy Awards, Pritzker Prize, etc.) it is normal to bold either the person winning the award, the work which won the award, or both. In most circumstances, we should not bold the article about the award ceremony or the general list article about the award itself; such articles are usually very light on prose and mostly concerned with the general topic, rather than the specific event in question. A non-bolded link for such articles is usually appropriate instead.

• Support as proposer. --Jayron32 15:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support this essentially codifies the status quo, recent Oscars excepted. I feel like this isn't something we should have to write down... --LaserLegs (talk) 16:29, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Its not though, if you look at ITNR, the recent discussion on Oscars showed why the status quo got questioned. --Masem (t) 16:31, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support as from my OP above. --Masem (t) 16:31, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support per Masem. He gets it. WaltCip (talk) 02:48, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
• Question isn't this already in ITNR? Unless otherwise noted, the winner of the prize is normally the target article. at the top of [11]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Banedon (talk • contribs)
  • Note that for the Academy Awards, Grammys and a few others, it adds "Awards page" after the ITNR. This suggestion would remove that and make this stance above the guiding principle. --Masem (t) 15:40, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
• I think this is fine. – Ammarpad (talk) 04:23, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Good call.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:05, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support', nice idea. Stephen 22:20, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support Makes sense to add this.-- P-K3 (talk) 15:25, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

RD image instead of blurb

It seems that discussion at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#(Posted_to_RD)_RD:_Kirk_Douglas decided the Trump photo should be removed, but WP:ITN currently says images should be for blurbs, even if not the first one. Is this a new precedent to consider RDs for images if they are more recent than a blurb? Or is this a one-off Trump case? Current available blurb alternatives are Peter Mutharika or Sam Mendes (BAFTA Best Director).—Bagumba (talk) 08:28, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I think the section immediately above this answers your question. WP:ITN is not policy. It's debatable whether it's guideline too. (But to me it's, since I believe it needs not be necessarily named in a certain way and/or templated to make it so.) So this is not "a one-off Trump case", there's no policy that says the picture must be associated with the blurbs. It's just a normal thing, giving that circumstance warrants posting this particular pic with RD. You can however disagree with the decision for this particular case, but that would be on WP:ERRORS; or join the above section to discuss the guideline/information page itself or lack of clarity on its status. – Ammarpad (talk) 10:17, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

It's unrelated. I'm asking the rationale for the image selection, I haven't called it an error.—Bagumba (talk) 10:53, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Unrelated with what?. – Ammarpad (talk) 11:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I think this was a reasonable decision, though I still oppose just cycling the images "for variety" we would get more images if we included RDs --LaserLegs (talk) 13:23, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support we could amend the guidelines to read "an image for the most recent RD item can be used if no such image exists for the top blurb" or "an image for an RD item can be used if there is consensus in the nomination to do so". I don't see the issue here. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:21, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support - An image from a RD may be used, subject to no suitable blurb image being available, and the most recent RD with a suitable image being chosen. In all cases, blurb images to take priority over RDs. Mjroots (talk) 17:16, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Marking own nomination ready

Not for the first time, The Rambling Man has objected to my marking of my own nomination (in this case WP:ITN/C#Wallan derailment) as ready, claiming it an abuse of process. As I said at the time, IMvHO the opposes were really rather weak (forgot to say that the IPs oppose was particularly weak, even discountable). Following new information becoming available today, there was a flurry of supports.

It is not bad form to mark one's own nomination as ready, as doing so merely flags up the article to other admins that the article may be in a condition to post, and that there may be consensus for such posting. Any independent admin is then free to either post the nom, or decline to post and give a reason for doing so (e.g. further discussion required, article needs improvement, etc). I fully accept that if I were to post my own nom that would be an abuse of the Administrative Privileges which I hold, which is why I will never do so.

Can we agree that a nominator is free to mark their own nom as ready if they believe that it is ready to be posted? Mjroots (talk) 17:26, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I think this comes down to unspoken etiquette. Back when he was an admin, TRM would knowingly post his own nominations to ITN if the level of support was overwhelming and those supporting also believed the article was in good quality. I think his main point of contention with you was that you marked the nom as ready when the level of support could be judged by an independent observer as somewhat tenuous. Unlike at DYK, "Ready" historically means that a consensus has been achieved and the article is ready for an admin to post.--WaltCip (talk) 17:32, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, I would certainly post clearcut nominations, particularly when they had been hanging around without attention from any other admins. There used to be trust in admins back in the day that they wouldn't be self-promotional, or even be perceived as being biased in that sense. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 18:10, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Skip the review process in a collaborative review project? Sure why not partner with a commercial news entity, provide them a link on the page for their effort, and get them to post stuff, reviewed and updated and all professionally. Any of the bigger ones will jump at the chance... ~ R.T.G 15:33, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Would it be preferable for the nominator (or indeed any non-admin) to add a "Needs attention" flag first, i.e. "this nomination needs to be assessed if it's ready"? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:33, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I would think so.--WaltCip (talk) 17:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

There would be no issue if the reason to mark ready (or even post) was a case of SNOW and reasonable time had past. I did it before myself, I think on Stan Lee. But if there's clearly dispartity, yeah, leave that for an uninvolved editor to evaluate. --Masem (t) 17:39, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I take it that there would be no objection to marking one's own nom "[Decision required]" then? Indicating that the nominator wishes an independent decision to be made as to whether the article should be posted or further discussion is required. Mjroots (talk) 17:48, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

That's reasonable (save for using "()" over "[]") as long as there's a reasonable amount of !votes that need to be reviewed. Posting an ITNC, getting 1 !vote in 2 hours and then tossing up that alert would be inappropriate, but in the case of the current ITNC in question, the dereailment, this would be appropriate. --Masem (t) 17:51, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why any particular nomination which is clearly still very much up for debate needs an admin decision, or a tag that says (Decision required). That's simply not how it works. That kind of "attention needed" (which what we normally use) is for clearcut cases which are being overlooked probably as a result of a lack of passing admins. Claiming that everyone who supported this was doing so "strongly" and every who opposed it was doing so "weakly" was really the nub of the problem here. It's very unbecoming indeed. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 18:08, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

In this instance I mostly agree with TRM. It's only reasonable and honorable for eds to in effect recuse themselves from marking their own nominations – or fractious discussions in which they've played a role – as "ready." IMO, it makes more sense for eds with a vested interest, if you will, to mark them "needs attention" but leave it to an admin or possibly some other uninvolved ed to take action. – Sca (talk) 18:22, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

QFE - the nom cannot objectively grade the quality of the arguments! The first support offers no justification at all. Two others cite the death toll, one cites an incorrect fact, and the last offers "the first fatal derailment of a loaded passenger train in Australia since 2003." That's a lot of qualifiers! GreatCaesarsGhost 18:26, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, reminiscent of the kinds of bizarre intersections of fact that are cited in gun crimes in the US sometimes. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:06, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

!!!!!!!!!!FIREARMS KLAXON!!!!!!!!!!! --LaserLegs (talk) 20:14, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• We've used (Needs attention) in the past, probably fine. Also fine to mark your own nom as ready. Any competent admin can assess the discussion and either post or remove the tag with comments. It's not a bot action. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:13, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
• As a completely random idea, assuming it is technically feasible, what if the daily archiving bot also made a table of the "most needy" ITNCs that would sit at the top of the page? By "most needy" I'd define those as:
  • Those not posted or manually archived
  • Over 48hr old
  • Have either a) exactly 1 or 2 support !votes, or b) have at least 3 !votes with a minimum of 1/3rd that are in support
• In this scheme, an uninvolved admin would see those that are needing attention and should address them by either posting them, closing them, or adding something to the header or discussion of clearly why the ITNC can't be closed, like "needs updates" "needs sources" or "consensus unclear". If this existed, then there should be no self-readying as above, it would draw better attention to those ITNCs that may a chance (while leaving, most commonly, RDs with no supports to simply drop off to archives without too much work). There's some programmatic issues for the scripting, and it would not be infallable , and we would have to remind admins this is not a !vote, but it may eliminate this problem. But that may also be too much work if this is the only problem is fixes (I think it addresses other issues too, but that's just my opinion). --Masem (t) 20:29, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

The nomination that led to this discussion has had some extremely problematic comments made about it. Several are of the form "Well, I didn't see it in my local news, so it's not important." Others incorrectly use WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Ignorance abounds. Simply put, it was full of rubbish, each bit inevitably triggering more rubbish. A little bit of Admin oversight of that rubbish, with appropriate comments or even deletion of nonsense, may have helped prevent this thread coming into existence. HiLo48 (talk) 22:17, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Irish fail to elect a clear majority, giving us a chance to take a look at ourselves in a clear light, and the open source culture.

The Irish election seems to be up there all week. It says the Irish vote failed to elect a clear majority, as though that is news. The Irish government has not elected a clear majority since before I was born, since the seventies. The news about it is that Sinn Fein polled the majority of votes for the first time ever, possibly having been the first party to out-poll Fine Gael and Fianna Fail since before the last clear majority government. If a news outlet published the story like that, it could be construed as biased.

When are we going to get the politics off the main page of Wikipedia? It's not a fine point, it's a major issue. You've had this complaint perennially, about the content of the news that goes through. It's a good complaint. It's an important complaint. Politics is always partisan in this world. Even China and Russia are electing governments these days. It's a solid complaint.

Dear Wikipedia, please do not reduce the importance given to coverage of government leadership. Please stop it altogether.

It is common knowledge across the site now, the articles which support these stories, about polls and leadership issues, are literally one of the banes of Wikipedia as it stands today.

In western democracies, leadership polls tend to have a little over 50% turnout, with somewhere between half of the voters to two thirds of the voters failing to get what they want. When they come here to Wikipedia, they have come to look at the encyclopaedia. Most people having been let down as standard in an election, they don't want to see any more about it.

Wikipedia and its foundation have a clear agenda when it comes to politics. We should be promoting open source culture and relative news more importantly than anything else. There isn't enough room here to represent popular media and we do not understand the partisan events reported. This is not a social media site. This is not a site for popular stories based on the sake of their popularity. You all know this is true. I promise you, taking this back to the mission is going to be far more satisfactory for both the readers and the contributors. It is about what Wikipedia is. ~ R.T.G 15:07, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

We're not posting election results because they are popular news stories, but because changes (or lack thereof) at the national government level for most of the countries on the Earth have significant impact in world events and politics. Eg: if Trump wins the next election, that's still significantly important news as it means four more years of the same. We do want to strive to be apolitical in announcing results and if our wording is misrepresenting the impact of the election results, call that out in ERRORS or something. I don't know enough about the Irish gov't to be able to address your point specifically but that definitely seems like an issue to bring up to ERRORS. --Masem (t) 16:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The wording of the blurb was discussed on WP:ITN/C; commentors were well aware that Irish elections have not had a clear majority for decades. However, there were three parties which did almost equally well, and it's unclear which of them will enter government. Sinn Fein did not win this election any more than Fine Gael or Fianna Fail did, so it would be unfair to focus on a single party. We could either list all three of them in the blurb, or keep it short and let interested reads click on the link to the article to find out more. As for the rest of your comments, ITN items are selected for their encyclopaedic value, not their popularity or to annoy people who voted for someone else. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not an open source advocacy organisation. Modest Genius ^talk 16:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Why do we announce government leadership issues at all? We haven't the space to cover it in a non-biased way. Sure, anything posted has to have a modicum of mention in an encyclopaedia article... but is that the same thing as promoting encyclopaediac content? I can't remember seeing a story about freedom of information, or even a link to the Signpost. WPITN and Signpost are like unrelated entities from totally different sites. There isn't even a link to previous stories. A quick check of the history of the template shows no sign of Wikipedias recent birthday and 6 millionth article milestone. Was that even reported by WPITN? It's not news for Wikipedia nearly as much as an opportunity to reach Wikipedians with popular media stories... ~ R.T.G 17:19, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The political leadership of an entire country is an important topic of long-term encyclopaedic value, and repeated long-standing consensus among editors has agreed that they are sufficiently important to always appear in ITN if the article is sufficiently updated. ITN blurbs are short factual statements, deliberately designed to avoid biased coverage. You appear to be misunderstanding the purpose of ITN: it directs casual readers to quality encyclopaedia articles which have been updated to reflect recent events. It is not a news ticker, an opportunity to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, or a place for news about Wikipedia. There was no ITN blurb on the 6 millionth article, but there was a big celebratory banner at the top of the whole Main Page. The Signpost exists for news about Wikipedia of interest to editors; it's a completely different audience and purpose. Of course they cover different things and rarely overlap. If you want to help select encyclopaedic items that appear in ITN, please join the discussions at WP:ITN/C. If you prefer Signpost-style coverage of Wikipedia, WP:POST/N is the place to do so. Modest Genius ^talk 18:10, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Right great wrongs? That's about external issues. The anniversary of the first moonwalk, relatively recently, was accompanied by a whole week of content from all sections on the main page. ~ R.T.G 18:27, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes it was, using WP:TFA, WP:OTD and WP:DYK. Not WP:ITN which as its name suggests, is about items that are currently newsworthy. Black Kite (talk) 00:10, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

You don't think the 50th anniversary of the moonwalk was "in the news" from every major news reporting outlet on the planet? I assure you, it was in the news supported by a series of newsworthy events. If WPITN wasn't on board, that is because WPITN wasn't on board, and not because of anything else. ~ R.T.G 00:30, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

We can only consider what is nominated. (I don't recall if that was). We don't generally note mere anniversaries- and I'm not sure what notable event related to this anniversary would have merited posting. 331dot (talk) 00:34, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

This year it's the 75th anniversary of everything that happened in 1945 - and that's a lot of things, as I'm sure you're aware. Items at ITN tend to stay there for more than one day, thus making them pointless apart from on the actual day - hence the use of OTD. Black Kite (talk) 01:09, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

There is a section, List_of_spacewalks_and_moonwalks_1965–1999#Commemorative_stamps, which could have been used, but wasn't even updated let alone proposed, for a chance to support the festivities. There would be no point even suggesting it in current light. Stamps? As important as government leadership issues? It literally drains the mission out of us. ~ R.T.G 08:41, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

This is all covered in Wikipedia:In_the_news#Significance, elections also have the addendum Wikipedia:In_the_news/Recurring_items. Additional guidelines are listed at WP:ITNC. You're free to read and comprehend these documents. If there is an issue with any current main page feature, you can refer to WP:ERRORS. This talk page is for "general discussion of the In the news section of the Main Page". I'm not sure what else is to be done here. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:47, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

No, that doesn't cover bias at all. It literally supports it saying that no other reason than superficial preference will be considered. "Recurring items" simply lists elections, and "#Significance" literally shirks reason at almost two pages of length. This complaint is about the general content. When I've looked at this before, I've not had the impression that editors are working towards an agenda. Even Rambling Man, who would come out as a leading voice against this complaint if there is any uptake of it, can be quoted in the past as saying the elections will "fill" the section up with "shite"! But don't let us consider our own sensibilities now, even the most sensible of us, right? (huh?) These government leadership issues are like, wow... No seriously... wow... the only item on the section all week is the Irish election... this thing sucks, and it must be said, because you all know it is true. Sure, even I am interested in the Irish election, but when I see it as the most important thing on the main page of Wikipedia for a whole week, I am through the floor. I mean, have you not purposely conspired to drive me here to make this complaint? Are the gods not punishing me today and every day? And more seriously, it really is a partisan topic, all the way past the point of war. The only thing more partisan than political leadership is an actual punch up. Everybody knows it... ~ R.T.G 08:41, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

The reason for "When I see it as the most important thing on the main page of Wikipedia for a whole week, I am through the floor" is actually simple. Currently no newer story at WP:ITN/C has gained consensus to post, so the Irish election is sitting on top. Such lulls happen and already happened before at ITN. Anyone complaining about that is welcome to nominate a newer story. Yes, politics is boring, but this is how the grand world scheme has been working for centuries (maybe except direct democracies). Brandmeister^talk 09:12, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

ITN blurbs are arranged by date, not importance. No-one is purposely conspiring against you. Modest Genius ^talk 12:19, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I apologise for the humour there but indeed, if the Irish election does not start to move down the list, I fear that the sky may fall down or blow away..

Brandenmeister... there are a ton of new stories but WPITN isn't about delivering the news to suit Wikipedia. There's no angle in the mission. There's nothing to fall back on. Government leadership is literally the main focus of the section since years. 8 days, and it is long precedented, and we can't have stuff like advances in medicine, freedom of information... There's nothing to fall back on while certain topics swamp the section in between gaps where there are nothing. How can we accept that? WPITN should be used to have people out searching for news that suits the site and encourages broad content. Narrow news is bias. It's the world we live in. ~ R.T.G 14:15, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Not all genres in current events are equal. I invite you to look into the top ten of highest grossing movies of the last ten years, see that it is monopolised, and come back and tell me we can follow popular culture blindly and call ourselves fair and balanced. It's just not a view on reality. ~ R.T.G 14:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

We do post advances in science and many other stuff, just check the archives (like novel antibiotic substance, malacidin, which I nominated in 2018). Government changes occur in this world more frequently than notable scientific stories (particularly given there are over 200 sovereign countries), so naturally they are nominated and posted more often. The main page basically reflects what was picked up, nominated and posted in a given timeframe (which itself often reflects the current worldwide situation), so the content may not always be a balanced mix of various topics. Brandmeister^talk 16:04, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Brandmeister, that's two years old. I've just wrote below that I'm not simply repeating myself, but I am repeating this one point frequently... You are saying that is just the way it is. That WPITN is swamped by government leadership stories because that's just the way the world is. You are basically saying that you agree but you do not want to consider change, or that you prefer government leadership issues taking the frame. You aren't going to prove me wrong any better than simply getting a bunch of you together to say you don't want to hear it. There's too many leadership stories going across the template. They aren't doing anything for the encyclopaedia. The excitement around elections almost always sours. It's a false economy. It is fair to claim something better is a possibility, thankyou. ~ R.T.G 18:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

That's not about what we personally feel should be in the encyclopedia, but about objective encyclopedic value. A new leader of a fooian country is encyclopedically valuable. New elections in a country's legislative body are encyclopedically valuable. So saying that "There's too many leadership stories" and "they aren't doing anything for the encyclopaedia" misses the point and continuously arguing about it is unhelpful. Brandmeister^talk 20:13, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

No, encyclopaedias are not hot off the press. We are about carefully studied, historic information. Over 90% of these leadership issues are trivial, even though they are at the top level of what they are. Beside that, to report changes in one branch of government is brainwash. We only report changes in one house, and we don't report appointees to the judicial branch. It's ridiculous. It's not doing any good here. I'm so bored of looking at WPITN every other day and being reminded you haven't picked this up yet. You are putting stuff on the main page. Please at least want to appear balanced. It's so important, the main page of this site. I hate putting them down at length but leadership issues are pretty naff and we shouldn't be pressuring them here. A pillar of neutrality. After accuracy and content it's like the most important thing on the site. I'm glad to see you are discussing a little more weight to entertainment above but it's just not enough yet. ~ R.T.G 06:58, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• Despite the OPs insistence that mainstream, reliable, serious news sources did not cover the event, I can find dozens of in-depth, highly detailed, and reliable news sources from around the world that covered the Irish elections before, during, and after the event. The repeated assertion that this was not a significant event does not bear out by the evidence. No matter how many times he repeats it, the coverage of the event in reliable sources DOES exist, so repeatedly claiming it isn't significant simply doesn't have evidentiary support. --Jayron32 16:13, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Have you, for goodness sake, seen Donald Trumps haircut? Would you like, and I am not joking now, to see him and Kim give each other a kiss, by way of impersonators? Well call me Dixie, are we not talking about the same publishers? Wikipedia is NOT hot off the press, now is it? Well then, media coverage is no better than a google search in terms of notability. Now I may be crazy, but I have got a really sane point here. Political leadership issues, party progress... following that is all bad news if one of your pillars is neutrality. I'm not trying to turn you against politicians... I'm trying to turn you against nurturing their popularity mission on Wikipedia. ~ R.T.G 18:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Understanding the change in majority party control in a major government is not at all about being political, it is simply reporting a change change or status quo that does have impacts on world relations. There is not one iota of WP showing a political leaning by this type of coverage. --Masem (t) 23:11, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

• Consensus seems to be firmly against RTG's interpretation of what ITN should be (never mind I have never seen him participate in ITN/C in recent years). I might be more swayed if more people shared RTG's opinion rather than just him repeating it with impassioned language. How many other people agree with him?--WaltCip (talk) 16:59, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Walt, There is no qualifier for having a valid opinion. It's in the guides, I assure you. I think you will find the reason the section has stagnated for so long this time is because those who would hunt for a broader outlook have been frustrated here over time. I'm not simply repeating myself. Address the issue. All this part is in response to your statement which addresses me personally. Don't blame be for responding when you invoke my moniker. It's not fair to do so. ~ R.T.G 18:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

The OP has escalated the issue to Jimbo Wales. Probably nothing left to do except await His decision. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:08, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Can you guys stop, and I mean STOP, saying go nominate articles if you want to see other stories. We all know that's bullshit. This is not DYK/FA where any subject can be added to the template. It's so much easier to add blurbs for the Boat Race, International Dublin Literary Award, All-Ireland Senior Football Championship as compared to college American football, and recently, Australian train derailments, conviction of Harvey Weinstein, a power struggle in Malaysia, heck even the death of Kobe Bryant where someone literally shouted down people to stop supporting the blurb. Howard the Duck (talk) 03:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey

Gauging interest to determine if we should put a moratorium on posting politics and political leadership news on WP:ITN, as posting political stories might be considered contrary to the mission of Wikipedia and WP:5P2. I'm not averse to opening this up as a full WP:RFC if that's needed.

• Neutral as nominator.--WaltCip (talk) 19:58, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This would be contrary to WP:ITN#Purpose, if a blurb or article has a WP:NPOV issue that's what WP:ERRORS is for. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:07, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose We have basically a single editor who seems unwilling to accept years of accumulated precedent and consensus regarding what we cover and how. This is an overreaction, to put it mildly. ITN should continue to cover changes in government and the results of national elections in a manner that is both DUE and NPOV. Mentioning one political party's performance when they did not even win a plurality would have failed both. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:27, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
• No please. This would be wrong solution to a non-existing problem. The OP should understand what all the people above are explaining to them and there'd be nothing more to do here. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:59, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. The problem this allegedly solves is one that only exists in the OP's head; the main page gets many complaints (many of them from me) for many reasons, but none of them have ever been "how dare you show election results!". It would also greatly increase systemic bias on the main page, since changes of government are one of the rare topics where news events in smaller and non-English-speaking countries typically get adequate coverage on Wikipedia to allow us to run them in the requisite time frame; removing politics really would turn ITN into a disasters-and-US/UK-sport news ticker. ‑ Iridescent 13:43, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Then why do the rules here specifically mention elections as a recurring complaint? "...to allows us to run them..." I didn't say, "How dare you run the election results!" I said it may be problematic to the mission here, and it is definitely getting more weight on the section than is appropriate. Broad extension is part of the sites goal. A narrow newsline overshadowed by politics is >.< ~ R.T.G 18:03, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

You keep asserting that posting election results is necessary supporting a political stance, which it is not at all. Just because we mention how certain political parties won or lost is not the equivalent to saying we're supporting or fighting against the position of that part, just that that party won or lost the majority in the election in where the government structure is specifically set to recognize the controlling party in power. --Masem (t) 18:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I did not say that at all. I said that in the case of the Irish election it is difficult to report and still appear impartial. Newspapers and television news outlets are openly biased. So if there is no way possible to return a bias following them, they've got you with the blinkers on. I'm not asking for a fight. I'm asking for a broader horizon in one of the most narrow horizons. What I am getting is a fight, just to maintain that I have a valid point. People are literally saying, "Move along now, nothing here to see..." Face that, please. ~ R.T.G 18:27, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

How is "The Irish general election concludes with no party holding a majority of seats in Dáil Éireann." a statement that could be seen as even biased? That seems like a fully impartial statement within the allowed space for an ITN blurb, and from the standpoint of ITN, suggests that the Irish legislation will have deadlocked issues for the next several years. Now , if the issue is at the actual article, that's beyond the scope of ITN. --Masem (t) 18:32, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

They've been deadlocked since before I was born. You are trying to hold on to something good by holding everything else back. That's what "the issue" is. ~ R.T.G 18:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand what that has to do with anything. Should news outlets in Ireland and elsewhere not report on the elections for this body since no party ever gets a majority? 331dot (talk) 18:52, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

If the issue is that we covered an election that did nothing to the status quo and are failing to cover other "news", that's because no one is nominating other news to consider for nominations. We are not selectively only covering election results, only that volunteers are more often going to put those forward than other news stories. If you want other news to be featured then stories of appropriate importance with articles of appropriate quality have to be nominated. --Masem (t) 18:58, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. There is no problem here to solve. 331dot (talk) 14:26, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per the above points. Political events are clearly newsworthy events, and there's no need to change what we do just because one editor seems unable to accept the explanation and consensus from the discussion above.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:16, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) Coronavirus

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I think you people should add something about the expansion of the coronavirus in Italy and surrounding countries in the news section. It's a far more publicized event in Europe than some shooting and it'd be better if Wiki readers got their information about it here and not in tabloids 93.136.26.45 (talk) 00:17, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

You are free to make a nomination at WP:ITNC. 331dot (talk) 00:19, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Actually, this has just been nominated and it was opposed to be posted because we already have it in Ongoing. --Masem (t) 00:26, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing about the Italy part in ongoing. 93.136.26.45 (talk) 01:39, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The overall spread of the virus in China and to other parts of the world are in that article and then the table listing the cases has links to the outbreak in each country that has reported them. We are certainly not at this time going to put a news item that focuses on the outbreak in only one country when so many now have it (outside of China where it is the worst affected). --Masem (t) 01:44, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Italy went from 3 to 300 infected since the weekend and neighboring countries are also registering infected people who contracted the disease from Italy, so it's not just Chinese and travellers to China who are infected now. I think if Wikipedia is going to put something as run of the mill as a 9 dead shooting spree, why not this. 93.136.26.45 (talk) 01:58, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

At the same time, South Korea went into the triple digits too. The fact that numerous countries across the world are affected means that its going to be in the news for a long time. As to not give any undue weight to any specific outbreak, that's why the coronavirus is listed there in Ongoing and likely will remain there for several months. If the situation changes (such as if WHO declares it a pandemic) that affects the global situation, then it makes sense to make a new blurb for it. --Masem (t) 02:01, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion relating to a potential RFC to archive the whole ITN project

See here. Just thought I'd let you all know! The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:11, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

The RFC has now been created at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).--WaltCip (talk) 17:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Woah, that is not a proposal about archiving, as the heading suggests! That is a discussion about whether ITN should be shut down entirely. Modest Genius ^talk 12:24, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) Virus, what virus?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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COVID-19, ex-coronavirus, continues to spread in a manner that the WHO calls "near" pandemic levels. The number of cases worldwide tops 80,000, and more than 2,700 people have died. On Feb. 25 more new cases were reported outside China than in China. Affected countries include South Korea, Iran, Italy and Germany.

Yes I know the latest nomination was rejected a couple days ago, but the topic remains at the top of most Eng.-lang. RS sites. It's mystifying absence from ITN blurbs is the elephant in our room. – Sca (talk) 15:58, 26 February 2020 (UTC) →

I'm certain you can renominate it. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 16:04, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The nature of the coronavirus story is exactly the purpose Ongoing was meant for, a story that is going to be getting near daily updates for a long period but which no singular update is "more important" than another. I've said before that if WHO actually declares it a pandemic, thats probably the next trigger for an actual blurb. --Masem (t) 16:08, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The nature yes, the significance [12] [13][14] [15] [16] no. – Sca (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

When it comes to medical situations like this, the last people I am going to take as those to raise red flags are the media themselves. CDC or WHO, absolutely. The media, absolutely not. This is where heeding the advice of MEDRS makes sense. --Masem (t) 19:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

It's rather prominently in the news. Do you think the media, upon which ITN depends for most of its info, are making it up? – Sca (talk) 19:40, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Alternatively there is the option to move the Ongoing line to above the blurbs.... maybe in this case as an IAR situation. There is clearly something different from this than, say, Brexit or Trump impeachment that it should be highlighted. --Masem (t) 16:10, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• There is currently a link on the main page ITN section to the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak. I clicked it and it works fine. Perhaps something is wrong with your computer that you cannot either see it or when you click it, it doesn't work? --Jayron32 16:17, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• I assume this is another installment in the ever-popular "the story I think it most important isn't the first item in the box and it's just not fair" which has periodically appeared at WT:ITN for the past 15 years. If we're very lucky we might get "how dare you post the result of a sport I don't personally follow?" or "I don't think this story is appropriate as children might see it". ‑ Iridescent 16:31, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• Don't forget the "This person was naughty, I'm offended you're not pretending they didn't exist". That's also currently a hot complaint right now. --Jayron32 16:53, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• The walrus in the room phenomenon? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:01, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• Currently seem to be immune, anyway. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:32, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal for a companion page, Wikipedia: In other news

WP:ITN is a binary process; things are either main-page newsworthy and are included, or fall short and are excluded. Of course, articles linked from headlines on the main page get both more attention and more scrutiny, and more work is done on improving them. Having a larger set of current-event type articles with a similarly raised profile would likely contribute to their improvement as well.

I therefore propose that we make a companion page titled Wikipedia: In other news, which will include all of the news that makes the main page, as well as the news that falls short of making the main page, but is still reasonably newsworthy. The page would be linked from a "More news" link next to the "Nominate an article" link in the main page "In the news" section, and would likely be structured much like the main page, perhaps with sections for different kinds of news (e.g. law and politics; sports; culture; science and technology; perhaps even a "Wikipedia-related news" section; etc.). Because this would be a separate page, items initially listed on the main page could remain on this auxiliary page for a longer time, perhaps for a week or so. The combination of longer-held items, inclusion of items falling short of main page inclusion, and addition of some items that would not be proposed for the main page should be sufficient to keep the page fully stocked. Note that I do not propose this as a replacement for Wikinews (which focuses on originally constructed news articles), but merely as an extension and expansion of the work already done by WP:ITN. Is this a workable idea? BD2412 T 04:31, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

{{In the news}} already has a link to Portal:Current events, on "Ongoing" when it's used and otherwise on "Other recent events". I don't see justification for maintaining a second page. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:39, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. What if we add a link to Portal:Current events piped to the text, "More news" next to the "Nominate an article" link in the main page "In the news" section, then? The current layout does not make the connection all that clear to readers. BD2412 T 05:03, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

That's Wikinews's purpose. --Masem (t) 04:40, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

"the news that falls short of making the main page, but is still reasonably newsworthy" - Where exactly do we set the bar for this? I'm not against the idea; I'm reasonably in support of it. I just want to know what kind of threshold we'd be setting. Notability is one of the most contentious and subjective areas of ITN currently.--WaltCip (talk) 13:12, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• PrimeHunter got it just right. This is what Portal:Current events is for --LaserLegs (talk) 13:28, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

No it's not actually, and there have been recent complaints that it has been used for this sort of thing. Current events is for ongoing current events, not other sorts of news. ~ R.T.G 15:25, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Another news site wouldn't be appropriate for what was intended to be an online encyclopedia. While I am personally a news hound, I doubt that many of our readers go to Wiki first for news. That said, ITN in its current, more timely iteration provides a valuable ancillary service to readers, especially those who want more detail about current events than they find in basic news stories. But we don't need another news portal. For one thing, there are plenty of news 'feeds' out there already. For another, most Wiki eds aren't trained in journalism principles and techniques. – Sca (talk) 15:48, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't use WikiNews as any sort of proxy for the proposal mentioned here. It has nowhere near the editor level that enwiki has, and I don't think it necessarily covers news stories in a balanced and WP:WORLDWIDE fashion. And secondly, the principal purpose of ITN is to direct readers to our articles. Here in this encyclopedia, not on one of the other Wikimedia projects. So yes, Portal:Current events probably is the best place for such a thing, and may already be doing a decent enough job of it. On the whole I don't think this is a massive issue either way, because page-view statistics show that the public find our pages on current events regardless of whether we include it in ITN or not.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:22, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

So, RTG mentioned this particular idea as a method to fix WP:ITN's issue of visibility of various news stories (for those that consider it an issue). I'd like for this idea to get more attention, and perhaps get a survey of support/opposition. We can either do it here or at the RFC that I set up over at the Village Pump. I honestly don't think it would hurt to have something like this.--WaltCip (talk) 18:09, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Archives

Why is the template no longer archived? Is it not something a bot could be easily programmed to do? ~ R.T.G 15:40, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Latest archives from like Feb 17 show templates there....--Masem (t) 15:55, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

When I look at the page here all I see are Wikipedia:ITN archives from 2008-11 in the toolbox. Though I did think I was able to go through them somewhere a while back. Must have been the nominations section. ~ R.T.G 17:52, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/Archives After 2011, we went to per-month archives. --Masem (t) 18:24, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Nope. The "candidate archives" is just the archives of the nomination page. The published items from the template are no longer archived. Can make it difficult on the eyes to go through the list. The old page was a really neat bulleted list of the blurbs used. Roughly 13 of the stories on the last archive are not politics, disaster, or military stories, out of 47, about 3.7:1 ~ R.T.G 10:11, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

The Archives link at the ITN toolbox should lead to Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/Archives rather than Wikipedia:ITN archives. I was confused about this before. Brandmeister^talk 10:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Or both. ~ R.T.G 10:42, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Done. --LaserLegs (talk) 11:02, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Brandmeister^talk 11:44, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Well when you say done what you mean is you've moved the candidate archives link to the place where the template archives link was. The template is still not being archived. Will there be a problem if I try to figure out how to set up an archive bot? ~ R.T.G 08:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

If you want to archive blurbs, a bot is not the best solution because blurbs change while on the Main Page. The best solution is to add a blurb to an archive page when it rolls off Template:In the news. This is an extra step admins would have to take. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 19:43, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

question re Wikipedia:WikiProject Current events project status

Hi all. Why is Wikipedia:WikiProject Current events shown as being inactive? If we have so many editors working actively on this area on a continuous basis, then shouldn't this WikiProject be shown as highly active? does anyone here want to update this page?

I would like to allow someone who edits actively in this area to do so. I do not fit that description, so I would like to request that someone active here start to maintain that page, and to get it set up.

I see many benefits to using this page. this is an area that is subject to multiple high-intensity work, by editors working both individually, and as a group. so it seems to me to be only logical to have a WikiProject for this that fulfills some active role. I am open to any and all ideas on this. thanks!!! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:54, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How the Current events page works.--Moxy 🍁 15:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)