Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 104

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Archive 102

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Straw poll: The purpose of ITN

This is something I've been considering in light of many past discussions. We all can probably agree that ITN is the intersection of 1) quality WP articles 2) topics that are currently reported on in mainstream media and 3) some type of significance aspect, though qualify this is a bit more difficult.

That said, in considering the first two points - quality and in the news, I think there is a large difference of opinion between frequent participants. This comes down to whether our first priority is to feature quality articles which happen to be in the news, or to feature newsworthy topics that happen to have quality articles. There is a difference in how ITN is handled from these. The former is more along the lines of "ITN is not a news ticker" and rationales for why we tend to look to significance to make sure we are featuring a broad array of topics. The second would be where past proposals of quantifying ITNC by how widely something is covered, and diminishing the importance of quality and significance in favor of timeliness. There are also likely intermediate views too.

I think before we can decide questions like about RD blurbs and handling of ITNR items, as well as the significance question, we need to reaffirm what ITN's goal is. Hence having non-binding straw poll before any type of RFC to know how to frame things.

So the straw poll question: what is ITN's primary function, is it featuring quality articles, or is it featuring newsworthy items, or some other focus? Masem (t) 03:21, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

ITN's purpose is to showcase recent topics - I firmly believe that ITN should and was established to be more akin to a news ticker. Firstly, in the way ITN is constructed, ITN literally imitates an actual news ticker and was clearly designed to be closer to what many here call as "being a ticker." Looking at old ITN archives, the standards for posting were a lot more loose than today, and the significance standards that existed clearly had community consensus and weren't just up to whoever showed up to vote. Hell, something demonstrative of this is all the drama revolving around ITNR and blurb RDs, where looking at how they are documented in ITN's information pages, you can clearly interpret that they were from a time where ITN was much more fluid and see that the current drama clearly arises from how as ITN's standards has swelled and become less defined, people are now fighting over these guidelines that are still stuck in 2012. ITN should focus mostly on the recentness of a topic and its quality (as in not having some stubby, orange-tagged, unsourced nonsense being posted to the main page), which achieve ITN's goal of showcasing contemporary topics that readers are either looking for or may not be but be nonetheless intrigued and educated by, foster greater topical and geographic diversity in topics covered, and reduce staleness. To restate, our goal should be posting newsworthy items. It appears as if the majority of folk on ITN are opposed to the idea of ITN being a news ticker, however, I've yet to see consensus on what ITN is then (which I just remembered is the point of this poll). - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 04:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

ITN is for featuring newsworthy items and we should do away with the quality criterion. If something gets a lot of coverage worldwide, that's sufficient to post. If anyone's unhappy that orange-tagged articles or w/e end up on the main page, they are always free to fix the articles themselves (or just delete the tag and reinsert it after it rolls off, as has happened in the past). Banedon (talk) 05:19, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

If we completely did away with the quality criterion, we'd have to remove ITN from the Main Page. Per Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page,

It is true that Wikipedia has a systemic bias towards topics of interest to computer-literate males from industrialized English-speaking countries, resulting from a skew towards this demographic in its editor base. The Main Page generally reflects the bias of Wikipedia as a whole, although people tend to overlook biases that they share.

It is important to remember that items selected for the Main Page (boldfaced links) are predominantly chosen based on article quality, not on how important or significant their subjects are. as bolded. Masem (t) 12:26, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Or we do away with that item in the FAQ as well. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 15:03, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Good idea, remove the entire main page so we stop featuring a censored version of Wikipedia. Banedon (talk) 02:06, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

ITN is for featuring newsworthy items. I disagree that we should do away with quality requirements, but I do feel that ITN should be a "news ticker". As mentioned above, the title "in the news" sounds a whole lot like a news ticker to me. The harder part is deciding what is worthy to post, and what has wide significance to an English-speaking world. Natg 19 (talk) 05:46, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The purpose of ITN is to showcase quality articles on topics that are in the news, so both. I'm not sure what the point of this is, as I see the issues that have made ITN dysfunctional recently stemming from the debate of what is and is not considered significant rather than this. The notion that we should get rid of bare minimum quality standards (WP:ITNQUALITY) for the mainpage is first-of-all ludicrous and second-of-all a complete non-starter. Curbon7 (talk) 05:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Why I think it matters is that what is considered significant will change depending on whether quality or newsworthyness drives the process. If quality drives, then i think we would encourage a broad range of topics both geographically and by field, even if only given a small bit of coverage from RSes, like scientific discoveries (this is in part supported BY ITNR). If newsworthy ness drives, then we need to consider the breadth of coverage among newspapers, which will have lots on geographical and field coverage. Masem (t) 17:59, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Both quality and newsworthiness There is no reason they should be mutually exclusive. For reference, Wikipedia:In the news § Purpose currently reads:

To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news.

To showcase quality Wikipedia content on current events.

To point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them.

To emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic resource.

I think WP:ITNSIGNIF is the area that is too subjective: It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting. We have no common ground on how to factor areas such as importance and prominence.—Bagumba (talk) 08:39, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Both quality and newsworthiness per above. While Wikipedia:In the news#Purpose doesn't mention newsworthiness, WP:ITNCRIT has been pretty clear: "a) the quality of the article and its updated content, and b) the significance of the developments described". One should not be preferred over the other per WP:NOTNEWS, they balance each other out. I don't think there's a compelling reason to scrap the existing guideline and then set some primary ITN purpose. Brandmeister^talk 09:34, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I equated the ...content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news part to be "newsworthiness".—Bagumba (talk) 09:42, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

ITN is for quality encyclopaedia articles about topics that are in the news, all aspects are equally important. ITN is not and should not be a news ticker, we have Wikinews and Portal:Current events for that purpose. Accordingly it is not enough that lots of people are looking for something - there must be enough encyclopaedic information available that we can write an article or section about it (or enough to significantly update an existing one) and we must have already done this to at least as reasonable (circa C-class) quality. Thryduulf (talk) 10:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
...it is not enough that lots of people are looking for something - there must be enough encyclopaedic information available...: If there is a dedicated page on the subject and C-level quality, are there situations that it should still not be posted? —Bagumba (talk) 11:12, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Yes. The first examples that come to mind are where there is already an entry in ongoing, where there has been no update to the article, where the article is currently at AfD, and where there is no consensus that it is in the news; there may also be others. The requirements are are necessary not sufficient. Thryduulf (talk) 11:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

ITN's purpose is to encourage development of the encyclopedia, by providing the carrot of a main page audience. The notion of what is newsworthy is somewhat impossible to define: what's frontpage to you is not even reported to me. If recent events result in enough depth of coverage to create (or significantly improve) an article, that target should qualify. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

...what is newsworthy is somewhat impossible to define...: Bear in mind that if we can't make it more objective, it basically boils down to a vote count of whoever shows up, as there's otherwise no basis to guage if one argument is stronger than another.—Bagumba (talk) 11:31, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

...if we can't make it more objective...: There's no "if" about it; it cannot be done. Accepting this, we might put our efforts to better purpose evaluating quality and treating significance as something of a binary. But as this poll and my earlier one show, there is no common belief that should even be our target. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

ITN's main purpose is to highlight quality articles about recent events. We are not a news source, we merely are here to provide links to articles that people are already seeing in actual news sources. --Jayron 32 11:53, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
ITN's main purpose is to help readers find quality content about topics that are in the news, and notably ought not based on the perspectives of individual editors with all of their differing backgrounds and viewpoints. Admittedly, it is that way from now and seems to be as a result of long-standing consensus. Nevertheless, our aims should always be to provide content to the readers and not to ourselves. I hasten to point out that our current environment really is not so conducive to user-friendliness for readers and new contributors. I feel that so strongly that I actually went and wrote a guide to explain what Bagumba pointed out above, that it's almost a farce attempting to define significance as anything more than a counting of heads. I know Masem has made good and valid points as to how we ought to define significance, but that is almost never how it works in practice. --Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:56, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Everyone knows that ITN's purpose is to report whoever won the latest tournament of sportsball in an English-speaking country. All other topics are secondary and can be safely ignored ;) Nosferattus (talk) 16:47, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
As the top story on ITN is currently the conclusion of the Indian Premier League. Fine argument! Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:30, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Important News The first version of WP:ITN gives the basic purpose of ITN as the listing of important current events. It explains that this started when September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack was listed within minutes of the attack starting. As that was important breaking news, ITN's focus is therefore upon speed and importance rather than quality.

When we check the quality of the current listed items, we see that it is quite patchy and only one entry is of good quality:

2023 Indian Premier League final – C class
2023 Indianapolis 500 – Start class
Tina Turner – Good article
2023 Mahdia school fire – Start class
2023 PGA Championship – C class
Jim Brown – C class

Andrew🐉(talk) 17:18, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Good quality ≠ Good Article class. Good quality for the purposes of ITN simply means the article is well-sourced and holistic in its coverage. Curbon7 (talk) 17:23, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I would not use the letter grading here to measure quality as assessment is not an automatic or rapidly updated process. Eg Jim Brown's article at the time it was posted easily merited a B class assessment. Quslity needs to be evaluated ignoring amy assessment, though we still want to be using quality aspects like B class or better as milestones to compare against. Masem (t) 17:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

An article being A class, Good, or Featured will certainly increase the chances of a faster posting to ITN, but it otherwise nary correlates with the quality criterion in any meaningful way. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:28, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

If you guys don't agree with the Good article criteria which are used by the rest of Wikipedia, then you need to go make that case at WP:GA. Per WP:CONLEVEL, "participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope". Andrew🐉(talk) 17:35, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

DYK has its own set of criteria, one which does involve recently promoted GAs, but also includes "arbitrary" quality tuned to DYN for recently created articles. We can and should use established GA assessments to measure quality, but most of the articles that come up are new, and thus similarly we can choose an appropriate measure of quality for ITN. Masem (t) 17:51, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

DYK's focus is new articles and so is prepared to compromise on quality. Even so, DYK has quite a precise and rigorous process for checking its quality threshold. I usually use the {{DYK checklist}} myself and find it quite good for ensuring that copyright, neutrality and other key details are checked. ITN has nothing like this. And note that DYK is currently running three GAs to ITN's one (1;2;3). So, ITN processes and output are not as good as DYK and so the claim that ITN is primarily focussed on quality is just not supported by the evidence, history or practice. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:47, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Again, quality for ITN's purposes does not mean having passed Good Article review, quality here means well-sourced and holistic in coverage. Curbon7 (talk) 18:49, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Holistic? That word doesn't appear in WP:ITNCRIT and articles like 2023 Indianapolis 500 are not at all holistic – they are incomprehensible to someone who is not a fan of those sports and already understands all the jargon and rules. That's why it's graded Start class and its quality is correspondngly poor. The reason that article is being run is because the event happened recently and ITN/R gave it a free pass on importance. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:22, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

"Holistic" in this sense (if I'm interpreting it correctly) means that the article covers every aspect of the subject. It is not missing major details. In that sense, the Indy500 article is clearly holistic, is covers the event and its background and aftermath thoroughly. Whether or not it's accessible to you as someone who perhaps isn't familiar with US motorsport, is a separate question. And on THE GA vs main page quality question, in theory one is a subset of the other - any GA should automatically meet the weaker requirements stipulated by DYK, ITN and OTD. The caveat is that (a) sometimes GA reviews are not thorough enough and issues get missed, and (b) the article drifts away from its GA-approved version over time and perhaps now has some unreferenced or subpar prose in it. In these scenarios, GA articles would be rejected at ITN. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 15:26, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Since many ITN candidates are about events that have just occurred in the last 24 or 48 hrs, most of these articles are going to be new and no where close to reaching a GA review (which is backlogged in the first place). Maybe ITN should establish what minimum standards are for ITN articles, akin to DYK. However that is a question beyond thus debate. It is just important that when we talk quality on ITN, it is not meant to equate to the letter grade assessment quality process. Masem (t) 19:23, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

ITN doesn't have a system for assessing or measuring quality and "you can't manage what you can't measure". So the talk of quality here is literally meaningless because it is not defined. By rejecting the standard assessments of quality, you're then left with a chaotic system in which random !voters make snap-judgements in an arbitrary, opinionated way. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:41, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

You are missing my point in that, as a result of this poll, we might want to define a quality standard for ITN, instead of the current situation. It likely will not align with grade assessment, but would be similar to DYK's guidance. That is, I am agreeing with your concern about a current lack of a quality guideline for ITN, and am proposing a possible fix. But that goes beyond the bounds of this poll. Masem (t) 19:54, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The poll presents a false dichotomy of quality vs newsworthiness. We obviously require some minimum level of both and the devil is then in the details – exactly how much quality and how much newsworthiness. That's why I harp about article assessments, vital status, readership level and so forth – they provide metrics for a meaningful, evidence-based discussion. So, what's the next stage? Andrew🐉(talk) 20:27, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I pointed out in the question that intermediate positions that balance both quality and newsworthiness may be possible. It wasnt an either-or choice Masem (t) 21:20, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The question posed was "what is ITN's primary function?". The answer is still that its primary function to list important current events. Quality is a constraint or implementation detail; it's not the primary goal. The main page sections which have quality as their primary goal are WP:TFA; WP:TFP and WP:TFL. They aim to provide the best quality and ITN is different. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:00, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

As I pointed out from the Main PAge FAQ, as a main page section, we are expected to feature quality articles. Just because we presently don't have an explicit quality statement in ITN's instructions doesn't mean one doesn't exist in practice or that we can document in the future, if you feel we absolutely need that type of statement. So no, quality cannot be absolutely ignored. Masem (t) 03:18, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

The main page FAQ addresses ITN directly.

Wikipedia:In the news lists the criteria for articles to be included on "In the news". It is important to remember that Wikipedia is not a newspaper. A current event needs to have international importance, or at least interest, to warrant an article being written about it. Relatively small news items should not be put into articles, and those type of news items should thus not be displayed on the Main Page. Discussions are held at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates to determine which items should be listed, with both the importance of the event and the quality of the associated articles (including those for recent deaths) being evaluated. All items are listed chronologically and, given the timely nature of "In the news", some items may never be listed if the articles are not sufficiently updated in time. Remember that we are all volunteers!

The accuracy of this summary of ITN is debatable. For example, 2023 Mahdia school fire seems to be a relatively small news item without international importance but we're still running it. So, the FAQ is not prescriptive policy or process; it's just a help page. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Look under the FAQ section "I think that the articles chosen for the Main Page are awful and much more important articles should be there instead. Isn't the Main Page biased towards certain topics? What can be done about it?", where it says, in bold It is important to remember that items selected for the Main Page (boldfaced links) are predominantly chosen based on article quality, not on how important or significant their subjects are., eg applying to ITN and all other sections.

I do agree to a point about "small news items" and that's something that may need to change to reduce conflict in ITNC discussions, but I think that's more a question to ask once we decide if we favor quality or newsworthiness. Just that it seems we can't escape quality from the main page's requirements. Masem (t) 12:45, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

That FAQ is mainly explaining why sections like TFA and DYK often run obscure and quirky topics such as Paint Drying and Somerset County Cricket Club in 1883. It's not so much help in understanding ITN and why it runs so much death and sport. ITN is explicitly biased towards certain topics and has a list of them at WP:ITNSPORTS. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:50, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

ITN is for the promotion of quality articles on topics currently receiving attention in the mainstream press/media. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:30, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Promoting quality articles which happen to be in the news. When we start debating what is or is not a "newsworthy topic", our personal biases overwhelm us and we favor what we think is newsworthy, which may not be representative of Main Page readers. We get hard-headed, some of us anyway, and that encourages BATTLEGROUND behavior. It should be more of a news ticker that showcases quality content without worrying as much about the long-term "significance". – Muboshgu (talk) 18:42, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
I find Mubosghgu's take practical: "Promoting quality articles which happen to be in the news". Reaching consensus on quality appears to be much easier here than agreeing on newsworthiness. For several predictable reasons, e.g. different notions of newsworthiness or varying views on WP's systemic bias and on the need or means to counterbalance it. "... which happen to be in the news" works well for me. I don't expect the main page to inform me about all the important and relevant things going on in the world, and nor do I expect a collective of Wikipedia editors to decide what is globally relevant and what isn't. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:30, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. That's a good addition to what I wrote. We are not a newspaper and should not pretend to be one by putting so much emphasis on the long-term significance of items. But we should have some sort of a floor there so we don't turn ITN into a gossip rag. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:36, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't know. Have we tried defining an (extensive) body of 'serious' news media, and allowing to promote articles on news featured in a defined number of these media, or in a defined number of different regions these media are based in etc? I wouldn't oppose such criteria (they're easily verified, and give some sort of benchmark regarding 'global relevance' or 'newsworthiness'). We've seen discussions where stories (with high-quality articles) didn't get consensus despite a number of links to very prominent and acclaimed news media. If something like a consensually developed 'standard' for newsworthiness is applicable, I'm all for it.

Regarding gossip news, it is occasionally also presented in the NYT or Le Monde etc. or even the WSJ, and I don't think we should exclude such news from ITN solely on the basis of 'just' being about celebrities, for example. But of course we want to keep a smart balance among different news sections, different parts of the world, different degrees of gravity etc. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:49, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Another example that falls in "gossip" news is the current debate about the US debt ceiling. It is nearly front page material for the last month in most venues, yet I am 100% certain it would never be posted at ITN - barring a default that bankrupts the country. Masem (t) 03:15, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
I imagine this in terms of WP:NOTEVERYTHING. IMO, there isn't enough detail about the debt ceiling that would be interesting to a reader 5 years from now. If we then think of ITN's purpose as encouraging quality improvements to the encyclopedia, we can understand how significance is not so much about global impact, but the extent to which events can sustain a quality article (or update). GreatCaesarsGhost 10:33, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
A LOT of what we post or get nominated are stories that 5-10 years out aren't going to be remembered, such as a lot of these "small" disasters (such as the current 2023 Astore avalanche nomination). In the past we've just said its okay if these get to bare minimum quality to post, but I think part of this discussion involves those types of articles. Particularly considering the view that Jayron and Mubosghgu have written, in that if we are to showcase quality articles that people have seen already in the news and may be looking for more information. I still also think we have to worry about possible systematic bias that is created from this approach too, but that's probably a bigger discussion. Masem (t) 12:43, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I often find the dicussions on newsworthiness, the way we conduct them now, to be unproductive. But if we can agree on some sort of minimal and easily checked standards, all the better! ---Sluzzelin talk 21:49, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
I think its purpose should be to direct people to articles that are widely covered in the news so long as there is some minimum quality. But being a quality article doesnt make something worthy of posting here, it should also be news that people are looking for more information on. nableezy - 19:41, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
People who have heard of a thing in the news look for more information, come to Wikipedia, and ITN can helpfully point them to it without the need to search further. Of course, access is a lot different now than when ITN was created - Wikipedia is indexed at the top of some searches so most people will be finding the articles they're interested in directly. This doesn't answer Masem's question, because this scenario sees different users to focus on different parts: the relation to the news, or the promotion of the articles. It's probably both, but as Wikipedia isn't a news outlet, I lean to the promoting our articles side. The question is whether that means we should be more or less selective when it comes to which news items for which we post related articles - that will take a whole new straw poll. If anything comes of this discussion, I hope it's that people look more at the article in debating whether to post, but where our standards should be is another debate - do sports and awards really need prose updates when we know readers are looking for all the numbers on a convenient page? ITN philosophy is probably too deep for the amount of clicks it gets... Kingsif (talk) 23:09, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
ITN's purpose is to do exactly what it's doing now. There can never be any simple priority placed on "quality" or "newsworthiness" because there are plenty of sucky articles about newsworthy events and plenty of quality articles about mundane topics. The way I see it, most higher-quality about newsworthy events encompass most of the concerns people have regarding ITN. Most such articles should help direct people towards pages they are looking for anyway and I believe "newsworthiness" to be a sufficient enough analogy for "highly covered". DarkSide830 (talk) 01:38, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
ITN is for featuring newsworthy items in the public interest. People looking for Wikipedia content related to world events should be directed to relevant articles that are non-terrible. The article quality should be secondary. - Fuzheado | Talk 15:35, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Fuzheado, articles that are non-terrible is article quality in the case of ITN. Curbon7 (talk) 16:30, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
It's not the same. The bar for anything in ITN or RD is currently very high - no orange tags allowed and no citation needed warnings allowed. Any filmography or discography needs to be completely referenced or it verboten. - Fuzheado | Talk 15:03, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
The variety and diversity of the responses presented here certainly inform the nature of the disagreements we frequently have at ITN. Although article quality and newsworthiness both seem to be acknowledged as a general tenet we ought to stand by, the priority placed on one over the other varies, as well as the threshold bar as to when an article is considered good enough or newsworthy enough. Honestly, I'm most perturbed by the different significance/newsworthiness thresholds that everyone has. Some people think the topic needs to be of major importance to humanity, others are willing to be more lenient. Technically, we don't have a consensus on that. --Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:08, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

There used to be something in the general criteria that said (paraphrasing): The two criteria are quality and significance; a surplus in one can balance out a deficit in the other. I don't know why that was stricken, but I think it gets at the spirit of a lot of what was said here. GreatCaesarsGhost 16:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

It was WP:BOLDLY stricken because it was proven not to be the case in practice, and no one contested the removal. We had brilliant articles about low-interest items - FAs, even - that were rejected on significance. Conversely, no admin here would have the stomach to post a stub-class article about a major event, even if the consequences were incredible. A particularly egregious example of the former, here and here. I !voted oppose on that and I still feel sick to my stomach about it. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:20, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

...no admin here would have the stomach to post a stub-class article about a major event...: That's because WP:ITN explicity says: Stub articles are never appropriate for the main page On the otherhand, there's nothing where an admin could discount a strong majority of editors saying a current event was great quality and "significant enough".—Bagumba (talk) 11:35, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

ITN is for featuring newsworthy items in the public interest per Fuzheado. Our first priority ought to be reader interest, and helping direct them to articles on current events. A distinctly second factor is article quality. We don't want to feature a stub, nor do we want BLP violations, but it's not going to sink the world if a start-class article that's still being updated goes up. (It might even be a good thing as people see us editing in real time.) The main page has clear divisions: TFA has quality, DYK has newness, OTD has history, TFP has visuals, and ITN has current events. Let's stop muddling them. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:16, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

While TFA is about exceptional quality, all of the main page sections have quality as a requirement to some degree. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:16, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

To add, if we go by the arguments above that ITN should help readers to learn more about topics they see in the news, providing a subpar article that fails quality metrics would not be helpful. Masem (t) 20:47, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

This is not a convincing argument. People get a lot of value from "subpar" (whatever that means) articles in Wikipedia all the time. In fact, we depend on people visiting "subpar" articles in order to improve them and participate. - Fuzheado | Talk 15:05, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Then that comes back to a fundamental question as to whether ITN is for readers or for editors. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:45, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Ironically, what Fuzheado wrote there could be an argument that posting in-progress articles helps both readers and editors. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:46, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

However, there's no reason that ITN couldn't return to its original better-defined purpose as you stated above: "The two criteria are quality and significance; a surplus in one can balance out a deficit in the other." We can set people's expectations in that they go to DYK, FA, and OTD where quality is priority, whereas at ITN, we will show work in progress and non-excellent content because, well, because news is constantly changing. It's silly to say we will only showcase complete and high quality news content when news is anything but that - its very nature is that it is incomplete, ever-changing, and the best version at the moment. - Fuzheado | Talk 15:10, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't see an issue with have articles that are being developed or in progress at ITN with the intent to draw readers to improve. But I think these articles need a strong enough backbone in quality so that newer editors will instinctively know how to contribute. So asking for at least a minimum size and reasonable comprehensiveness and sourcing commitments are still necessary. This also serve those coming here for info on the news topic Stubby articles without those may improve but aren't at a state to encourage editing and thus should not be in the ITN block in that state. Masem (t) 15:22, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

As a point of reference, 2023 Odisha train collision was recently posted at 1809 B and 297 words.[1].—Bagumba (talk) 07:01, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Which was well expanded since. Another example is that dam destruction, in a short time (at the speed of news) the article reached a stage that readers if they wanted to contribute for the first time could easily follow. And if course it is still growing. One aspect that comes out if this is the reasonable degree that we could expand an article based on the scope of coverage. Several events that occur in less populated places with mild death tolls may get limited coverage and difficult to expand past a stub in the time they are featured at ITM (if they are at all). That's why both the quality and potential for expansion should be high value aspects. Newswirtiness is captured by both aspects (numerous sources coming out the pipeline to expand) Masem (t) 21:32, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Also interesting that "newswirtiness" was not part of that guidance. I've suggested before that newswortiness is folded it article quality in reflect how well we can expand a new article or updated section through more coverage if the event. Masem (t) 16:07, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I think newsworthiness is more important than quality. In the News should feature articles that are in the news. Articles should not have to be perfect, just respectable. I feel that we need to slightly expand how many articles are featured- unless it's a very boring fortnight, we shouldn't have articles that simply roll off due to staleness; rather, they should be getting replaced with new stories before staleness sets in. -- Kicking222 (talk) 14:36, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Newsworthiness should be given more primacy over quality. While obviously there should be some minimum bar so we don't have stuff like BLP violations, copyvios, stubs, or large portions of uncited text, this bar is currently too high right now. The most egregious example may be requiring that filmographies and discographies of artists be fully cited despite this being quite time consuming, of minimal benefit to readers, and rarely uncovering any errors. We should be directing viewers to pages they want to see and some minor imperfections here and there aren't a major issue (and in fact might draw them in to edit and fix issues themselves). ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 15:32, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
Asking for sourcing on a RD is a minimum requirement to meet WP:BLP. That editors have forgotten to do this over time is not ITN's fault. Masem (t) 15:47, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
Indeed, and I'm not sure why the issue of sourcing has come up in this discussion, which was supposed to be about whether newsworthiness or encyclopedic significance was the greater draw here. The quality criterion, and its links to WP:BLP and WP:V are basic main-page standards, which aren't and shouldn't be up for negotiation. — Amakuru (talk) 16:04, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
This poll is looking between quality and newsworthiness, putting significance as a separate discussion after that. Masem (t) 16:47, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
Newsworthiness and reader interest is more important per others. It's not that quality isn't important, but it's that we have the FA section and recent GA promotions going to DYK for that instead. The existing standards that forbid articles in poor shape from being featured on ITN are fine, but as long as the article isn't so bad as to be cleanup tagged, if it's an important event being covered in major media outlets, it's fair game for ITN. SnowFire (talk) 06:00, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Newsworthiness and reader interest per Ed. Quality is non-negotiable. I would strongly oppose any proposal that attempted to remove the quality requirement. Nothing poorly sourced or unverified should ever appear on the mainpage, however allowing for more lenience with what we consider suitable (in terms of "ITN notability") will improve the reader experience. If we can promote slightly obscure topics like space news then we might be able to have some variance from whatever sport recently concluded or which European country had a recent mass shooting. It's important to note that we still do not want to be a news ticker of every US shooting or controversial F1 race, but it would be nice to deviate from the norm occasionally. Anarchyte (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Newsworthiness of public interest presented in a reasonable quality. I am of the view that ITN should inform about events that touch the feelings of as many people as possible.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 06:54, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Brainstorming an idea

I don't consider the poll yet complete but results are definitely split on quality vs newsworthiness, but I do appreciate the comments on "readers coming to learn more on topics in the news". I do not have this idea fully gelled, but what if we replaced the Ongoing with "Trending" for topics that have shown both high pageviews and continued news covers (such as the Canadian wildfires story). Long term news topics that have clear significance and still get media attention and page views, like the Russia Ukraine War, would be pinned under the ITN header (similar to when we did Covid). Then we have things like the World Cup or Olympics in Trending. There would still be some need for significance here, like if that would include the few weeks ahead of the next US presidential election. But that way, we can justify having links to quality articles in the news that readers are looking for but that fail to meet a higher significance for a blurb.

This us only throwing out an idea to brainstorm based in the current feedback. --Masem (t) 17:35, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I know this goes beyond just an ITN discussion, but I think the best way to get a "Trending" section on the homepage is to have it be it's own dedicated section. For example, could we cut "Today's Featured List" down to only a part of the total page width and shove a trending section on the right or left (right side feels better to me). I mean, I love a good list, but I think that would be a better use of space on the mainpage overall. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:09, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

A plain "Trending" without any other filters would be a bad idea, in that we would be listing pages that may be popular but haven't been vetted for quality, which is non-negotiable for the Main Page.

I don't know if my idea of Trending the best word but it is a way to avoid blurbs but pointing to articles (for example, the Trump indictment) that are in the news and of good quality but where we'd normally not have a blurb. Masem (t) 02:01, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I mean, can we just do the "Deaths in x year" thing where we link to such a page? Not sure if that's allowed, but could be a way of solving the problem. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:09, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I guess Fuzheado's idea is pretty much that. Well, I'd put myself down as supportive of their idea. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:10, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Reimagining the ITN box

I like the idea of re-imagining the ITN box, though I wonder if there might be some simpler, evolutionary solutions.

Something I never understood is why the "Ongoing" link just below the ITN headlines links to a fairly unexpected page: Portal:Current events. Why is this odd?

If you are looking for current events being covered by Wikipedia, clicking on "Ongoing" is not particularly intuitive or expected. Also, with the new default skin that has the main menu hidden, people don't see the "Current events" sidebar like they have in the past. And for mobile users, "Current events" is completely missing in their menu.
If you click on "Ongoing" you expect to see stories similar to those listed after the colon, currently, Russian invasion of Ukraine • Sudan conflict. But that's not really what you get.

One possible solution: adding an explicit "Current events" link inside the ITN box would be more compliant with the principle of least astonishment. For example, it might look like this:

More current events | Ongoing: Russian invasion of Ukraine • Sudan conflict

Recent deaths: Astrud Gilberto • Yukiko Takayama • Kurt Widmer • Robert Hanssen • Cynthia Weil • Natasha Al-Maani

This way, immediately after the high profile ITN stories, a link to Portal:Current events provides a smooth transition to a more exhaustive list of articles related to current events, which they may be overlooking today. This would serve the average reader much better in terms of discoverability. It could also reduce the stakes of the debate at WP:ITN/C of having to get something list in the ITN box for fear that users will miss reading about newsworthy topics. - Fuzheado | Talk 02:37, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I like the idea of linking to More current events, but I think it should be placed in the bottom left corner, immediately below Recent Deaths.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:45, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. I could see that working. It would be interesting to make this modification for a trial period and see what traffic patterns emerge. - Fuzheado | Talk 20:38, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Moving my comment from a different thread below to here.

We have tried this change a few different times and failed. Including in October 2021. Martin (user:MSGJ) had even kindly made the change before it was reverted. I would say if an admin is up for it -- go ahead and make the above change and we can iterate on the go. Anything that we put would be better than the easter egg that currently exists. Ktin (talk) 18:33, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I've added the proposed change to the sandbox for testing (testcases here). Not fond of the pipe between events and ongoing. Anarchyte (talk) 08:29, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

The other option is removing the pipe and the text "Ongoing:". The line would read something like the below. Tagging @Stephen who had some opinions on this topic in the past.

More current events: Russian invasion of Ukraine • Sudan conflict

Recent deaths: Astrud Gilberto • Yukiko Takayama • Kurt Widmer • Robert Hanssen • Cynthia Weil • Natasha Al-Maani

Ktin (talk) 16:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Or go something like this:

Current events portal: Russian invasion of Ukraine • Sudan conflict

Recent deaths: Astrud Gilberto • Yukiko Takayama • Kurt Widmer • Robert Hanssen • Cynthia Weil • Natasha Al-Maani

Ktin (talk) 16:28, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd prefer the portal link as "More current events", as that hides the details of how WP is organized (eg the portal) from the average reader. We should normally try to keep the backstage hidden from the audience. --Masem (t) 17:16, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I am good with that. The only consideration is going with More current events: Russian invasion of Ukraine • Sudan conflict can make it look like More current events is referring to those conflict events and that is the end of it. Will not create a call to action on the portal link. But, maybe I am overthinking it. I think we should just change it to More current events and track traffic changes. I am happy to help with the numbers once the change is done. Ktin (talk) 17:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

A concern I have is that internally, the process is known as "ongoing". Changing the MP won't affect that, but it might confuse people interested in helping out at ITN when they go to propose a "current event" item. Anarchyte (talk) 08:42, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

For readers, "More current events" doesn't explain the items following the colon. How are they different from the blurbs? It's lost that they are events that have been ongoing. —Bagumba (talk) 08:50, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Checking to see if there is still an appetite to make a change on this front. @Fuzheado @Bagumba @Masem. Ktin (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

yes, we should change it. Masem (t) 17:16, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

No, per my stated concern. Also, why the specific pings for us only? —Bagumba (talk) 17:37, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

OK. Re: the pings, I replied to include the names in the immediate thread above. I seem to have missed Anarchyte and Kiril Simeonovski. Re: your concern, I see it is as internal to the ways of working and less to the external world. But, maybe, I am understanding your point wrong. Ktin (talk) 19:27, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with your idea and I would like to suggest a Trending events/articles below. As for me ITN should focus on big, influential news like G7 summit, Champions of tournaments, a big disaster etc. And in the trending one we could post articles like the one on the Titan submarine, Taylor swifts concerts, the articles that are seen as good. There is currently quite some criticism on the tremendous media coverage about a few in comparison to the lesser one on refugees in similar situations. Of course Wikipedia can give the readers the correct answers on trending news as I believe Wikipedia is often more accurate than the media, but that Titan submarine is in the same section as the important news, well, we can choose between aspiring to become similar to a New York Times and the New York Post. The tabloids are full of disasters. Wikipedia is not a tabloid. And it will also show the contrast of the peoples interest. What is trending and what is really going on in the world. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 17:57, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

I believe we could use a bit inspiration of the serious newspapers, like the ones that are credited of being a credible one. How about we look at a bit the reporting of Die Zeit/Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Le Monde?, El País, The Herald Tribune and/or similar?Paradise Chronicle (talk) 13:49, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Why is 11 July listed?

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)

Handled by admins Blaylockjam10 and Masem. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 06:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

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.

Why is 11 jJuly listed on the nominations page? Isn't it 10 July? Onegreatjoke (talk) 19:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. A new user to here added it. Masem (t) 19:28, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Should 3 July be readded since the ITN candidates usually lists 8 days. Onegreatjoke (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2023 (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.

Adding a link to WP:25 in ITN

Editors are pretty much unanimously against this proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 07:53, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

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.

A lot's been made about adding a "trending topics" section to ITN. However, an issue that has been raised is that many of the articles that attract high viewership are nowhere near MP ready, and thus cannot be directly linked from the MP.

So, in response, I'm proposing that we instead link WP:25 from ITN, which in effect is basically what folks here on ITN are already clamoring for; a page dedicated to trending articles with high viewership. This would combat the issue of linking to potentially ass articles by instead linking to a list of the top read articles instead of directly linking to said problematic articles on the main page. Of course, this would likely involve coordination with the WP:25 coordinators (there doesn't seem to be a set group of them, but @Igordebraga: has written every recent one from what I've seen) and also there may be some concerns regarding time, in that the list is only updated weekly, and I've also noticed that occasionally, they run the list a little late.

Do y'all support this, or would you support another type of "trending topics?" Alternatively, should ITN not have one? - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 04:27, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment. In the past, we have had a pretty good discussion on this topic of setting up a "Trending topics" similar to what exists on the iOS app. Details can be seen here and also here. I think we should follow-up with either WMF or someone who understands the technical details for the implementation. As for this specific group's remit, I am going to be provocative and say that we have not been able to make a simple label change to change "Ongoing" to "Current events" to avoid the easter egg. So, I think expecting this group to make a larger change is entirely misplaced. I might be wrong, but, there it is. Also, my personal opinion is that WP:TOP25 is a humorous article meant to be a tongue-in-cheek look at the top pages. It is not appropriate for the mainpage as a significant link. Ktin (talk) 04:41, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
For what it is worth, in the past, @ARamadan-WMF and @Whatamidoing (WMF) (both of them from WMF) were quite kind and had offered to make connections with the right technical folks to help implement a "Trending topics" panel / widget. Ktin (talk) 04:49, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Timeframe The WP:25 doesn't show trending articles because its timeframe is the last whole week rather than the current activity. You can reduce the timeframe to the last whole day at pageviews but that still doesn't show you what's trending right now. So, while the Top 25 report gives a reasonable medium-term view, the word "trending" should not be used as readers will expect this to mean a real-time report like you get on Twitter and other sites. I suggest a phrase like "Popular pages" or "Top 25 pages". Andrew🐉(talk) 08:02, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Top read view Note also that there are different views of the main page depending on your device. Most of our readership uses the mobile view and then there's the desktop view and then the Android and Apple apps. Here you see the current view for the Android app as it looks on my Chromebook. This is similar to the view that a reader would get using an Android tablet. This uses our main page content such as ITN but the developers have added other features such as a Top read applet too. This is based on the daily pageviews and notice that this includes trend lines which are quite cute.

Notice also that the app filters ITN so that only the latest blurb is shown. That's done because the app view has a daily context and you can scroll to see the view on previous days. Most main page sections change every day and so as you scroll back through the days, it shows you the FA for each day. But ITN doesn't change much from day to day and so the app only shows ITN when a new blurb is posted. Ongoing and RD are ignored.

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:02, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I would be strongly opposed to any main page links to WP:25. It's a humour page, which is not what we want linked directly from the most viewed page. It's a very useful judge of what is popular, but it is contrary to the purpose of ITN. I would very much be in support of a "Top read" component like on iOS/Android. Anarchyte (talk) 12:04, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Clarifying that I agree with Stephen: I like the idea of a main page trending list, but not within ITN. It'd need to go elsewhere. Anarchyte (talk) 03:39, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Agree with ~~Masem~~Anarchyte. Is this box at the top of WP:25 not true? This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous. Such material is not meant to be taken seriously. Natg 19 (talk) 17:49, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
I do not see a reply from Masem though I have no reason to believe that they would say any different. Did you mean Ktin or Anarchyte? Ktin (talk) 19:23, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Whoops, I meant Anarchyte. Natg 19 (talk) 21:44, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Strong oppose ITN is absolutely not about popularity or viewership. It is about making sure we showcase reasonable quality articles that are in the news to help direct readers to them. Heck, WP as a whole cares not one iota about popularity of topics or articles. --Masem (t) 20:06, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Then considering you were calling for a trending section in #Brainstorming an idea, what do you think it should look like? - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 01:37, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
A curated trending news section is what I was describing, which would be for posting stories with quality articles without necessarily posting blurbs (how we should have handled the sub and the wanger group stories), in effort to help readers find topics in the news but that aren't typical ITN stories. TOP25 has no assurance of any quality. Masem (t) 02:11, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose adding a link to a “humorous” POV page to ITN. Even a trending articles page, if added to the main page somewhere, should not be in ITN, as trends are often driven from non-news sites. Step hen 02:06, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose linking from the MP to a page that self-identifies as being "humorous" (WP:NPOV).—Bagumba (talk) 08:56, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose per Bagumba and Stephen. Humorous pages, by nature not meant to be taken seriously, should not be linked to from the Main Page. If you want something like TOP25 on the Main Page, it will need to be a practical endeavor with encyclopedic intentions rather than just regurgitating "clicked" content, otherwise you are going to have loads of people complaining we're turning into MSN or Yahoo. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:50, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
If you want something like TOP25 on the Main Page, it will need to be a practical endeavor with encyclopedic intentions rather than just regurgitating "clicked" content, otherwise you are going to have loads of people complaining we're turning into MSN or Yahoo.

Are you advocating for a curated trending section or are you advocating for a WP:25 without all the excess opinionated commentary? - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 20:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose per Bagumba, WaltCip, and Stephen. We're WP:NOTYAHOO. Cheers, atque supra! Fake scientist 8000 20:44, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Comment I'm open to a link to trending topics. We're here to benefit readers, after all—a fact that some seem to forget—and the content wouldn't be directly on the main page. However, WP:25 is not that link, as its writing style is too fundamentally different from what people expect from Wikipedia. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:09, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
OpposeDidn't know that page existed and I do not believe it's the right format. Some seemingly personal views are included. I'd support though a section of some sort of trending articles for which I suggest that our quality articles (GA or better) should be favored. For regular articles we have already ITN, OTD and DYK (also in part GA). Like this we could showcase the quality work of Wikipedia in relation to trending news.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 00:54, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- Frankly, there is a choice to be made there: we can have trending or we could highlight good articles. The two are nearly always going to be mutually exclusive. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:36, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
  - Note that the WP:25 report has a class column showing the assessed quality of the listed articles and so does a more thorough job than ITN. For example, the Ted Kaczynski article is shown to be FA quality and also had over a million readers in the period. Its blurb for the article is sensibly free of attempts at humour and seems a reasonable summary. A much better treatment than ITN gave to this high-quality, high-readership, in-the-news topic. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
  I need to sit down when I'm at a proper keyboard to spell out my ideas of trending news topics line, but it is very much possible to curate, for ITN, high news visibility/large readership article which are nearly always kept to fundamental quality standards. But curating is critical to this, and simply saying, "this is popular we need to list it" won't work. Masem (t) 15:06, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Per the iron triangle, "Good, fast, cheap. Choose two." The essence of Wikipedia is that it's fast – that's what the word wiki means and it's a fundamental feature of news topics. And we don't have much resources or budget so that dimension is fixed too. So, expecting high quality for everything is unrealistic and just means that little is done. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:47, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
"Wiki" has nothing to do with speed, it is about collaborative editing.

But my idea is not about requiring trending news topics to be "high quality", just reasonable...that would mean that the relevant article is well beyond a stub (if it truly is a trending topic) and there are no significant definancies in sourcing, and basic fundamentals of NOR and NPOV and met. I would expect such an article to be in a shape to will allow it to grow more, both from published info and new info as it brbreaks would not expect much beyond C quality for these (compared to a higher standard for blurbed topics). I don't see this as unrealistic as we have easily done this on numerous breaking news topics. Masem (t) 16:42, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I think Andrew is referring to the word Wiki which iirc is derived from a Hawaiian word meaning fast or quick.Ktin (talk) 18:24, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment - regardless on what you think about specifically linking to WP:25, the fact is that unless you a proponent of Masem (talk · contribs)'s idea of a TT section (which seems to be a minority opinion), under current MP guidelines, a trending topics (TT) section would have to be linked to on the MP instead of plastered/transcluded on it since via having an authentic TT, you're opening the floodgates for low-quality articles to get on the main page. I initially advocated for the link to WP:25 since it's already the closest thing Wikipedia has with a TT and creating a new one for the MP would do more to override it than supplement. The only other option is to implement a curated one, which I will strongly oppose since it will likely just be abused as a dumping ground for all the stories that didn't make it onto ITN (I can already imagine the "this is ITN, not trending" diatribes that would be levied like the "take it to DYK" ones we see now) and completely ruins the point of a trending articles section; the purpose is to highlight high readership articles to inform our readers of popular topics that they may take interest in, not become ITN without blurbs. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 20:12, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
There are topics that are clearly in the news, that appear to have drawn reader interest, and have quality articles as for featuring on the main page, but which we don't need blurbs for. "Ongoing" should already foot this bill to a degree. I think topics like the Titan sub don't deserve a blurb but due to massive news and reader interest, not providing a link to that on the main (whole the search and rescue were happening) would be reasonable. When the Trump trial starts in FL, that's certainly going to fit that bill too. We just do t want to fall too much down the "popular topic" hole, like the Depp v. Heard trial. Masem (t) 20:19, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Having thought about your idea, I've slightly warmed up to your proposal, but still oppose. This comes off more as a glorified ongoing, or again an ITN without blurbs than an actual trending topics. I was actually going to go on a diatribe regarding the last point you made, but before then, I'd like to ask; would this be organically defined, pulling from data on the most viewed topics or be voted on like ongoing noms? - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 21:19, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Would still need consensus to avoid pop culture/celeb type stories and to judge quality. Masem (t) 21:26, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
I can understand not wanting celeb news on blurb ITN, but what exactly is the harm of allowing it on a TT? - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 21:57, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
We are an encyclopedia and should be covering encyclopedic topics. Things like the sub s&r or the Trump trial are clearly such topics, while celeb news, while something we do document to a degree, is general against what are encyclopedic topics. Or as another example. The next big MCU film will clearly be trending, but that makes little sense to feature just because its popular. Masem (t) 23:13, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
To add as another example, though I dont know how we'd present it yet, the two nominations dealing with the SCOTUS decisions, or even the last week of decisions, would make for a good trending topic, though what we would link to, I don't know immediately. Masem (t) 17:34, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I don’t get it. So the trending section should feature things that are in the news but which we don’t want to feature on ITN. So it’s what? ITN2? Either something is important enough that we should feature on ITN (and I would argue this applies to some of the examples cited) or it shouldn’t feature at all, not on Trending, not on DYK, not anywhere. This whole discussion seems to aim at gatekeeping ITN and dumping unwanted news items somewhere else. Khuft (talk) 20:17, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose - this proposal would not be appropriate and the discussion should probably be WP:SNOW closed. - Indefensible (talk) 20:44, 30 June 2023 (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.

Introducing specialized templates for ITN

I hereby propose that we use specialized templates for closing ITN discussions.

Currently on ITN, we use the standard {{archive top}} and {{archive bottom}} to close discussions (demonstrated below).

(Posted) Planet 9 discovered

Consensus emerged to post. Any opposition comes off as WP:POINTY. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

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.

Article: Planet Nine (talk · history · tag)
Blurb:  Astronomers announce the discovery of Planet Nine (artist's depiction pictured). (Post)
News source(s): NYT
Credits:

Nominated by Knightoftheswords281 (talk · give credit)

Nominator's comments: Ninth planet, what else to say. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Support - textbook example of scientific discoveries. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Support - frankly, this should be posted immediately. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose - Rock gets discovered, not encyclopedic content. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- That's a body of gas to you! - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 00:09, 30 June 2023 (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.

The specialized archive would look like this:

Planet 9 discovered

The following is an archived discussion for an In the news candidate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors or Wikipedia Talk:In the news.

The result of the discussion was posted. Consensus emerged to post. Any opposition comes off as WP:POINTY. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Article: Planet Nine (talk · history · tag)
Blurb:  Astronomers announce the discovery of Planet Nine (artist's depiction pictured). (Post)
News source(s): NYT
Credits:

Nominated by Knightoftheswords281 (talk · give credit)

Nominator's comments: Ninth planet, what else to say. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Support - textbook example of scientific discoveries. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Support - frankly, this should be posted immediately. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose - Rock gets discovered, not encyclopedic content. - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC))
- That's a body of gas to you! - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 00:10, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The In the news nomination above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors or Wikipedia Talk:In the news. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note that the part of the archives that say "Wikipedia talk:In the news" are bolded because that's the page we're on currently; it links to the page and will display in a standard format on another page.

Introducing specialized templates for ITN (discussion)

I think the specialized ones are better. Firstly, the specialized ones removed the grey box, centralizing it and making it pop out more IMO. Removing the grey box also removes the issue of squishing the nom box and having it remain at full margin. Additionally, the specialized descriptors for {{ITN archive top}} and {{ITN archive bottom}} links specifically to WT:ITN and WP:ERRORS, which would make navigation easier and would give guidance to newer users.

This isn't a new idea; in fact, DYK, FAC, RM, and other facets of wikipedia all employ a specialized closure template. I think having our own specialized closure templates would be a net benefit to ITN.

What do y'all think? - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 23:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Oppose closing a discussion as posted, when the header contains (Posted) and the admin signs the nomination with Posted, and using a special 'ITN closure' template to do so, seems to me to be rather unnecessary. Step hen 04:17, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I think the proposal is to use {{ITN archive top}} instead of {{atop}}, but not to increase its usage from status quo. Or is it? —Bagumba (talk) 04:23, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
The example above, and some closures that OP did on ITNC, were all for posted items. Step hen 04:53, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes, we generally don't close posted items per WP:ITNA:
Posted nominations generally are not closed so that the nomination can be used as a workspace for an item (beyond the scope of WP:ERRORS) or if there is a possibility of additional voters later requesting that the item be pulled.
—Bagumba (talk) 06:13, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Those were just test runs I ran for the template; in a normal setting, posted discussions wouldn't be closed unless for the usual reasons (i.e, post-posting convo that won't go anywhere). - Knightoftheswords (Talk · Contribs) 16:31, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment I have nothing against introducing ITN-specific templates even though this would be a minor change, but I stylistically prefer to keep the closer's comment in the grey box in the top right corner.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:13, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose - I think I align with Stephen, that this is a change that isn't needed. I understand why the change is being requested, because we have people closing noms after a consensus is reached, which coincidentally tends to happen when people call for the blurb to be pulled ( 😊 ), which then provides no venue for workshopping. The result is a ping-pong table effect where blurb modifications are deleted at WP:ERRORS as "not an error" while post-discussion comments are redirected to WP:ERRORS. What's called for instead is more publicized clarity around how we go about modifying blurbs after a discussion is concluded, as Bagumba said, and that WP:ERRORS may not be the best place. --Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:03, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. We should just generally avoid closing noms before posting/SNOW. ERRORS should be for...errors, and as I have found in the past, sometimes if what you put in ERRORS is not an error (even if you were instructed to do so), you run the risk of an admin in a bad move coming along and clearing out your comment by virtue of "not an error", or because your proposal didn't garner unanimous support in x arbitrary timeframe. DarkSide830 (talk) 04:14, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
For reference, the top of WP:ITNC says w.r.t. ERRORS:
For simple updates, such as updated death tolls in a disaster, linking issues, spelling or grammar corrections, or otherwise anything that does not change the intent of the blurb should be discussed at WP:ERRORS in the ITN section
—Bagumba (talk) 04:29, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
If I were a newbie that got pinballed back and forth between ERRORS and ITN/C for a blurb update, I'd be mighty confused by the wording of both that and the other blurb you posted above. I suggest having one consolidated section with a table that shows which type of change is an ERRORS issue and which is a blurb workshopping issue. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:16, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
The earlier one was from WP:ITNA is for admins, so presumably the average reader esp. newbie would never refer to it. —Bagumba (talk) 17:02, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
Despite my misreading, that actually supports my point. There's no user-facing guidance to newcomers or semi-regulars about where to take questions regarding blurb modifications. We might have it for admins, but I'm not even certain admins apply this rule consistently. A table would be beneficial to address both issues. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:03, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
There's no user-facing guidance to newcomers or semi-regulars about where to take questions regarding blurb modifications: That guidance is at the top of ITNC. But sure, people could go to ERRORS and not know or see that. For the most part, I think non-errors get handled at EERORS per WP:NOTBURO. Perhaps occasionally an admin should get wider input and send it back to ITNC, but it's a tradeoff with NOTBURO and maybe an occasional WP:SUPERVOTE lapse. No issue if anyone can improve documentation. —Bagumba (talk) 14:07, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

ITN and AfD

I missed WP:SKCRIT for MP links. Thanks Schwede66.—Bagumba (talk) 16:42, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

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.

Seeing that there's a few vehicle collision nominations currently, I was curious what was the outcome of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carberry highway collision, which was posted at ITN. I was surprised to find that the AfD was prcedurally closed: The result was procedural keep. It’s currently bold linked from the main and as such, it cannot be at AfD. Wait until it is off the main page.‎

I would have thought the procedural action would instead be to pull it from ITN in the interim. Should ITN have that much sway on page notability? Also pinging AfD participants EvergreenFir, McCoshen24 and Thebiguglyalien, along with closer Schwede66. Regards. —Bagumba (talk) 13:48, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

That to me sounds like an AfD policy issue and not an ITN issue, so it's best taken up at WT:AFD. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:11, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

There's nothing to that effect stated at WP:AFD. I suppose WP:DRV is an option, but I have no opinion on the specific merits on the AfD itself, which could anyways just be renominated. As there's enough admins here too, it seems as good a venue as any to get relevant feedback. —Bagumba (talk) 14:46, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

You cannot AfD an item that is linked from the main page. You must get the link removed via WP:ERRORS before you nominate for deletion. If that gets overlooked, WP:SKCRIT (item 6) applies. Schwede 66 16:21, 3 July 2023 (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.

Is there a way to add an expired item?

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)

Thanks to Stephen for taking care of this one. Marking closed. Ktin (talk) 22:39, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

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.

Hello everyone, Marilies Flemming's RD nom was essentially ready to be posted and as I was marking it as ready it was already removed by the Archive bot. If you can see the nom here Marilies Flemming's RD nom it was ready to go. I was scratching off my weak oppose for a support vote and marking it as ready when the Archive bot erased the July 13 noms. Is there a way to give Marilies Flemming's nom a chance for the main page? Thanks! TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 00:04, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Done, IAR. Step hen 01:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Is there a way...: Pretty much as you did. Post here and make a case for WP:IAR.—Bagumba (talk) 08:08, 21 July 2023 (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.

A Proposal for our Coverage of the US Supreme Court

Lately there has been a lot of dispute over the US supreme court and which decisions to post. The court makes it difficult for us by dumping most of its decisions on us all at once. It is a weeklong period where a bunch of major decisions are announced. As such I suggest that instead of nominating each case we discuss if this court session was notable and if it was post the end of it. The blurb would link to a list that contained all of the supreme court decisions from that court session. This blurb would only mention a specific case if it was incredibly notable, like a Dobbs v Jackson, a Citizens United, or a Brown v Board of education. This last rule I mentioned would also be the rule for out of season court rulings. If the court decides something before the end of its session we will base our decision to blurb it based off of this Dobbs Citizens United standard I have created. This is a high bar but at least it sets a bar somewhere, which is what we need. I know that it is unusual to apply this only to the US but these are unusual times. To my knowledge no other country makes such a fuss about its supreme court. Heck even the US didn't do all this a decade ago. But it does now and with part of the goal of ITN being to give our readers easy access to articles they are looking for this seems to be the easiest way to do so. Aure entuluva (talk) 07:55, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Would you mind summarizing your proposal into a blurb, effectively an action item, at the end of what you just wrote? I think I understand what you're trying to convey, that you want a combined blurb that links to the results of the concluded court sessions and highlighting only those that are the most notable, but I'm not certain. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:59, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes that is what I want. I'm sorry that I wasn't clear in my proposal. In my head it look something like this: The Fall session of the US supreme court ends. I'll let the blurb-smiths come up with a more elegant way of saying this but that is roughly how it would look. Fall session would then be linked to a list of all of the court decisions from that session. I'm not sure if such a list exist but it would be trivial to make and I think it would easily pass Wikipedia notability standards. Aure entuluva (talk) 19:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

That isn't a bad idea. I think it's worth doing except for the fact that there's some apprehension against favoring specifically United States Supreme Court rulings when we might not do the same thing for other countries. But the idea has merit just based on the combined notability of these rulings and their impact on the lives of the citizens. It's a shame that we do not see similar instances of court rulings from other countries so that we'd have a comparison point as far as significance is concerned. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 20:10, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me why ANY US Supreme Court rulings should be posted? We don't post equivalent rulings from other countries. And before anyone accuses me of anti-Americanism, again, note that I am actually asking for the US to be treated the same as every other country. Rare exceptions might exist if the rulings directly affect the governance of the country. HiLo48 (talk) 00:47, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

It is true that US rulings are not as significant as those in Canada, where the ruling would set a precedent in other English-speaking countries. US Supreme Court decisions were not big news here in Australia; I had to search to find an article in the papers here (in the international section, second US-related article after the US actors' threatening to strike) but if the goal of ITN being to give our readers easy access to articles they are looking for then it doesn't really matter how important it is. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:40, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

The Canadian Supreme Court is no more binding in Australian courts than the US, so I'm unsure about that point. Australia's definitely taken inspiration from international courts (primarily England, even if you only consider post-1986; and for aspects of the Constitution, the US). I think a stronger argument in favour of posting US SC outcomes is that at the moment, they appear to be rampaging through various human rights that people in first world countries would expect to be guarantees (a la Dobbs, etc). I'd support a nomination if the UK abolished the Abortion Act 1967, for instance. Relieving student loans? Less intriguing. Anarchyte (talk) 11:42, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

It is not that no other country makes a fuss about its highest court, it is just that the global media gives excessive weight on decisions made by the US Supreme Court. We have to fight against this media bias. Masem (t) 01:00, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Amen to that. DarkSide830 (talk) 04:10, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Is that our job? We are not a media organization, we are an encyclopedia. We don't get to decide what is notable, we report what is notable as determined by others. If others have determined that SCOTUS is more important than any of the other supreme court why is it our job to correct to them? This leads to a very interesting thing about Wikipedia: According to WP:UNDUE it's not our job to share the truth, it's our job to share what is reported. If the vast majority of reliable sources give us wrong information we are to report it regardless of how true it actually is. Aure entuluva (talk) 20:33, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

What we do decide, however, is what is encyclopedic, and landmark cases in other countries certainly are, even if lacking in coverage. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:12, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

While we should not try to work contrary to the media, we have to watch for the systematic bias that so many English-based sources forus on US politics, per WP:BIAS. Masem (t) 01:24, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:BIAS doesn't advocate to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS on what sources cover. It tells editors to seek a diverse selection of sources, not just English ones that focus on white male topics from First World countries in the Northern Hemisphere. It doesn't say to deny that what is in the news is "really" news. The § What you can do section does say:

Avoid topics where you expect that you are biased or where you don't wish to make the effort to overcome those biases.

—Bagumba (talk) 05:59, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Given that much of BIAS is about lack of coverage in some topic areas due to internal and external factors, it absolutely does apply to why we simply should be blind to US-centric coverage of major media sources. That's not a WGW, its simply making sure that Wikipedia doesn't become America-pedia by blindly following the number of sources covering topics. Masem (t) 12:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

You cite WP:BIAS, which sure is an essay, but even that essay doesn't prescribe what you are saying. —Bagumba (talk) 13:53, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Expandable TOC for ease of user and admin read of nominations

Sometime back Masem and Anarchyte had pointed out that with the new Vector 2022 skin, the table of contents being collapsed by default made it difficult for quick scans to see articles that are ready or in the want of some form of attention. I agree with that. I had posted that question on WP:VPT and received a solution that I believe works.

Linking the solution here. Specifically, the solution calls for adding importScript('User:The wub/tocExpandAll.js'); to your vector.js page. This should come useful for admins and users alike. Good luck. Also, thank you to The_wub. Ktin (talk) 03:48, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Or just go to Preferences->Appearance->Skin and select "Vector legacy (2010)". TOC issues aside, I've found the new skin to be a general waste of screen space.—Bagumba (talk) 04:19, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

You can expand to full-screen and that is frankly not terrible. Ktin (talk) 15:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Common Vector 2022 L. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Admin availability

I know we have discussed this in the past. Are we running short of admin availability and capacity? How can the other editors help? Ktin (talk) 00:13, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Considering how the Tony Awards didn't get posted despite being marked ready for a day or two plus, I'd say yes. I think we should really move to having a set group of ITN admins like every other part of the main page. Part of the problem is that whenever, for example a nomination is being missed, the question comes over who you even ping? The ironic thing is I wonder how we would be able to implement reforms like ITNRD and the like when there's no coherent structure or leadership here. It's just leadership by committee and mob rule as @Andrew Davidson brilliantly pointed out. There's a reason why every other part of the main page has a group of leading admins. Additionally, I know for whatever reason, people on ITN don't like the argument of "everyone else on the MP does it." Well, there's a reason why ITN is unique for the MP content pieces for garnering a reputation of idiosyncrasy and toxicity. At some point, we ought to lay our jingoism and parochialism to rest and analyze indeed why everyone else on the MP does stuff that we don't. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 01:43, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

The Tony Awards article still needed citations when I looked at it. Admins are people too and we have lives. Some of us, anyway. There is a shortage of admins, so if you want to see the issue rectified, one way might be to apply for the mop yourselves. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:52, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, with only 5,000 edits, having less than 20% of my contribs be in either of the Wikipedia spaces, and not having really made a name for myself on Wikipedia, I don't think I would be handed the mop in an RFA.... not yet at least. Either way, I don't see how this defeats the purpose of having ITN admin coordinators; if anything, with the site-wide admin shortage, I'd see having a set group of admins as a benefit. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 02:00, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: -- firstly, I appreciate all that you do. My request to you would be that if you see some citations being needed or if the article is not ready for whatever reason, please flip the tag that says "Ready". That way, other editors know that here is an article that needs editor attention as opposed to admin attention. With a tag like "Ready / Admin action required," I for one was under the impression that all that was needed was an admin coming by and posting to main page. Ktin (talk) 02:08, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Understandable, I had not done that. Then I saw that the item was deemed stale anyway. Shame, but it happens. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:11, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I looked over the Tony awards after you made the thread above and decided against posting. Quite a bit remained uncited to the point where we wouldn't have posted an RD with the same level of list sourcing (I note it now has a couple refimproves). Also, it was so close to being stale that I doubt many ITN editors would've wanted to devote that much time to it. IMO all ITNR items should be nominated the day of the event just so people see the articles, even if they still fall to the wayside (like Le Mans).

I don't agree that ITN runs off mob rule. Sure, there are definitely regular commenters, but it's not a hivemind. DYK needs better management than ITN because they're bigger. OTD is basically run by one editor last time I checked. Anarchyte (talk) 05:53, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Technically, the Tony Awards nom didn't have any formal support !vote. —Bagumba (talk) 17:32, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

What really has not helped is the new skin, because it hides the headers of news items in the TOC and makes it hard to quickly scan the page. Masem (t) 03:14, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

@Masem Shortly after the new skin became available, I realized I didn’t like it as much as the previous version, so I set it up so that I went back to the previous version. Given the problem you mentioned, you might want to think about making the same change. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 03:30, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

For those following along, this may interest you. Anarchyte (talk) 06:09, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

For @Masem, @Blaylockjam10, @Anarchyte and others who might benefit from this -- we received a solution to this problem. While not as clean as what existed before Vector 2022, this one does solve the problem. Please have a look and adopt as appropriate. Ktin (talk) 03:31, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

@Muboshgu, Bagumba, and Ktin:, well on this topic, I was browsing Category:Wikipedia In the news yesterday and a stumbled upon {{@ITNA}}, a template created by Coffeeandcrumbs (talk · contribs) in January 2020. It doesn't seem to have caught on, being used sporadically between then and September of that year, but how it works is that any admins active on ITN can edit the template to add their name so that they can be pinged using that template. That would likely lessen the issue of the lack of coordination with admins here on ITN. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 17:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I understand your concern, as I too am an editor. Sometimes a nomination I was involved in is marked "Ready", and can take up to 2 days to post. However, everyone is a volunteer on Wikipedia. The "lack of coordination" is somewhat by design, as it's nobody's assigned job, yet everyone volunteering when they can has generally gotten the job done for ITN —Bagumba (talk) 09:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

At the singular level, we all are volunteers, and I agree with that. But, as a collective, work needs to get done. The wheels need to keep moving. How can we do that? Ktin (talk) 03:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I was unaware of that template and have just added myself to it. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:44, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I know it is sometimes a thankless job, but, my unsolicited guidance to admins will continue to remain the following:

Evaluate and post from the bottom of the page. Bottom upwards.
Avoid batching up posts.
Post often, spread out your postings. Lean on other admins. Collectively, do not go beyond 12 hours without a posting. Our average 'ready' throughput used to be between 3-4 hours. Have not measured this recently.
Editors are your friends, use them and allow them to help you. e.g. evaluating articles, marking ready etc.

Good luck. Ktin (talk) 02:18, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

There are lots of admins active at ITN but the natural competition which then arises tends to make them cautious and risk-averse. But I think the main issue with the Tony awards is that it was nominated several days after the event and, as ITN has had a flurry of postings recently, it got squeezed out. There was a big spike in readership on the day but that dropped off quickly. And the article still has an orange cleanup tag so I'm not sure why people think it was ready. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:45, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
What is the "natural competition"?—Bagumba (talk) 09:10, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Alert. 42 hours since the last RD posting. There are at least a few which are ready for admin attention. Ktin (talk) 19:47, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

~50 hours since the last RD posting. There are at least a few which seem to be ready for admin attention. If admin availability is low -- we need to call this out right away. How can the other editors help? Can not remain in a state of suspended animation. Ktin (talk) 02:15, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Alert. Close to 48 hours since the last RD posting. There are at least a few which are ready for admin attention. Ktin (talk) 02:27, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
I just posted one. Try using {{@ITNA}} to ping one of us next time. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:14, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. Will do. Is that template active? Pinging the last few admins to have posted to the mainpage to see if they might want to add themself to this template. @Anarchyte, Amakuru, PFHLai, Black Kite, Bagumba, Schwede66, and The ed17: Pardon the interruption. Please see if you might be good to be added to this template. To those who have already added youself to the template Stephen, Spencer and Muboshgu Thank you! Ktin (talk) 03:37, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Posted a second. I'd wait to post another. No postable RDs are in danger of falling off ITN/C yet. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:18, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I'd suggest marking with "(Ready)" per WP:ITNC:
Items can also be marked as (Ready) when the article is both updated and there seems to be a consensus to post.
That being said, at the time of your alert, there was one RD item with "Ready",[2] which incidentally I'm WP:INVOLVED and haven't posted myself (Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § (Ready) RD: Cecil Exum...and still "Ready").—Bagumba (talk) 04:12, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Agree. I also think this ITNA template suggestion from Muboshgu is a good one. If the guidance is to use that I think we can do that. Ktin (talk) 04:16, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Alert. ~48 hours since the last posting. Pinging @Admins willing to post ITN: (am I doing this ping right?) or is it @ITNA:? At least one article has moved-out into the archives while being marked "ready". i.e. Syaukat Banjaransari. Please see if an admin can check that one. In addition, there are at least a few more that are ready for an admin posting. Please check bottom-upwards. Ktin (talk) 03:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
The ping works. I IAR posted Syaukat Banjaransari. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:32, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks @Muboshgu. Ktin (talk) 03:48, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Poll: Should we add shortcuts to WP:ITN/C/H?

Discussion on WP:ITN/C frequently reference what I like the call "the blue box," or the series of guidelines and instructions on how to nominate and voter conduct on ITN/C. The "blue box" is transcluded onto ITN/C by a subpage: WP:In the news/Candidates/header.

Since, as stated, we frequently reference the contents of the blue box, yesterday, after having hinted of my intentions in the past, I WP:BOLDLY edited WP:ITN/C/H and added a series of {{shortcuts}} to the page so as to make the process of linking to these guidelines easier for users on ITN/C. After all, most, if not all of the other MP projects have these sorts of things and even WP:ITN does. After 20 hours, Stephen (talk · contribs) reverted my additions, stating that there’s no consensus to add all that crap.

Before I added them, I actually checked the WT:ITN archives to see if this had been brought up before, which it hasn't. So I'm here to gather community consensus on the issue. Should we add shortcuts to ITN/C's blue box? - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 14:58, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Support, why not. Can't do any harm. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:17, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Support don't see why we wouldn't do this. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:43, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Comment all the crap: After a Stephen revert (mentioned in another thread above) with their edit summary of nonsense?[3] Chill a little.—Bagumba (talk) 16:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Support Agreed that one such cosmetic change can’t do any harm.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Support Can't hurt. Cheers, atque supra! Fake scientist 8000 16:46, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Sure. No reason not to. -- Kicking222 (talk) 02:57, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
List required The proposer should please provide a list of the shortcuts that they want to add so we can understand the detail of what's being discussed. When we have a WP:BRD situation then good communication all round helps matters go smoothly. Andrew🐉(talk) 05:54, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Presumably the same ones in the linked revert diff. —Bagumba (talk) 06:07, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
See pig in a poke... Andrew🐉(talk) 06:32, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
LOL. WP:AGF. —Bagumba (talk) 08:37, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Good faith is not the issue; it's clarity about what we have consensus for. See WP:MINIMUMDEATHS for a current example of a disputed shortcut. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:59, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Bagumba is correct; it's the same thing that are listed in the linked diff. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 18:37, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Comment - While we are on the subject; what is the problem with being BOLD and making changes (cosmetic or otherwise) to the ITN pages? Looking at WP:BRD, I see that KOTS has made the right decision in tabling this here for discussion, but in my opinion, crass reverts are not helpful, and I don't see what they are intended to accomplish. I have a lot of respect for Stephen, but it's still a shame to see this. --Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:25, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Reverted the revert - since there was unanimous support for including them and it's unlikely that will change, I've reverted Stephen's revert on WP:ITN/C/H now that there is indeed consensus for this crap. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 18:39, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't think I'd ever have the courage and fortitude to do that. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 20:18, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Oppose The proposer has refused to explain their proposal in detail and just edit wars instead. Trying to steamroller this is not acceptable. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:28, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
It's the same shortcuts shown in the diff. To be more clear, I'll highlight them more clearly in a direct link to my last revision before Stephen's revert. Every section in the blue box contains a shortcut, usually a single one but some have two. In addition, the frequently referenced guideline regarding the location of ITN stories in the "Please do not" sectionis referenced with two additional shortcuts made via {{anchor}}. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 01:38, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Support ITNCHOW, ITNCVOICE, ITNCDO, ITNCDONT, ITNCUP. Oppose the other three. Anarchyte (talk) 07:12, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Support ITNCDONT, and ITNCDO for consistency. Oppose the others, including the pointed ITNCUSA, as location is covered in ITNCDONT, and we’ve never needed to point anyone at the subsections of the instruction box as far as I can remember. Step hen 22:47, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Comment. Seems fairly innocuous set of changes, but, does anyone have information about the usage statistics on these shortcuts? Need to have an idea of what we are chasing here. Ktin (talk) 02:11, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Support all but ITNCLOC/ITNCUSA and ITNCVOICE/ITNCOP which are covered by ITNCDO and ITNCDONT. Since people reference these parts frequently, especially WP:ITNCDO and WP:ITNCDONT, these will likely be useful. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:13, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose the attempt to implement this looked terrible, bloated way too much. I've put up the bizarre ITNCUSA up at RFD, as a user tried to use it, apparently unaware that it wasn't any longer in use. We should probably RFD ALL these links, that were created prematurely. Nfitz (talk) 18:56, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Reimplementing per consensus. Some were removed due to a lack of consensus.

— Knightoftheswords 15:44, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Archiving open discussions

Why was this discussion archived without being closed? Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The archiving bot seems to have archived it on June 28th, after ~30 days of inactivity on the thread. Link to archive diff here. Ktin (talk) 16:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

This, unfortunately, is too frequent a problem here. Too often do items for inclusion/removal from ITN/R never get closed or atay open for an unreasonably long time, which further complicates future discussions when certain persons erroneously say "well, we didn't remove it last time", or "we just discussed this". Need an admin to make a decision here, but it seems pretty clear the margin for removal. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:48, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Reform on RD credits

Currently, credits are awarded for RD nominations but seldomly for expansions. To nominate an article is much easier than to get an article ready to post on the main page. This leads to many nominations of articles which then do not get expanded or made ready for the main page. I'd suggest a reform which would give a credit to the major contributors of the article in general, but also the ones involved in sourcing the article aiming to get the article ready for the main page. And i'd support we have distinct credits for nominators and expanders/updaters, where the nominators credit should be valued less than the one of the expanders. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 05:08, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

We already credit both nominators and updaters. When someone helps expand articles, helps with sourcing etc., editors update the contributors names to the updaters section of the nomination template. When admins post an article they provide credits to both the nominators and the updaters. This is for all WP:ITNC nominations.
Furthermore, sometime back MSGJ and others very kindly updated the nominations template to remove any upper limit on the updaters. The field was converted into a comma separated list from the original cap at 3, iirc.
Generally, I think it is in bad taste to nominate an article without staying invested in helping improve the article. But, I do not judge anyone who nominates and is not around to improve the article. I do not think this is a very big deal and is perfectly fine imo.

The one section where I think this group can help is in developing a script to periodically reward and recognize "reviewers". That is an unrecognized effort that I find a select few editors tirelessly contributing to. I briefly tried to find avenues to think of a script that would on a weekly basis look at all reviewers and drop a thank you note, or perhaps even a leaderboard like the DYK folks do it. But, I clearly did not know how to do it. So, that remains for some day in the future. Notes from prior discussion How can we incentivize reviewers? Ktin (talk) 05:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I also think the credits are fine. I nominate a lot, typically when I think it's ready, but often enough before, thinking that more eyes on an article would help. Sometimes I come and see that someone else nominated already. Some nominators seem not to know about the strict sourcing requirements, and ignore the warnings. Being a famous subject just isn't enough ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Ktin I was not aware that this already exists in some ways and that the credits are 'infinite'. So its a matter of the ITN participants to impliment it. I'll try to do that in the future. Ktin's reviewer incentive sounds like a good plan, but at the DYK it is in the editors own interest to add themselves to the leaderboard and is not something automatic. I am not against credits for nominators, we are in need of nominations, its just that a nomination alone receives the same credit as a nomination and prepping an article for the main page. There I believe we could adapt the incentive in favor of the latter.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 06:42, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Idea lab: Extending the ITN date table to the day of the oldest blurbs (i.e, redefining "staleness.")

I find the above discussion a bit convenient since I'm actually about to make a proposal regarding the dates open for nominations on ITN.

On WP:ITN/C, at any given point, there are seven days open for ITN noms; the week leading up to the current day. If a day is older than that threshold, it will be archived at WP:ITN/C/A and be ineligible for posting (at least in theory). However, like a lot of ITN processes, this is clearly a relic from an older time on ITN, where stories were more frequently posted. At the time, I'm writing this, the oldest blurb on ITN is the Yichuan fire, which occurred nearly three weeks ago, followed by the Wagener revolt, which is only two days younger, the Nahel Merzouk killing and fallout (2 weeks old) and Bolsonaro being barred from political office (1 1/2 weeks ago). Using the standard definition of "staleness," literally all blurbs on ITN rn are stale. Furthermore, many of the archived nominations aren't stale (for example, the Neutrinos nom, Shakeel's RD nom (I'll discuss RDs in a moment), and the Cosmic Gravitational field nom. Hell, even nearly month old items like the South African mine fire, the Greek snap election, and the Korean age story are still at the very least younger than the Wagner revolt.

WP:ITN#Procedure for posting outlines that:

Any event that is older than the oldest entry in the current "In the News" box is considered stale.

I've noticed that at times, this does get ignored; for example, @Ainty Painty: moved one of his recent noms to the top of the page after it got archived, and in a discussion from the spring of some recent year, @Jayron32: stated that as an admin, if the oldest blurb is more than a week old, he will still look and post them. However, this doesn't seem to be universal amongst admins and the seven day "rule" is still treated as a rule both in a literal sense (with User:AnomieBOT archiving) and by users (e.g, often times, noms that are nearly 7 days are closed before they get archived, and no one really pays attention to recently archived noms).

We really need to do something to combat this, especially if we're content with ITN hosting nearly month old items. I'm opening this as a brainstorming area. — Knightoftheswords 23:50, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I think we should keep open discussions that are not stale, yes. But if we don't just include these items the discussion page will get very, VERY long. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

As with claims that we at times are too Amercian-centric in blurbs, or that we are featuring too many sports blurbs, we cannot control when news (appropriate for an encyclopedia) happens, and it makes no sense to strip away the 7-day staleness factor just because no reasonable new blurbs have been added. Particularly when there are noms that have been opened and show support to post on appropriateness but no steps to improve the article. Masem (t) 00:11, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

But is the news stale after 7 days if we have even older blurbs? DarkSide830 (talk) 23:22, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It would be better to strip old blurbs (greater than two weeks old?) and expand either the RD line or the idea if trending topics I suggested above, so the ITN box stays balanced, than to ask for expecting only older news articles. As soon as we open the door to consider stale noms, that's a slippery slope to allow those exceptions when we do not have stale news items in the box. Masem (t) 23:29, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

That would make our current ITN empty in two days. We still need to fill space. Since the definition of staleness is newer than the oldest blurb, it will not allow them when we do not have stale news items in the box. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I've suggested this before but never bothered to take it further. As I said then, this makes sense; replacing older content with newer content, even if that newer content is over a week old, is aligned with our intention to present WP:ITN. BilledMammal (talk) 00:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I support Knightoftheswords281 proposal to extend the ITN date table and redefine "staleness" on WP:ITN/C. It's important to address the issue of outdated items on ITN. Additionally, I'm curious to know that I moved one of my recent nomination after it got archived that I'm not aware of? Let's keep ITN relevant and up-to-date. Ainty Painty (talk) 04:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It wasn't you who did it (my fault), it was Aaron Liu (talk · contribs) (see here). — Knightoftheswords 13:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Support. I'd really like to see some actual new news instead of these unchanging old stuff including some blocked by disruptive noms. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Add dates I'm not content with the listing of month-old news events such as the Chinese restaurant fire. As it stands, this is misinformation because these are no longer "in the news". Claiming that they are is an error, just like when OTD lists something that didn't happen on this day. To make the age of these stale items clearer and put ITN's feet to the fire, I suggest that the blurbs be dated so that our readership understands that these events happened some time ago.

Adding dates would make the slow pace of ITN clear to everyone. This might be embarassing but ITN seems to need some pressure of this sort to get its act together. See Portal:Current events to see how it's done. That doesn't seem to miss a beat and so is delivering while ITN is failing.

Andrew🐉(talk) 07:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

The "it" that Current Events does is not the same as ITN though. They have a lower barrier to posting, and if readers want to navigate there instead they can. I do agree with prior discussions on making this page more accessible, and that is a good compromise here. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:22, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Oppose Just because it's an awful lot of extra work for admins with very little benefit. Everything would have to be manual given the unpredictability of posting, so admins will be archiving at the end of every day. But they could also be having to archive and un-archive a lot of discussions at once at random. If the oldest item in the box is, say, 15 days old, then we keep two weeks of discussions open until one is posted, then the posting admin presumably closes every discussion up to the new oldest. Let's say it's 9 days, so only 8 days of discussions are left. But then say one of the blurbs gets pulled, and the admin that pulls it and adds back the 15-day-old blurb has to open all those archived discussions again... And to what benefit, really, when eventually posting a week+ age blurb to a stale box barely makes it less stale. Kingsif (talk) 14:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
There's a way easier way with bots. For every blurb posted there's an invisible comment of the date posted. The bot scans that and archives all older discussions. Have it only refresh every day, so if it gets posted and pulled, the bot won't archive and unarchive again. At most even if things need to be unarchived, unarchiving things is something anyone can do and quite trivially easy. And trust me, a week-old blurb is way better than 3 weeks-old. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Who's writing the bot? Kingsif (talk) 21:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
We already use User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/ITNCArchiver.pm for current ITN archiving, and Anomie is quite active. I have no idea why you think admins will/currently manually archive things. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Respectfully, this page doesn't typically have a crazy number of discussions at any one time. It would be feasible for an individual to do the archive work if they so desired. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
Like I said, unarchiving things is something anyone can do and quite trivially easy. I guess I forgot to mention that it also applies to archiving. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course I don't think admins currently archive, but short of writing another bot (or giving the bot a different command), as I said, Everything would have to be manual given the unpredictability of posting (rather than archive the bottom section at the end of every day, a much more simple command). My point was it seems a lot of work for little benefit, not impossible. Kingsif (talk) 13:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
The unpredictability is canceled out when you only check at the end of each day. The core archiving part is already there, all it needs is read the template and interpret the last date (unarchiving manually should be fine). It shouldn't be that much work. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:09, 13 July 2023 (UTC)