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Unused ITNR entries

No consensus to bulk remove unused ITNR items, rather nominate them individually for removal. Stephen 01:24, 24 October 2022 (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.

Should ITNR items that have been posted less than a quarter of the times they are eligible to be posted be removed from ITNR? 04:27, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Survey

No. As indicated by Maplestrip, importance of the tplopic is not the same as volunteer interest to work an article in a particular year. Ktin (talk) 11:41, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

  • No. Just nominate those individual items for removal using that rationale. I see that what this RfC is doing is attempting to create a mini-consensus that can then be used to do an end-run around achieving a consensus via existing process for removal (whew, that was a mouthful).--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:16, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
  • No, but I would definitely agree that if you show that over the last 5+ times that the event was present that it wasn't posted for reasons related to lack of a nomination or lack of any serious article improvement, then one should open an ITNR discussion to remove. There's too many conditions for why an ITNR-based ITNC doesn't get posted unrelated to being on ITNR that making it automatic would be bad. --Masem (t) 12:32, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
    I considered that, but it would need too many discussions. In addition, if the topic actually warrants posting, then it can still be nominated through the normal process, and if it does warrant posting every time then it shouldn't have an issue finding a consensus for posting. BilledMammal (talk) 12:48, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
    Every year The Boat Race shows that finding a consensus for posting events that have a strong consensus for posting is not always a trivial issue because people want to dispute the consensus (sometimes, but not always, from a position of ignorance about it's significance) each time. The purpose of ITNR is to temporally separate discussions about the significance of an event from discussions about the quality of the update, both for clarity and for timeliness (which is more important at ITN than it is for the majority of other discussions on Wikipedia). Thryduulf (talk) 12:52, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
  • No. There appear to be issues with certain articles regarding failure to meet standards on a frequent basis, but the failure of individuals to update certain nominations should not preclude an auto-post of an important event down the line because people failed to update prior articles. I'm looking at the articles for awards ceremonies lacking prose on a frequent basis. I honestly think most awards ceremonies shouldn't be posted anyways, but as long as they exist as ITN/R items they shouldn't be removed simply because few editors wish to update them. The failure of a nom because of said reasons should stand as a reminder that further work can still be done on said articles. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:19, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
  • No. The failure of individual editors to properly update pages isn't necessarily determinative of the ITN/R worthiness of those articles and probably isn't worth developing a tool to track this stat. That being said, repeated failures can be used as evidence in an ITN/R removal discussion that anyone can start on this page. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 00:12, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Sometimes Items should be nominated on a per-case basis to determine when it is justified.—Bagumba (talk) 10:13, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose nominate on a case-by-case basis. NorthernFalcon (talk) 02:59, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
  • No per User:Maplestrip and DarkSide830. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:27, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment to Sports ITNR: Remove constructors title from Formula One

1) Amend WP:ITNSPORTS#Motorsport to read: "Formula One championship (Drivers' and constructors champions only)""

2) Keep

Background: The "constructors" F1 world champion was added 12 years ago to ITN/R but there is no actual mention of it in the "discussion on ITN/C" that the editor refers to in order to justify it. To the best of my searching abilities, there has only ever been a consensus for the drivers' world championship in the 2013 Wikipedia talk:In the news/Recurring items/Archive 10#Low controversy ITN/R items address to build community decisions on ITN/Rs.

Nominator's reason in favour of amend: When both are won at the same time, the constructors' might as well be mentioned in the blurb when the drivers' championship is posted, but I don't believe it to be notable enough to justify it being a separate post or for F1 to have two posts per year. The drivers' totally eclipses the constructors'. People don't remember who won the constructors' in x year, only the driver.

Examples to backup reason:

  • The constructors' is such an afterthought that "the F1 title/championship" is already assumed to mean the drivers' both in sources and in the blurbs that this community have posted despite there actually being two "world championships".
  • Despite both titles being up for grabs in the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the constructors' hardly got coverage. There is not one headline referring to the constructors' title after it was won on BBC Sport's Formula One page. In fact, the only mention of the winning constructor, Mercedes, was about their protest regarding the outcome of the Drivers' World Championship.
  • All other competitions in WP:ITNSPORTS#Motorsport are drivers' champion only and do not get a specific post for the winning team/constructor/manufacturer.

JamesLewisBedford01 (talk) 12:26, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Result: Implemented option to amend. Edit by James Lewis Bedford (talk) 13:51, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

  • Amend per option 1. I don't think the constructors' championship receives the level of global interest and attention that the drivers' championship does, and doesn't warrant separate consideration. Consensus might sometimes form to include it if relevant, but it shouldn't be ITN/R.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:01, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
I have no idea what is the relative importance of constructor skill vs driver skill vs luck (how often the best driver in the best car doesn't win the championship, how often does that happen?). How far down the constructors' totem pole would he have to drive to reduce his chances to half or 3/4ths of driving the best car? How far down the driver totem pole would the best constructor have to use to reduce the chance of constructors championship by half or 3/4ths of best driver in best car? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:15, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Comment—In F1 each constructor has two entries (or "seats") who race against each other in the same machinery as well as against all other drivers for different constructors. Therefore there is always at least one driver who "doesn't win in the best car" because his "teammate" won instead. A constructor's point tally in the constructors' championship is the combined score of their two drivers' scores in the drivers' championship. If one Mercedes drivers finishes 1st and the other 2nd in the drivers' championship, Mercedes will obviously win the constructors'. But occasionally the two championships are split, see list of F1 seasons.
The point here though is that the two championships can be won at different times during the season and as WP:ITNSPORTS instructs us to post "as soon as a winner is determined", it means we have to judge the notability of the two championships separately. I am arguing that the constructors' championship does not get the coverage to justify it. Constructors get more coverage in their help towards getting a driver to win the drivers' championship. At the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Red Bull mechanics and pit crew burst into celebration as their driver won the drivers' championship on the last lap even though they had just simultaneously lost the constructors' championship. Conversely, Mercedes were in stunned silence that their driver had just missed out on the drivers' championship, even though that same race crowned them constructors' champions. JamesLewisBedford01 (talk) 02:33, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Amend. In sports news, the driver is who gets celebrated. There might be an offhand mention of their pit crew, but generally it's still the driver who has to make the turns and navigate around the other racers. In this specific scenario (so as to not imply a general principle to all ITN/R items), if that's what the news is focused on, then that's what we should be focused on. --🌈WaltCip-(talk) 19:19, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Amend constructor winner is trivia really. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 19:31, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Amend per TRM. We also need a clause that F1, and other leagues, can be posted when the winner is unassailable rather than having to wait until it’s over, but that’s another matter. Stephen 20:31, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Ongoing hurricane seasons

This is late now, but will be relevant again in the future. @Andrew Davidson:'s comment on his nomination of Nigerian flooding inspired me to create this section, but I've mentioned this off-hand a few times myself. The yearly hurricane season article and its subarticles are always of very high quality, as is the Pacific typhoon season articles. These also tend to have an uptick in relevance around September every year, but can come up in other parts of the year as well. What are people's thoughts on having these main articles as Ongoing items at some point in the future, especially if multiple storms hit in close succession? Davidson suggested Weather of 2022 for flooding, though I don't think we could tie such an article to a particular time of the year (and also, it is of much lower quality). ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:51, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Oppose, because the same logic would lead to "ongoing tornado season", "ongoing wildfire season", "ongoing heat wave season", etc. Weather events are best covered after we know a good extent of their devastation, and not the preceeding events nor the post-event humanitarian efforts for recovery. Masem (t) 12:10, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Certainly, people would be most interested in the live updates as the events are occurring? And this might be the exact work we want to show off, at least for the articles that are updated well. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:59, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
  • The weather is not just hurricanes and other cyclones. There's a lot of it and it's happening every day. The problem with the current approach is that ITN gives the impression that the only notable weather event lately was Hurricane Julia. But there's lot more going on such as the more deadly flooding in Nigeria. And that's just one country in Africa -- see 2022 Africa floods for many more.
Now, we obviously can't highlight every such incident -- there's too many of them and the articles are often weak. But my proposition is that we include a broad and general link such as Weather in ongoing, just as the Ongoing subtitle links to Portal:Current events.
Perhaps a clearer link to the portal would help, showing readers where to go if they want details of all current events. We should make it clearer that we have lots of detailed articles about them, not just the ones that manage to get blurbs.
Andrew🐉(talk) 11:04, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
  • I think this might miss one of the main purposes of ITN. It's not just to give readers easy links to learn about recent events; it's primarily to show off high-quality work Wikipedia editors have done. If there was a high-quality list titled 2022 floods, I would definitely not mind featuring that on the front page, though of course floods are less tied to specific parts of the years than cyclones are. Of course the big issue with what you're saying is that a lot of major flood articles are not of sufficiently high quality, which basically means "we have nothing to feature." ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:36, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
  • That would follow discussion and that's what we're doing here – kite-flying. A good thing to do when it's windy! Andrew🐉(talk) 09:52, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
    Those that just want to showcase what's in the news are welcome to participate in Wikinews, where there is no quality or notability aspects to consider. WP's main page requires any featured content (for us, bolded links or those in the RD and ongoing line) to showcase some of WP's better work, and thus require quality measures. That's not something ITN can change. Remember, we are not a newspaper, and readers coming to WP's front page to try to glean what the day's news is are very much in the wrong place. Masem (t) 12:32, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
    For example, DYK, One This Day, and Featured Picture, all have quality requirements as well. Because int he end, what we're showing off is Wikipedia's editorial work. This philosophical schism in ITN might be an issue here sometimes though... ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:18, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
  • With The Guardian and Reuters both covering this as an unusual year, that might be an interesting article to write. Whether it would work well for our ongoing section (or whether we're too late), I don't know.

George Booth (cartoonist)

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Handled by Stephen. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2022 (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.


Not sure what happened, but George Booth (cartoonist) appeared ready to go on RD before the turnover erased it. Any help would be appreciated. Thriley (talk) 00:13, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

It wasn't ready to go, some books were unreferenced. Cite those quickly and it could get added in. Stephen 00:15, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Scratch that. They were added in the minutes since I looked at it. IAR posted. Stephen 00:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Maximum number of RD items

We currently have six items posted to RD and a couple of others ready to get there thanks to the great work by some editors, so it motivated me to start thinking about the optimal size of the RD section. There are two main questions:

  • What is the maximum number of items that the RD section can accommodate?
  • How old should the earliest death be in order to roll off (or when an RD ceases to be 'recent')?

Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:31, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:ITNRD, the maximum number has settled at 6. Since changing to have the most recent post always being at the front of the list, we haven't faced a problem with a posted death no longer being "recent" on the MP. I think after a day or two max, new ones eventual push an items out. As long as it's still on ITNC, which holds nominations up to 7 days old, its eligible to be posted. —Bagumba (talk) 08:20, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:40, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Hmm, if recent deaths are coming in at too high a rate, I can imagine a situation where an article is only on there for a day. That might be considered too short? In that situation, would a discussion for a higher number of RDs on the front page be reasonable? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:43, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
It's not that long ago that the maximum was increased from four, although I can't immediately find the discussion. Issues of main page balance are usually brought up in discussions of expanding the ITN section. Thryduulf (talk) 09:29, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Informally, sometimes a 7th item is left up if its been less than 12 hours (the frequency that WP:DYK sometimes uses) on the MP.—Bagumba (talk) 09:32, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Indeed, the last remaining "issue" I see with RD is an admin posting 3-4 at once, causing everything else to bump. In some cases, this might bump someone who has only just been posted (this happened to Ivana Trump). I see no solution for this, as asking our few active admins to stagger posting through the day seems onerous. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
I think the recent glut was a bunch of noms that would have otherwise become stale. Wikipedia is a volunteer service. If those admins wait, it might never get posted. For me, I usually look to see if the one being bumped has been up there less than 12h (those edit summaries are useful), and keep it as a 7th, if so.—Bagumba (talk) 12:01, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
It's hard to contend with the fact that we are a volunteer service and that we do try to maintain balance on the main page, and then balancing it with that we still have people screaming "THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN READY FOR 16 HOURS!!! POST IT ALREADY!" 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:07, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Yep. Big thanks to the admins here; they do great work. It's a weird little paradox to complain about admins not posting; if they're here to hear the complaint, they'll post! GreatCaesarsGhost 13:16, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Not true. On several occasions I have seen Admins addressing high profile, mainstream items, dare I say it, from the US or UK, while ignoring less mainstream items for periods of at least a day. HiLo48 (talk) 23:53, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
AGF. Mark the item as "Ready", then if it gets missed while posting another, there is a basis for further discussion. —Bagumba (talk) 02:07, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Several articles from yesterday only had about 6 or 7 hours on the Main Page; one was even on there for only 5 hours (addedremoved). There probably should be some coordination instead of free-for-all'ing it, which would also alleviate the other problem of things sitting in ITNC for too long after being cleared to post. This is in no way a criticism of the ITN admins; they do great work in an otherwise thankless job, but it's a sign that the system as a whole isn't performing as well as it should in its current state. Courtesy pings to the admins from yesterday: Black Kite, PFHLai, Stephen. Curbon7 (talk) 12:25, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Something like a queue would work for this. It doesn't have to be elaborate like the DYK queue; it can literally just something this simple: User:Curbon7/RD queue. Curbon7 (talk) 12:43, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
As a way to make admins aware of how long a nomination has been up we could add a timestamp in a comment when posting. Unfortunately tildes don't get expanded inside hidden comments so it'll have to be done manually unless someone knows a better way, but it is probably better than nothing. Thryduulf (talk) 13:27, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
I've actually just gone ahead and done that. I don't know whether it will make a material difference or not, but it's unlikely to harm. Currently the oldest RD has been up about 21 hours. Thryduulf (talk) 13:35, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
@Stephen has now removed all of the posting times, citing "no consensus to alter behaviour" but this is not, imo, a good reason to remove the times. There is no consensus (currently) to require anyone to do anything with them but it does allow admins to choose, if they wish, to take note of them and act according to their discretion in light of them. If you don't want to, feel free to ignore them but that doesn't justify (imo) removing the information for others. Thryduulf (talk) 21:18, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
I've used the page history and search the edit summary for note of the RD item to be bumped. It works ~90% of the time, dependent on whether it was in the summary. —Bagumba (talk) 02:04, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Me, too. I usually just open a new tab to check the time of posting for the 5th & 6th names. Good edit summaries help. --PFHLai (talk) 14:24, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
  • This is an idea, and I think unworkable in its current form, but given how busy RD has been of late, it may be something to think about. What if RDs had a 48 or 72hr of non-staleness? That is, the death has to have been reported for the first time within that period, and the article better be nearly up to quality during that period? This would obviously cause a lot of complaints on its face (hence why unworkable in this form) but would reduce how many RDs we need to post since we would not be playing catchup with RDs from nearly 7 days ago? Again, this is only for brainstorming off of, not meant to be a realistic working proposal. --Masem (t) 12:30, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
  • I think the main issue here is that we would want to celebrate an article getting improved almost no matter how stale it has gotten. I might prefer higher requirements for article quality rather than a shorter staleness length, personally. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:37, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
    Higher requirements for article quality requires more review time too. —Bagumba (talk) 12:42, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
    Higher article requirements should be enforced. There are far too many borderline stubs with obviously problematic coverage/lack of comprehensiveness being jammed through, although there are is a clear external driver for this. When the issue is a glut of bare bones articles, it takes very little time to flag. If there was a worry about faking sources/POV/copyvio then it would take a while, but that is not the case Bumbubookworm (talk) 22:23, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
I think this is a little too kneejerk a reaction, and it would almost certainly meet wide opposition. But regardless, kudos for the idea Curbon7 (talk) 12:39, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, this hasn't happened too often. I'd prefer to not change the overall process, but maybe tweak the admin procedures. —Bagumba (talk) 12:44, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Lots of good points and agree that there is lots of good work by the admins. I think the only sustainable way to solve this is via a promotion queue. A script / programmatic way to control the promotions. Ktin (talk) 14:00, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

I think a queue or similar is a good idea. There are currently six RDs explicitly marked as ready and more that will be ready with just one more person in support. With only six spots on ITN there is a good chance of one or more of them getting mere minutes on the front page. Rather than posting to the ITN template directly, admins would add entries to the queue page. Once the oldest item on the ITN template has been there at least N hours, then a bot would remove it and replace it with the item that has been in the queue the longest, repeating for every RD entry over N hours old until the queue is empty. Thryduulf (talk) 18:14, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
When you posted this, technically all the RDs could have been removed as all the items then had already been up > 12 hrs. It seems that many of the ITNC items have been cleared, but a couple of "ready" RDs remain, while the now current RD set has all been up < 12h.—Bagumba (talk) 04:37, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Time on RD for the most recent 100 postings

For the most recent 100 postings prior to those still on the main page, the range and average duration of appearance in hours and minutes was:

Max Min Average Median
All 95:25 01:00 35:03 33:48
Excluding reposts 95:25 05:00 36:24 34:30
The maximum was Greg Lee (basketball) between 18:26 23/09/2022 and 17:51 27/09/2022
The minimum (excluding reposts) was Marvin Powell between 17:50 05/10/2022 and 22:50 05/10/2022. Three others, Eamonn McCabe, Laurence Silberman and Ron Franz spent less than 8 hours on the main page.
Not including any time spent after being reposted, the number spending at least the following amount of time on the main page were:
Duration at least Number
12 hours 91
18 hours 84
24 hours 74
36 hours 43
48 hours 23
72 hours 3

Thryduulf (talk) 02:51, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Very nice analysis. Thanks for doing this. Seems like an average RD stays ~1.5 days, which by itself is a healthy number. However, ~10% of RDs stay for less than 12 hours and ~25% stay less than 24 hours. If we can smoothen this number, I think we should be good.
I personally liked what you did recently of adding a meta tag / comment tag with the posting time. It can serve as a rough thumb-rule / guideline to a posting admin. Ideally we would have a promotion queue that would post programmatically to ensure that most RDs stay ~24 hours. But, in its absence, I liked your comment tag method. Ktin (talk) 15:37, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
As I noted above, Stephen removed the tags and hasn't responded to the request to discuss them. Thryduulf (talk) 21:34, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistency between new Swedish PM and new Italian PM

@Stephen and Abcmaxx: I'm querying your very speedy closes of the two nominations for Meloni being elevated to PM of Italy, before anyone had had a chance to !vote. At the time of the election we didn't yet know who would become the PM, so the specific line-item of Meloni succeeding as head of government has not yet been posted on ITN. This differs from the US election case, where the winner is already known at the time of the November election, the swearing in being a formality. The case is far more similar to the Swedish election, which we posted in September, but then also posted the ascension of Kristenssen (which you yourself posted to ITN, Stephen) once the new leader was known. I think we should at least be allowed to debate the Meloni case, and only close if consensus is against it. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I only restored the discussion as Stephen removed it entirely from the page, I thought if I restore it as a closed discussion it would be a good compromise without risking an edit war. Abcmaxx (talk) 10:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
In September we posted “The centre-right coalition wins a majority of seats in the Italian general election (Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni pictured)”, so the October story is just her formal appointment, whereas the Swedish election took a few rounds of negotiation to select a leader. Two others commented that this was a duplicate. Abcmaxx did indeed only close the second duplicate posting of the original closed nomination. In any case, if anyone disagrees with a closure it can always be reopened as standard practice. Stephen 10:21, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
I would concur that the discussion should be allowed, though I would oppose posting per Stephen's reasoning. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:48, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
@GreatCaesarsGhost, Stpehen, and Abcmaxx: thanks for the responses. I have reopened the nom and explained there why I believe it should be posted there. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 20:49, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
@Stephen:; I can't spell.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Off-topic
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Rieko Kodama

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Issue has been clarified. Will archive shortly. Ktin (talk) 16:11, 12 November 2022 (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.


Somebody who died 6 months ago should not be listed in 'recent deaths'... GiantSnowman 12:12, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

The first reliable source for this person's death appeared in October 27th, and so that's the standard that was used in the nomination as for when the clock should start. If you'd like to change the RD guidelines on this to prevent this from ever occurring again, you're welcome to edit them. However, in countries like Japan where they discourage the media from announcing deaths until the family has given the OK to do so, this would obviously bar certain deaths from ever being posted. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:30, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Implicitly, it is "Recently reported deaths" but since 99% of the cases is that the reporting comes immediately after the death, we don't need to be explicit with the title. Masem (t) 13:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

About mass shootings

Although I've mentioned the possibility of contagion in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) (cf. Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 191#About mass shootings), Wikipedians still refuse to eschew mentioning mass shootings on the main page in most cases, despite the fact that contagion does occur and the English Wikipedia has been an extremely influential website. Today I found out that a mass shooting in Iran is mentioned there, which is unethical since it is essentially highlighting that event, easily causing contagion, thus I suggest that workplace murders, school murders, mass stabbings, mass shootings and mass murders be excluded on ITN unless they are: (1) state violence (2) events accompanied by a war or battle (3) more-than-2 perpetrator events.--RekishiEJ (talk) 14:40, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Mass shooting articles 1) typically draw lots of RS reporting and 2) generally represent some of the "fastest-to-quality" articles on breaking topics. We have recognized that some mass shootings/violence are too common in some areas (like within the US) or are associated with long-term violence (like many regions of Africa), so we don't post those. But we're not going to stop posting just because of the possible issue of contagion (violence begetting more violence), as we're an encyclopedia and we aren't here to right great wrongs. --Masem (t) 15:14, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I know, but the English Wikipedia community still need to have social responsibility, and experts say the reason why in America mass shootings seem to be more and more frequent is irresponsible media, and I think that English Wikipedia is currently one of them, and there are some other events that can belong to the ITN which are no murders.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:37, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
There are also many studies that suggest the American media is to blame for much global war and mob violence, too, whether through well-timed atrocity propaganda or 24/7 domestic bickering. Personally, I'd rather feel vaguely responsible for another sporadic localized lone wolf attack than another lengthy and costly invasion or insurgency harming thousands or millions. I'm sure others are concerned about featuring one-on-one suicides and drug overdoses in RD, too, but we just can't reasonably protect all potentially irrational emulators from themselves, especially while based on a pop news system so utterly obsessed with death and destruction. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:14, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
WP cannot take a position on these, that's the entire principle of WP:RGW. It's sad there is so much violence in the world but WP's place is to document it, not try to correct it. Masem (t) 16:39, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Correct. On the bright side (for some), there remains absolutely no room in modern ITN for the documentation of so much violence in the combat sports world. Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva, doesn't matter which consenting adult wins, any nomination thereof is already beaten by some unwritten communal agreement to never glorify anything that barbaric. And no, I'm not complaining, even "passive aggressively". Just saying, we do draw the line on sensational clubberin' somewhere, so count your blessings, Rekishi! InedibleHulk (talk) 04:16, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
For what it's worth, this mass shooting seems to meet two of your three exceptions, or all of them if you consider the Islamic State a state and believe it sponsored this. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:56, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Casualty events and death counts

It seems that every terrorist attack, mass shooting, or other incident with a death count of more than a few people makes it to ITN, and it's been doing so increasingly often to the point where it's become the predominant type of entry listed (as I type this, the three most recent items in a row are this type of event out of four total). I believe that the standard is currently too low as to when these types of events are included. A death count is a terrible thing, but it's not always of such consequence that warrants an appearance on the main page. When !voting on casualty events, I think it would be helpful to determine whether it has significance outside of the death count (such as geopolitical ramifications, death of a notable person, or a similar extraordinary circumstance). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

It's the perennial WP:MINIMUMDEATHS topic (last discussed a few weeks ago). —Bagumba (talk) 04:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
If it's brought up often, then isn't that indicative of a problem? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:43, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
I didn't say that it was or wasn't "a problem".—Bagumba (talk) 07:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Many editors have some kind of "minimum deaths" criteria which they apply to stories of this nature, while also factoring in aspects such as whether the incident is "routine" or not. Around 10 deaths is a typical example above which people are inclined to post. There has never been consensus to codify any of this as a hard-and-fast rule, but since ITN items are decided by consensus at WP:ITN/C, if enough people apply this logic then that's what prevails. It isn't really a problem, and there's nothing specific to fix as far as I can tell.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:59, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
To add, we have had several mass death events, one intended human caused, one weather caused, and two inadvernant events. We can't control how or when news happens so it makes no sense to try to use scale of death toll to determine posting, except in consideration of equivalent events from the same region (eg shootings in the US). Masem (t) 04:08, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Much like the exception to curb U.S. shootings is an WP:IAR decision, the community could similarly choose to limit doom and gloom postings. It's all up to the !voters. None of this is hard and fast. —Bagumba (talk) 09:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Look, if over a hundred people die due to an explosive incident, crash, or crush, and the article about it is high quality, it is going to be posted. I agree that 'news' tends to be tragic, I would love to see more positive news stories too. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:10, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Election results and government formation

I would like to encourage discussion on how to deal with cases where it is uncertain that the winning party/coalition in an election would form a government coalition. There has been a recent debate on the matter related to the Swedish election, and there is currently an open nomination on the Israeli election in which users have expressed hesitancy to post the results immediately because of an alleged uncertainty on the government formation drawn from country's political past. ITN/R clearly states that the results from a general election in a sovereign state should be posted, so it is technically impossible to delay it until a future event. Theoretically, we have to consider three cases:

  • Case 1: the winning party/coalition successfully forms a government coalition.
  • Case 2: the winning party/coalition does not form a government coalition and other party/coalition forms a government coalition.
  • Case 3: the winning party/coalition does not form a government coalition, no other party/coalition forms a government coalition and a new election is scheduled.

Case 1 is clear and we should probably post only the election results per ITN/R. Case 3 is also clear because we should probably post the results from the first election per ITN/R and post the results from the new election again per ITN/R. The main question is how to deal with Case 2. My reasoning is that we should post the election results per ITN/R and post the government formation by a party/coalition that did not win the election, whereas the government formation by the winning party/coalition should be discussed on a case-by-case basis depending on criteria such as length of the political crisis and article quality. Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

The relevant portion of WP:ITNR is:
  • Changes in the holder of the office which administer the executive of their respective state/government, in those countries which qualify under the criteria above, as listed at List of current heads of state and government except when that change was already posted as part of a general election.
—Bagumba (talk) 13:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
The text you're highlighting specifies that we should post 1) election results and 2) government change which was not caused by election results. It tells nothing about whether the election results can be weighed against government formation in countries with frequent post-election political crises, which is exactly what the majority does in the nomination on the Israeli election.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Israel has had five elections in four years, two of them resulted in no government and another election being called. This one is looking more and more certain so I dont think the delay will be long, but I dont see the problem with waiting a few days for a coalition agreement to be in the bag, not even necessarily agreed to formally. nableezy - 14:01, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Bulgaria had four elections in a time span of a year and a half, with only one resulting in a government formation. In general, the number of countries with post-election political crises is on the rise. I don't think waiting for a few days is a solution because 1) forming a government coalition takes much longer and 2) the nomination may get stale and we could end up omitting an ITN/R item. We can not post an ITN/R item only if the quality requirement is not met; in all other cases, the ITN/R status is a free pass. If you think that we should make more exceptions, then we should reformulate ITN/R to clarify it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I think you are being too hyperspecific on the principle involved here, and also ITN/R is a complete red herring with regards to posting this. ITN/R status is never a restrictive one. Which is to say, one can never point to some topic not being on ITN/R to decide if the general subject is inappropriate for an ITN blurb. ITN/R is not exhaustive, and we post many events every day that aren't on ITNR. So that's a non-starter for any argument. The greater issue at hand is that we should be posting items when they are actually being actively covered by the news and not when the reach some arbitrary goal line. This isn't an issue with elections, it's an issue with many things we post. In general, we post lots of things when they "hit the news" and not when they are completed, as some specific ones:
  1. We post sports championships when they are mathematically guaranteed and not when the season ends (i.e. Premier League, F1, etc.)
  2. We post major mergers and acquisitions when it occurs, not when the HR departments and the lawyers figure out how to actually marry the two companies into one
I would rather see the ITN instructions be updated to say something like "Items are posted when the contents of the blurb are true and completely accurate as written, not when some follow-on event happens" or something like that (wording is not great, but you get the gist). If we're going to post the results of an election, we post the results of the election. Let it be that. If some kind of government forming event happens at a later time, we can decide on the merits if that involves updating a blurb, posting a new blurb, or just ignoring it; and we can make that decision based on the news coverage of THAT event when IT happens and not on anything else. ITN is meant to be somewhat timely; the idea has always been that readers are directed to well-written, relatively comprehensive Wikipedia articles that expand on things that the readers themselves are likely hearing about outside of Wikipedia. If an event has just happened, and if news is covering it sufficiently, I see no reason to hold it up merely because we expect some other event to happen at some time in the future. --Jayron32 15:20, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree and that's how it should be. We must post the election results per ITN/R once the quality criterion is met. However, those calling to wait until a government is formed in the nomination on the Israeli election have made up majority, so it's reasonable to start a discussion and prevent this from happening for other countries in similar situation.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I dont think anything must be done anywhere on Wikipedia. And youre misconstruing the waits there, it isnt waiting for a government to be formed, its waiting for it to be clear that a government will be formed and we know who the incoming PM will be. Which probably will be settled by tomorrow if not tonight. nableezy - 15:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
What will happen if the attempt to form a government fails? We're not going to post the election results, right? That's not how ITN/R works. We must post the election results once the quality requirement is met regardless of whether government will be formed or not. Moreover, we must post the results from every single election even if it's the hundredth failed attempt to form a government. That's what the current rule says. If you wish to revise it, you're welcome to discuss it here.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:12, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Again, I dont think we "must" do any such thing. If an election results in no government that is akin to a tree falling in a forest that nobody hears. And I dont think that merits inclusion on the main page. Anyway, WSJ is now reporting that Netanyahu's bloc has secured a majority, and the JPost is saying Netanyahu is assured a victory, so for this specific election I think it can be posted now. If it had led to a bout of nothingness like has happened previously then Id say it need not be posted. nableezy - 16:20, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Kiril, I'm afraid the word must is a very inaccurate word for anything at Wikipedia. There is nothing we must do. We're all volunteers. We aren't getting paid, and no one is coercing anyone to do anything here. The correct words you need to use here are can and may and possibly even should, but never must. We can post election results (so long as the article is up to date, well written, well referenced, and the results are certainly known). We never must do so. Just that we're allowed to come to that conclusion by discussion. But nothing forces anyone to do anything at Wikipedia. Even ITNR doesn't guarantee something will be posted. It just means those are events that are presumed to have enough coverage to overcome the "not enough news coverage to post" hurdle. It doesn't mean that ITN discussions would reach the conclusion to not post something. Direct discussion of a specific event can always override ITNR, if the discussion in the moment decides to do something else, that's working exactly as it is designed. Discussion, not rules, is what is most important. --Jayron32 18:15, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm afraid that it's not the case in practice considering that people contesting the significance of an ITN/R item while discussing a nomination are sent away to discuss it here. Yes, "must" is an inaccurate word, but it's exactly what some editors associate ITN/R with.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I think "some" is presumptuous as well. We have one editor who has made such an assertion in this discussion. --Jayron32 19:39, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Fair enough. I started this as a good-faith discussion, but I don't have time for it any more. There are more important things to do.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Nobody is contesting the significance of it either for that matter. Just saying it would be better to be prudent to wait until it the result is clear, and that no government and another election is not the likely result. nableezy - 22:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Balance

The Seoul Halloween crowd crush has just been pushed off ITN even though it's Halloween today. The reason seems to be that we have had a flurry of other minor disasters, as discussed above, and there's a desire to "balance" the main page. I gather that this is an effort to make the ITN section match the length of the FA section to eliminate white space in a two-column view.

I usually start the day by reading the main page on my smartphone. This uses the mobile view and this is a single column for the main page and so the issue of column balance does not arise. I believe that this view is the most popular, being used by the majority of our readers. So, in this most common view, balance is a non-issue.

Other readers use the desktop view with a variety of skins. The latest is Vector 2022 and this makes a virtue of adding white space as the WMF points to interface research showing that this makes pages more readable. When I view the current main page on my phone with this skin in desktop mode, the columns are massively lopsided with the FA section being as long as ITN + OTD together. And so the RHS column has a huge amount of white space and is very unbalanced.

Another factor is that that different devices have different screen sizes. And some devices such as tablets are expected to be used in a portrait orientation. For example, my latest device is an HP Chromebase which has a screen which pivots so you can choose portrait or landscape.

So, I'm thinking that it's not ITN's job to try to balance the layout of the main page because there is no uniform target format. This self-denial tends to hurt ITN by reducing the space available for useful additions like short descriptions for the RDs. Shouldn't we prioritise the needs of ITN and let the skin designers and user preferences take the strain?

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I've also never seen what screen size we are even "balancing" towards. —Bagumba (talk) 09:27, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
  • I agree that it's really unfortunate that the Seoul crush was pushed out so quickly. This was basically a coincidence, and I wouldn't call the footbridge collapse or the car bombing "minor" in any way!! But I agree that it would be better if the Halloween crush could stay on the main page for longer than 24 hours. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Andrew gathers wrongly. Balance is concerned with making TFA+DYK roughly equal ITN+OTD for a widescreen view with no browser zoom. The mobile viewing stats are irrelevant as there will always be a significant readership on the desktop site, using the default (for now) Vector 2010 skin. And of course, we always get pulled up when ITN is too stale and that it should be replaced by the current events portal or Top25, and now it’s cycling too fast we need to keep the old stories around. Like every other change, start an RFC and get consensus to change. Stephen 10:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
On my browser, the "On this day" banner is higher than the "Did you know" banner at most screen widths, so I personally think we could safely put the crowd crush item back - particularly given that it was a very major incident and it was only up for 24 hours. The general point is a correct one, obviously - in general page balance is one of the things we strive for, but in this case I'd put it back. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:54, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
@Amakuru:, go for it! I’d do it myself, but I’m on fiddly mobile. Drop an OTD item to compensate if it’s needed and if you’re up to it? Stephen 11:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 Done, and I've removed one item from OTD as you suggest. Cheers!  — Amakuru (talk) 11:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Is this TFA+DYK=ITN+OTD formula documented somewhere, please? And how is the division between ITN and OTD decided? Currently when I look at the screen in a 2 column skin, OTD has 21 lines of text while ITN has only 14 lines. It does not seem equitable or balanced that OTD should get 50% more space than ITN. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia:In the news/Administrator instructions#Balance. TFA is fixed because of their strict word count, DYK items have their 12 hours in the limelight so woe betide any changes there. So it’s left to ITN and OTD to be flexible, and it’s always been easier to add or drop an older ITN blurb as it’s usually a few days old. Except when we get an occasional rapid refresh as happened today. The ratio of text lines does not exactly equal the column length ratio, given the various sections, but yes, currently OTD is usually longer. However, there’s nothing wrong with losing or adding an anniversary to balance things out. Stephen 11:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
The main page 2-column view, as seen from a smartphone. The right column is very much shorter than the left.
Seoul Halloween crowd crush has now been removed again and ITN is back to the previous 4 blurbs. OTD has moved on a day so that's the main thing that has changed and OTD now has 50% more lines than ITN again. As this is essentially repeating a change which another admin had reverted, this seems to be wheel-warring without consensus.
There doesn't seem to be a good reason for this as, in every view I've tried, the RHS is now shorter than the LHS and the Seoul Halloween blurb would not cause a significant imbalance. To see how lop-sided the imbalance can be, see the view on my phone just now. (right) The RHS is grotesquely shorter than the LHS and there's lots of white space. This shows that the effect of such changes is quite specific to the device and interface. What works on one may have the opposite effect on another. It seems best to focus on the content than trying to tweak such capricious cosmetics.
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
It’s because the font size on the right is much smaller than that on the left. Nothing's ever going to balance with that discrepancy. Stephen 10:05, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
The browser being used there is Apple's Safari, which is a fairly mainstream browser, and that's what it made of the page. Chrome on the same phone does the same thing and so it seems to be an effect of the Vector 2022 skin. As I understand it, the mainpage uses a special custom framework to get the 2 column view and so it's not surprising that some combinations of setup don't handle it well. The mobile view does away with the 2 column view altogether and so does the app. My point remains that ITN should focus on its content rather than trying to manage the main page as a whole because that content is delivered in a variety of ways. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:17, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
While it's unclear what is the target screen size we are balancing toward, it's safe to assume that only a small percentage of readers—likely regular WP editors—would place their browser into desktop mode from a phone. If we are going to balance, I'd say desktop views on phones is not the target audience.—Bagumba (talk) 11:41, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
I find that there's an analytics page with lots of stats. At the OS level, Windows is now running 3rd to Android and iOS and so this indicates that mobile readership is dominant. So, if we were to pick a mode to optimise, that should be the one. But I don't think we should be trying to micromanage this. If we have a flurry of fresh blurbs then we should run them all. This will work fine in the mobile view and app which are used by the majority of our readers. If there's a bit of white space in a particular desktop view then this does not seem an adequate reason to go out of our way to limit ITN in all modes, making it the smallest section on the main page. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
What would you propose as a minimum blurb time before it could be "balanced" off? —Bagumba (talk) 13:32, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
To me, it's like Ongoing. If a topic is still getting fresh coverage and updates then it's still appropriate for us to list it. The Seoul crush still seems to be getting lots of attention in Western media, e.g. CNN; BBC; Guardian. Once the story is no longer in the news, then I don't mind it being dropped. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:48, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
The problem with disasters into ongoing is that there typically is no obvious end to the humanitarian or recovery efforts. ITN worries about the immediate destruction, but not what happens afterwards unless it is a highly unusual event in which case that would be a new blurb. Remember we are not a newspaper, and should not be trying to tailor ITN around news updates. Masem (t) 13:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Ongoing items are currently only removed after they are nominated for removal and consensus is established. I doubt we want that overhead for the 99.5% of the time that blurbs have been up for days. —Bagumba (talk) 14:19, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Given that ITN is not worried about timeliness, my suggestion would be that we want to aim for each item to have a min of 24 or 48 hours in ITN, and if new items were to be consider good to post that would push off a blurb stll under 24/48 hrs, the we create an addition queue within the template, placing the new blurb in an html comment to hide it. Then when the existing blurb passes the min threshold it can be removed and the commented out one added. This makes it an admin issue if managing the template and checking to see when this shuffling needs to happen. --Masem (t) 13:50, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
    The queue is overkill for this scenario, which might happen but once or twice a year(?) Just leave it unbalanced (which is subjective anyways) for a day, or remove an item from OTD as we did here. —Bagumba (talk) 14:21, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
    Even still, while we may want to promote an ITNC that has clear support, there is no need to rush to post if it there are topics that haven't had a good 24hr in the ITN template. Even something that we only have to dip a bit into IAR to make sure blurbs see an expected period in the box would be helpful. Masem (t) 12:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    Posting a blurb that is ready while keeping a new (< 24h) item, even if temporarily unbalanced, seems to be a win-win IAR option. —Bagumba (talk) 01:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment. I will start out by saying I have no preference one way or the other. But, I do have a question -- is it a terribly bad thing to leave it 'unbalanced'? For instance, right now, I have two monitors -- a primary laptop screen and a secondary external display screen. The page does appear balanced on the external display screen, but on the laptop primary display ITN + OTD is shorter than the FA + DYK, by approx 2 rows. In the past I have seen the other way around as well, i.e. balanced on primary laptop screen but unbalanced on the secondary display. Irrespective, at least to my eyes, it does not seem terribly bad. Irrespective of screen the featured picture seems odd with no text wrap around it. But, that is not our project's remit. Good luck in whatever you all decide. Ktin (talk) 20:07, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
    ...is it a terribly bad thing to leave it 'unbalanced'?: No, especially when unbalanced is subjective, and likely at least half of the readers are using mobile view, where balancing is immaterial. In that light, balancing should be more of a lower-priority goal than an imperative. —Bagumba (talk) 01:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
    Thanks. If so, I would suggest that we probably not remove / re-add blurbs with the aim of balancing the page. Either way, like I mentioned, comparing on two different displays (laptop primary vs external secondary) almost always shows different behavior. Ktin (talk) 14:29, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
  • The Seoul Halloween crowd crush has been restored again. This seems to be because today's OTD entries are comparatively short and, with less space taken by OTD, ITN is made larger for balance. It's interesting that the state of OTD causes this flip-flopping on ITN. I wonder if the curators of OTD are aware of this? If they started proactively trying to manage the size of that section too, there might be a perverse feedback loop.
The overall main page format ought to be managed at main page level so that all parties and sections are represented. But my impression is that there's no overall stewardship for the mainpage and so its appearance arises from such bottom-up behaviour.
Andrew🐉(talk) 10:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Feel free to contribute to OTD: Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries#How to contribute to the project.—Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
The length of OTD doesn't have that much bearing on the length of ITN, as they're one on top of the other. ITN is principally balancing against the TFA, which can vary in size depending on the size of the image used I guess.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I just removed an item from OTD, and restored an ITN blurb, as ITN got "balanced" to just 3 blurbs. However, one of the OTD items was a repeat from last year, and OTD was much larger than DYK (and ITN much smaller than FA). —Bagumba (talk) 06:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

ITN/C header updated

As a courtesy, just notifying people that I made an addition to the "Please do not..." section of the ITN header. It shouldn't have to be necessary, but I guess at this point it's well overdue.

  • Please do not... Use the discussion section of an item as a forum for your own political or personal beliefs. Such comments are irrelevant to the outcome of a nomination and are potentially disruptive.

I was prompted to it after Rockstone announced on the Brazilian election nom: There's no rule in ITN saying I can't express support for something. And honestly, we've been having issues with political comments on noms for years (and I've been partly at fault for that). At roughly the same time, Stephen also reorganized the header so that the positive pointers come before the negative ones. I think that's also a good change. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 18:20, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd even add that it's not a place to label countries as "authoritarian" or "genocidal" and living persons as "dictators", "puppets" or "war criminals". Such designations have been given in the past and are totally unproductive to discussions.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Some of these terms (like "authoritarian" or "dictator") could be relevant in some situations, but in general I do agree that these sorts of labels are irrelevant to !vote discussions. Questions of whether to label the new Swedish government as "far right", for example, were relevant to the content of the blurb. Wether a new head of state is a "puppet" or a "war criminal" is irrelevant to whether we post the blurb. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Meh. I would rather the header said "Your comments will be ignored if you..." rather than "Please do not..." We can't stop people from doing that sort of thing. We can make clear that if they do, they make themselves very ignorable. So no, we can't stop people from writing political editorials in a nom. We can let them know that admins will ignore any vote or comment that is phrased as such. I give zero weight to people who make such comments when deciding whether or not to add something to the ticker. I expect the same of my fellow admins. --Jayron32 19:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think "Your comments will be ignored" goes far enough, partly because they're not being ignored. Sure, the admins probably ignore them, but everyone else can see them. It's admirable that you as an administrator, whether you post the item or not, will discount such opinions in the course of determining consensus. But your cogitation does not remove the fact that these disruptive comments were still posted, taking up space on the thread, and frequently sparking lengthy and irrelevant debates or arguments which then need to be hatted off. Those sidebars play a part in the belief pervading Wikipedia that ITN/C is toxic, vitriolic, and otherwise out of control. I think all of us are aware that WP:NOTFORUM exists, but I still believe we need to be a bit more forceful in reminding ourselves that the policy still applies even if we are talking about current events that affect us all. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes, we should all be better about WP:NOTFORUM, myself included. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:52, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

RD Kevin Conroy

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Thanks for taking care PFHLai. Ktin (talk) 02:02, 20 November 2022 (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.


It appeared that Kevin Conroy was all ready to go to RD. Is it possible to post? Thriley (talk) 00:23, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The link to this wikibio is there on RD now. --PFHLai (talk) 14:27, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wrongly Archived

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Thanks Cryptic for taking care of this. Ktin (talk) 17:26, 20 November 2022 (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.


Folks - I fat-fingered a link by mistake Special:Diff/1122834274/1122834401 and was able to undo it pretty quickly. However, I ended up creating an archive Wikipedia:In the news/Archive 1 that should not have been created. Please can someone help take a look and delete the archive? Thanks. Ktin (talk) 02:01, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Image request

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Thanks for taking care of this, Bagumba. Ktin (talk) 22:54, 26 November 2022 (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.


Collapsed home in Cianjur Regency

Can the image added here to accompany the West Java earthquake blurb? I added this in the ITN nomination discussion but didn't get any response, perhaps nobody saw it. Wasn't sure where to add a request so I came here. Dora the Axe-plorer (explore) 04:18, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I used this one instead.—Bagumba (talk) 06:58, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Orbital crewed launches

I think there are only about 5ish crewed orbital launches each year and I think they should be clearly be labelled as ITNR. I am pretty sure that years ago it was the case, and I have no idea why it's not explicitly stated anymore, since if the article has enough news coverage and is well written, should surpass any ITN check. 2A02:2F01:F206:A500:ACB9:80C1:561A:62A0 (talk) 16:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

It was removed per this discussion —Bagumba (talk) 16:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Rugby League World Cup

As was noted by JamesLewisBedford01 in the nomination for the (women's) Rugby (union) World Cup, the rugby footballs have become pleasantly inclusive recently, no longer differentiating between men's and women's competitions in marketing and the like. The 2021 Rugby League World Cup currently underway (similarly postponed) has three competitions: men's, women's, and wheelchair (itself mixed gender) all taking part at the same time. All will have finals decided within the same 24-hour period (in 4 days' time).

I bring this up to ask two things:

  1. "Rugby League World Cup" is currently ITN/R; presuming this was added as the men's running game, it would not apply to the women's running game or the wheelchair game, would the combined finals need to be nominated separately?
  2. In that case, would it really be appropriate to have up to three possible separate blurbs, for the same World Cup, at the same time? Or would a combined blurb – "in the 2021 RLWC, X wins the men's final, Y wins the women's final, Z wins the wheelchair final", or further combined if Australia manage to win both finals they're in – be better?

Thanks for any input. Kingsif (talk) 03:34, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

First of all, I think – like with any number of things that can be grouped together – we deem it preferable to combine blurbs where we can and if we wish to do so. As for Q1, even if RLWC is interpreted as ITN/R worthy for men only, it doesn't mean that we can't add related information to the same blurb (i.e. who also won the other tournaments). In ITN/R motorsport blurbs, it is often the case that the recurring item is only the drivers' championship but if it so happens that the constructors'/manufacturers'/teams' championship is won at the same time we still mention it in the blurb of the former (and it is still deemed ITN/R).
I'm a contributor to the 2021 Rugby League World Cup article and I had already been thinking about a potential blurb format. I think only bolding the wider competition article of the three tournaments allows better flexibility to mention all of them without bolded link overload and increase the chance of it being posted. Imo – should the community want to include mention of all three – the easiest format would be:
  • For three different nations as champions, for example:

In rugby league, the World Cup concludes with Australia winning the men's tournament, New Zealand winning the women's tournament, and England winning the wheelchair tournament

— blurb

In rugby league, the World Cup concludes with the Australia men's team, the New Zealand women's team, and the England wheelchair team as champions

— altblurb
  • For two different nations as champions, for example:

In rugby league, the World Cup concludes with Australia winning the men's tournament and women's tournament, and England winning the wheelchair tournament

— blurb

In rugby league, the World Cup concludes with the Australia men's team, the Australia women's team, and the England wheelchair team as champions

— altblurb
Comment by James Lewis Bedford (talk) 04:17, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Per WP:ITNSPORTS:

Entries which refer to events where men's and women's events are concurrent (unless otherwise specified) are generally posted as a combined blurb, as long as both articles are of a sufficient quality.

—Bagumba (talk) 06:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • The trouble with this approach is that you may get more than you bargained for. The plans for this Rugby World Cup included a Festival of World Cups and a disabled event too:
  1. the Masters Rugby League World Cup
  2. the men's and women's Armed Forces World Cup
  3. the men's and women's Student World Cup
  4. the men's Emerging Nations World Championship and the inaugural women's Emerging Nations World Championship
  5. the men's Police World Cup
  6. the Physical Disability Rugby League World Cup
The pandemic upset this plan but I suppose the idea will return. I oppose such multiplex extensions being considered ITN/R automatically by riding the coat-tails of the original primary event.
Andrew🐉(talk) 15:57, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Well consensus was firmly in favour of men's and women's being posted together when the note Bagumba quotes was added, but no other events were considered as part of that discussion so there is no consensus to either include or exclude them. In the case of the Rugby League competetion specifically posting both the men's and women's events is clearly correct, and I'd support adding the wheelchair competition too as disability sport is becoming increasingly prominent. I'd be willing to consider the others if someone gives a rationale for doing so, but I would need to be convinced. Thryduulf (talk) 18:58, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
The festival tournaments were always mini-promotional-events, and the Physical Disability Rugby League tournament still went ahead. Despite this, it is the three M, W, and WC tournaments that are the main events and have been promoted as such. I agree with @Thryduulf – in this situation I think it makes sense to support the WC in a blurb alongside the M and W tournaments (not doing so would seem odd as the competition has deliberately organised the three with parity). Comment by James Lewis Bedford (talk) 15:53, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
The ITNR item is currently just the men's tournament. I would support posting the women's tournament as part of the same blurb if they occur at the same time. I'm not aware of the wheelchair or other versions having ever been discussed or nominated; I would oppose including them at this point. Rugby league is a fairly niche sport (less worldwide interest than rugby union, though a lot more than e.g. Gaelic football) so the current ~2 blurbs per year seems an appropriate level of coverage. Modest Genius talk 19:16, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
It is de facto both the men's and women's as per Bagumba's quote. On a side note, the ITNRs for Rugby League seem to be upside down – it is only one of a few sports that include domestic round-robin competitions (the Super League and National Rugby League) yet it has no mention of the State of Origin series which is the sport's pinnacle competition, with a much higher standard of quality than the World Cup (which boasts the second longest history of any World Cup competition in sport). Comment by James Lewis Bedford (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

AP issues correction re: “Russian Missile Attack”

According to the Washington Post, the Associated Press has issued a correction to their erroneous assertions that Russia attacked Polish territory, killing two people, which if true could have possibly triggered a NATO military response. We at ITN need to get rock-solid confirmation before posting incorrect stories of this sort on our Main Page, because even mainstream sources can make very big mistakes.

I salute those who opposed posting, and those saying to wait, and most importantly the ITN-participating admins who wisely took those suggestions to heart. These are edgy times indeed, and we have a responsibility to our Wikipedia readers to get it right and not add fuel to media fires. Cheers! Jusdafax (talk) 23:47, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

The whole situation in the Ukraine/Russian war is one that we should wait for good confirmation in the first place, as there's not as many people on the ground in the appropriate areas to report the truth, and instead people tend to latch onto the bloggers and unreliable sources (eg Russia state press) for news.
But in general, beyond just this war stuff, if some type of major accusation is made but there's no confirmation pathway, we at ITN should definitely be wary about posting that. Masem (t) 01:13, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
@Jusdafax and Masem: We agreed that editors should refrain from making political comments two weeks ago (see the discussion above), so now it's perhaps time to warn editors not to state unsupported claims to make an argument. I've updated the ITN/C header to reflect this (Please do not... State claims or make allegations that have not yet been confirmed by reliable sources to establish notability. Such comments may lead to posting incorrect stories and deceive readers.).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
@Kiril Simeonovski: It was reverted by Andrew Davidson who called it rule creep. I reverted back, but I think maybe we ought to come to a decision on how many rules we should allow on the header, and what principles we want to specifically focus on. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:07, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Noting for the record since Modest Genius also reverted me, I weak support the addition of a rule to avoid making claims not established by reliable sources. It's true that our most experienced admins here will probably discount such !votes that are not backed up by reliable sources, but I think it's also important to have the written principle in place so that any new admins coming to ITN/C will keep it in mind when establishing consensus. There were a considerable wave of support !votes for the Poland missile attack nom.--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:21, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict)While I agree with the sentiment, do we really need to introduce a new rule? It's pretty self-evident that events must be reported in reliable sources before they are posted on ITN, and referencing them is one of the requirements we already have for article updates. I don't see any evidence of a widespread problem on ITN/C that needs to be addressed with an additional rule, let alone one introduced with no discussion. Modest Genius talk 14:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Indeed. We already have well-established core policies like WP:V and WP:RS and these are already included in the instructions: "Make sure that you include a reference from a verifiable, reliable secondary source." So, there's no need to repeat this a second time. Per WP:CREEP, "increasing numbers of directions result, over time, in decreasing chances that any particular rule will be read at all, much less understood and followed". Andrew🐉(talk) 16:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
  • That's all fine and good, but the AP is a rock solid source, and it doesn't stop being so because they corrected themselves. If the AP gets it wrong, Wikipedia is going to get it wrong too. When the AP corrects itself, Wikipedia will correct itself. This is how it is supposed to work. We don't need to self-flagellate over any of this, as Wikipedia did nothing wrong in any of its processes. Sometimes, even the best people fuck up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Oh well. --Jayron32 15:08, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    But, this comes to the point that WP is an encyclopedia, not a news source. Breaking news that has unclear support should not be included in WO just because the source is otherwise reliable. We value quality and correctness over timeliness. Masem (t) 15:12, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    I'm reminded of the "Verifiability not truth" argument. If you examine the proceedings of that nomination from that standpoint, everybody there who !voted "support" based on AP voted correctly, because they were following what the reliable sources said. The rest of us who favored waiting or opposed did so on the basis of intuition, since many of the details were unconfirmed even as reliable sources seemed convinced it was a Russian missile. I don't know which side is right in this instance. I do know the Western media is very heavily biased right now, in a way that is more apparent than even during the Trump years, and I think we need to at least be mindful of WP:NPOV even as we assess reliable sources. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    A common misconception is that WP:VFT means that Wikipedia is not interested in the truth. That's not what it means. What it means is that Wikipedia is interested in verifiable truth. It doesn't mean we post stuff we know to be false merely because we find a source. However, that doesn't mean that screw ups don't happen from time to time. They do. We fix the screw up and move on. Handwringing over the imperfection of the world gets us nowhere. --Jayron32 15:24, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    Part of the larger issue on WP right now is this belief that it is forbidden to consider that reliable sources are wrong or should be questioned, but in reality we should be doing jobs of academics, raising questions and concerns if what a trusted RS reports doesn't seem to line up with reality, in addition that there is no deadline to double check that. On this case, the bulk of instant information out if the Ukraine war should be held in question until corroborative sources are also there. That the AP published one thing is fine but like with most other ITNC blurbs we general make sure multiple sources are reporting the same. That wasn't the case here. Masem (t) 15:26, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) @Masem:You keep saying that as though saying it can have any effect on changing behavior. There are 48,462,737 people who are likely using recent reliable news sources to update Wikipedia articles, and unless your plan is to personally monitor every one of them by yourself to ensure that your personal bugbear against using news sources in Wikipedia articles is enforced absolutely and without exception, then you're going to have to come up with another plan for dealing with the matter. My suggestion for how to deal with it is "Understand that mistakes happen, and when they do, fix them and move on and don't dwell on it". That process has worked well for me so far; your continuous and unbroken drumbeat of screeching WP:NOTNEWS at the top of your lungs at every opportunity has, so far, from available data, had zero effect. I'd suggest trying my approach, but you know, you do you. Maybe tomorrow people will listen to you. Up till now, they haven't. --Jayron32 15:24, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    I don't have qualms about using news sources, I have issues with editors rushing to include every little new development as news breaks instead of waiting to write to a big picture that us appropriate to an encyclopedia. And that may mean sitting on one's hands as a story breaks until it can be understood how it fits into a bigger picture. Masem (t) 15:30, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    Again, How's that going for you? Your approach towards dealing with the problem hasn't worked yet. Maybe "being okay with it, so long as it gets fixed in a timely manner" is an approach that might work better. --Jayron32 15:41, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

The WP:RSBREAKING policy reads:

Breaking-news reports often contain serious inaccuracies. As an electronic publication, Wikipedia can and should be up to date, but Wikipedia is not a newspaper and it does not need to go into all details of a current event in real time. It is better to wait a day or two after an event before adding details to the encyclopedia, than to help spread potentially false rumors.

—Bagumba (talk) 15:47, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, we know it says that. What we need to do is decide what to do about that. The only viable options put forward are "Tell people to stop it" and "Whatever, just fix it when it gets corrected in the news source, and stop worrying about it so much". I presume you have a better option? --Jayron32 16:08, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm actually not sure that most people know it says that. In any event, it's up to consensus to determine if the policy is applicable or not for a given instance. —Bagumba (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Once again, and I cannot stress this enough, so what? What practical actions do you intend to take, going forward, to prevent this travesty from occurring ever again? My plan of "Do absolutely nothing until it happens, then fix it when we learn there is a mistake, and then do nothing again" seems to work very well. I haven't heard any counterproposals yet. --Jayron32 17:03, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I merely stated an existing policy. Make of it what you will. As for what I intend to do, WP is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. And I never said there was a problem, per se. —Bagumba (talk) 17:36, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
..."WP is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY" That is literally what I have been arguing for the entire thread. Thanks. --Jayron32 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Highlighting topics under extended confirmed protection

Following on from Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 93#Nominations under EC protection need additional information, this has happened again with the Russian missile nomination. Non-extended confirmed editors are participating in good faith because they don't know that the topic is covered by DS or GS rules that limit discussions. In the most recent nomination, there was a note to this effect but even when actively looking for it when knowing the exact wording it took me two attempts to spot it, so that obviously isn't good enough.

Last time I suggested adding a flag to the template to indicate when discussion is limited to EC editors, specifically: Adding an "ecp=" parameter to Template:ITN candidate that, when set to yes, displays a message along the lines of

Note: Due to additional restrictions in place on this topic area, only users with an account registered account at least 30 days ago and who have made over 500 edits may comment on this nomination. See Wikipedia:Extended confirmed editors and [[talk:{{{article}}}]] for more information.

The idea got no objections, but I lack the technical ability to just implement it myself.

Pinging the logged-in editors from the last discussion: @InedibleHulk and Effy Midwinter: and those who mentioned it in the most recent nomination @Nableezy, DarkSide830, and Frogging101:. Thryduulf (talk) 18:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Solid idea. nableezy - 19:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
I know how to make it happen on the template, but can't do it at this time. Masem (t) 19:17, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
If we want to tell people that they are disallowed from talking about something, the notice should include the source of the authority somewhere in it. (e.g. to Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War in this example). — xaosflux Talk 19:29, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
That's why there is a link to the article talk page, as that should always have a link to the authority without having to code it in separately to the ITN template. Thryduulf (talk) 19:54, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Then the generic notice should tell people to read it at the subject talk page. Just a You are not experienced enough to talk about this notice is very WP:BITEy, especially on a page we invite everyone to from the main page. — xaosflux Talk — xaosflux Talk 19:58, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
That's a fair point. Do you have a suggestion for a concise and friendly way to say that (I've spent 2 minutes trying and can do concise or friendly but not both, but I'm far from the best at that sort of thing)? Thryduulf (talk) 21:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
@Thryduulf I think this was recently brought up in Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#(Closed)_2022_missile_explosion_in_Poland - in which case, when I look at Talk:2022 missile explosion in Poland there doesn't actually seem to be any sort of notice of restrictions. — xaosflux Talk 20:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
If there is no notice of restriction on the talk page of the nominated article then, imo, there is no justification for applying the restrictions at ITN. I'd go so far as to say that if there is a need or desire to restrict discussion at ITN then the same (or greater) restrictions must be applied, and explicitly stated to apply, to the article talk page. Thryduulf (talk) 21:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
It looks like that specific restriction actually allows discussion on talk pages when it is in effect, but explicitly disallows such discussions on project pages. Because these can be so complicated is why I'm suggesting they be presented very clearly to new editors who could have no idea about them. — xaosflux Talk 21:37, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
  • EC has historically never been enforced at ITN. Go through the archives and look at I/P noms if you do not believe me. EC is intended to stop disruption. And the only thing actually causing disruption is zealously enforcing EC at ITN. How about you just do not enfore it here? IAR and all of that. Rules are not black and white. And in general EC is an abosulte joke as the most disruptive area on Wiki by far, american politics, will never get it. This is all just so incredibly stupid and dehumanizing. I started the previous discussion by the way. But i really am at the point of 'wiki can just go fuck itself' after many years here. And now go ahead and tell me how wrong i am, that i can 'just make an account' and all that garbage. 91.96.25.67 (talk) 04:43, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    I think I agree with the IP. I'm not exactly sure when the EC rule came about or why, but it hasn't really improved the discourse at ITN/C as I gather its original intent must have been, and in any case, it's the rationale of the !vote that matters rather than the status of the person casting it. It's certainly counter-intuitive to the goal of asking people to contribute and participate in the process. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:26, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
  • As much as I agree with those who have bristled at the ITN component of the policy, if it is in place then it should be policed. I like there being a tag for it on ITN noms. I think just a "Note" would be overlooked though, especially during longer discussions. Would it be possible to incorporate an infobox within ITN? I don't know if this is possible, but it could be a good idea to look into if it can be implemented. I would also suggest that there be a bit better individualized messaging in regards to EC protection in general. Before I had hit EC I received a message on my talk page and it had put me off a bit. I feel like people might get spooked by this stuff and be afraid that they are going to get banned for simply making a few innocuous edits. Definitely could help for us to generally improve messaging to allow editors to better know what protected topics are, because this, unlike several others within EC protection, has dominated the news for the better part of a year now and naturally is attracting a lot of editing attention. DarkSide830 (talk) 14:56, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Blindly following rules is never a smart idea. IAR is at the very heart of wiki, not just saying 'thems the rules' and undo good contributions. What would even happen if someone without EC nominated something? You would remove it and copy it under someone elses name? But in general, how does enforcing this rule to the letter at ITN improve the wiki? What is the spirit of the rule? To stop disruption. How does that happen here? Is it even doing that, or not at all? Has there been a single comment under the header that could be considered disruptive, that was outside of the culture of ITN or in any other way distinguishable from 'regulars'? We have how many admins hanging around at ITN constantly? Deal with things that come up through the normal channels and be done with it. And go ahead and be extra harsh in the EC areas on ITN. Not that anything has come up. But we need to preemptively topic ban a whole shedload of people because they may be new. And even those that are not new and do not meet some arbitrary threshold are topic banned. And yes, EC is topic banning editors preemptively. But this is going to happen here anyway, actually admining wiki seems too hard so we just get this shit. And i wish admins would really hand out topic bans like candies on Halloween. But that is too controversial for whatever reason, so lets just topic ban people that never did anything wrong but may do so because no one cares about them anyway, we smort... The very pinnacle of assuming bad faith. EC is counter to so many pillars of the community, it isn't even funny. 85.16.42.88 (talk) 04:09, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I think this represents something of a gap in our guidance on how to handle EC protection. ITNC discussions, as far as I can tell, lie in the grey area between Talk space and Project Space; it seems to me that the "post constructive comments and make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided they are not disruptive." is a reasonable guidance to follow regarding ITNC discussions in the topic area here. --Jayron32 15:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
    That is essentially what i am asking for. Use the EC provision as a last resort when disruption occurs. Not as the default for good faith contribs completely in line with the culture at ITN. Good faith and policy compliant comment, extend good faith in return and leave it be. Then explain that they may not actually edit in the topic area itself in a kind way under good natured circumstances. Make wikipedia a positive experience. ITN is a quite outward facing part of the wiki after all. Pointy, trolling or otherwise disruptive comment, just strike it or remove it, sanction otherwise if applicable and move on. Is 'the rules are the rules' really worth the gripe and bad impressions it will bring? 85.16.42.88 (talk) 06:59, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Isn't this a ray of sunshine

ITN seems to have become a constant stream of war, disease, natural disasters and death. While I understand these events are noteworthy and merit inclusion, is there anything we can tweak with the inclusion criteria to improve balance and try to get some more positive stories on the front page? 2A02:C7F:2CE3:4700:612F:F6D4:920D:34E3 (talk) 13:29, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

We cannot control how news happens, and its been a rather dismal number of back-to-back but extreme disparate disasters that all merit posting. There's been periods where all we have had are sports winners and award winners (all good news?) and we don't try to fix that either. Masem (t) 13:48, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Trying to balance out our ITN section would be very difficult to do, and realistically, not a good representation of the news. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:08, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
The inclusion criteria in theory does allow any and all positive news stories to be posted. Here's the problem: the criteria for significance on ITN, such as it is, is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. That's where you're running into the problem. The reason "positive stories" are not getting nominated, let alone posted, is because most of the time they will be shot down by most of ITN/C's regular and semi-regular users as not being newsworthy, encyclopedic, or otherwise fitting within their terms and conditions for posting. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 17:08, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
The bulk of "feel good" stories that are published by reliable sources are poorly covered or lack major or significance in their coverage. That's the reason we rarely publish such works. Masem (t) 17:23, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
That is also a good point. Quality is still one of our criteria, and most of the "and finally" stories would not be able to exist as standalone Wikipedia articles. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 17:53, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
We could carry a "there's good news tonight"-section, on top. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:03, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

What we also cannot deny is that there’s a certain tendency on the part of certain editors (in an obviously legitimate and correct way) to exclusively nominate tragedies. In this world it is not all pretty, it’s clear, and just for that reason, because of the usuality of tragic news, I think we have to tighten a little more our criteria on this type of news. _-_Alsor (talk) 10:11, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Christiane Hörbiger

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Marking this closed. Article posted. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 03:53, 8 December 2022 (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.


I could only add Christiane Hörbiger to Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates yesterday, 30 Nov, and hope for interest. While I was a bit in doubt about the last one who fell off due to our time restriction, it would be a shame if we couldn't see this legend of an actress on the Main page only because I took a few days off. -- - Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:27, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to all who helped! - I wouldn't mind credit ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

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

Jimmy Cole IP

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Thanks for taking care of this one. Closing this post. Ktin (talk) 03:47, 8 December 2022 (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.


I don't know where I would report this, so I'll comment here: there is an IP at Jimmy Cole (American football) (a current ITN article) who keeps changing it to say that he was "89-91" at the time of his death - even when we've clearly got reliable sources stating he was 90. I've realized I've reverted this IP too many times, so could someone else do something about this? Thanks. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:33, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

IP blocked for violating 3RR. BeanieFan11, why did you not issue a warning? Oftentimes, a single warning works to stop them. At the least, it makes it easier for an admin to justify a block. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:40, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
I don't really know how to do that – I've never been into the anti-vandalism stuff. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:42, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
It's useful for times like these. See Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism, which has a pretty good explainer of how to do it, including tools that make it easy, and ask any questions that you may have. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:45, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RD: James Wright (doctor)

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Closing this one. Thanks to PFHLai and other editors / admins for consistently aiming to do the right thing. You all make this a better place. That said, we do need more reviewers. More hands are welcome. Ktin (talk) 03:47, 8 December 2022 (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.


Does anyone want James Wright (doctor) on RD? This nom just got archived a few hours ago. Not too many people seem to be interested in casting !votes, support or otherwise, these days. Just checking... --PFHLai (talk) 06:15, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  • But when the last notable George Bush died we didn't run them as plain George Bush. They got a blurb and the article was bolded as George H. W. Bush to make it clear who was meant. This proves my point. There are presumably some Australians who are familiar with this particular James Wright but, unless we provide some context, most readers won't have a clue who this is. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:23, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
  • I don't have a clue who most of the people nominated for RD are. At least Wright's article has his profession in the name. That narrows it down somewhat. And his reason for having an article was briefly described in the nomination. Personally, I'd like to see completion of the Nominator's comment field (nom cmt) made compulsory for RD nominations, with something explanatory required there. "Actor who portrayed Bob on Sesame Street" is an excellent current example. I completely ignore those I've never heard of and which are without such a comment. As for Dr Wright, I nominated him for RD, as a sort of duty as a fellow Australian. I couldn't really remember him, but thought others might pick up the ball if they cared enough. I'm not tearing my hair out over him not being posted. HiLo48 (talk) 23:20, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
    If Wright's article had been listed at RD, the (doctor) disambiguation would have been removed to make sure our readers didn't recognise the subject. It's deliberate obfuscation! Andrew🐉(talk) 12:40, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

All news in the main page today are Asia-centric

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Being a tad WP:BOLD and marking this one closed. No additional action required here. If someone disagrees, please revert my edit and send a WP:TROUT my way. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 03:54, 8 December 2022 (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.


If we want to reduce biases, WP should balance a bit more the origin of the news in the main page. China, Malaysia, Java, Qatar, Iran, and Russia are the main characters today. Kokoo (talk) 20:26, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Russian news is occurring on its European part tho, and that's stretching the definition of what "Russia" is. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:29, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
This happens from time to time. I would think we could be happy about this given WP:SYSTEMICBIAS favors the U.S. and Europe. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:53, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Actually, this is a good thing, considering that most systemic bias favors the U.S. and Europe, as Muboshgu has stated. Remember, Asia consists of 46 countries, six of which are represented on the main page. According to the Western Europe (which most of our news and demographics usually favor) page, the UN geoscheme for Western Europe consists of 9 countries. And of course, the United States is just one single country. I don't think there's any problem with this outcome at all. In fact, this is a moment in which we should applaud ourselves. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 21:08, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
We can't control where significant news happens. And as Waltcip points out, that we have an Asian bias curretly rather than a US or European one is a good thing and shows the system is working. Masem (t) 22:43, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes. Asia also contains almost 60% of the world's population. One could very well say, about bloody time! HiLo48 (talk) 22:45, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal to add The Game Awards to ITN/R

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Marking this one closed. The nominator has been requested to nominate The Game Awards at WP:ITNC this year and we watch its run there before considering in WP:ITNR. Outside of this post, it would be a good idea for knowledgeable editors to proactively consider what video game award would represent the most-worthy in its category to be represented at WP:ITN. Ktin (talk) 03:51, 8 December 2022 (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.


Ahead of The Game Awards 2022, I am requesting to add the Game Award for Game of the Year from The Game Awards to the list of recurring items, for the following reasons: 1– viewership of The Game Awards is much higher than things like the viewership of the Academy Awards. Last year, The Game Awards had 85 million viewers, [1] while the Academy Awards had only 10 million, [2] representing a nearly 900% increase. 2– the video game industry is indisputably one of, if not the largest entertainment industries (see: GTA V is the most profitable media product ever [3]), so it makes sense that its biggest award would have a recurring item similar to the biggest awards for music and film, and finally, 3– the Game of the Year Award gets plenty of media coverage, enough to satisfy ITN. DecafPotato (talk) 20:38, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

  • Comment. Greetings and thanks for your post here. While I do not have much by way of knowledge regarding this award, I am aware that the next big-thing from the entertainment space might come in from the e-gaming / streaming industry. That said, I have a few questions a) Has this award been going on for some time now? b) Has it been nominated at ITNC in the past years? Typically, I have seen that before getting to ITN/R, an event gets nominated for a couple of years at ITNC. c) How does this event rank against other events in the e-gaming space? What are the big events and where does this award fit among them? Ktin (talk) 21:54, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I had a chance to go back and look at the archives, it seems like the awards were nominated in 2016, 2018, and in 2021. Of the three nominations, it was posted in 2021 and not posted the other two times. I think this is definitely promising. I would recommend that this time we go the regular WP:ITNC route and return to a WP:ITNR nomination based on its faring at ITNC. Ktin (talk) 23:18, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
Seems good enough; so I just nominate it (or let someone else nominate it) this year and come back here if it gets posted? DecafPotato (talk) 18:55, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
That's your best bet, yes. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 19:40, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I don't think gaming-related events usually have much of a chance of being posted at ITN/C, much less nominated for ITN/R, mostly due to old-school tendencies that persist among the users here that gaming is just for an excruciatingly limited subset of the world's population. As Ktin said, we'd need to see evidence that this has been successfully posted at ITN/C. --🌈WaltCip-(talk) 22:44, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
    Was posted last year [1] Masem (t) 23:15, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I'd just point out that the "Academy Awards had only 10 million" stat is only for US ABC TV viewers (it is of course televised worldwide). Meanwhile, the Game Awards figure is an Internet livestream figure and therefore worldwide. The interesting stat is that the YouTube stream saw only 1.75m hours total, which means, unless I'm missing something obvious, that the average viewer only watched a few minutes - or less - of it (probably because it came up in a social media feed). Black Kite (talk) 22:54, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
If there's anything gaming related that has a good shot of passing ITN/C, it is the League of Legends World Championship. Viewership numbers far surpass most major sports; per our article on it, the 2019 iteration had a peak concurrent viewership of 44 million and the 2018 iteration had a peak concurrent viewership of 200 million (!). Curbon7 (talk) 22:56, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I'd sort of agree on that, but the article would have to be a lot better than 2022_League_of_Legends_World_Championship, much of which is unsourced tables with very little prose. Black Kite (talk) 23:02, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
  • The streaming claims look like hype and are not that impressive. The one thing we can be sure of is how this does on Wikipedia. For the last three years, the Academy Awards have gotten over a million readers on Wikipedia. The Game Awards get only about 10% of that. See stats
And by the way, I checked what the biggest broadcast show in the world is. That's the CCTV New Year's Gala which gets over a billion viewers! Shall we make that ITN/R too?
Andrew🐉(talk) 23:09, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
We do not care how many views ITN entries bring. That's why judging aspects based on popularity, viewership, etc. are not appropriate to use. Masem (t) 23:16, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I'd likely be against this - the event has been going on for eight years, and to my knowledge last year was the only time we'd posted it. I'm not super familiar with this award - what sets it apart from say, the British Academy Games Awards? I'm not sure viewership in of itself is all that is important.Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 23:12, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
BAFTA Game Awards are awards that are processed by BAFTA (nominations and voting) as with other BAFTAs. The Game Awards are nominated and awards through a large panel of international game and media agencies (see [2]) with a small factor of audience voting in there. To contrast, ignoring the plethora of single magazine awards, the other two major industry awards are the Game Developers Choice Awards which are based on developers only in the voting process, and the D.I.C.E. Awards, which come from various industry individuals. Masem (t) 23:50, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I believe the viewership, despite not being a direct factor in ITN, demonstrates that this is the biggest award show in the industry, an industry that is certainly large enough to be on ITN somewhere, the question is where. DecafPotato (talk) 02:37, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, more importantly, of all the various game awards, the only two I have routinely seen covered in media outside of video game-dedicated sources are the BAFTAs and the Game Awards. I think that this type of coverage (beyond the scope video game-specific media) needs to be there to start to even consider this an ITNC, much less an ITNR. Masem (t) 13:42, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Not a big enough event, IMO. If anything we should be removing awards shows, not adding them. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:23, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
    As always, feel free to nominate award shows for removal from ITN/R. Nothing gets done if you don't do it, as Jayron32 frequently reminds us. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:29, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Too soon. I do think we should cover gaming in the 'arts' section, so I'm broadly in favour of this proposal. However there are two issues: i) as far as I can tell, The Game Awards has only successfully been nominated at ITN/C once (in 2021). If it gets posted three times, then I think we can add it to ITNR - at the moment it's too soon. ii) Is this really the biggest award in gaming? It has only been running since 2014, there are numerous prizes that have longer track records (such as the BAFTA Game Awards and the Game Developers Choice Awards). If we're going to post one of them, we'd better make sure it's the most prestigious one. Modest Genius talk 12:22, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
    PS. Awards show audiences are completely irrelevant to ITN. I cannot fathom why so much of the discussion above focuses on that aspect. Modest Genius talk 12:22, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
  • A bit too soon for ITN/R, but I begrudgingly expect that this subject will indeed be posted frequently from here on out. It's somewhat painful to me because, as far as respectability goes, the GDC would be the obvious choice. But the Geoff Keighley awards show is indeed the popular event. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:42, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I think that adding something to ITNR should only follow several (3-4 years) of posting on ITN with minimal opposition. Placing things on ITNR to bypass discussion is putting the cart before the horse. FIRST show that this gets posted every year without objection, THEN we can have a discussion about whether it belongs on ITNR. Unless and until we have evidence that this is a regularly-posted item, an ITNR discussion is premature. --Jayron32 16:06, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Germany coup attempt arrests

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Marking closed. Topic has been posted for consideration at WP:ITNC as pointed by Jayron32. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 02:48, 9 December 2022 (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.


Is there an article for this story yet? Seems very notable but I can't yet see coverage in article space. --LukeSurl t c 10:22, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I may be misremembering, but I swear Prince Heinrich came up at one of the boards recently over something to do with his style (titles). But that could be another German/Prussian I am thinking of. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:35, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
@LukeSurl: @Only in death: Currently nominated at WP:ITNC. Please feel free to comment there. --Jayron32 15:25, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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