Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 97
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Proposal: Strike forum comments
It seems that ITN has a longstanding problem of people using candidates to make WP:FORUM posts about a given subject or topic, most recently seen under "2023 Monterey Park shooting". A notice was added to the top of ITN a little while back: 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.
But it seems that this has not done anything to discourage forum, soapbox, and uncivil behavior. I believe that ITN will run more smoothly in the future if we simply strike these comments, both to prevent them from causing arguments and to discourage users from posting them in the first place. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I'm in favour of controlling the spread of WP:FORUM posts though the devil is in the detail. Who can strike out comments? Would it become disruptive to allow strike outs from any other editor? Why not just use the hat-top/collapse function? doktorb wordsdeeds 21:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that using the hat-and-collapse box should be the main solution.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I'd support this as a third choice. First choice: admins issue blocks/warnings for what some folks are posting in that thread. That's the least amount of editor-hours to solve the problem. Second choice: somebody please collect the diffs and propose TBAN(s) at ANI. It'll be more editor hours but at least it'll be a long term solution. Third choice: we hat/strike comments. A bandaid, but better than nothing. Levivich (talk) 21:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I was thinking of it in the opposite order. I considered TBANs to be the next step if editors continued to use ITN as a forum after having their comments struck. Either way, I just think there needs to be some additional measure to make ITN more efficient and less volatile. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- The easiest way to make ITN more efficient and less volatile is to follow the example of the other Wikipedias where very few admins collect proposals on the talk page and post several blurbs on a daily basis with no real discussion whatsoever. As someone with a cross-wiki experience, I can say that this is most likely the only Wikipedia where editors invest a lot of time to argue whether something is notable or not.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:18, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I was thinking of it in the opposite order. I considered TBANs to be the next step if editors continued to use ITN as a forum after having their comments struck. Either way, I just think there needs to be some additional measure to make ITN more efficient and less volatile. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, I tend to agree with the issues Doktorbuk has noted. I think if we think there is a NOTFORUM issue present then we should go directly to the editors in question and simply warn them. The fact of the matter in regards to relevance is blurbs are not directly democratically decided on, and I'd assume comments that are clear NOTFORUM violations that otherwise show no clear reason for "Supporting" or "Opposing" are already ignored or at least weighted less. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Who determines what violates WP:FORUM? Do you think that admins would oversee every single discussion and judge the substance so that warnings are issued? That’s a large waste of time and no-one will ever do it. In endless discussions, uninvolved admins usually come to close nominations either with or without posting and sometimes they use the hat-and-collapse box to dismiss irrelevant conversations. I think that’s enough one can expect.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- There are comments that, without even replies, are mostly made to provoke others or express a viewpoint not directly related to ITN posting, and shutting those down before they can be responded to will help. We had a discussion on civility within the last 6 months, over this very thing, and editors have already forgotten about it. We absolutely need to be more proactive here given how fast tempers rise. Masem (t) 00:20, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that ITN is just a dumpster fire that likely will never be fixed without completely rethinking it. --RockstoneSend me a message! 02:10, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Step 1: get rid of blurbs. Just post links to articles. Step 2: votes should be limited to applying objective criteria to the topic/article (not subjective assessments like "significance"), like the objective criteria of DYK/GA/FA. For example: must be at least 1500 characters (or whatever) of prose, no BLP problems, sourced, etc. That will reduce the arguments and give closers some objective grounds for weighing votes (votes that don't apply the objective criteria are discounted). Eventually we can automate the whole thing once we train an AI chatbot. Levivich (talk) 06:01, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- I understand that "notability" is subjective, but we can't just sack it as a criteria because than in theory we'd have hundreds of objected posted in ITN a day because, well, a lot of stuff is in the news at any one given time. To me, cleaning up the forum stuff is like stepping on a cockroach - this is like burning your house down to make sure you got the darn thing. DarkSide830 (talk) 06:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- "Significance" can be expressed objectively, like: must be international news (covered by national media in at least two countries other than the nation where the event happened), or something like that. Levivich (talk) 06:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Would you support abandoning significance as a criterion and resorting to quality as all that’s needed? That’s how it is on most other Wikipedias. You’re only required to provide a sufficient update (at least, a three-sentence paragraph) so the article is good to go (after all, this is an encyclopedia). In that way, 5-6 blurbs would easily be posted every day without cheeky discussion.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 06:52, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, that'd be better than the dysfunctional system we have now. It's at least worth trying out. Levivich (talk) 07:03, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- You know people will complain that all the news stories take place in the US, though. There should probably be at least some type of backstop to prevent completely non-notable stories being posted. I support trying it though, it has to be better than this nightmare. --RockstoneSend me a message! 08:58, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, that'd be better than the dysfunctional system we have now. It's at least worth trying out. Levivich (talk) 07:03, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Would you support abandoning significance as a criterion and resorting to quality as all that’s needed? That’s how it is on most other Wikipedias. You’re only required to provide a sufficient update (at least, a three-sentence paragraph) so the article is good to go (after all, this is an encyclopedia). In that way, 5-6 blurbs would easily be posted every day without cheeky discussion.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 06:52, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- "Significance" can be expressed objectively, like: must be international news (covered by national media in at least two countries other than the nation where the event happened), or something like that. Levivich (talk) 06:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- I understand that "notability" is subjective, but we can't just sack it as a criteria because than in theory we'd have hundreds of objected posted in ITN a day because, well, a lot of stuff is in the news at any one given time. To me, cleaning up the forum stuff is like stepping on a cockroach - this is like burning your house down to make sure you got the darn thing. DarkSide830 (talk) 06:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Step 1: get rid of blurbs. Just post links to articles. Step 2: votes should be limited to applying objective criteria to the topic/article (not subjective assessments like "significance"), like the objective criteria of DYK/GA/FA. For example: must be at least 1500 characters (or whatever) of prose, no BLP problems, sourced, etc. That will reduce the arguments and give closers some objective grounds for weighing votes (votes that don't apply the objective criteria are discounted). Eventually we can automate the whole thing once we train an AI chatbot. Levivich (talk) 06:01, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that ITN is just a dumpster fire that likely will never be fixed without completely rethinking it. --RockstoneSend me a message! 02:10, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- There are comments that, without even replies, are mostly made to provoke others or express a viewpoint not directly related to ITN posting, and shutting those down before they can be responded to will help. We had a discussion on civility within the last 6 months, over this very thing, and editors have already forgotten about it. We absolutely need to be more proactive here given how fast tempers rise. Masem (t) 00:20, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Who determines what violates WP:FORUM? Do you think that admins would oversee every single discussion and judge the substance so that warnings are issued? That’s a large waste of time and no-one will ever do it. In endless discussions, uninvolved admins usually come to close nominations either with or without posting and sometimes they use the hat-and-collapse box to dismiss irrelevant conversations. I think that’s enough one can expect.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- As long as quality is the only requirement for posting and we reach a roll-off rate on a daily basis (something similar as we have for DYK), the geographical bias will no longer be a serious problem and most editors could swallow the pill of having something posted for a few hours. Under the current rules, I'm personally not fond of posting too many stories pertaining to the US or UK when the same significance criteria are applied to all parts of the world, which makes it very difficult for similar stories from some other regions to get covered because the criteria cannot easily be met. However, if quality is all that's required, people will know that inclusion depends on their work in the main namespace and would be encouraged to work there instead of wasting time to argue about significance. Take a look at what's posted in the corresponding ITN sections on other Wikipedias where quality is the main criterion for inclusion:
- On the German Wikipedia, the first blurb is on awarding FC Bayern Munich with the Big Sport Star award for their social commitment, the second one is on a protest against the proposed criminal reform law in Spain that gathered 30,000 people, and the third one is on German Parliament's declaration of the tracking, enslaving and murdering of Yazidis by the ISIL's police in northern Iraq that began in August 2014 as genocide.
- On the Russian Wikipedia, the first blurb is on the Monterey Park shooting, the second one is on the government change in New Zealand, the third one is on mass protests in France against raising the retirement age, the fourth one is on the Brovary helicopter crash, the fifth one is on the first annual decline of China's population in 60 years, and the sixth one is on the arrest of Cosa Nostra's mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who was wanted by the police for 30 years.
- On the Serbian Wikipedia, the first blurb is on the Yeti Airlines Flight 691 crash, the second one is on a defiling in East Sarajevo commemorating Day of Republika Srpska, the third one is on the Kaffrine bus crash and so on.
- As long as quality is the only requirement for posting and we reach a roll-off rate on a daily basis (something similar as we have for DYK), the geographical bias will no longer be a serious problem and most editors could swallow the pill of having something posted for a few hours. Under the current rules, I'm personally not fond of posting too many stories pertaining to the US or UK when the same significance criteria are applied to all parts of the world, which makes it very difficult for similar stories from some other regions to get covered because the criteria cannot easily be met. However, if quality is all that's required, people will know that inclusion depends on their work in the main namespace and would be encouraged to work there instead of wasting time to argue about significance. Take a look at what's posted in the corresponding ITN sections on other Wikipedias where quality is the main criterion for inclusion:
- So, as you can see, abandoning significance as a criterion isn't impossible. Depending on the number of active editors, the roll-off rate differs from one to another Wikipedia, but it'd surely be on a daily basis in our case.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:05, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- We need something on significance to fight the systematic bias that English news is dominated by US and UK events, particularly internal grindings of the government (eg the vote for speaker of the house) that get extraordinary coverage for what little they show. The Russian list seems like it is a list picked with significance in mind, being similar to ours outside of the French riots. Masem (t) 13:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- I have to agree with Masem here. The almost complete last of significance in the German list was actually the first thing that stuck me when going to their page. At least with the other page the items they are posting seem significant - for pretty much each one of those pieces in the German ITN I'm left with a thought of "why should I care about this?". DarkSide830 (talk) 17:49, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- So, as you can see, abandoning significance as a criterion isn't impossible. Depending on the number of active editors, the roll-off rate differs from one to another Wikipedia, but it'd surely be on a daily basis in our case.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:05, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- There's no shortage of news so ITN would need a radical reform to cope with the volume if the floodgates were opened. DYK demonstrates that you might easily have 10+ nominations every day and ITN's current system of open discussion can't handle that. For example, after browsing the news, I might nominate the following stories: United States debt ceiling, C/2022 E3 (ZTF), Nadhim Zahawi, Corruption in Ukraine, Joe Biden classified documents incident, etc. And that's not including the huge amount of sports news every day.
- That's why I favour a more mechanical process based on readership views. That's not perfect either but it would turn over every day without us having to post so much.
- Andrew🐉(talk) 09:36, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Readership views are also prone to systematic bias as well as delving into topics that are not necessarily long-term events that we consider as encyclopedic topics that are based on news coverage. eg the US debt ceiling and the Biden classified documents are all mechanisms of US politics and are not yet shown to be long-last stories with any real impact. That's why we don't care that more obscure topics that are important in other parts of the world and have a quality article get posted to ITNC, even if they only draw a few extra views to it. ITNC is not there to report the popular news stories, but encyclopedic topics that happen to be in the news. Masem (t) 13:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- One suggestion I have, if we wanted to strike notability/importance from ITN completely, is to base blurbing almost entirely on the quality of the article written. Blurbing every instance of excellent Wikipedia writing on news topics would refocus our aim on what really matters for Wikipedia itself. It will also increase motivation for editors to write high-quality articles. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:27, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- This would almost guarantee widespread systemic bias on ITN, as the majority of high-quality articles that would be posted would necessarily originate from the United States and United Kingdom, due to the widespread number of editors who operate in and around those areas. As a result, stories from other nations in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, etc. would be disfavored. Beyond just the regional bias, it would also heavily favor sports, gaming, and political news. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 13:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- DYK works on a similar basis, and doesn't experience too bad a bias issue in my experience. Moreover, a lot of newly created sports and progaming articles are pretty bad table-spam and wouldn't make it on the frontpage anyway. Maybe that would change, and if so, yeah, I can definitely imagine ITN becoming too heavily inundated with them. If we do away with the idea that ITN features only "important" things (something none of the other items on the frontpage claim), maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing at all? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:54, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I absolutely agree with you in theory, particularly on the notion that ITN needs to become more diverse and inclusive. The topic selection at the moment is frankly rather dull: one transfer of political power, two political elections (one of which is already quite firmly in the past), and two disasters. At the same time, it will be difficult to reach a consensus on this proposed idea due to the recurring WP:NOTATICKER mantra combined with the usual general resistance to change. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:02, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- I do believe that the idea that we shouldn't judge significance goes hand-in-hand with NOTATICKER. We shouldn't list news stories because they are in the news, we should list them because we wrote good articles on them! But of course the resistance to change and concerns about what types of articles we would run, are very understandable. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- We don't write good articles about topics in the news. It's not even really possible to write a good article on a breaking news story. We have a hard time writing barely acceptable articles about breaking news--its not uncommon for significant stories to not be posted because of quality. ITN is not a place to showcase quality because there's not enough time to write a quality article and often not even very good sources to use for breaking news right after it breaks. Levivich (talk) 17:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- If that was entirely true, I would suggest getting rid of ITN entirely, but there's still a certain level of acceptable quality we can reach. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:59, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Do you mean a plain ol' "good article" or a WP:GOODARTICLE? —Bagumba (talk) 16:11, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- If that was entirely true, I would suggest getting rid of ITN entirely, but there's still a certain level of acceptable quality we can reach. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:59, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- We don't write good articles about topics in the news. It's not even really possible to write a good article on a breaking news story. We have a hard time writing barely acceptable articles about breaking news--its not uncommon for significant stories to not be posted because of quality. ITN is not a place to showcase quality because there's not enough time to write a quality article and often not even very good sources to use for breaking news right after it breaks. Levivich (talk) 17:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- I do believe that the idea that we shouldn't judge significance goes hand-in-hand with NOTATICKER. We shouldn't list news stories because they are in the news, we should list them because we wrote good articles on them! But of course the resistance to change and concerns about what types of articles we would run, are very understandable. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I absolutely agree with you in theory, particularly on the notion that ITN needs to become more diverse and inclusive. The topic selection at the moment is frankly rather dull: one transfer of political power, two political elections (one of which is already quite firmly in the past), and two disasters. At the same time, it will be difficult to reach a consensus on this proposed idea due to the recurring WP:NOTATICKER mantra combined with the usual general resistance to change. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:02, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- DYK works on a similar basis, and doesn't experience too bad a bias issue in my experience. Moreover, a lot of newly created sports and progaming articles are pretty bad table-spam and wouldn't make it on the frontpage anyway. Maybe that would change, and if so, yeah, I can definitely imagine ITN becoming too heavily inundated with them. If we do away with the idea that ITN features only "important" things (something none of the other items on the frontpage claim), maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing at all? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:54, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- This would almost guarantee widespread systemic bias on ITN, as the majority of high-quality articles that would be posted would necessarily originate from the United States and United Kingdom, due to the widespread number of editors who operate in and around those areas. As a result, stories from other nations in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, etc. would be disfavored. Beyond just the regional bias, it would also heavily favor sports, gaming, and political news. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 13:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- I proposed the sanity rules a while back, which was meant to quash WP:NOTFORUM and uncivil commentary, among other things. It did gain a consensus. The issue was that of enforcement. I'm not an admin, and many of the posting admins who do frequent ITN do not get embroiled in trying to police uncivil discussion. Goes back to Doktorbuk's point about who is going to be the arbiter of ITN. --🌈WaltCip-(talk) 13:24, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Just like we have the small cautions for ITRN and for RDs, I wonder if the ITNC template should add another caution for potentially contentious topics, reminding all editors that comments not directly related to quality or significance, particularly those that go off onto personal rants, will not be tolerated. In that way, if we have a topic like a US shooting, and some editor goes "Oppose, you yanks can't control your guns", that may be reason to issue a single warning, strike the comment, or other action by admins with more impunity. That warning would point to that civility RFC so that it is clear there is consensus to keep ITNCs on target and avoid forums. Masem (t) 13:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- There's a very thin line between what violates WP:FORUM and what makes a valid argument. Of course, something like "Oppose, you yanks can't control guns" doesn't sound well, but rephrasing it a bit to "Oppose. Such incidents in the United States are routine/fairly frequent because there are very loose gun controls" makes an actual argument. Furthermore, there are too many individual cases where editors use such comments to support their arguments so it's impossible to single out something as an example.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:58, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Correct; when someone includes a FORUM violation in their support/oppose !vote, it's bad form to hat the entire vote, and you can't hat part of their comment. Moreover, when considered by a posting admin, their vote is just as valid as anyone else's. That's the problem. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:12, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- And the issue with just hatting comments that ramble such as these means you're likely to ignore these votes, yet also consider "Support" "Oppose" votes that are not contentious, but provide no discourse at all. The problem with these is they aren't disruptive, but realistically don't add positive value either. And then should we also penalize those who either "Support" or "Oppose" per a previous comment with a forum violation? I for one have no problem trying to police things at ITN a bit more, but I don't know what can be done that would largely be agreed upon between the status quo and complete removal of voting (which, obviously, if you bring to a vote, will fail). DarkSide830 (talk) 17:45, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- We can still consider the addition of a contentious topic warning in the template, and while we should not hat initial !vote statements, we can gat responses that delve into forum-type issues. Also, this might help to identify repeat offenders as for possible disruption considerations at ANI (of the warning is there and they continually ignore it) Masem (t) 17:53, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Certainly worth having a disclaimer. I also remember we discussed having disclaimers for concepts under extended-confirmed protection as well. I think using the same system for these sorts of things would be useful as well. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- There's already enough violations of the existing "Please do not..." list. If we don't agree on followup actions and consequences—even worse when those !votes still reguarly get "counted"—nothing will effectively change. —Bagumba (talk) 05:38, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Certainly worth having a disclaimer. I also remember we discussed having disclaimers for concepts under extended-confirmed protection as well. I think using the same system for these sorts of things would be useful as well. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- We can still consider the addition of a contentious topic warning in the template, and while we should not hat initial !vote statements, we can gat responses that delve into forum-type issues. Also, this might help to identify repeat offenders as for possible disruption considerations at ANI (of the warning is there and they continually ignore it) Masem (t) 17:53, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- And the issue with just hatting comments that ramble such as these means you're likely to ignore these votes, yet also consider "Support" "Oppose" votes that are not contentious, but provide no discourse at all. The problem with these is they aren't disruptive, but realistically don't add positive value either. And then should we also penalize those who either "Support" or "Oppose" per a previous comment with a forum violation? I for one have no problem trying to police things at ITN a bit more, but I don't know what can be done that would largely be agreed upon between the status quo and complete removal of voting (which, obviously, if you bring to a vote, will fail). DarkSide830 (talk) 17:45, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Correct; when someone includes a FORUM violation in their support/oppose !vote, it's bad form to hat the entire vote, and you can't hat part of their comment. Moreover, when considered by a posting admin, their vote is just as valid as anyone else's. That's the problem. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:12, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- There's a very thin line between what violates WP:FORUM and what makes a valid argument. Of course, something like "Oppose, you yanks can't control guns" doesn't sound well, but rephrasing it a bit to "Oppose. Such incidents in the United States are routine/fairly frequent because there are very loose gun controls" makes an actual argument. Furthermore, there are too many individual cases where editors use such comments to support their arguments so it's impossible to single out something as an example.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:58, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
...many of the posting admins who do frequent ITN do not get embroiled in trying to police uncivil discussion
: Sometimes, it can be a matter of an admin already being WP:INVOLVED in a discussion, in which case they should not be taking admin action. Cowboy admins get their fair share of flack, and FORUM can a gray area. Personally, I expect the overall community to police itself, talking directly to the user in question first, and then bringing it to noticeboards only if necessary, where admins can guage consensus for action, if needed (WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE). —Bagumba (talk) 05:29, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Just like we have the small cautions for ITRN and for RDs, I wonder if the ITNC template should add another caution for potentially contentious topics, reminding all editors that comments not directly related to quality or significance, particularly those that go off onto personal rants, will not be tolerated. In that way, if we have a topic like a US shooting, and some editor goes "Oppose, you yanks can't control your guns", that may be reason to issue a single warning, strike the comment, or other action by admins with more impunity. That warning would point to that civility RFC so that it is clear there is consensus to keep ITNCs on target and avoid forums. Masem (t) 13:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
Um this was a section on striking WP:NOTFORUM violating comments, right? nableezy - 17:53, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, good point. Anyway, support per my previously proposed sanity rules.--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 18:22, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Just a quick query, my comments on the super-regular mass shootings in America are often bridled against. I normally say something like "Oppose - standard day in America" or "Oppose - 55th mass shooting this month". Can someone confirm or deny is this is FORUM? After all, this topic here seems all about closing down discussions that people feel uncomfortable discussing rather than the nature of the discussion, because, obviously, if debates started to infringe policy, admins would get involved, or even Arbcom? What's the meaning of this localised change to how to debate on Wikipedia? Cheers. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:49, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- I would say those FORUM type comments as you are give subtle, snide, or obtuse acknowledgements to your opinion on the state of gun control in the US. ITN doesn't care what anyone's opinion on gun control is, just that as a whole, we know mass shootings in the US are frequent compared to anywhere else, and thus our caution against posting them. Masem (t) 00:00, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
...thus our caution against posting them
: Generally, the community has found that some U.S. shootings are ITN worthy. Comment on the merits of a given nomination being notable or not for ITN, rather than lumping them with the N others that year that were not notable, nor mentioned in the proposed blurb. ITNC should not degrade into a battleground of cliche opposes like "Oppose: Yet another war", "Oppose: Another championship"...—Bagumba (talk) 02:02, 25 January 2023 (UTC)- For the record, I don't think anyone would complain about messages like "tragic" or "really sad" or "RIP" or somesuch. Though these would technically run counter to WP:FORUM too, they are indications of empathy towards the people impacted by an event, rather than downplaying the incident in general. It's unfortunate that our focus on "significance" creates an incentive to downplay events that are life-altering on a personal level. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:58, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Whose confirmation would you accept? Because 10 minutes after asking for confirmation here, you made another aggressive, WP:FORUM post. It doesn't seem to me like you are even trying to avoid FORUMing, or even trying to be collegial. Levivich (talk) 03:44, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- FWIW, the responses here were after that diff. I'm more interested in their perspective going forward, now. —Bagumba (talk) 05:12, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- I would say those FORUM type comments as you are give subtle, snide, or obtuse acknowledgements to your opinion on the state of gun control in the US. ITN doesn't care what anyone's opinion on gun control is, just that as a whole, we know mass shootings in the US are frequent compared to anywhere else, and thus our caution against posting them. Masem (t) 00:00, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
I see that there is a push to introduce stricter rules so that editors get warned for comments violating WP:FORUM, subsequently reported at ANI and finally sanctioned with topic bans, but this isn't something that will solve the problem for good because people would be encouraged to game the system. Editors may simply place comments from newly created scrutiny-evading sock accounts, so nothing will be achieved by turning ITN/C into a closely monitored environment as in a communist society. By far, the best solution is to hat unnecessary comments. And if such votes impact a posting decision, the problem is with the (non-)posting admin, not with those who voted.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:12, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Those socks would be violating WP:PROJSOCK and the owner of them would be subject to sanctions. Asking people to abide by what is already policy is not creating a communist hellscape at ITN/C. Soapboxing, forum type of posts are already prohibited. That just needs to be enforced. nableezy - 21:16, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- The CheckUser tool can confirm connection between IP addresses and accounts. However, it's not very difficult to adjust the TCP/IP settings so that a connection cannot be confirmed. Furthermore, fishing users for sockpuppetry is a bad-faith behaviour. We've received disruptive comments by IPs and single-purpose accounts at ITN/C in the past, but a check user has never been engaged to check if there's something suspicious in the background.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:42, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- It isnt fishing, and if a user is violating WP:PROJSOCK that is a straightforward issue that can be dealt with. Your argument seems to be you cant enforce this so it isnt worth doing anything about it. No, Wikipedia already has rules on soapboaxing and forum-like comments. I dont even think we need this section, we just need people to start reporting it to ANI. And if it does not get dealt with then maybe we really do need an Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct at ITN blue link. nableezy - 16:19, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- P.S. Considering that only one user has been sanctioned with a topic ban from editing ITN for allegedly repeating a racial slur in their comments, I really doubt that admins would waste their time to monitor all the comments in ITN discussions. That won't work in practice.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- That one user was Sca, right? But, in 2022, there was also LaserLegs who was banned completely for making a gung-ho comment at ITN. So, we don't seem to lack draconian punishment. The problem is that such measures have a chilling effect, silencing cautious contributors so that only the bold dare speak. On LaserLegs' talk page there's a telling comment from an experienced editor who tried making an ITN nomination for the first time, "I'm floored right now. I've never tried to nominate an ITN before, but I've been active on WP for 16 years, and I've never seen anything like this! The hatred with which the nominations were attacked! Is this a regular occurrence there? Is ITN run by some tight cabal of crazies?". They were referring to this and that and more. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:50, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
there was also LaserLegs who was banned completely for making a gung-ho comment at ITN. So, we don't seem to lack draconian punishment.
Wow, what a disingenuous remark if I've ever heard one. LaserLegs's conduct on ITN was a chronic issue and definitely not limited to just that one remark, although that did become the tipping point for those who had long been frustrated with his commentary. No one's out here cheerfully volunteering to be the hangman. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:02, 26 January 2023 (UTC)- A few years ago (2016) there was another editor (George Ho) who was banned from all discussions of mainpage content, but again that was for long-term disruptive conduct [1]. Thryduulf (talk) 18:55, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- That said, I won't deny that some of the invective on ITN does frequently go overboard, and there's no need to call good-faith nominations "wasting our time" or "ignorant" or "blatant American bias". We can certainly dial that back, although that scarcely correlates with accommodating unproductive behavior from now topic-banned users. --🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:05, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- Concur. Curbon7 (talk) 02:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
- Follow WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE. If needed, take it to a noticeboard, where there's many more admins available. —Bagumba (talk) 11:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- That one user was Sca, right? But, in 2022, there was also LaserLegs who was banned completely for making a gung-ho comment at ITN. So, we don't seem to lack draconian punishment. The problem is that such measures have a chilling effect, silencing cautious contributors so that only the bold dare speak. On LaserLegs' talk page there's a telling comment from an experienced editor who tried making an ITN nomination for the first time, "I'm floored right now. I've never tried to nominate an ITN before, but I've been active on WP for 16 years, and I've never seen anything like this! The hatred with which the nominations were attacked! Is this a regular occurrence there? Is ITN run by some tight cabal of crazies?". They were referring to this and that and more. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:50, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- The CheckUser tool can confirm connection between IP addresses and accounts. However, it's not very difficult to adjust the TCP/IP settings so that a connection cannot be confirmed. Furthermore, fishing users for sockpuppetry is a bad-faith behaviour. We've received disruptive comments by IPs and single-purpose accounts at ITN/C in the past, but a check user has never been engaged to check if there's something suspicious in the background.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:42, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Hatting is another option. But that can also be imperfect, if there is no agreement that FORUM was an issue, and becomes an edit war. —Bagumba (talk) 06:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- Exactly. As I noted above, there's a very thin line between what violates WP:FORUM and what not. Yet, we can hat endless piles of responses that divert from the main topic at any time. I don't mind mentioning this in the intro as a potential remedy.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:53, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- Maybe a case of bloat though, as it's already a guideline, WP:TALKOFFTOPIC.—Bagumba (talk) 09:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- Exactly. As I noted above, there's a very thin line between what violates WP:FORUM and what not. Yet, we can hat endless piles of responses that divert from the main topic at any time. I don't mind mentioning this in the intro as a potential remedy.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:53, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
(Withdrawn) Proposal: Remove "major figures" from death blurbs
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.
The current wording on WP:ITNRD, which serves as the information page to supplement WP:ITN's process, states as follows:
- Death as the main story: For deaths where the cause of death itself is a major story (such as the unexpected death of a prominent figure by homicide, suicide, or accident) or where the events surrounding the death merit additional explanation (such as ongoing investigations, major stories about memorial services or international reactions, etc.) a blurb may be merited to explain the death's relevance. In general, if a person's death is only notable for what they did while alive, it belongs as an RD link. If the person's death itself is newsworthy for either the manner of death or the newsworthy reaction to it, it may merit a blurb.
- Major figures: The death of major figures may merit a blurb. These cases are rare, and are usually posted on a sui generis basis through a discussion at WP:ITNC that determines there is consensus that the death merits a blurb. Comparisons to deaths of prior persons (we posted John Doe, so we should also post Jane Smith, or conversely we didn't post Bill Jones, so we cannot post Susie Johnson) are rarely considered sufficient to post in absence of consensus. One should also be wary of puffery in obituaries for a recently deceased person - using terms such as "legendary", "greatest of all time", "household name", etc.
The proposal put forth would like to, at minimum, remove the major figures clause from the criteria for ITNRD entirely. This would narrow down the number of circumstances through which a death blurb would be suitable. This includes is if the death is the main story, such as resulting from a homicide, suicide, or accident. The deaths of Kobe Bryant or Shinzo Abe, for example, could be blurbed under those particular criteria. We can look back to see whether or not someone dying at an especially young age due to illness while currently active in their career would also qualify, but I'd like that discussion to be separate from this one.
There is another thing to take into consideration, which is that the "death as the main story" criterion also includes where the events surrounding the death merit additional explanation (such as ongoing investigations, major stories about memorial services or international reactions, etc.)
. I am still uncertain about whether this should stay as well. I had always thought that this was redundant to the "major figures" criterion, since the presence of memorial services or international reactions would usually be as a result of this figure being extraordinarily transformative in a field that greatly affected humanity. If you go based off of that, we'd probably still have ended up blurbing Pele, for example, due to the massive international outpouring that occurred as a result of his death, even if his death wasn't particularly unusual. I think in order for us to have a truly clean break from the "notability->death blurb" discussion, and in particular to avoid the perception that especially famous people get "super-death treatment" on Wikipedia, this clause needs to go as well, otherwise we're just going to have the same arguments as before.
I'm convinced ITNRD was never meant to be a popularity contest, since as Jayron32 pointed out, a blurb and a recent death functionally serve the same purpose - it's a link to someone's article in the end. I also feel that we should be steering ITN/C in the direction of being more inclusive rather than less, and I believe removing these particular standards will be one small step towards larger cultural changes. If we treat everyone equally, we have fewer of these notability/significance discussions, which would hopefully encourage participants to be more open-minded about what gets stuck on the Main Page.
So I propose the following options for the community's consideration:
- Option A: Remove the "major figures" and "memorial services/international reactions" criteria from WP:ITNRD. Blurb deaths only if the death itself is the main story.
- Option B: Remove only the "major figures" criteria from WP:ITNRD. Blurb deaths only if the death and/or memorial is the main story.
- Option C: Leave as-is.
I support option A as nominator. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option C - I think we actually need to add more clarity to the Major Figures phrasing to assure that the article is of really good quality (not just sufficient to post as RD) and has a clear explanation via a "legacy" or similar section as why the person was a major figure. In addition, that popularity, fame, or well-knowness are not sufficient reasons to be considered a Major Figure. The problem we tend to have is that !votes for death blurbs are strongly influences by editors that assert the person was famous and thus should be posted, rather than focusing on the quality of an article for a major figure and that the article is very clear why that person was a major figure. Masem (t) 15:44, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- In the pop stardom fields, popularity is pretty much the metric to set major figures apart from minors. Fame is close enough to popularity in that regard. Well-knowness, I don't know. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Given that your proposal indicates we would still blurb pelé, I'm not really seeing how this would change ITNC significantly. What death blurbs in 2022 wouldn't have been posted then? Probably only a couple where consensus was thin anyway (Tanaka). I find blurb arguments pretty taxing, but if you're going to say we can still blurb people because of "global outpouring", I'm sure people will still find ways to squabble over who qualifies or not. Either don't change the rules or get rid of death blurbs altogether. Nohomersryan (talk) 15:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I should have worded myself better. What I am saying is that if we had removed the major figures clause, but yet still kept the clause under "death as a main story" about international reactions and memorial services, Pele would have received a blurb. This is what option B entails. But if we removed both of these clauses, which is what option A entails, Pele would not have received a blurb. I'm in favor of getting rid of the global outpouring exception as well as the major figures clause, thus my selecting option A as the nominator. Hope that makes sense now. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- Oh, that makes more sense, my bad. I'll endorse option A as well. Nohomersryan (talk) 16:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option B creates a problem that beloved people - but not major figures - would be given blurbs, eg cases like Betty White or Carrie Fisher where the entire Hollywood industry had outpourings for their deaths, which would fall into the allowance. Yet with someone like Gina Lollobrigida, who wasn't part of Hollywood but had probably a more significant impact on cinema, would not be blurbed due to the lack of outpouring we can find in sources. This is important that at ITN, we are fighting against the biases created by the 24/7 media that tends to focus on US and UK news over all over regions, and make sure important figures from other areas of the world get treated appropriately as well, as long as their articles are up to shape. Masem (t) 18:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I should have worded myself better. What I am saying is that if we had removed the major figures clause, but yet still kept the clause under "death as a main story" about international reactions and memorial services, Pele would have received a blurb. This is what option B entails. But if we removed both of these clauses, which is what option A entails, Pele would not have received a blurb. I'm in favor of getting rid of the global outpouring exception as well as the major figures clause, thus my selecting option A as the nominator. Hope that makes sense now. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option A - I was convinced by Jayron yesterday in a discussion above, and will summarize what I understand to be the argument he made: "notability" should be a gate or a floor, but not a yardstick by which we measure the relative worth of people. A person is either notable or not notable, but ITN should, as a matter of policy, treat all notable people the same, rather than making any relative judgments about who is "more" notable, by, e.g., posting some death blurbs for "major figures" but not for others. Another reason I support A is that it doesn't further ITN's purpose to blurb "major figures". If someone is, indeed, a major figure, and is listed among other less-notable persons, their name will be easy for any reader to spot in the RD list, so there's no need to blurb it. For example, put "Queen Elizabeth" in the RD list, and everyone will find it just as easily as if there were a blurb. So I like the idea of "blurb events, RD biographies", aka option A. Levivich (talk) 16:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
Well intended nomination. We have had this or a variant of this discussion too many times now. I am going more and more towards the thinking that it is time to go for an algorithmic view of our homepage. The manual update nature of our main page is a relic of the 2000s and we have since come a long way then, but our main page update procedures have remained the same. Ktin (talk) 18:16, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- Major Figures as a rule sounds great in theory but in practice it is an empty guideline that is rarely actually enforced or really followed. It places far too much onus on the adjudicating administrator to apply legalistic reasoning when it is easier to just count the votes. The result is systemic bias - any campaign mounted by more than a handful of group of users in the Anglosphere will be sufficient to move a person up to blurbworthiness. The "precedent avoidance" guideline similarly is not applied in practice and often used by proponents of blurbing a person the nominator passionately sees as particularly notable. I do think the status quo is untenable and Option A seems the fairest to me. Colipon+(Talk) 22:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- @Ktin: I would agree with this - I think a simple barometer of global significance is google search results in the top, say, 10 languages. If the person appears in all ten languages, there's not a shred of doubt that the person who died is globally noteworthy and hence should be posted. This would qualify Queen Elizabeth II and Michael Jackson, but perhaps very few others. It would not have qualified Carrie Fisher, Constantine II, or even David Bowie. But the practical implementation would require us to build a bot to do this; not sure anyone would want to spend the time doing so. Colipon+(Talk) 22:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- Support Option A based on above and my comments in the prior section. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- A If a major figure or someone with a huge public memorial has died, people don't Wikipedia to tell them more loudly than it announces the obscure dead, they already know. That's along with a lot of other reasons, most of which we've all read. I won't restate the obvious. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option C Nothing is broken. Also, the discussion so far tends to point to loopholes under which major figures would anyway be blurbed (e.g if they have a big memorial service), so what's even the point? I frankly also don't believe that removing the "Major figures" clause would reduce attempts to post the death of famous people - users will still nominate them for blurbs. Lastly, as an aside, I'm a bit surprised we're trying to implement rules to post less blurbs when the general complaint is that most blurbs are already stale. Khuft (talk) 09:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
I frankly also don't believe that removing the "Major figures" clause would reduce attempts to post the death of famous people - users will still nominate them for blurbs
: Brings to mind the WP:PROPOSAL policy:
—Bagumba (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2023 (UTC)Most commonly, a new policy or guideline documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do.
- Option C WP:ITNRD is not a policy or guideline. It is an information page which documents our customs rather than being a prescriptive rule. So, if ITN blurbs major figures like Carrie Fisher, Betty White and Elizabeth II then that's what actually happens and is an established ITN custom. If some editors don't like this then they need to win the argument on the ground in those individual discussions rather than trying to change this record of the project's history. See also WP:NOTLAW, "the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already-existing community consensus ...". Andrew🐉(talk) 13:15, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Okay. That response is a bit ticky-tack, in my opinion. This is the individual discussion to change the ITN custom. We're in it right now. We don't resolve changing our customs by showing up to some poor fellow's recent deaths discussion and saying "I propose that we do away with death blurbs". 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- But if a couple of years go by in which we never approve a death blurb, it'd be fair to propose that its mention be scratched from WP:ITN, as it's no longer an existing practice. —Bagumba (talk) 16:11, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I get what you are saying, in that the page in question is an informational page that documents current practices, and therefore one would want to take a descriptive rather than a prescriptive approach. But in looking for a parallel, particularly an area that people already complain about being an unpleasant environment, I would submit that we would not wait until years go by in which RfA doesn't produce a single admin before we try to reform its practice. And I think changes like what I am currently proposing would hopefully be the first of multiple steps we'd take to making ITN less of a contentious atmosphere to work in, by reducing the subjectivity and thus reducing the need for debate. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:23, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- But I'm not convinced if its the ITN process that's contentious or a few individuals. —Bagumba (talk) 16:53, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I think it's both, but the former has more impact than the latter. My #1 gripe about ITNC -- that editors vote based on what they think should be significant rather than what is significant -- is something that I see done by new-to-me usernames over and over again; it's not just a few individuals. Other problems (incivility) tend towards a few individuals. Levivich (talk) 18:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- But I'm not convinced if its the ITN process that's contentious or a few individuals. —Bagumba (talk) 16:53, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I get what you are saying, in that the page in question is an informational page that documents current practices, and therefore one would want to take a descriptive rather than a prescriptive approach. But in looking for a parallel, particularly an area that people already complain about being an unpleasant environment, I would submit that we would not wait until years go by in which RfA doesn't produce a single admin before we try to reform its practice. And I think changes like what I am currently proposing would hopefully be the first of multiple steps we'd take to making ITN less of a contentious atmosphere to work in, by reducing the subjectivity and thus reducing the need for debate. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:23, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- But if a couple of years go by in which we never approve a death blurb, it'd be fair to propose that its mention be scratched from WP:ITN, as it's no longer an existing practice. —Bagumba (talk) 16:11, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Okay. That response is a bit ticky-tack, in my opinion. This is the individual discussion to change the ITN custom. We're in it right now. We don't resolve changing our customs by showing up to some poor fellow's recent deaths discussion and saying "I propose that we do away with death blurbs". 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I think youre going the wrong way here. Because no, not all notable people are equal in terms of the coverage of their death. And WP shouldnt be pretending that they are. When somebody is the subject of obituaries in the papers of record in multiple nations and languages then they should be blurbed. Even if it is old person died. But it never even has to be old person died. You can include in the blurb why this old person was especially noteworthy. I tried that in the Pele blurb, only three time WC champion though Im sure there could have been other descriptions of him added, but that got shot down to Pele died in Brazil. But since thats never going to happen, and since its never going to be applied equally and we would still blurb some old person in some old family in some old country dying peacefully in their sleep but would not blurb some civil rights activist and sporting icon in some less old country dying peacefully in their sleep, then sure, ban death burbs entirely and put everyone in RD, from the Queen on up to Betty White in terms of importance. nableezy - 14:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- A per above. The ⬡ Bestagon T/C 15:24, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option C. Maybe we should consider tightening what we consider a major figure to be, but arguing "
put "Queen Elizabeth" in the RD list, and everyone will find it just as easily as if there were a blurb
" has to be one of the worst takes I've seen on this site (nothing personal of course). Curbon7 (talk) 17:37, 22 January 2023 (UTC)- For the record, I think what we have, though deeply flawed, still works. The only death blurbs we post is almost always of those with overwhelming notability, like Elizabth II and Pele. Sure, maybe José Eduardo dos Santos and Jean-Luc Godard were on the margins, but the process still works. Curbon7 (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Why should be so concerned about this? This can just as easily be done via the search bar. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option C I'm not seeing the problem this is looking to solve. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:07, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- According to a good number of people who participate in ITN/C, it was a mistake to blurb Constantine II as we did. Or Carrie Fisher. Or Betty White. On the other hand, there have also been discussions where people feel deeply that they should have been blurbed as major figures, such as Bill Russell. As a result, we are constantly running into disagreements as to what constitutes a major figure, and that standard seems to shift based on who participates at ITN and in what quantity. I don't think that's a good way of doing business here, because this sort of goalpost-moving contributes to what people feel is a dysfunctional atmosphere at best, and toxic at worst. The problem that this proposal solves is to remove the subjectivity and the nebulous "significance" standard from a contentious area of ITN. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 20:26, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I'm wary of removing subjectivity by TNTing the major figures criteria. Ideally, we provide more objective guidance than currently exists at WP:ITNCRIT (
It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits.
) or WP:ITNRDThe death of major figures may merit a blurb. These cases are rare, and are usually posted on a sui generis basis...
People are happy when their preferred outcome can get in because of the liberal guidance, and then cry when something they oppose is made possible by the same loose criteria. A bit hypocritical. So let's settle on more objective criteria, dont WP:GAME the system, WP:AGF that others aren't either, but collectiely police those who are regularly disruptive.—Bagumba (talk) 11:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I'm wary of removing subjectivity by TNTing the major figures criteria. Ideally, we provide more objective guidance than currently exists at WP:ITNCRIT (
- According to a good number of people who participate in ITN/C, it was a mistake to blurb Constantine II as we did. Or Carrie Fisher. Or Betty White. On the other hand, there have also been discussions where people feel deeply that they should have been blurbed as major figures, such as Bill Russell. As a result, we are constantly running into disagreements as to what constitutes a major figure, and that standard seems to shift based on who participates at ITN and in what quantity. I don't think that's a good way of doing business here, because this sort of goalpost-moving contributes to what people feel is a dysfunctional atmosphere at best, and toxic at worst. The problem that this proposal solves is to remove the subjectivity and the nebulous "significance" standard from a contentious area of ITN. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 20:26, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Comment. As you may have noticed, for years I and a number of other editors have put forward the proposal that if the person's death and/or funeral could support a stand-alone article in addition to the main article on the person, then there should be a blurb. This is not Option B, in which sensational murders and the like would get blurbs. Likely this discussion will not result in any consensus, because the options were poorly framed and worded. Abductive (reasoning) 11:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Discussion of proposal to not blurb major figures
There's a table of prominent deaths in 2022 above which lists the 15 which were blurbed last year. As I understand option A, only three of these would have been blurbed under the proposed change:
- Shinzo Abe – assassinated
- Ayman al-Zawahiri – assassinated
- Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi – blaze of glory
But what about other RDs who died similar violent deaths such as Darya Dugina and Olga Kachura? Would they have got blurbs too? And Elizabeth II would just have been listed as an RD per "old lady dies", right?
As a fresh example, consider a story which is currently front page news at the NYT: The Fierce Life and Sudden Death of America’s Strongest Woman. In this case, Rebecca Lorch didn't have an article here until this appearance in the news. Kudos to Valereee for getting it started.
Andrew🐉(talk) 11:20, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
And Elizabeth II would just have been listed as an RD per 'old lady dies', right?
There's always WP:IAR. —Bagumba (talk) 11:44, 22 January 2023 (UTC)- Note that WP:ITNRD says that it's "...an information page. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines..." As such, it doesn't seem to be a firm rule. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Although not a firm rule, my observation is that unless there is a truly overwhelming consensus along the lines of what would be expected for WP:IAR, that 99% of the time, admins will abide by the wording of WP:ITNRD and WP:ITNCRIT so long as the wording is not in itself deliberately open-ended (using words like "could" or "might", rather than "should" or "must"). Those admins that tend to stray from the beaten path will tend to find their actions reverted, or at least openly discussed in an unflattering manner. 😋 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Well, WP:5P5 anyways says
Wikipedia has no firm rules
, which applies to P&G's also, not only info pages. —Bagumba (talk) 16:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Note that WP:ITNRD says that it's "...an information page. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines..." As such, it doesn't seem to be a firm rule. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think "violent deaths" is the applicable standard, rather the applicable standard would be
where the cause of death itself is a major story
. The three you listed would count. I'm not sure whether or not Dugina's death was amajor story
as I haven't analyzed the news coverage of it. I don't think Kachura's death would be a major story because it's "soldier gets killed in a war", which sounds to me to be pretty routine (unlike assassinations of world leaders). Levivich (talk) 18:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)- The putative standard isn't clear. Take Shane Warne for example. Initially the story was about his untimely death from an uncertain cause. This then segued into tributes and recaps of his career. This pattern is common when a famous person dies at an early age or in a dramatic way. There's no clear boundary between the death, the recent circumstances and the overall life and reports will typically cover all three. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:22, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Not just Cause, but Circumstances and Consequences. That's three Cs. Easiest thing in the world to keep in mind. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:40, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Elizabeth II's death would still count for Death as the main story as
the events surrounding the death merit additional explanation
. Her death was the main story as it led to national mourning, succession of Charles III, etc. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:44, 22 January 2023 (UTC)- I'd expect it would have been blurbed per ITNR as a change in head of state. Levivich (talk) 19:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- See President of Vietnam resigns which still hasn't been posted even though he was the head of state. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:29, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- The main holdup on that one is quality. —Bagumba (talk) 20:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- @Andrew Davidson: You could have fixed that already by correcting the problems with the quality of the article. Had you done that days ago, instead of coming here to complain about the article not being posted, it would have already been posted. --Jayron32 12:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Lực bất tòng tâm. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- (I think this proverb describes the experience of a lot of people on ITN) ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 15:13, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Lực bất tòng tâm. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- See President of Vietnam resigns which still hasn't been posted even though he was the head of state. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:29, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I'd expect it would have been blurbed per ITNR as a change in head of state. Levivich (talk) 19:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- None of the three events you described (Dugina, Kachura, and Lorch) were ITN worthy. In fact, you'll notice a common thread here - all three pages you mentioned did not exist until after the subject had died. I was a passionate opponent of the Dugina article, and am still shocked her page wasn't merged into the article about her killing. Notability for Kachura also seems fringe, and Loch doesn't seem notable outside of her winning the America's Strongest Woman title, yet the article liked to on her page doesn't even mention the womens' competition. Point being, what is the issue with these noms not being posted? DarkSide830 (talk) 22:25, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- Shireen Abu Akleh's page didnt exist prior to her being killed either and that also merited posting. For both the reason of her own impact and the fact that her death merited additional explanation. That likewise did not get blurbed. I dont think that is reasonable expectation that every blurb worthy death already has a biography on WP. WP is famously not finished after all. nableezy - 01:59, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- When the death of people such as Shireen Abu Akleh triggers creation of an article about them, then that's a good clue that their death is the story and so would warrant a blurb, if that's the test. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:59, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- It's interesting that, once again, the bio article in question is almost exclusively about the events of the person's death. This really isn't the best place to argue about the merits of these individuals having bio articles, but I don't think it's absurd to suggest that the individual's notability, at least in a blurb-level sense is suspect if no one felt them notable enough to create an article about before. We have a lot of articles that are created after a person dies that are added to RD, but the fact is the level of notability of a person must be higher under most cases to justify blurbing. I'm not suggesting this needs to be a hard-and-fast rule (I supported Akleh's nom), but I think it's an indicator. DarkSide830 (talk) 20:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- When the death of people such as Shireen Abu Akleh triggers creation of an article about them, then that's a good clue that their death is the story and so would warrant a blurb, if that's the test. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:59, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Shireen Abu Akleh's page didnt exist prior to her being killed either and that also merited posting. For both the reason of her own impact and the fact that her death merited additional explanation. That likewise did not get blurbed. I dont think that is reasonable expectation that every blurb worthy death already has a biography on WP. WP is famously not finished after all. nableezy - 01:59, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I will note that a funeral or similar ceremony can be considered a news story. If we have an article specifically about the death itself, that could be a great indication that the subject is a good fit for ITN (as it shows Wikipedia's ability to write new encyclopedic material!). Shireen Abu Akleh mentioned above can fall under that reading as well. I don't mind forgoing ITN blurbs if we only have a small little paragraph added to the article. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- My thinking generally aligns with Maplestrip. If there is significantly important information about the death itself (unusual circumstances, etc.) or there is a significant story about knock-on effects from the death (succession, protests/revolts, major ceremonies or funerals, etc.) then we have something to blurb. Just noting that someone died is not blurb-worthy IMHO. Most of the handwringing over things like the death of Queen Elizabeth II goes away when you realize that we blurb the death because we also blurb the succession of her son Charles III. The recent death of the Ukrainian government minister would still get blurbed under this policy because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the death, i.e. the helicopter crash. What this would avoid is the "I've heard about so-and-so a lot, so they probably "deserve" a blurb". Let's try to get away of what the person "deserves", as though they "earned" the blurb like it was an award, and lets get to writing blurbs that actually contain information that serves the reader. The RD section serves a perfectly fine purpose for reporting on unremarkable deaths. Even unremarkable deaths of famous people. --Jayron32 15:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I would be slightly broader with what I include, as I would like featuring articles with extensive Death sections in general. But I definitely want to move away from the subjective "are they worth it" thing and see what encyclopedic material we've actually written on the death and impact. I would not have blurbed José Eduardo dos Santos or Thích Nhất Hạnh, but I probably still would've blurbed Shane Warne and maybe also Jean-Luc Godard? I hope I'm not adding too much ambiguity in my position, though: I really do think we should move away from phrasing it as "earning" a blurb and move towards displaying our editors' writing. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 15:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- My thinking generally aligns with Maplestrip. If there is significantly important information about the death itself (unusual circumstances, etc.) or there is a significant story about knock-on effects from the death (succession, protests/revolts, major ceremonies or funerals, etc.) then we have something to blurb. Just noting that someone died is not blurb-worthy IMHO. Most of the handwringing over things like the death of Queen Elizabeth II goes away when you realize that we blurb the death because we also blurb the succession of her son Charles III. The recent death of the Ukrainian government minister would still get blurbed under this policy because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the death, i.e. the helicopter crash. What this would avoid is the "I've heard about so-and-so a lot, so they probably "deserve" a blurb". Let's try to get away of what the person "deserves", as though they "earned" the blurb like it was an award, and lets get to writing blurbs that actually contain information that serves the reader. The RD section serves a perfectly fine purpose for reporting on unremarkable deaths. Even unremarkable deaths of famous people. --Jayron32 15:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I am firmly of the belief that we have too many discussions about whether or not to blurb a recent death. Every time a well-known elderly actor or singer dies we get the "support blurb, legendary" !votes and it's a waste of time. A blurb line absolutely should not be a reward for being famous, and "so-and-so dies at the age of 83" tells us very little more of use than having them in the RD section. It absolutely should be reserved for those where the death is the story. We have IAR for cases like Elizabeth II or Pele who will get blurbed in 15 minutes regardless of what guidelines we have. Pawnkingthree (talk) 16:20, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I would love to be able to codify the "support, famous person" type !votes to be removed or ignored in ITNC discussions. Blurb discussions, beyond article quality, should be whether the article sufficiently describes the legacy or factors related to being a great figure so that we aren't arguing on unsupported claims. Masem (t) 16:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Comment there are a lot of words here for "I want my news ticker to only tell me sports champions and elections". The bit that needs to be redefined is "transformative figure". I don't agree with the notion that "if it warrants an article on the death itself", because that's basically saying "only inherently notable people get blurbs", and I personally don't find John C. Politician nor Queen Elizabeth II as important people in any respect outside of inheritance. - Floydian τ ¢ 17:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- You mention David Crosby in your edit summary, bug there us a case that right now with the current state of the article, it is hand waving to claim that he was an influential musican of the 60s. If there was a clear section to talk about his influence on music and support being a transformative figure, that would be different. At least with politican leaders, they usually have this type of section to help support the reasoning for a blurb. Masem (t) 18:12, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Well yes, his article is terrible (as was Jeff Beck's), and we can take that off the table as it's the case for RDs as well as blurbs. Politicians have that inherent notability and constant news coverage that musicians (especially the ones from the 60s and 70s that are going to start dropping like flies) don't get. Did Benedict do anything in the last 10 years? No, old man died. Was he transformative? Not at all. Pele was last active in 1974, he gets a blurb. Old man dies. This whole approach to the subject is asinine, and it becomes a pile on of gatekeepers vs. aficionados. - Floydian τ ¢ 18:30, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- At least with Pele, there was (at the time if ITNC nom) a legacy section that explained, in a standalone manner, why he was one of the best football players. That eliminates the hand waving of "this person was important" that comes up so much in blurbs. Thats why I think that if a blurb is going to be on the table, the article better support the transformative or great figure in a clear, direct manner (such as a legacy section). That would exclude many bad examples that we did end up posting due to hand waved claims of importance. Masem (t) 20:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- I'd count Benedict XVI as transformative. If he hadn't resigned, there'd have not been a Pope Francis. The papal lineage may seem just as trivial as band member timelines to a lot of people, but it's the sort of list to which others have been ascribing much importance for about 800 years. And it's not like Francis himself is chopped liver. Besides his good nature, a slightly younger list of popes pegs him as the last. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:35, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- But again I ask the question: where was the sourced verification that Benedict XVI was transformative or a great leader? Certainly not in the article. Someone involved in an historically significant event is not automatically transformative for being part of that event, and so all that argument is hand waving any actually sourced material that will help readers understand why this person was mentioned in a urb on the front page. It is far more objective when we start with that basic premise. Masem (t) 00:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Don't ask me. I'm not saying his transformation of the Roman Catholic world had anything to do with his recent death. His death changed pretty much nothing except his own personal closeness to God. We were right to blurb his resignation when we did.
- Anyway, I'm glad you asked, as it gives me a chance to ask you where you got this idea that Lollobrigida "probably" had more impact on cinema on the woman who invented, reprised and flat-out made Princess Leia. Wouldn't you have heard of a role even half as iconic or influential? Betty White, sure, meh. But I had you pegged as someone whose life was actually changed by "the force", so what's up with that? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:23, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- But again I ask the question: where was the sourced verification that Benedict XVI was transformative or a great leader? Certainly not in the article. Someone involved in an historically significant event is not automatically transformative for being part of that event, and so all that argument is hand waving any actually sourced material that will help readers understand why this person was mentioned in a urb on the front page. It is far more objective when we start with that basic premise. Masem (t) 00:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Well yes, his article is terrible (as was Jeff Beck's), and we can take that off the table as it's the case for RDs as well as blurbs. Politicians have that inherent notability and constant news coverage that musicians (especially the ones from the 60s and 70s that are going to start dropping like flies) don't get. Did Benedict do anything in the last 10 years? No, old man died. Was he transformative? Not at all. Pele was last active in 1974, he gets a blurb. Old man dies. This whole approach to the subject is asinine, and it becomes a pile on of gatekeepers vs. aficionados. - Floydian τ ¢ 18:30, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- You mention David Crosby in your edit summary, bug there us a case that right now with the current state of the article, it is hand waving to claim that he was an influential musican of the 60s. If there was a clear section to talk about his influence on music and support being a transformative figure, that would be different. At least with politican leaders, they usually have this type of section to help support the reasoning for a blurb. Masem (t) 18:12, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Comment This is how it works on the German Wikipedia where the corresponding section is efficiently updated by a handful of editors. There is one difference, though. The section on the German Wikipedia provides more details about the deceased persons by listing their birth year, nationality and occupation. In our case, we’d have to rearrange the ITN section so that it fits, bit it’d be still be longer than it’s now. Another option that comes to my mind is to allow a death blurb only if the death is documented in a separate article (in some cases, the death article may be subject to an RfD, which may halt posting).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 22:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- There a catch 22 in there as well. Articles need to be up to date and sourced, but seldom become sourced. Maybe increasing the stale limit to 14 days would help? - Floydian τ ¢ 23:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- The 7 day stale limit works and more exposes how bad some of our bios on 20th century people are. That many Hollywood stars and musical articles need extensive sourcing help is a problem beyond ITN as basic BLP requirements aren't being met. Extending the time to 14 days won't fix that. Masem (t) 00:14, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
...allow a death blurb only if the death is documented in a separate article...
: I'm wary that this would incentivize people to ignore the WP:AVOIDSPLIT guideline:
I'd anticipate that many premature pages would just be lists of WP:NOTDIARY quotes of condolences and tributes.—Bagumba (talk) 02:38, 24 January 2023 (UTC)Editors are cautioned not to immediately split articles if the new article would meet neither the general notability criterion nor the specific notability criteria for their topic. In this case, editors are encouraged to work on further developing the parent article first, locating coverage that applies to both the main topic and the subtopic. Through this process, it may become evident that subtopics or groups of subtopics can demonstrate their own notability, and thus can be split off into their own article. Also consider whether a concept can be cleanly trimmed, removed, or merged elsewhere on Wikipedia instead of creating a new article. Some topics are notable, but do not need their own article; see WP:NOPAGE.
- Yes, we have a rather large problem that editors want to run off to create standalone topics on breaking news stories which are already part of larger news stories with their own articles, and thus to justify these spin-offs, add in tons of reaction quotes, which are, IMO, complete fluff (Reaction quotes that talk about actual actions a country or agengy might take is different). If we limit death blurbs to only those with a standalone death article, we would be artificially forcing article creation while ignoring truly important figures that never would have had their death aspects covered to that much depth (eg someone like Stephen Hawking). A separate death article should be the case when there are days and days of pomp that come with it, as was the case with Thatcher, Mandela, and QEII, or in rare cases of others, like Michael Jackson. Masem (t) 05:16, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Then, the best option is to do nothing and leave it as it is. I honestly don’t think we can replicate the model from the German Wikipedia.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 06:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Whether ot not it's a separate article is a matter of page maintenance. ITN should only look to see if qualities for a standlone exist, and not mention a separate page as a requirement or even a plus, as some will just create to check off a box for ITN and WP:GAME the system. —Bagumba (talk) 07:06, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- To be frank, we want people to spend less time on arguing about whether something is significant and more time on editing in the main namespace. I get that requiring a stand-alone article may spill over discussions from ITN to RfDs, but precisifying the quality requirement should be a priority if we really want to move a step forward. At the very least, we should indicate that the article needs to have a legacy section documenting why the person was truly significant in their field to merit a blurb.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- We want editors not to spin out articles until necessary SIZE metrics are met - if the subtopic is searchable, we have redirects for that very reason. 90% of the time when I see such spinouts, you lose the cohesiveness of the content of the spinout being in the main article, as to have a comprehensive coverage of the topic and all its subtopics, and instead the spinout attempts to explain why it is notable on its own and floods the article with things like Reaction sections. Editors forget that notability is not based on a burst of news coverage, but requires a long-tail of that as well, a criteria we don't apply to content within the body of an existing, notable topic. Masem (t) 13:36, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, we have a rather large problem that editors want to run off to create standalone topics on breaking news stories which are already part of larger news stories with their own articles, and thus to justify these spin-offs, add in tons of reaction quotes, which are, IMO, complete fluff (Reaction quotes that talk about actual actions a country or agengy might take is different). If we limit death blurbs to only those with a standalone death article, we would be artificially forcing article creation while ignoring truly important figures that never would have had their death aspects covered to that much depth (eg someone like Stephen Hawking). A separate death article should be the case when there are days and days of pomp that come with it, as was the case with Thatcher, Mandela, and QEII, or in rare cases of others, like Michael Jackson. Masem (t) 05:16, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- I would personally be supportive of a homepage organized loosely like the German page is, i.e. roughly replacing the material currently situated above the "Today's featured picture" box with boxes organized like the German page has them (though I also wouldn't be opposed to scaling down the picture box either - that thing is massive!). DarkSide830 (talk) 07:16, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- You've got my wholehearted support for this.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- A protype might be more persuasive. On This Day is not very well maintained lately, so perhaps that's even a candidate for some real estate. —Bagumba (talk) 11:24, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
- There a catch 22 in there as well. Articles need to be up to date and sourced, but seldom become sourced. Maybe increasing the stale limit to 14 days would help? - Floydian τ ¢ 23:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- It seems like many editors feel this is a problem we can address with a rules tweak or clarification, when in fact there is a great disagreement on the approach. For example, I think Masem's notion of a legacy section requirement is logical and well-reasoned, but I unequivocally oppose it. WaltCip is correct that rejecting "Major Figures" in favor of "Death as the main story" would make things easier, but I would favor the exact opposite approach. I imagine most editors dislike the status quo, but it's probably more popular than any specific alternate. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:58, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- I ask why you can't back my idea. Death blurb need a stronger objectivity factor, and clear, sourced demonstration of why RSes consider the person a great figure or transformative, rather than throwing out personal subjective assertions, seems like a way there. Masem (t) 00:34, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- Because it would not be honored. An obvious blurb is not getting rejected for its absence, and an obvious RD is not getting bumped to blurb for it's presence. Ergo, we would only be using on borderline cases, and that is unacceptable. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:06, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
- I ask why you can't back my idea. Death blurb need a stronger objectivity factor, and clear, sourced demonstration of why RSes consider the person a great figure or transformative, rather than throwing out personal subjective assertions, seems like a way there. Masem (t) 00:34, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- I oppose any change to the existing rules on this for the time being. The nature of a 'major figure' is inherently subjective. Debate and discussion is how we work through that and arrive at a consensus. I wish we were a bit quicker at it, but I don't think having the debate is wrong. I think a lot of the proposed hard and fast rules here would entrench specific editorial biases, or introduce perverse incentives to fork off articles about deaths. The user Abductive keeps falsely claiming that we already have a rule about this, and I wish they'd stop. My actual proposals?
- 1) Some debate around death blurbs is inevitable, and I see attempts to prevent it altogether as futile and a waste of our time.
- 2) We should post ITN articles faster, including deaths.
- 3) If there's clear support for some posting around a person's death, I would welcome more admins being willing to post them to RD and keep the debate about a possible blurb open.
- 4) The actual thing in the RD rules that I like the least is that non-human organisms are included. I just don't believe that racehorses deserve the same attention as humans. GenevieveDEon (talk) 12:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- Points 1 and 3 I fully agree with, point 2 is mostly due to articles not being ready for posting when they are nominated - in the vast majority of cases this is due to sourcing issues. Point 4 is irrelevant to this discussion, but the current rules for RD were arrived at following a very big RFC and significant following discussion. That was in 2016, so it's possible consensus might have changed but as you are the only person I can recall mentioning it recently I'm not aware of any evidence of this (FWIW my opinion is that animals with individual articles are equally as deserving as humans). Thryduulf (talk) 16:59, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- On point 4, with respect, you've got it backward. There are organisms out there that fly, glow and/or live inside others. Some are the size of buildings and some have tongues longer than their tails. Don't even get me started on marsupials! On the other side, you have the same basic Homo sapiens you've already seen do all it can. The only thing it has going for it over Sarcophilus harrisii is it's the devil we know. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:27, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
- But don't worry, there are others like you. They show up at the Main RD talkpage, usually IPs, usually hung up on horses. It's hard to find those Archives, though, even the regulars there don't quite know how to cite the past. I agree that'd be the venue to start banning people from learning about the recent deaths of their notable cousins. If one were so inclined, I mean. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:45, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
- I find the tone of this perplexing, and it seems to be replying to something I didn't say. GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:22, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
- It's an addendum to Thryduulf's comment about you ("consensus might have changed but as you are the only person I can recall mentioning it recently I'm not aware of any evidence of this"). It seemed "The actual thing in the RD rules that I like the least is that non-human organisms are included" was clear enough to think you and those antihorse IPs might find some common ground on Point 4 at the RD talk page. Here at the broader ITN one, I agree, it's pretty irrelevant. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
- I find the tone of this perplexing, and it seems to be replying to something I didn't say. GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:22, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Tonight's attacks on Iran - still a stub
2023 Iran explosions - feel free to nominate this at WP:ITN/C if/when it's no longer so stubby. Non-WP:RS report attacks at at least 6-7 places around Iran; should be in WP:RS within a few hours as a broad attack if the off-the-WP:RS-radar reports are not just rumours. Boud (talk) 01:41, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Admin decision needed on 3 RDs
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Three RDs which are tagged as Ready (Shirley Fulton) or Potentially ready (Dennis Lotis, Igor Mangushev) roll off the page at EoD. Curbon7 (talk) 04:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
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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.
Hi, can someone review this RD (listed on ITNC under February 6)? It's been a few days and it seems pretty close. Curbon7 (talk) 13:06, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Curbon7: I've taken a look. Unfortunately I think the sourcing needs more work. Pawnkingthree (talk) 00:05, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yup, just needed some attention given. There's been a dreadful lack of RD reviewers in the past few weeks. It's basically only me and a couple of other regulars. Curbon7 (talk) 03:39, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
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Admin decision needed on blurb
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An admin decision is needed for the blurb on the scuttling of the São Paulo, which rolls off the page at EoD. Curbon7 (talk) 05:14, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Resolved. Curbon7 (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
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Technical problem at ITN/C
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At WP:ITN/C, there are two headings for Feb 14 instead of one for Feb 14 and one for Feb 15. I'll fix it myself, but aren't these sections generated automatically? The ⬡ Bestagon T/C 12:49, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Worse than that, the toxic spill story and its entire discussion is somehow duplicated (I don't mean the renom - I mean there are two copies of the latest nomination). GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:19, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
These both appear to have been fixed now. GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:44, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Is this resolved? Any other action required here? Ktin (talk) 15:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes; the issue was fixed. The ⬡ Bestagon T/C 14:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
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Admin decision needed on RD: Jerry Jarrett
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All CN tags have been resolved and it rolls off the page at EoD. The Kip (talk) 17:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
@Stephen: The C&A is fixed. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:39, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Sadly, it does not appear to have been posted. Curbon7 (talk) 02:05, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- That's not sad, it's normal, wrestlers are son-of-an-unnamed-goat pariahs here. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:42, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Its a mix of not having enough regular RD reviewers and not having enough regular admins, combined with the high volume of candidates that are on the page at a time. Billy Two Rivers was posted just a few days ago, so its not just a vendetta against wrestling articles. Curbon7 (talk) 02:58, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Billy Two Rivers got out of wrestling before the '80s boom and was well into the Indigenous rights movement by the time it resurged in popularity. He reformed, basically, not as cartoonish as, say, Koko B. Ware, The Honky Tonk Man or Jerry Lawler. Jerry Jarrett, in many ways, was responsible for all of these gimmicks and more. I don't think the admins (or general public) always know the full picture of how this carny bullshit interweaves, but they can still naturally sense when it does. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:14, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- See Richard Belzer for the reverse situation, where the Hulkster's "larger-than-life" taint rubbed off on him in the midst of an impromptu front facelock (AKA the only reason I recognize his name). InedibleHulk (talk) 03:44, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Its a mix of not having enough regular RD reviewers and not having enough regular admins, combined with the high volume of candidates that are on the page at a time. Billy Two Rivers was posted just a few days ago, so its not just a vendetta against wrestling articles. Curbon7 (talk) 02:58, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- That's not sad, it's normal, wrestlers are son-of-an-unnamed-goat pariahs here. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:42, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- As was noted on the nomination there were a few unreferenced claims as well as the C&A section that InedibleHulk kindly fixed. Stephen 03:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- There are a few unreferenced claims in every article you post, they just hide in blocks of text with footnotes on the bottoms. If you're actually concerned something here isn't true, please be specific. I think this news is well beyond stale now, as RDs virtually always are, but I'm always glad to teach a rube something new about the world's oldest profession. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:36, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- If you're not actually concerned, though, I give anyone permission to reclose our conversation. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:56, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Posted I get that it just rolled off ITN/C, but I've now posted it because it looks good enough to me. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:14, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks, I hope you don't catch "heat" for it. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
Like. Curbon7 (talk) 05:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
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2023 US SOTU Address
The United States SOTU should be added. StrawWord298944 (talk) 02:44, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Why? (Considering that Wikipedia is a global encyclopaedia.) HiLo48 (talk) 02:56, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Over 4% of all humans live in the United States. Factor out the people who don't use this site because they can't speak English. Factor in the foreigners and political analysts who are abroad who care. StrawWord298944 (talk) 03:04, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Factor out Americans who don't care. HiLo48 (talk) 06:23, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Over 4% of all humans live in the United States. Factor out the people who don't use this site because they can't speak English. Factor in the foreigners and political analysts who are abroad who care. StrawWord298944 (talk) 03:04, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- I fully expect[ed] a nom on this and will immediately vote "oppose". Simply put? Actions speak louder than words. Unless something odd happens, it's just a normal function of the US government that most Americans probably don't even care about anymore. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know why you expected it. I've never seen it nominated. US based editors are no more likely to nominate this than UK based editors are to nominate the State Opening of Parliament. Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:22, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Eh, I expect relatively unimportant events to be nominated, seeing especially how many people lately have shown a desire to decrease ITN's notability bar. This isn't problematic, I just disagree with this desire. DarkSide830 (talk) 17:44, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know why you expected it. I've never seen it nominated. US based editors are no more likely to nominate this than UK based editors are to nominate the State Opening of Parliament. Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:22, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
You may nominate the inclusion of the event here. Instructions for format and content can also be found at the page.Carter00000 (talk) 03:04, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- The SOTU was not nominated in either of its two most recent occurrences ([2][3]). I think a nomination would be valuable to gauge consensus, though I will also be opposing. Curbon7 (talk) 03:47, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Even with the atypical lack of decorum in last night's SOTU, I'm sure it would go down in near-unanimous opposition. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:44, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- What I'd surmise as well. Curbon7 (talk) 16:48, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Even with the atypical lack of decorum in last night's SOTU, I'm sure it would go down in near-unanimous opposition. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:44, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Grammy Awards at WP:ITN/R
Currently the Grammy Awards are considered WP:ITN/R and would automatically be posted on the front page if its article was up-to-snuff. Masem suggested that the subject might need to be removed because it cannot consistently meet quality requirements for front-page posting at all. (I personally don't agree that this is a reasonable argument). Andrew cites WP:NOTPROMOTION and that the Grammies specifically are an America-centric tradeshow that fails to highlight different genres. The Grammy Awards are practically the only music-related event on ITN/R (besides Eurovision, which is a very different sort of thing). I do feel like we need some representation of music at ITN. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:19, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove as per my arguments in all of the prior years. We can never seem to get this bloody article up to snuff every time it rolls around each year. The notability of the event has to be demonstrated by the quality of the article. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:36, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I specifically said we need to wait to see if the page gets updated in time. We have struggled with posting the Grammys in recent years (I searched last night: we posted in 2020 and 2021 and not in 2022, but I know there were some non-posting in the 2010s that I did not look for). If the page fails to get a good prose update and remains mostly tables, I then felt it was time to question the ITNR. It is not a good time to do it while the ITNC is open. Masem (t) 13:46, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- On the contrary, while the ITN/C is open is exactly the right time to question the ITN/R, because if it isn't questioned, its ITN/R status is assumed to be impregnable even if a few people oppose the individual nomination. One could make the argument that the opposers would be within their right due to WP:IAR, but not all admins would see it that way. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:18, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- The problem with discussing it now is that there is still plenty of time for editors to improve the article before we consider it stale. If it gets fixed up in three days and gets posted, then the basis of this removal question becomes moot and we've wasted our time. If it doesn't get fixed before going stale, then it is 100% fair game to question the ITNR due to lack of updates. Masem (t) 14:55, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove I agree... if it is having problems getting up to par each and every year, clearly it isn't notable enough to be on ITN/R.
- On the contrary, while the ITN/C is open is exactly the right time to question the ITN/R, because if it isn't questioned, its ITN/R status is assumed to be impregnable even if a few people oppose the individual nomination. One could make the argument that the opposers would be within their right due to WP:IAR, but not all admins would see it that way. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:18, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- NoahTalk 14:17, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove - No one cares enough to get the article in proper shape, which is an indicator that it is not significant enough to be listed at ITNR. The ⬡ Bestagon T/C 14:22, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Weak keep It is, historically, one of the top music industry awards, akin to the Academy Awards, but sadly there have been issues with people nominating it to be posted without first properly updating the article's prose themselves. I agree that if something isn't posted on a recurring basis, it doesn't belong on ITNR; this one should be posted on a recurring basis, but it recent years it hasn't been. Andrew's "objections" would apply to every award ever given for anything ever; are the Nobel Prizes in Literature given to sell more books? Sure, they have that effect; the winner will see an uptick in sales. It doesn't mean we don't recognize the achievement. THAT someone benefits financially from winning an award doesn't invalidate the honor. --Jayron32 15:02, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Nobel Prize for Literature has been a joke for over a hundred years and it got so bad recently that it fell apart – see Criticism. The trouble with these things is that they get captured by cliques and insiders – see logrolling. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:48, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Look, i'm not really interested in hearing your personal distaste for every award out there; the fact remains that the awards exist, they are major events that reliable sources cover in sufficient detail. You can wish that the sources wouldn't do so, but you can't actually make the reliable source material disappear; it's going to be there, the level of coverage exists to support ITN postings (when articles are of sufficient quality), and you aren't going to change the world culture by railing against it on Wikipedia. I mean, continue to complain impotently into the void about such awards, or falsely cite WP:NOTPROMOTION as though the guideline says anything about the matter (hint, it doesn't). I mean you do you, but my advice is to let the matter drop. You aren't going to ram through your extremist viewpoint on these things, but what you will do is alienate yourself from others and make yourself very ignorable. --Jayron32 18:56, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove No apparent harm. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:30, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove not per any particular policy but more or less because it appears so few people really care about awards shows nowadays. It really just ends up amounting to celebrities patting each other on the backs. To be honest we shouldn't just stop at the Grammys but I'd imagine some other such discussions may meet more friction. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:06, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is what we hope that a good prose expansion will cover...in that it should not just be a table if winners, and a list of presenters and performers at the ceremony. There should be good discussion of changes on award format, nomination and finalists' voting rules, and the post ceremony, reactions to specifics wins or snubs. The ceremony as a broadcast program should also be documented with reviews and viewership. There is absolutely to the ceremony which can be documented (and this true for all awards programs) but editors have to do their work for that. Masem (t) 22:04, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Neutral,
but leaning removeNot because of Andrew's argument because I think citing WP:NOTPROMOTION here would be a bad precedent that would result in there being no entertainment award shows whatsoever in ITN. Jayron32 makes a good point to that effect and I don't think something like the Grammys falls under that guideline. Andrew also made an erroneous claim that the Grammys do not give awards to Afrobeats music, but Afrobeats star Tems won her first Grammy last night. What does lean me in the direction of remove is that there's simply no interest in building prose in the Grammy articles, even from editors like myself that regularly edit these ceremony articles. My priority editing that article last night was properly sourcing performances and award wins. There's honestly never much to include in terms of prose in these Grammy articles unless some controversy or change happens, and I hardly ever see reception/criticism sections in Grammy articles. The Grammys can still be nominated when there's actually prose in the articles and it's fit to post, but I'd lean towards removing it from ITN/R because that happens infrequently enough. Doc StrangeMailboxLogbook 17:36, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Tems' award was for "melodic rap". The track was Wait for U which just used an extract of her work which was sampled by the primary artist – an American rapper, Future. Afrobeats isn't mentioned in the awards article. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:48, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Changing my vote to a full neutral. I'm firmly undecided on this rather than leaning towards removing it from ITN/R. Doc StrangeMailboxLogbook 04:51, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove mainly due to the pervasive quality problems the articles have. But I'm also somewhat sympathetic to the lack of diversity in terms of genres highlighted by the shows. The latter point being admittedly a mostly editorial complaint. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:59, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove. Overly US-centric. Even the US they're something of a joke, and they're rapidly losing relevance (see Wikipedia's ratings graph) and thus not worthy of ITNR especially given the inconsistent posting in the past. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:12, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Almost half of the last 15 Album of the Year winners have been non-American: five British singers/groups, a French group, and a Canadian group. Kicking222 (talk) 22:59, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove if it's not regularly being posted anyway then it shouldn't qualify for ITN/R. There's no reason individual instances can't be nominated on their own merits, but ITN/R should reflect current practice as much as it should influence which subjects qualify to be listed 2A02:C7F:2CE3:4700:C821:9046:8E15:7351 (talk) 19:35, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose as the Grammys are currently recognized as the most prestigious annual music awards internationally, even if they are American-based; and because music is currently underrepresented on ITN despite being a key cultural part of daily life for the majority of humanity. NorthernFalcon (talk) 20:01, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- On the bright side, DYK is currently streaming Perla Batalla (feat. Leonard Cohen). InedibleHulk (talk) 20:21, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Strong Keep These arguments are absolutely ridiculous. I don't care about or watch the Grammys, and I usually think the winners (when I even bother to look them up) are stupid, but there's no denying that they're the most prominent music awards in the world, equivalent to the Tonys but in a far-wider-reaching field. The international press is more than sufficient before, during, and after the awards, and the ridiculous "US-centric" arguments are absurd- besides that plenty of international musicians win all the time (a Brit won Album of the Year this year, for Pete's sake), being specific to one country has never been a limiting factor. If it is, let's also remove almost every other entertainment award and most sporting events.
- If the article doesn't get properly updated, so be it- don't post it that year. If it never gets posted because it's never sufficient, fine. But I don't think anyone has actually bothered to read ITN/R, which says "Items which are listed on this page are considered to have already satisfied the 'importance' criterion for inclusion on ITN, every time they occur. However, the relevant article(s) will still have to be updated appropriately and proposed on the candidates page before being posted. Listing here is not an automatic guarantee that an item will be posted." The Grammys are the definition of this- they already satisfy the criterion every time, but the articles need to be updated. End of story. -- Kicking222 (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- If we have ITNR events that have articles that never get updated year after year, it is better to remove the ITNR until it can be shown there are editors that care to get it up to spec, rather than to keep something stale. We removed the US Open (in tennis) for this very reason despite being one of the prestige events in tennis. Masem (t) 01:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- When did that happen? The US Open is a current ITN/R item. Pawnkingthree (talk) 02:07, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- Hmm, I thought we hit that one at one point, but I was mistaken (I know there was discussion that its updates were getting lax into just tables and no prose at some point in the last decade). But that does lead me to one Archive page (from the ITNR ones) that show we absolutely considered "lack of an updated article over multiple nomination years" as a reason to remove an ITNR such as at [Removed_Removal_proposal:_World_Table_Tennis_Championships] Masem (t) 13:36, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- If the best example you can come up with is from a discussion over seven years ago about an event that I can safely say has a fraction of a fraction of the news coverage of the Grammys, then I think you've proven my point. Something shouldn't be removed from ITN/R just because editors don't update it; what matters for ITN/R is importance, and the Grammys are undeniably important based on media attention. (Plus, look at the other insane stuff that was ITN/R at that point- the Volvo Ocean Race? The Peoples Choice Awards? A new UK Poet Laureate? Pure madness. 2023 is not 2015 for ITN/R.) Kicking222 (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- Doesn't matter. Being posted as a blurb to ITN requires two aspects: coverage by news, and a quality update. The discussions around ITNR should consider both (for example, see the above discussion on the Game Awards where its notability is being raised, but not article quality). If there's a sufficiently long string of years where a clearly notable event doesn't get a quality article update, that's absolutely reason to remove. It can be added back later if editors improve the quality at the time the event is relevant, but keeping it on while there's no effort to make a quality article is wasting everyone's time. Masem (t) 03:27, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- If the best example you can come up with is from a discussion over seven years ago about an event that I can safely say has a fraction of a fraction of the news coverage of the Grammys, then I think you've proven my point. Something shouldn't be removed from ITN/R just because editors don't update it; what matters for ITN/R is importance, and the Grammys are undeniably important based on media attention. (Plus, look at the other insane stuff that was ITN/R at that point- the Volvo Ocean Race? The Peoples Choice Awards? A new UK Poet Laureate? Pure madness. 2023 is not 2015 for ITN/R.) Kicking222 (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- Hmm, I thought we hit that one at one point, but I was mistaken (I know there was discussion that its updates were getting lax into just tables and no prose at some point in the last decade). But that does lead me to one Archive page (from the ITNR ones) that show we absolutely considered "lack of an updated article over multiple nomination years" as a reason to remove an ITNR such as at [Removed_Removal_proposal:_World_Table_Tennis_Championships] Masem (t) 13:36, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- Why is that better than leaving it on ITNR? All we need is an editor with an interest in the Grammys and the time and ability to improve the page. Why strip it from ITNR just because that editor isn't here? – Muboshgu (talk) 02:15, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not to sound the TRM alert, but take the Boat Race article. TRM was dedicated to having that article at quality each year by the time the race was ran, and within hours of its completion, had something that wouldn't be quickly dismissed if it were to have gone to FAC. Now, what if hypothetically, TRM retired from Wikipedia, and as a topic that few other editors had interest, it would sit there in the ITNR list, each nom at ITNC getting rejected because no one took up the mantle. It is then far better to remove until we have assurance that editors will work to keep the article in shape within the short ITNC window over multiple years, at which point we can readd it after discussion (Barring all other factors, the notability of the readdition shouldn't be in question, just that there has been a reasonable string of quality postings).
- Remember that an item that has been removed from ITNR cannot be nominated as a normal ITNC blurb, just that we can't grant automatic ITNR passage. For example, if we were to pull the Grammys after this, and next year some editors went all in to make a kick-ass FA quality article ready by the night of the ceremony, that absolutely should be considered at ITNC. (I will point out some of the claims raised about notability and NOTPROMOTION are rather poor logic to block that, though; others have explained why that's a poor logical thread). Masem (t) 13:42, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- When did that happen? The US Open is a current ITN/R item. Pawnkingthree (talk) 02:07, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- If we have ITNR events that have articles that never get updated year after year, it is better to remove the ITNR until it can be shown there are editors that care to get it up to spec, rather than to keep something stale. We removed the US Open (in tennis) for this very reason despite being one of the prestige events in tennis. Masem (t) 01:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- Keep As has been said before, the Grammys are the top (or one of the top) music awards of each year. It is one of only two ITNR entries for music. That nobody gets the page up to posting standards does not mean that it's not important enough to be on ITNR. That's a navelgazing attitude, overinflating our importance. This is a misdiagnosis of the problem. We just need editors to work on the page. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:04, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Keep I don't agree with WaltCip's comment above that
the notability of the event has to be demonstrated by the quality of the article
. No, the notability of the event has to be demonstrated by the coverage in reliable sources. The Grammys are one of the biggest music awards around, and ITN is not exactly overflowing with music items. It is disappointing that it has not been posted recently for quality reasons, but we frequently see golf and tennis majors not posted for lack of prose updates and that doesn't mean they lack significance. Pawnkingthree (talk) 01:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC) - Keep – I largely agree with Kicking222: ITNR means that it is assumed to have significance, and still needs to be evaluated for quality. I think the Grammys, as the largest award in music, satisfy the significance required. As for quality, it does inhibit it from being posted, but the legnth of a subject's Wikipedia article does not determine its significance. It doesn't matter if it keeps failing to be posted due to quality, because it still has the significance needed for ITNR. DecafPotato (talk) 05:26, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- Keep Just because an article isn't very good, doesn't mean that the article subject isn't significant. As has been said quite a few times already, the Grammy Awards has historically been the top music award along with the Oscars (though you could make an argument that the reputation of both awards has been diluted quite a bit), both are still historically the top award in their field. TheBlueSkyClub (talk) 19:05, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- Remove on purely procedural grounds. ITNR is for non-controversial items. As this vote is evenly split, that's clearly not the case here. GreatCaesarsGhost 16:47, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
Colin Dobson RD
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.
Colin Dobson is on the RD list, but I feel like I missed any discussion of him. @Spencer, can you help, please?
Thanks. GenevieveDEon (talk) 09:20, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- See Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/February_2023#(Posted)_RD:_Colin_Dobson.—Bagumba (talk) 09:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- OK, that was easy. Thank you. This can be closed now! GenevieveDEon (talk) 09:56, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- It seems telling that a vital topic like Burt Bacharach gets totally snubbed by opposes like "Old Man Dies" and "never heard of him". And then this footballer gets waved through with minimal participation. Quality ... Not! Andrew🐉(talk) 10:11, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- You know exactly why this happens; you've been told many times. You've also been told that if you want to see change, make a proposal and achieve consensus. Your contributions here are becoming disruptive. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:40, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- At what point can we propose a t-ban? The Kip (talk) 23:16, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- Andrew, your judgment has been right on a few items and at times you have provided advice that has been beneficial to the ITN process and their items nominated at ITN/C. That being the case, what will it take to get you to end your ceaseless complaining? I'm asking in all seriousness. If something can be negotiated, let's have at it, but this low-octane incivility/soapboxing is becoming intolerable. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:11, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- You know exactly why this happens; you've been told many times. You've also been told that if you want to see change, make a proposal and achieve consensus. Your contributions here are becoming disruptive. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:40, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
- Conversely, can we do better than !votes of 'Old Man Dies'? (Not that I don't think Andrew could do better too; we can all do better.) GenevieveDEon (talk) 17:31, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hasty NACs
We have had a rash of intemperate closes lately. The balloon discussion was closed after just a few hours even though the situation was still developing. I reopened the discussion on the following day and a blurb was duly posted after further development and discussion. Discussion of the Turkish earthquake has been closed after just a few hours, saying "Consensus to post will not change; no need for further discussion. Updates should be discussed at WP:ERRORS." This is self-contradictory in that it says there's no need for further discussion but then says that further discussion should take place elsewhere.
Directing people to WP:ERRORS is a fork/forum-shopping. That page is specifically for factual errors, as it says, and not for more general discussion such as blurb copy-editing. And that page is a poor venue for discussions which might last days as it's quite ephemeral and there are no standard archives, as we have at ITN.
So, can we have some guidelines please such as:
- No NACs
- No closes by involved editors
- No closes until a discussion has gone 24 hours without a post
- No editorialising in closes
- No forking to WP:ERRORS
Andrew🐉(talk) 13:38, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- In both cases, at the time the NAC was added, the underlying stories weren't going to chance in terms of their relevance (the quake happened with mass death tolls, no amount of discussion would change its posting; the balloon thing at that tiem was the observation of it but no action had been taken, and only until the story became of the US intent to shoot it down and the diplomatic reaction from China was that a proper story, but that was a wholly different take from the original blurb about the balloon being seen). The only discussion to be had on the quake story is updating death tolls, which is better seen at ERRORS than the ITNC page (there's a better percentage of admin eyes to non-admins to fix errors there). The discussion at ERRORS should not be more than that issue. If a new blurb is needed that is drastically different from the old one, then that would be an new ITNC (as was the case of the balloon story). Masem (t) 13:44, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's a lot more to say about the earthquake than just a ticker of the death toll. The title of the article is already one bone of contention. And the choice of image is another. And there may be further developments as it's in a volatile part of the world. Expect the unexpected... Andrew🐉(talk) 13:51, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- None of those things will affect to consensus for the broad current blurb. If the story changes to one of political nature, then that would require a new ITNC to address that. Masem (t) 14:52, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's a lot more to say about the earthquake than just a ticker of the death toll. The title of the article is already one bone of contention. And the choice of image is another. And there may be further developments as it's in a volatile part of the world. Expect the unexpected... Andrew🐉(talk) 13:51, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I can maybe get behind 4 and 5, but 1 through 3 are just rule creep. With as little administrative participation on ITN as it is, we certainly don't need to make the place even more difficult for non-admins to steward. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:01, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I oppose #1 vehemently. Closing discussions doesn't require admin tools, so it doesn't require an admin to do it. The decision to post does, but the use of the archive template is open to all. #2 is best practice, but I wouldn't make it a rule, #3 is impractical given the nature of ITN; we shouldn't mandate a minimum time if the admin posting has double checked the article quality and there is not significant opposition, they shouldn't feel the need to wait 24 hours to post something. #4 is also unworkable; we want people to explain why a discussion was closed down. #5 is also backwards; if a blurb currently on the main page needs to be changed, it SHOULD go through WP:ERRORS. --Jayron32 14:58, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- In terms of editorializing, I'd assume Andrew means closures along the lines of "Consensus seems to be clearly against posting, even though I think it's complete bullshit and everybody is wrong" as I've seen a couple times on ITN. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:00, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, well, the people who did that already knew they shouldn't have but decided to do so anyways. Making rules doesn't stop people from doing things they already knew was wrong. --Jayron32 15:36, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes. This sort of thing calls for better enforcement, not more rules. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:35, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, well, the people who did that already knew they shouldn't have but decided to do so anyways. Making rules doesn't stop people from doing things they already knew was wrong. --Jayron32 15:36, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- In terms of editorializing, I'd assume Andrew means closures along the lines of "Consensus seems to be clearly against posting, even though I think it's complete bullshit and everybody is wrong" as I've seen a couple times on ITN. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:00, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think #2 is a good guideline, but I don't think that's a big issue and if we believe an editor is acting improperly that can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I don't disagree with #5 but only because I think WP:ERRORS shouldn't be the best place to discuss changes. I think the page layout and the quick removal of items on the page makes it a poor format for eliciting extensive discussions. Does it work for things that are errors, yes, but there is much more that can be discussed after a blurb is posted in some cases. For example, someone may suggest an alt-blurb that may better fit the situation, but I know from experience that if there is no clear error sometimes this comment on WP:ERRORS may be quickly wiped from the page. This, I'd argue, isn't even a NAC issue - it's an issue with the ITN candidates page in general. I think we should be closing all nominations after posting, than dealing with post-posting commentary in another location (perhaps on this very talkpage or in a new talkpage. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:32, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Updating of death tolls is a task officially offloaded to WP:ERRORS, as outlined in Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#Suggesting updates. Curbon7 (talk) 03:40, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don;'t see #2 as WP:CREEP; it is accepted practice nearly everywhere on Wikipedia (WP:Closing discussions) It would be mandatory if #1 applied. #3 should also be considered best practice and has already been mandated for other kinds of discussions. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:07, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think #2 is clear as day and its violation is already extremely rare. As for #4, closers sometimes have to present arguments for the closing rationale (e.g. 'the discussion is going nowhere', 'better invest the time on improving the article' or 'this item is more suitable for DYK'), so it's fine as long as this is not considered editorialising. I strongly oppose #1 because judging ITN discussions is a function of experience, and adminship is not an automatic indicator for it. I have to oppose #3 only because we didn't set a minimum time for discussion before posting (no difference whatsoever between pre-mature posting and closing), and #2 because forking to WP:ERRORS is not very frequent and most often well justified. After all, don't forget that closing is not final and a nomination can be re-opened at any time.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Nothing to see here
- Checking this morning, the earthquake blurb is "An earthquake (damage pictured) strikes Turkey and Syria, killing over 8,300 people and injuring more than 38,500 others." This update seems to have been made unilaterally without reference to any discussion anywhere. It pretends to accuracy with its figure of 8,300 but the NYT and article are already way past that at 9,500. And the singular phrase "an earthquake" seems quite inaccurate too as there were at least two major earthquakes and hundreds of aftershocks, right?
- Now, this is the biggest disaster for some years – comparable in scale with the 9-11 disaster which caused ITN to be created. And so it's a disgrace that ITN's way of handling this, is the classic "Nothing to see here ... please disperse". This is not consensus or quality; it's dereliction of duty. And it adds insult to injury to see that ITN is now eagerly discussing basketball and the Grammys instead. The show must go on...
- Andrew🐉(talk) 08:54, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- I have no idea what you are complaining about here. It's pointless to have discussion on updates at two different places. It has been established practice for years that requests for updates and corrections should take place at ERRORS rather than the original nom, because they are more likely to be acted upon quickly. Indeed, a couple of hours after your post above there was a request at ERRORS to update the death toll to the latest figure of 11,200 and so the blurb is up-to-date. The process is working as it should. Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:07, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- And there does not appear to be consensus as to whether the second 7.5 one was a second mainshock or an aftershock. Our article currently says "an earthquake" so the blurb is not inaccurate. Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:52, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- And yet, Andrew, you've done nothing useful but lob insults from the sidelines. Thanks for that. I'm sure it will come in handy. In the future, a pleasantly worded quick note at WP:ERRORS requesting an update will be actioned quickly. Or, you could just tell everyone on here that they're all bad at their jobs and should be ashamed of themselves. Your choice. --Jayron32 15:53, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Aftershocks are earthquakes too. The article has a substantial section detailing the Earthquakes, plural. And there's even a separate page listing all the big ones. Our current blurb is misleading, giving the impression that there was just a single shock, rather than a succession of them. But, of course, it's moot now as ITN makes it clear that the important statistic is measured in hoops, not magnitude. Editors may freely discuss such sport and showbiz but discussion of the major disaster is forcibly shut down. Tsk. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- What are you talking about? The blurb has now been pulled, and even before it was pulled, there was clear substantive opposition to the item even after its posting. Certainly doesn't reflect the attitude of ITN as a whole. Sometimes I wonder what exactly it is you're trying to prove through your snide commentary. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:47, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- He seems to be a fan of WP:POINT. The Kip (talk) 02:55, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- And furthermore, "nothing to see here" is a disingenuous description of what took place here. Another event was posted on the template. The earthquake story was still there, clearly describing what it was. This happens to EVERY item on ITN, regardless of whether it's a disaster, an election, a mass shooting, or whatever. How long have you been here now?--⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- What are you talking about? The blurb has now been pulled, and even before it was pulled, there was clear substantive opposition to the item even after its posting. Certainly doesn't reflect the attitude of ITN as a whole. Sometimes I wonder what exactly it is you're trying to prove through your snide commentary. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:47, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Andrew, there has been a discussion ongoing for at least 2 days at Talk:2023_Turkey–Syria_earthquake#Requested_move_7_February_2023 where you can actually change the situation by giving your input. Now, once again, being rude and insulting towards others because they haven't done what you have told is nlikely to actually bring about the change you want to see happen. --Jayron32 14:04, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- That move discussion has been closed too – "no consensus". Meanwhile the basketball matter continues to rumble on here – see below for the aftershocks. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:38, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Well, then there's your answer. Sometimes, other people don't agree with you, and you don't get your way. Being rude, I should note, doesn't actually change that. Both things are important to know about how the world works. --Jayron32 13:12, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- That move discussion has been closed too – "no consensus". Meanwhile the basketball matter continues to rumble on here – see below for the aftershocks. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:38, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Andrew, there has been a discussion ongoing for at least 2 days at Talk:2023_Turkey–Syria_earthquake#Requested_move_7_February_2023 where you can actually change the situation by giving your input. Now, once again, being rude and insulting towards others because they haven't done what you have told is nlikely to actually bring about the change you want to see happen. --Jayron32 14:04, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Aftershocks are earthquakes too. The article has a substantial section detailing the Earthquakes, plural. And there's even a separate page listing all the big ones. Our current blurb is misleading, giving the impression that there was just a single shock, rather than a succession of them. But, of course, it's moot now as ITN makes it clear that the important statistic is measured in hoops, not magnitude. Editors may freely discuss such sport and showbiz but discussion of the major disaster is forcibly shut down. Tsk. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
Food for thought - considering of importance/direness of existing blurbs
Not specifically to call out the LeBron record blurb relative to the Turkey/Syria quake, but there's discussion in the blurb that brings up a good point. I think we can all agree that the quake is a major disaster that we should treat with a bit of respect due to the huge death toll. Should news of that magnitude be placed "on a pedestal", to speak, when considering upcoming blurbs and whether they should be posted and if we should IAR-ly change the posting order to keep something like that on top for a few extra days? Sure, by Friday or Saturday, the topic will naturally fall out of the news and we should not hesitate to post newer blurbs above it, but we're still at a point that the extent of lives lost there is not yet fully known and likely more significant to readers than the LeBron WR.
Related, if we are not going to IAR-ly allow the topic of that importance to stay at the top, should we consider the relative merit of additional blurbs that may seem far less significant and hold off on posting those? Eg: as some arguments in the LeBron ITNC have pointed out, it can be seen as disrespectful and tasteless to promote an individual world record above the death of 10,000+ people. But on the other hand, that's how our processes are set up. Masem (t) 13:37, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think that it's better to divorce our processes from individual emotional response. We post the most temporally recent event at the top, we match the picture to the top most blurb, and that's it. We can't control other people's choice on how they want to feel about that (or anything), but it's best if we just stick to mechanical processes and not worry about whether someone calls something "crass". Thats a "them" problem, not an "us" problem. So long as we follow the established process, we're fine. --Jayron32 13:44, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Except it's not mechanical- human admins post things. No admin is obligated to take any administrative action, and one can just choose not to post something if they don't want something else bumped. If all admins feel the same, a shadow policy is in effect. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:28, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not really. Someone not noticing a task needs to be done is not a policy. This is a volunteer organization. If I am busy doing something else in my life, and therefore don't do some administrative task, I haven't set a 'shadow policy', whatever the heck that means. --Jayron32 15:35, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I didn't say "someone not noticing" I said "choose not to post." If consensus clearly supports something and an admin looking at the nom opposes, they can simple choose not to post it.They can also just oppose, thereby removing themselves from the pool of admins that could post. The number of potential admins at any time are limited, so if multiple admins opt out, posting can be delayed. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:01, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not really. Someone not noticing a task needs to be done is not a policy. This is a volunteer organization. If I am busy doing something else in my life, and therefore don't do some administrative task, I haven't set a 'shadow policy', whatever the heck that means. --Jayron32 15:35, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Jayron is correct. Some news is good, some news is bad. ITN is too much based on emotion as it is and should be as divorced from it as possible. If a "good news" blurb is posted above a "bad news" blurb, how is that different from how the major news orgs would do it? – Muboshgu (talk) 15:40, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Except it's not mechanical- human admins post things. No admin is obligated to take any administrative action, and one can just choose not to post something if they don't want something else bumped. If all admins feel the same, a shadow policy is in effect. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:28, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's an interesting idea, but where to draw the line is the question. Let's say we have a disaster that killed 5,000 people that's currently on ITN/C, say an earthquake in Haiti. But then the following day, we have a major tsunami in the Philippines that kills slightly fewer folks, around 4,000 people. Are we shuffling the blurbs around to account for this? Or what other factors would we be using? Like Jayron, I think that bringing human emotion into the ordering of blurbs will just result in more hurt feelings. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:46, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- The decision to pin a story and for how long would need to be subject to consensus. I don't think that is practical. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:32, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is exactly how the media manage their news reports on the front page, but this is an encyclopedia with a completely different goal. We post news in chronological order and that’s what ITN is. In case an event is still notable after its blurb has rolled off, then we have ongoing to accommodate it for its lasting notability. Ultimately, ITN’s goal is to direct readers to high-quality content through the prism of recent news, not to mimic BBC’s or AP’s front page. But even if we decide on invoking IAR, the idea might work in practice only if the notability margin is huge, which is not always the case and people will likely start debating whether something is more notable to go on top. We already have a lot of lengthy discussions on ITN-related pages, so we really don’t need to engage editors in new ones.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:54, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
"if we are not going to IAR-ly allow the topic of that importance to stay at the top, should we consider the relative merit of additional blurbs that may seem far less significant and hold off on posting those?" No. That's not how news works. If there was consensus to pin a story to the top for a few days, I could get behind that, but ignoring the rest of the world is insane. When something important happens, post it. -- Kicking222 (talk) 16:08, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment - I always find it strange that people balk at the idea of assigning relative significance to things, even in the RD sphere, where no individual has precedence over any other unless they are the rare case that qualifies for a blurb. Yet the entire premise of ITN is that we discuss and argue about whether things are significant or not, at ITN/C. So given that we already assign a binary yes/no to stories, why would it be so bad to additionally assign a "sticky" tag to certain entries of vital importance, again based on editor consensus? There could also be a sticky option at RD too, so that the "semi-important" individuals who don't quite make a blurb can still remain at the top of the list and present for a few days, rather than the here-today-gone-tomorrow system currently in use. — Amakuru (talk) 17:29, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I think that would be bad. Subjective opinions are already running amok as it is. Who is to say what is "vital" and what isn't? ITN has already devolved into little more than deaths, disasters, and whatever doesn't get gutted from ITNR. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:06, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- A major event like the quake should have top billing for a while. It would be strange indeed to post the quake and then an hour latter supplant it with a sports championship. The sports championship can be delayed a little, using admin common sense. In addition, when a disaster blurb has a major update, such as a big rise in the casualty total, in it could have its date reset and move back to the top (if yesterday's 5,000 deaths becomes 15,000 today, that's today's news because 10,000 dying in an earthquake is beyond a doubt an ITN level event). Jehochman Talk 17:45, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
The sports championship can be delayed a little...
There is no need to delay an otherwise ready blurb. A blurb can stay on top, if that is the community's consensus. —Bagumba (talk) 17:53, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- We shouldn't layer on another subjective process to ITN. Contentious ITN topics already attract low-quality responses that aren't always grounded in even basic facts. This idea would be inviting this kind of competition between a greater number of blurbs. In any case, there is some limited discretion for admins to reorder blurbs within the same day per WP:ITNBLURB and to keep the image of an older blurb. Significant developments might merit bumping a blurb back up, which arguably could apply to updating death tolls for major disasters where there is both a high quantity and reporting delay. Lastly, ITN blurbs with a great enough enduring significance can always be added to the ongoing section once they roll off if there is consensus to do so. Also, for what it's worth, by pageviews, the Turkish-Syrian earthquakes might have already fallen behind the Lebron record, at least temporarily. [4]---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 18:38, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I passionately believe we should separate ourselves from the emotional impact of events if we can because A. it opens Pandora's Box as to what we than feel a need to post or not and B. we have no reason to be bothered about this sort of PR. I believe the PR aspect of things has particularly come up in the past in regards to perceived biases with ITN, but that too is such a nebulous topic and we can't be too concerned about what people think about what types of postings we make because, ultimately, people will find something to be bothered by whether it's an intentional act or not that they are bothered by. Such as with this case, we can't appease everybody. As tragic as the earthquake has been, it's not the only event going on in the world. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:29, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Lanny Poffo Tragedy is subjective, I'll concur. While the earthquake is certainly bigger in death, destruction and coverage, the relatively quiet heart failure of this shoot interview mainstay left me without road stories I may have heard on YouTube. This isn't to say the article was, is or ever will be up to snuff, only to reiterate the obvious problem we each all have with caring about some things more than others. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:02, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I've always thought that newsworthiness is not given enough weight at ITN/C. I agree with the general sentiment above that in terms of significance, we should be considering candidates not only against some abstract bar, but also against the current crop of live ITN entries. To me, newsworthiness is determined by a combination of the absolute importance of the event and its recency. So if are deciding whether to post a marginal entry like a US mass shooting with 10 deaths, perhaps we post it if we'd be pushing off a two-week-old darts championship but don't post it if we'd be pushing off a one-week-old 8.0 earthquake. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I believe what we need is more objective criteria; select twenty major international news papers, and post the story if it is receiving sustained coverage in the majority of them. BilledMammal (talk) 00:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Better make it 21 (or something odd), nobody wants ties. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I loved your edit summary. Jehochman Talk 00:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I quite like that idea, although we do risk diving into WP:ITNGLOBAL territory by doing so. International notability shouldn't necessarily be required for any story, for there are national stories of great importance that may not necessarily receive international coverage, such as local disasters. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Local disasters could still be posted, they just wouldn't be given the preferential treatment (stickiness) of sustained global calamities. Unless I'm misunderstanding BilledMammal's master plan. I very well could be. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Very much against the efforts of ITN to fight against systematic bias to use an appropriate like this. We cannot use how much coverage a story gets as an indicator of post-worthiness because that will force the news to favor Western and English topics, and at the same time, stories that'd we'd never consider posting because they don't fit under NOTNEWS but are widely covered by the media (eg like the antics of the US House leadership election). There's no minimum requirement for importance save for appearing in a newspaper of positive repute. Masem (t) 04:47, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Better make it 21 (or something odd), nobody wants ties. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- We already have a method of pinning entries – it's the Ongoing section. These tend, by their nature, to be highly important. So, for example, we currently have an entry for the Russian invasion of Ukraine there and that still seems more significant and tragic than the earthquakes in Turkey. So, if you want to rank things by importance, we should consider putting Ongoing at the top (and surface its link to Portal:Current events). Andrew🐉(talk) 09:01, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Discussion at Village Pump
Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#In_the_news_criteria. Pawnkingthree (talk) 17:25, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for appropriately publicizing this. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)