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Old man dies?

Common refrain whenever a person of disputed importance kicks the bucket at a ripe old age, sometimes well past their peaks. We would unambiguously benefit from a WP:OLDMANDIES, since the argument is repeatedly deployed, but I want all of your thoughts on whether the policy states that this is a valid or invalid argument. I'm leaning towards the latter. Bremps... 02:50, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @User:GenevieveDEon and @User:InedibleHulk as the two editors whose dispute inspired me to propose this. Bremps... 03:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

We need a way of preventing the inevitable pile-on of American editors (our largest cohort) telling us how wonderful a person every dead basketballer, bseballer and American footballer was. Give Ron Barassi a chance. HiLo48 (talk) 03:11, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

As I've suggested before, there is a mostly objective start to evaluating the "great figure" blurbs, that being the article has clear, in-depth coverage of the person's importance, legacy, and/or impact, sourced to good quality RSes, and clear to a reader outside the field in place within the article, and that doesn't mean just simply being famous or a household name, nor simply having a lot of awards, nor simply having impressive stats from their sport. That should eliminate the bulk of the vague handwaving that many attempted blurbs noms get. It is not fully objective as there could be such content but considered thin, or the content doesn't exist but editors are working to expand it with long-form obits, etc. I will note the last several blurbs over the last month have had this type of feature, so it seems to be on the right track. Masem (t) 04:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Notable non-American Ismail Kadare is what got us here. Maybe lose the blinders. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 15:39, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Or that sports person last week who no-one had heard of? Secretlondon (talk) 17:33, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I've said it for dozens of people, some American, some wonderful, some neither. For me, at least, none of that matters. What matters is whether the proposed blurb goes Nationality-Job-Name dies at Age. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Your repeated assertion that no-one had heard of Willie Mays, in the teeth of the evidence, is not helping your position. GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Valid That's exactly what happens, most of the time. Sometimes it's a woman and sometimes we know a place and/or cause of death, but it's never much more than Old Someone Dies. I don't think I'm the sort of old man who needs some Mandy-lookin' guideline to tell me he has a point, though, so Oppose Codification Error. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:OMD is the quicker, less shouty and less likely to be misread as dirty laundry option, if something must sprout from this at all. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:42, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Good call. Bremps... 06:22, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There's always room for more 80s synthpop. Black Kite (talk) 07:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Or just redirect to WP:HUMOR. —Bagumba (talk) 12:08, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There's (usually) nothing newsworthy or funny about an old person dying. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I've always AGFed that it was an attempt at humor. Otherwise it seems just plain insensitive. —Bagumba (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

That really is the other issue - the more we see blurb shouts for RDs, the more insensitive comments we see while trying to argue the importance of a life/death, and in the immediate aftermath. Perhaps for that reason, having OMD link to a reasoned explanation would be valuable. Kingsif (talk) 22:23, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, either there is an "Old Man Dies" policy, and we all agree not to post the likes of Queen Elizabeth II dying, or there is no such policy, and we have to go through the grind of finding consensus via the ITN process - as for any other nomination to ITN. Option 3 would be to create a separate RD section, as several other Wikipedias have done, which would delegate the whole issue to those editors really caring about obituaries - but sadly this option has so far failed to gain traction. Khuft (talk) 21:51, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I've definitely shifted to "only blurb if the death is the story", so I'd say OMD is a valid argument summary. Every concept has exceptions, so I don't think Khuft's all or nothing is a concern for when actual legends do pass. Kingsif (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Note: I've just wracked my brain to come up with a currently-living legend who I think should incontrovertibly be posted just for dying, and the only one I could think of is Dolly Parton. So make of that what you will. Kingsif (talk) 22:15, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Paul McCartney? HiLo48 (talk) 00:15, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Mick Jagger. Or Patrick Stewart. Actually, probably William Shatner, too. BD2412 T 00:20, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

David Attenborough? Jimmy Carter? Thryduulf (talk) 00:54, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

For a real surprise, Keith Richards. HiLo48 (talk)

He, Hulk Hogan and anyone else dubbed "The Immortal" have some potential shock value. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:52, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Professional wrestling is a bit, erm, fake though. Secretlondon (talk) 11:13, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Not an endorsement, but so is acting. —Bagumba (talk) 11:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

thatsbait.gif Kcmastrpc (talk) 11:54, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

So the issue with all of these is that they 1) would need better arguments for opposing than merely "old man dies." We know it's normal for old men to die, but so are lots of things. But 2) do we really want to have a discussion on each of these, just after they died, just how significant their work/role was? I don't think a WP:OMD page could really help all that much, as it doesn't solve this second issue at all. At least when people currently post "oppose-old man dies," we can just ignore them and read the messages with meat to them instead. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:31, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

To wit, this is why I would only say Dolly Parton (maybe David Attenborough now he's been mentioned, too) - people I cannot imagine they would have any opposition based on the breadth of influence in multiple fields and pretty much every adult knowing about all that, i.e. someone for who there'd be no debate about the significance, so the discussion would probably (hopefully) be straight-up avoided. If it's not a completely incontrovertible post (and most will not be no matter how famous), that discussion would have to be had, and might get disrespectful, which is one of the (to be fair, lesser) reasons why I now almost wholesale do not endorse death blurbs just for dying and think that discussion of such should be discouraged. Kingsif (talk) 00:42, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I broadly agree with Maplestrip that the underlying issues are the need for better arguments, and the difficulty of having a well-sourced and concise discussion of someone's significance in the immediate aftermath of their death. Stylistically, I dislike the use of 'Old Man Dies' in place of a !vote in particular. It harms the readability of the discussion - broadly speaking, we expect editors' initial submissions in this discussion to start with 'Oppose', 'Neutral', 'Support', or similar. Starting it with a terse and slightly flippant summary of the story is less helpful. "'Old Man Dies' is a routine story and doesn't need to be given a blurb" is fine as an argument, and I sometimes agree with it, but it would be conducive to good, readable debate if we all acted like sensible editors rather than daytime talk show guests trying to pull out 'zingers'. Related to this is the problem that conducting our debates in clichés is a process with diminishing returns. I've argued against references to the journalistic 'bus plunge' concept in the past for the same reason - we should be treating stories on their merits, not on how they relate to canned concepts which encode a lot of cultural bias. GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:44, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Comment The old-man-dies argument is equivalent to opposing an item relating to a single country, which is listed on WP:ITNCDONT. Perhaps we can consider adding this as well in order to easily dismiss such unproductive votes in the future.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think they're similar, much less equivalent. OMD isn't in the Oppose family. It means someone wants an RD nom posted as a regular RD, if at all. Something like EXAMPLIANSGOHOME is nowhere near as Neutral, largely because there's no other place for uninational news. I think it's possible you might just want these sorts of votes more easily dismissed in the future because they've been producing results you don't like (not that there's anything wrong with that). InedibleHulk (talk) 09:54, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Why not just follow the aforementioned WP:MANDY and WP:NOTMANDY precedent where we have two opposing essays? I'd be willing to help draft NOTOLDMANDIES, and even OLDMANDIES though I don't agree with it.. Sincerely, Dilettante 18:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

You mention WP:MANDY and WP:NOTMANDY; but putting those in the same paragraph as the proposed WP:NOTOLDMANDIES and WP:OLDMANDIES draws my attention to the problem we get when words are converted to all-capitals run together without spaces, in that where do we imagine the missing spaces should be? Consider WP:OLDMANDIES - this might be construed as "Old Mandies", referring to several people named Mandy who are now drawing their pensions. Or perhaps Gary Oldman is no longer with us. You get the same thing with web domains except that it's all lowercase. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I think InedibleHulk brought that point up above, referring to the proposal as some Mandy-lookin' guideline. Either way, this is why Template:About exists and WP:OMD would circumvent this issue, while also sounding more respectful. Sincerely, Dilettante 23:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that having a page titled WP:OMD is not actually a bad idea. All it has to say is "this is not a fully-formed argument." That's pretty much the full text we should put on this page. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:34, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose OMD is a thought-terminating cliché and so encourages the opposing camps to chant such slogans at each other rather than presenting evidence and intelligently analysing it. It also seems deliberately rude and unpleasant, contrary to the ancient precept, de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Andrew🐉(talk) 06:16, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  I mightn't change how it seems to you or anyone else, but I can promise you all I've never deliberately used it dickishly. When presented with evidence of news that a man or woman has died at the age of 70-120 and nothing else, it's just beyond my poor brain to summarize any plainer.

  It is intended to terminate any immediate thought of posting everyday news of some old people dying and nothing else while using RD for other old people who too simply die. It has never stopped the next voter from weighing in with either reasonable counterargument or a contrary cliché ("global icon", "living legend", "one of the best") and sometimes leads to longer talks in less constrictive venues like this.

  All that aside, it's not clear (to me) whether you're supporting or opposing the creation of an OMD guideline. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:24, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  ... but I can promise you all I've never deliberately used it dickishly: As I said earlier, I had always AGfed on this. Now that there's been discussion on OMD, individiuals can decide if WP:RESPONSIBLE applies or not. —Bagumba (talk) 22:05, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  You said you AGFed it as an attempt at humour, not dickishness. I tried to clarify then, as I'm about to try now, it's not funny. If you're the sort of person who tends to view plain insensitivity as dickishness rather than distant objectivity, yes, I can see how this makes me look like the sort of person who'd do (what I consider) truly dickish things in an RD nom, like bring up the subject's moral, legal or artistic failings from years ago or oppose for all of their moral, legal or artistic ventures having been (arguable) failures. Sorry for that. From here on, rather than risk offensively amusing, bemusing or demusing anyone, I'll cast such votes as "OMD" alone, then follow up with anything else (if applicable). My Covered By Ongoings will also now appear CBO. If someone asks, another regular can explain how it's short for something. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:49, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  The relevant bullet point at WP:ITNRDBLURB is "Major figure", so "not a major enough figure" (it's unfortunate the community doesn't have more objective criteria) could be a counter. —Bagumba (talk) 23:24, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, but it's just not for me. I think a major figure (as I understand that crew) can die just as plain and simple a death as anyone. It's that I "go not gently" against, never the "hills and valleys" of life itself (as "a major dick" might). InedibleHulk (talk) 23:40, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

• If I am understanding what "Old man dies" here means correctly, it is just a shorthand way of saying: "While this persons life may have been very notable, their death in and of itself was not, and I think that means this should not be blurbed." According to WP:ITNRDBLURB: "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." This in no way invalidates the argument "The death was not notable in and of itself" as a reason to oppose (as some editors claim). All this says is that blurbs will be decided when "there is consensus" to post. Essentially, this allows two opposed viewpoints to have equal validity, which I think is a sub-optimal situation. Ideally, I think it would be best to hold a discussion on whether this status-quo should change. In the meantime, I don't have much of a stance one way or another on the use of "Old man dies", but it certainly could be misinterpreted, so I personally would refrain from using it. Gödel2200 (talk) 02:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  The death was not notable in and of itself: Is this referring to the cause of death, or the overall reaction after the death? —Bagumba (talk) 14:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Basically the cause of death or whatever effects the death may have, but some editors would also use the argument regardless of the reaction after the death. Gödel2200 (talk) 15:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I think people who argue that the major figure criteria was met accept that the cause of death was not notable. Perhaps you are arguing that their obituaries and coverage of their death is not prominent, and conclude that they must not be a major figure? —Bagumba (talk) 05:47, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the people who support RD blurbs usually accept that the cause of death was not notable. But other people can use this exact point, that the cause of death was not notable, as a reason to oppose, and both viewpoints are perfectly valid. What I am saying is that it is not ideal to let both opposed viewpoints have equal validity. Gödel2200 (talk) 11:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

But other people can use this exact point, that the cause of death was not notable, as a reason to oppose, and both viewpoints are perfectly valid.: I don't believe they are both valid. As written, WP:ITNRDBLURB allows blurbs for "Death as the main story" or "Major figures"; it does not require that both are necessarily met. Thus, "non-notable cause of death" arguments should be discounted, as it's not the only path to blurbing a death. (This is somewhat similar to how "not WP:ITNR" is not an accepted reason to oppose blurbing a recurring event".) —Bagumba (talk) 12:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:ITNRDBLURB of course allows for the deaths of major figures to be posted, but it does not require that discussion focus on whether the person has a large enough legacy to be posted. All it says is that the deaths of major figures "may" merit a blurb, and says that they are usually posted if "there is consensus that the death merits a blurb." This "consensus" certainly could include arguments in opposition due to something similar to "the death was not notable in and of itself"; there is nothing explicitly disallowing this. Gödel2200 (talk) 20:49, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Whi h is essential why there is this huge issue, because we make no attempt (inadvently I believe) to define how to treat a BLP as a major figure. We're it to me, my metric starts with the existence of a substantial, well sourced Legacy or Impact section, as to make it clear to the reader coming from the main page if why this person was listed as a blurb. But in plenty of ITNC nominations for urbs, some think that just bring famous or well known is sufficient, which I think has major bias problems and is far from objective. We likely should should try to put some reasonable expectations of what a great figure should demonstrate rather that leaving that nebulous term out there. Masem (t) 20:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

...we make no attempt (inadvently I believe) to define how to treat a BLP as a major figure: There have been plenty of attempts—its a perrenial topic. They just haven't led to a consensus more objective than the "sui generis basis" status quo.—Bagumba (talk) 23:42, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's be honest - the REAL issue here is we have more or less no criteria at all for who qualifies as worthy of a blurb when it isn't a "death as the main story" situation. I will say, again, for the umpteenth time, the best solution is to just allow such blurbs for when death is the main story. We have RD, we can list most deaths there. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, if there is no scope for multiple paragraphs of sourced prose (excluding quotes) about the person's death then that's a good sign that the death shouldn't be blurbed. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Unless the death is the main story (like an assassination), there's no requirement to have multiple paragraphs about the deaths for a blurb. There should be multiple paragraphs to justify the "great figure" reasoning for a blurb posting (which likely will include reactions from others in that field on news of the death to justify why the person was a great figure), and there of course should be an update to source the death, but many great figures die absent a prolonged battle with health or the like, giving no reason to have a huge block of text about the death specifically. Masem (t) 12:06, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

And if it were a requirement, some would try to game the system with an WP:EXAMPLEFARM of thoughts and prayers from social media posts. —Bagumba (talk) 12:37, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the major figures criteria of WP:ITNRDBLURB says that it is determined on a sui generis basis. —Bagumba (talk) 05:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

And this then means that it becomes a vote by the handful of editors that post their opinions at ITN. with the admins getting a supervote.

The clear fix for this is to give all such deaths a short description, as other languages do. The blurb/no blurb issue then largely disappears. Without any description, RD entries such as Ismail Kadare are useless because they are just a name that most of us don't recognise. His short description is just two words: "Albanian writer". How hard is that? Andrew🐉(talk) 19:56, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea to me. This post was made by orbitalbuzzsaw gang (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Aye. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:48, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Honestly surprised we don't do that. Bremps... 05:49, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Time for a NOTAVOTE warning on the Biden nom?

I may not recognise ITNC regulars as much as I used to, but that nom looks like it's attracting a lot more non-regulars (including usernames I recognise as being heavily involved in US politics), contributing quite a bit. I don't think there's anything untoward in their appearance, nor are they contributing negatively (so far, that I can see) - but might it be time to add the warning that 'arguments, not numbers are what matters', as is often added when a thread quickly gets as long as that one and has users making !vote arguments that may not relate to ITN? Kingsif (talk) 00:34, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Ironically, it's a lot of our regulars who I think are voting in manners that seem to violate rationale for voting, namely WP:ITNCDONT's 2nd item and what seems to be to rampant and overzealous violations of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, yeah, ITNC !votes play fast and loose with don't #2 all the time lol Kingsif (talk) 01:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I think saying something is applicable to a single country isn't unreasonable when you're simply using it as a contextual point relating to a larger argument about how great an event's impact is, but all of these arguments of "we wouldn't post such an event if it happened in another country" are lacking factual basis and arguably violate both rules. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:50, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

If we do add this, I would suggest also linking to WP:ITNATA. In the nomination, there are examples of nearly all of the types of arguments listed there. Gödel2200 (talk) 01:28, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

That whole nomination shows the issues I've been pointing out, that we need to keep fighting against systematic bias against US and UK-centric topics, particularly in regards to politics. In line with the section above (about ITNATA and number of media sources), we have to be far more cautious about these topics as they draw people that are not regulars to ITNC and thus not likely to be fully aware of the means that we make judgments of what should be posted. It separately also highlights the fact that we need better clarity about how we should be writing encyclopedic articles on current news events and avoid the excessive detail that the 24/7 media can give a topic, but that's an issue beyond ITN.

I do think we need to find some way to point out that the arguments in that ITNC, that is "we don't usually post pre-election cycle news" or that "we likely would not have posted the same thing if it happened in country X" (comparing to how we typically have handled the type of story in the past) is not the same aspect that the ITNATA #2 caution is meant to warn about the news being too country-centric (eg "This would only affect the US" type arguments). I have seen, not just here but before, ITNATA#2 thrown around willy-nilly just when a country is brought up, the nuance of when #2 actually applies requires a bit more insight. --Masem (t) 04:16, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I mean if we’re talking about the US bias, looking at the nom (and the fact it’s been posted) as someone who lived in the US a long time but is not from there, I think it shows not that Americans over-value their nation’s place in the world or anything, but that American media overinflates the importance of political minutiae and this makes Americans think those things are incredibly important. Because similar and much crazier pre-election erring would, IMHO, not be considered significant enough to even nominate to people anywhere else. Yes, the president of the US is important globally. No, the incumbent saying they’re not seeking reelection during an election cycle is by itself not. That it has become such a big story in the US is because of the media circus, not its actual importance. It’s not even that incumbents and candidates in other countries do far more outlandish things, which is true, but it wouldn’t matter: wherever the election is, the choice of candidate - let alone the steps taken in the process of choosing, short of murdering rivals (even then only maybe) - is a significant update for those following along, something to analyse within the context of the election, but not actual election news. Kingsif (talk) 05:05, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

A kind of broader point I wanted to develop more, and as some comments here touch on the general area I guess might as well put it here: In terms of population with English as a first language, the US tops the list by a country mile, followed by the UK, and past that Pareto principle is evident as the numbers rapidly decline. Given such, the notion that, "Many English-fluent people will consider US & UK domestic politics to be matters of interest, and English-language news media thus will often devote attention to such topics, and so events occuring in said will with reasonable frequency be 'in the news' in English-language media", does not to me seem very far-fetched. Is the purpose of ITN not things such as, help[ing] readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news?

I see some people expressing concerns over systemic bias leading to favoritism towards political matters in these countries. Now, what I find unclear in this: is the concern about, potential bias in Wikipedia itself, particularly its English-language verison, or is it concerning, English-language media in general, far beyond Wikipedia? Either certainly are valid issues for one to consider in need of attention—but as to the latter, I'm afraid Wikipedia has scarce little influence over what mass news media consider to be topics meriting coverage. Now I am all for devoting more attention on WP to topics from around the world; indeed if anything I think it's something more movement resources could stand investment in! But I am sincerely confused as to how ITN not making any mention of "major news events" which are in fact US/UK domestic politics-related, is envisioned as aiding in this objective. Perhaps, it's hoped people will notice the lack of ITN mention of political events, and decide to get involved contributing in expanding WP's coverage of them globally?

I would find it interesting and constructive to have more detail about what practices other language editions of Wikipedia have adopted regarding coverage of current events on their main pages. How many of them have something resembling ITN to some degree? Is there concern there over too much attention being given to politics in major countries where the project's language is a dominant language? Would much appreciate anyone who could take time to fill in some. --Slowking Man (talk) 06:41, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Funnily enough, the purpose you highlight is part of why I opposed. What is there to say except "Biden withdrew", realistically. People who know who Biden is and kinda know the election up to now, will know all they need from those two words. IMHO people coming to Wikipedia looking for information because they heard Biden withdrew, are more likely to be looking for information about the election or Biden's biography, not for the next or next-next level of detail. If the ITN blurb links those things then I suppose we're helping, but an article with little information on the withdrawal (because there's nothing much to say) and lots of (duplicated) background/potential future impacts, is, I don't think, what people who turn to Wikipedia after the news would expect. But it's a moot point now I suppose. Kingsif (talk) 10:57, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Unironically all three of those things are linked on the blurb. There isn’t a lot of information about the withdrawal because it literally just happened. More will develop this week. Kcmastrpc (talk) 11:15, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• The discussion in question has been closed now. The idea that the opinions of ITN regulars should have special consideration and privilege is contrary to general policies such as WP:CONLEVEL and WP:OWN. It appears that most other language Wikipedias that have an equivalent ITN section are running the same Biden story too – examples include Dutch, French, German, Russian and Swedish. This demonstrates the international nature of the topic and that we're doing the right thing by running it. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I don't know where you got the idea that anyone said ITN regulars should have some kind of privilege - the opening statement says there was no issue with the contributions of the non-regulars, just their appearance made the thread incredibly long, and that they may have been among those using inadvisable arguments. Kingsif (talk) 10:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  The problem with non-regular !voters at these "popular" ITNC discussions, which also include of recent the OJ Simpson death blurb as well as the past Betty White one, is that they are coming only to throw weight on their believed importance of the story, not familiar with all the subtlies we have developed over the years to know when to avoid media polarization of a topic, which conflates short term importance with long-term relevance that we should be more focused on for an encyclopedia and what should be in the ITN box as part of that. I don't want to say that ITNC needs to be closed off from non-regulars, but we need to remind non-editors what are not factors in determining a blurb posting, and make sure admins are discarding those !votes and not influenced by the vote count. — Masem (t) 12:03, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  This isn’t your country club, and you don’t get to demand that the subtleties you want enforced are upheld in your private area of the main page. That page belongs to all of us, not just the people who regularly gatekeep at ITN/C. nableezy - 13:01, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  While ITNC processes are open, they also have guidelines for how editors are to engage with them, and the problem with non regulars most of the time is that they are coming with !votes that are against or don't show arguments towards these guidelines. We expect participating editors to have familiarity with the written guidelines, and not just treat it as a vote. As noted, a large of of these were arguments that the story was propagated across numerous papers, which is a written argument to avoid. That's the type of problem that we get on topics that carry huge systematic bias from the media, and what we need to be working against to keep the ITN box from being a news ticker. And a further problem is that there was next to no discussion about article quality, which is a significant criteria. Not there was an issue here, but it should still be a discussion point in considering a blurb post. Again, that's what typically gets ignored by non regular voters that don't spend time to be familiar with the guidelines and treat the process as a vote. We can't gate ITN off but we have to also be ready to discount those !votes that don't follow the written practices. Masem (t) 13:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Many editors were also coming in with opposes based on "US/EU-centric" concerns, which are also covered in WP:ITNCDONT. With regards to WP:ITNATA, these seem to be suggestions, and even the premise we're discussing here is worded in a way that suggests it's not uncommon for the breadth of coverage to be discussed or regarded, just that it might be outweighed by other factors. A story highlighted in many newspapers or news channels has a good chance of being significant for ITN, but we do not base the posting primarily on how many such sites have covered it or consider it important. Kcmastrpc (talk) 14:24, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Written practices here follow actual practice, not the other way around. If consensus is against your view in a much more widely attended discussion then you cannot use some guideline page written by six users seeking to impose their favored standards over the wider community. nableezy - 14:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  The written practices follows the actual practice of how ITN runs when nominees are "run of the mill" and the participants are those that are regular or frequent contributors to ITN. When we have a massive influx of editors that have never or very infrequently participated in ITNC we suddenly don't bend our practices to follow their will if it doesn't follow the established practices. Same applies to all other consensus-based processes on WP like AFD, otherwise this would basically make all processes just a true popularity vote. Masem (t) 17:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I personally wouldn't compare AfD, a process that utilizes a number of actual Wikipedia policies and guidelines, with ITN, which runs off opinions and mostly unwritten rules. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 18:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  We still have written guidelines, for example, one that says we don't rely on how broadly a story is covered as a reason to post. The written guidelines are not absent here. Masem (t) 18:52, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  That guideline appears not to have much of a consensus besides some limited discussion with much less participation than any of these nominations. nableezy - 19:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  +1 to Nableezy. The "subtleties" , "precedent", "unspoken rules"—or whatever else you want to call them—around ITN are not something that the community has agreed on. They are the fantasies of a small handful of editors who have appointed themselves the arbiters of what news is "significant". WP:OR still applies to ITN, and users don't get to make decisions on their own about whether something is "significant" based solely on their own opinions. I'll go even farther and say that the people voting based on "this would/wouldn't be posted if it were [country]" are engaging in WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS behavior and should be made aware that they're risking a ban from ITN if they continue. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:16, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

"WP:OR still applies to ITN, and users don't get to make decisions on their own about whether something is "significant" based solely on their own opinions." To a certain extent I agree with this, in that factual statements of course require RS's on ITN. But as for whether or not something is significant enough for posting, OR absolutely does not apply here. If it did, ITN would not be able to exist. The process of deciding what should be placed on the main page of Wikipedia is inherently based off of editor opinion. Gödel2200 (talk) 17:52, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

We already have a policy on how to weigh the relative importance of things. A policy that, shockingly, favors how sources weigh it and not how whichever Wikipedia editors show up on a page at a time view it. nableezy - 18:15, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

WEIGHT applies to article content, but not to ITN which is trying to showcase quality WP articles that are topics currently in the news. For that reason we put more emphasis on the issues of systematic bias on how we present the encyclopedia compared to how the news media puts weight on a topic. It's also why WP:NOTNEWS plays a factor. So yes ITN relies a lot of the subjectivity of what stories qualify for ITN compared to what one would think WEIGHT would say for article content, but that's by design of ITN's goals as a main page box. Masem (t) 18:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

If that’s your view great, but then complaining that others subjective views aren’t in keeping with your subjective views on what their views should be is a curiosity I don’t think I can wrap my head around. Finally, please stop saying "we". Your views are your own, and your views are evidently not the consensus view given how the discussions you’re complaining about turned out. nableezy - 18:53, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

+1. I've had similar thoughts about Masem's ITN philosophizing over the last few months, and have previously suggested that they test the popularity of their unique views by proposing changes on this page. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

+2 InedibleHulk (talk) 21:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

If they were subjective views that started from the basis of ITN guidelines, that would be fine. But what we had were tons of comments that were along the lines "this is important because lots of sources are reporting on it", when we specifically had said that we don't consider how many sources report on a story as part of the reason to post. There is an expectation that subjective input to an ITNC does not recycle the reasons we have discounted at ITNATA. And I'm saying "we" because ITN guidelines were developed by community consensus over time, and certainly not by one person. Masem (t) 23:24, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Masem: we don't consider how many sources report on a story as part of the reason to post

WP:ITNSIGNIF: The number of unique articles about the topic (does each major news source dedicate its own reporting staff to covering the story, or are they all simply reposting the same article?) Levivich (talk) 23:38, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

ITNSIGNIF suggests that there should be a minimum number of unique articles on it, but then we state in ITNATA that A story highlighted in many newspapers or news channels has a good chance of being significant for ITN, but we do not base the posting primarily on how many such sites have covered it or consider it important. If anything, that means simply saying a story is important because of source article count without any other arguments to support is not an argument to use because it doesn't address the other points of significance or the quality aspect. So yes, I will clarify that we do not consider solely the number of articles that cover an ITN topic as a main reason to post. That still creates the issue that a number of !votes in the Biden story were exactly of this nature. Masem (t) 04:48, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

The problem with this is that, while ITNSIGNIF is a guideline, ITNATA is simply saying what is usually done. This leaves open the possibility of ITNATA changing based off of what gets said at one discussion, and it certainly doesn't disallow those arguments at listed ITNATA. In fact, ITNATA even explicitly says this: "Any user may, of course, support or oppose a candidate for any reason." Gödel2200 (talk) 15:09, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

The community consensus doesn’t seem to agree, given how much larger discussions about individual nominations have gone. nableezy - 01:29, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree with nableezy. Where in the guidelines does it say that ITN should place a strong emphasis on the issues of systematic bias? I see this cited a lot but don't know where this comes from. Honestly, there needs to be a centralized discussion somewhere to generate some clear policies and guidelines for ITN, so that it stops being [run] off opinions and mostly unwritten rules as Ed states. From what I can tell, the only guideline being followed is the one for article quality, but otherwise whether something gets posted is just based on who votes. Natg 19 (talk) 19:08, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

In principle I would agree with this (holding a discussion on making more explicit guidelines), though I think we will find that there are very few guidelines to add. Beyond fairly general guidelines at ITNR, each story, being unique, must be evaluated on its own merits. Gödel2200 (talk) 20:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but those "things" which the policy applies to are RS's. So, we certainly should keep that in mind when making factual statements about the story in the nom, but the decision to post is ultimately our decision. Gödel2200 (talk) 20:13, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• ITN discussions are a vote. There is no other way to assess them, given a complete absence of guidelines. The "arguments to avoid" are only a suggestion, and not something I'd expect admins to use as a means of discarding editor's viewpoints. Similarly, precedent and convention are often useful tools for persuading others of the merits of a particular course of action (for example whicj deaths to blurb and who not to), but again the participants can choose to chart their own course if they wish. Even ITN/R items are occasionally voted down if enough people object. I don't like the decision to post the Biden withdrawal, but it's hard to say there isn't a valid consensus for it.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:57, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a fair point. However we claim that Wikipedia is not a democracy, most of the decisions are made through democratic means. Admins usually cannot divorce from a simple vote count when measuring consensus, which may be due to a myriad of factors (e.g. unwillingness to thoroughly examine a discussion, reluctance to overturn a vote count, difficulty to weigh arguments against votes, bias in assessing certain arguments etc.). The only sensible option we can do is introduce some criteria on who can vote on an ITN nomination so that we discard votes from IP addresses or newly registered editors.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

That doesn’t seem sensible because ITN is an entryway for many seasoned editors on this site. Disallowing or “nullifying” participation because newcomers aren’t welcome seems harmful at best, malicious at worst. Kcmastrpc (talk) 11:19, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

How can you make sure that those newly registered editors aren't sock accounts? What's the chance that a newly registered editor will start editing by voting on ITN nominations? In the context of ITN, "newcomers" are editors who have editing experience elsewhere on the project, but weren't involved in discussions on ITN nominations. Newly registered editors whose first edit is a vote on an ITN nomination are most likely single-purpose scrutiny-evading sock accounts. Finally, you can make the same argument that disallowing editors to vote for an admin is harmful or malicious, but functionally it's not and there's a reason why it's the case.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

fwiw, I found the spark to edit because of ITN when it was too little too late to have Goo Hara posted up on RD. – robertsky (talk) 12:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Whether or not an editor becomes an administrator vs. what gets posted on the front page for a few days just doesn't seem all that comparable to me. Kcmastrpc (talk) 14:25, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it's not comparable. Our readers care what appears on the main page, not who has additional privileges in the background, so we should be stricter with decisions on what to post.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:29, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Amakuru, ITN is not exempt from the policy at WP:DETCON. If anyone is treating it like a straight vote without weighing policy, then they're not qualified to be participating at ITN, especially the ITN admins. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:59, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The majority of admins don't abide by WP:DETCON and WP:NOTDEMO, and some of the reasons can be found in brackets in my first comment on this thread above. Yes, it means that they're not qualified to be participating at ITN, but it's our fault that we're doing nothing to prevent it. In the same way some editors got a topic ban from participating at ITN in the past, we can consider partially banning admins from measuring consensus and posting at ITN. However, the problem is that we already have very few active admins on ITN, so this is highly unlikely to get sufficient support.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:09, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

No, this page cannot ban somebody from ITN, that’s a decision for the wider community at WP:AN. If you would like to argue that your favored criteria weren’t followed so can we ban such and such from the page by all means. nableezy - 18:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't say we should ban people on this page, and we're not talking about someone's criteria here.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:33, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

You literally said "we can consider partially banning admins from measuring consensus and posting at ITN." ~~ Jessintime (talk) 18:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and that can be discussed only at WP:AN. We cannot decide whether to ban people on this page, but it doesn't mean that idea cannot be brainstormed here. Anyway, it won't happen. We don't have enough admins to regularly post items, so it's not very practical to clamp down on the active ones.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

So we should ban people, not because they're disruptive, but because they're going against the supposed groupthink? Orwell would be proud. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 19:01, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

No, we should ban admins from posting ITN items on the main page if there's evidence of bad posting (of course, this doesn't mean that they'd lose the admin privileges). For instance, an admin has recently failed to notice a clear consensus for posting a blurb and the same admin pre-maturely posted an item whose article's quality was voiced as problematic by the majority of editors participating in the discussion.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:25, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The reason non-regulars come to ITNC for these high-profile noms is to help the regulars avoid making a mistake. When it matters more, more people care: this is the system working as intended. Levivich (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't follow what's being railed against here at all. Of course, if there's a specific policy or guideline being breached by a vote at ITN/C, e.g. WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:NPA or anything else then it can be discarded or struck as anywhere else. But the vast majority of comments are not of that nature and the dispute is between "I think this should be posted" and "I don't think this should be posted". And such items are always verifiable and covered in sources, the decision is only whether the item meets our complex conditions for sifting the thousands of daily news stories into a trickle of blurbs. As I said above, there aren't any applicable policies to make that decision, and for the most part admins have to go with the numbers because there's nothing else to judge. I do think there are a few admins who post things based on personal preference when the numbers are roughly 50/50, and I do think we should default to not posting in that instance, but otherwise I'm not sure why the admin corps is being blamed for something here and I'd be interested to know the specifics of the complaint.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:19, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

As I already mentioned in my last comment above, an admin recently failed to notice a clear consensus for a blurb and the same admin pre-maturely posted another item with a problematic article quality-wise. But that's not the main problem. It's just a reflection of what many admins pretend to be against what they should be on the project. I think it's much more problematic that admins resort to vote count to measure consensus, which paves the way for someone to easily game the system by creating a dozen of accounts with the purpose of influencing the voting process. In case when the admins aren't efficient in preventing this from happening, the most sensible solution would be to introduce some voting criteria as a preventive measure.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:41, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kiril Simeonovski: While I agree that all admins should be reading discussions and finding consensus from that, I've got to ask if there has ever been a time when an article was published to ITN thanks to the efforts of "a dozen [sock] accounts"? Very bluntly, that sounds like electoral integrity fearmongering. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know. But it's a potential risk, not really fear-mongering. A newly registered editor whose first edit on the project is a vote on an ITN nomination is immediately suspicious as a potential single-purpose scrutiny-evading sock account, and I've noticed this happening in heated discussions before.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The illegals are voting! Should we like have voter IDs now? Howard the Duck (talk) 14:21, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I fear that this is one of the last chances to do something preventive in the AI transition period, which would reduce the incidence of controversial decisions that spark endless discussions. Otherwise, editors who feel exhausted from such discussions would very soon support the introduction of AI to make admin decisions on Wikipedia and save time spent in the secondary namespaces. Furthermore, those willing to harm the project may have additional incentives to use AI in order to game the system in the absence of stricter policies. That's definitely not what we want because it has the potential to completely ruin the community health. You're invited to join the live stream of the lecture "Defending our wikis against weaponized generative AI" at this year's Wikimedia CEE Meeting.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:50, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Time to move on Seriously, the time that has been spent on this discussion is just plain ridiculous. The consensus didn't go your way - well, tough, that happens. Ismail Kadare didn't get blurbed either - should I throw my toys out of my pram now? Next time it will go the other way, no worries. But don't spread your bile on the poor admins that have to read through pages and pages of comments and try to deduce a consensus for any particular nomination, just to be pilloried immediately afterwards. Be happy there are still admins willing to adjudicate ITN nominations. Khuft (talk) 19:16, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'll be happy when we get an admin (human or taskbot) willing to change the picture daily, like they do for the other three corners of this "digital world". Truly happy, anyway. I'm happy enough right now about routine adjudication. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:33, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

ITN archives are ready

Hello. ITN archives are now fully ready at Wikipedia:In the news/Posted/Archives. But the older archives look a little different because of the style/method/MOS of those days. If you guys want to make some changes to that, let me know, if possible I will do it with AWB or create some new program. —usernamekiran (talk) 14:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much!! Masem (t) 15:00, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your work. A follow-up question: do we really need all updates of the posted blurbs?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:54, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that was an acceptable false positive to make the algorithm easy to capture all major changes to the template. Masem (t) 13:44, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: Thank you! This is excellent work. I plan to go through some of the early archives to see whether there's still any cleanup needed. The last time I checked there was an issue with images.

I think a next step is to make sure that editors and readers will be able to find that these ITN archives exist. A good first step would be to edit Template:ITNbox (protected). I think it would also be useful to update the header boxes on the ITN/Candidates monthly archive pages to include a link to the associated ITN/Posted archive page. Something like this: Special:diff/1236511058, but maybe some better wording could be found. Unfortunately, it's not like a single template edit can fix it, it has to be done for every month subpage individually. (Perhaps the ITN/C archive header should be a template for this reason? Would also be good to have prev and next links.) 98.170.164.88 (talk) 03:40, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

100m dash

Was just wondering if this should be posted individually. the men's final is the biggest single sporting event in 4 years (3 after tokyo). Like in tennis, one can add the women's too for fairness.

FYI its not a bias to me, since i'm not a runner. The equivalent would be in the pool, but that's obviously not as big. Sportsnut24 (talk) 13:17, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm thinking if there'd be an actual sports ITNR about the Olympics this has to be it. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:22, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I guess i can then apply in the nominations for it? Sportsnut24 (talk) 07:45, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Olympics ongoing

It makes no sense to link ongoing to the main olympics page that doesn't have regular updates. the Chronology page is updated throughout each day of the games.Sportsnut24 (talk) 20:28, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Aye. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:32, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Does that mean it will change? Sportsnut24 (talk) 20:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Nay (not exactly). InedibleHulk (talk) 20:47, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

The Chronology page is not up to quality standards, though since I last looked since posting, its gotten better (with completed events getting sourcing as they go along). But the pre-ceremony days should have sources by this point to say those events happened, even if no further summary could be made. Masem (t) 20:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

There are more ongoing updates there than the main page. Obviously, you can't have updates before the games begin. What would you update?

This has updates officially.Sportsnut24 (talk) 22:19, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not looking at future events, as the schedule has been posted. I'm looking at pre-opening ceremony days which we should be able to source now that they happened with third-party sources. Masem (t) 22:54, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I don’t get what kind of sources are missing for the pre-opening ceremony days when there are simply general narrative sentences that are extracted from the schedule above, which is sourced. We don’t need sources that the sky is blue.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:06, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I have added the refs to say after the events happened that they actually did occur, even if there were no medals or the like awarded. For example, one of the first new worlds records was broken in the first archery competition, and while that's not listed on the chrono page, we should clearly have a source to do that. Given that the other events are all being actively updated in real time with sources as they happen post-opening ceremony, there's zero reason to not have sources for those first pre-opening days.
This was done on the 2020 page, and now that its done, I've added to the ongoing. — Masem (t) 23:04, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Is it ready to change to this link instead of the main page that doesn't have the regular updates?

I imagine sunday after next it will be replaced with the closing ceremony in the main box? Sportsnut24 (talk) 07:47, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

As I've said, the ongoing now has the main olmypics article and a sublink to the chronology article. Masem (t) 12:06, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Adding new UNESCO World sites as ITNR

based on the current nom, it seems there is reasonable support that when UNESCO meets and declares new UNESCO sites, that should be recurring. There's clearly coverage of it, but I think the only issue is to identify what a target article should be. The main article World Heritage Sites is a good article, but its not the one updated. The main updated one is List of World Heritage Sites by year of inscription but that's not really a helpful article besides organization (eg its why we dont link to notable main award pages in lieu of the recieptient). As suggested by the current nom, it seems to make sense to figure out which of the new sites have a quality article (the higher quality, the better) and use at least one to promote the item as ITNR, usually being of quality prior to the UNESCO selection. I'm tossing this open to see if there's agreement to that. — Masem (t) 00:42, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

The way I see it, this won't work, having had plenty of experience with WHS lists. First, the target list article will never have prose updates in that shape (what would perhaps work would be entries of the type of the lists for individual countries, with pictures and descriptions, but that is a massive undertaking). And the list itself is inaccurate, as I mentioned on ITNC, for example, some sites that are later expanded to include more countries, are listed incorrectly. In my opinion, ITN-relevant WHS-related stories would be removals from the list (Liverpool, Elbe Valley) or significant damage to the sites (Palmyra comes to mind). True, these are on the negative side, but just listing a bunch of new sites is incremental. Tone 06:47, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there really no prose update possible? Isn't there much to say about the event in which these additions are made, how the choices are made, what themes are represented, etc? I don't know anything about WHS really, but surely there's something different about every new wave of additions besides just the specific items? Alternatively, is there information we could add to the articles on the monuments themselves? New protection guidelines or funding or such? Featuring the individual monuments might be just as good, if not better. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:32, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Check for example List of World Heritage Sites in Australia, a FL. Nomination process is the following: first, sites are placed on the tentative list, then, after a series of evaluations and recommendations, they can be inscribed. There is no consistent theme per year or similar, it depends on what nominations the countries put forward. Tone 13:07, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Sourcing lists of works

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lists of works regarding sourcing lists of works - in particular looking at how RD nominations often ask for lists of works to have inline citations before being approved. The thread is Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Lists_of_works#Are_references_required_for_lists_of_works? Thank you. Vladimir.copic (talk) 00:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Checking-in on this thread. Was there an update there on sourcing guidelines for lists of works? Thanks. Ktin (talk) 16:59, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not see consensus there that overrides the WP:UNSOURCED policy, particularly for:

material whose verifiability has been challenged

—Bagumba (talk) 00:12, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 00:23, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Main page balance

The main page was unbalanced and I had a quick look whether a fifth hook could be promoted from ITN. I don't have time to sort through the Venezuela candidates, hence have picked an additional item from OTD. If somebody has time to look at the ITN candidates and it does make sense to have a fifth item, simply revert my edit to the OTD item. Schwede66 00:44, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Currently 2 options: RD or RD/blurb. How about a 3rd option: RD/photo but no blurb?

• The recent RD posting for William Anders, who took the Earthrise photograph is a good example of option 3 as a good compromise. Why? The photograph (Earthrise) is more famous than the photographer. And because no consensus was reached to blurb the RD for Anders then the photograph of Earthrise could’ve been posted under ITN. Then for the RD posting : William Anders (Earthrise photographer). This is not a blurb. It’s a compromise: halfway between an RD and a RD/blurb. Another example of this 3rd option when opinion is evenly split: post the RD photo at the top of the ITN section, but no blurb. This is already done on the German and French Wikipedia sites. Trauma Novitiate (talk) 04:28, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

  I'm leaning oppose because it would be counterintuitive to direct the viewer's attention from a prominent photo in the top left to a far less prominent name slot in the lines below. If someone is important enough for an image associated with them to appear in ITN, they should get a blurb. Otherwise, RD. Bremps... 18:20, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

• Superb InedibleHulk (talk) 01:01, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support. This is actually a good proposal. I remember proposing it a few years ago. Unfortunately, it did not find too many takers. Ideally I would want to see the admins having a liberty to pick and choose images from blurb articles (which they already do) and the RD carousel. Ktin (talk) 01:37, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per all the previous times it has been rejected. The photo illustrates the most recent blurb that we can illustrate, directing attention to it - RD is a supplement that is less important than a blurb (by definition and design), also RD vs blurb is contentious enough as it is without adding a third option to argue over. Finally, if photos of anything other than the deceased person were permitted, this would make visual artists a super-class of people who are more notable than others contrary to NPOV. Thryduulf (talk) 12:09, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support, though it didn't go well when I actually tried to do it once (the overwrought reaction near the bottom was splendid, you'd think I'd replaced the Main Page with porn images). Here is what happened at ERRORS, and here is the discussion at this venue, which ended up around 50% Support/Oppose. Black Kite (talk) 13:04, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

  If you read the reaction from readers at errors you will note widespread confusion and objection. Saying that someone whose isn't important enough to blurb is more important than any of the news stories that did get a blurb just doesn't make sense. Thryduulf (talk) 13:51, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

  I read the link Black Kite provides to the error page. These issues will not be resolved. The problem is that Recent Deaths falls under the In The News section. So usually consensus will not be reached on RD/blurb or RD/photo without creating a logjam. The only way to avoid this logjam is that Recent Deaths should have its own section on the Main Page separate from the In The News section. Just like the German Wikipedia does on their main page (eg. Kürzlich Verstorbene). - Trauma Novitiate (talk) 15:41, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support, the first one could be Donald Sutherland. BilboBeggins (talk) 17:25, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

  If he wasn't rolling off this Carousel of Souls in a few hours, yeah, in theory. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:28, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The photo slot is for actual in the news items, not old people who've sadly died. If there were a proposal to start having "sticky" RDs that stay for longer than the usual time slot, and/or. "necrology" section with an optional photo that's separate from the main ITN photo, as fr-wiki has, then I might be on board. But photo RDs in the current setup are a nonstarter.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:02, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
• IAR I see no harm in having a photo of an RD whom is reasonably significant (not blurb-level but still more than most run-of-the-mill BLPs featured), but only if the main photo hasn't been rotated in a while (like, 48 hrs) and there's no good photo for the other blurbs that are present or haven't already had a photo. but this is with the expectation that this type of photo would be changed out in a short period of time (24 hr) by other possible photos. --Masem (t) 18:25, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support An excellent idea. Note that in addition to Black Kite's precedent mentioned above, this also occurred in February 2020. Davey2116 (talk) 11:05, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

  Aha! Thank you for that. I didn’t know about the Kirk Douglas photo on ITN. Setting precedent again. I think if we had the option RD/photo, this maybe would quell the excessive rancor amongst us ITN editors/voters. And find a better solution to this process. -Trauma Novitiate (talk) 11:49, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support because why not try it out. Levivich (talk) 05:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
• Support I agree with others above that this is a good idea and so we should try it more often. Shelley Duvall seems a good example – a reasonably famous movie star like Kirk Douglas, with a distinctive face. I couldn't place the name so easily as I confuse it with other Shelleys like Shelley Winters and Shelley Long. And a picture is worth a thousand words. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:46, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose largely per Thryduulf, though I would not be opposed to a somewhat stricter version of Masem's proposal, namely that in the somewhat rare case that none of the blurbs have an appropriate free image, than an RD photo would be appropriate if there is consensus to do so. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 17:54, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
• Question An admin has proposed we properly close this, forming a pointable consensus that Photo RDs are sometimes allowed. I don't know how that all works. Do any or all of you? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:55, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

  The "issue" here is that there no consensus. There is an 8:4 !vote count, but as we all know, votes != consensus. Natg 19 (talk) 02:17, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

• Question What would be the proposed changes to the current wording of WP:ITNIMAGE:

  The picture should be for the uppermost blurb. It may be for a lower blurb if no eligible picture is available for a higher blurb. The picture's caption and the parenthetical (pictured) direct readers to the context for the picture.

  How would we decide when not to use the topmost blurb? When would it be an RD item over a lower blurb, or visa versa?—Bagumba (talk) 20:58, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'm thinking we run through the blurbs, one per day, then move on to RDs once stuck. Bottom to top, for both. We might write this down where the old opening sentences are or just start with the line about the caption (and parenthetical). InedibleHulk (talk) 19:22, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

  I‘d suggest establishing consensus on these specific details. —Bagumba (talk) 13:41, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  Per my question above yours, I don't know how to establish consensus. Bottom-to-top is already the time-tested order for blurbs and I've not seen anyone suggest this go backward. Likewise, I've not seen anyone suggest another way for Photo RDs and nobody but you even wonder, so (should this idea somehow escape the planning stage) would already consider oldest-to-newest (i.e. bottom-to-top) the default preference. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:29, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  Bottom-to-top is already the time-tested order for blurbs ...: No, the "time-tested order" has been to post an image for the topmost blurb. I have no preference if this should change or not, but I'm not sure what "bottom-to-top" is expected to mean as far as admin actions are concerned. —Bagumba (talk) 04:20, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

  When the topmost blurb is pictured, the blurbs beneath it have been pictured. "Oldest-to-newest" might have been clearer, but I was trying to allow for situations where we've cycled through all eligible items and start again at the oldest (bottom/lowest/earliest). It would make less sense to start at the newest RD and "work down" the list, because the turnover is faster and the first posted ("last in line") would "roll off" and "miss its turn". If we haven't reached the upper/newer Photo RDs by the time a picturable blurb shows up, that's fine; illustrating the blurb should take precedence. After that photo has gotten stale (one day, two days, we're still undecided), we'd go "back to the bottom" (RD subset) and "work our way back to the top" (so as not to give previously pictured items "another turn" before those yet unshown). InedibleHulk (talk) 23:08, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The top blurb with a suitable pic should be the one pictured per years of precedent, and never a photo RD. Perhaps if there were genuinely no blurbs with a pic, it might be better than nothing, but that seems a bit of an edge case. Other than that, absolutely not.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:04, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

  I know it's been a while and you're an admin, but still, you've already voted. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

  Ah yes, apologies! This really is an old conversation and I forgot I'd contributed... Mind you, I do like the old adage that one should vote hard and vote often 😏  — Amakuru (talk) 23:25, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

  Fun Fact: I was edit conflicted while trying to do this for you (it was the overly "cryptic" apology that slowed me down). I'm glad it did and happier still to see you "do the right thing". As far as off-Wiki entirely technically democratic power grabs go, you do you! InedibleHulk (talk) 23:33, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

• Comment - Excellent feedback on this topic (that I proposed nearly 2 months ago). I didn’t realize that administrative procedures could be altered due to a proposal made on this Talk page. Is that true? Yes or no? If it is true, how do we move forward from here? Anybody know? If so, thank you. Trauma Novitiate (talk) 20:46, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

  My read: To me, this reads like a successful proposal to allow for the main page picture to be selected from one of the RD nominations as well. The proposal obviously did not discuss the mechanics of how it would be enabled. But, I think this is something that can be worked out by the posting admins. At the minimum this proposal allows for a Wikipedia:IAR to have the posting admin select a picture from one of the RD nominations. I would even encourage rotation of pictures as proposed downstream and selecting pictures from RD nominations as needed to enable freshness of the mainpage. Ktin (talk) 00:47, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

  At the minimum this proposal allows for a Wikipedia:IAR ...: IAR is already a policy; a proposal was not needed to "allow" it. However, it seems the devil is in the details. There's no proposed wording at this point on how a photo RD is expected to be posted by an admin. For example, is it only:

  • If there are no other photos for a blurb?
  • If a blurb photo is stale (how many hours?) and there are no other blurb photo candidates?
  • If an ITNC RD nom has consensus to post its pic, which could even be allowed to supersede an available, non-stale blurb image?
  • Is it truly left to admin discretion?

  A proposal with specfic wording is needed, along with a clearer consensus for said wording.—Bagumba (talk) 02:05, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

  To me, this reads like a successful proposal to me it reads like a proposal that failed to gain consensus. We are equally INVOLVED so let's wait for someone who isn't to determine the outcome. Thryduulf (talk) 15:15, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

The Dark, Blue Sea

I've been trying WP:dark mode on my phone as I gather that this uses significantly less battery. The main visual effect I notice is that the blue links tend to be less prominent as they have poor contrast with the dark background.

What I also notice is that ITN is a sea of blue. In the current example (pictured), more than half the words in the section are blue rather than white. And subsections like Ongoing and Recent Deaths are a solid mass of blue. We tend to criticise articles which are listicles without much prose and yet ITN does the same thing.

One reason for this is that ITN has a more compressed format than the other main page sections. This seems to be driven by the absurd desire to balance the entire main page which is meaningless in the mobile view, which most of our readers use. This is not ITN's problem or responsibility and so we should give more priority to making ITN look good.

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:38, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

The same could be said for OTD in dark mode, and both sections present similarly in desktop mode, so its not a mobile aspect. That's likely not going to change anything. SEAOFBLUE is more applicable when it becomes difficult to read prose because of too many unnecessary links, and arguably the only bit of prose on the main page overall is the summary of TFA, everything else are single sentences or snippets and all involving unrelated events or aspects, and as such, demand the type of linkage we typically do. So there's really nothing that we really need to do. Masem (t) 12:02, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Interesting thoughts, and thanks for sharing them Andrew. I do think we could think more critically about what we're linking in ITN. The point is to draw readers to the bolded articles that are actually in the news, and as far as I'm aware user research inside and outside Wikimedia shows that readers have trouble when there are too many hyperlinks on a page. From the example photo you shared, I imagine we could drop the following links without much loss in reader comprehension:

• Prime Minister of Bangladesh: Most readers will know what a prime minister is, and that's all you need to know to understand the blurb. AKA WP:OVERLINK's politician bullet point.
• Southport: Do we need to specify the town? Readers only need to understand that a previous mass stabbing in the UK caused riots.
• Tehran: Per WP:OVERLINK's settlements or municipalities bullet point. Enough readers will have heard of the capital of Iran.

More generally, we could also really think about leaving links off when they are prominently and immediately linked from the article that's in the news. That could apply to things like natural disasters, where the affected location(s) will always be in the first sentence and in an infobox. Another example could be the recent Irish football finals blurb could have left off the long link to All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, as that was and will always be one of the first links in the article. Notably, though, I don't think the current "anti-government protests" link in Andrew's example photograph is a good candidate for removal under those thoughts. To get to that link from the bolded article, you have to find it at the bottom of the first paragraph in the lead. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 22:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Breadth of news coverage

Despite the fact that the last bullet point on WP:ITNATA explicitly states Arguments addressing how many international newspapers/news channels are or are not covering the story on their front page or main webpage…, there are many editors listing news outlets as their primary argument to support a nomination, and there are even admins who accept that argument when measuring consensus. Sometimes these arguments come from editors who are not regularly contributing to ITN and may not be familiar with all criteria. Shall we add this to WP:ITNCDONT so that it becomes more apparent?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd favour that. I don't want to see arguments about how many hits the target page is getting, how many websites covered it, how big the font of the covers of the tabloids was, or any of this circumstantial stuff. The arguments need to be about what the story is and and how well-evidenced it is. But the well-evidenced bit is found in writing a good article about it, not spamming the ITN discussion with bare links. GenevieveDEon (talk) 21:23, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

This absolutely needs to be stressed on ITNCDONT. Looking at the breadth of coverage only really becomes important when there's a more localized incident as to make sure it has been covered to some broader degree, and then once that line is crossed, it should not matter how much it is covered. Same would be positioning as "top story" or "front page", that factor doesn't matter at all in how we chose stories. Masem (t) 21:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

• Support The number of international news sources covering a story is mostly irrelevant to ITN, and the number of international new sources with the story on its main page is entirely irrelevant. After it has been established that the story is, in fact, in the news, most of the discussion about notability should center around the significance of the story, which is not at all influenced by the story being on the main page of newspapers. Gödel2200 (talk) 21:50, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I will also note that WP:ITNSIGNIF explicitly disallows arguments relating to how many newspapers feature the story on their front page: "Caution should be taken when assessing news sources for prominence, because most major news outlets provide individualized experiences for each user, based on geography and browsing history. What one user sees as a top headline may be buried for others, and vice versa. Do not assess whether a story is "prominent" or not based on where you see it reported on major news websites for this reason." so I do not understand the arguments of editors saying it is valid to base an argument off of the location of the story. Also, I think some editors in opposition to this change are actually in opposition to saying arguments should not discuss the breadth of coverage, but the question right now is whether we should add arguments based off of the location of the coverage (on the news site) to ITNCDONT. Gödel2200 (talk) 15:02, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm in favor as well. I don't see how these arguments are any more helpful than the other sorts we have in ITNCDONT. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:41, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

• Hard oppose, and remove that from the itncrit as well. Guidelines are supposed to follow practice, not be a way for the insiders to declare special rules that all must follow in their walled garden. The fact that people think it matters how wide and deep the coverage of something is in relation to posting means the guidelines should follow that practice, not be changed so that it is disallowed. nableezy - 12:57, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• Repeal the statement in WP:ITNATA cited by the OP. In the recent case of the Biden withdrawal, the posting admin stated that "I was particularly swayed by those who pointed out that Biden's decision has had truly substantial global coverage in some of the world's largest news outlets thanks to its ability to impact a large number of countries, all of which speak to WP:ITNSIGNIF." Evidently, pointing to news coverage can be an effective argument and so, per WP:NOTLAW, our guidance should reflect this. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:59, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
  • FYI: that line referred to the four bullet points under "other principles may be helpful" at WP:ITNSIGNIF that refer to depth, uniqueness, and update frequency in top-tier news outlets. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:38, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
• Remove per nableezy and Andrew Davidson. I don't understand why we wouldn't use the breadth of coverage to judge the newsworthiness of a topic. If newspapers around the world are covering a story, and our counterparts in other languages also deem it worthy enough for their front pages, we need a pretty good reason to not do the same. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 19:05, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
• Given how often the argument "it's not covered in international news" is used to shoot down very US-centric nominations, it's laughable that this time, when it has been used the other way round, there's a clamour to discard the "breadth of coverage" criterion. It's also disingenuous to claim that editors used that as the only argument - part of the discussion around notability turned around whether this was another of those very US-centric nominations, so obviously users highlighted that point specifically. Highlighting that it was making big waves in other countries certainly helped clarify the notability issue. Khuft (talk) 19:03, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  This has nothing to do with the nomination on Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race, and the argument "it's not covered in international news" is invalid per WP:ITNCDONT. It seems like you're making a strong case why this should be added to WP:ITNCDONT as well.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:27, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, it's probably just a coincidence you started this conversation an hour after you opposed the Biden item. And, as you know, we can change what that part ITNCDONT says, especially if apparently no one follows it in the first place. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 20:32, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  Of course it's a coincidence. I'd have started this discussion immediately after opposing that nomination had it been related.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:45, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose and Repeal or Modify per above. WP:ITNCDONT is for cases where there is a general consensus that the practices described are rarely, if ever, helpful. By contrast, WP:ITNSIGNIF explicitly asks editors to use news sources as a gauge for if an item qualifies for ITN. It would be helpful to modify the text at WP:ITNATA to something like "Insisting that a story must be posted on ITN solely or primarily because of the level of news coverage without accounting for other factors". Anecdotally, the more frequently a news item is opposed for only being relevant to one country/region, which is already listed in WP:ITNCDONT, the more times people are driven to make the kinds of arguments that the OP is protesting against. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 20:02, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

  Completely reasonable to be clear that the argument about number of sources covering an item, absent any other reason given, is an argument to avoid. Masem (t) 20:35, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

• Repeal the statement in WP:ITNATA per Andrew Davidson. Since the column is called "In the News", the first hurdle must surely be to establish that a subject actually is in the news. The purpose of ITN is to "help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news." With the current top article, for example, the reader who does a Google search is likely to wind up on the article about Joe Biden when they are actually looking for information about the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the 2024 United States presidential election. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:57, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
• Repeal, remove, reduce, reuse, recycle, refuse and/or resist, per above. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:42, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose and Repeal - mindboggling that for the section called "In the news", there are attempts to downplay essentially how much "In the news" a story is from being considered as a factor to post. starship.paint (RUN) 02:36, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
• Id say there's a pretty clear consensus in this section to remove that bit from ITNATA. nableezy - 16:21, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I think we should consider being clear that solely arguing about breadth of coverage is not appropriate, because as pointed out four factors related to coverage are used for evulating significance, breadth being only one of those. Arguments only saying "top story in all major papers" aren't helpful (eg yesterday's market performance is an example where the story may get top headlines but that's not sufficient to post). The wording must be fixed to be clear this is not to conflict with the existing breadth statement, just not to be used in isolation. Masem (t) 18:08, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

It appears consensus is against that position entirely. nableezy - 18:09, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Just to be clear, which part of WP:ITNATA is there consensus to repeal? There is not consensus to remove the quote mentioned in the OP: Arguments addressing how many international newspapers/news channels are or are not covering the story on their front page or main webpage. Most of the arguments to repeal are talking about repealing things relating to the breadth of coverage (i.e. how many newspapers are covering the story), not the location of the coverage on a news site. Gödel2200 (talk) 14:01, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

You are right, and the claimed conflict in the existing language doesn't exist. There's no support to add a concern over arguments against how many sources cover something, but what's in Ata there is specifically on placement of stories Masem (t) 16:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah that’s why a large majority was in favor of removal. They didn’t actually want anything removed lol. nableezy - 16:54, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed the bullet point per the discussion above. That the OP didn't start with that question doesn't mean there isn't a consensus; this is a discussion and not a formal RfC. :-) I don't see a blocker if editors want to discuss a more narrowly tailored bullet point. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 22:08, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not agree with this assessment of consensus. As I said in my previous reply, the arguments to repeal are talking more broadly about the number of sources covering the story at all, not the more specific point about the location on the website. So there isn't consensus to remove that whole paragraph in ITNATA, which dealt primarily with the location of the story. Gödel2200 (talk) 01:34, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

This was about people complaining that users were saying this is the top story around the world. The majority agreed that this is indeed a valid argument and that the attempt to prohibit it should be removed. nableezy - 01:58, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

No it was not. The aspect that is critical to this ATAITN was the location of where a story featured on multiple papers, which is not a point discussed above, nor is in conflict with the base criteria that we do consider how many papers carry a news story. None of the above discussed the issue about a location of a story as the issue. --Masem (t) 02:03, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Looking through the various arguments to repeal, none of them are dealing with the location of the article on the website. Some are talking about the importance of international coverage, or the importance of how many newspapers are covering the story, but I do not see any arguments in support of repealing the disallowing of votes based on the location of the article. Gödel2200 (talk) 02:09, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

So all the people who said repeal or remove, they actually didn’t want anything removed. Duh. nableezy - 11:44, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:WL at it's finest. Perhaps someone has argued about the breadth of coverage as it relates to where on the paper/site the article, but I've never seen such an occurrence. It seems this is just further evidence that this particular WP:ITNATA is a NOOP. I concur with most of the other editors above that consensus has been reached. Oppose AND Remove. Kcmastrpc (talk) 12:08, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Plenty of time there are !votes that say "this is headlines in all major papers!" (most recently was the Biden drop out story from last month). We have cautioned that because where stories are placed on web views is not always the "top" story so it is not a very useful metric. Rightful, being a news stories regardless of location in the paper, across multiple papers, is a means to judge inclusion, but we shouldn't be considering those claimed to be top or headline stories. Masem (t) 12:13, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I should have said against rather than about. I don't see any reason as to why we shouldn't clear up contradictions in our policies. Whether any particular news item being widely covered across multiple regions on various news platforms as being something we should disregard seems, well, weird. I see an argument for cases where we shouldn't solely judge whether a particular story can be blurbed on ITN just because it lacks wide coverage, but that's not what the guideline said. Kcmastrpc (talk) 12:22, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

In fact, the argument has been used many times. For instance, there were many people in the Biden nom saying things along the lines of: "This is top headlines all around the world." The reason why arguments based on the location on the website are not valid is very simple: The location on the website is very likely personalized for each user, so a top story for one person may not be a top story for another. None of the editors arguing to repeal addressed this, or even talked at all about the location of the story on the website. Gödel2200 (talk) 12:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The fact that it is often used is proof that there isn’t consensus it should not be used. Anyway, consensus here is clear, if you want a more formal discussion feel free to open an RFC. But wikilawyering that people who voted to remove the line really didn’t mean remove the line isn’t a good look. nableezy - 13:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Scripting Assistance on WP:ITNC

Howdy! Do we have any scripting ninjas who can help write a script or two that does the below on a monthly basis:

1. Parse through every ITNC nomination
2. Identify unique editor names who have contributed to the article review
3. Generate a table with the following fields - ITN Article name | RD or News Blurb | Reviewer
4. Bonus if we can generate a table with the following fields - ITN Article Name | RD or News Blurb | Reviewer | Reviewing Vote (Support / Oppose)
5. Bonus if we can generate another table with the following fields - ITN Article Name | RD or News Blurb | Posting Status | Posting Admin

Any thoughts on who could help with this? Ktin (talk) 20:24, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

• usernamekiran was the one who did ITN archives (see above #ITN archives are ready), so perhaps they could help. Natg 19 (talk) 22:08, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks much @Natg 19. @Usernamekiran -- please give this a look when you get a bit and if you are interested.

  PS: I must compliment you on the ITN archives. This looks amazing.

  PS2: I know I have been away for some time, but, it seems like our posting-admin pool continues to remain small. We should do what we can to encourage more admins to join in. e.g. For the month of July, we have had 3 admins post ~70% of all ITN postings (blurb + RD) and ~80% of all ITNRD postings. We should really work on expanding this pool. Ktin (talk) 23:54, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Counting voters seems like a low priority. It would be better to identify and count the editors that do the most useful work: creators, nominators, updaters and posters. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:17, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ktin: Hi. Thanks a lot for the compliment on ITN archives. Regarding the current task, I am not much familiar with the ITN process, and its terminology/lingo. With the archiving task, Masem, and the benevolent "ITN IP" 98.170.164.88 helped me a lot. I have a few basic (stupid) questions:

1. I think Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#Stock market decline, and Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#Hasina resigns are ITNC nominations. Am I correct here?
2. what/where is article review? is it the same as of Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#Stock market decline? —usernamekiran (talk) 16:13, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Happy to help with any questions that you might have.

At the heart of it, every news item has an article that is nominated for the main page. Each such nomination is discussed on Wikipedia:ITNC. The nominations are of two kinds. Blurbs which represents a headline that makes it to the main page or Recent Deaths (also referred to as RD). The editor who nominates the article fills out the standard template and includes some information about the nomination - including whether the nomination is an RD or a Blurb, the name of updaters who have helped improve the article to homepage standards (referred to as updaters), and a few other details.

Once the nomination is made, uninvolved editors review the article (referred to a reviewers). Reviewers chime-in with a !vote with a statement that roughly says “Support” or “Oppose” (with some saying adding some descriptors or qualifiers, e.g. Strong Support, Weak Support etc). These reviewers do two things. They review the article and ensure that the article is free of any concerns that prevent the article from going to the mainpage (e.g. check for sourcing concerns, completeness of coverage, plagiarism, or other such concerns). This action is called a Review. In addition, for Blurb nominations the reviewers add a note on significance of the article for mainpage. E.g., in your below case most reviewers believed that the stock market swing was not worthy of making it to the mainpage. There is a subcategory of Blurb nominations called Wikipedia:ITNR or recurring events. The idea is that these events are assumed to be significant, so reviewers only chime in on article quality.

Once sufficient reviewers have chimed in, and the article receives the supports that it needs, an admin will “Post” the article to mainpage. This action is called “Posting”. Very rarely once Posted someone would “Pull” down an article. But, we can let that pass for the first iteration of any analytics. Each of these actions have timestamps included.

To summarize, Nominations are made on ITNC for articles to make it to the main page. Nominations are of two types - Blurbs or RDs. Nomination information includes information about Updaters who helped work on the article. Once the nomination is made, Reviewers review articles for issues and chime in with “Support” or “Oppose” votes based on their review of the article. Once discussions are completed an Admin would post the article to mainpage.

To me the information that you would need to parse for every nomination would include a) information about the nomination - article name, nomination, updaters, nomination timestamp, b) information about the review - reviewer name, review summary (support / oppose / other), and review timestamp c) information about the posting - posting summary (posted, not posted), posting admin, and posting timestamp.

Thanks again for your consideration. Ktin (talk) 14:02, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Sudan

Given we removed the Myanmar civil war from this page, yet it is way more active than the Sudan war one (For instance, the map gets updated about 1-2 times a month, yet the Sudan war map has barely gotten updates.), and both events are still ongoing, why is the Sudan war article remaining in this section? UnJapóLliure (talk) 17:38, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

The reason is that the Timeline of the Myanmar civil war (2021–present) has less updates than the Timeline of the Sudanese civil war (2024) (actually, in August, the timeline for Sudan is also only getting sporadic updates). If the page gets more updates, then we could post it to ongoing. Gödel2200 (talk) 18:56, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough, thank you! UnJapóLliure (talk) 21:00, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Death of individuals who are the main subject of an article

Recently, the death of Jack Karlson was proposed at ITN, and the nomination was a mix of support/opposes based on criteria that seems to not take into account the notability of this individual and the spirit of the policy of WP:ITNRD. Internet memes are a relatively new cultural phenomena with the subjects in such memes becoming notable enough to be well-documented in such articles. Andras Arato, Zoë Roth, etc. should all be notable enough to mention in the event the subject of these memes were to pass.

I'm proposing that we update WP:ITNRD to recognize that individuals who are the primary subject of an article, regardless of it being a BLP, are notable enough for a mention in RD. Kcmastrpc (talk) 16:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose flat out allowance, but also not against inclusion in such cases. The problem I saw with the Karlsson article was there was literally only a paragraph about him from a biographical standpoint. If that was longer, around 3 or so paragraphs that gave a fuller picture of his life outside that video (to a point a standalone could be justified but made more sense to keep in the video article), it likely would have been fine. To use the examples, Arato's got enough of a section to be reasonable, while there is zero on Roth's for this. Another example that I would consider for such posting like the Arato case is Star Wars Kid. Masem (t) 16:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  I believe a compromise here makes sense. Karlson did expand into multiple paragraphs, fwiw. Reflecting upon Roth, her article amounts to little more than a stub and was probably a bad example, however, I would presume upon her death details about her life would be covered by reliable sources (similar to Roth). Kcmastrpc (talk) 16:25, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  Karlsons still at a state that there is only one paragraph truly about him outside of the video. We would never split that off to a separate article in that state. I think more could have been written from the o it's but no one supporting the RD made action to do that. It is really going to depend on how that person was known before or after from the meme. I know Arato has accepted him place as a meme image (going to cons and such) so that's why he's fair game, but we have zero about Roth in this sense. Masem (t) 16:50, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose as unnecessary. Long standing precedent is that we generally expect a dedicated article for subjects to be posted at ITN. Some commonsense exceptions have been recognized and posted in the past. However, I don't think we should be lowering the bar here. Proposed exceptions to our normal practice can be handled on a case-by-case basis. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:30, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
  • If this becomes our stance, we should add a bullet in the ITNRD notes section to state that these will be considered only on an exceptional basis. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 16:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

    I don't think we need a legalistic approach to most things. The way ITN works and our expectations are largely based on precedent and sometimes have evolved organically over time. People should feel free to invoke WP:COMMONSENSE or IAR whenever they think a nomination justifies an exception to our customary practice and make their case. Then we can discuss it and go from there. Not a big fan of rules creep. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:04, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support some change, but oppose as proposed. It shouldn't be a blanket allowance, but it should also not be a blanket ban as the rules are currently worded. They should be allowed to be assessed on a case by case basis. I don't really see a principled reason why an organism that does not have their own page, but is part of a group that does is technically eligible even if there is not a lot of coverage on that page, while an organism that does not have their own page but is the primary subject of a non-biographical, non-group page is never eligible no matter how in-depth the biographical information may be on that page. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:42, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose The problem here would be identifying what "primary subject of an article" means. Ultimately, this is determined on a case by case basis. What I would support, however, would be changing: "Individuals who do not have their own article but who have significant coverage on an article about a group (e.g. one member of a musical group) are eligible for a recent deaths entry on a case-by-case basis." to "Individuals who do not have their own article but who have significant coverage on another article are eligible for a recent deaths entry on a case-by-case basis," so that we make it clear that subjects having biographical coverage on another article could be posted, dependent upon a case-by-case assessment. Gödel2200 (talk) 23:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose automatic allowance. per Gödel2200. There isn't really currently a blanket ban, as the second bullet of the notes section allows for consideration on a case-by-case basis (which is exactly what should happen). If there is a desire to make this clearer then I'd change an article about a group to a broader article. As someone whose coverage is only small mentions on a narrow article about someone/something else shouldn't be posted. There needs to be some actual biographical content about them. Thryduulf (talk) 15:59, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
• I don't see a need for change. There's always IAR, and automatic allowance, as mentioned above, would be problematic. For example, Arató is has a decent case because most of the article is about him anyway. But with Roth, that article does not really read as close to biographic (and honestly seems very disjointed in general). DarkSide830 (talk) 16:28, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Removing the closing ceremonies of the Olympics from INTR

Wikipedia:In the news/Recurring items#Multi-sport events proclaims:

Opening and closing ceremonies of the:

Summer Olympic Games

Winter Olympic Games

In spite of this, the recent nomination for the closing ceremony of the 2024 Parisian Olympics was shut down, with people saying that it would make more sense to just rm the Olympics from ongoing. From this, the closing ceremonies have seemingly lost their mandate and so their status of ITNR needs reviewing. — Knightoftheswords 13:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Pinging those involved in the discussion: @Sandstein, MtPenguinMonster, Andrew Davidson, DecafPotato, Zzyzx11, Sportsnut24, Gödel2200, Joseph2302, Aydoh8, TheCorriynial, PrecariousWorlds, and Masem: — Knightoftheswords 13:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - if the opening ceremony is fair game, so should the closing ceremony. I understand not posting for quality reasons, but the fact that this was closed in a few days due people stating that we shouldn't even be posting this, especially considering that (unlike what Sandstein stated), this story is still younger than the top blurb, is mind-boggling to me. I see this as an attempt to somewhat lazily circumnavigate actually improving the article via just defeatedly throwing your hands in the air and stating that we should just not post an ITNR item. — Knightoftheswords 13:17, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Should be kept, both Ceremonies The Olympics are major events every four years. We've just had an off year where we've not been able to post it. Thats all this is. They are always covered by many sources over many countries with IOC's, and even those that don't. TheCorriynial (talk) 13:30, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - The Closing Ceremony is very much as notable for ITN as the opening ceremony and signifies the games are over PrecariousWorlds (talk) 13:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose too soon, as one bad year doesn't mean all subsequent years are going to be bad. If this us a longer trend that no one bothers to try to improve either article in time (that will include the winter Olympics), multiple times in a row, then we can talk removal. This was how, iurc, the one tennis US open or similar entry was removed, no one bother to update the results year after year. — Masem (t) 13:37, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'll reserve judgement until probably at least the 2030 Winter Olympics (three more Olympics cycles, one more Summer and two more Winter) if this becomes a long-term trend. Zzyzx11 (talk) 20:41, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• oppose per above. Also thanks for the ping in consideration of us as a show of good faith.2A00:F3C:A282:0:D0ED:1CB0:75A8:636 (talk) 22:13, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• I see the argument here and actually tend to believe that we should at least make some change here. I think the individual notability of the Closing Ceremony is dwarfed by the Opening Ceremony, though I do believe appending the medals winner to the blurb would make it better stand out. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)