Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 115

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 110←Archive 113Archive 114Archive 115

ITN has a bias towards the Anglosphere news cycle

Making a new section seeing as the discussion above has gone stale:

A big problem for ITN is that a large number of routine articles automatically qualify, and those will always have routine RS coverage. It isn't a problem to quickly create a sourced page (NPOV or not) about the results of a sports competition or a political event (in fact, if ITN nominators were as vigilant about each election in every one of 200 or so de-facto sovereign countries, ITN might end up with little else -- the last French election alone spent a total of 14 days in ITN in July and September). This also goes for wars well covered by the news cycle but not yet in Ongoing: Mali War and the spillover of the Israel-Hamas war. As a result, these articles are quickly posted to the top and spend about a week on average on the Main Page (my guess, ITN archives are kind of a mess).

Non-routine events' notability is debated for several days or a week and they take longer to source since fewer editors are interested. As a result, they don't get visibility from being posted on top, and are pushed out within a few days.

For instance, 2024 Central European floods were debated for nearly a week and lasted only four days on the Main Page. They're still going on after two weeks (currently peaking in northern Serbia [1]), but unfortunately it seems nobody has updated the article since the removal. For comparison, 2024 Lebanon pager explosions were posted within a day of their occurrence and are still up 10 days later. The pager article isn't without merit, it's more extensive and has many sources and participating editors, but is the topic going to stay relevant when set apart from the Israel-Hamas war?

As an example of what's missing, consider the current lack of hurricane activity due to moisture being pushed out north to Sahara (and causing storms in Europe) -- it's currently ongoing, rare and notable, and part of the usually well-covered topic of Atlantic hurricanes, but has no article on Wikipedia. Of course, it isn't easy for an Anglosphere journalist to write an article about this that intrigues their editor.

You could say better-quality articles are simply more prominently featured and you'd be 100% correct. However, it's also systemic bias. ITN's problem isn't low-quality articles, and definitely not topics failing WP:NOTNEWS. It's giving extra time to events that are interesting for a week or a month, but underrepresenting events that are likely to remain relevant for years or a decade. ITN should focus more on articles that are likely to be long-term-relevant if we don't want the usual intersection of Portal:Current events and the Anglosphere news cycle. I can only think of encouraging people outside ITN to focus away from the news cycle (which isn't something ITN editors could help with per se), but I hope other editors have ideas on ITN-focused efforts. Daß Wölf 08:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

The only thing that WP:ITNSIGNIF says is:

It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting.

Anything else is subject to who shows up. If non-regulars chose to change the outcomes, there is no current guideline-based reason why present trends couldn't change. Until then, what you are seeing is the will of the "regulars".—Bagumba (talk) 09:18, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Exactly, Bagumba. This is what was so frustrating about that lengthy AN discussion on how admins supposedly don't apply policies and guidelines in deciding what to post. There are no such P&Gs on which to hang our hat on, and nobody in that discussion came up with even one empirical way in which an admin might even attempt that, other than saying we should "discard weak votes" (which to me just reads as "you should do what I think is right, not what editor X thinks is right").
And on the subject of Western and Anglosphere bias, if anything I think ITN tends the other way in that regard. We routinely reject stories which dominate the headlines across the Western world (including non-Anglosphere media in France and Germany), such as the Brett Kavanagh inauguration saga, anything to do with Donald Trump, Joe Biden having a hard time in the election debate, all that stuff; while also listing all national elections, building collapses in Nairobi, bus crashes in Chile and other similar things which generally aren't front-page news in the rest of the world. I wouldn't necessarily mind it if the community could give us clear objective guidelines on what to post, but I do wonder if that would bring the positive change everyone assumes or if it would just entrench Western bias even further.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:28, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
ITN generally avoids anything involving a nation's politics, short of the results of the election or significant high court findings. It is probably because the media has excessively weighed on those points as part of its systematic bias. The bulk of day-to-day political stories aren't even good update material for appropriate "keeping articles up to date" under NOTNEWS, as they are mostly the results of talking heads and back-and-forth discussion, not actual actionable results or events. We're trying to summarize activities from a ten year point of view, so the day-to-day coverage provided by the media rarely feeds into that well. WP is already overly obsessed with these details, since at least around 2016 (eg around when Trump threw his hat into the politic ring) and we really need to get the project backing away from trying to follow political stories that closely. On application to ITN, it's why we have the unwritten mantra that ITN is not a news ticker, because we don't want to look like the front page of the newspapers, since most of that is not always encyclopedic stuff. Masem (t) 12:28, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Hey, I like blaming the Anglomedia for most things as much as the next person, but when it comes to every recurrent general election on Earth going up easier than normal, that's on "us" (the ones who OK'd such a retrospectively dastardly and potentially repealable scheme, anyway). InedibleHulk (talk) 13:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Elections have been determined by consensus to be ITNR, and that helps to combat the Western media systematic bias that focuses on politics primarily from US, Canada, UK, France, and Germany. Masem (t) 19:06, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
So then it's not probably because the media has excessively weighed on those points as part of its systematic bias. It's definitely because "we" favour election results over all living things. I wasn't asked and I doubt many of the existing regulars weren't, either. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:36, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Nothing is stopping a discussion for removing elections from ITNR. It was challenged (that is, proposed to be removed) back in 2017 but consensus was against that. I do think having elections on ITNR helps to work against systematic bias since any country with such elections can have those featured as a blurb (all other factors notwithstanding). Masem (t) 01:44, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
The current situation of half a dozen or more stalled/shitcanned/sandbagged proposals is stopping it. At least it's stopping me from starting it. When or if that obstructive mess clears, there might be a light at the end of this tunnel. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:56, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply Bagumba. I'm sorry, it seems I came off a little aggressive against ITN editors, that wasn't my intention. It's simply that, with the ITNR sports, elections, and wars and terrorism, there isn't much time nor many slots left for blurbs outside the US, UK, AU, etc. news cycle. As I said, talking about it to ITN regulars isn't a very good solution, but canvassing every country's WikiProject would surely be disruptive, and ITN is the best-suited to have a good idea on what to do with this. I see Masem and others see ITNR as combating political bias and I'm happy to hear there's an awareness, but posting elections all the time unfortunately doesn't seem to be working out.
For example, considering the relatively few news items in my relatively small country, a an earthquake ultimately resulting in >€10 billion in damages was posted for 13 minutes while a parliamentary election where the incumbent party won got 13 days. In this case, the election campaign wasn't entirely uninteresting, but the results were, and I seriously can't imagine this as a topic of conversation 10-20 years from now, as opposed to the 2020 earthquakes (I can only see when the 2020 Petrinja earthquake was posted, but by the amount of blurbs in the first few days of 2021 it likely didn't last a full week). Daß Wölf 10:48, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
No worries. I was simply saying that there's few firm rules on what is significant enough to be posted, so an influx of newbies with different ideas could easily change past patterns. "Regulars" don't wield any special privileges. Regards. —Bagumba (talk) 11:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
The Zagreb earthquake didn't have consensus to be posted, and so just saying "it was up for 10 minutes" is not really what to consider since it was a quick pull due to lack of consensus. And there are a lot of disasters that have monetary costs but do very little loss of life, so unless we're talking damage to a historical building (eg like the Notre Dame fire), most of these we should really be covering as ITN (I even think we often go overboard with some of the weather/natural disaster coverage). --Masem (t) 12:01, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Consider that ITN missed out on, according to our list, the world's 20th costliest and Europe's 4th costliest earthquake (the usual caveats for disaster costs apply; however, Croatia doesn't have US and Western Europe's real estate prices nor home insurance ubiquity). The earthquake was very shallow and struck only a couple of kilometres from the old city centre, so a lot of damage was inevitable. The city did get very lucky with loss of life (COVID quarantine, Sunday, early morning -- no people on the streets bombarded with pieces of roofs and façades), but almost every historic building needed at least some repairs and some are still underway. If it was possible, trading in that election for the same time on the earthquake article would have been a major improvement in ITN's coverage of Croatia.
I can't claim opposing was unreasonable considering not all of this was known then and with no knowledge of how credible editors appeared to each other. I've only participated in a few ITN noms where I had a good bit of personal knowledge of the subject. I also apologise since I didn't read the nom discussion closely and didn't notice you also participated; I don't mean to call you out over your comments. However, you were the single opposing editor on that nom who engaged in discussion with others. Unsubstantiated !votes shouldn't receive the same weight when we have so little space for the blurbs. Daß Wölf 16:39, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
While I do understand and generally agree with the sentiment that there is an Anglosphere bias, the only way to effectively counter this is to nominate more articles from outside of the Anglosphere. Any of those articles you mentioned could have been nominated, but weren't. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Which ones weren't? I strongly supported the Central European floods blurb and worked on the article. It was eventually posted to the bottom and pushed out by the very next blurb. I don't see what else I could've done there without badgering non-supporting editors and/or writing half the article on my own (I don't have enough time currently to both write it and properly source it). Daß Wölf 10:13, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Whether we like it or not humans are still just fancy bipedal apes, and react more viscerally to concrete Big Scary Things they can visualize and relate to easily in their minds such as "lots of people dying". (That could easily be me! Or someone I know!) Which is why WP:MINIMUMDEATHS is absolutely de facto a thing: essentially any amount of "mass death" considered "unusual/unexpected" compared to the "normal ordinary amount of death" in place X will get auto-posted. A 6.2 in California or Japan would cause possibly a good deal of costly damage but probably likewise few deaths and would never be ITN blurbed, while a 6.2 in an impoverished country could result in many deaths and a good chance at ITN. 2010 Haiti earthquake was 7.0, death toll >100,000; compare to the CA 1994 Northridge earthquake, a little lower at 6.7, deaths 57. (Plenty of costly damage though) And the latter was centered a bit deeper, but practically underneath CSU Northridge! (Reminder for the audience magnitude scales are logarithmic not linear, every integer step up the scale represents a power of 10. A 7.0 is ten times stronger than a 6.0, not "a little bit".) Slowking Man (talk) 20:52, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
So it was posted. I don't see the issue. If you want the system on how long blurbs are up for to change, a formal proposal to that end would be more helpful. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:28, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
  • This is the English language Wikipedia and the language is obviously a filter on what can and will be considered. The same effect applies in other languages and so the German language ITN currently has three blurbs:
  1. Former Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba (pictured) has been elected as the new leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), making him the designated new Prime Minister of Japan.
  2. At the German Television Awards ceremony, actor Mario Adorf was awarded an honorary award.
  3. The Austrian bicycle manufacturer Simplon has applied for restructuring proceedings with self-administration.
Notice that two of these are Austrian/German news items. This seems reasonable as German language readers will naturally be most interested in such news. In considering the systemic bias, you need to consider the entire system and that's all the languages, not just English.
Andrew🐉(talk) 18:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Meh. If ITN features more Nigerian, Philippine or even Malaysian news, I'd believe you. Unless it's the "native English language Wikipedia". (Indian news is already well represented though.) Howard the Duck (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
The current English language blurbs feature India, Sri Lanka, Mali and Israel/Lebanon. So, that's nothing for Europe or the Americas. Insofar as there's a bias, it's for ITN/R routine stuff plus deaths, deaths and more deaths. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:04, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
When was the last time we featured something about Sri Lanka, Mali and Israel/Lebanon that is not about death, disasters, or elections? Howard the Duck (talk) 19:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
At least in terms of Sri Lanka, we posted the 2022 Sri Lankan protests and its 2018 Sri Lankan constitutional crisis. — Masem (t) 20:32, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Well yes, that's a change of office akin to an election, but I suppose a non-spectacular change of government would have been a hard sell. As seen in German Wikipedia example above, we don't think we'd post Sri Lankan cultural or business news (unless it involves cricket or politics or death).
I'd also argue those Sri Lankan blurbs are disasters... but that's just me. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:04, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
What other Sri Lankan news items are you missing? Were they nominated / did they have quality pages? Did you nominate any? Easy to just randomly moan around without offering solutions... Khuft (talk) 09:44, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Calling political stories as "disasters" really is a poor conflation of the concepts there. — Masem (t) 12:03, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
In February of this year, we posted that Mali was leaving ECOWAS. So, Howard the Duck's theory is not evidence-based. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Mali leaving ECOWAS was due to a coup which can be considered a disaster. Howard the Duck (talk) 22:02, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Like El Salvador and Syria, Mali itself might be considered a disaster zone. That's not an insult, either. Some environments rife with famine, pestilence, war and death just naturally aren't going to produce much viable food, technology, sport or entertainment news. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:46, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
To nitpick, escalation in Mali is largely a post-COVID development, as in Ukraine and Israel. I do agree that those places will produce few non-disaster-related blurbs until the conflict ends, but we should also consider the other 90% of the world.
See Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/August 2024#RD/blurb: Alain Delon for example. Even the very first !vote can be basically summarised as "not a politician, not blurb-worthy". (It also seems that many editors oddly enough assumed an actor can't possibly be a household name on an entire continent without being a Hollywood A-lister.) Daß Wölf 10:04, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Delon's case is absolutely a situation that explemifies why we need to have advise that makes !votes along the likes of fame or popularity, or lack of those thereof, as invalid. That would absolutely pull us away from Western centric stories (not just in death blurbs) --Masem (t) 12:04, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
I didn’t participate in the Delon discussion but I do think it would’ve been helpful had the nominator given a better reason for posting a blurb than “Name a French actor and he would be there.” Many of those supporting the blurb also asserted only that he was famous, without really saying why. Also there may have been a consensus to post but the article was (and remains) orange tagged. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 12:28, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, there was also the quality issue, but still we had far too many "I don't know this person, why blurb?" in that nomination. I know I posted in my !vote that I never heard of the guy but the article has a significant section devoted to his impact on French cinema, thus meriting my support for blurb !vote, as the evidence to support the blurb was right there. Yes, more !votes on blurbs should be evidence based (and specifically, evidenced in the article itself) of why we should post, or not post, the blurb, which is why the fame/popularity aspect advice I speak works both ways, since that is far less evidence-based reasoning. Masem (t) 12:33, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
That's the majority of blurbs we post regarding Anglophone countries as well, besides sports events and awards shows (whose status at ITN/R are debatable in general). DarkSide830 (talk) 18:30, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
  • How about removing posted blurbs in the order of time posted (or time spent on ITN in case they're removed and re-posted) instead of chronologically? This would give more time to blurbs that were discussed longer. More discussion hardly means less notability; the last few SNOWed blurbs were fairly average. Daß Wölf 10:21, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
I generally agree with this idea. However, this could result in some blurbs being "stale" if they were posted late, as they could sit on ITN longer than they "should". There have been some blurbs that were IAR re-added back, because they were on ITN for < 1 day and were pushed off of ITN "too soon". Natg 19 (talk) 05:22, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment. My two cents on this topic. Agree with the editors making a case that this is the English Wikipedia and hence by selection it is expected that there are more articles that can reference english sources and hence one could argue that you will see richer English topics (topics that have references in the English language). With that being the premise, you can make the case that ITN will follow by way of a mix and more likely reference such topics.
That said, as a thought exercise ask yourself why we would blurb Norman Borlaug while NOT blurbing M. S. Swaminathan. If there was anyone who was "transformative" in the context of that region, I would argue that getting millions out of hunger and starvation would be the definition of transformative. But, not to the participants of the discussion there. Therein lies your answer to the bias question. Editors jump in where they have limited knowledge and make a case of "not transformative" or "not known to most of the world". If only we were open to the idea that there are going to be topics that we are not as knowledgeable and it is alright to reserve your opinions and listen to others, that would allow our net to be cast wide.
Relevant links:
Norman Borlaug ITNC Discussion
M. S. Swaminathan ITNC Discussion

Ktin (talk) 17:00, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

ask yourself why we would blurb Norman Borlaug while NOT blurbing M. S. Swaminathan. -- Quite simple really; more editors on ITN/C have heard of Norman Borlaug than of M. S. Swaminathan. It's unfortunate, but that is the outcome of our system and the fact that all that is required to meet WP:ITNSIGNIF or WP:ITNRDBLURB is a consensus of editors present. We will always have systemic bias for this reason, unless you eliminate the need to establish a consensus on significance. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:57, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
more editors on ITN/C have heard of Norman Borlaug than of M. S. Swaminathan. It's unfortunate, but that is the outcome of our system -- that exactly is the problem, isn't it? That is the exact bias that we should be avoiding, unless we believe that numerical superiority is how we should be posting articles. If that is the premise, Andrew's cries for posting based on Pageviews does not sound bad, does it? At the cost of repeating myself I truly believe that if only we (i.e. the editors) were open to the idea that there are going to be topics that we are not as knowledgeable and it is alright to reserve your opinions and listen to others, that would allow our net to be cast wide. Ktin (talk) 03:57, 1 October 2024 (UTC)
@Ktin: The problem is that where you see a problem, others see the system as working precisely as how it's intended to work. In other words, because there's no defined significance guidelines other than "reach a consensus", the debate and rigmarole over whether significance is based on pageviews, popularity, news coverage, encyclopedic nature, etc. in theory produces an end product that effectively (even if not literally) compromises on these differing arguments. Thus the argument goes like this: If everyone coming to the table with their respective arguments all mostly agree that a particular story is newsworthy, then the system has done its job. If there is a significant disagreement to where an admin does not see a consensus, then it won't be posted.
So talking about this death blurb, the achievement of this consensus is usually a result of participation. The consensus system works poorly when there is very little participation, and a lot of times, major figures from other nations tend to get overlooked because Anglosphere contributors to Wikipedia simply have not heard of them. The system would work better if more international participation were present, but since it's more difficult to accomplish that, the only way to mitigate that is through doing away with consensus in favor of a weighted system to eliminate the non-response bias. And on Wikipedia where consensus is king, I don't think you will find much appetite for that around here, which is why substantive change has been so difficult. (Or put another way, consider which demographics enjoy editing Wikipedia as a hobby, much less ITN/C.)
As a side note: As DarkSide830 pointed out, Norman Borlaug died 15 years ago. Having been on ITN for about that long myself, I can tell you that just about anything got posted back then. Also, the delineation between WP:ITNRD and WP:ITNRDBLURB was nonexistent. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:55, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
Dear editor, I genuinely do not know what to say if you justify the very exact thing that folks are calling out as bias as working precisely as how it's intended to work.
Also, to your second point -- sometime back I had posted this message as a response to a different editor Show me one instance in the last six months where consensus has been established [here at WP:ITNC] by a rational conversation that has brought in agreement where one did not exist before. You will find it hard to do so. This to me implies that editors / reviewers come in with starting positions and those starting positions do not change. So the notion of "establishing" consensus is a myth. Hard truth. Needless to say, they could not. Ktin (talk) 23:44, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
@Ktin: if you justify the very exact thing that folks are calling out as bias Number one: I'M not justifying it. Please read my wording carefully and note where I said "others", and please don't ascribe a viewpoint to me that I have not taken. I have observed behavior on ITN and ITN/C for a long time to know that the reason our processes have been stubborn to change is due to there being no consensus that there is, in fact, a problem with them. Personally I think we have a very flawed system, but it's one that is very resistant to change. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Compared to, say, five years ago, when there were some regulars (that no longer participate on ITN and WP) that would make discussions on contentious news stories far more difficult than needed, what we have now is far far more sane. The debates and bickering center more on significance, and I will stand by the fact ti's us because we've lost the larger thread that WP is not a newspaper, and ITN's goal is to feature quality content that is in the news, not to be a news block itself. And that's in part a problem beyond ITN, we need to reign in how excessively details we are covering news breaking events, coverage that is better suited on Wikinews. Masem (t) 17:29, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
@Ktin: I read WaltClipper's message as stating that, since the bias is overwhelmingly in participation, there's a consensus among the participants to do nothing, i.e. nothing gets changed and this is the de facto consensus. However, I would conclude that, since quite a few people are saying here that there are problems, there is a consensus to make changes (TBD which ones), even if nobody were to speak out on any single ITN nom. Daß Wölf 23:44, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
A consensus to change but a disagreement about what to change effectively is no consensus, which historically on Wikipedia has resulted in the status quo being kept. Even if the record might reflect a desire to change things for years on end, unless that desire is constantly thrown in people's faces, there's nothing to indicate that ITN is operating under anything other than the de facto assent of the Wikipedia community. For that to be changed, you really need to increase the participation rate. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 19:16, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
Is this the best example exactly? Norman Borlaug died 15 years ago. ITN's composition was largely different at that point. I don't think anyone in that discussion still actively partakes in ITN besides Tone (who usually mostly makes posting decisions rather than votes now as an admin). DarkSide830 (talk) 18:26, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
I gave this one a lot of thought DarkSide830 and still came back with my view that it is indeed the right comparison. Yes, it was from some time ago. Yes, it was from a time when conversations were much more constructive. Yes, it was from a time when folks were defining the possible. But, when two persons with the same impact have different treatments, I have no reason to believe that the process is working the way it is intended to. Ktin (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Well, the discussion process appeared to have been much different 15 years ago. I'm not sure Borlaug would have been posted had he been nominated today. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:12, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:WAWARDS are back

Letting any watcher or regulars of ITN that the W Awards are back up and running since it's long sleep of 10 years. It'd be helpful if you'd like to become a reviewer or nominate people who you think fit the criteria in any of the awards (Bronze, Silver, Golden, Platinum) and give any suggestions on awards or changes that you think should happen in the talk page! Thanks, W Award Coordinator Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 01:42, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Re: current RD backlog of eight entries - potential fixes?

Just flagging that we currently have six RD nominations tagged as (Ready) and two more tagged as (Needs Review) - ergo, admin attention needed on eight RD entries. Some of the RD have been tagged as ready for close to two days.

I notice many editors tend to ping @Admins willing to post ITN: , which seems helpful but not always. Is there anything else we can do as a community to try to assure a steadier flow of entries to RD? Unfortunately, by the time many of these entries are posted the deaths of these individuals will be "outdated news", and could be pushed off RD unfairly quickly if on the next round of nominations, admins are quicker to post. Thoughts? FlipandFlopped ツ 19:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

A structural issue that I have is that takes a while to scroll the page as it’s so long. It would become easier if we collapsed items that we have either posted or rejected. Schwede66 19:22, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
I've been calling for our archival system to be reformed for a while now. I think it would be better to have posted noms be archived in some manner, though I am not sure of the exact form that such an thing would take. — Knightoftheswords 19:30, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
I will attribute a lot of this to the change in the en.wiki format that makes it very difficult to scan the TOC to find out what entries need attention. When it was right up front in the TOC, it was very easy to see. We might want to consider a bot that runs every 12 hr to update a table of the pending nominations and their state that can be presented at the top Masem (t) 19:23, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
There are a two different issues coming together here.
  1. We need more admins who can post, and post more frequently. Like I have mentioned before we need to post frequently, post from the bottom, and not batch-up our postings. Unfortunately, we continue to remain strapped for admin capacity.
  2. On top of this, I agree with both @Schwede66 and @Masem that the recent skin change / update (Vector something, is it?) did not help either.
Re #1, one solution that has briefly been discussed before is the notion of Admins without tools or equivalent. The idea is that these editors would promote ready articles into a holding zone from where an admin can promote to the main page. Alternately a bot could promote from this holding zone after 6/12 hours if no admin has acted by then.
Alternately, a bot could parse all threads that have been marked ready but not posted and then move them into a holding zone for an admin to come by and act.
The problem is I do not know of anyone here in this project who can help create that holding page or a bot that can do this parsing and promote to a holding page. Ktin (talk) 02:02, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
@Usernamekiran: did bot scripting for the posting archives. Also, it seems like there is a bot request queue Wikipedia:Bot requests. Natg 19 (talk) 02:24, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Yup @Usernamekiran did a great job with the posting archives. I was also thinking of some of the folks at the WP:DYK project. I have seen some scripts, bots and some page-level transformations there. I am a big fan of their PSHAW tool. cc @Theleekycauldron. Ktin (talk) 02:39, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
If we get a bot to do some maintenance work, how about adding collapsing posted and rejected items to the task list? Schwede66 03:12, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Four have now either been unmarked "Ready" or issues identified.[2] —Bagumba (talk) 04:45, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what are you guys looking for exactly, but I'm interested/ready to help. The queue at BOTREQ, is not linear, and posting is not mandatory. —usernamekiran (talk) 09:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
... tagged as (Needs Review) - ergo, admin attention needed on eight RD entries: My observation is that "Needs review" (no mention of this at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § Headers) is asking for general community input, not admins specifically. For example, Donald J. Hall had this marked within 24 hours of its nomination,[3], and it seem to remain right up until its posting, even when input was already received.[4]—Bagumba (talk) 11:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Ready means the article needs admin attention. Needs review or something equivalent means the article needs reviewer attention. Ktin (talk) 19:50, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

TOC Those wanting the old TOC format can go to Preferences->Appearance->Skin and select "Vector legacy (2010)".—Bagumba (talk) 10:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I have found a workable solution that doesn't require this, based on mw:User:Quiddity/Vector-2022-condensed.css. You can use that css in your global css file m:Special:MyPage/global.css as instructed on that code's talk page, or if you go to the code, copy the section about the TOC ("3. ToC tweaks") which currently runs from line 209 to 464 into the same global.css file.
Doing this gives you a floating left TOC but with all sections autoexpanded. And you don't have to change the skin style for it. Masem (t) 13:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Section sizes

To provide an automatic navigation aid for the large nomination page, as discussed above, I've added {{section sizes}} in a section at the head of the list of nominations. The template may be expanded to show the structure, size and title of all the sections, which includes the nomination titles. Another benefit is that the large and noisy hot-spots are highlighted in red. See if that helps... Andrew🐉(talk) 10:54, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Myanmar civil war removal?

Why was the Myanmar civil war removed from ITN? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 20:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Was removed in May 2024 due to lack of regular updates to the article, generally required to be kept at ongoing. — Masem (t) 21:08, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Box for Nobel Prizes

Too late for this time. But, for the next year, can we consider a temporary box for Nobel prizes? I am thinking a box like we had for the pandemic, but, this would be around for perhaps one week or two after the announcements. 

!---------------------------------------------------------------------------!
!Chemistry - John Doe, Jane Doe, and Someone else (Protein folding)         !
!Physics - John Doe, Jane Doe, and Someone else (Neural networks)           !
!Physiology - John Doe, Jane Doe, and Someone else (Micro RNA)              !
!---------------------------------------------------------------------------!

Bonus if someone can do it this year itself, but, I do not think it is realistic.

Ktin (talk) 03:21, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this. Seems to be a bit intrusive if ITN is flooded with a list of Nobel prize winners, so a separate section is a good idea to me. Natg 19 (talk) 16:29, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I actually really like this idea. Getting a Noble Prize is a really big achievement, but, since these awards are announced over the course of five successive days, at most, a winner gets about only 24 hours on the main page. ਪ੍ਰਿੰਸ ਆਫ਼ ਪੰਜਾਬ (PrinceofPunjab | ਗੱਲਬਾਤ) 17:19, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I actually have the opposite issue with the Nobles. It it is a bit odd to me that 3/4 current blurbs are Nobles, thus having a box listing them is a good idea to me, to make room for other blurbs. I don't see any issue with "missing Nobles". Ones that meet quality standards can be added to the box. Natg 19 (talk) 18:10, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Some type of box for the awards has been suggested before, but a problem is that we often fail to post one or two of those due to quality and staleness issues. And to not have those in a box or other means to hold the nobels would look odd. Hence why they are still better as blurbs. Masem (t) 17:23, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Alternative we could use an Ongoing to point to the current List of Nobel laureate (demarked by year to easily seen), which last for at most two weeks starting from the Monday the medicine prize is awarded, added when the first Nobel falls off as a blurb. — Masem (t) 17:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes. I say we can do that right away without having to wait. This is Nobel season anyway. Ktin (talk) 17:47, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
As a guy who generally ignores the academic fields but knows a thing he's supposed to know when he sees it, my secret to satisfactory rudimentary awareness is just clicking whichever article is emboldened on the Main Page in seasons like these and then the Wikilink it features to "learn more". InedibleHulk (talk) 18:24, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
@Masem -- checking in on this comment. Did you mean for this current cycle? or did you mean for the next cycle? Ktin (talk) 15:58, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Bit of a tangent @Masemcan you look at the physiology Nobel nomination and post it to the main page? Ktin (talk) 17:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Done. — Masem (t) 17:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I love this idea. Not only do the Prizes push all other news off ITN, they even push 'each other' off ITN. A box is a great solve. -- Kicking222 (talk) 18:41, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
A straggling comment, just to support the idea. Could be neat. Yakikaki (talk) 15:56, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

US election

This, "Donald Trump (pictured) wins the United States presidential election" was posted at 10.59 today. Seriously? The linked article only says he is "projected to win", according to the news sources there. This hardly reflects a neutral point of view, n’est ce pas? Moonraker12 (talk) 13:10, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

One could also argue that the article is providing a WP:FALSEBALANCE by calling it "projected". What would you propose?—Bagumba (talk) 14:46, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
@Bagumba: I would propose that the statement reads "Donald Trump is projected to win...", as the article, and the sources the article used, actually says. Moonraker12 (talk) 15:36, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
PS: I would also suggest, as this hasn’t been decided either, that the second clause reads ".. and the Republicans to take control of the Senate"". Moonraker12 (talk) 15:37, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I just sampled 4 sources, and all 4 say that he "won", not merely "projected". Given that Biden was posted in 2020 with "wins" as well,[5] it'd probably be difficult to get consensus to change the Main Page. Still, you can try at WP:ERRORS or WP:ITNC#2024 United States presidential election. Or perhaps just update the article to match the MP. Call it a quirk of how US election results are reported by the media. Regards. —Bagumba (talk) 16:33, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

It's redundant, as both conflicts are effectively tied with one another ⛿ WeaponizingArchitecture | yell at me 15:42, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

What article would you like to be linked in the place of those two? SpencerT•C 06:44, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposed addition

The election / appointment of a new Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury to be an ITNR item. Mjroots (talk) 13:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  • Oppose We have too many elections / appointments in INTR already. Kcmastrpc (talk) 13:23, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Firstly because the Pope is a head of state and so already covered; second because if we include the ABC, we should also include the Ecumenical Patriarch; third because I think this is perhaps instruction creep. I think it's likely that all three of these leading clerics will usually get posted anyway. GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:50, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Image caption

2017
2024

Kingturtle added a parenthetical "(2017)" to Trump's caption with the reasoning "that image is 7 years old, and we should mention that, considering this is about a current event".[6] The only guidance for the caption at WP:ITNA is:

The caption text that will appear under the image, usually as short as possible, and without duplicating wikilinks from the corresponding blurb.

Typically, the year had been added to the |alt= parameter, esp. when the image is not from the current year. If this information is deemed important, it shouldn't be relegated to alt text. But I've never known the reason behind the standard ITN practice. The US election or Trump should not be treated differently, so let's decide if this is a general practice we should have or not. —Bagumba (talk) 14:03, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the only time we should be clear is if there is a clear difference from the person now then when thr image was taken. Cases I could see would be an RD blurb fir a famous actor using their image from at their prime than a current one at old age, or a athlete being MVP for their team where the only free image if them is in a different team outfit. This for Trump seems unnecessary and maybe slightly NPOV. Masem (t) 14:24, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

My reasoning was that since it is being used for a current event, it should be noted that the image is from 7 years ago. Ideally we should use an image that is current, but if the choice is to use his official photo, mentioning the year will suffice. Kingturtle = (talk) 15:09, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

We've never added a year to the caption unless the image is decades old. We've have plenty of images of other people that are more than a decade old without any issues, so no need to make a special case here. Stephen 22:19, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
It's not a special case. The policy should be re-evaluated. This is a section for current events. Either a recent photo should be used or a date should be mentioned. There is a big difference between how someone looks when they are 70 years old and when they are 78 years old. We should not mislead reads of the front page. Kingturtle = (talk) 05:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
Like, why not use this image of him from this year File:Donald_Trump_(53951823882).jpg ?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingturtle (talk • contribs) 06:23, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
  • I agree that we should use an up-to-date image for best accuracy. Also we've used the 2017 image before repeatedly and so it's quite stale now. The suggested 2024 image just needs some cropping as there's too much bokeh. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:33, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
Late: The image wasn't in the nomination, in the bio's infobox, nor I believe suggested at WP:ERRORS. Given the subject, I'm not sure how many posters would go out on a limb and unilaterally use this as an obvious improvement. Personally, I wouldn't have had an objection to this image. —Bagumba (talk) 06:31, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
The visual difference between 70 and 78 are trivial. Masem (t) 17:59, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
Especially with vast improvements in plastic surgery these days. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:33, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Masem. Storm in a teacup. Khuft (talk) 20:35, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

New Policy suggestion

Based on the above conversation about Trump's image, I think we should develop a policy that would require images related images to be within a small time frame of time (within the last 2 or 3 years) and to allow slightly longer captions to explain if an image is much older. Kingturtle = (talk) 15:09, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

  • Oppose as others said, long as the images are high quality, this requirement isn't necessary. Rager7 (talk) 03:24, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
  • I think we should develop a policy that would require images related images to be within a small time frame of time (within the last 2 or 3 years): This has generally been the de facto practice. With politicians, there's a dilemma when an official photo is older and there is a "lesser" non-official photo avaiable. Some complain when a death or otherwise "negative" blurb has an image of the subject smiling. Given the limited selection WP has for images, it's hard to impose firm requirements—they'd be preferences. A recent photo might be poor quality or horribly composed.—Bagumba (talk) 06:13, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
    "Some people" don't mind the smiling so much when it's not directly into the camera, too. Yuriko, Princess Mikasa, for example. For example only. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:17, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Remove Bundesliga from WP:ITN/R

Based on a quick search, I think Bundesliga was last posted in 2018. Also it has been surpassed by Serie A, which we don’t list, in many metrics. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 19:45, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  • Support removal. The ITNR addition overlapped with its lone posting. It's not in line with the current norm (e.g. #Proposal for addition to ITN/R above), where we expect affirmation with consecutive postings.—Bagumba (talk) 01:51, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Support removal. I still think the Bundesliga is very significant, but if it's not getting posted, having it in INT/R is a mistake. GenevieveDEon (talk) 09:16, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Support removal. Lack of any posting since 2018, and doesn't seem to be as major a football tourney as other ITNR ones. --Masem (t) 15:57, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose quality issues aren't a good enough reason to remove, and it is one of the 4 best leagues in the world quality-wise, alongside the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A, and it's purely academic which order you have them in. Either we remove all domestic leagues and cups or keep the top 4. Abcmaxx (talk) 07:03, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
    • If no one repeatedly keeps an ITNR item of quality for multiple years in a row, it doesn't make sense to keep as ITNR. That doesn't prevent it from being nominated normally, and potentially get re-added if quality issues are resolved multiple years in a row. — Masem (t) 15:18, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
      I dont think we necessarily need to revist all items and delist if it hasn't been posted in years, but it's more that this one has never been posted in consecutive years to begin with, which is our current standard. —Bagumba (talk) 17:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
      And we do shake up ITN/R from time-to-time. In the past two years or so I believe we pruned a good number of defunct items that were just never being posted. And I think that's proper practice; if a Wikipedia user has heard of an event, then they would clearly be making quality updates to it and they would clearly be nominating it to ITN/C. And if it's missing, they would participate in the process to get it nominated and posted. I don't think there's necessarily an argument here in terms of significance, but we shouldn't clutter the ITN/R list with items that aren't even being posted. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:39, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
      Yes, I'm not proposing that we audit ITNR every year, but it is fair to consider that if a listed ITNR item should remain following multiple consecutive non-postings either due to lack of nomination or improvements in quality to post. Masem (t) 13:39, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Support It's routine sport and so contrary to WP:NOTNEWS and WP:PROMOTION. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:55, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Support It's clearly never actually been "regular", and just because it was once assumed that it could be regular doesn't tie us to it years later. SerialNumber54129 17:25, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Support - I can't seem to find where this was added to begin with. I can see where folks attempted to remove it and failed. At any rate, it seems proper to remove this item now, and then let a consensus develop in the future for reposting it to ITN/R if and when it clearly meets the requirements to do so. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:37, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
FYI, this was the discussion about adding Bundesliga and other domestic association football leagues (from 2018). Natg 19 (talk) 17:43, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
The rationale for its inclusion of ITN/R was that it was said to be one of the most important leagues in the world. And it was never posted again since then. I guess this helps drive home the importance of WP:NOR in that we shouldn't just take a source at its word. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:35, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Reminder: RfC on In the news criteria

The section created by Voorts has rolled off, but I'd like to make it known again that there is an ongoing RFC regarding potential ITN criteria amendments, now under a new link at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

  • I strongly encourage anyone interested in ITN to take a look at this one, as one of the proposals includes shutting down ITN for good ✈ mike_gigs talkcontribs 13:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
    Am I the only one who no longer follows what's going on at that thread / RFC? There is a whole host of "Oppose" votes, which I understand are for those proposals. Is this RFC now discussing shutting down ITN? Ktin (talk) 01:25, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
No, that was a proposal added early on, proposal 3 to shut down ITN. The RFC has not changed scope. Natg 19 (talk) 02:53, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
Bump DarkSide830 (talk) 19:19, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Bump again just in case. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:22, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposal for addition to ITN/R

The winner of the Ballon d'Or should be a recurring item. Award is given to the best association football player in the world. Been awarded every year (except 2020) since 1956. Some have compared this award to MVP awards in leagues such as the NBA, but the coverage of this award is to all leagues in multiple countries such as England, France, Germany etc. and is not limited to a single league. Additionally, the ceremony itself attracts a large online viewership and receives coverage from sources such as the BBC, CNN, and Associated Press(AP). People have questioned about the importance of an award given by journalists, but nevertheless it has remained the most prestigious award in football. Also, it has been appearing in the Top 25 report since 2021. - TNM101 (chat) 13:43, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

We generally want to see it posted organically on WP:ITNC a few consecutive years before considering formalizing it on WP:ITNR. —Bagumba (talk) 13:53, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
This year it fell off the candidate page while consensus had not been developed but I agree with what you say. TNM101 (chat) 14:06, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
This shows a consensus "against" posting, or "no consensus" to post. Thus, no, this should not be ITNR, if it has not been posted recently. Natg 19 (talk) 21:59, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose generally need to have a consensus for 2-3 years to post them, which wasn't the case the past few years. Also, no point adding them to WP:ITNR if the article quality is almost never there- 2024 Ballon d'Or has a lead section and then no further text, but an extraordinary number of overdetailed tables (like "Ballon D'Or Detailed Votes by Country" table). If for a couple of years people generate quality articles for these events, and there is consensus to post them on notability, then and only then should it be considered for ITNR. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:48, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
    Realistically the featured page should be the recieptent, not the award page, similar to things like the Booker or Nobel prizes. There's no major ceremony (in contrast to Oscars or BAFTA) so the award page is going to be trivial. Masem (t) 22:23, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Elections

Currently three out of four ITN blurbs are election results and there are six nominations altogether for Bulgaria, Georgia, Japan, Lithuania, Mozambique and Uzbekistan. And that's not including the US elections.

It's my impression that elections are often held at this time because it's after the harvest. When there's a big flurry of them, perhaps we should list them in a compact form like RD? Andrew🐉(talk) 09:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I had a similar idea for the Nobel Prizes a couple of years ago, and I agree that something should be done in similar cases.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:39, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Support, this is a good idea (for elections and for the Nobels) to "batch list" them. Natg 19 (talk) 16:28, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Also agree for both elections and Nobel Prizes. It could be something like this, with the four (or five, or six) more recent election blurbs:
  • Recent elections:
I thought about adding the winners, but for cases like Bulgaria or Japan where there is no clear winner, it wouldn't necessarily be desirable. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:44, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Oppose grouping the nobels makes sense as they are highly correlated events by one organization. National elections are individually distinct events and makes no sense to simply them down. We just have to recognize that we get groupings of these about once or twice every few years. Masem (t) 18:09, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Recent deaths and ongoing events are individually distinct but we still list them together on one line. What's the difference? Andrew🐉(talk) 18:23, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
2024 is 'the year of elections'. It has the most elections the world has ever seen and this doesn't happen always. ExclusiveEditor Notify Me! 18:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose It's completely unclear as to what constitutes "a big flurry", who decides what "a big flurry" is, and how that decision is made. Furthermore, it would be incredibly likely that Americans would seek to make their elections a special case deserving a blurb outside the batching process, even though they will take place shortly "at this time after the harvest". Chrisclear (talk) 17:34, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

  • Stats List of elections in 2024 says "The year 2024 is notable for the large number of elections being held worldwide ... [and] has been called the year of elections." Looking at the number of times each month appears in that list, the distribution is:
  • January = 9
  • February = 16
  • March = 11
  • April = 17
  • May = 24
  • June = 28
  • July = 7
  • August = 5
  • September = 15
  • October = 32
  • November = 23
  • December = 5
So, there's clearly some seasonality with peaks in May/June and October/November.
Andrew🐉(talk) 18:21, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for providing the above data, it is interesting background information. However my specific questions about batching (who and how the decision is made) remain unanswered. Furthermore, suppose this proposal were to proceed (which I oppose), would the US elections next week be considered part of the batching process? If no, why not? Chrisclear (talk) 22:20, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
The "after the harvest theory" needs to be tempered by the fact that autumn in the northern hemisphere is spring in the southern hemisphere. Also, in a lot of countries with British traditions, elections are held at a time chosen by the government. HiLo48 (talk) 22:25, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
I would recommend another criteria for meeting ITNR, such as the nation's GDP being in the top 25. Kcmastrpc (talk) 22:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Man would that leave out Ireland because a lot of people would oppose that... Howard the Duck (talk) 23:00, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
  • One concern for "batch listing" is that there may not be enough room to "feature" the winner of an election (or a major political shift), as we do now. But I like the idea to vary the featured stories, and not fill the box with the same kind of story. Natg 19 (talk) 22:49, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I understand the concern, but I think the current situation is anomalous and will resolve itself fairly soon. GenevieveDEon (talk) 09:47, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
@Chrisclear: it would be incredibly likely that Americans would seek to make their elections a special case deserving a blurb outside the batching process What makes you think that? Genuinely curious, it seems that you have tangible data/examples for this, so I would like to see them. At your earliest convenience, please. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:59, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
Your last sentence "At your earliest convenience, please" is redundant, because, as you would be aware, I am a volunteer, and all contributions to Wikipedia, including those on talk page discussions are made at my earliest convenience and according to no fixed timetable. I'd encourage you to be a bit more civil and avoid comments with a poor underlying tone.
With that out of the way, the answer to your question "What makes you think that?" is simply common sense, based on the long-standing underlying bias of some editors in favour of Americentric topics. Most recently, before 11am UTC on 5 November, before voting even commenced in most (nearly all) locations in the US, the US election article had been nominated once for ITN, and nominated a second time when another editor had the common sense to close the first nomination. What makes it even more puzzling, is that according to the page history, it appears that the editor who proposed the article the second time, was the very same editor who proposed the batching process in the first place!
Has there ever been any other election nomination where the relevant article has been nominated twice before voting commences? Chrisclear (talk) 19:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
In lieu of your data, here's some data of my own: In sampling ten of your recent contributions to ITN/C, seven of them have been to complain about American bias on a nomination or that "such an event wouldn't be posted if it were from another country". In reminding me to be more civil, you are in the same post accusing other users of "long-standing underlying bias" which is itself a personal attack. It is OK to point out systemic bias but it is not OK to repetitively accuse other editors of such bias. Such assumptions go against good faith. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:01, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose Changing guidelines/policy in response to unusual or flukish events is typically an overreaction and often unhelpful. And while I concede that some elections may be of limited interest to our readers, many are going to be very much a matter of interest and should be blurbed. This strikes me as a good faith suggestion in response to a largely nonexistent issue. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:33, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

RfC at WT:BLP

There is currently an RfC concerning a proposed change to WP:SUSPECT which if adopted could impact some nominations at ITNC. Interested editors are encouraged to join the discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:02, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Update Baseball ITNR

The last update about the Baseball recurring items was sometime ago, since then baseball landscape changed a bit since then, i suggest the following updates to baseball list:

So, it would basically look like this:

Expected stories per year: 3 in non International tournament years, 4 in years with WBC or Premier12 Meganinja202 (talk) 09:15, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Typically items are expected to be posted a few consecutive years through regular WP:ITNC nomintations before considering for addition to ITNR. See #Proposal for addition to ITN/R (above). —Bagumba (talk) 09:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose both changes. The WBSC Premier12 has only been held three times, the world's top players do not take part, and there's barely any interest from broadcasters or the media. The rationale offered for adding the Korea Series makes no sense at all, it's obscure even to baseball fans outside that country. A quick glance at our articles will demonstrate how little attention either competition receives. And finally, neither competition has been successfully nominated at ITN/C so I don't see why they should be on ITNR. Modest Genius talk 13:16, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose WBSC Premier12. It was not posted at ITN recently, and I have not heard of this event. Unsure about Korean Series. Natg 19 (talk) 17:36, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose addition ITNR is for when articles get nominated and posted multiple times- this doesn't have consensus to even post this edition. If anything, I would support removing Japan Series rather than adding lots more events Joseph2302 (talk) 19:09, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    Japan Series appears to have been posted in each of the last 10 years.—Bagumba (talk) 19:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    it was posted this year too Meganinja202 (talk) 10:54, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Pathetic

I largely gave up contributing here a few months ago because of the appalling system (?) of posting items, but actually knowing the man led me to watch the nomination of the recent death of Ian Redpath. He was nominated four days ago. The nomination has had nothing but universal support, but it is still not posted. Please don't respond with excuses for our poor overworked Admins. Just fix the bloody system!!!! HiLo48 (talk) 04:14, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

What do you suggest, besides more active admins? I guess there could be a queue process. Also there is a tag {{@ITNA}} to ping the admins who usually post. Natg 19 (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I looked right through all the instructions and found nothing about that. I suggest obviously simple noms, like the one I'm describing, could be addressed in seconds, not four days. Maybe a triage approach. HiLo48 (talk) 06:36, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I didn't look at the article yet. But it looks like an admin just rejected posting of the RD for quality concerns. Natg 19 (talk) 06:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
A few days late! HiLo48 (talk) 08:23, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Looking at the page history, many tags were added at 07:36 2 Dec.[7] —Bagumba (talk) 10:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Sounds like the system worked as it should, then. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:40, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
No, because no negative comments appeared here. HiLo48 (talk) 00:05, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
+1  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 18:42, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Instead of huffing and puffing here, why didn't you contact an Admin on their Talk page, if this was so urgent for you? Khuft (talk) 21:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
It wasn't urgent for me. Don't misrepresent what I wrote. And don't try to make this about me. And how is one supposed to contact an Admin? Their posts aren't labelled as coming from Admins. HiLo48 (talk) 00:05, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
For not being about you, you sure are replying to your own thread an awful lot, not to mention drawing attention to your conduct by using invective ("pathetic", "appalling", "fix the bloody system", "excuses for our poor overworked admins") which isn't really needed to make your point. WP:CIV didn't cease to exist during the interim in which you "largely gave up contributing here". Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:49, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
"And how is one supposed to contact an Admin? Their posts aren't labelled as coming from Admins." If you find it necessary to notify an admin, there are many sysops who regularly post on ITN. You've been around longer than I have, so I would imagine you recognize a few of their names by now, but if you do not, click on some user pages and there's a decent chance you'll find one rather quickly. Or find an entry that has been posted - the user who announced that it's been posted is probably an administrator.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 19:31, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Not "probably". IS an admin. ITN is fully protected, so only admins can post, or make changes to ITN. Natg 19 (talk) 20:19, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
I should have italicized "probably" for effect, I'm not very good at being facetious  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 21:54, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Seems to still be missing several citations. DarkSide830 (talk) 04:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Article Classification

Greetings. On the WP:DYK project, there is a bot DYKToolsBot that runs against each nomination and adds a tag that classifies each nomination. e.g., American biographies. Does someone here know how that classification is done? More importantly, does someone know how we can run such as classifier against the nominations here? Would be a great idea to get some aggregate statistics against our nominations / postings. I am tagging usernamekiran to see if this is something that can be done against our current archives. Thoughts? I have asked a similar question at the talk page of the DYK project. Ktin (talk) 17:56, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ktin: Hi. I'm currently on mobile (and for a few days more), but the bot's source code is published on, so in theory, we should be able to find it out. But what exactly do you want to do? Courtesy ping to RoySmith, operator of DYKToolsBot. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:38, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. I think there is no urgency for this one. But, sometime back we were looking at some aggregate analytics for WP:ITN and specifically WP:ITNRD postings. I am thinking something on the lines of Article name - country (American, Canadian etc.) - category (e.g. arts, sports, politics etc.) Ktin (talk) 18:42, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
I had already answered this at WT:DYK#DYK Bot / Article Classification. RoySmith (talk) 18:44, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

ITNRD wording is posing problems now

It is important to keep in mind the original RFC (Wikipedia talk:In the news/2016 RD proposal); prior to this, we would be judging how "notable" (not the WP:N definition but the more common definition, is the person worthy of note) of how someone was as to post a RD blurb. The RFC was made so that it was to remove endless fights on this evaluation of being "notable" and that as long as there was a quality page about a person (or other formerly-living organism), and reported in the news. As such, when the language of the RFC was added, it purposely did not include the word "notable", in meaning that all RDs as long as there was a stand-along page about the person/living organism with appropirate quality. It should also be kept in mind this introduced the RD line, as previously all deaths that were covered were blurbs, which was a major source of disruption for ITN, and making this RD line was meant to be a nice clean shortcut to eliminate the bulk of these problems.
However, it should be stressed that to have a stand-alone article about a person/organism, that we expect the appropriate WP:N to have been passed as that is generally a necessary condition. (It can be an GNG or SNG, but all other policy and guidelines have to be met). This is particularly due when the death is the primary reason there are sources about the person, which is why BLP1E exists; a single event (including death) doesn't make a person notable. I'll also point to the discussion in the followup Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 57#Are animals eligible for the Recent Deaths section? where many shows support for including animals and other organizations as long as they were notable in the WP:N way.
Now within relatively short time frames we have had cases of where articles have been created on the death of the person/organism, and where the WP:N notability is not clearly obvious and BLP1E really applies (WP:ITNC#(Posted) RD: Brian Thompson, and a last month Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/November 2024#(Posted) RD: Peanut the squirrel). We have had editors in both of these claim a few bad assumptions, such as (paraphrasing)

  • If you think its not notable, take it to AFD - the problem with this is that notability depends on what sourcing can be found, and it can be bad faith simply to rush a newly created article to AFD as more sourcing could be found in time (but not in the seven-day cycle for ITN).
  • ITNRD just say it needs to have a standalone article - That's not in the spirit of what the RFC actually was deciding, since it wasn't eliminating the WP:N requirement from RD articles, just that we shouldn't use real-world notability or significance for RDs of people that had standalone (read: WP:N-notable) articles.


We also can't help that other editors that are not active in ITN nor have deep understanding around BLP and NOTNEWS that will create articles without any checks on them. The system is weighed in favor of article creation (for good reason) but that should still mean that we at ITN need to be making sure that the article that is going to be shown in the ITN still meets all expected quality aspects, which includes notability (since that's related to sourcing, verifiability, neutrality and no original research). \
Now, it may be possible that there is a notable person that dies (in a non-eventful manner), that no one created an article for, and we rush to create and expand it, with clear indication of notability, from old and new sourcing; I can't remember when but I am pretty confident that I've seen editors dive in to create and improve such articles, and we'd post that. But since the RFC we have also rejected newly created articles on people/organisms that do not meet any GNG/SNG outside their death and are not improved to show that within the seven day period. This is why the claims "well, just take it to AFD to test notability" is really a bad approach because it can stymie good article development, and why ITN should be incorporating review of the WP:N-notability factors for a newly created article; we already do this for events as well, so there's zero reason such BLP-type articles should not also be reviewed the same way.
Further, holding what is being said, there is now a simple way to game ITN to include truely non-WP:N-notable individuals that at least have a mention of their death, since you just have to create an article that just barely passes a stub level, and saying "Well, its a standalone article, take it to AFD, then". That definitely wasn't the intent of the RFC.
To that point, we should consider rewording the ITNRD language to again reflect the RFC, but to be clear that we should evaluate notability as per WP:N (that being, significant coverage about that person, and per BLP1E, not coverage strictly related to the event), but once the basic demonstration of WP:N is met, then it doesn't matter how real-world notable they were, we would post the article in the RD line assuming all other quality factors are there. — Masem (t) 01:12, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

My relatively simple proposal would be that !votes should consider (i.e. comment on) both the quality and the demonstration of WP-definition notability of the articles. Any !vote that doesn't effectively box-check "the article meets/doesn't meet GNG" would be given less consideration in a posting decision. And still no need for comments on the (non-WP definition) notability of the RD subject. Kingsif (talk) 03:07, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
ITN is not a place to debate article notability. Despite your concerns, that's literally why talk pages and AfD exist. Ed [talk] [OMT] 07:37, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
That completely misses the point of what I wrote.
To be clear, rushing to AFD what is perceived to be be a non notable article that has freshly created is frowned upon and considered bad faith. It makes no sense in challenging an RD at ITN of a freshly created article to go flag it for AFD. But it is our place to make an assessment of quality, and notability aspects are a part of that. If the consensus agree that by the time the seven day period is up that the newly created article doesn't show notability via the GNG or SNG, then we simply don't post it, and the fate of the article continues as a wholly sepearate step. We should not be conflating the ITN and AFD processes as this suggests. — Masem (t) 15:04, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Masem that we ought to reword ITN/RD for this purpose. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:01, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
... it can be bad faith simply to rush a newly created article to AFD as more sourcing could be found in time (but not in the seven-day cycle for ITN): "Bad faith" is the wrong term. AGF that the AfDer is trying to counter recentism and WP:NOTNEWS, where WP:LASTING impact is premature to assess. The disadvantage with having the notability discussion at ITN is that it has limited visibility. Subject matter experts on the article topic often aren't involved with ITNC, but would have (better?) insight on the topic's notability. However, the issue is that any AfD on a recent trending topic is very likely to end in "no consensus", if not "keep", as participants are likely biased by recentism. I'm not sure if there is an elegant solution, but these cases are also rare. —Bagumba (talk) 01:25, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Bagumba. The effect of this proposal is to setup a shadow AfD at ITN without the same visibility or accountability for abuse. You'll end up with walls of text erected citing GNG without anyone following through with an AfD nomination. As for Brian Thompson, that assassination should have been a blurb for a story a week later that is still headline news. --173.38.117.86 (talk) 21:46, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion archived w/o decision

We recently had a discussion to remove Bundesliga from ITN/R, and in my opinion it received clear consensus in support before being archived. I was the nominator so I shouldn’t be the one to adjudicate, but can an uninvolved party adjudicate or at least revive the discussion? Thanks. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 15:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Please can you unarchive the discussion. While I do not have specifics of this discussion, an admin can be tagged with a request for action. Ktin (talk) 17:32, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
Looks like Bzweebl did this themselves on 19:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC). That seems to be fine with me, as there was clear consensus for the removal. Will make a mention back at the discussion. Natg 19 (talk) 23:50, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

what about the abu dhabi grand prix

the final race of the f1 season deserves to be in the news, surely because of how important it was for the f1 constructors title 80.64.63.172 (talk) 10:15, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

See WP:ITNR: The Drivers' champion is posted, and the Constructors' only mentioned alongside a Drivers' nomination. No separate post if won at different times. See WPT:ITN#Remove constructors title. DatGuyTalkContribs 10:50, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
I know nothing about Formula One. Sadly, Formula One World Championship does not readily explain how a champion is determined. —Bagumba (talk) 02:58, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
And the winner seems to have already been posted a few weeks ago.[8] —Bagumba (talk) 03:02, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Formula One World Championship says "A point-system is used at Grands Prix to determine two annual World Championships: one for the drivers, and one for the constructors...". But there are two constructors -- the chassis and the engine. So, this year the champion constructors were McLaren and Mercedes. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:13, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Quantum Chip

Is there an article on this topic / announcement from earlier today? I came here to see if it was a topic for the homepage / mainpage. But, I could not even find an article on the topic. Am I searching incorrectly? Thanks. Ktin (talk) 05:08, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Closest would likely be quantum computing, assuming we're talking about this [9] (and published in Nature here [10]). — Masem (t) 13:08, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
There is now an entry for Google Willow at List of quantum processors, but no standalone article yet. Stephen 23:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
There is also quantum error correction where you can find updates on recent advancements in the "Experimental realization" section (however, Google's claim about their quantum chip is not yet there).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Five entries

Why not? ArionStar (talk) 02:36, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

ITN's box must be balanced with the TFA box on the main page. Between the RD and Ongoing lines, we generally can only have four entries unless one blurb is super-short. Masem (t) 02:40, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
WP:ITNBALANCE. "On this day" could alternatively be shortened, but the last ITN blurb is typically quite old anyways, barring a change in ITN approval patterns. —Bagumba (talk) 02:50, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
It's five now. ArionStar (talk) 03:32, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Timeline of the Sudanese civil war

The current link is to Timeline of the Sudanese civil war (2024) when I think it should link to Timeline of the Sudanese civil war (2025). Charles Essie (talk) 20:48, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Done. Stephen 03:53, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

RD: Dorthy Moxley?

Does anyone want a second look at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/December 2024#(Ready) RD: Dorthy Moxley? I think this wikibio was already ready for RD within the 7-day nomination period. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 13:41, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I have no general problem with WP:IAR, but a late WP:1E concern was raised there too, making me pause, but there's no WP:AFD either. —Bagumba (talk) 01:53, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for looking into this nom. I raised that WP:1E concern. Not sure if my edits were enough to fix that. Oh, well... --PFHLai (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
If the 1E concern was raised earlier, and no AfD was filed, I'd have been more inclined to overlook it. But with the being raised late, and the 7 days having passed, I decided to be conservative and not IAR. Otherwise, I had no opinion on the page's notability. —Bagumba (talk) 00:23, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Delays

Delays in consensus check

Due to delays, some entries were being lost. Vide Georgia and Estlink. A pity. ArionStar (talk) 03:10, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § Headers suggest marking the item with (Ready). —Bagumba (talk) 09:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Can anyone mark or just an administrator? ArionStar (talk) 15:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Anyone can. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 16:20, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Delays in picture update

The bold articles in all the current blurbs seem to have usable lead pictures. Why are we still showing a picture of Jimmy Carter now that it's the bottom blurb? Is it just the holiday season? Andrew🐉(talk) 21:42, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

A New Orleans image was pulled because it was misidentified as part of the ramming scene (Talk:2025 New Orleans truck attack#Infobox image). Otherwise, one can always make suggestions at WP:ERRORS. —Bagumba (talk) 00:31, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

(Closed) Proposal: Remove "Israel-Hamas war" and "Israeli invasion of Lebanon" and replace them with "Middle Eastern crisis (2023–present)" to the Ongoing section

There is no consensus to make this change to ongoing. Stephen 03:57, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

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

Currently, Israeli military activities are taking up two places in the Ongoing section. Given that both the Israel-Hamas war and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon fall under the Middle Eastern crisis (2023–present) article, I propose replacing them both with the Middle Eastern crisis (2023–present) article. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon, while certainly notable and ongoing (despite the ceasefire back on 26 November), doesn't reflect that right now the news is giving more coverage to neighboring Syria (not to mention the Israel's invasion of Syria). The nice thing about the Middle Eastern Crisis article is that it covers all of the events and consolidates them into a single article.

At the same time, I recognize that the Middle Eastern Crisis article may require cleanup. But the issue still stands that the ongoing section has two different articles that are arguably part of the same general topic. Imagine if alongside the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we also had the 2024 Kursk offensive article listed separately.

Please forgive me if this is the wrong place for this, because I read the nomination steps section of the article and felt that this doesn't seem like a usual nomination that applied (the "the date of the event" would be 7 October 2024, but the page only goes as far back as December 9th 2024). JasonMacker (talk) 01:03, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

This should be proposed on the main WP:ITNC page, not here.
That said, that Middle Eastern crisis page is a lot of OR by combining several different, very unrelated concepts into a single page, and thus does not represent the quality we expect. There is a well-established connection (from sources) between the Israel-Hamas war and the Isreal-Lebonon aspects but I don't think we have a good page that covers all that. Masem (t) 01:16, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Can you explain what "different, very unrelated concepts" you're referring to? If you have suggestions as to how to improve the Middle Eastern crisis article, please offer them at that page's talk page.
Saying that it "should be proposed on the main WP:ITNC page" doesn't answer my question of how this proposal should even be formatted. I'm not asking for a specific event to be mentioned. I'm asking a question about the structure of the ongoing section. I'm not denying that the Middle Eastern Crisis article has cleanup issues. I'm saying that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon had a ceasefire a month ago, while the Israeli invasion of Syria (the current one, not the 1967-present one) happened last week and is currently getting far more news coverage compared to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (Compare this to this and see which one is getting more recent news articles). This observation, combined with the fact that the Middle Eastern Crisis article covers both Israeli invasions of those two countries (alongside Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip), makes it more suitable for the ongoing section. If Israel invades Jordan today, does that mean we're going to have to add that as a separate ongoing event, making Israeli military activities three different ongoing articles? I think two is too many. Just having a single "Middle Eastern Crisis" article makes more sense. I say this as someone who made some contributions to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon article. JasonMacker (talk) 01:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't think any article entitled "Middle Eastern crisis" is viable for the main page. It's just too high level and involves several unrelated or loosly related conflicts. Really, I'm not even sure such an article should even exist as per Masem. DarkSide830 (talk) 17:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
Middle East crisis is far too non-specific. Secretlondon (talk) 22:10, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
Per Masem, "Middle Eastern crisis" is mostly connecting multiple loosely related conflicts, and not necessarily a good ITN topic. Agree that the invasion of Lebanon should be replaced by the invasion of Syria as the most active one. The invasions of Gaza and Lebanon can definitely be connected, but that of Syria (which could be called a preventive war at best) can't really be seen as another theater of the same war. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:33, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Terrorism and shootings

I would like to encourage discussion on whether linking mass shootings to 'terrorism' should be considered a valid argument when evaluating a nomination. Despite the fact that there is no policy stating that terrorist attacks should be assigned higher significance, some editors regularly use it as a rationale to support or oppose nominations in the same way as WP:MINIMUMDEATHS is used for deadly events in general. If you think this is a valid argument, then this should become a policy; if not, it should be documented in an essay or added to WP:ITNCDONT. Either way, it should be elaborated somewhere. In my opinion, 'terrorism' should not be used as a valid argument because mass shootings result in the death of innocent people regardless of the motive, and there is no evidence that the ensuing response by authorities is stricter for terrorist attacks (in some countries with low terrorism incidence, authorities impose strict measures and security restrictions even after domestic shootings). Furthermore, there is a very thin line between people with mental health problems and terrorists (in principle, terrorists are mentally ill people). Your opinions are welcome.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:22, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

If you think this is a valid argument, then this should become a policy: But WP:ITNSIGNIF is very open-ended:

It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting.

Ideally, we'd have more detailed general guidance, and not piecemeal rules. —Bagumba (talk) 08:47, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Some editors literally hang on to that argument as if it's a rule written in stone, so something needs to be done to prevent it in future discussions. The 'terrorism' rationale is equivalent to WP:MINIMUMDEATHS. I agree with a more detailed general guideline (similarly, WP:MINIMUMDEATHS was added to WP:HOWITN).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:54, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Some editors literally hang on to that argument: And if they did, the way ITNSIGNIF is currently worded, a closer should allow it, as there's very little that isn't subjective (save for core content policies e.g. WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NPOV, WP:BLP).—Bagumba (talk) 09:05, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I fear that what you say doesn't work in practice. How's the 'terrorism' rationale different than 'minimum deaths' or 'event related to a single country'? ITNSIGNIF covers those cases as well. The problem is that we're selective in (dis)allowing subjective opinions.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:12, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Of recent memory, most !voters don't directly mention a minimum (anymore?), and the one's that do tyoically get rebutted with "there's no minimum". "Single country" is codified at WP:ITNCDONT, so I guess you're arguing for a similar one-off exception? —Bagumba (talk) 09:31, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Yes, that's probably because WP:MINIMUMDEATHS was added to WP:HOWITN and 'single country' is already at WP:INCDONT. Nothing prevents us from doing the same with 'terrorism' if the majority think it's not a valid argument to support or oppose a nomination.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:45, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
WP:HOWITN is an essay, so you have more freedom to edit that (frankly, I think that's an easier route, and see if a related shortcut resonates or not.) —Bagumba (talk) 12:07, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
As much as I think WP:HOWITN essay would be a fine place to make such a point (speaking as one of the original authors of this essay), I would caution that HOWITN aims to be descriptive of the ITN/C culture with the intent of advising new contributors and/or users who are new to ITN in general. It has recently been picked up as a vehicle for ITN reform, but I think the best way to go about making that point is through an enthymeme, presenting the eccentricities of ITN/C as they are and allowing readers to draw their own conclusions from them. The use of terrorism as an argument might be effectively a cliche due to the varying definition of the word "terrorism" from place to place, but as far as WP:ITNSIGNIF and WP:HOWITN is concerned, it is a valid argument so long as administrators actively factor it in when weighing consensus.
In fact, scroll down to the WP:MINIMUMDEATHS section and you'll see that our tendency for posting attacks tends to increase if it is classified as terrorism in a developed nation, or a nation that is not prone to terrorist attacks. One might even say, tongue-in-cheek, that the "minimum deaths" required for a terrorist attack is zero, because we posted the October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts which killed 0 people and injured 0 people for a grand total of 0 casualties.
As a result, I think consensus has tended to go against Kiril Simeonovski even though I agree it is a purely subjective argument. However, it might be worth a second look anyway since a lot can change in a few years. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:14, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
The word "terrorism" has lost its more concrete meaning in recent years, with the word thrown around any time there is violence against others. There is actually (at least in the US as in other countries) a legal aspect of "terrorism" as if a crime is considered by law enforcement agencies, they are often granted additional powers to assure the terrorism threat is ended quickly. But that's often a claim made by non-enforcement officials within the first hours of such events , people like mayors of the cities affected. We absolutely should not assure that just because "terrorism" has been attached to a crime that it is actually terrorism (and thus not heighten the reason to post), unless we have affirmation from authoritative agencies that they consider it an act of terrorism; even then, not all such acts of terrorism are always significant. So I agree that trying to claim significance because some non-authority people claimed it was terrorism, is equivalent to trying to justify significance based on MINIMUMDEATHS. Masem (t) 15:13, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Masem opposed the Trump International Hotel explosion, writing "a single death is not significant to post as a story, unless it was determined to be an act of terrorism". These rationales are based on both MINIMUMDEATHS and terrorism as concepts. Have they changed their mind or what? Andrew🐉(talk) 20:05, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Of course not. There is no current authorative statement that that was terrorism related, in comparison to the New Orleans event. As such, it should be treated as a domestic crime, which then with only one death and destruction limited to the truck itself, plus the likelihood this was a suicide, is something we shouldn't be trying to highlight at ITN. And to clarify, my concern around MINIMUMDEATHs as a means of pleading a reason for posting is that even if the event exceeds the MINIMUMDEATHs threshold, its not always a suitable reason to post. For example, we do no post routine deaths from annual flooding im SE asia which often number in the hundreds to thousands, primarily because those are unfortunately routine. Masem (t) 20:16, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
The OP doesn't like these concepts being used "as a rationale to support or oppose nominations". Masem's position seems to be that it's ok when he does it. So, you guys don't seem to agree. My view is that such complexity and sophistry is unwise per WP:CREEP. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:13, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I think there is a distinction between terrorist attacks and "lone wolf" mass shootings - the first ones are more likely to have longer-term relevance and impact (e.g. the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack (12 dead) is still widely remembered, while the lone wolf Zug massacre (14 dead) is now, I would wager, mostly forgotten outside Switzerland). A terrorist attack committed in the name of an ideology (e.g. Islamism, but also e.g. Communism in the 1970s, e.g. by the RAF in Germany) has a higher potential to stoke fear among the broader population than lone wolf massacre. I would agree with Masem, however, that the word terrorism is (like so many others) widely over-used nowadays, so we should await official confirmation, or at least usage of the word by reputable media, before accepting it as an argument. Khuft (talk) 20:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I think that’s something that cannot be easily generalised, especially in countries with very low incidence of terrorist attacks. For instance, the Belgrade school shooting has had long-term impact and is still very well remembered even though it wasn’t a terrorist attack.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:10, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Sure, I wasn't saying that other mass shootings can't be posted. Khuft (talk) 21:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Maybe my position wasn't entirely clear. I think that editors should be able to use "terrorist attack" in their argumentation (as it can help assess significance), but whether a blurb gets posted remains subject to finding a consensus - and this will depend on other aspects too (including whether a certain event is rare or not in the country/region in question). Khuft (talk) 21:29, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I can remember as early as the 2019 El Paso shooting nomination that a hate crime motive was proposed as a rationale to post.—Bagumba (talk) 15:12, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
I'm more or less in agreement with Masem. "Terrorism" as a word has had it's meaning changed, and quite frankly, heavily broadened in recent years. Beyond that, whether or not something is "investigated as terrorism" usually has a lot to do with what the legal definition of terrorism is in the jurisdiction where the attack happened, and who is investigating. I don't think it means anything besides being contextual information for ITN posting. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
That's correct. The definition of 'terrorism' differs from one to another legislation. In some legislations, any attack on a public institution is considered an act of terrorism.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:36, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Types of impacts in the wildfires blurb

The current blurb for January 2025 Southern California wildfires is A series of wildfires in Southern California, United States, leaves at least 10 people dead and forces nearly 180,000 others to evacuate. I notice that this includes only two of the three types of impacts in the article's lead, which says As of January 10, the wildfires have killed 10 people, forced nearly 180,000 more to evacuate, and destroyed or damaged more than 13,400 structures.

Personally, I think that the structural damage, the omitted element, is easily the most significant impact of the fire. It's crude to have to compare any loss of life to property damage, but as a very basic calculation, if we use FEMA's $7.5 million value of a statistical life estimate, assume the structures destroyed were worth on average $500,000, and assume people would pay on average $1000 to avoid the inconvenience of having to evacuate, we get $75 million for the deaths, $180 million for the evacuations, and $6.7 billion for the property damage. This concurs with media coverage, where destroyed homes have been the primary focus and loss of life a more secondary one.

Given this, would editors support adjusting the blurb to add the structures destroyed (and shorten other parts if needed to create space)? Are there past precedents that would be helpful here? Sdkb talk 23:43, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I propose a change to "A series of wildfires in Southern California, United States, kills at least 10 people, damaged or destroyed more than 13,000 structures, and forced over 100,000 people to evacuate." Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 00:04, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
The number of evacuations is not necessary. It's a begging the question of how big it is. Alternatively, a number that has been floating in the news is the near $60B cost of damage that the fire has caused [11], so saying "...kills at least 10 people and has caused an estimated $57 billion in damage." is far better way to represent the extent. Masem (t) 18:12, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
Agreed that the evacuations seems the most dispensable. And I like the suggestion of the damage cost! My main qualm with it vs. structures is that it's harder to comprehend — most people can roughly visualize 13,000 structures (basically a small town) but $60 billion is more just an abstract large number. On the other hand, the cost does capture the damage with more granularity (13,000 structures could theoretically be 13,000 outhouses). What do others think of structures vs. damage cost? Sdkb talk 20:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
As a bartender's close, I've updated the blurb to replace evacuations with structures, but if others have thoughts we can always update it further. Sdkb talk 00:25, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
To be terribly honest, I know it's relevant in many cases, but I don't think we are subject to a singular definition of a value of life. What these numbers imply would be that nearly 100 deaths would be needed to account for the damage, and I think that's absurd. Damages property can be replaced. Lives can not. I can see why 10 deaths would not be the main story, as it isn't a massive number for a natural disaster, but I don't believe that is the best way to prove it shouldn't be the feature story here. The way I see it, for syntax reasons, the blurb reads better with two datapoints. Maybe the properties damages should supersede the evacuations, but I don't think it should be a major concern either way. DarkSide830 (talk) 06:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
The small number of people killed is not the reason that this story has attracted so much attention worldwide; it is the nature of the fires. Instead of a summer fire season, people all around the globe are now apprehensive about fire all year round due to climate change. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:46, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
  • "Structures" seems wrong as that would include things like fencing and streetlamps but I suppose they really mean buildings or properties. What seems especially significant is when distinct communities such as Altadena have been razed. Another common measure of the devastation seems to be acres. I'm not comfortable with that measure though and find square miles or km easier to understand. A way The Guardian explained it was "LA fires burn area twice the size of Manhattan" but that's a bit misleading as the terrain is quite different.
Anyway, the area burned was 62 square miles (162 km2) as of Sunday according to the NYT. To put that in proportion, the area of Greater LA is 34,000 square miles so that's about 0.2%. The number of people affected by evacuation seems to be about 1% of the total. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:16, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
The challenge with square miles burned (we'd also want to list square kilometers to globalize) is that it doesn't convey that the fires swept through an urban area, which is one of the main reasons this is notable/impactful — there are many larger fires every year that just happen in remote areas. Sdkb talk 15:19, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
When it comes to an ITN blurb, if we determined through our own exhaustive process on ITN/C that the wildfires are significant enough through varied criteria to merit being posted, I honestly think that it really doesn't matter what criterion we use. One is not more important than the other. If this were posted as an ongoing story, we wouldn't even have the opportunity to specify casualties. The point is to direct the reader to stories of interest, and even if it has "only" killed at least 10 people, the fact it's on the Main Page is a damn good clue to the reader that there's a significant impact that can be inferred from the article's contents. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news/Archive_115&oldid=1272404615"