This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:In the news. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Our rules for inclusion for on recent year pages (e.g. 2009) are almost impossible to know unless you already know them. For that reason, I have begun a draft for a guideline on recent year pages. Wikipedia:WikiProject Years/Recent Year guidlines draft. Let's get this hammered out and posted. Recent year pages are consistently among the mot edited on Wikipedia and we badly need to hammer out notability guidelines. Wrad (talk) 20:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Hm, ITN and Recent year are not really the same thing since some ITN items do not qualify for year article and vice versa. But sure, it is good to have written guidelines and what you have started seems reasonable. --Tone09:32, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Non Neutral Presentation of Israeli Gaza Strikes Change This Quote Immediately
"Israeli ground forces enter Gaza after a week of airstrikes against Hamas in the area."
"Israeli ground forces enter Gaza after a week of airstrikes on Gaza, claims targetting Hamas, in the area, resulted high civillian and children casualties."
6 Israeli soldier and 631 Palestinians are dead, over 300 civillians of at least 130 are children, 2700 wounded currently.
Can anyone suggest a better wording for casualties report, I am not a native English speaker.
Over 300 civillians are dead by now and over 130 of them are children. IDF uses Phosphorus Bombs over such a crowded and small city like Gaza, Bombing even Schools and Hospitals. Kasaalan (talk) 10:55, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I completly agree. The ITN quote is completly detached from reality and looks like an IDF press statement. --Soman (talk) 11:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
The breaking news isn't even up to date, or contains any crucial info. How this is even top news, Israel bombed an UN school leading 40 casualties yesterday. "The deaths raised to 75 the number of Palestinian civilians killed on Tuesday alone, according to medical officials. They said four militants also were killed in fighting during the day and put the total Palestinian death toll since Israel began the offensive on 19 December at 629. Most of the deaths reported by Gaza hospitals in recent days have been civilians. The Israeli military said it killed 130 militants since Saturday, a figure that suggested the total Palestinian death toll since 27 December might be close to 700 and that bodies could still be on the battlefield. Many of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million people lack food, water or power. In southern Israel, schools remained closed and hundreds of thousands of people have been rushing to shelter at the sound of alarms heralding incoming rockets." '40 killed at UN school' in Gaza Independent
I'm kind of disappointed I got so little of a response, positive or negative, to my proposal above in which I suggest that we should concentrate on making ITN as a whole, rather than individual entries, "international." I think adopting such a proposal would make ITN more rational and rid the suggestions page of some of the rancor we see on it. May I ask that people, if they have time, go back to the sixth item above this one, read what I suggested and express their thoughts on it, either way?
There is also the question of what, if anything, should replace the international-ness criteria for individual entries to ensure we don't get "junk news" on ITN. Personally, I abhor junk news items like stories on John Travolta's son dying, but I also believe that we'd be imposing our own values if we were to ban lowbrow news while continuing the kind of geeky stuff that we tend to put on ITN. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't see this argument being leveled against the Eurovision thingy; and to think the only song I've heard from that is "Congratulations," assuming that is the same "Congratulations" song that I know. –HowardtheDuck04:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
WP:OTHERSTUFF seems relevant to Howard's reasoning, even though we're not discussing articles. IMO, the problem isn't that American Idol isn't included, it is that Eurovision song contest apparently can be. If it fits within the policy, maybe that is the end of the scope that needs altering. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 18:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
What I am missing in the current system is a way to discuss future items. Shall we just put a Future paragraph above present dates and move to appropriate days when events take place? Regarding the events you nominated, we've already agreed to have Obama's inauguration but I don't think we should have a change in the Senat. --Tone21:38, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Where is the debate about the verbiage and links for the inauguration. Is the article I am proposing going to be the main article? How do I get a credit as the main editor of this article?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 23:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I wonder how long the blurb of Operation cast lead would continue to remain at the bottom of ITN? As you can see from here, other news have been removed as new ones come at top, but this one continues to occupy the bottom. Will it remain till Israeli strikes continue? The news is on ITN since December 27, 2008. --GPPande15:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I suppose we can update it some time soon with new development and move to the top. And after that, we leave it to stay as long as it is not replaced by newer events. --Tone15:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
The events in Gaza are still in the top 5 news items on most news outlets (despite the plane crash). I think it should continue to be also on wiki, especially as ceasefire events seem to be progressing to a climax. Fig (talk) 17:59, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Russia–Ukraine gas disputes
I propose changing the name in the "in the news' section from "Russian state-controlled supplier Gazprom cuts off gas deliveries to Ukraine, with several European countries reporting a fall in supplies." to "Russia–Ukraine gas dispute leads to fall in supplies to several European countries". The current wording does not describes all aspects of the situation, or describes the main of them adequately.
"State controlled" is not a universally supported claim, as the Gazprom company has multiple owners, incl. private shareholders, which quite obviously "control" it in some form, and
Why do we make a sentence where Gazprom has an active role and Ukraine is presented as a passive object of an action???
I.e. why not, for example, a pro-Gazprom GProm is made ... to cut off gas by Ukrainian actions, and not pro-Gazprom Ukraine ... stops transporting GP gas to EU, not even a neutral Russia–Ukraine gas dispute leads to stop of gas deliveries to Europe. Why do we choose an anti-Gazprom option? Because they are bad?
By making Gasprom an actor in this sentence and Ukraine a recipient of an action we clearly admit we hold Gazprom responsible for the mess, which is a clear POV and must be corrected. FeelSunny (talk) 13:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.85.148.66 (talk)
I think you're reading too much into the wording, but anyway, I've changed that line on ITN to:
When was the last time a commercial airliner landed on a river with no casualties? If anything, this is more news than an airplane crashing leaving no survivors. –HowardtheDuck11:14, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Plus there wasn't any ITN item from the continent of Africa on the Main Page when it was posted so I would have thought it helped balance it out and make it more international. --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)21:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Barack Obama inauguration
What is the significance of continuing to picture Ehud Olmert? Can we please move onto a picture of Barack Obama to accompany the latest news update to the template regarding the inauguration? Jason (talk) 21:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
That was an odd technicality. Not many people scroll down far enough to see the featured picture. The ITN picture is the most prominent photo on the front page. I understand why these types of rules are in place, but there needs to be some allowance for flexibility here. Featured pictures are often selected to coincide with anticipated news events, so this type of thing was guaranteed to happen here and it will happen again. DavidRF (talk) 15:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
In the future, I think its okay if ITN doesn't immediately post the pic, because by the time the Obama item went up, the FP had maybe 5 hours left. I think we can wait 5 hours before putting on a new image. SpencerT♦C14:38, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
They won't be announced for about another 11 and a half hours, but do nominations go in the news, or just the big winner next month? 75.139.141.4 (talk) 02:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Why is a French helicopter crash killing seven soldiers notable enough to be included in the main news and the Belgian creche attack killing three people isn't? 83.101.2.187 (talk) 20:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Why is a minor, local violent incident featured on the ITN? This obviously fails the " story of international importance or interest" on its face. I recommend removing it immediately. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:03, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
It's Belgium, which automatically makes it more international than the United States. (sarcasm aside, I agree completely, it's a stupid double standard. I wonder how many people complained about the Virginia Tech shooting being on ITN?)
Quite obviously very tragic for the people involved, but is in no way of international importance. It should be removed. Fredrik • WilhelmU|T|C19:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Mass murder in a daycare sounds like a ITNsworthy story to me. It's obviously out of the ordinary to any other mass murder. Matty (talk) 20:38, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I would have thought it was worthy too. Especially since a similar smaller-scale incident has happened in Norway and this seems much worse by comparison. It has also been reported across the world. Sources originating in Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, United States, Australia, etc. --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)20:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
The person commenting on the French soldiers below seems to agree with it featuring too. Is it not possible that they can all be included? There has been some relatively long gaps in updates recently and it could always be left without updating for a longer period than usual. --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)21:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, anyway on the main TV news in my country the Belgian incident was third in the headlines and the first international item in the bulletin. For comparison, the first two items were an incest case and a report on the Stardust fire. Perhaps other countries could compare for international significance? --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)21:22, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Someone needs to explain to me how a man walking into a daycare and (tragically) killing 3 people is somehow of greater international importance than any of the shooting incidents that are never featured, the major traffic accidents that are never featured, the any number of suicide bombings in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan that were never featured, the earthquakes and other natural disasters that are only occasionally featured, etc. It's an abysmal precedent to set and simply stating that b/c it happened in Belgium and it was mentioned in Ireland is an atrocious interpretation of "international importance or interest". There are ~1,300 gnews hits for this story, a fraction of other stories of far greater international important and more news coverage (Guantanamo closing, NY Senator appointment, Israel-Gaza conflict, stem cell trials, Oscar nominations, peanut butter recall). Please remove this embarassing news item. Madcoverboy (talk) 00:00, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
This is the same sort of tripe as the idiotic Fritzl case story that I believe was featured a year ago that passes as news when it's really just shock journalism repeated ad nauseum because it's especially grotesque or tragic rather than being of any international importance. Rest assured, if the same happened in America or Canada, there wouldn't be a peep of it on ITN. Madcoverboy (talk) 00:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
The Fritzl case didn't go up; check WP:ITN2008, the ITN archives for proof. If you wish to see other news at ITN, please suggest them at WP:ITN/C. The Israel-Gaza conflict is up, nominations for Oscars/senate appointments have never been put up, consensus for Guantanamo was to put it up when it actually closes, and there don't appear to be articles for the stem cell trials or peanut butter recall. (I think the stem cell trial should be on there, though, so if you created an article, I'd support).
I previously participated in ITN/C debates in late 2007 and early 2008 but stopped after observing blatant European biases like those embodied in this article. I don't mean to get meta here, nor to assert that there is not also American tenancies as well. Only that when applying the international importance and interest criteria, there is a far too repeated line of argumentation of "well it happened in country X, but was reported in nearby country Y, so clearly there is international interest" rather than removing absurd geographic considerations and considering the importance of the issue on its face. If there was a knife attack killing 3 people in a nursery Botswana, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Guatemala, or Vietnam, there wouldn't be one iota of coverage because it is not an important international issue. Nor would there ever be the aforementioned absurd arguments of international interest owing to a concentration of media coverage among densely-packed countries. Future historians will never look back and pause to think, how did Wikipedia cover this single, random act of violence? Please, please, please stop confounding number of news stories that happen to be reported in nearby countries with international interest. Madcoverboy (talk) 07:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Seriously, this isn't of international importance. It's being heavily reported today, but it'll be forgotten outside of Belgium tomorrow. It shouldn't be on the Main Page. — Gavia immer (talk)03:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
It's the main headline on just about all the newspapers I've seen today (which is tomorrow from the previous comment's perspective). --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)18:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
people need to stop confusing "international importance" vs "international interest". quite a bit of stories posted on ITN are of international interest. Barack Obama getting elected is of international importance same as any other country's election that takes place. But him getting inaugurated is only of international interest, thats why its on ITN. i have never seen another inauguration for any country on ITN. This story is being covered internationally hence it is of international interest and i fully support this being on ITN. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashishg55 (talk • contribs) 03:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
From my perspective it seems to be getting similar coverage where I am to American school shootings. Plus the one in Finland not very long ago. Yes, they are relatively forgotten now as well but perhaps the real issue is whether these types of incidents in general should make it on ITN full stop rather than selecting one to disagree upon because it isn't in the U.S. Considering previous incidents of this nature were selected I would see no valid reason why one happening in Belgium should be omitted. --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)18:24, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Heck, just wait for an event involving birds and metalworkers on February 1 and we'll be talking about the nonexistent but frequently proclaimed U.S. bias on ITN. –HowardtheDuck11:54, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
I have no idea how to comment on that because I don't know what it means. Although if you're predicting a news story you may be very useful for telling us which items have the most significance on hindsight. --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)18:27, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
I am an ITN inclusionist. Regardless of whether people should care so much, this incident was on the news all the way in North America. It clearly is news, whether we like it or not, and therefore is acceptable for ITN so long as there is matching content in the article space. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
It isn't. The problem here is that nobody nominated or updated that one in time. The Scottish one affects more than one country though. --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)21:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I am soliciting input on a proposed change to the criteria for entries in "In the News."
Current criteria require each item to be "of international importance or interest." The proposal is to replace the phrase with "of importance or interest to many Wikipedia readers" and also to require that In the News (ITN) as a whole display geographic diversity.
The spark for this proposal was several debates on the ITN candidates page over events in the United States. Some big news items in the U.S., such as the arrest of the governor of Illinois, were controversially denied a place in ITN because they were not "international."
As the person proposing the change, I'll summarize my argument below:
1) The current criteria often disallow inclusion of items of interest to many Wikipedia readers. While ITN is not a news service, there has been concern that ITN is not updated often enough with new events. We need more events on ITN, and it seems silly to me to disallow items of interest to many Wikipedia users because most of those users happen to be in one country.
2) The current criteria leads to systemic bias in favour of small countries. Current policy may lead to an overabundance of events in Europe, because that continent is divided up into little countries. A small event in Europe may be considered more "international" than a major event in China or the United States. A cod dispute between Iceland and Ireland, with less than 5 million people affected, would qualify under current guidelines, but not the passage of a major piece of legislation in the U.S. Congress, with 300 million people affected.
The unreasonableness of the current guidelines can be seen with the annual debate over the inclusion of the Super Bowl result. Supporters of including it have to focus not on the fact that 100 million Americans care about the game but rather the fact that it's also of interest to a few million Canadians, thus making it "international."
In the last three months of 2008, only seven or eight U.S. events made it to ITN, compared to 15 in Europe (18 with Russia), and 17 in Africa. This happened at a time when the presidential election was going on, and the U.S. was all over the world media. (There were 98 ITN entries in the three-month period.)
3) The goals of the current policy can be achieved with a less-restrictive policy. The argument in favor of the international-ness criterion has been that without it, ITN would be dominated by news from a few countries. This can be avoided simply by requiring that ITN editors strive for geographic diversity in ITN as a whole. If there are too many ITN items from one country, editors can argue against inclusion of a further item from there or remove one of the items already on ITN.
There has been little response to my proposal as of yet, so there has not been a real debate on it. I encourage those against the proposed change to summarize their views here so we can have a discussion on the topic. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
This may be outside the scope of this RFC but I feel that the biggest problem with ITN is that its prominent place on the front page encourages recentism, rather than encouraging the improvement of articles on important topics that are currently lacking. It says to editors: "To have your work featured at the top of the front page, either help bring an article to FA-status, or edit a article about a current topic." I also feel it falsely gives Wikipedia the appearance of a news source, when such information is more appropriate at Wikinews. - Chardish (talk) 01:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Chardish: Well, ITN is somewhat of a misnomer. There was a discussion about renaming it to: "Read more about..." ...a recent topic in the news that had an updated article.
Mwalcoff, I have a questions: What about national interest items of small countries, such as a governor of a state in Brunei that is impeached for similar conditions that the governor of Illinois was, and the article is of good quality? Should that, then, go up too? SpencerT♦C18:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
The guidelines are more or less fine with me. Significance that is not limited to only one group of people/nation/sport fans, and a well written and updated article. We could have more items, sure, but from my experiences, we have around 1 such event per day and this is ok. Regarding the concerns expressed above, I'd like to comment.
We do include Superbowl since it is the biggest event of this kind and attracts viewers from all over the world.
I really don't get the issue with US election coverage. We've already had 5 items connected with election (McCain nom, Obama nom, Biden nom, Palin nom and the result itself) and we're having the change of the cabinet on the 20th. This is 6 items, comparing to 1 or maximum 2 for any other country. So much about bias...
Passing a legislation that concerns 300 million people in the US. We don't put on ITN a legislation that would concern 1 billion people in China or India either and I think we shouldn't have any on them on ITN at all.
What I am afraid in case we change the guideline to "of importance or interest to many Wikipedia readers" is that this definition is too vague. Can you say what is on importance to many Wikipedia readers? I can't. If we have the winner of American Idol or any such show, how can we then not have the winner of a popular show in Egypt or Russia, for example? There are many Wikipedians from there as well. Besides, as mentioned several times, ITN is not a news source and thus should not bring news as its only function. This is one of the reasons we don't have the detailed coverage of the Gaza conflict at the moment, just a blurb directiong to the article (and not news like End of ceasefire - Fighting begins - Ground forces enter - Someone proposes peace talks - A 3h ceasefire - Still fighting...) - although the development is of interest to many readers. But that's what Wikinews is for, or any other news service. And the last remark, about recentism. Well, yes. By default, ITN highlights things that are recent. But I see no problem with this because all the events featured on ITN fulfill very strong notability criteria (much more strict that just to have an article on something) and thus the articles should be written anyway. So much from my side for now. I think the ITN is developing well now, as it is. But of course, it is developing and is thus not perfect. --Tone21:07, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Strong oppose: This proposal is totally working against the idea of WP:CBS project and also gives undue importance to less important news from certain countries to important news from large number of countries. Read WP:UNDUE. Avoid such proposals for Systemic bias. Avoid ITN being tagged with this template. --GPPande07:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
(Responding to previous comments) -- In my view, the only things that we should consider when judging ITN candidates is:
The number of Wikipedia readers who are interested in it
Preserving geographic and subject-matter diversity
Possibly a third criteria of "importance" to ensure we don't get "junk news" that bothers some people.
Regarding something happening in Brunei, it would probably not be included in ITN under my proposal unless lots of people outside Brunei cared about it (like with the Sark thing).
You can criticize my proposal if you like, but I don't see how you can say it leads to more systemic bias. The entire point of my proposal is to eliminate the systemic bias in favor of small countries inherent in the current criteria. The proposed geographic diversity criterion should alleviate any concerns about geographic bias. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:36, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
It's a fair and interesting proposal; I won't criticise it. The issue though, with a junk news criteria, how do we destinguish between Junk news and high-interest news? SpencerT♦C22:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words. In my opinion, I don't think we need a junk news criterion. I think that by having entries on everything from John Travolta to Nobel Prizes, ITN could demonstrate the wide scope of Wikipedia. Nonetheless, I know there are some people who don't want John Travolta on ITN, and I'm willing to meet them halfway on that one. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Your first point and later sentence something happening in Brunei, it would probably not be included in ITN under my proposal unless lots of people outside Brunei cared about it itself clearly promotes bias. This means, Wikipedia should showcase only those items which are interesting to people who read Wikipedia. This is not a newspaper where in we print things that sell. ITNs is a small way of asking everyone to contribute to new articles on a recent event or update the existing article of latest development. It is way to keep the encyclopedia "up-to-date". Otherwise less cared about articles, that rarely see any update, would always remain the same. A classic example of this is Zhucheng city of China. A city of million people but the article had no more than 10 sentences before it featured on ITN. I don't see this proposal would have ever passed Zhucheng's nomination thereby leaving important information out of Wikipedia. A city with million population from regions where most Wikipedians reside would be generally be of B-class. This proposal would further widen the gap as articles of interest would be highly up-to-date while those not cared about by most Wikipedians would become more historic. I hope I explained the "bias" part. --GPPande19:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I think we ought to promote geographic diversity on ITN. What bothers me is that the riots in Athens go up but similar riots in Kansas City probably wouldn't. That's systemic bias. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:37, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Geographic diversity should be maintained and seems currently good by looking at below figures. I am not sure why you said Kansas City riots wouldn't go up on ITN? If they were serious riots and not just stone pelting incident then they would go up. At least I would support, if they were really significant. --GPPande08:49, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Additional: I think it would be beneficial if ITN items would also have to be widely covered by national media first even before international-ness of the blurb. Manila shootoutalmost got in even though it was ignored by the local media. –HowardtheDuck10:56, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm just concerned about the rare blurb that is covered more in international media than local ones. If you'd remember, the shootout happened a few weeks after the Mumbai attacks, and the international media were probably for next terrorist attack (turns out it was a routine bad guys vs. cops with civilians getting in the way). –HowardtheDuck03:22, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
We should reinterpret the existing criteria; something that is a big deal to the US probably is of international interest, despite not having international actors. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Tally
If anyone cares, here's the tally of ITN blurbs as of December 2008:
Asia & Middle East (mostly about the Olympics, South Asia terrorists and Middle East instability): 151
Thanks to Wikipedia:ITN in 2008. The "scoreboard" is not mutually exclusive, most blurbs may affect two or more parts of the world, and anyone can come up with a different tally with mine's but it'll be off by a few percent at the maximum. –HowardtheDuck06:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Nice. Looks we are doing a good job keeping geographical balance. Outer space is tricky, too many items according to population (around 50 people or so in space in 2008?) but far too few according to the volume :-) Ok, enough joking. Several stories are science-connected and aren't really a matter of geography - Nobel prizes, major breakthroughs, important archaeological findings... After checking, I see we have relatively few of them (maybe 30-40, half of them space-related). It would be nice to have more. If all the items on the list are counted, this means we had a little more than one item per day and this is fine. --Tone08:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I'll be separating Asia and the Middle East one of these days; if those are separated, it's a sure bet that Europe will have the most number of entries. –HowardtheDuck13:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
My numbers are on another computer, but you seem to have more US items than I count. I think that's because some stuff that happens in the US but is really an international event, like the Golden Globes, I count as international rather than US. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Ah, so an event where all productions not from the USA are in a category called "Best Foreign Language Film" is international? /85.194.44.18 (talk) 16:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Isn't Slumdog Millionaire British? And so is Kate Winslet? Nevertheless, I avoided having "international" as part of the tally since the word is so ambiguous. –HowardtheDuck11:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Any item that includes the U.S. or Americans, or generally composed of Americans, I include it in the U.S. tally, same with other areas. Most of the outer space blurbs are either associated with NASA or ESA or the Russian space agency. These are examples where a blurb is counted twice or more times; another is on G8 summit (U.S., Europe, Asia and Americas excl. U.S. (Canada)), –HowardtheDuck09:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Here's what I have for just September-December 2008:
After reading the discussion and reviewing general item support/opposition, I've decided that I will support the general idea. I just read the rules, and it seems there's a big hole:"Unlike the TFA and Did you know sections of the Main Page, ITN rejects items deemed trivial. The criterion was previously written as "a story of international importance or interest". This standard is highly subjective and the focus of much of the disagreement over particular candidates. The most common form of opposition on this ground is that the news is "too local" and not of interest to people in the commenter's country of origin." –Wikipedia:ITNMP#Significance
I think we definitely need something to round it off, such as what this proposal suggests. However, we need to find some wording for this in the rules if is to be added. SpencerT♦C22:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
This is pretty simple to resolve: find a definition for "international interest" and "international importance".
International interest - Headline/first mention news in two major news websites from at least 2 separate continents, or three prominent mentions in news website outside the continent where the blurb happened.
Headline/first mention - The blurb is linked prominently at the website's home page (like you want pres page down to see the blurb)
Major news website - North America (CNN U.S., Fox News, the big three news), Europe (CNN International, BBC, Reuters, AFP), Asia: (add two), South America (add two), Latin America (add two), Oceania (ABC News Australia +a prominent Aussie newspaper)
Time Magazine's international edition released some years ago a list of some prominent and trustworthy news websites around the world, if I can locate it we can use that as a reference),
Example: In order for an item to get in using the "international importance" criterion, it should be at least prominently mentioned in two websites from 2 continents each (a total of 4 prominent mentions). In this case, I think the knife attack wo't make it to ITN since I haven't even seen it linked on the CNN US website (haven't checked other U.S. websites) –HowardtheDuck15:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
International importance - Affects relations between two or more nations.
Another issue we apparently forgot about are the admins. Since ITN cn only be edited by admins, and entries stay for at least a week at ITN, there should be some more rules for admins, such as:
An admin may not be allowed to add his/her own nomination.
In DYK, FA, GA and probably other "nomination-generating" areas, nominators are not allowed to unilaterally "pass" their own nominations. More so in ITN since once it's there, only a few people can remove/edit it.
An admin may not add an item as long as there is no consensus to add it.
An admin should remove an item if there's consensus to do so (rarely happens, especially for unilateral additions).
An admin can revert if the item removed has no consensus on removing it (+ won't count on 3RR)
Hm, good ideas. For the first suggestion, I've been in multiple situations where 2+ non-admins support an article I nominated, and I post, because there's no one else. Also, Tone sometimes lets me post my own items (after supporting) because I know more about it and could probably put up better wording.
I don't think it's possible for non-admins to add items to ITN, contribs or not. The Main Page would become too vulnerable, if we try semi-protecting, and specialty RFAs are infrequently passed. Otherwise the other suggestions seem good. SpencerT♦C01:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
The "no-consensus items can be posted with admin discretion, though not for items with consensus-to-oppose" was added specifically because it was almost trivial to block an ITN item using the typical assumption that consensus is about 75%, e.g. one oppose blocks two supports and two opposes blocks five supports. Without naming any names, some here may remember when three users decided that they would 'fight the power' on Wikipedia by opposing nearly every ITN suggestion. The first four bullet items will all result in reducing template turnover, which may or may not be the intent, but the consensus one is particular is subject to gaming or other bad faith !voting given how few users regularly comment on items.
If the clause in the rational ("and entries stay for at least a week at ITN") is the crux of the issue, one solution would be to liberalize posting criteria, rather than add process restrictions. The longer items stay up, the more anxious editors will get over each item. These suggestions, on the whole, will increase the amount of time items will stay up, which will result in more anxiety and, eventually, a suggestion for more restrictions to further ensure that only the "right" items are put up, resulting in less template turnover, until it eventually reaches a point of such stagnation that some rouge admins have to come in and chop off the accreted instruction creep to return the template to functionality. (BTW, has anyone actually studied the average length of time an item stays on ITN? Wikipedia:FCDW/ITN currently states that an average two items a day are posted, which would result in significantly less than a week for a average seven item template.) - BanyanTree10:18, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't think this will lessen the pool of ITN items; if nnything, this will probably increase ITN items, albeit not from the Eurocentrism we're seeing lately. In this case the Blago scandal would've been put up, but not avalanches and knife sprees.
P.S.: I thought it was ridiculous for the Scottish avalanche, Belgian knife attacks, and the Irish bank situation to have went up. Heck, to even argue "international importance" on the Irish bank situation was pretty pathetic, in our place, away from the UK and U.S. there are branches of Citibank and HSBC. It's pretty easy to argue "I saw this on newspapers" if the event happened near your place; in this case, Europe is tightly packed with countries, unlike North America where there are only three big countries. If you tried saying the "Blago scandal made it to Canadian papers" it'll be blocked as "Canada is 'U.S. junior' anyway" (I actually saw this argument on Talk:Main Page, plus several hurtful comments about Canada and Canadians). You can't do that to European news. That's why I defined "international interest" where the event is mentioned outside the continent where the event took place. In that case, we'll avoid such items such as avalanches in Scotland in January. –HowardtheDuck14:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
P.P.S.: There should be some mechanism for someone to remove an ITN item once there is significant discussion for its removal, I'm recently frustrated by recent discussion that has failed to remove ITN items unless they are superseded by new ones. Even there is consensus or not, it's ITN anyway so they can be readded back once there is consensus to put it back up. Also, am I the only one disturbed that the ITN people are in such in a hurry to add items? After all, ITN is not a news wire so... –HowardtheDuck14:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Sri Lankan offensive
"In an ongoing civil war, Sri Lankan army captures Mullaitivu, the last stronghold of Tamil Tigers." - shouldn't that read: "In an ongoing civil war, the Sri Lankan army captures Mullaitivu, the last stronghold of the Tamil Tigers."? It needs articles to read right, I think. --User:AlbertHerringIo son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!02:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I suggest that this should be added to "In the news" because of the size of the Russian Orthodox Church(75 million) and Kirill being the new leader(Patriarch).
Regards, Daimanta (talk) 22:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Look, I know this was done before, and rejected as too distracting, but at a certain point, the jokes regarding John Atta Mills being happy about this tragedy or that, and about Sri Lanka invading southern France, not to mention Ferdinand Lugo do get old. As much as it may be obvious to any of us who have experience with ITN, it seems obvious, judging by the number of complaints, that a number of users have issues with the picture placement. Since there are technical issues involved with moving the picture (I actually don't buy that, but I'm not going to fix it, so I won't complain) to match the story, can we please just bold the "(pictured)" so that everyone can easily find which entry the photo correlates with? Random8906:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
There are technical issues. The pic was at one point aligned with the ITN, but I had to fix it because it was leaving large areas in the whitespace on other pages (such as WP:ITN/C). Perhaps we can allow the bolded (pictured) to be tested for a short period of time to see its reception. SpencerT♦C22:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I support a test period of maybe two weeks and then we discuss. (of course, if there's a WP:SNOW opposition, it can be reverted earlier). --Tone23:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Pictured is not bolded in DYK and OTD. I think ITN should not "break the rule(unsaid)". Better first gain consensus on WP:VP for all three sections. --GPPande19:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
The top blurb for OTD is usually the oldest so it's quite hard to get pics unless they are coins or busts or the like. Only DYK can have a 100% top blurb:adjacent photo. –HowardtheDuck11:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
You guys do realise we've been there and done that right? We did try bolding the pictured before, it was abandoned when people complained it was too distracting. See the main page talk page for details. You're welcome to try it again but I'm doubtful it will go down any better Nil Einne (talk) 12:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I've never understood what the problem is. Sure, the image and the newest blurb might come across as an odd combination at first glance, but how hard is it to read the handful of short items? Why must we make the "pictured" notation immediately jump out at people, thereby encouraging them to ignore the rest of the section? —David Levy12:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Who cares about who the patriarch of Russia is? This is not headline stuff... Israel has threatened disproportionate response to Palestine, Nadal has won the Australian Open, elections are over in Iraq, Sri Lankan army is going to free thousands of civilians but Wikipedia main page has nothing about it. Why this Christian POV? --Just my 2 cents -- Hemanshu (talk) 14:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Of course you could submit properly worded suggestions for your alternates at the candidates page. Or you can whine and expect others to change things for you. --Stephen22:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
2. We routinely have ITN items for the top championships of all major sports, provided that the requisite article update/creation has occurred. —David Levy15:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
You're obviously right in that people do care outside the USA, but the linked article does not support that very strongly since availability does not imply interest. Also, that article incorrectly claims that the broadcast would be translated into e.g. Swedish, which it definitely wasn't (People would not take that without protest. I think some are quite unhappy getting a dumbed down "international" version instead of the NBC commentary). My point: That particular article isn't worth many cents. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 22:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I grabbed an article at random; there are many more like it (perhaps some of which are more accurate). My point, of course, is that the Super Bowl is not merely of interest within the USA (though it is of no interest to me).
And of course, we also have ITN entries for the top championships of other football codes, many of which (such as Canadian football and Australian rules football) are based primarily in a single country. And yet, it's rare that we receive complaints about those; it's the U.S.-based sports items that invariably draw criticisms along the lines of Hemanshu's. —David Levy23:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't really see how Matti Vanhanen could be a lesbian, but perhaps that's just me... Most sources agree she was the first openly gay head of government [1][2][3], so if you have evidence to the contrary you're going to need strong sourcing Nil Einne (talk) 07:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
On further analysis it appears you're partially right although you have the wrong country and wrong sex, and wrong time frame. According to Al JazeeraPer-Kristian Foss who was briefly PM of Norway was the first. Our article also mentions this. According to [4] it was only for a day. I seem to recall we had a similar problem with David Patterson as there was someone else briefly governor who was blind Nil Einne (talk) 09:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Bob C. Riley was acting governor of Arkansas for eleven days before Paterson - and this did get discussed heavily at the time, because there were lots of reliable sources that got it wrong. This seems to be a similar situation - does anyone have a source that gives a better time frame than "briefly"? Five minutes is "briefly", but so is Riley's eleven-day term. — Gavia immer (talk)09:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
There's some further discussion in her article. The problem is appears to be that he was simply acting Prime Minister. In many commonwealth parliamentry democracies (which doesn't include Norway but I'm guessing it's similar), there will be an acting PM (usually the deputy PM) while the PM is unable (or unwilling) to be PM (e.g. if they're on holiday). Technically you could argue they are the head of government and definitely if there were a war or something it's likely they'd function as PM/head of government until the PM returns or a new one is appointed/elected but they're not usually considered when you think about previous heads of governments, which is why there's little mention of the fact Foss was acting PM, e.g. he's no on List of heads of government of Norway and also according to our article their role is often not even expressly laid out in law and instead is more by convention (no idea if this applies to Norway of course). You could say there are similarities with when Cheney was sworn in as President when Bush underwent an operation, as I expect has happened with previous Deputies, yet few people would say Dick Cheney was a previous head of government/state of the US. It looks to me like the Riley case is different as he was really the governor for 11 days. If it's not obvious, I think we should leave ITN as is, and change the article to clarify the situation Nil Einne (talk) 10:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
"Gay" is now universally recognized as a synonym for "homosexual" in all types of English communication and is the most frequently used term in news media. So gay it is. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
"Modern times"
Please remove the "in modern times" from the headline about the new Icelandic PM. It implies that the current concept of homosexuality existed before modern times, and that an unspecified head of government in pre-modern times somehow flaunted that non-existent form of sexuality before Sigurðardóttir.
I'm with you on the "modern gayness is modern" thing - there's a whole social construction that's very recent. However, you shouldn't assume that the premodern European attitude towards homosexuality was universal outside it (or even in Europe). More to the point, at least two examples that I know of offhand - Hadrian and Oda Nobunaga - had (let's choose our terms carefully here) a very strongly male-centered sexuality that is well-recorded in history (whew!), so the "modern" qualifier really is needed. — Gavia immer (talk)09:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
The issue here is one of coming out of the closet and that is entirely dependent on the modern construct of normative heterosexuality. It has absolutely nothing to do with the sexuality of Roman emperors or Japanese warlords. Discussing them as heads of government in the same context as 21st century PM is problematic enough without adding the sexuality issues. The words "in the modern world" clearly imply that there were heads of government in the pre-modern world that somehow "outed" themselves, and that's extremely speculative. It's hardly possible to motivate historically and should not be considered neutral.
You appear to be presuming modern gay people have to be by default in the closet. There are definitely people who would say they were never in the closet and were always openly gay from the moment they realised they were gay. While historic homosexuality varied greatly, so does modern homosexuality, it's silly to suggest all modern gay people are inherently different from all historic ones. In other words being openly gay simply means that they are public about their sexual orientation, it doesn't imply they were ever in the closet. (And besides, there were definitely people in pre-modern times who could be seen to be in the closet particularly if they lived in societies where homosexuality was less tolerated.) In modern times helps clarify that there were people who could be considered openly gay and also could be considered heads of government before modern times. Nil Einne (talk) 10:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
Questioning my view of the general idea of being closet is very off-topic. This has nothing to do about homosexuality in general, but openness concerning the modern concept of homosexuality, and more specifically about open homosexuality among high-ranking politicians. That's why this is in the news in the first place. The problem with extending this idea back throughout all of human history is that the idea of "openly gay" is a package of modern ideas that shouldn't be projected onto periods where it was lacked any cohesive meaning. There's no motivation for this term in the article and no references to gender scholars or the likes. With the exception of the BBC, other news sources don't favor adding the "modern world"-term.
I disagree. As discussed on the Icelandic PM's talk page, omitting 'in modern times' (or similar phrasing) gives the false impression that no head of government has ever been overtly romantically or sexually interested in their own gender. I agree that sexual orientation is at least in part a matter of social construction; but I think it's a mistake to load ITN entries and article ledes with misleading statements just to avoid subtly implying that a gay person as such might have existed before about 1890. Academics do use terms like 'gay' to refer to historical figures before the development of modern sexological categories; see for example John Boswell's use of the term in books like Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality. Rictor Norton argues strongly that there were early modern subcultures onto which it would be valid to project the modern 'gay' classification. I recently saw an advertisement for a paper (or it may have been a lecture) about Antinous as a gay icon. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
To be frank, you've lost me. First you say it has to do with coming out of the closet. Now you say it has to do with openess. Which is it and will you make up your mind? The simple fact is, there have been people who could be considred heads of government in the past who could be considred gay and who were open about it (in other words, they didn't hide it, as some people now and historically did do). In other words, there in historic terms, there have been people in a similar situation to Jóhanna. Pretending there have not been because you believe they have all been different or because the precise wording and concept wasn't universal then makes no sense. BTW, Al Jazeera uses in modern times as well, as do I expect other sources. Nil Einne (talk) 13:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
See [5] for some of the sources which use modern times (or something similar). While it wasn't as many as I expected (although I undoutectly missed some). More singnificantly perhaps, many of the top sources us it. The AP, the AFP, the NYT, BBC & Al Jazeera (it's possible some of them picked it up from the news agents of course). Perhaps most significantly, the absense of the modern times subtext doesn't automatically mean the source consiciously choose to exclude it. We really have no way of knowing why other sources excluded it. Perhaps it just didn't occur to them. Since we do have key sources using it and a good reason why contributors feel it is important, but no good reason for it to be excluded it should say. Note that contrary to your belief, including the 'in modern times' bit doesn't automatically mean we are saying that there were historic cases. It's more of a disclamer to acknowledge that people may feel there have been historic cases and therefore that we are not deciding whether they have existed historicly or not. Nil Einne (talk) 13:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
If we don't know why certain sources excluded the term, then we also no just as little as why some chose to include it. Journalists are not necessarily good judges of how to present historical facts.
This is not a matter of gay vs not gay. There's no dispute about previous rulers having engaged in same-sex relationships of one sort or another. This about being openly gay. The "openly" part adds a dimension to the statement that pretty much excludes anything prior to the (late) modern period. That's why I'm bringing up the issue of being closeted. Sigurðardóttir may have been open about her sexuality for all her life, but it's the fact that she's not a closet gay while having reached the position of PM that is interesting here.
Even if this is supposed to be a disclaimer to avoid "No! Alexander the Great was first!"-arguments, then it still creates a problem by suggesting that the whole ideological package of gay openness is plastered all over human history. At least that's my impression by the majority of the posts so far.
I don't think a single person responding here has suggested that, in your words, 'the whole ideological package of gay openness is plastered all over human history' - much less a majority. Including the phrase 'in modern times' or 'in the modern era' clarifies that issue, rather than opening it up. I'm just not seeing any consensus for your view here, Peter. I'm about to go and remove the 'dubious' tag you added to the main article, as only you seem to think that the claim, as phrased, is dubious.
You stated earlier that your views on the general idea of being closeted weren't relevant to the discussion. But you've reintroduced the concept again in your latest set of comments. If you think it's relevant, answer the criticisms above; if you don't think it's relevant, please stop bringing it up.
You also seem to have problems with terminology in other ways. For example, you refer to the question of gay openness as a 'whole ideological package'. You refer to Jóhanna as 'not a closet gay', even though gay is an adjective and not a noun (would you call President Obama 'a black'?). You refer to the subject as 'Sigurðardóttir' rather than 'Jóhanna'.
And lastly, it's really irrelevant how many sources don't use a particular phrase. There are several highly reliable and authoritative, correctly cited, sources which do use it. To argue from silence in a situation like this looks highly tendentious. AlexTiefling (talk) 20:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Confusion on Omid
In "Its first domestic satellite", the "s" is easy to look out, changing the sense of the phrase (the first few times I red it I thought that the Omid was the first domestic satellite in the world. I hope someone can correct this. FixmanPraise me23:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
The "domestically constructed" part is significant too, because it means they have the technology to build satellites on their own now. --BorgQueen (talk) 01:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I thought they already built one and had the Russians launch it a couple years ago. The big deal this time around was they they launched it themselves.--ABIJXY (talk) 07:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
In the hook "The chairman of a Tokyo bedding supplier is arrested following the exposure of an investment scam using a fictional currency, "Enten" (kanji characters pictured), reportedly worth US$1.4 billion." the placement of US$1.4 billion is grammatically confusing. As it is currently structured, it seems to say that "Enten" is reportedly worth $1.4 billion, while it is in fact the scam which is worth this amount.
I would suggest changing the hook to something like "The chairman of a Tokyo bedding supplier is arrested following the exposure of an investment scam, reportedly worth US$1.4 billion, involving the use of a fictional currency, "Enten" (kanji characters pictured)." Scapler (talk) 12:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Do the kanji characters used as the illustration contribute anything to the understanding of the news item? Or is their presence a shorthand form of "look here! We know Japanese!"--67.101.47.119 (talk) 15:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Okay, WP:ITN/DC has gone stale, and we've been operating without any clear death criteria. I say we need to solve this once and for all. Okay, here is what I suggest:
The death must meet one or more of the following criteria:
The deceased was in a high ranking office of power, and had a significant contribution/impact on the country/region.
The deceased was a very important figure in their field of expertise, and was recognised as such.
The death has a major international impact that affects current events. The modification or creation of multiple articles to take into account the ramifications of a death is a sign that it meets the third criterion.
In addition, the article needs to have at least a paragraph of prose about the person's death (in accordance with ITN updating criteria), and the article as a whole must be B-class and/or be satisfactorily filled out with no major omissions of the person's life and effect.
Deaths should not be added without a consensus at ITN/C and are recommended (but by no means "must") to be listed at WP:LILP.
The current state of affairs for listing death people are fine; those who are really exceptional goes up automatically (as long as the standards are met), while the not-so-exceptional will be discussed just as the other blurbs. –HowardtheDuck05:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
@Mwalcoff: I amended the wording a bit, and was looking for your opinion. @Howard: I really don't like the way it is, because the not-so-exceptional are very ambiguous, and if we had strong criteria, it would be much easier. SpencerT♦C00:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Criteria 1) I think in current form lot of deaths would qualify 1. For example, recently India's ex-PM V. P. Singh and ex-President R. Venkataraman died. But I don't think they should be highlighted on ITN because event had no impact on India, forget global.
1a)I think person should have held a high ranking office and should have had significant contribution/impact on the country/region (maybe when person held office or sometime in past). Such deaths deserve to be on ITN and would raise minimum objections.
1b)Also, ITN should not encourage natural old-age death when the person is known to be in hospital or ailing (this may not be put as a rule but can be followed as general consensus). Fidel Castro though ailing for a long time due to old age problems would go up on ITN as per 1a.
1a sounds good, I'm amending the current wording. I don't think we exactly need 1b, as 1a–c (see suggested) take care of it. Can you cite any specific examples of natural deaths you wouldn't want to see on the Main Page? (Just too see what you mean, I'm slightly confused). SpencerT♦C00:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I see what you mean now. I think its best to do what you suggest: not be put in as a criteria, but sometimes followed as consensus in borderline situations.
Yup, remove it but keep it somewhere nice & easy to find for everyone. Will this thread get into the archives? I would want to preserve this discussion somewhere on ITN/DC page so that anyone else reading it would be cognizant of "this" thread. --GPPande19:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I'll copy this discussion over to WP:ITN/DC, which will have a link by the death criteria section on WP:ITNMP. Are there any other comments, or can I close the discussion and implement the new changes? SpencerT♦C21:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm proposing the addition of an 'ongoing issues and events' section to the main page. The reason is that there are ongoing issues which are current and relevant, regardless of when they start, which appears to be the guiding principle regarding how long links are displayed in the current events section.
Certainly, for one issue, just keeping it sustained in the current events portal would work, and Im wondering what current events people think of that (this is crosslinked there). But there are other ongoing issues of interest, are'nt there? They aren't "news," in one sense of the word. But they are news, in quite another. Thoughts? Please respond at T:MP/PTAAOIAES -Stevertigo22:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
Victorian bushfire update
The number of deaths has risen from 25 to 26 and this information needs to be reflected on the ITN section of the main page. I would update it myself however, it is protected. Very annoying. Nick carson (talk) 01:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't that be "the heaviest snowfall in 18 years"? "For" suggests either that England has been getting more snow than anybody else for the past 18 years, or that this snow has been falling heavily for 18 years, or something else equally ridiculous. (Or is this just a British/US english usage thing? Sorry in advance if so.) Staecker (talk) 17:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Does ITN accept new articles about a newsworthy event, or only updates to articles that already existed before the news-y thing happened? (Specifically, on February 28 Rare Disease Day will be observed in the United States for the first time, and it doesn't have an article yet. I imagine people will probably deem it not "big news" enough for ITN and I'll end up taking it to DYK anyway, but I just wanted to check first what the standards here are about new articles.) Thank you, rʨanaɢtalk/contribs17:05, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
This has just occurred to me. The initials for "In The News" are the same as a very well known television news organisation. We should probably discourage the use of the initials for this reason - we could be opening ourself up for accusations of trademark infringement under the grounds of confusion - we absolutely do not want people thinking this section is endorsed/created by the organisation in question - someone should probably run this past WP:OFFICE ASAP. Exxolon (talk) 23:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Link to candidates page from the main page
I would have to disagree with the proposal which for whatever odd reason is being discussed on the candidates page to link to the candidates page from the main page. The main page is intended for readers, not editors. It's quite clear that the vast majority of readers are not interested in nominating an article for ITN, nor writing one. The recent deaths is there for a reason. We get a lot of complaints when an old relatively famous person dies because most of the time it doesn't, and shouldn't go up to ITN. It's true that you can get to recent deaths from more current events, but this is not obvious to many people. P.S. I don't particularly care what DYK does either. P.P.S. The idea that there is more then enough space to write suggestions is definitely wrong. On 1024x768 full screen, hardly a large resolution there's barely enough space for ABC or NOM. Nil Einne (talk) 13:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Oil spill
The current slick is not affecting Great Britain or Ireland, whether it does so within the next 3 weeks is a matter of meteorological speculation. The claim that it is the biggest for 13 years in the region is based on initial estimates. It is not currently a major feature in the news in Britain or Ireland. In short, it is a poor headline on a story of low significance. So what is it doing here? Kevin McE (talk) 12:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
It happened in the Celtic Sea, not in Britain, Ireland, or any other country: it has had no effect in any nation yet, and might never do so. Leaving aside expressing chips on shoulders, can anyone justify the high profile of this scarcely reported event of no significant consequence (yet, at any rate)? Kevin McE (talk) 17:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Is there any point in having the timer? The red-colored timer means the update is being delayed, that's why hurried. And there's little activity around here most of the time, not sometimes, and me and Candlewicke are only people finding and updating ITN articles on a daily basis at the moment (since you and Spencer only review nominations). --BorgQueen (talk) 12:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I know the system is not perfect. Recently, I indeed mostly review the nominations, I don't have much time for writing new articles... No problem otherwise. --Tone13:43, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I wish I could update some more article, but by the time I check, their already updated by you two. That's not bad, but if you feel overworked, you could leave a note on my talk page asking me to update. In addition, work-related matters have limited my editing time to weekends, and about 29:00-5:00 UTC elsewhere...not exactly prime news time. SpencerT♦C20:29, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Who says the timer has to be obeyed? Would it not be better to have it act as a guide rather than cause panic when it goes red? I think we're doing fine at the minute; the bottom item is from Wednesday. I've seen ITN in much worse condition and in much more desperate need of an update. Let's face it, some days are quiet but other days might have two or three significant events. I don't see what the fuss is and rushing articles onto ITN could be lowering their quality... some of them have gone without updates even though they're on the Main Page – perhaps because they're being added further down, disappearing after a few days and people are missing them... and it's not just my net connection – it's my whole computer; indeed I had to reboot after checking the history before I awarded you with this ITN talk page notice... I would do something but it involves money... something the world is not exactly full of at the minute... so I'll continue to help out the best I can... my computer cannot take all the blame though as most public computers I use also have their own difficulties... now this had better save without an edit conflict... --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)14:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
And every click with me right now takes about five minutes... insert a "nominate" into the corner... even if it's absolutely tiny it's still a massive improvement... --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)14:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
To do that, we have to sacrifice one of the three links: Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events. Which one do you think we need the least? --BorgQueen (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I left a note at admin's noticeboard. Maybe we get some new participants... I agree, let's replace Recent deaths. They are included under More current events anyway. --Tone15:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I think for stylistic consistency on the main page one should go. As all four boxes (TFA, ITN, DTK, On this day) have three. If ITN had four it looks odd. I mocked it up in my sandbox, see. Rambo's Revenge(talk)16:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
How about smaller font as with the date under OTD (which has more than three links)? And if ABC can fit surely NOM can? --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)18:25, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
We have lots of such instances where something means lots of things, and when one is a Wikipedia page there is a note at the top. Besides there would be no redirects on the Main Page. --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)19:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
We won't know until we try... maybe they shouldn't know what it means... perhaps that's why so few are coming here... after all it has been advertised and that hasn't done much to help... if they just wander on by accident out of curiosity they might grow to like it... --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)23:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Disagree. Recent Deaths placates those that want significant deaths to be placed in ITN. If ITN isn't really news, then why are we promoting Wikinews, which is a separate site? On my laptop there is more than enough room for Suggestions as well. There is no hard and fast rule for three items only, is there? --Stephen00:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
That may be the case but in reality you would be solving one problem by potentially creating an even larger one. That would mean more than one click for "Recent Deaths" which could pose as many difficulties, if not more, than at ITN which it is I believe the whole purpose of this exercise to eradicate. Many may not be able to find "Recent Deaths" without a straightforward link to it. It may be useful for hiding it out of sight from vandals and thus preventing any more premature deaths but it may also deter or confuse regular contributors to that section and lead to similar problems for it in the future s have been experienced at ITN. If there is going to be trouble finding it or it moves to a different location (even though it is in "More current events..." I had some difficulty locating it down the side of the page – what happens if someone less experienced or bothered comes along with a death to report and loses the will to update it due to the inconvenience?) We might be able to afford one but supposing it happens again and again and leads to a backlog or, similar to here, just one or two users who keep watch on it? Would it really be worth all this and potentially more for the sake of a few extra letters that really aren't going to aesthetically destroy the Main Page as the fear seems to be indicating? --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)01:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
I have an idea. How about a miniature symbol or an icon of some sort? It would be useful for enhancing the Main Page... something like a pen or a keyboard or another suggestion... click on it and arrive here... --➨♀♂CandlewickeST# :)02:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
BorgQueen, I'd like to apologize for not being as helpful as I once was here...I'm going to watchlist ITN/C now, like I should have for a while. SpencerT♦C20:20, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
In addition, I'd like to comment that I was hoping the signpost dispatch would draw more attention to ITN, which it didn't quite do... SpencerT♦C20:21, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Okay lets see if we can revitalise this discussion. Basically we were discussing trying to improve traffic to ITN/C, and there seem to be three options:
Replace "Deaths in 2009" (which is already covered in "More current events...") with "Nominate an article" Main page example
Add a fourth link on the main page for "Nominate an example" Main page example
Could you please put on the news on the pardoning of all the remaining prisoners convicted in the assassination of Ninoy Aquino and his alleged assassin Rolando Galman. It is historic. Rizalninoynapoleon (talk) 05:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Is there an article about it? The discussion about candidates takes place at WP:ITN/C, you should post it there. Greetings. --Tone08:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
This wasn't raised in the previous discussion, but how is something like this going to work when we need to use "illustration pictured", "map pictured", "bust pictured", "model pictured", etc. Zzyzx11(Talk)21:09, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Many people decided against it, and the discussion died. Its honestly not that difficult to identify where the (pictured) is, and we don't need further confusion with the letter–the P won't make sense to most seeing the item. SpencerT♦Nominate!00:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
User:Cyde removed it, in the edit summary saying, "A cargo plane crash that only kills two people isn't sufficiently notable for the front page. Small plane crashes ROUTINELY kill more people than this and they are never featured in ITN." Personally, I have to agree. SpencerT♦Nominate!00:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Also agree. Also, "first fatalities at Narita" angle strikes me as unconvincing--the Air India Flight 301 bombings were at Narita, and qualifying it because it's the first fatal accident-that-wasn't-intentional-terrorism seems a bit hairsplitty. I've removed it from the template. The Tom (talk) 19:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#April_1st_guidelines_for_2009
Some really ridiculous stuff is getting on the page now, do things not have to be of international importance at least to get on? I mean helicopter crash?… —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.37.225 (talk) 10:36, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
It has already been established that it is not just international importance but international interest that will go up on ITN. Ashishg55 (talk) 02:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I dunno, but isn't the reason why those P:CE boxes are in there so as we're not supposed to write blurbs anymore and just rely on what's at P:CE? –HowardtheDuck17:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I thought they were there to encourage more suggestions and to try and make sure we don't miss stuff. Often, the wording from Current Events isn't quite suitable for the Main Page. Random8921:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
You should be ashamed of yourselves
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and is all about getting the truth out to the world. Intentionally putting falsehoods on the main page goes against everything that Wikipedia stands for.
And no, I don't care if today is April 1st - that excuse is akin to a priest or a rabbi throwing a religious icon on the floor and stomping all over it just because it's "national tap-dance day". Daniel Tzvi (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC).
Nothing on the Main Page is false. Absurd and/or misleading, certainly, but not false. Think of it more as a rabbi or priest using Valentine's Day to give a sermon on the meaning of love.
I'm sure you've heard the saying "half of a truth is worse than a lie". An encyclopedia intentionally misleading its readers should be unthinkable. Daniel Tzvi (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC).
Wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia; it's an organic part of the web. And denizens of the internet have become so accustomed to looking for April Fool's jokes on high profile websites; I'd think that it would be more misleading NOT to put up an April Fool's joke. backstabb20:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
April Fools Day on ITN? Did we really just do that? And people wonder why Wikipedia isn't taken seriously? — D. Wo.17:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree, if people are ever going to take us seriously then this is just an excuse not to, all my friends laugh at me because I frequently edit here, they see it as a joke, something to vandalise, and yet the edits here are just as disruptive and untruthful as anything they could do. An encyclopedia should be factual, and no matter how true the stories are, they deliberatly mislead, if a newspaper did that they'd get sued! Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 18:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
CNN for a roundup of the false (not misleading) stories published this year. None seem to hit the heights of BBC's 1957 spaghetti tree, alas, but that's a high bar. You would no dbout have a few things to say to "Geoffrey Davies, the head of the journalism department at London's University of Westminster, [who] said such pranks do not particularly affect the credibility of a news organization."- BanyanTree02:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
This article offers comprehensive coverage of an incident that's getting a lot of press in the UK and has also gone international. Yet someone has said on its talk page that there was an agreement somewhere that it's not suitable for ITN. Does anyone know about this, or have a view? SlimVirgintalk|contribs06:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
A couple of weeks ago we introduced the Future events section to discuss events scheduled to happen in the following days. Now, it says that the events can happen in a month's time and this in my opinion is way too much. The effect is that we have several suggestions there at the moment so it takes some time to scroll down to the current days. I suggest we limit the future events to 5-7 days in future, not more. Generally, a consensus is easily achieved within this time period and there is no need for events to stay in the suggestions section for weeks. Any opinions? --Tone15:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
You are right that consensus is normally achieved within days. However, I thought the primary purpose of the future events section was to remind contributors of upcoming notable events that we do not want to forget to update and feature on ITN. Seeing it that way, I do not feel a month period is unreasonable. If you think the section is getting too long and distracting, we could give it its own page and link it in the current section. --BorgQueen (talk) 15:56, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, this was the main issue. I think having it at a separate page is in fact a good thing, also with no real need for a specific future limit and on such a page, the closest events would be on top and therefore easier to navigate. If someone volunteers to move the closest events to the ITN/C from time to time, I think we have a solution. --Tone16:02, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if the winner (who this year is Kristen Dalton) of this competition was featured in the template in past years, but I would think it would have some sort of relevance. If not, my apologies. Featuring this story could help expand this years pageant winner's article. Gage (talk) 02:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
And I am removing the template since it should be used only to "request edits to fully protected pages that are uncontroversial or supported by consensus". Please bring your objections to the candidates page. --BorgQueen (talk) 02:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I am not getting this
I put a candidate on the Current events portal page, and now I see it magically appear on the Candidates page, but without its requisite link to a source. How does the source get added? --Una Smith (talk) 04:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
{{editprotected}}
Could you please change the link for Current Events to Portal:Current Events. This currently links to a disambiguation page and needs to be updated. Thanks.Davehi1 (talk) 15:50, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Theres a problem with the wording, it makes it seem like there actually is an epidemic in the US like there is in mexico despite there are only 8 people in the US, 8 RECOVERED people might i add.--Ssteiner209 (talk) 12:29, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Just a thought: "A new strain of swine influenza infects over 1,000 people in Mexico and the southwestern United States, killing at least 68 in the former and sparking concerns of a global pandemic". –Juliancolton | Talk20:46, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
The current wording is: A new strain of swine influenza infects over 1,000 people in Mexico and at least 10 people in the United States, killing at least 81 in the former. Putting the ten infections in the USA ahead of 81 deaths in Mexico makes this a US centred story. Isn't Wikipedia supposed to have an international outlook?? CBHA (talk) 15:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't see much US-centricity there—the blurb does mention Mexico first. The current wording is economical because it saves us from saying infects twice. You are welcome to suggest a better alternative. --BorgQueen (talk) 15:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. I suggest:
A new strain of swine influenza kills at least 81 people in Mexico and infects over 1000 people in Mexico and at least 10 in the United States.
Can you guys add that the first victim in the USA was dead to the main headline please. And why do you write that infected over 3,400 if this is pure speculation? There are only like 400 confirmed cases so far. And it didn't kill more that 26 people in total, even this is not fully confirmed yet. Thanks, Shadiac (talk) 16:17, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Objection
I object to the headline "The African National Congress, led by Jacob Zuma, loses its supermajority in the National Assembly of South Africa." In my opinion, that's spin--the real story is that the ANC won a large majority. This headline makes it sound like the result was bad for the ANC. Everyking (talk) 00:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't they're even targetting of amending the constitution they themselves wrote (the basis for 2/3 supermajority) so I'd agree with this. –HowardtheDuck15:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
There are only 20 confirmed cases of the the new strain of swine flu causing deaths. It is extremely inaccurate to say that it has killed "at least 159", because only 20 of these cases have been confirmed by labratory testing. See the latest BBC article , which itself says "up to 159". This needs to be changed immediately. DJLayton4 (talk)13:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
But it didn't infect directly 3,700 people. Those are suspected. I think it's more accurate to say that either suspectedly infecting 3,700 or with over 100 cases of infection confirmed. Shadiac (talk) 17:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
A new strain of swine influenza is confirmed to infect over 100 people globally, causing 7 deaths in Mexico (masked police officers in Mexico pictured) and 1 in the United States.Shadiac (talk) 17:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Take a look now. With this wording, we only have to periodically update the "suspected" total as/if it grows more, and we can just fiddle with the nations listed if that (hopefully doesn't) expands. rootology (C)(T) 17:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Done, with a general listing again of "lab-confirmed" to keep it tidy. I'd be against forking the number by nation--people can read the article for specifics, or we'll forever be forking by nation more and more. rootology (C)(T) 17:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Um... You just got mistaken because I edited the chart and those in paratheses are not confirmed anymore. There are only 8 confirmed deaths right now. Sorry for my misleading. Shadiac (talk) 17:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I've changed it from the completely erroneous "160 lab-confirmed deaths in Mexico and the United States" to "seven lab-confirmed deaths in Mexico and one in the United States" – Toon(talk)18:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
I see with this [7] it looks like the Democrats in the US will have 60 seats in the Senate presuming the court continues to decide in favour of Al Franken and nothing else happens in between. While I'm normally opposed to what seem to me to be internal wrangling of the US political system that don't make much difference in the world, it's my understanding this will be more more significant since it will prevent a Republican fillibuster presuming all Democrats vote the same (which seems to me to often be far from guaranteed but anyway...) so if it's something adequately covered in the media I think this may be worthwhile mentioning if/when it happens. What says everyone else? Nil Einne (talk) 21:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
There has been a real dearth of political news on ITN with the frequent exception of general national election results. If the Democrats get to the "magic number" of 60 seats, it would certainly be of great importance, and I would recommend including it on ITN. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
It seems to be very much based on statistics, clouded with a lack of clarity and I feel that similar cases such as this would not be included if they occurred in other countries. If it affects policy then I would think it would be better to judge each change individually based upon importance rather than including this one occurrence. If this "magic number" (a term which appears a bit newsy for the typical ITN candidate) is significant it will be proven in time by some spectacular event and then we can nominate that. Also, the amount of speculative words contained in this discussion so far are appalling considering Wikipedia theoretically works on fact. "It looks like", "presuming", "presuming" (again and in the context of this being a presumption "to often be far from guaranteed"), "if/when it happens", another "if"... some of the words and phrases which struck me from reading the above... is this the way ITN works? --candle•wicke20:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Fact: Once a party has 60 senators in its fold it can do practically anything it wants to do. However, I'd do wait if they do invoke the filibuster, depending on how long since when it was last done. –HowardtheDuck04:45, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Well then... I won't stand in the way of the nomination for the nuclear meltdown that will surely follow... --candle•wicke23:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
FWIW Personally I would support a similar story if say in Malaysia or South Africa the governing party/ies obtained the supermajority needed to amend the constitution. I included only there two countries because they are the only other two countries I'm aware of where this could happen and is potentially going to be seen as significant but if there is something similar in the UK, Canada etc I would support it. Actually based on comments resulting from the recent South African item, I'm not convinced that there being a super majority is definitely seen as significant so it would depend on the news stories. Also the only way it can happen is via some other party joining the ANC in coalition since crossovers are no longer possible. Definitely though my knowledge tells me in the Malaysian case it would be seen as significant and it's plausible it could happen. Here in NZ, it's not plausible for this to happen currently and I'm not convinced it's significant. Far more significant would be if the National Party obtains a majority in parliament and are therefore able to govern alone if they desire although this too doesn't seem likely any time soon. I believe in Canada the situation is similar in that the likely significant thing would be if the Conservative party obtains a majority. In Australia it would probably be if Labour obtains a majority in the Senate. I appreciate these aren't quite the same thing and obtaining a majority when you used to be a minority government is more significant then obtaining a supermajority but I think they are examples of what some may see as minor changes in internal politics that are eminently very significant in the eyes of most observers. The only uncertainty in my mind about the US case is that in some ways based on my limited understanding of US politics it doesn't seem that significant since voting against the party line seems rather common to me and therefore the practical advantage of having 60 senators may not be the same as the theoretical advantage but if the media and political commentators don't agree then who am I to say otherwise. Nil Einne (talk) 12:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
The supermajority clause was also one of the reason why the South African election blurb last month caused a confusion since the ANC didn't get the required 2/3 of the vote to amend the constitution. Anyway this would've been added (the filibuster) with the election blurb some months back if the Dems got the magic number but they came up short. But with the Minnesota recount of the recount and Specter switching sides caused this "untimely" event. –HowardtheDuck18:37, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Swine flu grammar
Instead of "A new strain of swine influenza is suspected of infecting over 4,000 people globally, causing deaths in Mexico (masked police officers in Mexico pictured) and the United States." should it not read "A new strain of swine influenza is suspected of infecting over 4,000 people globally and causing deaths in Mexico (masked police officers in Mexico pictured) and the United States." The infection of the 4000 people globally did not cause the deaths in Mexico, as the current grammatical structure suggests. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 11:26, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Your version suggests that the new strain of swine influenza is suspected of causing deaths in those countries, but the deaths have been lab-confirmed. --BorgQueen (talk) 11:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps switching it around? "Causes deaths in Mexico and the US and is suspected..."?
Resolved