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Alot of these problems (no one updates, not enough !votes, not enough nominations, too few topics) are caused by too few people. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Great idea! HiLo48 (talk) 15:47, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, as DYK has "Nominate an article" for example. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:51, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea to me which might get us some more users. 331dot (talk) 15:52, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
I can't believe no one has thought of this before. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:27, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Good idea. Mohamed CJ (talk) 17:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
I support the idea too, at least on a trial basis. I should point at that this has been discussed before, but I was never convinced by the rationales cited in opposition. Hot Stop talk-contribs 19:00, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
I tend to agree with this too. I recall that, when I first started noticing interesting stuff on ITN and wondered how it worked, I couldn't find the candidates page at first (not really being very familiar with the behind-the-scenes side of Wikipedia at that time). Neljack (talk) 07:34, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
I fully agree with this proposal. I also second the suggestion from The Rambling Man above, and see no real reason why the "Nominate an article" text couldn't be used as a call to action, placed to the right of the link to the current events portal. Pedro :  Chat  15:24, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
As I commented when this was proposed previously, DYK's outward appearance doesn't tend to trigger assumptions about the underlying selection criteria, so users have no choice but to familiarize themselves with the process before taking part. Conversely, ITN is commonly mistaken for a simple news ticker. So if we send the main page's visitors directly to ITN/C, we can expect the page to be flooded with inappropriate nominations by editors whose resultant disappointment discourages further participation in the project.
I would support the addition of a link to a newcomer-friendly introduction page (focusing on both the nomination process and the article creation/improvements on which it relies). —David Levy 14:54, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
DYK has its introduction on its nominations page, much like we have some information on our page; perhaps instead of a separate page we could better define what we want on ITNC. 331dot (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
Of course we can start with More current events – Nominate If a bold and more obvious word like More current events – Nominations or even More current events – Suggest a headline would increase awareness of where they nominate too much then we can't make them unknow it. (Maybe we'd even get troll/real ultranationalist/racist noms/comments) If it looks like one of those purge your cache things then people who overlook things and the less interested/curious will be less likely to enter. Also, I think seeing a big, inviting Nominations/Suggest a headline makes ITN look like it was put together and voted by a bunch of random people on the Internet, even though the process is higher quality than that. The way it is now makes it look authoritative. If you overlook the fact that the "news" is sometimes really old and systemically biased) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:23, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Excellent suggestion. I also like the idea of a Main page link to an ITN page that is newcomer-friendly, and that makes it easy for first-time editors to participate at whatever level they would like. It would be helpful to explain both the process (from nomination, !voting, article improvement, "ready" and posting stages) and the established etiquette here. Jusdafax 18:33, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the way to improve participation is to not berate people who read and comment on articles, to not call them stupid, to not accuse them of making up rules or pushing an agenda, not calling them "jeering spectators", not suggesting that they didn't read the article if they disagree with it's notability, to not suggest that they're not helping to improve the project, to not put up walls of text and to not wikistalk them around the project. Just a suggestion... --76.110.201.132 (talk) 23:34, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello IP98, thanks for popping in and making another fine contribution. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Hello to you too, TRM. Thanks for again providing sincere, constructive feedback on my well-intentioned comment. --76.110.201.132 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
You're welcome! The Rambling Man (talk) 14:32, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Next steps

So it seems there is a consensus to add such a link. How does everyone wish to proceed? Hot Stop talk-contribs 00:30, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

  • I think just starting off by adding "Suggest a headline" would be a good start. If it all goes to rats, we simply remove the link. Perhaps a trial period of a couple of weeks during which we keep track of visits to ITN/C, nomination numbers, etc. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:59, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
    • Go for it. I don't buy into the fear that the page to be flooded with inappropriate nominations (and if it does we can pull the link as you say), and it would take a couple of years to come to a consensus on a newcomer's landing page. Stephen 09:49, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Stephen/ITN data

  • Why would it be difficult to write up a newcomer-friendly explanation of ITN's nature (either on a separate page or at the top of WP:ITN/C)? How could this be anything other than helpful?
    Pulling the link after the problem occurs won't under the damage done when well-meaning editors (whose nominations are rejected) are driven away from the project in frustration. —David Levy 18:38, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
  • The wording "Suggest a headline" would reinforce the misconception that ITN is a news ticker. "Nominate an article" (the wording used at DYK) is vastly preferable. And as discussed above, it would be even better if we could point users to a basic description of ITN and its underlying process. —David Levy 18:38, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

What problem(s) do we seek to address?

Is there any evidence that we commonly fail to include events at ITN simply because they haven't been nominated at WP:ITN/C? Isn't the problem usually that no one has written or substantially updated a relevant article? If so, how would it be helpful to send users directly to the nomination page (without at least appending an explanation of the encyclopedic editing required)? —David Levy 18:53, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I think, anecdotally, that we have a high bar for ITN inclusion, far higher than DYK, TFP, and OTD. There are the odd exceptions, those which may be of massive popular interest. But I guess this suggestion to increase visitors/nominations at ITN/C partly stems from times when our ITN section isn't updated for, say, three days. It could hardly be called "In The News" when it's not News, it's Olds. While we're not Wikinews (and thank goodness for that), we seem have to inherited an obligation from somewhere to actively promote "in the news" articles. We go through periods where we don't have many nominations. In answer to your original question, no, there's no evidence we "commonly fail to include events at ITN simply because they haven't been nominated at WP:ITN/C" but there is evidence that supports the idea that this section of the main page goes stale more frequently than any of the others. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:24, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree that this section goes stale more frequently than any of the others. I just don't see how simply inviting nominations from the main page's visitors would solve that problem. Unless we're overlooking newly written/updated articles that haven't been nominated, what would this accomplish (apart from encouraging inappropriate requests from well-meaning newcomers, as discussed above)?
If we want greater turnover (and I agree that we do), we need to loosen the inclusion criteria and/or encourage more article creations/updates. I think that we should do both. —David Levy 19:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that seems to corroborate both issues I've noted. Limited turnaround and "high bar". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:35, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
It might be helpful that while experienced editors should be expected to use the ITN template, that we should encourage newer editors that if they think they have a good article for ITN/C, that anything that 1) links the article, 2) links verified source, and 3) any blurb information would be quick and easy to add, and experienced editors can morph that to a "proper" nomination. --MASEM (t) 19:29, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
If we aren't commonly overlooking articles that meet ITN's requirements, how would this be beneficial? What do you mean by "any blurb information would be quick and easy to add"? —David Levy 19:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't solve all the problems, but one of the things I know looking at the ITN/C instructions is that they are not simple at all. That will discourage editors from contributing even appropriate topics. There is of course the other issues , but ease of submitting should not be ignored. --MASEM (t) 19:55, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree that the process could (and probably should) be simplified. I also agree when users post otherwise-valid nominations with improper formatting, other editors should attempt to repair them. (I've done so, in fact.)
I don't understand how this relates to the idea of linking to WP:ITN/C from the main page. Again, unless we're currently overlooking articles that meet ITN's requirements (in other words, only the nominations are missing), what would this accomplish? —David Levy 20:09, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
If we are going to link a process page from the main page, to invite people to participate, the steps to participate should be minimal as possible. A causal WP user that's never touched talk pages would balk at this page currently and likely decide not to suggest a story. --MASEM (t) 20:12, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I may have misunderstood. Were explaining why you believe it would be helpful to link from the main page directly to WP:ITN/C, or did you mean something different? —David Levy 20:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
As I read the above, the core issue is that we may be missing ITN stories, in part, due to the lack of visibility of how any editor can nominate ITN stories, and that adding the link from the main page to ITN/C would be a step in helping there. That I agree with, but I do point out that if we are taking this step, the basic ITN/C process should be simplified to be easy to readers to contribute, lest we scare them away. --MASEM (t) 20:23, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
As I read the above, the core issue is that we may be missing ITN stories, in part, due to the lack of visibility of how any editor can nominate ITN stories, and that adding the link from the main page to ITN/C would be a step in helping there.
To my knowledge, there's no evidence that we're commonly missing ITN stories because they haven't been nominated. When ITN-suitable events are omitted, the actual problem is that no one has created or substantially updated the relevant articles. So simply encouraging more nominations wouldn't help (and could actually hurt, for the reason discussed above). We need to encourage users to create/update the articles.
That's why I suggested that we link to a newcomer-friendly ITN introduction (i.e. one far simpler than that which exists currently). Instead of sending readers straight to the nomination phase, we should place them on the path to improving the encyclopedia in a manner that enables valid nominations.
That I agree with, but I do point out that if we are taking this step, the basic ITN/C process should be simplified to be easy to readers to contribute, lest we scare them away.
I agree that this is a good idea, irrespective of whether a link is added to the main page. —David Levy 20:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

We're missing stories because the process, and some who attempt to stringently and incorrectly implement it, actively discourage new editors. Some folks, like ThaddeusB and 331dot are frequently seen encouraging editors new to the process to take heart, to revisit etc, but sadly we have other editors who simply propose false premises to editors, claiming certain conditions should be met when it's simply untrue and unhelpful. The "update recommendations" and those who attempt to enforce them falsely, are an issue. Perhaps we don't need a revision of how we attract people to ITN, but we certainly need to address the way in which the ITN criteria are described and (mis)applied. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree (though I think that the greater problem relates to unreasonable demands regarding events' "importance"/"significance"). It seems as though people are constantly seeking ways to make the inclusion criteria more restrictive. Whenever I see a discussion about "too many blurbs about x", I wonder how anyone can look at ITN and think that it's being updated too often. —David Levy 20:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Exactly. For all the traditionalists, if paper encyclopedias could change like the Harry Potter newspapers then nobody would HAVE THE NEWEST EVENT BE 6 DAYS OLD on the "What's New in knowledge" section. Or 5 in 12 days. Paper encyclopedias wished they could do that, instead of publishing a yearbook, (just like they wished they had space and the staff to include all notable things, instead of just 30 books' worth). People need to do what paper would do if they weren't limited, not what paper did. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:22, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Quite so, there's a body of editors who believe that strict adherence to fake requirements should trump common sense and restrict ITN items, while simultaneously complaining about a lack of interest. An odd dichotomy which really doesn't help the project, the editors and most importantly, the readers. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:22, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with the general sentiment above. By far, the biggest problem we have is the high bar on notability. Our update requirements are not very stringent, and I feel very strongly we should not compromise them. Linking to stories that have 1-2 sentences that say no more than the blurb does is of minimal help to the reader. Linking to poorly referenced articles or articles with other serious problems is worse than stale blurbs.
Yes, the update requirements are good. What's bad is not posting the American college football and basketball championships because it's "not the highest level of the sport" and therefore not notable enough and not having the U.S. budget sequester because it "mainly affects only one country". Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:35, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
That said, while it is true some stories don't make it because they aren't updated, the far more common occurrence is for items to be simply voted down on (IMO) veiled "I don't like it" arguments. (I personally try to update almost anything that has support, if I can manage to find the time.)
I don't really have an answer to this, but I do think part of the problem is that we are a small, mostly closed community. Fresh blood would be helpful, perhaps, but not in the form of nominations which are just going to be voted down by the regulars. What we might want is new people expressing opinions on stories, but a doubt a "nominate" link on the MP would accomplish that. And yes, it could discourage people when "their" story just gets a bunch of opposes or no clear reason (i.e. with no user friendly explanation of what to expect.) I'll I can say is that the regulars should take a serious look at themselves and consider loosening their own personal standards. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:37, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

More eyeballs (editors, admins, and non-editors) should be on the page, and know about it so they know what needs updating, !voting, article creation or orange tag removing and that one of them might be interested enough in the subject matter to do it. There are too few admins here which is why there are post requests below this.

The current instructions are too demanding. Perhaps putting the instructions in order from most to least important with the suggestion that it would be helpful to read it all but better to just go as far as you can if you'd otherwise leave. But there should be no demands that you MUST have an article, MUST have X new sentences etc. Who gives a c--- if someone just name dropped something and left. That is still helpful. Is it that much to ask for someone to put what they wrote in a box. Look for sources and so on. There should be enough people here that someone is interested enough in the nom's subject to do things like this, even create the article. There should be a rule against complaining that X didn't follow bureaucracy. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:50, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I do also agree that we could use more admins willing to post things that are more than a day old (provided they actually look at the articles and judge quality of update, which is rarely commented on). --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:37, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
One issue is that the few admins that frequent ITN/C often give an opinion, and then feel obliged to pass up the opportunity to close the nomination and post it, in case there's the usual screeching about conflicts of interest. I'm sure if the hysteria of some of the masses was quelled somewhat, we could happily post more frequently. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:29, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Just throwing a thought out here as it's related. There are a fairly large amount of nominations that fail not because they aren't notable enough, but because the quality of the article is a problem. This especially seems to be true with stories from non-English speaking regions although right now I can't back that up with concrete evidence. The relatively small pool of ITN regulars shouldn't be forced to update these articles to bring them up to the required standard so I'm wondering if there's a way we can highlight ITN-notable articles that need improvement urgently? If that could be visible wide enough across wikipedia then it may attract the correct editor to the article to make the updates. Case in point currently in review [[1]] where the linked articles are, perhaps, not of sufficient quality yet. CaptRik (talk) 11:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

That is a fair statement, but not one with an easy solution. I personally do what I can, but I only have so much time/interest/skill. I don't believe a "nominate an article" blurb would help any in terms of quality. A year or so ago, we experimented with a call to improve specific articles on the home page and it generated little fresh effort (a few Wikipedia regulars improved some of the articles, though). The only suggestion I have is leaving friendly notes on talk pages on nominators asking them to put some work into "their" article and offering to chip in to make sure it gets up to quality standards if they first show the intiative to try. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:49, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Is there some way the ITN nomination template can be modified so that someone can put in one or more wikiproject names and those project talk pages would be notified? The nominator doesn't have to fill that in if they are not experienced enough to know what it is, but anyone else could update the template with this notification. CaptRik (talk) 19:55, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
A bot would have to do the actual notifying, but its not a bad idea. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:04, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Could a bot also leave a message on wikiproject talkpages telling them about ITN/C giving them some way of figuring out whether something is worth nominating or not and encouraging the worthwhile ones to be nominated? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:59, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
From a technical standpoint, yes, easy to do. However, every bot task must be approved and that is something probably better done by hand. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:21, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The Sunflower event have been posted on 20th, we are now on 25th with 8 supports, 2 opposes based on earlier lack of content/quality. Could someone review it soon. Yug (talk) 12:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Both bold-linked articles in the blurbs have maintenance tags so their quality is still inadequate. So this will not be posted until such a time that the quality has been improved, regardless of the support/oppose ratio. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:37, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
(The Rambling Man:) Wait, is it that simple to block events from reaching the ITN ? Both articles are fair, the main tags are "content can be added from Chinese" (normal), "This is a current event" (normal), with "this present point of view" (normal) since it is on virtually ALL Taiwan-autonomy related articles due to China will of annexion. If you take these as a reason to reject event the most massive event of this autonomous state in decade, then, we[you] de facto erase Taiwan-autonomy for the ITN section and we[you] auto-censor wikipedia. The set become a convenient neglect and quite the opposite of Wikipedia principles of fair treatment. Yug (talk) 18:19, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Last time I looked one article had a maintenance tag which stated "This section has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality." and the other had one which stated "This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.". Neither of these are acceptable for main page inclusion. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:01, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Virtually ALL Taiwan-related articles are taggued with "This section has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality" or "this present point of view"ue to Chinese users not accepting the simple concept that there is a pro-independance Taiwanese movement. The Chinese Wikipedia got block for years due its coverage on Tian'anmen, Tibet, and Taiwanese-independance. If this is a criteria for blocking access to ITN, we are de facto auto-censoring Wikipedia. Yug (talk) 15:57, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Not really, what we're doing is asking editors who are familiar with the subject matter to ensure that the articles tagged are corrected so they are neutral in tone. However, you are free to bring this to an RFC should you geuninely believe that articles covered in maintenance tags and non-neutral language deserve a place on the front page of a global encyclopedia. Until such an RFC instructs otherwise, those articles will not be posted until they meet a minimum quality standard. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:00, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
If what Yug is saying is true, then any amount of work won't be enough for the tags to be removed... –HTD 17:00, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Not true. We can RFC an article, and protect if required from POV editors. But in any case, we do not post such articles to the main page. Plain fact. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
You're talking as if this is easy. RFCs are drawn out and by the time it's ended, the news has been stale for days. We'd lose the opportunity to post something like this, unless of course this event gets to be drawn out too.
(In a related note, I misunderstood you on what should be subject of the RFC. I thought there'd be an RFC if we'd be letting tagged articles be prominently linked in the Main Page.) –HTD 01:19, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
A chain of conditions and procedures that I -the guy who monitor this ITN proposal and ex-admin- learn at day +7 of the event. An RFC need time as well. How can we expect that politically conflictual but important event such this one move on ITN in time with that many gates ? Very unlikely. Yug (talk) 19:01, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Not sure I completely understand your point, but if you are convinced that no stories of such a nature will ever be featured on ITN then you need to do something about it. Be clear, it's not because ITN doesn't want to feature these stories, it's because they are littered with maintenance tags and are of inadequate quality to be featured on the main page of Wikipedia. As an ex-admin, I'm sure you are aware that quality is important to the main page articles. If you care about this for the future, you'll do something about it. If not, then perhaps you'll just complain about it again next time something like this crops up. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Experienced users, willing to push this article are too rare. I can't do the research needed as I have 14hrs work/day this months. You also know it is visibility that give articles chances to get improved. I raised two RFC, Taiwan & China portals will be contacted, but the time by which this will have effect you will state the date as a rejection argument. Also, yes, political tenses events are de facto kept away from the ITN, as an editorial policy. Keeping tenses event away is self-censorship. Yug (talk) 08:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't make the rules. We don't post anything, TFA, TFL, DYK, ITN with maintenance tags. If you want that to change, you'll need to do something about it. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:43, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Which i'am doing, but will not be delivered in time. Mainwhile, let's the world talk about Sumo. Yug (talk) 14:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
If the problems with people disrupting these articles 'really' are as bad as you say (and I don't say they are or they aren't, but we'll concede the point...) then you have FAR bigger fish to fry than getting a blurb into ITN. ITN is a small issue, and you need to work first on these other problems. Arguing over ITN is merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, if the actual problems you note are happening, and you shouldn't be here arguing with us, you should be pursuing dispute resolution and forget about this little insignificant corner of Wikipedia. --Jayron32 14:55, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Sumo was featured because the article matched the quality requirements of ITN. If you want items to feature on ITN, they have to meet the criteria. If you wish to change the criteria, you need to raise an RFC to do so, or at least start a discussion here to allow articles with maintenance banners to be posted. Sorry you're disappointed by the whole thing, but them's the rules. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:21, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
The Rambling Man: Little summary of what we face :
This is the kind of puzzling events/users we face, with too short time to raise the suitable WP counter actions such fair RFC, identity/IP/sock pupet check, and co.
The article is, now, without maintenance tags. Yug (talk) 15:07, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes I find this kind of events suspicious on China related issues, knowing what we know of major powers online. Yug (talk) 15:07, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

This is not an ITN issue, as Jayron32 has noted. You'd be better off discussing this in a location where you can receive more direct assistance with these pressing issues. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:12, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I'am mainly a French editor, I don't know the right pages to go on the English wikipedia. I also wish to get you back the summary to raise awareness, as the event ends and suspicions behaviors are pilling up. Yug (talk) 15:15, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for some advice. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:54, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Bias

This discussion is getting unproductive yet again. Time to move on? Slovak presidential election, 2014 needs some work, for example? --Tone 19:14, 31 March 2014 (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.

Five of the current six items relate to Asia (and 3 to Japan alone). This bias towards Asia/Japan is unacceptable. (I kid of course, but if it was North America/USA, you know someone would say it. Just something to keep in mind the next time there happens to be a large number of notable US stories at the same time.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:53, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

ThaddeusB, Asia has the majority of the world's population, so it's hardly concerning that it has the majority of the stories on there at the moment. The US has less than 1/13th of Asia's population. And looking at the "Japanese" stories, one is actually about a Mongolian and another is about an international prize that is ITN/R, which happens to have been won by a Japanese architect this year. So the current situation is hardly comparable to systemic bias towards the US. Neljack (talk) 02:12, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
1/13th the population of Asia, but what about the English-speaking population of Asia? --Golbez (talk) 02:26, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
That would only be about twice the population of the US. HiLo48 (talk) 02:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
The comparison was North America to Asia or United States to Japan. US to Asia is an invalid comparison. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:33, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
And if there was a story about baseball that featured a Canadian, an ITNR item that happened to go to an American, and one strictly American story there is a 100% chance someone would call that 3 stories about the US, which incidentally accounts for roughly 50% of the readership.
Of all the areas on Wikipedia, ITN is probably the least subject to systematic bias. Yet, for whatever reason, we get complaints every time the news happens to align so as to feature a lot of US stories at the same time. Featuring 3 US related stories at once is no more an indication of bias than featuring 3 Japan related stories at once. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
This is a global encyclopaedia. Roughly 5% of our stories should be about the US. If American editors want to avoid allegations of bias, they need to help bring non-American items up to standard. HiLo48 (talk) 07:03, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
No, they don't. People tend to work on articles they are both interested about and vaguely knowledgeable in. An unfortunate by-product is that articles on baseball and hurricanes form the majority of that intersection. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:20, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Precisely, so, if American editors want to avoid allegations of bias, they need to work even harder to help bring non-American items up to standard. HiLo48 (talk) 09:28, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Again, no. This is a volunteer-driven project. People should be allowed to work on precisely what they want. Continual accusations of bias don't really help anyone, it's obvious, we know it happens, but actually what needs to happen is that non-American contributors should work harder to improve non-American articles to get them promoted to main page inclusion, instead of just whinging about it. It is possible to do this, as ThaddeusB has pointed out at the start of this thread (which started as a bit of light relief from the usual gloom around here) and as of this morning, we're currently running at 100% non-US topics. Keep up the good work everyone. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:37, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Nah, That's bullshit. I have nominated many non-American items, several far more significant than the college football crap that gets posted. They died through lack of interest. Working harder is meaningless. I cannot keep discussing my own nominations if nobody else does. If Americans, including American administrators, don't show an interest, they die. Americans MUST care about non-American items. HiLo48 (talk) 09:44, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
People, regardless of where they are from, can only edit what they know, and until they get paid to research and edit here, will spend their free time on what they know, just as you do. If you want something nominated, it is up to you to make people care about it and ensure it gets posted. Working harder is only meaningless if you view it that way. If you have given up doing so, that is your choice, but it doesn't help your cause. You have beaten the systemic bias drum so hard you have broken it in my view. Stories need to be promoted, not just torn down. I await a nomination from any part of the world and I have nominated non-American stories in the past(not sure where you were for that one). 331dot (talk) 10:54, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Why should it be harder to get non-American items up at all? HiLo48 (talk) 10:59, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
How many US stories are on ITN right now, again? Seems to me it wasn't hard at all. Stories were nominated, discussed, worked on and posted. If it can happen with those, it can happen with yours, but you need to nominate them. Further, it isn't just our bias we are dealing with, but that of the media, which we cannot control. 331dot (talk) 11:04, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
"Nah, That's bullshit. " which part? The bit where I said 100% of our current ITN stories are non-US-based? The bit where I said we all work on things that interest us? That we know about? That this is a volunteer project? That if everyone worked harder to get non-US articles to ITN, it'd make a difference, rather than just continually focusing vitriol on US editors while whinging about bias? There are plenty of opportunities out there, just chucking your toys out periodically won't help you exploit them. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
re: "if American editors want to avoid allegations of bias, they need to work even harder to help bring non-American items up to standard." - what a rediculous standard. It is the responsibility of whoever wants a story to be promoted to do the work to bring the article up to standard. Just because I care about things local to me and work hard to improve articles about such topics does not mean I am biased. An actual example of bias would be voting down items simply because they happen to come from one region of the world.
re: "far more significant than the college football crap that gets posted" - first, what is or is not more significant is a matter of opinion. Second, we generally do not post college football (despite it being the second most popular sport in the US) so that is a terrible example.
re: "Americans MUST care about non-American items." - no one "must" do anything here; we are all volunteers. That said, I see zero evidence that Americans don't care about non-American items. Care less, perhaps, but that is only natural. If people were making arguments such as "this item is of no interest to me" that would be one thing, but they are not. Nor have I seen any evidence that the ration of support to oppose is any different for non-American items. Occasionally, the # of !votes is much higher for a high-profile American story, but to my eye the ratio is not affected. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:10, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
People need to realize that the news does not happen equally spread out across the world every day. It is silly to get caught up on the cross section of stories that one day of ITN presents. Long-term trends, absolutely, but complaining on the day-to-day "bias" is like panicking because the stock marker's performance did badly one day. --MASEM (t) 14:43, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Last 6 months of ITN blurbs posted about USA:
    March 25: Mudslide.
    February 3: Super Bowl Results
    January 7: Janet Yellen/Fed Chairwoman
    December 9: NSA spying stuff.
    November 19: NASA launches MAVEN probe
    October 31: Baseball World Series results
  • That's literally every blurb posted about U.S. related items in the past 6 months. Saying there's a pro-U.S. bias at ITN doesn't actually make it true. --Jayron32 16:45, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
    Can we like totally ditch ITNR now so we won't have an excuse on posting four more American (+Canadian!) stuff? –HTD 16:47, 31 March 2014 (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.

Add Peaches Geldof to recent deaths?

Certainly seems notable enough. 84.198.53.190 (talk) 16:23, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I invite you to contribute to the discussion at WP:ITNC, the forum for discussing what gets posted to ITN. 331dot (talk) 17:18, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Sports

Why are three of the current news items sports events? 2 of which are only college level. Out of >7 billion people and +200 countries you're telling me that 2 elitist academic sporting events and a quick-fire cricket tournament are the most important things people can find to post on the main page? That's kind of pathetic, what about Crimea? Syria? Libya? Thailand? North Korea? Some of these articles have been up for days yet I never saw anything about the artillery duel between the 2 Koreas, you kidding me? 123.243.215.92 (talk) 10:00, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

To participate in the process which selects articles for ITN, please see WP:ITN/C. Many thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Exchanges of fire on the DMZ are not uncommon, and are also not unusual since the Koreas are still technically at war. 331dot (talk) 12:48, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I have to agree with the sentiment from 123's post. The NCAA and the world tournaments for cricket I can understand, but a rowing tournament between 2 universities, really? >_> Political and military events are downplayed way too often in the news, and not just on Wikipedia. 84.198.53.190 (talk) 16:40, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
We certainly aren't directly responsible for how the news treats any category of events; they cover what they think people want to hear about. The hundreds of thousands of people viewing the boat race in person and the millions watching on TV might disagree with you. 331dot (talk) 17:11, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
re "Why are three of the current news items sports events" - because three notable sporting events happened to occur in the same time frame. Normally there are 0-1 sports stories on ITN, but we aren't going to artificially stop some stories from being posted just because another of the same type is already there. (We get this exact same complaint when by chance there are 3 notable stories from one country at the same time, three science stories at the same time, three elections at the once, three natural disasters at the same time, etc.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:05, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

In the news not being whats "in the news"

I would like to thank my illustrious and somewhat more notable peers for the excellent debate on UCL Quarter finals vs NCAA College basketball, or BB Little Leagues as I somewhat curmudgeonly called it. I dont think that debate should be continued here. Both sides obviously feel we have a case, and we did indeed have that argument. I do think its a debate that needs to be continued on some level though. Not necessarily on the specifics of these two events, but on the perspectives that constitute whats "in the news". Met with such learned and rhetorically excellent opponents, I endeavoured to get my point across in the best way possible. I am just a fool in a wikipedia context, but unfortunately for basketballers everywhere, I am a fool with a good case. Neither of these events are featured on the ITN guidelines, however one has the support of a somewhat majority consensus and the institutional support of wikipedias traditions of only including finals.

Let me be clear on my point here. If a news event is on the day being featured destroying another generically similar news event 100/21 (or whatever it was) on google trends, it might be worth considering the institutions, traditions and consensus of wikipedia.

We should not be setting the news imho, or we run the risk of becoming politicised. No one wants foxipedia. What I want, and what I believe more people would like, when clicking this is 1 an adequate reflection of world news (with due respect both to the international size of the story and of course some mind paid to its greater significance) and 2 a time portal that takes us back to those days in history and literally what was in the news on those days. I think some things such as deaths, carry a permanence and a weight that is easily identifiable as more important than the 100th story about the latest dance craze from Korea. That said, the news of the day should be reflected, and whilst I can see the benefits of including stories such as the NCAA Basketball, which I concede the American are literally "mad for" and indeed smaller, but also notable events like the Boat race - When you have UCL Quarters and Semis dominating the worlds sporting news by a serious distance, it might be worth considering reflecting this, rather than ignoring it.

Again this point isnt about the UCL. Its about the wider ramifications of big news and obviously internationally significant competition, to locally loved stories, that are more about their location than the planets attention as a whole. If you dont agree with the example I give here, then focus on the perspective. ITN is in the habits of editing out what was literally dominating the news on this day in history, and thats extremely questionable, when the rationale for exclusion are false arguments justifying parochialism and NIMBY mentality to the worlds news.

Thanks one again to my excellent and far more notable peers, and keep up the good work. Thank you. 77.101.41.108 (talk) 10:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Syrian Chemical Attack Claims

  • No biggie. BBC are reporting the syria gas attack claims. BBC

Its a shame that one cant source closed nominees. Rather than create new nominees in slow burning stories, it would be cool to add weight if the sources pile up, or obviously let them peter out if they dont. 77.101.41.108 (talk) 03:09, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Admin assessment requested

Can an admin please take a moment to assess the consensus on the cement merger item from a few days ago? With TRM withdrawing his quality based oppose, it has 2 supports, 2 weak supports, and 1 oppose. If it is assessed and comes up short of the necessary consensus to post, please leave a note saying there was insufficient consensus/opinions to post so that I at least know it was looked at. Thank you, ThaddeusB (talk) 14:18, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Posted by The Rambling Man, thanks. The Windows XP item could also use an admin taking a look. Thanks, ThaddeusB (talk) 23:31, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
Geez, I wish we could have got that sort of attention on some of the items I've nominated, that just fell off the bottom of the page. We shouldn't have to come here asking for it. HiLo48 (talk) 23:43, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
Yah, unfortunately there aren't many admins who frequent ITN and even fewer who are willing to look at the non-obvious cases. And of course some of us like to comment, leaving even fewer options to post something. (TRM & I have posted items we commented on a few times, but it is less than ideal.) I've requested more admin help here on WP:AN several times, but at most it attracts someone who makes a one-time look.
Next time you nominate an item, feel free to ping me if it need assessed (assuming I am active, of course). --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:38, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
Same goes from me. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:30, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
I'll add myself to that. I'm just easing back into main page things (I've not been active at ITN for a year or two), and I probably won't comment at ITN/C much, but I'll happily take a look if you need another admin. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:40, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikify country names in news blurbs?

Topic came up in relation to news story Korean Ferry Sinking but I didn't want to derail the discussion of that particular news story, so I'm mentioning it on this page instead.

Q: Should we wikify name of countries when they appear in the news blurbs? (the blurbs are the short descriptions of article contents - the headlines)

Some arguments for 'no' can be found in WP:OVERLINK. And if we don't follow the guidelines, what use is it having guidelines?

Some arguments for 'yes':

  • One purpose of ITN is to showcase good articles, and we have lots of good articles about countries. They tend to be high-importance and well maintained.
  • Blurbs are a bit different from the text which appears in the body of an article, which is what I understand WP:OVERLINK to be talking about. They're more 'high level', in that they appear on the main page. WP:MOSLINK is only a guideline, and it only says country names are "not usually" linked - blurbs aren't usual text.

Comments / Support / Oppose ?

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 15:05, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

We should stay to OVERLINK's advice and avoid linking to common country names unless we are talking something about the political nature of the country. We should however include more accurate geographic information (eg in the case of the Korean ferry, we should be mentioning Jindo (island) since that's about where it happened), and the link to SK would be contained in that. As long as its not the bolded term (the article we want to test), we don't care too much about the quality of supporting linked terms. --MASEM (t) 15:11, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
As a general rule, we shouldn't link country names. A few editors would have you believe that the MoS in general and OVERLINK in particular are gospel, but really they're best treated as general rules with occasional exceptions, whether on ITN or elsewhere. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:36, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
This should, Despite MOS (and we can invoke IAR), be an exception on ITN as its about general information and can inform the reader. As the OP said it also showcases the country article.
Although Id also add that we should protext the bold page as HJM used to do when he was updating ITN.Lihaas (talk) 22:55, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
When this was discussed in the past, we eventually agreed to link the names of countries to which the events relate directly (e.g. one in which an invasion or national election occurs, but not one that happens to be the location of an accident or natural disaster). I think that this compromise has worked fairly well (but, of course, consensus can change). —David Levy 23:21, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
That makes sense to me. It doesn't need to be done every time, but just when relevant. The search bar is right above the ITN box if someone wants to look a country's name up. 331dot (talk) 23:39, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
I tend to agree with that view. The main thing is to be precise, which is precisely what the nomination used as an example at the beginning of this thread did not do. While the blurb was fine, the thread title, as linked above, did not say whether it was North or South Korea. HiLo48 (talk) 23:41, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
What's the rationale behind that? I'm not really understanding why the country is seen as more directly relevant for human-created news stories than for natural disasters. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 16:29, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
If we're taking a disaster or something akin to that , the specific location is much more important than the broad area of the country (it's the more pertinent link) and the reader should be able to follow links within the location article to get to the country if they need that. --MASEM (t) 16:56, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
I see. We could wikilink specific location and also country name? (where it doesn't make the blurb too long). Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 18:17, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I think in general we should avoid linking country names; although it's good to highlight good articles, it can be taken too far. I'm thinking of the kind of mess we see all too often in WP:DOY. GoldenRing (talk) 13:01, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Page lock

Can we temporarily semi the ITNC page so we don't get IP-hopping?Lihaas (talk) 13:07, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

You need WP:RFP. In any case, the current levels of vandalism are low, so doubt it needs it right now. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:47, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Is there a specific problem? Unregistered users can't necessarily prevent their IP address from changing, it's a shame to shut out their input unless there's a specific problem that needs solving and can't be solved any other way (e.g. ip block) - IMO. --Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 17:12, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Presumably a reference to the idiot who kept trying to make a nomination saying Russia had declared war on the US. Thankfully, he seems to have given up. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:24, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Lots of news

We've been averaging >1 story per day and most items have been rotating off after ~3 days for several weeks now. That is the way ITN should work, so keep it up everybody. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:07, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

We have also done well with the location of items posted(a New Zealander and Australian in RD, blurbs from South Korea, India, Ukraine, and a Colombian writer). We must always be mindful of systemic bias but this is not a bad streak. 331dot (talk) 09:42, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree. HiLo48 (talk) 10:32, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Agree also. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Nice. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 18:15, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
But we should make it consistent ;)Lihaas (talk) 13:07, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
What do you mean? The Rambling Man (talk) 13:46, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Lihaas, no one is declaring victory and saying the issue is settled. The issue is always there and will never go away. There will be good streaks and bad ones. 331dot (talk) 13:51, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Fair enoughLihaas (talk) 01:09, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Linking to ITNC on the template

In a discussion held about a month ago there seemed to be a consensus to put a link to ITNC on the ITN template. I was wondering if that is going to happen. Calidum 00:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

There was concern about the lack of newbie-friendly instructions, which was never really resolved. That is probably why it hasn't gone anywhere. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:36, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Indeed. I think that there was consensus that inviting the main page's readers to participate in the process is desirable, but I don't think that there was consensus to simply link to WP:ITN/C (which, in its current state, can confound even experienced editors). A newcomer-friendly page of some sort (created from scratch or by reworking the current setup) is needed. —David Levy 03:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

How to make the news more educational?

A long but insightful and interesting speech by Alain de Botton: narrative ahead of facts, tragedy instead of horror, long term perspective, etc. --ELEKHHT 17:29, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Change needed to RD

There has been a bizarre outbreak of people suggesting that non-human entities such as a spacecraft and a computer operating system be listed on recent deaths. It would be a good idea to nip this in the bud by specifying that only human beings (or at least sapient beings) be listed on RD. Any objections? Abductive (reasoning) 19:50, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not particularly worried, there will be so few "RDs of non-satient entities", e.g. Windows XP would have been one (much like the BBC used to do for items of technology that we all knew and loved). Don't quite know why we would need to be so anal. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
(ec) The spaceprobe actually has some support for a full blurb. RD may be a toungue-in-cheek call here. In any case, the criteria already mention "person" at some point ;) BTW, what would you count as a non-human sapient being that could merit an RD inclusion? --Tone 20:01, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Chimpanzees are sapient, in my opinion. Abductive (reasoning) 20:04, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Koko (gorilla) would merit serious consideration. That being said, per WP:CREEP, there's absolutely zero need to change the policy here. Just because someone proposes something stupid, like recommending a space probe for RD, doesn't mean we need a policy that tells us we can't post it. Trust the process to weed out the silliness. --Jayron32 20:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't see this as enough of a problem that we need to write it down; it's not like a rash of these sorts of things were posted(and if they actually were, consensus would suggest that it was OK in the first place). Saying that a RD nominee is not a human(or sapient) would seem to be a valid argument against posting, and it's worked so far. 331dot (talk) 00:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
I actually like the idea of having non--humans on there. We don't dominate the world! I think the likes of TRin Tin Tin reincarnated would be valid criteria...top of his field in animal actors.Lihaas (talk) 03:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Famous animals, I could see, but when an inanimate object is at it's "end of life", it's either a notable story , such as the end of the Space Shuttle program or the force entry of Skylab, or it just happens to end. --MASEM (t) 04:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
So consensus is at living , breathing, moving creatures? I would draw the line at famous plans...of course if the world oldest redwood is chooped down that;; probably be a blurb anyways. Either that or we make an explicit exceptionLihaas (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree that my suggestion (Windows XP) was bizarre or needs nipping in the bud; I don't agree that the other user's suggestion of the space probe was stupid.

I prefer language such as "sense of humour" and "tongue in cheek".

Agree TRM; we don't need a rule against making imaginative suggestions. If you don't like a suggestion then don't support it.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 11:06, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, here's two lighthearted "windows xp obituaries" from WP:RS: 1, 2. Neither of them strikes me as bizarre or stupid; "witty" is the word I would use. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 11:18, 22 April 2014 (UTC)


  • The only thing bizarre or insincere here is the notion that calling other people's nom's bizarre or insincere follows AGF or fits in with current rules or amounts to a logical, rather than ad hominem argument. If the demise of highly notable animals and unique technological entities can garner a full blurb, it follows they can also garner RD listings on their demise. As for the "insulting to humans" argument mentioned elsewhere, does that mean that noting the death of anti-Jewish, -American, or -Hindu killers is somehow an insult to the latter groups, and we should not have listed, say, the Death of Bin Laden because he was an insult to real humans? There's no call for a rule here, but there is a desperate need of AGF. μηδείς (talk) 18:09, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Should we post articles that have been nominated for deletion?

A reasonable issue has been noted that, regarding specifically Acayucan bus crash, but it's a general issue. Should an article that's been nominated for deletion, a process which typically takes a week and would push any ITN article to "stale", preclude an item from inclusion in the ITN section of the main page? Should our visitors, new and experienced, be confronted with a tag that says "This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy."? It's a red tag so already alarm bells are ringing, but the significant issue here is that anyone could nominate an ITN candidate for AFD and therefore make it stale. Comments please. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:57, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

  • Thanks for starting this discussion; this seems to be an interesting issue. I need to digest this some but my initial thought is, would someone nominating an article under consideration for ITN for deletion with the intent to thwart its posting not be called out for gaming the system? 331dot (talk) 20:27, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Simple solution. Speed up the AfD process. HiLo48 (talk) 20:53, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
The AFD process has nothing do to with ITN, so if you have a constructive way of implementing your own proposal, do tell. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:56, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
That wouldn't always be easy to determine (because there's nothing inherently suspicious about opposing an event's inclusion in both ITN and the encyclopedia as a whole).
Certainly, if someone is transparent about such a motive (and I've seen similarly outrageous gaming implied or even acknowledged boastfully), it mustn't be tolerated. —David Levy 21:03, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
For the reason that you cited (an item could be "stale" by the time the article's deletion debate concludes), if the concern pertains to notability (and not to issues like copyright infringement or WP:BLP violations, which would necessitate the ITN item's immediate removal anyway), I believe that the ITN appearance should take precedence. In other words, an article currently bold-linked from ITN should be ineligible for deletion on the grounds that its subject is non-notable (a determination that's relatively unlikely, given the scrutiny that it underwent at WP:ITN/C). It can always be nominated for deletion after its ITN appearance concludes, with no dire consequences arising due to the slight delay.
Note that "The nominated page is currently linked from the Main Page. (If there are legitimate concerns, please use Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors to have the link removed before nominating the article.)" has long appeared on the list at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Procedural closure (and been applied from time to time).
If an article is nominated for deletion before there's consensus to post the ITN item, it's reasonable for editors to consider the underlying rationale and its applicability to ITN, but opposition based solely on the fact that the deletion nomination exists (without regard for its validity) shouldn't carry much weight. —David Levy 21:03, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree with David Levy. After all, there are plenty of AfD nominations where it's clear that the article is never going to get deleted. Neljack (talk) 22:58, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  • First up front, I'm the one that nominated the bus crash article for AFD but that's after I tossed a PROD on it, but that was in no way an attempt to shut down the ITN nom, which at the point I had put up the PROD, was going very much in the direction of not posting, so I do not believe I was in any way attempting to game the system or short-circuit the discussion.
    To the larger issue, there has been issues of people creating articles as to get the article to ITN without thinking about the more persistent article requirements like NOTNEWS and so forth. ITN needs to be secondary to the inclusion standards for WP, otherwise, we are opening the door for people creating articles on barely/non-notable events and tagging the ITN so that the discussion at ITN prevents the article from being deleted. Or if we are going to allow that, ITN has to be very aware that not every major story that is covered by newspapers is really a topic appropriate for WP per NOTNEWS. (The other solution, waiting X days for an event to be determined notable before nominating it for ITN is way too silly to work with and would be a hassle in dealing with vast-moving stories that we can judge notability very quickly (the missing Malaysian aircraft, for example, took only a few hours to realize it was a major development)). --MASEM (t) 23:10, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    I don't think that an article under discussion at WP:ITN/C should be ineligible for deletion (but if consensus to post the item is reached, any ongoing deletion debate should be suspended for the time being). If the process works as intended, an article that fails WP:NOTNEWS won't reach that point. Given that events considered sufficiently notable for inclusion in the encyclopedia frequently fail to meet ITN's higher threshold, it seems unlikely that many deletion-destined articles will make it through to ITN. —David Levy 23:26, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I say that no, an article up for deletion should not be posted on ITN, on the basis of what it says at WP:ITN, Articles that are subject to serious issues, as indicated by 'orange'- or 'red'-level article tags, will not normally be accepted for an emboldened link. The whole point of ITN is to "direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest. ITN supports the central purpose of Wikipedia—making a great encyclopedia." Something up for deletion needs to have that discussion fully resolved before it should be posted on ITN. SpencerT♦C 01:00, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    • But the fact that an article has been nominated for deletion does not necessarily mean that it is "subject to serious issues". Obviously non-notability would be a very serious issue, but the mere fact it is nominated for deletion does not mean that it is non-notable. Neljack (talk) 04:44, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
      • An AFD is equivalent to (I think deprecated) {{notability}} warning tag, and many other warning tags are, to some extent subjective opinions. Again, we do have to be aware of bad-faith AFDs purposely added to game the system or the like, but most people that know the AFD process know better than to game the process. --MASEM (t) 04:52, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Let's make it clear. An article sent to AFD, is far too often a stunt by a single individual who disagrees with the article. If there is anything political about the article, you will get POV factions who are out to kill any publicity for a story against their POV. There are sufficient numbers of deletionists who will gang up and try to snowball an AFD, so perfectly valid articles can get deleted far too easily by the AFD process. ITN should not be swayed by the small group who get their jollies by deleting content (neither should AFD, but it does). If an event is sufficient for ITN, then we should put it on the home page. It will be that much more embarrassing to delete it. Trackinfo (talk) 02:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

New events that are covered at ITN have to implicitly meet WP:NEVENT to have an appropriate article. If there is good-faith doubt about the validity of the article, then ITN should be held back until the the article is cleared up. We'd do the same if there were any other problems with the content of the article too (orange tags will block ITN posting in most cases). I agree there are sometimes AFD noms that are not in good faith but those are not very frequent. --MASEM (t) 02:11, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  • There's no call for creating a policy here, it has been dealt with before by simply having an admin close the AfD. Further, if this is made a rule, all it means is that any single editor can veto an ITN nomination by simply singlehandedly nominating the article for deletion. As that works its way through the nomination will stalen and die. μηδείς (talk) 05:05, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Which is "gaming the system" if it is clear that the ITN nomination has a reasonable chance of going forward. As I said, when I nominated the bus article, the ITN candidacy was reasonably clearly going to close as not posted. If my voice was the only anti-posting voice, putting the AFD on that would be a problem. But that's behavior and the like to deal with if that happens over and over - and if is truly a case of a bad AFD, then the AFD can be speedily closed by an admin. --MASEM (t) 05:12, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Comment just to be clear, are people suggesting we do post ITN items which have the red AFD maintenance tag on, should consensus at ITN exist for a page being AFDed to be listed on the main page? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Under no circumstance should we intentionally include links to AfD-tagged articles on the main page.
In my view, if there's consensus to post such an item (and the deletion nomination relates to notability concerns, not issues of greater severity), the AfD debate should be closed or suspended without prejudice (meaning that it could be restarted after the ITN appearance) and the AfD tag should be removed. —David Levy 07:20, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Has this happened before? Does it run the risk of setting a precedent that a few editors in the ITN process are over-ruling the AFD process, even if it's to suspend it temporarily. After all, if a legitimate AFD is posted, why should the ITN process dictate how that AFD is run? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:39, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Has this happened before?
I know that AfD listings related to notability have been closed because the articles were linked from ITN. I don't think that this has occurred very often, and I don't know how many (if any) of the articles were nominated again after the links left the main page. —David Levy 08:20, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Diffs please! The Rambling Man (talk) 15:34, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
I have no recollection of specific articles with which this occurred. I haven't personally encountered such a situation recently (or many times in total). —David Levy 17:45, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
That's a shame, it would be helpful to substantiate the claim that the precedent has already been set. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:47, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't believe that this is sufficiently common to set a meaningful precedent. And even if it were, I prefer to focus on merit. (Doing something the same way for years doesn't preclude the possibility that it's ill-advised or inferior to some alternative.) —David Levy 18:26, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any instances in which such AfD closures occurred before the ITN items appeared on the main page, but I'm sure that some ITN items have appeared following WP:SNOW closures.
Does it run the risk of setting a precedent that a few editors in the ITN process are over-ruling the AFD process, even if it's to suspend it temporarily. After all, if a legitimate AFD is posted, why should the ITN process dictate how that AFD is run?
My thinking is that the likelihood of AfD preventing a valid ITN posting is significantly greater. Not only is ITN's notability threshold higher (so it's unlikely for an event deemed sufficiently notable for ITN to be deemed insufficiently notable for Wikipedia at AfD), but an item doesn't get posted at ITN without consensus. (Conversely, a single user's AfD nomination could tie up an article long enough for a proposed ITN blurb to become "stale".) Additionally, I regard the slightly delayed deletion of an article on non-notability grounds as preferable to the outright loss of a legitimate ITN item.
It's a matter of determining the lesser of two evils, I suppose. —David Levy 08:20, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Rambling Man, it has happened before (in fact, when I was one of the more active admins at ITN, there were a few occasion when I closed such AfDs) but this was years ago and, like David, I can't remember the specifics—if the article is on ITN, it meets criterion #5 for speedy keep, so somebody wishing to nominate it for deletion after it has been posted would have to wait for it to drop off the main page or establish a consensus to pull it. This of course dos not preclude deletion nominations before posting, though nominations obviously intended to derail the ITN process would qualify for speedy keep on the grounds of obvious disruption. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:33, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Nice find, HJ Mitchell. I would claim that per WP:LAWYER and WP:GAME, the prohibition would extend to ITNs that are clearly gaining consensus for posting, regardless of whether the AfD is intended in bad faith. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:47, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: ITN "Current news" line

Per the recent suggestion on ITNC, what does one think of having a "current news" ticker on ITN? Of course one slow news days it wouldn't even beLihaas (talk) 01:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

To clarify what I meant (since I suggested the idea in response to Balaenoptera musculus asking about using a bullet point for ongoing news)... This would be a single line, similar to the "Recent deaths" line where admins, at their discretion or upon request, could move a "not really old" item instead of dropping it when something new came on. For example, I recently dropped the Ukrainian unrest when a new item came on. If this "Other current news" (or whatever name we come up with) line existed I could have instead removed the blurb and added the story to the line as simply "Ukrainian unrest". The S.Korean boat disaster could be there too right now. Most likely, the line would be blank most of the time and thus hidden like we do when there are no recent deaths. But, it would give us some additional flexibility in times like this week where there is a lot of news and some stories stay in the headlines for more than a few days. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:20, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

We have that procedure already in place, it's called a "Sticky" and usually requires a consensus discussion at WP:ITNC to create a sticky. --Jayron32 02:21, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
I think there's something different here, though. Or at least when I was reading the comment that inspired this, I was thinking about news topics that are "unresolved" but not so much "ongoing", specifically like right now, MH370 or the Korean ferry incidents, where there's no closure yet. Ongoing conflicts are hard to have any absolute closure, but when there can be closure (the plane found, all passangers accounted for, respectively) then a line that allows for a quick check can be helpful. Maybe this is equivalent to the sticky, but I've not seen it used for this purpose, but I feel it can be. --MASEM (t) 02:32, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
What Masem said. The idea would be to give stories that already had consensus but aren't resolved before they drop off a few more days play, not a longer term "sticky" for ongoing events like we've done in the past. (Although stickies would presumably appear on the new line as well.) Stickies have in the past only been used for exceptional circumstances - think of this proposal as a way to give admins/the community more leeway when we run out of room on the template. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:01, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
My initial reaction was similar to Jayron32's. Upon further consideration, I think that an RD-style line labeled "Ongoing:" (replacing the existing Portal:Current events link when it appears) could be beneficial sometimes.
We bump ongoing events back up when new developments result in substantially different blurbs, but we don't really have a procedure for retaining events that simply haven't concluded yet (unless one rises to an exceptionally high level of importance/interest, thereby justifying a "sticky"). So under the current setup, an ongoing emergency can drop off the list, while a sporting event held days ago (but after the emergency began) appears in ITN.
I support a trial, with a maximum of three links at a time (the same as RD). —David Levy 03:22, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Interestingly, I has the same basic thought and was working on a mockup, see below. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
I think this idea could be useful, but the distinction between 'ongoing' and 'this is a sticky' seems thinner than a cigarette paper. Moving Ukraine etc. to a temporary holding line until/unless a significant event happens may be useful. doktorb wordsdeeds 03:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Yah, if implemented the old still sticky would presumably disappear. So I guess this could be seen as a proposal to expand the use of sticky by making it a less formal process with a designated spot. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
That sounds worth trying. —David Levy 03:22, 21 April 2014 (UTC)


I was going to suggest as David did that we could bold the link of ongoing to the portal. Its also good in that it not as hard to get as a sticky. Nevertheless lets go for a 2 week trial once we finalise the format (below)Lihaas (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Mockup

So here is an idea of what the template would look like on the MP when there is both a RD and an extra CE. For now I used "More current events", but the label could be something else. Also whether RD or "more" appears first is to be determined. If one or none is needed, it would work much like it does today. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:41, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Changed the mockup to read "ongoing" --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:38, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

From today's featured article

In the news

Abdelaziz Bouteflika
Recent deaths: Rubin "Hurricane" Carter
Ongoing: Ukrainian unrest – Korean ferry – MH370
comment not to picky on ongoing vs. more current events (maybe poer TRM we could use less letterms, but im fine either way()).
Also would support RD first. Current events is sort of a "bonus" to keep it up while RD is more fresh (same chronology of blurbs)Lihaas (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I think this idea shows potential. --Tone 13:21, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I like the idea, but how do we decide when an event is "ongoing" versus when it should just roll off the bottom? --Jayron32 14:28, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
    Something like "If small, incremental updates are still appearing in the headlines a story is a candidate for 'ongoing' inclusion. Routine or repeat coverage that does not actually advance the story is usually not sufficient for 'ongoing' status. Major developments should be nominated for a new blurb." For example, the South Korean Ferry is in the top few headlines today as the president called it "like murder". That is probably not a blurb-worthy event, but it being in the headlines suggests there is still a lot of interest in the story. In contrast it looks like Kepler-186f had some coverage yesterday, but it was all sources covering it for the first time ("repeat" coverage) or editorials offering further opinion ("routine" coverage). --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:54, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Another possible criterion could be whether the article is being actively updated with new information. If it isn't then either the event is no longer 'ongoing' or WP is no longer following it closely enough for us to want to showcase the article. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Fair enoughLihaas (talk) 03:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Fair aenough but whats your reason Lihaas (talk) 03:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
I'd prefer to keep the two sections with news items together and not have them broken up by the deaths section. Calidum 01:28, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Calidum's reasoning here. I think it would be more aesthetically pleasing to have the news together with RD at the bottom (but whatever everyone else prefers is fine with me). --Bongwarrior (talk) 02:56, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Since there are now 2 opinions saying "ongoing" first and one saying "RD" first, I will go ahead and swap the two lines. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:09, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
I was on the fence regarding which order to use. Per the rationales above, either makes more sense in one respect and less sense in another. But I think that the new order (with "Ongoing" first) probably comes across better to readers. It's true that the "Recent deaths" line contains links that haven't aged out yet (which aligns their nature with that of the full blurbs), but the thematic connection between the full blurbs and the "Ongoing" line is stronger and much more obvious. Readers are unlikely to notice (let alone care about) the events' relative timing, but they might wonder why recent deaths have been sandwiched two sets of general events. So I endorse this change. —David Levy 19:29, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Draft guideline

  • "An accepted blurb may be transferred to 'Ongoing' by an administrator if small, incremental updates are still appearing in notable news agencies, and if the administrator is satisfied that regular constructive editing is continuing on the relevant article(s). Major developments should be nominated for a new blurb. An article featured as 'Ongoing' should not be taken as being considered as a featured article or otherwise maintained on the front page for reasons other than its newsworthiness." doktorb wordsdeeds 19:57, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
    Like it, but two things (unrelated to each other): 1) How do we decide when an article is to come off of the "ongoing news" thingy? 2) I have no objections, but people already complain enough when admins make any move without first holding a full discussion. I expect blowback from editors who feel that moving something to the "ongoing news" thing should be discussed first, and that admins who act unilaterally are being abusive. I don't think that, I think your proposal is just fine. But I forsee that non-admins will get upset about getting "cut out" of the decision making process. --Jayron32 20:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
(ec) We should also say something about how long the article stays there. One week, then reevaluation? And of course, if new developments result in a full blurb, it should be removed from Ongoing. --Tone 20:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
I would argue that once on there, it can be challenged at any time to be removed, with the understanding that nominating for removal every day would be disruptive. But this would also mean bold removal if not brought up as part of a new story on that item (for example, if it is the case MH370 debris is positively identified, that will likely become a blurb, at which point the editor adding the item to ITN can boldly remove the ongoing line) or if it is clearly stale. I would say that any ongoing item that stays there for more than two weeks should be re-evaluated - there might be a reason to keep but that's an average timeframe for many of these stories. --MASEM (t) 20:57, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  • The proposed guideline (ITN instructions are generally considered guidelines, not policy) is good. In response to how something comes off, I would say an admin may BOLDly remove an item (presumed normal operation) and editors can also open them for discussion at ITN/C (akin to removing old "stickies"). In response to possible "complaints", I would editors who disagree with a BOLD action (moving onto or off of "Ongoing") can challenge it at ITN/C, but mandating discussion is a complete waste of time. In response to timing, I would add "A story will typically appear on 'Ongoing' anywhere from a couple days or a couple weeks, depending on news coverage and editing activity." to the guideline.
Finally, I will say that guidelines are best developed through trial and error, so I think it best to proceed with a trial period as suggested by other above and then work on formalizing the guidelines language, rather than trying to get the guideline exactly right first. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:47, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Let me suggest for purposes of testing that an item can be BOLDly removed if they believe the story has gone stale, it can be suggested by a ITN/C nomination line (which would not follow the standard format but would be more like "I don't believe X is a major story in the news any more and should be removed", so that discussion can proceed, or it can be removed as part of another more typical ITN/C that would be the headline that is the "end of life" of that newsstory (eg such as finding the wreckage of MH370 (presumably) which I'm sure would be an ITN item). If we need a more rigorous process it will fall out of implementing this. --MASEM (t) 15:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Okey then, lts get the ball rolling for a 2 week period ending just about when the indian election result is out. User: ThaddeusB your lead?Lihaas (talk) 15:29, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
If no one objects within the next two days, I will go ahead and BOLDly start a 2-week trial period. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:04, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
I strongly support trying this, and suggest we leave items up until they are bumped, promoted back to a full blurb, or are removed as stale after 10 days or a talk page nomination declaring them stale by consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Medeis (talk • contribs)
10 day period is goodLihaas (talk) 06:30, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Affirm Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 10:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree. Let's go then. --Tone 10:17, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Me too, should be interesting. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
User:ThaddeusB, take the initiative? Although I think MH370 has died out.Lihaas (talk) 23:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I have started the two week trial period, per consensus here. The situation in Ukraine and the MW Sewol sinking appear to meet the guidelines. They both had consensus to post in the past and cycled off the template solely due to new stories coming on. Both stories are still developing; that is the articles are still be updated regularly. The MH370 disappearance in contrast does not appear to meet the criteria. It is still in the news regularly, but just to say "yes people are still looking". The article has regular editing activity, but hasn't had significant updates (=addition of new content) in several days. Thus, I included the first two but not MH370 on the first version. Of course, people are welcome to open ITN/C threads to add or remove items if they disagree with my judgement. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Agreed on MH370 particularly after news reports today said search for plane wreckage might take years, and that's not the purpose I see this serving - these should be items that have a week to a month "news lifetime". --MASEM (t) 01:42, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Yep, bang on the buck. (although I haven't heard of the MH stuff in a while)
So just to clarify, after the 2 weeks settlement, we come back here to review right? User:ThaddeusBLihaas (talk) 14:51, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, after two weeks we will either scrap the idea or formalize the guidelines and keep it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:09, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Kudos to all for an awesome consensual discussion to lead to something substantice..Lihaas (talk) 16:48, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Implementation glitch

@ThaddeusB: This doesn't look pretty when transcluded at Portal:Current events, as the "Ongoing" link is displayed as double-bolded plain text. Could someone re-implement the "nocurrenteventslink" logic that was commented out? When this parameter is set, either the whole line needs to be hidden, or the word "Ongoing" needs to turn into plain text . -- John of Reading (talk) 06:45, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Done. (The line is hidden.) —David Levy 07:06, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Dint the aove lead to saying ongoing should be above RD?Lihaas (talk) 14:59, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for bug notification & the fix. There are now 2 opinions saying "ongoing" first and one saying "RD" first, so I will go ahead and swap the two lines. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:07, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
There's too much white space at Portal:Current events now. Could someone review Template:In the news/testcases and my edits at Template:In the news/sandbox, and perhaps make the same edit to the live template? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:56, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Fixed. It seems having the "Ongoing" line first is going to make it a bit tricky to comment out RD when there aren't any (see my test edits on sandbox)... The best solution seems to me to remove the blank line. The only downside is it is slightly more difficult to read the template code w/o that line. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:54, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Great idea, reminds me of the "ticker"

I have been suggesting this idea for years and I am glad it is finally gaining traction. The "ongoing events" line should be a permanent fixture to ITN.
The biggest problem with ITN is that there must be a declarative 'blurb' attached to every news story when a lot of significant news events gain a very large readership without any determinate 'events' happening; it is therefore highly focused on superlatives and things with a finite result. Instead of using "ongoing" we may as well combined "on-going events" and "recent deaths" into a single 'ticker'.
The idea here is for average users to access "current news topics of interest" with ease on the main page. We also can lower the criteria bar for stories posted in this 'ticker' but limit the number of ticker stories at any given time. For example, current stories of interest may include things such as the Oscar Pistorious trial, MH 370, and the Afghan and Indian elections. Colipon+(Talk) 23:28, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

My proposal in 2011 looked something like this:

Elizabeth Taylor
  • Actress Elizabeth Taylor (pictured) dies at the age of 79.
  • The House of Representatives of the Philippines impeaches Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez for alleged betrayal of public trust.
  • Nikolai Andrianov, winner of the most medals in men's Olympic gymnastics, dies at the age of 58.
  • Voters in Egypt approve a new constitution at a referendum, as a part of the overall reform.
  • The Alpine Skiing World Cup concludes with Ivica Kostelić of Croatia and Maria Riesch of Germany winning the overall titles.
  • French, British and American forces launch attacks on pro-Gaddafi troops in Libya in support of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.
  • The whole concept of having a tag on the main page is not going to appeal to anyone. Maybe structure it differently? Also perhaps the election ticker we talked about a year or so ago?Lihaas (talk) 16:25, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't care for setting things off in a box. The use of the "ongoing" line for slow moving stories w/o a single big event has potential, but let's get the original use approved before seeking to expand it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:33, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Not a fan of the box or that many stories. I always placed the number of stories to be given around 2 to 3 (eg on average screen should not split across lines), even allowing it to zero out if there's no major ongoing stories. We want stories that are based on current active events that people worldwide will likely be searching on and have shown continued good editorship as news (or lack thereof) has come in (eg so these are representing some of the better work and thus appropriate main page links). It should not be seen as a clearing house for recent event articles. --MASEM (t) 19:16, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

More mockups

From today's featured article

In the news

Rita Jeptoo
More current events...

Feedback

Advantages to this approach

  • Current ITN postings are much too focused on significant milestones, records, and one-time or recurring 'finite' events. Only these things fit nicely in a 'blurb', at the detriment of all other newsworthy items. Adopting an 'ongoing' box gives countless benefits to the ITN space in general, and makes it a much more useful resource for our readership. The advantages of the 'ongoing' banner are described below:
    1. More postings for advancement in science: for example, recently Vitamins were highly scrutinized by a medical journal; this is news that is pretty significant for all humanity. But this cannot fit nicely in a blurb so it would never have a chance of being posted in ITN, despite it being significant 'news'. Modern scientific discoveries are often incremental and not 'groundbreaking'; many of its contents are esoteric. None of this can be captured in a single blurb.
    2. Reduce debate on recurring sporting events: For something so widely followed as the UEFA Champions League, or perhaps the NCAA's "March Madness", where much of the interest is generated during the competition rather than at the end, it would be extremely useful to have an 'ongoing' link to these events. This would also end the debate about whether or not to post 'finals' results. It would also allow more 'minor' sports such as Rugby Union or Women's Handball a place on this banner without the objections normally seen if a full blurb were posted.
    3. Complimentary with 'Recent Deaths' and 'Elections': The vast majority of 'recent deaths' and elections would be moved to the 'on-going banner'; there would never be ITN/R debates about whether or not an election from a medium-sized country such as Macedonia would be worthy of a full blurb posting.
    4. On-going unresolved events of significant interest: For example, MH370, Syrian civil war, Ukraine, South Korean ferry sinking, LA Clippers owner racism
    5. Direct access to subjects of news stories too complex for a blurb. For example the US Supreme Court recently handed down a ruling on Affirmative Action. There is no way to really 'encapsulate' this decision in a blurb as it is extremely complicated.
    6. Posting of stories that are of significant media interest but often objected to on the grounds of 'systemic bias' or 'no pop culture allowed'. For example whether or not to post the birth of William and Kate's baby. Instead of a blurb, simply put a link to Prince George. Or when Tiger Woods had an affair and millions were looking for his article on the latest, simply post a link to "Tiger Woods". Colipon+(Talk) 13:31, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

What just happened?

What's with the ITN template? While I like the new "ongoing" link, the bullet -> no bullet change from news items to a bolded and linked "ongoing"/"recent deaths" is jarring and extremely unpleasant to look at. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:24, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

See "Proposal: ITN Current news line" section above on the change... The "Recent deaths" line has been there for 1.5 years or so and has never had a bullet. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:29, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

"no consensus to post" (Gerry Adams arrest)

This discussion is clearly generating more heat than light. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2014 (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.

So, I come back today to see that phrase given as the reason why this arrest isn't considered front page news. Having read up on what consensus is supposed to mean here, I have just a few questions:

  • Why did people apparently get away with claiming a "precedent" not to post arrests like this, without giving even a single example of when a high profile arrest of a world notable politician for a crime as serious as this, was ever rejected? Has it even been discussed before, even as a hypothetical? I doubt it.
  • Why did people get away with claiming that putting this on the front page would somehow imugne Adam's reputation? Why did they get away with ignoring the fact that if they are so horrified at the 'implications' of Wikipedia telling the world he's been arrested in connection with a murder, why does it say exactly that in his wikipedia article, which is the number 1 result on a Google search on his name? Why did they get away with the completely ignoring the fact that, as of right now, Wikipedia is the only place in the world where you won't find this news being treated as front page material?
  • Why did people apparently get away with talking absolute crap about the UK legal system? It's a basic fact that being arrested in the UK is not a minor administrative matter, it's not done just to protect your rights, and this abolutely, positively, wasn't a case of him just turning up for a pre-arranged interview (if it's Wikipedia's idea of neutrality to propogate that garbage put out by Adam's own spokesman as if it was a fact, you have got it so very very wrong).
  • Why did people get away with claiming it shouldn't be posted because the arrest could have been for something less serious than what the whole world can see it was for, thanks to what all the reputable, ethical, reserved outlets are telling everybody - that the police think he ordered this murder (which as said, gets you a life sentence just as sure as if you kill with your bare hands - especially in the UK where we don't apply justice on a barter system)
  • Why did people get away with claiming the arrest isn't news, but for some reason, if he was charged, it would then become news, or indeed it would only be news if he was convicted? Why are people like this, who are so very clearly ignorant of the history of Adam's life and his long long history of being accused, and denying, any involvement in this murder, allowed to give any opinion at all? And why were people allowed to bscially lie, by pretending as if this news was only being propogated by tabloids, as 'sensationalism'. Why is anyone who so clearly hasn't been within a hundred yards of a British TV set or reputable newspaper in the last three days even allowed to give any opinion at all on whether or not there is a distinction between these stages, as far as their percieved newsworthiness goes? If he is released without charge, or indeed found not guilty, that will be treated by all serious organisations as just as newsworthy as the arrest, or indeed any guilty verdict. Anyone who thinks otherwise, can only be described as deluded.

Obviously, given what has happened already, I don't expect anyone to have the integrity or the honesty to even attempt to answer any of these points, but what the hell. Surprise me. Oh, and by the way, even though nothing else has happened, this arrest is still being prominently covered in the British TV news (I'm watching it right now). All in all, it's utterly shameful that Wikipedia wants to pretend this arrest was (is) not news, or that somehow it alone is preserving his dignity and reputation by simply pretending it hasn't happened. You're only educating people on why they probably shouldn't trust Wikipedia's judgement at all, making sure that if they want to know what's really in the news, they should stick with the professional, serious, credible organisations that make the reporting of it their one and only job (instead of treating it as a side show alongside telling everyone what the video game of the day is). Lokie Dokie (talk) 12:19, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that you stop beating the horse with further walls of text until there are further developments(such as being charged or convicted, which would cause some to support posting). If you don't understand why the nomination was not adopted and the discussion closed, further discussion here will not cause you to understand. 331dot (talk) 12:27, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
If you don't understand what I wrote, don't tell me I shouldn't have written it. You want to ignore the arrest, and you don't want to defend the reasons why you ignored it. I get it. It's OK, I think everybody understands why you want to do that. It is after all extremely embarassing to admit you've made a mistake, or didn't really understand what you were voting on. If and when you figure out why a charge would be any more newsworthy than the arrest in this particular case (even though the evidence in the real world will easily prove that belief to be false, if it happens), you be sure to let us know (it was after all one of the points I raised). Lokie Dokie (talk) 12:41, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Apart from the above, Lokie Dokie has made a grand total of ten posts on Wikipedia, ALL of them on this topic on the ITN Candidates page. As a high school teacher, I'm quite used to smelly socks. There's a lot of olfactory familiarity in the above. HiLo48 (talk) 12:33, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
You're clearly not a school teacher. Not a very good school anyway. Yes, I've only posted here. Well done you for being so observant. But so what? If you can give me a good reason why that means I should be ignored, maybe I'll care what you think. Lokie Dokie (talk) 12:41, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm actually quite interested in football, and so I would probably edit articles like 2014 FIFA World Cup if I wasy going to edit at all, but then I saw what passes for intelligent debate over there. Apparently on Wikipedia, according to school teachers anyway, readers who don't understand which brand of football is played at the "FIFA World Cup", shouldn't be inconvenienced by clicking the link to the 'football' article. Not on an encyclopedia built on links. But of course, it can be assumed they would understand it immediately if you told them the FIFA World Cup is a soccer tournament. You know, the name used for the FIFA brand of football in, oh I don't know, 5? out of the 200 or so countries that can compete in the tournament. You cannot make this stuff up, you really can't. It makes you wonder why you don't hear more often in the 'old' media about just what goes on here. It's a shame so many people who may not have come here before and looked at the dark crevices of these backroom pages, will have probably just taken it as read that this place operates on serious, considered, discussion. Lokie Dokie (talk) 13:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Although having just read some of the crap on the LA Clippers section, I am getting a better idea of just what brand of crazy you're actually allowed to offer as opposition here, in order to obtain a 'no consensus' verdict. If you've done nothing for me today, I at least had a laugh reading that. National story. Not as notable as the Alves banana twiter meme. Not significant. Local business matter. Celebrity tittle-tattle. Local interest. Just a change in backroom staff. LMFAO!. Twice. I don't know jack shit about the NBA, I've never watched a game in my life, but thanks to the reams and reams of serious high brow news coverage this received in the UK, I know enough to give me a real good belly laugh at those opinions being considered by anyone here as if they were remotely thoughtful, considered or even halfway intelligent. You can really say any old crap here, can't you? Lokie Dokie (talk) 12:41, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

  • I call on an uninvolved party to close this discussion, which is turning into a means to insult and offend those who participate at ITN, or at the very least is disruptive. 331dot (talk) 13:00, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
    • I'm sorry you feel insulted or offended by merely being asked to explain the many and varied illigocal, inconsistent, and indeed indefensible things you said in order to keep this news off the front page. But I of course completely understand your apparent overwhelming desire to have any and all such queries 'closed', rather than address them in a serious manner (serious being to actually read, understand, and then respond, to the points made). And oh look, it was closed just as I was typing this. I guess 'more heat than light' is some kind of Wikipedia code for 'we don't like to discuss these sorts of things, so go away and don't bother us with your fancy word arguments'. Ridiculous. Lokie Dokie (talk) 13:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


Obviously 331dot and the Rambling Man won't want anyone here to know this, but people should be aware that discussion of this issue continues at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) (unless anyone wants to suggest a better venue, Rambling Man declined to tell me where the appropriate venue is to complain about hs closure here, which I guess is hardly a surprise, he has to look after his own self interest I suppose). It continues there after 331dot and the Rambling Man were so helpful and kind to point out that I was in error in trying to do so at Talk:Main Page - clearly I had failed to read the notice at the top of that page. I guess I was dissillusioned after reading the notice that told me to come here if I wasn't happy with the way something on the candidates page was closed, and all that happened was what you see above. Discussion also continued for a time at the Rambling Man's talk page, but he seems to have decided to end that after he made the quite brilliant and extremely persuasive point that now, after three days, and with absolutely nothing else being announced, the news of the arrest is dropping down the front page of that parochial, local, and of course entirely sensationalist, news outlet, the BBC News front page. Which obviously means it was never appropriate for the "international website" that is Wikipedia, who obviously prefer to only report sensationalist and defamatory news like 'Gerry Adams was arrested in connection with a murder' in the actual biographical article for Gerry Adams. Lokie Dokie (talk) 15:04, 2 May 2014 (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.

Does ITN have an appeal process?

Banned editor stirring. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:37, 9 May 2014 (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.

For some reason, Dangerous Panda is trying to claim the above smack down of my complaint about the Adams decision was because there is no appealing an ITN decision - or at least he's never seen it done, which I think equates as the same thing to him. I think it's pretty obvous that's wrong - the reasons why I was shut down above were obviously very different to me apparently having broken a simple procedural rule like that - but it seems to me the easiest place to settle that argument is here (at the risk of someone finding some excuse why this too is somehow disruption, or yet another example of the tedious stick/horse analogy you all seem so fond of using, instead of just replying to someone). Or if it helps, maybe you can make it a rule as of now, and use that the next time you just don't want to explain to sceptic why argument/s X held sway over argument/s Y, in any particular issue. Lokie Dokie (talk) 21:56, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

The nomination process is the appeal process. Editors argue the case, a decision is made. In this case, an editor reviewed the nomination and concluded there to be no consensus to post. Everybody accepted the decision and moved on with their lives. Well, all except one.... 22:46, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
How does that make any sense at all? How can it be an appeal if you don't even know the outcome of the request? Lokie Dokie (talk) 17:50, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
There is no defined "appeal process" at ITN. Should a nomination receive no clear consensus in the view of an admin making a judgement, then it will not be posted. Although we act strongly to avoid vote counting, if a nomination has fewer votes in favour than in opposition, it is highly unlikely to be posted. Hope that helps. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:00, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
It was no help at all. Only the first sentence was even relevant to the question, and your answer could mean you can appeal, but the way to do it is not defined, or it could mean you can't appeal, and that's why it's not defined. Normally I would have asked for a clarification, but given it's you, I'll just leave it, because I alread know how that goes. As for the lesson in how ITN works, it was as clear as all the other explanations have been. Did anyone make any attempt at all to strongly avoid siding with the view that had the most votes? We will never know. Because of you. Lokie Dokie (talk) 17:50, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
What are you talking about? I didn't even close the nomination. I closed the side discussion because it was clear it wasn't going to generate anything other than vitriol, which it appears is your specialism, as demonstrated by the past two days of walls of text at various locations while you forum shop. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:14, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

Standard content dispute resolution process applies, I would think.

Info: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution

More detail: Wikipedia:DRR

Summary: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution requests/Guide

Next step is Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard or Wikipedia:Dispute resolution requests/RfC.

If you want to open an RfC then I would suggest that a good place to do it would be right here on this talk page.

Hope that helps.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 16:48, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

And what's "Step 1" in Wikipedia dispute resolution - 'discuss it on the talk page'. How hilariously ironic in this case, don't you think? Why don't you go ask Rambling Man why he thinks step 1 is 'shut him up'. Lokie Dokie (talk) 17:50, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
By all means invoke any of the suggestions above. And please do it quickly so we can move on from this little storm in a teacup. Of course, in the meantime, your pet subject has been released so therefore the story is even less of a story than when he was arrested. Time to do something else I suspect. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:18, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
No need to concern ourselves any further here. Lokie Dokie has been blocked indefinitely for block evasion and sockpuppetry. HiLo48 (talk) 18:39, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
Oh that does sadden me. doktorb wordsdeeds 20:53, 4 May 2014 (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.

Mr. Beard has been the picture for a while

Austria's bearded woman has been the picture for nearly a week now. While I'm fairly certain that some advocacy groups pushed for that picture to be up there for the whole crossdressing thing, I'm not gonna go there. Irrespective of the individuals talent, and success in winning the contest, I find the image to be almost a joke on our front page. Is there something more recent (ie picture of South Africa's head of state, map of Turkey showing the mine collapse location) we can replace it with fairly soon? - Floydian τ ¢ 13:36, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

"I'm not gonna go there." And yet you did. --Golbez (talk) 13:57, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Given the size constraints, maps are among the worst image choices at ITN.
We have numerous photographs of Jacob Zuma (President of South Africa), and while he leads the African National Congress, he didn't stand for reelection this year (which his inclusion in the blurb could be interpreted to imply).
Lastly, whatever your personal views may be, there was absolutely no need for mockery. Simply stating that ITN's image hasn't changed recently would have sufficed. If you have any evidence that "some advocacy groups pushed for that picture to be up there" (which I assume you must, given that you're "fairly certain" of this), that's a separate matter. —David Levy 14:19, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't think there's any advocacy group or great conspiracy. That being said, I agree that it's been up there for a while. I think that File:Manchester City 2013.jpg would be a fine replacement. IronGargoyle (talk) 16:30, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
At 100px, the players' faces aren't particularly recognizable. But it's a valid option, provided that the nothing occurred after October 24 to render the photograph outdated in this context. (That wording is vague due to my unfamiliarity with the subject.) —David Levy 17:35, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
BJP winning the recent election in India is a bit more notable than some singing contest or some sports competition. It would be better to have an image of India's new prime minister Narendra Modi. --PiMaster3 talk 22:20, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Better start fixing up the article/s. You don't wanna allow the article to be posted in just an hour due to the admins forgetting that there was an update... –HTD 22:24, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
'Advocacy groups'? Seriously? Do you have any evidence for that? AlexTiefling (talk) 11:33, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Largest/heaviest dinosaur bones found

This seems to be very interesting. I don't know which article to link and I don't have time as I need to study for exams. Here are some sources: [2], [3], [4], [5]. Cheers. Mohamed CJ (talk) 11:29, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:ITN/C, please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.103.97 (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Can someone please explain the rationale behind removing the "More current events" link that has been at the bottom of ITN for years? I used that link all the time, and I'd prefer to see it restored. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 22:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Please see #Proposal: ITN "Current news" line (on this talk page). In short, the link hasn't been removed; it currently appears with the label "Ongoing". —David Levy 23:12, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
I noticed that, but I don't think that is intuitively the same thing. The "ongoing" news stories are ones that transpire over an extended period of time (as opposed to the completed events that appear as bulleted news items). The current events portal (and, by extension, the link to "More current events") is (potentially) a list of all notable news items that occur on any given day. These usually are news items that are not notable enough for the main page, and rarely are "ongoing" in the sense that the new link suggests. In short, I do not agree that the "Ongoing" link replaces the "More current events" link, and my request to have the latter reinstated still stands. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 12:56, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Clicking the ongoing link still leads to the current events portal. Calidum 17:23, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Do you have a particular implementation in mind? Restoring the link's original label (while retaining its current position) would make the distinction from the bulleted items much less clear. Restoring both the original label and the original position would result in increased clutter. No option is perfect, but the current setup strikes me as preferable to the others. I think that "Ongoing" adequately conveys the general concept of a page regularly updated to reflect current news. —David Levy 21:30, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
As I said earlier, I don't think "Ongoing" and "More current events" represent the same concept. The former represents stories that continue for a period of time, while the latter represents stories like those listed in the bullet points that didn't reach the threshold of notability to be listed on the front page. I don't think restoring the "More current events..." link to its original position would add clutter, because that space is completely empty right now. In fact, I would argue that it looks less aesthetically pleasing without it. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 14:14, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree they are different. "More current events" can include any event deemed appropriate to include on that page and does not require the review of several editors to affirm, like ITN/C does. "Ongoing" is the sticky for ITN/C, for all purposes, events that are big in the news as fresh and ongoing but don't have any specific newsline to include, ala the Korean ferry during that time. --MASEM (t) 14:37, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
Certainly, those two entities differ materially. The same is true of ITN's "Recent deaths" line (which currently contains one person's name) and the Deaths in 2014 article (to which the label links). —David Levy 14:43, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
Under the current setup, a restored "More current events..." link would receive its own line. Placing it directly to the right of the "Recent deaths" or "Ongoing" items (depending on what appears at the bottom at a given time) might not be feasible; at lower resolutions, the aforementioned "empty" space often doesn't exist (particularly when three items are listed). —David Levy 14:43, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
I still think it's worth it. I never considered the old layout to be cluttered. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 03:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
Also, it seems to me that "Ongoing" should/could be moved above the bullet points, leaving more room to work with at the bottom. (I notice that somebody recently moved the "Recent deaths" to be right-aligned.) —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 03:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
I still think it's worth it. I never considered the old layout to be cluttered.
The old layout didn't contain an "Ongoing" line.
Also, it seems to me that "Ongoing" should/could be moved above the bullet points, leaving more room to work with at the bottom.
That's worth considering, but it wouldn't free up any additional space; it would simply change the existing content's order.
(I notice that somebody recently moved the "Recent deaths" to be right-aligned.)
That occurs when no recent deaths are listed in the template. The same applies to the "Ongoing" line. (When it lacks items, the "More current events..." link is to replace it.) —David Levy 03:56, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Mockup ("Ongoing" at the top)

Ongoing: MV Sewol – Chibok kidnapping

Gulzar
Recent deaths – More current events...

—Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 03:17, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

That looks good (and I assume that you intended to delink "Ongoing"), but it doesn't account for the circumstance in which recently deceased persons' names are listed . That would result in something like the following:

Ongoing: MV Sewol – Chibok kidnapping

Gulzar

Recent deaths: Bob Hoskins – Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

More current events...
Conversely, simply moving the "Ongoing" line to the top would give us this:

Ongoing: MV Sewol – Chibok kidnapping

Gulzar

Recent deaths: Bob Hoskins – Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

Do you see what I mean? —David Levy 03:56, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't like putting "ongoing" at the top. It more naturally fits (content wise) after the headlines. I suppose there are a few other options: 1) Linking "Ongoing" and not having a more line (as current). 2) Changing the word "Ongoing" to "More". 3) Unlinking ongoing, and having "more" as the last item on the ongoing list. 4) Unlinking ongoing and always having the "more current events" link.
The last option could potentially be made to float so that it would take up another line only when needed (could be done for RD as well). Still, it seems like a waste to take up a line on lower resolutions/full ongoing lists for no real reason. We don't have much space to work with, so I hate to waste a line. I don't really see a problem with 1), but wouldn't be opposed to 2) or 3). --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:40, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
Option 2 would be okay, but it wouldn't convey the distinction between the bulleted items and standalone links. Option 3 seems semantically equivalent to (but less efficient than) option 1. Regarding option 4, I agree that it would be unfortunate to waste space. If we can't stick with option 1, I'd prefer option 2. —David Levy 20:00, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree - option 1 (current set up) is my first choice, then option 2. If we ever add a "nominate" or "archive" link, we can revisit having a "more current events" link at the bottom at all times. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:43, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
I prefer the layout we have at the moment. Blurbs should have priority over the "ongoing" events that would otherwise not be there once. --Tone 20:04, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
For the record, I agree. I don't strongly oppose moving the "Ongoing" line to the top, but I prefer leaving it at the bottom. —David Levy 20:56, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
I support the status quo on this...although once the 2-week test is over arent we suppose to remove it and review before permanently restoring?
Also once we do that, if an d then the nomination template should have an ongoing tab like RD.Lihaas (talk) 14:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
When the trial is up sometime next week, we'll need to formalize the instructions and decide on a few minor points of formatting and such. However, if no one has expressed disapproval for the line's existance (and no one has so far), I don't think it will be necessary to pull the line while we formalize the instructions. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:43, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree. Unless the line's continued inclusion is challenged, there's no need to remove it. —David Levy 18:32, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Okey, well hit me up when discussion on rules starts. We also need to define removals and new additions, etc.Lihaas (talk) 15:24, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
proposal for stuff to move on to ongoing it has to have just come of ITN? Or should we have separate ITNC nomintions altogether?Lihaas (talk) 10:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
I think I suggested this at some point somewhere already. Let us define a fixed period of time when the ongoing items stay on ITN. Say, 2 weeks. After this period, each item has to be reassesed in the form of a classical ITN nomination. To keep track when something was added, we can add the date in comments. --Tone 11:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
So y ou agree that it cant be simply nominated for that has to, instead, be moved from ITN-proper to ongoing? I think thats adequate reflection of it being 1. in the news, 2. notable by consensus as a givenLihaas (talk) 17:40, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Such a requirement seems needlessly bureaucratic. It's likely that most events will receive blurbs beforehand, but that shouldn't be mandatory. If a notable event misses the window (due to problems with the article or other reasons), it should remain eligible for an "ongoing" link when the issues are resolved (assuming that there's consensus, which should be gauged via the normal ITN/C process). —David Levy 18:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
If an event obviously has concluded (no matter how soon), it can simply be removed. If disagreement regarding an item's removal or retention arises, that's a good reason to discuss the matter. I see no need to set an arbitrary duration or waste time on reassessments that are purely procedural. —David Levy 18:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Admin discretion has worked just fine so far. I agree that the contested removal/non-inclusion/continued inclusion of an item on ongoing is the time to start a discussion. Forcing a discussion or a set length of time is a waste... Anyway, this will be one of the topics that needs finalized in the post-trial discussion. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough on David Levy...just one issue on ThaddeusB. theres been some fair conflict here. Now while we should codify something, it should not be absolute. I think we all unanimously agree on that. (for one, the current Syria blurb should read "recapture," and that's not POV (just cant be bothered to discuss it)).
Anyhoo, rant over...how do you propose to codify this?Lihaas (talk) 12:49, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I just noticed the link is gone. Finding out that the word "Ongoing" links not just to specifically ongoing events but the current events archive in general took far too long time. Please fix this, no space saving can be worth this confusion! CapnZapp (talk) 18:53, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

H. R. Giger

Although six days ago we posted Stephen Sutton, a teenager with cancer who raised 3M lbs on the internet, and who will have no long term effect on the culture or be remembered a year from now--no offence--we have had a nomination for perhaps the most influential set designer and most popular artists of the last 40 years ready for posting, but opposed under circumstances which drew an administrative warning. H R Giger will be remembered as long as Hieronymos Bosch and his nomination had enough support to be listed within hours of his death.

This posting may be "stale" by parliamentary shenanigans, but speaking encyclopedically, it should be posted now, bumping Sutton, and remain up until it is bumped by a better candidate. μηδείς (talk) 18:33, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not actually stale, it just almost is. Formerip (talk) 18:48, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
I am also surprised that Giger has not been posted yet. However, lb and £ are different. AlexTiefling (talk) 18:45, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes, my apologies on that, I just didn't know where to find the (what used to be a pound) sterling sign and feared using a $UK would be a worse faux pas. μηδείς (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for trying. 'GBP' is a good alternative to the symbol. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 09:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
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