User:Colipon/Elections of very small countries

It is plainly absurd that elections in small countries continue to get ITN postings by virtue of a flawed rule over at WP:ITNR. Here I address the reasons of why I think the ITNR 'elections' and 'heads of state' guidelines needs to be changed.

Some preliminary thoughts

At the previous discussion I established that

• 1. small-country election articles are by far the least notable articles to get ITN postings and receive correspondingly the most opposition from editors
  2. the 'status quo' ITNR guidelines on elections were never consensus in the first place, and thus the burden is not on us to prove that this "consensus has changed".
  3. the test for ITNR should be that if the recurring event was nominated for each time it occurred there is a reasonable expectation that there will be community consensus to post it in ITN every time. This also fits with the current ITN criteria that the article is of "wide interest". The World Cup fits this definition. A parliamentary election in Sao Tome and Principe does not.

That said, I would like to propose another way to resolve this issue without an artificial cut-off point, which is to nominate all elections which editors reasonably believe there may not be community consensus - i.e. this would make a Belize election ITNC discussion while make the UK parliamentary elections generally ITN/R. I realize that this is hopelessly vague and considered by some as 'discriminatory', but with this approach a consensus should emerge naturally over time. As a previous user pointed out, one should not be allowed to simply invoke ITNR as a 'rule' when posting elections and facing opposition from other editors.

The only legitimate concern I saw above that counters this is the idea of systemic bias, which I agree needs to be addressed. To do this, the 'notability threshold' for election postings should be set at a relatively lower standard - i.e. reasonable amount of preference should be given to countries that are not traditional 'western', 'northern', rich, or a country with a large wikipedian population. That said, no matter what some countries will never pass this notability threshold unless the election is 'earth-shattering' in some way. Colipon+(Talk) 16:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

My suggested criteria

Over at WT:ITNRSCE I mentioned the following principle for elections (and every other item) that would fit ITNR criteria. A news item should only be ITN/R if it is likely to be nominated at every occurrence, and it can be reasonably expected that editors will agree to its posting every time. Therefore, since we have established that a cutoff is impractical, my view is that in order to move forward, we must ditch the "cutoff-approach" and embrace a "principles-based approach".

It should be stated that the purpose of ITN is to "direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest". A large number of elections fail the spirit of ITNR criteria and the 'test' outlined above. And for different reasons:

1. Election of a microstate has little to no impact outside of that country.
   • Such events do not make the news anywhere except for in its country of origin (and Wikipedia).
   • The counter-argument on this issue is the 'equality' between states insofar as their ability to exercise sovereignty. This assumes that there is some inherent 'holiness' to the idea of sovereignty and ignores the differences (by several orders of magnitude) between large countries and small ones.
2. Election that are inconsequential.
   • E.g., the People's Action Party of Singapore is expected to win every election; Cuban legislative elections have no impact, on anything.
   • such events do not make the news (except on Wikipedia), and are not "of wide interest".
3. Presidential elections for countries with largely ceremonial positions. We do not post elections of de facto heads of state in the British Commonwealth - i.e. the Governors General, we should not be doing so for ceremonial heads of state elsewhere - who can be of dubious importance, even in large countries, such as the President of Germany and the President of India.
   • An argument can be made for monarchical succession for ITN/R, but they occur so rarely that it is not really any 'extra work' to simply nominate at ITN/C and judge on their individual merits.
   • This does not preclude the inclusion of such head of state changes provided that they have a great impact or are of "wide interest" - say, if Michael Ballack were named President of Germany. That should go through ITN/C.

Ergo, my view is that all elections and heads of state changes that do not fall into the above categories can have its rightful place in ITNR. This is similar to the current approach at 'deaths'. I believe this approach is in line with our mission - which is "ITN supports the central purpose of Wikipedia—making a great encyclopedia." I propose this as a good starting point for all editors involved given the impasse that we've faced in previous discussions, and I am hopeful that we will reach a consensus on this issue. Colipon+(Talk) 15:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC)