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Idea to alert non-ITN veterans to participate in discussions

This idea came to me following the various discussions that were recently happening in a variety of forums on ITN, however I decided to wait for the nomination on BRICS I had started to fall off the roster of nominations so as to reduce bias. One of the various criticism wielded against ITN is that a "coterie" of veterans is mainly involved in adjudicating the merits of nominations, and there's little participation from outside. One easy way to bring in more externals would be to post alerts on the Talk pages of articles (both bolded and not) that are being nominated for ITN blurbing. This would ensure a) that people working on these articles are encouraged to improve the quality of the article, so it meets main page quality levels, and b) that people working on these articles participate on our discussions here, be it to strengthen the case pro or contra these nominations, be it to become aware of the deficiencies others still see in the articles. I'm not an expert, but I assume it wouldn't be too complicated to implement such a rule? After all, we put a lot of emphasis on crediting people, which is nice and all, but overall a vanity exercise, while it would be much more helpful for the project overall to notify the respective areas / pages as soon as discussions on these articles get started? Happy to hear the thoughts from all of you on this. Khuft (talk) 20:11, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

We could even put a link to semi-automatically make the edit it into our nomination template to make it more convenient, and label it something like "tag". —Cryptic 20:30, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
What would actually be helpful is if someone were to commit to making sure, for each new nomination, that those tag links - which, yes, are already there - got clicked. I nominate Khuft. —Cryptic 21:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
It's very kind of you to nominate a person who, in his decades-long career of lurking on Wikipedia, has achieving a single nomination on ITN... I frankly had no clue about this tagging functionality, and I'm not sure others know it either... Can we somehow promote it a bit more? Khuft (talk) 21:28, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
(and not make it's use solely dependent on me) Khuft (talk) 21:28, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
It could stand to be better documented, I agree,[ack - it's already in the steps at WP:ITNC#How to nominate an item, and I missed it too - though this kind of proves the point I make in my next paragraph] and perhaps the label could be tweaked ("notify talk page", maybe, but that's a bit long).
On the other hand, my experience at WP:DRV - which has similar notification steps, which are if anything overdocumented there - is that they get forgotten anyway about half of the time, unless someone manually checks each new nomination and does it. Over there, for a long time now, that "someone" has usually ended up being me.
Unlike the DRV tags, though, {{ITN note}} seems like it could be automated. There's no need to check whether the closing admin has already been notified in prose or has already participated in the discussion (like there is with {{drvnote}}), and no potential for confusion as to which page to tag (as there is with {{delrevxfd}} - drv nominators are often pretty bad at putting the right discussion in the nomination template over there, unlike with article= and article2= in {{ITN candidate}} here). A bot request might be pointful. —Cryptic 21:44, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Maybe label it "notify" instead of "tag"? But yes - ideally a bot could automatically perform the notification... Khuft (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
I would not be opposed to this idea, but I do worry about whether or not there would be canvassing concerns in play here. My personal opinion would be the best way to improve ITN participation is to encourage cross-language ITN participation so as to include more perspectives. The idea being that we could diminish the concern related to Euro or American bias in postings by incorporating a more diverse group of people in the discussion. DarkSide830 (talk) 20:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
FWIW, the BRICS page was tagged on 24 Aug.—Bagumba (talk) 14:00, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Ok, so there seems to be a functionality there already to tag article talk pages. My bad - I really wasn't aware of it. Still - how much is it currently used? And would it make sense to be able to tag other articles too (e.g. articles that would also be linked to, even if not bolded? Khuft (talk) 21:37, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Should we make the notices at the bottom of RD and ITNR noms more noticeable?

Some editors, especially those who are inexperienced with ITN, vote on RDs and ITNR noms with supports without a statement on article quality, which is meaningless and makes the actual discussion on quality more difficult to see. Same when something gets nominated for a death blurb and some editors say "support RD" without saying anything about the quality. Should we make the notice at the bottom on the ITN candidate template which says that notability doesn't matter more visible, to prevent these problems? There's also a relevant discussion on the template talk for the template, which doesn't seem to have gained any attention. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 12:54, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I suggest proposing the exact change you want. As an aside, clear or not, some people will just not read or miss it. For newbies, WP:AGF and just remind them. Frequent violators, if any, should be dealt with by the community.—Bagumba (talk) 13:44, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Well, I was thinking if it was important to keep the text in the same format to put it on the top instead, so it’s the first thing you read. If not, then changing it to normal font size or bolding it might help. I'm also aware that this wouldn’t stop it entirely, I was just wondering if it would have any noticeable effect, or if we could try it as an intermediate step between the other proposal of separating RD from ITN. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 13:47, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
I think it’s clear as day and prefer to keep it on the bottom with no changes. Some editors are simply not aware of the minimum quality required because the quality requirement for posting to RD (and ITN in general) is above the average quality of a random Wikipedia article. So, a newcomer in an ITN discussion is very likely someone who leaves large unreferenced swathes of text across articles and believes that’s fine given that their content added hasn’t been removed. I wish such notices had more effect on the quality of editing, but it’s the lack of comprehension that matters more than their noticeability.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
Fair point. Anyway I don’t have any better ideas to refine this proposal and it probably isn’t necessary so if someone wants to close this discussion now feel free. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 18:26, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

9 RD Items marked ready and pending admin attention

@Admins willing to post ITN: Are we short of admin availability? How can others help? Ktin (talk) 22:28, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

PS: On a somewhat related note, I am convinced that we need to move to a promotion script that can be operated by non-admins (somewhat similar to Wikipedia:Did you know) which would promote items to a holding page and an admin clicks a button to send from there to main page or send back to candidates page. Sigh. Need some scripting ninjas. See above. Ktin (talk) 22:42, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
They say that if you'd like to help with admin tasks, then the best thing to do is to become an admin and that adminship is also no big deal. Of course, they also say RfA is a toxic, broken public humiliation gauntlet so make of that what you will. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:19, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, unfortunately, this will not work in my situation. If editors can help any other way, let know. For sure we need to expand the list of posting admins or work a plan where we can take off from the workload of current posting admins. Ktin (talk) 19:27, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

why was this nomination SNOW closed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates&diff=prev&oldid=1174495455

This nomination is about the presidential centers of 13 past presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, dating back nearly a century, expressing their concerns that American democracy, the largest and most influential democracy on the planet, is in a fragile state. This is unprecedented. See also: Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds

Barely an hour after being nominated, this was SNOW closed because:

  • Editor 5426387: "this is not ITN-Material, this does not affect anything outside of the United States, and this is not significant enough"

How is "ITN-Material" defined? Does every ITN post need to have a global impact? Why is this not significant enough relative to other ITN noms and posts?

  • Masem: "This is day-to-day politics"

No, it's clearly not. It's unprecedented. I don't understand the rest of what Masem said.

  • WaltCip: "Huh? Truly hard to see how this is not only newsworthy but frankly even neutral"

Huh? Apart from the newsworthiness, how is it not neutral? Republicans and Democrats alike signed this communiqué.

So ... what?

  • Amakuru: "this stands no chance of being posted, and might as well be put out of its misery sooner rather than later"

I later asked Amakuru to explain at their Talk and they replied:

the story in question is definitely below the sort of bar we would consider. It's hard to even define why, but the rationales for the opposes should give you some idea as to why this isn't really considered an impactful enough story

I find "the rationales for the opposes" to be exceedingly weak, barely distinguishable from WP:IDONTLIKEIT.

Just sayin' soibangla (talk) 13:44, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

@Soibangla: You are free to re-open it. The SNOW closure was an NAC, and frankly, I feel it was too fast as well. However, you fell victim to the WP:ITNSIGNIF criteria, which as outlined in WP:HOWITN, states quite simply: "The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting."
Yes, the opposes (including mine) did fall into WP:IDONTLIKEIT territory, but because of how ultimately subjective that WP:ITNSIGNIF is, the latitude for vote rationales is far wider than almost any other part of Wikipedia. Indeed, it is one of the recurring complaints about ITN/C but one for which A. there is no consensus towards a clear solution, and B. many people feel that it is a feature rather than a bug. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:37, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
isn't consensus determined by the quality of arguments rather a straight arithmetic vote count? or does ITN operate under different principles? if it's the former, I'd say this oppose "consensus" fails miserably soibangla (talk) 15:34, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
It is sometimes determined by the quality of the arguments. When it comes to a majority of discussions, the weight of numbers is what determines whether something is or isn't considered for posting. Barring a unique consideration like WP:ITNR, 10 opposes with a rationale of "this is just a local story" will win out against one or two well-reasoned "supports", every time. On the other hand, if it's a close call with a relatively even support-oppose split, then admins are more likely to assess the quality of the arguments. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:47, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
@Soibangla: Before reopening, consider at least addressing the WP:ITNUPDATE concern:

The decision as to when an article is updated enough is subjective, but a five-sentence update (with at minimum three references, not counting duplicates) is generally more than sufficient, while a one-sentence update is highly questionable.

—Bagumba (talk) 15:13, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Bagumba, this is critically important. If the article doesn't meet the necessary quality update, it doesn't matter at all whether there is a unanimous consensus to post something on the significance front. Our goal is to display quality encyclopedic content for the benefit of readers of Wikipedia, and a couple of sentences added to an article does not meet that criterion. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:27, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
the nom was SNOW closed, I reopened it and it was quickly SNOW closed again after Amakuru called for it. this nom is thus tarnished such that now it could never pass, so I have no intent to reopen it. I am simply calling attention to what I believe was a botched process here. soibangla (talk) 15:39, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Looking specifically at this news item (which I had read about before the nom), it's basically a empty declaration with zero weight to it - the presidential libraries are not necessarily representatives from the president in question, and they have zero power. These type of stories are generally not significant for ITN's type of coverage. If anything, we'd be looking at something like the UN making a statement that has major scientific or expert backing, such as their reports on climate change impacts or on declares of war crimes, and even then, these are rarely posted. We tend to post stories along these lines where it is expected to have some type of impact in the long term. Masem (t) 17:41, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
these type of stories are generally not significant for ITN's type of coverage by what policy or guideline, or by what consensus, by whom? A clique of ITN habitues? All I see is a bunch of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Oh well, I'm done here. soibangla (talk) 18:26, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Its from experience which is really hard to document in any way that would be gamed or get people upset over it. I have long suggested a casebook of where rough consensus usually sits, but this should not be taken as an absolute when it comes to ITN. Masem (t) 18:40, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
There's actually a discussion going on right now about changes to ITN at the Village Pump - [1]. You could try to change something there. Banedon (talk) 00:16, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
I concur with Masem that it's hard to explain. I think the gist is that "In the News" does not mean "everything that is in the news"; because it is interpretive, different people draw different lines, which is where conflict arises. Curbon7 (talk) 00:36, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Where did the term “organisms” creep into our template from?

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Closing this discussion since as an offshoot of the primary RfC folks have indeed agreed on “biological organisms”. Ktin (talk) 23:45, 28 September 2023 (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.


Subsequently, I understand the tree posting earlier today was because our template had the term organisms. Looking at the past RFC — the RFC was specifically for animals and it seems like it was an overzealous interpretation that introduced “organisms” into the template. Can someone check? Ktin (talk) 20:44, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

If you read that RfC you’ll see this comment by Maplestrip:

Question - How about... notable trees? I mean, I support animals as a celebrity animal is similar to a celebrity person, but a celebrity tree would be more like a famous building... Might be important to keep this in mind when it comes to wording the added guideline.

The 2 people replying supported trees on RD. This is probably what spurred the proposer to include organisms. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 21:02, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Yup. I was not able to se this earlier since I was on a phone / iPad. But, you are right. They have briefly discussed organisms. And it seems like Thrydullf, a respected member of this project, indeed posted the text and sought agreement. So, the term didn’t really creep in. It was agreed upon. Ktin (talk) 21:07, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong when notable trees are included. We've had trees as RD before. Masem (t) 21:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It was Masem, who edited it with this edit, in January 2017. Serial 21:03, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Now I see who I edit conflicted with  :) and thus note that Masem didn't own up to being the one who inserted it even though that was, in fact, the original question (which, in turn, he did not answer). Days of Glory! Serial 21:16, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I am on a phone and thus detailed searches of history are a bit outside what I can do. If it was me, then it was me but I probably had good reason from that RFC. Masem (t) 23:30, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't think it was overzealous necessarily. That term had been in there for years and there wasn't any pushback on it. Of course, we are free to discuss it now if we so choose. I'm neutral on keeping it since I think a blurb would be more appropriate, specifically to say what exactly happened to the tree. Then again, it would likely not have survived a notability discussion. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 21:07, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Agree. Looking at the link from Monarch, it seems like this was discussed and agreed. So, I think all is good. I will be closing my discussion momentarily. Ktin (talk) 21:08, 28 September 2023 (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 in the news issue corrections?

Are corrections every issued for this section? I just stumbled up on the version from May 29, 2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:In_the_news&oldid=1025771429. Can anyone notice what's wrong here? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:40, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

No and no. Curbon7 (talk) 02:46, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
To add: we go by what reliable sources report. Very rarely, reliable sources get a story wrong. It happens. We do not have rose-tinted goggles, nor can we retroactively change an entry. Curbon7 (talk) 02:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
There is WP:ERRORS for issues with items currently listed in the box. But we don't change past entries. Masem (t) 02:49, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
If there's still any doubt, I'm talking about the first item, regarding the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which advances a false claim. I'm not suggesting we change a past entry. I'm thinking, perhaps, we should acknowledge the error at some point in the future. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:52, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
The May 29, 2021 claim that "A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children is found" is patently false. No mass grave was found at that time. Rather, it was merely speculated that a mass grave could be found there. Even if a mass grave was found there tomorrow, the claim made in 2021 would still be false. Jweiss11 (talk) 11:57, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Oh well. It happens. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 11:59, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Oopsy! Jweiss11 (talk) 12:04, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
The news was presented originally as a finding and we just followed the sources. The OP doesn't present any sources themself to support their position so I had to go hunt myself. There's a detailed review at A Fact-Check Two Years Later which indicates that the story was overblown/mistaken but that's not the last word. it appears that there are already editors at the Kamloops Indian Residential School article disputing the matter and dismissing this revisionism as "denialism". ITN will have to wait on further news... Andrew🐉(talk) 14:11, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
This is why it's pointless to do something such as issue a correction for a still-developing story. For example, the correction itself may end up being false, and from that point on, you're assigning a reputation or responsibility to ITN that it never purported to have in the first place. Per WP:ITN, [events] are added based on a consensus on the ITN candidates page, using two main criteria: a) the quality of the article, including material added or updated to reflect the recent event, and b) the general significance of the developments. Although we do our best to use the reliable sources available at the time, we don't posit ourselves as truth-tellers or as fact-finders, because that's not Wikipedia's purpose. The purpose is to direct editors to quality encyclopedic articles they may have seen or heard of in the news, and from that point, it's up to them to decide what is best done with the article's content. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:00, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Great claims require great evidence - it looks like the media didn't dig deeper. As a compendium of the media we are at risk of this kind of stuff CNN "remains found" Secretlondon (talk) 16:20, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the close of the Biden Impeachment candidate

Anarchyte closed the discussion on Biden in good faith, but I then reverted them and reopened, as is reasonably common at ITN/C, because there's ongoing recent discussion regarding the precedent of the Trump 2019 impeachment. Now Jalapeño has reinstated the close. I don't think this is right. It's fine for closes to take place after discussions have run their course but my comment about the Trump parallel was only introduced quite late in the discussion, and others have concurred that the situations are largely the same. With ongoing discussions and a potential WP:NPOV issue at stake too, I think we deserve to continue this for some while longer.

Just to be clear - the discussion on Trump took place here [2] on 24 September 2019, when the inquiry had been announced, but a full month before it was formally begun with a vote. I opposed it at the time, and I would have opposed this on the same grounds, but I fail to see why there was strong consensus to post that one and not this one. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 13:33, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Masem who nominated the 2019 inquiry, opposed this one noting some differences that seem to make this one more of a preliminary inquiry into if the whole House should do an impeachment inquiry. I'm no expert in US parliamentary rules, but that seems like significant difference if true to justify the differing result. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 13:44, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
OK, so Masem's comment in the nom was "This was a decision to give a house committee the go-ahead to investigate if there is sufficient evidence for an actual inquiry". But that doesn't appear to match what the article Impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden actually says. According to that, the actual inquiry has begun. The "actual inquiry" is already underway. The only difference appears to be that (according to the article) McCarthy doesn't plan to ask the House for permission to run the inquiry through a vote, something which Pelosi did do in 2019, around a month after we added the item to Ongoing. Likewise I'm no expert, but it seems that in both cases the inquiry is genuinely launched, and not sure if it can or will be easily rolled back in this instance... Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:54, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
In hindsight of what has happened in USpolitics since 2019, I would have not likely nominated the Trump inquiry. Even if this is the same event, the biggest difference is that nearly all sources claim there is no tangible evidence and that a vote to impeach will likely never happen, and that this was McCarthy appeasing the Freedom Caucus. Whereas the Trump inquiry already had plenty of evidence if wrongdoing and was expect then to end with a vote in the House. The press are basically treating this Biden inquiry as a joke and just the disfunction of the GOP. That is a wholly separate reason not to post. Masem (t) 14:14, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
@Masem: thanks for the clarification, that satisfies my concerns. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:49, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
...but I fail to see why there was strong consensus to post that one and not this one: It's a product of WP:ITNSIGNIF being left to be so subjective. —Bagumba (talk) 14:08, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
Yes, well that's very true. This is one of very few venues when votes are the be all and end all, with policies absent. It does make for some tricky optics at times though...  — Amakuru (talk) 15:49, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
Meh. This just feels like normal government practice at this point, sadly. And if I'm honest, I think we might eventually need to reevaluate even posting impeachments that don't actually result in removal from office as well. Just get a feeling that we'll see a lot more of these going forward. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:16, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Since Jayron32 didn't want to humor my request (seriously, I think this is far from the only example of a discussion continuing after the closure of an ITN item, non-admin or otherwise), I'm copying over the post-posting discussion regarding the impeachment nomination (Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:56, 14 September 2023 (UTC)) :

  • Although I do recognize that WP:ITNSIGNIF holds that only a consensus of users is all that is required in order to determine whether to post or close a nomination, I do strongly believe that this was closed too soon and that the reasons for opposing are not equitable with how ITN has handled prior news items of this sort. Regardless of what any of us here think, this is a major political turning point in the United States, affecting the highest office of the land, and turning our eyes away from it on a matter of wording (Vote? Announcement? Authorization? Directive?) doesn't seem to be in keeping with our usual assessment process. To admins: If you need to remove this comment, please at least copy it to WT:ITN. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:20, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
    • I don't think this is "a major political turning point". It's a natural escalation based on their months of their investigation committee. It's one step in the process that will likely result in Biden's impeachment, but we're not at the end point yet. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:47, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
      • Muboshgu: I think I should like to know what that end point is, or at least have us come to a consensus as to what would be appropriate to post. The formal beginning of proceedings? A House vote? A Senate vote? Conviction? I think these are questions that need to be answered because, as DarkSide830 pointed out, we haven't seen the last of these things and especially in the United States. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:57, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
        I don't think it would be crazy to try and codify this in ITN/R. Given prior precedent (even if we are limited in the number of cases), it would seem any US impeachment would rise to ITN levels. Conviction, in a sense, is ITN/R already because it's a removal from office, thus a change of the holder of the office of president. I would then consider a proposal to codify impeachment of the chief executive, though differences between countries may make this harder to get through, and a single proposal regarding the impeachment of a US president alone would probably generate pushback as biased, even if ITN/R generally tends to operate off established precedent. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:30, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
  • If you believe this had any chance at all of being posted on the main page, then you really haven't been paying attention to ITN for years. I stand by my decision to close this a second time. It wasn't going to be posted. It just wasn't. It didn't need to be left open for more oppose votes to roll in, even it would catch one or two support votes with extra time, there was no way letting this play out any longer. The meta-discussion doesn't belong on the ITNC page either, that page is solely for deciding if the story should be posted; this one wasn't. If you want to have the meta-discussion here, feel free to. This is the appropriate venue. But the item was not going to be posted, no matter how long we let the initial discussion run. If you don't believe me, re-open it, but if you do, and if I'm right, at least allow me the joy of being able to cackle rudely in your face and say "I told you so", and maybe call you a couple of rude names too. I would certainly allow you the honor of doing so to me if I were so catastrophically wrong. --Jayron32 16:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
    How about just not being rude? I really do feel that sort of behavior is really unbecoming of you. It's not what I've come to expect over the years. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 22:14, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Until there are either specific allegations against Biden or a vote of the US House, this is merely the GOP House leadership issuing press releases trying to make Biden look bad. It is obviously not the type of event ITN should post. As far as "shutting down discussion": with the vote 9-1 against (and admins being able to tell the strength of arguments are against posting), it was duly appropriate to close discussion. 217.180.228.138 (talk) 17:43, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
    Seconding this.
    Additionally, Trump's impeachment was fairly unprecedented considering it was only the fourth impeachment proceeding in US history, and the first in a quarter of a century. This inquiry into Biden, which isn't even a formal impeachment yet, feels like simple political theatre in comparison. The Kip 18:17, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

RDs rolling off without participation

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Thanks for handling. Marking this closed. Ktin (talk) 23:28, 4 October 2023 (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.


Felix Ayo and Hıfzı Topuz are about to enter the archives despite there not being a single !vote. 115.188.126.180 (talk) 08:01, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Felix Ayo

Felix Ayo was entered on 24 September, was supported by two users and marked ready by a third. Can he - an iconic violinist whose recording sold millions - please be added even a day later? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:35, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

I would recommend an WP:IAR posting if an admin is around. Tagging the last five admins who have posted onto the main page. @The ed17, @Firefangledfeathers, @Schwede66, @Masem, and @Sandstein PS: I forget the template that we could use instead. We should add that template to the nomination instructions. Ktin (talk) 16:12, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
I'm not familiar enough with ITN norms for an IAR posting. No objection if another admin wants to go for it. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:26, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
Ktin The template is Template:@ITNA, we could add it to the nomination instructions, but I'm not 100% sure if we should. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 16:49, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
Posted per IAR. But falling off the page is a risk when an article is nominated or improved close to going stale. Ed [talk] [OMT] 17:14, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
Yup. Reasonable risk. Thanks for handling. Ktin (talk) 18:13, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. I do what I can, and there were three in fast succession, making the last one late, but still two full days to go. Should I send alerts next time? And how? Last time I pinged three admins, and then had to un-ping when the first responded. - The next article possibly late is Russell Sherman, - a good obit came out just today, and I'll not manage today to incorporate it completely, - there's real life also. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:28, 4 October 2023 (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.

In In the News, headlines often put cart before horse

  • In Hanoi, Vietnam, a fire at an apartment building kills at least 56 people.
  • In Johan­nes­burg, South Africa, a residential fire kills 77 people.
  • In Gabon, President Ali Bongo is deposed by a military coup shortly after his re-election.
  • In Pakistan, IS–KP kill more than 50 people in a suicide bombing at a political rally in Khar.
  • In Rome, Emperor Nero's private theatre is discovered under the courtyard of Palazzo Della Rovere.

(All examples from the past month or so.) Is that style choice mandated somewhere? I can understand "setting the context" for (e.g.) sports stories ("In association football, Team A beats Team B to win Trophy C"), but for other types of stories surely it'd be better to lead with "the story" (the fires, the president, the bombing, the archeological discovery) and leave the geographical specificities until later: "A fire at an apartment building kills at least 56 people in Hanoi, Vietnam", etc.

Example: early last month, we had four items all beginning with "In..." (albeit one of them an "In cycling" sports story). Moscow Mule (talk) 18:16, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I think when the intro is "In <location>" that's a fallover from where we typically use "In <topic area>, ..." (eg "In car racing, so-an-so wins the Indy 500."). The "In <location>" can always be moved as a adjective phrase, such as "A fire at an apartment building in Hanoi, Vietnam kills at least 56 people." (Actually, we should always try to combine "location" phrasing as in this case.) Masem (t) 18:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Easier to get the bolded link toward the front of the blurb that way, too: compare current
Much more engaging, grabs the reader's attention immediately. And all in the interest of variety: having four blurbs starting the same way in early August was a bit monotonous. Moscow Mule (talk) 19:11, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
That said, having the same structure in three or more blurbs is also boring to read. I would definitely encourage some type of variety in wording if there's this situation. Masem (t) 19:31, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
This is a great critique, Moscow Mule. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:44, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind reaction. Today's Hanoi item spurred me to put into words something that's been on my mind for a while. Moscow Mule (talk) 20:42, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Firstly, this is still far from a universal blurb choice, as indicated by the current roster of items on ITN, in which one blurb item follows this style. Secondly, I personally like having the geographic identifier lead the sentence; for me, a key part of a story is its location, and it fits well with the "setting the context" aspect of say sports stories. Additionally, it goes well with the whole "in the news" title used here. — Knightoftheswords 21:44, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

It’s all done for variety, just as Masem says. At least two of the blurbs you mention, those for Pakistan and Rome, were subsequently tweaked to the alternative wording later in their cycles. Stephen 05:41, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

True: I remember the IS-KP story getting reworded to "... in Khar, Pakistan". These are examples I dug up by clicking randomly on the history page: laborious, and no guarantee of getting the final version (yes, an #Archive of ITN postings would be very useful). Moscow Mule (talk) 16:27, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Breaking news

The Enterprise API is launching a new feature called "breaking news". Currently in BETA, this attempts to identify likely "newsworthy" topics as they are currently being written about in any Wikipedia. Your help is requested to improve the accuracy of its detection model, especially on smaller language editions, by recommending templates or identifiable editing patterns. See more information at the documentation page on MediaWiki or the FAQ on Meta.

Andrew🐉(talk) 12:45, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Looks promising for sure. Can this work as a prototype for the "trending topics" feature? Who can work on building a prototype / poc? Ktin (talk) 18:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
If its not to buggy, it could possibly replace the current method of ITN and maybe even RD.... TheCorriynial (talk) 13:08, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

(RfC tag removed, discussion ongoing) RFC: should RD Blurbs like this one be banned from ITN

should recent deaths Blurbs like this one be banned from in the news 4me689 (talk) 15:16, 25 September 2023 (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.

  • yes, it should be banned
  • No, they should still be allowed
  • neutral
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.

discussion

What does "dynamism" mean on ITN.

On WP:ITNPURPOSE, one of the listed goals of ITN is to

To emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic resource.

However, what exactly does dynamism mean here? Does it simply mean highlighting that Wikipedia can be a source of news or is it dynamis in the stories that we post? — Knightoftheswords 02:17, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

It all goes back to WT:In the news 3.0. Thincat (talk) 03:11, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

US-centrism

I can't help but noticing the level of US-centrism in the current "Recent deaths" listing on the Main Page: apart from one Belgian, we have two American musicians, two American educators/administrators, and one American baseball player. In view of WP:BIAS, this doesn't seem right. (In comparison, there are a large number of non-Americans listed in the past few days on Deaths in 2023.) The emphasis on RD nominations is often placed on the quality and referencing of the articles being linked, but this is probably contributing to the under-representation of others. Perhaps a review is needed of our priorities here? --RFBailey (talk) 13:41, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

For reference, the current criteria for posting are at Wikipedia:In the news § Recent deaths section.—Bagumba (talk) 14:11, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
Well we can't help when people die, but equally much of the readership here is obviously Anglocentric, so it is far likelier that (a) we will have far more articles on people from the US, UK etc; (b) People will be watching the articles of people from their own countries, and (c) they will be more likely to see that person X has died and thus nominate them. Black Kite (talk) 14:18, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
In addition, these same issues will likely lead to articles about people in the US or UK being more in shape for quality purposes than from other areas. Masem (t) 16:18, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
The only realistic option we can enforce is to lower our threshold for article quality. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:45, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
Of course we can't help when people die, but the points (a), (b) and (c) are exactly the problem -- that's more-or-less the definition of systemic bias. What I meant by "review our priorities" was to consider if the quality criteria could be eased a bit to ensure a wider range of nominations. Another option is to review the entries of Deaths in 2023 to find suitable candidates -- I just did this and the Aziz Pahad and Matteo Messina Denaro articles both seem worthy of consideration, for instance. --RFBailey (talk) 00:34, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Brainstorming, what if the bot that creates the new entry for each day also include the list of deaths from the previous day so that editors here can scan those for possible inclusion. I would only nominate those that are reasonably close in quality, of course. Masem (t) 00:39, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
That might help, and is a good suggestion. --RFBailey (talk) 01:19, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't see the issue here, respectfully. You've been able to find some articles that would be good candidates for ITN and nominated them. Now, it would be systemic bias if people opposed your nominations because of Anglocentrism, but this has not happened. It's also worth considering that it is likely that a disproportionate number of editors from the US on this Wiki versus the portion of the global population made up by Americans. I, like most Americans, have probably never heard of the people you have mentioned. That doesn't mean I'm biased, nor they as well. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:49, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Respectfully, I don't think you quite get the concept of "systemic bias" -- it's not that individual editors are necessarily biased (e.g. deliberately opposing nominations), but rather that the system we have created here (with what you describe as "a disproportionate number of editors from the US on this Wiki") has an inherent bias towards US nominations (or from elsewhere in the Anglosphere). For the record, I had not heard of those two individuals either (although I vaguely recall seeing a headline recently about some Italian crime boss dying) -- I found them on the Deaths in 2023 page. --RFBailey (talk) 01:18, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Welcome to the wonderful world of ITN, where everyone knows there is a problem, but nobody can agree what the problem is, or how to fix it. Banedon (talk) 01:21, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
In this case, there is no problem. Curbon7 (talk) 01:26, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
The saying of which reinforces Banedon's argument. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:04, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't like and usually argue against any kind of centrism on ITN (especially US-centirsm), but the main reason for having so many Americans in the RD section is probably because of two reasons: 1) we have vastly more articles on Americans than people of any other nationality, and 2) editors timely expand the quality of those articles so that they meet the quality requirement to get posted. I agree that this is a real problem that has been acknowledged in the past and is even documented in a stand-alone article, but the only sensible way to solve it is to engage people in writing more articles on people of other nationalities and maintaining their quality.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:11, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
And nominating them here.
Once a quality BLP article is nominated here for RD, our approach of RDs assures there is zero bias from that point. Its what happens outside ITN that is the issue. Masem (t) 12:27, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Exactly.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:36, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I just created the page 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Should that be put in place of just having "Nobel Prize in Medicine" for Karikó and Weissman's section of ITN? ‍ ‍ Relativity ‍ ‍ 03:55, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

That article should undergo quality vetting before posting (as of now, it's way too short to be included in the blurb), and this should be discussed on the nomination page--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:51, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Reminder: Nobel week

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Good on folks who worked the Nobel prize winners' articles that we published. Well done. Marking this thread closed now that the events are behind us. Ktin (talk) 03:18, 19 October 2023 (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.


Nobels should start being announced this week. We want the awardees to be those that are bolded, which typically has been an area we struggle on in the past due to quality issues. Masem (t) 12:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I forget if it was you or Bagumba who used to help with creation of composite images (single image with multiple winners). It would be great if you can do that. The week looks a tad busy but I will try to spare some time to lend a hand with some of the articles - particularly economics and physics. If we can have some other interested volunteers be on standby in areas of their interest that would be great. Ktin (talk) 03:01, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
I did in the past but do not have the time during the day to make them now. Masem (t) 12:32, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
@Masem:, We want the awardees to be those that are bolded - assume you are referring to the formatting on the front page? Schwinnspeed (talk) 11:23, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
@Ktin:, per ITN/R - we should have about 6 posts in total this week. Narges Mohammadi was up for barely 24 hours though given the current news cycle, so makes me question will we even need a composite image if the posts are not all up together? Wondering if in the past there's been some sort of combined post (and composite picture as you mentioned above)? Unclear based on ITN/R, and since individual nominations are coming through for the awardees. Working on cleaning up Claudia Goldin's now for economics and available to work on others as they come through.Schwinnspeed (talk) 11:24, 10 October 2023 (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.

Non-human RDs

To me it looks weird to have a tree listed in the RD section, especially when Recent deaths links to a list which contains only human deaths. I think it should have been blurbed or not listed at all (and I probably would have preferred the latter).

I think we should perhaps look into tweaking our RD requirements a bit. Some possible ideas:

  1. Restrict RDs to animals only (both human and non-human); or
  2. Reinstate the significance requirement for non-humans, i.e. it is a valid reason to oppose a non-human RD for being not important enough or other subjective reasons.

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:16, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Just so you know the linked article for recent deaths, Deaths in 2023 (and variations thereupon for different years of course) doesn't only contain human deaths, it contains and has contained both animals and trees before. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 18:21, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Apparently someone found the original discussion here as they were discussing here: Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news/Archive_106#Where_did_the_term_“organisms”_creep_into_our_template_from? Natg 19 (talk) 18:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Listing a dead tree isn't weird. Listing a fallen tree whose article describes its stump as "healthy" is weird. If there's a lesson to be learned from this episode, it should be that wounded, missing or captured casualties of Earth are not dead enough. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Option 1, listing a tree on ITNRD is beyond the pale even for us. We don't need that sort of content in the "Recent Deaths" section, whether or not the tree is technically still living - that raises the possibility as to whether a tree can indeed truly be killed. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 22:34, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Sad, but true. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:45, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
well any organism can be killed -- most or all of the cells can die, the organism could be damaged beyond regenerative capacity, etc; it's a different question as to whether or not this particular one was killed. JM2023 (talk) 11:15, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
Nah. This really isn't that big a deal. We've listed trees before. The issue here is if the tree can be considered dead or not, which is a valid concern. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:36, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
I also support Enby's Option 3. The issue is if the organism is dead or not. Yes, trees throw a wrench in the works, but rarely do we have a case like this. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:28, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
Option 3 - I've never actually seen a coherent argument for why we should do away with inclusion of non-human organisms as RD entries; mostly seems to just be uproar over black swans and using that as a reason in of itself. Per our own article on death, it is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism, so I don't see the harm in roping in non-human organisms that are notable enough to have Wikipedia articles, unless people want us to revert back to the old system of nota-votes that will just do nothing but bring back the toxicity of blurb-based nominations back to RD noms. — Knightoftheswords 12:37, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Option 3 The point of the main page is to highlight content. If there is a suitable article on a living species that is notable enough to have a stand-alone article, then it should be notable enough to include in the recent deaths section. But yeah, let's make sure it's actually dead before posting.-- Ponyobons mots 19:43, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Formalizing a death blurb criterion?

Following a discussion at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#(RD posted, continue blurb discussion) RD: M. S. Swaminathan, there has been fundamental disagreements as whether a death blurb should only be present if the death itself is a famous event, or if the non-famous death of a sufficiently famous person could deserve a blurb.

As this has not been formally discussed yet to my knowledge, and would help streamline frequent debates about whether a death blurb is required, I suggest opening the discussion to formalize a death blurb criterion, ideally leading to a formal RfC.

The main question to be discussed here, before a formal guideline can be drafted, is:

Should death blurbs be limited to cases where the death itself is a notable event?

Along this, there is of course the question of establishing a notability threshold, either for the deaths or for the people themselves.

Thanks for all of your inputs! Chaotic Enby (talk) 17:52, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

We tried this proposal once. It didn't go. Part of the reason that proposals to change the RD rules never succeed is that there are, in fact, no firm criteria on who would receive a death blurb. The language in WP:ITNRD and WP:ITNRDBLURB is almost entirely descriptive. There are no "musts" or "shalls", except for the fact that any posting must still comply with article requirements [for quality and updated content], particularly WP:BLP. This means that a consensus is all that is required to post a blurb, so in theory, the process works as it is supposed to. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:59, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
So since there are currently no firm criteria on who should receive a death blurb, we shouldn't discuss creating firm criteria on who should receive a death blurb. Got it. —Cryptic 18:34, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm all for formalizing rules, personally, but just go back through the archives for this page and there's a proposal like this once every few months. Every time it's closed as no consensus. The obvious question is "why will this discussion be different". Sorry to say, but I don't see anything new being brought to this discussion. DarkSide830 (talk) 19:33, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
@Cryptic: Once you get through with disassembling your straw man, I'd be happy to have a discussion with you regarding the proper way forward for setting up death blurb criteria. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 19:50, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Wasn't meant to be a strawman. That's genuinely the way your comment read to me - and, I'm afraid, the way it still reads. This is a proposal to change the guideline, and you seem to be saying proposals to change the guideline fail because of what's currently in the guideline. How did you mean it to be read? (I'll freely admit that the sarcasm was unhelpful, and I apologize for it.) —Cryptic 21:11, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I could have been better about being clearer in my original comment myself, so no worries. In a comment I made subsequent to your post, I explained that there are two separate questions being asked in this one, and I think we might be able to find a consensus around formalizing the death blurb criteria in order to eliminate the subjectivity in this process, which is indeed the cause of much annoyance surrounding this subject - the fact that there are really no rules at all, that it's just down to local consensus. However, there is a separate question being asked to eliminate the "sui generis transformative" criterion, and I do not think we will get agreement on that. I believe that we ought to agree first on a decision to formalize before going forward on making alterations to the criteria themselves. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 22:34, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I fully agree with you that formalizing the criteria should be the first (and most important) step, and I would be more than okay with the discussion focusing on this exclusively. Chaotic Enby (talk) 17:58, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
I think we should at least try to include language that raises the bar for people a little i.e., "does this death affect the world significantly?" a singer or a football player or a 90-year-old retiring senator or a retired old man dying, to me, doesn't meet those qualifications. A dictator does (and I suppose because in a way it's similar to a coup, in that it involves a transfer of power). JM2023 (talk) 11:17, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
For reference, WP:ITNRDBLURB reads:

The death of major figures may merit a blurb. These cases are rare, and are usually posted on a sui generis basis through a discussion at WP:ITNC that determines there is consensus that the death merits a blurb.

—Bagumba (talk) 18:39, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree that this is the right place to discuss the current criterion and if it needs to be changed. I know we have discussed this a few times and failed. Ktin (talk) 20:34, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Well, there's two separate questions in my mind. The first is whether to formalize the criteria, which I think this thread started with the pretense of doing. But the "main question" presented is whether to limit death blurbs only to a "death as the main story" standard, and I think although we might coalesce around a consensus for the first question, I don't know that we will be able to do the same for the second one. I feel we ought to focus first only on whether it's time to set strict rules for the RD/blurb criteria, and then go from there. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 20:39, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Yup I see your point. Both are two distinct outcomes I feel. Irrespective, my angst is that the current policies mandate neither, and despite that, the opposes on the article’s nomination was opposes to the policy. Ktin (talk) 20:42, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
  • We absolutely need firmer criteria. The "in rare cases" wording of ITNRDBLURB is routinely ignored and we seem to be having death blurb discussions every week. It was never meant for cases like Swaminathan and Napolitano. Pawnkingthree (talk) 00:19, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
    With due respect, can you explain why it was not meant for cases like Swaminathan? If someone has had an impact in elevating millions from hunger and famines -- I think there is no bigger transformational impact than that! Absolutely deserves a blurb. Ktin (talk) 14:27, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
    the proposal is that the death itself should be famous. I take that to mean that "the death has a significant effect". Swaminathan dying, perhaps a sad event for supporters and loved ones, doesn't change much about anything. Feinstein dying changes nothing -- Newsom will appoint a replacement, and she already withdrew from the 2024 election so that will just proceed as planned. But if Putin died tomorrow it would permanently alter global politics. The threshold is somewhere in there, on the higher end. JM2023 (talk) 11:10, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
    I don't think that "transformative" actually appears anywhere in the guidelines. I get that there is a "major figures" criteria, but it's been used so often now that's really been diluted. It should be reserved only for those where the death itself and its implications are generating news coverage, not mere reflections on the person's life. Pawnkingthree (talk) 01:06, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    "Transformative" used to be there. It was removed as a side effect of this discussion. Not that that's done much to stop people from citing it. —Cryptic 01:51, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, the frequency of blurb nominations has markedly increased in perhaps the past twelve months. And as the frequency increases, it will encourage more such nominations. We absolutely need firmer criteria!! HiLo48 (talk) 03:47, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
People, we just had this discussion within the last two months (in the general area of death blurbs). This is retreading the same arguments and is not helping anything. Masem (t) 04:01, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
No, the discussion two (nearly three actually) months ago was about separating ITN death blurbs from RD. This one is about formalizing a criterion to avoid having a death blurb debate literally every day (even though it is supposed to be a rare event). It might be in the same very general area, but it is certainly not close to being the same discussion or the same arguments. Chaotic Enby (talk) 17:56, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
While there was a discussion about separating RD from ITN at the time, there was also a discussion about creating guidelines for death blurbs at the same time, which is very similar to this discussion. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 17:58, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
My bad, I missed this one. After reading through it, it seems like the discussion just didn't come to any conclusion, which is a bit sad given the amount of engagement it had. Chaotic Enby (talk) 18:57, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, notable deaths, not impressive lives (in other words, I'm in favour of removing everything between "Major figures" and "etc"). InedibleHulk (talk) 19:52, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, the death itself should need to be famous for there to be a blurb. This means that the death itself is world-changing. If Putin died tomorrow, absolutely it should be a blurb, because it significantly changes world politics. Diane Feinstein dying changes nothing — she already dropped out of the 2024 Senate election, Newsom will appoint a replacement, and the election will proceed relatively unchanged. Same with M. S. Swaminathan, whose death changes nothing — a notable and effective life, and a sad event for loved ones, but his death isn't changing the price of tea in China. JM2023 (talk) 11:07, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. This proposal is compatible with my position, which is similar to JM2023's: part of the purpose of the news media, all of the purpose of obituaries, and none of the purpose of Wikipedia is to memorialize the dead. RD has a place in that it demonstrates that the encyclopedia is keeping current; but if we're going to devote extra space on the main page to a blurb, it should meet the same criteria as other ITN blurbs, which is to A) be likely to have a tangible, preferably lasting, effect on the world, and B) showcase an article updated with a substantial quantity of directly relevant information... [excluding] changes in verb tense or updates that convey little or no relevant information beyond what is stated in the ITN blurb. Most proposed death blurbs, and even many that are posted, do neither. —Cryptic 02:15, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment Even if a/this proposal to only allow death blurbs where "where the death itself is a notable event" were to succeed, it just means that editors would look to circumvent that rule by claiming that a death was indeed a "notable event". This is particularly relevant in the case of former heads of state and former heads of government. Wikipedia vultures have been circling around Jimmy Carter since February. As another editor wrote below, "a notable life is not a notable death, and the death of a person behind something notable is not notable in and of itself. If Jimmy Carter died tomorrow I would not consider it worthy of a blurb." However when Jimmy Carter dies, it's near certain that there will be an above-average number of Americans logging in to support a blurb for his death. And probably better than 50/50 chance that at least one of them will post with a question to the effect of "Why hasn't this been posted yet?" Chrisclear (talk) 06:14, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    the new higher standards end up getting violated should not be a reason for there to just not be new higher standards. If this passes, there is a good chance it would get violated by a consensus wanting to post jimmy carter's death despite it, but at least we could complain about it on a new standards basis. and the deaths of less prominent figures would be more likely to be stopped from getting a blurb if opposes have the power of a higher standard. JM2023 (talk) 11:12, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    You've raised some great points there, JM2023. Thank you for your contribution. Chrisclear (talk) 13:29, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    Carter's article is at least almost certain to get a substantial update, and likely an entire subarticle, about his death and state funeral. One of the articles in the section below still has only a sentence and half of relevant, non-blurb-redundant update about the subject's death, and another had no more than that when blurbed. So unless it's posted entirely too early, Carter's inevitable blurb won't be a total embarrassment; some battles aren't worth fighting. —Cryptic 15:05, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Alright, whatever. I was avoiding this discussion because it happens too frequently, but you know what? Yes. Just for the sake of establishing a consistent standard. ITN should be impact-based, and posting deaths solely on merit occludes that goal. ITN should not be about celebrating great lives, but impactful events. It makes sense Death Blurbs should be based off impact, i.e. sitting politicians or assassinations. Beyond that you can perhaps debate certain persons whose deaths do not meet these criteria, but are still impactful in some way. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:46, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Basically yes – As I said in the RfC on the same subject earlier this year, I firmly believe that we should primarily post blurbs based on the extensiveness of our article updates. If we write an entire article on someone's death and funeral, then we have something nice to blurb. If we greatly expand a death and/or legacy section following a death, then we have something nice to blurb. Conversely, we should never blurb a death if we don't at least write an extensive section on the subject. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:07, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Individual deaths with ITN blurbs in 2023

As noted, this gets endless discussion but not much gets done. FYI, the deaths which have been blurbed so far this year are as follows. Is there anyone missing?

  1. Constantine II of Greece – King of Greece from 1964 to 1973
  2. Fernando Villavicencio – Ecuadorian politician (1963–2023)
  3. Giorgio Napolitano – President of Italy from 2006 to 2015
  4. Jim Brown – American football player and actor (1936–2023)
  5. Milan Kundera – Czech and French novelist (1929–2023)
  6. Pervez Musharraf – President of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008
  7. Silvio Berlusconi – Italian media tycoon and politician (1936–2023)
  8. Tina Turner – American-born Swiss singer (1939–2023)
  9. Tony Bennett – American singer (1926–2023)

Yevgeny Prigozhin is debatable as the plane crash blurb was posted in a generic way by ITN and his name was subsequently added after discussion at WP:ERRORS. Note also that Pelé and Pope Benedict XVI died at the end of 2022 and so their blurbs carried forward into 2023.

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:44, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

You forgot:
7. Pervez Musharraf, who was president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008 (he gained power through a coup).
Fernando Villavicencio was also posted as a blurb, though like Yevgeny Prigozhin it's debateable whether it counts as it wasn't just "person dies" like the others mentioned, as he was a major candidate that was assassinated 11 days before the Ecuadorian general election. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 09:24, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Thanks, I've added him too. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:05, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
    Looking at who made the cut, the arguable(s) all had an event with theirs (Rare assassination, Notable plane crash relating to an ongoing war), and the rest arguably were correct. Tina Turner, Silvio Berlusconi, Pervez Musharraf were all big names in their fields. Tony Bennett was a great in his field and icon. Jim Brown was a HOFamer, actor, and involved in civil rights, which influenced many generations. Giorgio Napolitano and Constantine II of Greece were either the first to make their position revelant, or in the King's case, the last of an era. I do think, including the writer, the correct people so far have made the cut. Sure, its only September, and probably within this year, we may also have Jimmy Carter, and others who may have a chance. TheCorriynial (talk) 18:04, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
  • And then we have Bray Wyatt, Terry Funk, The Iron Sheik and Superstar Billy Graham, who all held a tangible belt proving they were at the top of their field, merely failing to sing or hold office. That's beside the point, though. My main gripe is with the number of editors this year speculating on how soon Carter will die. Yes, he's old. But he's a living person and deserves to be treated like one ("probably" and "maybe" don't make it that less vulturish). InedibleHulk (talk) 19:42, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
    With all due respect, as a massive wrestling fan, wrestling is a niche interest and blurbing an ex-WWE champion would be the equivalent of blurbing a famous darts player’s death. Music and politics are not niche.
    Also, the latter three missed RD posting due to article quality. The Kip 00:27, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
Villavicencio was very much due to the event, wouldn’t have been posted otherwise. The Kip 00:24, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Failed. I have not said this so far, but, I think this project has failed its purpose at this point. None of the editors who opposed the posting of Swaminathan have had a solid reason for their opposes. Yet, here we are. If we can not blurb a subject who has had transformational impact in lifting millions out of hunger and famine -- I am sorry to say we have no reason to be blurbing any post. Ktin (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
    the "transformational impact in lifting millions out of hunger and famine" did not happen yesterday, that's not what the blurb was about. If it was, then it would deserve to be a blurb. But it was about the guy behind it dying decades after that transformation. how can that reasonably be considered notable? if his reforms were to dramatically come to an end and be undone because of this death -- that's a notable event, but that's not what's happening. he lived, he led great transformations in life, he retired, he died. in my view, a notable life is not a notable death, and the death of a person behind something notable is not notable in and of itself. If Jimmy Carter died tomorrow I would not consider it worthy of a blurb.
    Now if Xi Jinping or Alexei Navalny or Trump died, that would be notable, as all three are leaders of ongoing regimes and/or national transformations, resistances, and reforms. For an Indian example, look at the guy who just got killed by Indian intelligence in Canada -- now that's a notable death, he was a leader of an ongoing separatist movement and his death has international repercussions. Another notable death would be if Julian Assange died -- it would be the conclusion to a years-long degradation of health blamed on political treatment of a freedom-of-press leader and would spark international controversy.
    So there's plenty of reason to post blurbs even with a stipulation like that -- the only blurbs that would no longer be posted would be the relatively inconsequential deaths of past-consequential people, because their actions were news decades ago, not today. JM2023 (talk) 16:23, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
    @JM2023 -- Firstly, "transformational impact in lifting millions out of hunger and famine" does not happen on one single day. That aside, please have a look at the currently coded rules for WP:ITNRD specifically allows for blurbs for the death of "major figures". Please read that section carefully. Ktin (talk) 04:33, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    we are discussing changes to the policy, not advocating for new interpretations of it. whatever it says right now is totally irrelevant to what we can imagine it to be changed to. if the transformational impact does not happen on a single day then perhaps it cant be blurbed - not the end of the world. I agree fuflly with @Cryptic:

    if we're going to devote extra space on the main page to a blurb, it should meet the same criteria as other ITN blurbs, which is to A) be likely to have a tangible, preferably lasting, effect on the world, and B) showcase an article updated with a substantial quantity of directly relevant information... [excluding] changes in verb tense or updates that convey little or no relevant information beyond what is stated in the ITN blurb.

    JM2023 (talk) 11:03, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    I think there are two parts to this -- a forward looking policy, and the rules as they are coded now. The rules as they are coded now calls for "major figures" to be blurbed, and there are absolutely no two interpretations about that. The problem is that in the discussion for interpreting current rules, folks are posting their views on the forward looking policy and that is unfair. Ktin (talk) 15:02, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    This is the discussion for formalizing a new criterion, the part about interpreting current rules happens at WP:ITN/C. We are here to discuss a forward looking policy. I don't see why talking about it here would be unfair. ChaotıċEnby(talk) 15:12, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    If this is discussing forward looking policy, I will stand down. Ktin (talk) 16:52, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    The B) part of the {{tqb}} misattributed solely to me above is in "the rules as they are coded now". Part of my point is that this fairly objective requirement is usually almost entirely ignored in favor of subjective arguments about how major the subject was. People following Swaminathan's proposed blurb to his article still won't find out any additional information about his death, not even a cause, other than that he died in his home. —Cryptic 15:25, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    Blurbs aren't supposed to be honorific, they're supposed to be for important news. His life work was massively important, but his death itself, while regretful, didn't have any massive impact. He leaves behind a legacy in life, not in death, and honoring him through his death would be misguided. ChaotıċEnby(talk) 01:53, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    The purpose of the project - In The News - is to blurb news, not to blurb life awards. ChaotıċEnby(talk) 01:54, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    Again, with due respect to your views, please read WP:ITNRD and the section there under "major figures". Ktin (talk) 04:59, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    See JM2023's reply above. We're trying to adjust the criteria to make it conform with ITN's purpose. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    I read it. I'm talking about formalizing new criteria, not interpreting the (admittedly controversial) current guidelines. No need to assume people other than you are ignorant. ChaotıċEnby(talk) 15:14, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
    To be fair, you said Blurbs aren't supposed to be honorific, which was unclear whether you were referring to the current criteria or not. —Bagumba (talk) 02:36, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
    Blurbs (not just RD) are also supposed to highlight high quality WP content. While simply having a bio be an FA is not sufficient for being an RD blurb, we would significantly factor in the quality of the article alongside the importance. That may mean we might seem to be posting a honorific RD blurb, but that's not really the reason to promote it in the first place, its just a happenstance of meeting quality + importance. (We specifically state that we don't post RD blurbs only on fame, popularity, or the like). Masem (t) 02:47, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
    I wasn't there for the discussion, but it looks to me like we just didn't really have much to blurb. We're not featuring the person, we're featuring the work of fellow Wikipedians, and we didn't write very extensively on Swaminathan's death. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:11, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment so are we changing the death blurb criterion or not? are we having an RfC or not? looks like most people here want it changed to force death blurbs to have the same criterion as all other ITN blurbs. It's been 4 days without further comment. what's the next step here? JM2023 (talk) 22:55, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
    Work on the RfC and draft a proposed language? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:25, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Recent news

Normally there are like 4 blurbs in the ITN, but sometimes quite a few things happen, like when Nobel Prizes are announced. Would it be feasible to have another line similar to ongoing that just lists the name of the linked article for people to find out more? 194.102.58.6 (talk) 09:37, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Probably not. ITN has to be balanced with the other parts of the main page, so ITNs size needs to be about equal with the other parts of the main page, per WP:ITNBALANCE. It is possible to do something like that, but it also means removing something else. So unless you are willing to give up something else, it's unfeasible. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 10:06, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
This guideline always seemed quite silly to me - the goal of being "balanced" with other parts of the main page should not have such a dramatic effect on what we highlight. Why don't other parts of the main page reconfigure themselves to better accommodate ITN? We often do have bursts of sports/political/award/disaster events that quickly overwhelm the four standard items in ITN. This week with Nobels, sports, and a declaration of war, it will seem especially problematic to have items falling off the bottom of the list within a few days. - Fuzheado | Talk 10:00, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
ITN is far more dynamic (changes more than once daily) compared to TFA which is where the balance should be made against. TFA can't go any faster, so its more on ITN to adjust appropriately. Masem (t) 12:10, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
My point is I think this is provincial thinking - we should consider much more wide sweeping solutions rather than "being balanced with" some other random box that happens to be our visual neighbor. :) - Fuzheado | Talk 14:34, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
I actually think we should have a separate little section every Nobel week; the alternative is news (both Nobel and otherwise) rolling off way faster than it does at any other time of year. Kicking222 (talk) 22:24, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
While I'd love to see the Nobels given more time, that would immediately lead to other topics asking for their own separate section (like other awards, sports championships, etc.)
Now, just writing that out, I wonder if in the future, while the individual awards should still be nominated and treated as standard blurbs, that once the last one that looks like it will be posted rolls off that we have Nobels in ongoing for no more than one week (that is, as the Medicine prize is usually on a Monday, the ongoing should be pulled no later than three Mondays after that). In that way, in cases where some of the laurates did not get to speed (as in the chemistry prize this year), we can still point to a quality article that sums up the Nobels for the year. I can't see that easily applying to other areas as no other area has a week of such awards like this. Masem (t) 23:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I think the Nobels are a pretty extreme case such that there are not an avalanche of other similar cases waiting for the same solution. In that sense, I think it could be workable. Maybe we start prototyping what this might look like? - Fuzheado | Talk 14:38, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
I was going to say we don't need this -- but I just realized that we do not have any singular page that give all the awards from that year. There's the individual awards that document over the years, but not a good target for summarizing the year awards across all individual ones. That's going to be a problem with this idea. Masem (t) 00:23, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
I don't think we'll know the answer until we actually prototype it. - Fuzheado | Talk 05:12, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
I like this approach, as it's been a long time coming. I do think there is a moral hazard in that even more requests for special boxes/sections will arise, but we've overcome those things in the past, and if by policy we make it a high bar I think it could be workable. I can imagine a high "Nobel standard" being set for special sections/boxes, or that there needs to be a series of years worth of experience (and demonstrated issues with individual items) to warrant a special treatment. - Fuzheado | Talk 14:37, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
I'd support such an idea, or perhaps the Main Page could do a theme for Nobel Week. It's been done in the past, such as when the Queen died. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:25, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
  • As treatment of the individual Nobel prizes seems quite unpredictable and unreliable, we could provide an overall solution by putting a link into Ongoing. Something like 2023 Nobel Prize winners. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:00, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
    That's also a good idea. I suppose the problem is we don't have the custom of creating a yearly landing page for the Nobels that summarizes them all. There also might be a desire to make sure we highlight the exact individuals on the front page, and not one click into a page, which I can also understand. I don't have the time to do so now, but it would be nice to prototype several of these ideas so we can visually compare them. - Fuzheado | Talk 13:52, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Are Nobel Prize(s) relevant with RD or Blurbs anymore?

I've seen some comments with the recent discussion of Martti Ahtisaari that maybe the Nobel Prizes may have lost their importance, and that maybe we may need to reconsider their relevance, with how the committee that awards them has been given looks in the last few years. Any thoughts? TheCorriynial (talk) 23:37, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

The key Nobels in medicine, physics, and chemistry are still quite important, as well as the Peace Prize. I see no reason to deprecate the Nobels just because the Literature one may be seen as less top-of-the-field compared to these other areas. (Literature has many many other awards like the Booker Prize, whereas medicine, physics, and chemistry lack any other real type of large award like this) Masem (t) 00:09, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
I somewhat disagree. I don't think the average person could name any of the most recent Nobel prize winners, barring perhaps the Peace Prize. Natg 19 (talk) 00:14, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
That doesn't matter to us at all. People in the appropriate field recognize these awards, and given how widely they are covered when they are given out, they are still considered important. Masem (t) 00:19, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
The Nobel Prize in Economics, being the most recent, used to honour people who had done their work years before, but iun recent times the award has been going to better known economists like Paul Krugman and Ben Bernanke. But when people hear on the news that someone has won the Nobel Prize, they turn to the Wikipedia to find out about them. Which is exactly what ITN is for. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:59, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
The Nobel Prize is not an automatic qualifier and should never be. It is awarded to people who have made major advancements in their respective fields, so someone’s notability should be judged on the basis of that work and impact, not on the mere fact of winning a Nobel prize. Furthermore, there are many people who had never won the award, but have become better known and more impactful with their work (for instance, Dmitri Mendeleev has never won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but he’s a household name in the field that every pupil who encounters chemistry for the first time in primary school knows and perhaps better known than any Nobel laureate in that field). The same argument is valid for recipients of Academy Awards, the Pritzker Prize, the Fields Medal and other comparable awards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 05:42, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
In general, the Nobel Prize season seems like a beautiful opportunity for us to feature (and improve) our writing on scientists. Prizes themselves always have lots of issues, but in the end our goal is to feature our encyclopedic writing anyway. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:18, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
Sure. That's why all Nobel Prizes are ITN/R items. I've even started an initiative about writing articles on missing notable economists who may potentially win the Nobel Prize in the future (after compiling the list and writing articles myself, I'm glad that there are other editors who maintain the list). This discussion is whether the death of a Nobel laureate should merit a blurb. I personally give more weight to the Nobel Prize in medicine, chemistry, physics and economics when discussing a blurb for a recently deceased laureate in any of these fields.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:10, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
Oh, I completely misunderstood this. As usual, I think articles should be featured as blurbs only if we have written significant updates to the article, like an extensive death section. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:25, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
  • ITN/R The OP's question is misdirected because RD's don't currently consider significance while blurb discussions for major figures are "sui generis" in which anything goes. The only place that Nobel prizes have special standing is ITN/R. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:17, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
I think it's fair to consider it, but as some of the discussion of that nomination shows, not all Nobels are created equal, and reading the Peace Prize's page shows how controversial it's been. The others, meanwhile, are much less-publicized. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
If I get this correct, I think this thread is asking a question -- does a winner of a nobel prize pass the significance test (however nebulously that is construed) for their death to be posted as a blurb? My two cents on that one is that it is not a given. After recently watching M. S. Swaminathan, someone who arguably had helped alleviate millions from poverty and hunger, not get a blurb on his death -- I am convinced that most people (make it almost all biographies) should not get a blurb if we are using the same yardstick.
On the other hand if this thread is making an assertion that nobel prizes do not carry the necessary heft or importance anymore[citation needed], and hence, we should reconsider their importance for posting nobel prize winners (like we recently did) -- I would disagree with the premise and reiterate that there is no reason for us to reconsider the ITNR nature of the prizes. Good luck. Ktin (talk) 03:16, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
The issue with Literature, in particular, is that we won't know until Year 2 if the winner in Year 1 was an outlier or not. Next year could be Stephen King, it could be Can Xue, and I wager only the former would make ITN without a debate. It's tricky because this year's round of laureates felt very low-key. doktorb wordsdeeds 05:15, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
  • If the question is whether we should feature the Nobel prize winners in ITN, then I agree we should maintain ITN/R given all points made above. If the question is whether someone's Nobel Prize should be mentioned in a blurb that we post about their passing, its hard to argue that this isn't a notable achievement and an important characterizing attribute - most news articles reporting on a previous Nobel laureate's death will also mention. If the question is whether a Nobel Laureate automatically warrants a blurb instead of an RD upon their passing, then I have no idea because the approach to blurbs is, as Andrew mentioned, currently an "anything goes" approach about which there have been many many previous discussions. Schwinnspeed (talk) 12:23, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
    But would either require a Nobel for us to post their blurbs? Given the answer is no, the point here is moot. We don't need to see someone to win a Nobel to know they are an impactful person, case in point. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:04, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposing the split of the "Ongoing" Section

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Good faith nomination. Consensus for proposal unlikely to develop. Closing in order to free up some talk page space. Ktin (talk) 03:22, 25 October 2023 (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.


Map of ongoing armed conflicts (number of combat-related deaths in current or past year):
  Major wars (10,000 or more)
  Wars (1,000–9,999)
  Minor conflicts (100–999)
  Skirmishes and clashes (1–99)

Ongoing events : Flight of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, 2023 Nigerien crisis

Ongoing conflicts : Syrian civil war, War in Sudan (2023), Russian invasion of Ukraine Lukt64 (talk) 17:54, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

  • Oppose - I welcome the desire to evolve the front page arrangement, but this one doesn't feel like an improvement. In fact, the word "Ongoing" twice looks odd. Unless I'm missing something, there's really no great reason to make this distinction between events and conflicts, but I'm open to more explanation. – Fuzheado | Talk 05:20, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per all above. Odd and unbalanced layout, and ultimately unnecessary when there's only two ongoing events as it stands. As AO said, it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. The Kip 19:21, 24 October 2023 (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.

In the News

(NON-ADMIN CLOSURE)
Thanks for the conversation. Marking thread as resolved / closed in the interest of freeing-up space on talk page. Ktin (talk) 00:20, 9 November 2023 (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.


What is going on with the "In the news" section lately. I don't see anything about the world series but We see something about the Japanese Baseball Championship? I'm becoming concerned about the type of information that is being presented on in the news - and what it indicates about the bias that is being baked into Wikipedia. I saw in the news the other day a news story about the Indian Space Department landing something, yet when we see something about Nasa, the origins of Nasa are not mentioned. I'm shy to suggest this, because it seems so laughably ridiculous, but is there some kind of strange bias being baked into Wikipedia? Let's bring some good perspective to things and keep Wikipedia a good place to go for information. Steve.A.Dore.4 (talk) 23:31, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The World Series was posted last week [3], and was bumped off by the Japanese Series. We posted a story in August about Chandrayaan-3 landing on the moon [4], and the current story of the NASA asteroid fly by is still on the main page. I'm not sure what you mean about the origins of NASA not being mentioned? Stephen 00:00, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
You were correct and I was mistaken. Steve.A.Dore.4 (talk) 07:25, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
You can help shape future content by participating at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates —Bagumba (talk) 01:23, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Noted. Steve.A.Dore.4 (talk) 07:25, 7 November 2023 (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.

Discussion on merging articles on events

Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)# Drafting an RfC for whether news coverage counts toward GNG might be of interest (discussion has drifted from drafting an RfC to going ahead with merges into lists on a case-by-case basis). Espresso Addict (talk) 05:22, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussing article's quality independently from notability

I would like to encourage discussion on whether article's quality should be discussed independently in a separate sub-section of the nomination. Discussions are sometimes very long with multiple comments addressing notability and quality interchangeably, so it becomes confusing and poses difficulties to properly assess the existence of consensus as oppose votes for quality are only temporary until the quality is improved but they are not regularly stricken afterwards. The introduction of such a sub-section and the transfer of comments pertaining to quality should be done manually at own discretion. Note that nominations involving ITN/R items or RDs would not need this sub-section as they serve they same purpose per se. Your opinions are welcome.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:31, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Wasn't this idea just recently proposed? Its a poor one because that means that those of us that regularly look at quality have to now reply twice to a nomination. We need participants to consider both quality and importance as independent factors but that are both equally important before we can post. The problem tends to be non-regular editors that come here to simply comment on the significance of the candidate, and thus generally unaware of the quality issue as well. Masem (t) 12:37, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
As far as I know, no. I proposed temporary closing a discussion on significance for a death blurb in order to focus on article’s quality in a sub-section (this was well received and already done a couple of times). This is virtually a proposal to extend the idea to non-death nominations (if significance for posting is well established while quality isn’t addressed, there’s a need to moderate the discussion and direct it towards quality improvement). In addition, it can be used to better organise a nomination with a lengthy discussion. The primary goal is to introduce moderation by experienced editors so that we prevent endless and unproductive discussions.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
Discussions don't always divide neatly into these two issues. See Gaza hospital explosion, for example, in which there are procedural issues, issues of fact and more. But the word "quality" does not appear in that discussion. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:48, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
I feel like this question would be best asked to the admins that generally handle ITN. I think if they are fine navigating the noise, then separate discussion sections could just confuse the general editing base. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:27, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
If something can be done at a template level, I would be ok with it. Something like the DYK review template, but, not as complex. Simple with three fields: notability, quality, comment. The template should then spit out an icon for notability, an icon for quality, and the comment as-is. Obviously this is for blurbs alone. Ktin (talk) 03:05, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
If I look at the current Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § RD/Blurb: Bobby Charlton, I don't have a problem determining the current consensus for the RD or blurb. What could get lost, if someone was interested, is that even a mere RD won't be possible unless the quality improves. That might not be evident with all the blurb !votes.—Bagumba (talk) 11:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Echoing the statement from Bagumba, I could maybe see an argument for instituting this for blurb rd noms, since they often get completely derailed away from discussion on quality; multiple times, there has been consensus to post a blurb, yet it never made it on the MP since the question of quality got completely lost. It would make sense anyway, as RD blurbs are essentially crossovers between RDs, which are purely quality based, and regular blurbs, which place a greater emphasis on "notability."
In fact, now that I think of it, partitioning RD discussions into a quality and notability section could be better, as the aforementioned effect of having the quality of an article receiving low attention often leads to articles not even being posted to RD (which is even worse when you realize that the type of people to have RD blurbs nominated for them are the type of people where reader would be looking for intentionally on ITN). However, I don't think this this is really necessary for regular blurbs, which don't seem to have this issue or ITNR/RD items which are solely quality based votes, and I could maybe see an argument for doing it for ongoing (addition) noms, but I'm not sure. — Knightoftheswords 20:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
The biggest problem is that RDs (blurb or not), if they draw more than a few responses, then nearly 75% or more of those responses will be on the support of the RD for importance (including blurb or not), and very few are commenting on quality, which is pretty much the only limiting factor for RDs. I can the potential that if a blurb comes up that that could be a subtree, but that should be only in the case where quality is either already there or can be fixed; if the quality isn't there and is miles away, talking about a blurb is a waste of time. Masem (t) 23:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Worth noting that due to the article quality being evidently deemed as impossible to get up to par, the Bobby Charlton RD nomination has been closed outright. No posting occurred of either an RD or a blurb. One wonders how the discussion may have progressed differently if quality were discussed separately from notability. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 19:07, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
If there is any split, then given how the usual interactions happen at ITNC, only the quality aspects should be discussed first, and if there's no clear issues, then maybe we could open discussion on a blurb. But we normally get so few comments on the quality of the article that get lost in the rest of the noise. Masem (t) 20:00, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
See the nomination for Betsy Rawls. She was a hall-of-fame golfer with a long list of achievements including winning the Bob Jones Award. Her nomination has been up for five days now – almost as long as Bobby Charlton. And nobody, but nobody, has commented. I took a look myself and was impressed but then moved on. Such lack of response seems quite common for RDs now. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:34, 27 October 2023 (UTC) (edit conflict)

Let's double the number of recent deaths that we show

Make it two lines, for a total of ten people. Reason: I suspect that even more people will die in the future than have in the past. BD2412 T 23:40, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

That can create problems with Main Page balance (one or two extra lines can cause that). Plus the "Recent Deaths" tag leads to the appropriate "Deaths in YYYY" articles which include everyone regardless of article quality, so readers can finds they've missed. Masem (t) 00:21, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
As stated earlier, I dislike the rigidity of needing to "balance" the front page with an arbitrary visual neighbor. The fact is, since we instituted the "anyone who died can be listed in RD, as long as the article is OK," it was obvious we would have scaling problems. Therefore, I support the general sentiment of @BD2412 that we should expand the number of folks listed. It may take more work to figure out how to co-exist with the other boxes, but it's time to do that hard work. - Fuzheado | Talk 05:16, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
For my part, I've never quite gotten why it falls entirely on ITN to balance the main page, when when news stories happen is out of our control; and not DYK's, which has had a waiting list for as long as I can remember and could easily list a few fewer or few more articles if needful. —Cryptic 13:44, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Redesign The number of lines is determined by the screen size. If you read it on a smartphone, which is what the majority of our readers do, then it already runs to three lines (and balance is not a thing as there's only one column).
Looking at Deaths in 2023, it appears that there are about 20+ deaths every day. As the current RD selection seems to span several days, it seems that RD is listing about 10% of the total. The selection seems skewed to certain types of people such as classical musicians and baseball players due to the activity of particular editors who focus on those categories.
The presentation is currently quite poor as only the names are listed so there's no context or clue to help the reader. If the number of names were doubled, it would be even more of a sea of blue and most readers would just pass by.
Other languages do this much better with a separate obituary section (e.g. German) and so we need a complete redesign like that.
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:17, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
You've convinced me beyond a reasonable doubt of this clear and present need to remove all the names and thereby reemphasize the bold blue link to the one true separate obituary section, where context and clues help the reader in ~100% of reliably sourced cases. The only thing in my way is this abject lack of authority or permission to do so. So I'll just suggest it again (along with a reminder that the recently dead are no longer "people" nor "folks"), then politely retire to my rightful spot as a fly on the wall. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:50, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes, ITN is quite paralysed by protection which stifles drive, experiment and initiative. Notice that there were no nominations of any sort yesterday.
As IH suggests, it might be better if ITN were mostly a clearer list of links to more dynamic pages including:
With a single blurb and picture as a lead headline and story, this would let readers browse or find what they want while limiting the demands on the ITN process.
Andrew🐉(talk) 12:37, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Hey, I suggested two things. No more, no less. You're free to infer what you will and "jump off" from wherever, of course, but I won't be held responsible for inspiring any links that aren't already there. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:48, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Which makes no sense, as the Main Page overall is not a navigation guide, but a means to feature WP's quality content in different slices. This is a non-starter proposal because just having a set of links doesn't promote any type of quality. Masem (t) 13:22, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
It makes perfect sense because, per WP:ITNPURPOSE, helping readers to find topics in the news is what ITN is all about.
What makes no sense is making readers fly blind by just listing names without any clue as to the sort of person that they are. For example, there's now an RD nomination for yesterday. This is Luis Garavito who was quite an unpleasant person. Encouraging readers to click on such a distasteful topic without any warning seems quite wrong.
Andrew🐉(talk) 16:12, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
But that is only one purpose of ITN, and the other factor is that we are not a newspaper - ITN should not be expected to be a mirror of what are the headlines in major newspapers, though we might at times happen to be that - we just do not purposely want to be like that at all times.
Also WP:NOT#CENSORED applies to these topics. We do expect articles to be written to the standard of the principle of least surprise such that when opening the article they are not suddenly awash in unwanted imagery or the like, but we still should be included, in prose, what some might consider unpleasant if that's what the topic is known for. Masem (t) 17:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
A friendly note: Let's please not use "We are not a newspaper" as a form of "I don't like it." WP:NOTNEWS has a very specific focus to guard against original reporting, notability, and gossip. It is not a blanket ban on any functions that might overlap with a newspaper, such as informing the public, as WP:ITNPURPOSE says, To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news. I'd argue that this is, in fact, us "purposely want[ing] to be like that." We must not overreach on a slogan like "NOTNEWS" and stop informing the reader. – Fuzheado | Talk 07:24, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
NOTNEWS #2 is specifically that we are not meant to write like a newspaper; we are supposed to try to be writing for permanence and the long-term, and to that end, not every topic that gets headline coverage in newspapers makes for a good encyclopedic topic on WP. And again, the "help readers find topics" is one point of ITNPURPOSE, there are other points and they must be in balance. Masem (t) 13:35, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
NOTNEWS is an argument for shutting down ITN completely as the usual stream of sports results, weather and breaking news obviously violates it. Obituaries are comparatively encyclopedic because they are a retrospective summary of someone's complete life. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:23, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
That's not what NOTNEWS says. We are to write encyclopedic articles, but there's no reason we cannot keep these dynamic and up to date as news articles about them are written. What is a problem that comes under NOTNEWS more often is that editors jump to make a new article about an event that seems newsworthy but has no clear long-term, encyclopedic importance, such as many attempts to post small domestic crimes that have come up. That might grab newspaper headlines but if there's no enduring coverage or long-term impact, then we shouldn't be covering it.
There is clear overlap with writing for an encyclopedia and inclusion of newspaper-like coverage, but we are supposed to be keeping our approach closer to that of the encyclopedia. Masem (t) 12:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
I can understand your distaste if you followed the link from ITNC directly to the Modus operandi section like I did, but the lead of the article gives a pretty unobjectionable idea of the sort of content you can expect to find later on. —Cryptic 17:32, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
Masem, I'd love to someday test that assumption ("a means to feature WP's quality content in different slices"), which you've repeated in numerous places. DYK and OTD have minimum quality standards, but I wouldn't call many of the articles in them examples of our quality content. Ed [talk] [OMT] 17:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
At least when I participated in DYK, those reviews were pretty close to the standards we expect to ITN featured articles, including minimum size and necessary sourcing. TFA is the best of the best, but the other sections including ITN and DYK show articles that are well on their way to being high quality content and at a state that new editors should be able to join in in editing and by following the established standard on the article. Masem (t) 17:11, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
As of right now I believe this is not a bad idea. Which I suppose is a rather oblique, grazing way of expressing a quite weak support at the moment. But obviously it would take an exhaustive separate discussion and an RfC to make such a fundamental change. I think that at the very least, ITN and RD should be severed entirely, cleaved apart like the German Wikipedia (maybe German engineering really is better). Although Masem's concern that Main Page is not a navigation page is also somewhat valid, it does feature some navigational features already, even in ITN (ex. the RD link, the current events link). JM2023 (talk) 18:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
  • My 2ct: I like the neutral presentation of the names in the RD section. They fare - as far as I observe: mostly Germans of all kinds and musicians of all nationalities - much better with little ado than in DYK hooks after a more complex process; yesterday's singer (and still on the Main page) received 10k+ views that day and would probably get just 1k in DYK. People do click in the section, to my surprise, so why consider taking it away, or making it more complicated? - I also agree that the so-called Main-page-balance should not worry us too much, - there's no balance on mobile. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:30, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Nah. If you want to see deaths you can read Deaths in 2023, which is linked in the box. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:24, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Make it two lines, for a total of ten people: FWIW, I currently see the 6 RDs taking up two full lines already. I suppose it differs by one's display. —Bagumba (talk) 02:27, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
  • I would quite like to know the reasoning behind the "more people will die in the future than have in the past" comment and how that specifically should tie into any change in policy or process at WP:ITN. There was already a recent complaint on the Main Page about the fact that ITN was too morbid. We needn't be even further on the nose with such an obvious alteration. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:42, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
    • @WaltCip: It is my understanding that the "Boomer" generation was the largest ever in terms of sheer numbers. The rest is just math. BD2412 T 17:18, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
      A better way to look at this is that we have far more bio articles on those with their notable activities in the 2000s, where Internet coverage created many new RSes beyond traditional print to allow these to be created. Its a systematic bias issue that it is far easier to document using online sources than having to do physical legwork related to print sources. Masem (t) 17:40, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
    It's pretty likely that the higher the population, the greater the absolute number of deaths are. To my knowledge, no one has yet invented an elixir of life or discovered a fountain of youth somewhere in the woods, so it's rather likely that overall death increases. That said, I don't necessarily support the redesign for more lines. JM2023 (talk) 18:11, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
    I'd be curious to see what the distribution of articles by decade of birth are. It's possible it's greater the farther towards the present you go (acknowledging that many persons in recent decades WILL become notable down the line but aren't now). DarkSide830 (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Note that RD is currently showing seven names rather than the usual six. They are:
  1. Helena Carr
  2. Richard Roundtree
  3. Tom Walker
  4. Desert Crown
  5. Adam Johnson
  6. Bishan Singh Bedi
  7. Matthew Perry
Most of these people (and horse) died several days before Perry so pushing him off the main page in just 5 hours seemed rather unjust, especially as he was so famous (over 8 million views on the first day of the news). The sorting order needs work.
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:46, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
RD nor ITN uses fame as a measure for posting, nor do we worry about page counts. Names should stay on RD for at least half a day if not 24 hours, though, and that's something we can resolve. Masem (t) 12:29, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
I always got the impression that names were listed in order of death with the most recent death as the first name, which would not usually cause names to drop off the list in less than 12 hours unless a lot of blue links die at once. JM2023 (talk) 16:51, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
That is the case with blurbs, not RDs. Curbon7 (talk) 20:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Seems like a no-brainer that recent deaths should be sorted by recency. Is there any particular reason why this is not the case? Looks like something that should get changed JM2023 (talk) 21:08, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
We used to do it that way, but as it often takes a while to get the article up to scratch many would become older than the oldest RD and never get posted. The current way guarantees a posting if the bio is good enough within the seven days on ITNC. Stephen 22:19, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Richard Moll, we hardly knew ye. BD2412 T 01:03, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
  • On a different note, death of Matthew Perry was significantly covered in the reputed/reliable (RS) print media from India in English, Hindi, and Marathi language. These are the print media that I have access to. That is extremely rare. Most of the times, Marathi print media doesn't give a damn about foreigner celebrities (excluding politicians) unless it is related to India. As of this comment, the RDs are: Ina Cronjé (24), Helena Carr (25), Richard Roundtree (24), Tom Walker (23), Desert Crown (23), and Adam Johnson (28). Since the day of their death, Perry had 10,868,775 views, Roundtree had 498,880 and Carr had 33,939. Perry had died on 28. Others have far less. I am aware there are procedures including the discussions at "candidates" page, but removing Perry so soon after the death, and other - older deaths being there feels like Matthew Perry was not significant enough. The pageview stats say otherwise. We should make some changes, but I am not sure what they should be. —usernamekiran (talk) 14:09, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
    For what its worth, there was a blurb-RD nomination for Perry, but it had very little support. Curbon7 (talk) 19:17, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
    We. Do. Not. Care. About. Pageviews.
    You have been told this multiple multiple times and that this is becoming disruptive.
    Yes, there was a problem with Perry being removed so fast, but that is not an issue about trying to serve pageviews. Masem (t) 00:33, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

"Arrival of spacecraft (to lunar orbit and beyond) at their destinations"

Moonrise on Dinkinesh

So, following the discussion that has occurred so far on the 152830 Dinkinesh/Lucy probe nom at ITN, I wanted to request some clarification on the third item in the "Space Exportation" section at ITN/R, which reads as "Arrival of spacecraft (to lunar orbit and beyond) at their destinations". Do we consider this to include all fly-bys of a probe, or is this more about final destinations? Because, honestly, I think an auto-blurb for every intermediate destination of a probe such as this one (having six more impending fly-bys not including two swings back past Earth) seems excessive. So I guess my question is as follows: Does this event fit the aforementioned criteria, and if so, do we think that the this statement being interpreted as such is best practice for ITN? DarkSide830 (talk) 16:28, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

My first reaction is that flybys come in two types that I'll arbitrarily call mission objectives and waypoints. I think mission objective flybys (of which there can be multiple per mission), e.g. New Horizons flyby of Pluto, are what should be ITNR. Waypoint flybys, those that are included just to get the spacecraft to its objectives, should not be excluded from ITN but neither should they be on ITNR. Separate from this is the discussion of when something should be posted. That needs to discussed individually, but as a rule of thumb I'd suggest closest approach should be the default with a specific consensus required to post before then. Thryduulf (talk) 16:59, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
  • It obviously means what it says and that's after due consideration which is why the boundary was pushed out to lunar orbit. Deep space probes are not so common and their destinations so frequent that there's a problem that needs fixing. In this case, the probe has delivered a significant and surprising result in finding that the asteroid has a moon (pictured). Per WP:NOTBURO, we should not obstruct coverage of such marvelous science. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:47, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
    It's not about frequency, it's the "so what" aspect of it. Do we need to inform readers of every time a probe makes a fly-by? And surely you can't be serious about that NOTBURO comment. No one is suggesting we "obstruct" scientific coverage. Now, I don't get how you think a rock being, in fact, two rocks is more important then the change in a head of state for a country of 10,000 people, but whatever. Either way, I'm not saying "screw science", I merely am questioning if this needs to be ITN/R. Personally, having an item be ITN/R is more bureaucratic then removing such an item, in my opinion, but that is not the point. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:45, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
    If a flyby produces significant scientific findings then it will be eligible for inclusion in ITN whether it is ITNR or not. Thryduulf (talk) 12:28, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
We should be cognizant of the fact that most space agencies consider trivial events such as waypoint fly-bys to actually be part of the "mission objectives" when evaluating the spacecraft's performance. For example, when Apollo 13 circled around the Moon to return to Earth, that abort maneuver was technically considered a mission objective under the alternate mission (see PAO transcript, 057:11:53). It's just something to be aware of, especially in press releases by said agencies who want to pump up their program as much as possible, mostly to justify its continued funding and support. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:50, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
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