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Do away with significance as a criterion altogether

Consensus is clearly against this proposal, both in original and revised/clarified forms. Thryduulf (talk) 14:37, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

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

Currently, WP:ITN has this to say about the significance of a story:

"It is highly subjective whether or not an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting. Generally, proof that an event is being covered, in an in-depth manner, by news sources is required. Caution should be taken when assessing news sources for prominence, because most major news outlets provide individualized experiences for each user, based on geography and browsing history. What one user sees as a top headline may be buried for others, and vice versa. Do not assess whether a story is "prominent" or not based on where you see it reported on major news websites for this reason."

I think this is a particularly good example of why, like with Recent Deaths, we need to do away with the significance criteria outright. Currently, the attitude is that something being in the news doesn't necessarily make it a newsworthy story, but all of that depends on who happens to be evaluating a particular item on ITN/C at that time, thus making the process more about the personalities of the voters themselves rather than of actual newsworthiness in the story. Notability is assumed for any article that is posted on Wikipedia and is not currently undergoing a deletion process. We ought to be able to assume that something is newsworthy if it has a Wikipedia entry rather than try to determine newsworthiness on subjective criteria which varies from voter to voter.

I know this has been proposed before, but with the creation of WP:MINIMUMDEATHS, I feel this should be brought up again. We post way more RDs than ITN entries every week now.--WaltCip (talk) 19:04, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

  • Support Agree with everything the OP said. WP:N is the importance criteria for Wikipedia, so too should it be for ITN. We satisfy the WP:ITN#Purpose of ITN, get more quality and informative articles to the main page. And before you scream "arghhhhhhhh celebrity gossip" or whatever, here is the thing: If someone writes a quality update to the Kardashians twitter war THEN POST IT. Our WP:Readers have most likely heard of them and will be interested. --LaserLegs (talk) 19:22, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose the statement ... We ought to be able to assume that something is newsworthy if it has a Wikipedia entry ... for me is a bogus assertion. This would open the floodgates to any nomination about any subject being covered by any news site. Even taking a look at the BBC homepage now, we could potentially see "Ex-EDL leader Tommy Robinson jailed at Leeds court", "Grenfell Tower inquiry: Dad blames firefighters for son's death" or "Mariella Frostrup: Men face 'double standard' over celebrity lust" being nominated because Tommy Robinson, Grenfell Tower and Mariella Frostrup all exist. And that's plainly going to be a complete disaster. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:44, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't see how it would be any more "disastrous" than the way we currently have the criteria set up for RD, which is to assume notability if the subject has an article, and which you yourself supported, as I recall. All it would mean is that stories get posted faster and move off the queue faster. I'd take that anyday over seeing Fernando Lugo on the main page for 12 days in a row.--WaltCip (talk) 19:46, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Because death is death and is thus inherently notable. Kardashian posting another Instagram photo which might get 10 million likes is not. Beyond the absurdity of accepting that as an encyclopedia we should be posting the top hits of the tabloid, we would also render ITNC as unusable since we'd get dozens of nominations per day. What a crock. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:56, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Death is not inherently notable, as we have in the past refused to post subjects on ITN who were notable only because they died. Also, I contest the notion that we'd get dozens of nominations a day. Each individual Kardashian Instagram photo isn't tracked inside her Wikipedia article. If there's nothing in the article to reference back to, it wouldn't be posted. Only anything that can be included in the relevant Wikipedia article in compliance with current standing policy would be posted. If anything it would encourage more diligence in maintaining the articles to ensure we don't post patent garbage on the main page.--WaltCip (talk) 19:59, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
And let's face it, what's garbage to you and I may be of seminal interest to another reader. We shouldn't fall into the trap of practicing academian snobbery just because we feel a sense of being "above it all."WaltCip (talk) 20:04, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
No, sorry, wrong. If someone is notable enough for an article then their death is inherently notable. We would become a news ticker and have hundreds of nominations a week, something that would render the project completely untenable. Try using Wikinews or WikiTRIBUNE or some news portal if you want to publish anything without editorial oversight. This isn't about being a snob, it's about quality encyclopedic content on the main page. Very different. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:26, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I think WaltCip's point (correct me if I'm wrong) is that we'd post those stories if there are objective, well-sourced, non-stub articles about 2018 jailing of Tommy Robinson, Grenfell Tower fire updates, 2018, Social views of Mariella Frostrup, 2018, or Kardashian Instagram photo of May 29, 2018. Given the number of stories that get nominated at ITN/C right now with quality issues, I really don't anticipate the ITN box updating too quickly to be a problem. We could focus on addressing article issues instead of bickering about notability at ITN/C. Davey2116 (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
That is very different to the proposal. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:43, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No, you just repeated what you said. Sorry for not being clear before; if you think the proposal is saying something different, then I would like you to say what exactly you think it's saying, so that we can move this discussion forwards. Davey2116 (talk) 10:50, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Your assertion is incorrect. It is not about bespoke articles created for a particular news item, it is about the nomination of any article relating to a news topic which contains a suitable update and is of sufficient overall quality. Better? The Rambling Man (talk) 11:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • That's better, but my point still stands. If there are substantial well-sourced updates to, say, Tommy Robinson (section "2018 jailing"), Grenfell Tower fire (section "2018 blame controversy"), Mariella Frostrup (section "2018 social views"), and Kardashian (section "Instagram photo of May 29, 2018"), then yes, we'd post those. Now there's also an extra condition that the rest of the article must be of good quality since we're posting it to the MP. Tommy Robinson's seems to have a good update, so I think posting it would be in the spirit of ITN (which is, again, to bring good-quality updates to the main page). Davey2116 (talk) 16:41, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
You're right TRM, all those items are in fact "In the news". Mariella Frostrup is a crap article and not updated, Grenfell Tower is a decent article but not updated, Tommy Robinson (activist) is missing refs and has a crap update. Say all three of them were in good shape, with adequate updates that covered why they were in the news ... what would be wrong with posting them? How would our WP:Readers be adversely affected? --LaserLegs (talk) 20:34, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Because I selected just three. I could have selected 23. From tonight. And that's what will happen. And we will have nothing but trivia posted. Our readers expect to see encyclopedic articles posted on the main page, not WP:TOP25 crap. Just remove ITNC altogether and post a link there if you'd rather do it this way. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:36, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
But whats "trivia"? The Man Booker prize? Some plane crash? A bicycle race? It didn't happen with RDs and I don't expect it would happen with blurbs either. Just like RDs, if you think a story ought not be at ITN, take it up at AFD and the whole project benefits. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:39, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
No, that's nonsense. If a story about a new lemon-flavoured drink made it onto the news, using real lemons, we'd hardly question the notability of lemon yet the existence of the lemon article where the new lemon-flavoured drink may be covered should not become the target of an ITN story on the main page. The project would be inundated. You may not be aware but we only have to deal with around two or three RDs per day (not that many notable people die every day). I could nominate 23 stories for today for the UK alone right now. That's what this proposal advocates. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
TRM if someone found enough WP:RS about a lemon drink to write a standalone article, or update "lemon" enough, complete with background, history, development, marketing and reception AND do it while the item was demonstrably "in the news", I'll tell ya, I'd have to support it. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:51, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
How would you determine which of 22 other nominations to post when there is space for five? 331dot (talk) 20:54, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Fake problem, it's not happening with RDs, the quality gate is keeping tons of them off. What's the problem if the box turns around every day (it won't, but so what if it does?). --LaserLegs (talk) 21:00, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
There is no point to ITN if it moves so fast no one can find what they are looking for, or blurbs aren't there long enough for people to see. 331dot (talk) 21:01, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
More like "fake assertion by Laserlegs". We only have a handful of notable individuals dying every day and many of those are stubs so are not nominated. As I noted, from the UK, in one evening, I could nominate 23 ITNC items. And we don't even have mass shootings! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:06, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
This is literally a rehash of the same dead arguments from ITN/RD. On May 28th there were 21 RD entries - and that's without the NHS murdering any children!. Two of them were nominated (both by you) where one article is admittedly borderline. You could nominate 23 articles today, fine, show me 23 quality articles with sufficient updates. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:25, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
No, it literally (sic) is not. I supported RD because it was manageable (max. 3 or 4 per day) and objective (dead=dead). Oh, and when are you finally going to realise that I don't need to show you 23 quality articles with sufficient updates!!! That's not how ITNC has ever worked!! I can just nominate anything I like as long as it's "in the news". Then we all need to debate quality for each one (23 from the UK from yesterday alone). Is that clearer? The Rambling Man (talk) 05:09, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose opening the floodgates for a news ticker. TRM covers my view pretty well. People are already free to use the rationale of "it's a slow period" to make a nomination. RD is a different case. 331dot (talk) 20:06, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
And regarding WP:MINIMUMDEATHS, that is simply a user collecting (perhaps valuable) information; it is not a policy, guideline, or even an essay. I think it shouldn't really be cited here or on ITNC as I have seen today. 331dot (talk) 20:08, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
How exactly does it "open the flood gates for a news ticker" and what exactly is a "news ticker" to begin with? --LaserLegs (talk) 20:29, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I have at this time nothing else to add other than what the other opposers have said. To quote Stormy clouds below, "There is a massive global flow of news, and only space for five blurbs in the template - we need to divide them somehow. As such, the system at present is fine in my view, and this would needlessly complicate it." 331dot (talk) 20:32, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
It would enable anyone to nominate anything which has an article covering something relating to any news topic and no discussion over its notability would be allowed. So I could nominate anything that was in the news, as I have already pointed out, three stories from just now. Indeed, it would be interesting to see what would happen if this was road-tested (as RD was, as you know, very successfully indeed). ITN/C would blow up and become unusable. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:34, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Indeed. I couldn't agree more. 331dot (talk) 20:36, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
And as I pointed out, those stories would all fail their noms because their either crap or not updated. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:37, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
There'd be dozens per day. This is unmanageable and promotion of the trivial. No good at all. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:43, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Ok so 331dot your oppose is based on a scenario that you're unwilling to articulate how it would come to pass, and what the adverse affects would be if it did. Duly ignored. Thanks for nothing. Feel free to open an RFC to change the WP:ITN#Purpose of ITN to "provide a curated list of topical items deemed important by the contributors at ITN/C". --LaserLegs (talk) 20:37, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't need to, as Wikipedia is "a curated list of articles on topics deemed notable by Wikipedia users". I don't need to articulate that which is explained by others and I believe you are actually aware of already. You always ignore the other three points when you state the first one. I have nothing else to add. 331dot (talk) 20:44, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
You're right, Wikipedia is already governed by WP:N and it's working just fine for the whole project. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:52, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
All of Wikipedia is not posted to the Main Page. 331dot (talk) 20:55, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Right-o, just go ahead and open an RFC to change the WP:ITN#Purpose of ITN to "provide a curated list of topical items deemed important by the contributors at ITN/C" and we're all set then. You should do the same for TFA and OTD as well I imagine. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:01, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Don't need to, as everything on Wikipedia is like that, but thanks for the tip. 331dot (talk) 21:03, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
You're right, everything on Wikipedia is required to satisfy WP:N. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:06, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Where are you going with this? Just in circles? This is irrelevant and would only apply to articles which are created solely for the purpose of news items. And that's not what this proposal is stating. Perhaps we should move onto something that might progress the discussion? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:08, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - in my view, such a change would render ITN redundant, as Portal:Current events still exists, and was not deleted as proposed. Moreover, it attracts significant viewership in its current form. In the portal, news stories are reported directly as from reliable sources, and I find it to be a very useful tool for navigation to articles. ITN's job is different - it is to provide an easy path for users to navigate towards good quality articles which are relevant due to being in the news, and deemed of significance by consensus opinion of editors (which I feel is apt even when I disagree on certain items). It also maintains visibility for articles which are prominent in the news for longer than the portal, which is not an issue in my opinion - GDPR, the 8th Amendment vote and the UCL are all still relevant to our readership now for instance. Delays occur during slow news cycles, and I don't think that abandoning significance as a criterion will resolve this. There is a massive global flow of news, and only space for five blurbs in the template - we need to divide them somehow. As such, the system at present is fine in my view, and this would needlessly complicate it. Stormy clouds (talk) 20:12, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support We've seen too many otherwise-good articles get rejected at ITN for being "not notable enough" as determined by a very small number of !voters. To me, this goes against the purpose of ITN, which is to bring quality updates about topics in the news to the front page. Of course, if readers will be looking for a topic, we should post it. Given the number of stories that are nominated to ITN that have quality issues, I don't anticipate the box updating too quickly to be a concern. Also, WP:MINIMUMDEATHS is utterly ridiculous as written; to be frank, if there's a good-quality article about an event covered by RS, I'd be willing to support it, regardless of the number of deaths. Davey2116 (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
If you feel not enough people are participating, then feel free to go out (on Wikipedia) and encourage people to participate. It is true ITNC is only as good as the people who participate, but making us irrelevant doesn't help the project. Readers look for updates to Kim Kardashian's hairstyle, should we post that? You undercut your argument by conceding that many nominations are made but fail due to quality issues, that would only be exacerbated if the floodgates are opened. 331dot (talk) 20:41, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • If it's covered by RS and has an objective, well-sourced, non-stub, prose article? Yes. This way we can focus on addressing article issues if possible, instead of bickering about notability. Davey2116 (talk) 22:46, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment two things, this change, if it receives any consensus, would need to be extensively trialled (like RD) for, say, a month, to check how it operates. Secondly, "We post way more RDs than ITN entries every week now." is in the original nomination. Um, so what? The actual question that should be asked here is "Are we posting more or fewer stories at ITN than we ever have?" If statistically significantly "yes" then we can seek to address the underlying issue (is it an increase in the demand in quality perhaps?) and if "no" then what's the problem? I guess this proposal is one way to get a mass shooting or two permanently sitting on the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:39, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Indeed. It is always those who fail to get things posted or don't like what is posted that want to change the system. 331dot (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Agree 100%. Just like we did with the very successful change to ITN/DC, a trial is a must. TRM you're already a strong bulwark against crap articles getting on the MP, but we've seen recently that even with the current criteria consensus to post a "barely notable" event with a crap article + one rogue admin == the item posted. I can't see this change as being worse. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:49, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it would be an order of magnitude worse. There would be dozens of nominations per day from all the pet projects who curate their own little fiefdoms well, and articles would pass through ITNC, scores per week, the very epitome of a news ticker. Most of it would be trivia and the real encyclopedically valuable stories would get lost. As for the rogue admin, just get rid of him (and the others who don't seem to understand how ITNC works – the main page is not a sandbox). The Rambling Man (talk) 20:54, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
If an article has no encyclopedic value, it should go to AFD. Consider this: When there is no more Support This is a very important story, people might actually READ the articles, check the refs, check the prose, and comment on the substance instead of the style. A long shot maybe, but I like to dream. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:58, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
No no no, wait. No-one is suggesting that the lemon article has no EV, just that the existence of the lemon article with a tip of the hat to a new lemon drink would be grounds for nomination and therefore a debate over quality, suitability of update etc etc etc, and we'll be doing that dozens of times per day if this proposal succeeds. You need to drop the AFD stick now, no-one's talking about that. Perhaps you misunderstand. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:00, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Well it wasn't a "stick", it was a legit consideration. Let's work on this lemon example though, because I like it. Say someone writes a quality update to "lemon" about a new drink, with background, history, development, marketing, reception ... all the things that you'd expect for a substantial update (so much so that MOS would probably demand it be broken into it's own article), and demonstrated that it was in fact "in the news" ... then whats the harm in posting it? I expect at least some of our readers like lemon flavored drinks. Your concern depends on people beating down the door with quality updates and I just don't see it. As for filtering out crap, I think ITN/C can handle it. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:05, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
But your proposal is the same as the status quo because you're placing the requirements on all those sections to prove the significance. Bravo! And no, ITNC would be flooded with proposals. As I said, I'd be happy to nominate 23 items from tonight from the UK alone. I'm not sure how ITN/C would "handle it", especially when stories currently sit ready to be posted for up to 24 hours already..... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:11, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm reading what I wrote up there, I said substantial update, I don't see the word significant there ... some engvar issue crossing the Atlantic? We judge the substance of an update all the time: for sports stories, plane crashes, whatever the community has a pretty good handle on when something is updated enough. Throw out the "significance" requirement and suddenly admins don't have to judge of there is "significance consensus" and probably the noms won't die on the vine. That's whats killing noms like MH-17 and Cyclone Mekunu: unclear consensus on significance. ITN/C is handling the extra RD load just fine, I think it's a shining example that would easily apply to the rest of ITN. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:02, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I really believe this whole proposal can be simplified to the question "should ITN be a news ticker?" since that seems to be what you want. Why do we need human involvement at all? Just write a bot to feed articles to the main page. 331dot (talk) 00:21, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
To gauge article quality and that the item is actually in the news? That's probably a good start. What exactly is a "news ticker" anyway? I think ITN should fulfill it's WP:ITN#Purpose without trying to editorialize. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:28, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
There are other purposes besides the single one you are fixated on. 331dot (talk) 01:45, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is unworkable for the regular ITN section. For RDs every person (or animal) has a single article and this allows a "clean" and simple notability threshold. But a news item may result in anything in a dedicated article about the event, a new section in an existing article, a new paragraph, a sentence and a few tense changes, or even just an additional row in a table. Literally thousands of articles are updated every day due to new events - films are released, songs make the charts, new scientific papers are published etc. etc.
Even if we're just looking at new articles, as a reductio ad absurdum the day after the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final there was the 2018 EFL League Two play-off Final which decided which team would be promoted from the fourth to the third tier of English football. Both have dedicated articles, and they're the news (the latter more locally to Coventry than the world), but only one makes the remotest of sense being linked on the main page.
Figuring out what is worth publishing on the main page is hard, but that's not a good reason not to do it. --LukeSurl t c 21:16, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Note that this was also proposed less than a year ago: Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news/Archive_63#remove_importance_criteria. --LukeSurl t c 21:20, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose There are many unintended consequences which come from proposals to discard significance as a policy. We have, as a community, enough problems with notability as a guideline as it is. This would only cause a serious lack of control and oversight towards a front-page element of Wikipedia which needs all the control and order it can get. doktorb wordsdeeds 21:38, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • There's a semblance of a good idea here, though it needs refining. We can't completely do away with significance criteria, but I've long thought that we ought to post just about any event that is "in the news" by some objective measure (front page of the websites of news outlets in a given number of countries, for example) and has its own Wikipedia article of a reasonable quality. We'd post a lot more sporting events that only a small segment of the world care about, but they'd rotate off quicker as well, solving the problem with the "freshness" (or otherwise) of ITN. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:15, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Not clear what text is being proposed to be deleted, changed, or added. The gist is that ITN criteria is deemed too exclusive. However, Wikipedia:In_the_news#Significance doesn't currently define significance; it's more describing that there is no overriding consensus on what is usually approved for posting. My suggestion is that any proposal needs to have safeguards against WP:NOTDIARY updates in articles.—Bagumba (talk) 23:04, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
The proposal is to basically junk the significance criteria all-together and align ITN with ITN/DC. As for your concern, WP:N(E) applies to all articles nominated for ITN or otherwise. It's a useful tool and is already in place. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:09, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
WP:N(E) applies to articles about an event. ITN would need similar filter criteria about event updates from content in a general article e.g. a trending topic posted in a Kardashian bio.—Bagumba (talk) 23:15, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I think WP:TMI applies there? I don't think ITN needs separate policies from the rest of the project, if we'd just enforce the existing policies. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:31, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment A lot of the opposes seem to be copy/pasted from Wikipedia talk:In the news/2016 RD proposal. It's been two years since we fixed ITN/DC, and back then a lot of people complained about "the flood gates" and "news tickers". None of that happened. No barbarians at the gate, no complaints from readers, just more quality articles making it to the main page. There is also a LOT less bickering and fighting about "importance" and "notability". It worked great, and it's way past time to extend that same successful model to the rest of ITN. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:06, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
This is a totally different ball of wax, as has already been pointed out. There are far more news stories than deaths. Not every news event is notable; some get outsized attention for various reasons, some don't get the attention they probably should. I am still waiting for an answer as to how you would decide to post 23 simultaneous quality articles in a space for five, in such a way that they would actually be seen by readers(which is the claimed goal). 331dot (talk) 00:15, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
There aren't going to be 23 simultaneous quality articles, just like there aren't > 5 simultaneous quality articles about recently deceased. You're trying to decide what should be in the news, that's your problem. I go by what's in the news, and let WP:N be my guide. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:20, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Of course there will be. There is far more news than deaths. My local paper is full of news that by your criteria would merit posting. What about the other 100,000 regular editors who all have their own local paper? How would you decide what to put in five spots when you take consensus out of it? I don't want ITN to parrot the press. A bot can do that. 331dot (talk) 01:50, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Um, I just told you that I could have nominated 23 stories from the UK for yesterday alone. I'm not concerned with the quality, we can fix that once I've nominated the stories, after all it'll get more eyes on each target article, right? There is absolutely no read-across from RD, as you have been told time after time after time here. Just playing WP:ICANTHEARYOU won't really have any positive impact on the outcome for you here other than to ensure others realise this proposal is completely flawed. The Rambling Man (talk) 05:06, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't support doing so, but getting rid of quality requirements makes more sense to me than this seriously ill advised proposal to make ITN a news ticker. 331dot (talk) 01:53, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - I admit that I was expecting the rather chilly reception to this proposal, particularly considering, as someone else pointed out, another version of this was proposed not that long ago. However, I still contend that the significance requirements for posting on ITN need to be severely lessened from where they currently are, even if not done away with altogether. While it might be true that dozens of noms a day would be untenable, our current posting rate is not very timely. The most current item on WP:ITN dates back to May 26th. We have much, much more quality content that can be shown on ITN that is hampered due to each person's arbitrary and subjective definition of newsworthiness, which ultimately boils down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT.--WaltCip (talk) 10:57, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
    Reduction (or removal) of significance would drop the rate of posting further as more and more lame nominations are made, all of which would need to be reviewed for suitability and all of which would potentially draw resource from the nominations which carry significant encyclopedic value. After all, why would we want a mass shooting nominated every other day? The Rambling Man (talk) 11:26, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
    Those mass shootings that happen every other day don't each have their own individual Wikipedia articles, because they don't satisfy WP:N. As for the ones that tend to make the news here in the U.S. because they happen at schools or large public areas, and so have articles as a result, they represent a small portion of those shootings. It wouldn't be the deluge that you're predicting.--WaltCip (talk) 11:38, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
    Are you saying that your proposal relates only to news items which have their own article? If so, you didn't make that clear at all and we should start over. If not, then it would be trivial to add a paragraph to the List of school shootings in the United States article for each mass shooting which would represent a sufficient update for it to be postable. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:43, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
    I apologize if I didn't make that clear. Yes, that was the thrust of my argument.--WaltCip (talk) 12:03, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. This would fundamentally change the entire purpose of ITN and result in dozens of nominations every day. There may be good reasons to relax the significance criterion or encourage more nominations, but this proposal would be cracking a nut by detonating a nuke on it. Take a glance at P:CE for just a small sample of the number of possible items, see how strongly it is affected by WP:BIAS, and imagine how on Earth we could keep up with assessing several times that number of items on ITN/C whilst still giving editors enough time to comment. More importantly, such a high turnover of unimportant stories would not help readers and be detrimental to the quality of the encyclopaedia. The notability threshold for being in ITN needs to be much higher than simply having an article (thousands of which are created every day). Citing RD as an example is counter-productive because I think removing the significance criterion there has been a complete disaster (although that's a discussion for another time). This proposal has huge unintended consequences that would be extremely damaging. Modest Genius talk 12:55, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
    Removing the bluster from RD debate has been an unheralded success, we should all be very proud of our eclectic RD listings which has drastically improved the quality of vast numbers of articles which would have languished incomplete without such an approach! The Rambling Man (talk) 12:58, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per TRM. Among other topics that have articles but I wouldn’t consider suitable for ITN: local-level elections, minor sport leagues, etc. I imagine this proposal as ITN/R, but with the idea that any article that exists would be worthy of posting, and that bar is far too low for full blurbs. Granted, there are many areas in which I would love to see more stories posted to ITN (generally these fall short due to poor-quality articles or lack of updates), but dropping the bar across the board isn’t the solution. SpencerT•C 13:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose even after the amendment. I believe that the news ticker concerns are very valid. Lepricavark (talk) 21:50, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose The proposed change would remove one of the more important checks preventing ITN from becoming an indiscriminate news ticker. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:06, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Clarification of proposal

Just putting a section break here. Per TRM's suggestion, I'm amending the above proposal to clarify that the relaxation or removal of significance requirements should apply specifically to news items which have their own article, as these would be presumed to have met WP:N requirements.--WaltCip (talk) 12:13, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

  • If its own article is required, would the current blurb on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 have qualified, because it's about an update to a 2014 plane crash. Also, it could encourage undue article splitting just to qualify for ITN.—Bagumba (talk) 12:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Does that mean I can nominate Paul Hurst in this proposed scheme as he's just become Ipswich Town F.C. manager? He has his own article, and I could update it with a para or two. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:21, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I would still disagree with that. For example, anything Trump related would be automatically posted for the most part. We very much need discretion on significance to make sure the ITN boxed reflect not the news, but a broad global community across a range of topics, that happen to be in the news. --Masem (t) 13:27, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I thought about this as well, but didn't see how it was workable. We're already judging the update and quality of noms and are doing a fine job of it. Look at Portal:Current events few of those articles are MP ready. We would be just fine. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:36, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
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Liberalize, don't remove

There is no consensus for this proposal, leaning towards consensus against. The suggestion to have a trial received no support. Thryduulf (talk) 14:37, 9 June 2018 (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.

If an item is making headlines, significance is assumed. That lets things like MH-17 get posted. If it's not making making headlines, you can still argue for significance and get it posted. This lets things like record painting sales get posted. We already do a pretty good job of judging if something is in fact "in the news", this would guard against local elections, but still satisfy WP:ITN#Purpose #1. Quality gate would still stand for all, obviously. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

There is probably room for tweaks. Can you provide the specific wording that you are proposing?—Bagumba (talk) 00:20, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
I would support adding a clarifying statement that significance is determined by objective measures of significance, such as volume of text in reliable sources or level of coverage, and that votes assert a lack of significance (or that assert significance) without referencing such should be summarily ignored. Significance is important, but as with anything, assertions in the absence of evidence are meaningless. If one asserts a story is not significant in the face of reliable sources that show it is, we should ignore that assertion. --Jayron32 02:25, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Volume is a bad bad measure. That 1) favors western news (US and UK primarily) over other parts of the world, 2) makes no distinguishing element between day-to-day events and actual NEVENT-meeting news (eg: right now, every little thing Trump says gets far and wide coverage that would certainly pass this mark of "significance" by volume but is not news, and would allow floods of celebrity news) and 3) is the antithesis of "ITN is not a news ticker". Being covered by news is a necessary element, but volume has never been a consideration for precisely these reasons. And given that we typically average one story a day that gets posted, this would be far too liberal and likely exceed the capacity the ITN box on the main page is set up to handle. --Masem (t) 02:31, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
I'm OK with you establishing any reasonable objective measure of significance, so long as it's reasonable and objective. The situation we have now, which consists solely of people deciding something is not significant merely because they don't want it to be is suboptimal in the extreme. First, establish what we need to judge. I don't really care what it is, but it should be the sort of thing where any random person could assess the nomination against the established standards and then we have something. The only standard we have now is "Do I care about this myself". That's a shitty standard. --Jayron32 02:03, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Can't be done, so we have what we have, until the proposal to remove both ITN and DYK from the main page is enacted in due course. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:07, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Just stating "can't be done" is meaningless. It could be done. You just don't want to, because it would mean that you have to give up power over what gets posted based on your singular personal opinion of what should be important. --Jayron32 05:14, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
No, not at all, I'm stating it's impossible to produce an objective, global, non-systemically biased measure of significance. Of course, you have completely failed to suggest such a measure. So yes, this is a waste of time unless something concrete is proposed, the rest of this is all conjecture and self-satisfying hand-waving. And please, don't put words into my mouth, that way you're heading for a desysop. Oh, and I'm all in favour of such a solution if you could provide one, because then we could get a 'bot to run ITN and remove the rogue admins from the project entirely. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:00, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
It's not just an ITN thing, it's a Main Page. Highlighted content off the Main Page (those bolded) are expected to be some of WP's best work; that principle applies to each box on the main page. What is our "best work" can be subjective, but there are some basic minimum article standards that are clearly expected that don't depend on subjective opinions (such as length and sourcing). --Masem (t) 05:24, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
I don't know what statistical sample you are looking at which indicates that we post an average of a story per day. I don't think that has happened since Trump's first 30 days in office. Our post rate is closer to a story per week. It's abysmally slow. We actually had a timer that we ended up getting rid of which showed the length of time that had elapsed since the latest post, and part of the reason for that was because it always took so long to post things. Fernando Lugo didn't become a meme for no reason.--WaltCip (talk) 13:37, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
It may not be as frequent as one story per day, but it is definitely not as infrequent as one a week. I do know we have had periods where there has only been a few stories posted over a few weeks time (back around the time of Robin William's death, which was a lingering blurb for at least 2weeks after it happened), but that's one period. We've had cases where the entire ITN block has rotated out over a day, leading to some complaining "my blurb didn't get any time at ITN!". It might be slower but it is no way that slow. --Masem (t) 17:30, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a trial There are ~20 RDs everyday, but we only post 1-2. It's intellectually dishonest to say that the RD process is a success but it could not work for blurbs and provide the same rationale editors gave for why the RD process would fail. Our arbitration of what is significant stinks. It leads to dumb ad hoc requirements like "encyclopedic value" and "MINIMUMDEATHS." It favors heads of state over heads of government. If favors sport that is watched in more countries over that watched by more people. Frankly, "significant" is a weaselly word that tries to obfuscate personal preference for fact. It's why so many editors always seem to find more significance in events that happen where they live, while decrying those across the pond as "local stories." What's the harm in giving it a shot? ghost 16:23, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
    Not dishonest in any way at all. I have already stated that I could nominate 23 stories for ITNC from the UK alone for one evening. It will not work for blurbs. You are missing the point. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:26, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
    Even so, the point of significance being an arbitrarily established subjective standard should still be taken into consideration. There's no consistency in how it's applied. It literally depends on who's logged in at that point in time. We've had complaints before about "American stories being posted while Europe is asleep", indicating that !voters in that region would contravene the consensus that was established at the time the story was posted on account of regional differences.--WaltCip (talk) 17:40, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
    To that, I would point back to the discussion above about "minimal time before posting/closing". I definitely felt I was in that camp that we should have noms opened for 24hr minimum to make sure one full cycle of the earth's rotation to get various regional differences, but the more I mused on it, all that ends up on the admin that decides to post "fast" that they take responsibility, which means that's a potentially misuse of the broom to be dealt with in other ways. For example, if (fake) admin "MuricaNumberOne" repeated posted US-centric stories within hours of nomination, and did not heed post-posting complaints to this, that would be reason to take MuricaNumberOne to AN to seek a ban from taking ITN actions. We don't want our hands tampered when there are obvious stories that will or will not be posted. I know I posted Hawkings' death as a blurb in a few hours of its nomination, but I will stand up to that that Hawkings was a figure of clear significance around the globe, and thus was confident that was right. I don't post anything else that fast because I need that consensus for significance (and quality, though I try to review that too myself). --Masem (t) 17:55, 4 June 2018 (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.

Missing item in ongoing events

I saw on the page for the news that not only the current event listed, it is missing the 2018 lower Puna eruption as a current event. Felicia (talk) 21:17, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

No, you actually can't add it (you're not a sysop, right?) and we go through WP:ITNC for these discussions and to seek consensus. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:18, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Brackets or parentheses?

This is very minor, but I was slightly concerned about this kind of edit (pinging Nixinova as courtesy). As far as I can remember, we have always used brackets instead of parentheses to indicate the status of the thread, and I am not sure why we are seeing parentheses recently. Now, I am not really concerned about which one should be the standard to use, but I think it's unnecessary to go around changing them for the sake of consistency unless if there is a consensus to do so as a result of a discussion. Alex Shih (talk) 06:22, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@Alex Shih: Stephen told me it has to do with linking to closed sections, and that parentheses are preferred. The change seems to have occurred in the last few months, and I know of no discussion, but it seems sensible. Vanamonde (talk) 06:27, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
There were about three discussions a week or two ago, around here. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Hmm okay, seems sensible to me too, thanks for the links guys. Can I just make a note here that when fixing markups for others, I think it should still be the good practice to mention that in the edit summary. I'll try to use parentheses too moving forward. Alex Shih (talk) 06:34, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

(Closed) Systemic bias

This thread is generating far more heat than light. Lepricavark (talk) 03:41, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

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

For all the issues that Wikipedia has with systemic bias, I have to say that it's impressive (and refreshing) to see that the ITN ticker has been completely international over the last few days, with no U.S.-centric stories posted. Good job to all.--WaltCip (talk) 19:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Does that "good job" comment apply to the abuse and insults thrown around in the Le Bron nomination? HiLo48 (talk) 21:38, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm all for international stories, but that doesn't mean there should be a goal of not posting US stories. The US is on this planet, too. 331dot (talk) 22:07, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree, but your perspective is interesting. It seems that to you, there are US stories and there are international stories. 95% of the world sees it differently. HiLo48 (talk) 01:51, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Not at all. I'm simply following on from what the OP stated. 331dot (talk) 02:01, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Fair comment. HiLo48 (talk) 02:04, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
"Good job" ignoring U.S. news? You're guilty of a systemic bias, Walt. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Most recent US stories that were not posted would never even be considered for any other country, don't you think? A top judge being replaced/retiring, a domestic court case, a non record signing in a sport, etc. Do you honestly believe not posting those is due to systemic bias? Just as random examples, would you support posting a Kenyan or Greek top judge retiring? Would you support posting other court cases resolved by the highest court in any given country? The only item that probably was not posted because it was in the US was the newspaper shooting(not to open that can of worms...). Just my opinion anyway, for what little it matters. 91.248.247.162 (talk) 03:18, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I supported the newspaper shooting on the basis that several right wing commentators and politicians had been calling for just such a thing to happen. To me, that's what made a shooting in the USA newsworthy. Most aren't. But there's this opposition inside the USA to talking about right wing, public hatred inspired crime. My suggestion got no support from Americans. Hmmmm. HiLo48 (talk) 03:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Without getting into the merits of any of the specific nominations, actively cheering that we're ignoring a country is a pretty big bias. It runs counter to the whole point of ITN. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:22, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, you can't say a country is getting ignored if you are not willing to look at the merrit of any given nomination. If there is something really noteworthy and it gets shot down, sure that would be bias. But i don't see that in the recent nominations at all, in an international context anyway. I also disagree that WaltClip is cheering on not posting nominations involving the US, but rather is noting that the editorial process works well enough to not get carried away with the over the top news coverage of any event US(how many 24/7 news channels are there?) but rather look at the actual merrit and broader significance. Sorry if i put words into your mouth there Walt, just my interpretation of the comment. 91.97.243.204 (talk) 03:34, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
The initial comment in this thread is what is relevant, not the merits of any U.S.-centric nominations that have recently failed. WaltCip says "the ITN ticker has been completely international", implying, as 331dot put it, that it's either "U.S." or "international". All five of the current ITN stories apply only to one country. The top story only pertains to Thailand. One of the stories currently on ITN pertains only to Canada. Another of the stories pertains only to Saudi Arabia. Then there's one that's about Mexico. The one about Japan isn't international either, though I suppose we could call it interstellar. The premise here is that it's okay to have stories that pertain only to one country, as long as it isn't the U.S.? This "fight" against systemic bias is a bias in and of itself. Shame on WaltCip. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:42, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Seriously? How about you stop that behaviour towards Walt? I don't think anyone is suggesting to not post important stories involving the US, just not US-centric ones. You do realise there is a difference between stories involving the US and US-centric stories, right? A US-centric story like a judge retiring should not be posted, just like it should'nt be for any other country. Or a purely domestic policy decision probably should not get posted either, just like it would not for any other country. Making exceptions for only the US would be systemic bias. But broadly significant, or perhaps unusual, events would surely be posted, just like they would for any other place on earth. And if there were 5 huge events in the US, no one in their right mind would say it is too many and oppose on that basis, but only look at the merrit of any given nomination. 91.97.243.204 (talk) 04:04, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
To add, how can you claim that something like the election of the head of state of a country of 120 million people is a purely domestic story? Or shall the US presidential election also not be featured, because... purely US story? The Thailand story is highly unusual, feel good news and so on. Even my 90 year old senile grandmother told me about that story, lol. The Canadian story, while i agree purely domestic, is still arguably noteworthy as the 2nd country overall, or 1st G7 country to legalize. The Saudi story, again domestic but noteworthy due to being one of the last countries to afford a basic human right, free movement, to all its citizens(even if only in Saudi Arabia itself in this case). And i don't think a scientific mission to further humanities understanding of the universe even needs talking about in regards to being international, or "interstellar" as you put it. 91.97.243.204 (talk) 05:58, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
We cannot control where major events happen, outside of fighting the systematic bias of what the press finds important (as we are not a news ticker). If we happen to have 5-stack of US-related stories simply because of the state of the news that week so be it. We should expect the same if there's a stack of UK-realated, EU-related, Asia-related, and so-forth. We simply need to recognize that we are not at all going to force to have a specific distribution of stories all the time. (We're not like the BBC, where there's always news stories on the various regional pages). --Masem (t) 03:42, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
It's a shame that Muboshgu chose to take the most cynical interpretation of my comment, implying that I am supporting no US-related stories being posted to the main page at all. All I was saying is that it is impressive that we have an internationally diverse selection of stories on the ITN ticker, when in the past the vast majority of stories tended to be US-centric. It's just a showing of how far we've come in terms of diversifying our selection of stories, especially in comparison to most media outlets which seem fixated nowadays on covering a running play-by-play of Trump's Twitter antics.--WaltCip (talk) 11:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
@WaltCip: I don't think I've taken an overly cynical interpretation, just an accurately cynical interpretation. I've been at ITN/C long enough to see the patterns of people fighting systemic bias by opposing U.S.-only events on reflex. Yet they don't seem to take the same approach to U.K.-only events. The way to reduce systemic bias is to write more articles on events from non-English countries and nominate them, which we have done a good job of lately. The wrong way to do it is to automatically reject U.S. stories by claiming they're too "parochial". – Muboshgu (talk) 18:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment we posted eight consecutive euro centric stories and not once did you flap your gums screaming about "systemic bias". It's a worthless bullshit objection which serves no purpose other than to push an anti American agenda. It's certainly not to be celebrated. Could someone please close this meaningless, bad faith, pointy thread? --LaserLegs (talk) 18:30, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Celebrating diversity on ITN is bad faith? I have to say that's an assumption of bad faith on your part.--WaltCip (talk) 18:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Eurocentrism is diversity? LOL come off it Walt, you've posted enough anti us diatribe at itnc to make this hateful thread totally transparent. If you want to amend WP:ITN#Purpose to include fighting bias or diversity or an international world view or whatever other lame fucking excuse you want to use to denigrate the USA go ahead and open an RFC so it can go down in flames. I'm digging out my laptop to close this trash. --LaserLegs (talk) 18:48, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Oh dear. Editing in anger is never a good idea. I'm glad I'm from a country that struggles to ever get an ITN item up. No-one can accuse us of centrism. HiLo48 (talk) 02:11, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
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(Closed) About school violence, workplace violence and mass murders

Consensus is against the proposal. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:51, 12 July 2018 (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.

I suggest that such an event should always be kept out of Template:In the news, unless it was: (1) an act of state violence (2) an event which is accompanied in a particular war or battle (3) an event whose number of the perpetrators exceeds three, so that contagion will become less likely to happen, as psychologists argue that if such an event receives massive attention from news media, contagion may occur (cf. Ch. 3 in Moral Panics over Contemporary Children and Youth). What do you think?--RekishiEJ (talk) 12:58, 3 July 2018 (UTC) replaced "four" by "three" 07:16, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Not needed - A rule like this isn't necessary since consensus tends to end up with such noms being WP:SNOW-closed anyway.--WaltCip (talk) 13:35, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose any blanket embargo or limitations on posting any subject matter. Discussion determines what appears in ITN. You are free to oppose nominations in the areas you suggest for the reason you wish- although we are not responsible for the decisions others make to commit violence based on what they read. Wikipedia only contains content that is already reported in third party sources; there are plenty of ways for someone intent to do harm to get the idea to do so. 331dot (talk) 13:49, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • @331dot: Yes, there are plenty of ways for a man who wants to commit a mass murder to get the idea to do so, but claiming that English Wikipedia does not have to take any responsibility for the current mass shooting epidemic in America is like New York Daily News claiming that its sensational coverage of such tragedies does not contribute to the epidemic, which is quite absurd, since English Wikipedia is very popular - even more popular than NYDN, which is currently the ninth most widely circulated daily newspaper in America.--RekishiEJ (talk) 07:27, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
      • And as I indicated, you are free to oppose nominations for that reason and see if it persuades others. (I don't recall seeing you participate at ITNC before) Based on what I see here, though, I don't think it would, but you can still do so. Wikipedia and ITN do not exist to right great wrongs. There is some reason to block many types of stories from ITN, if we did that with every possible story, we would have nothing left to post. And why stop with ITN? Why not just ban them from Wikipedia? Respectfully, this proposal is not a good idea. 331dot (talk) 07:55, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
        • @331dot: My proposal is not meant to right any wrongs. It is only meant to curb mass murder, school violence and workplace violence contagion.--RekishiEJ (talk) 12:20, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
          • Those all sound like pretty big wrongs to me, and you state that you want to curb them. Sounds like righting wrongs to me. 331dot (talk) 12:24, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
            • No, the rule you cited is meant to prevent users from adding the claim that a celebrity is a child molestor, an alleged criminal is innocent or a widely held view in a particular academic society is wrong without giving any reliable sources, not to limit the type of information on the main page to curb suicide or crime contagion.--RekishiEJ (talk) 16:16, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:NOTCENSORED Teemu08 (talk) 14:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - let the intuition of editors govern what is added to ITN. We do a good enough job as it is in my opinion, without adding unnecessary scaffolding. Stormy clouds (talk) 21:28, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose unless you want to block flood deaths, trampling deaths, vehicular rampage deaths, prison fire deaths, volcano deaths and basically every tragedy where non notable people are killed. --LaserLegs (talk) 18:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose these events can and should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Lepricavark (talk) 03:56, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
    • I don't think that such events should be evaluated on such a basis, just judge whether such an event meets at least one of the three exceptions proposed by me and decide whether to include it in the template.--RekishiEJ (talk) 07:16, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose proposal is a little daft, as it would exclude, say, a lone gunman killing 50 people in the Vatican City. Clearly, as written, this is not an acceptable constraint. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:54, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
    • @The Rambling Man:No, it's acceptable since this proposal is meant to curb contagion and if an event like the example you gave occurred it can still have an independent article and mentioned in Portal:Current events (but I suggest that the name of the victimizer and the number of casualties be withheld in the portal. Such information can still be mentioned in the article, though).--RekishiEJ (talk) 05:20, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
      • No it's not acceptable at all. Not to me. An event as I described should go on ITN. So you proposal fails my requirements, hence my opposition. The Rambling Man (talk) 05:22, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
        • @The Rambling Man:But psychologists argue that if a mass murder receives massive attention contagion may occur, and my proposal is meant to curb such contagion. Besides, I doubt that the only reason why nowadays workplace homicides become more and more common in America despite the fact that homicide rate now is significantly lower than in the 1970s is American news outlets' irresponsible coverage (e.g. every time such a homicide occurs it received national attention, despite the fact that it usually does not involve celebrities and happens in an obscure place; front page inclusion, extensive coverage; sensationalism).--RekishiEJ (talk) 07:08, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Attempts to censor or sanitize the realities of life are fraught with political danger and doomed to failure. (Sapere aude!) – Sca (talk) 14:51, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - As the largest provider of free information to the human world, Wikipedia has a moral responsibility to prevent further needless murders. And before anyone RIGHTGREATWRONGs me, remember the SOPA blackout. 2600:387:9:3:0:0:0:C1 (talk) 15:16, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
That was an issue directly pertinent to the operation of Wikipedia, this is not. We cannot fix every moral problem in the world. Wikipedia only has content already reported on by third party sources, not having the information here will not prevent someone intent on doing harm to get it. 331dot (talk) 15:22, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Should we remove all information on guns from Wikipedia? How about dangerous chemicals? Sex? This a dangerous slippery slope to go down. 331dot (talk) 15:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Actually IP, Wikipedia has a moral responsibility to educate and that means being encyclopedic in content, and not censored or manipulated to provide a tailored view of history. Time this discussion was called to a close, it's wasted by far too much time already. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:41, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Agree on both counts. Sca (talk) 21:49, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
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Why don't we add sports scores to blurbs

@Tone: @The Rambling Man: why don't we add sports scores to blurbs? We also don't add election results percentages -- but we do add death tolls from disasters. I don't care that much, just wondering. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:04, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I guess one reason is that different sports have vastly different scoring systems. Stating who won is very clear to everyone while score itself is informative only to people familiar with the particular sport. Also to conserve space (tennis scores are really lengthy). The same with election (who won + whether it was only the most votes or absolute majority, depending on the system). On the other hand, for disasters, the death toll is probably the most relevant thing about them. --Tone 13:48, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
This. While WC may have the simplest scoring system of any sport we post, most other sports have much more esoteric scoring systems that will not be obvious save for those that follow that sport (Cricket scores to me as a USian are likely as confusing as NFL scores are to a UKer, for example). It's who wins - that's understandable even if you don't understand the sport. --Masem (t) 13:53, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree with that as well. People who care about more than just who won a sporting event can either click the link to see the score, or might already know the score. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:09, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm not that bothered either (as I said at ITNC); I don't really see, though, why we can't use a case-by-case basis. I totally agree that a cricket match which says "Team X won by an innings and 27 runs after Team Y followed on" will leave a lot people saying "uh, what?", but pretty much everyone knows how scores work for any game which is "most points win", i.e. football / US football / rugby / basketball and so on. It can also be useful rather than trivia - the reader is likely to gain a completely different view of a football match that finishes 5-4 instead of 1-0, or a US football match that finishes 44-42 than one that finishes 7-3. Unusual scores might even prompt more click-throughs than the hooks would otherwise. Black Kite (talk) 14:12, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Agree with Black Kite. Most major sports employ relatively simple scoring schemes – European football being a prime example. The first thing most readers want to know is, What was the score? Why make them click on a link? How does that serve the reader? As mentioned at ITN/C, the no-score rule scores big on the counter-intuitive scale. Sca (talk) 14:29, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
"The first thing most readers want to know is, What was the score?" No, the first thing they want to know is who won. HiLo48 (talk) 02:30, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment so I'm ok with adding scores "when appropriate" on a case-by-case basis, but less ok with "the first time since 1968" factoids. Thoughts? --LaserLegs (talk) 14:41, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, the proposed/discussed change should be limited to simple scores. ITN isn't the place for the endless minutiae of sports records. Sca (talk) 15:23, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - I oppose the inclusion of trivia relating to scores, such as this World Cup having the highest score since 1966. However, I feel that including scores for straightforward games, such as football, gridiron, or even golf, particularly when record-setting outright, would be fine. Ditto for run times in athletics when posted. Stormy clouds (talk) 16:16, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
And, like LaserLegs and Sca, I think any proposal should be on a case-by-case basis, and only where consensus deems it suitable. Anything else would be counter-intuitive, and possible instruction creep. Stormy clouds (talk) 16:18, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Three reasons: a) Lack of reader understanding for sports they don't follow. To continue to examples above, non-cricket fans won't understand the notation & scoring system, and I certainly have no idea if 44-42 is a high/close/something else gridiron score. b) Space. A simple 4-2 doesn't require much room, but even football can sometimes have long scores e.g. 'drew 2-2 after extra time with team X winning 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out'. Imagine putting a five-set tennis score or winning times in motor racing. c) Because the score isn't why we're posting the item. It's there because it's a major tournament with widespread interest in the winner, not because the score is particularly remarkable. It's also better to have a single blanket rule (no scores in blurbs) than vary on a case-by-case basis, which just generates argument and edge cases. The status quo is fine. Modest Genius talk 14:08, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Scores alone can be confusing. And we may not have space in a blurb to explain. I could befuddle most people by giving a football score of 10-21 to 11-14. That's the winner's score first, BTW. HiLo48 (talk) 02:31, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment: My personal opinion is that readers can click on the article for relevant information. If scores are included, this could lead to needless complications, such as in multi-game series: is the series record included, since that's what's important for winning the championship, or is the score of the final game included? Why not leave all of that detail and clarification for the article. SpencerT•C 01:35, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Strange?

The IP address who suggested the Trump-Putin Summit is based in Washington, D.C.. Should we be concerned about this?Zigzig20s (talk) 17:13, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Nope, I don't see anything special about it. Brandmeistertalk 19:04, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: No blurbs for RD

The new RD process brilliantly circumvented the ghastly devil's advocacy against the worthiness of the recently deceased in ITNC discussions...most of the time. The availability of the blurb only opens the wound anew, with people necessarily dismissing the life's work of likes of the unrivaled Ms. Franklin. In the case of Vajpayee, it opened us up to clear bias and we should expect the same from Yanks for the unremarkable Bushes, or Brits for Major & Blair. “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm." Let's get rid of this stupid headache once and for all. ghost 13:46, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm more than willing to play nice in the sandbox, but why? ghost 15:18, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose – The death of a notable person is a hard-news story and will be played as such by news media. There is no reason, other than our own convenience, for relegating all notable deaths to RD. Sca (talk) 15:49, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per ghost. Even prior to the Kofi Annan saga, it's been clear for a while that article quality and rational discussion are both secondary to the bickering over whether a popular person gets namechecked at ITN in two-ish words (RD) or one sentence (blurb). Relying on the number of words to represent how significant a person was during their lifetime reminds me of newspaper obituary sections - small acknowledgement box or full page spread? A bike shed argument. If one of the purposes of ITN is to link to articles that are in the news, then RD serves that purpose. If a person's death was genuinely transformative, it should have a dedicated death (or other related event) article which in itself could be nominated as a blurb. Fuebaey (talk) 18:46, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Wikipedia is not news. And by extension and despite its name, "In the news" is not news. It is a carrot, a prize to encourage editors to improve these articles on very notable individuals, to use the opportunity of their deaths and the ensuing media coverage to bring these languishing biographies to meet a much higher standard which is beneficial to readers for years to come. We are here to build an encyclopedia. Announcing major events is just a positive by-product and not the main goal. ITN is not a news service. It is a WikiProject. Like all WikiProjects it should act in a manner that facilitates building a better encyclopedia. So what if we have arguments and bruised feelings? The most important thing is the end result. The possibility of blurbs has encouraged editors to significantly improve these biographies. The net result is a great improvement on the project. Time and time again it has been shown that a mention in RD is not big enough of a carrot to inspire editors to tackle improving enormous articles needing serious attention before publication. In the space of three days, we have seen major improvements to three highly critical articles. This could not have happened if a blurb was not possible. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 20:13, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
I disagree with the statement that blurbs are the only motivating factor to article improvement. ITN can be a positive factor in editing, having salvaged many a RD from Deaths in 2016 myself. But popular BDPs tend to get more editors than standard 'wiki notable' RDs. Like most neglected blurb nominations, if there is no interest in an article, then elevating the latter from RD to blurb status isn't going to spark an improvement drive. Fuebaey (talk) 00:25, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Support The RD section is clearly marked and meant for this sort of thing. Everyone gets worldwide reaction on the Internet, where any page is the front page. Editors are too quick to confuse transformative leaders in their fields with those who left the field to a new transformative leader before dying. When the latter sort die, there's no disruption/impact/change in the field, just rememembrance of things already changed. If a sitting leader dies with work left on the table, the vacuum or transition is the newsworthy event, and the figure should be mentioned as part of that story, but the simple end of a life story is no story in itself. As the guideline goes, "In general, if a person's death is only notable for what they did while alive, it belongs as an RD link." InedibleHulk (talk) 00:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Let say the *pick your favourite famous world leader* is assassinated in a spectacular manner, we're not going to have that because of a blanket ban on recent death blurb? The criteria of exactly what we want or don't want as blurb can be discussed but a blanket ban is over the top. -- KTC (talk) 00:21, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Spectacular manners can stand on their own merit, and when they do, their central figure can be mentioned. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:32, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
There's no qualification in the proposal. However the person died, it's still under recent death, and would be prohibited as proposed. -- KTC (talk) 10:12, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
You're being far to literal. Passing away of an older or sick person is a "recent death." The overdose of an 30-something actor or assassination of a sitting head of government is a news story in and of itself and would not be prohibited. ghost 17:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Are you saying this because of my mention to the death of JFK? My point was that such a death would be worthy of a full blurb if it took place today, not because of who he was, not because of the way he died (it's not a thing of mundane vs. extravagant), but because of the coverage to the event itself and the reactions to it. We don't have just an article about the death, buit also Reactions to the assassination of John F. Kennedy as another decent standalone article. Cambalachero (talk) 01:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
No, it was just an example of why I oppose a blanket ban. KTC (talk) 10:12, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Indeed it is, and with five proposals going nowhere, the question is if we are going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. ghost 17:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: formulate a list of objective criteria for RDs which can have blurbs

So, once again, with the Aretha Franklin vs Atal Bihari Vajpayee discussion going on right now, there's a much more frequent than perennial discussion over who deserves a blurb when they die, and the so-called "Mandela/Thatcher paradigm" is oft cited as to direct people to the bar which is required to be matched or exceeded for a few more words in the ITN section. People are now suggesting (for example) that all US presidents should get a blurb when they die, that all Indian presidents should get a blurb when they die etc. People are also suggesting (for example) that entertainers like Franklin (and the myriad others that came before her in getting a blurb) aren't worthy of consideration. Do we need to strike down this endless and ultimately damaging quarrelling by coming up with some objective criteria for blurb upon death (obviously assuming sufficient article quality)? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:25, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

 • Notable people who die are so diverse in significance and import, and the circumstances in which they die so varied (recent example: Anthony Bourdain), that a comprehensive, universally applicable set of "objective criteria" covering all notable deaths seems an unachievable goal. Best left to case-by-case discussion, however fractious. Sca (talk) 22:04, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Well, that's why WP:ITNR was created and seems to work in the vast majority of cases. So why not here? The Rambling Man (talk) 10:14, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
I could get behind that, and for blatantly obvious things like "The queen is dead" or "Shinzo Abe assassinates the pope" then WP:IAR would apply. --LaserLegs (talk) 22:19, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
I can see problems already though, as when the death itself is part of the news story, then that's not really just RD. An assassination, or, say in the case of Robin Williams, someone that took their own life unexpectedly. --Masem (t) 00:13, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm thinking we be able to have an idea where problem blurb boundaries are by going back through the last 3-4 years (as far back as when we formally adopted the "have an article, get an RD" stance) and doing a survey/!vote to say, in retrospectivity, should we have posted that blurb or not. It will give us an idea of the range of people we have blurbed, and potentially identify any biases in that that we should be aware of. For example, I am going to argue we do bias too much towards Western entertainers (this is not saying Aretha was bad, there were other problems before that) which reflects the media's systematic biases. --Masem (t) 00:13, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Perhaps it may be aceptable if an article "Death of..." is written or can be expected to be written, and has enough info in it to be a decent standalone article. There should be something more to it than just "the family had a funeral at the local cemetery, and some artists sent their condolences". Compare it with the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, which would be clearly worthy of a blurb if it happened today, and not just because it was a US president. --Cambalachero (talk) 14:01, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
The death of a notable person is a hard-news story and will be played as such by news media. There is no reason, other than our own convenience, for relegating all notable deaths to RD. Sca (talk) 15:47, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • It is clear from 331dot's suggestion above and GreatCaesarsGhost proposal below that there is no stomach for abandoning all RDs from blurbs. We already have two criteria for posting BDPs as blurbs. The former (an event surrounding their death) is something several editors have mentioned they want. The latter (significant enough for blurb?) is the one causing the issues. If the former has support and the latter is mostly negative, why not scrap that part? Fuebaey (talk) 14:14, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Support this None of the other proposals (save mine, which has been cleanly rejected) present a workable solution. I think it's this, the status quo, or no blurbs for deaths. Let's make SOME progress of all this debate. ghost 17:29, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: short descriptions for RD

The recent high-profile deaths of Aretha Franklin, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Kofi Annan caused contentious arguments at WP:ITN/C, with many of the same points being re-hashed for each of the three discussions. I've made clear my position that the so-called "Thatcher/Mandela standard" is too restrictive, but other editors can reasonably disagree.

Here's my proposal: add a short description of the individual (usually three words or less). So the current RD section looks like this:

Recent deaths:

Instead, my proposal would replace it with this:

Recent deaths:

Then, when someone we can't unanimously agree is "transformative" in their field (such as Vajpayee and Annan), then not posting blurbs for them would be a bit more palatable under this proposal:

Other recent failed blurb nominations would also be better served with this middle-ground between the current RD and a blurb:

Recent deaths:

I, for one, would be much more comfortable adopting the "Thatcher-Mandela standard" to decide who gets full-fledged blurbs under this proposal. The drawback of taking up more space in the ITN box should also be considered. Please share your thoughts, thanks. Davey2116 (talk) 22:03, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Noting ages at death runs contrary to remembering subjects as they were and as the articles mostly describe them. The plight of a 49-year-old wheezing gymnast in modern-day St. Petersburg is just bleak for bleakness' sake. But from a distance, there is harmony. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:00, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Now is the time to include Jimmy McIlroy to the main page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.161.233 (talk) 04:10, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Yet another RD/Blurb suggestion: Refocus on the "highest in their field" and de-emphasize "popular" fields

One of the issues in many of the recent blurb decisions is related to how much coverage a death gets, which leads to concerns about popularity, which for us becomes a !voting issue. The death of popular people will draw more !voters that think we need to post this "important" person's death, but that loses the fact that WP tends to avoid considering popularity for anything, and looks towards the encyclopedia value as a global encyclopedia.

For example, I don't think there was any question that someone like Stephen Hawking should have been blurbed. His is well-known, but more importantly it is clear he was one of the world's leading scientists. This can be the same logic for Thatcher and Mandala.

On the other side, we still have lingering issues of blurbs like Carrie Fisher/Debbie Reynolds. Both were top actors, but the problem is that Western celebrity news tends to get a disproportionate amount coverage, to make their deaths seem more influential than others. Those blurbs to me was a prime example of where many !votes were going "the media is covering this so much, we should too." Here's where recognizing our goal as a global encyclopedia needs to come into play, and be aware of the bias in coverage of popular people compared to influential people.

For that reason, I think we should be very careful of posting blurbs for anyone that is from the entertainment or athletic fields (which get disproportionate coverage) and require a clear showing that the person had a long-lasting legacy that influenced their industry, and was not just popular in their industry. (Eg Aretha Franklin would just get in with this, David Bowie, Prince and Michael Jackson as well; where as Fisher/Reynolds, or Christopher Lee, would not). Popular media may disagree with us, but we serve a different purpose, and we need to work against popularity as a determining factor. We should be thinking that if we're 20-50 years down the road, are these people that will have enduring legacies. I am 99% sure in the case of Thatcher, Mandela, and Hawking, and very sure that it is not the case for people like Fisher/Reynolds.

Unusual/tragic deaths would still be a different evaluation: Robin Williams's suicide, for example, though the person should be the type that we'd consider a blurb already for. (A past example, well before we had our new RD rule, was Paul Walker's death - unusual, but he wasn't a influential actor, so we shouldn't have posted his RD back then. It would be RD material now, but not a blurb). And deaths themselves that are part of a larger news story should be considered (I can't find them immediately, but I remember a helicopter crash that included 3 notable persons, and a plane crash that took nearly a whole assn. football team). --Masem (t) 14:39, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

So tl;dr, ask people to be wary of RD blurb requests from entertainment and sport? TRM's original issue was that the significance criteria for RD blurbs was deliberately vague and open to subjective opinion. How does this proposal address that? Fuebaey (talk) 15:00, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Well first, we go back to assert "top of their field". This is not the same as "widely covered", which tends to get conflated with "top of their field". Take the India PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Nowhere close to the coverage of Aretha Franklin, but if you ask "was he the top of his field" (being a world politician), the answer is pretty solidly yes. In contrast, I felt we were pressured to post Carrie Fisher/Debbie Reynolds because of people pointing out how every paper was covering these deaths for days, but if you asked the question a week prior, "are they top of their field", that's pretty much not the case. We should be looking towards importance in their field absent the coverage of their death, if the death was by old age or health. That tends to get lost when a popular person is suggested for blurb. --Masem (t) 15:09, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
@Masem:, what are your thoughts about the updated language "In extremely rare cases, a death of major transformative, widely known figures with expansive global influence". I am up for suggestions on tweaking - really just trying to work towards a collaborative, workable solution here. Colipon+(Talk) 16:09, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
As far as this user knows, there is no objective listing of "fields" noting who's at the "top" of each. Totally unworkable. Sca (talk) 15:14, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Except that that's what we have right now. "In rare cases, the death of major transformative world leaders in their field may merit a blurb." As long as it is understood that unless we block any death blurbs, who get a blurb is going to be subjective, this is going back to the advice we actually have and emphasizing that popularity is not the same as significance. --Masem (t) 15:19, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Apropos, how would you rank Amy Adams, who's at the top and bottom (with pics both times!) of today's Main Page? Or Madonna, who gets a 21,000-word article, outranking little old Napoleon, who gets a mere 18,000 words? Sca (talk) 15:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Within a field, you still need to use well-evidenced judgement calls, but "popularity" needs to be de-emphasized. Our advise is "transformative", meaning their activity in that field changed the field in a significant manner. That's going to depend on field to field, but its common sense. We're not going to compare field-to-field, and we shouldn't use how developed an article is as evidence either (though of course quality still remains an ITN requirement). This is why Aretha's blurb is reasonable, a reason she's named Queen of Soul (just as Madonna is recognized as the Queen of Pop and would likely be a blurb for the same reasons). Amy Adams is popular, but she's not a transformative figure in the film industry. --Masem (t) 15:46, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
No kidding. My point is that, generally, pop-culture celebrities get far too much space on Wikipedia. Sca (talk) 15:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
If Madonna dies right now, it'll be significant because her new album will be released, received and forever listened to differently than it would if she went on to record six more and pass the torch first (or theoretically not released at all). A transformative world leader will have died, not a formerly transformative one. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:02, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
We already have a clear case on this, with David Bowie - his death happened within a week of his latest album's release, but it wasn't for that reason that he was blurbed: he was a transformative top-of-field person in music before that album was released. Madonna, if she passed today, would be the the same boat as a transformative leader in music due to her being the "Queen of Pop". These elements stay with these people even if they retire (as was the case with Aretha). Would be the say if we were talking world leaders or the like. We'd be looking at their entire career to determine top-of-field and transformative, not what they are doing in the short time period to their death. --Masem (t) 14:06, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
I ask because, in my intepretation, this doesn't change anything. To quote WP:ITNRD:
In rare cases, the death of major transformative world leaders in their field 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 community consensus that the death merits a blurb. Comparisons to deaths of prior persons (we posted John Doe, so we should also post Jane Smith, or conversely we didn't post Bill Jones, so we cannot post Susie Johnson) are rarely considered sufficient to post in absence of consensus.
We will still have arguments over whether a person is transformative and what fields to consider. Editors are still going to conflate popularity with significance, the same way that many (~80% of) editors are not going to read the article of a well-known person/event prior to commenting. Fuebaey (talk) 16:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
I guess the key thing here is to remind those that are !voting and reviewing !votes that the number and types of articles published about the death of a person should not be a factor, and merely evidence of popularity should be dismissed as a reason. "Popular" != "top of field". We'll still have debates on what is "Top of their field", but too many of these recently have been tainted in that people want to point out how popular a person was as evidence. --Masem (t) 17:10, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
But unlike asking an editor who has made a comment on significance to also make one on article quality, the line between popularity and top of the field is more fuzzy. Actively pointing this out in someone else's comment may be seen as you disagreeing with someone else's opinion rather than it being against 'the guidelines'. Fuebaey (talk) 17:41, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
I am saying we should make it clear: popularity should not be treated as a factor of when to post a blurb, period. A person's death making front page headlines on 100s of newspapers is not sufficient reason to post. There may be a good reason why it appeared that many times, and that should be a review of if they were top of the field (as the case would be for Aretha as "Queen of Soul") but if there's no good reason like that, as in Fisher/Reynolds, then we shouldn't have a blurb. On the other hand, a death may not be front page headlines (no popularity) but the importance in the field is reasonably clear or backed by evidence (the India PM here). It is not going to be a an objective line here, but it gets rid of at least one highly subjective aspect related to popularity. --Masem (t) 18:04, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
But how would you phrase a rule that could survive the Leia surge? IAR lets people vote how they want. All it takes is one admin saying "the masses have spoken" and the flank will collapse. ghost 18:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Cautionary notes that blurbs should not be based on popularity, and teaching admins closing ITNCs that !votes for blurbs based strictly on "this person was popular" should be discounted. Similar to an AFD discussion that introduces arguments to avoid. --Masem (t) 13:52, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

{{ITN talk}} Page View Proposal

Hi all, pretty unfamiliar with WP:ITN, so if this has been proposed before, I am sorry. {{DYK talk}} provides a link to the WMF Labs Page View tool so you can see the impact being on the main page has to an article's page views. Would this be something that people would support being be added to {{ITN talk}}? If you are unfamiliar with this function, you can see an example at Talk:Green Bay Packers Foundation, specifically the text in the {{DYK talk}} template that says (check views). « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:49, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Although a large portion of people may be viewing the article because it is in the news, rather than simply being on the Main Page (as I would guess is the case for most articles on DYK), this may be interesting, perhaps so those updating articles can see how many views the article had. Do you have a sample mockup of what this would look like for the ITN talk template? Personally I don't feel strongly either way. SpencerT•C 21:01, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
Something like this {{ITN talk/sandbox 2}}, but someone better with template editing would need to actually code it, especially in how it owuld react to multiple times being in the news. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:12, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: new criteria on "Multiple Cultural Spheres"

We have criteria for recent deaths today, but the criteria is left unduly vague and open to interpretation.

The current language is as follows:

  • In rare cases, the death of major transformative world leaders in their field 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 community consensus that the death merits a blurb.

My proposal for the amendment of the language is as follows (emphasis mine):

  • In extremely rare cases, a death of major transformative, widely known figures with expansive global influence may merit a blurb. This is generally indicated by the death itself being the main front-page headline of multiple global newspapers or reliable news websites in all major cultural spheres, including those in Asia, Oceania, Africa, Middle East, Europe, North America, and Latin America. Figures whose primary influence is within one of these cultural spheres, even if they are top of their field, are generally not considered notable for a blurb.

In short, this would exclude figures whose contributions are niche but extremely notable within a field that is limited to a specific cultural population (note that I distinguish cultural population from "nation-state" or "country" because there is wide cultural cross-over in the western world or say, South Asia as a whole). For example, the best sitar or ice hockey player of all time would be excluded from this, especially if their death were from old age. The most transformative guitarist and soul musician, likewise, would be moved to RD. As would the presidents and prime ministers of even the most "major" countries whose influence does not have notable foreign impact.

Consider Michael Jackson, however - his death was widely reported in all seven of the regions listed above as headline-frontpage news. Ditto for Nelson Mandela. Margaret Thatcher is merely borderline - not sure people in South Korea or Honduras particularly cared about her death, at least not enough to make it the front-page headline.

The premise here, of course, is that the English language Wikipedia is truly the global encyclopedia, and not there to serve primarily English-speaking countries. This proposal would fight systemic bias and reduce perennial debates. Colipon+(Talk) 02:31, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

This would almost certainly not "reduce perennial debates." Howard the Duck (talk) 03:02, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
You're also wrong about the impact these people had, and therefore the amount of news coverage their deaths received. Franklin's death was reported in India, in Pakistan, in Russia, in South Africa, and in the Middle East. Vajpayee's death was reported in the US, the UK, the Middle East, Australia, and Russia. The threshold for a death being reported globally is far lower than the "Mandela/Thatcher" fixation we have here. As such, this would solve nothing. Vanamonde (talk) 05:00, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
I think I made it clear that the story must make the front page as the main headline for it to have the sort of "blurb-worthy" impact we are looking for. So you are right, for Franklin these things were reported in Russia and Qatar, but as mostly an inset article (in a newspaper) or a minor headline (for a website). I think certainly in non-English sites (let's say, the top newspaper in South Korea) you would struggle to find her death being reported at all, let alone being a headline. Compare that to Michael Jackson - which certainly appeared on the front pages of Japanese and Ghanaian newspapers alike. Colipon+(Talk) 15:52, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
And you're wrong if you think transformative means "best of all time" or "celebrated" or "accomplished". It means "causing or able to cause an important and lasting change in someone or something". Many people used to be transformative, but most (including the recent three) lost that power when they retired (or fell out of fashion). When they quietly expired, nothing changed the way it could've if they dropped in their primes. A bunch of people just talked and wrote about their lives. The current powerhouses of the UN, India and American soul are still as transformative as they were the day before the old crop died, and these are the people our guidelines (current and proposed) are talking about. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:47, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Where are you getting the idea that the criteria "major transformative world leaders in their field" includes the word "currently?" As per your reading, Katy Perry would qualify if she dies tomorrow, but Mikhail Gorbachev, Sidney Poitier, and Barbara Streisand would not. If we required leaders to die in their prime, there would be no need for a separate qualification for them. As it stands, we can post someone who dies surprisingly in youth OR was long removed from their time of influence. ghost 11:28, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
"Currently" is the default standard in generally everything descriptive, until "formerly" is specified. If I'm told to count blue cars, I don't worry about the ones repainted black. If I'm to admit only children, former children don't slip by. If a basket is labeled "dirty gloves", I'm not loading it with washed ones. And so I'm not about to consider someone out of their field as in their field.
If Katy Perry dies tomorrow, that would cancel upcoming releases and tours, creating a substantial void in the music business that needs filling. If Sidney Poitier dies tomorrow, The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn premieres as it always has, his life insurance company loses money and nobody rushes to take his (contemporary) spot on the old folk's bench. That's not to knock old folks, just to reiterate the fleeting nature of power and glory. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:10, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
That's quite beside the point; there are two distinct criteria, (call them "surprise" and "legend") either one of which would qualify one for blurb status. If a Legend must also be a Surprise, but a Surprise need not be a Legend, there is no need to maintain a separate criteria for Legends. NOW, I would (and have, above on this page) supported removing the Legend criteria and only blurbing Surprises, but status quo, unsurprising Legends qualify. ghost 00:11, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
These allegedly distinct criteria (by any name) are news to me. Can you share where you found them? I don't think Michel Temer is anything like a legend, nor would his death at 77 come as a surprise, but he's a transformative figure via his role as President and might merit a blurb. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:18, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Of course we're here to "serve primarily English-speaking countries;" that's where most anglophones are. The global focus concerns WHAT we are providing, not WHOM. ghost 11:32, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Heads of state vs government

The ITNR talk page doesn't get much traffic, so I'm posting here a note that I've started a discussion there. And guess what? It's not about recent deaths! --LaserLegs (talk) 10:46, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: Policy / consistency for when to nominate ITNR items, especially elections

I see that the Pakistan election nomination has been temporarily closed, because of the need to wait "until results are available to update the article. As this is ITNR, there is nothing to discuss until then." However with the US presidential election on November 8, 2016, the item was nominated many hours before voting started (not finished), and the nomination was not closed for the same reason.

In the US election discussion in November 2016, one editor stated "All we are doing is getting a jump on discussing the quality of the article and the eventual wording of the blurb. This is a useful exercise in that it can facilitate getting what is an obvious ITNR item up in a timely manner". The treatment of the two elections seems to be inconsistent, yet they are both ITNR items.

If the US election was treated in the same way as the Pakistan election, then the nomination should have been closed until the results were known. This did not happen. Is there a policy/precedent as to when exactly an election can/should be nominated? Or are there different rules for different countries?

Proposal: Elections can be nominated on the day on which they are held, but only posted once the results are known. Chrisclear (talk) 01:39, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't think this is a big deal. Since it's ITNR, the item will end up on ITN anyway (assuming the article is up to scratch). Given that, a difference of one day in when the nomination is made doesn't matter. Yes, it can be inconsistent and yes that can be aggravating, but it isn't something important. If someone wants to codify that into policy then sure, I just think there're better things to spend time on. Banedon (talk) 01:31, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
I disagree - it is a big deal, and it is important. It's one of many ways in which systemic bias manifests itself in Wikipedia. Or from another angle, if one day doesn't matter, then why bother closing the Pakistan election nomination at all? Clearly no one bothered to close the premature US election nomination in 2016. Chrisclear (talk) 01:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, it's arguably systemic bias, but since the end result is the same I don't particularly care what the process is. If you reopen the nomination I won't object (there's already an active nomination too), if someone closes it again I won't object either. There're just better things to spend time on. Banedon (talk) 02:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
The end result is the same if and only if someone follows up to reopen the nomination - but if that reopening did not happen, then it would remain closed, and a victim of the aforementioned systemic bias. Regarding your comment "better things to spend time on", I think that phrase applies more to those who took the time to close the nomination of an item that "is an obvious ITNR item", to quote the discussion from November 2016. Chrisclear (talk) 04:09, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
You could equally argue that the end result is the same if and only if an admin closes it before it becomes stale, which no administrator might because of systemic bias. Worry about it if the end result is not the same, not now. As for the "better things to spend time on" comment, if someone else is willing to spend time on something like this, it doesn't mean that you (or I) should, too. Banedon (talk) 05:11, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't think we need rules here, but I do see no issue in putting up a nomination on the day of an election or comparable "known" event (such as the 7th game of a best-of-four game tournament) on the day of the event to get input on article quality, assuming the update needed is relatively trivial and would be easily sourced. --Masem (t) 04:41, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose – These issues are best handled on a case-by-case basis, since in some countries civil unrest and political conflict make the situation more complicated. Generally, it's official results that get posted, but I don't think we need a rule mandating that. Sca (talk) 13:56, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose as per Sca (who appears to have summarised WP:INSTRUCTIONCREEP). Inconsistent procedures can be annoying to us ITN editors, but it doesn’t need addressing with policy unless it makes a detrimental impact on our output. —LukeSurl t c 14:10, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - for two reasons. Firstly, election methods vary so much from country to country. In some it's normal to have a result within days or less. In others it takes ages, and that is normal and accepted . Sometimes a country where it's normally quick can have quite long delays, such as with the saga of Dubya and the hanging chads in Florida. Secondly, I only found this discussion by chance, and would have otherwise been quite unaware of the result of this discussion, when there is one. Elections are often nominated by editors excited about one country, but not familiar with ITN policies. Any policy decided here would be breached far too often. HiLo48 (talk) 23:37, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment A simplier way to approach this: should items only be nominated to ITNC when they are ready to go? I've seen (and nom'ed myself) RDs that were "close" with the idea that the exposure would get them over the finish line. Meanwhile, it's typical to oppose noms that are not ready. It really should be one or the other. Either wait until it's ready then nom, or every "oppose" should be read as a "not yet." ghost 16:50, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, seems like a reasonable proposal. Otherwise, I'm sure we'll just continue with the double-standards. Kaldari (talk) 01:06, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Inconsistent treatment because people are inconsistent, doesn't mean we want to encourage pointless early nominations. Also, elections are not the only nominations that get nominated ridiculously early. I closed nominations for the last two Eurovision Song Contest precisely because it were nominated hours before the final even started. Sadly, I'm sure I'll end up doing so again next year. -- KTC (talk) 00:30, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I think what is needed here is some place to list shortly-upcoming events that are ITNR where any issues with article quality that would preclude posting can be noted so they can be worked on in advance. For example there isn't a need to wait on the result of the final of a sports tournament to write prose about the earlier matches, something that ITN regulars will know is needed but $sport editors might not. Maybe WT:ITNR would work? Thryduulf (talk) 15:34, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

RD and people whose non-recent deaths were just reported

Morgana King was recently nominated for RD, although unsuccessfully; the proposal was closed as stale after getting a single oppose on quality grounds and a couple of comments. As noted in the discussion (see current revision, section "(Closed) RD: Morgana King"), King had died several months earlier, but her death was not reported until last week. The participants (Strikerforce, Masem, Coffeeandcrumbs, and The Rambling Man) all seemed to agree that it would be okay to include someone whose not-recent death had just been reported for the first time, but as TRM said, Perhaps RD needs a clearer guideline to cover this scenario. Here's a proposal for that: what if WP:ITNRD were expanded with the following statement?

Deaths are deemed "recent" based on when they are reported; if a person's death is not reported until long after the fact, the person will still qualify if all other standards are met.

Please support this proposal, offer an alternate way of doing the same thing, or propose a substantively different thing (presumably something like "if a person's death is not reported until long after the fact, the person does not qualify for RD"), unless you don't think the issue ought to be addressed at all. Nyttend (talk) 00:20, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

  • InedibleHulk, why two weeks, rather than some other period of time? I can imagine you saying "we have to be arbitrary, and two weeks is sufficient"; is that reasonable, or have I misunderstood you? Not denigrating you; it seems to me we have to be arbitrary if we want to set a time limit. Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
If we need to be measured about it, we could calculate the average post-mortem time of RDs over a month and set that as "recent" in September. Or study the edit history from July and define it now. Two weeks isn't a firm figure on my part, just throwing it out there. Too soon? Too late? I'm flexible. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:18, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
No objection from me. Obviously I disagree with your vote :-) but if I had to pick a time-after-death limit like you're proposing, I'd be quite fine with two weeks as a nice round number; it's easily remembered, it's close to half a month, and (unlike half a month) always consists of the same length of time. Nyttend (talk) 02:54, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
Precisely one fortnight, too. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:16, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Well, we're already using "recent" in the name of the section; the proposal is that these individuals never be excluded on grounds of nomination-happened-too-long-after-death. Nyttend (talk) 03:51, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose These are rare enough that I feel like they can be discussed on a respective nom. SpencerT•C 03:21, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • There are SO MANY proposals here pertaining to RD. Would it be worthwhile to consolidate them into an omnibus of proposals in WP:RFC?--WaltCip (talk) 10:50, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Alternate A death should be nom'ed under the earliest date that an RS has reported it. Under the status quo, a death reported today that occurred Saturday would be nom'ed to Saturday, but a death reported today that occurred in March would be nom'ed to today. That's not fair or logical. ghost 11:34, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • GreatCaesarsGhost, I don't see the difference between your proposal and mine. I don't know how "recent" is defined (how old is too old to qualify?), but my proposal is that the ticker begin when someone's death is reported. Could you show me how that's not the same as your proposal? Nyttend (talk) 22:53, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • My reading of your suggestion is that there would be a dichotomy between delayed and prompt reports, and your convo with Hulk enforced that. Either way, a "ticker" from the first report makes more sense. ghost 00:04, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No, no, sorry to confuse you. The concept is that we count "recent" based on the first report. The only issue is that delayed reports (in my opinion) need to be mentioned because they're not so obvious as prompt reports. Nyttend (talk) 02:01, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment / Question Why did someone that participated in the discussion - in fact, the sole opposing comment in that discussion - also close the discussion? I'd contend that that was not proper. (I'll add my thoughts to the proposal at a later time.) StrikerforceTalk 13:58, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I'd be willing to re-close it if you want. But I'm inclined to close it the same way; it didn't get any support, and the opposition is based on quality, which makes sense. Plus, "stale" sounds good; if nobody comes around for days, is it still worth considering to be active? This isn't a months-long RFC on an obscure page where you might get one comment a month; this is a constantly updated Main Page section, where you can expect lots of comments in a short time, and a nomination without any comments should be deemed stale. Nyttend (talk) 22:53, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment: Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates covers the last week. If the difference between death and death report takes place in that time frame, then yes, nominate it at the day when it was reported. The main page template does not include the date anyway. For higher times (as suggested by the "long after the fact"), treat it like any other standard news blurb. If it is long after the fact, it's a death but it's not "recent". Cambalachero (talk) 02:27, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment Previously when this has discussed I've summarised the rough consensus as: a report within 1-2 days of the death should be nominated on the day of death, a report more than 4-5 days after death should be nominated on the day of the earliest significant RS coverage*, there being no strong consensus about reports 2-4 days after death. (*'significant RS coverage' meaning things like a single report in a local paper on the 24th followed by coverage in national media on the 26th should be nominated on the 26th.) I don't recall seeing any disagreement with this summary. Thryduulf (talk) 15:46, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
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