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This page in a nutshell: Deaths have their very own ticker, so the threshold to bump a non-death story off with a death blurb should be very high

Articles about deceased people have a special section, "recent deaths", specifically created because blurbs about deceased people were pushing news stories out of the box, making it appear like an obituary. Discussions on whether or not a person "deserves" a blurb upon death at ITN/C can be contentious, as the criteria are subjective. The "Thatcher/Mandela" benchmark is occasionally cited by contributors, and is also occasionally derided because it is "made up". This is true, it is made up, but since the criteria of "significance" is subjective, these are as valid as any other. So what is the "Thatcher/Mandela standard"? In this contributors opinion:

• The deceased is household name in many countries
• The deceased has been the subject of a major motion picture
• There are policies, doctrines, or a similar body of principals named for the deceased
• The deceased is making headline news in multiple publications, interrupting broadcast television, and is likely to for several days

These criteria are themselves subjective, but so is the whole thing.

One other thing: No one "deserves" a blurb, it's JUST Wikipedia for crying out loud, they're not being immortalized with some monument; and every death blurb pushes a regular story out of the box -- the very problem RD was created to solve.