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Just a comment - the ITN area seems very stale. It hasn't changed for several weeks - all the items date from June. I know we are not a newspaper etc but it's noticeably stale. Secretlondon (talk) 13:51, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

If you believe there are worthy items for inclusion at ITN feel free to nominate them. I would agree that ITN has been slow lately, but it's not for lack of nominations. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:19, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

And importantly there are noms that have support on inclusion, but the articles fail to meet the quality for main page posting. Its not a lack of news, but a lack of effort at times. Masem (t) 18:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Which all get shot down, because our collective significance standards are brutal when put together. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 19:27, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Hey, hey, hey! Don't shoot the messenger! It's not like "make more nominations" isn't the canned response everyone else uses. Call me crazy, but perhaps what we need is more contribution. Outside of times when we get a crazy number of pile-on "supports" for the death of a very well-known person, or a very big news item, ITN contribution is usually only as much as a dozen-or-so votes at most. While more votes does not necessarily mean better arguemnts, it is a lot easier to judge consensus with more votes, IMO. And I'd say we could use to keep some nominations open longer (I'm still a little miffed at the quick hook on Goodenough, for example). DarkSide830 (talk) 00:17, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Certainly no intention on shooting the messenger, more just venting my frustration that we allow so much latitude for people to support and oppose for just about any reason. And when you add it all up into a collective consensus-building process, it's no wonder that only the most geographically significant sports, elections, and disasters tend to make the news outside of some contentious exceptions. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:11, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• ITN is obviously dysfunctional; not fit for purpose. To see this, just compare with the other main page sections such as TFA; OTD and DYK. They continue to post new content every day without missing a beat. If they were to have a hiccup or blockage so that they missed even a day, then you can be fairly sure that action would be quickly taken to clear it and get them back on track. But ITN goes stale for weeks and nothing is done.

Or compare with other similar pages that also report news and do it better: Portal:Current events and Wikinews. These have fresher news than ITN and right now that includes stories such as the temperature records that affect the entire world. A 3-week-old story about a restaurant fire doesn't cut it when the entire world is burning up.

But it appears that ITN is unable to fix or reform itself. An RfC at the Village Pump might be the next step. The first question would be to agree that there's a problem that needs fixing.

Andrew🐉(talk) 20:02, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I mean, surely it's quite clear why the temp records weren't posted, right? As I said in the nom, we have an issue where it's hard to find a great target article. Sometimes that's hard. You compare ITN to Current Events, but they also don't need to worry about the hook issue we have - such that many of their items don't even have a dedicated article for the event in question. And we've gone over why ITN isn't Wikinews seemingly a billion times now. I understand, it would be great to have something more fresh then the restaurant fire up (same with Wagner, TBH), but with all due respect, many of your "support" votes usually are qualified with a simple "it's in the news", which we all agree doesn't cut it, and you can't use that logic to suggest ITN is broken. If you want to, take it up with Village Pump, but I'm not sure you're going to convince the majority of your perspective. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

You're going to get a wide variety of voices by going to the Village Pump to discuss ITN's inclusion standards. You'll get people who say "ITN always sucked, just get rid of it", as well as those who think it's still doing its job and there's nothing that needs to be changed, and then a whole lot of voices somewhere in the middle who agree that there is a problem but have their own half-baked ideas on how to fix it. To be clear, Andrew has always been one of those agitators who insists that ITN (and Wikipedia as a whole) is broken each chance that he is able to do so, and while his points are valid that we just can't seem to get fresh news in the template, his is the same problem that everyone else has -- how do we fix it? To that, much as with RFA, there is no clear answer. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:10, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

We cannot make news that is appropriate for an encyclopedia happen. That is a limiting factor. We can't lower standards just because its a slow news period. Masem (t) 00:25, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

As I've said before, we certainly had no problem doing it in the 2010s, when we had a steady clip of news items filling the template. Fernando Lugo was the exception and not the rule. Encyclopedic standards are one thing -- but we were Wikipedia back then and we're Wikipedia now. How did our standards change and why did they change? Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:44, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I think DYK is more dysfunctional - they need to increase their standards and ITN needs to lower its standards slightly - old news is no longer news. It doesn't need a daily update, or anything close, but not weeks on end. Perhaps a maximum (or target length) of time an article that isn't ongoing can be on the front page? Max of a week? Secretlondon (talk) 13:13, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah you are right. I believe the case that Djokovics all time record in numbers of Grand Slam victories didn't make it to ITN is a perfect symbol for the 'staleness' of ITN. We have had several obvious ITNR events that just don't 'find' enough interest. How about we notify the projects if one of their articles is nominated for ITN. The article creators and main (recent) article contributors could get notified as well.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 05:34, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

There is an idea on enforcing stale three sections above. Also, the Kenyan truck crash would've been posted if not for the disruptive AfD nom. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposal

Ideally, if an ITN item is not ongoing, it should stay on the front page for a maximum of a week. Secretlondon (talk) 13:17, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• This is a non-starter. All you are suggesting is bumping old without posting new, potentially leading to zero stories and a big blank space. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  No I'm saying we should aim for new content. Ni-one thinks we should have a blank space. Secretlondon (talk) 09:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  Then close this and rewrite your proposal. We already post new content when it is ready, bumping old content. If we create a rule that old content is removed after a week without changing process for adding new content, then you have less blurbs total. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Support. There are enough ITNR events for the blurbs, it's just a matter of turning articles ready for the main page. The death of Silvio Berlusconi or Djokovic's Grand Slam win are prime examples. Now with Milan Kundera...most support the blurb, but only limited edits were made in prepping the article for the main page. Would be easy, there are enough scholarly pieces written on him on JSTOR. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 15:07, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Oppose Without anything to replace blurbs this will create a main page imbalance. Masem (t) 15:11, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Oppose The problem isn't old news staying up too long- that's just a symptom of the actual problem, which is not enough new news making it through the nomination process. SunsetShotguns (talk) 15:33, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support This is a good idea. The current dysfunctional process gives a few lucky subjects undue weight and prominence by running them for week after week. This is unacceptable for controversial and politically partisan topics such as Bolsonaro.

And there should be an associated rule that we change the picture every day so that we rotate the picture with the same frequency as the other main page sections.

Doing this is quite feasible because we actually have plenty of nominations going through the system. If there's a deficit of the news type then we can use RDs, of which we have plenty. The RD process is comparatively productive and successful and so should be rewarded with correspondingly more space and attention. It's the military principle of reinforcing success rather than failure.

Andrew🐉(talk) 18:36, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

What? The Bolsonaro story is one of the biggest stories of the month, and perhaps the singular most. Who gives a you-know-what if it's controversial or political? We cover anything encyclopedic here. And heck no expanding RD. If you want to read about deaths, we have Deaths in 2023 for that. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The Bolsonaro story was certainly not big on Wikipedia where it attracted no editors or readers. Even now it's just a paragraph supported by 3 sources from 30 June which is over two weeks ago. That was the brief blip of coverage in the media and that was all. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:42, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

What? You really think this is just passing news? I don't know what you're talking about, but a quick search should show that it's not, and regardless of how well covered it is or how well-edited the article is was certainly a big news story. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

It's not a massive story on the UK, and it's barely mentioned in the article. Secretlondon (talk) 09:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

By what measure exactly? DarkSide830 (talk) 16:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

To see if something is "in the news", I usually do a Google search with the "news" filter which selects news sources specifically. When you do this for the keyword "Bolsonaro", you currently get stories about Bolsonaro selling birthday party packs; stories about the impeachment of a Supreme court justice; stories about trends in deforestation since he left office. You also get some stories about the electoral ban but they all seem to be dated "2 weeks ago". So, that's old news; it's stale. If you make a similar search for some other story such as "Titan", you find lots of fresh news coverage dated "2 hours ago", "15 hours ago", "1 day ago", &c. So, that's the difference between a big story which has legs and a wire story blip which doesn't last beyond the 24-hour news cycle. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:02, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Because there isn't really much more to cover about it, despite the impact. A news item doesn't have to be ongoing to be massive. Plus, according to my view (and web.archive.org's and archive.today's), only the first two results aren't about the ban, and "trends in deforestation since he left office" also sounds like part of the impact of the electoral ban. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:52, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and the Titan story is a perfecr example of why coverage means jack squat. It's a human interest story. Of course the press is all over it. It isn't and never will be notable. It was a fine post because of just how big a story it was at the time, but the impact is basically nothing. Meanwhile the Bolsonaro story has an incalculable impact on Brazilian (and maybe global) politics. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:40, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. The impact is scandalous and exposed how unregulated this industry was. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:38, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose To kill a weed, you must pull it up by its roots. To fix ITN's "staleness", you must find the origin of the issue: the nomination process. Cheers, atque supra! Fakescientist8000 04:11, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - Agreeing there is a problem, but per SunsetShotguns, we're trying to solve for the wrong thing. With that said, the rotating photo idea is a good one (if we can align on right cadence) to help with the perception of staleness Schwinnspeed (talk) 10:28, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per SunsetShotguns. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:48, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

((ITN candidate)) has the parameter |updaters=, which is documented as

which should be filled in when the article to be posted is updated, with the username(s) of the editors who have significantly updated the article

I've noticed a few nominations where the specified updaters for RDs didn't actually work on the article after the death announcement. On the one hand, there is |creator=, who also wasn't involved with the update.

Should updaters specified necessarily be involved after a death announcement or after the blurb event to be credited? I've always thought they were supposed to, but no problem if it's actually intended to be a wider scope. In either event, the template documentation should be clearer.—Bagumba (talk) 06:00, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

It shouldn't matter either way. But, for my part, I try to provide credit to editors who have worked on the article through the life of the article. In doing so, I try to widen the funnel of incoming editors to this project. Hopefully many feel encouraged for their efforts and come check out our project and some return back to add their own nominations. In doing so, we are welcoming newer editors to the project. Overall, I am good with the text that currently exists. If someone wants to edit it, I would not object either. Ktin (talk) 16:55, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Great you bring that up. Maybe a contributor credit could be created. In my opinion major contributors (be it in number of edits or % of added text, bytes) should be able to be credited also if they weren't involved in prepping the article for the main page.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 07:36, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

In practice, I don't believe contributors before the ITN event are typically credited. Thus, why I started this thread. If those early contributors are to be credited, a bot would be nice, as it can automatically search the history for editors with X% edits or Y% text added and then automatically credit them.—Bagumba (talk) 09:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Is there any policy/guideline about taking into account ITN comments / "votes" from accounts that have been blocked? There is currently an active discussion on ITN where I see that a user made a comment and "vote", but the account has been subsequently blocked. Is that comment and/or "vote" still considered as valid as every other comment / "vote"? Chrisclear (talk) 19:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

If you're referring to Massacreek, their block was unrelated to their Commonwealth Games comments, so I see no reason to discount it there. Anarchyte (talk) 11:51, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

A relevant policy is Wikipedia:Blocking policy § Edits by and on behalf of banned and blocked editors, but that mostly involves evasion.—Bagumba (talk) 20:59, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Blocks are preventative, not retroactive, so an ITN edit is just as good or bad on its own merits as any other prior contribution. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

1) Votes aren't counted anyways, admins will read the general tenor and direction of a discussion and assess consensus from that. A single vote doesn't mean much, and admins can (and often do) ignore votes for various reasons. They are quite capable of noticing that a blocked or banned account has voted, and simply ignore what they said in their assessment. 2) If they voted before being blocked, and the block was unrelated to the vote itself (the vote wasn't disruptive when it happened) then there is zero reason to discount it. --Jayron32 14:23, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm new to ITN and have some suggestions for improving the experience for new editors to the project who might not have a clue. My proposal is to change WP:ITNCDONT and the "Arguments to avoid" section on the ITN page to reflect the current community consensus, and to add a list of topics on which there is currently consensus not to promote to ITN.

Some background

TL;DR: I nominated a topic that I thought was within community consensus per ITN guidelines, but it turns out, that page doesn't actually reflect consensus.

I recently nominated New York City Council veto override as an ITN candidate. Before doing so, I reviewed the ITN guidelines, and there was nothing there that indicated to me that City Council politics—for a major city that regularly receives international coverage regarding its politics—is something that will never pass ITN. Indeed, the first bullet of the "Arguments to avoid" section states:

"Arguments about a story relating to a particular geographic region, country, ethnicity, people group, etc. are generally seen as unhelpful. Almost all news is of greater interest to a particular place and/or group of people than to the world at large, and arguing that something should or should not be posted, solely because of where the event happened, or who might be "interested" in it because of its location, are not usually met with concurrence from the community" (emphasis added).^[1]

So, I thought my nomination had a chance; I was wrong. It was speedy closed with the comment, Consensus will not develop for city politics. I then asked Stephen on his talk page whether there was more that I could read on the current community consensus, and he told me that there are no hard rules, rather it's a consensus that has developed over the years.^[2]

My proposal

Given that the guidelines don't actually reflect current consensus, I propose amending the guidelines. First, ITCNDONT and "Arguments to avoid" clearly need updates because they're not true at this point. Second, I think that a list of current news items on which there is a general consensus should be added to the guidelines.

Silence is the weakest form of consensus. Wikipedia's guidelines should be written and clear to all editors, not to the select few who know about the consensus because they've been at ITN for long enough and have learned the secret rules. For editors who are new to ITN, coming in and being shot down immediately despite ostensibly complying with the written guidelines is borderline CABAL-ish.

I look forward to everyone's thoughts. If there's anywhere where this discussion should be cross-listed, please let me know and I will do so.

Cross-listed at WP:VPI and Portal talk:Current events.

Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 12:41, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose any changes. The current guidelines reflect actual practice, which states "It is highly subjective whether 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." Your proposal didn't have "consensus among those discussing the event". Just because your one pet discussion didn't go the way you wanted it to, doesn't mean anything wrong happened. Sometime, when discussions happen, you lose. --Jayron32 12:55, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

My nom wasn't closed because there wasn't consensus among those discussing the event, nor were the merits actually addressed. Both of the oppose votes were blanket statements that city politics are too local for ITN, and the closer effectively told me that city politics events are SNOW closed at ITN.

I'm also not saying that anything wrong happened here (see my second footnote; I accept that this is the current consensus at ITN). I'm just saying that there needs to be more clarity for new editors who come to ITN with what they think is a newsworthy story. I think there's a problem when the guidelines say one thing and there's apparently an exception to those rules based on an unwritten community consensus.

If you don't think the guidelines should be amended, how do you feel about a list of news items that usually are not approved at ITN? (I don't know what else other than city politics should be added to that list at this point, which I believe highlights the problem I'm noting.)

Put another way, had I known of this consensus that city politics are too parochial for ITN, I wouldn't have wasted everyone's time making the nom in the first place. But, I couldn't have known that because the consensus is unwritten. It's a Catch-22. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• I think you have a good general idea - making a list of the types of things that generally do and don't get traction and linking it from the nomination page as a guide to those making nominiations. The problem is that, for many topics (such as, for example, mass shootings in the U.S.) the consensus is contentious and there will be pushback to anything that appears to set out hard and fast rules. One problem is that people tend to interpret soft guidelines as hard rules. For an example, check out Reliable sources' perrenial sources list. That was orignially created with the idea that there were some sources that kept coming up at WP:RSN, where people were perpetually confused if they were reliable or not, so there should be a summary of all the discussions about these sources that were repeatedly discussed so the community didn't have to keep having the same discussions and if people had a question about a source on the list they would have a guide to discussions that had come before. The problem is that now it's being used inappropriately, as a "good source, bad source" list regardless of context, although sources are only reliable or unreliable in particular contexts. The fear with what you are proposing here is that it would have a similar evolution. What is meant as a guide to "this type of news story generally does not garner consensus unless there is something exceptional" can and will quickly become "these are the rules". ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:34, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you for providing that background on RSP. Perhaps one way to get around the problem is to make very clear at the outset of any list that these are soft guidelines and that there are exceptions, and that they should be interpreted as such. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:46, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  I have suggested the idea of a "Casebook" or similar page to explain typically what will get posted (or at least, flagged as significant, ignoring quality issues) and what will typically not get posted, only so that new ITN editors can understand where the significance line has been drawn in the past. That doesn't mean this case book should be used as authoritative policy, simply that its a good pointer to read before making a nom. Masem (t) 15:02, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  I would support something like that. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:31, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Voorts: Have a look at WP:HOWITN for a baseline essay. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 20:58, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  I think that essay, particularly ITNGLOBAL, actually describes the problem I've identified: ITN purports to have guidelines and standards (e.g., arguments shouldn't be based on the geographic scope of a story), but those standards have been superseded by a local, unwritten ITN community consensus (e.g., news about NYC politics [a city of 7 million people] is too local for ITN). If the latter is actually the consensus, shouldn't that be what the guidelines say? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  Seems like a tough problem. Guidelines need to be unstated, otherwise people would misuse all-caps shortcuts to win arguments, because the place is dysfunctional. Unstated guidelines let "regulars" rely on arbitrary ad-hoc rationales, which makes the place dysfunctional. People prefer it that way, because they don't trust consensus processes to result in guidelines that match their preferences (actually, anyone's preferences, because... dysfunction).

  Am I way off base here? Sounds pretty much like the essay in your sig. DFlhb (talk) 19:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

  I think you nailed it. :) ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I see an awful lot of people objecting to things because they don't like them politically. This doesn't get us very far. Things are newsworthy/important regardless of whether they fit people's worldview. Secretlondon (talk) 17:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:BITE, WP:CCC, WP:CREEP, WP:OWN, WP:ITNSIGNIF and more. ITN doesn't need more reasons and rules not to post things; quite the contrary. And these things aren't as predictable as suggested. I'd have predicted that the Hollywood strike would not be posted as it seems to be a fairly local industrial dispute and it's showbiz news which tends not to play well at ITN. But that item was rushed onto the main page quite quickly; go figure... Andrew🐉(talk) 18:34, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment New York is also only the 30th largest city in the world (per List of largest cities; when counting for city proper, which is what is being discussed), with numerous cities in China alone far superseding it. Thus, in order for municipal politics to be considered, there has to be an impact beyond just the city/state level, beyond just a single city or area. The first veto overturned in X years is certainly a fun factoid, but it is simply not anything significant. Curbon7 (talk) 21:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Curbon7: Could you explain how your comment is relevant to the proposal? We are discussing a proposed clarification of the guidelines, not a proposal to allow more municipal politics the way I read it. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:51, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  The comment was directed more towards the OP with regards to the original blurb nom rather than the proposal, as a response to their response to Jayron and WaltCip above; as such I changed it from a !vote to a generic comment, due to the absence of any rationale on the topic at hand. Thanks. Curbon7 (talk) 22:01, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  I appreciate your explanation of ITN consensus, but I'm not looking to litigate or challenge that consensus: I just think that it should be stated clearly somewhere. The reason I continue returning to my example is because, as someone who doesn't frequent ITN, I think that my proposal was clearly within the guidelines as written. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:15, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Voorts: Sorry for your bad experience. A lot isn't "stated clearly" here due to lack of consensus. There's a set of participants that have high barriers to posting, and there's a set that think the content is too stale when 2-week old items remain displayed. So, consensus for posting is largely determined by who shows up at a given discussion. As mentioned above, WP:HOWITN seems to be the closest in describing how ITN unofficially works. As with much in life, participation is required to effect change. Newbies like yourself help bring perspective. Regards. —Bagumba (talk) 04:04, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment We should appreciate that Voorts has raised this issue, which I presume will frustrate many new editors that try to join ITN. While I agree that we shouldn't add to the bureaucracy, maybe we can encourage closers to add more rationale when they close nominations, especially when these come from infrequent nominators? Instead of just stating SNOW and leave it at that, add a sentence that e.g. municipal politics usually will not be considered notable enough for featuring on ITN? Khuft (talk) 08:20, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  I tend to think WP:SNOW closures should not happen at all until a full 12 or 24 hours has run. The majority of SNOW closures that happen under the current system are after three or four oppose !votes, which is not how SNOW was intended when it was written. The NYC nomination closed after two !votes and 15 minutes and was slammed shut by an admin, severely lowering the prospects of it to be re-opened. In my opinion that's very close to being a supervote. We don't know how people are going to vote nowadays; we've got so many new contributors on ITN and consensus could turn out differently. In my opinion, all nominations should run for at least 12 hours, unless there is a staggering number of opposition votes -- I'm talking about 8 or 9 -- with no support votes to balance it out. Every nomination deserves a fair run.

I also disagree with Stephen on his consensus that has developed over the years comment. That may be so, but everybody knows that rule with the three C's and old fogies like me can see that the contributor base here on ITN/C is not the same as it was two or three years ago. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:38, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I would agree with you that there's no harm leaving nominations open for longer. If Opposes pile up, then so be it - but at least it give editors (including the nominator) the chance to address some of the opposes and make their case for blurbing. Khuft (talk) 12:47, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. RE yur proposal to add a sentence, that's what happened here. The close included a sentence very similar to the one you've proposed. The issue I've raised is that I wish I knew about that consensus in advance. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:41, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

It's not a "consensus" as written at WP:ITN. It's part of a culture among some ITN regulars to pre-empt discussions. —Bagumba (talk) 02:58, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The fact that there's no real consensus and the guidelines (which new users are encouraged to read) that purport to reflect a consensus are routinely ignored in favor of local consensus seems like a bigger issue than the one I've identified. In my thus far limited experience editing on Wikipedia, I can't think of another area/project where "consensus" is at the whim of whoever happens to be a regular at the time an issue is being decided. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:22, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I can think of a few places -- Wikiprojects, specifically. The most infamous example that comes to mind was addressed in this particular Arbcom case, and there was some WP:OWNership going on at the Years articles when it came to gatekeeping specific persons/events for inclusion on the page. It's not an entirely uncommon occurrence at Wikipedia, but as with those cases if the conduct is egregiously unfair, it's usually only a matter of time before the lid gets blown off and some type of RFC is required. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:01, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I strongly agree with voorts concerns. For Wikiprojects, it makes sense that there is more gatekeeping as some areas are less viewed by the general readership, and so members could have more "ownership" within their own internal subject areas and have created their own standards etc. But ITN, as a main page project, should be a more open public process and thus should not be "governed" by unnamed "rules" and just local consensus. I supported more qualitative measurements of "significance" in the past, but those proposals didn't go anywhere. Natg 19 (talk) 17:31, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The Years case, if you are referring to the Barbara Walters discussion, had common themes with ITN discussions regarding Americans, international notability, and systemic bias.—Bagumba (talk) 05:41, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposals?

Does anyone have any concrete proposals for moving forward? It seems like many of us agree that there's an issue with the way ITN operates. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:03, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@Voorts: I've put forth plenty of proposals over the years. None of them get consensus because, as you say, everybody agree there is an issue, but no one agrees what the issue is or how to fix it. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:23, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

As per recent Nigerien coup, consensus was we should add coups to ITN/R, given no-one ever objects to notability of a violent overthrow. Now whilst the coup belt coups are fairly straightforward recently (soldiers/militia/faction X comes in and overthrows President Y) the question is whether they would exclude self-coups and include failed coups. Obviously Wagner marching on Moscow, Taliban takeover and Capitol riot coups were always going to be big news, but what if these events where to happen in a smaller state? Abcmaxx (talk) 11:47, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Meh. Coups, by their nature, do not recur. Elections and sporting events are recurring. Coups are one-off events, and as such, don't really belong on a list of recurring events. --Jayron32 14:21, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

To be fair a decent number of items listed in ITN/R are also not periodic events - new element discoveries, meteor storms and great comets, and everything in the space exploration section. If there is a lot of confusion, it may be worth renaming the page to reflect that it's simply a list of events deemed automatically notable. Phenomist (talk) 19:48, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and many of those items should never have been added and have proved routinely contentious. GreatCaesarsGhost 18:54, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it should be restricted to successful coups (with "successful" being determined based on multiple independent (of parties to the coup, their backers and each other) news sources reporting it as successful). Some failed coups are highly notable, others are damp squibs and in some cases there is even disagreement about whether the event was or was not an attempted coup. Thryduulf (talk) 20:15, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Then there are cases where a public safety minister swears something to the effect of I would just point out that from the very outset of the illegal blockade, that a number of organizers and leaders of the so-called Freedom Convoy made a number of profoundly concerning and extremist statements calling for the overthrow of the government through violence. Did these fail (beyond an aspirational expressionist level) or simply go ignored? Hard to say, even with hindsight, actually glad now though how I helped fail to "spread the word" in a too-short sentence and poorly understood photo. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:50, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand either your point or your final sentence - the convoy protest was not a coup so whether it was or was not successful is irrelevant to whether coups should be on ITNR or not. Thryduulf (talk) 23:03, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I agree, not an attempted coup, just threatening rhetoric and suspicious minds. But this security advisor agrees with that public safety minister that at least some of the leaders actually intended to overthrow the government (but failed to get far). It's one of those last sorts of cases you mentioned. The final sentence means those who supported blurbs or ongoings for this were pretty insistent, arguably disruptive. In the end, the naysayers did good, I think. Some things are too complicated to encapsulate in a blurb. Anyway, No on adding them all to R (maybe Phenomist's right). Case by case. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:57, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Would not include, but that doesn't mean coups can't be posted. If the coup is successful it falls under the change of leadership. If the coup fails, then that's a case-by-case determination. --Masem (t) 00:58, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Per User:Hurricane Noah and User:HiLo48 I open this topic. It was correctly pointed out that criteria are subjective. I have participated in many debates, and outcomes are baffling. It seems these depend on when it happened or who is participating in discussion. I honestly don't understand why Sidney Poitier and Jim Brown were blurbed, and Harry Belafonte wasn't, though all three had careers in several fields and were also famous for activism. It is difficult to predict. While the threshold was previously Thatcher/Mandela, many people were blurbed since. Maybe we should add some of them and update essay? Are there any ideas how we can make it less subjective? Users and admins who usually participate in these discussions — User:Masem, User:Muboshgu, User:InedibleHulk are welcome. Kirill C1 (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't have a solution immediately, but we absolutely must point out that either "Household name/Famous person" as a support !vote or a "I never heard of them" as an oppose !vote is not appropriate at all, and should be dismissed by admins in evaluating the nomination. Masem (t) 18:59, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• The blurb/RD distinction is an artifact which arises purely because of the current format of the English ITN. As it's not based on anything used by the rest of the world and its media, it is correspondingly difficult to arrive at an objective method of settling it. Other language versions of Wikipedia don't have this problem because they have revised their main page to treat all such deaths alike. See the German or Spanish editions, for example. They are better because they are more informative and don't waste time on an artificial distinction. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:19, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  German Wikipedia has other realities and other rules. ITN is updated significantly faster, and it hasn't got discussion. More local news are often published. It has distinct focus on German news and events. Kirill C1 (talk) 21:41, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  There's only one reality and those other languages make a similar range of selections from it. And, right now, there's only one German item in their ITN/Obituary sections so that supposedly distinct focus isn't there. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:59, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  There are different rules and practices in different sections. Among large European languages, open discussion for ITN exists only on English and Russian Wikipedias.

  "And, right now, there's only one German item in their ITN/Obituary sections so that supposedly distinct focus isn't there" It's only this time, usually there are plenty of local news from some German Awards to local elections in a particular region. Kirill C1 (talk) 11:04, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  And why exactly is it an issue if German Wikipedia posts more news that are relevant to its (German-speaking) audience? Khuft (talk) 18:34, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  The same reason that the English-language Wikipedia gets criticized for bias when that same relevancy idea is applied. The Kip (talk) 20:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Suggestion We only consider posting "death as the story" items as blurbs. The RD line exists for a reason. We cannot objectively differentiate between notable figures from different eras, professions, and nations; it would be hard to do so if they were all contemporaries anyway, with success able to be objectively measured in different ways (bigger influence, more awards, more google search hits...) even then. If lack of objective criteria is making ITN both insensitive and inconsistent, and this increasingly seems to be the case, then the most objective thing to do is to treat all 'standard' RDs the same way: in the RD line only. Where the death, not the significance of the deceased, is the item up for debate, a blurb can be considered. Kingsif (talk) 22:42, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Why are those three users welcome to this discussion and not others? Anyway, you will still have this problem even if you make 'death as the story' as the sole criterion, because that criterion as currently worded still allows for items such as the presence of a large funeral service or international plaudits. Quoting the current wording: (such as ongoing investigations, major stories about memorial services or international reactions, etc.) We need a better reason to change something other than to satisfy regular complainants. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 23:07, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Someone can take my seat. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:12, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I called you because of your sense of humour. Kirill C1 (talk) 07:09, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, you got Managing Editor Hulk tonight. No laughing matter. Sorry to disappoint. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:27, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Feel free to welcome other users. Those three users were those whose nicknames I immediately remembered and knew how to spell, I also pinged two more. Kirill C1 (talk) 07:01, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Alsoriano97, User:Bagumba, User:Jayron32, User:Kiril Simeonovski, User:Spencer. Kirill C1 (talk) 12:45, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Uhm... Frankly, I think it is best left as a case-by-case discussion. But the authentic one, with the participation of as many editors as possible and without haste. There are personalities that have ended up being posted on Main Page because they have had an avalanche of editors from that particular country that naturally makes the final result have an interested bias. _-_Alsor (talk) 14:00, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

"with the participation of as many editors as possible and without haste" it's ideally.

But the problem is that the news may become stale. When Jean-Paul Belmondo was pulled, one of the reasons was cited that several days passed. Kirill C1 (talk) 15:42, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

We need to have objective criteria such as:

1. Anytime where the death or funeral of a person is notable enough for its own article would be sufficient for a blurb (ex: Assassination of Shinzo Abe or Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II).
2. Additionally, I would propose any person on the level 4 vital article list (or higher) should be blurbed automatically.

Noah^Talk 23:56, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

We have already rejected using the Vital Articles as an indicator of ITN posting because of how arbitrary they are. Masem (t) 00:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Also, I would add that with the current problems with editors rushing to create articles against the principles of NEVENTS and NOTNEWS, we would see a rash of "Death of X" articles where the death was just that of old age and there was little else that happened with it. This is not say all "Death of X" articles are bad, but there's only a handful of these where the death proceedings themselves were notable on their own (like that for Thatcher, QEII, or Michael Jackson). Masem (t) 00:19, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Then those death articles would be opposed on grounds of failing the notability policy rather than a subjective oppose. As for the vital articles, it would at least be objective as far as we are concerned for ITN since it either is or isn't at level 4. We can't keep going on with this subjective ITN since WP discussions are supposed to be based in policy, not opinion, which is a major issue at ITN. Noah^Talk 01:13, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Surprisingly, there is resistance to determining the notability of an article when the article is at ITNC. Which is part of a larger problem related to NEVENTS and NOTNEWS (that is, we as a whole are too highly detailing news in general given that we are an encyclopedia) but ITN is not going to solve it. Masem (t) 02:09, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• I repeat my previously stated view that we should be treating as front page news the deaths of people that multiple reliable sources around the world treat as front page news and devote significant attention and space to. If somebody's death is the subject of multiple full length obituaries on the front pages of news sources around the world then it should be blurbed in our section devoted to topics that people will be reading about because they have seen them in the news. We absolutely can objectively differentiate between how significant a story is treated, its just people dont like the results of actually following the weight sources give to topics. nableezy - 00:06, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  That would rule out somebody who was extremely significant, but only within one country, especially if that country is not the USA or the UK. HiLo48 (talk) 01:19, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  Lots of people that are extremely significant in one country are given obituaries around the world. But sure, as in most things, we are slaves to our sources, and if they dont give some people as much weight as you wish then neither do we. That is by design. nableezy - 01:29, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  Our design is faulty. HiLo48 (talk) 01:34, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  The problem is that, as per normal ITN guidelines, what is on the front page or main page for any source is not constant for anyone, so this is not a workable solution. Long form obits (which is distinct from standard obits posted by RSes) are a good indicator, but that should be via way of inclusion in the bio article to demonstrate why the person was significant enough to have several long form obits in place. Masem (t) 00:09, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  Thats like saying its a problem the printed newspaper tomorrow is not the same as the printed newspaper today. nableezy - 01:09, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  And since we give 7 days for a nomination to go through, that is a problem, because it becomes difficult to look at what the state of where a story was posted any time after that. It's why we normally don't use that positioning for regular non-RD blurbs. Masem (t) 01:52, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  Frankly, many if not most of the people recently nominated for blurbs received obits in major news outlets. Cormac McCarthy would certainly have been blurbed on the basis of that criterion; Jane Birkin and some additional singers and actors and other entertainers would have too. I'm fine with that as I'm a proponent of more posting than is currently happening, but it would not really match with the way many people are voting here. Khuft (talk) 18:41, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• I'm with Nableezy. When people reject a blurb for a man like Gordon Moore because he isn't a "household name", despite defining a whole industry, it shows our process is broken. Dennis Ritchie (October 2011) got a blurb, as he should, despite having a Start-class article. I ran an analysis for the straw poll a few months back, but never shared it. I'll post a small part of it, lightly edited, because the death blurb issue has the same root cause as every other ITN issue (ad-hoc, made-up-as-we-go criteria, and an ever-worsening obsession with quality):

Reading it again, I think I got the bulk of it right. The fix for ITN is simple: for nominations, require articles in newspapers of record from 3-5 separate countries; if that's met, post. Nothing else. DFlhb (talk) 00:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The point about "household name" is absolutely valid (I mentioned this above). We have to be clear (and maybe making this very clear during ITNCs where it comes up) that we don't consider whether someone is a household name or not.

However, multiple newspapers is not a sufficient criteria. That would 100% favor western celebrities over other groups. EG someone like Betty White or Carrie Fisher I am certain you can find coverage in multiple EU countries. Multiple long form obits should be used to build out the article but that's such a trivial barrier that would result this problem. Masem (t) 00:48, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

1. Betty White got +3.7M views upon her death, Carrie Fisher got +2.8M. That's orders of magnitude more than most ITN stories, and they both deserve blurbs by any coherent criteria. This is the "too plebeian" bias I refer to in my analysis above.
2. Western bias? Oh ja! We're a catastrophe on that front, as I said in a deleted comment. Crowd crushes, tsunamis, earthquakes and terror attacks are the bulk of our contemptible coverage of the non-Western world (check the front page right now). As my deleted comment documents, that bias stems from ITN itself, not from sources! It can only be reduced by removing editor judgment from the equation. Plus, relevance to readers should be the primary metric, and my proposal is a much better proxy for that. The foreign news most readers care about likely includes... celebrities & sports, which are treated with contempt here, hence... crowd crushes, earthquakes, landslides... Yuck. DFlhb (talk) 01:18, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Disagree. Carrie Fisher, whilst a great actress, was only a mid-level one and was never worth a blurb - let's face it, she got one because she was in Star Wars. I couldn't tell you about Betty White because I didn't really have any idea who she was, which probably tells you something. Blurbs should really be for people with worldwide impact. Black Kite (talk) 07:48, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

One small thing to remember (and forgive me if I've told you this already), Princess Leia transcends Star Wars (which I've never seen but hear is good). This character is larger-than-life in more media than you can shake a stick at. You don't see fathers buying their sons replicas of the same Sue Ann Nivens action figures and office supplies their fathers shelled out for them. None of that would have been possible without the very important person who was Carrie Fisher. Her final act raised questions and prompted investigation, at least, unlike when old transformers/influencers/legends die. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:19, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

None of which really reflects Fisher's acting, though; whilst iconic (because the film is) I'm sure the relevant companies would have produced that media whoever had played her. Black Kite (talk) 09:40, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

It wasn't supposed to reflect her acting. It's an indication of why people consider her a major figure. And yes, anything in history could theoretically have happened similarly to a different person in the same role, but this is the way things actually went. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:58, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Upon rereading, I see I missed what you're disagreeing with and am sorry if I sidetracked the thread. If you want, you can delete my response and what follows. No pressure, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 10:08, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Both got blurbs, and I won't entertain the idea that ITN isn't stringent enough. Check my analysis; most ITN items get 3 orders of magnitude fewer views than these two. My proposal will lead to ITN being refreshed more frequently; that's by design; "ITN as a deathly serious matter" leads to staleness and should be done away with. DFlhb (talk) 10:13, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Nab and DF: just follow the sources, the Wikipedia Way. If it's front page news in papers of record in multiple countries, it's significant enough to be on the front page of enwiki too, plus it's an objective criteria (3-5 countries or however many), and it would be good to take some of the subjectivity out of the selection process. Articles about such figures are sure to be in demand by readers as evidenced by page views. And I agree with Krill that ITN should be updated more frequently. Levivich (talk) 03:01, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

• Folks, we have considered and rejected every solution imaginable for death blurbs. The simple fact is that people just feel differently about this subject. Well reasoned, paragraphs long entreaties are not going to help if people don't agree with your baseline premise. What I have suggested in the past as a solution to this is: a list of proposals (A,B,C) with an up or down vote for each, without consideration of any other alternatives. That is, "Would you prefer X to the status quo?" I know, I know: we don't vote, we make arguments. But every argument has been made many times over. This is a question of personal preference. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:38, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

  While Wikipedia is generally great, ITN's issues could be a limitation of crowdsourcing and too many cooks in the kitchen. Then we can get sidetracked by "Never heard of them" or arguments about WP:WEIGHT vs systemic bias. —Bagumba (talk) 05:01, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Blurbing recent deaths of people with featured articles

The purpose of In The News is to:

To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news.
To showcase quality Wikipedia content on current events.
To point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them.
To emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic resource.

I believe it would be in line with this to have a guidance recommending that we blurb anyone with a featured article, whose death is reported in a timely manner by multiple major reliable sources, and whose article has been updated to include details of their death in a manner that aligns with featured article criteria.

If editors are concerned about such blurbs taking up too much space on the list, we can also limited their time on the list to a few days absent a consensus for a standard listing; at the end of the few days they are removed and whatever story was most recently bumped off is restored.

Given the featured nature of the articles this would showcase quality Wikipedia content on current events and would point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them. The improvement requirement would also emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic resource.

It would be a departure from our normal conservative process of limiting which articles we post (with the significant exception of topics listed on WP:ITNR), but I think it would be a positive one, that is aligned with our purpose and that would be beneficial to the reader. BilledMammal (talk) 07:55, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• One of the requirements for FA status is that the article is complete. This makes it more difficult for living people because their lives are not over and so there's always more to say. So, most FAs will be about people who already dead. For example, see Biographies (art, architecture, and archaeology). Only one of the subjects is living and their article does not seem sufficiently impressive – see Bronwyn Bancroft. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:51, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  I bet it seems more impressive to a disenfranchised Australian editor. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:09, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• Bancroft seems to be an FA mainly because a particular editor took a special interest in such subjects. But ITN is looking for subjects who are especially in the news. Compare that article with a notable recent death. Nominally, the Birkin article is just Start class, which is the lowest level, while Bancroft is an FA. But that mainly shows how haphazard the article ratings are because, objectively, Birkin is the better article and subject. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:01, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• I think you're the first person I've seen use such fantastic article science to assign relative betterness to the underlying subjects themselves. Not knocking it. As a Canadian artist and Commonwealth Wikipedian, though, I question this approach. A lot of words are just wordiness, citation overkill is a real problem around here and many very popular things are spiritually bereft crap. Anyway, it's too late for picturing Birkin now and we have no idea yet who shows up to "vote" in the roughly 24 hours after Bancroft's death is in the news, so cheerio, eh? InedibleHulk (talk) 10:37, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• Testing the proposition with data is an evidence-based approach which is indeed the scientific method. Musing about spirituality is presumably the artistic approach but I'm not seeing how Canada and the Commonwealth comes into it. Anyway, in the case of this comparison, I reckon the difference in the numbers reflects the breadth and depth of the coverage which is available for these subjects. This is not just wordiness but corresponds to the amount of public information and interest in these subjects. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• As a Brit, your reckoning of public interest in Birkin's life story is likely affected by your immersion in British (and continental European) news and art. This may (just a hypothesis) be why someone from Australia might have always thought less of her and not care to read her article nor recognize her as a picturesque style icon after she died, tending instead "closer to home". Canada is a middle ground, at least geographically, and by this seminative and pseudoscientific bushpig's sense/sensibility, these are both imported people I've heard of and whose articles demonstrate a deeper respect in their respective spheres, but neither seems as globally important/influential/interesting as, say, Roddy Piper or Alanis Morissette (both of whom are still not over in Russia or Brazil). Anyway, your article isn't ultrawordy or overcited, and its subject had spirit, just speaking generally on that. I agree the mere presence of an FA label isn't enough to qualify an article for a blurb upon its subject's demise, especially when coupled with a complete absence of reliably sourced and clearly expressed consequence. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:54, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Just like the problem with vital articles, what articles are FAs are based on what WP volunteer editors have worked on, so there are a lot of bios of not-major-importance that have FAs. So this is a bad metric. But I would definitely think that an article on an RD being FA should help for posting if other factors related to importance and a proper update are met. Masem (t) 16:03, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

So you're basically advocating the status quo. Khuft (talk) 18:50, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I am simply stating that having a criteria that automatically allows any FA to be posted (assuming quality and update are present) is not a valid criteria. Masem (t) 18:51, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• Ooh, strong oppose to this. Editors above have covered how FAs are just what takes the interest of particularly dedicated editors, not representative at all. I'd like to point out that the prose requirements of an FA also make this process much easier for Americans specifically, so the BLP subjects whose articles reach FA are going to be from an even more limited pool. Sure, the articles will be quality, but it would be far more biased and, I mean, it would look like a joke for non-influential people with FA bios to get blurbs and far more significant people not to. Kingsif (talk) 21:11, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
• I would oppose this as proposed given the above concerns. However, I think ITN participants should take article quality into account in blurb discussions, so that for cases that they would think are borderline worthy of being posted, having the article be an FA or GA should militate in favour of posting. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 23:53, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  ITN used to read:[1]

  In many cases, qualities in one area can make up for deficiencies in another. For example, a highly significant event, such as the discovery of a cure for cancer, may have a sub-par update associated with it, but be posted anyway with the assumption that other editors will soon join in and improve the article. Conversely, an editor may write an in-depth update on a topic normally considered marginal, thus convincing commenters that it is deserving of inclusion.

  People are free to apply it in their !votes, but it was removed due to it not having been a common practice. —Bagumba (talk) 04:03, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

  It's also saying that a great update can just be an argument and it might convince others, not that it has to. Kingsif (talk) 10:01, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Blurbing articles where death is the main topic

Instances where a death itself is notable enough to warrant a standalone article separate from the subject's article can be blurbed. Unless a death isn't notable enough for a standalone article or the article is not of sufficient quality, the death will be automatically eligible for a blurb. This includes occurrences such as the Assassination of Shinzo Abe and Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II.

The purpose of this is to fast-track the posting of the deaths of high-profile figures where the death itself is very significant, such as the assassination of a government official or celebrity or where there is a state funeral. This does not include instances where the deceased individual does not have an article or where it's either the classic case of old man/woman died. Noah^Talk 00:36, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The death wasnt the topic of the Elizabeth article, because there isnt much to say about it other than she died. The article and event is the buildup to and actual funeral. nableezy - 22:21, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The point here is the layman or even most celebrities wouldn't get a separate article on their death/funeral. It's hard to argue that the death wasn't part of the topic when it's literally in the title. Such events as this should be blurbed without much question considering their significance is often quite large. Noah^Talk 03:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Oppose Only blurbing a decreased person where 'death is the main topic'. This criterion seems to solidify the existing bias in favour of people from rich countries and in particular, the US and UK. US Presidents (and possibly UK Prime Ministers) will almost certainly have their own "death and funeral of" article, whereas the heads of state/government in other countries will not. The existence of a "death and funeral of" article for a US President doesn't mean that person is more significant than the head of state of a poorer country - it just means that someone took the time to write the article for the American, but no one bothered to create a separate "death and funeral of" article for the non-American. Chrisclear (talk) 18:09, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

@Chrisclear: This isn't to ONLY blurb those people and prohibit blurbs for others. This is supposed to be addressing one particular case and making those automatically eligible for a blurb since they would almost certainly be posted anyways. If the president of a poorer country were assassinated, it surely would qualify under this since there would be an article for the assassination. If said president just dies, it may not get one. Rather, the change of the head of state/government would be blurbed and the death would likely be mentioned then. Noah^Talk 20:52, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I acknowledge what you've written, but giving favour to those people who have a "death of" article is still problematic. You specifically mentioned an example where a sitting "president" (as an aside, this is quite a narrow and specific term, and not relevant to countries that don't have anyone in this position) dies, but there are many occasions where someone who was a head of state and/or head of government dies after they have left office. This is where my aforementioned example comes into play. The dead US president will almost certainly have a "death of" article. But it is far less likely that the head of state or head of government of a poorer country will have such an article. However the effect of your proposal is that the American gets ushered into an ITN blurb because of the existence of the "death of" article, but the non-American does not get the same preferential treatment. Chrisclear (talk) 13:07, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Blurbing only items where death is the story

Based on my suggestion in the top level discussion, and slightly different from the "death as the main topic" suggestion. This proposal is that when deaths are nominated for RD, they cannot be suggested for a blurb. That process disappears, deaths are posted to RD and that's it. If there is something that makes the 'event' of the death itself a news story, this can be nominated for a classic ITN blurb. More often than not, this is an assassination or other non-natural causes, but there are obviously major figures whose deaths prompt international mourning that can be considered.

I think this achieves a similar ends as the "main topic" suggestion, without seemingly suggesting making all articles on death into automatic blurb candidates. It is also a proposal focused on dealing with general death noms, as handling the vast bulk of RDs, of which an increasing number are being suggested for blurbs, is the purpose of the renewed discussion. Kingsif (talk) 00:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

My point was for automatic blurbing, x has to exist in order for death of x to be blurbed. If death of x is the sole article, there isn’t an auto blurb. Same goes for a section related to death within an article about x. Noah^Talk 02:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

That may need to be clarified; still, it's an idea that deals with only a subset. Kingsif (talk) 02:28, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

If we had to go to this extreme (limiting only stories where the death is attached to another news-worthy event like an assassination), I would even say we cannot have death blurbs of the caliber of QEII or the like. As soon as you start making some exemptions, you create game-able processes that will revert ITN back to the present state. Masem (t) 02:31, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, as the proposal says, such deaths as QEII can be considered: let users debate whether "sudden national mourning in like 100 countries" and "50-odd nations and territories get a new head of state" are newsworthy (probably). Kingsif (talk) 02:35, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

This is the type of subjectivity that we need to try to remove as much as possible. People shouldn't be determining newsworthiness. Even a small subset that is entirely objective is better than the wild west that ITN currently is. Noah^Talk 02:42, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

If you want to get rid of subjectivity at ITN, you'd realistically have to get rid of ITN. The problem we're trying to solve is increasingly insensitive and untenable arguments being made now that everyone and their mother is being suggested for death blurbs. So I propose RDs are RDs and if you want a blurb, it has to be nommed as a blurb (needs an article and a news story) - the important difference with the current system being debating the newsworthiness of the story, not the significance of the individual. And TBF I do think that's more objective than it is. Kingsif (talk) 02:47, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

"If you want to get rid of subjectivity at ITN, you'd realistically have to get rid of ITN." - when there is a government change, we blurb it, it isn't subjective. Kirill C1 (talk) 11:06, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

There's subjectivity even in THAT. Consider the debate between who is a head of state vs who is the head of government, and whether major parliamentary or legislative changes are also included in that formula. For those items which do not clearly fit into that ITN/R mold of being a general election of an executive officeholder, there is still a ton of debate, and the lines are not always as clearly drawn as one might think. (And woe be unto the user who nominates an election of any sort in Northern Ireland or Scotland.) Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:06, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Where there is some subjectivity in the diff between head of state and head of gov't, that at least also has a strong basis in some objectivity (some of these diffs can be determined by reviewing the country's laws to understand where the power lies). Which is what I think we want here - we are never going to have 100% objective determination of what blurbs should be posted, but we should be able to approach something that is based at least 50% objective metrics, if not higher. Masem (t) 12:39, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm in favor of that as well, I just don't know if it's possible unless we actually go to WP:VPP and start drafting some actual policies (in the dictionary definition sense of the word "policy", not the Wiki sense) and guidelines surrounding ITN. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:10, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we would likely need something official that has been ratified by the community at large so that it can be enforced. Otherwise, nothing is likely to change. Noah^Talk 14:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

• I will always be a support on this idea simply because it makes the best sense, and can account for most items we post already, but will deal with the concern some have of a death blurb simply being a "lifetime achievement award". Death as the main story, in theory, covers (A.) Assassinations, deaths of heads of state, high profile murders, etc, (B.) Most deaths where a "Death and State Funeral" article or something of the like exist, and (C.) untimely deaths of well-known persons. There is still a bit of open-endedness to some of these items, but I believe this proposal gives us a system that is both specific in it's criteria while also providing some room for negotiation. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Letting ChatGPT decide

Dead fucking serious. Some might say it's getting worse at math. But I recently watched a YouTube miniseries where it got most of the 15 most "POPULAR" Canadian TV shows of all time right, and I think it can do roughly the same in approximating the Internet's average Top Three Feelings for any formerly living legend in a timelier manner than humanly possible. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Now is Managing Editor's Day Off, I guess.

In short, no. Kirill C1 (talk) 06:49, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Managing Editor quit, you're looking at Kermit the Frog in a Trenchcoat Hulk. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:10, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Dear Kermit,

Letting ChatGPT decide who should be blurbed is such a terrible idea.

In all probability, it wouldn't distinguish between Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier.

You could as well throw a dice or a coin. Kirill C1 (talk) 11:47, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking Magic 8 ball. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, the name's still Hulk, only the game has changed. More pertinently, what I'm pitching is an outsourced list of "the greats" living in or retired from each field. This unfeeling can of string (or however it technically works) wouldn't be bothered case-by-case with yes/no or greater than/less than questions or write any content. One of us mortal old-schoolers would must scan the list for whichever name and fill in the nationality, job description and age as mechanically and slowly as ever (and select our own freely licensed and traditionally made photo). It's not a job for a coin, ball or any such primitive divination tech. We'd just narrow our old shouting matches down from come-as-you-are melees featuring representatives from any and all chest-beating fandoms to a simple tug-of-war between those who accept the list as true enough and those who think they know better (or have this sneaking suspicion that the computer is cheating). InedibleHulk (talk) 08:13, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia as a whole is trying to stay away from ChatGPL with a ten-foot pole. Masem (t) 12:11, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Seems kind of silly considering a large hunk of training data is almost certainly sourced from Wiki. Kcmastrpc (talk) 17:05, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Because ChatGPL can also still produce inaccurate results, as well as inclusion of sources that makes the whole thing of questionable copyright Masem (t) 17:32, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, so it's like a giant mirror: the other we keep away with a 10ft pole. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:17, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the solution that HiLo had in mind when it came to addressing the lack of guidelines resulting in systemic bias on ITN's death blurbs. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:02, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a draft policy at Wikipedia:Large language models. —Bagumba (talk) 04:05, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that url, I added my opinion. Kirill C1 (talk) 11:04, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Bringing back the "transformative/importance" criteria but with additional stipulations

We had previously had a criteria for RD blurbs that, outside the "death is a major criteria", that persons that were transformative leaders in their field. Now, alone, that was as equally subjective and debatable as the current criteria, so bringing that back without any other bounds on the matter would just create more chaos. Given that I would say that if we brought that back , the following would help towards making that more objective:

• There is clear and present documentation from high quality sources that directly or explicity outline how the person was transformative. This would typically require the presence of a section on Impact or Legacy or similarly named with more than a paragraph of sourced commentary that directly gives the transformative nature of the person. Note that this section would not necessarily need to be present at the time of nomination but needs to be there before posting, as very ofter long-form obits will help with information to fill in such a section. Having this requirement eliminates the hand-waving often seen "This person is clearly important" without any actual demonstration.
  • This also would not be a process of original research by claiming through multiple points from the person's career they are important - the best example of this is eliminating the common rationale of using how many films or books the person wrote or how many awards they won or were nominated for as simply being why they are important. If third-party sources suggest their volume of works or awards was why they were a transformative leader in the field, great. Basically, a good section on Legacy or Impact should leave little question as to being a transformative person. We may still debate how transformative that person was, but this would easily eliminate lots of these weak-end blurb suggestions that we have been getting; not every beloved celebrity is necessarily transformative.
  • We would also need to stress that popularity/being a household name are not valid arguments to support a blurb (and contrary, not being a household name is not sufficient to oppose a blurb). We aren't here just to elevate the death of famous people to blurb levels.
  • Ideally we are going to talk people that have been transformative over their lifetimes, and not just because they had a brief flash in the spotlight.
• The article should reflect the higher end of expected article quality, better than what we generally treat as passing quality for RD. That is, while we generally pass RD entries with just B or even C class, we should be looking to articles that are GA or FA or in that ballpark (assessment is not required), which generally means we're not waiting on sourcing or the like, and that the above suggested section on Legacy or Impact will likely already be present. Even if an article is already GA or FA, we need to make sure to review for gaps since the passage of the GA/FA point, and if that gap looks too far to clear within a few days, we shouldn't be trying to push it as a blurb.
• Having one or more long-form obits from high quality sources (eg something akin to NYTimes' obit for Ruth Bader Ginsburg) should be seen as plus. That not only shows that the high quality RS considered the person more important than the average death, but that form also gives good info to feed into the bio article to help build up the Legacy/Impact section and other details. However, this criteria alone should not be sufficient or necessarily, since this would bias on Western sourcing.

While we can never have purely objective blurb considerations (as discussed above, as long as we have any type of blurb consideration, there will be subjective reviews), but adding these should help with demonstrating objective evidence via sources that a person should have a death blurb rather than WP editors making that presumption first. --Masem (t) 00:37, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Would Betty White and Tony Bennett blurbed under these criteria?

Belmondo had long obits citing how transformative he was, but his blurb was pulled.

Also, Michael Constantine, My Big Fat Greek Wedding actor, had long obit describing his career in Variety. He wasn't proposed for a blurb. Kirill C1 (talk) 06:52, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Variety is a trade publication, not a paper of record. nableezy - 06:58, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Tony, yes, the article prior to posting did discuss his impact on music. Betty White, no, there was no such section, she was just a beloved actress. I ultimately supported Belmondo after such a section above was added, but that pull discussion was a mess, based partially on the lack of any type of somewhat objective approach (eg what I'm trying to propose here). Masem (t) 12:14, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose The word "transformative" does not seem helpful because the concept is not well-established. We don't seem to have an article about it whereas we do have articles about better recognised concepts such as historical figure and celebrity. Insofar as it means anything, a transformative person is one who makes changes. But some great people are more important for their other qualities. The outstanding example was Elizabeth II who contributed sensibility, stability and tradition rather than being a radical revolutionary or revisionist like Mandela and Thatcher. The Queen was clearly a major historical figure and her death was clearly the big one of 2022. We should not have a rule which might have excluded her. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:27, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  QEII would have already been posted being that her death was the notable event itself (alongside the subsequent funeral proceedings and transition to King Charles). That rule wouldn't be changed. And even still, there would be IAR cases; QEII would be one of probably a dozen persons total in the world who's death, if they happened naturally and without any excessive ceremony, would still warrant a blurb because they would have immediate impact on the politics and governance in the world. The issue is dealing with the other 8 billion people that do not fall into that. Masem (t) 12:21, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose The word barely has any meaning here and is almost never used explicitly by sources about people (tech and weather, sure). We do see many describe the things the recent dead changed in life, but all too commonly; everyone would qualify, just like now. And "legacy" in a section header is easily misapplied. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:00, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - we need less personal opinions and OR here, not more. We are not the people who should be judging somebody's significance, what our role should be is to see how our sources are judging a person's significance. nableezy - 13:10, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  This proposal reduces personal opinions by adding objective sourced evidence of that significance to be present in the article and clearly identified. Masem (t) 13:40, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  In your opinion, it does. I thought mine reduced more. I think yours is too needy of a group of disparate people to all agree what "significance"/"importance" even looks like before its article presence can be clearly identified. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:27, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  Whether we use transformative, significant or importance, it is the identification of that value from high quality RSes, presented in the article in a clear, easily identified manner, that makes this a more objective test than the current hand waving with no sourcing we have now. I do not pretend that there will still be debatess on blurb posting if this was adopted, but the number of blurb debates should be significantly trimmed because they can't meet this objective criteria of showing sourcing on transfkrmative/significance/importancd/whatever. Masem (t) 14:48, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  If even you, the proposer, considers "whatever" a synonym for what you'd like us to clearly identify, that's a problem. It's not that that problem is the problem, to me. But since it's the same problem we've been having for years, my problem is with anyone being fooled into thinking rewording it or reinstating old words might help. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:20, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  I leave open what that synonym could be, but if this was to be implemented, I would agree we need to be precise on what we're looking for. I'm not necessarily attached to "transformative" but that I feel is the type of person that gets coverage related to their life or career's impact and legacy.

  But I stress, the difference between what we had before and what I propose is the incorporation of an objective metric related to sourcing: that we have multiple secondary or third-party sources that clearly demonstrate that the person was "X" where X is whatever adjective we agree on. If we wanted "X" to be "famous" for example, then we'd need sources to say "X was a famous person", rather than editors making such claims without anything to back up "famous", even if it may be somewhat obvious. That last part, editors making claims without having definitive sourcing, is where most of the problems with arguments around RD blurbs start. If we want to reduce subjectivity, we need to require editors bring objective evidence to the table to back up their claims. Masem (t) 16:19, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  If we want to reduce subjectivity, "we need" to let a prideless and unstressed large language model do this job. I know, I know, it feels wrong. But that's just our primitive pride and stress complexes firing wildly, like they did when "letting go" made factories and transportation more efficient. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:39, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not sure you understand how large language models work. They don't think for themselves and they don't eliminate bias; they merely disguise it in a black box. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:12, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  I certainly have room to learn, but hiding their (relatively widespread) biases sounds like it could only cut down on the amount of people noticing and arguing about them here every day. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:17, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Transformative means "I have personally heard of them a lot!". No, we need less people relying on their own personal knowledge base and feelings and more people looking at the text of articles and of source material, and making decisions based on what is helpful to the encyclopedia and to readers, and not using this space to honor people they really liked a lot. A blurb should not be an award we grant to really deserving people when they die, a blurb should always and only be used to convey useful information, and a link in RD is sufficient to say that a person has died. Blurbs should be reserved for when we need to say something more than just that they died; if a politician is assassinated, there's something additional to say about the death that is relevant. When a person dies of natural causes in an unremarkable way, it doesn't need a blurb to just say it. --Jayron32 14:19, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
• The fact that our last discussion regarding Sinead O'Connor (for whom, I thought, the "untimely death" qualification that people speak so grandiosely about in terms of "death as the main story" was indeed applicable) was so bitterly contentious maybe highlights the fact that some changes are needed. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:54, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Until closers start writing closing statements and weighing votes, there's no point in trying to craft guidelines; votes that contradict existing guidelines ("only one country," "never heard of it") aren't discounted now, so what's the point of changing the guidelines? It is and will continue to be a simple matter of counting votes, regardless of the basis of those votes. Levivich (talk) 14:24, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  citation needed. Closure aren't required to explain their rationale for posting or not, and there's no evidence they are simply using vote counting. The most current problem with closures tends to be posting a blurb far too early in a discussion or missing issues about article quality. Masem (t) 17:20, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  While it's true closers don't need to explain themselves, there are essays that suggest we ought to. And in any other area of Wikipedia where people widely disagree about something, no admin would dare think of closing a contentious discussion without explaining their reasoning. I just feel it would be a Nice Thing to Have. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:28, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Until closers start writing closing statements and weighing votes, - Somewhere in the back of my mind, when I was trying to write WP:DEATHBLURB and explore the issues of trying to track precedence and consensus at ITN, I knew there was a bugbear that I just for the life of me could not identify. Years and years I've been here, and I couldn't figure it out. But in your short post, you succinctly summarized the issue: How can we reasonably hope to interpret ITN's guidelines and directives when, in trying to explore a case study where people disagree on how to interpret the principles of WP:ITNRDBLURB, we literally have nothing to go off of from a closure? Ten people could look at that closure and draw ten separate conclusions about why the blurb discussion failed. The only conclusion that would be even close to a kernel of truth would be "no one could agree on a consensus." Every other type of conjecture is meaningless. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:22, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  We do have WP:ITNATA (a shortcut I just created but the content was there). This outlines a lot of !vote rationales that should not be used at ITNC discussions, and subsequently should be ignored by closers. It is not that we are absent this list, but that !voters tend to keep ignoring it. Masem (t) 17:29, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  They ignore it because there's no evidence that those types of votes are ignored. If someone uses a !vote with a garbage rationale to support something and the item gets posted, whether or not that consensus could have been reached with or without including that !vote, what is the incentive or the compulsion for them to no longer employ that rationale for subsequent votes? Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose and scrap all RD blurbs ultimately anything we come up with will be adversarial and subjective; what is the point of blurbing a recent death when we have an RD element, anyone listed in RD could be blurbed "Person X has died at age Y" so what's the difference? I would only make an exception if there's a separate article on the death or killing or funeral, then it can go through the usual ITN process. Scrapping RD blurbs will mean everyone is treated equally and we save lots of time and effort. Abcmaxx (talk) 18:58, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  As has been pointed out, non-death blurbs have the same problem with adversarial and subjective assessments; the only reason RD blurbs tend to draw out more is that editors often come in with personal feelings towards the person in question that make discussion of these blurbs from a objective viewpoint more difficult. So while getting rid of RD blurbs may seem like a solution, its not consistent with the rest of the normal problems at ITNC. Masem (t) 19:02, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Support the Scrap The past seven years were a trial. We found what we found. Time to try something else. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:00, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Death blurbs have always been part of ITN. The only change is that with the addition of "notable == automatic RD line mention", is that the debate is about which bios are appropriate (by whatever definition we should decide on) for having blurbs alongside the rest of the ITN blurbs. Masem (t) 01:39, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  Is there a particular bio your proposal aims to cover which the current vague wording doesn't already suggest is "appropriate"? If not, why are you doing this?

  Death blurbs weren't a problem until we lowered the ITN bar to include bios whose deaths are nowhere near news events. Now when we throw a legit celebrity in that pile, it seems like we're saying they weren't important/significant/famous at all, rather than just not as whatever as Thatcher and Mandela. No offense to those two quite dissimilar people, but they simply didn't affect the average or educated Canadian one way or the other, and it's been weird (if not impossible) trying to imagine if a musician, actor or athlete is above or below them on some abstract pictograph I'm not sure anyone actually uses.

  So yeah, who do you want make blurb-appropriate, specifically? Nothing nebulous, nothing broad, three to five concrete examples of ideal articles from which similarities in others can be easily/clearly identified by anyone with half a brain. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:45, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  Support with the death-article exception - to me this realistically seems like the only way forward if our goal is to reduce how adversarial the process currently is. Anything other suggested change to the criteria would be academic, as WP:ITNRD is an information page and the existing blurb conditions on the page are not truly firm conditions anyway. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:05, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  Comment - Oppose a "death-article exception", for reasons given under a previous section on this page. To re-iterate: This criterion seems to solidify the existing bias in favour of people from rich countries and in particular, the US and UK. US Presidents (and possibly UK Prime Ministers) will almost certainly have their own "death and funeral of" article, (eg: Death and state funeral of George H. W. Bush, and there is even a draft article for the death of an American who is still alive: Draft:Death and state funeral of Jimmy Carter) whereas the heads of state/government in other countries will not. The existence of a "death and funeral of" article for a US President doesn't mean that person is more significant than the head of state of a poorer country - it just means that someone took the time to write the article for the American, but no one bothered to create a separate "death and funeral of" article for the non-American. 00:16, 31 July 2023 (UTC) Chrisclear (talk) 02:24, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you for your input; I don't know who to reply to because you have not properly signed your post in this thread. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:25, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  I am not sure why my accidental omission of my signature prevented you from replying to my post, however, it is now signed. Chrisclear (talk) 02:24, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support again via my comments earlier in the thread. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:34, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

To clarify, this was in support of the scrapping, which was previously not clear. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:16, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• I have no idea where to put this comment because the thread is so massive, but I've really been thinking about this issue, and I've come to believe that blurbs about individual deaths should really be restricted to "this is the top story in major international news media", along with sitting heads of state. In a process that is already incredibly subjective, death blurbs often seem the most subjective, and this seems like the best way around that. -- Kicking222 (talk) 02:28, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  What about people who are the head of a government, but the head of state? Chrisclear (talk) 03:46, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Kicking222: but what constitutes a "top" story is open to interpretation and all sorts of nuance and won't resolve anything. Hence blanket no blurb proposed. Abcmaxx (talk) 11:09, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

  No, it doesn't. I specifically highlighted the for a reason. Is it the #1 story- the first thing you see below the publication's name- on news sites worldwide? Sure, blurb it. Otherwise, don't. Kicking222 (talk) 12:01, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Given the mess of discussion on the DC case here, all editors should review why that wasn't posted as well as the behavior that was not really tolerated in that, should someone nominate this one. Masem (t) 03:07, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

When you wrote "dropped", do you mean "started" or "ended"? Chrisclear (talk) 14:16, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Probably "released", like records are. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm a new contributor, but I have been monitoring the ITN pages for some time as a passive observer. As a passive observer, the biggest issue I see is that the RD/Blurb discussions get very muddy very quickly because people are trying to weigh in on two different ideas simultaneously. Frequently, perfectly acceptable articles are delayed from being featured as RD just because the Blurb discussion is still ongoing.

Therefore what I propose is this: RD is only RD. Post any death with an article, get the article up to snuff, and feature it under Recent Deaths.

If a nominator believes that a certain celebrity death is deserving a blurb, that should be nominated separately as any other news item and judged on the existing ITN criteria. The problem with this would be the same name appearing in two separate discussions but given the very different look and format of RD vs ITN nomination discussions, I don't think this would be too big an issue.

I'll also grant you that this proposal doesn't really fix the issues above in terms of deciding when a celebrity death is blurb worthy. The benefit of my proposal I believe would be that it would allow RD to continue to work as intended while we continue to workshop and refine the blurb process.

Thoughts? SunsetShotguns (talk) 20:03, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Frequently, perfectly acceptable articles are delayed from being featured as RD just because the Blurb discussion is still ongoing There's sometimes latency in getting an RD item posted after it is "ready", regardless of whether it was also nominated for a blurb. There's also a problem of !voters saying "support" blurb without regard for page quality. It would duplicate quality discussions if the ITN and RD noms were separate. —Bagumba (talk) 00:51, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I'd go as far as to say that that statement is demonstrably false. What is the basis for this statement? Recent blrub discussions have seen the RD component posted quite quickly once quality was met. DarkSide830 (talk) 17:14, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Upon further reflection, I retract the statement you are referring to. I think that there is a problem with RD and Blurb discussions going on together and muddying the waters, but RDs being delayed because of it isn't really the symptom I initially thought it was. --SunsetShotguns (talk) 17:44, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Hey, no problem. I have issues with this system as well. I'm personally not happy with some of the blurb discussions that seem to have been closed TOO quickly after the RD was decided. Either way there is clearly a problem. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:16, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I think I have to agree with Bagumba, the RD and Blurb discussion need to go together because half the problem tends to be article quality factors. What is needed along these lines is to help editors make better !votes. Simple "support RD" without addressing quality (assuming that prior posts haven't made it clear) aren't helpful. Masem (t) 04:17, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

If anything needs separating it's the discussions of (1) article quality and (2) blurb or RD. Quite how this could be done in practice I don't know off the top of my head. Thryduulf (talk) 10:29, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Thryduulf I think that's the point I was trying to get across. RD is exclusively a discussion on article quality after all. At least it is in theory. In my limited experience, I haven't seen many cases where article quality was good enough for RD, yet it was bad enough to be the deciding factor to prevent a blurb from being posted. In fact, for most of the contentious blurb nominees lately, there were few if any votes based on article quality. But perhaps that's the point MASEM and Bagumba were making, that the problem is moreso in voters not being clear about their votes. Addressing that, though, is a much more sticky problem. SunsetShotguns (talk) 10:55, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support. I've been saying for years that RD should have a separate nominations page (maybe at WP:ITNRD/C), with only death blurbs being discussed at ITN/C. The current nomination page is overwhelmed with RDs, which distracts from the blurb nominations. As you note, the discussions of RDs often devolve into a mess of some people talking about blurbs and some about just an RD entry, which is confusing and inefficient. Procedurally, we could require deaths to pass the quality cuts at RD before being nominated for a blurb at ITN/C, thereby avoiding duplication of effort. Modest Genius ^talk 14:48, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

  RDs should only have 2 types of !votes: 1) Page quality (WP:ITNQUALITY) 2) Blurb worthiness (WP:ITNRDBLURB). Saying "support RD" is meaningless without a statement about the page's quality. And a blurb cannot happen without meeting page quality criteria. —Bagumba (talk) 15:27, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. That's why I think it would help clarify things to separate these discussions. I like ModestGenius' idea that we don't consider blurbs at all until the article passes the RD quality check. SunsetShotguns (talk) 17:51, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

  That should be true of all blurbs (not just deaths, I mean every single nomination on ITN). All nominations should be checked for quality before we spend time researching reliable sources to check for significance. If the article isn't good enough quality for the main page, I don't think we should start searching reliable sources for coverage of the event to assess significance, because why spend time doing the hard work of researching to assess significance if the article isn't even good enough to post on the main page. Quality is always the easier check than significance, given the time that has to be spent checking for reliable news coverage, so that should always be the first look we give an article. Open the article and read it first, if it passes a quality test, then start searching reliable sources for recent coverage, and check to see if the depth and breadth of the coverage establishes significance. --Jayron32 18:03, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

  As most of those nominated for "RD only" aren't really in the news, I think RD/C is a better new section shortcut than ITNRD/C, but otherwise agree. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:20, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

  It now occurs to me that RD/C would better fit Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing, whose parent shortcut is already RD. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:22, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• I'm not sure this is such a huge issue in practice, and if anything, separation will further decrease the already lacking participation in RD discussions. Curbon7 (talk) 20:15, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
• Support I was ready to propose exactly the same thing but wasn’t sure how to handle the death blurbs. ITN is really overwhelmed by RD nominations, so discussing someone’s death for RD and a blurb on two different pages won’t make it drastically difficult to follow.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:01, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't think splitting the process and editor attention like this the answer. Perhaps the ITN nomination template should have separate sections for quality and blurb suitability, the latter of which would be in a hidden comment for RD noms that says to not unhide unless you genuinely believe it should be blurbed. That would would be clearer than the hodgepodge we have now. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 03:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

  I like that idea quite a bit. Keep everything under a single heading but have a way to separate the two discussions within it. SunsetShotguns (talk) 13:10, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Patar knight: Excellent suggestion. Moscow Mule (talk) 21:27, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly. That is what I was thinking, too, when I started from the top. Schwede66 05:30, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• The real solution is making the little text below that says that all Wikipedia articles are notable enough for RD and the discussion should be about quality cover the whole screen and have multiple pop ups with it while playing a super loud audio with someone reading it out loud so that drive-by contributors and editors that haven't edited for 7 years and just came back understand that RDs aren't about notability anymore. Just kidding of course, but it's kinda amazing to me that we've had the new RD rules for like 7 years now alongside the little disclaimer and some people still don't realize it. On a more serious note, I quite like Patar knight's suggestion. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 21:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I am a bit curious about the process. Yesterday, I gave the third support for the Alex Collins (American football) nomination, which is still pending, at 20:55, 16 August 2023 (UTC). However, I see W. Jason Morgan was posted at 11:10, 17 August 2023 (UTC) without any nomination supports and Jamie Reid doesn't even seem to have a nomination and seems to have been posted without any supports an Oppose and a subsequent Ready (after CNs were addressed).

What is going on with the Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/August 2023 archive that I can't even find the August 8 Jamie Reid nomination (or any August 8 nominations). I had to track down this diff to even confirm no stated supports for Reid.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:51, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I have been away from WP due to a few off-wiki commitments IRL, but, here are some of my notes.

1. Posting admins are encouraged to post from the bottom of the page upwards. i.e. the older deaths first and then work their way upwards on the page.
2. While I am not an admin, typically non contentious nominations are posted as-is. e.g., well sourced articles, articles that show good breadth / depth of coverage etc. Seems like Jamie Reid fell in that category. One could argue that the posting admin could have waited one more day for an editor (or two or three) to weigh in with their assessments of the article. The article would roll-off the page in 24-48 hours, if I have my math correct. Given this, I personally do not think this posting was too egregious.
3. Re: Alex Collins (American football) there seems to be some discussion on some date of birth inconsistencies, a posting admin might be waiting for that to be resolved before stepping in to post. If you or any other editors believe that the inconsistency has been resolved or does not exist, I would encourage you to mark it as such, and perhaps even mark the post as "Ready". Once that is done, an admin will come along and post the article.
4. There is also a ping that you could use @Admins willing to post ITN: and that would notify some of the regular admins who can come over and assist based on their availability.
5. As a general observation, admin capacity has been stretched and in limited supply, or at least so it was a couple of months back when I was more active. So, the onus is on all of the editors to jump-in and assist where possible.
6. Re: the archives missing August 8th, you are right, something odd seems to be going on there.

Good luck. Ktin (talk) 15:54, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

This isn’t anything unusual really. Admins are recommended to start from the bottom, and most editors on ITN don’t retroactively check older sections, so it’s difficult to get !votes on them, even more so when it comes to RD since a good majority of ITN regulars are only interested in and participate in blurb discussions. Therefore a lot of admins will post what would normally get uncontroversially posted if it’s at a decent risk of rolling over. IAR is a policy after all. As for Alex Collins being delayed, there have been times both now and before where RDs have been ready for over a day without being posted, while other RDs are being posted. It might be admins just checking what’s at the bottom, since it’s at the highest risk since it could be rolled over soon, then going to do other things. Additionally on Alex Collins, regarding the DOB discussion, as the person who brought it up I agree that the NFL probably just made a typo or silly mistake, so it can be marked as ready with the current DOB. Admin attention is limited and they are volunteers after all, so there may be a delay, even a major one for RD being posted. Scientia potentia est, MonarchOfTerror 16:30, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

• OK, I sort of understand what is going on here in terms of 1. Jamie Reid (quickly posted as uncontroversial) and 2. Alex Collins (seems to be on its way).-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
• However, 1. no one has explained W. Jason Morgan and 2. No one who frequents ITN has figured out why August 8 nominations are not included in the Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/August 2023-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Looks like InedibleHulk re-added the August 8 archive. But dunno why the archiver bot messed up. Natg 19 (talk) 05:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

It didn't tell, so I didn't ask. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:01, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• After all of this discussion, I missed Alex Collins (American football)'s 32-hour run on the main page by 4 hours.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:30, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. PicturePerfect666 (talk) 22:01, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

For those interested, I have opened a discussion at the VP Idea Lab regarding changes to ITN; it is at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Changes to ITN. 331dot (talk) 16:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Your opening line has inspired mine. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:14, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Intended as an alternative idea, by the way, not a better one. I don't have better ideas. This archive can prove it. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

There's also a discussion at Talk:Main Page. The problem is not a lack of discussion; it's that there's an inability to act on the ferment of ideas. That's because ITN is locked down by protection. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:06, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, when we're discussing ITN's issues on like 5 different pages, lack of discussion isn't shocking. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:41, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Hey all, I see there are many discussions going on in multiple groups concurrently on reinventing ITN. My fear as with many conversations, we do not see clear ‘actionables’ emerge from these conversations. I am convinced that we need technical expertise / scripting ninjas. Without them, all of the conversation is just wasted effort. (Pardon my tone in the last statement).

My backlog of requests that we need scripting / technical support on are:

1. Trending topics support
2. Photograph rotation script
3. Automatic queuing and promotion (doing away with the need for admins to promote non-contentious articles like RD, allowing editors to do this and hence freeing admin capacity)
4. Template edits to seek inputs on quality separate from significance (which is more than half the daily battle between editors)
5. And, replacing the easter egg link that has "Ongoing" linked to portal current events.
6. (Added on 9/5): Automatic tagging of the article's tag page with Template:ITN note upon nomination at WP:ITNC (h/t: user:Cryptic and user:Khuft)

Ask: Do we have anyone here who has some scripting expertise to even get started with a mockup of the above features?

Ktin (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I definitely agree. I'd like to add to your request list the proposal from @Patar knight from the above RD discussion: "Perhaps the ITN nomination template should have separate sections for quality and blurb suitability, the latter of which would be in a hidden comment for RD noms that says to not unhide unless you genuinely believe it should be blurbed. That would be clearer than the hodgepodge we have now."

This suggestion had 4 supports (including my own) and no opposes, so I'd like to take steps to refine the idea and see what it will take to implement it, assuming wider support from the ITN community. SunsetShotguns (talk) 15:20, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Separating the quality/significance makes no sense, editors need to consider both when !voting, and separating them will make it far too complicated and will decrease participation. Masem (t) 15:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I think they were suggesting that it is still within one nomination section, but it's somehow divided into one subsection about quality and another on significance. —Bagumba (talk) 08:34, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Which still is a problem, even if we're talking two adjacent subsections. !Votes should be considering both quality and importance, and in the past we have had lots of problems with editors !voting only on importance. This is part of why ITN has problems is that editors are only considering one side of the reason to post, and we need them to be looking at both. Masem (t) 12:31, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

@Masem- This proposal is specifically for RD. The idea was to separate standard RD discussions on quality from the significance discussion on whether a given RD merits a blurb. Regular ITN submissions would be assessed for both as they have always been. SunsetShotguns (talk) 13:40, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I think in the limited case, a script is not really necessary. If it is clear that a blurb is being discussed but the RD is ready to go, the just adding a subheadings line to show the RD was posted and discussion on the blurb should continue. But that needs to be judged by admins, not automatic by scripts. Masem (t) 14:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Where has this backlog been agreed by the community? Stephen 07:42, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

As noted above, this is specifically my backlog. Feel free to add, or subtract. Either way, all of these are DOA sans the aforementioned scripting ninjas. Ktin (talk) 03:24, 1 September 2023 (UTC)