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I'm pretty sure I have seen sport world records being posted numerous times on ITN, so I was really surprised and sad to see my suggestion on New world record in speed skating being rejected for that reason. Have guidelines changed recently, or are only some sport world records allowed based on some very subjective I-don't-like-that-sport mentality? Too bad, I had hoped the speed skating enthusiasts could have a few days to get the article to an acceptable standard and have some incentive to show what they can do. --Mango från yttre rymden (talk) 12:42, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Like I said, not cricket. Howard the Duck (talk) 12:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Nor basketball, nor American football, nor baseball, nor "soccer". In my opinion, sports world records like this one which have the tiniest incremental change and had only been broken a year ago aren't that newsworthy. That's why I opposed. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 13:16, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't recall "numerous" - there were a couple of track and field/athletics ones posted recently, both of which I opposed. Generally we don't do them. There should certainly be no expectation, regardless of sport, that they will be posted.-- P-K3 (talk) 13:32, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Then you should make an ITNR nomination to that end. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 14:37, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I think they need to be records recognized as pinnacles of human achievement, which would be like breaking the four-minute mile (long since done, but using as examples). Most records are "routine" in that they are the most "somethings" or the fastest "something" that all easily can be broken in the future, but the pinnacle achievements are usually times or records no one believed at one point could be met but eventually could, and thus should be recognized, as long as its clear that striving towards the pinnacle achievement is well documented as the case of the four-minute mile. --Masem (t) 14:32, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Masem. I'd also be happy with the breaking of records by a huge margin or where it has stood for a huge length of time - someone uncontroversially beating Florence Griffith-Joyner's 100m world record (set in 1988) for example will clearly be news. Someone beating Brian Lara's 501 not out by a single run probably wouldn't and shouldn't be posted, but someone scoring 600 definitely would (551 might be). Thryduulf (talk) 15:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Although Lara's record is getting close to 30 years old so if itwas broken by any margin it'd be noteworthy. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 15:24, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I would agree that a record being broken that's more than just a second or two (relatively speaking) over the old, something clearly pointed out in the news sources as a major shattering of the old record and not just an incremental improvement, that could be posted. --Masem (t) 15:26, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Fair point, even if that does make me feel old! Thryduulf (talk) 15:38, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Seems like this could be summarised as "If they broke a record set less than 5 years ago, it probably doesn't meet the ITN threshold." My choice of "5" is somewhat arbitrary. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 16:13, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

It's not a time factor. If someone beat a 60 year old record for, say, the 100 yard dash, but only by 0.01 seconds, that's not really an improvement to be crowing about, unless it is clear the sources thought the 60 year old record would never be broken. There's a level of subjectivity that we're going to have to judge by how much emphasis the sources give to its importance. --Masem (t) 16:27, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'd say that a sports record is very unlikely to meet the ITN threshold unless at least one of the following is true, but even meeting all three does not guarantee it will be posted:

• The previous record stood for at least 5-10 years before being broken. Note that, in general, the less frequent the opportunities to break the record are the longer the record needs to have stood.
• The new record is a very significantly better than the previous one, not just an incremental improvement, especially compared to previous times the record has been broken.
• The new record represents a significant milestone that has been a target for multiple competitors for some time. The milestone must be discussed in reliable sources from before it was reached. Thryduulf (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment we posted soccer records and cricket records (some world cup goal record and something with Messi. I think Sachin somethings 100 centuries? Don't make me dig). The story is either in the news or it's not, the article is either good enough for the main page or it's not. We don't need more !rules here the process actually worked just fine. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:59, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

  @LaserLegs: I'm not proposing my bullet points as rules, they are guidelines based on common outcomes. Thryduulf (talk) 15:22, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough, and as a discussion point it's helpful, I'm just clarifying that I don't think we need to codify anything here. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:37, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• @LaserLegs: The problem with "The story is either in the news or it's not," is that we post blurbs which are not in the news (some rather easily), and there are passionate opposes to noms which are obviously in the news. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:41, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I know, the whole ITN/C process is a subjective dumpster fire but unless you find a way to quantify "significance" we're stuck with it. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:37, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

• ITN, not ITSN ... We have generally posted non-ITNR sporting stories such as records or transfers when they are significant enough to be front page news in multiple reliable sources, as opposed to only being reported in the sports news sections, i.e. Neymar's transfer in 2017 because it was such a ludicrous incremental leap that it caused multiple stories about the finances of football. I'm also pretty sure Bolt's 9.58 would have been posted if ITN had existed in the current form then, and anyone who beats Griffith-Joyner's mark probably will as well. Black Kite (talk) 16:52, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
• Comment For my part, when I considered whether this record met the "notability" requirement, I considered: a) the popularity of the sport; b) the prominence of the record; c) the length of time the previous record stood. a) I think List of professional sports leagues by revenue and List of largest sports contracts do a pretty good job of illustrating the relative popularity of each sport. While I enjoy watching speed skating, I'm also aware that there are zero countries in the world in which speed skating is the most popular sport. While it may seem like poor judgement to overlook a sport just because it isn't as popular as soccer, I think we'd agree that popularity has to be part of the discussion, or else we'd end up with records from Naginatajutsu or Pesäpallo. That doesn't mean that speed skating should never end up on ITN, simply that the bar would be higher. b) Regarding the prominence of the record, speed skating has several records at several distances, both on short track and long track, and I'm not entirely sure if any distance stands out more than any other distance. This contrasts with, say, the 100m dash, which is clearly the most notable distance for sprinters, or the marathon, which is clearly the most notable distance for long-distance runners. Furthermore, some records are legendary, having been written about or featured in several notable sources or films about the achievement, such as the four minute mile. c) The 10,000m record was previously beaten exactly one year ago, so it clearly hasn't had the longevity of, say, baseball's non-steroid home run record, or golf's major championship record. NorthernFalcon (talk) 01:48, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'm pretty sure that List of professional sports leagues by revenue and List of largest sports contracts don't indicate popularity at all, but the amount of money in that sport, which isn't a good metric to use. Football is #1 whch ever metric you use, but the second most popular sport in the world by viewership - and a long way ahead of #3 - is cricket, and you won't find that anywhere near the top of the first list or anywhere on the second. Black Kite (talk) 02:43, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

For my part (I did not oppose the nomination), I see no problem posting superlatives, new world records, firsts, whathaveyou. IF they are linked to an article suitable for the Main Page, which is a strict criteria for ITN. The bold link for the nomination was a stub BLP, which absolutely cannot go up. A new record in a fringe sport, which happened to have a great article, would be an excellent candidate for ITN, but that's not what was proposed.130.233.213.199 (talk) 06:16, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Stop closing noms as "no consensus" in under an hour. I've done it too, we need to stop. Other close rationales are fine (like "not dead"). No one gets a supervote and the perennial claim "you can re-open a nom" is nonsense the closing comment says in bold text "Please do not modify". If you don't want to participate in a nom, scroll past it. Not hard. Do we need to codify this with yet another !rule or is the behavior going to stop? --LaserLegs (talk) 12:00, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Excellent point. Excepting anything blatantly against policy, the default should be to leaving noms open, not closing them just because they can be closed. ——Serial 12:08, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

There's no strict policy on time limits, is there? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:15, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Nominations are usually closed early when they become pointless timesinks or have overwhelming consensus against. The snow in America is a funny one as the renomination and posting took place when the rest of the world was asleep (sneaky!) so doesn't prove anything other than "timing your run" to ensure we maintain that systemic bias. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 12:22, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Yee-ha. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:17, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Don't participate if it's become a time sink. Problem solved. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:22, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• These are obviously an application of WP:STEAM. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:01, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with this in principle. But in practice, I don't think we'll ever get this to stop. We have admins who are greatly acclimated to the ITN space and their judgment on whether or not noms will reach consensus tends to be very sound. Stephen is a good example of this. --WaltCip-(talk) 13:53, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

It was closed while I was attempting to post, but I was simply going to note that we posted the Miracle on the Hudson in 2009(yes, eons ago in ITN years, but nevertheless). 331dot (talk) 08:53, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• As the nominator of that article, there is a rather stark difference between the two, in UA328, the engine combusted, fell out, and they had to make an emergency landing in Denver. However, in AWE1549, the engine was struck by a flock of birds, and what made it newsworthy on ITN was the fact that they had to ditch the aircraft in the freaking Hudson River, then get everyone out safely before the plane started sinking and people started getting trapped and dying. Sure, no one died, but it's just that much of a miracle that we had to post it. UA328, however, is a lot less of a miracle compared with AWE1549, given the engine fell out and they had to make an emergency landing. It is a rare occurrence, sure, but not much happened, and no one got injured. I'm not trying to say that plane incidents should have injuries or deaths (to be featured on ITN), but here, it just simply isn't ITN-worthy, whereas with AWE1549, it was ITN-worthy because of the ditch in the Hudson. ActuallyNeverHappened02 (talk) 14:30, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• Re-open it. This "no consensus" snow close after a few hours and a handful of comments has got to stop anyway. --LaserLegs (talk)

I reopened it. I'll continue to re-open it too until it expires off or the discussion because demonstrably disruptive. This needs to stop. --LaserLegs (talk) 14:35, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• The nom spent more time closed than open, what hope was there for a consensus to form? --LaserLegs (talk) 22:11, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

  Consensus had strongly formed against a run-of-the-mill engine disintegration. We all know that the crew flicked the "fire extinguisher" switch and then landed with one engine, something that all twin-engine crews are trained to do, even those not in the US. This is a non-starter story, unlikely to be listed in the top 5,000 news stories of the year. Drop that stick. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 22:21, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

  I'm inclined to lean to Rambling Man's side, engine failure is common enough that it is illegal for a twin engine to be more than 5 or 6 hours from a diversionary or regular runway at any time and if they lose one they have to land ASAP as the parts per billion risk of trusting a single engine for more than a handful of hours is considered unacceptable. Every time they trust a plane model/engine model combination more they raise the time above the current or previous model, it was like an hour till the 1970s or 90s and this is why they made inefficient tri-jets and twin-jets didn't cross oceans in the early 747-era. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:00, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  Engine failure is uncommon enough that it's no longer required for twinjets to be within two hours of an alternate. I don't want to re-do the nom here, but it should have been left open. ITN has become entrenched with unwritten "we don't" !rules enforced by a "WP:SNOW" WP:Supervote. Maybe the nom would have developed compelling counter arguments that would have been too late for this nom but helped next time. We posted when the auto-pilot confused poorly trained pilots and they crashed, yet we yawned when a highly skilled navy pilot landed her plane after an engine exploded and a passenger was blown out. Probably we should have posted both, but instead it's become ok to close down discussions after a few hours. WP:Consensus is not a WP:VOTE count and shutting down discussion after a few opposes does a disservice to our readers and is toxic to the project. It really needs to stop. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  Maybe things should be closed a little less soon here. Need to balance the angst of closing with the angst of not closing. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:48, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  In this case, the multiple closures were to prevent exactly what's happening here, re-litigation of the same old points. It's a waste of time and that's why such discussions are closed, to focus people on other things. This "news story" won't be in the top 5000 of the year, it's barely got any encyclopedic value let alone newsworthiness, but some snazzy pictures of debris on the ground has accelerated it, tabloidesque, to news tickers who are really in the doldrums at the moment as there's almost no actual news going on. We don't lower standards to include bog-standard checklist landings just because things are on a go-slow. This isn't "toxic" or "detrimental" to the readers. It allows the editing community to focus on the articles which really mean something to the project, not puny disaster stubs which are of no long-term interest to anyone. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 09:07, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  Disaster stub or not, I certainly hope this event will be of "long term interest" to some folk. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:48, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

  Where is the "long term interest" clause in WP:ITN? I doubt 20% of what we post is of "long term interest" --LaserLegs (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Just in case folks don't know, the article was proposed for deletion (AfD), at 21:28 on 21 February 2021, which makes it ineligible for ITN. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• Haha, that AfD doesn't stand a chance against the AIRCRASH crew, they'd vote to Keep an article about a bolt falling off an aircraft, let alone half a bloody engine. Black Kite (talk) 02:43, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Air safety incidents are fascinating. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:06, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oh, I agree, but only some of them are notable. Black Kite (talk) 06:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• I certainly hope the editors eager to detail this accident display the same level of eagerness if a hypothetical accident were to occur on, say, Mongolian Airlines.--WaltCip-(talk) 13:44, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• It's different regional approaches to airline safety. Here in the US, Boeing's grounding all the 777s and FAA is demanding an emergency inspection of all 777 planes, so there will be more media on it. While I'm sure airline safety people in central Asia have that much concern too, the question if that turns to similar policies that get reported by the media is a question, something that Wikipedia cannot make up for if that is lacking. --Masem (t) 15:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Update: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United Airlines Flight 328 was a speedy keep and a SNOW keep. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:55, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Given the situation with the Martha Stewart (actress) posting, it might be helpful to have some clear guidance in this area as to how to post RDs where there is someone with the same name of the same or greater prominence who is not deceased. We don't want to start rumors about people's deaths when it can be avoided. Yes, people will see who it is when they visit the article, but not every reader will do that, and we can't make them. The person who is still living might quite correctly be concerned. Perhaps using full names first, and failing that, a disambiguation? 331dot (talk) 09:37, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Background There was discussion about this at the Martha Stewart (actress) nomination.—Bagumba (talk) 09:59, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• My problem with Martha Stewart (actress) is that she's displayed on the MP right now with her real name, "Martha Shelley", but I doubt if many readers know her by anything but her stage name. Many people will miss her death, not seeing her common name. If we are going to disambiguate RD posts, WP:NATURALDIS says: Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names.. However, "Martha Shelley" is obscure.—Bagumba (talk) 09:59, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

  Update It's since been changed to display "Martha Stewart (actress)"[1]—Bagumba (talk) 11:07, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• When we have posted the death of notable animals with names too close to living humans, we have disambiguated them. It makes sense to this for matches like this too when there is a clear holder for the common name. If we had exactly two "John Smiths" but both were equally obscure and one died for RD, I wouldn't worry about the disambiguation. --Masem (t) 14:21, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• I think this scenario has NPOV considerations we need to think about as well. If her name happens to be also the name of someone who came to prominence at a later date, who are we to assign one Martha Stewart importance over the other? Weighing our decision on pageviews seems crude; maybe this shouldn't be our place for judgment after all. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
  • It would also be NPOV, however, to claim that the two Stewarts are equal in prominence when that is clearly not the case (even in her "prime", the elder Martha Stewart was in fewer than ten films according to her filmography). I think, per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, that it's safe to say that when two people have the same name but only one of them has parentheses in the article title, that the one without parentheses is more prominent. Of course, the non-parenthesized person might be long dead (Winston Churchill, for one) in which this shouldn't matter, but there are quite a few "John Majors" who are still alive. (Granted, the John Major will probably be blurbed, but I digress). – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:35, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Disambiguate iff the following conditions apply:
  • A primary topic exists between the names (i.e., when the name "John Doe" is mentioned, people generally tend to assume one specific John Doe),
  • The names are identical without disambiguation "John Doe" and "John C. Doe" don't pass this test, for example, and
  • The primary topic is living or recently deceased This won't matter if "the" John Doe was someone who lived and died in the 19th century. "Recently deceased" might be sticky but is best left to consensus and/or admin discretion.

The goal, in the spirit of WP:SURPRISE (whose spirit, if not letter, I interpret to cover all reader-facing material, such as our by far most-viewed page), is to not astonish our readers into thinking someone had died when they really hadn't. A secondary goal, per the spirit of WP:BLP, is to not inadvertently start false rumors or premature obituaries, and the above should be interpreted in that light. (Apologies if this comes across as bureaucratic, I just wanted to be authoritative and definitive on my views). – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:47, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Support John M Wolfson's refreshingly common sense proposal. I couldn't have put it better myself. --Jayron32 17:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Support codifying common sense --LaserLegs (talk) 17:30, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Thanks for writing this. 331dot (talk) 20:30, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support John's proposal. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 21:37, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Recently, I've been following certain users opposes and supports opinions, and found some points that could be proposed as a guideline/criterion for ITN. Pardon my bad English, English is my third language.

Minimum time for blurb posting

Recently, there has been a concern regarding bias in blurbs. Some users who want to oppose but lives in an unlucky timezone can't help but find the article already on the main page. When they delivered their post-posting oppose, their opinion became futile because the nomination is already closed. As Masem proposed at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#(Posted)_February_13–17_winter_storm_(Winter_Storm_Uri), one of the ways to resolve this is to increase the wait hours for domestic (an event that only influences one country) events to 24 hours, so users from other timezones could weigh in their opinion. --Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 16:14, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Futile support this is a perennial discussion but there are so many cases where waiting would be absurd that we just have to live with the overt exploitation of this loophole that happens from time to time. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:22, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

From the last time a minimum-time-until-post discussion was had, we really can't put this as a rule, but I strongly urge all admins that do post to keep in mind the concern that if a story is region-centric, and the current timeframe from the nomination to the apparently "support" will only have editors in that region active (late night for US, early morning for Europe), then perhaps waiting a few more hours for the rest of the world to catch up cannot hurt. It's simply advice that we can't write into procedure. --Masem (t) 16:22, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

And will never happen. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:24, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why you can't add that to Wikipedia:In_the_news/Administrator_instructions#ITN/C.-- P-K3 (talk) 16:28, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• This was nominated in 1:09 UTC, and was blurbed in 6:14 UTC (8:09 PM EDT to 1:14 AM EDT). This was the middle of the night in Europe, but was the middle of the day in Australia and New Zealand (12:09 PM AEDT to 5:14 pm AEDT) and morning hours in India (6:39 to 11:44 AM). There was no excuse on having "native English speakers" or even other people opposing this; we have ITN regulars from these time zones. People were awake at this time. If they want to oppose, they can. Howard the Duck (talk) 16:27, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

  Sheer weight of numbers Howie me old mate. Yanks outnumber the rest of us about 10 to 1. No hope when it's nighttime in Europe to stop such a covert operation. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:29, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

  It's a lot less than 10 Yanks even if a non-American has to be between the Indian and East US time zone to be awake, all Americans are awake and a second language anglophone is weighted a tiny 1/10th of a first language anglophone (to ensure no bias from list of countries by English-speaking population being anyone age 5+ while the Wikipedian population is Internet users only and there are less youth per capita in the first language anglosphere). The only way you can get 10 (slightly under actually) is to count first-language anglophones only and that's not very systemic unbiased of you. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support with the caveat that obviously world-changing news items (for example, 9/11) don't need to wait, we'd look stupid if we did that. FWIW, I would actually have supported the US winter storm blurb, but that was simply a coup. Stop doing that, please. Black Kite (talk) 16:34, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support - ITN needs to not be swayed by special interests any further.--WaltCip-(talk) 17:12, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP. Not only does this mention of "domestic events" go expressly against the Arguments about a story relating to a particular geographic region, country, ethnicity, people group, etc. are generally seen as unhelpful in the significance criteria, but how do you define a domestic event? The nomination which kicked all this off was about a storm that also impacted Canada and Mexico, so would presumably be exempt from this rule.-- P-K3 (talk) 17:32, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

  We're in luck, the article is so US-centric, it barely even acknowledges that Canadia and Mexicana exist. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 18:05, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

  Bias systémique. Canada didn't get enough so they weren't impressed (those parts of Canada are muy snowy) and Mexico doesn't have enough English speakers that have Internet. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:23, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support in spirit, oppose as impractical I appreciate the desire to be as inclusive as possible, and I really want to support this, but I find that there's no practical solution that resolves setting a time limit like this and also being able to post quality articles in a timely fashion so that the blurb is sufficiently current that it is expected in our reader's minds. I simply can't find a way to make that work, and I'm more in favor of less bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake; if we have a sufficiently quality article with no issues in terms of depth and referencing and quality, and it's good to go, I can't think of a reason why we would want to hold it up just to make sure that everyone on the planet gets a chance to weigh in. 99% of the time, this is not an issue. We shouldn't hold up all postings merely for the few times this becomes an argument. --Jayron32 17:44, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose unless you also stipulate a minimum time for closing. You can't have it both ways. Also if you have evidence of "bias" lets see it because nothing in the WP:ITN guidelines says anything about it. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:23, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• *Cough* The proposal does state 24 hours. Black Kite (talk) 20:57, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• The OP opines about not being able to post-post oppose due to closure. What I'm saying is that if we're going to have a minimum nom time of 24 hours for people to oppose US-centric stories, we need a minimum open time of 24 hours for people to support US-centric stories. As written, this nom wants to preserve the rapid "WP:SNOW close America sucks" rationale while imposing a delay on posting for people to pile on "America sucks". That won't do. It's got to be a minimum for both, or for neither. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support but this is like the Nth time this has been proposed, and it's never gotten consensus to be implemented. Banedon (talk) 20:55, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose under any circumstances. Arbitrary minimum discussion times just add bureaucracy. Nothing is set in stone. Consensus can change and it does; blurbs are pulled and discussions reopened on occasions. There is no way to accommodate everyone who potentially might comment; third shift workers, for example. 331dot (talk) 21:13, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

And any sort of loophole for "obviously world-changing news items" would be big enough to drive a mack truck through and lead to arguments. 331dot (talk) 21:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per my concerns the last time this was proposed. -- Calidum 05:50, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Let's be frank. The uproar is the typical bias against U.S. blurbs. WP:ITNC clearly states: Please do not...oppose an item because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is unproductive. It's just a covenient argument when a few are sleeping when a blurb relating to a country of 300M+ is posted.—Bagumba (talk) 11:08, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

  You've missed the point completely. These "news" items are being rushed to the mainpage before any opposition is given a chance to be levelled. All you've achieved there is to say that systemic bias is alive, kicking and you encourage it. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 11:11, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

  Au contraire, I'm discouraging !votes like yours: Just because it's Texas, it doesn't make it more important.—Bagumba (talk) 11:20, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

  He's probably referring to the tendency for anything coming out of Texas to be hyped up: Like the Dallas Cowboys being called America's Team, or even the phrase everything is bigger in Texas.--WaltCip-(talk) 16:05, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

  FWIW, it's the second-most populous U.S. state at ~30M.—Bagumba (talk) 16:46, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

  That has nothing to do with this proposal. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:48, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

  So nominations must have some opposition before being posted? Why should we assume there will be opposition? 331dot (talk) 18:21, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

  The anti-U.S./Euro dribble is inevitable on both sides (e.g. Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news/Archive_79#Introducing_minimum_time_before_posting). I oppose it on both sides.—Bagumba (talk) 01:23, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

  This is all fascinating but nothing to do with the proposal here. Good try I suppose. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 22:22, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

ITNR: Proposal to add Heads of G20 Deaths

Elected heads of government (excluding acting) from the G20 nations deserve an OBLURB (obituary blurb) for their death. See Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#(Posted)_RD/Blurb:_Carlos_Menem. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 16:14, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support would stop a lot of mindless debate over "old man dies" scenarios... The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:32, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose A blurb is not an honor bestowed only upon worthy people, and the lack of a blurb in favor of an RD link is not a lack of proper honor given to such people. The decision to make a blurb or not should only be based on what needs to be said in the blurb. If a person's death needs clarification or explanation because it was unexpected, or if the reactions to the death themselves require elaboration, we can use a blurb to do just that. If we have nothing extra to say about a person (of any level of renown) other than that they died, RD is sufficient. --Jayron32 16:28, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose If you're talking about any former head of government from any G20 state, I think you have to take them on their notability. To take an extreme example, there are three living Italian ex-prime ministers who served for less than a year. Uness they have any wider notability, they are not in any way blurb-worthy. Black Kite (talk) 16:30, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• To be specific, we'd have to go to List of current heads of state and government and use the cell marked by green. Further, a point I made in this was that the position should be an elected, rather than appointed, official (which would remedy the Italian situation). --Masem (t) 16:35, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Noted, added to the original proposal. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 17:12, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Well, there's a second problem there - for example, if Boris Johnson was to resign tomorrow, his successor would be appointed by his party - there wouldn't be another election. In the UK, Gordon Brown also falls into this category. Black Kite (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• And on a vein similar to Black Kite; what do we do about the Neville Chamberlain scenario, where a PM resigns the post and then dies shortly thereafter (within 6 months)? We surely wouldn't fall back on the "old man dies" defense there, would we?--WaltCip-(talk) 17:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Since Menem wasn't head of Government when he died, I assume this proposal applies to any ex-leader of a G20 state. Black Kite (talk) 17:45, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I agree it's becoming common practice, but that's not a positive thing. These death blurbs push other stories out of the box, and is the very reason "recent deaths" was created. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:25, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't think death blurbs should be ITNR in any form, and should be evaluated on their merits. 331dot (talk) 20:37, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. The notability changes for RD were a great improvement, but combining that idiosyncratic rule with ITNR is not a good idea. It puts ITN in the position of not having any editorial discretion at all for a potentially very large number of yearly nominations.130.233.213.199 (talk) 07:04, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose any deaths being ITNR. Sure, we'll certainly post when Gorbachev dies, but will we post Betty White, Noam Chomsky, or Bob Dole? There's no reason to argue about it now. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:14, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I think for exactly that reason, it'd be good to clear up Gorbachev now; we can discuss the others later. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 16:02, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Conditionally support if the article is in a good enough shape to be blurbed at the time, per my comments on the Menem discussion. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 16:00, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I think the proposal as currently worded opens it up too much and would result in frequent politician death blurbs. I don't think every country is equal, even within the G20. You have superpowers (US and China), permanent security council members, and the G20 (although you could argue the G20 is biased against Africa and should really include Nigeria and Egypt). Clearly the president of the United States is more notable than the president of South Korea. Longevity also matters--someone who has led for eight years is more notable than someone who has led for two. If we're looking to codify politician blurbs, then we'd need to include all of this. NorthernFalcon (talk) 00:45, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

It does seem like high-profile deaths posted quickly to RD are rolling off very quickly, in some cases in under 6 hours. What if: 1) We go back to posting most-recent deaths first; and 2) any person who has died in the past 7 days is eligible for DYK? Obviously the DYK folks would have to agree to this, but this seems a way to have some deaths roll off less quickly, while allowing improved articles on recently deceased people to be on the front page. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:17, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Did we post "most-recent deaths first"? And RDs are already eligible for DYK as long as they meet the existing DYK "expansion" or "new" criteria (e.g. look right now, M. Bala Subramanion is there in DYK on 22 Feb having been in ITN on 10 Feb). The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:21, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

No longer doing "most recent deaths first" was the recent change, right? Before, we would post deaths with most-recent-death-date first, now we post them in the order there's consensus on ITN. Deaths would go "stale" if there were 6 newer deaths, now they get posted at the front of the queue. And most RD nominations are for people who already have an article. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:09, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

We used to post them in the chronological order in which they died, regardless of when they were ready to be posted. And yes, RD nominations are mostly for expansions, but as I demonstrated, that's just fine for DYK right now, get those articles expanded or to GA and they qualify. There's no way RDs would get a free pass at DYK unless they met the current criteria which already allow RDs to get a second shot as DYKs. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 22:12, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Some more where it happened, RD and then DYK in 2021, some new, some expanded: Arik Brauer, Biserka Cvejić, to come: Wilhelm Knabe, Vera Wülfing-Leckie, Andréa Guiot. Always more attention when RD. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

A radical idea, one I don't expect to be popular, but would readily solve the timing problems, is that RDs would really only have a 2 or 3 day window to be posted after the day the person died and/or first major reports of their death to the press in the case where the death was held off for family or other reasons. That is, when an RD is nominated to ITNC, it better be that close in quality or it will not likely be posted (this does not mean it will not be listed over at the Events portal, however). Eg we have the problem with numerous actors that get to RD without being properly sourced and they linger for the whole 7 days without improvements; even if they get improved after the 6th day, and get posted, that's far outside the window we'd like. If instead we expected articles to need no more than 24hr of review and corrections to get to the quality we expect, we can ignore those that aren't ready to go in the short timeframe and reduce how many RDs we're actually posting. --Masem (t) 22:21, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind that, most RDs these days either sink or swim, the odd one or two get stuck (usually down to bloated unreferenced filmographies or similar) but often unstick within a couple of days if there's any real interest. But we should really see what Ktin's analysis throws up to determine if we really do have a problem at RD. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 22:24, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, Apologies -- got sucked into something else, off-wiki, this weekend. I will work on getting this data. Ktin (talk) 22:58, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

A well thought-out idea, but I think the one drawback to this is when I have given article feedback that more expansion was needed, it really starts a quick clock to get changes made, and rarely before the expanded posting changes here was I accused of being too picky in order to stall noms and limit them from being posted. But I think Ktin's analysis would be helpful. Spencer^T•C 23:44, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Downside is during slow cycles when there are fewer nominations or quality articles, reducing to 2–3 days further shrinks the pool of potential posts. Old posts will linger longer during these cycles, making the MP RDs "stale".—Bagumba (talk) 05:01, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - We discussed all this a few weeks ago, and as I recall there wasn't much appetite for changing much, and with the notable exception of Ktin, most people thought it wasn't a huge deal if RDs sometimes roll off in less than 12 hours. It seems like the proposal here is to reduce the timeframe for noms to be promoted, thereby stemming the flow of articles we actually end up listing and ensuring the promoted RDs stay up for longer. For individual nominators this might make sense - they get to enjoy the glory for longer. But from the point of view of Wikipedia as a whole, it seems like this proposal would be a net-negative. Currently editors have seven days to get their article up to scratch and in some cases it takes almost that long, but if the proposed change was enacted they'd end up giving some of them up after the three days elapse, thereby leaving us fewer satisfactory articles overall. Take Seif Sharif Hamad for example. I nominated that five days ago, and haven't really had time to do anything with it since then. But perhaps tomorrow I'll have time to circle back to it, and then we benefit from a better-quality article going forward. So I think my !vote would be to stick with the seven-day window, and accept that more throughput is actually a good thing.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:21, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Data and some analysis: Link to data can be seen here.[2]. Folks, as promised, here is the data for the month of February. Firstly, I agree with Amakuru, that the 7-day window has been an absolute win for the project. There have been 110 articles that have been worked to homepage levels of hygiene just this month (not including the articles that are currently on the carousel). That is an absolute win for the project. No two ways about it. In my view, we should not go away from that. Secondly, there is a significant variance, and we knew about it, between the time spent by the top 25% articles and the bottom 25% articles. Raw data at the link above can give you lots of details, but, at a summary, the bottom 25% articles spend an average of 12.5 hours on the carousel with Charles McGee (painter) spending ~4 hours and M. Bala Subramanion spending ~5 hours. That to me is a tad harsh, but, I will not editorialize after the recent harsh words that I received. We have spoken about this, two of the variables that we can control are a) outflow rate, and b) space on the carousel, or a combination of both. This analysis below runs a simulation by controlling the outflow rate. Specifically, it measures a scenario where we hold the ITN carousel to a count of 6, but, then we hold off on posting an article, if the item falling off the carousel has not spent ~20-24 hours. If you attempt this, the curve is significantly smoothened with the bottom 25% spending 22.4 hours, and the top 25% spending 37.4 hours and more importantly, in this scenario, the articles spending the least time would have spent 20+ hours on the carousel. You can have more gains if you go to control the second parameter i.e. space on the carousel. Currently the average space covered on row #2 is 30%. You can gain from spreading to maximize row 2 (or dare I say spill to row 3 if needed). That will further help you optimize on the idle time, and will prevent the holding tank from growing too large. Scenario 2 is a tad harder to model, but, not impossible. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 01:50, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Link to raw data: click here.

Period: (February i.e. thru 2/22/2021)
Total articles: 110

Base scenario: 

Average time spent by the top 25% articles = 49.6 hours
Average time spent by the bottom 25% articles = 12.5 hours

Simulation Scenario 1 (w/ holding tank): 

Average time spent by the top 25% articles = 37.4 hours
Average time spent by the bottom 25% articles = 22.4 hours

So it looks like we have had 110 articles posted over a ~528 hour period. If we multiply by 6 RD spots, the mean time for each article on RD is 28.8 hours. A "holding tank" if done manually is challenging, since it doesn't account for when editors are updating the article to a ready point and admins are available to post. However, if we have a bot (a la User:DYKUpdateBot) adding a new RD every 4 hours (6 RDs/day, for a time on ITN of 24 hours) from a holding area that admins posts ready RDs to, this may ameliorate the issues of regular activity. Spencer^T•C 03:40, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• @Spencer: yup, agree. Math checks out clean. The part that I think is a low-hanging fruit to claim is row #2. E.g. at this moment, there is 80% of row #2 that is vacant (checked on two different computers / resolutions), that should be valid ground to claim when the falling off article has spent less than 24 hours, imo. Ktin (talk) 04:09, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to using a bot to smooth out the inflow/outflow rates here, and have admins promote the RDs to a bucket rather than directly to ITN. I think that could be a neat solution to the issue raised, as long as entries didn't end up being delayed for too long. I've never really understood your point about rows though, and you seem to have mentioned this more than once... The RDs are not arranged in "rows", they are simply placed one after other in a bulleted list, with entries spilling over as and when the screen width necessitates. Right now on my laptop, I'm seeing all six RDs on a single row, but if I reduce the width a bit, then a second row forms. That second row gradually gets filled as I continue reducing, until at about 1125 pixels (still a reasonable screen width on some machines), a third row forms. I don't see how there could be a one-size-fits-all algorithm for knowing whether the second/third rows are full or not. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:33, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• So can do we possibly what DYK does? Have an RD holding queue that new RDs should be added to, and then update the RD line on a X-a-day (X being 2 I think) basis from that holding queue? (being stuck in the holding queue would not penalize an RD from being stale) In that fashion, as long as that's the only way that RD is updated, this assures that every RD gets a minimum of (24/X) hrs on the banner, if not more. We could also put a rate limiter on that, bringing in, say, only 3 or 4 RDs from the queue at a time, which further assures a bit of visibility. --Masem (t) 14:26, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment check out the RD reform of 2016. High-profile deaths rolling off quickly is the intended result. Here's a quote from that RfC, for example: "Trial showed no flood of nominations, no complaints from readers, and more quality articles on the MP." By passing that reform, we got what we asked for, and unless people have changed their minds it's silly to complain that high-profile deaths are rolling off quickly. Banedon (talk) 03:59, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

  Banedon, valid point. I still think, 110 articles brought up to homepage levels of hygiene in 22 days is an absolute win. No two ways about it. The one thing we can do better on is smoothening the outflow rate to avoid the variances. (e.g. Prince Markie Dee at ~76 hours, and Charles McGee (painter) at ~4 hours). But, other than that, we are definitely in a good place. Ktin (talk) 04:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

  I think it's pretty silly to compare what the status quo was in 2016 with what it is now. For example, we have WikiCup awarding points to RDs, we have one or two editors literally creating articles for RDs and it's obvious that now it's been accepted that RD works, it's got much more interest now than it did five years ago. It's a complete non-sequitur to equate "no flood of nominations, no complaints from readers" with "high-profile deaths rolling off quickly is the intended result". The intended result was to remove the "super-notability" criterion from RDs and to thus expand the diversity of people featured at RD and (as Ktin has noted) produce dozens more higher quality articles rather than them just languishing unimproved because people knew they'd never get onto the main page. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 11:22, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Another RD idea why not just expand RD to three lines (approximately 10 names) when there's high RD volume? It would only add one line to ITN. At worst you'd have to cut one of the blurbs to make room, but I'm not convinced that would be necessary, and we've had only three blurbs up before. NorthernFalcon (talk) 00:50, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

So long as the unofficial practice of pre-mature closing continues, could the people doing it please summarize their conclusion with better comments than "Consensus will not develop" or "Chilling opposition". Since the practice isn't actually documented anywhere in WP:ITN we should be careful not to WP:BITE those who may not be familiar with the tribal unwritten rules of ITN. I disagree with the practice, but I recognize it's being done in good faith and I'm not trying to single out any individuals. If this is going to happen, you owe it to the nominator to summarize the consensus opposition you found in the nom and to include it in the closing comment. Thanks. --LaserLegs (talk) 19:35, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Just right now, User:Banedon opposed as it is "involving one country with no international impact". This is not at WP:ITN. Either we codify this, or I'll strike every similar argument such as this one until ANI bans me. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:09, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

There's no need for you to do something so disruptive. A closing admin is more than capable of weighing up the merit of every opposition, and if it's in direct conflict with the ITN rules, then the !vote will simply be ignored. Throwing one's toys out until you get banned isn't helpful to any single person here. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

You know all too well that when a rogue admin posts something, and we'd have to wait until Europe gets up for someone to !vote pull. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Getting banned isn't going to help, you'll just get done on 3RR. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:24, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

• We already have this written down at ITNC: "Please do not oppose an item because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is unproductive." 331dot (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
• WP:VOTE counting has become a substitute for WP:CONSENSUS I'm afraid. I empathize with the OP, but it's already codified at WP:ITNC as explicitly not being a criteria. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:40, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
• This never made sense to me, because a vote claiming lack of international impact is effectively the same as a vote claiming a lack of significance, which is one of the criteria in ITNC. If you are so mad at it, I can edit the vote to use better-sounding buzzwords. Banedon (talk) 01:10, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
• The specific comment was in regards to a national court case, and in such a situation, yes, the bounds of the ruling if they will affect the rest of the world or have a significant impact is a factor to be considered. The advice in the ITNC instructions is not meant to disallow any rejections solely on national-only arguments. --Masem (t) 01:28, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• "oppose an item because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is unproductive.". Seems pretty clear to me. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:53, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• Calling an event provincial or parochial is not equivalent to complaining that it relates only to a single country; that is a judgment on its notability and significance. An event can relate to a single country and be notable. An event can relate to multiple countries and be non-notable. The litmus test is whether or not it is notable and significant, and a local news story about, say, a county judge resigning due to scandal would not be either of those things. --WaltCip-(talk) 19:40, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the ITN admins in general do a good job taking into account overall consensus and evaluating the comments made by those at ITN/C, rather than doing a straight vote count (disclosure of bias: am ITN admin) . Don't think something like this needs to be codified. Spencer^T•C 02:51, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Greetings,

Lot many events do take place on International Women's Day, amongst them, since 2018 Pakistan women take out Aurat March and is leading to substantial social discourse in Pakistan, with substantial media coverage.

Wikipedia main page has Wikipedia:In the news section, would there be any scope to nominate Aurat March and/or International Women's Day for that section? I wish to nominate them in ongoing section for coming 8th of March

If yes, then how to proceed further ? WP:ITNR is not clear about, how many days before event date, article will be needed to be nominated?

Some one pl do guide.

Thanks and regards Bookku (talk) 05:38, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

ITN is more about what gets covered in the news, rather than preliminarily what might happen. That's not to say that this march won't be covered, but we really need to wait and see what type of coverage it gets on the day it happens - eg how many participated. What would be important is to make sure that the article that you want to be featured is as in good a shape in terms of quality and sourcing before that date so that the additions you add with the news will make it appropriate to post. --Masem (t) 05:56, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

• Imperial County car crash closed in under 24 hours
• Schoharie limousine crash sent to AfD, survived, still closed
• 2018 Hong Kong bus accident posted in 14 hours
• Anshun bus crash posted in 36 hours

There is a "US bias" alright. A comically obvious anti-US bias.

Cheers --LaserLegs (talk) 18:00, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• No, not really, more of an "anti-highway culture" bias. Car accidents are more lethal than just about any other cause of death in the United States (except perhaps COVID-19).--WaltCip-(talk) 18:06, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
• There is no bias one way or the other. There's basically no pattern at all to what gets posted or what doesn't; it depends on an unpredictable mix of what news organizations choose to cover, what articles happen to get updated, who shows up at ITNC to vote that day, and what admins happen to come by at the right time. None of that has ANY bias or plan or ANYTHING. It's just random, and if you are seeing a pattern of bias, that's on you and not on the process. That's just your human brain inventing patterns that don't exist trying to make order out of nothingness. Fight the urge to complain when your brain sees the patterns. They don't exist, it's just you. --Jayron32 18:41, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
• Shhh, we're only allowed to complain about US-centrism here. -- Calidum 18:59, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
• Looked to me like the private car accidents (the sort of thing which happen all the time around the world) weren't posted and the public transport accidents (which happen with such severity less frequently) were posted. I'm sure if a Greyhound bus smacked into a pylon and killed 20 people we'd post it. We just don't post trivial road traffic accidents which have literally no encyclopedic value at all. The one today is a perfect example of what one user calls "disaster stubs", which amount to nothing now, amount to nothing in the future and remain as stubs ad infinitum. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 19:04, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
• I see no reason why public transport should be categorically different from "private" transport. Is it really private if the vehicle is lent from a bank and driving on government throughways? Public buses are more "private" than that; they're wholly owned by the operator, servicing the same government that owns the roads. I also disagree that there's no encyclopedic impact. If anything, of the four crashes noted above, only the Imperial crash has any connection outside of routine traffic accidents; it's now clear that is was a jump-and-run illegal border crossing. That information is conspicuously missing from the article, though, and that's the problem. It's a stub. At least the other three crashes have better articles, although that wouldn't keep me from voting against them anyway.130.233.213.199 (talk) 06:51, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
• I agree that there should be no distinction between private and public transportation crashes. Though all car crashes can be tragic (either for an individual or a group), some crashes are more noteworthy given the number of causalities or the persons involved. Jurisdicta (talk) 04:00, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
• Ultimately this is just someone complaining about a perceived anti-US bias. We've spent the last four years (or more) being flooded with US nominations on the Trump ticker, and we have many more US editors than any other nationality. It's little wonder that some of the more trivial stories which wouldn't make it into the top 10,000 world news stories of the year are dismissed by the wider community. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 07:57, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
• I'm not sure what your point is. I agree there's a rather obvious anti-US bias at ITNC, but you're not going to get anywhere arguing that to the same biased crowd. GreatCaesarsGhost 02:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

ITN's stated purpose is to help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news, but it often seems to leave up blurbs weeks after they've left the news cycle. To take a current example, ITN prominently displays the faces of Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic as part of a blurb about the Australian Open, which was in the news three weeks ago. I followed the instructions at the top of this talk page by going to WP:ITN/C to nominate this dessicated blurb for removal (along with the Porfirije blurb, of similar vintage), but the nomination was swiftly closed and I was told that we simply have to wait for consensus to coalesce around a new blurb before we can put a stale blurb out of its misery. I argue that this glacial process prevents ITN from fulfilling its stated purpose as quoted above. The current pace also seems like a far cry from ITN's origin story in which entries were created and put on the Main Page within minutes of the [September 11th] attacks [emphasis added]. I'm not saying ITN needs to routinely respond to the news cycle within minutes, but the fact that ITN is stuck on last month's news seems to me to indicate that something in the process is broken. Einsof (talk) 18:23, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

• This happens every once in a while (Fernando Lugo anyone?). For reference, previous discussions on this topic can be found Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news/Archive_70#Very_old_blurbs, and elsewhere in the archives. Given considerations for balance, the most feasible solution is updating new articles for posting. Spencer^T•C 19:46, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

• Wow what a throwback. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 20:21, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

• We cannot control the news, and ITN tries to avoid the "spectacle" that 24/7 news stations give into (eg such as the mess over Harry and Meghan, the allegations being thrown at NY Gov. Cuomo, etc.) We also need quality updates on articles that are proposed, which often do not happen, since we are a main page element. As noted above, we can't remove stale items without throwing the main page out of balance. --Masem (t) 19:50, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
• I think we all recognize this is not ideal, but can't really think of a workaround. The best fix would be if more people actually created and updated high-quality articles on current events and then submitted them to ITN, where they were then posted post haste... Alas, such perfection was not meant for mere mortals, and thus every now and then we have a stale Main Page. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 22:29, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
• It's somewhat semantic, but perhaps just a switch of the image given the slowness of news of substance right now? Can we make a static map out of the map from 2021 Bata explosions or Zamfara kidnapping? Either that or get me pictures of Spiderman! - Floydian ^τ _¢ 23:03, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, I see that both in this discussion and in previous ones a number of editors suggested that the problem is that not enough high-quality articles are offered as candidates. But looking at the past few weeks of rejected blurb proposals, it seems that the most common reason for rejection is that the subject of the article is inappropriate for some reason or another, rather than the quality of the article is insufficient. Sometimes an article is nixed because the subject hasn't cleared the editors' threshold for significance—in such cases I would argue editors need to adjust their thresholds based on how insignificant the stale blurbs have become. I would rather chance it with a fresh blurb about something that only a minority of people have heard of rather than a stale blurb about something that nobody is talking about anymore. Einsof (talk) 01:51, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

In principle, I get what you're saying. If there was some way to get everyone at ITN on the same page about this, with regular users unanimously agreeing to a more lax set of standards, then it could work. However, I just don't see that being likely, and even if it were to happen, a) it wouldn't likely get out to IPs or infrequent users (who are as welcome to comment and vote as anyone else) and b) I don't know if it would be a good thing anyway. 9/11 was able to get posted within minutes because it was immediately known to all who witnessed it that it was a history-changing event. The vast majority of blurbs aren't like that. If there's a push to get stuff on the Main Page, we sacrifice quality for the articles we post and the chance for extended debate on the relative importance of those stories. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 03:50, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Looks like it's clearing itself up, Porfirije is gone, and there's an ITNR for Grammy Awards that's likely to succeed, and will push Australian Open off the front page. If/when that happens, the oldest blurb will be just over 2 weeks, but 3 of the 4 blurbs will have been added to ITN in the last 5 days. It's just the case that there aren't many of the ITNR events at this time of year- most of the ITNR events (particularly sports ones) seem to be in the northern hemisphere summer or autumn/fall. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:28, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

• Einsof December/January is usually a slow period for new postings, until the annual awards shows ramp up. Other than that, we are just waiting for events to occur. 331dot (talk) 09:30, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• I'm a bit terrified that I'm old enough to remember when Lugomania took hold of Wikipedia. This just in: Fernando Lugo is still impeached.--WaltCip-(talk) 17:59, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

• Although our memories seem to recall he was there for months, it was actually only two weeks. And then people were so desperate to change it that they replaced him with an improperly tagged non-free image, and a piece of comedy alt-text that told our sight-impaired readers that it was an image of a completely different person! Luckily (and ironically given the argument on the Americas Cup), a cyclone came along to rescue everyone with their nice free NASA photo. Black Kite (talk) 00:57, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

In the recent discussion on the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, a user removed a "Ready" tag from the blurb added after an earnest tally and replaced it with one saying "Stale" [3]. This user was the only one to have made this particular comment [4], and later realized they were, in fact, incorrect [5]. However, this event raises a much larger concern to me and, I would think, some others, about the nature of truly "stale" blurbs and the tendency of some editors expressing fringe views (by this I mean very broadly views not expressed by any or many others) to WP:SUPERVOTE. In a time like we're having now, where blurbs are coming and going from ITN rather quickly, it is possible that an event that necessitates extended debate, like the Atlanta shootings, could become stale, by days or even hours, edged out by other, less controversial blurb noms. This is not the fault of the nominator or the blurb's supporters, but rather a coincidence of when such an event occurs combined with a successful WP:STONEWALL by oppose voters. Should these blurbs, even if not exactly in chronological display, still be allowed to go on the Main Page? Furthermore, should editors be restricted from certain tags (i.e. "Stale") or limited on other tags (i.e. "Ready" or "Closed") barring a certain threshold? Please discuss. Thank you. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 02:12, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I'm the user who marked and unmarked it as stale. The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:In the news#Procedure for posting point 3: " Singular events that took place more than seven days prior to their nomination are considered stale, as well as any event that is older than the oldest entry in the current "In the News" box." My view is that if it is stale under that definition (which this one wasn't, I had some dates mixed up), then it should be fine to mark it as such. Assuming it's done correctly, I don't see the issue with following a guideline, as whatever consensus was reached on an a blurb, if an article is actually stale, then it shouldn't be posted. Maybe we need some leniancy when there's a high turnover of blurbs, and the dates in question are within a day of each other. Joseph2302 (talk) 02:33, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

If it is actually stale (older than the oldest entry) anyone should be free to mark it as such. -- Calidum 03:04, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Not based on the rules as written. There would have to be some sort of RFC to change how ITN works (e.g. scrollbar, second page, collapsible). However, I think there's two edge cases to consider:

1. Blurbs are only required to be ordered chronologically by date, not by exact timings per Wikipedia:In_the_news#Blurbs. If a nominated entry occurs later in the day but on the same date as the oldest ITN blurb, administrators have the discretion to replace the oldest blurb, which would typically have been up for a significant period anyway.
2. The number of ITN blurbs isn't constant, but depends on how main page balance between ITN and TFA. If all the ITN blurbs are short, it is possible that a nominated entry marked as stale could still fit as an additional blurb below the oldest one without upsetting the main page balance.

So anyone should be able to proactively.mark something stale as stale, and ITN admins should be aware that they might still be able to post it. Ideally discussions with consensus to post should only be closed as stale if none of the edge cases apply.---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 03:36, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

• The immediate issue seems not to be an issue at all; a user took an action made in good faith based on well-grounded rules, was mistaken, and corrected the mistake upon discovering so. The more proximal issue is a generalized case whereby a proposed blurb becomes stale because it requires debate, whereas other (particularly ITNR) blurbs can sail through the approval process. In this particular case that extra time was absolutely warranted, because the initial article and nomination were severely slanted towards an, at best, tenuous assertion of racism on the part of the perpetrator. The extra time for article review was simply required to have an article up to quality. Items posted after the nomination in question were relatively non-controversial by dint of ITNR; the facts of them are not in dispute or unknown, and we don't have to wait for more information to be sure that only factually accurate articles get posted to Front Page. This more proximal issue stems from rules at ITN. The proposed solution is to allow editors to violate the aforementioned ITN rules to post blurbs which took time to reach consensus out of chronological order, essentially bumping newer items off the list in favor of older ones. I can't agree with this. This opens up the possibility of either 1.) single editors, being led by their own prejudices, injecting them into the Front Page to the loss of topics which the community and consensus have approved, or 2.) a yet another cumbersome process at the stage of nomination or posting that editors must consider (a "bump others?" field in the template; another toolbox feature).130.233.213.199 (talk) 06:20, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
• Normal WP:BRD resolved this. The Atlanta blurb possibly being shutout for being stale is also a perfect storm of 3 WP:ITNR items and a head of state death (a virtual ITNR) before posted from two consecutive days. This will be quite rare.—Bagumba (talk) 06:29, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
• Technically speaking, the user's reasoning is fine and well justified. The blurbs that appear on the main page are sorted chronologically and the oldest one is more recent than the nomination marked as stale. We can't replace a blurb, especially one posted per ITNR, with another older one so the only chance for the 'stale' nomination to get posted is to allow more blurbs on the main page but this is not something that usually happens.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:12, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
• Just as admins involved in a vote should not post, editors who previously opposed a nom should not engage in separate administrative actions to torpedo a nomination, as it may cause us to question their motivation. Further, had this item actually been stale, the action would have added no benefit. Admins already list blurbs in chronological order, so they *can't* accidentally post a stale item. The separate point about items becoming stale due to debate could be addressed by applying the RD rule. This allows items up to 7 days old to be posted on a first in first out basis. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:58, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Surely by that logic, anyone who votes in a discussion should also be forbidden from marking it as Ready? Because that's the same level of administrative action as marking it as stale. Joseph2302 (talk) 17:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
    • When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. "Ready" is a request for admin review; it serves a plain purpose in improving the encyclopedia. How did you think WP would be helped by marking a nomination you opposed as stale? Isn't a stale label just an attempt to get everyone to look away and not even consider the consensus? GreatCaesarsGhost 18:24, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
      • "Stale" is also a request for admin review- just for admin review to close. I genuinely don't see the difference, as it's serving the same purpose- asking for an admin review- just for a different outcome. The bigger question is how we actually properly define stale. Joseph2302 (talk) 18:53, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
  • In theory, stale preventS people—admins and editors alike—from wasting time on a nomination that technically can't be posted anymore. Is there any reason to not AGF that the editor simply misjudged the staleness and that it wasnt something more nefarious?—Bagumba (talk) 01:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
    • AGF is not relevant; no one has accused the editor of making the mistake on purpose. We have other guideline in place that are meant to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Marking an item stale when it is subject to active discussion is unusual. Doing so when you have opposed the nom is heavy-handed. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:40, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
• Opposing is two fold. You !vote, and if (either accidentally or by design) you get on a shouting match with someone, you lengthen the discussion, which favors someone who opposes as that is filibustering to the point that it is stale. Mission accomplished. Even if you didn't swing consensus, you still prevented the thing you opposed from being posted. Unless, of course, some rogue admin shows up and posts it anyway. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:42, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

• Erecting a wall of text to discourage participation and clog the overall discussion is a time honored tradition at ITN and it's best not to engage in it. Say your piece, don't try to convince others of the rightness or wrongness of their points. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
  • And if it still gets posted, there's always "main page balance".—Bagumba (talk) 01:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I agree with Bagumba this was an unusual case of three ITN/R items and a death blurb in short order. I also believe that Joseph2302 was acting in good faith and I thank ONUnicorn for finding a way to fit it into the box and AllegedlyHuman for starting a discussion. Consensus works! In the past, I've tried to use the time on a date that an event took place to push some soccer stories out of the box and was told "we don't do that" so fine, pretty consistent there. Usually five opposes in four hours leads to a "WP:SNOW close" so even if it had not made it to the board the real positive news here is that the discussion wasn't stymied by a closure supervote and consensus developed along with the story and the article. Have a good weekend everyone. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:07, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:In_the_news/Recurring_items#Elections_and_heads_of_state_and_government, the criteria currently rely on countries (i.e. an item is important enough to be featured if it occurs at a country-wide level). I've noticed that this can have the effect of weighting toward smaller countries, where we might e.g. include the results of, say, the Liechtenstein elections because that's what we do for every country, even though the results of, say, the California elections effect orders of magnitude more people. Would there be support for making some sort of modification to help counter this bias? (Note: My examples are just hypotheticals, and I'm not saying we ought to be featuring California elections or anything. I'm more thinking we just might want to add some sort of language saying that events that occur in countries with higher populations are more likely to qualify.) ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 19:59, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Usually the criticism is that we are too biased in favor of large countries, especially the US. I don't think posting things related to small countries- if they are in the news- is a bad thing and don't think it needs to be fixed. 331dot (talk) 20:21, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Nobody rights about elections in Nauru, so there's less chance of something from Nauru, elections or not, from being posted. For a great majority of countries, this is the only ITNR-able blurb they have. I suppose that's the bias you were referring to? We need more sailing races in the Gambia? Howard the Duck (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Oppose What is the (very arbitrary) population cutoff for a geographical region that matters? Using your California example, there are 11 Indian states with a higher population. Just as ITN shouldn't have items because it relates to California (population 39 million), it also shouldn't have items because it relates to Odisha (population 41 million). Chrisclear (talk) 15:11, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Quoting the OP: and I'm not saying we ought to be featuring California elections or anything. Did you even bother reading the comment? Seriously..... --LaserLegs (talk) 16:36, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes. Seriously..... Chrisclear (talk) 08:18, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

So you failed to comprehend it. Right-o. --LaserLegs (talk) 10:27, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect. Right-o Chrisclear (talk) 12:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I think if the OP explicitly mentions California elections as part of the point they're making then it's legitimate to discuss the validity of that hypothetical, however much it was disclaimed with "I'm not suggesting this..." If it's really irrelevant and not part of this discussion, then why bring it up in the first place?  — Amakuru (talk) 10:40, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I fully agree the Indian state of Odisha is irrelevant and brining it up was unnecessary. --LaserLegs (talk) 12:21, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• Very few of these "smaller countries" get decent articles about their elections and are rarely posted anyway. If there is such an article, then great, hurts nothing to put it up. You don't want to turn elections into yet another "significance" battleground with venom spitting claims of "bias". --LaserLegs (talk) 16:36, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

• Agree, if someone puts in the effort to make election articles good enough for ITN, they should be posted. Having an "important-enough countries" list would be WP:BIAS. The 2021 Liechtenstein general election made ITN, and got thousands of views per day. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:55, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• Looks like a solution trying to find a problem. Nothing to see here. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 12:40, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@Jayron32: I saw that you changed the NCAA basketball blurb to link to the specific team season pages instead of the general team pages.[8] It was my undertanding that we've been linking to the general team pages in past sports blurbs, like with the Premier League champ, Super Bowl, NBA Finals, World Series and CFL Grey Cup. Curiously the past few years, it looks like NCAA basketball blurbs have instead been linking to the specific team season.

I can see an argument for both approaches, but would figure that ITN should just be consistent, independent of the sport. Is there a reason that college basketball should be treated different? Or should all sports follow and link to the specific season as well?—Bagumba (talk) 03:55, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

• Personally, I would think linking to the team rather than the season is preferable per MOS:EGG. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 07:38, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
  • It should link to the team articles, if I saw the link Baylor Bears, I would expect it to go to Baylor Bears- to explain to a reader who they are. That article gives a much better summary to a reader without prior knowledge about who Baylor Bears are. And I agree that the season summary violates MOS:EGG therefore. Joseph2302 (talk) 07:53, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Yes, if I was a college basketball fan, the specific season page would be more relevant. However, given that this is on the MP, my thinking too is that the general team page would better serve the average (non-fan) reader.—Bagumba (talk) 08:44, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
      • Joseph2302 puts it perfectly. General team articles please. Modest Genius ^talk 10:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
• FYI It's been reverted back to the general team pages per WP:ERRORS.—Bagumba (talk) 08:57, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you for doing that. Remember all, when in doubt, I'm always wrong. Next time, be sure to fix my mistakes faster. I'm sorry and I will try to do better today. I probably won't be any better. But I will try.--Jayron32 11:03, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

WP:ITNR stipulates: The results of general elections in:

• All states on the List of sovereign states
• Disputed states and dependent territories should be discussed at WP:ITN/C and judged on their own merits.

These two points are contradictory because several states (Kosovo and Taiwan for example) are on both lists. According to List of sovereign states - For the purposes of this list, included are all states that either:

• consider themselves sovereign (through a declaration of independence or some other means) and are often regarded as satisfying the declarative theory of statehood, or
• are recognised as a sovereign state by at least one UN member state

So we can either limit ITN/R elections to the UN recognized states or include limited recognition states at ITN/R. I honestly don't care which, I just want to clean up this procedural issue. Comments? --LaserLegs (talk) 01:01, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• There are exactly three states which might be discriminated by the distinction of these two lists: Artsakh, Somaliland and Transnistria. I agree that this makes the two lists redundant, in practice. I think limiting ITN/R to states which are members or observers at the UN would be enough, and every state in this section and all subsequent sections own would have their election articles judged on the merits. Genuinely impactful elections in, say, Taiwan or North Cyprus would, I think, get posted because of their geopolitical implications.130.233.213.199 (talk) 10:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• I guess I'm not seeing the contradiction, as a state can meet the named criteria for a state and still be disputed, meaning it would be discussed on the merits. 331dot (talk) 10:07, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Well under those links, you could argue that China is a disputed state, and so their "elections" shouldn't be ITNR. Ditto for South Korea, because it's a disputed state as defined by the link List of states with limited recognition. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:12, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• 331dot, to make the apparent contradiction more clear, let us consider a hypothetical case in which you are a professor at a university that has the following policy.
  • every student who does not attend over half of your scheduled lectures automatically fails.
  • all students who have dyed their hair purple should be graded on their own merits.

now, what should be done about a purple-haired student who has submitted exemplary coursework and earned a perfect score on your final exam if the student missed nearly all of your lectures? according to the first point, the student should automatically receive a failing grade, but the second point suggests that the coursework and final exam score should determine the student's grade, which would presumably not be a failing one given the student's performance. according to your reasoning, a student can miss over half of your lectures and still have purple hair, meaning that the grade awarded would be based on the student's merits. dying (talk) 04:15, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

• Why not just exclude (as sovereign states) the entities listed under "other states" on the list? 331dot (talk) 10:28, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm fine with that, but the main listing at "List of sovereign states" is the UN recognition list so it'd be less wordy to just adjust our criteria to match. Then the "Other states" can be discussed on their own merit. --LaserLegs (talk) 12:10, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I would be fine with that too. Clarification is needed, because LaserLegs is correct that as currently written, ITN/R is contradictory.-- P-K3 (talk) 13:49, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• I would say that the sovereign states list is always considered ITN/R, and that it states which are NOT on that list should be discussed on a case-by-case basis. If a country appears on the sovereign states list, then it appears on that list and the criteria is met. Appearing on another list is irrelevant in this case. --Jayron32 14:14, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• interesting. when initially reading that, i had assumed that the criteria were not contradictory, which led me to believe that "Disputed states" referred to entities that some wikipedians may argue should belong in the "List of sovereign states" but were not. now that i've actually clicked on the link, i see that some states are included in both lists, which confuses me, so i believe LaserLegs is correct: as it stands, the itn/r criteria appear to be contradictory.

however, i am also confused about how the two offered alternatives are phrased. note that the "List of sovereign states" is different from a list of "UN recognized states", so neither of the proposals offered appear to be simply cleaning up a procedural issue, but appear to be actively changing what would be included in itn/r.

so instead, i propose simply dropping the "Disputed states and dependent territories should be discussed at WP:ITN/C and judged on their own merits." statement from the criteria since the statement, presumably meant to clarify, appears to be doing the opposite, and discussing an item on itn/c based on its merits appears to be the default action for nominated items not on itn/r anyway. (no other category on itn/r appears to have a similar clarification.)

however, if some form of clarification is still desired, i propose the following revision.

• The results of general elections in:
  • All states on the List of sovereign states^[1]
  • European Union elections

States not included in the list of sovereign states should be discussed at WP:ITN/C and judged on their own merits.

note that i've dropped the punctuation at the end of the first two list entries to better conform with the rest of the page, and moved the third list entry out of the list because its inclusion in the list appears to be contributing to the confusion. (if you look at the code, you'll notice that i'm violating wp:*: to do so, but i'm not sure of the best way to avoid this.) also, the part about eu elections is currently present in the itn/r criteria, but i believe LaserLegs did not mention it here to make the contradiction more clear. in addition, i've removed the link to "Dependent territory" because both cook islands and niue appear in that list as well as the list of sovereign states. admittedly, there is the theoretical future issue of a state not included in the list of sovereign states deciding to consider elections to the european parliament to be its general election, but i do not believe this is a big enough deal to further complicate the clarification. dying (talk) 04:15, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think EU elections should be included, in part because the EU doesn't assert the type of sovereignty that UN recognized states assert. That was Brussel's argument for the last few years. If EU (supranational) and France (national, example) have both their elections as ITN/R, then why should not also US & California, or Russia & Tver, or China & Hubei? Should IMF or Red Cross (other non-sovereign supranational orgs) elections also be on ITN/R? I think it's best to leave this as UN states.130.233.213.199 (talk) 07:29, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

That should probably be for another discussion. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 07:35, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Every entry on List of states with limited recognition is on List of sovereign states, so the current criteria is not helpful. List of sovereign states uses UN recognised states for its primary list, which includes UN members and UN observers. The two observers are the Vatican (Holy See) and Palestine. An election in either or those would no doubt succeed on ITN on its own merits, so I would suggest there's no practical distinction for ITN/R on such a member/observer quibble. I would support a UN defined ITN/R list. This leaves other disputed states up to normal discretion. (Other sorts of entities, be they the EU, dependent territories, or California, should probably have their own discussion/criteria if that is deemed useful.) CMD (talk) 09:07, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

• I'd vote for including only UN Member States and former UN Member States on the ITN/R list. The first includes virtually every widely recognized state except for the Vatican and Palestine, and succession of heads of churches probably belongs in a separate category anyways; the second would add Taiwan to the list, as well as protect against any future nation that may choose to withdraw from the United Nations. I don't think that mostly unrecognized states belong in ITN/R, and ITN will pass them if they're significant enough anyways (e.g. Kosovo). NorthernFalcon (talk) 18:40, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

If there's consensus for it, we could even add individual "states" to ITN/R in addition to a list like the UN's if editors think they would regularly merit blurbs so long as the quality is high enough (possible examples Kosovo, Palestine, Taiwan, Vatican City). At maximum, we're only talking about a handful of nations. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 18:50, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Kosovo is mostly recognised (even if only just) and it is certainly recognised by most large English-speaking nations (since this is en.wiki). Black Kite (talk) 19:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I think we should separate this. Principle means that we judge whether the article is worthy enough for inclusion as a blurb in the ITN and content means we judge whether the condition of the article is sufficient enough for display in the main page. Some users have implemented this opinion method quite often and I think it would be a good idea to gain a consensus as to whether this method should be the norm when supporting/opposing non-recurring blurbs. --Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 03:02, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

That's exactly what we do. Is there something in particular that caused you to bring this up? 331dot (talk) 07:49, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, and we charge our posting admins with the responsibility of assessing those comments and also act as gatekeepers on the quality of the article before posting. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 07:53, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@331dot: Some users sometimes just put support/oppose over ITN blurb content. I think we should put that up in the header notice to encourage users to use the principle and content system. --Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 08:37, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Is there a problem? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 08:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: No sir. I am really sorry. --Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 08:41, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Jeromi Mikhael Thanks for your comment, but the people who do that aren't likely to see such instructions or abide by them. As TRM notes, the process already includes admins weighing arguments and judging quality. 331dot (talk) 08:47, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:!VOTE: It serves as a little reminder of the communal norm that it is 'not the vote' that matters, but the reasoning behind the !vote that is important. Ideally, the !voter leaves an explanation. A plain !vote without one is liable to be discounted/ignored by the admin. For blurbs, content is only an issue if the subject is considered blurb worthy, otherwise the page quality is moot.—Bagumba (talk) 05:30, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Give the large discussion as to whether or not Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh deserved a blurb or not (and we are not going to resurrect that discussion here), it is probably worth setting down a set of circumstances whereby the individual concerned will normally be considered to be blurbworthy. If a consensus can be formed, then it might be worth adding something to WP:ITN/R. Obviously, for any article to be posted on the Main Page, it must meet the normal quality criteria that would apply to any other nomination.

Therefore I propose that the following groups of people are considered generally blurbworthy on their death:- Any reigning monarch (king, queen, emperor, sheik, crown prince etc). Any spouse of a reigning monarch. Any sitting head of state (president, prime minister etc). Any spouse of a head of state shall not be presumed to be inherently blurbworthy, but may be blurbworthy on a case-by-case basis. Mjroots (talk) 13:36, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Please, no. Let's not make a mistake we make now, be the precedent to make that mistake again in the future for even less important figures like Marie, Princess of Liechtenstein. Fram (talk) 13:43, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

The example you give would currently fail on quality. My proposal gives each and every country equal status. None of this "some countries are more notable than others" stuff. Mjroots (talk) 13:50, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Oppose any rules beyond WP:CONSENSUS as determined at the time of posting. It's a small issue in the end, and doesn't need any extra rules. --Jayron32 13:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Oppose "any spouse of a reigning monarch," support rest of proposal. I believe that Phillip was a rare circumstance where he was significantly more notable than most consorts, and that was agreed upon by other editors by consensus through ITN/C. However, I believe the rest of people under the remaining criteria are notable enough in the vast majority of cases to represent major news events worthy of being placed on the Main Page. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 14:15, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I'd like clarification on one aspect of the proposal, Mjroots: would this only apply to sitting heads of state or former heads of state as well? Thanks. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 14:17, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Sitting heads of state, i.e, those who die "in office". ex-heads on a case-by-case basis. Mjroots (talk) 14:31, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Comment The proposal as it is currently written is problematic. Many Prime Ministers (UK, Australia, New Zealand) are not the head of state of their country. The proposal it stands currently appears to be silent on heads of government (such as the Prime Ministers of those countries) yet requires that a sitting head of state would be blurbworthy. Thus the proposal is incomplete. Chrisclear (talk) 14:36, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Where there are two people in a single country that fall under the criteria, then each shall be presumed blurbworthy on their death. The examples you give - UK, Oz, NZ, all have the same monarch, Elizabeth II. Her death would be blurbworthy (I think that's a given in any case), as would that of Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison or Jacinda Ardern (current PM's) under this proposal. Mjroots (talk) 14:50, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Let's just admit that only the death of the consort of the monarch of the UK is de facto ITNR. We won't be doing this if it was the Dutch or Kuwaiti consort unless the act of death itself was noteworthy (read: assassination). We won't be even doing this to spouses of non-monarchies, even the long-serving ones in Africa, and more so with republics with real elections as first ladies don't rack up records like monarchial consorts do. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:49, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

• I'd argue that first ladies of the United States are unusually notable compared to first ladies of other democracies, as many US first ladies have had a long-lasting impact (e.g. Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy, etc.) that simply isn't seen in other nations (I don't even know who Stephen Harper's wife is.) NorthernFalcon (talk) 15:04, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

  The only U.S. first lady's death that is blurbable is Hillary Clinton. Everyone else goes to RD. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:09, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

  Clinton is an ex-first lady, so falls outside this proposal anyway. Mjroots (talk) 15:19, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

  No incumbent first lady is blurbable upon death unless she dies with her head of state husband. Countries with real elections have their first ladies serve far too little time than a monarch's consorts, and those with fake elections are most likely not notable, just like most monarch's consorts. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:24, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

HRC then became a US senator, Secy of State, and major-party prez candidate. That's what would push her into a blurb, IMO. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 15:30, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah HRC is the only first lady that someone could argue successfully that had long-lasting impact barring somebody saying "BORING! AMERICANS DO THIS ALL THE TIME" crap. If Eleanor Roosevelt lived today she can perhaps do what HRC did, but maybe she was born at a wrong era. What I'm saying here is the only death of a spouse of a sitting head of state that will be automatically blurbed is the UK's. The faster the people here accept that fact, the better. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:35, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

About time you brought up the Boat Race, right? And you do know he was consort to the Queen of the Commonwealth not simply the UK? Jesus. Change the record. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:18, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the commission that wrote the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and then successfully promoted its adoption. She was the Hillary Clinton of the 1940s, and an important civil rights activist. NorthernFalcon (talk) 16:06, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I would have supported a blurb for Eleanor Roosevelt, because she achieved a lot personally. I'm not sure HRC is quite there but let's see when she dies. Kingsif (talk) 21:14, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Also, vacancies of heads of state are de facto ITNR as per what happened to John Magufuli as his death was posted together with the succession of his vice president which is de jure ITNR. (Automatic head of state successions are a feature in most countries, but maybe not all.) Howard the Duck (talk) 14:56, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

• Comment The issue is that position should not confer an automatic blurb (possibly except for a president of the United States). Blurb-level notability is a sliding scale, based on the position the person occupied and the length of time they were in said position. We might not ordinarily blurb the death of the king of Swaziland (at least, prior to the current movement to blurb the deaths of all heads of state), but Sobhuza II was the king for 82 years, which increases his notability. NorthernFalcon (talk) 15:01, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• Comment not sure why we need to explicitly state that people aren't generally notable enough for ITN blurb, and should be considered on a case-by-case basis. If they're not on ITNR, then that's how it works anyway, so seems redundant to explicitly state it for a specific group (spouses of heads of states) when it's true for all people not in ITNR. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:09, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Prince Philip's prominence was largely sui generis, there's no need to make a rule. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 15:19, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTBURO. The republican (small r) in me is also concerned that this treats consorts differently than spouses of sitting elected heads of state. -- Calidum 15:22, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per above related to NOTBURO, but I would strongly suggest that when the next ITNC blurb suggestion for a spouse of a world leader (whether current or former) comes up, that we do not put excessive weight on being the spouse of a world leader - or at least treat that as an equivalent baseline - and instead focus more on whether while in that role - or even outside of that role - they contributed significantly to their nation or the world. Eg if we're using FLOTUSes here, certainly some have been far more influential while as FLOTUS or beyond, including both Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush (or heck, Lady Bird Johnson), that seem as equivalent important to Prince Phillips' activities beyond his position the UK Royalty - but of the other current surviving FLOTUSes, even considering Hillary Clinton, their contribution begs a question for meriting a blurb at the present time. Basically: "all" spouces of world leaders should be considered equivalent at that baseline and that itself is not sufficient to blurb, its what they have done beyond that that we should be considering to blurb. --Masem (t) 16:12, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Presumption of suitability for a blurb should be based only on the notability of the deceased not the notability or office, etc of their spouse, regardless of who that spouse is/was and/or what office they hold/held. Thryduulf (talk) 16:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This would be to argue that marrying a monarch inherently makes one blurb-notable. That's not true. Prince Philip was, but it's clear he is not the norm for royal spouses - even if it's just that at large people only really care about the British monarchy (of course, that fact is likely because of Philip's own efforts at maintaining relevance), but see below for arguments why he would honestly qualify, anyway. Kingsif (talk) 23:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Oppose setting specific RD criteria, especially one as seemingly arbitrary as separating head of state from monarch. "Spouse of monarch" shouldn't be a set-in-stone category as Philip was notable in his own right. Then the head of state/govt is what we already have, so the proposal is unnecessary.  Nixinova   T   C   20:29, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

@King of Hearts: I saw that you unlinked preceding the's from the basketball blurb with the rationale rm 'the' from link (when the general term is a recurring event, that's an exception to the usual rule about semantic linking of articles[9] However, we have linked "the" in blurbs of recurring events like the America's Cup, the Stanley Cup, the NBA Finals and the World Series. While we are not 100% consistent in this style of linking, I've seen it used for recurring events more often than not. (Aside: For this current blurb, unlinking could arguably be WP:IAR to reduce the MOS:SEAOFBLUE.)—Bagumba (talk) 04:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't think there's any clear documentation, but my experience has been the reverse, e.g. NBA Finals, FIFA World Cup, World Series. Maybe we can get everyone's opinion on what style they prefer? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:38, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I think the argument for the exception is as follows: Normally, we want to avoid WP:ASTONISHing a reader by having a common noun link to something they didn't expect instead of a definition of that noun. Thus semantics take precedence over optics, since no one other than Wikipedia links articles (elsewhere, e.g. news websites, readers do not have the expectation that common nouns should link to definitions). However, a bolded event article is very much what a reader would expect to find, even if the displayed text doesn't contain the year. Since we are semantically kind of agnostic as to whether to include the article, optics (i.e. having a blue "the" looks weird) dictate that the article should not be linked. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:44, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

The examples you listed were from a few years ago. Perhaps consensus has changed? I had been under the assumption that we linked the or a whenever we were referring to a specific instance and not the generic one (recurring event or not) e.g. [[2020 NBA Finals|the NBA Finals]] vs generic [[NBA Finals]]. I don't feel strongly one way or another, so long as we're consistent going forward.—Bagumba (talk) 04:57, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

And sometimes, there is no (grammatical) article, thus no way to avoid this ambiguity: "Riots erupt in loyalist areas of Northern Ireland." I think one factor to consider as well is whether the (encyclopedic) article is in bold, because the bolded (encyclopedic) article in a blurb is always expected to contain the most specific coverage of the current event. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:19, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Defintitely we shouldn't force a preceding article just to have one. But if one is already there, the question is when to link it, if ever (obviously if it's part of the event name e.g. "The Boat Race").—Bagumba (talk) 05:23, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Not much input on this thread, but the current ITN has three blurbs about recurring events with a preceding "the" piped in the link.—Bagumba (talk) 12:22, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

That seems to be to make sure the reader knows without clicking that the link refers to the current incidence of those events, that they won't be going to a generic Grand National/Master's/BAFA article. It won't always be relevant, if that helps this discussion any. Kingsif (talk) 17:58, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I tried to do it at WP:In the news/Candidates, but then I noticed it simply had this template, which I am unable to edit. My suggestion would be to, rather than just directing readers to WP:ERRORS, keep that link but in addition to that my suggestion would be to pipelink "Appropriate section" to WP:Errors#Errors with "In the News" as a more direct path, as such: [...] "This is not to report errors in the ITN section on the Main Page─ please go to the appropriate section of WP:Errors." If anyone WITH permission to edit this template would like to modify it in this way for me, they can copy-and-paste the following (without the "<nowiki>..." </nowiki> tags if you have gone to edit and seen them): [[WP:Errors#Erros with "In the news"|the appropriate section]] at [[WP:ERRORS]]. Thanks! I hope this streamlines things for somebody, even if just a tiny bit... 23:37, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

That would bypass the instructions, which some might need (if not also read).—Bagumba (talk) 02:33, 14 April 2021 (UTC)