Wikipedia talk:In the news

Proposal: Expand the number of RDs we display?

I've been looking at the number of RDs we have marked as ready lined up and noticed as well that given we only have 5 RDs on display on ITN at one time, potentially we could have the sitation where an RD could get pushed out within 24 hours (indeed Len Goodman's looking like he'll have less than 48 hours). So May I propose that it might be prudent that we expand the number of RDs we display (to 7 or 10 perhaps?) to ensure that all articles have reasonably consistent lengths of time on there and less likely to get bumped if we have a large influx like we do now? The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 11:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

• We have 6, not 5; also, the readys aren't all posted at the same for that very reason, the admins know to space it out. 24 to 48 hours seems to be the ideal amount of time, not too short and not too long. Curbon7 (talk) 12:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  We also cannot control when people die, so there will be periods that maybe 10 RDs are nominated in a day, while others, 1 or 2. We don't give any RD any extra weight unless it can be argued as a blurb. The Recent Deaths link links to all known RDs (not just those nominated at ITN) so people can check there. Masem (t) 12:21, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

• It's already pretty packed as it is. I don't think adding more would be a good idea without also coordinating the activity of other Main Page areas to ensure we don't create a balance problem. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:03, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  Also, Christ almighty, I've just now noticed we have like 5 or 6 different proposals on WT:ITN just these past two weeks. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:05, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

• According to WP:ITN/A, "There is a limit of six RD items at a time in the section." Where did this number of six come from? It doesn't seem a particularly good fit. When I look at the desktop view, it's a line and a bit, with lots of wasted space. In the mobile view, it's two lines and a bit with most of a line being wasted again. I reckon any entry ought to get a minimum of 24 hours, even if that makes the section a bit longer for a while. Main page balance is a non-issue as it's not our problem, doesn't affect the mobile view and the current entries are tiny.

But what's really needed is one line per entry with a short description of each person as you get on other language editions such as German and Spanish. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:30, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

• The number six came from adding two to four. And if you want to know how we got to four, well that was by adding one to three. And if you want to know how we got to three, the answer is by adding three to zero. --Jayron32 16:05, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  Main page balance is partially in ITN'S realm. the new Vector skin has introduced a number of fun challenges Masem (t) 18:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

• ITN is already overly dominated by RDs- we post far more of them than blurbs and it produces a real problem with balance. If we're posting so many RDs that even with six slots they're getting less than 24 hours each, then I think we need to look at reducing the number that are being posted, not increasing the number of slots. I would prefer more of our time and attention to be spent on blurbs, not RDs. Modest Genius ^talk 15:47, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  The current problem was created when the posting rules for RDs were modified about a year ago exactly 2 years, 4 months and 7 days ago. Previously, RDs were posted on a strictly chronological basis by order of death (or, in the case of a significant gap in reporting, by order in which the death appeared in the news. 99% of the time this was less than 24 hours discrepancy, so it wasn't really an issue, and only came up on an IAR-level of occurrences. But I digress). So what that meant was, if it took too long for people to clean up the article, they would miss the window when it would appear in the RD list. Sometime about a year ago, we changed it to be "Put the most recently passed nomination on the top, and take the last one off the bottom" What this has meant is that deaths which are not particularly recent still get posted to the top of the list, and get to ride on the list for longer, often bumping down more recent deaths. It's become a bit of a mess. Under the old system, there were less RDs posted, because if you waited around too long to fix up an article, it would be stale. Now, we post stale deaths all the time, and it has made the list run through far too fast. I would propose we return to the old system, which was as follows:

  1) Deaths are listed by date of death (in the case where two people die on the same day, put the later posting on top, though)

  2) If a nomination passes, but there is already a more recent death on the list, slot it underneath, where it would belong in chronological order

  3) If a nomination passes, but it turns out the oldest death on the list is already more recent than the nomination, tough shit.

  I think we need to go back to this system. While it meant that some deaths didn't make the list (because it took too many days for someone to either nominate it, or to clean up the article to where it was good enough to make the list), it DID result in most deaths staying on the list at least 3-4 days, which is better than the current system. Basically, we need to be less forgiving of stale nominations. Put them back in chronological order, and if you get it in too late, oh well. --Jayron32 16:15, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  Support that reversion, it doesnt make sense to bump whats news for whats old news in our in the news. nableezy - 16:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  The change was agreed to over two years ago. —Bagumba (talk) 17:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  So corrected. --Jayron32 18:06, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  Some of us had done this analysis some months ago and RDs is absolutely not a problem. In fact the number of articles being improved and brought to homepage levels of quality and posted is an absolute WIN for the project and the encyclopedia at large. We also saw the data tell us that posting within the 7 day window had resulted in more articles surfacing to homepage levels of quality and being discovered. If left to me, and I have made the case in the past, that RDs should potentially be expanded to 7 or even 8 - given that the incremental cost is zero. But, there was no consensus for that proposal. C'est la vie. That said, we have other genuine problems including stretched admin capacity and we had seen clear numbers on this front. We need to solve for that and not interrupt what is a good thing. Ktin (talk) 18:25, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  You know, maybe I'll take back what I said about going back to the old standards. If the goal is "being fair to the RD posts so they appear on the main page longer" vs. "Maximizing the improvement of article quality" I'll go for the second option everyday and twice on Sundays. Thanks for changing the perspective on that. --Jayron32 18:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think the goal should be to have the most up to date quality articles in the section regardless of length of time that it is there. nableezy - 21:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  However, if there is a tension between maximizing up-to-dateness and quality, quality should always win. I get that we want both, but if I had to chose only one, quality is the most important thing. All else is secondary. --Jayron32 11:57, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah I agree there is a minimum in terms of quality, but if we assume to get posted to RD means youve met that quality requirement anyway, the next most important criteria is newest first imo. nableezy - 15:41, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

  I could not disagree more. You have the entire thing backwards. ITN is dominated by blurbs (counting unsuccessful/quixotic proposals), which suck all of the air out of ITNC. If you look at most RDs, they get one or two comments. Respectfully, reducing the number of RD slots might be one of the worst ideas I've heard. Curbon7 (talk) 13:13, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

• Looking at Deaths in 2023, it appears that there are about 20 blue-linked articles per day. My impression that that ITN gets about 2 RD nominations per day so that's about 10% of the possibilities. Omitting the other 90% seems unsatisfactory but I suppose ITN would have trouble coping with them all. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:06, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  We still link to the list of recent deaths. We want to focus on article quality, and most RDs are not up to a standard to even talk about posting on the main page. Masem (t) 12:41, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  Andrew Davidson, I nominate a substantial portion of RDs, as I get them from WP:Database reports/Recent deaths. I do not even bother nominating articles like Jerry Apodaca or Boris Budnikov because there is a snowball's chance in hell they would become mainpage-ready within seven days. Curbon7 (talk) 13:04, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

• "The admins know how to spread out" - really? Beginning at about 21 UTC, 6 new RD items went to the Main page. When I looked in the morning, one of them got replaced (by El C) after just a few hours, I pointed it out, and it was reverted. Shortly afterwards, it got replaced again by Tone, I pointed it out, and nothing happened. Do we still attempt 24 hours minimum? Then the next one should wait, or we should show more in such cases. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:18, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  The admins are not present all the time, and sometimes an admin checks all eligible RDs and posts them in batch. I do not check for 24h minimum, that would be extra work and in turn some other RDs could be left out... No perfect solution here, apart from extending the current 6 items to, say, 8 or 10? But that would leave less room for the blurbs. Tone 13:24, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  You don't have to check for the 24 hours, but I did. How about restoring the one you removed in addition (#7), as an exception? Another possibility: when posting 6 fresh ones, make a hidden note for the next promoter about "when" that happened. It can of course be ignored. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:45, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  There also isn't a 24 hour minimum written in anywhere. Last summer when ITN was more active, RDs were sometimes up for 12 to 18 hours in high-volume periods. Also, regarding Gerda Arendt's suggestion for the hidden note (which is something I support), an attempt was made to implement this sometime last year but it was rejected by a couple of admins. Curbon7 (talk) 14:02, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  Written or not, 24 hours make sense to treat readers around the globe fairly. Kenji Yonekura was "on" from 21:38 to 9:21 (with a short interruption), less than 12 hours, and the hours when Europe sleeps. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:06, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  I was the one who started adding timestamps to when RD items were posted, thinking it was both useful and uncontroversial. However one or two others objected so strongly to this that they went to the effort of actively removing the timestamps. I did start a discussion about it on this page, I can't immediately find it but I don't recall it coming to a consensus either way.

  I still support having timestamps there, independently of whether there is a minimum time or not, such a timestamp would be informative and useful - if I saw the oldest RD entry had been posted only a couple of hours previously I'd be far more likely to wait before posting the next one than if it had been there 36 hours. Thryduulf (talk) 21:54, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  How easy is it to add the timestamp automatically to every posting? The five tilde sign substitutes the time stamp. Something like this 17:13, 11 May 2023 (UTC) Is it possible that you add this in a comment next to the posting? Ktin (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

  At some point in the past, we used to put hidden dates next to the RD posts the same way we put hidden dates next to the blurbs. I have no idea why that stopped, I think it was around the same time as we stopped posting RDs in chronological order, but I'm not entirely sure when it happened. --Jayron32 17:22, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

• Put simply, anything short of adding more deaths would be tedious to do, and adding more deaths threatens Main Page balance and takes away space better used on other things (not to poo-poo the value of RD, but Deaths in [year] is a better fleshed out version of this section and we should focus more on leading people there because of said...fleshyness). If anything, we should focus on improving the Deaths in [year] pages. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:45, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
• To summarize my various comments above, there is a non-issue here. RD is for the most part working as intended. There may be slow cycles where RDs hang around for several days, or fast cycles where they may hang around for a day or less, but in the vast majority of cases, RDs will hang around for the ideal period of one to two days. As stated (excellently) above, ITN, like all the other mainpage areas, is about showing off quality content. In that vein, I find some of the comments on undermining RD, particularly reducing the number that are being posted, silly. Curbon7 (talk) 22:07, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
• Opposed to adding additional RDs. It may be worth having a separate "holding pool" (can't find the particular discussion in the archive) that when an article is ready goes there, and then articles from that list are automatically posted to ITN by a bot at a rate determined by the number of items posted over the past month (whether that is 22 hours or 36, etc.), which takes some of the "bolus posting" out and would lead to more similar posting durations. At least previously, we haven't had a high enough sustained rate of RDs being posted for the technical effort to do this to be worthwhile, but one idea to consider. Spencer^T•C 12:12, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
• As an admin who sometimes posts RDs, I would be fine with upping the count to 8, either always or when there are only 3 or 4 shorter ITN headlines. I would also be fine with adding hidden timestamps and possibly having 7 or 8 shown (assuming 6 remains the default) if the oldest RD has not been on the Main Page for a particularly long time. -- Kicking222 (talk) 22:24, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Workshop: Defining significance

Yes. It's another proposal. Yes, it's our seventh in as many days. But based on the reaction to "Apply RD standard to blurbs" and "Establishing notability for current events", I think it's worth discussing a way to get rid of the ambiguity when it comes to how we define significance.

First of all, I recognize where I stand relative to the rest of everyone here. I know my criteria for significance is on the more lenient end of the spectrum, compared to others who are stricter. I know I've butted heads a couple times too, and I respect everyone's differences. But my intention is not to prescribe criteria, nor to ram through a raising or lowering of the bar for significance. Rather, it's to find ways to be more definitive in our significance for the benefit of new ITN/C contributors who want to know why we're posting some stories and not posting others.

Purpose

The Wikipedia:In the news significance criteria currently states that the following principles are useful for assessing consensus:

• The length and depth of coverage itself
• The number of unique articles about the topic
• The frequency of updates about the topic
• The types of news sources reporting the story

In my opinion, these principles would be excellent in determining whether a story is worth posting. However, in practice, we rarely see consistent adherence to these principles leading to the unfortunate outcome that consensus is usually based on a head count. Indeed, the threshold for "length and depth of coverage" could be narrow for some users (like myself) and wide for others. It's clear that demolishing the significance standard outright would not be workable either, for it risks creating the perception that WP:ITN is a news ticker. Yet at the same time, the current standard is contentious and the divides between users are deep and in some cases irreconcilable.

This thread seeks to workshop the idea of what a less contentious, less subjective criterion would look like. There is no point in attempting to prescribe a change to our procedures or guidelines as to what kind of items we should be posting to ITN, because there would never be any consensus to achieve this. Instead, the goal should be to find a common ground on rewording the current standard so as to reorient users towards a less adversarial approach to ITN/C.

Background

Let’s look at the things that presumed notable items do have in common, and those things that presumed non-notable items have in common. Note that all of these would have reliable source coverage:

• Examples of notable items: National elections, national or international sporting events with large viewership, disasters that affect lots of people, first rocket launches for a nation, wars, assassinations of a major political figure.

• Examples of non-notable items: Celebrity gossip, subnational elections, political intrigue, athletic records.

• Examples of grey area items: Lawsuits between two major companies, business mergers, archeological or scientific discoveries, United Nations directives, moderate disasters in areas that are known for disasters.

By categorizing these items, we can see the following commonalities:

• Notable items impact large amounts of people on a wide scale, whether it’s the population of a country or the whole world. They do not necessarily have to be injured or killed in order for this to happen, nor does there necessarily need to be international crossover, but it is an item that grabs public attention and may impact daily life in a significant way for those concerned

• Non-notable items are usually ignored because they don’t affect as many people. Or if they do affect people, the impact is not very tangible and at times the news coverage outsizes the actual notability.

• The grey area items fall somewhere in the middle, in that they affect a lot of people, but the actual degree of the impact is difficult to pinpoint for those outside of that sphere. This is the area that causes the most contention at ITN.

Proposed standard (DICE)

Therefore, it seems that rather than a significance standard, we should be assessing based on an impact standard. This would not change how we operate at ITN/C, as the assessment method is still the same. However, the focus would change to determining the degree and scale as to how people are impacted. We can measure this by assessing the news coverage and answering the following questions:

• Depth: How much news coverage is this item receiving?

• Impact: How does the story define the impact on people in the region affected, if there is any?

• Consequences: For the news category this story is posted under (politics, art, science, sports, etc.), what sort of ramifications are there?

• Encyclopedic: Is this a suitable item to either update or create a standalone Wikipedia article?

Functionally, the types of items that are being posted to ITN would not change, as we are still assessing the significance of the stories, but we now have a clear standard in which we can review items as opposed to an abstract personal assessment. In making the criteria more specific and objective, we qualitatively assess based on the above criteria, by actually reviewing the news coverage and exploring the details within it. From there, we can reach a consensus around whether these criteria have been satisfied rather than based on a head count.

The other advantage to this is that as we continue to use the DICE standard, the global consensus on ITN around what items are posted becomes clearer and more definable, which will help other users who might not understand what is required in order for a newsworthy item to actually be posted. Furthermore, we can document the changes over time as consensus changes.

Feedback

I hope that my ideas are clear and that they can gain some traction. If there is any further explanation needed, or any changes that would be most useful, I'm open to hearing them. And it may very well be that things ought to stay the same, per WP:CREEP and per WP:AINT. But I think this is still worth trying. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:30, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I’m afraid that quality is gradually becoming a more important problem than significance (see my thread immediately above this one), so I think any modelling of significance should start off from how well the newly created or updated article demonstrates significance.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:28, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, which is where the "encyclopedic" standard comes into play. If it's not possible to get the article up to a decent quality in the fashion of how we prefer things to be written on Wikipedia, then it probably doesn't fit the bill. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:31, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

The so-called DICE standard still suffers from a big issue with the current "significance" criteria, in that all points, save for the last one, are still subject to an incredible amount of ambiguity. I mean in real terms, almost every oppose vote on WP:ITN/C is based upon at least one of these four variables (e.g, "this is not major news in X part of the world," "this wont't have any ipact despite killing hundreds of people," "this action by Russia against Ukraine is just dick-measuring," "this item is not encyclopedic enough for an undisclosed reason," etc. in - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 23:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

It's ambiguous, but I believe it's better than the alternative, which right now is a free-for-all. What we're frequently seeing is a litany of !votes which amount to "support, this is significant" vs "oppose, this is not significant". We pay our admins to be stewards of the Main Page and to assess consensus, but there's not a lot that you can do when the quality of the !votes are akin to hardtack and gruel. Moreover, significance as it currently stands (and as you well know) is entirely subjective as outlined in WP:ITNCRIT. When that's all we have to go on, what choices do admins have? Every admin assesses ITN/C consensus differently. Look at how Fuzheado has been pilloried over the years for his interpretation of consensus vs that of Stephen or Tone. On one hand, he may very well have misread consensus in those instances. On the other hand, you can't really blame him when all that WP:ITN/A says is to check how clueful the votes are.

So is there still ambiguity with DICE? Yes, of course there will be, because it's qualitative and not quantitative. However, by asking our !voters to think in those terms when deciding whether to support or oppose, we do two things. Firstly, we reorient the thought process so it's less about personal point of view and more about overall impact in the area concerned, in order to offset the effect that regional bias has on one's voting. Secondly, even if we still have votes that are terse or insufficient, as outlined below, it will at least allow admins to assess the quality of the !votes and then accordingly sort out the ones that don't provide a thoughtful argument. Essentially we diminish the importance of head-counting.

I think it's an improvement. If you feel it's still ultimately subjective, I welcome your thoughts on how we can use a more quantitative or evidence-based approach. But like I said, I don't think we ought to waste our time on trying to lower or eliminate the significance bar entirely, because that idea is a non-starter for a lot of people here. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:22, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I don't deny that it's an improvement, but a key issue that I think we need to tackle is making ITN guidelines as specific as possible so that noms cannot be arbitrarily derailed by WP:BADFAITH, WP:OR, and WP:DONTLIKEIT arguments. As @DarkSide830 pointed out, it could be realistically argued that most folks on ITN/C, including the biggest disruptors, are technically already using a weak amalgamation of all the three. For example, POV is heavily impacted by overall impact, and often times vice versa. It's practically become apart of ITN lore that a story will occur on one side of the Atlantic, and the side of the Atlantic that it occurred in heavily supports its posted, while the other side dismisses it as irrelevant. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 12:38, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I truly believe the only way to avoid such arguments impacting ITN, without being draconian and starting to ban people from ITN participation (which is the worst possible outcome here) is simply empowering Admins more to discard these comments when considering consensus. That shouldn't be an issue as long as we make a point of informing ITN editors that such action can be taken with inappropriate comments. Worst case scenario someone's opinion is not being counted. This is, however, not a democracy, nor is one's right to an ITN argument a fundamental human right. DarkSide830 (talk) 14:58, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

• SO, I really have a hard time with items 2, 3, and 4 above; since they basically require people to ignore evidence and merely give their own experience, interest, or emotional response to a story. We should be discouraging that rather than encouraging. The only item that seems reasonable is the first, depth. Everything else amounts to "how do I feel about this based on my own very limited experience in the world", and that's a terrible way to make decisions for an audience. --Jayron32 11:03, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, but think about it; we're asking people to give their input on impact, consequences, and whether it's encyclopedic. But as opposed to the unconstrained process which we had before, where anyone can simply say "it doesn't mean anything to me", we're asking them to operate within the qualitative constraints of those three questions. I think people can be relatively objective if they are asked to assess the news coverage and the content and determine the impact and consequences, not necessarily to themselves but to the parties whom the news affects. It's a reorientation of perspective from "what does this mean for them" rather than "what does this mean for me". Do you see what I'm getting at? --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:27, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, but they'll just vote by asserting those things as self-evidently true, which is all they do now. What we want is people citing sources and evidence, not making unfalsifiable statements that something just "isn't important". or "has no consequences" or "isn't encyclopedic". Anyone can just type those words at any time, and we need a process that gives less weight to typing words and more weight to providing evidence. --Jayron32 14:32, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, that's kind of the direction I'm fighting towards, thus why this wasn't so much a proposal as more of a workshop. The baseline DICE criteria I provided allows us to orient ourselves towards that line of thinking where we provide evidence from within the news to support our claims. So now we just have to determine how we can quantify that evidence in context to DICE. In my opinion, this would require actually reading the articles and looking for statements within the news coverage that would indicate that. If it's a well-written article, it should do so, or at least allow us to critically think and assess the content. If it can't define the impact, then it's probably ticker content.

Let's use the Super Bowl as an example, to get an idea of how it would work:

• Depth - Very high. Virtually every major U.S. newspaper covers the Super Bowl in detail, some cases on the front page but certainly on top of the sports section in U.S. papers.
• Impact - According to Hollywood Reporter, 113 million viewers across all platforms viewed the Super Bowl. This amounts to a very large cross-section of the U.S. population.
• Consequences - Permeates popular culture. Great impacts on the hospitality and sports industries. While no tangible physical impacts to people, it's by and large a "water cooler" discussion topic for those who watched it.
• Encyclopedic - By and large meets WP:NSPORTS in that each Super Bowl receives its own individual article and prose.

Yes, it's qualitative. But using the above criteria, it explains why the item is consistently WP:ITNR each year. I think you will find that if we apply these same standards to other stories - ones that were posted and ones that were not posted - you'll most likely get assessments consistent with their outcomes. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:00, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

In addition, if we do get !votes that just tersely assess the item without providing supporting background evidence, then the admins who are weighing posting of the story should take that into consideration when weighing consensus. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:10, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I was just typing this same comment, though I was going to link to WP:DISCARD. These are especially applicable to "Encyclopedic", where there's an actual policy that decides what meets it and what doesn't. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:13, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I like the idea of having these standards listed somewhere for new editors, but I'm not sure it will change the minds of current editors (who, in theory, are using some weighted combination of these standards already). DarkSide830 (talk) 17:08, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I generally like this new "scale". However, I wonder if this would cause less science articles to get posted. How does a scientific discovery, e.g. the discovery of a new element, meet these criteria? Natg 19 (talk) 06:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Well if a scientific discovery doesn't meet these criteria than it isn't ITN worthy. New elements are also ITN/R. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:14, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

• There being no policy basis for basically any post or oppose vote, these nominations almost all are closed on "consensus" by vote count, so I would support some way of changing that, but the fact is that any attempt at having quantifiable standards for posting will result in the posting of the more severe in impact US mass shootings, as they consistently have more depth and width in coverage across a range of news sources than most other things we post here. And for that reason any attempt at defining such standards is, unfortunately, doomed to failure due to the bloc of "if it happened in America it isnt noteworthy, but if the same thing happened in my continent it should be plastered across all websites on the planet" voters. You simply cannot design a criteria that is based on any objective reasoning that does not rule in a large amount of stories that a sizable portion of ITN/C voters consistently reject. And so they will reject whatever criteria is designed. nableezy - 15:31, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  If the regular ITN/C voters (note the lack of "!") don't change their policy-violating behavior in the near future, then it will fall to the rest of the community to resolve this, just like any other case where a group of editors subverts policy for an extended period of time. Also, if someone creates an article about a mass shooting or a similar single news cycle story, odds are that it fails WP:EVENTCRIT and should simply be deleted. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:42, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

This is probably unworkable, but is it possible to come to a shared definition of significance (or at least depth) by

1. Coming up with a list of the most important/largest/your adjective of choice world news sources, and
2. Saying that X% having a story on Y topic automatically surpasses the criterion?

Note that the lack of this probably shouldn't automatically bar a nomination, particularly for non-Western events, but it could be a start toward easing the lengthy debates we keep having. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

This has been discussed in the past to no avail. Truth be told, this would probably lead to much bickering about what is or isn't a good news source to use. And I will note, my main issue with "Coverage" as it is generally defined is that most publications cover most events nowadays (due a lack of limitation on print space that may have existed in the past), including many trivial ones such as routine news, celebrity news, mundane crime stories, etc. Ergo, I believe any such proposal to be a non-starter, even if reasonably-conceived. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, during all my time at ITN/C, I have never once seen anyone try to push through celebrity news (except those related to Donald Trump) of any sort with a straight face. The only time I have seen was an ill-conceived April Fool's joke nomination I made centered around Kim Kardashian. That was a bit of an embarrassment. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:31, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

And, quite frankly, that's why I'm fine with keeping the system as it is. But a blank check for any story that is "widely" covered is a problem. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:03, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

I think the amount of arguing that just took place over the coronation nom is proof that the system doesn't work as well as we think. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:13, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

To be fair, I don't ever see a scenario where another coronation meets posting criteria in any of our lifetimes (would love to say I'll live another 70 but can't guarantee that). That was one where I consciously went against my normal ITN positioning to prop up a less-impactful but rare event. And I understand the opposition to the coronation as well, though should the vast majority of OTHERSTUFF opposes have been disregarded, the point would be moot. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:00, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I think a far simpler, more quantifiable approach is required. Much as Ngrams is an excellent initial gauge of WP:COMMONNAME when used correctly and common sense applied, Google Trends would be a very sensible tool for sorting the wheat from the chaff and gauging whether events have A) volumetric significance, B) geographically diverse significance. This would be a useful tool for gauging the significance of both blurbs and Ongoing items. For instance, if we take the Belgrade shooting and Manipur violence, a Google trends plot shows both the coverage spikes and geographical coverage spread. We see a pretty obvious Western hemisphere and developed nations focus on the Serbia news; a subcontinental focus on the Manipur news - inputs that could help (not necessarily here) avoid systemic biases. If we look at the recent coronations posting debacle, where we basically had an article good-to-go with few to no quality issues issues from the get-go, admitting evidence based analysis, such as relevant Google trends data would have ended the discussion pretty quickly - our earlier items, 'Belgrade shooting' and 'Manipur violence' are basically dead in the water versus the coronation - this like for like comparison is pretty instructive: if the latter two items are worthy of admittance to ITN then by God an event with the kind of impact factor as the coronation should. Also, from an Ongoing perspective, drop offs in news coverage are also pretty obvious, e.g.: the Serbia news has been posted as a Blurb, not an Ongoing, but the chart clearly shows the interest petering out. Or we can perform the same exercise with the actual current Ongoing entries (7 May), i.e. Israeli protests, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sudan conflict, see [1], which is also pretty revealing at showing the actual practical levels of coverage of events from a global perspective. And while a shift towards a more empirical, data-based ITN assessment of significance might have its drawbacks, I'm pretty sure it would ultimately be fairer and less open to accusations of systemic bias as the current opinion-infested vote-fest and abomination unto WP:NOTDEMOCRACY that ITN has become. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:54, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm intrigued by this proposal, but I have to address the elephant in the room, how would this be affected by spikes in trivial matters such as celeb drama. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 12:58, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

It's pretty simple. We just don't post celebrity gossip. Problem solved! --Jayron32 13:06, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

It would certainly be interesting to run a test case. What's a recent example of celebrity media circus that run amok at ITN or generally? I'd be happy to test an example against the actual ITN at the time. But, what I suspect might be the case is that a single celebrity event that makes waves in, say the US, might not impact global news trends as much as you might think. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:33, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I compared two key entries from this ITN template in January, i.e. the plane crash in Pokhara and the election of Chris Hipkins, against two failed nominations and prominent US-centric events: the police killing involving Tyre Nichols and the Alec Baldwin shooting on the Rust set - so one race relations item and one celebrity story angle. The resulting Trends chart, while showing that both of those stories received considerable reach, they ultimately trended well below the major posted news items. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:26, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

• This aspect came up in a recent nom but there is a certain difference of opinion of what ITN should do. Some believe it should highlight topics that are covered by the news in some rough proportion to coverage, with article quality as secondary. But the other way to see this, and why ITN was created and is on the Main page, is to feature high quality articles or existing quality articles with substantial updates of expected quality, that happen to be covered by the news. The amount or weight of coverage should not matter, though the more coverage a story has, the more expectations of a quality article or update. We should be looking at article quality first, deciding if this respects some of WP's best work. If the article isn't there nor likely to get there, then we shouldn't post it. This might mean that some disasters which have only minimal details known won't get posted. We also should be looking at the fact WP us not a newspaper and while we do want articles on new notable events, or significant updates, that there are stories in the news that are "business as usual" updates, such as most political stories , business news, etc. that we should not give too much sway in updating articles and certainly avoid giving space on ITN (recently, the EzpA suggesting some truth to the lab leak theory was all over the place on the news, but that was something we clearly wouldn't post). We basically should not be trying to judge the weight of news but instead make sure we are promoting high quality encyclopedic articles that happen to have news coverage. Going this way would help reduce the amount if debate on significance, because quality is often the most obvious problem that should be fixed first. Masem (t) 13:55, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think Masem makes some very cogent points here. Quality, in its own way, does add much to significance in the sense that if there are not substantial, well-written sources to work from, then there won't be an article or an update of sufficient quality. --Jayron32 14:03, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, that was going to be what the "E" fork in my DICE represented, which was that is the news story such that we'd be able to develop a good-quality Wikipedia article out of it, or at the very least, a substantive update to an existing article. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:30, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  Which is why there may be stories that are "significant" (such as violence in Africa and the Middle East, or natural disasters in South America and some Asian countries) but coverage is far from necessary to get a quality article up. This quality-over-newsworthiness aspect would also help better with RD blurbs decisions, supplemented by news coverage that helps establish the impact the person had which should be reflected as a substantial update to the quality article. The focus on showing how fast WP editors can come together to produce a great article in a day or so from recent ends is why ITN was made, and we've sorta lost sight as some push for trying to mimic mass media coverage. Masem (t) 16:38, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don't see how this argument helps. There are a lot of high quality articles that may or may not qualify for ITN. The quality measurement is already being used on ITN, as low quality, stub type articles are routinely rejected from ITN. In general, contentious arguments are for articles that are high quality, but are based on subjective interpretations of "significance". For example, I presume the King Charles III coronation article was high quality, but few people argued for or against it being on ITN based on quality. Many mass shooting articles are good quality, but may not belong on ITN for other reasons. Most arguments on ITN/C are "I like it" or "I don't like it", so I hope we get some more clear guidelines on what should be posted on ITN besides "significant", which is very subjective based on people's biases. Natg 19 (talk) 19:04, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, we still will have arguments on some topics where there is a high quality article but there is reasons we won't post it or at least argue about it, like the coronation. Or recently any if the US gun shootings, where we have established that these are too routine to post. but it would eliminate ITNCs on articles that have no chance to be improved significantly, whereas currently we tend to allow these if they get "good enough". It also points to making sure ITNR items have significant quality updates before they are posted. This approach doesn't solve everything but it pushes a lot of current issues away.

  Putting article quality first and foremost, with quantity of news sourcing represent by the depth of coverage in the article using those sources, gives a better spin if ITNs goal here and keeps us from being a newsticker. Masem (t) 21:03, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

  But a lot of the arguments, because of the looseness of the guidelines, have essentially descended into arguments about other examples. One of the most frequent arguments about the coronation posting was that US presidential inaugurations are not posted. Every time a US shooting pops up, this refrain goes out that US shootings are routine, without even really discussing the scale of the event or the significance of the coverage around it. The Texas mall shooting, for instance, was the second most deadly and had the second highest casualties this year, so if one were to mention a single shooting in the second quarter of 2023, that would be the one. On one level, it seems like there is such a fear of systemic bias towards Western world stories that ITN is overcorrecting in the other direction. Here is the actual Trends data, for instance on how that shooting compares to some of the other events, or the coronation. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:26, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  Most people who vote in these discussions aren't interested in measurements and metrics and evidence. They largely only vote based on what is interesting to them and what they like and never make any effort beyond assessing significance outside of "is this a story I am interested in hearing about". That's a shitty way to run anything at Wikipedia, and yet here we are, and they have become entrenched in this corner of Wikipedia, having carved out their little niche and made this the place they try to play cultural gatekeeper, since no where else seems to let them. --Jayron32 11:51, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  Let's put it this way - whether we use article quality (which I think will limit how many ITNCs we get) or news coverage as suggested at the start, we are always going to hit stories that have equivant article quality and news coverage but which we treat different. And I think trying to understand that situation would also be helpful.

  For example, personally, I see part of ITNs purpose to focus on a diversity of topics both in geographic space, but as well as topic space. For one, that's why we try to make sure that for stories that have continuing events afterwards that we are picking the right moment to make into ITN: normally that's when a new leader is selected and not their actual taking-of the seat of power, or in a high profile criminal case, when the person is convicted and not when they are arrested and charged, or for major business mergers, when the merger is announced and not when it is completed. Its also why we look for how "routine" an event can be. US shootings are far too regular nowadays that they are sadly routine, but I would also apply this to annual flooding in Asian countries, hurricane/typhoon landfalls, and similar events where the death toll is there but not great. All this is a bit more personal opinion and touchy-feeling, but we do have some unstated rules that we should try to capture as guidance (not policy) to ITN so that editors know what are selection processes are usually based around. Masem (t) 12:21, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  To add to my point...whether we put quality first or news coverage first, we ate still going to run into cases like the verdict in the Trump v. E Carroll trial nomination, that as I write there is clear opposition to it, those reasons having nothing to do with quality or depth of coverage. There will always be a higher set of "rules" that come into play after determining quality and news coverage are met, and thus are far more difficult to articulate. Masem (t) 19:10, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

  But articulated they really need to be if they are to come off as anything other than somewhat arbitrary. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:31, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with Iskander33. I thought the point of this (and other) proposals IS to try to articulate those "rules". Because right now, those "rules" are vague, and arguments devolve simply into discussions about geography or other inherent biases. Natg 19 (talk) 19:49, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

  I fully agree that above and beyond quality and news coverage, we need to present these rules with the understanding they have less enforceability than guidelines, and IAR can apply at times. But we need.to make sure we agree on those. Masem (t) 19:54, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

  It seems straightfoward to me. Wikipedia already has policies and guidelines, including one about how to determine WP:CONSENSUS and several about how to determine WP:NOTABILITY. If people are coming up with their own rules and standards of "significance", or if they try to enforce a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that contradicts policies and guidelines, then their !votes are supposed to be WP:DISCARDed. Many editors have been sanctioned at ANI in the past for repeatedly trying to enforce their own non-P&G rules, and projects have been shut down for the same. If someone feels that there are ways to improve the current standard set by policies and guidelines, we have a WP:PROPOSAL process for that. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:33, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

  NOTABILITY governs the worthiness of an event to have an article created about it. ITN is not an article and is thus not beholden to such standards. And we have established that the creation of an article directly for an event that is to be posted is not always needed, even if ITN items frequently have standalone articles. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:04, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

  My concern is only that the topic is temporally relevant: is it something our readers are likely to be hearing about outside of Wikipedia during their daily lives. If so, ITN's only purpose is directing them to a Wikipedia article about the topic, so long as we have one that is good enough. I think reporting the news is not a concern of mine, or deciding what is important is not so much of a concern, merely directing people to additional information. --Jayron32 12:44, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  So it's agreed to support the next high-quality article on a U.S mass shooting? —Bagumba (talk) 11:47, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Making Ongoing chronological

It would make a lot of sense to apply chronological ordering to the Ongoing section, which is currently ordered A-Z.

Perhaps the strongest argument for this is that all of the other sections of in the news are currently chronological apart from Ongoing, making it an organizational exception to the rule that breaks the overall consistency of the format.

Another strong argument for this is that it would actually help better contextualize the events, though there are very much two ways of potentially going about this.

Option one would be to replicate the current chronological ordering of the other two sections, which is to display more latest events (measured by start date) first, oldest events last - this would maintain the most absolute consistency with the formatting of the other sections.

Option two would be to do the reverse, with older events first, which one could base on the following logic: older events that are still ongoing are quantitively more ongoing, which as a general rule will likely tend to line up with event significance. In the current setup (4 May), this would place the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine up front as the most ongoing event - a choice that would certainly make a certain degree of sense editorially, and I would suggest does correlate with the event of most significance. However, this option is also weaker from the perspective of overall consistency with the other sections, which place oldest events last.

A largely chronological approach was previously muted when Ongoing was first trialed and approved in 2014, but I can't tell when or why this switched, seemingly informally (I say informally, hesitantly, simply because I see no precise directions in the admin instructions), to an A-Z approach. However, I think a return to a chronological order would have its merits. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:47, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• Not all ongoing events have a clear start date, but I suppose it's going to be rare when we have two items with overlapping vague starting points and if that does happen we could just decide that the one added to ongoing first was the older for our purposes, so that's not really a problem. My gut preference is for option 2 if we go this route, but I'm neutral on whether we should. Thryduulf (talk) 10:19, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
• Neither, the alphabetical system works fine for me. --Jayron32 13:17, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Jayron32: I'm not saying it's broken; my point is that it is inconsistent with the rest of WP:ITN. One of the common reasons to adopt an A-Z approach is that the alternatives are too complex to implement; that is clearly not the case here. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:44, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  Given the overlapping nature of the events, it may be too complex, also it's rarely more than 2-3 links. Not really a big deal. --Jayron32 14:00, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Jayron32: Isn't it just being 2-3 links what makes it normally really quite simple? E.g., with the 5 May sample: Russian invasion of Ukraine (24 February 2022 – present), 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests (7 January 2023 – present), 2023 Sudan conflict (15 April 2023 – present) - the start dates makes it as easy as any of the section to order this way. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:51, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

  I disagree that it's inconsistent. Ongoing events cannot be arranged chronologically because they are ongoing. You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole by using the start date, but the result is no less arbitrary than the current order. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:28, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

  also, your assertion that "all of the other sections of in the news are currently chronological" is not correct. Only one (out of three) is arranged chronologically. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:32, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

  RD may be more loosely chronological, but it is still chronological in the sense of newer items being added to the left. Whatever way you dice it, none of the other sections are A-Z - in both other cases, left = newest. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:32, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

  "none of the other sections" There are 3 sections, all with different schemes. Your phrasing is clearly trying to imply this is an outlier when only 1 section follows this rule. GreatCaesarsGhost 20:52, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

  Not sure what could be simple than arranging them by the start date. It is way less arbitrary with either of the two options. With newest left, you have the newest events first; with the opposite, the longest lasting events first. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:34, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I think putting the most recent additions to Ongoing on the left would be reasonable, as it's more likely to be actively updated. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:56, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

(Closed) World Rally Championship - ITNR remove/recertify

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

---

WP:ITN/R states that "Items which are listed on this page are considered to have already satisfied the 'importance' criterion." Some contributors (myself included) believe that this language suggests that items should be subject to periodic review to ensure that consensus remains. The World Rally Championship is one of the few remaining items on ITN/R that does not currently show a citation to the discussion that added it. As such, I would like to initiate a discussion to provide this citation. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:34, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

• Keep as nominator. Rallying seems to be unique amongst the other motorsports listed at ITN/R. The specific event is the premier event for rallying, and has significant & broad appeal. The annual nomination is routinely posted with little to no opposition, with the year-specific target being well-composed prose and citation to multiple quality sources. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:34, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
• Keep only rally event at ITNR, and regularly proved to be posted year after year. --Masem (t) 20:37, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
• Keep I checked, and it's been posted every year since 2018. Seems to not be a problem to continue to keep it on the list, as evidence is we post it every year. --Jayron32 11:14, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
• Keep Citing the last 3 successful posts would hopefully have been sufficient too (WP:NOTBURO).—Bagumba (talk) 11:35, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
• Keep - not sure I agree we need to have periodic discussions to retain something that is often posted. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:49, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Indeed - I did not mean to argue this was a universal opinion or even a majority one. I just wanted to indicate this discussion is not meant to be pointy. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:26, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

• Keep - I don't think there's a pressing need to have this removed. Wikipedia is not being hurt by the inclusion of this event. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:14, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
• Keep - very popular sport internationally, this competition is the top level of that sport, absolutely no reason for it not to be included. Black Kite (talk) 14:16, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
• Remove The recent posting history is a circular argument because being WP:ITN/R gives the topic an unfair advantage. If you look for independent evidence such as this then this indicates that it's a minor motorsport comparable with Formula 2 and Motocross which don't get such special privilege. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:20, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  The World Rally Championship is a competition that takes place across multiple countries and multiple continents, sometimes including one race in the UK, making its popularity among UK viewers completely irrelevant. This is not In the British News. nableezy - 15:40, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  There is no "advantage"; it's not a competition, and no one loses when readers learn about our article regarding the event. The framing of these discussions in such terms is problematic. --Jayron32 16:09, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  WP:ITN/R obviously provides an advantage to particular sports at ITN and thereby discriminates against the ones that are not so favoured. Here's some more evidence showing that this sport does not merit such high ranking: What Are The Most Popular Motorsports In The World?. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:37, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  I continue to marvel at your unfailing contrarianism. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:47, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  Andrew, you misread me. The entire frame of thinking that sees this process as a battle to be "won" or "lost" is a problem. There is no battle, there are no winners and losers, and therefore, there is nothing that is an "advantage". Nothing bad happens to you, or anyone, because the ITN box had a posting about the world rally championship. You didn't lose anything, so you were not disadvantaged. That you think in these terms is what I am telling you is wrong. If you want to see an article about a different motorsport event posted on the main page, improve it to where it is a high quality article, and nominate it for consideration. I have not discriminated against those motorsports. You've never even given me a chance to look at the quality of the article and vote for it at ITNC, so don't tell me I am discriminating. --Jayron32 18:19, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  "advantage to particular sports", when there has been a barrage of items removed from ITN/R recently? Bizarre. The world rally championship is a massive event, the highest form of rally/non-cicuit racing in the world. Pointing to some random blog is a random claim of "evidence". Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:50, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  The purpose of ITN/R is not to fast-track a bunch of marginal sports and ensure that every format gets some representation. And it has nothing to do with quality. It's all about significance and the idea is to save time by assuming significance for events that are so outstanding that it's unquestionable. In motorsports, the only event that has outstanding significance in that way is Formula One because it's the only one with such huge international coverage and notability. Rally is comparatively niche and lacking in popularity and so the significance of a particular rally event is always debatable. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:39, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

  That's 100% wrong. ITNR is about assuring a good diversity of regularly occurring events of which we know are covered routinely in the news when they happen and that have been generally updated when the time comes. Significance only comes by way of how many ITNR entries there are for a topic (several for association football, few for rally motorsports, for example), but it does not directly reflect significance. Masem (t) 13:19, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

• Keep - one story a year is fine for rally racing, and this seems like the one. Though I dont agree with the if it's regularly posted it stays on ITN/R, weve seen in the recent past consensus against retaining ITNR items that had indeed been regularly posted. This should be a discussion about the merits of its inclusion based on significance, not rubber stamping the prior significance discussion on the basis of it passing the bar on quality since then. nableezy - 15:42, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  ITNR has never been a rubber stamp. The merits of the individual event (not the ITNR) are fair game to cover, but the reasons to exclude need to be exceptional or well thought out - such as some of the remote sampling space missions where arriving at the point was only part of the story and we waiting for another point. But we don't want what happened routinely to one of the last few annual Boat Race ITNC, where numerous editors threw up the question of whether the Boat Race overall should be kept. Masem (t) 15:52, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  You misunderstand me, I mean this discussion shouldnt be a rubber stamp on significance just based on the prior nominations being posted when the only thing they needed to post was meeting the quality requirement. nableezy - 15:55, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  My bad, I agree simply already being on ITNR without any evidence of consensus doesn't rubber stamp reapproval. Heck, even those with discussions a few years out of date can be fair game to challenge and don't qualify for rubber stamping. Masem (t) 16:02, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. I know very little about this championship. However, any request to reconsider the WP:ITNR nature of an event should happen only if the fundamental basis on which consensus was earlier established is no longer true or has significantly changed to the point of requiring a re-evaluation. Ktin (talk) 00:52, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

  As pointed out, there is no known establishing consensus for inclusion (the situation for several of the earliest entries on ITNR). This !poll is to revalidate that it belongs or it doesn't as to then use this to establish the consensus. Masem (t) 00:57, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

  A simple question to ask is — “What changed now?” Ktin (talk) 02:52, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think anything's changed outside that currently at ITNR, entries without established consensus are the exception, not the norm, so might as well get it out of being an exception. Masem (t) 02:59, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

• Keep of course. I think we can already close this as the outcome is clear.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 08:48, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

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

• When this thread rolls off into an archive, someone (I will try to remember) should add the archived thread to the ITNR list to point to the consensus for WRC as ITNR. --Masem (t) 12:44, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Add to ITN/R - results of popular election of the primary executive

Proposal to add second indented bullet to the bottom of the elections section at ITN/R "The results of a popular election to this office" and delete the word "general" from the preceding bullet "except when that change was already posted as part of a general election".

• Changes in the holder of the office which administer the executive of their respective state/government, in those countries which qualify under the criteria above, as listed at List of current heads of state and government except when that change was already posted as part of an election.

• In Switzerland, elections of new members to the Federal Council, but not normally general elections of the Federal Council or elections to the Presidency, which are generally pro forma.
• The results of a popular election to this office

The intent here is to address two minor gaps when the executive election is not part of a general election 1. the sitting officer being re-elected is technically not ITN/R and 2. a new person being elected is not posted until they assume the office. For example, the presidential second round in Turkey would not be ITN/R regardless of the result. Of course, we would likely post it anyway (as we did with Macron's re-election in France), but we should be applying the same standard for all countries. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:56, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

• Would it be better to rephrase it as "Elections for which the the holder of the office which administer the executive of their respective state/government is decided, in those countries which qualify under the criteria above, as listed at List of current heads of state and government except when that change was already posted as part of another election." That way, it's not the change of office, but the completion of the election whereby the chief executive is decided, even if the chief executive is re-elected. --Jayron32 14:43, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

• That would be very different than my proposal, as your language would exclude situations where the primary executive changes outside of an election (see the revolving door in the UK Conservative Party). I'm really just looking to have ITNR more accurately reflect how we actually handle this. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:04, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

• ¿Porque no los dos? They should probably both apply. --Jayron32 11:53, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Jim Brown

Date

The nomination for Jim Brown has been put in May 18 but my impression is that the news broke on May 19. Shouldn't it go under the later date? Andrew🐉(talk) 07:31, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Nominations are by date of death not date of announcement, which will often be the next day, unless the announcement is a few days later. Stephen 12:17, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Agree with this statement. Ktin (talk) 19:42, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Nominations should be by date of anouncement per WP:ITNRD.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:18, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Where does it say that? I tried to carefully read ITNRD but don't see any guidelines on this. Natg 19 (talk) 18:34, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

It’s not clearly stated, but the last sentence in the intro reads "Recently died" means their death was announced within the last seven days., so the focus should be on the announement rather than the death itself. In some rare cases, a death may be announced weeks or even months after it happened.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

The only time we use the announcement date is if there significant time (like a week or more) that the death was not reported. A death that is reported the next day should be posted on the day of the death. Masem (t) 18:44, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Agree with the above statement. Though, I would say -- we should not split hairs about this one. Ktin (talk) 19:41, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Someone has closed the nomination discussion in the usual over-assertive manner. The trouble is that there's still things to discuss. For example, there's already a discussion about the wording of the blurb, which is now taking place at WP:ERRORS even though it's not an error. One might likewise discuss the picture. Some started the nomination with a picture which showed him in grizzled middle-age. I boldly changed that to the article's lead picture which is a collector card image, showing him in his prime. That seems to have stuck but I'm not sure why someone thought the other picture was better. And I want to post details of the readership stats for the record. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:29, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I understand the discussion has been deemed "over" by the powers that be but as someone who is an African American (i.e., the demographic that would apparently be most expected to be familar with him), I literally had never heard of him in my life. I understand comparisons are being made to Muhammad Ali, but that seems improbable given that people who don't follow boxing knew who he was. It's a travesty that this has been given a blurb. --Varavour (talk) 18:45, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Nobody compared him to Muhammad Ali, one of the most famous people on the planet over decades. And travesty? That a blurb for Jim Brown appeared on ITN is a travesty to you? Well, Im sorry for your loss I guess. As far as never having heard of him, click the link and read about him if youd like to. Itll help Andrew's stats too. nableezy - 19:46, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

These are things that should be discussed at ERRORS. ITN/C should be discussing whether an article belongs on ITN or not, and if there is a consensus (or discussion gets stale), then the discussion should be indeed closed. Natg 19 (talk) 19:41, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Stats

My rule of thumb for RD blurbs is that they will attract over a million readers so it's surprising to note that Brown hasn't reached that total yet. The number is 660,000 for the month to date which is quite substantial but not of a megastar size. I suppose that this is due to their age which is sufficiently great that they have outlived many contemporaries and they are not well known by Generation X+ who perhaps haven't seen movies like The Dirty Dozen. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:29, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 22:47, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

What's the point is adding deaths when there's a list underneath?

As it is... it ends up looking like there's a hierarchy of deaths, where some end up being more prominent because... more people decide that? I mean, unless a head of state was murdered, or such... I don't see the point, otherwise, if the whole process was equitable, the news section would be one death after another... 80.42.137.100 (talk) 20:59, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the criteria are at WP:ITNRDBLURB.—Bagumba (talk) 01:01, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello. The point of RDs is to highlight recent deaths - that is deaths In the news. Of course, not every recent death is featured on the RD section (which is what I believe you are hinting at), however, that's largely due to quality issues that prevent the devoted articles from being posted on the main page (which you have to remember gets 5+ million views daily, so subpar content cannot be highlighted). - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs) 01:03, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

This is a very good point and no strong reason has ever been presented why we need to highlight the death of certain people by posting blurbs. You’re absolutely right that the process isn’t equitable and it produces bias. For instance, the German Wikipedia community never posts death blurbs, unless the person in question was assassinated or died in an accident, because of their RD section.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:21, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia has a separate Obituary section on its main page in which every death gets a one line blurb. That's obviously far better for the reader than the English RD ticker which, by just listing names without any description, is too abbreviated. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:21, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

That won't work on en.wiki main page, where every featured link is expected to point to articles representing our best work. That's why we still have a pointer to the current events portal where there is no such limitation on quality, just verification. Masem (t) 21:58, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

The idea that the English Wikipedia can't do something which is done every day by the German language Wikipedia is absurd. Other languages such as Spanish do this too. Get real. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:34, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

The distinct behavior of the two sites was established through decades of collaborative refinement. If you want to throw out quality standards for the Main Page, propose it and gain consensus. I think we all know how that discussion will go. In the meantime, mind your manners and don't bite at the editors who are actually trying to be productive. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

As I said, I'm all for demolishing the "major/transformative figures" criterion so as to prevent it from becoming a contest of who has the biggest legacy/has the puffiest obituary/reminds Wikipedians the most of Nelson Mandela. But as long as that criterion exists and there is a consensus to keep it, yes, there is going to be a hierarchy of deaths around here. The solution to that is to propose an RfC to remove the criterion and to give a compelling argument for doing so. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:45, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. I’d go even further to require the existence of a stand-alone article documenting the death (e.g. Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II) or the event in which the person in question died (e.g. 2020 Calabasas helicopter crash). By doing that, we’d restrict blurbs only to persons whose deaths are the main story that merits a blurb and solve the problem with the bias.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:04, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Jim Brown note For future reference, this thread is probably a reaction to posting the Jim Brown blurb. FWIW, his death did make the front page of The New York Times print edition. Whether or not one agrees with the post, that hopefully indicates some level of extra significance, as opposed to an arbitrary vote pile.—Bagumba (talk) 14:59, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I don’t see it as a reaction to that particular nomination. It’s a highly relevant question that needs to be discussed and eventually resolved. The truth is that we’re biased no matter high much the community disagrees with.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:04, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Agree it's a relevant question, but this timing seems spurred by Brown. —Bagumba (talk) 16:49, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

We shouldn't care where a death notice is given - the same criteria for normal blurbs. But a NYTimes long long form death notice should be very much incorporated into the article to improve its quality (particularly the update), which should better justify the reason to post. Masem (t) 15:06, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Ok, but if one wants to treat them like "normal blurbs", many non-RD blurbs have been at best C class, with little structured text for a layman to understand the significance, if they weren't already somewhat familiar with the topic. The "legacy" aspect of RD blurbs is a step above that, which could be fine. But let's not fool ourselves that iTN ever treated all blurbs equally alike. —Bagumba (talk) 15:37, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I fully agree that we need to improve our criteria on all articles suggested for blurbs, though moreso for any RD blurbs for certain. Like in the case of Jim Brown, the discussion was starting that "oh , he's a civil rights icon" but the article at that time made nearly no mention of it. Now it has it, and written decently for as fast as it was completed. Could the article quality be better? Sure but at least when it was posted it was at least a B-class that was fully comprehensive. There have definitely been blurb RDs that have been posted that have been less-than-desired quality without any clear reason for legacy or impact because we have many non-regulars !vote for posting for the reasons we already state not to !vote for, on popularity and fame, which swings the !vote on pure numbers the wrong way. Masem (t) 16:28, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Survey for updating ITN/RD criteria

Note that this survey is not intended as an official vote/!vote for whether or not to strike out a significant criterion for posting recent death blurbs, but rather as an informal poll to see if people would be interested in having that discussion. That area of WP:ITNRDBLURB as it relates to death blurbs for major/transformative figures reads as follows:

Major figures: The death of major figures may merit a blurb. These cases are rare, and are usually posted on a sui generis basis through a discussion at WP:ITNC that determines there is consensus that the death merits a blurb. Comparisons to deaths of prior persons (we posted John Doe, so we should also post Jane Smith, or conversely we didn't post Bill Jones, so we cannot post Susie Johnson) are rarely considered sufficient to post in absence of consensus. One should also be wary of puffery in obituaries for a recently deceased person - using terms such as "legendary", "greatest of all time", "household name", etc.

If removed, there would be only two criteria by which a death blurb would be posted - one where the death is the main story as a result of major events and funeral services, or one where it is the main story due to the unusual nature of the death (evidence of suicide, foul play, etc.). Any discussions regarding the significance of the individual would be limited to only insofar as the death is of an encyclopedic nature, in which it warrants its own article. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:15, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

• Tentative support of having a formal vote. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:15, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support having a formal vote.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:19, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose There are deaths that are significantly in the news but where they are not as sufficiently in depth to have their own standalone article, nor are part of a major event. Robin William's death is an example, failing the two remaining ones but satisfying this one. What is needed is emphasis on that last sentence - that "world famous" and other factors do not come into play, and importantly that any death article suggested for a blurb must be some of highest quality, showing clearly why the person and/or their death has had a legacy or impact on the world. --Masem (t) 15:40, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  Masem, I will always admire your stalwart consistency with regards to your principles on ITN. I still have to emphatically disagree with your take, because that last sentence - however important it is - is not being taken into consideration by our !voters. The major problem as it stands with this criterion is that there are very few "must's", "shall's", and "only's", and too many "may's", "should's", and "usually's". It is an ongoing pitfall with ITN in that, by not committing ourselves to any sort of reliable objective standard and by insisting our guidelines are descriptive and not prescriptive, our consensus rarely aligns with the guidelines.

  And even then, our consensus is never unanimous and rarely a supermajority, which leads to gripes and complaints. This is why I unsuccessfully tried earlier to define significance. I predict that in the future, if our guidelines remain unchanged, we will have !voters who say "Well, we posted Carrie Fisher, Betty White, Robin Williams, and Jim Brown before, but those were all mistakes and we shouldn't do it again." And we'll continue to have this discussion again and again. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 17:01, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  Well, we posted Carrie Fisher, Betty White, Robin Williams, and Jim Brown before, but those were all mistakes and we shouldn't do it again: The elephant in the room is that those are all Americans. Are we willing to constructively discuss why that's a lighting rod? —Bagumba (talk) 01:02, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I think reporting of funeral services invariably gets back to the "major figure" criteria, and each region has differing criteria on state funerals, if that is going to be a new blurb criteria.—Bagumba (talk) 16:01, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support Having RfC and !vote. Please. This criterion is subjective by design, and while so are ITNC discussions, ITNRD blurb discussions take it to uncomfortable levels of arguing whether a - recently deceased, remember - person was a world hero or a boring commoner, rather than accepting that they were a notable person and sensibly debating it in degrees. Whatever one thinks of blurbing RDs, that is a conduct issue that ITN has created and should try to control. Kingsif (talk) 16:13, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  Perhaps a better solution is to address the behavior (Wikipedia:General sanctions?) instead. —Bagumba (talk) 16:46, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don’t think this is the right approach. Why to be corrective when we can be preventive? Why to engage editors in cheeky discussions when we can direct them to produce content? Why should some people be treated differently than others? Our job is to present the readers all available knowledge about persons in reliable sources, not to hint at who was more notable for what and why. In the same way as being a “major figure” isn’t a criterion for a GA/FA, it shouldn’t be a criterion to mention someone in a blurb on the main page while someone else is treated differently at the same time. The main problem here is our bias and lack of equitable process. Masem‘s argumentation above is a very good explanation of where that bias comes from. What prevents the death of Robin Williams to be documented in a stand-alone article when his death was covered in zillion reliable sources and it’s already the longest section of the article that justifies a split? WP:CFORK is the most misapplied policy we have. Death articles have the importance as obituaries published by news outlets and will surely be well received by our readers. So, instead of allowing editors to argue whether someone is a “major figure” and clamp down for incivility (another fully biased concept), we can direct them to produce content and come with it to demand a blurb showing that the death itself is notable.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:34, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  Our job is to present the readers all available knowledge about persons in reliable sources, not to hint at who was more notable for what and why: Except ITN, by its very nature, already determines what events are more significant than others to post. —Bagumba (talk) 00:55, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  To post or not to post is different than posting a death blurb versus posting to RD. There's no objective explanation what makes some people more notable than others when they're all considered notable enough to have articles. But requiring a stand-alone article documenting the death is an objective criterion to tell people apart and justify posting a death blurb.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:45, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  In the current culture if WP today, where edutir rush to create standalone articles that are better suited as part if another more comprehensive article, asking for a page on the death of a person for a blurb is both gameable, and ignores editors that know how to write comprehensively. The is no reason that Robin William's or Jim Brown' death to require a separate article due to the lack of pomp compared to the Queen, Thatcher, or Michael Jackson. Yet these people meet the major figures standards and have clear article content now to explain that. The separate article on the death is asking for too much trouble. Masem (t) 13:50, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  Agree. I'd anticipate WP:REDUNDANTFORKs consisting of WP:NOTDIARY content and excessive quotes.—Bagumba (talk) 14:03, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  We have RfDs as a mechanism to halt posting and prevent WP:GAME as an article considered for deletion cannot be posted until the request is open. This will naturally filter people whose death is truly significant to be blurbed (an RfD for Death and state funeral of Fidel Castro or Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II would be snow-closed in a couple of minutes, so it won’t delay posting at all). I don’t see any obstacle to document the death of Robin Williams in a stand-alone article because it was widely reported in reliable sources with many published obituaries and clearly meets all bullets at WP:GNG, especially considering that the death section in his article is as long as the “Personal life” section (see Death of David Bowie as a perfect solution). Basically, all people whose deaths are major news with wide coverage in reliable sources merit stand-alone death articles. Finally, as I mentioned above, WP:CFORK is the most misapplied policy we have, and those articles would be perfectly justified per WP:SPINOFF.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:03, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  Could a Death if Robin Williams be made and be notable? Sure, but it is important to recognize that there was minimal funeral ceremony beyond various tributes. The death is far more comprehensive with the death discussed as part of his life, which is a major goal of how we should be writing articles. In contrast, Bowie's death, including his knowledge of his terminal condition, had a lot of pomp and ceremony comparable to the state funerals of the Queen and Thatcher, so a standalone makes sense. Again, we need to push editors to think about comprehensiveness rather that creation of articles, and that plays importantly herr. Masem (t) 16:27, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  As already mentioned here, I’ve made a proposal on more comprehensive death updates some time ago, but it didn’t succeed to make any changes and was subsequently archived. Technically, we need a content-based criterion because that’s what can objectively tell people apart (more notable deaths/deaths of more notable people abound with coverage in reliable sources, which should require more detailed death updates).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:08, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• @Kingsif: ITNRD blurb discussions take it to uncomfortable levels of arguing whether a - recently deceased, remember - person was a world hero or a boring commoner, - Absolutely spot on. I feel this way also. It's one of the most morbid and disagreeable exercises that Wikipedians engage in. While the rest of the world, or at the very least their close loved ones, is mourning and writing obituaries in honor of the deceased, Joe Bloggs from Croydon says "Who? Not notable, never heard of 'em. No blurb." And while they may or may not be right (with the criteria as it is, it's hard to tell one way or another), it's an awful response for us to have just from the standpoint of humanity and decency. I know decency is not a policy on Wikipedia (although civility is), but we can certainly do better for ourselves by not engaging in that sort of gratuitous ritual. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:52, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  This is why I stress that the article that is suggested for a blurb should make it crystal clear why the person was a major figure, si that those that never heard if amX should be able to read the article and understand why this is true. That is part if the article quality we should expect from death blurbs. Instead we get handwriting without verifying the article confirms thus. Masem (t) 13:19, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

• Id prefer something less subjective. The problem with ITN is that it is based on people arguing based on their personal belief. What should happen, imo, is demonstrating weight through sourcing. Establish something like to post a blurb on a recent death, multiple full length obituaries from national papers of record, from multiple countries, ideally in multiple languages, should be provided. We're just replacing one subjective criteria with another slightly better one here. The reason people wont agree to objective criteria is that it makes it impossible to oppose things they want to oppose, like those mass shootings that are so widely covered that even editors supposedly retired come back just to oppose their nominations on ITNC. But death blurbs based on significance of the person dont have that problem, so maybe we can establish something that can be objectively measured for that at least? nableezy - 17:49, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  This is an interesting comment, which opens up a wider topic. Setting objectively measurable criteria may promote impartiality, but it also has its own cons. Firstly, people will learn the criteria and manipulate ways to achieve them with little efforts and less quality. Secondly, quality updates are difficult to measure, and we’d still be subjective if we have to decide whether the criteria have been satisfied. Thirdly, if we have objectively measurable criteria, we’d have to abolish WP:ITNR. Also, it’s very difficult to weigh the pros against the cons.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:10, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  There are two independent parts, significance and quality. Both can be measured objectively. And no, I dont see how ITNR would have anything to do with this. I am just saying how we should establish significance for a blurbable death where the death is not the notable event itself. I say if it is breaking news in, for example, NY, London, Paris, Sydney, and Doha, and all of them quickly produce an obituary, that would satisfy "significance". nableezy - 18:14, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  I’ve recently made a proposal to precisify some criteria based on quality, but it was closed without any resolution. Overall, I agree that we need clearer criteria.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:44, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think at a certain point, if our proposals are garnering minimum participation except from those who are willing to participate, we need to adjudicate whatever consensus there is and, if all else fails, just WP:BEBOLD and then discuss any reversions. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:51, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  The ultimate solution we should be looking for is one that would decrease the time editors spend discussing nominations and increase the time they spend producing content.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:25, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  If you focus on objective qualities that determine outcomes you reduce the temperature overall here. So why not try to focus on that, what objective criteria could we use to determine if a person's significance by itself merits including a blurb about their death? I gave my suggestion, all ears for pros or cons and other options. But I think this current setup where its whether or not theres a super-majority in support otherwise all we do is ITN/R items to be manifestly bad. nableezy - 00:51, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  I generally agree with you with the caveats mentioned in one of my previous comments above. Can you give some examples of objective criteria that you think would work?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:51, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  Thats what I did at the start. Here, for clarity, this is what I think should be the standard for a blurb for death when it is not an otherwise unusual event: multiple full length obituaries from national papers of record, from multiple countries, ideally in multiple languages, should be provided. Absent that, RD. With that, blurb most likely. nableezy - 14:42, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  Objectively, the article about a person should be written and sourced to a high expected quality (GA standards), there is a clear expansion of the article upon the death of the person, and likely with that, some type of legacy or impact section that clearly establishes why the person is a major figure, Moreno than just being famous or popular. Thise are nearly objective criteria with some debate in regards to the extent if the legacy or impact (eg like trying to compare Jim Brown to Pele) Masem (t) 13:54, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  No, that has nearly nothing to do with how significant a person is, only with how an article is organized. But it is based on our article, not on the sources. Plus we dont require GA standard for any of the articles in ITN currently, why would we require it for a death blurb? The simplest way to determine significance is to to see how significantly our reliable sources are treating it. When somebody's death is breaking news across the world and full length obituaries are published in the leading papers in several countries that should tell you that the sources consider that death significant. And yes, having an obit on the front page of the NYT is definitely more significant than a blurb in the last pages of section A in the Lincoln Journal Star. nableezy - 14:40, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  We require a basic quality check (sourced well, no glaring orange-tag problems, etc.) for non-blurb RDs. For a blurb RD, I would expect that the significance of the person should be based on the existing quality of the article, which should go above and beyond the minimum standard for an RD, and based on the coverage from death from multiple sources, an expanded section that either discusses the death, reaction to it, or the impact/legacy a person has, all that gets incorporated into the article to bump from the arbitrary B-class standard for non-blurb to a A- or GA- level of quality. Because we are meant to feature WP's best work that happens to be covered by the news, particularly in our blurbed content. Masem (t) 12:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  No, we feature WP's best work in the sections Featured Articles and Featured Pictures. Here we showcase articles that yes have a minimum quality, but are topics that people might be interested in because they have seen them in the news. Your insistence that it does not matter how widely covered or where something is sourced to is fine to have, but it is not a view I share. nableezy - 16:29, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  That is completely contrary to why ITN was created. We still are here to feature WP's best work on topics that happen to be in the news, as we are not a news ticker. Any bolded links off the Main Page are supposed to represent WP's, and with ITN, that gives an opportunity to showcase new articles orupdates to existing ones within a short period of time after the relevant news breaks. (Eg think how fast and well the 9/11 or Jan 6 articles came together to be put on the main page) . We do want to make that topics are of interest to readers, which means we are looking for global or wide ranging impacts and avoid local or niche stories. Masem (t) 16:37, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Idk why you keep saying this. Now I dont have access to the main page pre accidental deletion, but here is the earliest version of the ITN requirements I can find. It is not long, but nowhere does it have anything about quality beyond article must be updated to reflect the new information. And as far as why it was created, also based on nothing but your imagination. That part of the main page, if my wiki history diving is good enough, was put up within minutes of the 9/11 attacks. It was put up prior to any quality article existing. So no, your nostalgia on the higher purpose of ITN is not accurate, sorry. nableezy - 19:17, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:ITNRDBLURB is an information page, "It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, but rather intends to describe some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices." As such it should honestly describe our customary practices rather than providing misinformation. The recent case of Jim Brown demonstrates that the paragraph in question is still valid. A vote would not change this. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:58, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  Wow, that is not how consensus works around here at all. The only reason WP:ITNRD exists in its current state in the first place was that a !vote and RFC took place in 2016 for that very subject. This IS how we do things, otherwise nothing would ever change and we'd still be beating each other with sticks. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 22:46, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

  The way consensus works around here is that Jim Brown got a blurb. That nomination discussion was closed emphatically as "Consensus will not change". It's therefore a poor time to try to claim that consensus is otherwise. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:44, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  Try to stay on topic, Andrew. We are discussing this survey, not an individual blurb. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:16, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: we need to have a significance criterion for blurbs, and that includes deaths. Attempting to find a way to remove it is foolish and ultimately damaging. I acknowledge that significance is subjective, but all other blurbs have their significance assessed, and we need a way of deciding which deaths are as significant as the other blurbs we post. I'm not opposed to having a discussion about which phrasing we use for the death significance criteria (I would argue for holding a high bar, roughly the Thatcher/Mandela standard), but removing them entirely would do more harm than good. Modest Genius ^talk 14:22, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support a discussion via supporting the removal of the aforementioned clause. In my mind, it is time. We've had this talk way too many times in the past. Death as the main story is consistent with general ITN standards. Any other deaths can live in the RD section. DarkSide830 (talk) 17:13, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  So Pele wouldnt be blurbed then? What about Mandela? Both of those are old man dies. nableezy - 17:55, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, they wouldn't be. You can debate whether or not that's valid, but what is the issue with a consistent standard here? People will still read about them and see the RD item. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:06, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  I dont have an issue with a consistent standard, I just dont think thats the one to have. Basically I think we should evaluate how widely covered and in depth that coverage is for pretty much all news stories, including deaths. When a news story, including old person dies news story, is breaking news around the world I think it should be blurbed in our ITN provided we have a decent article to point to. nableezy - 19:00, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

  Well, the question then becomes how do we define "around the world", and if a beloved American actor or musician happens to be the one getting those worldwide plaudits from Düsseldorf to Whanganui, are we still holding ourselves to that standard even if their names aren't Mandela or Thatcher? And then we go right back to the root of the problem that prompted this conversation to begin witht. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:52, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  There's no "Mandela/Thatcher" standard at WP:ITNRD, so it's not a closing factor as far as strength of argument. Then it mainly boils down to a !vote count. —Bagumba (talk) 16:27, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  I dont think that is really a problem to be honest. If somebody shows a full length obit from the paper of record of multiple countries/continents and even possibly languages then I think that will be easy to objectively judge. As far as the last sentence, well yes, that is why I said standards generally wont be agreed to, because the editors who currently oppose things that are objectively widely covered around the world because of where they happened or who was involved wont be able to do that. And so they will oppose. nableezy - 16:28, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose the current death blurb criteria is working at an acceptable level. We post very few death blurbs throughout the year, so it's not like this clause is permitting a wave of death blurbs that shouldn't be there. The only major issue I see is that those discussions can get a bit verbose at times, but that's the nature of borderline cases and it's not as if these discussions are adding significant cost to the running of Wikipedia. NorthernFalcon (talk) 18:36, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Absolutely not. If we don't blurb the death of major figures, we aren't going to blurb them just because there was a big funeral. That's a ridiculous threshold. GreatCaesarsGhost 20:18, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose I have been neutral on most RD blurb votes I have participated in, but I think it would be a bad call to do away with them unless there's a big event or funeral involved. We should probably have a consistent standard for who raises to the level of a blurb, but it should not be this. To me, this seems like a nuclear option in a situation that does not call for one. Doc Strange ^MailboxLogbook 02:42, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. I’ve always found “old man dies” to be an extraordinarily weak rationale to not post a blurb, and the idea we’d leave out Pele or Mandela is ludicrous. The Kip (talk) 04:33, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
• Comment I don't understand why some of these above editors think Pele or Nelson Mandela wouldn't get blurbed if we use the above criteria. The proposed criteria says one where the death is the main story as a result of major events and funeral services which is still true for Mandela or Pele, as we probably could make funeral articles for these two. Natg 19 (talk) 07:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
• Every solution proposed to eliminate the acrimony of death blurbs is basically "let's not fight, let's just do it my way." We've been through every permutation of these proposals, including this exact one three times in the past 20 months (four months ago by the same person proposing it here). People need to accept there is a difference of opinion here on what should be posted. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:34, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  So we all agree then that there was a consensus that Jim Brown was blurbworthy under our current criteria. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 16:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

  It was posted. And the only post pull was of the tired "only one country" variety.—Bagumba (talk) 16:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Remove Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and G7 summits from ITNR

I supported the addition of several well-known economic and political summits of geopolitical significance in the March 2011 discussion, but it seems that none of them justified the status as ITNR items, so it's right time to remove them and free room for other recurring events. Currently, we have the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the G7 summit (formerly G8 summit) from the original list, which are both annual summits. Since they were added to ITNR, the former has been posted only once (2014), whereas the latter has been posted four times (2011, 2012, 2013 and 2018). There's an open nomination on the conclusion of this year's G7 summit, which has received unanimous opposition so far mostly due to quality but also raised concerns on its significance. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:00, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Support per nominator. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 20:23, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I would change it to say that summits can be ITRN if there was a major resolution or agreement signed, something akin to the Paris Agreements. Most of these summits happen without any significant resolutions, and thus seem like a bunch of hot air. Masem (t) 20:41, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

You might as well just remove summits at that point and judge each summit's significance on a case-by-case basis if we do that, imo. TheBlueSkyClub (talk) 20:51, 23 May 2023 (UTC)