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Radical suggestion: No RD Blurb save for deaths of sitting world leaders

Given the whole mess over the last few recent death blurbs and in principle the endless fighting we tend to have over them, I'd like to propose (to see if this has any traction) the limitation of blurbs for the recent deaths limited only to sitting world leaders (and specifically the head of state and not the head of government which can be more ceremonial in some countries), since that also qualifies under the ITNR related to gov't change. Otherwise, RD is suitable for all notable individuals. It removes the constant fuss we have on these and I feel every time editors want different goalposts (even when quoting the Thatcher/Mandala standard). --Masem (t) 14:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

• You might need to think about the head of state / head of government thing - for the UK that would mean Boris Johnson wouldn't get a blurb if he dropped dead tomorrow, for example. Black Kite (talk) 14:31, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Okay, then at least keeping the considerations we usually have for that ITNR aspect. I would agree if it were the case Johnson died tomorrow, he should get a blurb. If I go to List of current heads of state and government, I'm basically saying the cells we have marked in blue are the ones that we'd NOT include for a blurb, like the Supreme Leader of Iran. --Masem (t) 14:36, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Nah, what if Hitler had made Dönitz head of state and gov a few seconds before killing himself instead of putting the leadership in his will? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:17, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

  That would be a change of leader, which is ITN/R already. The fact that the previous leader killed himself shortly after said change could then be bolted into the blurb as appropriate.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:21, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

What if he resigned as part of an attempt to hide before it's too late but had bad luck and died 2 weeks later anyway? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:58, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose The Larry King pull gave undue weight to a few hours of "why an American?" post-blurb opposes compared to the strong support it established beforehand. That wasnt even a case of "sneaking one in" while Europe was sleeping.—Bagumba (talk) 15:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • This would lead to a second idea that I had, in which no RD blurb should ever be pulled unless it is an article quality issue. We are trusting admins to make the right call based on the consensus to that point (and with blurb RDs, they should be considering factors like how long the discussion of the blurb has been going, if there's been reasonable time for input from various regions in the world, etc., in addition to article quality), such that if they post in a SNOW-like case with King, we should trust them. We can complain about a "bad" blurb posting after the fact and discuss means to tighten the requirements, or if an admin clearly has starting pushing bad decisions at blurb postings, talk about remedies there (I don't think anyone has here though), but it looks bad when we post and then remove simply because some editors after the fact see a problem. So in this case, we should respect admins posting have done their job and are taking responsibility for evaluating consensus, or we basically should get rid of this "feature" (limiting RD blurbs to those that align with ITNR). --Masem (t) 15:41, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

    Masem, I absolutely agree with this one. We should NOT pull an RD blurb (or any article actually) from homepage unless there are quality issues that should have prevented the article from being on the homepage in the first place. If for whatever reason we believe that the posting Admin has either incorrectly read consensus (or worse still acted improperly by posting) that should be followed up in whatever Admin remediation forums that exist. However, pulling down a blurb reflects very poorly on this group as a community and not to mention the insensitivity that it portrays particularly in RD blurbs. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 18:09, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

    Masem: We're almost at the 1-yr anniversary of the Kobe Bryant blurb. In hindsight, someone could have said a "reasonable time for input" was not established after just 1h of discussion, which could have been a legitimate argument at the time, though obviously ended up being far from the case. Because of IAR, we can never say "never" to a pull. I don't think we've had any bad-faith pulls, nor has it been a recurring problem yet with any one admin. However, a questionable pull pretty much stays permanent because of WP:WHEEL, as people are probably burned out by that point to form yet another consensus, that is if someone hasn't already archived the discussion (prematurely) as "unproductive".—Bagumba (talk) 08:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

    When an admin is looking to post a blurb in a rushed case, they should not just be looking at a time factor but both the number of voices that have expressed agreement, where those voices are from (I'd expect an admin taking responsibility here to have a reasonable idea of where the regulars that comment at ITNC are from broadly (US or EU side of the pond, for example), as well as the general time factor - a story breaking at 8pm EST is likely not going to have input from Europe or Australia editors compared to one breaking at 12pm EST. The "how long to wait to post" has been discussed here before as a non-option, and that's likely not going to change, so we should still be assuming that where all the conditions are met for reasonable input prior to posting have been met that we shouldn't try to challenge that post-posting against, outside of article quality which often does get lost in the case of famous deaths. If we did end us with a case where we had a death blurb where only, say, four editors !voted and it was posted in an hour, and there was clear opposition after the fact, that may be different, but neither the case of Hank Aaron or Larry King had - both had healthy sets of !votes before the posting point. --Masem (t) 14:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

    Masem, This policy idea is very odd. Do we have any policies that resemble "no X should ever be pulled or undone" in our community? Not to my knowledge. Not only because we have WP:BEBOLD/WP:SOFIXIT, WP:BRD and WP:IAR, in the extreme case, as cornerstones of Wikipedia, but also we have no precedent for the first mover on any action in Wikipedia to be the final word on anything. We are a constantly evolving and continually edited work. As Indefensible pointed out when the Larry King blurb was first posted, the consensus was not clear at all at the time. The ensuing opinions backed up the case for pulling the blurb even more. I don't have strong feelings one way or the other on Larry King's position as a blurb, but it was clear the !votes did not support its posting at the time. Therefore, it would be unusual and out of step with our principles to come up with a policy for an "unrevocable blurb," and for what dubious purpose would it serve? -- Fuzheado | Talk 18:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

    At the time it was posted [1] there were 6 explicit opposes among 20+ supports for blurb. Of those opposed, one specific was about the article quality which was valid, and presumed "good once fixed" (given TRM's earlier comment). The others have various dissenting reasons, but I would presume 331dot weighted their strengths to the arguments for supporting the blurb before posting. Those arguments were, arguable, poor ("two American blurbs", "old man dies", etc.) with the only possible 'was King a leader in his field" challenging the raft of supporters that asserted he was, so pretty much 331dot's decision here was well-backed After the posting, the oppose votes piled on the "old man dies" and challenging his importance, but the pull only looked at those new additional !votes and not the whole of the discussion. That clearly was inappropriate to pull based on just using !votes post-posting as a a measure, and not considering those that had !voted before, given that the current environment at ITNC is rather hostile and that any problematic entry is going to generate complaints to try to get it pulled. Perhaps this is a sign of the systematic problems of ITNC behavior that we need to address, one of those being to have faith and trust that admins that routinely post blurbs can fairly read the ITNC consensus and have evaluated that and the article quality appropriately as to not be pulling blurbs except in extreme problematic cases (namely for article quality faults). --Masem (t) 18:42, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose This seemingly growing implicit (explicit in some cases) bias against American news is problematic. The pull by Fuzheado is bad considering that 1) the blurb was up for less than two hours, 2) opposition will flock to these discussions in numbers greater than supporters, and 3) the assessment of consensus as a whole was questionable. Significance at time of death is what should be considered when deciding to post a blurb or leave it in RD, and this includes every nationality. Nihlus 15:45, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose As written the proposal is too inflexible. I would be ok with removing (or re-working) the "Major Figures" clause from the death blurb criteria but looking at the recent Larry King example, there was a valid consensus to post a blurb when it went up, and a consensus to pull it down later. Some times we get it wrong ... it's just a website. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • The problem is that when an RD is posted with a reasonable strong consensus to post (which was the case with King), and then we have a host of editors come after the fact to complain related to importance to where another admin goes "no there isn't consensus to post", that's a problem, as that allows post-posting bitterness to be used to challenge nearly any RD blurb. We shouldn't be allowing for post-posting pulls because some editors object to importance after the fact when consensus was well established before posting. (But this does mean there is significant onus on the admin posting the blurb to be confident consensus on importance of the person is there). If it turns out after a lengthy discussion the posting was probably wrong (and that's likely the case of Carrie Fisher) that's a lesson learned, but we shouldn't be disrupting the front page with petty battles over that by pulling in such cases. The only time we should absolutely pull a RD blurb is when the RD article is not in the quality required for main page targets. So if we're going to keep RD blurbs, we need to stop the bickering after something's been posted and trust admin responsibility, but on the terms of admin responsibility, they should always consider that posting an RD to the RD line over a blurb is always a solution to get a name in the ITN box if a blurb agreement isn't quite there yet. --Masem (t) 17:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment regarding 'head of state and not the head of government' --- under that policy, if the Canadian Prime Minister were shot dead on parliament hill we'd not post it which is absurd. Wikipedia has a List of current heads of state and government which highlights which position is actually in charge for any given country we should just use it already instead of pretending there is a "one size fits all" approach. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:12, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - I really don't like it when we post a blurb and then pull it. As someone earlier said, it looks horribly unprofessional at best, and at worst, it's wheel warring.--WaltCip-(talk) 18:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. There are certainly international icons in various fields whose deaths would shock the world and merit a blurb. BD2412 T 18:32, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose There are leaders in science, culture, diplomacy, sport and literature, the deaths of whom would cause sincere and genuine notable coverage. The significance is to be debated. We can't suddenly decide that only world leaders are worthy of the Main Page. doktorb _words^deeds 18:35, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Doktorbuk, and also that Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and Prince Charles for example would likely merit a blurb if they keeled over tomorrow despite not being current world leaders. Thryduulf (talk) 20:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Not radical Enough! InedibleHulk (talk) 02:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose So Ali Bongo Ondimba and Barham Salih would get ex officio blurbs as "world leaders" but Bill Gates or Greta Thunberg wouldn't. Next, please! Andrew🐉(talk) 10:58, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Is there any name better in the pantheon of world leaders than "Ali Bongo Ondimba"?--WaltCip-(talk) 13:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk AKA Father of the Turks? Sounds like wikt:attaboy but means father of the Turks. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:21, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I think the blurb death requirements are fine as is. I think "greatness" and "notability" are achievable in fields other than politics (as demonstrated in the level 4 vital article list) and it would be unfair to limit it. I think that "transformative figure" is a term that people will have different opinions on, which will result in debate, and I think that debate is healthy and fine. NorthernFalcon (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Election head of state / government simplification

Suggest overhauling the heads of state/government section to be as follows:

Changes to the leaders whose offices constitutionally administer the executive of their respective state/government as listed at List of current heads of state and government when:

• The leadership changes as the result of an election
• The succession of leadership when not the result of an election

Changes to other heads of state or government who do not constitutionally administer the executive of their respective state/government are discussed on their own merit.

Feel free to clean up my poor grammar as necessary. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with this clarification. Thanks for bringing it up. 331dot (talk) 20:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  So if Queen Elizabeth II abdicates and is replaced by Charlie, we'd not regard that as an automatic post?  — Amakuru (talk) 00:18, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Presumably this is an anti-powerless or low powered head of state without fame rule, not aimed at Charles. He would be posted quick whether automatic or not. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

"Changes to other heads of state or government who do not constitutionally administer the executive of their respective state/government are discussed on their own merit." if you really think we'd not post the succession of the British royal family, I'm not sure what to do for you. Also that happens what? Once every 5 or 6 decades? Why is this obvious change so controversial? --LaserLegs (talk) 01:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm saying the opposite, the British monarch abdicating would be posted quick whether there's an automatic rule or not. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:27, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

And Queen Elizabeth is not the head of state of just one country. Of course it would be posted. I disagreed with removing head of state from ITNR, but it's done, and that does not mean they can't be posted, just that it isn't automatic. 331dot (talk) 01:25, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Question: What happens to legislative elections that do not lead to changes in whoever is in the List of current heads of state and government? Examples are US and Philippine midterm elections, French and Indonesian legislative elections and Japanese House of Councillors elections. One could argue that the US legislative elections, including the one that led to a runoff in Georgia are no longer ITNR. Are those still ITNR, or ITN will pick whoever has the more white dudes in a country east of the Atlantic (let's face it this is how it'll boil in to)? Howard the Duck (talk) 15:06, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

General elections are ITNR irrespective of the head of government. The vast majority of changes to heads of government were posted with an election, but the recent change covers occasions where the occupant of a position changes outside of an election.(such as Theresea May to Boris Johnson) 331dot (talk) 15:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

It can be argued that some of those elections are not general elections. We have ITN regulars opposing US midterm elections (LOL). You could argue that the Japanese House of Councillors elections are not general elections (none have been posted since 2010). I believe French Senate elections are of similar nature but that is an indirectly elected body unlike the Japanese House of Councillors. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:38, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

RD turnover

Not sure if this is due to the WikiCup but not sure if our current RD changes are fixing the issue of having RDs up for <24 hours. In the past 24 hours we've had 11 new RDs posted to the template, and we've flexed to 7 spots as well. I IARed and "stickied" Larry King to the top of the bulleted list due to interest in having a blurb for him and perceived reader interest, but in the future this could be a slippery slope. Spencer^T•C 16:32, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm really not keen on assigning "relative importance" to people within RD. After all, that was really the whole point of RD, where all mentions were determined to be exactly equal, and not to assign a super-notability subset. Either blurb or RD, not "super-RD". I suggest we definitely do _not_ do this because this precedent will now be called upon any time someone thinks an RD "deserves" more attention. Slippery slope indeed, and one we absolutely must not go down, please. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:41, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Agree with TRM, though I know the pinning was done in good faith, the chronological order prevents chaos. --LaserLegs (talk) 17:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not suggesting Spencer did anything outside good faith, and perhaps LaserLegs is right, be careful what we wished for when we discarded the chronological order. If this turnover becomes the norm, rather than the exception, we might need to think outside the box (literally). The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 17:28, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

The last time this came up, there was 12 RDs posted on Jan 4.—Bagumba (talk) 01:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with TRM, LaserLegs, and Spencer. This is absolutely a slippery slope that we should not go down under, even if under the aegis of WP:IAR (though this one was done under absolute good faith). I had posted this issue earlier here. The problem is in the bursty nature of entries. As mentioned earlier, there are two variables here -- inflow rate and outflow rate. We have no control over the inflow rate (and rightly so) and the only variable that we can control is the outflow rate (i.e. the rate at which Admins pick up from ready articles and post onto the homepage). As complex as this one sounds, it is actually a relatively simple problem to solve by a process linked change. If there is a rough alignment that 24 hours is a reasonably good period to afford an article on the homepage, you can try the following. Articles should be absolutely evaluated from the bottom of the stack (both by editors and admins). Editors continue the current approach of evaluating an article as Ready and marking it as such with a tag i.e. "(Ready)". Posting admins start from the bottom of the stack and do a simple check, if the article can be posted, but, the article falling off the carousel has spent less than 24 hours, the Admin marks the article as "(Ready but hold)". When the next Admin comes along, and the article is ready to be posted (i.e. the falling article has spent at least 24 hours) they post it and change the tag to "(Posted)". If for some reason, the Admin determines that the article was not ready to begin with, they change the tag by removing the "(Ready)" tag and adding their comment on the changes requested. Ktin (talk) 17:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

  We're reaching the turnover point that it seems like holding items will lead to greater backlog, and unfortunately the thought that we have good control over the outflow rate assumes regular admin attention, which has proven difficult historically (there are just a few of us and I'm frequently unavailable). Spencer^T•C 21:50, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Time to make itn and dyk longer. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:01, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

This would never have been necessary if Fuzheado had just honored the existing consensus.--WaltCip-(talk) 18:23, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps the reservoir is the variable that needs adjusting if the inflow is fixed and the outflow is too rapid. C'mon didn't anybody else take 3rd year hydrology? Analogy aside, the number of people with articles on Wikipedia is ever increasing, and as such the number of eligible RDs on any given day is increasing past the point where 6 or 7 covers a 24 hour period of passings. If the container is emptied as fast as it is filled, a bigger container may be in order. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 18:32, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Floydian, I have tried making the case for a 'bigger container' as well in the past here and Martin tried here, but, there has not been an appetite for spilling into the third row. So, not sure what else can be done on that front. Ktin (talk) 18:41, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

... which is why (in my now restored post) I suggested "we might need to think outside the box (literally)". The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 20:36, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Has there been previous consideration into making the right column into 3 boxes instead of two? My personal opinion is that recent deaths are going to draw traffic more than selected anniversaries; perhaps some of that space can be... "annexed" as it were. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 20:54, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

The right-hand side could be made longer: DYK often switches to two sets of hooks per day to keep their backlog down. Could just as easily have ten hooks per day and give the other side a couple more lines to use. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:01, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

There would have been an RD overflow, even if King had remained a blurb. It would not have drawn as much attention without a notable figure like him.—Bagumba (talk) 01:53, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

WaltCip, if you are referring to Larry King there was no strong indicator of consensus at the time of posting and the comments after the fact confirmed this. It also doesn't solve the long term problem that the current RD system is not scalable. -- Fuzheado | Talk 07:11, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Fuzheado: What you are inherently asserting is that the admin who posted the item prior to you, in this case 331dot, interpreted consensus incorrectly. That's the problem that I have. It adds unnecessary chaos to the ITN process and diminishes the discretionary power that a single admin should have. It resembles, even if it doesn't appear to be so, wheel warring. --WaltCip-(talk) 13:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Alternatively, RD criteria could be extended, which would necessarily decrease the number of articles which merit posting: the unofficial 1,5kb prose length could go to 2,0 or 2,5kb; more emphasis on biographical details; require a minimum number of non-BLP links in RD nom; or something else.130.233.213.199 (talk) 09:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  more emphasis on biographical details: Some reviewers already apply it, e.g. Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#(Posted)_RD:_James_D._Heiple.—Bagumba (talk) 10:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Quite, we'd need an analysis on this, how many RDs are being posted which aren't already being scrutinised for a reasonable level of completeness? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 10:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I was think more like this. Granted, this was a case where non-EN conventions precluded a complete BLP. But by "biographical details" I mean DOB, DOD, education, family, etc.; things which have nothing necessarily to do with their WP:N qualities. Something like, must contain all of:

• [DOB and place, DOD and place, 1 juvenile fact]

AND 5 of:

• [1 post-retirement fact, 2 family members mentioned, 1 educational institution mentioned, military service, cause of death, 4 family members, 1 direct quote, 2 educational institutions]

Some editors put emphasis on professional details in RDs, which is fine, but it sometimes creeps into CVs-as-RDs.130.233.213.199 (talk) 10:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

No, I can't agree with this suggestion I'm afraid. If anything the articles should be erring towards what they did during the significant part of their lives, that make them notable. E.g. actions while they were mayor, rather than padding out with irrelevant trivia about their private lives. The discussion process at ITN/C exists precisely so editors can scrutinise and make sure the article meets the required standards, and that's all we need. Anything else is WP:CREEP. Re the OP's point, I think the 24-hour expectation that has crept in lately is misguided. Remember, DYKs only stay up for 12 hours during periods of high activity, and there's no reason why RDs (which sometimes require less work to get up and posted than a DYK) should be any different.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:45, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Me neither. In many cases most of these may not be available or may not apply and for good reasons which ought not to prevent an article being posted. Trying to create seemingly arbitrary objective criteria is exactly NOT what RD's transformation was about. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:04, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Disagree with this proposal from IP editor. Artificial requirements should not be tapered onto WP:ITNRD just because we have not been able to smoothen our outflow rate. There are already homepage levels of hygiene that are mandated on any article that makes it to homepage, and we should stay consistent with those hygiene expectations. Nothing more and nothing less. And, definitely, not look to what can best be described as trivia (e.g. 1 juvenile fact) etc as a requirement for the article to get to homepage. I have maintained for sometime now that the amount of articles that are brought to homepage levels of hygiene as a part of WP:ITNRD is an absolute win for the community / project and if anything we should continue to encourage that and not dissuade that by adding artificial requirements (e.g. 4 family members, 2 educational institutions)! Ktin (talk) 15:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think there is a way to create a broad one-size-fits all requirement of ensuring this; this requires assessment of articles by ITN/C commenters and admins. And I would encourage ITN/C commenters to critically assess the quality of the articles. I won't post articles - even if marked "ready" - if they aren't off sufficient quality of posting. The period when we posted 11 RD in 24 hours, all of them were of decent quality, so this doesn't necessarily fix the underlying issues. Spencer^T•C 22:21, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• This appears to be an isolated spurt of RD postings and not indicative of any trend that needs addressing. When it becomes a trend that needs addressing, we can at that point address changes to the system to fix the problem. Random fluctuations are not subject to corrections by policy changes, and would still be a problem even if we changed the policy. I have seen no reason to believe this is any more than a random fluctuation in the number of RDs over a rather short period of time, and as such, can't be predicted or corrected for. If and when we have enough data over a long enough time period to say that this is a "new normal", then and only then should we be discussing policy changes. I'm fully on board with doing so if and when we can demonstrate they are needed. I don't see it yet. --Jayron32 12:49, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Is there a way to see how many RDs were posted per month over the past 2 years? Seeing another couple of days with 5-6 RDs per day being posted makes me wonder what the long term trends are and how they have changed over time. Spencer^T•C 02:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
    • There's no way other than a manual collation of data, as far as I know. I think we are seeing more turnover as RDs are no longer going stale from being older than the last item. Rather anything in the last 7 days can now get posted if it's quality gets fixed, which seems to be happening more now, as people have more time to improve the biographies. Not sure what Amakuru thinks, as he's the one that's posted two bulk sets in the last couple of days? Stephen 02:41, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Here you go with the requested data for 2020. At the cost of over-simplifying, to me it still continues to remain an outflow smoothening action. Start from the bottom. Post often. Do not batch. Ktin (talk) 03:42, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Update 1: Updated the data with 2019 numbers as well. This gets a tad interesting. Clearly there is a jump between 2019 and 2020 and to me that could be attributable to a) more editors coming available with the lockdowns etc. and existing editors becoming more active during this period b) more effort being expended in improving articles as a community here (RD is one of the more collaborative projects that I have seen around here) and c) more RDs coming in due to the pandemic? Either way, it seems like our current situation should be compared to our handling of the outflow in 2020, we have handled high numbers then. I am still staying with my thinking that we stick to the basics. Start from the bottom. Post often. Do not batch. Thanks folks. PS: The number of articles being improved to homepage levels of hygiene continues to remain an absolute win for the community at large. We should not have any doubts or misgivings about that. Ktin (talk) 04:33, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Expand to see the monthly RD postings data
Month RD Postings January 2021 104 December 2020 107 November 2020 76 October 2020 76 September 2020 59 August 2020 61 July 2020 84 June 2020 55 May 2020 79 April 2020 95 March 2020 73 February 2020 50 January 2020 46 December 2019 42 November 2019 35 October 2019 46 September 2019 39 August 2019 54 July 2019 48 June 2019 28 May 2019 36 April 2019 37 March 2019 49 February 2019 57 January 2019 46

I'll have a closer look at Ktin's data later, thanks for producing that, but as ever if you want a change in practice you'll have to propose it and get consensus. Speaking just about recent turnover, I'm not convinced we have a particular problem right now. I uploaded 7 RDs on Saturday (5 of which were in a single batch in the morning, and I kept all 7 up until later in the evening), then another 6 last night. All of those ended up with 10 or more hours on the MP though, and most of the initial batch were up for a full 36 hours or so. There's no consensus at the moment for minimum posting times - we asked the community about this here and it was opposed - so I'm not sure what we should be doing differently. I don't agree with Ktin's instructions to "start from the bottom" or "avoid batching". how would that help? In general we should be posting these as soon as they're good to go, irrespective of whether it's a recent or older nom, that was what was mandated by the recent change in procedure. And in the case mentioned above there were no old RDs pushed off that shouldn't have been, so batching 5 at a time was the correct thing to do. Holding some of those back would have just risked the backlog getting full again later on. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:06, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Amakuru, hello there. Quick update -- my statement was not meant to be a critique of your action(s) including the decision to batch up postings. I would argue that you did the right thing at that point. The larger point I was making, outside of your action, is that when we are attempting to smoothen (mathematical) the outflow function, a batch post will create a step function change, which theoretically might be alright if that batch post is done at the same time every day (think DYK posts) but not for the way we post here. It will create a situation where an article waited 24 hours to get into that batch but landed on the rightmost position and was immediately out because a single post came in right after, while all the other entries of the batch continued to stay. Cheers and thanks for all that you do. Ktin (talk) 16:30, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

@Ktin: yeah that's fine, and this all just friendly banter anyway. Re batch posting, no doubt you're right that it would be the correct thing to have them trickle through at a constant rate, sounds like a good thing to aim for. But we can only work with the circumstances at hand. I can't make any guarantees to be checking the (Ready) list multiple times a day. I might not even check it at all for several days; like everyone else I'm a WP:VOLUNTEER. And on another point, sometimes it happens that several of them become ready all at the same time because the reviewers also happen to do many all at once. So sometimes it will be necessary to batch them up. That's all really! Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 17:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Amakuru, agree with every sentence in the above statement. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 17:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Fascinating data, Ktin, thank you for compiling. I think I always assumed "start from the bottom" to mean make sure to scroll all the way down to make sure that older ready noms weren't being ignored, since those sometimes are a little harder to see among all of those that have been posted. I wonder how much could be attributed to the relative ease of getting WikiCup points for an RD, but no judgement from me-- I think the process of article improvement to make something sufficient for RD posting quality has giving many (and based on the data, hundreds) of biographies up to snuff in terms of overall detail and referencing. I think the change to post anything in the past 7 days is suitable and probably accounts for the recent Dec/Jan uptick. I guess for now keep an eye on things and now be okay with ~24 hours on the template (sometimes more, sometimes less). Spencer^T•C 23:48, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Spencer, Thanks for this note Spencer. Yup, in addition, the 'start from the bottom' ensures that RDs appear reasonably chronologically on the carousel, and more importantly when they get bumped off the carousel because of multiple reasons (including batch moves and or sequencing) that we are better off bumping off the older nominations from the carousel rather than the newer ones. I did not give Wikicup much thought, though, I personally did enroll as a participant, literally on the last day i.e. 1/31. I agree with you that the community efforts toward improving these many biographies is an absolute win for the project. The other thing that I really like about WP:ITNRD is that it is an absolutely collaborative space. Think of the number of times that someone nominates an article but someone else steps in on the article improvement actions. I have not seen many other projects display that collaborative spirit. Simple tweaks like what MSGJ made to the updaters field further increase collaboration. Now that we also got the permission to spill over briefly into the third row (by streamlining the COVID representation), I think we be WP:BOLD and afford articles as close to ~24 hours (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but, close to 24 hours) just as an acknowledgement of the efforts that have gone in. Thanks for all that you and the team do! Ktin (talk) 00:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Mini-digression

Can someone rip through the last 12 months of RDs and say how many of them were due to (or at least blamed on) Covid please? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 08:39, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, did this one for January 2021 and the result is 19; details here User:Ktin/sandbox/adhoc_queries#Number_of_RD_deaths_from_COVID_-_January. This one relies on the good folks at Deaths in 2021 coding all covid deaths. For the record, we have had 189 COVID deaths in January from amongst Deaths in 2021 Ktin (talk) 09:06, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, 189 Covid deaths out of how many total deaths list in Deaths in 2021 in January? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 12:02, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

There are 963 lines in Deaths in 2021#January that start *[[. Assuming both figures are correct, Covid deaths were 19.6% of the total. Thryduulf (talk) 12:33, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. So that's probably a bit of a general increase at this time at RD because of Covid. It will pass (thankfully) once the vaccinations roll out properly. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 13:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Anyone got month by month figures on how many deaths there have been in the past year, compared with 12-months previously? That might give you the overall effect of COVID. Bearing in mind that some of the "COVID death" people might have died anyway. Presumably the excess will eventually be cancelled out by lower averages in future as well.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:22, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Using the same methodology as above:

Month	2018	2019	2020	2019 (%)	2020 (%)
January	743	789	795	6.19%	0.76%
February	597	663	739	11.06%	11.46%
March	658	664	879	0.91%	32.38%
April	577	622	1099	7.80%	76.69%
May	570	620	835	8.77%	34.68%
June	589	628	864	6.62%	37.58%
July	566	639	868	12.90%	35.84%
August	579	581	826	0.35%	42.17%
September	521	566	656	8.64%	15.90%
October	564	590	653	4.61%	10.68%
November	545	598	729	9.72%	21.91%
December	567	652	884	14.99%	35.58%

I'll see about making a graph later if anyone wants (I've not got time right now). However as every month in 2019 was greater than the equivalent month in 2018, I don't know that we can say that the whole increase is due to Covid. Thryduulf (talk) 17:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thryduulf:, if you do not mind my doing, I edited your table and added percentage increases to the table above. Feel free to revert. That said, there are two components to the increase -- increased wiki activity by editors due to lockdowns etc., new category of deaths from covid. If you have the source files can I trouble you to do the following for the 2020 deaths, for i in *; do cat $i | grep -i "covid" | wc -l; done. This will give the number of covid deaths in each of those months assuming there is a file for each month. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 18:09, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Your edits are fine. I don't have source files per se, I just copied the wikitext and did a find/replace in text editor that reports that number of changes. I can do as you ask relatively easily though, but it will take more time than I have right now. One thing to check though is whether the earliest deaths use the term "covid" as that name was not coined until 11 February according to Wiktionary's citations. Thryduulf (talk) 18:17, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure anyone said the "whole increase is due to Covid". I think it's a contributing factor. Also we have at least one regular contributor (Bloom6132) who does a very good job of updating and nominating RDs, often several a day. I don't think that was the case a couple of years back (although I might be wrong). And per Ktin, lockdown certainly afforded me a lot of extra time between April and July.... The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 18:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Per month deaths in 2020

	All deaths	Covid deaths	Proportion	Proportion of 2019-20 increase
January	795	4	0.50%	66.67%
February	739	7	0.95%	9.21%
March	879	133	15.13%	61.86%
April	1099	254	23.11%	53.25%
May	835	97	11.62%	45.12%
June	864	59	6.83%	25.00%
July	868	73	8.41%	31.88%
August	826	56	6.78%	22.86%
September	656	56	8.54%	62.22%
October	653	58	8.88%	92.06%
November	729	111	15.23%	84.73%
December	884	167	18.89%	71.98%

Thryduulf (talk) 20:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

December at ITN

Sorry for the spam, but, thought this might be interesting to the curious minded. This is a view of articles that we discussed in WP:ITN / WP:ITNRD in December and their relative interest on the mainpage. Thanks to Andrew Gray for his leads toward getting to the source of this information. Ktin (talk) 04:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Caveat 1: This is a monthly aggregate view and hence is not normalized for time spent on the mainpage. E.g. one article could have spent a couple of hours while other could have spent days on the mainpage.

Caveat 2: These are articles that were introduced for discussion in December. Does not include articles that were discussed in late November, but, spent time on the mainpage in the early part of December. Similarly, does not include articles that were discussed in December but, landed on the mainpage in early January.

Click 'show' to expand / see December data

mysql> select * from december_views where target in (select article from itn_list) and referer = 'Main_Page' order by pageviews desc; +-----------+--------------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+ | referer | target | type | pageviews | +-----------+--------------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+ | Main_Page | Great_conjunction | link | 106300 | | Main_Page | 2020_Indian_farmers'_protest | link | 78387 | | Main_Page | Hayabusa2 | other | 62045 | | Main_Page | Valéry_Giscard_d'Estaing | other | 60510 | | Main_Page | Chang'e_5 | other | 57153 | | Main_Page | 2020_World_Rally_Championship | other | 31841 | | Main_Page | Charley_Pride | other | 28819 | | Main_Page | 2020_Ghanaian_general_election | other | 25883 | | Main_Page | Stella_Tennant | other | 25735 | | Main_Page | John_le_Carré | other | 23500 | | Main_Page | Jeremy_Bulloch | other | 22165 | | Main_Page | Awesome_Again | other | 21405 | | Main_Page | Paolo_Rossi | other | 20369 | | Main_Page | Maria_Piątkowska | other | 16874 | | Main_Page | Doug_Anthony | other | 16625 | | Main_Page | Fanny_Waterman | other | 14994 | | Main_Page | Karima_Baloch | other | 14896 | | Main_Page | John_Barnard_Jenkins | other | 14654 | | Main_Page | Brodie_Lee | other | 14517 | | Main_Page | George_Blake | other | 14460 | | Main_Page | Gérard_Houllier | other | 14050 | | Main_Page | Jerry_Relph | other | 14032 | | Main_Page | Flavio_Cotti | other | 13852 | | Main_Page | Soedardjat_Nataatmadja | other | 13191 | | Main_Page | Jack_Steinberger | other | 13166 | | Main_Page | Òscar_Ribas_Reig | other | 12531 | | Main_Page | Robin_Jackman | other | 12320 | | Main_Page | 2020_Petrinja_earthquake | link | 12287 | | Main_Page | Luke_Letlow | other | 12062 | | Main_Page | Doug_Scott | other | 12002 | | Main_Page | Harold_Budd | other | 11976 | | Main_Page | Barry_Lopez | other | 11956 | | Main_Page | Walter_E._Williams | other | 11838 | | Main_Page | Huang_Zongying | other | 11727 | | Main_Page | Phil_Niekro | other | 11635 | | Main_Page | James_Flynn_(academic) | other | 11589 | | Main_Page | Alison_Lurie | other | 11523 | | Main_Page | R._N._Shetty | other | 11516 | | Main_Page | Totilas | other | 11474 | | Main_Page | Iman_Budhi_Santosa | other | 11271 | | Main_Page | Ann_Reinking | other | 11249 | | Main_Page | Michael_Jeffery | other | 11178 | | Main_Page | Jim_McLean | other | 11141 | | Main_Page | Mohamed_Abarhoun | other | 10761 | | Main_Page | Betsy_Wade | other | 10602 | | Main_Page | Donald_Fowler | other | 10549 | | Main_Page | Paul_Sarbanes | other | 10210 | | Main_Page | Narinder_Singh_Kapany | other | 10192 | | Main_Page | Maria_Itkina | other | 9668 | | Main_Page | Roddam_Narasimha | other | 9279 | | Main_Page | Brian_Kerr,_Baron_Kerr_of_Tonaghmore | other | 9255 | | Main_Page | Astad_Deboo | other | 9133 | | Main_Page | Martin_Lambie-Nairn | other | 9042 | | Main_Page | Romell_Broom | other | 9030 | | Main_Page | James_Odongo | other | 8915 | | Main_Page | Gerard_Stokes | other | 8802 | | Main_Page | Maria_Fyfe | other | 8657 | | Main_Page | K._C._Jones | other | 8562 | | Main_Page | Barbara_Windsor | other | 8544 | | Main_Page | Roger_Moret | other | 8379 | | Main_Page | Barbara_Rose | other | 8365 | | Main_Page | Bill_Fitsell | other | 8313 | | Main_Page | Adele_Rose | other | 7840 | | Main_Page | George_Ross_Anderson_Jr. | other | 7715 | | Main_Page | Minoru_Makihara | other | 7659 | | Main_Page | Udyavara_Madhava_Acharya | other | 7507 | | Main_Page | U._A._Khader | other | 7464 | | Main_Page | Benjamin_Abeles | other | 7422 | | Main_Page | Ferenc_Tóth_(politician) | other | 7176 | | Main_Page | Dawn_Wells | other | 7114 | | Main_Page | Fou_Ts'ong | other | 7029 | | Main_Page | Yuichiro_Hata | other | 6988 | | Main_Page | Kim_Ki-duk | other | 6685 | | Main_Page | Elaine_McCoy | other | 6650 | | Main_Page | Manglesh_Dabral | other | 6550 | | Main_Page | Paul-Heinz_Dittrich | other | 6468 | | Main_Page | Raymond_Hunter | other | 6465 | | Main_Page | Hugh_Keays-Byrne | other | 6418 | | Main_Page | Jutta_Lampe | other | 6411 | | Main_Page | Joseph_Bachelder_III | other | 6329 | | Main_Page | Pumza_Dyantyi | other | 6282 | | Main_Page | Tabaré_Vázquez | other | 6152 | | Main_Page | Muhammad_Mustafa_Mero | other | 6137 | | Main_Page | Dharampal_Gulati | other | 5894 | | Main_Page | Belinda_Bozzoli | other | 5595 | | Main_Page | Herman_Asaribab | other | 5585 | | Main_Page | Lorraine_Monk | link | 5420 | | Main_Page | Amelia_Lapeña-Bonifacio | other | 5148 | | Main_Page | Howard_J._Rubenstein | other | 4789 | | Main_Page | Zafarullah_Khan_Jamali | other | 4630 | | Main_Page | Shamsur_Rahman_Faruqi | other | 4509 | | Main_Page | Jack_Lenor_Larsen | other | 4426 | | Main_Page | Sugathakumari | other | 3908 | | Main_Page | MF_Doom | other | 3407 | | Main_Page | Brandon_Bernard | other | 2951 | | Main_Page | Hasu_Yajnik | other | 1291 | | Main_Page | Joseph_Safra | other | 1262 | | Main_Page | Garry_Runciman,_3rd_Viscount_Runciman_of_Doxford | other | 836 | | Main_Page | Kevin_Greene | other | 784 | | Main_Page | Tommy_Docherty | link | 766 | | Main_Page | Aldo_Andretti | other | 23 | | Main_Page | H._Jack_Geiger | other | 15 | | Main_Page | John_Fitzpatrick | other | 14 | | Main_Page | Ronald_Atkins | other | 13 | +-----------+--------------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+ 104 rows in set (0.02 sec)

Cool, and surprising that Great conjunction topped the list, a nom which had a fair amount of opposes on notability.130.233.213.199 (talk) 06:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Personally I think it shows a disconnect between what editors think is notable, and what actually draws reader interest. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 06:58, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Huh, people like space. Cool. 🚀  Nixinova   T   C   07:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Ktin: I only did a cursory read of m:Research:Wikipedia clickstream, but wouldn't we be interested more in type=link i.e. links on the MP that are clicked to get to the target, and not type=other?—Bagumba (talk) 07:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Bagumba: I was originally a bit puzzled by this as well, but it seems this is an artefact of the way the data's generated - it defines link/other on the basis of a single point in time, which seems to be the end of the month. Makes sense for most cases (page to page links are reasonably stable) but gives odd results for things like the main page that rotate frequently.

There seems to be a background level of "main page clicks" for items which aren't linked - you can see it above with Ronald Atkins, for example, which wasn't on the main page until January. These probably reflect people coming to the main page and then using the search box; if they go straight to the target page it'll be logged as an "other" click to that page. I ran the numbers for some "mundane but popular" articles that weren't apparently linked from the MP in this period (eg Roman Empire, The Beatles), and found that their mainpage clicks weren't usually more than about 5% of the recorded internal clicks.

By comparison, 69% of the internal clicks for Charley Pride and 67% for Paul Sarbanes came from the mainpage, so it seems reasonable to conclude that the majority of those do represent people hitting the link while it was posted. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Andrew Gray, nicely explained. tl;dr – when looking at the above table, ignore the 'type' column. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 03:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

(Closed) What importance does the Super Bowl have outside North America?

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

---

I see no reason for the Super Bowl to be part of In the news. It is a very localized event to the United States and Canada, and it is at a time where there are far more important event than a sport which is played mainly in two countries. I believe it would not be on the front page if not for one person. It appears the editors have bought fully into the Tom Brady hype machine. OneMMmember (talk) 21:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Loads (and I mean loads) of people stay up to watch it between 11.30pm and 3.30am in the UK. I don't know why, but it's almost like a grim tradition we've inherited, like going "trick or treating". And I also saw it in New Zealand too, loads of folks watching it there. I don't think many people really care about it, but they like the half-time show, the aeroplanes, and the odd wardrobe malfunction. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Please do not... oppose an item because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is unproductive. Just because you don't get the Super Bowl's importance doesn't mean we're gonna stop posting it once per year. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:49, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

OneMMmember (ec) It has nothing to do with Tom Brady or any player. The Super Bowl is on WP:ITNR. If global relevance was a requirement for ITN, very little would be posted. 331dot (talk) 21:51, 8 February 2021 (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.

What's up with ongoing

Second attempt to remove the Indian farmers' protest. There are five opposes but not a single one of them addresses the staleness of the article. The Wikipedia:In_the_news#Ongoing_section criteria is clear "In general, articles are NOT posted to ongoing merely because they are related to events that are still happening. In order to be posted to ongoing, the article needs to be regularly updated with new, pertinent information." By that criteria, none of the opposes are actually valid. Has WP:VOTE become a substitute for WP:CONSENSUS? Or should the criteria be amended to reflect what has become practice: stale articles festering in the box for weeks or months past their Best by date while a dedicated cabal resists any effort to remove the article from the main page while simultaneously contributing nothing to maintain the article at a standard that would merit featuring.

I'm only using the farmers protest as an example, but there are many others such as the CAA protests, the Belarusian protests, the Venezuelan protests, the Hong Kong protests in each of these cases prying a demonstrably stale article out of the box proved to be nearly impossible. --LaserLegs (talk) 15:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't usually agree with you on this topic, but looking at that particular discussion I agree the opposes were weak. In cases like that, admins should consider that there may be consensus the article is not sufficiently updated despite the vote count. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 04:11, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, you got what you wanted, but as I wrote there is a discrepancy then between how the Indian protest and the COVID-19 pandemic are treated because the latter's article is similarly stale. - Indefensible (talk) 18:30, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Nominate it for removal if you want. --LaserLegs (talk) 18:39, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Considering it, but conflicted because I do not think it (or the protest's article) should actually be removed for that logic and guessing that the nomination would fail. - Indefensible (talk) 18:42, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Propose a change to the criteria then. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:33, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Masem, Fuzheado - the conversation above at Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#COVID-19_banner does not address the nomination issue, as the subject above is regarding the previous COVID-19 banner which was removed and replaced with the Ongoing entry. That discussion is now 1-2 weeks stale, and the subject of the new removal nomination was the validity of that Ongoing entry per the criteria and in comparison to the Indian protests entry. They are 2 different issues. - Indefensible (talk) 04:55, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to state that we need to use common sense that some ongoing topics start to grow past a single article, and expecting the top level article to be regularly updated at that point is nonsense. This was the case with the HK protests and is absolutely the case with the COVID pandemic, whereas the Indian farmers protests did not have an expanded number of articles and thus we should expect to see reasonable updates to that. This is a common senee thing, not the hard and fast rules that I see some editors trying to champion for. --Masem (t) 05:03, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Common sense went out of the window when the Covid banner was removed despite evidence showing it was still being used thousands of times a day. Now it's just sitting awkwardly occupying one of the usual Ongoing spaces despite not following the same rules as other Ongoing. I wouldn't argue for removing it, but we've really created a rod for our own backs here.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:44, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

The HK protests "sub articles" were also stale, painstakingly documenting statements on social media and pretending that was a "protest". Honestly the same is true of COVID-19. Look at the ongoing portal every day it's bulked up with COVID-19 updates but it's all numbers: X country announces Y new infections. X country announces Y vaccinations. X country announces Y lockdowns. What new development has taken place in COVID-19? --LaserLegs (talk) 11:07, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

It's possible that editors aren't updating the top-level COVID-19 pandemic article sufficiently with new developments, but they are happening. This week it was discovered that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is only 10% effective against the South African variant of Covid. Many countries are still under varying degrees of total lockdown. I think most people would accept that Covid is still the overarching narrative today, continuing to completely disrupt normal life for millions across the globe, and therefore is a unique case deserving unique treatment. (And really this feeds back to my argument in the discussion above that all the Covid articles including the one covering vaccines should be restored to their special place in ITN, but people will start accusing me of continually banging the same drum soon!)  — Amakuru (talk) 11:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I mean, if "editors aren't updating the top-level COVID-19 pandemic article sufficiently with new developments", that it's a priori not updated, thus failing the pretty straightforward Ongoing criteria. That doesn't yet seem to be the case; since 10 Feb (a recent date I chose at random), the top-level article has been updated with recent and specific information about variants. It's a little on the weak side, but certainly more than recent Ongoing articles. I disagree with the "common sense" that "sub-articles" (is there even a procedural definition for such?) count towards the edit history of the "top-level article" (another undefined thing). This incentivizes editors to link to active articles within an otherwise unedited article, and given an article large enough there will always be a within-linked article with recent updates. If the COVID-19 Pandemic article really does slow enough to be removed, I'm all for removing it and going back to posting blurbs. Or just re-nominating for Ongoing.130.233.213.199 (talk) 08:19, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 banner

Boldy moved to this dedicated section from above "RD turnover"—Bagumba (talk) 04:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment the other thing we could do is get rid of the COVID-19 banner. It's been going on for over a year, everyone knows about it, and there aren't any major new developments: just the ebb and flow of infections, lockdowns and vaccinations. We get rid of the banner, link to Portal:Coronavirus_disease_2019 from the ongoing line (which won't go away anyway) and we free up a line for RDs or blurbs or whatever we want. The portal looks fantastic by the way, and has right at the top all the links we're featuring in the ITN box. It's a thought anyway, and if anyone thinks it has legs, we can spin up a subsection to discuss. --LaserLegs (talk) 02:13, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Absolutely InedibleHulk (talk) 02:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support When the topic of exit criteria came up in April 2020, I had suggested following other news organizations and whether they had dedicated banners anymore. I generally do not see them now, so would support replacing the MP banner to a simple portal link.—Bagumba (talk) 04:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support per Baguma's excellent observation. It's been far overlong in ITN and now that there's a new administration it's purpose is moot.130.233.213.199 (talk) 07:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the purpose had anything to do with any administration, on this global project. 331dot (talk) 09:58, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support as long as it sits in the Ongoing, this seems like a reasonable time to call time on the banner. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 10:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support per everything The Rambling Man said. Thryduulf (talk) 15:43, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support with the move to ongoing. --Masem (t) 15:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Wait; Need Data. I have been consistent in my request for a third row for RDs to spill over onto. However, I do not believe that this should come from the COVID banner (at least until we see the data). I think the space should come from, as TRM and a few others note, by adding an extra DYK on the left hand side. Specifically, to remove the Covid banner, I would recommend we look at attributional data. A typical RD gets a bump of ~2K of incremental page views from the homepage. I would want to see the number of page views that the COVID links are getting from the homepage. Not aggregate page views, but, specifically, the number of page views from users clicking on the link from the homepage. That to me would be indicative of what users are clicking on on the homepage. Only after seeing that data should we consider removing the box. Ktin (talk) 15:53, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Where will you get this data? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 15:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Possibly you could convert the links to obscure redirects and count the page views to those redirects; would go against WP:MPNOREDIRECT though. Personally I think a link to the portal in ongoing is fine, as all the other links can be reached from there. So, support as proposed - Dumelow (talk) 16:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Dumelow, wow! This is a simple but a brilliant idea! If we can test this out for even 48 hours, this is brilliant -- and will help test our hypothesis before removing! Ktin (talk) 16:21, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• The Rambling Man, unfortunately, I have a hit a roadblock in finding this data. I have asked at a few places including the VillagePump but have not received any leads. Referral data (if not pageclick) is standard webpage analytics information that I am absolutely sure is being collected. It is just not exposed via the regular pageview tool. So, if someone has any leads, I am happy to pursue there. Ktin (talk) 16:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  If you find a proper way of getting that data, let me know as I'd be interested too. Cheers. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: You might try asking at analyticslists.wikimedia.org? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

  The ed17, thanks much. I think just this morning, we might have got a great lead here. The numbers largely are in line with what we found with the small experiment that Amakuru setup. Marking Andrew_Gray as well. Ktin (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: increasing the size of DYK wouldn't help with the ITN balancing issue - it's TFA that it sits next to. Thus the only way to make space for extra RDs would be to remove the Covid box, reduce the number of normal ITN hooks, or somehow persuade the TFA guys to have a longer box (which would be outside of the scope of this project alone).  — Amakuru (talk) 16:43, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Surely we can't still be bound by 1990s HTML table rows? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 06:00, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support, ongoing is good. --Tone 15:54, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support Switch to oppose for now, see below - in general this seems a good idea, per most of the above. It anyone else wants redirects set up as suggested by Ktin above, then I can do the legwork if necessary. Any such redirects would want to have full protection on them to guard against drive-by vandalism that might not be spotted as quickly as the actual articles. If the current conversation is going to wrap up too quickly for such data to be gathered though, I wouldn't have an issue. Having an Ongoing link to either the pandemic article or the portal would be OK.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, Thanks for this offer Amakuru. Given that we have no opposes. Should we try Dumelow's suggestion given that 0:00 UTC is in a few hours? And, keep those redirects on for 48 hours. Ktin (talk) 19:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: OK, we're ready to go. I have created a version of each link with a * on the end, e.g. COVID-19 pandemic*, and full protected them. Assuming there are no objections, I will switch over the actual links in the template in an hour or two, ready for the test to begin tomorrow. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 19:34, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, Thanks Amakuru. Much appreciated. Ktin (talk) 21:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment just an aside relating to bumping up the size of DYK, in the past, eight hooks seems to have been considered some kind of "golden number" so increasing to ten may well meet with some resistance. I'm not clear on it myself, one set of ten per day would work just fine and get some extra real estate on the right-hand-side of the main page. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  I always understood "main page balance" to mean that TFA and ITN should roughly line up, as should DYK and OTD. And that's what I try to aspire to when fiddling with it. Thus increasing ITN wouldn't really help much with ITN issues. Perhaps there are others who don't care whether the pastel-coloured headings line up though as long as there isn't blank space at the bottom of all four boxes. I don't know if this issue has ever been codified properly.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Can all 4 be lengthened a line? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps, although it might not be that easy to make TFA longer. Probably you'd have to add some length to the blurbs, which would be something the honchos at that project would have to acquiesce to. Might not be a bad thing, as I think TFA blurbs are often a bit on the short side relative to the lead of the article they represent. Otherwise the only other way to do that would be to change the relative widths of the boxes.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:47, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I guess we could resurrect the perennial 50/50 width split of the main page which is currently (IIRC) 55/45.... The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 17:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose still the top news in many if not most countries in the world, with new developments almost every day. Developments that in normal times would be blurb-worthy (e.g. first curfew since WWII in the Netherlands). Especially - especially - considering that it would just free up space for the usual barrage of inconsequential news itms and RDs. 2A02:A451:8B2D:1:1108:8856:8418:AB93 (talk) 22:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Hardly. ITN is mostly criticised for having such a slow turnover, rather than a "barrage of inconsequential itms (sic)". And the RD discussion is currently seeking, at maximum, to add one line without compromising the news items. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 22:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Although I think we should consider what the "exit criteria" are for this item from Ongoing. Spencer^T•C 22:24, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - per discussion with Ktin above, I have now switched the links in the Covid box over to redirects with a * at the end in order to measure how much it is being used. I suggest that this discussion remain open at least until 27 January, so that the effects of that change can be measured for a full day on the 26th. Perhaps even including the 27th as well. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:25, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  While not intentional, I worry that any conclusions will be at risk of confirmation bias, as we did not lay out what we were looking to prove beforehand. We will see X clicks from the mainpage. What is high or low for whatever we are trying to prove? Whatever the number, can we necessarily conclude that those same readers would not be able to navigate from a different organization of the MP or even outright removal?—Bagumba (talk) 04:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  Bagumba, you bring up a fair point and I had given this some thought earlier today.

  Let's start off with the objective. We started this conversation, seeking an extra row (third row) for RD spillovers and to see if removal of the COVID-19 banner could grant that extra row for RD spillovers. While there is fatigue with that banner as it stands right now, there are two categories of people. Let's call them A and B. A = those who use the homepage to land on a COVID-19 article and B = those who use the homepage to land on an RD article. Now, we know we do not have instrumentation to measure / count people, so, we flip the measure and measure the number of referrals to a COVID article from the homepage (let's call this A') and number of referrals to an RD article from the homepage (let's call this B'). Based on a large amount of hand-waving and looking at the RD articles (and honestly nothing more scientific than staring at some graphs for over six months) I would say that a typical RD article (not the celebrity equivalents) get approx 2K page views from the homepage. This is our B'. Now, the tests will show if A' would be around this number or significantly higher than this number. If it is significantly higher, it makes sense to retain the COVID banner as-is. If it is ~2K-3K it might make sense to borrow this space for an extra row of RDs and move the highest contributed links onto Ongoing.

  Regarding your second question, that is more interesting. How do we say that the same user will not find other ways to reach the article once the homepage route is shut off for her? Short answer -- you can not say that definitively without putting in place user-level instrumentation. So, not even worth bothering with that problem.

  tl;dr: Inspect the daily page views on the redirects setup by Amakuru and if it is significantly greater than ~2K to 3K page views, leave them as-is. If not, reclaim that space, and move the two pages with highest page views onto the ongoing row.

  Thanks for all your patience, folks. Ktin (talk) 04:58, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  The intention is purely to gather some data on how much these links are being used. There are no preconceptions with regard to this, and no fixed figures defined on which we might choose to act. The decision is still ultimately down to the consensus of editors in this discussion, but this just gives them something to work with. And even if it's shown that it has a million hits a day, if everyone still says "remove the template" then that's what we do. I haven't even decided the effect this might have on my own !vote but I thought it reasonable for Ktin to request this data.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:12, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  There are no preconceptions with regard to this ... In the event my comment came off as an accusation, please understand that was not my intent. The numbers won't be available for a day or two. The more that we can discuss the possibilities before that, the more objective our observations can be. Cheers.—Bagumba (talk) 08:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  If it is significantly higher, it makes sense to retain the COVID banner as-is.: Ktin, I'm not convinced it's that straight-forward. Clicks are not the main purpose of the Main Page, though it's certainly a factor. Thus, the direct clicks that the MP generates is not the end-all consideration. Readers presumably click RD links because they either did not know the person died or the link convenience spurred them to read more about the person. Those readers would not otherwise have come looking for the RD's bio. For COVID, we can assume that readers know that it's ongoing and have some understanding on the topic. It's conceiveable that if they hadn't found the COVID banner on the main page, a good percentage would still find an alternative path and get to the related pages, regardless. As you said, we cannot definitively say with the current metrics available. That's different than RDs, where you have witnessed readership increase ~2K the day it's placed on the MP. That uptick would be attributed to new discoveries from it being on the MP as opposed to planned visits looking for the topic.—Bagumba (talk) 08:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  I think we need some kind of baseline if we're going to make informed decisions based on the clicks. We need to look at how many clicks TFA gets, how many clicks other news stories are getting. Taking the Covid clicks in isolation is going to be interesting but ultimately nothing more unless we can contextualise it. Even then, as Amakuru says, it's just to inform the community, there's no golden "clickbait number" above which the template should stay in place. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 08:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  Comparing the figure with the total hits of the pages in question would certainly tell you something. For example if 20% of hits come from the links, that would suggest they're having a significant effect. Of course, we will also gain significant information after we switch to the new arrangement. We may notice a big drop in the overall hits for the affected pages. Or perhaps not.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  I did a cursory look at recent items added/removed from Template:In the news/special-header, but it's hard to tell if the traffic changes for those specific items are tied more to the popularity of the respective link's topic or its placement on the MP.—Bagumba (talk) 08:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose portal as a target destination. I very much disagree that it "looks fantastic". Issues I notice just quickly glancing over it, several of which are significant:
  • The terrible machine-read autogenerated video which we removed from the article ages ago remains, and moreover is super prominent.
  • The disease progress box lists the cases/deaths/recoveries twice.
  • COVID-19 pandemic, the most important of all our COVID-19 pages, is not transcluded or otherwise prominently featured.
  • The Did you know box has a "poster shown" label with no poster actually shown.
  • The scrolling partial collapse of the reference box presents accessibility concerns.

I'm sure that additional issues would show up if I looked longer. And I don't want reopen the whole portal wars, but portals are just not how our readers expect information on Wikipedia to be organized, or what they seem to seek out (despite both being linked currently, the portal has gotten only 30k views in the past month, compared to over 1 million for the pandemic page, more than 30k per day. All of this is to say that I think linking COVID-19 pandemic would be a much better move than linking the portal. Linking the article is what we normally do for ongoing events anyways, and it contains prominent links in the lead to the other pages if anyone wants to seek them out. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:48, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• • I actually also wanted to suggest to link the COVID-19 pandemic instead of the portal. I also believe we have a consensus here now. Ready to go? --Tone 08:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Wait for the clickity test. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:49, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Any relation to the clackety test? --WaltCip-(talk) 17:53, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. Covid remains the dominant news story in most countries around the world. Major media organisations still have multiple stories in the top few slots of their home pages, special sections devoted to it etc. We could think about trimming some of the lesser-used links in the box, but removing it entirely (or relegating to ongoing) seems inappropriate, especially if we would just be wasting the recovered space on more RDs. It's not as if we have a steady stream of blurbs that need to go up. Modest Genius ^talk 11:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for now Covid has not lost its sui generis status among reliable source and remains an unprecedented event, as such, I think the banner still represents Wikipedia's reflection of that. --Jayron32 12:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support - ongoing is sufficient. Wikipedia should provide solid background information, not up-to-the-minute news, about the pandemic. The link target should be the main pandemic article, COVID-19 pandemic. This link will help readers find the information they're looking for about the pandemic. Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:58, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Question there is disagreement among supporters about whether to link the article or the portal, but would both be possible? Something like "COVID-19 pandemic [Portal]"? Thryduulf (talk) 19:07, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. Preliminary Results are out here, and it seems the main pandemic page got 400 clicks from the banner, compared with over 40,000 for the page itself. So for me that suggests it won't be missed much if we axe it. I haven't checked the other pages yet, but no doubt someone can do so shortly.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Axe now, ask questions later! InedibleHulk (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Amakuru, not sure if there is a replication lag etc., I did a quick check for all the other links and all of them are in the same ballpark. i.e. ~1% of the traffic to those pages are coming from the homepage. For some reason I was expecting higher. Also, for some reason I was thinking the pandemic portal would get more clicks, but, apparently not. Anyway, if someone wants to bring a link onto the ongoing row, it might have to be the main pandemic article page. Also, if someone has friends on the pandemic project, might be worthwhile to ask them to consider a banner equivalent on the disease page, in case we do away with the banner. But, that is beyond our brief. Thanks everyone. Ktin (talk) 00:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC) Striking this out based on the updated numbers from Amakuru below. I think we had to wait for the numbers to populate / replication delays to catch up etc. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 13:46, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose it's in the news every day, everywhere around the world. We could have it in Ongoing I suppose, but at that point, why'd we make a banner in the first place? Banedon (talk) 00:59, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

It's about freeing up space for more RD or blurbs. Ongoing will be a permanent fixture with some poor quality article about low grade protests anyway, so we put COVID-19 in there and free up space in the box. That's it. Still on the main page, with room for more stuff too. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:16, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I don't care too much about the target, and I get the feeling none of the other supporters do either. If the main pandemic article is better then fine, lets use that. Seems to be fairly clear consensus, and the stats from Amakuru show that mostly no one cares about the banner anyway. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:19, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. In addition to it still being a major news item worldwide, it's also the news item most likely to directly impact Wikipedia's readership. As much as I'd like to see more breathing room for RDs, making information about the pandemic immediately available to the living is more important than showcasing more articles of the dead. jSarek (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment a quick look at the "redirect" stats shows that between 8% and 14% of traffic to these pages comes via main page clicks, which means that between 86% and 92% does not come from ITN. Pretty stark evidence that ITN is not really seminal in helping people find the information they're after. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 09:51, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment again - (edit conflict) apologies, I was probably too hasty in looking at the stats last night. The figures look different this morning - 5,886 for the redirect, 39,076 for the page as a whole. Here are the full results:[2][3]  — Amakuru (talk) 09:57, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Article	Article hits	Redirect hits	Percentage
COVID-19 pandemic	39,076	5,485	14.0
COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory	32,827	4,312	13.1
COVID-19 vaccine	21,633	1,788	8.3
Coronavirus disease 2019	19,513	967	5.0
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2	6,256	576	9.2
Portal:Coronavirus disease 2019	760	789	103.8
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic	713	598	83.9

Thanks for those numbers. That's a decent amount of traffic, more than most RDs get. I think that justifies keeping at least the banner entries that are getting a thousand clicks per day. Modest Genius ^talk 14:38, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Nah, main page get s more than six million hits per day, so this is peanuts. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 14:44, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

2-5k per day is more than a typical RD or DYK entry. Modest Genius ^talk 16:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Modest Genius, Not really. We have just reasonably seen that an RD gets ~2-3K hits per day. We should definitely carry COVID-19 pandemic to the ongoing line. Where I am on the fence is COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory. If there is a way to show it as Ongoing: COVID-19 pandemic (by Geography), or something similar, that might be a good median outcome. Ktin (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I maintain my position to remove the banner and simplify to a link. Everyone is aware of COVID and has some working knowledge of it. No reason to believe anyone looking for information would not find it without the banner. Contrast with blurbs or RDs, which are likely new news for a lot of readers. Based on the numbers, I'm ok with "Ongoing" linking to COVID-19 pandemic instead of the portal.—Bagumba (talk) 11:33, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
•  Administrator note was considering if this was ready for closure, but think it needs more opportunity for discussion - I've invited in editors from Talk:Main Page. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment Reading through these, and I notice that there are many !votes cast apparently with the notion that the banner is going to be removed with nothing to replace it. It should be clear here that the Main Page will still have a link to COVID-19; it will reside in the Ongoing section of ITN, where it will require a nomination and strong consensus to remove (i.e., it will not "roll off").130.233.213.199 (talk) 08:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
• Admin Action Requested. Can I request an Admin to evaluate consensus / determine next steps? The latest three day traffic report can be accessed here. Seems like the numbers posted by Amakuru are holding. I personally was surprised by the low number of clicks, but, it is what it is. Ktin (talk) 08:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support. We can just put "COVID-19 pandemic" at Ongoing. Making a dedicated banner makes it seem like we're prioritizing the pandemic over others. It doesn't advantage readers, anyway. GeraldWL 09:50, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support removing the banner and having a link to COVID-19 pandemic in Ongoing. the wub "?!" 12:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Removed and moved to ongoing, as I interpret the consensus here. Please check. --Tone 16:33, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. For folks who are interested in any sort of analysis, we managed to find a way based on feedback here here to get the raw referral numbers for the month of December. It is available only monthly (and not daily) but, has great information re: referral data from the mainpage. Feel free to ping me if you'd want any query checked. Ktin (talk) 22:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

mysql> select * from december_views where referer = 'Main_Page' order by pageviews desc limit 10;
+-----------+--------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+
| referer   | target                                     | type  | pageviews |
+-----------+--------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+
| Main_Page | Hyphen-minus                               | other |   2951391 |
| Main_Page | Lists_of_deaths_by_year                    | other |   1130422 |
| Main_Page | Wikipedia                                  | link  |    214705 |
| Main_Page | COVID-19_pandemic                          | link  |    159008 |
| Main_Page | COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_and_territory | link  |    120652 |
| Main_Page | Great_conjunction                          | link  |    106300 |
| Main_Page | Tigray_conflict                            | link  |     81721 |
| Main_Page | 2020_Indian_farmers'_protest               | link  |     78387 |
| Main_Page | Encyclopedia                               | link  |     71174 |
| Main_Page | Hayabusa2                                  | other |     62045 |
+-----------+--------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+

Seems like the great conjunction was the most clicked non-corona ongoing story of the month. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:04, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Sagittarian Milky Way, It seems to have been a story that a lot of our readers have clicked on. I will add one caveat, the pageviews are monthly and not average daily, so, for articles that rotate, they have not been normalized for number of days spent on the homepage. Ktin (talk) 01:28, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

What's up with the hyphen? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:43, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

- is literally a redirect I wonder if it's from collapsing tables or something --LaserLegs (talk) 02:29, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Calls to {{IsValidPageName}} perhaps. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 04:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Ktin: would you "select sum(pageviews) as sum_pageviews from december_views group by `type` where target = 'COVID-19_pandemic'"? I'm interested in the number of link referrals vs external (which my grep-fu counted up to around 700k). Else I can just load it into some RDBMS but since you've already done it.... --LaserLegs (talk) 02:27, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

  LaserLegs, done. Pinged you here. Ktin (talk) 02:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

• Drop all but main parent article. Thank you Yassen for the email about this....was looking for days.... was under the wrong impression the portal was up for deletion. That said. ....and as the portal maintainer - I suggest we link the main pandemic article over the portal every time. Yes they both present roughly the same info all transcluded, but best to link to information presented in a normal format that are readers are familiar with and has navigational aids like a Toc. Usability, functionality and accessibility shoild be our primary concern when choosing a linked page thus not a portal or oddly formated page. I take care of the portal simply to make sure it's mobile accessible (as the majority of our portals are not) but a normal formated page is always best because of reader familiarity and its were they have access to verification by way of sources.--Moxy 🍁 02:54, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This decision strikes me as hasty, localized and fairly unbiased. Omitting a banner that contextualizes an unprecedented, historic global event on Wikipedia that continues to strike with second and third waves in various countries and has seriously reshaped economies and lifestyle. This is well above the relevance policy bar that Wikipedia prays, and rewrites a new standard for handling event on a global scale. The banner itself had to be restructured to better illustrate the scenario. I think that, above any sudden preference to remove the banner, to give a localized group consensus right now is to counter a huge amount of news, policies and scenarios that are updated at all hours about COVID-19. We are not talking about a brief event to bring it to consensus yet. Also, the article is massive to be referred to in a single link, especially in a mobile experience. The direct links that the banner contained helped to direct to the different articles with enormous information made by editors. --JungleWiki (talk) 05:30, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

  This decision strikes me as hasty: For the record, there was 4.5 days of discussion before it was pulled.—Bagumba (talk) 08:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - it's been several days since there was action in this thread, but I think given the stats that have been shown up by the special asterisked versions of the links, that there is evidence the main page links are still useful. The disease, the pandemic and the country-by-country breakdown links are all getting tens of thousands of hits per day. I'm therefore amending my !vote above to Oppose.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Amakuru (talk • contribs) 15:27, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Amakuru: COVID-19 pandemic page views have actually gone up since the special header was removed on Jan 29.[4] Not sure we can conclude that the people looking for COVID-19 pages aren't finding them because of the change. What is your analysis?—Bagumba (talk) 08:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Bagumba: urggh... I hadn't even noticed that the proposed change had already been enacted. I assumed the conversation had died a death for lack of consensus! As JungleWiki says below, this was done way too hastily, particularly as we'd been actively analysing the data. Seven days would be the normal period to let a survey like this run, as we would at AFD or RFCs. To answer your question, my source for saying the links were accessed tens of thousands of times per day was Ktin's link to the page-view stats above, based on the special asterisked versions we set up. That showed that a significant percentage of all hits for the affected articles were coming from the main page links. Anyway, since the change has now been enacted, we have the opportunity to actually see the real effect of the change. I've run a like-for-like comparison of daily averages between the three days from 23 Jan to 25 Jan (with the banner in place), against the same three weekdays one week later when it was gone (30 Jan to 1 Feb).[5][6] Results are:

Results of week on week hits comparison

Article Previous hits New hits Change % Change COVID-19 pandemic 38,879 40,118 1,239 +3.2 COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory 30,897 23,353 -7,544 -24.4 Coronavirus disease 2019 21,888 15,410 -6,478 -29.6 COVID-19 vaccine 21,193 18,713 -2,480 -11.7 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 6,251 5,223 -1,028 -16.4 Portal:Coronavirus disease 2019 1,215 506 -709 -58.4 Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic 1,019 470 -549 -53.9 TOTAL 121,341 103,792 -17,549 -14.5

• So yes, although there has been a very slight uptick in the COVID-19 pandemic views, this has been more than offset by a large loss of views on all the other affected pages. Across all of them it's a 14.5% decline in views. I'm aware that initially I was in favour of dropping the box, but it's clear from the stats and the !votes that keep coming in opposing the change, that this was a mistake and the box should be reinstated ASAP. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, while I do not have any preference on what is done here eventually, the metric that you are using 14.5% is not the right one to check. By the law of small numbers, the change as a percentage is always going to look big. Bottomline is that the based on the above data, the cumulative COVID banner was resulting in ~17K views a week (now showing up as nett lost traffic; nett = traffic lost  – traffic made up from other avenues e.g. ongoing link). This translates to approx 2.5K page views per article day. This is right about at or lower than any other typical link on homepage including a average RD (non celebrity) which gets ~4.5K. So, from a numbers standpoint you are serving more readers by creating space by removing the banner (and taking the high traffic articles onto an ongoing link). However, if Admins do not use this space by either using it for a news blurb or for additional RDs spill over (and using the space for expression of articles), you are better off retaining the COVID banner. Because, something is better than nothing. Good luck. Ktin (talk) 03:16, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: i don't really follow your logic. These are not particularly small numbers, and in any case it's clearly the % that's important here. If the pages were generally getting 1 million views per day, then 17,000 more or less is small change and wouldn't be significant. But with the actual numbers we have, that 17,000 is a big drop off and I think we've definitely done our readers a disservice by removing it. COVID is and will remain the overriding story of our time for the foreseeable future, and getting our readers to the relevant parts of that, in particular NPOV scientific information on the vaccine, is really quite important right now. If that comes at the expense of stories which are more than a week old, and basically forgotten, such as Kaja Kallas becoming PM of Estonia, then that's a good thing. @Tone: is any chance you could reconsider your decision to remove the box, because this really looks to have been the wrong move. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, let me explain in a different way, and see if that helps. Again, I will start this off with a caveat that I do not have a preference for what is done on this specific topic, eventually.

  When you are measuring links on the homepage and their effectiveness, you are looking at how valuable are those links for what someone is looking for or for where they go next. One way to do that is by looking at what folks are clicking at. Now, the way you would do that is by measuring "how many people are clicking on a link on the homepage" and then asking the question "what fraction or % of the home page users are clicking on a particular link". Just by way of data, currently the COVID linked articles in that banner are (or were) getting ~2.5K clicks per day. That is lower than the other category of links on the ITN box / homepage.

  Regarding your later points on COVID being the zeitgeist of the current times and how presenting NPOV information is important, I absolutely don't deny that. That is a qualitative feedback (opinion) independent of what the data on clicks say. It's not data driven, but, it is definitely an opinion that merits independent consideration. It boils down to 2.5K clicks (but more meaningful, per our own subjective opinion) more important than 4.5K clicks on general additional information. I am definitely not making the case that one category of clicks is more important than the other.

  What I am definitely against is, the current state, where the banner was removed to make space for "blurbs and RD," but then Admins refusing to use up even more than 25%-50% of row #2. So, space was created by removing the banner but, is being used for real whitespace. Good luck. Ktin (talk) 23:31, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

  Ktin: The !votes were generally not tied to a specific use of the freed banner space. AFAICS, the main page is now operating as it did before COVID. WP:ITNRD and WP:ITN/A remain the same. Admins are not "refusing" to do anything, except perhaps IAR in a way you might prefer them to. Can you elaborate on the implication that "25%-50% of row #2" is unused? —Bagumba (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  Bagumba, my disenchantment stems from yesterday's posting Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#(Posted)_RD:_Charan_Gill as with a few other. The article fell off the carousel ~14 hours when ~50-75% of row 2 was available for the article could have stayed on (for at least a few more hours) without even spilling into row #3.

  In my view, this conversation regarding removal of COVID banner was an offshoot of a conversation that intended to find space (i.e. an additional row) for "blurbs or RDs". Ktin (talk) 02:02, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: Some have stated that 12h is enough time, on par w/ DYK. It's not clear where consensus is re: 24h. As for space on row 2, it's probably dependent on one's screen resolution. I have a 2560x1600 screen, and if I look at the MP using the ITN template at the time Gill was removed, the second row is 80% full, and the second column is already slightly longer and "unbalanced" from the first column.—Bagumba (talk) 12:43, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  I don't particularly care about RD tenure, I think 12h is more than enough, but that was one of the rationales for this removal. However, the bigger point was that people felt it wasn't useful any more. But the stats we have seen show that they emphatically were being used and frankly to suddenly remove this prominent link for no discernible gain, when we're bang in the middle of a second (or third/fourth/fifth depending on your viewpoint) wave of the disease, coupled with a worldwide vaccine roll-out, makes us look quite tone-deaf frankly.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:28, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  It's amazing how times change. It was only a few years ago that about 95% of these RDs would never get onto the main page, let alone have the luxury of 12 hours (or more) of exposure. Easy to forget. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 13:36, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, I will start off by saying where I do not disagree with you. I do not disagree about the relevance of the COVID topic in a world as we have it today. However, I do not think it is right to hold my insistence for a 24 hour consideration window for RDs as the reason why the banner has been or should be removed. Quoting from my post earlier I have been consistent in my request for a third row for RDs to spill over onto. However, I do not believe that this should come from the COVID banner (at least until we see the data). My point is that, having removed the banner, not using that whitespace, is bad. Regarding your statement that the stats show usage 'emphatically' that this banner was being used. Not really. Just as a summary, there are 6M daily views on the homepage, of which 1.1M views result in some sort of a click, of which the banner articles attracted 2.5K clicks on an average. But, that said, the argument (zeitgeist etc.) sans the stats is a reasonable argument to advance. Ktin (talk) 14:18, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, the virus is still a big deal on most parts of the world as readers should be able to quickly find relevant information.  Nixinova   T   C   07:01, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm not against removing the banner and moving COVID to ongoing in principle, but I oppose doing so just to add more room for RDs. -- Calidum 22:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Calidum: The original proposal did not say RDs would necessarily take up the space: ... we free up a line for RDs or blurbs or whatever we want. To date since the removal, RDs have remained generally at a size of 6, and WP:ITNRD and WP:ITN/A still says 6 as well.—Bagumba (talk) 00:33, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose removal of the banner. One of the best things about the banner being added in the first place was that we were able to bypass the constant discussions about which COVID-related updates are worth blurbing. We could go months without having to waste any time discussing COVID at all. There will come a time when we should obviously remove the banner, but now is not that time. COVID is still very much in the minds of most people globally. We just surpassed 100,000,000 cases. Let's cross this bridge when it makes sense to. Its removal ultimately didn't lead to more space for more blurbs as some of the proponents hoped it would, but it did make the ITN box significantly less informative and greatly reduced ease of access for readers (myself included) who used it daily. I was considering writing an oppose !vote much sooner on the grounds that the banner was added as a way to put an end to the perpetual stream of new COVID threads at ITN, and — unsurprisingly — exactly what I worried about happened when it was recently proposed to also remove it from ongoing. It would have at least been nice to discuss what the criteria for removal from ongoing would be before going ahead and moving it, because this was predictable.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 07:09, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  Vanilla Wizard: There were some ideas about removal criteria back in April 2020. My !vote here was consistent with my comments back then. —Bagumba (talk) 08:46, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, it is true that in April 2020 there was brief discussion about what removal criteria could look like, but it consisted of only a few comments which were roughly in agreement that it was far too soon to cross that bridge and it ultimately didn't lead to any sort of ironed out criteria. This remains unchanged. I suppose it would be fair to say that your own !vote is based on the criteria you personally suggested nearly a year ago, but I intended to criticize that there is still no agreed upon idea of when we should take COVID out of ITN, whether as a banner or as an ongoing item. Your own comment may be consistent with what you believed in April, and that is perfectly legitimate, but we are no closer today to having an idea of when to remove it from ITN than we were back then. I also can't say that I agree with your comment below floating the possibility of a new discussion being started. In my experience, the most common reason why a seemingly fait accompli consensus is overturned too quickly is because editors who already !voted in one discussion might not know that there is a new separate discussion where their previous !votes no longer count. For what it's worth, I got here from the "Removal of COVID-19 pandemic from Ongoing" thread on ITN/Candidates (though as I mentioned, I intended to !vote much sooner), so there are currently more eyes on this thread than there used to be. As such, I don't see reason to believe that any would-be support !voters will have a harder time finding this thread than oppose !voters.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 09:57, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment The banner was removed almost 2 weeks ago. At what point should this discussion be closed, saying it was the consensus at the time and requiring a new discussion to form any new consensus, versus having opposers trickle in when others might see it as a fait accompli and not know they still need to show support?—Bagumba (talk) 07:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Bagumba: this discussion can be closed when the banner is restored, as per the very clear lack of consensus in this discussion for removing it. It's highly irregular for an WP:INVOLVED admin to carry out an action, and for you then to declare it a "fait accompli" just because that's the outcome you prefer. No consensus means retaining the status quo, which was to have the banner. I don't know what I'm supposed to do at this point, but I don't think it's fair to mandate a fresh discussion.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:03, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  By WP:INVOLVED admin, do you mean me making a comment? You're also an admin, who !voted here, and you are making a comment. I don't think either is out of line. For the record, your !vote also indicates reversal is your preferred outcome. So how are we different?—Bagumba (talk) 09:12, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Bagumba: no, I'm not referring to you and apologies if it seemed that way. I meant that Tone !voted support in the discussion above, and then a couple of days later they also acted as closing admin by implementing a decision to remove the banner. That was a good faith decision on Tone's part given the discussion at the time, but given the subsequent opposition to the proposal it seems to me that for transparency and good closure they should roll back that decision and leave the assessment of consensus to someone who wasn't involved in the discussion. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:51, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks for clarifying. I can sympathize with your perspective, given that you believe the banner should be kept. While INVOLVED will always invite scrutiny, I don't think there was any bias involved, both considering the state of the discussion at the time and it was a non-issue for almost 2 weeks until you brought it up (justifiably). The question is what to make of five opposes—after the removal—and over an extended two week span.—Bagumba (talk) 11:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

  Just to comment, indeed, at the point when I removed the banner, the consensus felt pretty solid, so I do not view my action (having previously participated in the discussion) as an issue. But I am staying out of further discussion on the topic exactly because I have taken an action. If the template is to be reinstated, I'd like someone else --Tone 11:35, 10 February 2021 (UTC)take care of it ;)

  Given that two weeks passed and nobody reverted, it's not "clear" that supporters would know they should still be !voting. I don't think we can accurately judge current consensus anymore with this lingering thread (my earlier !vote to remove aside)—Bagumba (talk) 09:12, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose removal per VanillaWizard. The banner should not have been removed, and consensus is now much less clear. There seems to be no benefit to having removed the banner, whereas we are no longer showcasing good and relevant articles, including the vaccines article. Davey2116 (talk) 10:40, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I know that Wikipedia is not a vote, but after reviewing the discussion, the consensus was nearly 50/50 at the time of removal. I'm not the best at counting, but I believe there were 12 supports and 8 opposes, which I'd say leans in favor of the support !votes but is hardly a consensus, and certainly not a solid consensus. I think it wouldn't be accurate to say that there was ever a consensus to remove it, but there certainly isn't a consensus for removal now, as (by my likely inaccurate count) the majority of !votes are opposed. Any admin action would be much appreciated.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 21:48, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Oppose - countries are still experiencing heavy casualties because of this pandemic. It's crucial we give the attention it needs on wikipedia. User:Tetizeraz. Send me a ✉️ ! 16:08, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

recent-deaths Limited-time Experiment Requested

Hi All, at this point, I might perhaps be getting a reputation for my annoying persistence in seeking a time guarantee for RDs on the homepage. I will seek your pardon and apologize in advance, while I ask your support in a limited-time experiment here on WP:ITNRD.

Starting statement(s): It just strikes me as unfair that some RDs drop off the carousel in ~4-5 hours e.g. M. Bala Subramanion, Louise Elisabeth Coldenhoff. While there are many that continue to go ~45-50 hours as some on the homepage currently e.g. Anthony Sowell. Yes, the truth of the matter is "it happens, c'est la vie.". I also agree that in the new way of working we do have more articles coming up for the homepage / RD, and that is a good thing, and an absolute win for the project. I thought we brought a consensus or so we thought that spilling to the third row would be alright if it means that we afford at least 24 hours for an article. That was the basis on which the COVID banner was removed. To quote the starting sentence of that thread we free up a line for RDs or blurbs or whatever we want. Now, it seems like we lost the banner, and we are not using the third line as promised. But, in this thread, rather than dwelling into that decision, I am seeking this group's support in a limited time bound experiment in creating a holding pool (if needed) as we at least provide 24 hours to an RD, amongst other things in acknowledgement of the effort that editors put in, in preparing an article for homepage / RD. I can only speak for myself, but, I do invest ~4-5 hours per article at an average to get it homepage levels, sometimes more, sometimes less, and I am sure that other editors are in a similar range.

Duration of experiment requested: 1 week

Experiment details:

1. Reviewers and Admins work nominations from the bottom of the page. Seems to be happening already.
2. When an article is ready, an editor marks the article as Ready. Seems to be happening already.
3. When an Admin evaluates an article from those tagged 'Ready', they check the one that would fall off the carousel and if that article has not spent 24 hours, update the tag as 'Ready; Hold'. If the article falling off the carousel has spent ~24 hours, move the new article to the carousel and mark the tag as 'Posted'.
4. If the Admin determines the article as not Ready, they update the tag to remove the Ready tag and add their comment as to why the article is not Ready. This is happening already.
5. The next Admin who comes along, does the same set of activities, but, includes the ones marked 'Ready; Hold' in their post actions in step #3.

Outcomes to watch out for: One line of thinking, as was expressed by a few editors including Spencer earlier was that the holding pattern will create an unmanageable queue / will only exacerbate the problem. We can watch this over a period of the one week. Alternately, this will prove to be a viable model and we can consider going ahead with it for the future.

Thanks in advance for your consideration. Ktin (talk) 21:00, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment so to be clear are we now proposing that a hidden timestamp is added for each entry at RD so an admin can determine whether it is permissible to add one (or more) to the list, or are we expecting the admin to go over the history of the ITN template and find when each item was added? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  The Rambling Man, two ways to do this one TRM. On the same page (i.e. the nominations page), we do have Admins adding a "Posted" comment against an article that they have posted. The posting Admin can do a ctrl-F on the article falling off to see the time stamp. Alternately, this will require a little more of a work, but, in the ITN news widget page, when an article is added, the admin adds a comment with a timestamp. This can perhaps be done programmatically. But, definitely can be done manually. Ktin (talk) 21:14, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  I mean, as a trial there's probably no reason why we can't do this, but it's really up to the handful of admins who work around here, it makes no difference at all to most of the rest of us. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:16, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  The Rambling Man, Thanks TRM. Much appreciated. Ktin (talk) 21:18, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  The other thing (if we want to be scientific about things) is to do some proper analysis on, say, the last couple of hundred RDs to see how long they had on the main page, just to see what the extent of the problem is. I know you have seen several examples so I'm not doubting there's a "problem" here, but to do the job properly, we'll need to do some kind of before/after comparison, right? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:24, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  The Rambling Man, agree. Yup, I can work one of the weekends and get this information, while we go ahead with this experiment. Unfortunately, I tried a few scripts and they didn't work, so, will have to be manual. Unless someone here can write some cool scripts to get this data. Ktin (talk) 22:10, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  The Rambling Man, following up with some quick and dirty analysis for this week alone. Not comprehensive by any means, but, click here. The way I would interpret this data is firstly look at the variance and then secondly go onto make the case that affording the base articles close to 24 hours will not flood the system, since 2/3rds of the articles are getting much more than 24 hours. i.e. smoothening the outflow curve (either by holding for a bit or spilling over) should not create a deluge. Ktin (talk) 07:26, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

  That's interesting, only a half-dozen were on the main page for less time than a DYK and most of the others went for at least 24 hours if not longer. I'm not sure we should be shaking the system up for a few outliers. My preference would be to give more people the tools to promote items when ready so they don't spend so long just hanging around being (Ready) but unbundling main page editing access from adminship is a non-starter, even though many admins can't write a sentence, let alone an article, to save their lives..... :). The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 08:43, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• Seems reasonable if the admins doing the work will do this. It seems to me that it may be possible to use a LUA module to do the math here to keep all RDs on the front page for 24 hours, with a queue for a backlog. It definitely would be possible for an admin-bot to do this. So I don't think the day-to-day burden on admins needs to be an issue. There have definitely been issues with RDs expiring too quickly recently (Larry King was reposted after it got 4 hours on RD after a blurb discussion). power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:37, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• Question/Comment I don't really follow RD and I'm fine with whatever y'all wanna do but I have two questions:

1. Didn't we recently change to putting up RDs in ready order instead of chronological order?
2. What happens if you have a backlog of RDs (ready) with no sign of slowing down? The LUA module approach is a solid plan (or a bot) but it has the same risk of an unclearable backlog.

I've felt for a while that articles which are "too short" are making it up to RD but I've no way to quantify that. Just some food for thought I guess. --LaserLegs (talk) 22:53, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

LaserLegs, to point 1, yes (don't think this proposal affects that at all). To point 2, then eventually something breaks. I think we could analyse this based on the rate of flow of RDs over the past month or so and simulate what would happen if, say, an admin popped by every six hours to follow Ktin's rules above. That should demonstrate whether the backlog will kill the prospect. To the final thought, we just need to avoid creating a super-notability requirement, but a minimum quality threshold would be fine by me. Length isn't right though, as that brings back in systemic bias against under-represented groups of individuals (i.e. non-English-language RDs). Need to think of something else (which I think is practically impossible). The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 23:03, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose on the basis that the recent RfC did not find consensus for a minimum duration of RDs, so trying to do so via a back door is disingenuous. Also removing the COVID banner was not a promise to increase the number of RDs, and we’ve reverted to the prior status quo of four blurbs. This proposal will increase the hounding that we're currently seeing if a death is seen to be pushed off too soon, especially for admins who drop in occasionally to help and who may not follow a convoluted process. Why not just propose increasing the number of RDs to 7 or 8 to support the new increased volume? Stephen 23:18, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  Stephen, Stephen, without making this one about the COVID banner, I will just state that the very first line of the COVID discussion thread states -- we free up a line for RDs or blurbs or whatever we want. The RfC that you mention had a bit of a circuitous logic in that folks were concerned about the flooding of the screen with RDs if we go with a 36 hour minimum. The solution to that to prevent flooding was to open up a third row or to consider a holding dam like this experiment is requesting evaluation. In addition a considerable set of folks on that thread recommended that while 36 hours as requested in that thread was not feasible, 24 hours seemed reasonable. The purpose of this experiment is to trial out a holding dam to see if there is a deluge or if a happy median can be arranged. Regarding "increase the hounding" that the Admins are seeing -- this experiment will allay that hounding. Thanks for your consideration. Ktin (talk) 00:04, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

  That copied comment was not referred to by anyone in the banner removal discussion. That discussion purely focused on removing the banner and putting COVID into ongoing. There was no consensus for a minimum duration, and you conveniently ignore those that actively argued against any minimum. This mechanism was exactly what you suggested in that discussion, again for which there was no consensus. Stephen 00:46, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose – per Stephen. A plain reading of the starting sentence "we free up a line for RDs or blurbs or whatever we want" indicates that there is no promise to use the third line for any item, and to construe it as such is (to repeat Stephen's word) disingenuous. The OP previously mentioned how leaving an RD up for only a couple of hours "speaks about deliberate lack of empathy for contributors' time and efforts". Far from that, I see it more as a way to be flexible and adapt to the amount of content creation coming in (in contrast to other processes like DYK, TFA, etc., where time is not of the essence). In the unlikely event that there was a shortage of RD noms coming in, current RDs could stay on the Main Page for days (perhaps even a week). Conversely, a glut of RD noms would necessitate keeping the cycle short, in order to avoid the situation of having noms – that were otherwise of a satisfactory quality – being archived after 7 days without being posted. Finally, we're all volunteers here (admins included). No admin is obligated to promote or post anything to the MP, let alone keep an item for a set amount of time for fear of showing a "lack of empathy" or hurting your feelings. Nor should they be hounded for not doing so. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:53, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
• Comment rsp to @Stephen: @Bloom6132: the discussion about removing the COVID-19 banner spun out of a discussion about RD turnover. No comment either way on the rest of your remarks, I just wanted to highlight that point. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:10, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, I’m aware of that. But then it was discussed in its own right, largely around the hits it’s was generating, and no further mention of what to do with the space. Stephen 03:59, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: A more technically challenging "solution" would be to figure out based on monthly averages from the past couple months what the length of time the average RD spends on the template is. Then admins can post ready RDs to a "prep" area, functionally marking them as posted on ITN/C. A bot would then cycle them onto the template at a rate meeting the previous month's average. (e.g. if there were 4 items posted per day on average over the past couple months, then every 6 hours a new RD from the prep area would be posted, and the oldest RD ages off). That said, I'm not sure I have an appetite for a solution like this, which could become a little too confusing. While RD work now takes a disproportionate amount of the "effort" dedicated to articles, I don't think it is visually appealing for half the section to be RD listings, and I think a max of 6 - as has been the consensus previously - is appropriate. (Full disclosure, when RD was implemented I believed the max should be 3 for aesthetics; this is not feasible given the high rate of turnover at present however.) I don't think concerns for empathy ring true as mentioned above-- the new system allows for more RDs to be posted than previously, where a lot of RDs were not able to be updated in time before they were too old. The consequence of this choice is that existing items just don't last very long, and I think we need to be comfortable with that given the limitations of admin availability (we aren't going to be on around the clock). Spencer^T•C 04:20, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

  Spencer, Thanks Spencer. I will just note one thing about the empathy point. Consider this scenario from the recent past. Row 2 of the ITN carousel is at 25-40% occupancy on most screens (we are not even going to the authorized row 3). An article is off the carousel having spent somewhere in the 5-10 hour range. Request to restore is not considered. Is that action lacking in empathy? I would say yes. The problem is that that action is an WP:IAR action and the posting admin is perhaps right in not considering it. But put in a layer of empathy, and I would argue, that the right thing to do is to leave that article on the carousel. Ktin (talk) 18:56, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Multiple editors have repeatedly (and correctly) stated that there is no promise to increase the number of RDs and that this has got nothing to do with a "lack of empathy". It's time to drop the stick and get the point – repeatedly badgering admins over not keeping your nom on the MP for a set amount of time or for forgetting to award credit[7][8] (neither of which is actually necessary) is not going to help. The knock-on effect of "leaving an article on the carousel" for 24 hours (or any prescribed minimum time) is that it prevents other articles that are ready from being posted. This would still be a problem even if the number of RD slots were increased. I have no qualms about any article that I update being posted for only a few hours, since the more the merrier as long as the other articles meet the ITN criteria. DYK normally operates on 12 hour cycles (and even 8 hour cycles in the past when there was a big backlog of approved hooks). I cannot see why any good faith editor would be in favour of delaying or stymieing other RD noms from being posted to the MP by wanting any fixed minimum time, let alone double that of the DYK norm. —Bloom6132 (talk) 05:37, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Bloom6132, Please stick to your lane. This comment from you was not needed, nor does it build on the previous comment of mine. Ktin (talk) 06:14, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Stick to my lane?! Anyone is free to comment on a discussion, especially if it pertains to their area of content creation. The only reason why you think my comment "was not needed" is because I'm not in agreement with your stance. Then again, neither are most of the other ITN regulars … —Bloom6132 (talk) 07:22, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Bloom6132, Nope. It is because I do not believe you read my comment above even before replying. While your views are valued, you already expressed them once.[9] My response in this thread was to Spencer's comment and your response was not building on that response of mine (feel free to re-read, if you'd want to). So, yes, with all due respect, stick to your lane. Ktin (talk) 07:31, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Wrong. I did indeed read your comment before replying. I'm free to express my opinions as many times as I want. And I don't need other editors attempting to censor opposing views that they don't like. So no, I will not "stick to my lane". —Bloom6132 (talk) 07:39, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, if you're demanding that another editor "stick to their lane", then it would be best if you don't do long-winded rants[10][11][12] on their RD noms. It kinda makes any discussion stemming from those rants "their lane". Just some friendly advice, that's all. —Bloom6132 (talk) 08:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Bloom6132, Take a step back and re-read your messages. You clearly are not getting it. In the interest of not spamming this thread any more, I will pause here. But, definitely, reread your messages on this entire sub-thread. Ktin (talk) 16:06, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

"You clearly are not getting it". That's rich coming from someone who operates under the false pretense that there was a promise to increase the number of RDs and that there is a "deliberate lack of empathy" by keeping an RD posted for only a few hours. And as Stephen aptly mentioned above, "There was no consensus for a minimum duration, and you conveniently ignore those that actively argued against any minimum". I repeat – I cannot see why any good faith editor would be in favour of delaying or stymieing other RD noms from being posted to the MP by wanting any fixed minimum time, let alone double that of the DYK norm. You get the last word – be my guest. —Bloom6132 (talk) 23:34, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Bloom6132, Last word? Here goes -- This sub-thread notwithstanding, I remain appreciative of your contributions to this project. Have a nice rest of your day. Regards. Ktin (talk) 23:42, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Personally, I preferred the old RD system of listing items in chronological order. It made the MP list more timely, and naturally adjusted to disqualify stale RDs when there was a glut of candidates. As a consequence, those posted tended to get more time in the sun than they do now. On the flip side, people didn't like variable "deadlines" to improve an RD, and wanted the fixed 7 days. Honestly, for one recent RD, I didn't update it as urgently as with the old system because I knew there was time.—Bagumba (talk) 17:48, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

  Bagumba, I hear you Bagumba. But, for all the flaws, and my own rants, I think this model is definitely better. Allows for a greater variety of articles to show up on the page. Good amount of investments in article expansion. If I just need to pipe down and let this process be, I am happy to. Do not want to break this setup. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 17:53, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment as this seems to be getting nowhere close to consensus, can I suggest that more time is spent analysing data from say the past two months, and simulate what this test approach would do compared to what actually happened. We can get a very clear idea on the outcome without actually having to "physically" test it. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:16, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

  The Rambling Man, Agree TRM. Makes sense. I can take that up the upcoming weekend. Ktin (talk) 16:26, 14 February 2021 (UTC)