Talk:Current events/Archive 15

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

The word alleged is only used when something is in doubt or is used as POV to undermine a statement.

The article starts with a (hidden) note "Please log news events in the past tense." Surely it must read "in the present tense". Or was there a recent change regarding this policy? Please advise. I suggest to write the rule in Wikipedia:How the Current events page works. --Edcolins 15:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I changed the note. --Edcolins 07:15, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I have added a proposal to merge the regional current event pages on the WikiProject talk page. Your comments and suggestions would be appreciated. joturner 02:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Another proposal has appeared on the WikiProject talk page. User:GT suggested creating a system whereby the last x number of days are always in the current events article. Although he didn't elaborate, I'll attempt to convey what he most likely meant (he can correct me later):

• Putting all events in current events into article-templates. By that I mean create an article for each new day -
  April 2005
  ) up until late-2005.

• The
  current events
  article would therefore have the following text to include all the events from today and the previous seven days:

{{:May 2, 2006}}
{{:May 1, 2006}}
{{:April 30, 2006}}
{{:April 29, 2006}}
{{:April 28, 2006}}
{{:April 27, 2006}}
{{:April 26, 2006}}
{{:April 25, 2006}}

• When an event is added to a new day (i.e. the first event is added to the May 2, 2006 article), the least recent date would be removed and that new date would be added.

• Each month article would contain the appropriate daily article-templates, looking something like...

{{:April 1, 2006}}
{{:April 2, 2006}}
{{:April 3, 2006}}
.
.
.
{{:April 29, 2006}}
{{:April 30, 2006}}

• Alternatively article names such as Current events on May 2, 2006 could be used to free up the date article names.

-- joturner 04:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Benefits

• Both the
  Current events
  article and the monthly articles would be updated simultaneously.
• There would be no monthly archiving which can be painstaking for the numerous related current events articles (e.g. Current events in the European Union)
• Uniform appearance of the page (aesthetic benefit) -Fsotrain09 23:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Drawbacks

• May be confusing to users accustomed to the old system
• Appears to advance no benefit due to complexity, programming requirements and confusing archiving system. Current system allows easy and swift access to information

• I disagree on this one. Perhaps my experience is clouding my judgement, but I don't really see removing the least recent date and adding a new date as especially difficult. And if someone doesn't know how to do something, someone else will be there to fix it (people have problems with the current page as well). And also, I'd like to point out that this was done for three years in the monthly articles. From
  featured article candidacies, and many other Wikipedia projects. It works just fine there. joturner
  23:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

• Add a new drawback here

Comments on the Proposal

• That's exactly what I had in mind. Thanks for illustrating my idea. — GT 20:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
• I support both proposals. Especially the one on merging the less accessed country current events pages into continental ones. KI 22:46, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
• Add a new comment here

News about Wikipedia

• News for wikipedia has appeared on newspaper from time to time. Most of these news are actually not any big event, but it's definitely interesting to wikipedian. For example, Jimmy Wales won a Pioneer Awards from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 3 May for his role creating and overseeing Wikipedia. The recent war on entry for Cuba also appears on newspaper. Should we add it here? --Yau 17:06, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

• I don't think so. There's a policy to
  avoid self-references within Wikipedia articles. joturner
  21:11, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Being Bold: Revising / Implementing the Previous Proposal

Don't worry; the discussion isn't over. And I wouldn't be surprised if someone decides to revert the major changes, but it was absolutely necessary (see

Community Portal

has yet to yield much input.

The input I have received was favorable. One editor mentioned that the proposal above would have been too complex and I disagreed. When I attempted to change the current events page according to the above proposal, I found that the person who stated that Appears to advance no benefit due to complexity, programming requirements and confusing archiving system was in fact correct. And so, I simplified the enacted proposal. Basically, here's the revised proposal:

• Unlike with the previous proposal, the current proposal has no article-templates. That is in accordance with the original.
• The current events page would include the sections from the last x number of days. I used fourteen in bold change because it sounded reasonable and because it demonstrated what happens between months. This is different from the original.
• When a new day is added, the least recent day is moved to its respective month page and de-linked from the current events template. If the date removed is from the previous month (as would be the case over the next few days), the number is removed completely. For example, when
  May 2006#May 1, 2006
  ). Either way. This is obviously different from the original.
• Nevertheless, there would be no monthly archival of news items (that can be quite a hassle, especially with the re-ordering). The only thing that needs to be moved are the deaths, elections, etc. on the right. This is different from the original.
• At the beginning or end of the current month's article, there is a notice that refers the reader to the
  current events
  page for items within the past fourteen days. This is different from the original.

I hope I didn't miss anything. Once again, my intention was not to impose an unilateral overhaul, but to spark discussion where there had been none before. If you agree with this proposal, which is essentially a simplified version of the previous one, that's great. If not, say so. Right now though, the monthly archival is, at least in my opinion, a pain and often overlooked (many of the regional and topical current events pages never get archived). In addition, at the start of the month, there are little to no current events even though something may have occurred the previous day. This proposal would rectify both of those issues.

If you want to take a look at what the pages would look like, you can look at the sample sample current events page and sample April 2006 article in my userspace. You may also want to look back at the previous proposal. joturner 04:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add comments, suggestions, and feedback regarding the proposal below

• I've removed "_NOEDITSECTION_". It prevents Template:Current events from getting edited from this page. -- PFHLai 19:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

• I personally believe that this implementation doesn't really help much, as it just spreads the monthly archiving hassle over a month by requiring you to manually transfer one day at a time. The nice thing about the templates was that the whole thing was automatic, especially if we could get a bot to the work for us (which wouldn't be hard to set up at all). Did you find something wrong about the templates, joturner, as I don't think the opposition to it was very well supported at all (since the templates should in fact make things much easier and clearer). — GT 16:28, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• I was all ready to implement that format, but found that it would be very difficult to explain to newer users how it would work. The bot would help out (although I think we should make sure a bot can actually do this), but there are still other issues. For instance, newer users would benefit from section edit links, but as you can see, they're all bunched up at the bottom. Perhaps that could be retified easily by moving the content on the right to the left side. So mostly it was about making it easy for new users (or even longtime users) to understand how things are supposed to work. joturner 20:53, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not going to argue over what should happen on this, the current events page, but I storgly feel that the old months pages (eg April 2006) should detail the entire month and not have to wait till the 14th of the next month. -- SGBailey 22:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• Perhaps a shorter time interval might work? Seven or eight days? joturner 23:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• And this is an instance where the article-template scheme would work better, so
  Current events can show the same events. However, I'm worried that it might be too complicated for new editors, especially when they want to start a new date. joturner
  23:46, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I suppose my original statement means that on May 1, April should become complete - even if current events includes (duplicates) many April days. If it is done as templates then that isn't a problem for me - indeed that would make swapping the newest at top of current events to oldest at top for past months easier. -- SGBailey 14:04, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I have filed a bot request to see if any current bot owners can handle the maintenance for us. If so then only thing new users would have to know how to do would be to click edit. — GT 14:29, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The Justin Gatlin World Record story has been moved from the Current Events page to the Sports page as it is a sports-related story. NoseNuggets 4:40 AM US EDT May 13 2006.

Would anyone object to moving the tables on the right to left. It might be a bit counter-intuitive to have the sidebar to the left of the text, but all those section edit links are getting bunched up at the bottom. joturner 17:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

This would also be necessary for the above proposal to be implemented (it requires that the section edit links be next to their respective sections). joturner 17:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks better on the right. Let's find another solution to the "bunching" problem. --Uncle Ed 15:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes; I noticed; that looked absolutely terrible. That's why I quickly reverted. joturner 16:02, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Never mind; that was you. We were both attempting to revert at the same time. joturner 16:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

We could always make a couple of buttons at the top, like Edit Today's News and Edit Yesterday's News, since the links are relative. How often does anyone add anything beyond the last 2 days? --Dhartung | Talk 18:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Do remember that "Edit buttons" are a preferences setting, (which I have turned off) and anything you do needs to remain working without edit buttons. -- SGBailey 10:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Why are 5/18 and 5/17's Current Events missing from the page?

There should be a separate mark-up and pre-final version of Current Events where people sandbox around and make edits, which are then submitted or approved every hour or so by a group of authorized people who can send the edits to the live version of th page. Current Events looks silly and unprofessional when entire days appear and disappear seemingly at random.

Anachron 17:38, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. That would go against the spirit of the idea of allowing (almost) everyone to edit (almost) anything. joturner 10:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. Wiki is all about the freedom of editing and this would be curtailed by granting a chosen few the right to okay the submissions of others. doktorb | words 12:11, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

• Disagree I believe that the page needs to stay accessible to all and up-to-date. A clearing-house approach would not allow for either. Kukini 21:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Further jankiness today: a silly scare-mongering headline on "chemtrails now being taught in schools!" -- obviously the author is capitalizing on the international status & readership of Wikipedia Current Events to highlight a non-event. If you read the link to the article, it turns out that ONE particular science text book happens to have a reference to chemtrails. Who knows how credible the publisher is, and how widely-distributed or used the book itself is. All indications are that it may have appeared in the hands of perhaps a few thousand students (out of tens of millions); no data on this significant point is given.

This event should be allowed to take up space and reader attention on the same page as other news items that DO merit national or international attention? I think not.

Set up a clearing house for wikipedia current events, that's my position. Anachron 18:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Just removed the offending article; 5 minutes later it had been added back by an IP-address "user". Let's get a clue and add a bit more accountability to Current Events page edits.

Anachron 18:52, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't visit this page very often, but its high visibility makes it a target for vandals. I understand the need for normal users to edit this, since it isn't guaranteed that a WP administrator who checks this page will be on soon after an important event occurs, but is it really necessary for anonymous IP's to be able to edit this page? If you have any arguments, or if I'm being a total idiot, please enlighten me. Thunk

I'd be in favour of stopping IP addresses/non-registered editors from editing this page - there are too many cases when one act of disruption can mess up the whole page...doktorb | words 19:21, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I haven't made an account yet, and my school's has a bad reputation, but I can definitely understand how it would help to protect it so only people with an account can edit it since someone might blank it or something.

I also agree - it seems to be vandalised fairly often, particularly by non-members.

ord|^queta!

17:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I come here fairly often and I've only encountered obvious vandalism once or twice. Is it that frequent a problem? Administrators can revert quickly. --Dhartung | Talk 18:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

What's the number of page views per minute / per hour for Current Events page? If it's only a few hundred views per minute, vandalism is not a big deal, but if the readership is very much higher (>1000 views a minute), even a few minutes worth of vandalism can make a large impression on those who see it, especially those who aren't familiar with the way Wikipedia works. If traffic is high, the page should be a bit more secure than it currently is. Anachron 19:01, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

"Isreal kidnaps Hamas leader in Ramallah raid." (BBC)

This seems biased to me. 128.135.62.64 16:09, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Is there a guideline on putting in articles on World Poverty? I.e. Today 24,000 children died from preventable diseases. To me this is news and is very worthy of inclusion in the current events. If there was a guideline set out for it already I can understand it being deleted, but I haven't seen one in my searches. Can anyone clear this up for me? -User:Dalta

Current events is usually reserved for current news stories with direct links to an accurate news source. If the story you are referring to has a source it can be added. doktorb | words 15:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm watching CNN International, and there has been an earthquake in Indonesia. And things are looking pretty serious. Pacific Coast Highway ^{blah • my tracks} 04:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I find the time zone list in the top right has grown too large to be helpful. I suggest replacing it by the UTC time and a link to all the other city info on a separate page. Comments? -- SGBailey 10:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Everyone wants their city listed so you won't have much luck trying to remove some of them. It doesn't matter how bad it looks like. 206.47.141.21 12:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I meant remove them all! I think I'll just do it and see what happens. -- SGBailey 13:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Two cities from each continent is enough, surely? doktorb | words 15:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

This is what I posted on SGBailey's talk page:

I agree that there were too many cities in the time zone list for the current events box, but perhaps some can be reduced instead of eliminating all of them. Although I don't really need it, others when adding an event to the current events page may use the list to help them determine which time / date the even occurred in locally. Perhaps to help restrict the number of cities, we could use primarily

Los Angeles, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, Rome, Madrid, Mexico City, São Paulo, Moscow, Seoul, Taipei, Istanbul, and Dubai

. That's twenty cities instead of the original thirty-three.

That's all I have to say for now. joturner 16:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

One problem with the list was that the display was time offset rather then local time. I've been bold and edited it. I'm now opting out of this one and I'll let others decide where it goes. (Remember that this affects all the other Current events pages that incorporate the template as well.) -- SGBailey 23:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Although I agree that ordinary sporting events do not belong on Current events, the Barry Bonds feat deserves mention as it is a historic event, in that he has passed Babe Ruth into second place all time in the home run statistics. Ruth held the record for many years before it was surpassed, and Bonds is the current home run hitting leader. His tying of Ruth didn't deserve a mention here, but his passing, I believe, does, as it's not just a US event, but noteworthy to baseball fans on at least three continents. Let me put this another way: If Bonds is removed, all mention of the World Cup should not be allowed, either. User:Zoe|^(talk) 17:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

i've already noticed this 'news' in sports news page. Next to it there are news about formula one. Almost every race weekend gives us a number of records. Some of them are fairly historical. do we see them on a world news page? we don't. And we shouldn't in my opinion. The question is why! Probably because of number of F1 one residing in US and being WP admins and own POV pusher is equal to zero? Or because there are some people following the rules? In any way information on highly specific topic, having one reference (6 lines long) does not deserv being presented on a world news page. -- tasc ^talk_deeds 18:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Tasc on the Bonds one; anything that can fit at

)

because it did not affect any country yet. Because, no even storm warnings were activated. nothing!!! happened. it rained, nothing more. -- tasc ^talk_deeds 10:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Uh, you're incorrect. Tropical storm watches and warnings were in effect for over 36 hours for most of Mexico's southwestern coastline.

T+C) at 13:18 UTC (2006-05-31

)

Thanks

It's not like every sporting event shows up here, just the historic ones, and hitting 715 is historic. If we are going to remove all of the sporting events from Current events, then why even have a current events page, just edit each of the individual pages -- Current events in the United States, Current events in Africa, etc. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I definitely oppose putting Barry Bonds' and similar personal achievements on the main page current events, but it seems this would be newsworthy for inclusion into the general pool of current events. It is worth putting here not because of the achievement itself, but because of the attention the achievement has received. As an analogous example, Kobe Bryant's 81 points generated weeks of discussion, and as one can expect it is part of the record for January 2006. Not many non-sports fans know Ray Allen set the record number of three-point field goals in one season and moved into second place for the most ever this year--historic records in their own right--yet I'm confident many non-sports fans are aware of the records Kobe Bryant and Barry Bonds set simply because of all the hoopla they garnered. When reflecting on what 2006 was all about, such records may be some of the things that come to people's mind in the future, sports fan or not.—jiy (talk) 23:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see how it's "trivia." The June 3 blurb is continuing up on an ongoing news story.

) 23:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the first entry on that topic may be somehow newsworthy, but at least from an European perspective, it's not really "Current events" to learn how told what about this ongoing legal case. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 23:24, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Understandable. I'd like to hear other opinions as well as to how newsworthy it is. I know we're not the only two folks here right now. ;-)

talk | contribs

) 23:29, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Appearance of this page

This page is unreadable on a Macintosh. Using Safari I see a huge (I mean HUGE) black rectangle down the right side of the page. Using Firefox I see a HUGE black semicircle on the left side. In both cases the black sits on top of text and large white gaps are left too. I suspect non-standard Javascript. 202.45.98.61 13:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, for some reason the vandalism on the template went unnoticed (which seems hard to imagine since it looked so incredibly awful), but I've fixed it so should be fine now. Cheers, jaco♫plane 14:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's now fine. Thanks for your help. 202.45.98.61 23:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

is it notable that tuseday june sixth 2006 could be written 06-06-06 (666, number of the beast)?--Wan30ate 01:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Kinda, and kinda not. Everyone says it's just superstition. But still, I'm pretty much hell-bound in any case. :p Pacific Coast Highway ^{(blah • typa-typa)} 23:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's notable because for this one day, no one is going to get confused between the different

date formats. On 07-06-06 (tomorrow, but you might read that as next month, or next year) we're back to the same old confusion.-gadfium

23:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I read it as tomorrow (well, two days from now

Canadian. Pacific Coast Highway ^{(blah • typa-typa}

) 23:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that people think the world will end because The Omen is released today, somneone delete that, it is advertising IMO Vohod 20:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. -Fsotrain09 20:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Just as a belated point of interest, according to

Bart Ehrman several of the oldest Greek manuscripts give a number other than 666 in this famous passage from the book of Revelation--616 for example, though other numbers around 600 occur as well. DSatz

15:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Reform needed

As May turned into June we had the same old problems.

08:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The Omen

There should be something here about the release of "the omen." It was strategically released on 6/6/06. I'm actually surprised there wasn't some unusual news on the home page today about 6/6/06 related events.

The release date doesn't make it news. Movies don't appear on the current events page because they are not news.-gadfium 02:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The original intention for the usage of {{current}} does not seem to match the current usage. I am trying to get some ideas of how to manage this and the backlog it is generating. See Template_talk:Current#Policy_for_using_.7B.7Bcurrent.7D.7D for discussion, any comments appreciated. GameKeeper 16:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I added this to the news, since I think a meteorite hitting with the force of an atomic bomb is notable enough.--Kross^Talk 21:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I returned to

less than a week ago:

For the broadcast news genre, see Current affairs (news format).

IMHO this was an overreaching

.

One reason to do is is that Current events seems to fit the Wikipedia:Portal definition:

The idea of a portal is to help readers and/or editors manoeuvre their way through Wikipedia topic areas through pages similar to the Main Page. In essence, portals are useful entry-points to Wikipedia content.

Other reasons include:

• helping to clarify a distinction between what belongs here vs. Wikinews, a topic debated before (e.g. "promote content and encourage contribution");
• better distinguishing it from traditional encyclopedia articles (e.g. no prefatory disambiguation links required, not even one for Current Events);
• encouraging the introduction of good practices from
  current events
  layout suggests no need to rush into anything.

One reason against may be the work to make the namespace change may not be worth the effort, particularly if it impacts the current events archive process (assuming its more than moving

).

I decided to broach this topic here as opposed to the Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals list. What do you think? Thanks. Kayaker 04:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC).

• It's fairly inevitable I think that Current events will one day become a portal– the question is how to do this wisely and smoothly. It would be great if we had a proposed detailed structure or working mock-up.--Pharos 21:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I support this idea. The layout of the

Current sports events should be integrated with Portal:Sports and games, etc. Doing that would be mutually beneficial to the Portals and to the Current events pages. -Aude (talk | contribs

) 21:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The only thing on the

Current events page that I think needs sprucing up is the "Other current events" box. It should highlight the portals that have news sections (e.g. Portal:Australia, Portal:Politics...) for such topics. -Aude (talk | contribs

) 21:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I support this, as per Kmf164. PHF 15:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Was bold and spruced up the "Other current events" box, adding a couple portal links - politics and business - that have current events. (though, the Business portal needs attention) -Aude (talk | contribs) 21:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Turning

23:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I see enough positive comments that I have proposed this on Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals while working on a mockup. Please direct further discussion there. Thanks. Kayaker 22:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC).

• U.S. military kicking him in the chest. (The Sunday Times)

In the article it does not say at all clearly state the military killed him by kicking him and its extremely hypothetical to assume a kick to the chest killed him when most likely the bombs that were dropped on him that gave him a head injury and caused excessive bleeding would have more of an effect. But again, whom am I to assume that the bombs did the most critical damage, its best left to leave the guessing alone and simply state he was kicked and interrogated. I changed the section to this below.

• U.S. military before his subsequent death. (The Sunday Times)

- Patman2648 06:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Hear that? Thats the worlds smallest violin and its playing just for Zarqawi. --Kross^Talk 20:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is there a huge white space at the top of this page? User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

There was some duplicate text at the top left over from when User:Mrmanhattanproject screwed up the article for some reason. That might have had something to do with it, although I didn't see any huge white space even before I erased it. Maybe it has to do with your browser settings? All I see is a one-inch white space between "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" and the "to suggest a relevant news story" notice, but I wouldn't call that huge. Or do you mean there's a huge white space at the top of this Talk page? I don't see anything here, either.--Mr. Billion 00:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm getting the same huge white space as Zoe.--Kross^Talk 01:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I uploaded a handy image here.--Kross^Talk 01:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I come to this page every day, and the huge white space wasn't there yesterday. I see it both at work and at home. I'm using IE at both places. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm. It isn't there in Firefox. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur.--Kross^Talk 02:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It was

Template:Current events box that did it, by simple having an extra empty line at the end of the boxes. A phenomen I have noticed many times before. Not sure why it does that. Twthmoses

10:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Sweet. Well caught. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Is reaching a number a significant event?

If so, does this number refer to all coalition forces?

If not, then it should at least say US Armed Forces, not the US Army. The US Army does NOT include the US Marines, the US Air Force, and the US Navy.

---mnw2000

The US Supreme Court has nine members, and a 5-4 vote is pretty common. We often see one of those five mentioned as the "tie breaker," as if the others in the majority were somehow counted differently.

The underlying assumption is that the "tie breaker" was more on the fence about how to vote than the others were. I see this as a very non-NPOV assumption. Comments?

SkyDot 22:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

According to this, the vote was 4-4 after O'Connor left, and before Alito joined the court. Alito's vote did actually break the tie. User:Zoe|^(talk) 22:42, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I notice people keep leaving definite articles, forms of "to be", and other words out of their entries for Current Events. These entries are not headlines and there are no space restrictions. There is no reason to do that.

*Wikipedia editor doesn't know how to use words like "and", "of", "the", and forms of "to be". Source of problem not known. Other editors not know why do that.

When I notice people leaving out words like that for no reason, I think, "Holy crap, what idiot."
From

14:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone clarify the procedure

I recently updated the Current events page with the merger news of Arcelor and Mittal Steel. This is also a requirement for suggesting candidates for the Main Page. However, my edit was reverted, probably because this page is moderated (though not protected). Can anyone explain how to proceed if one wants to suggest news for current events? Last time I suggested one for the main page without listing here, I was told to first put it here. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:25, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

News 1) should be notable (which was ok in your case). 2) should be referenced. (what hasn't been done). Fix it, and news will stay. Cheers. -- tasc ^talk_deeds 18:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

In this particular case, I believe that you didn't include a link to the news source reporting the event. It was probably removed because somebody had not heard of the companies involved and there was no link to check on it. Most company mergers wouldn't be important enough to list here, but this one may well be. I think the merger will produce either the largest or second largest steel producer in the world and I've seen reports of the negotiations previously on the BBC. Try adding it again with sources. If you can supply something like BBC and CNN links it would mark the event as relatively important, though others may disagree and remove it again. Current events is for major international stories and people will have different views on what constitutes such. --GraemeL ^(talk) 18:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I have noticed a slight bias in the choice of words used to describe the mutual capturing of Isreali and Palastinians around Gaza. Words such as "kidnapped" and "arrested" imply a value judgement on the action. While all these capturings could be described as 'kidnapping' it is incorrect to describe any, whether carried out by Hamas or the IDF as 'arrests', as this implies some application of law. I think use of the neutral word 'capture' is best. Seabhcán 12:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Words used as they should be used. Word 'capture' in not better. -- tasc ^words_deeds 12:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Why use 'Kidnap' for what the Palestinians do, and 'arrest' for what the IDF do? Its biased. Seabhcán 13:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Arrest: To take into custody by legal authority.

Kidnap: confinement without legal authority.

Capture: the act of taking of a person by force

It is clear that neither Hamas nor the IDF have any 'legal authority' to take these actions. Thus the use of the word 'arrest' is incorrect. I suggest we either use the word 'kidnap' or 'capture' consistently for all such events. Seabhcán 13:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

what makes you think that IDF had no such authority? -- tasc ^words_deeds 13:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

To 'arrest' ministers of a foreign government on foreign soil? Who could have given them this authority, themselves? If Hamas gave themselves the authority to capture people in Israel, wouldn't that make it an 'arrest' too? Seabhcán 13:28, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Its not wikipedia's place to make these kinds of value judgements. Its far better to remain neutral.Seabhcán 13:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Foreign government and foreign soil - are pov. Well hamas didn't, did it? -- tasc ^words_deeds 14:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

what makes you think that IDF Hamas had no such authority? Seabhcán 15:25, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Tasc, You have failed to convince me that the use of these words in not POV - I'm going to change it back. Seabhcán 16:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't have to convince you. I hope you understand this simple thing. -- tasc ^words_deeds 16:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Tasc, the words are biased, and wikipedia policy of is clear on POV. Please explain why you think these words are not biased - you do need to convince me, I'm afraid. You don't have ownership of this page. Seabhcán 16:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It's your claim that the words are biased. I don't see how they biased at all. PA (+ Hamas) and Israel are not equal entities. -- tasc ^words_deeds 16:55, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

How so? They are both parties to the same conflict. Its not for wikipedia to judge which is right and which is wrong. Seabhcán 17:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

"Arrest" directly implies the authority to detain a person or persons, and "kidnapping" directly implies that the detaining party does not have legal authority to do so, thus being a crime. --Blututh 23:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. By using the word 'arrest' we wikipedians are awarding one side a legality they don't have. It is not NPOV. It should be changed. Seabhcán 23:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe the NPOV term of art is usually "detained". The IDF detained members of Hamas. (The word is simply the Latin-root version of "hold".) --Dhartung | Talk 19:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Detained is fine so long as we use the same word for when Hamas 'detain' someone. Seabhcán 22:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

What did happen to this - has it been put out? (I know - a "questions on items recently in the news" page would soon get very large.)

Jackiespeel 17:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I remember that it was put out later that same day. Seabhcán 09:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

As can been seen in an earlier comment (

}}), and am close to being able to make the switch happen.

You'll note the two visible differences between

, was included. The maturity of the the existing layout was a strong discouragement to engage in any wider redesign (though once the transition occurs who knows what the community will prefer).

The steps remaining include:

1. Make some minor changes to Wikipedia:How to archive Current Events
2. Redirect
   Current events to Portal:Current events
   .
3. (insert forgotten steps here)
4. Update currentevents-url in quickbar

AFAIK, the transition could be timed to happen when the transition from June to July happens in a few hours. Of course I could be missing something, so please speak up if you know of anything. I have already asked for feedback on what I've missed several times, including on this talk page, at Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals, and at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Portal:Current_events?.

Thanks—Kayaker 20:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC).

I've documented some near-term (as opposed to immediate) steps here and am looking for anything else that others can identify. I'll maintain the to-do list there instead of here.Thanks—Kayaker 22:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC).

I'm about to begin the migration steps, as listed at User:Kayaker/To Do List (Current events portal). Kayaker 00:00, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

I'm afraid I don't have time to check everything, but the whole process looks very well organised. Have you considered having the creation of this portal advertised somewhere where such things are advertised? Community Portal? List of Portals? Signpost? Carcharoth 02:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Montenegro what's new in podgorice?

Whatildes (68.110.96.103 04:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)).

---

t is new in Montenegro? How are the people reacting to the separation from Serbia?

I feel this page would be improved if the relevant date is inserted for each event.

Johnbibby 15:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The external links in the entry for December 28, 2006 (Thursday) have been vandalized, and all point to someone's blog. Uly 06:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting it. I've fixed it. Please see

WP:RV if you would like to fix such vandalism yourself in the future.-gadfium

08:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

Someone has posted a picture of the moon and a message that says that "the moon is going to crash into earth". This must be removed immediately. 67.188.172.165 19:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Why has there not been any front page coverage of the Canadian Liberal leadership race or the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leadership races? - 00:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

These pages especially the sub-pages for individual regions are at least a month out of date, and don't really cover current events at all. --71.113.171.48 04:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I decided to make a few changes to the beginning of this talk page in order to emphasize that the semi-protection of the portal is permanent because of the portal's complexity rather than ongoing deliberate vandalism. I also thought it was important to quickly let potential contributors know that the protection is not meant to discourage people from adding new current events. 66.167.253.16 20:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC).

Good call. -- tariqabjotu 03:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Unless it changed while I was putting this edit up, I see no reference to Milton Friedman's death, he was a great and well-known Nobel prize winning economist. I've only heard it through secondary sources, however, so if anyone runs by a source, could they put up a mention of it? Thanks. Fephisto 04:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It's in the "recent deaths" section, on the right hand side.-gadfium 04:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Where's the rest of Europe on the current events page? The rest of the world is accounted for but for some reason Europe and Russia (excluding Britain and Ireland) aren't there. Kae1is 18:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I would assume that no one has volunteered to create and maintain such a page. Latin America is missing too, also Canada and substantial parts of Asia. Actually, there are Portal:Latin_America/In_the_news/2006 and 2006 in Canada, which could be converted to pages of the current events portal as some point.-gadfium 20:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't the thing about Michael Richards seem somewhat out of place among all these other news items? --CF90 23:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

There needs to be a significant edit to the Micheal Richards page, as it has be determined, and aired on the Today show by Matt Lauer, that the two men who heckled Richards did not respond with racist comments in response to his diatribe. Those comments came from other patrons in the club. To let that stand and not allow it to be corrected is a travesty of justice, and a provocatively racist omission. User: Rousedabout 18:40, 24 November, 2006 (MT)

I'm not sure about it being out of place among the other news items; what I'm perplexed about is the issue being made about Richards' outburst, which I agree he was totally wrong, but nothing is ever said or heard about the continuous use of those very same words in untold numbers of rap songs being produced, if that is even a fair description of the final product, by black artists where they refer to each other much as Richards did on that fateful evening....

Swat253 02:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Apparently the Nepali peace treaty occured on the 22^nd local time, but probably on the 21^st UTC. Which time zone should we go by, for future reference? – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 20:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Local time. -- tariqabjotu 00:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC) True!--Darrendeng 09:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

How does one, as an "unestablished" user, go about correcting translation infelicities on this page of the currently appearing "cargo train" (should be AmE/BrE "freight/goods train") type? -- Picapica 23:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to be an "established" user to fix such things. Just use the edit button on that day's date. Make sure you leave an edit summary explaining that "cargo train" is not a commonly used English term, and

goods train as a redirect to the other term.-gadfium

00:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

"Spill"?

What does 'spill' - in the Dec 1 article on Kim Beaseley - mean?

I was wondering about that too (can't track down a definition that applies). From the context, though, it seems to be the Aussie equivalent to "shakeup" or "re-org", such that the leadership relinquishes their positions and new elections are held. Like when Newt Gingrich left the US Congress, or when Tony Blair, steps down, there will have to be a new election.  Schweiwikist   (talk)  00:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Brussels is not in Germany.

08:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

There's some vandalism on this page, but I do not know how it is formatted and so I can not revert. Someone with knowledge, please revert! Thanks --Gphoto^talk 02:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The LRA is not Islamic. Generally only Christian's call God "Lord". I don't think they are considered a terrorist organization either as they are a full para-military group engaging in active warfare closer to that of South American guerrillas or Maoist rebels in India. —The preceding

) 04:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

The LRA is an Islamic terrorist organization. They pray towards

Qur'an their holy book. They do not target Muslims on religious and political grounds. KazakhPol

19:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I don't know how to do formal Wiki editing. Anyway, if you look at the Wikipedia article on the LRA it doesn't mention anything about Islam other than they are allied with Islamic groups. They follow Joseph Kony's flavor of the Acholi religious syncretism and Biblical millenarianism. They used to be called Uganda Peoples' Democratic Christian Army. This is the only thing about praying to Mecca "It was a strange religion Kony adhered to. He prayed to the God of the Christians on Sundays reciting the Rosary and quoting the bible; but he also did the Al-Jummah prayer on Fridays, like the Muslims. He celebrated Christmas, but he also fasted for 30 days during Ramadan and prohibited the consumption of pork." Its all in the wikipedia article. 71.56.121.28 00:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a major story and should be mentioned on the current events page if someone has the time. [1] KazakhPol 19:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Something's not right with the code of the page or one of the transcluded pages, can someone take a look? – Chacor 01:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

This was it. -- tariqabjotu 01:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting how in the western media, there has been little to no coverage of the protests happening in Lebanon. The protests have been going on for 10 days now. On Sunday Dec. 10, 2006, over 1.5 million people were in the streets of Beirut calling for the government to resign and for new elections to be held. For a country with a population of only 3.5 million, that's quite a statement. Do the math. It's certainly a newsworthy event.

00:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I was just reading the news here and noticed a headline that the Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that "assasinations" of palestinian militants were legal under international law. I didn't think much of it. I was reading other pages for a few minutes and then decided to reload the page to see if anything new had been entered. The page reloaded and I noticed something was different. I tried to figure out what it was and realized that the headline had been removed. I looked at the history to try to see who had removed it and I couldn't find that it had ever been entered! It was like something straight out of 1984. I googled Israeli Supreme Court in the news and voila, the story came up. I don't know who put the story in or who removed it, but I'm replacing the story. Any comments? Thoughts? Information about who could have done this? It seems like someone doesn't want the story to be known. --Cdogsimmons 16:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I just don't understand how this page works. Where do the headlines come from? --Cdogsimmons 16:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I figured it out. Each day has it's own editing page. My bad. I still don't think this headline should have been removed though. Maybe worded differently but here's what it said, "The Supreme Court of Israel decides that the targeted assassination of Palestinian militants by the Israeli military can be legal under international law." However, I see now that the link was bad. I'll replace it with a good one. Sorry for making a mountain out of a molehill. --Cdogsimmons 16:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Why u b protected?

"You are not juts a nincompoop, but a red haired, purple smock wearing nincompoop" Where is this coming from? -

01:43, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

please, fix it somebody. (user:tasc) --132.73.80.117 09:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

hm, it's gone. it wasn't in the portal page probably. (user:tasc) --132.73.80.117 09:49, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I noticed someone changed the James Brown story link to the BBC rather than to the AP story at Yahoo News.

I'd like to point out that the AP is, in my view, the best and most-neutral source of news around, and its stories run verbatim on Yahoo. I don't think there's a need to replace the AP stories with BBC ones.

Just my 2¢ -- Mwalcoff 21:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

See http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2099971.ece and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohachara_Island Perhaps this is worthy of In The News. -- Evertype·✆ 00:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

There's been a discussion on Slashdot about this story. It appears not to be connected with global warming. See [2] for one of several posts criticising the article, or read the whole discussion at [3].-gadfium 01:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The loss of an inhabited island due to whatever cause seems worthy of In The News nevertheless. -- Evertype·✆ 13:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. The story might be a little late for ITN, since according to our article (and the Slashdot discussion I linked to above) the island became "permanently flooded" in the 1980s.-gadfium 21:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Before someone deletes it again, allow me to make the case that James Brown, as the preeminent figure in African-American music of the 60s and 70s, is one of those people whose death deserves to be mentioned in the text and not simply listed on the side. -- Mwalcoff 11:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Second that, although it's dying down now.

Ditto, the newscycle's about dead now. Just H 02:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a births and deaths section would be good for the front page. Just H 01:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Please add the link to the Occitan page oc:Actualitats Thanks, and Happy New Year.

Done.-gadfium 21:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)