Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 109

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Archive 105 Archive 107 Archive 108 Archive 109 Archive 110

Incentivizing Reviewers

Is it time to think of incentivizing reviewers in some form? Did some number-crunching on non-blurb nominations last night. In 2023, we received an average of ~120 nominations each month and our posting ratio was ~60%. In 2022, we incidentally received the same average of ~120 nominations each month, but, our posting ratio was ~80%. (Link to summary: here)

There are quite a few things going on here.

Posting admins: We do know that the number of posting admins is low. I have not crunched those numbers to see if they have improved (or declined, or remained the same) in the second half of 2023.

Article reviewers: Empirically, I see that the number of article reviewers per nomination (non-blurb nominations) has reduced. Should crunch the numbers to see how this has changed.

Time-to-first-comment and Time-to-post: Somewhat linked to the above, empirically, I see that this has declined (i.e., time has increased). Have not done the numbers here, but, I suspect this is tied to the above point i.e., decline in article reviewers.

Would love to unpack the numbers. My personal sense is that we need to incentivize reviewers, or the other way round -- force nominators to assist with the reviews. E.g., QPQs that the DYK project relies on.

PS1: I do know that a higher percentage of our 2022 nominations were also nominated on the Wikicup board and can explain a higher % of conversions that year.(~80% thru October 2022, and ~68% in November-December 2022)
PS2: I also know that conversion % is most directly explained by nominators not going through and addressing quality issues.

@Usernamekiran and @Thriley or even others, if you folks have a few cycles, I would love to to take your assistance in crunching some of the above numbers. Ktin (talk) 16:27, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not convinced a lack of reviewers is the problem. It only takes one person to point out that an article is sub-par, but many of them never get significantly improved beyond the state in which they were nominated. Nominating and reviewing is relatively trivial, improving and referencing is hard. Stephen 21:43, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
Agree with almost all of what you have written. You might be right about the first statement as well. I think getting some of those additional data-points might tell us something more. Ktin (talk) 22:55, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
I remember when Meat Loaf and David Crosby didn’t make it to RD due to lack of community interest in sourcing. I’ve thought it would be wise to identify well-known individuals - former heads of state, musicians, film actors, etc who are at risk of dying soon and preemptively fix their articles up so there is less to do when they die. Citing every film, song, award can be tedious, especially with a seven day or less window. Thriley (talk) 23:08, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
The problem with this has been lax following of BLP, which requires mire immaculate sourcing compated to other topics. Typically more common with celebrities compared to politicans, athleyes, and academics. We need editors in the areas of music and entertainment to know undersourced articles arent acceptable while BLP applies (while they are active in their careeres) Masem (t) 23:18, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
I agree, but some of these articles and their lack of sources go back to the early days. Meat Loaf was created in 2002 and Crosby in 2003. It often seems that people who had most of their career pre-internet have the most trouble getting to RD. Thriley (talk) 23:36, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
Are you counting RD nominations? RDs almost never get the interest of a blurb, unless the RD is itself also up for a blurb. I think that most RDs nominated have quality issues. I've said in the past that RD should be split from ITN/C completely (perhaps there could be an RD/C), which could possibly drive interest in RD article improvements since it would have a dedicated project page. JM (talk) 01:46, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
WP:RD/C is taken. But yeah, something like that I support. I'd also like to (one day) see Politics get its own special bubble. InedibleHulk (talk
) 03:39, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
Yes, at this point-in-time, all non-blurb nominations on
WP:ITNC is the problem. In fact, if anything I would hypothesize that separating will further reduce the availability of reviewers. Ktin (talk
) 04:08, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
The nominal incentive at ITN is an {{ITN notice}}. This credit at ITN is supposed to go to the nominator and the creator/updaters of the article. But consider the current headline article: Abdication of Margrethe II. The person who did the bulk of the work for this was Peter Ormond. But they got no credit. The nominator did no work on the article but they got no credit either. So, there's no functioning incentive for article work at ITN.
ITN compares poorly with DYK, where lots of new articles are created, nominated and posted every day and they all go through a reasonably thorough review process. Lots of editors seem to do this specifically for DYK. They get updates during the process and a formal acknowledgement when the article is posted, as it usually is. There's then a variety of
Hall of Fame. The OP provided some ITN stats but there seems to be no equivalent kudos or egoboo
.
Andrew🐉(talk) 14:31, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
You can nominate any new article about any topic to DYK. You can't do that for ITN. I can nominate UAAP Season 86 basketball tournaments (when it was a new article and I work on it having prose) at DYK and it will be posted. I can't expect the same article be posted here at ITN lol.
ITN blurbs also stay for days. There are no shortage of ITN reviewers because of this (this is also why nobody reviews RDs, unless a blurb is in play). As what you have demonstrated here, non-ITN blurbed articles that were in the news still get tons of views over articles which are actually listed. Therefore, a "spike" in views cannot be mostly attributed to its Main Page appearance.
DYK reviewers actually have a shortage of reviewers, that's why they force nominators to review someone else's nomination. A "spike" in views from a DYK article is almost always due to its Main Page appearance; the same cannot be said for ITN. That means their stats and tables are mostly attributed to its appearance in the Main Page.
I suppose ITN regulars don't really care about these "blurbs", as they all well know that not all articles are created equally, at least when ITN is concerned. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
Lack of reviewers is the result of a deeper problem, which is that too many of the current reviewers will squash any nomination for the smallest of flaws. Sorry, but "I see an uncited sentence" is not a good reason to keep an article off the front page. Neither is "the update is only one sentence long". Minor problems like that are more likely to get fixed if the article appears on the front page, where more editors will see them. Instead, the squashing of new articles results in an ITN that is constantly stale, and has the self-reinforcing effect of demotivating potential contributors. The current ITN—which sometimes clings to entries for multiple weeks after they've left the news cycle—is really a sad shadow of what it was at its inception, when "entries were created and put on the Main Page within minutes" of the relevant news items. Remember: we aren't curating articles to go into a museum. If an article appears on ITN that you think is subpar, then fix it yourself or promote a different article so that the article you don't like falls off the front page faster. Don't throw every nomination into the trash while waiting for perfection. Einsof (talk) 14:41, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
No one expects perfection, and there is no deadline for posting items. I don't think eschewing quality to get more items posted is in the project's best interest. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:20, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Lack of reviewers is the result of a deeper problem, which is that too many of the current reviewers will squash any nomination for the smallest of flaws It doesn't seem like there is a "lack of reviewers" if there are enough reviewers who "squash" nominations by investing time to identify points of improvement. It's more of a lack of persistent editors to follow up. —Bagumba (talk) 02:01, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
Leaving up stale items is itself an act of eschewing quality that is not in the project's interests. Einsof (talk) 02:42, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Throwing out an idea for brainstorming

Going off one of the !votes for the Emmys, it seems to make sense that for stories that are to be blurbed, that if we cannot get agreement whether to post a blurb nomination (not ongoing nor normal RDs) within a few days of the actual event, less than the current seven that we allow for, that we should close that nomination and move on, because it doesn't make sense to pose blurbs that are already a few days stale.
Now, that triggers a lot of other ideas, such as specifically putting RD noms into their own section so it is clear their 7 days period still holds, that we make sure that we're using the date that an event breaks in the mass media to judge the date of a blurb, that we encourage articles to be at a higher quality state before ITNC nomination for a blurb to avoid waiting on quality improvements to catch up with consensus on significance, and possibly even start considering to lower the bar a degree for posting blurbs as long as the article is already at high quality when it enters the queue (This would also reflect on RD Blurbs, that the article should be at a high quality point with minimal fuss if we're to consider that). There's probably a whole host of issues I have not considered so I am only tossing out this idea of potentially limiting the time for consideration of blurbs, and see if there's any brainstorming around that.
I should add this should not be a reason to post blurbs faster for events that have just happened and that we are waiting for more details to have a better article, as oft in the case of natural disasters or mass killings. — Masem (t) 01:27, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:ITNA allows leeway for addressing quality issues:

Nominations with "fixable" opposition (e.g. the nominated article needs more references) should be allowed to remain open.

Being that blurbs are infrequently posted as it is, while stale blurbs remain on the MP, I don't support raising the bar further. —Bagumba (talk
) 01:43, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
I would support separating blurbs and RD (as usual), even if its just separating them into separate sections on ITN/C. No comment on the rest of the proposal. JM (talk) 08:54, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Some events have continuing coverage which lasts longer than a day while others just have a brief burst. Per
    WP:NEWSEVENT
    , we should not emphasise the latter. Having a seven-day window may help in deciding which is which.
RDs usually just have a brief burst of coverage when the death is announced and the readership usually spikes on the announcement and then falls off rapidly. It's only the deaths which are controversial or high-impact which generate continuing coverage and interest.
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:45, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
RDs are a "whole other story", as they require no actual story. A classical manager whose RD is sourced to a fine-but-late newsletter or website is just as eligible after however many days as a pop songbird from 1970s America (The Loudest Generation). But yeah, a blurb (even a death) starts Weakensupporting from the moment it's reported if there's no articulable impact on people beyond those pictured (and theirs). InedibleHulk (talk) 22:04, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
The point is that we're supposed to be reporting what's "in the news". Take a case like Melanie (singer). There's currently coverage but I don't expect it to last long and so, unless some surprising detail emerges, her death won't be in the news for long. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
That's the pop songbird I meant, but my point is that we're not supposed to consider whether RDs are in the news. Plenty have been posted with one obit, sometimes not even from a "real" newspaper, several days after all has been said that can be. What only matters for that third of the box is whether the article sucks. Items in the other two sections are held to higher standards, for reasons that have never made sense to me but reasons I nonetheless believe exist and make sense to others since 2016. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:18, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
From what I understand, the reason is that RDs already have a notability threshold ("has a Wikipedia article", which implies the subject is GNG). Although on the other hand, blurbs with new articles associated to them don't always pass ITN significance, so I'm just as confused as you. ChaotıċEnby(talk · contribs) 20:53, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't claim to be confused, just saying these here reasons have never made sense, to me. That's also not to say I think following the consensus apparently determined back when doesn't make sense. It does, regardless of how the winning side came to vote as they did. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:05, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Any existing bio (presumably already notable, by virtue of page existing) being inherently significant enough for RD was a compromise to address persistent squabbles on who was "notable enough" for an RD post. —Bagumba (talk) 23:47, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
I see that Melanie (singer) has been posted now, seven days after the nomination. This made little difference to the readership, which is mostly driven by the subject being in the news. In such cases, it's best to post immediately as this helps alert experienced editors to the hot topic while it's getting lots of attention. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
It was posted on 31 Jan 10:43, and even with only about 1/2 day on the MP that day, the readers increased by ~13,000 from the prior day, and that's not even accounting for readership naturally declining daily since her death was announced. There is definitely some impact to the readership from being on the MP. —Bagumba (talk) 15:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't see how this will work, reducing the timeframe for posting blurbs will mean that we will either have rushed blurbs, or less blurbs in general, which isn't ideal in either case. ITN's problem is certainly not that we have too many old blurbs that are posted, if anything they already get less attention and can easily get forgotten if consensus isn't there after 2 or 3 days. ChaotıċEnby(talk · contribs) 10:56, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Disagree. If we have older blurbs in the box then anything newer should be on the table, IMO. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:24, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
One procedural barrier is that old nominations are swept off ITNC by a bot after 7 days. In theory, a blurb deemed significant but lacking quality seems like it can be given more time than 7 days if older blurbs still remain on the MP. We just need to agree on the logistics of where to place the nom after 7 days. —Bagumba (talk) 23:54, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Could we just create a new page for those noms? Either way, I don't think that issue in particular is a major one. We don't always have a blurb that is older than a week anyway. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Agree that it's not major. If we want to fix it, something will come up. Until then, it'll continue to be auto archived, and effectively out of sight. —Bagumba (talk) 01:16, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Do we have data on how often this scenario happens? I do not recall seeing much of this happening. Ktin (talk) 23:13, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
To throw another idea, particularly given something like the current story on the PM Khan that's taken time to clean up, I would think that for ITNR items which we know well in advance they will happen on a specific day or around a set of days (For example: the upcoming Super Bowl (Sunday after next), or the NBA Finals (which take from 4 to 7 games to complete)) that it should be expected that the article is all but there save for summarizing the event itself (a recap of the game, the summary of an awards show and its presentation, etc.) If the article is nowhere close (as for example the recent tennis article) and doesn't improve within a few days of the event, that will grow stale quickly.
On the other hand, for events that happen, ITNR or not, where it was not expected or did not have a clear time frame, then a full 7 day run should be allowed for article improvements. — Masem (t) 05:30, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
The oldest ITN blurb on the MP currently is already 2+ weeks old. It's not an improvement to further discourage more recent items from being posted. —Bagumba (talk) 07:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Inclusion of
ITN/R

The

ITN/R under Economic and political summits , so why not G20? Harvici (talk
) 11:18, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Last year's G7 was not posted due to disputes over it's place at ITN/R, and the discussion regarding removal of G7 was 12-3 in favor of removal when it rolled off (somehow) as no-consensus (see: ITN Talkpage Archive 102). If anything, we should be removing G7. DarkSide830 (talk) 04:14, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
Any of these international summits have typically not be posted unless there is some significant resolution that is made by the end of the conference (something akin to the Paris Agreement). Most of the time, it is just hot air with very little progress made that result in significant changes to the rest of the world. Masem (t) 05:24, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
Maybe in the past when actual issues of great importance were debated and resolved these summits would have been worthwhile, but nowadays they're just expensive high-profile junkets with little actual newsworthiness attached to them. That doesn't forever foreclose their posting on ITN, and if a major political development occurred at a G20 summit in Year X such as the development of a formal strategic treaty (and I'm not sure even then given how something such as the Kyoto Protocol has been scrapped in recent years), then it'd be worth posting in that instance. But apart from that, the event itself is not inherently notable enough to constitute ITN/R. Duly signed, WaltClipper -(talk) 14:01, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
I do think these events are very appropriate to post if we have very detailed and well-written articles on them, but I understand wanting some high standards for it. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:16, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Seems like a reasonable idea. Certainly more important than some of the obscure sports finals we post This post was made by orbitalbuzzsaw gang (talk) 18:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Posting RD Jesse Baird

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.



@Admins willing to post ITN: Any chance that the RD nom for Jesse Baird be IAR posted as the nomination has only just recently scrolled off the page and all issues recently brought up have been addressed. Happily888 (talk) 00:24, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I will not post bios with an unreferenced DOB. Schwede66 00:27, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
I have added ref to age, which was further down in article. I was under impression that the infobox parameters don't need refs, as they are meant to be a summarisation of information in the article, so the refs are already further down in the prose section. Happily888 (talk) 00:34, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
You are correct that infobox parameters don't need references when the info is already referenced in the body. The body of the article does not contain the info when he was born, though. Hence it was unreferenced and hence my refusal to touch it. I'll give it a read now and if it's ok, I'll post it. Schwede66 00:42, 1 March 2024 (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.

Super Bowl LVIII

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.


As most of you know, Super Bowl LVIII (58) has recently concluded, and I would like to bring it up as it is the largest sporting event in the United States. The Kansas City Chiefs won 25-22 against the San Francisco 49ers in overtime. I hope you guys consider this idea! 136.33.182.23 (talk) 06:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

This topic is already under discussion in the proper venue,
WP:ITNC. It will be posted once the article has received a quality update, but feel free to contribute to the discussion there. 331dot (talk
) 08:12, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
I remember the times that the opposes for this blurb were as passionate as the ) 14:45, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
I have friends in this Talk Page! Duly signed, WaltClipper -(talk) 19:33, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
Alright, I did not see that until just now. Thanks! 136.33.182.23 (talk) 17:25, 12 February 2024 (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.

Why are we topic shuffling in the template?

I understanding wanting to keep the photo in the ITN template fresh, but this should not come at the expense of having to shuffle topics in that box. I know that the goal is generally the top-most item should have the associated photo, but we also need to keep the order in that list so that admins can easily add and remove items as needed.
I *have* been thinking about a templated-way we could automatically have picture rotation for all blurbs with at least one possible picture (including blurbs with multiple possible pictures, eg mens and womens winners of marathons, or for some Nobel winners) but until we have a solution, stop messing with that order. — Masem (t) 13:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

All the "shuffled" items happened on the same date. They all have a worthy image. They're all getting ~24h time on the MP.
WP:ITNBLURB says

Blurbs are posted in rough chronological order by the date the event occurred.

That has been upheld.—Bagumba (talk
) 13:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
To be persnickety: They're posted in rough chronological order. What is taking place now is reshuffling the placement of blurbs on the template long after they have been posted. This is a significant action that at least merits discussion as to whether or not there should be a provision for doing so. Duly signed, WaltClipper -(talk) 17:45, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
It’s very weird and confusing to reshuffle items just for the sake of rotating images, and I really don’t get why it should be done this way.
WP:ITN#Procedure for posting says Ideally this image should be related to the top news item., which isn’t a strict rule that justifies making such tricks to obey it. I don’t think it’s any wrongdoing at all to rotate images while keeping the order unchanged.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk
) 17:59, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
There's definitely no issue if we want to rotate images to any other blurb besides the top, as long as the appropriate blurbs are updated with the "(pictured)" (or removal) as required. I just don't think shuffling news items to try to enforce the top blurb being the only one that gets a picture is necessary. It just makes the matter more complex. — Masem (t) 18:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Agree with this. Provided the correct blurb is appropriately labeled as pictured, it shouldn't be an issue rotating the picture through the blurbs without moving the blurbs themselves. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 18:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. Adding “(pictured)” is the most important detail, and the order is completely irrelevant. This was a bad edit.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Having four blurbs with the same date is rare, but it's not that unprecedented for the top two having the same date, and them being flipped when the image is swapped. —Bagumba (talk) 19:41, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

If a non-top blurb was a later date than the top blurb, are we opening up to using that later blurb's image too? I thought there was talk about readers being "confused" when the image wasn't for the top blurb, and that was the origin of that rule. I have no strong feeling otherwise.—Bagumba (talk) 19:35, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there was a discussion long ago that decided people would get confused if the pictured item wasn't at the top. Stephen 23:11, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
I would need to see that discussion, because that's not giving the readers enough credit to recognize a "(pictured)" in a blurb. Masem (t) 23:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Seems to have been from BLP concerns. See
WP:ITNA) accordingly. —Bagumba (talk
) 08:57, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
Of course you have been following a documented consensus, which is valid. But knowing how radically ITN has changed over the years, I do think we ought to re-examine a consensus that was made twelve years ago and determine whether it has changed. I suspect that it probably has. Duly signed, WaltClipper -(talk) 13:47, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
I had posted a proposal many months ago and unfortunately, it did not receive community consensus. Ktin (talk) 09:05, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

2024 Pakistani elections

I noticed that this discussion has been archived, although it was marked as "Ready" and received some sort of support. Anyhow, this topic still remains relevant as it continues to be widely reported locally and internationally. Although it is still uncertain who will form the government, it is evident that PTI backed independent candidates has secured the majority of seats. Saqib (talk) 11:42, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Generally, we archive and do not post events after 7 days of being nominated, as then they become "stale". But this can be up to an administrator to decide. Natg 19 (talk) 04:52, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
I. believe this is not stale yet. --Saqib (talk) 07:38, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
It’s from the 10th, which is older than the oldest blurbs. Stephen 09:25, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
@Stephen: But the topic is still Newsworthy as recent reports from Reuters says Pakistan's majority parties struggle to form coalition government. @Andrew Davidson: what's your opinion? --Saqib (talk) 09:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
If the PM changes then that will be ITN/R as a change in the executive, and can be nominated separately if and when the time comes. The election itself is a stale story. JM (talk) 20:10, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Remove Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and G7 summits from ITNR

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

Support per nominator. WaltClipper -(talk) 20:23, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Honestly Support. I nominated the article mainly because it was on ITNR. But honestly, I just don't see why both of these summits would be notable in any form. At least, notable enough to nominate every single summit every year. We can nominate them if the summits create significant changes. But keeping them on ITNR seems like too much. Onegreatjoke (talk) 21:07, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I would change it to say that summits can be ITRN if there was a major resolution or agreement signed, something akin to the Paris Agreements. Most of these summits happen without any significant resolutions, and thus seem like a bunch of hot air. Masem (t) 20:41, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
You might as well just remove summits at that point and judge each summit's significance on a case-by-case basis if we do that, imo. TheBlueSkyClub (talk) 20:51, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Exactly. It seems like summits should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and posted in case there are significant resolutions.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:08, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Support. There's nothing inherently significant about these things that should make them automatically entered on ITN, and if somet5hign momentous happens we can judge that on its own merits.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:35, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Support. No reason we can't just post these events if something happens of note. I'd doubt most readers care about a G7 summit where nothing of note occurred. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:28, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose ITN's newsfeed primarily consists of elections, disasters, and sports championships. We should do our best to keep variety in the types of items posted to ITN, and leaving these summits on ITN/R are one way to do that. G7 summits are usually front-page news; while this one was not, that is likely due to the fact that it was being hosted in Japan. NorthernFalcon (talk) 00:02, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Strong oppose - the only reason why the postings of these events have been rather sporadic is due to the quality of said articles never being improved (in fact, that's essentially what's holding up the article for this year). For the people who will respond by invoking the claim that the fact that said articles are not improved is demonstrative of its lack of importance, I would respond by declaring that critique to be rather dopey and short-sighted. Are large chunk (in fact I believe most) ITNR nominations are roadblocked by quality issues and never see the main page, as do most RD noms and a decent amount of blurb noms. In the former, significance is presumed and the latter, often times, you'll see oppose on quality, support in principle, conditional support, and the like, where people say that the blurb should be posted when the article is improved. I think everyone would agree the the Oscars and national elections are important enough to be posted, but, those often never grace the main page due to similar issues. Additionally, due to ITN's lees rigid admin structure (that is the say that unlike other areas of the main page like TFA, TFP, DYK, etc., who typically have an acknowledged set of admins who work on said section as a critical priority, ITN has a fluid, not-set-in-stone group of admins, who don't devote as much time to ITN and thus in the case for this argument, watch ITN less often), you frequently have stories that for whatever reason are held up for much of the week of the nomination, and then are marked with ready/attention needed/needs attention or whatever, but aren't posted since they don't get noticed by admins. User laziness is not a good reason to judge significance because it turns out article improvement =/= significane, and also that the type of user laziness may not be what you think it is (additionally, it could open the door for having such a clause be exploited to facilitate backdoor removals).
Additionally, I find the argument that the G7 is not worthy of ITN-posting to be rather absurd frankly. For every day that it was occurring and even in the days leading up to it, it was receiving substantial
WP:RS coverage, gracing the front page of the vast majority of the main pages of news outlets and aggregates, often times even having devoted, multi-story sections or even being the top headline. The G7 receives this level of coverage annually and is always a big calendar date in geopolitics every year. I find the argument that the G7 should be delisted since "nothing of note occurs is most of them" to be rather parochial and dopey in approach. The way that the folks making this point are illustrating it, it sounds like the leaders of the G7 just arrive at the summit, take a photo-op and go home, and while you can argue that that is a part of it, its also a summit where real policy that could reverberate decades or even possibly centuries down the line are discussed. I find the argument that we should delist because "there was no resolution" point to remind me a lot of a recent video from J.J McCollough, where he basically stated that a big issue with current politics is that people treat it in a very gimmicky, entertainment-based manner to compensate for the fact that actual politics is incremental and rather boring. People are basically stating that since the G7 didn't all agree to unite into a single empire, ruled by Taylor Swift and using the rampaging armies of Swiftness to commit genocide against the Cambodians, it's a bunch of hot air. In fact, while we're at it, the person who made that statement in this years nomination, @Masem
, believes that we should include the G7 summit only if there's was something something akin to the Paris Agreements, which I find to be an insanely high standard that if applied to all stories, would lead to ITN being updated like two times annually.
Finally, yes, I know that
WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS exists (that's a mouthful), and that ITNR discussions frequently get bogged down by comparisons to other ITNR entries, but I honestly think that the fact that the G7 of all things is generating an opposition here on ITN to be kind of strange. I know the whole dart championships thing gets mentioned a lot, and while I'm not necessarily opposed to that being present on ITNR, I do find it interesting that for ITNR, stuff like the G7 will get thrashed for "not being significant," or "not being important to our readers," and then the same stock who will state that will rubber stamp ITNR stories that, from an objective standpoint are unquestionably less notable and known than the G7. I think its kind of ludicrous and frankly a bit sad that there will be calls to remove stuff like the G7, which is definitely of much more lasting significance and of interest and knowledge to our readers than a lot of the at the very least comparatively obscure prizes, sports and the like that only seem to get opposition if their respective articles subpar quality-wise. @DarkSide830 and @WaltCip claim that we're not providing a good service to our readers for featuring this story because they supposedly don't care, but I doubt that most readers care about a snookers championship that they otherwise would not even know existed. In fact, I think the real disservice we do to our readers is going out of our way to feature all of these stories of lesser significance for them, but when a big story of large-scale significance that receives global, front-page coverage occurs, our readers flock to ITN, expecting to see said story (which is something that I think a lot of folks here really fail to realize), only to instead see ITN being headlined by some darts championship, or a two week old story, because a few dozen Wikipedia editors decided that this story of global interest was not important for some dopey/self-aggrandizing/contrarian reason. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk · Contribs
) 03:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Consecutive non-posting as a result of insufficient quality is the main reason for removal from ITNR (you can verify it by reviewing past discussions). If the community isn’t interested enough to improve the articles, then it naturally shows that these summits aren’t considered that significant.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 04:05, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
I recommend searching the other major international leader conferences at the ITNC nominations, like G20. Assuming the article quality is there, just stating that the conference happened and without any resolve is a non-starter for a useful news item at ITN. That said, article quality is usually the problem to start with, and as pointed out, if quality is not up to snuff year after year when something's nominated that many times, removing it from ITNR makes sense until someone wants to commit to improving it each year. Masem (t) 04:18, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Your argument is somewhat hurt by the
WP:TLDR nature of your post, but my argument is simply thus - if there is nothing significant occurring at a G7 summit, and the leaders and/or their diplomatic representatives are simply going through the motions, what is there to distinguish this from the run-of-the-mill political news that ITN usually eschews posting? No one here is saying stop posting G7 forever, but the individual event ought to be newsworthy enough to post. Under the DICE standard, there are virtually no impact or consequences to this year's summit. WaltClipper -(talk
) 12:20, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Also, regarding the comment on "user laziness" being the cause of items not being posted -- we are a volunteer project first, foremost, and always. See ) 17:46, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Much is said about how ITN is designed to lead readers to articles they me interested in. On that front, the question of if readers will be interested in an article is worth noting. Sure we can't assume that, but it stands to reason a large compromise/agreement will drive interest, but otherwise such interest will be less. DarkSide830 (talk) 20:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Comment The G7 is an important event that regularly receives a lot of coverage in the media, so it seems like it should be ITN/R due to its importance. However, the repeated failure to post it due to issues w/article quality could be a compelling reason to remove it from ITN/R. Perhaps these summits should be posted to "Ongoing" when they happen w/o being blurbed afterwards. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 06:25, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Remove The G7 does not seem stable as it has been 5–8 in number. The latest meeting added a stack of other countries including the Comoros which, with a population less than 1M, indicates bloating to the same level of ineffectuality as the UN. See Parkinson's coefficent of inefficiency. As for the other summits, the listing of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation seems arbitrary. What about Davos, Munich Security Conference and the G20? ITN/R should not be trying to predict and promote particular pow wows. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:08, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
    The G20 isn't ITN/R? It seems like it & the G7 should have the same status. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 09:27, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Remove If we can't get anyone to keep a sufficiently updated article written every year, there's no point to keeping it on ITNR. It clearly isn't significant enough for any of the people voting "keep" to write good enough articles about it every year, is it? --Jayron32 16:41, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Remove - a meeting without anything substantive happening is not worth including, especially unquestioningly every time. nableezy - 16:56, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Remove per much of the above, but also ITNR is not suited for these kind of events (which may or may not be noteworthy based of circumstance). GreatCaesarsGhost 18:31, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Remove per above. Lack of consistently quality updates + general significance. The Kip (talk) 20:43, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Remove per all above. _-_Alsor (talk) 21:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment. I have a different take on this one. We should NOT be removing articles from
    WP:ITNR. If it is not, we should drop it. If it is, we should retain it. An article not being nominated or worked on is a function of editors interest in a topic and we should not conflate that with the article significance. We can not control what editors work on and more importantly, while we can nudge or marginally influence, we really can not control what editors work on. The other side of this argument is that an article might not be updated because secondary sources are not reporting on the article to the same extent that they perhaps did when the event was first introduced into ITNR. In that case, there will be an argument to be made that the significance of the event has changed. But, we should not be removing an event because editors are not working on an article. TL;DR - an event should be removed from ITNR if and only if there is a fundamental change to the significance of the event itself. Ktin (talk
    ) 15:50, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
    It's not just about a change to the significance, there's also the possibility that
    consensus can change. Personally I'm not concerned whether it's been worked on or posted recently, I just don't think it's inherently noteworthy enough that we'd blindly post it each time it occurs. I wasn't involved in the initial ITN/R discussion and I don't know what motivated them back then, but that's my tuppence worth. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk
    ) 16:09, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
    I think it is totally appropriate to differ in our views on this one. My thought -- all things remaining the same consensus should not change. For example, if all things have remained the same and nothing has changed on the significance front, or no net new facts have emerged, consensus should not change. Consensus can change, and should, if newer facts emerge, or the basis on which consensus was earlier established no longer holds. Ktin (talk) 16:51, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
    Some of these discussions had a limited number of people contributing to it and that was that. This one had 11, yes 11 supports, but 11 people 12 years ago isnt a very strong claim of consensus to begin with. nableezy - 17:35, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
    My view. Consensus is consensus. Just because an event had 11 people supporting 12 years ago, it need not automatically come for a renewal when the number of years exceeds the number of supports. A consensus should be re-examined, if and only if newer facts emerge, and / or the basis on which the consensus was established is no longer true. Ktin (talk) 20:50, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
    Consensus is not based on robotic and unthinking analysis of facts, though, it is based on community zeitgeist more than anything else, and because the community, and standards, and all sorts of other things, will change over time, then consensus changes with the community. Things which are based on, as you say, "facts" aren't really all that important to be subject to community consensus. They can be examined dispassionately by a single person, and implemented. I don't need to seek community input, for example, to note that the mathematical constant "pi" is approximately 3.14159, or that William the Conqueror invaded England in AD 1066 or things like that. That's the sort of stuff that is highly unlikely to have a variance of feelings on. The only time consensus discussions are necessary is on things where the temperature of the community needs to be assessed. If the community sense of what standards should be is now different than it was at some time in the past, it's appropriate to re-test the consensus once again. What changes is not facts, but community standards, and those are in a continuous state of evolution and flux. --Jayron32 16:47, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
    ITN/R should maintain a high bar, because it is designed to bypass consensus by assuming any event therein is notable enough to gain ITN inclusion. The fact that there has been so much opposition to the nom in question proves these summits clearly aren't automatically noteworthy enough. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:03, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
  • I think in addition to considering removal, we should have a separate lists of common ITN noms and the conditions we look for in posting. For example, here, we only post G7, G20, and other major summits if they conclude with a significant resolution, and we don't post them if the meeting just happens without results. Or as another example, we commonly post hurricanes and typhoons, but only really when they make and some consider death toll is known. Obviously article quality is required for any if these. Maybe use this list as a quick ref to say why a given ITNC should or shouldn't be posted based on common outcomes, though each ITNC should still be justified on its own terms. Just an idea here. --Masem (t) 19:31, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
    I like this idea even though this is exactly what the case-by-base evaluation stands for. We're not losing anything if we compile that list based on the frequently posted types of events and probably put it at the end of the ITNR page with guidelines about what is expected of those events to be posted.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:39, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
    The page should stress that each ITNC is still case-by-case, but what we don't want is to have endless discussions on, say, why we might post mass shooting in any other country but the US, by explanation that these are too common/frequent to give ITN weight to each one. Or back to these events, that while they may be important, an event that lacks any major international resolution really isn't ITN worthy. Masem (t) 13:04, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
    I don't like this idea. Every nomination should be considered in isolation, based solely on the particulars of that event, and without any consideration for what some prior discussion on some other event may have determined. Analysis of an event shouldn't depend on the whims of people of the past, or of people who can convincingly overemphasize some superficial and unimportant point of commonality between two things, and some how use that commonality as a means to bypass thoughtful analysis. Instead, we should be encouraging more considered and careful analysis at all turns. Any proposal that seeks to short-circuit the necessary process of reading sources, reading Wikipedia articles, analyzing what we see, and developing convincing arguments based on the current situation on the ground is a bad idea. The entire desire to set highly specific standards means that we're thinking less and analyzing less and arguing less and just rubber stamping "yes" or "no" based on some ill-fitting standard, and that's not a great idea. --Jayron32 16:54, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
    I don't think one such list would prevent us from evaluating nominations independently. It seems like a suggestion to group the most frequent types of events that cannot be proper ITNR items (e.g. earthquakes, shootings, plane crashes etc.) and give guidelines of what is expected for posting.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:04, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
    As I've tried to spell out above, this list is comparable to
    WP:OUTCOMES (which itself is somewhat controversial), just tuned for ITNCs. Is the story about a hurricane? Then - one we assess quality and news coverage - we'd post if it made landfall and had a considerable landfall, while hurricanes that stay ocean-bound and only skim land with minimal damage, then they aren't. Or another example: we typically do not post routine business mergers, but those that are in the X billions of dollars, we often will post at the time they are announced. Masem (t
    ) 17:20, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
    The problem is, when we argue for an item because it checks some item on a list of criteria, it misses all of the stories that are widely covered by sources for reasons unrelated to the checklist. That's already a problem, and the checklist doesn't exist yet. People are already voting based on some ill-fitting criteria that they have invented in their heads; we should discourage that behavior rather than enshrining it in writing. The criteria should be "follow the lead of reliable sources". --Jayron32 11:50, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Remove: Events like the G7, G20, Davos, any of the COPs and OPEC meetings are mundane.
Iskandar323 (talk
) 08:58, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

General elections on ITN/R

I would like to encourage discussion on how to precisify what is considered a 'general election' in every sovereign state in the context of ITN/R. The purpose of ITN/R is to spare us from discussions on whether something is significant and focus on quality, so it needs to be crystal clear for all ITN/R items what qualifies and what not. However, this has not been the case on many occasions where the status of a 'general election' (and thereby the ITN/R status) has been questioned. A good starting point can be the List of current heads of state and government where the offices coloured in green exercise executive power, so it stands to reason to consider presidential elections in states where the president administers executive power and parliamentary elections in states where the prime minister is the most powerful office. After all, a 'general election' may not be the right term to use because 1) it already has different meanings in the UK and the US, and 2) the article is in a relatively poor shape to resolve any ambiguity. That said, my suggestion is to change the wording to something like:

I have also thought about how to exclude sham and rigged elections from ITN/R, and it seems like the only plausible way is to apply V-Dem Institute's Electoral Democracy Index. Namely, we can set a minimum threshold value for an election to be considered democratic (that threshold is set at 0.500 in the Methodology) to discard elections with low level of democraticity (of course, elections in Russia, Iran, Turkey and other countries can still be posted, but they would be discussed and judged on their own merits). This would change the wording to something like:

Your thoughts are welcome. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:45, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we should be judging(or including the judgement of others) whether or not an election is rigged/a sham. We all know Vladimir Putin will be reelected, but the occurrence of the "election" is still notable and will still be highly reported on. 331dot (talk) 09:54, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I deliberately mentioned countries like Russia, Iran and Turkey because their elections will certainly be posted even though they fail on the level of democraticity. That'd be be simply judged on other merits as mentioned above.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
"Will certainly be posted" is what ITNR is meant to cover. Let's leave it to readers to decide what is rigged and what isn't. Rigged election postings can have a qualifier "In an election widely considered to be fraudulent/rigged, Vladimir Putin is reelected as President of Russia". 331dot (talk) 11:34, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Adding such qualifiers in the blurb is completely independent from the ITN/R status. And that status isn't a necessary condition for posting.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:15, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
But you are trying to conflate the two by pre-judging what elections get posted. What you seem to want to do is exclude rigged elections in non-powerful countries. We've tried to limit election postings to "powerful" countries or largely populated countries before, but that has not gained consensus. 331dot (talk) 12:25, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I want to exclude rigged elections in non-powerful countries exactly because the opposition to such elections is usually based on two arguments: 1) the election is rigged and 2) the country is non-powerful. This has nothing to do with population and size, which is why those two criteria cannot be used to divide the list.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:37, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
What's the fear in posting an alleged "non-powerful" country? I think it's useful not only for me personally but for readers to learn something about a place they might not be familar with. 331dot (talk) 12:50, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't know. You should ask those who argue against posting it. My proposal here is based on the general tendency in ITN discussions, not on my personal opinion (for instance, I supported posting the 2024 Azerbaijani presidential election, and I always support posting elections no matter the size and democraticity of the country).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Donald Trump still claims that 2020 was rigged and that 2024 will be, and many people believe this. Does this mean the US election shouldn't be posted? 331dot (talk) 09:56, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
US has a value of 0.819 for 2023 (well above 0.500) according to the Electoral Democracy Index, so I don't really get what you're talking about.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Republican-led states also pass laws to make voting harder, almost always by indirectly or even directly/openly targeting Democrats/Democratic supporting constituencies(Texas passes laws to make it harder to vote in Houston, a heavily Democratic city, and the Texas courts say this is okay even though the Texas Constitution states targeting localities is not permitted). Are things like that reflected in this index? I'm skeptical about bringing in outside(non-Wikipedia) criteria into the process. 331dot (talk) 11:30, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
The
USAID, so they're most definitely relevant indicators on the matter. Also, they seem to be significant enough to be documented in a stand-alone Wikipedia article. What do you suggest as a better measure of electoral democraticity other than a made-up opinion by a group of editors primarily based on the information in the news published by the media outlets?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk
) 11:47, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm skeptical that we should be measuring the legitimacy(or including some outside measure) of an election at all. If sources generally say an election is fraudulent/not free or fair, we can include that in the posting. That's not a "made up opinion". This is In the news, that's what we do, highlight articles about topics in the news. We shouldn't be judging them. 331dot (talk) 12:06, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
My point about Donald Trump is that we can say whatever we want, but people will believe what they choose to believe regardless of any objective measure. Let's let readers decide, as we do with everything else here. 331dot (talk) 12:08, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
At the end of the day, readers will still decide, but our business is to diminish subjectivity. There have been several calls recently that ITN discussions rely too much on subjectivity. It's impossible to completely eradicate it, but there exist ways to mitigate it. The very fact that people "choose to believe regardless of any objective measure" is what builds up subjectivity and results in endless discussions that are harmful for the encyclopedia.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:31, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Instead of trying to figure out some way to limit posting elections, which seems to run counter to your goal of avoiding discussion(since here we are), we should not do anything and have the occasional IAR exception to not post something. 331dot (talk) 12:52, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
My opposition to the Azerbaijani election being ITNR is not about whether the election is a sham; whether that prevents the posting should be judged on a case-by case basis. What it's about is that it's not a parliamentary election and the leader was simply elected. Re-elected leaders should be on a case-by-case basis instead of getting automatic consensus because there could be no changes (though there are exceptions), which this proposal fails to do.
I counterpropose to simply replace "General elections" with "Parliamentary elections". Aaron Liu (talk) 12:18, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
So if Joe Biden is re-elected, that should not be posted? It will be widely in the news. 331dot (talk) 12:21, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Cases where there is consensus not to post are common enough for just a re-election to not be ITNR, and people should judge whether it's notable without an ITNR looming above their head. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:29, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Those occasional cases are covered by IAR. We don't need to craft some way to write policy to exclude certain elections. 331dot (talk) 12:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
We don't need to craft it; it's already there. See the current wording, and these cases happen often enough. IAR requires quite a bit more energy and newer editors might be scared to not invoke IAR. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:10, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
He said that non-ITN/R elections should be case-by-case. That doesn't exclude Biden's possible re-election. People seem to mistake ITN/R for excluding everything outside of it, rather than simply including everything within it. Just because an election falls outside of ITN/R doesn't mean it can't be blurbed outside of ITN/R, because ITN/R doesn't automatically exclude anything. It would simply need to meet the significance standards of a non-ITN/R blurb. JM (talk) 14:54, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't think an indicator like this should be used for judgements on ITN/R. Whether an election is free and fair doesn't have much bearing on whether it is notable, and, even if it was, that is something that should be discussed on a case-by-case basis rather than with an arbitrary threshold. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 12:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Elections are often complicated and sui generis like the latest one in Pakistan. They also occur in microstates like Monaco which are not of significant size. Such details are best discussed case-by-case and so are not suitable for ITN/R. Rather than trying to create complex rules to cover every possibility, we should, per
    WP:IAR, just keep it simple and remove them from ITN/R. Andrew🐉(talk
    ) 12:51, 14 February 2024 (UTC) {{ec}
    Better to just have the occasional IAR exception to not post something, which we already do. 331dot (talk) 12:53, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Could we add clarification to this that presidential elections that do not result in the change of head of state are not ITNR, and so will need to be covered on a case-by-case basis? Some of these re-elections will generate enough coverage (US, Russia, France for example) but for other countries particularly with pseudo-sham elections, they won't necessarily get enough coverage. Joseph2302 (talk) 13:06, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
    Would my counter-proposal to only replace "General elections" with "Parliamentary elections" suffice? Aaron Liu (talk) 13:17, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
    We should definitely not use "
    general elections" simply because it's too ambiguous, and the article is chiefly focussed on the different meanings in the UK and the US. As for "parliamentary election", I don't think it's right for countries where the president administers the executive power. Why should the parliamentary election get a free pass as an ITN/R item and the presidential election be a matter of discussion in a country with a presidential system?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk
    ) 13:26, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
    The executive power is already covered in a separate criterium if it's not re-elected. See Special:PermanentLink/772961279#Proposed removal: The results of general elections in all states on the List of sovereign states for the consensus and reason for it getting a free pass. These seats often change with every election, and just posting a country one might be enough for all its purposes. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:41, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
  • I strongly agree that a rewording or removal of "general election" is necessary, as, under the current wording, elections at any level in the US qualify as general elections as per
    talk
    ) 14:28, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
    However, there is great consensus to keep it, and that's unlikely to change. I also agree with the argument of keeping it, see the link I gave above. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:39, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
    I would support rewording "general elections" to something more along the lines of: The results of an election that chooses most or all members of an electoral body, which may or may not include a presidential election. This would both include the parliamentary elections, but would solve the problem of not handling other non-parliamentary elections. I think the main problem with this wording is defining what an "electoral body" is. One possibility is just replacing it with "legislature".
    talk
    ) 15:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
    I think we should also add "as part of itself" after "presidential election" so that it leaves no room for interpretation as purely presidential, if we go for this verbose way. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:20, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
    indeed. JM (talk) 17:24, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
This problem seems to have originated when I questioned whether or not the Azerbaijan presidential election was ITN/R. That was a separate issue from whether or not the election was a sham election; that only comes into play because if it's ITN/R, then we can't debate its significance, where the sham question is relevant. It's not a relevant question for ITN/R elections.
My interpretation of
general elections
in: All states on the list of sovereign states [etc], and Changes in the holder of the office which administers the executive of their respective state/government. So out of those two qualifications, this election is already excluded from the latter, as there is no change.
Regarding the former, we can go to the general election page, which states A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of an elected body, typically a legislature…In most systems, a general election is a regularly scheduled election, typically including members of a legislature, and [emphasis mine] sometimes other officers such as a directly elected president. My interpretation of this is that a general election is an election for the country's legislature, and it also includes the presidential election but only if that presidential election takes place at the same time as that general election.
Since there was no parliamentary election included with this presidential election, it's not a general election, and there was no executive change either, so I don't think it meets either WP:ITNELECTION qualification for ITN/R.
If any wording has to be changed in WP:ITNELECTIONS, perhaps it should be to clarify what a general election is: an election to a legislature which may or may not include a presidential election. I disagree with both proposed wordings, since they actually change what qualifies for ITN/R by adding and removing certain elections. Actually, I agree with Aaron Liu that if anything is to be changed, it should be "general election" to "parliamentary election" for clarity purposes. JM (talk) 14:43, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
There is zero reason to exclude sham elections as a general rule, but I also think we should be avoid using ITN to call out elections as shams as to keep our blurbs neutrals. I am all for using wording that dances around the issue (eg "Putin remains President following the Russian election" is fine whereas as "Putin wins the Russian election for President" would be somewhat unreasonable). But we should not be letting editor biases influence these urbs. — Masem (t) 15:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

We’re getting carried away from the main point of my proposal—that is, the wording of the ITN/R item on elections isn’t crystal clear what qualifies and what not. I know that we should avoid

WP:CREEP, but we should also get rid of ambiguous words, especially in guidelines. The exclusion of sham and rigged elections is only an addition which isn’t that important.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk
) 16:56, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

At least half of these replies seem to be about the clarity.
Do we have a rough consensus of my proposal to change "general" to "parliamentary"?
Aaron Liu (talk) 17:21, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
You can count me in support of that, since the dispute over the meaning of "general" is what led to this. JM (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I’ll settle for it. As I mentioned above, it’s not optimal, but it’s much better than keeping the ambiguous “general election”.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:08, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Per my comment above, I still think just changing "general" to "parliamentary" still leaves some things open to interpretation. For example, would parliamentary elections of some, most, or all members of the legislature qualify for ITNR? I would support changing "general" to something like what I said above: The results of an election that chooses most or all members of a legislature, which may or may not include a presidential election for a president in that legislature. What "legislature" means maybe could follow something like the
talk
) 18:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Ah, so that's what you mean. In that case, I withdraw my proposal and support the following wording:
The results of an election that chooses most or all members of a legislature, which may or may not include a presidential election as part of itself.
Aaron Liu (talk) 19:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I still support your original proposal. It's much simpler. I don't think we'll have any difficulties over the meaning of "parliamentary election" unless a large number of people are being deliberately obtuse. JM (talk) 19:35, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
The problem I was talking about wasn't really the meaning of a "parliamentary election", but rather what types of parliamentary elections qualify. If we just said any parliamentary election was ITNR, then elections for a very small amount of the seats in a parliament (such as an unexpected or special election for just a couple of seats) would be ITNR, and I don't think this makes sense. Instead, adding the requirement that the election elects "most or all" members of the parliament makes sense to me.
talk
) 19:57, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Are there many countries with partial elections as in the US? If not, then we may add the US separately in the same way as Switzerland.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
See our article on staggered elections#Use in legislative bodies. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:24, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Are legislative elections on presidential and semi-presidential systems ITNR elections? In most presidential systems, presidential and legislative elections are held on the same day. If this happens, ITN blurbs usually omit the legislative election (e.g. Taiwan recently). There are some cases that the legislative elections are held a short time before or after the presidential election. If this happens, it's a mixed bag, but no one probably opposed French parliamentary elections, and those are not ITNR elections. Some countries have midterm elections: there were passionate opposes on listing U.S. midterm elections, and the 2019 Philippine Senate election was not even nominated. These kinds of elections are not ITNR elections. I guess our "flowchart" for this will be as follows: Is the election to a position that is colored green in this table? If yes, it is ITNR; if no, it isn't. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:22, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Both the
talk
) 20:47, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
2019 Philippine election: It's not
t precedent but could've been if it was nominated
2022 French election: I remember someone questioning if it was ITNR; it's not this so it has to be the previous one. Or not. Howard the Duck (talk) 00:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

My biggest concern is that we potentially narrow the scope of elections at ITN and it unintentionally causes more opposition to elections that are certainly ITN valid but do not explicitly fit the scope of said new rule. I get the desire for more clarification here, but I think leaving the phrasing broad is better and allowing for IAR opposition in such scenerios where a so-called general election should in fact not be ITN-worthy. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why you'd prefer IAR opposes to evaluating certain cases on its own. Both cases would have the same scope, and opposing a non ITNR is easier to do than doing an IAR oppose.
Plus, I'm pretty sure the intention of that bullet point was not to sneak presidential elections into general elections and create a duplicate criteria. We would be preserving the existing scope. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

This is much ado about nothing. There is nothing ambiguous or confusing about the term general election. The OP notes "many occasions where the status of a 'general election' has been questioned" but doesn't cite one. We have tweaked this section several times over many years to account for elections that consensus held should be included or omitted. We are in a good place at this point. The proposed language is not only much more confusing, but specifically adds elections that consensus has omitted and omits elections consensus has included. Further: please refrain from including two widely distinct topics in the same discussion. It makes it very difficult to read consensus of responses. GreatCaesarsGhost 18:44, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

This discussion started after debate arose over whether the
talk
) 20:18, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. Kiril was completely misreading the article there. "General" uses the first definition from wikitionary[1]: "Including or involving every part or member of a given or implied entity, whole etc.; as opposed to specific or particular." A general election is not for a single office, but for all the offices. A Presidential election may be included in a general election and it may not, but the presidential election does not make the election a general election. Consider the U.S.: a general election of the house is held every 2 years. This election is concurrent with a vote for the president half the time, but it is a general election with or without him. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:52, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, that's making more sense now. I think that the proposal by @
WP:ITNELECTIONS
, some sort of definition of general elections should be given. I would be fine with something like this:
The results of general elections, which are elections that choose most or all members of a legislature, which may or may not include a presidential election.
or something like this
The results of general elections, which are elections that elect all members of a legislature.
For the second case, I would add a note mentioning elections such as the
talk
) 15:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
I like the second one, as long as "all" is replaced with "most or all". Besides Argentines, the Pakistanis have reserved seats in the legislature. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:05, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
The results of a general election for the full-membership of a national legislative body
GreatCaesarsGhost 17:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure what "full membership" is supposed to mean. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
It supposedly excludes staggered elections. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:33, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
So, it's supposed to mean "most or all"? I don't see the improvement here. Unless "a national legislative body" could include just the US House of Representatives? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:45, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
It refers to an election where all seats are up. Pakistan's elections still has all of its seats up on election day, only that it some seats are determined after most ones have been known. Several upper houses have "classes" where a only fraction of seats are up on election day. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:02, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
I think the addition of "national legislative body" is an improvement, as it is more clear than simply saying "legislature". I might further suggest that we make some mention to the
talk
) 21:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
I suppose this "full-membership" clause was meant to exclude US Senate elections... just that these elections are held concurrently with its House elections... which then gives us the question if these US legislative elections are ITNR as the head of government is not at stake. This is more so more glaring in midterm elections, but as explained above it seems that ITN had treated the last few midterms as ITNR elections. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
If the US House counts as "a national legislative body", midterms would meet this criteria as the entire House is up for grabs.
However, that means that it's still open for interpretation. Either we clarify this or we go for the much less ambiguous one from that editor whose name begins with 2 (sorry, can't figure out a good and short way to refer). Aaron Liu (talk) 21:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes, the US senate elections alone would probably not count as general elections, as they don't determine the majority of the senate. But this also means that the wording including "most or all" would fix this potential problem. Also, @
talk
) 22:56, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
So, are we going to separate the US House and Senate elections when posting?
Thanks for that change, Goedel! You may want an account rename or
WP:doppelganger account to go with that though. Aaron Liu (talk
) 00:09, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Looking at the previous couple of times when the results of the elections in the House have been posted (such as in 2018 and 2022), it seems like there is support to include the Senate elections with the House elections. And thanks for the suggestion for a name change; I have went through with a request.
talk
) 02:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
My proposal would completely shut down such misreadings. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:49, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
The definition of general election in its article was gamed to make any presidential election from a semipresidential system a general election. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:20, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

@Aaron Liu: please revert your edits to WP:ITN/R. Masem already reverted once. You are not remotely close to consensus for your proposal here. GreatCaesarsGhost 16:58, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

That was twelve days ago for a different proposal, and nobody seems to object to Gödel's proposal. Unless someone objects, it's a consensus. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:08, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Absolutely not. You need some base of support, not just a lack of objection, for consensus to exist. This is a thread to workshop changes, and many different wording options have been proposed, none of which has garnered more than one support. That's not how consensus works. GreatCaesarsGhost 19:00, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree with GreatCaesarsGhost here. As they said, many different wording options have been proposed in different areas, meaning people supporting one wording may have not seen the other wordings. I think we should open up a more formal proposal discussion before making any changes. Gödel2200 (talk) 19:14, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
The discussion has largely died out while branching into various proposals, so I don't think any consensus is going to be reached on the change at this point. I wonder if an RfC should be done with some of the options which got the most discussion. JM (talk) 19:25, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
I think it would be good to start an RFC for this at some point. There seems to be a good amount of people suggesting some sort of change (though not necessarily the same one) to the wording, so further discussion on this topic would be good. At the very least, the discussion is bound to start up again the next time another debate arises over whether a given election is a general election or not. Gödel2200 (talk) 20:54, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

2024-03-03 Edit request for Template:In the news/doc

Please replace categorization into Category:Wikipedia In the news and Category:Main Page templates with categorization into Category:Wikipedia In the news templates. —⁠andrybak (talk) 22:14, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Done, removed 2, added new. Stephen 01:37, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

An observation

Definitely nothing is broken when the new prime minister of Tuvalu (population: 11,900) warrants an automatic ITN listing but a new governor of Tokyo (population: 14,094,000, approximately 120,000% larger than Tuvalu) would not.[sarcasm] What do we want to do about that? Sdkbtalk 16:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Edited 23:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

What are you proposing: a population minimum for posting new prime ministers? We start posting mayors? If it's the latter, is there a minimum for that? Wouldn't any such number be invariably controversial and seen as arbitrary? [sarcasm] The status quo is the result of reasonable discussion and consensus on these questions, and I think you will find it better than any specific alternative you could conceive. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:04, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Nothing. New leaders of sovereign states are
WP:ITNR, and leaders of non-sovereign administrative regions are not WP:ITNR. It is sovereignty that makes the difference, not population. Note that the appointment of the governor of Tokyo not being WP:ITNR doesn't preclude it from being nominated and posted; WP:ITNR is inclusive, not exclusive. JM (talk
) 20:28, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
I think that's the point of this thread though, why is the PM ITNR. I would personally think it sensible to exclude very small countries which generally have lower levels of world news coverage of their elections (e.g. set a threshold for ITNR for countries with populations over 500,000 people). Joseph2302 (talk) 20:33, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
That just seems philosophically wrong to me. Tuvalu is a democratic nation. Its electors choose a Prime Minister, just like many other countries. To exclude them from ITNR would be saying that the decision of those voters is less important than those of larger nations. I can assure you it's pretty important to those voters. HiLo48 (talk) 22:19, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, it's absolutely important to Tuvaluans, but from a global lens something that matters to a lot of people is generally going to be more important than something that matters to only a small population. Excluding microstates seems like a good step, although 500,000 seems too high a cap to me (that'd exclude e.g. Iceland). For both cities and countries, whether or not they're on the vital articles list would be one metric we could use that's not solely population-based. We're never going to arrive at a perfect ITNR metric that exactly aligns with general intuition about which elections are most important, but we could easily do better than the current very crude "any country = automatically important, anything else = not automatically important" one. Sdkbtalk 22:40, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Edited 23:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
That's not quite what we say. As JM wrote above, there is nothing preventing other electoral events being nominated. Also, your post highlights a perspective issue. I'm guessing you live somewhere in the north of the planet. Here in Australia we probably see more news about Tuvalu than about Iceland. Posting national elections "automatically" isn't much of a burden. There are fewer than 200 countries, and elections are only every few years. HiLo48 (talk) 22:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Re your first point, that's fair; I've adjusted my comment to specify "automatic," but I think my larger point still stands. Sdkbtalk 23:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
ITN is not governed by the vital articles list, never has been - the consensus for which articles are considered vital is just as arbitrary as any consensus made here at ITN regarding newsworthiness. Duly signed, WaltClipper -(talk) 21:39, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
There is no "governing" proposed. But if we're looking for a measure of the relative importance of different geographic entities that's not based solely on population, agreeing by consensus here to delegate that task out to the project focused on it would be a perfectly reasonable step. Sdkbtalk 06:05, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
People tend to forget Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Timely updates on changes in heads of state and government are something encyclopedias should aspire for, more so for countries people may not know about. I'd also not be pissed off if it does post a similar change to a subnational entity though, but it is something I'd less expect. Howard the Duck (talk) 11:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
Besides what others say, assuring that the elections of small nations that may be smaller than non-country elections in other areas (like the US) is a way to easily combat systematic bias of Western mainstream media that over-dedicates themselves to Western but local politics. Masem (t) 13:28, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
Microstates are just as likely to be Western as non-microstates (see Vatican City, Luxembourg, etc.), so no. Sdkbtalk 16:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
I was going to say Vatican City does not have elections, but realized they do have elections, it's a rather big deal (LOL). Howard the Duck (talk) 01:43, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
And besides that, Tuvalu is a capitalist country with English as a national language, King Charles III as its head of state and a Christian majority (~96%) that makes Canada, Australia or the UK's look (almost) savagely heathen. Sure, it's not America. But it's hardly America's opponent. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:40, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
Hey, sincerely, what did you mean by this comment? Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 02:48, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
Hey, Chaotıċ, I mean Tuvalu isn't "Eastern" in the general ideological sense. The "Western press" doesn't "censor" its news for any fear of radical thought or New Language seeping in, but rather for a lack of facts to print and too few Tuvaluans in the audience to justify dragging a story on, blowing it out of proportion or nitpicking the finer points (ad nauseum). Less like actively counteracting "The Iron Bear" or "Red Dragon", more like passively overlooking Wyoming because nobody complains. Or neverminding Jersey. And not the new one, either. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
It is true that changes in the executive for some smaller nations (such as Tuvalu) are less notable than elections for the governor of Tokyo, in the sense of how many people the new executive will be governing. But if we're going to make a change in regards to notability, I think there would need to be some line for what is 'notable' and what is not. But I am simply not seeing any good solution there (though I would be willing to reconsider if a potential solution is brought up). Personally, I am fine leaving it as is. I think this is a perfect example of the point made in
WP:ITNPURPOSE that we should emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic source, and that it is a goal "To point readers to subjects they might not have been looking for but nonetheless may interest them." Gödel2200 (talk
) 02:59, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
  • The main article is this case is 2024 Tuvaluan general election. Notice that the lead of that article says nothing at all about the outcome of the election and the change of PM. So, most readers coming to this cold will be mystified as to what happened and will either give up or have to hunt for the results. So, that's not good quality. The treatment by ITN was largely mechanical, focussing on the usual ITN obsessions of citations and ITN/R which most readers don't know or care about. What matters most in an article is the lead, not the references section, because the lead is the bit that people actually read. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:40, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
    That's a separate issue, but absolutely a valid one. Oof. Sdkbtalk 16:26, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
  • No article related to the governor of Tokyo was nominated at ITN recently, and I'm not seeing any article updates at governor of Tokyo or at Yuriko Koike. I believe the issue here is that editors have not updated these articles, and that is the nature of Wikipedia. We can only feature articles based on the quality of their updates, and I'm not seeing particular evidence that our guidelines are off. Unless you want us to update the ITN box even less than we already do. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:49, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
    I suppose Tokyo was chosen as an example because it's a big city but there are actual recent nominations which are comparable such as New First Minister of Northern Ireland. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:00, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, I chose Tokyo as a hypothetical example. Sdkbtalk 16:31, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
  • I have nothing against discussing adding sub-national elections to ITN, but simply comparing population administrated doesn't mean a whole lot. The governor may have 14 million in her jurisdiction, but she's not a head of government and therefore doesn't have the same political power over those 14 million as the PM of Tuvalu has over his country's entire population. In that regard, along with concerns over bias, I'm categorically opposed to any changes to how we report on changes to heads of government. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:46, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Analysis of ITNC nominations

I have created a page in my namespace in which I analyze ITNC nominations, excluding RD and ITNR nominations, in relation to the country in which the event happened (if applicable). It is still very much a work in progress, but I would welcome feedback, constructive criticism, and contributions from other users, especially since most of the people who watch this page have been much more active in ITNC recently than I have. The page is User:IntoThinAir/ITNC analysis. IntoThinAir (talk) 02:04, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Small detail, you mark Mohammad Shtayyeh's resignation as having happened in the Gaza Strip, which wasn't the case (he's the Prime Minister of the State of Palestine, which hasn't effectively controlled the Gaza Strip in decades), although he resigned in protest due to the situation there. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 04:25, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Also, "Iran denied any involvement" in the Tower 22 drone attack. A lot of times, people read explicit denials as implicit admissions. But some people still don't. Far be it from me to tell you who to be. Just something to think about. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:41, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, that's pretty much OR territory you're going into, even if just framing it as something to think about. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 05:27, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
I read it in the article's lead, per Al Jazeera. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:50, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
The fact that Iran denies involvement is sourced. Speculating about how it might be an implicit admission isn't, and that's the original research part. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 09:01, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
As to what I'm personally "pushing", it just seems a bit weird to have a column for where an event takes place sometimes include other places. Even involved or allegedly involved places. The 2024 Iranian missile strikes in Pakistan doesn't have Iran in that column, for instance. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:03, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Wow, this is more diverse than I expected, this is nice ^_^ ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:04, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Hey, IntoThinAir! I was wondering where you were at. It was almost as if you had vanished into th...well, never mind.
You had inspired a future essay that I did end up writing -- indeed,
WP:HOWITNWORKS is heavily built upon the contents of one of your old essays. Considering that it was originally built upon your text, you can choose to edit it as you see fit. Duly signed, WaltClipper -(talk
) 13:19, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I have made a few changes in response to comments above, like changing the country for Shtayyeh's resignation from Gaza Strip to Palestine, and adding Iran to the Pakistan strike entry. I also think I now have completed the intended list of subjective ITNC nominations from January 1 to the present, inclusive. The list has 92 items, of which only 24 (26.1%) were posted. IntoThinAir (talk) 15:38, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
It's not clear what the point of this is. The range of countries covered already seems quite comprehensive. For example, ITN currently has blurbs for Canada, Haiti, Pakistan and Tuvalu. What seems more of an issue is that all four blurbs are about political leaders. The type of topic seems limited and that's because most nominations are opposed unless they are ITN/R and that's quite limited too. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:27, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
There's very few things that are expected to take place ahead of time outside of elections and sporting events, which is why ITNR weighs that way. And no, no one seems opposing because things aren't in ITNR; we have ongoing covering events in Ukraine and Gaza and the Middle East in general, and beyond that, there's very little beyond current election cycles that are getting coverage. So the box currently represents a fair share of encyclopedically-worthy news stories that have happened over the last couple weeks. Masem (t) 13:01, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
It's not clear what the point of this is. The range of countries covered already seems quite comprehensive. IntoThinAir has postulated nothing whatsoever regarding the representation - or lack thereof - of countries on ITN/C. He's simply looking for patterns and providing data for others to review, analyze, or otherwise take interest in. If there's an issue about supersaturation of topics (as you said, political leaders) on ITN, that's something you should be making a separate thread about. Duly signed, WaltClipper -(talk) 13:59, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
The OP stated that they are going to "analyze ITNC nominations ... in relation to the country in which the event happened" and I'm not understanding the focus on countries rather than other dimensions of analysis. And a significant pattern is already clear -- that about 75% of nominations are not successful. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
One thing that would be great to see is more scientific advancements being featured on ITN. An interesting thing would be to have a column in the ITN analysis indicating the topic (politics, natural disaster, sports, science, war, etc.) to more easily compare them.
From what I see, the only science-related blurbs proposed this year were
Obelisk (life form) (biology, not posted), Upano Valley sites (archaeology, posted) and Vulcan Centaur (astronautics, posted), with only the two non-astronautics blurbs being actual discoveries. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs
) 23:12, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
I have added some categories for some of the entries, though I remain unsure about the accuracy of many of the categories, since some of these events seem to be more difficult to categorize than others. I would appreciate input and/or contributions from other editors to improve the categorization of entries. Also, I originally decided to enter the country where the entry happened because I wanted to shed light on which countries most often have events posted to ITN. IntoThinAir (talk) 16:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Yep, I was also interested in which categories occurred the most. I don't know how fine-grained some of the categories should be (e.g. there is "marine disaster" and "natural disaster" but also just "disaster"). Some categories have a lot of overlap and could be merged (
2024 Haldwani violence in "political unrest"). Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs
) 12:37, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Template:ITN note

Hi. From time to time I remove the template

00:44, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

It would almost be better to implement this as a subst template that is added to the bottom of the article's talk page. Such that the page editors are notified, but also that the notification then folds into the talk page archives naturally. Masem (t) 01:40, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
+1 —Bagumba (talk) 01:44, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
It's not added by a bot. In the 5 examples I looked at it's being added by User:PFHLai fairly consistently, so they may have a view on this. Stephen 01:57, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
I thought User:RscprinterBot removes the ITN notes (example). Do we want this bot to do the same to unsuccessful noms, too? --PFHLai (talk) 03:25, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
  • I occasionally add this to talk pages. As the nomination discussions can be lengthy, it would be nice if there's a historical form which links to the archived ITN discussion, like other entries which go into the {{article history}}. That history does currently support ITN entries but only those which were posted. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:54, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Academy Award images

I understand rotating images for variety. However, after starting with Christopher Nolan (best director), there's been

Those are perhaps a bit less popular than other Oppenheimer options like Cillian Murphy (best actor), Robert Downey Jr. (best supporting actor), or just keeping Nolan pinned.

So the questions I have are:

  1. Is there a preferred order of award categories to rotate?
  2. Is there a cutoff where we keep older images up instead of using new images related to less prominent awards?—Bagumba (talk) 11:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
1. No, 2. No. Stephen 04:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
If I was really into celebrity watching, I'd want to see the Best Supporting Actor before I saw the Best Actor. Other way around, it would seem anticlimactic. So far, I've kind of enjoyed how the first three appeared and maybe wouldn't mind seeing another coproducer before the ultimate Downey-Murphy showdown. Anyway, the weather/other news is heating up and there are many elderly prime ministers, so it's entirely possible we never even get to all seven. I could "live with that", but to those who might feel cheated, I'd suggest asking for Cillian Murphy ASAP. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Luís Montenegro is now the top image, so we didn't get all seven finally. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 23:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
As long as the blurb's up, the show could go on. In theory. Must it? Should it? Very good questions. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Nolan, Murphy and Downey Jr. had all been on the main page three weeks prior when they won the BAFTAs. There were complaints then that we weren’t featuring any women in the cycle. There are complaints if the same image is there for an extended period. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t I guess. The choice for a producer and a musician this time were entirely mine. Stephen 00:25, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I suppose we also have a damn fine excuse for overlooking Jennifer Lame. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Jennifer Lame has no image, so there is no image to feature. Natg 19 (talk) 19:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Bingo. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:18, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Given that it was 3 weeks earlier and wasnt a
WP:LUGO, I'd argue to keep the images about the prominent awards, even if it means less image variety. All things equal between an image of an actress and an actor, post the actress first, but a co-producer of best picture was a stretch for gender equality when best director (or others from Oppenheimer) was the bigger news. Anyways, appreciate the effort to balance all concerns. —Bagumba (talk
) 04:36, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
For the record Nolan’s picture was used first. I appreciate your view. Stephen 05:42, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Women's Sports

Dear fellow editors,

I have recently observed the nomination of the Women's Premier League (cricket) article for consideration, and during the ensuing discussion, I was struck by a disconcerting observation. One user pointed out that there is only one women's cricket entry on the WP:ITNR list. Upon further examination of the sports items listed, I found approximately 60 entries that are exclusively male sports. In contrast, there are only 2-3 entries related to women's sports, including the Women's Football and Cricket World Cups).

While the four Grand Slams do feature alongside male winners, it appears that we have not posted a Grand Slam since the 2020 French Open. Furthermore, there is not a single item on any women’s professional league, no

.

Although some women's sports events have been featured in the past, their exclusion from the list makes it easier for detractors to dismiss their importance under the pretext of not being WP:ITNR. This situation highlights a issue of gender bias on Wikipedia. I must admit, despite my reservations about the inclusion of numerous sports items on ITN, the stark underrepresentation of women's sports entries shocks me. As this is my first experience participating in a community-wide discussion, I apologize if any errors were made.

Thank You. PrinceofPunjabTALK 15:23, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know about all of these sports/events, but I see a couple of problems with getting women's articles listed. Firstly, these articles often get less attention/editing than their men's counterparts, and so are unlikely to meet
WP:ITNQUALITY. E.g. 2023 ICC Women's T20 World Cup has no match summaries and doesn't have a separate article for the final, which makes it easier to get posted (whereas the last men's equivalent event did: 2022 ICC Men's T20 World Cup final), and 2022–23 Women's Super League has no season summary whereas even the current men's division 2023–24 Premier League already does. Secondly, some of them get significantly less coverage than the men's events, and thus it can be hard to justify supporting them (this was my point with the Women's Premier League nom, and is a wider non-Wiki news problem of less coverage for many women's events). Some of the women's events do get similar levels of coverage, such as ICC Women's T20 World Cups, but unless we also fix the article quality issues, it'll be hard to get them posted. Joseph2302 (talk
) 16:50, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Although I acknowledge that certain recent seasons of the following entries may not meet our quality standards, I initiated this discussion with the aim of proposing the addition of some women's professional leagues to the recurring list. I believe that some users may have refrained from nominating these leagues for consideration, assuming they were not eligible for WP:ITNR status. However, it is essential to recognize the significance of including them in order to address this oversight.
Furthermore, expecting women's sporting events to attain the same level of popularity as men's events is inherently unfair, given the existing societal disparities. We must acknowledge the inherent challenges and biases that women's sports face in achieving parity with their male counterparts. PrinceofPunjabTALK 03:54, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
I think it would be good to add a few more more women's sports events to ITN/R, and I eagerly await proposals. I have absolutely no clue which specific events might be good missing options. At the very least, it would be nice to list some sports events that could make it onto ITN but have thus far escaped notice. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:02, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
The
LPGA majors. Blaylockjam10 (talk
) 04:40, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
Joseph id'd the quality problems, which is on WP editors to fix. But another factor outside our control is the lack of coverage of these events compared to equivalent men's events, particularly when they happen in a separate cycle, such as the case of the WNBA which gets far less coverage than the NBA. It makes it hard to qualify those as ITNR when there is little coverage if then, though we should try to work against that systematic bias when we can to feature more women's sports — Masem (t) 18:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
I mean, ITNR doesn't mention coverage. It just mentions importance. And in any case, IAR is always available.
[OMT]
19:10, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
  • As the nominator of the article in question, I am an involved party. So, take my comments with that background. A couple of points here. With due respect, the feedback on article quality was not the best feedback. e.g., one feedback asked for a source for the scoreboard while there was a clear reference / link to the scoreboard upstream. One feedback point called into question the sourcing for the match summary, while there was a clear link to the
    WP:PLOTCITE, match summaries do not need additional sourcing. The match itself is the source for the summary. Anyway, let's keep that aside for now. Overall, I find the assertion that the women's events should match men's events in coverage / followership for them to meet ITNC expectations for posting, as misguided. There should be no such linkages / expectations. If the event is important by itself, it should be posted. There was also an assertion that this event was "domestic" and hence should not be posted, which again I disagree with. Franchise sports are not necessarily domestic. Clearly that can be seen by some of the participating athletes. Tl;dr: My rubrick for nominating (and hence making the case for posting) was a simple one -- is this an important event in the women's cricket calendar. Yes. Should be nominated and perhaps posted too. We should definitely not compare these events with their men's equivalent events. Ktin (talk
    ) 01:18, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
    All this while there is a line of thinking that similar to
    WP:DUE reflection of highlights from experts in secondary sources.—Bagumba (talk
    ) 09:07, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
The WNBA gets less coverage than the NBA, but it still gets enough coverage that editors who are interested in the WNBA should be able to write a solid article about the WNBA Finals. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 04:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
Women's college basketball has been regularly posted, e.g. 2023, but even that is a perennial ITNR debate.—Bagumba (talk) 06:04, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
A recent column from the Los Angeles Times is titled "With USC and UCLA leading the way, women’s tourney slam dunks on the men" —Bagumba (talk) 06:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Just going to say I am dismayed by comments that refer to article quality (improve it) and non-sport-specific news coverage (when the media bias is well known) to suggest we should not aim for gender parity. Wikipedia aims to counter bias in coverage of minorities, particularly women, with WiR celebrated - it's something that keeps me on here, I'm sure many of you have noticed. ITN/R is a list of recurring events that are notable enough to be posted, if the articles are sufficient, and while repeated previous postings is what usually constitutes that, I think that gender equality is a simple enough reason to extend ITN/R sports listings so that the women's equivalent of any men's event currently on the list should be added - let the discussions of quality happen at nominations, if they are ever made. If the list is saying that, inherently (i.e. regardless of media coverage etc), the e.g. Champions League is an important recurring event then naturally the Women's Champions League is, too (I know not everything can or should be discussed in such simple equivalent terms, but really: how are we defining ITN/R and how do equivalent tournaments differ within that ITN/R concept - genuine questions). Kingsif (talk) 00:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
    @Kingsif Thank you for echoing my sentiments. My point exactly! We should definitely consider adding more female sporting events to the ITN/R list. This way, whenever they occur, they can be nominated for inclusion, allowing us to discuss their quality and other relevant aspects. Dismissing their inclusion due to lesser coverage isn't a fair comparison, especially considering that many events already on the Recurring list receive only a fraction of the media attention that others do, yet they're still included. Let's prioritize equity and fairness in our approach. PrinceofPunjabTALK 18:23, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
    Also agree with this — we can start working for gender parity by establishing it on ITN/R already. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 19:57, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
  • I would be in favor of some discussion of the inclusion of women's sporting events beyond what we have now, at least in regards to ones that are direct counterparts to the male versions we already have posted. However, I would say don't keep your hopes up on said discussions being successful. There's a decent anti-sports contingent at ITN that would probably not be to favorable to such noms. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:36, 25 March 2024 (UTC)