Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 39

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• The
  Yokohama, Japan. Barcelonawin the Cup for the second time in three years.--Feroang (talk
  ) 19:23, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

  It's nominated at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#FIFA_club_world_cup. Feel free to add to the discussion there.--Johnsemlak (talk) 20:09, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a slight consensus towards posting is reached in the discussion about this item and we should move on with posting it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:39, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't you combine the three coordinated bombings into a single news item?201.160.0.27 (talk) 01:25, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know that they're THAT coordinated. But yeah, it would be nice to break up the monotony. Isn't there an election or a sporting event we could drop in here? --Jayron32 03:48, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Cheeta died, twice as old as the average chimpanzee. At least as famous as Johannes Heesters. 201.160.0.27 (talk) 16:49, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Meh. Cheeta's American. That'll be heavily opposed until an admin with balls posts it. –HTD 01:50, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Or an admin who's pissed about stupid arguments like that will be discouraged from giving you any kind of tiny victory. --Golbez (talk) 14:21, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm just dropping a note to let you all know that the 2012 WikiCup will be beginning tomorrow. The WikiCup is a fun competition open to anyone which awards the production of quality audited content on Wikipedia; points are awarded for working on featured content, good articles and topics, did you know and in the news, as well as for performing good article reviews. Signups are still open, and will remain open until February; if you're interested in participating, please sign up. Over 70 Wikipedians have already signed up to participate in 2012's competition, while last year's saw over double that number taking part. If you're interested in following the WikiCup, but not participating, feel free to sign up at Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send to receive our monthly newsletters. If you have any questions, please contact me on my talk page, or ask away at Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, where a judge, competitor or watcher will be able to help you. Thanks! J Milburn (talk) 00:43, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

In other words, we're going to get a flood of ITN nominations of questionable notability from people involved in the WikiCup who are trying to get points. Modest Genius ^talk 14:24, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Not really. In the past 2 WikiCups, I think only User:Candlewicke and I have earned points for ITN articles that we've updated. So don't worry. Spencer^T♦C 00:35, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Is opening of the longest single-pylon cable-stayed bridge in the world event worth of appearing on the main page? -- Bojan  Talk  11:55, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions for items should be made at

WP:ITN/C. Modest Genius ^talk

14:16, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Bojan  Talk  15:00, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The above thread is languishing on the Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates page, and might as well die now because after four days it's really no longer current news.

But I am concerned about the process it went through. It received multiple Oppose comments which were just plain garbage. They were based on, at minimum, a misunderstanding of what the nomination was for. One example was "... it's important in the British isles, but there's no significance elsewhere." Garbage, of course, because John Howard was PM of Australia! I pointed out the errors in most cases, but those particular editors did not return to say "Sorry. I was wrong. I withdraw my Opposition". Their incorrectly justified posts remained for all to see, with the bolded Oppose the most obvious remnant of their ignorance.

So what we had left was a thread which would have appeared to a potential posting Admin to have roughly equal numbers of Support and Oppose comments. But most (not all) of the opposition had no justification. This isn't a matter of my opinion on the significance of the item. It a matter of unarguable fact!

Now, potential posting Admins are busy people. The impression they would have got from glancing at this thread could have been quite false.

I'm not overly concerned about whether this item gets posted or not. As I said above, it's a bit late now anyway. But is there anything we can do about incorrectly justified posts that really shouldn't remain in a thread? HiLo48 (talk) 00:53, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Does this include the quintessential "U.S. biaz" posts, too? –HTD 01:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know whether that's a serious post or simply trolling, but no, US bias issues would be something different. What I spoke of above was obvious factual errors (e.g. failing to note that John Howard is not British). US bias is always going to be a much more subjective issue. Now that I've given a serious answer, can we please proceed in that vein? HiLo48 (talk) 02:56, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

TC

03:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. Please discuss the topic. HiLo48 (talk) 03:56, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

This is in response to HiLo's original response How is "Dumb comment. You clearly haven't read (or comprehended?) the thread" not a personal attack. You've been

TC

04:12, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It WAS a dumb comment, particularly in the context of that thread and how the details had been VERY well explained. The comment I described as dumb could only have been made by someone who "clearly hadn't read (or comprehended?) the thread". Given that I had already pointed out that at least three of the previous Opposes had been based on incorrect understanding, I was very frustrated that any editor could write another stupid post based on a lack of reading or comprehension. It WAS a dumb comment? Now, can we politely discuss the issue I have raised please? HiLo48 (talk) 04:25, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

People make dumb comments all the time. One of the all-time classics include baseball and basketball are classified as minority sports. You can't force people to read all arguments in a discussion. Certain people also to tend all nominations from specific subjects no matter the merits. –HTD 06:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't really want to get bogged down on one particular comment, but Hot Stop chose to highlight it. The dumb comment was about the award being "important in the British isles, but there's no significance elsewhere". The word "Australian" was the eleventh word in the highlighted area where the nomination was made. It wasn't buried among all the arguments in the discussion. One only had to read the first two lines of the nomination to know it was wrong. Anyway, there were a lot of Opposes in that thread based on falsehoods. It happens in other threads too. Differing opinions are fine. Absolute statements based on garbage are not. Doesn't anybody else care just a little bit? Can't we improve the quality of discussion here? HiLo48 (talk) 07:07, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I dunno if calling comments as "dumb" helps in improving the quality of the discussion. Most of the time, it actually worsens the quality. –HTD 07:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but I'm human. I've already acknowledged that "I was very frustrated..." with so many silly, uninformed (by choice) comments up to that point. I had also already highlighted the issue of the uninformed posts in that thread. I guess I could have said "No, I'm sorry, I think you're mistaken...", but it didn't cross my mind in that particular context at that particular time. I was very frustrated. And the issue is still that there WERE so many dumb post in the thread. My response to the final one didn't cause them all. The dumb posts came first. HiLo48 (talk) 08:05, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The people making the "dumb" posts are human too. And it doesn't matter if who's first. Like what you've said, telling them "you're mistaken" is way, way, better than "your post was dumb." Nothing good comes out of it; if you're frustrated by dumb posts, imagine how would the people you're calling their posts as "dumb" would feel. Calling out dumb posts won't make the dumb posts go away. –HTD 08:11, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

What will? (That's actually the topic here. My "dumb" comment didn't cause the dumb posts.) HiLo48 (talk) 08:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

What will happen if you'd continue on calling "dumb" posts as "dumb"? They won't go away. It doesn't matter who was first. What's this? A children's playground? "He hit me first, it's his fault!" What matters it to prevent "dumb" posts and ever dumber posts calling dumb posts as dumb. –HTD 09:12, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Guys, stop it. I too am disappointed that the nomination has not made it onto the front page. It did so because of a clear misunderstanding by voting editors. It does not need this tit-for-tat argument on here. British nominations do have a good success rate for getting on the front page and I don't believe there is a systemic anti-British bias. However there are valid points in the discussion above - if Oppose votes are made for the wrong reasons, why should they not be corrected, even dismissed? We would endeavour to correct someone if they made an incorrect reason for voting in any other context on Wiki, so why not the ITN nominations? The "dumb auction" we're having can be put to bed. There is a valid argument (hidden, somewhere) dealing with votes made on misunderstanding or ignorance. Let's not fall out over all this - I thought we were dealing with nominations in a more level manner now the Occupy movement has fizzled out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doktorbuk (talk • contribs)

ITN/C

is not a vote, it's up to the posting admin to judge whether the reasons given for supporting or opposing an item are valid, and to discount !votes which are not in line with the criteria. If a proposer calmly makes their points, they'll have a better chance of success than if they take personal issue with each opposer. Modest Genius ^talk

09:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

note that only one paragraph of the above was me, I've added an {{unsigned}} to make that clear. Modest Genius ^talk 16:09, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Since I was the proposer, might I just mention that I didn't comment at all after proposing?

Some dumb stuff gets posted. Some good stuff doesn't get posted. That's how it will be until ITN gets some proper criteria. --FormerIP (talk) 01:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I was speaking in general, not about this specific nomination. Modest Genius ^talk 16:09, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The last two editors are at least understanding the real issue here. And Modest genius is on the right track. We should not leave what are effectively unjustified (and unjustifiable) "votes" visible for all the world to see. More than one posting Admin has said in the past that they don't always have time to read a whole thread, and of course are influenced by a seeming number of Opposes and Supports. Knowing that is the case, comments which are based on ignorance should be allowed to be struck out. HiLo48 (talk) 04:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I propose adding the following language to the ITN criteria/intro page:

A goal of ITN is to feature content that can be considered among the "best of Wikipedia." If an item does not link to an article of such quality, it may not be posted. The only exception is in the case of an event of such extraordinary magnitude that it can be assumed that the community will immediately update it, such as the death of Osama bin Laden. (However, even in those cases it may be better to make an existing background article the main link until the article on the event itself is of high quality.)

By "best of Wikipedia," I don't mean FA quality necessarily, but rather the kind of thing you would point to if you were "advertising" Wikipedia as a place for quality information on current events, such as the Murder of Stephen Lawrence article.

If being stricter on the quality angle seems to limit possibilities, we can relax some of the unwritten rules on events' "importance," without, of course, allowing "trivial" items.-- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. We've already suffered from delays on ITN these past few months without going through an additional vetting process. ITN is not a conduit to "the best of Wikipedia". Building that column would only make the process longer, more arduous, less intuitive and even more likely to "lag behind" the news. ITN should be up to date - we've not been exactly on the ball now for a good 3 or 4 months. Editors are already directed to articles which need work before they are marked [Ready] in any case. We don't need an additional criteria for the sake of inventing rules doktorb _words^deeds 09:27, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. I point out that ITN is not a news ticker as often as anyone does, but as Doktorbuk notes, it isn't a conduit to "the best of Wikipedia" either. We shouldn't bold-link articles with major problems or insubstantial updates, but their quality needn't be exceptional. —
  David Levy
  09:39, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Such language would constitute a complete re-purposing of ITN, for no clear benefit. You're proposing that we turn ITN into 'GAs and FAs which are vaguely related to recent events'. That is unhelpful, wouldn't provide a benefit for readers, and doesn't constitute an improvement to the encyclopaedia. I'm all in favour of raising the quality of the articles posted on ITN, but this isn't the way to do it. Modest Genius ^talk 09:45, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. ITN works fine as it is. No need to rehash this argument over again — what I would support is (yes, another old topic of contention) for GAs and FAs to require a lower level of consensus to post. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 15:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't see how emphasizing quality content can be "a complete re-purposing of ITN" when
    WP:ITN says one of its goals is "To feature quality Wikipedia content on current events." Yes, I know I wrote that myself, but it was well-supported when I proposed it and has never been objected to. Furthermore, Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page says, in bold print, "It is important to remember that the selected articles (bold items) on the Main Page are chosen based more on their quality, not on how much their subjects are important or significant." Perhaps "best of Wikipedia" is the wrong term to use, and I'm open to suggestions as to how to phrase it better. The issue, as I see it, is that people are using unwritten rules to decide what they think ought to be on ITN, even if it doesn't have quality content, isn't prominent in the news, isn't being searched for by many people and isn't of interest to many people, and then concocting a bare-bones article to link to (or upgrading a stub to barely beyond stub status). Meanwhile, there are many other events that have quality content, are prominent in the news, are being searched for by many people and are of interest to lots of readers that aren't being posted because of what I would consider to be silly unwritten rules that effectively ban them. -- Mwalcoff (talk
    ) 23:56, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. One major opportunity for ITN is to encourage editors, including those who frequent ITN on a regular basis, to work on the potential current event articles to make them high-quality. Posting such a message would more than likely discourage editors. We need more content contribution, not dozens of people opposing content simply because one of the dozen could have updated the article or rapidly improved its content, but did not. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 19:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to add "Small, partial and unrecognised countries" in the geographic area because they don't feature that often (except in elections)Lihaas (talk) 13:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. Given their population, it seems to me that such countries are actually over-represented at present. The countries which are under-represented are those with large populations but which are neither economically developed nor English-speaking - places like Indonesia, Brazil, Uganda, Uzbekistan etc. Modest Genius ^talk 13:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

then add that>?Lihaas (talk) 23:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

How would it possibly be defined? Best left to the judgement of ITN/C. Modest Genius ^talk 09:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia. I get that is has a sort of "flagship" status but there is id.wikipedia.org, et al. --76.18.43.253 (talk) 16:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi. The most recent clash in South Sudan, for which the ITN story is still posted, has a preliminary count of 3,141 killed. The current ITN story says "scores" of fatalities occurred. I'm currently working on an article of the long-term conflict taking place, at

WP:ITN/C is the best place to address this. Spencer^T♦C

22:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to see an image of Costa Concordia displayed. I did briefly change the image, but then remembered that the image needs local uploading, protecting etc. first. As I'm not able to do this myself for technical reasons, would another admin kindly do the necessary? Mjroots (talk) 16:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I've protected the image at Commons and reinstated the change. —

David Levy

16:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Mjroots (talk) 16:46, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

There's been a request at

WP:ITN/C to use one of the images of the capsized ship, which weren't available when the article was posted. I've no objection to a change of image should this be felt desirable. Mjroots (talk

) 09:36, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to second this request. The Costa Concordia disaster now has its own article and excellent free images. --Martinship (talk) 19:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

It might be nice if after a posting admin has reviewed a nomination, they could tag it as reviewed as either no consensus or no update or something else. Right now a nom goes up, some are speedy posted, some posted after several days, and most just expire off into the archive without explanation. I'm not pointing fingers, heaping blame or trying to add more administrative overhead, I just thought it might have some value. Comments? --76.18.43.253 (talk) 14:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Some news stories, after several days and nearly expired, have just slightly less than the required support or are pending updates but have not yet been updated by anybody. Typically only the ones that get enough support AND are updated get posted in time. Thus it is more difficult to tag any entry "not posted" or "rejected" when the chance of being posted still remains given that somebody updates it or consensus is reached, though I would tentatively support such a tag for items decisively not worthy of posting. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 23:54, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed the archive pages have NOTOC specified. I can't for the life of me understand why this is desirable. Can we please put the TOC in the archives to make it easier to locate past discussions? --76.18.43.253 (talk) 16:25, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree - a TOC would be useful, since then it's easy to browse to a specific date etc. I too can't think why they were disabled. Modest Genius ^talk 17:54, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

• this not very significant addition to ITN. The importance in the world wide political scheme of things of this small Pacific island is not demonstrated. I'm utterly surprised to see it get through. There was only ONE vote. It should be taken down. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Concur with Ohconfucius. Can a kind soul link me to the
    WP:ITN/R discussion that pertains to the decision to report all national-level elections on ITN? Colipon+(Talk
    ) 16:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
    • The importance of several other items that appear in ITN is often not of worldwide impotance. But ITN is not a news ticker. Posting the national election results even for small countries has been around for ages, probably even before ITNR was written. --Tone 16:50, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
      • This is not a reason to keep it around, if there is good reason to change it. To my understanding, ITN is supposed to be informative, but first and foremost its purpose is to showcase good articles. To me, posting elections of microstates is not only irrelevant, but it also puts substandard articles smack in the middle of the website's main page. We could have, for example, posted the Supreme Court appearance of the Pakistan prime minister, which would be able to showcase the article for
        Yousaf Raza Gillani, which is in much better shape (and much more relevant to a greater audience) than any Pacific island election. But I stress again, if there is some sort of consensus providing a rationale for this, I would like to see it. But otherwise I plan on challenging this practice as it seems rather absurd. Colipon+(Talk
        ) 17:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Curious, when the violence in Nigeria was added, why wasn't it put at the top? Nyttend (talk) 02:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Events are ordered by when they occur. The attacks in Nigeria occurred on January 20, while the Croatian referendum occurred on January 22. -- tariqabjotu 03:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

...on ITN at the moment are about the United States. Since they are the four most recent of the six, this is likely to remain the case for a while. A little balance, please. 31.185.35.82 (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome to propose items at

David Levy

00:30, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we could have posting criteria related to balance. --FormerIP (talk) 01:18, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

What sort of criteria? Should we exclude/remove blurbs related to a country with a certain number/fraction of items, thereby making the section's turnover even slower than it already is (and possibly omitting noteworthy events with good article updates)? Should we set lower standards for items related to other countries, thereby reducing the section's quality? Or do you have another idea? —

David Levy

02:55, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The problem that ITN has is that "important" news does not happen in a nice, geographically-distributed means around the world every single day. Either ITN has to chose to accept that - even if that means one region may be disprotionately covered on one day, and never covered on another day - or decide to fix a number of allowed events to be displayed per region, which could mean that the while one region is covering a major political shift in a country, another region may simply have the death of some minor celebrity (the only significant news story for that region for that day) next to it.

Obviously, the former is the more practical and reasonable solution. The only thing to back-end that is to make sure that when ITN candidates are selected, we're selecting events in a region that may have more global significance, which is what is being done already. --MASEM (t) 03:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I've said several times before that we shouldn't passively post whatever "important" things come up with no discretion. It's quite possible that we might pass on something that would normally go up because there are too many similar items up already. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

If all of a sudden across the globe, there are 5 independent and unconnected political shakeups in national leadership, should we not include one since having 5 of 6 items on the same general subject considered too many? Obviously not.

It is rather pointless to complain about the bias that the posted ITN stories have to region, type of news story, or the like, again, because news does not happen in nice patterned, regular segments spread evenly on region or topic. But we can set certain barriers on accepting of candidates without considering what's on the list already as to be more favorable to stories that have more meaning to a global communiting instead of just being restricted to region or type. --MASEM (t) 04:15, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe that a blurb ever should be omitted "because there are too many similar items up already". At most, one of the "similar items up already" should be removed to compensate (perhaps with some cycling back and forth if the chronological gap is narrow). Even that is questionable, as it ensures that an older item persists longer (with one or more newer items receiving less exposure to enable this).

If you believe that retaining the nine-day-old Costa Concordia item is preferable to introducing a hypothetical new item that meets our criteria and happens to relate to the United States, I disagree. —

David Levy

04:54/05:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with David Levy. There is no legitimate concern to be had with similar items appearing at the same time. There is a concern with having too many or too few items in a country/region/issue on average. And the best way to address that problem is to put up more nominations. JimSukwutput 05:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

And the best way to achieve that is to be more receptive to unusual nominations, especially of things mainstream editors haven't heard of. HiLo48 (talk) 07:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Think about European soccer for example. (This came up last year.) Baseball has only one annual championship that matters, at least in the English-speaking world. Soccer, on the other hand, has a whole bunch of stuff that all winds up around the same time: various domestic leagues, cup competitions, the Champions League and the Europa League. If they were spread throughout the year, many of them might get on ITN. But because they all conclude around the same time, we can't go and fill ITN with nothing but soccer. So we have to exclude some things in the spring that might go up if they happened in the fall. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I know very little about association football, but I recall encountering arguments that not all of those events are sufficiently important for ITN (irrespective of timing). And it's highly doubtful that all of them result in substantial article updates in a timely manner.

If multiple ITN-worthy events in a particular sport happen to occur in rapid succession (with the relevant articles properly updated), I see no reason why cycling them in and out isn't a viable alternative to outright omission. —

David Levy

00:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. HiLo48 (talk) 00:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Occasional coincidence of events might mean that such a concentration of blurbs will happen: a few months ago there were equivalent comments on a heavy Euro-centric weighting in the template (or was it Asian?). But rather than simply dismissing such occurrences as a random statistical event, we should use them to check the structures we have for systemic bias. I believe that the Wiki readership bias towards the geeky (two items about the internet) may have been more responsible on this occasion, but the move towards following the (Anglophone, and primarily US/UK) media, and following rather than leading page hit data, rather than seeking stories for their intrinsic, encyclopaedic interest, has made the likelihood of enshrining systemic bias on ITN more likely. Would/Should the stories (US or otherwise) have appeared in ITN if they had happened elsewhere in the world? Kevin McE (talk) 07:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

In the case of today's heat generating discussion, Joe Paterno's death, one can't give a meaningful answer to that question. His situation is unique to the USA. Other countries don't do college sport the way the US does. It's quite possibly a valid nomination, but as I see it the heat has been generated by American editors being unwilling or unable to properly justify the nomination. Too many just say things like "Best college football coach ever", without attempting to explain the significance of college football in America to non-Americans. That could be done, and these "unusual" nominations could work. The same high quality of argument is needed when non-mainstream items from other parts of the world are nominated. I suppose what I'm arguing for is better quality justification and discussion. Maybe that's a forlorn hope, but one can always dream. HiLo48 (talk) 07:30, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's the problem we run into. Bob in America wakes up and Joe Paterno is on all of the TV and news radio stations and websites. "Everyone" in his world knows who Joe Paterno is. Everyone in his world knows it's a big deal. So he nominates the death for ITN. Halfway around the world, Gunter logs on to Wikipedia and finds that some guy in America had the gall to nominate the death of an amateur sports coach that "nobody" has heard of (in his world) for ITN. How ridiculous. Gunter says who cares, amateur student sports is no big deal. Bob sees that and is aghast, because in his world, college sports is huge. So we've got two people coming from opposite worlds, both of whom think the other is being ridiculous. This is how vituperative debates start.

Bob doesn't know that he has to explain why a college football coach would be important, because in his world, it just is. To him, it's like trying to prove that the sky is blue. Most people would have no idea how to respond if, say, a blind person challenged him on that fact. (Some people would be able to discuss wavelengths or whatever.) Similarly, few Americans would be able to explain why the death of someone like Joe Paterno is a big deal in a paragraph, other than by using things that wouldn't impress overseas people anyway, such as his number of wins and national championships, or by saying, "Trust me, it's huge over here." I have done my best in these sorts of situations to cite things like TV ratings and attendance (or, in the case of things like the election of a state governor, the powers of state government), but it hasn't seemed to have had much of an effect. In all probability, you'd have to spend some time in America to understand. I'm sure there are things that happen elsewhere that Americans can't grasp the importance of for the same reason.

So what can be done about this? I think we should make clear than an event does not have to be of world-shattering historical "importance" to be on ITN. I don't think there is any way to measure that, anyway. The murder of Stanford White wasn't "important" in any cosmic sense, but it's in my book of "important" New York Times front pages from the 20th century. As long as the event is not trivial, like something involving Paris Hilton, the decision on whether to post it should be based on factors like the quality of the article, timeliness, reader interest, etc. And if the event is played highly by the "serious" media (the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the London Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Globe & Mail, etc.), it can be deemed non-trivial. That is not to say that we should lessen our standard, but rather that we should apply different ones focusing on the kinds of other factors mentioned above. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:38, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

My view is that Bob should at least make some effort to give his nomination a global perspective. Most times we get none. That's guaranteed to lead to argument. HiLo48 (talk) 00:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Mwalcoff, you're absolutely right that ITN is too hung up on determining that news is "important" (according to some incredibly unclear and variable yardstick). But I don't think the problem is Bob in America and Gunter in Germany not seeing eye-to-eye. It's just that we have a surfeit of American Bobs. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being American or having been Christened Bob. But we have a problem that stories coming from Gunter's home town get a tougher time on ITN because, even though it's a big story and the article and update are great, there will be multiple Bobs opposing it because they don't see it on CBS.

The reason not to post the Joe Paterno story isn't its obscurity outside the US (note: possibly within the US as well, from what I can tell), its just the fact that is has come up at a moment when ITN's systematic bias is already too apparent.

As always, what ITN needs is some proper written down guidance. --FormerIP (talk) 01:27, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

What Bob needs to do is to let Gunter know how his nomination will affect Gunter. That's what I did with the resolution of the NBA lockout. Who in ITN cares how it'll affect Americans? You'd have to explain how it'll affect the Gunters of the world lest you're post will be describe variously as US-centric or stupid.

Well of course if it's Gunter's turn to nominate it's not always reciprocal. For example on the nomination of EU embargo of Iranian oil, nobody explained how it'll affect Bob (or Gunter), nor anyone is bitching about the lack of explanation. Perfectly OK, though... even though only 20% of Iran's oil goes to Europe and most of it goes to Asia. –HTD 04:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If that post is full of attempted sarcasm or irony (which I suspect, but can't be sure about) please be aware that such approaches don't work well on the web. HiLo48 (talk) 04:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, that is basically true. In nominating the resolution of NBA lockout, I threw out the factors on how it'll affect Americans (frankly that would've made the nomination worse and would not had helped) and instead cited factors on how it affected Europeans (heck even Africans), and some of the usual suspects (excluding you, if I may add, but your reasoning was different on my cited factors) still opposed! (There are just some people in ITN, once they see "U.S." or "American" or even "Canadian" would oppose in default, no matter the merits.) And, as of my previous post no one is bitching about the lack or reasoning in the EU boycott of Iranian oil. It's in the archives, you can look it up. –HTD 04:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I can think of a number of possible ways of responding to the charge that ITN has a pro-American bias, but "think about how those American stories affect Africa" doesn't seem to me like the best one. --FormerIP (talk) 23:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Most ITN nominations do affect only one country, except for international relations (including wars) and sporting events involving teams from more than one country. The Joe Paterno story could've been more convincing if someone said "This guy coaches a team that plays in a stadium bigger than Old Trafford or Camp Nou" or something like that... but those could've been dismissed anyway. –HTD 05:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of whether Bob or Gunther (or Hu, etc.) is nominating, they need to do a better job explaining why it's important. Maybe we could add something to the editnotice explaining why people need to do this. Hot Stop

TC

00:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Stupid question: have we considered the use of a point system ala what's doing at TFA, to weigh how to select ITNs as to help? I've got some ideas how to apply that to ITN but in my mind it's not finalized. But the approach would involve giving more points to areas where coverage generally tends to not occur (eg South America, Africa), to international influences, to high newsworthy topics like national leaderships, wars, large-scale natural disasters, and less to things like sports and entertainment, and some points for the nature of the article page that (new verses old). This would be in addition to any consensus for inclusion. But, as I said, it's only an idea without hard details, but I think it would help prevent any one area (region, field, etc.) from having too many stories bubble up when its not appropriate. --MASEM (t) 00:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if a "point system" is the best way to go. Sounds to hard-and-fast to me. Your ideas are along the right lines, but there needs to be editorial discretion as to what gets up. I'm going to start on my own version of new ITN criteria as soon as I get a chance. I think what the criteria should say is that we should "strive for geographic and subject diversity" in what we include. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, well you're likely to have my support on that. --FormerIP (talk) 02:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that points aren't a very good idea: TFA is designed to be plannable well in advance, while with just about everything except elections and major sporting events, the types of things that belong on ITN cannot be predicted to occur when they do. Nyttend (talk) 03:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

An event involving Sweden and Norway (combined population: approximately 14.5 million people) is "international". An event involving only the People's Republic of China (population: more than 1.3 billion people) is not. Do you see why this isn't a reliable means of gauging an event's notability (and why the "international importance or interest" criterion was eliminated)?

This is not to say that an event's international impact cannot be a significant factor. But this is merely one of numerous considerations dependent upon context, not part of a checklist to which points can be assigned. —

David Levy

10:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, that would be something to account for in the system, understanding that "international" generally has to mean "non-neighboring countries" or even outside of the region (given the European Union, for example). I'm not saying that's the only news that should be posted but events that have worldwide impact (direct or indirect) should be given more weight than an event that affects only two or three countries. But again, I'm not firm set yet on this idea, and still tossing about a rational approach to it.

One thing I do ask, to confirm: is the goal of ITN to be a news ticket that happens to include links to recently-updated articles, or is it to highlight recently updated articles (as to draw in editors) of events that are in the news? I would hope its the latter, as that's the metric that should be driving the decision, and not just because its big news. --MASEM (t) 16:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, that would be something to account for in the system, understanding that "international" generally has to mean "non-neighboring countries" or even outside of the region (given the European Union, for example)

That isn't a reliable criterion. If North Korea were to launch a nuclear missile at South Korea, this probably would be widely regarded as the most important news of the day.

Context is key, and there's no good way to account for it in a points-based system. (Attempting to plan for every type of scenario would only make matters vastly more complicated.) A checklist is no substitute for human judgement.

I'm not saying that's the only news that should be posted but events that have worldwide impact (direct or indirect) should be given more weight than an event that affects only two or three countries.

All else being equal, that's true. And one could argue that the hypothetical Korean nuclear missile launch would indirectly impact the rest of the world...which is exactly what would occur under the current setup (not that the event wouldn't be ITN-worthy even without non-Korean impact). We already consider such factors. No point system is needed.

One thing I do ask, to confirm: is the goal of ITN to be a news ticket that happens to include links to recently-updated articles, or is it to highlight recently updated articles (as to draw in editors) of events that are in the news? I would hope its the latter, as that's the metric that should be driving the decision, and not just because its big news.

Agreed. And unless and until there's consensus to the contrary, this remains ITN's primary purpose. —

David Levy

17:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's why there would be multiple criteria. Take the earthquake in Japan from last year. Is it an "international" event as I've called it? No, but heck yes it would be posted no question. It's other facets - an earthquake that killed a number of people, billions of dollars in damage, the fact that earthquakes are rare - that all lead to the obviousness of why it should be posted.

But as I juggle this idea around in my head, I'm thinking that while a point system is not good to promote an ITN candidate to an item, that it could be used to say how long an item should last in the ITN box, which gets back to the original complaint. Again,I don't have a hard system yet to propose, but the idea is that on posting (so consensus has been gotten first) the story is assigned a point value based on various factors. As a very simplistic approach, that story will always displace the currently lowest-scoring item in the box (ties would remove the oldest-posted); on each day, each current story has its score decrease by 1, as this then provides for nature decay, allowing very significant stories (the Japanese quake, or the hypothetical war between NK/SK) to stay on several days while a story with a weak score but otherwise passed may onyl be up there 24 hrs or less. There's some other mechanics to it that I have to figure out but this doesn't override the current consensus based discussion. What I do want to emphasis is that I'm trying to figure out a system that nullifies the need to complain "we have too many US articles, oppose this ITN/C nom", and instead allow the focus on the quality of the news item and the state of the article, rather than what's in the ITN box already. --MASEM (t) 22:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Just a note. I don't ITN has, or should have, any requirement that events should be "international" in the sense of having occurred in or involving more than one country. Events should be of international significance in the sense that they are major news in multiple countries. Parochial stories that are of very limited interest to readers outside their home countries should be avoided. Opposing the Japan earthquake story on the basis that it happened in a specific place ought to be seen as an obvious non-starter. --FormerIP (talk) 23:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's why there would be multiple criteria. Take the earthquake in Japan from last year. Is it an "international" event as I've called it? No, but heck yes it would be posted no question. It's other facets - an earthquake that killed a number of people, billions of dollars in damage, the fact that earthquakes are rare - that all lead to the obviousness of why it should be posted.

Exactly (excepting the part about earthquakes being rare, though those of that magnitude are). Various factors collectively (i.e. not in isolation) determine an event's importance, which therefore cannot be properly gauged by assigning point values to individual attributes. We must evaluate the event as a whole.

But as I juggle this idea around in my head, I'm thinking that while a point system is not good to promote an ITN candidate to an item, that it could be used to say how long an item should last in the ITN box, which gets back to the original complaint.

The last thing that we need is another source of arguments. ("This is worth a total of five points." "No, it clearly is worth only four points, as per criterion 8b." "8b doesn't apply because this is covered by 3e and 7a." "You're only saying that because you want your country's item to score higher." "Of course someone from your country would think that.")

Items are persisting too long because we aren't posting enough of them. Removing "lower scoring" items before they scroll off will only ensure that other items linger even longer.

Again,I don't have a hard system yet to propose, but the idea is that on posting (so consensus has been gotten first) the story is assigned a point value based on various factors.

As noted above, such point assignments simply wouldn't make sense. An event isn't the sum of its parts.

As a very simplistic approach, that story will always displace the currently lowest-scoring item in the box (ties would remove the oldest-posted); on each day, each current story has its score decrease by 1, as this then provides for nature decay, allowing very significant stories (the Japanese quake, or the hypothetical war between NK/SK) to stay on several days while a story with a weak score but otherwise passed may onyl be up there 24 hrs or less.

That isn't what I consider "simplistic". It greatly complicates a system that some believe already presents a barrier to participation.

And I don't see how it pertains to the original complaint (which had nothing to do with the events' importance).

To improve variety, we do occasionally remove items slightly out of order. For example, if we have two election items and we're adding another, we might remove a six-day-old election item and retain a week-old non-election item. That addresses the type of issue discussed above.

What I do want to emphasis is that I'm trying to figure out a system that nullifies the need to complain "we have too many US articles, oppose this ITN/C nom", and instead allow the focus on the quality of the news item and the state of the article, rather than what's in the ITN box already.

I don't understand how focusing on one concern (assuming that it actually is one) would nullify complaints about another. —

David Levy

00:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I must put my name against a point scoring system. Can you imagine how long it would take to devise the system, never mind record each vote which comes from it? The timer box would need a new colour to record when the gap between postings moves into weeks. Point systems are a wholly impractical solution. doktorb _words^deeds 06:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

To illustrate the aforementioned fact that this phenomenon occurs in relation to various subjects, I'll note that of the five current items, three are about the European Union (mentioned by name) and zero are about the United States. —

David Levy

02:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

So, I noticed that the discussion had been archived, but couldn't find any administrator comments on either the top or bottom. I assume that it didn't get enough consensus, but I'd still like a description about the final comments on the issue. hbdragon88 (talk) 00:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It was closed by

TC

00:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Please ask the admin directly if you would like comments. This page does not get as much attention. And we dont need another heated debate on something that got rejected on ITN/C. -- Ashish-g55 00:49, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree that consensus was clear. It was clear there was no consensus.--Johnsemlak (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

There was a consensus. The previous nomination, which was posted, had a backstory which involved numerous votes from all sides, and discussions spreading out from almost every individual vote. This current nomination had numerous votes from all sides, and elongated discussions spreading out over the same old covered ground over days and days and days. The consensus was largely negative, broadly agreeing that a natural death of a controversial figure was nonetheless not notable enough under the circumstances. Nineteen "Oppose" votes verses 12 "support", with additional neutral comments abound. I'd say the result to close the nomination was perfectly sound. doktorb _words^deeds 23:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Only on Wikipedia could 19 out of 31 (if that's really what the count was) be described as a consensus. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

There needs to be a consensus to post an item for it to be posted so with only 12 out of 31 (using the above numbers) supporting it, it was unlikely to turn around, so close to stop any drama was probably the best action.

Mtking ^(edits)

06:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes there are multiple slow news days and other times there are 5 items on one day. That's just how events are sometimes. I don't think there are drastic issues at ITN/C or elsewhere leading to a general failure of the section, at least at this point in time. Spencer^T♦C 00:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

More importantly than rethinking the merits of ITN, we should probably be looking into why participation has so rapidly declined in such a short period of time. I'm thinking that this happened in wake of the SOPA protests, which may indicate temporary complacency (or exhaustion) due to the recent success of that effort, or perhaps that we've lost some regular contributors who departed (or at least distanced themselves from administrative processes) due to their objections over it.   — C M B J   00:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

It's likely that right now, it is a slow news period. I admit I'm not always up to date on events, but there's really very little happening on international scales of documented note. Tomorrow, two dozen things could happen. I think its fair that when news is thin, we can reduce the number of items shown (though no lower than 4 maybe?) so it doesn't look as stale. --MASEM (t) 00:13, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Despite any total number of events, I still personally think it's a bit unusual to see so few people actively involved in the process. There's been at least a couple controversial stories nominated in the past week that have garnered considerably less attention than would be expected, and I can see that the Cyclone Funso nomination has essentially been ready for 24-76 hours (depending on interpretation) but still hasn't been posted.   — C M B J   00:49, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Things like that lack of posting a ready and seemingly non-controversial event like that cyclone are pretty discouraging. What's the reason? HiLo48 (talk) 01:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

(

Mtking ^(edits)

01:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Your latter point is important. Single country nominations are a huge problem, especially if it's about something culturally unique to that single country, with the obvious example from recent times being American college football. I think most editors the world over can understand the significance of top professional sport in any country, whatever the sport, but an amateur sports event associated with schools being so important is unique to the USA. So we have non-American editors understandably saying that it cannot be important (for the perfectly good reasons I just gave), and American editors saying that it simply IS important, without seeing things from the perspective of editors from places where it's not. One of my regular editing jobs here is re-correcting spelling "corrections" by English speaking editors who are blissfully unaware that other spelling variants than their own even exist. It's similar with this American college football stuff. Those proposing such material have to be willing AND able to present it in a way that acknowledges that editors from most of the rest of the world have a very different perspective. This is a global encyclopaedia. Editors must be encouraged to think and write for a global audience. HiLo48 (talk) 02:46, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Because someone has just responded, I was reminded of a point I made on the ITN/C page a few hours ago. We currently have a proposal there titled "Action of 25 January 2012". In my country, a response to that might be "WTF?' Unfortunately it's linked to an article with exactly the same meaningless title. At least some editors there are discussing the name, but seemingly getting nowhere fast. That has to be a something-centric-post. Dunno what the proposer was thinking of at the time. Just the US? Just US Navy? Just Seals? Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a global audience. For as long as we get rubbish nominations like this, we will get rubbish responses, and rubbish discussions. While the last thing I want to do is discourage activity on the page, we MUST aim for higher quality discussion.

I'm wondering if the notes at the top of the page could be added to with some BIG, BOLD advice to editors to make sure what they write is meaningful in a global context, and likely to be easily understood by editors from a different cultural background. HiLo48 (talk) 04:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I honestly don't think that the

Action of 25 January 2012 situation embodies much of anything typical; I've seldom encountered comparably bizarre affairs anywhere on the project.   — C M B J

   11:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I've just tried to follow my own advice in my "Support, and further explanation" post in the "2012 European Men's Handball Championship" nomination on the Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates page. That sport happens to be one that is almost unknown in some of the areas where a lot of our editors come from. [A bit like American college football ;-) ]. I'd be interested in feedback on how this looks. HiLo48 (talk) 23:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you need to say "And further explanation". All supports should have some rationale, something like "per nom" or "per so-and-so" at the very least. For more controversial items, detailed supports help posting admins determine consensus better. So I think "and further explanation" is redundant; put "support" and then your reasoning. Spencer^T♦C 03:37, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

This is why I think the criteria page out to say, straight out, that to the extent that reader interest is important for an item, it only matters that a significant number of readers would be interested in the topic, no matter how geographically concentrated they are. I do agree that people who make nominations should demonstrate things like Joe Paterno's death are a "big deal," and I think that can be accomplished by demonstrating the events' play in major media and the degree to which people are or may be looking for information on the item. I opposed the team handball entry (and the water polo entry) in the complete absence of any evidence that it is a major event or that a lot of readers will be looking for information on it. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)