Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 74

Told ya the cricket nomination would be posted first. !!!CRICKET KLAXON!!! Howard the Duck (talk) 17:50, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Mr. Duck does not appreciate the extraordinary magnitude of notability that cricket possesses and therefore the incommensurable importance in ensuring that it is posted to ITN whenever possible.--WaltCip (talk) 17:54, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus? Nope (Ok, ongoing). All kinds of cricket world cups, by both men and women? Yes and yes! Wikipedia wouldn't be even posting the 1941 World Series if Wikipedia existed by that time. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:57, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Surely ITN/C stands for ITN/Cricket. Juxlos (talk) 18:05, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

And not ITN/Coronavirus? What's hilarious on this is that the same reason why ITN is keeping off Karadashian gossip is the same reasoning that is being given to banish Coronavirus blurbs. Because it is "not news". There are actual encyclopedia articles being written on these, but nope, these are news. Why is no one sending those to AFD? Ah wait, they're not not news! Howard the Duck (talk) 18:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

They're news, but the point of Wikipedia is NOT news. - Indefensible (talk) 18:17, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

If they're news, why are those articles even existing? Should those be sent to AFD? Howard the Duck (talk) 18:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding the point, notable subjects can both be news and have encyclopedic coverage. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. If you want to write more about notable Kardashian-related topics, go ahead. Regardless of whether something is news and/or encyclopedic however, it currently does not mean that it has to be posted to the frontpage. That's the issue. Even if the Italian lockdown is a notable event, it can simply be in Wikipedia's knowledge base without being posted to ITN. - Indefensible (talk) 18:32, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Just because it can be not on ITN, doesn't it mean it shouldn't be on ITN. The point of ITN is "to direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest". Is 16 million people being locked down due to a disease not a "current event of wide interest"? Juxlos (talk) 20:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

The ongoing coronavirus link does just that, it directs people to relevant articles related to the subject, including the Italian lockdown. Posting it in addition would be redundant and biased (due to overemphasis) in comparison to other items which are not posted. One could argue that no, 16 million people in lockdown is not significant, it is impacting less than 1% of the human population with a mild inconvenience. By comparison again, various ongoing wars around the world are similarly affecting millions of people and killing thousands, but are not on the frontpage either. Whether something is significant or not is subjective, I think this event is notable but not so notable that it requires double coverage when other events have no coverage. - Indefensible (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

The key principle I think is that Wikipedia is not primarily a news site (

WP:NOTNP

). Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Therefore, capturing all recent news items ITN is not required or Wikipedia's core mission--Wikipedia simply should capture all notable knowledge, but timeliness is not the first priority. If people want to be up to date on the news, they should go to a news site, not to Wikipedia.

IF Wikipedia does want to do a better job of disseminating current news, then the frontpage probably needs a significant redesign to give more space to the ITN section, which is not particularly emphasized currently. This is not necessarily a bad idea I think, but again Wikipedia is not setup for this per the above. Similar to the WWII example, ongoing current events on the human-scale like the

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak would probably fall into the same category. - Indefensible (talk

) 18:06, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

The problem with the coronavirus thing is that it is so large at this point that if we decided to start posting blurbs for parts of it, that we re-dominate the news. The whole point of ongoing was to have events that have frequent news updates presented in the ITN box in a manner that would not overwhelm the rest of ITN, and we are doing that right now properly with the coronavirus stuff. We're not saying that key events in the overall coverage of the coronavirus can't be made into a blurb, but these should be major milestones, not just events like Italy's lockdown (neither the first and likely not the last). Remember, ITN is not a news ticker, it is to highlight articles of topics that happen to be in the news and that represent some of WP's best work. --Masem (t) 18:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

If every notable discrete coronavirus event is posted, then presumably every notable discrete event of the Syrian civil war and every other ongoing conflict can also be posted, so maybe it would not dominate. It would create a lot more churn though. The key I think is that ITN is not a news ticker currently despite the name as you wrote. - Indefensible (talk) 18:39, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I would point out that Syrian Civil War hasn't made headline for a few years now while the quarantine is headline news on almost every European news outlet. Not really a fair comparison. This isn't a "news ticker" item when it's a historically significant event which is part of a greater item. Comparing "16 million people locked down" and "generic Syrian village #203 is under siege" is just not a comparison. Juxlos (talk) 20:12, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Northwestern Syria offensive (December 2019–present) is well-referenced with plenty of respectable sources but was not posted. 1) Just because it is not in the headlines from your subjective perspective does not mean it has not been in the headlines. 2) News prominence is not a criterion per WP:In the news#Significance. Roughly 1 million people were displaced by the Northwestern Syria offensive mentioned above, it is not just some "generic Syrian village." The categorical difference between 16 million people and 1 million is arguably not huge, and I would argue displacement is significantly worse than quarantine. Either way, it is an arbitrary and subjective threshold to include or exclude either one. However, the coronavirus is already posted on the frontpage and the Syrian civil war is not. Posting the Italian lockdown only seems biased. - Indefensible (talk

) 21:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Masem If the U.S. decides to lock down New York, and Japan locks down Tokyo, then there's going to be significant interest in both, and it's going to be fair to have two coronavirus items on ITN. Nobody is implying that we should post ITN whenever a country confirms a new case. Juxlos (talk) 20:21, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

That was what was actually suggested before when there was news Italy and S. Korea had significant cases a few weeks ago. It once again comes down to the fact that ITN is not a news ticker We are not a 24/7 news station, we are still an encyclopedia and ITN reflects articles of good quality that are in the news. Ongoing is used for articles and their subarticles that are getting frequent updates, and the coronavirus (including this Italy lockdown) fits that just fine, it is not a new news item nor a significant milestone in the overall situation. --Masem (t) 20:28, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

There is an obvious pro-cricket bias now at ITN, and I think the best way to counter it will be to scream "systemic bias" at every cricket nom while erecting insurmountable walls of text denigrating anyone supporting the nomination. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:32, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

hi. I noticed that the section on the Main Page for "In the News" does not link to

When there is "Ongoing", the "Ongoing" text is the P:CE link. Otherwise, there will be a "Other recent events" at the very bottom next to nomination link. --Masem (t) 18:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

okay, but if that's the case, then why don';t i see any such links there now? perhaps I'm missing something? thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm saying, right now, the text "Ongoing" in the current template on the main page (with the outbreak after it) is a link to P:CE. --Masem (t) 19:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

hm okay, I see. in that case, can we change the label of that link, from "ongoing" to, eg, "More at Current Events Portal:"? --Sm8900 (talk) 00:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Can we please replace the cricket and architecture entries now? The cricket one has been there since 8 March (9 days ago) and the architecture one has been there longer I believe. I think that more significant non-coronavirus things have happened in the world lately which merit taking these two down now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Z117 (talk • contribs) 21:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

There has only been one non-covid related news story suggested in the last several days, and I can't think of any real major stories that would be suitable either. --Masem (t) 21:53, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Those entries will just roll off as new ones replace them, if you want to see newer content then you should nominate them on the candidates page. - Indefensible (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I could nominate the story of the Museum of the Bible's Dead Sea Scrolls forgery ([1]), but I'm not too familiar with it to make an update on the former page (the latter has a substantial note about it). Kingsif (talk) 22:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Certainly a possible replacement. --Masem (t) 23:02, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

See

WP:ITNC. And now we close this. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!

) 23:24, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

WP:ITNC, be it by making nominations or discussing the nominations of others. 331dot (talk

) 23:29, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Slovena has a new government, and so does Belgium. Since I nominated one of the two, I am not doing anything admin-related here. --Tone 11:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• 
  COVID-19 Outbreak World Map
• 
  SARS-CoV-2 49534865371
• 
  Covid-19-curves-graphic-social-v3
• 
  Symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 2.0

We should really be using something COVID19 related. Added some ideas.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Suggested pictures changes for ITN typically go to

WP:ERRORS, though there appear to be a few new blurbs that will likely take priority with a new picture . --Masem (t

) 01:31, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

That said, I'm going to BOLDly change it to the outbreak map, since the current image has been up for well >24hr. --Masem (t) 01:48, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks User:Masem Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I am trying to figure out what day the map we have on ITN is representing, and how we want to keep updating it going forward (if this image stays up). I asked for clarification at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#COVID-19_map_in_Main_Page, if anyone can give input there or point me towards a centralized discussion I am unaware of I would appreciate it. Kees08 (Talk) 17:52, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Substitute per capita map for total cases map?

Thank you to everyone for your commendable work on this banner. I'm sorry to chime in as a johnny-come-lately to this discussion, but since the banner gives primary focus to epidemiological rather than virological aspects of the disease would it be more appropriate and useful to our readers to feature the per capita [2] infection map rather than the case total infection map? States are social concepts and I'm not sure the value of representing infection rates within arbitrary historical-political units versus natural units like population. Plus, the "at a glance" quality of the case total map, I think, mis-communicates to the lay reader the impact of the virus on China and may unintentionally reinforce the "Wuhan Virus" frame by drawing the reader's attention to that country. (If I'm being crazy, please don't hesitate to tell me.) Chetsford (talk) 07:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

On mobile it's a real pain having to scroll down through all the current events stories when I want to read the noms, even more so now with coronaspam. Can the the {{Portal:Current events/…}} transclusion be surrounded with <div class=nomobile></div> automatically from now on?  Nixinova   T   C   21:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

There's been a lot of opposition to blurbing coronavirus stories since they would quickly dominate the ITN box, and the link in ongoing is too conspicuous for people's liking. A section dedicated to ITN would help alleviate these concerns. If we move OTD down to be next to the long featured image section that would create room for an extended ITN box. This idea may be too drastic, however, but I do think very major ongoing events should have more prominence on the main page. This section would obviously still have the same quality and notability guidelines as regular ITN stories; this would just help alleviate fears of coronavirus stories spamming the regular ITN feed.  Nixinova   T   C   06:59, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I doubt it's gonna fly — but I could see myself supporting if the right framework were to be designed. El_C 07:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

First of all, we're not a news ticker. Second, I don't think the coronavirus should be the story we use to set an example of very major ongoing events. I think there are other kinds of events which would be more catastrophic (a nuclear war, for example) that we ought to use as the benchmark rather than a pandemic with a relatively low death rate and an admittedly unprecedented level of media coverage.--WaltCip (talk) 12:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Some people want CV to have the increased prominence of a blurb, while others think ongoing is good enough (or they feel as I do - that ongoing is just as prominent as a blurb). The solution proposed here suggests it is a compromise, but would make it more prominent than either. How is that going to assuage the pro-ongoing crowd? GreatCaesarsGhost 12:24, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

:No, I don't think this is suitable. Coronavirus is going to be in the news (and Ongoing) for some time, and COVID19 stories that are big enough DO get blurbs even while it's in Ongoing already. The one example was when the WHO made the "epidemic" declaration; the Ongoing entry was removed, blurb was added, when the blurb was at the bottom of the ITN box, another Ongoing nomination was made and passed. Working as intended. No need to reformat the Front Page. The closed COVID19 nominations (for Italy's lockdown, epidemic in South Korea, and infections at the ski resort) were big stories, and might have been blurbed if not for the Ongoing entry, but were just not big enough. As important as I personally think the pandemic is, I still don't want this to turn into COVIDWiki. As for prominence, Ongoing is one of the most static parts of the Front Page. It's going to be there for every WP reader to see for a while, and probably a lot longer than necessary (like the 2013 Ebola outbreak)130.233.2.197 (talk) 12:34, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose a good faith suggestion for sure but unnecessary (and nearly impossible to execute). I don't think there is enough high quality content to justify it. I do wish we'd be less hostile towards the occasional blurb for otherwise ongoing stories. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:13, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Alyssa Healy

• In
  the final (player of the match Alyssa Healy
  pictured).
• Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
• In the United States,
  a tornado outbreak hits four counties around Nashville, Tennessee
  , killing twenty-five people.
• a political crisis which led to the resignation of his predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad
  .
• quarantines
  affecting over 16 million people, mainly in northern Italy.

Recent deaths:

• John Bathersby
• Adamou Ndam Njoya
• Bélgica Castro
• Elinor Ross
• Henri Richard
• Carsten Bresch

• Other recent events
• Nominate an article

Another idea is to make coronavirus its own dedicated line on ITN, and put the most recent approved blurb specific to coronavirus after it. (Example to right.) Or modify

Featous (talk

) 18:34, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I do believe that ITN looks patently absurd without covid-19 top of the list. It's a global story (shock horror, even affecting Trump's kingdom, despite the virus being fake news made up by Democrats) so it really does meet that primary issue of ITN which is to get people as soon as they can to the main news events. This is truly global news and far more significant than the ladies' T20I and the Pritzker Prize. How can we hold our collective heads up and say that the "ongoing" entry is sufficient here? Absurd. I suppose once we get to a few dozen deaths in the US things might change. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 23:13, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

• Proposal: Instead of doing that, we can have parentheses of major co-ongoing events. For example:

Alyssa Healy

• In
  the final (player of the match Alyssa Healy
  pictured).
• Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
• In the United States,
  a tornado outbreak hits four counties around Nashville, Tennessee
  , killing twenty-five people.
• a political crisis which led to the resignation of his predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad
  .

Hubei lockdown

)

Recent deaths:

• John Bathersby
• Adamou Ndam Njoya
• Bélgica Castro
• Elinor Ross
• Henri Richard
• Carsten Bresch

• Other recent events
• Nominate an article

• Comment I recall similar precedents before. When an Ongoing item got a significant development, that story has been blurbed with the link to the parent ongoing event. When that story rolled off the main page, the Ongoing item was restored. In this case it could something like "During the
  placed under quarantine". But, as has been noted, in case of coronavirus there could be nearly simultaneous events of equal importance which prevents their postings. Brandmeister^talk
  10:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - I'm a bit confused by the indenting going on in this particular thread, so I apologize if my comment is in the wrong place. The Rambling Man, old chap, I think we usually agree on ITN stuff, but in this case if we post a blurb about COVID-19 on account of it being massively significant, I believe that defeats the point of having the ongoing ticker. After all, it's specifically meant to cover news of ongoing nature where there are too many individual stories or sub-stories to cover in blurbs without dominating the ITN template. So what's the point of having ongoing, if not for stories like COVID-19? And if we accept that we should have both ongoing and blurbs on ITN for the same story, what are we setting the threshold at? I'm a bit leery of jumping headlong into this without some clear process or consensus on how to cover stories of this sort.--WaltCip (talk) 12:45, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

  I think our readers will just assume that "ongoing" with its format is just less significant or notable than the main blurbs. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 13:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

  Then I think we ought not have COVID-19 be an ongoing story, if readers are interpreting it as an "and finally" category, and instead we should just focus on posting blockbuster blurbs. As Sca said, being on the inside means I interpret it to be just "ongoing news", but obviously readers don't view it that way.--WaltCip (talk) 13:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• Proposal How about we just make it the top story, exempt from "rolling" down the list? New noms can be made to ITNC to change the blurb as events warrant. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:05, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Oddly I came here wondering if someone had proposed something along these lines. I don't have any strong feeling on exactly how to do it, but I do believe that this is going to be the biggest rolling event for most of the world in a very long time. And I think that needs to be reflected on the main page beyond listing this in ongoing. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:28, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

• I actually would strongly urge that the better solution, given the state of the outbreak/pandemic page, is to have a higher-level outline/overview page of the coronavirus. The current page is more specific to its orgians in China, which is fine, but its gone so far that's no longer really a good starting page. Instead, this overview page would hit on the basics of the discovery, symptoms, and other medical basis of COVID-19, a high-level timeline and its spread across the global and links to pages of the various national /international responses, and impact pages. To that point, and to ITN here, the top of that page can the be dedicated while the COVID outbreak/pandemic is active with a "news items" box that contain key points agreed on editors (significant things only, the Portal:Current Events level)/ When COVID is over, this box goes away, but we are left with a good overview page for readers to start from in the future. This avoids having to fight ITN over news items to include, and is a method for future broad, very active news-heavy targets like the Olympics or World Cup or, in the past, Brexit or Trump's impeachment. --Masem (t) 03:03, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

That would be lovely but you'd have to get a group of medically competent editors to (1) write a short overview; (2) fight its bloating by day-by-day he-said-she-said trivia; and (3) fight its depletion for not adhering to medical project source definitions. My experience with outbreak articles is that it is hopeless to try to condense them until after the outbreak is over, or at least out of the news, when reliable sources of the sort the medical project like start publishing reviews. The usual trick then is to strip the article into "timeline of XYZ", and rewrite it from scratch. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:40, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I've run into the MEDRS issue in a completely separate situation, and outside of a summary of the origins, discovery, symptoms, spread, treatment, and methods of containment/remedy, there's not much else MEDRS would apply to that page; the day by day news we're talking about here like the NBA season suspension wouldn't require it. But I have seen cases where editors that are avid on MEDRS issues will demand that only MEDRS sourcing be used, which.. makes no sense... --Masem (t) 03:44, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

The usual stuff that many editors find of interest (read me) and the medical project don't like to include is any treatment- or vaccine-related content short of "XYZ intervention is approved by FDA/EMA". I long since stopped fighting the flow, as it is literally the only arena on the 'pedia where my edits ever get reverted, despite the fact that it is actually my offline area of qualification/expertise. But they don't usually object to sports-fixtures-being-postponed-type news being sourced to better-quality news outlets, although it did cause some hassle getting one of the outbreak articles through external peer review (which is another direction in which the medical project is heading these days). Espresso Addict (talk) 03:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Probably a point to discuss well after the COVID situation is over, because I agree that MEDRS has valid but it does have limits as well. --Masem (t) 04:20, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. A low-cost way of implementing something like this would be to separate out all coronavirus-related content tracked in Current Events, and put in a link to something like "More coronavirus news" in addition to the existing link to the outbreak article. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:06, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Yeah, a simple extra link in ITN for "Additional coronavirus news" to something to cover the things we are not would be the easiest way to satisfy that. Whether that's at P:CE or a mainspace page or wherever, I dunno. But this can be added as a temp point at the bottom of the template where , right now, we have "Other recent events - Nominate an article". Real easily to create a temporarily template/addition for that. --Masem (t) 04:19, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Alyssa Healy

• The
  a national quarantine
  .
• Global
  their largest single-day decline since the Great Recession
  .
• In
  the final (player of the match Alyssa Healy
  pictured).
• Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Recent deaths:

• Richard Guy
• Charles Urstadt
• John Bathersby
• Max von Sydow
• K. Anbazhagan
• Adamou Ndam Njoya

• Other coronavirus news
• Other recent events
• Nominate an article

Alyssa Healy

• The
  a national quarantine
  .
• Global
  their largest single-day decline since the Great Recession
  .
• In
  the final (player of the match Alyssa Healy
  pictured).
• Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Ongoing:

2019–20 coronavirus pandemic

Recent deaths:

• Richard Guy
• Charles Urstadt
• John Bathersby
• Max von Sydow
• K. Anbazhagan
• Adamou Ndam Njoya

• Other coronavirus news
• Nominate an article

• • • So here's that idea, when we have coronavirus blurbs to direct to some page that should be a "current events for coronavirus" page or a section of a page for that. (This is in my sandbox). It thus should stand out regardless of what blurbs are there. --Masem (t) 04:49, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I like that. Could you mock up what it would look like when coronavirus returns to Ongoing? Espresso Addict (talk) 04:52, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Second example has the ongoing (obviously just ignore the same blurb, this would be where there would be no COVID-related blurbs. Again, same intended type of portal:CE-like target page for the link. --Masem (t) 05:07, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Striking my comment above, and voting for option 2 ["Ongoing: Coronavirus outbreak (Italian lockdown, Hubei lockdown)"].130.233.2.197 (talk) 08:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

• My preference is to a) put at the top, b) without the word ongoing, and c) styled like Recent Deaths - "Coronovirus Outbreak" in bold, with sub stories unbolded after. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:36, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Or, hey, we could cobble together a separate Eng.-lang. Wiki website devoted entirely to the Coronavirus, and yet another detailing the gyrations of world financial markets. Volunteers? – Sca (talk) 14:09, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I was redirected here, so I will just repost what I put on the main page, dropping the first paragraph except to quote PotentPotables, "At this point, we might need a whole Coronavirus subsection to ITN, just to fit all these "unprecedented" events (only half sarcastic)." I think we are at that point. It seems appropriate to continue that part of the discussion, since it is not a continuation of the particular story but an expansion of a growing ITN problem.

Let's face it, the tsunami of unprecedented events (or at least unprecedented in the modern media age) is going to get ever larger. The structure would probably be something similar to the typical infobox hide/expand (the presidency section of the Donald Trump article would be a good example, if an option were added to collapse it). Offhand, I would suggest the coronavirus template would include sections such as:

• Quarantines (a listing of all quarantined regions city-size and larger)
• Cancellations (of major events only (1000s of people), subdivide by Arts (includes concerts), Sports, Politics (those pesky election year rallies))
• Postponements (same divisions as "cancellations", events would often be moved from here to there)
• Travel disruptions (international, cross-state or cross-province)
• Economic consequences
• Infrastructure (medical, local utilities and transportation etc)
• Research
• Disinformation

Add to this a link to the main pandemic page, which would substitute for placing the pandemic article itself in the ongoing section. It would be just above the ongoing section (which leaves room for other potential ongoing stories which are not COVID-19 based). Call the section "Coronavirus - current events" -- and that ought to be the only thing visible unless users choose to expand the link. - Tenebris — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.11.171.90 (talk) 20:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, this is not Wikipedia's purpose. To step away: We have established in the past that we aren't going to take steps to warn people about pending hurricanes or tsunamis - all we can do is track them as news items and hope that people who are in the path are paying attention. While this is global and will affect everyone, its the same principle and we should be very careful to not make this a special case. Tracking this day by day should not be our purpose. Pointing readers to sites that are trackign this day by day, and for us, summarizing those results on a daily-ish basis, is reasonable, but well after this is done, we have to turn this around and make sure we're writing in encyclopedic coverage and not proseline, hour-by-hour breakdowns that some of the coverage in WP is trending towards. That's not en.wiki's purpose as an encyclopedia. That would be Wikinews. I still say that idea of a special page that can be linked from ITN using the boxes I spec'ed above, with links to sites or information in the list above, is reasonable, as long as this is the summary of information from other sites, and not WP being the "news hub" for it. --Masem (t) 23:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Much as I would normally agree, Masem, I think that the ship has sailed. I think we are becoming a hub, whether we like it or not. The latest consensus obtained on ITN/C with the most recent postings of Coronavirus-related stories seems to indicate that. Is the consensus wrong?--WaltCip (talk) 00:10, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

The concensus on the Black Monday story was very weak to post, the Italy a bit stronger, where as the WHO "pandemic" was pretty strong. And of course the NBA shutdown was closed quickly. It shows there's definitely a gradation in how editors see these. Fully aware COVID is super unique and likely never to be seen again, but I can already see a similar line of argument that if we allow for a "special" front page allowance for COVID beyond simple additions to the ITN box, then I can see editors arguing that when we get to this next US election where whether Trump stays or not will have similar world-affecting impact will be argued and that we should have a similar box. Which no, we should not be doing at any point, en.wiki is not a news site, particularly its front page. It goes against our "no professional advice" disclaimer for all purposes in the case of COVID. --Masem (t) 01:22, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support any effort to make this content more prominent within ITN, such as
  [majestic titan]
  05:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
• Weak Support I think Coronavirus should be treated as an exception rather than us worrying about any precedent it might set--this is easily the biggest news story since 9/11. Coronavirus also fits neatly into Wikipedia's niche, given the large amount of misinformation floating around about it and the potential ability of Wikipedia to correct that. Of the options presented, I think the first one looked the neatest in terms of formatting (the "ongoing coronavirus outbreak" blurb), with the second one being acceptable and the last option being undesirable. My preferred solution would be to allow coronavirus stories to take multiple blurb spots in ITN. After all, virtually everything that is happening right now in the news is related to coronavirus, and there are some pretty major things happening. For example, it would be fair to make a blurb about all the sports events being cancelled right now--NBA, NHL, NCAA, Champions League, Serie A, etc. Looking on the front page of BBC, three of their top five stories are coronavirus related, and four of the top eight; their top three sport headlines are all coronavirus related, and other news website are similar. NorthernFalcon (talk) 06:16, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: This is the whole point of having the Ongoing link. People can access more information from that link. Spencer^T•C 14:38, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  • An honest problem with that, at least at the moment with the current target
    2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, while a good encyclopedic article, lacks a good summary of all the current events at a glance. Again, I would urge that we need a top-level outline/summary page that will persist past the pandemic, but while the pandemic is going on, can include a section near the top that include news items beyond the scope of ITN. Then ITN's ongoing can link to that, and make everyone happy. --Masem (t
    ) 14:50, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support for this suggestion. The main pandemic article (as good as it is) isn't going to cut it for the next few weeks of current events, when you have to scroll through 13.5k words and 337,886 bytes(!) just to find the latest relevant update. PotentPotables (talk) 15:35, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Also btw - two points, one about traffic, one about an existing counter becoming essentially useless if too many nominations come through. Please note that it is not crystal-balling to plan ahead. The pattern of stories you see now is actually a still-mild version of the pattern you are going to keep seeing for the next 3-4 months (if the U.S. manages to get its case tracing under control) or 6+ months (if not). (I identify the U.S. as the key country simply because of the combination of its large population, its attitude toward government health care, and its attitude toward personal freedoms. No other country is in quite the same position, although India has a chance of it, if the coronavirus really latches on there.)

(1) If the ITN pandemic page links to an index page, people are going to start bookmarking the index page directly. This will help keep WP from loading too slowly or even going down due to too much traffic by spreading out that traffic. There will always be people looking to the main page first, but, well, call it WP's version of flattening the curve.

(2) ITN is going to have quite a few COVID 19-linked deaths in two to three weeks -- more than is realistic to keep posting individually on RD. If you choose to go with either an index page or the expansion link I proposed (neither would involve a whole other front page sector, only re-thinking a single link), another category that should be included there -- and not on the main page -- is COVID 19-linked deaths, to separate them out from the regular deaths which will happen in any case.

Finally, this is not about being a news ticker. This is about providing quality encyclopaedic information across a wide but related spectrum -- a spectrum which is only going to see more demand over time. It is up to us to think ahead, so that WP can continue to be equal to that demand. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support a banner of some type. This is a, hopefully once in a 100 year event. The last pandemic of this gravity was the
  1918 flu. This is what everyone cares about and what they should care about if they do not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email
  ) 15:02, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Hmmm.... a banner gives me an idea....let me toy with something in a sandbox. --Masem (t) 15:09, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 pandemic

Disease

Virus

By location

Impact

Vaccines

Portal

Reported cases of COVID-19 by country as of 13 March 2020

• The
  a national quarantine
  .
• In
  the final
  .
• Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Recent deaths:

• Giwi Margwelaschwili
• Michel Roux
• War Emblem
• Burkhard Hirsch
• Richard Guy
• Charles Urstadt

• Other recent events
• Nominate an article

• • This is a first idea of a banner with a few key links that could be updated, that would eliminate an coronavirus ongoing if there are no specific coronavirus update. (This is in my sandbox so can play with the formatting). --Masem (t) 15:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, not our purpose, and Wikipedia editors are not able to keep up with the volume and assure MEDRS-compliant information is highlighted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support - I like Masem's current idea, and I like the idea of featuring it prominently. As Doc James said, a 100 year event. Kees08 (Talk) 15:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support Our readers are demanding this, readers of other language Wikipedias are demanding this, this event rises to top importance in Wikipedia by any measure we may wish to apply, such as reader interest, editor engagement, effect on Wiki community organization, off-wiki interest, expert critique of Wikipedia, media coverage of Wikipedia, model for general emergency situation. Wikipedia has the world's best available coverage on this topic and we have a lot to showcase here. I know "best" is challenging to measure, but in Wikipedia we transparently check the other sources of information and openly discuss them. It is very easy to find major problems with any other information source, including the CDC and WHO publications, and only Wikipedia makes any attempt to work through those challenges. A Wikipedia editor with a little preparation could easily defend Wikipedia's content and publishing much more easily than any competing source could defend their resource expenditure for the media they produce. This is Wikipedia's time and yes, we should make this content as prominent as possible. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support but maybe put the banner at the bottom? Kingsif (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
  • It can go at the bottom. Color and other facets can be changed too. I'd also like to point out what type of key links we'd want here. news stories? main info pages? --Masem (t) 16:41, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
    • I'd vote news stories - all the stories that would reasonably get blurbs if it was the only thing. There's lots of unprecedented things happening that could go there. Kingsif (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
      • I like it at the top. Links could go to the
        virus, and if we could use geolocation the article about the pandemic in the person's country. Doc James (talk · contribs · email
        ) 04:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
        • User:Masem what do you think about including the pandemic in the person's country? We might be able to get this ability build in a few days. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:45, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
          • Geoguessing is always going to have false hits. I'd have no problem with one of the key links being to a page that is a list of COVID responses by country so that it is 2 links from main page to a country's (and where possible, a providence/state's) specific response. --Masem (t) 14:53, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
            • It's straightforward: Disease, virus, timeline and locations. Then we don't need to mess around changing links, prioritising one thing over another, no guessing at where readers are coming from. As I said right from the start, Wikipedia needs to treat this seriously, not just with an "ongoing" link (which we did have at that time, and we risk having the next time three banal stories knock this one blurb off the box). There's a clear consensus to do this, including some positive input from Wikipedia's most prolific MEDRS editor, so right now it's a no brainer. Make it so. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
              • • User:The Rambling Man I think that is fair and would support, disease, virus, timeline. The WMF is providing some support here aswell.[3] So if we need more technical issues solved. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
                  • @Doc James: Could you provide the exact links and perhaps start a subsection below to propose them? I think there is consensus for updating the template, but let's get consensus on the links (per Masem's suggestion) prior to posting. Kees08 (Talk) 17:17, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
                  • I've updated my Sandbox above with the four links suggested. Any suggested for alternative phrasing welcomed. --Masem (t) 17:18, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• support per Blue Rasberry--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support banner but once this all finally blows over we need to make sure that the banner is only invoked in extremely extraordinary circumstances. Juxlos (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose banner – A thoughtful suggestion, but I'm not convinced it's efficacious to duplicate the link in the blurb with more Main Page clutter. Enough already. – Sca (talk) 14:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Post-posting comment – Now that I see it on the page, it looks pretty good. – Sca (talk) 13:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support banner this definitely comes under "things Wikipedia readers will be looking for" and at last ITN can begin to become useful as an encyclopedic resource for the millions looking for such information. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 14:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support banner, this is a good solution and allows for multiple links. --Tone 15:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support Banner per most of the above. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:08, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• I've gone ahead and added it as there's reasonable consensus for a banner with readily-available quick links. --Masem (t) 19:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• I've just seen this on the front page and thought I'd come and say kudos to whoever came up with this. Great idea, considering the situation. - SchroCat (talk) 19:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Group effort after a couple iterations to figure out the right thing to be doing without "violating" our principles, in otherwise ultimate IAR situation. --Masem (t) 20:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with SchroCat. Well done. Davey2116 (talk) 01:34, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
• For the record, I support the banner, though I think it should be a slighlty darker shade of peach to make it stand out more Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:20, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Time to move

COVID-19 pandemic

Disease

Virus

By location

Impact

Vaccines

Portal

Reported cases of COVID-19 by country as of 13 March 2020

• The
  a national quarantine
  .
• In
  the final
  .
• Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Recent deaths:

• Giwi Margwelaschwili
• Michel Roux
• War Emblem
• Burkhard Hirsch
• Richard Guy
• Charles Urstadt

• Other recent events
• Nominate an article

Right, we've got a pretty clear consensus that we should be doing something particular for Covid-19. We have a reasonable consensus in favour of a main page ITN tweak per above. We have Doc James on board, we have a series of articles, all of which are okay. I propose this should be implemented by someone who is able to make such a code change to the ITN template. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 16:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Masem: or anyone else, be able to implement per above? We can modify it later if needed, I think the current design is good enough to start. Kees08 (Talk) 16:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Before any move, we need to identify what "key links" are there. It's not a hard change, but I'd rather make sure there's strong agreement for adding it before doing it as it is a main page thing. --Masem (t) 17:13, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay so I propose

I've redone the example. I can include the top level timeline and the month, and when we get to April (and going forward), include two months for the first ~7 days. I've also moved the addition as a subtemplate into template space pre-emptively ({{In the news/special-header}}) but still not yet onto the main ITN template (this box remains an example from my sandbox). --Masem (t) 17:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, though I think Doc James did not want locations? Also, are we planning to remove the top ITN item or keep it in conjunction with the new template? Kees08 (Talk) 17:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I think "location" is essential. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:52, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I've added "By Location". And I would definitely take out the top news item at this point. I cannot think of any other COVID-19 related blurb at this point that would we would ever post with this header in place outside of any possible death blurb. If someone can make a good high quality top-level "Impact of the coronavirus" page that links the various impact pages, that could be a fifth link and that would also then cover the economic side too. --Masem (t) 17:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

With respect, I would leave the announcement as a pandemic as the top blurb and remove the Italian shutdown. The rest is fine. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. --Masem (t) 18:08, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

This looks great. I tried some minor tweaks (link here), though I'm not sure what the correct way to do this is (adding a touch of padding for desktop, and a small margin above and below the title for mobile). Also for mobile it would be nice if we could slightly reduce the padding below the list items from 10px to 5px. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Abbreviated March. But yes this is good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Great, so let's get this live ASAP and tweak as we go. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 18:48, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

+1 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:03, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

If we can get the right changes to here: {{In the news/special-header}} and then admin protect this like the regular ITN template, then we should be good to add it. Just need to evoke that at the top of the current ITN template. --Masem (t) 19:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to implement the additional/change of padding on the mobile side per AHollender. I know enough about CSS to be dangerous but not enough to know to implement this in in-line style. --Masem (t) 19:16, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I have added it to the ITN template. I do want to see the mobile tweaks but again, beyond my knowledge related to WP and CSS stuff right now. I also dropped a note at the Main Page talk page in case that is an issue there. --Masem (t) 19:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Masem: this new navbox is quite redundant with the first blurb now, both linking to the same main article. Removing that would also somewhat orphan the image, ideas? — xaosflux ^Talk 20:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

See the comment from TRM above that the declaration of pandemic is still a standalone blurbworthy note even with the banner. We're also lacking any real replacement blurbs at the moment and would leave ITN thin otherwise. But I would not be again IAR to put the next blurb that is ready to post in place of the pandemic in an IAR manner. --Masem (t) 20:06, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Xaosflux that the first blurb is redundant and do not agree that it should be its own standalone item; can we put the older blurbs back in? The economy/stock market blurb would be more noteworthy as a standalone blurb in my opinion. The Slovenia blurb candidate would be another option to put into the box if people agree to support posting it. - Indefensible (talk) 20:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, keep the blurb until it drops off. I see this major change as being a special "ongoing" template, but a pandemic blurb is still appropriate until it might drop off. Different times right now. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:14, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Mostly I think the map is still useful, so didn't want to have it fall off right away even if that blurb went. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

If we want to keep it, perhaps the map can be attached to the banner? The "By location" link seems relevant. - Indefensible (talk) 20:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I support keeping the blurb minus the Italy lockdown as so many lockdowns now. The announcement of this being a pandemic remains a big deal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I concur. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Even if we keep the blurb it will roll off in the near future as you wrote above TRM, so it may still be good to attach the map to the banner regardless. - Indefensible (talk) 21:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

First of all, nice job to all concerned - both practical and within a reasonable timeframe. Second, a suggestion for an addition to the banner - "Restricted borders". This does not fall neatly within the "by location" information or any of the others; and I don't think it can be left quiet for too much longer. The article anchoring that addition would be divided by continent and then by country or territory, with border restrictions listed for each. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 23:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Which specific article? The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 23:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

A new one, using a similar format to the "by location" article. (None of the existing articles cover all the necessary ground, so they can't simply be repurposed.) If consensus approves this, I can have it written in 24 hours, if someone else does not beat me to it. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 01:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

We could automate updating the timeline month by changing it to [[Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} 2020|{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}]]. I was going to add this myself but there's a comment that says to not update it until April 7. Anarchyte (talk | work) 03:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The idea is that when April 1 hits, then we will have both March and April up there, and then when we get to around April 7, drop it just to April (give we're about 7 days on news roughly). Hard to automate that. --Masem (t) 04:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

We could try the following:

{{#ifexpr:{{#time:j}}>7|[[Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in {{#time:F Y}}|{{#time:F}}]]|[[Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in {{#time:F Y|-1 month}}|{{#time:F|-1 month}}]]{{·}} [[Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in {{#time:F Y}}|{{#time:F}}]]}}

— RAVENPVFF · talk · 06:31, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Banner colour

User:Ravenpuff/sandbox/ITN I quite like this idea of an ITN sub-section. My only potential concern is about the colour of the special header. Currently, it's white with a black background, which is incongruent with the rest of the Main Page. I suggest that we change the theme to that of the "In the news" headline (background:#cedff2; border:1px solid #a3b0bf;), which would make it fit in better with the ITN section as a whole. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 03:59, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I see that does match the header when it is on the main page, but I personally feel it gets a bit lose then. the idea is this is mean to stand out a bit more. Not that we can't change it, just would want a bit more input before randomly changing it on readers. --Masem (t) 04:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Understood. I've added a preview of my proposal to the right. If other editors feel that the blue is a little too dark, we could try using a lighter shade, but I still believe that it has to be of roughly the same hue for a harmonious appearance – we want it to stand out, but not overly so. At any rate, even if we were to use the light blue of the ITN body, I would still argue that the special header stands out sufficiently. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 05:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the "Disease" and "Virus" wlinks would be better as COVID-19 (disease) and SARS-CoV-2 (virus). I also agree with RAVENPVFF that the background color should be changed - maybe a red of some sort? Brad (talk) 04:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Than it becomes to wide. I think we should keep it narrow. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:46, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I would not make it red. We want to highlight it, we want to make people aware, but red is not the right color for this as it implicitly is a "warning" and may create a panic to a reader we don't want to create ourswlves - let the data do that, not our presentation of it. --Masem (t) 05:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Updated background color I also agree that the white background was somewhat awkward. I've semi-boldy harmonized the color to non-white as suggested by Ravenpuff. We can continue to fine tune.—Bagumba (talk) 09:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I've undone this... the white is much better IMHO, both for standing out from other items and to avoid clashing with the "In the news" header immediately above. And I don't see that there was consensus to change from the discussion above. If I'm wrong, and consensus forms, then fine. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this necessarily "clashes" with the ITN header – I think that the blue highlights the banner well and provides it a sense of importance, without resorting to the garish white that's uncharacteristic of the Main Page in general and ITN in particular. As mentioned above, we can continue fine-tuning the execution, e.g. modifying it to a lighter shade so as to avoid clashing. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 13:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

"Impacts" is better than what I had proposed, and lo and behold, someone did beat me to it. A couple of article-specific suggestions, but those will belong better on its talk page. (On a tangential but possibly related note, I heard my first really good COVID joke on the weekend, involving quarantine-trapped audiences and where best to hold certain boring but portable cultural events. Sigh. I share b/c I know too much about the Spanish flu.) - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 07:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support (as suggester) change of ITN banner background from white to another colour (preferably blue) for harmonisation with the rest of the Main Page, for reasons explained above. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 13:18, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support revert of background from awkward looking white to proposed shade of blue (or anything better).—Bagumba (talk) 18:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support I like blue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:35, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Ravenpuff/sandbox/ITN 2

• Oppose - why is the white "awkward"? It was set up in white, and looks very good like that. We said above that we want it to stand out, so making it blue like the title bar and the rest of the box does not achieve that. It's also extremely confusing to have a bar in the same colour as the title. I don't mind if another colour is chosen, but it should not be the same blue as the title bar, because it's not a title. This is also a really ridiculous thing to be arguing over. Just stick with the status quo and focus on improving actual content.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:00, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

  It looks like there's a hole there with white. YMMV. As for "status quo", that new header had only existed for a few days ...—Bagumba (talk) 02:33, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  Perhaps a mid-way color between the header blue and white. Also maybe with the font size reduction on the second line? I understand it looks like a hole but at the same time, we don't want so many colors as it starts to hurt accessibility. --Masem (t) 02:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  I'm open to other shades. I just know that white isn't it. I'm not good at manipulating colors, so will rely on others design suggestions.—Bagumba (talk) 03:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  What about reusing the grey of the Main Page header and footer? This avoids the use of a new colour and wouldn't be as marked a change from the current white. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 04:21, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  I think white is fine, but I made some other options here. If any of these I prefer the bottom two. Kees08 (Talk) 04:33, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  New color I am ok with (in order) 1) the last one 2) Ravenpuff's suggestion, or 3) your 2nd to last.—Bagumba (talk) 06:57, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  The last one on Kees08's list seems fine to me as well. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 07:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  It's acceptable with me too. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 08:08, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

• Changed - to this background per the apparent consensus above. Hope this is agreeable to all.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:12, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
• This is
  WP:ITN at its finest. Humanity is facing an unprecedented modern-times crisis, and we're arguing over what color the COVID-19 template should be.--WaltCip (talk
  ) 13:52, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Everyone knows the abbreviation and this will help keep it from getting too wide. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:34, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Per MOS this should be done "only where brevity is helpful" and this will only remove 2 letters max up until August, so I don't see the point. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 22:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Make text smaller for the lower words

In my opinion it would look better with slightly larger text for "Coronavirus pandemic" than for the words in the row below. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

As long as we follow

MOS:SMALLFONT and no words are made too small. – Muboshgu (talk

) 18:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Of course. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I have wrapped the second line in a {{

smaller}}, as since there's no other font size manipulation yet, follows MOSMALL but achieves the effect cleanly. --Masem (t

) 04:08, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I awarded What a Brilliant Idea Barnstars to User:Nixinova and User:Masem. Other Wikipedians: please feel free to sign on to the barnstars on their talk pages. --↠Pine (✉) 18:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Juxlos also deserves some mention I think, they kicked off the preceding discussion on how to handle the coronavirus situation and wrote the Italian lockdown article. - Indefensible (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Heads up for those itching to have something other than the virus In The News, our old friend "general elections in tiny but nonetheless independently sovereign nations" comes to the rescue wearing an ITNR cap. Tomorrow the tiny Pacific nation of Vanuatu goes to the polls. Normally such elections tend to fly under the radar of ITN, and the apparently fractured political landscape of the country might make this a difficult one to cover. But considering the absolute dearth of non-virus news out there, perhaps we could be motivated to get this is shape. There's probably a fair amount of background info the article needs even before the results come in. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 13:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Woohoo for Vanuatu! -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:44, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Looks like they should be in the midst of the election right now. Hopefully someone in the know will update the article and nominate it for ITN. - Indefensible (talk) 01:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Now that Kingsif got the portal up, should we change the top link to the Portal:COVID-19 and move the pandemic article down to the to the article line? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:30, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Portal should be ready - after one comment, I have adjusted the elements so there's nothing that won't fit on a narrow screen. It's almost all transclusions so shouldn't take a lot of data, either. If there's any issues, leave a comment at the portal talk :) Kingsif (talk) 15:35, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I've added it both to the ITN header template as well as to the sidebar template (ala the {{Internet}} one too. --Masem (t) 15:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Sooner or later, and probably sooner, the ITN image will cycle to a computer scientist or some other image. Can we decide whether the map moves into the coronavirus special header, or is another image appropriate? Or does it remain text only? Stephen 23:32, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it would fit in the banner. It doesn't need to be in the box. Kingsif (talk) 23:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Exactly, right now its only there as the last image (the tennis player) was stale. It is NOT there for the same reason as the banner but only because it was the image associated with the most recent blurb. It will be replaced. --Masem (t) 23:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

From a technical standpoint, we can leave it where it is called from now, and if necessary add the (see map or whatever) in to the text of the special header - assuming we only want one image. It doesn't have to be attached to a standard blurb. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:46, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Added a link to the map which is updated daily on Commons. --qedk (t 心 c) 14:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Is this not going to be the map at the top of the page of

2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory ? I don't see the need for that link the special header given the "obviousness" that "by location" should have a map associated with it and has more usefulness with additional links. --Masem (t

) 14:59, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Masem: It's the same map, feel free to revert me if you want. I don't think it's not clearly distinguishable though, one of them is information by location, the other is just a map, some people might just want a map. --qedk (t 心 c) 15:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

What we probably want is a page that uses the image but if possible with a imagemap so that it actually can be clicked on and taken to a useful place. I have not done any imagemaps on WP in a loooong time, but assuming we're using the same base underlying world map for the case map, then the same image map for clickable countries or regions can be used while the updated map changes. *this* then would be a useful landing page to highlight for a user to go "I live here *click*" and see what the situation is. It may be the first clicks be by continent then to country, but you get the idea. Just linking to an image where there is no otherwise immediate data , off the main page, is not really that helpful. --Masem (t) 15:48, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Any reason we have only two blurbs when we normally run four? -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:17, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Things are slow other than COVID-19. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:49, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Understood but we have had dry spells in the past. The usual custom has been that we leave blurbs up until they are replaced by a 5th newer one. -Ad Orientem (talk)

True, but COVID-19.--WaltCip (talk) 01:21, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Any support for add

That would have to be done at MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice (as to appear on all pages for all users). I will start a section there with a link to Jimbo's comment there. --Masem (t) 14:01, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Masem: we could do that too if supported, for this proposal I'm trying to gauge if adding to selected articles themselves would be supported?

Is there a COVID-19 portal that could be used for linking all the related pages? Could be something to take to

WP:WPPORT Kingsif (talk

) 14:18, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I've recommended (Before landing on the suggested banner idea) that we need a page that is a good top level outline page all the COVID stuff as the present pandemic article is far too detailed to take is as such. That would be helpful too. --Masem (t) 14:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

That could also be useful, and in the special banner that could possibly be the "top" link. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:30, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Quickly made up Portal:COVID-19, please make/suggest improvements. Kingsif (talk) 15:24, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

That looks great and can be added as a bottom portal link, as well as a link to the ITN banner (if there are no objects). Might I also suggest then a top-page simple navigation tool ala {{Internet}} that is used as the top right (or under infoboxes) on all applicable COVID-pages. --Masem (t) 18:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@

2019–20 coronavirus pandemic sidebar}}, if that's what you were thinking of Kingsif (talk

) 19:07, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's it. Just recommend collapsable sections in that, but between that, the portal above, and the main page /ITN piece I think we got broad coverage. --Masem (t) 19:14, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Don't know best place to present this but User:Masem/COVIDsidebar is a collapsible version of that above. --Masem (t) 19:35, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Some of that might violate SMALLTEXT but, take it to the WikiProject for feedback Kingsif (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Articles typically use a sidebar or a navbox for aiding navigation.

2019-20 coronavirus pandemic currently has links to related pages in the infobox on the side and in a bunch of other places, so I'm not sure it also needs an aide on top. Sdkb (talk

) 02:40, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

• Note, WMF has added a CentralNotice related to this subject, see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#CentralNotice_about_coronavirus. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:43, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Can we have change the news something like that - Coronavirus death figure crosses 10k. Shyam ^(T/C) 05:45, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

No, we made the banner to capture the wide coverage of news about COVID, we're not going to stat-track news stories about it. --Masem (t) 06:27, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

We have two excellent FAs offering a beginners' introduction to viruses: Introduction to viruses and Social history of viruses. Would it make sense to add them to Template:In the news/special-header?

It would look like this: