Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 93

• I believe we should favor
  WP:COMMONALITY even if it cost us a few more words. Is that the question being asked here? GreatCaesarsGhost
  15:27, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, that was the question. Thanks. —Bagumba (talk) 15:36, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

I think we should formulate some sort of standard policy for the inclusion (or not) of natural disasters in ITN, because I've seen a lot of disasters nominated lately and there was no standardized basis for the posting (or not) of them. Do you think:

A) no standard policy is best regarding natural disasters?

B) there should be a standard policy based on the death toll?

C) there should be a standard policy based on the frequency of the disaster?

D) there should be a standard policy based on other factors?

There's a hypothetical "MINIMUMDEATHS" that is used , in that we do post disasters with high death tolls but not those with only one or two, but that's hypothetical. It is quite possible a massive quake that does billions of damage but only has a few deaths would be posted.

What I think we tend not to post are routine-ish weather disasters that have minimal impact. Hurricane landfalls with minimal damage (even if they knock out power to the whole island), tornado strikes, floods in the Pac Asian countries, etc. Even when those may be "record breaking" (like Fiona hitting Canada).

However, I do not thing a "standard" policy would help. Its just having good knowledge that we tend to have a bar when a natural disaster story qualifies, but is impossible to quantify that bar. Masem (t) 15:23, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think a standard policy would help either, and would lead to a slippery slope of standardizing everything without editorial consideration. 331dot (talk) 15:29, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Option A. Whether we post a natural disaster or not is based on a combination of the death toll, the extent and nature of the damage, the frequency of the type of event in the relevant part of the world, and any other individual factors that make it more or less significant than similar events (e.g. the air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption made that eruption much more significant than comparable eruptions). Thryduulf (talk) 15:31, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
• Perhaps in these cases, we should consider the quality of the article more. Featuring disasters that we have high-quality articles on is never a bad thing. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:22, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option A really. I'd rather not make a rod for our own backs. Each situation is different - e.g. hurricanes during hurricane season are regrettably known to cause lots of damage and quite a few deaths, while others are not. Best to leave this to case-by-case interpretation at ITN/C.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:19, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
• A no sweeping guides required. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 10:22, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option A No need to codify everything. ITN discussions seem to work fine for these natural disasters. Khuft (talk) 11:57, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

D When a major hurricane/cyclone/typhoon is reported as virtually certain to hit a stretch of populated places with crops and electricity, it should go in Ongoing as soon as practical and be removed when it dissipates. We know it'll be in the news, because of course it will. But we also know we have a hard time agreeing on blurbs. Whether it's a three-way dance between those valuing the inevitable death, destruction and dollars differently, a battle royale over favoured nations or a classic one-on-one between those who appreciate storm news and those who don't, somebody's always fighting.

We are more likely to agree on a neutral presentation of the storm's article name in blue unbolded letters than focusing on one aspect or the other. We can also all read the part of a meterological bulletin that notes a beginning or end equally, whether we know our weather or don't, so the post timing issue would stop rearing its subjectively ugly head. If adopted, I promise this proposal will work for you, whether you support it or not. Thank you for your time. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:36, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't work because of how routine these type of systems are, as well as their short lived impact (days, not weeks), as well as the news bias towards Atlantic storms and not those in the Pacific that hit Asia and land that way. It would also beg the addition of other types of weather phenomena like heat or cold waves, blizzards, tornados, etc which may be common or routine. Masem (t) 21:39, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

A major storm isn't all that routine (especially in this Atlantic season). As I asked you at the Ian nom, what's wrong with posting something for days (here I'll add as the news does)? And as I said above, cyclones and typhoons are definitely welcome in this future, since plenty of English news exists worldwide. Other weather phenomena are irrelevant for now. If someone begs for them later, we'll deal with that then. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:01, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment this is I suppose an attempt at formulating an ITNR proposal. It's never going to happen, because unless we instigate MINIMUMDEATHS or MINIMUMDESTRUCTION, there's not a chance there's an objective metric to gauge these weather events against. We're not a news ticker, so this very idea of " it should go in Ongoing as soon as practical " without any evidence that it's in any way encyclopedic is a bogus argument. ITN is not a pre-emptive news ticker, it's a post-processed guide to encyclopedic information. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:29, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  In the real world, folks commonly trust MAXIMUMSUSTAINEDWIND for their tropical cyclone scales. We might follow the Saffir–Simpson scale, where Category 3 hurricanes are major and devastation will occur (prompting the inevitable encyclopedic information). Nothing ambiguous there. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:32, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  As List of Category 3 Atlantic hurricanes points out, several Cat 3's never really ended up as "disasters" like Lee or Espilon while others like Jeanne and Sandy were far more devasting. Hence why we should wait for some significance of major deaths/damage before posting. Masem (t) 00:38, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  And as major death and major damage reiterate, we don't know the signs you'd have us watch for. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:49, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  I'll also remind you that we were never told Lee and Epsilon would hit a stretch of populated places. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:06, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  While maximum sustained winds may be a useful metric for how much potential a storm has to cause catastrophic devastation, we definitely shouldn't have a "WP:MAXIMUMSUSTAINEDWIND" threshold. There are a lot of things to consider: did it make landfall? And did it do so at its peak intensity (rather than weaken first)? How large was its wind field (how far out from the storm's core were its hurricane-force winds)? What direction did it hit from? (different quadrants are not all equally devastating) And where did it hit? (a powerful storm can decimate

  hurricane alley may be more "hurricane-proofed") All these factors are why Category 1 Hurricane Nate is retired but Category 5 Hurricane Lorenzo is forgotten. Also worth mentioning that wind speeds may be how we categorize hurricanes, but they are not always the preferred method of assessing how "strong" a storm is. We usually use lowest barometric pressure to decide that. This is why we say Hurricane Maria was stronger than Hurricane Irma and Typhoon Tip was stronger than Hurricane Patricia. TL;DR: We shouldn't make decisions based on the category on the Saffir-Simpson scale.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙

  20:11, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  And based on whether the storm is reported as virtually certain to hit a stretch of populated places with crops and electricity. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:32, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Remind us of whatever. This is an encyclopedia and as such should use ITN to report on truly notable events. That's why we have a consensus-gauging process. Each and every storm provides a different discussion point. There's no "default line" above which a windy day or a rainy day or a snowy day could be pre-determined to be noteworthy. In actuality, a lot of weather we have gets inherently notable because it happens in places which over-report it a somehow significant, rather than just routine. Again, as an encyclopedia, it's our role to root out the hype and stick with things that might make it to the "top 100 weather events of the year across the world" or similar. Otherwise, just like mass shootings, we'd have a secondary news ticker for weather events in the US. And who wants that? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:13, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• I have often wondered if we need to have an "Does

  WP:MINIMUMDEATHS Exist?" discussion on WT:ITN. I don't think the answer to that question is as straightforward as some people here may think. 🌈WaltCips/span>-(talk

  ) 23:40, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Question what would be the benefit of putting it in Ongoing though? These storms anyway only stay in the news from several days, i.e. the time it would take for them to roll off the blurbs section. We're discussing solutions in search of a problem. Khuft (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

This will give the same readers who (in theory) rely on the Main Page for quality updated current event info that info in a timelier fashion. Our hurricane editors have a good track record. Our blurb writers/voters have a history of dissension that typically sees blurbs posted after the fact, with hooks many feel miss the point(s), which stay up well past their time in the news due to fresher items held up by the same bickering process.

Of course, anyone who needs to know a devastating hurricane's size, strength and path or any pertinent emergency orders before it's too late should count on real news first. But it would do no harm if Wikipedia served as a backup educator, even for people watching from afar whose interest in any day's "top story" relies on concurrent news presentation as such.

A main page statement like "Hurricane Ian" or "Hurricane Fiona" is also far more concise, precise and uncontroversial than whatever we're still waiting to see the tediously drafted blurb might say. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:27, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn't that end up being a storm ticker, though? And as per VanillaWizard below: what about other weather phenomena? Floods, tornadoes, droughts etc. Or earthquakes? Khuft (talk) 20:38, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Other weather phenomena are irrelevant for now. If someone begs for them later, we'll deal with that then. But no, in my view, a news ticker is constant and repetitive, while major storms are unique and generally confined to certain seasons. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:49, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option A I appreciate the good-faith nomination, but I think there are too many possible variables to consider for what might make a disaster event notable. I think it's okay if every editor makes their own judgments regarding the notability of a disaster; I might personally try to go off precedent and consider the number of deaths at which we'd usually blurb a hurricane, but I also oppose any sort of codified "MINIMUMDEATHS." I think it's perfectly legitimate that many other editors will consider other factors that we might not be able to predict or codify thresholds for, like substantial damage to physical infrastructure (e.g. widespread power outages), meteorological records, or other metrics that I can't think of right now. Every storm is different, and every editor will have a different way of looking at it. Precedent might be fine for some, but precedent can change over time. I haven't even commented yet on other types of natural disasters (tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, other mass flood events, wildfires, heat waves, major droughts, winter storms, etc.) Can we really standardize all of these things to form a good enough threshold for when all of them ought to be posted? Maybe, probably not. But should we? I don't think we should. I definitely understand the desire to standardize these things to avoid headaches, but sometimes they create more than they solve. Best wishes,  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 20:00, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

In July, the clause in the ITN criteria indicating that "qualities in one area can make up for deficiencies in another" (refering to significance and quality) was removed. [5] I cannot find a discussion regarding it, and believe it should be restored absent consensus.

The edit summary says "I have never found the "deficiency balance" to be true in practice. On ITN/C, admins and editors both look for all three {sic} criteria to be satisfied prior to posting." This second part is accurate- some degree of significance and quality is always required. But I would reject the notion that we treat these things strictly as a binary, or that we should. The excised text makes an excellent case for why this "deficiency balance" benefits ITN. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:02, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Yep, I removed it, per

WP:BEBOLD. My point within the edit summary still stands; I have never seen a wonderfully-written article get posted to ITN if it lacks in the significance criteria. Conversely, if a highly significant article is posted prematurely, it is usually pulled thereafter by an admin who determines that it's incomplete. There is no evidence to me to indicate that this clause has ever been utilized or followed. It's worse than useless, because it's misleading. 🌈WaltCip-(talk

) 12:57, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I do feel that quality of an article should probably be weighted more when it comes to featuring on ITN, than it currently is. In that respect I like this clause. You're right, Walt, that currently the quality of an article is almost never used as a reason to push an article for ITN. I would personally like to see that happen more often. I do have to say that a low-quality article should indeed never be featured even if it is highly notable. Luckily, if an article is "important" enough, it will inevitably draw the attention of a ton of great editors anyway. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:16, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I respect your being bold, but this is (IMHO) a very worthwhile principle. Both significance and quality fall on a spectrum, not a binary. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:58, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

That was not reflected in the removed statement. I am open to a revised statement to that effect, but the removed statement simply isn't what's in practice, and we shouldn't try to kid ourselves even if we're noble in doing so. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 22:46, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Oh by the way, regarding the "three" criteria: those are significance, quality, and updates. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 17:42, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

It certainly should remain out. It suggests that if Trump urinates on a fence and somebody creates the finest article Wikipedia has ever seen about it, that we should post it because its quality outweighs its significance. None of us want to see that.

I don't really understand what the "clause" even means. No amount of quality can make up for something not being in the news, nor can the most important news story make up for something being the worst article. If an article is both in the news and of sufficient quality it should be posted. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:03, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Article quality can tip the balance of a borderline event either way (a borderline significant GA or FA is more likely to be posted than a borderline significant start-class article), and a start-class article about an unquestionably significant event is much more likely to be posted than a start-class article about an event of lesser or arguable significance (although part of that is the reasonable expectation that an article about a very significant event will be expanded quicker). So to an extent the statement about balance is true, but I do think it gave the impression it was more impactful than it is - we will never post a terrible article of any significance nor an an article of any quality about an insignificant event. Thryduulf (talk) 17:26, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• Per above, it makes sense to keep that line out. It may be true in limited cases, as suggested by Thryduulf, but there's no need to set it in stone and risk people invoking it inappropriately.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:05, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Should child articles be taken into account when determining whether or not a target article satisfies the criteria for the ongoing section? Noah^Talk 21:49, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• Yes Yes, child articles should be taken into account when determining whether or not a target article satisfies the criteria for the ongoing section.
• No No, child articles should not be taken into account when determining whether or not a target article satisfies the criteria for the ongoing section.

The outcome of this RfC will modify the text at

WP:ITN#Ongoing section

to specifically mention target articles and child articles to remove any vagueness about what exactly satisfies the criteria.

Discussion

Please leave comments related to the above proposal here. This will hopefully clarify what exactly counts for the criteria. Noah^Talk 21:49, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest limiting the discussion to two options; should child articles count, yes or no. I believe anything more complicated is both undesirable, and likely to make it harder to come to a consensus.

I would also note that at the moment

WP:ITN is an advisory page, meaning that implementing any result of this RfC will be difficult as there isn't a binding location to put the new instruction. BilledMammal (talk

) 21:54, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: Would you suggest we only settle the issue of whether or not the child articles should count? Even if there is not consensus on how many child articles are needed to satisfy the requirement, there would be consensus on whether or not they should count at all if it is between any of the options from A-E. Changed to either yes or no. The result here would change wording at WP:ITN to state whether or not we would generally count child articles (and how many if there is a consensus for that). Considering this is contentious as seen at the Covid-19 discussion, I made it a RfC. Noah^Talk 22:22, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@WaltCip: Well.. I changed it to either Yes or No since I agree it may be confusing to put both aspects together. It may be better to just revisit the specific amount if we would need to in the future. Noah^Talk 22:33, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• Option F - although I know that I'm not setting the greatest example with my RFC above, I also suggest that this should just be a yes-no RFC. And I would personally vote no. It's too much of a wiki rabbit hole to try and determine which child articles are relevant to the target article, as well as how to measure that they are receiving regular updates.--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 22:01, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
• Option A/Yes. Some stories are so large that they need to be split into multiple articles; removing such stories from ongoing because of this need, which F/No would require us to do, would result in bizarre situations, where we preference smaller stories over larger ones. BilledMammal (talk) 22:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
• Yes Just look at how many child articles the COVID pandemic has. It's only natural that the main article follows WP:Summary style and requires less updating than the child articles. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:38, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
• No Let's be honest here. Child articles are very hard to maintain and it took my effort back in June-August 2020 to keep them updated. It should not be taken to the account if a target article satisfies the criteria for ongoing section. Though, I wonder why this hasn't been discussed when Syrian civil war was in its peak. MarioJump83 (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, but... From the discussion above, at minimum this should be an obvious timeline or chrnponolgy article for a topic thst had run long. this is far easier to find and verify than the whole topic (something like covid with thousands of articles. Masem (t) 23:08, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

That would be too complicated to define at this stage. If we choose to include them, then we could define the scope. Noah^Talk 23:10, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

thats what i am saying that yes we should consider child articles for ease of the while process should be top level timeline ones, so that editors don't need to hunt and peck for updated content. that should make this idea more digestable. Masem (t) 23:16, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

More palatable alternative than this proposal. MarioJump83 (talk) 23:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

The goal right now is to determine whether we should include them at all. The scope can be defined at a later time in another discussion. Noah^Talk 23:16, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• Qualified "Yes" Obviously periodic updates for a massive topic like this will better be discussed in "child articles", but I think we need to establish a higher threshold in this case. If a real small number of child articles are being periodically updated, then the overall periodic updates principle for the topic/mega-article should fail. I think it's also worth considering how much traffic to the main article flows towards the child articles. If the child articles are few and relatively less read versus the main article, then we should defer to changes on the main article. If we expect most of the traffic to continue to the child articles, then we should weight them more heavily. What I fear though is the attempted justification for keeping elements in "Ongoing" in perpetuity simply because of updates to just one child article. I think the aforementioned "threshold" should be mentioned, but because of borderline or odd cases a particular hard threshold should be avoided. Point being, in a case like this, if we have periodic updates on a lot of the country-specific articles, then that should satisfy Ongoing, but we can't just have one child article out of many carrying the load. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:00, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

  If consensus is found to be "yes" here, then we would discuss a scope. People likely have differing opinions and it would be hard to get people to agree on specific scope immediately without a feedback discussion first. For the sake of keeping it simple, the RfC has been limited to the child article inclusion issue without any specific qualifications. Noah^Talk 00:13, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

  That's fine for me. In any case, I have my piece on the scope ready already! Still a Yes though; I would rather there be over-consideration of child articles than none at all. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:14, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

• No. If the linked article is not being updated but there is a child article that is and meets the ongoing criteria, then the link should change to that child article. Otherwise, too difficult to assess what is being updated and how regularly, which is a chronic problem for items posted in the Ongoing section. Spencer^T•C 01:47, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
• No. per Spencer. Polyamorph (talk) 06:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
• No. The way Wikipedia is structured is that child articles are separate from the parent and each is standalone, with the most important details from the child included in the prose of the parent per
  WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. If updates to a news story are important enough to keep that story in Ongoing, then it follows that they ought to be important enough to make it into the main parent, not just the children. Or alternatively, per Spencer, it might be the child that is the Ongoing aspect. Re COVID-19, some might say that it has broken this rule, we've been relying on child article updates. But then Covid has always been an outlier, a clear case of something so outside the ordinary news cycle that we IAR it. We even gave it a huge banner rather than a simple Ongoing initially. This is not a reason to implement a wholesale change in the guideline for all other topics though, and also probably doesn't apply to Covid any more either, now that it's receded to the background in the news coverage.  — Amakuru (talk
  ) 06:36, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

  This isnt how the Olympic articles work when they are ongoing. The updates are all buried in the individual event articles. the larger the event the more likely daily coverage will likely not filter upward.if we are writing in proper summary style. Masem (t) 07:19, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

  Well it sounds like something isn't being done correctly in the case of the Olympics then. Linking readers to a dry and static summary of how the host natino was picked and other miscellaneous fluff that isn't what makes it newsworthy at the time the event is ongoing, is not useful for readers. As Dumelow says below, the focus should be on the reader, and that means sending them to an article where they can actually read about whatever it is they're seeing in the news at that moment in time. Not just having a link there as a box-ticking exercise.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:55, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

  so for the Olympics we generally have the ongoing link to this article (the eq. fir the event) Chronological summary of the 2020 Summer Olympics, which is easy to see is updated as the event progresses... but it is not substantially updated with prose...that's left for the individual events, linked right off tgat. going off the comment of making it easy for the reader, I do agree that as soon as an ongoing event has grown large enough to have several spin outs and, importantly, A timeline or other equivalent article that briefly summarizes daily events that are fkesh ed out in full in the sypubartucles, that works for our purposes. b not that common sense is also needed...eh Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic itself is a summary article to various timelines on monthly scales, which are daily uodated. we'd want to link to this one since it makes it easy for the reader to find the updates they want. Masem (t) 13:14, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

  The Olympics aren't an open ended forever event Masem it's not the same thing and you know it. --LaserLegs (talk) 17:41, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

  neither was COVID, the Hong Kong protests, the George Floyd, and currently the Ukraine war...as compared to something like Climate change which is an event measured in decades, not months or years. All those events have a fair number of reasons to consider them over and thus removable from ongoing, which includes if the timeline page(s) arent being updated. Masem (t) 22:02, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

  The Hong Kong protests only ended because of COVID-19, BLM is still rioting, and the Ukraine war started in 2014. All forever stories. --LaserLegs (talk) 09:56, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

  you need to stop disparaging anything you dont like, particularly lying ( there were no blm riots, nor are there ongoing blm protests) remember the whole civility discussion? you showing no lessons learned from that. Masem (t) 10:08, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

  Jayland Walker fired wildly out of a moving vehicle while being pursued by police, was killed, and the subsequent protesters setup an illegal roadblock, bashed a guys head in and were charged with riot. So yes, BLM is in fact still rioting, and mercifully we don't have it parked in Ongoing. --LaserLegs (talk

  ) 17:31, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

• No Stephen 06:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
• No we must not forget the reader. The stated purpose of the ITN section at Wikipedia:In the news is to "direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest". This purpose is not served if the reader has locate a link in the main article to click through to find recent updates - Dumelow (talk) 08:35, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
• No if the update isn't significant enough for the "main" article then it's not significant enough to keep that article in OG --LaserLegs (talk) 09:17, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
• No per Dumelow and Spencer. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:53, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
• Maybe these concerns could be addressed by changing its name from "Ongoing" to "Recently updated". That would give editors a better idea of what's expected in that section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:14, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

• No, per Dumelow, although this might have the effect of driving more improvements on child articles, it is also going to gatekeep the interesting and relevant articles from timing to when readers are going to be most interested in reading them. It adds slack and delay and hoops to jump through, and I don't think the payoff outweighs the cost. The cost is that it makes the encyclopedia less timely, less interesting, less relevant, and less useful. We shouldn't sacrifice our policy and guidelines for timely news, but neither should we ignore the imperative of the most topical and relevant events being easy to research and learn about. That makes a less useful and less beneficial project for everyone. Andre🚐 03:23, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
• You could interpret this as a requirement that all child articles need to conform to quality requirements, such everything in the child arguments being cited. I don't know what the actual clickthrough rate is beyond going from the frontpage to the main article, but I expect that all the articles linked directly on the frontpage are subject to way more eyes than subarticles are. If a child article is clearly linked in the lede, then it might be useful to keep it in mind when it comes to blurbing articles. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:50, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
• No The value of the child articles requires that users actually click on the links to those child articles. But a rather small percentage of editors do. Take the main page for example. Some 5 million people visit every day. But sampling a recent selection of TFA's, only about 50 thousand, or 1% of users who see our most prominent and advertised link even visit it. When it comes to ITN, I suspect well less than 1% of users would be following the child links. Bottom line: the nominated article itself needs to make the cut. If it has better child articles, maybe those child articles should be nominated instead. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

The following sports items are nominated for removal from ITN/R, as they are not being regularly posted compared to their counterparts. I've organized them by letter so that it's easier to determine which items have consensus for removal.

• A. Aquatics:
  FINA World Aquatics Championships
  .
• B. Badminton: BWF World Championships.
• C. Badminton: Thomas Cup, Uber Cup.
• D. Baseball: World Baseball Classic.
• E. Cycling: UCI Road World Championships.
• F. Hockey:
  IIHF World Championship
  .

To avoid creating a massive

• Remove A, B, C, D, E, and F as nominator.--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 13:56, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

When you say "not regularly being posted", exactly what does that mean? Are they not being nominated? Are they being nominated but fail on the complete lack of quality improvements? Do they just go stale despite being worked on? If they fall into the latter class, that is not a reason to remove, that's just a process issue. Masem (t) 14:33, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

They're not being nominated at all, as far as I can tell. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:38, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

The WBC has happened four times. I think it was posted in 2006 and 2009, but I wasn't active here yet. It was posted in 2013 and 2017 (I'd link to the archives but they use the brackets instead of parenthesis in the headers), and hasn't happened since because of the pandemic, but is on for 2023 and I will be nominating it then. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:43, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

"Not being nominated" is completely fair for removal, but as Muboshgu points out, let's make sure we're talking annual events that are not being nominated year-after-year. Masem (t) 14:59, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

• Remove A, B, C, D, E, and F because they do not demonstrate clear consensus for inclusion. The discussions for inclusion (where present) do not make any particular argument, and are poorly attended. GreatCaesarsGhost 14:40, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
• Keep D As I said above, but I'll expand here, the World Baseball Classic is not an annual event. It debuted in 2006, and was intended to happen every three years. The second event was in 2009; I think both were posted then but those were the olden days, before I edited here. It was posted at ITN in the more present nomination fashion in 2013 and 2017, after they had decided to make it every four years (See Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/March_2013 and Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/March_2017). The next scheduled WBC was for 2021, but the pandemic led to it being delayed until 2023. Believe me that I and other baseball editors will be working on it and nominating it in March 2023. I can't speak for the other sports but I get the sense that they were picked without much consideration on why these were chosen. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:45, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

All fair points, so I struck out D from my list.--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:15, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Minor point that doesn't change the correctness of your comment in terms of the appropriateness of retaining it in the list, but the WBC was always intended as a quadrennial tournament, like other international team sports tournaments like the FIFA World Cup and FIBA World Championships (now FIBA World Cup), it's just that there was organizational difficulties in getting the first one off the ground so it was held in 2006 instead of the originally planned 2005, and instead of delaying all further tournaments so that they'd fall in the same years as other tournaments (or summer Olympics) the second one was held only three years later to get things back on the original schedule. Of course, the pandemic messed all that up, but that can be said for a great many things. oknazevad (talk) 21:06, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Remove A (no opinion on the others yet). The three most recent occurrences were June-July 2022, July 2019 and July 2017. There appears to have been no nomination in 2019 or 2022, it was nominated for an ongoing entry in 2017 which was rejected partly because we almost never do ongoing for sporting events other than the Olympics and article quality issues; some commenters explicitly said they would support it for a blurb at the conclusion of the event if article quality was improved but I can find no evidence of a nomination. Thryduulf (talk) 02:05, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• Remove B, C, and E Badminton is simply not that big a sport to be posted to ITN, and as far as I'm concerned the Tour de France is all we need on cycling in a given year. As things stand I am Leaning Keep on A and F. I hope to circle back on these later. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• Would anyone creating the articles of those events even know that they could nominate them at ITN? No less get them posted without issue, given quality. How long did it take for the articles to be in decent shape after the conclusion of the events? If that time is indeed long, then sure, 'no one cares'. But if they did get into a good shape in a matter of days, perhaps notify the creators of the articles that ITN is an option. If you lot don't decide to just remove them that is. My point boils down to: Do the people creating articles for those events even know they could be posted at ITN? 85.16.42.96 (talk) 18:37, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent point! Not every user is familiar with the ITN process, after all. I think the reason for having all of these various sports on ITNR is to ensure that not only the popular sports (football, looking at you) get posted. It the same idea as with the elections / change of Head of Government point: all countries are inherently notable and will get posted if nominated (and the article quality allows). With this in mind, I'd tend to Keep all of them. Khuft (talk) 20:24, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Looking at the the Badminton BWF articles for the the last three editions, the articles are have less than ten sentences of prose between them so it's clear nobody is working them into a state worthy of ITN whether the editors know they could get it posted at ITN if they did I have no idea. Baseball editors have opined above so they clearly know. The Tour de France articles usually get worked into shape pretty quickly and I presume there is at least some overlap between those editors and editors of another road cycling event, so it is likely they know. Ice hockey events do get nominated at ITNC and iirc articles about the Grey Cup and NHL get whipped into shape pretty quickly.

However, you do make a good point so I'll advertise this discussion on the talk pages of the main articles for these events and the WikiProject for the sports concerned (if they exist, I've not looked yet). Thryduulf (talk) 20:29, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Notified:

Talk:FINA World Aquatics Championships, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Water sports, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Swimming, Talk:BWF World Championships, Talk:Thomas Cup, Talk:Uber Cup, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Badminton, Talk:UCI Road World Championships, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cycling, Talk:Ice Hockey World Championships. Thryduulf (talk

) 20:57, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• All But D InedibleHulk (talk) 23:42, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support all but D. The fact they are not being regularly nominated and posted demonstrates the lack of significance. BilledMammal (talk) 01:12, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
• Remove E. Possibly keep F? I do not have the expertise to make a clear comment on any of these. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:57, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
• General content comment – For proponents of these events, it would be helpful if their respective articles explained the significance of the event within their field. It would be useful for editor and reader alike to understand the place of a tournament within its sport and community. Only F has a sentence to this effect, the others are extremely unclear. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:57, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support all Needs a clean up, also The Boat Race is another honourable mention that i feel really deserves to get added to this list. ✨ 4 🧚‍♂am KING  22:47, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  The Boat Race is regularly nominated, posted, and has had its consensus as an ITN/R item reaffirmed year after year. It doesn't fall into the same category of items that I am nominating for removal; for the most part, the items nominated here have not been posted at all on ITN. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:24, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  To be fair, the original decision to add The Boat Race was quite specious [6] and the majority has supported removing it [7]. Personally, I think it should not be on ITNR but should be posted because it is always of impeccable quality. But it will keep coming up because there seems to be a hand on the scale regarding it. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:24, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  I have move issues with it, in regards to notability... its a university sport event between 2 British universities that most people including i'd imagine most Brits have never heard of. I don't see why we would feature this over the world rowing championships. ✨ 4 🧚‍♂am KING  21:07, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  This set of nominations will already be a challenge to browse for the closing administrator; let's not discuss the Boat Race here. It will need its own separate discussion. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:53, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed, the Boat Race will not be removed from ITNR unless there is an active consensus to do so following a specific nomination. I very strongly recommend anyone thinking of making such a nomination read the multiple previous discussions before doing so and explicitly address what has changed since then in the nominations statement (because if nothing has changed, then the chance of consensus changing is almost nil). Thryduulf (talk) 11:52, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

• I think people are underestimating the importance of the World Aquatics Championships- not as far as article quality, but relevance. They're pretty huge, especially compared to the other listed items. Not only do all the best swimmers in the world compete, but they're multidisciplinary, and they also get tons of media coverage (articles often hit the front page of ESPN and the NY Times). -- Kicking222 (talk) 13:41, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  It's extremely difficult to estimate the significance of the championship based on the article, but I'm easily convinced that it's indeed a major tournament. Are some of the disciplines at the FINA WAC (like diving or synchronized swimming) considered foremost competitions within their sport? If so, that might make it an easy keep. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat)

  From what I can gather, they are second to the Olympics. GreatCaesarsGhost 16:21, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

• Keep F, no opinion on the others. With the NHL not allowing its players to participate in the Olympics (they played in 2006 and 2014, but not since then), the IIHF World Championships is the highest level of international ice hockey. Unfortunately they still only include NHL players whose teams didn't make the NHL playoffs, so aren't the strongest teams possible. A look at the annual tournament & final game articles shows they lack prose summaries, but are otherwise OK. If summaries were added I think they would be posted in ITN (last happened in 2017). Just needs an active editor at the right time, I don't think there's any doubt about the significance. Modest Genius ^talk 17:32, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment As this has lost some steam, I think it's time for a level set. I believe we are trending towards consensus to Remove B (6-1) C (6-1) and E (7-1). A is more a toss-up (6-3) and F is trending keep (5-4). GreatCaesarsGhost 21:05, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
• Removed A, B, C, & E It's been two weeks since the last vote. The only vote against B, C, and E were a rejection of the premise of the nom. This is reasonable, but the consensus is clear. As for A, it appears that it was added to ITN/R in 2011, was nominated but not posted in 2013 & 2015, and has not been nominated since. Taking that history in light of the comments above, I see consensus to remove. As above, I don't know if it is appropriate for me to act on the item as an involved non-editor, but I see no-one else doing so. GreatCaesarsGhost 20:06, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you for taking the initiative on this. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:33, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

The answer is of course not, right?

Yet I am consistently seeing comments and !votes on nominations for natural/manmade disasters;

There is an idea that these type of events will likely cause deaths, but how many tips that away from a "routine" disaster into something more notable for the ITN box. But what the number is depends on the type of storm, the geography, and other facets that cannot make it easy to quantify a MINIMUMDEATHS, but I think that's something we have to keep in mind. So a hurricane that landfalls but only kills two when all is said and done isn't overall that significant to one that kills dozens. A flooding that kills hundreds in China or India is routine compared to one that kills 10,000s. Masem (t) 17:23, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

That sounds like a good way of doing things, measuring the significance of a disaster based on a series of tangible and intangible characteristics. But unless people are made aware of what sort of characteristics we rely upon to measure significance, I think they are going to become more and more confused and distraught as to why their good-faith noms fail. I remember a lot of users from the

Tropical Cyclone WikiProject essentially staging protest votes for this reason. To me, that's the main issue. Our refusal to codify a standard policy or even a guideline on this sort of thing means it's the Wild West - or, if you prefer, a glorified vote-count. 🌈WaltCip-(talk

) 17:31, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

As a broad statement, we can say news items are usually compared to similar events (taking into account the type and location) and determining if the outcome is routine or unusual. This 100% applies to natural disasters but also manmade. For example, we rarely cover violence in the various African countries because they have been in a state of conflict for years, but we once in a while post stories about suicide bombings that have taken out many civilian targets. Masem (t) 17:36, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I can get behind codifying that statement. If nothing else, having something to point to will help our users who are continually frustrated by the fact that we don't seem to be posting news items (as opposed to newsworthy items). 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 18:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

You would need to balance that with existing wording at

WP:ITNCRIT:

Please assess and comment on the merits of each story on its own accord, not in relation to other similar stories.

Perhaps obvious non-ITNR items that typically get posted can be mentioned as "common outcomes", a la Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes.—Bagumba (talk

) 15:18, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

That's a great idea. I might work on incorporating a table like that into my essay. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:07, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Just for clarification's sake, the only reason I have noted it is because others have. I personally don't think there should be such a policy - my personal usage of it, admittedly, is more out of laziness than anything else. In regards to this discussion, the person I was discussing with suggested that 2 deaths in conjugation with a certain quantity of power outages was enough to post. We got to a point where the loss of life was remarkable enough to post. My personal issue with these noms is when people post them so early and say things like "well only two people have died but more will" or "well there will be a lot of damage". ITN is about events that have happened or are happening, not what WILL happen. Your criteria for ITN posting for a hurricane is different than mine. That's just how it is. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:26, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

No, and it absolutely should not exist. While the more deadly of two events of the same type in the same location will usually be the more significant this is not always the case. We do not judge significance solely by the number of deaths and comments like 2 is not minimum deaths material are a misleadingly worded way of saying "the total impacts of this event are not great enough that I think it should be on ITN". Thryduulf (talk) 10:18, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I would think that the number of deaths caused would be one possible metric, but not the only one. Other factors that may also matter include level of economic damage (an event that causes massive damage may be very significant even if the death toll is comparatively low), and how unusual it is (a hurricane hitting Florida is something that happens with some regularity; one that hits San Diego, on the other hand, would probably be newsworthy even with no deaths and moderate damage.) So, maybe "number of deaths" is useful as a rough starting point, but certainly not as some hard cutoff. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:26, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

You'll probably never get consensus among the current regulars for a hard-and-fast rule, but my intuition is that double digits is necessary, but perhaps not always sufficient. I haven't actually analyzed it. Much like other domains, if there was an essay with a handy shortcut and it more-or-less made sense, people would start citing it. At this point, people already cite the red link (sometimes in jest).—Bagumba (talk) 15:29, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Direct deaths is an easily measurable metric, but the taking the easy way for an ITN analysis is often not the best option anyway. Damage to infrastructure and especially human displacement (be it because of the destruction of homes or due to the threat of violence in a conflict) are just as relevant. We don't have a WP:MINIMUMPEOPLEDISPLACED, but for a lot of disasters that number is similarly relevant and perhaps even more representative of the total human suffering. I don't mind the way MINIMUMDEATHS is currently invoked, but I advice not to focus too much on raw numbers. "This hurricane is not having quite enough impact to feature" is, in my mind, a more reasonable objection than simply "not enough people have died to feature." ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:18, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

My understanding is that a large number of deaths is one of many good ways of establishing significance, and it tends to be one of the more commonly used metrics because the number of deaths involved is pretty black-and-white, unlike some other forms of establishing significance. But in terms of a specific number of deaths that exists as the "minimum deaths" mark, that specific number does not exist; and, that general number varies depending on the type of disaster/crime; therefore, there is no WP:MINIMUMDEATHS. NorthernFalcon (talk) 22:16, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

This is one of the items that was added very early with little discussion. It has been posted only once in the last ten years [8], when the article was composed whole-cloth by a single admin (who has since been chased off WP by trolls, apparently). It was nominated one additional time (2017) where it received only one comment. I believe this is the only second-tier domestic league we have listed outside of the Japan Series (though my recollection is that we routinely post the latter). GreatCaesarsGhost 14:12, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

It's not a domestic league. And how do you define "second-tier"? It's generally considered the second-most competitive basketball league in the world. However, it's fair to critique the lack of past nominations though.—Bagumba (talk) 14:43, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Second-tier in that it's unquestionably inferior to the first-tier league. Compare to soccer, where Germany, England, or Spain could credibly be called the best. We historically have limited ITNR to only the premier competition except where it was not clear which that was or the sport was very popular (and usually a combination of the two). GreatCaesarsGhost 16:21, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, it's a continental league, and I imagine there was probably the usual refrain of not wanting perceived American bias. —Bagumba (talk) 16:38, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

The individual final four articles in the past 10 years are not consistently updated with prose:

2014 have prose updates and honestly could've made it to the main page if nominated. The most recent ones have been stats dump though. I suggest waiting in 2023 if the Final Four article will be worked upon and makes it to the main page; if it doesn't, let's do this again. Howard the Duck (talk

) 15:08, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

This might be a perfect example of an article where, if someone did go and wrote a real good article about it, we'd be happy to feature it? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:01, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Are we really happy featuring American sportspeople in RD tho... Howard the Duck (talk) 18:52, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

That's a good point. Maybe we ought to look at having a maximum quota specifically for American sportspeople on RD. Even the playing fields a bit.^[FBDB] 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 15:08, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. We shouldn't be attempting to

right great wrongs. I really dislike the argument "just do it yourself", but that is actually very applicable in the case of RD. We just had an article of an Indian filmmaker that went stale because no one improved it. We have another of a Polish journalist that is about to go stale as well. Curbon7 (talk

) 07:32, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of RD biases is in section below. Please keep this section dedicated to discussion on EuroLeague. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:43, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

(

NON-ADMIN CLOSURE

)

Closing request as the topic has been posted. Ktin (talk) 15:53, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

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

---

This edit request to Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/header has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

~~The new prime minister  is Rishi Sunak of  UK

~

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:04, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Actually you don't need to do that; you can join the discussion at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#October_2022_Conservative_Party_leadership_election. It will be posted, it's just a question of when. (He doesn't formally become PM until he meets the King, which may not be until tomorrow.) Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:08, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

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

It seems to my eye at least to be highly centered on athletes and athletics related people. - Immigrant laborer (talk) 15:28, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

The only policy is that if the article is sufficiently updated with

nominate them. 🌈WaltCip-(talk

) 17:34, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

There is a little bit more, see Wikipedia:In the news/Recent deaths for the full guidelines. The reason of why a person was notable isn't one of the factors though. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:27, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I'd add that the system skews against celebrities (including actors and musicians), but that's more a result that celebrity pages tend to have been BLP noncompliant for years and only as we say "main page time!" do the flaws get exposed (eg not ITN's fault) Academics also tend to have weaker problems in this way, in that NACAD has "lower" sourcing requirements to justify an article but that minimum is not the sourcing quality we expect for BLP. My experience from dealing with those that volunteer in sports is that they are very aware of quality sourcing and thus their articles tend to be at sourcing standands when they reach RD. Masem (t) 18:46, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

At least a part of what you're experiencing is that I, an American with interest in sports, have worked on and nominated more recent death articles in the last month or so than I usually do, and these athletes are in my wheelhouse. I am as aware of my biases as one can be. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:55, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I just want to make clear I'm specifically referencing the 5 or so recent deaths that get their names on the main page directly, not the longer list. It's not clear to me what gets them included at that higher level. As I type, there are 6 names, 5 of whom derived their primary notability from athletic events that occurred in the USA. - Immigrant laborer (talk) 19:04, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

See

WP:ITNRD

. To get the name on the main page, a person needs to have an article that is:

• Nominated
• Updated
• Of sufficient quality to appear on the main page.

There is nothing regarding why someone is notable. If there is a bias on the main page at any one time it's going to be due to a combination of who has recently died (completely out of our control) and who has a good quality article that is nominated here. If you think think we should feature other people then nominate them. Thryduulf (talk) 19:25, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I've just looked through the 100 most recent posted RDs and 100 most recent RD nominations archived without posting (which go back to September and May respectively) and noted their nationality and profession. Almost half (96/200) nominations were of Americans with the only other nationalities reaching double figures being Brits (19) and Indians (11). Regarding professions, the largest group were sportspeople (42/200), followed by actors/directors (24), and politicians/activists (22). Of the 100 nominations not posted, 98 were due to article quality reasons (almost always lack of sources), 1 was due to a disagreement about notability (the article should have been taken to AfD but wasn't) and in the final case the article had been improved sufficiently but so late that the nomination seems to have archived before an admin saw it was ready.

Thryduulf (talk) 21:31, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for this analysis. I had done something similar earlier and to explain what I was seeing, I had two hypotheses. a) We need to attract a diverse enough volunteer pool if we need to ensure diverse topic coverage b) there are topics that are currently represented by a very few set of contributors; retaining them will be key to ensure sustained representation. To test either of these two hypotheses, we will need the above slicing of data that you have provided, but, with the contributing editors included. Thoughts?

PS: An adjacent and somewhat unrelated hypothesis that I had was re: posting admins. i.e. that a handful of posting admins are responsible for posting most of our articles. There is a need to incentivize / attract more admins to share in the workload. In case you have the ability to slice that data as well. Cheers Ktin (talk) 22:04, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

@Ktin All my analyses are done by reading each nomination and noting the relevant information in a spreadsheet. The nationality and profession stats above took me about 2 hours to compile and I estimate getting the data for nominators will take a similar amount of time, posting admins will be quicker - probably 30 minutes to an hour. I haven't got that amount of time right now, and may or may not tomorrow but if nobody beats me to it I can do it. To make it clear are you asking for something like User X nominated 4 RDs, 3 of which were posted or something more complex (e.g. User X nominated 4 American sportspeople, 3 of which were posted)? Thryduulf (talk) 22:38, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Totally understand the time effort. I was doing this manually the last time I did as well. I was thinking you might have a script of some form. I was looking for the latter i.e. each record would be something like this User X -> Article Name -> Nationality -> Profession / category -> Posting Status -> Promoting admin. No rush. Please feel free to get to it if and when you have some time. Ktin (talk) 23:58, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Is there a constructive use in seeing what domains a specific prolific ITN editor is interested in? I'm wary that volunteers are going to be shamed for their interests or told to diversify (

WP:NOTCOMPULSORY). —Bagumba (talk

) 06:20, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

I concur that this is probably not a valuable use of Thryduulf's time and that this will likely lead to some degree of shaming on certain editors. Curbon7 (talk) 07:28, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

I certainly hope it will not lead to shaming of anybody and I certainly don't think anyone should be told to change what they are doing. I see the intention as providing data to explain why certain (perceived) biases exist and so what can be done to overcome them. I don't support the suggestion made above of imposing a quota on American sportspeople. Thryduulf (talk) 10:54, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

We should be proud of the great work that Wikipedians writing about US sports do. Sounds like other writers need to get to that same level. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:06, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

I was hoping it was clear that ending my statement above with ^[FBDB] meant that I was being sarcastic. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:18, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't see that! My bad Curbon7 (talk) 17:59, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Agree with @Thryduulf. I do not know about how others were planning to use the data. A good way to use the data would be to see if we have blank-spaces by way of topics and running a pivot table on this base data would help with that. Ktin (talk) 17:44, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, the data already compiled by Thryduulf was fine. I was only questioning the need to also track contributions by specific User X i.e. User X -> Article Name -> Nationality -> Profession / category -> Posting Status -> Promoting admin—Bagumba (talk) 08:35, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Need it if we need to test out the second hypothesis. Ktin (talk) 01:16, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I see you are referring to whether there are topics that are currently represented by a very few set of contributors; retaining them will be key to ensure sustained representation My question remains: Suppose it is true a particular topic is by one or a few editors, what then, if not to imply that they somehow slow down or stop?—Bagumba (talk) 01:25, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, not sure if I follow your point. Are you suggesting that if you see a topic being represented by very few editors -- we should ask them to slow down or stop? That is wrong and antithetical to everything that WP stands for. Ktin (talk) 01:59, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

No. I am asking what we could constructively do with the data if we discovered that only a few editors were the main contributors in a given area? —Bagumba (talk) 07:12, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

From what I've looked at so far, three editors (Dumelow (36 nominations), Muboshgu (29 nominations) and Bloom6132 (19 nominations)) are responsible for 54% of the 155 nominations and they've nominated people in between 9 and 13 of the present 21 broad categories. The "Sports" category is the largest, representing about 25% of nominations. Of the 45 different nominators, 9 have nominated a sports bio (the category includes two racehorses).

Of the 129 posted nominations, fourteen admins have posted one or more. Three admins (PFHLai, Spencer and Stephen) have posted 75% of them.

Of the 155 nominations 37 different nationalities have been nominated, of them 84 (54%) have been American, 11 British, 9 Indian, 8 Canadian and 6 German. No other nationality has had more than two nominations.

The table headings I'm using are:

Article, Nationality, Country of notability, Profession category, Profession (specific), Nominator, Unique commenters, Comments, Posted?, Posting admin, ITN date[1], Nomination timestamp, Days later[2], Posting timestamp, HH:MM[3], Days since nom[3], Days since death[4], Notes.

[1] the date of death or announcement of death, i.e. the date of eligibility for ITN

[2] calendar days between the ITN date and the time the nomination was made

[3] How long in hours and minutes / days after the nomination was made it was posted (if it was)

[4] calendar days between the ITN date and the posting date

When I'm done I plan to publish the spreadsheet to allow those better at data analysis than me to look. Thryduulf (talk) 10:30, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

This is brilliant! Thanks for doing this @Thryduulf. I was meaning to ask you if including commenters was possible, but, I felt I was being greedy. Thanks again. Ktin (talk) 14:14, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

If I were to suggest some effort reducing measures, I would think the difference between [1] and [2] might mostly be non-actionable and you could ignore [1]. But, if it is easy enough, sure. Ktin (talk) 14:30, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm including that with the idea that it might have some relevance to whether something is posted and/or how long between nomination and posting. In one case so far it was directly relevant as the nomination was made 11 days after the death was first announced and so it was closed as stale with no evaluation of the article quality. It's also not at all time consuming to add. My thinking is that while I'm collecting this data I might as well collect a lot that people can do different things with if they want. I plan to include every nomination in August and September and then each archived day of October until I catch up with real time.

To clarify, in terms of comments and commenters I'm only counting the number, not listing the people who commented. One thing I'm not tracking that I would have done if I thought of it early enough is the time between the final comment before posting and the time of posting. Thryduulf (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks on the first topic. Agree on the second one re: just the numbers and not the actual commenters. Re: the third topic, agree that the time between the final reviewing comment and time of posting would have been good. Particularly, if there is a hypothesis that some nominations wait a long time before making their way to the mainpage. But, not a big deal if that is not tested. Ktin (talk) 15:56, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Reply to Bagumba's question: Let me give you an example. Assume there is a Topic A that scores high in terms of representation, say 15% of all articles. Let's hypothetically assume that a disproportionate set of those nominations come from 1 or 2 editors. The first statement in and of itself would tell you that this is a topic that has good representation in our project. However, if you combine the second statement, it tells you that there is a level of concentration that leaves the topic at risk. Hence seeking that additional data is important. Makes sense? Ktin (talk) 14:19, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Recently the community adopted EC requirements for the russo-ukrainian war, or was it EE in general(?). Up to you lot how to run this place in the end, but there is nothing at ITN that would even hint at only EC users being allowed to comment on nominations, if that even is the case and intended. But i assume it is, which just is what it is. But would there be a way to at least make a note of that somewhere? Somewhere in the nomination header or something? It would not only apply to this topic by the way, but also isreal-palestine nominations, for example, as that also has EC requirements. Just would be nice to know beforehand that commenting anything on them is a waste of time and not allowed for anyone without EC, a breach in policy essentially. That is the rule you made, not happy with it but fine. For good reason in the end, surely. I can understand that. But it would be nice if it could be marked somehow. 91.96.24.241 (talk) 10:47, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

• Something like 'New users are prohibited from participating is this discussion' or something along those lines. A clear explanation in plain english, not wiki speak, to notify people directly in the nominations that are covered by EC protection. 91.96.24.241 (talk) 11:20, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

  I agree this is something that would be of benefit - while editors of pages in the topic area can be expected to know (or find out when they try and edit) that there are additional restrictions in place, that is not the case at ITN. Adding an "ecp=" parameter to Template:ITN candidate that displays a message along the lines of

  Note: Due to additional restrictions in place on this topic area, only users with an account registered account at least 30 days ago and who have made over 500 edits may comment on this nomination. See

  Wikipedia:Extended confirmed editors

  and [[talk:{{{article}}}]] for more information.

  when set to "yes". This assumes that the talk page of the main nominated article notes what the restrictions are and (a link to) why, they should but how often they do I don't actually know. I don't have the technical skill to edit the template myself. Thryduulf (talk) 12:28, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

  • Yeah just to minimize any potential fustration was my thinking. Tedious to need to revert, annoying to get reverted without knowing why. Just anything simple, easy to understand for new folks and in as plain a language as possible. Most people still won't read it, but at least it is there. And as i mentioned, other EC protected areas do have the potential to be niminated at ITN as well, like I/P. Even if EC has historically never been enforced for that at ITN. Hence my assumption that this new EC protection wold neither be on this project as it does not relate to actual content work, or even discussion of content work, whatsoever. But whatever really. 91.96.24.241 (talk) 12:47, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
    • Indeed. The way this has been implemented is bloody rude. No warning anywhere on ITN/C that this applies to discussion of nominated items. I made a routine comment, only to find that it had been deleted entirely and that I had a thumping great notice on my talk page. Effy Midwinter (talk) 07:45, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
      • Just make sure your Talk comments are broadly construed as "constructive" (of an encylopedia anyone can edit) rather than "disruptive" (of the safespaces many people can't), otherwise you're subject to further deletion and notification, per Clause A1. Meanwhile, I can routinely belittle, delay or help to prevent any nom I damn well please, purely by virtue of making 227 more minor edits to completely unrelated articles than you have since we registered. I feel like my absurd privilege inherently tears us apart into opposing contributor classes, so however you might proceed, I'll hereby renounce my ill-gotten freedom to speak on this war only, as a matter of common human decency first, Hulkamania next and pure old-fashioned filthy hippie idealism thereafter. Cheers to a good fight! InedibleHulk (talk) 01:25, 14 October 2022 (UTC)