User:Greyhood/ITN
Imbalance of topics on ITN and proposed changes[edit]
In his analysis above, Eraserhead1 has shown that ITN mostly does a good job of maintaining geographical balance, perhaps with an exception of such large country as India being seriously underrepresented. But how does ITN maintain balance between various types of news and general topics?
I've followed the steps of Eraserhead1 and used nearly the same sample to study the question, starting from the very beginning of November to present day. The number of ITN news from this period has turned out to be 100, that's why percents correspond to numbers in the table below.
News per category[edit]
| Category | % | News |
|---|---|---|
| Deaths | 6 | Viktor Chernomyrdin, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Russia and the founder of Gazprom company, dies at age 72. Polish composer Henryk Górecki dies at the age of 76. |
| Natural disasters | 9 | Hurricane Tomas strikes several Caribbean nations, killing at least 24 people and causing damage estimated at US$544 million. Flights are disrupted by repeated eruptions of Mount Merapi in Central Java, Indonesia. |
| Epidemics | 2 | Over 400 people are killed by an outbreak of cholera in the Saint-Marc region of Haiti. South Korea buries more than one million domestic pigs alive after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. |
| Accidents | 9 | Aero Caribbean Flight 883 crashes in central Cuba, killing all 68 on board. A fire destroys a high-rise apartment building in Shanghai, China, killing 42 people and injuring over 100. |
| Terrorism | 9 | At least 32 people are injured in a suicide bombing in Istanbul, Turkey. Authorities investigate a plot to bomb planes with cargo packages intercepted in England and Dubai, en route from Yemen to the United States. |
| Other violent crime | 3 | The Supreme Court of the Philippines acquits Hubert Webb and six other defendants of the 1991 Vizconde massacre. Salmaan Taseer (pictured), the Governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab, is assassinated. |
| Political crime | 3 | Tom DeLay, former Republican Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, is convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Nigeria withdraws corruption charges against Halliburton, the world's second largest oilfield services corporation, in exchange for a US$250 million settlement. |
| Military actions | 2 | North Korea shells Yeonpyeong Island, prompting a military response by South Korea. The South Korean Navy rescues the crew of the hijacked Samho Jewelry, killing eight Somali pirates. |
| Defense | 3 | At a summit in Lisbon, Portugal, the heads of government of the NATO member states adopt a new Strategic Concept and agree to develop a mutual missile defense system. Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal, and South Africa begin two-year terms as non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. |
| Human rights | 3 | Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest.
Liu Xiaobo is awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in absentia, the first time since 1936 that neither the recipient nor any of his relatives has been able to accept the prize. |
| Protests | 3 | Demonstrations over unemployment and poor living conditions are held in various cities in Tunisia. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali leaves Tunisia following nationwide protests and Fouad Mebazaa becomes the acting president. |
| Elections & referendums | 10 | Dilma Rousseff of the Workers' Party is elected Brazil's first female President. In the United States midterm elections, the Democratic Party retains a majority in the Senate, while the Republican Party wins a majority of seats in the House of Representatives. |
| Other government change | 3 | Milo Đukanović resigns as the prime minister of Montenegro. Saad Hariri-led Lebanese government falls after the opposition allies withdraw support. |
| Sports | 10 | In baseball, the San Francisco Giants defeat the Texas Rangers to win the 2010 World Series. Gebre Gebremariam and Edna Kiplagat win the 2010 New York City Marathon, as world-record holder Haile Gebrselassie announces his retirement after abandoning the race through injury. |
| Science | 7 | Researchers at CERN announce that they have trapped antihydrogen atoms for the first time.
A team led by NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon discover GFAJ-1, the first microbe capable of using arsenic instead of phosphorus in DNA and other key biomolecules. |
| Space technology | 3 | The Boeing X-37 spaceplane completes its first flight for the US Air Force after orbiting the Earth for more than seven months. SpaceX successfully launches and recovers the Dragon spacecraft during its first test flight, the first commercially-developed spacecraft to successfully return from Earth orbit. |
| Other technology | 1 | The People's Republic of China's Chengdu J-20, a fifth generation stealth fighter aircraft prototype, makes its first flight. |
| Infrastructure | 2 | The Yiwan Railway, featuring 288 kilometers of bridges or tunnels on a total length of 377 kilometers, opens for service between the Hubei province and the city of Chongqing. Five new lines open for operation in the Beijing Subway, adding 108 km (67 mi) of new tracks to the system. |
| Economy | 3 | Eurozone countries agree to a bailout of the Republic of Ireland from the European Financial Stability Facility in response to the global financial crisis. Estonia adopts the euro as its currency, ending use of the kroon. (later removed) |
| Video Games | 1 | The video game Call of Duty: Black Ops breaks the 24-hour sales record, selling 5.6 million copies. |
| Literature & Books | 2 | Michel Houellebecq wins the Prix Goncourt for his novel La Carte et le Territoire. An original copy of the book Birds of America by John James Audubon is sold at auction for £7.3 million, a record price for the sale of any book. |
| Religion | 1 | Pope Benedict XVI consecrates the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, and declares it a basilica, 128 years after its construction started. |
| Celebrity | 1 | Prince William, second in line to the thrones of the 16 Commonwealth realms, and Kate Middleton announce their engagement to be married next year. |
| History | 2 | The Russian State Duma officially condemns the 1940 Katyn massacre. The discovery of the head of Henry IV of France, lost after a desecration of his grave in 1793, is announced. |
| WikiLeaks | 1 | WikiLeaks releases a collection of more than 250,000 classified American diplomatic cables. |
| Natural phenomena | 1 | A total lunar eclipse (pictured) takes place, the first to coincide with a solstice since 1638. |
Analysis[edit]
The information in the table speaks for itself. But hoping to produce some well-structured discussion, I'll post here some points and conclusions made from the analysis of the recent ITN performance.
- 1. Too few news are posted. It's just 100 news for a period of almost 3 months and just a bit more than 1 item per day. I've already raised a concern that ITN is the least dynamic part of the Main Page, almost constantly featuring stale news of 5 to 7 days old, well beyond the typical period of 2-3 days when people are still having some interest in a particular story (unless it is an exeptionally major or prolonged development). With just 1 news item per day, we might as well change ITN template for something like "Story of the Day" featuring just one article similar to "Today's featured article" - this at least will result in that part of the MP changing its contents as often as the the other parts.
- I think that the practice of being very selective, proposing and posting too few nominations is the main problem with ITN, which results in other problems, such as obvious topic imbalance, domination of violence and politics, and underrepresentation of many other topics and certain countries and regions.
- 2. Half of the posted news are either ITNR or involving mass deaths. This means ITN editors are doing poor job with news which are not generally agreed to be significant recurring ones, or those which don't have as certain significance criteria as mass deaths.
- 3. Violence and deaths dominate on ITN. At least 43% of news are in the categories related to violence, crime and mass/individual deaths. (46% if the Protests are included, 48% if we include two news in the History category). This makes ITN looking very frustrating, and certainly it is not a decent representation of our world, where many positive events happen as well (currently the world population is growing, the economy is recovering from the global crisis - surely there would be more positive events than negative!). Not that we should post less violence and deaths, though. As I've already said, we just should post more developments of other types, and not succumb to the fact that in case of mass deaths and violence we have relatively easy and clear quantitative criteria of significance.
- 4. Over 1/3 of the news are political, that is related to either political events or current/former political leaders. This is also a sign of imbalance, though less severe than in the previous case with violence. Naturally, politics would always be in the news, but in the absense of decent representation of other topics, politics takes too prominent share on ITN.
- 5. Sport has a decent share, but is dominated by ITNR. Non-ITNR sports nominations have very few chance to get posted.
- 6. Science is underrepresented. Seems that among usual ITN editors there are many people involved or interested in science (the same case with sports, I think), so this category of news has a better share than other non-ITNR and non-violent news. Still I think that this share and the absolute number of sciemtific news should me much bigger. Afterall, scientific discoveries change the world far more significantly than most of those elections, violence and sporting events. Few scientific news results in few fields of science featured.
- 7. Technology, infrastructure, economy, and culture are severely underrepresented. With a weak exception of space-related technology (space launches are recommended on ITNR), these topics are very far from having a decent share and numbers. People simply don't nominate enough news related to these topics, and those nominated are usually ignored or met with undeserved opposition. There are too few recurring items related to these topics on ITNR (mostly those about arts, and nothing about technology and economy).
- But really, what about new giant bridges, longest railways and highways, or new nuclear and hydropower plants, or new mass-produced and long-expected models of cars and aircraft, and other technological and engineering achievements which can change lives of millions of people? Are they of less significance than disasters and deaths which typically have a direct effect just on hundreds and thousands of people? Why relatively minor accidents are ITN-worthy and major economic events are "business as usual"? Why should we post elections in the minor countries or elections that don't change the political situation, but ignore big events in the economy?
Proposals[edit]
Here is a set of proposals that can serve as a remedy for the current ITN drawbacks. The first one is a general recommendation, the others contain specific measures.
- 1. ITN editors should be more concerned with the main goal of Wikipedia (that is "making a great encyclopedia", see WP:ITN) and not with expressing their own personal opinions on significance of this or that news.
- ITN "serves to direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest." How does this specific goal comply with a more general goal of "making a great encyclopedia"? Apparently, as all other parts of the Main Page, ITN, on one hand, should set an example of good work, and on the other hand encourage more work done. There should be some balance between those too goals - if we will pursue a very good and thorough updates, there would be nothing left to do after the news are posted, but if we will start indiscriminately directing people to the un-updated articles related to recent events, this obviously would cause harm to the reputation of encyclopedia, since most Main Page visitors are readers and not users seeking which article to update.
- The other important aspect of mantaining this balance (between quality for the readers and encouraging users to create/update more articles about current events) is choosing what news to publish. From reader's perspective it requires more significant news to be chosen from less significant and trivial ones. From editor's and nominator's perspective more articles and nominations should be posted. Updating/creating articles may be relatively easy compared to the choice of what articles to post keeping both readers and editors happy. One thing is for sure: more readers and editors/nominators will be happy, if more non-trivial news are posted.
- When ITN regulars work on the higher quality of updates/new articles, or oppose obviously trivial nominations, that's good. But often there is a situation when we have a decent new article or update (or an obvious intent to make an update if consensus on posting is achieved), and at the same time we see the nominated news on the pages of the various world media; despite that, regular ITN editors may oppose or ignore such a nomination because they consider it not significant or interesting enough. But is such attitude good for encyclopedia? Is there any point in discouraging updates and avoiding possibility to retranslate more news to the readers of Wikipedia, if these news are really in the news and are considered significant by various world media? Why rely on the opinion and preferences of the small number of ITN regulars, especially when it leads to a very slow rate of ITN updating and an obvious imbalance between the news topics?
- So, basically, the recommendation is to put less individual POV into discussion and voting, and always bear in mind that ITN is not a news agency determining what news are significant or trivial, but an instrument to improve the contents of encyclopedia and the readers' access to its contents.
- 2. Posting more news should become a new policy and a priority for everyone.
- 3. The current balance of topics should be amended.
- 4. Nominations should be more formalized and reflect the posting requirements and criteria of significance.
Discussion[edit]
November[edit]
Dilma Rousseff of the Workers' Party is elected Brazil's first female President.
At least 32 people are injured in a suicide bombing in Istanbul, Turkey.
In baseball, the San Francisco Giants defeat the Texas Rangers to win the 2010 World Series.
Authorities investigate a plot to bomb planes with cargo packages intercepted in England and Dubai, en route from Yemen to the United States.
Islamic militants attack a Catholic church in Baghdad, killing 58 people and injuring dozens of others.
In the United States midterm elections, the Democratic Party retains a majority in the Senate, while the Republican Party wins a majority of seats in the House of Representatives.
Viktor Chernomyrdin, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Russia and the founder of Gazprom company, dies at age 72.
Aero Caribbean Flight 883 crashes in central Cuba, killing all 68 on board.
Hurricane Tomas strikes several Caribbean nations, killing at least 24 people and causing damage estimated at US$544 million.
Flights are disrupted by repeated eruptions of Mount Merapi in Central Java, Indonesia.
Over 400 people are killed by an outbreak of cholera in the Saint-Marc region of Haiti.
Pope Benedict XVI consecrates the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, and declares it a basilica, 128 years after its construction started.
Gebre Gebremariam and Edna Kiplagat win the 2010 New York City Marathon, as world-record holder
Haile Gebrselassie announces his retirement after abandoning the race through injury.
Michel Houellebecq wins the Prix Goncourt for his novel La Carte et le Territoire.
Cyclone Jal and associated flooding kill at least 117 people in India, Thailand and Malaysia.
Opposition parties concede defeat to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party in Burma's first elections for 20 years, after the National League for Democracy boycotts the elections.
The video game Call of Duty: Black Ops breaks the 24-hour sales record, selling 5.6 million copies.
A truck bomb is detonated outside the headquarters of the Pakistani Criminal Investigation
Department in Karachi, destroying the building and killing at least 18 people.
Polish composer Henryk Górecki dies at the age of 76.
The sixteenth Asian Games commence in Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest.
In boxing, Manny Pacquiao defeats Antonio Margarito to become the sport's first octuple champion.
Sebastian Vettel becomes the youngest-ever Formula One world champion, winning the 2010 Formula One season, while Red Bull Racing wins the Constructors' Championship.
Russia defeats Brazil to win the women's volleyball world championship.
A fire destroys a high-rise apartment building in Shanghai, China, killing 42 people and injuring over 100.
Alpha Condé wins the Guinean presidential election, the first held since the 2008 coup d'état.
Prince William, second in line to the thrones of the 16 Commonwealth realms, and Kate Middleton announce their engagement to be married next year.
Researchers at CERN announce that they have trapped antihydrogen atoms for the first time.
A series of flash floods kills 136 people and disrupts more than 1.2 million others across Colombia.
At a summit in Lisbon, Portugal, the heads of government of the NATO member states adopt a new Strategic Concept and agree to develop a mutual missile defense system.
Voters in Madagascar approve a new constitution in a referendum which also sees Andry Rajoelina remain as interim president.
Eurozone countries agree to a bailout of the Republic of Ireland from the European Financial Stability Facility in response to the global financial crisis.
A stampede during festival celebrations in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, kills at least 345 people.
North Korea shells Yeonpyeong Island, prompting a military response by South Korea. 29 miners are confirmed dead after a second explosion in the Pike River Mine, New Zealand's worst mining disaster in 96 years.
The Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands wins an absolute majority in the Tongan general election.
The Russian State Duma passes a bill officially condemning the 1940 Katyn massacre.
Tom DeLay, former Republican Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, is convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
WikiLeaks releases a collection of more than 250,000 classified American diplomatic cables.
Canadian-American actor Leslie Nielsen dies at the age of 84.
December[edit]
Russia and Qatar are announced by FIFA as the winning 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup bids.
A team led by NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon discover GFAJ-1, the first microbe capable of using arsenic instead of phosphorus in DNA and other key biomolecules.
A forest fire outside Haifa, Israel kills 40 people and forces thousands to evacuate.
The PCRM receives the most votes in a Moldovan parliamentary election, while the Alliance for European Integration wins the majority.
The Ivorian Constitutional Council declares incumbent Laurent Gbagbo to be the winner of the presidential election, one day after the Independent Electoral Commission announced that Alassane Ouattara had won the vote.
The Boeing X-37 spaceplane completes its first flight for the US Air Force after orbiting the Earth for more than seven months.
Both incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara are separately sworn in as the winner of the presidential election in Côte d'Ivoire.
In tennis, Serbia defeat France to win the Davis Cup for the first time.
Continental Airlines is ordered to pay Air France €1 million for the crash of Air France Flight 4590, the only fatal incident in Concorde history.
SpaceX successfully launches and recovers the Dragon spacecraft during its first test flight, the first commercially-developed spacecraft to successfully return from Earth orbit.
An original copy of the book Birds of America by John James Audubon is sold at auction for £7.3 million, a record price for the sale of any book.
Liu Xiaobo is awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in absentia, the first time since 1936 that neither the recipient nor any of his relatives has been able to accept the prize.
Two bombs explode in Stockholm, Sweden, killing the attacker and injuring two other people.
American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, chief negotiator of the Dayton Peace Accords, dies at the age of 69.
Scientists confirm that Voyager 1, launched in 1977, has shown signs of having crossed the heliopause.
The Supreme Court of the Philippines acquits Hubert Webb and six other defendants of the 1991 Vizconde massacre.
A boat carrying around 70 asylum seekers sinks off the coast of Christmas Island, killing at least 27 people.
The discovery of the head of Henry IV of France, lost after a desecration of his grave in 1793, is announced.
Nigeria withdraws corruption charges against Halliburton, the world's second largest oilfield services corporation, in exchange for a US$250 million settlement.
The United States Congress votes to repeal "Don't ask, don't tell", paving the way for homosexuals to serve openly in the U.S. military.
A total lunar eclipse (pictured) takes place, the first to coincide with a solstice since 1638.
Milo Đukanović' resigns as the prime minister of Montenegro.
Alexander Lukashenko is re-elected as the president of Belarus.
Jorge Rafael Videla, the former President of Argentina, is sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of crimes against humanity.
The Yiwan Railway, featuring 288 kilometers of bridges or tunnels on a total length of 377 kilometers, opens for service between the Hubei province and the city of Chongqing.
Former President of Venezuela Carlos Andrés Pérez dies in Miami at the age of 88.
Researchers announce that the Denisova hominin, a Homo species, interbred with Homo sapiens.
In cricket, England win the fourth test against Australia to retain The Ashes for the first time in 24 years.
Former President of Israel Moshe Katsav is convicted of rape, obstruction of justice and other charges.
January[edit]
Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal, and South Africa begin two-year terms as non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Estonia adopts the euro as its currency, ending use of the kroon.
Five new lines open for operation in the Beijing Subway, adding 108 km (67 mi) of new tracks to the system.
Demonstrations over unemployment and poor living conditions are held in various cities in Tunisia.
Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal, and South Africa begin two-year terms as members of the United Nations Security Council.
A bomb explodes outside a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, killing at least 21 people and wounding 70 others.
More than 200,000 people are affected by a series of floods primarily in the Australian state of Queensland.
Salmaan Taseer (pictured), the Governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab, is assassinated.
The U.S. government oil spill commission releases a report accusing BP, Halliburton and Transocean of managerial failure in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Andrew Wakefield's study linking autism to the MMR vaccine is declared a fraud by the British medical journal BMJ.
A shooting in Arizona leaves six people dead and U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (pictured) critically injured.
Iran Air Flight 277 crashes near Urmia Airport, West Azarbaijan, Iran, killing at least 70 people.
Voting continues in a referendum to determine whether Southern Sudan should become independent from Sudan.
The People's Republic of China's Chengdu J-20, a fifth generation stealth fighter aircraft prototype, makes its first flight.
Parts of the Australian city of Brisbane are evacuated amid continued flooding.
Archaeologists announce the discovery of the world's oldest known winery, believed to be over 6,000 years old, in a cave in Armenia.
The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor shows that gamma rays and antimatter particles (positrons) can be generated in powerful thunderstorms.
Saad Hariri-led Lebanese government falls after the opposition allies withdraw support.
South Korea buries more than one million domestic pigs alive after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
More than 500 people are killed by flooding and mudslides in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro (Teresópolis pictured).
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali leaves Tunisia following nationwide protests and Fouad Mebazaa becomes the acting president.
At least 100 people are killed and another 90 injured in a stampede at Sabarimala in Kerala, India.
The 2011 Dakar Rally concludes in Buenos Aires.
Venezuela claims to have overtaken Saudi Arabia as the world leader in proven oil reserves.
American politician Sargent Shriver (pictured), the first director of the Peace Corps, dies at the age of 95.
More than 50 people are killed in widespread flooding across southern Africa.
The South Korean Navy rescues the crew of the hijacked Samho Jewelry, killing eight Somali pirates.
The Irish Green Party withdraws from the country's coalition government, leaving it without an overall majority.
At least 35 people are killed and more than 100 others wounded in a bombing at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow.
Bomb attacks in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Karbala kill 27 people and injure over 70 others.
Thousands of Egyptians join anti-government protests inspired by the recent Tunisian uprising.
The Federal Assembly of Russia approves the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a month after its ratification by the United States Senate.
The Sumatran Orangutan (pictured) becomes the third hominid species to have its genome sequenced, following humans and chimpanzees.