Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 75

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Recent Deaths List

Given that there are an increased number of notable deaths from COVID-19 and there seems to be space for it, could the active list be increased from the current size of 6, to say 10? - Indefensible (talk) 21:42, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Bottom of the list currently is March 18, so they are staying up for around a week after their death right now. Probably not necessary yet, but perhaps will be in the future. Kees08 (Talk) 22:27, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
Usually it takes a few days for a nomination to get through though. E.g. Catherine Hamlin is the current last one, but she was not posted until the 21st, so she's really only been up for 4 days. It looks like the queue is filling up, so I expect people to be replaced faster as well. Having more spaces would let them stay on the list longer. - Indefensible (talk) 22:36, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
We've already got the giant COVID-19 banner, another row of RDs is going to cost another blurb. Do we really want that? --LaserLegs (talk) 12:34, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Not specifically reserved for COVID-19 deaths, just that the rate of notable deaths is going to increase because of COVID-19. - Indefensible (talk) 15:43, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Right but my point still stands: a third row of RDs for any reason costs another blurb. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:04, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
We can use the 2nd line which is mostly empty space right now, it may not require using a 3rd line. Also, isn't the ITN box overall responsive, so it will just push the whole column down if a line is added? Should not be that big of a deal I would think. - Indefensible (talk) 19:30, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

This one is quite easy to resolve. I suggested something similar here about two weeks ago, on the basis of the sheer numbers of WP pages devoted to people who had been in some way significant within their field, and, almost by definition, their ages -- essentially, within most fields, one tends to become more significant within one's field as one grows older. Simply add "C-19 deaths" to the COVID-specific banner between "Impact" and "Portal", and reserve that space for COVID-specific deaths. Suddenly your regular RD will be quite manageable. Personally, I would suggest not being worried about whether a given death for that page becomes stale: this would be a growing list, not a ticker, so staleness (and, I would suggest, article quality) would be irrelevant for *this* list specifically -- there is no way everyone can keep up, and the specific person's page is not front-paged. This btw would make it easier for non-COVID RDs to be posted to the ticker before they become stale and they would remain on the ticker longer -- and in RD the regular emphasis on article quality would continue to be enforced. Also, don't be surprised if that section gets *heavy* traffic -- people looking for politicians, celebrities, sports figures (which suggests a way of organizing that page) ... - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 13:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

This issue is now more apparent, with the RD postings flying by in the past 12 hours or so, and at least 2 Ready nominations missed. It does look like the list was expanded from 6 to the current 7, but further expansion should be considered again, either with a simple extension or a separate COVID list as proposed by Tenebris above. - Indefensible (talk) 18:27, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Except -- few of these are COVID related. (At least, they're not dying from COVID. Maybe their health care is disrupted due to COVID stressing the system, leading to their deaths, but that's speculation). We just had a bunch of deaths around the same time. --Masem (t) 18:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
And just to make sure I wasn't dreaming, the numbers from the last 5 days, deaths directed tied to COVID: 3.24: 2 of 8, 3.25: 1 of 5, 3.26: 4 of 10, 3.27, 1 of 5, and 3.28, 1 of 4 , or a total of 9 of 32. (this assumes all RDs are good RDs). So maybe a notch under 30% but not close to 50%, which would be where I would even consider drawing the line of making the distinction. We just have had a run of of a lot of RDs in the last week. --Masem (t) 18:41, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
25% would be a significant increase, even if it does not meet a 50% threshold would it not make sense for a 25% increase in notable deaths to have a proportional 25% increase in RD space? It is not like the change to the frontpage's format would be difficult either. Alternatively, the RD list could just be removed and replaced with a link to the deaths in 2020 page, similar to the link for other recent events. - Indefensible (talk) 19:21, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
My point was not so much about the COVID side, but the total number of deaths reported. I go back a month and over a 5 day period ending Feb 28, we have 14 RDs nominated; a month before that, 12 over a similar 5 day period. We nearly doubled that without COVID deaths here. The last several days is a statistical happenstance that a lot of notable people died. It happened at the same time as the mass spread of COVID, but there's no evidence that that's linked (Correlation without causation). Thus at this point, there's no need to do anything.
Assuming that we add 8 COVID deaths a week to 14 regular RD deaths (what seems to be the baseline, roughly 2 RDs a day), we're basically adding 1 RD a day to the process, which is not going to stress ITNC nor the template. If those numbers shift drastically, then we can discuss alternatives. --Masem (t) 20:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

As I noted in my edit summary on the ITN template and at the RD nomination itself, I decided to add the seventh RD and was hoping to see it up for at least a few hours, ideally a day. There are more ahead of it that are almost ready, so maybe we should expand to 8 for just a bit and see how that goes? I don't really care either way, RD (IMO) is mostly an incentive to get folks to update and source articles, so if we can keep the incentive there and get more articles improved, that seems like the best option. Relatively indifferent, and if anyone wants to remove the seventh RD I posted they can. Kees08 (Talk) 20:49, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The seventh entry makes for a bulky 4th row of RDs on my phone. I'm OK with it as a one-off IAR.—Bagumba (talk) 01:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to add only to make it easy to track for a week or so for RDs if deaths were related to COVID or not (with the assumption if the RSes don't spell out why the person died, it was not COVID related). Only to help decide what might need to be next steps. This is not meant at this point to alter how the RD should be processed, nor do I expect this to be a long-term factor. --Masem (t) 20:53, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Or: Shelter in place could be providing editors the opportunity to nominate and improve more RDs.—Bagumba (talk) 00:29, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

  • I don't think we can make a distinction between COVID and non-COVID deaths; if someone needs a ventilator but can't access one because COVID patients are using them all, that death falls in a middle grey zone. In my opinion however, I think that a third line for RD is too many; there's a balance between featuring deaths on the template but a third line I think takes up too much space. We do link to "Deaths in 2020" already in the template as well. SpencerT•C 01:40, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Keep the RD list at six entries. One of the main arguments for dropping the significance criterion for RD a few years ago was that we would never need more than three entries; that has already been doubled to six. Increasing it further would be a gradual takeover of the ITN box by RDs - we need to draw the line somewhere. If six slots isn't enough to keep up with the current criteria for RD, we should be looking at re-imposing a significance requirement, not devoting yet more space on the MP to minor figures. Modest Genius talk 11:23, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I think we might have to get to the point where, if a person's recent death is COVID-related, we might need to push them off into a separate link or ticker out of the ITN box. I suspect the rate of RDs might ramp up really soon, and it'll become a daunting task just to try and keep up with them all.--WaltCip (talk) 13:23, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I would prefer that entries are displayed in the order that they are promoted, so they all had a fair share of main page time. With the flood in recent nominations, some RDs are falling off in a matter of minutes while others still remain for several days. This imbalance is caused by the almost arbitrary order that they are promoted by an admin. As long as they are all within the last 7 days, then I don't think the order of death of particularly important — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:24, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    I think that kind of reduces the element of recent deaths, I think an added consideration of keeping items on for a minimum of 24 hours on the Main Page is the most simple (and easy to implement). ----qedk (t 心 c) 13:33, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    I think it's reasonable to allow an extra entry if it hasn't been up at least near 24hrs.—Bagumba (talk) 13:53, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    Agree with Martin, this is definitely an issue currently. "Recent" is subjective and a semantic issue, but is a week not "recent" enough? If not, what is the point of allowing the candidates page to run for a week? If entries nominated at the bottom of the still active list of candidates are just going to be marked as "stale" and excluded right away, then there is no point in even letting the list run that long. - Indefensible (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Those ratios won't stay there. It took from January to now to reach a million worldwide reported cases; it will take less than two weeks to reach 2 million, and in that same time the number of reported COVID-19 deaths will triple, if not quadruple. Things will change, are already changing; and they will change quickly ... possibly more quickly than ITN editors will be prepared to deal with at that time. Some may no longer be able to post, hopefully temporarily; but the online world cannot know what has become of them, except in their silence. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 21:05, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

ITN (like the rest of WP) is not a memorial. We only track death that 1) have been reported in the news and 2) have quality articles. If the news itself is able to keep up with so many notable deaths and editors do keep quality , then we'll figure out how to post all those. --Masem (t) 21:26, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Did you think what I said had anything to do with WP being a "memorial"? I say what I say simply so that planning ahead is possible, rather than something that gets "figured out" later. In two weeks, the U.S. will optimistically have somewhere in the range of 1 million cases -- how many WP editors and administrators do you think that will affect? - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 21:30, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Approximately 1 in 327 Americans, or 1 in 200 American adults, so you could assume the same ratio would carry over. Stephen 23:18, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Actually far more than that. You are thinking purely in terms of case-to-population ratio. (Btw the ratio does not carry over: both children and older seniors would be underrepresented among WP editors -- but current research suggests that half of all hospitalizations are for people 40 and under.) You are not adding in the effects on family, roommates, people with aggravated housebound illness not associated with COVID (but no room in hospitals -- did you know mastectomies are being considered elective surgery for this purpose?) ... the list goes on. And in the U.S. specifically, a constant underlying factor is previously untreated or undertreated comorbidities, because uninsured. Nearly all those people newly unemployed just lost any workplace-related health insurance they might have had. The average price for insulin alone is $450 per month (except in Colorado -- capped at $100 per month by regulation, but even that adds up if you are unemployed). - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 04:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Things are speeding up rather dramatically, and I would urge us to reserve a much bigger space for recent deaths until this flood of notable deaths is over. We have articles on many of these (although there are a lot of notable entries from non-English countries who don't get articles, never mind RD entries), and people are interested in these (judging from the big jump in numbers an RD posting often causes). When someone's death is only announced after a few days (as is now the case with Bill Withers, died 30 March but only now announced), there is no chance of it getting on RD, even though that would be a service to our readers, a motivation for our editors, and an all-round good thing for enwiki. Fram (talk) 15:04, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Deaths from other countries would have to be nominated.
An option, and I have not put full thought how this would play out, is to temporarily use queues like DYK does for RD. That is, say we start this queue tomorrow, April 4, at 00:00 UTC. No RD would be added directly to the ITN template but to this queue for 4 April once the article is ready/consensus gained - it does not matter when the death was at this point (outside of not being stale), just when an admin deemed the approval was there. When 5 April comes along, the 4 April queue is added to the template RD. If there is space for the 3 April "queue" it can be kept, but otherwise, all other RDs removed. This assures an RD is present for at minimum 24hrs, and avoids any favoritism issues. This would only be necessary with the high rate of COVID related notable deaths which has pushed RD nominations > 3 a day (average) (covid or non-covid related). Once that average falls back under 3 we can go back to the normal approach. --Masem (t) 15:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
For the most recent RD removals, both entries have been up at least 24 hours. That would be the indicator I look for to determine if the queue size or our selection process needs adjustment. Some have already stated to just IAR in those cases and leave extra entries, but only when needed.—Bagumba (talk) 17:09, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm just considering that we may end up with days where on (hypothetical) we have 7 RDs posted from 10 April (which "fills" the RD line) and then there's delayed news of a few deaths on 9 April. In any other situation, those 9 April would be immediately considered stale, but in this case, only because the news was not as fast as, say, American celebrity deaths, that we'd not want to ignore them as long as the RD quality is there. Thus a batch approach, grouping them in batches based on date of readiness rather than date of death, would help if we need to be able to account for more RDs. Right now we're not quite there yet. --Masem (t) 17:41, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Unfortunately we're rapidly approaching that point; we've posted 10 RDs in the past 20 hours. SpencerT•C 22:34, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
We're down to three blurbs, and even so we're not promoting them with any kind of rapidity - even the newest is older than any of the RDs. Bumping another off the bottom gets us enough space for another five or six RDs. —Cryptic 19:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
And then we start entering the WP:SEAOFBLUE issue. Not that eliminating a blurb right now isn't a viable solution but that's short term. --Masem (t) 19:06, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
For Withers, we often use the announce date for posting purposes when it differs a bit from the actual date (see WP:ITNRD).—Bagumba (talk) 16:22, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Note that posting Withers bumped Bucky Pizzarelli off the list after only 5 hours. If another one gets posted in the next couple hours, it looks like Zoltán Peskó will be up for even shorter. - Indefensible (talk) 22:37, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I think Ellis Marsalis Jr. and Bucky Pizzarelli should be restored for now. There's reasonable consensus above that we can increase the number of RDs if there's space to do so, and right now with only three blurbs, the ITN section is still significantly shorter than the TFA to the left of it at most screen resolutions.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:51, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I think at this post , we need to be looking at the date of when the ITN was posted to at least give it a 24hr period, not when the death was, because, yes, like Marsalis was far less than 24hr. We're going to have a lot of uneven death announcements with this, which is very atypical. --Masem (t) 23:11, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Posting by nomination or in Ready order would be preferable I think, and is more consistent with announce date. Currently if there are >6 deaths on the same given day, that would effectively block out the 6 previous days of the week. In that situation, a death and nomination from the day before would be "stale" despite only being one day earlier. It is not that extreme yet, but currently entries that are 2-3 days old are already "stale." Changing the queue order would even things out. - Indefensible (talk) 23:26, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Posting admins need to work from the bottom up, and not pick easy ones at the top. Stephen 23:45, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I dont understand this removal of Ellis Marsalis Jr. and Bucky Pizzarelli, April 1 deaths up for a mere 5 hours, while keeping the older March 31 Zoltán Peskó.—Bagumba (talk) 01:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Peskó was the last one up before Withers I think, he would have been posted for less than 2 hours if Withers had bumped him off. - Indefensible (talk) 01:10, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
But he was 1) not relatively recent compared to April 1s and 2) was already not "recent" when he was posted as the 8th RD on the list.[1]—Bagumba (talk) 01:23, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Peskó was one day earlier on the 31st as you wrote (and actually seems to have been mistakenly listed with the other two on April 1st), but the difference of a day is negligible in my opinion--that is the point I disagree on. In my opinion, the whole week is "recent" enough; otherwise there is no reason to keep the candidates list that long and dates should be archived to the new definition of "recent," because holding it open is going to invite needless and unwanted nominations--which is already the case currently. - Indefensible (talk) 02:41, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Is your issue that older noms are not diligently marked "stale", or are you requesting that someone make the archive bots more intelligent that just waiting 7 days to archive?—Bagumba (talk) 02:47, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
No, I am saying that a death that is only 3 days old (and halfway down the week on the candidates page) is still too "recent" to be called "stale" in my opinion. A nomination that comes in 5 days down the list should still be considered for posting without being "stale." Otherwise why even keep the list open that long? - Indefensible (talk) 02:52, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Otherwise why even keep the list open that long?: An item not being moved to the archives does not mean it's still "open". They should be marked "stale", saving needless discussion. When it gets archived (and out of sight) is an independent maintenance issue.—Bagumba (talk) 05:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Nothing on the candidates page should be considered "stale" in my opinion, everything within the past 7 days is "recent" enough. Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS so the primary priority should be encyclopedic comprehensiveness, not recency. - Indefensible (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Short term RD handling proposal - go by date of posting, give min. of 24 hrs

To summarize the above, there's a partial agreement that while we are having several COVID deaths a day (a situation that is likely to run for at least the next month or two), that we change the approach to listing them:

  • They should be dated that the posting admin posts the RD, not the date the death was in the news. We'll still use the date it was in the news to determine a stale death (a death from a week ago is stale and won't be posted), but for purposes of at least given some due to all RDs per the RD RFC, going by date of posting will still be fair. Cavaet: We will need editors to be running through the ITNC at least once a day to make sure that we don't have too many entries backed up.
  • That once posted, these RDs should remain for a minimum of 24hr. If this means that in addition to indiciating the date that it was added to RD but the approximate time (UTC), then so be it.

Is there any major issues objections here? This is a temporary/IAR solution, not a permanent change in policy and the once-in-a-lifetime situation so maybe a brief FAQ page but not to change instructions presently. --Masem (t) 02:20, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Withers late announce cases aside (which was an existing pre-COVID practice) I do not support posting older deaths if there are enough recent ones just 2-3 days old. I do support 24hr minimum time on page, and permitting more than 6 RDs to allow that (barring further complications).—Bagumba (talk) 02:40, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
This is in the direction that I prefer, but there are still 2 fundamental problems potentially:
  1. What happens if the queue fills up at a faster rate than 6 entries (or the length of the active list) per 24 hours? Then the waiting list will grow as Ready nominations have to wait 24 hours on the oldest active entry. In an extreme case there could be rollover where the Waiting queue exceeds the 7 days "Recent" period of incoming nominations, although this is hopefully unlikely to happen even with COVID-19.
  2. Even when COVID-19 is over and back to normal conditions, there will still be growth in Recent Deaths due to demographics as the population both grows and ages. This is a structural issue that will have to be addressed at some point, if not now during this situation. - Indefensible (talk) 02:50, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Actually probably not, not after COVID-19 finishes this first and possibly a second peak. After that, there will likely no longer be much of a baby boomer bulge left in the population; since it will then be close to the same size as other generations except GenX, which will continue to be smallest for a complete cohort, and which (in the U.S. mostly, but also other countries where it exists) will be hit at close to the same percentage levels as the baby boomers. (See note about spiking unemployment and loss of health insurance above.) While they are just as likely to lose their jobs as GenXers, millennials will have the small advantage of simply being younger. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 04:47, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
That is true, however globally there will probably still be a long-term trend of more RDs from China, India, Africa, etc. - Indefensible (talk) 18:08, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, there would be -- far more than now -- except that people outside the western world's mass media (and even to some extent the western world's *English*-speaking mass media) simply do not make the WP English-language radar in equal proportion to population. As a result, people from China, India, Africa, etc who would otherwise be equally considered for RDs actually have far fewer English-language WP pages (which is the first requirement for ITN), both in absolute number and by country population ratio. This pattern is currently most visible in sports and in local politics. Considering the way COVID-19 has drowned out most other news, I see no reason why that pattern would not just continue, but be amplified. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 14:37, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

My idea is something like:

  • Bump RD count from 6 to 9.
  • RDs will still be listed in order of recentness, but every RD will be eligible to stay up for 24 hours, RDs can be denoted like: <|-- April 3, posted 12:00, 4 April 2020 (UTC) -->
  • RDs approved will be put in holding in order when they are accepted. Remove the first RD to stay for 24 hours and push the earliest item on holding (in order of recentness of death).
  • No stale RDs to be posted (>1 week).

--qedk (t 愛 c) 06:36, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Did we change anything or are we posting RDs like we have in the past? Just checking before I jump back into it. Kees08 (Talk) 16:00, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

No formal changes that I'm aware of. People have IARed to keep posts up for at least 24hrs. That has seemed sufficient.—Bagumba (talk) 17:58, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

If nothing's going to get done here, can we just close/archive this thread?--WaltCip (talk) 12:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposal of interest

Watchers of this talk page may be interested in this proposal about creating a new usergroup for main page edits. This is the same proposal on which opinions were solicited here some months ago. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks like that proposal will fail, but is there any admin who can take a look at the current backlog of items waiting to be posted, or a way to ping an ITN admin group? - Indefensible (talk) 21:38, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

A comment on COVID milestones

With the current suggested entry (that's snowing) for the 50k deaths in the US, I would suggest (and really hope we never get to it) that if global deaths surpass 1M as confirmed by WHO or other global body with that type of reliability, that would be a reasonable milestone to post. Anything else right now is too arbitrary. --Masem (t) 03:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I would concur. 331dot (talk) 12:07, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the ITN folks acted wisely and clearly rejected this. (I'd have voted same way had I reached it open). So it's clear the participants can do so for any other nomination without any dictate since it's not like we are getting flurry of similar nominations. Nominations are treated on their own merit, for instance I agree with your 1M suggestion, but I don't want agreeing with that to preclude me from supporting for instance 500K milestone (which is not something we are hoping for, but it's not impossible either). In short, while I concur with you about worrying on posting arbitrary number I don't think there's need to make "only 1M" a hard-and-fast rule. – Ammarpad (talk) 12:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, it may be 500k, it likely depends on the trajectory of cases from here on out. Right now we're nearly 200k, so its not likely 250k. Let's see how the media takes it but key is we want 1) a global number that 2) is backed by WHO or a equivalent authority. --Masem (t) 13:38, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
It's unclear to me whether any number of deaths would pass ITN/C, in part because it's arbitrary (why is 1,000,050 more notable than 999,950?), and partly because counting and testing are inconsistent between countries, making an exact global total unreliable and almost certainly an under-estimate. We can cross that bridge if/when we reach it with a nomination at ITN/C. Modest Genius talk 11:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps it shouldn't be, but 1,000,000(or any round number) is an easier number for people to grasp and think that it's significant than 999,999. 331dot (talk) 11:18, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Y'all are discussing hypothetical milestones that may never be achieved, and are dependent on robust and accurate testing which is simply not happening universally. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

  • I think these can be handled on a case basis. If N number of COVID deaths happen whether it gets posted or not depends on whether the banner is still up, whether COVID deaths have by then become "routine" and non-notable, whether there is then discrepancy between official tallies, etc. I don't see any need to "pre-approve" a blurb of N deaths.130.233.2.100 (talk) 09:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd be opposed to posting any such milestones. They are arbitrary and insignificant, as noted the 1,000,000th death is only 1/1,000,000th more significant than the 999,999th death, and it's people's fascination with "magical" round numbers that adds any significance to it at all. Major events such as major new treatments or vaccines seems like a good post, but not just because some statistic rolls over a power of ten. --Jayron32 16:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Exit criteria for the COVID-19 banner

What we really ought be talking about is the exit criteria for the gigantic imposing banner in the box. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

No more ongoing news coverage. WaltCip (talk) 00:19, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
At some point, we'll find that the "pandemic" has likely fallen to simply a concern, in which case, we'll likely drop it to Ongoing first. It won't be any time soon, given that Brazil's the next big hot spot. --Masem (t) 00:43, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
The Ebola epidemic case shows that simply waiting for a lack a news coverage means that it is going to be there for years. COVID deaths are going to become an unfortunate but mundane occurrence, and when they happen some RS out there is going to cover it. It certainly cannot be removed now; COVID is c. 50% of headlines and absolutely dominating news reporting. I suggest that, when the news cycle turns (subjective as that might be), someone nominate COVID for Ongoing and pull the banner, then eventually when it really falls below the fold, nominate for removal.130.233.2.100 (talk) 09:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
That sounds right. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
  • It should be pulled when it is no longer the dominant force in news coverage. No more news coverage is an unreasonable standard, but currently, it is the sole major story dominating news coverage in every major news outlet around the world. When it's coverage drops to the level of "on footing with other major stories" it can be dropped. I don't see those exit conditions happening today, and it is almost equally unlikely to happen tomorrow. Probably also not on Friday either. We'll let reliable news sources tell us though. --Jayron32 16:27, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
This sounds sensible to me. It's likely to take months, not days. Modest Genius talk 12:03, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Should the month in the parentheses in the COVID banner be changed to May now?

It previously changed from March to April to reflect the current month, so it should probably now be changed to May. BlackholeWA (talk) 10:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

It will do, but not yet; Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in May 2020 is an empty shell (for obvious reasons) and not something that's of any conceivable use to readers at the moment. ‑ Iridescent 10:53, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
    • Just do it now, there is a nav box in the May article if anyone wants to go back to April. --LaserLegs (talk) 14:08, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Enough in the May timeline to add, which I have now done. April's timeline should be kept till around May 7th to provide continuity. --Masem (t) 14:18, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
And presumably when we get to June, it should be added only when there's enough beyond a shell, as Iridescent cautions, to be of value. Remember that we're still linking the larger timeline at the top there too, so we may possibly be at a point where we still have this banner at the top, but not a day-to-day timeline article within in. --Masem (t) 14:20, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Impact of "Recent deaths" section

Probably most of you are aware of these kind of figures, but it may be worth repeating that getting something on the main page, even as small as a name in the Recent Deaths section, has a great impact. Gene Deitch died on the 16th, which got reported widely on the 18th. Page views jumped from a median of 143 per day (not bad) to 4K the 17th, 6K the 18th, and 23K the 19th (when the news had appeared in newspapers and websites the world round). It was eventually posted to the RD section late in the evening of the 20th (nominated the 18th), and pageviews jumped to 150K the 21st and 143K the 22nd. Basically, thanks to RD, nearly 300,000 people visited this article. Fram (talk) 08:15, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

In Deitch's case, it's probably more likely primarily a result of incoming traffic from elsewhere as newspapers started publishing obituaries, celebrity fans posted on Twitter, etc, and people who saw these updates were prompted to look him up. The usual impact on pageviews for being in RD (assuming the person isn't a major household name) is on average around 10,000 pageviews-per-day—here's a sampling of other names posted to RD in the same period (intentionally omitting people like Hank Steinbrenner who were famous enough that pageviews would have spiked regardless of whether they'd been posted). ‑ Iridescent 08:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for the analysis, - I brought Meyer and Kienzle there, and would interpret that both spiked while mentioned on the Main page, not the days before when (not English) obits were around. I believe that being mentioned on the English Wikipedia gives these Europeans additional attention. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
In Meyer's case, at least, it's fairly certain, as there was enough of a delay between her death being announced (pageviews rise to about 2000-per-day) and being posted at RD (pageviews rise to 11,000) that it's possible to separate out the impact of obituaries and of RD. With anything in the news, it's always difficult to separate out how much of a spike of pageviews would have happened anyway (this is the same exercise repeated for those RD nominations which were rejected over the same period so were never posted at RD.) ‑ Iridescent 09:52, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Do the stats include referrer? I'd be interesting to know how many came from search engines vs the main page. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:26, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Recently was wondering about this too, and from informally tracking several articles before and after they were posted to the frontpage, I actually came to the opposite conclusion that unfortunately being listed in RD does not really have that large of an impact. Most people likely are bypassing and going to the article directly based on other sources. - Indefensible (talk) 23:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
An additional ~10k views / day, as Iridescent wrote, is also about what I observed on average. That is certainly not nothing, but also far less than one might expect from the frontpage of one of the busiest websites on the Internet. - Indefensible (talk) 23:50, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
It would be interesting to have a study (outside this COVID mess) of page views as a result of RD posting even for obscure names (eg ones that don't look "english") But I think what we want to say and urge is that RD does help to boost page views, hence it is a good practice to do but also why we want to strive for quality to make sure we're not directing readers to poor articles. --Masem (t) 19:35, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Not just specific to RD, as the current Canadian entry can be used to roughly eyeball the impact of being posted to ITN I think. The Firearms regulation in Canada article spiked to ~20k daily views after being included in the blurb, and previously spiked to ~10k views when the event first happened but I believe was not included in the blurb at that time. This cleanly indicates a ~10k views impact to the article from being posted. The blurb's main article, 2020 Nova Scotia attacks, does show double those numbers, but other items on the frontpage probably bring the average down. This may surprise some people who expect higher numbers from Wikipedia's frontpage. - Indefensible (talk) 03:58, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
We would need a control group comparison to deaths that dont get posted to RD. That aside, a drive that motivates editors to improve articles seems justification enough for RD, and it certainly can only help pageviews.—Bagumba (talk) 04:36, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I dont think COVID-19 needs to be so prominent in ITN anymore

What's wrong with ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, like we did in March, and then if there is a major new item of news rediscussing it for every day, per the usual process? --Almaty (talk) 12:55, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not overjoyed with the box, but I still think it should stay. This is literally the main news story in every country in the world every day, and will be for the the foreseeable future; if we treated each story as an individual item on its merits the net result would be to turn ITN into little more than a coronavirus news ticker, especially in the absence of sporting events to act as a natural flush to push stale stories out of the box. The time to remove it will be when the main news outlets in major English-language countries go more than a day without this being the main story. As I write this, there are 12 stories on the BBC News front page 11 of which are coronavirus-related; 17 stories on CNN International 14 of which are coronavirus-related, ABC News Australia uses lazy-loading so doesn't have a front page as such but 8 of the top 10 stories are coronavirus-related, CBC News has literally not got a single story on its front page that isn't coronavirus-related, and despite the allegations that it's been deliberately downplaying the epidemic Xinhua News Agency has 9 stories on the front page 6 of which are coronavirus-related… I take it you see where I'm going with this. ‑ Iridescent 13:18, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. Even with all the audience fatigue going on, this is still the dominant story worldwide. Modest Genius talk 18:31, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
For background, {{In the news/special-header}} was added to {{In the news}} 16 March.[2] Daily page views of the main article has dropped from around 1.1 million to 250,000 since then (page views of current and former titles). It still dominates the news sources I see and I don't think it's time to remove the box. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:23, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Its THE major dominating story in world news, given that now we're turning to the economic fallout/recovery from it in Asia and Europe, while the spread is growing in South America. Trying to keep the US-tinted glasses off for this, I honestly don't expect COVID as a dominating story to go away before September. --Masem (t) 13:52, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
According to some models, September may well be the start of a very complicated second wave. BD2412 T 17:33, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
@BD2412: Think you just jinxed my semester. >_< --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:34, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Wait Many countries are ending their lockdowns. I think the end of the month will be time to start talking about the gigantic banner occupying 1/4th of the box. We can still feature COVID-19 with blurbs and ongoing, but keeping it festering in there for regional flare-ups or waiting for a UN bureaucracy to declare an end to the pandemic is a little ridiculous. --LaserLegs (talk) 17:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    Countries ending lockdowns is also related to the same subject manner. They are not doing it for other reasons but for COVID-19-related ones. Plus, ending lockdowns does not, as Iridescent points out, minimize the amount of news coverage this still gets, lockdown or not. Regards SoWhy 06:42, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I concur with User:Iridescent et al. that the box is more than warranted. As long as the pandemic is >25% of all news headlines worldwide, it's fine for it to be 25% of "In the news". Better to segregate it so that it doesn't push other news out. That said, you could reduce its prominence by moving it to the end of ITN and restyling it like "Recent deaths" and "Ongoing", since it it a form of ongoing event. But it warrants greater prominence than other ongoing events. 196.247.24.22 (talk) 11:56, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Moving on

If this post had some actual content or suggestion on improving ITN, this would make sense. What does not make sense is complaining (WP:WINING) about WP:CONSENSUS-driven procedures. Feel free to open a more productive conversation. --qedk (t 愛 c) 12:14, 13 May 2020 (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.

It's amusing to see the close of the Little Richard case, "The world has moved on...". This is ironic because the current blurbs are all older – stale news from at least 5 days ago.

Moreover, the current blurb articles have cleanup tags on them, unlike the Little Richard article which seems better than many FAs. And Little Richard is still getting more readers than all those topics put together – nearly quarter of a million, yesterday.

The problem is clearly the forum format of ITN/C which is focussed on nitpicking and negativity, rather than getting things done and highlighting what's actually in the news. The result is that ITN is routinely repetitive and stale. That's not quality; it's failing.

Andrew🐉(talk) 11:33, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

It's worth noting that Little Richard is featured on the main page, right now, at this very moment, in the "Recent deaths" section, which was purposely created for highlighting recent deaths that are actually in the news. --LaserLegs (talk) 11:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Give a read to WP:ITN and if you feel like a change is needed, you can use this talk page to propose it. This page is not for carrying over discussions from WP:ITN/C. --LaserLegs (talk) 11:53, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
The New York Times has a full-blown obiturary about Little Richard, dating just yesterday. I concur with Andrew; the closing rationale is stupid.--WaltCip (talk) 12:40, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
If the problem is the forum format, what alternative are you suggesting for considering candidates? GreatCaesarsGhost 13:17, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
The instructions for RD § Blurbs suggest that this case falls into the first category, which means RD only. The sturm in RB blurbs arises from the third category, which is a completely subjective and sometimes nonsensical rule, and brings back the incessant bickering that RD noms used to have before the modified WP:N criteria RfD (probably the single best change to happen at ITN ever). Quite many RD blurbs have snuck in under the cover of this category, subjects of which had very questionable "transformative" impact. Perhaps a pre-death pageviews criteria would be a suitable replacement for the third category.130.233.3.219 (talk) 15:58, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Okay, but..."nonsensical" "snuck" and "questionable" are specious. To rain praise on the RfD while acting as if this third criteria is there by accident is patently obtuse. This has been litigated again and again. In practice, RD blurbs are MOSTLY for big names who die in old age, and not Logan Paul slipping on a banana peel. Yet every time there is a blurb nom, several editors act like the third category isn't there and comment "Retired; natural causses (sic) at age 87" as if the rest are not fully aware that the nom does not meet the other criteria. THAT'S nonsensical. 75.188.224.208 (talk) 23:08, 12 May 2020 (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.

Remove the "timeline" section from the COVID-19 banner

Has anyone actually looked at this: Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_May_2020. It's a proseline disaster listing daily updates of infections and deaths. That's it. No actual details about things like new areas it's been discovered, treatment updates, new lockdowns, ending lockdowns, changes in travel restrictions, none of it. It's just line after endless line of "Country has reported a total of over XXXXXX cases and XXXX deaths". I'm not going to waste my time trying to fix (or heaven forbid delete) this mess but can we please remove it from the banner? It's a mess, it's not helping our readers, and if it were sitting on it's own in the "Ongoing" section it'd have been removed for being terrible by now. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:10, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  • That is reasonable given the lack of any uniqueness to each day (even Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020 is badly proseline. --Masem (t) 23:20, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Those are some surprisingly crappy articles being semi-permanently featured on the Main Page. Given the level of interest, perhaps it's best to suffer it a little longer and then consider this a point in favor of pulling the banner down to Ongoing sometime soon.130.233.2.49 (talk) 09:28, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with removing the 'timeline' and 'May' links. Modest Genius talk 11:56, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Support removing timeline and May, they are both completely useless to the average reader (or any reader really). Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 00:05, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I have removed the May link. Stephen 00:36, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Edit request on 10 May 2020

Change "Deaths" to "Notable deaths" to accurately describe the destination. I assumed it was death statistics (by country, region, etc.), not selected named individuals, and even looking at the target page title doesn't disambiguate well.

Better yet, include both links, as in: 

* [[COVID-19 pandemic deaths|Deaths]]
** [[List of deaths due to COVID-19|Notable]]

which would render as

Deaths (Notable)

(As an aside, the target page is to be renamed to List of deaths due to COVID-19, unless the current consensus on its talk page changes radically in the next few days, but it hasn't happened yet. Because the latter already exists as a redirect, you're free to jump the gun if you like.) 196.247.24.22 (talk) 11:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  • information Needs discussion This needs consensus before being implemented. Thryduulf (talk) 11:44, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Change suggested in the OP. I had never clicked the link, but always assumed it was statistical data. I think most readers would, also, given that RSs usually have a "ticker" in their banners (c.f. Yahoo, LA Times) for the statistics, and stories/obits for notable deaths.130.233.2.49 (talk) 09:21, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Support I also never clicked, and thought this was statistics. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:46, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Support seems obvious. Would also support just having Notable Deaths and not linking to the stats table, but either way is fine. --LaserLegs (talk) 12:55, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Support changing "Deaths" to "Notable deaths", but oppose linking to the deaths table as well. There are already too many links in the navbox for it to be useful, and the linked article is just a mass of statistics with little explanation anyway.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:07, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I have changed to "Notable deaths" without linking to the stats page — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:00, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Remove link I still oppose having the deaths link in the first place. I didn't explain my rationale well last time I brought it up, but to quote my better explanation from just before the discussion was closed:

    In the News already has a link, Recent Deaths, that goes to Deaths in 2020. I don't think people who die from the virus should be given more prominence than those who die from other causes, so I think it's redundant and unnecessary. Regarding numbers, roughly 150,000 people die worldwide each day, whereas the current daily death toll from the virus is about 6000, so it's just not a large proportion yet. Regarding the article itself, it's classified by WP:WikiProject COVID-19 as High-importance, not Top-importance, and is not currently linked from the intro to 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic (although I'm about to add it), so I just don't think it's the most important article to be linking to about the virus.

That was from early April, but the daily death toll has actually gone down since then; it's now at about 5000/day. FWIW, I'd also support removing the testing article, since there are plenty of others of comparable significance that we don't list (e.g. National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, etc.). I'm commenting here rather than starting a new section since I don't want to take up space given I was shot down so handily last time, but if this resonates with any of you, please give it a header so that we can have a fuller discussion. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Edit request

Add /* {{pp-template]} */ to the top, so the page shows a lock icon. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:35, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

 Doing... --qedk (t 愛 c) 19:01, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 Done Didn't realize you had a trojan bracket in there :) Done either way and the appropriate small icon added. --qedk (t 愛 c) 19:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
Sorry. FYI, |small=yes isn't necessary since {{pp-template}} defaults to small. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:06, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
No worries. --qedk (t 愛 c) 19:09, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Should we move the protests to "ongoing events"?

Seems like they are not slowing down anytime soon. Nahnah4 (talk | contribs) 07:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

We don't consider moving items to "ongoing" until it is bumped off the blurb list. Until then, it's all speculative.—Bagumba (talk) 07:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it should probably be assessed when it's about to rotate out of the box. It will almost certainly be up there for another week or so. If the blurb were to drop off right now, I would imagine a kindly admin would use their discretion and common sense to keep it in the box somewhere, since it's still highly current and ongoing. In a week, who knows, although I am not optimistic about the situation at all. --Bongwarrior (talk) 07:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Yup, this is something to consider when the blurb gets bumped off the template, leave the blurb up for now. Given the current slow pace of other news, that's some way off. Modest Genius talk 12:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Oops, sorry, my bad. Thanks for informing me about this. Nahnah4 (talk | contribs) 13:51, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
If you do want this item or any other considered for Ongoing in the future, the best way to do so is to start a nomination at WP:ITNC --LaserLegs (talk) 15:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Killing of George Floyd

How about this, guys? Is this one okay? 67.189.48.107 (talk) 22:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  • I'm tempted to support another gigantic banner, but that was done as a one-off for COVID-19 and is proving to be difficult to crowbar off the main page. This is what "Ongoing" is for. --LaserLegs (talk) 09:21, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • COVID-19 was and is the biggest news event for decades, with a massive impact on every country around the world. The current US protests are an important event worth a blurb, but nowhere near the same magnitude. There's no need to copy the COVID banner, which was intended to be a one-off. Modest Genius talk 10:21, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Banner was a one-off for a topic with impact directly on individuals worldwide.—Bagumba (talk) 10:35, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • No banner. This is not a COVID situation, and we're not going to start doing banners as a routine thing any time soon. We can evaluate whether to push it to Ongoing as and when it falls off the main list.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
    • In addition, the banner was to link into qualified information we felt readers needed to see (not just news but facts properly weeded through MEDRS/Wikimedicine eyes) about COVID and health issues) that were of critical importance to the world. Normally not also our ballywig (we don't warn of pending disasters) but COVID is a super unusual case. Ongoing will be fine if/when it falls off. --Masem (t) 16:39, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • No. Let's reserve banners for unprecedented global events.-- P-K3 (talk) 17:03, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Moving George Floyd protests to lead position

Moving discussion from Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. The SpaceX launch has passed, while the George Floyd protests are both ongoing and intensifying, and should thus occupy the lead position in ITN. There was concern at the previous discussion on Errors over using an image that could be seen as inflammatory, so I suggested one of the following: File:George Floyd protests, downtown Indianapolis, 2020-05-29.jpg or File:2020 Minneapolis Unrest (49952677233).jpg or File:George Floyd Memorial at Chicago Avenue & 38th Street (49952803788).jpg or the map of protest locations. Morgan695 (talk) 23:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

It would be better to move the George Floyd protests to "Ongoing" than above the SpaceX entry if that is what you mean by "the lead position" in my opinion. - Indefensible (talk) 05:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
"Ongoing" would be further down the page after all blurbs. To me, that seems less prominent. Why not keep it as high on the page as possible?—Bagumba (talk) 05:57, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Ongoing is more privileged than blurbs, because Ongoing items do not roll-off and require an overwhelming consensus to remove.130.233.2.170 (talk) 06:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, that's why we have ongoing for when the item falls off the page, so that we don't need to keep bumping an item back to the top. It should only be re-blurbed if there's a significant new development in the saga, that independently passes the ITN process.  — Amakuru (talk) 06:01, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
COVID-19 is a one-off; we don't generally keep ongoing events pinned to the top. As a reference, the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests was a blurb, the protest were continuing, yet it made its way down the blurb list as other new events happened.[3] What is the general criteria for deciding that the Floyd protest should remain pinned to the top? When would it be moved down, or to the ongoing section?—Bagumba (talk) 05:55, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
There are clear answers to your questions at the project page. Briefly, more recent blurbs are posted above older, when the oldest blurb rolls off or is close, someone can nominate it for Ongoing. If posted, it stays at Ongoing until someone nominates for removal and it succeeds. You can nominate an article for Ongoing whenever you'd like, whether it is already in ITN or not. Blurbs that seemingly get "bumped" have had yet another, more recent, nomination pass the approval process at ITN, and these usually involve a material or qualitative change in circumstances around the original posting, which would render the original ITN blurb inaccurate or dated.130.233.2.170 (talk) 06:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, but I was asking specifically regarding the original post to keep the protests on top. What would the general rationale be?—Bagumba (talk) 06:38, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
A new nomination at ITN, which incorporates new information into the blurb, and the information concerns a qualitative and notable change to the event. Nominating like this is reviewed as if it were a brand-new nomination, not merely an update.130.233.2.170 (talk) 07:19, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Obviously anyone could nominate a new update to be blurbed at WP:ITN/C, but the proposal here is to simply move the protests item to the top without such an update, just because it's ongoing. There's no precedent for that AFAIK (discounting the COVID-19 banner) and the ITN rules don't cover or allow such a thing. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 07:24, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Sorry, maybe it's late. I thought the OP had a process question. Agree, a nomination-less "pinning" of an ITN item is out of the question.130.233.2.170 (talk) 07:36, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Hi all! I'm just coming across all this now. There seem to be two separate questions here, so I'll address them separately.
  • Regarding moving down the list, I can see the rationale behind why we might not want to bump the protests back to the top, since the process seems to be to let ongoing items fall down the list and then go into the "ongoing" section. But it also seems like a bad outcome for bureaucracy to prevent us from using an image of a much more current event just since it's not the top item. This seems like a time to invoke WP:IAR, our favorite policy to fawn over in theory but then abandon in practice.
  • Regarding the image to use, I agree that it's problematic to use only an image of a riot. I'd like to see more non-violent image options, since we have a ton of choices and none of the ones presented so far seem that great to me. I like Floquenbeam's idea of a rotating image — that's an innovative solution if we can figure out the technical aspect.
{{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:28, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Image for protests

How about this? (see right) {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:47, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

  • It's a bit dark. For thumbnail size, there should be at most 3-5 people in a row, preferably facing forward and holding up an easily readable, non-copyrightable sign such as "Black Lives Matter". -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:52, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
  • There are some freely licensed images in this Flickr photoset [4] that would be good - this one is a daylight shot of protestors in from the the guarded White House. --Masem (t) 03:58, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Change wording of protests

  • Although the protests started in the United States, they’ve spread across the world with notable protests in Germany, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom amongst others. See for example destruction of statue of Edward Colston in Bristol today which stemmed from these. Therefore suggest changing the wording to reflect worldwide nature of these protests. 2A00:23C5:5082:6101:A85C:383A:FFE:1932 (talk) 16:06, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

In the news

I was thinking that next to the topics in the news maybe dates could be added next to when the event started/happened to add a sense of time. TheWikiAddictReturns (talk) 05:41, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

A lot of events have difficult to define dates (e.g. ongoing events), and adding dates could take up a good portion of the valuable space in the template. Dates for events are just a click away if readers are interested in more information, IMO. SpencerT•C 13:43, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Mars missions in July

I just wanted to notify those who were unaware that there will be three separate missions to Mars potentially launching within the space of ten days; Hope Mars Mission on 14 July, Mars 2020 on 20 July, and Tianwen-1 on 23 July. I bring this up because I was wondering how exactly we'll be presenting these in "In the news" when they launch. Will there be three separate pieces, or a single piece that gets updated as Mars 2020 and Tianwen-1 launch later on, or perhaps something different? It'd be best to work this out in advance, methinks. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 18:35, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I would prefer one blurb, like how the George Floyd protests one kept updating, because otherwise it will likely be a box full of Mars missions. Kingsif (talk) 19:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Agreeing with the above, just one which includes all three missions should do. Although, I guess if one or more of the launches fail or is postponed, that'll be a whole different thing. boldblazer (talk) 06:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
WP:ITNR states 'Arrival of spacecraft (to lunar orbit and beyond) at their destinations'. So we should wait until they arrive at Mars, not post the launch (unless one of them explodes). Modest Genius talk 11:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Style note

AP Stylebook moves to capitalize 'Black' in racial/ethnic contexts. – Sca (talk) 13:53, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

This is arguably better suited for the MoS talkpage. I would wait until such a convention becomes more universal. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:19, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
This user avoids MoS pages for mental health reasons.
Note that story sez they're considering capitalizing 'White' too. – Sca (talk) 15:28, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
What does AP style have to do with ITN? Modest Genius talk 11:40, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) Surely we can do better

Without a specific call to action, there isn't anything to discuss. The volunteer nature of posting admins has been explained to the OP. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:53, 26 June 2020 (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.

The RD nomination for John Kennedy Sr. (footballer) received no objections to it being posted. (Except one by mistake.) It took 12 hours of just sitting there from when it was declared ready before it was posted. All regular participants at ITN know that a famous American's death would be posted much more quickly. Surely we can do better. HiLo48 (talk) 04:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Nah, this is fairly standard, I'm afraid.--WaltCip-(BLM!Resist The Orange One) 11:08, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
    Everyone's a volunteer, etc etc blah blah blah. Perhaps you need to notify ANI next time. The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 11:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • We don't have a paid ITN staff to monitor ITNC 24-7 and pounce on "ready" nominations. You could go and set up a table on your local street corner and recruit more people to participate in Wikipedia and nominate them to be admins so they can move quicker on non-American items. Whether something is American or not does not factor in my deciding to post something or not. My available time does more than anything, and I'm not usually awake when Australians are awake. 331dot (talk) 11:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Twelve hours for a completely non-problematic item is a lot slower than pouncing, and not many Americans sleep that long. I'd be happy to take on Admin responsibilities to actually get such things moving, but I would be stunned if the Admin community accepted me. (But they will keep telling us all how there aren't enough of them.) HiLo48 (talk) 11:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I was one of those in favor of decoupling the ITN updating responsibility from adminship, in an RFC that was held earlier. But the prevailing opinion was "if we can't trust you with the mop, how can we trust you with the Main Page?" So much for WP:NOBIGDEAL. Of course, I'd never pass an RFA on the grounds of "I just want to post items to ITN".--WaltCip-(BLM!Resist The Orange One) 12:31, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
It was posted less than 20 hours after nomination. That seems very reasonable to me. If anything I would have been concerned if it was posted more quickly, as editors in different time zones should be given the opportunity to comment. Modest Genius talk 11:36, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
All regular participants at ITN know that a famous American's death would be posted much more quickly. HiLo48 (talk) 12:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
A quick glance at the current ITN/C shows several Americans posted to RD in the last few days: Thomas Welder took 31 hours, Angela Madsen 17 hours and Vic Gilliam 39 hours. I don't see any evidence that we post Americans faster than Australians. Modest Genius talk 12:21, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
There are 26 million Australians, and almost 330 million Americans, meaning there are many more potential American editors than Australian editors. We can't do much about that. I also don't see evidence that people are saying "this is an American, better post it quick! We can take our time with this Australian over here." 331dot (talk) 12:36, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
HiLo48 you’ve consistently complained about pro American bias at ITN and I wish you’d tone it down a bit as there really isn’t any evidence for it. RDs often have to wait a little to get posted; the idea that “American admins” (how do you know everyone’s nationality anyway?) were ignoring it because the subject wasn’t American is just silly. P-K3 (talk) 12:40, 26 June 2020 (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.

Image change?

I wouldn't know where else to ask, but I think the image for the Hong Kong blurb should be changed. The current image isn't in the article, and an image of protests may be more relevant. I added some protests against the law decision in May, and someone else just added this photo from protests yesterday, which I think would be a good option. Thanks, Kingsif (talk) 12:44, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kingsif: please see and follow up at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#(Posted)_Hong_Kong_National_Security_Law. — xaosflux Talk 13:52, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
After item has been posted, the correct place to ask for change/correction is WP:ERRORS – Ammarpad (talk) 05:42, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

But, what is the Thatcher-Mandela standard for blurbing deaths?

Based on the wild debate of 1. what this means and 2. if it is actually seen as useful coming from the discussion at the Vera Lynn nom, I feel it would be appropriate for the community to answer those questions and, if appropriate, set a firmer guideline on when blurbing RDs is appropriate. From my understanding, the Thatcher-Mandela standard is shorthand for ... the person had a major impact in, and/or was at the top of, their field; is globally recognized for at least some of their contributions; and whose death is met with widespread coverage beyond a mere tagline that it happened. This should cover anyone in any field, not just world leaders (so no need for an alternate Prince-Bowie standard). But I'd like to hear how other users see it, and if any of these such definitions need expansion or clarification, as well as discussion on if people involved at ITN would like it to be an essay or something. Kingsif (talk) 02:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

See also User:LaserLegs/NOTMANDELA. Kingsif (talk) 03:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment There is nothing to fix here. Some deceased people get a blurb when there is consensus to do so. Some contributors use "Thatcher/Mandela" as a kind of short hand, but if they spelled out their position every time it would be the same position. Scroll through any death blurb nom and we find references to Carrie Fisher, Prince, David Bowie, the usual gripes from the usual suspects. Luckily, this doesn't happen that often and while I don't doubt the desire of the contributors here to improving the project, there really isn't anything to be done. --LaserLegs (talk) 14:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Respectfully, reading through the Lynn discussion throws up different views on what the 'standard' is, and just as many arguments against using it at all. Its existence/bringing it up seemed to be doing more harm than good. If nothing else, we can get a general consensus on what many ITN users think it means/what it should mean when they use it. Kingsif (talk) 14:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Officeholders

The bar should be very exclusive and clear. I think it should be restricted to heads of state/government, whichever is more appropriate per the individual's country. Potentially with some population and/or other threshold, particularly for non-incumbents--the threshold could or should be higher than for incumbents. - Indefensible (talk) 03:05, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Interesting that you say head of state or government - to take the UK as an example, would you blurb a PM dying in office or the Queen dying? In theory, the PM is the more appropriate leader. But I don't think anyone would deny that the Queen's death should be the only guaranteed blurb ever. (Would some explanation for the Commonwealth be needed, say) Kingsif (talk) 03:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Officeholding is not enough, there has to be some additional criteria including population as I alluded to. It's debatable in the UK examples, personally could go either way or potentially support both being blurbed. However, for a former PM or another royal, much less likely. Another example would be Pope Francis versus Pope Benedict XVI, the latter may be much less likely to meet the threshold for a blurb. - Indefensible (talk) 03:17, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Some more questions, then: would a population restriction unfairly exclude some countries that already get less coverage, but also some countries with a significant world leader (e.g. New Zealand, which has one of the smallest populations in the world)? And for the Popes - would all past Popes be debated as the leaders of the Vatican (which certainly wouldn't meet population criteria), as religious leaders, or as generally influential figures in world history (with Benedict probably ranked above Francis in this area at the moment)? Kingsif (talk) 03:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
For the Pope, one could make an argument that they lead the Roman Catholic Church and not just the Vatican, and therefore would meet the population threshold. Some population or other qualifier is needed though to prevent heads of micronations from being approved for blurbs. However, the head of Taiwan would be a point of contention. The threshold may then be set significantly higher (say at 50 million initially), but certainly this may be overly crude and need refinement. It is true that this may exclude nominees and introduce systemic bias, for example the current Burundian entry would not meet the threshold. However, it goes back to the other extreme of micronations, so setting some minimum level of threshold as correlating to notability is still appropriate I think. - Indefensible (talk) 03:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Obviously besides the Queen, are there any other religious leaders of the same scale that would warrant a blurb? A bodhisatra or someone maybe? Kingsif (talk) 05:31, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Only the top leaders of major religious organizations which have legal standing and meet the same (or higher) notability and/or population threshold as political officeholders should be considered in my opinion. But only mentioned it above as an example without thinking it through, and maybe they should actually be excluded so that only political heads qualify. The largest religious organizations are probably the closest in kind to public governments in terms of notability from social reach and encyclopedic consequence though, which would be in their favor. - Indefensible (talk) 04:47, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Besides royals that are heads of states, would any other royals qualify for a blurb? Say Charles dies before the Queen, or Philip dies - what about Queen Letizia, or Felipe's sisters? Kingsif (talk) 06:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Monarchs such as the Emperor of Japan or King of Saudi Arabia may qualify, but no other royals such as a consort or family member. Did not mean to imply that monarchs would necessarily qualify however, if they are a figurehead and not the actual governing head of their polity then perhaps they should not meet the threshold for a blurb posting. - Indefensible (talk) 04:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
(We have 5 million! That's not tiny!) Anyway, I think a strict minimum for population would be greatly unfair, and should instead focus more on their impact. I think each RD-blurb case should be decided individually without invoking the phrase "Nelson/Mandela" which is anyway an annoying shorthand as these deaths were ages ago and are difficult to make comparisons to both due to how Wikipedia has changed and the fact that the comparison is so long ago it's not fresh on people's minds for an apt comparison.  Nixinova   T   C   07:48, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Having a population threshold may be unfair, but having a subjective standard based on "impact" is probably more unfair, inconsistent, and confusing in my opinion. Not sure how it would be defined and applied. Judging by impact also means that some people are inherently more impactful and thus valuable on some subjective metric, whereas a straight population threshold measures a human life equivalent to a human life anywhere. - Indefensible (talk) 05:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Former POTUSes and UKPMs should "automatically" get blurbs, as should the reigning Commonwealth monarch. I would argue that incumbent heads of state or government from other countries should generally get blurbs as well, but non-incumbents in those fields have a higher bar to clear. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:31, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
The assumption that a former incumbent of any sort should have automatic inclusion must be contested in my opinion, it creates the opportunity for an unclear additional standard and generally has little encyclopedic consequence. For example, the death of George H. W. Bush was noteworthy but led to no notable, direct public outcome that I know of other than his state funeral, and so was not necessarily as noteworthy as any other events which must qualify and be in the ITN box. There is a fundamental difference between the death of an incumbent and a predecessor; the former creates a public impact that has further encyclopedic value while the latter of a private citizen generally does not, which is a justifiable standard in my opinion. - Indefensible (talk) 04:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
I think we would need some sort of scaling criteria here, based on the level of power a nation has. For example every US President is blurb-worthy, but with Parliamentary nations you have some Prime Ministers who rule for only a few months (e.g. Stanley Baldwin, Kim Campbell), and I don't think those are blurb-worthy barring some other reason for their significance. For permanent security council members, maybe leaders who led for a reasonable length of time, perhaps five years; for mid-tier powers (G7 or G20), maybe we only post someone who is renowned as one of the top five or so leaders in their nation's history, or developed some sort of international significance; for lesser powers, maybe we only post someone who led the country for 20+ years and was internationally significant in some way (e.g. acquiring nuclear weapons for a country).
I don't think we should limit it to national leaders either, but I don't want to see the ITN box flooded with death blurbs. I think a reasonable bar to set would be "cultural figure of at the highest level of international fame" (e.g. Michael Jackson or Michael Jordan) or "the best ever in an internationally significant field or genre" (e.g. Wayne Gretzky). NorthernFalcon (talk) 17:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Cultural figures as you mentioned should be excluded in my opinion because the subject is a private citizen whose death is usually noteworthy only as an ending point to the story of their life without further public or encyclopedic consequence. The same is generally not true for a public officeholder who is the head of a major government, as it leads to public and consequential change such as a new governing administration. This is a fundamental and justifying difference which can be used to define the threshold. - Indefensible (talk) 04:56, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
How does a former leader dying "[lead] to public and consequential change such as a new governing administration"? If a current leader dies, that's already WP:ITN/R. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:59, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
A former leader's death generally does not compel a public governance change, that is why the bar would be higher and not as automatic as for incumbents. - Indefensible (talk) 03:49, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Invoking past precedents

  • For reference, the "Thatcher-Mandela" standard was added to WP:ITNRD last month[5] and has never actually received consensus. I personally believe that it doesn't offer any additional clarity as to which deaths deserve a blurb beyond what was already written at ITNRD, and therefore invoking it is usually not constructive to discussion. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:06, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Do you think actual arguments that are in line with such a standard (e.g. someone saying 'no blurb because they were not X', or vice versa) are more or less useful than just saying 'not Mandela'? Kingsif (talk) 03:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Though I am guilty of making such an argument yesterday, upon reflection I think they are equally not useful. Precedents established over time can be meaningful if there are solid justifications for them that remain relevant, but past mistakes should not be used to justify making new ones. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:15, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Any examples of such precedents, in various fields. Would a certain number of Oscar/BAFTA wins or records sold be a good standard? Kingsif (talk) 03:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
No, arbitrary numerical cutoffs are not useful. I am referring to precedents like blurbing sitting heads of state, or celebrities whose death receives its own Wikipedia page. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Fixed I removed the Thatcher/Mandela comparison from Wikipedia:In_the_news/Recent_deaths since it was added without discussion, and if this becomes the discussion I oppose codifying that "standard". --LaserLegs (talk) 14:21, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • For the record, here's the full text of it prior to LaserLegs's removal:
Major figures ("Thatcher/Mandela"): The death of major figures, including transformative world leaders in their field, may merit a blurb. These cases are rare, and are usually posted on a sui generis basis through a discussion at WP:ITNC that determines there is consensus that the death merits a blurb. Comparisons to deaths of prior persons (we posted John Doe, so we should also post Jane Smith, or conversely we didn't post Bill Jones, so we cannot post Susie Johnson) are rarely considered sufficient to post in absence of consensus. A standard often referred to as the "Thatcher-Mandela standard" (after the respective Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela, whose deaths were posted as blurbs) is used by many users, although not without controversy. Despite the name of the two figures, these aren't limited to politics, and have included such figures as Prince and David Bowie.
– John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm wary of giving this "official status" without a discussion, and I agree with the revert. For one thing, I don't think it just covers the "major figures" criterion; I think it's also applicable to #2, the person's death itself being newsworthy.-- P-K3 (talk) 16:46, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • The issue about newsworthiness of a death is good, but that's why popularity is also a concern; a very popular person, but one who wasn't close to top of their field, may end up with a "newsworthy" death, simply because everyone talks about remembrance of them. This is a media bias that also slips to editor bias that we should try to watch for and avoid. --Masem (t) 17:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Popularity metric

  • I would argue what we don't want are things like what happened with Carrie Fisher who was nowhere near top of the field but got pushed there because Star Wars and her mother Debbie Reynolds dying just the week before, who again, wasn't a top of the field personality. There were a few other cases like this where popularity overrode common sense. (There was a case of a young actor that died in a car accident that we posted that we've come to realize was a bad post). We have tried to use the Thatcher/Mandala as representative cases of "top of field" and where there was clearly a huge news reaction to the death. I would also argue we did right for people like Stephen Hawking, Stan Lee, David Bowie, Prince, Robin Williams, Christopher Lee, etc. What's important is to get past just "iconic", "popular", "household name" and other terms and focus on merit to describe topic of field, which is much more objective than "iconic" and other terms. We can then disagree how many awards someone has won to be there, but that's a better argument than trying to assess popularity. --Masem (t) 05:48, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank, Masem. Handling news coverage of the death, then, should we be more careful to weed out where there's not much substance but lots of coverage because of popularity? Kingsif (talk) 06:08, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • That's part of my concern. We want to avoid "fan reactions" and we need some type of clear "top of the field" aspect that is beyond popularity that should be a starting point to consider a blurb. Mere popularity is not sufficient. --Masem (t) 14:46, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
The sectioning here is a bit confusing - feel free to move this to a different heading if desired. The threshold for a blurb is subjective; I'm reluctant to have any prescriptive rules about where the bar is, and doubt we would reach consensus on specific examples. I consider reaction to the death (which could potentially merit a blurb on its own) to be a separate issue to whether the death itself deserves a blurb. To me, the Thatcher/Mandela standard is shorthand for 'someone who was as influential on the world as Margaret Thatcher or Nelson Mandela'. It's unfortunate that both of those were politicians, as other professions can qualify, and cultural influence also counts. I feel we've been too permissive with entertainers whose work was popular but not particularly influential (Carrie Fisher being a good example - Star Wars was influential, but her acting career was not). Long-term encyclopaedic value is what matters to me, not short-term popularity i.e. the people school children will be learning about decades from now, not tabloid celebrities. I recognise that opinions differ and my view of where the bar should be is no more valid than anyone else who comments on ITN/C. Modest Genius talk 12:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Limiting blurbs to the most encyclopedic bios could be achieved by restricting blurb discussions for deaths to only those which are vital articles (Mandela is level 3; Thatcher, Bowie, and Prince are level 4; Fisher and Reynolds are level 5) – not guaranteeing a blurb for these articles, but allowing blurb discussion. Some issues with this could be editors sneakily making their favorite performer/whoever a vital article to try and get a blurb, but also the opposite, where someone who really should be a vital article has been overlooked. Any opinions on this? Kingsif (talk) 14:45, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I think we should continue to let editors decide who does and doesn't qualify for a blurb on a case-by-case basis, as has been the tradition. Just because you disagree with the inclusion of Fisher doesn't mean we have to craft some 1,000-word policy outlining who should and shouldn't get a blurb. (And at least get your facts straight, Debbie Reynolds died after going into shock following her daughter's death.) Calidum 14:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Regardless of who passed away first, neither Reynolds nor Fisher were top-tier actresses on par with someone with a career like Christopher Lee. Fisher got pushed because "She's Princess Leia!" which... no, that shouldn't have been the reason. That's the type of reasoning we need to keep out of ITNC blurb considerations. Merit has to be there first and foremost over popularity. --Masem (t) 14:46, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
      • I agree that Fisher should not have received a blurb, but I think we're already making progress in that field given that Terry Jones recently didn't get a blurb, either. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I endorse Calidum's comments. Instead of designing lengthy policies to keep out content some find undesirable, we should go by consensus. 331dot (talk) 16:34, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

No universal standard - discuss merits as with any blurb

  • A new section for discussion based on 331dot's comments. Some questions on completely ditching Thatcher/Mandela, then: would this re-open all deaths for blurb discussion? And should WP:SNOW still be good for closing those blurb discussions, if all opinions are to be heard out? Kingsif (talk) 14:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't completely oppose such a move, but I'd still prefer "autoblurbing" officeholders and discussing the others. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 14:28, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
    • "Thatcher/Mandela" should be completely discontinued as a standard for posting blurbs. It's nonsensical. No one agrees on what the standard actually means. I saw someone above claim that only holders of high office like UK PMs and POTUSes should get blurbs. That is absolutely ridiculous and contrary to how ITN has always operated.--WaltCip-(BLM!Resist The Orange One) 15:10, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with this. I'd have some guidelines though - if none of the following are true then a blub is very unlikely to be merited; if several are true then a blurb is worth discussing:
    • The person's article has been expanded with about 10 or more sentences of sourced encyclopaedia prose about their death, excluding quotes.
    • They were the incumbent head of state in a country where the head of state has day-to-day executive power.
    • They were the incumbent head of government in a country where the head of government has day-to-day executive power.
    • They were the elected head of state or government of a country for more than about 10 years.
    • They were the unelected head of state or government of a country for more than about 20 years.
    • They are the most import or most prominent figure in a religious movement with more than about a million adherents in each of multiple countries.
    • Around 10 or more articles have been updated with multiple sentences of sourced encyclopaedic prose (excluding quotes) beyond basic details of their death.
    • Their death has, or is expected to have, a significant impact for (a) their country, (b) multiple other countries, or (c) one or more major religious movements/organisations. "Significant impact" is determined by coverage about these impacts in reliable sources outside the country or group concerned, and must be greater than those the death of a moderately prominent person in that country/organisation would cause.
    • Their death has, or will have, a significant impact on a major international event that is currently ongoing to due to commence within about 1 week.
    Note that all of these are guidelines, not rules and are not intended as a checklist or similar and even meeting all of them is no guarantee of a blurb and someone meeting none of them may still get one - the onus is just on those who do/don't want a blurb to explain why the guidelines are not relevant to the given person's death. Thryduulf (talk) 13:42, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I would tend to agree with this. Discussing precedent just causes arguments. Invoke guidelines and you are told they are not policy. How about "recent deaths can be blurbed if the consensus at ITNC decides so." GreatCaesarsGhost 23:48, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I have always regarded the Thatcher/Mandela "rule" to be an unreasonably high bar. That said, I don't want to open the floodgates for endless discussion over nominations that based on past precedent, will gain consensus for posting the day after Donald Trump carries California in a general election. I am open to some reasonable expansion of criteria. Of course all nominations come down to consensus among those showing up for the discussion. (Side note re the above list of criteria... the death of an incumbent head of state is pretty much ITNR. An incumbent head of government's (Prime Minister's) death would almost certainly be posted as well) -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
  • This is the status quo, which is fine. "Thatcher/Mandela" is not and never was a standard but if it triggers you up that much I'll just copy/paste the same boiler plate for every death blurb nom: "Not a household name in many countries, no media circus, not the subject of a major motion picture or similar cultural impact -- RD is fine for this". Every time if the phrase "Thatcher / Mandela" results in a weeks long discussion and walls of text. Will that solve the problem? --LaserLegs (talk) 21:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Four thousand words later and we're no closer to an agreed-upon definition of Thatcher-Mandela. Is it about fame, impact, and/or death coverage? If it's about impact, are we going by absolute impact or do we still adhere to the "top of their field" policy at ITNRD? Also, is it a strict standard (e.g., only "Death of X" articles get death-blurbs, as Thatcher and Mandela did) or just a suggestion? I've heard differing answers to all of these. If you have to explain what you mean by a name every time, why not just ditch the name? (1/2)
I also agree with WaltCip and Ad Orientem above that most interpretations of the Thatcher/Mandela standard I've come across are unreasonably restrictive. How many deaths can we expect to be on that level every year? Less than one, probably. In my opinion, around 5 death-blurbs per year is a good rule of thumb; i.e., is this person's death the most significant death in the past two months. (2/2) Davey2116 (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

None

Thatcher and Mandela may have each respectively met the threshold bearing their name, but perhaps the threshold in general is the wrong approach. The most egalitarian and fair policy would simply be that no natural deaths are posted as a blurb. If a sitting president or celebrity who meets the standard in their respective field dies, they are listed in RD with everyone else who is noteworthy enough to have a Wikipedia article, which is the base criterion on notability described in the RD guidelines. Regardless of whether there is a blurb or a RD entry, the overall effect is still generally the same being that their name is listed in the ITN box. That way there is encyclopedic coverage without requiring editors to give up neutrality in subjectively judging who rises above the RD threshold to the blurb level. A death can still be posted as a blurb in ITN if it is particularly noteworthy due to its unnatural and/or encyclopedically consequential nature, e.g. if it results in a social movement or triggers a public election--in that case, the focus of the entry is the public event related to the death and not the death itself. - Indefensible (talk) 04:18, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

  • I would strongly support this. RD was created because death blurbs were pushing other items out of the box it was never about "lesser" deaths. Lets just put a stop to it. --LaserLegs (talk) 21:08, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I disagree. There's not some death-blurbs 'crisis' that warrants scrapping them altogether. Some commenters want more death blurbs, some want fewer, and the status quo is a pretty good approximation of what it all averages out to. Of course there will be controversial edge cases, but I don't see how that implies that we should remove death-blurbs entirely. Davey2116 (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I'll also have to disagree with this, sorry. Some people, even those warranting an article, are more important than others; I feel uncomfortable chucking every single death (even that of a former POTUS or Michael Jackson-level figure) in with a random football coach, for example. I also agree with Davey2116 that, assorted recent cases notwithstanding, there's no real crisis on this issue, and blurb-worthy deaths are known when seen. We could, however, chuck everything to RD and remove the provision that "everyone" gets an RD. This would punt discussions to RD, but has a benefit of not having the "worthy" deaths crowd out non-death blurbs. It would make RD empty quite often, however. Or we can just have no deaths at all in ITN, blurb or RD. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:28, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I would support this by simply striking all reference to blurbs in the RD section. We would not offer it as an option, nor ban it outright. A blurb would always be available by IAR. The debates on borderline cases are inappropriately tactless and offensive, especially occurring as they do in the immediate aftermath of one's death. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:20, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Another proposal

Responding to some users' concern that more death-blurbs push down other stories in the ITN box, someone in the Vera Lynn discussion suggested that instead of a fixed standard of notability, we post any death as a blurb if it receives significantly more coverage than the blurb that rolls off as a result. What do you think? Davey2116 (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

  • When a borderline death is competing with an old item of moderate to low importance, a comparative analysis like you say is useful perhaps, but the death of someone like Nelson Mandela that clearly should be posted ought to be able to push even the September 11 attacks out of ITN. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:08, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • We've never varied the standard of any non-death blurb based on what was about to drop off the template; I don't see a good reason to do so just for deaths. It would be almost impossible to make that sort of comparison anyway. Modest Genius talk 16:54, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Park Won-soon

The blurb just got pulled? I have been watching the discussion and would have wanted to participate there, but the rationale for opposition by some appear to be improperly founded. The death of the mayor was under controversial circumstances, and Seoul is the capital city of a G20 economy, so those alone give as much notability for its mayor. Where are those kinds of opposing arguments even coming from? LSGH (talk) (contributions) 01:58, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi LSGH You should join the discussion at the nominating page here. The discussion is still open. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:04, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
@Ad Orientem: There was some technicality that prevented me from doing it earlier. It was resolved now, so I'll get there in a moment. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 03:07, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) Ongoing regular update criteria

I'm the OP, but this is going to age off and I want to close it out. There was a general lack of participation which makes it hard to gauge consensus. Had there been near universal support I'd have taken it to WP:AN/RFC. The opposes argue that featuring a "stale" article on the main page is contrary to the quality guidelines for WP:ITN. The supporters seem to contend that featuring content, even if a bit stale, aligns with the WP:ITN#Purpose "To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news.". Either way, without broader participation, it's unreasonable to implement a change at this time. I'll try again in the fall. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:17, 12 July 2020 (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.

The consensus of the last ongoing removal nom is that an article can stay in ongoing even if it's not "regularly updated with new, pertinent information" as stipulated by the ongoing criteria. This is fine, but we should update the criteria to match consensus. I suggest replacing that statement with

In order to be posted to ongoing, the subject of the target article, or any related article linked from the target article needs to be reported on by reliable sources.

This much more closely aligns with the rationale used to keep the Hong Kong protests in the box. --LaserLegs (talk) 11:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Support as nominator --LaserLegs (talk) 11:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support matches much better with what is meant by "ongoing". Banedon (talk) 12:23, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment The ongoing criteria still say: "The purpose of the ongoing section is to maintain a link to a continuously updated Wikipedia article...", with an italic emphasis on " continuously updated". I guess an WP:IAR case was argued and made for the Hong Kong protests only. Brandmeistertalk 15:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

It’s not clear to me what your proposed statement is trying to say. I think it may be missing a couple words. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 17:59, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Oppose I get what the nominator is suggesting, but I feel this opens a can of worms. This means that any article can serve as the basis for putting any other article into Ongoing, so long as there's somehow a link to the former in the latter. I feel that this is the opposite of clarity, and invites us to post static, placeholder/portal articles into Ongoing and then let them sit there forever because some article linked therein is updated at any given time. The specific instance is idiosyncratic, and I don't think trying to makes rules around it is useful.130.233.2.200 (talk) 10:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment A better change in wording, perhaps, replacing any article linked from the target article with something that reflects any article/s in the appropriate navbox for which the target article is the main/head article. This more accurately reflects the Hong Kong protests posting, and makes the expansion of rules more appropriately limited. But yes, I agree with the sentiment that if we're going to post something where there was a general expectation for it to be posted and kept in ongoing, we need to back it up with something like this update. Kingsif (talk) 03:17, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment @Bzweebl: @130.233.2.200: @Kingsif: I made a tweak to the wording so that it's any "related article linked". If it's related "enough" will be open to interpretation, but ITN is all about consensus building. --LaserLegs (talk) 14:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support I've added to it a part about updates that I thing is what Bzweebl thought was missing. Support with the 'related' addition. Kingsif (talk) 04:05, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Oppose respectfully, the consensus from the last OG removal was that article staleness doesn't matter. Capturing that is important. As written, it's basically the same thing. --LaserLegs (talk) 10:38, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Well, there was definitely something missing from the proposed text, it wasn't a complete sentence. What had you been intending? Kingsif (talk) 11:01, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
        • "sub-articles" are ok, article updates don't matter so long as it's still "in the news" --LaserLegs (talk) 11:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
          • Looks good now, thanks --LaserLegs (talk) 12:00, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment seems we've settled on the wording. Pinging those who opposed the removal of the HK protests for additional feedback. @Bloom6132: @Masem: @The Rambling Man: @Lugnuts: @Sca: @Indefensible: @RedBulbBlueBlood9911: any thoughts on the current proposal? --LaserLegs (talk) 12:18, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
    • User:LaserLegs, thanks for the ping. What would the change in application be, for example to the current Hong Kong entry? It seems like it would still be up for interpretation and could mean that it simply needs to have reliable sourcing at the time of posting but staleness may still be an issue as you wrote above, so not sure I fully understand the implications. - Indefensible (talk) 04:04, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
      • @Indefensible:, @Bzweebl: If an Ongoing (OG) item has un-referenced content it should be removed on quality grounds. If an OG article is not being updated, but the existing content is fine, and reliable sources are still covering the topic, the item would remain in the box. Aat present, if the article is not being updated it is removed though this isn't actually practiced, such as the recent George Floyd protest removal. I hope that clarifies, this has been open a while and I'm looking to move to a request for closure. --LaserLegs (talk) 11:05, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
    • No objection to the current proposal - RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 06:59, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. ITN shouldn't be dictated by whether editors put efforts into it but by their real-life significance instead. OceanHok (talk) 14:32, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Would "reported on by reliable sources" indicate the sort of substantial coverage that would get an item posted in the first place? There was definitely substantial coverage of the HK protests for months, and then there was not (even though the protests continued. But there is unquestionably still RS coverage to a more modest degree. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:11, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
"Substantial" is subjective, and I'd leave that to consensus. Fewer criteria are better when framing these discussions, IMO --LaserLegs (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose pending response to Indefensible's question. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:08, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose articles are included and not included on the main page on the merit of their quality, including ITN. Whilst ongoing events might have a lower quality threshold (because of their evolving nature), it doesn't seem right to exclude them from this standard. We link to our article on the topic, not the reliable sources that remain updated. We shouldn't open ourselves up to promoting outdated articles on the main page. It's much better that the work is done on the article in in question in order to keep it on the main page -- this shouldn't be difficult if reliable sources are following the ongoing event. --Inops (talk) 12:56, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
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ITN/A and article quality

WP:ITN/A, to my surprise, says nothing about admins evaluating article quality before posting. It mentions determining consensus and that there is a sufficient update, but says nothing about what to do about, say, articles with orange tags. We have always used discretion in posting articles such as these, but I think it would help if we spelled it out explicitly. This issue just came up in the RD discussion of Zindzi Mandela. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:29, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

In that case, I don't buy the argument that your not posting was a supervote. Since everything is voluntary here, not taking an action is not a big deal when another admin is still free to decide to post it. In fact you essentially did !vote instead of posting initially. Not a supervote at all (unlike posting or pulling arguably against consensus). While we could spend the time to formalize ITN/A more, I wonder if WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY against unwarranted criticism is a better course.—Bagumba (talk) 18:18, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
Bagumba, thank you for affirming that I wasn't engaging in some kind of "supervote". We need to override consensus when it is not in the project's best interest to follow it. I would like to copy Wikipedia:In_the_news#Article_quality to ITN/A so that it is clear that admins should be taking issues like these into account when deciding to go against the consensus. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:52, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
Article quality should be part of the admin's check, so referencing (or copying) that section to the instructions seems correct here. --Masem (t) 15:03, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Concur with the above. I always assess article quality even if there is a potential consensus to post, and will frequently "oppose" or leave an additional comment with feedback for the article why I don't think it is ready, and leave to another admin to assess quality and worthiness for posting. Such practice is by no means "supervoting", it is determining appropriate consensus based on weight of argument, and even if there are 5 votes of "support, looks good" and 1 "oppose, article isn't updated and here's X, Y and Z of what's needed", generally that's not ready to go up yet. SpencerT•C 19:13, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

July 19

Uh, where's the July 19 section?  Nixinova   T   C   21:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Nixinova, see this diff. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:26, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I can ask that question 2 Tlhoaele (talk) 18:55, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) John Lewis

Thanks to the OP for bringing to our attention. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:32, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

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An article appeared in the New York Times stating that John Lewis would be receiving a state burial in the U.S. Capitol. One of the !votes in the blurb discussion for Mr. Lewis stated that he was not worthy of a blurb because he was not receiving a state funeral. I hope this is a lesson to people who oppose blurbs on the bloody ridiculous Mandela-Thatcher standard to not be so presumptive on first glance and to accept that someone is as notable as the news says they are.--WaltCip-(BLM!Resist The Orange One) 13:26, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

+1 Calidum 19:46, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
Indians and Europeans would've still opposed no matter what. Howard the Duck (talk) 19:53, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
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(Closed) UTC for Recent deaths can be problematic

Apparently it's done. I can't find the old offending verbiage anywhere so I can't link the diff but it seems everyone is happy --LaserLegs (talk) 20:36, 24 July 2020 (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.

The instructions for posting say "Find the correct section below for the date of the event (not the date nominated) in UTC." I find this problematic for Recent deaths. Here in Australia we are ten or eleven hours ahead of UTC (depending on whether daylight saving is operating). Most deaths of locals are reported in local media which never tells us time of death in UTC. They tend to write "X died yesterday" or "...earlier today". I suggest that the requirement for using UTC is impractical, and has obviously been ignored for the deaths of most Australians (and not doubt many others from this area of the world) forever. Should remove or modify that requirement as written? HiLo48 (talk) 23:01, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

  • What eligible articles have not been posted due to a 10 hour time difference? What do you propose as an alternative? We don't need a wall of text, propose a change and we can consider it. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:48, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Do people not simply do the best they can? What problem is this trying to solve? 331dot (talk) 00:02, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
    Yep, I do the best I can. Most of my RD nominations have been of Australians, and I can assure you I made no attempt to find out the correct date of death according to UTC for them. (Actually, I DID try for the most recent one, and found it impossible. Hence my query here.) Maybe I'm a silly old pedant, but the idea of a rule that's routinely ignored doesn't sit well with me. HiLo48 (talk) 00:24, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
    We had this problem with John Cain (41st Premier of Victoria). Initial reports said that he had "died overnight", leaving the date of death ambiguous. It is very rare that reports of deaths give an exact time, so the biographical articles invariably use the local date. Eventually we did find the exact local time of death. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I had always assumed we used local time. I've never calculated an evening death in the US to see if it was the next day UTC, either in nominations or posts.—Bagumba (talk) 01:36, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
  • The reference to UTC should be removed, posts are always on the local date that the event happened. Stephen 01:39, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
  • It's been removed. Stephen 03:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Good stuff. The main article, Deaths in 20??, cares not for UTC. Consistency is consistent! InedibleHulk (talk) 21:12, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
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Can someone look at TV Baftas (31 July) nom

Just a request - it's sitting at 7 support to 4 oppose at the moment (though 3 of the opposes are explicitly 'it's not American', to start with) and is getting buried now at 4 days old, so more attention to the nom might be helpful? Kingsif (talk) 18:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

You should prepend "Needs attention" (in caps) to the heading. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Weather articles

Without wishing to cause an enormous debate, we are currently trying to examine the way forward with meteorological articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Meteorology and User talk:Jason Rees/Flood articles. Comments are welcome while suggestions are vital.Jason Rees (talk) 23:04, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Dare I say it's a little TLDR? Could you summarise your aims? The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 23:06, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
@Ktin and The Rambling Man: The main aim of the discussion is to merge the tropical cyclone, severe weather, meteorology, Non-Tropical Storms and Climate Wikiprojects into just 1 single weather project as there is just too much overlap. An average tropical cyclone could count for 4 out of the 5 projects. As a part of this, we are looking at the articles, a combined wikiproject would cover, this includes Climate of X, Floods in X, Droughts in X, Tropical Cyclones in X, Tornadoes in X. If we can get these lists sorted then they would help WP:ITN decide which weather articles are important to go up on the main page. However, what I need desperately are comments as to what sort of local weather events happen in x country, which is what this sandbox has been primarily set up for. For example, do tornadoes occur in France, Italy or Sweden and what about flooding in Germany, Russia, Mali and Niger? Jason Rees (talk) 16:20, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Jason Rees. I will definitely have a look. I will admit that I am not well versed with this topic, and I am somewhat of a newbie to Wikipedia processes at large. Please definitely lean on seasoned editors like The Rambling Man and others in the group for feedback. Good luck. Ktin (talk) 20:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Belarus elections/protests

Is there a reason why the current Belarus election results and protests are not on the front page, while election results alone are usually enough to warrant a mention? Thanks! EryZ (talk) 17:17, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

There are two discussions about this at WP:ITN/C which you may not have noticed. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:27, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Image size

I have made a request at Template talk:In the news/image to change the template used to format the image for ITN. People here may be interested in reviewing the request. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:24, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

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