Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 85

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The issue was raised at WP:ERRORS yesterday, that piping the recent death of Amanda Holden (writer) as simply Amanda Holden, could be seen as confusing, given that there is a much more famous and well-known individual at the primary topic Amanda Holden. The outcome seems to be that she was listed with an extra middle initial, as Amanda J. Holden, which doesn't seem ideal to me, given that the writer was never really known with her middle initial. Also, I wouldn't know what the famous Amanda's middle name is anyway, so it could still be mistaken for her. As such, we should probably nail down how we think we should handle these cases. I can think of a few options:

1. If an ambiguous RD has a primary topic, e.g. Amanda Holden, then use the full article title for the less famous RD, with disambiguator. i.e. list the writer as Amanda Holden (writer).
2. If an ambiguous RD has a primary topic, e.g. Amanda Holden, then use some other naturally disambiguated name for the less famous RD. i.e. list the writer as Amanda J. Holden.
3. List all RDs under their common name, regardless of whether there's someone more famous. i.e. list the writer as Amanda Holden.
4. No fixed rule, treat each case on its own merits.

I'd probably favour (1) or (3) myself, rather than using a less recognisable name as we've done here, but interested to know others' views.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I am going to say list all RD's under their common name. If its a lesser known person and people click-through thinking a celebrity has died, having people thus be educated about someone's less well-known achievements is not a bad thing. More people should be aware of the Penguin guide to Opera. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:08, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Britain's Got Opera Talent?? 10:51, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

For the record, the addition of the initial, "J.", ended up being reverted.[1]—Bagumba (talk) 11:17, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• 3. Use common name I honestly dont think it's a major issue. Readers figure it out and know names are not always unique. A less prominent Bobby Brown was posted earlier this year with no qualifier, and there was no complaints.—Bagumba (talk) 12:11, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• 1. So we're against Easter Eggs except for when we can use it to make scores of people believe someone they care about (or love) has died? And it's good, because we think upon clicking through and realizing what has happened, they're still going to read the article?! 159.53.110.217 (talk) 12:43, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• 1, largely per the IP. I wouldn't be opposed to abbreviating some disambiguators, e.g. (Australian footballer born 1964) → (footballer) on a case-by-case basis. The other reason for this is that it would be mighty confusing if two or more people of the same or similar name (e.g. Jim Smith and Jimmy Smith) were on RD at once and both were listed without disambiguation. Thryduulf (talk) 13:32, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

You're partly opening another Pandora's can of worms there. Is an Australian footballer a player of Australian (rules) football? To a lot of our Australian readers, he would be. HiLo48 (talk) 03:56, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Well a random sampling of 10 articles with the disambiguator "(Australian footballer, born xxxx)" produced 10 articles about Australian rules footballers, but that's an issue with articles titles and not really relevant for RD. Thryduulf (talk) 18:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• 3 with exceptions for 1 where the person who is not dead is of significant worldwide fame/importance (which I do not think the living Amanda Holden qualifies in this case). Readers can click through to discover that it wasn't the more famous person that died. Exceptions I would think would be a case of like if there was another Joe Biden - not the current US president - that died and was notable, that we'd definitely want to distinguish that for a worldwide audience. I can understand that UK readers would be initially shocked that a popular TV star looked like she was dead by being on the RD line but that's not a name that has the same type of global recognition to be of concern. --Masem (t) 13:41, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• Masem Amanda Holden got 1.4 million views last year. That doesn't shout "unimportant" to me. Black Kite (talk) 18:26, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• Page views are a terrible way to judge importance as that's a reader perspective and not an encyclopedia one (otherwise, we'd be focused on Pokemon articles and b-list celebrities). However, I do think that's a fair argument that if there's a reasonable disproportion in page counts between the deceased article and the one of possible confusion (of at least 2 orders of magnitude (100x or more)) well before the death occurred, then we can definitely talk about avoiding reader confusion. But this also could be tied to COMMONNAME and if one has the non-disambiguated main page name. --Masem (t) 18:34, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• I put the middle initial because it seemed less disruptive and more natural along with the other names. However, using the disambiguation is fine too. I don't think nothing should be done, as it is a potentially harmful BLP issue to suggest public figures have died when they haven't. 331dot (talk) 13:56, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment if the bold link points to a disambig like James Burke then leave it, if it points to a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC like John Hamm and that's not the name of the deceased, then DAB it in the RD box. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:24, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, I think that would be my assumption too. If there isn't a primary topic for that name, then we can assume it's not going to cause huge confusion with a major household name.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3. I would go with WP:COMMONNAME. Additional details are anyway available on a mouse-over (at least on desktops). Ktin (talk) 21:44, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 3 An infrequent EGG is not so bad. The bigger problem would be coming to some consensus over who is "less famous" given niche fields. I don't know either Holdens in this case, but if I were a fan of opera I'd be upset that Wikipedia has judged an actor to be more deserving. I'm not even sure that the presumed significance in the OP is correct for an encyclopedia. A light editorial touch works well here, when a reader is 1 click away from resolving any apparent confusion.130.233.213.141 (talk) 05:03, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

"1 click away" is further than it might appear. Even that may cause confusion and shock for readers, and even more for the living person that is thought to be dead. I wouldn't want my name posted there if I was alive. 331dot (talk) 08:46, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• support 3 (oppose 1 and 2) per some above, and as we don't distinguish ITNN the names almost everybody is supposed to know (but I didn't know the actress) and those less recognised: let them be equal in death. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:40, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support 1 with a caveat. I'd only want to disambiguate when there is a significant person of the same name who died. In our current case, we're potentially luring people in with a call of someone they might recognise being dead, when it's someone else. What if Robbie Williams (snooker player) died tomorrow? I feel like we're almost creating fake news, so would like the option of disambiguating in this list, but certainly not changing their name to suit a different purpose. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:12, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support 1, but need clarification of when we would apply the disambiguation. For all instances of articles that use parentheses to distinguish? If not, in which circumstances would we omit/include the disambiguation? Proposal 1 seems perfectly compatible with WP:COMMONNAME, proposal 2 is not, and proposal 3 (as has been discussed) leaves the link open to ambiguity. MIDI (talk) 11:11, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• More space ITN traffic is dominated by RDs and so the feature ought to get more space. This ought to include a short description for each subject to provide some context as a plain list of names is fairly useless – names only work if you already know the name and this may cause confusion, as the OP points out. To make space, we could reduce that given to blurbs as the bottom blurb is usually quite stale. For example, the current bottom blurb is 2021 São Toméan presidential election. That's over a week old and only got 2500 readers yesterday which is just about nothing for the main page. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:43, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
  • This is impractical because as soon as you start adding even a short description for each, I can see that growing to include more "features". For example while it might start with just a main vocation, I easily would see people wanting to also read the nationality alongside that, and now you have these descriptions longer than the names themselves. And with RDs accepted based only on article quality such that we feature 6 or so at the same time, that's going to be far too much (even taking off one blurb). Not feasible at all. --Masem (t) 16:04, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support 3 A solution in search of a problem, but we can make adjustments on a case-by-case basis if needed. Spencer^T•C 16:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Preference for option 4. Spencer^T•C 01:19, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support 4. I agree with the general sentiment (i.e. 1) when the primary topic is super-famous. However, if the primary topic gets 10,000 views a year and the secondary topic gets 1,000, and the secondary topic died, I see no reason include a disambiguator, since both people are somewhat obscure and it would not cause WP:ASTONISH. We can use 100,000 as a rule-of-thumb cutoff, but handle it on a case-by-case basis. (For comparison, Amanda Holden got 1,402,961 in 2020 and Amanda Holden (writer) got 3,993.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:51, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support 1. I was one of (probably many) people who saw this and thought Wikipedia was reporting that Amanda Holden had died, not Amanda Holden (writer) and, surprised that I hadn't heard it from other sources, clicked through to the article and immediately felt cheated. It's nothing short of clickbait, and we're better than that. WaggersTALK 13:55, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• I though this was already sorted by the Martha Stewart (actress) case earlier this year. I say do disambiguators when needed, otherwise don't worry so much about it.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 13:19, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

  I distinctly remember Bobby Brown being posted without disambiguation soon after Stewart, without any complaints. I'm gonna guess there's been about a handful of similar cases since Stewart, so it effectively was not a precedent to change.—Bagumba (talk) 14:19, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

  Perhaps, but my point stands.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:45, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

  Not the baseball player, but somebody actually did object on this talk page to Bobby Brown when he appeared on RD. Nohomersryan (talk) 17:21, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1, because it's obvious. Why piss off (or worse, disturb) our readers for no reason? Black Kite (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 as first choice Option 3 as second. Better known is a highly personal thing, and we shouldn't be making universal decisions based on personal perspective. --Jayron32 18:36, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• 3 A good fraction of our audience is going to be pissed off or disturbed by us bringing them News of Death, period. If somebody truly is concerned it's that Charles Brown this time, a simple click can quickly either ease their mind or confirm their fear. But I do wish those folks well. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:45, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Black Kite. Connormah (talk) 23:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support option 1. Article titles are already disambiguated in a sensible and standardised way. We can just follow the articles, as is normal for everything posted on the Main Page. Oppose option 3 which is actively misleading and violates WP:EGG, neutral on the others. Modest Genius ^talk 10:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

If this was a joke, I don't get it. If it was serious, I really don't get it. Modest Genius ^talk 15:10, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to encourage discussion about whether articles with unbolded links in a blurb need to undergo a quality vetting before posting or it should be done only for the articles with emboldened links. This is not well-explained under "Criteria" and the sentence Articles that are subject to serious issues, as indicated by 'orange'- or 'red'-level tags at either the article level or within any section, may not be accepted for an emboldened link. seems to give a recommendation, albeit a must in practice, only for the articles subject to emboldening. The reason why this needs to be discussed is that requiring only articles with emboldened links to be of satisfactory quality gives incentives to game the system by emboldening another article to speed up and secure posting even though the quality of some relevant articles hasn't been improved. In addition, it's still highly probable to click on an unbolded link and arrive at a tagged article, which is surely not what our readers should be served with.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:09, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support vetting absolutely bold linked or not we cannot link to BLP vios or orange/red tagged content from the main page. These articles are always related to the bold item and there is a reasonable expectation that readers are going to inspect them. We can probably ignore MOS issues for the not-bold links. This aligns with my proposal above about WP:SPINOUT articles (which is dying a slow death from lack of interest and analysis paralysis). --LaserLegs (talk) 11:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
• Relation to ITNR In a more specific case related to ITNR, it seems that the recent posting of the women's singles winner of the US Open avoided updating 2021 US Open (tennis), the typical main target, in lieu of a brief update of Emma Raducanu. A new backdoor approach?—Bagumba (talk) 12:28, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• That's a very good recent example in favour of vetting the quality of all articles linked in a blurb instead of only those with emboldened links.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:43, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• Well, one could just start unlinking. The issue that many had with the US Open was that the actual main event page was not updated, bolding the participant as a work around.—Bagumba (talk) 13:36, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• I thought of that possibility as well but it doesn't seem something that can be realistically pushed through. After all, one cannot let a plain linkless blurb appear on the main page.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

  If you read the discussion at ITNC on this, you'll see that this wasn't a "workaround", as the Emma Raducanu article was posted as an ITN story in its own right, as the first ever qualifier to win a major, and the posting was made as a regular newsworthy blurb outside of the usual ITN/R rules. It is not a precedent for bolding other articles as a regular thing, which is why we aren't adding Daniil Medvedev as a second bolded blurb in the absence of the tournament article being ready.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:12, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

  ... which is why we aren't adding Daniil Medvedev ...: Poor Russian lad.—Bagumba (talk) 01:35, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• General Comment This dovetails with a creeping tendency for posting "gateway" articles to the Front Page, on the strengths (or weaknesses) of some other article. This started with Ongoing and (IIRC) the HK protests, where a nearly static article was kept on the Front Page for months on the updates of articles linked therein. It's going on right now with the COVID article. There's no way for us as editors to direct Front Page readers to links within a bold link, so readers are not, actually, reading the same text that is reviewed for posting. The trick to which the OP refers, swapping bold links for the sake of review, is a variation on this theme. Bold links should be totally clean, no orange or worse tags, minimal in-line tags, zero CNs (esp. BLPs), etc. For unbold links I think LaserLegs above makes the right points. ITNR is unambiguous as to which should be the bold link, and in my experience ITNC is pretty good at finding the suitable bold link. I highly doubt that the Raducanu article would have survived a usual ITNC nomination, absent the event being ITNR. Tennis is just not that popular. The nomination, still at ITNC, is still erroneously labeled ITNR, leading to confusion as to what extent the article should be reviewed (hence the no update to the ITNR article).130.233.213.141 (talk) 07:29, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Unnecessary WP:CREEP and perfectionism which would hamper posting of many items in a reasonable timeframe. WP:ITNCRIT makes it clear that the quality requirement should apply only to an emboldened link (e.g. " Articles should be a minimally comprehensive overview of the subject") and there's a good reason behind that, it seems. Brandmeister^talk 09:35, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

  The proposal on the table is to modify that requirement. You're using the requirement itself to justify not modifying it. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:49, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose beyond really tragic BLP/orange-tags per Brandmeister; expecting every article to reach a high, no-CN standard will needlessly hamper posting blurbs when time is of the essence. It's hard enough to post blurbs with just the bolded articles. And I don't see the backdoor as much an "incentive" as "something necessary to keep relevant blurbs from falling off and becoming stale"; indeed, as the IP said above, you're still constricted on what the boldlink can even be.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 13:16, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support If the link is necessary, it should be vetted. If it is not necessary, it should not be linked if the quality is insufficent. Linking to a poor article without bolding is clearly gaming the system. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:49, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support brief check only to make sure there aren't blatant violations e.g. BLP violations, copyright issues, neutrality issues, on any other linked pages. But we don't need every article linked to be perfect. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. We have enough difficulty getting bold articles of sufficient quality. It's impractical to expect every link to reach those same standards, especially as they're often added for background context (e.g. names of countries or articles on entire sports). In an ideal world these would all be FAs, but we can't have everything. This would just further decrease the number of blurbs that we post, delay the ones we do, and incentivise leaving out links even if they're useful. Modest Genius ^talk 10:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

  If they are truly for background context, I would agree. The bigger issue to me is when we go "target-shopping" if the logical target is in bad shape. We find an article that is reasonable and bold it, then the proper target is linked anyway. GreatCaesarsGhost 12:07, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

  That's a problem in principle, but very rarely happens. ITN/C can determine which target is the 'proper' one without needing a blanket rule. Modest Genius ^talk 12:22, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

It’s just 5 additional characters on average (space and a 2-digit number in brackets), and it would immediately inform readers whether persons died in unusually young or old age. --Brinerat (talk) 16:23, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Not really necessary. One click and they'll find out themselves. --Masem (t) 16:38, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I think seeing the age, especially when it’s unusually young or old, will attract more readers and editors. --Brinerat (talk) 00:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Tend to agree. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:08, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Count me in. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:16, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

• I agree it doesn't seem necessary. If they don't know who the person is, they will click on the name to find out and learn the age of the person. If they do know who the person is, they will already know if the person died unusually old or young. 331dot (talk) 09:11, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  If I don't know who a person is, I usually don't click at all, thereby completely missing whether they were tragically untimely or impressively overdue. In my case, I already haunt the main RD list and nomination nook, which already do a much better job than its famous subset, so forget about me. Do it for the busy working masses who can only afford daily frontpage information "at a glance". InedibleHulk (talk) 18:16, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Age isn't particularly useful information - less relevant than knowing what they were notable for. RD takes up enough space as it is and adding ages would make it really ugly. Modest Genius ^talk 10:51, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Modest Genius. Spencer^T•C 01:50, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship is listed at WP:ITNR, and was most recently discussed in 2011. However, this sport is specific to the island of Ireland, there is almost no reporting or significant coverage of it in other countries. The 2021 article got a maximum of just 5,000 page views per day even being on the front page this year. ITN should be promoting things that appeal to a worldwide audience, and the audience for this sport is too small and targetted for it to be ITN-worthy in my opinion. In the last discussion in 2011, the main opposing factor was our agreement to include the premier championship[s] of every major sport, but I do not believe this to be the case, as many other similar sports don't have ITNR for them. ITN should be showcasing what people will want to read, and the low readership of the Gaelic football articles shows to me that it's not ITNR-suitable. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:30, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support removal Using the pageviews tool, I compared 3 randomly chosen articles on the Front Page: 2021 US Open - Women's Singles as a direct comparison against another ITNR sports article; Nuclear Submarine for a non-ITNR non-sports article on ITN; and The Dick Van Dyke Show for a non-ITN item (DYK from 2 days ago so that accurate stats are available). Only the Van Dyke Show's article had fewer pageviews. The OP has a point regarding the types of articles that should be featured at ITN; Guidelines for DYK state, "[...] mentions and links to new articles, articles expanded by a factor of five within the last seven days, and newly-promoted good articles", whereas ITN's guidelines are to, "[...] direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest". Given that "wide interest" should be part of ITN articles, and a supposed ITNR item cannot even match a generic article about boats for pageviews, then I think it's appropriate to remove this from the ITNR list.130.233.213.141 (talk) 12:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Question When was the last time we posted a properly-updated article on the championship to ITN? If this is regularly posted, then it should be retained on the ITNR list. If we frequently don't have a good enough article to post on the main page, then it should be delisted. --Jayron32 14:06, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Emmy Awards say hi. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
    • 2021 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship went on front page (and got a pitiful 5k views per day)- although that is now orange-tagged for more sources in multiple sections. Last time before that looks to have been 2018. And in 2011 when it was last kept, we had way more questionable sports events on ITNR than we do now (see Special:Permalink/462246852 for what was there at end of 2011). I also notice that hurling has been removed since 2011, which has a similar level of coverage to gaelic football (i.e. just in Ireland). Joseph2302 (talk) 14:19, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
      • My views on this haven't changed after a decade. When it was conceived, ITNR is for items that "we don't need recurring discussions on importance every time the event comes up" (it being always or not updated every time it happens isn't supposed to be the reason for inclusion/exclusion/removal). We have yearly discussions on this in 2011, and still in 2021, even after inclusion to the list. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:24, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
        • Every person has a unique and distinct perspective on the world. Not every person knows or understands every single event that ever happens, such a level of omniscience is impossible for mere humans. Because of these, we need metrics by which to understand the importance of events that we don't know. I don't really look at whether or not I know an event, I try to look for metrics such as "is the article on this subject regularly updated with reliable sources" and "do we post this every year already" as metrics for things that I don't already know about, which trust me, is a FAR larger list of things than I do know about. --Jayron32 16:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Remove. It's not relevant that this sport is limited to Ireland, but if it is not posted every year, it shouldn't be on the list. 331dot (talk) 14:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • See also Emmy Awards. Just because it's not Amurican.... The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 18:25, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removal. This event is of key importance to one of the English-speaking world's core demographics, even though page views suggest that it gets dwarfed by topics with a more world-wide interest. The fact that its quality often isn't up to scratch isn't really relevant here, as that also applies to the Emmys, and many of our golf and tennis articles. The key point is to have them known as a core topic as and when people do update them.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:21, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removal and object to the current slew of suggestions that only ITNs with high pageviews count for something. This is an encyclopedia, WikiNews is (I believe) still running for those interested in clickbait main page headlines. Removing this just makes ITN that little bit less diverse. I don't click on pretty much any election article at ITN, but that's just me: doesn't mean they shouldn't be there. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 18:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removal per Amakuru and TRM. Should we remove elections for small nations because they don't get the traffic? Clearly, no. Black Kite (talk) 18:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, we should! InedibleHulk (talk) 18:00, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  No, we shouldn't. That's patently absurd. It descends immediately into "what is a small nation". Who thought this encyclopedia was going to be hijacked by clickbait wannabes. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  Wikipedia must have a Top 40 in readership by country, judge by that, I say. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:59, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  Ah, so judge it by the United States, Canada and India viewership? Why are they more important to English Wikipedia than the British, New Zealand and Bermuda readers? Absurd. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:01, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  Absurdity is me writing 40, and you reflecting three. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:04, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  Absurdity is you arbitrarily deciding that the "top 40" readers by country get to decide the content of the main page of the encyclopedia. Would you allow that same principle to determine the content of the front page of the New York Times or BBC News or the Hindu Times or the Sydney Morning Herald? No, you really wouldn't. As soon as you recall this is an encyclopedia, not a "vote for the most popular news stories", we can move on to a more principled debate. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:13, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, and when you find Wikipedia must have a Top 40 in readership by country, be sure to let us all know. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:15, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose removal We don't take pageviews into account at ITN/R. The point of ITN/R is to avoid having annual discussions on notability for recurring items. This is the premier competition of a major sport of a major English-speaking country and there should be room for it. It may not get posted every year if the quality is not up to scratch, but that shouldn't be a reason for removal either.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:39, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
  • There wouldn't be annual discussions about this, because it only gets nominated once every 2-3 years anyway. And we shouldn't be clinging onto it just because people accepted it at ITNR 10 or 15 years ago- if it weren't at ITNR from 10 years ago, nobody would be getting a consensus to add it right now. The fact is, this sport isn't in the news, so why on earth do we post it as such? Joseph2302 (talk) 18:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Not sure how you define "not in the news", see [2], [3], [4], [5]. Pawnkingthree (talk) 20:52, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
    • There are a lot of sporting ITN/Rs that "aren't in the news" outside one or two particular countries, including Australian and Canadian football, the Rugby League Superleague, the Boat Race, and (one could argue) things like ice hockey, college basketball and local marathons. Shall we remove all of those as well? Black Kite (talk) 21:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Clarify that I agree page views are not relevant. 331dot (talk) 21:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removal, Championship of a major sport in a major English speaking country.Jackattack1597 (talk) 22:29, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removal per Jackattack. Pretty clear-cut, this. If we keep the Emmys and Grammys up on ITNR despite their growing cultural irrelevance, it shows we are not basing ITNR purely on pageviews. In fact, pageviews should not figure into the metrics of an encyclopedia to begin with.--WaltCip-(talk) 12:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Support Quite unpopular topic to start with, not getting any hotter. Forcing it on readers is unfair as it ever was to whatever worthier writing it distracts from, precludes or bumps. Those who actually enjoyed having their favourite niche sport advertised regardless of widespread modern consensus had a good run at normal folks' expense, remember it fondly, in hindsight. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:54, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  Seriously, what is the "expense"? Is it (a) keeping/improving diversity on the main page? (b) possibly highlighting sporting events that people have never heard of and might gain an interest in? (c) demonstrating to people from minority backgrounds that their voice may be heard? Or is it just "fuck it, not enough page views, get rid of it". I'm genuinely interested to understand why we'd be cancelling certain cultures, certain sports, certain ways of life from the main page, because you think it's "not getting any hotter"? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:08, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  Not "canceling", just not treating them differently, above contemporary consensus to post. Diversity is fine, if it happens. Don't force it is all. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:56, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  No-one's forcing anything. Indeed, all that's happening here is the gradual removal of diversity on the main page. Curious. "Get rid of that foreign muck". No real answer to any of my points. Stick to the peanut gallery. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:58, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose removal 1. We don't go by pageviews, especially when determining if an events recurrence is enough to denote permanent notability; 2. Trying to argue it "only" predominantly interests the Irish and nobody else is a great way to get the Superbowl removed. Kingsif (talk) 18:41, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  The Superbowl should crumble, but we need to build up to that first. And the fraction of Ireland that give a demonstrable fook aout Wikipedia's coverage of "the big game" is clearly the bottom of the hill, the first step, the smallest stone. We shouldn't even be thinking about any American media behemoth till the Commonwealth ceremonies and conventions are in the community crosshairs, which won't be before Western Europe falls. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:54, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  The difference being that 94.4 millon people watched the 2021 Superbowl, compared with 876,000 for the (2020) All-Ireland Senior Football final. Joseph2302 (talk) 21:23, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  That's an inherently systemically biased clickbait argument as far as I'm concerned. We could just litter the main page with stories about Kim Kardashian per WP:TOP25 methodology and get loads of interest. This approach to eliminating niche sports, of course, applies to the following ITNR entries: badminton, chess, Canadian football, handball, netball, rowing, skiing, sumo, volleyball, etc. I guess if the community wants to rid ITN of all niche topics and just focus on all-American sports and nothing else, this is a good way forward. I prefer the diversity approach and the one which says that we are English language Wikipedia, and as such we should try to embrace as many different sporting events that relevant communities consider important as ITNR. I'm still trying to understand where the "harm" comes from, which others have mentioned? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  To be clear, in my pipe dream, all-American entertainment series are a niche topic, too, just the ultimate niche. In English, anyway. I don't "get" other zeitgeists. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:51, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  To be clear, you can't advocate the removal of this niche (but very important) sporting event without advocating the removal of events relating to all the other niche sports I mentioned. It would be grossly hypocritical to support this without then nominating all the other "niche" (i.e. low clickbait) events for removal. Let's see how that pans out. I wonder. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:54, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  First things first is less chaotic than giant dumps. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:02, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  This is arse about face. Nominate the Superbowl. No-one outside the US plays that sport, yet it gets a free ride every year. Nominate Sumo, no-one outside Japan engages in that, yet it gets a free ride every time one of those dudes get levelled up. There is a principle that should be debated, not a specific topic. I hope you can see that. As such, this is absurd. As before, if ITN is now about pageviews, I'll open the RFC to get it deleted from the main page. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

  I already told you, the Superbowl is too big to fail yet. If nommed now, it would win. Those sumo dudes don't get blurbed for every level, just the few who hit the ultimate level. Likewise, we need to become yokozuna-like in our own discipline to stand a chance, and part of that involves squashing lesser competition for experience as a team. I don't see what principle you mean to debate, help me? InedibleHulk (talk) 02:05, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

  The principle of "few pageviews = not ITNR-worthy". That's the summation of those in favour of removing this. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 06:48, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks. I see pageviews as a part of gauging human interest, but only part. We should also ask ourselves whether we care about Gaelic football, Cypriot reelections or Laotian award shows (for example only). Do our friends and associates discuss it? Is it portrayed or alluded to in our daily news, advertising or entertainment? Any rando ever come to our talk pages about it? In theory, a cultural cornucopia that everyone enjoys is a grand and jolly ideal, but (and excuse me coming across like a carny barker) part of any viable promotion is "give the people what they want". If that means giving less weight to the Arabic, Urdu and Cree-speaking worlds, so be it. They (and many other fine crowds) have their own Wikipedias, where the same basic supply and demand mechanics satiate their actual particular hungers for learning. Mainstream modern culture is only clickbait if it's a trick; our blurbs don't mince words, WYSIWYG. Anyway, have a good weekend! InedibleHulk (talk) 18:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

  Firstly, who is we? Secondly, "rando"s are more than welcome everywhere around Wikipedia, and our main page isn't designed to isolate them. Finally, this isn't about your personal prejudices against other races or cultures, this is about how our community works on things. I see no issue with the way the community works things out right now, and ITNR is a vital part of that to stop this place just becoming utterly devoid of niche topics. Donald Trump doesn't own Wikpiedia so we shouldn't act like that's where we want the project to go. Enjoy your weekend too. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 18:23, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

  We the blurb nom voters, on behalf of all Main Page readers. Of course randos are welcome, they sometimes bring things to our attention we'd overlooked before. That's how worlds organically collide and mingle, good stuff. I have no clue why you're thinking about America, racism and Trump. If most of us Wikipedian voters, even Jamaicans, Indians and Poles, want to nominate and support a Gaelic football match or whatever "exotic" thing, go for it. It's perfectly negotiable, it just shouldn't be treated differently from more currently popular topics. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:50, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

  Of course it should. I would imagine that most of our editing base hasn't even heard of Ireland let alone their seminal sporting event. This isn't "American Wikipedia". We need safeguards to prevent it becoming such, and ITNR is one of those. Actively seeking to remove niche topics from ITNR just literally increases the systemic bias here. If that's what you want, passively or otherwise, that's fine. But it's not what a lot of the rest of us want. Nothing more to add here. Enjoy your weekend. Full stop. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 19:05, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

  Can I chime in or have you both gone off to enjoy your weekend? WaltCip-(talk) 19:52, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

  WaltCip you're always more than welcome to chime in! The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:02, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

  Agreed, let's party. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:28, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment always worth reminding those in favour of reducing the diversity of topics on the main page that lowering the number of ITNR elements actively increases stagnation on the main page. So it's like a lose-lose, reduce the diversity, increase the stagnation. If any user advocating to remove this can provide evidence that our readers are complaining about its inclusion, that would be a different matter. This isn't WP:TOP25, and for those advocating for it to become TOP25, as soon as that becomes the mission, I'll be the first to nominate ITN entirely. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
  • This you? -- Calidum 01:15, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. Hope everyone's doing well. I find myself agreeing with the above comment. In general, my thinking is we should look at increasing the diversity and breadth of articles that we showcase on the homepage. I am not familiar with this particular sporting event, but, unless something drastic happened like the governing body (would that be FIFA?) derecognizing this tournament etc., I would think keeping it does not do much harm. Someday, I would like to see an event like 2020–21 Indian Super League season come up onto the homepage. But, I think we are some distance away from it. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 18:44, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

That governing body is the Gaelic Athletic Association, an international body with half a million members. Big enough for me. We will post the 2021 AFL Grand Final soon as an ITNR item, when editors get their fingers out and tidy up the article. There is a lot of evidence these two sports are related. Many players from the Irish game play in the Australia competition. Australia has played international games against Ireland in a hybrid version of both sports. HiLo48 (talk) 01:53, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

• Weak keep. Page views don't count, but popularity of the sport does. We have to draw the line somewhere, we can't post every obscure sport that's only popular in a single country or region (e.g. Highland games, pato or bandy), or sports which aren't particularly popular anywhere (e.g. tiddlywinks). I was going to support removal until I started googling how popular the sport is - and was surprised to find it's more popular in Ireland than association football or rugby union (caveat: the surveys all combined Gaelic football and hurling into a single 'GAA' category). Ireland is a (mostly) English-speaking country so it makes sense for English Wikipedia to post its most popular sport. But I do question quite how many Irish people take part in the sport and whether those surveys reflect national pride more than actual audience. Modest Genius ^talk 11:12, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removal Given that it is the only event of this sport featured, that event being the top event considered in the sport, the event is professionally organized and run like a tournament/championship that one would expect (eg avoiding the BCS mess), and it has a reasonable audience size and event coverage, then it seems completely far to have such an event that takes up one whole slot per year as an ITN. There are far more niche sports that we obviously should not feature, but this doesn't seem to be of that ilk. --Masem (t) 13:56, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

  ... the event is professionally organized ...: But it's an amateur sport, per the Gaelic football page. And why the BCS potshot here?—Bagumba (talk) 15:23, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

  I meant by "professional" in that there's an organizing committee or agency that oversees the sport and tournament so that there's structure to it. I'm comparing it to the BCS/College Bowl in that there's actually a multi-bracket/playoff system based on season performance that is comparable to most other sports rather than the voting preferences of the college coaches. --Masem (t) 15:31, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

  Just seemed random to compare to college football; it's not an either/or proposition. Also, Bowl Championship Series hasn't existed since 2013. Anyhow, this is all a tangent.—Bagumba (talk) 15:57, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

  Mild tangent here. About college football; if you went based purely off of win-loss record, the playoffs would be an absolute mess because Division I of the FCS alone features 128 teams, all with widely varying schedules and skill levels, and because there are only 12 weeks in the regular season. The schedule is rightfully tight because these are unpaid, amateur athletes who are (usually) trying to pursue an education while repeatedly getting their brains bashed out on the field. We're now into our seventh year of the College Football Playoff system which has a formalized committee, rather than relying on the computers of the BCS system (the same ones that screwed the 2000 Canes out of a championship spot). It's about as close as we are ever going to get to some type of organization in the sport given its limitations. All of this is to say that while college football and Gaelic football might be different in terms of popularity, one should not be used as a qualifier for the other in terms of whether it gets posted to the main page. Despite its arcane system, college football has major tendrils within American culture, and not just in terms of advertising dollars. WaltCip-(talk) 14:35, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose removal I'm generally an ITN inclusionist and if there's an updated article, I don't see why it shouldn't be featured in the section assuming it's the top match of its sport. ITN has slow enough turnover that adding this won't be significantly bumping off a "more worthy" item, whatever that means. Spencer^T•C 01:49, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

  It means an item that actually made people stop and say (something like) yes, this is an interesting or important development and its article is quite good, let's post it. Of course, now and then, it inevitably bumps another ITNR item of exactly equal worth. Then it's not as bad. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:00, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm surprised Expo 2020 got posted. The article could use a good copyedit, and there are multiple statements that seem a little dated. Let's look at the Organization section as a sample:

• Dubai has also been emphasizing investments in various sectors such as economic growth, real estate, environmental avenues and public affairs. In recent times, Dubai has made major investments in real estate[6] and has introduced the world's largest solar power project, planned to begin by the start of Expo 2020. -- The part about the world's largest solar power project has been in the article for years. Has it actually begun? (Also, these two sentences repeat the same information about real estate investments.)
• The city of Dubai is also keen on giving equal prominence to public relationships. -- What does this mean? How are "equal prominence" and "public relationships" being defined?
• The initiative, titled the Dubai Happiness Agenda, has 16 programmes under four themes that sum up 82 projects to be set in the city with an aim to make the city the happiest by 2020. --It's 2021. Where does Dubai rank in happiness now?

Let's look at the Preparations section, as well. All of the references are from 2019 or earlier, so we're just bypassing COVID entirely.

• The upcoming Expo 2020 means that most premium hotels will be operating near full capacity through to 2021. -- "through to 2021" from what starting date? Is this even true now? Surely COVID had some impact.
• Benjamin Moore Middle East is focussed on the UAE's luxury hospitality segment as the moment. By helping hotels upgrade the paints and coatings they use to more durable products, while simultaneously helping them reduce their maintenance costs. -- Poor writing, undue weight relative to the size of the section, and arguably promotional.

User:Andrew Davidson raised some other issues, that weren't adequately addressed. Zagalejo (talk) 14:14, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT.--WaltCip-(talk) 14:33, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

That's not a helpful response. Isn't the whole point of ITN to vet articles for quality beforehand? I'm just baffled by the culture of ITN. The standards are so inconsistent. Zagalejo (talk) 16:07, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

The standards seem pretty straight forward to me. As many of us have pointed out before, it's based on a consensus of editors regarding whether it is suitable for posting to the main page. You should feel free to make any revisions and corrections that need to be made to the article after the fact. But as Masem said, none of those corrections are such that the page needs to be pulled from ITN. WaltCip-(talk) 16:44, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

These observations are great, but they belong at Talk:Expo 2020, not here. If there is concern that community consensus hasn't been correctly observed, that's a different matter altogether. Cheers. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 09:53, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I started the discussion here because I am interested in the vetting process itself. Zagalejo (talk) 14:56, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

It's like all of the rest of Wikipedia. Community consensus is what gets stuff promoted to the main page. This article is no different to all the other articles other than its WP:ITNR status, disruptively overlooked by some. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 15:00, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

The one really actionable thing to me would have been the COVID stuff, but there is a section on the COVID impact. It's proseline, and not the best, but its there so its covering that factor and not absent. The other points are small matters that aren't impacting the basic tenets of why the Expo is an ITN item --Masem (t) 16:27, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

For the record, this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive review of the article. I’ve only read a few sections of it. Zagalejo (talk) 18:18, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the dates and timing, note that the article was created in 2008 – these things have a long lead time! That was over 13 years ago and the original author did not edit after that year. But the passage of time means that you can't really trust anything that it says. For example, the infobox says that the next specialized expo will be in Buenos Aires in 2023. But it won't because it has been cancelled. It's like the older FAs that that are being run now as they scrape the barrel – they were done over 10 years ago, haven't been kept up-to-date and so don't pass close inspection. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:12, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

By all means do something about it rather than simply making observations from the sideline. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 09:51, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

When I proposed an ITN item yesterday about a significant volcanic eruption, I expected to see a positive response and for it to be posted to the Main Page quite quickly (within a few hours at most). After all, it's a significant event that affects quite a lot of people here, and it led to a new article. It is a mainstream news item, and I'd updated the article with well-referenced information about its status. It's a case of 5k people evaluated, and 100+ homes destroyed. However, I was astonished to see so many people voting "Wait", and appalled to see comments like "Wait until death count becomes clear", and "no demonstrable impact beyond any run-of-the-mill storm or bushfires that never get posted".

Meanwhile, ITN currently says that "Former President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika (pictured) dies at the age of 84.", "SpaceX launches Inspiration4, the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight.", "The United States, United Kingdom and Australia sign a security pact that will provide Australia with nuclear submarines.", "British tennis player Emma Raducanu wins the US Open, becoming the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title." and "In Gaelic football, Tyrone win the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, defeating Mayo in the final." All of which, I'm sure, is important to someone - but are they really more 'in the news' than a volcanic eruption? Do we really rate death counts, politics, and sports as more important than natural phenomenon?

The rules at Wikipedia:In_the_news#Criteria need to be more clearly written to explain voter expectations. If a volcanic eruption isn't enough, please say so more clearly. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:00, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

There are natural as well as human-caused disasters that happen all the time on a daily basis (like floods, hurricanes, typhoons, tornados, earthquakes, wildfires, etc.) that cause significant property damage but where for reasons there's been otherwise little to no loss of life; ITN clearly doesn't have room to cover all of those cases, and hence why we want to wait to see if the effects are beyond just physical damage and if it is major loss of life or other secondary effects. --Masem (t) 23:50, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

As is often the case on WP, results can vary depending on the participants at a given time. Application of WP:MINIMUMDEATHS is a factor.—Bagumba (talk) 14:47, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

It's understood, though rarely spoken, that a significant number of people who are passionate about an article or a subject matter can sway the discussion on ITN by way of turnout. It's up to the posting admin to weigh that, of course, and most of the time they do. But there have been notable exceptions where, as Bagumba has said, the consensus is judged by whomever is awake to participate in the discussion. I've called for a more objective set of standards for years, but have been repeatedly told that's not how consensus works. So here we are. WaltCip-(talk) 15:01, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

And a significant number of people who are passionate can squash a nom too.—Bagumba (talk) 15:08, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean it's an old boy network, where if you have enough wiki-friends you can get your way, rather than being based on criteria? Hopefully not! Anyhow, I was just using this case as an example - the important point is that Wikipedia:In_the_news#Criteria needs to be better written to explain what is and isn't likely to be accepted (I can't do this myself, since I don't know the answer - hence this message to try to encourage you to do so!) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 13:43, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Most of the "sports" things are from Wikipedia:In the news/Recurring items where there is a standing consensus on what should be included - for everything else, yup it is quite subjective, but not just on who shows up, if it has been a slow new cycle topics with less impact are more likely to be accepted - if there are a lot of recent large events it is less likely that something prominent would be bumped for a low impact topic. This could be considered a feature though, not a problem. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:58, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Even with ITNR we don't follow our own logic, though. We have a "standing consensus" because years ago one person proposed adding and no one opposed. To remove today requires 70-80% approval. We've set up a system where even if the majority of people think something is broken and want to fix it, we cannot! GreatCaesarsGhost 15:40, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm also woeful. A guy can serve one day in the Ohio House of Representatives, or a gal can place 21st in the 1956 Olympic long jump and get an article, regardless of general notability requirements black chemist women face. Of course that favouritism is going to corrupt everything beneath it, as it has. And of course there's nothing the majority of normal readers can do but grumble. But I'll Strong Support any attempt to get popularly interesting newsworthy things, like natural wonders and beloved entertainers, the same special treatment unpictured footballers and unfamiliar MPs get, either by building cool habits up or tearing old ones down, futile or not. Just say when, I'm not a starter! InedibleHulk (talk) 17:39, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

• I agree that for newcomers to the process, it can be surprising that their favourite topics aren't immediately embraced by a community who have been inundated with mass shootings, plane crashes, bombs, and The Boat Race. There are no doubt countless examples of injustice, subjective to a degree, but I guess nominators need to realise that their candidates are assessed in the context on what has gone before. In your case Mike, I think a volcanic eruption which (at the time) had caused little concern, no deaths, limited destruction, was being assessed in terms of other natural disasters where hundreds of thousands were displaced, tens/hundreds killed etc. Your other issues relate in part to WP:ITNR, and like it or not, sporting events are popular on Wikpedia. Dead former presidents, space flight, and a huge spat over submarines, are all perfectly apt as far as I can tell, to an encyclopedic view of the world. I guess if you want immediate success in posting any story about any natural phenomenon (which ranks pretty low in all objective counts), then ITN isn't the place, better off working at Wikinews or WikiTribune or even a foreign-language Wikipedia were standards for inclusion are much more "flexible" and story churn is much higher. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:44, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Thanks for the answer, and that's all fine - but my point stands that Wikipedia:In_the_news#Criteria needs to *explain* this - at least by giving some examples. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:12, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Does it though? The community is fully entitled to vote however they see fit. We had several people voting in favour of posting a non-biographical article about a murder victim, contrary to all norms here. People are not disallowed from doing so. I'm not sure what kinds of "examples" you're looking for. The only way to understand the context at ITN is to research recent voting patterns and community expectations, that's not something you can indoctrinate in a few "examples". The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 06:39, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Think of the example of a newbie to the process (like me ;-) - but not my specific case) thinking that something might be suitable, and wanting to know if it would be worthwhile proposing. Should they really have to go write a paper on voting patterns and community expectations first, rather than looking at the help pages? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:45, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Like I said, I can't think of how that works when each and every item is based on a community discussion. We used to post just about every mass shooting in the US but over the last few years the community has either changed or adopted a fresh approach which means we don't just knee-jerk. That's a trend. What example do you think it needed? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 06:50, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, I added a brief statement in the section on Significance to point to the ITNC archives, since this is usually the best place to get an idea of how the Significance criteria work out. It is no means perfect, but it is better that editors understand the patterns that typically fall out of that to get at what nominations usually gain consensus to post and what do not. It is nearly impossible to otherwise work out the highly subjective rules that I think we all have different interpretations of, so it's just best to show what we've done in the past to get a flavor for new candidates. --Masem (t) 06:56, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Again, that sounds like something that's good to explain on the help page, that's a good example. And thanks @Masem: for adding that text to the page. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:59, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

(I'm unwatching this page now - please ping me if there are further comments! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:45, 24 September 2021 (UTC))

@Mike Peel: The eruption is still worth watching and so I've nominated it again. "80% of success is showing up". Andrew🐉(talk) 14:58, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

• For the record, the article was posted to ITN ongoing on 2 Oct and then removed on 10 Oct after 28 minutes of no discussion on the erroneous grounds that the article was not being updated. It thus lasted at ITN for 8 days. Meanwhile, the eruption continues to be in the news. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:33, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
  • The removal was 100% correct. Yes, the eruption is still going , but the article had no significant updates about the eruption in the last several days, and part of ongoing is that the article is being updated frequently to stay at ongoing. --Masem (t) 13:35, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
  • There was more than sufficient evidence that the article wasn't being updated satisfactorily. Honestly, this is tiring. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 13:36, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
• For the record, it was restored to Ongoing on 11 Oct. There was no further discussion at WP:ITN/C but there was another section about this below. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:30, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I just saw that @PFHLai: removed 2021 Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption yesterday, citing "remove due to lack of updates in article". The eruption is very much ongoing, and the page has been edited daily - although the last clear update of the status was on the 9th. As a general question, how does 'Ongoing' work - is an update mentioning the specific day required? Why isn't there a notification to the article talk page that the link might be removed soon? How can this item be restored to Ongoing - does it have to go through a whole new nomination again? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:29, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oh my god. We've discussed this ALL DAY. There's no doubt there's an ongoing news issue, but contrary to the false claims, there was no substantial update to the article. Why are we re-hashing the same discussion again and again? It will need to be renominated now with evidence that it has been satisfactorily updated. And if it isn't maintained, it will be removed again. One editor even provided a decent "diff" of the substantial changes. It was one sentence in five days. The sooner people learn to read the criteria, the better. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 18:33, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  @The Rambling Man: What? Where were we discussing the volcanic eruption today - did I miss something? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• Per Wikipedia:In_the_news#Ongoing_section, "In general, articles are NOT posted to ongoing merely because they are related to events that are still happening. In order to be posted to ongoing, the article needs to be regularly updated with new, pertinent information.". Spencer^T•C 19:10, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
• Your input certainly would have been appreciated during the discussion to remove the item from ongoing. In fact, you still can provide input. The nomination has not yet been closed even though the removal has been completed. Doing an end-run of the process via WT:ITN is not the way to go about it.--WaltCip-(talk) 19:14, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  @WaltCip: What, where? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  Double-checking Talk:2021 Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption - nothing there. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:21, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  Its happening at both the ITNC entry for the removal, and on this page at #Rewrite the expectations (which is not clear it is about that now). --Masem (t) 19:41, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  (ec) Andrew Davidson appeared to make an objection both at the nomination and in a section at this talk page above. If there's a mechanism failure which is resulting in this apparent confusion, perhaps we should deal with that as well. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 19:43, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• To speak specifically, while there have been edits on the eruption article, the bulk of them have been wikignoming, vandalism handling, or otherwise nothing to update the actual news about the eruption. The only major expansion was the part about the statement about making it a tourism sightseeing thing and reaction to that, which is minor compared to the actual event. Ongoing events we anticipate updates on a near-daily basis to offset the need to have a blurb in the ITN box every day; doesn't mean an update must be made each day, but if there's nothing to update for 4-5 days or no one updates in that period, that's a problem. --Masem (t) 19:44, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  What "ITNC entry for the removal"? I gave up on #Rewrite the expectations last month. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:44, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  Mike, what do you need here? The item was removed because it wasn't updated. Regardless of whether it was "in the news", nobody, including the people now complaining about it, updated the article properly. That's a pretty simple principle. What more do you think you need to understand why this has happened? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 19:49, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• @The Rambling Man: A simple notice on the article talk page would have been enough. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:03, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  I'm sure. By all means get a bot to do that. Link it to ITN nominations. In the mean time we're all humans and it works how it works. In this instance, it worked just fine, as per normal. And if something needs to get re-posted, it can do that by the normal means as well. Or are you expecting all interested parties to somehow be instantly messaged when these things change? A "WATCHLIST" is useful there.... The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:07, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• @The Rambling Man: I've coded up scripts that have made over 8 million bot edits so far. I'm happy to do so for more tasks. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:41, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• I've restored this to Ongoing. There are now two new paragraphs on what happened the past four days. Let's keep this article updated, or the link to this article should not stay at Ongoing. --PFHLai (talk) 21:11, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  Well bloody hurrah. It'll stop the whining masses hopefully. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:14, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  @PFHLai: Gracias! Mike Peel (talk) 21:41, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

  You're welcome, Mike. Please help with the coverage and keep the page updated. Happy editing. Cheers! --PFHLai (talk) 22:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment there is no obligation for the contributors at ITN/C to ping the talk page of an article to say "hey, you've not kept this updated we might remove it". The guidelines are clear and work fine. On top of that, I provided a content diff showing that the article was stale. By every actual measure, the article was not suitable for posting on the main page. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:13, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Each year we post all the Nobel prizes and the winners on ITN as they are announced and they take up a considerable part of ITN then. Should we keep it that way, or is it time to instead just put "Nobel Prize Week" (or something) in the 'Ongoing' section during the time they are announced? (To clarify: The time of the announcements is known as Nobelprisveckan "Nobel Prize Week" in Sweden. We kind of bunch them all up.) cart-Talk 09:38, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

W.carter Please see the discussion on this topic further up the page; you are welcome to contribute. 331dot (talk) 09:53, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed that one and started thinking out loud here. cart-Talk 09:55, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to encourage discussion on improving the way we post the Nobel Prize winners. Our standard practice established long time ago is to post a separate blurb for each field, which often makes ITN a Nobel Prize ticker during the second week of October. I can list the following options for improvement that come to my mind (including a status quo):

• Option 1: Do nothing and leave it as it is with a separate blurb for each field.
• Option 2: Combine the winners in multiple fields into one blurb.
• Option 3: Keep only one blurb for the most recently announced field that has replaced the previous one and add a link to Other Nobel Prizes in parentheses after the blurb (see how it is done on the German Wikipedia).
• Option 4: Add Nobel Prizes as a separate item to ongoing with expanded update in the year's article that includes the contributions for which the prizes were awarded after the names of their recipients.

As four out of the six prizes this year have already been awarded, we can start off from next year in case we agree to change something.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:01, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1. Option 2 just combines everything into one large blurb, which doesn't really solve anything. Option 3 assumes timely postings which doesn't always happen. Option 4 would make Ongoing too ungainly. I don't think there is a problem to solve here. 331dot (talk) 20:29, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 I don't see a problem here. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 If it was only 1 person per aware, Option 2 might work, but often the Nobels are jointly awarded to 2 or even 3, and then the blurb gets impossibly long. --Masem (t) 20:32, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4, sort of. I in general oppose nominating each Nobel Prize as a separate ITN piece for the same reasons we don't do the same for the winners of the Olympic Games, or the listing of UNESCO sites. We can simply reduce that to an ongoing event about giving out Nobel Prizes, because anyway awarding Nobel Prizes in each of the disciplines takes some time (a week or so). I don't think we need a separate blurb for each Nobel Prize laureate unless a good reason can be provided to make an exception for this particular person/these particular people.

As for the link choice for ongoing event, oddly I'd choose the relevant template so that people can choose the people (or disciplines) from there. It gives just enough quick information: who, in which area, the countries the people represent, as well as the choice to move to the earlier years. The specific reason for which the award was given should be somewhere in the lead for each Nobel laureate. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 14:29, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I don't like option 3 because there is no guarantee that the previous award articles were ready before the most recent award articles. Option 2 doesn't really save space. Considering that it took most of a week for the Olympics to be in good enough state this year to be posted, I don't think option 4 works either. I am not sure that I like the status quo, but awards will get posted or not based on how updated the articles of the recipients are. This year we just have a couple laureates whose articles were pretty bad to start with. Rockphed (talk) 15:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. Though not the best solution, I think the current solution is the best that we can. Unless there is a quick way to create a demarcation and listing (tabular or otherwise) of categories and winners against each of them. Ktin (talk) 18:17, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1. Even the situation right now shows that posting all of them is not excessive. Physics has not (yet?) been posted because the articles are not ready, and there are other items than just the prizes. With a decent turnaround, we have a diverse ITN. But even if the week is otherwise slow, we have some things to post. I don't see a problem. --Tone 19:53, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 is the only practical option. Not every prize is announced every year, and we don't know until they have all been announced. Also I think it is a rare spotlight for many fields. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:47, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1; they don't all come out on the same day so its fine to have them all be separate blurbs. Many of the topics are also never posted to ITN so a short showcase is good.  Nixinova   T   C   22:34, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 It's a newsworthy item in a field that is both significant and rarely in the news. I have no problem with the ITN box consisting entirely of Nobel Prizes for one week, because the Nobel Prizes are a big deal, and there's a dearth of science the rest of the year. NorthernFalcon (talk) 22:37, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 if they did all get posted, it'd be a bit much, but typically only about 3 of them do. Having 3 Nobel Prize hooks in a short space of time is no different to when we sometimes have many disaster or sports hooks on ITN, as many ITNR events happened at the same time. Joseph2302 (talk) 05:49, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4 or a template similar to the one we initially used for Covid. This year is an exception, but I prefer not to have a bunch of related items clogging up the template. -- Calidum 00:33, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 per above. Spencer^T•C 19:13, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
• Option 4, sort of. In Sweden, the time of the prize announcements is known as Nobelprisveckan "Nobel Prize Week". We kind of bunch them all up into one annual event. The link proposed by Szmenderowiecki seems like a good choice to me. The Nobel Prize Museum advertise it as Nobel Calling Stockholm. I think the Nobel Prize receives a disproportionate amount of attention these days. When it was instituted, prizes was as a way to help important research get published and shared. We hardly have the same issues these days. cart-Talk 10:05, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to concerns that were brought up in the "William Shatner goes to space" nomination in ITN/C, about how ITN - a page that purports to display topics and articles that are "in the news" - is not actually covering the news. Granted, this is not a news ticker, but our high barrier for entry in terms of significance has been a recurring complaint among both newcomers and regular contributors to ITN/C. This has always been a subjective exercise that relies on local consensus, although there is some level of precedence involved as well (though two wrongs don't make a right, etc.). What would it take to lower that barrier of entry? WaltCip-(talk) 12:53, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

"But... Kim Karadashian's vagina!!!" Howard the Duck (talk) 12:55, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Said only you. Once again, great insight. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 13:09, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I was just actually thinking we need something under significance to point out that ITN doesn't really accept (based on past consensus) stories covering "popular" topics, even if they are widely covered by news media, as this is part of where our function as an encyclopedia (to cover a global range of topics with enduring factors) compared to newspapers (to cover anything they can to fill 24/7 channels) drastically differs. To me, nearly all "popular" topics (those in the TOP25) because they are in the news are things that are better suited for a DYK-style approach (eg Shatner being the oldest space passenger, or Squid Game being Netflix's most watched show, etc.). We also have to remember that Portal:Current events is linked from the ITN, and that will cover these topics (Shatner's flight covered in Oct 13's entry appropriately). Perhaps to that end, the fact that the current main page template masks that current events link with "Ongoing" as a type of Easter Egg may not be helpful - I'd think I'd rather just see "Other current events" to link to that portal so that topics that don't make it to ITN still will be one link away. --Masem (t) 13:32, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

• So, one of the things that is the Wikipedia ethos is "it's not what you believe or can argue, it's what you can show through reliable sources." That is, we don't care about reasons. We don't care about beliefs. Everyone has reasons for things. What we care about it what can you demonstrate through reliable sources. As long as we define the types of sources (such as what sorts of news articles, what sorts of news sources, etc.) we generally look to to determine significance (I.E. not celebrity gossip or the like), it's very simple to decide significance. We don't really have to even care why such sources are covering a story. Just that they are should be enough to know that a topic is in the news. Our primary concern should always be is the article of sufficient quality. We should not consider the ITN ticker to exist to tell people about news. We should consider the ITN ticker to be a place to go to get more information on stories people are already hearing about outside of Wikipedia. We assess that by looking at what high quality, serious news sources are reporting. It's the easy part of our job. The hard part is assessing and improving articles so they are of a high enough quality to put on the main page. --Jayron32 14:04, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
• It's seldom used, but WP:ITNCRIT already offers an alternative to "significance": Conversely, an editor may write an in-depth update on a topic normally considered marginal, thus convincing commenters that it is deserving of inclusion. However, it doesn't seem the Shatner blurb would meet that either.—Bagumba (talk) 14:08, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  I can safely say I have never seen an instance in which a less significant article is posted to the main page on the basis of being well-written or even a GA. That may technically exist as criteria, but it's purely theoretical and rarely seen in practice. That may need to be refactored. WaltCip-(talk) 14:41, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  It is rare, but it's usually a borderline significant topic that some people say post for notability, while a few other people just say it's a quality article that's timely, so go ahead.—Bagumba (talk) 16:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel here, at least not yet. We need to better abide by the stated purposes of ITN. The #1 stated purpose is "To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news." US networks interrupted their programming to report on Shatner's flight. They don't do that lightly and yet people say "it's not important" and not enduring. If it's not enduring encyclopedic coverage it should be proposed for deletion. 331dot (talk) 14:20, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  Not really, space flights are generally accepted as notable by Wikipedia. That Shatner was one of a bunch of other tourists that went up (for less than ten minutes!) is somewhat trivial. Nothing deserves to be deleted, we don't have William Shatner in space or anything, not that I'm aware of... The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 15:16, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  Which US networks? InedibleHulk (talk) 19:26, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

• I think the "content they are likely to be searching for" clause is now being (regularly) conflated with pageviews or WP:TOP25-style content. It is relatively easy to confuse the two I suppose, but if were simply to post on this clause alone, we'd be a US news ticker, posting all manner of triviality (like old man in space), simply because "people are looking for it" and "we have a half-decent article covering the event". The reason the community consensus is vital is to add a checkpoint in to remind everyone this is an encyclopedia, not WikiNews or Twitter or some other unrefined trivia publisher. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 15:20, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  It seems funny that you keep bringing up an article we didn't post on the main page as an example of where relying on reliable sources went awry. --Jayron32 16:24, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  Which article did I bring up? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:46, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, that's right. I didn't. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:59, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

• Nope. Changing the bar won't help here. The thing with Shatner is that some editors felt that it was more important than an election in Yugoslavia, and some editors felt it was less important than "Squid Game becomes Netflix's most popular original show." User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:53, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
• We have guidelines that say quality updates are the point, because we are trying to encourage people to build the encyclopedia. We can accept a minor update if the event is really significant, but we can also post a less important event with a bigger update. Take the Boat Race for instance. There is a big difference of opinion on significance, but the quality of update there is undeniable. It is completely possible to compose a new article or make a truly significant update to a current article for an otherwise "trivial" event and get it posted. You may find it difficult to find enough info in RS for truly trivial events to populate a significant update, but this is a feature not a bug. If you can make this look like this, I'll vote for you. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:01, 17 October 2021 (UTC)