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Archive 110

Amendment to ITNELECTIONS

The fourth item of WP:ITNELECTIONS currently reads: Changes in the holder of the office which administers the executive of their respective state/government... Such wording formally excludes re-elections, where no change took place, but in most cases they are also newsworthy - we have been posting re-elections of executive office holders (mainly presidents) since time immemorial. The list of current heads of state and government itself, invoked in the fourth item, contains various re-elected persons in that regard (where no change occurred).

Suggested amendment: The results of elections for the holder of the office which administers the executive of their respective state/government... (the part after comma would remain unchanged). That would also bring language consistency with the "the results of general elections" item. Countries with traditionally sham elections could be discussed on case-by-case basis (where instead of "elected" the wording like "announced" could be used). Brandmeister^talk 22:31, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

That one also covers worse case scenarios too, like deaths of a sitting leader or a coup or a resignation. It should obviously include reelections too but needs some wording adjustment. — Masem (t) 23:16, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Don't mention elections. We don't now. Maybe it should be "Changes in or reappointment of the holder of the office which administers the executive of their respective state/government..." HiLo48 (talk) 23:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I like this version. Clear and to the point, and it covers everything from presidential systems to Westminster systems to coups and absolute monarchies. Personally I'd also include non-executive heads of state. GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

As I stated in the Putin nom, I don't know when we started being so picky about the wording in this line. As recently as a few months ago it didn't seem like people much cared about whether the office holder in question was the incumbent or not. Yet somehow this became a massive point of contention (I would bet because of WP:RGW calls for mentioning elections as not free or fair in blurbs). I like HiLo's phrasing as well as yours. It really shouldn't matter how or why the administer of executive power changes. Any election directly impacting the holder of said office, as well as any other changes is what we need to cover. Elections with either outcome, re-appointments, one person replacing the previous executive in the event of the prior's death or removal, etc. The point being that it seems we currently are placing undue weight on specific methods of becoming said executive and not putting enough weight on formal processes that keep said executive in power. I would also consider ITN/R status for situations where constitutional changes are enacted to lengthen a sitting executive's term as well, or instances where said person is on leave (ie the case with El Salvador), but that's getting into the weeds at that point. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:25, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I definitely agree with removing this restriction. In my mind, the notability of elections for the executive is not the change in office, but the decision on who holds the executive power (whether or not they are being reappointed). I also agree with others above that we shouldn't restrict the scope only to the results of elections, but also allow for any other changes in the executive. I think HiLo48 had a nice possible change: "Changes in or reappointments of the holder of the office which administers the executive of their respective state/government...". Gödel2200 (talk) 01:09, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes. In countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia, with the Westminster system, the Prime Minister is technically never elected by the people. The party appointed to govern chooses the Prime Minister, so the occupant of that office can change without an election occuring. And of course countries such as the USA have a Vice-President who automatically takes over without an election if the President dies. Elections aren't the issue here, despite the current excitement over recent events in Russia. HiLo48 (talk) 01:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, for that eventuality the word "elections" in the proposed wording would also include general elections under Westminster system. Brandmeister^talk 08:05, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I think Godel2200 nailed it. Make the wording "The outcomes of decision on who holds the executive power except when that decision was already posted as part of a general election." this fixes it for resignations, deaths in office, etc without having to word in a backdoor for Westminster systems. --24.125.98.89 (talk) 11:25, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Legitimacy of elections

As in a recent nomination of Putin's election to ITN there has been a discussion on the blurb to posted. The discussion is about whether the blurb should mention the legitimacy of the election in Russia or not. It is now important to amend WP:ITNELECTIONS to explicitly state that the fairness of an election should be factor in determining whether its results merit inclusion in the ITN section of Wikipedia's main page. This is necessary as for Wikipidea to maintains it commitment to neutrality and accuracy in reporting notable events. I propose the following clause to be added in a new section-" Legitimacy of election "

The impartiality of the electoral process must be evaluated by editors before submitting the blurb for the "In The News" (ITN) section of the main page. This evaluation needs to take into factors like upholding democratic principles, transparency, impartiality of electoral authorities, lack of fraud or coercion, and conformity to globally acknowledged norms for free and fair elections. Editors must justify their judgement with credible, verifiable sources and offer brief explanation. Furthermore, editors proposing the blurbs regarding elections have to include a segment within their additional comment section that specifically addresses the impartiality of the election procedure, backed by citations to reliable sources. Harvici (talk) 08:47, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

While I am sympathetic to the ideas behind this motion, the proposed text is burdensome and mostly smacks of instruction creep. I would prefer something much simpler, like "The opinions of accredited international observers about the fairness and legitimacy of elections are relevant, and may be included in the blurb where this would provide useful context." GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

That would be better Harvici (talk) 09:02, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

This is a good idea. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 11:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment After all recent discussions on elections and the form of their inclusion on ITN/R, it seems like the optimal solution is to discuss them all on a case-by-case basis (maybe simply leave a note on ITN/R that all elections should be discussed that way). It's really tiresome to get over and over again.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:25, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose youdon't need to arbitrate on election legitimacy for several reasons: 1 if the election (or appearance thereof) is "in the news" (as is the case with Russia) then it belongs in the box; 2 this is going to turn many more election noms into battlegrounds now that it's in vogue to shriek about "voter suppression" when your side loses; and 3 you're not freeing the Russian people or ending the war in Ukraine by not posting Russias sham election for Christ sakes get over yourself. Even "announced as the winner" is problematic since that's true of every election - someone will in fact be announced as the winner. Link to the election article where you can write paragraph after paragraph of "election fake, Putin bad" --24.125.98.89 (talk) 11:31, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe we should tell the thousands of women and children that Putin has murdered to "get over themselves for Christ sakes"? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:15, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  While my heart sympathizes with the feelings you expressed (IRL I have recently studied under, and continue to work with, people whose names are probably on wanted lists somewhere in Moscow), my head is appalled that one of the top 250 editors by count is bringing such pathos into a discussion about NPOV. Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 13:42, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps we can just forget he's a war criminal. Glad to hear I'm not on your wanted list. Cheers. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:57, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Strong Oppose Hate to break it to you, but The Encyclopedia is not an OSCE election observer. This is necessary as for Wikipidea to maintains it commitment to neutrality and accuracy [sic] Au contraire! To actually do so, we must impartially document everything notable on the planet, as is our holy mission, and subject to the policies and guidelines. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that adheres to a neutral point of view, full stop. Also, as for the talk of globally acknowledged norms…define your terms! We are not here to right great wrongs, or even to impose Anglosphere biases on those who aren’t into that sort of thing. We accord the King of Bhutan the same legitimacy as POTUS, and we impartially document what reliable sources say about the conditions in which elections occur, without according WP:UNDUE weight. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 12:26, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The sources I am finding on Putin's election tend to list election fraud in the headline and/or first line. Should we do the same thing on Wikipedia per WP:DUE? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:43, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but I don’t believe ITN is the place. I’m already mildly concerned that a local consensus formed to alter the usual wording.

This is, unironically, the thin end of the wedge. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 13:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

We are not OSCE observers, but OSCE observers exist, are themselves a reliable source, and have views which are very relevant to the elections we cover. Concealing those views (when including them is thought relevant and proportionate by other RS) is not neutral of us. It provides false legitimacy. GenevieveDEon (talk) 18:11, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

This is ITN, not an article. We aren’t concealing anything. The goal is an almost shortdesc-length summary of a news item so that interested readers (such as in my teenage years when I relied on ITN to feed me anything important in world news) can click on the link and find out more details, including contested legitimacy. Even if it’s appropriate for a lead, it doesn’t automatically belong in ITN.

About “false legitimacy”, well, I personally agree, but the de lege ferenda-esque way many editors like to promote concepts of justice over cold hard realities is detrimental to The Encyclopedia. Russia is currently one of the most serious such examples.

Lastly, it’s worth pointing out that the language change had exactly zero precedents known to me regarding leaders of countries reported by RS to have been elected in unfree conditions (see Freedom House: [1]) and arguably distinguishing this case from every other non-democratic presidential republic is non-neutral.

But apparently, some editors have in the past taken the stance that it’s OK to be non-neutral about bad people, despite the vital importance of bad people to the process of establishing neutrality.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 10:22, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support, I think? It's unclear what this would entail of course. I do think we should present information on events with the appropriate context. We should follow reliable sources in describing what the news item actually is. ITN isn't database that just lists dry "facts" that exist in a vacuum. Whether "announced as the winner" is good enough for this and we can just let users read more in the article itself, I am not sure. We are, for good reason, very careful about posting criticisms in the ITN box, and I don't want this to change. The idea that we do this to adhere to a WP:NPOV is mistaken, though. It's typically more an extension of our WP:BLP guidelines to not accuse someone of a crime. I am not sure if this behavior should apply to widespread claims of election fraud. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  You assert that ITN isn't there to just state dry facts, but actually I think you're wrong there. It's exactly that. WP:ITNPURPOSE lists the primary reason for this section's existence as "To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news". And the other purposes listed there are also article-focused. The blurb is a means to that end, not an end in itself. Thus the purpose is best achieved by simply stating what the news item is, in as few words as possible. It's not dissimilar from a headline, in fact, and in general reliable sources haven't been going into too much detail about the specific point of the Russian election not being free/fair in their headlines - "Vladimir Putin claims landslide Russian election victory", "Putin claims landslide in Russian election and scorns US democracy", "With New Six-Year Term, Putin Cements Hold on Russian Leadership".  — Amakuru (talk) 12:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think ITNPURPOSE gives us a great handhold for blurb content. I could extend your argument to suggest we should just link the article without including a blurb. WP:ITNBLURB doesn't give us a handhold for this specific issue either, so all we have is a ton of precedent of "never having done this before." If we want to mimick headlines, we can do [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. There's a lot of headlines that refer to election fraud-related issues. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:04, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. Whether an election is free and fair is always a nuanced matter. Sure, reliable sources may form a consensus one way or the other, and the article can be weighted accordingly. For example, the Russian election was deemed not fair, while the last US election was deemed fair, despite the loser claiming otherwise. The US election of 2000 might have been a greyer area, given that vote recounts were stopped by a court that was partisan to the victor. But anyway, the overarching point is that there are degrees of fairness, it's a spectrum, and it simply isn't possible for a one-line ITN blurb to summarise such detail. Not to mention the potential for extra bickering and argument about what exactly to say. The bottom line is that stating that an election occurred and that a certain person won it is never inaccurate, whether it's free and fair or not. And I definitely think we should retain our prior convention of simply stating the election result without further fluff in all circumstances.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:49, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

By providing context and transparency regarding the electoral process, we can increase the quality of the content showcased in the ITN section Z(WP:ITNPURPOSE). Some ITN blurbs aren't one line, and by including a section addressing the fairness of the election process in ITN nominations, we can provide readers with additional information that may influence their understanding of the event. We can also only include the fairness of elections, if the election is indeed unfair with citations backed by reliable sources. Harvici (talk) 13:59, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Oppose in general our blurbs are meant to get at the central point of an event without addition commentary... A dozen or so words is not sufficient space to go into such commentary. That's the job of the article where there is sufficient space to give all the proper context. Further per NPOV, the tone of our nlblurbs should be neutral and impartial, not to consider the event under one light or another. We have done a good job of that when posting blurbs related to the Ukraine or Gaza situation, for example. We should not be using ITN as to take a pro-demicratic side. To add one more, while Due is part of NPOV, that applies to article space, and ITN is not within that. We have to use appropriate subsets of the core content policies given how little space we have. Masem (t) 13:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Defining a cutoff for what qualifies as "not free or fair" is something so controversial that it's unlikely we can ever find a standard, and short of deciding on the fairness of every election, which would be tedious, there would be serious bias concerns for singling out only certain elections. Again, in the case of Russia it is heavily clear throughout the article that these claims exist. I don't believe it's ITN's job to say this as well. DarkSide830 (talk) 13:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  Reliable sources would define which elections aren’t free or fair. Blaylockjam10 (talk) 22:57, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment - Lots of people are saying that we shouldn't be judging for ourselves on WP whether an election is free or fair. I agree, which is why I didn't propose that. The opinions of independent international election monitors are facts about an election which we can report as part of the headline if there is a preponderance of reliable third-party reporting mentioning them with sufficient prominence. I might personally think those opinions are horseshit - or contrariwise, I might think they should be saying things about places they aren't - but that doesn't matter. This isn't what I think about any individual election; it's about whether we should qualify our bare reports of declared winners or not, and I think we definitely should (and already do, as we did in a different way with the recent Portuguese election). (I also note that an anon who has commented a few times above has been repeatedly dinged for disruptive editing on related issues, so do what you want with that info.) GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:54, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Separate comment I’m pretty sure that this is one of those ideas that Looked Really Good At The Time™ but is actually a Really Bad Idea™.

For example, there are any number of scenarios that could play out in my country (the good ole US of A) before the year is out that would allow any number of differing interpretations of the hypothetical events.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 13:52, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

No, I absolutely think that criticism of US elections, were it to be produced by appropriate reliable sources, would be just as valid as of any other elections. I see that as a positive, not a negative, about these proposals. GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:54, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose I think we're forgetting that the purpose of the blurb is meant to be "a short explanation of the importance of the story in the news", and nothing more in depth (that is what the article is for). So we should only ever be saying that an election is unfair or unfree in the blurb if the unfairness is truly the overarching importance of the story. But there actually doesn't need to be any change to let this happen: we already assess blurbs and events by their significance. That being said, I think it will be exceedingly rare that we find an election with its main importance being its unfairness, while also abiding with NPOV. I think that whenever an election was expected by all international observers to be unfair (such as the 2024 Russian presidential election), the unfairness will most likely not be the main importance of the event. I find it more likely that this would happen if an election expected to be free and fair takes a wrong turn. But, if it was expected to be free and fair, it is likely that there would be views advocating that the election was both free, and not free, raising serious NPOV concerns. And even then, if we can neutrally and verifiably say that the election was unfree, I am still very skeptical that this would be the real importance: the main importance of the election is whoever got power after the election, regardless of whether or not they were freely elected; and if the election was free or unfair, we can direct readers to the main article, where it should state that in the lead. Gödel2200 (talk) 14:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose ITN should not be making explicit statements regarding election legitimacy in the blurbs, as covered above. What it should do is word things carefully (a principle which should apply not only to elections). The selection of ALT1 for Russia's election, "Vladimir Putin (pictured) is announced as the winner of the Russian presidential election, securing a fifth term", is a great example of clear and careful wording that could reasonably apply for any variation of freeness and fairness. CMD (talk) 06:19, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose This part of Wikipedia is about what's in the news today. The legitimacy of elections, while an important matter, is not what we should be reporting here. Wanting to add add it to our "in the news" reporting is classical WP:COATRACK behaviour. HiLo48 (talk) 06:54, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for linking to the essay; I didn’t know it existed. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 07:00, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think coatrack at all applies here: the point is that the election fraud would be the main news story, or at least intrinsically deeply connected to the winner announcement. I don't think aspects related to how a decision was made are coatrack. (Moreover, coatrack applies to article scope; though perhaps a blurb-scale coatrack situation was when someone tried to nominate two separate bus-plunges into one blurb). ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:11, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

  The FACT that elections in Russia are not free and fair is simply not news. HiLo48 (talk) 01:45, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Inviting debate around the legitimacy of an election as part of a qualification for ITN is just asking for WP:BATTLEGROUND problems in the future, as has already been called out. In this, and all other cases, a person was named winner of an election -- everything else can be covered in the article. Kcmastrpc (talk) 15:33, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Clarifying "General elections"

The current wording on general elections in ITNR does not make it clear what a general election is, and only links to the general elections page. But I think we should explicitly define what it is in ITNR, as the General election page has major issues. Besides for large sourcing issues, it seems self-contradictory. For example, the first sentence says "A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of an elected body, typically a legislature." yet it says that: "In U.S. politics, general elections are elections held at any level (e.g. city, county, congressional district, state) that typically involve competition between at least two parties.", and says that the US presidential election is a general election. I don't see any reason not to clarify what we mean by a general election, so I propose that we change to:

• The results of general elections, which are electoral processes to choose most or all members of a legislature, in:
  • The national legislatures in all states on the list of sovereign states, as listed at the List of legislatures of sovereign states (Member and observer states of the United Nations)
  • European Union elections.
  • Disputed states and dependent territories should be discussed at WP:ITN/C and judged on their own merits.

Gödel2200 (talk) 16:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I totally agree with you and that was the main reason for opening up this discussion, which was recently archived. Furthermore, general election is in very bad shape to be linked in a guideline/policy. I, however, am afraid that this may end up as another futile attempt to change things as we get involved in endless discussions and eventually do nothing.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:20, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Let's define this as follows, disregarding things such as supposed election being free and fair:

1. For elections of a head of state, provided it is the office which administers the executive of their respective state/government:
   1. Direct election of a head of state
   2. Preliminary direct election of an election of a head of state, where the preliminary direct election elects an electoral college that elects the head of state
   3. Election of a head of state by the national legislature
2. For elections of a national legislature
   1. Election of a supermajority of of seats of the sole, or lower house of legislature.
   2. Election of at least a "class of seats" of the upper house of parliament, on the same day as an election of a supermajority of of seats of the lower house of the legislature.

So for this:

• 1.1 encompasses probably all direct presidential elections in presidential systems where the president is both head of state and government
• 1.2 encompasses U.S. presidential elections.
• 1.3 encompasses South African presidential elections.
• 2.1 encompasses almost all legislative elections
• 2.2 encompasses almost all upper house elections elected on the same day as lower house elections (such as midterm elections).

This excludes things such as direct presidential elections in parliamentary republics, but seriously people here will genuflect whenever an Irish blurb is nominated, so Irish presidential elections are de facto ITNR. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

• Question why is this needed? What problem is it solving? What "not really an election" have been posted and what "really was an election" has not been posted due to the concern about ambiguity? Could the time not be better spent cleaning up General election? --24.125.98.89 (talk) 21:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

There are two things I think should come of this discussion. First, we would (hopefully) come to some agreement as to what definition of general election we think should be in ITNR. Regardless of what the general election article says (and it's really not clear exactly what it is saying), it would be good to find consensus as to what we think should be in ITNR. The second reason is simply for clarification purposes. Even if the general election article was top notch (which it is far from), it would still be, in my opinion, favorable to give a definition of general elections in the ITNR page itself. Fixing the general election article won't fix the problem of finding consensus for what general elections are ITNR. Gödel2200 (talk) 21:34, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I suppose we can probably fix up the general election article as well. The problem is ITNR references the term "general election", but there's no satisfactory definition for it, or that there are too many definitions. For example, in the U.S., there are primary elections that come before the general election. There are even runoffs in some cases (are those general elections too)?

"General elections" in parliamentary systems are what are understood as "legislative elections" in presidential systems. However, presidential elections are seen as at the very least, as important as legislative elections, so are presidential elections part of general elections? What if they happen on separate days? Howard the Duck (talk) 21:44, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

We stumbled into this issue in 2020, actually. We knew that Biden won before we knew that the Senate would be blue, and we blurbed that Biden had won the election and the House would be controlled by the Democratic Party. Later, we blurbed that the Senate went blue and then that was pulled. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 00:02, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I think this was what I remembered where someone argued US Senate elections are not ITNR elections, and one could even argue the same for House elections. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

User:Modest Genius put the UK-centric definition of this at the Putin election blurb: "this was NOT a 'general election'. Those are, by definition, elections in which every member of an assembly/parliament/council/whatever is being decided, as opposed to a single member or some fraction of them. This was a presidential election, for a single person". Some people would not consider presidential elections or even US Senate elections as "general elections". Howard the Duck (talk) 21:29, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's UK-centric: even Merriam Webster and American Heritage give equivalent definitions. Modest Genius ^talk 12:04, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

The term "general election" is routinely used in the US to mean a non-primary election "she defeated incumbent Jane Bloggs in a surprise upset in the primary, but was crushed by Democrat Bob Smith in the general election" so I think the guideline needs to define its terms better.

I imagine that other countries (especially non-Westminster ones) have their own terminology. And given that, for example, Nigeria, a federal presidential republic, has almost four times as many people as the UK (not to mention the literal myriads of thousands in another, even more populous, federal presidential republic) we definitely shouldn’t be UK-centric. In fact, I believe stuff under MOS:TIES is the only proper place for such things.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 15:30, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I don't think any amendment is needed. However, ITN blurbs should reflect reality. The current blurb in the Russian election currently states "Vladimir Putin is announced as the winner of the Russian presidential election, securing a fifth term." This suggests Putin "won" an election, which from all WP:RS is evidently not the case. The close of the discussion at WP:ITN/C did not adequately reflect the significant opposition to this blurb, which does not hold a consensus as stated. While pragmatically it might have been sensible to close the discussion, it was a bad close because the valid concerns of many editors in good standing are essentially dismissed. Polyamorph (talk) 08:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not sure where you've seen reliable sources claim he didn't win the election. They by and large claimed it wasn't fair, but saying Putin did not win the election does not follow because, well, he was successful in getting the most voted, whether they were forged or not. The Russian government acknowledges it as a victory and as such he is still the president. This is like saying that a candidate running unopposed didn't "win" because they weren't actually competing with anyone else. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:34, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  Exactly. This isn’t precisely the same as the most recent Belarusian election and saying otherwise is OR. The Russian system is rigged at the federal level (quite cleverly, for the most part) but saying “oh really the Communist/LDPR/New People candidate won” is WP:EXCEPTIONAL. I would argue that since consensus cannot override the second pillar, implying otherwise in front of millions of readers was sketchy and frankly concerning in the long run and I would encourage the editors involved in that decision to take off their black-and-white goggles.

  (In fact I had a discussion about this some time ago with a Belarusian friend in the context of his being angry that some Russians actually support the war. He used the term “machine” (машина) to describe the Russian system in contrast to Lukashenka’s explicit dictatorship, and when I read about the manipulative tactics Putin deployed this cycle I was struck by the similarity of some of them to the Boss Tweed playbook.)

  RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 01:25, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• Sigh. It was a predetermined result. This is reflected in ALL the reliable sources and many/most of the headlines. Per the discussion. Although it is beside the point that I was making, that it was a bad close as it did not adequately summarize the discussion, dismissed legitimate editor viewpoints, and the blurb does not reflect consensus. Polyamorph (talk) 09:59, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Add Candidates Tournament to ITN/R

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.

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I'm proposing add the Chess Candidates Tournament as a recurring ITN item. It is celebrated every two years to choose the rival to the world champion. The current one started this week, and its article Candidates Tournament 2024 is in good shape. Alexcalamaro (talk) 08:02, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. As far as I've found, this has only been nominated at ITNC twice, with consensus against posting on both occasions: 2018, 2022. Only if 2-3 consecutive instances of a sports tournament get consensus to post at ITNC should we even consider adding to ITNR. Thryduulf (talk) 10:57, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose The OP provides no reason why we should not discuss this at ITN/C in the usual way. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:14, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - In addition to Andrew's procedural point: this contest is explicitly a qualifier for another competition, and we have generally decided against posting those in favour of the main event. GenevieveDEon (talk) 14:17, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Into exile I must go. Failed, I have. Alexcalamaro (talk) 08:34, 7 April 2024 (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.

Update solar eclipse

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.

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Change "is" in the solar eclipse section to "was", as the eclipse has now ended B3251 (talk) 16:30, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Headlines are generally written in the present tense. GenevieveDEon (talk) 16:37, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

The change to "was" was subsquently brought up at WP:ERRORS. Blurbs are typically in the present tense per WP:ITNBLURB:

Blurbs should describe events in complete sentences in the present tense.

Use of "is" in blurbs is rare, so "is visible" is perhaps more noticeable. It was changed to "appears". Other suggestions? If we use past tense for this, do we do the same for the Taiwan earthquake blurb? Other blurbs about temporary conditions? —Bagumba (talk) 07:14, 10 April 2024 (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.

Defining "newsworthy"

Having seen the Princess of Wales sharing a video talking about her cancer treatment being nominated, I think we have reached the point where the newsworthy principle of ITN needs to be more firmly codified. Some note that items have to be literally in the news as well as something that a journalist of repute would write a full article on. (Or, you know, it's on ITN/R.) Would this be added to the main ITN/C page if generally agreed it is something that needs to be added Kingsif (talk) 00:13, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't see anyone saying it isn't newsworthy. But this does kinda fall under the "not a newspaper" ITN tenant. The impact, with no disrespect to Kate, isn't exactly colossal. It's slightly more important celebrity news. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:14, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

The whole mess around the Princess of Wales story - which has only culminated from an encyclopedic view is that she was absent from the public for a few months as to determine and be diagnosed with cancer - is trivial, cancer happens to anyone, and it is not like the gov't of the UK is going to be affected by this. If, hypothetical, a national leader announced they had terminal cancer and was expected to die in a few months, that might be something, but this specific story is absolutely not encyclopedically newsworthy.

This is where we as an encyclopedia fight systematic bias from the press that have constant detail on a story that ends up being a trivial matter at the end of the day. ITN has to reflect the encyclopedic purpose, not what is considered important by the press. Masem (t) 01:26, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Re: "ITN has to reflect the encyclopedic purpose ..." We have an entire article devoted to this issue, and it's become such an international phenomenon that most English-speaking people on most social platforms will have encountered it at least once in the last few weeks. I realize that the article is up for deletion and therefore not a good specific example (and has the worst titling I've seen in quite some time). Still, there's something to be said for thinking generally about what is meant by "encyclopedic purpose", regardless of whether it's hard or soft news, and if ITN is adequately serving all the audiences that are visiting Wikipedia's front door. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 02:52, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

And that article is highly problematic (with multiple discussions over it over the past week) at the fact that that was mostly BLPGOSSIP and overly detailed media speculation on where she was. The fact she was absent, and created that stir, is definitely worth a paragraph or three in her bio article, but that article is exactly the type as an encyclopedia with a strict BLP policy don't want, even if the media is going on to it for great lengths. Its only of those things that in ten years or so will likely be a footnote to her biography, and that's where we have to recognize that news of the day is not equivalent to encyclopedic topics of the future. Masem (t) 02:56, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

These types of articles are often a crapshoot on whether they are merged or remain due to significant coverage. And WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE might not be possible to gauge during an actual event. —Bagumba (talk) 03:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Masem, I very specifically said that I was speaking only to a generalized case because that article does indeed have issues. You don't need to make that case to me. Let's say we have an future large soft news story with an unproblematic article about that specific topic. How is that not encyclopedic by your, but more importantly Wikipedia's, our own definition?

Bagumba, it's not our job to assess whether an article will meet PERSISTENCE at some undetermined point in the future. ITNCRIT has zero words on that. The guideline itself says that "editors cannot know whether an event will receive further coverage or not." We can only operate on what we know in the moment... which is what PERSISTENCE says and works with the deliberately flexible criteria laid out at WP:ITNSIGNIF. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 06:34, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

My response was to Masem's comment ...is definitely worth a paragraph or three in her bio article, but that article is exactly the type as an encyclopedia with a strict BLP policy don't want... Yes, it's not a factor for ITN, unless someone nominates a candidate for WP:AFD.—Bagumba (talk) 07:50, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

For reference, WP:ITNSIGNIF is currently quite subjective:

It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting. Generally, proof that an event is being covered, in an in-depth manner, by news sources is required.

—Bagumba (talk) 02:35, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

We need to pull that out a lot more often, !votes that "it is in the news" for something that can only be described as light entertainment of news are getting common. Kingsif (talk) 11:11, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Until there's consensus to tighten it, almost anything is fair game, despite some who might claim otherwise. —Bagumba (talk) 11:25, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Ultimately, I don't think that any individual person's medical conditions are a suitable topic for ITN. I know that 'wider impact' is fairly subjective, but my understanding is that the stories we run should be the ones that have a wider impact on the world, not on the churn of the 24-hour news cycle. It's easy for certain areas of the news media to turn practically anything into a continuing story by running it often enough. This is an encyclopedia, though, not the front page of The Sun, and we need to be selective. This kind of story is necessarily ephemeral, and I cannot see any encyclopedic merit in running it. (And while we're at it, I also don't think we should run the progress of Donald Trump's various trials unless - at the very least - he is convicted of a criminal offence which could attract a prison sentence; I don't think we should post the daily minutiae of the UK and US election cycles; and I don't think we should post new product releases unless, as a minimum, the product in question is the first public release of a genuinely novel technology. Also no film premieres, concert tours, celebrity weddings, or arrests. GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:04, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Ultimately, I don't think that any individual person's medical conditions are a suitable topic for ITN. Unless the announcement of such comes with something very significant (e.g. an incumbent world leader stepping down to get treatment) then I agree. I don't think we even posted Boris Johnson getting COVID and being put on a ventilator at a time when there was still a not insignificant chance of death in the short term - an event that had much greater significance for everyone other than Kate's close family. Thryduulf (talk) 12:24, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

• The OP seems to suggest that the Princess of Wales story is not substantial - "something that a journalist of repute would write a full article on". The Times is a reputable newspaper and, yesterday, the story covered the entire front page and the following six pages. It doesn't get much more substantial and in-depth than that. Her article was also the top read on Wikipedia for the day, with triple the readership of the Moscow shooting, and so it was the story that most interested our readers.

The main problem with the story is that it's an ongoing one and we don't have all the details and outcome yet. Speculation about these is what's driving a lot of the coverage and interest but so it goes. Most of our ongoing entries are like that.

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:34, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

There are certain topics that get far too much magnification in the media, this includes anything involving or adjacent to the Royal Family. We are able to recognize that as an encyclopedia and avoid the excessive detail on such topics as necessary. Also, again, we do not care about page views at ITN, that has nothing to do with ITNs purpose. Masem (t) 13:04, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I have to agree that it is generally not appropriate to feature someone's illness/public absence prominently on our front page for BLP-related concerns. Personally I am pretty weirded out by how many publications are putting this type of personal news on their front-pages. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

If you thought that was weirdly personal, you'll probably want to skip today's update on the Former Royal Baby. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:23, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

We have talked about how to define newsworthiness in an ITN/C sense, and I think the consensus is that it simply cannot be done; every participant defines it differently. It's one of those "it's actually a feature, not a bug" type things. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:03, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I think this a good point. I have my own standards for these things, but I am often pleasantly surprised by what comes to the fore that I would not have thought of - and sometimes even by a satisfying harmony created from nominations I opposed. It's a collaborative effort, in the end, and that's good. GenevieveDEon (talk) 21:21, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

ITN and ARBPIA

I see two nominations tagged with WP:ARBPIA and that Wikipedia:Contentious topics applies. Does that apply to ITN? Discretionary sanctions can be broad and are basically impossible to appeal. There is no way to block someone from a specific subsection, so a 30 day ban would at least be for ITN/C if not project wide. Is this something ITN really wants to deal with? I'd encourage the regulars to keep a close eye on these discussions lest they attract the ire of some drive-by "uninvolved" admin. To date the discussions seem (mostly) cordial and uncontroversial. --24.125.98.89 (talk) 23:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Specific topics within the scope of established DSes, such the PIA one, are fair game to be considered under those DS, as to avoid editors sniping at each other during the ITN nom. That's more the issue than the actual news content. I would assume that if action has to be taken, it would be one of those that may not block them from ITNC initially but if they repeat offence, then blocking from ITNC would be feasible. Masem (t) 00:07, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense, really just a heads up that the zealots are now watching ITN --24.125.98.89 (talk) 01:46, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Robert MacNeil RD

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.

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Can someone take a look at Robert MacNeil? It was improved today and looked ready to post. Thriley (talk) 00:05, 20 April 2024 (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.

How to nominate article to In the News Main Page?

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.

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Please, can you give me simple routine for nominating articles to In the News Page? AsteriodX (talk) 17:01, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

AsteriodX, go to WP:ITN/C and follow the instructions at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Nomination_steps. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:07, 13 April 2024 (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.

Earthquake magnitude ratings

At WP:ERRORS, there is currently discussion about whether and how to report earthquake magnitudes in ITN blurbs. Opening this discussion so we can come to a more general consensus for future instances.

Pings:@Stephen@Brandmeister@Schwede66@Bagumba@Abductive. Sdkb ^talk 15:08, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Some options I see are: (no particular order)

1. Mention Modified Mercalli intensity scale, like the severe in the current Taiwan blurb.
2. Mention magnitude of the quake, though there are multiple scales
3. Don't mention anything about the intensity

I've lived in earthquake areas where the headlines generally mention the Richter scale measurement.its magnitude —Bagumba (talk) 15:20, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Striking my comment on Richter scale. Per Natg 19 below, Richter has been phased out (But the Richter scale was eventually scrapped in favor of what is known as the moment magnitude scale. Los Angeles Times)—Bagumba (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally I understand the numbers more (so 7.4 means more to me than severe-rated). I'm in UK, where generally the earthquakes are given in the magnitude numbers, but don't know if that's different for other countries. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:26, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Note: Notification of this discussion has been left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Earthquakes.—Bagumba (talk) 15:40, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

There are multiple intensity scales of which the Modified Mercalli is just the best known and most used.

Moment magnitude is the magnitude used for most larger (stronger) earthquakes by seismologists and this is generally what is reported.

Higher magnitude earthquakes generally have higher intensity shaking but this is not always so. Remember that it is the shaking that causes the damage. Mikenorton (talk) 15:57, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I vote for using some sort of magnitude number. "Severe-rated earthquake" means nothing to the general public, but they have at least some knowledge of what a 7.0+ earthquake means. I had thought moment magnitude was the generally accepted scale, but maybe that is in the US. News reporters tend to erroneously say "Richter scale" but I believe that has been superseded by moment magnitude. Natg 19 (talk) 16:30, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• I looked at the titles used by the 98 cited sources in the article. They either describe it with the magnitude number or use words like strong, strongest, major, massive, and powerful. Not a single source calls it severe or anything-rated. The current "severe-rated" then comes across as stilted Wikispeak -- OR not used by the sources. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:42, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  We can also just call it "severe" and leave it at that. For news specifically I don't think we should be mentioning a magnitude number, because those are based on calculations that tend to be adjusted upwards or downwards somewhat after enough time has passed to give a more correct estimate, meaning the initial estimate is frequently incorrect. --Licks-rocks (talk) 16:51, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  ...meaning the initial estimate is frequently incorrect: But that's the same with death counts. We update them when sources update them. —Bagumba (talk) 16:53, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  It's much more clear to the average reader when it comes to death counts than magnitude calculations. --Licks-rocks (talk) 17:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Don't we omit tropical cyclone scales on ITN blurbs? What makes earthquakes different? Howard the Duck (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Not sure why they're different. Can only attest that sources mention magnitude regularly, if not also in the headline. —Bagumba (talk) 16:51, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Either option 1 or 2 should do the job. Earthquake magnitude is one of the things we do not simplify in the related article per WP:TECHNICAL and write as it is - it's assumed that our average reader knows the basics of magnitude scale and indeed, it's not a rocket science. Many outlets report the magnitude in the breaking news, in the headlines and/or running prose. Brandmeister^talk 17:53, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree, readers generally know what the numbers mean at a pretty granular level, especially in areas that actually get earthquakes, unlike the UK. Abductive (reasoning) 20:01, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I would go with Option 2 and in particular avoid Option 1 unless the number is mentioned as well. I assumed "Severe" corresponds to something higher than intensity VIII and indeed it came up at a quite different position on the CWA scale which Taiwan uses. Felt effects for the same magnitude vary highly depending on the earthquake depth and location (on land or offshore), so they only provide a ballpark, but Option 1 with no number doesn't even do that.

Something else to note is that various countries use various scales for both earthquake intensity and earthquake magnitude, all of which have their shortfalls. The scale used here (MMI) is the US modification of the Mercalli scale; this is for example not used by European countries (which used MCS, then switched to EMS). Some East Asian countries, including Taiwan, don't use a I-XII scale at all for intensity, whereas magnitude scales try to agree with each other in numbers, so that's another point in favour of Option 2. Daß Wölf 20:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I totally oppose simply using adjectives such as "severe". That's exactly the kind of language I would expect (and would get) from a tabloid news service. It tells me nothing. HiLo48 (talk) 22:33, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The blurb doesn't say "severe" though. It says "severe-rated", which is an actual classification of earthquake. Overall, I agree that severe-rated is meaningless though. Natg 19 (talk) 23:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Moment Magnitude all the way. It's a settled measure that people have a better feel for relative to the numerical scale that Modified Mercalli uses, and while I think impacts-based measures are nice for the purposes of informing individuals not experienced at understanding alternative measures but just simply saying the earthquake is "severe", I think people generally understand that a 7.4 magnitude earthquake is fairly "severe". DarkSide830 (talk) 05:38, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• We now have the New Jersey earthquake. The NYT headline seems typical: "4.8-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes New Jersey". No other scale is used. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:06, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Just use the Moment Magnitude Scale, as this is what most sources use. Even on the same scale, the intensity of the same earthquake can vary depending on factors such as ground conditions. Thryduulf (talk) 10:43, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Just use Moment Magnitude. People generally know what it means. GenevieveDEon (talk) 14:17, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Magnitude restored in current Taiwan blurb per consensus here.—Bagumba (talk) 13:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Blurb tense

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § How to describe past events on the main page. —Bagumba (talk) 11:57, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Earthquake magnitude ratings

At WP:ERRORS, there is currently discussion about whether and how to report earthquake magnitudes in ITN blurbs. Opening this discussion so we can come to a more general consensus for future instances.

Pings:@Stephen@Brandmeister@Schwede66@Bagumba@Abductive. Sdkb ^talk 15:08, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Some options I see are: (no particular order)

1. Mention Modified Mercalli intensity scale, like the severe in the current Taiwan blurb.
2. Mention magnitude of the quake, though there are multiple scales
3. Don't mention anything about the intensity

I've lived in earthquake areas where the headlines generally mention the Richter scale measurement.its magnitude —Bagumba (talk) 15:20, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Striking my comment on Richter scale. Per Natg 19 below, Richter has been phased out (But the Richter scale was eventually scrapped in favor of what is known as the moment magnitude scale. Los Angeles Times)—Bagumba (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally I understand the numbers more (so 7.4 means more to me than severe-rated). I'm in UK, where generally the earthquakes are given in the magnitude numbers, but don't know if that's different for other countries. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:26, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Note: Notification of this discussion has been left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Earthquakes.—Bagumba (talk) 15:40, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

There are multiple intensity scales of which the Modified Mercalli is just the best known and most used.

Moment magnitude is the magnitude used for most larger (stronger) earthquakes by seismologists and this is generally what is reported.

Higher magnitude earthquakes generally have higher intensity shaking but this is not always so. Remember that it is the shaking that causes the damage. Mikenorton (talk) 15:57, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I vote for using some sort of magnitude number. "Severe-rated earthquake" means nothing to the general public, but they have at least some knowledge of what a 7.0+ earthquake means. I had thought moment magnitude was the generally accepted scale, but maybe that is in the US. News reporters tend to erroneously say "Richter scale" but I believe that has been superseded by moment magnitude. Natg 19 (talk) 16:30, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• I looked at the titles used by the 98 cited sources in the article. They either describe it with the magnitude number or use words like strong, strongest, major, massive, and powerful. Not a single source calls it severe or anything-rated. The current "severe-rated" then comes across as stilted Wikispeak -- OR not used by the sources. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:42, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  We can also just call it "severe" and leave it at that. For news specifically I don't think we should be mentioning a magnitude number, because those are based on calculations that tend to be adjusted upwards or downwards somewhat after enough time has passed to give a more correct estimate, meaning the initial estimate is frequently incorrect. --Licks-rocks (talk) 16:51, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  ...meaning the initial estimate is frequently incorrect: But that's the same with death counts. We update them when sources update them. —Bagumba (talk) 16:53, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  It's much more clear to the average reader when it comes to death counts than magnitude calculations. --Licks-rocks (talk) 17:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Don't we omit tropical cyclone scales on ITN blurbs? What makes earthquakes different? Howard the Duck (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Not sure why they're different. Can only attest that sources mention magnitude regularly, if not also in the headline. —Bagumba (talk) 16:51, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Either option 1 or 2 should do the job. Earthquake magnitude is one of the things we do not simplify in the related article per WP:TECHNICAL and write as it is - it's assumed that our average reader knows the basics of magnitude scale and indeed, it's not a rocket science. Many outlets report the magnitude in the breaking news, in the headlines and/or running prose. Brandmeister^talk 17:53, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree, readers generally know what the numbers mean at a pretty granular level, especially in areas that actually get earthquakes, unlike the UK. Abductive (reasoning) 20:01, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I would go with Option 2 and in particular avoid Option 1 unless the number is mentioned as well. I assumed "Severe" corresponds to something higher than intensity VIII and indeed it came up at a quite different position on the CWA scale which Taiwan uses. Felt effects for the same magnitude vary highly depending on the earthquake depth and location (on land or offshore), so they only provide a ballpark, but Option 1 with no number doesn't even do that.

Something else to note is that various countries use various scales for both earthquake intensity and earthquake magnitude, all of which have their shortfalls. The scale used here (MMI) is the US modification of the Mercalli scale; this is for example not used by European countries (which used MCS, then switched to EMS). Some East Asian countries, including Taiwan, don't use a I-XII scale at all for intensity, whereas magnitude scales try to agree with each other in numbers, so that's another point in favour of Option 2. Daß Wölf 20:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I totally oppose simply using adjectives such as "severe". That's exactly the kind of language I would expect (and would get) from a tabloid news service. It tells me nothing. HiLo48 (talk) 22:33, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The blurb doesn't say "severe" though. It says "severe-rated", which is an actual classification of earthquake. Overall, I agree that severe-rated is meaningless though. Natg 19 (talk) 23:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Moment Magnitude all the way. It's a settled measure that people have a better feel for relative to the numerical scale that Modified Mercalli uses, and while I think impacts-based measures are nice for the purposes of informing individuals not experienced at understanding alternative measures but just simply saying the earthquake is "severe", I think people generally understand that a 7.4 magnitude earthquake is fairly "severe". DarkSide830 (talk) 05:38, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• We now have the New Jersey earthquake. The NYT headline seems typical: "4.8-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes New Jersey". No other scale is used. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:06, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Just use the Moment Magnitude Scale, as this is what most sources use. Even on the same scale, the intensity of the same earthquake can vary depending on factors such as ground conditions. Thryduulf (talk) 10:43, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Just use Moment Magnitude. People generally know what it means. GenevieveDEon (talk) 14:17, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• Magnitude restored in current Taiwan blurb per consensus here.—Bagumba (talk) 13:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Blurb tense

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § How to describe past events on the main page. —Bagumba (talk) 11:57, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

A proposal for rules on RD Blurbs

RD blurbs are something that don't seem to have any consistent criteria. I therefore propose the following set of rules for when a person should qualify for an RD blurb:

1) Their death is notable for its direct effect (such as the death of a sitting political leader), OR

2) The manner of the death is itself notable (such as an assassination, aircraft crash, etc.), OR

3) The death has received front-page coverage in multiple international sources (BBC, NYT, Al Jazeera, etc.), but only if the death is notable in some other way

I think this would reasonably cut down on the controversy around RD Blurbs. Thoughts appreciated! This post was made by orbitalbuzzsaw gang (talk) 22:05, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I like it, but #3 could use some more specificity. To me, the death of David Bowie is the quintessential example of a death that doesn't meet #1 or #2 that should receive a death blurb. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:14, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

But what about the death of my favourite entertainer? (Just demonstrating the obvious problem with fame as a criterion.) HiLo48 (talk) 23:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

But what about the death of my favourite entertainer? Who cares? But my favorite game designer, on the other hand... BusterD (talk) 23:28, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

HiLo48, you completely missed my point. Do you remember the level of coverage Bowie's death received in the press? It was MASSIVE. I could have said the same about the death of Nelson Mandela or the death of Margaret Thatcher, but I wanted to stay away from world leaders. "Top of the field" people who just get an obituary should not receive death blurbs. Maybe we should require a death article. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:40, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I didn't miss your point at all. I tried to make the point that these things are ALWAYS subjective, and here on Wikipedia, inevitably biased towards "stars" from the USA and the UK. I'm from neither. It's hard to even get an RD for someone from my country noticed at all, let alone any chance of a blurb. HiLo48 (talk) 00:02, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Bowie's death objectively had more coverage and response than Higgs's. It should be that hard to get a death blurb. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:07, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally my position would be that Bowie is a borderline case under #3, but I'd vote no since the death itself had no significant impact. That being said, I can see a proposal for if the death gets its own article its considered to qualify automatically as ra reasonable compromise This post was made by orbitalbuzzsaw gang (talk) 03:17, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

There are encyclopedic-strong articles with high quality about people who are not not politicians, athletes, or celebrities (eg academics, business leaders, and other roles) that we would consider a significant person in their field but that would never get front page coverage, like Higgs the other day or someone like Stephen Hawking. The death would still need to draw news coverage and that coverage should be leaning towards the legacy said person has left or impact they had, rather than simply summarizing the life like an obit. So #3 does not work, if our goal is to highlight quality articles about topics in the news. — Masem (t) 23:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Higgs's article is really good. And the extent of the update to the article, which is supposed to be one of the factors we judge, is Higgs died after a short illness at home in Edinburgh on 8 April 2024, at the age of 94.[80][81] and some copy editing. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

That's getting far too stuck up on a "significant update"; if an article's fairly complete and the person died of a natural cause like a heart attack at an old age, the death is going to be a one-two sentence thing but the quality of the article exists. The "significant update" really is meant to apply to non-death ITNC and not to RD ones. Masem (t) 00:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Scope of the update is literally the first criteria listed at WP:ITNCRIT and death blurbs cannot be exempt from the rules that govern all blurbs. If there's lots of impact of the death, there will be more of an update. The news is the death, not what the person accomplished in their lives. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

ITNRD which includes blurbs for deaths) is handled separately from the general critiera. — Masem (t) 21:03, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

We can't have it both ways, and say that blurbs for deaths are separate from the ways blurbs are judged. WP:ITNCRIT talks about blurbs and the recent death section separately. Death blurbs are the same as other blurbs. The RD section is separate. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:59, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Here's the hypothetical on why a death blurb would qualify with a one line update: If we had the case of someone that had retired from their career but left well enough time for WP editors to write about their legacy to a full extent (perhaps having an FA about the person), such that when that person dies of old age or other natural causes, what is reported in the papers isn't anything new that we have to expand on outside the death aspect. We absolutely would still blurb that, even though the update is minor.

That usually doesn't happen for the cases we'd post a blurb where the death is natural, because 90% of our BLPs are in terrible shape and require significant updates. Further, for those that we want to blurb, that usually means pulling in a lot of the obits to discuss the importance or legacy of the person. So normally, it does seem for blurbs we are expecting the update but that's due to the crap BLP quality we have across BLP. Masem (t) 01:50, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

That would mean that the death isn't newsworthy enough for a blurb. If there isn't anything new, then it's RD. It seems to be that simple to me. Deaths should not be exempted from ITNCRIT. In fact this is pretty much what WP:ITNRDBLURB already says so it would be nice if we could follow it. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:15, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

ITNRDBLURB says nothing to the extent of the update, just that the death is updated via reliable sources. Certainly a person whom is claimed to be top of their field, with existing sources in place, but where the death has no coverage, we'd beg if they are really top of their field. That is not the case with Peter Higgs, for example, where there are numerous articles covering his death, just many repeating what's already in place. That's the whole point of the third option under ITNRDBLURB, that death is not the story but what the person has done before that to merit the coverage. Masem (t) 00:56, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

ITNRDBLURB: Life as the main story: For deaths where the person's life is the main story, where the news reporting of the death consists solely of obituaries, or where the update to the article in question is merely a statement of the time and cause of death, the "recent deaths" section is usually used. Facepalm – Muboshgu (talk) 18:39, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

"usually". Its not a hard or fast rule. Masem (t) 18:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Why write it out at all then if it's not meant to be followed? Higgs' death was "life as the main story". OJ's I can see more justification for a blurb based on the update at O. J. Simpson#Illness and death. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:52, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

ITNRDBLURB also has

Major figures: The death of major figures may merit a blurb. These cases are rare, and are usually posted on a sui generis basis...

—Bagumba (talk) 16:15, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps so, but then editors at ITN should look at the volume of news coverage. The death of Peter Higgs, while a loss to science, is hardly comparable to the amount of coverage given to someone like Kissinger or Gorbachev.

If there is a sufficiently broad-based consensus (that is, community not local) that's something else, but this is my two cents.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 05:33, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad to see this is finally being discussed at the talk page. But I can't get behind the proposed criteria. The biggest problem I have with them, as Masem touched on earlier, is that the proposed criteria exclude pretty much everyone except politicians. It would be wrong to suggest that sitting leaders who wield political power are the only people who have a great deal of influence or that they're the only people whose deaths would be worth blurbing. I'd argue Elizabeth II only technically met criteria #1; she wasn't a decisionmaker, her influence was primarily cultural, more comparable to a celebrity than a politician.

ITN gradually moved away from the rigid "Thatcher/Mandela" standard (i.e. only exceptionally transformative world leaders are worth a blurb) over the years as we started to recognize that you don't have to be a politician to change the world. So we rightfully blurbed Stephen Hawking and Aretha Franklin in 2018. And since then, slowly but surely, we arrived at where we are now: a situation where we'll post blurbs for people like the Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, someone whose name may be less recognizable to a general audience than the other names I've mentioned so far, but whose contributions are no less important. And I think that's a great thing.

I appreciate that you share the goal of wanting to cut down on the controversy surrounding RD-as-a-blurb discussions, but the simplest way to do that is to have the criteria match where ITN/C editors are already at, not to codify a fringe position and create a mismatch between the criteria and the consensus position.

I know I'm terrible at being concise, but the TL;DR of all this is that I'm quite pleased with where we're at with this "at the top of one's respective field" status quo. "At the top of one's respective field" is what we've been using for some time now, with comfortable majorities of editors finding it agreeable and only a handful of editors in every nomination finding it objectionable. I think it's time we get it in writing as the actual criteria so everyone can be on the same page going forward.

 Vanilla  Wizard 💙 07:14, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The issue is not about politicians, but about people whose death actually has an immediate impact. If a country's head of state/government dies, it means an immediate change in leadership. The blurb should be about the importance of the death, as that is the actual news story being posted. Even for great people, we already have a page for obituaries, it's RD.
Also, I doubt that "only a handful of editors" disagree with the over-liberal use of death blurbs as it is done today. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a discussion about this to begin with. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 08:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Apologies that this point got drowned in my difficult to follow ramblings, but "people whose death actually has an immediate impact" is why I brought up Elizabeth II as an example of someone who no one would argue shouldn't be blurbed, but who honestly doesn't meet that criteria. When we say the death of a world leader "has an immediate impact", we're usually talking about that leader being a decision-maker. We understand that a decision maker dying is impactful because a country might be taken in a different direction. But we'd be kidding ourselves if we pretended Elizabeth II's death had any real impact on the future of the UK/Commonwealth by that definition. Her death was "impactful" in a way, but it wasn't a political impact in any meaningful sense. It was because she was a cultural icon. I think by these proposed definitions, you could not consistently argue that figurehead monarchs' deaths matter but not any other cultural icons. So IMO either we should either write an exception to this criteria that clearly states that changes in ceremonial heads of state don't matter (IIRC we already do this with republics that have both a president and a prime minister) instead of giving preferential treatment to constitutional monarchies, or we establish a criteria that isn't so narrow as to suggest the only impactful deaths are incumbent leaders. I prefer the latter.

And as for the "only a handful" comment, I base this off of how the last few RDs as blurbs that were posted (Peter Higgs, Thomas Stafford, Akira Toriyama) followed the "at the top of one's respective field" criteria; it's been the de facto consensus criteria for a while. Those who expressed dissatisfaction with the criteria, though very vocal, tended to only make up a small percent of the total !votes. It's also worth mentioning that the editors who approve of how we've been doing things have the largely unified position of "keep doing this", but those who want change have very different, often mutually exclusive ideas of what that change should look like.

One final comment: this one is more in response to the nom's proposed criteria and less in response to you. Henry Kissinger was posted with a very clear consensus, but I don't think he'd get blurbed under these criteria. Nor would Mikhail Gorbachev due to him not being an incumbent, nor would even Margaret Thatcher or Nelson Mandela, the gold standard examples of when to post an RD as a blurb. These proposals represent extreme fringe positions. Gotta meet people where they're at if the goal is to make these discussions less contentious.

 Vanilla  Wizard 💙 17:46, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm still sticking to 'quality of article update related to later life, death, and funeral.' ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:28, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I think more guidelines are a great idea in principle. A Nobel laureate dying of natural causes at a ripe old age is not on a par with ferry disasters (or even the death of Michael Jackson).

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 05:28, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Masem and Vanilla Wizard here in not supporting this proposal based off #3 - I think the person's legacy is what is important in deciding whether or not they get a blurb. yes, we are having more and more conversations about whether RD candidates deserve a blurb, but I don't know if the issue needs such addressing. We can continue to build consensus on each nomination as we always have and decide for each person/article. Sure, I didn't know who Higgs was before his RD nomination, and his death wasn't front page news, but he was important in his field and his article was in good shape. Why shouldn't we blurb that? I think this always was and always will be something that needs to be discussed on a case-by-case basis. ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 14:09, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Why shouldn't we blurb that? Because those are already the criteria for RD. We could give more prominence to RD, but it already exists as a place to note the deaths of important people that requires articles to be in good shape. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 14:33, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

We have another case today in OJ Simpson, who had an incredible football career that is overshadowed by his acquittal for double murder 30 years ago. Already there are people suggesting we blurb him because of that. Setting standards for a death blurb is long overdue. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:27, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The criteria for RD's are bare bones: 1) an article about the person exists and 2) the article is not crap. Someone like Higgs who has had some large impact and leaves a lasting legacy deserves something more than a tree being cut down or an organist. For the record, I don't think Simpson should be blurbed because I question the impact of his legacy, but it's hard to define that impact in a new set of RD rules. Easiest to just leave it up to each individual RD submission. ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 16:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I strongly agree with mike's position here. GenevieveDEon (talk) 20:18, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Respectfully, I think to deserve a blurb it needs to be someone most people have heard of. We (editors) tend to skew towards a more scientific bent, and I'd still be skeptical that the majority could name Peter Higgs if asked This post was made by orbitalbuzzsaw gang (talk) 21:50, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

"Someone most people have heard of" is problematic. Wikipedia contributors are primarily American or British, so you would be excluding everyone not well known in those countries. HiLo48 (talk) 08:52, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

As exemplified by Orbitalbuzzsaw's rationale for opposing a blurb for Akebono Tarō, which simply reads 'who?'. GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:59, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this has been argued over and over again, with no real consensus on what changes should be made, or if any changes need to be made. I think there needs to be some way to define "major figures", which is the criterion for an RD Blurb from WP:ITNRDBLURB, but there is no community consensus on what major figure means. Natg 19 (talk) 01:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I am once again in favor of a solution encompassing 1 and 2, or simply an end to death blurbs. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:50, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

The solution

There's no need for complex rules. The problem here is an artifact which arises because the format of RD is so abbreviated and perfunctory. It then seems inadequate for famous people like OJ. But it's even more inadequate for less famous people because their names alone are not enough to explain to readers who they were. RD then just seems a ticker of random names, like sampling a phone book.

The solution is to fix RD so that all entries get a short description. This is what other language Wikipedia do. For a good example, see the German Wikipedia which has a nice clear Obituary section. That currently lists:

• Akebono Tarō (54), US-amerikanisch-japanischer Sumōringer († 11. April)
• Trina Robbins (85), US-amerikanische Comiczeichnerin († 10. April)
• O. J. Simpson (76), US-amerikanischer Footballspieler und Schauspieler († 10. April)
• Dan Wallin (97), US-amerikanischer Tonmeister († 10. April)
• Eckart Dux (97), deutscher Schauspieler und Synchronsprecher († 9. April)

So, they don't need absurd discussions comparing Akebono and OJ with Mandela or Thatcher. They treat everyone alike and the problem goes away.

Andrew🐉(talk) 06:34, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

That definitely seems like a better solution indeed. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 10:23, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

This is the best and most practical solution. We should simply abolish death blurbs and expand the RD section with more details.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:04, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me, although it does mean there would presumably be fewer people listed on the deaths section, as RD is currently using 2 lines, whereas it would need 6 lines to cover 6 people this way? It also gets rid of the WP:EASTEREGG links to some people with common names are listed on RD. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:41, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

This has been proposed and rejected several times before, without having a full discussion on the overall main page format since this requires a lot more dedicated space. And there will still be cases when a news blurb involves a death of a noted person. Masem (t) 13:20, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

If a news blurb involves the death of a noted person, but has separate notability from just "X person dies" (like an absolute monarchy changing monarch, or the 2023 Wagner Group plane crash), it makes sense to still run the blurb. There could be a case for omitting the people mentioned in the blurb from RD for redundancy, but with this RD format adding more information, I think it's still a good thing to have them there too. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 14:35, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Which means nothing will change in terms of arguing for RD blurbs. Masem (t) 11:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

No? The only blurbs would be in cases where the story outside of the death is relevant, but that's the kind of stuff we unambiguously post already. I don't see why famous people (even of the Thatcher/Mandela level) would have a death blurb under this new system. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 15:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Part of the larger problem with ITN is that it is so disaster focused, which itself is an extension if editors being far too overboard on creating articles on events that realistically fail NOTNEWS and NEVENTS. Unless it's an ITRN, ITC weighs hard against non disaster stories. The occasional death blurb is an appropriate way to recognize the combination of death of top people in their respective field and articles about those people that are in excellent shape, and to offset the normal gloom and doom. Isolating all deaths to RDs except in cases where the manner of death was the news event like asdassination or in a disaster will give excessive weight to people that may not be as significant as true leaders and influencial people. The whole problem is exasterbated by a combination if editors that want more objective criteria for ITN (which is not how WP works) and that editors still think things like fame and popularity matter for RD blurbs (which ITN soevifically says it doesn't). Shuffling the deaths to a standalone section is "a" solution but it doesn't address any of these other issues.. It is a shortcut solution but not a good one. Masem (t) 15:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean by editors that want more objective criteria for ITN (which is not how WP works)? Many areas of Wikipedia are defined by clear policies or guidelines, except ITN, which is based on general local consensus about what is "worth posting" or not. Natg 19 (talk) 15:31, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

All of WP's P&G are descriptive, not prescriptive short of BLP and COPYVIO. While some do have more objective steps to resolve issues, any conflict on how P&Gs should be used is to be determined by consensus. We are not a burocracry and don't have hard fast rules. Masem (t) 15:41, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

While I agree with your analysis of the situation, I do not think that blurbing deaths is the best way to offset the normal gloom and doom. Also, my proposal is not "is the manner of death the news event?" (which would still end up with a selection of "unusual" RDs), but "is the non-death part alone still blurbworthy?" (or, as a rule of thumb, "would it still be blurbworthy if they survived?").
A few examples of how it would apply:

Death of Elizabeth II?

Charles III becoming King is still blurbworthy, so we can have that in the blurb and list Elizabeth II in RD.

Prigozhin plane crash?

Russia downing the plane is blurbworthy, Prigozhin and Utkin go in RD.

Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate?

The strike itself is blurbed, Mohammad Reza Zahedi goes in RD.

Death of Nelson Mandela?

A death alone can go in RD, no other news that requires a blurb.

Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 15:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

That unnecessarily complicates things. For example, Russian downing a plane without mentioning the key figure aboard is burying the lede, as if there was non one notable aboard a downed military craft, there wouldn't be a story to post about. Masem (t) 16:08, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say we shouldn't mention the key figures? The blurb can be "Russia shoots down a plane containing Wagner Group leaders Prigozhin and Utkin", and then they both go in RD. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 16:16, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Which means that now wastes space with duplicating them in both the blurb and RD line. Masem (t) 16:24, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, the blurb is for the newsworthy event, RD is for listing who died. Omitting RD when it's redundant is something I wouldn't necessarily oppose, but the format shown above adds a bit more information that's distinct from the kind of information the blurb emphasizes. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 16:48, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Again, like always, RD works fine and Deaths in 2024 exists. No need for any expansion. ITN already has limited space. I'm not in favor of any solution that takes away from blurb space. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:51, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Where we're going, we don't need space. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:02, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I would agree that the German solution would be the best. I've never clicked on any RD link for a person I've never heard of. Providing context might help users. Khuft (talk) 17:07, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I would also like to register my enthusiastic support for us adopting the German approach described above, so we no longer have to waste time making the absurd comparisons Andrew rightfully called attention to here. IntoThinAir (talk) 11:49, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Support this solution big time, and then we could ban blurbing RD's all together. Maybe an RfC is in order? ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 15:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Overzealous editing to have article in the news section of the main page

I noticed something that bothered me. It's not the first time I notice it and I am guilty of doing this once.

I was working away and slowly on making the Louis Gossett Jr. (an actor) wiki page nice. I wasn't quite there yet but much better than when I found it.

Then the actor passed. Someone nominated the page and it got rejected. The user rushed to cite the un-cited and while their intention were good I think they did nonsense things. Having five citations for one phrase, using a citation that doesn't confirm a phrase, and adding Gossett's philanthropy in his award section.

I have repaired some of that stuff already. It's not the end of the world they haven't touched anything in the bulk of his career. It's just a royal pain in the behind to go through one citation at a time to make sure that person hasn't goofed too hard.

So when an article gets nominated, afterward rejected, which leads people to rush and edit the material please tell them to take it easy. Especially when it's not a world event but the passing of an artist.

Just keep that in mind. Please and thank you. Filmman3000 (talk) 23:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Overzealous would be preferable compared to gaming the system. On another note, I suspect RDs can lead to WP:CITOGENESIS, citing unsourced content to obits lifting material from Wikipedia. —Bagumba (talk) 05:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Please use the straightforward "died" rather than "passed". See MOS:EUPHEMISM. HiLo48 (talk) 06:01, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

RD blurbs list

I have been working on a list of articles nominated on ITNC as RD blurbs. The list is in my userspace at User:IntoThinAir/RD blurbs. It currently includes all such ITNC nominations I could find going back to the beginning of September 2023. It is interesting to see which people were posted as blurbs and which were not: for instance, some former presidents were posted as blurbs (Giorgio Napolitano and Sebastián Piñera), but others were not (Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Martti Ahtisaari). IntoThinAir (talk) 20:25, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. Might sound a bit harsh, but, I am going to say this. The RD blurb discussions are not objective, but, are just popularity contests. A blurb discussion that does not blurb the death of M. S. Swaminathan who had ensured that millions were saved from hunger and famine, but blurbs others -- just indicates that the discussions are pointless and just pure popularity contests. Specifically, popularity among the editors who frequent this place and no one else. Ktin (talk) 00:51, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

• Precedents This has been analysed before. For example, for 2022, I made a table of Famous Deaths and their treatment at ITN. As Ktin says, there's no objective basis for this and WP:ITNRDBLURB confirms that the process is sui generis. It doesn't much matter for famous people because readers will come in large numbers to the article regardless of whether ITN posts them or not. Meat Loaf, for example, was not posted but was in the Top 10 for 2022, beating Mikhail Gorbachev, who got a blurb. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@IntoThinAir: Thank you for gathering this information! Very interesting to sift through. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:19, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Views observation

It's sometimes mentioned that whether or not an item is blurbed doesn't matter, as people find the article anyways. If we look at 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings, which took place on 13 April but wasn't posted until 19 April, its views went up despite the delay, and to date have continued to exceed its lows before posting.—Bagumba (talk) 10:23, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Looking at Ichthyotitan, the view count is even more noticeably impacted by being on the main page. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 10:31, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

We just don't use page views prior to posting as a reason to post. We are happy that as a result of posting that page views to the target article grows, but we're not here as any type of SEO to seek out page views. Masem (t) 12:06, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

True. Merely pointing out that it's an incorrect claim that it doesn't increase views, aside from whether it's a goal or not. —Bagumba (talk) 15:21, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Adopting one guideline from DYK

In light of the O.J. Simpson RD blurb (this is not to question whether it should be posted, that's a separate issue), the blurb itself is extremely questionable as it puts too much focus on his criminal history.
DYK has a guideline at WP:DYKHOOKBLP that says Hooks must adopt a neutral point of view. Hooks that unduly focus on negative aspects of living persons should be avoided. Note that this is a stricter requirement than BLP as a whole: a sentence that might be due weight in the article can become undue if used in the hook, as all of the surrounding context of the individual's wider life is missing." Given that we are in a similar situation that we only have one sentenece to describe a topic (normal news blurb or death blurb) and thus can't give further context, we should adopt a similar principle.
Note that this is when the negative aspects are not the main story (as in the case of the O.J. blurb). If the news story is about the negative factor, such as with a key criminal conviction/sentencing, we really can't avoid that if there's otherwise support for the topic. But we shouldn't be forcing in negative (or even positive) factors related to BLP where they aren't the key highlight of the story. — Masem (t) 12:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Support this, and I'm surprised it's not already a guideline given the BLP implications of it. I suggest it should also include recently dead people for, well, recent deaths. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 12:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

See WP:BDP, BLP policy extends to the recently deceased and clear those we'd include on ITN due to the 7 day period. — Masem (t) 13:13, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I know, but it's better to make it explicit as I've seen a comment on OJ's nomination saying that WP:BDP wouldn't apply to legal issues. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 14:15, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

That exposes more issues around the OK blurb that I don't think are relavant to this discussion. As a hypothetical that distances itself from those issues, let's say that when Putin dies (who is one I'd definitely list as a great figure due to his impact on history even if that was mostly seen as net negative to the world and thus likely would have a blurb) it is reasonable to identify him as the former Russian president, but it would be inappropriate in our blurb to go on to say things like dictator, warmonger, etc. — Masem (t) 14:31, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I fully agree. My point is that it should be written in the guideline that this applies in the same way to recent deaths, as it is not necessarily obvious to everyone. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 16:54, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

DYK hooks are mostly trivia with no respect towards WP:DUE, so it's understandable there. On the other hand, ITN blurbs need to be neutral (WP:NPOV), which might require negative points. Per the policy WP:YESPOV:

As such, the neutral point of view does not mean the exclusion of certain points of view; rather, it means including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight.

There's no way OJ's blurb should be neutered to only say "American football Hall of Fame running back O.J. Simpson dies."—Bagumba (talk) 14:36, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The problem that is common to DYK is that we have limited context to explain anything that may be tied to a POV. Articles have room for the required context, but a single sentence blurb does not. And without going into other problems with the OK blurb, if it is actually impossible to write a neutral RD blurb, that's likely a good reason not to have that as a blurb, and instead let the normal RD process apply. (I intend to open a separate discussion on the other issues with the OJ blurb later, but this can be handled as a separate issue) — Masem (t) 14:56, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that "it's impossible to write a neutral RD blurb". If we managed to decide multiple notable roles to blurb for someone like English singer, songwriter and producer David Bowie dies at the age of 69[7], then it's no different to decide that OJ was notable for more than just playing football. —Bagumba (talk) 15:21, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

None of those descriptors for Bowie are negative nor positive terms, they are objective descriptors. A better point would be Higgs, we're the blurb i( which I may have written, so I'm guilty here) mentions being a Nobel winner, which is an unduly focus on a positive term compared to calling him a physist.
Unless the person was only notable for negative actions (such as Bin Laden), we should avoid negative or positive descriptors in blurbs. — Masem (t) 15:37, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I continue to think it's misplaced to focus on "positive" or "negative" instead of WP:YESPOV's guidance to determine purely what is due. —Bagumba (talk) 15:44, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The whole NPOV is great for article space when there is room to give context, add references and necessary attribution, etc. But ITN is like DYK or category pages where we do T have the means to give context or references, who h is why these have more carefully crafted BLP concerns. We should be operating in the same manner for our blurbs. — Masem (t) 16:41, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The news is often "unduly focused on negative aspects" of people, living and recently deceased. Say Trump gets convicted of some crimes. I imagine that has a strong chance of passing ITN/C for a blurb. How would that work with DYKHOOKBLP? – Muboshgu (talk) 15:16, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

That's what I implied that if the conviction is actually the news event, writing about that would not be unduly, since we are specifically focusing on the news story that is the event. If Trump is convicted, and then far down the road he dies, including anything related to the conviction in a death blurb would be unduly (barring anything that may happen in the future) — Masem (t) 15:33, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I would support adding a DYKHOOKBLP-style criterion for ITN items. I disagree that the Simpson item unduly focuses on negative aspects, but it's a matter for reasonable debate. A debate worth having. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:44, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with the whole premise of this discussion. OJ Simpson's criminal history is the only reason he was still a household name outside the US. It's what obituaries focused on. It's why his death made the news internationally. Hiding that from the blurb would be presenting an utterly biased view.Khuft (talk) 18:28, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The separate issue is that RD blurbs that are primarily based on fame or imfamity do not fit any of the of the RD blurb criteria. I don't want to start that discussion here, which is why I bring up the case of some like Putin or Bin Laden as more practical examples where an RD blurb would not be just because of fame. — Masem (t) 19:03, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

• Respectfully, I'm not seeing the concern here. Are there examples of POV issues with blurbs that you've found? I think we generally keep it fairly neutral, and when we don't, it is generally because the non-neutral point is a central piece of the story. DarkSide830 (talk) 21:09, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, but don't confuse non-neutral to mean having any negative elements. WP:WIKIVOICE says

  Present opinions and conflicting findings in a disinterested tone. Do not editorialize.

  That does not mean we are only to blurb about his football career or that we shy away from blurbing anything at all.—Bagumba (talk) 00:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

  The problem is, in addition to the issue of why OJ was even blurbed, that the language reads as a "Good riddance" in WP's voice by mixing objective statements (football player and actor) with the negativity-toned language, even if it is true. That's an embrassment on the front page. Masem (t) 03:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

  Depends on one's perspective. There's a set of people that see it as a positive, believing it was a rarity that a Black person was not framed by racist and inept authorities. At any rate, it's factual that he was a murder suspect, and it's WP:DUE to state it as a major part of his notability. It's not reasonable to call him just a football player. That he was convicted of robbery is undisputed, though I was fine with that not going into the blurb, believing it was secondary to his notability.—Bagumba (talk) 04:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

  What should have gone in the blurb were things about the O.J. Simpson of April 2024. What kind of cancer he'd been dying from, how long it took and where it finally killed him. There'd have been no need to rehash anything from the 1970s, '80s, 90s or '10s if we'd treated this as hard news rather than eulogy, fan service or virtue signalling. The descriptor "O.J. Simpson" is enough to let anyone even half familiar with the guy know which one we mean, and had been for years before the What, Why, When and Where made him finally blurbworthy. If we're just going to list the negative/positive aspects of any major figure's life over Death itself, we may as well start doing it for those who are elected or win awards, too. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

  O.J. was one of those unique public figures for whom, in order to frame their life in the proper context, you really needed to take the bulk of their entire professional career and personal life from that timeframe you mentioned (even the 60s, to an extent, when he played football for USC). It is nearly impossible to describe his impact with just a handful of words, and people should read the article -- or better yet, go watch the 30 for 30 documentary. But even as impactful as he was, he was an incredibly polarizing public figure, so in order to maintain neutrality, this is a situation in which less is actually more. I do agree that in the blurb, we should have just called him a "football player and actor" and have been done with it. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:48, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps there needs to be a discussion at NPOV about these one-sentence scenarios on how to neutrally describe somebody without have any other way to provide immediate context. Like with OJ, while most Americans likely will associate the name with his legal problems, there was more to his career that are given cleanly by neutral terms and require no further context to be neutral, while saying he was a murder suspect should require addition context to explain that neutrally. In contrast, a person like Osama Bin Laden only was notably known as a terrorist leader, we'd likely describe as a terrorist leader in a one sentence blurb since there is no neutral term that could be used. That's why it's probably important to recognize NPOV and things like DUE apply to article space but their use outside that like the Main Page is not as clear, and why we should have similar concerns as DYK in how one sentence blurbs are written towards BLP. — Masem (t) 23:03, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

  The "neutral" form of "terrorist" has traditionally been "militant". The "positive" spin is something like "freedom fighter" or "soldier of the Caliphate" ("rebel" has also been "pretty cool" since 1977, for various reasons). If Osama bin Laden died today, I'd like to think we'd call him a suspected terrorist leader. Of course, if he did die today, no "reliable source" would care to print it, but per BLPCRIME/BDP, he's still technically presumed innocent.

  As for O.J. Simpson, I maintain the most neutral blurb would have been O.J. Simpson (pictured) dies at 76 of pancreatic cancer in Las Vegas. We don't need to specify Nevada or the United States, people who know something about the Juice are assumed to know the general whereabouts of Vegas. Forgive my "negativity", but you're all crazy if you think "American football player and actor" doesn't have a positive connotation. You can get free drinks (and more) pretty much anywhere in the country (and others) following that introduction. If you just give the proprietor what basic information comes with an everyday credit card, you get served like any other patron, nice and impartial-like.

  Anyway, what's done is done. I'll try to complain louder and more efficiently before "the rest of you nuts" publish something this unfit to print again next time. Cheers! InedibleHulk (talk) 23:39, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  There isn't any positive connotation with "football player" or "actor" as those are vocations he was paid to work in. If we were using terms like "savant", "business magnate", or "philanthropist", that's overly positive terms that sit on the opposite side of neutral compared with "suspected murderer". In article space, where we can devote to dozens of sources to back those terms up to show they are objective terms, they are non-neutral terms that are wholly appropriate. In one-line sentences absent any other context, they are non-neutral terms that we should avoid using, in favor of neutral and objective descriptors, such as vocations. Masem (t) 00:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  When a household name is a household name because of the double murder or embassy bombing suspicions, though, listing instead only the jobs a more niche audience might have loved them for before is certainly not neutral. It's like whitewashing. If you just call O.J. Simpson O.J. Simpson (or whomever whomever), you avoid having to paint him one way or another. If there's some concern that people won't recognize him or her by name and photo alone, then we're not dealing with a "major figure" and would need a good story about death itself. Regardless... InedibleHulk (talk) 00:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  But I would argue in the case of OJ, his career as a football player or as a minor actor were non-trivial in terms of notability, and while to a fair number of Americans and probably Europeans will know OJ better from the legal troubles, that doesn't mean the rest of the world knows him as that. Pushing that he was only notable for the legal problems is a RGW problem we shouldn't be engaging in in this case. If we had a paragraph to explain all that, then it would make sense to include it, but we don't.

  And your last point is the primary issue with the OJ blurb posting, regardless of this concern - he fits no aspect of being a "major figure" , and it was only being supported because he was "well-known" due to the legal issues. That's not why we should be posting RD blurbs in the first place. Masem (t) 04:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think winning a Heisman Trophy or being picked first in the NFL draft are trivial. If Simpson hadn't killed two people and written a book about it, he'd still be notable, just like Earl Campbell or Jim Plunkett. He just wouldn't be what non-fans like me know as a household name. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:02, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

  Trivial in the sense that in the long term, solely looking at his football career overall, he would not be considered a great figure like, say, Joe Montana. Nor would his acting career. Nor would his legal problems, compared to, say, Rodney King or George Floyd. That is not diminishing his notability (which qualifies for the RD line) but that our bar for being a great figure is meant to be very high, and should exemplify people that have contributed a great deal to society, even if that involves negative contributions (eg bin Laden). Just winning awards or landing in a hall of fame isn't the bar. Masem (t) 00:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

  I was under the impression you were arguing, in the case of OJ, his career as a football player or as a minor actor were non-trivial in terms of notability. Now I think you are saying his football career was trivial in the long term and that King and Floyd were known for their legal problems, so don't know how to proceed. Suffice to say, I don't believe there is a "bar". People vote as it suits them and admins post according to that. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:29, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

  Neither King nor Floyd were known or notable for anything else besides their respective treatment by police and the subsequent riots/protests that erupted, just as bin Laden is known for nothing else beyond his ties to terrorism. (In all these cases we can document earlier parts of their lives but those parts alone would never have merited an article on WP) Simpsons has a notable career before his legal problems started. But even if you summed up his entire life, and even say that his legal problems were the majority of why he was notable (debatable but lets start there), he doesn't meet any of the three criteria for RD blurbs; being famous or having notoriety is not the same as being a great figure. Nor was his means of death significant (age and cancer gets a lot of people in the end). So there was a problem with editors !voting only based on fame or notoriety that is implied but not sufficiently expressed in ITN's guidelines. Masem (t) 01:00, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

  Stop putting words in my mouth, please. Again, I said Simpson was a household name because of the double murder (and his subsequent legal problems). Like all football players on Wikipedia, he would have already been notable for playing football. Just not a household name. I think notoriety and fame are more closely synonymous to greatness than "legal problems" is to getting beaten or held down by police, extrajudicially. Our guidelines aren't clear, period; if they were, people wouldn't be allowed to vote as it suits them. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:20, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

  We should be posting based off of consensus, which is the only guidance that WP:ITNRDBLURB and its "sui generis basis" gives admins. OJ is dead, was blurbed, and rolled off days ago. His being blurbed is a WP:DEADHORSE. —Bagumba (talk) 04:50, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  But we have ongoing problems highlighted by OJ - neutrality of the blurb for one, and the flood of !votes for popular or well-known people that offset what we normally argue for at ITN (same cases as with Betty White and Carrie Fisher in the past). Obviously, I'm not arguing specifically about the OJ blurb, just that it provided an example of these problems that still happen. So no, that's not a DEADHORSE to use OJ as an example of what we can avoid in the future. Masem (t) 12:08, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  You wrote that he fits no aspect of being a 'major figure', which contradicts your later claim that you are not arguing specifically about the OJ blurb. —Bagumba (talk) 15:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

  The "fits no aspect" part is a separate discussion that I have not yet started because I need to be able to frame and write to it appropriately related to blurbs that we are posting along the lines of fame or popularity or well-known-ness, of which OJ is just one example where that occurred.  Masem (t) 00:18, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

• Sorry, but this whole discussion is starting to read like "I don't like how the consensus went so let's please change the rules." We're discussing a sui generis issue that was solved in a sui generis way. Time to move on. (And we should rejoice about certain nominations drawing higher participation from the overall community, not damn it and try to prevent it.) Khuft (talk) 07:33, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Ariel Henry image

It's not on the Main Page (yet), but I see that File:Ariel Henry July 2023.jpg was added by Robertsky to Wikipedia:Main Page/Commons media protection.[8]

However, it's original source [9] says "TODOS LOS DERECHOS LIBERADOS. SE PUEDEN REPRODUCIR, USAR Y DESCARGAR TODOS LOS CONTENIDOS, SIN ALTERARLOS Y CITANDO LA FUENTE. DIRECCIÓN DE PRENSA, PRESIDENCIA DE LA REPÚBLICA DE CHILE", which Google translates to (emphasis added) "ALL RIGHTS RELEASED. ALL CONTENTS CAN BE REPRODUCED, USED AND DOWNLOADED, WITHOUT ALTERING THEM AND CITIING THE SOURCE." I think we require images to be free to be altered. So it seems this image should not go on the MP.

The Commons page is protected from pt.wikipedia as well, so I can't start a deletion discussion on Commons.—Bagumba (talk) 06:43, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bagumba I added it because I wanted to rotate to this photo after the sufficient time has lapsed for the previous photo. It is not up on the main page yet, but if licensing is an issue, let's drop the idea. I think the deletion discussion can still be started. It is a matter of Commons admin helping to place the notice banner on the File page. – robertsky (talk) 07:51, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

The "nominate for deletion" link on Commons fails becuase it's protected. However, I nominated the picture it was extracted from, File:El Presidente de Chile Gabriel Boric junto al Primer Ministro de Haití Ariel Henry.jpg.—Bagumba (talk) 08:05, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Posted an alternative image—Bagumba (talk) 08:57, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I feel ya Forger-Wiki (talk) 15:52, 30 April 2024 (UTC)