Portal talk:Current events/2008 June 5

ITN Candidates

 * Perhaps we should mention the Detention of US and UK diplomats in Zimbabwe along with Morgan Tsvangirai, which is already on ITN. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 00:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, I've added a link, as well as changing the emboldened link to Zimbabwean presidential election, 2008, which has been greatly updated since several days ago. - BanyanTree 01:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Nom Islamic dress controversy in Europe. - BanyanTree 22:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Naw. That's not news. We Canadians haven't been able to wear hats in buildings for years. -- Plasma Twa  2  00:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you have a real comment that I won't ignore when deciding whether or not to post this? - BanyanTree 00:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you have a real news suggestion that people will care about? Explain how a clothing ban is news, and please tell me how a three sentence mention is enough for it to make it on the news. This is just a long line of discrimination against people from the Middle East. Nothing new. -- Plasma Twa  2  00:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you actually read the linked articles for comprehension? Do you know that Turkey is in the Middle East?  I could provide a list of websites with this item on their front page, but I'm done humoring you. - BanyanTree 01:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I would say Turkey is in Europe. It might join the EU, after all. -- Plasma Twa  2  06:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And posted. 24 hours since last ITN update and there hasn't been an objection worthy of the name. - BanyanTree 02:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That's ridiculous. What's the point of nominating something if you're just going to put it up yourself anyway? It has gone up, despite the fact that no case has been made for or against this item (I'm sorry, but on the website you provided, BBC News, this is hardly front page) except for the fact that some arbitrary deadline has passed and ITN "needs" updating apparently. I'm actually fairly neutral on this one, as I was under the impression that this ban had been in place for years (evidently this changed). But our opinions here clearly don't matter as long as admins do whatever the hell they like. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 04:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As I've been saying for at least a week and half now (though it seems like an eternity at this point), starting at Wikipedia talk:In the news 2.0 and most recently in the discussion page below this at ITN/C, one of the key changes that needs to be made if people want more than three items a week is that, as no consensus is "keep" in a deletion discussion, no consensus at ITN must mean "post". As it is, it's relatively easy to block an item for basically no reason at all by throwing a few "opposes" at it and then wait for it to grow too stale to get on the template.  The "no consensus=post" assumption, coupled with the timer to say "enough talk - identify the best option and post", entirely breaks that model.
 * I nommed an item, which means that I support it. After four hours of waiting, the only comment was that Canadians can't wear hats in buildings, followed by how Middle Eastern people discriminating against Middle Easterners is nothing new.  If there had been a consensus against it for other than spurious reasons, I would not have posted it.  As is it, I did.  I appear to be the only admin on ITN/C right now, so could hardly wait for some other admin to get lost, notice the nom and post for me.  I would be delighted to post other people's suggestions, but there appears to be a distinct lack, coupled with a lot of people who appear eager to go back to the 'one update every two days'-paradigm and feel that it is their duty, in the immortal words of Plasma Twa 2, to prevent "the admins from putting up local crap that no one gives a shit about".  Except for sporting events, which are apparently OK. - BanyanTree 04:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think the nominating admin (on AFDs) can close it too, right? Same thing here. Wait for another admin to judge for him/herself. Its just 4 hours, and ITN is not a news source; ITN can wait for another few hours. -- Howard  the   Duck  05:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point. However, ITN/C is largely deserted except for non-admins commenting on the occasional suggestion.  In my mind, it was not a question of posting it myself or waiting for another admin to do so in a timely manner, e.g. within 12 hours, but posting it myself now or posting it myself in 24 hours after it became more stale. The "let's wait a few more hours" attitude is precisely the reason that ITN stagnates.  The timer goes yellow after 24 hours: the question is not "can't we wait more than the 24 hours?" but "what sort of lame Main Page template goes un-updated for more than 24 hours?". Note that I would have been happy to hold off if there had been a more thoroughly vetted candidate, but there was not. - BanyanTree 05:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't know that ITN now has a timer. However, these hours are the hours where people from the Western Hemisphere sleep and when the Europeans start waking up so it can be pretty slow within these intervals.
 * Eight hours ago, when I posted the suggestion? That would have been 10 pm in Western Europe, 8 pm on the East Coast and 4 pm on the West Coast.  Hardly the dead of night, and broad daylight for Anglophones in New Zealand and Australia. - BanyanTree 06:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, right now. Maybe on the West Coast it is still early. Nevertheless, you should've waited for another admin to evaluate it. Sooner or later someone will crop up. -- Howard  the   Duck  06:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Still, I won't recommend adding your own suggestion. I see it as unethical; it seems that there are no overly violent reactions (yet, like rallies or civil disturbance) so the time wasted on waiting for an admin response is not that bad. -- Howard  the   Duck  06:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. It would be far easier if someone besides me suggested items (the amount of effort that various users have expended attacking the posting of this item could easily have resulted in two more items going up), so they could be more thoroughly vetted.  As for my unethical behavior, you are welcome to find someone to start my recall, bring it up at WP:AN/I or seek other form of redress. - BanyanTree 06:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I really don't care about how users become admins and how admins are booted out of adminship. And since you've brought up WP:AN/I it would've been a good idea to post a shout out there about this rather than posting your own suggestion yourself. -- Howard  the   Duck  06:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I note your opinion. - BanyanTree 07:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Of all the things that could be considered "unethical" for a Wikipedia admin, well, this is my opinion: writing, nominating and posting an updated item to ITN by oneself when noone else is around seems much more like something praiseworthy.--Pharos (talk) 16:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As a non-admin, this is very frightening. Screw consensus. Delete AFD -- just let the admins add WP:PROD and if no one objects in a few hours, delete it. Make an article featured by adding it at WP:FAC, wait for a few hours, then if no one responds, promote it to FA. Screw the very foundations Wikipedia was built. In fact, semi-protect ITN/C and let the admins add their pet blurbs, and if no admin even says a thing, add it.
 * And to think there are really no "big" events coming out from this blurb, like mass hysteria, bombings, even protests etc. If it was that important something would've happened already but it hasn't. -- Howard  the   Duck  18:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This is nothing like AFD. AFD is decided after at least 5 days (often longer), and the result is a permanent change to the encyclopedia.  ITN candidates are usually decided within one day (with very little active admin participation), and the result is an entirely ephemeral change to a portal.  I'm not sure why you're so interested in mass hysteria and bombings.  There are lots of important things in the world beside mass hysteria and bombings.--Pharos (talk) 19:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ephemeral change in a highly-visible template. And staleness on ITN shouldn't be the reason on ditching consensus and the ideals Wikipedia was founded -- ITN is not a news service, ITN can live with stale news for a week (although it wouldn't go that bad). As for importance, if something "important" happened in a similarly-sized country, say Ethiopia, it won't be posted on ITN, unless it's about mass hysteria and bombings (actually for a country plagued with mass hysteria and bombings everyday, even those won't be enough to place it on ITN, but that's another story). I'm not saying this shouldn't be on ITN; at most this is a borderline case. If it's a borderline case, you wait for others to comment. No matter what. -- Howard  the   Duck  03:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

(un-indent) Actually, this would be a good time to test this out. Would the first admin who is reading this and would have either posted this item or offered a rejection reason, please post here so we know what sort of time frame we're looking at? Thanks, BanyanTree 06:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Irregardless of anything else, anyone else notice that this is a one country story? This is a story about Turkey and it's citizens. If we tried to put something up about this happening in America, it would never go up. Or, maybe it would. Under this new rule, it would. -- Plasma Twa  2  06:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure. If the US had a secularist constitution while being a Muslim country and had a new popularly elected Islamic government that passed a law pushing against the secularists, which caused worry for the U.S. because they were trying to get into the European Union over the resolute resistance of France, and then the secularist courts banned the new law by the Islamic party, in what was seen as foreshadowing for the outlawing of the Islamic party, I'd definitely put that on ITN. - BanyanTree 07:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, honestly, you lost me after you said the U.S. was worried about the U.S. But, it sounds to me that this law is "foreshadowing" the ban of the Islamic Party, in which case, I still don't think that is very notable. Not on an international level, at least. I can't believe I am using this, but as of right now this story is not on the main page of CNN.com. Like Howard mentioned above, there apparently has been no riots or violent reactions to this, either. -- Plasma Twa  2  07:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, if it is only in universities, that seems pretty minor. -- Plasma Twa  2  07:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it has been ten hours or so since this was posted, which was obviously after it hit the news wires. I also think that counting front page locations is lame, but in that time I have seen it go from being the number two item on BBC News to the sidebar to the single lead item in the Middle East regional section and drop down to the "religion" section on the Washington Post front page.  To be fair, the number of ITN items that would stay at the top of the news cycle for more than 12 hours is rather small.
 * As for minor, it's all contextual. Having a census in the US would not make it to ITN; I would have no qualms about putting an adequately updated Lebanese census item up. (If you don't understand this, see Demographics of Lebanon.) If you don't like it, throw a five sentence update into an article currently on the current events portal, nominate it, I'll post it, and this item will be pushed off the top.  It'll take five minutes, which is less time than you've taken in this discussion thus far, and we'll both feel a lot more productive than we do now. - BanyanTree 07:46, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As an admin, I certainly would have put this up. I noticed the suggestion before it was posted, and it seemed like a decent one, so I didn't see a particular reason to comment at the time.  Certainly this is a significant development in Turkish constitutional law, and the item meets all criteria.--Pharos (talk) 15:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's nice that this went up, the issue is important in Turkish politics as a symbol for the tug between islamic and secular powers. Narayanese (talk) 08:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Nom Nuclear program of Iran I would actually have preferred this to the Hijab ban, but I didn't update the article until just now, so I can't really complain. Also, I see nothing wrong with what Banyan did, it was a fine entry to have on ITN, and when we need more admins not fewer, telling them not to post their own suggestions seems somewhat counterproductive. Random  89  20:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The article is certainly well updated but the wording of the portal blurb, "Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert says that 'the end of Iran's nuclear program is near'", is not supported by the updated content. Please suggest an alternate wording supported by the article or add to the article so that the suggested blurb is supported. Thanks, BanyanTree 01:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * How about:

Israeli government officials issue threatening remarks about Iran's nuclear program. Random 89  18:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, posted.--Pharos (talk) 01:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)