Talk:Current events/Archive 1

"Encyclopaedia, not a tabloid"
Do we really need this ? This is an encyclopedia not a tabloid after all. The point about search engine search is questionable. It would be best to put some porn to attract audience to Wikipedia. Huh ? -- Kpjas

One great advantage Wikipedia might have over other encyclopedias is our ability to have timely articles. I think it is good strategy to focus efforts in those areas where we might have a competitive advantage. - Tim

Are we keeping them ? News become obsolete so quickly. Besides, it is IMO pointless to make empty links to news items !!! -- Kpjas

Links to uncreated articles
The links to articles we don't have are there for two reasons. 1) People can add links to current events without having to know in advance whether we have an article. 2) People are encouraged to create articles for subjects we don't have, for the reasons stated on the main page.

And of course we are keeping the articles. I can't imagine why we wouldn't. What would be an example of a current events article that would not be worth keeping? - Tim
 * Interest fades, importance diminishes ...
 * Omaha beach took a tragic toll of lives. Do we think it proper to include the
 * names in an encyclopedia?
 * Encyclopedia is encyclopedia. There is even a page devoted to pointing out
 * what wikipedia is not. Another one - it is not 'News of the World' like
 * tabloid. Would you include rumours in an encyclopedia ???
 * If someone thinks that some current event is worth making a link to it, he/she
 * should write the article instead. Waiting for someone else to pick it up
 * can eventually result in empty links to obsolete news items. --Kpjas

Encyclopaedic articles, not news articles
Kpjas, there are many important topics that become important (sometimes, only temporarily) because of their prominence as part of current events. This doesn't mean that we need to develop news articles, per se. I hope we don't try to do that. Instead, we should develop encyclopedia articles--that, sometimes, actually concern breaking (i.e., newly developing) news. Again, we aren't trying to write news articles, here, but background articles necessary for a good understanding of the news.

The suggestion that, in offering encyclopedia articles about topics that have become important due to their importance in current events, Wikipedia is (or wants to be like) a tabloid, is absurd. --LMS - and, of course, the new and exciting 'holiday' category can be changed seasonally! --MichaelTinkler, who was in a former life COMPELLED to create seasonally-changing bulletin boards.

Y'know, if there were one or two other people working on this page daily, I would work on it daily too (or so I predict). What do you think? It's just not nearly as useful if it isn't updated daily. --LMS

Maintenance
We should probably give up on daily updates. My latest idea on keeping current events maximally useful given the present personnel is to generate lists of links relevant to Yahoo's list of Full Coverage topics. If anyone's game, this would be a great service... --LMS
 * If there'd be a way to get just the big topics from some website automatically each day and append them to the current events as topics, it might motivate prople to write about such topics. --Magnus Manske


 * I'd tend to agree with Magnus - maintaining a page such as this manually is crazy, and will inevitably lead to some events being ommitted (as the Gaza City bombing of July 22 2002 was omitted)


 * "These entries should be edited with an eye to historicity..." (My italics)

Does this mean "factual accuracy", "put into correct historical perspective", "put here only if it looks like it will become history", or what? What is the ideal relationship between the Current events page and history?

--Ryguasu

"Historicity"
The OED's only definition of "historicity" is about having to do with history as opposed to fiction or legend. (For example, the question "What is the historicity of the Gospel of John?" asks whether the events that John describes actually occured, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate the book may be with respect to its theological points.) It seems doubtful that this is what we really mean to say. &mdash; Toby 04:33 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)

It seems we should be archiving this by moving the page to December 2002 (thus moving the history), and then creating a "new" Current events page. That way, we start with a fresh "history" every month. The current history log is pretty full. Thoughts? - RobLa 06:22 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. Maybe we should write up the procedure at the top of this talk page. -- Tarquin 10:46 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC) --
 * 1) edit this page to copy the header text
 * 2) move this page to "month year"
 * 3) go back to "Current events"
 * 4) edit it to remove the redirect & paste the header text


 * Done. - RobLa 07:13 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)

A very long history is not a good reason for this. We simply need a better way to display history that is similar to Recent Changes instead of displaying possibly thousands of versions all at once. I moved the history back because of this and due to the fact that the page count follows the history. See Talk:December 2002. --mav

Trimmed from Iraq:


 * (a more or less direct quote from a Reuters article: removed)

Needed article
There should be an article on the recent INS "special registrations" required by the Bush administration for Middle Eastern and North Korean males age 16 and over. Any thoughts on a good title? INS Special Registrations, maybe?

Comment
I was laying in bed thinking about getting up and heard the boom, noticed the windows rattle and knew something unusual had happened. I noted the time, turned on the TV and about 10 minutes the later the news started pouring in from all the networks about the space shuttle. Very tragic. B

Re UK's Iraq dossier. They presented the document as the latest British intelligence, and it turns out they copied it without permission from a 12-year-old thesis by a Californian student. The thing wasn't what they said it was, by a long chalk. They misrepresented it in a scandalous way. It was fraud. I am restoring the word "fraud". --GrahamN 19:32 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)


 * [remark by Mintguy] (the word FRAUD implies deliberate deception, it is too POV.)


 * It was certainly a deception. If it wasn't deliberate, the implication is that they have no idea what they are doing.  I suppose this may well be the case.  I'll split the difference, with "plagiarism".  --GrahamN 19:50 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)
 * Well as Downing street's advocate for the moment, they say that they never claimed exclusive authorship of the information contained within it. They claim that the information itself is accurate, if this is true then there is no fraud as such. "Plagiarism" is much better. Nice one. :) Mintguy


 * Hang on you put word-for-word bak. The examples I've seen were not word-for-word in more than a few phrases. See -http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2736149.stm - The wording has been changed. Mintguy


 * OK. GrahamN 20:21 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)
 * Hold on...
 * "These shifting appointments are part of Saddam's policy of balancing security positions" (UK gov't dossier)
 * "These shifting appointments are part of Saddam's policy of balancing security positions" (Thesis by Ibrahim al-Marashi)
 * I think I'll say "in parts word-for-word". GrahamN
 * Looks good now. Mintguy

United States military officials anonymously confirm to the Washington Post that two Special Forces units have been operating on the ground inside Iraq for over a month, making preliminary preparations for a large-scale invasion. -- I heard this news item over a week ago. Why's it taking so long to get to the Washington Post? They're in the Kurdish area. -- Zoe --

"1.0 mio"
What the heck does "1.0 mio" supposed to mean? One million? One thousand? One person named "mio"? --mav

I think it means "million". The Anome

Not that I object to the article at all, but "600 cities"? Did anyone actually count them? -- Zoe
 * It number is being quoted by all the news organisations in Europe. Many indeed stress more than 600. JTD 00:24 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

I think it's not demonstrating against the USA planning of war against Iraq, it's also against others supporting this plan or contributing to it. -- JeLuF

NPOV?

 * Austria bars USA military units involved in the attack on Iraq from entering into or flying over its territories without a UN mandate to attack Iraq.

This little snipplet sounds like being NPOV. But is it? Austria considers itself a neutral state. It only allows military units entering its territory if it's a UN-mission. This is no new situation, and the US should have known the outcome of their request. Reducing news to one line is a very difficult task. -- JeLuF


 * It's certainly not NPOV according to Wikipedia's own lengthy definition and high standards for the exact reasons given above by JeLuF, but: It's true (soundbite like though), so there is no need to change it. Actually, I wanted to add a question about something altogether different, and I'm going to do so ...

tense
...here: I like this page, but couldn't we decide on a general rule which tense to use? Switching from past tense to present tense and back again makes me slightly uncomfortable. --KF 19:06 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * Most entries seem to be in the present tense, which I think is most suitable here -- Tarquin 20:47 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * Also once the page has been transferred to our monthly archive? (As always, this is not a rhetorical question.) --KF 22:13 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * The present tense is only correct on the day it is written. The archived articles will presumably be kept in perpetuity, so unless someone re-writes everything as it is archived it seems to me to be obvious that we should encourage the use of the past tense on this page.  GrahamN 16:31 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)


 * Not so. There is a usage of the present tense known as the historic present: "1066 -- William invades Britain". -- Tarquin 16:35 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)


 * Such usage exists, true. Thank you for telling me its proper name.  It is mainly used by exitable self-promoting historians, who seem to think that it gives their prose some kind of compelling immediacy, when in fact it is just deeply irritiating.  One of the strengths of English when compared with other modern languages is the subtle range of tenses that are available.  Deliberately to discard them all for some spurious sense of percieved immediacy, is folly.  These historians frequently get themselves tied up in knots and find themselves forced to revert to the various forms of past tense to express the idea that one thing happened before or after another thing which itself had happened in the past.  I have more than once had to turn off an otherwise enthralling radio or TV documentary because the use of what I call the Excitable Historian Tense made it literally unbearable.  NO! NO! A thousand times NO!  GrahamN 17:02 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)


 * The problem with it is that it drives me up the wall. Surely I am not alone in this?  Back me up here someone, please!  GrahamN 17:35 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

Wel,, I dont know exactly what the hubub is about, but I'm quite familiar with the Excitable Historian Tense. Been victimized by it myself... The mamby pamby pomp that comes with a higher degree often outweighs logic, reason, and even literacy. &#35918&#30505


 * Fowler: ''The historic present has been used in English since at least the 13th century and, debatably even in Old English. -- Tarquin 11:56 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

I just changed the "200 voted for the amendement" thing to "199", but now I've done it, I'm not so sure. They were saying 199 last night, but they were also saying 121 Labour MPs, where now it's 122, so maybe the 199 has become 200 as well. There was an ill labour MP who confused the whole thing, I think, maybe it has something to do with that. Anyway, if my change is wrong, apologies, and change it back. While I'm at it, was this really the biggest rebellion for 100 years? I've not heard that anywhere else (which doesn't mean it's not true, of course, but you'd think people would mention it - maybe I've not been listening properly). --Camembert


 * To further confuse matters, The Grauniad says 198. I'm sure they said 199 in the Commons last night though. --Camembert

See for yourself :-)


 * I got the figure of 200 voting for the amendment from my copy of The Independent from 27 February, but I see they now say 199 on their web-site. "The biggest rebellion for 100 years" I heard on Radio 5.  The Independent article says it "is believed to be the biggest revolt by MPs from a governing party in Britain.".  This seems to say it is possibly the biggest ever.  The Grauniad article says "The scale of the revolt, the biggest within a governing party for more than a century ...", but its headline is "Biggest ever revolt against a government"  Why this vagueness, I wonder?  GrahamN 15:34 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Removed this;


 * A paper claiming a proof of the Riemann hypothesis is published on arXiv.org. If correct, this would be a solution of one of the Millennium Prize Problems.

because the paper linked to appears to have been last updated on 5 November 2002, and thus hardly seems to be "current"... if I'm wrong, feel free to revert. - Khendon 15:44 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

1: Two of Osama bin Laden's alleged sons are reported by Pakistani officials to have been arrested in southern Afghanistan.
 * The sons are *not* alleged, the arrests are. It isn't debated that Saad bin Laden is the son of Osama, it is debated whether he has been arrested.

2: The Nikkei benchmark hit a 20-year low record as investers fear potential Iraq war in the near weeks.
 * Implying a "cause" to the motion of a stock market is almost always an insertion of POV. There are other things going on in Japan that are effecting the Nikkei.

3: Cuban President Fidel Castro is elected unopposed to a sixth term. He is already the world's longest ruling head of government, in power for 44 years.
 * The King of Thailand (among others) has been in power longer than Fidel.


 * Most politicians and political scientists distinguish between a head of state and a head of government. Fidel Castro is both.  But the King of Thailand is a head of state, not a head of government.  Thailand has a constitutional monarchy in which a prime minister is head of government.  The current head of government of Thailand has been in power for about two years -- far far shorter than Fidel Castro. Slrubenstein


 * Fair enough. I suppose that rules out Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Monico as counterexamples as well.  I still think "..is already the world's longest ruling..." can imply he is the longest who ever lived.  Perhaps the word "currently" or "living" could be worked in a rephrase.

Removed the word "despite" which linked action of the Japanese government and Japanese media polls. POV inherent in this usage of "despite" due to implication that one should effect the other.


 * I don't see how "despite" is POV. But I've left it out. The two are linked, so I've put them back into 1 item -- Tarquin 20:35 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)


 * Hi Tarq. I'll comment here on how "despite" is POV, and then I'll try another version of the news items. Imagine the following headline:


 * The United States government continues to prepare for a War in Iraq, despite actor Sean Penn being completely opposed to such a war.

If some author wrote the above, besides in an ironic sense, it would demonstrate a POV that somehow Sean Penn's opinion SHOULD influence the actions of the United States government. Similarly, the news item in question has a POV that somehow the results of the opinion polls, or perhaps public opinion itself, SHOULD influence the actions of the Japanese government. Removing the word "despite" somewhat alleviates this POV, but it is still implied. Your new edit is akin to the following


 * The United States government continues to prepare for a War in Iraq. However, Sean Penn is completely opposed to such a war.

The POV is still there, just muted. Put in a completely different way, suppose someone wrote the following as a factual statement in an article "Governments should obey the will of their people". You would see that as a POV, wouldn't you? Well, the headline, as written, implies that precise POV.

What I'll try this time is separating two items again as separate facts, and this time link them to news stories that are specific to each fact.


 * It's not POV -- a democratic government by its very definition should obey the will of the populace -- Tarquin 21:25 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)


 * Tarq, I respectively disagree on several grounds. Ground one, Japan is a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral parliament, not a "democracy".  (ok, I know that one is a matter of semantics and is a weak argument).  Ground two, a democracy isn't the same as mob rule.  Even in a well functioning democratically elected representative system, sometimes the government is going to disagree with the majority.  Ground three, even if one accepts that the government should *always* obey the will of the people, that doesn't mean that one would have to accept that the poll in question accurately judged the will of the people.


 * On the other hand, it's a fact that most governments in democratic countries pay a good deal of attention to opinion polls. It's therefore a matter of interest when a government acts in a way that goes againt poll results. Yes, one can interpret it as the japanese govt "going against the will of the people". One can also interpret it as the Japanese govt "not bowing to public opinion" and "engaging in conviction politics" and "taking the long view". The reader will make up hir own mind, so I don't think we need to have seperate bullet points. Martin

- I suggest include http://www.indymedia.org like source to obtain news, because is a wiki brother project.Mac

Just to satisfy my curiosity: What does "Leader of the House of Commons" mean? I thought that either the Prime Minister or the Speaker would be the Leader. What are the Leader's duties? -- Zoe


 * It says here: http://www.parliament.uk or possibly here: http://www.explore.parliament.uk:


 * "The Leader of the House of Commons is the member of the Government who is responsible for organising Government business in the Commons. The Leader of the House is a member of the Cabinet and works closely with the Chief Whip. The Leader's formal title is President of the (Privy) Council.


 * Among the Leader's duties is to tell the Commons about its business for the following week or two. This is done every Thursday."


 * So, to answer your other points, it's not the PM because he is too busy doing whatever it is that PMs do, and it's not the Speaker because they are politically neutral - they manage the whole House whereas the Leader is a government post. Hope this helps, Nevilley 08:30 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

Why did you delete the news report of foreign troops attacking Iraqs main port. Do you think that it does not qualify as news, or do you think that is not true? Or do you object to the term "invasion", in which case you could have changed it to "attacked Iraqs main port" Inquiring minds want to know --snoyes 23:14 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)


 * The posting claimed "US invasion of Iraq is launched", and although that headline may be correct before the day is over, it appears a premature announcement at this time. The attack reported by the Evening Standard hasn't been confirmed by any sources other than those quoting the Standard.  Assuming the attack occurred, it would be a prelude to invasion. -º¡º

Hello. The page is over 32K. We should make it shorter since there is still 10 days left in March. I suggest to put the links to archives on another page. Any other suggestion ? -- Youssefsan 10:28 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)


 * EEEK! I thought Wikipedia is not CNN! I guess we will have to archive the first week or two. --mav


 * No, because then March 2003 will be over 32K, which isn't good...


 * How is that a problem? The page won't get edited very often once March 2003 is over with. --mav


 * Not true. Months from now and years from now, stories that we currently don't know about will come to light and wikizens will add more to March 2003. How about we split it into two: March 1-15, 2003 and March 16-31, 2003? Kingturtle 06:11 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)


 * If we must. --mav


 * Ugh. I really dislike this idea - it means that to link to the particular month article you need to know how much current events there was in that month! Martin


 * Another solution would be to cut the '2003 invasion of Iraq' stuff from March 2003 and put it all in 2003 Iraq war timeline . Kingturtle 06:24 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)


 * This is a more pleasing solution. :) Martin


 * I support this. But we need to make if very clear that non-war related stuff goes here and war related stuff goes on 2003 Iraq war timeline. --mav 20:28 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

- Given the number of major news stories that have developed from very little or incorrect information and are later retracted, I think we should be careful and wait a while before reporting on "breaking news." We should also have a discussion on this at Media Bias. --mav - Many of the current events posted are sloppy. In each current event, every proper noun *must* be hyperlinked once. Consideration *must* be made for hyperlinking other nouns involved in the story. Side details *must* be left out. Side details can be elaborated on other articles to which the current event hyperlinks. Each current event *must* be concise, with as few adjectives as possible. I am going to clean some of this up. Kingturtle 01:57 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)
 * Moreover, any current event that is longer than two or three sentences should be re-evaluated, and possibly re-edited. Think of ways to create hyperlinks to other articles to give further information, thusly shortening the length of all current events on the page, and assuring we can get the entire month to fit within 32k. Kingturtle 02:05 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)


 * The entries should be short but not nearly as short as the events in a standard year page. This page is used to help develop articles on current events. For example people kept on adding information here on Feb 1 when the shuttle disaster happened. After that part of the current events page got to be a few paragraphs then somebody moved most of that text to a separate article and left a brief summary here. So we should not be too dogmatic about how long the entries should be. --mav


 * thanks for explaining. makes sense. Kingturtle 02:39 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

- Why were several events from March 29th taken away? --66.47.86.47 04:49 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)

Some of them were quite minor events. But the removal should not be marked as a minor edit. User:Athypique

I removed an April 4 current event saying that rumors continued regarding the death of Saddam Hussein. Rumors have no place on the current events page. Furthermore, what is specific to April 4 for such rumors? Were there new allegations? Did the CIA release tape findings? Kingturtle 01:20 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)


 * Saddam appeared on TV on the 4th, and US intelligence "experts" said that it was Saddam, and it had probably been recorded after the assasination attempt.


 * 2003 invasion of Iraq: More than a dozen Coalition soldiers, a Knight Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman and two Iraqi prisoners of war are sent for chemical weapons decontamination after exhibiting symptoms of possible exposure to Sarin nerve agents while searching an Iraqi agricultural warehouse and a military compound. U.S. soldiers found 55-gallon chemical drums, hundreds of gas masks and chemical suits, along with large numbers of mortar and artillery rounds. Initial tests of the chemicals were positive, then a second test was done which came back negative. A third test, conducted by an Army Fox mobile nuclear, biological and chemical detection laboratory confirmed the existence of sarin.

Can we come up with a slightly less random and obscure source? If not, I don't think it should be here. - Khendon 13:40 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)


 * Assuming that such a momentus find would be #1 headline news - which it would just about have to be, then it looks very doubtful at this stage. It's not on CNN, it's not on NBC, it's not even on Fox. The ABC mentions that Knight-Ridder reported it, but only that.


 * I think we should remove it as, at this stage, it can't be classified as hard news. If some more sources pick it up and it starts to look like something other than a media beat-up - and some pretty minor media at that - then it can go back in, properly attributed. Tannin 13:59 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)


 * From MSNBC: About two miles away, tests indicated the presence of GB, or sarin, in what was apparently a training camp. But sarin is also used in low levels in pesticides, which were found at the camp, so it is not clear if the facility is a nerve agent site or merely an agricultural facility. Tannin

What is the wiki-standard for tense in current events and timelines? My personal preference is past tense. Kingturtle 17:50 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)


 * The standard is present tense since the context is the indicated date. --mav

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