Template talk:ITN candidate

"Give credit"
Shouldn't the person that should get credit be the updater(s), which is not necessarily the nominator? – H T  D  16:03, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Upgrade
I am working on an upgrade for this template in the sandbox. Ideas for improvement: Some examples in Template:ITN candidate/testcases, but not finished yet. Comments welcome. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:07, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Better use of space
 * More attractive design
 * Show the various statuses, such as "ready", "posted", "pulled", etc. Different background colors could be used for each status, if desired.

Accomodate Ongoing and Recent Deaths
In the News now allows nominations for Ongoing or Recent Deaths (RD), both of which are simply links on the main page and do not have a blurb. It would be appreciated if a template-oriented editor could modify this to accept Blurb as an optional field, if Ongoing or RD is specified. In addition to the optional "Blurb:", text below would also state "This is a nomination for an ongoing event" or "This is a nomination for a recent death" similar to how it currently displays ITN/R items. An example of where this feature could be used is. Mamyles (talk) 19:53, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


 * How is this (change is currently sandboxed): Template:ITN candidate/testcases --hydrox (talk) 20:42, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks good, thanks hydrox! I especially like how blurbs all show up as Alt. I've cross-posted these suggested updates to ITN forums, so please wait a few days to allow more comments before migrating to mainspace. Mamyles (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks good; a sensible change.  Spencer T♦ C 01:53, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to migrate this change to mainspace from sandbox. Thanks again for your help here. Mamyles (talk) 18:11, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright, it's now live :) --hydrox (talk) 11:12, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Credit for ITN
Does one get credit for an ITN item in the manner DYK does, i.e. with a message on the user talk page? AshLin (talk) 11:41, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion about additional functionality for this template
At Wikipedia talk:In the news it is proposed to add a section to this template to accommodate all types of nomination and to set the template background colour based on which of four categories of nomination it is. Comments from those with opinions on this, and from those with template coding skills, are welcome at the linked discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 12:25, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

altblurbs 3 and 4
I've added support for altblurbs 3 and 4 to this template, altblrub3 has been attempted on at least two occasions I'm aware of prior to now. I don't think I have broken anything, but if I have please feel free to revert. Thryduulf (talk) 12:52, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

[Done] Add a link to article talk page
Is it possible to add a link to the article talk page, next to the article link? It may be relevant to view recent threads posted there. Aiken D 16:42, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm sure it's possible but what's the benefit? I really have yet to need the article(s) talk pages to determine the merit for ITN posting, since it's evaluated on the news sources and quality of the article. --M ASEM (t) 16:56, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It may be more relevant for recent deaths. ITN candidates are obviously going to be relatively unstable due to their being current events, but recent death biographies may have had ongoing issues prior to death, being discussed on the talk page. Aiken D 17:00, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * A quick check of the code shows we coudl use the la or La-abbr templates that append a number of page check things after the article name (which includes the talk page link). But we should get consensus to add those first. --M ASEM (t) 17:06, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Either would work for me. As you say though, let's wait and see what other people think. Aiken D 18:01, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think we need all the links that the la or la-abbr templates generate: However "talk" is definitely useful and I support that. "History", "Logs" and "views" are possibly useful and I don't object to including them if others want. I do think the "edit", "history", "protect", "delete" and "watch" links are superfluous here and I prefer they not be included. My preference is for words not abbreviations. Thryduulf (talk) 22:51, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * adds:
 * adds:
 * It is relatively easy to copy the template and reduce to just providing "talk" at minimum, though I would also recommend "history" (since ITN is about if a topic has been updated, that's a quick check). I agree the other points are unneeded for 99.9% of the ITN stories, but "Talk" and "history" have more common use. --M ASEM  (t) 23:16, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I've changed my mind about "history" and now definitely want to see it added - especially for ongoing (removal) candidates it's an important thing to check if the article is being regularly updated. Thryduulf (talk) 12:40, 16 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I've pinged the main WT:ITN talk page to get more input on this. It is a trivially easy functionality addition but I'd like more eyes before doing it. --M ASEM (t) 14:01, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Sounds fine to me. I'm not sure you need permission to make Wikipedia better.  If you think this makes Wikipedia better, go for it.  -- Jayron 32 14:40, 16 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Seems like a change that might be of minor help to some. If it's easy to implement I can't see a downside. Please check it renders OK on mobile devices etc. before permanently changing. --LukeSurlt c 15:28, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Adding "talk" and "history" links seems useful. Thanks for the notification at WT:ITN. BencherliteTalk 17:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Test case worked out here: User:Masem/ITNtestcases, and seems fine in mobile view. --M ASEM (t) 17:52, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I've made a slight tweak (put the links in a the same as  uses and that seems to work on desktop, Android browser and Android app (I don't have any apple devices). However (probably unrelated) your test template isn't showing ongoing proposals correctly. Thryduulf (talk) 20:13, 16 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:20, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for creating this, it looks great. Aiken D 21:27, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I have updated the template with mine and Thryduulf's update; both the /testcases and the current ITN/C page seem all good. --M ASEM (t) 17:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

remove "give credit" link for ongoing removal nominations
On Masem's testcases page Bencherlite asks if we could remove the "give credit" link next to the nominator's name when the nomination is for the removal of an item from ongoing. How it currently appears: 

This seems like a sensible idea to me, but (a) I don't know how to do it, and (b) we should probably get agreement from more than just the two of us before doing so. Thryduulf (talk) 20:42, 16 May 2017 (UTC)


 * To outline how to do it: ITN candidate/user needs updating to have a parameter that if present, removes the "give credit" link. Subsequently, the ITNC template then needs updating to include a switch block based on the ongoing parameter calls the user template with or without this parameter. Fully doable, but needs a bit of step-wise testing.
 * Separately, I do support this as well. --M ASEM (t) 20:47, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Blurbs that start with italics
A minor error occurs if the blurb starts with italics, e.g.:

Image generates lint error: Bogus file options
There seems to be a bug in this template that whenever the image parameter is used, it generates a Lint error: Bogus file options, probably an empty parameter, two pipes with or without a space between them, like one of these: For example, of In the news/Candidates has 3 Bogus file options errors, one for each of the three nominations using an image parameter. —Anomalocaris (talk) 23:34, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Pinging David Levy who wrote the sub-template Template:ITN candidate/image. Fuebaey (talk) 14:56, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you mean, not a dab page... BencherliteTalk 21:58, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed, I think. Jc86035 (talk) 10:33, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Jc86035: That seems to have taken care of it, thanks! —Anomalocaris (talk) 16:17, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Change to ITNRD boilerplate
I'd like to suggest changing the directions for RDs that appear on ITNC ("the nomination of any individual...whose recent death is in the news is presumed") from "in the news" to "reliably sourced." For non-RD ITNCs, there is some consideration of if the story is widely and prominently being reported, and this concept is often referred to as being "in the news." One might (and I did) presume that reports in very small (yet reliable) resources might not make the grade. WP:ITNRD itself uses "reliably sourced." I recognize this is a very small problem, but it also feels like a very small change. GCG (talk) 12:24, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree, changing the wording to "reliably sourced" seems reasonable. Mamyles (talk) 19:41, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * This seems reasonable. The consensus of the RfC was that all deaths of individuals with articles qualify, and did not really address how the death was reported. --LukeSurlt c 22:28, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Revert of changes
please can you discuss your revert to this template? That was the result of quite a lot of work and involves several changes (see /sandbox history). Regarding your edit summary it is quite common for new articles to be written about newsworthy events. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:08, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm planning to reimplement my changes shortly. If you have a problem with any part of them, please discuss here or revert that part only. Wholesale reversion is not constructive ;) &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:18, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've not had time to look into this until now. Your changes actually are not improvement, for instance you changed the "nominator" line to become:
 * This doesn't look right at all. Who are "contributing editors"? All editors of a particular article are contributors to it and it's impractical to list all within that box and how can you choose who to list and who not list? Besides that, it's redundant to nominator and a times a nominator may not have edited the article even once which renders the above line, introduced by your changes, factually incorrect. Second, you added new "creator" parameter, I repeat what I said in the edit summary, article creator is not relevant to ITN nomination and that's why it has never been considered important to add. For instance George Pell is currently at ITN/C, I don't think I need to tell you it's utter pointless to list this IP which created it in 2004 and last edited in 2006, eons ago. Then finally, you need to have consensus to reimplement your changes or even to make major changes like that in the first place, when there's disagreement about any content, the longstanding version takes precedence until there's consensus to change it. So please if you disagree with my explanation, find consensus for your change, and preferably in the better-watched WT:ITN not here. Thanks. –Ammarpad (talk) 04:33, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * your comments are coming over a bit aggressive; not sure if you intended that. You don't need to remind me how WP:BRD works, and I am quite happy to discuss the changes. I hope we can reach agreement here, but if not I will certainly advertise the discussion at WT:ITN.
 * Currently the nominator, updater, and updater2 all appear on separate lines which is untidy. My main aim was to improve this by putting them all on one line using hlist. Personally I think it looks much better like that.
 * If you don't like contributing editors I am happy to change it, if you have a better suggestion. Or we can remove that part altogether. (I used it as a heading to match the format of the other information in the template.)
 * With the space saved by the above change it is no longer necessary to use a smaller font. Again I think it looks much tidier to use the same font as other text in the template, but this is a very minor issue.
 * The nominator does indeed contribute to the process of getting content onto the main page, so if you view it in this broader sense it is not incorrect as you state.
 * As I said above, it is quite common for new articles to be written about newsworthy events. In that case it does not make sense to credit them with updating an article if they have created the whole thing. I agree that this parameter is not relevant to older articles.
 * As a general point I think we should be quite liberal with recognising any contributions from editors. It doesn't cost anything and it may encourage them to participate further. I would be open to adding more updater fields if it were deemed appropriate. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:35, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Nope, I don't mean to be aggressive, and apologies If I gave you that impression. Nuances are easily lost in written communication.
 * Frankly, I think they're better at separate lines. Every parameter on the template stands on its own line and that's neater.
 * It's not I don't like it issue, I said it's confusing/and a times inaccurate. For every nomination there must be only "one" nominator and few updaters. But "contributing editors" quite encompasses any editor whoever contributed to the article. It's impractical to list all contributors, therefore we shouldn't introduce header that will lead to redefinition of "contributing editors."
 * I don't mean the state of this template is perfect, but it is generally OK as it is and I believe major changes that change parameter and/or the way it looks should be discussed beforehand. I am not pinging you, I assume you're watching this page. Thanks. –Ammarpad (talk) 12:01, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't mean the state of this template is perfect, but it is generally OK as it is and I believe major changes that change parameter and/or the way it looks should be discussed beforehand. I am not pinging you, I assume you're watching this page. Thanks. –Ammarpad (talk) 12:01, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I disagree that it this info is neater on separate lines. Please look again at the two examples below. (I have removed "contributing editors" for now.) &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:30, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Proposed
OK, I agree with the proposed one with one minor fix: If there are more than one updater, we should join them with a conjunction rather than using "Updated by" repeatedly: Created and nominated by Example (talk • give credit) • Updated by Example2 (talk • give credit) and Example3 (talk • give credit)
 * I have implemented the agreed code (without "contributing editors") and will work on putting the "and" in the code shortly &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:05, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ Merged updaters into one &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:58, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Then, regarding creator parameter, what happen if the nominator is not the article creator, like the majority of our articles created over a decade ago. –Ammarpad (talk) 16:52, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * What happens is that the nominator and creator will be listed separately &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:05, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Add an small article transclusion
People don't seem to actually be bothered to click on the link of the nominated article, so would it be a good idea to add a small box that loads the content of the article? E.g.:

 Nixinova   T   C   01:00, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is a great idea. Clicking the link is easiest. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:42, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Level 3 or Level 4 headings?
Minor nitpick... In the news/Candidates/header states Use a level 4 header (====) when nominating items. The edit notice at ITNC mentions use a level 4 heading (===) (note it's only 3 equal signs despite saying "level 4"). The syntax inside the copy & paste box is using a level 3 heading. Which would be correct, level 3 or level 4? –FlyingAce✈hello 15:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * They are supposed to be H4 (the archiving bot requires that). just recently changed those without notice, which I've fixed/reverted back to H4 --M asem  (t) 15:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

New parameter
I have added a new "updaters" parameter which will replace the following with I am confident you will agree this is much easier! It will fail if there is a username with a comma in it, but I think these are extremely rare. Currently it will support up to three updaters (as per previous parameters), but I am planning to increase to 5 or even 10. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:44, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * updater      = Hanif Al Husaini
 * updater2     = Yorkshiresky
 * updater3     = Michael Drew
 * updaters     = Hanif Al Husaini, Yorkshiresky, Michael Drew
 * I have added support up to 5. I think that will be more than enough. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:35, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Martin, you need to update the documentation and the edit text on ITN/C. Stephen 01:22, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I thought that was already done? If you see something I've missed, let me know. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:53, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * All looks good. Stephen 11:36, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Link to tag
I have added a link to allow editors to easily add ITN note to the talk page of a nominated article, e.g.

&mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:43, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Allowing two nominators
Just had an unusual situation crop up. I nominated the Mostert's Mill article at ITN, and nominated the Table Mountain Fire (2021) article separately. merged the two noms into one, leaving Mike Peel as the nominator. It seems that there is no way that two nominators can be credited on the template, meaning I cannot get a nominator's credit if the article is posted. Is it possible to fix this by adding a  parameter to the template? Mjroots (talk) 17:56, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't care about credit, if you want to recorded as the nominator then go for it. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:58, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I sorted out the credit for Mike Peel. Now, back to the request above... Mjroots (talk) 20:43, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Caption text overflowing
The image caption text is sometimes overflowing the box, as here. Could someone code a fix so this stops happening? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 20:50, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Look better now? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:36, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Caption?
It's not clear how you're supposed to specify the caption. There's no caption parameter and the image parameter comment says "Name of image only; do not link.". Andrew🐉(talk) 12:29, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The caption parameter is accepted, but it was undocumented &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:44, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Help
@MSGJ, can you help me understand what is wrong with ur:ویکیپیڈیا:خبروں میں/امیدوار. If you scroll down the page and see the ITN nomination, the comments are getting messed up. I'm not sure where I made mistake but I have checked all the relevant syntaxes and I didn't anything missing. Ideas? I've translated the templates from here only. ─ The Aafī   (talk)  06:49, 26 January 2023 (UTC)


 * But I can notice the problem is with Template:ITN candidate because when I delete this, the comment mess up does not get displayed anymore. If I take the complete English version, this doesn't solve the problem. I thought I was missing any closing tag but I'm not able to find that either. ─ The Aafī   (talk)  06:57, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * When I add more on the page, it continues to get added there, what is missed in closing? That's what I can comprehend. Where is that closing tag located? @Amakuru - if you happen to have any idea. ─ The Aafī   (talk)  10:27, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand what the issue is... and it's also a bit difficult for me to see what's going on at the Urdu Wikipedia, as I don't speak that language and can't even read the script! Can you reproduce the issue you're seeing in a sandbox here at en-wiki at all? Thanks &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:38, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I can't help you. I cannot make any sense of what's on that page! &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @MSGJ and @Amakuru, I am facing two issues. The first on the ITN nominations page where I find comments on the nomination getting messed up. The way we have content on WP:ITN/C, I added the References section but it doesn't get added the same way as we have it here but gets all into the ITN nomination color. If you take a look at ITN English and the Urdu one at the end, you will get an idea what I'm talking about.
 * The second problem is about Urdu version of WP:ITN (ur:ویکیپیڈیا:خبروں میں where I added In the news stuff and ITNbox, and some explanatory lines but the result is that it all comes into one box and not into three the way we have it here. This suggests, I've somewhere missed adding closing tags on any template that is part of this system but I am not sure where?
 * Could you please help me with the links of necessary templates that make the WP:ITN and WP:ITN/C convenient. Best, ─ The Aafī   (talk)  10:49, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, I've spent a bit of time looking, probably as much as I can spend now... so looking at the rendered HTML, the Urdu page has three opening div tags and only one closing div tag, per candidate blcok. And it looks to me like the problem may be with the template at . This is the equivalent of the English Wiki's endflatlist, but it doesn't have the same code in it; instead it is a straight redirect to, which is the template for the beginning of the flatlist, i.e. flatlist. So my guess is, to correct the bug you'll have to amend the endflatlist template on ur-wiki to look something like the one on en-wiki, instead of it being a redirect. That template is protected so it won't let me edit it, but perhaps you'll be able to do so. If not, you may have to refactor the template to not use flat lists, which would be a bit more tricky. Cheers  &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 13:19, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Amakuru Thanks a lot. A single edit as you pointed out fixed all of the mess. ─ The Aafī   (talk)  15:13, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * ah that's great, glad I was able to help! It took me quite a bit of fiddling to get to grips with how to navigate and edit on a right-to-left script Wikipedia, but I enjoy having a problem to solve so all good fun. And thanks very much for the barnstar, that's much appreciated. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 15:51, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Could you please take a look here and let me know what is the problem with ITN image there? ─ The Aafī   (talk)  17:25, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Alt image option
I think that there should be an alt image option, in case one image's representation of a topic is in dispute or if people think that another image may be better. That and alt caption parameter for obvious reasons.  Crusader 1096  (talk) 22:07, 4 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Do we really need that in the template? Current practice is to suggest any alternative images in the discussion of each item, which seems to work well enough. Having a choice of images is rare anyway. Let's not make the template even more complicated without good reason. Modest Genius talk 16:05, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

WP:ITN/R & WP:ITNRD
Can I please make a request to have the text that indicates that recent deaths and recurring items are presumed to be important enough to post more noticeable? Too often people have missed that part of the nomination and supported or opposed based off personal opinion. Increasing font size and bolding should do a world of wonders. BangJan1999 15:01, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Remove signature paramter?
I see no reason why we can't just make the nominator append their signature after the template. This greatly simplifies replying and tools for replying. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:09, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Discussion of this is now at WT:ITN Aaron Liu (talk) 22:25, 12 November 2023 (UTC)