User:Cerejota/A considered view on current events

It is true that Wikipedia is not a news organization. This doesn't meant that no current events are covered, but it does mean we should have care when doing so. Since news travels faster and in a larger volume on the internet, and this encyclopedia is edit and published in the internet, it is natural to assume that anything that is news on the internet belongs in Wikipedia. This natural tendency must be tempered by the goals of this encyclopedia, and its community consensus as reflected in policies and guidelines.

Here we attempt to provide a considered view on current events intended to reflect a community-wide consensus on the topic of news, and in support of our existing policies and guidelines.

How we are different from news organizations
Key differences between our goals and those of news organizations:
 * We take depth and quality over broadness and quantity - we are not technically limited to store information, but we have chosen (or rather, the Wikimedia Foundation and predecessors chose) to limit our selves to a certain scope. In the same way dedicated news sources do not have in-depth articles on the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, we do not provide you with news on the tragic death of two people getting hurt in Brooklyn. Likewise, a news organization is economically pressured to always have new information in order to attract new readers to generate revenue, we do not have such economic pressure (at least as editors - the Foundation we are sure is always happy to get your donation - give often, please!). This biases coverage towards volume and quantity, often with only bare attention provided to quality beyond copy editing and basic fact checking, and even in news sources of great prestige, little thought is given to the historical impact of the news reported. We on the other hand only care about events of historic significance.
 * Notability is not notoriety - Notability in wikipedia is not subject solely on the notoriety of a topic. Few have heard of the 2007–2008 Nazko earthquakes, and even few news sources have covered the topic, and its article in Wikipedia was created long after then happened. Yet they are clearly notable, receiving deep coverage as an "earthquake swarm" in which hundreds of earthquakes happened in a few hours. The same day this article was created, the news about a minor mishap in a the United Airlines Flight 634 - an issue with significant coverage in the US media - was put up for deletion, and then deleted after an overwhelming consensus to delete.
 * Notability is not lost - Notability in wikipedia is not subject to the speed of the news cycle. A news organization will often heavily report on a subject and then give it up when it is no longer of interest to their customers. Wikipedia doesn't care if an article is popular or rarely visited, it does care that the topic be notable enough for inclusion on an encyclopedia. We might delete as non-notable articles present for a long time, not agree if something is notable or not and even re-evaluate our previous judgement of notability, but notability itself is never revoked - rarely once a topic is found notable is this topic then not found notable. News organizations often have very short memories.
 * We are encyclopedia editors, not journalists or reporters - In Wikipedia, we are aggregators and collectors of reliably sourced and verifiabiable information, presented using a neutral point of view and subjected to a collaborative editing environment, and defined as an encyclopedia with a set of things we are not. We rely primarily on secondary sources for information, do not engage on original reasearch or perform synthesis of information. We also are conservative in terms ofbiographies of living people and take a long-view of events. All of our content is subject to a process of revision at any point, and we have no deadline. We also lack accountability to a printed or published edition. Those who create content in news organizations, journalists and reporters (and interns who want to be either), have as a goal to inform and report the events their bosses assigned them. They use mostly primary sources, are subject to the editorial line of their organization, and often uncritically repeat information without the need to verify. For example, news organizations often employ filler, such as slightly re-worked press releases from companies, fluff pieces, or shallow human interest stories. Even with actual news, journalists and reporters are trained to follow the events as they happen with little care for context or depth of analysis. News organizations often also have opinion pieces, such as editorials that rather than inform on news, provide the perspective of the editorial line of the organization on a given current event, or provide op-eds that invite others to give their opinion on the news. Other than in these opinion pieces, most news organizations presume to provide their customers with a vision of the truth of a given event - and while this pursuit is often colored with the editorial line, it is a goal all news organizations claim to have. Journalists and reporters also have deadlines that limit the amount of time they have to publish something, and rarely can revise, even online, whatever they publish.

Encyclopedic current events are not the same as journalistic news
Encyclopedias in general have a bias to the basics of knowledge (such as Earth or Physics), that is, information that is not expected to change in any fundamental way for a long time, and for which any update would be a significant undertaking. In general, traditional paper encyclopedias edited by professionals (such as Encyclopædia Britannica) included, between full editions, contemporary event information in the form of a regularly published addenda to the full encyclopedia, usually yearly but with varying frequency, along with special addenda in the case of significant historical information that affected multiple entries (such as the Dissolution of the Soviet Union).

They also share with Wikipedia in being different from news organisations in that they also focus on depth and quality over broadness and quantity, which meant their coverage of events was guided by the same principles as we do. The fundamental difference is that since we are neither edited by paid experts, nor a paper encyclopedia, we do not need to wait for publishing. All things being equal, we can deliver articles on current events as fast as the news organizations publish their news.

Sorting what is worthy then is much more complicated than in a paper encyclopedia. Since we are not forced by our tools to wait, our natural impulse is to not wait, which can lead to a lack of thoughtfulness in terms of notability. It is important that the primary consideration, when including current events to have in mine the difference between those worthy of encyclopedic coverage, and those who are simply in the forefront because it is a slow news day.

Identifying notable current events from news
Notable events of a global interest are relatively easy to identify. Not only is the quantity and quality of the coverage significant, but they are unusual and unexpected.

For example, there is not doubt, when they happened, that the 2011 Norway attacks were a notable event of global significance. This was not simply news, but a clear current event of clear-cut encyclopedic worth. A massive earthquake, a mass killing, significant military conflicts, massive unprecedented protests, massive riots and such are all good candidates for encyclopedic coverage. On the other end of the spectrum, lie pedestrian news items, listed at WP:NEWS.

Often, we fail in our views, and an item not considered notable actually gains definitive notability with time. Nothing is lost then. The inverse, however can be embarrassing, and can lead to orphaned or generally low quality articles (for example 2006 Luham bus crash) that cannot be possibly improved.

Some common things in notable events
While even notable events might not be immediately obvious, those events who are notable tend to share a number of things in common:
 * Wide-spread global coverage - Here quantity is a quality of its own. National coverage is often not notable, but if an event travels across borders and does so in quantity, the chances are the event is notable.
 * Uniqueness of circumstance - The sources will usually tell you outright why an event is notable, even in words or images. Uniqueness is usually a mark of notability. If the news organization are stressing the circumstances even over the actual facts of the event, the chances are the event is notable.
 * Evident historical categorization - Look at previous notable events of the same category and compare them to the event at hand. If the even is natural disaster, look at other natural disasters, if it is a murder, look at other murders, and so on. If the event at hand fits neatly among those categorized with it, the chances are the event is notable.
 * Meets WP:NEVENTS without question - It is notable, no question.

Some common things in non-notable events

 * Heavy rotation with no new information or entirely local/national - Even a heavily covered news item might not be notable. If there is a heavy volume, but not real change in information or if the event has no significant independent coverage outside of the local or national arena, the chances are the event is not notable.
 * The circumstances are pedestrian or based on sensationalism - Regular news items often make no claim of uniqueness of the information, rather focus on the facts; they are also often subjected to sensationalism and "yellow journalism" and focus on sensational but hardly notable facts. If the news are of similar to police blotter and gossip columns, the chances are the event is not notable.
 * Doesn't compare with previous notable events - Look at previous notable events of the same category and compare them to the event at hand. If the event at hand looks less historic than among those categorized with it, the chances are the event is not notable.
 * Doesn't meet WP:GNG and/or WP:NEVENTS without question. - It is not notable, no question.

Wide coverage is not notability
When considering current events, the general notability and event notability criteria are often a source of debate. In particular, the significant coverage clauses come into effect. Both arguing for delete or keep this clause becomes controversial, and is often misunderstood. Significant, in this case, is not only quantity but quality - and by quality we mean quality for an encyclopedia.

When considering a current even for inclusion as a stand-alone article, often there is a lot of quantity, but not a lot of quality. In those cases, it seems there is no notability.

However, a lack of a significant quantity of coverage is usually a sign of not having significance.

There is a line, don't ignore it
That a line exists is significant