Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 100

Multiple US sports items
I'm disappointed that we have golf and NCAA champions at the same time. I don't mind the occasional sports ITN blurb, but I wish there was a guideline discouraging more than one at a time. I'm afraid it will attract more sports enthusiast !voters and get worse over time. Sandizer (talk) 12:45, 11 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia operates on consensus. —Bagumba (talk) 12:50, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I thought golf was a Scottish sport? Howard the Duck (talk) 13:03, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * And this tournament, while taking place in America, was won by a Spaniard!
 * Anyway, saying "I don't like that two things in the same field, which happen to be near each other on the calendar, are both on ITN simultaneously" is ridiculous, whether it's two sporting events or two elections or two Nobel Prizes or two anythings. Kicking222 (talk) 20:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It is a recurring issue that we do have on ITN which is that sports articles tend to have the most editors working on them, bringing them up to par and thus making them suitable for posting from a quality standpoint. One could also make the argument that WP:ITNR favors those types of sporting events by allowing them to bypass the significance standard, but these items are (usually) on ITNR in the first place because a firm consensus was reached a long time ago that these items didn't need to be debated every year. It can be a bit jarring to see sports items juxtaposed with disasters repeatedly, but right now as Bagumba says, that's as a result of the meta-consensus that ITN/C currently operates under. There's no way to ad hoc remove sporting events from ITN just based on saturation. --⛵ WaltClipper - (talk)  13:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * How is Golf a US sport?  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:09, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Is basketball a US sport? A Canadian invented it! Howard the Duck (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * And gridiron football? First played at the University College, Toronto, also in Canada! --⛵ WaltClipper - (talk)  13:17, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * What constituted as the first football game is subject to plenty of scholarly debate. Checkmate Cancucks! - Knightsoftheswords281  (Talk-Contribs) 04:14, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Basketball was not invented in Canada; James Naismith was born in Ontario, but emigrated to the United States and never returned. But like many other Canadian-American inventors, this has been spun by the Canadian patriotic industrial complex as Canada being responsible for basketball. The lengths Canadians go to try and claim people as their own merely because they were born there when they are American as apple pie is laughable. The great Canadian WaPo journalist and YouTuber JJ McCullough described this as the "Hotel California complex of Canadian identity;" you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave.
 * Or was this a giant joke that soared above my head? - Knightsoftheswords281  (Talk-Contribs) 04:12, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I said basketball was invented by a Canadian, not that it was invented in Canada. Heck Naismith coached at the most American of places (Kansas). Howard the Duck (talk) 06:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Point taken, but three out of the four men's championships are played in the US, including the Masters Tournament. I'm just suggesting that a multiplicity of sports blurbs may attract more sports enthusiasts, compounding their nominations and trivializing what is one of if not the most prominent public face here. Sandizer  (talk) 13:20, 11 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Sandizer: You could fix this. You just have to make sure that articles relevant to other news stories which are not U.S. sports are of a high enough quality to post on the main page.  A sizable amount of what gets nominated doesn't get posted because no one makes the articles good enough, and an even greater amount of candidates never get nominated at all.  The way to fix any kind of imbalance in coverage of topics is to improve other topics you find are under-represented.  There's really nothing, short of deliberately ruining the articles on American sports, that would make them not get posted.  That seems like a bad idea.  However, they would roll off the main page faster if people like you spent time improving a wider-range of article topics for us to post.  You don't need to do any of that, but understand that if you don't, nothing will happen to fix the problems you note. -- Jayron 32 13:22, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I don't think me improving Philippine college volleyball articles to FA standard will increase its chances of being posted here. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Picking an odd example where it is unlikely to get posted based on significance seems odd. Reliable news sources, by and large, do not cover Philippine college volleyball events. However, every day there are likely a half dozen candidate news stories which likely would pass any significance bar, and we don't post those stories mostly because they either a) are not nominated b) do not have a quality Wikipedia article to highlight.  You could pick any of those to improve and nominate at ITN instead.  Again, lobbing angry retorts about problems you see at ITN are easy, but ineffectual.  Fixing the problem yourself takes more effort, but has the benefit of actually working.  You get to decide which is more important to you, and ultimately which course of action (i.e. either angrily complaining OR improving encyclopedia articles) results in a better Wikipedia.  -- Jayron 32 14:42, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd be more inclined to believe your idealist language if not for the fact that the Boat Race was unnecessarily dragged through the muck both when it was removed from ITN/R and when it was nominated on ITN/C. Unfortunately, we have become increasingly hostile to such stories which don't meet our doggedly high significance threshold. I thought the Pentagon Papers 2023 leak would be a big deal due to its extensive news coverage, but people didn't seem to think so. But I'll go ahead and do an experiment; I'll nominate half a dozen bona fide stories each day that I think would be newsworthy, bring the articles up to par if need be, and then see how people judge them in terms of significance. I'm honestly curious to see how it will pan out. --⛵ WaltClipper - (talk)  14:49, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The significance threshold is met when the source material is analyzed. It is not met because of the highly individual and disparate life experiences of the people who happen to be around that day to comment.  What I have experienced in my life, what my personal interests and likes and dislikes are have really no bearing on whether or not a story is significant (except in the highly narrow sense of to me, which is not relevant to Wikipedia in any way).  All I should do is put my own personal feelings aside (which are not in any way universal) and instead base my commentary on an analysis of evidence which anyone else can also analyze.  -- Jayron 32 16:33, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * To be fair, the golf story is an international sport event that just happens to take place in the USA. But we get this issue all the time; for example, UEFA Champions League and Premier League are usually about a week apart (and La Liga and Bundesliga are in that month as well and are ITN/R, but often don't get posted for quality). Black Kite (talk) 15:09, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * For an international sport event, The Masters has an unfortunate logo, basically a map of the United States with golf hole flag in it. An outsider could be easily confused. HiLo48 (talk) 00:22, 12 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I do feel like we've hit point zero here. ITN/R items will always be more likely to be posted, as they are (by definition) foreseeable. That allows the article to be put into a good shape as it happens, rather than reacting to incoming news about a subject that may, or may not be notable enough for ITN. You can work around things at DYK and TFA etc, because firstly it doesn't matter when the item gets posted, and secondly, the date of the thing happening doesn't matter. Sports generally run as a part of a season (so much so, that some sports run at different times just so they can get coverage through the summer, etc). So, they inevitably finish around this time of year. Either we say that sporting events aren't suitable for ITN, in that they are just another result in a long list of results, but then you'd have the same deal with politics. The only difference with politics is that they happen infrequently.
 * If there was an earthquake in Australia, and a hurricane in New Zealand, you wouldn't say the main page was natural disaster heavy... The question is, is that because it's uncommon, or because sports hooks are inevitably less newsworthy (for our purposes)?  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:21, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The latter. Sports is popular because it's a diversion from the weightiness of matters of serious importance, i.e., the rest of the news. In my opinion, it's only a trivial distraction for people outside of the profession or athletes' closely connected circles. I feel strongly about this but I'm not going to argue about it. I will repeat my suggestion that ITN would benefit from a guideline limiting sports hooks to one at a time. Sandizer  (talk) 03:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * We are already having a hard time adding hooks, now you are suggesting to limit a kind of hooks one at a time? Howard the Duck (talk) 06:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * My big worry here is that we are now working on a "your item is less newsworthy because it doesn't effect your everyday life" territory. Which, isn't exactly how the news works. Dependent on your location and interests, something may be super important, or not at all. A politicial election in a country that you don't live in might be of basically no interest.
 * I suppose the question is - do we have too many things being promoted to ITN? If we don't, who cares what subjects they are?  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:45, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Most ITN items stay up in excess of 7 days. The current oldest blurb is 11 days old.  I leave it to others to decide if 11 days is too long or too short for an item posted in ITN to remain there.  -- Jayron 32 10:58, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I scrolled through the previous ITN archives and ran a quick estimate of how many stories were posted then versus now.
 * March 2010: 33 posted stories.
 * March 2015: 22 posted stories, 20 posted RDs.
 * March 2018: 27 posted stories, 42 posted RDs.
 * March 2020: 9 posted stories, 73 posted RDs.
 * March 2023: 13 posted stories, 45 posted RDs.
 * So we've posted more RDs, but the number of actual stories that we've been posting has been on a very significant downward trend. I think this is a sign of progress. The less we post, the better! --⛵ WaltClipper - (talk)  12:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a symptom of the failure to improve quality articles to the point where they are main-page ready. The reason why RD postings have generally trended upwards is that people have mostly focused on improving the quality of those articles so the can end up on the main page.  Wikipedia is not a news source, it is an encyclopedia, and anything that results in better encyclopedia articles is a good thing, and any process that doesn't is a symptom of a problem for Wikipedia.  If ITN had more raw material to work with, we'd have more blurbs being posted at a higher rate.  -- Jayron 32 14:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, so far this April, we've nominated nine stories and posted just two of them. We're off to a great start. I certainly don't think we have less news in 2023 than we did in 2015 or 2018, but I do believe that we have driven away editors who would be willing to contribute to ITN because many of them are sick of the gatekeeping that goes on. The reason why RD postings have generally trended upwards is that people have mostly focused on improving the quality of those articles so the can end up on the main page. Also, per WP:ITNRD, they are not subject to any sort of subjective head-count of significance. You and I are probably not going to come to a common agreement on this, though, so I will leave it at that. --⛵ WaltClipper - (talk)  16:29, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Not sure where you're getting your numbers from, but so far in April, we've had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 new blurbs, not 2. There have been many more nominations that didn't get posted; I'm not going to try to count those, but my quick check shows your methodology may be a bit off... -- Jayron 32</b> 18:57, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you're right. I stupidly counted just based off of the ITN/C page not realizing of course that it only displays the last seven days of nominations. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  19:05, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You haven't been around ITN long, have you? So I'm guessing you don't know how awful the drought of stories is at the moment. As HTD says, you're proposing making the drought worse. It's not merely throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it's throwing out the bathtub as well, and the faucet for good measure. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  17:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Nope, I have not. Could you please explain why the standards for what is worthy to be linked from the main page are more important than having more stories per month? I would think that the !voting consensus process would naturally balance those conflicting criteria. Sandizer  (talk) 15:32, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Article quality is the most important standard because the main purpose of ITN is to highlight quality articles (which happen to be about recent events). So, there are minimum standards of quality that all main page articles (Not just ITN, but also DYK and OTD sections) are held to.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 12:46, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Potential removal of March Madness from ITN/R
Following recent consensus that the College Football Playoff National Championship should NOT be added to WP:ITN/R, I think that what we should do is remove March Madness from ITN/R completely, while audience in CFB is higher than CBB, I don't think both are necessary options to add to ITN/R and due to the fact that they're more less known than the NFL or NBA worldwide. NBA has a lot of international talent like Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic while college basketball are mostly born in America. As I said, there's no point in adding March Madness in the ITN section each year. 2600:1700:31BA:9410:9CE6:94D8:E140:7B1E (talk) 04:54, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment I recommend reading . It's impact goes beyond even casual basketball fans, and has serious workplace productivity impact.—Bagumba (talk) 06:44, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Support True, but that impact is for the start of the tournament, not the final game which is what we have at ITN/R. Interest is almost entirely due to casual parimutuel gambling schemes, and not the games themselves. The bulk of interest fades after the first weekend with "busted brackets" and all but disappears by the second weekend. Very few Americans are paying any attention by the time the Championship game happens, and I doubt 1 in 10 who participate in these schemes could identify last year's winner.  GreatCaesarsGhost   14:01, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Very few Americans are paying any attention by the time the Championship game happens...: The 2022 championship page  got 14,000 views the day after. —Bagumba (talk) 06:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Indeed; thank you. Orders of magnitude lower than NBA, NFL, etc.  GreatCaesarsGhost   17:05, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * You're moving the goalposts. As search engines typically lead readers to the general tournament page i.e. 2022 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament and not 2022 NCAA Division I men's basketball championship game, you'd need to add another 30,000 viewers |2022_NCAA_Division_I_men%27s_basketball_tournament —Bagumba (talk) 17:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Past discussion The discussion just last month in February had no consensus for removal: —Bagumba (talk) 06:48, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * While I have !voted to remove NCAA basketball every time this has come up, I don't think it's productive to re-hash the same discussion we had just 6 weeks ago, which was quite evenly balanced between keep and remove. Let's re-visit the topic next year. <b style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: maroon;">Modest Genius</b> talk 14:06, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * This is an event that draws more attention and has more significant economic effects than the NBA Finals. While I think we should keep it, I agree with Modest Genius above that we need not rehash this discussion at this time. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 17:13, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
 * As noted already, I highly doubt you get a change in consensus here, and if we are to post an ITN item for any college event anywhere in the world, this is the one. DarkSide830 (talk) 05:18, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Sincere question from a non-American: why? GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:17, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Sincere answer from a non-American: This seems to be more popular than the NBA Finals to Americans themselves. The NBA does not play on the day of the final, if that means something.
 * Also, until the "open era" of basketball, the NCAA tournament was the highest-level tournament in the the U.S. recognized by FIBA. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:22, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a general factor of the overall viewership and interest in the tournament. As opposed to most other college sports, March Madness is more consistently watched over the course of the tournament, versus other sports where the main interest is who won. March Madness I would say is more discussed and generally draws more interest (at least from my perspective) than other college sports appear to be. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:03, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, seeing as it seems this discussion has real teeth now, I'm officially an oppose under my aforementioned premise that if there is to be any college sporting event in ITN, it should be this one. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:06, 23 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Wait You'll gain more traction in the fall. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:00, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I assume the goal is to ensure that this doesn't get posted this year. That means it has to be now, not the fall. It would quite ridiculous if we fail to post the football final and then carry on posting the basketball one. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 19:30, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * If that is the goal, the shot should have been taken last mid-September. I don't know who first said "you snooze, you lose", but he or she was right. Some say "there's always next year", but we'll see. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:58, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Suggest we close this as no consensus was found for removal just last month. Pawnkingthree (talk) 08:36, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Remove. Definitely not ITNR worthy. The football Playoff is more important, and we've already determined that those are not ITNR. And the Boat Race was removed recently too. There's no reason at all why the basketball college event should get a free pass. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 19:27, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Great, the OTHERSTUFF arguments have started. This one is the opposite of past consensus that the basketball tournament is noteworthy and the football one isnt. I've resisted commenting here until now. This was just debated and closed, why are we doing this again? We will be nominating the championship winner in April as we do every year. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:46, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Why is the basketball one "notable" (in an ITN/R context) while the football one isn't? In terms of interest and ratings, they're at best equal. It makes zero sense to me to keep this. We've been consistently removing college events from ITN/R lately, so this one is really a last outlier and it should be chopped before it is shooed in in early April. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 20:43, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * We removed one event with fixed competitors (with non-diverse crews). —Bagumba (talk) 00:44, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I think they're both sufficiently noteworthy to have on ITN/R. I'm just saying that the consensus at ITN has been that the basketball tourney is and the football one isn't. This event isn't an outlier, it's one of the biggest annual sporting events in the U.S., on par with the others. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:59, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The recent RFC at the top of this page found no consensus to remove events from ITN/R simply because they are college or amateur. Each event should be judged on its own merits. Pawnkingthree (talk) 01:02, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Remove - No need to close this quite so hastily. The last discussion wasn't a formal removal discussion, and my reasons for removing then apply the same here. If it is our view that college or amateur sports are not considered the top level of competition in a sport, then this item cannot be permitted on ITN/R. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  14:38, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * You may not have intended it to be a formal discussion but it certainly turned into one, with standard bolded Keep/Remove !votes (link). Pawnkingthree (talk) 01:49, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Remove It's no longer ITN/R worthy. Also past discussion cannot preclude new consensus for removal. – Ammarpad (talk) 17:15, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * How is it not ITNR-worthy? The Kip (talk) 20:41, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It's no longer ITN/R worthy: What changed from where it was notable before? —Bagumba (talk) 01:39, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Remove Either we have amateur competitions in ITN/R or we don't. Given the ones that we've removed recently, I don't see any particular reason to be picking and choosing merely because one has a larger TV audience than another. Black Kite (talk) 19:37, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * No, not at all. It says so above at . Smh. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:39, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I am aware of that discussion; my comment was merely my opinion. Black Kite (talk) 19:40, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * An opinion that was ruled against in an RFC four days ago. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I am quite aware of that. However, if my opinion is disbarred by that RfC because of the criteria I used, I am quite willing to change my rationale to "I don't believe this event is important enough to qualify for ITN/R". Black Kite (talk) 19:56, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep and SNOW close We literally just had this discussion last month and there was no consensus. Doing this as “revenge” for the Boat Race is absurd. The Kip (talk) 20:39, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The discussion last month was not a formal proposal and no one saw it as such, as you would note the near absence of votes. Also, bear in mind that we consider the quality of arguments not the count of votes, so you folks voting SNOW are not helping your cause.     GreatCaesarsGhost   12:59, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 98#Verify status of NCAA Basketball for ITN/R - "the near absence of votes," there were 10 votes of about 15-18 replies and it ended in no consensus. In fact, your own opinion was the nonsensical argument to remove it due to our removal of The Boat Race, which, besides having a wholly different nature than the NCAA tournament, did achieve consensus for removal. The Kip (talk) 17:46, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the personal attack. Nonsensical, Christ. Countless editors have pointed out the incongruity of this. But sure, if you don't agree, it's nonsensical.  GreatCaesarsGhost   11:00, 21 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep and SNOW This is ridiculous. -- Kicking222 (talk) 00:32, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * A good old appeal to the stone... or is that an appeal to the snow? --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  16:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Remove because we need consistency. If The Boat Race doesn't merit inclusion because it's an amateur competition, then the same should be the case for this league. It's simple as that. Whether it attracts higher audience is completely irrelevant (the number of people watching a television broadcast of the 2022 final was nothing more than a regular football match involving one of the strongest clubs in a domestic league). The biggest paradox, however, is that the WNBA Finals are not on ITN/R, but the women's NCAA league is.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That's perhaps the most nonsensical argument I've ever heard. By your logic, the finals of World Chase Tag should be included because it's a professional league and other professional leagues are included, or we shouldn't post the Nobel Prizes because we don't post People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. Just because one thing is amateur and another thing is amateur doesn't mean they're of the same level of notability, news coverage, or impact.
 * Also, WE JUST HAD THIS SAME DISCUSSION LAST MONTH. This whole thing is beyond absurd. Kicking222 (talk) 12:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The biggest paradox, however, is that the WNBA Finals are not on ITN/R, but the women's NCAA league is" Not a paradox at all. Per WP:ITNSPORTS, Entries which refer to events where men's and women's events are concurrent (unless otherwise specified) are generally posted as a combined blurb. Incidentally, the NCAA women's championship draws ~4M viewers. —Bagumba (talk) 12:55, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm talking about the most popular sports in the world. Football and basketball are, whereas parkour is not even near. And please read WP:AGF and WP:NPA. I know that's the reason for the fallacy, but it's in no way a justification for it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:27, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't follow, what is the alleged fallacy? —Bagumba (talk) 13:37, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * WNBA is the top-flight competition in women's basketball. Isn't it?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:38, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I see. That's the paradox for non-Americans: that non-professional competition for college (i.e. university) sports can be as or more popular than its professional counterpart. For example, the NCAA men's title games generally have more viewers than an NBA Finals game.—Bagumba (talk) 13:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * We don't post items based chiefly on popularity. This is the English Wikipedia with readers and editors from all over the world, and we tend to use standards that are globally applicable and mutually comparable. If we divide the world into English-speaking zones so that different criteria apply because of the local preferences, then there's nothing that could prevent The Boat Race from being removed as it really is more popular and traditionally more significant than professional rowing competitions in the UK. It's interesting how things are changing here: firstly, The Boat Race was an ITN/R item; then, the NCAA was added with arguments drawn from the comparison to The Boat Race; and finally, The Boat Race gets removed because it's an amateur competition, but the NCAA stays because it's more popular for Americans than professional competitions. This is not how an encyclopedia should be built.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:19, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * You lost me on "popularity", when earlier you told Kicking222 that you were talking about the most popular sports in the world. I was merely informing you that the WNBA might not be as "top-flight" as you possibly believe, merely because it is a professional league. —Bagumba (talk) 17:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It depends on the context. When comparing different sports, popularity is measured through the global presence, the number of people practicing the sport, the ability to attract wealthy sponsors and other similar measures; but when comparing two competitions within a sport, then we come down to popularity as measured through the size of the audiences. As for the top-flight part, WNBA is indeed top-flight when it comes to overall quality. You’ll have very hard time to find reliable sources that the players in the women’s NCAA are more skilled than those in the WNBA and that the games they play are assessed better. There are maybe more interesting games in the women’s NCAA (this may be true because the WNBA to me is really boring without the excitement the NBA offers), which contributes to its elevated popularity above WNBA, but that doesn’t make it less “top-flight” (unless you mean top-flight with regards to popularity).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:02, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * ...but when comparing two competitions within a sport, then we come down to popularity as measured through the size of the audiences: Then I'm not sure why you brought up "top-flight" to begin with.—Bagumba (talk) 18:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * ... because, as stated above, I don't think that popularity measured through the size of the audience is the right criterion. A similar argument can be made for inclusion of the FA Cup, EFL Cup and even the EFL Championship play-offs because their finals set records in viewership in the UK every year that are not matched in the Premier League. We have to draw a line somewhere and adopt globally applicable criteria.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:58, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I would LOVE for you to read NPA and tell me where you think I'm personally attacking you. Calling an argument ridiculous has nothing to do with your political opinions or race or career, not least because I neither know nor care about those things. You said "X doesn't belong because Y doesn't belong" when X and Y are completely different things, end of story. Kicking222 (talk) 22:18, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The Boat Race was removed as it's a fixed competition between two schools every year. March Madness is not. Please quit this nonsensical argument. The Kip (talk) 17:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That’s absolutely not true. If you carefully take a look at that discussion, you’ll find out that it wasn’t the case. Yes, it was mentioned that it’s a race between two fixed teams every year, but it wasn’t the dominant argument for removal. Tho majority made arguments that it’s an amateur competition and not top-flight in the sport, which triggered the discussion to verify NCAA’s status on ITN/R immediately below it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:12, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Remove - The arguments to remove make sense to me. Non-professional sporting events should be pulled from ITN/R. Jusdafax (talk) 14:51, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * There was an RFC less than a month ago that concluded the exact opposite. The Kip (talk) 17:42, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * If a discussion concluded to keep it less than a month ago, it doesn’t mean that the consensus cannot change. To prevent this from happening, the closer had to impose a moratorium.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:12, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Consensus doesn’t take a month to change without significant events happening. To attempt to do so would reek of effectively being a sore loser because one’s opinion ended up not the consensus one. The Kip (talk) 19:25, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That would be true only if the discussion were open for the same people who participated in the previous one. However, it's possible that some editors didn't notice that discussion or didn't have enough time to contribute and therefore failed to take part in it. I'm an example of someone who didn't participate in that discussion. That being said, arguing about procedural closure just because a group of people discussed the same matter in the recent past doesn't hold.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * While I think it unlikely that the consensus regarding all non-professional sporting events will have changed in the past month (my opinion certainly hasn't), that doesn't mean anything regarding whether any specific non-professional sporting event has or does not have consensus, indeed from memory evaluating each on their own merits was the consensus of the general discussion.
 * While @Jusdafax's second sentence is a (presumably) valid statement of their opinion, it doesn't hold much weight as it is contrary to the recent consensus. Their first sentence however does speak (loosely) to the arguments regarding this specific event and so the !vote should not be completely ignored by whoever closes this discussion. (FWIW I don't currently have an opinion regarding March Madness). Thryduulf (talk) 14:03, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * To elaborate in response to the courtesty ping, INT/R is an advisory list, and does not guarantee blurb inclusion, since all blurbs require consensus.A look at the current list shows it is dominated by sporting events, not news. Many are or were specific to one country, like The Boat Race which I and others successfully !voted to remove. I recognise the difference between a static event and a multi-week college tournament, but feel INT/R is seriously bloated with sports and that most if not all of the sporting events should be delisted, as they can be !voted on individually. Since I, like Kiril Simeonovski did not notice the previous discussion, I did not participate. In the final analysis, sports fans by definition have strong views. Since consensus among ITN participants here to just remove all sports completely from the list, which would save countless hours of passionate debate, is unlikely at present, then in my view trimming the list as possible seems the best course. I hope this clarifies my !voting rationale, and would deeply prefer not to participate in this particular discussion further. Best Wishes and Happy Equinox! Jusdafax (talk) 16:46, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * ...it is dominated by sporting events, not news. Most newspapers have sports, sometimes on the front page (for those with hard copies or tablet reader version). —Bagumba (talk) 17:04, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Most news events are not regular occurrences. Besides elections, and guess what else is in ITN/R? <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 18:49, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The arguments about the Boat Race are so over the top I dont get how anybody is making them. Having the Boat Race here would not be similar to having March Madness on ITN/R, it is similar to having Notre Dame vs Michigan on ITN/R. Just one figure shows how wildly out of touch those comparisons are. March Madness revenue: 1.1 Billion USD. TBR revenue? 16.7 million USD. The coverage of the two is wildly different as well, with coverage of the tournament, of the lost productivity, of the chase for a perfect bracket. All that said I dont really care here, but the if the Boat Race does not qualify than neither should March Madness is saying if since I did not make it to the NBA then neither should Michael Jordan have made it. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 17:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Not sure if I speak for everyone here, but just my two cents: I believe this is more important than the Boat Race, and arguments against this cannot be sustained in the world where TBR was on ITN/R. However, now that TBR has been removed, we can entertain these arguments without being hypocritical. It doesn't mean it has to be removed, but arguments are more valid in this context.  GreatCaesarsGhost   00:25, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, you can argue against including March Madness. But that is independent of the Boat Race. It simply is not in the same realm of event in terms of participation, amount of coverage, impact on the economy both in terms of revenue generated and productivity lost, television ratings, enrollment of universities involved, basically any metric besides number of years it has existed. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 04:36, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. I think its a bit silly to support removing this because of The Boat Race being removed. March Madness does seem in my opinion like an event important enough to support posting. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:41, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - March Madness and the Boat Race are on entirely different planes of existence when it comes to popularity, impact, and financials. March Madness very much meets the ITN benchmark of events with wide interest + the bullet points at our purpose, and should be posted every year (quality dependent). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:33, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep It's been posted every year since it was added to ITNR initially, and was posted on the merits for several years before that. Nearly all of the removal votes are non-sequitur reasons that have little to no connection to ITN standards broadly.  It's a major sporting event that is covered, in depth, by reliable sources at a level that indicates it will be so covered every year.  Given that level of extensive coverage, I find no reason to need to re-assess significance every year. -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 17:51, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Motion to close as keep before the final Monday, so this is not a matter of distraction in the ITNC nom. The arguments seem fairly evenly split even if we disregard the SNOW close non-voters (who might be read as "no action/keep").  GreatCaesarsGhost   12:32, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep (I didn't !vote in the Boat Race removal) The continued arguments for "consistent" removal of amatuer events is disappointing given the opposition to blanket removal at . But this thread remaining open is indicative that we have a bureaucracy here (see recent ), WP:NOTBURO aside. Some details on the event's impact beyond immediate college basketball fans is sourced at . I think there's some English-variation misunderstanding that American college means university. And some might apply a local perception because amateur sports is never notable in their part of the world.—Bagumba (talk) 02:07, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment I believe sports events should be judged based on international coverage, and we should remove any event that only one country really cares about. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:52, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * In the news/Candidates Oppose an item solely because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is generally unproductive. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment The 2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball championship game has recently been nominated and labelled as an ITN/R item. I took a look at the article and it is full of red links, which may be because the players aren't notable enough or because no-one dared to write articles about them. Do we really want to post links to such articles on the main page?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:13, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Wholly separate from this, maybe, but this points to a recent gender gap paper and the issues with Wikipedia covering women's topics. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Women_in_Red. That many of the NCAA women's players are not considered notable or that no one has bothered to write articles about them, while nearly all the men's are, is a problem that perhaps ITN should not escalate. M asem (t) 12:25, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Gender gap is a serious problem, but it shouldn't be used as justification to make concessions. My remark was, however, mostly on whether the NCAA is more significant than WNBA. For some reason, almost all players in the WNBA do have articles. If the NCAA is really more significant than the WNBA as Bagumba claims above, then Wikipedia should clearly reflect it.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I just googled a random few of the redlinked names, and all clearly meet GNG. The topic specific WP:NBBALL needs some work itself, as it excludes all amateurs and some hall-of-famers.  GreatCaesarsGhost   12:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't deny their notability, but they still don't have articles, and this is one of the main reasons why WikiProject Women in Red exists. Yet, it doesn't mean we should make concessions. It's debatable whether ITN should be used as means to get rid of the red links.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You just doubted their notability in the comment I replied to: "may be because the players aren't notable enough." But as you are now conceding this point, the matter is settled. The presence of red links "to a term that could plausibly sustain an article" is not just acceptable, it is desirable.  GreatCaesarsGhost   14:29, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I didn't say they're not notable in my first comment and didn't concede any point. I just mentioned two possible reasons for that. But that has nothing to do with the fact they still don't have articles. As for the red links, I replied to Bagumba's comment below that there's no mechanism in place to tell incomplete articles and articles lacking accessible reliable sources apart, so not all stubs exist just because someone wanted to write an article with very little effort. If it were better to have red links than stubs, the English Wikipedia would have more than five million articles less.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:46, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, you did; I quoted you. But no matter. Your comment has nothing to do with the matter at hand which is red links within an article are not a mark against the quality of that article. "Do we really want to post links to such articles on the main page?" Yes, absolutely, we want to post such articles.    GreatCaesarsGhost   19:40, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Per WP:ITNSPORTS:
 * WP:REDDEAL doesn't seem like an "orange tag" showstopper.—Bagumba (talk) 13:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia rules are often contradicting so that it's difficult to find lex specialis, and it's relatively easy to support a view by existing policies. I don't buy the argument that it's better to have red links than stubs as long as there's no clear way to tell incomplete articles and articles lacking accessible reliable sources apart.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with red links, and this just seems like another artificial roadblock. Whether or not you buy the argument isnt relevant, we have established policy on when to retain red links, and all of these are fine. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 16:52, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Red links aren't allowed on the main page per WP:REDNO, which doesn't directly apply to this case, but is a strong indicator that something is wrong with articles full of red links. I'd assume that editors adding excessive red links intend to work on those articles in the future, so it makes sense to wait until most of them turn blue before posting. After all, we're all in favour of posting quality content that links to existing content on the main page. Aren't we?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * There wouldnt be a red link on the main page. And no, that is not a strong indicator of anything besides we dont link to non-existent articles on the main page. Again, there is nothing in any policy or guideline that supports any part of what you are saying, and this remains in my view an artificial roadblock erected for transparent purposes. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 17:16, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Remove I dont think college/amateur/non professional sport, whatever you want to call it should be in ITN/R period to be honest. The tournament's international recognition is quite limited and we already have both FIBA and NBA tournaments which are tournaments that carry a much higher name recognition.✨ <span style="background:linear-gradient(maroon,red,orange,gold,green,blue,darkviolet,deeppink);border-radius:1em;text-shadow:2px 0#000;color:#fff"> 4 🧚‍♂ am  KING   16:01, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * An RFC last month concluded against the blanket removal of amateur sports. The Kip (talk) 16:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that the Olympics were, until recently, an amateur sporting event. ~  ONUnicorn (Talk&#124;Contribs) problem solving 18:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * But the olympics, in its current form (since 1896) were always an international competition that have worldwide recognition. I should reword what I said, in that I don't feel like domestic amateur sport competitions without much appeal outside of a single nations national borders meets any sort of notability bar for me, and on the contrary thats like a double whammy for unnotability. I recognise that some of these competitions are on ITN/R, and thats why I don't comment on those nominations when they come up, but if you asked me about them being "in the news", id say no. ✨ <span style="background:linear-gradient(maroon,red,orange,gold,green,blue,darkviolet,deeppink);border-radius:1em;text-shadow:2px 0#000;color:#fff"> 4 🧚‍♂ am  KING   21:34, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * People forget the highest form of basketball in the United States recognized internationally until 1990 was college basketball. Americans used to send college kids to play against fully-grown Europeans in the Olympic basketball tournament, and win. Howard the Duck (talk) 22:02, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Christian Laettner was included on the Dream Team despite being solely a college player as well. The Kip (talk) 16:17, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Anthony Davis was on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team with only college experience.—Bagumba (talk) 21:48, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Remove seems to be a US-centric event, here in the UK it doesn't trouble the headlines. If the precedent (set with the Boat Race, which is huge news over here) is that amateur sports events of national significance are not worthy of being ITN/R, then it should be removed and individual nominations should be discussed on their individual merits. 2A02:C7F:2CE3:4700:65B7:BD17:DEA:A478 (talk) 18:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Remove. ITNR should only be for events that would find clear consensus in all cases. BilledMammal (talk) 18:13, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep Kind of ridiculous to do this only six weeks after the last one. Should this stay kept, do I need to set a six week timer for the next one, too? The notability and prominence of this has been repeatedly established above, and all of the arguments about how "if X didn't get in why is this in??" are weak, at best. Parabolist (talk) 19:24, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Assuming you're referring to this discussion, I don't see it reaching any conclusion or determination of consensus, so it makes sense to continue the discussion. The many arguments that we shouldn't discuss this because we discussed it recently, having not concluded that discussion are, to use your words, "weak at best". 2A02:C7F:2CE3:4700:65B7:BD17:DEA:A478 (talk) 20:41, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Remove on significance. A minor event with limited international coverage. Harrias  (he/him) • talk 21:01, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a major event and international coverage is not required for ITN. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:05, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I think there is a general consensus to remove here. Requesting someone takes care of it.134.6.56.115 (talk) 16:57, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Besides that there isn't anything remotely resembling a consensus, many of the remove arguments (and I say this as an admittedly biased party) are purely WP:OTHERSTUFF, which I think any closing admin would dismiss pretty rapidly. Kicking222 (talk) 23:21, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * People used the same arguments to get rid of The Boat Race, such as If we're going to shut down discussions about college football, then that raises questions about sports events that seem to have a similar level of importance. Comparisons to other stuff are inevitable because of how relative and subjective our significance standard is. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  12:34, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * But people have also made plenty of arguments about the considerably broader impact of March Madness- the billions of dollars taken in, the thousands of players involved, the tens of millions of people watching, the lord-knows-how-many-times-more news mentions (even a cursory Google News search gives six times more results for "March Madness" than "Boat Race")- that others seem to ignore. Kicking222 (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * ding ding ding. Shocking development in that users who felt that a rowing race with a fraction of the coverage of this tournament, that is not a national championship, that has only two possible winners, is significant enough to merit ITN/R feel that an event with many times more participation, revenue, and worldwide coverage (eg the Guardian has a whole section on this tournament) doesnt. I think the term best used to describe such a surprising turn of events rhymes with Powerade. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 19:26, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep I think there is a lot of kneejerk reactions to this one due to the removal of Boat Race. I have to agree with Bagumba's statement above regarding significance. Curbon7 (talk) 17:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep as I didn't explicitly !vote to do so above. This is a major event that has consistently been posted for the last several years, and I see no good reason to remove it.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 19:22, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep The article tends to be one of quality, the event is well covered and is widely watched. Moreover, the tournament features international players from multiple countries.  Spencer T• C 05:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Moreover, the tournament features international players from multiple countries: Yes. As of 2019–20, ~15% of NCAA basketball players (men's and women's) were international.—Bagumba (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment. Is an admin available to evaluate consensus on this one? My read says that there is no consensus here to remove. But, would appreciate an admin’s eyes. Ktin (talk) 16:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: Exception to staleness
In some cases, the facts surrounding an event are slow to emerge. This may be due to limited news resources in developing countries, or active censorship by governments or other parties. This tends to impact those places that we are trying to cover more to counter BIAS. My proposal is that we update the guidance to allow nominations for stale events if the nominator provides an argument for why the item could not have been nominated sooner (much like we allow RDs today using "death announced on this date"). The decision to grant an exception would be subject to the same balance of arguments as quality and significance.  GreatCaesarsGhost   14:14, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I would rather see ys recognize that a significant event in the part of the world with poor media cover may not let us het to the ~1500 chars we'd want in an article. So we allow that criteria to be put on hold in itn discussions. What can be discussed should be high quality and now have only 2 lines about the event and the rest being fluff in background and reactions. M asem (t) 15:08, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Staleness is assessed by when a story is in the news not by when it happened. If the news isn't covering it, it isn't In The News.  If I discover something from news stories that ran two months ago, but no one bothered to nominate it then, why should we ignore the staleness criteria if it isn't in the news right now?  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 15:22, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * My issue is more like a combination of what you and Masem are saying: something happens, and there is very light coverage in the following days. Then 2-3 weeks later, someone jumps in with more thorough coverage that took awhile to flesh out.   GreatCaesarsGhost   18:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I would support this, if in addition to this, staleness will no longer be a facet for denial. I don't get how we disqualify stories for "staleness," merely because they happened seven days before, when there are three week old photo blurbs on . The requirement for staleness should be that the story is older than the current blurb. Of course, the seven-day rule was implemented in a time where ITN wasn't in a state of near permanent gridlock for most of the time, and if me an @Thebiguglyalien's proposal to shift requirements for posting a blurb passes, it may not be as necessary when blurbs get posted on a semi-daily basis. - Knightoftheswords281  (Talk-Contribs) 18:39, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It would be reasonable to base staleness off of when the bulk of news sources are writing about a subject, rather than when the event actually occurred. This is already how Recent Deaths works, as deaths might be reported a week or two after occurring. Some news stories need to work their way up to the big publications. ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 06:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment I think this can be addressed by the simple expedient of making a WP:IAR nomination. Post the nom under the current date and explain that it is IAR and why you think that an exception to our customary practices and guidelines should be made. Obviously, this is unlikely to fly in routine situations. But I agree that there are and have been some stories that only really gained traction well after the initial event. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: Minimum duration for a discussion prior to closure
I think many regulars on here are probably aware of stories that were closed way to quickly, just because they received an initial flurry of (usually) oppose votes. I know, WP:SNOW exists, but firstly, that's not an official guideline, and secondly, are we really finna decide what consensus is in a few hours? For example, my nomination of Ralph Yarl was closed in three hours, just because of a flurry of oppose votes. On the flip side, the Dominion v. Fox nomination was posted within half a day. Looking in ITN archives, I've seen discussions be closed in like 45 minutes just because of an initially large opposition. As @Black Kite correctly pointed out, this spurs issues relating to global time zones. Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia, and the English Wikipedia, being the Wikipedia for the world's lingua franca, has contributors from all over the world. Thus, when we shut down discussions in less than an hour, that's effectively flipping the bird to folks who were sleeping at the time, working, etc. Besides, just because there may be an initially large opposition, doesn't mean that consensus has been developed (e.g, LeBron James' record nom [even if that fiasco was also influenced by drive-by voters]).

I propose that we implement a minimum 24-hour moratorium on closing discussions. The exception would be in cases such as the start of a war, or some other major, news-of-the-year type event, in which there would be clear consensus to post immediately (e.g, to use the past, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US presidential elections, or the use potential events, a PRC-ROC war, US civil war, etc.). Even then, said consensus shall be heavily evaluated by a trusted admin, so that this clause doesn't get abused as a loophole around the moratorium. - Knightoftheswords281  (Talk-Contribs) 18:08, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Youre basically asking to make in the news post things that after they are no longer in the news. No, I dont think we should do that. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 18:12, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
 * This is pretty damn close to a perennial proposal, and the answer has regularly been no, usually for WP:CREEP reasons. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  18:22, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I would also suggest, gently, that it might be best to disengage from the proposals for a bit, so as not to be viewed as editing tendentiously. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  18:29, 19 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The issue with any sort of proposal like this is getting agreement in specific standards. I'm not sure we can create such a policy, in spite of my agreement with you in the prior discussion. Ideally, this should be more of a recommendation to Admins to keep nominations open (or to discourage non-admin closures, which have been quite frequent lately). There is no real need to close nominations, particularly in the "oppose" direction, early. In fact, in general, I believe we should simply empower Admins more on choosing when to close, what votes should be considered, etc. That would be a great way to keep voting relevant while also discouraging "poor voting" as well. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thats a WP:PEREN for ITN. There are good reasons for fast closure that no ruleset would be obvious. M asem (t) 19:47, 19 April 2023 (UTC)


 * More WP:CREEP. Speedy closures are not all that common and when they do happen, they are justified in all but very rare cases. In those instances where a discussion is speedily closed if there is a disagreement, it can be boldly reopened. I will note that if it was closed by an admin or very experienced editor, you will probably want to want to take a deep breath and talk to them first. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Support Elsewhere on Wikipedia, discussions are customarily held open for 7 days or more in order that everyone has an opportunity to have their say and so ensure a good consensus. This period of a week is the standard guidance of WP:WHENCLOSE, " It is unusual for anyone to request a formal closure by an uninvolved editor unless the discussion has been open for at least one week."  A week is also the period used for archiving of nominations at WP:ITN/C and so a week is the natural period for discussions here too.
 * The contrary practise of rushing to claim a consensus or lack of same is natural for breaking news but we're supposed to be an encyclopedia not a news site and so we should resist the temptation to make hasty decisions in order to be first or get a scoop. See festina lente. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:02, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Imagine waiting a day (or a week!) to post about 9/11. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 17:41, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's Andrew, considering his opposition to ITNR as a whole I'm not sure I expected different. The Kip (talk) 06:14, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a stretch to argue that wanting to make admins wait a week to post major news with a clear consensus is a POINT. -- Kicking222 (talk) 13:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose - News is (or ought to be) fast-moving. We can handle excessively fast closures on a case-by-case basis. I think we should resist further instruction creep. GenevieveDEon (talk) 10:48, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:CREEP, etc. The nature of these things is that they need to be kept current.  The only time we should worry about a posting is if the highlighted article is itself wrong, badly written, inaccurate, badly sourced or otherwise below quality.  Every other possible objection is "I'm mad this got posted because it's something I'm not interested in myself", which isn't really a reason to pull something off the main page.  If you notice a posting which is inaccurate or wrong, of course you can (and should) raise a stink.  If your objection is "I didn't get to torpedo this posting because the subject isn't important enough to me" then I have zero sympathy.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 12:50, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per all above. WP:CREEP applies, and sticking a minimum discussion time on something even when it's obvious it won't pass effectively runs counter to SNOW itself. The Kip (talk) 06:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose While I do think closings can be premature, 24 hours is too long, and any exception to a minimum would need to be clearly defined. For example, if something is unquestionably covered on ITN/R, should it be exempt? What about an unquestionably major event (say, Country A kills hundreds in Country Z with a surprise bombing) that isn't ITN/R? What if a nation merely declares war? Where's the line?
 * Funny enough, this discussion could be SNOWed. -- Kicking222 (talk) 13:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Add link to wikinews
At the bottom, you know how it says "nominate article"? Well, what if there was a link to Wikinews next to it? AugustusAudax (talk) 19:38, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd rather someone pipe it in at the top, right where it says "In the news", nice and natural. A link to the current events portal could also work. It should link to somewhere, dammit, a clicking readership is an engaged readership. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:00, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Rather than Wikinews, even a clear nomination to Portal:Current events would be a win. Unfortunately, it is currently hidden as an WP:EASTEREGG behind the “Ongoing” text. Fixing this should be a relatively easy fix. It was tried a few times here and all proposals have failed so far. Hence, we are here. Ktin (talk) 23:46, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

What to do regarding ITN archives?
Although there was little agreement regarding my personal proposal of transcluding ITN nominations, clear consensus has been established in the discussion regarding the fact that something ought to be done about the current structures of archives. Long story short for those who don't know, ITN archives can get quite lengthy, resulting in nomination templates failing to render, the page taking forever to load, and a general bad user experience interacting with them. So, what should we do? I still maintain that transcluding nominations would be the best way to solve this, however, that would have to accompany a massive grounded shift in ITN as a whole to really work efficiently, and since we don't know what that could be (or in my honest opinion, would be), I want to see what perhaps may amount to a temporary bandage be implemented.

Pinging those involved in the prior discussion (@WaltCip, @Curbon7, @Modest Genius, @Thryduulf, @Xaosflux, @Andrew Davidson, @Bagumba, @Hurricane Noah, @Amakuru. - Knightsoftheswords281  (Talk-Contribs) 02:21, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * As mentioned by several people in the section above, the archives issue can be solved very simply by starting a new archive page more frequently.
 * We'd need to choose the new frequency - the most logical options I think are (a) two archives per month, or (b) one archive per week. Once we decide what frequency we want to archive, we need to decide a naming convention for the new archives (and, if we go with the weekly option, whether we want Sunday-Saturday, Monday-Sunday or something else; coincidentally but conveniently 1 May is a Monday), ask the bot operator to make the changes and then wait until the next archive starts. Thryduulf (talk) 03:55, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable. How would it show in the archives section though? April - I, April - II, April - III and April - IV? How would you handle when a month ends in the middle of a week?
 * alternately consider twice a month. The archives link then breaks it to April - I and April - II. The bot can be configured to run on 15th or 16th of every month. Do we know if fifteen days of archives will break the template? Ktin (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The suggestion is to use bi-monthly or weekly archives. In the case of the former archives would run from e.g. May 1-15 and May 16-30 regardless of what day of the week those days are. In the case of the latter, archives would run from e.g. April 23-April 29, April 30-May 1, etc. So each archive would span 7 days, regardless of whether there was a month break in the middle or not.
 * looking at the past few months worth of archives, templates work for 25-30 complete days so it would take an extraordinarily busy month to break after less than 15 days. Thryduulf (talk) 12:11, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * FYI, there are existing standards for bi-monthly and weekly: Half-month and ISO week date. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:07, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * It would be rather cumbersome to have a page for each and every nomination when it doesn't give much overall gain and we would still run into the problem of transcluding large amounts of material on one page. I like the idea of doing 52 weeks for the year where each week gets an archive since it eliminates the issue while keeping the noms easy to edit. I think it would be best to have the week start on Monday as recommended. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#009200 0.3em 0.4em 1.0em,#009200 -0.2em -0.2em 1.0em;color:#009200">Noah Talk 11:01, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The first thing we should try is removing the Portal:current events boxes from every day of the archive - they're unnecessary and I doubt anyone looks at them. They also take up a huge amount of rendering time, download size and template calls, then just sit there in collapsed state. Secondly, is there a way to speed up the load and rendering times by making ITN candidate more efficient? I don't know enough about template coding to tell. Or would it help if the bot substituted that template when it moves nominations to the archives? Simply splitting the archives over more pages is a crude solution, I suggest doing so only if there isn't a better way. <b style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: maroon;">Modest Genius</b> talk 11:22, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I often read the Portal:current events boxes as they are a good guide to what's going on. Archives should capture the state of pages as they were as they would otherwise distort them.  They don't do this currently as they contain a full month of ITN/C whereas ITN/C only ever contains a rolling week.  Weekly archives would therefore be a more natural and accurate representation of ITN/C history Andrew🐉(talk) 08:54, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the question to ask is — do you want to retain Portal:Current Events for each day as a part of the archives? Ktin (talk) 23:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Make WP:SNOW closures a little later.
This is just a minor proposal really but should there be a set amount of time before we close a nomination based off of WP:SNOW. I'm bringing this up because I just remembered about the existence of the (2023 New South Wales State Election nomination) and saw that this nomination was SNOW closed in right around an HOUR and this was justified based off of three opposes. Now, I would've voted oppose for that nomination regardless (not a fan of subnational elections on ITN) but is it really necessary to be able to close a nomination in an hour?

My proposal is essentially, wait at least 6 hours before a nomination can be SNOW closed. Onegreatjoke (talk) 00:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Rule creep, not needed. There is no need to keep a show going when it's clear where it's heading. This is also basically a duplicate of the thread immediately above this one. Curbon7 (talk) 00:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's technically a duplicate but in reality, it's covering two different issues. The above thread concerns allowing a 12-hour or 24-hour minimum for threads to be discussed before a consensus to post is decided upon, so that the rest of the world (but more often than not, the "rest of Europe") has a chance to weigh in on items. The idea behind that seems to be that for any U.S.-centric events that are voted upon while other regions are asleep, that the U.S.-located !voters cannot be dispassionate when weighing the significance of those types of events. In those particular instances, an administrator is making the decision to post an item, and therefore that becomes a WP:CREEP issue since admins are well capable of exercising their own judgment without adding additional rules to their work.
 * This is a different matter, because WP:SNOW closes aren't made by an admin. They're usually a result of two or three voters saying "oppose and snow close" and then the item immediately gets locked by another "impartial" non-admin !voter. I think this is right lousy. When the 2023 French pension reform strikes were posted to ongoing, the first !vote on that item was "Speedy SNOW close Article is on the verge of being a stub". When the Gualaca bus crash was posted, the fourth !vote was "Bus plunges off a cliff into the WP:SNOW". That !vote was six hours into the nomination. There are instances in which SNOW is obvious but an actual consensus needs to take time to develop, and we need to get editors weighing in on an item rather as opposed to a roving Council of No shooting down anything that doesn't immediately fit their mold of significance. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  12:36, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * This was not a matter specific to Europe, this goes for everywhere; though it is true that this issue is disproportionately raised by Europeans since they're the ones that tend to complain about "US-centrism." - Knightoftheswords281  (Talk-Contribs) 23:15, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It might be tempting to associate the vast majority of "the world isn't awake yet" !votes with European nationality, but in spite of my offhand statement, I would hesitate to do so because it may not always be the case, and because it unhelpfully paints a broad brush as to the position and identity of those !voters. There are a good number of European !voters who don't care when something is nominated and thereafter posted. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  13:49, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Do we need to invoke CREEP for every proposal that suggests more rules be put in place? It's not helpful. DarkSide830 (talk) 14:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The NSW one wasn't SNOWed solely because of the three opposes, but because subnational elections are almost never posted, as per long-standing policy/consensus/whatever you'd like to call it. The Kip (talk) 04:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Support proposal for reasons I'll go into momentarily, but which mostly amount to the impossibility of actually measuring consensus in an hour and the fact that some users aren't always the best judges of when a SNOW consensus has been reached. ⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  11:14, 21 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Just reopen if you want to support the nom. If you oppose the nom (as you did here), there's no reason to suggest the SNOW was premature. While bad closures happen, the type of noms that get snowed are either by veterans who are being pointy and should be sanctioned for it, or newbies who should be shielded from the pile-on opposes.  GreatCaesarsGhost   12:59, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the latter part is what bothers me most of all. We have good-faith contributors who have never edited at ITN before, show up to nominate something they believe is newsworthy, and then get oppose !votes spewed at them with rationales like "Seriously?" or "so what?" or "this isn't US-pedia", which doesn't really help abate the widespread consensus that ITN/C is a toxic place to be. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  13:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * ITN/C isn't a toxic place though. A small handful of editors who frequent can be controversial or flippant, but I wouldn't say it's entirely toxic in the same breadth, say, ANI is. The Tesla launch, for example, was a contentious candidate and yet nearly every comment was sound. Curbon7 (talk) 15:00, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I do actually agree with Walt (which is not something that happens too often) on this point- everyone should be welcome in all areas of WP, and even if ITN isn't a 10 on the toxicity scale, it's still like a 6, which is bad for everyone and especially for new contributors. I have definitely seen comments akin to "so what?" many times, when it wouldn't be much harder to spend two minutes reviewing sources and instead say "good-faith nom, but the level of news coverage isn't sufficient for ITN posting". Kicking222 (talk) 15:44, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

VPM Discussion
Can we take a straw poll here (non-binding of course) regarding ITN? Because I'm a strong oppose on posting a ceremonial coronation for a succession we already posted.  GreatCaesarsGhost   18:52, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:VPM -- RoySmith (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Think thats going to have to wait for the inevitable nomination. But same, and the past nominations of inaugurations for heads of state (and the US president is that) would, in a rational world, inform debate of one in the UK (eg Trump, Biden). <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 18:58, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * No, no; I understand that. But there is a presumption in the VP that ITN is going to post this, which seems unlikely to me so I'm curious what the usual gang of idiots thinks.  GreatCaesarsGhost   19:00, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The coronation ceremony and the ascension to the throne are two separate things, so I don't see why it would be precluded because we posted the ascension. Curbon7 (talk) 19:02, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Because we routinely decline to post events that are the direct consequence of things we have already posted. Eg a change in the leader of a country's government when it has already been blurbed from the result of an election. Or, in the exact corollary to the coronation of a new head of state (but with more consequence because it is not a ceremonial role), the inauguration of the US president. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 19:04, 23 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Honestly, I originally wanted to be a "Strong Oppose" on this, especially out of a personal fear of the Anglospheric bias that I believe can be present in ITN, but considering it has been over 70 years since the last coronation of a British monarch, I think there is something to be said about Charles's coronation being worthy of posting. However, I would say I am, in general, opposed to coronations more or less under the policy that Nableezy has noted. DarkSide830 (talk) 20:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason why we would prevaricate on our usual criteria. If the event meets the standards of significance (however subjective), reliable source coverage, and quality article updates, then it should be posted. We can't control how the other Main Page sectors behave. And I'm not keen on hosting a "pre-vote" ahead of time on the ITN Talk Page where there's fewer eyes. -⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  22:28, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I believe this thread was started in good-faith. However, I would recommend that discussion be had at WP:ITNC once the nomination is made. Ktin (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Considering that its been decades since the coronation of a British monarch, I' not sure applying the same set of rules regarding official ceremonies regarding normal transfers of power should be applied. I also question the underhandedness of this discussion; I agree with @WaltCip that this low-key feels like a backdoor nomination to shut down the conversation early, even if @GreatCaesarsGhost is being WP:GOODFAITH. - Knightoftheswords281  (Talk-Contribs) 13:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It doesn't feel like you are assuming good faith when you say it "low-key feels like a backdoor nomination" when I explicitly said "straw poll" and "non-binding." You could just assume I meant a non-binding straw poll.   GreatCaesarsGhost   14:49, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I for one can't fathom why someone floating an idea here must always be struck down as attempting to subvert consensus. This page is for discussion. We are discussing. What is wrong about that? One could argue the whole concept of INT/R is an attempt to do the same thing. I wouldn't agree, but some past INT/R adversaries have felt this way. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:49, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't have any problem with the discussion. I said I wasn't keen on a pre-vote, mostly because of the lower participation here as opposed to ITN/C, but I don't have any intention on blocking it as it is non-binding after all. --⛵ <span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(white, blue, navy, black)">WaltClipper - (talk)  19:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I think you're being good faith, I just don't really see the point of a non-binding straw poll for an event that hasn't even been occurred. As WaltCip proclaimed, there is way less participation here, which not only means there's less community input, but also gives more leeway to the inevitable poster of the coronation. We all know that Charles III's coronation is finna be nominated, why not just wait a week to argue and debate about it instead of attempting to probe consensus this early (especially considering WP:CCC)? - Knightoftheswords281  (Talk-Contribs) 21:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the reason it matters here is because theres a related discussion about how other sections of the main page are going to be largely themed around the coronation (the ony Roy linked to), and it assumes that this section as well would have material related to the coronation. So whether or not we also would have that coverage may inform that discussion. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 21:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Theres no transfer of power here. And our usual criteria is not to post material that is the result of something we already posted. But can argue this in a week I suppose. Honestly, we could have a binding decision here to include in the ITN/R section on Elections and heads of state and government that it include coronations of heads of states that have already been blurbed. Though I am at a loss as to how the president of Cuba or the Cuban elections were knocked down as being undemocratic and merely a coronation for the Communist Party's chosen successor with little actual power does not apply here. If you guys operated with any consistency here you wouldnt even consider this. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 16:08, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Put Israeli judicial reform protests behind the Ukraine war and Sudan conflict in the ongoing section
While I agree that the judicial protests are important, they are far less important than the war in Ukraine and the Sudan conflict, so it should be put behind them in the ongoing section. Mucube (talk • contribs) 22:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Items in ongoing are placed on alphabetical order, not any sort of assessed importance. Curbon7 (talk) 23:02, 3 May 2023 (UTC)