Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 74

(Closed) Proposal to amend ITN guidelines regarding death blurbs

 * Background For some time a growing number of of editors have been invoking a "rule" that only persons whose influence is on the same level as Nelson Mandela or Margaret Thatcher should warrant blurbs on their deaths. This is contrary to the longstanding custom that we blurb the deaths of persons who were in the top tier of their given field or profession. As a matter of personal opinion I think this new standard is ridiculously high and effectively all but ends the practice of blurbing the deaths of highly significant people. But we are where we are and consensus does evolve. Given the frequent, and at times testy debates over various nominations I am thinking it's time to update our guidelines to provide some clarity on the subject.
 * Proposal Conceding the possibility of a rare IAR nomination, death blurbs shall be reserved for heads of state/government who die in office.
 * -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:46, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Support

 * Support the box is the box, no one "deserves" a blurb, a blurb doesn't bring them back from the dead, and RD isn't for "lesser" deaths. Propose a total ban on death blurbs and I'll all-caps support it. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:00, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) Why should death blurbs be reserved for politicians? There are plenty of other Wikinotable people with articles who may be blurbworthy, based on each and every person's individual case. Mjroots (talk) 14:29, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * If the standard is Mandela Thatcher, there are very very few. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose Current guidelines, which state, and I quote, "In general, if a person's death is only notable for what they did while alive, it belongs as an RD link. If the person's death itself is newsworthy for either the manner of death or the newsworthy reaction to it, it may merit a blurb." I think that guidance is fine on its own, and does not need changing, merely reminding people that it exists.  -- Jayron 32 14:41, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose is sufficient.—Bagumba (talk) 15:51, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 3) Oppose limiting death blurbs to politicians. We have sufficient guidelines in this area. 331dot (talk) 19:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose. I am one of the editors who has been applying the Mandela/Thatcher standard, and generally think we should maintain a high bar for blurbs (because we have RD). Your proposal would exclude both Mandela and Thatcher, who were not in office when they died, yet would post e.g. Rainier III, Prince of Monaco and Baldwin Lonsdale, who are far less prominent. That makes no sense to me. Modest Genius talk 20:28, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 5) Oppose – Notability is not fleeting so I disagree with the "in office" criteria. Dying in office however does in and of itself confirm added notability for blurbing but it is not an exclusive criteria. I also disagree that this should be limited to politicians. It is possible for people in other fields to have a high impact. If Einstein died today, would any of us oppose a blurb? Even better for a hypothetical, if, god forbid, Tim Berners-Lee died today should we not blurb? I say yes, we should blurb! --- C &amp; C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 20:46, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 6) Oppose "Top of their field" or Relatively important person with "unusual death" works fine. We've had some bad cases in the past with people like Carrie Fishie, but we've been recently. Kobe Bryant, Stan Lee, David Bowie, and Prince were all appropriate just as much as Stephen Hawking. Just that with long-term sitting world leaders, they generally have made a significant impression and thus are generally always going to get a blurb, but that means others can't. --M asem (t) 20:51, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 7) Oppose per Jayron. Also, I believe posting Carrie Fisher as a blurb was the right call, even though she's not a "top of the field" person, based on the reaction to her death. That's what makes it a blurb for me, as that death was newsworthy in its own right. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 8) Oppose, mostly per Mjroots. Banedon (talk) 00:08, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 9) Oppose I don't think this adds any value at all, arguments to include pop stars, scientists etc will still continue. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 08:37, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 10) Oppose mostly per Jayron and others. Quite good arguments against this. – Ammarpad (talk) 10:28, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 11) Oppose per TRM. This wouldn't stick. We are in SNOW close territory. Let's finish this up. WaltCip (talk) 12:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 12) Strong oppose I do think the "top of their field" bit could be amended (how niche can that field be?) but only allowing politicians is definitely not the right answer to fixing any of ITN-RD's problems. I do agree we should stop with the "Thatcher/Mandela" standard and instead have something like a "Hawking/Bryant" standard (off the top of my head) -- they were the top of their fields and are a much better way of comparison than the high bar everyone always quotes.  Nixinova   T   C   05:42, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 13) Oppose I believe our standards for death blurbs are too high. I oppose the Mandela/Thatcher standard (which is not, and has never been, policy) and I oppose this proposal even more strongly. Davey2116 (talk) 20:53, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

General discussion
Time to close this please? The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 01:42, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

RD images
The discussion about whether to post an image for Freeman Dyson's death consisted largely of editors supporting the idea but not wishing to overturn precedent at ITN/C instead of here. The two very recent RD images were Kirk Douglas and Katherine Johnson, posted to replace images of Donald Trump following his acquittal and the Dáil Éireann following the Irish election, respectively; both images had been on the main page for several days and were not very informative to their stories, so the RD images were posted via IAR. So here we'll see if we can codify this precedent.

Proposal: An image for an RD item shall be posted if a consensus at ITN/C so indicates.

Support

 * 1) Support as nominator. There seems to be no reason to forbid RD images, and an intermediate option between RD and blurb can potentially resolve lots of contentious RD/blurb discussions as it did with Kirk Douglas. Davey2116 (talk) 21:21, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 2) Support either as automatic or on a case-by-case basis based on discussion in the nom. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * 3) Support no brainer. If consensus supports something on Wikipedia, it seems absurd not to allow it.  The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 01:41, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

 * Partial oppose I would allow for both ITNC discussion as well as admin discretion as noted below by Great Caesar's Ghost. -- Jayron 32 14:56, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose – Inevitably confusing to readers due to lack of visual relationship to small-type RD name-only listings. – Sca (talk) 15:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose - So every time an RD gets nominated, we're going to debate if they're photo-worthy? With no standards for what that is? Hard pass. The blurb fights are ITN at its worst; this would make them an everyday occurrence.  GreatCaesarsGhost   01:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. In case of multiple RDs having freely licensed images, choosing just one is highly arbitrary. Brandmeistertalk  17:12, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose - the current practice of leaving RD images as being useable in the event that there are no blurb images available is fine. Mjroots (talk) 13:12, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose, but ... WP:CONSENSUS and WP:IAR are already policies that cover this. However, I would support a change to of "The picture must should be of a person or event mentioned in a blurb" along with related rewording at the bullet item "In rare cases ..." —Bagumba (talk) 09:13, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. So when we have an image, the old RD crit is going to rise from its grave in the form of "oppose image! not top of field!". No thanks. I get the logic behind a compromise for individuals where blurb consensus is murky, but imo, posting an image is a stone's throw from the pro-blurb side. I opposed a Douglas blurb because his death wasn't blurbworthy so in turn I'd oppose his face being the image accompanying stuff that actually was. Nohomersryan (talk) 03:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

General discussion

 * Two concerns I would have would be with ITNC consensus pushing an RD image over a blurb image for a blurb that has only "recently" been posted (roughly, 24hr), as well as when a new blurb image may remove that image if its only "recently" been posted, and just making sure that the idea of an RD image is meant as an IAR situation, and should not be used as a common case just because the current blurb image is going stale. --M asem (t) 21:31, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * if a consensus at ITN/C so indicates makes the proposal seem redundant, since if consensus indicates so virtually everything on Wikipedia can be changed. Banedon (talk) 21:39, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * How about an admin direction: if the current photo has been up for > 48 hours, an RD photo may replace it if available. In BAU practice, photo changes are not discussed - we post the freshest one eligible.  GreatCaesarsGhost   14:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * "Admin discretion" is antithetical to the consensus based approach used for putting anything into the box. Strongly Opposed to that. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:26, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I said direction, not discretion. In any case, photos are today posted to blurbs with scant (or no) discussion.  GreatCaesarsGhost   01:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think we've went over this before... Many things happen in the ITN box, and indeed all over Wikipedia, without your involvement or participation. WP:SOFIXIT applies to admins as well as it does to editors, and we don't go through discussions for every little inconsequential matter.  And we will continue to do so.  Of course, if there is a discussion, and a consensus we need to put in place, we will do so.  But we are not required to wait for a discussion to happen to make Wikipedia better.  -- Jayron 32 14:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes we've been over this before, and the consensus is that the subject of items in the box require discussion, admins can fix typos, update details, etc. You and I will not agree Jayron32, but lets at least stop pretending we don't understand eachothers position. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:31, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You keep saying you understand, and then keep insisting that minor changes like updating an image as needed for an item already posted by consensus requires yet another consensus discussion. It seems like every time we have these discussions, there's no change too minor you insist admins are incapable of just fixing.  -- Jayron 32 14:26, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh? Ok just let me know where I said "updating an image as needed for an item already posted by consensus requires yet another consensus discussion" and we're all set. --LaserLegs (talk) 04:29, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't care what we decide to do, but whatever we do, can we PLEASE pick a practice and stick with it? No IARs or admin discretions. Just follow a set procedure.--WaltCip (talk) 01:39, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Past discussions Some background from past discussions that I have found (I was uninvolved then):
 * In 2012, there were BLP concerns that readers might not notice the fine print about who was pictured when the top-most blurb was a living person but the image was for a different person.(discussion, example)
 * There was a 2017 discussion with no consensus to allow equal weight to choosing either a blurb or RD image. There was some sentiment to change WP:ITN wording that the image "should" be from a blurb, as opposed to "must".(discussion)—Bagumba (talk) 08:50, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion: a series of extraordinary related events
Every (very) now and then, a large number of related, highly extraordinary events (like the current coronavirus thing, which is likely to cause a large number of further megalockdowns beyond Hubei and Lombardy) occur within a short period of time. I would like to get a discussion regarding how to cover this - simply "ongoing" seems to be missing out on a lot of the details. Hypothetically, if this was 1941, "the Third Reich invades the Soviet Union" would not get a blurb or even any mention in ITN because of Ongoing World War 2, while "the New York Yankees win the 1941 World Series after defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers" would due to ITN/R. Juxlos (talk) 17:48, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Told ya the cricket nomination would be posted first. !!!CRICKET KLAXON!!! Howard the Duck (talk) 17:50, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Mr. Duck does not appreciate the extraordinary magnitude of notability that cricket possesses and therefore the incommensurable importance in ensuring that it is posted to ITN whenever possible.--WaltCip (talk) 17:54, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Coronavirus? Nope (Ok, ongoing). All kinds of cricket world cups, by both men and women? Yes and yes! Wikipedia wouldn't be even posting the 1941 World Series if Wikipedia existed by that time. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:57, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Surely ITN/C stands for ITN/Cricket. Juxlos (talk) 18:05, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * And not ITN/Coronavirus? What's hilarious on this is that the same reason why ITN is keeping off Karadashian gossip is the same reasoning that is being given to banish Coronavirus blurbs. Because it is "not news". There are actual encyclopedia articles being written on these, but nope, these are news. Why is no one sending those to AFD? Ah wait, they're not not news! Howard the Duck (talk) 18:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * They're news, but the point of Wikipedia is NOT news. - Indefensible (talk) 18:17, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If they're news, why are those articles even existing? Should those be sent to AFD? Howard the Duck (talk) 18:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You're misunderstanding the point, notable subjects can both be news and have encyclopedic coverage. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. If you want to write more about notable Kardashian-related topics, go ahead. Regardless of whether something is news and/or encyclopedic however, it currently does not mean that it has to be posted to the frontpage. That's the issue. Even if the Italian lockdown is a notable event, it can simply be in Wikipedia's knowledge base without being posted to ITN. - Indefensible (talk) 18:32, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Just because it can be not on ITN, doesn't it mean it shouldn't be on ITN. The point of ITN is "to direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest". Is 16 million people being locked down due to a disease not a "current event of wide interest"? Juxlos (talk) 20:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The ongoing coronavirus link does just that, it directs people to relevant articles related to the subject, including the Italian lockdown. Posting it in addition would be redundant and biased (due to overemphasis) in comparison to other items which are not posted. One could argue that no, 16 million people in lockdown is not significant, it is impacting less than 1% of the human population with a mild inconvenience. By comparison again, various ongoing wars around the world are similarly affecting millions of people and killing thousands, but are not on the frontpage either. Whether something is significant or not is subjective, I think this event is notable but not so notable that it requires double coverage when other events have no coverage. - Indefensible (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The key principle I think is that Wikipedia is not primarily a news site (WP:NOTNP). Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Therefore, capturing all recent news items ITN is not required or Wikipedia's core mission--Wikipedia simply should capture all notable knowledge, but timeliness is not the first priority. If people want to be up to date on the news, they should go to a news site, not to Wikipedia.
 * IF Wikipedia does want to do a better job of disseminating current news, then the frontpage probably needs a significant redesign to give more space to the ITN section, which is not particularly emphasized currently. This is not necessarily a bad idea I think, but again Wikipedia is not setup for this per the above. Similar to the WWII example, ongoing current events on the human-scale like the Syrian civil war actually should be posted as ongoing with encyclopedic coverage in my opinion, and the current subject of the 2019-20 coronavirus outbreak would probably fall into the same category. - Indefensible (talk) 18:06, 8 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The problem with the coronavirus thing is that it is so large at this point that if we decided to start posting blurbs for parts of it, that we re-dominate the news. The whole point of ongoing was to have events that have frequent news updates presented in the ITN box in a manner that would not overwhelm the rest of ITN, and we are doing that right now properly with the coronavirus stuff. We're not saying that key events in the overall coverage of the coronavirus can't be made into a blurb, but these should be major milestones, not just events like Italy's lockdown (neither the first and likely not the last).  Remember, ITN is not a news ticker, it is to highlight articles of topics that happen to be in the news and that represent some of WP's best work. --M asem  (t) 18:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If every notable discrete coronavirus event is posted, then presumably every notable discrete event of the Syrian civil war and every other ongoing conflict can also be posted, so maybe it would not dominate. It would create a lot more churn though. The key I think is that ITN is not a news ticker currently despite the name as you wrote. - Indefensible (talk) 18:39, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I would point out that Syrian Civil War hasn't made headline for a few years now while the quarantine is headline news on almost every European news outlet. Not really a fair comparison. This isn't a "news ticker" item when it's a historically significant event which is part of a greater item. Comparing "16 million people locked down" and "generic Syrian village #203 is under siege" is just not a comparison. Juxlos (talk) 20:12, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Juxlos--This is not a valid counterargument in my opinion, for comparison Northwestern Syria offensive (December 2019–present) is well-referenced with plenty of respectable sources but was not posted. 1) Just because it is not in the headlines from your subjective perspective does not mean it has not been in the headlines. 2) News prominence is not a criterion per WP:In the news. Roughly 1 million people were displaced by the Northwestern Syria offensive mentioned above, it is not just some "generic Syrian village." The categorical difference between 16 million people and 1 million is arguably not huge, and I would argue displacement is significantly worse than quarantine. Either way, it is an arbitrary and subjective threshold to include or exclude either one. However, the coronavirus is already posted on the frontpage and the Syrian civil war is not. Posting the Italian lockdown only seems biased. - Indefensible (talk) 21:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If the U.S. decides to lock down New York, and Japan locks down Tokyo, then there's going to be significant interest in both, and it's going to be fair to have two coronavirus items on ITN. Nobody is implying that we should post ITN whenever a country confirms a new case. Juxlos (talk) 20:21, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That was what was actually suggested before when there was news Italy and S. Korea had significant cases a few weeks ago. It once again comes down to the fact that ITN is not a news ticker We are not a 24/7 news station, we are still an encyclopedia and ITN reflects articles of good quality that are in the news. Ongoing is used for articles and their subarticles that are getting frequent updates, and the coronavirus (including this Italy lockdown) fits that just fine, it is not a new news item nor a significant milestone in the overall situation. --M asem  (t) 20:28, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

There is an obvious pro-cricket bias now at ITN, and I think the best way to counter it will be to scream "systemic bias" at every cricket nom while erecting insurmountable walls of text denigrating anyone supporting the nomination. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:32, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

need a link on the main page, in section, "In the News"
hi. I noticed that the section on the Main Page for "In the News" does not link to Portal:Current Events. can we please add a link there? thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:11, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * When there is "Ongoing", the "Ongoing" text is the P:CE link. Otherwise, there will be a "Other recent events" at the very bottom next to nomination link. --M asem (t) 18:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * okay, but if that's the case, then why don';t i see any such links there now? perhaps I'm missing something? thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm saying, right now, the text "Ongoing" in the current template on the main page (with the outbreak after it) is a link to P:CE. --M asem (t) 19:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * hm okay, I see. in that case, can we change the label of that link, from "ongoing" to, eg, "More at Current Events Portal:"? --Sm8900 (talk) 00:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Cricket and architecture prize have been there for 8+ days
Can we please replace the cricket and architecture entries now? The cricket one has been there since 8 March (9 days ago) and the architecture one has been there longer I believe. I think that more significant non-coronavirus things have happened in the world lately which merit taking these two down now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Z117 (talk • contribs) 21:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There has only been one non-covid related news story suggested in the last several days, and I can't think of any real major stories that would be suitable either. --M asem (t) 21:53, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Those entries will just roll off as new ones replace them, if you want to see newer content then you should nominate them on the candidates page. - Indefensible (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I could nominate the story of the Museum of the Bible's Dead Sea Scrolls forgery, but I'm not too familiar with it to make an update on the former page (the latter has a substantial note about it). Kingsif (talk) 22:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Certainly a possible replacement. --M asem (t) 23:02, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See WP:ITNC. And now we close this.  The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 23:24, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If you would like to see faster turnover of ITN postings, I invite you to participate at WP:ITNC, be it by making nominations or discussing the nominations of others. 331dot (talk) 23:29, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Slovena has a new government, and so does Belgium. Since I nominated one of the two, I am not doing anything admin-related here. --Tone 11:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Changing the picture
We should really be using something COVID19 related. Added some ideas. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Suggested pictures changes for ITN typically go to WP:ERRORS, though there appear to be a few new blurbs that will likely take priority with a new picture . --M asem (t) 01:31, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That said, I'm going to BOLDly change it to the outbreak map, since the current image has been up for well >24hr. --M asem (t) 01:48, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks User:Masem Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I am trying to figure out what day the map we have on ITN is representing, and how we want to keep updating it going forward (if this image stays up). I asked for clarification at Village_pump_(miscellaneous), if anyone can give input there or point me towards a centralized discussion I am unaware of I would appreciate it.  Kees08  (Talk)   17:52, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Substitute per capita map for total cases map?
Thank you to everyone for your commendable work on this banner. I'm sorry to chime in as a johnny-come-lately to this discussion, but since the banner gives primary focus to epidemiological rather than virological aspects of the disease would it be more appropriate and useful to our readers to feature the per capita infection map rather than the case total infection map? States are social concepts and I'm not sure the value of representing infection rates within arbitrary historical-political units versus natural units like population. Plus, the "at a glance" quality of the case total map, I think, mis-communicates to the lay reader the impact of the virus on China and may unintentionally reinforce the "Wuhan Virus" frame by drawing the reader's attention to that country. (If I'm being crazy, please don't hesitate to tell me.) Chetsford (talk) 07:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Hide current events portal transclusions on ITNC for mobile
On mobile it's a real pain having to scroll down through all the current events stories when I want to read the noms, even more so now with coronaspam. Can the the transclusion be surrounded with   automatically from now on? <b style="border:1px solid #0800aa"> Nixinova </b> <b style="border:1px solid #006eff"> T </b> <b style="border:1px solid #00a1ff"> C </b>  21:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Crazy idea: dedicating a section of the Main Page to coronavirus news
There's been a lot of opposition to blurbing coronavirus stories since they would quickly dominate the ITN box, and the link in ongoing is too conspicuous for people's liking. A section dedicated to ITN would help alleviate these concerns. If we move OTD down to be next to the long featured image section that would create room for an extended ITN box. This idea may be too drastic, however, but I do think very major ongoing events should have more prominence on the main page. This section would obviously still have the same quality and notability guidelines as regular ITN stories; this would just help alleviate fears of coronavirus stories spamming the regular ITN feed. <b style="border:1px solid #0800aa"> Nixinova </b> <b style="border:1px solid #006eff"> T </b> <b style="border:1px solid #00a1ff"> C </b> 06:59, 9 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I doubt it's gonna fly — but I could see myself supporting if the right framework were to be designed. El_C 07:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
 * First of all, we're not a news ticker. Second, I don't think the coronavirus should be the story we use to set an example of very major ongoing events. I think there are other kinds of events which would be more catastrophic (a nuclear war, for example) that we ought to use as the benchmark rather than a pandemic with a relatively low death rate and an admittedly unprecedented level of media coverage.--WaltCip (talk) 12:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Some people want CV to have the increased prominence of a blurb, while others think ongoing is good enough (or they feel as I do - that ongoing is just as prominent as a blurb). The solution proposed here suggests it is a compromise, but would make it more prominent than either. How is that going to assuage the pro-ongoing crowd?  GreatCaesarsGhost   12:24, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus is going to be in the news (and Ongoing) for some time, and COVID19 stories that are big enough DO get blurbs even while it's in Ongoing already. The one example was when the WHO made the "epidemic" declaration; the Ongoing entry was removed, blurb was added, when the blurb was at the bottom of the ITN box, another Ongoing nomination was made and passed. Working as intended. No need to reformat the Front Page. The closed COVID19 nominations (for Italy's lockdown, epidemic in South Korea, and infections at the ski resort) were big stories, and might have been blurbed if not for the Ongoing entry, but were just not big enough. As important as I personally think the pandemic is, I still don't want this to turn into COVIDWiki. As for prominence, Ongoing is one of the most static parts of the Front Page. It's going to be there for every WP reader to see for a while, and probably a lot longer than necessary (like the 2013 Ebola outbreak) 130.233.2.197 (talk) 12:34, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose a good faith suggestion for sure but unnecessary (and nearly impossible to execute). I don't think there is enough high quality content to justify it. I do wish we'd be less hostile towards the occasional blurb for otherwise ongoing stories. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:13, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

<div class="floatright ombox" style="width: 45%; border:1px solid #aaa; padding:1em; padding-top:.5em; color: #000; background-color:#f5faff">


 * In cricket, the Women's T20 World Cup concludes with Australia defeating India in the final (player of the match Alyssa Healy pictured).
 * Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
 * In the United States, a tornado outbreak hits four counties around Nashville, Tennessee, killing twenty-five people.
 * Muhyiddin Yassin becomes the prime minister of Malaysia following a political crisis which led to the resignation of his predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad.
 * Ongoing coronavirus outbreak: The Italian government implements  quarantines affecting over 16 million people, mainly in northern Italy.
 * Another idea is to make coronavirus its own dedicated line on ITN, and put the most recent approved blurb specific to coronavirus after it. (Example to right.) Or modify Template:In the news/footer so that it's grouped with Ongoing. - Featous (talk) 18:34, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I do believe that ITN looks patently absurd without covid-19 top of the list. It's a global story (shock horror, even affecting Trump's kingdom, despite the virus being fake news made up by Democrats) so it really does meet that primary issue of ITN which is to get people as soon as they can to the main news events. This is truly global news and far more significant than the ladies' T20I and the Pritzker Prize. How can we hold our collective heads up and say that the "ongoing" entry is sufficient here? Absurd. I suppose once we get to a few dozen deaths in the US things might change. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 23:13, 9 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Proposal: Instead of doing that, we can have parentheses of major co-ongoing events. For example:

<div class="floatright ombox" style="width: 45%; border:1px solid #aaa; padding:1em; padding-top:.5em; color: #000; background-color:#f5faff">

Ongoing: Coronavirus outbreak (Italian lockdown, Hubei lockdown) If more pops up (would be unsurprising), there is likely to be a collection article (e.g. Lockdowns and quarantines during the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak) which we can just handle with Coronavirus outbreak (lockdowns). Juxlos (talk) 00:09, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * In cricket, the Women's T20 World Cup concludes with Australia defeating India in the final (player of the match Alyssa Healy pictured).
 * Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara win the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
 * In the United States, a tornado outbreak hits four counties around Nashville, Tennessee, killing twenty-five people.
 * Muhyiddin Yassin becomes the prime minister of Malaysia following a political crisis which led to the resignation of his predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad.
 * Comment I recall similar precedents before. When an Ongoing item got a significant development, that story has been blurbed with the link to the parent ongoing event. When that story rolled off the main page, the Ongoing item was restored. In this case it could something like "During the coronavirus outbreak, Italy is  placed under quarantine". But, as has been noted, in case of coronavirus there could be nearly simultaneous events of equal importance which prevents their postings. Brandmeistertalk  10:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment - I'm a bit confused by the indenting going on in this particular thread, so I apologize if my comment is in the wrong place. The Rambling Man, old chap, I think we usually agree on ITN stuff, but in this case if we post a blurb about COVID-19 on account of it being massively significant, I believe that defeats the point of having the ongoing ticker. After all, it's specifically meant to cover news of ongoing nature where there are too many individual stories or sub-stories to cover in blurbs without dominating the ITN template. So what's the point of having ongoing, if not for stories like COVID-19? And if we accept that we should have both ongoing and blurbs on ITN for the same story, what are we setting the threshold at? I'm a bit leery of jumping headlong into this without some clear process or consensus on how to cover stories of this sort.--WaltCip (talk) 12:45, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think our readers will just assume that "ongoing" with its format is just less significant or notable than the main blurbs.  The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 13:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Then I think we ought not have COVID-19 be an ongoing story, if readers are interpreting it as an "and finally" category, and instead we should just focus on posting blockbuster blurbs. As Sca said, being on the inside means I interpret it to be just "ongoing news", but obviously readers don't view it that way.--WaltCip (talk) 13:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Proposal How about we just make it the top story, exempt from "rolling" down the list? New noms can be made to ITNC to change the blurb as events warrant.  GreatCaesarsGhost   17:05, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment Oddly I came here wondering if someone had proposed something along these lines. I don't have any strong feeling on exactly how to do it, but I do believe that this is going to be the biggest rolling event for most of the world in a very long time. And I think that needs to be reflected on the main page beyond listing this in ongoing. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:28, 12 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I actually would strongly urge that the better solution, given the state of the outbreak/pandemic page, is to have a higher-level outline/overview page of the coronavirus. The current page is more specific to its orgians in China, which is fine, but its gone so far that's no longer really a good starting page. Instead, this overview page would hit on the basics of the discovery, symptoms, and other medical basis of COVID-19, a high-level timeline and its spread across the global and links to pages of the various national /international responses, and impact pages. To that point, and to ITN here, the top of that page can the be dedicated while the COVID outbreak/pandemic is active with a "news items" box that contain key points agreed on editors (significant things only, the Portal:Current Events level)/ When COVID is over, this box goes away, but we are left with a good overview page for readers to start from in the future. This avoids having to fight ITN over news items to include, and is a method for future broad, very active news-heavy targets like the Olympics or World Cup or, in the past, Brexit or Trump's impeachment. --M asem (t) 03:03, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That would be lovely but you'd have to get a group of medically competent editors to (1) write a short overview; (2) fight its bloating by day-by-day he-said-she-said trivia; and (3) fight its depletion for not adhering to medical project source definitions. My experience with outbreak articles is that it is hopeless to try to condense them until after the outbreak is over, or at least out of the news, when reliable sources of the sort the medical project like start publishing reviews. The usual trick then is to strip the article into "timeline of XYZ", and rewrite it from scratch. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:40, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've run into the MEDRS issue in a completely separate situation, and outside of a summary of the origins, discovery, symptoms, spread, treatment, and methods of containment/remedy, there's not much else MEDRS would apply to that page; the day by day news we're talking about here like the NBA season suspension wouldn't require it. But I have seen cases where editors that are avid on MEDRS issues will demand that only MEDRS sourcing be used, which.. makes no sense... --M asem (t) 03:44, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The usual stuff that many editors find of interest (read me) and the medical project don't like to include is any treatment- or vaccine-related content short of "XYZ intervention is approved by FDA/EMA". I long since stopped fighting the flow, as it is literally the only arena on the 'pedia where my edits ever get reverted, despite the fact that it is actually my offline area of qualification/expertise. But they don't usually object to sports-fixtures-being-postponed-type news being sourced to better-quality news outlets, although it did cause some hassle getting one of the outbreak articles through external peer review (which is another direction in which the medical project is heading these days). Espresso Addict (talk) 03:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Probably a point to discuss well after the COVID situation is over, because I agree that MEDRS has valid but it does have limits as well. --M asem (t) 04:20, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

<div class="floatright ombox" style="width: 45%; border:1px solid #aaa; padding:1em; padding-top:.5em; color: #000; background-color:#f5faff">
 * Comment. A low-cost way of implementing something like this would be to separate out all coronavirus-related content tracked in Current Events, and put in a link to something like "More coronavirus news" in addition to the existing link to the outbreak article. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:06, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, a simple extra link in ITN for "Additional coronavirus news" to something to cover the things we are not would be the easiest way to satisfy that. Whether that's at P:CE or a mainspace page or wherever, I dunno. But this can be added as a temp point at the bottom of the template where, right now, we have "Other recent events - Nominate an article". Real easily to create a temporarily template/addition for that. --M asem (t) 04:19, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

<div class="floatright ombox" style="width: 45%; border:1px solid #aaa; padding:1em; padding-top:.5em; color: #000; background-color:#f5faff">


 * So here's that idea, when we have coronavirus blurbs to direct to some page that should be a "current events for coronavirus" page or a section of a page for that. (This is in my sandbox). It thus should stand out regardless of what blurbs are there. --M asem (t) 04:49, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I like that. Could you mock up what it would look like when coronavirus returns to Ongoing? Espresso Addict (talk) 04:52, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Second example has the ongoing (obviously just ignore the same blurb, this would be where there would be no COVID-related blurbs. Again, same intended type of portal:CE-like target page for the link. --M asem (t) 05:07, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Striking my comment above, and voting for option 2 ["Ongoing: Coronavirus outbreak (Italian lockdown, Hubei lockdown)"].130.233.2.197 (talk) 08:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)


 * My preference is to a) put at the top, b) without the word ongoing, and c) styled like Recent Deaths - "Coronovirus Outbreak" in bold, with sub stories unbolded after.  GreatCaesarsGhost   12:36, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Or, hey, we could cobble together a separate Eng.-lang. Wiki website devoted entirely to the Coronavirus, and yet another detailing the gyrations of world financial markets. Volunteers? – Sca (talk) 14:09, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I was redirected here, so I will just repost what I put on the main page, dropping the first paragraph except to quote PotentPotables, "At this point, we might need a whole Coronavirus subsection to ITN, just to fit all these "unprecedented" events (only half sarcastic)." I think we are at that point. It seems appropriate to continue that part of the discussion, since it is not a continuation of the particular story but an expansion of a growing ITN problem.

Let's face it, the tsunami of unprecedented events (or at least unprecedented in the modern media age) is going to get ever larger. The structure would probably be something similar to the typical infobox hide/expand (the presidency section of the Donald Trump article would be a good example, if an option were added to collapse it). Offhand, I would suggest the coronavirus template would include sections such as: Add to this a link to the main pandemic page, which would substitute for placing the pandemic article itself in the ongoing section. It would be just above the ongoing section (which leaves room for other potential ongoing stories which are not COVID-19 based). Call the section "Coronavirus - current events" -- and that ought to be the only thing visible unless users choose to expand the link. - Tenebris — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.11.171.90 (talk) 20:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Quarantines (a listing of all quarantined regions city-size and larger)
 * Cancellations (of major events only (1000s of people), subdivide by Arts (includes concerts), Sports, Politics (those pesky election year rallies))
 * Postponements (same divisions as "cancellations", events would often be moved from here to there)
 * Travel disruptions (international, cross-state or cross-province)
 * Economic consequences
 * Infrastructure (medical, local utilities and transportation etc)
 * Research
 * Disinformation
 * Honestly, this is not Wikipedia's purpose. To step away: We have established in the past that we aren't going to take steps to warn people about pending hurricanes or tsunamis - all we can do is track them as news items and hope that people who are in the path are paying attention.  While this is global and will affect everyone, its the same principle and we should be very careful to not make this a special case. Tracking this day by day should not be our purpose.  Pointing readers to sites that are trackign this day by day, and for us, summarizing those results on a daily-ish basis, is reasonable, but well after this is done, we have to turn this around and make sure we're writing in encyclopedic coverage and not proseline, hour-by-hour breakdowns that some of the coverage in WP is trending towards. That's not en.wiki's purpose as an encyclopedia. That would be Wikinews. I still say that idea of a special page that can be linked from ITN using the boxes I spec'ed above, with links to sites or information in the list above, is reasonable, as long as this is the summary of information from other sites, and not WP being the "news hub" for it. --M asem  (t) 23:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Much as I would normally agree, Masem, I think that the ship has sailed. I think we are becoming a hub, whether we like it or not. The latest consensus obtained on ITN/C with the most recent postings of Coronavirus-related stories seems to indicate that. Is the consensus wrong?--WaltCip (talk) 00:10, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The concensus on the Black Monday story was very weak to post, the Italy a bit stronger, where as the WHO "pandemic" was pretty strong. And of course the NBA shutdown was closed quickly. It shows there's definitely a gradation in how editors see these. Fully aware COVID is super unique and likely never to be seen again, but I can already see a similar line of argument that if we allow for a "special" front page allowance for COVID beyond simple additions to the ITN box, then I can see editors arguing that when we get to this next US election where whether Trump stays or not will have similar world-affecting impact will be argued and that we should have a similar box. Which no, we should not be doing at any point, en.wiki is not a news site, particularly its front page. It goes against our "no professional advice" disclaimer for all purposes in the case of COVID. --M asem (t) 01:22, 13 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Support any effort to make this content more prominent within ITN, such as 's and related proposals above. I don't feel strongly between the options presented, though top-blurbing it for now seems apt. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak Support I think Coronavirus should be treated as an exception rather than us worrying about any precedent it might set--this is easily the biggest news story since 9/11. Coronavirus also fits neatly into Wikipedia's niche, given the large amount of misinformation floating around about it and the potential ability of Wikipedia to correct that.  Of the options presented, I think the first one looked the neatest in terms of formatting (the "ongoing coronavirus outbreak" blurb), with the second one being acceptable and the last option being undesirable.  My preferred solution would be to allow coronavirus stories to take multiple blurb spots in ITN.  After all, virtually everything that is happening right now in the news is related to coronavirus, and there are some pretty major things happening.  For example, it would be fair to make a blurb about all the sports events being cancelled right now--NBA, NHL, NCAA, Champions League, Serie A, etc. Looking on the front page of BBC, three of their top five stories are coronavirus related, and four of the top eight; their top three sport headlines are all coronavirus related, and other news website are similar. NorthernFalcon (talk) 06:16, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: This is the whole point of having the Ongoing link. People can access more information from that link.  Spencer T• C 14:38, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * An honest problem with that, at least at the moment with the current target 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, while a good encyclopedic article, lacks a good summary of all the current events at a glance. Again, I would urge that we need a top-level outline/summary page that will persist past the pandemic, but while the pandemic is going on, can include a section near the top that include news items beyond the scope of ITN. Then ITN's ongoing can link to that, and make everyone happy. --M asem (t) 14:50, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support for this suggestion. The main pandemic article (as good as it is) isn't going to cut it for the next few weeks of current events, when you have to scroll through 13.5k words and 337,886 bytes(!) just to find the latest relevant update. PotentPotables (talk) 15:35, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Also btw - two points, one about traffic, one about an existing counter becoming essentially useless if too many nominations come through. Please note that it is not crystal-balling to plan ahead. The pattern of stories you see now is actually a still-mild version of the pattern you are going to keep seeing for the next 3-4 months (if the U.S. manages to get its case tracing under control) or 6+ months (if not). (I identify the U.S. as the key country simply because of the combination of its large population, its attitude toward government health care, and its attitude toward personal freedoms. No other country is in quite the same position, although India has a chance of it, if the coronavirus really latches on there.)
 * (1) If the ITN pandemic page links to an index page, people are going to start bookmarking the index page directly. This will help keep WP from loading too slowly or even going down due to too much traffic by spreading out that traffic. There will always be people looking to the main page first, but, well, call it WP's version of flattening the curve.
 * (2) ITN is going to have quite a few COVID 19-linked deaths in two to three weeks -- more than is realistic to keep posting individually on RD. If you choose to go with either an index page or the expansion link I proposed (neither would involve a whole other front page sector, only re-thinking a single link), another category that should be included there -- and not on the main page -- is COVID 19-linked deaths, to separate them out from the regular deaths which will happen in any case.

Finally, this is not about being a news ticker. This is about providing quality encyclopaedic information across a wide but related spectrum -- a spectrum which is only going to see more demand over time. It is up to us to think ahead, so that WP can continue to be equal to that demand. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2020 (UTC) <div class="floatright ombox" style="width: 45%; border:1px solid #aaa; padding:1em; padding-top:.5em; color: #000; background-color:#f5faff">
 * Support a banner of some type. This is a, hopefully once in a 100 year event. The last pandemic of this gravity was the 1918 flu. This is what everyone cares about and what they should care about if they do not. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 15:02, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmmm.... a banner gives me an idea....let me toy with something in a sandbox. --M asem (t) 15:09, 15 March 2020 (UTC)


 * This is a first idea of a banner with a few key links that could be updated, that would eliminate an coronavirus ongoing if there are no specific coronavirus update. (This is in my sandbox so can play with the formatting). --M asem (t) 15:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose, not our purpose, and Wikipedia editors are not able to keep up with the volume and assure MEDRS-compliant information is highlighted. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  15:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support - I like Masem's current idea, and I like the idea of featuring it prominently. As Doc James said, a 100 year event.   Kees08  (Talk)   15:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support Our readers are demanding this, readers of other language Wikipedias are demanding this, this event rises to top importance in Wikipedia by any measure we may wish to apply, such as reader interest, editor engagement, effect on Wiki community organization, off-wiki interest, expert critique of Wikipedia, media coverage of Wikipedia, model for general emergency situation. Wikipedia has the world's best available coverage on this topic and we have a lot to showcase here. I know "best" is challenging to measure, but in Wikipedia we transparently check the other sources of information and openly discuss them. It is very easy to find major problems with any other information source, including the CDC and WHO publications, and only Wikipedia makes any attempt to work through those challenges. A Wikipedia editor with a little preparation could easily defend Wikipedia's content and publishing much more easily than any competing source could defend their resource expenditure for the media they produce. This is Wikipedia's time and yes, we should make this content as prominent as possible.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  15:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support but maybe put the banner at the bottom? Kingsif (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It can go at the bottom. Color and other facets can be changed too. I'd also like to point out what type of key links we'd want here. news stories? main info pages? --M asem (t) 16:41, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd vote news stories - all the stories that would reasonably get blurbs if it was the only thing. There's lots of unprecedented things happening that could go there. Kingsif (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I like it at the top. Links could go to the disease, virus, and if we could use geolocation the article about the pandemic in the person's country. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Masem what do you think about including the pandemic in the person's country? We might be able to get this ability build in a few days. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:45, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Geoguessing is always going to have false hits. I'd have no problem with one of the key links being to a page that is a list of COVID responses by country so that it is 2 links from main page to a country's (and where possible, a providence/state's) specific response. --M asem (t) 14:53, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's straightforward: Disease, virus, timeline and locations. Then we don't need to mess around changing links, prioritising one thing over another, no guessing at where readers are coming from. As I said right from the start, Wikipedia needs to treat this seriously, not just with an "ongoing" link (which we did have at that time, and we risk having the next time three banal stories knock this one blurb off the box).  There's a clear consensus to do this, including some positive input from Wikipedia's most prolific MEDRS editor, so right now it's a no brainer.  Make it so. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * User:The Rambling Man I think that is fair and would support, disease, virus, timeline. The WMF is providing some support here aswell. So if we need more technical issues solved.  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 16:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Could you provide the exact links and perhaps start a subsection below to propose them? I think there is consensus for updating the template, but let's get consensus on the links (per Masem's suggestion) prior to posting.  Kees08  (Talk)   17:17, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've updated my Sandbox above with the four links suggested. Any suggested for alternative phrasing welcomed. --M asem (t) 17:18, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * support per Blue Rasberry--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 19:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support banner but once this all finally blows over we need to make sure that the banner is only invoked in extremely extraordinary circumstances. Juxlos (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 *  Oppose banner  – A thoughtful suggestion, but I'm not convinced it's efficacious to duplicate the link in the blurb with more Main Page clutter. Enough already. – Sca (talk) 14:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Post-posting comment – Now that I see it on the page, it looks pretty good. – Sca (talk) 13:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Support banner this definitely comes under "things Wikipedia readers will be looking for" and at last ITN can begin to become useful as an encyclopedic resource for the millions looking for such information. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 14:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support banner, this is a good solution and allows for multiple links. --Tone 15:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support Banner per most of the above. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:08, 16 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and added it as there's reasonable consensus for a banner with readily-available quick links. --M asem (t) 19:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I've just seen this on the front page and thought I'd come and say kudos to whoever came up with this. Great idea, considering the situation. - SchroCat (talk) 19:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Group effort after a couple iterations to figure out the right thing to be doing without "violating" our principles, in otherwise ultimate IAR situation. --M asem (t) 20:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with SchroCat. Well done. Davey2116 (talk) 01:34, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For the record, I support the banner, though I think it should be a slighlty darker shade of peach to make it stand out more Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:20, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Time to move
<div class="floatright ombox" style="width: 45%; border:1px solid #aaa; padding:1em; padding-top:.5em; color: #000; background-color:#f5faff">

Right, we've got a pretty clear consensus that we should be doing something particular for Covid-19. We have a reasonable consensus in favour of a main page ITN tweak per above. We have Doc James on board, we have a series of articles, all of which are okay. I propose this should be implemented by someone who is able to make such a code change to the ITN template. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 16:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * or anyone else, be able to implement per above? We can modify it later if needed, I think the current design is good enough to start.  Kees08  (Talk)   16:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Before any move, we need to identify what "key links" are there. It's not a hard change, but I'd rather make sure there's strong agreement for adding it before doing it as it is a main page thing. --M asem (t) 17:13, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay so I propose disease, virus, timeline for the three links. With timeline being for March. Which will change to April when April comes around Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 17:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've redone the example. I can include the top level timeline and the month, and when we get to April (and going forward), include two months for the first ~7 days. I've also moved the addition as a subtemplate into template space pre-emptively (In the news/special-header) but still not yet onto the main ITN template (this box remains an example from my sandbox). --M asem (t) 17:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks fine to me, though I think Doc James did not want locations? Also, are we planning to remove the top ITN item or keep it in conjunction with the new template?  Kees08  (Talk)   17:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think "location" is essential.  The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:52, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've added "By Location". And I would definitely take out the top news item at this point. I cannot think of any other COVID-19 related blurb at this point that would we would ever post with this header in place outside of any possible death blurb. If someone can make a good high quality top-level "Impact of the coronavirus" page that links the various impact pages, that could be a fifth link and that would also then cover the economic side too. --M asem (t) 17:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * With respect, I would leave the announcement as a pandemic as the top blurb and remove the Italian shutdown. The rest is fine.  The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. --M asem (t) 18:08, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * This looks great. I tried some minor tweaks (link here), though I'm not sure what the correct way to do this is (adding a touch of padding for desktop, and a small margin above and below the title for mobile). Also for mobile it would be nice if we could slightly reduce the padding below the list items from 10px to 5px. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Abbreviated March. But yes this is good. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Great, so let's get this live ASAP and tweak as we go. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 18:48, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * +1 Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 19:03, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If we can get the right changes to here: In the news/special-header and then admin protect this like the regular ITN template, then we should be good to add it. Just need to evoke that at the top of the current ITN template. --M asem (t) 19:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how to implement the additional/change of padding on the mobile side per AHollender. I know enough about CSS to be dangerous but not enough to know to implement this in in-line style. --M asem  (t) 19:16, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have added it to the ITN template. I do want to see the mobile tweaks but again, beyond my knowledge related to WP and CSS stuff right now.  I also dropped a note at the Main Page talk page in case that is an issue there. --M asem  (t) 19:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * this new navbox is quite redundant with the first blurb now, both linking to the same main article. Removing that would also somewhat orphan the image, ideas? — xaosflux  Talk 20:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See the comment from TRM above that the declaration of pandemic is still a standalone blurbworthy note even with the banner. We're also lacking any real replacement blurbs at the moment and would leave ITN thin otherwise. But I would not be again IAR to put the next blurb that is ready to post in place of the pandemic in an IAR manner. --M asem (t) 20:06, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree with Xaosflux that the first blurb is redundant and do not agree that it should be its own standalone item; can we put the older blurbs back in? The economy/stock market blurb would be more noteworthy as a standalone blurb in my opinion. The Slovenia blurb candidate would be another option to put into the box if people agree to support posting it. - Indefensible (talk) 20:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, keep the blurb until it drops off. I see this major change as being a special "ongoing" template, but a pandemic blurb is still appropriate until it might drop off.  Different times right now.  The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:14, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Mostly I think the map is still useful, so didn't want to have it fall off right away even if that blurb went. — xaosflux  Talk 20:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If we want to keep it, perhaps the map can be attached to the banner? The "By location" link seems relevant. - Indefensible (talk) 20:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I support keeping the blurb minus the Italy lockdown as so many lockdowns now. The announcement of this being a pandemic remains a big deal. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 20:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I concur. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Even if we keep the blurb it will roll off in the near future as you wrote above TRM, so it may still be good to attach the map to the banner regardless. - Indefensible (talk) 21:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

First of all, nice job to all concerned - both practical and within a reasonable timeframe. Second, a suggestion for an addition to the banner - "Restricted borders". This does not fall neatly within the "by location" information or any of the others; and I don't think it can be left quiet for too much longer. The article anchoring that addition would be divided by continent and then by country or territory, with border restrictions listed for each. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 23:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Which specific article? The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 23:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * A new one, using a similar format to the "by location" article. (None of the existing articles cover all the necessary ground, so they can't simply be repurposed.) If consensus approves this, I can have it written in 24 hours, if someone else does not beat me to it. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 01:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

We could automate updating the timeline month by changing it to July. I was going to add this myself but there's a comment that says to not update it until April 7. <b style="font-family:Papyrus"> Anarchyte ( talk  &#124;  work ) </b> 03:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The idea is that when April 1 hits, then we will have both March and April up there, and then when we get to around April 7, drop it just to April (give we're about 7 days on news roughly). Hard to automate that. --M asem (t) 04:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * We could try the following: &mdash; <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  &middot; talk &middot; 06:31, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Banner colour
I quite like this idea of an ITN sub-section. My only potential concern is about the colour of the special header. Currently, it's white with a black background, which is incongruent with the rest of the Main Page. I suggest that we change the theme to that of the "In the news" headline, which would make it fit in better with the ITN section as a whole. &mdash; <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  &middot; talk &middot; 03:59, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I see that does match the header when it is on the main page, but I personally feel it gets a bit lose then. the idea is this is mean to stand out a bit more. Not that we can't change it, just would want a bit more input before randomly changing it on readers. --M asem (t) 04:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Understood. I've added a preview of my proposal to the right. If other editors feel that the blue is a little too dark, we could try using a lighter shade, but I still believe that it has to be of roughly the same hue for a harmonious appearance – we want it to stand out, but not overly so. At any rate, even if we were to use the light blue of the ITN body, I would still argue that the special header stands out sufficiently. &mdash; <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  &middot; talk &middot; 05:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I think the "Disease" and "Virus" wlinks would be better as COVID-19 (disease) and SARS-CoV-2 (virus). I also agree with <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  that the background color should be changed - maybe a red of some sort? Brad (talk) 04:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Than it becomes to wide. I think we should keep it narrow. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:46, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I would not make it red. We want to highlight it, we want to make people aware, but red is not the right color for this as it implicitly is a "warning" and may create a panic to a reader we don't want to create ourswlves - let the data do that, not our presentation of it. --M asem (t) 05:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Updated background color I also agree that the white background was somewhat awkward. I've semi-boldy harmonized the color to non-white as suggested by Ravenpuff.  We can continue to fine tune.—Bagumba (talk) 09:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've undone this... the white is much better IMHO, both for standing out from other items and to avoid clashing with the "In the news" header immediately above. And I don't see that there was consensus to change from the discussion above. If I'm wrong, and consensus forms, then fine. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how this necessarily "clashes" with the ITN header – I think that the blue highlights the banner well and provides it a sense of importance, without resorting to the garish white that's uncharacteristic of the Main Page in general and ITN in particular. As mentioned above, we can continue fine-tuning the execution, e.g. modifying it to a lighter shade so as to avoid clashing. &mdash; <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  &middot; talk &middot; 13:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

"Impacts" is better than what I had proposed, and lo and behold, someone did beat me to it. A couple of article-specific suggestions, but those will belong better on its talk page. (On a tangential but possibly related note, I heard my first really good COVID joke on the weekend, involving quarantine-trapped audiences and where best to hold certain boring but portable cultural events. Sigh. I share b/c I know too much about the Spanish flu.) - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 07:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support (as suggester) change of ITN banner background from white to another colour (preferably blue) for harmonisation with the rest of the Main Page, for reasons explained above. &mdash; <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  &middot; talk &middot; 13:18, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support revert of background from awkward looking white to proposed shade of blue (or anything better).—Bagumba (talk) 18:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support I like blue. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:35, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose - why is the white "awkward"? It was set up in white, and looks very good like that. We said above that we want it to stand out, so making it blue like the title bar and the rest of the box does not achieve that. It's also extremely confusing to have a bar in the same colour as the title. I don't mind if another colour is chosen, but it should not be the same blue as the title bar, because it's not a title. This is also a really ridiculous thing to be arguing over. Just stick with the status quo and focus on improving actual content. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 19:00, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It looks like there's a hole there with white. YMMV. As for "status quo", that new header had only existed for a few days ...—Bagumba (talk) 02:33, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a mid-way color between the header blue and white. Also maybe with the font size reduction on the second line? I understand it looks like a hole but at the same time, we don't want so many colors as it starts to hurt accessibility. --M asem (t) 02:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm open to other shades. I just know that white isn't it.  I'm not good at manipulating colors, so will rely on others design suggestions.—Bagumba (talk) 03:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * What about reusing the grey of the Main Page header and footer? This avoids the use of a new colour and wouldn't be as marked a change from the current white. &mdash; <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  &middot; talk &middot; 04:21, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think white is fine, but I made some other options here. If any of these I prefer the bottom two.  Kees08  (Talk)   04:33, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * New color I am ok with (in order) 1) the last one 2) Ravenpuff's suggestion, or 3) your 2nd to last.—Bagumba (talk) 06:57, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The last one on Kees08's list seems fine to me as well. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 07:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's acceptable with me too. &mdash; <span style="font-family:'Trajan Pro','Perpetua Titling MT',Perpetua,serif"> RAVEN PVFF  &middot; talk &middot; 08:08, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * <div style="margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px; padding-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; text-align:left; border-style: solid; background:#fafcfe; border:1px solid #a3b0bf;">Changed - to this background per the apparent consensus above. Hope this is agreeable to all. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 09:12, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * This is WP:ITN at its finest. Humanity is facing an unprecedented modern-times crisis, and we're arguing over what color the COVID-19 template should be.--WaltCip (talk) 13:52, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Shorten March to Mar
Everyone knows the abbreviation and this will help keep it from getting too wide. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:34, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Per MOS this should be done "only where brevity is helpful" and this will only remove 2 letters max up until August, so I don't see the point. —Nizolan (talk · c.) 22:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Make text smaller for the lower words
In my opinion it would look better with slightly larger text for "Coronavirus pandemic" than for the words in the row below. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * As long as we follow MOS:SMALLFONT and no words are made too small. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Of course. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have wrapped the second line in a smaller, as since there's no other font size manipulation yet, follows MOSMALL but achieves the effect cleanly. --M asem (t) 04:08, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Barnstars awarded
I awarded What a Brilliant Idea Barnstars to User:Nixinova and User:Masem. Other Wikipedians: please feel free to sign on to the barnstars on their talk pages. -- ↠Pine   ( ✉ )  18:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Juxlos also deserves some mention I think, they kicked off the preceding discussion on how to handle the coronavirus situation and wrote the Italian lockdown article. - Indefensible (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

2020 Vanuatuan general election
Heads up for those itching to have something other than the virus In The News, our old friend "general elections in tiny but nonetheless independently sovereign nations" comes to the rescue wearing an ITNR cap. Tomorrow the tiny Pacific nation of Vanuatu goes to the polls. Normally such elections tend to fly under the radar of ITN, and the apparently fractured political landscape of the country might make this a difficult one to cover. But considering the absolute dearth of non-virus news out there, perhaps we could be motivated to get this is shape. There's probably a fair amount of background info the article needs even before the results come in. --LukeSurlt c 13:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Woohoo for Vanuatu! -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:44, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like they should be in the midst of the election right now. Hopefully someone in the know will update the article and nominate it for ITN. - Indefensible (talk) 01:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Portal ready?
Now that got the portal up, should we change the top link to the Portal:COVID-19 and move the pandemic article down to the to the article line? — xaosflux  Talk 15:30, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Portal should be ready - after one comment, I have adjusted the elements so there's nothing that won't fit on a narrow screen. It's almost all transclusions so shouldn't take a lot of data, either. If there's any issues, leave a comment at the portal talk :) Kingsif (talk) 15:35, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've added it both to the ITN header template as well as to the sidebar template (ala the Internet one too. --M asem (t) 15:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

What happens when the COVID map is no longer the ITN image?
Sooner or later, and probably sooner, the ITN image will cycle to a computer scientist or some other image. Can we decide whether the map moves into the coronavirus special header, or is another image appropriate? Or does it remain text only? Stephen 23:32, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think it would fit in the banner. It doesn't need to be in the box. Kingsif (talk) 23:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Exactly, right now its only there as the last image (the tennis player) was stale. It is NOT there for the same reason as the banner but only because it was the image associated with the most recent blurb. It will be replaced. --M asem (t) 23:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * From a technical standpoint, we can leave it where it is called from now, and if necessary add the (see map or whatever) in to the text of the special header - assuming we only want one image. It doesn't have to be attached to a standard blurb. — xaosflux  Talk 13:46, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Added a link to the map which is updated daily on Commons. --<span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS',Geneva,sans-serif">qedk (t 心 c) 14:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Is this not going to be the map at the top of the page of 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory ? I don't see the need for that link the special header given the "obviousness" that "by location" should have a map associated with it and has more usefulness with additional links. --M asem  (t) 14:59, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's the same map, feel free to revert me if you want. I don't think it's not clearly distinguishable though, one of them is information by location, the other is just a map, some people might just want a map. --<span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS',Geneva,sans-serif">qedk (t 心 c) 15:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * What we probably want is a page that uses the image but if possible with a imagemap so that it actually can be clicked on and taken to a useful place. I have not done any imagemaps on WP in a loooong time, but assuming we're using the same base underlying world map for the case map, then the same image map for clickable countries or regions can be used while the updated map changes. *this* then would be a useful landing page to highlight for a user to go "I live here *click*" and see what the situation is. It may be the first clicks be by continent then to country, but you get the idea. Just linking to an image where there is no otherwise immediate data, off the main page, is not really that helpful. --M asem (t) 15:48, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Only 2 blurbs?
Any reason we have only two blurbs when we normally run four? -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:17, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Things are slow other than COVID-19. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:49, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Understood but we have had dry spells in the past. The usual custom has been that we leave blurbs up until they are replaced by a 5th newer one. -Ad Orientem (talk)
 * True, but COVID-19.--WaltCip (talk) 01:21, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Add special header as a hat on primary articles
Any support for add Template:In the news/special-header to the top of the primary linked articles? While our Main page is certainly popular, the actual articles have a lot of incoming traffic. We did get a Jimbo suggestion to link to quality information on every page of Wikipedia about the current covid-19 crisis, which I think may be a bit overkill - but I do think this simple template could be helpful to add in other places. Thoughts? — xaosflux  Talk 13:34, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That would have to be done at MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice (as to appear on all pages for all users). I will start a section there with a link to Jimbo's comment there. --M asem (t) 14:01, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * we could do that too if supported, for this proposal I'm trying to gauge if adding to selected articles themselves would be supported?
 * Is there a COVID-19 portal that could be used for linking all the related pages? Could be something to take to WP:WPPORT Kingsif (talk) 14:18, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've recommended (Before landing on the suggested banner idea) that we need a page that is a good top level outline page all the COVID stuff as the present pandemic article is far too detailed to take is as such. That would be helpful too. --M asem (t) 14:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That could also be useful, and in the special banner that could possibly be the "top" link. — xaosflux  Talk 14:30, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Quickly made up Portal:COVID-19, please make/suggest improvements. Kingsif (talk) 15:24, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That looks great and can be added as a bottom portal link, as well as a link to the ITN banner (if there are no objects). Might I also suggest then a top-page simple navigation tool ala Internet that is used as the top right (or under infoboxes) on all applicable COVID-pages. --M asem (t) 18:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * We have the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic sidebar, if that's what you were thinking of Kingsif (talk) 19:07, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's it. Just recommend collapsable sections in that, but between that, the portal above, and the main page /ITN piece I think we got broad coverage. --M asem (t) 19:14, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Don't know best place to present this but User:Masem/COVIDsidebar is a collapsible version of that above. --M asem (t) 19:35, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Some of that might violate SMALLTEXT but, take it to the WikiProject for feedback Kingsif (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Articles typically use a sidebar or a navbox for aiding navigation. 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic currently has links to related pages in the infobox on the side and in a bunch of other places, so I'm not sure it also needs an aide on top. Sdkb (talk) 02:40, 19 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Note, WMF has added a CentralNotice related to this subject, see Village_pump_(miscellaneous). — xaosflux  Talk 02:43, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Corona phrase revision
Can we have change the news something like that - Coronavirus death figure crosses 10k. Shyam ( T / C ) 05:45, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No, we made the banner to capture the wide coverage of news about COVID, we're not going to stat-track news stories about it. --M asem (t) 06:27, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Template: In the news/special-header
We have two excellent FAs offering a beginners' introduction to viruses: Introduction to viruses and Social history of viruses. Would it make sense to add them to Template:In the news/special-header?

It would look like this:

<div style="margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 1px; padding-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; text-align:center; border-style: solid; background:#fafcfe; border:1px solid #a3b0bf;">Coronavirus pandemic Disease · Virus · Timeline (March) · By location · Impact · Portal Introduction to viruses · Social history of viruses

Pinging the author ; also, , , and who created the template. I know there are plans to make the articles TFA too, but they could remain pinned to In the news anyway. SarahSV (talk) 05:44, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm fearing that's starting to dilute that header banner. That should be a quick link for immediate information directly related to COVID-19, the spread, and effects. Now, I am aware we want people who are trying to learn more to be able to learn more. I could see those being added to both the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic sidebar (as a new "Background" section) and to the Portal:Coronavirus disease 2019 (adding some big bold links in Section 4 for those). That is -- and I haven't scanned all the COVID pages yet -- to know at what point does WP's coverage step back to talk basic facts of viruses and contagious spreads and so forth. I just don't think off the ITN page is the right place. --M asem (t) 06:26, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * On the one hand, I'm all for educating people during these times. On the other, it begs the question of whether Virus itself should be be made accessible like Introduction to viruses, or be flat out usurped by it.—Bagumba (talk) 06:55, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Added to portal. Kingsif (talk) 14:27, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Kingsif, thanks for doing that. Bagumba, readers will know to type in "virus" if they want to read that page. They won't know about Introduction to viruses. That was my thinking. It's a fascinating article: entry-level and well-written. SarahSV (talk) 02:00, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 banner still needed?
Given that the foundation has seen fit to put a gigantic banner about COVID-19 at the top of every single article on the site, can we remove the banner from ITN and go back to having it look normal? --LaserLegs (talk) 19:33, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see such banner, I think it only applies to non-logged in readers. --M asem (t) 19:49, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * And unless the WMF have changed the cookie settings very recently, it's only displayed once to each reader. &#8209; Iridescent 19:53, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I can now only see it when using private browsing. ---Sluzzelin talk  20:14, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think logged in users can suppress it - I browse mostly in private so I see it a lot. If y'all wanna leave it then fine, but I saw the jarring WMF banner and thought maybe that's enough --LaserLegs (talk) 20:17, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Timeline - March
In the front page coronavirus-specific box, I suggest dropping "March" as a Timeline sublink (and, for future, just keeping the active month). After all, January and February are not there either, and the number of individual country cases during those months were not surpassed until just a week ago. March can still be accessed from the April or main timeline page. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 20:49, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * March will be removed on 7 April. Stephen 20:52, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yup, just having a few days of overlap consistent with our typically consideration that news is stale after 7 days. --M asem (t) 20:58, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) Remove Deaths from Coronavirus banner?
The coronavirus banner currently includes a link to List of deaths from the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic labeled "deaths". I don't think this is as important (at least yet) as the other links in the banner, since there haven't been all that many high-profile deaths from the virus yet, so I'd suggest removing it. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 19:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. A list of notable people who've died is a useful link that I do find of interest, and it's not making the box too big and unwieldy. I would also hesitate to dismiss those on the list as unimportant because they're not "high-profile". &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose Just as we have the permanent link on "Recent Deaths" for all general recent death of anyone notable (but may not appear on RD), that COVID help cover those. --M asem (t) 19:14, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Meh. I don't object in principle to the list, but assuming it continues to spread we're likely to start running into systemic bias issues, as by the nature of Wikipedia people in English-speaking countries are more likely to have biographies, so the list will potentially start to give the misleading impression that the US and UK (and possibly Australia if it spreads significantly there) are affected disproportionately by the pandemic. (As an example, at the time of writing the list contains 33 Americans and 20 Italians, despite the death toll in Italy being roughly twice that of the US.) &#8209; Iridescent 19:20, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * If any other language wiki has a list which likely will be biased towards that nation, we can incorporate that death into that list with those sources (doesn't have to be English). That'll work around the bias. --M asem (t) 19:35, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. It is important currently and will only grow in importance as the numbers grow. The repercussions of this virus and the deaths it caused will be a long term issue. Trackinfo (talk) 20:03, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose just seems like a personal preference being expressed here. The massive spike in notable deaths speaks for itself.  This suggestion is ill-founded, at best. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose - The list adds value, although it is perhaps somewhat redundant with the Impacts link and could be a subpage from that article. Re: bias; the initial entries were mainly from China and Iran, neither of which is a primarily English-speaking country. There is likely more emphasis now on Western countries as the virus has spread there, however residual bias in reporting is not from Wikipedia's side but more from the non-English population's lower participation that is common with the site's general bias. There is still value, bias or not, as x% are being posted instead of 0%. The better proposal I think is actually to remove the list of RD entries AND the link in the coronavirus banner, and simply link to the Deaths in 2020 list, similarly to the linked recent events page. That would address a number of issues simultaneously: the issue above about the length and selection of the RDs list, and more space for event blurbs. - Indefensible (talk) 20:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment—expanded rationale: Okay, so to expand on my rationale a bit, In the News already has a link, Recent Deaths, that goes to Deaths in 2020. I don't think people who die from the virus should be given more prominence than those who die from other causes, so I think it's redundant and unnecessary. Regarding numbers, roughly 150,000 people die worldwide each day, whereas the current daily death toll from the virus is about 6000, so it's just not a large proportion yet. Regarding the article itself, it's classified by WP:WikiProject COVID-19 as High-importance, not Top-importance, and is not currently linked from the intro to 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic (although I'm about to add it), so I just don't think it's the most important article to be linking to about the virus. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 20:20, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose per most of the above. I don't doubt the suggestion was made in good faith, but it isn't going anywhere. Suggest speedy close. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:41, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Allow Project Current Events to Break away
A vote to allow WikiProject Current events break away from this project. Elijahandskip (talk) 17:04, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * How the Current events page works.-- Moxy 🍁 21:18, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Spam
Sorry for most likely posting this in the complete wrong place, but can't see where else. Happy if one responsible person sees this and then deletes it. In the hover "peek" of the latest news article about the Australian High Court there is a spam link to a website at the moment. 81.106.120.36 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:47, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Which is the spam link? Kingsif (talk) 21:13, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you not see it? Here's what I see with my UK IP: https://imgur.com/vDPzbhp 81.106.120.36 (talk) 21:16, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see it because I'm logged in and 'peeks' don't work :) Thanks for providing it. Kingsif (talk) 21:34, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I can't seem to find that link in any of the articles? Kingsif (talk) 21:37, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * This was vandalism that survived just 1 minute before being reverted. But that was yesterday so I would be surprised if you can still see it. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:07, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The peek preview must have been cached or something then. Glad resolved. That website wasn't even real, very strange. Anyway, I guess this section can go now. Cheers 81.106.120.36 (talk) 08:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The cache for High Court of Australia has been updated. The general issue is T235346: "Edits which has been reverted and revision deleted over 40 hours ago were visible on page previews". It only affects mw:Page Previews which is the default preview feature at Special:Preferences, seen by logged out users. Many registered users have instead enabled Navigation popups at Special:Preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

(Closed) Coronovirus pandemic ITN header
<div style="margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 1px; margin-right: 1px; padding-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; text-align:center; border-style: solid; background:#fafcfe; border:1px solid #a3b0bf;">Coronavirus pandemic Disease · Virus · Testing · Timeline (April) · By location · Impact · Deaths · Portal

Can we add Testing to the ITN header as this aspect is becoming increasingly topical? Whizz40 (talk) 18:48, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Support a good encyclopedic point, well made, and actually a bit of uplifting news (apart from Trump vs WHO etc). The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 18:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if it is the testing approach(es) that is more important, or understanding the statistical numbers related to testing you would be getting at. My understanding is that it is the latter - and overall the generally stats on COVID - deaths, tested including positive and negative tests etc. broken by country/etc. would be of great interest, and that I could see adding to the header if we had a good top level page for that. If it is the actual testing process, then Id think a page on testing *and* treatment (short + long-term) would be reasonable. But not against adding something, just making sure we're adding the most relevant thing readers will want to see. --M asem (t) 19:19, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I think given Trunmp's continual bullshit over testing, using malaria drugs etc, and certainly the lack of testing in the UK (for example) this is certainly of interest to our readers. The Rambling Man (Stay indoors, stay safe!!!!) 19:30, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Those are all fair points, no question, so I would have one suggestion before adding: in the country table, make sure the country links go to a section on the country's testing response (eg: 2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_States for the US) rather than just the general page on the pandemic in that country, so that users can quickly navigate to the find the state of testing in their country. If this doesn't exist for the country page, then leave as is. Or add a new column for the testing page. Just to make this a reasonable link that gets a reader one less click to these salient points. --M asem (t) 19:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree, ideally, although as not all countries have a testing section and those that do may not have consistent (or necessarily stable) naming (eg: 2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom) then wonder if better to just link to the main article for that country? Whizz40 (talk) 20:00, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if there's question/debates/unclearness of such a section, then just a link to the country's pandemic page is fine (or if you are adding a new column for testing, omission of any special link). --M asem (t) 21:17, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * We already have an article on COVID-19 testing. Proposal is simply to add a link to that Testing article, e.g. after the link to Virus as per the example above. Whizz40 (talk) 19:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Support The article looks to be in good shape, we appear to have the room for another link in the header, and it's relevant and likely of interest to many readers. Looks good to me.  Go for it.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 20:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and added this, I can't see this being challenged outside of formatting problems. --M asem (t) 22:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

non-encyclopedic content
Why have we begun to cover non-encyclopedic content?

there are other platforms for people to share news, in fact there is a dedicated news wiki (https://www.wikinews.org/), I am sure this debate has already been had, but I must voice renewed objection. A. we are just parroting to conversation points of partisan media organisations B. It allows for our editors to introduce further bias in selecting what is and isn't newsworthy C. It biases wikipedia towards countries which produce more news media and have more news media impact.

Leave the news to news sites, safe wikipedia for the facts. --Willthewanderer (talk) 21:42, 26 March 2020 (UTC)


 * ITN is not covering the news. We are covering Wikipedia articles that are of good quality that happen to be in the news. It doesn't matter what news sources are covering them as long as they are reliable news sources. So we're not limited to partisan news sources, though due to reliability that's going to cut off certain poor sources like The Daily Mail. --M asem (t) 22:03, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you have any specific examples Willthewanderer? - Indefensible (talk) 22:46, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it isn’t clear what objection you have to what we are currently covering. P-K3 (talk) 12:05, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * To clarify, I am objecting to subjects being given prominence that stems from external media coverage. My concern is that it may damage our image of neutrality because we are effectively reinforcing that topics covered by partisan media sources are more relevant to users. Nothing gained here is worth jeopardising our image as a neutral source of information.--Willthewanderer (talk) 06:26, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * As you were asked above, do you have specific examples? HiLo48 (talk) 06:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * By "Specific examples", you are being asked to state the specific subject or subjects you feel are "being given prominence that stems from external media coverage" by "partisan media sources". Linking the exact WP page(s) would be ideal. In the absence of specific link(s), no action can be taken. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 10:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)