Wikipedia talk:Recentism/Archive 3

Should sports articles be updated to reflect scores while the game/match is in-progress?
The Football Project seems to think it shouldn't but believe it's difficult, if not impossible, to patrol. Is there a consensus on this? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * There is a reason why the Football Project believes it is difficult. As I have basically mentioned here and elsewhere, this issue has been happening to most sports articles around Wikipedia for the past few years: Many infrequent users and IPs will want to update the articles and the scores in real time – despite the pleading and reverts by regular users and the sports Wikiprojects. Unless the page is protected (Remember, a page depicting an ongoing current event alone is not a valid reason for page protection), you may find, depending on the article in question, primarily just irregular users and IPs frequently updating the articles as they happen. And if the event is very high profile, there might be hundreds of edits at a given time, and any attempt by a patroller to revert it back to its "pre-game" state will be met with edit conflicts. Or if the patroller is in fact successful in reverting the page, another IP or irregular user will merely again update the page seconds later. Because such typical sporting events only lasts a few hours, some of the regular users just instead give up and end up tagging the articles with current sport, follow the guidelines on WP:EDC, and try not to edit the page too much until the games are over. Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:29, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps my wording of "give up" in my previous comment is not quite accurate regarding the regular users. More realistically, a game in progress is basically treated as an ongoing current event, and therefore WP:RECENT applies: "After 'recentist' articles have calmed down and the number of edits per day has dropped to a minimum" (i.e. after the games end), that is when the rewrites and cleanup by the regular users begins. Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:49, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I have been successful in reminding a few article's editors not to treat articles as scoreboards. This includes 2010–11 UEFA Champions League knockout phase and 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs but I believe a clearly worded policy would go a long way in avoiding conflict over this. Is there any hope of such a policy? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Not really, because it isn't really a problem. And as mentioned the vast majority of the edits of this nature are by editors who are not regular editors. So creating a policy and then undoing IP editors etc that are adding them is just compounding the issue. Sporting events are usually over in a matter of hours. An edit getting up an ongoing score isn't really harming anything considering in a very short time it will be posted anyways. -DJSasso (talk) 17:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not usually anonymous editors doing the additions though. The harm is that Wikipedia isn't a scoreboard. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I still don't see the harm in having up to date statistics? How is that a harm? If anything its a benefit. Would I update them as they are going on, no. But I wouldn't remove them either. That is just being silly. -DJSasso (talk) 11:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Other comments? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Recentism misuse?
It frequently occurs that this essay is linked when someone wishes to promote an historical topic as primary over a more recent topic. See, for example, Talk:Anne Hathaway (actress). I could be wrong, but it seems that such things were not what the essay was intended to address. Thoughts? Powers T 00:12, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding academic opinions
Maybe somewhat controversial religion and history articles are most subject to this sort of question, but I have recently seen cases of recent sources being considered perhaps both too lightly and too heavily. One example is Josephus on Jesus, in which there seems to be a disagreement about how much weight to give the opinions of Origen. In other articles, there seems to me to have been perhaps too much emphasis placed on modern theories, many of which might not have received particularly much attention in the academic world. If this page could perhaps devise some sort of guidelines regarding such matters, it might help in such contested areas. John Carter (talk) 20:12, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Different form of recentism.
Given the history of the world, there are many different things that have happened and no one person can know about it all, and things are forgotten. Following "hard drives are cheap" ~User:Jimbo Wales we don't have to delete old articles that are further in the past than they are currently, and can cover national historical topics without running out of money on wikipedia. I noticed on Great American Streetcar Scandal there was a lot of confusion on the article and people had put in modern unsourced references instead of primary sources, thereby ruining a good article putting doubt into a historical event. Imagine if this happened with a bunch of neo-nazis on the Holocaust! I propose here that Recentism add a new type where historical articles that are immediately added for deletion need to be put on hold for a week to gather more information, a day is usually not enough because there is a lot to go through. Stidmatt (talk) 17:20, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Recentism in music articles redux
Dug out from the archives: "Recentism in music articles...is the reason why The Arcade Fire has a better-referenced article than Traffic.--h i s s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 12:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)" 2012 update - Foster the People (which didn't exist when the above text was written) has a better-referenced article than Traffic. I still haven't found the correct response, but I do know that it contains the words "for fuck's sake."RadioKAOS (talk) 03:03, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait, why are we implying that Traffic's article isn't an example of recentism? I'm sure there were lots of string quartets in the Classical period that don't get articles. 143.92.1.33 (talk) 23:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Tributes for someone who recently died
A notable person dies and a bunch of tributes will go up online and psychical exhibits will be created. Wait until something permanent at a notable location goes up? Edkollin (talk) 17:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * On this note: my primary interest has been biography articles of notable Alaskans. I haven't quite figured this out, but I'm guessing that a lot of activity on Wikipedia in this regard is motivated by the listing of recent deaths because it's linked to the main page.  The recent death of Cheryll Heinze, or perhaps more appropriately the circumstances surrounding her death, resulted in this very minor one-term state representative suddenly being plastered all over Wikipedia as if she really was that important a person.


 * All you have there at present is an article which serves no useful purpose other than to identify a notable (and in a relative sense, really not all that notable) person. In the process, the editors responsible for this managed to ignore that reliable sources have stated that she had a peripheral connection to the Alaska political corruption probe.  They've also manage to ignore reliably sourced information which establishes that her husband is far more notable than she was, and that she was the first cousin of both David Boren and Hoyt Axton, also far more notable.  This makes her a member of the Boren political family.  This has also been ignored in favor of mentioning Janna Ryan, presumably because Ryan's connection to the family has recently surfaced through media scrutiny of her husband.  In comparison, Heinze's ties to that family were mentioned during her campaigns, which occurred in 2002 and 2004.


 * Contrast this with a near-legendary figure in recent Alaskan history such as James Martin Fitzgerald. When Fitzgerald died, there was no mad rush to acknowledge this to such an extent.  On the contrary, mention of his death in his article was met with a , despite the fact that Google returned scores of references to his death in the days following.RadioKAOS (talk) 19:11, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Temporary sections: a recentist fudge or service to the reader.
In the case of information that is of current interest, but is known to be relatively unimportant in the long term, can it be reasonable to add prose with the specific intention of deleting it a few months down the line?

The example that prompts the enquiry: A cyclist has recently died in training, the team that he was part of has an article with very little historical prose. An article on his death has been posted, but looks disproportionate within the state of the article: it has been said that it seems unduly harsh to simply remove him from the squad list. The current suggestion is to have a couple of sentences on his death below the current squad template, and to remove that when substantial changes are made to the squad (and his contract would have ended) at the end of the year. I can see the attraction of that solution, but I believe that it is counter to the thrust of WP:Recent. (Discussion here if you are interested in the specific case

But I'm really more interested in the general principle of intentionally temporary prose than the minutiae of this case. Ideas and responses? Kevin McE (talk) 12:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Intersting dilemma! A roster itself is a feature of sports teams that changes a lot, but wikipedia includes the roster because it is currently some valuable information about the team. Here's a thought though: There are a lot of interesting reasons that someone might leave the team; why would somone's death get special listing, but a catastrophic injury or trade to a rival team not get mention? One idea is to have a section of the article (or separate article altogether) that lists all current and former members of the team. You could have sections by year and insert a parenthetical about the mid-season death. As for your larger question, the main example of "temporary" aspects of articles that comes to mind is in the annual Atlantic hurricane season articles. At this very moment, Hurricane Nadine is howling over the Azores. In another week or two, the 2012 Atlantic hurricane seasonsection on "Current storm information" will be unnecessary and probably deleted. I am ok with the idea that a non-notable person on a roster who recently died can get some sort of footnote or parenthetical, but I would also say the same should be done for other former players who left the team roster for other reasons. Does this help? Peace, MPS (talk) 14:02, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

What's the opposite of recentism?
What do you call it when you rely too much on classic books and not enough on recent formats of information, causing a bias towards old information? Chrisrus (talk) 13:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oldism ??? MPS (talk) 19:29, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Why is this only an essay?
Shouldn't this be taken to RfC and made into a guideline? In ictu oculi (talk) 17:28, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Feel free to take it to RFC, but I might oppose it unless it is modified so there is a very, very strong emphasis on the WP:10YT section, and that comprehensive rewrites should only happen after such articles have calmed down. In my experience, a significant number of recentism edits come from anonymous and newbie editors who want to update Wikipedia in real time. Therefore when news spikes happen, I feel that it is far more important that established users follow WP:3RR and WP:BITE than facing an uphill battle trying to cleanup and revert large increases of good faith edits. Zzyzx11 (talk) 01:31, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * As I see it, this would be a very bad policy or guideline. The strength of Wikipedia is that it is more comprehensive and dynamic than any printed encyclopedia.  Its true strength is in capturing notable events (even news spikes) as they happen.  The only part of this essay I agree with is that articles written about current events should alway be under reevaluation by editors for the purpose of placing its content in historical context, which includes issues of balance.  I am One of Many (talk) 18:04, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

What constitutes history?
Is there any guidance to help determine how soon a particular development should be added to a History section? I point to Sony Pictures Entertainment as a case example. Late last year, the Sony Pictures computer network was compromised. This garnered plenty of media attention. The news was immediately added to the history section. Myself and one other editor considered this to be hasty. My preference was to create a separate section to describe the incident and subsequent ramifications, and when the dust settles, the situation can be reappraised. This made sense to me because (a) the perpetrators have threatened to release fresh information (b) an investigation is ongoing (c) Sony face a possible lawsuit concerning the matter (d) our main article Sony Pictures Entertainment hack continues to be edited frequently with new detail. So my question is, what constitutes history? In one sense, every word uttered is history once it escapes your lips. I am happy to be corrected. — TPX 19:21, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I would recommend writing an essay called: Recent History and lay out some of the pros and cons. Peace MPS (talk) 15:36, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * And since you asked, I would suggest that the Sony hacking scandal could have its own subsection with a seealso/main link to The Fappening. I generally don't have a problem with current events being in the history section, but I think a good rule of thumb is that you wait until the next calendar year (for example, it is currently 2015, so the history sections should only contain things from 2014 and earlier). Peace, MPS (talk) 15:43, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Abbreviations, date and numbering formats and WP:ENGVAR
Zzyzx11, regarding this, are abbreviations, date and numbering formats and WP:ENGVAR ever the result of recentism? Seems so since you added it, but I haven't experienced that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:47, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

WP:CEN is now open!
To all interested parties: Now that it has a proper shortcut, the current events noticeboard has now officially opened for discussion!

WP:CEN came about as an idea I explored through a request for comment that closed last March. Recent research has re-opened the debate on Wikipedia's role in a changing faster-paced internet. Questions of WP:NOTNEWS and WP:Recentism are still floating around. That being said, there are still plenty of articles to write and hopefully this noticeboard can positively contribute to that critical process.

Thank you for your participation in the RFC, and I hope to see you at WP:CEN soon! – MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 19:06, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Draft text
The text below was removed from the essay recently. So I am posting it here for comment. I would like to add this to the essay on Recentism.

Draft:
 * One major benefit of Wikipedia as a collaborative workspace is its ability to serve in a role as a repository of current data and current news. It is already obvious that Wikipedia has a breadth of information and comprehensiveness that is not equaled by any other encyclopedias. For the first time, an encyclopedia is available that can serve as a genuinely comprehensive and exhaustive resource on multiple historical eras, and can fully reflect the full range of human expertise and endeavor, on a scale and with a degree of comprehensiveness not seen before.
 * The desire to record notable current events and information promptly, is a strength of Wikipedia, not a weakness; although in doing so, clearly it is vital to adhere to standards of notability and reliable sources. But if any individual entries here raise any concerns about notability, they can be dealt with on an individual basis. The main point is that the effort by individual editors to add to the range of information here on a current and prompt basis is something to be encouraged, not discouraged; although of course, there we should always to uphold an encyclopedic approach on all topics here, whether new or old.
 * ===Exceptions to recentism==
 * Some articles on Wikipedia are specifically designed to cover recent events; that is central to their purpose and their scope. For example, for timeline articles for the current year, i.e. 2020, 2020 in science, 2020 in the United States, 2020 in sports, 2020 in music etc, the whole role of the article is to serve as a general resource and reference to record and compile recent events chronologically. so based on that, timeline articles have their own topical scope and their own set of parameters in regards to any issues or concerns about recentism.

thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 05:57, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This is controversial and goes to the heart of the principles of the encyclopaedia (notwithstanding this not being a policy page as such). I oppose any step which encourages further newsification for, broadly, all of the reasons so well established and expressed on the page.  Why should WP attempt to become a source of current news?  There are so many out there.  The function of this website is to summarise notable information for general use and, it seems to me, to stimulate interest and further reading; it is not to record all that happens in respect of the subject.  We have an enormous amount of clutter in our articles; an incitement to go on adding would only make matters worse.  Working out what really matters for inclusion in an article often takes a bit of hindsight; the news knee-jerk lacks that.  News as it emerges is very often incomplete, inaccurate or even incoherent, so attempts to include it are more likely to incite dispute.  As an illustration, to include on the current impeachment page that McConnell had doubts today about whether he had the numbers to resist the calling of witnesses would be better left to the more general reference, later on, "In the face of Republican resistance, witnesses were called ..." or "Republican incalcitrance successfully blocked the calling of witnesses ..." and no more need be said about it in the benefit-of-hindsight historical view.  Another effect of opening the floodgates to the idea of up-to-the-minute fact inclusion is it tends to trivialise the encylopaedia and we should steer well clear of that.  sirlanz 07:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your time and effort in replying to me above. thanks. but in all seriousness, all I am doing above is expressing some commonly-held ideas, procedures, resources and methods that are already in effect here. this is just to call editors' attention to this broad area of Wikipedia, if they want to help out. if they prefer to focus their efforts elsewhere, that's fine as well. as far as I can tell, there is little to disagree with here. i am simply highlighting and discussing constructively one existing part of how Wikipedia works. anyone is free to edit or not edit in this topical area, as they see fit. I do appreciate your time and effort in commenting here. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I can see where you're coming from as strictly regards timeline articles but I don't think a specific direction is needed. It is, I think, sufficiently obvious to editors that a timeline article has to keep up with the times; they don't need encouragement to observe that.  The risk in adding the proposed material is that less circumspect editors may misapply the references to the need for currency to articles that are not timelines and cite the direction in support of plain recentism.  The wording proposed, though with its caveats, stands in stark contrast to much of the principle underlying the not-recentism concept.  So I just think we are much safer not going there at all.  sirlanz 15:57, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I see several issues here. Regarding timeline articles, I have to agree with User:Sm8900 that these essentially depend upon news events, so there should be little debate about recentism. There can and should be discussions about what to include or not include, but that's for another day. The other question is about news and data for other articles. Can there be any question about updating data to include the most recent changes--be they in technology, population trends, or figures related to other things? I think not. On the other hand, adding the latest news to an informative article can be a problem in that some articles are not updated regularly and there might be big gaps in them. Or the current events may be given proportionately more space simply because there is so much information available. As for the wording of the proposal, I don't think it is necessary--people are going to add the latest news anyway. Michael E Nolan (talk) 00:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

This issue is probably being brought up due to the discussion here, its a mess when year articles get over flooded with recent events, most of which do not even have impact, I would request that discussion to be viewed and considered. The January 2009 edition of 2008 when it was a recent year and an over flooded mess, and the current edition says it all too 2008. In 2005 you will see the entire June 2005 month has nothing noted, and January 2020 already has almost the same information as the entire 2005 year. Does that mean 2005 was less eventful? No, but at that time the no of editors were lower, and every major topic was not needed to be added, like the 2005 Indian flood which killed nearly 1000 people but due to being a domestic event wasn't added. This gives a false impression that current years are more eventful/important than past years simply because of a strict recent years policy between 2002-2016 where many information wasn't added and cut off, since that got lifted year articles are getting inflated with content. The NK missile test was significant addition before 2017 when it became common and editors decided not to cover them much again due to increased frequency and every single tests they carry out need not be added. What is the significance of an earth quake that no one has died on, solely because it has magnitude 7, its not like past years list all earth quakes ever to happen in the world with magnitude equal to or greater than 7. As with the 2008 article Only the Chinese earthquake that killed 87,000 is included. But the earth quakes of Japan and Kyrgyzstan with less than 100 deaths are now excluded,  Hurricane Hanna that killed 500 + in Haiti and many other hurricanes except Ike are now excluded (but were included when 2008 was a recent year), as are many more events that are not significant enough. In these ways recent years are appearing more like a day by day news coverage than wikipedia standard articles like 2005 and 2008. So what I am saying is just because more editors are active on year articles now, doesn't mean its necessary to over flood them with recent information. Thats all I will say on this matter, its what the majority editors say that matters. Dilbaggg (talk) 12:55, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

For biography leads, do we prefer recent images or images from when the subject was most notable?
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images § Preferred lead image time period. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 01:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Possibility of a COVID-19 update
I wonder whether some of these older examples might be profitably replaced with COVID-19 examples. I am thinking that COVID-19-themed examples might make the implementation of this idea more obvious to editors.

I thought of this because one of the problems we're seeing is people adding (in perfectly good faith) that Paul Politician said this about the pandemic, or Alice Expert said that. Sometimes an offhand comment gets analyzed in great detail. This kind of content is typical of a media flash-in-the-pan, and eventually we realize that mentioning it at all, or as more than a sentence, isn't WP:DUE. It would be better if such content wasn't added in the first place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:59, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't we avoid recentism in our guidance about recentism??? Jk, sounds fine to me, so long as the examples themselves will prove durable. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 02:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that the text here could do with a bit of an update, and Covid-19 seems like it would be a good example to use. Reading this essay again for the first time in a number of years it struck me how all the event examples were from 2004 and 2005. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 16:34, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Used to wipe out recent information of note
Some editors, such as fan of Team X or Sport Y, or Athlete Z, are relying on this essay to delete information of note (e.g., suspension of Athlete Z for sexual misconduct) on the basis of "recentism." How best to address it? The talk pages of Athlete Z, for example, may not have other editors looking at them. --2603:7000:2143:8500:FC7B:594A:92FE:AB6C (talk) 00:45, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

How to identify and determine if something is Recentism in regard to frequency and consistency among RS
I'm having trouble using what is listed on the project page as a metric for interpreting when something is or isn't "RECENT" or applies to WP:NOTNEWS or as failing the WP:10YT, not withstanding clear WP:CRYSTAL violations. Particularly when it comes to political events or occurrences. If something seems to receive a wide amount of coverage among RS over a few weeks does that disqualify it as RECENT? If RS isn't the issue, how long and how much coverage must something receive not to be possibly disqualified as RECENT and therefore WP:UNDUE? I would prefer not to go into further detail as to why I'm asking, as not to violate WP:CANVASS, so even if you're curious please DO NOT INVOLVE YOURSELF. Any answers on the questions I mentioned will be plenty helpful. Thanks. DN (talk) 22:45, 29 March 2022 (UTC) (Additional question) Is it better to apply a "Recentism dis-qualifier" right off the bat, or wait to see if the content is still notable after a few weeks in order for it to apply? Thanks. DN (talk) 23:42, 29 March 2022 (UTC)