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RFCBEFORE: removing significance criteria

RFC STARTED
Comment here. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:54, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Following discussion of the close review currently at AN, I am contemplating launching an RFC at VPP asking Should the significance criteria (WP:ITNSIGNIF) be removed from the criteria for posting new WP:In the news items (WP:ITNCRIT)? Any feedback on the question or anything else before it's launched? Levivich (talk) 18:40, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

With the criterion of significance removed, that'd leave just the criterion of having been updated in light of relatively recent happenings and the criterion of being a quality article, yeah? Should such an RFC explain what the ITN criteria are, for editors at Village Pump who may not be familiar with specifically ITN, or should that just be left up to folks to click the link and read at the ITN guideline page itself?
So long as ITN guidelines are being discussed, I wonder whether it'd be worthwhile while removing WP:ITNSIGNIF to add something like DYK's guideline of variety, which recommends that set builders mix your hooks up so that, for example, at least half the hooks aren't about the United States (for ITN, maybe some general guidance about trying to mix things up at the box so it's not too homogenous or stagnant). But I guess that'd probably be a separate RFC? Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:55, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
RfCs are regularly opened with a pre-written background section. We can workshop something here. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:09, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
Right, in allcapsbluelinkspeak, if we remove WP:ITNSIGNIF from WP:ITNCRIT, then all that's left is WP:ITNUPDATE and WP:ITNQUALITY. (WP:ITNATA is currently part of ITNSIGNIF and I think becomes entirely moot if ITNSIGNIF were removed because all of the ATAs are about significance.)
On background section, devil's always in the details, but a background section explaining what ITNCRIT is and summarizing the three criteria might help save some reading, or educate those who won't click the link anyway.
I like the idea of variety; I also like the ideas below about significant updates. I'm not sure whether it's better to address those as separate RFCs or part of this one. Levivich (talk) 00:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I would definitely support it! Highlighting quality articles about recent events is more important than endlessly debating about whether or not an event is "significant" enough. However, it might risk bringing in blurbs where the related articles have only received minor updates, so an emphasized quality/depth requirement (or even only focusing on events with a standalone article) would be ideal.
In general, I feel like highlighting quality new articles about recent events would be more interesting than the current "news ticker lite", and would share with TFA and DYK the purpose of featuring quality content on the main page, while still having its own distinct touch (in this case, pertaining to recent events). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:58, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
I was just about to say the same thing about "minor updates". There should be some discussion about what we're moving to with ITN as well as what we're moving away from. We should be looking at substantial improvements based on new information. I also think we should be prioritizing pre-existing articles that have been improved or expanded in this way rather than newly created articles, unless it's something huge like September 11 or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This way "dust settling" becomes less of an issue when evaluating article quality and we don't have to have notability arguments half way into the process. Essentially, "Recently Updated" functions much better for an encyclopedia than "In the News" (which, yes, is still subject to WP:NOT). It also wouldn't hurt to tinker with ITN's space on the main page so more than four or five bullet points can fit at once, if there's a way to do that. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:07, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
A good point, but the issue with "Recently Updated" is that it is harder to establish the encyclopedic significance of the updates themselves, while individual new articles are still subject to the notability criteria, and, assuming they are not brought to AfD (which would disqualify them for the main page the time being), can be presumed to be more likely encyclopedic. Nonetheless, I still find your proposal of emphasizing recent substantial improvements infinitely better than the current state of ITN, and the debate between preferring new updates vs new articles feels more like tinkering to find which is less likely to run into notability/encyclopedic-ness issues. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:35, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
I've found the opposite to be true in my experience. A good portion of articles about news events have to be cleaned up once the current events editors move on to their next thing. Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Events sees a lot of old low-quality articles that only had fleeting coverage and can't be properly covered beyond copying the news reports. For a while we were clearing out dozens of article about random terrorist attacks in southern Asia, and now plane crash articles are being organized. It takes a lot of time and energy to clean up the messes caused by people who want to create an article for every sort of "incident". Institutionally, it's much easier to challenge weak content within an article than to challenge a weak article itself. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:46, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
The significance criteria are required because WP is not a newspaper and in turn, ITN is not a news ticker. If anything we need more concrete siginifance criteria such as reflecting the need to fight systematic bias, that ITN is not a popularity contest, and that not every major news story is necessarily an encyclopedic topic or appropriate to include at ITN (though being a major news stories weighs in favor of posting). Masem (t) 19:27, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
ITNSIGNIF currently says that the determination of what should be posted is determined by consensus. If you remove this guidance then there will still be discussions and they will still be determined by consensus because that's the way discussions are done on Wikipedia. If you don't like this process then you have to do more than remove the current statement; you'd have to replace the current discussion process by something else. For example, the posting of DYK nominations are determined by the QPQ reviewer and set builders while FA postings are determined by an FA coordinator. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:22, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
It would be good to get 1–2 weeks worth of data showing what posts weren't posted with the current criteria but would with the new. Or any notable omissions from the past that would make it. Conversely, is there anything that wouldnt be posted anymore? And RD blurbs? —Bagumba (talk) 01:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
The best place for that would probably be Portal:Current events, as most people would have been driven off from proposing minor blurbs at ITNC. Ed [talk] [OMT] 01:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
The question then is how would that be filtered for the limited space currently allocated for ITN? —Bagumba (talk) 01:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Well, as someone who closely watches both ITNC and P:CE (I run a script to watchlist an entire year's worth of its daily subpages at a time), most items at the latter don't involve an article that's been updated anywhere near WP:ITNUPDATE. Plenty don't get any sort of update at all. —Cryptic 01:58, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I didn't say it would be an ideal place, but I imagine it would capture more of the articles that could be posted at ITN without a significant criterion in place vs. the ones that never make it to ITNC. Ed [talk] [OMT] 02:00, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
There's also WP:ITNQUALITY, which presumably more of the ITNC candidates might currently meet vs. the CE portal entries. —Bagumba (talk) 04:13, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I'd prefer to see the current significance criterion weakened rather than abolished, which would have the effect of making ITN more dynamic and therefore more useful to regular readers with little risk. That said, I would worry that including that as a RfC option would lead to no consensus -> status quo, and ITN desperately needs reform. Ed [talk] [OMT] 01:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
To Bagumba's question, what would be posted that isn't currently posted?, I think the answer is a ton of pop culture stuff, because that's what's mostly news with updated articles (or new stand-alones). Pop culture is most of what our readers read about, and what most readers read about in general, so it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it would swamp that little box. So while I wouldn't call it "weakened," I'd call it "replaced," I think we do need to replace ITNSIGNIF with something rather than just remove it outright, or else everything will be posted, and we won't be able to post fast enough (as people have pointed out above and elsewhere). Levivich (talk) 04:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
...and my idea for "something" is something like "front page news in multiple countries' paper of record" or something like that. Something that requires zero subjectivity, like if it's on the front page of 10 newspapers on X list, it gets posted. (Newspaper front pages are better than website front pages because website front pages can vary by region or user.) Levivich (talk) 04:23, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I've always thought that as well. Perhaps we come up with a vetted list. How many sites have their print front page available w/o subscription? NYT does.—Bagumba (talk) 04:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea. The newspapers would have to be globally representative though. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:55, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
The problem with basing what is posted on front pages of major newspapers is that amplifies US and UK topics and gives no weight to topics of high encyclopedic values, such as things like most national elections, the Nobels and the academic awards, and scientific and medical breakthroughs. Headline stories are often not good topics for the encyclopedia, and more often don't demand major updates to articles. Masem (t) 15:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
gives no weight to topics of high encyclopedic values, such as things like most national elections, the Nobels and the academic awards, and scientific and medical breakthroughs Now I'm confused. Is the current guiding criterion for ITN significance or is it encyclopedic value? Where does "if there are X deaths in a plane crash, it's significant enough for ITN" fit into that equation? voorts (talk/contributions) 16:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Articles about commercial airline crashes tend to be well written and sourced, documenting the cause and effects leading to the crash as investigators make such determinations. Similarly can be said of major weather events like hurricanes and typhoons, that we have avid editors that make sure these are high quality articles with appropriate encyclopedic weight from the start. ITN significance has had an unwritten factor around this, but it should be clear in any rewrite that we are trying g to highlight those news articles that are of appropriate encyclopedic quality and significance. Masem (t) 16:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I see nothing currently in ITNSIGNIF about "encyclopedic quality and significance". I understand that we may not want to feature Hawk Tuah or other tabloid news, but is there a clear way to objectively determine significance without using "headline reporting"? Natg 19 (talk) 17:23, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Hawk Tuah wouldn't pass the worldwide-front-pages test. Levivich (talk) 17:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
It should be implicit... And if we are rewriting, made explicit... By the nature of being a box on the main page, to feature quality encyclopedic content that covers a broad range of topics. The long stated but unwritten "ITN is not a news ticker" mantra needs to be made very explicit to avoid making ITN look like a joke among all the other boxes. Masem (t) 17:30, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
It does not amplify US and UK topics so long as you don't limit it to US and UK newspapers. Look at https://www.frontpages.com/world-newspapers/ to see what today's world front pages look like. It doesn't cover all of the world, but it sure covers a lot. This has been, for years, my go-to for determining whether something is significant enough to post on ITN (back when I participated at ITN). I think there are other websites like this also. Levivich (talk) 17:24, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
The reality is that there are far more editors from the US and UK that leads to more heavy article creation and curation on those topics, and the net result is that these areas are already favored. It is great that if we see a story from an underrepresented area getting front page coverage elsewhere and can get an article on that (the recent India protests come to mind), but that's simply an area we have long struggled with is getting news out from these areas due to lack of editor motivation to create or expand those articles.
I am not opposed to using what's hitting front pages of newspapers as a guide, but that should be used as part of the justification and not a requirement since many goid encyclopedic that get in the news don't fall to front pages, and not every massive front page story is necessarily encyclopedic or demands a massive update (like the Kate story dominating the UK headlines) Masem (t) 17:37, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Someone at AN mentioned this version of Hawk Tuah being a candidate. My opinion is that RfCs that are upfront about the pros and cons of all options are more effective than open-ended ones where people will just speculate, fabricate, and sandbag the discussion (well, those are still all likely to happen anyways). —Bagumba (talk) 04:34, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
That shouldn't even be an article. The fact that it made it through AfD is dumb. But it did make it through. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:49, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Is it unreasonable speculation, fabrication and sandbagging to mention Hawk Tuah and that without significance editors will have no grounds to oppose an ITN mention? AusLondonder (talk) 16:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Quality is a pretty easy reason to oppose. The thing with tabloid news is that they rarely generate enough in-depth, reliable sources to write a detailed quality article from. Looking at the current state of the article after all the unreliably sourced content has been removed (permanent link), there are only four paragraphs of content left. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't know if this actually would serve to solve the problem or simply would open Pandora's Box and create a host of new issues. My continued concern with doing this is it would mean we'd lean heavily on a coverage-based model for ITN that, simply put, would almost certainly cause mass debates about what defines significant coverage and likely subject ITN to heavy media bias (in the sense that the media, largely defined, covers what they believe will generate the most engagement), particularly towards likely meaningless Western stories (no, there is no reason we need ITN to be a Taylor Swift New Ticker). What I think we should actually be doing is having ITN focus on IMPACTFUL stories, which I think GENERALLY is the case, but it limits human-interest stories that drop off the news in a matter of days, celebrity drama (which we limit well enough already, but doesn't hurt to have more safeguards), but also would have something like the Twitter block in Brazil be more viable. This way, the discussion of "notability" can be more focused towards a direct impact-based assessment. Not that we can see the future, but many things we debate at ITN have clear impacts or lacking ones. DarkSide830 (talk) 19:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Human interest stories and celebrity drama are already not allowed in articles in most cases, so if someone nominates something like that, it should be removed from the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Most sporting events are just human interest/celeb stuff. They have no lasting significance as the very definition of sport is that it is a casual pastime which is divorced from the real world of art, science, politics, work, exploration and the other topics which are actually significant. That's why most newspapers put sport in a separate section at the back, so it can be easily ignored. The important stuff goes on the front page. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:30, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
If you believe that, feel free to nominate sports for removal from ITN/R. I probably wouldn't object to mass removal outside of the World Cup and Olympics. But they're there because of lasting consensus on their inclusion so it's probable you're in the minority here. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Masem's commentary at ANI applies here though. We already have too many articles being created where NOTNEWS is a concern as it is. Removing significance as a criteria just opens us up to that issue invading ITN as well. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:43, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
And people said during the 2016 RD reform proposal that nobody was proposing it would happen for blurbs ... Banedon (talk) 05:46, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Death blurbs

The fact that several ITN regulars are seriously arguing that the death of the actor who played one of the most famous villains in cinematic history isn't significant enough to warrant a blurb tells you everything you need to know about how broken ITN is. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Or maybe it just tells you that a role in a single American blockbuster doesn't make an actor into a globally transformative figure? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I think most people in most of the world would find Darth Vader's death more significant than an attempted jailbreak in the DRC or a helicopter crash in the far east of Russia. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Yee, I'm sorry to hear about Mr Vader (or Mr Vader's voice, anyway). I wonder did he ever appear in anything else on Broadway? He always sounded like he had a sore throat, didn't he, poor chap. Or was it asthma? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:12, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Guys, this is off topic, but out of respect to Mr. Jones, he did a lot more than just play the voice of Darth Vader, let's not debase him. Please read about his contributions to the world. Levivich (talk) 17:31, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree he did a lot more. Jones is one of the most influential black actors in history. My point is that if "significance" is a functional criterion, Jones definitely meets it, but it's not a functional criterion, so instead the blueb will almost certainly close as no consensus to post. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Well, we can test JEJ's "significance" by doing the world-front-pages test. Here he is in Argentina: [1]. He is the front page of Canada's Toronto Star [2]. Does that mean he should be posted? In my opinion, two front pages isn't enough. But the point is: this is a viable objective test for significance. Levivich (talk) 18:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Significance isn't the issue for this though. Any recent death is "significant" enough to get a line at RD, but only "major figures" are blurbed. Major figures: The death of major figures may merit a blurb. These cases are rare, and are usually posted on a sui generis basis through a discussion at WP:ITNC that determines there is consensus that the death merits a blurb. (ITNRDBLURB) Unfortunately, this is also a very subjective criterion which is ill defined. Natg 19 (talk) 18:11, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
We can use the same world-front-pages test to determine "major figure." Levivich (talk) 21:47, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
This is just another attempt to subjectively decide what we as Wikipedians think is important, when we should be following the sources. There are a bunch of different factors we can consider. Do the sources provide enough new information for an expansion of Jones's article? Do they meet notability requirements to create Death of James Earl Jones? Are all of the sources going to be "breaking: actor has died" or do they provide WP:SIGCOV about the subject of the article we're bolding? And then there's the practical side. Has such an expansion taken place, or has such an article been created with high quality sources? Arguments that consist solely of "I consider this important" or "I don't think this is significant" are not only worthless, but they border on disruptive. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:17, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
It's more about fighting systematic bias that US and UK celebrities and other figures regularly in the public spotlight get in terms of their death coverage, where major figures in other parts of the world get far less attention in headlines but are the types of people and articles we want to feature to have a broader range of persons featured. We have to be subjective to a degree because we do not follow headlines blindly. Masem (t) 18:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
It's not the job of Wikipedians to correct for sources. That's just inserting our own biases, and it's the thing we're trying to fix here: ITN's bad habit of trying to do that. If editors want to increase coverage of non-Western subjects, it's on them to do so. We can't cut corners by artificially deflating the notability or coverage of Western subjects. In addition to the obvious solution of "write about what you want featured", we can come up with organizational methods, like adopting the DYK system of subject balance as mentioned above. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:57, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
If we were talking mainspace content, then yes, we'd be careful about reading our own preferences on the systematic bias, but for ITN and other front page content, it absolutely is our job. We are not US-Pedia or UK-Pedia and don't want topics from any one region or field to dominate, since we are a global work. Headlines of world newspapers predominantly favor Western topics, and eshew lesser known but important "great figures" when it comes to their deaths. Masem (t) 21:53, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
For what it's worth, a comment like this isn't helping the general case for a blurb. If JEJ had only been the voice of Vader, I would not have been supporting. But what is true is he had a very expansive acting career featuring many major credits, the most notable of which also carrying plenty of weight. That's part of the issue here - many argument in favor are saying "he did one notable thing", and many opposes, I would say correctly, are pointing out that said one thing really isn't notable enough on its own. The problem is, the opposes should be rebuttals to those supports, not actual opposes for the nom. I think that's part of the RD blurb discourse problem - it's too much arguing one point rather than looking at one person's whole societal contributions and the impacts of said person's death. DarkSide830 (talk) 19:36, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
  • While we are working on rewriting the significance criterion, if death blurbs are kept (continue to get posted - there has been a movement to do away with death blurbs altogether), we should also clarify what "major figure" means. JEJ may or may not be a major figure, but currently there is no clear way of defining "major figure". Natg 19 (talk) 17:47, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
    I've offered before that at least a minimum requirement is a dedicated section in the bio article that is about their legacy, impact, or importance to their field based on numerous RSes including what comes from obits. That at least serves the reader to identify we the name is in a blurb and not just on the RD line. We'd still debate how truely impactful that legacy or impact is (eg JEJ has has one added since nom, but I'm not 100% it shows a full great figure nature), but at least that's there to justify a great figure without handeaving and entirely subjective claim lacking evidence. Masem (t) 18:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
    Which was quickly implemented in the JEJ article after his death due to a large number of sources providing material to stand up multiple paragraphs outlining his legacy. However, OLDMANDIES, I guess. Kcmastrpc (talk) 20:20, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
    I am not saying that the JEJ new legacy stuff is compelling enough to post as a blurb, but it does satisfy a posdible objective requirement to show that we have sources that consider him as a great figure. Too many of the poor RD blurbs we've posted on the past were based on editors' claims of this without the article showing it. Masem (t) 20:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
  • What's broken is that, while the jobsworths are busy bike-shedding James Earl Jones, they are failing to consider the overall state of ITN. The oldest blurb at ITN currently is A Mil Mi-8 helicopter crashes in Kamchatka, Russia, killing all 22 people on board. That wasn't big news to start with and, 10 days later, it's quite stale and getting very few views. So, the correct comparison is not James Earl Jones vs Laurence Olivier but James Earl Jones vs a bus plunge.
Such blinkered negativity results in little being posted and so ITN is routinely stale and boring. Our readers pay little attention to it and just vote with their feet by going straight to the articles which are actually in the news directly.
Andrew🐉(talk) 20:12, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
At this point, it's purpose has been neutered by the bureaucracy of Wikipedia. RIP. I don't see why we bother keeping it around. Should just name it In Obscure Mass Casualties and Elections Kcmastrpc (talk) 20:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I can not for the life of me understand why he's being compared to Laurence Olivier when JEJ's main acclaim clearly isn't from stage, and Olivier died decades ago, and before ITN. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:34, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Ironically, I think the problem is the exact opposite. We don't have "enough" bureaucracy (or rules), thus ITN just becomes a free-for-all of opinions and no one knows what the rules or regulations are, and admins have to sort through a ton of different opinions with no real guidelines of what is postable or not. Natg 19 (talk) 20:30, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Comment FWIW, the bar for death blurbs in the acting profession has de facto become so high, that it is difficult for me to imagine anyone who would qualify for a blurb. The list of giants in that field that we have turned down, leaves me with little choice but to conclude that the community's standards have evolved to a point where there is no interest in such nominations. And out of deference to consensus, even when I disagree with it, I will !vote accordingly going forward. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:43, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

The most recent posts seem to have been:
Feel free to modify if incomplete. —Bagumba (talk) 07:45, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
The bar for celebrity RB blurbs needs to be far higher than "had a lot of roles", "was famous/household name", or "had played this one important role" (the problem with Carrie Fisher, Betty White, and the recent JEJ nomination), because all those play into popularity, excessive coverage in Western media rarely afforded to true leaders in the acting world, and become !votes of favoritism from editors. While the blurb for Alain Delon wasn't posted due to quality issues, the fact that despite an article clearly demonstrating his contributions and weight in the French film venue that we had editors going "oppose, don't know him" in the !votes is also a symptom of this problem where there's too much infered weight on fame. Masem (t) 12:03, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
My comment below about substantial due coverage would address this. Is the death significant enough that we can write multiple paragraphs of content on it? If so, post it. If not, it's not due. Elizabeth II's death, for example, provided extensive content across many articles, including what is now a nearly 10,000 word article at Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
The major problem with that is for those who are not celebrities, athletes, or political figures, who have articles that clearly estaish the person as a great figure before their death, do not have deaths that get anywhere near the amount of material that could be added to their article, such as with Steven Hawking, and probably a number of Nobel winners. They will have their deaths noted and get long form obits, but nowhere against this expectation of a large seoerate death article. It's yet another criteria that biases against certain fields if used as the only judgment. Masem (t) 17:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
Good. If the sources don't consider it significant, then trying to put our fingers on the scale is inappropriate. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:25, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
We would never put our fingers on the scale in article space. But we don't not have discretion about what we decide to showcase on the main page. For instance, Did You Know has an internal guideline that directs us to prioritize variety in sets, such as by avoiding composing any singular set of mostly biographical articles, or mostly United States topic articles, even if, hypothetically, sources would suggest that certain biographies or United States topics are 'more significant' than other hooks we could put in the set. I don't think it'd be outrageous if Masem or an editor sharing similar concerns were to propose creating an In the News guideline that guides ITN to prioritize variety by, say, avoiding having more than 'X proportion' of the recent deaths or blurbs be about entertainment celebrities or politicians. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:17, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't know if I'd consider that analogous. The criteria for DYK are about recent improvements to articles, so it doesn't discriminate against what subject matter should be posted, just how to make it better "aesthetically". The concern with ITN is whether things are worth posting at all. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:58, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I think there's some analogy, but perhaps a more analogous comparison is that of the selected anniversaries (linked to today's for the sake of example) which states that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. It's necessary that the event described in a blurb be of at least X amount of importance, but an article being of X+10 significance isn't necessarily chosen to be posted in a given year over an article of X+1 significance. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 21:44, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Then we just become a news ticker repeating only the big stories that are reported, which is against the original purpose of ITN, NOTNEWS, and treads badly into systematic bais. It may make ITN less contentious than currently, but it would not suit the purposes of why we have an ITN section on the main page.
We should be trying to feature RD blurbs (in cases of a routine death-by-old-age) where the article is already of high quality (needs nearly no work to be ready), and where the sources before and after death support an obvious case for being featured such as the use of an impact or legacy section. Many of the more contentious blurb nominations of late start with editors in their !votes handwaving suggestions of importance (often tied to fame/popularity/well-known claims) without any evidence in the article to support that. When that's there, we're still going to end up debating cases, but it at least starts from a point of sourced-based evidence. Masem (t) 03:27, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
If someone is worried about systemic bias on ITN, then presumably they'd be willing to write content about underrepresented subjects and get it featured. Artificially inflating the importance of one thing or artificially deflating the importance of another isn't how to fight bias, it's how to impose it. We do not know better than the sources. If a death itself isn't sufficient to be in the news, then it's not sufficient to be In the News. That's just us handpicking favorites. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Litmus test

In a reimagined ITN, what happens with the latest U.S. presidential debate? It seems to be at the top of even the UK edition of https://www.independent.co.uk and 2024 United States presidential debates exists.—Bagumba (talk) 05:12, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

It gets posted (it passes the world front pages test). And would roll off in a few days or less because of other stuff getting posted. Levivich (talk) 05:24, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
No, it doesn't. Levivich's idea seems to be to use the front pages of newspapers but The Independent doesn't have a print edition now. What's left is just a web site which seems to be chasing clicks by running anything and everything using a rump staff of churnalists who never leave their desk.
The newspaper industry has been shattered by the Internet and even once-great titles like the Washington Post are struggling to keep going. That now depends on the deep pockets of Jeff Bezos but is still having to desperately reorganise to keep going. See The Washington Post is giving its homepage a facelift... But this story is about its digital front page, not the physical operation. The digital version is usually separate now and, because it's not paper, there's pressure to cram in as much as possible, as the Post is doing now.
So, if ITN tries this front page idea, then you'll find that there are endless arguments about the validity of particular sites and items as this trend continues. There's no easy answer and the real question is whether Wikipedia should be trying to run news at all.
Andrew🐉(talk) 06:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, that's a limitation. The print New York Times might not put something on its front page that is almost 24 hours old, and is old news (by today's standard) by the next publication. —Bagumba (talk) 06:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Where's the evidence it passes the "world" front page test? We don't have any evidence yet. AusLondonder (talk) 09:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Did you check the website I linked to above? Levivich (talk) 14:24, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
I note most of the discussion has been about what's on American or British front pages. No consideration of other English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Jamaica, South Africa or Ireland. Certainly no consideration of front page news in other countries such as Germany, France, Brazil, China or Russia. That's why this idea is so fundamentally flawed. It itself is so highly selective and subjective. Following what the British press are reporting today we'll be posting about a parliamentary vote on changes to welfare benefits in the UK or the BBC investigation into abusive behaviour on a dancing television show. AusLondonder (talk) 09:04, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
I threw it up for discussion to see how and where the discussion flowed. Of course Wikipedia:Systemic bias is always a concern. —Bagumba (talk) 09:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Yeah I'm not criticising you, I'm just concerned that removing significance is actually going to make problems with ITN worse. AusLondonder (talk) 09:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Which is why I'd suggest going through a few dry runs and iron out hiccups before formally proposing in an RfC. —Bagumba (talk) 10:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
The UK prison crisis is much more notable than the jailbreak in the DRC that we're currently blurbing. It's more notable because there's a lot more written about it. But the DRC item was posted instead because there was a death toll and that seems to be all that gets considered by ITN currently. Neither approach is satisfactory and the front page idea is flawed too. Posting news items is contrary to numerous policies including WP:NOTNEWS, WP:NEWSEVENT, WP:RECENTISM, WP:OR, etc. It might be best to shut down ITN and replace it with something else such as a Trending section. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:28, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
That's right, shut it down. That's my final conclusion after thinking very hard about it. —Alalch E. 11:12, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
@Andrew Davidson: I completely disagree. I notice you're British. Do you think that might be why you think there's a lot written about the UK prison crisis? Do you think someone in Canada or Argentina would feel the same? Do you think someone in the DRC might think a lot has been written about the prison break? Do you think the UK prison crisis attracted news coverage in the DRC the way the DRC prison break attracted news globally? AusLondonder (talk) 12:46, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Thank you! I'm also British, and I'm tired of this parochial (and ratings-driven) nonsense from Andrew. GenevieveDEon (talk) 12:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Yeah it's getting rather old. How anyone can type a sentence like "The UK prison crisis is much more notable than the jailbreak in the DRC that we're currently blurbing" (which killed over 100 people) without any shred of self-awareness is probably something that deserves scientific study. AusLondonder (talk) 14:04, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
If anything, discussions like this tell me that the only real use of whether a story has front page coverage as part of criteria to post us that we should not consider papers where the event takes place or directly affects it. Masem (t) 14:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
To illustrate my point, here's a list of 10 books about the UK's prison crisis:
  1. Prison Crisis, ISBN 9781000968040
  2. Screwed – Britain's Prison Crisis and How to Escape It, ISBN 9781785905391
  3. Crisis and Change in the British and Dutch Prison Services, ISBN 9781351947503
  4. The Penal Crisis and the Clapham Omnibus, ISBN 9781904380474
  5. Local Prisons – The Crisis in the English Penal System, ISBN 9780435828707
  6. Out of Sight, Out of Mind – Why Britain's Prisons Are Failing, ISBN 9781849543002
  7. Prisongate – The Shocking State of Britain's Prisons and the Need for Change, ISBN 9780743238847
  8. Tackling Prison Overcrowding – Build More Prisons? Sentence Fewer Offenders?, ISBN 9781847421104
  9. Bricks of Shame – Britain's Prisons, ISBN 9780140228649
  10. Prison Riots in Britain and the USA, ISBN 9781349235872
There's many more relevant works because there's an extensive literature about penology in the UK and the capacity crisis has been building for some years. It's my impression that there are few comparable works about prisons in the DRC but others are welcome to list them. Now note that these are substantial books – the sort of secondary sources which we are supposed to work from. Some brief news reports are not equivalent and do not provide the same level of notability. And notability on Wikipedia is measured by the number of such sources not by the number of deaths. Is that clear?
Andrew🐉(talk) 17:14, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
ITN doesn't weigh the degree of notability in considering a post, outside that the topic should meet NEVENT if it is a new article or the GNG for an existing one.
Not that there isn't something to be said for the higher degree of focus on disaster articles. We should focus on disasters that routinely have long tails of enduring coverage, which typically include things like major hurricanes/typhoons, earthquakes, and commercial airline crashes due to disaster response, investigation, and cleanup. I don't know if the DNC prison escape attempt is going to have a long tail but in any of these, we should be asking those questions. That doesn't mean the event isn't notable for a standalone, but whether we should necessarily post events with unclear "bigger picture" aspects. Masem (t) 18:27, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
We've stopped talking about what ITN is or does a while ago. The community has decided that it was terrible practice. We're talking about what it should have been doing and where to go from here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:32, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
This is the issue right here. WP:News articles content sourced to WP:RSBREAKING sources, even at its best, is some of the weakest content on Wikipedia. This is inherently true, and unless the Internet Archive creates a Wayforward Machine to pluck sources from years in the future, it will always be true. It's made worse by the fact that people here wish to right great wrongs about what gets coverage and forget that we take orders from the sources, not the other way around. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
It's made worse by the fact that people here wish to right great wrongs about what gets coverage and forget that we take orders from the sources, not the other way around." What are you referring to? The DRC jailbreak and UK prison crisis? Because I think it was set out very clearly that the international coverage of what happened in the DRC was much more significant than international coverage of the UK prison crisis. AusLondonder (talk) 15:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't see trying to avoid systematic bias or making sure we aren't posting events that have yet to shown satisfying NEVENT for long term importance as a RGW. Masem (t) 15:17, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm often the first in line to challenge events that don't meet WP:NEVENT (and maybe revisiting this can be the next project in improving Wikipedia's weak current events coverage?). My issue is with people who automatically weigh something up or down depending on where it took place instead of just looking at notability proper and the weight of the sources. The worst of this being the !votes based on "we would post this if it were in the United States", "we wouldn't post this if it were in the developing world", etc. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:24, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, those type of arguments are relation to the ITNATA "don't argue about a topic pertaining to one country" and we should expand that bit to better explain such. But I do think that looking at stories that are at the edge of being NEVENT notable, that we'd should give more weight when that's from an underrepresented region and less weight when from a over represented one as a means to offset systematic bias. Masem (t) 15:37, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Another example of what would have been posted under the world-front-pages test that was not posted on ITN? Polaris Dawn: [3] [4] [5]. What would not have been posted that was posted? Fujiomori's death. Levivich (talk) 02:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree completely. The fact that there was such a huge ratio with compelling arguments in favor of James Earl Jones being blurbed still not being enough tells you just how broken ITN is. Frustrating and a huge mistake. It’s unmistakably headline news, so ITN needs to better reflect that. Politics isn’t the whole world; pop culture holds serious weight too. DrewieStewie (talk) 03:08, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
JEJ's death gets into the problem that suddenly ppl that have rarely participated in ITN suddenly participate and typical on rationals along the lines of fame and popularity. This is a weakness of WP's consensus process overall (not just at ITN) that draws favoritism and personal interest from editors that normally do not participate. That's not something we can stop as it would be against such consensus building policies, but it is something that we should be crafting guidelines at ITN as what are not helpful contributions to a healthy consensus debate. It's also important in such cases to affirm that consensus building is not a vote count, so no matter how many come to support or oppose a blurb based on significance, it's the weight of the arguments, so mass slamming a nomination with supports that all say the same thing (particularly on just a fame/popularity claim) is not useful Masem (t) 17:24, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Proposals

It appears there are at least three proposals here:

  1. abolish ITNSIGNIF
  2. @Levivich's proposal to impose a requirement that any update be on the front page news in multiple countries' paper of record
  3. strengthening the quality requirement

Are there any other proposals, or is this enough to craft an RfC? voorts (talk/contributions) 01:58, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Note: option 3 is not mutually exclusive with options 1 and/or 2. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:59, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
I think an RfC works best with a Yes/No question (or as simple a choice). Not sure how one'd craft one from whatever came of those first three proposals. But I'm willing to learn. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:12, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
There can be sub-RfCs. One would be "Should the quality requirement be strengthened as follows: proposed language here." The second would be "Should ITNSIGNIF be abolished or modified to require that any update be on the front page news in multiple countries' paper of record." There's probably a better way to frame this, but just an idea. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:20, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
OK, then (maybe) don't forget the guy who wanted to fight, offset and/or avoid systematic (systemic?) bias, too. I mean, if we can't think of a single question. Only seems fair. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:23, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
That seems like an overarching value that any proposal should seek to address; it's not an actionable proposal in and of itself since it needs a strategy to implement. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
If we can't come up with a roughly workable consensus for a more substantive plan (or two) here, I don't hold out much hope for a general RfC with outsiders, who don't have context. That's the gist of WP:RFCBEFORE. Tangentially, the open question at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 195 § In the news didn't draw much input. YMMV. —Bagumba (talk) 02:54, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't hold out much hope for a general RfC with outsiders, who don't have context. ITN is a part of WIkipedia. Whatever local consensus has developed is subject to a broader community consensus. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:34, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
No objections to that. I just don't see it going very far in an RfC if at the ITN level there isn't an elaborate choice or two before presenting the options for a wider discussion, e.g. here are the problems and the proposed solutions and why, but we're stuck because of these, please help further. —Bagumba (talk) 03:45, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
At a minimum, I think we should work through the presidential debate example at #Litmus test above (or other tangible example(s)) to show how any of the proposals would play out with a new ITN. —Bagumba (talk) 03:56, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
The goal, in my mind, is to get this corner of Wikipedia in line with the rest of the project with the philosophy of following the sources and preventing our own interpretations and beliefs from getting in the way. We should be pushing for something that removes the "I personally do/don't think this is important" that plagues ITN. Abolishing ITNSIGNIF would accomplish this. But ideally we still need some way to determine whether something is worth posting. The rest of Wikipedia has already figured this out, at least to the point of being workable: do the sources put the update in the context of the subject?
Say there's a bridge collapse. When considering whether to post it, we should ask ourselves two questions. First, is the bridge notable; does it have an article based on reliable sources other than news coverage (or could it)? Second, can we use the coverage of the collapse to write at least one to three well-sourced, due paragraphs in the subject's article? If the answer to both questions is yes, then it should be eligible for ITN once those paragraphs are added. And I say this as someone who's felt in the past that we shouldn't post local incidents like bridge collapses.
In a similar vein, we shouldn't always need a specific article about the event itself to post, and in fact should discourage it unless we have a good reason otherwise. [[Example Bridge]] is a much better target than [[Collapse of Example Bridge]], because it provides that context, which is more helpful for the reader. The inclusion of due content in an article is how Wikipedia normally determines what we call "significance". This more open standard of substantial due coverage in the article of a notable subject means that we'll have a better turnaround and therefore won't have to make sure each item is worth putting on the main page for a whole week. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:45, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
I like this proposal a lot. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:50, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
A new standalone page is not a current requirement for ITN (example) Perhaps people are more inclined to create a page to try to emphasize the notability more. —Bagumba (talk) 04:02, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
This discussion is about proposing alternatives to the current requirements. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
Sorry if it wasn't clear. I was responding to ... we shouldn't always need a specific article about the event itself to post ... —Bagumba (talk) 04:17, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
FYI, there was a bridge collapse recently. I noticed that there wasn't an article about the bridge and so started one – Carola Bridge. Looking at what linked to it, I found that we have a list of bridge collapses. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:29, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Here're two more proposals. 4) Abolish the quality criterion. 5) Abolish ITN entirely. Banedon (talk) 05:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
    @Banedon, what is the point of your comments? Aaron Liu (talk) 11:27, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    If we're going to have a RfC, I want to see these two options included. Banedon (talk) 11:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    And you believe that these options have an actual chance of success despite their lack of rationales? Aaron Liu (talk) 12:05, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    Abolish ITN has been discussed and I already included it as an option above. Removing the quality requirement makes no sense and should not be an option. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:58, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    I only see "abolish ITNSIGNIF" above. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    Oh, right, my bad. Some people have been saying abolish ITN and replace it, so I think that ought to be an option in the RfC (although I doubt it will gain consensus). voorts (talk/contributions) 15:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    It might gain consensus. Wikipedia: where when dictators convicted of murder, kidnapping, and human rights violations die, we put their photo on our front page for damn near a week. Is there any other website on the entire internet that does this? Thumbs up icon Go Wikipedia! So "abolish ITN" isn't that crazy of an idea. Levivich (talk) 04:44, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
    There was an attempt in 2020 at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 166 § h-Request for comment on the future of Wikipedia:In the news-2020-02-25T17:54:00.000Z —Bagumba (talk) 05:09, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
    They're always smiling at us, too. That's the part that makes me mutinous. Whether they're killed, captured, withdrawing, missing, wounded, accused or taking the reins of a troubled country, they're always smiling at us... InedibleHulk (talk) 06:05, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
    Quality criterion cannot be removed as long as ITN is a box on the main page. Masem (t) 11:56, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    It certainly can, if there's consensus for it. Banedon (talk) 02:35, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    You'd have to remove the quality requirement for all main page boxes. The main page is designed to feature WP's best work, and all sections have a quality requirement for posted items. ITN cannot remove it without removing ITN from the main page (which I know some suggest as an option) Masem (t) 03:38, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    CCC. The main page isn't required to feature enwiki's best work except by convention and by the policies of the sections. Even then, I question whether anything outside the TFA/TFL/TFP is consistently our best work; RD requires most statements to be sourced and no orange tags, DYK 250 word articles which are wholly sourced, etc. Many on the main page are by no means exceptional articles. Sincerely, Dilettante 03:54, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    We're still talking "best work" within the context of whatever specific box within the main page. In the scope of ITN, we're not looking for that same standard as TFA, since many times the article has only just been created or has had a major expansion due to the news event, but we still are looking for a minimum quality level that shows the article progressing towards what could be a featured article some day. And particularly for articles that should have existed before the event happened, such as most ITNR entries and for RD and RD blurbs (which already are supposed to be higher quality in terms of sourcing and lack of tagging due to BLP policy), we should expect their quality to be more representative of an article that has been in development for some time - again, not TFA expectations, but far more than a stubby or with major lack of sourcing. Quality should be taken as context dependent and has various levels depending on exactly what is being nominated, but its still in all cases trying to show an example of our best work of similar articles within the same context of the nomination. If consensus wants to remove quality, then that fails the basic approach that the main page is established for (see Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page) and the box should then be removed. Masem (t) 04:26, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    "Best work" isn't entirely accurate for ITN and DYK. It is a drive or a carrot to improve pages for posting on the MP. An edit-a-thon of sorts. —Bagumba (talk) 04:46, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    I say it's both. It features quality work, so editors are incentivized to improve things so they can be put there. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:35, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    Sorry for quoting myself from the AN, but I think that this is a good thought. It isn't about "best work", it's about featurable work: I think we should have a policy named "Featurability" which says: "Everything featured on the main page represents and is featured only because it is a legitimate achievement of Wikipedia editors such that enhances the image and public reception of Wikipedia."—Alalch E. 22:22, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    I'd support this policy if you proposed it. Surprised it's not already a thing, to be honest. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:52, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    I fear it may lead to unnecessary clashes between "enhances the image and public reception" and WP:NotCensored. Hey look, there's even a whole essay about that~! The wording of "legitimate achievement" also strays towards "best work" more than featurable. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:56, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
    "Fast work" can also be featurable, it's also a legitimate achievement, even if it is not of very high quality. That essay is good and a sentence like The Main Page is our front cover, and we shouldn't be forcing away people before they even get into the articles is something that everyone should agree with. The main page is also "not censored" in some specific sense, but not in the same sense as wp:not censored (I am noting your use of camel case (-: ) —Alalch E. 14:56, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
    While I'd agree, unfortunately, "achievement" has this very pristine connotation. Regardless, I think we can workshop this policy/guideline somewhere else lol; I'd also agree with its spirit. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:09, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
    As someone who believes that ITN is ultimately a negative for a project that's supposed to be an encyclopedia, I don't think either of these options or viable right now or the best option forward. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:08, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
  • information Note: I have procedurally closed the RfC. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 04:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Proposal 6: remove the community voting process which does nothing but embroil large numbers of editors into entirely subjective questions of significance, bias, weighting, and what "news" is, and replace with a small panel of experienced coordinators who make the still-entirely-subjective decision on nominations by simple majority vote without wasting time on arguing ad nauseam about how many deaths "deserves" a blurb (ugh). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:05, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    No to editorial boards. Levivich (talk) 15:08, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    Wikipedia is supposed to be transparent and participatable, and we should not be expecting or requiring anyone who isn't an Arb to stick around. This is just gatekeeping until nobody comes to the gate anymore. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    I believe this is how other main page projects work. DYK and TFA (I believe) have a panel of coordinators who approve or reject nominations. Why shouldn't ITN work the same way? Natg 19 (talk) 16:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    No, TFA is just like ITN. DYK has this quid pro quo system where nominators must review another nomination if they wish to nominate a DYK after they've already got posted 3 times. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    Hmm okay, but either way, I agree with the idea of having coordinators who can approve or reject a nomination. The current community voting process is largely a slog of subjective yes/no !votes and is unproductive for the most part. It does seems that the coordinators at TFA have a bigger say the final decision rests with the TFA coordinators: Wehwalt, Dank and Gog the Mild, who also select TFAs for dates where no suggestions are put forward (though this would require a heavier load on the current admins here). Natg 19 (talk) 16:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    Coordinators are basically just {{@ITNA}}.

    The FAC coordinators—Ian Rose, Gog the Mild, David Fuchs and FrB.TG—determine the timing of the process for each nomination. For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria. Consensus is built among reviewers and nominators; the coordinators determine whether there is consensus.
    — WP:FAC

    The only thing different is that @ITNA is policy for them and they can decide empty days, the latter of which is inapplicable. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    Ah, yes, I was completely wrong on DYK. It seems that it is completely community run, with several layers of processes (nomination, approval of hooks, prep sets, queues) before getting run on the main page. Natg 19 (talk) 16:54, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
    No to editorial boards and small groups of "experienced" editors making choices for us, per Aaron Liu above. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:48, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment: Here's an updated list of proposals:
  1. Strengthen the quality requirement.
  2. Amend ITNSIGNIF (e.g., Levivich's front page news proposal).
  3. Abolish ITNSIGNIF.
  4. Abolish the quality requirement.
  5. Abolish ITN.
  6. ITN coordinators (e.g., AirshipJungleman29's proposal).
Any other proposals or should we start an RfC soon? voorts (talk/contributions) 23:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
My proposal is that ITNSIGNIF be specifically replaced by a requirement of due content in the relevant article (preferably the article about the person/place/thing itself, not a separate article for the event that happened to it). I acknowledge this is something that might be harder to convey as an RfC option, but I would consider abolishing ITNSIGNIF without a replacement to be a half-measure. But then on the other end of things, we should also be trimming down the number of options if possible. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:24, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
What would the RfC be like? Some of these proposals aren't mutually exclusive. Also, I don't see the "abolish quality" requirement proposal gaining any traction, and I'd rather not have everyone waste energy arguing against something that has nearly no support. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:55, 20 September 2024 (UTC)
I agree RE "abolish quality", as I stated above. I added it just so that this list was comprehensive of the discussion thus far. I would propose the following:
Option 1: Amend ITNSIGNIF
Option 1a: Levivich's front page news proposal.
Option 1b:Thebiguglyalien's proposal.
Option 1c: Other proposals (describe).
Option 2: Abolish ITNSIGNIF.
Option 3: ITN coordinators.
Option 4: Abolish ITN (to be replaced with something else following further discussion). voorts (talk/contributions) 14:30, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Option 3 still isn't mutually exclusive with options 1 nor 2, though. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:36, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
I think it's fine to have non-mutually exclusive options, as long as that's stated up front with a note (similar to the one I provided at the opening of this section). voorts (talk/contributions) 14:38, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Mixing exclusive options with non-exclusive options could be confusing. I'd rather we make ITN coordinators a separate RfC provided there are enough editors who'd support it. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:40, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Well I think the only way to avoid mixing options is to first do an RfC on abolishing ITN; if that passes, there would be more discussion on what to replace it with and then another RfC. If it fails, then we proceed with another RfC on options 1-3. Although the mixed RfC is potentially confusing (which I think can be solved by making it very clear that there are mutually exclusive options in the RfC statement), I think at least two separate month-long (and almost certainly much longer) RfCs on ITN would lead to community fatigue on the issue. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:44, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
3 is the only non-exclusive one. Having an RfC with just options 1-3 does not help, not to mention that 1, 2, and 4 are already mutually exclusive. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:49, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
It's enough to omit or separate out the ITN coordinators idea to fix the mixing options problem. The coordinators can run as a separate block or a separate RFC. It could be "Option 1 through 3 and separately !vote yes/no for coordinators", and !vote could be e.g. "Option 2; yes" —Alalch E. 14:49, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
RFCs only really work if there's two or three clearly-distinguished options. Any more, and you'll start getting even more ideas thrown at it. Putting up multiple options that have overlapping aspects also can lead to confusing means to determine the situation. What's being asked, right now, would require multiple RFC rounds.
that said, while the obvious answer for what a first defining RFC would be around "abolishing ITN", that would actually do the least good. A far better top level question right now would be something more like "Should ITN continue to use consensus-driven significance criteria as it does now, or should it adopt other, more objective criteria for when items should be posted (assuming all other criteria are met)?" with a clear statement that further RFCs will be used to determine those criteria If the second option has the weight from RFC, then a second RFC and/or workshop can be established to determine what criteria those area. Even if the first option has consensus, that also may lead to workshopping of what additional criteria could be introduced. If neither option gets any real weight and there's an inclination that a consensus considers eliminating ITN, then an RFC could be open that way.
In any event, this cannot be solved by one RFC if we're putting that into VPP or other CENT places for more voters. I would also suggest (as I did at the ANI thread this triggered) that any regular contributors to ITN should strongly be urged to not participate so that we (those regular contributors) are not talking in circles around material we've already discussed here before; or that if they participate, its a matter of simply placing their !vote and moving on rather than get into the discussion of the RFC. Masem (t) 15:00, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Should ITN continue to use consensus-driven significance criteria as it does now, or should it adopt other, more objective criteria for when items should be posted (assuming all other criteria are met)? I am strongly opposed to framing the question this way. ITN does not use consensus-driven significance criteria; it uses highly subjective criteria that effectively amounts to a contest between liking something or not liking something. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:24, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, echoing some of the commentary above, the setup of having all of these proposals packaged together doesn't sit right with me, particularly the idea of abolishing ITN, which I think, at a base level, still seems absurd, as the aforementioned discussion 4 years ago opined. In fact, if anything, if we want to have that on the docket, it should be separate, and any such vote should include commentary directly on what to replace it with, because I have yet to hear a particularly compelling argument for what a gold replacement would be. Ideally, we could run both at the same time, and see how any new changes fare while continuing discussion on possible replacements, which we could evaluate against a potentially adjusted ITN. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:24, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
A permanent "Today's featured list" can replace it or OTD can be extended upward. —Alalch E. 16:01, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
In my crystal ball, nothing replaces it and what have been the top-left, bottom-left and bottom-right just gain a column to become the first, second and third parts (like the featured picture box, but higher). InedibleHulk (talk) 19:17, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
The most efficient path forward, in my opinion, is an RfC for what standard should be used in deciding what goes on ITN. Nothing that involves the word "abolish". There are other things that might be worth adding to the main page regardless of ITN's fate, like "today's good articles" or a corner of the main page with resources to help readers become editors. But I don't think abolishing ITN is worth pursuing without some major organic push toward it. If establishing coordinators is a viable option, then it should be considered down the line after this is all decided. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:34, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Define "major organic push"? Levivich (talk) 19:58, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment. I have the following to state on this topic:
  1. We should not lower our significance threshold. As much as it seems like a high threshold seems like an issue, I am convinced that that is not our issue here. My 2c retain the significance threshold. As others have mentioned in the past, this is not a newsticker. This is the main page of an encyclopedia.
  2. That said, Portal:Current_events is the right place for all news items. For heavens' sake, remove the WP:EASTEREGG that this link hides behind. There have been multiple conversations where it has been agreed that this needs to be fixed. We no longer can have RFCs that will spell-out what I call "implementation detail". Admins should feel empowered to take the consensus that the link needs to be fixed and go attempt a fix and then iteratively refine as needed.
  3. Bring an element of freshness to the ITN box by rotating images every 24 hours. There was an agreement on this proposal. Yes the implementation detail was not available. Feel empowered to try a few options. What is the worst that can happen? Be bold.
  4. Back to the core of ITN. We need more nominators. We need more reviewers. We need more admins ready to read opinions. Note that I say opinions and not consensus. Let us not kid ourselves, there will be a large majority of articles where we will NOT have consensus. Consensus assumes that participants are able to rationally impress upon others on the importance of an article and are able to build an agreement. I promise you -- that does not happen here at WP:ITNC.
  5. Overall, I think we need to change our mindset from acting as "gating agents" to "enabling agents". This can be done without dropping our quality thresholds or article significance thresholds.

Ktin (talk) 02:27, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I think your point on lack of nominations is spot on. Its been one of those things that has been rolling in the back of my mind, and thinking back to about 5 to 10 years ago, and in terms of nominations, we're still about the same number, and we're still about the same number of what nominations are rejected primarily on significance issues (that is, not considering those that fall stale, fall stale with lack of necessarily quality fixes, or closed for other administrative reasons; and also ignoring RD or RD blurb discussions). Which implies to me its not a significance issue, but the lack of participation. However, this is all based on gut feelings, I've not carried out any statistical breakdown to compare. Masem (t) 02:35, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Agree. For a long time I used to think that the lack of civility used to keep new editors / nominators / reviewers away. But, I want to think that the last year, we have definitely done better on the civility front. So, that to me tells that we need to do something more to encourage new nominations and newer reviewers. For a brief bit, we did see some new topics (e.g. on the science front) come in. I think those have dried up. Ktin (talk) 02:45, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I also think the media itself has buried good quality stories that we would have featured (like science, medicine, historical discoveries, etc.) due to larger world events. It should be reminded that that's why we don't focus on only what's printed on the front page, but can use any story as long as they're reliable news sources covering it. Masem (t) 02:48, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Agree again. Definitely do not think ITN should be a repeater for front page articles (however, broad or narrow, we definite world media here). Ktin (talk) 03:00, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
WP:CONSENSUS is policy, and it includes WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. If editors think they can create their own little corner of Wikipedia where they can ignore it, they're going to be in for a rough surprise. Either ITN complies with consensus policy, or it becomes an administrative issue—territory that it's already entering. If editors want to curate what they consider "significant news", they should find a different community on a different website. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:38, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Show me one instance in the last six months where consensus has been established by a rational conversation that has brought in agreement where one did not exist before. You will find it hard to do so. This to me implies that editors / reviewers come in with starting positions and those starting positions do not change. So the notion of "establishing" consensus is a myth. Hard truth. Ktin (talk) 02:42, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
This is a discussion better suited for Wikipedia talk:Consensus. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:46, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Comment Given comments above, it appears that the first RfC should be options 1 and 2:
Option 1: Amend ITNSIGNIF
Option 1a: Define significance as "front page news in multiple countries' paper of record" (Levivich's proposal)
Option 1b: Define significance as "substantial due coverage in the article of a notable subject" (Thebiguglyalien's proposal)
Option 1c: Build-your-own-proposal (describe).
Option 2: Abolish ITNSIGNIF.
In the background section, I think we should link to this discussion, the close review that prompted it, and the closed RfC. I also think there should be a brief, neutrally worded description of why editors think some sort of change to the significance criteria is necessary. Finally, some have suggested including a note about ITN regulars not participating. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:55, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Let me ask a different question. Why do we believe that a significance barrier is the problem here? Ktin (talk) 03:03, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
@Ktin: Various editors have raised concerns about the subjectivity of the significance criteria in this discussion and in a previous close review at AN. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:10, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I see. Anyways, I continue to hold my thinking that significance is not the issue here. We need to attract a wider funnel of nominations. From first principles -- if our objective is to publish more -- we can either lower the significance or we can cast a funnel wide. I think casting the funnel wide -- encourage newer nominators, encourage newer topics, act as enabling agents rather than gating agents is the way to go. Imo, ITN should not be a repeater for major news outlets (however, broad or narrow, one defines them). At the end of the day, this is the main page of an encyclopedia and not a news ticker as many others have stated. That said, we should do all that we can to encourage newer topics ... a wider net, if you will. Ktin (talk) 03:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
We haven't fleshed out the scenarios at #Litmus test (above). Alalch E. had written how some topics ... don't even merit a five-sentence update to an existing article so they would fail the remaining WP:ITNUPDATE It seems like the "significance" war could potentially just get transformed to debating whether an update really belongs in target article (WP:UNDUE), or how many sentences shoud be there, and if ITNUPDATE is really met. —Bagumba (talk) 04:42, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I still like the idea of "involved" and "uninvolved" sections. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:05, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
How do we determine "involved" (or "regular")? I haven't voted at ITNC in 2024 [6], am I involved/a regular? Otherwise, LGTM for an ITNSIGNIF-focused RFC. Levivich (talk) 03:31, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
A viewpoint from someone who doesn't participate in the In the News initiative: I don't think separating comments by regular participants from non-participants is helpful. It's true that opinions of those who participate regularly bring practical experience, and opinions from others can bring a wider view of objectives. But whoever comments, all of the viewpoints have to be considered and weighed. isaacl (talk) 05:13, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
That's still way too many options, and you still need a "do nothing"-type entry as well. RFCs need to be really tight if they are going to be effective. Masem (t) 03:36, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Adding a "do nothing"-type entry makes RFCs looser, not tighter. "No to all" is the "do nothing"-type entry. RFCs don't need a "no change" option. Levivich (talk) 03:39, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
What I've said above is that this really needs to be thought of a series of RFCs, the first to know if the community thinks if anything needs to be done about ITNSIG first before moving on to what actually needs to be done. That would reduce the RFC to "change ITNSIG", "eliminate ITNSIG" or "do nothing", which is a super tight set of options that works for a first pass RFC. Masem (t) 03:42, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I've noticed an inverse relationship between how many rounds an RFC goes and the quality of improvements that emerge from it. Levivich (talk) 05:58, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Quality is also likely affected by whether the subsequent rounds are organized or just throwing things on the wall each time. —Bagumba (talk) 06:55, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, but at the same time, monolithic RFCs also result in poor consensus because of how many ideas have been thrown into it. The best type of RFC is one with a binary answer, because it keeps the RFC concentrated on an unresolved question, which in this case is whether the ITNSIG guidelines need to change (we are only come from an informal discussion at ANI that had some support).
That's not to say that in the same RFC, you cannot also have a part two that says, *if* ITNSIG were to be changed, what types of changes would be done" as to get more input from the community on ideas. Then when that RFC is over, and the main question identified there was consensus to change ITNSIG, then you can start the second with the proposed ideas with the best support, again asking the binary question "should ITNSIG be changed to this?" Masem (t) 12:24, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
We have proposals here to amend ITNSIGNIF. They can be presented to the community now. An RfC that just asks if ITNSIGNIF should be amended, without presenting alternatives, is doomed to fail; to adequately assess if ITNSIGNIF needs to be replaced, people need an idea of what it will be replaced with. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:55, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Which is making the assumption that these have to be amended, which we don't know what the community answer is to that, nor I think has been properly explored at this point. Masem (t) 16:25, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
It's been explored across three separate discussions. If people don't want a change, we can have a "maintain the status quo" option. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:26, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I don't agree that regular participants in the In the News initiatives should be barred from commenting. I think it's unlikely that the result of the discussion will be to attract a whole new set of participants. Thus the current regular participants need to be heard from, as the ones who will be affected the most. isaacl (talk) 05:16, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I'd say the ones who will be affected the most will, ultimately, be the readers (which also includes all kind of regular or non-regular editors). Still better to try to attract a wider set of folks, even if we're not discounting regular comments either. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 08:17, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
As I stated in another comment, I agree that viewpoints from a broader set of editors have advantages. But there's no use coming up with a set of rules that no one is interested in following, or that is overly onerous for volunteers to implement. The community can of course decide that the product of a project isn't a good fit for the main page. Readers have lots of ways to find content in which they are interested, and most of them do so without using the main page. isaacl (talk) 15:01, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
Putting a check on WP:BADGERing is what is needed, which is not an issue with most regulars (ITN or not). —Bagumba (talk) 08:31, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
If regulars are not going to be let contribute (which I don't think is really a great idea, but that's a different discussion) than can we at least create some more proposals for potential inclusion here? I would like to if possible. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:55, 24 September 2024 (UTC)
Reply to Ktin: Significance is exactly why consensus sometimes isn't achieved. So, you either abolish consensus (which seems... bold) or abolish Significance. I guess I see why dictatorial coordinators should be a separate and exclusive option now. We could have a first RfC on whether Significance should be changed or the consensus should be changed through implementing coordinators. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:46, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
What exactly s bad about not being able to reach consensus due to the presence of the current significance criteria? If you replace them with other criteria, even those more objective, you still will need consensus discussion and some still won't be posted due to lack of consensus.
Now it can be argued that the current significance criteria are too constrained in a manner that limits how many topics get posted to ITN (barring quality issues), but that should be demonstrated with stats first, how is our rate of ITN candidates put in compared to those that fail to gain significance posting over time? If there were drastic changes in such numbers, then yes it would be reasonable to look to change the significance criteria. Otherwise, this whole thing is more effectively trying to redefine the purpose of ITN, which becomes a whole new set of questions. Masem (t) 13:21, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
The idea is that it's going to be less subjective, ergo reaching consensus will be easier. Obviously, nothing can be perfect. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm willing to compromise and have the following RfC first, leaving abolishing ITN and/or coordinator discussions for another day:
Option 1: Amend ITNSIGNIF
Option 1a: Levivich's front page news proposal.
Option 1b:Thebiguglyalien's proposal.
Option 1c: Other proposals (describe).
Option 2: Abolish ITNSIGNIF, retaining only the quality requirement.
We still need a background section. @Levivich and @Thebiguglyalien, do you want to write up brief descriptions of your proposals and rationales? voorts (talk/contributions) 15:18, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Happy to have this workshopped if people have suggestions for improvements, but I'm thinking something like:
"Significance criteria is met if the event is reported on the print front pages of major national newspapers in multiple countries."
I don't know if these links should be in the proposal (or else they could go in my support vote), but "world's front pages" websites include https://www.pressreader.com/newspapers, https://www.frontpages.com/world-newspapers/, and https://frontpages.freedomforum.org/gallery. Levivich (talk) 16:45, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Also wouldn't mind seeing this workshopped, but right now I'm at "An event is significant if it results in an update of approximately two or more paragraphs of appropriate information to the article of a notable subject". I'm not married to "two or more paragraphs", but people will have different ideas of what a substantial update is without a reference point. Since it will be measuring "significance", it should be at least as high, if not higher, than what's currently at WP:ITNUPDATE. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:12, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
IMO, this should be branded as something other than significance due to the existence of ITNUpdate to avoid future confusion if implemented. Maybe this could be option 2b or something. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:28, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
So I guess this proposal is basically just abolish ITNSIGNIF and amend ITNUPDATE to say this? voorts (talk/contributions) 19:30, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
That's what it sounds like. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:38, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
A greatly simplified ITNCRIT that condenses ITNUPDATE and ITNSIGNIF would be a good way to implement this in my opinion, since they're often distilled together in !votes anyway. The key differences here are whether WP:ASPECT is met, and whether the nominated article is WP:NOTABLE. The former is there to limit fluff/cruft to artificially make something seem significant. The latter should refer to pre-existing sources of notability, but that's harder to convey in the RfC option. To use the bridge collapse example from earlier, the bridge itself should have a pre-existing body of sources that demonstrate notability, while the collapse itself is still developing and the "dust of notability" has yet to settle, so the bridge's article should be nominated rather than the collapse's article. An election, on the other hand, will already have sources about it before it actually takes place and can be expanded rather than created from scratch, so the election article itself makes sense as a nomination. That's the rationale behind my proposal, so I'd be grateful if anyone knows a more helpful way to word it than what I can come up with. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:51, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Here's what I've got for background: During a closure review of a proposed ITN entry, several editors expressed a concern that discussions at ITN are closed for subjective reasons because WP:ITNSIGNIF does not provide sufficient guidance for determining consensus. There was then a discussion at WT:ITN where several editors proposed changes to ITN, including amending or abolishing the significance criteria. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:23, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
voorts, Levivich: any further thoughts on this before it's ready to go? If abolishing ITNSIGNIF will lead to a greater focus on ITNUPDATE either way and cement the requirement for substantial updates in an article, then I would have no issue with my proposal being folded into Option 2. Though I'd want it to be explicit in that case that abolishing ITNSIGNIF would retain both the quality requirement and the major update requirement. It doesn't particularly matter to me how that's presented; what matters is that the !voters know we're not going to make any change that lets people add two random sentences to an article and nominate it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:47, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien, I think we should table the question of amending ITNUPDATE. That issue hasn't been discussed much here and I think consensus could be reached to update ITNUPDATE without the need for an RfC if ITNSIGNIF is significantly amended or abolished.
@Bagumba, Banedon, Aaron Liu, InedibleHulk, Masem, Dilettante, AirshipJungleman29, Natg 19, Chaotic Enby, DarkSide830, Alalch E., Ktin, and Isaacl, here's what I'm thinking:
Should the Wikipedia:In the news significance criteria (WP:ITNSIGNIF) be amended or abolished?
Option 1: Amend WP:ITNSIGNIF to state: The significance criteria is met if the event is reported on the print front pages of major national newspapers in multiple countries (websites hosting front pages: [7] and [8])
Option 1[a, b, c, etc.]: Propose your own amendment to ITNSIGNIF.
Option 2: Abolish ITNSIGNIF, retaining the quality and update requirements.
Option 3: Retain ITNSIGNIF without amendment.
Background
During a closure review of a proposed ITN entry, several editors expressed a concern that discussions at ITN are closed for subjective reasons because WP:ITNSIGNIF does not provide sufficient guidance for determining consensus. There was then a discussion at WT:ITN where several editors proposed changes to ITN, including amending or abolishing the significance criteria, and some editors proposed replacing ITN with something else on the Main Page. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:30, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I'd think Option 2 would need a brief explanation for those who haven't read this discussion. Something along the lines of "Whether something is newsworthy enough to appear on ITN would be decided on a sui generis basis" maybe? Otherwise, I think you've listed all the proposals that have a chance of passing. Sincerely, Dilettante 01:47, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
Not necessarily, that amendment would be pretty much going back to ITNSIGNIF, only even more vaguely defined. An Option 2b I'd propose would be to abolish ITNSIGNIF and retain the quality and update requirements, but either require a standalone article, or define more formally the update requirements, to avoid most of ITN being cluttered by one-paragraph updates. (Edit: looking above, that seems pretty close to @Thebiguglyalien's proposal, so I wouldn't be opposed to workshopping a combined proposal and having it be our option 2b) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 02:04, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
This is probably something that we can flesh out after an RfC, whatever result it may bring, but I think using a standalone article should be an even higher bar than an existing article. I don't see the issue with one paragraph updates (though I'd prefer something around two paragraphs)—the point is to feature content that's in the news, not the news itself. Perhaps a standalone article would have to meet ITNUPDATE after excluding any content that is (or could be) included in another article, sort of like how DYK doesn't count content that's copied from another article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:05, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I think updating the update requirements requires a separate discussion. These are two separate issues and discussing them both at the same time would muddy the waters. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:43, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
All of this, including the background, looks good to me, and my thanks to everyone for working on this. To me, "abolish ITNSIGNIF and retain the quality and update requirements" means every article that meets the quality and update requirements gets posted. The difference between Options 1 and 2, as I read it, is whether every current event with a sufficient-quality article update gets posted, or just the most significant ones. I think those are two good options to present, and the 1a/2a thing allows tweaks of those basic options (with or without significance criteria) to be presented during the RfC. I think it's well written and ready to go. If it comes back Option 3, we'll know that ITNSIGNIF isn't the problem in the eyes of the community. Levivich (talk) 02:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I will reiterate - having this many options, and including an open option, in an RFC is doomed for failure because there will be too many options in play. RFCs should try to be as close to being a "yes/no" type to minimize distrctions and produce a good result. — Masem (t) 03:58, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I don't see that 3 options is a lot of options. From what I can see, these are clear, concise options and I would go ahead with the RFC. Natg 19 (talk) 05:03, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes, but good luck! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:34, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
Looks good to me. Can we, though, have any discussion of this sort at least allow for some sort of involvement by persons participating in ITN? Again, I would still like to author a proposal of sorts, and I think those here who have created proposals should be able to offer exposition of sorts for their proposals. Obviously the larger population of editors should be given outsized authority over the results of the RFC, but I think there should be some bridging of the gap between involved and uninvolved participants. DarkSide830 (talk) 06:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I now believe participation to be another of those easy-but-difficult choices each editor must make for oneself. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:49, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I'd still suggest taking the proposals through some dry runs on actual or potential ITN noms to gain confidence that they're an improvement and iron things out some more. #Litmus test (above) didn't go far, and as I commented earlier (04:42, 23 September 2024) and Chaotic Enby alluded to, option 2 likely only pushes the issue to WP:ITNUPDATE. People will instead argue that an update is WP:UNDUE so the blurb is not warranted, while others will write overly large updates and WP:CITEBOMB to sway opinion on an event's importance. —Bagumba (talk) 08:13, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
Discussing ITNUpdate takes time. We still need to operate ITN between the closure of this RfC and the closure of an ITNUpdate RfC. I still think putting Alien's proposal under Option 2 should be better. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:08, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree with proceeding in general. I agree with adding a change to ITNUPDATE as a proposal under Option 2. I suggest "two paragraph or a five-sentence update" as a minimum (five sentences minimum, not "generally more than sufficient"), and removing "subjective" from ITNUPDATE. —Alalch E. 21:39, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien: does this work for you? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:58, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
As long as the wording of the proposal is clear, then it sounds good to me. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:05, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I've reorganized this a bit since this is really two separate questions now that should have two separate discussion sections so that independent consensuses can be assessed for each discussion.
Question 1: Should the Wikipedia:In the news significance criteria (WP:ITNSIGNIF) be amended or abolished?
Option A: Amend ITNSIGNIF to state: The significance criteria is met if the event is reported on the print front pages of major national newspapers in multiple countries (websites hosting front pages: [9] and [10]).
Option A[1, 2, 3, etc.]: Propose your own amendment to ITNSIGNIF.
Option B: Abolish ITNSIGNIF, retaining the quality requirement and retaining or amending (see question 2) the update requirement.
Option C: Retain ITNSIGNIF without amendment.
Question 2: Should the ITN update requirement (WP:ITNUPDATE) be amended?
Option A: Amend ITNUPDATE to state that a sufficient update is one that adds substantial due coverage of a news event (at least two paragraphs or five sentences) to an article about a notable subject.
Option A[1, 2, 3, etc.]: Propose your own amendment to ITNUPDATE.
Option B: Retain ITNUPDATE without amendment.
Background
During a closure review of a proposed ITN entry, several editors expressed a concern that discussions at ITN are closed for subjective reasons because WP:ITNSIGNIF does not provide sufficient guidance for determining consensus. There was then a discussion at WT:ITN where several editors proposed changes to ITN, including amending or abolishing the significance criteria, and amending the update criteria. Some editors proposed replacing ITN with something else on the Main Page. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:24, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I like this. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:28, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
That still seems like a lot of options. Anything beyond the simplest RfC is going to risk a train wreck. At the very least, I wouldn't want to encourage people to come up with their own amendments once we're past this RfCBefore. Obviously they still could if they have something solid, but this looks like an invitation for everyone to come up with one, which will almost certainly result in no consensus. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:42, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
It's two questions, one has three options including the status quo (two new ideas to consider), and the other has two options including the status quo (one new idea to consider). It isn't a lot of options. I think that removing "propose your own" options is unimportant. But, I don't have a problem with removing them. As you say, people will still know that they are able to come up with their own amendments. —Alalch E. 23:52, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I included the "propose your own" options because not all editors may know that they can propose their own options in an RfC; if you're a new editor or not someone who regularly participates in these types of discussions, it's not obvious that one can propose new options. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:57, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree with that. —Alalch E. 00:52, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
One thing: What would a !vote look like? "Question 1: A. Question 2: A. Lorem ipsum ..." —Alalch E. 00:55, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
I also think single-dimensional (Option 1, 2, 3) is better than multi-dimensional (Q1: ABC, Q2: XYZ, etc.). It's over-thinking it to break it down into two dimensions like this. I think it's easier to consider that there are two proposals seriously put forward so far: mine and TBUA's. "None of the above" is the retain-the-status-quo option. So this could be presented like this:
Proposal 1: Amend ITNSIGNIF to state: The significance criteria is met if the event is reported on the print front pages of major national newspapers in multiple countries (websites hosting front pages: [9] and [10]).
Proposal 2: Abolish ITNSIGNIF and amend ITNUPDATE to state that a sufficient update is one that adds substantial due coverage of a news event (at least two paragraphs or five sentences) to an article about a notable subject.
[Add your own proposal.]
So much simpler that way, same options presented. If someone wants to propose abolishing ITNSIGNIF and not amending ITNUPDATE, they can do that, but I doubt that'll happen (because doing so would basically make ITN into a clone of TOP25). "No to both" is the "retain status quo" option. Levivich (talk) 04:14, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, that's actually okay. —Alalch E. 12:09, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
I also support this since we don't have any other proposals related to the questions yet, so it's probably best to simplify. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:45, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. I can open the RfC later today. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:37, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC on In the news criteria

There is a request for comment on the In the news criteria at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § RfC: In the news criteria amendments. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:01, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Timelines, as they relate to Ongoing

Just wanted to propose a concept here regarding how Ongoing operates and the Timeline articles we've been attaching to certain events (naturally, the ones where the main article is long and substantial edits are more likely to occur). Bagumba raised concerns a la WP:NOTDIARY as it may relate to these articles, and personally, I have concerns in general that the way they are written is up to the standards that we desire at ITN, particularly the self-fulfilling prophecy of how timelines become a little too Wikipedia:PROSELINEy (which is naturally less of a concern for a timeline, because well, it IS a timeline by design, but I point to Timeline of the Sudanese civil war (2024) as to why it does not come off as high article quality and may be monotonous and disinterested to readers). So I just wanted to gauge what everyone's thoughts are on if we believe we should be running these timelines at ITN. I understand that it may be the simplest way to keep ongoing events with growing articles in the Ongoing section, but I do question if linking these timelines runs contrary to WP:ITNPURPOSE's 2nd component, and may harm user engagement. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:10, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I understand that it may be the simplest way to keep ongoing events with growing articles in the Ongoing section ...: Timelines are inherently a sequence of events, but the inclusion criteria needs to be discriminate. While it's not currently mentioned at ITNPURPOSE, ITN incentivizes editors to provide timely updates. If the low quality of timelines is a means to keeping the item posted, we need to improve our criteria for evaluating what is truly ongoing beyond NOTDIARY items added to a timeline. —Bagumba (talk) 02:32, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Template Bug - 3 Articles listed but only 2 are displayed

Please can someone knowledgeable about templates take a look at this one. The template here lists three articles, but, only two are displayed on the rendered screen. Ktin (talk) 03:16, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

{{ITN candidate}} documentation does not show an |article3= —Bagumba (talk) 03:20, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Is there an appetite to fix it? Who can? Tagging MSGJ to see if this is in their wheelhouse. Ktin (talk) 03:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Turning the gaze inward... AlphaFold nomination from November 2020

AlphaFold nomination from 2020: link here

Firstly, I will acknowledge that there is no WP:CRYSTALBALL. That said, after today's Nobel announcement, I could not help but go back to the AlphaFold nomination from 2020. The article was yet another one that went stale and was not posted, with a call for "(Attention Needed)". I think we should do better than that. We should not let articles languish in an "Attention needed", "Admin attention needed" state. We should do better. I do not mind if an admin steps in and reads the collective view one way or another, but that read needs to happen.

Also, while there was a seemingly large support for posting there, we got taken in by comments like Obscure and arcane. It may be significant, but will be understood only by a specialized niche audience

Unfortunately, I would have to agree with editor bender235 who remarks a week later and still no decision? What in the world is going on here? What an embarrassment.

We need to do better! Ktin (talk) 03:52, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I do not mind if an admin steps in and reads the collective view one way or another, but that read needs to happen.: People complain if it gets closed as a no post before 7 days. "Consensus was changing!" WP:ITNA does read:

If there is not consensus to post the item and the nomination has had suitable time to run (generally 24 hours), nominations can be closed.

However, many don't respect it for "their" nom, so the community seems to prefer a stale roll off rather than a close "one way or another". —Bagumba (talk) 04:58, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
When someone adds an ‘’’Admin attention required’’’ tag it is almost always because the article is going to go stale soon and an admin attention is being requested to read the consensus and make a decision. We need admins to step in at that point if not earlier. Ktin (talk) 05:23, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm not wasting another week at WP:AN defending why a nomination was closed "early" after 5 days, which conceivably can happen at 6+1⁄2 days too. —Bagumba (talk) 06:19, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I might have been a bit harsh in my choice of words, but I remember how upsetting it was that the impact of AlphaFold's result was not recognized at the time the same way it was with black hole imaging, etc. --bender235 (talk) 06:43, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I believe more proper tagging procedures are needed. Too many non-admins chose to tag items as "ready" or "needs attention" largely to further their own noms or not realizing that Admins may not share their view on consensus. I think that limits the value of tagging as such. FWIW, I don't think Admins should NEED to see a tagged item to action on it, but just an observation I've had. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:17, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Not to challenge you, but how does one explain the current state of the Physiology Nobel prize? Yes it was not ready when it was nominated. It has been ready for quite some time (~24 hours) now. If Admins are able to scan these continuously, that’s great. But in their absence we need to take advantage of non Admins to help. The problem is even after that tagging — we are in a wait mode. Ktin (talk) 16:25, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I find the (Ready) to be a helpful flag. There's a lot of noms, and I often don't invest time to read every one. Of course, an admin can determine it's not ready and remove it. And I'm not obligated to only post ones already premarked with "ready". Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § Headers seems generally accurate on the practice. —Bagumba (talk) 16:27, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Bagumba here. We need to take advantage of non Admins for many of these tasks and elevate the role of Admins particularly when we are strapped for capacity. Ktin (talk) 16:29, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
That's fair, if it works for you all than it works for me. DarkSide830 (talk) 23:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
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