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As it is the page WP:ITN merely discusses the significance of content briefly. I think we should have guidelines that go into more detail about what things are and aren't significant enough to post. In the absence of such guidelines, ITNC will continue to be a magnet for personal opinions about how this or that event is or isn't significant. Everymorning talk 21:14, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

That's what the nomination discussion is for, to determine what people think is significant enough to post and figure out what the consensus is- and admins weigh the arguments in the discussion in deciding what to post. I'm not sure how you could keep personal opinions out of it. I'm fairly sure what you are suggesting has been tried and failed before, just FYI. 331dot (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

That's why I don't see why you undid my close. Unless an item belongs to the group which shall be more or less authomatically posted I don't see much room for a closer to overrule a (clear) majority which say an item is not significant enough for the mainpage. I don't think an admin should have a special say when that say will not be based on policy, but mostly personal preference (and maybe informal practice). Iselilja (talk) 21:29, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't object to you closing it in and of itself; I objected to the reason(a vote count), as determining consensus is not a vote count, but a weighing of arguments. 331dot (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

But how to weight arguments about significance when the policy hardly say anything about what constitutes significance? Any weighting of arguments will then pretty much be a supervote. None of the other current closes seems to have any reasoning given either; probably for this reason. (It will be easier to give policy reasons for why an article is not of adequate quality for the mainpage, but that's moot if the article is not deemed significant). Iselilja (talk) 21:51, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

This is why admins should evaluate and close discussions. Throughout WP, how consensus in a discussion to be determined is not trivial, and this in part is why people are reviewed and put into admin positions, based on past experience of evaluating consensus with an eye for policy and not just vote counting. There's no answer one can give for how to do this consistently. --MASEM (t) 21:56, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Your answer is very arrogant; but doesn't answer the question. Iselilja (talk) 22:06, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

There is nothing arrogant about what Masem wrote whatsoever. 331dot (talk) 22:44, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, as 331dot points out, I wasn't writing that arrogantly. This is how WP works, period, per WP:CONSENSUS. It's not easy, which is why admins are evaluated by peers before they are given those rights. ITN is nothing special. --MASEM (t) 22:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to go with Iselilja here: There's no reason why an admin is needed to judge consensus. Admins should only be considered when their tools are needed, and non-admins are allowed to judge consensus for discussions they did not participate in, the same way Admins can. Admins have no special status in this regard. That being said, that doesn't mean that this specific, one, closure was proper and good (and saying that also doesn't mean it was wrong), just that having (or not having) admin status is not something that enters into the evaluation. Admins who do a bad closure are not immune from being reverted, and non-admins should not be held as "suspect" in their closure rationale merely because they aren't admins. Both should be held to the same standards. Again, if this was a bad close, then we deal with that. But someone's admin status should not be used to poison the well against a discussion on the merits. --Jayron32 14:06, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Yep, as 331dot states, the whole point of ITNC is to discuss the significance of an item. What's significant to one person may not be to another. That's why we have admins to who judge consensus to post items to the main page. It's always going to be about personal opinion. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:24, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Others have said what I agree with above - the entire purpose of ITNC is to throw out opinions on significance and let an admin determine. I will say that there are some opinions that we have repeated asked not be used (such as "This is the xth US-centric story in a week" or "This only affects a tiny # of people of this country" etc.) since over time we're aware of that ITN generally does not account for these aspects. What's core to remember is that ITN should be about featuring decent-quality articles that happen to be in the news at the time, it is not about presenting news to the reader. --MASEM (t) 21:45, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

• Criteria is clear, it just doesn't allow some people to keep material off the main page related to countries they don't like. The criteria is simple: If prominent news organizations are treating it as a major news story, AND we have a quality article about the topic, someone can nominate it, and barring major problems with the article, it should be posted. We don't decide ourselves which items we think are "important enough", based on what we want the world to care about. We follow the sources in the same way as the rest of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a personality-based endeavor, we reflect the world at large. If we just did that, it would all go fine. Things only get bad when people oppose for purely ethnic, national, or otherwise spurious reasons. --Jayron32 13:58, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

• As others have said, it would not be feasible to decide the importance of potential stories in advance, nor is it plausible to give guidance on the subject. There is simply far too much judgement involved with each individual story. Only through experience can one get a good idea of the community standards. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:27, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Is there a reason Manoel de Oliviera's name was removed from this template as a recent death? If there is, it wasn't provided by the editor who removed it. Oliviera is certainly important enough to be mentioned in the news template and his article is good enough to be linked on the front page, IMO, so I'm not sure why it was removed. Please re-add it, asap. --ThylekShran (talk) 06:10, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

See WP:ITNC for a discussion. In short, there's some missing references that should have kept it off the main page. When it was posted, it had orange-level maintenance tags, which needed to be addressed. Many of them have in the intervening hours, however at this point there's still one small section that needs refs, but it's pretty necessary, with WP:BLP implications. If you can provide cites for that one, small section, this will be returned immediately. See WP:ITNC for more details as to what needs to be fixed. As soon as you fix it, it gets reposted. --Jayron32 06:13, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Err the 'recent deaths' link that is always on ITN on the main page appears to have vanished...? GiantSnowman 07:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

There are no current RDs (existing ones were stale and removed). There's a few pending in the queue. --MASEM (t) 07:35, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

The standalone link to Deaths in 2015 (which appears when no individual recent deaths are listed at ITN) remained commented out. I just restored it. —David Levy 07:54, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Can the "six other countries" text link to P5+1? They are the countries that negotiate with Iran, and it would answer if a reader is wondering what those six countries are. HaEr48 (talk) 03:39, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd suggest bringing this up either at WP:ERRORS or the entry's nomination at WP:ITNC. 331dot (talk) 11:12, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

 Done Spencer^T♦C 19:44, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Given this has come up a few times over the last few weeks, I think we need to describe what we are considering the minimum requirements for sourcing of an article that is going to be given as ITN. As has been described, as a feature of the main page, articles that are focuses of ITN should be in a good enough shape that they reflect core WP practices to allow new users, interested in adding to the article, to do so with basic understanding of minimum expectations, particularly on sourcing.

This is less a problem with breaking events (which generally are well-sourced from the moment of creation, and just need word count improvements), and more for things like RD, competition results, or the case of when an older topic is in the news for some reason.

I would argue that at minimum:

• All quotes must have an inline source immediately afterwards. This is a no-brainer and a requirement of WP:V
• All paragraphs of prose outside the lead should have at least one citation. More may be necessary for GA/FA quality but for ITN, this at least minimum.
• When we talk sections like list of awards, recognitions, bibliographies, filmographies, etc. only where there is non-linked entries should these be sources, if sourcing for the entire list cannot be sourced in a single source. (Blue-linked entries, one can assume that the blue-linked article will have the required sourcing.
• No "citation needed" tags should remain in the article, and removal of material that is important but tagged as CN is not a recommended action just to get ITN.

I dunno if there are others but we should have something like this spelled out to prevent this being a continuing complaints at ITN/C when people point out article quality issues. --MASEM (t) 22:38, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

How many instances, per paragraph, can one use the Encyclopaedia Britannica as a source? Or perhaps you could recommend other equally "lame mirrors" of Wikipedia for use in ITN candidate articles? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:00, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

If we have to source to EB, so be it, it should be sourced. That said, if EB is used nearly all the time to source an article, that's a problem too (we should be using the sources EB uses if not more), but one that I've not seen. As the glue to get an article that is almost-but-not-fully sourced, EB is reasonable as a crutch to hasten the ITN process. --MASEM (t) 23:08, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for starting this discussion. I think no {{citation needed}} tags anywhere in the article is asking too much. Anyone can add them, and one or two requests on content unrelated to the update shouldn't be a big deal. (By the way, in case it went unnoticed, I made a slight change to the criteria because of the Cervantes nomination.) -- tariqabjotu 01:28, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware CNs are added with both earnest attempts for needed sourcing and for simply being bitey. I would say that long standing CN tags should be dealt with, while those that pop up during the nomination period - unless they are dealing with significant problems like citing a quote, we could overlook. --MASEM (t) 02:04, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

• I would say this all looks good except the last one. I would say that occasional "cn" tags should not keep an article off of the ITN ticker, but having large numbers of uncited paragraphs, or many "cn" tags or having entire sections with no references is bad. I'm always leary to put forth numerical standards on this, but a rough standard of no more than one "cn" tag per full screen page of text (or, similarly, for missing citations someone hasn't bothered to tag yet, but should be tagged) is probably not horrible and not going to keep something off of ITN, but once you start to get more of that, it's a problem. One or two cn tags in a long article, which is otherwise fine, shouldn't be a hold-up, so long as the cn tags are not eggregious BLP-type stuff. I would say that sometimes it is appropriate to remove rather than reference something, especially when the information is trivial, inconsequential, or even potential BLP-type problems. But I don't think we need to demand that every cn tag be dealt with. One or two shouldn't hold up a nomination, though too many would. --Jayron32 14:26, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
• in addition to quotations and sensitive statements in BLPs, I consider that opinion-type statements always require a source (A was responsible for X innovation; B is Y's greatest contribution; C writes in Z style; &c&c). This is often a major problem in partially developed but long-standing articles on people who have recently died. I sometimes put in tags to indicate statements I consider particularly problematic in such articles. I'm not sure any number of tags is the relevant metric, but rather (1) the importance of the uncited material, and (2) the importance of citing it. If the material doesn't really need citing then the tag can safely be ignored or even removed. If the uncited material is trivial then the uncited statement can be removed. Otherwise, they really do all need dealing with. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:19, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Possibly building on this, if the article's lead is uncited (which is allowable per LEAD), should minimum sourcing for ITN be an assurance that all statements of even potential subjective nature are appropriately cited where they are mentioned in the body? As you mention this is is very true what happens with RDs that there's a lot of statements of importance in the lead but the body may not reflect that well. --MASEM (t) 00:28, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• Interesting point. It would depend how subjective, perhaps? "...best known for appearing in film" might seem reasonable if 50% of the article were devoted to that film (assuming the article is properly balanced), or "made important contributions to the understanding of atomic structure" when the article discusses in detail their discovery of the neutron, would both seem ok to me without an explicit citation. "...best known for appearing in film" where its relative importance is not apparent from the article would probably need an explicit source, either in the lead or in the body. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• True, there are likely to be lead statements that are agglomerations of several facts/opinions given in the article. I think what I meant to say is that if , for an RD for example, someone comes and says "John Q Smith is considered one of the best American actors" and the article is completely devoid of any sourced statement that makes that point, that's an issue for ITN-quality sourcing. Taking the example you give of a scientist that may have contributed heavily to the structure of the atom, if there's sourcing to describe his volume of work towards that, or noting of a major award towards that, that's fine. Key here, going back to my start, is we want the ITN-posted article to be reasonable example of what sourcing to expect so that new editors can add to it without reading mounds of policy, while at the same time preventing poor sourcing from holding up an otherwise appropriate ITN nom, and this is part of what seems to be a streamline process. --MASEM (t) 02:40, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

We have a general aim, which is to provide "quality" articles at ITN. That often means a subjective look at articles before they're posted. I see two massive issues right now. (1) People support the story (e.g. "Support important issue.") but don't examine the quality of the article, and their support is usually accepted as "I support both the significance of the story and the quality of the article". Which is mostly incorrect, as evidenced by the recent posting of an RD which didn't even have a reference for the death of the subject. (2) People don't agree on what is considered a "quality" article. That's where this proposal comes in, and I welcome the discussion. We used to have a criterion that required a "B-class" article (I guess in an attempt to maintain the "quality" standard of ITN posts) which was summarily ignored for the past few years, hence it's been removed. In response to that, we have seen poorer and poorer articles posted to ITN. It's the only section of the main page where this is allowed to occur (other than DYK which is like the wild west). TFA, TPA, OTD, TFP, TFL all have quality control which seems to supersede ITN. I realise ITN has time-related issues, but we also have a sister project in Wikinews for ticker-style updates. Either we now accept we are replacing Wikinews and allow a "no holds barred" approach where we allow users to support and admins to post sub-standard and poorly referenced articles, or we stick to our guns and uphold quality standards which we used to be proud of. Or worse, we can take extrapolative steps and bring the abuse of children into it, which one admin has done recently in a foul attempt to compare edits with infant castration. I may be abrasive in my approach, but at least I don't delve into that cesspit. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:13, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem is always someone else, isn't it? Do you not see how often even people who agree with you have to preface their comments by saying that they don't agree with your tone? How often we're not just talking about the potential issues you bring up but the tenor that amounts to attacking other editors? No, you don't. Of course. The problem is always someone else's action. And when you take issue with someone else's actions or remarks, we hear about it over and over and over again in often irrelevant threads (and edit summaries!), like here, for months on end. The Glee guy. Those basketball dudes. Alleged pro-American bias. And now this.

Well, I can take care of that last one, as if it'll stop you from referencing it in an out-of-context and exaggeratory fashion until Christmas. But, you know what, I'm tired of deciphering why you choose to act in this manner, as from literally the moment you first encountered me, you were abrasive and combative. You can chase away me or Coffee (talk · contribs) or anyone else you want until you're the sole arbiter of what happens on ITN. It seems the community is satisfied with just periodic condemnatory comments and threads on your behavior, even though they have no real effect. As long as it chooses that approach, as is its prerogative, it's obvious who they prefer around here. There are far better things I can do with my time on Wikipedia or otherwise. Good luck to you all. -- tariqabjotu 04:21, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Spare me the pseudo-lecture. Your abhorrent comment really and truly shines a light on you and it's welcome that you won't be continuing to make such vile comparisons in the future. As for competence, if you don't have it, don't edit the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:23, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Getting back on track, if I were to simplify these based on the above as well as incorporating other suggestions, I would say that the "minimal sourcing" for ITN-quality articles should be;

• All quotes are immediately sourced via inline citation, as required by WP:V.
• All strongly contentious material about a BLP is immediately sourced via an inline citation , as required by WP:BLP.
• Each paragraph outside the lead should have at least one inline citation appropriate to find that information.
• For what should be factual lists - like bibliographies, filmographies, lists of awards, etc., which cannot be sourced to a single work, either each item should be inline sourced individually, or should have a blue link to an article that confirms that information.
• Articles should be - but are not required to be - devoid of citation needed tags, with the understanding that the number/frequency/location of these will be evaluated at ITNC. "Citation needed" tags on quotes and BLP issues must be resolved. Long-standing "Citation Needed" tags should be dealt with.
• Article-level or section-level maintenance tags related to sourcing should be dealt with so they can be removed. Ideally achieving the sourcing requirements above will allow these to be met.

Any additional suggestions? (I would anticipate this to be language on WP:ITN) --MASEM (t) 16:11, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Those criteria seems acceptable. I am leary of codifying quality, because it tends to leads to box checking rather than actual editorial judgement applied. However, historically (I can't speak about the last few months as I haven't been active on ITN) most comments either don't check quality or don't care about quality. Thus, Iam inclined to give defined criteria a try. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree we don't want these hard objective lines - outside quotes and some BLP factors. But they should be reasonably minimal standards we should eye each article with as recommendations. They should be taken with a healthy dose of IAR. --MASEM (t) 17:51, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Objecting to ITNC posting due to article quality is a common thing, and still needs to be done, but I wonder if we can better encourage language like "Support with article improvements" or similar language as the !vote text over "Oppose" when that is the only issue, as that is generally more encouraging and makes it easier to highlight why there is an issue and hopefully encourage editors to fix it. "Oppose" would best be left for when the ITN item is believed by the editor to not meet the importance factor for ITN. When there's a bunch of "opposes" that are a mix of both importance and article quality, it can be hard to figure out what is actionable (fixing the article) and what isn't. --MASEM (t) 17:57, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Fully agree. ITN is a sick mess. There should be two separate !votes - one for suitability and one for quality. That way consensus can be quickly achieved on where effort should be placed to improve quality. But then, I am speaking as an embittered and jaundiced lapsed voter. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

For me it's simple. Oppose is the answer...... I really believe that (subjective analysis) 75% of supporters vote for blurbs and RDs without ever looking at the article. Right now we have a couple of great examples, where we even have an "experienced" Wikipedian strongly advocating the posting of an RD which is one of the most under-referenced I've ever seen. But I will modify my own approach to ensure that I oppose all articles that aren't of sufficient quality but will subsequently qualify them to note I would support if the item was of a reasonable quality. But I agree with Martin, (and that's how I usually vote), one for notability, one for quality... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:25, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Masem, for your good suggestion. Should we write this down somewhere or just rely on ourselves to spread the word? 331dot (talk) 22:35, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that opposes pending improvements should be avoided. Wait or Support pending improvements or support in principle are much better options, as they allow the posting admin to assume support and post if the admin feels the improvemnts are sufficient. Such opposes are often not revisited by the editor who made them, to the point where you're left pinging the author to ask "do you still oppose after these improvements: diff?" μηδείς (talk) 22:48, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I think closing admins are able to take into consideration the merits of specific opposes and supports. If an article has obviously been updated and there is an older oppose based on article quality, that won't be taken into consideration. Spencer^T♦C 08:13, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• It is not so much about admins and more about other editors. If I come and see a nom has a number of bold "supports with article improvements" (or similar language, that might incline me to see about fixing that, compared to if I see a nom with a bunch of "opposes" where the reason for opposing is the poor quality of the article. Or if I see that a given topic would have had support for ITN posting on merit but failed on article quality, I'll have a better idea of what are good topics to propose in the future. It's a perception issue, not so much process or the like. --MASEM (t) 13:40, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Agree per Medeis and Masem's reasoning. There is a real problem, as The Rambling Man frequently (and explosively) continues to point out, with subpar articles being "rushed to market", as it were. But using the "oppose" !vote to signify quality-specific objections dilutes the value of "oppose" and confuses the issue. We should encourage participants to register "wait" or "support pending improvements" !votes instead. -Kudzu1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• All ITN items are required to 1) meet certain quality standards; 2) have an sufficient update to reflect current events; 3) be deemed newsworthy enough to post. If an article is lacking an in of those 3, an oppose is an appropriate !vote. Newsworthiness is not the primary criteria with all else being secondary (as forbidden opposes for other reasons implies), but rather equal criteria. For example, a story that is only somewhat notable can still be posted if the update and article quality are very high. Furthermore, what if I am neutral on the merits of the story? Does that mean I am now forbidden to point out quality problems because I am supposed to vote "support if improved" instead of "Oppose on article quality"... This whole discussion is silly. Admins are not robots and can easily see that an "oppose on quality" !vote is outdated even if the opposer hasn't had ac chance to strike it yet. Other editors aren't robots either. If someone is interested enough in a subject to potentially improve the article, they will take the time to read the comments and not just the bold text.

As for me, I personally only write "oppose" when it looks like previous supports may have actually overlooked content problems. That is, I use the bold text to draw attention to the problem. If that is not necessary, I will bold "Comment" instead or even write "Support pending improvements" if it looks like the support is needed. I should not be rigidly told how to phrase my quality objections. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:31, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi, gentlemen. I was shocked this morning to find my nomination had been closed. When I went to sleep last night it was marked ready. (In the closed discussion, I count 5 supports and 3 opposes.) Tone, I admire your work here and think yours has to be one of the hardest jobs on Wikipedia. Still, the evidence suggests that one oppose from Mellowed Fillmore could have made your decision. Also I don't buy his point that "nobody cares" about women's basketball. PBS Newshour put a spokesperson for women right next to a spokesperson for men last night. I took responsibility for the fact that the article had not been updated. I don't believe that Wikipedia always has an updated article ready for the news. I don't want to return to an argument here but would just like my objection noted.

• 23:56, 8 April 2015‎ Kudzu1 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (236,782 bytes) (-1)‎ . . (→‎Pulled NCAA women's basketball: article improved, looks like a strong majority support combined blurb, marking ready) (undo | thank)

• 04:54, 9 April 2015‎ Mellowed Fillmore (talk | contribs)‎ . . (209,506 bytes) (+371)‎ . . (→‎Ready NCAA women's basketball: no way, never, no) (undo | thank)

• 06:49, 9 April 2015‎ Tone (talk | contribs)‎ . . (214,161 bytes) (+109)‎ . . (→‎Ready NCAA women's basketball: closing) (undo | thank)

Thanks for listening. -SusanLesch (talk) 13:17, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• To be fair, gender equality is not a valid rationale for posting on ITN.--WaltCip (talk) 13:30, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Countering systemic bias is a valid rationale. There is no reason to post one useless men's sport and not the women's version, other than "systemic bias", which might well be the reason that one is more popular than the other. It is just as valid as posting elections from small countries, along with elections from big countries. We try to show diversity in coverage. RGloucester — ☎ 13:39, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

ITN is a news ticker, not a machine for social activism. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 15:37, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

ITN is NOT a news ticker. We don't have news here. It is a venue for featuring encylopaedia articles that may be appearing in the news at a given time. This has nothing to do with "social activism", but with diversity of coverage. I am opposed to including any sport, but if one is to be included, we cannot be selective. RGloucester — ☎ 17:04, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, my closure was mostly based on the fact that there was already a rather strong opposition to the men's tournament while the arguments presented in favor of it certainly don't hold for women's part. 3rd most watched sport event in the US? Far from that. I got a feeling that the whole discussion was just piling up from the unproductive discussion of the first item so I did my best to redirect the efforts to something more constructive. On the other hand, remember that we do post combined sport stories where there is a comparable level of coverage. Tennis or Alpine skiing World Cup, for example (I guess we forgot to add skiing this year). And there's the Women's World Chess Championship still with the open nomination. --Tone 15:25, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I won't argue there was consensus to post, but I don't think closing the discussion is warranted. That would mean there was no possibility of consensus to post developing, which doesn't appear to have been the case. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:12, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I was disappointed to find the discussion closed so quickly. -Kudzu1 (talk) 17:19, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I concur as well; imo this was prematurely closed especially since the nomination had only run for about 24 hours. Spencer^T♦C 04:08, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Based on the comments here, I have reopened this discussion. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:49, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for reopening my nomination, which is an unexpectedly good outcome. Overthinking is what closed this, not one oppose vote as I had thought. Now I think this whole thing is my fault because I decided not to say the article needed updating (based on assumptions, not on the facts). Thanks to Spencer who gave us a specific list of things that needed to be done. I marked this thread resolved. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:33, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Mario Draghi, head of the Central European Bank, was attacked by a female protester live on television during the monthly press conference today, 15 April 2015. Click here for the full story and more info. Best, Jonas Vinther • (speak to me!) 14:36, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jonas Vinther: Please note that nominations are not made on this page; they are made at the ITN candidates page. Instructions on how to make a nomination are also located there. 331dot (talk) 20:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Is there anybody in the planet who could develop Surya Bahadur Thapa and make it appear on main page for RD? There is a layout cleanup tag left.. Two barnstars for them!!!..-The Herald ^{the joy of the LORD}_{my strength} 15:42, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Has the nomination gone unnoticed lately? It's marked as "ready"; voters unanimously supported posting it on Main Page. --George Ho (talk) 07:15, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

This was posted by TRM, but there are two more marked ready now. Where have all the admins gone? TRM or myself has done every post this week, which is rather awkward when we have commented and/or worked on the article... Perhaps Spencer could take a look (who is the only other admin to post anything recently). --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:51, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Apologize, off-Wikipedia work has skyrocketed this week. Thanks for the ping. Best, Spencer^T♦C 04:52, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Toll rises to 1900. 1 --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 04:27, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Please read the instructions for this page and use ERRORS for this kind of thing. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:18, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Closed twice? I suggest we take another look. The situation is escalating and it appears to me the nomination was closed hastily. Jusdafax 02:14, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

You Americans should just accept the fact that the Boat Race would be a lot more easier to be posted here and that this doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. –HTD 02:25, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

"4. Don't argue for the sake of arguing.". The Rambling Man (talk) 11:09, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

If the situation worsens (and I would say it would need to worsen a lot more, when you compare to riots and outlashes across the global) the a renom can be made. We sometimes have to remember that the whole world doesn't suffer from first-world problems. --MASEM (t) 03:36, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not American but I've noticed that the current situation in Baltimore is a subject of major news all over the world (along with Nepal disaster). Both the articles Death of Freddie Gray and 2015 Baltimore riots are acceptable for the main page. It would be a good service to our readers to give them a comprehensive summary of what's going on. Any possible bias of mainstream media is a subject of another discussion. I personally more than agree with this opinion, but if the media feed the public exactly with this kind of news we should not act as censors. We have to provide information, explain and clarify in a neutral way, no matter if we talk about the first or third world. I'm for re-opening and for posting. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 08:22, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

However, a problem is that the two articles are duplicative of each other. There only should be one target here (taking the 1992 Los Angeles riots as the template here). The bulk of text of the current riots article is just copy and pasted from the death article. That's not a good practice. And again to stress: ITN is not a newsticker, it is to highlight articles in decent shape that happen to be in the news of wide importance. We're not at that point with these articles and the "wide importance" so far is questionable. --MASEM (t) 13:27, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

The National Guard has been called into Baltimore. 2 Also, a state of emergency has been declared in Baltimore by the governor of Maryland, 3 and Obama has weighed in 4. Seems to be a big and growing story. Everymorning talk 18:09, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, yes, all of you. No-one is stopping any single one of you from renominating it. This isn't the page to discuss the suitability of articles for inclusion in the ITN section, that's WP:ITN/C as, I think, all of you know. Move back there, create another nomination, and deal with it properly, not in the background here, or with irrelevant strawman "arguments" about other stuff. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:58, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Quote from the discussion on the Candidates page:

Once again, what part of "lengthy quote omitted" don't you folk emphasis added understand?

—The Rambling Man

Careful with that axe, Eugene. 71.183.129.212 (talk) 21:20, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Um, yeah, whatever. Don't add discussions to archived discussions... Simple, you would think. Doesn't stop new nominations being created. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:29, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@DragonflySixtyseven: is this news Georgia wins World Women Team Championship don't worth to be shown ? --g. balaxaZe★ 11:47, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

A) From what I understand, it's only really stuff that gets into ITN if there's a recently-updated Wikipedia article about it; B) Why are you asking me ? I'm barely involved with ITN ! DS (talk) 12:01, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Please try things out at WP:ITN/C. –HTD 12:03, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Just an idea, but what if we were to have a notice box (not necessarily a maintenance tag) that an article was either nominated and/or posted for ITN, or that it is likely going to be nominated at ITN when appropriate (eg a sporting championship), that notes that any editor that can help improve the article is welcomed to do so. This box would also drop the page into a category so that people can find these.

The box would be removed after either the closed non-posted ITNC , or after the story feel off ITN if it was posted. For upcoming ITNC that are not yet nominated, the box shouldn't be added too far in advance (for example, it would be silly to add it for the next Super Bowl game which is 9 months away). And via the category if the box lingers without ITNC is can be removed.

This just helps editors that might not visit ITNC that they can help push an article along to help to resolve sourcing issues faster with more potential eyes on it. --MASEM (t) 19:21, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Not the worst idea I've ever heard. But then again I thought the existing maintenance templates would be sufficient to motivate supporters to actively work to improve articles. Sadly, we have a large crowd of "commentators" at ITN, who are happy to support/oppose, but actually never do anything to improve the quality of our articles. It would easily work for ITNR when we could tag an article with "soon to be considered for main page inclusion, as long as the quality is up to snuff" (rephrase as appropriate), but for spontaneous ITNCs, I think, given my observations over the past decade, wouldn't help. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:51, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

This should be reopened because ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack 5 and the attack has received sustained news coverage, e.g. it's still on the main page of the BBC. 6 Everymorning talk 12:27, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

You're allowed to start a new discussion. --Jayron32 12:32, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

i have made an article 2015 Knurów riots. There is an abundance of sources and it can be expanded into a giant article, I just do not have the time or the man-power. It has been headline-grabbing news for several days now in Poland though. It is an ongoing event, although I am unfamiliar with what criteria are used to post it on the main page as an ongoing event Abcmaxx (talk) 18:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

You would be better off discussing this at the nominations page, WP:ITNC- but Ongoing events are those which have incremental updates which individually would not merit posting on their own. 331dot (talk) 19:00, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Should the hidden text that tells you to upload a local version of the files be removed since the cascading protection applies to Commons too? (I think, see c:Commons:Auto-protected files/wikipedia/en. Or was there a reason for this that I missed... EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 14:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The list to which you linked is populated by a bot, which doesn't act instantly and sometimes fails entirely. This has resulted in multiple instances of image vandalism (some of which involved hard-core pornography) on our main page.

The Commons task was created as a fallback (better than nothing when an unprotected image is accidentally transcluded on the main page). It wasn't intended to function as a first-line protection method. Nonetheless, we've come to use it as such for most of the main page sections. I'm not fond of the practice (due to the bot's periodic outages), but the relatively long lead times (stemming from the content's preparation/protection well in advance) makes it mostly safe. Conversely, ITN is updated on the fly, so reliance upon the Commons bot is never appropriate; even under ideal circumstances, a window of opportunity exists for vandals. In fact, for reasons best left unexplained, a prompt response from the bot could actually make matters worse. —David Levy 16:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi, sorry, I don't know where to post this but I just accepted this article from the AfC process and maybe someone from here knows what to do with it: 2015 Park Palace guesthouse attack (with regards to Wikipedia:In the news and/or Portal:Current events). — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 17:20, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Please use WP:ITN/C for nominations. –HTD 17:45, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not nominating it though, I haven't even read through it. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 17:50, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

The person who requested the AFC may want to nominate it ITN/C. Let's just wait for him/her if s/he does want it to be nominated. Thanks fgor ther heads up though. –HTD 17:55, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I know that there is too much of X at "In the news" is a common complaint, so I would just like to say (belatedly) that when I opened Wikipedia Monday morning, something gave me the feeling that there was a beautiful balance to the items that were listed in ITN. (see this diff). This is purely my opinion, but I think it would be great if we could strive to keep the sort of balance that was presented, namely:

• Two "social" stories (Ebola and Mark Twain's letters)
• Two "political" stories (Mubarak and Cameron)
• Two scientific discoveries
• One "accident" story
• One sport story
• to complement the above, war and natural disaster in ongoing,
• and not to forget the important sub-category of recent deaths

One more topic is business, which did not have any articles on Monday but currently has two under consideration at the nominations page. Of course I am not suggesting quotas for stories, but I would like it if ITN regulars could bear in mind that whilst showcasing Wikipedia's ability to produce quality articles on current events, we shouldn't forget that the broad variety of topics found in the realms of Wikipedia is also something worth displaying to the world. Just my two cents... AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 01:44, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Whilst I'm waxing lyrical, I'll also note that the location of the stories were one in Africa, two in the Middle East, two in the UK, three in Asia, one in the US, and even one from the Arctic Ocean. This is also a fairly nice spread. Wouldn't it be great if we could say it was somewhat intentional! AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 01:51, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:02, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Is anyone in a position to be able to re-code the ITN template to enable us to have something as simple as RD1=, RD2= and RD3=, which would be followed by the RD names, which naturally falls back to just adding Recent Deaths to the template if all three RD1, RD2 and RD3 are blank? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:46, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

@Edokter: are you able to help with this request? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:01, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I will have a look tomorrow (tuesday). Gives me a chance to make the template foolproof. I will probably split the 'logic' code into a subtemplate. -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 19:04, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Forgive me, but you're a bloody legend. Thanks! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:33, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this would be great. We have no shortage of fools to test it. Stephen 23:33, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Edokter! I suggest (and based on your reply, you might have something like this in mind) using conditional numbered (unnamed) parameters, thereby enabling administrators to simply add and remove entries without renumbering the others. Example:

{{In the news/RD
| Cornelius Schindleplat
| Elizabeth Smith (Australian politician)|Elizabeth Smith
| Pat DeBunny
}}

Also, before you go to any unnecessary trouble, I'd like to gauge consensus regarding this layout change (which didn't appear to generate any controversy). The "tiny error" factor is about to be rendered moot, but I believe that a consistent location for the "Recent deaths" link (with the colon omitted when no names appear) is desirable.

Thanks again for all of your hard work. —David Levy 05:28, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I plan to throw all that in {{in the news/footer}}, and there is lots of potential for simpler code. I do like the consistent placement of the Ongoing/RD links, probably to the left. What I would like to ask is: is it really necessary to hide the Ongoing link on the portal page? -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 19:16, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

@Edokter: Thanks for cleaning this up, as too often I see ugly white space at Portal:Current events. I think it's fine to display the "Ongoing" line on the portal page whenever there are one or more events in the list. The point of the nocurrenteventslink parameter was to avoid linking the word "Ongoing", since it gets displayed there as double-bolded text. When there are no ongoing events, then the line should be hidden from the portal. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:57, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

If it's only the 'Ongoing' link going double-bold (selflink), that has been remedied in Common.css some time ago. The line already appears only when events are passed (which is the entire point of this excersice). We can also choose to hide the entire foorter on the portal page. -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 09:11, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I hate to be that person, but there is nothing wrong with the way it is currently... and I personally can't see the benefits of this either. But feel free to enlighten me. EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 05:42, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Right now, the template requires special care when switching between listing Ongoings/Recent deaths and not listing them, adding and removing HTML comment markers, which often goes wrong. When the recode is done, the footer will handle that and editors only need to list/delist items without having to worry about messing up the code. -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 19:16, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Bingo. I'm not suggesting the current coding doesn't work, I'm suggesting it's currently too intricate for some of us to get our heads round in the circumstances that Edokter describes. It would be much easier if we had a simple syntax to follow, as suggested by David above. Of course, EoRdE6, should you wish to update the template daily (or whenever required), that would be very helpful indeed! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:12, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Layout

Before I continue, please review {{in the news/sandbox}} for a proposed layout. It uses a horizontal list markup, so you can pass straight wikilists to the footer. If the list is empty, it would show the right-alighed line (also showing). -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 19:58, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I like it, the dot rather than the en-dash will be cause for contention no doubt, but it has my support. Thanks again for taking the trouble to help with this. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:13, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
  • At least it is a proper list, which aids accessability. I think all MP sections should adopt it. -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 22:14, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
    • I agree. Why do we use en dashes for this purpose? I'm guessing that there isn't a particular reason, apart from tradition/inertia.
      I see that the matter was discussed briefly (but obviously, nothing came of it). —David Levy 06:10, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
      • Yes, I also think it's a good idea to use the accessible list format, ought we therefore replace the en-dash in "Recent deaths – More current events..." for consistency? The Rambling Man (talk) 06:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
        • Done (on the test page). -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 08:01, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
          • Gets my vote. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:02, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
            • Maybe it's just me but I would prefer to keep the dashes if possible since all of the other Main Page sections use them and at least have a threat at Talk:Main Page before changing it here. Otherwise, looks great, thank you so much Edokter! Spencer^T♦C 08:29, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm happy to bring it up, but it shouldn't affect our 'freedom' to do so. -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 09:14, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm in favor of switching from en dashes to middle dots, but only across the main page as a whole. Arbitrarily changing a single section seems counterproductive. —David Levy 10:40, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I finished the logic in {{In the news/footer}}. You can see how to use it when editing {{In the news/sandbox}}. In order to use a horizontal list, the Ongoing and RD line are themsenves, a list item (but I have hidden the bullets). On the main page, the language lists use the same format. When both items are empty (try by renaming the parameter and previewing), the Ongoing/RD links appear to the right. -- User:Edokter {{talk}} 09:25, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

This looks great! Thanks so much Edokter, this will make posting items much, much easier. Spencer^T♦C 00:46, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

The Saudi nomination has had unanimous support for longer than the euro-centric singing contest came along and is updated. What's the policy on posting here?120.62.25.15 (talk) 12:53, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Items get posted once they are supported (by assessment of consensus of an admin) and once they are updated sufficiently (by assessment of quality by an admin). They are posted when an admin gets a chance to do both of these tasks. If there's a problem there, feel free to log into your account, and offer to help out by signing up for a lifetime of criticism with no thanks whatsoever at WP:RFA. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

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