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I propose that this be added to ITN as soon as possible. — Animum ( talk) 17:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Why isn't it on the mainpage? this is as big if not worse than Kosovo's... mainpage pls! Nergaal ( talk) 16:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
Will an admin please change the link for Russia's bit from
International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia independence to
International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, since the former link is only a redirect to the latter? Thanks!
Glacier Wolf
01:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Can you guys lengthen your section by leaving stories on for a longer period of time. WP:DYK is having a backlog problem and needs more space without causing an imbalance.-- TonyTheTiger ( t/ c/ bio/ WP:CHICAGO/ WP:LOTM) 14:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't we say that Obama and Biden have been officially nominated as Democratic candidates for president and vice president? john k ( talk) 15:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Won't this ever get posted? I know the U.S. team won but you can't argue U.S. biaz on this item. – Howard the Duck 03:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} Can we use Image:Gustavat1Landfall08.jpg for the top story? Thanks, Spencer T♦ C 22:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
This is not the USA portal so would someone please remove the bit about McCain/Palin. I've never seen this sort of stuff put on when we're talking about other countries. There is definately way too much USA centered stuff on ITN. Chris DHDR 17:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I think the "Tropical Storm Hanna (pictured) moves towards the U.S. South Atlantic coast after causing at least 25 deaths in Haiti." is unnecessarily US-centric. Has it even reached the Bahamas yet? Not according to the article or the image (which may or may not be fully updated). So, not only US centric, it additionally belittles the Bahamas. If I knew whether it hit Bahamas or not, I would attempt to trump the current wording right away. Punkmorten ( talk) 20:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
While I hate to interrupt this wonderful spate of US-bias-bashing, I feel I should clarify a few things. First of all, the ITN entries have nothing to do with warnings, but highlight recently updated articles that discuss topics featured in the news media. Secondly, it is entirely appropriate in a geographical context to use "heading towards the US" as a reference point. Some people who may not be able to find the Bahamas or Jamaica on a map could certainly find the states. Also, you may note that when Gustav first appeared on ITN there was no mention of the US at all. Also, Twas Now, do you feel that 100-odd deaths in Haiti are not notable, but a storm in northern Saskatchewan would be? Random 89 17:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think we need to qualify this as "one of the largest banking interventions in United States history" (my italics) – it is arguably the largest in history, and certainly one of the largest. Physchim62 (talk) 00:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Could someone update the death toll on the 2008 Chatsworth train collision, its now 23? – Zntrip 21:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I would like to propose that we include the lead articles from the Main Page of Wikinews at {{ In the news}}. Some changes have been made to the review process over at Wikinews, which ensures that all articles that make it to one of the main page leads at Wikinews have gone through multiple stages of review:
So that is the review process of how an article makes it from the Develop Stage to becoming one of the Main Page Leads on Wikinews.
Proposed: -- I propose that User:Wikinews Importer Bot/Wikinews Lead articles (the 3 most recent of the Wikinews Main Page Leads) is transcluded into {{ In the news}} and thus onto the Main Page.
Thank you for your time and for giving this proposal your consideration.
Yours, Cirt ( talk) 20:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
The above subsection is pretty much a description of the review process and the proposal, so please discuss here, below. Cirt ( talk) 20:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I completely support this idea and I thank Cirt for his efforts on Wikinews in ensuring the new stages of an article, and, as a result, ensuring even greater reliability in articles. I think also that the inclusion of four Wikinews articles would be a great idea for several reasons, listed below:
In response to Chaser's comment above, I think that it would be better to make the Wikinews Importer Bot an admin. I'd suggest that when the same story is on both, we leave them both there, as the two things are very different in what they do. Anonymous101 ( talk)
I strongly oppose the idea. At the moment, ITN is not intended to be a news service, rather it is intended to point out the articles that have been created/expanded to reflect current events of considerable importance. I agree that the whole peer review system you have is a good thing and that's what we are missing here when some drive-by admins unaware of ITN/C discussion post the items they consider appropriate without prior notice. Also, the news titles from Wikinews do not have links, links are the most important thing in ITN blurbs. Your proposal then completely changes the purpose of ITN section. Since there already is a link to Wikinews at the bottom, I feel changing it all is not a good idea. (and WP itself is not a news service, also, picture of the day is not a FP from Commons, the selection process is totaly a matter of :en wiki - for example). -- Tone 21:21, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I should note that this would not be a replacement for the current model at ITN, merely an addition to it. These days T:DYK more often as 10 or so hooks, so perhaps we could make use of the spacing. Cirt ( talk) 18:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment I planned to leave this page for good but made the mistake of visiting it and after seeing this felt I needed to offer my POV. Is wikinews really balanced as suggested above? I don't visit it that much, and haven't really in a while but the times I have I've often felt it is not balanced. No not American-centric for once (well not that I noticed although as I said I didn't visit it that much) but NZ-centric (not sure why but I've heard there are a lot of NZ editors there for some reason). Note that although I live in NZ, I usually wasn't visiting it because of NZ events so that's not the reason. It's possible I'm wrong or it was just random or the fact that I was able to easily recognise the headlines relating to NZ influenced my view or perhaps it was but that's changed but I definitely think we need to implement a wikipedia review before adding wikinews items. Switching our current occasional American-bias for an NZ bias (which frankly, given the relative unimportance of NZ in the world, is much worse) is not the way to go. Nil Einne ( talk) 17:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Cirt, I'm curious as to what you thought of my comment: Perhaps content from Wikinews articles could help expand content here on Wikipedia articles and then feature those articles on ITN? Spencer T♦ C 23:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Let's have a look from the other side. These are the headlines copied from today's page. Let me add some comments in the ITN light:
September 2
* Google launches web browser, dubbed Chrome. Commercial. * UK government sued over deaths in 2006 Nimrod crash in Afghanistan. No go, no verdict yet.
September 1
* Government of the Bahamas isssues warning over Hurricane Hanna. No major impact yet. * Wikinews Shorts: September 1, 2008 - this is not really a headline. * Bush to skip Republican convention to monitor Gustav. Minor story, we had Gustav as the center. * US presidential candidate Barack Obama's lead increases after Democratic National Convention. US elections-centric, no go. * News agencies suggest that campaign operative for Republican Party edited article on vice presidential nominee. Wiki-centric, no go. * Pakistan's military offensive suspended for Ramadan. This is interesting, has chances.
August 31
* NASA considers continuing shuttle use after 2010. Speculation, not ITN material. * Italy will give Libya US$5 billion as compensation for occupation. Better formulation: Italy gives full apology or something, I wish we had this one on ITN before... (is there an article?) * Mayor of New Orleans tells residents to evacuate ahead of hurricane. Gustav story, we had that. * Radical left computer activists capture data of Blood and Honour web forum with 31,948 users. Not that interesting for ITN...
August 30
* Hurricane Gustav batters Caribbean, threatens US Gulf Coast. Had that. * Former head of comedy for the BBC, Geoffrey Perkins dies in a road accident age 55. No, WP:LILP * Memorial for toddler who died under care of controversial '1 Mind Ministries' group. No, WP:LILP * Wikinews Shorts: August 30, 2008 * Barack Obama accepts US presidential nomination from the Democratic Party. Loooong discussion about that one, decided for no. * South Ossetia says it will join North Ossetia-Alania as a federal subject of Russia. Had that.
Hm... Two or three headlines would probably make it to ITN with a slightly different wording but most are not really compatible. Now I am even more certain that a human interface with confirmation votes is needed. But wikinews headlines are helpful in selecting ITN posts, of that I am sure. -- Tone 13:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Please see User:Cirt/Current events. This incorporates the suggestion from Tone ( talk · contribs) [1], above, that instead of including direct links to Wikinews articles on the Main Page in Template:In the news, they be incorporated into Portal:Current events as an intermediate step.
Please note that links to Wikinews articles are already present at Portal:Current events, at the bottom as {{ Wikinewstable}}. This change just moves those exact same articles directly below each relevant date box. Note: Due to the way Portal:Current events is structured, the change would have to be made to Portal:Current events/Inclusion, not to Portal:Current events. Thank you for considering this, Cirt ( talk) 07:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Sheesh...depressing news lately, eh? BobAmnertiopsis ∴ ChatMe! 16:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I think the following is more reader friendly than the current version:
We should state it's the largest filing ever. Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code#Largest bankruptcy. I propose: "Lehman Brothers becomes the largest entity ever to file for bankruptcy protection" -- Y not? 16:41, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Why is it listed as "Boeing 737" Aeroflot Flight 821?? First of all, it makes no grammatical sense, second, it doesn't sound very news title worthy, third, the aircraft type is irrelevent considering it is unknown if the crash was mechanical related and the mentioning of the aircraft type is biased in that it makes it seem as the crash makes more sense since it was a 737, and lastly, no other air crash ever listed on ITN since I've frequented the site has ever listed the aircraft type in the ITN header. Could someone please look into this. It should read the same now, minus the Boeing 737 exerpt. Thanks. -- 144.9.56.131 ( talk) 15:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Note the verb tense changes in "resigns" and "detonated", even though both are in the same section. For now I'll convert them all to present, but I was wondering if there is/will be any consensus on this.
Master of Puppets
Call me MoP! :)
23:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Changes were recently made to the {{ DYK-Refresh}} template as a result of this discussion. The {{ ITN-Update}} template uses the same logic as DYK-Refresh but was not updated. The changes basically removed the 'Next update' header section from being automatically transcluded along with the template. This allowed the refresh clock to be split out so that the same elapsed time could be used for the banner, a userbox, and/or any other sort of notifier template people wanted to configure. Would people be interested in making similar changes here or should the current methodology be kept? -- CBD 10:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
ITN currently reads:
Can we make this:
Sorry, we need to do this to avoid regional bias. - Tbsdy lives ( talk) 12:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Can you add my article on the South African presidential election to the current headline on Kgalema Motlanthe Rizalninoynapoleon ( talk) 09:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I think it should be mentioned that Zhai Zhigang has become the first Chinese national to walk in space — that is why this newsworthy! not because he merely walked in space, which has been done plenty of times before. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 00:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Hello there.
I often see this (example from 29 Sept):
Do you see the missing commas -- after "India" and "Syria", respectively?
To me, each of these statements is devided into two parts, separated by commas, like this: "A bomb blast in Delhi" (an incomplete phrase without a verb) and "India kills 3 and injures 23", which is a formally correct phrase, however untrue, and not what the writer intended. A second comma would mark the end of the qualification ("India") of "Delhi".
Punctuation is an important matter.
LarRan ( talk) 12:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Is there a serious news lag on this page???-- Kozuch ( talk) 15:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
[[Nobel Prize in Physics|2008 Nobel Prize in Physics]]
should be 2008 [[Nobel Prize in Physics]]
, or readers will believe the link target is about the 2008 issue in particular (as I did, before I clicked). --
Army1987
(t
— c)
14:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Hey news crew! You're all probably aware of the Main Page redesign proposal currently under discussion and development. It would be really helpful if some In The News people could have a look at the current designs and share their thoughts and opinions, seeing as many of the proposals involve significant changes to the In The News section. Many thanks -- Pretzels Talk! 16:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
No-one else thinks ITN looks a bit bloated right now with all those individual descriptions of each winner? Couldn't we just sum it all up with something like 'The 2008 Nobel Prize winners are announced'? -- 128.243.253.111 ( talk) 16:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Here are some images of the press conference... C-M ?! 16:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Can we please link to the Financial crisis of 2007-2008 article from the blurb on the British gov bailout? Heroeswithmetaphors ( talk) 06:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Spot the difference - do we bold the winner's name, or the Nobel prize they won? I changed one to the other, to ensure consistency, but no idea if I did the right choice. What is the SOP for this? Embolden the winner's name, or embolden the award?
Also, pipelinking like thus: [[Nobel Prize in Literature|2008 Nobel Prize in Literature]] makes it look like we have an article about that specific year's prize (when we don't). fish& karate 15:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
This should be removed until the election results, as is normal practice for ITN. Russeasby ( talk) 18:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Note that if you refer to a place in America, specify the full location, Plano, Texas, United States not Plano, Texas. Not many people outside America know what Idaho or even Texas is. Even if they did, wikipedia has to be consistent, or else we will have stuff like Nagpur, Maharashtra or Anqing, Anhui which have equal (perhaps even more) importance in terms of population and culture, for eg Maharashtra is a linguistic state of India based on it speaking Marathi, that is a language not a dialect of anything else. Does Texas speak Texan ? Is it a sovereign nation ? I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations ( talk) 00:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
During the Olympics, I proposed we have a sticky link to an Olympics portal during the Olympics so people wouldn't wonder why we didn't have an Olympic story every day. That went over well. I also suggested we do the same for elections in the biggest English-speaking countries. That didn't get as much support, but I'd like to bring it up again. People are going to wonder why we don't have an ITN entry with every hiccup in the US presidential election; this will satisfy their interest. I suggest we limit doing this to general, national elections in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and maybe New Zealand.
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Mwalcoff ( talk) 01:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Hmm... I don't know about "People are going to wonder why we don't have an ITN entry with every hiccup in the US presidential election". The only items about the election are candidate and VP selection. For me, at least, I haven't heard much from people complaining that we didn't mention the debates, McCain doing such-and-such in whichever state, Obama receiving a new high in campaign donations, etc. It's an interesting suggestion, but I'd like to hear other opinions about it. Spencer T♦ C 18:26, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Strong oppose to such links. ITN is not supposed to be a news coverage (said n times already...) -- Tone 13:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely oppose. We were assured at the time of Obama's win over Clinton that that would be the last mention of the US elections until the results are declared in November, unless something entirely unpredictable were to occur. This proposal is difficult to interpret as anything other than an attempt to institutionalise further institutional bias in this project. Kevin McE ( talk) 19:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
come on, is this the best that wikipedia can do? Nergaal ( talk) 14:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
For those who think ITN is pro-US, check out our Pro-India bias today! 1/2 of our items are related to India or Indians. ;D. Spencer T♦ C 20:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I think this [4] & [5] exemplifies what I was saying when I opposed the Israeli Kadima party leader change story. The change of leader of a party is only significant when it results in the change of a PM. When the party doesn't have a majority, there's no guarantee that it will be the case and the new leader could easily not end up being the PM. Of course it's easily possible she will form the new government after the election but even in that case it was still the correct decision to wait for the election Nil Einne ( talk) 06:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion for the redesign of Portal:Current events/Sports. Insights are welcome. – Howard the Duck 08:57, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Two hurricane images on the main page is excessive. We're starting to look like Weather.com. Can someone please replace the hurricane image here with the image of the Indian space probe or anything else, PLEASE. Kaldari ( talk) 23:47, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi guys, I'd just like to point out that at this point, the US Armed Forces haven't confirmed the allegation by Syria, so the wording should probably be changed to reflect that it's an 'accusation'. Thanks! 206.248.130.223 ( talk) 00:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Re: "Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni...", could someone please wikilink " coalition government"? Thanks. Tom™ (2¢) 13:42, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
The way the blurb on the US raid is written, it makes it sound as if the raid was without purpose or direction, and/or that US forces are killers (which, of course, as soldiers in war they are, but...). I think a more objective or fair description would, instead of reading "...killing eight", would instead end with "...aimed at disrupting a foreign fighter logistics network" or something to this effect. LordAmeth ( talk) 14:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
"Coordinated suicide bombings kill 56 in Hargeisa, Somaliland and Bosaso, Somalia."
Writing "Hargeisa, Somaliland and Bosaso, Somalia" implies that Somaliland has the same status as Somalia, however Somaliland is 100% unrecognized as an independent country. In my opinion it is notable that Hargeisa is in Somaliland (as Somaliland is distinct from Somalia in that it has a functionning government, etc), however this needs to be rephrased. - M.Nelson ( talk) 21:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Not only did the Philadelphia Phillies win the world series,Tonight on Oct.28th 2008, They also broke the long standing curse of Billy Penn.
This curse has been haunting the city of Philadelphia since march 1987 upon the completion of the building at One Liberty Place.<Wikipedia> About four months ago, a small statue of Billy Penn was placed on top of the comcast building which once again made city hall the tallest building in the city. And to the city of Philadelphia this event has been" A long time in coming". Who knows, maybe this is the big turn around everyone has been waiting for!! Well,, at least for Philly fans. Mike Layne SR. ( talk) 04:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
As a sports nut, it's surprising I raise this, but 4/7 ITN pieces are, loosely, sport-related ("is chess a sport?" is a canard). I suggest we balance it somehow. Are any of the news pieces dating? -- Dweller ( talk) 23:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to get some measure of ITN regulars' sense of when we should update to reflect the winner of the US Presidential election. I suspect that the networks will all call the election about the same time, but in the event we get an early call from one, should we wait for the others? Should we update once the AP calls it? CNN? When the loser concedes? I like the first one, but the important thing is that we don't put it up to have someone declare it too soon and take it down. Let's get some consensus on this before election night.-- chaser - t 06:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I suggest two entries. One for the Presidential election, and another for Democrats expanding majorities in House and Senate. - CWY2190( talk • contributions) 07:21, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
It's hard to predict the circumstances. I think that we'd be daft not to be reporting what all the main news outlets are reporting worldwide. But we do need to be careful with POV issues.
All in all, I think it's entirely likely that whichever regulars are awake and online at the appropriate time will find the right way and the right time to report it and that predicting what that combination will likely be is probably futile. It'll be OK. -- Dweller ( talk) 12:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
FYI - Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#November_4a regarding the possibility of putting John McCain and Barack Obama on as TFA. Concerns have been raised that if TFA did this, it would conflict with ITN. More input on the TFA is needed. -- Aude ( talk) 17:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
One question is when are you going to add the U.S. elections to the ITN page? it sounds to me like it won't be added until we get results, but not sure if you would put something up to say the elections are happening, before results are announced. Also, will the news item specifically link to the McCain and/or Obama articles, or just link to the 2008 election article? -- Aude ( talk) 17:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
If I do end up using the dual Obama/McCain setup that's discussed on TFA, I'd appreciate it if ITN could avoid doing anythign election related until after they roll off the main page at midnight UTC (7:00 PM US eastern time). Raul654 ( talk) 22:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit conflicted with the above] I think more needs to be said, while the loser does not need to be mentioned. For example (and I'm too lazy to put in links that aren't redirects, but y'all know where links would go):
or
Are we going to mention the house/senate results in a separate blurb? Random 89 02:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
He hasn't actually been elected that happens when the electoral college votes in December 15. He merely has project to accumulate a enough electors (if they vote right) to become president. Which I guess would make that a projection... — Dispenser 06:26, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Why do we call him an African American, as he's no more a black man than a white man? He's a perfect example of biracial ancestry, but definitely isn't an African American. Nyttend ( talk) 13:36, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
The news item " Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck becomes Bhutan's fifth dragon king and world's youngest monarch." links to the article Dragon king, an article about mythological creatures. It should not link to that. Note that in the article Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the words "Dragon King" in the lead section lead to the article List of rulers of Bhutan. Fg2 ( talk) 12:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (pictured) becomes Bhutan's fifth dragon king and the world's youngest monarch.
According to the articles, the word "becomes" is misleading because he became king on 14 December 2006. He was crowned on 6 November 2008. - Rrius ( talk) 20:11, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking John Key might not like his picture right next to a headline about a cocaine seizure. I know it's clearly indicated that the two stories are unrelated, but it might be polite to put up an generic image from the cocaine article instead. -- jwanders Talk 06:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Names of ships should be italicized: here Nerpa and Kursk. Nyttend ( talk) 13:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I have found a report which is a very significant news item here, so do you know where i can find the article on it and if so, add as a candidate for ITN? Simply south ( talk) 12:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
...such geographically distributed news on the main page. A nice break from Anglocentrism. Well done, ITNers, and keep up the good work. the skomorokh 19:22, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I've combined Template:UpdatedITNNom with Template:UpdatedITN because of the allowing of different wording regarding the items in the tag. I added one that said "nominated" and am redirecting Template:UpdatedITNNom. (Deletion is fine too, but I didn't want to confused anyone...also, I've subst-ed all of the nom tags so that no one will be missing recognition). See Wikipedia:ITNMP#Recognition for the changes I've done. Just wanted to let everyone know, Spencer T♦ C 21:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Also, I'd just like to note the wording I've inserted below "The death criteria are contested and under discussion here" in Wikipedia:ITNMP#Deaths that reads: As of now, deaths are being judged on a case-by-case basis and should not be put up until a consensus has been established on WP:ITN/C. Spencer T♦ C 01:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
This is the first time that I hear that a terrorist attack lasts more than a full day, indeed it is lasting more than three days. I think that the Main Page's "In the news" headline should specify this, otherwise people would not get the right feeling of what is going on in Mumbai. I frankly have to admit that it didn't catch my attention right away. At first I thought "What? Another multiple car bombing far away from home?", but much later a workplace pal told me "But CNN is crazy about it!". Aldo L ( talk) 04:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I think that this deserves a mention as it is the sub-contest to the Junior Eurovision Song Contest for Scandinavian countries. I think it deserves a mention in the news. ńăŧħăń - ŧăłķ 21:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I asked a few users on IRC for what monitor configurations they used and overwhelmingly the response was widescreen. I've added a note at T:ITN/doc. If you have any complaints about balance you're probably one of the few, so it'll stay this way for now. Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :D 22:40, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Having participated in discussions and work on Wikipedia:2008 main page redesign proposal, I would like to start a discussion here regarding the addition of dates to the news items of "In the news".
My idea is that each bullet is replaced by the date connected to the corresponding event, and an event spanning over multiple days would have the starting day listed.
The reason for this is that users today expect news notices to be associated with a date, and that it's almost standard for any type of news service to do this, not least for online news sites and other webpages listing news. By adding dates I believe we would improve reader experience, reducing irritation and confusion caused by not meeting up with user expectations, and in the end improve the quality of the "In the news" section.
It's true that Wikipedia is not a news service, but we ARE listing actual news in "In the news", even if the point is to attract readers to the encyclopedic articles, and thus the news items should be connected to dates.
The idea has already attracted some support at both Wikipedia talk:2008 main page redesign proposal and the project's latest straw poll.
Here's an example of how this could look (please ignore the other changes).
- Wintran ( talk) 20:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
There is a relevant discussion involving the redesign of the main page that may affect the size and presentation of the "In the News" section going on here Wikipedia_talk:2008_main_page_redesign_proposal#Introducing_GA_to_main_page. Some of the ideas proposed include creating a separate WP:FA-like box to feature the GA, incorporating GA into DYK or not including GA on the main page at all. Agne Cheese/ Wine 18:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure it wasn't intentional but isn't it a bit much for all but one of the current news items to be European-based? I'm sure that other important things are happening elsewhere in the world. Personally, I enjoy it when ITN gives an international perspective rather than a localised or Western one. Sillyfolkboy ( talk) 15:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for linking up to this article on ITN on the main page. There is a bit of a problem with some editors making Madoff's ethnicity a focus of the article. I'm trying to keep this down to an acceptable level, but could others help out on this? There is some judgement involved. If it gets out of hand, may I ask that you pull it off of ITN? Hope it doesn't come to that though. Smallbones ( talk) 01:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
How come Madoff made it to the front page but not the Illinois Governor fraud? 88.146.1.11 ( talk) 16:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
It's become apparent to me that "In the News" is not the best name for this feature. We tend to include somewhat obscure items like the Greenland referendum that are quite unlikely to be found in "the news" most places while excluding many things that are common in the papers and on TV. Whether this is a good policy is a debate I don't want to get into. But it's clear that it makes ITN diverge from what is "in the news."
A better name would be something like "Happening Now" or, to reflect the constant drive for geographical diversity, "From Far and Wide." -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 23:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Until we get the results of the survey back we won't know, but I think we can assume that most of our readers are in the U.S., UK, Canada or Australia, where O.J. Simpson is far more likely to appear in "the news" than a Greenlandic referendum or some space thing. So they're going to look at it, and think, "Gee, if this is for stuff that's in the news, why doesn't it have stuff that's in the news, and why does it have all this other stuff that's not in the news?" At least, that's my reaction. Also, I think if we renamed ITN, we would have less of a problem with people assuming ITN to be a news service, as seems to be an issue around here. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 02:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
moved from Main Page errors Nil Einne ( talk) 13:53, 16 December 2008 (UTC) As requested, starting anew. The item currently reads 'The Channel Island of Sark, a British crown dependency, holds its first democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement, becoming the last European territory to abolish feudalism.'. But as I pointed out previously, there have been elections in Sark for 12 of the members of Chief Pleas for donkeys years. Both the BBC and the article, which we are supposed to follow, refer to 'the first fully democratic election' (emphasis mine). I personally disagree with that, as there are still unelected members, but for the purposes of ITN we should follow the article and the sources and call it 'the first fully democratic election'. If further arguments are needed, the website of the Sark government states 'some are just covering the elections, acting as though Sark has never had an election before, although the island has been electing deputies for the last 80 years' Modest Genius talk 20:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed that it takes a while for new day headers to pop up, so I added a button that pretty much does the whole thing (all you have to do is copy-paste some text and save two pages). Any constructive criticism? Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :D 02:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Unless you examine it carefully, the current ITN makes it look like there was some kind of riot or protest at the ASEAN meeting. I'm just saying...-- Kubigula ( talk) 15:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent) Also, items are listed by order of date, so it wouldn't be possible to keep the pictured item at the top. Spencer Merry Christmas! 16:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I want to propose that we include this ITN. We need more ITN from outside the English Speaking World [16] Ijanderson ( talk) 13:38, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi, this sentence (just added to the ITN on the main page) doesn't make grammatical sense; can it be rewritten, please?
“ | The largest-ever coal slurry spill (aftermath pictured) in the United States occurs when a coal-fired power plant in Kingston, Tennessee, releasing 500 million gallons (1.8 billion litres) of fly ash slurry into the surrounding area. | ” |
Badagnani ( talk) 07:10, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
It should be something like:
“ | The largest-ever coal slurry spill (aftermath pictured) in the United States occurs when a retaining pond at a coal-fired power plant in Kingston, Tennessee bursts, releasing 500 million gallons (1.8 billion litres) of fly ash slurry into the surrounding area. | ” |
Badagnani ( talk) 07:12, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks; it's still not right. The power plant is a building. It didn't release anything. The containment/retaining pond did. Badagnani ( talk) 07:50, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your attention, and for this fix. Badagnani ( talk) 22:13, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering if anyone wanted to help me out in working on User:Spencer/ITN in 2008, a listing of ITN's items in 2008. If your interested, pick a month, and use the last wording of the item (After minor changes/tweaks of the wording have been made) and removed the "pictured". Thanks, Spencer T♦ C 15:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
I am tired of arguments about whether a news item is international enough and have a proposal that would end all such arguments.
My understanding is that we require ITN items to be international to ensure the section doesn't get too slanted toward any one country. So why not just say that the section as a whole should reflect geographic diversity?
Once we establish that the list of ITN items should include things from around the world, it shouldn't matter whether individual items are "international" enough. That they are of great importance and interest to a good deal of people, no matter where those people are, should be enough.
And why not? If an item is of interest to 20% of Wikipedia users, who cares whether they are all in the same country? A space item is only of interest to people who care about space. A sports item is only of interest to sports fans. Yet we still have items on space and sports because we have a lot of people interested in space and sports.
I know ITN is not a news service, but bear with me for one comparison. Let's say you have a newspaper that covers a city and its suburban municipalities. If a suburb decides to raise taxes, that will be in the newspaper, even though few people outside of the suburb are interested. The paper carries a story because many people will be interested, even if they all happen to live in the same place.
The only questions that should be asked for an ITN item are: What does the appropriate Wikipedia article look like; and Are a lot of people interested in this item? Provided there are not too many items from the same part of the world on ITN, it shouldn't matter whether the people interested in a given item live in the same country or different countries. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 01:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I propose that this be added to ITN as soon as possible. — Animum ( talk) 17:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Why isn't it on the mainpage? this is as big if not worse than Kosovo's... mainpage pls! Nergaal ( talk) 16:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
Will an admin please change the link for Russia's bit from
International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia independence to
International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, since the former link is only a redirect to the latter? Thanks!
Glacier Wolf
01:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Can you guys lengthen your section by leaving stories on for a longer period of time. WP:DYK is having a backlog problem and needs more space without causing an imbalance.-- TonyTheTiger ( t/ c/ bio/ WP:CHICAGO/ WP:LOTM) 14:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't we say that Obama and Biden have been officially nominated as Democratic candidates for president and vice president? john k ( talk) 15:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Won't this ever get posted? I know the U.S. team won but you can't argue U.S. biaz on this item. – Howard the Duck 03:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} Can we use Image:Gustavat1Landfall08.jpg for the top story? Thanks, Spencer T♦ C 22:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
This is not the USA portal so would someone please remove the bit about McCain/Palin. I've never seen this sort of stuff put on when we're talking about other countries. There is definately way too much USA centered stuff on ITN. Chris DHDR 17:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I think the "Tropical Storm Hanna (pictured) moves towards the U.S. South Atlantic coast after causing at least 25 deaths in Haiti." is unnecessarily US-centric. Has it even reached the Bahamas yet? Not according to the article or the image (which may or may not be fully updated). So, not only US centric, it additionally belittles the Bahamas. If I knew whether it hit Bahamas or not, I would attempt to trump the current wording right away. Punkmorten ( talk) 20:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
While I hate to interrupt this wonderful spate of US-bias-bashing, I feel I should clarify a few things. First of all, the ITN entries have nothing to do with warnings, but highlight recently updated articles that discuss topics featured in the news media. Secondly, it is entirely appropriate in a geographical context to use "heading towards the US" as a reference point. Some people who may not be able to find the Bahamas or Jamaica on a map could certainly find the states. Also, you may note that when Gustav first appeared on ITN there was no mention of the US at all. Also, Twas Now, do you feel that 100-odd deaths in Haiti are not notable, but a storm in northern Saskatchewan would be? Random 89 17:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think we need to qualify this as "one of the largest banking interventions in United States history" (my italics) – it is arguably the largest in history, and certainly one of the largest. Physchim62 (talk) 00:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Could someone update the death toll on the 2008 Chatsworth train collision, its now 23? – Zntrip 21:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I would like to propose that we include the lead articles from the Main Page of Wikinews at {{ In the news}}. Some changes have been made to the review process over at Wikinews, which ensures that all articles that make it to one of the main page leads at Wikinews have gone through multiple stages of review:
So that is the review process of how an article makes it from the Develop Stage to becoming one of the Main Page Leads on Wikinews.
Proposed: -- I propose that User:Wikinews Importer Bot/Wikinews Lead articles (the 3 most recent of the Wikinews Main Page Leads) is transcluded into {{ In the news}} and thus onto the Main Page.
Thank you for your time and for giving this proposal your consideration.
Yours, Cirt ( talk) 20:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
The above subsection is pretty much a description of the review process and the proposal, so please discuss here, below. Cirt ( talk) 20:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I completely support this idea and I thank Cirt for his efforts on Wikinews in ensuring the new stages of an article, and, as a result, ensuring even greater reliability in articles. I think also that the inclusion of four Wikinews articles would be a great idea for several reasons, listed below:
In response to Chaser's comment above, I think that it would be better to make the Wikinews Importer Bot an admin. I'd suggest that when the same story is on both, we leave them both there, as the two things are very different in what they do. Anonymous101 ( talk)
I strongly oppose the idea. At the moment, ITN is not intended to be a news service, rather it is intended to point out the articles that have been created/expanded to reflect current events of considerable importance. I agree that the whole peer review system you have is a good thing and that's what we are missing here when some drive-by admins unaware of ITN/C discussion post the items they consider appropriate without prior notice. Also, the news titles from Wikinews do not have links, links are the most important thing in ITN blurbs. Your proposal then completely changes the purpose of ITN section. Since there already is a link to Wikinews at the bottom, I feel changing it all is not a good idea. (and WP itself is not a news service, also, picture of the day is not a FP from Commons, the selection process is totaly a matter of :en wiki - for example). -- Tone 21:21, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I should note that this would not be a replacement for the current model at ITN, merely an addition to it. These days T:DYK more often as 10 or so hooks, so perhaps we could make use of the spacing. Cirt ( talk) 18:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment I planned to leave this page for good but made the mistake of visiting it and after seeing this felt I needed to offer my POV. Is wikinews really balanced as suggested above? I don't visit it that much, and haven't really in a while but the times I have I've often felt it is not balanced. No not American-centric for once (well not that I noticed although as I said I didn't visit it that much) but NZ-centric (not sure why but I've heard there are a lot of NZ editors there for some reason). Note that although I live in NZ, I usually wasn't visiting it because of NZ events so that's not the reason. It's possible I'm wrong or it was just random or the fact that I was able to easily recognise the headlines relating to NZ influenced my view or perhaps it was but that's changed but I definitely think we need to implement a wikipedia review before adding wikinews items. Switching our current occasional American-bias for an NZ bias (which frankly, given the relative unimportance of NZ in the world, is much worse) is not the way to go. Nil Einne ( talk) 17:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Cirt, I'm curious as to what you thought of my comment: Perhaps content from Wikinews articles could help expand content here on Wikipedia articles and then feature those articles on ITN? Spencer T♦ C 23:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Let's have a look from the other side. These are the headlines copied from today's page. Let me add some comments in the ITN light:
September 2
* Google launches web browser, dubbed Chrome. Commercial. * UK government sued over deaths in 2006 Nimrod crash in Afghanistan. No go, no verdict yet.
September 1
* Government of the Bahamas isssues warning over Hurricane Hanna. No major impact yet. * Wikinews Shorts: September 1, 2008 - this is not really a headline. * Bush to skip Republican convention to monitor Gustav. Minor story, we had Gustav as the center. * US presidential candidate Barack Obama's lead increases after Democratic National Convention. US elections-centric, no go. * News agencies suggest that campaign operative for Republican Party edited article on vice presidential nominee. Wiki-centric, no go. * Pakistan's military offensive suspended for Ramadan. This is interesting, has chances.
August 31
* NASA considers continuing shuttle use after 2010. Speculation, not ITN material. * Italy will give Libya US$5 billion as compensation for occupation. Better formulation: Italy gives full apology or something, I wish we had this one on ITN before... (is there an article?) * Mayor of New Orleans tells residents to evacuate ahead of hurricane. Gustav story, we had that. * Radical left computer activists capture data of Blood and Honour web forum with 31,948 users. Not that interesting for ITN...
August 30
* Hurricane Gustav batters Caribbean, threatens US Gulf Coast. Had that. * Former head of comedy for the BBC, Geoffrey Perkins dies in a road accident age 55. No, WP:LILP * Memorial for toddler who died under care of controversial '1 Mind Ministries' group. No, WP:LILP * Wikinews Shorts: August 30, 2008 * Barack Obama accepts US presidential nomination from the Democratic Party. Loooong discussion about that one, decided for no. * South Ossetia says it will join North Ossetia-Alania as a federal subject of Russia. Had that.
Hm... Two or three headlines would probably make it to ITN with a slightly different wording but most are not really compatible. Now I am even more certain that a human interface with confirmation votes is needed. But wikinews headlines are helpful in selecting ITN posts, of that I am sure. -- Tone 13:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Please see User:Cirt/Current events. This incorporates the suggestion from Tone ( talk · contribs) [1], above, that instead of including direct links to Wikinews articles on the Main Page in Template:In the news, they be incorporated into Portal:Current events as an intermediate step.
Please note that links to Wikinews articles are already present at Portal:Current events, at the bottom as {{ Wikinewstable}}. This change just moves those exact same articles directly below each relevant date box. Note: Due to the way Portal:Current events is structured, the change would have to be made to Portal:Current events/Inclusion, not to Portal:Current events. Thank you for considering this, Cirt ( talk) 07:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Sheesh...depressing news lately, eh? BobAmnertiopsis ∴ ChatMe! 16:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I think the following is more reader friendly than the current version:
We should state it's the largest filing ever. Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code#Largest bankruptcy. I propose: "Lehman Brothers becomes the largest entity ever to file for bankruptcy protection" -- Y not? 16:41, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Why is it listed as "Boeing 737" Aeroflot Flight 821?? First of all, it makes no grammatical sense, second, it doesn't sound very news title worthy, third, the aircraft type is irrelevent considering it is unknown if the crash was mechanical related and the mentioning of the aircraft type is biased in that it makes it seem as the crash makes more sense since it was a 737, and lastly, no other air crash ever listed on ITN since I've frequented the site has ever listed the aircraft type in the ITN header. Could someone please look into this. It should read the same now, minus the Boeing 737 exerpt. Thanks. -- 144.9.56.131 ( talk) 15:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Note the verb tense changes in "resigns" and "detonated", even though both are in the same section. For now I'll convert them all to present, but I was wondering if there is/will be any consensus on this.
Master of Puppets
Call me MoP! :)
23:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Changes were recently made to the {{ DYK-Refresh}} template as a result of this discussion. The {{ ITN-Update}} template uses the same logic as DYK-Refresh but was not updated. The changes basically removed the 'Next update' header section from being automatically transcluded along with the template. This allowed the refresh clock to be split out so that the same elapsed time could be used for the banner, a userbox, and/or any other sort of notifier template people wanted to configure. Would people be interested in making similar changes here or should the current methodology be kept? -- CBD 10:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
ITN currently reads:
Can we make this:
Sorry, we need to do this to avoid regional bias. - Tbsdy lives ( talk) 12:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Can you add my article on the South African presidential election to the current headline on Kgalema Motlanthe Rizalninoynapoleon ( talk) 09:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I think it should be mentioned that Zhai Zhigang has become the first Chinese national to walk in space — that is why this newsworthy! not because he merely walked in space, which has been done plenty of times before. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 00:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Hello there.
I often see this (example from 29 Sept):
Do you see the missing commas -- after "India" and "Syria", respectively?
To me, each of these statements is devided into two parts, separated by commas, like this: "A bomb blast in Delhi" (an incomplete phrase without a verb) and "India kills 3 and injures 23", which is a formally correct phrase, however untrue, and not what the writer intended. A second comma would mark the end of the qualification ("India") of "Delhi".
Punctuation is an important matter.
LarRan ( talk) 12:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Is there a serious news lag on this page???-- Kozuch ( talk) 15:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
[[Nobel Prize in Physics|2008 Nobel Prize in Physics]]
should be 2008 [[Nobel Prize in Physics]]
, or readers will believe the link target is about the 2008 issue in particular (as I did, before I clicked). --
Army1987
(t
— c)
14:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Hey news crew! You're all probably aware of the Main Page redesign proposal currently under discussion and development. It would be really helpful if some In The News people could have a look at the current designs and share their thoughts and opinions, seeing as many of the proposals involve significant changes to the In The News section. Many thanks -- Pretzels Talk! 16:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
No-one else thinks ITN looks a bit bloated right now with all those individual descriptions of each winner? Couldn't we just sum it all up with something like 'The 2008 Nobel Prize winners are announced'? -- 128.243.253.111 ( talk) 16:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Here are some images of the press conference... C-M ?! 16:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Can we please link to the Financial crisis of 2007-2008 article from the blurb on the British gov bailout? Heroeswithmetaphors ( talk) 06:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Spot the difference - do we bold the winner's name, or the Nobel prize they won? I changed one to the other, to ensure consistency, but no idea if I did the right choice. What is the SOP for this? Embolden the winner's name, or embolden the award?
Also, pipelinking like thus: [[Nobel Prize in Literature|2008 Nobel Prize in Literature]] makes it look like we have an article about that specific year's prize (when we don't). fish& karate 15:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
This should be removed until the election results, as is normal practice for ITN. Russeasby ( talk) 18:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Note that if you refer to a place in America, specify the full location, Plano, Texas, United States not Plano, Texas. Not many people outside America know what Idaho or even Texas is. Even if they did, wikipedia has to be consistent, or else we will have stuff like Nagpur, Maharashtra or Anqing, Anhui which have equal (perhaps even more) importance in terms of population and culture, for eg Maharashtra is a linguistic state of India based on it speaking Marathi, that is a language not a dialect of anything else. Does Texas speak Texan ? Is it a sovereign nation ? I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations ( talk) 00:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
During the Olympics, I proposed we have a sticky link to an Olympics portal during the Olympics so people wouldn't wonder why we didn't have an Olympic story every day. That went over well. I also suggested we do the same for elections in the biggest English-speaking countries. That didn't get as much support, but I'd like to bring it up again. People are going to wonder why we don't have an ITN entry with every hiccup in the US presidential election; this will satisfy their interest. I suggest we limit doing this to general, national elections in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and maybe New Zealand.
|
Mwalcoff ( talk) 01:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Hmm... I don't know about "People are going to wonder why we don't have an ITN entry with every hiccup in the US presidential election". The only items about the election are candidate and VP selection. For me, at least, I haven't heard much from people complaining that we didn't mention the debates, McCain doing such-and-such in whichever state, Obama receiving a new high in campaign donations, etc. It's an interesting suggestion, but I'd like to hear other opinions about it. Spencer T♦ C 18:26, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Strong oppose to such links. ITN is not supposed to be a news coverage (said n times already...) -- Tone 13:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely oppose. We were assured at the time of Obama's win over Clinton that that would be the last mention of the US elections until the results are declared in November, unless something entirely unpredictable were to occur. This proposal is difficult to interpret as anything other than an attempt to institutionalise further institutional bias in this project. Kevin McE ( talk) 19:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
come on, is this the best that wikipedia can do? Nergaal ( talk) 14:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
For those who think ITN is pro-US, check out our Pro-India bias today! 1/2 of our items are related to India or Indians. ;D. Spencer T♦ C 20:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I think this [4] & [5] exemplifies what I was saying when I opposed the Israeli Kadima party leader change story. The change of leader of a party is only significant when it results in the change of a PM. When the party doesn't have a majority, there's no guarantee that it will be the case and the new leader could easily not end up being the PM. Of course it's easily possible she will form the new government after the election but even in that case it was still the correct decision to wait for the election Nil Einne ( talk) 06:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion for the redesign of Portal:Current events/Sports. Insights are welcome. – Howard the Duck 08:57, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Two hurricane images on the main page is excessive. We're starting to look like Weather.com. Can someone please replace the hurricane image here with the image of the Indian space probe or anything else, PLEASE. Kaldari ( talk) 23:47, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Hi guys, I'd just like to point out that at this point, the US Armed Forces haven't confirmed the allegation by Syria, so the wording should probably be changed to reflect that it's an 'accusation'. Thanks! 206.248.130.223 ( talk) 00:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Re: "Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni...", could someone please wikilink " coalition government"? Thanks. Tom™ (2¢) 13:42, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
The way the blurb on the US raid is written, it makes it sound as if the raid was without purpose or direction, and/or that US forces are killers (which, of course, as soldiers in war they are, but...). I think a more objective or fair description would, instead of reading "...killing eight", would instead end with "...aimed at disrupting a foreign fighter logistics network" or something to this effect. LordAmeth ( talk) 14:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
"Coordinated suicide bombings kill 56 in Hargeisa, Somaliland and Bosaso, Somalia."
Writing "Hargeisa, Somaliland and Bosaso, Somalia" implies that Somaliland has the same status as Somalia, however Somaliland is 100% unrecognized as an independent country. In my opinion it is notable that Hargeisa is in Somaliland (as Somaliland is distinct from Somalia in that it has a functionning government, etc), however this needs to be rephrased. - M.Nelson ( talk) 21:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Not only did the Philadelphia Phillies win the world series,Tonight on Oct.28th 2008, They also broke the long standing curse of Billy Penn.
This curse has been haunting the city of Philadelphia since march 1987 upon the completion of the building at One Liberty Place.<Wikipedia> About four months ago, a small statue of Billy Penn was placed on top of the comcast building which once again made city hall the tallest building in the city. And to the city of Philadelphia this event has been" A long time in coming". Who knows, maybe this is the big turn around everyone has been waiting for!! Well,, at least for Philly fans. Mike Layne SR. ( talk) 04:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
As a sports nut, it's surprising I raise this, but 4/7 ITN pieces are, loosely, sport-related ("is chess a sport?" is a canard). I suggest we balance it somehow. Are any of the news pieces dating? -- Dweller ( talk) 23:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to get some measure of ITN regulars' sense of when we should update to reflect the winner of the US Presidential election. I suspect that the networks will all call the election about the same time, but in the event we get an early call from one, should we wait for the others? Should we update once the AP calls it? CNN? When the loser concedes? I like the first one, but the important thing is that we don't put it up to have someone declare it too soon and take it down. Let's get some consensus on this before election night.-- chaser - t 06:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I suggest two entries. One for the Presidential election, and another for Democrats expanding majorities in House and Senate. - CWY2190( talk • contributions) 07:21, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
It's hard to predict the circumstances. I think that we'd be daft not to be reporting what all the main news outlets are reporting worldwide. But we do need to be careful with POV issues.
All in all, I think it's entirely likely that whichever regulars are awake and online at the appropriate time will find the right way and the right time to report it and that predicting what that combination will likely be is probably futile. It'll be OK. -- Dweller ( talk) 12:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
FYI - Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#November_4a regarding the possibility of putting John McCain and Barack Obama on as TFA. Concerns have been raised that if TFA did this, it would conflict with ITN. More input on the TFA is needed. -- Aude ( talk) 17:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
One question is when are you going to add the U.S. elections to the ITN page? it sounds to me like it won't be added until we get results, but not sure if you would put something up to say the elections are happening, before results are announced. Also, will the news item specifically link to the McCain and/or Obama articles, or just link to the 2008 election article? -- Aude ( talk) 17:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
If I do end up using the dual Obama/McCain setup that's discussed on TFA, I'd appreciate it if ITN could avoid doing anythign election related until after they roll off the main page at midnight UTC (7:00 PM US eastern time). Raul654 ( talk) 22:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit conflicted with the above] I think more needs to be said, while the loser does not need to be mentioned. For example (and I'm too lazy to put in links that aren't redirects, but y'all know where links would go):
or
Are we going to mention the house/senate results in a separate blurb? Random 89 02:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
He hasn't actually been elected that happens when the electoral college votes in December 15. He merely has project to accumulate a enough electors (if they vote right) to become president. Which I guess would make that a projection... — Dispenser 06:26, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Why do we call him an African American, as he's no more a black man than a white man? He's a perfect example of biracial ancestry, but definitely isn't an African American. Nyttend ( talk) 13:36, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
The news item " Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck becomes Bhutan's fifth dragon king and world's youngest monarch." links to the article Dragon king, an article about mythological creatures. It should not link to that. Note that in the article Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the words "Dragon King" in the lead section lead to the article List of rulers of Bhutan. Fg2 ( talk) 12:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (pictured) becomes Bhutan's fifth dragon king and the world's youngest monarch.
According to the articles, the word "becomes" is misleading because he became king on 14 December 2006. He was crowned on 6 November 2008. - Rrius ( talk) 20:11, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking John Key might not like his picture right next to a headline about a cocaine seizure. I know it's clearly indicated that the two stories are unrelated, but it might be polite to put up an generic image from the cocaine article instead. -- jwanders Talk 06:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Names of ships should be italicized: here Nerpa and Kursk. Nyttend ( talk) 13:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I have found a report which is a very significant news item here, so do you know where i can find the article on it and if so, add as a candidate for ITN? Simply south ( talk) 12:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
...such geographically distributed news on the main page. A nice break from Anglocentrism. Well done, ITNers, and keep up the good work. the skomorokh 19:22, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I've combined Template:UpdatedITNNom with Template:UpdatedITN because of the allowing of different wording regarding the items in the tag. I added one that said "nominated" and am redirecting Template:UpdatedITNNom. (Deletion is fine too, but I didn't want to confused anyone...also, I've subst-ed all of the nom tags so that no one will be missing recognition). See Wikipedia:ITNMP#Recognition for the changes I've done. Just wanted to let everyone know, Spencer T♦ C 21:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Also, I'd just like to note the wording I've inserted below "The death criteria are contested and under discussion here" in Wikipedia:ITNMP#Deaths that reads: As of now, deaths are being judged on a case-by-case basis and should not be put up until a consensus has been established on WP:ITN/C. Spencer T♦ C 01:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
This is the first time that I hear that a terrorist attack lasts more than a full day, indeed it is lasting more than three days. I think that the Main Page's "In the news" headline should specify this, otherwise people would not get the right feeling of what is going on in Mumbai. I frankly have to admit that it didn't catch my attention right away. At first I thought "What? Another multiple car bombing far away from home?", but much later a workplace pal told me "But CNN is crazy about it!". Aldo L ( talk) 04:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I think that this deserves a mention as it is the sub-contest to the Junior Eurovision Song Contest for Scandinavian countries. I think it deserves a mention in the news. ńăŧħăń - ŧăłķ 21:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I asked a few users on IRC for what monitor configurations they used and overwhelmingly the response was widescreen. I've added a note at T:ITN/doc. If you have any complaints about balance you're probably one of the few, so it'll stay this way for now. Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :D 22:40, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Having participated in discussions and work on Wikipedia:2008 main page redesign proposal, I would like to start a discussion here regarding the addition of dates to the news items of "In the news".
My idea is that each bullet is replaced by the date connected to the corresponding event, and an event spanning over multiple days would have the starting day listed.
The reason for this is that users today expect news notices to be associated with a date, and that it's almost standard for any type of news service to do this, not least for online news sites and other webpages listing news. By adding dates I believe we would improve reader experience, reducing irritation and confusion caused by not meeting up with user expectations, and in the end improve the quality of the "In the news" section.
It's true that Wikipedia is not a news service, but we ARE listing actual news in "In the news", even if the point is to attract readers to the encyclopedic articles, and thus the news items should be connected to dates.
The idea has already attracted some support at both Wikipedia talk:2008 main page redesign proposal and the project's latest straw poll.
Here's an example of how this could look (please ignore the other changes).
- Wintran ( talk) 20:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
There is a relevant discussion involving the redesign of the main page that may affect the size and presentation of the "In the News" section going on here Wikipedia_talk:2008_main_page_redesign_proposal#Introducing_GA_to_main_page. Some of the ideas proposed include creating a separate WP:FA-like box to feature the GA, incorporating GA into DYK or not including GA on the main page at all. Agne Cheese/ Wine 18:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure it wasn't intentional but isn't it a bit much for all but one of the current news items to be European-based? I'm sure that other important things are happening elsewhere in the world. Personally, I enjoy it when ITN gives an international perspective rather than a localised or Western one. Sillyfolkboy ( talk) 15:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for linking up to this article on ITN on the main page. There is a bit of a problem with some editors making Madoff's ethnicity a focus of the article. I'm trying to keep this down to an acceptable level, but could others help out on this? There is some judgement involved. If it gets out of hand, may I ask that you pull it off of ITN? Hope it doesn't come to that though. Smallbones ( talk) 01:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
How come Madoff made it to the front page but not the Illinois Governor fraud? 88.146.1.11 ( talk) 16:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
It's become apparent to me that "In the News" is not the best name for this feature. We tend to include somewhat obscure items like the Greenland referendum that are quite unlikely to be found in "the news" most places while excluding many things that are common in the papers and on TV. Whether this is a good policy is a debate I don't want to get into. But it's clear that it makes ITN diverge from what is "in the news."
A better name would be something like "Happening Now" or, to reflect the constant drive for geographical diversity, "From Far and Wide." -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 23:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Until we get the results of the survey back we won't know, but I think we can assume that most of our readers are in the U.S., UK, Canada or Australia, where O.J. Simpson is far more likely to appear in "the news" than a Greenlandic referendum or some space thing. So they're going to look at it, and think, "Gee, if this is for stuff that's in the news, why doesn't it have stuff that's in the news, and why does it have all this other stuff that's not in the news?" At least, that's my reaction. Also, I think if we renamed ITN, we would have less of a problem with people assuming ITN to be a news service, as seems to be an issue around here. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 02:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
moved from Main Page errors Nil Einne ( talk) 13:53, 16 December 2008 (UTC) As requested, starting anew. The item currently reads 'The Channel Island of Sark, a British crown dependency, holds its first democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement, becoming the last European territory to abolish feudalism.'. But as I pointed out previously, there have been elections in Sark for 12 of the members of Chief Pleas for donkeys years. Both the BBC and the article, which we are supposed to follow, refer to 'the first fully democratic election' (emphasis mine). I personally disagree with that, as there are still unelected members, but for the purposes of ITN we should follow the article and the sources and call it 'the first fully democratic election'. If further arguments are needed, the website of the Sark government states 'some are just covering the elections, acting as though Sark has never had an election before, although the island has been electing deputies for the last 80 years' Modest Genius talk 20:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed that it takes a while for new day headers to pop up, so I added a button that pretty much does the whole thing (all you have to do is copy-paste some text and save two pages). Any constructive criticism? Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :D 02:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Unless you examine it carefully, the current ITN makes it look like there was some kind of riot or protest at the ASEAN meeting. I'm just saying...-- Kubigula ( talk) 15:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent) Also, items are listed by order of date, so it wouldn't be possible to keep the pictured item at the top. Spencer Merry Christmas! 16:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I want to propose that we include this ITN. We need more ITN from outside the English Speaking World [16] Ijanderson ( talk) 13:38, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi, this sentence (just added to the ITN on the main page) doesn't make grammatical sense; can it be rewritten, please?
“ | The largest-ever coal slurry spill (aftermath pictured) in the United States occurs when a coal-fired power plant in Kingston, Tennessee, releasing 500 million gallons (1.8 billion litres) of fly ash slurry into the surrounding area. | ” |
Badagnani ( talk) 07:10, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
It should be something like:
“ | The largest-ever coal slurry spill (aftermath pictured) in the United States occurs when a retaining pond at a coal-fired power plant in Kingston, Tennessee bursts, releasing 500 million gallons (1.8 billion litres) of fly ash slurry into the surrounding area. | ” |
Badagnani ( talk) 07:12, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks; it's still not right. The power plant is a building. It didn't release anything. The containment/retaining pond did. Badagnani ( talk) 07:50, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your attention, and for this fix. Badagnani ( talk) 22:13, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering if anyone wanted to help me out in working on User:Spencer/ITN in 2008, a listing of ITN's items in 2008. If your interested, pick a month, and use the last wording of the item (After minor changes/tweaks of the wording have been made) and removed the "pictured". Thanks, Spencer T♦ C 15:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
I am tired of arguments about whether a news item is international enough and have a proposal that would end all such arguments.
My understanding is that we require ITN items to be international to ensure the section doesn't get too slanted toward any one country. So why not just say that the section as a whole should reflect geographic diversity?
Once we establish that the list of ITN items should include things from around the world, it shouldn't matter whether individual items are "international" enough. That they are of great importance and interest to a good deal of people, no matter where those people are, should be enough.
And why not? If an item is of interest to 20% of Wikipedia users, who cares whether they are all in the same country? A space item is only of interest to people who care about space. A sports item is only of interest to sports fans. Yet we still have items on space and sports because we have a lot of people interested in space and sports.
I know ITN is not a news service, but bear with me for one comparison. Let's say you have a newspaper that covers a city and its suburban municipalities. If a suburb decides to raise taxes, that will be in the newspaper, even though few people outside of the suburb are interested. The paper carries a story because many people will be interested, even if they all happen to live in the same place.
The only questions that should be asked for an ITN item are: What does the appropriate Wikipedia article look like; and Are a lot of people interested in this item? Provided there are not too many items from the same part of the world on ITN, it shouldn't matter whether the people interested in a given item live in the same country or different countries. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 01:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)