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We have the headline: "Police clash with protesters across the world as traditional May Day marches turn violent." What it doesn't say, and it really should say is why they're protesting. The lead of the article says they're a "protest at the current global economic crisis." That should be in the headline on the main page as well. - Oreo Priest talk 21:09, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Hello,
Seven, not six people, including the driver, were killed in the attack. I don't know if the number 'six' is in the portal because it hasn't been updated or because the driver maybe doens't count, but I just wanted to point this out. Greetings, 77.167.224.101 ( talk) 22:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't know about you, but to me, the current blurb on boxing utterly fails the criterion of "international import, or at least interest". How is this important? Punkmorten ( talk) 10:41, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
There is a discussion going on at the talk page of Foreign relations of Guinea regarding the accuracy of the point that we have here. Very few news outlets seem to have picked up this story, and I smell a rat. Apart from one AP story that's only been reprinted in a couple of places as far as I can tell, it seems that nobody is talking about this. Given that the story is now two days old, it seems a bit sus that nobody has picked it up. Might it be worth scrubbing it from the template for awhile while we investigate to see if it's true? Lankiveil ( speak to me) 12:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC).
This is seriously worthy of Wikipedia's front page? The US government swapping private contractors? Who cares? -- Spangineer ws (háblame) 04:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
The question is whether we should include the nomination of David Souter's replacement on the US Supreme Court when it happens.
In my opinion, the nomination of a new SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) justice is just what ITN is for. The nominee will be of huge interest, yet will be little known to most people. Thousands of people will come to Wikipedia looking for background information on the nominee. ITN should be there to point people in the right direction.
Why will so many people be so interested in Souter's replacement? Because the nomination of a SCOTUS justice is a huge event in American politics. The Supreme Court leads one of the three equal branches of the US government and has a huge impact -- much larger than the top court of a country with a civil law system or an unwritten constitution. In my mother's lifetime, SCOTUS has legalized abortion and birth control; banned school segregation and school-led prayer; extended anti-discrimination laws to almost all businesses; established Miranda rights, the exclusionary rule, the doctrine of actual malice in libel cases and that of imminent lawless action in free-speech cases; allowed The New York Times to print the Pentagon papers; and, lest we forget, decided the 2000 presidential election -- among many, many other things.
There are only nine SCOTUS justices, and they serve until they retire or die, so Souter's replacement may be on the court until 2040. A SCOTUS vacancy happens only once every few years.
Now the question arises: Would we include on ITN the nomination of an equivalent official in other countries? It's hard to judge, because in most other countries, the Supreme Court, if it exists, isn't as big of a deal. But I would certainly advocate the inclusion of the nomination of a UK official who is as important in the UK as Souter's replacement will be in the US. Canada or Australia? Maybe, assuming it wouldn't lead to a glut of Canadian or Australian ITN entries. San Marino or Burkina Faso? No -- there just aren't as many Wikipedia users interested in the judiciaries of those countries.
I'm consistently exasperated by all of this hand-wringing over whether big-time news events are ITN material. It's led us to the positively bizarre situation where an election in Andorra (pop. 68,000) goes up but not the landmark appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state of the US (pop. 300,000,000 English speakers). As long as we're going to call this feature "In the News," it ought to reflect what's actually in the news for most of the users of the English Wikipedia, who tend to live in the US (about half of them) or other English-speaking countries. That doesn't mean that we should ignore what happens elsewhere. On the contrary -- we should strive for geographic diversity. But you shouldn't say, "I'm not going to support this US event because we wouldn't have it up if it happened in Djibouti." When it comes to political events, not all countries are equal. Population matters, and so does language. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 02:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I object to the inclusion of this item on the main page's "in the news" for several reasons:
Therefore, I believe this item should be removed. Oren0 ( talk) 08:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
The words "by the Sri Lanka Army" should be stricken from the summary -- the only reference states that doctors and the Sri Lankan government are having their own version of an edit war as to who is reponsible. In the absence of a credible source who is willing to actually say "The Sri Lankan Army did it", I don't think we should represent them as solely responsible in the edit summary. Let the two viewpoints duke it out in the actual news article. Banaticus ( talk) 22:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't mean this to be a personal attack or an attempt to rehash a discussion on the candidates page. However, something telling happened when I nominated Manny Ramirez's suspension. I incorrectly described it as a 50-day suspension rather than a 50-game one. Another user objected on the grounds that it was not noteworthy enough of an event. However, when informed that it was a 50-game suspension, he dropped his objection and took a neutral position, saying he didn't know enough about baseball to comment.
The irony is that baseball teams play almost every day. There's not much of a difference between 50 games and 50 days. The user apparently thought baseball was like soccer, where you play once or twice a week.
The user also hinted in his response that he was unaware of the issues surrounding baseball and drugs that have been so huge in baseball-playing nations over the past decade. It's almost certain he didn't know who Manny Ramirez is.
The question is whether he -- or she -- should have commented at all when it was clear he didn't know enough about baseball to judge the importance of the event.
This situation often comes up with sporting events (and, with athletes, on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion). People tend to have an urge to comment on a sports nomination even if they aren't familiar with the sport or event. Sometimes, they rely on platitudes that turn out to be incorrect, such as that professional sports are bigger than their amateur equivalents (when they aren't always) or that international events are bigger than domestic ones (same).
So when should people respond to nominations on an unfamiliar topic? I don't want to say never. I mean, I'm not familiar with petanque, but I can say that the Romanian junior petanque championship is inappropriate for ITN. On the other hand, since I don't know anything about cycling, I wouldn't want to comment on whether a given drug suspension or new performance record in cycling is ITN-worthy.
I think the best way to go about addressing sports news is to see how news media are playing it. If it is the kind of thing that is front-page news (not sports-page news) across a wide area, it is probably OK for ITN. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 03:11, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
There should be something on this. A war has ended, and there's not even a mention of it in ITN. 122.255.2.61 ( talk) 01:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I really believe that the Ruth Padel story has little interest to any one outside of Britain, and in no way deserves more attention than say... the Sri Lankan conflict. I call for it to be removed. Colipon+( T) 07:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I am a British person and I too see nothing interesting in this story to the vast majority of non-poetry reading people from outside Oxford. The poet laureate entry was iffy but this is ridiculous. 92.139.44.5 ( talk) 22:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. And I'm also British. -- Dweller ( talk) 05:45, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Because of this edit history, I'm adding to "Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates" the following: "If it’s not already created (see below)." This is needed because the directions as they are, are obviously making it seem like the page has not already been created when it in fact it has.-- Chuck Marean 06:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The clock often referred to as Big Ben (actually it's the name of it's biggest bell) is 150 today. A nice curiosity for main page? -- Dweller ( talk) 09:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Can we please update the news section? The plane debris have been found off of the coast of Brazil, please read the article and update. It is not missing anymore, it's a real sea crash. Thanks, Shadiac ( talk) 23:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Federal Anti-Monopoly Service of Russia brings an action against Microsoft corporation for discontinuing Windows XP and setting different prises for retail and OEM versions of Windows. Source: http://www.fas.gov.ru/news/n_24516.shtml-- MathFacts ( talk) 19:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Because it's called "In the News," the items on ITN should be somewhat similar to those that Wikipedia readers are likely to find "in the news," that is, on the TV stations they watch, the newspapers they read and the Internet sites they visit. Sometimes, some editors may not like the fact that certain stories are "in the news" and would prefer that mass media outlets adopt a different standard of news judgment. But it is not for us to say what should be "in the news." Rather, ITN should reflect what is "in the news," whether we like it or not.
Compared to the news sources that English Wikipedia readers are likely to use, ITN has been heavily weighted toward events in obscure Third World countries and has demonstrated an extreme bias against news from the countries where most readers live. Most English Wikipedia readers live in the U.S. or UK, and thus most of the items "in the news" to them are from those countries. Yet relatively few ITN items come from the US or UK.
Now I'm not saying we should stop running items from obscure Third World countries. I like that quirky aspect of ITN. But I think that the constant rejection of items from the US especially and to a lesser extent from other English-speaking countries reflects a "POV" that major news sources in English-speaking countries are somehow wrong in their news judgment. And that's not a call we should be making. Something that is all over the TV, newspapers and news websites should be on ITN.
Take the example of the Barack Obama speech at Cairo University, 2009. A look at newspaper front pages on Friday finds the speech was front-page news in much of the world. The Toronto Star, in huge letters, called it "A speech that might change the world." A search at Google News finds more than 16,000 English-language news stories on the speech, compared to 199 for the Baciro Dabo assassination. Now when it was suggested for ITN, one of the editors mentioned that heads of state make speeches all the time, and of course that's true. But most political speeches don't generate 16,000 English-language news articles. An event that generates so much press is "in the news," whether we like it or not, and should go up at ITN.
Similarly, the Gordon Brown Cabinet shuffle gets 4,771 hits on Google News, compared to fewer than 400 for the news on Marc Ravalomanana. The Cabinet shuffle is huge news in many English-language publications and has been included even in publications distant from the UK. It should go up on ITN.
It's a credo on Wikipedia that decisions on what content to include should be based on objective criteria and not on personal biases. Thus, when determining whether an event should go up on ITN, we should use things like Google News English-language hits, Wikipedia:Popular pages and the story lists of major English-language news sources such as the AP and BBC. We can make some judgments about the importance of an event and give some extra-credit points to events in Third World countries for the sake of diversity. But we should not be imposing our own beliefs about what should be considered news, such as "It's not ITN-worthy unless it would also be considered ITN-worthy if the same thing happened in Country X." If it's "in the news," it should go on "In the News." -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 23:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
I would suggest to cancel information about the death of president of Gabon... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8088382.stm Leinad ( talk) 10:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Could a crop of this image of Obama be used, instead of the one currently being used; as it would allow the microphone to be removed from the picture. Gage ( talk) 03:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Why do new "In the news" items get inserted in the middle of the rest instead of on top ? it makes looking for new items harder. -- George ( talk) 21:16, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
That photo doesn't look like a protest to me. No one is carrying any signs. It's on an unidentified street. It doesn't seem to be in front of a government building. It looks like an accident from maybe a long time ago.-- Chuck Marean 17:30, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
The quote first official summit would be linked to 1st BRIC summit. Regards; Felipe Menegaz 16:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Why is there a link to some stupid gay pride festival in Shanghai? Are we going the have a link for each time a new carnival/procession/festival takes place? Chris DHDR 15:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
In my opinion, if you're going to include how many people were killed in the attack, that should come at the end of the headline ( to preach against it). As it is now, with it at the beginning, it sounds like you're trying to prove the world is bad. -- Chuck Marean 21:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
PS. Chuck is hardly the first person to complain about death at ITN - there was a lot of that earlier in the year. And he nominated Acropolis Museum which is currently on the Main Page and also found this today only for an IP to remove it. -- can dle • wicke 03:26, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Apparently, the story's become quite big in Argentina, too, and amazingly, the purported name of Sanford's Argentine lover is getting more Google searches than "Michael Jackson" or "Farah Fawcett": [7] -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 00:40, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi. I thought making Mr. Jackson's death an exception to be included ITN was too bad. But maybe because I don't own any of his records. I realize that some admins flew in out of nowhere to add it to the template. - SusanLesch ( talk) 16:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
I understand the need to keep ITN from becoming a daily obituary, but this was the biggest death since Pope John Paul II. The media coverage has been wall-to-wall in the U.S. and quite substantial worldwide. Even the stogy old BBC World News had a live interview with the gossip columnist from the National Enquirer about Jackson's eccentricities. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 02:41, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
The 35,000 year old flute discovery has its own article at Paleolithic flutes. Grundle2600 ( talk) 01:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
This is a large story, and is unlikely to leave for a bit. Is it policy to let last items fall out of the template, or is this an exception? -- Xavexgoem ( talk) 19:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
In the interest of counteracting systematic bias, someone removed the countries from all the cities mentioned in ITN. Then, in the interest of counteracting systematic bias, someone added the countries for all the cities mentioned in ITN. This is quite ridiculous. Is that what counteracting systematic bias means to you all? If we had a post about London or New York or Tokyo, would we need to add the countries for fear people didn't know where these alpha world cities are? Not all cities are equal, and I think the paranoia about appearing Amero-centric is getting ahead of the fact that we shouldn't over-describe things on the Main Page. Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and even Baghdad are all cities generally well-known enough to allow the countries to be omitted (and the same goes for a multitude of other cities -- Western, Eastern, and in between).
However, I don't want to suggest that no city should have a country qualification. It should be done on a case-by-case basis, instead of an all-or-nothing approach. -- tariqabjotu 05:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
It should be added that Bernard Madoff was just sentenced to 150 years in jail. -- 68.89.211.93 ( talk) 17:14, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Is there any way to remove the high white space in the row where the picture is? It looks asthetically unpleasing in my opinion. Green caterpillar ( talk) 02:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
For anyone that hasn't noticed, ITN is about 11 hours overdue for an update. MacMed talk stalk 03:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Some points which came to mind when reading the above. A "last check" could be added to the bottom of the already existing timer. What is the problem if BorgQueen (who does a lot of the updates at the moment) is only assisted by the timer? DYK is queued (and is already having enough difficulties) so how can it be made flexible to suit ITN? Items being held off - did this actually happen or was it because BorgQueen was the only admin updating and thus there is the pressure of so many items? Stats? There were 51 ITNs in February (28 days), there were 76 ITNs in May (31 days) - this does not lead me to think that the system is on its knees. Also, I'm sorry if I've been a bit slow at providing updates this week but this has nothing to do with the timer. I am always looking... what is everyone else doing? -- can dle • wicke 18:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we should have a precedent that all fatal train crashes are ITN material just because we had the Washington Metro one. I'm sure trains crash all the time somewhere in the world. And what about car and bus crashes? I mean CNN is reporting four teenagers died in a car crash in New Mexico -- does that trump the Chinese train crash with three dead? (Rhetorical question.) I think the Washington Metro crash was unusual because it likely generated a great amount of interest among Wikipedia users. Not only do a fair number of them live in the Washington area, but I'm sure a good chunk of Wikipedia users have been to Washington and been on the Washington Metro -- likely on the Red Line, the location of the trains that crashed. The same cannot be said of the train system in Hunan, China.
By no means do I believe we should ignore what happens in Third World countries. I think it's good that we have things like the Honduras coup, or whatever it was, even though it will generate only a fraction of the interest of, say, Michael Jackson's death. This is, of course, an encyclopedia, and it's good to draw attention to the breadth of Wikipedia's content.
But it simply shouldn't be true that if we list an event in Country X, we have to list an equivalent event if it happens in Country Y. No news medium works that way. Even those media that make a special effort to cover the whole world, like the BBC World Service and International Herald Tribune, don't work that way.
Every individual event should be considered on its own merits, with the key factors being the degree of interest among Wikipedia users in the event and the quality of the content that has been added to the Wikipedia articlespace about the event. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 02:31, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I just don't see how the Bulgarian parliamentary elections deserves to be on the front page when legislative elections of larger nations don't make it, especially considering a legislative election of a larger nation, Mexico, precisely happened on the exact same day. Sourside21 ( talk) 20:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Several users have disagreed with posting Al Franken on ITN. Please seriously reconsider. (see below) Colipon+( T) 01:55, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
He was actually supporting the Franken story... Therequiembellishere ( talk) 07:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
To be really honest, I think the bias is not just American. I think another important bias that people have not pointed out is this overt obsession with politics. So much ITN is about this country's legislative election, that country's newly elected Prime Minister. With all due respect to sovereign nations like the Solomon Islands, their leadership changes just don't matter a whole lot to the rest of the world. It takes up room in ITN that can be dedicated to more pertinent stories. With Wikipedia's coverage of current events (especially more controversial topics) now a focal point of major global media and indeed, much of the world's English speaking population looking to get background information, it is important that ITN reflect pertinent stories that are important to the widest-ranging audience. Someone looking for the most pertinent news of the day should be able to come onto the Wikipedia main page and not have to dig thru the stories of Portal:Current Events to find what s/he is looking for.
To this end, I would actually suggest that under the current blurbs section, we add a small section on "Other topics in the news" right below it, and simply add links to other events that are going on (inspured by Google News). This will at most take two lines, allow the current trend of news blurbs to continue, and allow for much easier navigation. Thoughts? Colipon+( T) 16:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
This, food for thought from User:Madcoverboy: " WP:ITN embodies the sui generis potential of Wikipedia to not simply be replicative but transformative of how knowledge can be created and communicated. News of all types from across the world are often featured on ITN and expose readers to up-to-date, detailed, and high-quality encyclopedic articles to provide a context for issues that no newspaper can. Moreover, the active community of editors who participates there has developed a strong ethic and set of rules that allows them to weed out the trash new and infotainment that degrades and demeans journalism as an essential component of a free and open society and to instead focus on issues of international importance and encyclopedic interest." Colipon+( T) 17:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
The July 2009 cyber attacks page is going through a rough time at the moment. Its notability is being challenged at AFD and it's a very short and stubby article. While I understand there is a shortage of nominations for ITN, surely we don't want to be linking to an article of this standard from the Main Page ? - 212.139.90.81 ( talk) 22:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
The launch pad for STS-127 was not struck by lightning 11 times. There were 11 strikes within .35 miles of the pad which is distinctly different, though no less significant to the prospect of a launch tomorrow. I'm not sure what the wording should be, but this is a subtle inaccuracy that has been reported in several news media outlets. The article itself is correct, it's just the 'In the News' front page item that needs adjustment. Thanks, aremisasling ( talk) 04:55, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
The bulletin for the Space Shuttle's launch delay provides a link to the Wikipedia article on
launch pads (The launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour, carrying astronauts on the STS-127 mission, is delayed after its launch pad area was struck by lightning at least 11 times).
For the reader's sake would it not be more appropriate to change the linking to:
its launch pad, in order for the audience to learn more not about launch pads in general, but the actual platform being used for STS-127?
Ryandinho14+(
T)
16:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
There really needs to be a time limit on added future events to ITN. There is no reason to be adding stuff thats 7 months in the future. - CWY2190( talk • contributions) 01:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I have been off wikipedia for awhile, the format for suggesting ITN items is way different now. Can someone in the know please suggest Zac Sunderland? Just broke the record for youngest person to sail around the world solo. Top news on most US organizations right now, not sure about international coverage. (just checked, its on BBCs website too). A 17 year old circumnavigating (with an article going through updates about it) seems ITN worthy to me. Russeasby ( talk) 00:22, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
LATELY ONLY POLITICAL NEWS AND PEOPLE DYING/GETTING KILLED HAVE MADE IT TO THE itn; DO PEOPLE REALLY WANT TO REPLACE, OR PERHAPS MIRROR cnn.com? CAN THERE BE SOME GUIDELIENS ABOUT GETTING MORE COVERAGE FOR NEWS MORE PERTAINING TO AN ENCYCLOPEDIA? Nergaal ( talk) 02:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm appalled by the double standard. We didn't (and "shouldn't") wait "for a decade" when Iceland gets to be a EU member, yet we added the blurb when their parliament agreed to issue an application. WTF. Can somebody justify that in comparison to the element. – Howard the Duck 07:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
This section has been moved to
Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Hypothetical situations. --
can
dle
•
wicke
03:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
First of all, I apologize if this is the incorrect place to to post this, if so, please let me know so I can raise the issue in the appropriate area.
The current version of the headline posted on ITN is "India launches its first nuclear submarine INS Arihant, becoming the sixth country in the world that can construct the vessels." What concerns me is the word 'can'. It is a subjective statement, and implies that any country that hasn't done so is incapable of constructing such a vessel. However many countries, including for example, Canada, arguably have both the financial and human resources to produce their own versions of a nuclear submarine if their respective governments decided to.
Therefore, I propose the altering of the headline to the following: "India launches its first nuclear submarine INS Arihant, becoming the sixth country in the world to construct such a vessel."
Obviously, please comment with any other views on the issue. In addition, if consensus is reached, would someone more 'wikiwise' than myself alter the headline? Much appreciated.
-- Dbo789 ( talk) 03:55, 27 July 2009 (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. |
We have the headline: "Police clash with protesters across the world as traditional May Day marches turn violent." What it doesn't say, and it really should say is why they're protesting. The lead of the article says they're a "protest at the current global economic crisis." That should be in the headline on the main page as well. - Oreo Priest talk 21:09, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Hello,
Seven, not six people, including the driver, were killed in the attack. I don't know if the number 'six' is in the portal because it hasn't been updated or because the driver maybe doens't count, but I just wanted to point this out. Greetings, 77.167.224.101 ( talk) 22:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't know about you, but to me, the current blurb on boxing utterly fails the criterion of "international import, or at least interest". How is this important? Punkmorten ( talk) 10:41, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
There is a discussion going on at the talk page of Foreign relations of Guinea regarding the accuracy of the point that we have here. Very few news outlets seem to have picked up this story, and I smell a rat. Apart from one AP story that's only been reprinted in a couple of places as far as I can tell, it seems that nobody is talking about this. Given that the story is now two days old, it seems a bit sus that nobody has picked it up. Might it be worth scrubbing it from the template for awhile while we investigate to see if it's true? Lankiveil ( speak to me) 12:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC).
This is seriously worthy of Wikipedia's front page? The US government swapping private contractors? Who cares? -- Spangineer ws (háblame) 04:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
The question is whether we should include the nomination of David Souter's replacement on the US Supreme Court when it happens.
In my opinion, the nomination of a new SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) justice is just what ITN is for. The nominee will be of huge interest, yet will be little known to most people. Thousands of people will come to Wikipedia looking for background information on the nominee. ITN should be there to point people in the right direction.
Why will so many people be so interested in Souter's replacement? Because the nomination of a SCOTUS justice is a huge event in American politics. The Supreme Court leads one of the three equal branches of the US government and has a huge impact -- much larger than the top court of a country with a civil law system or an unwritten constitution. In my mother's lifetime, SCOTUS has legalized abortion and birth control; banned school segregation and school-led prayer; extended anti-discrimination laws to almost all businesses; established Miranda rights, the exclusionary rule, the doctrine of actual malice in libel cases and that of imminent lawless action in free-speech cases; allowed The New York Times to print the Pentagon papers; and, lest we forget, decided the 2000 presidential election -- among many, many other things.
There are only nine SCOTUS justices, and they serve until they retire or die, so Souter's replacement may be on the court until 2040. A SCOTUS vacancy happens only once every few years.
Now the question arises: Would we include on ITN the nomination of an equivalent official in other countries? It's hard to judge, because in most other countries, the Supreme Court, if it exists, isn't as big of a deal. But I would certainly advocate the inclusion of the nomination of a UK official who is as important in the UK as Souter's replacement will be in the US. Canada or Australia? Maybe, assuming it wouldn't lead to a glut of Canadian or Australian ITN entries. San Marino or Burkina Faso? No -- there just aren't as many Wikipedia users interested in the judiciaries of those countries.
I'm consistently exasperated by all of this hand-wringing over whether big-time news events are ITN material. It's led us to the positively bizarre situation where an election in Andorra (pop. 68,000) goes up but not the landmark appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state of the US (pop. 300,000,000 English speakers). As long as we're going to call this feature "In the News," it ought to reflect what's actually in the news for most of the users of the English Wikipedia, who tend to live in the US (about half of them) or other English-speaking countries. That doesn't mean that we should ignore what happens elsewhere. On the contrary -- we should strive for geographic diversity. But you shouldn't say, "I'm not going to support this US event because we wouldn't have it up if it happened in Djibouti." When it comes to political events, not all countries are equal. Population matters, and so does language. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 02:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I object to the inclusion of this item on the main page's "in the news" for several reasons:
Therefore, I believe this item should be removed. Oren0 ( talk) 08:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
The words "by the Sri Lanka Army" should be stricken from the summary -- the only reference states that doctors and the Sri Lankan government are having their own version of an edit war as to who is reponsible. In the absence of a credible source who is willing to actually say "The Sri Lankan Army did it", I don't think we should represent them as solely responsible in the edit summary. Let the two viewpoints duke it out in the actual news article. Banaticus ( talk) 22:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't mean this to be a personal attack or an attempt to rehash a discussion on the candidates page. However, something telling happened when I nominated Manny Ramirez's suspension. I incorrectly described it as a 50-day suspension rather than a 50-game one. Another user objected on the grounds that it was not noteworthy enough of an event. However, when informed that it was a 50-game suspension, he dropped his objection and took a neutral position, saying he didn't know enough about baseball to comment.
The irony is that baseball teams play almost every day. There's not much of a difference between 50 games and 50 days. The user apparently thought baseball was like soccer, where you play once or twice a week.
The user also hinted in his response that he was unaware of the issues surrounding baseball and drugs that have been so huge in baseball-playing nations over the past decade. It's almost certain he didn't know who Manny Ramirez is.
The question is whether he -- or she -- should have commented at all when it was clear he didn't know enough about baseball to judge the importance of the event.
This situation often comes up with sporting events (and, with athletes, on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion). People tend to have an urge to comment on a sports nomination even if they aren't familiar with the sport or event. Sometimes, they rely on platitudes that turn out to be incorrect, such as that professional sports are bigger than their amateur equivalents (when they aren't always) or that international events are bigger than domestic ones (same).
So when should people respond to nominations on an unfamiliar topic? I don't want to say never. I mean, I'm not familiar with petanque, but I can say that the Romanian junior petanque championship is inappropriate for ITN. On the other hand, since I don't know anything about cycling, I wouldn't want to comment on whether a given drug suspension or new performance record in cycling is ITN-worthy.
I think the best way to go about addressing sports news is to see how news media are playing it. If it is the kind of thing that is front-page news (not sports-page news) across a wide area, it is probably OK for ITN. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 03:11, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
There should be something on this. A war has ended, and there's not even a mention of it in ITN. 122.255.2.61 ( talk) 01:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I really believe that the Ruth Padel story has little interest to any one outside of Britain, and in no way deserves more attention than say... the Sri Lankan conflict. I call for it to be removed. Colipon+( T) 07:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I am a British person and I too see nothing interesting in this story to the vast majority of non-poetry reading people from outside Oxford. The poet laureate entry was iffy but this is ridiculous. 92.139.44.5 ( talk) 22:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. And I'm also British. -- Dweller ( talk) 05:45, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Because of this edit history, I'm adding to "Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates" the following: "If it’s not already created (see below)." This is needed because the directions as they are, are obviously making it seem like the page has not already been created when it in fact it has.-- Chuck Marean 06:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The clock often referred to as Big Ben (actually it's the name of it's biggest bell) is 150 today. A nice curiosity for main page? -- Dweller ( talk) 09:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Can we please update the news section? The plane debris have been found off of the coast of Brazil, please read the article and update. It is not missing anymore, it's a real sea crash. Thanks, Shadiac ( talk) 23:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Federal Anti-Monopoly Service of Russia brings an action against Microsoft corporation for discontinuing Windows XP and setting different prises for retail and OEM versions of Windows. Source: http://www.fas.gov.ru/news/n_24516.shtml-- MathFacts ( talk) 19:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Because it's called "In the News," the items on ITN should be somewhat similar to those that Wikipedia readers are likely to find "in the news," that is, on the TV stations they watch, the newspapers they read and the Internet sites they visit. Sometimes, some editors may not like the fact that certain stories are "in the news" and would prefer that mass media outlets adopt a different standard of news judgment. But it is not for us to say what should be "in the news." Rather, ITN should reflect what is "in the news," whether we like it or not.
Compared to the news sources that English Wikipedia readers are likely to use, ITN has been heavily weighted toward events in obscure Third World countries and has demonstrated an extreme bias against news from the countries where most readers live. Most English Wikipedia readers live in the U.S. or UK, and thus most of the items "in the news" to them are from those countries. Yet relatively few ITN items come from the US or UK.
Now I'm not saying we should stop running items from obscure Third World countries. I like that quirky aspect of ITN. But I think that the constant rejection of items from the US especially and to a lesser extent from other English-speaking countries reflects a "POV" that major news sources in English-speaking countries are somehow wrong in their news judgment. And that's not a call we should be making. Something that is all over the TV, newspapers and news websites should be on ITN.
Take the example of the Barack Obama speech at Cairo University, 2009. A look at newspaper front pages on Friday finds the speech was front-page news in much of the world. The Toronto Star, in huge letters, called it "A speech that might change the world." A search at Google News finds more than 16,000 English-language news stories on the speech, compared to 199 for the Baciro Dabo assassination. Now when it was suggested for ITN, one of the editors mentioned that heads of state make speeches all the time, and of course that's true. But most political speeches don't generate 16,000 English-language news articles. An event that generates so much press is "in the news," whether we like it or not, and should go up at ITN.
Similarly, the Gordon Brown Cabinet shuffle gets 4,771 hits on Google News, compared to fewer than 400 for the news on Marc Ravalomanana. The Cabinet shuffle is huge news in many English-language publications and has been included even in publications distant from the UK. It should go up on ITN.
It's a credo on Wikipedia that decisions on what content to include should be based on objective criteria and not on personal biases. Thus, when determining whether an event should go up on ITN, we should use things like Google News English-language hits, Wikipedia:Popular pages and the story lists of major English-language news sources such as the AP and BBC. We can make some judgments about the importance of an event and give some extra-credit points to events in Third World countries for the sake of diversity. But we should not be imposing our own beliefs about what should be considered news, such as "It's not ITN-worthy unless it would also be considered ITN-worthy if the same thing happened in Country X." If it's "in the news," it should go on "In the News." -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 23:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
I would suggest to cancel information about the death of president of Gabon... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8088382.stm Leinad ( talk) 10:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Could a crop of this image of Obama be used, instead of the one currently being used; as it would allow the microphone to be removed from the picture. Gage ( talk) 03:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Why do new "In the news" items get inserted in the middle of the rest instead of on top ? it makes looking for new items harder. -- George ( talk) 21:16, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
That photo doesn't look like a protest to me. No one is carrying any signs. It's on an unidentified street. It doesn't seem to be in front of a government building. It looks like an accident from maybe a long time ago.-- Chuck Marean 17:30, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
The quote first official summit would be linked to 1st BRIC summit. Regards; Felipe Menegaz 16:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Why is there a link to some stupid gay pride festival in Shanghai? Are we going the have a link for each time a new carnival/procession/festival takes place? Chris DHDR 15:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
In my opinion, if you're going to include how many people were killed in the attack, that should come at the end of the headline ( to preach against it). As it is now, with it at the beginning, it sounds like you're trying to prove the world is bad. -- Chuck Marean 21:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
PS. Chuck is hardly the first person to complain about death at ITN - there was a lot of that earlier in the year. And he nominated Acropolis Museum which is currently on the Main Page and also found this today only for an IP to remove it. -- can dle • wicke 03:26, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Apparently, the story's become quite big in Argentina, too, and amazingly, the purported name of Sanford's Argentine lover is getting more Google searches than "Michael Jackson" or "Farah Fawcett": [7] -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 00:40, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi. I thought making Mr. Jackson's death an exception to be included ITN was too bad. But maybe because I don't own any of his records. I realize that some admins flew in out of nowhere to add it to the template. - SusanLesch ( talk) 16:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
I understand the need to keep ITN from becoming a daily obituary, but this was the biggest death since Pope John Paul II. The media coverage has been wall-to-wall in the U.S. and quite substantial worldwide. Even the stogy old BBC World News had a live interview with the gossip columnist from the National Enquirer about Jackson's eccentricities. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 02:41, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
The 35,000 year old flute discovery has its own article at Paleolithic flutes. Grundle2600 ( talk) 01:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
This is a large story, and is unlikely to leave for a bit. Is it policy to let last items fall out of the template, or is this an exception? -- Xavexgoem ( talk) 19:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
In the interest of counteracting systematic bias, someone removed the countries from all the cities mentioned in ITN. Then, in the interest of counteracting systematic bias, someone added the countries for all the cities mentioned in ITN. This is quite ridiculous. Is that what counteracting systematic bias means to you all? If we had a post about London or New York or Tokyo, would we need to add the countries for fear people didn't know where these alpha world cities are? Not all cities are equal, and I think the paranoia about appearing Amero-centric is getting ahead of the fact that we shouldn't over-describe things on the Main Page. Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and even Baghdad are all cities generally well-known enough to allow the countries to be omitted (and the same goes for a multitude of other cities -- Western, Eastern, and in between).
However, I don't want to suggest that no city should have a country qualification. It should be done on a case-by-case basis, instead of an all-or-nothing approach. -- tariqabjotu 05:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
It should be added that Bernard Madoff was just sentenced to 150 years in jail. -- 68.89.211.93 ( talk) 17:14, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Is there any way to remove the high white space in the row where the picture is? It looks asthetically unpleasing in my opinion. Green caterpillar ( talk) 02:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
For anyone that hasn't noticed, ITN is about 11 hours overdue for an update. MacMed talk stalk 03:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Some points which came to mind when reading the above. A "last check" could be added to the bottom of the already existing timer. What is the problem if BorgQueen (who does a lot of the updates at the moment) is only assisted by the timer? DYK is queued (and is already having enough difficulties) so how can it be made flexible to suit ITN? Items being held off - did this actually happen or was it because BorgQueen was the only admin updating and thus there is the pressure of so many items? Stats? There were 51 ITNs in February (28 days), there were 76 ITNs in May (31 days) - this does not lead me to think that the system is on its knees. Also, I'm sorry if I've been a bit slow at providing updates this week but this has nothing to do with the timer. I am always looking... what is everyone else doing? -- can dle • wicke 18:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we should have a precedent that all fatal train crashes are ITN material just because we had the Washington Metro one. I'm sure trains crash all the time somewhere in the world. And what about car and bus crashes? I mean CNN is reporting four teenagers died in a car crash in New Mexico -- does that trump the Chinese train crash with three dead? (Rhetorical question.) I think the Washington Metro crash was unusual because it likely generated a great amount of interest among Wikipedia users. Not only do a fair number of them live in the Washington area, but I'm sure a good chunk of Wikipedia users have been to Washington and been on the Washington Metro -- likely on the Red Line, the location of the trains that crashed. The same cannot be said of the train system in Hunan, China.
By no means do I believe we should ignore what happens in Third World countries. I think it's good that we have things like the Honduras coup, or whatever it was, even though it will generate only a fraction of the interest of, say, Michael Jackson's death. This is, of course, an encyclopedia, and it's good to draw attention to the breadth of Wikipedia's content.
But it simply shouldn't be true that if we list an event in Country X, we have to list an equivalent event if it happens in Country Y. No news medium works that way. Even those media that make a special effort to cover the whole world, like the BBC World Service and International Herald Tribune, don't work that way.
Every individual event should be considered on its own merits, with the key factors being the degree of interest among Wikipedia users in the event and the quality of the content that has been added to the Wikipedia articlespace about the event. -- Mwalcoff ( talk) 02:31, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I just don't see how the Bulgarian parliamentary elections deserves to be on the front page when legislative elections of larger nations don't make it, especially considering a legislative election of a larger nation, Mexico, precisely happened on the exact same day. Sourside21 ( talk) 20:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Several users have disagreed with posting Al Franken on ITN. Please seriously reconsider. (see below) Colipon+( T) 01:55, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
He was actually supporting the Franken story... Therequiembellishere ( talk) 07:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
To be really honest, I think the bias is not just American. I think another important bias that people have not pointed out is this overt obsession with politics. So much ITN is about this country's legislative election, that country's newly elected Prime Minister. With all due respect to sovereign nations like the Solomon Islands, their leadership changes just don't matter a whole lot to the rest of the world. It takes up room in ITN that can be dedicated to more pertinent stories. With Wikipedia's coverage of current events (especially more controversial topics) now a focal point of major global media and indeed, much of the world's English speaking population looking to get background information, it is important that ITN reflect pertinent stories that are important to the widest-ranging audience. Someone looking for the most pertinent news of the day should be able to come onto the Wikipedia main page and not have to dig thru the stories of Portal:Current Events to find what s/he is looking for.
To this end, I would actually suggest that under the current blurbs section, we add a small section on "Other topics in the news" right below it, and simply add links to other events that are going on (inspured by Google News). This will at most take two lines, allow the current trend of news blurbs to continue, and allow for much easier navigation. Thoughts? Colipon+( T) 16:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
This, food for thought from User:Madcoverboy: " WP:ITN embodies the sui generis potential of Wikipedia to not simply be replicative but transformative of how knowledge can be created and communicated. News of all types from across the world are often featured on ITN and expose readers to up-to-date, detailed, and high-quality encyclopedic articles to provide a context for issues that no newspaper can. Moreover, the active community of editors who participates there has developed a strong ethic and set of rules that allows them to weed out the trash new and infotainment that degrades and demeans journalism as an essential component of a free and open society and to instead focus on issues of international importance and encyclopedic interest." Colipon+( T) 17:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
The July 2009 cyber attacks page is going through a rough time at the moment. Its notability is being challenged at AFD and it's a very short and stubby article. While I understand there is a shortage of nominations for ITN, surely we don't want to be linking to an article of this standard from the Main Page ? - 212.139.90.81 ( talk) 22:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
The launch pad for STS-127 was not struck by lightning 11 times. There were 11 strikes within .35 miles of the pad which is distinctly different, though no less significant to the prospect of a launch tomorrow. I'm not sure what the wording should be, but this is a subtle inaccuracy that has been reported in several news media outlets. The article itself is correct, it's just the 'In the News' front page item that needs adjustment. Thanks, aremisasling ( talk) 04:55, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
The bulletin for the Space Shuttle's launch delay provides a link to the Wikipedia article on
launch pads (The launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour, carrying astronauts on the STS-127 mission, is delayed after its launch pad area was struck by lightning at least 11 times).
For the reader's sake would it not be more appropriate to change the linking to:
its launch pad, in order for the audience to learn more not about launch pads in general, but the actual platform being used for STS-127?
Ryandinho14+(
T)
16:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
There really needs to be a time limit on added future events to ITN. There is no reason to be adding stuff thats 7 months in the future. - CWY2190( talk • contributions) 01:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I have been off wikipedia for awhile, the format for suggesting ITN items is way different now. Can someone in the know please suggest Zac Sunderland? Just broke the record for youngest person to sail around the world solo. Top news on most US organizations right now, not sure about international coverage. (just checked, its on BBCs website too). A 17 year old circumnavigating (with an article going through updates about it) seems ITN worthy to me. Russeasby ( talk) 00:22, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
LATELY ONLY POLITICAL NEWS AND PEOPLE DYING/GETTING KILLED HAVE MADE IT TO THE itn; DO PEOPLE REALLY WANT TO REPLACE, OR PERHAPS MIRROR cnn.com? CAN THERE BE SOME GUIDELIENS ABOUT GETTING MORE COVERAGE FOR NEWS MORE PERTAINING TO AN ENCYCLOPEDIA? Nergaal ( talk) 02:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm appalled by the double standard. We didn't (and "shouldn't") wait "for a decade" when Iceland gets to be a EU member, yet we added the blurb when their parliament agreed to issue an application. WTF. Can somebody justify that in comparison to the element. – Howard the Duck 07:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
This section has been moved to
Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Hypothetical situations. --
can
dle
•
wicke
03:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
First of all, I apologize if this is the incorrect place to to post this, if so, please let me know so I can raise the issue in the appropriate area.
The current version of the headline posted on ITN is "India launches its first nuclear submarine INS Arihant, becoming the sixth country in the world that can construct the vessels." What concerns me is the word 'can'. It is a subjective statement, and implies that any country that hasn't done so is incapable of constructing such a vessel. However many countries, including for example, Canada, arguably have both the financial and human resources to produce their own versions of a nuclear submarine if their respective governments decided to.
Therefore, I propose the altering of the headline to the following: "India launches its first nuclear submarine INS Arihant, becoming the sixth country in the world to construct such a vessel."
Obviously, please comment with any other views on the issue. In addition, if consensus is reached, would someone more 'wikiwise' than myself alter the headline? Much appreciated.
-- Dbo789 ( talk) 03:55, 27 July 2009 (UTC)