Wikipedia talk:In the news

What number is big enough for ITN for underrepresented topics?

The 2015 editions of Grey Cup and Melbourne Cup have viewerships with ~12 mil and <3 mil viewerships respectively have been posted at ITN, largely in part because they are at ITNR. These events are of seemingly strictly national interest only, happen regularly and the viewership numbers are predictable.

I don't care to start a discussion on their merits being there, but I am wondering how should/does this translate to the numbers of people needing to be involved in events not featured at ITNR to make such entries are worthy enough for ITN. I am thinking of Adele's album which got 3+ mil sales in US alone (probably close to 4 mil worldwide), a number not heard in more than a decade, but ITN voters seem to be happy to it shoot down even though music and even non-TV media are some obviously underrepresented topics at ITN. I think there have been other similar entries that suffered a similar fate as a result of not being at ITNR, so I am wondering if there could/should be a guideline for when discussing non-ITNR items. Nergaal (talk) 22:00, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

There are only three criteria for ITN: 1) did it recently happen 2) Is the targeted article of sufficient quality and appropriately updated and 3) does it have consensus to post. I can find no other written rules previously negotiated or recorded anywhere on the ITN instruction pages. If you would like to add additional requirements on what can shed cannot be posted, in contravention of the three above principles, please start an RFC and see where consensus lies. --Jayron32 22:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Questions regarding consensus should not be brought up on the ITN talk page; as Jayron32 points out, it should be an RFC.--WaltCip (talk) 22:30, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry your nomination of Adele's latest oeuvre failed to chart with ITNC. But that's probably because it's not going to be remembered ever again until the record gets broken. It's trivia. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:51, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

How is it in any ways different form the current winner of the Grey Cup or Melbourne Cup? Aren't these essentially trivia also? Who is going to remember these winners in 10 years? At least the sales record (of a dying industry) was achieved after 15 years, while the winners of these cups gets refreshed each year. In athletics we post long-standing records, so why aren't we doing the same with media-related industries? Nergaal (talk) 08:32, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

We have ITNR for a reason. Why would record sales (in the US alone) be of any relevance to the main page of a global English-speaking encyclopedia? We have DYK for trivia like that. Seminal sports events like the Grey Cup or the Melbourne Cup are relevant to significant portions of the English-speaking world and will be forever. Adele's latest album is, well, meh. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Posting fastest music records would essentially do what you hate and trivialize Wikipedia. I guess you are for LeBron James being fastest to X points? Why are you so determined to put Adele on ITN?Correctron (talk) 22:53, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I am not, I am simply surprised of the bashing it received and feels to me like there are inconsistencies between that is worthwhile when it comes to ITNR vs non-ITNR items. If something is ITNR you aren't even allowed to mention a disagreement without getting nasty replies, while if you mention non-ITNR items (or at least items outside politics/sports/disasters) it feels like you have to write a whole essay at ITNC to have voters agree with it. Nergaal (talk) 08:26, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I think there're a lot of questions that an RfC could be useful for. There are far fewer people commenting on this page compared to ITN/C, suggesting the possibility of a wider consensus. Questions could include:

1. Whether an article needs to be regularly updated to be kept as "ongoing" or not;
2. Whether the rather regular complaints of systematic bias on ITN is a problem or not, and if it is, what could be done about it;
3. Whether the rather regular complaints of too much of a particular kind of news is a problem or not, and if it is, what could be done about it;
4. Whether ITN's environment is hostile, and if so, what could be done about it;
5. What qualifies as consensus and what does not (viz. should anything with >66% support be posted?) and how long to let a nomination run for;
6. Whether there should be defined standards on what can or cannot be supported / opposed (similar to section D of the ongoing RfC on 2015 administrator election reform), and if so, what they should be.

Speaking of the RfC on 2015 administrator election reform, I personally think ITN could use something similar, given the wide-ranging criticism I've seen of the process. Admittedly though, that is not something easily organized. Banedon (talk) 07:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

1 is covered at Wikipedia:In the news/Administrator instructions, "An accepted blurb may be transferred to the Ongoing section if small, incremental updates are still appearing in notable news agencies, and if regular constructive editing is continuing on the relevant article(s)." Consensus generally determines the amount of editing required for "regular constructive editing".

2 is a noted problem, though the solution, which is for people to improve and nominate articles from underrepresented areas, usually is harder and requires more work than simply complaining that there is a bias.

3 is also a noted problem, for the solution see #2

4 is a problem, the solution is for people to focus on building up the work of others, and not attacking others because their interests lie in areas they themselves don't have experience or interest in themselves

5 is the same as consensus across all of Wikipedia: Admins assess the quality and number of votes, possibly discounting votes which do not have substantive and valid rationales, and assess overall consensus. ITN works exactly like every other part of Wikipedia in this regard. If you wish to change the consensus model at Wikipedia, start a discussion somewhere like WP:CONSENSUS talk page. Good luck with that.

6 is partially covered by WP:CONSENSUS and partially covered by the ITN rules, as noted several places at ITN, such as the main ITNC header, which states several kinds of votes that are often discounted.

I hope that clarifies some of your questions. There are some outstanding issues, but many of them are already dealt with in existing documentation. --Jayron32 12:56, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Those aren't questions — they are things I think require a definite statement of consensus on. Right now we only have the informal opinions of a few people on this talk page, who collectively aren't even the majority of people contributing on ITN/C. It's evident (to me at least) that there's a fair amount of disapproval of current ITN practice. Right below this section for example is another person thinking that ITN needs reform. You say #3 is a problem, but four months ago on this page, three different editors proclaimed that it is not a problem. If the administrator instructions for #1 are to be taken literally, then George Ho's nominating "remove X / insert Y for ongoing?" on ITN/C is pointless, because the guidelines call for administrators to make the decisions on what goes into "ongoing", not get community consensus. In spite of #4 ITN has seen fights over UFC193, the Umpqua Community College shooting, etc, over the past few months. And in spite of #5, this nomination didn't get posted even though it had all supports with no oppose votes. If this were an article talk page, I'd conclude that there are enough indications of a lack of consensus that I'd attempt to get a clearer picture of what the community thinks.

Put another way: how can you be certain community consensus is that #3 is a noted problem with the solution being to improve and nominate articles from underrepresented areas? How do you know the community rejects, e.g., the idea that #3 is not a problem and therefore nothing should be done about it, or that ITN should be partitioned so that not more than (e.g.) two sports blurbs are listed at any particular time? If you think the consensus is that the status quo is flawed but still the best option for ITN, what is the justification for that? Banedon (talk) 01:46, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

There are two solutions to problems of bias/relative overrepresentation of certain topics 1) improve more articles on underrepresented topics or 2) deliberately tear down, worsen, or denigrate topics which are overrepresented. No other course of action will change the relative number of articles from various topics. I hope you recognize that only one of these actions is NOT obviously reprehensible. The rest of your post greatly mistakes how consensus building discussions happen. If we could set a set of rules which would guarantee there would never be disagreements, we would never need discussions, because the rules would have already predestined that conflict would never happen, and so a person following the rules as written would never have to ask anyone's opinion. If we presume that people are going to need to discuss to come to a consensus decision, we're going to come to the conclusion that sometimes, people aren't going to reach nice, unanimous agreements. Sometimes, they're going to disagree with each other. Also, if we presume that the only way we get to the right outcome is consensus building discussions; that means that my preferred outcome is not the default correct outcome. That has to be an assumption: sometimes I don't get my way. That doesn't mean everyone else screwed up. It just means I didn't end up on the side of consensus. Too many times, people presume that their opinion is the default correct opinion, and that all other opinions are wrong. That's not how opinion works. The third issue is your misunderstanding of randomness and coincidence. Sometimes, two important sporting events occur on the same day. Sometimes, we go a few weeks without a major sporting event. Sometimes we get two major elections in quick succession. Sometimes we go a few weeks without one. Sometimes we get two major disasters in the same week. Sometimes we go a long time without them. ITN is not screwed up because occasionally two sporting events happen near each other. It is neither possible, nor desirable, to engineer an ITN feed which assures that there is never a coincidence of similar events. Because life doesn't work that way. --Jayron32 02:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

We may be talking past one another. I'll split your post into two parts and address them one at a time. The first about bias / relative overrepresentation: it's certainly possible to think of more ways to solve that problem (if it is indeed a problem, which a substantial number of contributors probably do not think it is). For example, elections are listed as ITN/R. If three countries host elections on the same day however, a person who feels there is too much political news might oppose featuring the elections of the country with the smallest population (or the one that is least interesting, smallest geopolitical impact, etc — his or her subjective criteria). This is not an opinion that will sit well with everybody, for certain. Some people will accuse Wikipedia of bias against small countries, some might say elections should always be featured because they have far more lasting impact for the country than whoever won the Davis Cup, yada yada blah blah. But acknowledging that it is acceptable to oppose a nomination because of overrepresentation makes it possible to oppose the nomination. Right now that is not possible and will just lead to people saying "this is ITN/R, if you don't like it propose it for deletion on that page". But the person isn't opposing elections as ITN/R, just opposing featuring three elections at the same time. I'll pose the question again for this specific example: suppose five countries host elections at the same time, and all five articles are updated satisfactorily. Under current ITN procedures, all five will (must) be featured, leaving no room for other news. How can you be certain that the community feels this is preferable to (say) featuring only two election results so there is space for other blurbs?

The other part about your post is about consensus. I agree with what you wrote about consensus, in general. I've wound up on the wrong end of consensus many times already, and generally speaking I accept that as inevitable. The problem is that in this case I'm seeing no evidence of consensus. I suspect that the honest answer to the question posed in the above paragraph is, "I don't know. I think the community prefers XYZ, but I have no hard evidence". If I'm correct about that answer, then I think there are grounds to seek that hard evidence. ITN regularly sees people popping up, criticize some part of process, and then leaving in a huff. It's easy to say "good riddance, don't let the door hit you on the way out", but I think this is evidence that a substantial fraction of the community does not like the status quo. If you do actually have evidence that the status quo is the community's preferred option, please share it. Banedon (talk) 04:07, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't aware we were talking past one another. I thought we were talking with one another. I'm not sure there's a "substantial fraction of the community" that does not like the status quo. I think there's a substantial fraction of people who say something that don't like the status quo, but "people who take the time to say something" is not equal to "the community", especially where there is a well documented and natural tendency among humanity to only say something if you yourself want change; people who agree with the status quo don't just pop in from time to time to announce their approval. They just, you know, let it happen assuming that the status quo doesn't need their commentary to keep on happening. It's only those people who don't like the status quo who speak up. The only people who say something are people who have a problem, but that doesn't mean that just because you hear more of those voices that necessarily means those voices are significant in number, just significant in volume. They could be statistically insignificant, but they're the only voices anyone ever hears. --Jayron32 04:24, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

They certainly could be statistically insignificant, but again, how can you be sure? Banedon (talk) 04:29, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not. The difference is, I always start with the null hypothesis, because I don't assume that any proposition is true without evidence one way or another. You seem to be proposing that there's a problem. I'm not saying there is, I'm not saying there isn't. I'm just saying we shouldn't say anything based on the voices of those with axes to grind. Those people are certainly, demonstratedly, and measurably insignificant compared to the people who said nothing. --Jayron32 04:34, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

That's why I said we're talking past one another — we're not actually talking about the same thing. I do not outright propose that there is a problem: I propose instead that there are sufficient reasons to think there may be a problem. Hence I want to test if there is a problem. It's entirely possible that such a test will show that there is no problem, in which case we do nothing. But I think that without the test we do not have sufficient reason to say that there is no problem. Science analogy: perihelion precession of Mercury. When the first measurements were performed there appeared to be an anomalous shift. It could be measurement error, or it could indicate something deeper. I propose to run further checks. The alternative is to assume Newtonian mechanics is correct, dismiss the measurements as flawed in some way, and do nothing. In the context of this discussion that translates to "assume the majority is in favour of the status quo, they just do not say so". Banedon (talk) 05:06, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Regarding what I claimed are "known problems", there have been studies already done. That's why we know of problems. Examples can be found at articles titled things like Racial bias on Wikipedia and Gender bias on Wikipedia and there's a WikiProject dedicated to tackling these issues, quite outside of ITN, Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. So when I said above that things are a known problem, it's not because I'm guessing or expressing my opinion based on my own (very limited) observations. The WikiMedia Foundation has done studies; independent groups have done studies, and these are actually known problems based on the published work of others. We don't need more data; we have it. Well, more data may be useful (it usually is), but it isn't like we're working blind here. --Jayron32 15:49, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

That's a bit tangential to what I'm saying. It is known that Wikipedia has systematic bias, but we're talking about ITN. The most common kind of bias seen here is country-specific, viz [1] and the just-posted 2015 San Bernardino shooting nomination. The question then becomes whether it's acceptable to oppose a nomination because one feels it is country-specific, but often when someone does that on ITN/C, they've been shouted down and referred to the 'please do not complain about an event only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one' guideline. Unless you can confidently say that the community thinks or does not think that country-specific news is a problem, I think we need more data. This is only one example as well. There are other issues to resolve like whether a single type of news dominating ITN is a problem (you said it is earlier, Dweller below just said it isn't), whether an ongoing event like the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference should be posted to ongoing or only when news comes out of that event, etc. Take the recent Japanese whaling nomination. When it was first nominated, some people said wait till the ships leave port. When the ships left port, MurielMary nominated the item again. This is actually quite rare. Instead for items like the Northern White Rhino nomination, some people said wait till it actually goes extinct. But what if it goes extinct and there's no significant news coverage then? Many of the "wait" positions seem functionally equivalent to "oppose" for this reason. Is that a problem? The San Bernardino shooting nomination was posted in three (!) hours, during which half the world was asleep and so unable to comment. Is that a problem? These are all things an RfC could solve. Banedon (talk) 01:14, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, these are all things a half dozen or more RFCs could solve. One RFC would be a confused CF of a mess, and would get nowhere. I think that's part of the problem. Your noted issues are all unfocused and all over the map. Lets tackle one issue at a time. RFCs work when they are narrowly focused to a single issue, and carefully define a proposed solution. They go fantastically badly when you try to fix all the problems at one go. Just in one post, you just now 1) country-specific news 2) even distribution of genre 3) clarifying the purpose of "Ongoing...", 4) the problem with "wait..." votes 5) timing between nominations and posts. We can't possibly discuss all of these problems simultaneously and come to any meaningful fix for any of them. Pick one. Ask a single question about it. See where consensus lies. This sort of shotgun approach to dealing with everything at once is why this is going badly for you. --Jayron32 02:50, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree. The issues are intertwined and can be solved in one RfC as opposed to many (which also takes much more time). The same group of people commenting on one proposal are also most likely to be interested in another proposal. I propose to model the RfC with many questions similar to the ongoing RfC on RfA reform, will take some time to draft it though. Banedon (talk) 11:01, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

You're wrong. At least two of those relate to administrators ability to gauge consensus. That's Wikipedia-wide, we don't need a localised variation at ITN for that. Poor debate style is WIkipedia-wide, we don't need a localised variation at ITN for that. Systemic bias is Wikipedia-wide, we don't need a localised variation at ITN for that. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:34, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The question is badly posed: there is no specific number. Proposals are decided by consensus and judged on their own merits, not bean counting of the number of people involved/watching/interested. Modest Genius ^talk 12:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Jayron's answers are spot on. Most of the original questions are handled by Wikipedia's guidelines and policies. Is there actually anything here that is worth an RFC given that? Having said that, I'd love to see how much of the community's time would be destroyed by an RFC about ITN, which I predict, right now, would change absolutely nothing because all ITN does is reflect community consensus, admin assessments of consensus and the usual subjective arguments you see at any part of Wikipedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Please let's not have a massively disruptive RfC on any of this - it would just open a can of worms, generate more heat than light, and distract everyone from actually working on nominations and updating articles. More importantly, there doesn't actually seem to be a problem that it would aim to resolve. Wow lots of clichés in my comment here. Modest Genius ^talk 16:01, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

If the discussion two sections below are anything to go by, we don't need a massively disruptive RfC to generate more heat than light. With that said, I don't believe problems should be avoided because they are hard to solve. Better to get it out of the way than leave it festering just underneath the surface. Banedon (talk) 11:01, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Realistically speaking I don't have time to compose the big, all-inclusive RfC I originally envisaged. Therefore if I have to initiate and move the RfC, it'll have to be a smaller version, and so I propose to focus on what I think is the most contentious and most often criticized point: #3 in the original six I listed. I propose this wording:

ITN is occasionally dominated by news of a single type, which is a consequence of several newsworthy items of that type happening at the same time. Should ITN have in-built controls against this happening?

This would result in a yes / no question. A "No" consensus would maintain the status quo. "Yes" would leave the preferred solution unclear but it would be a bridge we can cross when we get there. Need help with 1) whether a different issue should be discussed instead; 2) checking this RfC wording for neutrality; 3) opinions on whether explicit examples of dominance from ITN's history should be given; 4) closing the RfC below, so there are not two different RfCs on the same page. I personally think the issue raised by George Ho is a very minor one that doesn't need to be advertised as a RfC, but it's not mine to close it. Banedon (talk) 03:27, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• I would vote "No" to any such RFC, because of apophenia: "Apophenia is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data." Correcting for random variation is not the role of Wikipedia. The alternative is to force exactly one story of each of some arbitrary set of categories, which misrepresents both how real events happen (mostly randomly) and also the purpose of ITN, which is merely to highlight quality Wikipedia articles on current events. Sometimes, two major elections happen on the same day. It is really not a problem to link to both in ITN if we have quality articles on both. We can't fix the disorganized nature of major news events by merely forcing some artificial order on ITN. --Jayron32 03:50, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
• No. ITN is part of Wikipedia, it doesn't need special rules. Community consensus is all that's important. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:11, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Is it just me or are you two voting before the RfC is actually posted? Banedon (talk) 01:50, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

No, we're just trying to save you and the community a lot of wasted time. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:37, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

You could do that by closing the RfC two sections below this. Banedon (talk) 08:47, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Since no-one has commented on that for over a week, it's hardly wasting any time. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:09, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Excess reporting on Sports (ITN)

This has been discussed before, as I have seen through the archive, but no decisions or actions have been taken. To set some context for this, the current ITN section reads as follows:

• The International Monetary Fund approves adding China's renminbi to its basket of reserve currencies.
• In tennis, the Davis Cup concludes with Great Britain (captain Leon Smith pictured) defeating Belgium in the final.
• In Canadian football, the Edmonton Eskimos defeat the Ottawa Redblacks to win the Grey Cup.
• A bomb attack on a bus kills 14 presidential security guards in Tunis, Tunisia.
• A Russian Su-24 warplane is shot down by a Turkish Air Force F-16 near the border between Turkey and Syria.
• American Pfizer and Irish Allergan agree to a merger that will create the world's largest pharmaceutical company.

The two sports-related stories seem very unremarkable compared to the other ones. The reason for this is that the sports-related stories can be predicted to be news next year and the following as well. There is nothing especially noteworthy about these stories. If, however, this was the 10th or 100th (or some important number) time that the Edmonton Eskimos win the Grey Cup, then THAT would be noteworthy compared to the stories it is around. A Russian plane taken down by the Turkish Air Force is such an incredibly once-in-a-lifetime kind of event that it will be discussed and investigated for many decades. Although I love my soccer team, and would love to see them up there every time they win a Champion's League, we should hold these selected stories to a similar standard of notability.

I want to propose the following rules of thumb to help us lessen this excess in sports reporting. Let's discuss them, throw some out, add some new ones, but finally end with a reasonable working consensus:

• As a blanket rule, let's not report on winning any tournament/league, in any sport, that occurs every year.
• Let's focus on special notable things like: "Michael Phelps wins a record breaking 8 gold medals in the 2008 summer olympics", "Sachin Tendulkar, record-holding cricket player (can be more specific), announces his retirement from the sport", or "Real Madrid wins the 2014 UEFA Champions League for a total of 10 total wins, the most in the league's history". By only reporting these kind of stories, we will also not have as much of a bias towards sports popular in certain countries. It's clear that important news stories get attention here regardless of the sport, but not-so-noteworthy ones are only represented when it's a sport popular in english speaking countries. This could potentially solve that.
• It's ok if the ITN section does not have a sports story. We don't need to use it as filler.
• Anything else??

Please take the time to think about this and reply with your views.

Thanks! Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 21:15, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

The content on ITN changes day by day. Now there are two out of six blurbs that are sport related. I don't see a problem with that. One is ITN/R, meaning it has been deemed worthy of posting every year, and the other was posted based on editor consensus. They're not "filler", they're sporting news stories. As for your "blanket rule" of not posting sporting championships, that's silly. The Super Bowl, NBA Finals, World Series, Premier League etc. championships will be posted year after year. If you want to see fewer sports items posted, nominate non-sports items in the news. If you have an issue with a specific ITN/R posting, suggest it be removed at the appropriate talk page. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

We have a list of items that will be posted as long as they are adequately updated, it's called WP:ITNR (which stands for "in the news, recurring items"). Often, these sports items conclude and are posted at roughly the same time, hence the multiple appearances on the main page. In any case, this, like the rest of Wikipedia, works by consensus. If you'd like to contribute to the ITN section, please feel free to nominate articles at WP:ITNC. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

The idea of recurring sports events being unimportant does not represent a majority view. You and I may think that sports don't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but billions of others would disagree. A significant number of people believe sporting events are very important, thus why there is so much coverage of it. This interest often translates into high article quality of even seemingly esoteric events, like The Boat Race. ITN is designed to showcase quality articles that are in the news, and this should apply to any topic notable enough for an article & consensus at ITNR/C. Mamyles (talk) 22:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

@Hamsterlopithecus: Kinda what Mamyles said. Everyone has some sort of content on Wikipedia that they find unimportant or even offensive. If we start getting into judgement calls on what is 'important' other people will inevitably be disappointed and angry. If you don't like what is posted to ITN, I invite you to participate in discussions at WP:ITNC or make your own nominations there. That's the way to change what is posted, not arbitrary judgement calls. 331dot (talk) 22:29, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

As to "sports popular in certain countries", that is irrelevant, as the vast majority of events posted to ITN only involve a single country. We specifically discourage that type of argument in ITNC discussions(see the "Please do not.." section on that page). Now, if your argument is that certain events do not get lots of news coverage in general, that's a valid point. 331dot (talk) 22:31, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

If we restrict ITN to once-in-a-lifetime events, the section will frequently become stale, and miss out on a decent number of well-updated articles. It's also a slippery slope: just because sporting related items occur with known regularity, should we similarly restrict election items as well? I generally lean more toward inclusivity on ITN, toward posting more items, assuming they have the requisite updates. Spencer^T♦C 23:15, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Please note that the definition of "unremarkable" is not "personally not interesting to me". If we can come to an agreement on that, the rest of the complaint seems irrelevant. --Jayron32 02:45, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• TRM correctly points out the underlying problem, WP:ITNR with whole swathes of events added at once, rather than every item on that list having been approved in its own RfC. Every item there which was not added by its own exclusive RfC should be removed until an individual RfC is held to restore it. This does not, of course, mean that items wouldn't get posted. It would simply mean items with significant opposition wouldn't get posted in a mere 4 hours. μηδείς (talk) 03:00, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

  What she said. --Dweller (talk) 11:56, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I don't see any problem per se with any topic occasionally proliferating, so long as each individual item has been properly assessed. If we had, perchance, six election results from around the world to report on in three days, so be it. Editors do seem to try to reasonably balance things, so no topic completely dominates at one time. --Dweller (talk) 11:54, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
• This suggestion was posted around the time that another use was commenting on the candidates page that some stories should be pulled because we had too many politics items and too many terrorism items. You can't please everybody all of the time etc. In general, these things sort themselves out over time. I'd note also that posting retirements of sporting figures (for example) is not universally appreciated because some leading players have a habit of unretiring, so I doubt we'd easily get consensus on what "special notable" sports stories were. Bencherlite^Talk 14:54, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Surprised to find that MMA/UFC made ITN. It's enjoying something of a vogue but nevertheless is pretty niche. Doesn't strike me as appropraite content for ITN. I'm not really sure it meets the stated requirements for being ITN "The In the news (ITN) section on the main page serves to direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest." I don't see any articles that have been substantially updated and I wouldn't consider MMA wide interest.Mattojgb (talk) 17:47, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• In the future, you can fix this problem by preventing reliable sources from posting MMA results. --Jayron32 18:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Did it make the back page anywhere? (Other than Ireland maybe and niche publications) 95.150.97.184 (talk) 21:21, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Size of headings of nominations

Currently, ==== Event ==== (level-four) and === Event === (level-three) are used inconsistently. However, the level-four headings are often used because the instructions say so. With both usages intertwined, editing may be affected. Shall we change from level-four to level-three headings in instructions and all other nominations? --George Ho (talk) 00:47, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Why not just make the level threes level fours and leave the instructions alone? I don't see the issue here. 331dot (talk) 00:57, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The headings of dates are level-two. What about MOS:HEAD? --George Ho (talk) 01:04, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, I get it now. Unless there is some reason that four is used, I don't see why it shouldn't be changed. 331dot (talk) 01:08, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Actually, the incongruous thing is the use of a level-1 heading for the "Suggestions" bar. If we dropped that down to level-2 like all of the other headings, dates would be level 3, and noms would be level 4, and the world would be a happy place. Can someone explain the technical reason for the headings levels? --Jayron32 01:36, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

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Level-3 headings would carry level-4 headings as subsections, like what they do in articles. You know, a lv.-2 heading carries lv.-3 headings, and a lv.-3 heading carried lv.-4 headings. Id est A section carries subsections. If that is not enough, some people would prefer putting the size of a heading to level three... for convenience and tendency and urge? Did I explain well, Jayron? --George Ho (talk) 01:42, 3 December 2015 (UTC) You did, entirely unnecessarily. I understand how numbers work. I'm older than 2. I've also been here at Wikipedia for a decade longer than you. But your condescension is noted, and thank you kindly for revealing your true personality and character. If you want to answer that question you asked elsewhere about why people treat you with animosity, you should perhaps examine what you just did right there. If you are capable of stepping back and looking at your actions just now, you'll answer your own question in that regard. Now, let me restate what I said above. The current system goes "Suggestions" = Level 1 Dates = Level 2 Noms = Level 4. The current system has no level 3 headings. Also, level 1 headings are rare at Wikipedia without some cause. Almost all of Wikipedia uses Level 2 as the primary section header, and goes down from there. The entire system gets fixed if we put "Suggestions" down to level 2 and "Dates" down to level 3, leaving noms at level 4. Though there may be some technical reason (perhaps having to do with archiving) that the current system, which goes against normal Wikipedia standards, is in place. As I don't deal with programming the archiving bots, they may require dates to be level 2 headings, and thus force the odd "1-2-4" system we currently have instead of the expected "2-3-4" system that normal Wikipedia standards would require. I was hoping someone could explain the technical reasons why we have the current 1-2-4 system; though I suspect the reason may be "no good reason at all", I don't presume there isn't something I'm missing. --Jayron32 01:54, 3 December 2015 (UTC) I was hoping a compliment, but I got a scolding instead. I got better things to do than arguing with you or Rambing Man. George Ho (talk) 02:08, 3 December 2015 (UTC) Compliment you for treating someone like a two-year old and explaining how sequential numbers work, apropos of nothing? Yeah, that's a good way to get people to build up your ego. --Jayron32 02:09, 3 December 2015 (UTC) The more I get to know the News community, the less I have in common with. If this discussion results in full opposition, then I guess my role in News will be severely reduced to just marking "Ready" and proposing names of recently deceased and additions and removals of ongoing events. The blurbs are no longer my thing other than spelling out figures and balancing the Main Page and spelling corrections. I wanted to be friends with this community, but I guess I'm too good for this. George Ho (talk) 02:21, 3 December 2015 (UTC) No one has opposed you. I certainly haven't. You noted a problem. I suggested a possible solution. Out of the blue, and with no provocation, you treated me like a child and tried to explain how fucking headers work. AFTER I AGREED WITH YOU AND SUGGESTED A SOLUTION. If that's how you treat people who agree with you 100%, I shudder to think what your response will be to the person who actually disagrees with you. --Jayron32 02:25, 3 December 2015 (UTC) Sorry, I didn't mean to treat you like a child. You are experienced, thank you. I assumed wrong when I don't know someone who shares common sense. Let's forget that this belittling conversation ever happened, okay? George Ho (talk) 02:34, 3 December 2015 (UTC) Agreed. It was not becoming of either of us. I apologize as well. I'll hat this, and we can allow the rest of the discussion to develop and see how to fix the problem you noted. --Jayron32 02:43, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Just to summarize the problem noted by George Ho above: there appears to be an inconsistency in practice with the level of header for nominations; level-3 and level-4 headers seem to be used interchangeably, and it probably needs a fix. The instructions appear to ask for a level 4 header, but that would leave us jumping directly from level-2 to level-4 with no inbetween; and that confuses people, leading to the mismatched headers we have now. It appears that two solutions have been proposed; I'm not favoring either (even the one I proposed) but we probably need to wait for additional input. The first solution proposed, by George, is to change the instructions to make noms a level-3 header, so we don't have the confusing instructions. The second solution, by myself, is to move the "suggestions" section to a level 2 header, the dates to level-3 headers, and keep the noms at level-4. Either seems fine to me. Other solutions, or support for either of these plans, are invited. --Jayron32 02:43, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
• Another solution looking for a problem. Why not focus on the quality of nominations and their associated articles rather than this meaningless and endless quest to find miniature faults with the system. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:32, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

This crops up from time to time. I thought it had something to do with the bot archiving (are the levels different on the archive pages?) but I don't think anyone fully explained how or why. I agree it would be nice to be consistent, but be careful to avoid breaking something. Modest Genius ^talk 13:15, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Please post this

• The Japanese space probe Akatsuki successfully enters orbit around Venus, using only its attitude control thrusters.--LL221W (talk) 03:02, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

I've nominated this on your behalf, the rest is up to ITN. Banedon (talk) 03:08, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Ongoing: Too much confusion?

I am wondering if the Ongoing line is becoming too much trouble to be worth it. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding or confusion as to what it is actually for, which at least some thinking it is for any event in progress, when it is only supposed to be for an incrementally updated article where the updates would not merit posting on their own, but do collectively. Not sure what can be done, if anything. 331dot (talk) 11:11, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

• Suggestions: (1) Add something better about "ongoing" to Wikipedia:In the news. (2) Add a short hidden comment to {{ITN candidate}} pointing to it, e.g. <!-- "Ongoing" is not for all ongoing events, but only for incrementally updated articles where the updates would not merit posting on their own, but do collectively. See [[WP:ITN]] for more details. -->. (3) Say a few words at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/header to the same effect. Bencherlite^Talk 14:21, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
  • I'd suggest doing any or all of that. Note, however, that posting instructions does not actually improve anything. That is, even if we post instructions, people will still be confused at exactly the same rate as currently. However, what posting instructions does do is allow us to make them feel bad for not reading them, and/or to make ourselves feel morally superior because we did. --Jayron32 14:30, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
    • However, if we don't have a better explanation of ongoing than we do at present, then the ITN regulars are effectively keeping the rules to themselves, and making others feel bad that they're not part of the club. I don't think that that's a preferable approach. Bencherlite^Talk 14:51, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

I think we need to be clear is that Ongoing should be used for mid-term (from a week to a few months) events where there would otherwise be frequent posting to ITN, or where events are otherwise rapidly changing in the real world that necessitate changes and updates to the target articles. Note this last part is different from where a news story may be in the news and the article is getting updated but the event itself is relatively stable: things like the Indian floods present or the immigrant crisis are "stable" but still widely reported news events and thus fail this test for Ongoing. Considering the ur examples of Ongoing have been things like the Olympics and FIFA World Cup, I would also argue that the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the disappearance of MH380, the crashes of that plane in the Ukraine as well as the recent MetroJet, all those would have a reasonable week in the Ongoing line as the stories were actively developing during that time, so if the news blurb dropped off the list, they could be there for a few added days. But not indefinitely. Otherwise, we're using just the "in the news and frequently updated" as a metric which is a bad one as I could easily argue that we should have a 2016 US Presidential Election ongoing that would last through the year given the volume and update frequency of the news; but in considering the stability of the news, it would fail that. --MASEM (t) 15:11, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

• Per this discussion, I've boldly added more information to WP:ITN regarding most of our agreed upon standards for what is posted in each part of ITN, presuming the sort of questions we frequently get, regarding the posting of Blurbs, Pictures, Ongoing, and RDs. --Jayron32 15:29, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Can I revert the instructions back to what it was? There isn't a consensus yet to improve instructions. Also, they give administrators more superiority than they deserve. --George Ho (talk) 22: 12, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't do that if I were you. This is not a bureaucracy, we empower admins to gauge consensus and to trust them to do things like not destroy Wikipedia. If you think admins shouldn't be trusted to do these kind of tasks (which has always been the case), please open a Wikipedia-wide RfC to reduce their "superiority" and constrain their "superpowers"!! (P.S. it simply reflects what happens, it doesn't give admins anything more than is already happening...) The Rambling Man (talk) 22:31, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

How would "European migrant crisis" and "Syrian Civil War" adhere to current instructions of Ongoing? Also, the Blurbs instructions wouldn't make Russian Anti-Doping Agency qualified for Main Page's ITN, would it? Also, what about fire at one of Azerbaijan's oil fields? I like previous "Death" instructions more than current RD instructions. The previous allowed lesser known Ranjit Roy Chaudhury to be honorably mentioned than the current instructions would. --George Ho (talk) 22:44, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Striking out previous comment about RD ticker, "famous people" looks as if Western figures have been mentioned more than non-Westerners. Ranjit Roy Chaudhury wasn't famous, but he was very important doctor in India. And he was featured in the Main Page. George Ho (talk) 00:17, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

As noted above, We don't have to wait for a discussion to actually do anything and policy and guideline pages are written to reflect existing practice, they do not create practice. Is there any long standing practice I have written there that you disagree with? Not in the "I don't like this practice" sense but in the "I don't think that's how it actually works" sense. If so, lets talk about that. But at Wikipedia, we don't sit around and wait for consensus to make every little change, if there is a substantive disagreement and there is some contention then we discuss. But in absence of contention, there's no need to discuss. Of course, if what I wrote needs tweaking in terms of wording, feel free to do so. And if there's something I've written that does NOT reflect current practice, lets discuss that. But please do not just go undoing willy-nilly simply because you didn't get to vote on something. If we waited for that, we'd never get anything done around here. Also, I am going to disagree with something TRM said: Whether or not I am an admin should have nothing at all to do with whether or not you should accept or not accept what I have done. If the text I added had been added by someone without the admin bit, you shouldn't revert it for the exact same reason you shouldn't revert it when I did it. --Jayron32 00:24, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and "European migrant crisis" and "Syrian Civil War" adhere to the second point "Any story may be proposed for an "ongoing" link through the normal use of the nomination page, subject to the usual standards of community consensus." We discussed it, and there was consensus to do what we did. --Jayron32 00:50, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

The description of "Ongoing" right now does not mesh with what's happening in practice. Example: the 2015 South Indian floods nomination. The description right now implies that a continuously updated article that is also in the news will be listed as ongoing. However the nomination is being opposed because "that floods require clean-up is not something notable or unusual or even encyclopedic", "not seeing anything significant about the aftermath", and "ongoing is not meant for this type event, where the only changes made to the article are updates in casualties and damage(or the effort to clean it up, as stated)". None of these deal with the two main requirements, i.e. none of these oppose votes either say that the article is not being updated or the item is not in the news. In fact the third oppose vote implies that there are further criteria before an article is featured. In other words, if the current description is accurate policy then all three of these oppose votes are invalid, while if these oppose votes are valid, the current description is not accurate policy. Banedon (talk) 01:49, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

No, it is exactly current policy. Read it again. Ongoing, bullet point 2, states "Any story may be proposed for an "ongoing" link through the normal use of the nomination page, subject to the usual standards of community consensus." Does it have consensus to post? If it does, it will be posted. If it does not have consensus, it will not be posted. That's how consensus works. Also the definition of "valid" is not "agrees with me". People are quite allowed to vote how they see fit, and that someone has a rationale you don't personally agree with does not make their rationale instantly invalid. --Jayron32 02:16, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps rewording the principle for clarity can avoid discussions of confusion. --George Ho (talk) 02:19, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

What phrasing would you find clearer than what is currently written? "Normal use of the nomination page subject to the usual standards of community consensus" with community consensus linked to WP:CONSENSUS seems fairly unambiguous. What do you suggest we say other than "We talk about it, and we do what people agree on". --Jayron32 02:22, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, no need for further clarity. I added just an example. --George Ho (talk) 02:29, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Are you implying that it is "valid" to oppose certain stories because of a perceived country bias, "People are quite allowed to vote how they see fit" and all that? Banedon (talk) 02:34, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

No, no, no. Jayron probably meant that aftermaths of shootings and floodings may not be worthy enough to merit a listing. --George Ho (talk) 02:39, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

No one is saying you can't say that. However, the flip side is that people are quite allowed to also argue that you are wrong. Freedom to speak ones mind works both ways; being allowed to make an argument also means that other people are allowed equally to claim your argument is in error. Past results have indicated that people generally dislike arguments based on anti-ethnic/cultural/national rationales which are unrelated to the prominence of a story or the quality of the article. --Jayron32 02:52, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Sure, except when it comes to closing the nomination, it's often implied that opposing something because of country bias is flat out invalid and the vote not counted. Barring the fact that this simply makes people lie about why they are opposing a nomination, it also implies that there are valid and invalid reasons to oppose or support a nomination. The description makes no mention of that, plus it implies that the three oppose votes for this particular nomination are invalid. Banedon (talk) 03:58, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I reworded the phrase in response. --George Ho (talk) 05:12, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Are you implying that it is good for us to consider anti-ethnic bias and outright bigotry as equally as important as rationales based on article quality? Because it sounds like you're defending the notion that all rationales are equally just and right (which they aren't) and you're specifically noting ethnic or national origin issues as ones which should be given more weight. Can you please clarify, because until now I've assumed you're a reasonable person, but you seem to be saying something unreasonable: that anti-ethnic bigotry is as good of a reason as any other to oppose something... That can't be what you're saying, so please tell me it isn't. --Jayron32 12:54, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I took Banedon to be saying quite the opposite - that anti-ethnic bigotry is an example of a invalid reason to oppose. I think you are talking past each other. Neljack (talk) 23:35, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes and no, to some extent. But we are treading on thin ice here: Jayron32's post is subtly manipulative in the sense that it encourages people to agree with him, because not agreeing is unreasonable. Let's not go there.

I was not aiming to express an opinion when I wrote what I did. However, I'll take a position now: I think people should be allowed to vote however they wish for whatever reason they think is valid. That's because being told why I am allowed or not allowed to support or oppose a nomination is something I find distasteful. It's also pointless because it'll simply make people (once they realize it) lie about why they support or oppose something. Let's take as an example Trump's statement that Muslims should not be allowed into the USA, and assume that it is bigotry. However if he wins the next US presidential election anyway, then he is perfectly justified to push that law into being even though it is bigotry, because the will of the majority is behind him. In the same way Wikipedia works by consensus. If consensus is that it is OK to oppose a nomination because of anti-ethnic bias or outright bigotry — in the sense that the majority of people oppose a nomination for those reasons — then that's the way the wind blows. We trust that there are enough enlightened people around to keep ITN honest. Semi-related ongoing RfC on this: [2]

All that is somewhat tangential to improving the policy writeup for this section, however. Whatever the policy may eventually be, the section should say so clearly. I have pointed out what I think is wrong with the section. I get the feeling that what was intended is that every item must be 1) continuously updated and 2) frequently in the news to even be considered (if a nomination doesn't, it is snow closed for example), but if it meets those two criteria then it's up to consensus. If this is so, the text should be worded as such. With that said I'll go ahead and say that I do not think an article has to be continuously updated to be featured as ongoing; frequently in the news suffices. Banedon (talk) 01:30, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

People are allowed to vote "I don't like the French, so I am opposing this" and no one will remove their vote. It is a statement of fact to say that "admins will ignore this rationale when assessing consensus". --Jayron32 11:45, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

WP:BEANS: While bigotry may always be a fact of life, forcing one to at least be creative and WP:CIVIL to carry out their agenda is not something we should be worrying about. People will always vote how they want, but we can still publish best practices for the majority that probably want to be more constructive, and telling them that their !vote will be discounted is not exactly telling them they will be banned from Wikipedia for it.—Bagumba (talk) 02:38, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand. If we tell someone that their vote will be discounted, what's stopping them from modifying their vote in response? Suppose an editor opposes a nomination because (s)he perceives an overall pro-Spanish bias in ITN. So (s)he votes that way, then gets told the vote won't be counted. Now wiser, the next time (s)he opposes a nomination, what is stopping him or her from saying (using the current nomination about Spanish galleon San Jose as an example) "oppose per The Rambling Man"? In fact if one reads ITN long enough, it's not hard to come up with a pseudo-valid reason to oppose any nomination, e.g. something like "Oppose, I just don't see how this is significant enough" is sufficiently vague as to apply to anything. Banedon (talk) 05:55, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Nothing is stopping them. It's like what's to stop someone from saying they are older to get a senior discount, a minor from ordering a drink at the bar, an employer who doesnt want to hire a <pick_group_to_discriminate-against>, an editor who wants to sock, etc. I understand your point, but the reality is that any system for anything—Wikipedia or not—can be gamed, but we don't need to make it any easier than it has to be. Really, there are a lot of editors that have no filter even if they "should" know, so why reward them?—Bagumba (talk) 06:18, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

We agree to disagree then. We both agree the policy is semi-futile, but you think it's worth implementing anyway while I think that's grounds for not doing it. In any case, if the policy is implemented, then the invalid reasons should be clearly stated in its own section. That kind of defeats the reason for having the policy, but I think that's preferable to having unstated requirements. Banedon (talk) 06:02, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with the "semi-futile" characterization; no rule is ever going to be a panacea for someone hell-bent on circumventing its spirit. As far as "invalid reasons", are you referring to Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Please_do_not... or something else?—Bagumba (talk) 06:14, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

No, put it in WP:ITN, and spell out that "if you oppose something because of [reasons] your vote will be discounted". Banedon (talk) 06:47, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm missing what the motivation is to duplicate what is already spelled out at WP:ITNC. People have to go to ITNC to !vote, they may or may not ever read WP:ITN.—Bagumba (talk) 07:05, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not spelled out on ITNC (compare what I wrote vs. what's on ITNC, there's an obvious and big difference). Also policy should be given in policy pages not elsewhere, and furthermore, based on your reason for having the rule, it is preferable that the people who are going to vote based on ethnic bias don't read WP:ITN. Banedon (talk) 09:22, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it's spelled out not ONCE but TWICE there. In the section Bagumba linked to, it mentions that people should not oppose for country of origin in one bullet point, then later tells people to avoid ethnocentric arguments in another. --Jayron32 22:10, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

The "or your vote will be discounted" part is clearly not given. Banedon (talk) 03:56, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

It feels like you're already getting your money's worth of time-wasting here. This discussion appears to be going nowhere. If you're going to launch an RFC (as you have threatened to do), please do so post-haste. If not, then I suggest there's little support to continue to keep this particular thread of discussion going. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:57, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Whereabouts of death criteria

There used to be WP:ITN/DC that pointed to this. Was this deprecated?—Bagumba (talk) 09:52, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:In the news/Death criteria was depricated in 2009. --Jayron32 11:43, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Except the link I provided refers to content that was on Wikipedia:In the news itself until it was removed Dec 9.—Bagumba (talk) 11:59, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Ah. It was part of some reorganization. I've updated the redirect to the new section header. --Jayron32 14:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

OK. But the content at WP:ITN used to have guidance on who should be included in RD e.g. important figure in their field. The new section that replaced it at Wikipedia:In_the_news#Recent_deaths_section now only explains when RD is appropriate over a blurb, with nothing on who should be posted. Is that because what was previously on WP:ITN was never really followed, or is its omission an oversight?—Bagumba (talk) 00:39, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Is WP:CONSENSUS insufficient? --Jayron32 03:41, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

It goes without saying that everything is based on consensus. However, guidance is good for people that are intereted in which nominations stand a better chance to be promoted. An analogy would be if we did not have WP:N for articles, it'd be a free-for-all dealing with all sorts of pages being created, even though it operates on consensus. Is it your belief that content at WP:ITN/DC before did not have consensus? You're more active than I am at ITN, so I'll defer to your opinion on that point.—Bagumba (talk) 04:10, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

If you sense a problem, you're invited to fix it. After all, the only time anything gets fixed at Wikipedia is when people who find problems fix them. Since you have found the problem, you're the one responsible to fix it, so if you don't fix it, you have no one to blame except yourself that it remains broken. --Jayron32 04:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Added a fix, even though I am not required to :-)—Bagumba (talk) 05:15, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

In that case, neither am I, or anyone else. Good addition too. Thanks for fixing it. --Jayron32 22:06, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Minimum time for a nom to be discussed before closing?

Hi administrators and particularly Stephen. What is the minimum time for a nom to be up and discussed before closing? The nom for RD Mattiwilda Dobbs was up for 10 hours and had one comment on it before Stephen closed it with "no consensus". That seems a extremely short period of time to gather opinions and to be frank, one comment does not in any way constitute consensus. Could the nom be re-opened for a decent length of time so that more than one editor can state an opinion? This doesn't seem to be a reasonable way to make decisions. (In addition, it's noted that other noms have been left open for 3 to 4 days to gather opinions e.g Angkor Wat. Again, why the quick close on this one?) Thanks. MurielMary (talk) 06:41, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

There isn't a minimum time. It's a judgement call. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:43, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I see. So maybe the more relevant question here is why one comment was considered to be consensus? Have not seen this happen in the last three months - every nom has been left to gather a number of comments and then a decision made, this being the definition of "consensus" as opposed to "one comment makes the decision". MurielMary (talk) 07:53, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree that there is no minimum, and I have sometimes closed obviously utterly inappropriate nominations before anyone else has even commented. Having said that, this one seems too fast. I spotted her obituary in my paper copy of The Times the other day and although I can't now see more online than the preview this may well be a case where her article doesn't do her achievements/importance justice. Bencherlite^Talk 07:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes it is a tricky one to assess notability on as opera singers don't generally receive awards or honours in the same way sports stars do for example. Their recordings don't sell in record numbers and they aren't many opera competitions for them to win. Dobbs' notability comes from being a pioneer, a groundbreaking first. This is exactly why I think the nom was prematurely closed, as there could be some constructive discussion around this nom, which would help with assessing other similar articles as well as this one. MurielMary (talk) 08:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I think part of the reason it was closed may have been that being so far down on the list that the admin felt it was unlikely to gain consensus before it dropped off the ITNC page. I think a better rationale for the closing would have made things clearer. 331dot (talk) 09:49, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

It's possible, however comments and consensus have been reached in 36 hours before now. Would appreciate the nom being re-opened to enable discussion. MurielMary (talk) 10:11, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Someone wishing to support the nomination can certainly remove the closure. Have you asked Stephen for a clearer explanation of his reasoning? 331dot (talk) 10:24, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to MurielMary for coming here for a discussion and not notifying me or raising it on my talk until the end. I was working up the nominations to see if anything had been missed and came to this death on the 8th, with an oppose on notability. I missed that it was a relatively new nomination, for which I apologise, and treated it rather as something that had just not garnered any interest, so closed it on the basis of no consensus and being six days old, and so rather stale. The best reaction would have been to just revert that closure, with a pointing out of my error in the edit summary. Anyone is free to do that, neither closing or reopening nominations is an administrator privilege. Best wishes, Stephen 20:54, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Stephen, thanks for the response and advice to revert a closure - I wasn't aware that that option was open to any editor rather than an admin only. Cheers, MurielMary (talk) 21:52, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Hey MurielMary, just to let you know: There are only a few basic actions which are reserved for admins: the ability to delete or protect an article, the ability to block a user, and the ability to assign some user rights to other users. If you aren't an admin, you couldn't even do these things if you tried, because the tools to do them are not activated for you. Being an admin gives a user the right to use a few extra tools, but otherwise, admins do NOT have more rights than other users; if you have the ability to do something, you have the right to do something at Wikipedia, so long as a) you do so in good faith and b) if someone disagrees, you're willing to discuss it with them. If anyone tells you differently, they're wrong. --Jayron32 12:52, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

No, this is not always true. For example, you cannot come along and revert an admin's closure of an AfD discussion, even if it was keep. There are various other places where an admin's action should not be summarily reverted, even if you do have the "ability" to do so. It's a tricky concept for newcomers to grasp, based on norms built up over the years. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:27, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

This is always true. You should not come along and revert any closure without due cause, and this should apply to whoever made the initial closure. You should not revert the closure of anyone without due cause. Admins do not have special "immune from criticism or people fixing their mistakes" rules for themselves. Admins are not demigods who always do everything correct, and if they screw something up, it is expected that someone else can come fix it. Now, people should not go reverting proper closures just to make a point, and people need to accept that reverting any closure of a discussion is serious business and not to be taken lightly. But no one should ever feel like admins are to be treated differently than anyone else just because they have a few extra tools. They are not. --Jayron32 15:04, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

There are some differences between admins and non-admins at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions. Everybody can go to Wikipedia:Deletion review no matter who closed a discussion. ITN discussions don't have these rules. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:28, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Indeed there are, generally because enacting the results of those discussions require tools that only admins have. Likewise, closing a discussion as "consensus to post" requires an admin to post the item, it is usually not helpful for a non-admin to close such a discussion. However, discussion closures that don't require editing the protected ITN template do not require admin tools, and anyone may close those discussions; likewise anyone may revert such a closure if they in good faith believe the closure was in serious error. --Jayron32 19:25, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

And above all, WP:IAR. Sometimes these godly entities named "admins" or "sysops" fuck up, and sometimes just telling them they have and undoing their shoddy work to enable the encyclopedia to continue to improve is just the right thing to do. To fallaciously claim that it's disallowed to undo anything an admin has done shows a distinct lack of understanding of what a modern-day admin is all about. Time to update. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:42, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

ITN general attitude towards U.S. shootings

I think we need to revisit this issue because it's a common point of contention among ITN contributors, especially in light of the Los Angeles Unified School District terrorism hoax. Had it blown up to be something else, such as yet another U.S. shooting, inevitably there would have been an argument about whether or not it should be posted. Yes, it's true that U.S. has a disproportionately high number of shootings compared to other nations. Yes, it's true that reasonable gun control legislation would stop these shootings from being so commonplace and routine. However, in the San Bernandino shooting that was posted not long ago, which was widely regarded to be terrorism, there was still some dispute as to whether or not it should be posted given the U.S's history. So I think that even though we want to avoid instruction creep, we should try to have some general guideline set in place as to where the bar should be set for posting these events. Having a guideline will hopefully help to prevent some unnecessary and inflammatory side discussions.--WaltCip (talk) 15:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

If we need some sort of guideline in this area(leaning against, but not totally there yet) I don't think it should just deal with or single out U.S. shootings. It should be applicable to such events regardless of location. That said, I have little problem with people in good faith using criteria like history or the relevant country's laws/social situation to judge an ITN nomination. I'm American and I don't support posting every US shooting; each one should be weighed on its merits, news coverage, and article quality. Sometimes a country's history or laws are relevant. 331dot (talk) 15:10, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We do have guidance. It has ALWAYS (or as imperceptibly close to always as to make no difference) stated in the instructions on the candidates page "Please do not...complain about an event only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is unproductive." We don't need special rules which state "Your bigotry is not OK even when it's target is Americans". We're clearly and unambiguously telling people not to do that. America doesn't need special rules that say "OK, don't complain about where an event happens, except for America, because fuck those guys" or "C'mon guys, let's not make this a "We hate Americans and their damned gun culture" issue." We have guidance. People just need to be reminded of it from time to time. --Jayron32 15:13, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

And as the continuing and increasing numbers of mass shootings in the US take place, the less and less likely they are to be featured as they will become as commonplace as the "Indian road traffic accident". The Rambling Man (talk) 16:11, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The only way we can assess that is by the level and depth of news coverage. Because drawing false analogies to events which do NOT have large amounts of reliable sources is actually meaningless here. At Wikipedia, we don't reach conclusions and then reach for bullshit analogies to justify them. We find reliable sources and work forward from there. --Jayron32 16:47, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Despite folks like TRM saying these things are "commonplace" in the U.S., these shootings are incredibly important as we see increased calls for action.[3][4][5] The issue of guns in the U.S. appears to be approaching a potential critical mass. This is not business as usual. It is extremely newsworthy and to dismiss it so nonchalantly is doing a disservice to Wikipedia. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

That's also mostly irrelevant. The only relevant factor we should consider is are people learning about this current event through their reliable newsmedia. If they are, and we have a quality article about the event in question, we should not stand in the way posting the quality article to the main page because we don't personally like something about the event. --Jayron32 18:05, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it's irrelevant as the larger picture under which these shootings are happening. But yes, I do believe that the coverage of some of these shootings (remember, only the most major shootings get nominated, and the "smallest" ones don't even get Wikipedia articles) is sufficiently significant that it meets the purpose and criteria of ITN. TRM nominated the San Bernardino attack (which shocked me), but then backed away from it when it began to appear it wasn't ISIL related. As if that somehow diminished the quality of the article or scope of the news coverage. (And of course it turned out to be ISIL-inspired anyway). – Muboshgu (talk) 18:14, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

We have to be aware that gun crimes in the US are routine, sadly. Most of them are out a moment of anger or dispassion, the person acting irrationally or the like such as in the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting. Those types of crimes are not really as significant as they just point out to the larger problem of gun control/availability in the US. The San Bernadino shooting is far different as it was clearly planned (even before the connection to ISIL was considered), a sign of something more sinister at work. Each story should still be evaluated on a case-by-case for ITN posting, but my personal line is distinguishing between something that out of the blue that is similar a tragic event, and something clearly planned out, a sign of a deeper story. --MASEM (t) 18:34, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

All fine and good, except at Wikipedia, we aren't supposed to be bringing our own personal feelings into these matters. We're supposed to assess reliable sources, and reflect what they do. --Jayron32 18:37, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not so much a personal "feeling" just a categorization that I use. Further, this is the importance of WP:NOT#NEWS and that ITN is not meant to be a news ticker. Shootings in the US get a disproportionate amount of coverage in the news. That's a systematic bias we are meant to work against. Just because a story is coverage broadly around the world does not necessary mean it is appropriate for en.wiki inclusion or to be on ITN, and we are enabled to make these types of decisions to keep the work on track. --MASEM (t) 18:46, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Not all shootings get that level of news coverage, and those don't get nominated, let alone posted. The day of the San Bernardino attack, there was a mass shooting in Savannah.[6] It got very little coverage, and therefore was not nominated for ITN, nor was an article created for it. For 2015, only ten mass shootings have articles, and not all of them were posted or even nominated at ITN. Considering we're averaging a mass shooting per day, and only ten of those have articles, I think the system is working itself out. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:50, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Though to bring it back around to the ITN issue, there definitely are editors here that when any US mass shooting is presented for ITNC, they immediately oppose because it's yet another US mass shooting, and then at the same time, a mass shooting elsewhere in the world is strongly supported because, for the most part, it isn't the US. That I think is what this thread is concerned with. We are clearly not going to post every US mass shooting ITNC but it should not be for the reason because it happened in the US. That's why I myself consider the line based on intent and the larger picture that lead to the shooting, ignoring the geographical aspect. This generally has followed what stories are or aren't posted. --MASEM (t) 19:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

That we have had more mass shootings in the US this year than days of the year means that we have to be highly selective over those which are placed on the main page. This is English language Wikipedia, and just because The New York Times doesn't feature a road traffic accident in India which kills 50, it doesn't mean we have to feature a mass shooting in the US which kills 10, say. To do so is to wander onto the side of tabloidism, and certainly perpetuates systemic bias. Mass shootings (other than in, say, Mexico) are rare as rocking horse shit, which is why they should be featured. I nominated the San Bernadino shooting, quite rightly it would appear, because it was an act of terrorism. Most other guncrimes are just stupid Americans with easy access to guns going rogue. Not worth reporting on at all. Wikipedia is not, and should never be, a vessel to change legislation. That should be down to the people of America and the NRA. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:13, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Here's why we need a new and separate guideline: because the guideline we currently have about not complaining about an event as it relates to a single country clearly does not reflect community consensus as outlined in the above discussion. I agree with TRM, there's really no excuse for the U.S. to not have acted by now to implement comprehensive gun control laws to stop stupid and unnecessary shootings like this from occurring. So either they are the very strong exception to the rule that we not complain about single-country events (and an exception we should make note of for new contributors), or we need a new rule outright.--WaltCip (talk) 20:44, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh, it reflects community consensus. The voice of a few bigots who feel the need to use a particular news event as a reason to get on their soap box and rail against stupid Americans is not equivalent to the community as a whole. The loudest and rudest are not representative of consensus. --Jayron32 23:22, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

What our government has done (or really, hasn't done) to solve the problem isn't relevant as to whether or not this shooting or that shooting are worthy of being posted. (As to the legal aspect, check out Australia, which set strict gun laws after a massacre and they haven't had a problem since.) Shooters all have their own motives, like the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting, which should have been posted as it was a noteworthy example of anti-abortion violence, but noone (myself included) bothered to nominate it. So what shootings have been posted to ITN in 2015? San Bernardino and Charleston. Any others? If it's only two that've been posted this year, then I think the problem is we aren't posting enough of them. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:46, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

For "The voice of a few bigots", see "the rest of the civilised world". As I've already said, it's only to do with stupid Americans who buy their burger, get a free gun and go postal. The frequency is such that it equates to road traffic accidents in India. There's nothing remarkable about most of the US mass shootings other than the over-emphasised, over-published and overly emotional outpourings when yet another school/office/etc gets targeted. It's becoming a case of "who cares", almost routine. We don't need to post any more of these, to do so will simply encourage further attacks. One day we'll see a parting note from one of these armed-up pricks saying "well at least I'll make it to ITN on Wikipedia!" The Rambling Man (talk) 19:54, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

The rest of the world does not have an open, seething hate of Americans which influences them to make unjustifiable, prejudicial, and unsupportable (in terms of evidence) opposes at ITN based only on the national or ethnic origin of a story. Just you. --Jayron32 20:01, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how calling out burger-eating maniac shooters equates to an unequivocal seething hate of all Americans, and even President Obama himself has called the shootings "routine".--WaltCip (talk) 21:52, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, I have some actual American friends, all of whom are in 100% agreement with me that the country's pathetic and horrifically negligent approach to the mass murder of people, frequently including children, is a universal abhorrence, a seething sore of modern civility that is influenced by ignorance and prejudice, that the majority of the population of the US are not prepared to do anything about. It's not "just me", it's hundreds of millions of people worldwide looking at the parochial bullshit and calling it as it is. Mass ignorance and massive stupidity. But then again, it's probably all our fault. (P.S. "The rest of the world does not have an open, seething hate of Americans..." actually, a lot of the rest of world actually does hold that position... wake up). The Rambling Man (talk) 21:58, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Right, because the first defense of against accusations of bigotry is always "No, I can't be prejudiced. I have lots of XXX friends..." No one has ever tried that before. Or you could, you know, assess every individual story based on its prevalence in reliable news sources, and ignore the nationality of the people involved. But that would make you a reasonable, rational person. You're not going to do that. --Jayron32 04:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I hold out hope that one day some of you will actually understand irony. But not much hope. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:00, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, there's nothing inherently wrong with what you are saying here, and in another context, I would fully agree with you. The issue is not whether or not it is good for people to have easy access to tools of mass murder. The issue is mostly whether or not Wikipedia's ITN Candidates page is the appropriate venue for airing that particular political opinion, or whether or not it is appropriate to use the ITN Candidates page as a means by which to initiate, in whatever little way one can, a change of the public reporting of such events. It isn't. ITN, and all of Wikipedia, must be a reflection of what reliable sources say, not a means by which to change the world. It is possible for a person to agree that people should not have access to tools of mass murder, and still not think that ITN/C is the proper venue to air such grievances, or to use the posting or non-posting of stories as a means to enforce that political opinion. --Jayron32 17:04, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I totally agree with everything TRM is saying about gun control as a political issue, but I disagree that our political failures on that issue somehow renders mass shootings in the U.S. too "commonplace" for ITN. If there's sufficient devastation and news coverage of the event, and a sufficient article to post, it should go up. The gunman's motives aren't necessarily relevant. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:15, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Commentary here calling the American people "idiotic" and "stupid" over this issue is offensive and unjustified. The idea that gun control can stop mass shootings is debatable. Many mass murderers still use illegal weaponry such as bombs [1][2][3], despite bombs being extremely controlled. Perpetrators simply ignore the law. This lends credibility to the theory that controlling weaponry does not deter criminals, who by definition break laws, and that therefore a quest to change the US constitution may be pointless. The issue is not as clear-cut as some would have you believe. (However, there is evidence that gun control could help prevent suicides.)

In any case, a lack of preparedness would not be justification to ignore a notable event. For example, if a small earthquake kills many people in an unprepared country, but the same size earthquake occurring in a prepared area would not have, the former event is still notable enough to post. I think we can continue to decide on the merits of posting nominated shootings using existing processes and policies at ITN/C. As Muboshgu mentions above, we have been doing a great job at filtering these so far. Mamyles (talk) 21:57, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Taking initiative to hat this before it delves off into debate on ideologies that have nothing to do with handling ITN issues. --Masem
The following discussion has been closed by Masem. Please do not modify it.
Point of information: I think we (at least I) have only ever described the shooters as idiotic and stupid. The majority of Americans just accept these daily slaughters, including those of children in schools, as commonplace, with a hint of "oh my goodness" and then move on. Of course gun control can stop mass shootings. It may take time, but of course it can. In the meantime, America wrings its hands, those who are concerned put on their concerned faces, the NRA use every opportunity to explain why more guns are better than fewer guns, some Americans continually misinterpret their constitutional amendment in the face of dead children, and good news, Donald Trump is doing rather well with his national front and pro-gun approach. Bravo. To the point, we should be proactive in reducing the number of these US mass shootings that appear. Right now, there's more than one per day, and thankfully we don't feature many of them. But we should certainly wait before posting another (unless in extremis something happens that nobody saw coming...) until we have a justifiable reason beyond "crazy American with free gun goes postal" which is (in my mind) identical to "road traffic accident in India kills x". The Rambling Man (talk) 22:50, 16 December 2015 (UTC) Don't exaggerate. I don't know if it's even legal to offer a free gun for buying something — even if it was the shop would have to call the national background check number and it might be instant gun but might take up to a few days for merchant to get the green light (though I think there's a low volume private sale/gift gun show loophole around this still?) King of the Hill did have a cop say it's okay to give a free pistol "with [a] $600 purchase of quality science-fiction" [7] but then again it's a cartoon (then again it's usually accurate about the level of redneckitude in Texas, according to natives). And let's see how easy it'd be for you to get a gun in my part of America, it's almost impossible for regular people to get a legal handgun. You'd have to pay $5,000 non-refundable just to apply, be interviewed by cops that rubber-stamp "no", attend gun class, pass a test, pass a shooting test I think (at one of the 1 or 2 gun ranges for 8 million people) and also be a celebrity or politician or work with diamonds or something. That guy who shot evil thugs* in a train and often carried cash and electronics for work was denied even though it was the crimey 80s and he was shoved through a glass door in a failed robbery once and was permanently injured. Mr. Goetz just had to go to the South to get a gun legally (only the bringing it back is illegal). If you're going to ban guns then you better solve the problem of everyone going to other states to get them. ~500 people are murdered by handguns each year in my city despite the near-total ban. *They were evil. One of them was later convicted for holding a pregnant woman at gunpoint while his buddy raped and sodomized her. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC) There aren't burger joints where can buy guns? Sure you don't "buy a Big Mac, get a Glock free" but the point I was making was the absolute freedom with which any American can get armed up. I don't quite follow your "you better solve the problem of everyone going to other states to get them" argument. Ban them in your country, it's really easy. Are you so indoctrinated that you can't see that it's insane that this is happening more than once a day in your country yet happening less than once a year or once a decade in other "civilised" countries? Bizarre, I'm just glad that the US is a long way away from the rest of civilisation. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:23, 17 December 2015 (UTC) And even if guns are flat-out banned nationally, we all know how well that works with drugs. Criminals will find a way to get illegal products, no matter how much effort is put in to stop them. Mamyles (talk) 22:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC) Though that doesn't mean we should let people sell heroin legally or have loose gun laws in big cities. Having gun laws like the Republican parts of the country just wouldn't work here, people are too stupid or short-tempered and too high population density (collateral damage) and we have enough children shot by stay bullets already. While it would be nice to eliminate smuggled guns in New York City it's probably not feasible to reduce them much more than now. You'd have to ban guns in a much larger area than one state for it to have a chance in hell and the American hunting culture and Republicans just wouldn't allow it, not for decades at least. And then after that it would probably take 50-100 years for a gun ban to work as criminals get caught and their guns confiscated and guns break and few people with technical skill want to risk abetting non-gun crimes and going to jail to repair them. How long did it take for the supply to dry up when the UK banned it's guns? Did they have much less gangsterism at the time than the US does new? I guess it might be a little easier to ban guns than drugs as drugs can be made from poppies and plants that grow wild somewhere while guns require more tech, and drugs can be swallowed in condoms but guns set off metal detectors and X-rays and are hard to defecate. Besides the issue of rampant crime for 50-100 years after there is no way guns could be banned nationwide any time soon because it'd be so hard to kill the Amendment. That would require passing a Constitutional Amendment by over 75% and canceling part of one of our three revered foundational documents for the first time. Okay, the Constitution is nothing but a ball and chain on progress that needs serious amending and the right wing quoting Founding Fathers like they're revealed truth is stupid but they see those as almost the secular version of Scripture and religious figures. The original paper with the 2nd Amendment on it is publicly displayed under bulletproof glass in an inert helium atmosphere with the other founding documents (Constitution and independence declaration). These three documents are in the grandiosely named Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom. Now that's reverence. I wouldn't be surprised if mass shootings and crime are actually solved by scanning every 5 year old's brain and curing the psychopathic, sadistic and criminal ones with 22nd century technology before the guns are banned (and that would reduce most of the desire to ban guns). This might be why Rambling Man thinks I seem resigned to mass shootings but I know how impossible banning guns nationwide would be in the foreseeable future by intuition because I live here so it doesn't even cross my mind. (Even Obama says that he wholeheartedly supports the 2nd Amendment or a paraphrase of that because he wants to get elected and our current social democrat candidate supports it (but he's from an unusually gun-friendly state, but they're one of the most rural and smallest largest city states in the country so that's probably why. (If I lived a mile from my nearest neighbor I'd want a gun, too. Not if they were illegal in my country, though))) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:37, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment It's become fashionable to bandy about the notion that the "US has a mass shooting every day", often citing some WP:RS [8] which itself is referencing some sort of "sub-reddit" which itself is referencing some website "shootingtracker.com". When you actually look at the data, you'll find there are often 1 or 0 fatalities, or that the circumstances are such that the victims were familiar with their assailant (gangs, domestic, etc). The obviously anti-gun "GunsAreCool" may classify these as a "mass shooting", but the general population of the united states, and the media, do not. So lets stop shrieking "Ho-hum mass shootings in America every day" because it's offensive and un-helpful. Thanks. --68.115.239.114 (talk) 20:30, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

  Heh, The Washington Post is no longer a reliable source? Don't keep up this ignorance, or denial, or whatever it is. Tens of thousands are killed every year in the US by being shot to death. It's undeniable. But keep up the good work by ignoring it, or even encouraging it! The Rambling Man (talk) 23:00, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

  • Thank you for your feedback. I consider your suggestion "or even encouraging it" (gun violence) a personal attack and ask that you immediately apologize. Yes, tens of thousands are shot to death annually in the US, it's tragic, but this discussion is about mass shootings, not victims of individual domestic violence or accidental shootings. Regarding the Washington Post, as they did not conduct the research themselves, and are linking to data from an anonymous internet blog site called "reddit", you may wish to review the data yourself. It's publicly available. Again, I await your apology for the cruel and unnecessary personal attack that I somehow contribute to gun violence. --68.115.239.114 (talk) 03:14, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

    • I don't see how anyone or anything on Wikipedia would trigger shootings. Your average street gang member and/or terrorist probably spends most of their time preparing for battle, not reading ITN. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:16, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

      Whatever consensus may have come from this discussion, IP 68, the consensus is clearly against you. The United States is awash in mass shootings and kids are dying brutally and needlessly on a constant basis. Please don't attempt to deny it; it merely stalls the argument and may even be considered trolling in some circles.--WaltCip (talk) 16:50, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

      • How did the IP "encourage" mass shootings? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:00, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

        • At no point did I suggest the IP encouraged mass shootings.--WaltCip (talk) 17:09, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

          • No, TRM said that. So what's the beef with the IP [and his various IP-hoppers]? And your characterization of "awash" is a gross exaggeration. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:35, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

            • I'm certain TRM was intentionally being ironic.--WaltCip (talk) 19:21, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

              • Yes, hello, thank you. I've not tried to deny anything, I consider the suggestion that I'm deliberately trying to stall the "argument" offensive as well. I would also suggest that remarks like "awash in mass shootings" are unhelpful. There is a difference between the random collection of gun related tragedies amassed by the random and anonymous users of "Reddit", and the Active shooter events which stun the nation. Perhaps that is the issue, that someone typed "mass shootings USA" into a search engine and turned up a link to a Reddit page that refuses to go away, when for better or worse, the media and general public use "mass shooting" to refer to Active shooter. Perhaps it would be wise to archive this section, and start again with a focus on the "Active shooter", since while tragically there may be incidents daily like "Four people wounded in shooting in Savannah", no one is creating WP articles for these incidents, let alone nominating them for ITN. Regarding "The Rambling Man", I have no idea who this individual is, or what this individual's intentions were (ironic or otherwise). All I know is that the subject was "...killed every year in the US by being shot to death..." concluded "...or even encouraging it!" and that statement was an offensive, hurtful personal attack. --68.115.239.114 (talk) 21:04, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

What are you talking about? At what point did I say that the specific IP encouraged mass murder, unless you don't understand irony? Is this an affliction of all Americans or is it just those who frequent Wikipedia? I had hoped that some of you would have some sense and some courage but right now, there's nothing there at all. This discussion is a complete waste of time, so let's close it as soon as possible. In the mean time there'll be at least one or two more mass shootings in the US. Get over it, nothing will change, the dead children in schools and those who tried to protect them will continue to die in vain as most of you keep claiming your second amendment. Nothing will ever change, and most of us are glad to not be part of the pathetic ignorance. Tens of thousands dead every year, but hey, more guns = better protection! Well done. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:11, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

"Don't keep up this ignorance, or denial, or whatever it is. Tens of thousands are killed every year in the US by being shot to death. It's undeniable. But keep up the good work by ignoring it, or even encouraging it!" Those are your words, "The Rambling Man". I don't seem them as ironic, I see them as offensive. All you need to do is apologize, but instead you declare "you don't understand irony", and suggest that it is an affliction of at least "Americans who frequent Wikipedia". You've gone on to say that you "had hoped that some of you would have some sense and some courage but right now, there's nothing there at all" which further suggests that all of "you" (us) are without sense or courage? Are these more insults or more irony? I kindly ask that you review WP:NPA, comment on the content and not the contributor, and apologize for the above litany of insults. Thank you. --68.115.239.114 (talk) 21:33, 20 December 2015 (UTC) You an also apologize for the edit summary "pathetic to the nth degree". --68.115.239.114 (talk) 21:40, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

No chance. The litany of reality checks and the litany of ignorance is sufficient for me to realise that there's little more I can do or say. I will not be an apologist for a breed of individuals who are content to watch children murdered by a so-called right to defend ones-self. Get over it. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:43, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

St Vincent elections blurb

Right now the Main Page is out of balance. The St Vincent elections should be reinserted. I contacted the administrator who removed it, but I see she is less active. --George Ho (talk) 04:03, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Saints?

Does ITN routinely post stories about canonization? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

No, but with the Mother Teresa story, given her importance, it seems a more unusual circumstance and thus appropriate for posting (obviously now waiting until said ceremony) eg, I was not attempting any ITNR-type nom with it. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Makes sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:31, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Defamation per se

I'll bring it up here after the fact, for future reference. WP:BLP applies to the recently dead. Calling someone a pervert or a child molester (not merely saying they have been accused of that by an RS, but calling them that when they have not been found guilty of it) is defamation per se, and a violation of WP:BLP full stop.

There seems to have been some confusion by User:Mjroots, User:331dot, and User:George Ho regarding whether a nomination should proceed or not based on untried criminal allegations. That was totally beside the point, and I had no opinion on the nomination, nor was that the source of my objection.

What you simply cannot do is flat out refer to someone in these terms in WP's voice or as WP's agent without attribution. If we are discussing nominations for RD there is no reason not to quote sources, but simply to describe someone as a deviant or having committed a crime of moral turpitude is unacceptable. μηδείς (talk) 00:31, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

If recently deceased, WP:BDP should be used, right? As for calling a person a "child molester", my apologies, that was a bad sarcasm. I was trying to object Mjroots's arguments. A low-profile criminal may not reach the same heights as the high-profile one. --George Ho (talk) 00:51, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, George. I do think there was some confusion between my procedural concern and the notion that I was either supporting or opposing the nom based on the possibly defamatory issue. I'd point out the death of a certain US Senator who was listed at ITN a few years back whom some would have accused of a vile crime. My point was that the issue could be discussed without even mentioning the supposed crime/infamy, and if it were mentioned, it should be referred to as an infamy alleged by notable sources. My concern posting here is more to point out that this is a serious policy issue, rather than to revisit the nomination's outcome. μηδείς (talk) 02:22, 20 December 2015 (UTC)