Wikipedia talk:In the news

ITN early posting

This is in relation with the ITN posting of the 2025 Potomac River mid-air collision by Ad Orientem, which occurred a mere 56 minutes after nomination and was posted with some weasel words such as unknown number of survivors. Also, as pointed out by Black Kite, at the time of posting, the article contained a poorly sourced statement At least four survivors were reported to have been recovered from the water and taken to local hospitals (diff). All of this is not good for ITN, since there was absolutely no rush to post this because according to WP:NOTNEWS, we're not a constant news feed and there's no need for instantaneous posting of events. If it were posted sometime later, we would have had a figure on the number of deaths and the article quality would have further improved. After the posting, many comments were posted that opposed the fact that it got posted so early. Along with this, Ad Orientem said that posting it early was a no brainer, which is quite absurd considering that there wasn't even a reliable source on the number of casualties, and I personally have never seen an incident posted to ITN without the casualty number. The main point is not about Ad Orientem's posting, but that there must be some guideline to ITN Admins on WP:ITN/A to not post within the first x (undecided) hours of the nomination even when consensus is present, if posting it involves posting a blurb with incomplete or inaccurate information. By putting this minimum limit, I feel like we can avoid unproductive discussions about whether it was too early to post or not. I am trying to seek the thoughts of other editors on this. Thank you, TNM101 (chat) 17:47, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose a minimum or defined limit on posting to ITN. We generally avoid hard metrics like what has been proposed for good reason – every situation is different, and ITN decisions are best guided by existing guidelines and consensus rather than rigid timeframes. While inaccuracies are always a concern in breaking news situations, these articles clearly include a disclaimer: "This article documents a current aviation incident. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses, and initial news reports may be unreliable." This ensures that readers are aware of the evolving nature of the text and provides appropriate context.

Additionally, WP:NOTNEWS is sometimes misunderstood in ITN discussions. This policy does not regulate how quickly news should be posted but rather what types of content are suitable for Wikipedia. It primarily addresses issues like original reporting, notability, and gossip, rather than setting rules on the timing of ITN updates. The sentiment "we’re not a constant news feed" is not part of WP:NOTNEWS.

As for the decision to post this entry quickly, similar aviation disasters—particularly mid-air collisions involving commercial and military aircraft over a major metropolitan area—have been consistently posted to ITN in the past. Given this precedent, the Ad Orientem "no brainer" decision was in line with ITN’s established practices.

Ultimately, ITN's prime directive is to direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest. A mandatory delay would add unnecessary restrictions and could even result in withholding useful information from the public when our purpose is to provide access to well-developed, relevant articles as events unfold. Fuzheado | Talk 18:42, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

That's wrong. Per NOTNEWS we are not a newspaper, and when there are notable events that merit articles they need to be approached in an encyclopedic style, meaning to summarize the event and not write it like a breaking news story. To that end for ITN, the quality of the article needs to reflect that it properly summarizes the event to be sufficiently comprehensive for the reader before it is added to the main page, which requires that any featured link be representative of WP's best work. While one of the goals is to help direct readers to content, it's first and foremost goal must be serving the purpose of the main page, showcasing quality articles that happen to be in the news. And in this case, an hour from the incident, there were still too many details to represent a quality article. This is why we are not a news ticker because quality is a higher value than timeliness.

If you want the rapid news, that's what Wikinews serves, but en. wiki is focused more on getting it right than jumping the gun. Masem (t) 18:52, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

While the title of the section of WP:NOT is "Wikipedia is not a newspaper," it does not mean one can elevate any personal interpretation of that broad phrase as "policy." The argument that “we are not a news ticker” or "we are not a news feed" is not the scope of that section. You said: If you want the rapid news, that's what Wikinews serves but unfortunately, that's never been true in any meaningful way. - Fuzheado | Talk 19:24, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: Not giving a vote, but many just don't understand what ITN is for. It is to feature our articles (with at least the ITN minimum quality) when they are in the news. Wikipedia's work is not to keep readers updated about latest news, or be a live stream of it. Placing templates for 'content might change quickly' doesn't make the article suddenly acceptable. WP:NOTNEWS says it or not, Wikipedia for sure isn't fit to be a constant news feed, at least not its main page. Most are not complaining about early posting because of notability issues, but quality issues. @Fuzheado: The article was surely not substantially updated and of quality to be posted at ITN.

Most importantly, its better to withhold useful information from the public than to highlight under-developed, erroneous articles. 𝓔xclusive𝓔ditor _{Ping Me🔔} 19:26, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate your reasoned response, but do note that your observation that Wikipedia is "not to keep readers updates about latest news, or be a live stream of it" is not consistent with the main bullet points of WP:ITN. It says the goals are to help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news and to to emphasize Wikipedia as a dynamic resource. These must also be balanced by the goal to showcase quality Wikipedia content on current events. - Fuzheado | Talk 19:37, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

The key is those four points work in tandem, so posting quickly may meet one or two but early failed the quality one. You can't just take the criteria that you want to use and ignore the others. Masem (t) 19:41, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Which is why I had "this must also be balanced by the goal to showcase quality Wikipedia content on current events" in my comment. It was not ignored. - Fuzheado | Talk 19:45, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

• I don't have any problem with people posting ITN items quickly, and in the example provided above there was a clear consensus to post. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:33, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Even though the version posted had factual errors in it, because it was posted too quickly? Black Kite (talk) 19:36, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
    • I'm certain factual errors have also been introduced into articles after being posted to ITN. It happens. It's Wikipedia. It's not finished. (And I don't expect admins to check every single sentence and reference before posting an article to ITN, regardless of whether the article's been nominated for an hour or seven days.) Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 01:17, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

It is impossible to have a consensus after one hour, anywhere on WP. Masem (t) 19:42, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I was stunned to wake up, just days after there had been active criticism of posting Gloria Romero too quickly, to find another item had been rushed through ITN. And not only that, but with the active participation of people who had opposed the posting of a plane crash in South Sudan which at the time of posting had a very similar casualty figure. It really does feel like it's one rule for Americans and another for everyone else. GenevieveDEon (talk) 19:48, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Off-topic perhaps, but this is surely a good example of systemic bias. And while I'm unfamiliar with ITN's usual standards, the article as it stands (last edited 11 hours ago) appears to be a well-sourced, non-stub "minimally comprehensive overview", at least to my untrained eyes. Hopefully food for thought for editors here. Jr8825 • Talk 01:35, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment I see that my posting appears to have been controversial. At the time I felt that the event was going to inevitably be posted and that the article quality was adequate. In hindsight I think I erred on the article quality and my decision to post at that point was therefor precipitous. Going forward I will try to be a bit more restrained. That said, I don't see any need to amend our guidelines. There are some situations where rapid posting can be justified. I see some people have reference the death of the late Queen. Given her standing globally and article quality (FA), delaying that would have served no purpose other than to check the process box. As always, WP:COMMONSENSE should be one of our guiding principles in all that we do. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:01, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  Although I think it is very rare for such quick-post examples where the notability and quality are already good enough to pass quickly, and that I believe that there is no great harm if a piece is delayed by some time, I do agree. --𝓔xclusive𝓔ditor _{Ping Me🔔} 20:49, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I personally agree that some postings have been made early, not just recently, but many times in the past. Codifying a guideline, however, on how and when to post is tricky and very WP:CREEPy. Ad Orientem does make a great point - a waiting period for every posting is not needed. The way I see it, I think admins just need to acknowledge the concerns by the public that we would like more discussion when possible. I can't speak to the crash nom (though I do agree with the premise of waiting when details are so few), but when it comes to death blurbs in particular (which every admin who posts ITN items should KNOW are controversial), I think admins needs to let the discussion simmer for a bit. There is no time nor number of supports, but the issue with Romero was both - the nomination was rushed through quickly, with, quite frankly, only MASEM really giving a compelling reason why she was noteworthy (you can count the nom comment as well for 2). The other two comments were a "support per" comment (valid, but also not a terribly impactful argument in a case like this, and another comment that didn't mention anything from a noteworthiness angle at all. What I've said before and will say again is I would love admins to be more critical on support or oppose rationales rather than the votes themselves - it is know after all that this is how ITN is supposed to operate. DarkSide830 (talk) 04:11, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I would love admins to be more critical on support or oppose rationales rather than the votes themselves The community gives very little guidance for admins, save for perhaps a few at WP:ITNCDONT. WP:ITNSIGNIF is quite open-ended:

It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting.

Short of policy or guideline violations, an admin being " more critical" borders on a WP:SUPERVOTE. —Bagumba (talk) 04:26, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I would be amenable to discussion towards adding some more items to the "do not" guidelines regarding practices to avoid, such as simply supporting or opposing per another editor without additional commentary, or citing a policy and failing to state why it is connected to your argument. Some simple things like that. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:56, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:ITN explains that that ITN originated in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, when entries were created and put on the Main Page within minutes of the attacks. So, rapid posting of major breaking news has been a feature of ITN from the outset. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:49, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support - Hell I can get behind this. You NEED time to gain consensus. Masem said it best. Just because everyone who happened to see something in the first hour supports it doesn’t mean you won’t get any opposes in the next hour. Often times when this happens it’s because the topic is a very large news story, and it isn’t uncommon to get editors who aren’t entirely familiar with ITN guidelines supporting posting only because “this is a huge story”. Sometimes you need to give time for other editors who are more familiar with the guidelines to point out that the article might not be ready for posting because of x, y, or z. Most of the time the admin will catch those reasons, but I think it would be in the best interest of the community to give time to ensure more people have a chance to give their input. Sometimes I think we get a bit big headed about getting articles up on the main page ASAP. I’m not too sure many readers are coming to Wikipedia a few hours after a big news event and thinking “They haven’t posted this to ITN yet?? What are they waiting for?!” I’ll always be in the camp that taking a minute to ensure we have consensus that we are posting a quality article will always be better than jumping the gun. ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 22:11, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support the principle of waiting a sensible amount of time before posting. I'm leaning towards that being 24 hours but ITNR items would need to be exempted (because their consensus has already been established) and there will always been IAR cases. The two big problems we have at ITN are a) getting sufficiently high quality article updates to post; and b) getting broad participation in the ITN/C process. Neither of those are improved by posting a blurb less than an hour after an event occurs. We are not a breaking news service, this is an encyclopaedia. The article needs time to be brought into a stable, well-referenced state with accurate information. The process needs time for a cross-section of editors from around the English-speaking world to comment and !vote. Users aren't online 24/7 or checking ITN/C every few minutes. It is especially frustrating when I wake up to find a blurb was posted in the middle of the night, without any opportunity for large parts of the world to comment. Getting into arguments about pulling existing blurbs is a poor approach, we should get things right before they're posted. Modest Genius ^talk 12:13, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Comment: Should this thread be moved to WP:VPR or WP:VPI, or should we just leave it here? TNM101 (chat) 04:33, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

RfC closed

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments was recently closed by a panel. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

ITN has a tenuous existence. Excerpt from close:

There is no consensus, at this time, to abolish ITN. It bears emphasizing, though, how weak a statement this is to make about the top-right corner of our Main Page: Another way to look at this is, there is no consensus that ITN should continue to exist; it will continue to do so, but only because of overriding community norms favoring the status quo, not because of any current consensus.

—Bagumba (talk) 03:08, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd argue that much of the wavering issues on ITN stem from the larger problem of how WP deals with news-related content, the balance of documenting what are clearly encyclopedically notable events against the NOTNEWS policy. The last eight to ten years have really shifted a lot more news-related content to a degree we (as a whole) have not come to figure out how to do right while still keeping our encyclopedia identity. All that reflects on the fact that there are seemingly more articles on news topics that could have nominations at ITN, but whether we should have some of those articles in the first place remains in question. As such, I strongly feel that fixing the balance between NOTNEWS and appropriate articles on events needs to be tapped before any broad changes on the purpose of ITN can really be addressed. Masem (t) 05:19, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

The articles with questionable justification for being standalone articles aren't really the ones that are being nominated at ITN though, and if they are, are pretty quickly shot down. There are definitely issues with editors jumping the gun to create new articles on things better covered in existing articles (e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Official portrait of General Mark A. Milley for a recent example), but I don't think this affects the ITN workflow in any meaningful way. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:03, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Part of the larger problem around NOTNEWS is that we are seeing articles created on nearly every single event without considering if that event even will have long-term notability (more than the burst of coverage generated over a few days). This is true of many of the disaster articles that are nominated and that we post as well; some like the DC mid-air plane collision, will clearly have a long tail, but the more recent private plane crash in Philly may not. People are not writing these event articles as encyclopedic articles but as news articles, with tons of proseline and reaction statements, and that's not really the type of quality WP articles should be written at. I am not proposing that ITN change alone, but that the whole of WP needs to be doing a far better job of how we approach news topics, which if that situation changes, will filter into what we see at ITN. --Masem (t) 01:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Not a fan of the editorializing TBH. The issues in question seriously aren't as bad as some have said. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:49, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Three out of seven believed they were that serious. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:13, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I mean, as far as I'm concerned THIS was the bikeshedding. In the pre-discussion here on how to format the RFC, it was generally agreed on that the proposal to remove ITN entirely was best left until AFTER this discussion had concluded. I think that the addition of this proposal somewhat distracted from the discussion on amendments in particular. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:37, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I completely agree. I'm not saying that the amendments were a distraction, I'm saying that the close reflected how quite a bit of the participants believed that the concerns were serious. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:54, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the addition of an amendment to close ITN basically derailed the likelihood of reform in that RFC. That being said, the project's discontent with ITN is real if only a minority for now, and there were serious issues raised with the most popular of the two proposals, most notably that it was a total replacement, getting rid of things like ITNR and normal nominations instead of being an alternative qualifying path. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 05:52, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

That closure was one big eye roll... Sure, ITN/C can be rough but the ITN corner of the front page rarely showcases anything not up to standards (thanks to ITN/C being so rough). ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 17:17, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Where does the close say that? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:00, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Compared to the rest of the main page ITN rarely showcases anything at all despite using lots of editor time. The ratio of updated content vs. time spent/drama is probably the worst for a main page section, so it's not surprising there's so much discontent. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 05:55, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Hey it only took three days to post a plane crash in the middle of America's sixth largest city. Maybe we'll even post the Grammy Awards before the Super Bowl happens lol. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 16:39, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

If it takes three days to get a new article up to main page quality standards, then it will take three days for it to get posted to ITN. Similarly, the Grammy article is currently not of posting quality due to it lacking enough prose. If you would like to see the Grammy article showcased on the main page, I suggest you go help improve its quality. If you that ITN is a waste of time and only a place for drama, then you can avoid it and let people who are actually trying to make a difference work... lol ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 17:47, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I didn't participate in the RFC, but I think your comment just proved the point a lot of those trying to delete this page were trying to make. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 20:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• Currently ITN is running three plane crashes and two changes in national leadership. These are typical ITN entries which demonstrate its systemic bias. The plane crashes are minor disasters which get their supposed significance from a death toll. And the changes in leadership are granted automatic significance by ITN/R. Other stories which don't fit such stereotypes struggle to get posted. The current big stories seem to be the Trump tariffs and the shutdown of USAID. While our readership is also keen on pop culture news such as the Grammys and a trade of two basketball players.

Anyway, the problem is that not much gets through the current process and so the end result tends to be limited, hackneyed and stale. What's needed is some experimentation and boldness to open things up and make the section more lively and varied. The RfC had some interesting discussion of possibilities and exploring these further might help address the common perception that ITN is failing.

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

We do not control the news. National leadership changes are important and plane crashes are shocking events generally with high death tolls for human-caused events. We are not under any obligation to offer variation in the ITN box, nor should we. If there were 5 plane crashes or 5 elections those would and should be posted. The reality is, the events you note are not up because of typical rationale. The Grammys article is still in meh shape because awards show articles are almost always in such shape. The tariffs were voted down because, well, they aren't happening with any certainty now. And Luka Dončić getting traded IS a big deal and big news, but within a very specific sphere and with limited scope and therefore interest. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:57, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Luka being traded to the Lakers made it to the late night news in the Philippines... and probably Slovenia and Serbia lol. Howard the Duck (talk) 12:23, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Linking to the current events noticeboard?

The top of this very page reads Please do not write disagreements about article content here. Instead, post them to WP:CEN. Thank you. The editnotice also has similar phrasing. However, WP:CEN has been marked as historical for a year now – should our mentions of it be removed, and what should the advice become? Instead, post them to the article's talk page?

The other option, of course, could be to revive the noticeboard, but its previous run wasn't exactly successful. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:17, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Replaced with the last suggestion. --Masem (t) 15:32, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

VPI discussion regarding a potential RfC to remove ITN

Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#What do we want on the front page?. Some1 (talk) 01:42, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Log of ITN blurbs and lists

Has there ever been discussion of keeping logs of ITN blurbs, ongoing and recent deaths.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:08, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:In the news/Posted/Archives exists if that's what you're looking for. Blurbs/RDs are obvious and the entries with just a single link should be ongoing. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 04:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

And that was done through automated tools, and so while not the cleanest way to look for blurbs, at least provides that specificity of an archive. Masem (t) 05:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

The biggest news

Call me innocent and naïve, but the biggest news story is Elon Musk's takeover of the United States tax refund and Social Security payments computer system, and it's not on English Wikipedia's front page. Bearian (talk) 07:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm taking of course about United States DOGE Service. Bearian (talk) 08:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the best article would be. Over here in the UK, a lot of the reporting is focussing on the effects on USAID. I understand from friends in the USA that there's much, much more to it than that - but it's a developing situation, and I don't know how WP should best cover it. If anyone has suggestions, I think it's definitely worth considering. (Mind you, I think coverage of UK politics in 2022 skipped straight from the death of the Queen to the resignation of Liz Truss, even though a lot of things happened in between which in retrospect were very important.) GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:04, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, we could start with 2025 United States federal government grant pause. Ultimately, the big story is a coup attempt by billionaire buddies to cut Federal government payments to their enemies, to grant huge tax cuts to them, to destroy USAID to help China and revenge for shutting down Apartheid, and to hand over government property to hedge funds. The chaos is intended to hide their goal: to turn the United States economy into something like Russia's. I must sound like a conspiracy theorist. Bearian (talk) 08:09, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

The shutdown of USAID has a current open nomination, but is trending toward "not posted". Natg 19 (talk) 17:52, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

WP is not a newspaper nor is ITN a news ticker. The situation around that office is moving too fast to have a stable article on it to meet the quality requirements for featuring on the front page. If you want to read news, use Wikinews or any other news site. Masem (t) 18:40, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it's big news. If Bearian nominates a relevant article then I'll support its significance. Myself, I nominated the relevant list of executive orders as a generic way of covering this. But it wasn't posted as it didn't get sufficient support. "80% of success is showing up". Andrew🐉(talk) 12:49, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Five blurb in a row

Given the frequency that this number remains in the template, I suggest staying as a guideline. ArionStar (talk) 12:30, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

What is this referring to? If you are talking about having 5 entries "posted" on the ITN main page template, the number of entries listed is based on "main page balance" and is handled by administrators. Natg 19 (talk) 17:53, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

This was already explained to you when you asked last time. Stephen 21:58, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I can't see the unbalanced page since I use the desktop version on my phone… It looks normal here. Does the balance follows the computer monitor pattern? ArionStar (talk) 00:25, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I love the fact you want everybody to adjust to you LOL.

ITN is great as it can adjust to the other sections of the Main Page, as viewed from a computer. Howard the Duck (talk) 00:28, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not imposing anything, I'm trying to reach a consensus on how much 5 blurbs can affect the visualization on a computer and/or a phone. ArionStar (talk) 00:33, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Man, WP:ITNBALANCE is a thing. Please do read it. Howard the Duck (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

The question is: do 5 blurbs affect the page balance from a computer screen? ArionStar (talk) 00:40, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

The question does not make sense.

Each item blurb has different lengths. Currently, there are 4 blurbs, 3 wraps into two lines, 1 wraps into five lines. My screen resolution is rather unique, but both sides of the screen are balanced almost to a "T". If there's another ITN blurb the right side will be significantly longer than the left. Howard the Duck (talk) 00:46, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

It also depends how many lines does the ongoing events and recent deaths sections wrap into. Both section wraps into three lines today. Howard the Duck (talk) 00:49, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. ArionStar (talk) 01:06, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

The purpose of main page balance is not the number of blurbs. The admins at ITN will adjust for the size of the other 3 sections of the top boxes so that both columns look similar in size. From ITNBALANCE: This means the combined lengths of ITN and OTD should be about the same length as TFA and DYK combined. This can allow for between 3-5 items listed; usually it is 4. Natg 19 (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I didn't know about this 3-5 margin. Thanks. ArionStar (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that this is a "rule". I believe it is just how things have worked out. The main thing is to balance the ITN and OTD "section" with the TFA and DYK "section". But either way, this is something that the admins are handling, and I don't feel is an issue at this time. Natg 19 (talk) 01:11, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

ITNBALANCE is not really a thing. Most of our readers use the mobile view which just has a single column. The minority of readers who use the desktop double-column view tend to be power users. They may have monitors of various sizes and are more likely to have customized the view with alternate settings, skins and gadgets. So, what you're getting from ITNBALANCE is a view that looks good to the admin that did it. 99% of the readership won't notice or care about this cosmetic tweak because they have a different configuration.

But the bottom blurb is quite disposable because it is usually quite stale, having been posted for several days in succession. For example, the #5 blurb which was just removed for this reason was for the 2025 Potomac River mid-air collision. That was a big story a week ago but the readership has now naturally fallen to 5% of its initial level. And so it won't be missed.

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:17, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

People still read Wikipedia on computers, but I'd love to know the ratio vs. mobile users.

Most likely it isn't 99:1. Howard the Duck (talk) 10:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

The desktop share of the main page readership was 40% so far this year. That 60:40 split is just the start because, as explained, desktop users have different configurations and screen sizes and so micromanaging the layout won't work consistently for them.

Other main page sections pay no attention this because they are kept busy posting lots of content. ITN posts so little that you seem to get this tinkering as form of busywork.

Andrew🐉(talk) 13:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

ITN posts so little that you seem to get this tinkering as form of busywork: I presume the community wouldnt have the WP:ITNBALANCE shortcut nor its targeted section if it didnt want admins volunteering their time "tinkering" with it. —Bagumba (talk) 15:47, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I doubt that the community has ever considered this in a coherent way. For example, the desktop main page is looking a bit lopsided today because DYK has 9 blurbs while OTD only has 4. This means that there's some whitespace on the RHS but I don't see anyone getting excited about this. ITNBALANCE would have ITN making up the difference by adding more blurbs, going up to 6 or 7. But that would look even more odd because it would be unusual and so I don't see it happening.

For an example of clear community concern about whitespace, see the furore about Vector 2022 and its limited width view. I looked into that at the time but just had to refresh my memory of how it works. It doesn't seem to affect the main page which seems odd. To be consistent, when you have limited width, the main page ought to have a single column in desktop view, like it does in mobile. Just to check whether we're on the same page, I usually use Vector 2022 but have limited width toggled off. How about you and other ITN regulars?

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:54, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I doubt that the community has ever considered this in a coherent way. You're free to propose changes to WP:ITN/A, if there's something more coherent. —Bagumba (talk) 10:09, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

We already have a discussion -- this one. This is useful in thrashing out the technical details and clarifying the issue. The OP made a specific proposal for a fixed number of 5 blurbs. My impression is that 5 is currently the ceiling. Have we ever had more than 5? Andrew🐉(talk) 10:30, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Re: display, I typically view at it as logged out reader if I'm assessing ITNBALANCE. —Bagumba (talk) 10:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Collapse/hide for resolved nominations

Once a nomination has been resolved (closed or posted), would it be possible -- or desirable -- to hide it? It'd make scrolling through the page a lot easier (I'm happily not on a mobile device, and its 38 PgDns for me at the moment), and perhaps draw more attention to those noms still pending. Something like:

(Posted) RD: Förmer Præsident

Posted by User:Pig at 16:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Article: Recent deaths (talk · history · tag)
Recent deaths nomination (Post)
News source(s): BBC News
Credits:

• Nominated by Moscow Mule (talk · give credit)

Article updated
Recent deaths of any person, animal or organism with a Wikipedia article are always presumed to be important enough to post (see this RFC and further discussion). Comments should focus on whether the quality of the article meets WP:ITNRD.

Nominator's comments: Significant figure in the recent history of Lower Ruritania, died this morning

• Support User:Dog 12:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support User:Cat 13:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support User:Cow 15:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
• Posted User:Pig 16:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

That's using Template:Hidden; the collapse attribute would be more elegant if it could be incorporated into the template, but that's beyond my skill set. And the example's a quick and easy RD: much more space would be saved with lengthy, contentious nominations once they've been decided on. Moscow Mule (talk) 19:46, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

• The discussions for the current blurbs on the main page ought to be retained until they scroll off the main page so that there's a place to discuss them at ITN. WP:ERRORS is quite inadequate for this because it is focussed purely on errors and doesn't support continuity of discussions over several days.

For example, we recently had a blurb about Nicaragua. This was posted just before the discussion scrolled off WP:ITN/C as it was six days old. It hadn't received much attention and there was more to say about it. I came across it after it had been moved to the monthly archive -- see Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/January_2025#(Posted)_Constitutional_reform_in_Nicaragua.

To cut down on the clutter, it would be best to move RDs off to a separate page as there's usually not much to say about them. Their supposed significance is not up for discussion and all people seem to care about is rote citations. A bot could handle that.

Andrew🐉(talk) 23:03, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Moving RDs to a separate page would likely harm both participation at ITN as well as admin workload, dealing with two pages. And that's before getting into the cases of blurb suggestions for RDs. Masem (t) 05:27, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

That Nicaragua situation was unfortunate, but it's also fairly unusual for a news story (not a RD) to get posted in its dying moments on ITNC prior to archiving. And I don't know how that could be avoided, with the bot automatically doing its thing at 00h00 every day. I didn't like the Nicaragua story (no dedicated article, though I know that's not a requirement, but no analysis or even quoting of the text of the constitutional amendment either) but at least it wasn't up for long. And I think you're both right about the RDs: less clutter but more work. But the inevitable overlaps when editors decide a RD warrants upgrading to a blurb would probably make it unworkable. Moscow Mule (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

My concern on this is when the nominations get archived, while the WP search engine will still help, when you actually get to one of these pages, some browser search features do not descend into the collapsed section, making it then difficult to find things.

My concern on this is when the nominations get archived, while the WP search engine will still help, when you actually get to one of these pages, some browser search features do not descend into the collapsed section, making it then difficult to find things.

I see really don't see a need to collapse unless the discussion of the topic gets out of hand and collapsing is necessary. Not all admins are likely going to do collapsing for run-of-the-mill cases, and in some cases, the ITNC entry is used to discuss blurb wording changes if events turn around. Masem (t) 05:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

They could be archived in their non-collapsed form (but that would be tedious unless the bot could be trained to do it). And it'd be trivial to set the "expanded=true" flag if a discussion springs back to life. But I see your point: it would create more problems & hassle than it would solve. So it's another week of scrolling past the Super Bowl nom (which was always going to get posted) on our way to the stuff like Nicaragua that's been left behind, then. Moscow Mule (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I was going to insist with "worth considering just for closed (rejected) nominations?" but yeah, some closures -- esp. non-admin closures -- can be contentious. Moscow Mule (talk) 20:17, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

No opinion on closed discussion, but posted one surely are not 'closed' and hiding those is inappropriate. There have been multiple pulls, forgot? 𝓔xclusive𝓔ditor _{Ping Me🔔} 09:20, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

No, I hadn't forgotten. Re-opening a closed discussion would just involving flipping the "expanded=true" switch but, yes, perhaps expecting casual editors wanting to express an opinion on ITNC to get into the issue of template attributes is a bit much. And the whole Template:Hidden method is a bit of a hack: it'd be far more elegant to incorporate it into the candidate template, were that possible. But it's looking like I'm in a minority of one in thinking it might be helpful anyway. Moscow Mule (talk) 15:15, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Topic diversity

Just a perspective from a regular reader and former occasional editor.

In the News is dominated by the same few topics: deaths (especially mass casualty incidents), politics (especially elections) and sporting events. Nothing against these topics, but are we overlooking equally significant news in other topics that may be interesting to readers?

The entry about the boycotts in Southeast Europe was a refreshing change, because such economic developments have great impact on societies. Once the Trump tariffs take effect, they will upend global supply chains and thus deserve a blurb. If a Fortune Global 500 company goes out of business or is acquired, this affects their thousands of employees and millions of customers, with further reprecussions if it is systemically important to its industry or country.

Some product releases have an immediate and massive impact that reliable sources expect to be long-term. Three obvious examples are:

• Pokemon Go, the first mainstream augmented reality app, with players involved in numerous incidents and wider trends.
• The first Covid-19 vaccine, developed in record time and deployed across the world to enable recovery from the pandemic.
• ChatGPT, groundbreaking generative artificial intelligence that reshaped how people write, learn and work.

As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia should also highlight newsworthy events in the natural sciences and mathematics. 119.74.161.80 (talk) 14:12, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I started a discussion a few weeks ago regarding WP:PROMO as it relates to blurb posts. Feel free to leave your thoughts in that discussion as well. I do believe at the very least that business-related news is underrepresented at ITN and we could really do well to change that. For what it's worth, the issue ITN runs into with scientific news is the timeline between a discovery and the publication of a scientific discovery. Usually we want to wait for a study to be verified, but sometimes these stories fall through the cracks later on, or get hung up for other reasons. Feel free to suggest some changes to ITN blurb consideration overall though. We've been discussing this a lot lately. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:29, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

To me, if a business news event has an immediate (and expected to be long-term) large-scale impact on the wider society, then what matters is the blurb and article cover it in a neutral and encyclopediac manner. If we refuse to blurb it due to unreasonable concerns over promotion, we are doing our readers a disservice. Thanks for explaining the issues with scientific news. One idea is to complement ITN/R with a page that explains ITNSIGNIF for different topics (like what makes a mass casualty event significant enough for ITN) and for certain topics (like scientific topics), getting more input from experts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.241.172 (talk • contribs)

The problem is that with most business news, its hard to tell of any immediate long term impact. What can have impact are multibillion merger plans (like with did for Disney/Fox or Microsoft/Activision), even with the understanding that things may change before the merger is complete, since usually the market moves on the announcement and not the closure. We've also covered major market depressions that last for multiple days, but tend to ignore short term ones (like the one that hit AI companies with that Chinese AI news from a few weeks ago). Masem (t) 23:01, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• The elephant in the room currently is the new Trump administration and its radical attempts to reshape the domestic and international order. It's bizarre that ITN is preferring to cover politics in Liechtenstein instead but that's getting preference because of WP:ITN/R. That list of guaranteed significance distorts ITN's balance but it's hard for anything else to get a consensus in open discussion. If you want more variety, then you have to show up, nominate varied topics and !vote for them. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:34, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

General elections in small countries are absolutely newsworthy, as their governance impacts a few thousand to a few million people. ITN should not have a systemic bias towards large or Western countries. I would fully support blurbs about Trump administration policies with significant global impact, such as the tariffs (which will upend global supply chains) and shutting down USAID (which will worsen problems in poor countries). Perhaps we should consider stricter criteria for mass casualty incidents and sporting events, but the bigger issue is what topics ITN is neglecting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.241.172 (talk • contribs)

Establishing a precedent consensus for ITN notability of mass-casualty accidents

I think the current discussion on the 2025 Guatemala City bus crash nomination is devolving into a broader debate about WP:NOTNEWS and its relationship to notability criteria at ITN, including whether it should be permissive of bus plunges or other mass-casualty accidents. I admit playing a part in that, but consider this my good faith effort to turn it into something productive as opposed to any further derail that nomination!

Would it be possible to instead have an open discussion about a potential consensus on a new rule going forward for how we are going to assess the notabiity of mass casualty events here at ITN? This would disincentivize the need for either side to continuously try and litigate the same underlying dispute over and over again across nominations.

For example, is there some compromise set of "indicia" criteria we could we put down in writing as a more specifically tailored ITN guideline for when a mass-casualty transportation accident meets the notability threshold? I'm thinking of listing things like "Atypically high casualty count for the type of accident"; "Unusual manner of accident"; "Immediate global coverage"; "Indications of accident as catalyst for industrial reform"; etc - not to say we have to use those, those are just examples.

I propose this largely because I have been around here for years, and I remember this argument happening almost verbatim as far back as 2018 when Schoharie limousine crash was proposed. Nothing has changed and it takes up a lot of energy and time. Maybe fleshing things out and seeking consensus in a broader-level policy discussion would help. Pinging involved editors so as to try to get a productive ball rolling: Masem, Stephen, thebiguglyalien, ArionStar, Moscow Mule, The Kip, TDKR Chicago 101, etc, feel free to ping anyone else I may have missed. Thanks all for our shared passion for this project. Flip^andFlopped ツ 07:08, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Also, at a procedural level, would any of you suggest an RFC or Village Pump as a more suitable forum for this type of thing than this talk page? Flip^andFlopped ツ 07:10, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• WP:NEWSEVENT already explains the general idea, "Routine kinds of news events (including most crimes, accidents, deaths, celebrity or political news, "shock" news, stories lacking lasting value such as "water cooler stories," and viral phenomena) – whether or not tragic or widely reported at the time – are usually not notable unless something further gives them additional enduring significance." Determination of whether an accident is routine or of enduring significance has to be determined on a case-by-case basis. The Guatemala bus crash has some mysterious elements and the cause still seems uncertain. But its article says "Road accidents leading to high numbers of casualties have been common in Latin America in recent years, especially involving buses." and so that indicates that it's at the routine end of the range.

The extent of the coverage seems limited in that case. It was a wire story and the international media seems to run such stories as a matter of course, like the classic bus plunge. But it doesn't seem likely that they will return to it unless some surprising finding emerges from the investigation.

What I notice is that the readership for the story is quite low, peaking at about 3,000 in a day. This indicates that, while our readers may have noticed the story in the news, they don't feel the need to find out more on Wikipedia. ITN is supposed "To help readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for..". I'm not convinced there's much demand in this case.

Andrew🐉(talk) 11:15, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

An important data is to be determined yet: the number of passengers; local media Prensa Libre is still covering the event. Waiting for updates… ArionStar (talk) 12:34, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I think the issue is that when we assess "enduring significance" on a case by case basis in the context of an ITN nom, we are inherently limited to speculation and WP:CRYSTAL about whether the media will return to a case based on how "shocking" the tragedy subjectively seems to us in the moment. This can come off as rather insensitive to the victims of the tragedy, and also somewhat arbitrary and prone to systemic and cultural biases of the individual editor. For the Guatemala example, we simply don't know whether or not this bus crash will amount to anything at the outset: maybe it won't, or maybe it will end up being like Schoharie limousine crash where it spurs an entire lengthy, high quality article about legislative & industry reform, community impact, and a high-profile trial spanning years after the initial tragedy. It is inherently usually pretty impossible to tell. Because of that impracticality and necessity for speculation, I don't think this is an effective metric for gauging whether to post the story at ITN.

Moscow Mule also made a good point on my talk page, which is that most bus crashes from the developing world have a worse shot at meeting a more onerous "enduring notability" threshold and generating a longer- high-quality article (the type that Masem I think envisions articles should be, as opposed to 'accident stubs'), simply because subsequent events like a trial or industry reforms by a local city council are not likely to be reported in the media - again, contrast this plunge with the Schoharie example. Western English language media is already more likely to be added to corresponding articles by English-language editors, but it also generally has more infrastructure to follow things closely. But this inequity of media infrastructure does not mean that the core "newsworthiness" or "notability" of the bus crash is any lesser because it happened in Latin America; it just means our editing community is less prone and less able to write on it. High-income English-language speakers travel more by plane, so our media hyperfixates on plane crashes. Poor people in Guatemala travel by bus, so they are more likely to find that notable (and there will be more stories in Spanish-language media about this bus crash). Equalizing out that systemic bias is not a "be-all, end-all" of whether an article should be posted, but I think it is a valid factor to consider. Flip^andFlopped ツ 15:30, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

The real discussion, which is beyond ITN, is clawing back the excessive news coverage and writing approach that we do across the board for all topics, the bulk which fail NOTNEWS, NEVENT, and RECENTISM; the problem starting around 2016, got worse with the COVID period, and keeps growing worse. Editors are not thinking about what might actually stick if we were talking about such things ten years from now for the first time.

I may have been tolerant of these earlier at ITN, but to me they are an epitome of this problem on WP, because such articles are "low hanging fruit" in terms of setting up and getting a state that may seem postable. Have a paragraph about the event, plop a "background" and "reaction" section, and you may think you have a good article. In reality, these really fail to meet the quality we'd expect for an encyclopedic article (a key part of what ITN serves), and even when considering that ITN serves to help readers find what they may have seen in the news, most of these accident articles tend to be back page or buried stories in the news; they may get international coverage but that doesn't equate to being a key story (as Andrew points out, wire services can give the false impression that reporters all over the world have taken interest).

At the same time, we don't discourage article creation, and sometimes a story that may seem non-important can become that. (from the NOTNEWS perspective, we need far better adherence to reviewing news event articles that turn out to lack any key significance some time after creation, as to deal loose restrictions on article creation, but that's not ITNs problem).

I think that for these and achieving the balance, key is how the sourcing works, that if the article can demonstrate ~three days of continuous coverage from the same key news sources in that area in addition to any non-regional/international coverage, it shows the event is more than a blip, if the event has questionable long-term notability from the onset (as we'd consider for most commercial airline crashes or hurricane strikes). I don't think we can hard-limit any required number, but I'd rather see editors demonstrate that an event that has no clear long-term impact can at least show that there is reasonable continued coverage over a few days of decent news coverage. If its a flash-in-the-pan story, that's not a good encyclopedic topic to start, and thus not appropriate for ITN. Masem (t) 13:13, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I've avoided events like this for a while because the discussion has simply become if many people dying in an isolated incident matters, which is a morbid discussion and evidently quite futile. It's absurd to me that, in particular, so many people think high-fatality bus plunges don't even meet NEVENT. How many would need to die in a bus plunge for it to be notable enough to even have a page? It's just toxic at this point. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

The key around NEVENT is how enduring that event in time, which is how we distinguish something that is an encyclopedic topic versus a news story. Just because an accident has a large number of deaths doesn't make it encyclopedic. It's not being toxic, it's looking realistically if it will be a topic that will be one readers will seek in the future. Masem (t) 16:20, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

According to a deputy of the Congress, a discussion on Traffic Law/Code changes has been started following the bus accident. ArionStar (talk) 17:42, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

And certainly in time the event may prove enough to have a long tail, but that's the problem with these traffic accident articles, it is impossible to tell simply due to the accident happening, the number of people involved (including the death toll), and where the accident occurred, and until that information actually is fleshed out, we really can't consider the article to be of the type of quality we'd expect for news articles that have clear evidence of long term notability off the bat, like commercial aircraft crashes. That's why we're tolerant of the creation of them but that doesn't necessarily translate to a comparatively high-quality article we want to feature on the mainpage. That is one of the reasons we say informally ITN is not a news ticker, we don't just post any article about current events, we're looking for a quality article, and we should be judging these types of articles on accidents more carefully. Masem (t) 22:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• One problem is that road deaths are quite common – over a million a year – several thousand every day. And such accidents with buses are quite common too – the latest news is that "24 people have died in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck in Zimbabwe". So, if we report all such incidents, we could fill ITN with nothing else. And there's other transport accidents too -- we had three plane crashes being blurbed recently. But tracking all these incidents is not encyclopedic because we're supposed to summarise. That means general analysis, history and stats, not just a catalogue of crashes. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:20, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Question

Nihonjoe Hello, Could you add the following statement

• Russian Federation attacked strike drones sarcophagus of the 4th reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, as a result of which the outer and inner layers of the shelter facility were significantly destroyed, fire extinguishing and control measures are underway in terms of the level of radiation contamination (February 14)

to the news template?--Yasnodark (talk) 15:51, 14 February 2025 (UTC)