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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)
- 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 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. FlipandFlopped 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? FlipandFlopped ツ 07:10, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Flipandflopped I believe we can merge two of these ideas, that is this about NOTNEWS and my concern about early posting of articles into one and put it up at the Village Pump, since that discussion has become stale. I think both of our proposals are important for the sake of ITN TNM101 (chat) 17:48, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- Starting it here was what WP:RFCBEFORE recommends:
—Bagumba (talk) 03:50, 17 February 2025 (UTC)Editors should try to resolve their issues before starting an RfC. Try discussing the matter with any other parties on the related talk page. If you can reach a consensus or have your questions answered through discussion, then there is no need to start an RfC.
- Now that there has been a talk page discussion, I am wondering if starting an RFC that combines both what TNM101 and I have proposed might be suitable. However, I know there was also recently a rather large RFC related to ITN which closed, so I don't know if it's a good idea to make another one again so soon. FlipandFlopped ツ 19:47, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- The previous RFC's close mentioned "perhaps in six months' time". I'd recommend the RfC be as specific as possible—workshop beforehand, as needed—with a neutral brief summary of the pros and cons of the different sides. It'll otherwise get unwieldy. —Bagumba (talk) 11:25, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Now that there has been a talk page discussion, I am wondering if starting an RFC that combines both what TNM101 and I have proposed might be suitable. However, I know there was also recently a rather large RFC related to ITN which closed, so I don't know if it's a good idea to make another one again so soon. FlipandFlopped ツ 19:47, 17 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. FlipandFlopped 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)
- Three days of continuous coverage doesn't indicate "sustained" coverage, that's still a single news cycle. Before I felt confident calling something sustained coverage, I'd want to see secondary sources (things like books or articles that consider all of the information that was released in real-time and then analyze/synthesize it). Events should preferably be covered as a paragraph or section in their parent article, not as a standalone article. I've written my thoughts about this at User:Thebiguglyalien/Avoid contemporary sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- For purposes of having to make a decision at ITN within 7 days from the event, using a ~ 3 day of continued coverage at least suggests there may be more to the accident that would merit a long term coverage if not already obvious before. That may still turn out to be wrong for keeping the article in the future and would not be a reason to keep at a future AFD, but as a short term measure for ITN seems reasonable. — Masem (t) 15:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- For a related idea about NOTNEWS see Talk:Donald Trump/Article bias forum Kowal2701 (talk) 22:41, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- Three days of continuous coverage doesn't indicate "sustained" coverage, that's still a single news cycle. Before I felt confident calling something sustained coverage, I'd want to see secondary sources (things like books or articles that consider all of the information that was released in real-time and then analyze/synthesize it). Events should preferably be covered as a paragraph or section in their parent article, not as a standalone article. I've written my thoughts about this at User:Thebiguglyalien/Avoid contemporary sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:34, 17 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)
- Today's featured article is about a tropical storm in the USA that killed only 1 person and had no lasting impact, which seems to fail NOTNEWS and NEVENT. I agree that commercial aircraft crashes are usually more notable, but there will still be some unusual road accidents that deserve ITN and I hope we can develop some criteria to identify them. The criteria should be fair and not worsen systemic bias against accidents outside the Western world.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.75.6.103 (talk) 10:57, 16 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)
- 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)
- 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)
- 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)- Tbh I would mostly exclude mass casualty events unless it’s like a hurricane where hundreds of people have died or it’s a leading story in English language media around the world. But all I ask for is consistency between North and South, and that’s regarding end result of the noms not individual !voting records. Kowal2701 (talk) 22:11, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, Flipandflopped, for including me and, incidentally, for summarizing much of what I might have had to say on the subject. Article quality. The Philadelphia Lear Jet crash got a quality article produced in short order. In contrast, the Escárcega bus crash has only had one edit in the past 3+ days, and that was to flesh out a bare-url ref. Unlike Andrew, I don't have a problem with WP containing "a catalogue of crashes" (alongside a catalogue of athletes who competed at one Olympics, of politicians who were elected to one term in some national parliament, etc.), but parading them on the main page is another matter. So, I'm not addressing the underlying notability issue because, quite frankly, I don't know.
- I'd've thought that (e.g.) the impeachment of the Philippines VP would have made it on notability grounds, but it didn't ("wait for conviction", "not a serving head of state" -- comments I'll be remembering if the Dems take back the US House in 2 years' time and find grounds to impeach Vance). Much more significant ("notable") -- albeit less tragic -- than a bus crash. ITN's got the upper-right quadrant of -- what is it? the tenth most visited site on the web? -- and we really don't know what to do with it. A broader problem, of course, and one that's been discussed before without any major conclusions being reached. Thank heavens for the blurbed RDs we're currently showing, or we could be looking at news from 2 or 3 weeks ago. Moscow Mule (talk) 17:48, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Moscow Mule, if it helps at all I'd probably oppose a Vance impeachment nom as well. IMO, impeachment blurbs should be reserved for heads of state only. The Kip (contribs) 20:11, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Heh. Not sure if it helps, but thanks for the advance warning. Moscow Mule (talk) 02:57, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- Before the blurb becomes stale, what's the result of all this discussion? Appropriate for ITN or not? ArionStar (talk) 01:18, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Comment: I feel like threads here on ITN Talk are always going to get stale. That is why I think moving this to the Village Pump would be a good idea TNM101 (chat) 03:14, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hm, looks interesting… but I don't know how we can do it. ArionStar (talk) 04:57, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- I agree, TNM101. Or maybe a RFC? If you are inclined to create something, I will gladly contribute, or alternatively, if you have a recommendation for what is most effective I'm also happy to post. FlipandFlopped ツ 19:38, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- RfC at the village pump? Kowal2701 (talk) 20:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- If there is a RFC, can we workshop it for a bit here? The last ITN RFC, the way I see it, was not sufficiently fleshed out here, which doomed it to fail. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:57, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- I agree that probably constructing a good draft of amendments here would be much better than just straight up moving to an RfC. I'll start making a draft of my suggestions, and I'll post it here after I'm done TNM101 (chat) 11:14, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Moscow Mule, if it helps at all I'd probably oppose a Vance impeachment nom as well. IMO, impeachment blurbs should be reserved for heads of state only. The Kip (contribs) 20:11, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hey ITN regulars, infrequent ITN commenter here, I saw the notice at the Village Pump. I think these issues are worth discussing in a bigger RfC, which should be well-formatted and include some options to vote on; a multi-part RfC where each solution is voted on separately would be best. The biggest weakness of ITN is the lack of guidance on what should be posted and subsequent evidence-free voting on nominations, so any effort to fix this is a good idea.
- There is an important distinction pointed out above between NEVENT and ITN criteria. Just because an event is notable (i.e. "would be kept at AfD") does not mean it should be posted to the main page. However, importance/significance are assessed the same way at both venues: by looking at the sources. Masem's "three days of continuous coverage" is a start – we shouldn't be blurbing events that are only covered for a single day, just like we shouldn't have articles about them. I think "front page coverage in several print newspapers" has also been suggested as a metric before.
- On the other hand, facts about the event itself, like the items suggested by Flipandflopped (see "I'm thinking of listing things like" above) are not good predictors of significance except in very extreme cases. I also disagree with Thebiguglyalien that we should wait for books to be published before determining notability. There may be no deadline, but it is silly to wait years before writing anything at all and Wikipedia's speed is it's greatest strength.
- The discussion on ending ITN was had, and it will be had again, but for now we're looking for small improvements to the process. If we can come up with a few more good potential event criteria I think starting a bigger RfC is a good idea. Toadspike [Talk] 08:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- For the record we should note that the Guatemala bus plunge did get posted but this happened a week after the incident when it was no longer in the news. By that time, a different transport accident was the top story on BBC News – the Delta flip-flop – and that was especially remarkable for having few serious injuries and no deaths. And a different bus plunge was actually in the news.
- So, we see that ITN's coverage of transport accidents is haphazard rather than properly encyclopedic. To get the big picture you have to look at pages like 2025 in aviation and List of traffic collisions (2000–present).
- Andrew🐉(talk) 08:59, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Comparing the coverage between 2025 Yocalla bus crash (just a little bigger than WP:MINCOV) and 2025 Guatemala City bus crash is clearly inappropriate. ArionStar (talk) 16:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's not clear at all. How are you measuring this? My point is that the Bolivia bus plunge is in the news currently as it's appearing on lots of international news sites because it's a Reuters wire story. The Guatemala story got much the same treatment as a wire story too but that was a week ago. They seem more alike than they are different.
- The Delta flip-flop is significantly different in that, despite the extreme nature of the crash, most passengers came through it quite well. That seems to be due to good safety design as explained in this BBC report Why did a plane crash in Toronto, and how did everyone survive? But even though it's a top story, ITN refuses to touch it because nobody died. See if it bleeds, it leads, "
Sensational, violent stories are to be prioritized.
" - Andrew🐉(talk) 18:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Just take a look at local media sites: [1] (Ahora el Pueblo), [2] (El Diario). It's not a front news. The Guatemala City bus crash was headline in Guatemalan newspapers (Prensa Libre e TV Azteca Guate). About the plane crash: I would support it (I was busy with the buses question), but the discussion is now closed. ArionStar (talk) 22:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- You're linking to Spain's El Diario. The Bolivian one does have it front and centre. As does Jornada. At time of writing, anyway. Whatever that proves. Moscow Mule (talk) 05:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- No more… ArionStar (talk) 23:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- You're linking to Spain's El Diario. The Bolivian one does have it front and centre. As does Jornada. At time of writing, anyway. Whatever that proves. Moscow Mule (talk) 05:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Just take a look at local media sites: [1] (Ahora el Pueblo), [2] (El Diario). It's not a front news. The Guatemala City bus crash was headline in Guatemalan newspapers (Prensa Libre e TV Azteca Guate). About the plane crash: I would support it (I was busy with the buses question), but the discussion is now closed. ArionStar (talk) 22:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Here's a comparison of the readership for the two bus plunges and the Delta flip. This shows that the air crash has been of significantly more interest even though there were no fatalities and it wasn't posted at ITN. The Guatemala bus plunge only started getting a significant readership when it was posted at ITN. So, ITN is making a difference there but I doubt that readers were looking for the item untill they spotted it when browsing the main page. It's early days for the Bolivian bus plunge but I suppose that it won't get much readership unless and until it is posted at ITN too. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- That is because it was American? Are you saying that because most of our readership is American we should make ITN biased in that way? Kowal2701 (talk) 11:06, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- My impression is that the aircrash was interesting because planes don't usually tumble over like that. And it happened in Canada not the US. And I'm in the UK but saw repeated news bulletins about it. And the evidence of the readership is that it's the sort of story that readers ... are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news. And the evidence shows that ITN has the opposite bias because this story was not posted. Currently ITN is running items for the following countries: Britain, Africa, Romania, Guatemala, Congo, Ukraine, Sudan. Notice that the US does not appear at all. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Africa is not a country. GenevieveDEon (talk) 14:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- And that’s because we don’t use page views or solely western media in establishing notability Kowal2701 (talk) 14:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I use it to help establish whether readers are likely to be searching for a page, which is ITN's purpose. The more readers a page has, the more likely there are others who may be having trouble finding it if its title isn't obvious, like the transport accidents. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's only one facet, and we should be aware of reader biases, which are naturally going to favor English-based and Western topics. That's why things like popularity or fame should be ignored in judging what we post, and why discussion page views doesn't aid in that. As long as every topic posted sees a viewership bump after posting, we've done our job there. And we know that readers will find topics that we haven't posted as well. Masem (t) 22:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I use it to help establish whether readers are likely to be searching for a page, which is ITN's purpose. The more readers a page has, the more likely there are others who may be having trouble finding it if its title isn't obvious, like the transport accidents. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- My impression is that the aircrash was interesting because planes don't usually tumble over like that. And it happened in Canada not the US. And I'm in the UK but saw repeated news bulletins about it. And the evidence of the readership is that it's the sort of story that readers ... are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news. And the evidence shows that ITN has the opposite bias because this story was not posted. Currently ITN is running items for the following countries: Britain, Africa, Romania, Guatemala, Congo, Ukraine, Sudan. Notice that the US does not appear at all. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- That is because it was American? Are you saying that because most of our readership is American we should make ITN biased in that way? Kowal2701 (talk) 11:06, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I wonder if we should try to have many more such not-quite-major incidents get listed, but with rapid turnover. I think that listing a mass casualty event, perhaps for a maximum of 24 hours, quite early would be better than listing it a week later.
- Another approach that would support the primary goal of getting readers to the time-sensitive articles that they're looking for would be to add a small link to, e.g., List of terrorist incidents in 2025 or List of traffic collisions (2000–present)#2025 whenever notable entries get added. The current ITN entry of "A bus falls off a bridge over the Las Vacas River in Guatemala City, killing at least 55 people" could be replaced by something similar to our "Ongoing" and "Recent deaths" items, e.g., "Traffic deaths". Alternatively, the mass casualty event could become an item in the "Recent deaths" the same way we would list an individual person. Today's would read "Marian Turski • Paquita la del Barrio • Gerald Ridsdale • Gerhart Baum • Gil Won-ok • Michael O'Sullivan • 2025 Guatemala City bus crash". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Issue is that that might encourage creation of non-encyclopedic articles on events with like 2 deaths in the hope of getting something on the main page Kowal2701 (talk) 22:26, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- So what if it encourages the creation of an article? An eager editor will create an article, we'll merge and redirect it to one of the Lists of traffic collisions, we'll decide against having it appear on the Main Page, and nobody will have been harmed by any of this. Having people create articles about mass casualty events is not inherently a problem, and articles about "events with like 2 deaths" are not inherently non-encyclopedic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- It is extremely hard presently to convince editors at AFD or other venues w.r.t. to deletion or merging of these types of event articles, because of the misconception that larger volumes of news coverage equates to notability. We need to get editors to stop making articles on every tiny event that might get some short term widespread coverage because that's not our purpose per NOTNEWS. Masem (t) 00:24, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- So what if it encourages the creation of an article? An eager editor will create an article, we'll merge and redirect it to one of the Lists of traffic collisions, we'll decide against having it appear on the Main Page, and nobody will have been harmed by any of this. Having people create articles about mass casualty events is not inherently a problem, and articles about "events with like 2 deaths" are not inherently non-encyclopedic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Issue is that that might encourage creation of non-encyclopedic articles on events with like 2 deaths in the hope of getting something on the main page Kowal2701 (talk) 22:26, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Comparing the coverage between 2025 Yocalla bus crash (just a little bigger than WP:MINCOV) and 2025 Guatemala City bus crash is clearly inappropriate. ArionStar (talk) 16:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
Any statistics on number of blurbs for each topic in a time range?
Based on ITN/R there are about 55 blurbs per year about sporting events and about 25 blurbs per year about awards. How many elections did we blurb in 2024 (or 2023)? How many about deaths (deaths of famous people, natural disasters, terrorist attacks and accidents can be subcategories)?
We could use these statistics to estimate that it would be reasonable to have about X blurbs about topic Y per year (for instance, about 10 blurbs about economic news per year). 219.75.6.103 (talk) 11:25, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'd caution against this approach, because these things are not evenly distributed. 2024 had an unusually large number of elections. Major international sporting events are often only in even-numbered years and on four-year cycles. 2025 has more long-period religious events (Kumbh Mela, Jubilee Year, etc) and fewer elections or sporting events. We're not working to targets or quotas, we're trying to reflect the world as it is. GenevieveDEon (talk) 13:04, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps I did not make my point clear. I am not seeking quotas. If a year had more general elections, ITN should reflect that. My concern is that ITN is neglecting newsworthy events on other topics (such as economic news) due to overly strict criteria (or lack of criteria) for those topics. We could use the numbers as a guide to help set reasonable criteria for these topics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.74.177.130 (talk) 14:23, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- The problem with most economic news is that its impact or long term significance is extremely difficult to tell when the news happens. Short-term market shifts, for example, that last a day don't have clear signs of that being a long term event. Masem (t) 15:01, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- There are other types of economic news with more obvious impact or long term significance. For example:
- The problem with most economic news is that its impact or long term significance is extremely difficult to tell when the news happens. Short-term market shifts, for example, that last a day don't have clear signs of that being a long term event. Masem (t) 15:01, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps I did not make my point clear. I am not seeking quotas. If a year had more general elections, ITN should reflect that. My concern is that ITN is neglecting newsworthy events on other topics (such as economic news) due to overly strict criteria (or lack of criteria) for those topics. We could use the numbers as a guide to help set reasonable criteria for these topics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.74.177.130 (talk) 14:23, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
- A very large company goes bankrupt or is acquired (examples: Evergrande, FTX). Thousands of employees and millions of customers will be affected. There may be wider impact on its country or industry.
- Releases of groundbreaking products (examples: Pokemon Go, the first Covid-19 vaccine and ChatGPT). In just a few days, they had an obvious and massive impact on society.
- Significant changes in economic or trade policies of great powers (examples: Trump imposing tariffs on multiple countries and shutting down USAID).
- Did we blurb the above examples? Statistics can help us calibrate our standards for certain topics (for instance, we may be too strict on economic and scientific news, but too lenient on mass casualty incidents). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.6.200.16 (talk) 13:59, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- 99% sure any stories of those that if they have been nominated, we did not post. We were considering the tariffs Trump wanted against Canada and Mexico, since Canada and Mexico indicated they would start a trade war if they occurred and thus has clear international significance, but since they were pulled at the last minute, we did not post anything. However, most of the policy aspects are moving too quickly or part of larger trends that it doesn't make sense to cover internal politics until its clear what the larger impact is.
- We absolutely will not post product releases, per WP:PROMO. Please note this is different from a significant advancement in medicine, like for example we have posted when WHO has approved of treatments for far-reaching diseases and other illnesses, but that's less about the commercial factor and more the medical basis.
- We have posted major bankruptcies in the past, such as Lehman Brothers in 2008, GM in 2009, Eastman Kodak in 2012, and Japan Airlines in 2010 (Wikipedia:In the news/Posted/Archives helps to search those). But keep in mind most bankruptcy filings are a means to restructure debt, and do not always come with layoffs or the like. It all depends on the reach of the bankruptcy. And I pointed out earlier we have also posted major, $XX billion mergers like Disney with Fox or Microsoft with Activision. So we're not ignoring business news, but the impact has to have been clearly articulated by sources reporting on it. Masem (t) 16:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- Did we blurb the above examples? Statistics can help us calibrate our standards for certain topics (for instance, we may be too strict on economic and scientific news, but too lenient on mass casualty incidents). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.6.200.16 (talk) 13:59, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. My concern (as a reader) is lack of topic diversity at ITN (which is why I asked for statistics). I get the impression that this is due to overly lenient criteria for some topics (about 55 sporting events per year based on ITN/R) and overly strict criteria for some other topics.
There are many companies that are not household names in the West, but still systemically important to their country or industry, such that their bankruptcy or merger would have a massive impact and be widely covered. I am from Singapore and when Evergrande (a Fortune Global 500 company) failed and sparked a property crisis in China, newspapers in Singapore covered it in detail and analysed the impact on the Singapore economy. Surely Wikipedia can come up with reasonable criteria about how large a company should be for a bankruptcy or merger to be blurbed.
At least we agree that if the Trump tariffs took effect, ITN should blurb them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.74.173.238 (talk) 14:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
Topics | Total 2023 | Total 2024 |
---|---|---|
Archaeology and palaeontology | 3 | 3 |
Assassinations and attempted assassinations | 2 | 2 |
Astronomical events (comets, eclipses, etc) | 1 | 3 |
Aviation accidents and incidents | 4 | 8 |
Building / structure collapse | 3 | 4 |
Building / structure fires and explosions | 7 | 5 |
Business | 2 | 0 |
Coups / rebellions (attempted and successful) | 4 | 1 |
Criminal charges / convictions / sentences / etc | 8 | 8 |
Crowd crushes / stampedes | 1 | 2 |
Currency changes | 1 | 0 |
Deaths of individuals | 11 | 18 |
Disease / public health | 3 | 1 |
Domestic politics (excluding elections) | 16 | 26 |
Earthquakes and volcanos | 8 | 3 |
Floods and landslides | 5 | 9 |
Heatwaves and droughts | 1 | 0 |
Hurricanes / cyclones / typhoons / (tropical) storms / tornados | 11 | 8 |
Infrastructure openings, etc | 1 | 0 |
International organisations and associated conferences | 3 | 5 |
International relations, treaties and agreements | 5 | 2 |
Literature / entertainment / etc awards | 8 | 6 |
Maritime accidents and incidents | 4 | 2 |
National elections & resultant changes | 27 | 38 |
Nature / ecology / climate change | 1 | 1 |
Other awards / prizes | 2 | 1 |
Other entertainment | 3 | 1 |
Other sports | 2 | 0 |
Protests and riots | 4 | 13 |
Rail transport accidents and incidents | 4 | 0 |
Religion (organisations, festivals, etc) | 2 | 2 |
Road transport accidents & incidents | 3 | 3 |
Science / maths awards & prizes | 3 | 4 |
Shootings (including spree and mass shootings), stabbings, other mass killing (excluding terrorism) |
6 | 3 |
Space exploration (including rocket launches) | 7 | 10 |
Sports awards / prizes / records /etc | 3 | 1 |
Sports competitions / championships results | 36 | 30 |
Technology | 0 | 2 |
Terrorist attacks and similar | 3 | 10 |
Wars and conflicts | 13 | 14 |
Wildfires | 3 | 1 |
- I've spent the past couple of days compiling some statistics about topics and (as it was easy to do at the same time) countries/territories the posted stories relate to. The full month-by-month data for January 2023 to January 2025 inclusive is available in this spreadsheet (LibreOffice calc .ods format), but the top level stats about topics are to the right. There some important notes:
- Categorisations by topic and country are arbitrary and sometimes subjective
- All figures are approximate (posts may occasionally be missed or double-counted)
- A blurb may relate to zero, one or more than one country (e.g. blurbs about the Israel-Palestine conflict frequently relate to both countries)
- A blurb may relate to one or more than than topic (e.g. protests resulting in a change of national leader are both protests and domestic politics)
- Changes of heads of state/government, including monarchs, are under national elections (if the result of an election), Domestic politics (if otherwise)
- Statistics include posts that were subsequently pulled, but one pulled and then reposted is not intentionally counted twice
- Sources: archive of ITN postings, linked articles, ITN candidate archives
- Only blurbs are counted, not recent deaths or ongoing entries
- I've not got time right now to do any analysis, but I may do tomorrow (UK time). Hopefully all of the topics I've chosen are self-explanatory, but please do ask for any clarifications. Thryduulf (talk) 00:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- In discussions such as this, I'd think, if a paper encyclopedia had a "news" section, what would it include? Off the top of my head:
- Changes in government in countries
- Updates in these countries (new flags, capitals, currencies, etc.)
- Scientific discoveries and breakthroughs
- Awards
- Sports championships
- One of the main selling points of paper encyclopedias back in the day is "this one is more updated than the others!" I'd also imagine natural disasters are more pronounced than man-made ones except when they relate to those listed above (e.g. famine led to a coup, or civil unrest postponed a sports championship).
- I dunno if people thought of it this way, and Wikipedia is not paper, but if you guys are thinking of "what kinds of stories should ITN in Wikipedia include?", this list is a good starting point. Howard the Duck (talk) 00:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
Thanks a lot to Thryduulf for compiling the statistics! I copied the table and tried to combine very similar categories. Some categories could be further combined. For example, I have no idea whether most of the infrastructure damage incidents are also mass casualty incidents.
Topics | Total 2023 | Total 2024 |
---|---|---|
Sports | 41 | 31 |
Natural disasters | 28 | 21 |
Transport accidents | 16 | 15 |
Terrorist attacks | 3 | 10 |
Crime (excluding terrorism) | 14 | 11 |
Wars and conflicts | 13 | 14 |
Deaths of individuals | 11 | 18 |
Domestic politics (elections) | 27 | 38 |
Domestic political unrest or violence (coups, riots, etc.) | 10 | 16 |
Domestic politics (other) | 16 | 26 |
International politics and relations | 8 | 7 |
Infrastructure damage (or opening) | 11 | 9 |
Archaeology and palaeontology | 3 | 3 |
Arts and entertainment | 11 | 7 |
Awards (other) | 2 | 1 |
Economic news | 3 | 0 |
Nature, ecology and climate change | 1 | 1 |
Outer space (astronomical events and space exploration) | 8 | 12 |
Public health | 3 | 1 |
Religion | 2 | 2 |
Science, technology and mathematics | 3 | 6 |
- I just nominated a science/tech topic to do my bit for that theme. I'm not optimistic that it will be posted but "80% of success is showing up". Rejection is obviously discouraging though and so ITN tends to be dominated by topics which are given affirmative action such as ITN/R and RD. Other main page sections such as TFA and DYK make a conscious effort to balance and mix their topics to provide some variety. News organisations usually divide their coverage into thematic sections too. For example, BBC News currently has the following:
- InDepth
- Israel-Gaza war
- War in Ukraine
- Climate
- UK
- World
- Business
- Politics
- Culture
- Tech
- Science
- Health
- Family & Education
- In Pictures
- Newsbeat
- BBC Verify
- Disability
Sport and Weather are high level splits for the BBC, which has them as separate from News.
Andrew🐉(talk) 10:40, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- Science and medicine topics have three major problems going against them:
- We generally like to post when the result is clear and beneficial to society as a whole. Many scientific news that hit are on interesting breakthroughs but without clear practical applications (like the quantum computing one nominated). That said, if multiple major papers independently report on such a breakthrough, along with the necessary peer-reviewed paper to affirm the legitimacy of the work, that would be a way to lower the bar there.
- We need more volunteers to nominate these types of topics at ITN. There's alot of editors that focus more on disasters, and seemingly not enough in other areas
- We need more volunteers who understand the science to be able to work on quality articles and updates based on the reported information. Quality or a lack of an article is often a problem in science and medicine nominations.
- Masem (t) 13:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- The treatment being given to the quantum computing nomination does not encourage volunteers – it will tend to drive them off. The relentless negativity is what discourages people from making nominations and that's why we get so few and why ITN is routinely stale and lacking in variety. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:57, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- Not really. As was pointed out when you look to what was peer reviewed, it wasn't was is being covered by the news reports but sonething yet to have peer review. It falls more into a product announcement than a scientific breakthrough. — Masem (t) 17:05, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- The treatment being given to the quantum computing nomination does not encourage volunteers – it will tend to drive them off. The relentless negativity is what discourages people from making nominations and that's why we get so few and why ITN is routinely stale and lacking in variety. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:57, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
Minimum time limit proposal
- Proposal 1: Administrators and editors are required to wait a minimum of (amount of time) before posting or closing any nomination, regardless of its perceived notability or the presence of consensus.
- Alternative version: Unless the nomination is listed at WP:ITN/R, administrators and editors must wait (amount of time) before posting or closing any nomination, regardless of its perceived notability or presence of consensus.
- Option 1: 1 hour
- Option 2: 12 hours
- Option 3: 24 hours
- Since the whole controversy about early posting happened due to posting in presence of multiple pile-on support votes just on the basis of its "notability", I believe applying a time limit to both posting and closing will help to avoid arguments. Please provide comments on this proposal TNM101 (chat) 17:21, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- No; I don't think you can have a blanket, condition-less time limit for all nomination types. We can all reasonably think up a few examples of nominations that can easily go up within the hour, and conversely, nominations to where even 12 hours may feel like a short time for properly fleshed out discussions. It has to be more nuanced than this. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:38, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Oppose minimum time to post us an ITN PEREN proposal, and failed each time. I would think admin that post take care in posting things to early and that there is no need of urgency at ITN, but setting a minimum time could hurt in some cases. Masem (t) 18:41, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Last time, I supported having a minimum limit on non-ITN/R nominations to allow for more editors to have a chance to give their opinion - and I still do - but consensus did not seem to favor it. However, I don't think we need to wait a specific amount of time to close a nomination. I'd rather WP:SNOW close something then have editors slap up opposes for 12 or 24 hours. The only time I see this going awry is with non-admin closures, where less experienced editors sometimes jump the gun on what they perceive as "consensus being unlikely to develop". However, overall I trust the judgement of admins enough that we don't need to set a guideline here for that. ✈ mike_gigs talkcontribs 20:01, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Support 4 hours for non-ITNR blurb affecting solely one country (whatever that maybe), then an oppose of one person should extend the discussion for another four hours. This should strike a balance between ITN never posting anything for days, and ITN posting something quickly before the rest of the world comments about an event. Howard the Duck (talk) 22:58, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
affecting solely one country
: Would something like Kobe Bryant dying in the US affect only one country? —Bagumba (talk) 02:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)- Yes. I'd even classify the plane that crashed into the Potomac as "only one country" despite having casualties from multiple countries. Howard the Duck (talk) 02:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Comment: What about this, "Administrators must wait at least (amount of time) before posting a non-ITNR blurb"? I personally support just putting this at 1 hour so that editors won't waste their time putting multiple Pull or Post-posting !votes TNM101 (chat) 04:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- When was the last post within 1hr that was controversial? I remember the Gloria Romero nom in January not really having a quorum when it was posted, but it was well past 1 hr. Perhaps more high-level guidance should be added to Wikipedia:In the news/Administrator instructions, not over-simplistic hard limits. —Bagumba (talk) 04:53, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- QE II's death was posted in 7 minutes.—Bagumba (talk) 05:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Oppose - This feels like an onerous solution for what is not a real problem. It's better to document some best practices and recommendations (carrots) rather than having any hard limits (sticks). - Fuzheado | Talk 17:59, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
Assessing notability
Should we compile a list of some of the most reputable media for each region so we can better assess notability? At the moment nominations just give one or two news stories, usually western ones, I think it’d be better if we had a list of reputable sources that nominators can look in to aid their nomination by showing it has notability at the global level Kowal2701 (talk) 14:46, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- What sources work for notability are the same sources that work for verify ability, and we really don't have any such list outside WP:RSP. It would be very difficult to maintain such a list. — Masem (t) 16:46, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I don’t think it’d be too controversial for consensus-making but idk. The premise would “here’s a list of some reputable media from various regions” rather than “here’s the most reputable media” Kowal2701 (talk) 17:23, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- People from the West would still look for the sources they're familiar with anyway. "This is not on the BBC News homepage," for example. If the Indonesian student protests were solely covered by the Jakarta Post and not by the Plain Dealer people would say it is insignificant. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:28, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes but we could roughly define notable as reported in media globally, and set the precedent for the nominator to demonstrate something’s reported in multiple regions Kowal2701 (talk) 18:15, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- As Masem noted above, we already have WP:RSP for this. And I would put a premium on local WP:RS (if those exist) over the BBC, for example. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry I'm not being clear. My idea is that WP:ITNSIGNIF should have another bullet point saying something along the lines of "Whether the story has gotten global coverage. Here's a list of some reputable media around the world that you may use to assess this:" Kowal2701 (talk) 21:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Except that not all stories that get global coverage are necessarily good as an encyclopedic topic or be featured on the main page. A newspaper function is to cover day to day events, an encyclopedia is to cover events with enduring coverage, so simply relying on how widespread a news story is is not a wise approach. — Masem (t) 21:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's why it'd just be one of the bullet points at WP:ITNSIGNIF, so it's something to consider as part of a big picture rather than the sole criterion Kowal2701 (talk) 21:13, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Which is already there, in terms of considation of the number of international papers carrying a story. But that's one of four considerations so we should not get hung up trying to quantify one. Masem (t) 22:27, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's why it'd just be one of the bullet points at WP:ITNSIGNIF, so it's something to consider as part of a big picture rather than the sole criterion Kowal2701 (talk) 21:13, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Except that not all stories that get global coverage are necessarily good as an encyclopedic topic or be featured on the main page. A newspaper function is to cover day to day events, an encyclopedia is to cover events with enduring coverage, so simply relying on how widespread a news story is is not a wise approach. — Masem (t) 21:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry I'm not being clear. My idea is that WP:ITNSIGNIF should have another bullet point saying something along the lines of "Whether the story has gotten global coverage. Here's a list of some reputable media around the world that you may use to assess this:" Kowal2701 (talk) 21:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- As Masem noted above, we already have WP:RSP for this. And I would put a premium on local WP:RS (if those exist) over the BBC, for example. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes but we could roughly define notable as reported in media globally, and set the precedent for the nominator to demonstrate something’s reported in multiple regions Kowal2701 (talk) 18:15, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- People from the West would still look for the sources they're familiar with anyway. "This is not on the BBC News homepage," for example. If the Indonesian student protests were solely covered by the Jakarta Post and not by the Plain Dealer people would say it is insignificant. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:28, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- It wouldn't hurt to have a standard list and indicate what % of them are covering the topic. Here's my top 10 English language news sources:
- A big plus with these is that they are mostly not behind a paywall. There are other good newspapers like The Times and The Economist but I don't currently have a subscription to those.
- Andrew🐉(talk) 18:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, this is what I had in mind, but with a few more from various regions like Africa, Oceania etc., like Daily Nation [3] Kowal2701 (talk) 21:11, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- I don’t think it’d be too controversial for consensus-making but idk. The premise would “here’s a list of some reputable media from various regions” rather than “here’s the most reputable media” Kowal2701 (talk) 17:23, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
Some highly significant events get only minor coverage in Western media but massive coverage in their part of the world. For events in Malaysia or Myanmar, check top Southeast Asian newspapers like Bangkok Post (Thailand), Jakarta Post (Indonesia) and Straits Times (Singapore). If it also makes headlines in South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) or The Hindu (India), that could be a strong indicator of notability even if the BBC and New York Times do not cover it. Besides headlines, we can also consider newspaper commentary or opinion pieces, which are more likely to analyse the impact of an incident. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.6.6.1 (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Depth of coverage should not be the main metric for notability. Most larger publishers post dozens of stories a day (many droll and fleeting), while not covering some stories that are of ACTUAL import but not interesting enough to drive engagement (ie news in SE Asia, Africa, South America, etc). DarkSide830 (talk) 19:07, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- Per WP:N, Wikipedia's process for determining notability is based on "...evidence from reliable and independent sources...". That means reputable sources such as those listed above. The personal opinions of editors should have little weight because they are neither independent nor reliable. So how do we determine which sources are reputable? Well, we should use evidence for that too. For example, a quick search finds 10 Journalism Brands Where You Find Real Facts Rather Than Alternative Facts. The top 10 in that list are:
- Now that list is quite Americentric but, when considering other regions we should require similar evidence that the sources are reputable.
Andrew🐉(talk) 20:00, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Remember that notability also requires secondary sources, so while that doesn't exclude all content from this list, most of what these sources published are primary news sources and not sufficient to demonstrate notability. We also don't base notability on a burst of news coverage. Masem (t) 20:05, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- You wish. Most ITN blurbs are based on a burst of news coverage because they are typically 1-10 days old and so there isn't time for medium-term coverage such as academic analysis and books. The Ongoing items and RDs are based more on coverage over a period but the blurbs are given more prominence. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:20, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- This is why we should not just be posting things that have wide coverage in the news, but without clear indication that long term notability will come about. Ideally, editors shouldn't be rushing to create articles on events with no clear long-term events in the first place per NOTNEWS/NEVENT, but as its nearly impossible to prevent article creation, we have to make a decision here at ITN if the long-term significance is actually there or not, not simply go based on the media coverage it gets. this does mean that many of these will be, for those first seven days, still deal with only primary sources, but we'd hope its clear that it is the type of story that has legs to get long-term coverage, something we can assure ourselves on with things like commercial aircraft disaster or hurricanes. Masem (t) 20:38, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- You wish. Most ITN blurbs are based on a burst of news coverage because they are typically 1-10 days old and so there isn't time for medium-term coverage such as academic analysis and books. The Ongoing items and RDs are based more on coverage over a period but the blurbs are given more prominence. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:20, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- I mean, yeah, I get how WP:N works. That has nothing to do with how we ascribe notability at ITN. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:36, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- There are two different concepts and there seems to be confusion here about them:
- Notability – this is the extent to which a topic has been noticed and written about by independent and reliable sources
- Significance – this is the importance or impact of the news
- An accident such as bus plunge typically has notability -- it gets reported in lots of places -- but lacks significance because it's just one vehicle and road accidents are common.
- The problem at ITN is not a lack of sources -- wire stories like bus plunges typically reported by all media. The problem is that a death toll in double figures seems to be enough for significance. This results in a systemic bias because buses typically carry 10+ passengers and so fatal accidents involving them will then pass that threshold. But car accidents are more significant overall because there are lot more of them. Bus plunges hit a sweet spot of being common but not too common while having a dramatic death toll.
- An encyclopedia should be operating well above this level -- reporting annual statistics and major developments rather than incidents and individual accidents. We're not going to get this by following newspapers, however respectable, which have a different goal and time frame.
- Andrew🐉(talk) 08:57, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- An accident like a bus plunge likely does not have notability, as that requires enduring coverage and not a burst of coverage over a day or two. This is a common issue that many editors mistake when trying to argue on notability of events, and the essence of NOTNEWS. Masem (t) 13:12, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- There are two different concepts and there seems to be confusion here about them:
- I'm struggling to find the like for certain regions. To what extent should we be prioritising popularity? If a popular yet disreputable news website in Indonesia reports on an event in Germany, can that not be used as evidence of the event's notability? Sources from foreign countries are unlikely to be needed to develop articles anyway as the most in-depth coverage would come from domestic sources. Kowal2701 (talk) 21:00, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Trying to understand the proposal. What exactly are we trying to solve here? Ktin (talk) 02:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- That's my fault for not having been clear. My impression is that usually people make judgements on notability or significance based off of personal opinion rather than evidence, or at most a scroll through Google. The premise here is that if an event in one country is reported in other countries then it's likely to be notable and significant (this isn't intended to be the definition of notability or significance at ITN but rather a way of assessing it). So the idea is to add another bullet point to WP:ITNSIGNIF along these lines, encouraging nominators to show their event has some global coverage, and then add a list of suggested sources they can look in to do this. Hope that's clearer Kowal2701 (talk) 19:28, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
Another issue is that Wikipedia editors (who are mostly from Western countries) tend to check for coverage in Western news media and neglect (because they are less familiar with) equally reputable English-language newspapers in non-Western countries, such as Al Jazeera English and The Times of India. As a result, events that are relatively unknown in the West but highly significant and widely covered in another major region are less likely to be blurbed. For events in Malaysia or Myanmar, coverage in top Southeast Asian newspapers like Bangkok Post, The Jakarta Post and The Straits Times may be more useful to evaluate notability and significance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.6.159.88 (talk) 13:12, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- I've never looked at the Bangkok Post before. It's amusing that the top story offered to me was Nine injured in Phuket bus plunge but that's probably a Google effect. Their website does not impress as it's loaded with advertising and offers. This is the big divide for me – whether the web site seems safe and sober or whether it's sensational and suspicious.
- Our article about the Bangkok Post seems rather dated and I suppose it may be suffering from the general decline of the newspaper industry. Iconic aspects such as Edith Clampton sadly seem to be history now.
- Andrew🐉(talk) 08:27, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
Recent IP contributions removed edits on ITNC
On a phone so I cannot easily untangle the mess created by the IP but several comments on other moms have been lost and there's too many intermeduaye changes that are appropriate to revert back. — Masem (t) 17:41, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
Small tweak/clarification to ITNRD
The second bullet at Wikipedia:In the news/Recent deaths#Notes currently reads:
Individuals who do not have their own article but who have significant coverage on an article about a group (e.g. one member of a musical group) are eligible for a recent deaths entry on a case-by-case basis.
Following Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/February 2025#(Posted) RD: Ariel and Kfir Bibas (which was posted despite the lack of clear consensus) exposed that some editors misunderstand what this was intended to cover (speaking as the person who originally wrote it based on extensive contemporary discussions about ITNRD) I propose that we tweak it to:
Individuals who do not have their own article but who have significant biographical coverage on an article about a group (e.g. one member of a musical group) are eligible for a recent deaths entry on a case-by-case basis.
orIndividuals who do not have their own article but who have significant coverage on a biography article about a group (e.g. one member of a musical group) are eligible for a recent deaths entry on a case-by-case basis.
My very minor preference is for the former, but either way the intent is to try and make it clear that RD is for featuring biographies not articles about events. Thryduulf (talk) 02:03, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- First revision is fine with me, and I agree we should be clear that we want biographic coverage. Masem (t) 02:18, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) I have to say that I don't quite understand the desire to wikilawyer this. RDs are minor: they're line items that will rotate off the main page in a day or two. Moreover, in the linked discussion above there were confirmed recent deaths (recent in the sense that the deaths were only widely reported on recently; we've made exceptions for that in the past) and an article that directly covers the deaths + the events that led to those deaths. Is it a standard RD? No. Does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? Also no. So let's not overcomplicate things. Ed [talk] [OMT] 02:23, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- I think clarification is needed, one way or another, based on this example. In the case of an individual (not part of a group), WP:ITNRD requires
a biographical Wikipedia article
Nominations involving pages like "Death of < person>" have been rejected because of the lack of broad biographical details on the person, not just their death. So it seems it should be consistent with members of groups, whether similar biographical coverage is expected or not on a nominated group page. —Bagumba (talk) 05:24, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- I think clarification is needed, one way or another, based on this example. In the case of an individual (not part of a group), WP:ITNRD requires
Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas
Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas should not be listed under recent deaths, as the time of their deaths is estimated as having taken place in November 2023, and this estimate is undisputed. The only thing that is recent is that their bodies were recently released after being held hostage since their deaths. --The Mountain of Eden (talk) 08:31, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Note Normally this should be discussed at the nomination, but it's already been archived. It seems fine to continue this here (instead of being bureaucratic, unarchiving, and forcing a re-post there. Note also that there was "pull"-related comments there too.—Bagumba (talk) 09:01, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Tone, @Schwede66: for your attention. – robertsky (talk) 09:50, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- Agree that they should be pulled. There are several issues with the posting, including the date of death (not "recent" by any sense of the term) and the fact that they don't have an actual biographical article (instead, only an article about the family's kidnapping). For something in such a contentious topic, I believe that we should be more careful, and making an exception to highlight them specifically might look like we're taking sides in this conflict directly on the main page. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:27, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
- I agree completely with Chaotic Enby, see also my comments in the archived discussion about why they don't meet the RD criteria and also why there was not a consensus to post. Thryduulf (talk) 11:43, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
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