Wikipedia talk:In the news

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Vladimir Popov (wrestler)

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@Admins willing to post ITN: Vladimir Popov just rolled off while having two supports and being marked as "ready". Maybe someone could post it? BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:31, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've actioned this. Schwede66 06:01, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How to nominate an a recent event?

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Hello. I wanted to nominate the recent 80th anniversary of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but i cannot find any actualy explaination on how the formating of a nomination works on guidelines page. I have no idea what "nom cmt" or "ITNR" mean or do. i would really appreciate being pointed to where I can learn how to format my nomination. thank you! AssanEcho (talk) 13:28, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's a section at the top of WP:ITNC titled "Nomination steps", which includes the link to the nomination template {{ITN candidate}} which will help you format a nomination under the correct day.
That said: Anniversaries of key events like the atomic bombings are usually covered at WP:On This Day, and I did check to see that August 6 included this anniversary. So unless there is something very unique about the anniversy (like a major remembrance ceremony or similar), it likely will not have a good chance. Masem (t) 14:00, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of whether or not it passes im extremely grateful for your help. thank you! AssanEcho (talk) 19:20, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No non-RD ITN candidates newer than 7 days on the Main Page

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Someone's having a laugh at us right now. Wasn't the Fernando Lugo image that stayed on the Main Page for an ungodly long time also wielding a microphone? Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:14, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To make an actual point out of this, since I know someone is going to point out "There's no discussion topic in this post", are we in the midst of a silly season or is the fact we haven't posted any news stories since the events on 8/11/2025 considered a breakdown of consensus? Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:15, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And? We cannot control how news happens, particularly what news actually makes for encyclopedic topics. So we absolutely can end up with a long time between stories.
We shouldn't weaken our standards just to get stories to move the infobox. If anything we need people to look more broadly outside politics and conflicts and suggest more at ITNC, because we look to feature quality articles that happen to be in the news, not what is the news. But there can still be extremely slow periods where what's in the news has little long-term impact that is suitable for encyclopedia, and we just can't force that to change. Masem (t) 12:22, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I really think there needs to be some subheader or disclaimer that pops up on the ITN template that indicates when a news story has not been posted for more than 7 days, so that people don't make the observation - as they inevitably always do - that "there's no news on here". Such a disclaimer, if properly written, might also encourage more people to participate in ITN/C. Something like: "There have been no postings since 8/11/2025. Want to nominate something? Go here." Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:29, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What if each blurb was predicated by a short date (eg "Aug 20: "). That's 7 or 8 added characters that points out the date of the event and implicitly suggests when this are stale. Masem (t) 13:31, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's actually a really good idea. I like this one a lot. It states a pertinent fact without being heavy-handed, so readers aren't forced to put 2 and 2 together and realize "hey, this isn't news anymore". They can see it for themselves that it was posted by a since-past date. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:08, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a reader, I can't understand the value proposition of "in the news" if it's full of stories that are no longer "in the news". Why should readers check in with ITN regularly? And aren't readers why we're here? Ed [talk] [OMT] 13:42, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the problem is more that we are lacking nominations outside of politics, conflicts, and disasters that could readily link to quality articles. This has been a growing problem over several years, coupled with the NOTNEWS problem. We don't need an ITNC to have been headline news but at least reported so that we can direct readers to topics that have been in the news. If the reader wants the actual current events, they can just to that link instead, though we have no quality control over items posted there. Masem (t) 13:57, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Huh. I wonder if nominators have been driven off by a problematic culture and idiosyncratic "standards" that prioritize a small core of editors and their personal definitions of "importance" over just about all else.
Portal:Current events isn't linked from the main page and gets at best 1% of the main page's views. That's not an adequate substitute for the thing that appears in the top right corner of our encyclopedia's metaphorical front door. Ed [talk] [OMT] 14:19, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Portal CE is linked the "ongoing" term on ITN. I would rather see this moved to the bottom (with nominate and article") and spelled out more explicitly, like"other current events" Masem (t) 14:40, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's what it read before, if I remember correctly. I'm not sure how it got changed to "Ongoing" in the first place. A BOLD change mayhaps? Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:11, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Last I looked there was logic that if there were any ongoing entries, the bottom line link was removed in favor of putting it under Ongoing. I even believe that change was discussed, however with years in practice it hides the ce portal. Masem (t) 21:26, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm almost certain that's what it is, The ed17. To Masem's point, there have been nominations outside of politics, conflicts, and disasters that link to quality articles. Those nominations have been rejected as not being newsworthy. I know because I've seen them. As an encyclopedia that has WP:NOTNEWS as a policy, it is a struggle to find that cross-section of timely, newsworthy, quality articles when by and large there is a requirement to use the news as a source. We couldn't nominate the publishing of a new scientific journal article, for example, even if it's noteworthy, if it's not in the news. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:15, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A news article doesn't have to be front page or widely reported as to be considered. There is likely a very minimum threshold that we don't have enough input data to discern, but like if the only source reporting on the event is one NYTimes article, that's probably not enough. Just that between news outlets and social what tends to get plastered across the news are stories that lack good encyclopedic quality, and getting editors to sniff out better stories from the deeper parts of s newspaper is hard. Masem (t) 21:19, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ironically I suspect (but can't prove) that the image is a copyvio as well. A previous image of the politician uploaded by the same user at Commons was deleted as one, so I would be very surprised if this one wasn't as well. Incidentally, the deleted image was the one on this news page and look - it's from the same event... Black Kite (talk) 14:08, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear. Controversy on the ITN template! I wonder if there really is anything different about the re-uploaded image that might somehow not make it a copyvio, such as if the user got permission. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:11, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Far more likely that someone noticed that one at the time, but this one has now disappeared from whichever news page it appeared on so it can't be proven. The chances of it being the uploader's own work are pretty much zero. Black Kite (talk) 19:36, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • ITN is obviously dysfunctional, not fit for purpose and unproductive. Every other main page section seems to manage to change its content every single day without missing a beat. It's only ITN which has these regular longueurs and hiatuses.
What's especially remarkable is that this is happening at a time which is literally transformative in several ways. The Trump administration is a big part of this with a stream of radical, revolutionary policy changes. But any time any of this gets nominated, it is instantly shut down with a chorus of WP:NTRUMP – a page which is no kind of policy.
Adding a date to each item shouldn't be necessary as there isn't actually a shortage of news. But if you want to see what it looks like, check out the French main page:
  • 19 août : annonce de la découverte de S/2025 U 1, le vingt-neuvième satellite naturel d'Uranus connu.
  • 17 août : en Bolivie ont lieu les élections générales, simultanément présidentielles et législatives.
  • 15 août : rencontre de Donald Trump et Vladimir Poutine en Alaska pour un sommet sur la guerre russo-ukrainienne (photo).
  • 8 août : l'Arménie et l'Azerbaïdjan concluent un accord de paix pour mettre un terme au conflit du Haut-Karabagh.
  • 6 août : au Ghana, un accident d'hélicoptère fait huit morts dont deux ministres.
Notice that they have the Bolivian general election which hasn't even been nominated here. The English ITN is not high quality; it's quite the opposite.
Andrew🐉(talk) 18:04, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
First, we can't do anything if somethings not nominated like that election. Lack of nominations is a problem. Second as best as I can tell from the proceeds, there is no quality requirements for what goes on that box, in contrast with en.wiki broad main page requirement to feature quality articles. So that's something that limits us (not just at ITN)
And fundamentally an encyclopedia is not a newspaper. It's why this box is "in the news", and not "news" or "current events". Masem (t) 18:44, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is not, technically speaking, a limiter. As far as I'm aware, there is no formal and main page-wide requirement on that, merely an unwritten assumption that such a consensus would exist if the question was asked in a RfC. Also AFAIK, each segment of the main page has made their own determination of what "quality" means in their context. That means that we could, if we so choose, temporarily or permanently loosen ITN's quality requirement and see what a more dynamic ITN looked like. If someone then actually wants to formalize a wider main page requirement and it passes, we'd reevaluate. Ed [talk] [OMT] 18:55, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are usually three types of articles that fail quality: RD bios for unsourced material, and sports and election results for minimal prose. Either case is a lack of encyclopedic quality that should never be overlooked for posting purposes, particularly with our BLP policy being as strong as it is. The only other major quality issue tends to be length and that happens with events with no clear long standing importance like disasters in more remote regions. Generally if an event is the type that will have long term encyclopedic significant, it will already be if decent length by the time it hits ITN. So I see zero reason to loosen quality requirements just so we could post more. Masem (t) 19:00, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's no formal quality requirement for main page articles -- just the usual wishful thinking by Masem. FYI, I looked at the quality level for yesterday's main page sections. The quality mix for the bold article links was:
FA = 4
GA = 2
B = 2
C = 10
Start = 7
List = 3
So, the bulk of the entries are Start or C-class.
Andrew🐉(talk) 10:18, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Formally there is WP:ITNQUALITY. Under that, quality is not whether the article is FA, C or start class, but whether an article is "well referenced" and with "minimally comprehensive overview of the subject, not omitting any major items". But FAs and GAs are obviously more than welcome. Brandmeister talk 11:04, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The article grading scale is not used to determine quality save for TFA and for recently passed GAs for DYK. But in all other cases, all items posted have quality checks from their individual fields, performed blind of the grading scale, to judge if the article is appropriate to be featured.
As noted, we're not asking for ITN featured links to be FA quality, but they should show the fundamental adherence to core content policies (WP:V in particular). Masem (t) 11:59, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RD blurbs and popularity/fame

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I know I have mentioned this in the past but given the quick jump that some editors make to suggest or support RD blurbs based only on the person's fame or popularity is becoming a problem. We don't want to stop blurbs where fame or popularity is there but extends from what we normally consider for death blurbs (major figure, or death as the story), but when editors argue on a urn simply because a person was famous and gives little other justification, that doesn't help. Basing blurbs only solely fame and popularity will imbalance these to people in the western world and primarily entertainment fields, and further draws lots of editors that make these popularity contests. We really need to add caution about this issue. Masem (t) 19:30, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • This is not a problem; it's just a natural consequence of the lack of objective criteria. What's more of a problem is that the lesser RD which are not possible blurbs often get little attention. Currently there are three RD nominations which have had zero comment and there's several more which have only had one comment. This happens because literally any recent death can be nominated and so there's too many nominations of people that have little fame and no-one can be bothered to check them out. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:42, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    ITN admin's should be able to post RDs that they have checked to meet quality standards even if there are no comments, to process those faster. I'd even be fine with NAC determinations absent any comments in good faith as long as an admin checks them before posting. The plain normal RD problem can be solved.
    But it's clear when someone us famous, we get a slew of non regulars here to support a blurb. And all I'm saying is that we add something that says don't suggest or support an RD blurb only based on the fame or popularity. It keeps open the other vagueneds we allow for blurbs beyond major figures and death as the story. Masem (t) 21:17, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • This doesn't work because famous people are usually famous for a reason. Whether that's acting, wrestling or whatever, it's then a matter of opinion whether they were a major figure in that field because there are no objective criteria. The ITN system is to have a discussion and then determine consensus. Without objective criteria, there's no way to predetermine this without having the discussion. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:29, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Supporting blurb if they were famous for a reason is fine as long you state that reason and not simply say "they were famous, blurb 'em". So while I still have reservations on why Hulk Hogan was posted, there definitely were a fair number of editors rightfully arguing his fame was due to what he did for professional wrestling, a far better argument that just only saying he was famous and leaving it at that. The latter are the supports that are gumming up these RD suggested as blurbs. Masem (t) 21:49, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I should also point out that should also deal with those opposing a urb on "never heard of them" or "only known in Tinytopia, no blurb" - type comments. You should be able to argue that the person doesn't seem to have widespread as they had no significant contributions, but dismissing a blurb as simple not famous also doesn't help. Masem (t) 21:56, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know when the phrase "transformative" was removed from our guidance on RB blurbing, but that really should make a comeback. Not that it's not debatable if someone was transformative in the context of edge cases, but I think that's generally what MOST editors partaking in blurb discussions want for some to warrant a blurb, and it's probably less debatable than fame. Personally, I still think these constant debates over death blurbs are just proof we should axe them, for the most part, but I don't think that's gonna happen. DarkSide830 (talk) 03:48, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Correcting a systemic bias in death blurbs should be addressed by posting more from non-Western countries. Posting less blurbs in general furthers a problem we are already confronting. Also, we shouldn't be surprised when people are interested in popular culture. It's right in the name. I wouldn't mind seeing more pop culture blurbs—the first sentence at ITN does say we're here to "direct readers to [updated] articles [that] reflect recent or current events of wide interest." (my bolding) Ed [talk] [OMT] 04:30, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That absolutely a terrible approach. We don't let popular culture guide content selection because that automatically favors western media. This is particularly a problem when we have editors that dismiss nominations because someone may not be famous enough, which further biases towards western topics. We know the world has a systematic bias, and we should be doing our best on the main page to not perpetuate that. Masem (t) 04:51, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Masem: Thanks for your opinion. First, I've love to hear more about any actions you've taken to combat Wikipedia's well-known systemic bias and to weaken ITN's importance criterion, which as you note is a major barrier. Second, posting more pop culture blurbs does not have to be limited to Western pop culture. Third, please don't put words into my mouth. I did not advocate for "let[ting] popular culture guide content selection"; I did say that we could post more pop culture blurbs that are of wide interest and have updated Wikipedia articles. Ed [talk] [OMT] 20:56, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion lacks context so here's some details. First, the current state of ITN today – 22 August.
Miguel Uribe Turbay in 2019
Miguel Uribe Turbay

Commentary

1. This set of blurbs has been repeatedly displayed for over a week and the blurb for the death of Jim Lovell has run for two full weeks now with his picture being displayed on seven of those days. (cf. WP:LUGO)

2. The RD for Frank Caprio was considered as a blurb and this seems to be the main popularity case which has provoked the OP. Other recent blurb discussions include James Dobson and Terence Stamp.

3. Recent readership stats for these candidates and topics indicate that the deaths of these famous people were all of much greater interest to our readers than other news such as the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace agreement. Frank Caprio was the most popular topic and was the top read article across all of Wikipedia on 21 August by a considerable margin. So, it was certainly popular. Having watched a little of him now, I can understand why.

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:19, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Readership stats just favours pop culture, western things and assorted rubbish. We're an encyclopedia. Secretlondon (talk) 11:08, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Today's featured article is "a song ... from the soundtrack to the 2023 fantasy comedy film Barbie." This is obviously Western pop culture and yet it has been given our highest accolade by being featured on the main page. If this is good enough for TFA then it should be fine for ITN too. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:26, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ITs not that we can't feature pop culture topics, but we have to be aware that the interest in outside sources and by Wikipedia editors generally far outweigh coverage of topics with more academic merit. So particularly for ITN, we should be very careful about caving into popularity as the sole driving reason to post a blurb. The Barbie song TFA is because editors did the work to advance the article beyond just being popular. We should expect the same for blurbs of RDs. Again, I use Hulk Hugan as a prime example where there was rationale beyond "he's famous" to post (I'll still disagree that it merited a blurb on those reasons but that's not the point here). And that's all I'm trying to make sure, to discourage editors coming here thinging that fame and popularity alone should merit larger mention. Masem (t) 19:51, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a case of pop culture keeping out the highbrow stuff because that's being shut out of ITN too. For recent examples, see the Uranus moon, the Global plastic pollution treaty, Pharmaceutical pricing, Scientific fraud and so on. Very few topics of any kind are getting through the nomination process and so we haven't posted a new blurb for an entire frigging week. The systemic bias at ITN is to only post a stream of death and disaster plus the ITN/R fast track items such as elections and sport. How come we don't hear the complaint about pop culture and popularity when it comes to football? It's a double standard. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:39, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The pollution treaty thing didn't happen, and that's a standard practice we don't post things where the status quo remains, particularly if its a repeated failure. The Uranus moon is one of those things that as pointed out, dozens of moons in the solar system have been identified over the past couple years, making one moon discovery not that major of an event.
I can't remember where the pharma pricing nomination was, but I do agree that when it comes to other scientific topics like scientific fraud, where the story is usualyl as a result of a peer-reviewed paper just published that establishes something, we have a lot of resistance to post such stories, because there's too much focus on things being "news" and not that the section is to feature topics that have been "in the news". And remember, I'm not talking about popular culture being bad, I'm saying that posting things just because the only rationale being thrown around is that its in popular culture is not helpful at all. A demonstrated story around a popular culture topic that shows why its significant (eg most of our sports results and entertainment awards) are fine. Masem (t) 13:39, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Masem: A question: where does "academic merit" appear in WP:ITNPURPOSE? Ed [talk] [OMT] 20:56, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's more the broader encyclopedic goal, to approach topics using high quality sources and for the long-term view, rather than just what what's hot at any given moment. Masem (t) 13:29, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Today's Featured Article is Satsu – "a fictional character in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics..." That's yet more Western pop culture and so this is a valid and respected part of the encyclopedia. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:44, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of WP:ITN is separate from WP:TFA, and the systemic bias on TFA skewing towards Western pop culture has been known for some time. It is not recognized as a Good Thing in light of, as Masem says, the broader encyclopedic goal. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:02, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the article is developed as encyclopedic content, focusing on the character's development, themes, and reception, rather than what you would see in a fan wiki or TVTropes. Wikipedia can do pop culture, but its got to be through a lens of an encyclopedia, not a glorified fan work. Masem (t) 12:17, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Today's Featured Article is a Bruce Springsteen album – yet more Western pop culture. It's abundantly clear that such articles are considered encyclopedic material of the finest sort. The prejudice of some ITN regulars against such topics is therefore a narrow opinion rather than a general community standard. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:14, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As long as the reason to post them is not solely due to popularity or fame, we should encourage these. Quality articles on pop cultural as long as they have developed the topic from an academic/encyclopedic stance, should be fine. The issue tends to be how encyclopedic/lasting that significant events involving pop culture items are, with truly significant events in pop cultural being rate. Consider the mess of that Oasis reunion tour a month ago. Pop culture news tends to be front loaded, and not reflective of what actually happens which is general how ITN tends to look for the point of posting.
But it still the case we shouldn't be encouraging editors to put forth blurbs on pop culture items or figures solely on the basis of them being popular or fame, as that making the voting process a popularity contest as well as drowns out suggestions for improving the quality of the article to be even potable. Masem (t) 20:15, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Will WP:LUGO be crowning a new champion before this month is out? Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:26, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]