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*:3) There needs to be some writing about the wider context of the event, though this isn't a killer for me. The article is a bit dry, as it lacks anything that tells the reader "why should I care". There's a wide sense that this event is one of the most significant in Britain's history and will have a major effect on Britain's future, and this article makes me want to go to sleep. Perhaps some context would be useful. *:3) There needs to be some writing about the wider context of the event, though this isn't a killer for me. The article is a bit dry, as it lacks anything that tells the reader "why should I care". There's a wide sense that this event is one of the most significant in Britain's history and will have a major effect on Britain's future, and this article makes me want to go to sleep. Perhaps some context would be useful.
*Those are my suggestions. --]] 16:35, 24 January 2020 (UTC) *Those are my suggestions. --]] 16:35, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
**It is an article on the actual legislation, on the bill passed in parliament - it is meant to make you go to sleep. The wider context should really be at ]. Yes, the forest of Brexit articles is confusing to navigate. I can't really make a difference. I get that the articles need to be in shape, but my focus is more on the wording used on the Main Page and ensuring the wording does not misrepresent this. And about it being a key point in Britain's history (true), we are too close to the events in time to put things in their proper context - we only have news reports, not academic analyses. You might as well try and pass a historical verdict on the Trump presidency... Hopefully the articles can be improved structurally and content-wise, and a suitable target will become apparent. ] (]) 16:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)


== ITN Ongoing removal nominations by LaserLegs == == ITN Ongoing removal nominations by LaserLegs ==

Revision as of 16:58, 24 January 2020

Please note:Please do not post error reports for Template:In the news here. Instead, post them to WP:ERRORS. Thank you.

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How to encourage people to actually read WP:ITNC

  • Comment and since this is a continuation of my aborted attempt to remove the CAA protests, what can be done to encourage people to actually read WP:ITNC before commenting? Still being "in the news" means precisely nothing of the article isn't being updated with "new, pertinent information". --LaserLegs (talk) 23:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Separate topic deserves a separate thread--DBigXrayᗙ 00:02, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
They are, and have, read the requirements. They just have different standards than you do for what they consider "new" enough and "pertinent" enough. You should not accuse people of being uninformed when they are quite well informed, but hold different tolerances than you do on these matters. They are not wrong. And you are not wrong. Everyone gets to read the rules, interpret them as they see fit, and that's how we get a consensus. I have seen no evidence this is not exactly what happened in the recent discussion that didn't go your way. --Jayron32 00:28, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
When you comment that it's sufficiently updated that's you considering the article against WP:ITNC and us disagreeing. When someone comes out of no where and says "this is still in the news" that's not weighing the article against WP:ITNC it's the equivalent of WP:ILIKEIT. If consensus is that the quality and frequency of updates continue to warrant inclusion in the box, then I'm wrong and that's fine but that's not what I'm seeing in these ongoing removal discussions. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:16, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
I'd agree, but, in the discussion on removing the ongoing citizenship amendment act protests I see none of the opposes coming "out of nowhere" and stating "this is still in the news" and nothing else. Did I miss something, or aren't we talking about that discussion? ---Sluzzelin talk 01:22, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
"The issue is still making headlines in India". Also interested in Jayron32's feedback if they have any to offer. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:28, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
One of out of six opposes, and that's not all it stated. You omitted "More updates are expected in coming days." I don't think this is enough of a pattern to complain about "people" not reading WP:ITNC. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:30, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Yeah looking at WP:ITN#Ongoing_section I must have missed the part about "articles expecting updates in the coming days". --LaserLegs (talk) 01:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Aha, so your complaint is with this one oppose. Do you think that editor having read WP:ITNC would have changed the outcome, or, per your quote "At least Jayron read the criteria even if we disagree", do you honestly think all of the other opposes failed to read WP:ITNC? ---Sluzzelin talk 01:39, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
We had the 2019-20 Hong Kong protests which existed in ongoing section for months. The CAA protests are making bigger impact more than the Hong Kong protests. The article has been well updated continuosly with few additions. I noticed one editor has renominated Hong Kong protests in ongoing section but not much significant updates available to support it. So why we need to remove the CAA protests which are still making headlines. I didn't mention to oppose the ongoing removal of CAA without reading WP:ITNC. I am not convinced with what LaserLegs trying to argue. Abishe (talk) 02:43, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • It's a suggestion, not a hard limit, but either way, an oppose !vote which took that criteria into account is fine. We can debate if a one sentence update from 5 days ago is sufficient. Simply stating "this is in the news therefore it should remain in the box" or "still getting updates" (without looking to see what those updates are) is what my concern is, but I'm obviously doomed here. I'm not referring just to the current terrible article in the box, but to a number of recent ongoing removals. --LaserLegs (talk) 18:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
    Of course, we are talking about significant update since the effect date suggest. As the diff shows, there has been significant update. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Votes that I tend to give less weight to are nonsubstantive votes that add no rationale, or votes whose rationale is not connected to the reason we post things (i.e. ones that, according to the actual documentation "oppose an item because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one" or "curt replies such as "who?", "meh", or "duh!") Votes which focus on substantive matters regarding the article and its sources are given greater weight than those that are merely dismissive, non-substantive, or otherwise disconnected from article content and sources. --Jayron32 13:48, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Remove the "sources" attribute from the template

The sources attribute is redundant and unnecessary. If the target article has been updated, there are already WP:RS added to it and contributors considering the nomination would have already read the target article and evaluated the refs. If the target is not updated, the interested parties would have to find refs to update the target anyway. This seems simple and non-controversial. Support as nominator. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:13, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

  • No--DBigXrayᗙ 01:27, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I would agree with this for ongoing - the sources don't make a determination on an article being routinely updated (and including them can arguably lead to the conflicts in the discussion between 'but the news says' vs 'but nobody's updated in a week'), but seeing them for the regular noms is a showing that it's in quality news sources very quickly. Kingsif (talk) 01:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
    I think a case can be made for Ongoing nomination. In that case I would suggest and idea; If the item is ongoing make the source attribute switch to "In the news" or "Search" and the link be a formatted Google search with Misplaced Pages exclusion. I may try to do this in sandbox of the template if people like the idea. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:23, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No, the sources act as a quick check that the story is actually in the news. Stephen 01:59, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No, it's not redundant. What you're suggesting would just make things harder for no obvious reason. I think that's what's unnecessary. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:16, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Nope. Sourcing particularly helps when the target is a large article with a smallish update - it helps ITN commenters to judge the actual "ITN" facets of the story without having to weed through the article. --Masem (t) 05:38, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No. I don't see much benefit to doing this. Lepricavark (talk) 02:18, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No. The sources attribute is useful to show how the information is being covered by news sources. These may (and probably should) be distinct and separate and in addition to sources used in the article to act as references for specific bits of text. Many, if not most, items nominated here are unfamiliar to people, and sources listed in the nomination template are EXTREMELY useful in helping people assess the significance of an event. --Jayron32 11:45, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Video should be optional

I enjoyed the video clip of the Taal Volcano eruption. However, my Internet access is through my smartphone, at four to five Mbps, so downloading the page took noticeably longer. The clip didn't consume a sizeable percentage of my monthly data allocation, which is four GB, but I am concerned that this clip might be the proverbial nose of the camel. Let's remember that not everyone has unlimited Internet access and a 30 Mbps connection. Only a still photo should have been displayed on download. The caption should have included the instruction, "Click here for an 8-second, 12 MB video." Ubzerver (talk) 10:36, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I have the option on my phone to stop automatic playback of video- do you not have that option? 331dot (talk) 11:01, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
This was not a video but gif. For some reason, it was 61.73 MB while the original video it was created from was only 758 KB. There was no need to convert it to gif. That was the issue that precipitated all the complaints. Converting to gif is a Web 1.0 mentality that should be abandoned. Almost all browsers these days support video embedding with no difficulty. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 11:21, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
The gif is not optimized. Working on it. --Masem (t) 18:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Without switching to dithering or any other lossy method got it down to 43mb instead of 62mg. There's other ways to optimize. If we are talking a front page image where we aim to be 100px, we can always remake a scaled-down image specific for front page use. Testing a few things here even though the image has since fallen off the front page. --Masem (t) 18:10, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
And perhaps just throwing this out there, perhaps for any main page image, the amount of bytes delivered to the user for that image should be at most 1-4 megs. This allows for reasonably short webm's, and I bet with some work and lossy conversion, I could make this gif to within that size. --Masem (t) 18:12, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Best I was able to do was to get the 100px width image to 4.5mb - still large but no longer 'my bandwidth!" large. I'd still agree that if we can use the webm instead - which uses lossy compression methods - that's tons better than gif tweaking. --Masem (t) 18:32, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Courtesy ping to David who made added the clip, for his comments. Stephen 03:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
There appears to be some confusion.
I didn't transclude the GIF linked above. Had I done so, the thumbnail would have been a still frame.
As noted on the description page, "due to technical limitations, thumbnails of high resolution GIF images such as this one will not be animated." According to the MediaWiki documentation that I read, the limit is 12,500,000 pixels total (width × height × number of frames).
We customarily display a 4:5 image at the resolution of 120 × 150 pixels. Ideally, the base file is a minimum of 240 × 300 pixels, enabling enhanced support for high-DPI displays.
For these reasons (and to keep the animation reasonably short and the file size reasonably small), I reduced the resolution to 240 × 300 pixels and the number of frames to 173 (240 × 300 × 173 = 12,456,000). At a rate of 33 ⅓ frames per second (the closest approximation of the original video's frame rate possible under the GIF standard), the resultant playtime was 5.2 seconds.
The base file, Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020 (reduced).gif, is 6.45 MB in size. On a standard-DPI display, the ITN thumbnail was 1.96 MB. (I assume that Ubzerver's "12MB" figure was a guesstimate, but even the high-DPI version was much smaller than that.) Pinging Masem to communicate these details.
Clicking on the thumbnail led users to File:Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.webm (not the larger GIF) for the full video.
Coffeeandcrumbs: As explained above, I didn't use File:Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.gif. You mentioned "all the complaints", but this is the first instance in which any issue has been brought to my attention. The only feedback that I received from you on the matter was thanks for the edit in which I transcluded the animation. Please point me to the other complaints that arose (of which I was unaware).
Stephen: I appreciate the ping (now and whenever such concerns arise). —David Levy 06:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
@David Levy: I apologize for not pinging you. You often ignore my pings so I assumed you would not want to hear from me again. That was an error in judgement which I will avoid even if it makes me uncomfortable to continuously ping editors that do not respond to me. That is your choice and it is my responsibility to ping users when their actions are being discussed. You are right as well that you did embedded the reduced file and the version that displayed was even further reduced to 120px. "All the complaints" was a bad choice of words. There was only 1 other complainant. Sorry for all these errors. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 06:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Coffeeandcrumbs: I don't purposely ignore pings (and I'm very sorry to have given you an impression to the contrary).
I recall multiple instances, such as this one, in which another editor fulfilled your request (which you then removed) before I arrived to read it.
If you're referring to instances such as this, I didn't realize that a reply was expected from anyone other than the user to whom the question was addressed (who did, in fact, answer it).
If I've edited the site without responding to pings pertaining to ongoing issues in need of my attention, I assure you that this was unintentional and apologize for the oversight. Please don't hesitate to contact me whenever you deem it appropriate. I can't promise that I'll always be available to address your concerns in time, but I can promise that I won't mind hearing from you.
Note, also, that my previous message was intended to encourage such engagement and ensure that all of us were on the same page, not to complain about any deficiency on your part. Thanks for providing the discussion link. —David Levy 07:42, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! There is a concern I raised at Talk:Main Page that I think only you can understand. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:04, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
David Levy, ping, Facepalm Facepalm . --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Holy Cow! I had no idea that I would touch off such a firestorm.

331dot: I was viewing the page on my laptop computer, not on my smartphone. I have a Samsung smartphone which runs under Android. I use Android's Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot feature to put my laptop on line. I don't think that my phone's video limiting capability can help me in this situation. If there is a way, please let me know.

David Levy: Both the "8 seconds" and the "12MB" figures were guesstimates. When I wrote my original comment, the video was no longer available for me to time, and I didn't know how to obtain the actual file size. I still don't know how to do that, but maybe I will figure it out after I read this discussion a few more times.

Coffeeandcrumbs: In the Talk:Main Page discussion "Web animation on main page" to which you referred, I count four complainants who objected to animation or video on the Main Page.

I see a lot of talk about using various methods to reduce the file size, but I don't see anyone talking about the basic issue which I raised: should animation/video on the Main Page or the Current Events Portal be compulsory or optional? It seems to me that we could make everybody happy by making it optional. Let only a still image be downloaded and displayed by default, but empower the user to accept animation/video of specified duration and file size. If it will repeat in endless-loop fashion, that also should be stated. The "Accept" button should not be the large, white, rightward-pointing triangle, superimposed on the image, which is conventionally used to start playback of a video file. That would spoil the image for those users who don't want the animation/video version. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Androsynth, WaltCip, Sca, Jayron: I feel that The Rambling Man closed the discussion "Web animation on main page" prematurely. It was only two days old, and there had not been a response from anyone who was in a position to change the policy on the issue under discussion. Fortunately, a very similar question is being considered here. This discussion is still open, and technical experts are definitely involved. So, if you like my proposal to make animation/video on the Main Page or the Current Events Portal optional, at the discretion of each user, then this is the time and place to say so. Ubzerver (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Closing comment: "Already descending into condescension." – ? – Sca (talk) 14:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Indeed it was. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
"anyone who was in a position to change the policy" Do you have any understanding of how setting policy works at Misplaced Pages? No one single person or small group of people is on charge of changing policy. We all are collectively. Also, we don't need policies to tell us what to do and what not to do. I mean, if you want to have a discussion to write some best practices for the use of animation at Misplaced Pages, please do that. But no one at Misplaced Pages should ever be afraid to do something useful because there's no policy that says they can. We should not be getting upset at people who used animation if that is what was useful to illustrate the article on question. I rather liked it. If you really think we need guidance, start a discussion at VPR and see where it goes. The closed discussion was not that. It was drive-by bitching and no more. This discussion may be marginally less so. But really, if you want to write some best practices down, do it right. --Jayron32 19:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
I assumed the talk page was the correct place to talk. I now have no desire to learn the correct procedure because every experience I have had discussing on wikipedia has ended with a Jayron32 type shouting. I don't edit wp anymore and I don't donate anymore because wikipedia is the best site on the internet, but pull back the covers and it's a toxic waste dump. I no longer care if the editors and admins want to move the main page in the direction of an ad-based NYT-esque, animation-heavy, click-baity publication (the "did you know..." section is already distastefully click-baity). I don't intend to post again. Androsynth (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I can see how getting shouted out here by long-standing users would upset you. Apologies for that. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs: If an editor wants to ping you, how can he prevent your username from appearing in red, indicating that the "page does not exist"? Even if the pings are getting through to you, the red text is a little distracting. Ubzerver (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I have received both your pings. Sorry I did not respond to your first; I had nothing relevant to add. I am not sure what you are suggesting. If it is to add a popup screen, asking if the user wants to load the gif, whenever we have an animation, I don't see that proposal gaining consensus.
About the redlink, how exactly is it distracting? It may be unusual but distracting is something else entirely. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 14:36, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Agree with C&C that adding 'gif' popups isn't going to gain consensus. Such a feature would be needlessly distracting, IMO – which was the point of my somewhat oblique comment at "Web animation on main page". – Sca (talk) 15:23, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I am working on a more detailed description of my concept. Please bear with me. Ubzerver (talk) 12:24, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Recent Death section and disambiguation

Going to the main page today, I was surprised to see Bobby Brown in the death list. I was thinking that Bobby Brown, the rapper, had died, which is probably not an uncommon reaction, given that article has the primary (un-disambiguated) article title.

I realize space is limited, but especially in cases like this where the decedent is less well-known than others with the same name, shouldn't we make an attempt to disambiguate, like maybe Bobby Brown? (Apologies if I missed a discussion about this in my preliminary search.) —— 12:43, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Something like this has been discussed but I think only in the context of non-humans who were creating obvious confusion. I don't think this is necessary for human names however. Bobby Brown and Bobby Brown (footballer, born 1923) are both not the name of the person, only Bobby Brown is. In article titles, we are using the qualifiers only because of technical constraint, that constraint does not exist when we are making a list like that of RD listing. I am open to accept the change though, if people believe it's worth implementing. – Ammarpad (talk) 17:10, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
I can see an IAR where we have a name of an RD that can be easily confused with a highly recognized person who is still alive, that adding a brief disambiguation statement in the RD line makes sense. By "highly", I would mean an A-list celebrity, athlete, or politician that is or approaches the concept of a household name. If the still-living person is someone otherwise obscure, this is not needed. --Masem (t) 17:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
This will only create more argument and endless debate. This situation occurs more often than we are being led to believe here. I also had this initial shock, but a minor move of my index finger was enough to tell me otherwise. Let's not make the mistake of thinking we are fixing a problem and give ourselves a much bigger problem. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 19:40, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
I had brought this up on Main Page talk. Sorry, but the 21st-cent. rapper Bobby Brown is the only one many readers know—more so after his life with an internationally popular singer. The announcement of his death will shock many. I don't see how space is at such a premium: here, it requires a few characters (footballer, b. 1923) and could appear in <sm> type. As for such a disambig-plus-birthdate "not being the name of the person, only Bobby Brown is," the title of the footballer's WP biography has all that and it's not the name of the person either. Mason.Jones (talk) 20:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
It has. I already said that. But that's due to a technical necessity; there's no such necessity when listing the name on mainpage. – Ammarpad (talk) 21:36, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Mason.Jones, there is also the question of where do we draw the line? Is Andy Cohen famous enough that if Andy Cohen (architect) dies, we should do this? Some would think so and some would not. This is an unworkable proposal. For whom do we make exceptions and for whom we do not? --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 20:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
AlanM1, I had the same reaction, wondering if the rapper had died. Clicking the link, I saw it was a different Bobby Brown. Unfortunately, I think the status quo is our best option, as space is indeed limited. Maybe this will get people with common names more page views that they'd otherwise get. That's not a bad thing. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:43, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
By the way, it's not always necessary to click. Simply pointing to the link produces a disambiguating pop-up and this is what WP:POPUPS is designed for. Brandmeister 22:02, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Brandmeister, I forget what is default and what is something I specifically opted into. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:41, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Firefox and Opera display a mouseover disambig by default, per article's title (when logged in and an expanded pop-up for IPs and logged-out users). This should help when readers point-click the link to check which Bobby Brown or John Smith died. Don't know about mobile version though. Brandmeister 22:53, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm a Chrome user. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:11, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
I see a popup on Chrome desktop when not logged in.—Bagumba (talk) 08:37, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't think we need to change anything. The point of the links is to take readers to our articles, so it's no bad thing if they have to click through to find out who it is. And disambiguators are there for page titling reasons, they are not intended for use in links.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:22, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose I have no idea who any of the Booby Browns listed here are (and none of them are whatever a wrapper is) so instead of trying to accommodate on individuals confusion, and interested party can simply click the link and within the first sentence or two know who has passed and decide if they care or not. Neat! --LaserLegs (talk) 00:43, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Has this become a straw poll? Add disambiguation then. I'm not sure it speaks well of the opposers to proudly brag I am not inclined to give much credence to LaserLeg's comment about not knowing what a "wrapper" is (see Misplaced Pages:Systemic bias), but such sentiment badly underestimates Bobby Brown the musicians's notability. Recent pageviews for the musician are in the range of 5k-10k daily pageviews, with occasional spikes to 20k+. Pageviews for the footballer, before he died, were in the range of 5-25. That is a difference of 1,000 times more pageviews, or 3 orders of magnitude. While I agree that in 98% of standard cases, disambiguation shouldn't be added to an RD link, there's really no choice in this particular case; it's the 2% exception. The "bad thing" is, in reference to Muboshgu's comment, that people who don't click the link will mistakenly assume that the famous Bobby Brown is dead, and distributing misleading information is against Misplaced Pages's ethos. We should either add disambiguation, or remove this RD link entirely. SnowFire (talk) 05:53, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
    As a black person, who actively works to fight systemic bias and for more representation of people of color, I do not appreciate my opposition to this proposal being lumped together along with ignorant comment above. Only a single editor made such a comment. The rest respectfully opposed for good reason.
    This is an unworkable proposal. If you want to add descriptors to all RDs, then we can talk. However, making an exception in this case is not a solution. It creates a much bigger problem from which we may never rid ourselves. It is best to nip this idea in the bud. We simply cannot make exception for some WP:PRIMARYTOPICs and ignore other PRIMARYTOPICs. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:19, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
    Apologies, edited to be more specific. I still stand by this specific kind of case being a valid exception to the rule, though. I don't think it'll be a problem to say "we don't use disambiguators for RD unless there's a primary topic 1000x times as well known as the RD." It'll come up once a year at best. SnowFire (talk) 12:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I think I have suggested before that we could expand this section and provide a little more context for each entry, something similar to Spanish Misplaced Pages. Compare es:Plantilla:Portada:Actualidad. This would solve the problem — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:50, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose all suggestions so far. Not enough space for disambiguation, bound to be argument over what two-word phrase is used to describe each individual, placing data in small or superscript text doesn't sit well with accessibility. Nothing here works and I don't have a suggestion for what does at this time. P.S. Never a good idea to hold other Wikipedias up as exemplars for what to do, those Spanish RDs are pretty much all BLP violations, none of which should be posted anywhere near a main page under any circumstances. Even if we just looked to follow their "design", we'd need a drastic reworking of the main page here to accommodate such a uplift in text requirements. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 10:57, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I say we maintain status quo. There is not a major issue as such (especially with the default popups). The reason we should keep it as-is is to not exacerbate the endless debate with who requires a disambiguation and who does not. The most simple option would be to always use the article name but as people stated above, we have limited space, making status quo the best option. --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:31, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
    We only have "limited space" because we force it upon ourselves. Why do we force the Main Page into a limited space when we don't do that for other pages? Why do we impose a two column layout that requires us to balance sections in one column against the others? Abolish the two column layout, let the sections reach the sizes they need to fulfill their purpose, and use full article titles for RD notifications. Problem solved. --Khajidha (talk) 12:25, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • -angrily shakes a stick- Dadgummit, why fix what ain't broken?--WaltCip (talk) 13:11, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Tweak ongoing criteria

When the ongoing criteria was updated five years ago the updater advised we "tweak as needed". I suggest removing the wording "Generally, these are stories which may lack a blurb-worthy event, but which nonetheless are still getting regular updates to the relevant article." -- or at least requiring a "blurb-worthy" event to get into the box in the first place. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Brexit

Is it worth a discussion (a week out) on how to handle the upcoming Brexit and to get the wording right and decide which articles to link (the alternative to the main article would be European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill 2019–20)? There have been a fair few discussions of Brexit-related ITN nominations over the years, and this may well be the last one! The key will be votes in the UK and in the EU institution (I forget which one) that needs to formally approve the exit. News articles will appear about that in about the middle of next week, I think. It is not WP:ITN/R, but the closest precedence (new countries at the point of attaining independence) tend to feature on ITN if the articles are good enough and there is lots of coverage (as there will be here). Carcharoth (talk) 12:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

There is no "independence" here, the UK was, is and is remaining a sovereign state which is leaving a trade bloc. Agree with C&C that Brexit is a huge, unwieldy mess. Expanding the Legislative History section of European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 a bit would do the trick nicely, I think. --LaserLegs (talk) 15:19, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, expanding European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 would work. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 15:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
That is a good idea. I never meant to imply that there was any "independence" here. I actually used the words 'the closest precedence'. So any actual wording to suggest? Maybe (this needs work!) one of the following?
Anything from the simple:
...to the more complex:
...to the possibly excessive (though mentioning the transition period would be a nice touch, IMO):
FWIW, details here and here on what happens on the EU side, with their key formal vote on 29 January, formally 'Withdrawal Agreement of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community'. Not sure if the Council of Ministers also formally signs off on it - maybe that bit has been done already? Carcharoth (talk) 16:37, 23 January 2020 (UTC) PS. The blurb should probably use the word 'Brexit'! Carcharoth (talk) 16:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It may help to have news articles related to this to help get the wording right, such as Brexit: EU leaders sign UK withdrawal deal (BBC News, 24 January 2019). Carcharoth (talk) 10:40, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

There is no question that this will be posted, and a blurb will emerge through consensus at ITN/C pretty quickly. The best thing to do now is get a decent article about the withdrawal up to scratch so that when it is nominated, there are no issue with quality holding it up. --LaserLegs (talk) 12:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I am not convinced that a blurb will emerge that quickly through consensus. I do think it would help to give some thought to it beforehand, but I can see there is little interest in that here. It will be interesting to see which of the relevant articles there is most editing activity at next week. Carcharoth (talk) 14:10, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • FWIW, I think the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 is the correct target from logistical standpoint, the omnibus "Brexit" article is problematic, and I appreciate having a more focused article. If one were looking to help in this regard, however, that article has some cleanup issues that could (and should) be taken care of before we get to that point so as to smooth-along the process of posting. Here's my review of it.
    1) There's some developing WP:PROSELINE problems that we need to clean up. As a general rule-of-thumb, NEVER start a paragraph (and to a lesser extent a sentence, though it is sometimes unavoidable) with the "On XX Month, Year..." It's horrible. Also, lots of choppy one-sentence paragraphs add to that problem. Instead, consider writing a more comprehensive narrative that tells a story and has flow to it. A bunch of single sentence paragraphs that follow the same boilerplate format is ugh...
    2) There's a few quality tags (according to whom? needs update) that need addressing.
    3) There needs to be some writing about the wider context of the event, though this isn't a killer for me. The article is a bit dry, as it lacks anything that tells the reader "why should I care". There's a wide sense that this event is one of the most significant in Britain's history and will have a major effect on Britain's future, and this article makes me want to go to sleep. Perhaps some context would be useful.
  • Those are my suggestions. --Jayron32 16:35, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
    • It is an article on the actual legislation, on the bill passed in parliament - it is meant to make you go to sleep. The wider context should really be at Brexit withdrawal agreement. Yes, the forest of Brexit articles is confusing to navigate. I can't really make a difference. I get that the articles need to be in shape, but my focus is more on the wording used on the Main Page and ensuring the wording does not misrepresent this. And about it being a key point in Britain's history (true), we are too close to the events in time to put things in their proper context - we only have news reports, not academic analyses. You might as well try and pass a historical verdict on the Trump presidency... Hopefully the articles can be improved structurally and content-wise, and a suitable target will become apparent. Carcharoth (talk) 16:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

ITN Ongoing removal nominations by LaserLegs

Moved from Misplaced Pages:In the news/Candidates § Ongoing removal Citizenship Amendment Act protests

Comment At the risk of this becoming an ad hominem argument... @LaserLegs: Please explain your continuous effort to remove items from the Ongoing tab on ITN. This seems like something you have made a pet project for a while now, and most of the time, consensus is fiercely against you, as it is here.--WaltCip (talk) 15:00, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@WaltCip: we can discuss this at WT:ITN, at my talk page, or at WP:ANI if you think I'm not behaving appropriately -- I don't think this is the right venu.— Preceding unsigned comment added by LaserLegs (talk • contribs)
  • The question posed by WaltCip is very valid and I would like a detailed answer. Please answer the question above instead of skirting it. In addition I would like to understand how you judged that an article that received more than 43 KBs of updates in past week (diff) as "No update". This is very concerning. I believe that this is something that has been going on for long and needs to be addressed by you. If there are WP:CIR issues here, then probably some formal/informal sanctions might be necessary. --DBigXrayᗙ 15:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • LaserLegs edits only ITN related pages, which is fine, we're all volunteers etc, but lately they have been on something of a quest to remove "Ongoing" items . LaserLegs interprets "updated with new pertinent information" very strictly and it's hardly surprising that they receive pushback from other editors who feel the articles are being updated sufficiently. Perhaps LaserLegs you could slow down a bit with the nominations? It's fine if an event is quite clearly stale, but I don't think that's the case with most of your noms.-- P-K3 (talk) 15:33, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
P-K3 can you also be kind enough to append the result of the nominations whose diff you posted here. It will be useful for the discussion here. --DBigXrayᗙ 15:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
I may have missed some nominations, but of the five I quoted above: Citizenship Amendment Act protests (first attempt) - still being discussed. Bush fires: Removed. While not unanimous, consensus is that the article has not received constant updates, which is needed to keep the article in Ongoing. Arguments reporting that the subject is still in other news sources were considered, and if the article is updated with new information, should be renominated for ongoing. Citizenship Amendment Act Protests (first attempt): Closed without action per consensus. Clearly events are still happening from a quick news check, and a lack of update in only 2 days is far too insufficient to claim "lack of updates". Hong Kong protests - Removed. Maltese protests - Removed at the second attempt. So it's not the case that consensus is always against, but the number of nominations does seem excessive to me.-- P-K3 (talk) 16:14, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@WaltCip: @Pawnkingthree: There is no automatic removal for an ongoing item. Every few days, I look at the OG items, and read the updates. I'm looking for pertinence to the subject (in particular to the rationale for posting in the first place), looking at the quality (proseline vs paragraphs), and the overall quality of the article. These things tend to sit in the box for months, growing and growing with factoids not summarizing the events -- the longer it sits in the box generally the worse it gets. I brought up WP:V vs WP:NOR once at VPP in an effort to get some clarity around the appropriateness of these kinds of articles. I don't count diffs because they're often ref fixes, content tweaks, minor expansions, etc -- the requirement is "regularly updated" not "regularly edited". I actually read the article text and consider it against WP:ITN#Ongoing_section which is especially tough when articles aren't broken down chronologically. Ultimately my goal is to see if keeping the article in the box is doing a service to our readers: is the article approachable, is it easy to find new information and how pertinent is that information. Generally I'll wait a week between nominations or longer of course if the updates are actually up to spec -- and I scrutinize articles with a finite end (like impeachments or sporting events) less because they won't fester forever. @Pawnkingthree: actually left out one of the tougher removals: the Venezuelan presidential crisis. It would go a week without an update, I'd nominate it as stale, someone would pile a bunch of text into the article and it'd survive for another week. A month with a handful of updates it was actually kind of sad and my motivations were challenged then as well. Understand that if someone reads the same article I do, evaluates it against WP:ITN#Ongoing_section and comes to a different conclusion, then that's ok -- it's how consensus works. That's the explanation of what I'm doing here, and why. You can take it or leave it. --LaserLegs (talk) 17:04, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It has been my experience that your removal nominations are just a few days too early. I do appreciate the fact that they should be removed but I only wish you had waited maybe 2 or 3 days after your first instinct to nominate for removal. I voted to keep the Bush fires and a few days later changed my vote to remove. I think those few days in between were important.
In a related subject, I also wish DBigXray would remove timelines completely from their writing style. It is a horrible writing style for an encyclopedia. I am tempted to vote to remove the CAA protests article for just that reason. Timelines grow exponentially offering little value. They progressively degrade an article to the point that it is unfixable and WP:TNT is the only option. WP:SUMMARY and PROSE must rule supreme if ITN is going to produce good quality articles. We are not here to keep our readers up to date on minor indiscriminate updates to a news story. Like in every thing we do, we are here to build a great encyclopedia. We should always strive to prune the garden and build towards an article that can be GA or FA sometime in the future. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Coffeeandcrumbs, This is not "My style". Moreover this is not related, but it is completely off topic, please raise it on the article talk page. DBigXrayᗙ 18:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
I apologize if I was mistaken. I assumed since you have continued to add to it and you are the largest contributor to the article that it was your chosen style.--- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • A good portion of the noms succeed, and many that don't are torpedoed by bad faith arguments and pointy updates just to keep the article up. Anyone following LaserLegs editing history will see they have contributed positively to the project for years. If you would AGF, you'd probably guess that they were doing this because they saw a need for it. GreatCaesarsGhost 20:00, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Concur with GreatCaesarsGhost above. Because the status quo for Ongoing is to remain on the template indefinitely, I find what LaserLegs is doing to be helpful for healthy turnover of items and considering whether an item is meeting criteria to stay. There needs to be a better process in place to consider how long Ongoing items will remain on the template. Spencer 21:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • For everybody's reference, here is what the, WP:ITN Ongoing says, especially note the last line.

  • In order to be posted to ongoing, the article needs to be regularly updated with new, pertinent information. Articles whose most recent update is older than the oldest blurb currently on ITN are usually not being updated frequently enough for ongoing status.

The second sentence gives people an idea of when to consider an ongoing as stale. Now consider the CAA Protest removal Part 1 nominated by LaserLegs. He claimed that the article was not updated for last 2 days, so it need to be removed. First, this claim was not true, as the article was getting regular updates, the community agreed and LL's nomination failed. Second, LL said, on the same nomination on 13 January "Last update (outside the proseline mess) is "On 11 January. The requirements for Ongoing are "continuously updated" but at this point the updates for the article are sporadic and inadequate. So clearly, LL agrees that the article was last updated just 2 back and yet he goes ahead and nominated it for ongoing removal. This is again problematic in my opinion.
  • PK3 said, "LaserLegs interprets "updated with new pertinent information" very strictly and it's hardly surprising that they receive pushback from other editors who feel the articles are being updated sufficiently." Indeed I agree with PK3 and it is clear that it is not just the quality of updates LL seems to be disputing but also the time duration to wait before calling the update as stale. And it is clear that despite community clarifying this again and again by trashing his nominations, he is not changing his stance on when to nominate for ongoing removal.
  • Perhaps LaserLegs you could slow down a bit with the nominations? It's fine if an event is quite clearly stale, but I don't think that's the case with most of your noms I think it is the assessment that it is problematic. He seems to be enforcing his own strict version of ITN ongoing criteria without getting a community consensus first.
  • LL says above, Generally I'll wait a week between nominations or longer of course again, this is problematic. There is no ITN criteria of nominating an article every week for removal as you have been doing recently. the Criteria is written above and it should be followed.
  • @LaserLegs I am yet to get a detailed response from you on this question. "I would like to understand how you judged that an article that received more than 43 KBs of updates in past week (diff) as "No update"?DBigXrayᗙ 22:28, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I think LaserLeg's nominations can be quite silly (not to mention distorted) - e.g. DBigXray's objection above. However, people should be free to nominate what they want, and if the nomination really is silly then it'll just get snow closed quickly. Those who don't want to argue with him can just ignore him after voting. Banedon (talk) 00:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • LaserLegs' explanation is satisfactory to me. I never intended to accuse him of tendentious editing or being disruptive or anything like that; I merely just wanted to understand his thought process behind the continuous ongoing removal nominations.--WaltCip (talk) 01:18, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)This is a case of good faith editing behavior helping more than it hurts, even if it can appear to toe the line of being constructive. I agree with Banedon, the ongoing articles aren't going to get removed without some consensus, so no harm done on the odd premature or misjudged one, and LL is getting dwindling or messy articles out of the box when it's not everyone's first thought. Kingsif (talk) 01:20, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't alway agree with LaserLegs, but I agree what they're doing is in good faith, and I don't think this discussion is necessary. One can simply just oppose the nomination if they disagree with their argument. And that's all. – Ammarpad (talk) 03:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
If something is silly, it must be discouraged. There is a concern here that LaserLegs is enforcing his own unwritten version of criteria for removing ITN Ongoing that seems to be outrageously stricter than the community supported criteria noted in WP:ITN. Inappropriate nominations wastes community's time, that could have been used at other places. DBigXrayᗙ 07:38, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Nothing silly or distorted, just enthusiasm to maintain standards, a belief in themselves and real consideration for our readers. Perhaps we should look at people whose nominations consistently fail as well? Daft. I think this section is a little "silly", nothing is noteworthy here and if it is considered that real disruption is taking place, this is not the right venue. Suggest this discussion is now closed and effort is expended improving the encyclopedia. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 13:29, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
    The Rambling Man, ... maintain 'which' standards  ? The community supported or the one based on personal whims/bias ? DBigXrayᗙ 13:39, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
    It's obvious, to me at least, it's LaserLegs' interpretation of the standards. As proven very early in this thread, results of such noms have been varied, so I think it's time to respectfully move on. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 13:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • LaserLegs is doing nothing wrong, and I don't understand how in less than 24 hours, we already have a thread this long. They are not being disruptive in their nominations, and other than a brief (and already-dealt-with) dust up in one of their nominations yesterday, have always behaved perfectly cordially and respectfully in these discussion. I frequently (though not always) disagree with their nominations, and am quite willing to provide evidence and rationale either way whether I agree with them or not, but that's not a problem. Perhaps they have a different means of interpretation of our standards for an item to be posted to Ongoing; there is nothing wrong with that. Having different interpretations than other people is not a crime, and not something that even requires discussion, one does not need to be in lock-step agreement with everyone to be allowed to give their opinions here. I welcome viewpoints contrary to mine, so long as they are presented dispassionately, with evidence and rationale to support them, and LaserLegs has rarely had any problems with any of that. --Jayron32 13:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
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