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The In the News (ITN) section on the Main Page features up-to-date encyclopedic content reflecting important international current events. This page describes the inclusion criteria for ITN, as well as the procedure to place an item. ITN supports the central purpose of Misplaced Pages—making a great encyclopedia. ITN items (also known as "blurbs" or "hooks") link to encyclopedia articles that have been updated to reflect an important current event; it does not act as a newspaper, nor does it link to news articles.
Misplaced Pages is not an online newspaper and does not accept original works of journalism or first-hand reports. However, many Wikipedians are motivated to create and update encyclopedic articles of timely interest. Because Misplaced Pages is an online encyclopedia, it does a much better job with such entries than a "dead tree" encyclopedia. ITN originated in the September 11 attacks, when entries were created and put on the Main Page within minutes of the attacks. The entries led to an infusion of interest by editors in creating a section on the Main Page, which linked to articles providing readers the context behind the news.
Criteria
Candidates for ITN are evaluated on two main grounds: the quality of the updated content and the significance of the developments described in the updated content. In many cases, qualities in one area can make up for deficiencies in another. For example, a highly significant event, such as the discovery of a cure for cancer, may have a sub-par update associated with it, but be posted anyway with the assumption that other editors will soon join in and improve the article. Conversely, an editor may write an in-depth update on a topic normally considered marginal, thus convincing commentors that it is deserving of inclusion. A successful nomination will normally go through several procedural steps before being placed on the ITN template.
Updated content
Each blurb on ITN contains an emboldened link to an article for which cited updates have been provided. Changes in verb tense (e.g. "is" → "was") or updates that convey little or no new information beyond what is stated in the In the news blurb are insufficient. The decision as to when an item is updated 'enough' is subjective, but a five sentence update (with at minimum three references, not counting duplicates) has generally been considered more than sufficient, while a one sentence update is considered extremely questionable. In the case of new event-specific articles, the traditional cutoff for 'enough' has been around three complete, referenced and well-formed paragraphs.
Updated content must be thoroughly referenced. As with all Misplaced Pages articles, citations must be to reliable sources. While articles in topics such as sporting events and economics lend themselves to tables of numbers, updates must be at least in part written in prose to qualify for ITN consideration.
Articles that are subject to serious issues, as indicated by 'orange'- or 'red'-level article tags, will not normally be accepted for an emboldened link.
Significance
Unlike the TFA and Did you know sections of the Main Page, ITN rejects items deemed trivial. The criterion was previously written as "a story of international importance or interest". This standard is highly subjective and the focus of much of the disagreement over particular candidates. The most common form of opposition on this ground is that the news is "too local" and not of interest to people in the commenter's country of origin.
Procedural
- There is a sufficiently updated article, cited to credible sources.
- A blurb conforming to the style guide is listed at Portal:Current events or one of its subpages
- The item has been nominated and received multiple supports at the candidates' page, with an emboldened link to the updated article. A freely licensed image to accompany the item may be suggested.
Special cases
Deaths
The death must meet one or more of the following criteria:
- The deceased was in a high ranking office of power, and had a significant contribution/impact on the country/region.
- The deceased was a very important figure in their field of expertise, and was recognised as such.
- The death has a major international impact that affects current events. The modification or creation of multiple articles to take into account the ramifications of a death is a sign that it meets the third criterion.
In addition, the article needs to have at least a paragraph of prose about the person's death (in accordance with ITN updating criteria), and the article as a whole must be B-class and/or be satisfactorily filled out with no major omissions of the person's life and effect.
Deaths should not be added without a consensus at ITN/C and are recommended (but by no means "must") to be listed at WP:LILP.
- For previous discussion about this criteria, see WP:ITN/DC.
Sports and other recurring events
Certain regularly recurring events are considered of sufficient interest to be placed on ITN every time they occur. These are listed at Misplaced Pages:Recurring items on ITN. Items listed here are considered exempt from having to prove their notability through discussion on the candidates page and may be posted as soon as a cited update is added to the article. Discussions on proposed inclusions and removals should take place on the talk page there.
Recognition
The following templates are used to recognise articles and editors that have been involved in ITN. They also help to publicise the process and attract new contributors. Instructions can be found on each template's documentation. The following templates are used to credit the article creator and the article nominator as well as give notice on the article talk page that the article appeared on the Main Page:
- Article creator's talk page: ({{UpdatedITN}}) {{subst:UpdatedITN|30 December|2024|Article name|7=created|subst=subst:}} --~~~~
- Article updater's talk page: ({{UpdatedITN}}) {{subst:UpdatedITN|30 December|2024|Article name|7=substantially updated|subst=subst:}} --~~~~
- Nominator's talk page: ({{UpdatedITN}}) {{subst:UpdatedITN|30 December|2024|Article name|7=recently nominated|subst=subst:}} --~~~~
- Self-nomination: ({{UpdatedITN}}) {{subst:UpdatedITN|30 December|2024|Article name|7=recently nominated ''and'' substantially updated|subst=subst:}} --~~~~
- Article talk page: ({{ITNtalk}}) {{ITNtalk|30 December|2024}} (check if small style templates in use, if so add small=yes parm)
Note: If any contributor feels that they missed recognition, please leave a note on Misplaced Pages talk:In the news.
Notes for administrators
Evaluating candidates
Whether or not a candidate meets the criteria for updated content and significance will often be immediately apparent. If you question the quality of the update, explain this so the nominator has a chance to improve the article. If you have a question about the significance, the best course of action is normally to postpone posting to allow other users to comment. Blurbs that result in discussion deadlocking in no consensus may be posted. In cases where there are multiple candidates, admins may choose to skip candidates lacking consensus. Otherwise, waiting until the timer (described below) notes that 24 hours has passed before posting may be advisable.
Check legitimacy
Before adding an item to ITN, use the given citations to check that news story is legitimate. If you feel that the supporting media source is dubious or does not support the wording of the suggested blurb, please investigate further before putting possibly erroneous content on the Main Page.
*mp and chronological order
For technical reasons, precede every blurb with the invisible template {{*mp}}, including the date of the event described, e.g. {{*mp|April 1}}. Items are placed chronologically according to the event they describe, not chronologically according to the order they were placed on the template. For example, if there was a template with one item from April 1st, 2 from April 2nd, 1 from April 4th and 1 from April 5th, and an admin wished to place an item for an event that occurred on April 3rd, it would enter as the fourth item in the template. In cases where there are multiple items for the same date, normal procedure is for the most recently posted item to go on top of the date sub-queue, though admins are encouraged to place clearly more significant items higher in the template, thus ensuring that they remain longer.
Blurbs on similar topics and updates to blurbs
In cases where a blurb is suggested when there is an existing blurb on the same country or topic, the newest blurb will generally replace the older blurb. Alternately, the blurbs may be combined if they mesh well.
When significant updates are made to blurbs – always supported by the emboldened article – admins may reset items higher up the template.
Length of template
Ideally, the left and right sides of the Main Page of Misplaced Pages should be symmetrical, i.e. the ITN section should be roughly the same height as the section for Today's featured article. Each person will have a slightly different sense of when this occurs, depending on computer screen size, screen resolution, font size settings, etc, though it will not vary greatly among users using 'standard' settings. When ITN grows longer than TFA, the oldest item is removed. If the TFA is longer than ITN, the addition of new items are expedited, older items are re-added, or the sister Selected anniversaries and Did you know templates are adjusted so the TFA-DYK and ITN-SA columns are roughly equal. Depending upon the length of each ITN blurb and the length of the TFA, ITN will normally consist of four to eight items, as well as one image.
In practice, a small number of admins, generally one or two, will take on the informal responsibility of Main Page balancing. In the interests of preventing endless reverting adjustments, Main Page regulars generally submit to the edits of the 'balancers', even if those edits end up making the balance marginally worse on their own screen. If you don't already know who the balancers are, check out the recent history of ITN and DYK, generally considered the most dynamic Main Page templates, to see who is handling the fine-tuning.
Main Page: Updates and Caching
The Main Page does not necessarily update immediately after Template:In the news is changed. In order to purge the cache of the Main Page so that the present version appears, click this link: //en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Main_Page&action=purge
Images
- One and only one image shall be included on Template:In the news at any one time. The width and height shall not exceed 100px. It shall be right-justified and have alt text.
- This is accomplished by enclosing the image code in <div style="float:right"> </div> and adding |100x100px| followed by the alt text inside the image code. For example: <div style="float:right">]</div>. The use of the "|right" extended image markup should be avoided, as under the current MediaWiki parser, it results in unsightly and asymmetrical white borders around images in the green main page column.
- Before placing an image in the template, ensure that its copyright is well-documented and that it is legal for it to be displayed on the Misplaced Pages. Avoid using fair use images. Instead, find a related free image (PD, GFDL, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, etc.) as an alternative.
- Before updating Template:In the news with a new image, protect that image and add {{Mprotected}} to the image's description page. If you have uploaded a temporary copy from Commons, use {{C-uploaded}} or {{M-cropped}}, making sure you also copy the author attribution and the licence tag). Administrators who are also administrators on Commons may protect images there, tagging them with {{En main page}}. See commons:User:Zzyzx11/En main page for relevant info. (Commons protection will prevent local uploads.)
- When using images, parenthetically note in italicized text that the mentioned item is pictured. Example: "...leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (pictured) is sworn in..." If the image depicts something related to or representative of the subject (but not the subject itself), the indication should be qualified accordingly .
- Unprotect the old image that is being removed, or speedy delete it if it has been temporarily uploaded. When deleting, don't forget to immediately check the deleted history of its image description page and restore any relevant Misplaced Pages-specific edits, category links, and tags (such as {{FeaturedPicture}}) that were on there beforehand.
Timer
ITN has in the past been subject to criticism for its tendency to stagnate. The addition of a new ITN blurb every 24 hours will normally result in a complete template turnover in 5–7 days. To maintain this minimum level of turnover, the timer at Template:ITN-Update will turn yellow 24 hours after the last update to encourage editors to suggest new items and admins to evaluate candidates. After posting a new item, reset the timer. Template:ITN-Update
Quick guide
Here is the quick guide to the process:
- For an item to appear on ITN, a relevant article must be updated and a blurb added to Portal:Current events or one of its subpages.
- The event has to be important enough to merit updating the article and should be of international import, or at least interest.
- If you are not an admin, have updated an article with an item that you feel is of international significance and put a blurb on Current events, suggest the item at the candidates page.
- If you are an admin, familiarize yourself with both the Criteria and Admin guidelines above. In particular, please pay close attention to the procedure for images.