Wikipedia talk:In the news

Executed criminals

We had one in recent deaths recently, and now have two listed in candidates. We do say that any living creature with an article is acceptable - I think the problem is that they are semi-celebrities and have lots of media coverage which means that each one has an article. I don't think we should have every US executed criminal on the front page though. What do others think? Secretlondon (talk) 12:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

If we have an article that has reasonable biographical coverage of them (see #Small tweak/clarification to ITNRD above) they qualify for RD. The purpose of RD is to not make the selection of deaths in the news to be politized or anything but as inclusive as possible, barring the quality requirement. Masem (t) 12:20, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

There's very little biographical information in Aaron Gunches, his history starts at his crime. Eddie James and Jessie Hoffman Jr. do have some history, at least. Secretlondon (talk) 13:06, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

If you think the article isn't a biography then you should request to move the article to a different title with a different scope, but there is sufficient biographical coverage in all three articles at present to qualify for RD regardless of the article title. I strongly oppose being more selective than we currently are about who qualifies for RD, it will only lead to the sorts of arguments we had before the system changed in 2016. Anything related to criminals/executed people/or similar would lead to NPOV issues very quickly. Thryduulf (talk) 13:29, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I think the underlying issue is that every US elected criminal has an article as they are kind of celebrities. There's not a lot we can do about that. Secretlondon (talk) 13:32, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

That likely is more a BLP issue, specifically BLPCRIME. We discourage articles on convicted criminals of significant crimes, the crime itself should be the focus, but there are cases where the convicted is notable beyond the crime itself. Masem (t) 13:59, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I personally don't really understand how these articles meet BLP at all. A lot of these articles seem to fail WP:BLP1E. They have a lot of coverage, but it really is just coverage of the individual's incarceration. Eddie James was covered on America's Most Wanted; does this count as passing 1E? Hoffman is a little more clear based on appeals, but I do just generally doubt how notable (and really, of reader interest) these articles are. DarkSide830 (talk) 16:58, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

There are a whole bunch of "biography" articles on political officeholders which are really articles about the office(s) they h(e/o)ld, or the office(s) is used as an excuse to create an article which is ostensibly biographical but still a massive disservice to readers, and little effort is put into correcting this. The only solution offered by the average Wikipedian is to scale back notability guidelines, never mind that our current article count is laughable in the overall context of "the sum total of human knowledge". RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 00:59, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Some readers will be interested in elected or executed criminals; others may prefer to avoid them. It would therefore be best to give the readers some context for each article such as a short description and then they can choose for themselves. Just listing the name is quite inadequate and so RD's format needs expansion. To see how this can easily be done better, see the German language Wikipedia which currently lists:

Obituary

• Witold Fokin (92), ukrainischer Politiker († 20. März)
• Eddie Jordan (76), irischer Automobilrennfahrer und Motorsportmanager († 20. März)
• Nadia Cassini (76), italienische Schauspielerin und Sängerin († 18. März)
• Esa Pethman (86), finnischer Jazzmusiker († 18. März)
• Brigitte Behrens (73), deutsche Umweltaktivistin († 17. März)

How hard is that? Andrew🐉(talk) 18:52, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

In technical terms, trivial. In terms of getting consensus for it, very. This is because the massive increase in screen estate taken up will need to be balanced by other changes to the main page which are very difficult to get consensus for. Additionally, I recall similar proposals to add context to RD entries have been rejected on multiple occasions. Consensus could have changed of course, but I don't think it likely. Thryduulf (talk) 19:01, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

For comparison, the German Wikipedia only has four items in its DYK, which are pushed down by the RD section (which is a fully separate section from ITN) and are not visible at all when first opening the page (at least on my screen). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:39, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

So what? It may be that their DYK is not as busy as the English one or perhaps their standards are higher. The thing is that main page formats are not rigid and unchangeable. We should be experimenting with improvements as a continual improvement process. The rest of the internet isn't standing still and it's my impression that Wikipedia is losing ground ... Andrew🐉(talk) 15:00, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Here's the thing with de.wiki's RD box - there's no quality check to those - they are automatically added. Spot checked a few there and it shows undersourced articles. That may be fine for de.wiki but not en.wiki's front page where our goal is to showcase featured content. Masem (t) 15:09, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

That doesn't have anything to do with the issue of providing a short description. And the English RDs are not that good. For example, we now have one of these executed criminals at RD: Jessie Hoffman Jr. I just spot-checked the first fact in the article -- the date of birth -- it's not cited. The nomination only had a single response and so the vetting by ITN has been perfunctory. The talk page for the article has zero discussion and there doesn't seem to have been any other peer review or quality checks. This is not "showcasing featured content". Andrew🐉(talk) 22:45, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

It may be that their DYK is not as busy as the English one or perhaps their standards are higher. I'm going with the latter, regardless of whether it's actually the case. In 18+ years here, I've read exactly two things expressed by an editor on a talk page which I agree with 100 percent. One of them was the belief that DYK is a haven for self-promotion and bad writing. Nothing's changed in all those years. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 00:49, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Spot checked a few there and it shows undersourced articles. That may be fine for de.wiki but not en.wiki's front page where our goal is to showcase featured content. Um, sure, whatever. There's been a years-long pattern of RD candidates promoted to the main page which were prettied up but plainly deficient, including plainly deficient when it comes to sourcing. You're here all the time, so you've had plenty of opportunity to observe this. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 01:04, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

You've asked for this multiple times before and it's been explained each time why we don't have room for that while also keeping blurbs for non death items. Masem (t) 19:09, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Short descriptions are explicitly designed for this purpose: "Every article whose title is not already fully self-explanatory should have a short description. The short description appears with the title in lists such as search results, helping users identify the desired article." By design, they are short and so don't require much space not a massive amount. The German example shows that displaying them is, as Thryduulf says, technically trivial. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:24, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

What do you mean, 'elected or excuted criminals'? GenevieveDEon (talk) 11:19, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

The OP's usage varied in this way. "Elected" might have been a slip but seems appropriate currently. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:37, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Variety is the spice of life

• Look at the current set of blurbs:

1. "...kills at least 10 people"
2. "...kill more than 500 people"
3. "...kills at least 59 people"
4. "...53 people are killed"
5. "At least 42 people are killed..."

Ongoing is then just three wars while RD is obviously yet more deaths. So, ITN is essentially nothing but death, death and more death.

Other main page sections make an explicit effort to ensure a variety of topics. This is sensible because an encyclopedia is supposed to cover the full circle of knowledge – hence the name. ITN seems to err in the opposite direction – a narrow focus on death which seems too morbid and peculiar. It's not a good look.

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:29, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

LOL the only way non-Caucasian countries will make it to ITN is via disasters and mass murder. Even elections are hard to update. Articles such as these are easy. Howard the Duck (talk) 10:53, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we have particularly many stories from the Caucasus, do we? GenevieveDEon (talk) 11:13, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

People dying in large numbers is, generally speaking, a big deal. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:15, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

We have no control of what is in the news. If you want to see a greater diversity of entries posted to ITN, then nominate good quality articles about items you want to see. Thryduulf (talk) 15:52, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm quite familiar with the news and nomination process. There's no shortage of non-death news and so, anticipating this response, nominated the World Happiness Report. This is sponsored by the UN and on the front page of The Times today. There's coverage in other respectable news media such as the BBC, CNN and the NYT. There's work to do on the article but the ITN/C crowd has piled on to dismiss the topic out of hand. The opposes seem to be purely personal opinions and there's a groupthink effect too. ITN is not a happy place... Andrew🐉(talk) 18:57, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I would !vote no too. It's nothing special. The first female and African president of the IOC is positive, but that might struggle to get posted. Secretlondon (talk) 19:08, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

We cannot force what news happens. If there's a run of negative news, it is not our responsibility to try to offset that. We should not be trying to force any type of news distribution by twisting our process, nominating things that never would be posted even if there were a dirth of ITNC candidates. Masem (t) 22:43, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

There's an easy fix: support the nomination of the first female and first African president of the IOC, that's currently gaining traction, for instance. Khuft (talk) 16:38, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

IOC election

some confusion on the main ITNC page, but i think this should be ITNR as the largest sporting in the world that involves the largest/multi-sport viewership. The president does play a role in decisions like participation or trans issues. The previous eleciton was also posted, but not as ITNR. Sportsnut24 (talk) 13:05, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose adding to ITNR. Given the level of opposition this is getting, it's premature to add this to ITNR which is for things that always have consensus about importance. If this and the next one are both posted then that is the time to consider adding it to the recurring list. To be clear I'm not opposing the posting of the current nomination (I don't have a strong opinion on that). Thryduulf (talk) 14:11, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose The IOC has zero political power, the reason we do post elections of country rules as well as the UN Sec. General. It does not rise to why we have that as ITNR. Masem (t) 14:17, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose If an individual appointment can meet WP:ITNSIGNIF then that one can be posted, but I see no evidence that IOC appointments always meet ITNSIGNIF, so we shouldn't presume they are always notable. Joseph2302 (talk) 20:15, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose I supported the posting of the current nomination, as it did make the news with K Coventry as first female and African IOC head, and I don't think we should restrict ITN to disregard any elections that are not national elections. It should be for users to determine the notability of such other elections on a case-by-case basis. However, I don't think it's the time (yet) to add IOC elections to ITNR - we actually didn't post the last IOC election (which was T Bach's re-election for a shortened 4-year term in 2021, with near unanimity), and it's too early to judge whether Coventry will run again 8 years from now (maybe also unopposed) and whether that will make the news then. Khuft (talk) 20:56, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Image border

A border was added to the image in this edit on 10 March (I think because a light-colored image was being used). It was not removed afterwards, but should be. — Goszei (talk) 01:07, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

I have fixed it. Masem (t) 01:16, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Suggest: Impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol

Yeah, I know, don't suggest here per header - but the instructions on how to suggest stuff are arcane, there is no nice tool like for DYKs, so I don't feel like jumping through the hoops and doing this old-school for 5m. Anyway, this is big news in Korea, and on April 4 the local Supreme Court will rule on this. I just got an @ from my emabassy warning of expected mass protests and demonstrations. If the president is impeached, it would be newsworthy - keep an eye on that, and I hope someone will nominate this. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:52, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Hasn't Kim been impeached already? If yes, what is this impending ruling about, then? Howard the Duck (talk) 10:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Also, willfully disobeying rules won't get this posted, at least according to your wishes lol. Howard the Duck (talk) 10:37, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

He has been impeached, and we posted about that in December, but it seems a decision on whether to actually remove him from office is due in two days. My suggestion would be that should that removal take place, we wait until his successor is known, presumably after an election, and then post the whole thing then. He's de facto out of office already anyway, so his formal removal wouldn't have any tangible effects on the ground.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:41, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Following precedent from Impeachment of Park Geun-hye, the new president should take office within 60 days, and that Park's actual removal from office was posted at ITN, then the ensuing presidential election was also posted. We have posted several items from this crisis already, so would people here be fine with posting 2 South Korean blurbs in 2 months or just one? Howard the Duck (talk) 10:51, 2 April 2025 (UTC)