Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 12

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Slovenia Euro ITN item

It does not appear to me that the Euro article has been updated much to reflect the current event, so I'm not sure it belongs on ITN. The euro is mentioned down in on this day... so there's really no benefit to it being in ITN as well. Alas, I'm changing the picture for the meantime. -- tariqabjotu 02:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The article had almost no update. In fact, it looks like it has no more information than the news item. I removed it. —Centrx→talk • 04:26, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
It probably was a good idea to remove it. There is hardly going to be anything else to add to that news article. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  13:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the little mention of Slovenia switching to the euro should be removed. The sentence is awkward in structure and I question why it’s mentioned with the enlargement of the EU and why it is notable enough to be on the main page. Also, the word “euro” should not be capitalized. – Zntrip 21:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Adam Air Flight 574

The main page currently says the plane has been found with at least 90 dead. These claims are currently disputed as Adam Air Flight 574 says. PrimeHunter 12:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I've reworded the entry accordingly. —David Levy 13:06, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

"102 people onboard" should be changed to "102 people on board", because "onboard" is an adjective while "on board" is a preposition. --Yath 16:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I've changed "onboard" to "aboard." —David Levy 17:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Incorrect, it should be "on board".
aboard
adverb, preposition
used when talking about getting onto a ship, aircraft, bus or train:
The flight attendant welcomed us aboard.
Welcome aboard flight BA345 to Tokyo.
The train's about to leave. All aboard!
Acdx 01:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay then. "On board" it is. —David Levy 02:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Admission of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU

Romania and Bulgaria join the European Union (flag pictured), as the Slovenian tolar is retired for the euro currency.

What does "...as the Slovenian tolar..." mean? It is neither the currency of Romania nor the currency of Bulgaria. How is it connected to the admission of these countries to the EU? JIP | Talk 09:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, the Slovenian tolar article has no substantial update. —Centrx→talk • 11:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
The euro is now the official currency in slovenia. Surely that is simple enough to understand. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  20:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
They are two recent events both directly related to the EU. Nothing amiss here. --Monotonehell 21:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I meant that the conjunction "as" makes it sound like they are connected to each other, not merely to the same thing. JIP | Talk 07:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I see what you mean, I read it as the meaning "at the same time" from its context. I guess "as" has many different meanings as a conjunction, even more as a adverb, pronoun or preposition. At least it's not as bad as "got". -- User:Monotonehell Some time ago...

Image for WP:ITN

Over the past twenty-four hours, three images have appeared on ITN:

(a) (b) (c)

My issue with (a) is that it provides absolutely no context as to where the island is located. Of course, given the text of WP:ITN, one can deduce that it is an Indonesian island. However, since there are over 17,000 Indonesian islands, finding it on a map may not be the simplest endeavor (although thankfully it's one of the largest).

The second one eliminates that context issue, presuming one infers that the green country is Indonesia. The context of Indonesia should be sufficient. However, the image does not fit the traditional square or golden rectangle shape, thus making it hard to fit properly in ITN. I'm almost certain however that a 135-pixel image did fit reasonably on the Main Page when we had this image on ITN last month.

The third one may be the least problematic in my opinion, although it may not be as informative as a map. -- tariqabjotu 05:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if you realise that the third on is the EU flag and was intended for the second ITN item? --Monotonehell 06:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
And the first image looks like it is actually a bacterium. —Centrx→talk • 11:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I disagree, particularly given the fact that people are expected to read the accompanying text. —David Levy 15:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes... I do know what the third one is, and I realize that is what it is for; I certainly would not have called it the least problematic if I thought I didn't go with any item. It's just that I don't believe flags are as informative as maps, especially considering the EU flag is a well-known flag (and Sulawesi is not a well-known island). I do not, however, concur with Centrx's assessment from earlier that no image is better than a flag image; flags aren't that uninformative, but just (seen as) less informative (by some). There are many people, I'm sure, who are not really familiar with the EU flag. -- tariqabjotu 11:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how Centrx got the idea that the image is supposed to be something relatively unfamiliar. Most of our readers probably are familiar with Saddam Hussein's appearance in life, but that didn't stop us from displaying a photograph of him for two days.
Like it or not, the image usually serves a primarily decorative purpose. It attracts attention that words alone cannot. Yes, a flag is not the best type of image to use (unless it happens to be the subject of news), but it still gives the section a far more interesting/appealing appearance than it has with no image at all. —David Levy 15:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
1. A 135px-wide image might seem fine on your screen (as it does on mine), but for people with low resolutions and/or large text sizes, it causes ugly text wrap that makes the section more difficult to read. This is why we have a formal width limit of 100px and only an informal custom of aiming for a matching 100px height (for aesthetic reasons).
2. Even at 135px, I could barely make out the island at my resolution (1400x1050). Maps of large areas simply don't work well for this purpose.
3. As you noted, the entry clearly identifies the island as Indonesian. According to our Sulawesi article, it's is the world's eleventh-largest island, so it certainly is easy for someone who's seen the current image to locate it on a map of Indonesia.
4. If someone is interested in the related entry, he/she is supposed to click the bold link. The article itself contains Image:IndonesiaSulawesi.PNG at a size that actually makes it useful. —David Levy 15:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in, but I have created more informative image for the current news. How can I suggest it? This is the image:

Thanks. — Indon (reply) — 17:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Your map is appropriate for use in the article (where you've already inserted it), but it's inappropriate for use in the ITN section. At 100px, the text is far too small to be legible, so the image's meaning is entirely unclear. Images containing text almost never are useful at thumbnail size. —David Levy 18:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I was just thinking that somebody would think the current ITN image is not an image map (Centrx said it looks like a bacterium :-). — Indon (reply) — 18:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
As noted above, the entry identifies the image as a map of Sulawesi. —David Levy 18:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Someone might want to take a look at WP:ERRORS. There's been a image change request for ITN that's been there for almost a day. Nishkid64 15:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I've addressed/removed the request (which shouldn't have been posted there). —David Levy 15:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

EU enlargement

Could you edit the entry to start with Bulgaria and then Romania so that they are in alphabetical order, please? Thanks. --Vanka5 16:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Erm...is it really necessary? Nishkid64 22:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Junior Ice Hockey

Ignoring the debate about the notability of this news item, the article is very underdeveloped. This wouldn't even pass T:DYK as it is only 773 characters (plus a ton of diagrams). — BRIAN0918 • 2007-01-05 21:47Z

Moved from Talk:Main Page:

The link to the Junior Ice Hockey Championships article takes you to an article that is quite shoddy with almost no text. It consists mainly of charts. Personally, I feel that this type of article does not deserve a link from the main page. Thoughts? Mrmaroon25 21:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

This is simply too minor for the main page, regardless of the state of the actual article. Owen 22:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
For sports news on ITN, we usually only take the top level competitions in a sport with a wide international following. For ice hockey, that would be the NHL Stanley Cup and maybe the annual IIHF men's senior world championship, plus Canada Cup / World Cup of Hockey whenever it's held again. Usual ITN rules also apply, i.e. no stubs, and no prose-less data sets, please. And breaking a high profile world record would do, too. -- PFHLai 04:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Cricket

Somehow I don't think a Cricket match, even if it is a particularly monumental/historic one fits in the "ITN" section. If American sporting events, namely the Super Bowl, aren't kept on the ITN page (I believe it was on there for a short time, but soon after was removed), then I certainly DONT think that a cricket match should make the section. Mientkiewicz5508 00:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree with you, the Super Bowl happens every year and so shouldn't be mentiond, the Ashes happen every year and so ditto. However the blurb states that a 0-5 whitewash hasn't occured since 1921 and that 3 noteable Australian Team members have all annonced their retirement. All four points tend to add up to an unusual event so I guess it squeeks in. --Monotonehell 03:27, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
It's curently misleading because it states that the three cricketers retired afterwards. Most people will assume that they decided to retire after the 5-0, when in fact they all made the decision to 'retire after the fifth test' before the fifth test started. Carcharoth 03:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
We almost never have two-sentence entries anyway, and I don't see how this information is important enough to justify that. I've removed it. —David Levy 03:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I've a better reason to remove the bit about the retirements: they will still be playing for a while, just not internationally in Test series. That's not a real retirement ! I sign in again to fix this. Glad that it's already gone. :) --PFHLai 04:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
The general consensus seems to be that sporting events of this caliber are of sufficient international interest to qualify for ITN (assuming that the other criteria are met). —David Levy 03:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Sporting events of note are newsworthy, but cricket is inherently trivial unless one is British, Indian, Pakistani or Australian. Cricket news belongs in regional "Current events". --Ezeu 05:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Brits, Indians, Pakistanis and Australians ? That's a big portion of the world's population in different regions of the planet. And don't forget South Africans. --PFHLai 05:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC) Or the West Indies. --PFHLai 05:16, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Also the West Indies, NZ and Bangladesh!--HamedogTalk|@ 05:17, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
International interest ≠ worldwide interest. —David Levy 05:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Not that I'm arguing for or against this particular entry (don't care enough) - the criterion states "...story of an international importance, or at least interest." International means of or relating to two or more nations. So what's your point here? --Monotonehell 05:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
That was my point. (The entries needn't be of worldwide interest.) —David Levy 06:04/06:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Very good. It dawned on me 5 minutes later that might be it. lol --Monotonehell 06:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I removed the entry before seeing this talk. IMO it is not interesting enough to put it there. --Tone 18:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Others disagree. As I noted in my edit summary, you should check this page for relevant discussion before removing an entry. —David Levy 18:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
How many cricket-related items do we have to have on ITN, anyway? It seems like we are too biased on the sports here. We got blasted for adding the World Series (which was internationally significant), and yet people are perfectly fine with some cricket series that ended up in a 5-0 Aussie sweep. As of late, all the ITN-sports entries are cricket-related. I mean, seriously...how many tournaments do you guys have? I see some guy breaking a record, another guy retiring, some team winning...it's just weird. Nishkid64 21:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, the Ashes was the best option from Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates and Portal: Current events the past few days. The cricket people did a good job on the wikipage. It was a newsworthy event. I can't see why we should leave this out of ITN when we don't have better candidates. This just happened to be sports-related. .... Too much cricket these days ? Many other prominent sports are not "in season" yet. Some are going thru' the boring part of their season. Please be patient, my friend. The 2007 Australian Open and Super Bowl XLI will likely get on ITN in a few weeks -- as long as the article is well written with up-to-date materials and we don't have bigger news items to use instead. Hopefully, we'll have some variety soon. --PFHLai 08:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC) 00:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


(move back left) I don't care if it stays or not, but doesn't "whitewash" sound like POV? If not, then it is certainly a slang expression. Either way, it seems clearly out of place on the main page. Andrwsc 21:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The same vocabulary is used in the article. I assumed it's cricket terminology. Can someone familiar with cricket confirm this, please ? If it's wrong, please change it. Thanks in advance. --PFHLai 00:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I strongly doubt it is part of any sports official terminology/vocabulary, but it certainly is used by sportswriters (both professional, and amateur on Wikipedia) to add "colour". I think it's inappropriate on Wikipedia, and most certainly on the main page, just as if that sentence was written as "Australia demolished England", etc. I would wager money that the editor who wrote that was Australian and wanted to "rub it in" a little bit... The recently added article of Whitewash (sport) doesn't make it any more encyclopaedic. The text on the main page is still unprofessional. (BTW, I am neither English, nor Australian, nor do I care at all about cricket. I just think it is a strikingly POV phrase.) Andrwsc 01:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
How to fix it ? Call it a shutout ? A sweep ? That's not cricket, is it ? --PFHLai 02:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
How about simply the "...first 5:0 series result in the..."? That avoids any bias words and/or jargon. Andrwsc 03:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Whitewash means a clean-sweep with no draws. Simply stating 5-0 is ambiguous in case there were 9 matches or something. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 22:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
For future reference: what is the threshold for sporting events? Would we need a separate criterion for this matter? This because Super Bowl XLI will be held in a month's time, and Wimbledon and the Tour de France are due this summer. When is a sporting event notable enough for ITN, if at all? Aecis No running, shouting or piddling in the shallow end 00:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Why should the SuperBowl be included on the main page when it occurs? As far as I know, it only has popularity/interest in the US...it is American football (a NATIONAL game). For instance, the Ashes is an INTERNATIONAL cricket match between two large nations and is of interest to all the cricket playing countries around the world. If superbowl is put on the ITN, that will just confirm to me that wikipedia is too "US-Centric" AussieNickuss 12:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
So the Stanley Cup Playoffs and NFL Europe, where 2 countries participate is ITN-legit, while the Super Bowl isn't? --Howard the Duck 14:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
In the past, it's generally been agreed that the pinnacle professional championship (or one sharing such a distinction) of any sport with international interest can qualify. This describes all of the above events. (Of course, there must be a new article or substantial update to an article.) —David Levy 01:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
And breaking a high profile world record would do, too. (Usual ITN rules apply.) -- PFHLai 01:18, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I think Sporting events should not be on the News Page often. I don't think Cricket should be there, because it only matters to British and Australians really. I definitly don't think the Super Bowl should be there. I think Sporting Events like the World Cup or Continental Competitions should be ITN, or if something really major happens. Otherwise, in my opinion, it is not news worthy. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  14:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
No offense, but did you bother to read any of the comments at all with regards to cricket on this page? Only British and Australians really? Nil Einne 12:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
So it's not only Americans who watch the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals and the World Series, as for the BCS National Chmapionship Game, well, it was mostly Americans. --Howard the Duck 04:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Let the Ashes be up there... your so-called "World" Baseball Series was up there - when all the teams except for one (or two?) were American. The Ashes has the two of the largest national cricket teams (Australia vs. England). Also, this Ashes result was quite noteworthy (5-0). Cricket is big in many other countries. The SuperBowl's result should definately not be on the Main Page (unless the result of the Australian Football League grand final is also put up!).

@Nil Einne. Yes I did read the comments. Maybe not only British and Australian, but mainly. That keep you happy? The population of Outer Botswana are hardly sitting glued to their TVs. Cricket is not a huge global sport. It is played and watched in a minority of countries. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  12:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
'Cricket is not a huge global sport': this is something of a misconception, common in countries where cricket is rare. In many present and former countries of the British Commonwealth, including many of the vastly populous countries of South Asia, it is by far the most popular sport. To say that cricket is of interest mainly to Britons and Australians is provably false, since the populations of those countries are dwarfed by those of, for example, India. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 12:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
We're nit picking now. Other countries like Cricket, and may enjoy it. This, I believe, still does not make it news worthy. The majority of people in these countries are not cricket players. Taking India as an example. It is a very poor country. Although I'm sure there are some real cricket fans there, I find it hard to believe that the average Indian has time in his day to play or watch Cricket. Cricket is not a big enough sport to be dubbed of "global" significance, and I believe anyone who claims this is lying to themselves. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  13:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
You'd be surprised. See street cricket - heaps of people just play with a plank of wood they picked up somewhere. Many south American countries are also poor and they play football all the time in the streets with makeshift equipment. Even if you only count the city elite in India who have done well from the economic boom, you'd get about 100-150 million at least. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Don't take this the wrong way. It's not a personal attack. But I seriously think you need to spend a bit of time reading since you don't seem to understand how cricket crazy India is. While it's probably true the poorest of the poor have very little time for cricket, I would say the average Indian follows cricket (probably not on TV since they may not have a TV but at least the results). Of course, India is a very big country with 1 billion people so it's difficult to get a true picture but from what I've seen and heard, I would say your seriously underestimating the popularity of cricket. Case in point. I know someone (a New Zealander) who met an Indian (from India) labourer in Malaysia. Obviously this person can't be described as an average Indian. However foreign labourers in Malaysia aren't paid well by any stretch of the imagination so although above average, this guy clearly wasn't one of the 'middle class'. This first thing that this person commented on when finding out my friend was a kiwi, was cricket. Nil Einne 14:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Anyway my main point was IMHO you're quite wrong to suggest that cricket was only or mainly of interest to the British and Australians. For starters, AFAIK the Scottish and Irish aren't actually that interested in cricket. It's predominantly the English and to a lesser extent the Welsh. While the kiwi favourite sport is definitely rugby, cricket is called the summer game and is IMHO undisputedly the second favourite. South Africans are a bit more varied but it's still a very popular sport there. I'm not sure but I would say it's probably the favourite sport in most of the carribean, or at least those involved in the West Indian team. Then we come to the Indian subcontinent, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka all have a resonably high level of interest in cricket. Most commonwealth countries probably have some involvement and interest in cricket, although not necessarily a lot in many cases (coming from Malaysia, I knew hardly anything about cricket). I don't really want to get into the argument of whether or not this makes cricket a global sport, I simply wanted to make the point I made above Nil Einne 14:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, whilst cricket may not be a popular activity in Ireland or in Dundee, Indians and Pakistanis are absolutely mental for the game- that's a quarter of the world's population straight off the bat, as it were. In addition to that, it's the number 1 or 2 sport in England, Australia, the West Indies, NZ, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka etc and is a minority (but reasonably sizeable) sport in Scotland, Ireland, Holland, UAE and parts of the mid-east, and elsewhere. I'm not commenting on whether the Ashes should be included in ITN on the seemingly soon-to-be-abandoned international interest criterion (in my view it definitely should have been, since it was such a crushingly humiliating annhilation- the first whitewash in over 80-odd years). But cricket as a sport is certainly notable- in numerical terms of global popularity it is probably second only to football, except in Olympic years when track and field interest peaks. Badgerpatrol 15:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

U.S. Airstrikes in Somalia

Just off the presses....something to get Nancy Pelosi's ugly face off ITN if anyone wants to run with it. [1]. Cheers! —ExplorerCDT 04:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. [2]. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  08:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not Wikinews. Is there a substaintially updated article on this topic? --Monotonehell 09:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

See War in Somalia (2006-present). The ITN line should read something like (not final): "An United States Air Force AC-130 gunship attacks suspected Al-Qaeda operatives entrenched in southern Somalia".

Or "A United States Air Force AC-130 gunship attacks suspected Al-Qaeda operatives entrenched in southern Somalia".
There's your substaintially updated article on this topic, and the text. Al someone has to do is copy and paste. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  14:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Please make use of Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates. --PFHLai 18:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think news that one of the conspirators of the 1998 US embassy bombings was killed by the AC-130 attack is pretty important.[3] -- Permafrost 14:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

BCS Championship Bowl

See the January 8 entry at WP:ITN/C regarding the 2007 BCS National Championship Game. Although it deals with collegiate sports, it was a surprising upset that shocked millions. Also, Florida now holds national championships in two sports (basketball and football). Some people disagree, but a lot of people have expressed their support for this addition. Tell me what you guys think. Nishkid64 22:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The Super Bowl should be the only American football event that should have even a chance to make it to ITN. -- tariqabjotu 23:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I concur with disagree. Without a relatively lengthy explanation, few outside the US will understand the ramifications of this. --Steve (Slf67) talk 23:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I also disagree as it is not the highest level of the sport, and isn't understandable or considered outside the United States. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I would guess that the BCS championship is bigger in the U.S. than the Ashes is in Britain -- and I know how big the Ashes are in Britain. The BCS championship is bigger than the NBA and NHL championships and almost as big as (or bigger than) baseball's World Series. And while the event might only be of note in one country, it's a big country, with nearly three times as many people as the two Ashes-playing countries combined. -- Mwalcoff 02:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
The Ashes is followed by cricket fans around the world, not just by the Brits and Aussies. (I'm South African and got up 2am my time many a morning to watch it). As I pointed out in the candidates page, there are far more cricket fans than American football fans (the number of Indian cricket fans probably outnumbers the total number of Americans). Besides, this year's Ashes was particularly noteworthy because (1) it was the first whitewash in 86 years and (2) 3 great players - including the highest and third highest wicket takers of all time - retired from the game. Mikker (...) 03:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
For the record, here are the Nielsen ratings for the last single-game finals in each major U.S. sport:
The Nielson ratings also don't take into account the international viewing audience (which definitely exists). Nishkid64 02:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think given the above from Mwalcoff, the BCS bowl game merits inclusion in the ITN template. Adding something like: The University of Florida Gators defeated Ohio State University Buckeyes with a score of 41–14 in American college football's 2007 BCS National Championship Game. But then again, someone probably thinks the 110th Congress and Nancy Pelosi's swearing in or the Ashes ending 5 days ago is more important, and that the week-and-a-half old airline crash no one heard of hasn't gotten quite stale enough yet. Not stale, but the corpses are probably stinkin'.—ExplorerCDT 03:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, as much as I love football, I have to admit the change in power in Congress is, technically, more important :) -- Mwalcoff 03:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah, but that happened almost a week ago. It's almost in archives on most newspaper websites, and for print newspapers, the plates have been long destroyed. Old News. Half of what's on ITN right now is over 5 days old. It's about time for an update and a mention of the new national champions (after all, we mention the Ashes, and several months ago, a swimmer no one heard of who retired at the age of 26. —ExplorerCDT 03:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) BTW, I like your suggested ITN line, but it should read "defeat," not "defeated," and "by the score" rather than "with a score." Also, we now have pages at Florida Gators football and Ohio State Buckeyes football. (And newspapers don't use metal plates anymore, but you knew that.) -- Mwalcoff 03:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • You'd be surprised how many backward east-bumblefuck local papers still use plates. —ExplorerCDT 06:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Again, cricket is of far more global interest than American football, especially non-pro-American football. There are several orders of magnitude more cricket fans than American football fans. (see my count on the candidates page). Mikker (...) 03:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
You're exaggerating, of course -- The only way there would be even one order of magnitude more cricket fans is if you counted everyone in India, from babies on up. If we take Ethnologue's word, most English speakers live in the U.S., so American football is probably the most-popular or second-most-popular sport among the world's English speakers. Regarding the circumstances of the game, the BCS championship was a tremendous upset -- certainly few people outside of Gainesville, Florida thought the Gators would dominate the way they did. -- Mwalcoff 04:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Firstly, there are more English speakers in India alone than in America (granted, they aren't native speakers - but most are fluent, not just "users" like in, say, China). (see List of countries by English-speaking population). Secondly, I'm not exaggerating. If 15% of Indians are cricket fans there are ~165 million of them. If we say there are double as many American college football fans as the number who actually watched the Rose bowl (i.e. ~43 million) then there are already several orders of magnitude more cricket fans than American college football fans. And, remember, we're leaving out the percentage of cricket fans among the 165 million Pakistanis, 45 million South Africans, 20 million Aussies, 60 million Brits, 150 million Bangladeshis etc. etc. Mikker (...) 04:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
To get a feel for the global reach of cricket, see Image:ICC-cricket-member-nations. American football (not even to mention college football) simply doesn't'have the same global reach. In sum: superbowl, yes, for sure; college thingy, no. Mikker (...) 04:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
An order of magniture meants times 10. Fifteen percent of the 1.5 billion or so people who live in cricket-playing countries makes 225 million -- impressive, but not orders of magnitude above college football. Ethnologue says "only" 100 million people in India speak English. I'm not dissing cricket -- I attended a match at Lord's, bowled on the pitch during lunch break and saw the Ashes trophy in the museum. But if you were more familiar with American sports culture, you'd realize that the BCS championship likely means a lot to more people than the Ashes does, if for no other reason than the tendency of many Brits to ignore any sport but soccer. -- Mwalcoff 06:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

1. It's college football, not professional. Concensus says that only the pentultimate competition should be mentioned. 2. It has no International interest except for expats. It has no International ramifications. - Sorry, this doesn't even come close to the inclusion criteria. --Monotonehell 06:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Does no one understand what penultimate means? Bah. Anyway, saying only international sports can be included is an inherent anti-US bias. In the US, international competitions are seen as exhibitions, while national competitions (where players make their money) are the main attraction. A prime example is George Steinbrenner refusing to let members of the New York Yankees baseball team participate in the international World Baseball Classic. Or basketball, which is an international sport, where US national teams can't field top stars, who rest during international competitions for national competitions (ie. the NBA). Saying only international games can be including means the sports of the largest English speaking nation in the world is left out entirely. Unless we win the World Cup. *muffled laughter* Preston 06:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
(Whoops quite right, I meant ultimate, thank you for your correction --Monotonehell 08:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC))

2.Im in favor of putting the game on the front page: Regarding the "international" scope of interest: The Ashes only appeal to Commonwealth Nations, just as the BCS appeals to americans and expats around the world. There is no "international" appeal to the ashes outside of commonwealth nations, just as the appeal of the BCS is to the United States. My point is that the BCS appeals to just as large a Wikipedia user constituency as the Ashes; and the lame "international appeal" of the ashes is inaccurate, because it only applies to "Commonwealth Nations", who when considered as a single entity - there is NO international appeal beyond them. Contrib123456 13:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

International means between two or more nations. Just because those nations are members of a losely grouped nod to a former empire doesn't make them any less nations. Your comparison between the states of the United States and the separate self governing Nations that are termed members of the commonwealth is deeply flawed. Please argue on other less insulting grounds. --Monotonehell 14:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
So you are saying that you would allow the BCS to be posted if: the US Federal Government "loosened" its powers, and the 50 US States became sovereign themselves - under these conditions you would then let the BCS game be posted? Lets get real - the Commonwealth Nations were One Empire, and there are still "Governors" appointed by the Queen in each of them - go easy with the smoke and mirrors. Cricket is a British game, played by nations that comprise the Commonwealth - and thats the bottom line. Does ANYONE on continental Europe have any interest in the Ashes besides those from commonwealth countries? The claim that the Ashes is "international" is a technicality, cricket is a British-Commonwealth game. Contrib123456 15:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Governors are most certainly not appointed in all Commonwealth nations and in those that there are governors (like Australia) their powers are almost never used and mostly nominal. The Commonwealth is as much an empire as the UN is the world government. The Commonwealth is like the G8 or the NAM - it's intergovernmental not supranational, i.e. London has no real authority over any of the nations in the Commonwealth. (If they had, explain Robert Mugabe to me if you will). And, yes, some continental Europeans do care - like the Dutch. Mikker (...) 20:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Wait a second, I like Mugabe. Many people like Mugabe. After all, he's a college football (mostly Michigan) fan. —ExplorerCDT 21:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Common sense

Ok, the BCS NCG (National championship game) is the top level competition for American college football. It was shown at other countries, live. So does the championship series of the UAAP Season 69 basketball tournaments (at TFC) (people even stayed overnight to watch this).

The Adriatic League is participated by 5 countries, and is the top level competition of basketball in that part of the world. The National Basketball League (Australia) is played in 3 countries. The Super Bowl is participated by one country.

Now if we'll follow the logic given here, if you'll include the BCS NCG at the Main Page, then the UAAP games should've been added on October, and the Adriatic League and the NBL should be at the ITN, while the Super Bowl shouldn't be posted. Isn't that a bit, stupid?

Frankly, those people who are crying US bias at the ITN should stop. Did they not see the World Cup link there long enough? It was there for like 7 weeks! (Long after Zidane's headbutt, the news of Serie A relegation had a link to the WC2006.) The NFL, NBA, MLB, and the NHL are broadcasted worldwide, so they're of international interest. Many non-professional sports shouldn't even be mentioned, since mostly they're unnotable to be on ITN (except for sports which are exclusively amateur, and the Olympics). To say that those 4 leagues aren't international interest is like saying SpongeBob isn't yellow. --Howard the Duck 07:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The real problem here is as soon as one sport is listed, everyone else wants their favourite sport listed. The volume of sporting competitions is LARGE. In order that ITN not become a sports ticker we must draw an arbitary line somewhere. The current ITN guidelines state that "(the item) should be a story of an international importance, or at least interest." and "The article must be updated to reflect the new information and have a recent date linked (but remember: Wikipedia is not a news report so relatively small news items should not be put into articles; thus those type of news items should not be displayed on the Main Page)."
Sports are played all the time, thus we get a constant stream of sporting news. We also get a constant stream of weather reports. Any weather related news would only be referred to by ITN if an extremely unusual event occured. Otherwise we'd be inundated with weather related items. The same should apply to sports. Local sports? Forget it - too much going on and not of International interest.
Consensus has been to only list the ultimate level of competition. If there's a level above - it doesn't rate a mention. College bball may be (is!) big in the states but where do really sucessful college bballers go? The NBA (the not so good ones come to Australia ;) ) Thus college sports are out.
Amature sports can rate, if there's no professional level above them. The Olympics definately rate, but again not every single event (weather reports again).
Bottom line - if the floodgates are opened to mention regular competitions then ITN will become a sports ticker. Remember ITN is NOT a news ticker. The section is not for news items. It is to highlight substantial articles regarding topics in the publisc's eye. It's about background to the news. Not the news itself.
--Monotonehell 08:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Monotonehell I agree with you desire to have ITN not become a sports ticker and in some ways I would agree to ITN never listing sports events (let's all agree, they aren't really important). But you also seem to miss some very important points. "Global" and "International" criteria are arbitrary. You even admit this. Why does the threshold line have to be arbitrary. Not every one in the international community is reading en.wikipedia. Who is reading it? What events interest those people? Establish that, and maybe you can establish a more objective ITN criteria. Such as perhaps a number of en.wikipedia users that would care about such an event (a little hard to prove... but waay less arbitrary than these current standards.) You also ignore some important facts about American college sports: "College bball may be (is!) big in the states but where do really sucessful college bballers go? The NBA" This is true for basketball, but actually in the US for football, the best players around ages 17-22 or 23 are playing college because the NFL cannot draft players unless they are 3 or more years removed from high school. This is one reason why college football is so popular, and it is also TOP level competition. The best football athletes in the world from those ages are playing in college. --cokane 10 January 2007
The purpose of ITN is to allow readers to find encycopedic background material on topics that are in the public eye. So an ITN item talking about a recent sporting fixture should link to an article describing that fixture, speaking about its history and social impact. Wikipedia is not an almanac, there are many articles on wikipedia that are simply a list of sports results and in my opinion should be deleted and relevant parts merged with encyclopedic articles on their subjects. In that vein listing sporting results on ITN is a derailing of both ITN's and Wikipedia's purpose.
As per my anology with the weather above, sports should only be mentioned if something unusual happens that takes the news item out of the sports reports and puts it into the news body of the mass media. AND then the ITN item should only be pointing at background information on the event, not a blow by blow sports report. As I repeat often, if you want to report on the news, please also contribute to Wikinews which was forked from Wikipedia for the above reasons.
--Monotonehell 06:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Why not create a two lists:
  • On the first list, include all of the sports events in which whatever happens, it would be included at ITN.
  • On the second list, include sports events that will be added on ITN on the condition that something unique happens?
--Howard the Duck 04:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Pelosi

Why is she important enough to be on the main page? She's not Head of State of whichever country she's from, so who cares? --90.240.34.177 03:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

She's the leader of the legislature of the world's most-powerful country, which happens to include two-thirds of the world's native English speakers. She's also second in line to the presidency. Her election not only gives the U.S. government its highest-ranking woman ever but represents the change in party control in Congress -- an event that may have repercussions for the entire world. -- Mwalcoff 03:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
The first female leader of -insert major traditionaly patriachal institution here- is noteworthy. Although the photo is getting stale, it's simply that we haven't had a suitable replacement picture as yet. --Monotonehell 06:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok, so lemme get this straight - anything that happens in the U.S. government is internationally important? There are hundreds of people in line to the presidency; Bush and Cheney would have to die for her to actually be noteworthy. There was nothing stopping the Democrats taking "party control" in Congress. And I seem to recall the appointment of Yulia Tymoshenko as the Ukraine's first female Prime Minister had to make way for the death of Johnny Carson on the main page back in 2005. Give me a break. --90.240.34.177 21:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Moved from talk:mainpage Can someone who knows something PLEASE put a new picture up. Whatever it is that Nancy Pelosi has said recently to get in the news section can't still be news. It's been there forever.--Gtg207u 07:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC) By the way, before someone says "well then why don't you suggest something a-hole" it seems like we could use the airforce seal as the picture since that air force story is on the top right now.--Gtg207u 07:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Minus the abuse this seems like a reasonable idea Image:Seal of the US Air Force.svg --Monotonehell 08:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Why not this? --Howard the Duck 08:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed - that's a good'un. As an aside, didn't Pelosi get her pic up on another occasion not long ago? I'm starting to see her mugshot when my eyes are closed. --Adzze 09:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps when the Dems took over Congress, her picture was also up. I see no reason why it wouldn't have been. I also see no reason that the new Congress being sworn in would not be ITN-worthy. It would be questionable if it was the average odd-numbered January, but with a switch of power in both houses of Congress and the highest elected office for any woman in American history, the news absolutely deserves to be on the Main Page. -- Kicking222 23:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Because her smile is sexy as hell Sf49rox 10:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

she's ugly and we had to watch her for 5+ days. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 14:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Please keep your comments to the point. This is an encyclopedia, not Baywatch. We put pictures up if they are relevant. Looks are irrelevant. Aecis No running, shouting or piddling in the shallow end 16:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of ugly, Dick CheneyDonald Rumsfeld must have been up for just as long... Nil Einne 11:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

A terrorist has taken up Nancy's spot. Hope everyone is happy now. :-) --PFHLai 15:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Not really, as that doesn't change the fact she was there in the first place. --90.240.34.177 21:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

European Parliament

Please remove this one as it's very misleading. There are 785 Members of the European Parliament, this grouping gives the far right a group of 20, all of whom were already MEPs prior to the group! They didn't even have enough members or country representation to form their group before two more countries joined. It hardly increases their influence, it's just that now they just have enough to form their own club. --Steve (Slf67) talk 21:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Not to get technical, but it certainly does. Group status gives funding, speaking time, the right to chair committees, a role in deciding the scheduling of legislation, a seat on the Conference of Presidents, etc. From the mouth of the BBC's European correspondent: "The move will give them more influence". The Tom 22:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I suspect 'more' will be relative. They move from 'very little' to 'a bit more'. Their influence will be overwhelmed by the centre-left and -right. But yes, you are correct. I'm just not convinced it's ITN material, as it doesn't even rate on highly on BBC news world or UK pages. --Steve (Slf67) talk 22:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd tend to agree. It hasn't been seen high on any news site i've been on all day. This was the only place I've seen this article mentioned. This is hardly of "international importance". Codu (t)⁄(c) •  02:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
This is not listed on the BBC's main page, or the European news page, or their politics section. Assuming it is actually true, it has certainly not attracted significant international interest (obviously my experience is necessarily biased towards the Anglophone world). Giving space to such a minor irrelevanccy does potentially smack of anti-EU/general anti-European propaganda- I would ditch it. Badgerpatrol 12:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: new criteria

Why is the criteria for en.wikipedia's ITN items that the event have a "global" or "international" significance? This is not global.wikipedia. Wouldn't this create a bias for events that happen outside of large countries. Why should an event involving 2+ small countries have a higher ranking than an item that happens in one large country? The event in the one large country could have more signficance, especially to the audience of this website. If someone can scrounge up some data on this, I would appreciate it. But, I think in crafting news items, like any news publisher (or any kind of publisher for that matter) we need to be thinking about who our audience is. So if someone has the data on this (probably not hard to do if you know some stuff) please answer me. Who is hitting en.wikipedia? Moving on. Shouldn't the criteria for ITN items be targetting those people? Shouldn't we select events that are important to most of the people who are visiting en.wikipedia? I think this criteria trumps the seeming current arbitrary criteria of "global" or "international" signficance. This also--since we can quantify en.wikipedia's audience--is a more objective standard. Thoughts? --cokane 10 January 2007

We show Global News because in general people are interested in what happens in the world. I've never been to Iraq, and i'm not Iraqi, but I'm still interested in what is going on there. I've never been in an earthquake or effected by a tsunami or volcano, but i still want to know the details when I hear one has happened. Our audience is interested in things that happen in the world at large, because everything effects everybody. If the events of "one large country" should outweight events in a small country, or several small countries, then we'd be hearing about what happened in the US all day. That would not interest readers. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  12:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Besidies that, a policy 'targeting' our readers is likely to mainly concentrate on events affecting the Indian subcontinent and North America, and an occasionally a bit of British stuff. With the odd article from smaller English speaking countries like Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, South African etc and occasional stuff from other large developed countries. However this policy won't work since most 'Indians' (losely here to include all from the Indian subcontinent) couldn't give a screwy what happened in the NFL, NBA or Superbowl, and Americans conversely don't care if someone scored a double century in Indian domestic cricket. Not to mention this also risks alienating potential contributos... Nil Einne 13:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
So its probably just easier to leave the criteria as it is. People all over the world care about international news. Whereas local news only effects a small number of people. Unfortunatly although most people using this wikipedia speak the same language, we are not from the same socieities, places, and don't share the same interests. This makes it impossible to "target" audiences without boring or offending the majority of people. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  13:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Have a look at the discussion at the top of the page. We're trying to redefine the criteria so that they work better. As it stands often when an item is placed we get a huge argument over it. The current guidelines are too subjective. In fact the draft guidelines above do have the intent of widening the scope from purely International to include some local items (when they get picked up by International mass media). At this point the discussion has paused as we're all off thinking through what we've discussed. I've certainly taken on your comments here and on mainpage talk regarding "audience". I haven't responded as yet as my kneejerk reaction is to poo poo the idea as too hard. But instead I'm going to mull over your thoughts properly before responding further.
But do have a read of the discussion above, think it through and see if you can come up with any ideas of how to restrict the volume of items to a manageable level, while staying true to wikipedia's purpose, and crafting guidelines that aren't so open to interpretation. The ultimate goal is to make a working section that doesn't lead to a shouting match every other day.
--Monotonehell 13:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I actualy find it hard to believe that the perfect solution exists. There is inevitably going to be shouting about something of other. However, you are right. We do need to define the rules a bit better. Like yourself, I'll have a good think about these things and comment more later. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  14:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Don't feel bad, I'm sure the perfect solution does not exist. But the current guidelines are way too subjective, we can at least curb some of the shouting matches we have become acustomed to. --Monotonehell 16:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

One thing I've always wondered: Just who is responsible for selecting ITN stuff? Whose the ITN editor(s) so to speak. Because for instance, I know I'm not one of them...as much as I'd like to be. —ExplorerCDT 17:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Everyone is. Lookie here anyone can make suggestions, then they are discussed as to whether they are appropriate etc. Since the template is on the main page it is protected so only admins can make the edits to it, but anyone who wants to be involved only need to read the instructions and contribute. --Monotonehell 18:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
As I see it, ITNMB's criterion 3 has (or, at any rate, should have) two components: (1) an event can be listed, even if it's local, when it is of international importance but, (2) if it is not of importance, merely of interest, a higher standard is applied in that many people from many countries ought to be interested. (Of course, when an event is important it is usually followed with great interest but interest is not a necessary condition for inclusion on ITN when it's important). This interpretation, I think, goes a long way to assuage cokane's worry that there is an anti-US bias on ITN –- the US is by far the most important country in the world, so if an event happens there –- even a totally local event - it can be (and often is) of international importance because of its international ramifications. (I, for example, follow the Fed quite closely despite not being American -- for the very simple reason that American monetary policy has large international consequences). Mikker (...) 19:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
My answer to the question of "who is hitting en.wikipedia", specifically with regards to South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka), can be seen here. The English Wikipedia is the Wikipedia people use when they don't have a well-established Wikipedia in their own language. en.wikipedia is global.wikipedia.-gadfium 21:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
This was just to generate discussion and I think you guys did a good job of generating good points. I really have nothing new to add as defense, but I will say that often events inside the US have a global significance. Also, just because you are targeting an audience in a particular portion of the world, does not mean that you will not report on events such as the giant tsunami that hit south asia, etc. That event was reported as a top story in local US papers, so I don't see that as being an effective counterpoint to a suggestion that en.wikipedia focus on its viewers. Furthermore, I understand that some other language wikis are not so good, but they should be! --cokane 12 January 2007

Proposal for archive

There is a constant discussion on this talk page and on WP:ITN/C about precedents: what did we put up in prior cases, and what not? In order to facilitate these discussions, I suggest/propose creating Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Archive, an archive of all items that have so far been put on ITN. If an article is taken down, it can be copypasted to the archive, so that it's kept up to date. If a blurb has seen minor edits (minor grammar change, link edit, etc.), I think the last version should be kept. If an item has been updated (e.g. Litvinenko in critical condition -> Litvinenko dead), I believe that both the updated blurb and the blurb prior to the update should be archived. We should probably sort the blurbs by year, or perhaps even by month, to prevent the archive from becoming a massive monolith. Template:ITN was created on February 22, 2004 [4], and has since seen 10,526 edits. Sifting through all these edits will take quite a lot of time, but I believe it's possible and worthwhile. Any thoughts on this? Aecis No running, shouting or piddling in the shallow end 00:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good idea. First, some items (such as the death of James Brown) only sat on ITN for a little bit of time, meaning their applicability for ITN was contested. Would those go into the archive? Regardless, my primary issue with this idea is that I hate precedents with a passion. The Event X appeared on ITN, so Event Y must appear on ITN argument is really tiring. Each event should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, with precedents irrelevant. Making it easier for people to cite a precedent is, in my opinion, only going to increase the wrangling about what goes on ITN. -- tariqabjotu 02:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a really good idea actually. Is there any way to get a bot to do the work? And to reply to Tariqabjotu, though I agree the precedent argument isn't sound, I do think having an archive will help ease out conflict. For an item to stay on ITN for a while, it needs a fairly strong consensus and that is in turn indicative of the sort of thing that ought to go up again. You do have a point regarding the short-lived items. Those would clearly have to be excluded - again with a bot maybe? (i.e. if it was removed in less that X minutes, it didn't have consensus). Mikker (...) 19:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Precedent is a very messy business, look where it's got the legal system ;). Reliying on precedent would bog the ITN selection process down in more discussion instead of less. People would be forever trying to discern their particular case from previous examples. You'd get grey area creep as more and more precedent loosens the item allowable. Eventually what we practice would bear little resemblence to the orginal guidelines.
There's far too much editing flux on the ITN items to get a bot to do this. As mentioned above, sometimes unacceptable items get added by flyby admins and are removed - being listed doesn't neccessarily mean that it was a valid ITN item. --Monotonehell 05:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

US Embassy

Is this notable? And I don't think the article is long enough anyway.--HamedogTalk|@ 10:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree, at least about the latter, and have reverted it.--Pharos 10:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Cheers. Beckham's okay there (I'm not saying it isn't - big news any where)? Just asking about the length--HamedogTalk|@ 10:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Beckham

This should be changed to English [[Football (soccer)|football]] player. — Gary Kirk // talk! 12:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

If the contract had been signed elsewhere, I'd say yes, but the story teeters on the side of being an American event, so the 'pedia tends to use the American language. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 13:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This reads very poorly: "English soccer player David Beckham (pictured) signs with Major League Soccer franchise the Los Angeles Galaxy, possibly the largest contract for a sports player of all time." So what is large about it? Insert "for" before "possibly", provide the dollar figure(s), or simply state that he signed... just do something! heqs 13:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

“... possibly the largest contract for a sports player of all time”
It can't be the largest of all time. He gets "only" $10m a year from the Galaxy. Michael Jordan earnt $30m+ annually at one point in his career. And even if you count all the endorsement deals Beckham signed to it, it probably won't be as much as Tiger Woods earns. And even MJ still receives $30m per year from Nike, even tho he's not playing anymore.[5] --Bender235 13:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

And it can't be the transfer fee either, because Beckham's contract with Real Madric expires at the end of the season afaik. Aecis No running, shouting or piddling in the shallow end 14:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
According to the Beeb, his annual earnings will be about $50 mill US; including 10 mill salary, 10 mill club merchandising, and a 10 mill profit share, + his own personal endorsements. If that's true (and frankly I suspect those figures are probably BS) then that adds up to a pretty penny from the club, but I doubt if it is actually the biggest contract of all time. There is indeed no transfer fee. Badgerpatrol 14:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Should it not say "English football (soccer) player David Beckham (pictured) signs with Major League Soccer franchise the Los Angeles Galaxy, possibly the largest contract of all time for a sports player." Its the contract thats biggest. This clarifies it. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  19:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I felt bold and changed it. Better? Worse? —Wknight94 (talk) 00:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
It's better than the previous version. Nishkid64 00:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The "largest of all time" part should be taken out, because it's mostly media hype. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction between ITN and main article
The main page states that Beckham's signing is "one of the largest sports player contracts to date", yet List of largest sports contracts plainly states that it is not, because the figure includes endorsements etc. I presume this contradiction is one reason why that article is under constant edit warring over this issue, as folks are drawn to it from the ITN reference and see the "mistake". I think the link to that article needs to be pulled from the ITN blurb. Andrwsc 17:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Why does it currently say football (soccer)? It definitely shouldn't say both. Change it to just football. --90.240.34.177 17:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

He signed at a Major League Soccer club, so it should say "soccer". --Howard the Duck 04:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Why don't we leave it with both then both sides of the Atlantic are happy. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  11:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
And what do you think it would say if he signed with the National Football League? What sport is that? --90.240.34.177 16:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Impossible. --Howard the Duck 02:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I'll take that as an "I'm dodging the issue", then. --90.240.34.177 04:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Hehehe, it's like asking if Michael Jordan will play ice hockey, eh? --Howard the Duck 07:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Beckham is not invading Somalia! (Or, at least, I don't think he is...) How about we move his image down next to the relevant story? — Justin Koser 18:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

But Somalia isn't the story currently being pictured, so why would anyone assume he was? --90.240.34.177 20:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
The ITN template is not only used on MainPage. Changing the position of the image may mess up the layout on other pages where the template is transcluded. So the ITN image is always at the top right corner. --PFHLai 14:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Adidas ?

Ecuador sworn in today its new president, a TOP STORY given the context it's taking place and yet Wikipedia continues to show Beckham unmistakable Adidas sportswear. Not nice at all. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6262555.stm --86.104.203.91 23:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Great eyes ! The logo was too small for me to tell. .... Anyway, when you are done with the updating of wikiarticles related to the new Prez in Ecuador, please suggest a new headline, and possibly a better picture, on WP:ITN/C. Thanks. --PFHLai 04:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Golden Globes

Surely a brief description e.g "Helen Mirren wins best Actress at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in LA Adamcobb 08:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather wait for the Oscars. --Howard the Duck 11:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I concur with Howard. And please post suggestions at WP:ITN/C. Thanks. --PFHLai 14:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion about the "deaths" criterion

I was thinking about the death of Art Buchwald, and while I don't think it should qualify for ITN, thinking about why it shouldn't qualify made me realize that we need another criterion under "deaths". As it is, when people die of old age or natural causes, we pretty much put them up only when they're former heads of state (Pinochet, Ford). The discussion over Milton Friedman's death suggests to me that this might be too narrow, but the reasons for keeping out noteworthy-but-not-internationally-significant figures like Buchwald are good ones. Right now, the criteria for adding deaths is:

A death should only be placed on ITN if it meets one of the following criteria: (a) the deceased was in a high ranking office of power at the time of death, (b) the deceased was a key figure in their field of expertise, and died unexpectedly or tragically, (c) 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.

I'm wondering if we should consider adding a fourth criterion: (d) the deceased was a figure of great international significance, acclaimed with the highest honors during his or her life. This is distinct from criterion (b) in that it is limited to figures who made significant contributions to the politics, culture, science or industry of the entire world. This would include people like Friedman, but not Buchwald.

As our criteria stand now, if Stephen Hawking were to die next week from ALS complications, his death would not qualify for ITN, since he's been diagnosed with the terminal illness for several decades now. And yet, I hazard that his death, like Friedman's, would provoke significant coverage in the world media, and many potential readers would come to Wikipedia to read his biography. Similarly, if Warren Buffett came down with cancer, or had a heart attack, it wouldn't qualify as unexpected or tragic, because he's 76 years old (and apparently lives off of rare steak and Cherry Coke).

Shouldn't we have guidelines that would allow for the inclusion of figures like these? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at the last draft for all new criteria one of my suggestions was along the lines of yours. This isn't a dead and buried proposal. Rather, after the first round of discussion we're sitting on it for a bit, thinking about it. Once I or someone else comes up with a solution to the unresolved problem we faced, then I'll put it forward again. --Monotonehell 04:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: Poettering's picture be placed on front page.

Hans-Gert Pöttering

I'd suggest that Hans-Gert Pöttering, as president of the European Parliament, have his picture placed on the main page as opposed to the Iraqis currently pictured. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 07:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Its copyright licence is not compatible with that intended use. In fact it may be up for deletion soon. --Monotonehell 12:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible change to template methodology

I frequently see people asking, 'why is the XYZ story not on the Main Page?', 'why does the ABC story get prominence?', 'why was the 987 story removed already?', et cetera. Do people think there would be time / interest for covering more stories each day if a reasonable way of displaying them could be worked out? It would be possible to show either a rotating or random list of entries each time the page is viewed... so they might still get only five articles at a time, but each time they visit (or refresh) the Main Page it could be a different five articles. That might allow options to include more stories on each day. One possible option for expanding the list of stories covered would be to include 'snippets' from Wikinews and links to the full article there - in addition to the current practice of having terms in the text link to relevant Wikipedia entries. There are also often items on the 'Current events' portal which never make it to 'In the news'. It is technically feasible, but would there be interest in covering an expanded number of stories each day? --CBD 11:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, Wikipedia is not Wikinews. It's an encyclopedia not a newspaper. The In The News section is not a news ticker, that's Wikinews's job. ITN is intended to highlight Wikipedia Articles with background information to items in the public's eye. Where we don't have a suitable article on a item it doesn't get listed. Secondly, there has been previous and ongoing talk here about changing the inclusion criteria so this section serves that purpose better, without the complication of being mistaken for a news service, and trying to lessen the complaints you mention above. See the similar point raised just above this for an archive of the previous round of criteria discussions. It will be brought up again after we've all had a think about it and how to solve some of the minor problems we've identified. --Monotonehell 12:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
As I had not suggested that 'In the news' be made into a "newspaper", "news ticker", or replacement for Wikinews I don't think those characterizations were really necessary in your comments above. I have not suggested any change to the nature of, criteria for, or other aspects of 'In the news'. All I'm asking is if there would be an interest in including more entries for things which 'have suitable Wikipedia articles' and meet the other ITN criteria (either new or old). There are a few different technically feasible ways of accomplishing this... if it would be worthwhile / help to address concerns about events being 'left out' or 'taken down too soon'. --CBD 13:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, perhaps I misunderstand your point. The way it currently works is that newer items are added at the top of the list, causing older ones are removed as they move down the list. As it says on Talk:Main page "there is no subjective order". So the only ways an item can be removed are if it is pushed out by newer items; or as a result of a discussion about it not fulfilling the criteria for inclusion and shouldn't have been inserted in the first place. That addresses the "'why was the 987 story removed already?'" and the "'why does the ABC story get prominence?'" questions.
As to the other question of "'why is the XYZ story not on the Main Page?'", the usual reason is because someone hasn't suggested it here as yet.
A rotating list probably wouldn't work as most of the time there isn't as yet enough suggested items to keep the list fresh most weeks. I don't see how displaying more and older items would create more interest. Including links to Wikinews articles would violate the principles I address above about turning ITN into a newsticker.
Otherwise suitable candidates only get "left out" if there hasn't been any update made to the Wikipedia article on the subject. For example, if an event occurred that met all the ITN criteria but no one had made any attempt to update the article then it would not be listed until the article reflected the current events. This is exactly what happened with the President of the European Parliament item. Am I missing your point still? (sorry if I am) --Monotonehell 11:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
He is suggesting that the 'enter fron the top, leave from the bottom' system could be changed if we wanted to. I think CBD should set up a test system to show us how it would work, as I think the idea has potential. It would certainly put an end to the "put this on" - "no, put this on" hassle. The only thing would be to exclude unsuitable items from the submissions, haggle over exact wording of each item, and change the picture from "picture accompanying item" to "picture with caption and link" - that way the picture wouldn't be illustrating any of the text entries, but would be its own entry! In fact, I like this idea so much, I'll suggest it somewhere more prominent now. Carcharoth 17:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

some kids made racist remarks on some television show

what on earth is this doing in Wikipedia ITN?? dab (𒁳) 11:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Kids? The fact is, when incidents on a TV show has caused the parliament of one country to discuss it, the man widely expected to be the next Prime Minister of said country to publicly speak out about it during a visit to another country, leaders and the public in this second country where the show is not broadcast to protest against it; well that is clearly a story of internationational interest no matter what your opinions of said events may be 203.109.240.93 12:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh and it obviouslly fulfills our updated article requirements too 203.109.240.93 12:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
The Indian parliament has discussed why Saurav Ganguly was dropped from the Indian cricket team, have they not? Yeah, well there you go. Just because some government prattles on about what is, in all honesty, a regrettable but trivial incident, hardly makes it newsworthy. Wasim Akram called white cricket administrators a bunch of "goras" a little while ago. That's also racism, from a well-known South Asian personality. That should've make Wiki's front page too according to this canon. Moral of all this? Keep trivial stuff off the front page. Peter1968 14:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Not all news of international interest has to be about a large number of people dying or a political shakeup. The Celebrity Big Brother incident has garnered wide international attention, and even statements from Indian and British national officials (as the ITN item says)... were you at this time last year asking what on earth an item about some kids printing cartoons in some newspaper doing on ITN? I know this one will be borderline, but you have to remember it was replacing an item on David Beckham, which wasn't exactly an earth-shattering event in itself. -- tariqabjotu 12:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this is one of the more clearly ITN-worthy entries we've had in quite a long time. A few "kids" make some remarks, gets leaders of powerful nations talking and sparks widespread protests in the world's second-largest nation? The effects are more important then the nature of the event itself. Grandmasterka 12:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Although I personally think Big Brother and the whole concept is a joke. This has got a lot of news attention. The houses of Parliament in India and the United Kingdom have both talked about this. There may be more, but I'm not sure. In my opinion, this is definitly ITN-worthy. Codu (t)⁄(c) •  14:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much for saying so, Tariq, Grandmasterka and Codu, I appreciate it. I am glad that you deemed my nomination ITN-worthy. I will try to provide more candidate entries whenever I get a chance. Ekantik talk 04:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Could television show please be appended to Celebrity Big Brother for clarification. --90.240.34.177 20:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Picture on ITN

Does anyone else find it odd that the picture on ITN today is the fifth story listed? There are some times when ITN doesn't even have five stories? Couldn't we find one free picture of Dink, Kyrill, Shetty/Big Brother, or Pöttering? OCNative 00:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple of photos of downed trees at Kyrill (storm), but I'm not sure how good they'd look cropped and at 100px. We could add Comet McNaught, which has some nice free images associated with it (it's been suggested at /Candidates, but I wasn't sure it was sufficiently newsworthy). But to answer your question — I did look for free images of Dink, Shetty and Pöttering, and couldn't find any.  :/ Of course, we could argue that now that Dink is dead it's no longer even theoretically possible to get a freely licensed image of him, which makes the fair use claim rather solid — but I suppose that the ideological point of having freely licensed images only on the front page supercedes the actual fair use law. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
A free photo of Shilpa Shetty is now available at the article page. From Wikimedia Commons, but I am not sure if this is allowable. Someone please check? Ekantik talk 04:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
That image would be acceptable, but I think that the moment may have passed, since the ice storm story is placed above the Shetty one. On the other hand, they're both tagged as January 19, so I suppose they could be switched. Thoughts? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hrant Dink

Shouldn't Ogün Samast be mentioned on the main page as well? Khoikhoi 23:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Balance or number of items?

We've had a bit of an edit war on the template today between folks trying to balance "In the News" against a rather long "Today's Featured Article" and folks emphasizing the recommendation for 3 to 5 items in "In the News". Let's talk this out instead of reverting each other— which is more important, balance or number of items? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

My opinion: balance first, number second. However, we can have both. For example, cutting down the number of DYK items (which was up to a stunning nine) is reasonable too. -- tariqabjotu 23:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
IMHO, balance. Under some pretty extreme circumstances, I can see us capping ITN and then backfilling On this day, but that would be pretty rare--I've done that exactly once in the last year, and I think it was because we'd gotten an enormous FA and literally no more updates to post from the past 10 days. I think the posted guideline for number of items (it's at something silly like four at the moment) hasn't been followed and isn't really all that relevant post-main page redesign, and arguably was too conservative even on the old layout. The Tom 23:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Serbian elections

I think that the text we have is a bit unfair. When compared to the elections in 2003 Democratic Party won almost twice the number of voted while radical party stayed around the same. I think that text we have is trying to prove the negative outcome while it's not. It's important to say that nationalists have only one party to vote for - radical party while there are several left and center "democratic" parties. Not to mention that the party which was led by Slobodan Milosevic won only 5.9%! Avala 14:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

(moved from candidates page)

I think that the text shown is slightly POV and violates neutrality (referring to the election). For instance, it should be said that ..Radicals lead, followed by Democrats..Radicals didn't achieve majority as most voted for the democrat bloc.. or something like that. The fact that SRS received most votes means nothing - compared to the last (2003) elections, the Serb Radicals have lost their strength. This news depicts (if I imagine that I know nothing of the subject) that the Radicals are winning and might create the next government. This very unlikely to happen. And most of all, the text shouldn't express this like a braking news - because in Serbia, it is traditional that the Radicals always win most votes. And always the parties of the democratic bloc unite against the "greater evil" and form a government. It has always been like it and does come like a surprise. I suggest rephrasing it a bit (acording to my personal suggestion). --PaxEquilibrium 19:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Solving the picture problem

I propose making the ITN picture its own, self-contained entry. This would solve the problems of readers being confused over which entry goes with the picture (if you look at the picture first, which is what most people do, you then have to scan the list to look for the '(pictured)' thing, that is, if you are aware that is what you should do). The more natural thing is to look below or next to the picture. I propose that the ITN item that has a suitable picture should get a shorted version of an ITN tagline, and that this is used as the caption for the picture, and that there is no corresponding ITN tagline in the bulleted list. Has this been suggested or tried before? I tried a mock-up here, but could only get a caption by using the 'thumb' parameter. How do you get a caption for a picture without having the box around it? Carcharoth 17:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This issue keeps coming up again and again. Several solutions have been proposed, but none have been adopted as yet. --Monotonehell 03:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
The only practicable improvement in clearness, I think, would be if the picture were always tied to the first item. This would require considerably more thorough updating, though.--Pharos 00:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Bush delivers speech without actually saying anything

how is this news? Are there at least any funny Bushisms to report? dab (𒁳) 20:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was quite predictable; nothing special or noteworthy. Don't a lot of countries give similar State of the [insert group here] speeches? I'm not sure how this one stands out. -- tariqabjotu 20:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
That State of the Union Address was the leading news item where I live (and we do not usually care much what Bush says), and a quick google shows that it was a major new item elsewhere as well – and if Bush held a State of the Union Address without saying anything noteworthy, isnt that in iteslf noteworthy? Not an issue though, if it was up to me the man wouldnt appear in any news items.--Ezeu 23:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
This entry was a mistake. It was decided beforehand not to put an item regarding the state of the union address into ITN, as it wasn't unusual in anyway, just a run of the mill address, then someone came along and put it in anyway without checking the candidates page first. --Monotonehell
The candidates page is in an odd, hard to find spot. Most people think this is the ITN candidates page. —ExplorerCDT 10:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Is true. At least we only have one talk page now, unlike previously when there was not a redirect from there. I do think it can be streamlined a bit though. (After the revolution, all will be well my comrade!). --Monotonehell 11:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Hope I dont offend anyone with this but I would argue all admins should know about the candidates page (hasn't changed is a long while) and if they are going to make a change, they should do enough research to find it if they don't. It's just a minor thing tho. 203.109.240.93 11:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for helping to prove that Wikipedia is as biased as it is. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 21:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

POV language on Bush

Thesaurus time.

"steadfast": loyal, reliable, committed, brave, dedicated, untiring. A person who is steadfast is one who can be trusted. Not NPOV language.

"reaches out": extending an olive branch, offering a helping hand, expressing empathy or solidarity. A person who reaches out is a person who seeks peace and offers sympathy, and to whom, in turn, people are sympathetic. Not NPOV language.

As I was writing this, the whole State of the Union thing was removed. If it comes back, let's not see it come back with that language. — coelacan talk — 22:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, wikilinking "political opponents" like that seems a pretty unsubtle association game. Just go with Democrats if that's used at all. — coelacan talk — 22:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't see what's so point-of-view about that language. Yes, he did remain steadfast in his Iraq policies, and yes he did reach out to the Democrats with viewpoints usually associated with the Democrats. Again, not sure how the Democrat link is an issue; not everyone is an American, you know, so not everyone will know who the Democrats are (especially because it's a widely-used phrase. Unsubtle association game? You're reading into things too hard... -- tariqabjotu 22:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Every word has a frame. "Steadfast" is literally a title applied to nobility (John, Elector of Saxony), because it's such a positive-association word. Try to think of "steadfast" in a negative way. It's possible, but it's definitely not your first association. "Reach out" works the same way. It's a good thing. It's not a neutral descriptor of an action. Reaching out is something we ask people to do when we're in need, and if they do it, we're thankful and perhaps even indebted to them. It's used in conflict minimization through nonviolent communication. These just aren't neutral terms. The same information could be conveyed with "U.S. President George Bush delivers his State of the Union Address, in which he maintains his Iraq policies, and proposes environmental and social reforms." As to the Democrats, it wasn't even "his political opponents", just "political opponenets." Whose? "[You the reader's] polticial opponenets"? That's the apparent frame. It's part-and-parcel of declaring the Democrats to be "obstructionists". Maybe I'm reading in too much there, with the opponents language, but in any case it's inaccurate. Joe Lieberman is not his political opponent. Bush is not a particularly conservative Republican, and there are plenty of conservative Democrats in Congress who see eye to eye with him. — coelacan talk — 23:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Goodness gracious, if we are going to nitpick every entry like that, then we are in trouble. --Ezeu 01:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not stop trying to find some fancy word and just say his Iraq policies "remain unchanged". — BRIAN0918 • 2007-01-25 01:01Z

that's what I meant: ITN flash: nothing new on the Eastern front, says Bush. dab (𒁳) 11:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Curfew

To be frank, how is a military setting a curfew internationally significant? My town has a curfew as well, as does a majority of cities and towns across the world. Perhaps a different blurb abut the civil unrest that doesn't seem so insignificant would be more appropriate. American Patriot 1776 01:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Does your city have a curfew because people led by a militia considered a terrorist group by six countries have recently been engaging in violent protests calling for the establishment of a new national government? -- tariqabjotu 02:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, in all serious, it appears to me that the focus is on the civil unrest and not the curfew. Do you have a suggestion for a rephrasing that would clarify the significance? -- tariqabjotu 02:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps this rewording will make the topic seem more important. "Violence in Lebanon (flag pictured) between pro and anti-government groups continues to escalate into widespread civil unrest." American Patriot 1776 16:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Except it hasn't really continued to escalate, as far as I can tell. Stuff peaked on Thursday and then the curfew was imposed. The Tom 17:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
AFAIK, very few cities and towns in countries across the world have general curfews (some have youth curfews but even that isn't that common). Curfews in response to unrest however is fairly common. To be honest, I was wonder surprised to hear that towns in the US have curfews... You learn something new everyday I guess 203.109.240.93 11:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Anti-Iraq invasion protests

Shouldn't that be considered internationally significant?, specially considering that this is one of the major anti-Bush protests since the start of the iraq invasion--Gonzalo84 00:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Haven't there been major anti-Bush protests all the time, along with anti-Iraq protests in many of the other countries involved? 203.109.240.93 11:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Adam Air Flight 574 correction

Disambiguate black box (transportation) to flight data recorder and/or cockpit voice recorder? --Christopherlin 15:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

which/that

I'm not an admin so I can't fix it, but where it says:

"In Guinea, a general strike which has resulted in at least 59 deaths in violent clashes between police and demonstrators ends after 17 days."

it should say:

"In Guinea, a general strike that has resulted in at least 59 deaths in violent clashes between police and demonstrators ends after 17 days."

or possibly:

"A general strike in Guinea, which has resulted in at least 59 deaths in violent clashes between police and demonstrators, ends after 17 days."

Thank you, Coemgenus 18:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Thank you! —David Levy 18:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
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