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Old man dies?

Common refrain whenever a person of disputed importance kicks the bucket at a ripe old age, sometimes well past their peaks. We would unambiguously benefit from a WP:OLDMANDIES, since the argument is repeatedly deployed, but I want all of your thoughts on whether the policy states that this is a valid or invalid argument. I'm leaning towards the latter. Bremps... 02:50, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @User:GenevieveDEon and @User:InedibleHulk as the two editors whose dispute inspired me to propose this. Bremps... 03:03, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

We need a way of preventing the inevitable pile-on of American editors (our largest cohort) telling us how wonderful a person every dead basketballer, bseballer and American footballer was. Give Ron Barassi a chance. HiLo48 (talk) 03:11, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

As I've suggested before, there is a mostly objective start to evaluating the "great figure" blurbs, that being the article has clear, in-depth coverage of the person's importance, legacy, and/or impact, sourced to good quality RSes, and clear to a reader outside the field in place within the article, and that doesn't mean just simply being famous or a household name, nor simply having a lot of awards, nor simply having impressive stats from their sport. That should eliminate the bulk of the vague handwaving that many attempted blurbs noms get. It is not fully objective as there could be such content but considered thin, or the content doesn't exist but editors are working to expand it with long-form obits, etc. I will note the last several blurbs over the last month have had this type of feature, so it seems to be on the right track. Masem (t) 04:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Notable non-American Ismail Kadare is what got us here. Maybe lose the blinders. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 15:39, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Or that sports person last week who no-one had heard of? Secretlondon (talk) 17:33, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I've said it for dozens of people, some American, some wonderful, some neither. For me, at least, none of that matters. What matters is whether the proposed blurb goes Nationality-Job-Name dies at Age. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Your repeated assertion that no-one had heard of Willie Mays, in the teeth of the evidence, is not helping your position. GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Valid That's exactly what happens, most of the time. Sometimes it's a woman and sometimes we know a place and/or cause of death, but it's never much more than Old Someone Dies. I don't think I'm the sort of old man who needs some Mandy-lookin' guideline to tell me he has a point, though, so Oppose Codification Error. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:OMD is the quicker, less shouty and less likely to be misread as dirty laundry option, if something must sprout from this at all. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:42, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Good call. Bremps... 06:22, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There's always room for more 80s synthpop. Black Kite (talk) 07:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Or just redirect to WP:HUMOR. —Bagumba (talk) 12:08, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There's (usually) nothing newsworthy or funny about an old person dying. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I've always AGFed that it was an attempt at humor. Otherwise it seems just plain insensitive. —Bagumba (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

That really is the other issue - the more we see blurb shouts for RDs, the more insensitive comments we see while trying to argue the importance of a life/death, and in the immediate aftermath. Perhaps for that reason, having OMD link to a reasoned explanation would be valuable. Kingsif (talk) 22:23, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, either there is an "Old Man Dies" policy, and we all agree not to post the likes of Queen Elizabeth II dying, or there is no such policy, and we have to go through the grind of finding consensus via the ITN process - as for any other nomination to ITN. Option 3 would be to create a separate RD section, as several other Wikipedias have done, which would delegate the whole issue to those editors really caring about obituaries - but sadly this option has so far failed to gain traction. Khuft (talk) 21:51, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I've definitely shifted to "only blurb if the death is the story", so I'd say OMD is a valid argument summary. Every concept has exceptions, so I don't think Khuft's all or nothing is a concern for when actual legends do pass. Kingsif (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Note: I've just wracked my brain to come up with a currently-living legend who I think should incontrovertibly be posted just for dying, and the only one I could think of is Dolly Parton. So make of that what you will. Kingsif (talk) 22:15, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Paul McCartney? HiLo48 (talk) 00:15, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Mick Jagger. Or Patrick Stewart. Actually, probably William Shatner, too. BD2412 T 00:20, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

David Attenborough? Jimmy Carter? Thryduulf (talk) 00:54, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

For a real surprise, Keith Richards. HiLo48 (talk)

He, Hulk Hogan and anyone else dubbed "The Immortal" have some potential shock value. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:52, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Professional wrestling is a bit, erm, fake though. Secretlondon (talk) 11:13, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Not an endorsement, but so is acting. —Bagumba (talk) 11:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

thatsbait.gif Kcmastrpc (talk) 11:54, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

So the issue with all of these is that they 1) would need better arguments for opposing than merely "old man dies." We know it's normal for old men to die, but so are lots of things. But 2) do we really want to have a discussion on each of these, just after they died, just how significant their work/role was? I don't think a WP:OMD page could really help all that much, as it doesn't solve this second issue at all. At least when people currently post "oppose-old man dies," we can just ignore them and read the messages with meat to them instead. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:31, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

To wit, this is why I would only say Dolly Parton (maybe David Attenborough now he's been mentioned, too) - people I cannot imagine they would have any opposition based on the breadth of influence in multiple fields and pretty much every adult knowing about all that, i.e. someone for who there'd be no debate about the significance, so the discussion would probably (hopefully) be straight-up avoided. If it's not a completely incontrovertible post (and most will not be no matter how famous), that discussion would have to be had, and might get disrespectful, which is one of the (to be fair, lesser) reasons why I now almost wholesale do not endorse death blurbs just for dying and think that discussion of such should be discouraged. Kingsif (talk) 00:42, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I broadly agree with Maplestrip that the underlying issues are the need for better arguments, and the difficulty of having a well-sourced and concise discussion of someone's significance in the immediate aftermath of their death. Stylistically, I dislike the use of 'Old Man Dies' in place of a !vote in particular. It harms the readability of the discussion - broadly speaking, we expect editors' initial submissions in this discussion to start with 'Oppose', 'Neutral', 'Support', or similar. Starting it with a terse and slightly flippant summary of the story is less helpful. "'Old Man Dies' is a routine story and doesn't need to be given a blurb" is fine as an argument, and I sometimes agree with it, but it would be conducive to good, readable debate if we all acted like sensible editors rather than daytime talk show guests trying to pull out 'zingers'. Related to this is the problem that conducting our debates in clichés is a process with diminishing returns. I've argued against references to the journalistic 'bus plunge' concept in the past for the same reason - we should be treating stories on their merits, not on how they relate to canned concepts which encode a lot of cultural bias. GenevieveDEon (talk) 08:44, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Comment The old-man-dies argument is equivalent to opposing an item relating to a single country, which is listed on WP:ITNCDONT. Perhaps we can consider adding this as well in order to easily dismiss such unproductive votes in the future.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think they're similar, much less equivalent. OMD isn't in the Oppose family. It means someone wants an RD nom posted as a regular RD, if at all. Something like EXAMPLIANSGOHOME is nowhere near as Neutral, largely because there's no other place for uninational news. I think it's possible you might just want these sorts of votes more easily dismissed in the future because they've been producing results you don't like (not that there's anything wrong with that). InedibleHulk (talk) 09:54, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Why not just follow the aforementioned WP:MANDY and WP:NOTMANDY precedent where we have two opposing essays? I'd be willing to help draft NOTOLDMANDIES, and even OLDMANDIES though I don't agree with it.. Sincerely, Dilettante 18:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

You mention WP:MANDY and WP:NOTMANDY; but putting those in the same paragraph as the proposed WP:NOTOLDMANDIES and WP:OLDMANDIES draws my attention to the problem we get when words are converted to all-capitals run together without spaces, in that where do we imagine the missing spaces should be? Consider WP:OLDMANDIES - this might be construed as "Old Mandies", referring to several people named Mandy who are now drawing their pensions. Or perhaps Gary Oldman is no longer with us. You get the same thing with web domains except that it's all lowercase. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I think InedibleHulk brought that point up above, referring to the proposal as some Mandy-lookin' guideline. Either way, this is why Template:About exists and WP:OMD would circumvent this issue, while also sounding more respectful. Sincerely, Dilettante 23:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that having a page titled WP:OMD is not actually a bad idea. All it has to say is "this is not a fully-formed argument." That's pretty much the full text we should put on this page. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:34, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose OMD is a thought-terminating cliché and so encourages the opposing camps to chant such slogans at each other rather than presenting evidence and intelligently analysing it. It also seems deliberately rude and unpleasant, contrary to the ancient precept, de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Andrew🐉(talk) 06:16, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  I mightn't change how it seems to you or anyone else, but I can promise you all I've never deliberately used it dickishly. When presented with evidence of news that a man or woman has died at the age of 70-120 and nothing else, it's just beyond my poor brain to summarize any plainer.

  It is intended to terminate any immediate thought of posting everyday news of some old people dying and nothing else while using RD for other old people who too simply die. It has never stopped the next voter from weighing in with either reasonable counterargument or a contrary cliché ("global icon", "living legend", "one of the best") and sometimes leads to longer talks in less constrictive venues like this.

  All that aside, it's not clear (to me) whether you're supporting or opposing the creation of an OMD guideline. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:24, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  ... but I can promise you all I've never deliberately used it dickishly: As I said earlier, I had always AGfed on this. Now that there's been discussion on OMD, individiuals can decide if WP:RESPONSIBLE applies or not. —Bagumba (talk) 22:05, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  You said you AGFed it as an attempt at humour, not dickishness. I tried to clarify then, as I'm about to try now, it's not funny. If you're the sort of person who tends to view plain insensitivity as dickishness rather than distant objectivity, yes, I can see how this makes me look like the sort of person who'd do (what I consider) truly dickish things in an RD nom, like bring up the subject's moral, legal or artistic failings from years ago or oppose for all of their moral, legal or artistic ventures having been (arguable) failures. Sorry for that. From here on, rather than risk offensively amusing, bemusing or demusing anyone, I'll cast such votes as "OMD" alone, then follow up with anything else (if applicable). My Covered By Ongoings will also now appear CBO. If someone asks, another regular can explain how it's short for something. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:49, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  The relevant bullet point at WP:ITNRDBLURB is "Major figure", so "not a major enough figure" (it's unfortunate the community doesn't have more objective criteria) could be a counter. —Bagumba (talk) 23:24, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, but it's just not for me. I think a major figure (as I understand that crew) can die just as plain and simple a death as anyone. It's that I "go not gently" against, never the "hills and valleys" of life itself (as "a major dick" might). InedibleHulk (talk) 23:40, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

• If I am understanding what "Old man dies" here means correctly, it is just a shorthand way of saying: "While this persons life may have been very notable, their death in and of itself was not, and I think that means this should not be blurbed." According to WP:ITNRDBLURB: "The death of major figures may merit a blurb. These cases are rare, and are usually posted on a sui generis basis through a discussion at WP:ITNC that determines there is consensus that the death merits a blurb." This in no way invalidates the argument "The death was not notable in and of itself" as a reason to oppose (as some editors claim). All this says is that blurbs will be decided when "there is consensus" to post. Essentially, this allows two opposed viewpoints to have equal validity, which I think is a sub-optimal situation. Ideally, I think it would be best to hold a discussion on whether this status-quo should change. In the meantime, I don't have much of a stance one way or another on the use of "Old man dies", but it certainly could be misinterpreted, so I personally would refrain from using it. Gödel2200 (talk) 02:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  The death was not notable in and of itself: Is this referring to the cause of death, or the overall reaction after the death? —Bagumba (talk) 14:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Basically the cause of death or whatever effects the death may have, but some editors would also use the argument regardless of the reaction after the death. Gödel2200 (talk) 15:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I think people who argue that the major figure criteria was met accept that the cause of death was not notable. Perhaps you are arguing that their obituaries and coverage of their death is not prominent, and conclude that they must not be a major figure? —Bagumba (talk) 05:47, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the people who support RD blurbs usually accept that the cause of death was not notable. But other people can use this exact point, that the cause of death was not notable, as a reason to oppose, and both viewpoints are perfectly valid. What I am saying is that it is not ideal to let both opposed viewpoints have equal validity. Gödel2200 (talk) 11:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

But other people can use this exact point, that the cause of death was not notable, as a reason to oppose, and both viewpoints are perfectly valid.: I don't believe they are both valid. As written, WP:ITNRDBLURB allows blurbs for "Death as the main story" or "Major figures"; it does not require that both are necessarily met. Thus, "non-notable cause of death" arguments should be discounted, as it's not the only path to blurbing a death. (This is somewhat similar to how "not WP:ITNR" is not an accepted reason to oppose blurbing a recurring event".) —Bagumba (talk) 12:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:ITNRDBLURB of course allows for the deaths of major figures to be posted, but it does not require that discussion focus on whether the person has a large enough legacy to be posted. All it says is that the deaths of major figures "may" merit a blurb, and says that they are usually posted if "there is consensus that the death merits a blurb." This "consensus" certainly could include arguments in opposition due to something similar to "the death was not notable in and of itself"; there is nothing explicitly disallowing this. Gödel2200 (talk) 20:49, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Whi h is essential why there is this huge issue, because we make no attempt (inadvently I believe) to define how to treat a BLP as a major figure. We're it to me, my metric starts with the existence of a substantial, well sourced Legacy or Impact section, as to make it clear to the reader coming from the main page if why this person was listed as a blurb. But in plenty of ITNC nominations for urbs, some think that just bring famous or well known is sufficient, which I think has major bias problems and is far from objective. We likely should should try to put some reasonable expectations of what a great figure should demonstrate rather that leaving that nebulous term out there. Masem (t) 20:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

...we make no attempt (inadvently I believe) to define how to treat a BLP as a major figure: There have been plenty of attempts—its a perrenial topic. They just haven't led to a consensus more objective than the "sui generis basis" status quo.—Bagumba (talk) 23:42, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's be honest - the REAL issue here is we have more or less no criteria at all for who qualifies as worthy of a blurb when it isn't a "death as the main story" situation. I will say, again, for the umpteenth time, the best solution is to just allow such blurbs for when death is the main story. We have RD, we can list most deaths there. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, if there is no scope for multiple paragraphs of sourced prose (excluding quotes) about the person's death then that's a good sign that the death shouldn't be blurbed. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Unless the death is the main story (like an assassination), there's no requirement to have multiple paragraphs about the deaths for a blurb. There should be multiple paragraphs to justify the "great figure" reasoning for a blurb posting (which likely will include reactions from others in that field on news of the death to justify why the person was a great figure), and there of course should be an update to source the death, but many great figures die absent a prolonged battle with health or the like, giving no reason to have a huge block of text about the death specifically. Masem (t) 12:06, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

And if it were a requirement, some would try to game the system with an WP:EXAMPLEFARM of thoughts and prayers from social media posts. —Bagumba (talk) 12:37, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the major figures criteria of WP:ITNRDBLURB says that it is determined on a sui generis basis. —Bagumba (talk) 05:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

And this then means that it becomes a vote by the handful of editors that post their opinions at ITN. with the admins getting a supervote.

The clear fix for this is to give all such deaths a short description, as other languages do. The blurb/no blurb issue then largely disappears. Without any description, RD entries such as Ismail Kadare are useless because they are just a name that most of us don't recognise. His short description is just two words: "Albanian writer". How hard is that? Andrew🐉(talk) 19:56, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea to me. This post was made by orbitalbuzzsaw gang (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Aye. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:48, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Honestly surprised we don't do that. Bremps... 05:49, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Time for a NOTAVOTE warning on the Biden nom?

I may not recognise ITNC regulars as much as I used to, but that nom looks like it's attracting a lot more non-regulars (including usernames I recognise as being heavily involved in US politics), contributing quite a bit. I don't think there's anything untoward in their appearance, nor are they contributing negatively (so far, that I can see) - but might it be time to add the warning that 'arguments, not numbers are what matters', as is often added when a thread quickly gets as long as that one and has users making !vote arguments that may not relate to ITN? Kingsif (talk) 00:34, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Ironically, it's a lot of our regulars who I think are voting in manners that seem to violate rationale for voting, namely WP:ITNCDONT's 2nd item and what seems to be to rampant and overzealous violations of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, yeah, ITNC !votes play fast and loose with don't #2 all the time lol Kingsif (talk) 01:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I think saying something is applicable to a single country isn't unreasonable when you're simply using it as a contextual point relating to a larger argument about how great an event's impact is, but all of these arguments of "we wouldn't post such an event if it happened in another country" are lacking factual basis and arguably violate both rules. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:50, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

If we do add this, I would suggest also linking to WP:ITNATA. In the nomination, there are examples of nearly all of the types of arguments listed there. Gödel2200 (talk) 01:28, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

That whole nomination shows the issues I've been pointing out, that we need to keep fighting against systematic bias against US and UK-centric topics, particularly in regards to politics. In line with the section above (about ITNATA and number of media sources), we have to be far more cautious about these topics as they draw people that are not regulars to ITNC and thus not likely to be fully aware of the means that we make judgments of what should be posted. It separately also highlights the fact that we need better clarity about how we should be writing encyclopedic articles on current news events and avoid the excessive detail that the 24/7 media can give a topic, but that's an issue beyond ITN.

I do think we need to find some way to point out that the arguments in that ITNC, that is "we don't usually post pre-election cycle news" or that "we likely would not have posted the same thing if it happened in country X" (comparing to how we typically have handled the type of story in the past) is not the same aspect that the ITNATA #2 caution is meant to warn about the news being too country-centric (eg "This would only affect the US" type arguments). I have seen, not just here but before, ITNATA#2 thrown around willy-nilly just when a country is brought up, the nuance of when #2 actually applies requires a bit more insight. --Masem (t) 04:16, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I mean if we’re talking about the US bias, looking at the nom (and the fact it’s been posted) as someone who lived in the US a long time but is not from there, I think it shows not that Americans over-value their nation’s place in the world or anything, but that American media overinflates the importance of political minutiae and this makes Americans think those things are incredibly important. Because similar and much crazier pre-election erring would, IMHO, not be considered significant enough to even nominate to people anywhere else. Yes, the president of the US is important globally. No, the incumbent saying they’re not seeking reelection during an election cycle is by itself not. That it has become such a big story in the US is because of the media circus, not its actual importance. It’s not even that incumbents and candidates in other countries do far more outlandish things, which is true, but it wouldn’t matter: wherever the election is, the choice of candidate - let alone the steps taken in the process of choosing, short of murdering rivals (even then only maybe) - is a significant update for those following along, something to analyse within the context of the election, but not actual election news. Kingsif (talk) 05:05, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

A kind of broader point I wanted to develop more, and as some comments here touch on the general area I guess might as well put it here: In terms of population with English as a first language, the US tops the list by a country mile, followed by the UK, and past that Pareto principle is evident as the numbers rapidly decline. Given such, the notion that, "Many English-fluent people will consider US & UK domestic politics to be matters of interest, and English-language news media thus will often devote attention to such topics, and so events occuring in said will with reasonable frequency be 'in the news' in English-language media", does not to me seem very far-fetched. Is the purpose of ITN not things such as, help[ing] readers find and quickly access content they are likely to be searching for because an item is in the news?

I see some people expressing concerns over systemic bias leading to favoritism towards political matters in these countries. Now, what I find unclear in this: is the concern about, potential bias in Wikipedia itself, particularly its English-language verison, or is it concerning, English-language media in general, far beyond Wikipedia? Either certainly are valid issues for one to consider in need of attention—but as to the latter, I'm afraid Wikipedia has scarce little influence over what mass news media consider to be topics meriting coverage. Now I am all for devoting more attention on WP to topics from around the world; indeed if anything I think it's something more movement resources could stand investment in! But I am sincerely confused as to how ITN not making any mention of "major news events" which are in fact US/UK domestic politics-related, is envisioned as aiding in this objective. Perhaps, it's hoped people will notice the lack of ITN mention of political events, and decide to get involved contributing in expanding WP's coverage of them globally?

I would find it interesting and constructive to have more detail about what practices other language editions of Wikipedia have adopted regarding coverage of current events on their main pages. How many of them have something resembling ITN to some degree? Is there concern there over too much attention being given to politics in major countries where the project's language is a dominant language? Would much appreciate anyone who could take time to fill in some. --Slowking Man (talk) 06:41, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Funnily enough, the purpose you highlight is part of why I opposed. What is there to say except "Biden withdrew", realistically. People who know who Biden is and kinda know the election up to now, will know all they need from those two words. IMHO people coming to Wikipedia looking for information because they heard Biden withdrew, are more likely to be looking for information about the election or Biden's biography, not for the next or next-next level of detail. If the ITN blurb links those things then I suppose we're helping, but an article with little information on the withdrawal (because there's nothing much to say) and lots of (duplicated) background/potential future impacts, is, I don't think, what people who turn to Wikipedia after the news would expect. But it's a moot point now I suppose. Kingsif (talk) 10:57, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Unironically all three of those things are linked on the blurb. There isn’t a lot of information about the withdrawal because it literally just happened. More will develop this week. Kcmastrpc (talk) 11:15, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• The discussion in question has been closed now. The idea that the opinions of ITN regulars should have special consideration and privilege is contrary to general policies such as WP:CONLEVEL and WP:OWN. It appears that most other language Wikipedias that have an equivalent ITN section are running the same Biden story too – examples include Dutch, French, German, Russian and Swedish. This demonstrates the international nature of the topic and that we're doing the right thing by running it. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I don't know where you got the idea that anyone said ITN regulars should have some kind of privilege - the opening statement says there was no issue with the contributions of the non-regulars, just their appearance made the thread incredibly long, and that they may have been among those using inadvisable arguments. Kingsif (talk) 10:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  The problem with non-regular !voters at these "popular" ITNC discussions, which also include of recent the OJ Simpson death blurb as well as the past Betty White one, is that they are coming only to throw weight on their believed importance of the story, not familiar with all the subtlies we have developed over the years to know when to avoid media polarization of a topic, which conflates short term importance with long-term relevance that we should be more focused on for an encyclopedia and what should be in the ITN box as part of that. I don't want to say that ITNC needs to be closed off from non-regulars, but we need to remind non-editors what are not factors in determining a blurb posting, and make sure admins are discarding those !votes and not influenced by the vote count. — Masem (t) 12:03, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  This isn’t your country club, and you don’t get to demand that the subtleties you want enforced are upheld in your private area of the main page. That page belongs to all of us, not just the people who regularly gatekeep at ITN/C. nableezy - 13:01, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  While ITNC processes are open, they also have guidelines for how editors are to engage with them, and the problem with non regulars most of the time is that they are coming with !votes that are against or don't show arguments towards these guidelines. We expect participating editors to have familiarity with the written guidelines, and not just treat it as a vote. As noted, a large of of these were arguments that the story was propagated across numerous papers, which is a written argument to avoid. That's the type of problem that we get on topics that carry huge systematic bias from the media, and what we need to be working against to keep the ITN box from being a news ticker. And a further problem is that there was next to no discussion about article quality, which is a significant criteria. Not there was an issue here, but it should still be a discussion point in considering a blurb post. Again, that's what typically gets ignored by non regular voters that don't spend time to be familiar with the guidelines and treat the process as a vote. We can't gate ITN off but we have to also be ready to discount those !votes that don't follow the written practices. Masem (t) 13:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Many editors were also coming in with opposes based on "US/EU-centric" concerns, which are also covered in WP:ITNCDONT. With regards to WP:ITNATA, these seem to be suggestions, and even the premise we're discussing here is worded in a way that suggests it's not uncommon for the breadth of coverage to be discussed or regarded, just that it might be outweighed by other factors. A story highlighted in many newspapers or news channels has a good chance of being significant for ITN, but we do not base the posting primarily on how many such sites have covered it or consider it important. Kcmastrpc (talk) 14:24, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Written practices here follow actual practice, not the other way around. If consensus is against your view in a much more widely attended discussion then you cannot use some guideline page written by six users seeking to impose their favored standards over the wider community. nableezy - 14:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  The written practices follows the actual practice of how ITN runs when nominees are "run of the mill" and the participants are those that are regular or frequent contributors to ITN. When we have a massive influx of editors that have never or very infrequently participated in ITNC we suddenly don't bend our practices to follow their will if it doesn't follow the established practices. Same applies to all other consensus-based processes on WP like AFD, otherwise this would basically make all processes just a true popularity vote. Masem (t) 17:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I personally wouldn't compare AfD, a process that utilizes a number of actual Wikipedia policies and guidelines, with ITN, which runs off opinions and mostly unwritten rules. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 18:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  We still have written guidelines, for example, one that says we don't rely on how broadly a story is covered as a reason to post. The written guidelines are not absent here. Masem (t) 18:52, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  That guideline appears not to have much of a consensus besides some limited discussion with much less participation than any of these nominations. nableezy - 19:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  +1 to Nableezy. The "subtleties" , "precedent", "unspoken rules"—or whatever else you want to call them—around ITN are not something that the community has agreed on. They are the fantasies of a small handful of editors who have appointed themselves the arbiters of what news is "significant". WP:OR still applies to ITN, and users don't get to make decisions on their own about whether something is "significant" based solely on their own opinions. I'll go even farther and say that the people voting based on "this would/wouldn't be posted if it were [country]" are engaging in WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS behavior and should be made aware that they're risking a ban from ITN if they continue. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:16, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

"WP:OR still applies to ITN, and users don't get to make decisions on their own about whether something is "significant" based solely on their own opinions." To a certain extent I agree with this, in that factual statements of course require RS's on ITN. But as for whether or not something is significant enough for posting, OR absolutely does not apply here. If it did, ITN would not be able to exist. The process of deciding what should be placed on the main page of Wikipedia is inherently based off of editor opinion. Gödel2200 (talk) 17:52, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

We already have a policy on how to weigh the relative importance of things. A policy that, shockingly, favors how sources weigh it and not how whichever Wikipedia editors show up on a page at a time view it. nableezy - 18:15, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

WEIGHT applies to article content, but not to ITN which is trying to showcase quality WP articles that are topics currently in the news. For that reason we put more emphasis on the issues of systematic bias on how we present the encyclopedia compared to how the news media puts weight on a topic. It's also why WP:NOTNEWS plays a factor. So yes ITN relies a lot of the subjectivity of what stories qualify for ITN compared to what one would think WEIGHT would say for article content, but that's by design of ITN's goals as a main page box. Masem (t) 18:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

If that’s your view great, but then complaining that others subjective views aren’t in keeping with your subjective views on what their views should be is a curiosity I don’t think I can wrap my head around. Finally, please stop saying "we". Your views are your own, and your views are evidently not the consensus view given how the discussions you’re complaining about turned out. nableezy - 18:53, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

+1. I've had similar thoughts about Masem's ITN philosophizing over the last few months, and have previously suggested that they test the popularity of their unique views by proposing changes on this page. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

+2 InedibleHulk (talk) 21:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

If they were subjective views that started from the basis of ITN guidelines, that would be fine. But what we had were tons of comments that were along the lines "this is important because lots of sources are reporting on it", when we specifically had said that we don't consider how many sources report on a story as part of the reason to post. There is an expectation that subjective input to an ITNC does not recycle the reasons we have discounted at ITNATA. And I'm saying "we" because ITN guidelines were developed by community consensus over time, and certainly not by one person. Masem (t) 23:24, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Masem: we don't consider how many sources report on a story as part of the reason to post

WP:ITNSIGNIF: The number of unique articles about the topic (does each major news source dedicate its own reporting staff to covering the story, or are they all simply reposting the same article?) Levivich (talk) 23:38, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

ITNSIGNIF suggests that there should be a minimum number of unique articles on it, but then we state in ITNATA that A story highlighted in many newspapers or news channels has a good chance of being significant for ITN, but we do not base the posting primarily on how many such sites have covered it or consider it important. If anything, that means simply saying a story is important because of source article count without any other arguments to support is not an argument to use because it doesn't address the other points of significance or the quality aspect. So yes, I will clarify that we do not consider solely the number of articles that cover an ITN topic as a main reason to post. That still creates the issue that a number of !votes in the Biden story were exactly of this nature. Masem (t) 04:48, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

The problem with this is that, while ITNSIGNIF is a guideline, ITNATA is simply saying what is usually done. This leaves open the possibility of ITNATA changing based off of what gets said at one discussion, and it certainly doesn't disallow those arguments at listed ITNATA. In fact, ITNATA even explicitly says this: "Any user may, of course, support or oppose a candidate for any reason." Gödel2200 (talk) 15:09, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

The community consensus doesn’t seem to agree, given how much larger discussions about individual nominations have gone. nableezy - 01:29, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree with nableezy. Where in the guidelines does it say that ITN should place a strong emphasis on the issues of systematic bias? I see this cited a lot but don't know where this comes from. Honestly, there needs to be a centralized discussion somewhere to generate some clear policies and guidelines for ITN, so that it stops being [run] off opinions and mostly unwritten rules as Ed states. From what I can tell, the only guideline being followed is the one for article quality, but otherwise whether something gets posted is just based on who votes. Natg 19 (talk) 19:08, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

In principle I would agree with this (holding a discussion on making more explicit guidelines), though I think we will find that there are very few guidelines to add. Beyond fairly general guidelines at ITNR, each story, being unique, must be evaluated on its own merits. Gödel2200 (talk) 20:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but those "things" which the policy applies to are RS's. So, we certainly should keep that in mind when making factual statements about the story in the nom, but the decision to post is ultimately our decision. Gödel2200 (talk) 20:13, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• ITN discussions are a vote. There is no other way to assess them, given a complete absence of guidelines. The "arguments to avoid" are only a suggestion, and not something I'd expect admins to use as a means of discarding editor's viewpoints. Similarly, precedent and convention are often useful tools for persuading others of the merits of a particular course of action (for example whicj deaths to blurb and who not to), but again the participants can choose to chart their own course if they wish. Even ITN/R items are occasionally voted down if enough people object. I don't like the decision to post the Biden withdrawal, but it's hard to say there isn't a valid consensus for it.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:57, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a fair point. However we claim that Wikipedia is not a democracy, most of the decisions are made through democratic means. Admins usually cannot divorce from a simple vote count when measuring consensus, which may be due to a myriad of factors (e.g. unwillingness to thoroughly examine a discussion, reluctance to overturn a vote count, difficulty to weigh arguments against votes, bias in assessing certain arguments etc.). The only sensible option we can do is introduce some criteria on who can vote on an ITN nomination so that we discard votes from IP addresses or newly registered editors.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

That doesn’t seem sensible because ITN is an entryway for many seasoned editors on this site. Disallowing or “nullifying” participation because newcomers aren’t welcome seems harmful at best, malicious at worst. Kcmastrpc (talk) 11:19, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

How can you make sure that those newly registered editors aren't sock accounts? What's the chance that a newly registered editor will start editing by voting on ITN nominations? In the context of ITN, "newcomers" are editors who have editing experience elsewhere on the project, but weren't involved in discussions on ITN nominations. Newly registered editors whose first edit is a vote on an ITN nomination are most likely single-purpose scrutiny-evading sock accounts. Finally, you can make the same argument that disallowing editors to vote for an admin is harmful or malicious, but functionally it's not and there's a reason why it's the case.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

fwiw, I found the spark to edit because of ITN when it was too little too late to have Goo Hara posted up on RD. – robertsky (talk) 12:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Whether or not an editor becomes an administrator vs. what gets posted on the front page for a few days just doesn't seem all that comparable to me. Kcmastrpc (talk) 14:25, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it's not comparable. Our readers care what appears on the main page, not who has additional privileges in the background, so we should be stricter with decisions on what to post.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:29, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Amakuru, ITN is not exempt from the policy at WP:DETCON. If anyone is treating it like a straight vote without weighing policy, then they're not qualified to be participating at ITN, especially the ITN admins. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:59, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The majority of admins don't abide by WP:DETCON and WP:NOTDEMO, and some of the reasons can be found in brackets in my first comment on this thread above. Yes, it means that they're not qualified to be participating at ITN, but it's our fault that we're doing nothing to prevent it. In the same way some editors got a topic ban from participating at ITN in the past, we can consider partially banning admins from measuring consensus and posting at ITN. However, the problem is that we already have very few active admins on ITN, so this is highly unlikely to get sufficient support.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:09, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

No, this page cannot ban somebody from ITN, that’s a decision for the wider community at WP:AN. If you would like to argue that your favored criteria weren’t followed so can we ban such and such from the page by all means. nableezy - 18:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't say we should ban people on this page, and we're not talking about someone's criteria here.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:33, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

You literally said "we can consider partially banning admins from measuring consensus and posting at ITN." ~~ Jessintime (talk) 18:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and that can be discussed only at WP:AN. We cannot decide whether to ban people on this page, but it doesn't mean that idea cannot be brainstormed here. Anyway, it won't happen. We don't have enough admins to regularly post items, so it's not very practical to clamp down on the active ones.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

So we should ban people, not because they're disruptive, but because they're going against the supposed groupthink? Orwell would be proud. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 19:01, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

No, we should ban admins from posting ITN items on the main page if there's evidence of bad posting (of course, this doesn't mean that they'd lose the admin privileges). For instance, an admin has recently failed to notice a clear consensus for posting a blurb and the same admin pre-maturely posted an item whose article's quality was voiced as problematic by the majority of editors participating in the discussion.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:25, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The reason non-regulars come to ITNC for these high-profile noms is to help the regulars avoid making a mistake. When it matters more, more people care: this is the system working as intended. Levivich (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't follow what's being railed against here at all. Of course, if there's a specific policy or guideline being breached by a vote at ITN/C, e.g. WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:NPA or anything else then it can be discarded or struck as anywhere else. But the vast majority of comments are not of that nature and the dispute is between "I think this should be posted" and "I don't think this should be posted". And such items are always verifiable and covered in sources, the decision is only whether the item meets our complex conditions for sifting the thousands of daily news stories into a trickle of blurbs. As I said above, there aren't any applicable policies to make that decision, and for the most part admins have to go with the numbers because there's nothing else to judge. I do think there are a few admins who post things based on personal preference when the numbers are roughly 50/50, and I do think we should default to not posting in that instance, but otherwise I'm not sure why the admin corps is being blamed for something here and I'd be interested to know the specifics of the complaint.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:19, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

As I already mentioned in my last comment above, an admin recently failed to notice a clear consensus for a blurb and the same admin pre-maturely posted another item with a problematic article quality-wise. But that's not the main problem. It's just a reflection of what many admins pretend to be against what they should be on the project. I think it's much more problematic that admins resort to vote count to measure consensus, which paves the way for someone to easily game the system by creating a dozen of accounts with the purpose of influencing the voting process. In case when the admins aren't efficient in preventing this from happening, the most sensible solution would be to introduce some voting criteria as a preventive measure.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:41, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kiril Simeonovski: While I agree that all admins should be reading discussions and finding consensus from that, I've got to ask if there has ever been a time when an article was published to ITN thanks to the efforts of "a dozen [sock] accounts"? Very bluntly, that sounds like electoral integrity fearmongering. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know. But it's a potential risk, not really fear-mongering. A newly registered editor whose first edit on the project is a vote on an ITN nomination is immediately suspicious as a potential single-purpose scrutiny-evading sock account, and I've noticed this happening in heated discussions before.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The illegals are voting! Should we like have voter IDs now? Howard the Duck (talk) 14:21, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I fear that this is one of the last chances to do something preventive in the AI transition period, which would reduce the incidence of controversial decisions that spark endless discussions. Otherwise, editors who feel exhausted from such discussions would very soon support the introduction of AI to make admin decisions on Wikipedia and save time spent in the secondary namespaces. Furthermore, those willing to harm the project may have additional incentives to use AI in order to game the system in the absence of stricter policies. That's definitely not what we want because it has the potential to completely ruin the community health. You're invited to join the live stream of the lecture "Defending our wikis against weaponized generative AI" at this year's Wikimedia CEE Meeting.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:50, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Time to move on Seriously, the time that has been spent on this discussion is just plain ridiculous. The consensus didn't go your way - well, tough, that happens. Ismail Kadare didn't get blurbed either - should I throw my toys out of my pram now? Next time it will go the other way, no worries. But don't spread your bile on the poor admins that have to read through pages and pages of comments and try to deduce a consensus for any particular nomination, just to be pilloried immediately afterwards. Be happy there are still admins willing to adjudicate ITN nominations. Khuft (talk) 19:16, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'll be happy when we get an admin (human or taskbot) willing to change the picture daily, like they do for the other three corners of this "digital world". Truly happy, anyway. I'm happy enough right now about routine adjudication. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:33, 23 July 2024 (UTC)