About the wording allegations I may have missed something, Mikker. Is it not clear what her role was by reading "Riksdag & Deparment"? She knew that a civil servant of UD intended to contact thos responsible for the web, and she at least tacitly approved of it. The events seem clear, not alleged. The legal implications are unclear, as they always are, of course. Can it really be against the constitution just to have a chat explaining the harm the web page could cause? I think it is against the constitution, but a court would have to decide.DanielDemaret 08:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC) Alleged is usually used when someone denies what happened, and Leila is did not actually hear Leila deny the allegations at her resignation talk.DanielDemaret 08:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is always a good thing to be cautious about such matters, especially on a high traffic site such as Wikipedia. I think "alleged" should stay even if you think (like me) that she probably did intervene improperly. We can let readers make up their own minds. Besides, WP:NPOV would also suggest "allegedly". Mikker ^... 20:33, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right-o. The question, I suppose, is not whether or not she indirectly intervened in any way, but whether or not it was improperly done. Alleged, it is then. DanielDemaret 23:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Japan-Cuba game was the finals of the World Baseball Classic, an event that started a while ago. Also, I think it's somewhat strange to say "in the U.S. state of California" -- not only does almost everybody know where California is, but considering the size of the state, it's better to refer to the city (San Diego). -- Mwalcoff 01:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I've updated this accordingly to simply say "in San Diego, California". -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 01:42, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you also add the words "finals of the" before "World Baseball Classic?" Thanks -- Mwalcoff 01:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The link to Belarusian presidential election, 2006 was added to the "In the news" template late. By now the election is old news. The election occurred on March 19. Today is the 22nd. It should be removed or at least be moved down to the bottom. 172 | Talk 07:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The election may be old news, but there are ongoing protests. And since democrats everywhere are hoping for a Belarusian version of Ukraine's "Orange Revolution," I think the item should stay. (though, as you suggest, it shouldn't be in first spot). Mikker ^... 20:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps instead a new Belarus-news to make it afresh? It is certainly a historical even in the long term, even if each and every part of the event seems small now. I'll just pick one more recent event from the list... like... this one? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4843690.stm DanielDemaret 23:26, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or this http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Leader_of_Belarusian_Opposition_arrested ?

Or perhaps this ? http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Violence%2C_arrests_end_Minsk%2C_Belarus_protests ?

The protesters have told reporters that their lives may depend on the reporters of the west staying a bit longer on them. DanielDemaret 23:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is all, thanks :) porges 08:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It says "a capital crime under Islamic law". To be more accurate it should acknowledge that it is a fiqh ruling... since fiqh is human effort to follow the Sharia... the Sharia is more of a vague concept. So, we should say "a capital crime under Afghani government fiqh ruling" or something. except... is it clear if it's codified law? It is an interpretation of sharia... and a very notable interpretation... but, saying it is sharia is... well, ambiguous. gren グレン 03:10, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's false to say he was "acquitted", i.e. "found innocent". The case was dismissed for technical reasons, no verdict was ever issued. Babajobu 15:24, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article doesn't describe anything remotely resembling an acquittal. Could an admin please fix the ITN template. Phr 20:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the wording now. Please let me know if the wording is clear now. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! It's certainly better now. I think it doesn't have to be "clear" as much as "not wrong". People wanting clarity can read the article. Phr 23:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it should (hopefully) be both. :-) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, I see the article itself is in a pretty confused state right now. I'm sure people are busily working on it and will sort it out quickly. Phr 23:11, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nominations for in the news follow specified criteria and are approved for placement by others if they have merrit. Who said World Intellectual Property Day is a holiday? After comments below:

Please stop nominating trivial fake holidays for ITN. --Golbez 09:49, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, Gregorydavid 09:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your semantic argument has no purpose, none of your recent nominations have fit the ITN criteria. --Golbez 09:40, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The item about the protests in France refers to protestors. According to dict.org the correct spelling is protester. Phr 19:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Solar eclipse on 29 March 2006 is currently on AfD. Should it stay on ITN ? Do we have a policy against featuring such articles on the MainPage ? --PFHLai 19:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If it had been on AfD before it was put there, I wouldn't have put it there. However, it seems like it will survive handily. However, it could still be confusing for it to have the large template there, but I don't think it's that too large a problem. --Golbez 21:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it "NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency" and not the other way round? As far as I know, Russia has more to do with this space launch than NASA. So why are Americans always placed first? Voyevoda 23:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because we like to see people accuse us of a pro-US bias. --Golbez 23:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More to point, that was the format I was given. However, the commander is Russian and the craft is Russian. If someone else wants to change it, I won't stop them, but I don't see a pressing requirement to. Anyway, NASA comes first in the alphabet, which could be considered the most neutral way of handling it. --Golbez 23:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt, that in cases where USA is the most involved side, the alphabetical order is followed. Voyevoda 23:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We do have that convenient "American" bit we can whip out, don't we. You are not assuming good faith. --Golbez 23:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following headline..

A newspaper critical of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra agreed to stop publishing for five days amid protests about the way it referred to the King of Thailand.

...should be...

A newspaper critical of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has agreed to stop publishing for five days amid protests about the way it referred to the King of Thailand.

No biggie, but still.  :) Nuge | ^talk 15:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On it. --Golbez 16:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The mistake came back ! Should be "agrees".

It happens so often that the newsitem concering the picture is not immediately adjacent to the pic itself. Any reason why this is? It has confused me often, and a lot of anons as well judging from the reactions. Could this be remedied?

Cheers, The Minister of War ^(Peace) 19:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A (pictured) is usually placed to clarify what the image is for, and a description should also show up when the mouse is hovered over the image. The news items are placed in reverse chronological order; I'm not sure if moving up a news item because it has an appropriate picture would be suitable. Thoughts? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that (pictured) indicates the news item which is pictured. However, in practice it is confusing nontheless. Comments such as this one are regular reoccurences on the discussion page. Apparently, the notice that something is (pictured) is not prominent enough.

I understand that, in general, we should use news items in reverse chronological order (thats what makes it news and not olds :-) ). But why hold stringently to a rule if it makes the Main Page less clear to inexperienced users?

Cheers, The Minister of War ^(Peace) 12:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Argh! Somebody correct the picture! That is not Moussaoui! The Minister of War ^(Peace) 12:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody here to correct it!? Argh! The Minister of War ^(Peace) 12:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The 'pictured' note was moved to the previous entry. Ergo, it isn't Moussaoui, but the text no longer says it is either. --CBDunkerson 12:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this was just changed [1]. It actually did say Moussaoui was pictured. The Minister of War ^(Peace) 12:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Ok, I see from the history that the changes to picture and text took place ~15 minutes apart. Hence the various comments on the mismatch. By the time I looked it was resolved by UtherSRG. --CBDunkerson 12:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An administrator needs to change this - NZSL is not yet an official language of New Zealand, at least not yet. The front page is misleading - yes, Parliament did pass the act, but it needs to recieve Royal Assent from the executive before actually becomining an offial language. I also posted something about it on the Administrators' Noticeboard. You can see more discussion NZSL's talk page, or on my talk page. Thanks, zappa 02:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just tweaked the template, changing "making..." into "to make ...". Hope it's better now. -- PFHLai 06:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The act did receive Royal Assent on Monday, so it became law on Tuesday. -- Avenue 01:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too late now. The item is no longer on ITN. -- PFHLai 20:28, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Serbia is faced with the highest level of floods waters in last 25 years as water levels of four major rivers are increasing. source 1, source2. --Pockey 20:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pls see my response on the ITN Candidates' page. -- PFHLai 00:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The 2006 Jama Masjid Blasts looks like a good candidate for Main Page. It is already listed on the Main Page of Wikinews. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pls see my response on the ITN Candidates' page. -- PFHLai 10:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why was there no mention of the Tel Aviv suicided bombing that killed 9 civilians nor mention of Hamas' refusal to condemn the act? That certainly should have made the front page. —Aiden 22:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Was there a substantial update to an article about it? ITN is not a news list, it's a list of newsworthy updates to the pedia. --Golbez 22:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

She wasn't fired for disclosing "black sites". She was fired for allegedly leaking classified information. It has not been dsiclosed what that information is. Wikipedia is reporting the speculation about what she was fired for, not the facts. --Tbeatty 16:10, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The leak pertained to stories on the CIA’s rumored secret prisons in Eastern Europe, sources told NBC. [2] Raul654 16:58, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Reportedly Mary O. McCarthy" ? If it's not certain, we shouldn't put rumours on MainPage. Perhaps the page to be updated and the link to be bolded should be black site ? -- PFHLai 17:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a rumor. The CIA won't say who it is, but a number of other sources have. Hence, "reportedly". Raul654 17:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So it's unofficial ? Hmmm... still not convinced this is ITN material.

BTW, please see ITN guideline #1 and Template talk:In the news #How to suggest a story for the main page #2, and add the blurb to Current events with 1 or 2 external newslinks. (I'm getting tired of enforcing guidelines....) -- PFHLai 18:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest you remove the loaded word of "still" (refuses to concede) from the news brief of the Italian election. BlueGoose 12:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"House of Representatives" should probably like to Nepal House of Representatives and not Parliament of Nepal, or the link to it changed. 68.39.174.238 15:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed an attempt to highlight the news item that goes with the picture. [3] I remember seeing some discussion about it, and all supportive of the general idea. But the particular implementation didn't look right to me. I suggest making a draft template and work on getting it perfected - Template:In the news/highlight. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 23:44, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above is what [4] I came up with so far, including highlighting behind the bullet point and the image. It's still not quite right to me, but something to work with. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 23:52, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• The discussion about this issue is currently on WP:VPT#In the news - pictures. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've seen the discussion there, which seems to agree on the idea (me too), but not on a particular implementation. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 19:59, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• • • Ugh. To me it looks clunky, garish, and uninspired. I must say that I'm not a fan of this proposed change. What's wrong with the current method of using (pictured)? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the news - pictures

originally from Talk:Main Page. and then copied to Village pump (proposals), where it received no additional feedback. Then copied to Village pump (technical) where it got a little more feedback but no consensus emerged. Copying here for archival.

Further to people's complaints above regarding how it is confusing at first as to which article belongs to the picture; There is a little (pictured) caption in the text so it's not a huge issue but how about somethig like this?.. (Rough mockup, it might look stupid in your browser)

...to highlight the appropriate article entry? --Monotonehell 06:30, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And maybe a thin blue border for the picture to link them better intuitively. Great idea. --Quiddity 06:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh I wanted to do that but couldn't work out the wiki-table layout >.> EDIT:messed with it a bit--Monotonehell 07:02, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me – it won't make much of a difference to the page, but if people find the current arrangement confusing, it ought to be changed – Gurch 12:09, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I'd still prefer just putting the pictured news on top. Seems like the easiest solution to me..

Still, I like your suggestion. Two questions though. Can the border on the pic be a bit larger? It took me a while to actually notice it. second, mort importantly, doesnt this makeup get messy once the news item moves more towards the bottom? The Minister of War ^(Peace) 13:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is just a QaD mockup in wiki:table markup, I imagine that the CSS for the front page could include a special element for the appropriate box somehow. So yes the border can be any thickness (I couldn't work it out in wiki markup though). It would get separated from the picture if it slid down yes. But if it were the only highlighted entry the viewer's eyes would be drawn to it more quickly than the obscured (pictured) tag. --Monotonehell 14:41, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd still support some changes to show the link between text and picture more prominently. Is this one of those things that everybody is going to agree on, but gets archived without ever being implemented? The Minister of War ^(Peace) 09:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there have been no negative reactions. How do we get this implemented? --Quiddity 18:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is better than including the pictured news bit at the top, as that maintains a sense of chronology which would otherwise be disrupted by changing stuff around. I'd say to go to MediaWiki:Monobook.css (or MediaWiki:Common.css) and ask someone that it be done. You might want someone with coding skills to make it prettier, though. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 19:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have cooked up a draft implementation of this (still imperfect) at Template_talk:In_the_news#Highlighting_item_with_picture. Let's work on perfecting this, with the way it's coded. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 23:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A couple days ago, an attempt [5] at implementing this on ITN was made (in GF). But, it appeared to me that the coding needed more work. Per WP:DISCUSS, I'd like to see the specific implementation and it's coding refined before going live on the main page. Are we going for something like the example above, with the color extending 100% across to the border? or something else. Here's a draft that I began working on (see right). Please help improve it. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 20:05, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh. The highlighted box appears clunky and garish; what's wrong with the current method of saying (pictured)? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that every few comments on the mainpage discussion are people being confused about which picture it is. Actually I'm starting to think the latest suggestion is the best; always have the topmost article corespond with the picture, if a picure isn't available just put the flag of the nation the even occured in or perhaps just put a wikinews logo. --Monotonehell 09:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The div method works nicely. (i fixed to the usual colours here, and changed the highlight colour to a shade between that of the background and border.) I really like this, except for the uneven border around the image, which only appears at the sides, not at the top/bottom. Can that be fixed? -Quiddity 20:45, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the mock-up looks crude. It's the best I could figure out without using tables, like the example at the top. The top example looks cleaner, but the markup may be more confusing for those updating ITN. My preference is to have a picture for the top story. The articles also need to be in chronological order. So maybe a flag would do, as suggested by Monotonehell. Though, a flag might not always be suitable... -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 20:58, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the part about the Great American Boycott, "continues" should be "continue". Thanks, zappa.jake (talk) 03:14, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed already. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Currently we've got this on ITN:

After significant losses in English local elections, the British Labour Party government will see a major cabinet reshuffle.

Seems to me that there are 2 major problems with the wording, it should be in the past tense as the significant part of it has now happened and I think it would be hard to argue that the government has done the reshuffling as not even Gordon Brown was involved. I propose this as the new wording:

After significant losses in English local elections, British Labour Party Prime Minister Tony Blair conducts a major cabinet reshuffle.

Ian3055 12:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been discusisng this over on Wikinews, but it seems that they do not control the Wikinews box on Wikipedia. So, I am posting this here. This is my original query and proposal:

Why do the Wikinews stories not have direct links to those stories? Clicking the Wikinews link takes you to the list of stories and I never seem to be able to find the story I am looking for. I think the bullet should link directly to the Wikinews story. I think that the logical idea that someone gets from that section is that you can read the news you are interested by clicking somewhere in that blurb, but there is nowhere to get to that story. When you go to the main page of Wikinews, you almost never can find the article you are interested. I propose that the bullet should be the link to the story.

Can this be done? Otherwise I think it is useless to have such a section on the main page. But maybe I am just being picky.

Cyferx 03:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, this isn't really supposed to be a Wikinews box. Although most people probably (quite fairly) assume that this feature exists as a handy newsfeed, it technically isn't. Rather, it's a subtly-different creature—a means of highlighting articles that concern subject matter that is, so to speak, in the news—demonstrating Wikipedia's non-paper ability to be up-to-the minute. Perhaps this could/should be made more explicit, because it's an ongoing issue in terms of a lot of items being submitted to it that don't contain substantially-updated articles. The Tom 04:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then Wikinews should be removed from the box and it should be called something other than "in the news" which immediately brings to mind that you can read that as a news story. I think it is perfectly harmless, and quite useful to have it link directly to Wikinews stories. The fact that it doesn't seems to be actually dysfunctional in this hyperlinked world. It simply isn't intuitive that you cannot read the news story that generated that mention. Cyferx 00:27, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm somewhat curious if the title Topics in the news might make the feature's significance more clear. The Tom 02:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's just yet another mine collapse. It is notable, but how many mine collapses were there this year? Plenty, I would think. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 01:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I feel that mine collapses are relatively rare compared to other disasters in the world right now. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 17:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are two periods on at the end of the second entry. Not life threatening, but a bit annoying.--72.146.173.79 02:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The current section indicates that the Sudanese government and the SLA rebels have signed a peace accord "to end the Darfur conflict." This language might mislead some readers into thinking that the peace accord in fact ends the conflict. That is not true; whether there is peace or continued conflict depends on future actions of the parties to the conflict. I suggest changing the language to something less definitive, such as "with respect to the Darfur conflict." (My suggestion is a bit awkward; but I feel that it's on the right track. Perhaps someone will come up with better wording.) -Scottwiki 23:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well caught--it had irked me, too. That said, after trying to wrap my head around potential wording for a bit, I just thought it might be better to throw a fresher news story up in its place anyway. Italy ought to get a president in four something hours, anyway. The Tom 01:00, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The High Court should not be called "Britain's High Court". It's the High Court of Justice of only England and Wales. Bastin8 17:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Legal cases are italicized. Please italicize Apple Corps. v. Apple Computer. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since there's a high probability this will be announced in a few hours, might as well be prepared: Raul654 04:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed it for now; it could be very confusing for someone who happens upon this page for accident. Also, it's been more than a few hours. --Golbez 14:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I meant what I said about a few hours - most people are saying that if Rove is to be indicted, it will be today, this very afternoon. Raul654 15:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Hm. Well, if it happens, then it's 3 reversions back. :) --Golbez 15:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ooo, Good. Dmn € Դմն 15:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

According to this - [6] - Rove was served with the indictment this morning, has already informed his superiors, and Fitzgerald will be announce sometime during the week. Raul654 01:45, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This note was on the main page, disconnected from anything about the bears:

Instead of Banks Island, Canada. It should be: North West territories, Canada. This is for the top story on the ITN. Thanks. FellowWikipedian 20:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC) Please see the discussion here.[reply]

Unknown source. -Harmil 17:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Banks Island is in the NWT, though. The Tom 18:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I copied the discussion below. FellowWikipedian 19:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated the page about this event, reflecting the fact that the bear was not in Iqaluit, Nunavut, rather the new report that is footnoted in the Wikipedia article is datelined there. The actual bear was found and shot on Banks Island, in a completely different territory (Northwest Territories) quite far away from Nunavut. Can we change this, please?--Canuckguy 17:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Current coverage [7] seems to indicate increased activity, but "not necessarily a sign that the volcano [is] erupting". I'm wondering if that's the best term to use on the top item.

There were no revelations that Hirsi Ali lied, there was just a repeat of old news that she had lied. This error was probably copied from an error on BBC. Can an admin please fix it? It should say something like 'following a report repeating old news that Hirsi Ali had lied...' or so (let a native speaker phrase it). The current phrasing is incorrect. Gerrit ^CUTEDH 20:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will make this change. If someone feels strongly I acted incorrectly, revert me. I will not take offense. ++Lar: t/c 21:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For future reference you may report errors on the main page to WP:ERRORS. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you're still looking for an image of Hirsi Ali, Image:Hirsi Ali.jpg from commons is public domain. jaco♫plane 22:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Last chromosome in human genome sequenced - CNN

This sounds worthy of a main page news piece. What do you think? --Shultz IV 17:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates next time. -- 199.71.174.100 02:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this on ITN ? It's not even the final yet ! Are we promoting tomorrow's show with some front page advertising on Wikipedia ? -- 199.71.174.100 02:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's hardly advertising, and while I might've personally been inclined to wait until the final, there's plenty of precedent and justification--the viewership numbers alone put in quasi-SuperBowl territory (well, not quite that high) and it's no different that reporting the outcome of biathalon races at the Winter Olympics or the item immediately next to it about UEFA. The Tom 02:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, who "won the semi-final" ? Armenia ? Come on. No difference ? If there is a page about the winner and the winning song, much like a page about the winning team and one about the football game, I would understand. Looks like whatever is on ITN is setting a precedence, instead. Maybe we should start including the results of every round of 2006 NBA Playoffs now ? We are almost down to the Final Four. -- 199.71.174.100 05:11, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it's on the lower end of the notability chart, but this certainly isn't as cut-and-dried as your hystrionics seem to presume. In any case, I've removed this grossly offensive content for space reasons at the moment. I'm fairly certain we ran the finals winner last year and imagine it'll happen again. The Tom 05:28, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing against the Eurovision Song Contest. I'd even support its inclusion when we have a winner. Wikipedia has surprisingly good contents about this annual event that deserve an appearance on ITN. It's not "grossly offensive". I just think it's way too early to show that on ITN right now. Armenia making the cut is not even important enough a news item to get on Current events, so there's little justification for it to be on the Main Page, methinks. I look forward to seeing a link to the winning artist's wikipage on Main Page tomorrow. -- 199.71.174.100 05:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would File:Lordi monster rock band.jpg be a better pic for ITN than File:Lordi-screen.jpg currently there ? The band, consisting of 5 members, is not a solo act. -- 199.71.174.100 06:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sad but true, first one is (was) a copyvio by an AP photographer. I killed it. --Avatar-en 09:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ooops.... and I thought everything at Wikimedia Commons would be good..... Sorry for suggesting the change. -- 199.71.174.100 11:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not even so sure about the copyright state of this one (it's a screenshot from a vidiwall). --80.171.39.124 16:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Newly-sworn-in Italian prime minister Romano Prodi labels the Iraq War a "grave mistake" and pledges to withdraw his country's troops.

"In the news mentions and links to entries of timely interest—that is, encyclopedia articles that have been updated to reflect an important current event". Has the Romano Prodi page been updated with these comments of his ? Want to read about it, but i can't find it. Cache problem again. I hope not. -- 199.71.174.100 06:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for fixing this, Pharos. -- 199.71.174.100 21:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could anyone please consider changing the Indian flag image to any of the protest images that have been added to the article Indian anti-reservation protests, 2006 (the article is in "In the news" on the main page right now). Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 12:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it was already done. --Golbez 14:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about instead of East Timor's flag, we use Image:TAG_E.jpg, which shows the Austrailian battalion deployed in the region?

It's a promotional image. I'm not sure whether we allow those on the main page. I've wikilinked the image in the message above for everyone's convenience.-gadfium 05:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The news is essentially, incorrect. Those are only preliminary estimated results. The final results will be known by the end of this week. These news say as if the referendum passed... (which is yet to be determined tomorrow morning) --HolyRomanEmperor 23:10, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By what measure are we calling this "the largest train station in Europe"?

• Train movements, Berlin approx 1600 [8], Clapham Junction more than 2000
• Travellers and visitors, Berlin 300,000 daily [9] 109.5m per annum, London Liverpool Street 141.1m per year [10]
• Platforms, havent found a figure for Berlin, but London Waterloo has 36 in use

And that is just a cursory look around the UK figures (which I'm familiar with) other locations in Europe may be able to beat these figures. Also is there any particular reason this story didn't appear at Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates? Ian3055 23:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although I'm not familiar with train stations, I would say that your stats refer to the "Most active", "Busiest", "Most number of platforms", not the "largest", which I'm guessing is purely based on the area. jaco♫plane 23:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Times of London seems to be under the impression it's the "largest in Europe" The Tom 00:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider updating ITN. Colombian presidential election, 2006 and 2006 Giro d'Italia have been waiting on Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates for quite some time. Thanks. -- 199.71.174.100 05:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about instead of the Indonesia flag we use the public domain Image:Klaten collapsed houses.jpg? It illustrates the situation much better than a flag. -- NGerda 00:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Things become too small to tell what is in the photo when displayed at the usual 100px: -- 199.71.174.100 04:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The in the news section now contains 8 entries. The suggested number is 3-5, and while that suggestion is regularly ignored, 8 is too many. The section needs to be cleared of some old news. At the very least, the Enron convictions ought to be removed, as that is old news. NoIdeaNick 21:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admittedly there was overstretch there for a bit, but since DYK flipped with On this day, there's tended to be a bit more length for the section to play with... and I'd consider that old 3-5 suggestion to be worth of revision, or potentially asking somebody who maintains OTD to consider maybe trying for a bit more length in future.

As for the Enron thing, I think that speaks to the separate issue that we had a particularly slow news week in terms of rollover. Plenty going on in the world, but not much by way of articles discussing them--I stuck up some like the Berlin train station which were admittedly a little weak but at least had an article and kept things fresh. The Java earthquake was pretty much parked at the top for upwards of two days, which is pretty unusual. FWIW, I'm rather fond of the rats up there now. Kudos to whoever posted that.

The Tom 00:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The link to “Yugoslavia” should be redirected to “Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”. – Zntrip 15:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can an admin actually update ITN sometime? --Midnighttonight 08:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your constructive criticism, we await more in the future. --Golbez 13:30, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Based on your contributions, I'm guessing you're annoyed no one's put up the Tim Selwyn story. Do try to point this out next time you're angry. Personally, I don't think I'll put it up, but other admins might think it's worthy. --Golbez 13:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sorry, I was having a bad day yesterday. --Midnighttonight 22:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Entirely fair enough, it happens to all of us. I probably was too. :) --Golbez 01:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it more likely now that he's been found guilty of sedition? --Midnighttonight 07:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could be. Propose it on the candidates page. --Golbez 19:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We (and the real media) have had this in headlines like 5 times. I'm just gonna go out on a limb and suggest we wait for actual proof this time.--Pharos 07:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The line says "# Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is killed in a Predator UAV", was he travelling in it? Lapinmies 07:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The report has been confirmed - it's definitely him. Raul654 07:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Iraqi PM made the announcement, so I've changed it from "News outlets report..." Harro5 08:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

the picture is incorrectly tagged. The US Gov released the video, but did not create it, so it's not PD. It is, on the other hand, really really strong fair use. Night Gyr 19:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a problem with putting the final World Cup match scores up, but at the bottom of the box as with other sporting events. Do we really want ITN to be headed by scores for a month? - BT 20:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

YES!! GO HOLLAND!!! er... no I agree with you that would be silly :) I would assume that we do something similar to the Winter Olympics, which would be to promote the Current sports events page prominently in this template and record all the scores there. jaco♫plane 20:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What was agreed upon on Talk:Main Page was to keep the entry short (ie, 1 line), and to update that one line with the most recent scores (thus removing old scores). If people want old results, they can look in the article. Otherwise, ITN is going to be flooded with scores. Should the title be changed to "2006 FIFA World Cup today" or "Today's 2006 FIFA World Cup" or "FIFA World Cup for May 28"? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-10 16:21

• Also, if we get a lot of entries for 1 day, we could always switch to the country codes instead of the entire country name. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-10 16:29

I Agree,, that the world cup scores are in there,, it's the biggest sporting even in the world!! --mo-- (^Talk | _#info | ) 16:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And I do not care one bit about it, so I want to be able to hide those scores using my monobook.css, and putting them into a table prevents me from doing so.  Denelson83  18:58, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To hide it, add the following to your User:YOURNAME/monobook.css file, and after saving, press CTRL+F5 to refresh the file: #worldcup { display: none; }

— BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-10 19:14

Actually, I can't seem to get it to work. I've been purging caches left and right, and it still shows up. It only disappears when I view the template page, not the main page. In the page source code for the main page, it sticks </div> right after the <div id="worldcup">. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-10 19:17

• I moved the <div> after the <br>, and now it works. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-10 19:23
  • Yep, same here. I was just about to try the same thing, but you beat me to it. :) —David Levy 19:25, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With the latest Stanley Cup revert war, I say we ditch the whole thing before it gets completely out of hand. When the finals of both of these cups are determined, go ahead and put an entry in, but until then, don't flood ITN with pointless statistics, which will only encourage every other sport to flood with their scores, claiming precedence. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 02:28

The addition of the Stanley Cup Finals scores was along the lines of disrupting Wikipedia to proving a point, which is rather petty behaviour from some editors. --Madchester 02:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It clearly wasn't my intent to make a point, it was only posting information similar to information already on the main page. All being said I'm happy with the no scores whatsoever policy on the front page, to maintain a sports npov as otherwise we could see every game being listed, even kids games -- Tawker 04:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Read the edit summaries; it wasn't meant as a point. They listed Stanley Cup mid-game scores, just as people are listing World Cup mid-game scores. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 02:37

When/where has anyone listed World Cup mid-game scores? —David Levy 03:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I saw a 0-0 score listed there for a while. What was that? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 04:30

Trinidad&Tobago drew Sweden 0-0, maybe? It was the final score, and probably the most exceptional result so far in the WC (Trinidad&Tobago playing with only 10 players in the second half). But let's wait for even bigger upsets before we consider mentioning it on the main page. Shanes 04:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now that we're having revert wars on the main page, would anyone care to explain why the World Cup scores are allowed, but Stanley Cup are not? I think it's clear neither should be allowed. Madchester (talk · contribs): don't abuse rollback; that wasn't vandalism you reverted. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 02:53

No kidding and it wasn't making a point... me and Tawker saw the world cup scores and though why not? Both major sporting events and we've put Superbowl scores in before as well as Olympic highlights... I won't revert but the use of rollback was probably not thought out and also how the heck is that disruption? I don't see how adding scrores to a template with scores already is possibly disruption. And you think that's bad behaiviour from me? Sasquatch t|c 03:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I went bold and ditched the World Cup scores. I wouldn't mind putting in the scores for the playoffs but the round robin can't possibly be included while the Stanley Cup isn't... that'd be a bad double standard. Sasquatch t|c 03:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the winners of major tournaments like the Australian Open (tennis), SuperBowl, UEFA Champions League Final, or World Series only had an ITN listing after the winner had been determined. However, these events don't have the international clout of the World Cup or the Olympics. It's really that simple.

If you look at coverage of the international media right now, the World Cup makes daily headlines; not the Stanley Cup. Just take a look at assorted media outlets like South China Morning Post, NY Times, Asahi Shimbun, Times of London, etc. The international media will report on the winner of the finals, not the winner of individual games. --Madchester 03:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the World Cup scores shouldn't be listed on the main page, but I do recognize a distinction. On top of the fact that the World Cup games are considerably more newsworthy on an international level, they also are self-contained match-ups to determine which team(s) remain in contention. Conversely, the Stanley Cup finals are a series of games played between the same two teams, with the individual games holding less importance for the either. When one of them actually wins the Stanley Cup, that will warrant an ITN entry. (The same applies to any major athletic championship.) And yes, I realize that no one has won the World Cup yet, but I'm personally willing to make this concession in the interest of diplomacy. —David Levy 03:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know it's subjective, but the World Cup is a huge global event, whereas the Stanley Cup solely involves franchises in the US and Canada as one of many professional sporting leagues' finals series. I'd say that the winners of most events equivalent in size to the Stanley Cup (eg. Superbowl, UEFA Champion's League, Cricket World Cup) usually get a mention in the ITN when decided, but the World Cup is really on the same level as the Commonwealth Games (if not the Olympics) in size and international importance/interest/newsworthiness. The Comm. Games did get similar daily results updates, and so I think it is more than acceptable to list World Cup scores (but full-time scores, not live in-game updates as someone above suggests was happening) These arejust my views. Harro5 03:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree the World Cup has much more clout than the Stanley Cup but I still will hold only the playoff should be reported. For the Commonwealth and Olympics there are so many different events to report that I can see a reason. However, the World Cup should stick with the precedent set already of just reporting the major matches (i.e. playoff games). I wouldn't object to a link to the World Cup page on in the news though. That sounds like a decent compromise. Sasquatch t|c 03:20, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Both can have their entry on ITN, when the finals are over. Until then, leave the statistics of the unimportant matches off the main page. And stop revert warring on the main page. What does having your way for 5 minutes do for the encyclopedia? Nothing. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 03:17

That's my preference as well, but I was fairly satisfied with the previous compromise. The biggest problem, as you noted, was that it seemingly opened the floodgates for any number of sports scores. —David Levy 03:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I support dropping match scores from these early WC games. It's not what ITN is meant for. If anything exceptional happens, like a really major favourit being knocked out in the group stage (leading most likely to lots of press-hoopla about it, trainers being sacked and the very early exit being a notable thing in WC history), then a line mentioning this is fine. But giving the scores for every one of the 64 WC-matches, is too much. ITN is not a news-ticker. Shanes 03:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My sentiments exactly. But if Brazil gets beat by Australia 10 to nil, put it in ITN! Sasquatch t|c 03:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. When they're in the finals, then they can get an entry. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 03:48

Oh, yes. Heh, 10-0, that would be something... But I'd say it's note worthy enough if they just beat them. It would be an event on level with the Miracle on Ice, and most likely leading to a seperate article just about the match. And in that case, I'm fine with listing it. Shanes 03:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the above kind of position is a sensible one: mention the major milestones in what is undoubtedly a major event (but only when there are udpated relevant articles. I don't think that the presumably IRC-driven decision by Sasquatch and Tawker to add the other event's scores in was a particularly clever one, like most decisions that earn on-the-spot cheers in IRC. -Splash - tk 04:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I mostly agree. But I do think it's important to point out that it is just plain silly to compare the Stanley Cup to the World Cup as some people have done. If you prefer the Stanley Cup to the World Cup, that's fine and that's your right. But the fact of the matter is, the World Cup is much more popular worldwide then the Stanley Cup and garners headliens much more. Heck I suspect many fairly educated people have never heard of the Stanley Cup (I hadn't) yet most educated people would have heard of the World Cup and in many countries, even the fairly uneducated have. Nil Einne 04:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most people have heard of bird flu, but we don't update ITN everytime a new country gets bird flu. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 04:29

I would hope that an unbiased person would see that the Stanley Cup FINALS at least can compare to a ROUND ROBIN World Cup game. There's 48 round robin games... Of course the World Cup Finals are probably one the most, if not the most, important game in international sports, but do we really want a round robin ticker? Anyways, I think the issued is settled in any case. Sasquatch t|c 04:44, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, this sure ended up as a pretty big discussion. Obviously I wasn't trying to make a point, I just saw WC scores updated in progress (from what I could tell) and to keep a npov with respect to sports I added the hockey finals. On another look I think lets banish all sports scores from the main page, wheel wars won't help anyone or anything. With respect to the rollback on the main page, don't to it - it's clearly not what rollback was intended for. I only re-added the info the once as I was in the belief that it wasn't a point and after seeing rationales I wish to note I did not touch it again (despire the famous "block threats") -- Tawker 04:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, how about this. When the finals of a major sporting event happen, we do a 1 line text entry of the fact. No scoreboards, no match by match scores (we have a portal for that) - just one text entry when the final game is won. As for it not being important, I thought the point of Wikipedia was to help spread knowledge, if someone didn't know about the Stanley cup and was interested, information is a wikilink away and the voila you would know what it is. In any case, lets make it a firm policy to post only when the grand slam is won (someone actually wins the hardware) rather than every game (I can turn on ESPN for the other anytime) -- Tawker 04:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Or, we could code a javascript ticker, with small icons for each of the teams, and logos of their chief financial supporters, with complete stats about each player, and video highlights. How does that sound? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 04:55
  • No, no, Brian, that's completely insane. ... Logos are fair use! They can't be on the front page! ;) --Golbez 05:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Forget the logos, that sounds like a great idea. We could also expand it to a CNN like ticker with such headlines as "Cat dies in Djibouti" and then build up from there. Sasquatch t|c 05:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • (ec) Well, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. What is lost in this is that the World Cup is an event several orders of magnitude more important than the Stanley Cup - a single "round robin" game caused two national holidays, and the Stanley Cup didn't do that. Also, during the Olympics, only two or three lines were shown at once. There's only three games daily at most, so there is room and precedent for doing this. And since when are we bold on the freaking Main Page? Did anyone forget the extremely long discussion to redesign it? Titoxd^(?!?) 05:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Would it be bold to remove the Main Page? — ceejayoz ^talk 05:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • well... Titoxd^(?!?) 05:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • And how do you decide what can have a ticker and what can't? Why don't we have tickers for The Ashes and the Rugby World Cup and the entire NFL playoffs and the... Then we really are at Brian's idea. Sasquatch t|c 05:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well with respect to Titoxd, its rather hard to have a national holiday on a weekend, I think the big issues is having a sports ticker a la ESPN, which I think overall consensus is not to do. I'm not saying the World Cup isn't important (heck, my TV has been on for the last 4 hours watching it) but it does raise the whole what sports are important enough for the main page argument. I'd rather avoid the full thing and have a no scores on the main page policy, and do as I posted above, a text line when hardware is won -- Tawker 05:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this thus far in the midst of this whole debate, but I think everyone's forgetting rule number one, though... these are supposed to be links to recently-updated articles. For the Olympics, there tended to be articles like Canada at the 2006 Winter Olympics and Alpine skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics which the updates from ITN were drawn from, and the items from ITN comprised a relatively prominent piece of information in those articles. England national football team is not likely to be notably modified as a result of a round-robin game. (For that matter Edmonton Oilers is likewise unlikely to see a major modification as a result of winning game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals.) Outcomes from final matches in major leagues (Superbowl, English Premiership, Stanley Cup etc.) and things like The Ashes are notable enough to treat as garden variety news entries after the fact. In contrast to that, the Olympic subheading make sense as a distinct running section. I was somewhat meh on the Commonwealth Games section we ran, but oh well, under the bridge. The World Cup in principle deserves equal billing to the Olympics (and, FWIW, as a hockey fan, I'd still put WC round-robin matches considerably ahead in importance over NHL games). But Wikipedia is not SportsCentre, and unless the section has a distinct encylopedic spin on it, that is to say it broadly meets the same standards as the rest of ITN, I say leave them out until we actually get to events that have a substantial impact on the FIFA world cup article, like the finals and semi-finals. The Tom 05:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's the general consensus on this issue now. Sasquatch t|c 06:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I was under the impression that the 2006 FIFA World Cup article was going to be updated with detailed accounts of the individual games (not merely the scores themselves). I was very disappointed to learn that this was not the case. ITN really shouldn't be a news/sports ticker, as this runs contrary to the basic nature of Wikipedia. —David Levy 14:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the primary issue here is that it's really bad to change back and forth. Inconsistencies on the front page just gives wikipedia a bad name. Once the scores were up, they should have stayed up. Perhaps they shouldn't have been there in the first place, but that should have been discussed before posting them in the first place. As the world cup is followed by a huge number of people, you can be sure that a large number of people discovered that they could see the score on the main page of wikipedia. And now? It just enforces an image of unreliability. --Denoir 07:12, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You guys don't get it. Had you checked other languages of Wikipedia you would find that their contributers neither debated the existence of a scoreboard on the front page, nor thought about debating the existence of a scoreboard on the front page. Perhaps it is because of an ignorant North American notion that the only sports that exist are the major leagues of baseball, American football, basketball, and Hockey. Shocking results from a survey find 1 in 7 Americans know that their team has made it to this prestigious international competition. The root of this debate, really, stems from the problem that Wikipedia's English edition has a major American background, which is why I call on the British contributors to Wikipedia to really speak up. Let's remind ourselves that Commonwealth Games results were posted on the main page, as were Olympic results, on a day-by-day basis. The World Cup receives a greater audience than the Olympics, Google has made the World Cup one of the two sporting events that it is willing to change its logo for, and almost every notable TV network in the world (even the American ones) have special World Cup tabs, predominantly very visible on the main page. Apparently a little box for the world cup is too much of an eyeful on the main page of Wikipedia, while over 2 billion watch on around the globe.

I will not revert any changes, by the way, as I am not liscenced to. Just giving some food for thought. --Colipon+(T) 07:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, this must be the fault of those ignorant, arrogant Americans. It couldn't possibly stem from the fact that the World Cup scores fail to meet ITN's basic inclusion criteria. Yep, we Americans are all biased in favor of the Commonwealth Games, despite the fact that we don't participate.

I went out of my way to attempt to accommodate the World Cup fans (despite knowing that those scores didn't actually belong on the main page). Having now seen my country assailed by more than one editor, I regret having expended the effort. This was a concession (not an entitlement), and it appears to have done more harm than good. —David Levy 14:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Biggest sporting event there is which is dominating the news and people here won't accept a one line list of results? Pathetic, tbh. violet/riga (t) 11:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If this were Wikinews, I would agree. —David Levy 14:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there are well updated wikipedia articles, I would agree. Just the score, no, that's pathetically too little updating. There should be at least a brief game summary before ITN can be considered. -- 64.229.204.49 14:44, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. With so many editors stressing the importance of these matches, I assumed that someone would actually document them in a substantive, encyclopedic manner. I was mistaken. —David Levy 16:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about adding this:

The current sports events page could use the extra promotion, and it's a god place to keep track of the scores. jaco♫plane 11:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting suggestion. I wasn't aware of the Current sports events page being this good, don't think I've ever read it actually. So, I agree that it could do with some promotion and it wouldn't hurt to try your idea out. There's of course the danger of people then wanting other current sub-pages listed. But I can't find any of them being this timely and frequently updated. Shanes 11:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If we had results from the Olympics, on ITN, we should have results from the World Cup, which is arguably a bigger sporting event than the Olympics. This is considerably larger than the Stanley Cup, surely, which is mostly cared about by people in Canada (OK, and some parts of the US. But I think most of us Americans care about the NHL only slightly more than we care about the World Cup). john k 11:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! About the 2006 NBA Finals? Surely that is big news too, especially in places when football and hockey are not the biggest games. Circa 1900 12:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so how about this:

Current sports events:

• The 2006 FIFA World Cup begins in Germany;
• 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs - Carolina Hurricanes vs. Edmonton Oilers;
• 2006 NBA Finals - Dallas Mavericks vs. Miami Heat

jaco♫plane 13:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The NBA & NHL playoffs started weeks ago. Don't bring them up now. Wait till we have a champion, then put that on ITN. If there are more pages to update and showcase, put them on ITN. ITN is NOT a place to report news happenings, but a place to showcase Wikipedia's updatedness. Roll back a few months of edit history and you'll see that not every sports got on ITN during the Winter Olympics. Only those with updated articles (the sports, the results page, and the gold medalist's bio, etc.) got featured. 2006 FIFA World Cup doesn't belong to ITN anymore because the amount of update after each game is so minimal -- just the score, I get more from the ticker on a PDA. However, the final of the 2006 French Open should be on ITN. Justine Henin-Hardenne winning the Women's Singles title can be posted now, and whoever winning on the men's side (Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal) can be posted later today, esp if Nadal keeps his winning streak on clay going. 64.229.207.10 13:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC) [Don't mention Nadal's streak on ITN, though. Just the final score. -- 64.229.204.49 14:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)][reply]

Let's not forget the trick pool, dodgeball, and poker results! Or we could just keep sports off the main page, since this is an encyclopedia after all. I doubt Britannica's employees fight to get the World Cup on their main page, simply because they like to watch the World Cup in their free time. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 14:11

Britannica? You mean that one with a large featured article all about the World Cup? Hmm. violet/riga (t) 19:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FIFA World Cup was our featured article this past Thursday, and it will be remain linked from the main page through today. —David Levy 19:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't "censor" sports off ITN, I'd say. It's an important part of human culture. The issue is "major-ness". Grand Slam (tennis) final results should qualify. So do the final winner of the FIFA World Cup, the NHL playoffs, the NBA playoffs, .... these major events are in the news, so they should be on In the news. But "trick pool, dodgeball, and poker" ? Probably not. There aren't good wikipedia pages about these "sports" to update and then showcase on ITN, anyway. -- 64.229.204.49 14:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC) & 14:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is an encyclopedia, not ESPN. Jacoplane is already up to 3 lines of this nonsense, eventually it will hit 4 or 5, and outweigh the news entries about matters that are actually important. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 14:33

Hmm, I did't edit the template because I didn't want to continue the edit war. Ohh well, I tried to suggest a compromise, I'm done if I'm just getting accused of saying nonsense. If the world cup is not included in "matters that are actually important" but Justin Gatlin tying the 100M World record or small event in the winter olympics is then I just don't know. jaco♫plane 15:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And adding Current sports events to the Main Page is not a good idea. References (external newslinks) there are almost always missing. --64.229.204.49 14:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can I just say, I found those score really useful - I just logged on now to find out the result of the Holland game, and it's not there. I'll go elsewhere to find out the news, and needless to say, I won't be looking at the articles here to see the current tables - future matches, and team make-up - in stark contrast to yesterday when I discovered the richness of our World Cup pages. I firmly believe the inclusion of Stanley Cup results was as some sort of protest, and not as an attempt to improve Wikipedia. It is entirely justifiable to put up world cup scores - the average viewing figures for each match last time was over 350 million - more than the population of Canada and the United States put together. As for the Stanley Cup - I literally had to click on the article to find out what it is. Dmn € Դմն 15:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it doesn't make it much more difficult to look up the articles. However, the inclusion of the Stanley Cup did come at an interesting time since it provided the perfect "slippery slope" argument that was needed to get the World Cup off the front page. jaco♫plane 15:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, and I'm inclined to believe that this was precisely the intended effect. I approve of the outcome, but I don't condone the means. —David Levy 16:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the umptheen time, I wasn't trying to make a point when I posted the score, I was only following the example already provided in the WC scores. Looking at the arguments in here, the no score policy does make more sense, but I'm starting to sound like a broken iPod saying that I wasn't trying to make a point! -- Tawker 18:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might not have viewed your action in this light, but your motive obviously was comparable. You know perfectly well that ITN is not a live news/sports ticker, and I seriously doubt that you were oblivious to the unconventionality and controversy of the World Cup subsection. At best, your decision to add the Stanley Cup score (while the game was ongoing, no less) was based upon an attitude along the lines of "two wrongs make a right." ("The World Cup scores shouldn't be listed on the main page, but if they're going to be, the Stanley Cup score should be there too!") —David Levy 18:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the World Cup is one of the biggest sports events, watched by billions, not including it is farcical. There is no logic however in including local sports events. BTW what the heck is the Stanley Cup? How is it comparible to the world's biggest sports event at the moment? FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Not including it"? It's right there, despite the fact that we usually don't add entries pertaining to athletic tournaments/championships until their conclusion. —David Levy 16:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just went to the wikipedia homepage to check todays world cup scores and was disappointed to find them not there. Now ive skimmed the talk page (sorry if ive missed out on anything ive skimmed over) and thought id add my opinion as the current consensus seems to be slightly biased in my opinion .I know its all perspective but an estimated 1.5 billion people (according to bbc live coverage) are said to have watched the opening world cup game worldwide. Although I coming from a European viewpoint ive never heard of the Stanley playoff and im sure less than 1.5 billion people worldwide have, forget about watched it. The Olympics always get a mention and to many around the world (including many English speaking countries) the world cup is the most important sports event bar none. Contemplating putting the Stanley playoff on the same level as the world cup or even to suggest the Olympics is more important seems slightly biased to me. Just my point of view. 137.222.10.67 15:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But then again, Wikipedia has to have a NPOV - it's international and really it comes down to an all or nothing policy. We can't add one section while ignoring another as it does make it seem like we have a bias. Once we start adding one score it does start to lead to a pandora's box, what is to prevent every single game in existance from being put on the main page, with Wikipedia's international reach we'd likely have more scores than ESPN can report in a day. -- Tawker 18:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're misinterpreting NPOV. We balance things, but that doesn't mean equal weight, and something that is clearly more important gets more space than something clearly less important. The finals (remember that this is the finals already) of the top international competition of the world's top sport, or the regional finals for one of the world's more minor sports? Equal billing would actually be contrary to NPOV. TheGrappler 21:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is Wikipedia.

Why are so many people—including some sysops—under the impression that the purpose of ITN is to report news headlines, irrespective of whether they pertain to major article revisions?

No one is disputing the World Cup scores' newsworthiness, but this is not a news site. —David Levy 16:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The basic idea with ITN is to provide encyclopedic coverage of things reported in the news. Basically when the news is "Togo invades Canada" people can learn about Togo, Canada and the background of the conflict. The point being providing background information, rather than reporting news. So from that point of view just reporting the scores of a sports event has no place there.

However, even if there isn't an extensive article for each match, there is one for each country. This suits quite well in an encyclopedia as it spreads knowledge. Frankly, given the popularity of the world cup, we're missing a great chance here for people to learn more about the history, geography, demographics etc of the many countries participating. --Denoir 17:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you honestly believe that people desiring to read about nations other than their own will fail to do so until presented with the countries' names in the context of a sports score? Likewise, do you believe that people without such a pre-existing interest will suddenly be compelled to educate themselves?

Regardless, we weren't even linking to the countries' articles; we were linking to those of the football teams, all but one of which were not sufficiently updated. —David Levy 17:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In ansswer to David Levys question, I only clicked on the World Cup pages and indeed Paraguay's team, only after clicking on the links on the front page - yes. Dmn € Դմն 17:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't what I asked. Denoir referred to the countries themselves, not their national football teams. —David Levy 18:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When I was watching Ecuador-Poland in a bar, a lot of people were trying to figure out where exactly Ecuador was - dialing to look it up on their cell phones, and such. This is, I think, a common thing for people to do in such situations. john k 18:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There were major article revisions, just take a look at England national football team. There was a lot of activity while it was on the front page, when it was removed the editing slowed. The point is not having the scores, it is featuring the articles on the countries. Those are the articles being linked to, the scores are just complementary. jaco♫plane 17:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You've cited the one team article that was updated with more than a few sentences about the game. Most of them weren't even updated to that extent (with some actually lacking past-tense references). —David Levy 17:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually that wasn't the only article to be updated substantially while being on the main page. Côte d'Ivoire, Trinidad & Tobago, etc. I just picked England as an example. jaco♫plane 17:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In Côte d'Ivoire national football team, I count three sentences pertaining to the result of the game. In Trinidad and Tobago national football team, I count one. —David Levy 17:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the article on Justin Gatlin, which was featured on the main page for over five days, there were also only three sentences related to the event added to the article. Why were such objections not raised then? But fine, if this is the standard we're going to have, then I hope we'll also keep the same standard moving forward, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. This discussion and its outcome will definitely be brought up then. jaco♫plane 18:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're absolutely right. The section was misused during the Olympics, and this should be prevented in the future. —David Levy 18:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, I'm all for keeping "In the news" for what it is now... Again, if the World Cup is allowed... what about updating every single point in Wimbledon matches? Sasquatch t|c 18:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But we're not keeping the scores updated goal for goal - it's done at the end of the match. How do people fail to understand that? violet/riga (t) 19:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Do you honestly believe that people desiring to read about nations other than their own will fail to do so until presented with the countries' names in the context of a sports score? Likewise, do you believe that people without such a pre-existing interest will suddenly be compelled to educate themselves? Regardless, we weren't even linking to the countries' articles; we were linking to those of the football teams, all but one of which were not sufficiently updated."

People want inspirations and suggestions to what to learn and explore. Have you never wandered off on wikipedia, starting on one topic and ending up somewhere completely different? The associative hyperlinked exploration model is what makes wikipedia so great. --Denoir 18:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but there are better ways to bring countries to people's attention. We weren't even linking to their articles. —David Levy 19:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, ITN is not there to show updated articles. We have "Recent changes" for that. It's to provide an convenient entry point to articles that are assumed to be widely requested as they have been presented in the news. --Denoir 18:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. Both of the above criteria apply. Quoth the template's description:

"In the news mentions and links to entries of timely interest—that is, encyclopedia articles that have been updated to reflect an important current event—rather than conventional news items."

—David Levy 19:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I said above, billions of people are watching the games, yet a few people here think that they shouldn't be linked? Far more people will be wanting to visit the related articles than "Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa is elected President of the 61st United Nations General Assembly". Those of you arguing against it are showing a clear bias and misunderstanding of the ITN section. violet/riga (t) 19:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I said above, billions of people are watching the games, yet a few people here think that they shouldn't be linked?

The article is linked, despite the fact that we usually wait until an athletic tournament/championship's conclusion.

Far more people will be wanting to visit the related articles than "Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa is elected President of the 61st United Nations General Assembly".

What's stopping them?

Those of you arguing against it are showing a clear bias and misunderstanding of the ITN section.

You seem to be projecting. I won't, however, refer to you as an idiot (as you did in your edit summary). —David Levy 19:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The biggest news story needs coverage on our front page. Either that, or scrap ITN. Guettarda 19:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, an entry for the 2006 FIFA World Cup is present. —David Levy 19:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about "The section was misused during the Olympics" - does previous practice in fact suggest that the function of ITN has moved on a little, to be more flexible around the very most important sporting occasions? Remember that all rules are for interpretation, and that previous practice may be a better guide than written rules and could establish new conventions. At any rate, there are three pages that should be updated with each match - the two national team pages, and the main World Cup scores page itself - and all should be linked to. It is also inaccurate to say that simply the score is reproduced there - unlike ITN, vital details of scorers and timings are added. As for "I would hope that an unbiased person would see that the Stanley Cup FINALS at least can compare to a ROUND ROBIN World Cup game" - I suspect that if this is the attitude here, no wonder the non-North American editors are frustrated! The Stanley Cup is a local (albeit high class) competition in a globally minor sport. The vast majority of people on this planet have never even heard of it. I suspect most have never even heard of the sport! The World Cup is the top competition in a sport which is top in virtually every country, with only a handful of anomalies. The majority of the world's population is watching it, indeed, are absolutely passionate about it. I fear what editors are failing to understand here is that for most countries, their round robin World Cup games are their own Superbowl equivalents - or even bigger. Little unites a country like the World Cup. I can't walk down my road without seeing houses draped in flags, and autos with flags waving from the rooves. Almost all the people I see in the street are in replica football kits. The newspapers (even the "quality" ones), radio and TV are just non-stop World Cup coverage. Every game my country plays is a national sensation - and will be in the other country as well. The passion is awe-inspiring. You could tell who has won or lost just by looking at people's faces the next day - or the fact that you're kept up late by the noise of the parties when there's a win. Culturally, socially, and in the media, this is the biggest thing for four years. It's huge - for a North American equivalent, try to imagine the passion there is when you support your local team in the play-offs (for instance, in the Stanley Cup... the Bosox and the World Series spring to mind too) and scale it up to an entire country. Then scale that up to all the different countries in the World Cup. Then add the hundreds of millions in other countries just tuning in out of their passion for football. These round robin games are in no sense "minor" - remember that the qualification series is very tough (and causes genuine heartbreak and misery, as well as rioting). So if a country gets through to the World Cup finals (i.e. the tournament happening now), that is the sporting highlight for four years for the entire country (USA excepted). Since many will be going home after the group stage, these round robin games are critical and all the fans know it.

If you need a rule to decide which sporting events deserve a bottom section in ITN, how about this: any multinational sporting event lasting between one and five weeks which more than one billion people will watch and which has a series of updated articles deserves a separate section with the most important recent results listed? The Commonwealth Games and Winter Olympics were frankly marginal candidates, the Stanley Cup absurd (unless you want to add the Bundesliga, FA Premiership, La Liga, Serie A, J-League, ... all bigger in their respective countries!), the Rugby World Cup extremely marginal, the Cricket World Cup probably has a three stage competition so likely only last two would be covered in depth, but as for the Summer Olympics and The World Cup (heck, in 95% of countries there's no need at all to say which sport it is...) they are surely no-brainers. Not including the World Cup but including the Summer and Winter Olympics definitely gives the impression of a serious North American bias, whether that's true or false. Sincerely, a football-sick football-hater, TheGrappler 19:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. This is not a news site. You're far from the first person to note the World Cup's immense popularity (which I've yet to see anyone attempt to refute), but this alone does not satisfy our criteria for inclusion in ITN.

2. You specified the "three pages that should be updated with each match." A big part of the problem is that they usually aren't being updated to any reasonable extent. Some of the linked national football team articles didn't even contain references to the matches' outcomes! If we aren't directing our readers to reasonably comprehensive, encyclopedic information about the games, we're simply reporting the scores. That isn't what Wikipedia is for. —David Levy 19:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your response. As for (1), we may not be a news site, but "this alone does not satisfy our criteria for inclusion in ITN" is precisely what I was disputing. I think the criteria are actually more flexible than the current version of the "written rules" (remember, even the rules are wiki). Past practice suggests we should have World Cup coverage - there seems to be a convention, additional to the underlying rules. "Wikipedia is not a news site" means "Wikipedia is not primarily a place for the reporting of news, but articles should be kept updated with current events". ITN is a knock-on result from that: it showcases articles affected in that way. I think we can all agree on this. However, the style of ITN is to report items in a newsfeed type manner, linking to the appropriately updated articles. So "Wikipedia is not a news site" is not a killer argument that automatically trumps all other arguments. The question is really: "to what degree of detail should ITN go into on current events" in this case, the leading sporting event in particular. "U.S. and Iraqi officials confirm that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, has been killed in Diyala." is a good example of a newsfeed type item: it doesn't link to a story about Zarqawi's death, but rather an updated article about Zarqawi. So, half-line entry for "Mexico 3-1 Iran", linking not to a match report but instead to the Mexico and Iran football team pages and (perhaps linked via the scoreline) to the appropriate Group section of the World Cup article (which certainly is updated, and would be the main article in point) seems valid in the same way. Would it make a difference if different groups had their own pages rather than being subsections of one page? Then the link for the "most relevant updated page" could go to that one. But in principle I can't see why it should matter whether it is a page or a subsection of a (large) page that is being linked to... at any rate, WP:NOT is not the trump rule here, we must consider carefully and sensitively how we apply it, and at what degree coverage of (I apologise for reiterating) what is for millions of people the biggest thing for 4 years counts as encyclopedic or news-based. Keeping for an entire month "The 2006 FIFA World Cup continues in Germany" on ITR would be silly (after all, why not keep the ITR byline updated?) and removing it from ITR altogether would just be crazy (we have an article, kept updated, about what is likely to be the world's leading news story for the next month... at the very least something needs to be on ITR). Rather than keeping it static, or attempting to summarise key recent developments (virtually impossible - although there may be a few shock results, in the main, different countries have completely different media focuses during the World Cup), a line of the most recent scores (and there are only a few a day) seems sensible, at least until teams start to go through or be eliminated and that could be mentioned. (2) Like I said, the main page for the World Cup is split into different sections for the different groups. At the very least these are kept updated and could be linked to using "#". TheGrappler 20:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. If you believe that ITN's scope should be broadened, that certainly is a reasonable change to propose. It must, however, apply to all newsworthy events (not merely the World Cup). Some have cited the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games as precedents, but I don't believe that we should be bound by past decisions (which may have been incorrect).

2. I'm not suggesting that every entry should have a dedicated article. One of my main objections is that most of the updates in question are not nearly comprehensive enough. Whether in separate articles or combined into a single article, I was under the impression that users were going to contribute detailed accounts of each match (similar to what was written about Super Bowl XL before and during its ITN listing). Updated scores/standings simply aren't sufficient. —David Levy 20:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My main problem is still why are they coming to Wikipedia as their World Cup update source? I see no need for it. Surely if it's so popular, you would a) know the scores already though another site and b) know that we already have a 2006 FIFA World Cup article. In the news was never meant to be and should never be a sports ticker for any event. It's for all aspects of news. And I think the compromise is fair as not ALL world cup games are newsworthy. However, should a major upset happen, I'm sure it will be put it right away (e.g. Australia defeats Brazil). Otherwise, I see no point. We already recognise the World Cup. Sasquatch t|c 20:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily to use WP as a primary news source! The super-simple answer is that for most people want to see the appropriate Wikipedia articles/article sections for more details and see how they have changed. In other words, using ITN for precisely what it is intended for. As for "not ALL world cup games are newsworthy" that depends entirely on where you are - each is extremely newsworthy somewhere! In the two countries where the game is played (the USA might be the exception again) especially. Even if Brazil beat Australia - a completely expected result - it will still be the headlines in two (large) countries, not to mention that it will be the biggest game that Australia have ever played, and be remembered by Aussie soccer fans until they die. Newsworthiness is all relative; but there's no doubt that the World Cup is internationally newsworthy. And there's no doubt that there are articles being updated about it. So prima facie there is a case for ITN inclusion. Rather than attempting to summarize a couple of days worth of activity in a paragraph update to ITN, a simple set of appropriately linked scorelines at the bottom is likely to be the most globally balanced, neutral, concise way of covering it. As for "In the news was never meant to be and should never be a sports ticker for any event. It's for all aspects of news", this seems to miss the point. Nobody wants the World Cup to take over ITN despite the fact it is the world's largest news and media story. ITN would still remain the place for all aspects of news. Sticking the rather more "trivial" World Cup in a separate section at the bottom would probably prevent ITN from becoming football-dominated (you are stepping on seriously dangerous territory if you want an update for newsworthy upsets for instance!) TheGrappler 21:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really do see where you are coming from, and hope I haven't been misrepresenting you. (1) "If you believe that ITN's scope should be broadened": I think it already has been and that the written instructions do not necessarily reflect this. This is a wiki: therefore maybe the rules should change? I'm not talking about being bound by precedents (which indeed may be incorrect) but the way to determine whether they are correct or not isn't to compare them to a particular written version of the rules that these precedents themselves evolved out of. What is important is to have a constructive discussion and try to attempt to build consensus. As for "It must, however, apply to all newsworthy events (not merely the World Cup)": I certainly haven't proposed a "World Cup Exemption". But we do need to think about the way we handle major multinational sporting tournaments. They are certainly different to other types of current events, with a series of individual sub-events (in this case, matches) proceeding to a fixed schedule that lasts several weeks. ITN has to handle such tournaments in a different way to other items: having a subsection at the bottom has been the most workable method found so far. The question is when to insert one. We need to think carefully about that; having said that, if we are ever going to do it, we have to do it for the Summer Olympics and The World Cup. Everything else is on a far lower order of magnitude. (2) Exactly right about dedicated articles - and sufficiency of changes means it's all a matter of degree. "Most of the updates in question are not nearly comprehensive enough" depends what you mean. Individual match reports can be messy, excessive and incredibly difficult to meet NPOV and verifiability standards - the extra raw figures given in the match summaries on the World Cup page seem sufficient to me. They may not seem sufficient to you. (We should not expect big changes in national football team pages - remember that they have often played thousands of international matches, it would be recentism to completely change them based on one game!). It is also true that many ITN items only change by a small amount due to the newsworthy event that brought them to ITN. Again, we need to develop a standard for this, and I fear you are ticking people off by saying, effectively, "WP:NOT therefore I win". It's a question of how to apply WP:NOT, and there may be consensus that there is a sufficient level of detail for individual matches. Remember, they only take up half a line or so each ("Mexico 3-1 Iran" could be placed next to another result) and there are several of them. The World Cup is, at this stage of competition, a many-headed monster of a tournament, lacking central focus, yet the event as a whole is huge. Would it not, therefore, be sensible and reasonable to group all the scores in a bottom subsection, appropriately linked, so we have several links to a whole range of articles/subsections which have changed? And to accept that this may be equivalent to linking to a single article which has changed more substantially, as we would do for a normal news story which has a more central focus? This multi-headedness is a feature of multinational sporting tournaments and is one of the key reasons the Olympics and Commonwealth Games were handled in the way they were. TheGrappler 21:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've readded them. I think more people on this talk page want their inclusion than not - they seemed to have been removed in haste, and should be removed only if more people object. Dmn € Դմն 21:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From reading above I'd have to disagree, consensus seems to be not to turn ITN into a sports ticker. I have no problems with text entries on major major games (someone advances from a group to the finals or wins some hardware) but a full on ticker is clearly not what we have a consensus for -- Tawker 00:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've also added a link to the world cup article, I think that works better -- Tawker 00:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that i would prefer that we just put a link to the relevnt page (like now) for major spoting events, thos prevents us become a sports ticker but allows pepole intrested to head over there. Also rember wikipedia is an encyclopedia, wikinews the sister site is specifiically setup for this kind of thing. Benon 00:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a news site. If you're turning to the front page of an encyclopedia to read the latest news headlines, you're on the wrong site. But current events and background articles about them are of interest to many people, and the In The News section on the main page tries to accommodate this by listing a few major news-events and link to encyclopedic articles about them. But it's very short, so: How about an "In The News" portal? No, not wikinews. Not a portal meant to be a news source or even be very up to date with the latest news. We're still only an encyclopedia. But a portal where we colect short blurbs and links to articles about people and events that are currently in the news.

It could have its "featured article" equivalent which for instance these days could be the FIFA World Cup, an excellent article that give lots of background information about the world cup. Then there could be a "politics" box where we list headlines and links to encyclopedia articles giving background information on current elections, people and politics issues that are currently widely reported on in the media. A sports section would also be appropriate here, these days linking to the articles on, say, the Stanley cup, French open, the 2006 World Cup, and so on. And we could have a recent deaths section. A "did you know" equivalent could contain trivia about current events with links to the articles containing them.

I repeat, this should not be anything like wikinews. We would just include blurbs from and links to good background articles on current and maybe upcoming events. We could put up a blurb on, say, the United States Senate election, 2006 many weeks before the election date, maybe in an "upcoming events" section in the portal. For people who like to get background information on upcoming events early.

Is this a good or bad idea? I know this is not the place to suggest new portals (Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals is), but I thought I'd get comments here first. Shanes 16:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Why not just use the Sports portal for this? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-06-11 18:26

I'd much rather all portals were deleted frankly, I can't stand them. Dmn € Դմն 18:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• • The reason not to use the Sports portal is that the sports portal should cover sport, in a similar way to how the history portal covers history. Most portals have a small "topic-specific ITN" section but this is a proposal for a more extensive "current events" thing. I really, really like the idea - so long as it's not used a substitute for putting things on the main ITN that do deserve to be there :) TheGrappler 19:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• We have Wikinews and we have Current Events - where would this diverge? --Golbez 19:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It wouldn't be like wikinews. Wikinews is about writing news reports when they happen and having its main page link to those reports. Like the news site it is. An ITN-portal would offer short blurbs and links to already established articles about topics that are currently in the news and for that reason interests many people. Think of it more like an indepth weekly magazine than a daily news paper. A portal about one would say that "If you read the Wikipedia In the News portal and the indepth articles it links to, you're well prepered to talk about current events in any dinner party." To say it abit snobbish. Maybe "Behind the news" would be a better name. Shanes 20:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • To illustrate it with an example: If a politician had to take a leave because of an illness, then it's not that fact that people will turn to Wikipedia to read about. They already know that from reading or watching the news. But they would like to learn more about that particular illness. What is the recovery rate, is it lethal, how many suffers from it, and so on. And we would already have an article about it written, and it's here that we beat every news site hands down. Shanes 21:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can see the point and I think it certainly falls within Wikipedia's remit; "Portal:Behind the news" sounds a little more magazine than encyclopedia though. Not sure quite what to suggest as an alternative... TheGrappler 21:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am annoyed to see comments like "...We could also show the Stanley cup results then..". The FIFA World Cup has become the biggest media-event in the world approx. in the last 10 years, based upon the number of people watching it on television; that means there is a huge interest all across the globe. And because it has such a global effect, I don't understand why the Wikipedia does not show direct results on their main page (at least of the most recent game) and I am thus proposing to recognize its importance by including results in the news section at the top-right as it has been done before.

ITN is not a news ticker. Wikinews is much better suited for that. Its fine to have a link to the world cup, but the live scores is not the purpose of wikipedia. pschemp | talk 00:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These daily reversions for and against the World Cup scores are getting rather ridiculous. The fact is both sides have valid arguments, and you can't really say that one side is more "correct" than one another. Personally I don't like how editors are taking sides when these edit wars are not conducive to Wikipedia's daily operations.

I would suggest a simple coin flip to decide whether the scores stay or not. It's a rather standard procedure for dispute resolution. This is probably the best way to resolve the matter once and for all. --Madchester 00:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My major problem with the coin flipping is that it does not set any precedent. There are going to be a lot of fairly pee-d off people if the next Olympics or similar has results featured on the main page, and rightly so. Nonetheless, I see that the scores have been removed, so I assume the 'coin' has already been flipped. This is a mistake, and I frankly doubt if it is a true and fair reflection of consensus. Nevertheless, so it goes- so long as this rule is fairly applied the next time. Badgerpatrol 01:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]