Talk:Current events/Archive 4

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Contents

Wiki News

1. Wikipedia currently does an admirable job in providing current events news.

2. Providing unbiased news is a very difficult job, as demonstrated by mass media's almost complete failure to do so.

and

3. The energy going into creating this Current Events page could be used on making the encyclopedia better.

4. Wikipedia attracts encyclopedia writers, whereas a dedicated news wiki would attract news writers.

therefore

5. An independent news wiki should be created.

6. This news wiki could be syndicated via RSS on wikipedia. From the user's perspective, everything will be the same, but the infrastructure will be better.

Thoughts?

My first thought is "yes."
But I have also been thinking about the differences between the news and an encyclopedia. I think Wikipedia has proven that the latter is well-suited to Wiki-ness. I'm not sure about news, though. Wiki makes for easy, easy editing and revision, and that's not something one necessarily wants in the news. A historical record of unaltered past news is important, whether that news is correct or not. It's difficult for me to see how that could be made to work in a Wiki context. I don't think it'd be impossible, just difficult.
Those are my thoughts. —LarryGilbert 15:57, 2004 Apr 2 (UTC)

Bulgarian

Is anyone else seeing the word "Bulgarian" (in Bulgarian) at the top of the page as a bit messed up? In the place where I'm expecting to see some sort of "u", there's a capital A with tilde followed by a ¼ sign. Anyone know how to fix it? Is it something fixable in Wikipedia or is it just me? :-) —LarryGilbert 01:30, 2004 Mar 6 (UTC)

I'm seeing this as well. — Cyrius 03:28, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)
This is a problem only in ISO-8859-1 encoded wikipedias. We are expected to view the letter u umlaut (ü). I think it is entered as a char, not as an escape sequence, therefore the browsers can't show it properly in ISO-8859-1 encoding. I am a bulgarian and as far as I know the official transliteration of the native language name is "Balgarski". I have no idea why ü is used instead of a. --Borislav 14:33, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
68.167.249.57 00:45, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC): See Wikipedia talk:Interlanguage links#Balgarski not (Bülgarski) for further discussion, particularly the bug filed in SourceForge.

Naming sources

Would it be possible for external links to well-known sources to be marked as such? eg a link to a BBC article to be shown as (BBC) rather than the rather cryptic [1]? (It would be nice if the parentheses could be square brackets, but it appears not to be possible.) --Phil 16:37, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me, shouldn't take up too much room. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:30, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That's a fantastic idea - it looks good, it immediately shows what a source is for those wary of bias. For March 7th I identified the Vasaloppet press release as "(press release)". - David Gerard 13:11, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)
It also has the effect of showing where we rely on to get reports in a very visible way. I expect it to help spread around our sources a bit. A row of (BBC)s (good thought the stable URL, advertising-free BBC site is) is not as pleasing as a mix of sources from all over the place. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:22, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That string of "(BBC)" is exactly what I was thinking of. Also makes partisan sites like palestine-info.co.uk bloody obvious. About to finish March, anyone feel like working through past months? - David Gerard 14:04, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)
I've tagged Feb 15-29, but am out of steam. Someone else's turn? - Korath 01:19, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Still true

We should add a "still true" section to Wikipedia. I was listening to NPR some months ago when a newspaper editor suggested a column for reminders of events that are ongoing - for example, the United States still holds incarcerated a larger percentage of its population than any other (am I forgetting some qualifier like 1st world?) country. She rattled off half a dozen things that were still true and all noteworthy, but they'd fallen off the news editors' radars as old news. What sorts of things would go in such a section? -- Ke4roh 12:18, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Not sure how such a page would work right now... but it is a timely reminder that we should keep articles up-to-date as well as the Current Events page when events occur. Then the articles serve as a "still true" body of knowledge. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:25, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Moreover, I don't see how to keep the selection NPOV. Basically, stuff that's still true should be in the articles in the body of Wikipedia itself. (e.g. Rates of incarceration per country, 2003 or something) - David Gerard 14:02, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

Iraq

There were another 2 American troops shot in Iraq today. Am I right in assuming this doesn't belong on the current events page? Pakaran. 18:17, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Is it amongst the seven or eight BIGGEST NEWS STORIES on the PLANET today? If so, then yes - David Gerard 19:22, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)
I can't find any articles on this -only on one soldier killed by a bomb. Rmhermen 19:29, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

New York Times registration

I know some people have problems with NYT links because they require registration. If you get the story from google, however, no registration is required. Example:

Non google version of URL which requires registration to read article

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/09/science/space/09CND-HUBB.html?hp

Google version which doesnt require registration:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/09/science/space/09CND-HUBB.html?ex=1079499600&en=cfad33ff91ec4f91&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

If you add nytimes sources, please add the url that you get from news.google.com. Perl 02:02, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Why do people have problems with the NYT because it demands registration? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:51, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Dunno, but observably quite a lot do, so it should probably be mentioned - David Gerard 09:13, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)
I've not observed that, but if a few people could indicate why here then we could add a RR after those that require registration and some other acronym for Articles require Payment (unfortunately AP and PA are not good acronyms here!) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I mean in general, not on WP in particular. Something about the NYT registration process annoys people. Perhaps "(NYT, reg)"? Still looks a bit clunky. Perhaps just note sources requiring registration in the list of news sources at the bottom.
I would suggest that payment-required links probably aren't worth putting on "Current Events" - not sufficiently accessible, may smell like advertising - David Gerard 15:04, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)
(NYT, req) would be fine by me, if people need to see it... a bit of research suggests it may be a slashdot thing to dislike reg requirements.... a mix of "everything must free/Free" zealotry and privacy issues.. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:20, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Just did a test edit and it looks really clunky. Noting it in the list below (where btw it is noted) is sufficient as far as I'm concerned for now. - David Gerard 15:56, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps (NYT/r)? Korath 00:16, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Better to restrict the NYT to only cases where it is the only available source or where it adds significant material not available from others. Jamesday 09:24, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Yep. Same for Washington Post and LA Times. - David Gerard 10:10, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
I am sorry to be such a PITA here, but NO-ONE has explained why registration is unacceptable, but advertising or pop-ups or bias or bad quality of writing or slow load up times, are apparently ok. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:38, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Why should I have to put up with registration just to look at a web site? It just seems so silly and basically asking for boycott IMHO. —Daniel Brockman 10:50, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
They are not publishing their website for fun you know. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:55, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That doesn't change the fact that registration is a PITA and I can't be bothered with it. —Daniel Brockman 11:06, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
Neither are the BBC or CNN or a dozen others that don't require registration or a live address to target their spam at. Korath 11:03, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
NYT doesn't spam you. I don't know about WP and LAT. But anyway Daniel's point about laziness is sufficient - as long as we do it [refuse to link] on grounds of practicality, not some moral grounds then I relent. Apologies. (p.s. I've already paid my £150 to the BBC this year ... I should jolly hope that it doesn't come with ads!) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:19, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
We don't need to include the notice if we give the google link which means you don't need to register. Perl 16:10, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
But that is being deliberately deceptive, we are not directing users from Google, we are directing them from Wikipedia. Maybe there should be a partner=WIKIPEDIA code? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:15, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I think this is a good idea. —Daniel Brockman 11:06, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
You might also want to know that Washington Post now requires registration. Perl 14:47, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
That's noted in the list at the bottom of Current events ;-) - David Gerard 14:55, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Todd Bertuzzi

I didn't realize that David Gerard had removed the Todd Bertuzzi suspension. I thought that I hadn't hit submit or something. That's why I added it back, I didn't mean to start an edit war!  :-) Please be careful when removing something from current events. I had actually added it here and then added to to Template:itn and then someone there complained that it wasn't in current events, which is a headache for me. Please explain on discuss why you removed the todd bertuzzi suspension. dave 16:50, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Now it seems someone has moved it down lower! Why did someone at MediaWiki:itn complain that it wasn't there? Sheesh what an annoyance. dave 16:54, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
I removed it at first because it looked like sports trivia without a link. Then moved it down 'cos it's hardly more newsworthy than the Madrid attack. Presumably whoever complained read neither the history nor page either - David Gerard 16:58, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
Specifically, minor local sports trivia. That it's of some wider significance is now apparent. (Though again, a link would have helped!) - David Gerard 17:20, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
It looks like it was moved, not deleted. Scroll down a bit.
Additionally, you might want to add a bit more about why it's important. I know why it's important to the NHL - it's a negative side effect of the stupid instigating rule the NHL imposed last year - but it needs to be explained why it's important (other than it's just a long suspension. RadicalBender 16:56, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, I actual don't know about the instigating rule, but I'll look into it. I wasn't watching hockey during the time that rule came in. dave 18:19, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Another thing, please people, check your sources closely! There were two links to articles that implied that Bertuzzi "drove" or "pile-drived" Moore's face into the ice. If you had actually seen the video and read the articles, this is totally wrong! Moore goes unconcious after the punch and falls like a sack of potatoes, head-first. Bertuzzi was still holding him, but Moore's face hits the ice due to gravity alone... There is also some debate out there about how Bertuzzi maybe have tripped on his stick with this left skate, and also that Bertuzzi's right skate was taken out from under him by Moore's right skate as he fell. Anyways, many media sources were contradicting each other, some saying Bertuzzi "drove Moore's face into the ice", others saying that Moore "fell" after being punched and Bertuzzi fell on top. Make sure to look into the facts before you blindly reference a media article. I know I've been guilty of this before as well.... dave 18:19, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Madrid attack and 9/11

The current events page says that it has been 911 days since 9/11(in the madrid section). I changed it to 913 days because tuesday was 911 days since. But somebody changed it back to 911. Can anybody prove me wrong?

Everyone was too lazy to count so we removed the sentence. Perl 23:09, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Uh, well. I removed the sentence after consulting with [2]. Evercat 23:16, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Someone need to count. Secretlondon 23:16, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I count 912 - 11 Sep 2003 is 730, Oct 1 750, Nov 1 781, Dec 1 811, Jan 1 2004 is 842, Feb 1 873, Mar 1 902 (leap year), so Mar 11 is 912. Korath 23:21, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah I got 912 as well. Odd... Evercat 23:22, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Here's an applet to do it for you... [3] Evercat 23:28, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

In fact the exact time between 9/11 and today's bombings would be something like 911 days, 18 hours or something, wouldn't it? Hrmm. It's probably possible to read too much into this, though. Evercat 23:35, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As the one who added the "911 days" factoid to the Madrid attack item, I stand corrected for not being precise like in the 900 article: there are 911 days between 9/11 and Madrid. Sorry, --Wernher 23:43, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sidebar poll

We're still debating what to do about adding a link on the sidebar to Wikipedia:Community Portal. One possibility is to remove the current events link to make room. This possibility is one of the options in the current poll on the subject. This is a redesigned, restarted version of the previous poll. In fairness to users of Current events, I thought it would be best to publicize the new poll here as well. Sorry I didn't think of that earlier. Vote at Wikipedia talk:Community Portal#New sidebar poll. --Michael Snow 23:26, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

story on Kosovo

Sorry Nikola, but you have to provide some evidence for it to be proven conclusively to be false that the boys weren't chased. Also, even if UNMIK had said so, it would be a UNMIK reported blah blah blah in order to be NPOV. Saying that the reports are incorrect is most certainly POV. Dori | Talk 23:14, Mar 17, 2004 (UTC)

I've trimmed the story somewhat. I wondered what had got Nikola so wound up today - he'd left an unusually angry note on my talk page which I'd put down to generic paranoia, but evidently today's events have set off something of a nationalist outburst. Very unfortunate, given that region's history; we'll just have to hope it doesn't turn into a pogrom on either side. -- ChrisO 00:58, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

AZF story - how can AZF not exist if it is planting bombs?

According to [this] the AZF has actually planted at least two bombs in its effort to extort money. Why do we have "The terrorist group AZF ceases to exist in France" on the Current events entry? - Texture 18:03, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

John Kerry story - too trivial to include?

I'm troubled by the John Kerry story which Ed Poor has added to the page today, though not so much because of its subject as because of its apparent trivialness. Also, is BoycottLiberalism.com really a news source? I think a lot of people are likely to get fed up pretty quickly if the current events page gets filled up with partisan Repubs-vs-Dems sniping. -- ChrisO 12:29, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

He added another and I've reverted. This is not the place for electoral mudslinging - which there will be lots of in the run up to the US elections. He also removed mention of the source which is POV. Secretlondon 12:32, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Where are the standard rules?

67.100.45.182 03:49, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC) Jdforrester "removed sport story as per standard rules... (not significant enough))"; where are these "standard rules"? I can't find them here, or in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, or Wikipedia:How the Current events page works, or Wikipedia talk:How the Current events page works, or anywhere else I look.

If I look at current examples to reflect "standard rules", I see current news items on an iceberg being painted, an announcement about a TV show, and a quick link in the elections section for El Salvador.

Since these news items seem no more significant than a sudden-death national amateur basketball championship, I am restoring the item on KSU for now.

I agree, but just to a certain degree. One of the nice things about Wikipedia is that things that normally don't get a lot of media focus also can get attention. However, speaking of the elections in El Salvador, I think that is a tad or two more important than an amateur basketball game. El Salvador has around 6 million people, all of which are going to live with the new government for the next 5 years. An amateur basketball game, being just entertainment, doesn't really affect anyone else but the teams and the spectators being there that night... --Vikingstad 04:06, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)
67.100.45.182 06:03, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC) Yeah, I debated mentioning that election for the reason you give. But in terms of what I imagine the audience and contributors of the English-language current events page to be, it's a case of measuring it by popularity, not significance to world events.
This is Division II basketball, it's not even Division I. ESPN would give it a mention on SportsCenter towards the end. It's not really worth having on the current events page. When the Division I basketball tournament wraps up, that's news, I'd say. RADICALBENDER★ 04:09, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
67.100.45.182 06:03, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC) I agree that Div I is a lot higher profile, but we're talking about identifying the winner of the championship game, after a series of sudden-death eliminations. It _is_ broadcast nationally, perhaps as a gesture rather than a reflection of its popularity, but it does get national attention. And look at the number of Div II colleges listed at http://www.siue.edu/ATHLETIC/d2/alpha.html. Obviously Div II seasonal play isn't at the level of Div I, but the championship game was as good as any I've seen in Div I, and this is from someone who hadn't even heard of KSU or S. Indiana before.
I don't doubt that it was probably a good game. That said, I've seen superb high school basketball games and very poor L.A. Laker games, and I'm still pretty sure I know what will lead on SportsCenter. :) RADICALBENDER★ 06:11, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
As a Briton, I am destined to know very little about American Basketball. I think that if sport events are reported they should be of international significance. For example: Football (soccer) World Cup.
The only domestic sport competitions that I can see a case for right now are The Superbowl and the FA Cup given their international notoriety
SimonMayer 05:14, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Well, the NCAA Tournament last year drew a 12.6 share in the Nielsen ratings. That means that for the 100 million televisions in the U.S. (maybe 1/2 of which were on), 12.6% (give or take, the system is so confusing) were tuned in to the NCAA Tournament (the final game). That's about 5 million people watching it on TV at least (and last year had poor ratings, and that's not including everybody else who follows it through radio, newspapers and the internet). That's only slightly less than the population of El Salvador and we're tracking their elections on current events. :) If millions of people are watching something, I think that qualifies as important.
That said, NCAA Division II does not warrant being on the current events. ESPN.com doesn't even think it's worthy enough to be on their front page right now, so I don't think it should be here either. RADICALBENDER★ 05:36, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
67.100.45.182 06:03, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC) All I can respond to that is that there is nowhere I could find to go to get the guidance that suggests such a championship is less significant than a painted iceberg in Greenland. Is this a case of significance being like what the U.S. Supreme Court says about obscenity, i.e. you can't define it, but you know it when you see it? Could someone less anonymous draft a set of those rules for discussion? I've been contributing anonymously to wikipedia since last May but having been anonymous leaves me without the street credibility to draft such a list.
You are probably correct in this fact. There has been no discussion (that I can see) about what qualifies as a current event and heads have butted over this in the past (mine included). Let me make a new header and solicit some feedback. RADICALBENDER★ 06:11, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What qualifies as a current event?

Open-ended question, with the intent on eventually having guidelines for this sort of thing. What qualifies as something that should be listed on Current events? There have been several questionable entries in the past and there are ongoing questions about the Americentricness of the list and also the importance of sporting events and entertainment. So, I ask the good readers, what should qualify? RADICALBENDER★ 06:11, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If you're going to be serious about a current events page in an encyclopedia, perhaps there should be a sports page, and *all* such winners could be listed either there, or on a page that links there. For instance, on a page like this. --ssd 06:36, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

67.100.45.182 06:57, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC): In no particular order, I offer the following as candidate rules for deciding what a current event is. I'm not sure that I'd end up with this list after more consideration, but they do come immediately to mind:

  1. Popularity should be a factor. There must be a plausible case that at least a million people (or insert your rule of thumb here) fluent in English would find it interesting.
  2. Journalistic relevance. Wikipedia shouldn't try to be on the leading edge. Items should get some level of coverage in the websites of the media in English-speaking countries.
  3. Look at existing current events entries for clues about what wikipedians seem to find interesting. In other words, exploit swarm intelligence.
  4. Items demonstrating excellence and accomplishment deserve attention. Contemplate how much hard work went behind the subject of the story, or perhaps how much risk was taken for the benefit produced. NPOV doesn't mean balancing Jerry Springer against a Nobel Prize winner.
  5. Variety is the spice of life. A diversity in news subject matter is a good thing. One can draw inspiration from [4], [5], and [6]. News need not be limited to politics, life and death, and high tech topics.
  6. Make sure there's interesting Wikipedia articles to reference, even if it means creating new articles before adding an item to current events.
  7. The current events page should not try to compete with professionally edited news sites or with [7].
IMHO it would also be interesting if more of the current events got encyclopedia entries, or got added to (existing?) entries. --ssd 07:50, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
68.167.253.28 06:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC): The second-to-last item in the list is an attempt to make a similar point.


67.100.123.132 21:42, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC): Since this thread started because an item about a collegiate basketball championship was deemed unnewsworthy by a couple of active wikipedians while those about a painted iceberg and an announcement about a TV show remain, here's an attempt to draft some rules that reflect this perspective:

  1. Sports news items need extra consideration before their inclusion. The standard for inclusion must be higher than those for news about politics, war, terrorism, etc. Such stories should be publicized internationally before their inclusion. A story making headlines just in the United States or England or Australia is too local for current events on wikipedia. In addition, such stories must cover the sport at its highest level in the professional or amateur world. Junior league championships don't have the following that merits coverage.
  2. Wikipedia's audience and contributors represent a subset of the Internet. News items about popular culture must take this into consideration. The litmus test is to review how well a musician, TV show, video game, or other aspect of pop culture is covered by existing wikipedia pages. The more detailed the coverage is already, the more appropriate it is to include an item in current events. Go to the main article about the subject matter. Is the article well-written, lengthy, and full of detail? Does the revision history show contributions spanning many months or even years? Does the revision history show multiple contributors? Does the main article have multiple cross references and links to related lists? These are all signs that the subject matter is an area of pop culture that the wikipedia audience and contributors find interesting, and therefore news about that subject warrants inclusion on the current events page.
  3. Reuters has a news category called "Oddly Enough" [8] for a reason; people like coverage of the offbeat mixed in with the more serious news. It's appropriate for the current events page to include stories which are novel and surprising, too.

These are my attempts to justify the distinctions which started this thread.

My mind boggles that someone could equate one nation's presidential election with another nation's amateur sporting event, and then invoke the second country's tv ratings figures to support that position. Popularity? No, popularity shouldn't be the yardstick, otherwise we'll end up full of sports, celebrities, and fashion (see also: CNN). Events of importance, events that'll have an impact on tomorrow, events of relevance -- that's what we should be aiming for. We don't have to be popular: we're not in it for the money and, unlike CNN or the NYT, we needn't care about revenue from print adverts or tv commercials. Nielsen ratings and circulation figures: not our problem. We can concentrate on what matters (and yes: the election of a new president in a friendly nation should matter to those 6 million US tv viewers who watched the game).
We should include things that "at least a million people... fluent in English would find (it) interesting" -- I think that's a bit of a chimera, too. The English-language Wikipedia is in a very privileged situation vis-à-vis all the others, in that it is best placed to aspire to being truly international (hubris would say the only one in such a position), the one that's most likely to be read by non-native speakers of the language. (The population of El Salvador, to use a concrete example, probably contains at least a million fluent English speakers, so the election would certainly qualify under that rule.) This simply cannot be said of any of the other languages, and I think we'd be in error to squander that position by throwing up barriers around the anglophone world and ignoring everything on the outside of that. Think international; think global. El Salvador matters, Burkina Faso matters, Laos matters.
Problem is, we probably aren't bold about deleting trivial items. The amateur baseball match doesn't belong. Neither really do the painted iceberg or Doctor Who. At least not with the page in its current format: maybe a case should be made for Month in sport or Month in culture, or for separate 28 March 2004-style pages with sections for politics, tech, business, crime, sport, showbiz, culture, etc., etc. –Hajor 02:07, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Erm... above, the bit about my mind boggling: that's probably more a reflection on my mind than any specific external reality, and should in no way be taken personally, except by me. And a more succinct way of what I was trying to say there has just occurred to me: Don't confuse popularity with significance. –Hajor
68.167.253.28 06:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC): No offense taken. The two lists above (posted by 67.100.45.182 and 67.100.123.132), were an attempt to retrofit some "rules of significance" based on me checking out the current events page dozens of times during the past year. Before the main page started featuring articles, I thought the most useful thing about the current events page was that anyone interested in posting to it was also likely to contribute some improvement to a related page. That's certainly what I've done when I've posts a new event. I'll draft the item, think about what pages to link to, go to those pages, then either update them with the news of the day, or flesh them out with background information so that current event readers can dig deeper if they so choose.
Now that the main page features an article, IMHO the current events page is a little less relevant. There are all sorts of current event blogs, like [9], [10], [11], [12], even [13]. You can go to them with reasonable expectations about the perspective they will have. You can't do that with the current events page in wikipedia. I would claim that it needs a guidelines page so that as swarms of contributors come and go over the months, there's some continuity beyond the easy-to-agree-to guideline that you should link to interesting and relevant articles, enhancing the ones that need work.

NATO enlargement

"On 29 March, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia formally became members of NATO by depositing their instruments of accession with the United States Government."

This is a quote from the a NATO webpage [14] and according to this it seems that the organization actually was enlarged today, March 29. The NATO article has earlier given April 2 a the date of accession and Current events names a meeting in April as the "official" joining. Seemingly there is some confusion. How can we establish which is the significant date? Given a correct date it is notable enough for Template:Itn. -- Mic 19:13, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

Bülgarski?

68.167.253.29 07:45, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC): that the first "Other language:" in the list is "(Bülgarski)", with A tilde and 1/4 between the 'B' and the 'l'? I don't believe I have any unusual settings in my browser; it renders that way in both IE and Mozilla.

Same here, and as all other language editions show correct characters here there must be something wrong in the language.php, which contains the language names. Probably something related with UTF8. andy 07:53, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
68.167.249.57 00:45, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC): See Wikipedia talk:Interlanguage links#Balgarski not (Bülgarski) for further discussion, particularly the bug filed in SourceForge.

When are deaths important enough (or are they)?

Are there guidelines on when a death is considered important enough to include on Current events as well as Recent deaths? I recently added Alistair Cooke, but my addition was reverted an hour later without explanation. —LarryGilbert 20:34, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

I second LarryGilbert's question, I just reinstated Alistair Cooke, only to see it reverted, again without explanation within 5 minutes. An explanation would be nice, I gave one in my comment:

# Wik (rv)
# (cur) (last) . . 22:25, 2004 Mar 30 . . Wikibob
 (=[[March 30]], [[2004]]= +Alistair Cooke (see no reason for rv by Wik))

I'm leaving it as it is for now, but some guidelines are needed. Wikibob | Talk 21:56, 2004 Mar 30 (UTC)

Wik isn't a great giver of explanations, but I think his actions are correct in this case. We have a separate page for Recent Deaths, duly linked from this one, and so it's probably better not to put them here -- that way we don't duplicate our efforts, we reduce the load on this already very full page (end of the month: ca. 100 kb), and we avoid endless discussions about whether one death is more "important" than the next. Peter Ustinov wasn't featured here yesterday; Alistair Cooke shouldn't be here today. And let no one speak ill of Keiko the Whale. –Hajor 22:13, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
68.167.253.28 06:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC) : Given Wikipedia's transatlantic perspective, I agree that Alistair Cooke's death belongs here. I think the event's exclusion further demonstrates the need for a guidelines page that captures the rules of significance for current events.
67.100.124.159 18:59, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC): The change that –Hajor did and mentioned below is a great solution to this issue. It's pithy. It gives the sidebar something dynamic, which it needed.
I've just boldly tweaked and expanded the Recent deaths section in the sidebar. I'm still not convinced that deaths belong in the main column, but what I'm proposing in the sidebar makes the section more dynamic and more prominent. Like it? Hate it? Fail to see the point? –Hajor 14:50, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Like it. HTH --Phil | Talk 15:08, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)
I think that's a very good idea, Hajor. It seems silly to force people to read another page to find "missing" headlines. As for your suggested guideline: 3 or 4, within the last week sounds good; perhaps it should be based on those whose deaths seem to have made the most headlines - i.e. those which would be on this page anyway, were we not tracking all deaths on a seperate page. A good yardstick for this might be to do a search on a news aggregator like http://news.google.com - IMSoP 15:33, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I like that a lot - looks good, fits in nicely. I probably wouldn't make a death a story unless the death itself was news, not just that it was a famous person - David Gerard 19:11, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)
The reactions so far have been mostly favorable; thanks. And I've just tweaked it to remove the wikilink from the title (ugh) to beneath the listing. –Hajor 19:26, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
And since I started the thread in the first place, I thought I should chime in to say that I think this is a great solution. —LarryGilbert 01:45, 2004 Apr 2 (UTC)

Jörg Haider

I've put the news about Jörg Haider being elected back in; normally a state governor election wouldn't be news, but sometimes (cf. Schwarzenegger) it is. This one is. -- till we *) 19:59, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

68.167.251.41 20:17, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC): Is it because he's a neo-fascist? If that's why it's news, the current event item should reflect that somehow, per standard rules... The Schwarzenegger comparison isn't fair; is Carinthia at all comparable to California?
Okay, so California is a little bit bigger than Carinthia -- but you didn't said "small states governor elections aren't newsworthy", but said "states". ;-) Really, I think the problem isn't the size of the state, but the importance of the event. And Haider is not only more or less neo-facists, but also quite important for the Politics of Austria of the last ten years. So this is news (and should maybe noted in the sentence on current events, but on the other hand, a click on the wikilink Jörg Haider is enough to learn about ...). -- till we *) 20:23, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Am I allowed to call him an "extreme right-winger" rather than plain old "controversial"? And was I right in deleting the "missing student no longer missing" story? (Please say yes.) –Hajor 20:33, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You were. I decline to comment on the other issue. Morwen 20:34, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)
I made that controversial right-wing Austrian politican, so I could bring back in the Politics of Austria wikilink giving background to the story. -- till we *) 20:45, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
68.167.251.41 20:43, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC): Deleting the "missing student" story was appropriate, per standard rules. It was a painted iceberg story, or to use a line from The Shipping News, maybe they should be called "Village Spared From Deadly Storm" stories.
When 67.100.124.159 deleted the entry on Jörg Haider they said that "electing a state governor in Austria is not news, as per standard rules ... (not significant enough)". Could someone refer me to those "standard rules"? I couldn't find them anywhere. This, I have to add, is a general question which is nothing to do with Haider.
68.167.251.41 21:28, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC): You are not the only one to ask that question. There is a thread above, #What qualifies as a current event?, which tries to get people to discuss that topic.
As far as Haider is concerned, we could just call him Jörg Haider, couldn't we? Does it always have to be extreme right-winger Jörg Haider or neo-Nazi Jörg Haider? People might think Carinthia is now a police state persecuting and imprisoning everyone who isn't Aryan. I'm certainly not defending Haider's policies (see also the talk page), but we shouldn't exaggerate. It's not Capitalist George W. Bush or whatever all the time. <KF> 20:46, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
You have a point about not labeling him, but a dash of context setting is not a bad thing. Bush is invariably "US President GW Bush", or some similar lengthy variant. Tillwe's "Controversial right-wing Austrian politican Jörg Haider" is informative, accurate, neutral, properly linked, and a lot better than what I'd put. –Hajor
Let me once again play advocatus diaboli: Empirically speaking, calling Haider "controversial" is certainly correct. However, labelling him "right-wing" would at least need an awful lot of explanation and an exact definition of the term, as both its accuracy and neutrality in connexion with Haider are debatable. <KF> 21:06, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I don't see that -- FPÖ is a right-wing party, as is the ÖVP. So why not call Haider right-wing? That is descriptiv and not some specific point of view -- calling him extremist right-wing or neo-fascist would be something else. -- till we *) 21:10, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Suggestion — "Politics of Austria: Jörg Haider of the Freedom Party..."? Enough links there for anyone curious enough. –Hajor
Great. (There was an edit conflict, so I couldn't answer earlier.) <KF> 21:25, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
From the beginning of the Jörg Haider article:
Jörg Haider was a leader of, and leading figure in, the rightist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). Haider is Governor of Carinthia. His politics are widely viewed as neo-fascist. His parents were enthusiastic Nazis [...]
As far as the ÖVP is concerned, I don't think they would call themselves, or like being called, a "right-wing party". But, as I tried to point out, it's a question of terminology rather than anything else. I'll have a look at what Wikipedia has to say about right-wing etc. <KF> 21:19, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
68.167.251.41 21:28, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC): Some context-setting is really needed for this otherwise local story. Those of us unaware of Carinthian state politics need a clue why it made it to this space-constrained list.
It's all in the links. If that isn't enough, we need some adjective like "controversial" or "scandal-ridden" or "much debated". -- till we *) 22:31, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
68.167.251.41 22:53, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC) : I don't think it's enough. You need a clue in the event itself why anyone but the half-million residents of Carinthia should care. "Controversial" is NPOV to the point of blandness, not a bold choice. But it's better than saying nothing. Yes, I understand I can follow the links into the background information to find out why this local story passes the significance test, but FWIW I don't think that's enough.

Until yesterday it had never occurred to me that a particular news item might not be considered worthy of inclusion. I've read the (ongoing?) discussion now but all I can see is some suggestions but certainly no rules. A quick scanning of the last few days has revealed the following, and anyone who feels fit for the job, please explain to me why they have been included:

  • Beauty firm Dove is to use "real women" in advertising after a survey finds two-thirds of UK women feel depressed about their figures and have low body confidence as a result of beauty advertising. (March 29)
  • The BBC announces that actor Christopher Eccleston is to play Doctor Who when the show makes its eagerly-awaited return to television in 2005. (March 20)
  • A Methodist church jury in Bothell, Washington acquits a lesbian minister of violation of church rules. (March 20)
  • Ohio highway sniper attacks: Suspect Charles A. McCoy Jr. is arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada. (March 17)
  • Girls Gone Wild videos of minors exposing their breasts are not child pornography, according to a Florida court. (March 10)

To me, these news items are the epitome of irrelevance. Now I don't want to be misunderstood: I wouldn't want to see them deleted because someone else considered them important. However, having some guidelines we could agree upon would certainly be helpful. <KF> 06:14, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

68.167.253.227 09:36, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC): I agree that guidelines would be helpful. There are now several topics in this page all about the debate about what's significant. And you left off the "painted iceberg" story from your list.

And after all that discussion, someone has again inserted that stupid neo-fascist label:

  • Politics of Austria: Jörg Haider, a leading figure in the Freedom Party who is widely viewed as neo-fascist, is re-elected governor of the state of Carinthia. (Scotsman) (Die Presse)

Neo-fascist? Widely viewed?! As I tried to point out earlier, this creates an altogether wrong impression. It is wrong, and POV as well. If that's what you want, go ahead. I don't like edit wars, so I'm certainly not going to change the wording. <KF> 06:29, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

68.167.253.227 09:32, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC): That reference comes straight from Haider's page and has been there over a year. To Not include it is to leave out the reason why non-Carinthians should care about his re-election.

painted icebergs

Re: the Girls Gone Wild list above -- I've just gone through March 2004 and deleted most of those stories, along with other stories that didn't pan out or didn't seem worthy of being recorded for posterity. I'd be grateful if one of the Current Events stalwarts could take a look and check that I didn't kill anything vitally important or leave any ketchup stories. Tnx. –Hajor 14:53, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

And I was summarily reverted a few mins later. Oh, well. –Hajor 15:59, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
See Talk:March 2004. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:39, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sure, Pete, I saw your message, and I'm not sure what you say is entirely wrong. The alternative of debating individal candidates for deletion suggests itself, but that would be immensely tedious. –Hajor 16:50, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'll intrepret "not ... entirely wrong" as "basically right". Let's forget about previous months and concentrate on getting future months right. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 17:09, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

When crossing over the 1st of the month

I've noticed that there's been some controversy about whether to include any items from the previous month on the Current events page, even if the last month ended just days ago. I don't really mind one way or the other, honestly. But if there is going to be some crossover, then there is a hitch to be dealt with: namely, events for the last few days of the month will be listed in two places, and changes made in one place may not ever be noticed and copied over to the other place. So someone will need to think of a good way to deal with that. —LarryGilbert 01:50, 2004 Apr 2 (UTC)

There is no controversy. It is the Done Thing. Wik believes, for some reason, that because he [&c.] cannot be bothered to do the merging, no-one will (which is untrue; I have done it several times in the past). It is certainly not hard to do, though it's mildly time-consuming.
The whole point is that having a blank or nearly-blank CE page looks a little poor; the whole point of the Wikipedia is using people's volunteered time for effective use all the time.
James F. (talk) 06:41, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Just because something is the done thing, doesn't necessarily mean its the best way, and just because Wik does something in an irritating way doesn't mean what he has done is wrong. I personally have found that the merging isn't too bad, but having the info in two places is ugly, perhaps more ugly than the two alternatives: having a short current events page at the beginning of the month, or not having the last week of the previous month archived until a week into the current one. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 07:10, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Doing the former is ugly (for a short while you'll have a page completely bereft of entries); the latter breaks page histories and all that (yes, I know, the folding also breaks page histories, but only slightly less so). I really don't see how having entries in two places is 'ugly' (other than in an information centralism way, which I suppose I can appreciate).
And I meant more that it should be obvious as to why it is done, rather than that we continue to do it in the name of blind stumbling traditionalism (I, for one, am highly unlikely to continue traditions unless I feel that it has merit ;-)).
James F. (talk) 07:40, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How about treating Current events independently of the current month?
Maybe we could have a fixed time period, such as one week of current events, then each day just after 00:00 (UTC), someone copies the appropriate day's events to its relevant month. E.g. on 08 April, the 01 April section could be moved into the April 2004 page.
SimonMayer 13:35, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think the reasoning against this is that copying and pasting information loses the credit for who added/edited that information, since the edit history isn't carried over. - IMSoP 13:43, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Furthermore, this would wipe out any changes made directly to the copied-to page. Korath 13:48, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
Re: the edit history - one could look at all edits to the current events page over that one week period. This way is better for finding edit history, because if it was on current events, it will appear within those 7 days on the edit history.

Korath, please could you explain what you mean, I'm not sure I understand. I assume that you're saying one edit could be made on April 2004 page, then it gets overwritten when they are copied over. That's why I think that events within the past week should be added directly to current events, they should only be moved after 7 days.
SimonMayer 14:20, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
OK, here's an example. Assume that March 25-31 is still on the Current Events page, but not on the March 2004 page yet (which ends on the 24th). Someone finds himself on March 2004 and says to himself, "Hey! Such-and-such important event on March 25 isn't here!" and adds an extensive, well-written entry. Unbeknownst to him, someone else has already properly-but-unintuitively added it to Current Events in terse doggerel. When it comes time to move March 25 from Current Events to March 2004, one of three things happens:
  • the Current Events version is pasted over the March 2004 version, eliminating the better entry;
  • the Current Events version is added to the March 2004 version, resulting in needless redundancy; or
  • the two versions are carefully merged by hand.
I submit that no one's going to take the trouble to merge stuff by hand for more than a couple days in a row, or, if movement from Current Events only happens once a week or so, that modifications to the monthly page will be rare enough that they'll go unnoticed by the person performing the move. Korath 14:37, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
The simplest solution to that would seem to be a note at the end of the month-page (e.g. March 2004) saying something like:
Note: events within the last week should be added to Current events, and moved here later.
The edit history seems a bigger issue, though - sure, it will be in the Current events history, but it will become rather buried under more recent edits - unless we manually add pointers to relevant diffs, which seems a bit hackish. Plus, the month-pages themselves will have an odd mixture of individual, mostly minor, edits (post-archiving) and instant imports (archiving), with the majority of edits (pre-archiving) only recorded somwhere else. It all depends how seriously we want to treat the rights of editors to be recognised... - IMSoP 15:02, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have said it before but if the same information is kept in two places, people will make edits in both places and no one is going to merge it later (I've seen it happening before - those days are just deleted from the Current events page, and the edits made there are lost). So I will remove the duplication unless someone personally pledges to do the merge (and I will verify it!). --Wik 17:51, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

Could we use something similar to the MediaWiki system - currently being employed on the VfD page? This way all new edits could be added to the Current events and the appropriate month page automatically. I think there should be a few more days of suggestion, then maybe we should go to the polls with the proposed new systems versus the current system.
SimonMayer 20:01, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This seems POV: # Report on anti-Semitism by the European Union's European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) concluded attacks against Jews in Europe are rising primarily ascribed to youth from neighborhoods sensitive to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, principally of North African descent. (Israel Insider)

First, I could not follow the poorly written text in the link and what I found direct from EUMC (not easy to navigate nor bookmark) were ([15] EUMC),([16] EUMC 2003 rejection of shelving) and Reuters reports that read differently. I guess more neutral news links would help. -Wikibob | Talk 13:43, 2004 Apr 3 (UTC)

Is that Studabaker or Studebaker? David.Monniaux 12:40, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Studabaker. -- Arwel 13:27, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

More painted iceberg stories

67.100.123.87 20:56, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC): Current events contributors are exercising little judgment about newsworthiness:

  • It remains unclear if, when, and where the Arab summit will convene.
    • Perhaps this becomes news when they do meet, or decide not to?
  • Japan and China aim to sustain diplomatic ties...
    • "aim to sustain"? Sometimes the vocabulary itself is a clue to a story's insignificance.
  • Sunni triangle is base for Islamic jihadists
    • With all the Iraqi coverage here and everyone else it's hard to call this news
  • Malaysia does not plan to seek military aid from the United States
    • Ask yourself: have you been waiting with bated breath for Malaysia to make this decision? Did you even know that such a decision was pending? Now that you know, how does this decision to not do something compare with the other news of the day?

More evidence of the need for a guidelines pages for current events...

HEAR HEAR. I tried culling a bit of this stuff. But more judgement needs to go into "Current Events". Should be about ten stories a day. Dead donkeys and painted icebergs better be pretty damned compelling - David Gerard 21:29, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)

I must again stress my reservations about a tiny faction of people currently deciding what is and isn't acceptable for inclusion, and even removing things that they don't like. Some of the things listed above could be (and in fact are) important news stories, but are poorly-worded and so some uninformed person decides they know it all and can remove them.

67.100.122.250 21:57, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC): I disagree about there being a tiny fraction of people dominating this. Like anything else in wikipedia, all those demonstrating the least bit courtesy and awareness of minimal knowledge of wikipedian culture can add, delete, and discuss the content. Those using their accounts get extra credibility. :-)

I personally find the reporting of every last detail of the SCO case really boring but found the painted iceberg story relatively interesting. But, I know I may not be in the majority so don't nanny other people. Let's have a Wikipedia:Current events inclusion policy that we can all form together and then stick to or go back to the old method. The current "vigilante" action is unacceptable. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:29, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

67.100.122.250 21:57, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC): I agree with your issue about SCO case coverage, and found the painted iceberg item a curiousity and a bit interesting, but out of its element here. The SCO lawsuit gets mentioned here probably every time it is mentioned on /. (http://slashdot.org/, for those not in the know), which reflects the interests of those who contribute to Wikipedia. And I totally agree, we need a Wikipedia:Current events inclusion policy, or a section in Wikipedia:How the Current events page works.
I've got agree. My inclination is that, if someone finds a news item interesting enough to go to the trouble of posting it, it should stay, so long as it's sourced by an outside link. If this results in too much background noise creeping in, maybe require two sources, or two sources from different countries. The point is to have the criteria be concrete, so folks don't snipe back and forth over some subjective requirement like whether a story is "popular" enough. Korath 15:05, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
67.100.122.250 21:57, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC): Maybe that's all the policy should be. Whatever the policy is, it should be written down somewhere like Wikipedia:Current events inclusion policy or Wikipedia:How the Current events page works, then established as the guidelines through the usual processes.

Forget to mention before, any such policy should tie back in the current events page to other articles as much as possible. Recently there has been a drift towards not referring to specific articles .. linking only general things like United States. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:33, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

67.100.122.250 21:57, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC): IMHO, this is the number one requirement for current events.

MediaWiki:News

What's the thinking behind {{msg:news}} - it seems to just to make it more complex to edit this page, with no discernible benefit? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:44, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Given the lack of response, I reverted. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:55, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Duma unbans rallies in public places

After "serious social resonance," the Duma's United Russia majority backpedals from outright support of a bill banning rallies in many public places.

I imagine the picture... It was so common in Russia to make rallie races (note the link!) in public places, especially near government buildings and schools, that it was necessary to prevent it by issuing a special law. But people were so unhappy... it made so much resonance... one rally was organized near Duma (the very center of Moscow). So deputies had to revoke the bill --- now you can make races everywhere!

When should we add the US Presidential Campaign Race?

I was just wondering when we should add the US Presidential Campaign Race to the ongoing events area. Seeing as how it's more active and influential than the Same-sex marriage controversy (which has died down a bit), I would be in favor of adding it immediately. However, under the "influential and immediate" standard, we would have added it a few months back. Which is why I'm bothering to ask here. Any opinions?--Gregb 21:31, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Whoops, I looked right below it and saw the special space for prez elections. I guess, my new question is, does the actual campaigning deserve inclusion (and replication) as an ongoing event? *smacks self on head*--Gregb 21:31, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Should we arrange the "Presidential Campaign" notices in chronological order, with the most imminent coming first?--Phil | Talk 14:45, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

"heated debates" are painted icebergs

68.167.255.52 06:26, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC): Stories of heated debates in politics aren't news; it may be news when the decision is made.

1. Please consider getting a username. There are many benefits and it is easier for others to follow a thread of discussion if they know for sure they are talking to the same person each time.

68.167.255.52 09:34, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC): Although in this case, the constant reference to "painted icebergs" is a clue. :-) Seriously, I realize the disadvantages of not having an account as well as the advantages, and for me, the latter outweigh the former, since my contributions are almost always improved because of the extra scrutiny that anonymous contributions are given.

2. Please consider not using "painted icebergs" as the archetypal non-story. It only serves to irritate those who in principle agree with you, but in practice found that the painted iceberg story was not that bad (that's at least me).

68.167.255.52 09:34, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC): I was one of those who were somewhat amused by that story but I believe it was out of scope for current events based on a general impression of a year's worth of contributions.
Ok, but that doesn't mean you should use it as the archetype "e.g. oh there's another "painted iceberg" story." Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:56, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

3. Please consider that you may not now much at all about Pakistani politics ... the NSC issue is huge there at the moment ... see e.g. Google News for Pakistan National Security Council. Mentioning yesterday's developments is a good thing. Removing the story lends credence to the view that Wikipedia is essentially a white Western encyclopedia not the global one it is supposed to be. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 07:30, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

68.167.255.52 09:34, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC): I can see how it could be interpreted as such, though that wasn't the intent. I still contend that the event which is a candidate for this list is when the decision is made. Politicians debate heatedly all over the world, some more heatedly than others.
68.167.255.52 10:22, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC):As far as being a WWE — I would claim that no editorial policy that promoted diversity in current events is going to resolve that issue. A fundamental strength of wikipedia is that people contribute to it based on their interests (witness the coverage of SCO v. IBM). A lack of a global perspective in Wikipedia is reflective of a lack of diversity in its contributions as a whole, across the hundreds of thousands of articles and the millions of contributions. The way to broaden Wikipedia's perspective is by having contributors with diverse backgrounds and perspectives promote and encourage contributions from a diverse cross section of their friends and colleagues.
Agreed, but having stories from Pakistan might just tip the balance in persuading an English-speaking Pakistani that they want to contribute. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:56, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Drudge Report item removed

If we go around reporting on everything that appears in every consumer rag in every state in the nation, pretty soon we'll be covering people's blogs too. Let's wait until the mainstream press makes a deal out of it. - Hephaestos|§ 12:32, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yet another story removed

* April 13th 2004 Press Conference of the President is held at 8:30 PM EST by George W. Bush in The East Room of the White House.

This story was removed (and later put back by someone else) by someone who didn't realize that it had a big international impact and was worthy of reporting.

Can I implore you please to understand a story before you decide to remove it.

On the other hand - well-written CEs are less likely to be removed as they will tell you why they are important.

With apologies to half a million Portlanders, I removed the above story because I didn't think it relevant to most others in the world. There doesn't seem to be anything special about the line - it's not the first mag-lev train in the U.S. or anything like that. -- Ke4roh 01:31, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Events/Elections/Pages box

Could someone with sufficient HTML expertise/experience widen the pink box of Ongoing events, Elections and Related pages, so that we could avoid bad-layout line breaks? An example is the "European Parliament election (start-end)" line, which doesn't fit on one line when viewed by logged-in Wikipedia users using [edit] markers display mode. --Wernher 13:31, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me that, to my pleasure (and hopefully others, as well) this issue is now rectified; would the contributor please stand forward and explain how he/she did it? (I wasn't able to spot the change by examining the history page for the article, so I would guess that there was something non-trivial, hence interesting, involved in achieving this fix) --Wernher 00:49, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

But the pleasure wasn't to last long, unfortunately -- today at log-on I saw that 1) someone had dropped the superfluous word 'election' from all the elections on the list, which is positive, but in doing so 2) they or someone else have missed the width fix, so that e.g. the Korean election's dates (IIRC) was broken over two lines. Again, I can only appeal to the mysterious benign contributor... --Wernher 14:33, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What browser and screen/window size are you using? I'm inclined to dismiss it as a rendering issue; it displays properly in Opera and IE for me all the way down to 300 pixels wide, and the only change that was done to the box since your first post on 15 Apr was the dropping of "election" that you mentioned in your third. The only thing I can think of to do that would force it not to wrap no matter what would be turn all the spaces into &nbsp;s, which would leave the source unreadable and barely editable. Korath 17:28, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)
I'm using a very common browser and screen size, nothing strange there. Perhaps this issue, rendering-bound or not, will remain a mystery. I thought that maybe in HTML one could set such a box to have a determined width, say, a percentage of the whole browser window/frame's width? Oh well, there are worse problems to grapple with, so I won't pursue it too hard. I'm close to blank when it comes to HTML. ~:)
Thanks for the tip, anyway; a &nbsp; or two might be in order for some very few, "problematic", items (if used with caution I don't think it will make the source unreadable). Thanks for commenting. --Wernher 01:39, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Update: now the issue seems to have been resolved, as of the new division between Upcoming elections and Election results in the 'pink box' -- which looks great and is more clear in its layout, in my opinion. Good work! --Wernher 11:25, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Website announcement

68.167.254.126 05:43, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC): I was told "The NRA News announcement is not about a website, it's about a new news source. I am restoring it. DO NOT delete it again", perhaps by User:RickK who restored it. I miss the distinction, and still claim this is an announcement about a website. The NRA already has a website, http://www.nra.org/, so the establishment of another one is hardly news. Google news shows absolutely zero stories about the site's establishment, even when narrowing it to NRA stories. So I still think it isn't newsworthy and am looking for broader support for its inclusion here.

The NRA is a major lobbying organization in the United States which claims that the new campaign financing rules hinder their ability to send waves of money to their pet politicans. They are attempting to get around this by creating their own news source where they can present their own spin on the news and influence politics in the US by this new website, which is just the first step of their planned creation of a news organization which they hope to become a major player in US politics. The NRANews site is entirely different from the nra.org site. This is a VERY newsworthy subject. RickK 05:47, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

68.167.252.153 09:58, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC): One criterion used to remove items in the past has been the lack of its prominent coverage by major news organizations like the BBC, CNN, FoxNews, etc. I don't see any prominent coverage but I can start to see some coverage for it via Google News if I look hard enough. It may become news after all. The item as written, "The National Rifle Association begins NRANews.Com, a website dedicated to presenting its view of the right to bear arms", poorly captures the actual story, since that reads as just a website announcement. Perhaps someone passionate about the topic could dig into independent sources like [17] and [18] and replace this item with an insightful and newsworthy equivalent.
I changed it slightly to emphasize the fact that they're seeking legal recognition as a news organization, which is why they're doing it. It's also rather controversial, and why it's important. Hope this is better. --Gregb 23:05, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Romanian elections, dates

Could anyone insert the date of the elections in Romania ? The president and the legislature will be elected in late November. Thanks --212.93.128.205 09:53, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It was there earlier but removed. AFAIK, it isn't having a significant international impact right now, unlike the US presidential election. That's why the US elections are the only ones there right now that are farther away than July. I don't have the best awareness of that particular area of the globe, though, so I'd be perfectly fine with someone more knowledgable than me adding it if it has the requisite current international impact. --Gregb 03:03, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Election results

The remmed out guidelines in the sidebar state that:

Election sections are for up-to-date articles about current or recently concluded elections. Once articles are updated with results, they are moved to results section, remaining there for one week or until no longer "newsworthy" (due to controversy, challenges, etc.)

The requirement that they "remain there one week" strikes me as unnecessarily restrictive. A list of all the elections in a given month (or at least those with articles) would be more useful, particularly when the time comes to archive the page away as the historical record of the month. What would be the maximum number of elections in any particular month -- 6 or 8 or 10? I think we can allow ourselves the luxury of extending the sidebar to include them all. –Hajor 17:20, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'll take the deafening silence my comment provoked as a "yes", then. –Hajor 22:52, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
67.100.122.101 22:11, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC): Perhaps the rule of thumb is two weeks; if you don't live where they are held, it's hard for any election results to be consider a current event for that long. But like most things on this page, there are no hard-and-fast rules about what makes it. Well, maybe there is the rule that every tidbit of news about SCO v. IBM should be included.
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