Portal talk:Current events/Archive 6

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[edit] where's dat

where is theFISA story?? McCool DJ HEEQ 01:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not a news item

"Barry Bonds hits his 756th career home run, passing Hank Aaron for the career home run record in Major League Baseball."

U.S. news? Maybe. North American news? Possibly, but that's stretching it a bit. World news? Not even close. I'll remove it if no one has any objection...--WaltCip 14:28, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

You can't (in ability terms), you're not an admin, only admins can edit the In the news template. With regard to the general notability though... it's news on the BBC, and there have been reports about it on World Service radio and on some foreign press ([1], [2], [3], [4] etc) too. Worldwide enough. – Chacor 14:38, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The BBC also reports on badminton, ice hockey and traditional Gaelic games, but that doesn't make any of those sports internationally interesting or relevant. In fact, I think that more Wikipedians would be interested in hearing about Hurling, purely out of curiosity -- baseball, to your average, jaded international mind, is simply boring. — Zioroboco 23:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Did you not notice the other Aussie, British and South African press reports on it I linked? – Chacor 02:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
It's kind of moot now, but I was never arguing that it wasn't newsworthy. It just wasn't very interesting. Yes, yes, I know I don't speak for everyone when I go about wantonly declaring that some news articles aren't noteworthy -- I just stumbled on the discussion, and put my two cents in. The real debate was going on here — Zioroboco 08:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] date format

Am I going crazy or are the days of the week associated with the dates wrong (August 12, 2007 listed as Saturday instead of Sunday and so forth?) 69.228.207.85 16:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Its the Date data that you have issue with. I have issue with the date format. I use YYYY-MM-DD, the european way on all my computers and can find stuff extrodinary fast. I wonder if I can set my prefrences here... Probiblty not. Artoftransformation 09:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] South America Tab for Current Events Portal

I'm just curious. Why isn't there a tab labled "South America" in the Current Events Portal? OxfordScholar09 00:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] market indices in the sidebar?

Does it make sense to have the market indices in the sidebar? In the absence of a way to dynamically update it, it will always be significantly out-of-date, and it is enough layers of abstraction away from the main page that errors or vandalism may persist for a long time. Since this isn't a financial site, I think we should either pull it out (my preference) or agree on a way to make it dynamically updating and so that edits are only needed to adjust the set of indices. Willhsmit 20:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I say pull it! This sidebar has nothing to do with the idea of ITN, as I understand it. It moves us down the slippery slope of trying to compete with real news websites. Please, concentrate on providing news summaries that are fully linked to good background articles within WP. Awolf002 23:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of tropical cyclone seasons from sidebar

Currently 4 of the 8 "natural disasters" in the ongoing events sidebar are tropical cyclone seasons. Nothing much is going on in 3 of the basins, never mind anything that can be construed as a significant natural disaster. The Atlantic currently has Hurricane Dean, but Hurricane Dean is the disaster not the season. Therefore I propose removing the cyclone seasons from the side-bar; and replace them with individual storms as and when appropriate. If a storm does not have an independent article, we can just link to its section in the seasonal article.

As an aside only the South Asian floods can be said to be current of the others; whilst the Peru earthquake isn't there.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. There's hardly any point in linking to full seasons regardless, as the season itself is not a natural disaster. --Coredesat 00:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. They were useful links to the seasons, and it's not easy to see at a glance which basin individual storms belong to, for example Severe Tropical Storm Fitow and Tropical Storm Gil today, the first being a Pacific typhoon, the second a Pacific hurricane. Or yesterday, Tropical Depression 10-E. TransUtopian 16:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect date for Larry Craig pleading guilty

Larry Craig pleaded guilty on August 8, not August 27. The story broke on August 27 in national news. 71.185.74.177 02:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Finland's digital switchover

Finland ceased its analog tv broadcasts today. Is that important enough news to be listed here? --88.148.195.167 13:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Just add it, with a link to a news report (preferably in English), to the appropriate date. I think it isn't important enough for the headlines section though.-gadfium 20:10, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:2006 by day and 2007 by day

For those watching the CfD discussion on current events categories, my closing decision was keep, but with a recommendation to change the names to Category:2006 current events archives by day and Category:2007 current events archives by day. This would require adjusting the programming on the current events portal, which I hope will occur.--Mike Selinker 14:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "flora"? WTF?

Noticed a bit of graffiti, but I can't figure out how to clean it up. Admins, help? RageSamurai21655 18:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)\ where?--71.214.126.13 00:42, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Via Google News

I've just noticed that Google News is setting up its own news pages for items from AP and AFP. Does anyone have thoughts on how permanent or temporary these links might be? — WiseKwai 03:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I feel America should stop interfering in world matters and concentrate more on preventing recession.Doing this they will themselves do a humane service for their own people and also to entire mankind on earth.

HGM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.0.188 (talk) 06:55, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for Ongoing Armed Conflicts

How about a start date beside each conflict? It would put the Iraq war in perspective to know the Arab - Israeli conflict has been going on since the 1920 Palestine riots Daddylight 03:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, in some/many cases that would be tricky. Since for instance the Arab - Israeli conflict according to the books I read started already around 1850 or so when the first kibbutz's started to violently harassing nearby Palestinian villages. (Don't quote me on the exact year since it was many years since I read those books. And oh, the books I read was written by Jews. I haven't had access to books written by Palestinians yet.) But yeah, even if the dating is not perfect it puts things in perspective. --David Göthberg 05:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image alternative

I left a message at Template_talk:Current#Free_image_alternative about an alternative "current news/events" image: I think it might interest you people here. --David Göthberg 16:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SELENE

I think you have a non free image on the first page of wikipedia. This is a JAXA image. The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the Soviet/Russian space agency, and other non-American space agencies. These are not in the public domain. Thank you. 193.56.37.1 08:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Today's report on Shinzo Abbe

This entry needs a reference, and probably the English should be edited, e.g. "fall to his death from the ...tower" "Apparently he committed suicide"Duncan.france 10:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)?

[edit] Australian News

Why is there no Australian news in the news forum? Australia is a continent and yet Britain which is more than 5 times smaller then Australia still gets news is it because nothing is wrong in australia? im curious.

not saying that it shouldn't (i have no opinion on that), but the austrailian population is a third of brtiain. Do you think Antarctica should have a forum? it is also more than 5 times bigger and a continent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.110.66.202 (talk) 04:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Formula One auto racing - americanisation!

"The FIA fines... Formula One auto racing team..." whilst 'automobile' can be considered correct british english 'auto racing' (and the shortening of automobile to 'auto') is definately a US term. It can be argued that F1 is international (whilst at its core it is essentially european). But there cannot be the arguement that it is more American than British.

  • most teams are based in the UK
  • there has been only one american driver since 1993, who has recently been fired, during this period there have been loads of british drivers, including a world champion, and the current leader.
  • its popularity in the US is far less
  • it is only fairly recently there has been a race in the US, which will not be continued from 2008, whilst the UK, i believe, has featured a race since F1's inception.
  • the current president of the FIA is british, as is the president of the FOA and FOM, Bernie Eccleston.

let us remember that american is not an international language, so 'its international' is not a valid arguement. These above arguements could be spread to europe (in which case i believe it should be british-eng as the english-language representative of europe), being even stronger. And the fact that the article 'auto racing' uses american-english (i believe perhaps wrongly) is not an excuse either, it is not difficult to do motor racing. ~ Bungalowbill —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 05:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

ITN is protected because it's on the main page. Go to WP:ERRORS to suggest changes. --74.14.21.183 17:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Myanma protests

I created a stub at 2007 Myanma anti-government protests, but I haven't got too much time right now; if someone could expand it, that would be great. —Nightstallion 07:54, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quality

I think it is about time we discuss the quality of Current events pages. In the last 3 months or so, I have noticed a downfall in the main Current Events page. More and more "less-notable" or highly "local" news seems to be present, obscuring the other news etc. It seems we lack a main-editor that makes proper selections and restyles the reported news items in their proper form. For instance: "The Dutch Cabinet meets to decide whether to hold a referendum on the European Union's Reform Treaty. (BBC)" Now that's cool and all, but who will care about that in 10 years from now? More importantly, the actual outcome of the meeting is nowhere to be found, and the context as to why this is import is lacking as well in this summary. So how do we balance "news" with "events archiving" ??? How do we balance not writing news, but reporting news and how do we balance open editing for all wikipedia users, with properly "editing" the events to get proper articles.

I guess one of the big issues here is that some of the more involved "Current Events" editors in the past seem to be less active now or moved to wikinews and that no one is stepping up to fill the gaps. The other problem is that there is lack of "content guidance" towards the "casual contributor". I'm not very involved here, though i do make the occasional edit, but this seems like issues that need to be fixed. I was thinking that we might ask the Signpost if they would care to drop a note in the next edition, if there are people out there that would like to help improve this situation. Please leave your thoughts and ideas you have on these problems as well, i'd love to think what the other editors think about this. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:Be bold. Sometimes I filter things, out but it feels a little crass if I don't contribute much. I agree with you, but I still like the mix here and the convenience vs. wading through CNN or ABC.com or whatever. A while ago I proposed that we add section headers like economics, human interest, natural events, etc. It just seems the editorial energy is lacking at the moment. I wouldn't blame WikiNews. But if the current everyday readers put in more effort, we could attract more and maybe more will contribute. (And if too many do, the more politics arise.) Potatoswatter 20:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism on Current Events Portal

Try as I might, I cannot remove vandalism just above the sidebar (Says "This is B.S."), must be in the protected area? Admin help appreciated (this will probably be fixed before this message post. Keeper76 22:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On going Conflicts

It should be noted, that the events in Northern Lebanon between Fatah al Islam and the Lebanese army ended on September 2. Over 60 militia men were sentenced in front of a judicial court this week. Wikipedia considers the event an 'On Going Conflict'??--Yozef 18:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Updating

Is this portal updated by hand on change of day or month? Could a bot do it (or some of it - e.g. replacing the month calendar)? I could not find any instructions, so have done the best I could. -- !! ?? 10:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism alert

One vandal has come into the Current events portal. Please, administrators, do what you should. --Lemur12 19:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a pain to tidy up "lost" news templates from vandalism.... And the templates are - unlike the project page - not even protected... --Camptown 20:41, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current event dates are protected

Why are all the current event dates protected? I tried to edit the three top ones (September 29, 20 and October 1) but it only lets me look at the source, it says, "This page is currently protected from editing because it is transcluded in the following pages, which are protected with the "cascading" option: Portal:Current events". What the hell!? How is someone supposed to edit the dates? Whoes stupid idea was this? There has never been any major vandalism on these pages. – Zntrip 01:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the User cascading feature was added by User:Maxim. It was probably a mistake or something, so I notified him on his user page. – Zntrip 01:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's taken care of now. – Zntrip 02:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC Thank you for taking this time to read this article

michael is the best thing that happen to brazil they could never go on without him he was what keep them from dieing all them years thats like a god to them i praye to him every night its the only way to go hes the only one i love i dont even care about my mother as much as i care about him hes what keeps me going and going i dont know what i would do without him in my life i whise to one day be with him looking down over brazil letting are love for brazil rain everybody would say that he was the biggest player in brazil but i would just say that he was a pimp so all i could say is keep your pimp hand strong it could never go wrong .....!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.147.94.157 (talk) 14:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] College football item, October 7

This item, in my opinion, is NOT world-news material, and should be deleted.Duncan.france 00:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

agreed--208.79.42.225 16:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree, too, particularly in light of there being a separate page for sports news. Do we have a guideline on this? Sgt Pinback 00:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How do I edit the headlines?

Hi. There is a mistake in the headlines (which appear on Wikipedia's homepage. How do I edit and correct it? (The mistake - "China take" should be "takes"). Thanks, Happy138 16:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tokelau Referendum

The referendum which is front page news in Wikipedia is not even front page news in any of the New Zealand newspapers like the New Zealand Herald and not even the top story in any of the news channels as well. Might it be that you got your priorities wrong.--203.211.100.159 21:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Red sox

This is not world news , would the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship or Celtic League winners be posted ?Gnevin 00:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

For the headlines section, please post queries at Template talk:In the news or WP:ITN/C. --Howard the Duck 03:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nova collapse

I'm not too familiar with CE proceedings. But could someone perhaps look at including something about the financial collapse of Nova (English teaching company), arguable the foremost eikaiwa provider in Japan, and largest employer of native-English-speaking foreigners in that country.--ZayZayEM 02:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

I think it makes sense to have the picture, reflect the top headline. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AgPyth (talk • contribs) 08:10, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slow?

Not a whole lot of storys this month. SG2090 (talk) 17:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

How about this one:

LAKOTA NATION SECEDES FROM UNITED STATES link: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVC1KMTOgwiSoMQyT2LwZc9HyAgA

Nah, its not going to happen. SG2090 (talk) 17:11, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bush Vetos water bill

President Bush, on November 2nd, 2007, vetoed a $23B/U.S. bill. "said lacks fiscal discipline." [[5]]

"This bill lacks fiscal discipline,” Bush said. "This authorization bill makes promises to local communities that the Congress does not have a track record of keeping."

"The bill’s excessive authorization for over 900 projects and programs," he added, "exacerbates the massive backlog of ongoing corps construction projects, which will require an additional $38 billion in future appropriations to complete."

Democrat and Republican leaders perdict swift overide. "When we override this irresponsible veto, perhaps the president will finally recognize that Congress is an equal branch of government and reconsider his many other reckless veto threats," said Harry Reid-D. Nevada. Artoftransformation 23:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Note the contrast: [[6]]

March 24, 2007 What are peanuts, shrimp, and spinach doing in the Iraq bill? This week the House passed a $124 billion legislation Iraq funding bill that adds

$21 billion in domestic pork projects to the 
$95.5 billion requested by the Administration.

The spending includes includes

$283 million in milk subsidies, 
$120 million for the shrimp and menhaden fishing industries, 
$74 million for peanut storage, 
$35 million for NASA and 
$25 million for spinach growers.

The Senate version of the overall legislation totals $122 billion.

Veto overide Made the main page. Thanks for reading. Artoftransformation 09:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Writer's Guild Strike?

Why is this here? Hardly a world event. Are we going to put a blurb on the front page every time a union goes on strike? Rawr 18:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

You and I watch American TV, and by next year there won't be new episodes because of this strike. If a labor union of epic proportions does this (like air traffic controllers) then it could be added. --Howard the Duck 09:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the writers strike is a news worthy event for a multi-billion dollar industry, but that really does not count it as EPIC porportions. Artoftransformation 09:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok, the air traffic controllers strike will be of epic proportions but not the writers' strike. --Howard the Duck 04:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drug found in toy rewording?

I think the stanza for the GHB drug found in a toy manufacture should be reworded. The "date rape drug" should be removed or reworded so that it does not seem parents are feeding their children date rape drugs, but a drug that just so happens to used as a date rape drug in completely different circumstances. It sounds appalling if you were the parents ("I gave my kid a toy with a date rape drug in it.") and gives and inappropriate impression. -Kain Nihil 00:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Earthquake in Chile

There is a spanish languaje article about it, you can translate it. 201.222.240.235 17:45, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I have started an article at 2007 Antofagasta earthquake. Mushroom (Talk) 18:15, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cyclone Sidr

Please include the news of Cyclone Sidr, you can find more about it here. Thanks --Tarif from Bangladesh 14:00, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

and also here and here --Tarif from Bangladesh 14:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I think time has probably come to add that in the main page, BBC World has reported it as their TOP STORY in their latest World News at 15:00 GMT. Regards --Tarif from Bangladesh 15:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Death toll rises to 1723, confermed by the armed forces. --Tarif from Bangladesh (talk) 14:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IPCC

Keep "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its fourth report on climate change, indicating that Earth and humanity are now in permanent danger due to global warming. " in the headlines as long as possbile. I believe that people should become aware of it, even though in say several weeks it won't be news anymore. Nergaal (talk) 06:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

  • What you believe is not relevant here. The IPCC is made up of a set of politically-influenced scientists and lobbyists. Their opinions and "factual findings" are just as valid as - say - Christian fundamentalists.--WaltCip (talk) 13:24, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
    • There are no scientists who are completely free of political leanings, because scientists are human and the money used for research has to come from somewhere. Nevertheless the scientists who make up the IPCC are internationally accredited researchers, and their professional findings do, indeed, make the baseline standards for world research. Their credibility is in no way comparable to, say, Christian fundamentalist creationists, and isn't that an interesting analogy for you to choose?

You may or may not respect the credibility of the IPCC yourself, but the fact remains that the rest of the world does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.99.200.16 (talk) 03:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Untrue. See Junkscience.com.--WaltCip (talk) 21:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mainpage violating WP:WTA

Is there a reason the mainpage is linking to "Prophet Muhammad," an honorific, in violation of WP:WTA? Jose João 19:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iran and nukes

Shouldn't the bold link to Nuclear program of Iran rather than Iran and weapons of mass destruction? It's referring specifically to the Nuclear program of Iran. SGGH speak! 10:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why Dogs Hump.

Dogs, mostly males, hump others dogs or creatures(people) and sometimes inatimate objects. The question is, why? Most people believe it may be for sexual pleasure, that the dog is horny. But the real reason is to show dominance.

Sometimes they are just horny though.........oh well. It may also sometimes be a sign of affection. However ew-ith it may be. Either way, your sure to get some sort of entertainment from the dog humping something. Well i hope you have gotten some entertainment from this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gurugurl24 (talk • contribs) 22:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Isn't this news, or do you NOT have a sense of humor?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/wikipedia_secret_mailing/

or

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/06/wikipedia_and_overstock/

Well? Are you too consertivite to write about yourselves? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.174.150.69 (talk) 18:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

is there another source for these stories? --Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 23:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
http://scienceroll.com/2007/12/06/wikipedia-scandal-secret-mailing-list/
http://mattschwartz.newsvine.com/_news/2007/12/04/1140804-secret-mailing-list-rocks-wikipedia
( Source: The Register ( Yech! )
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001286.html

"I don't know how White House reporters stand it. It's got to be extremely corrosive to have a job where people are lying to you and treating you with barely-concealed (sometimes even unconcealed) contempt every single day."

It would proabably be better in the Signpost. --86.108.110.119 (talk) 11:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MainPage-worthy

The gunman story seems quite out of place above the one about Iran's nuclear program and the one about Venezuela's constitutional referendum. Is it really worth putting this story on the main page? --Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

"Get the widow on the set, bring us dirty laundry." -D Henley —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.118.64 (talk) 16:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ongoing Event: Serbia and Kosovo

The issue of Kosovo's independence from Serbia, which could be declared any time from Monday (regardless of the EU's attempt to suggest Early next year) is a considerable event that involves a wider audience (US and most EU countries support, Serbia and Russia disprove). It would be worthwhile I believe to add this to the Ongoing events. Mikebloke (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2007 Africa-EU Summit

Isn't the 2007 Africa-EU Summit worth a few words? Rich Farmbrough, 22:31 9 December 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Homosexual fruit flies

There is a story out today about fruit fly experiments where scientists have discovered how to turn them homosexual and back to heterosexual within hours. Seems like quite a breakthrough! Can anyone post it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.119.247.50 (talk) 00:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

That does not sound real, but if you have a link to the site that says it. SG2090 (talk) 00:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

You can go to http://news.google.com/news?tab=wn&hl=en&ned=us&q=fruit+flies+homosexual or http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071210094541.htm. It will be printed in the journal of Nature Neuroscience in January so it is surely official science and not something made up.

[edit] Led Zeppelin reunion concert

The concert took place last night. Radio, TV and newsmedia are full of the story. [7] SilkTork *SilkyTalk 08:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ...

BWAHAHAHHA! I will rule the world! BOW DOWN TO WERTY! —Preceding unsigned comment added by WertyXXX (talk • contribs) 01:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Qatif Rape Case Pardon

A major Saudi newspaper just reported on a royal pardon for the girl in the Qatif Girl Rape Case, but it's still only in Arabic as far as I know. [8] -- Slacker (talk) 04:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)