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"Reviewers' attention needed"

If there's anything to show that ITN and RD should be cleaved apart... we aren't even paying attention to RDs anyway. JM (talk) 16:31, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Even if we split it, I bet that RDs would still go unattended because of the fact the newest default theme eliminates the TOC to that level. The old style allowed one to see at a glance any "READY" or "NEEDS ATTENTION" in one spot, now an admin has to either unfold each date on the left or go through the entire page. I know there's an option to modify the CSS to force this table, but this shouldn't be the solution and won't be friendly to new admins that want to help at ITN.

I am wondering if we have a daily bot that can look for special tags in short templates (like "itn ready" or "itn attn"), or even if just using using simple catches of "(Ready)" and "(Attn)" in the H4 headers to list out ITN items that need admin attention for posting. Masem (t) 01:24, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I still think the new display theme wastes too much screen space, ITNC or not. I set Preferences->Appearance->Vector legacy (2010). —Bagumba (talk) 01:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think any are being missed from posting, but there do seem to be occasional batches of barely noticeable people that are plucked from Deaths in 2023. Those often remain unreviewed as there's not a great deal of interest in assessing relatively obscure biographies. The blurb nominations get all the interest and commentary. Stephen 03:43, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• I don't usually pay much attention to RD as it's just a list of names, like the phone book. Today, these are:

• M. Russell Ballard
• Maryanne Trump Barry
• Bob White
• Igor Judge
• Linda Hirshman
• Mike Shuster

What I mainly notice is that these are all Anglo-American but I've not heard of any of them and have no interest. Bob White is a common name and so needs disambiguation but doesn't get it.

Looking at the latest full day in Deaths in 2023, we have:

• Basudeb Acharia, 81, Indian politician, MP (1980–2014).
• Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo, 38, Mexican judge.
• Maryanne Trump Barry, 86, American jurist and attorney, judge of the U.S. District Court of New Jersey (1983–1999) and Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1999–2019), cancer.
• Héctor Benavides, 82, Mexican news anchor and radio personality.
• Michael Bishop, 78, American science fiction writer (No Enemy But Time, Who Made Stevie Crye?, Brittle Innings).
• Fermín Cabal, 75, Spanish playwright, scriptwriter (El pico 2), and film director.
• Akram Hossain Chowdhury, 68, Bangladeshi politician, MP (2008–2014).
• Michel Ciment, 85, French film critic (Positif) and historian.
• Henry Colán, 41, Peruvian footballer (Sport Boys, Sporting Cristal, Alianza Atlético), shot.
• Abel Ignacio Cuevas Melo, 58, Mexican politician, deputy (2000–2003, 2006–2009).
• Mohammed Dababish, Palestinian senior intelligence official in the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, airstrike.
• Krzysztof Kamiński, 72, Polish actor.
• Tengiz Kitovani, 85, Georgian politician and military commander, minister of defence (1992–1993) and leader of the Military Council (1992).
• Ivo Kuusk, 86, Estonian opera singer.
• Sjachrani Mataja, 75, Indonesian politician, MP (2014–2019).
• Qin Yukun, 90, Chinese engineer and academic, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
• Gordon Wallace, 74, Scottish footballer (Raith Rovers, Dundee United, Berwick Rangers).
• Devon Wylie, 35, American football player (Kansas City Chiefs, Tennessee Titans). (death announced on this date)

This seems much better in that it explains who these people were, provides a reference for each death and is much more comprehensive, timely and global in its coverage. It also includes someone that I've heard of – the prolific SF author, Michael Bishop. He would probably stand little chance at RD because, with many works to his credit, some jobsworth would insist that each of them must be cited.

So, on this evidence, RD should indeed be separated from ITN so that it might flourish as a separate obituary section, as we see on the front page of other Wikipedia languages. It just needs to follow the model above to be far more informative and productive.

References

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:08, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

How many of those articles at Deaths of 2023 are of quality to post on the main page? Certainly we should try to pull those that are in good shape to post via ITN's RD, and not bring those that are miles away.

But we are not going to change our approach to accommodate for more recognizable names over others. RD is about 1) quality of the article and 2) the death can be verified in reliable sources. Masem (t) 13:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

It would be a nuisance to update RD with so many entries a day, especially for the involved admins. DarkSide830 (talk) 15:53, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

some jobsworth would insist that each of them must be cited why should we allow unverified information into articles linked from the main page? Masem is right, RD is about the quality of the article. JM (talk) 15:56, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Editors, I am thinking more along the lines of "RD is suffering under ITN" because people take more interest in blurbs than in RDs which is why it ends up with someone going through and marking so many of them as "attention needed". I've also noticed since I started this section that people keep confusing blurb standards for RD standards and acting like significance or fame has any effect on whether something is qualified for RD.

I'm NOT saying we should listen to Andrew and have a whole new obituary section and have to reorganize the main page; the RD section on the main page should be left alone, but I do think RD would do better with a separate project page. Those actually interested in RD can go there and see nothing but RDs to review, and there's nothing else on the project page like blurbs to draw people away from them.

(A further development of this would be that RDblurbs would be proposed in ITN as a blurb separately from being proposed for RD; and thus could end up having the same qualifications as normal blurbs (i.e. notable death not notable life, per most recent discussion on that matter)) JM (talk) 16:07, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

ITN overall has an issue where only "popular" or "important" topics get significant attention from those that do not regularly participate in ITN, which affects both RDs and normal non-RD blurbs. A major disaster but not one in the US or Europe? We struggle to find !votes, but make it a much smaller incident in the US and Europe and people !vote from all over. It wouldn't be as bad if these non-regulars were !voting and addressing quality issues, but 90% of the time (my estimate) they are only their to !vote feeling the topic is important to them and ignoring any quality concerns. Splitting off RD will not solve that, you will still only have people flock to popular or important people (eg compare the !votes for Matthew Perry to others of late). Sadly, that's a "WP is voluntary"-related problem that is not easy to correct beyond slapping notices everywhere that quality is a key metric (and effectively the only metric for non-blurb RDs). Masem (t) 00:51, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

RD batching

We need to do a better job of batching these. Matthew Perry was on the main page for barely 5 hours because of how long it took to promote articles of people who predeceased him. The current run has 5 of 6 people who predeceased him and 1 who died on the same day.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:50, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Ideally, a promoting admin should be starting at the bottom of the ITNC list and adding those first, than top down or other "favoritism" reasons. Eg in this case this edit from Ad Orietem jumped to Perry, then Stephan later went through to add several others that were also already ready but just lower down the list when Perry was ready (at the time of this diff). (In this case IAR to get Perry back in line with those other new noms would be reasonable.) Masem (t) 00:10, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Masem. This rotation was particularly abrupt (and on a Sunday, to boot). Readers will be looking for Perry (far more, I warrant, than any of the other listings), so IAR, reinstate him at the front, and give him another ride on the merry-go-round. Moscow Mule (talk) 00:39, 30 October 2023 (UTC) (But nothing of the above should be construed as anything other than the utmost respect for posting admins' tireless work.)

Perhaps we should create a process that gives us a better idea of how long RDs have been up without having to look at diffs. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:40, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

While we do not date RDs in the template (since they can be posted at any time within 7 days of nomination and are posted in the order promoted), perhaps it would be good if the "first" RD addition of a given day (after 00:00 UTC turnover) should be invisicommented to date that, with all subsequent RDs assumed to have been posted on that same day. Masem (t) 02:41, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps we should codify WP:ITNRD that we can leave extra RD entries beyond the usual six if items have been up for < 12 hours, instead of leaving it to IAR.—Bagumba (talk) 07:08, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

This is a good idea. Curbon7 (talk) 20:40, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

A while ago (I think last year), an admin boldly added an invisible comment after each entry indicating the time it was posted, but this was reverted by another admin. Curbon7 (talk) 07:21, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I sort of vaguely recall seeing the diff, but don't remember why it was removed. If, as I suspect, it was because it seemed unmaintainable - well, my template-fu is about fifteen years out-of-date, but I've got a prototype template in my sandbox that turns *{{subst:itnrd|[[Matthew Perry]]}} into *[[Matthew Perry]]<!--leave until 05:23, 30 October 2023--> (i.e, 12 hours after the edit substing it). ({{rd}} and {{RD}} are already taken.) I don't post RDs myself; I mostly work with articles in much worse shape, so don't trust myself not to miss something in the quality check before posting, especially if there's only been one or two comments. Admins who do post RDs: would you use this? Would you prefer more elaborate format like *{{subst:itnrd|Joe Schmoe (electrician)|Joe Schmoe|nowrap=yes}} → *{{nowrap|[[Joe Schmoe (electrician)|Joe Schmoe]]}}, or just *{{nowrap|{{subst:itnrd|[[Joe Schmoe (electrician)|Joe Schmoe]]}}}}? (Prototype can't handle either quite yet.) —Cryptic 03:56, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

The readers looking for his article weren't bothered by this. It's spelled the exact same way his name is, can't miss. Those unaware were the real hypothetical victims here. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I've restored Perry. We often IAR with a 7th (even 8th) RD item to ensure an entry stays up for 12h min. —Bagumba (talk) 00:50, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I feel it is a good service to have it restored. I don't know how long restoration to 7th position will help, but it is better than 5 hours.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:53, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

It's a shame we can't do some HTML magic where we show 5 or 6 deaths at a time, but then also have a "More Recent Deaths" button or link ahead of that, which would then expand or "unfold" 2 or 3 or however many more qualified recent deaths onto the template, similar to how hats work for expanded content. It'd be useful during surge periods, while also still maintaining balance on the Main Page for the first time that it loads, as the "More Deaths" portion of the header would be collapsed until the user clicks that link. And we'd only need to do that in unlikely scenarios when we have something like 7 or 8 RDs posted within a 24-hour time span. The button could be labeled "Show more..." or "Continued..." or something like that. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:50, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

We already have a "more recent deaths" button. It's the link to Deaths in 2023 which is concealed by the "Recent deaths" title. That page is usually quite up-to-date and comprehensive, listing many notable deaths for each day. And it's usually a top-read article as it averages over 130,000 views every day. It seems to be so effective because discussions are exceptional and its editors are able to edit. ITN's RD is just a fraction of that content. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:28, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Other language Wikipedias such as German, French and Spanish, include the date of death in their equivalent sections and naturally list the entries in that order. The Spanish one has quite a lot of entries. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:06, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

So as an idea for batching, let's say that we should only post RDs in one batch every 12 or 24 hours. This is up to the posting admins to make sure they are not stepping on other admins' toes. When an admin posts they would be required to go through the entire ITNC page, from bottom up, to add items to the list as one batch. Other editors (not just admins) can mark RDs as ready to help the process here. The "downside" that we will not have rapid updates of RDs of articles that are already in good shape, but that's maybe 25% of the RD ITNCs from my experience? --Masem (t) 01:26, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we have enough active admins to ensure a systematic post every 12–24 hours. I've seen RDs marked "ready" that I was WP:INVOLVED with that took a while to post. We don't need more barriers to timely posts. If Perry had been left as the 7th RD, there wouldn't have been an issue. —Bagumba (talk) 14:51, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

As I pointed out, if when Perry was posted that the posting admin started from the oldest "ready" RD and added those before adding Perry, we also would have avoided this situation. We need admins not to play favorites or to rush newer "popular" noms before reviewing the older ones waiting to be posted. It basically boils down to admins taking more responsibility and carefulness when posting. Masem (t) 00:35, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps this suggestion could be added to WP:ITN/A. Curbon7 (talk) 01:07, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Masem, forgive me if i am misunderstanding you, but i think that, had the posting administrators posted the rds in chronological order, we still would have had the same problem. i believe the only difference is that perry wouldn't have been the one bumped. dying (talk) 18:59, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Correct, and quite possibly no one would have noticed. Stephen 21:15, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

• For some reason, I have spent an inordinate amount of time (perhaps more than many others here?) thinking about this topic over the last few (three?) years. At the end of it -- I have come to the conclusion that the better is the enemy of the good, and have made my peace. So, let's start from somewhere, here goes.

1. Should we at least ensure that an RD stays 24 hours on the carousel? Yes, if we can. Unfortunately a few proposals were made on that front and 'community consensus' did not emerge on this topic. So that failed.
2. Can we pass this responsibility to posting admins and ensure that they have a look at the RD falling off the carousel and perform an WP:IAR if the falling RD has spent less than 24 hours and allow that one to stay for a few hours longer? Some admins already do that. However, we all know that admin capacity is super hard to come by and we cannot mandate this. A proposal to solidify this approach also failed, iirc.
3. Can we add a timestamp as a comment in the posting template so that it is easier for an admin to see when the falling-off RD was posted? Seems a simple solution to add a timestamp, but, we could not find out how this was to be done. Conceptually it sounds simple to add a timestamp as a comment next to the article title on the ITN template.
4. Can we add a couple of extra RDs on the carousel? This proposal failed because we could not align on screen sizes and did not want RDs spilling over to three lines on some screens.
5. Today (or at least a couple of months ago) we have an issue that our posting curve is not smooth. i.e. we do not post at regular intervals. Even when we have articles marked as a ready, they stay in that state for a very long time. This is primarily because of available admin capacity. We had run the numbers and had seen that the entire ITN project is reliant on a handful of admins. Definitely thankful for their time. So, the answer is a) we need more admins to participate, or b) explore a new role of an 'admin without tools', or c) technology solutions to create a staging / holding area where non-admins move content to and a script posts at a pre-defined interval e.g. 4 hours. Unfortunately none of these solutions have found takers for some reason or the other.
6. With all of that said, where are we right now? Answer is -- we make do with what we have. -- Admins are encouraged to:

1. Post more often
2. Not batch the postings but post one at a time
3. Evaluate articles from the bottom of the page

To conclude, like I mentioned earlier, sometimes better is the enemy of the good. And, we have something that is working, however flawed. I continue to remain in awe of the number of articles that are improved to main page levels of quality in this project and that is an absolute WIN for Wikipedia at large and there are no two ways about it. Happy Diwali to all those who celebrate. Ktin (talk) 18:29, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Should we at least ensure that an RD stays 24 hours on the carousel? Yes, if we can. Unfortunately a few proposals were made on that front and 'community consensus' did not emerge on this topic. So that failed.: Keeping them up for at least 12 hours seems to be a common WP:IAR practice. A few mentioned 12h (instead of 24h), because that's the minimum amount of time that DYK hooks stay up. —Bagumba (talk) 07:45, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

iirc that proposal didn't pass either. Ktin (talk) 20:05, 22 November 2023 (UTC)