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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Bencherlite (talk | contribs) at 08:49, 20 April 2016 (→Proposal: Add NCAA basketball championship: close as consensus to add to ITNR). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Click here to nominate an item for In the news. In the news toolbox

[Added] Proposal : Add Turing Award

Consensus to add. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:16, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This would be under a new "Technology" or "Science" banner under awards, but the Turing Award (given once per year) is equated to the Nobel Prize in the field of computer science + technology. The award appears to be regularly covered by mainstream sources (this year has NYTimes, and a spot check of past years shows NYTimes, CBS News, WSJ, etc. all reporting on it). As with other awards, it's the person(s) that get the award that would be highlighted in the ITN blurb. --MASEM (t) 17:50, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support because of course before posting it has be up to quality standards, and the award is internationally recognised. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:22, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Internationally recognized as the top award in its field. Seems to get notable coverage, meaning readers will be interested. 331dot (talk) 19:26, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support the often used moniker "Nobel Prize of computer science" is not an exaggeration. Thue (talk) 20:10, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm surprising myself here but I really am reluctant about this. Yes, I'm more than aware of the prize but I should be as a CS graduate, and yes, I have seen the "equivalent of the Nobel prize" description myself. However, I've also seen it for plenty of other awards. In all cases it is simply used as shorthand for the top award in the respective field. There are no true equivalents to the Nobels in terms of the sheer amount of interest and publicity they generate. Are we going to post all the imposters?
My second point would be the subject matter itself: a lot of the time it is pretty dry stuff. That goes for the Nobels as well of course, but in that case there is bona fide interest in the results. Is that true here? It is not our job to tell people what they should be interested based on lofty ideals of worthiness, but to direct the reader to articles of interest. I don't see this one getting across that barrier in the general case. On occasion such as this year, yes, it may happen. That doesn't mean it should go up each and every year regardless of the recipient or reason for the award. Hence, consider it at ITN/C on a case by case basis. If it gets a track record of going up then it can be reconsidered.
Finally, I have a wider concern about our ability to assess the significance of hi-tech stories in general and computing in particular. For example, although I was fairly new to Wikipedia when the story on 3D gates went up (discussion here[1]) and certainly hadn't made it to ITN/C it struck me as a strange story to go up. Looking at that discussion the consensus was that it was some once-in-a-generation game changer, only one voice was saying it was just one in a long sequence of developments, and even he or she supported the re-nomination. With five year's hindsight to be honest who the hell cares? It hasn't transformed the industry overnight. You'd have to say that lone opponent called it right. Yes, that is but one example but I think it makes the point well: we're all sat in front of computers, many of us will have particular interest in them. We shouldn't allow that interest to create a false sense of importance towards the sector. 3142 (talk) 00:28, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A way to look at this is that presently, there is nothing in ITNR that reflects on computer science, unless it is given out as part of other awards. Its a very valid and academic area of study and one that compared to many Nobel award efforts, come to realization in daily life much faster. So the addition of one "guaranteed" news story a year about a recognized milestone of computer science is far from overwhelming the other ITNR or ITNC in any situation. --MASEM (t) 00:53, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So there's nothing on ITNR about computer science. So what? No field of endeavour has some automatic right to feature on ITN, yet alone ITNR, there is no quota of stories a given field has a right to expect. Are you proposing that we post "Plumber of the Year" or other industry titles? Wheres the line? ITNR is to highlight stories of general interest and it hasn't been demonstrated here - I'm not talking about stub articles in the specialist sections of the odd newspaper website - where is the coverage in the main running order of mainstream broadcast news? The Nobels can show that. The Turing award can't. 3142 (talk) 18:58, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A Google News search on Turing Award shows at least 2000 hits from this award given last week, including all major mainstream sources (NYTimes, LATimes, WaPost, and other world papers). So this did get mainstream coverage. That itself is sorta key here , in that while it might not get as detailed coverage as the Nobel's , it is clearly on the same order as those. --MASEM (t) 19:05, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

[Closed] Proposal: Add Women's World Chess Championship

For future reference, the link to the (unsuccessful) 2016 nomination is here. There is no consensus in this discussion to add this championship to ITNR. BencherliteTalk (using his alt account Bencherheavy) 08:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We have the male version at ITNR, but not this one. Getting strong support and some surprise that isn't treated equally with the male variant. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:25, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mjroots I think you need to make this a separate proposal - this discussion is for this nomination only. MurielMary (talk) 07:33, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support Count me among those expressing surprise that this is not given equal treatment. I recognize that it does not get equal coverage as the men's tournament, but that can't justify overt bias on our part, especially when it's applied to recurring items. Therefore, I also agree with the sentiment expressed by Mjroots above (as a practical guideline, if not a hard rule). - OldManNeptune ⚓ 12:45, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I don't know if this should be included or not, but it's only bias if the women's tournament gets coverage equal to that of the men's and is still not posted. For example, the fact that we post the Super Bowl does not mean we should post the championship game of one of the many women's football leagues there is, because those get barely any coverage. There may be reasons to post this but it shouldn't be to right the wrong of it not getting the same attention as the men's tournament. 331dot (talk) 12:52, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that it is about righting wrongs, but about ensuring that the rules aren't stacked against neutrality. ITN/R unavoidably introduces a kind of "bias" by favoring an item with expedited posting (it need only meet quality/update guidelines, debate over notability is moot), so it behooves us to ensure that no systemic bias is allowed to fold itself into this. We post general elections regardless of the country's population, because that's the only neutral way to do it; I view this as an application of the same underlying principle. Your observations are fair enough for regular nominations, because it can easily be debated on the spot whether coverage for this or that is sufficient, or whatever other criteria needs brought up, but ITN/R items should be "gold standard". Regarding women in American football - the issue I see is that no women's football league is an equivalent level of competition to the NFL, and I don't think we post any other US football championships. If there were a Women's Super Bowl of the WNFL, I would say we should absolutely post it even if it got a fraction of the viewers. - OldManNeptune ⚓ 13:17, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, the case of Super Bowl is rather evident, as men are simply physically stronger on average than women. In chess, chances are more even, but the fact is most women still decide to play in a separate women's championship, unlike Judit Polgár who challenged men (as the World Chess Championship is open to women). This speaks for inclusion of the Women's Championship. Maybe someday the WWCC will be abolished and women will compete among men, but not yet, not yet. Brandmeistertalk 13:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose The proposal proceeds from a false premise: there is no "men's" title - the main competition is open to both genders. Women don't feature not because they are not eligible on grounds of gender, but because they are not good enough to qualify. If the women's game is thus so demonstrably inferior in what way can the the women's title be considered equivalent to the open one? 3142 (talk) 18:39, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
ITNR includes several separate women championships in sports with insurmountable male performance, such as association football, tennis or volleyball. Unlike those, various women chess players do compete against men and several of them defeated male GMs multiple times. Some women chess players also produced chess novelties (new moves never made before). So gender-based performance difference in this case doesn't look like a big deal. Brandmeistertalk 20:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose currently the top female is ranked at number 73 in the world. Unlike in physical competitions like say athletics, I don't see a good rationale to have a separate entry featuring only female competitors. Nergaal (talk) 00:48, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support based on the criteria for ITN and ITN/R - which are the only criteria which should be being consulted in this discussion, by the way. All comments above comparing this event to other events are red herrings; the content and composition and popularity of other similar events, or other events within the same sport, are not relevant to the value of this event. According to ITN's significance criteria, the matters to consider here are the frequency and quality of news reports on the event, for example. It's apparent from the coverage of the 2016 event that there is a range of news reports, and they are in-depth. Therefore the event can be considered as meeting the criteria and able to be added to the ITN/R list. MurielMary (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, hasn't received the attention necessary for inclusion. In general, some sports get quasi-equal attention for men and women (tennis, swimming, athletics, judo, most winter sports...), some sports are competed together (equestrian), and in some sports the attention for the men's (or open) competetion is much greater than for the women. Of those, we have on the one hand things like soccer, where the attention for the women's world championship is considerably smaller than for the men's, but is still more than sufficient for ITN inclusion. On the other hand, there are things like chess, but also e.g. snooker, boxing, ski jumping, where the specific women's compettion gets little to no attention compared to the men's (or open) competition. If someone starts a women F1 racing championship tomorrow, it shouldn't automatically get equal treatment at ITN with the existing (open but in reality men only) competition, unless it gets sufficient attention. ITN (or wikipedia) is not the place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Fram (talk) 09:26, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose based on the same criteria cited by the users above. There simply is no evidence for broad coverage of the event. Search on Google News and all you find is some very limited coverage in China and Ukraine (where the two competitors come from) and barely two or three other articles outside chess-specialized websites. One of them, by the Guardian, covered the tournament under the heading "Hunt for challenger to Magnus Carlsen has begun at Moscow candidates", as a secondary item, subordinate to qualification for the open championship game. Compare that to (completely justified) ITN/R event of FIFA Women's World Cup, which has much less coverage than the men's tournament, but is reported in practically every publication that covers general sports. It's not about equal rights, it's about coverage. No longer a penguin (talk) 10:13, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Right now the WWCC is structured as knockout tournament, match, knockout tournament, match, etc. The result of the knockout tournament version, which only includes two games at classical time controls, is that it introduces variability. The WCC experimented with that for a while as well and it was quickly overturned for that reason (players like Ruslan Ponomariov won the tournament and with no disrespect to him, he was never at or near the top of the world's rating lists). However the WWCC maintains the tournament version, in part because of the difficulty in finding sponsors for the tournament if it didn't also award the title of world champion [2]. As long as that is the case, the odds are that we'll be seeing new women's world champions every two years, a situation that's silly as can be seen from the list of women's world champions. Yifan has never lost a WWCC match, yet half the time in the past six years she was not champion. Oppose making this ITNR until the structure changes. Banedon (talk) 03:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

[Added] Proposal: Include women's events when simultaneous with men's (and vice versa)

ITN/C amended by User:Smurrayinchester. Stephen 03:36, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Above, people suggested making the presence of a men's sport event automatically qualify the female event too. This, it was argued, would put undue weight on some obscure events - especially because in some cases, the women's events are amateur while the men's are professional, or the women's events are orders of magnitude smaller. Therefore, I'm suggesting a tighter proposal: when a men's event and women's event are held as part of the same competition, both qualify. This is already an explicit rule for tennis and badminton, and it seems to be de facto practice for marathons; in addition, we would now post the women's Boat Race, both men's and ladies' overall at the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, and both the men's and women's road races at UCI Road World Championships. This only applies where there is an explicitly gendered award, of course - we wouldn't post the most successful male and female drivers in a Formula 1 race, for instance, because the award is only "best driver". Smurrayinchester 11:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think we already do this in most cases where the two competitions are part of the same event(including with The Boat Race this year now that the races are on the same day in the same location, despite concerns that the notability of both is not equivalent). I'm not sure we need to write it down but I don't oppose doing so. 331dot (talk) 12:03, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm also not opposed so long as the article quality of both articles is sufficient for the main page. --Jayron32 12:12, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this works out pretty well, especially with the specification that it has to be during the same competition. The Boat Race is, as mentioned, would be a prime example as it shows such events can be worked into the blurb pretty easily. From what I'm gathering this affects a relatively small pool of articles so it shouldn't be terribly invasive. I also think having this written down within the rules somewhere will help solidify this and avoid most complaints (but probably not all) about notability issues. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 12:26, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not opposed to this. As pointed out, it will draw attention to articles that otherwise would not receive such attention due to systemic bias.--WaltCip (talk) 12:52, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • What everyone else has said for a few extra words, while keeping in mind the quality argument made by Jayron, this can make a nice difference. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:05, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • In principle this is a fine idea, but is there a way to feature it without having a blurb that is implying the two events are of the same caliber (i.e. when the prize pool is different)? While systematic bias exists, I think overcompensating does the same thing in the opposite direction. Nergaal (talk) 14:45, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I guess using some kind of guideline like this one, I think equal prize pool championships should be both featured, but there should be some sort of tiering for the non-"equal" sports. Nergaal (talk) 14:50, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how useful that is. The ones where the prize money differs are almost all separate tournaments. The exception is the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, which isn't ITN/R, but if it was, I think posting the men's and women's results would still be justified (in the 2016 one, men and women mostly compete in the same events, but the men's season has a few more dives and a couple of men-only events at the start of the season). Smurrayinchester 08:30, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed wording

Ok, it's clear that we are happy with the idea proposed above. But it needs to be enshrined in words that we can point at to help our admins and other editors when making decisions on blurbs and what to post hereinafter. As the proposer, I'd like to invite Smurrayinchester to propose some words we can add to the ITN instructions. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:54, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man Easiest would be to change the current text to "Every entry applies to the conclusion of the men's and women's events (where applicable) in the tournament or series, unless otherwise specified." Smurrayinchester 08:16, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's been about a week, so I've added this text (with "where applicable" changed to "when simultaneous" for clarity") - if anyone has any changes to the wording, feel free to revert and discuss here. Smurrayinchester 12:26, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

[Added] Proposal: Add NCAA basketball championship

Consensus to add NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship to ITNR. BencherliteTalk 08:49, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The arguments for having this item on ITNR are very similar to that for having The Boat Race on ITNR. Both are events involving only students of certain universities. Both are high (albeit not top) level competitions. Both attract mass media coverage. Both have national cultural significance. We discussed The Boat Race just a couple of sections above this one, and since that discussion resulted The Boat Race remaining on ITNR I don't see why this should not be on ITNR as well.

Previous discussions on this graciously linked by Muboshgu on the ITNC nomination: [3] [4] [5] [6]

For the record I am on a personal level opposed to both items being on ITNR; however since consensus was for The Boat Race to remain on ITNR then I believe for consistency the NCAA basketball championship should also be on ITNR. Banedon (talk) 03:10, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should focus on the active nom at ITN/C before this. But I wholeheartedly support this being added to ITN/R. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:13, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It would be better to wait until after this year's dust settles - a productive discussion will be easier when there isn't a current item on the line. Do you me is we close this for now, @Banedon:? --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:33, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Re-opening this, as the ITN/C nomination is now complete. Support adding this to ITN/R based on the consensus formed in ITN/C, and that this has been posted now for three years running.--WaltCip (talk) 12:13, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support per rational of Boat Race to avoid systematic bias and to highlight stories that do see appropriate updates and readership views. Should we assume the women's NCAA title is also included on this per recent discussion on these type of events? --MASEM (t) 15:26, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The women's tournament is not in the same location(or locations) as the men's so they are different events(unlike the Boat Race). 331dot (talk) 20:40, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
TRM has it right. --Jayron32 16:07, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Mu (negative) as I think the focus on ITN/R distracts from what should be out primary mission, which is to assess and recognize quality content. I think we already expend far too much energy trying to tell the world what it should find important, instead of assessing the quality of, improving the quality of, and recognizing the good work given to, the articles people are proposing we post to the main page. If I had my druthers, I'd reverse-abolish ITN/R in the sense that I think we could just make ITN/R concepts apply to ALL proposed candidates, and then we could spend less time hand-wringing over whether or not some subject is "important enough" (which always degrades to "important enough to me") and instead focus on assessing and improving articles. If an event happened recently, and we can find enough recent text about the recent event to qualify as reliable sources to improve Wikipedia articles, it should pass the necessary threshold for being "in the news". Everything else regarding if something is important enough becomes irrelevant. But alas, that is but a dream, that people here cared more about improving Wikipedia content than telling other people their work doesn't matter to them... If we're going to keep ITN/R, I'd certainly support adding this. But I think ITN/R and the focus on us granting "worth" to the work of others based on our own personal feelings is a distraction from what should be our main job. --Jayron32 15:28, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your caring about quality, but I think you're opposition is misplaced since even ITN/R items are checked thoroughly for quality before they're posted. And some ITN/R items don't go up because they aren't of sufficient quality. I think this proposal is important as it gets us past the "notability" argument and straight to checking it for quality. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:33, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The point of ITNR is not necessary to describe what we as WP feel is important, but instead to identify recurring events that - either due to past nominations on ITNC or consensus of common sense, should easily be promoted as candidates as to avoid discussions on the importance of this recurring event at ITN/C. (The last Boat Race nom at ITN/C (not the discussion above) is an example of what should not be happening). Everyone should walking into an ITN/C discussion on an ITNR item that the recurring events's importance should not be the subject of debate: only the quality of the article for the specific instance event, and at exceptional times, if the specific instance of the event is really that important given everything else going on. (For example, the election results of a nation with less than a million people where the incumbent candidates remain in their seat of power, when there are 5-6 blurbs about significant disasters or the like, despite election results being ITNR, may not be really that important at that time - it doesn't invalidate the ITNR, just that specific case). So nearly all the time, ITNR is aimed to making sure quality content is at the target articles before the ITN element is posted, and should avoid excessive debate on the general importances of the event save for rare cases. --MASEM (t) 15:41, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion should have its own forum, and not railroad the discussion over the NCAA game's inclusion into the existing ITNR system. If you boys and girls want to create some walls of text about the general philosophy of ITNR and article quality, create a new thread. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:45, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summarizing my TLDR response in the above hat: Support. If you want to know why, open the hat. --Jayron32 16:07, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, for the same reason I backed it on the main ITN/C page a few days ago: this is one of the highest levels of the sport, and of great cultural significance. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:41, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support It's gone up for the last three years, as it should for an event of its magnitude. The annual argument over collegiate sports in the US is a blight on ITN and quashing that argument permanently by making this recurring would be a relief. - OldManNeptune ⚓ 18:58, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support frankly I'm sick and tired of the comparison between the Boat Race and this event, there are a few parallels but nothing that really means if you post one, you must post the other. It's becoming far too time-consuming and non-profitable to have read the swaths of text from the angry Americans who don't "get" the Boat Race and the non-Americans who don't "get" the NCAA (or other college sports in the US). If the article is decent, and it is (and has been, much like the Boat Race) and if it's popular with our readers (although the final page doesn't get many hits, the overall tournament seems to get a few), and it's been posted for the past few years, then so be it. My parting shot is that don't forget we only have one rowing ITNR, this NCAA tournament will become the fourth basketball ITNR. For the sake of stories hitting the main page for a few days, perhaps we all need to be a little more circumspect, and less jingoistic. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:17, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - As I understand it, "college" (US) = "university" (UK). That the event has been posted three years running shows there is consensus for it to appear, so let's formalize the situation and add it to ITN/R. If article quality threshold is not met, then it won't get listed. Mjroots (talk) 20:23, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Posted three years in a row indicates this consistently merits posting; the arguments for posting don't need to be restated. 331dot (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support - the time for NCAA basketball to be listed on ITN/R has come:
  1. Basketball has a strong claim on being the world's second most popular sport, behind only (association) football. There are professional leagues throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and of course North America. It has the most national organization of an Olympic team sport, narrowly eclipsing even football. (It is a minor sport in the UK, but the UK is the exception here.) See also statistical analysis that agrees with this conclusion.
  2. ITN/R currently lists 2.5 basketball items/year, compared to, for example, 4+ for rugby, which no one would argue is more popular. So, there is room for another item.
  3. More importantly, than the sport's popularity, the cultural impact of NCAA basketball goes well beyond the sport itself. In honesty, most sports' finals are followed only by fans of the sport. That is not true of NCAA basketball, which is finds significant interest from people who normally don't follow basketball or even sports in general. The only other events in the US which definitely do that in significant numbers are the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the Olympics, which are all listed on ITN/R, of course.
  4. The NCAA tournament is typically the third most watched sporting event in the US, ahead of ~10 events that are listed on ITN/R. We shouldn't be putting our judgment of "importance" ahead of the public's judgement.
  5. And perhaps most important of all, the tournament has been listed 5/7 years. Most recently, it has been listed with fairly strong consensus. It is very likely to be listed almost every year going forward, regardless of ITN/R status. There are those that really hate that fact and will raise a huge stink about it, wasting editor time arguing. The purpose of ITN/R is to avoid such unnecessary arguments from reoccurring every year.
--ThaddeusB (talk) 03:09, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose My observation is that in the grand scheme of sports NCAA championship is an obscure thing, despite claimed viewership and following in the US. Presently, ITNR lists three basketball events, all of them of international significance, while winning NCAA championship confers only local notability upon a basketball player. I doubt that a non-US reader would recognize such competition as easily as all other basketball events at ITNR. Other than that, I doubt that in terms of physical performance college basketball approaches the level of play at, say, FIBA Basketball World Cup. Even if I end up in minority here, the good thing is that we would avoid repeated skirmishes at ITN about posting it. Brandmeistertalk 15:54, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It requires a certain level of self-serving hypocrisy to argue that one country's college event deserves ITNR but not another's. That said, I oppose The Boat Race, and I oppose this one too. Resolute 15:58, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Except that not other country treats their college sports on the same level. Stop with the false equivalencies.Correctron (talk) 14:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support since we can't win in the opposition of the inclusion of The Boat Race, it is absolutely fair to include this and NCAA Division I Football if we include TBR since they are taken more seriously by the general public and I'm not an American. Donnie Park (talk) 16:34, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think "taken more seriously" is pure OR but at the same time I can't help but smile at your inability to discuss any of this without any kind of reference to the Boat Race, which clearly pisses you off! Get over it, and try to think of our readers, tens of thousands of whom picked up the Boat Race article this year, far more than you'd like to believe. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:16, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Boat Races had 15000 one day and 12600 the next. College Football had 95000. So...Correctron (talk) 21:21, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So? Kim Kardashian had more than that. What's that got to do with "taking it seriously"? Get a real answer or don't bother contributing. On second thoughts, that's a moot point. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:24, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I know you wanted to defend your Boat Race so much since most of the articles are done by you but who wouldn't want to defend their own Wikipedia works. In defence of Correctron EA had a videogame franchise based on college football, so has your beloved boat race, Mr Oxford Lawyer? Donnie Park (talk) 13:46, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It most definitely was not Oxford, and certainly not law. Nice try though. And if you believe a video game is a sign of encyclopaedic notability, you'll have to pardon me from not taking anything you ever write here again seriously! You kids will buy anything these days! Toodle pip. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:50, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per ThaddeusB and AlexTiefling. Neljack (talk) 22:59, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for the same reasons as every other university sporting event (for what it's worth I also oppose posting the Oxbridge boat race). This is by no means the top level of the sport, it is only open to students at certain universities, and the teams included are an arbitrary selection of a panel rather than decided on objective results. We should restrict ourselves to the top professional competitions in each sport, not limited amateur imitations. I find the argument of media attention to be spurious - we don't post celebrity gossip just because lots of outlets are covering it. Modest Genius talk 10:56, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't just media attention, but the fact these are significant cultural events that draw a great deal of attention. When the POTUS calls a press conference to announce his basketball tournament bracket picks, there is clearly strong interest in the event. These also are indeed 'top level' college competitions. It's just a different league per se, not a lower level. A lower level would be the NCAA Division II basketball tournament. I would add that college basketball and college football usually draw larger crowds than the respective pro sports. The largest capacity stadiums in the US are college football stadiums(Michigan Stadium). 331dot (talk) 20:27, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To add, consider that scouting and recruitment of skilled basketball and football players from high schools and middle schools is extremely common. The NCAA Div I schools put significant money to developing these programs and having the financial resources to draw these students to their schools so they can get more money from alumni and sponsors by having the best players they can recruit. It is not a professional league but it is operated as close to one could envision in that environment, that players are not just randomly selected from their student pool but highly filtered and screened. --MASEM (t) 20:41, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just because people take it seriously doesn't change the fact that it's not the top level of the sport. You could say the same things about investment and scouting for the Football League Championship (more so in fact), but we don't post that for obvious reasons. 'Top college' is irrelevant - it's not the top level of basketball. We don't post every variation of rules or eligibility of a sport, such as the top amateur tennis tournament, top Sunday league football or the top rugby sevens. The fact that the current president is a fan doesn't change my opinion one iota. NCAA, in all sports, is an amateur student competition that is not the top level - they should never be posted. Modest Genius talk 11:26, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Where does this insistence on "top level" come from? E.g. are you suggesting we remove Six Nations from the rugby union section of ITN (it's not the World Cup, after all, so it's not top level), the NBA Finals (it's not the FIBA World Cup, so not the top level), all the "selected" marathons (what makes those that are selected "top level" to you and not the others?) and what makes both Formula One and Indy Car both "top level" in the same sport? The Rambling Man (talk) 11:32, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
ITN has restricted itself to the top level sporting contests since its very inception. Sometimes there is more than one event at the top level, and some sports get more than one item so take the top X events, but that doesn't change the underlying principle. I don't think this is a useful place to discuss whether that is the right approach; the point is simply that it has been the ITN approach forever. Modest Genius talk 12:20, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That may be your recollection, but I don't see that enshrined anywhere in the ITNR items. In fact, most of the initial ITNR items were just added by a couple of editors on a whim. So let's not start pretending to get all nostalgic and claim some kind of restriction of top level. ITNR is about newsworthy items. They may not be at the top level. They may have had their notability discussed ad infinitum and every year be published and every year please our readers (for it is them we serve). If I'm reading the right stats, the last NCAA tournament had nearly a million hits. It was both encyclopedic and interesting to our readers (for it is them we serve). Strikes me a lot of people are acting as fake gatekeepers to this encyclopedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:25, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I said ITN, not ITNR. Anyway this discussion has become unproductive so I don't see any point in continuing it any further. Modest Genius talk 12:29, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine, but be sure: ITN has never restricted itself to top-level sports. It works on consensus and quality, that's it. I would have thought you'd have known that by now. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:53, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Modest Genius: I guess we will just have to disagree about what constitutes 'top level'(though I agree with TRM's sentiment about 'top level'). The NCAA is just a different league. We don't post the NBA D-League because it is indeed a 'lower level' of the sport, just as we don't post the Div II tournament. 331dot (talk) 21:33, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interesting you are mentioning the D-league as a 'lower level' league, when D-league teams will most likely kill the NCAA champ. EVERY American player on ANY D-league team is a former NCAA star, while even the best NCAA teams have 6-10 role players with no chance in professional basketball. Taking a WP:WORLDVIEW, Eurobasket, EuroLeague, Liga ACB etc. are all generally considered better competitions than the NCAA. Timmyshin (talk) 04:31, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. I recognise that consensus is clearly against me here, but I still find the arguments for NCAA being an important competition to be entirely spurious. Modest Genius talk 12:20, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
They're only spurious because you disagree with the conclusions. There's only two ways to measure importance: 1) "What I care about" and 2) "What we can show is important to reliable sources because of the level and depth of coverage of the event". The arguments for inclusion of any item on ITN or ITNR based on importance are only spurious if your measure of importance is definition 1) and if you entirely disregard definition 2). However, Wikipedia in general has an ethos of favoring definition 2) in all aspects, that's why it has policies like WP:NOR and WP:RS and WP:V and many others. --Jayron32 12:24, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I still think to remove all the perennial discussions about these sporting events that some regard as extremely important but others scoff at is to simply incorporate the less notable sporting events into the "recent events" section of the page. I think many users will be receptive to the event being a singular link rather than a whole "blurb". Colipon+(Talk) 14:32, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Colipon: Do you mean 'Ongoing events'? Your suggestion would be a significant change in the scope of that line, which was not meant for sports events in progress, but to feature an article that is being incrementally updated(and where each individual update would not merit posting, but they would collectively). That would probably need to be discussed separately. 331dot (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I do mean "ongoing events". I think my proposal fixes almost all the perennial issues at ITN, but I am very pessimistic about raising that as a separate discussion since the 'culture' at ITN seems to throw out "oppose" and "support" liberally without addressing the overarching issues in a consensus-driven process. Colipon+(Talk) 20:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - NCAA basketball (aptly known as March Madness) is more popular in the US than the NBA, the most high profile professional basketball league in the world, and that says something. And March Madness office pool has become a cultural phenomenon. Leaving this out of ITN/R while keeping numerous less popular events makes absolutely no sense. -Zanhe (talk) 05:21, 13 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose NCAA being more popular than the NBA in the US is definitely a myth. In America, March Madness is very comparable to the NBA Playoffs in ratings. As an example, 2016 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Game scored 17.8 million viewers, while the 2015 NBA Finals averaged 19.9 million per game. March Madness is not equivalent to NCAA basketball, it's only the year-end tournament for Division I NCAA basketball. Even if we don't consider Division II and Division III, the NBA destroys the NCAA in average rating/attendance in regular season. Only a few teams like Kansas can compete with the NBA in terms of popularity. Some of the mid-major teams only see a couple hundred people per game, while even the worst NBA team (76ers) averages at least 10,000 people. Outside of the US, frankly, the NCAA receives no mainstream coverage or interest, except in maybe the Philippines or Canada, but even in those places the NBA is far more popular. Basketball is a highly popular global sport, and the failure to be broadcast internationally already indicates a lack of global appeal. In my opinion, there are only 2 universally important basketball events, the NBA and the Olympics. March Madness shouldn't show up on this page if one takes a WP:WORLDVIEW. Timmyshin (talk) 04:01, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    From the ITN standards, which have been posted at WP:ITNC since time immemorial, "Please do not...oppose an item because the event is only relating to a single country, or failing to relate to one. This applies to a high percentage of the content we post and is unproductive." --Jayron32 11:07, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed; if global interest or global appeal was required, very little would be posted. 331dot (talk) 11:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why are you bringing up Divisions II and III? Nobody's trying to add the lower level championships to ITNR. The proposer probably didn't make it clear in the section title, but we're only talking about the final results of the year-end tournament for Division I NCAA basketball (emphasis yours). -Zanhe (talk) 17:12, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Blizzards, earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other natural disasters

How come these aren't on ITNR? I'm very surprised they're not there in some shape or form. It's arguable that the magnitudes of the natural disasters is a critical factor (so e.g. a magnitude 4 earthquake may not be worth posting), but while the exact line is something that might be discussed, to not have e.g. a magnitude 8 earthquake on ITNR is something that's still very surprising to me. Banedon (talk) 03:17, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They aren't "recurring", for the most part. At least not in any predictable manner that ITNR is meant to cover. --MASEM (t) 03:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes, but ITNR also has events like discovery of new scientific elements and launch of manned orbital spaceflights, which aren't recurring either except in the weak sense ("another spaceflight will probably be launched in the next five years"), but then these natural disasters also recur in the weak sense. Banedon (talk) 03:25, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Going by magnitude alone is pointless. We need to assess the impact of the earthquake, for example a low magnitude quake in a densely populated area will be far more devastating and newsworthy than a higher magnitude quake in a sparsely populated region. Some volcanoes erupt all the time, others have one big bang every millennium. Their newsworthiness needs assessment on a case-by-case basis. Blizzards take place all the time all around the globe. What constitutes a bright-line over which a blizzard becomes automatically notable enough for ITNR? It's not possible to generically define that. That's precisely why each event needs to be assessed individually which makes these events entirely unsuitable for ITNR. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:04, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose per TRM who said it better than I probably could. If things like this are ITNR, then everything might as well be. 331dot (talk) 09:40, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the above. Every new scientific element is important enough to mention, no matter how infrequently they are found. Every manned spaceflight - the same. Every blizzard, earthquake, volcanic eruption or "other natural disaster"? No. You can't formulate an easily applied rule, which is what ITNR needs. Significant disasters get posted without difficulty already. This suggestion is a problem in search of a problem. BencherliteTalk 10:14, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, if a blizzard / earthquake / volcanic eruption etc is not notable, it wouldn't have an article. Banedon (talk) 10:32, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
ITNC does not just weigh notability, but judgements about what is notable enough for the Main Page. We are not a news ticker and do not post every notable event. If you want to make ITN just post everything that has an article, please propose that. 331dot (talk) 10:35, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That applies to every nomination, including items that are currently on ITNR. Are you suggesting we dispose of ITNR then? Banedon (talk) 11:04, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
ITNR indicates that the judgement about notability has already been made, not that it isn't made at all. 331dot (talk) 11:08, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe 331dot has suggested disposing of ITNR at any point. If that's what you suggest Banedon, feel free to start (yet) another discussion here. The mass and arbitrary inclusion of all "Blizzards, earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other natural disasters" is what's being discussed here, and it's clear there's not a jot of appetite to include it at ITNR. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Do Blizzards recur? I'm not sure they do; they're rather capricious and random... --Jayron32 11:53, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The blizzard itself, no, but similar events do, e.g. North American blizzard of 2005 and North American blizzard of 2006. Volcanic eruptions can be argued to recur, as does the Southeast Asian Haze. Banedon (talk) 12:04, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but their impact is the importance, and that can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:06, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Those events are not recurring. There is not a schedule of expected future blizzards. However, we do know when the next U.S. Presidential Election will be and when the next Olympics will be. That's what makes those events on ITNR because they R... --Jayron32 12:19, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The precise dates of most general elections are not known, compare e.g. Next Dutch general election. We only know it must happen by a certain date. That does not stop elections from being ITNR. There are lots of uncertainties right now in some ITNR items as well, e.g. the date of discovery of the next element is not known. We might be able to say "chances are it will happen in the next two years", but then we can also make statements like "chances are there will be a big earthquake in the next five years". Currently meteors and great comets are listed as ITNR, but the section itself says "meteors and comets are impossible to predict...". Banedon (talk) 12:46, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The "MISSING THE POINT" klaxon is going off now. We don't and won't post " Blizzards, earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other natural disasters" because it's not their occurrence which is significant enough for ITN, it's their impact. And that can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Now, please, drop the stick. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:49, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are no ITNR items relying on a limit like "earthquakes above magnitude x" or "natural disasters with more than x deaths". Such limits are poorly suited for ITNR. We could have long discussions about where to place the limit, but the impact of an event depends on many other things. It's better to discuss the individual events when they are nominated. Regarding your magnitude 8 example, 2013 Okhotsk Sea earthquake was 8.1. It had no deaths, wasn't nominated, and would probably have been rejected. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:46, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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