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Should animation and video, anywhere on the Main Page, be automatic, optional or prohibited?

Terminology

Automatic: This is the status quo. If an animation or video file has been posted to the Main Page, it is loaded and played by default, whenever the page is opened. The user has no control over this process.

Optional: Only still images would be loaded and displayed by default. If animation or video is available for one of those images, the user would be asked whether he would like to load and view that animation or video. The user interface for controlling this process should be discussed only if a consensus in favor of this option emerges.

Prohibited: Only still images would ever appear on the Main Page. An animation or video file would never be accepted.

Note: The picture for the "In the news" section of the Main Page is transcluded to the "Topics in the news" section of the Current Events Portal. Consequently, the policy concerning the handling of animation and video on the Main Page would apply to the Current Events Portal as well.

Background

Origin of the question

This issue originated on 14 January 2020, when David Levy prepared an animation file of the recent eruption of the Taal Volcano in the Philippine Islands, and posted it as the picture for the "In the news" section of the Main Page. The file loaded and played automatically whenever the page was opened. The running time was only 5.2 seconds, but the animation repeated endlessly.

An earlier discussion

That discussion was entitled, "Web animation on main page." It ran on Talk:Main Page from 16:19, 14 January 2020‎ (UTC) until it was closed at 20:46, 15 January 2020 (UTC). It is now archived. It contained six comments, summarized by Ubzerver as follows:

Objected to animation, but did not indicate the preferred policy: Androsynth, WaltCip, Jayron32

Supported continuation of automatic animation and video: Coffeeandcrumbs, Fox

Ambiguous comment: Sca

Discussion of this policy question

Note: New comments should be added to the end of this subsection. To facilitate taking the poll when this discussion is closed, please include the word Automatic, Optional or Prohibited, and set it in boldface type.

Optional. I enjoyed the video clip of the Taal Volcano eruption. However, my Internet access is through my smartphone, at four to five Mbps, so downloading the page took noticeably longer. The clip didn't consume a sizeable percentage of my monthly data allocation, which is four GB, but I am concerned that this clip might be the proverbial nose of the camel. Let's remember that not everyone has unlimited Internet access and a 30 Mbps connection. Only a still photo should have been displayed on download. The caption should have included the instruction, "Click here for an 8-second, 12 MB video." Ubzerver (talk) 10:36, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I see a lot of talk about using various methods to reduce the file size, but I don't see anyone talking about the basic issue which I raised: should animation/video on the Main Page or the Current Events Portal be compulsory or optional? It seems to me that we could make everybody happy by making it optional. Let only a still image be downloaded and displayed by default, but empower the user to accept animation/video of specified duration and file size. If it will repeat in endless-loop fashion, that also should be stated. The "Accept" button should not be the large, white, rightward-pointing triangle, superimposed on the image, which is conventionally used to start playback of a video file. That would spoil the image for those users who don't want the animation/video version. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of other topics

Configuring a smartphone to block unwanted video

I have the option on my phone to stop automatic playback of video- do you not have that option? 331dot (talk) 11:01, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

331dot: I was viewing the page on my laptop computer, not on my smartphone. I have a Samsung smartphone which runs under Android. I use Android's Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot feature to put my laptop on line. I don't think that my phone's video limiting capability can help me in this situation. If there is a way, please let me know. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Minimizing the file size

This was not a video but gif. For some reason, it was 61.73 MB while the original video it was created from was only 758 KB. There was no need to convert it to gif. That was the issue that precipitated all the complaints. Converting to gif is a Web 1.0 mentality that should be abandoned. Almost all browsers these days support video embedding with no difficulty. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 11:21, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

The gif is not optimized. Working on it. --Masem (t) 18:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Without switching to dithering or any other lossy method got it down to 43mb instead of 62mg. There's other ways to optimize. If we are talking a front page image where we aim to be 100px, we can always remake a scaled-down image specific for front page use. Testing a few things here even though the image has since fallen off the front page. --Masem (t) 18:10, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
And perhaps just throwing this out there, perhaps for any main page image, the amount of bytes delivered to the user for that image should be at most 1-4 megs. This allows for reasonably short webm's, and I bet with some work and lossy conversion, I could make this gif to within that size. --Masem (t) 18:12, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Best I was able to do was to get the 100px width image to 4.5mb - still large but no longer 'my bandwidth!" large. I'd still agree that if we can use the webm instead - which uses lossy compression methods - that's tons better than gif tweaking. --Masem (t) 18:32, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Courtesy ping to David who made added the clip, for his comments. Stephen 03:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

There appears to be some confusion.

I didn't transclude the GIF linked above. Had I done so, the thumbnail would have been a still frame.

As noted on the description page, "due to technical limitations, thumbnails of high resolution GIF images such as this one will not be animated." According to the MediaWiki documentation that I read, the limit is 12,500,000 pixels total (width × height × number of frames).

We customarily display a 4:5 image at the resolution of 120 × 150 pixels. Ideally, the base file is a minimum of 240 × 300 pixels, enabling enhanced support for high-DPI displays.

For these reasons (and to keep the animation reasonably short and the file size reasonably small), I reduced the resolution to 240 × 300 pixels and the number of frames to 173 (240 × 300 × 173 = 12,456,000). At a rate of 33 ⅓ frames per second (the closest approximation of the original video's frame rate possible under the GIF standard), the resultant playtime was 5.2 seconds.

The base file, Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020 (reduced).gif, is 6.45 MB in size. On a standard-DPI display, the ITN thumbnail was 1.96 MB. (I assume that Ubzerver's "12MB" figure was a guesstimate, but even the high-DPI version was much smaller than that.) Pinging Masem to communicate these details.

Clicking on the thumbnail led users to File:Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.webm (not the larger GIF) for the full video.

Coffeeandcrumbs: As explained above, I didn't use File:Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.gif. You mentioned "all the complaints", but this is the first instance in which any issue has been brought to my attention. The only feedback that I received from you on the matter was thanks for the edit in which I transcluded the animation. Please point me to the other complaints that arose (of which I was unaware).

Stephen: I appreciate the ping (now and whenever such concerns arise). —David Levy 06:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@David Levy: I apologize for not pinging you. You often ignore my pings so I assumed you would not want to hear from me again. That was an error in judgement which I will avoid even if it makes me uncomfortable to continuously ping editors that do not respond to me. That is your choice and it is my responsibility to ping users when their actions are being discussed. You are right as well that you did embedded the reduced file and the version that displayed was even further reduced to 120px. "All the complaints" was a bad choice of words. There was only 1 other complainant. Sorry for all these errors. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 06:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Coffeeandcrumbs: I don't purposely ignore pings (and I'm very sorry to have given you an impression to the contrary).
I recall multiple instances, such as this one, in which another editor fulfilled your request (which you then removed) before I arrived to read it.
If you're referring to instances such as this, I didn't realize that a reply was expected from anyone other than the user to whom the question was addressed (who did, in fact, answer it).
If I've edited the site without responding to pings pertaining to ongoing issues in need of my attention, I assure you that this was unintentional and apologize for the oversight. Please don't hesitate to contact me whenever you deem it appropriate. I can't promise that I'll always be available to address your concerns in time, but I can promise that I won't mind hearing from you.
Note, also, that my previous message was intended to encourage such engagement and ensure that all of us were on the same page, not to complain about any deficiency on your part. Thanks for providing the discussion link. —David Levy 07:42, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! There is a concern I raised at Talk:Main Page that I think only you can understand. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:04, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
David Levy, ping, Facepalm Facepalm. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
David Levy: Both the "8 seconds" and the "12MB" figures were guesstimates. When I wrote my original comment, the video was no longer available for me to time, and I didn't know how to obtain the actual file size. I still don't know how to do that, but maybe I will figure it out after I read this discussion a few more times.
Coffeeandcrumbs: In the Talk:Main Page discussion "Web animation on main page" to which you referred, I count four complainants who objected to animation or video on the Main Page. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

A proposed user interface for controlling optional animation or video

Agree with C&C that adding 'gif' popups isn't going to gain consensus. Such a feature would be needlessly distracting, IMO – which was the point of my somewhat oblique comment at "Web animation on main page". – Sca (talk) 15:23, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that a popup screen would be too distracting. Fortunately, for this purpose it is unnecessary. What I have in mind is a user interface which is simple, intuitive and unobtrusive. It is just a one-line field which appears at the bottom of the picture's caption. The left side of the field is a line of text. The right side is a button. The following table describes the behavior of the field under each of four conditions:
Status line Button label
For a 5.2-second, (non)repeating, 1.96-MB video, Click here
Loading... Cancel
Playing... Stop
Stopped Resume
Completed Repeat
Coffeeandcrumbs, Masem, Stephen, David, Sca, The Rambling Man: What do you think of this user interface, and the basic idea of making animation and video, anywhere on the Main Page and on In the News, optional rather than automatic? Ubzerver (talk) 09:36, 25 January 2020 (UTC); edited 10:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Ubzerver, what you are proposing now is a fundamental change to MediaWiki. We are just lowly editors on the English Misplaced Pages. There are thousands of websites that use MediaWiki. We cannot dictate its software from here. I have previously attempted to suggest the reduction the size of the Play button for videos. That was 4 months ago and no response from the developers. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 09:54, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
Popups are the bane of the internet. – Sca (talk) 14:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Other comments

Androsynth, WaltCip, Sca, Jayron: I feel that The Rambling Man closed the discussion "Web animation on main page" prematurely. It was only two days old, and there had not been a response from anyone who was in a position to change the policy on the issue under discussion. Fortunately, a very similar question is being considered here. This discussion is still open, and technical experts are definitely involved. So, if you like my proposal to make animation/video on the Main Page or the Current Events Portal optional, at the discretion of each user, then this is the time and place to say so. Ubzerver (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Closing comment: "Already descending into condescension." – ? – Sca (talk) 14:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Indeed it was. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
"anyone who was in a position to change the policy" Do you have any understanding of how setting policy works at Misplaced Pages? No one single person or small group of people is on charge of changing policy. We all are collectively. Also, we don't need policies to tell us what to do and what not to do. I mean, if you want to have a discussion to write some best practices for the use of animation at Misplaced Pages, please do that. But no one at Misplaced Pages should ever be afraid to do something useful because there's no policy that says they can. We should not be getting upset at people who used animation if that is what was useful to illustrate the article on question. I rather liked it. If you really think we need guidance, start a discussion at VPR and see where it goes. The closed discussion was not that. It was drive-by bitching and no more. This discussion may be marginally less so. But really, if you want to write some best practices down, do it right. --Jayron32 19:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
I assumed the talk page was the correct place to talk. I now have no desire to learn the correct procedure because every experience I have had discussing on[REDACTED] has ended with a Jayron32 type shouting. I don't edit wp anymore and I don't donate anymore because[REDACTED] is the best site on the internet, but pull back the covers and it's a toxic waste dump. I no longer care if the editors and admins want to move the main page in the direction of an ad-based NYT-esque, animation-heavy, click-baity publication (the "did you know..." section is already distastefully click-baity). I don't intend to post again. Androsynth (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I can see how getting shouted out here by long-standing users would upset you. Apologies for that. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs: If an editor wants to ping you, how can he prevent your username from appearing in red, indicating that the "page does not exist"? Even if the pings are getting through to you, the red text is a little distracting. Ubzerver (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I have received both your pings. Sorry I did not respond to your first; I had nothing relevant to add. I am not sure what you are suggesting. If it is to add a popup screen, asking if the user wants to load the gif, whenever we have an animation, I don't see that proposal gaining consensus.
About the redlink, how exactly is it distracting? It may be unusual but distracting is something else entirely. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 14:36, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

RD image instead of blurb

It seems that discussion at Misplaced Pages:In_the_news/Candidates#(Posted_to_RD)_RD:_Kirk_Douglas decided the Trump photo should be removed, but WP:ITN currently says images should be for blurbs, even if not the first one. Is this a new precedent to consider RDs for images if they are more recent than a blurb? Or is this a one-off Trump case? Current available blurb alternatives are Peter Mutharika or Sam Mendes (BAFTA Best Director).—Bagumba (talk) 08:28, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I think the section immediately above this answers your question. WP:ITN is not policy. It's debatable whether it's guideline too. (But to me it's, since I believe it needs not be necessarily named in a certain way and/or templated to make it so.) So this is not "a one-off Trump case", there's no policy that says the picture must be associated with the blurbs. It's just a normal thing, giving that circumstance warrants posting this particular pic with RD. You can however disagree with the decision for this particular case, but that would be on WP:ERRORS; or join the above section to discuss the guideline/information page itself or lack of clarity on its status. – Ammarpad (talk) 10:17, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
It's unrelated. I'm asking the rationale for the image selection, I haven't called it an error.—Bagumba (talk) 10:53, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
Unrelated with what?. – Ammarpad (talk) 11:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
I think this was a reasonable decision, though I still oppose just cycling the images "for variety" we would get more images if we included RDs --LaserLegs (talk) 13:23, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support we could amend the guidelines to read "an image for the most recent RD item can be used if no such image exists for the top blurb" or "an image for an RD item can be used if there is consensus in the nomination to do so". I don't see the issue here. --LaserLegs (talk) 13:21, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

On entertainment ITNR awards

See the current discussion about the 92nd Academy Awards at WP:ITNC for origins of this, but basically, what we have been finding lately is that entertainment awards like the Grammys, BAFTAs and Oscars, all ITNR, generally have articles that are mostly tables and lists of nominees, winners, and presenters/performers at the ceremonies, with little else that is written about the ceremony. This has recently led to question what type of quality and update is expected from these. But the target per ITNR has been the ceremony page

In contrast, our ITNR academic awards : Nobel, Booker Prize, etc. which lack the same type of formal ceremony, usual identify the award recipient(s) as the target. Which means we are usually getting a significant update or otherwise will already be at quality and only needs to document the award (based on my experience in updating Nobel winners).

I would like to suggest that for entertainment awards, we do the same: the target should be the article on the key winning item(s) as currently listed at ITNR, instead of the ceremony itself. So for example, for the Oscars, this would mean the film that wins Best Picture. This means the quality of that work , actor, or whatever should be good enough for main page, and the award updated on that page. This would 1) eliminate questions of what quality we actually expect award ceremonies to be at) and 2) focus on the actual winners for ITN. --Masem (t) 17:59, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

This needs a bit of thought. Each Nobel prize has 1-3 winners, so it's possible to bold link them all in a single blurb. For something like the Oscars, is Best Picture alone enough for an ITN blurb, rather than the article that lists all the winners in various categories? I'm not sure either way, given that it could still be linked in the blurb, just not bolded. A related question is why these award articles aren't getting prose updates; given the vast amount of column inches in mainstream media sources, there must be something that can be written about them, beyond a mere table. Perhaps critical reaction, quotes from the winners etc. Shifting the update requirement onto the individual winner article will still need more than a one-sentence update. Modest Genius 18:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
In the scheme proposed, we'd still link to the ceremony page, but it would not be a bold target anymore, as to eliminate questions of its quality/update.
When you compare to Nobel winners or other academics, if the Nobel winner's article is already in good shape before the Nobel is given, then the update is going to be generally a sentence or two (but 90% of the time, the article needs a significant sourcing and content overhaul from experience). So I would say the same would apply to a actor/director/film/whatever , if it is in good shape before the award is given, the update likely will not be much.
As for what else could be added to the ceremony articles, in general: we don't want to cover "trivial" matters like the Red Carpet and fashion aspects, and generally the speeches are interesting and certainly could be documented, but rarely have any importance beyond the night itself. I am sure there's a few acceptance speeches that have been memorial in past ceremonies with longer-term effects, but generally not always. Additionally, when you get to something like BAFTAs over Grammys/Oscars/Emmys (the latter being overproduced ceremonies, the former a more traditional affair), sometimes there's just not much to give. --Masem (t) 18:47, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I like this idea. It seems like bolding the winners is more useful than bolding the awards ceremony, as it directs readers to the higher quality article. I think we should go with that; perhaps a note at ITNR noting that for awards of any type, we should bold the winner and not the ceremony or award name, but that we should normal-link the award ceremony instead. --Jayron32 18:59, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
For a sporting event, eg: Super Bowl, World Cup final, while there may be tables like box scores and individual stats were relevant, the article should be dominated by prose of events leading to that final match, like site selection, promotion/marketing, the route the final competing teams got there, etc. And so just presenting box scores and say "that's it" is a bit weak, a recap is reasonable to add. For an election, the same type of argument applies: basis for election, principle candidates, how they got there, things like debates/etc. (which in some nations may be subpages, etc.) but again, to not follow up the election results table with some small recap is weak. But in both those cases, the progresses are generally transparent - we can follow them and write about them. When we get to either entertainment or academic awards, the process is much more opaque. We may not even know the shortlist of nominees (Nobel). As such, while there's a number of things we can set up ahead of time, like with the Oscars, some info on the ceremony, it is hard to be as detailed as sporting events and elections since we don't exactly how nominees got to be nominees. Hence its a different approach that is needed here. --Masem (t) 22:13, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I would also note that widespread, indepth, and broad coverage of both sporting events and elections exists out in the wild for people to use to write and expand and create very detailed prose synopses of both sporting events and elections. Award shows don't have as much to say about them. For awards specifically, I think that the target article(s) we need to care about is the winner(s) and the presentation event is less important. That is not true of sporting events or elections, where it is quite possible (and desirable) to create an extensive prose-based article about them. --Jayron32 13:21, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Taking the Oscars as an example, in the run up to the event there were huge numbers of newspaper articles and television reports that profiled the nominees, discussed reasons why they may or may not win etc. Then once it happened, there were more articles about why Parasite was a worthy winner, the implications of a foreign-language film winning etc. Why couldn't those be used to write a single prose paragraph in the awards article? Modest Genius 16:14, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Specifically with the Oscars, I would generally not consider the pre-guesses of who would win encyclopedicly significant unless there was a strong clear consensus of a given film being the likely frontrunner or why certain nominations fell the way they did. If it is just a bunch of random, disjointed speculation, that doesn't help in the long-term. The post-analysis, here the importance of Parasite's win, are in articles that have come out a couple days after the event, which I'd would expect, just as there was some additional coverage of production choices for the show (which I did add already for this year's). Again, part of the issue is that the awards process for entertainment awards is nowhere close to the transparency as sporting events, which 90% of the article can be written before the event runs. An award presentation can maybe get to 50%, add another 25% the day of the ceremony, but the other 25% is stuff that comes days later as things settle out. --Masem (t) 16:50, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment. I was surprised that the current Academy awards blurb was posted as quickly as it was, as the article did not seem to me to have enough prose or interest -- I quickly navigated away from it and towards the much more informative press coverage, and I suspect other readers would too. I'd strongly oppose changing the ITN/R rules so that we could post bald lists like this one more readily; it encourages editors to leave our articles in a stubby state when abundant sources are available to improve them. On the other hand, I've no objection to making the winning entity a target article, if that article is sufficiently developed and updated. In general, we need to return to the purpose of ITN -- not a news service, but a way to direct our readers to well-developed encyclopedic content that puts the news in context. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:05, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
    • Again, a fair question to ask is "What encyclopdic information can be added based on the abundant press coverage of the event to the existing article?" Anything involving the red carpet and the afterparties are not encyclopedic, so we're left with what is covered by the ceremony, and that becomes to what level of detail is excessive. We could briefly describe every acceptance speech but that has little encyclopedic value. --Masem (t) 01:08, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

Based on the above discussion, which seems to be stalling, let's see if we can get a rough consensus for an addition to the instructions. Let's say we add something along the lines of:

For ITNR items related to the winning of awards (including, but not limited to, Nobel Prizes, Academy Awards, Pritzker Prize, etc.) it is normal to bold either the person winning the award, the work which won the award, or both. In most circumstances, we should not bold the article about the award ceremony or the general list article about the award itself; such articles are usually very light on prose and mostly concerned with the general topic, rather than the specific event in question. A non-bolded link for such articles is usually appropriate instead.

Nomination of a not direct article.

A judge just approved of a merge between T-mobile and Sprint. Check Portal:Current events/2020 February 11 and (NBC). I do not know how to nominate that type of suggestion as it isn’t a specific article.Elijahandskip (talk) 13:47, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Elijahandskip I think this was nominated when announced and did not gain consensus- business news, especially of mergers, usually has a tough time at ITNC because it is usually the announcement that gets more coverage than formal approval of a merger. That said, you could nominate the article about one or both of the companies. 331dot (talk) 13:51, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
More specifically, the merger has to be huge - Disney-Fox-level of huge (which we did post). --Masem (t) 14:49, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Irish fail to elect a clear majority, giving us a chance to take a look at ourselves in a clear light, and the open source culture.

The Irish election seems to be up there all week. It says the Irish vote failed to elect a clear majority, as though that is news. The Irish government has not elected a clear majority since before I was born, since the seventies. The news about it is that Sinn Fein polled the majority of votes for the first time ever, possibly having been the first party to out-poll Fine Gael and Fianna Fail since before the last clear majority government. If a news outlet published the story like that, it could be construed as biased.

When are we going to get the politics off the main page of Misplaced Pages? It's not a fine point, it's a major issue. You've had this complaint perennially, about the content of the news that goes through. It's a good complaint. It's an important complaint. Politics is always partisan in this world. Even China and Russia are electing governments these days. It's a solid complaint.

Dear Misplaced Pages, please do not reduce the importance given to coverage of government leadership. Please stop it altogether.

It is common knowledge across the site now, the articles which support these stories, about polls and leadership issues, are literally one of the banes of Misplaced Pages as it stands today.

In western democracies, leadership polls tend to have a little over 50% turnout, with somewhere between half of the voters to two thirds of the voters failing to get what they want. When they come here to Misplaced Pages, they have come to look at the encyclopaedia. Most people having been let down as standard in an election, they don't want to see any more about it.

Misplaced Pages and its foundation have a clear agenda when it comes to politics. We should be promoting open source culture and relative news more importantly than anything else. There isn't enough room here to represent popular media and we do not understand the partisan events reported. This is not a social media site. This is not a site for popular stories based on the sake of their popularity. You all know this is true. I promise you, taking this back to the mission is going to be far more satisfactory for both the readers and the contributors. It is about what Misplaced Pages is. ~ R.T.G 15:07, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

We're not posting election results because they are popular news stories, but because changes (or lack thereof) at the national government level for most of the countries on the Earth have significant impact in world events and politics. Eg: if Trump wins the next election, that's still significantly important news as it means four more years of the same. We do want to strive to be apolitical in announcing results and if our wording is misrepresenting the impact of the election results, call that out in ERRORS or something. I don't know enough about the Irish gov't to be able to address your point specifically but that definitely seems like an issue to bring up to ERRORS. --Masem (t) 16:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
The wording of the blurb was discussed on WP:ITN/C; commentors were well aware that Irish elections have not had a clear majority for decades. However, there were three parties which did almost equally well, and it's unclear which of them will enter government. Sinn Fein did not win this election any more than Fine Gael or Fianna Fail did, so it would be unfair to focus on a single party. We could either list all three of them in the blurb, or keep it short and let interested reads click on the link to the article to find out more. As for the rest of your comments, ITN items are selected for their encyclopaedic value, not their popularity or to annoy people who voted for someone else. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopaedia, not an open source advocacy organisation. Modest Genius 16:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Why do we announce government leadership issues at all? We haven't the space to cover it in a non-biased way. Sure, anything posted has to have a modicum of mention in an encyclopaedia article... but is that the same thing as promoting encyclopaediac content? I can't remember seeing a story about freedom of information, or even a link to the Signpost. WPITN and Signpost are like unrelated entities from totally different sites. There isn't even a link to previous stories. A quick check of the history of the template shows no sign of Wikipedias recent birthday and 6 millionth article milestone. Was that even reported by WPITN? It's not news for Misplaced Pages nearly as much as an opportunity to reach Wikipedians with popular media stories... ~ R.T.G 17:19, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
The political leadership of an entire country is an important topic of long-term encyclopaedic value, and repeated long-standing consensus among editors has agreed that they are sufficiently important to always appear in ITN if the article is sufficiently updated. ITN blurbs are short factual statements, deliberately designed to avoid biased coverage. You appear to be misunderstanding the purpose of ITN: it directs casual readers to quality encyclopaedia articles which have been updated to reflect recent events. It is not a news ticker, an opportunity to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, or a place for news about Misplaced Pages. There was no ITN blurb on the 6 millionth article, but there was a big celebratory banner at the top of the whole Main Page. The Signpost exists for news about Misplaced Pages of interest to editors; it's a completely different audience and purpose. Of course they cover different things and rarely overlap. If you want to help select encyclopaedic items that appear in ITN, please join the discussions at WP:ITN/C. If you prefer Signpost-style coverage of Misplaced Pages, WP:POST/N is the place to do so. Modest Genius 18:10, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Right great wrongs? That's about external issues. The anniversary of the first moonwalk, relatively recently, was accompanied by a whole week of content from all sections on the main page. ~ R.T.G 18:27, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes it was, using WP:TFA, WP:OTD and WP:DYK. Not WP:ITN which as its name suggests, is about items that are currently newsworthy. Black Kite (talk) 00:10, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
You don't think the 50th anniversary of the moonwalk was "in the news" from every major news reporting outlet on the planet? I assure you, it was in the news supported by a series of newsworthy events. If WPITN wasn't on board, that is because WPITN wasn't on board, and not because of anything else. ~ R.T.G 00:30, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
We can only consider what is nominated. (I don't recall if that was). We don't generally note mere anniversaries- and I'm not sure what notable event related to this anniversary would have merited posting. 331dot (talk) 00:34, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
This year it's the 75th anniversary of everything that happened in 1945 - and that's a lot of things, as I'm sure you're aware. Items at ITN tend to stay there for more than one day, thus making them pointless apart from on the actual day - hence the use of OTD. Black Kite (talk) 01:09, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
There is a section, List_of_spacewalks_and_moonwalks_1965–1999#Commemorative_stamps, which could have been used, but wasn't even updated let alone proposed, for a chance to support the festivities. There would be no point even suggesting it in current light. Stamps? As important as government leadership issues? It literally drains the mission out of us. ~ R.T.G 08:41, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

This is all covered in Misplaced Pages:In_the_news#Significance, elections also have the addendum Misplaced Pages:In_the_news/Recurring_items. Additional guidelines are listed at WP:ITNC. You're free to read and comprehend these documents. If there is an issue with any current main page feature, you can refer to WP:ERRORS. This talk page is for "general discussion of the In the news section of the Main Page". I'm not sure what else is to be done here. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:47, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

No, that doesn't cover bias at all. It literally supports it saying that no other reason than superficial preference will be considered. "Recurring items" simply lists elections, and "#Significance" literally shirks reason at almost two pages of length. This complaint is about the general content. When I've looked at this before, I've not had the impression that editors are working towards an agenda. Even Rambling Man, who would come out as a leading voice against this complaint if there is any uptake of it, can be quoted in the past as saying the elections will "fill" the section up with "shite"! But don't let us consider our own sensibilities now, even the most sensible of us, right? (huh?) These government leadership issues are like, wow... No seriously... wow... the only item on the section all week is the Irish election... this thing sucks, and it must be said, because you all know it is true. Sure, even I am interested in the Irish election, but when I see it as the most important thing on the main page of Misplaced Pages for a whole week, I am through the floor. I mean, have you not purposely conspired to drive me here to make this complaint? Are the gods not punishing me today and every day? And more seriously, it really is a partisan topic, all the way past the point of war. The only thing more partisan than political leadership is an actual punch up. Everybody knows it... ~ R.T.G 08:41, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
The reason for "When I see it as the most important thing on the main page of Misplaced Pages for a whole week, I am through the floor" is actually simple. Currently no newer story at WP:ITN/C has gained consensus to post, so the Irish election is sitting on top. Such lulls happen and already happened before at ITN. Anyone complaining about that is welcome to nominate a newer story. Yes, politics is boring, but this is how the grand world scheme has been working for centuries (maybe except direct democracies). Brandmeister 09:12, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
ITN blurbs are arranged by date, not importance. No-one is purposely conspiring against you. Modest Genius 12:19, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
I apologise for the humour there but indeed, if the Irish election does not start to move down the list, I fear that the sky may fall down or blow away..
Brandenmeister... there are a ton of new stories but WPITN isn't about delivering the news to suit Misplaced Pages. There's no angle in the mission. There's nothing to fall back on. Government leadership is literally the main focus of the section since years. 8 days, and it is long precedented, and we can't have stuff like advances in medicine, freedom of information... There's nothing to fall back on while certain topics swamp the section in between gaps where there are nothing. How can we accept that? WPITN should be used to have people out searching for news that suits the site and encourages broad content. Narrow news is bias. It's the world we live in. ~ R.T.G 14:15, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
Not all genres in current events are equal. I invite you to look into the top ten of highest grossing movies of the last ten years, see that it is monopolised, and come back and tell me we can follow popular culture blindly and call ourselves fair and balanced. It's just not a view on reality. ~ R.T.G 14:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
We do post advances in science and many other stuff, just check the archives (like novel antibiotic substance, malacidin, which I nominated in 2018). Government changes occur in this world more frequently than notable scientific stories (particularly given there are over 200 sovereign countries), so naturally they are nominated and posted more often. The main page basically reflects what was picked up, nominated and posted in a given timeframe (which itself often reflects the current worldwide situation), so the content may not always be a balanced mix of various topics. Brandmeister 16:04, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Brandmeister, that's two years old. I've just wrote below that I'm not simply repeating myself, but I am repeating this one point frequently... You are saying that is just the way it is. That WPITN is swamped by government leadership stories because that's just the way the world is. You are basically saying that you agree but you do not want to consider change, or that you prefer government leadership issues taking the frame. You aren't going to prove me wrong any better than simply getting a bunch of you together to say you don't want to hear it. There's too many leadership stories going across the template. They aren't doing anything for the encyclopaedia. The excitement around elections almost always sours. It's a false economy. It is fair to claim something better is a possibility, thankyou. ~ R.T.G 18:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
That's not about what we personally feel should be in the encyclopedia, but about objective encyclopedic value. A new leader of a fooian country is encyclopedically valuable. New elections in a country's legislative body are encyclopedically valuable. So saying that "There's too many leadership stories" and "they aren't doing anything for the encyclopaedia" misses the point and continuously arguing about it is unhelpful. Brandmeister 20:13, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Despite the OPs insistence that mainstream, reliable, serious news sources did not cover the event, I can find dozens of in-depth, highly detailed, and reliable news sources from around the world that covered the Irish elections before, during, and after the event. The repeated assertion that this was not a significant event does not bear out by the evidence. No matter how many times he repeats it, the coverage of the event in reliable sources DOES exist, so repeatedly claiming it isn't significant simply doesn't have evidentiary support. --Jayron32 16:13, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
Have you, for goodness sake, seen Donald Trumps haircut? Would you like, and I am not joking now, to see him and Kim give each other a kiss, by way of impersonators? Well call me Dixie, are we not talking about the same publishers? Misplaced Pages is NOT hot off the press, now is it? Well then, media coverage is no better than a google search in terms of notability. Now I may be crazy, but I have got a really sane point here. Political leadership issues, party progress... following that is all bad news if one of your pillars is neutrality. I'm not trying to turn you against politicians... I'm trying to turn you against nurturing their popularity mission on Misplaced Pages. ~ R.T.G 18:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
Understanding the change in majority party control in a major government is not at all about being political, it is simply reporting a change change or status quo that does have impacts on world relations. There is not one iota of WP showing a political leaning by this type of coverage. --Masem (t) 23:11, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Consensus seems to be firmly against RTG's interpretation of what ITN should be (never mind I have never seen him participate in ITN/C in recent years). I might be more swayed if more people shared RTG's opinion rather than just him repeating it with impassioned language. How many other people agree with him?--WaltCip (talk) 16:59, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Walt, There is no qualifier for having a valid opinion. It's in the guides, I assure you. I think you will find the reason the section has stagnated for so long this time is because those who would hunt for a broader outlook have been frustrated here over time. I'm not simply repeating myself. Address the issue. All this part is in response to your statement which addresses me personally. Don't blame be for responding when you invoke my moniker. It's not fair to do so. ~ R.T.G 18:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

The OP has escalated the issue to Jimbo Wales. Probably nothing left to do except await His decision. --LaserLegs (talk) 00:08, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Survey

Gauging interest to determine if we should put a moratorium on posting politics and political leadership news on WP:ITN, as posting political stories might be considered contrary to the mission of Misplaced Pages and WP:5P2. I'm not averse to opening this up as a full WP:RFC if that's needed.

Proposal for a companion page, Misplaced Pages: In other news

WP:ITN is a binary process; things are either main-page newsworthy and are included, or fall short and are excluded. Of course, articles linked from headlines on the main page get both more attention and more scrutiny, and more work is done on improving them. Having a larger set of current-event type articles with a similarly raised profile would likely contribute to their improvement as well.

I therefore propose that we make a companion page titled Misplaced Pages: In other news, which will include all of the news that makes the main page, as well as the news that falls short of making the main page, but is still reasonably newsworthy. The page would be linked from a "More news" link next to the "Nominate an article" link in the main page "In the news" section, and would likely be structured much like the main page, perhaps with sections for different kinds of news (e.g. law and politics; sports; culture; science and technology; perhaps even a "Misplaced Pages-related news" section; etc.). Because this would be a separate page, items initially listed on the main page could remain on this auxiliary page for a longer time, perhaps for a week or so. The combination of longer-held items, inclusion of items falling short of main page inclusion, and addition of some items that would not be proposed for the main page should be sufficient to keep the page fully stocked. Note that I do not propose this as a replacement for Wikinews (which focuses on originally constructed news articles), but merely as an extension and expansion of the work already done by WP:ITN. Is this a workable idea? BD2412 T 04:31, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

{{In the news}} already has a link to Portal:Current events, on "Ongoing" when it's used and otherwise on "Other recent events". I don't see justification for maintaining a second page. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:39, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Fair enough. What if we add a link to Portal:Current events piped to the text, "More news" next to the "Nominate an article" link in the main page "In the news" section, then? The current layout does not make the connection all that clear to readers. BD2412 T 05:03, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
That's Wikinews's purpose. --Masem (t) 04:40, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
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