Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 15

message: Could we not have waited until the official results were announced? I don't like the precedent being set of announcing exit polls. Borisblue 18:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The former strikes me as better; the item's certainly not exorbitantly long with the inclusion of both parties, and the party links are surely useful.  Relatedly, I wonder whether, even as both the Sarkozy and the election articles have been updated, such that either might properly be emboldened, we might do well to bold the link to the election article, which is surely more comprehensive than, and as current as, the Sarkozy article.  Joe 19:37, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree about taking "Socialist" away and bolding the link to the election article. Also, all the news websites I can think of are giving numbers between 52.7 and 53.1%, so we should probably say 53% instead of 53-55%. Pruneautalk 19:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, BBC and Telegraph have it at 53%, and I don't see any sources reporting higher. ··coelacan 20:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Included the parties (this version is still shorter than the Scottish item), bolded the election since that article is more up-to-date, and went with 53% as that's where the sources point. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Coelacan (talk • contribs) 20:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not keen on us reporting anything from exit polls. But as a matter of wording, I disagree. He was "elected" when the last vote was cast as the last polling booth closed. Anyway, Royal has conceded. ··coelacan 22:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with coelacan. We've continued to be premature with a lot of electoral items of late. We should be more careful not to "announce" the wrong winner by accident, as has happened in some media outlets too eager to report breaking news. --Monotonehell 23:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, Borisblue is saying the same thing above as well. I would prefer that we not "scoop" any election results. I don't know exactly how to quantify that, though. ··coelacan 23:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, I just thought of an easy way to quantify it. Normally, the runner-up candidate concedes, or makes a statement to the media challenging the results. We shouldn't report until one of those events happens. ··coelacan 23:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The French exit polls are usually pretty accurate, as most polling stations (i.e., all outside the biggest cities) close at 6pm local time. There is time to collect together a large sample before announcing the exit poll result at 8pm. Official results wont be declared for a few days yet, to give time for any final challenges, but the French Interior Ministry is already giving results which probably won't change much . In this case, exit polls had been circulating on the sites of Belgian and Swiss newspapers since 17:05 CEST (first that I personally saw), but we kept them off until the official blackout was lifted at 20:00 CEST. Physchim62 (talk) 15:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An encyclopedia is not a newspaper. We don't need headlines, we have the luxury of waiting for verified facts. Newspapers often get things wrong in their haste to report news. We should wait until at least the opposition has conceded, and even then only phrase it "XYZ has conceded the election QRP...". ITN should only point to articles within Wikipedia that have been brought up to an encyclopedic standard, not those which resemble newspaper articles. --Monotonehell 01:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: French elections

message: Currently we have Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured) is elected President of France with 53-55% of the vote, defeating Socialist Ségolène Royal. which shows only one candidate's party and doesn't link to it. Not very helpful. I suggest either UMP candidate Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured) is elected President of France with 53-55% of the vote, defeating Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal. or the shorter Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured) is elected President of France with 53-55% of the vote, defeating Ségolène Royal. I like the former, but what do others think? ··coelacan 19:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The former strikes me as better; the item's certainly not exorbitantly long with the inclusion of both parties, and the party links are surely useful.  Relatedly, I wonder whether, even as both the Sarkozy and the election articles have been updated, such that either might properly be emboldened, we might do well to bold the link to the election article, which is surely more comprehensive than, and as current as, the Sarkozy article.  Joe 19:37, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree about taking "Socialist" away and bolding the link to the election article. Also, all the news websites I can think of are giving numbers between 52.7 and 53.1%, so we should probably say 53% instead of 53-55%. Pruneautalk 19:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, BBC and Telegraph have it at 53%, and I don't see any sources reporting higher. ··coelacan 20:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Included the parties (this version is still shorter than the Scottish item), bolded the election since that article is more up-to-date, and went with 53% as that's where the sources point. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Coelacan (talk • contribs) 20:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: include parties?

message: I have not followed the news since about 8 PM French time, when the first poll results were revealed, but I don't think the French are that fast and counted all the votes already - so Sarkozy might be the winner of the elections with all probability, or at least the polls, but until he is announced president by the appropriate authorities, he was NOT elected yet! PrinceGloria 21:46, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not keen on us reporting anything from exit polls. But as a matter of wording, I disagree. He was "elected" when the last vote was cast as the last polling booth closed. Anyway, Royal has conceded. ··coelacan 22:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with coelacan. We've continued to be premature with a lot of electoral items of late. We should be more careful not to "announce" the wrong winner by accident, as has happened in some media outlets too eager to report breaking news. --Monotonehell 23:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, Borisblue is saying the same thing above as well. I would prefer that we not "scoop" any election results. I don't know exactly how to quantify that, though. ··coelacan 23:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, I just thought of an easy way to quantify it. Normally, the runner-up candidate concedes, or makes a statement to the media challenging the results. We shouldn't report until one of those events happens. ··coelacan 23:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The French exit polls are usually pretty accurate, as most polling stations (i.e., all outside the biggest cities) close at 6pm local time. There is time to collect together a large sample before announcing the exit poll result at 8pm. Official results wont be declared for a few days yet, to give time for any final challenges, but the French Interior Ministry is already giving results which probably won't change much . In this case, exit polls had been circulating on the sites of Belgian and Swiss newspapers since 17:05 CEST (first that I personally saw), but we kept them off until the official blackout was lifted at 20:00 CEST. Physchim62 (talk) 15:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An encyclopedia is not a newspaper. We don't need headlines, we have the luxury of waiting for verified facts. Newspapers often get things wrong in their haste to report news. We should wait until at least the opposition has conceded, and even then only phrase it "XYZ has conceded the election QRP...". ITN should only point to articles within Wikipedia that have been brought up to an encyclopedic standard, not those which resemble newspaper articles. --Monotonehell 01:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  He might have won, but was he elected? 

message: Did this edit lose too much information? The rallies are against a particular party, and in preparation for a particular election. That information is now not in ITN. Shouldn't it be? Can it be included without making the piece too long? ··coelacan 19:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what the article is for.  This is an encyclopedia, and the purpose of ITN is not to provide news reports, but to direct readers to articles that have been authored or updated to include information pertaining to current events of international interest or importance.  Someone who wishes to learn the specific details behind this event should read our article.  —David Levy 20:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely it's an encyclopedia. But Turkish presidential election, 2007 is an oft-updated article that puts the ITN piece into meaningful context, being that it's the reason for the Republic Protests. I don't see that "not a news ticker" automatically means to leave out pertinent info. ··coelacan 23:19, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Turkish presidential election, 2007 is prominently linked from Republic Protests, as are many other relevant articles.  We can't include every detail in ITN.  People are supposed to read the articles.  —David Levy 23:59, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  will readers wonder, "why the rallies"? 

message: How about 2007 Super 14#Final? The "premier sporting event" in rugby? --74.13.130.205 14:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd rather post the winner of the Heineken Cup 2006-07. --Howard the Duck 14:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I got bored watching the H-Cup so this might be better - only a one point win. --Howard the Duck 14:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: <joking>Of course not, what with there being no New Zealand teams in the final of the Super 14. Evil Monkey - Hello 22:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: These two are the premier club competitions of rugby. Club and national team competition are different. And how about rugby league? --Howard the Duck 03:07, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't know; however, I found the 2003 Rugby World Cup between the Aussies and England much, much more exciting then the H-Cup final. The Super 14 Final wasn't broadcast in our place. Also I would tend to think that national team competitions are a notch better than club competitions but it is NOT always the case. --Howard the Duck 05:58, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How about rugby?

message: Currently, the right hand column on the main page is too short - revert the last news item removed as that it seems more balanced. --TheTallOne 16:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Per your request, I've restored an item.  Please note, however, that the main page doesn't look the same on everyone's screen.  For me, the balance was slightly better before.  That, however, will change tomorrow (due to the shorter TFA section) unless DYK is lengthened accordingly.  —David Levy 16:24, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lengthening DYKs should be easy. Trimming DYK is harder. --PFHLai 16:28, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not saying that the section should be lengthened.  If that occurs, we might want to restore an item to ITN tomorrow.  —David Levy 17:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not saying DYK should be lengthened, either. I meant if an incoming TFA is short, lengthening DYK for MainPage balance should be easy to do. The opposite is true for ITN -- it's easy to trim off an old news item but new qualifying items are hard to come by. --PFHLai 22:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ITN way too short 

message: IMHO, we'd only have to loosen up one rule (as mentioned above), the international interest part. As long as it's reported by major news outlets (excluding wire stories like the Reuters reports you see on the newspaper) and it's encyclopedic; heck we have 2008 UEFA qualifier fan attack for crying out loud. Other ITN candidates were passed up while I thought they were deserving, they're not just that "international." --Howard the Duck 16:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggested an international item here (probably for the first time during my three years in the project), but was promptly assaulted in a rather unpleasant manner and lectured upon the mythical "consensus". I was further accused of "defensiveness", while the article was flooded with inappropiate tags (as if it were of any personal interest to me). Nobody bothered to add a single reference or expand the coverage of the event. Of course it's easier to talk for hours than to add a sentence of substance. Some folks like to believe that they are here to pontificate about consensus, while others are to stoop to menial work such as writing articles. Naturally, I leave this page in disgust, so as to let others to "highlight encyclopaedia" as they term it by posting thrilling headlines about elections in Lesoto and Sierra Leone ad infinitum. --Ghirla-трёп- 17:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The dummy spit above highlights my points further above at 16:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The dummy spit aside, I outlined my view of what you really should do here. There's no point in forging "3 to 4 pages" of guidelines, if these are supposed to perpetuate erroneous preconceptions based on imperfect understanding of our policies. --Ghirla-трёп- 19:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: section break

message: *A suicide attack occurs  at a shopping centre in the Ulus district of Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Authorities say there were six fatalities, and 79 injuries. (Reuters) (Hürriyet)
:Should be included in main page. -- Cat chi? 22:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:In_the_news_section_on_the_Main_Page/Candidates#May_22|Already proposed]], should be added to the template 

message: Is it just coincidence that it has the same initials as a national news broadcaster in the UK? Simply south 23:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Shhh don't talk about the conspiracy or THEY will silence you. ;) --Monotonehell 06:29, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initials 

message: This seems of questionable international importance. The reference to 'Scotland's Dario Franchitti' suggests that it was national teams taking part, when in fact it wasn't. Reword?--Nydas(Talk) 21:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indianapolis 500