Talk:Current events/Archive 3

message: Nearly all polls have a margin of error of 3%, so reporting the exact 2-digit number is usually pointless. For example, 49% to 48% is the same as an even 50-50 split. 
49 really means 49, plus or minus 3. Which comes out to 46 to 52 percent called the war pointless, while 45 to 51 percent called the war not pointless. 
Note the overlap! --Uncle Ed 16:55, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Polls

message: I keep an eye on this, and occasionally try to update it, but might I ask any current events minded folks to contribute cases to this list if they feel so inclined? Thanks!2toise 06:38, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Attacks on humanitarian workers]]

message: Nov. 15th is the last day for the CA sec of state to certify the results of the recall election. Remember, the one Schwarzenegger won, beating Davis AND another Republican candidate combined? 
Anyone care to take bets on whether the Democrats will actually let Schwarzenegger assume the office? Or will a "last-minute" court order bring a delay? Uncle Ed 21:45, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Tsk, tsk. He will be sworn in at 11AM Pacific time on Monday. I know because I have to convert over a state website that I maintain to a different format and upload those changes exactly at 11AM. However I'm going to do that early on Monday morning so that I can see him get sworn-in on the steps of the capitol building in Sacramento. Hopefull I'll be able to get a good photo. --mav 22:00, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, mav! You're like Gandalf: "Always popping up..." ;-) --Uncle Ed 14:40, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: California Recall Election

message: Could anyone find a link to the following ...
: A British Daily Mirror opinion poll suggests nearly half the people of the United Kingdom see the United States as the biggest threat to world peace and are opposed to President Bush's state visit to the UK.
I tried to search for a link [google and on the mirror's website], but to no avail. Is it really "nearly half"? I know the general "Bush's state visit" is right (and can be sourced easily)  ... but the other need a link .... reddi
:I managed to find it and have linked to it.  It say nearly half in the article but doesn't seem to give an exact figure for that poll question. -- Popsracer 20:38, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Mirror Poll?

message: :Trade unions in the Netherlands agree to two-year wage freeze. Parallel to the wage freeze, the government has implemented a programme of public spending cuts unprecedented in the history of the country. 
That source is FAR from impartial (...the Dutch economy is in deep crisis. The response by the unions and management is to undertake new attacks on the working class...), and a Google News search doesn't turn up any similar stories. I'm guessing this is a commentary on something that happened a while ago (i.e. not news). -- stewacide 19:48, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right, it is actually from 14 October: http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/ned031015.html  -- Viajero 20:21, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal: Dutch trade union comment piece 

message: I was going to add the following, but I wanted to be sure people would think it worthy of inclusion first.  It seems to have been completely overlooked by the (mainstream) English-speaking press, but I'm not sure why - it seems like quite a big deal to me.  I thought maybe Wikipedia could break the mould, but I'm not sure how to gather the necessary background etc.
*French and German university students continue to hold protests, including strikes, over controversial policies such as tuition fees.  German students also occupied the central offices of the PDS in Berlin, following a similar protest earlier in the week in which 30 to 40 students occupied the office of Thomas Flierl for more than 24 hours.  Protests in both countries have been continuing to spread for the last two weeks.
I've only found a couple of references in English:   
There's plenty in the German press - for example ,  - but neither my German nor automatic translation services like Babelfish and Freetranslation) are quite good enough.  Anyone got any thoughts or suggestions?
: "30 to 40 students"?..... --Menchi 23:50, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, I was reading conflicting reports on badly machine-translated German news - besides, maybe some of them got bored of standing in the guy's office for 24 hours! (But yes, it probably needs rewording).  Oh, and I seem to have forgotten to sign it! - IMSoP 03:34, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible addition: French & German Student Strikes 

message: Well, I finally remembered that the Talk: page shouldn't have been moved (oops ), so the monthly roll-over is done; if anyone's interested, there were 1126 edits to Current Events between when it was moved to October 2003 and when to November 2003.James F. 12:12, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: If only you would stop blinking spinning for a few hours, we would! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 23:26, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: More seriously, a review of archived discussion on this suggests there is no set in stone policy.. I suggest the policy 
#List events under the local date (e.g. an early morning event in Australia on 2nd December would be listed on 2nd December even if UTC is still 1st December)
#There is no need for UTC to be on that date yet/anymore when you make the listing. (e.g. it can still be 1st December UTC when you make the listing in the above example. Equally a late-night event in California should be listed under 1st December even though UTC might be 2nd December) 
#If you note a particular time in the event report please try to list both local and UTC times."
Any objections? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 23:40, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

text: Sounds good :) Dysprosia 23:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Month roll-over. 

message: I removed the following: 
* Everything2 is now back up at  as a temporary site.  
The relaunch of a website is not a current events topic, anymore than the launch of a film, an album or anything else like that is. This page is about news, not advertising a website. FearÉIREANN 23:45, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Insignificant events (for an encyclopedia) 

message: Hi, re my 12 December item on EU defence policy etc: is there some convention on ext.lk. format on current events? I notice someone has changed the links from the usual [1][2] format to a descriptive format [lk text][lk text].  Explanation, anyone? --Wernher 12:46, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: I hadn't seen the way you had it — "[10] (defence policy), [11] (EU constitution)" — before, and I wasn't convinced, so I experimented with another approach. Perhaps it didn't work. I've just tried again; if this is ruled ugly or against convention, please feel free to revert and accept my apologies. –User:Hajor 14:39, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  External link format 

message: Its not a proposal, only an idea of mine. Like I said its not a proposal, I dont neccesarily think the name SHOULD be changed , but Ive been thinking for a very long time that what we do at the current events page is essentially breaking the news.
What do you all think? Shall the page name be changed?
--Antonio Phenomenom Martin
Disagree. The stuff stays for a month. It's hardly breaking news by the end of the month. RickK 04:27, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Current events or Breaking news?

message: Regarding NASA cancelling Hubble servicing: I had read, both in the new york times and the milwaukee journal sentinel, that The servicee missions were cancelled because of Bush's plans to go to the moon, and then mars.
It says in on this page that they were cancelled because of safety concerns.  That sounds like a load of *BS*.  That's an expensive friggin' piece of machinery, you do not leave it to die prematurely unless there is some major policy-change.
And two service missions?  What could be unsafe about both?  Obviously not the launch, because we know nothing about the launch conditions of the second launch.  Obviously not the actual in-space repair, we've done far more difficult repairs before without a hitch or concern.  By process of elimation, that leaves, nothing! -- Kevin Baas 16:35, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I shared your concern.  To allay it, I managed to find this New York Times article that explains it near the bottom.  O'Keefe said there wouldn't be enough time, as the A.P. reported, to conduct the missions before retiring the Shuttle in 2010.  NYT explains that there wouldn't be enough time to develop a new procedure for inspecting the heat shield on a mission not going to the space station.  (From the station, it's pretty easy to have astronauts on the station look out the window at the passing Shuttle, but when there's no astronaut out the window, getting a good look at the tiles on the bottom is a problem.) -- Ke4roh 02:35, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is it not going to the space station? -- Kevin Baas 20:15, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: NASA is telling us that the shuttle is only going to the space station.  When it goes there, astronauts remaining on the station can inspect the heat shield as the Shuttle departs. The International Space Station (ISS) and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are in completely different orbits.  Due to limited fuel, when a Shuttle goes to HST, it generally cannot get over to ISS, and vice versa.  To see where satellites (including ISS and HST) are in space, check out JTrack 3D. -- Ke4roh 00:40, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Only because they don't want to have an emergency fuel reserve at the ISS. If they did, the shuttle could go to HST first, then to ISS for refueling and heat shield inspection. Obviously it wouldn't be able to do a HST-ISS-home circuit for every ISS mission, but there could be some. - UtherSRG 20:41, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  inaccuracy? 

message: Hi, I just wondered whether the two alternative patterns of prose in the heading of this comment is equivalent (and both usable), and if one of them is preferable. I know the usage in Norwegian, but wonder about the possible usages in English. --Wernher 20:33, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I like this one better: "M's wife F gives birth to child" Sennheiser 21:11, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: In English, the second is better.  Better yet is "A, wife of B, gave birth to a C" as in "Diana, wife of Prince Charles, gave birth to a boy on .... 19xx.  The child, William, is ... in line of succession to the crown"  From the CBC via Google "The royal couple didn't keep their public waiting. Princess Diana gave birth to William Arthur Philip Louis on June 21, 1982, less than a year after they were married." OneVoice 03:05, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prose: "M & wife F get child" vs "M's wife F gives birth to child" 

message: Regarding whether or not the decrease of 80% in refusal, draft dodging and insubordation is news was decided when the September 24th, 2003 and January 4, 2004 incidents of two groups refusing to serve was added to Current events.   OneVoice 16:15, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Draft-dodging as news 

message: :Of course, nevermind; it's already done!  Thanks as always, Kimiko!  Paige 21:09, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Goodridge et al. 

message: Link to the pending release of Star Wars on DVD was removed... reason was given as "not current event". Now, I'm open to the assertion that since it isn't going to be released until Sept. 21, it's not terribly CURRENT, but the fact is the announcement IS. Since the selling of the trilogy on DVD is almost certainly a billion dollar plus economic event, it's certainly of import. I would also imagine that there are going to be several records broken (in terms of pre-orders/pre-sales) in the coming hours. What do other people think? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 19:31, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The US economy is on the order of $11 trillion a year. What is one billion? A rounding error! This simply isn't front page news. Let's revist the matter on September 21. -- Viajero 20:06, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Star Wars

message: "pro-family" is a bit POV, but I'm unsure how to reword it. Dysprosia 09:38, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Pro-family"? 

message: This may be a major change in US policy to go from negotiation only, no unilaterial moves to supporting a unilateral move.  Such a change of policy after years (decades?) of insisting on negotiation means an explanation.  The NYT quotes of administrator officials provide that explanation. OneVoice 20:44, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: US policy change

message: Every month's article since August 2003 is listed on Wikipedia:Longpages.  And they're only going to get longer as more users contribute news items.  What are people's feelings on having a seperate article for each day (e.g. February 17, 2004, with redirs from February 17th, 2004, 17 February, 2004, etc.), just keeping the past few days on Current events? 143.167.77.62 20:11, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that is a very sensible idea. Should go down to a week at first, and then as the page gets longer and longer reduce it. Allows for the future, and would allow a more professional look for current events. ChrisG 21:44, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Splitting the current events page?

message: Hi, I realize there aren't very many of us Opera (browser) users, but am I the only one who gets a messed up header on the Current events page?  Specifically, the top-of-the-page links (Main page, etc.;  Printable version, etc.;  Other languages, etc.) are all the way at the left margin, with the (new) Wikipedia logo overlaying and mostly obliterating these links.  Below the grey horizontal line (about 2 cm from top of window), everything else is normal.  This is the only page I have encountered in all of Wikipedia that is messed up (for me at least) when viewed with Opera version 7.23.  Any suggestions on how to track down the problem?  Harris7 18:53, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm, one of the recent formatting changes to Current events fixed this long-standing problem.  Thank you, somebody! Harris7 18:55, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Current events page bug?

message: Is "Grey Tuesday" really one of the four biggest stories in the world today. Google News on the story. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:00, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "Grey Tuesday"

message: OK - I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me (although I have already made a number of contributions to Current Events, Recent deaths, and even the Main Page - as well as about the history of Scotland, East Anglia, etc... I'm wondering whether the continued inclusion of news (almost daily) about Same-Sex Marriage is justified in a general encyclopedia, even one which has an up-to-the minute news element to it. Is this really one of the main events of the day? I'm not coming with any anti-gay agenda here - just concerned about what is appropriate. I do get the impression that someone is riding their hobby-horse. Agendum 20:37, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: In addition to defining marriage, the FMA denies states the ability to grant marriage rights to unmarried couples (civil union and domestic partner). 
That's not true.  Go to the article on the Amendment.  All it says is that no state is REQUIRED to recognize same-state marriage, but they are ALLOWED to do so if they want to.  RickK 16:44, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: It has to be said that the wording of the FMA is ambiguous. Eugene Volokh has published some interesting things on this subject (see ). It's fair to say that the FMA's critics charge that it has the potential to deny such rights - it hinges on what is covered by the words "the legal incidents thereof". With that in mind, I've re-included the point in a hopefully NPOV way. -- ChrisO 17:19, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good change, I can live with that.  RickK 03:51, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "Same-Sex Marriage appropriate?"

message: According to  LOTR ROTK won only 8 oscars (perhaps they're wrong), but shouldn't there be some reference links to go with the story? Dori | Talk 05:14, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)
I added a link to http://www.imdb.com/. which shows all of the winners on its front page.  They have 11.  RickK 05:17, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  LOTR ROTK Oscars 

message: Why was this page deleted from the hot links on my page? RickK 03:31, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont know, but it is quite annoying! I hope it will be restored. Perl 03:32, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why was this deleted from the hot links?