User:Kiteinthewind/Current Events Portal Reform Taskforce

This is the Current Events Portal Reform Taskforce, dedicated to reforming the presentation format of the current events portal.

Why?

The growth of Wikipedia has put a strain on all its institutions, including the current events portal. With a greater amount of stories being put into the current events portal, the portal is becoming disorganized, and this may drive away viewers.

Whether we planned on this or not, Wikipedia is a news aggregator, of sorts. Our portal needs to reflect this status.

Proposals

Gregcaletta's Proposal

So far, the main proposal for reform is to add subheadings. My suggestion is categories for "Sport", "Arts and celebrity culture", "Science", "Business and economics", "Weather and environmental incidents", "Law and politics", and one for either "Armed conflict" or "Violent incidents", perhaps in reverse order. I would prefer unsorted events to go either at the top with no subheading, or at the bottom under "Other current events". Within each category, events should be sorted into groups for continent or country, particlarly if there are a lot of entries under one subheading. We need to have a model which works on most days, but still be flexible and deal with categories on a day-to-day basis, merging topics together on slower news days, and leaving all of the Law, politics and violence up the tope early on in the day before enough news items have come in to begin sorting. And one last small thing: I prefer capitalising only the letter of the first letter (eg "Violent incidents" rather than "Violent Incidents"); I believe this keeps the portal in line with WP:MoS for Wikipedia articles in general. Gregcaletta (talk) 03:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, here is my list:

• Violent incidents (This title is simple and covers "armed conflict" as well.)
• Weather and environmental incidents (I think this is fairly easy to separate from "Science".)
• Law and politics (Sometimes these could be separate, but I believe often it is difficult. New laws and constitutional decisions in particular are both legal and political.)
• Business and economy (I think Kiteinthewind is right that "economy" is better than "economics". "Economics" implies the study.)
• Science
• Arts and entertainment (or "arts and popular culture" or "arts and celebrity culture". I'm not really fussed.)
• Sport
• Other events

I think a the best way to deal with "major events" is just to keep the major events as close to the top of each category as possible, and then to put the category of the most major event at the top. In special circumstances, a separate category could be included, but I would not make it the norm. Gregcaletta (talk) 05:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Other useful categories: Disasters; International Relations. Religion might be necessary if there are enough topics on one day but depending on the event it could often be placed under other headings such as International relations. Gregcaletta (talk) 02:10, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

The important thing is to be flexible on a day-to-day basis. There is no point in sticking to a particular categories if thy are not relevant on that day. Gregcaletta (talk) 02:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Kiteinthewind's Proposal

Since the start of my efforts, I have been mainly focused on adding subheadings. My suggestions are mainly similar to those of Gregcaletta (hereafter referred to as "Greg", hope you don't mind, Gregcaletta!), but there are some subtle changes. Some of them are stylistic, some are more substantial.

• Major Events- Events so major (such as the BP Oil Spill) that it deserves a separate coverage.
• Arts and Entertainment or Arts and Culture- Name change on Greg's "Arts and celebrity culture" category.
• Armed Conflicts and Incidents- Name change and merge of Greg's "Violent incidents" and "Armed conflict" categories. I prefer a merge, because I don't think Greg's two categories have enough news to stand on its own. Better to merge them, in this case.
• Business and Economy- Name change on Greg's "Business and economics" category.
• Politics and Elections (or Politics, when there are no elections)- Separating Greg's "Law and politics" category into a politics section, and a law section.
• Law- See above.
• Science- Name change on Greg's "Science and environmental incidents" category. All weather stories will go into this category, as well.
• Sports- Sports stories. No sports score, however. Had a complaint on that during the trial.
• Other Events- Stories that really don't fit into the other categories, but significant enough nonetheless.

Comment. A short and rather minor comment on your proposal. I would suggest to "capitalize the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in headings, but leave the rest in lower case (Rules and regulations, not Rules and Regulations)", in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section headings. --Edcolins (talk) 20:35, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment. I would not add "Major Events" as a criteria per my usertalk and current events talk page. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Passionless' Proposal

Alright, well I do like the idea of organizing the current events, I'm just not too happy with some of the headings as they may lead to people warring over under which heading or just biasness. I would rather the Armed conflicts, Business and economy, weather (with global weather events like el nino or global warming under science), politics, and law all split between the continents (Americas, EU, Asia, AFR, OCE, ME, plus World for intercontinental events) in which the events are in. The other categories would be Science (science and tech) and Entertainment (art, culture, celebrities, and sports(b/c its not newsworthy everyday)) So,

• Africa - war, deadly incidents, hurricanes/droughts, new laws, elections, business news, local health (e. coli outbreak)
• Americas
• Asia
• Europe
• Middle East
• Oceania
• World - intercontinental news, any thing that doesn't fit into the other categories (I can't think of much that wouldn't)
• Science - science, tech, global health (H1N1) and climate change
• Entertainment - art, culture, celebrities, and sports

All these categories should have at least one event, even on a slow news day. Also, if we decide not to use this, and use politics and law as headings, I think these two must be kept together as they are so closely related.

• Comment--This proposal is not bad but I think it has a few flaws that make it worse than using categories.

• • On an average day you'd end up with a glut of stories in "Americas" (97% of which would be from North America which has very little to do with Central & South America), "Europe", and "Middle East", a few stories from "Asia", and nothing from "Oceania" or "Africa".
  • Science items such as SARS or Cradle-of-Civilization paleontology could easily fall under either the appropriate continent or "Science"; "Entertainment" also has this problem to a lesser extent.
  • Would a BP payout to Gulf Coast victims be considered Europe, Americas, or World? How about a Middle East peace conference that took place in Europe and involved world leaders?
  • Finally, Wikipedia promotes a global viewpoint, and your suggested subheaders seem to suggest that the differences between regions of the world are more important than the differences between different "types" of happenings in the world.

• I say this all with much respect for you and the edits you've made to the news in the past. Blue Crest (talk) 19:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Blue Crest's Proposal

We should definitely use alphabetical order for the categories. The introduction of categories should not affect news notability requirements. Also, if possible, each new day's current events page should START with all of these categories, even if they are empty.

• Headliners--Always at the top. News items of incredible importance, as per Kite's "Major Events" category. We'd need to at least figure out some general criteria to qualify what would be a Headliner and what wouldn't. Most days would not have any Headliner items.
  • EDIT--As per KnowledgeKid's comment below, I no longer feel a Headliners section is necessary. ~Blue

• Armed Conflicts & Attacks--including warfare, terrorism (including most bombings), genocides, organized rioting which involves violence on either side (e.g. Iran & Thailand), coup d'tats, martial law declarations, most assassinations, etc. Does not include random acts of violence or most murders (that would be Law & Crime).

• Arts, Culture & Entertainment--Visual and Performing Arts, TV shows, Software, Festivals, Theme Parks, Music, incredibly notable YouTube videos, some Liberal Arts topics, and celebrities from any of these fields. Probably several other varieties of AC&E that I'm missing, too. Does not include news about the companies behind TV Shows, Software, or Music (that would be Business).

• Business & Economics--Economic Statistics and Trends, Monetary Policy, World Trade, and most news about Companies.

• Law & Crime--Major crimes, apprehensions, and Trials, and Punishments. Yes, even if the "law" is a sham like in North Korea. Judgements against companies would generally be "Business & Economics" instead, unless jail sentences or executions result. Murders of famous figures would generally not belong here (put it in the category that figure is famous for instead), though serious crimes committed by famous figures may belong here. News stories about Laws themselves would not belong here (that would be Politics & Elections) unless the Law directly affects crimes or trials.

• Politics & Elections--Notable news stories about provincial or national elections (or, in the case of notable figures, local elections). News about lawmakers and political parties. Nonviolent international relations. Recall of ambassadors and Opening of formal relations. Very important quotes from major Politicians (not including random musings from Brian Cowen). News about organizations that deal with primarily political topics (Amnesty International, the UN, etc.)
  • EDIT--I'm becoming more and more convinced we should also have a section for International Relations which would separate itself from this category and include all politically-motivated, nonviolent actions between nations (such as peace conferences, diplomat expulsion, or warnings from one head of state to another), as well as actions (by people or organizations) which target disputes between nations (such as the Israel-Palestinians "conflict"). Items which do not deal with disputes (such as a global hunger drive) would fall under Politics & Elections, or another category, instead. ~Blue

• Science & Weather--In my perfect world, these would be split into two sections. But at present I don't think either one would receive enough items to be worth a subheader. This category would include Chemistry/Biology/Physics, Astronomy, Meteorology, Animals (including Endangered Species), Paleontology, and some news stories about Scientists, as well as Climate Change, Natural Disasters, extreme Heat/Cold Waves. It would generally not include Theoretical Physics, Mathematics, UFO's, or fields widely recognized as Pseudoscience.

• Sports--Major stories about Sports, Leagues, Teams and Athletes. If it's considered a sport by a fair percentage of people (NASCAR, Bowling, Chess, etc.), it counts. Scores of games are not notable. Events outside of games which strongly affect athletes or teams on the "field of play", or extremely notable non-sporting news happening to major athletes, also goes here.

• Other Current Events--Always at the bottom. News stories that fall under none of the above categories belong here, such as Religion, Leisure (when it doesn't fall into Sports or AC&E), Mathematics, Philosophy, "Novelty" stories (when clearly notable), Colleges/Universities, World Population landmarks, and other topics. This category should not be used for placing items that fit into more than one of the above categories--just take your best guess when you post it, and let others move it if they strongly disagree with the placement.

• Comment. "Headliners" is not a good section because what is deemed important enough to be a headliner and arent events that are really of up most importance put on the main page of wiki under news anyways?. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:31, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• Good point - agreed, and edited as such. Blue Crest (talk) 01:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

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A bunch of "made-up" categories have made it onto the board (everything from "fights" to "orography") which obviously need to be removed; their items should be merged into actual, useful categories (in this case, "Armed conflicts & attacks" and "Science & weather", respectively). However, a few recent subheaders at least deserve discussion. Anyone care to comment on these? Blue Crest (talk) 22:20, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

• Religion--A defensible one with all the spotlight on the Church lately, but I don't think this gets hit enough to warrant a subheader, personally. Most of the time, items would fall under "Other current events"; occasionally they'd belong in "Politics and elections".

• Disasters or Natural disasters--Another defensible one. Generally I like to put these under "Science and weather" for natural disasters, or "Other current events" otherwise. But they do appear enough to possibly warrant their own subcategory. I'd vote for "Disasters", even though the name is vague, so things like Fires and Nuclear Meltdowns don't fall through the cracks. Yes, Oil Spill news would also go here. The only problem is, when does something like a heat wave or tropical storm stop being "weather" and turn into a "disaster"?

• International relations--As I mentioned above, I think the last couple weeks have proved this actually does warrant its own subheader.

Knowledgekid87's Proposal

• Armed Conflicts and Incidents
• Arts, Culture & Entertainment
• Business & Economics
• Law & Crime
• Politics & Elections
• Science & Weather
• Sports < This Cat would be rarely used I feel seeing that sports that involve the world would have to be notable to appear on current events.
• Other Current Events

I just combined the ideas above into one possible 8 cat selection. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:54, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Solution

OK, we have a few proposals here, so I think we should go for the "genre" sorting that my proposal, along with most of the others, advocate. However, I still like Passionless's idea, so I think we should subcategrize the stories by region when there are, say, 3-4 or more stories from the same region. What do you guys think?

Finalizing

Alright, so we've had the new system up for awhile now, it's working well other than the constant changing of the titles, so I suggest we ask (User:X!)to change it so that when his bot (User:SoxBot) creates the page it creates our headings too. Could we all agree on the following titles,

Armed conflicts and attacks

Business and economy

Disasters and accidents

International relations

Law and crime

Politics and elections

Science and weather

And shall we have the heading(s)

1)Culture and entertainment (includes sports) (I prefer) OR

2)Arts and culture PLUS Sports (2 headings)

Please leave a response, Passionless (talk) 23:24, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't object, although I don't really see the problem with the titles changing each day, because some days me may have no entries for one of the categories, and many categories will be empty early on in the day when there are very few items, which is a bit pointless, and removes the possibilities of merging categories and adapting them to the day's events. For example, on days when there are many entries for arts, culture and sport the sports could be put in their own category. but on days with few items in each category they could be merged and all placed under Culture and entertainment. But again I don't particularly object and either category is fine. "crime" has to be lower case "c", so I've changed that. Gregcaletta (talk) 00:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• • What I meant by changing titles was more like Armed conflicts and incidents becoming Armed conflicts and attacks (Sept 13/14) or titles like Religion being used (sept 19) instead of culture/politics/crime and Economics instead of Business and Economy (aug 13)Passionless (talk) 01:40, 28 September 2010 (UTC) Oh, and Crime was capitalized on Sept 25, I had copy/pasted from there...Passionless (talk) 01:44, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Members

• Kiteinthewind (founder)
• Blue Crest
• Gregcaletta
• Passionless

Comments

• To me this still adds confusion to the mix, there are so few current events in a given day that as a reader I just block out the cat's bolded there in my mind and just read the current events. Are these proposals to make the current events look more neat or is it for sorting reasons within the portal? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Well, the thing is, news is a rather fickle matter. Some days are quiet, some days are busy. Even in the slowest of days, the sorting will make the page neater, IMO. Kiteinthewind ^{Leave a message!} 20:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

• After a week or two of trial it's becoming clear that "Politics & elections" ALWAYS fills up the quickest, by far. Can anyone think of a good way to split this up into two or three categories? I'd go for "International relations & politics" and "Domestic politics & elections" ('Domestic' meaning "not international", not domestic to the reader's nation), but I'm sure someone can do better than that... (Comment added by Blue Crest)
  • That can be a solution, or we can use Passionless's solution, splitting that section up by geographical area... Kiteinthewind ^{Leave a message!} 22:23, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

• Well as of 7/15 it looks like people are just adding their own categories, is there a way to make one list that is workable off of as a criteria or is this spinning out of control? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:52, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
• Well, let's formalize a final list, and put this to rest. That is the only way to stop the problem. We know categorizing works, so let's start finalizing. Kiteinthewind ^{Leave a message!}