Wikipedia talk:In the news

Sham elections

At various points, I have seen I have seen the argument that an WP:ITNR election should not be posted because it is not free and fair, or that an election blurb should be qualified to note that an election was not free and fair. Those arguments have been met with, more or less, "Disregarded. Start a discussion at WT:ITN." This most recently occurred at the currently nominated Guinean parliamentary election. Nobody yet has, so I figure I might as well. Authoritarian regimes stage elections which are not democratic in order to promote the legitimacy of their governments. I do not like ITN parroting and placing authoritarian propaganda on the front page of Wikipedia. It is the antithesis of this project's mission. I believe that relevant guidance should be added to ITNR, something along the lines of: For sham elections which are not free and fair, editors should assess whether there is any actual importance in the election (as in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election). They should also decide whether to use language signifying legitimacy (e.g., "elected") or language not (e.g., "declared the winner"). Such decisions should be based in the coverage of reliable sources. 1brianm7 (talk) 13:49, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

the urge to call out sham elections is a problem along the lines of WP:RGW. Elections that are considered sham by reputable sources that have authority to call those out should of course be documented at the election article, but at ITN we must stay factually neutral and simply report the election happened. The best we can do is avoid language like "won (the election)" that imply a free and fair election, and use alternative terms. In general ITN blurbs are not a place to try to incorporate controversial language because a blurb lacks the required space to provide the context and referencing per NPOV. Masem (t) 14:10, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

What's the basis for "we must" (my emphasis)? Even RGW's guidance is to follow the lead of reliable sources, which is exactly what's being proposed here.

I don't think we should stop posting non-free/fair elections, but I'm struggling to see a reason why it would be antithetical to have standard ITNR language for elections that high-quality reliable sources are reporting are shams. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 14:48, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

what makes an election a sham is a subjective assessment, even if repeated by multiple sources. We should avoid going into subjective matters in a short blurb where we have no space for context and sourcing. Eg if we were to say why the election was considered a sham, we'd have to explain the reasoning and who is making that claim, and there's just nowhere close to the space needed for that. Masem (t) 15:58, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

To be clear, there is no rule against doing so, and editors should feel free to try to compose such a blurb and seek consensus for it. Just understand this is well-trodden territory and prior efforts to do so have failed. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:30, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

I think it's important to link to articles on sham elections if we can get them to a certain level of quality. It's the best opportunity we have to highlight the political situation in a country like this. The Guinea government claims that they have made the final move from military control to a democracy? Let's direct people's attention to this subject. Right now, we could assume people know nothing about this subject, and that's surely worse. (Though of course, mainly, we want to highlight the article written by our fellow editors who put the work in). ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 16:39, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

yes, if the election is being called a sham by a majority of sources, the quality check at ITN should be make sure that aspect is appropriately discussed in a manner that meets NPOV. Masem (t) 16:51, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

This question has been raised numerous times and the consensus has roundly rejected excluding sham elections from ITNR. However, we should always keep top of mind that ITNR is an exception to significance debate, not quality. Articles about sham elections are often very low quality, and Guinea is a clear example of that. There is often little of substance to say, as the characteristics of an election that make it interesting are not present. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:25, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Omitting elections because they aren't democratic is not a compelling argument. That only shows that the English Wikipedia community is biased towards 'democracy' and disregards all other forms of governments. In fact, neutrality is best achieved when editors apply positive and refrain from normative reasoning. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:17, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

This is a ridiculous position. It's not biased to admit the reality that actual free and open elections are a pivotal part of the functioning of a democracy, whereas sham 'elections' are largely publicity stunts that make no difference to the operation of authoritarian states. GenevieveDEon (talk) 15:25, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

this iterates the WP:RGW stance that I pointed out above. It is wanting to point out sham elections but this is where we need to keep neutral and not treat these, on the context of a one sentence blurb, different from other elections. On the article page is where we go into the appropriate statements and attribution on why it was considered sham, where there is space for that context. Masem (t) 17:15, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I think some editors will never understand what we’re talking about, so it’s a complete waste of time to reiterate things over and over again. The opposition to sham elections is akin to a recent proposal here that we shouldn’t post pictures of politicians because they’re corrupt. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:05, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Ah, no - you misunderstand me. I don't oppose posting pictures of politicians, corrupt or otherwise, and I don't oppose the posting of rigged elections. What I want is for our headlines to reflect the preponderance of reliable sources in describing sham elections as what they are, rather than giving the false impression that they are equivalent to free and fair elections. I don't consider that to be an unreasonable bias in favour of democratic regimes; I consider it to be giving due weight to sources. GenevieveDEon (talk) 18:31, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

This thread is about why sham elections are opposed because they’re sham, not whether the blurb should indicate they’re not free and fair. We have a problem with editors who cannot divorce from their emotions and views, so talking about the wording of the blurb should come after we sort out that problem and make sure that sham elections should be included. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:05, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Just because reliable sources who are otherwise not the authorities to declare something is X or not are calling something X doesn't mean we should repeat that for purposes of ITN. In terms of elections there is no official body that can really say if an election is a sham or not. Contrast this to the relative recent statement from the UN that the actions of Israel were likely a genocide, thete being an agency with such creditials. This is a common problem across the board that just because a wide swath of non authoratative RSes claim a controversial position is true does not mean WP should adopt the stance that that is true in wikivoice. In article space we have the room to cover that per WEIGHT, but the ITN is not the place to do that. Masem (t) 21:45, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the comparison with the Gaza genocide is apt as the word 'genocide' is already included in the article's name, but the main point that Wikipedia shouldn't adopt any stance driven by what's written in reliable sources is spot-on. Using a qualifier in the blurb that an election was sham is equivalent to saying that a sport team utterly defeated another team in a one-sided match (e.g. note that we didn't mention that PSG outclassed Inter in the 2025 UEFA Champions League final despite the fact that the result was obvious and the coverage in reliable sources pointed out to the scoreline). Such qualifiers clearly violate WP:NEUTRALITY. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:43, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

"that make no difference to the operation of authoritarian states" – I wonder if there's an alternative way we could cover the operations of authoritarian states that could be covered in ITN every once in a while. The death of a dictator is the obvious one, but that can be once in a multiple decade event. A concern I have, is that by not featuring authoritarian regimes in ITN, we only push human rights abuses out of sight even more. I think there is a lot we could do to improve our coverage of (for example) Guinea in general, but also it is nice if we can feature the articles we write about them when they are in the news at all. I'm open for alternative ideas here though. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:53, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

We should not exclude "sham elections", this could disproportionately affect non-Western countries and perpetuate Wikipedia's systemic bias. I don't agree with the assertion that the word "win"/"winning" necessarily implies democratic legitimacy or an endorsement of the results. It is also very subjective as to what qualifies as a "sham election"; does it include cases where opposition parties are stifled (Guinea) or is it only cases where numbers are fabricated (Venezuela)? Such discussions only stall a nomination's posting.
As this argument comes up far too often, I attempted to add a clarification to WP:ITNELECTIONS but was reverted by an administrator; hopefully this means that more admins can step in and state that "sham elections" are still ITN/R so we can avoid having the same repetitive conversation over and over and over and over again. Nice4What (talk · contribs) ♥ 21:17, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

• Deprecate Elections should be judged on their merits rather than being distorted by the nonsense of ITN/R which results in numerous dysfunctions including:

1. Posting of insignificant elections in microstates such as Niue which has a population of less than two thousand people.
2. Posting of sham elections which are not significant because the results are largely pre-determined kayfabe and so have no effect
3. Failure to post elections which are actually significant such as the election of Zohran Mamdani or the recent UK elections.

Andrew🐉(talk) 23:06, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

The exclusion of microstates would disproportionately affect Pacific and Caribbean states, which could perpetuate Wikipedia's systemic bias. Also, where do we make the cut off for a sufficient population size? Seems quite arbitrary. Nice4What (talk · contribs) ♥ 23:20, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

You could always balance it against article quality. It would be a bit subjective, but article quality is subjective already anyway, so the biggest difference would be that lower-quality articles get featured less often. I would like this idea if ITN-voters actually looked at article quality at all. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:55, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

I think we do suffer from a tendency to believe that ITRN candidates "should" be posted absent major problems, as opposed to being judged objectively on their quality. If the proposed SIGNIF deprecation goes forward, it should help reduce this.GreatCaesarsGhost 11:28, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

ITN/R is an explicit systemic bias, distorting the normal process of assessing significance. ITN ought to be covering major elections in the English-speaking world such as those for the Mayor of NYC, the UK's devolved governments and the Indian state legislative assemblies. Our readership is clearly very interested in these topics and ITN fails to cover them. It's biased. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:14, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

ITNR/more lenient assessments could get there without removing coverage about elections worldwide. Frankly I agree; way too much weight is assigned to whether elections are ITNR. I think frankly that it's bogus that we post the elections in every little Pacific or Caribbean island that get little global attention, yet there was a kneejerk reaction to posting Mamdani's election just because "it's subnational", "American politics", "not ITNR", etc., even though that infinitely received much more sustained coverage and dare I say may be of even greater importance than a PM change in Antigua. It's important to realize that WP:SYSTEMICBIAS is not a way to legitimize WP:RGW (a belief that I think is a hidden, but large force on ITN). However, that should not justify nullifying elections from places people do live in just because it's "too small". We can post national elections from small microstates where people do indeed live in, and have their lives affected by said elections as a result, while also being able to have the common sense to acknowledge that a thing called In the news should be able to highlight the importance and coverage of the recent NYC mayoral election, which has a similar level of importance, if not more. Stuff like it is objectively worthy of posting, and not just due to the coverage it received. Not everything is SYSTEMICBIAS; sometimes, there are places (in this case, cities) that indeed, are objectively of greater significance than others. — Knightoftheswords 19:16, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Andrew, this is not the topic of this discussion. This is about countries whose elections don't adhere to democratic norms, not your tedious vendetta against small nations. GenevieveDEon (talk) 10:43, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

• Keep as is, per Nice4What. The current way we post blurbs is simply to state that an election took place, and who won it, without further commentary. That is unambiguous, easy to apply with boilerplate wording, and avoids the need for endless wrangling over what level of freedom each country enjoys. It's never wrong to say an election took place, but it's sometimes wrong to say outright that it was free and fair or it wasn't free and fair,and all the nuance around that is generally discussed in detail in the linked article.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:19, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

OP of thread, responding to everything I just do not think it is factually neutral that, when authoritarian states put on fake elections to propagate legitimacy, doing so because democratic states put on real elections from which their legitimacy is derived, we insist that we must treat the fake elections designed to imitate real elections the same as real ones. I can get behind the argument that its important to post elections in Barbados because people are electing the leader of one of the 200 highest level jurisdictions in the world, even if their impact is probably less than the comptroller of NYC, but that's only because the people are actually deciding. For most sham elections, the government does not derive any actual legitimacy from it, and the result is never in doubt. I acknowledge that this would make discussions take longer and more ambiguous. That's unfortunate. But I just can't get behind the argument that its more important we lessen the awfulness of making the sausage when it makes ITN worse. A lot has been said about WP:RGW, but that says we base articles on secondary and independent sources, giving appropriate weight to the balance of informed opinion. No informed opinion is treating these elections as legitimate. We shouldn't either. I see the argument that this would result in less postings from the Global South, and that is unfortunate, but what actual significance do most of these sham elections have. I could get behind posting sham elections when they represent a changing of the guard, e.g. if Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo doesn't run for reelection in 2029, but they just usually don't mean anything. I also just don't know if these types of articles, whose encyclopedic significance I am doubtful for, are properly fit for including information about humans right abuses and whatnot. I also think it would be relatively easy to include appropriate context: "In Guinea's first legislative elections since the 2021 coup, President Mamady Doumbouya's coalition, the Generation for Modernity and Development, win the most seats in the National Assembly." includes so much superfluous information and links to awful articles, we could very well have run "In Guinea's first legislative elections since the 2021 coup, supporters of President Mamady Doumbouya win the most seats in the National Assembly after banning major opposition parties.". It's shorter! And To be clear, there is no rule against doing so, and editors should feel free to try to compose such a blurb and seek consensus for it. that's not my experience: blurbs have been posted with "declared the winner", and admins have unilaterally changed it to "wins". I wonder if the apparent consensus here, that we cannot decide against posting sham elections and that we must not make any distinction with real elections in the blurb, would be approved by the broader community. 1brianm7 (talk) 20:27, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

it boils down to ITN not being the place to put such elections in doubt. Article space had lots of room to provide the sources that assert an election is a sham, and when thats DUE to include, it absolutely should be in the article, and should be part of the quality check at ITN. But ITN blurbs must be factually and tonally neutral given how little space we have in the blurb. We have no space to provide the context required of NPOV to explain why an election might be considered a sham. Broadly, ITN should not try to be providing commentary on news Masem (t) 20:46, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

There is perhaps an interesting nugget to dig into there: taking your words at face value, why does ITN get to ignore NPOV? I don't know of any other place on Wikipedia where space concerns override NPOV. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 21:44, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

an election happens and a winner is announced. That's objectively factual. Now whether that election is fair or a sham, that becomes a matter of subjectivity that us subject to NPOV, which means you need to be anld to provide context abd attribution. Even for elections like Russia or North Korea, we cannot factually call those shane elections and require attribution and context for that. So the point is that we are avoid wadding into a complex pool of issues by staying yo the surface level, objective fact. Masem (t) 22:04, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I mean, that's essentially WP:FALSEBALANCE by omission. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 22:43, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree. And as I have pointed out before, there are such organisations as independent election observers, and they are often taken by external media to be reliable sources for the freedom and fairness of elections. It's not like the question of whether an election is free and fair is some kind of mystic imponderable - it's subject to observation and reporting like any other sociological phenomenon. GenevieveDEon (talk) 23:20, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

in article space, 100% all the caveats of NPOV shpuld be followed because you can include the required context and attribution. But in the 12 to 20 words that strictly stay in wikivoice in the ITN box? Nope, we just can't do that without violating NPOV. We can word it in a way to steer a way from considering the win legitimate (instead of says "won", say "named the winner") but we simply can't add extra words to call it a sham and stay neutral in that single short sentence. Masem (t) 20:00, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

We can word it in a way to steer a way from considering the win legitimate that should probably be added to WP:ITNR, since multiple admins have said we cannot do this and that they will disregard any consensus established at WP:ITNC to add in the NPOV-violating "neutral" language (link to discussion).

but we simply can't add extra words to call it a sham and stay neutral in that single short sentence I disagree with that premise, I think it can be done (I did it in the Guinea blurb above!), but I suppose the only solution if it is true is to cease posting sham elections--in a roundabout way, I'd be fine with that. 1brianm7 (talk) 08:08, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree, it's best to state it as it is neutrally as most media sources do anyways. Editors will never agree on what the threshold for a "sham election" is. Now we have humorous attempts that preface blurbs with According to official results, ... as if that were any different than how winners of Western elections are declared? I am not opposed to providing additional context when that's what an overwhelming/undeniable majority of sources provide. For example, in the Hong Kong election, the pro-China camp, pro-democracy camp, and international media all primarily focused on turnout — I believe including that context then could've been most appropriate. Nice4What (talk · contribs) ♥ 16:42, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

• Instead of trying to judge whether an election is free and fair, it would be easier to judge whether an election is contested. For example, in the 2026 Vietnamese legislative election, all candidates were required to be members of the Communist Party of Vietnam or independents allied with the party. That's not a contested election and wouldn't need to be listed at ITN. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 14:14, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

  One-party states can still have contested elections, such as the Sahrawi Republic (which requires all politicians to be members of the Polisario Front). Brahim Ghali was re-elected as president in 2023 with 69% of the vote, significantly down from the 86% support he received four years prior and the lowest percentage for any Sahrawi president. His position is expected to be contested again amid an unsuccessful war and diplomatic failures. Leadership changes within a party can also indicate a significant shift (compare Xi Jinping Thought to Hu's Scientific Outlook on Development). Excluding uncontested elections is just an arbitrary determination of notability. Nice4What (talk · contribs) ♥ 16:33, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

  The problem with just saying uncontested election is that completely legitimate elections sometimes go uncontested, and sometimes sham elections have a facade of competition with a challenger. The better term to use would be non-competitive election. So the front page might say something like "Candidate declared winner of non-competitive election" or something along that line. Really, I think it is fair to not want Wikipedia's front page to spread what is essentially unqualified propaganda by omitting the fact that an election wasn't really an election. AaronNealLucas (talk) 01:33, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  If there is a clear objective definition of a non-competitive election, that would be fine, but I am pretty sure there is no universal definition, and that's the subjective assessment of sources. Which we do not want to incorporate into ITN blurbs. Masem (t) 04:01, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  Almost everything that happens at ITN is the subjective assessment of sources. Yesterday we decided against posting Vucic's intention to resign and a few days prior to that we decided to post Starmer's, because a subjective assessment of sources found that one was important enough to be posted and one was not. Per WP:DUEWEIGHT, Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. ITN is a mainspace article (technically). In almost every example brought up in this discussion, reliable sources headlines have gone "xxx is elected xxx after [undemocratic action]", and what coverage exists of the elections has mostly focused on their undemocratic nature. 1brianm7 (talk) 05:29, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

  I agree it would be easier but I think it would over-include some contested elections that had genuine significance and exclude a large number of "contested" elections where the campaigns of doomed opposition were allowed to run (look at all the parties in 2026 Guinean parliamentary election, wow) while major opposition parties were barred from running. 1brianm7 (talk) 08:52, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

• If this discussion is about how to phrase blurbs for sham elections, there's a very straightforward solution to this: the blurb should just reflect the article. Whether an election can or should be called a sham in Wikivoice is an issue to be raised at an article's talk page, not at ITN. If the lead of an article already says that an election isn't really a legitimate election, then if we blurb it, the blurb should say this. And if the article doesn't say that because this language proves controversial and lacks a consensus, then we don't say it. Simple, easy. Pointing out that an election in Russia or Kazakhstan or elsewhere is a sham, when the article says exactly that, is not ITN taking it upon itself to WP:RGW or a violation of NPOV, while inserting that language ourselves would be. Articles reflect sources → Blurbs reflect the articles they feature. We're doing our jobs right if we're not introducing original thought at any step. I'm a bit confused as to why this is apparently controversial?  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 03:20, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  ITN posts some types of topic repeatedly, especially deaths, disasters, elections and sports results. The admins who post these seem to like posting them in a formulaïc way and so hate any kind of editorial or elegant variation. This gives ITN blurbs a liturgical style like the Shipping Forecast, which some find comforting and so helps them sleep! Andrew🐉(talk) 06:23, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  Because there is no objective measure of what a sham election is, outside the passage of history and wisdom of academics to call one as such, there is no way that a current election should be called a sham in wikivoice at the article, it should be justified with attribution and context as to why is it a sham under NPOV. Thing is, we have a lot of experienced editors that should know better that love to ram RGW callouts like this as facts because it feels morally correct. At ITN, we have to be far more objective, and leave any type of subjective commentary out of blurbs completely; we just dont have the space for the attribution and context to provide the reasoning. Masem (t) 11:30, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  One simple objective test is whether the government has changed. If the result is that the same party and leader continue to rule in the same way then the election is not a significant change and so should lose its ITN/R privilege of being automatically considered significant. This might affect some genuine elections too but they could still be posted if they get support in open discussion at ITN/C. The main iniquity at the moment is that ITN/C !voters are suppressed and silenced and so the process is not free and fair. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:32, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  I somewhat disagree. IMO, elections are significant because they give mandates to leaders. If that mandate is false, the election is unimportant. But I'd say the 2025 Polish presidential election, 2019 United Kingdom general election, and 2025 Canadian federal election were obviously important and contentious even if the result was the same. 1brianm7 (talk) 17:56, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  Because there is no objective measure of what a sham election is, outside the passage of history and wisdom of academics to call one as such, there is no way that a current election should be called a sham in wikivoice at the article This is an argument against calling any election recent enough to appear on ITN a sham in Wikipedia's voice, not just at ITN but in general, which is an argument that should be made at the talk page of an article. It's not ITN's job to override an article nor to pretend we know better than a page's authors or the sources.

  and leave any type of subjective commentary out of blurbs completely; we just dont have the space for the attribution and context to provide the reasoning. Articles about fraudulent elections will often times have a paragraph in the lead describing how most international observers considered the election a sham or how the election was marred by widespread irregularities. The attribution and reasoning are in the article body. It's okay for the lead to not try to fit all that context in, and it's okay for the blurb to do the same. Writing a blurb for an article should be thought of as writing an even more condensed lead, not just an exercise in seeing if we can write news headlines.

  We need to remember that articles and their content are the point of ITN. ITN is not the point of ITN. We are not separate from content writers like we have a lot of experienced editors that should know better that love to ram RGW callouts like this as facts because it feels morally correct. At ITN, we have to be far more objective implies we are. If you believe an article nominated for a blurb has inappropriate RGW callouts, you're an experienced editor, start a discussion on the article talk page about the RGW problem and slap an NPOV orange tag on the article or relevant section. Again, it is never ITN's job to try to override what an article says. How best to describe an encyclopedic topic is the job of article writers and informed by relevant policies and guidelines. There is no set of policies and guidelines that says ITN can or should take it upon itself to try to be "more objective than articles." But it also must be said that a blurb like Person Name (pictured) is declared the winner of the Country Name presidential election, described by most observers as neither free nor fair or alternatively , amid widespread reports of irregularities by outside observers is not less objective than just saying the election happened and the candidate won. Nor is the latter really more NPOV-compliant than the former. Presenting a sham election as a completely normal election, even when the consensus of editors and the consensus of sources is that it was anything but a normal election, is an NPOV violation. As for the amount of room we have, we most certainly have the space to include the text after the comma.

  It's very simple: ITN should always, always, always reflect the article. If you have a problem with the article and think experienced editors are doing a bad job, then let them know that at the article, say at ITN/C that there's a quality problem that needs to be addressed, but ITN should never be thought of as a place where we know better than those pesky article writers who keep ramming RGW callouts into things for moral reasons. Featuring their writing is kind of the only thing we're doing here.

   Vanilla  Wizard 💙 12:40, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  Trying to call out a recent election as a sham is a RGW issue; it is not Wikipedia's place to try to make this distinction and certainly not in the limited room ITN has. Its the same reason we avoid political labels (like "far right") on other legit elections, as while sources may focus negatively on that label, trying to call that out at WP and ITN is more RGW/NPOV issues. Article space has the room to delve into attribution and context for the commentary related to those issues as to present those subjective elements in a NPOV way (assuming the WEIGHT is there for that), but we simply can't do that with the limited space at ITN. Masem (t) 13:09, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  There's not really anything in this response that I didn't just address at length. I provided two examples of how we could phrase a blurb for a sham election, neither make non-objective claims and we certainly have the space. NPOV/RGW isn't "when thing is negative", it's when relevant viewpoints and perspectives are not being presented appropriately. Neglecting to mention that an election was not an election at all according to observers is an NPOV vio. Again, article leads don't delve into the specifics of the attribution or context either, blurbs do not need to do that. And if you think an article has a RGW issue & is doing things that "it is not Wikipedia's place" to do, that's a problem that needs to be fixed at the article by changing what the lead says, not a problem that should be fixed only at the ITN-level by tweaking the blurb.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 13:19, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  both of those examples have issues as attempting to quantify how widespread sone subjective idea is. In the short period after an election before it goes stale at ITN there is no practical way we can fully assess how much swing there is in all sources covering the election to be able to say "widespread" or the likely. (I've seen cases where editors claim just 4 to 5 sources makes a subjective statement "widespread", which is of course nonsense). And I am assuming for purposes here that the article is written in NPOV compliance to explain with attribution in the body why sources consider the election a sham; if they didnt that would be a quality issue that would block ITN posting. If thats otherwise fine, its the broad generalization that would be the issue at ITN.

  Also in the article as a standalone page, the lede can forego sourcing per LEDECIRE as long as the body has that info. ITN doesnt have the luxury of a page body so any possibly subjective statement we include is a problem. We dont add subjective claims to death blurbs, sports results, criminal convictions, etc., all where articles often have similar commentary of why something was important, good, bad, whatnot, often in the lede in the same way. ITN should absolutely stay out of trying to cover any subjective, with exceptions of a case like the UN body calling the events on Gaza a genocide, as that it was the designation as the mews item. ITN needs to remain clinically objective in blurb statements. Masem (t) 13:48, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  Blurbs do have the luxury of an article body, it’s the body of the article they link to. The body is just a scroll away from the lead and just a click away from the blurb. Linking to the article so readers can look at it and see the work fellow editors have done is the only reason why we’re doing all this.

  It’s fairly routine for blurbs to mention something that cannot be easily understood without scrolling down into the body of the article and reading it, and for the blurb to change when that article body content changes. Even quantitative statements like how many people died from a severe weather event often times require scrolling halfway into the article to really understand and fact-check; having to read the body to fully understand why a blurb & lead note that observers raise concerns over irregularities or allegations of electoral fraud isn't fundamentally different, and the process for changing what the blurb says is exactly the same either way. ITN is the last step in a chain of repetition. Sources → Article → Lead → Blurb. If the article can say it, we can say it. If the article can't, we can't. Simple as. Any problem with the source or body or lead is a problem that shouldn’t be raised first at ITN.

  If an election is contested, if there is disagreement over whether or not it was really an election at all, then calling it an election without any asterisks is an opinion statement, and omitting the relevant context that international observers say it wasn't really an election is an NPOV issue.

  Slightly off topic, but I'm a bit confused as to why you keep bringing up the Gaza genocide example. As another editor already pointed out, the article is itself named Gaza genocide, and it would be nonsensical for ITN to refuse to use the word found in the article name. And if I remember correctly, you were always against referring to it as a genocide even when all the same international bodies and scholars did, arguing essentially that Wikipedia should never refer to a currently ongoing event as a genocide, while I was one of many editors arguing with you trying to explain why it's correct for Wikipedia to refer to it as such. When did you come around to this position, what changed?

   Vanilla  Wizard 💙 15:03, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

  ITN on the Main Page is a standalone page from the content. You have to assume it works alone so any dependency (such as attribution abd context) on linking through is a problem. Its why DYK blurbs also have to be carefully worded, and the TFA summary often trimmed to more factual elements. We avoid tons of potential issues by avoiding the road of commentary on a blurb, whether or not we feel the reader is "properly" informed of how they shpuld take that news.

  Also we should not be letting WP editors drive a desired narrative. Naming the Gaza genocide article as "Gaza genocide" before the UN accessment is a very goid example of editors ignoring NPOV in favor of RGW, and what we should be ignoring in favor of writing clinically neutral blurb fir ITN. This is the type of problem excessively prevalent across current event articles on WP, editors asserting themselves as the deciders of right vs wrong to put onto wikivoice, rather than using attribution and keeping that outside wikivoice paryicular when so close to an event. Masem (t) 15:49, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

I think it is unlikely that this discussion finds any conclusion to legitimize any of our perspectives in WP:ITNR and would suggest that we change focus to drafting an RFC to be put at WP:VPPR. My initial thoughts are something as follows:

• Background: At ITN, consensus is that all elections which change the head of state or head of government of a country are significant and should be posted if the article is of good quality. There has been an extended disagreement at WP:ITNC surrounding the posting of what some editors term "sham elections", those that are not free and fair. Should any of the following be added to WP:ITNR;
  • 1. If reliable sources describe an election as a sham, ITN should generally not attempt to say that an election was a sham or impugn its legitimacy.
  • 2. If reliable sources describe an election as a sham and Wikipedia has an article surrounding this, consensus at ITN can develop to say it was a sham or impugn it's legitimacy.
  • 3. If reliable sources describe an election as a sham, consensus at ITN can develop to say it was a sham or impugn its legitimacy.
  • 4. If reliable sources describe an election as a sham, consensus at ITN can form against posting the election.

Thoughts? I don't think anyone has suggested 2 but it seemed a middle-ground that might find some consensus. I imagine it in circumstances such as the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests. 1brianm7 (talk) 17:56, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

I think the background framing of said RfC as only all elections which change the head of state or head of government of a country is at least somewhat missing the point. From my observation, many of the ITNR election blurbs where folks dispute the wording are when someone is re-elected, and those may actually tend to be the most controversial. Left guide (talk) 18:52, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

That is just a phrasing brainfart on my part. I meant as in "all elections which can change the head of state or head of government of a country". I was on mobile when I wrote the above and so it is probably deficient in a million ways with the specific formatting, no intentionality in it. 1brianm7 (talk) 19:02, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Now that I'm at my PC, I would also suggest adding, after "not free and fair": The most recent discussion on this topic is at Wikipedia talk:In the news#Sham elections, prompted by the nomination of the Guinean parliamentary election, and the second-most recent discussion is at Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 110#Legitimacy of elections, prompted by the nomination of the Russian presidential election. I also think an examples section, consisting of actually posted or proposed blurbs, would be useful for !voters, something like:

• The following are blurbs that were posted or proposed for ITN that follow each style:
• 1.
  • Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia for a fifth term.
  • Romuald Wadagni wins the Beninese presidential election.
• 2.
  • Pro-democracy protests intensify in Belarus after the contested reelection of incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko.
  • Yoweri Museveni is re-elected for a seventh term as President of Uganda amid protests over contested results.
• 3.
  • (All blurbs under 2 are applicable)
  • Vladimir Putin is announced as the winner of the Russian presidential election, securing a fifth term.
  • Romuald Wadagni is declared the winner of the Beninese presidential election.
• 4. (N/A) 1brianm7 (talk) 21:28, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Any thoughts? In particular, did I accurately summarize ITNR? When I was trawling through the archives here I saw a large amount of debate on its specifics, and I'm not sure where exactly it settled. 1brianm7 (talk) 08:49, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I would go further. I would like to see something like "Where multiple reliable independent sources describe an election as a sham, or significantly less than free or fair, a qualifying clause should be added to the blurb for the results, summarising succinctly the nature of the unfairness." GenevieveDEon (talk) 10:50, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Again, that is not appropriate at all in the short space we have in an ITN blurb. Just because multiple reliable sources assert something that cannot readily be objective proven is true is not a reason to state that it is true in wikivoice, and there's no space to apply any context. That said, the options in #2 (if the events supported it) are a way to say "here are factual things happening due to the questionable election" without actually saying the election is a sham in wikivoice. Masem (t) 11:27, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

This is a false distinction. We rely on reliable sources for all our statements, and it is just as much a thing supported in reliable sources that a Russian election is a sham, as that it happened in Russia. We can and should say in wikivoice that a sham is a sham is a sham! GenevieveDEon (talk) 11:34, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

"Multiple" is too low of a bar to be useful. It could mean two sources out of hundreds to the contrary which is generally a fringe viewpoint. Someone can just cherry-pick two sources that suit their view. We should be applying WP:WEIGHT which is far more foolproof. Left guide (talk) 11:54, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

You're right - mine was only a sketch of a proposal, not a formal statement. You're correct that we should do this if and only if it is the broad consensus of the independent reliable sources. (I'm emphasising 'independent' here because at inflection points like elections, normally reliable sources which are not independent of the governments which are at stake in those elections may not be good sources for the freedom and fairness of the elections themselves.) GenevieveDEon (talk) 11:59, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Ok, so does this seem ready for posting?: 1brianm7 (talk) 19:17, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Question

Should any of the following be added to WP:ITN/R:

• 1. If reliable independent sources generally describe an election as not free and fair, ITN should generally not attempt to say that an election was a sham or impugn its legitimacy.
• 2. If reliable independent sources generally describe an election as not free and fair and Wikipedia has an article surrounding this, consensus at ITN can develop to say it was a sham or impugn it's legitimacy.
• 3. If reliable independent sources generally describe an election as not free and fair, consensus at ITN can develop to say it was a sham or impugn its legitimacy.
• 4. If reliable independent sources generally describe an election as not free and fair, ITN should generally attempt to say that an election was a sham or impugn its legitimacy.
• 5. If reliable independent sources generally describe an election as not free and fair, consensus at ITN can form against posting the election.

Background and examples

Background: At In the news, consensus has that the results of general elections are always important and should be posted if the article is of sufficient quality. There has been an extended disagreement surrounding the posting of what some editors term "sham elections", those that are not free and fair. The most recent extended discussion on this topic is at Wikipedia talk:In the news#Sham elections, prompted by the nomination of the Guinean parliamentary election, and the second-most recent extended discussion is at Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 110#Legitimacy of elections, prompted by the nomination of the Russian presidential election.

The following are blurbs that were posted or proposed for ITN that follow each style:

• 1.
  • Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia for a fifth term.
  • Romuald Wadagni wins the Beninese presidential election.
• 2.
  • Pro-democracy protests intensify in Belarus after the contested reelection of incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko.
  • Yoweri Museveni is re-elected for a seventh term as President of Uganda amid protests over contested results.
• 3 and 4.
  • (All blurbs under 2 are applicable)
  • Vladimir Putin is announced as the winner of the Russian presidential election, securing a fifth term.
  • Romuald Wadagni is declared the winner of the Beninese presidential election.
• 5. (N/A)

'Impugn' is very far from neutral language. It's not for Wikipedia to attack anything; our headlines should reflect the preponderance of independent reliable sources. GenevieveDEon (talk) 23:24, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

By that I meant "use blurb language indicating that the election was not free and fair?" Does changing the phrasing to that resolve your concerns? 1brianm7 (talk) 01:26, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

No, we don't do that type of judgmental language for any other type of headline at all. Like, we avoid stating even in fair election if the winning part is far right, for example. We can work with #2 above to identify factual opposition by people directly affected by the election, and I would go farther to say the protests or other aspect doesn't need to be a standalone article as long as its decently covered in the election article (Eg: more than 1-2 sentences, at least 2 or more paragraphs). Masem (t) 00:27, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with you on that last point and prefer 3 to 2. Is there any other option you would like to see added that is a middleground between them? 1brianm7 (talk) 01:28, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

RD: Antoinette Miggiani

Antoinette Miggiani looks ready for RD while the nom, which just got archived half an hour ago, was still eligible. Does anyone wanna to look at it and consider bringing a link onto the RD line on MainPage? --PFHLai (talk) 00:30, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

ITN/C is the place to discuss nominations, and RDs have a full week to gain consensus. This one had no support. What's the rationale for making an exception? GreatCaesarsGhost 11:28, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Just looking for reasons to be nice. This nom reached ITN/C late, and might have been missed by people who spend more time near the top of ITN/C.

No one ready to be nice here. Never mind then. It's getting too late now, even by my somewhat lax standards. --PFHLai (talk) 20:32, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Sure, we all want to be nice. The RD standards have already been modified numerous times in an attempt to, effectively, be nice and get as many people featured (giving noms a full week to get approved, first-in-first-out). But you're talking about subverting the entire review and consensus process in order to get something posted that is old news. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:54, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

"Subverting"? Ouch.... I was thinking more about compensating for the occassional inefficiencies, if needed... Never mind. --PFHLai (talk) 21:32, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Posting unvetted articles to ongoing

I would like to encourage discussion about whether ongoing items posted with timeline articles should be re-nominated every time the period documented in the timeline article expires and needs replacement. To illustrate this better, please note the following actions (sorted in chronological order from newest to oldest):

• Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 January 2026 – 31 May 2026) was replaced with Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 June 2026 – present) on 6 June 2026, but there was no discussion on ITNC to vet the newly posted article (see ITNC/June 2026).

• Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 September 2025 – 31 December 2025) was replaced with Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 January 2026 – 31 May 2026) (then Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 January 2026 – present)) on 10 January 2026, but there was no discussion on ITNC to vet the newly posted article (see ITNC/January 2026).

• Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 June 2025 – 31 August 2025) was replaced with Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 September 2025 – 31 December 2025) (then Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 September 2025 – present)) on 4 September 2025, but there was no discussion on ITNC to vet the newly posted article (see ITNC/September 2025).

• Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 January 2025 – 31 May 2025) was replaced with Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 June 2025 – 31 August 2025) on 2 June 2025, but there was no discussion on ITNC to vet the newly posted article (see ITNC/June 2025).

One can verify that this course of actions goes much further in the past. The primary concern here is that we have a multi-year chain of articles that were posted at administrator's discretion and remained on the main page for months without any community input. Your opinions are welcome. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:18, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree. It is concerning that new articles can be added to the front page without much if any quality control. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:53, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Another reason why I think its pointless to have to include the timeline article in ongoing. I know some argue "we need a frequently updated article to be featured for ITN" but that these generally are only checked for frequency of update and not quality is an issue. And this is not just the points above, but that most of these are unfiltered timelines of every single tiny event, a problem that we had back with COVID articles too, and thus have that quality issue as well.

Per WP:SS, as long as the current most timeline is being updated and clearly visible in the lead/infobox of the actual target article, there should be no need to include the timeline. Masem (t) 13:01, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

This points to a larger issue with ongoing: that we are not considering the balance of all these micro-decisions against the intent of ITN. Ongoing ostensibly exists to prevent us from repeatedly posting similar items, but there is no way we would we be posting the latest action in a four year old war. But as a consequence of ongoing being an option, everything that is a big deal and still happening gets posted there. There is a "standard" that the articles must be continually updated, but not that recent events must even approach the level of blurbability. GreatCaesarsGhost 13:58, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

There might be some logic to when a war becomes so ongoing that its no longer a major rumble in the news but a dull roar (for example, India/Pakistan relations are like that). So that even though its being covered by the news, and still updated to meet ongoing, the fact that is has gone on for so long may be a reason to remove it after a few months. Just feel that that would be super subjective. I know this idea may have been proposed at VPP recently. Masem (t) 16:38, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

@GreatCaesarsGhost: I strongly agree with your point, Ongoing ... exists to prevent us from repeatedly posting similar items, but there is no way we would we be posting the latest action in a four year old war. This reminds me of when the 2019 Hong Kong protests stayed in "Ongoing" months past its peak. Editors would quickly update the prose when it was nominated for removal (October 2019, November 2019) despite a notable decrease in coverage/updates, and it wasn't formally removed from Ongoing until June 2020. What frequent blurbs about Ukraine would we be expected to post? Perhaps the next time removing the Ukraine war from Ongoing is brought up, editors should be reminded of this point about Ongoing's intentions. Nice4What (talk · contribs) ♥ 14:34, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

The timeline idea was cute at first, but it's gone too far now, IMO. I understand the rationale behind it, but I think it does cause more problems than it solves. DarkSide830 (talk) 00:45, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with this. Do we need to start a new discussion to "get rid of timelines from ongoing"? Natg 19 (talk) 04:43, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I would support that, but I think there's a lower hanging fruit way to get there. There are three places in ongoing where we mention that the article must be continuously updated. I think we should remove and replace this sentence: "Generally, these are stories which lack a blurb-worthy event, but which nonetheless are still getting regular updates to the relevant article." We need to say something like "An ongoing story is one that involves a series of events that may individually be considered for posting. Ongoing is used to prevent repeated postings of a similar nature in quick succession." GreatCaesarsGhost 11:43, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

The community input to add said discussions existed when these nominations were originally made since the consensus was to replace outdated timeline pages when new ones are creation. The allegations of 0 vetting are false since timelines have been removed before for being orange tagged. This seems to be beating around the bush to call for a ban on posting TLs on ITN, which KS has openly supported as well as others, so I don’t see why this discussion wasn’t immediately led with that. — Knightoftheswords 21:10, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

As for my thoughts on banning TLs, as the originator of the idea in response to the repeated nominations of the Russo-a Ukrainian War in 2023, I’m open to it, since even then, it was a compromise decision. However, any decision ought to include a measurable standard for removing/adding an ongoing item, otherwise it will just descend into another situation where items’ inclusion are entirely dependent upon the personal, disposition Al, and let’s be frank, political opinions of users ala any blurb discussion. — Knightoftheswords 21:17, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

The community input to add said discussions existed when these nominations were originally made since the consensus was to replace outdated timeline pages when new ones are creation. No, we've never broadly discussed that timeline articles should be replaced when new timeline articles are created to save space, and there has never been an instance to bring the question to ITNC. The allegations of 0 vetting are false since timelines have been removed before for being orange tagged. We're talking about posting new articles on the main page, not about removing orange-tagged articles already posted. which KS has openly supported as well as others I initially supported posting timelines, but it turns out they're problematic (it's impossible to anticipate all potential problems that might occur). Opinions aren't written in stone and may change. I notice that this is not the first time in the last few weeks that you single out what I did in the past to make a point against a concern raised from my side (please see WP:HOUND). Moreover, the use of expressions such as "allegations of 0 vetting" is counterproductive (I never make allegations and clearly supported my concern with links to edits as evidence.). Please reconsider your language. --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:13, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

No, we've never broadly discussed that timeline articles should be replaced when new timeline articles are created to save space, and there has never been an instance to bring the question to ITNC.

No, when timelines were first deployed, we explicitly stated that this was a compromise position in which any actively updated timeline article could be bracketed alongside an entry to prevent topics that were still newsworthy but had little substantive updates to their mother article from being axed. The explicit wording from those discussions used phrases such as using the most recent timeline, which, aside from obvious common sense (and the fact that this has only been raised as an issue three years later), is clearly an indicator that the understanding is that the timeline pages would be regularly swapped upon the creation of a new one. The statement that we have a multi-year chain of articles that were posted at administrator's discretion and remained on the main page for months without any community input is fundamentally incorrect since the admins are explicitly acting upon the agreed consensus.

We're talking about posting new articles on the main page, not about removing orange-tagged articles already posted

Ignoring the obvious anti-timeline themes in your argument, the only real reason why a timeline should be renominated should be for quality issues; in a sense, they act like RD or ITNR. For these entries, consensus emerged to bracket in the most recent timeline for the article, thereby any automatic renomination of an article should be quality based. Masem and Maplestrip literally interpretated your argument in a quality-based manner. Allegations (or claims or whatever) relating to vetting also as such as fair game to be critiqued here.

I initially supported posting timelines

No, what I stated is that you've recently indicated that you were in the anti-timeline camp. Additionally, mentioning a user's past points in of itself isn't HOUNDING if its a direct one to one discussion. — Knightoftheswords 04:48, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Administrators swapping articles isn't an indicator that the article is vetted. Their role is to edit the ITN template because other editors cannot, not to exercise power that circumvents community discussions. If what you're saying were right, we'd have probably abolished RD and ITN discussions to let administrators vet quality on their own and post entries at their discretion. And yes, my concern here is about quality (all other participants in this discussion got it right). In sum, every article that gets posted on the main page should undergo community vetting, especially those that remain there for months. Finally, this is a community discussion, not a direct one-to-one discussion (if you want it to be, you should write me on my talk page). --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:00, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Their role is to edit the ITN template because other editors cannot, not to exercise power that circumvents community discussions.

Yes, and the community agreed to having timeline links be automatically updated whenever a new one is created.

If what you're saying were right, we'd have probably abolished RD and ITN discussions to let administrators vet quality on their own and post entries at their discretion

Difference is, in addition to my above statement, timeline articles are literally just new versions of pre-existing pages, while blurbs and RD items are routinely about different stories, regions, people, etc.

And yes, my concern here is about quality (all other participants in this discussion got it right). In sum, every article that gets posted on the main page should undergo community vetting, especially those that remain there for months

Does a timeline article really need serious quality vetting? Besides sourcing and POV pushing and whatnot, it's literally just a chronological list of events. They are already held to far less qualitative standards than standard articles, and given how a TL has only been removed once due to quality, this seems like a largely pointless formality.

Finally, this is a community discussion, not a direct one-to-one discussion (if you want it to be, you should write me on my talk page).

Are you not only a member of the community, but the individual who opened this discussion? — Knightoftheswords 21:47, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Adding photos to discussions

I find inserting random photos in the middle of an ITN/C discussion disruptive. Can we require that editors provide a link if they want to illustrate their point? GreatCaesarsGhost 12:30, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

if we are talking photos or images as suggestions for a blurb item, thats fine. But otherwise posting these meant only to back up discussion points are disruptive and yes, should just provide the link instead Masem (t) 12:41, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I allow a lot of leeway for one-off WP:JOKEs, but can see it being a potential problem if the community saw someone as being persistently WP:TENDENTIOUS. But that's what WP:TBANs are for. —Bagumba (talk) 04:24, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

I don’t see how adding images to back up points = WP:DISRUPTION, especially if it’s stuff like showing how ITN appears on the Wiki app or whatever. Pinging Andrew Davidson (talk · contribs) who is clearly the main focus of this discussion. — Knightoftheswords 21:02, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

if we are talking about technical issue with a photo in the ITN box, that's fine to discussion on this talk page, it wouldn't go in the ITNC. What is being done is adding images to try to prove a point that doesnt require an image. We shouldn't be flooding ITNC with non essential images. Masem (t) 21:11, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

It's not images per se. Its the way they render, which a) causes huge gaps in the text, and b) provides no indication of which comment they are illustrating. For example, this image has zero to do with the nomination. So now someone has to comment on the photo, and someone comments on that. If that isn't the definition of disruptive, I don't know what is. And yes- the fact that the person doing it is so frequently disruptive to the work here in many other ways does factor into an assumption of good faith. GreatCaesarsGhost 21:50, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not understanding the complaint about "huge gaps in the text". I don't get a huge gap when I view the Long March nomination. The OP should please post a screenshot to show how it looks on their screen.

That nomination seems fairly quiet compared to others so I'm not seeing any disruption or difficulty. I could perhaps say more about the technical point about the claimed first. The article in question contains a complex diagram showing the new system which is quite interesting but I didn't fully understand it and so I had to view a video of the landing to fully appreciate the way it works. I could write at length about all that as we're supposed to be engaging in discussion rather than casting votes. Pictures help in understanding such cases per the picture superiority effect.

The nomination where images are more of an issue is the one for Wimbledon. My initial nomination suggested a particular image showing No. 1 Court (Wimbledon). This was taken at this year's event and seemed quite evocative showing a major match in progress on a characteristic grass court. This showed the sliding roof which is often a significant feature of matches in my experience. Now someone has replaced that image with a collage which includes an image which wasn't taken at this year's event and shows a coloured costume which isn't allowed at Wimbledon. Note that some people hate collages and carousels: see Collage RfC and Carousel RfC.

A choice of image often generates discussion and you can see a current example for Sam Neill which is quite typical of such debates. Where there's a choice of image, a gallery is usually used to show the alternatives, as in that case. ITN nominations should likewise provide a mechanism for showing the choice of images, just as it does for alternative blurbs.

Images are quite important in my view. ITN doesn't pay enough attention to this and so we commonly get the famous WP:LUGO effect which people have complained about for years. We have this right now as the Beth Mooney image has been on the main page for 8 days now and counting. Running exactly same image for over a week makes ITN and the English Wikipedia look like it's broken or abandoned.

Andrew🐉(talk) 22:55, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Obviously discussion of what a good image to use for a blurb (normal news or RD) is fine, thouhg if it goes beyond 1 or 2 alts, like "here's 20 possible images, let's decide", its probably better to open a talk page and link to it to avoid spamming ITNC with images outside the nomination box.

But clearly the discussion is adding images that are not going to be used for the blurb to support a point in your comments like . Its not needed to make the point you were trying to make, that she had several best-selling records. Its not an image that's going to be relevant to what is posted at ITNC if the blurb was posted, so its wasting space. Masem (t) 03:06, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

The thing that causes technical trouble at ITN is the excessive number of templates, which breaks a limit. Images are not a problem because they are stored elsewhere. For the reader, they are more digestible than the usual wall of text and so tend to save time rather than wasting it. Listing all of Bonnie Tyler's gold and platinum records would be quite tiresome as a text table so showing her huge display of them in a picture makes the point more succinctly and economically. And the point wouldn't have been needed if people hadn't started making misleading comments about "one-hit wonder". It's the argumentation which wastes the time, not its format. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:42, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

its not the technical problem (though the spacing issue above, which i cant yet replicate could be an issue), its just that they detract from discussion, drawing unnecessary attention. ITNC are not long discussion threads on other wp talk space pages, its a mini RFC for all purposes so adding unnecessary images is distracting. Masem (t) 12:52, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

An image is not some separate thing; it's part of the discussion. In these discussions, I use a variety of ways of presenting evidence including:

1. external links
2. wikilinks
3. quotations
4. statistics
5. tables

Images are likewise a standard way of presenting visual information in a piece of wikitext and there is no prohibition of their use in discussions or RfCs. Simple still images are commonly used throughout our articles and guidelines such as WP:KEEPCOOL and so everyone should be quite familiar and comfortable with them. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:18, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

also you completely misread my comment re: one hit wonder, which I said she wasn't. The image was completely unnecessary and is extremely POINTy, which describes much of your recent commentary at ITNC (eg same things with pushing on view count, etc.) Masem (t) 14:11, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

I read it just fine. Why raise the point about one-hit wonder if you didn't think she was one? It seemed to be a rhetorical trick − a way of insinuating that some might think this. You settled on a more elaborate way of dissing her but it was much the same point. The photograph seemed an effective way of rebutting this and it still does. And it was an evidence-based way of doing so. The photograph was not just my personal opinion; it was documentary evidence. Other sources confirm this such as "Bonnie Tyler totally eclipsed her power-ballad peers, and created an astonishingly wide variety of pop". Evidence beats opinion. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:48, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

It's an obvious violation of WP:POINT. I particularly draw editors' attention to the fact that Andrew posted a completely pointless digression in the middle of an ITNC discussion - to say that he had considered Salmon of Ignorance's username to look trollish, until he realised that it was a reference to the Salmon of Knowledge, of which Andrew then posted a picture. That entire thing was an inside thought that Andrew could have kept to himself. GenevieveDEon (talk) 22:52, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

My intention in that case was to show some appreciation of Salmon Of Ignorance's wit; it was a compliment and I thought it was worth sharing. That's all. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:11, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

While it's very touching for my username to be the source of such drama, I really don't think this matters all that much. He's hasn't posted more than one image in a discussion, it is sometimes relevant and as Khuft pointed out it can be hatted when it's not. The derailment often tends to happen when people jump on Andrew.

More broadly, Andrew is obviously eccentric, but received an unfair level of backlash. Trying to squeeze out editors who don't fit the mold will stifle genuine discussion (although I know that may be the goal for some). Salmon Of Ignorance (talk) 08:06, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Is this discussion really worth spending time on? I personally don't mind Andrew posting pictures; I just ignore them when it doesn't seem relevant. If the comments are just tangential to the discussion, there's always the option to Hat that part of the discussion. Adding new rules to a rulebook few (if any) read, at a time when Wikipedia is anyway bleeding editors (if I'm to believe that above-mentioned proposal on VillagePump) doesn't seem like a useful use of anyone's time. Khuft (talk) 19:25, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Wimbledon has been posted now and I'm liking the picture that was used. I updated the nomination discussion with the various candidate pictures to provide an audit trail for clarity. I used the {{Main page image/ITN}} template to do this, as it shows the pictures as they would appear on the main page. That adds to the template burden but may be better in showing the picture at an accurate size. Otherwise, I usually post pictures as a default thumbnail and the size then depends upon the preference setting. I have my preference set to "Large" but people who don't like large pictures should set their thumbnail size preference to "Small". Andrew🐉(talk) 09:20, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Technical image inclusion test

I noticed that a recent photo addition by Andrew (a reasonable one to discuss) used the same template used for the ITN box. To the point where this might be creating issues, I'm putting the following two test cases below to see if that's the situation. (I can't get rid of the border in the second, but given this is for inclusion during ITNC, it should not be an issue). If there is an issue with how the first one is displaying, then we should make sure to stick to the standard image inclusion approach for future image use in ITNC.

Case 1: using the ITN image template:

Sobers in 2012

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Case 2: Using standing image placement tools

Sobers in 2012

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

End of test Masem (t) 14:16, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the point of this is but both images are displayed for me. The second one has a border and that also makes the caption wrap. So the first one looks better.

I'm inclined to use the template because it ensures the display will be the same as it would be on the main page. Figuring out the equivalent settings from scratch isn't obvious and the point of such templates is to standardise such cases and make it easier for editors. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:07, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

My RD nomination was marked ready but ended up not being posted

My nomination for Andre Omer Siregar was marked ready by Spencer but just a day before the discussion for the day is archived, without any notice to me, Schwede66 reverted the designation due to a single citation issue (which as of now has been fixed). Any possibility of giving a dispensation for this one (I personally think its a bit unfair to raise the issue with only a short period of time given to address it) and instate the article to the RD section? Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 15:50, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Posted Seems reasonable. —Bagumba (talk) 00:11, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the rectification! Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 03:16, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi there Jeromi Mikhael, one of my jobs when posting to the main page is to ensure that articles are compliant with the requirements. I cannot recall what the issue was in this case, but articles that are orange-tagged or where a date of birth is unreferenced (which violates WP:BLP, as strange as that might sound), are show stoppers. As a posting admin, I cannot know who has interest in a particular article. I note that often, the editor who nominates an RD isn't involved in updating the article. Those editors who do have an interest in a particular nomination can follow the progress by using the WP:SUBSCRIBE feature. Schwede66 10:02, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

I understand that you're just wiping your mop, it's just regrettable that the nom's been there for like a week and the veto's lodged only on the last day before it is archived (a weekend!). And for the second-to-last thing mentioned I thought that should've been obvious just from the {{ITN candidate}} template? Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 14:40, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, ideally there would be more admins looking after ITN. I for one am currently on holiday and don’t spend as much time here as usual. Hence, you sometimes get delays with nominations being attended to. Schwede66 16:33, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Not just ITN, but most of WP doesn't require notification, e.g. even at WP:AFD. Even if there was a requirement, sometimes one might just forget. For better or for worse, the standard seems to be to just subscribe or check back often if one is interested. —Bagumba (talk) 16:49, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

RD: Derryn Hinch - Do we have procedures that mean someone (anyone) will look at nominations?

Derryn Hinch has now been dead for a week, but nobody has even commented on his nomination. HiLo48 (talk) 01:57, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't take much to see those {citation needed} tags and the paragraphs that end without a reference. Stephen 02:58, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

I see no issue that an admin, reviewing no-comment or undercommented RDs, can review and vouch for an RD to be included in the RD line, as long as they are taking responsibility for this. As Stephen said, this case had clear obvious issues, so no admin would touch it that way. Masem (t) 03:07, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't really care whether this gets posted or not. I just curious, looked and there was no evidence anyone here had even looked at it. Did it suffer from being buried beneath one of of all too frequent blurb discussions? HiLo48 (talk) 04:22, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Probably. A lot of nominations never get processed and then get archived as "stale". But it really needs someone to clean up the citation needed tags. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:13, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

My question is why so many editors nominate articles without working on them. What’s the point.BabbaQ (talk) 14:15, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Because we don't all have unlimited time to do such things. HiLo48 (talk) 02:05, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. Last year I put the effort into fixing up Susan Brownmiller, but they still wouldn't promote it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:35, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, I put in some work yesterday and got Derryn Hinch article RD ready.BabbaQ (talk) 06:09, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

• It's not clear who is looking at the nominations but there's more activity than you might suppose. Looking at {{In the news}} updates on 17 July, these were made by 7 different admins: @Amakuru, Bagumba, Black Kite, Left guide, Robertsky, Stephen, and Spencer: The trouble is that it's not clear which of them has read which nominations as there's no roster or assignment; it's just a free-for-all. Some of the nomination discussions can be quite lengthy and so it's not easy to digest them and see if they are ready. It might help if there was some kind of to-do list at the top of WP:ITN/C which summarised pending actions but it's not clear how this would be maintained. I put a {{section sizes}} template into the Structure section as a way of listing all the current nominations but I'm not sure if anyone looks at it. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:00, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Early nominations for events that are extremely likely to occur

This post is prompted by the "Burnham sworn in" nomination and its subsequent discussion. For those who are unaware, an editor nominated this event before it has taken place. Another editor commented their opposition to the nomination due to the event being early, or to use their exact wording, "speculative". Although my post is prompted by the Burnham nomination, there have been other examples of event nominations before they occur. The one that readily comes to mind is US Presidential elections. For the record, I have no strong opinion about whether or not early nominations are acceptable.

My main issue is that there is no agreed upon policy/procedure for how early is too early. For example, with US Presidential elections, is it acceptable to post a nomination (1) After reliable sources "call" a winner? (2) After voting has closed in all US states? (3) When voting closes in a US state on the east coast? (4) When voting opens in a US state on the east coast? (5) At 12.01am on election day?

It seems that the consensus for acceptability of early nominations changes from day to day and from nomination to nomination. I believe it would be useful to seek consensus on the answer to two questions: (1) Is it acceptable to nominate a (extremely likely) event before it occurs? (2) If yes, how early is too early?

For what it's worth, and as noted above, my opinion is not a strong one, I am of the view that events should only be nominated after they occur. In the example of Burnham, it should only be nominated after he becomes Prime Minister. In the example of a US presidential election, it should only happen after reliable sources "call" a winner, or alternatively, if this does not happen, after voting has closed in all states. Thank you in anticipation for your thoughts on this matter. Chrisclear (talk) 03:13, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I saw this discussion, and went over to ITNC to look at the current state of the nomination, only to discover that it had been entirely removed. Once I went back through the history, I found that before the nomination was deleted, an editor had proposed an ITN topic ban for the nominator, for the grievous crime of, er, having nominated a very predictable event a few hours early. This is absurd. In particular, this specific event is overwhelmingly likely to take place. I don't think it's reasonable to describe this clockwork-like political succession as 'speculative'; Burnham has already become party leader, and his appointment by the King is largely a formality. This isn't the equivalent of the US presidential election; this is the equivalent of the US presidential inauguration. We don't normally post those, and for good reason; the only reason this has come up is that when a UK prime minister is appointed following a general election, the appointment follows the election almost immediately. (People may have missed this point, as the last time it happened before Keir Starmer's victory two years ago was when Tony Blair defeated John Major in 1997. It didn't happen in 2010 because although an incumbent prime minister was defeated, coalition negotiations meant the successor wasn't immediately apparent. Since then we've had a lot of changes of PM during parliaments rather than at general elections.) A new head of government is ITNR, and Starmer's resignation announcement (which received a reasonable amount of debate here, for good reason) only allowed that to happen - it didn't determine the new PM, much as Burnham's succession was regarded as the likeliest outcome. There is nothing unreasonable about nominating highly predictable events before they occur, as long as all the details are also predictable. I don't really want to see fill-in-the-blank nominations ahead of time; the specific nature of a sporting victory or an election result is only apparent once the winner is known. But in this case, the winner has been apparent for weeks, and was formally selected on Friday. I'm wary of both instruction creep and the (admittedly mild) risk of a slippery slope into genuinely premature nominations. But in this case, I don't think the nomination was premature at all, and both the ban proposal and the deletion of the discussion were well over the line. That's not a criticism of Chrisclear for raising this discussion - this seems very apposite in the circumstances. To answer his questions: (1) yes, it's acceptable, as long as all the specifics that would go into the blurb are known with certainty, such that barring external interference unrelated to the event nominated, it will go ahead as described, but (2) the ITNC day section for the day the event will happen has to exist - no creating a future day's nomination section in order to nominate a future event. GenevieveDEon (talk) 07:18, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Any expected events should be able to be nominated early as long as said nomination is under the same day of the event. There's literally no reason why they shouldn't. Nominating such topics early is actually beneficial since it allows articles to get into shape when they happen, as well as predetermine consensus so that we may have a decision when it occurs. Allegations of "credit farming" or whatever are bunkum. Btw yes, this is indeed an "expected" event, reported by all major media globally and is far from "speculative"; interestingly enough, the same user also used this argument to oppose the posting of Starmer's resignation last month, which is ridiculous. The only case in which this wouldn't be appropriate would be in the case would be stuff like sports or whatnot where the exact result isn't immediately known (and even then, I might be open to it if they're only like two obvious outcomes since we already often update them anyway with stuff like MVPs). A genuinely premature, credit-fishing nom would be the WC nom from yesterday that predated the actual end by several minutes when Argentina still had a (low, admittedly, but still) chance of winning (especially with that free kick in the last half a minute). We've done things like this with the Artemis II launch and even the prior two impromptu UK PM swaps.

There's literally no point in removing said nom when it will re-appear literally hours later. Frankly at that point, any removal of noms are needlessly disruptive and WP:POINTY. Alas, no surprise that two of the people fronting this are an editor that repeatedly abused TBAN calls to anyone he disagrees with to an ANI-worthy extent, and a power-trippy admin who seems to revel in using intimidation to get what he wants, even when contrary to consensus. — Knightoftheswords 07:44, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

• I cannot think of a single thing wrong with a nomination being created a few hours early when an event that's guaranteed to be posted is also guaranteed to happen, and we know exactly when it will happen and can prepare for it. It's not like we actually post when they're early. The earliness of the nom just means ITN editors will have an easier time clicking through the bolded page(s) to check for quality issues, which is all we care about when something is ITN/R like this story is. What is the negative here exactly? That we'll be more prepared? The horror!  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 12:27, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Man, I remembered early-nominating one Super Bowl years ago with just "Weeeee". Good times. Howard the Duck (talk) 12:29, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

we are not a newspaper, there is almost no need to rush to report on a known-likeky-to-occur ITNR event within minutes of it happening. Quality still must be reviewed even if workshops as best as possible before the event. And given pass incidents of its being posted too quickly when doubts were raised later, thats more a reason we shouldnt rush noms out. Masem (t) 15:04, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

We're only talking about noms existing a few hours too early, not about rushing to post those noms. If anything, having a proposed blurb a few hours early just means we have more time to catch pull-worthy mistakes before we post in the first place.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 15:21, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

but we still habe to worry on the quality of the update, which might require more work than not after the event happens. Like how many sport ITNRs get nominated without the recap in place? Masem (t) 15:33, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Of course, we still shouldn't post something before the page is updated, I'm only saying that it doesn't hurt for us to be able to get a head-start on checking for (or hopefully even fixing) pre-existing quality issues. If the Andy Burnham BLP page were in a poor state beforehand, then that'd be a bigger problem that would take longer to fix than simply updating his article to reflect him becoming the PM, and if we want to avoid problems like posting something only to have to pull it for quality afterwards, then the sooner we notice these problems, the better. Thankfully his page was fine already, but you get the point.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 15:53, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

• Clarity is important in such cases to minimise accidental postings like the famous Dewey headline (pictured). If something hasn't actually happened yet then the nomination template should make this clearer with a parameter like the Updated one which indicates whether the article has been updated or not. In this case, the nominator indicated this with a comment, Nominating planned event early so that we can workshop and see any issues. which seems reasonable but might be easy to miss. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:41, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Anglocentrism in sports coverage

We really show our Anglocentrism when it comes to sports. For example, we've never once mentioned sports like kabaddi or sepak takraw despite them being much more popular (both in terms of participants and audiences) than sports like snooker or the mile run, which are mostly just of interest in the UK and Commonwealth countries. Maybe there's no avoiding this given our inherent biases as editors, but personally I would love to see our sports coverage be more international, either by focusing less on Anglocentric sports or adding more coverage of sports popular in other regions. Nosferattus (talk) 15:27, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

if you can find news reports in reliable sources that cover those routinely, and make sure the articles are of quality, sure. But we are a volunteer project and getting ppl to care about more niche non-anglosphere sports is rather hard, coupled with the fact most of this type of coverage is likely buried in foreign language sources. Masem (t) 15:31, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I broadly agree, but the idea that information in publicly-accessible sources that are not in English is 'buried' is part of the problem too. GenevieveDEon (talk) 15:35, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

yes, I should stress that we absoluteky can use foreign language sources, its just that most on en.wiki tend to forget about them. Masem (t) 19:10, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree. My preferred solution to this would be fewer nominations of anglosphere sporting events that are not top-tier titles, and more nominations of sports from elsewhere in the world. I really don't want to have to go over another US college-level game nomination again; we removed the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race from ITNR, but at least once a season and usually more we have college basketball nominations, backed up by special pleading about what the crystal basketball says about the future professional careers of the players. I'd rather see kabaddi, handball, korfball, jai alai, sumo, and more. GenevieveDEon (talk) 15:35, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Consensus is largely about who shows up. If there are specific events for kabaddi and sepak takraw you'd like to see appear, feel free to nominate them at WP:ITNC immediately after they occur if the article is in decent shape. Systemic change generally follows the trends of what happens in the trenches of ITNC, not the other way around. Left guide (talk) 18:50, 20 July 2026 (UTC)