The "In the news" (ITN) section on the Main Page serves to direct readers to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent or current events of wide interest. ITN supports the central purpose of Wikipedia—making a great encyclopedia.
Unlike Wikipedia's sister projectWikinews, Wikipedia is not an online newspaper and does not accept original works of journalism or first-hand reports. Wikipedians are allowed to create and update encyclopedic articles of timely interest based on reliable sources. ITN originated in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, when entries were created and put on the Main Page within minutes of the attacks. The entries led to an infusion of interest by editors in creating a Main Page section that linked to articles providing readers the context behind the news.
Events posted on ITN are listed in approximately reverse chronological order, with the more recent entries appearing first. They are generally not sorted by any degree of importance or significance. Events are added based on a consensus on the ITN candidates page, using two main criteria: a) the quality of the article, including material added or updated to reflect the recent event, and b) the general significance of the developments.
Candidates for ITN are evaluated on two main grounds: a) the quality of the article and its updated content, and b) the significance of the developments described. A successful nomination will normally go through several procedural steps before being added to the ITN template.
Each ITN item contains an emboldened link to an article providing a substantial quantity of directly relevant information, attributed to reliable sources. Typically, the article has been updated to include this text or created in response to the recent/current event.
The decision as to when an article is updated enough is subjective, but a five-sentence update (with at minimum three references, not counting duplicates) is generally more than sufficient, while a one-sentence update is highly questionable. Changes in verb tense (e.g. "is" → "was") or updates that convey little or no relevant information beyond what is stated in the ITN blurb are insufficient.
In the case of a new, event-specific article, the traditional cut-off for what is enough has been around three complete, referenced and well-formed paragraphs. An example of the minimum required update for a new article is Fuzhou derailment at the time of its posting.
If the recent/current event relates directly to previous occurrences (e.g. a major award honoring past achievements), the article can be considered sufficiently updated when there is consensus that it contains appropriate, up-to-date coverage of the entire chronology, irrespective of when the text was written or how many sentences pertain specifically to the recent/current event (apart from the requirement that it be mentioned).
Updated content must be thoroughly referenced. As with all Wikipedia articles, citations must be to reliable sources. While articles on topics such as sporting events and economics lend themselves to tables of numbers, updates must be at least in part written in prose to qualify for ITN consideration. References should be correctly formatted and not bare URLs.
Articles that are subject to serious issues, as indicated by 'orange'- or 'red'-level tags at either the article level or within any section, may not be accepted for an emboldened link.
Whether a topic is significant enough for inclusion in ITN is often contentious, and ultimately, there are no rules or guidance beyond two:
The event can be described as "current", that is the event is appearing currently in news sources, and/or the event itself occurred within the time frame of ITN.
It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting. Generally, proof that an event is being covered, in an in-depth manner, by news sources is required. Caution should be taken when assessing news sources for prominence, because most major news outlets provide individualized experiences for each user, based on geography and browsing history. What one user sees as a top headline may be buried for others, and vice versa. Do not assess whether a story is "prominent" or not based on where you see it reported on major news websites for this reason. Other principles may be helpful:
The length and depth of coverage itself (are the articles long and go into great detail, or are the articles short and cursory?);
The number of unique articles about the topic (does each major news source dedicate its own reporting staff to covering the story, or are they all simply reposting the same article?);
The frequency of updates about the topic (is the article posted once and forgotten about, or is it continuously updated, and are new articles related to the topic appearing all the time?);
The types of news sources reporting the story (is the topic being covered by major, national news organizations with a reputation for high-quality journalism?).
These sorts of principles are useful in convincing others to support or oppose posting a story. None are solely sufficient to override consensus. Remember, the people you are attempting to convince is the rest of the community, not the admins, and it is rarely helpful to badger others who may have a different opinion.
Historically, the community has tended to frown upon certain types of arguments related to the significance of a story. Any user may, of course, support or oppose a candidate for any reason, but be aware that the following arguments have historically not garnered much support:
Arguments about a story relating to a particular geographic region, country, ethnicity, people group, etc. are generally seen as unhelpful. Almost all news is of greater interest to a particular place and/or group of people than to the world at large, and arguing that something should or should not be posted, solely because of where the event happened, or who might be "interested" in it because of its location, are not usually met with concurrence from the community.
Arguments that deal with the appropriateness of topics in general but also ignore the specific story being discussed are also usually not supported by the community. Opposing a specific story merely because one opposes all stories of that type (such as elections, or sports, or disasters) do not often generate agreement from the community. This also holds true for arguments based on similar stories which have coincidentally appeared recently, such as multiple elections on the same day, etc. Please assess and comment on the merits of each story on its own accord, not in relation to other similar stories.
Arguments based on ethics or morals—for example, refusing to support a story because the topic may be offensive to some, or refusing to support a story because one finds the story itself reprehensible—are usually rejected by other members of the community. Bad things may appear in the news, and what is being assessed is not the moral or ethical "goodness" of the story, but its prominence in the news and significance.
Arguments based on personal interest and knowledge are rarely sufficient to generate agreement among the community. Merely because one has not heard of a story, or does not personally care about the story, is insufficient when assessing significance.
Arguments addressing how many international newspapers/news channels are or are not covering the story on their front page or main webpage. A story highlighted in many newspapers or news channels has a good chance of being significant for ITN, but we do not base the posting primarily on how many such sites have covered it or consider it important. Similarly, significant stories for ITN, such as those for sports, science, and artistic-based stories, may not be highlighted by front page coverage though still will be reported on by reliable sources around the world. The lack of coverage in a specific source is usually not sufficient to block an item from posting, nor is the inclusion of a topic in a particular source a guarantee of inclusion. Consider that many online news sources serve content based on geolocation, so not every person will see the same collection of front-page stories as others, making assessment of "front page significance" highly subjective. It is important to remember that arguments are based on evidence and no one piece of evidence is taken in isolation as being self-evidently sufficient for either posting, or refusing to post, a story, and editors should build consensus through their analysis of all evidence as presented by themselves and others.
One can get an idea for how certain topics are seen to meet the significance factor by reviewing the archives of ITN candidate discussions, which can be found organized by month at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/Archives. Editors are cautioned from necessarily relying on consensus from past discussions to bring forward support on a new ITN candidate, since each candidate is reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Articles are held to a minimum standard of quality. Articles should be a minimally comprehensive overview of the subject, not omitting any major items. Stub articles are never appropriate for the main page. Articles should be well written with clear prose. Articles which consist solely or mostly of lists and tables, with little narrative prose, are usually not acceptable for the main page, and prose should be in narrative style, not "proseline"-type writing.
Articles should be well referenced; one or two "citation needed" tags may not hold up an article, but any contentious statements must have a source, and having entire sections without any sources is unacceptable. Biographies of living persons are held to higher standards of referencing because of their sensitive nature, and these rules also apply to those recently deceased. Lists of awards and honors, bibliographies and filmographies and the like should have clear sources. Sources themselves should be checked for reliability. Generally, "orange" and "red" level clean-up tags are signs that article quality is not acceptable for the main page as well.
Blurbs are posted to the main page, highlighting one or more quality Wikipedia articles, as follows:
There is a sufficiently updated non-stub article of sufficient quality, with credible sources cited.
The item has been nominated at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates, with an emboldened link to the updated article(s). A freely licensed image to accompany the item may be suggested. Ideally this image should be related to the top news item. If there is no suitable image available for the top item a relevant image for an item further down the list should be used instead.
The event is current, and not stale relative to other events. Any event that is older than the oldest entry in the current "In the News" box is considered stale. Recent Deaths are considered separate from standard blurbs for this purpose. For purposes of determining timing and staleness, the date is considered when the event was first reported in reliable sources. This will often be the same day as the event itself, but sometimes it can be some time later, such as would be the reporting of scientific discoveries, in which the work has been done months in the past, but results are published in a reliable source some months later. In rare cases when main page balance allows it, an additional blurb older than the oldest entry can be added.
Most In The News postings come in the form of blurbs. A blurb is a short explanation of the importance of the story in the news, with a specific article we are highlighting to direct readers to learn more information. The highlighted article should always be of sufficient quality to be posted on the main page; this usually means:
That the article is adequately referenced (a few cn tags is usually not a barrier to posting, though the article should not lack references in any major section, and biographical information is given special scrutiny.)
The article does not have any other major issues. Usually, orange and red level tags are generally considered major enough to block posting to ITN, though editors are cautioned against tagging an article merely to block an article from being posted, especially where the article is of sufficient quality. Other tags (such as yellow level tags, or notices about merge discussions, etc.) are not themselves sufficient to block an item which otherwise has consensus; articles which are moved or merged may have their links in ITN updated through WP:ERRORS.
That the article is long enough to give readers a full picture of the background of the story we are posting (stubs never get posted, even start-class articles will often get opposed if they are lacking enough context to fully understand the subject)
That the article is adequately updated to provide a full picture of the facts and relevance of recent developments. While it is impossible to give a minimum word limit, it is generally inadequate if the entirety of the update is only a sentence, such that no more information is in the update than would be in the blurb.
Blurbs are posted in rough chronological order by the date the event occurred. There is usually no effort made to be more specific than the date, and admins will generally not research the exact minute when an event occurred to make sure that multiple events that occurred on the same date are strictly in order. Please do not request that events be re-ordered unless the date is wrong. The number of blurbs varies from time to time, depending on the length of each individual blurb and the relative lengths of other sections on the main page. The goal is to avoid excessive white space, especially between the right and left columns, and older blurbs may be periodically removed or added to achieve this.
Some guidelines for the structuring of blurbs:
Blurbs should avoid sensationalism wherever it makes the entry less accurate, clear or concise (such as addition of "...for the first time in history"). Every listed event can practically be described as a first for a specific location and/or situation.
Blurbs should describe events in complete sentences in the present tense. They should generally use the indefinite articleanora for events rather than the (which is used by sensationalist news to imply that readers should already know about the event).
Blurbs should generally avoid comparison to any previous event, such as "Largest in the region since [year]". Previous events is generally out of scope of the page, and confers a publication bias favoring regions with a low frequency of similar events.
The ITN section usually has a captioned picture in the upper right corner. Pictures generally must meet the following criteria:
The picture must be free to use, with a proper license and provenance. In almost all cases, this means that the picture is available on Wikimedia Commons. Pictures locally uploaded to Wikipedia for use in articles under the fair use criteria are NOT eligible for publishing on the main page.
The picture must be of a person or event mentioned in a blurb. The person or event is notated with a parenthetical comment (pictured). Generally, purely decorative elements like flags or logos are not posted; many are ineligible anyway because they are not free-use content. Maps also are rarely posted, because they usually are too difficult to read in such a small format.
The picture should be for the uppermost blurb. It may be for a lower blurb if no eligible picture is available for a higher blurb. The picture's caption and the parenthetical (pictured) direct readers to the context for the picture.
In rare cases, none of the articles has an eligible picture, so no picture appears. This can be corrected only if a proper picture can be found. If you find a suitable picture, please report it to WP:ERRORS for prompt posting.
The purpose of the ongoing section is to maintain a link to a continuously updated Wikipedia article about a story which is itself also frequently in the news. The following criteria are usually used to post something to ongoing:
Any story may be proposed for an "ongoing" link through the normal use of the nomination page. Generally, these are stories which may lack a blurb-worthy event, but which nonetheless are still getting regular updates to the relevant article.
In general, articles are not posted to ongoing merely because they are related to events that are still happening. In order to be posted to ongoing, the article needs to be regularly updated with new, pertinent information. Articles whose most recent update is older than the oldest blurb currently on ITN are usually not being updated frequently enough for ongoing status.
An article listed as "ongoing" should not be taken as being considered as a featured article or otherwise maintained on the front page for reasons other than its newsworthiness.
The items are placed in alphabetical order according to the links' displayed text.
An individual human, animal or other biological organism that has recently died may have an entry in the recent deaths (RD) section if it has a biographical Wikipedia article that is:
Not currently nominated for deletion or speedy deletion.
Updated, including reliably sourced confirmation of their death.
Of sufficient quality to be posted on the main page, as determined by a consensus of commenters.
Certain regularly recurring events are considered of sufficient interest to be placed on ITN every time they occur; they are listed at Wikipedia:In the news/Recurring items. Items listed there are usually considered exempt from having to prove their notability through discussion on the candidates page. It does NOT preempt the other ITN criteria. The relevant article(s) will still have to be updated and cited appropriately, and proposed on the candidates page before posting.
If an editor has concerns about the overall recurring event, such discussions should generally not take place on WP:ITN/C when one instance of an event is nominated. Instead, discussions on proposed inclusions and removals on the recurring items list should take place on Wikipedia talk:In the news.
The templates {{ITN notice}} and {{ITN talk}} are used to notify interested parties that an article was bold-linked from ITN. Instructions can be found within each template's documentation.
Self-nominator's talk page:{{subst:ITN notice|article=Article name|action=recently nominated and substantially updated}}
Article talk page:{{ITN talk|date=1 July 2024}}
Note: No one possesses special authority to provide recognition. If an editor's contributions have not been recognized, please feel free to do so. A bot, RscprinterBot, will post the article talk page credits.
In the news toolbox
