Portal talk:Current events/April 2005

Previous discussions:

For instructions on how to archive Current events at the start of a new month, see: Wikipedia:How to archive Current Events

Subscription- only sites

We shouldn't be directing people to external links which are for subscription- only sites ("subscription" need not imply payment), and to a page which asks them for personal details. If there's no story on an alternative site, then the news item probably isn't significant enough to feature on this page. Andy Mabbett 10:03, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That's a non-normative use of 'subscription' - such sites would include AOL or most of the content on WSJ or the Economist. "Registration-only" is different and is increasingly common (and is documented on the sources list). I suggest it's best not to conflate the two. Furthermore, you haven't shown any consensus on purging registration-only links as you have done - so I've restored them, particularly when there's no other source - David Gerard 10:28, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. I hate these links to subscription only sites. anthony (see warning)

Does anyone particularly like registration-required sites? I know I don't, but many of them are important, like the NYT, and if there is no other source for a story, we will have to use them. -- Viajero 12:36, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't like them either. But so very many sites are going reg-only that our coverage will be increasingly hampered by excluding them. (And I really doubt that Wikipedia Current Events boycotting reg-only sites will make a dot of difference.) - David Gerard 12:43, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Subscription in this context is not a "non normative" use - have you never subscribed to mailing list? When there are no alternatives, then the issue should certainly be reviewed, but I've already adressed the matter of "if there is no other source for a story...". To which current item do you think this aplies? And who said this was a boycott, or supopsed to influence external sites?Andy Mabbett 13:48, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

When referring to newspaper sites, I've always seen it listed as "registration required" - as distinguished from "subscription required", which is in fact the requirement (a paid subscription) to access AOL articles or most of the WSJ or Economist. If you could point to a common usage of "subscription" for what most people call "registration" in regard to newspaper websites, without payment being required ... - David Gerard 14:01, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Perhasp we could stick to the more important issues of whether such links help users, and whether there really are any significant stories with no alternative coverage? Andy Mabbett 14:14, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In the case of current events the point is often moot because many sources will just regurgiate wire reports and so they are so similar that you may as well link to the reg-free one. (Incidentially though this argument also holds with respect to pop-ups, ads and bandwidth use, so really we should just link to the low-res version of the BBC News site all the time :)

More generally speaking there is a whole range of possibilities between always providing the most accessible source regardless of quality at one end and always providing the best/most authorative/original source at the other. In articles I tend to move towards the latter, probably because of my fusty academic way of doing things - thus linking to the original journal article or book rather than the press release of the journal even though the latter doesn't required any subscription, let alone a paid one. Pcb21| Pete 18:05, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think we should not leave out high quality papers just because one has to type in some information - which cannot be verified anyways. But spiegel.de for example has a policy of changing sites from free to pay-only after a while. Is there any bot checking for broken links? I have already detected some... Get-back-world-respect 23:53, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Only news here that are important on a global level

I just saw two news here that I cannot see at all meet the criteria needed for mentioning at current events. One was about someone who decided not to run for the U.S. Senate. The U.S. Senate has lots of members, so have parliaments of many other countries, and if we decide to list every single politician who decides to run or not to run we will be quite busy. The other thing was about a winner of 1 million dollars in a TV show. What kind of global importance has that? Some people win in lotteries all the time - while the overwhelming majority loses - and 1 million is not even an incredibly high amount. Get-back-world-respect 03:46, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Mike Ditka is not a politician, and winning 31 days of Jeopardy! in a row is not the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket. - Nunh-huh 03:53, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Indeed. But let me rephrase the events: An American, well-known only in America for his association with a generally American sport, chooses not to run for the American legislature; In an American TV show, broadcast only in America, an American wins a million dollars. I think if I'd posted (hypothetical) events like Trevor Brooking decides not to run for parliament and Random member of British public wins a million pounds on Countdown they'd be deleted, and rightly so. -- Avaragado 10:23, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would expect those deletions also. --Colin Angus Mackay 11:08, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The justification given for the deletion was not that they were too American, though perhaps you've pinned down an unstated reason for the culling. The justification was "no local news", but the trimming left intact such global events as the redesign of the flag of Montenegro, the celebration of Bastille Day in France and David Bowie's angioplasty. - Nunh-huh 21:18, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would justify the redesign of the flag of [Montenegro] as international as it will be seen internationally. The Bastille Day celebrations while local to France are celebrating an event which had an impact that was felt across the world and influenced the political direction of many countries. David Bowie is an international celebrity - although I do think this story is of minor importance and on a personal note, I've had an angioplasty operation and I think a big fuss is being made about nothing. Medical technology has moved on since I had it done and it is probably even less of an issue these days. But this is getting OT. --Colin Angus Mackay 22:28, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I already argued in favour of deleting celebrity "news" before, from wherever they are. Get-back-world-respect 22:31, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Round-and-round we go having the same tedious discussion about what is important, and more significantly, who decides what is important. If the person posting didn't think it was important, they wouldn't have posted it! I presented a solution to this issue above, and you pooh-poohed it, basically because (it seems) you don't think there should be any current events page at all in an encyclopedia, even one like Wikipedia which is conciously breaking down traditional barriers to creating a complete account of human knowledge and events (like lack of real-time updates, and lack of space). I find it quite exasperating. Pcb21| Pete 11:31, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't see the point of this page, actually. Google news does a much better job and has no problem picking out "minor" news if the right search terms are used. Wiki already has "Recent Changes", to see what articles have been updated recently, maybe it just requires better search technology? Goatherd 11:49, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Once upon a time I used to add items here, but I stopped because I felt I was pointlessly duplicating information better covered in the sources I drew it from and and pasting in URLs to send people away from Wikipedia to those same sources. There is a clear difference between an encyclopaedia and a daily newspaper. Bmills 12:05, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The purpose of the page is to provide an entry point into our articles on "in the news" topics such as Mike Ditka, Jeopardy and Trevor Brooking. Other sources do not provide this entry point. The point is emphatically not to be a poor man's Google News. NB there is little or no correlation between Recent Changes and current events. Pcb21| Pete 12:09, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would not go as far as abolishing the whole article given that it is useful when archived to see what important events happened on particular days. But we fail to achieve that if local news and TV-shows are mentioned. Since more users agreed than disagreed I delete them again. Get-back-world-respect 12:12, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Um.. tyranny of the majority? Practice some tolerance! Pcb21| Pete 12:16, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Democracy tends to favor tyranny of the majority over tyranny of the minority. Sorry, but you failed to convince. Get-back-world-respect 12:20, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't want to be rude, but you appear not to understand the concepts you are talking about. Democracies don't ban things because the don't like them. They tolerate them. They ban things if they are harmful to others. These entries only become "harmful" if they are false, not a current event or cause the page to become unmanageablely long. Pcb21| Pete 12:29, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's possible to provide an entry point without writing news reports. cf. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/index.html. Wikipedia can't report news properly because it contains encyclopedia articles, not news articles. I'm not sure about the "archiving events" function, but it doesn't seem to require a page titled "current events". This page as it is now seems to be a distraction from the main purpose. Goatherd 12:30, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Pete, democracies generally decide to do what the majority regards best. If you as a minority want the jeopardy show to be covered in Australian history books I am sure no Court would grant you to do so. Get-back-world-respect 20:41, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Australian history books? Courts? What are you trying to say? Pcb21| Pete 07:46, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Duplication in New Zealand (re Israel) items

Someone familiar with style for this page should merge the two recent New Zealand (re Israel) items, which are at present partly repetitious. Incidentally, National Radio carried the story at and after 6pm UTC, but I don't know whether you can effectively note that. - Robin Patterson 22:29, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have reverted back to the "alleged Mossad agents" text since that is how they are described in the linked articles. They are not referred to just as "Israeli nationals". - Tεx τ urε 22:39, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Current events candidates

There seem to be many events which make a brief appearence but are removed pending better confirmation. Would it not be better if events could be added to an intermediate page such as Current events candidates where they could wait until sufficient confirmation were received? This would also provide the opportunity for people to comment on whether a given event was newsworthy. Indeed if we had separate pages for Current events in sport, Current events in politics and similar, discussion could take place as to which was the appropriate page for the event to move to. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 14:03, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)

Hizbollah Assasination - not NPOV

Hizbullah offical Ghalib Awali dies in an explosion in Beirut Lebanon. An underground Sunni Muslim group claims responsibility declaring that this is the beginning of the battle of the true believers against the "Shiite infidels". Syria and Lebanon blame Israel. (INN) (http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=65911)

This is not accurate. The "underground Sunni Muslim group" (Jund as-Sham) claimed that the statement released in their name was a forgery. They said that although there were some fundemental differences between them and Hizbullah, they saw themselves as being on the same side when it came to "the resistance". Also, if we are going to use an Israeli sourse, I think we should use a Lebanese source as well: (DailyStar) (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=6431)--Jad 06:22, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You can edit it to make it more NPOV. Go for it. RickK 06:30, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

take a look at the new version that incorporates both news sources.

Agreed lets use both sources. Funny, it was deleted from the page. That seems to happen a lot around here...delete the material that you dont like. The person that deleted the information was User:Zero0000. This is his common practice. Waiting to see how long the report on the murder of Hassan Al- Za'nin lasts, reported in the New York Times, but not in Reuters. How does killing this person help "the resistance"???

INN is not a news wire, it's a partisan pirate radio station and runs far too many stories that cannot be verified in any other source. NYT links seem to get deleted by people who hate registering for newspaper pages - David Gerard 19:45, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

INN is not a news wire? NYT is not. Toronto Star, Daily Star, The Guardian, etc all are not news wires. Perhaps being a news wire is not relevant. Have you heard of Abi Natan and the Peace Ship "pirate radio station"?

You seem to object to those reports verified by other sources as well. The AFP source is diffenent in several details from both INN and the NYT: AFP vs INN/NYT has the following differences: age 18 vs 15, roadside bomb vs qassam rocket, targeting soldiers vs target towns.

INN is not a source of news at all. It is a propaganda site. I will continue to delete all events whose only source is INN. I do this in the interests of preserving the reputation of Wikipedia. --Zero 02:27, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Murder most foul

The idea that something is not "murder" unless a court says so is a common fallacy. Murder is a verdict if a particular person or persons are being charged in a court of law. Murder has the common meaning of "unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by a human being." In the case of the 15-year-old boy, unless you can demonstrate that the killers were acting in the capacity of executioners of valid law, the act was murder, and to fudge it is POV (not to mention politically correct). Who the murderer(s) are would be the province of a court to decide. -- Cecropia | Talk 09:42, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Regardless of anyone's views on the bias and oh-so-evil political correctness of the word, it is still unnecessarily vague. Inquiring minds want to know if this is a stabbing, a hanging, or a good old-fashioned defenestration; murder probably shouldn't be used except for describing court sentences. I gave a try at making it more exact and NPOV. Jxg 17:20, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

23 July story about Beit Hanun death

There were two deaths of 16-18 year old Palestinians in Beit Hanun in the past few days. On Friday there was an 18-year old killed by Palestinian gunmen while trying to stop them planting an anti-tank device outside their house. Initially this was reported as a 16-year old and it was about Qassam rockets rather than an anti-tank device, but both these items were corrected in the referenced Haaretz article when it first came onto the Haaretz web page. (It explicitly said that the earlier details were wrong.) On Saturday night, a 16-year old was shot in disputed circumstances. Later in the day the Haaretz article was replaced by another at the same URL (they do that often, I sure wish they wouldn't) and the earlier incident was missing entirely. You can see from the current version of the page that it is referring to a July 24 incident, not to a July 23 incident. I looked for the old version of the article in my browser cache but cannot find it. Don't know what else to do. --Zero 11:05, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Gulf Daily also has "18" and "anti-tank bomb". It clearly represents a revision of the initial story. --Zero 11:30, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

the Friday murder of 15 year old Hassoun Al-Zanin (sp?) for trying to prevent Al Asqa Martyrs' Brigades members from using the family property as a Qassam rocket launch site was documented by The New York Time, HaAretz and Israel National News among others. Only Agence France Presse offered a different story.

the HaAretz link has been fixed for you. your statement "later in the day the Haaretz article was replaced" is incomprehensible based upon the link currently shown.

Zero, your behavior is in line with the prediction above that you would delete this story (in this case deletion a little bit at a time).

I'm not going to take any more of your behavior, OneVoice. You obviously have not a clue about the way news is compiled and disseminated. You also think that Current Events is your private Arab-bashing party. This page is for news of world significance. Next time I block you it will be for much longer and I have the support of an increasing number of other sysops for that. --Zero 15:10, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Palestinian terrorists of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades an armed branch of Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization, murder 15-year-old Palestinian Hassan Al-Za'nin and shoot several members of his family, when the family refuses to allow the terrorists to use the Al-Za'nin property as a Qassam rocket launch site. (INN) (NYT) (HaAretz) (AFP)(BBC)

Qassam rocket launch

item	NYT	BBC	HaAretz	INN	APF
age	15	teenager	16	15	18
prepetrators	Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade	militants	Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades	Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade	militants
activity		maybe a missile	Qassam rocket launch	Qassam rocket launch	roadside bomb

SO there you have it, resistance to an attempted qassam rocket attack from the property of a family that does not want their property used in such a manner results in the death of one of the children and wounding of several other family members.

This is not Arab Bashing...this is the exact opposite. Arabs resisting the activties of those that would have the family's property and livelihood damaged in the Israeli response. If only the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade members would launch their attacks from their own property rather than seeking out others to bear the burden of their actions. Lance6Wins 13:34, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You may want to check al-Hayat al-Jedidah, the official newspaper of the palestinian authority, for July 24th. it also says 15 year old and dispute between residents and resistance fighers. says road side bomb rather than qassam rocket. but they are the only ones to say that an Israeli tank shell was involved.

Non "Arab Bashing" News (Zero0000's term)

Zero0000, Here's a link for you [1]. one quote from the article "But listening to people, talking to people, they get a different view of Israelis and us of the Palestinians." Wanna make a wikipedia article about ongoing efforts of this type? Lance6Wins 15:20, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Here's another one for you Zero0000: *Jordanian troops detect and intercept 4 unidentified indivdiuals attempting to " infiltrate to the western side of the Jordan River" (Israel). Three are killed and the fourth arrested. (JNA) Lance6Wins 15:35, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Once again Zero0000 reverts the article insisting that all four news sources have issued corrections. Such is not the case. Why is this person allowed to change the report so that it does not agree with the majority of newspaper reports or with the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority (al Hayat al Jedidah) ??

Southwest Asia-centrism in events reporting

It seems to me that in the past few weeks there has been an enormous increase in the number of incidental killings in Iraq and Israel/Palestine listed on Current Events. While these occurences are no doubt important and perhaps lamentable, the sheer amount of information listed is beginning to drown out other, more historically notable events elsewhere in the world.

I propose that our coverage of killings, in general but particularly in regions of the world where this sort of violence is commonplace, be limited to the truly unusual or extra-ordinary. We don't have enough room to cover every shooting, stabbing, or even kidnapping in Detroit, L.A., or Moscow, and we should use the same judgment when considering the Middle East: uniformly present only high-profile news. Many of us have failed to find - or even seek out - events from the rest of the world, but treating Baghdad and Tel Aviv as the centers of the earth is not an acceptable alternative. It's lazy, it's unfair, and it's definitely not NPOV. Jxg 21:10, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Though I am inclined to agree that readability may be reduced, I argue one point: we have unlimited room. Removing coverage of real events purely because you feel they don't meet your personal criteria of 'worthy world news at the time' is not an option. If you are really upset about the current listings, create your own monthly overview of 'Important events in (month)' or a similar summary. More objectively, you could begin 'political events in (month)', etc. which would perhaps be more valuable, and easier for others to chime in on - much like the current 'deaths' list. prat 05:23, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We have unlimited room for articles; we do not have unlimited room within articles. Current Events already regularly exceeds the supposed 32 kB limit. In fact it is frequently double (July 2004, for example, is 63 kB). Also since it is updated several times a day, caching cannot reduce the load on the servers, and it consequently loads even slower than one would expect for the size. I am sitting on the end of a very fast pipe, but towards the end of last month Current Events was taking me 16 seconds. Web usability studies indicate that users abort the page load and go elsewhere after a delay of 8.5 s, with std.dev. 6 s. So by 16 s, roughly 90% of prospective users have already given up. And that's just the broadband users. Now a lot of us don't like Current Events at all - its topics can hardly be encyclopaedic since there has been no time to thoroughly investigate them, and it quite clearly encourages POVness. Against that, it is argued that it will attract new visitors. Well, not with 16 second page loads it won't. I suggest that rather than asking Jxg to create a summarised page of what is supposed to be a summary page, instead those who want to give detailed breakdowns of particular regions could create pages for that purpose, and have them linked from CE Securiger 08:27, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There are already detailed breakdown pages, such as timelines. Information is still being placed on current events. Why? I think what is required here is a rethink of who is contributing to current events, why, and what that information is used for. My guesses/ideas...

Who & why? Anyone who sees something they're interested in and wants others to know about. Probably this type of contribution is thus inherantly biased. That's OK, as long as the text is relatively NPOV we can move forward from such a contribution if it becomes an important or politically charged event.

Use? I think there are two types of uses: the now and the future.

The now. Some people probably check current events for 'whats happening' - I know that living in China and having hassles getting BBC, etc., I do. I don't mind scanning an extra 10, 20 or 200 summaries if it means I get a more comprehensive list of events, as it's already a LOT more useful than commercial newsfeeds. I don't see an extra few seconds as a problem - I'm saving tens of minutes!

The future. I think that in future the most valuable function of current events will be the archives, which will enable people to really see what was going on at a given time in the past with just a few clicks. These archived pages do NOT need to be fast-loading - being comprehensive is much more important.

Well, that's my thinking expanded. I hope it stirs some thoughts... prat 12:39, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The NYT and others give these stories prominent billing each day. The events in the region are critically important for determining the future of relations between the West and the Islamic world. Currently in both the PA and Iraq, major efforts are underway to attempt to create governments that are more closely based upon the concepts (individual liberties, rule of law, limitations on government powers, ...) that underlie the governments of Western Europe and North America. It is claimed that many in the Islamic world seek such a result. There are those who are staunchly opposed to such a government being formed and are willing to murder those that they believe are in any way aiding the efforts to create Western governments. Lance6Wins 11:51, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Jxg, you are completely right and the reason is that there is fanatic here (current name Lance6Wins) who thinks it is fine to use Current Events for his political campaigning. Note that he only ever adds events that suit his political purpose. He doesn't even try to be balanced. So you are more than welcome to delete anything that is not important enough. Meanwhile, your friendly sysop Zero0000 has decided that enough is enough and I am blocking his incarnations as quickly as they arise. The arbitration committee have been informed. --Zero 12:29, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Jxg, these current events grab people's attention and are often a source of energetic discussion. The importance of the events and the larger changes in societies that may result from them spill over into Wikipedia and at times cause vigorous discussion about what should be included and how it should be included. This does not detract from the importance of these events and the larger movements that they are part of. The type of government that will arise in Iraq is important to the future of over 200 million people in the immediate area. Only a generation ago Iran underwent a significant change of government and is now in the process of re-evaluating that change, seeking what other possibilities can arise. The Kurds in northern Iraq have been remarkably successful over the last decade in building on what was left to them in an environment largely free of central Iraqi influence. Another issue of importance and direct challenge to all other governments in the area. Lance6Wins 18:36, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This kind of discussion about what is newsworthy happens all the time in newsrooms. I dont yet have evidence to agree with Zero that Lance is any more excentric in his dogma than others are. This can change, but I hope you both can agree that the others points are valid; they are. Lance is right about the middle east issues being interesting, and Jxg/Zero are right about the overall balance. Perhaps there needs to be separate sections/bureaus..? -S V 19:07, 27 Jul 2004

It's 'news' if it's one of the TEN MOST IMPORTANT NEWS STORIES that day. Well, nine, with an amusing 'dead donkey' (painted iceberg) story on the end. INN is not a news source in the sense of Reuters or NYT; it's not even a specialist news source in the sense of New Scientist or Slashdot or Games Weekly; it's a site for pushing a POV to believers in that POV. Which is fine, it's their website, but it is in no way a news source. If an event makes INN and nothing else, it's not news. If an event makes proper general news sources, an INN report is just noise amongst the real news feeds - David Gerard 21:14, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism

Can someone please correct the vandalism to this page, please? Berek 19:00, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Done - thanks - in the future, place vandal notes at WP:VIP (easy to type shortcut) -S V 19:07, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

New marine worm species discovered

An item which I've seen in a number of news sources [2] is the discovery of a new type of marine worm which feeds on dead whale bones. Interestingly, the males of the species live in large numbers inside the females of the species. This info should probably go into a new article and news item. I'm not sure where the article should go, though: should it be added to giant tube worm, go under the genus name Osedax, or something else? --NeuronExMachina 02:00, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I already created an osedax page. Didn't know someone wanted to write this ,sorry--Jondel 05:41, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Duplicated List of Recent Deaths

I seriously question the value of listing recently deceased persons in 2 places, once on this page, and once again under the relevant month/year page. This will inevitably lead to names being shown on only one of the pages (in fact this has already happened - Andrian Nikolayev was listed on this page but not on the July 2004 page, so I fixed it). As a result, users cannot rely on either of the pages to provide a complete list of recent deaths shown in Wikipedia; they cannot be assured of getting all of the names unless they actually look in both pages. It should not have to be up to sharp-eyed contributors to pick up such omissions. There should certainly be a link on this page to the relevant month/year page, but listing the same people all over again on this page is simply creating new problems. It seems designed to reduce users' workloads by exactly 1 mouse-click, but in so doing it creates a much greater amount of work in requiring them to enter the same information twice, and also creates the entirely new but unnecessary issue of potential omission. Can we please go back to the old system of showing deaths only on the appropriate month/year recent deaths page. What do others think? JackofOz 05:53, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

To clarify, July 2004, redirects to here, Current events. The duplication is on Recent deaths and current deaths. Unfortunately I can't suggest a template solution as the current events page only lists days and name, whilst recent deaths lists day, age, name and notability. I personally would have no list on this page, merely a link to recent deaths and allow very high profile deaths to have their own entry as regular current event. (maybe Francis Crick would come into this high profile category). Pcb21| Pete 10:18, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

OK, here is a PERFECT EXAMPLE of what I'm talking about. This page tells readers that there have been "no deaths reported so far" in August 2004. But a quick check on Recent Deaths for August 2004 lists 3 deaths. Clearly, people making these changes are changing only one page, when according to this current system two pages need to be changed for each death. This system is UNWORKABLE and cannot survive. JackofOz 23:14, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, Jack, I'd argue that the list here is for more noteworthy names, and the list at Recent deaths is intended to be exhaustive. That's just my impression though. I don't think the system is "UNWORKABLE", though I admit it probably could be improved. In the meantime, though, it just needs a few of us to check both pages every now and then. I don't think that's disastrous. I just added Arturo Torentino to this page as I think his death probably is "noteworthy" -- if I'm incorrect, or if I should have added the other names at RD, well, someone either needs to cut my edit, or add the others. Sorry if I acted improperly. Jwrosenzweig 23:27, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's not a question of you or anybody else acting improperly. It's a structural issue. What's "noteworthy" to me may not be to you, and vice-versa. For example, I would seriously question listing the death of dogs (I kid you not) in this area of Wikipedia. But somebody recently thought it was important to record such a canine passing, so good luck to them. But I digress. If the page is only meant as a "teaser", ie. with only "noteworthy" deaths mentioned here and all others mentioned on the other page, this raises some questions: (A) If a particular death is not "noteworthy" enough to be mentioned here, why would it be "noteworthy" enough to be mentioned anywhere else? (B) Why create this artificial division in the first place? Are we invited to conclude that a name listed on the other page, but not on this page, is "trivial", "unimportant", "insignificant", or whatever? And if so, why are they listed anywhere at all? (C) In the early part of the month, when no "noteworthy" deaths have been listed, the caption "No deaths reported so far" is (as I've already pointed out) quite misleading and should at the very least state that the relevant month/day page may well include other deaths that for whatever reason didn't qualify for inclusion here. Cheers JackofOz 00:31, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Does an RSS Feed Make Sense for Current Events?

I am posting this more as a question to get people thinking about this idea. I have browsed the archive and I am fairly certain that I didn't find anything. There was an interesting related discussion, however, regarding Maintenance of the current events page.

I use RSS a lot and I think it would be awesome to have a quick link in to what wikipedia's current events are. I could write one myself, but I am not the best programmer in the world by any means and I certainly can't imagine that my implementation would be useful for others. --Jpittman 14:17, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)