Misplaced Pages

Month	2018	2019	2020	2019 (%)	2020 (%)
January	743	789	795	6.19%	0.76%
February	597	663	739	11.06%	11.46%
March	658	664	879	0.91%	32.38%
April	577	622	1099	7.80%	76.69%
May	570	620	835	8.77%	34.68%
June	589	628	864	6.62%	37.58%
July	566	639	868	12.90%	35.84%
August	579	581	826	0.35%	42.17%
September	521	566	656	8.64%	15.90%
October	564	590	653	4.61%	10.68%
November	545	598	729	9.72%	21.91%
December	567	652	884	14.99%	35.58%

I'll see about making a graph later if anyone wants (I've not got time right now). However as every month in 2019 was greater than the equivalent month in 2018, I don't know that we can say that the whole increase is due to Covid. Thryduulf (talk) 17:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Thryduulf:, if you do not mind my doing, I edited your table and added percentage increases to the table above. Feel free to revert. That said, there are two components to the increase -- increased wiki activity by editors due to lockdowns etc., new category of deaths from covid. If you have the source files can I trouble you to do the following for the 2020 deaths, for i in *; do cat $i | grep -i "covid" | wc -l; done. This will give the number of covid deaths in each of those months assuming there is a file for each month. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 18:09, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Your edits are fine. I don't have source files per se, I just copied the wikitext and did a find/replace in text editor that reports that number of changes. I can do as you ask relatively easily though, but it will take more time than I have right now. One thing to check though is whether the earliest deaths use the term "covid" as that name was not coined until 11 February according to Wiktionary's citations. Thryduulf (talk) 18:17, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure anyone said the "whole increase is due to Covid". I think it's a contributing factor. Also we have at least one regular contributor (Bloom6132) who does a very good job of updating and nominating RDs, often several a day. I don't think that was the case a couple of years back (although I might be wrong). And per Ktin, lockdown certainly afforded me a lot of extra time between April and July.... The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 18:20, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Per month deaths in 2020

	All deaths	Covid deaths	Proportion	Proportion of 2019-20 increase
January	795	4	0.50%	66.67%
February	739	7	0.95%	9.21%
March	879	133	15.13%	61.86%
April	1099	254	23.11%	53.25%
May	835	97	11.62%	45.12%
June	864	59	6.83%	25.00%
July	868	73	8.41%	31.88%
August	826	56	6.78%	22.86%
September	656	56	8.54%	62.22%
October	653	58	8.88%	92.06%
November	729	111	15.23%	84.73%
December	884	167	18.89%	71.98%

Thryduulf (talk) 20:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 banner

Boldy moved to this dedicated section from above "RD turnover"—Bagumba (talk) 04:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment the other thing we could do is get rid of the COVID-19 banner. It's been going on for over a year, everyone knows about it, and there aren't any major new developments: just the ebb and flow of infections, lockdowns and vaccinations. We get rid of the banner, link to Portal:Coronavirus_disease_2019 from the ongoing line (which won't go away anyway) and we free up a line for RDs or blurbs or whatever we want. The portal looks fantastic by the way, and has right at the top all the links we're featuring in the ITN box. It's a thought anyway, and if anyone thinks it has legs, we can spin up a subsection to discuss. --LaserLegs (talk) 02:13, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Absolutely InedibleHulk (talk) 02:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support When the topic of exit criteria came up in April 2020, I had suggested following other news organizations and whether they had dedicated banners anymore. I generally do not see them now, so would support replacing the MP banner to a simple portal link.—Bagumba (talk) 04:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support per Baguma's excellent observation. It's been far overlong in ITN and now that there's a new administration it's purpose is moot.130.233.213.199 (talk) 07:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the purpose had anything to do with any administration, on this global project. 331dot (talk) 09:58, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support as long as it sits in the Ongoing, this seems like a reasonable time to call time on the banner. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 10:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support per everything The Rambling Man said. Thryduulf (talk) 15:43, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support with the move to ongoing. --Masem (t) 15:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Wait; Need Data. I have been consistent in my request for a third row for RDs to spill over onto. However, I do not believe that this should come from the COVID banner (at least until we see the data). I think the space should come from, as TRM and a few others note, by adding an extra DYK on the left hand side. Specifically, to remove the Covid banner, I would recommend we look at attributional data. A typical RD gets a bump of ~2K of incremental page views from the homepage. I would want to see the number of page views that the COVID links are getting from the homepage. Not aggregate page views, but, specifically, the number of page views from users clicking on the link from the homepage. That to me would be indicative of what users are clicking on on the homepage. Only after seeing that data should we consider removing the box. Ktin (talk) 15:53, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Where will you get this data? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 15:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Possibly you could convert the links to obscure redirects and count the page views to those redirects; would go against WP:MPNOREDIRECT though. Personally I think a link to the portal in ongoing is fine, as all the other links can be reached from there. So, support as proposed - Dumelow (talk) 16:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Dumelow, wow! This is a simple but a brilliant idea! If we can test this out for even 48 hours, this is brilliant -- and will help test our hypothesis before removing! Ktin (talk) 16:21, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• The Rambling Man, unfortunately, I have a hit a roadblock in finding this data. I have asked at a few places including the VillagePump but have not received any leads. Referral data (if not pageclick) is standard webpage analytics information that I am absolutely sure is being collected. It is just not exposed via the regular pageview tool. So, if someone has any leads, I am happy to pursue there. Ktin (talk) 16:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  If you find a proper way of getting that data, let me know as I'd be interested too. Cheers. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: You might try asking at analyticslists.wikimedia.org? Ed  16:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

  The ed17, thanks much. I think just this morning, we might have got a great lead here. The numbers largely are in line with what we found with the small experiment that Amakuru setup. Marking Andrew_Gray as well. Ktin (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: increasing the size of DYK wouldn't help with the ITN balancing issue - it's TFA that it sits next to. Thus the only way to make space for extra RDs would be to remove the Covid box, reduce the number of normal ITN hooks, or somehow persuade the TFA guys to have a longer box (which would be outside of the scope of this project alone).  — Amakuru (talk) 16:43, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Surely we can't still be bound by 1990s HTML table rows? - Floydian  _¢ 06:00, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support, ongoing is good. --Tone 15:54, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support Switch to oppose for now, see below - in general this seems a good idea, per most of the above. It anyone else wants redirects set up as suggested by Ktin above, then I can do the legwork if necessary. Any such redirects would want to have full protection on them to guard against drive-by vandalism that might not be spotted as quickly as the actual articles. If the current conversation is going to wrap up too quickly for such data to be gathered though, I wouldn't have an issue. Having an Ongoing link to either the pandemic article or the portal would be OK.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, Thanks for this offer Amakuru. Given that we have no opposes. Should we try Dumelow's suggestion given that 0:00 UTC is in a few hours? And, keep those redirects on for 48 hours. Ktin (talk) 19:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: OK, we're ready to go. I have created a version of each link with a * on the end, e.g. COVID-19 pandemic*, and full protected them. Assuming there are no objections, I will switch over the actual links in the template in an hour or two, ready for the test to begin tomorrow. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 19:34, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, Thanks Amakuru. Much appreciated. Ktin (talk) 21:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment just an aside relating to bumping up the size of DYK, in the past, eight hooks seems to have been considered some kind of "golden number" so increasing to ten may well meet with some resistance. I'm not clear on it myself, one set of ten per day would work just fine and get some extra real estate on the right-hand-side of the main page. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 16:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  I always understood "main page balance" to mean that TFA and ITN should roughly line up, as should DYK and OTD. And that's what I try to aspire to when fiddling with it. Thus increasing ITN wouldn't really help much with ITN issues. Perhaps there are others who don't care whether the pastel-coloured headings line up though as long as there isn't blank space at the bottom of all four boxes. I don't know if this issue has ever been codified properly.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Can all 4 be lengthened a line? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps, although it might not be that easy to make TFA longer. Probably you'd have to add some length to the blurbs, which would be something the honchos at that project would have to acquiesce to. Might not be a bad thing, as I think TFA blurbs are often a bit on the short side relative to the lead of the article they represent. Otherwise the only other way to do that would be to change the relative widths of the boxes.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:47, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I guess we could resurrect the perennial 50/50 width split of the main page which is currently (IIRC) 55/45.... The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 17:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose still the top news in many if not most countries in the world, with new developments almost every day. Developments that in normal times would be blurb-worthy (e.g. first curfew since WWII in the Netherlands). Especially - especially - considering that it would just free up space for the usual barrage of inconsequential news itms and RDs. 2A02:A451:8B2D:1:1108:8856:8418:AB93 (talk) 22:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Hardly. ITN is mostly criticised for having such a slow turnover, rather than a "barrage of inconsequential itms (sic)". And the RD discussion is currently seeking, at maximum, to add one line without compromising the news items. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 22:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Although I think we should consider what the "exit criteria" are for this item from Ongoing. Spencer 22:24, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - per discussion with Ktin above, I have now switched the links in the Covid box over to redirects with a * at the end in order to measure how much it is being used. I suggest that this discussion remain open at least until 27 January, so that the effects of that change can be measured for a full day on the 26th. Perhaps even including the 27th as well. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:25, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  While not intentional, I worry that any conclusions will be at risk of confirmation bias, as we did not lay out what we were looking to prove beforehand. We will see X clicks from the mainpage. What is high or low for whatever we are trying to prove? Whatever the number, can we necessarily conclude that those same readers would not be able to navigate from a different organization of the MP or even outright removal?—Bagumba (talk) 04:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  Bagumba, you bring up a fair point and I had given this some thought earlier today.

  Let's start off with the objective. We started this conversation, seeking an extra row (third row) for RD spillovers and to see if removal of the COVID-19 banner could grant that extra row for RD spillovers. While there is fatigue with that banner as it stands right now, there are two categories of people. Let's call them A and B. A = those who use the homepage to land on a COVID-19 article and B = those who use the homepage to land on an RD article. Now, we know we do not have instrumentation to measure / count people, so, we flip the measure and measure the number of referrals to a COVID article from the homepage (let's call this A') and number of referrals to an RD article from the homepage (let's call this B'). Based on a large amount of hand-waving and looking at the RD articles (and honestly nothing more scientific than staring at some graphs for over six months) I would say that a typical RD article (not the celebrity equivalents) get approx 2K page views from the homepage. This is our B'. Now, the tests will show if A' would be around this number or significantly higher than this number. If it is significantly higher, it makes sense to retain the COVID banner as-is. If it is ~2K-3K it might make sense to borrow this space for an extra row of RDs and move the highest contributed links onto Ongoing.

  Regarding your second question, that is more interesting. How do we say that the same user will not find other ways to reach the article once the homepage route is shut off for her? Short answer -- you can not say that definitively without putting in place user-level instrumentation. So, not even worth bothering with that problem.

  tl;dr: Inspect the daily page views on the redirects setup by Amakuru and if it is significantly greater than ~2K to 3K page views, leave them as-is. If not, reclaim that space, and move the two pages with highest page views onto the ongoing row.

  Thanks for all your patience, folks. Ktin (talk) 04:58, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  The intention is purely to gather some data on how much these links are being used. There are no preconceptions with regard to this, and no fixed figures defined on which we might choose to act. The decision is still ultimately down to the consensus of editors in this discussion, but this just gives them something to work with. And even if it's shown that it has a million hits a day, if everyone still says "remove the template" then that's what we do. I haven't even decided the effect this might have on my own !vote but I thought it reasonable for Ktin to request this data.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:12, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  There are no preconceptions with regard to this ... In the event my comment came off as an accusation, please understand that was not my intent. The numbers won't be available for a day or two. The more that we can discuss the possibilities before that, the more objective our observations can be. Cheers.—Bagumba (talk) 08:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  If it is significantly higher, it makes sense to retain the COVID banner as-is.: Ktin, I'm not convinced it's that straight-forward. Clicks are not the main purpose of the Main Page, though it's certainly a factor. Thus, the direct clicks that the MP generates is not the end-all consideration. Readers presumably click RD links because they either did not know the person died or the link convenience spurred them to read more about the person. Those readers would not otherwise have come looking for the RD's bio. For COVID, we can assume that readers know that it's ongoing and have some understanding on the topic. It's conceiveable that if they hadn't found the COVID banner on the main page, a good percentage would still find an alternative path and get to the related pages, regardless. As you said, we cannot definitively say with the current metrics available. That's different than RDs, where you have witnessed readership increase ~2K the day it's placed on the MP. That uptick would be attributed to new discoveries from it being on the MP as opposed to planned visits looking for the topic.—Bagumba (talk) 08:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  I think we need some kind of baseline if we're going to make informed decisions based on the clicks. We need to look at how many clicks TFA gets, how many clicks other news stories are getting. Taking the Covid clicks in isolation is going to be interesting but ultimately nothing more unless we can contextualise it. Even then, as Amakuru says, it's just to inform the community, there's no golden "clickbait number" above which the template should stay in place. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 08:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  Comparing the figure with the total hits of the pages in question would certainly tell you something. For example if 20% of hits come from the links, that would suggest they're having a significant effect. Of course, we will also gain significant information after we switch to the new arrangement. We may notice a big drop in the overall hits for the affected pages. Or perhaps not.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  I did a cursory look at recent items added/removed from Template:In the news/special-header, but it's hard to tell if the traffic changes for those specific items are tied more to the popularity of the respective link's topic or its placement on the MP.—Bagumba (talk) 08:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose portal as a target destination. I very much disagree that it "looks fantastic". Issues I notice just quickly glancing over it, several of which are significant:
  • The terrible machine-read autogenerated video which we removed from the article ages ago remains, and moreover is super prominent.
  • The disease progress box lists the cases/deaths/recoveries twice.
  • COVID-19 pandemic, the most important of all our COVID-19 pages, is not transcluded or otherwise prominently featured.
  • The Did you know box has a "poster shown" label with no poster actually shown.
  • The scrolling partial collapse of the reference box presents accessibility concerns.

I'm sure that additional issues would show up if I looked longer. And I don't want reopen the whole portal wars, but portals are just not how our readers expect information on Misplaced Pages to be organized, or what they seem to seek out (despite both being linked currently, the portal has gotten only 30k views in the past month, compared to over 1 million for the pandemic page, more than 30k per day. All of this is to say that I think linking COVID-19 pandemic would be a much better move than linking the portal. Linking the article is what we normally do for ongoing events anyways, and it contains prominent links in the lead to the other pages if anyone wants to seek them out. {{u|Sdkb}}  02:48, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• • I actually also wanted to suggest to link the COVID-19 pandemic instead of the portal. I also believe we have a consensus here now. Ready to go? --Tone 08:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Wait for the clickity test. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:49, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Any relation to the clackety test? --WaltCip-(talk) 17:53, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. Covid remains the dominant news story in most countries around the world. Major media organisations still have multiple stories in the top few slots of their home pages, special sections devoted to it etc. We could think about trimming some of the lesser-used links in the box, but removing it entirely (or relegating to ongoing) seems inappropriate, especially if we would just be wasting the recovered space on more RDs. It's not as if we have a steady stream of blurbs that need to go up. Modest Genius 11:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for now Covid has not lost its sui generis status among reliable source and remains an unprecedented event, as such, I think the banner still represents Misplaced Pages's reflection of that. --Jayron32 12:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support - ongoing is sufficient. Misplaced Pages should provide solid background information, not up-to-the-minute news, about the pandemic. The link target should be the main pandemic article, COVID-19 pandemic. This link will help readers find the information they're looking for about the pandemic. Levivich /_hound 17:58, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Question there is disagreement among supporters about whether to link the article or the portal, but would both be possible? Something like "COVID-19 pandemic "? Thryduulf (talk) 19:07, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. Preliminary Results are out here, and it seems the main pandemic page got 400 clicks from the banner, compared with over 40,000 for the page itself. So for me that suggests it won't be missed much if we axe it. I haven't checked the other pages yet, but no doubt someone can do so shortly.  — Amakuru (talk) 00:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Axe now, ask questions later! InedibleHulk (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Amakuru, not sure if there is a replication lag etc., I did a quick check for all the other links and all of them are in the same ballpark. i.e. ~1% of the traffic to those pages are coming from the homepage. For some reason I was expecting higher. Also, for some reason I was thinking the pandemic portal would get more clicks, but, apparently not. Anyway, if someone wants to bring a link onto the ongoing row, it might have to be the main pandemic article page. Also, if someone has friends on the pandemic project, might be worthwhile to ask them to consider a banner equivalent on the disease page, in case we do away with the banner. But, that is beyond our brief. Thanks everyone. Ktin (talk) 00:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC) Striking this out based on the updated numbers from Amakuru below. I think we had to wait for the numbers to populate / replication delays to catch up etc. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 13:46, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose it's in the news every day, everywhere around the world. We could have it in Ongoing I suppose, but at that point, why'd we make a banner in the first place? Banedon (talk) 00:59, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

It's about freeing up space for more RD or blurbs. Ongoing will be a permanent fixture with some poor quality article about low grade protests anyway, so we put COVID-19 in there and free up space in the box. That's it. Still on the main page, with room for more stuff too. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:16, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I don't care too much about the target, and I get the feeling none of the other supporters do either. If the main pandemic article is better then fine, lets use that. Seems to be fairly clear consensus, and the stats from Amakuru show that mostly no one cares about the banner anyway. --LaserLegs (talk) 01:19, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. In addition to it still being a major news item worldwide, it's also the news item most likely to directly impact Misplaced Pages's readership. As much as I'd like to see more breathing room for RDs, making information about the pandemic immediately available to the living is more important than showcasing more articles of the dead. jSarek (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment a quick look at the "redirect" stats shows that between 8% and 14% of traffic to these pages comes via main page clicks, which means that between 86% and 92% does not come from ITN. Pretty stark evidence that ITN is not really seminal in helping people find the information they're after. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 09:51, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment again - (edit conflict) apologies, I was probably too hasty in looking at the stats last night. The figures look different this morning - 5,886 for the redirect, 39,076 for the page as a whole. Here are the full results:  — Amakuru (talk) 09:57, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for those numbers. That's a decent amount of traffic, more than most RDs get. I think that justifies keeping at least the banner entries that are getting a thousand clicks per day. Modest Genius 14:38, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Nah, main page get s more than six million hits per day, so this is peanuts. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 14:44, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

2-5k per day is more than a typical RD or DYK entry. Modest Genius 16:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Modest Genius, Not really. We have just reasonably seen that an RD gets ~2-3K hits per day. We should definitely carry COVID-19 pandemic to the ongoing line. Where I am on the fence is COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory. If there is a way to show it as Ongoing: COVID-19 pandemic (by Geography), or something similar, that might be a good median outcome. Ktin (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I maintain my position to remove the banner and simplify to a link. Everyone is aware of COVID and has some working knowledge of it. No reason to believe anyone looking for information would not find it without the banner. Contrast with blurbs or RDs, which are likely new news for a lot of readers. Based on the numbers, I'm ok with "Ongoing" linking to COVID-19 pandemic instead of the portal.—Bagumba (talk) 11:33, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
•  Administrator note was considering if this was ready for closure, but think it needs more opportunity for discussion - I've invited in editors from Talk:Main Page. — xaosflux 00:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment Reading through these, and I notice that there are many !votes cast apparently with the notion that the banner is going to be removed with nothing to replace it. It should be clear here that the Main Page will still have a link to COVID-19; it will reside in the Ongoing section of ITN, where it will require a nomination and strong consensus to remove (i.e., it will not "roll off").130.233.213.199 (talk) 08:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
• Admin Action Requested. Can I request an Admin to evaluate consensus / determine next steps? The latest three day traffic report can be accessed here. Seems like the numbers posted by Amakuru are holding. I personally was surprised by the low number of clicks, but, it is what it is. Ktin (talk) 08:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support. We can just put "COVID-19 pandemic" at Ongoing. Making a dedicated banner makes it seem like we're prioritizing the pandemic over others. It doesn't advantage readers, anyway. GeraldWL 09:50, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support removing the banner and having a link to COVID-19 pandemic in Ongoing. the wub "?!" 12:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Removed and moved to ongoing, as I interpret the consensus here. Please check. --Tone 16:33, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. For folks who are interested in any sort of analysis, we managed to find a way based on feedback here here to get the raw referral numbers for the month of December. It is available only monthly (and not daily) but, has great information re: referral data from the mainpage. Feel free to ping me if you'd want any query checked. Ktin (talk) 22:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

mysql> select * from december_views where referer = 'Main_Page' order by pageviews desc limit 10;
+-----------+--------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+
| referer   | target                                     | type  | pageviews |
+-----------+--------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+
| Main_Page | Hyphen-minus                               | other |   2951391 |
| Main_Page | Lists_of_deaths_by_year                    | other |   1130422 |
| Main_Page | Misplaced Pages                                  | link  |    214705 |
| Main_Page | COVID-19_pandemic                          | link  |    159008 |
| Main_Page | COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_and_territory | link  |    120652 |
| Main_Page | Great_conjunction                          | link  |    106300 |
| Main_Page | Tigray_conflict                            | link  |     81721 |
| Main_Page | 2020_Indian_farmers'_protest               | link  |     78387 |
| Main_Page | Encyclopedia                               | link  |     71174 |
| Main_Page | Hayabusa2                                  | other |     62045 |
+-----------+--------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+

Seems like the great conjunction was the most clicked non-corona ongoing story of the month. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:04, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Sagittarian Milky Way, It seems to have been a story that a lot of our readers have clicked on. I will add one caveat, the pageviews are monthly and not average daily, so, for articles that rotate, they have not been normalized for number of days spent on the homepage. Ktin (talk) 01:28, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

What's up with the hyphen? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:43, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

- is literally a redirect I wonder if it's from collapsing tables or something --LaserLegs (talk) 02:29, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Calls to {{IsValidPageName}} perhaps. - Floydian  _¢ 04:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Ktin: would you "select sum(pageviews) as sum_pageviews from december_views group by `type` where target = 'COVID-19_pandemic'"? I'm interested in the number of link referrals vs external (which my grep-fu counted up to around 700k). Else I can just load it into some RDBMS but since you've already done it.... --LaserLegs (talk) 02:27, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

  LaserLegs, done. Pinged you here. Ktin (talk) 02:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

• Drop all but main parent article. Thank you Yassen for the email about this....was looking for days.... was under the wrong impression the portal was up for deletion. That said. ....and as the portal maintainer - I suggest we link the main pandemic article over the portal every time. Yes they both present roughly the same info all transcluded, but best to link to information presented in a normal format that are readers are familiar with and has navigational aids like a Toc. Usability, functionality and accessibility shoild be our primary concern when choosing a linked page thus not a portal or oddly formated page. I take care of the portal simply to make sure it's mobile accessible (as the majority of our portals are not) but a normal formated page is always best because of reader familiarity and its were they have access to verification by way of sources.--Moxy 🍁 02:54, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This decision strikes me as hasty, localized and fairly unbiased. Omitting a banner that contextualizes an unprecedented, historic global event on Misplaced Pages that continues to strike with second and third waves in various countries and has seriously reshaped economies and lifestyle. This is well above the relevance policy bar that Misplaced Pages prays, and rewrites a new standard for handling event on a global scale. The banner itself had to be restructured to better illustrate the scenario. I think that, above any sudden preference to remove the banner, to give a localized group consensus right now is to counter a huge amount of news, policies and scenarios that are updated at all hours about COVID-19. We are not talking about a brief event to bring it to consensus yet. Also, the article is massive to be referred to in a single link, especially in a mobile experience. The direct links that the banner contained helped to direct to the different articles with enormous information made by editors. --JungleWiki (talk) 05:30, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

  This decision strikes me as hasty: For the record, there was 4.5 days of discussion before it was pulled.—Bagumba (talk) 08:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - it's been several days since there was action in this thread, but I think given the stats that have been shown up by the special asterisked versions of the links, that there is evidence the main page links are still useful. The disease, the pandemic and the country-by-country breakdown links are all getting tens of thousands of hits per day. I'm therefore amending my !vote above to Oppose.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Amakuru (talk • contribs) 15:27, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Amakuru: COVID-19 pandemic page views have actually gone up since the special header was removed on Jan 29. Not sure we can conclude that the people looking for COVID-19 pages aren't finding them because of the change. What is your analysis?—Bagumba (talk) 08:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Bagumba: urggh... I hadn't even noticed that the proposed change had already been enacted. I assumed the conversation had died a death for lack of consensus! As JungleWiki says below, this was done way too hastily, particularly as we'd been actively analysing the data. Seven days would be the normal period to let a survey like this run, as we would at AFD or RFCs. To answer your question, my source for saying the links were accessed tens of thousands of times per day was Ktin's link to the page-view stats above, based on the special asterisked versions we set up. That showed that a significant percentage of all hits for the affected articles were coming from the main page links. Anyway, since the change has now been enacted, we have the opportunity to actually see the real effect of the change. I've run a like-for-like comparison of daily averages between the three days from 23 Jan to 25 Jan (with the banner in place), against the same three weekdays one week later when it was gone (30 Jan to 1 Feb). Results are:

• So yes, although there has been a very slight uptick in the COVID-19 pandemic views, this has been more than offset by a large loss of views on all the other affected pages. Across all of them it's a 14.5% decline in views. I'm aware that initially I was in favour of dropping the box, but it's clear from the stats and the !votes that keep coming in opposing the change, that this was a mistake and the box should be reinstated ASAP. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, while I do not have any preference on what is done here eventually, the metric that you are using 14.5% is not the right one to check. By the law of small numbers, the change as a percentage is always going to look big. Bottomline is that the based on the above data, the cumulative COVID banner was resulting in ~17K views a week (now showing up as nett lost traffic; nett = traffic lost  – traffic made up from other avenues e.g. ongoing link). This translates to approx 2.5K page views per article day. This is right about at or lower than any other typical link on homepage including a average RD (non celebrity) which gets ~4.5K. So, from a numbers standpoint you are serving more readers by creating space by removing the banner (and taking the high traffic articles onto an ongoing link). However, if Admins do not use this space by either using it for a news blurb or for additional RDs spill over (and using the space for expression of articles), you are better off retaining the COVID banner. Because, something is better than nothing. Good luck. Ktin (talk) 03:16, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: i don't really follow your logic. These are not particularly small numbers, and in any case it's clearly the % that's important here. If the pages were generally getting 1 million views per day, then 17,000 more or less is small change and wouldn't be significant. But with the actual numbers we have, that 17,000 is a big drop off and I think we've definitely done our readers a disservice by removing it. COVID is and will remain the overriding story of our time for the foreseeable future, and getting our readers to the relevant parts of that, in particular NPOV scientific information on the vaccine, is really quite important right now. If that comes at the expense of stories which are more than a week old, and basically forgotten, such as Kaja Kallas becoming PM of Estonia, then that's a good thing. @Tone: is any chance you could reconsider your decision to remove the box, because this really looks to have been the wrong move. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, let me explain in a different way, and see if that helps. Again, I will start this off with a caveat that I do not have a preference for what is done on this specific topic, eventually.

  When you are measuring links on the homepage and their effectiveness, you are looking at how valuable are those links for what someone is looking for or for where they go next. One way to do that is by looking at what folks are clicking at. Now, the way you would do that is by measuring "how many people are clicking on a link on the homepage" and then asking the question "what fraction or % of the home page users are clicking on a particular link". Just by way of data, currently the COVID linked articles in that banner are (or were) getting ~2.5K clicks per day. That is lower than the other category of links on the ITN box / homepage.

  Regarding your later points on COVID being the zeitgeist of the current times and how presenting NPOV information is important, I absolutely don't deny that. That is a qualitative feedback (opinion) independent of what the data on clicks say. It's not data driven, but, it is definitely an opinion that merits independent consideration. It boils down to 2.5K clicks (but more meaningful, per our own subjective opinion) more important than 4.5K clicks on general additional information. I am definitely not making the case that one category of clicks is more important than the other.

  What I am definitely against is, the current state, where the banner was removed to make space for "blurbs and RD," but then Admins refusing to use up even more than 25%-50% of row #2. So, space was created by removing the banner but, is being used for real whitespace. Good luck. Ktin (talk) 23:31, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

  Ktin: The !votes were generally not tied to a specific use of the freed banner space. AFAICS, the main page is now operating as it did before COVID. WP:ITNRD and WP:ITN/A remain the same. Admins are not "refusing" to do anything, except perhaps IAR in a way you might prefer them to. Can you elaborate on the implication that "25%-50% of row #2" is unused? —Bagumba (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  Bagumba, my disenchantment stems from yesterday's posting Misplaced Pages:In_the_news/Candidates#(Posted)_RD:_Charan_Gill as with a few other. The article fell off the carousel ~14 hours when ~50-75% of row 2 was available for the article could have stayed on (for at least a few more hours) without even spilling into row #3.

  In my view, this conversation regarding removal of COVID banner was an offshoot of a conversation that intended to find space (i.e. an additional row) for "blurbs or RDs". Ktin (talk) 02:02, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Ktin: Some have stated that 12h is enough time, on par w/ DYK. It's not clear where consensus is re: 24h. As for space on row 2, it's probably dependent on one's screen resolution. I have a 2560x1600 screen, and if I look at the MP using the ITN template at the time Gill was removed, the second row is 80% full, and the second column is already slightly longer and "unbalanced" from the first column.—Bagumba (talk) 12:43, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  I don't particularly care about RD tenure, I think 12h is more than enough, but that was one of the rationales for this removal. However, the bigger point was that people felt it wasn't useful any more. But the stats we have seen show that they emphatically were being used and frankly to suddenly remove this prominent link for no discernible gain, when we're bang in the middle of a second (or third/fourth/fifth depending on your viewpoint) wave of the disease, coupled with a worldwide vaccine roll-out, makes us look quite tone-deaf frankly.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:28, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  It's amazing how times change. It was only a few years ago that about 95% of these RDs would never get onto the main page, let alone have the luxury of 12 hours (or more) of exposure. Easy to forget. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 13:36, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  Amakuru, I will start off by saying where I do not disagree with you. I do not disagree about the relevance of the COVID topic in a world as we have it today. However, I do not think it is right to hold my insistence for a 24 hour consideration window for RDs as the reason why the banner has been or should be removed. Quoting from my post earlier I have been consistent in my request for a third row for RDs to spill over onto. However, I do not believe that this should come from the COVID banner (at least until we see the data). My point is that, having removed the banner, not using that whitespace, is bad. Regarding your statement that the stats show usage 'emphatically' that this banner was being used. Not really. Just as a summary, there are 6M daily views on the homepage, of which 1.1M views result in some sort of a click, of which the banner articles attracted 2.5K clicks on an average. But, that said, the argument (zeitgeist etc.) sans the stats is a reasonable argument to advance. Ktin (talk) 14:18, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, the virus is still a big deal on most parts of the world as readers should be able to quickly find relevant information.  Nixinova   T   C   07:01, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm not against removing the banner and moving COVID to ongoing in principle, but I oppose doing so just to add more room for RDs. -- Calidum 22:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  @Calidum: The original proposal did not say RDs would necessarily take up the space: ... we free up a line for RDs or blurbs or whatever we want. To date since the removal, RDs have remained generally at a size of 6, and WP:ITNRD and WP:ITN/A still says 6 as well.—Bagumba (talk) 00:33, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Election head of state / government simplification

Suggest overhauling the heads of state/government section to be as follows:

Changes to the leaders whose offices constitutionally administer the executive of their respective state/government as listed at List of current heads of state and government when:

• The leadership changes as the result of an election
• The succession of leadership when not the result of an election

Changes to other heads of state or government who do not constitutionally administer the executive of their respective state/government are discussed on their own merit.

Feel free to clean up my poor grammar as necessary. --LaserLegs (talk) 20:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with this clarification. Thanks for bringing it up. 331dot (talk) 20:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  So if Queen Elizabeth II abdicates and is replaced by Charlie, we'd not regard that as an automatic post?  — Amakuru (talk) 00:18, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Presumably this is an anti-powerless or low powered head of state without fame rule, not aimed at Charles. He would be posted quick whether automatic or not. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

"Changes to other heads of state or government who do not constitutionally administer the executive of their respective state/government are discussed on their own merit." if you really think we'd not post the succession of the British royal family, I'm not sure what to do for you. Also that happens what? Once every 5 or 6 decades? Why is this obvious change so controversial? --LaserLegs (talk) 01:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm saying the opposite, the British monarch abdicating would be posted quick whether there's an automatic rule or not. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:27, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

And Queen Elizabeth is not the head of state of just one country. Of course it would be posted. I disagreed with removing head of state from ITNR, but it's done, and that does not mean they can't be posted, just that it isn't automatic. 331dot (talk) 01:25, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Question: What happens to legislative elections that do not lead to changes in whoever is in the List of current heads of state and government? Examples are US and Philippine midterm elections, French and Indonesian legislative elections and Japanese House of Councillors elections. One could argue that the US legislative elections, including the one that led to a runoff in Georgia are no longer ITNR. Are those still ITNR, or ITN will pick whoever has the more white dudes in a country east of the Atlantic (let's face it this is how it'll boil in to)? Howard the Duck (talk) 15:06, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

General elections are ITNR irrespective of the head of government. The vast majority of changes to heads of government were posted with an election, but the recent change covers occasions where the occupant of a position changes outside of an election.(such as Theresea May to Boris Johnson) 331dot (talk) 15:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

It can be argued that some of those elections are not general elections. We have ITN regulars opposing US midterm elections (LOL). You could argue that the Japanese House of Councillors elections are not general elections (none have been posted since 2010). I believe French Senate elections are of similar nature but that is an indirectly elected body unlike the Japanese House of Councillors. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:38, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

December at ITN

Sorry for the spam, but, thought this might be interesting to the curious minded. This is a view of articles that we discussed in WP:ITN / WP:ITNRD in December and their relative interest on the mainpage. Thanks to Andrew Gray for his leads toward getting to the source of this information. Ktin (talk) 04:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Caveat 1: This is a monthly aggregate view and hence is not normalized for time spent on the mainpage. E.g. one article could have spent a couple of hours while other could have spent days on the mainpage.

Caveat 2: These are articles that were introduced for discussion in December. Does not include articles that were discussed in late November, but, spent time on the mainpage in the early part of December. Similarly, does not include articles that were discussed in December but, landed on the mainpage in early January.

mysql> select * from december_views where target in (select article from itn_list) and referer = 'Main_Page' order by pageviews desc;
+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+
| referer   | target                                           | type  | pageviews |
+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+
| Main_Page | Great_conjunction                                | link  |    106300 |
| Main_Page | 2020_Indian_farmers'_protest                     | link  |     78387 |
| Main_Page | Hayabusa2                                        | other |     62045 |
| Main_Page | Valéry_Giscard_d'Estaing                         | other |     60510 |
| Main_Page | Chang'e_5                                        | other |     57153 |
| Main_Page | 2020_World_Rally_Championship                    | other |     31841 |
| Main_Page | Charley_Pride                                    | other |     28819 |
| Main_Page | 2020_Ghanaian_general_election                   | other |     25883 |
| Main_Page | Stella_Tennant                                   | other |     25735 |
| Main_Page | John_le_Carré                                    | other |     23500 |
| Main_Page | Jeremy_Bulloch                                   | other |     22165 |
| Main_Page | Awesome_Again                                    | other |     21405 |
| Main_Page | Paolo_Rossi                                      | other |     20369 |
| Main_Page | Maria_Piątkowska                                 | other |     16874 |
| Main_Page | Doug_Anthony                                     | other |     16625 |
| Main_Page | Fanny_Waterman                                   | other |     14994 |
| Main_Page | Karima_Baloch                                    | other |     14896 |
| Main_Page | John_Barnard_Jenkins                             | other |     14654 |
| Main_Page | Brodie_Lee                                       | other |     14517 |
| Main_Page | George_Blake                                     | other |     14460 |
| Main_Page | Gérard_Houllier                                  | other |     14050 |
| Main_Page | Jerry_Relph                                      | other |     14032 |
| Main_Page | Flavio_Cotti                                     | other |     13852 |
| Main_Page | Soedardjat_Nataatmadja                           | other |     13191 |
| Main_Page | Jack_Steinberger                                 | other |     13166 |
| Main_Page | Òscar_Ribas_Reig                                 | other |     12531 |
| Main_Page | Robin_Jackman                                    | other |     12320 |
| Main_Page | 2020_Petrinja_earthquake                         | link  |     12287 |
| Main_Page | Luke_Letlow                                      | other |     12062 |
| Main_Page | Doug_Scott                                       | other |     12002 |
| Main_Page | Harold_Budd                                      | other |     11976 |
| Main_Page | Barry_Lopez                                      | other |     11956 |
| Main_Page | Walter_E._Williams                               | other |     11838 |
| Main_Page | Huang_Zongying                                   | other |     11727 |
| Main_Page | Phil_Niekro                                      | other |     11635 |
| Main_Page | James_Flynn_(academic)                           | other |     11589 |
| Main_Page | Alison_Lurie                                     | other |     11523 |
| Main_Page | R._N._Shetty                                     | other |     11516 |
| Main_Page | Totilas                                          | other |     11474 |
| Main_Page | Iman_Budhi_Santosa                               | other |     11271 |
| Main_Page | Ann_Reinking                                     | other |     11249 |
| Main_Page | Michael_Jeffery                                  | other |     11178 |
| Main_Page | Jim_McLean                                       | other |     11141 |
| Main_Page | Mohamed_Abarhoun                                 | other |     10761 |
| Main_Page | Betsy_Wade                                       | other |     10602 |
| Main_Page | Donald_Fowler                                    | other |     10549 |
| Main_Page | Paul_Sarbanes                                    | other |     10210 |
| Main_Page | Narinder_Singh_Kapany                            | other |     10192 |
| Main_Page | Maria_Itkina                                     | other |      9668 |
| Main_Page | Roddam_Narasimha                                 | other |      9279 |
| Main_Page | Brian_Kerr,_Baron_Kerr_of_Tonaghmore             | other |      9255 |
| Main_Page | Astad_Deboo                                      | other |      9133 |
| Main_Page | Martin_Lambie-Nairn                              | other |      9042 |
| Main_Page | Romell_Broom                                     | other |      9030 |
| Main_Page | James_Odongo                                     | other |      8915 |
| Main_Page | Gerard_Stokes                                    | other |      8802 |
| Main_Page | Maria_Fyfe                                       | other |      8657 |
| Main_Page | K._C._Jones                                      | other |      8562 |
| Main_Page | Barbara_Windsor                                  | other |      8544 |
| Main_Page | Roger_Moret                                      | other |      8379 |
| Main_Page | Barbara_Rose                                     | other |      8365 |
| Main_Page | Bill_Fitsell                                     | other |      8313 |
| Main_Page | Adele_Rose                                       | other |      7840 |
| Main_Page | George_Ross_Anderson_Jr.                         | other |      7715 |
| Main_Page | Minoru_Makihara                                  | other |      7659 |
| Main_Page | Udyavara_Madhava_Acharya                         | other |      7507 |
| Main_Page | U._A._Khader                                     | other |      7464 |
| Main_Page | Benjamin_Abeles                                  | other |      7422 |
| Main_Page | Ferenc_Tóth_(politician)                         | other |      7176 |
| Main_Page | Dawn_Wells                                       | other |      7114 |
| Main_Page | Fou_Ts'ong                                       | other |      7029 |
| Main_Page | Yuichiro_Hata                                    | other |      6988 |
| Main_Page | Kim_Ki-duk                                       | other |      6685 |
| Main_Page | Elaine_McCoy                                     | other |      6650 |
| Main_Page | Manglesh_Dabral                                  | other |      6550 |
| Main_Page | Paul-Heinz_Dittrich                              | other |      6468 |
| Main_Page | Raymond_Hunter                                   | other |      6465 |
| Main_Page | Hugh_Keays-Byrne                                 | other |      6418 |
| Main_Page | Jutta_Lampe                                      | other |      6411 |
| Main_Page | Joseph_Bachelder_III                             | other |      6329 |
| Main_Page | Pumza_Dyantyi                                    | other |      6282 |
| Main_Page | Tabaré_Vázquez                                   | other |      6152 |
| Main_Page | Muhammad_Mustafa_Mero                            | other |      6137 |
| Main_Page | Dharampal_Gulati                                 | other |      5894 |
| Main_Page | Belinda_Bozzoli                                  | other |      5595 |
| Main_Page | Herman_Asaribab                                  | other |      5585 |
| Main_Page | Lorraine_Monk                                    | link  |      5420 |
| Main_Page | Amelia_Lapeña-Bonifacio                          | other |      5148 |
| Main_Page | Howard_J._Rubenstein                             | other |      4789 |
| Main_Page | Zafarullah_Khan_Jamali                           | other |      4630 |
| Main_Page | Shamsur_Rahman_Faruqi                            | other |      4509 |
| Main_Page | Jack_Lenor_Larsen                                | other |      4426 |
| Main_Page | Sugathakumari                                    | other |      3908 |
| Main_Page | MF_Doom                                          | other |      3407 |
| Main_Page | Brandon_Bernard                                  | other |      2951 |
| Main_Page | Hasu_Yajnik                                      | other |      1291 |
| Main_Page | Joseph_Safra                                     | other |      1262 |
| Main_Page | Garry_Runciman,_3rd_Viscount_Runciman_of_Doxford | other |       836 |
| Main_Page | Kevin_Greene                                     | other |       784 |
| Main_Page | Tommy_Docherty                                   | link  |       766 |
| Main_Page | Aldo_Andretti                                    | other |        23 |
| Main_Page | H._Jack_Geiger                                   | other |        15 |
| Main_Page | John_Fitzpatrick                                 | other |        14 |
| Main_Page | Ronald_Atkins                                    | other |        13 |
+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+-------+-----------+
104 rows in set (0.02 sec)

Cool, and surprising that Great conjunction topped the list, a nom which had a fair amount of opposes on notability.130.233.213.199 (talk) 06:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Personally I think it shows a disconnect between what editors think is notable, and what actually draws reader interest. - Floydian  _¢ 06:58, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Huh, people like space. Cool. 🚀  Nixinova   T   C   07:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Ktin: I only did a cursory read of m:Research:Misplaced Pages clickstream, but wouldn't we be interested more in type=link i.e. links on the MP that are clicked to get to the target, and not type=other?—Bagumba (talk) 07:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Bagumba: I was originally a bit puzzled by this as well, but it seems this is an artefact of the way the data's generated - it defines link/other on the basis of a single point in time, which seems to be the end of the month. Makes sense for most cases (page to page links are reasonably stable) but gives odd results for things like the main page that rotate frequently.

There seems to be a background level of "main page clicks" for items which aren't linked - you can see it above with Ronald Atkins, for example, which wasn't on the main page until January. These probably reflect people coming to the main page and then using the search box; if they go straight to the target page it'll be logged as an "other" click to that page. I ran the numbers for some "mundane but popular" articles that weren't apparently linked from the MP in this period (eg Roman Empire, The Beatles), and found that their mainpage clicks weren't usually more than about 5% of the recorded internal clicks.

By comparison, 69% of the internal clicks for Charley Pride and 67% for Paul Sarbanes came from the mainpage, so it seems reasonable to conclude that the majority of those do represent people hitting the link while it was posted. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Andrew Gray, nicely explained. tl;dr – when looking at the above table, ignore the 'type' column. Cheers. Ktin (talk) 03:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

What's up with ongoing

Second attempt to remove the Indian farmers' protest. There are five opposes but not a single one of them addresses the staleness of the article. The Misplaced Pages:In_the_news#Ongoing_section criteria is clear "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." By that criteria, none of the opposes are actually valid. Has WP:VOTE become a substitute for WP:CONSENSUS? Or should the criteria be amended to reflect what has become practice: stale articles festering in the box for weeks or months past their Best by date while a dedicated cabal resists any effort to remove the article from the main page while simultaneously contributing nothing to maintain the article at a standard that would merit featuring.

I'm only using the farmers protest as an example, but there are many others such as the CAA protests, the Belarusian protests, the Venezuelan protests, the Hong Kong protests in each of these cases prying a demonstrably stale article out of the box proved to be nearly impossible. --LaserLegs (talk) 15:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages pages referenced by the press