Per the above thread, it is proposed that the link to Wikinews in the "In the News" section be removed. 20:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support For numerous reasons, including:

• We don't do this for any other sister project. Today's featured picture does not link to Commons, for example.
• Wikinews' coverage of events is spotty and unpredictable
• Readers may mistakenly think, because of this apparent favored status, that Wikinews is part of Wikipedia
• Frankly, Wikinews is often an emberassment. Of all the sister projects we could be directing our readers to, this is hardly the one most users would choose to highlight, so it seems silly to have it linked more than once on the main page.

• That being said, this should not be a discussion that is primarily about Wikinews itself, this is just a discussion of whether we should link to it twice on the main page when no other sister project gets such favored status. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:41, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Mainly per Beeblebrox's points 2 and 4. Wikinews seems to not cover several very newsworthy items, while at the same time covering relatively insignificant topics. ITN on the other hands is a lot better at covering the news. No use linking it twice if it does not make sense from a utility Point of View for the main page. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 19:49, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose As an administrator on both English Wikipedia and Wikinews, I believe Wikinews does cover a lot of significant and important stories. Some stories will be inaccurate, and some stories will be given prominence that is perhaps unwarranted front page attention compared to their real-life importance—such is the nature of a project written and edited by unpaid volunteers. As Wikinews grows, we will lean away from always giving lead article spots to every story, just as Wikipedia shifted from having a relative free-for-all on the main page to slowly evolving a process of featured articles, "did you knows?" and so on.

  Regarding the utility of the link between the Wikipedia front page and Wikinews. This is simple: Wikinews publishes news. Not always as quickly as we'd like, not necessarily with the level of comprehensiveness we'd like, and sometimes with failings in quality. But it does provide news. If someone is reading the ITN section, they are probably interested in news and current affairs. They click through to Wikinews and they get... news and current affairs. It's relevant simply because of that fact.

  With the Wikipedia featured picture process, I wouldn't actually have a problem with a link through to the equivalent at Commons (featured pictures, quality images etc.). I think that increasing co-operation between Wikimedia projects helps raise all boats: often while writing Wikinews articles, I'll find and fix issues with Wikipedia, and occasionally sorting out Wikipedia issues nudges me into finding news sources that form the basis of Wikinews stories. After writing Wikinews stories, I have gone and added the sources I used to write the Wikinews story to the Wikipedia article. The original reporting often produces images which are uploaded to Commons and thus available for use in Wikipedia. From the Wikipedia side, we should encourage sister projects more: because they help serve our educational and free culture goals, and because they have the capacity to turn readers into editors. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:02, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well said, Tom :) --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, thanks for coming to the defence of Wikinews, Tom. I just don't feel this RfC has been brought, or 'orchestrated', in good faith. But, I'm not going to vote on how Wikipedia organises its main page. --Brian McNeil /^talk 19:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, you're just going to make a completely unwarranted accusation of bad faith with no supporting evidence. Classy. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Read what I wrote. Not what you think I wrote. --Brian McNeil /^talk 20:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And, perhaps avoid using an uncannily-familiar slur as an edit summary; one which I associate with the individual who gave you a lead-in to this RfC. I'm neutral, on how you lay out Wikipedia's main page. I'm also conscious of the long, long, history of discussion which led to the links being there in the first place.

Can't say I'm too-pleased to see hints that some would simply delete Wikinews links in Wikipedia articles as linkspam either.

There is an interesting discussion over on the Water Cooler where some Wikipedians want to use Wikinews as a resource. Sadly, in classic "documentation is for wimps" style, when we've spent years figuring out what works. --Brian McNeil /^talk 21:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're not really making a lot of sense with this remark. I don't know what dark conspiracy you imagine is responsible for this RFC when he genesis of it is easily viewable just above this thread. If you are trying to say something, go ahead and say it instead of dropping vague hints. Don't be all cryptic and then get upset when nobody knows what you mean because you haven't been clear. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm tired, very tired. I'd happily say "lack of historical knowledge", rather than let my 'reputation' on Wikipedia be twisted into "OMG! Kooky conspiracy theorist!" Assuming Good Faith means giving you that out; particularly when I cannot muster the determination to craft the appropriate search queries to confirm one way or the other to a standard Wikinews would accept. It does not devalue any comments on the motives of the individual who led you to put forward the RfC. --Brian McNeil /^talk 21:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Beeblebrox, what Brian McNeil would like to know, or rather what he assumes he knows, is if/that Tony1 put you up to starting this request for comment. I'm already well aware that he didn't, but there's not really many ways to conclusively demonstrate that. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't really matter, Ed. Tony1 has failed to get English Wikinews closed; he then tried to get all of Wikinews closed. He wrote the 600-odd-word piece of – shall we say – 'yellow journalism' that prompted this RfC. Beeblebrox isn't someone I've a problem with, this RfC could-well have been put forward with the best of intentions; it is the fact that someone was bound to take the derogatory 'critique' of Wikinews – from an individual who is on a crusade to kill Wikinews – and do their dirty work for them.

I would expect Wikipedians to object to being manipulated in such a way, full stop. --Brian McNeil /^talk 06:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh, I wish you would stop harping on about victimisation by Tony. As the de facto roi de WikiNews, what you need is a proper SWOT analysis on the project. The comments in this section are a pretty good starting point. If you did, you would find that the 'S' section looks thin if not totally bald. The 'W' and 'T' sections pretty colossal, and that the project lacks scale to chase the 'Os', but I digress. As to this request, there are no signs that the community is being manipulated as you insinuate, but voting strongly that WN should not have two slots on the Main Page. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 03:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support I have often clicked that link inadvertently when i thought it might bring me to ITN. It serves no useful function.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:18, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Agree with Beeblebrox reasons. The first link should be removed. The one in the section "Wikipedia's sister projects" is enough. Garion96 (talk) 21:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Neutral, mostly because WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a newspaper apparently does not outweigh the urge to report, or Beeblebrox's emberassment [sic, warning, SP link] to use sister projects. - Amgine (talk) 21:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I've never understood the link to Wikinews in that section. ITN is a completely separate process to Wikinews and they have no relation to each other. The news added to ITN also has no connection to any parallel articles made by Wikinews (which often doesn't even cover the material in ITN anyways). It just seems a way to shoehorn in a separate project that doesn't have to do with Wikipedia. ITN is specifically a Wikipedia process that highlights news while also highlighting the Wikipedia articles that contains the information on that news. So, in the end, it is about Wikipedia and its articles. It is not about Wikinews at all. Silverseren^C 23:06, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me if I've entirely missed the point, but why would you replace Wikinews with ITN on the home page? Wikinews, at the very least, is a Wiki project, whilst ITN is a broadcaster with (as far as I know) no clear link to Wikipedia? I think this should be looked into in greater depth, and if ITN is supplying any of the content for Wikipedia I would hope that it is independently verified. Horatio Snickers (talk) 20:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Mainly per nom's 1st and 3rd reason. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support One link is enough. Also, there are prominent links to Wikinews at Portal:Current events, which is linked from the ITN section. So it will still be intuitive/convenient to get to Wikinews from ITN, and the main page will be slightly less cluttered. Braincricket (talk) 03:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Per the nom's 3rd reason. Furthermore, the space taken up by the Wikinews link could be better used for things such as ongoing events. 65.95.190.140 (talk) 06:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I haven't visited wikinews in a long time, and edited it even longer but I feel that the link is useful because wikipedia is not a newspaper and ITN despite the poor name isn't about the news so linking to our sister project which does cover the news is useful both to avoid either unfortunate misconception and to serve readers who are interested in the news rather than in updated encyclopaedic articles surrounding stuff recently in the news, as long as it exists, despite its flaws. Even in this discussion we have people who appear to think ITN is about covering news which highlights the problem. I have no objection to linking to other sister project where relevant although the only one I can see here would be TFP linking to commons. Having said that, we should also acknowledge each case is different, we link to wikitionary in articles or disambig pages a fair amount, and also sometimes to wikisource (occasionally as a repository for a source) and wikiquote. We link to wikinews occasionally as well, but we should reasonably expect even given equally comprehensive coverage that the links would be less because wikinews articles would only be highly relevant for a short time. Wikiversity is likely to be even less common. Commons is of course an even more nique case since we indirectly link to it all the time here and in articles s a lot of our media is hosted there. And getting to the key point here we do not do news on wikipedia whatever people may say here or elsewhere, despite the occasional odd thing like the posting of minute by minute updates of the travel of Edward Snowden to talk pages. On the other hand, we have no problems hosting media although often prefer to do it indirectly via commons when possible, and although we do not host non-encyclopaedic media, I don't think I've ever seen someone complaining about the lack of non-encycloapedic media on the main page. Nil Einne (talk) 07:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• "Frankly, Wikinews is often an emberassment." Embarrassment. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support removal. Wikipedia isn't a newspaper, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should be prominently linking to somewhere that is. There is no reason that Wikinews should be given a prominence that other sister projects are not, especially when there are legitimate concerns about its quality (upon which I have no particular opinion). There is also some merit in the claim that keeping the link may lead to some confusion about the relationship between Wikipedia and Wikinews. J Milburn (talk) 14:15, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support removal. My reasons are implicit in the thread immediately above. Thanks for running this RFC, Beeblebrox. Tony (talk) 14:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The extra link is redundant. I would also support disentangling Wikinews from ITN at the current events portal. Neotarf (talk) 14:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment If confusion between Wikipedia and Wikinews is a concern, the link to Wikinews doesn't matter nearly as much as the name In the news. Although Wikipedians trying to treat Wikinews as if it were Wikipedia has been historically the cause of various problems at Wikinews, the problem of immediate concern for Wikipedia would seem to be prospective contributors, and readers, mistaking encyclopedia articles for news articles.

Mistaking encyclopedia articles for news articles can, indeed, lead to those same people then trying to treat Wikinews as if it were Wikipedia. It is, in fairness, also an unfortunate side-effect of the size differential between Wikipedia and the other sisters, that Wikipedians often fail to realize that the functions being performed by other sisters entail different procedures than Wikipedians have chosen to adopt for their encyclopedic work. For example:

• The concept of neutrality is different as applied to news articles than as applied to encyclopedia articles. It's possible for an article to be neutral in the sense of either project yet non-neutral in the sense of the other.
• The concept of newsworthiness (on Wikinews) is quite different from the concept of notability (on Wikipedia); again, an article can satisfy either criterion without satisfying the other. This mismatch appears central to the preceding thread, from which this one was spawned.
• Article focus, and article organization, are different for news articles versus encyclopedia articles.
• The projects approach verifiability in dramatically different ways. Suffice to say that news and encyclopedic content have different time profiles: with an encyclopedia it matters whether you get it right in the long run, with news it matters whether you get it right the first time.

There are of course also social differences between the projects, but those don't seem to play directly into the problems of confusing either project for the other. --Pi zero (talk) 15:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• We've had brainstormings for a better name of the section but noone has come out with anything that would really be an improvement. Regarding the link, I am in favour of removing it, I agree with several points alerady mentioned above. --Tone 16:43, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. If Wikinews was a useful website, I'd support keeping the link; it's certainly relevant ("click here for more news!"). But Wikinews is indeed an embarrassment ("click here for random ramblings!"), so kill it. SnowFire (talk) 18:54, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose and remove ITN instead (if I'd run Wiki). Wikinews is actually much better than ITN, which is beyond ridiculous in bias in favour of US stories sometimes (recent example, the SCOTUS ruling on DOMA, really?!), and the nomination progress is completely dominated by a handful of heavy-handed supremely biased regulars. Wikinews is a pretty balanced in and nice resource, while I fear ITN is beyond rescue. 82.0.112.151 (talk) 21:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I wonder what could happen if the Wikinews regulars come over to ITN and get around with working in the ITN atmosphere. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 23:43, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. One link that makes it clear it's a sister project is sufficient. The one under ITN makes it look like it's part of wikipedia. Richerman (talk) 22:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Following that link almost always frustrates. Sometimes less is more. --ELEKHH^T 01:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. If news stories are what our readers are after, we could do better by linking to Google news. I can't fault identifying WN as a sister project, though.

  As an aside, WN links within our articles should be treated no more favourably than any other external link, though having said that, most of said links to Wikinews stories are only fit to be treated as linkspam – they offer a lot less coverage and a lot fewer sources than the WP article in which the link is embedded. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 01:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Neutral. Setting aside the disproportional criticism in the original request, which is not to the point, I don't mind the link being gone if the community so chooses to design main page. Gryllida 07:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Complaining that we don't link any other project misses the point. No other aspect of the main page is so devoted to something that is the raison d'être of another project. If even one person has gotten involved with wikinews in that time through that link, it's worth it. Daniel Case (talk) 14:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I am sorry, but I have not seen Wikinews as up-to-date with current events like Wikipedia is. Turns out, news enter Wikipedia at a much faster rate than Wikinews (or is the article even created in the first place). Linking to Wikinews is just going to be a shame and embarrassment to our editing community here. --Hydriz (talk) 14:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - all Wikimedia projects should be integrated. Removing the link would be doing the opposite. By the way, I support adding a similar like to Wikimedia Commons in the today's featured picture. --NaBUru38 (talk) 15:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Links on main page should be to English Wikipedia articles or lists except in clearly demarcated sections. --regentspark (comment) 16:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support one link on the page is enough. And the arguments that retaining the link helps to integrate the projects or helps to turn readers into editors don't convince me: despite the presence of the extra link on WP's main page for many years, Wikinews is still a very small project with only a handful of committed editors doing their best to prevent it stopping completely. Bencherlite^Talk 19:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Suppport 82.*'s assertion that Wikinews is better than ITN because ITN has a bias towards the US is amusing, given the bias towards North America is far more extreme there. The North America portal's oldest stories only date back to last December. Some of the stories on the Africa portal, for example, are FOUR YEARS OLD. Then again, the NA portal is only more up to date because Wikinews chooses to feature earth shattering stories like who the Chicago bears picked in the seventh (!) round of the NFL Draft, or because noted Canadian Margret Thatcher died. As to the topic of this RFC, Wikinews was a good idea that failed. So long as the project exists, it deserves its link alongside our other sister projects. It is not, however, a project that warrants feature placement in the upper fold of the main page. Resolute 20:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support because of Beeblebrox's reasons 1 and 3. Reasons 2 and 4 are also valid points, but even if Wikinews was fast and complete with its news coverage, a link to it would be preferential. Binksternet (talk) 21:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. I wouldn't mind having the link if Wikinews didn't suck. Clearly some people disagree with me in that regard, but I think we should do as much as possible to support our sister projects; if there were convenient inline places to link to Wikisource, or Wikibooks, or what-have-you, I'd be all for it. (In fact, the cited example of a link to Commons along with the featured picture sounds like a great idea, if you ask me.) However, I see a fundamental difference between Wikinews and the rest of the projects: When another project lacks coverage of a certain important topic, that's not the end of the world; when Wikinews does, it is, as Beeblebrox says, an embarrassment. That's because while all of our projects have incredibly audacious goals ("all words in all languages", a free library of all redistributable texts, etc.), only Wikinews has a goal that, when failed (i.e. almost always), is immediately obvious to the average reader. There are still some books of the King James Bible that aren't on Wikisource... so Wikisource doesn't link to the KJV from its Main Page. Wikinews, however, is forced to have a Main Page whose omitted entries are glaringly obvious to anyone even moderately aware of current events. This essentially highlights the failure of the Wikinews concept. So time-sensitive a wiki simply does not work with such low participation. So, in short... more prominent links to other projects is great... but only to other projects that are actually worthy of the WMF brand. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 13:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Case in point: they are two days behind ITN on the crisis in Egypt. Their current top story is about the gay pride parade in London. I hardly think a parade of any kind should be the top story on a news website for three days. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Write the story and I'll be happy to review it... —Tom Morris (talk) 06:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tom, no one's interested in writing a WN story on Egypt, because WN is a failed model; I'm not blaming anyone personally, I just think it's impossible for it to work satisfactorily; in effect, it tries to achieve an impossible task. ITN, by contrast, fits WP's encyclopedic aims very well and piggybacks on numerous and robust editorial resources. It aims for less grand a scheme and produces within its smaller frame something that captures readers and that we can be proud of. Tony (talk) 10:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Neutral. The original post reads like a hostile, drama-filled rant. I don't understand why people care so much. Is it really that important whether Wikinews has bad grammar? Wikipedia itself is full of bad grammar, misspellings, homophobic vandalism, and half the articles seem to be about Pokemon or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Wikipedia is just as embarrassing as anything else on the Internet. I'm strictly neutral on this topic. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The link at the bottom is enough. Another one in such a prominent place is preferential. Rubersan the Red (talk) 07:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. This shouldn't really be controversial. Some WN folks seem to be going on the defensive, but this isn't an attack on WN at all: it's the revocation of an undeserved privilege that seems to have been assigned to WN over all our other sister projects. You don't see a link to Wikimedia Commons in the "Today's featured picture" template, for example. Rashmi Naidoo (talk) 17:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per above Wizardman 22:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I've often been disappointed when clicking on the link for Wikinews. It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it has worked. Space on the front page of Wikipedia is too valuable to link to something that is not very useful. SchreiberBike talk 23:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Wikinews is listed with all the rest of the sister projects down at the bottom. Why should this one project get mentioned twice? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I agree with all the proposer's reasons. Neljack (talk) 05:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - if a Gay Pride march in London is the main news headline all week, this should be unlinked until a time when it can be more up-to-date. An optimist on the run!   10:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support removal. (1) It is misleading because the in the news items are not based on Wikinews content. Its relevance to the column is tangential at best. (2) It is biased because none of the other daily Main Page columns promotes a sister project. The static list farther down the page is entirely adequate for promoting all of the sister projects. More than that is just spam. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:50, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. I actually used to be an administrator at Wikinews, and know that there's a few good editors there doing their best. However it hasn't been working, and the situation shows no signs of improving. The site is beset by personalities and processes which stifle collaboration. New stories are few and far between, and the main page regularly contains outdated information (e.g. right now "Egyptian military issues ultimatum to Morsi" - a story which is 5 days old and completely overtaken by events). Updating such stories is actually against Wikinews policy, instead users are expected to write a whole new article and wait for it to be formally reviewed - a review which in many cases never comes. I'm sorry to say it has reached the point where we are doing readers a disservice by linking it so prominently. the wub "?!" 19:45, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]