User:Michaelacaulfield/sandbox/Criteria for Local Historical Newspaper project articles

NOW Challenge
The NOW (Newspapers on Wikipedia) Challenge seeks to increase the number of Wikipedia articles for significant local U.S. newspapers by 1,000 by December 12, 2018.

Project Organizers and Project Model
This project is being run by researchers and students at Wellesley college and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities' American Democracy Project.

The history of the challenge is as follows:

Researchers Emma Lurie and Eni Mustafaraj recently documented adverse effects of gaps in Wikipedia coverage of local newspapers. Students looking to verify the nature of a given publication they find online are encouraged to turn to Google and Wikipedia to verify that the paper is established, non-partisan, and not a hoax publication. Ideally they can also find markers of potential quality, such as notable awards, or indications of problems, through seeing any recent controversies documented. At the very least, having an infobox that reliably produces a Google "panel" with location, paper type, and circulation information can provide valuable context for web reading of news articles.

Yet due to the lack of articles in Wikipedia on local news sources, this information was not reliably provided either in search results or on Wikipedia for smaller local sources. Researchers estimated that there were thousands of relevant articles missing on news sources.

One reaction to this news was simply -- well, students and platforms shouldn't rely on Wikipedia then. Back to discussing algorithms and the future of AI as the only solution.

We (Eni Mustafaraj of Wellesley College and Mike Caulfield of the American Democracy Project) think there's another solution. Let's get the pages written. And lets involve students -- who need to learn basics of newspaper culture and structure to better evaluate news anyway. We are excited that this project models collaboration between researchers, media literacy initiatives, and platforms.

Charity Challenge Grant (Opt-in)
One of the unique elements of our challenge is that we have a charity-based incentive for editors who wish to opt-in to it.

___________, a donor who cares about the fate of local media as well as the future of Wikipedia, has pledged to give ______ to charity ________ for each article completed by participating editors according to challenge guidelines and meeting all Wikipedia guidelines but particularly those for notability and NPOV.

The donation generated by the challenge will be tallied at the challenge end date or whenever the 1,000 article target is reached.

We have a strict opt-in principle for the challenge grant. If you wish to have your work counted towards the challenge, please add your Wikipedia username to the opt-in list.

We see good reasons for opting in, and good reasons not to. For many people, especially those new to Wikipedia, the challenge grant may be a powerful motivator to learn to create articles and create them. Others may not wish to be associated with the particular charity or wish to maintain a clarity of apparent motivation in editing pages. Finally, if challenge grant money is limited some may prefer that the money be used to incentivize others, since they need no such incentive, or decide to opt-in later in the challenge period when it is clear the grant will not run out.

You do not need to decide right away. You can add or remove your username to or from the opt-in list at any time during the challenge period.

Goals for NOW Challenge Articles
The project has four intersecting aims.


 * To increase the number of quality Wikipedia articles on local news sources, and by extension the quality of Google "Knowledge Panels" on news sources.
 * To introduce students and citizens to the processes of collaborative knowledge production and culture of Wikipedia.
 * To increase public knowledge of local newspapers, their central historical place in U.S. history, and the signals of credibility used to judge their reliability.
 * To model a new (or somewhat new) form of partnership between researchers, educators, and public supporters of the Wikipedia community.

We see this project as an initial pilot to test if partnerships of this sort can help address significant gaps in Wikipedia coverage. Our current targets are relatively narrow but may expand if met.

The criteria below all stem from our four aims.

Criteria for Newspaper Inclusion in Project
For phase one, a paper should be a currently published local U.S. newspaper that meets notability requirements but does not currently have a page in Wikipedia. We are currently focusing on newspapers with at least 25 years of history, though papers that potentially qualify for notability through other means may be added later.

In order for the page creation to qualify for the charitable donation reward the page must meet notability requirements as defined by Wikipedia reviewers (i.e. not be deleted or flagged for deletion) and include required elements laid out below. Page must remain up for length of challenge or until 1,000 page target is met (and ideally longer).

While we are starting with U.S. newspapers, we would love to see this replicated with non-U.S. newspapers as well as other media.

Criteria for Paper Prioritization
Members of the community will go through the list of papers periodically and identify papers for priority inclusion. These papers are either deemed to have an easier route to notability or be important to the aims of the project. Any of the following are significant criteria for article prioritization, along with codes you can use to note them.


 * Over 50 years of history +(50)
 * Current paid circulation of over 15,000 +(15k)
 * Known involvement in significant historical event +(event)
 * Serves a significant marginalized group +(margin)
 * Extensive coverage in one of the histories on the resources page. +(hist)

Criteria for Paper De-Prioritization
The following elements, in absence of other notable features, are enough to deprioritize a newspaper:


 * Current paper is primarily advertising -(adverts)
 * Paper is not listed in Library of Congress list of U.S. Newspapers -(noloc)

Required Elements
To qualify as a suitable stub, all pages must include:


 * Founded date
 * Founded by
 * Current editor
 * Current publisher
 * Current owner
 * Current location of headquarters
 * Circulation (paid circulation if appropriate)
 * Publication schedule (daily, weekly, twice weekly etc)
 * URL of online presence
 * If still has a print edition
 * A citation to the library of congress record in the Chronicling History project
 * At least two other citations to sources that are not the paper itself.

If this information is not available after search, find the best alternative -- an old circulation number, the earliest known date published. If publisher is not discoverable make sure you have the owner.

For the purposes of the charity challenge, whether each page has met these requirements will be determined by a team of researchers and students from Wellesley College, who have been doing research in this area, particularly in how absence of well-developed Wikipedia pages on news sources adversely affects the public's ability to judge credibility.

Infobox
All articles must have an infobox at challenge end to qualify as complete. However, you don't need to be the one to add it. If the above information is on the page and well-cited someone can add an infobox for you relatively quickly, just let us know.

Highly Recommended Elements
We recommend pages include:


 * Info about antecedents to the paper, and any mergers in its history
 * Info about any specific motivation for founding it -- e.g. did the town lack a paper? Was it founded originally for political reasons? Did it replace a paper that died? Did the person founding it come off of previous business success? Was it founded to serve an underserved community?
 * Any recent first place state, regional, or national level awards for reporting or photojournalism. (Not editorial, not layout, not ad copy). If the award in this category is significant (national recognition for photos) include it, but for this project focus energy on awards that are signals of reporting credibility.
 * As much as possible, a history of major changes in ownership of the paper.
 * Any involvement in historic events or relationship to historic personalities that goes beyond reporting. E.g. did reporting by the paper have any major effects on politics? Were they known for breaking any specific major story (the way the Washington Post is known for Watergate and Boston Globe the Catholic Church scandal -- though likely on a more local story?) A lot of papers won’t have this but if you see it put it in.
 * Any significant controversies