Template talk:Newspaper of record

Creation

@Mathglot, here's my rough attempt at coming up with a table of newspapers of record for various countries beyond the U.S. I've added all of them to the find sources module, and they appear to be working properly, but getting them to work with {{Find sources/sandbox}} isn't there yet.

There were two papers I wanted to include, The Irish Times and The Guardian, but they had such terrible search functionality it wasn't possible. I'll put an invite at WP:RSN before launching anything live, as we'll want input to make sure we're getting appropriate newspapers of record. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:29, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb Like! Way back when I used to read papers linked through ThePaperboy.com (still exists!), I had made up a list of all my favorite English newspapers in several dozen countries, at least a few per continent. I still remember some off the top of my head, like The Times of India, Dawn (Pakistan), South China Morning Post, and pretty much all the ones on your list. I probably still have the list somewhere; would you want it, if I can find it? Didn't follow the space-limited issue, which is too bad; maybe you can't use the list in that case. Mathglot (talk) 02:13, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

The list I was going off of (beyond RSP) was Newspapers of record#Examples. I noticed some omissions from that (e.g. no South Africa), so that might be the place to expand if we can find refs! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:34, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Just to be clear, since from messages below I wasn't too sure, these three (and many others from my thepaperboy list) are all in English. Mathglot (talk) 00:04, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

• @Trialpears: Thanks for stopping by! Re Sweden, I'm on the fence about whether we should be adding non-English publications, since most editors won't be able to easily read them. If we do want to add Dagens Nyheter, it needs to be added to Module:Find_sources#Adding_new_links.

Also, not sure which place you came across this from, but the main current roadblock is getting the default nothing option to work, being discussed here. Let me know or feel free to edit directly if you have any ideas about that! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:52, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I've seen this from like 3 places and think it's really cool! I probably won't help out much with the technical part though; lua and wikidata are areas I have basic proficiency with but not much more. Re international papers I really think they should be included. They are still very useful sources for subjects related to the country. There's also no risk of this becoming an avalanche of foreign newspapers with only one being displayed. I can add it (as well as Norwegian and Danish ones) if you want me to, but won't before there's a consensus on foreign newspapers. --Trialpears (talk) 17:10, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Those are good points. Would it be okay to hold off until this is launched, though? I anticipate that a big part of getting consensus for this will be establishing that these are appropriate publications of record, and that'll be easier to do if there's a more limited and more accessible list at first. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Of course! If and when it becomes relevant feel free to ping me. --Trialpears (talk) 21:27, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@Trialpears, will do! I opened a few discussions at WP:RSN for sources for the prototype countries, and it's been a little rocky so far. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:40, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Newspapers should be judged solely on their quality, and not be marked down for not being published in English. Some of the major foreign language newspapers do have an English language version online. Google Translate does a pretty good job with most major European languages. Mjroots (talk) 05:27, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

The Guardian

Regarding The Guardian search, I looked at the page source, and they use Google Sitesearch API internally, not a form sent to their own servers. Given that, it's fairly easy to get the same results via direct Google site search, the only downside being is that the results show up as a Google SRP, and not within The Guardian's search page. Here's what it looks like in {{find biographical sources}}; e.g. for Hamid Karzai, here's the boxed TP version:

Not sure if that works for you. Getting it to work on their site would be nice, especially for search refinement after the first search, but the results are the same for the initial click as you get on-site. I don't know if it's possible to do it within The Guardian's search page environment. Mathglot (talk) 00:19, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, that The Guardian uses Google is what I saw, too. Given that we already link to Google News, it would seem just a bit weird to include it, too. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:42, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

That makes sense. I had a thought, for your by-country thing: I know that we can create a google cse, and then get it approved at spam whitelisting; this means we could create a cse for top-25-UK-newspapers (or, fill in the country) and then add the one cse link per-country. That could be useful. Mathglot (talk) 02:09, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by cse? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:39, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry; 'cse' is a Google 'Custom Search Engine'. They've apparently changed the name to programmable search engine. Template {{Find biographical sources}} uses one for 'Britannica', because it would be spam-blacklisted otherwise. Mathglot (talk) 21:53, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb, you might consider different "flavors" of the Guardian link. This link targets Guardian articles related to the Congo. This was inspired by the links at Wikipedia:WikiProject Democratic Republic of the Congo#Library (linked from WT:MIL/Archive 162). Probably the keyword(s) would have to be checked against a set, otherwise it generates a soft 404. Adding @Indy beetle and Mjroots: who contributed there and may be interested in this question. Mathglot (talk) 21:49, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

When to use

Not sure how you envisioned using this within the context of {{find sources}}. If the article is Queen Elizabeth II or Jeremy Corbyn, I still want to see what the NY Times has to offer. I guess I'm saying, I hope this will be used as an "add-this-link" type of functionality, and not "substitute-this-link-instead". Maybe defaulting to NYT and Guardian (always), and adding one more by country, Dawn for Pakistan, SMH for Australia, and so on. Or were you thinking of something different? Mathglot (talk) 00:23, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

The NYT does (still) have global coverage, but it's unlikely to be as good or as comprehensive as a local newspaper of record. We only have room for one or maybe two links, and including the U.S. paper of record everywhere but other countries' papers only for related articles would be weird. So my hope is that, yes, this will replace the NYT for topics located in other countries, including the UK. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:44, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Definitions

Regarding the WP:RSN#Reliability of The Straits Times rfc, an interesting question arises from this: can a newspaper considered less than "usually reliable" still be a "newspaper of record"? Some definition of the term might be in order. "Pravda" in Russia might be a newspaper of record, even if it's an unreliable government mouthpiece. But it depends on how you define it, and that's what I'm asking for. When I think of NoR, I think of a newspaper that prints full transcripts of important events and documents, hence, "the record". In a way, that's less important in the internet age (of which this term predates), so I think the meaning has shifted since then, as online databases are far more equipped to include long transcripts and documents; so, that leaves us with, "what is a newspaper of record?" Mathglot (talk) 09:00, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Assuming that RfC ends with option 2, I'm probably not going to include anything for Singapore. The Straits Times is useful, but we don't want to give it our imprimatur on controversial Singapore politics articles when we're not very confident in its reliability. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 10:56, 17 August 2021 (UTC)