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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 23:50, 18 April 2009 [1].

Street newspaper

[edit]
Nominator(s): rʨanaɢ talk/contribs

I have been working on expanding this article for almost exactly two months (since this) and have gotten a lot of good help with cleanup from GAN (Hunter Kahn and Mattisse) and PR (Brianboulton); Apoc2400 has also been doing a lot of work creating short articles on individual street newspapers so that this isn't a stand-alone article but is part of a topic. I think by now we've built it into something interesting and good, and I would like to take it through FAC. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:36, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tech. Review

Dabs and external links (checker tools)
  • ..are found up to speed
Ref formatting (WP:REFTOOLS)
  • There are duplications of the following refs (coding copied below), a ref name should be used instead
  • Howley 2003:9.
  • Howley 2003:11.
  • Multiple refs use the following ref name, when only one ref should have the ref name
  • Comment from nominator: the final two subsections ("challenges" and "debate"), which are currently part of the big Description section, could easily be part of a new level-2 sections (which would allow the Description section to cover just the three main points that are given in the bullets at the beginning); the only thing holding me back has been that I can't think of what the title for such a section would be. If people think they should be in a new section, that is a relatively easy fix (we would just need to think of a good name for it). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 21:47, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment A minor nitpick but I'll leave it to you to fix, as it will mean restructuring a section; The Gambia is by no possible definition "in the southern hemisphere". – iridescent 12:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Added the information for refs 1 and 2. Removed the third one; I think I just threw it in early on so I could add another country, but in any case it's not very important, and the sentence already has two other references. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
  • In the lead paragraph, the last sentence is awkward and partly redundant. "Finally" is unnecessary and distracting, and an earlier sentence already notes that the papers "primarily provide coverage about homelessness and poverty-related issues", and it is implicit from the rest of the paragraph that the audience is non-homeless people who buy the papers, so the fact they "seek to educate non-homeless readers about homelessness" is redundant.
  • In the last sentence of the lead section, it should be more explicit how "concentrates on attracting mainstream readers" is at odds with "emphasize homeless advocacy and social issues". That is, what kind of content do some papers use to attract mainstream readers?
  • In the historical foundations section: who is Norma Fay Green? A historian? An advocate for the homeless? A mainstream journalist? A street newspaper writer or publisher? Also, the same footnote is used twice in that sentence, once in the middle and again at the end. This seems unnecessary.
    • She is a professor of journalism, who does a lot of research on the history of street papers. If I began that clause "journalism scholar Norma Fay Green has cited..." (added bit in italics), would that clarify things? I wanted to put her name in just because the comparison between War Cry and street newspapers isn't necessarily 100% fact, it's just a claim she made (and a lot of other people have since repeated), so I felt I should make that clear. As for the duplicated ref, I have now removed the first instance of it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 01:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Where was Hobo News published?
    • Not really sure. This gives me the impression that it may have been St. Louis, but I'm not totally comfortable with that. Chapter 5 of this book looks like it might have the answer to your question, but I can't access it online; I can take a look at it next time I'm in the library, either Sunday or Monday. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 01:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • "It is published in St. Louis or Cincinnati, depending upon where the editor happens to be, but generally it has come from St. Louis, How's [J.E. How] home."[2] I am writing Hobo News now. --Apoc2400 (talk) 13:20, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I just put Cincinatti in this article; I checked the Heinz source today, and it only says Cincinatti, as does this (don't let the geocities link scare you; it's a reprint of something that was published in a journal, and the geocities url is just a convenient way to access it). The book Apoc linked above does say St. Louis, but 1) it only says it was "published from" St. Louis, not that it was sold or circulated there; and 2) it's a reprint of a contemporary source, and I'm not even sure yet who the author is, so anyway I think the other two sources trump it. My library is all out of this book right now, but whenever it gets in I can check it as well. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reference to increasing homelessness as the precursor to modern street newspapers should link to the appropriate section in Homelessness in the United States, e.g., "increasing levels of homelessness".
  • Modern street newspapers section, last sentence: pick either parentheses or commas to set off of the example.
  • Last sentence of the Operations and business section: "most papers sell as few as 3,000 copies a month" is a confusing phrase. "As few as" sets a minimum, but this is set up in contrast to The Big Issue, which is also above that minimum. Is around 3,000 a typical range? If most (>50% of) papers sell as few as 3000, does that mean the rest sell even fewer?
  • First sentence of the second paragraph in the Coverage section: weird un-parallel syntax, with "in that...and because".
  • What is the "citizen journal movement"? Is that supposed to be "citizen journalism movement", or is "citizen journal movement" a common term for the promotion of citizen journalism (or perhaps something more specific)? If the latter, citizen journal movement should be linked (or if it's definitely not notable, briefly explained, possibly in a footnote).
  • Last sentence of Coverage section: "debate between professional and grassroots ideals"... the ideals themselves don't debate.

--ragesoss (talk) 00:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Nice work. Support, assuming that you track down the detail about Hobo News and implement the other changes that you proposed but didn't yet implement. Feel free to strike my remaining comments as appropriate.--ragesoss (talk) 02:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image review. I've verified that all the images conform to image policies.--ragesoss (talk) 18:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Very succinct and straight forward. Other than obscure MoS issues, which I can't vouch for, the article fulfills the FA criteria. I have been through the article and can find nothing to pick apart. I admit that when you started it, I did not think you could pull it together and make a complete and interesting article out of such an idiosyncratic topic. But you did. Very nice job! —Mattisse (Talk) 01:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose (WP:WIAFA#3): policy violations of non-free images
  • To be honest, I don't think this is necessary at all (we AGF on images all the time, look at the tens of images I have photographed and uploaded—are we going to require OTRS on all of them now to make sure I'm really the person who took the photos?)...but I have contacted Real Change anyway. And if people still think it's a problem, I can easily replace it with any of the others at commons:Category:Street papers. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 14:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The non-free images presently do not comply with the WP:NFCC policy. Jappalang (talk) 02:17, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree; personally, I think the images illustrate these points far better than a text description does, but you're free to think otherwise. (I'll also note that another editor here said the images are within our policy...so clearly we are all having different ways of interpreting the same policy.) Also, displaying these old covers is not hurting the papers' ability to sell copies. In any case, there is not going to be any free replacement for any of them (as far as I know, covers for other papers will be just as copyrighted as these), so if these images aren't ok then no others will be either. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 02:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Those are not proper rationales to overcome the concern that these images are purely decorative. The images can be easily described in words and are not significant in the context used (failing WP:NFCC #1 and 8); non-free images have to fulfill all 10 criteria listed in the policy. Jappalang (talk) 07:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again: that's just something we disagree on. You think words can describe it well, I think they can't; it's personal taste. Can we wait to see what someone else has to say on it? rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 13:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The two covers do show the different content focus of these two papers. The Big Issue example is about music festivals, i.e. not about homelessness and poverty. --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:36, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Point is not to illustrate what can easily be said; why can the article not describe what sort of issues the two papers were covering? "Instead of covering topics such as homelessness and poverty, Big Issue spends much of its pages on music festivals and popular culture; its cover page displays professional shots, printed on glossy format." states everything in that image clearly. The same goes for the other paper: its caption (and main body text) more than adequately describes what it has to show in words, so what is the point of the picture? Hence, the two pictures are mainly just for show—"pretty pictures". Jappalang (talk) 01:30, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I also disagree. While these particular images aren't the only ones that could serve their purpose, illustrations of a) what different kinds of street newspapers look like, and b) what Big Issue in particular looks like, are important things for the article to show that can't be explained easily with text or replaced with free images. Maybe the rationales themselves could be expanded a bit to explain more fully why are needed, but I think the uses of these images are basically consistent with the non-free content policy. Regarding the Real Change image, it is our convention to assume good faith when the uploader claims to be the copyright holder.--ragesoss (talk) 04:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And I too disagree. Words cannot describe adequately layouts, mastheads, and headlines that combine to create the effect of a newspaper's front page. An article about The New York Times could not merely describe the effect of that newspaper's front page in words. —Mattisse (Talk) 11:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article is not commenting on the layout of the individual publications, nor their (layouts) effects on the consumers. It is discussing their contents (topics). Ragesoss, if the rationales are expanded to state why they are needed instead of "To illustrate the appearance of a street newspaper and the sorts of issues covered in it." and "Illustrate appearance and "flashiness" that has caused The Big Issue to be a source of controversy among street newspaper.", (which I have pointed out above was totally replaceable by words), I might be convinced of their fair use(again that depends on stating adequately why the covers of this two papers must be in this general article about street newspapers). Jappalang (talk) 00:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A picture's worth a thousand words. I would venture to guess that just about every fair use image on Wikipedia could be replaced with a text description of it...but that doesn't mean the description would be effective or concise. It's my impression that this is the very reason we have fair use guidelines: to allow the use of media when it helps explain a topic and when it doesn't infringe the copyright holder's ability to make money from it (and I believe these images meet both those broad criteria). As other editors have stated above, I believe the images are far more effective in expressing these ideas, and increasing readers' understanding of the topic, than a mere description would be; that's why I included them. Trust me, when I was writing this article I really did think long and hard about how best to express the important ideas; I haven't just been adding "decorations" haphazardly. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 01:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An attempted analogy of the two images lumped as one (you can simply skip to the last paragraph if you do not wish to read an attempt to focus on the issue at hand, failure or otherwise):
"Imagine an article about the Cherry Leopard genus (yes, I am probably killing the scientific classification system, but bear with me). Most images are in the public domain, taken by federal photographers or licensed for use under CC. However, a copyrighted photo of a rare blue Cherry Leopard species is claimed as fair use. The blue creature has the exact form and features of the standard animal, except that its fur is blue. The article only speaks of the creature as rare, and claims as fair use 'illustration of a rare species'. This, however, fails fair use: the description can be readily expressed in words (form and features easily known, just visualise blue). Defenders of the image simply chime: 'we need the picture to know what it looks like, it does not hurt the photographer's right to sell the image', failing to note that the reviewer is asking for justification to use the image. Another repeated the same thing, but with addages of 'well, the rationales could do with some work' (which was part of what the reviewer was asking but constantly ignored). One more stated, 'the image shows the inspring form and sleekness of the blue Cherry Leopard, which are distinct for its species and cannot be readily expressed in words, as poets have expressed much of their frustration at'. True, but the article never commented anything about the majesticness of the creature (what was discussed was its rarity) nor did the article go into literary aspects of the creature." [Yes, one could claim that the creature is so rare that it is "fair use" as an identification image, but that purpose is weakened when the species has its own article.]
In short, neither copyrighted image in this article is specifically used in a manner that words cannot easily express. From the start of my comments, I was expecting answers to my first questions, hoping that the editors can respond, and we can find something to work on. Instead, all I have been getting is simply "I think it serves a purpose"—no replies to what I have been asking, no attempt to write up expanded rationales that show why the images are used not for illustrative purposes, and a misdirected approach (the images are used to show content, not layout). What I am seeing is an avoidance to actually answer the questions posed: what are the images, as used in the article, supposed to show that cannot be easily described in words? Sozin's Comet: The Final Battle dealt with its fair use images better than this article (albeit File:Energybending.PNG would need some form of its caption in its rationale, instead of "Illustrates part of the article's purpose"). If I am not getting any answers to this, my oppose stands as is. Jappalang (talk) 10:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again: what we are disagreeing on is "used in a manner that words cannot easily express". You think words can easily express it; I and all the editors who responded above think words can't. By now everyone knows how you feel on the matter and everyone knows how I feel, and neither of us is going to change the other's mind, so I guess we might as well just drop it and wait for the closer to decide. (I will note, though, that in the article you pointed to above, I could say the same thing you've been saying about File:Lion Turtle Sage02d.jpg—why include the image when we could just say "the art was really good"? And the image doesn't illustrate anything about the character's voice.) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 13:30, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, for an answer to your last question... The Big Issue one is used not just to "show content," but production value and "flashiness," as stated in the NFUR. I could use the word "flashy" a hundred times in the article but it wouldn't get the same understanding across as well (and the copyeditors wouldn't be very happy). The Spare Change one is to show an example of the appearance of a different kind of street newspaper; just because it's not "flashy" like the other one doesn't mean it looks like a regular newspaper, it clearly has much different (more tabloid-style) format than a regular newspaper. It's in the Coverage section, which aims to describe what you'll find when you buy a street newspaper and reading it; that involves not just the content of what you're going to read, but the way it is presented, and there's not really a better way to describe the full effect than with an actual image of a paper. Anyway, I have now updated the Big Image caption (diff) and the Spare Change NFUR (diff). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 14:05, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect, the lion turtle sage was used to illustrate the art style, which is not easily described with words (what is "good"). Can you accurately describe the lines drawn and the visage of the object soley with words? That is totally different with what you are doing with the newspaper images. In effect, this shows you have misunderstood what I meant by "can be easily described with words". The Spare Change FUR is still invalid; nowhere in this article is there a commentary about the layout of this paper. As for Big Issue, avoid the general "appearance and flashiness", go with more specifics that pertain to the commentary in the article, i.e. point out why the glossiness, layout, masthead, etc (take inspiration from items pointed out above) contributed to the "production values and mainstream appeal of professionally produced" publication and that this image is to show all those concepts. Basically, explain on the image page (as rationale) that the image should not be taken away because of that. This is sort of what I am looking for. Jappalang (talk) 14:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, I don't misunderstand, I just disagree. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 15:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As for the NPD on the Real Change image. Ordinarily, the image contributions of editors are not questioned; however, I have two exceptions: professional photos or those professed to have been taken by professionals, and those proclaimed to be uploaded by companies. Their livelihood in part involves copyright, and a sense of prudence on such images is well advised; a short stint of patrols on uploaded pictures have shown a fair number of such images uploaded by those who falsely claim copyright or that the holders have given clearance. Jappalang (talk) 10:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed it, as it's not really important enough to fight over and I don't really care. I can maybe re-add it in the future if either a) I get an e-mail from Real Change (they haven't responded to me yet), or b) enough people here decide that OTRS isn't needed. Then again, it was kind of awkwardly jammed in anyway, I don't know if there's a comfortable place to stick it. Whatever, we'll see. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 03:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Update It took a while, but I got in touch with Real Change and how now obtained verification of its status and forwarded the permission to OTRS. Accordingly, I have re-added File:EdMcLain.jpg to the article. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 20:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

oppose - The two modern front covers are unjustified under WP:NFCC#3, has an attempt even been made to contact the publishers regarding licencing? Fasach Nua (talk) 22:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If enough people agree the Street Sense cover is unnecessary, I might remove it. As of now, though, I see no consensus either way—Jappalang has made some good arguments (and has helped improve the NFUR for the Big Issue image) but at the same time several other editors agreed that the image met the criteria. I would like to hear more input before deciding one way or the other. If enough people agree that the picture doesn't meet the criteria, it's a very simple matter to remove it it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 22:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
errata That should have been WP:NFCC#8 (although it is also inviolation, #3), I was thinking of #3 in Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, for which there is a clear WP:CONSENSUS Fasach Nua (talk) 16:18, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not talking about consensus on whether or not there is consensus for FAC criterion #3, which everyone already agrees on. I'm talking about whether there is consensus that the image violates it, which people do not agree on (see above). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:23, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the Big Issue cover meets NFCC #8 (the version of the article I'm looking at only has one fair use cover). "Professional" appearance can mean a lot of different things to readers, so it is a good idea to have a representative cover, in my opinion. Awadewit (talk) 01:38, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per criterion three:
    • File:243187290 9e3c50a6a3.jpg does not appear to be contributing significantly to our understanding (NFCC#8). General layouts of newspapers and tabloids are not obscure concepts needing illustration and such information can be gleaned from the free, although de minimus, occurrences already in the article; this cover does not appear to be unique or otherwise meaningful/important. That the illustration is not needed notwithstanding, I rather doubt a thorough, if any, effort was made to contact various publishing organizations (this cover even has a web address) to determine whether even one would be willing to license a cover with a free license (NFCC#1). Subordinate issues also include failure to acknowledge a copyright holder (NFCC#10A), etc.
    • File:Bigissue.jpg needs to attribute a copyright holder (The Big Issue Foundation), but inclusion appears otherwise supported. Эlcobbola talk 16:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update After doing some thinking, and discussing this with Jappalang, I have removed File:243187290 9e3c50a6a3.jpg from the article. I am still not entirely convinced that the image is useless, but enough people have raised concerns that I need to address them. I believe that with copyright and fair use issues, a simple majority isn't enough "consensus" for inclusion—we need to err on the side of caution, and so should only be including fair-use stuff when there is an overwhelming consensus in favor of having it. Since opinion is divided right now, I think it's safest just to remove the image. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 18:37, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - (this version)
    • Street newspapers, or street papers, are newspapers or magazines that are sold by homeless or poor individuals and produced mainly to support these populations.
      • The two "or"s in there, seem a little redundant to me. Any way to reword this? It's not a big deal, but just food for thought.
    • They are supported by governments, charities, and coalitions such as the International Network of Street Papers and the North American Street Newspaper Association.
      • Do governments actively support the papers? The way this sentence is worded, it sounds as though they give minetary support (if they do, ignore this please)
    • Several publications by charity, religious, and labor organizations tried to draw attention to the homeless in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not until the 1990s did modern street newspapers become common, after the founding of New York City's Street News in 1989.
      • Suggest a rewording of "Several publications by charity, religious, and labor organizations tried to draw attention to the homeless in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but they only became common after the founding of New York City's Street News in 1989."
    • I'll admit that I skimmed the article, but this was quite an interesting topic that I had not known about. Hope to see this on the main page sometime! :) Cheers, —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 17:08, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note I asked Ed for a review, see User talk:The ed17#Request for feedback.
In response to your comments....
  • I could reword that first sentence to "Street newspapers (also called street papers) are newspapers or magazines that are sold by homeless or poor individuals and produced mainly to support these populations." I guess it's a matter of whether parentheses are worse than two "or"s. I will keep thinking about other possibilities.
  • Re government funding: yes, it appears that a lot of these papers are supported by local government grants: "most of them are dependent on government and private grants and corporate sponsorship", and the Heinz and Green refs also mention it (might be visible in Google Books, but I'll have to take a look in a moment). I don't think any of them are specific about what proportion of papers are supported by local governments, or how much they are supported.
  • Good suggestion on the 3rd one, I will make that edit now. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 19:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could also use "Street newspapers, also called street papers, are newspapers...." or "Street newspapers, also known as street papers, are newspapers...." —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 02:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah...fancy that! I like the first one. Changed, and now I feel quite silly. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 02:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning towards support - This is a well-written and interesting article. I'm wondering if it is possible to cover more of the day-to-day operations of the newspapers or if those are too diverse to cover in such a broad article? Also, I found the list of references surprisingly short. Is there really this little published on street newspapers? Awadewit (talk) 01:46, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

About references... are you referring to the Bibliography, or the entire reflist? The bibliography only includes book references and academic journal articles (basically, things with page numbers). Stuff like newspaper articles, web pages, speeches, etc., are long-form footnotes. Talk:Street newspaper#More sources has a few more sources that I haven't gotten around to looking at closely or integrating into the article yet, but they all fall into the latter category and would not lengthen the "Bibliography" list (at least, not the way that list is organized now).
About day-to-day operations...I can take a look at some of the sources and see if there are more details on that sort of thing. I think you're right that it would vary a lot between the small rinky-dink ones (which I imagine don't have much "day-to-day", they probably get thrown together in short bursts by people who have other jobs most of the time) and the more professional ones that have a large paid staff and stuff like that. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 01:57, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I mean "references" in a general sense - I was surprised that there wasn't more published information on this topic available to use in the article. Are you at that point in the research when the sources start repeating themselves and referring back to things you have already read?
I wonder if a bit more could be added about the day-to-day operations of the newspapers that aren't professional. It is pretty easy to imagine what professionals do, but the production style and work habits of non-professionals, who have the severe limitations of homelessness, poverty, etc., might be worth adding into the article. Awadewit (talk) 19:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I understand. Yep, there really is not a whole lot of information out there on this topic, as it's not a major area of study—as you can guess by looking at the version of the article before I started editing it, this is not a topic that many people are thinking about. You're right that most sources are more or less repeating themselves by now; for example, when that NYT piece came out two days ago I was excited, but there's actually not a whole lot there that I hadn't already put in the article, other than a few bits and pieces about how the recent economic downturn has affected street papers.
As for day-to-day operations of the newspapers...I think there's an abundance of information on the day-to-day of the vendors (several sources I have include vendors talking about their strategies, dealing with "turf", etc.), but not so much about the writing/publishing of the papers. As far as I can tell right now, anything I could add would essentially be speculation based on a few specific examples (i.e., I have some articles that might very briefly mention the operations of Paper X, but off the top of my head I'm not aware of any that discuss it in a more general sense). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 21:23, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: this might have a little of what you're looking for (the full citation is at Talk:Street newspaper#More sources). It's written as instructions/suggestions for how to start up and run a paper (by Tim Harris, the director of Real Change, so I think that should help with reliability) but might also help give a general impression what the day-to-day business is like. I have only had a chance to skim it so far, so I'll try to look into it a little more. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 21:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That seems a little too personal to me. I suppose this is just the sort of information that is difficult to come by. I've changed to full support. Awadewit (talk) 17:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning towards support - Quite an interesting article.

  • My issues: Prose needs some fixing here and there. Overlinking is prevalent throughout (United States is linked). I don't mind giving the article a copy edit, but I want to ask that before I go in and change stuff that you argued with someone for three weeks on how to state something. Minor things that add up: two sentences in Historical foundations start with "Another...". I wish you provided an example or two of how mainstream media portrayed the homeless per the first sentence in Modern street newspapers. The section just above Debate is Challenges and criticisms. They seem kind of synonymous.
  • Tell me (convince me) why the main description is in bullet points.
  • Recently I wrote Save Our Children, that interestingly, had a bit about specialized media outlets catering to gays and fundamentalist Christians. I'm making my own connections between such specialized media, but most of these outlets are considered reliable sources depending on what they're being used for. What I didn't see in this article is mainstream journalism's views of how reliable the information is in street papers. Do they get scooped often? Have any of the papers influenced mainstream journalism to cover issues of homelessness and disadvantaged people? --Moni3 (talk) 17:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • About the prose: I don't mind if you tweak things. I've had a hard time copyediting the article with a view towards the whole thing, since I put it together in such a piecemeal fashion, and between different copyeditors some things have been changed back and forth depending on the copyeditor's preference. But anyway, you are welcome to do more copyediting if you're interested. I will take a look at the "another" thing you pointed out and try to think of a good rewording.
  • About "debate" vs. "challenges and criticisms": the latter section is intended to be about mainly external challenges the papers face and criticisms they receive, whereas the former is about a split between different kinds of papers. Its original section title was "Schism between street newspapers" (which I threw in for lack of a better idea), and at PR it was changed to "Debate between street newspapers" because "schism" sounds too religious; then, of course, "between street newspapers" was dropped altogether because of MoS concerns. I'm still not totally satisfied with the current way the section is titled, so I'm open to suggestions.
  • I put the main description in bullet points because I thought it was a clear way to express that these papers generally have three separate kinds of goals that, while related, are also very different. It also seemed like a good way to digest and summarize a lot of yada yada that occurs in the sources, pretty much all of which boils down to these three points. Also, in earlier revisions of this article (before GAN) the "challenges/criticisms" and "debate" sections hadn't been added yet, the Description section just had three subsections, and the three bullet points fit well with the structure of the article—each bullet point corresponded to a specific subsection. To be honest, I am still somewhat considering going back to that kind of format, and splitting the "challenges" and "debate" subsections out into a different section (I mentioned that at the top of this FAC, just below the tech review, but didn't get any input). So anyway, that was my rationale for using bullets.
  • As for your last comment...I haven't found many sources that talk about perception of how reliable street papers are, but several do discuss people's perception of the quality (ie, quality of writing, and importance of the stuff they cover); most of that is in the Ryerson Review of Journalism source and covered in the "Challenges and criticisms" section. As for reliability, I haven't seen much yet; I have noticed some isolated things here and there, like a story about a Toronto street newspaper that was apparently being used as a vehicle for mostly racist propaganda (that hasn't been incorporated into this article yet, but I think I have the citation at Talk:Toronto Street News), but nothing really that would suggest a general trend. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 18:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I added a sentence with more specifics about mainstream media's portrayal of homelessness in the '80s, per your request. I'm not sure how much more it would be reasonable to add; to me, this seems to get the point across pretty strongly. Let me know if there's anything else that you think is needed there. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 18:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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