Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/archives/2020/May

Wikinews on Facebook: language merger

Hello all! Along with occasionally contributing photo stories to Wikinews, I run the Facebook page for the English Wikinews.

Other language projects have their own separate pages. Facebook, however, has the ability to show posts based on the user's language or country. Mikani (t · c · b) of the French Wikipedia has proposed that we merge all the pages, using their Global Pages/Market Pages feature.

The experience for users wouldn't change, so far as I can tell. English speakers wouldn't see French Wikinews articles, and vice-versa, the content remains separate. French Wikinews also will grow on Facebook: they already have 926 fans, and 2300 of our English Wikinews followers speak French.

I'm going to read more tonight, but I like this idea in principle. While I'm essentially the only person to update the page these days, I'd like community consent. Does anyone have any objections? -- Zanimum (talk) 19:59, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

This is all contingent on us even qualifying: "This feature may not be available to you right now. Global Pages are only available to managed Facebook clients." suggests to me that we'd need to be an advertiser. -- Zanimum (talk) 20:30, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Ouch. Advertising being strictly against policy. --Pi zero (talk) 20:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

To clarify, Pi zero (t · c · b), we'd need to pay for ads on Facebook, not place their ads on our project. Given that Wikimedia Foundation doesn't run the account, I don't they'd be writing a cheque.

That said, it's entirely possible that they'd make an exception for us. At one point, Facebook banned pages from renaming, and the museum I work at was going to have to start a new page for its new name. I found a contact in the Facebook for Non-Profits program that was able to change our name, and weeks later they had a formal process for renaming. (We weren't advertisers on the site, either.) While they're a monolith of a corporation, they can make exceptions. -- Zanimum (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Pay for ads on facebook? Wtf? Facebook benefits indirectly from us using their platform in a way that draws people to use the platform; asking us to pay for the privilege of benefiting them is quite a scam. --Pi zero (talk) 02:24, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Zanimum (t · c · b), what software do you use to post articles to Facebook? Gryllida (talk) 23:30, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Gryllida (t · c · b) I literally just use the web interface. I have an IFTTT script to send me an alert when there's a new article, and then I manually copy-paste the link and the lede (occasionally shrinking the lede, so that it won't be clipped by Facebook. -- Zanimum (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, small update from the discussion. The option is not yet available for all pages. But the day when this is the case, and if the community agrees, it will facilitate the transition to this solution if we have already discussed it. There is no question here of paying for Facebook advertising as I read or becoming an advertiser page. --mik@ni 07:53, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The Facebook social network allows you to create a World Page, these pages allow you to "provide localized versions of their content to customers around the world". That is to say that a French fan will have what we publish in French, a Spanish speaker in Spanish or an English speaker in English. Note, this decision-making request cannot be applied immediately if it is validated, because Facebook only offers this option for advertisers at the moment. This requires a free "Business Manager" page. This page provides access to additional tools that allow merging. One can imagine that the "Business Manager" account is created and managed by the foundation and that it grants rights to local administrators. Above all, it's about being ready for the day when our decision-making processes take a long time to get started and succeed. To complete these "World Pages" are composed of 3 sub-types of pages :

1. the local pages (this is the one we already have, it is the one that is personalized for the language or the geographic area)
2. the default pages: it is as the name suggests the page viewed by default if the criteria of language or geographic area have not been met by the Facebook user
3. the root page: this is sort of the "super page", this is where we find the audiences for all the local pages and where the strategy can be decided by adding the possible countries or languages.

I invite you to take note of this, because it is a great audience booster for all wikinews. A voting page is now launch on the french speaking wikinews to adopt this (here). I made similar requests in spanish and italian wikinews without feedback. --mik@ni 15:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I will contact you again to find out if this proposal may interest you. --mik@ni 16:33, 18 May 2020 (UTC)