. MBisanz talk 17:07, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
- {{no redirect|1 = Ohio Star }} → :Record-Courier (Ohio) (talk · links · [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ohio_Star&action=history history] · [https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews?start=2019-02-13&end=2019-03-14&project=en.wikipedia.org&pages=Ohio_Star stats]) [ Closure: {{#ifeq:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|(@subpage)|[{{fullurl:Ohio Star|action=edit&summary={{Urlencode:{{FULLPAGENAME}}#Ohio Star closed as keep}}}} keep]/[{{fullurl:Ohio Star|action=edit&summary={{Urlencode:{{FULLPAGENAME}}#Ohio Star closed as retarget}}}} retarget]/[{{fullurl:Ohio Star|action=delete&wpReason={{Urlencode:{{FULLPAGENAME}}#Ohio Star closed as delete}}&wpMovetalk=1}} delete]}} ]
This is an odd case. The redirect points to Record-Courier (Ohio), which currently makes no mention of Ohio Star, and under redirect guidelines redirect shouldn't exist for that reason. Anyone typing in Ohio Star and landing at Record-Courier will have no idea why they're on that page.
After some digging I found a [https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035044/ US Library of Congress historical listing for Ohio Star]. It says the Ohio Star was a newspaper that existed from 1830 to 1854. It then explains a complicated history of many changes in ownership and name, including official status as an organ of various political parties. There doesn't appear to even be a list of the various names over the years. Finally, it says "In its current incarnation, it is known as the Record-Courier". The Record-Courier came into existence in 1961.[https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035082/]
The newspaper Ohio Star ceased to exist 165 years ago, with a 107 gap before the Record-Courier was established in 1961. Any connection between the two is tenuous in the extreme. Under normal circumstances I might add some mention of Ohio Star to the Record-Courier article and leave the redirect in place. However this is not a normal circumstance.
Recently a campaign financing org and political action committees (PACs) set up a bunch of clone websites each claiming to be a local newspaper, with largely clone content, each claiming to be the Most reliable local newspaper for their region, despite lacking any actual newspaper. See [https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/03/04/activists-setup-local-news-sites/ Snopes item] and [https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/local-news-imitation-sites-deal-in-gop-political-messaging/ story at Arstechnica]. In the modern US political environment, the theory is that local newspapers are considered more trustworthy. So naturally websites for fake local newspapers were set up as a cover for pushing campaign propaganda. The clone websites largely carry the same content, and that content is padded out with international coverage syndicated from the Daily Mail (which is explicitly banned as an unreliable source on Wikipedia). One of these fake-local-newspaper websites claims the name [http://theohiostar.com/ The Ohio Star].
The old Ohio Star newspaper ceased to exist 165 years ago, and has only the most tenuous connection to the Record-Courier. I see little chance that readers are obtaining any meaningful value from this redirect. On the other hand I see great potential for harm in this redirect, in that anyone typing in "Ohio Star" is almost certainly doing so in relation to the modern fake-newspaper website. Sending that user to the Record-Courier article will almost certainly confuse them, and even worse they could interpret our article as documenting the existence of a modern day genuine-newspaper called The Ohio Star. There is no such newspaper.
I believe readers will be best served simply by deleting this confusing redirect. Alsee (talk) 06:51, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
:It's more a case of the Record-Courier article needing expansion than it being incorrect, especially the history. The Record-Courier counts the Ohio Star's establishment as its founding year and the histories I've read do as well. 1961 is simply the year the paper was fully merged and was no longer printed in two separate forms (one for Kent, one for Ravenna). The two had been effectively merged as a single entity since the 1930s. The Library of Congress page you linked to shows the succession of newspaper names, going from the Star to the Democrat, Republican-Democrat, Republican, the Evening Record, and eventually the Record-Courier (after a merge of the Ravenna Evening Record and the Kent Courier-Tribune). If anything, the redirect should be turned into a disambiguation page if there is concern about this "new age" Ohio Star that now exists. The 19th century Ohio Star comes up in Ohio history fairly regularly since it was one of the major papers of the old Western Reserve, plus it shows up consistently in the early history of the Latter Day Saint movement which was headquartered nearby in the 1830s. --JonRidinger (talk) 07:11, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
::JonRidinger you can't make a disambiguation page when there is only a single article. Alsee (talk) 07:56, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
:::It could be with links to the Record-Courier article and the fake news website article. "The Ohio Star could refer to two news sources..." Again, if your concern that many are looking for the "fake news" website and mine that historians are looking for the 19th century newspaper, it seems like that would make the most sense since both topics are low on the notability scale, especially considering the website is less than 2 years old. --JonRidinger (talk) 15:03, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
- Delete unless and until someone establishes a CLEAR and DIRECT connection to the Record-Courier, and being at one end of a century-old chain doesn't cut it. --Calton | Talk 02:25, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
Delete per nom; too tenuous and possibility of harm. — Scott • talk 14:49, 18 March 2019 (UTC) Fixed, so keep. — Scott • talk 16:31, 26 March 2019 (UTC)- Keep per nom's findings and JonRidinger. The Library of Congress link clearly fingers the Ohio Star was the earliest iteration of this paper, both in the source from the Ohio Historical Society and in its own predecessor/successor links. There's also plenty of RS that cover the fake Ohio Star. [https://www.salon.com/2019/03/05/republicans-launch-propaganda-sites-designed-to-look-like-local-news-outlets/][https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/need-to-know/need-to-know-march-5-2019/] Readers are better served by an explanation rather than emptiness, which could lead to the reasonable but incorrect conclusion that the new Ohio Star is a legitimate paper that's not notable enough for Wikipedia. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 21:03, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
- :I've updated the article with the relevant sources. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 21:28, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
{{resize|91%|Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.}}
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, B dash (talk) 02:43, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
Keep per "The historical origins of the modern Record-Courier begin with the Ohio Star, which was first printed in 1830." Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:50, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.
