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What happened to this article's infobox? gangplank galleon ( talk) 12:56, 11 December 2021 (UTC) reply

It seems User:Akotarek and I are having an ongoing edit war over the paper's circulation number. The numbers I pull and link to are from the 2022 advertising rate the newspaper's owner Oahu Publications published online. User:Akotarek, who I suspect is Aaron Kotarek, the senior vice president of Oahu Publications, created a Wikipedia user account for the sole purpose of changing the numbers to ones that are larger and unverifiable. He sites outdated 2020 numbers from Alliance for Audited Media that no one can verify online. To resolve this issue, I am requesting a Wikipedia:Third opinion. Feel free to add your argument User:Akotarek to this page and hopefully someone will decide which one of us is correct. Eric Schucht ( talk) 22:55, 17 May 2023 (UTC) reply

I can provide the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) 2020 annual audit (our last audit published by AAM in their "Media Intelligence Center" to anyone who would like a copy. Just because someone cannot verify it online doesn't mean the audit hasn't been conducted or that it doesn't exist. AAM is a members only organization and their audits are password protected for members only. Akotarek ( talk) 23:05, 17 May 2023 (UTC) reply

In June 2022, Press Gazette reported the average print day circulation for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser for the six months to September 2021 as 79,096. Here's a link. This number was based on figures shared by the Alliance for Audited Media and more closely remembers the circulation number Oahu Publications had in it's 2022 rate card. The rate card reports the daily circulation as 82,656 and the Sunday circulation as 107,191. Akotarek says the 2020 AAM annual audit puts the paper's daily circulation at 220,345 and Sunday circulation at 174,712. These numbers are way to high to be representative of the current figures. It would put it above national newspapers like USA Today, The Washington Post and the New York Post in addition to regional paper's from cities with higher populations like Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. So assuming the numbers Akotarek has are true, there's no way they are anywhere close to what would be expected for the current numbers, so we should with the rate card numbers instead. Eric Schucht ( talk) 23:56, 17 May 2023 (UTC) reply

The Press Gazette is a publication in a foreign country while the Alliance for Audited Media (based out of Schaumburg, Illinois) is the gold standard for audited publishing volumes in the United States. In the article referenced, The Press Gazette did not reach out to Oahu Publications, Inc., or to my knowledge, the Alliance for Audited Media for volume explanations and/or guidance before publishing their article. Therefore, causing a potential misrepresentation of not only our volume picture, but any other publication's volume picture who was referenced in the article. As previously noted, the Star-Advertiser's volumes consist of many affiliated editions that the Press Gazette, and quite frankly Mr. Schucht, are choosing to leave out. I am a publishing industry expert when it pertains to volumes, reach, and penetration and no one in the industry knows our metrics better than we do. This will be my last correspondence on this matter and I consider this discussion closed. Akotarek ( talk) 00:17, 18 May 2023 (UTC) reply

This is a Wikipedia page for Honolulu Star-Advertiser, not for Oahu Publications specifically. So the circulation number on this page should be for this paper only and not all of the daily newspapers the company publishes, which includes The Garden Island, Hawaii Tribune-Herald and West Hawaii Today. The numbers Akotarek purports only make sense if you combine the circulation numbers of those four numbers together. Eric Schucht ( talk) 00:27, 18 May 2023 (UTC) reply

3O Response: Without getting into anyone's WP:PRIVACY, it seems to me that there is a likely conflict of interest in play. In such cases, a neutral editor should check edits from the COI editor. However, because the source's website requires a membership, it is not readily verifiable.

Without being able to evaluate the AAM figure, my advice would be to go with the Press Gazette figure for now. If Akotarek wishes, they can then file an edit request by creating a new section on this talk page with {{ request edit}}, explaining very clearly and specifically what they want done. Then hope that someone with a membership to the website, or who can find other circulation figures, will respond.

This is a non-binding third opinion, but I hope it helps! – Reidgreg ( talk) 04:08, 19 May 2023 (UTC) reply