Paper Curation Guidelines

Overview of the News Sections

The most-up-to-date news, ranked in Paper as it happens. Headlines, Tech, Enterprise and Score
should reflect the most important stories of the day across the news landscape. It should be curated
for a broad audience; the final presentation of who sees what and in what order will be personalized for users by algorithms.
The feeds are focused on news relevant to the U.S. and should feel as reliable and authoritative as
possible. The sections are made up of link shares, status updates, photos, Fvideos and comments
from public figures.

Preparing for Your Shift

Youll receive an email from the preceding curator outlining major stories, trending stories, things to
be aware of, etc.
Get yourself read-in on the days top stories:

Browse through the last 50-75 stories in your section to see whats been covered.

Scroll through the other newsy channels to see if theres anything that should be crossreferenced.

Look through the Suggested Posts tab to see if another curator has suggested anything for
your section.

You should also do a quick lap through the big publishers and make sure your section isnt
missing anything.

Recommended starting points: The New York Times, BBC, the Guardian, the Wall
Street Journal, TechMeme and ESPN

Check to see what topics are Trending at large:https://our.intern.facebook.com/intern/

trending

Keepbreakingnews.comup in an open window throughout your shift so you can stay on top of news
as its breaking.

Story-Selection Guidelines
When youve identified a story topic that you want to rank, look for a post by one of thePreferred
Sourcesfirst.
Pick the best version, where best is defined by:

The quality of the article and the source.Focus on stories from high-quality, reputable publishers. Heres alist of approved sources. Review that list carefully for a list of sources to
AVOID. Wed also love to hear from you on sources that you think should be added to the
list. (Particularly for Tech, Enterprise and Score.)

The articles headline. We want clear, straightforward headlines that communicate the
news in the headline. Avoid teaser headlines. Try and stay away from specific death tolls or
figures that will be quickly updated.

How timely and up-to-date the article is. When you read the story, make sure you check
the timestamp. News outlets often repost old stuff to social media, especially on weekends.

The publishers caption/status. Stay away from posts that have a snarky caption or one
that will soon be out-of-date. DO NOT post stories with no caption (i.e. only Forbes shared
this post without commentary) unless it is an extremely time-sensitive breaking news story
that you cant find elsewhere.

The originality of the source. Cite the original source whenever possible. If the Verge
shared a post from The New York Times, go back and find The Timess original post instead.

The way the story displays in the app. Images look terrific in Paper, so we want to use
great photos whenever possible. Avoid awkward crops.

How to Curate a Story

1. Pull up the post/story that you want to use.
2. Hit the dropdown arrow in the top right corner, and select Add to Curated Section.

3. Select the section and hit Add to Drafts. Alternately, you can hit Add to Suggestion and send
it to another curators queue. Note: If youre suggesting a story to a curator, its good practice to
also alert them via FB Messenger or the PAPER Curators Team group.

4. Open the Curated Feed Editor tool and navigate to your section.

5. Find the post in the Drafts queue, add the appropriate Labels and then hit Update Labels.
(See below for more detail on how to use Labels.)

6. Preview the story in Paper Drafts. (Add the Drafts channel for your section by going to Edit
Sections in the app.) Things to check:
a. The storys corresponding status.Every story should have a caption/status. It should
be clear, concise, not have any curse words, and not be snarky. DO NOT use stories
without captions (ie, only Forbes shared this post without commentary) unless it is an
extreme emergency, a must-have story, breaking or extremely time-sensitive and no
other options.
b. Art/Photos.Make sure the photo looks centered, no ones head is cut off, and the photo
is sensible in the app.

7. If youre satisfied with the in-app presentation, its time to publish! Hit Approve Topic and then
assign a Priority if necessary. (See below for details on Priority Ranking.) If youre not setting a pri-

ority, hit Submit and the story will go live in the app and the post will move to the Live Feed
queue.

8. Not done yet. Youre also responsible for keeping a running list of stories that you have ranked.
Add a hyperlinked headline to your sections archive document Headlines: January 2015. The documents are organized by day and then by curator.
9. You should note the headlines as you add them to Paper, not at the end of your shift. No worries
if you get busy and fall behind on the document, but keep it as close to real-time as possible.
a. A few small things on format:
i. Style should be:Source - Headline.
ii. Hyperlink the headline (with the link going to the FB post).
iii. Newest items should go at the top.

iv. If a storys headline doesnt contain all the relevant keywords, feel free to add additional ones. The idea is to make the documents as searchable as possible.

Labeling Stories
Tagging is an important part of the curation process and a crucial element of our personalization
strategy. The challenge is to be smart and most importantly consistent with our labels so we
can produce an actionable data set that the algorithm can learn from.
There are two fields for labels: Entities and Topics.

Entities are named entities, or proper nouns, ONLY. These should include specific people,
places and organizations mentioned in the story. Pick the entities that are central to the
storys aboutness. Think about the key elements that a reader might search for, whether its
Lakers and Kobe or ISIS and Syria. Do not put words like dog or tacoonly the
names of specific famous dogs. Tacos would not be labeled. NOTE: This field will be automatically populated with suggestions, many of which will be inaccurate and will include common nouns. It is just as important to delete bad labels as add good ones before you update!

Topics are the broader subject categories that classify the story, from top-level categories
like Entertainment and Business to finer-grained interests like Stand-up comedy and
Petroleum industry.

IMPORTANT The topic labels available to you (also sometimes referred to as the subjects) are currently locked in, so you must choose from the suggested options. These options
correspond to the nodes in the subject hierarchy, a family-tree style taxonomy. Only include
the relevant top-level category and the narrowest applicable topic(s). There often will be multiple relevant topics, because many stories are potentially of value to readers with different
interests.

For example, a story about fines levied against BP over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
could spark interest in both business and environmental audiences, as well as a regional
Gulf Coast audience.

The current version of the subject hierarchy is an Excel doc posted in the Paper Curators group.

If you feel a story needs a new label that isnt available, please note it in the handoff document next to the hyperlinked headline. We are also gathering suggestions for labels
(and offering feedback on workarounds) here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/
1H8-9MDab_oyUE6SZ6LGyjAJ7xAkdkg76_uarwJUxtAQ/edit?usp=sharing. An editor will regularly
review those suggestions and add them to the database if appropriate.
We welcome all suggestions! We are trying to improve the interest set, so wed like to hear any and
all of your label suggestions. Dont hold back.

Time-Sensitive Labels
Stories with time-sensitive labels will preserve their chronological order in the Paper sections. This
is important for ongoing hard news stories. The list of time-sensitive labels currently in use is dis-

played in the Labels Editor tool.

If you want to begin using a NEW time-sensitive label, type the label into the field and hit Update
Labels. Sometimes a label may not auto-fill for you, even though you know it exists. Try use the
Facebook ID for the label instead.

Priority Ranking
Note: Prioritization is enabled only in news sections.
Stories with priority rankings should always appear ahead of non-prioritized stories in the Paper sections, with rare exceptions.
We should use priority rankings on stories that are breaking or stories of great importance with significant updates. These stories should be ones that make the app authoritative and timely. Think of
these as the stories you need to know.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor loses his primary election

California judge rules some teacher job protections violate the constitution

Two killed in shooting at Oregon high school

We should NOTuse priority rankings on stories we think are interesting or stories we think are important for people to read. We have to trust the algorithm to serve these types of stories to the most
relevant users.

Hillary Clinton says she and Bill Clinton were dead broke when they left the White House

Syrian woman survives 700 days during governments siege on Homs

How ISIS became powerful enough to capture key Iraqi cities

Scale for assigning priority:

N/A = Regular importance. The majority of stories should not be prioritized.

1 = Important (e.g. News that is among the most important of the day)

2 = Very important (e.g. News that will lead websites and TV broadcasts)

3 = Super important/red alert (e.g. Breaking stories with HUGE national/international significance. These will be rare.)

Priority rankings stay in effect for 12 hours. After 12 hours, theyre treated like any other 12-hour-old
story.

Remember to deprioritize stories that should not appear at the top of readers feeds if they have lost
traction or been superseded within 12 hours of first publication in Paper.

Grouping Stories
Grouped stories will remain adjacent to each other in all users feeds, overriding personalized ranking. This can be useful when two or more related stories benefit from appearing next to each other,
e.g. contrasting opinion pieces; a backgrounder or video reportage that complement a major news
story, or a sports video highlight that goes with game wrap-up, etc. We also group all the stories
and the blue title card in every days edition of Ideas.
Use the Add to Group feature only when it will result in a necessary or significant editorial improvement. You run the risk of holding back high-engagement stories if they are grouped with laggards
or of pushing not-so-great content to the front of feeds when linked with top-performers.
Click on Add to Group. Copy the ID numbers. Paste the same numbers into the Add to Group field
in any stories you want to cluster.

Scheduled Posts
Should be used sparingly and only in certain sections. Check with an editor if you think you need
to schedule something.

The exception to this rule is weekends for the Tech and Enterprise sections, where the Thursday
and Friday Biz/Tech curators are responsible for selecting a handful of feature, evergreen and other
soft stories to schedule ahead for Saturday and Sunday mornings (see Tips for Specific Sections,
below).

Approved Source List

The list of sources is located in the Paper Handoffs folder.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eYCmBfvLJlZDMOI-jsoVvusW3w0Km1H54XGBZMLGIlk/
edit#gid=0

You can also sign into the team FB account, and follow Interest Lists with these sources collected.
(Username: [email protected] //Password: fb062014)

Three other shared accounts with useful, thematically grouped Interest Lists:

Margaret Zimmerman (Username: [email protected]//Password: fb062014)

Wembly Mishka (Username: [email protected]//Password: fb062014)

Hilary Moresby(Username: [email protected]//Password: antigone)

These accounts also features Graph Search, in case that feature is not working on your personal account.
[[6/30: Update: Graph Search is not working on any accounts.]]

Handoff Workow
At the end of your shift, you need to send a handoff email and also review your Drafts queue.
fcu
The handoff is just a brief email that you send to the editors and to the other curators working on
your section. Things to include: Latest updates to ongoing news, big or breaking news, stories that
were purposely not included, and a look ahead if applicable. Message one of the editors if youd like
to see an example email, and we can forward you some of the past Headlines handoffs. It should
be written in this format:https://fburl.com/76614780.

You should also review the Drafts queue for your section, and remove any stories that you arent
intentionally leaving for the next curator to use.
Apps You Should Download
To start, you should download the following apps and turn on push notifications. You should also
look into adding additional hard news apps or others relevant to your beat. We want to be proactive
in seeking out stories on Facebook and not just waiting for them to bubble up.

NYTimesor NYT Now

Breaking News

CNN

BBC News

Tools We Use
Curated feed editor:
https://www.intern.facebook.com/pubcontent/curated
Approved source list:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/
1eYCmBfvLJlZDMOI-jsoVvusW3w0Km1H54XGBZMLGIlk/edit#gid=0

On-Call Procedures
Weekdays:If you have an editorial question or a problem with the tool, ask an editor or post in
PAPER Curators Team.
Nights and Weekends:If you have an editorial question or a problem with the tool, use FB Messenger to contact all three editors. If you cant reach us on messenger, call one of us on the phone.
IMPORTANT:Please do NOT post in PAPER Technical Emergency Response Teamunless its a
dire emergency that is preventing you from ranking an important, breaking news story. Reach out
to an editor before getting the eng team involved.

Tips for Specic Sections

Score Section Guidelines

Enterprise and Tech Paper Guidelines

Paper Discovery Sections Guidelines