Talk:Social Psychology Quarterly

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I am the current editorial assistant for the journal, and have been making changes to the wikipedia page at the request of the editors. Earlier today I added the mission statement for the journal, and updated the links so that they primarily direct to the SPQ page on the American Sociological Association website, rather than the SPQ page on the SAGE website. This change of links is because most of the content for the journal is found on the ASA website, rather than the SAGE website. I just returned to add a table for previous editors, and found these changes removed by Guillaume2303. Why was this content removed? Lesleyannewatson (talk) 18:20, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• Mission statements, by their very nature, are often phrased in a rather promotional way. Which is why we quote them almost never. In addition, in a short article, it is a bit disproportional to have about half of the text consist of (copyrighted) material copied verbatim from the journal's homepage. The SAGE link is the "official" link for the journal and therefore should be in the infobox. The ASA link was moved to the "external links" section. The link to the ASA itself is in the article on the ASA and does not belong here. Being directly involved with the journal, it would be good if you could read our conflict of interest guidelines. For future improvements to the article, it would be best not to edit it directly, but post comments here. Hope this explains. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 20:22, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
• Thanks for your reply. It was not our intent to try and overtly promote the journal, and we understand if it is not commonplace to list them in wikipedia entries. Due to your concerns with conflict of interest, I am happy to only make edits to the entry such as update impact factor or finalizing the previous editors list, and to discuss other content changes here. Lesleyannewatson (talk) 09:41, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Using the SAGE link as the "official" link suggests that the journal belongs to SAGE, which is not the case. It is an official journal of the American Sociological Association, and ASA owns the copyright for the journal. It is published for ASA by SAGE Publications. We would like for the wikipedia entry to reflect this both in content and in the links provided. Lesleyannewatson (talk) 09:41, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

While digging to figure out exact years when the journal changed names and to create a complete past editors list, I also found some more information on the history of the journal that could be nice to include. The journal was established as Sociometry in 1937 by Jacob L. Moreno, who served as publisher and chair of the editorial committee until 1955. In 1955, Moreno transferred ownership of the journal to the American Sociological Society (now the American Sociological Association). The ASA has published the journal continuously since 1956. The journal name was changed to Social Psychology in 1978 and then to Social Psychology Quarterly in 1979. Lesleyannewatson (talk) 09:41, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for your understanding and willingness to abide with our policies. I have made some modifications to the article in the light of the above comments. Let me know whether you agree with them. Would you have a source/reference for the history section? --Guillaume2303 (talk) 10:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
• The added history section looks good to me. And I do have some references. Regarding the transfer of Sociometry to ASA, The History of the American Sociological Association, 1905-1980, Chapter 7 says: "The Society acquired its second journal on its 50th anniversary. In December 1954, J.L. Moreno offered Sociometry to the Society as a gift "without stipulations or conditions." In 1955, the Society accepted the journal with "deep gratitude" and began publishing it in 1956 under the editorship of Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr." This same volume also explains the name change from American Sociological Society to American Sociological Association. The list of SPQ editors is also available online, although it does not go beyond Spencer Cahill in 2006. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lesleyannewatson (talk • contribs) 12:25, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to add an image to the page showing the cover of the journal. I have permission from the editorial staff and from the ASA Director of Publications and Membership to upload the file, but am unsure of the proper way to go about this for wikipedia's policies on fair use and copyright. It is a low-resolution file of the cover only. Is there anything I should know prior to uploading the file for the info box? Thanks! Lesleyannewatson (talk) 14:00, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• You don't need permission for fair use (and which publisher would protest that anyway). But it needs to be done in a proper way. See File:G2Bcover.jpg for an example. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 14:10, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
• Great. Thanks for your help! Lesleyannewatson (talk) 14:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)