Wikipedia talk:Notability (academic journals)/Archive 3

Fundamentally mis-worded

RE User:Randykitty's revert.

This "essay" is fundamentally mis-worded, or is mis-tagged and should be tagged {{proposal}}, to be subjected to a vote, and converted either to {{guideline}} or {{failed}}.

"This essay is meant to characterize consensus about ..."

Essays do not do this.

"A notable journal thus refers to a publication being known for its publishing of scholarly research in the spirit of WP:GNG."

Nonsenses. "thus" is misused logically, there is no preceding argument, and this sentence massively misconstrues the meaning of the WP:GNG.

As it stands, the wording is so seriously flawed that I think it best to tag it {{failed}}. It mis-asserts consensus. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:04, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

No problem with tagging this {{failed}}. Anybody who cares can see in the archives that that is what happened (Wikipedia talk:Notability (academic journals)/Archive 1#Promotion to guideline status. --Randykitty (talk) 12:45, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I see. I would say User:SilkTork 00:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC) erred making that close. {{essay}} is not a "no consensus" middle ground between {{guideline}} and {{failed}}. A proposal is written in a fundamentally different way to an essay. That error led to this disaster. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:05, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

No error SmokeyJoe. My close was worded to explain the rationale as to why the outcome was neither to tag the page as guideline nor failed proposal. See Category:Wikipedia essays on notability for similar notability essays. Given the amount of strong support the proposal received from experienced Wikipedians who found the page useful I felt it would be inappropriate to mark it as failed, which tends to indicate proposals that clearly do not have consensus. I would suggest that if anyone wishes to either mark it as guideline or failed proposal, that a new discussion is first opened to establish where the current consensus is. If folks are no longer consulting it, then it could be marked as failed or historic; if enough folks feel the advice is useful then it could be marked as a guideline; if there is a balance of opinion on both sides, then leaving it tagged as an essay would again seem appropriate as essays don't carry the weight of a guideline, but can be consulted for the views they offer. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:12, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Essay is much better than failed, and I believe this current version would gain approval. We've had discussions about re-submitting this for guideline status, but it's grown stale a bit. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:27, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

• SilkTork and Headbomb are wrong, because proposals and essays are different types of documents, and they cannot be simply interconverted. Guidelines instruct as to how to follow best practice. Essays present opinion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:32, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Guideline?

At the top this is marked as an essay, and dutifully notes "essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines," yet internally it asserts that it is a guideline -- not just once, but (by my count) eight times. Shouldn't there be some consistency? It's like an article about wolves that says at the top "wolves are not a type of cat", but repeatedly refers to wolves as "these cats".

I have no opinion on the content of this essay but believe that we should use consistent language to avoid confusion. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:21, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• My impression is that it is in an horrendous state of confusion. I don't think it is an essay, or can be reasonably converted to an essay. Wikipedia:Scholarly journal is an essay. Probably this should be beaten into the shape of a more reasonable proposal. I think it is clear that some things, such as scholarly journals, are not well assessed for suitability by the GNG. Scholarly journals may be a major exception to the WP:GNG. Alternatively, most of journal might be best merged/listified/tabulated into larger articles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:48, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

This is mostly due to the insistence by many people that the word 'guideline' can only be used if it's an "official guideline". So we're stuck with the word essay, even though it's not an essay. Marking as an {{info page}} might be better, for now at least.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:51, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, now I'm more confused than ever. An essay that's not an essay? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:10, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

It is tagged as an essay, but it was never an essay by any accepted meaning of the word. It has always been an attempt at a guideline. Almost supported, but not broadly enough. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:15, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Hmm... it's an essay that's not really an essay, so it calls itself a "guideline," even though it wasn't adopted as a guideline when it was voted on. My confusion is not exactly abating. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:20, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Marking it into an info page to side step the pesky process of needing to demonstrate community support? No, some things need toning down, others work, and generally a reboot from when it was last a proposal. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:15, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Impact factor

This essay currently states that, "1.c) For the purpose of C1, having an impact factor assigned by Journal Citation Reports always qualifies."

I think this is absurd. It cuts across the WP:GNG guideline, not to mention the policy on WP:NOTABILITY. The impact factor is a measure of recent citations and the presence of a low impact factor is pretty much proof that a current journal is not notable on the basis of its citations. The statement is also in the wrong place, as citations are addressed under Criterion 2. I would propose that it be moved to 2.d) and reworded along the lines of, "A significant impact factor assigned by Journal Citation Reports provides sufficient evidence of notability." But, what level would indicate a "significant" impact? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:13, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely not. For all its flaws, the impact factor is the single-most relied upon / agreed upon method in bibliometrics for determining whether or not a journal is notable or not. If Thomson ISI considers a journal for inclusion in Journal Citation Reports, then it clearly is a notable journal. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:24, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I concur with Headbomb. Many journals are important/significant in their field, and thus are regularly cited by scholars, but are rarely discussed by other secondary sources. Indeed, WP:GNG is a poor metric of notability for more arcane topics (including academic journals). -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:07, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

question: given articles are based on such independent coverage, what would a notable-but-not-discussed-by-secondary-sources journal's article look like when brought to fa/ga? Is this perhaps a ripe area for some sense of wp:nopage? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:57, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

The closest I can think of is something like Journal of the National Cancer Institute (rated C-class). However, that's still far from GA/FA status. For most journal, we aim to have the following: Publication title(s), publication history (establishment, mergers, splits, disestablishment), current and past editors-in-chief (or equivalent positions), publisher history, abstracting/indexing information (excluding trivial listing such as DOAJ/GoogleScholar), bibliographic information (ISSN, JSTOR, CODEN, etc.) and 'impact assessment' like impact factors or SCImago Journal Rank/others (usually only when the impact factor isn't available), access model (open, hybrid, delayed, closed), and an fair-used upload of the cover. If all this is included, that's a worth a Start-class. If we have more, or these sections are substantial like in the case of Journal of the National Cancer Institute, then C-class. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:12, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Your description does sort of sound like something that would run against WP:NOT, since those bits of infobox-type data would be more appropriate for a database or directory than an encyclopedia article. Or, perhaps, represent one entry in a larger list. I appreciate the challenge journals present, since they're more important than so many topics we cover -- but in the real world sense of importance rather than the notability sense. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:44, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

A lot of that goes in the infobox yes (e.g. we leave ISSN/CODEN/etc for the infobox, we don't put that in prose). But a lot of it is suitable for prose. See WP:JWG for our general advice on how to write the basic journal articles. Suggestions for improvement are always welcome. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:48, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

"Significant" is a problem as it would lead to endless debate about what is significant in each academic discipline. I wonder whether an approach might be to say that having an IF gives a rebuttable presumption of notability. In the Explore case, for example, a presumption of notability might be rebutted by evidence along FRINGE / PSEUDOSCIENCE lines arguing that it should not be treated as a serious academic publication as a purveyor of nonsense, and it would be a disservice to readers have an article typical of an academic journal when it is not one. Then, redirect the page to a list of publications of fringe / pseudoscience materials, protect the redirect to prevent re-creation, and write that these may appear on the face to be legitimate publications of academic work but are not (supported with suitable sourcing, of course). Thoughts? EdChem (talk) 23:51, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

(Not a direct response to EdChem, merely my thoughts on the general issue): I think that impact factors are largely numerology. I am not in favor of using them for any purpose whatsoever. My preference would be to remove that bullet from this essay. See e.g. doi:10.1126/science.aah6493 (an editorial in Science) for why: publishing in a journal with 30x the impact factor is still not enough to give your paper a statistically significant chance of more citations. It's both too sensitive to a small number of outliers and too easily gamed to give any meaningful information about journal quality. Being selected for review by Journal Citation Reports may be meaningful but we should not pick out the impact factor itself as the meaningful part of that selection. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:10, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the IF only measure what it measures. Having an IF does not mean you are a quality journal, only one that is cited often enough. In this case, we have a notable quack journal, and why Thomson ISI included it for consideration, I don't know. It could simply be a quack journal that's considered impactful in the sense that their claims are often rebutted by other journal (e.g. those are negative citations, rather than positive ones). We have articles on many quack journals. But again, like Randykitty mentioned above, we follow sources. There are many journals of astrobiology which I consider indistinguishable from worthlessness, for instance, but unless I can support that through reliable third party sources, that opinion stays out of the article. WP:V and all. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:13, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

My point is that it does not even mean what you say it means, "one that is cited often enough", because its numbers are far from representative of most papers in most journals. It turns out to actually measure only a small number of the most highly cited papers in the journal. (Also, because of its short time window, it completely misses long-term impact.) —David Eppstein (talk) 02:12, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Bad notability interpretation and context

In my opinion, the guidelines are poor, and badly interpreted. Here are the main issues:

1. Notability does not imply WP:RS: Notability is often misconstrued as an indicator of reliability. ie, the Journal of Parapsychology, may be notable, but it doesn't make it a reliable source.
   The fallacy: notability is annulled when something does not meet WP:RS.
2. Notability = inclusivity, but, non-notability ≠ exclusion: Notability is about reasons for inclusiveness, but is often applied as a means of exclusion. ie. because the Journal of Astrology does not meet Academic Notability, it should be excluded.
   The fallacy: General notability is annulled when something fails notability in another area.
3. Notability is different for different people: Not everything is notable to the majority, the consensus, and the most popular group of people. Many journals have tiny circulations, but are still notable, even if they are rarely mentioned in the mainstream.
   The fallacy: Notability is annulled if something it is not noticed by my chosen group of people.

--Iantresman (talk) 17:12, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Fix this page? Discussions following deletion nomination

On 10 December this page was nominated for speedy deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Notability (academic journals). That nomination was closed as being out of process because pages like this are not eligible for speedy deletion, and instead would need to be deleted after more thorough discussion. Through and after that discussion, the below some related discussions started. I refactored the discussion by putting them all in the same discussion section. My intent was to make it clear that multiple conversations on this issue are ongoing. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:35, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

update - Headbomb says, "(don't refactor people's comments, this is not how the discussion happened, and presents a falacious history)". I could be mistaken, but it was my view that this page had a flurry of related activity. Typically no one comments here. Between early October and December there were no edits, then suddenly over 2 days 30 people came here or to the deletion discussion to go wild. Anyone may draw their own conclusions on what this was about, but I think the deletion nomination prompted it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:32, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

No explanation excuses refactoring conversations, per WP:TALK. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:59, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:46, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Problematic

So the MfD has been closed; I am seeking to overturn it.

Here is why. The foundation of N, which is policy, is "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" the community considers it notable and article-worthy, generally speaking.

This essay undermines that principle, and dramatically so.

This essay feels like the product of a "walled garden" to me and the folks who maintain and use this need to, in my view, change N to allow for the approach that is taken in this essay and that is argued regularly in deletion discussions about journals.

This should not exist or be used in anything like its currently form until N is changed. And once that is done, this should be rethought in light of whatever the community determines is OK at N.

That's my view, at this time. Jytdog (talk) 00:53, 12 December 2016 (UTC) (fix mistake.Jytdog (talk) 01:03, 12 December 2016 (UTC))

Consensus is that selective databases are exactly that. Reliable sources independent of the subject. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:55, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

The very local consensus. That is the problem; local consensus cannot be used to override wider community consensus. Jytdog (talk) 01:06, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

And one that will remain in use, regardless of what tag is on top of the article. It's hardly something that evolved out of the whims of 2 random guys, but rather something that evolved over years of needing something to go by when evaluating whether or not a journal is notable. The best way to show that it is notable is to show that people noted it, and the people who notice these things are librarians and other people managing selective bibliographic databases and scholarly measure of impact such as impact factors. That's why we don't accept DOAJ as evidence of notability, because these people aim to be comprehensive and will index anything open, regardless of quality, but Current Contents is, because those people aim to include the best (see most impactful) journals. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:14, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jytdog: If you want to overturn the MfD close, start a DRv, but you have very little chance as MfD is not for deleting long-used pages which some people disagree with. You would be better off giving up on deletion and try to build consensus for change, or arguing for it to be marked historical. EdChem (talk) 03:47, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I already have started the process. Jytdog (talk) 03:53, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jytdog: The issue you (and many others) seem to have is with the relationship between subject-specific notability guidelines and WP:N. The [to me] common sense understanding of a subject-specific notability guideline as an application of (or specialized guide to) WP:N, would mean that any of the former which conflict with the notability guideline should not themselves be considered to have the same weight as the guideline. However, as I recall, the subject-specific guidelines came first, later generalized for all topics, so there's some understandable sensitivity when people say they should then be subordinated to it. WP:N makes clear that a topic can be notable if it passes the GNG or a subject-specific guideline, but also defines notability in terms of "significant attention from independent sources" (or "significant independent coverage or recognition"). Yet the subject-specific criteria have many shortcuts to notability. Sometimes they're more carefully worded than others. WP:NBOOKS confers notability if "The book has won a major literary award." while WP:NFILM prefaces its criteria with "The following are attributes that generally indicate, when supported with reliable sources, that the required sources are likely to exist." It's inconsistent. This is not a guideline, but such a criterion would not be unusual among subject-specific guidelines (which is not to say that I think it should be a criterion or that this should be a guideline -- just to say this is a bigger issue). For me, I don't think it makes sense, on an encyclopedia built on WP:V, to have any guideline that isn't based on something like "significant coverage in reliable sources", and it doesn't make sense to have a base guideline define a term in a way that can be canceled by an apparent sub-guideline. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:03, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Only two came first, WP:PROF and WP:CORP. Several others came into existence in parallel with WP:N

All are subordinate to the principle that independent sources must provide suitable content, but all notability guidelines are presumptive. Case by case, AfD is the proving ground.

The inconsistency is largely driven by whether it is scholarly at one end versus promotional of profit making companies at the other. Academic journals are kind of interesting, they immediately claim scholarship, but they are profit making, subscription and submission fee gouging, profit making thin companies, some of them.

This page is definitely an attempt at a guideline.

The encyclopedia is not built on WP:V. That was a very early mistake. The encyclopedia is built on WP:A. Same point though. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:24, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

The subject specific notability guidelines are designed to provide interim means of showing the presumption of notability in lieu of having immediate access to secondary sources that provide significant coverage. It is why all other established SNG's that are actual guidelines and not essays (demonstrating they have been community-vetted) are generally based on principles of merit and accomplishment, and not just because something exists; if one has done something significant, there will highly likely be sources that go into detail about it. It is expected that if sufficient time has passed and no sources appear about a presumed-notable topic, we can proceed to delete that topic; in other words, these are meant to guide all SNGs towards meeting the GNG in the very long term.

What this essay does is attempts is to assert that high citation indices are equivalent to merit but that's really not a measure that is assures secondary coverage is forthcoming. Academic journals are, for the most part, thankless entities that publish our important reliable sources and otherwise get no credit for that, but just being a publisher of this information doesn't make them notable. Journals are rarely discussed in secondary sources, period; they are a necessary device but the details of that device are really of interest for the most part to informational sciences and not the world at large. We should not be artificially saying "Well, they're important to us, so we should make more of them notable", because that undermines the concept of notability to start.

I do think that there should be a means to index journals - likely by their publisher - so that we can blue-link all peer-reviewed journals to at least a redirect to that publisher, but we should not be trying to have articles on every such journal when most of them will likely remain stubs forever.

There are elements of this essay that can be salvagable: I do agree that the 3rd criteria (noting that this nearly always assures GNG sourcing) is good, and the 2nd criteria has some elements of presumed notability that work. But that first criteria really is a problem and should not be used at all. --MASEM (t) 17:01, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• Note - discussion with the closing admin did not result in a change of the close so I have filed a close review at AN: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Close_review:_Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion.2FWikipedia:Notability_.28academic_journals.29 Jytdog (talk) 04:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• The speedy close was appropriate, because MfD is not a forum for settling policy questions. This issue of notability of journals, of giving them an easy run relative to the WP:GNG for example, is clearly in policy space. MfD was the wrong forum. The correct forum is an RfC. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:38, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• on further reflection i decided to withdraw the challenge (diff). Jytdog (talk) 20:30, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Some thoughts on why we need NJournals in some form or another

Given that several editors (either here or at the MfD) have argued that we don't need an SNG for academic journals, I am presenting here some musings about why I think that we need something like NJournals. Mind you, this is not intended to go into details (e.g., is Scopus indexing enough or not, what about IFs, etc). It's about whether or not we need an SNG. As starting point, I take the fact that probably nobody here will contest, that reliable sources discussing a particular journal in depth are very rare. Having multiple such sources about an academic journal is even rarer. Now let's do a thought experiment and suppose that NJournals would not exist. Where would that leave us with academic journals?

The immediate effect would be that we would have to apply WP:GNG and only accept journal articles for inclusion if we have multiple (at least two) reliable sources providing in-depth coverage (of the journal, not of some article that appeared in it. Coverage of an article may render that article notable, but not the journal per WP:NOTINHERITED).

The result of this would be that only the most notable of journals (such as Science or Nature) would qualify for inclusion in WP. In addition, some journals would meet GNG if they were involved in some scandal that resulted in significant coverage. Nevertheless, I estimate that 99% of all articles on academic journals that we currently have would not meet GNG and would have to be deleted.

The consequence of this would be the following. Many (most?) references in any science-, social science-, or humanities-related articles are to articles in academic journals. Currently, many of those link to articles about these journals, providing some basic, neutral information: what does the journal cover, who is the editor-in-chief, some basic indexing stuff (ISSN, link to WorldCat, link to the Library of Congress), and some details like publishing frequency, publisher, possible connected scientific societies, and how long the rag has been around. If we delete these articles, readers would not be able to find even the most basic info on them anywhere on WP.

I may be mistaken, but I think that very few editors here would find this a desirable situation.

We could, of course, also have the pendulum swing in the complete opposite direction. We could take an example of what we do for sports: any athlete who competed in, say, the 1908 Olympics is supposed to be notable, even if they ended last in a not very popular sport (like discus throw). We could therefore decide that every academic journal is notable. I think that would be the worst solution of all. It would lead to endless discussion about whether a particular journal would be "academic" (cf. the current discussion about Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing that started this whole brouhaha). It would also make it difficult to keep out predatory journals. The whole selection of which journals would be included and which not, would become very subjective and strongly depend on individual editors' personal viewpoints.

I think it is safe to say that nobody here would argue for an "open door" policy like this.

My conclusion therefore is that we have two options.

1. Apply GNG rigorously and only include articles on journals that are covered in depth by multiple independent reliable sources. We delete 99% of our journal articles.
2. Create a guideline that contains clear objective criteria that a journal will have to meet to be included. (Of course, GNG would always trump this, if there are in-depth reliable sources it doesn't matter any more if a journal would meet the SNG or not).

It will be clear that personally I think that the second solution is the most sensible one. How we define the bar that journals have to cross will have to be hammered out here. But I think that it is quite clear that we absolutely need an SNG for academic journals, even if that means that we'll continue to create articles for journals that technically do not meet GNG. --Randykitty (talk) 19:07, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

There are some fallacies here.

1. Let's take the NSPORTS situation. The reason that every Olympian is presumed notable is because it is no small feature that to make the Olympic team for a country is a major accomplishment, and such athletes are routinely covered by secondary sources from their local country to highlight their background and success. There are some exceptions to this, but the norm is that this secondary sourcing can be found for those athletes. That same principle must apply to selection of notability criteria for journals, and this is where the elements like IF or citation index fail, as they are simply numerics that do not provide any indication of importance; journals can have high index numbers and frequently are never discussed in secondary sources, and it seems more exceptional that sourcing like this will exist.
2. There are plenty of other ways that we can still have a journal name blue-linked in reference lists and not have a standalone page. One suggestion would be to have lists of journals by publishers, with the presumption that most of those publishers are notable too. These lists can have the years in publication, editors, and other factors you describe, and we'd use redirects to make each journal name blue-linked to the appropriate list.
3. But that said, there is no requirement that we have to have the type of documentation you describe for every citeable work. It helps, but not required per WP:V. We have many many citations to books that themselves or the authors are non-notable but considered still reliable due to other metrics. The only thing that is of key value here is the doi number that can be clicked so that the user can find the source, just as with clicking an ISBN takes the user to a similar page, and even then, that's not fully required, it's a nice feature.

I do think a lot of this is separating out understanding that WP:N and WP:RS are not mutually exclusive or tied together. A journal can be considered reliable without being documented on a standalone page. A notable journal can be considered unreliable (eg pay-to-publish ones). The MFD showed a lot of people fearing that removing this essay would render lots of sources unreliable, but that is absolutely not what is happening. --MASEM (t) 19:45, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

The information in those articles cannot be adequately summarized in table form, and these journals are clearly significant and notable scholarly endeavours. This is especially important that readers what to know what these sources are, because those ultimately are ultimately the sources upon which the Encyclopedia is based. No, not every journal needs an article (and we mention this explicitly in the guideline here), but redirecting an entry like Acta Physica Polonica to either the Polish Academy of Sciences or Jagiellonian University does no one a service (see WP:NOTPAPER. So the question become "do academics pay attention to these journals?". For the majority of journals the question is best answered through indexing via selective bibliographic databases. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:31, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

No, they are not clearly notable , even from a scholarly aspect, save to a small segment of people in information sciences (And I am an engineer so I have spent more than a far bit of time in academic journal searching). They are important, but importance is not the same as notability.

And it is actually easy to do your example of Acta Physica Polonica: it would not be just one line but three lines, two for the A-B split. I would even argue we could set these up like television episode lists, one line for the basic facts and a box for an expanded description if such can be made. A noted column would refer readers on the initial APP work to understand it was split to A-B, which they can later find on the same table. --MASEM (t) 21:57, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

To add, I find a lot of the arguments here comparable to the situation when we had problems with boatloads of mixed-martial arts (MMA) articles that a specific Wikiproject had decided its own set of notability requirements that took some time to defuse; the arguments I see being used mimic the same walled-garden issues that the MMA had. That said, I am not trying to reduce academic journals that contain an incredibly large bulk of human information to amateur athletes, its just that journals for the most part simply don't get recognition outside the ivory tower of academia and even within that tower, only from isolated corners. I think we recognize journals are important and hence a solution (lists by publisher) that avoids notability issues will still providing key information. I do think we should have lists of established journals, just not standalone pages of each individual journal. --MASEM (t) 22:05, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Two remarks. 1/ Such lists would basically be a merger of the separate journal articles that we have now. I don't see the advantage of creating a huge amount of work in order to have the same result, just differently formatted. 2/ But there is a much worse problem with this solution. Who will decide which journals get included in these lists and which ones don't? The journal lists we currently have already are veritable spam magnets (especially those that include external links to the journals' homepages. Every predatory publisher is going to include their journals in these lists. Then what? Am I or some other editor supposed to move in and say "I think this Journal of Foo is not worthy of inclusion, so I'm going to delete it"? In short, to avoid this kind of capricious decisions, we would need clear criteria governing inclusion in these lists, or we would have to accept that any new journal that was created yesterday on somebody's kitchen table gets listed. --Randykitty (talk) 22:18, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

On the first point, it's basically making sure we are meeting core content policies by removing non-notable articles that have difficulty meeting these. Publishers are (presumably) notable and thus including the list of journals they include is not unreasonable information under that topic. As to your second point, however, we really can't make a distinction between a "good" vs "predatory" publisher in terms of how they are treated. I am fully aware of the issue of predatory journals in academia but we have to be aware that this can be at times a subjective label. The list of journals that a publisher prints is a factual thing (they either do or not) so all such journals under these publishers should be included in this list; at this list level, it doesn't become a matter of opinion to include but simple fact if a publisher handles a specific journal. --MASEM (t) 23:30, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

So if I'm understanding you correctly, Masem, you're saying we should not have articles on every journal published by the big publishing houses, (Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford University Press, etc.) but instead we should redirect these articles to list pages with titles like List of Elsevier journals or something like that? I just wanted to clear up what you wanted to do with, for example, the 685 articles currently in Category:Elsevier academic journals. Everymorning (talk) 04:13, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

... including Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine (first pick). Doubly sourced ascribing this journal as ""industry-sponsored" publications brought out by Elsevier without proper disclosure of their nature, and which had the superficial appearance of a legitimate independent journal." It's a thoroughly non-article, everything sourced is about what the journal is not. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:20, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Masem. Make a tables of related journals. Delete journal articles that don't have content beyond the tabulated information. There's an awful lot of cruft among things that look like journals. Tabulate the information being suggested that should be used as indicators of a notable journal, and see if it correlates well. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:24, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

...or--and this may sound crazy--you can just add more content to existing journal articles, so as to expand them so they contain well-sourced content that extends beyond "tabulated information". I suspect there are a fair number (but not most) of journals with articles now that you could do this with. Everymorning (talk) 04:55, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

The table/redirect approach works alongside this: there is no need to AFD all mainspace articles on journals, and if a user finds enough sources to expand to meet the GNG (or if there are appropriate criteria that can be developed for journals), then they can expand w/o admin assistance and the tables remain just in case of any problems (the tables would still include notable journals). What one thing that has to be clear is that we can't rest that notability for a standalone article on a metric like IF or citation count, since that directly does not talk about the significance of the journal.

And only to one thing on SmokeyJoe's comment that Elsevier would have a table of about 685 (at minimum) this would likely require some type of multiple pages for that index (say, journals by alphabetical order, A-D, then E-H, etc.) , and then there's ways to use transclusion if someone wanted the full table. I suspect other core publishing houses have similarly high numbers, but we can deal with them reasonably well. I also through out a thought that some of this information may also be potentially better at a Wikipedia sister project like WikiSource or WIkiversity, but I'm not 100% sure about that. --MASEM (t) 07:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

My feeling about why we need NJournals: First of all, this is mostly about criterion 1. Criterion 2 (frequently quoted or frequently collected by libraries) is very rarely used, and as it already says Criterion 3 is mostly only satisfied when WP:GNG is also clearly passed. So most of the notability arguments in AfDs concern criterion 1. The issue, for me, is which journal indexes count as the in-depth reliable independent sources requested by WP:GNG. My own feeling is that indexes like Journal Citation Reports and SCImagoJr do count towards GNG, because their selectivity implies some level of editorial control (the usual standard for what makes a publication reliable) and the analysis they provide on each journal is sufficiently detailed to count as non-trivial. DOAJ doesn't count because it's not at all selective, and because when you look up a journal in it all you get is its publication data and contents, rather than any in-depth analysis. What we need in a journal notability guideline (or essay) is mostly a resolution of this question, if we can come to a consensus on it, as a way to head off re-fighting the same battle on every Journal AfD. It is partly on this basis (and partly because I don't believe in impact factors as meaningful) that I want to get rid of the clause about impact factors: one number is clearly not "in-depth", so it's a distraction from the real issue of whether these selective indexes should count towards GNG.—David Eppstein (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Except that's the thing, you can only have an impact factor if you are "indexed" in Journal Citation Reports, thus pass WP:GNG that way. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:56, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

However, the JCR is not a secondary source; it is a database of primary information (how often works are cited). We're looking for transformation to discuss the importance of how how frequently a journal is cited to meet the GNG. --MASEM (t) 23:17, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• Criterion 1: The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area.

Criterion 2: The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources. Criterion 3: The journal is historically important in its subject area.

• David Eppstein. "First of all, this is mostly about criterion 1" I think that is not true. Criterion 1 is compatible with the GNG. If reliable sources (plural) assert "influential", they have asserted an opinion that is "secondary source material", you therefore have multiple reliable secondary sources. While "depth of coverage" may be an issue, for example a couple of sources list thousands of journals as "influential", a one-word characterisation, that would be a problem, criterion 1 implies meeting of the GNG.

Criterion 2 is very much not the style of the GNG and looks to me the main irritant generating opposition. It is "rarely used"? Why not drop it? If not dropped, I think it needs a lot more detail. What is "frequent"? Any reliable sources, or is papers in notable journals implied?

"My own feeling is that indexes like Journal Citation Reports and SCImagoJr do count towards GNG" I think is very problematic. The GNG is a specific line, itself an indicator of notability, which is a guideline that speaks to whether the topic should have a stand alone article. I think indexes like Journal Citation Reports and SCImagoJr are most definitely not the spirit of the GNG. I suggest replacing "GNG" in your thinking. eg: "My own feeling is that indexes like Journal Citation Reports and SCImagoJr are important considerations in deciding whether a journal should have a standa alone article". "selectivity implies some level of editorial control"? No. This is a world of processes and statistics, and is more the flavour of DIRECTORY than "coverage by multiple independent sources"

Under "Remarks" comes some illogical completely unacceptable redefinition of important concepts.

C1a is fine.

C1b & C1c are not OK. Indices are not "consideration". Criterion 1 was fine, but C1b and C1c are trickery used to define it to say something quite the opposite.

Remarks on C2 and C3 are a combination of self-explaining irrelevance and highly objectionable.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:45, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIRECTORY?

I put this here to follow up on the excellent points by raised by Randykitty in the OP above. This is also following up on my note at the deletion discussion for Explore, here.

The mission of WP is to create articles that "summarize accepted knowledge" per WP:NOTEVERYTHING in a way that complies with the key content policies, V, OR, and NPOV.

What any notability guideline or essay should do, is provide guidance as to how the community can decide if we can do that for a topic in a given subject. A lot of that comes down to deciding what "reliable sources" are for the subject. (everything starts with sources - you cannot verify without them, and you cannot generate NPOV content unless you can read those sources and summarize them, giving WEIGHT per them). The presence or absence of reliable sources is what determines notability, throughout WP.

Randkitty discusses the sourcing problem for journals above. This is really the heart of the matter. There are databases that provide some data, like impact factor. But there are often not sources that allow editors to characterize journals.

This project took that path pretty much from the beginning, to create WP articles that are really directory entries - that don't characterize their subjects narratively, the way most every other article in WP does with respect to their subjects. (I have read a bunch of the history of this page, and this seems to come from a sense of... librarianship.. that this wikiproject serves somehow as a validator of sources (or at least a provider of data about sources) used in the rest of the rest of the project, and there is a whole sense of duty and responsibility tied up in that.)

Something I would suggest, is that the discussion above really be worked through and if this wikiproject decides it wants to stick with the "directory" model, that you work to change WP:NOTDIRECTORY to make an exception there for academic journals. I think it is well explain-able based on the kinds of sources that are available. The way things stand now, in my view the thread that guy opened at Jimbo's talk page, here is an entirely valid criticism. Right now journal articles generally do violate WP:NOTDIRECTORY and this is something that should be fixed to keep WP as a whole coherent.

This still leaves open the problem of how to determine whether there are sufficient sources with which to write an NPOV article for a given journal, especially with regard to journals that publish FRINGE stuff, which are becoming more and more prevalent. The problem that is coming to a head with Explore is not going away. I am going to open another thread about that. Jytdog (talk) 00:02, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

NPOV

Would folks in this project please consider including discussion of NPOV in this essay - namely answering the question of whether there are sufficient sources to create an NPOV article? I understand the problem you face, in that what you consider to be "reliable sources" for journals tend to be databases, and there is rarely an issue of how to neutrally summarize a source that is a database entry.

But this is one of the problems that has arisen at the AfD about Explore and that is a problem that is going to get worse with time as more and more journals are created that publish FRINGEy stuff. Those journals will refer to each other, they will have impact factors, etc. This is not something that I think is easily solved.

Part of the consideration of whether an article is kept or deleted needs to be whether we can write an NPOV article about it. Jytdog (talk) 20:23, 16 December 2016 (UTC) (redact, to clarify Jytdog (talk) 23:22, 16 December 2016 (UTC))

NPOV is a different consideration than notability. We address this in our writing guide WP:JWG. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:51, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Hmm I think my OP was a bit misleading, but I will check that writing guide.

I did lead you to miss the point.... If you go way back into WP history, these "notability" guidelines arose to answer the question, "should there be a WP article about X or not?" Since everything in WP depends on sources -- you cannot write an article that has no OR, is V, and is NPOV without sources - the standard the community arrived at for the general GNG, was - "are there sufficient independent reliable sources with significant discussion of X, such that we can write an article that is not OR, is V, and NPOV?"

The answer to that question (should there be an article about X) of any given WikiProject cannot be different from that. The answer needs to describe how that standard applies within its discipline. Here in the journals project, the more fundamental problem has been "what are reliable sources about journals"? and you all have come up with these databases as the reliable sources. This is an interesting approach but it leaves open the problem of whether an article can be written that satisfies NPOV. Jytdog (talk) 23:04, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

And that "problem" is addressed in WP:JWG, which we refer to in Wikipedia:Notability_(academic_journals)#Best_practices. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:23, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I checked WP:JWG and "NPOV" does not occur in it. the word "neutral" appears once, in the following: "Never copy-paste descriptions (or anything else) from journal websites. These cannot be trusted to be neutral and are likely to be copyrighted material. Beware of weasel words, such as "is a leading journal...", "publishes high-quality research...", etc..." That's it.

You are not dealing with the problem, that the NJOURNAL essay does not provide a way for editors to determine if an NPOV can be writt`en at all. Jytdog (talk) 23:25, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

That's because there's no real problem to address. If you stick to WP:JWG, then you've written a neutral article. WP:NPOV covers the rest if you truly need a refresher on what NPOV is. Notice WP:NASTRO makes no reference to neutrality either, as do most other notability guidelines like WP:PROF. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:29, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I am going to stop engaging with you. This is not productive. Jytdog (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, you make up problems for WP:NJOURNALS that aren't problems for other notability guidelines. It's hard to take those seriously, especially when you simply assert those are problems without demonstration there is actually an issue. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:49, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

They aren't problems for other guideliens because other guidelines don't include the claim that presence in a database always confers notability. We have seen above that the source fo this text is the Nobel prize. Do you think listing on JCR is comparable with the Nobel prize? Guy (Help!) 23:53, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Things that don't bend, break. This WikiProject has drifted away from community norms in a few ways, and if that doesn't get fixed in discussions here then the community will fix it. Others are being more open to discussion with the rest of the community than you are, and hopefully it won't come to a MfDs to mark things as historical, but if that is where this ends up, that is where it ends up. Jytdog (talk) 23:53, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I always view Wikipedia policy and guidance as a hierarchy, with WP:5P at the top. The point of WP:GNG is to ensure that we have enough reliable independent sources to ensure a verifiable, and verifiably neutral, article. Directory-based notability guidelines that do not take account of the availability of analytical sources, risk delivering articles that can never meet the canonical policy of WP:NPOV. It is unrealistic to expect the compilers of JCR to review over 10,000 journals to make sure that they have not descended into publishing bullshit. So we have a situation where inclusion in JCR - which, incidentally, includes a number of predatory journals - enables an article sourced entirely from the journal publisher's own description of the journal. It assumes that JCR is flawless, but every year a number get removed, including (in 2014 and 2015) a large number of predatory journals. Inclusion in JCR is a fair indication that a journal is likely to be notable, unless the impact factor is very low (and even that is suject specific: a cancer journal with IF of 1 is negligible, whereas a social science journal with IF of 1 will at the top of its field). Just strike "always". Make it like every other subject notability guideline: these are the things that are liekly ot indicate a notable subject, but in the end the determining factor is - and must be, per NPOV and V - the availability of reliable independent sources. Guy (Help!) 23:48, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd be fine with changing 'always' to 'usually/likely', personally. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:50, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Fine, then I will do it. Guy (Help!) 23:53, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Please go slow with making changes, Guy. This essay has been used for 7 years and we want to get consensus for changes not drive them in. Jytdog (talk) 23:59, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

• the bigger problem is still here. What are the criteria for journals that mean that we can write an NPOV article about it? Putting this another way, what does this essay need to say, such that people don't react in deletion discussions that involve questions of whether there are sufficient refs to write an NPOV article, with "it in X database, it is fine"? Jytdog (talk) 23:57, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

There is no such problem, and that's addressed by WP:JWG and WP:NPOV. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:02, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Am looking forward to a reasonable discussion on this. The problem that has arisen with Explore is not going away and NJOURNALs has nothing to address the problem. It needs to. Jytdog (talk) 00:06, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't need to do anything. This page is about the notability of journals, not their reliability, or their NPOV description. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:52, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

We do want avoid attack articles, but that's a bit where UNDUE also has to be considered. Take any random predatory journal. If there are secondary sources that criticize its predatory nature in depth, it is still reasonable to consider an article on it, keeping UNDUE in mind that most of the article will be the criticism; however, the presence of secondary sources means we can also pull from primary sources - eg the journal itself - to discuss the journal in a factual, unbiased/NPOV manner first before jumping into the criticism of the journal. That it, even if everything else about the journal is negative and could be taken as an attack on the journal (which can be mitigated with proper tone), we can always dilute that with the core basics about the journal and achieve a NPOV-compliant article. Mind you, I suspect it will be more likely that one would describe the predatory publisher in this notable manner before any of their journals (read: the case for OMICS). --MASEM (t) 00:35, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Masem. If there are plenty of articles discussing a journal there is no N problem even under GNG, much less NJOURNALS. The problem is with situations like Explore, where the subject meets the database-based requirements in this essay but there are insufficient sources discussing it to allow us to even describe it per NPOV so it fails GNG as normally understood. Jytdog (talk) 01:04, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

If no sources can be found describing it as a shit journal, then we shouldn't say it's a shit journal, regardless of what your own personal feeling towards that journal is. That's WP:V and WP:NPOV 101. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:52, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Looking forward to productive discussion of this issue. Jytdog (talk) 04:46, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

concrete example

The current essay says:

General remarks

G.a) Journals dedicated to promoting pseudo-science and marginal or fringe theories will often not meet any of C1, C2 or C3. However, they may still be notable under the Wikipedia:GNG, WP:NFRINGE, or other guidelines.

In 2016, when there are more and more journals publishing alt med and woo, it is more and more likely that the kind of journals mentioned there will get citations from other such journals, and C1 will be met by its having an impact factor. This is probably what is going on with Explore. I don't know what "notable under WP:FRINGE" means (maybe trying to bring in unusual sources as provided in WP:PARITY?) But I would look for this section to say something like "not notable because per WP:PSCI and WP:FRINGE WP articles must discuss that aspect and there may be insufficient sources characterizing the journal" or the like. Jytdog (talk) 00:25, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Notability under WP:NFRINGE means exactly what that page says. "For a fringe theory to be considered notable, and therefore to qualify for a separate article in Wikipedia, it is not sufficient that it has been discussed, positively or negatively, by groups or individuals – even if those groups are notable enough for a Wikipedia article themselves. To be notable, a topic must receive significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Otherwise it is not notable enough for a dedicated article in Wikipedia.

A fringe subject (a fringe theory, organization or aspect of a fringe theory) is considered notable enough for a dedicated article if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers. References that debunk or disparage the fringe view can be adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents. References that are employed because of the notability of a related subject – such as the creator of a theory – should be given far less weight when deciding on notability. Due consideration should be given to the fact that reputable news sources often cover less than strictly notable topics in a lighthearted fashion, such as on April Fool's Day, as "News of the Weird", or during "slow news days" (see junk food news and silly season)."

Journals notable under WP:NFRINGE are Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice / Journal of Cosmology, both of which fail WP:NJOURNAL, but which are nontheless considered notable. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:56, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

OK so apply this to Explore. Jytdog (talk) 04:45, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

No need to, it's indexed in selective databases and has an impact factor, making it a clear pass of WP:NJOURNALS. You're the one who wants to say this is a shit journal, the onus is on you to provide those sources. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:48, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I look forward to a productive discussion on this. Jytdog (talk) 18:56, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia Readers?

I think a perspective worth considering is that of the readers of Wikipedia. When I am reading articles, there are times I look to the references to look further into something written on Wikipedia. When it comes from a journal, I always hope to see a link to a wiki-article on the journal because if I don't immediately know it. Finding out who the publisher is, how long it has been around, IF, editor and her or his institution, are helpful to me to forming an impression. Links in the cite to authors is helpful too, as they can tell me about their work and that they are notable enough (in WP terms) to have an article. For example, suppose I saw a claim about fusion as a future clean power source in an article section on technological approaches to global warming, and that I had some science background but the reference I found didn't immediately jump out at me:

• Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, B. Stanley (1989). "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium". J. Electroanal. Chem. 261 (2): 301–308. doi:10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3.

I would note two notable authors and a journal article, all of which would quickly point me that this was the start of the cold fusion mess. There are, of course, other warning signs – a single article from 25+ years ago would have many follow ups and reviews in major journals if the claim had checked out (so a better reference should exist), a low profile journal (which the journal article does not make clear, I might add), and authors with no background in nuclear processes. The J. Electroanal. Chem. article does and should point out this very big story, which to me is the kind of content a reader might hope to find in a journal article.

For example, on the predatory journals topic, I wonder if (for those that are actually notable), it might be more helpful to have an article which notes its inclusion on Beall's list and (in the case of OMICS) that it is subject to legal action by the FTC, than it is to have no article at all. I know JzG and others are working on avoiding such references being included in article space (which is appropriate as they are not going to be reliable, generally), but they will still happen, sometimes just by an editor not realising that a source in a google search is flawed.

I am raising this to make two points:

1. On the Explore journal issue, an article telling me that the editors are considered fringe-y (which is supportable by RS, as I understand it) is much more useful than no article at all. I agree that an article that looks like every other journal article and does not point out the reality is flawed from an NPOV perspective, and a case-by-case analysis of what is needed for questionable journals... which also suggests to me that the Journals and Fringe WikiProjects and editors need to be working together towards better content. I don't suggest that is not the motivation and intent of recent events, but the outcome looks and feels to me much more like conflict than team work.
2. There is a related problem, which is that there has evolved a fixed view on what a journal article should be which I see as unhelpful at times. DGG's idea of routinely including highly cited or also high impact articles from the journal have met resistance in the past, and I think it should be encouraged for articles. I also think that material can be included to flesh out articles, depending on what the journal has done. For example, I have recently created and am working on Zeitschrift für Kristallographie – Crystalline Materials where I have included some history on the journal's formation, on special issues dedicated in memory of scientists who have died (all 3 I have found so far have no en-WP bio but do have de-WP bios), and on special issues on topics (which point out a topic we are missing (or where I can't find the relevant en-WP page) and where there might be useful references due to such issues typically including a review of that topic). I think that there has been a trend to minimalist information on journals which makes them less useful for our readers. I know that including the number of citations on WoS for articles requires regular updates, but this could be done annually when the new IFs are updated.

In short, what is most useful for readers, which is what I think we need to aim for, guided and within policy, of course. Thoughts? EdChem (talk) 06:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I will point out that I think that every peer-reviewed journal that will likely be usable as a source (eg discounting predatory journals) should be blue-links to help the reader identify the journal, but at that point, blue-links don't have to lead to standalone pages, but could readily go to lists of journals per publisher, using a table format to collect the details that are factual about non-notable journals for exactly the purpose of helping readers. The problem with your suggestions otherwise still ends up avoiding the demonstration of notability for a journal, and making some elements "self-important" which is the last thing we want for WP standalone articles. --MASEM (t) 06:56, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that every peer reviewed journal used a source for a WP articles should have a description here in WP, for the benefit of the readers; I would add that every publication likely to attempted to be used as a bad source should have one also. The way to deal with the notability standard if necessary is to make use of the provision in WP:N for combination articles for topics that individually do not meet the standard. Personally, I rather have an inclusion standard based of reality rather the chance of references, but since the community seem to feel otherwise, we can nonetheless use WP:N is the flexible fashion that was intended. This is WP, and we not only make the rules, but make the interrelations.

A::s another point, I continue to think the most useful information about a journal is the papers it publishes--we do not publish complete tables of contents, and I have always removed them, but that is no reason not to highlight articles. DGG ( talk ) 07:23, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

• I am familiar with the perspectives above about linking to articles and authors in citations; i don't share them. i don't like links to authors and journals in refs and view them as bad clutter and curse when I click on one by accident and arrive at a WP article about the journal when I want to read the actual article being cited. I think that folks who value such links also support a low bar for notability for journals so that they can be linked in citations. I don't know how much that in turn might arise from the way some members of this WikiProject see it as somehow serving as a librarian for the rest of the project. I don't see it that way, but want to note that i am hearing that perspective. But no, we should not as a matter of course provide Wikilinks to authors and journals in citations in my view and in my view we should not have a low bar for N for Journals. Jytdog (talk) 07:29, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

AfDs

Reading the above discussions, one would think that the AfD of Explore is the only one currently ongoing. Anybody wishing to avoid developing a tunnel vision might take a look here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Article alerts. Several AfDs are listed that have barely any participants, even after having been relisted. Taking a look at them will perhaps provide some perspective to the above discussions. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 17:37, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

BEFORE

Headbomb is insitent on including the following:

<ref name="wpBefore" group="lower-alpha">Wikipedia editors have been known to reject nominations for deletion that have been inadequately researched. Research should include attempts to find sources that might demonstrate notability, and/or information that would demonstrate notability in another manner.</ref>

I think this is inappropriate for several reasons.

• It is generic and applies to all deletions.
• It implies WP:OWNership.
• It embodies special pleading, implying that these articles are special or unique.
• It invokes a bureaucratic process unique to these articles.
• It fails to assume good faith.

I removed it, I think it should stay out, but Headbomb disagrees. As above, I think we have a problem with this essay invoking concepts that are unique to Wikipedia, IMO we should roll these back, and this is one of them. Guy (Help!) 15:56, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Hardly, we have guidance like this in plenty of other guidelines like WP:NASTRO. Compare Wikipedia:Notability_(astronomical_objects)#Failing_all_criteria with Wikipedia:Notability_(academic journals)#Failing_all_criteria or Wikipedia:Notability#cite_ref-8 or Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#cite_ref-note10_14-0. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:58, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Just put in a link to WP:BEFORE. This is certainly not unique to NJournals. I have seen the argument that BEFORE was not met used in many deletion discussions and actually only rarely in journal-related discussions. --Randykitty (talk) 16:07, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

done here. Jytdog (talk) 10:26, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

It was done [1]. Removing the section outright as you have done is completely inappropriate and nowhere near what RK suggested. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

That does not seem to be AT ALL what she meant.  :) I am not a fucking idiot. Jytdog (talk) 14:28, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog, my apologies for not being clearer. What I meant was "just add a link to BEFORE", not "replace with a link to BEFORE. That section contains some useful advice, I think, which is more difficult to distill from BEFORE. --Randykitty (talk) 14:43, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I don't think BEFORE is hard to understand, but whatever. Jytdog (talk) 14:46, 19 December 2016 (UTC)