Wikipedia talk:Notability (academic journals)/Archive 5

Making progress

Before the breakout of conflict in mid-December, this essay had two significant problems, with two ancillary problems

1. the "always notable" language
2. the reliance on indexes as RS for notability discussions, which has no support in WP:RS, and two things that stem from the reliance on indexes:
   1. the resulting directory-like quality of articles, which conflicts with WP:NOTDIRECTORY
   2. the resulting lack of characterization of journals, so that an indexed FRINGE-spewing journal is described pretty much the same way as an indexed run-of-the-mill academic journal

We have managed to address #1 to some extent, but there has been no progress on the other one nor the two problems that flow from it.

User:Randykitty's post above laid the groundwork for dealing with #2 and discussed 2.1, but not 2.2.

The discussion above by members of this project has mostly been reacting to jps, who is acting like the fence-storming activist. In the context of everybody's limited time and energy, jps would you please cool it, and would members of this project please focus on the remaining issues?

In my view, the following need to happen for the status quo to remain mostly intact:

1. The essay needs to address 2, 2.1, and 2.2
2. WP:RS needs to be amended to include indexes as reliable sources
3. WP:NOTDIRECTORY needs to be amended to allow the kind of journal articles that exist.

If these things don't happen, this essay should be made historical, as it out of step with the rest of the project. Can we please focus on addressing these issues? Thx. Jytdog (talk) 15:03, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Selective indices are WP:RS for the purpose of determining whether a journal is notable or not, and there is no conflict with WP:NJOURNALS and WP:NOTDIRECTORY. We do not list only trivial information like issns and other trivialities tables of content, list of authors, etc (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Writing guide#What not to include). Even if it were an issue, problems of contents are beyond the scope of notability guidelines and should be addressed elsewhere. But if you want to ammend WP:RS or WP:NOTDIRECTORY, be my guest, I just don't see the need for it.

Concerning the characterization of fringe journals, we go by what WP:RSes say about it. If no one has criticized a journal for being shit, we stick to what has been said about it, and we don't say it's shit because of WP:SYNTH. But I've yet to see a notable fringe journal that hasn't been criticized by an expert somewhere, weather they fail WP:NJOURNALS (e.g. Journal of Cosmology) or pass it (e.g. Acupuncture in Medicine). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:17, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I understand that is your position. I would be willing to try to RS or NOTDIRECTORY but I won't do that until this essay is updated to explain the use of indexes and why the resulting articles are directory-like. I'll note that if I do try and either effort fails, the status of this essay will be damaged. Jytdog (talk) 16:03, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

"I would be willing to try to RS or NOTDIRECTORY"? What does that even mean? Or why does WP:NJOURNALS need to explain "the use of indexes" (at least beyond what we already say "A journal can be considered notable if it can be demonstrated to have significant coverage in the media, or demonstrated to have a significant impact in its field. This is usually verified through the journal's inclusion in selective indexing and abstracting services and other selective bibliographic databases." (emphasis mine) or "why the resulting articles are directory-like" (especially when they are decidedly not directory-like). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:08, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You wrote: "But if you want to ammend WP:RS or WP:NOTDIRECTORY, be my guest,". I wrote: "I would be willing to try to RS or NOTDIRECTORY". I and others have already explained that the use of indexes in this project is idiosyncratic within WP and the reason why they are used needs to be explained so that other people outside your bubble understand it. Your comments are again bizarre and unproductive and I will ask you just not to respond here further, as comments like the one above are just clutter. Your behavior is the exact flipside to jps' and between the two of you we are making no progress. Jytdog (talk) 18:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Well I'm sorry if your inability to write proper English somehow makes me "bizarre" and "unproductive", but "I would be willing to try to RS or NOTDIRECTORY" makes literally no sense. What does "trying to RS" mean? What does "trying to NOTDIRECTORY" mean? As for the uses of indices being idiosyncratic to this project, this is hardly the case. WP:NBUSINESS considers inclusion in lists such as the Fortune 500 or the Michelin Guide to be good enough to establish notability, as does WP:NASTRO which considers inclusion in catalogues such as the NGC Catalogue or Messier Catalogue to be good enough to establish notability. In fact, that WP:NASTRO guideline was modeled after WP:NJOURNALS's selective database/index critera [1]! Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:17, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Looking forward to productive discussion. Jytdog (talk) 18:42, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Apparently not, because this is your boiler plate reply whenever someone disagrees with you, instead of addressing the substance of the argument. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:48, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't know, I guess I could have, um, "ammended" my text, but to anybody reading the discussion in good faith what i meant is obvious. I will implement WP:SHUN with respect to you from now on. Jytdog (talk) 19:11, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Or how about you do a little WP:AFG every now and then and stop pretending the rest of the world can understand half assed English? I have specifically asked to you clarify what you meant, and you've repeated the exact same words. Don't blame your bad faith pigheadness on me. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that Jytdog omitted the word "change" and meant: "I would be willing to try to change RS or NOTDIRECTORY". Whether such changes are necessary is perhaps debatable. As I see it, there are two separate issues. First, are bibliographic indexes RS? All these indexes have stringent editorial control. So, like Headbomb, I am of the opinion that indexes are reliable sources. If they are also selective, then I think that confers notability. That's basic GNG: if several RS discuss a subject in-depth, then it is considered notable. The problem then boils down to the question whether being included in, say, the Science Citation Index or Scopus constitutes "in-depth coverage". If all that these databases would do would be to list tables of contents, then it could be argued that this is not the case. So something like Current Contents is selective and reliable, but it is not in-depth and does not contribute to notability. However, the SCI and Scopus do much more than that. They analyze every journal in minute detail. The particulars are a bit different for the two, but it is important to realize that they do not just calculate impact factors. In addition, they look at things like article influence; which other journals cite a journal being analyzed most; which journals are most cited by the journal being analyzed; what is the journal's citation half-life, how does the journal compare on any of these measures with other journals in the same subject area; etc. That we (and many researchers) do not use all these results is irrelevant. What is relevant is that there is an in-depth analysis. Hence, I think that these selective indexes are RS that discuss a topic (journal) in-depth and, hence, we are meeting GNG. What needs to change, perhaps, is that NJournals should explain this in more detail than it currently does. Next: NOTDIRECTORY. Again, I agree with Headbomb that a journal article prepared according to our writing guide, even though perhaps only a stub, is something much more than a directory entry. We're not talking phone-book here... Finally, somewhere in all the text above the issue has been raised that these articles would be permastubs. Again, I'm afraid that I have to disagree. We have articles on Roman citizens for whom we barely know more than their names (it is assumed -not without logic- that if their names came down to us over two millenniums, these people must have been notable). We also have articles on athletes that competed in the 1900 Olympics and for most of those, again, we barely know more than their names, what they competed in, and how high they ended. It would appear highly unlikely to me that we'll ever get more sources about those people. Now those articles are permastubs: stubs that are unlikely to ever grow into a full(er) article. The same is not true for the journal articles created following our writing guide. Any journal that is currently in existence ca at any time become the subject of significant coverage, even though there is no way of knowing when (or even if) that will happen. Granted, usually such coverage means that something went wrong with the journal (fighting editors, accepting rubbish articles, etc), but that is not the point. The point is that sources may be forthcoming in the future, hence these are not permastubs.

Now does this mean that I think NJournals is perfect and should stay as it is? No, it doesn't. To start with, I think we need to do a better job to explain why selective databases are RS. Other details also need to be looked at again, such as the "historical purpose". I think that to argue that something has a historical purpose, you need at last one good source that says so, it should not be an editorial judgment of a WP editor. But if such sources exist, then the journal meets GNG, so I think it is superfluous and should be scrapped. There's the remark about evaluating in how many libraries a journal is held. That measure is rather dubious for open access journals (libraries only need to add a link to their webpage and, presto, they "hold" the journal). Even for subscription journals this is not always meaningful in this age of bundled package deals (libraries have to take some journals they're not interested in, in order to get those that they really want for a lower rate). In addition, in my experience WorldCat (the main source for this kind of data) is highly unreliable. However, all these things are details. The main issue is that of whether or not we accept indexing in selective databases as in-depth coverage in a reliable source or not. I give my arguments above, let me hear what you think. --Randykitty (talk) 18:56, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Disagree on CC not counting towards notability. Indepthness of coverage is not an issue if selectivity is good. You just can't use CC as a source to write anything except that the journal is in CC, since they don't do any other analysis, whereas being in JCR will give you the impact factor, which as flawed as it may be, is an actual measure of impact in concrete term (likewise for the SCImago Ranking of Scopus, etc.). So while CC does count towards establishing the notability of a journal, it would not add content, and a journal only being in CC would likely mean there's so little to write about it it might not appropriate for a standalone entry per "It is possible for a journal to qualify for a stand-alone article according to this standard and yet not actually be an appropriate topic for coverage in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject.". Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

BTW, Randykitty (talk · contribs), I think you're going off an old version of the guideline concerning history. The current wording is "Criterion 3: The journal is historically important in its subject area.", whereas the old wording was "Criterion 3: The journal has an historic purpose or a significant history." Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:33, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Ah, my poor memory. But that new phrasing doesn't really change my point, I think. For a journal to be judged "historically important" there need to be soruces that confirm this. --Randykitty (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, yes. That's why we have the remark that passing C3 pretty much means passing WP:GNG directly. It is a tighter language than before, however, so whereas one could argue "but this journal was meant to do X" (purpose), now one needs to show that a journal actually did X (historical importance/impact). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:21, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in Randykitty. The last paragraph is helpful. To get things rolling would you please propose language that explains the use of indexes in this essay? thx Jytdog (talk) 19:08, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with most or all of what Randykitty says. However, to make this line of reasoning clearer in the actual essay / failed guideline / whatever it is, maybe we could replace the text about having a citation index being a marker of automatic notability? The actual marker of notability should be the in-depth report on the journal prepared by these indexes. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

For C1 this has mostly been addressed. What used to say "always qualifies" currently says "usually qualifies"

history of changes
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
first by Hbomb changed to read "usually" then then by Guy changed to " is likely to indicate that the journal is notable" then by Steve Quinn here back to "always" (zoiks) then here by me back to " is likely to indicate that the journal is notable" then by Steve Quinn here to "usually qualifies (in other words, this is a likely indicator of notability)." after a bunch of fuss, buy HBomb here to "usually qualifies"

-- Jytdog (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

A question since I cannot access either Scopus or SCI: how much of the information given is generated by a human directly, and not simply the result of database searching? This to me makes a big difference - if its just a database result, that's primary information and not a secondary source. If there's actual human analysis of the results, that's different, that shows transformation of information that makes it a secondary source and at least a reasonable starting point for notability presumption. --MASEM (t) 19:35, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I have no idea, but who exactly performs the analysis is hardly something that should make a difference. What algorithms to use is decided by humans. What data to run the algorithms on, and which to exclude is decided by humans. Which journal is included in the analysis is a human decision. That's what matters. That's the point of using selectiveness as the criteria of notability, as opposed to analyses done by say Google Scholar, which aims to be comprehensive. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:43, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@DGG: however, would probably know for sure, and have more information there. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:44, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Just briefly: there's human involvement. One of the criticisms on the IF is that the IF as reported by the JCR cannot be reproduced using the SCI data. The reason for this is that the raw SCI data are curated by editors (to weed out errors, get a clearer count of numbers of "citable items", etc. While this is a source of criticism, it is also an indication that this is not simply a computer program doiing standard calculations (even though that certainly is part of it) but that there also is significant human intervention. No more time for more right now... --Randykitty (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

It absolutely matters who or what is making the report and by what means. Secondary sourcing requires a transformative step that cannot be done by a computer algorithm, and requires human expertise to make certain leaps of logic. If SCI or Scopus only use computer programs to scour databases, that's not a secondary source. And if per RandyKitty, that SCI's results are only to eliminate outliers prior to the algorithm , that's still a problem with SCI not ending up as a secondary source. We're looking for a human to say something along the lines of "why" the results are important. --MASEM (t) 20:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Every bit of human analysis can be performed by a computer. If I take the FFT of a signal manually, or ask a computer to do it for me, the results will be the same regardless of who actually did the calculations. If I tell a machine "use this data, exclude this one, use this algorithm" etc., the analysis is just as valid if no computer were involved. That a source is primary or secondary is besides the point. JCR is the primary source for the IF (which is perfectly allowed per WP:PRIMARY), but is a secondary source for notability, since the JCR is independent of the journal. That the IF was calculated by a human or a machine is besides the point, because to analyze that specific journal was a human decision. Experts, not a machine, decided a journal should be analyzed because knowing its impact on the field was deemed important (again, by humans). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

First, there are things about human analysis that cannot be done by computer, such as synthesis of thought. We're not expected a secondary source to be based on human analysis only - it can be augmented by computer analysis, but still requires the human to have come to some conclusion or novel thought about the results beyond what the computer said. Selecting which data to use, in a manner of outlier elimination, does have some human insight in this case (since we're talking more semantic than numerical data so outliers can't be calculated easily), but we're still concerns on the end data and the human analysis on that. In terms of primary vs secondary, you are describing more the difference between first and third-party - the journal is the first-party, JCR the third. Primary sourcing can come from third-parties, such as one just reprinting results of a database like IF (it seems in this case). Secondary needs that transformation of thought.

Now, to take the argument that some decision was needed to decide that a given journal was to be analyzed by the IF or other algorithm, okay, but then what we from the encyclopedia (outside the world of information science) is why that was the case, so that we know where that journal fits into the larger world picture from a layman's view. And unfortunately , it doesn't sound like this reasoning is published by IF or others, they have just determined internally "this is an important journal, we'll analyze it". That gives us no help in writing an encyclopedic article on the journal. On the other hand, if there is even a paragraph snippet that explains their logic for inclusion, great, that's secondary sourcing we need - not the actual index but that reasoning. --MASEM (t) 20:45, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• The analysis necessary for determining notability in WP articles cannot be performed by a computer. In this particular field, it requires human judgment at multiple stages. First, to see if the journal is in a field where JCR is relevant--I see the above argument does mention this, but it does not mention the situation in many fields where it is relevant but not decisive.. . Second, to compare it with other journals in the same field--the JCR algorithms for field cannot be depended on, and the relevant level of IF for importance of a journal varies widely by field. Third, to determine if the IF calculation has correctly classified in each instance what counts as a source article for which to do the calculation (I note that ISI and Scopus do this quite differently, and there is no general rule to decide which one is better. ,Fourth, to determine the extent to which the nature of the contents -- review articles in particular--has been allowed for -- ISI gives only a partial indication. (It is possible to determine this in some cases from the distribution of values in the summary statistics, but in general, it requires re-analysis of the primary data. Fifth, to asses the likelihood that the data for the journal is a fluke--errors have happened and been corrected, so it can be safely predicted there are also errors that have not yet been corrected. This is just a preliminary list of the problems--with some more time and a little research in the extensive literature on the validity of IP calculation I could identify many more. I've been doing journal selection for libraries since the introduction of JCR, There is no fully automatic way for analyzing intellectual production in a meaningful way, and this will remain the case because some of the factors are no quantifiable, with some of the even being subjective. The availability of IF data is a wonderful tool, for use by people who understand the technique and the conceptual and social universe with which it operates. DGG ( talk ) 05:21, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks very much to DGG and Randykitty. So, Jaytdog and Masem - this seems to be the kind of context you are both looking for, to help explain this project's notability criteria. Also, it seems to provide a satisfactory explanation for how the IF is an important tool for determining notability on Wikipedia - for those who do not regularly contribute to this project.

A point I wish to bring up is - as a contributor to this project I do not appreciate characterizing this project's academic journal aritcles as part of trivial directory. This appears to be an erroneous view. A lot of work goes into creating one article, including having to determine if it will make the cut. It may only take an hour or a little more to create a stub, but the author has to pay attention to detail - because every author has to answer to the other editors in this project.

There is important information in each journal article - in particular, its scope, its impact, the publisher, its homepage, the location of published journal articles online, where it can be found in the Library of Congress, and so on. These are important reference materials for our readers and, I am guessing, for some researchers. These are not trivial creations. Steve Quinn (talk) 05:52, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

No one is calling information about journals as "trivial". But they do mostly fail the basic notability guidelines we expect for most other topics, showing how the journal is relevant the world at large and outside the field of information science. Does this mean we shouldn't cover these journals? No, but just not in standalone articles. It is completely fair that each (non-junk) journal should be a clickable blue link which at least links to the publisher's page and givens sufficiently basic details about the journal. We just can't make the special case that just because it is cataloged in a citation index that that automatically presumes we can write a GNG-capable article. I've also pointed out that there can exist a place to have more details on journals on the sister projects where it might make more sense since this data is less encyclopic and more, well, data-ish. --MASEM (t) 06:15, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, I don't agree with you on not having standalone articles. And I don't agree that journal articles should be reduced to clickable blue links. And we can make the case, and have effectively made the case - that since it is indexed in selective databases and demonstrates an impact in its field we can, indeed, write a GNG-capable article. Because it is an article that satisfies GNG already.

As has been stated at least several times before - selective database listing = independent reliable sourcing. Furthermore, selective indexing = reliable, independent published sources per WP:RS. Significant impact is a mantra on Wikipedia for helping to determine notability - so this project is not different. Several other projects have been mentioned by Headbomb that use indexing of some sort as well. So, again this project is not different from any other.

I was under the wrong impression about your point of view. I erroneously thought you were modifying your position. I see that is not the case. Lastly, I don't think the sister-project idea is going to work - at least not for me - and I think I am not alone. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 06:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Steve Quinn , again see RandyKitt's section above here where it is really clear that if regular GNG, with normal sources, applied, there would be like five journal articles in WP. Instead there are very many, each sourced to indexes and essential a catalog entry. yes, a directory entry. That is what you all do here. Which is not trivial work. At all. Being a librarian is a real job. But that is what it is, and needs to be brought into harmony with the rest of WP.

And with regard to explaining, no - highly technical talk buried here on the Talk page is not what is needed. What should happen, is an explanation about why NJOURNALs relies on indexes and indexes do, be made part of the essay so that when people come to read it, it actually explains what is going on here, instead of assuming it. This will be better for everybody, including people who try to create new journal articles that get put up for deletion. Jytdog (talk) 08:51, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Our journal articles are not directory entries in the sense of WP:DIRECTORY, and it would be productive if you stopped claiming they were. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:42, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

can we please focus on the key next step, namely including a discussion of indexes as sources in the essay itself? Thx Jytdog (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to make lists

I think that the members of the Journal WikiProject are being honest that they believe that journals are notable when they are indexed by what they think are selective indices. I think, however, that if the articles about obscure journals are all pro forma, it would help us to look at what a list article would appear as. I can imagine a list such as List of indexed medical journals to be very useful. We don't even have to make the decision right now whether to redirect to the list article or have stand-alone (which I would prefer to be case-by-case), but I think such a list would be good to have.

jps (talk) 15:50, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

We have List of medical journals (see Lists of journals for others). All journals are indexed somewhere, so there's no point in having such a list. If the point is to have one list per selective index, then those would have such high overlap that they would be merged to List of medical journals. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:25, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Making lists would, as far as I can see, make it so much more difficult to keep out non-notable journals or to clearly signal bad ones, which I think is 9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS's main concern. To be included in a list does not necessarily imply notability. So what would there be to prevent, say, OMICS Publishing Group, from inserting their journals in such lists? How would pseudoscience journals be clearly discussed? A list simply has no place for all the info that we include in those much maligned stub articles on journals, let alone any discussion on the quality of one journal or another. Regardless on how you'd organize such a list (by publisher, by subject...), they would be unwieldy long. In my opinion, the current system is vastly superior, even though perhaps not flawless. It makes it possible to present all available info on a journal and to add any information that may become available at some point (perhaps somebody writes an article or book chapter on the history of a field, including a discussion on the influence of the journal on that field, or, less positively, editors fight and resign or some bad editorial decisions are made and generate third-party coverage). --Randykitty (talk) 17:08, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

List can contain some basic information. It can say where the journal is indexed. It can say if it in Bealle's List. It can say when it began to be published. We should have a way of identifying the journals in a field, and they are a better way than using only categories, which is the only alternative, and give no information whatsoever. DGG ( talk ) 17:52, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Lists that exist in mainspace should not discriminate against "bad" journals by exclusion, though if there are sources that call them out, that can be noted in this list; our sourcing requirements should be a behind-the-scenes thing and not reflected in mainspace. But in the desire to meet WP:RS, separately in WP space there can be white/blacklists of journals that can be used as RSes. --MASEM (t) 18:01, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Can you please clarify that, lists in WP space that can be used as RS? --Randykitty (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I think they meant that some journals can be RS, and we can list in WP space the ones that can and the ones that can't. Not that the WP list is itself a RS. Not that that does any good to the Wikipedia readers — WP space is only for editors. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

That's what I mean. I do not know what exists already in the various sciences, but for example, at the video games WProject, we have WP:VG/S, an internal, behind the scenes list of sources we've vetted for reliability based on our personal consensus as WP editors. What's in this list does not affect any of what is put into mainspace (sites we've deemed unreliable like VGChartz still have mainspace articles), outside of sourcing. Similarly, you may have a WP-space list that blacklists junk medical journals for very good reason, but if one factually knows the journal is considered, broadly, a medical journal (even if one that published bunk), that should be included in the mainspace list of medical journals. --MASEM (t) 20:14, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussing indexes as sources in the proposed essay

It seems to me, Jytdog provides a view from the outside, which maintains three things need to happen - and I interpret this as meaning a compromise is needed. The three goals they stated are:

1. An essay that "needs to address 2, 2.1, and 2.2"
2. "WP:RS needs to be amended to include indexes as reliable sources"
3. "WP:NOTDIRECTORY needs to be amended to allow the kind of journal articles that exist"

Although I don't see the need for an explanatory essay, I think Jytdog's view probably represents a sector of this community that perceives this essay as essential. Personally, I am willing to work with this compromise - on all three goals. However, leaving aside what I am willing to do, please note that Randykitty, Headbomb, and DGG have provided very insightful explanations. Masem and jps have also provided useful information. There might be more on this page.

In any case, from these contributions, I think a very useful explanatory essay can be constructed (and even more than one). This is what I intended when acknowledging Randykitty and DGG at the beginning of my previous post. So, I entreat other interested parties to propose elements of these explanations and counterpoints to begin building a proposed essay. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:12, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

My position is that none of these things needs to happen, that the analysis and selectivity provided by these indexes already qualifies them as reliable and in-depth sources, and that this essay merely codifies that understanding. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:16, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

David I agree with you. This is why I am having a difficult time with this. I think the essay does a really good job of codifing this. However, I am willing to work with others on this as a compromise to other views, and see if this will work. Anyway, I think what you just wrote is the first line that I am proposing for additional explanation. Also, please keep critiquing this as we go along (if you have the time) - I think this would help to keep this idea from going off on a tangent. Thanks. Steve Quinn (talk) 04:12, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Also, it is possible this doesn't have to be written into the actual codifying document. A link might suffice, to the proposed explanatory essay. Steve Quinn (talk) 05:48, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

---

1. So, my first proposal is as follows:

• The purpose of Criterion 2 is to assert (or explain how?) "the analysis and selectivity provided by these indexes already qualifies them as reliable and in-depth sources and this essay (guideline) codifies that understanding".

Should it be Criterion 2 "asserts" or does it "explain how"? Is this for criterion 2? Also, this possibly gives us the kernel central idea, around which we can build our essay. Comments? Steve Quinn (talk) 04:12, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

2. OK here is another proposed element for this essay, quoted from one of the above comments (way above):

• "The actual marker of notability should be the in-depth report on the journal prepared by these indexes." Change this to - "An actual marker of notability could be the in-depth report on the journal prepared by these (highly selective) indexes."

Comments? Also, I suggest that comments related tp a proposed piece of this essay, be made under each proposed piece. Just a suggestion. Steve Quinn (talk) 04:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

3. Well, I am not intending on going to town on this, but I found something else in the above comments that may be useful:

• "Science Citation Index or Scopus constitutes 'in-depth coverage'" - is the beginning of this segment. Below is an edited version, and hopefully a comprehensive version. Some phrases are in quotes and these are derived from the same above comment (paragraph length by Randykitty).

For the purposes of this essay and this project, "Science Citation Index" (SCI) and "Scopus constitutes 'in-depth coverage'". "Current Contents is" considered to be "selective and reliable" and could contribute to notability. The SCI and Scopus" - "analyze every journal in minute detail", "they do not" merely "calculate impact factors.

In addition, they look at things like article influence, which journals are most cited by the journal being analyzed; what is the journal's citation half-life, how does the journal compare on any of these measures with other journals in the same subject area;" and so on. Wikipedia editors do not use all of these results for writing academic journal articles. However, the most relevant factor is that there is an in-depth analysis.

Analysis is achieved by a combination of computer analysis (algorithms) and human judgement, and the human factor governs. --Steve Quinn (talk) 05:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

OK. Comments? ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

What does a SCI or Scopus review look like? Can we use their reviews to write a good article or a featured article? If so how? jps (talk) 21:41, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Jps - I will have to get back to you on this. These are interesting questions. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 08:59, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Steve Quinn thanks very much for engaging. Greatly appreciated. What I am looking for -- what I think would help outsiders to understand how this essay works and its basis - is a brief section actually discussing sources for content about journals and which among them are considered reliable. I proposed language to do that above based on what Randykitty wrote... too much perhaps and people seemed to react super-negatively to the (completely obvious to people outside this project) explanation by Randykitty about how there would be very few journal articles if the kinds of' RS standards that are usually applied, were applied to journals. So an explanation about what indexes are in library science, why they matter, how they are generated (from the discussion above!) an which ones matter and why, would be really, really helpful. I am not challenging the use of indexes -- just asking that it be explained. Jytdog (talk) 04:45, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate Randykitty's willingness and ability to write that. I would not have been able to. But now that he has, I can try to derive some from what he wrote. Regarding WP:RS, I would prefer to not to say Wikipedia's definition of WP:RS is at variance with this project's definition of WP:RS, because there is no discrepancy. I would try to word that differently.

Sources for journal content? First notability has to be determined as a positive by using one of the three criteria. Content can be derived from reliable text (or web) sources that discuss the journal, and content can be garnered from the journal's own description per WP:PRIMARY and WP:NNC - but only after notability has been established. This is where the writing guide comes in. It is common practice to make sure the content that we write about the journal applies non-promotional wording. Like we can't say "the top journal" in its field or the "most rapid publishing" unless there are actual independent reliable text (or web) sources that say this. Steve Quinn (talk) 08:06, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

A brief mention in a commercial database (such as Social Sciences Citation Index) based on completely haphazard and undisclosed criteria does not constitute "in-depth coverage" in any meaningful sense of the term and should not by itself be considered sufficient. These journals should be judged based on the same rigorous criteria as other journals (for example, by being historically important). Furthermore, as the databases in question favour English-language publications to an extreme degree (90% and above) while in many cases nearly entirely neglecting the non-English realm of academic publishing, this would be an example of a systemic bias favouring English-language publications; such databases also tend to favour certain disciplines over others. --Lillelvd (talk) 15:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Lillelvd, those opinions of yours have already been debunked at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norwegian Journal of Sociology. --Randykitty (talk) 16:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I haven't seen them being debunked anywhere, rather the opposite. --Lillelvd (talk) 16:29, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Yes they were debunked! No they weren't! Yes they were! No they weren't! Sigh. --Randykitty (talk) 16:38, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

The 'depth of coverage' in these databases is inconsequential on notability, much like the depth of coverage in the NGC Catalogue is inconsequential for WP:NASTRO. The selectiveness of these indices is what's at play, because selective indices only consider impactful (thus notable) journals. Concerning the 'bias' of these 'commercial' databases, I've yet to hear a real argument there. Yes these cover mostly English journals, yes those criteria are often not explicitly listed on the database homepage, but none discriminate on a journal based on the language it's written in, nor does it change the fact that the Social Sciences Citation Index and others like it are considered authoritative and reliable by librarians and social scientists alike. Most of science and academia is done in English. That doesn't mean science/medicine/literature done in say, Afrikaans or French is bad, but if no one is reading it, no one is citing is, and no one is indexing it, then I have no idea on what basis you would consider that publication to be impactful/important/notable. Even if there were bias, that wouldn't make the journals in the SSCI non-notable, but rather mean that some notable journals aren't in the SSCI. Indexing in selective databases is only one of the ways to establish notability, and if you can show non-indexed journals to be notable via the other ways, that is allowed under WP:NJOURNALS too.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:57, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I do not question that the inclusion of a journal in one of these selective indices is something that can contribute to notability of a journal, but absent of anything else to describe about the journal besides "it sits at #XXX on the SI", it doesn't constitute enough to meet the GNG level of sourcing requirements. Further, there's been no indication given that being on one of these indices assures that GNG sourcing can be found to expand upon that indicing (chances are better, but nowhere close to a virtual guarentee to allow the presumption of notability under a subject-specific notability guideline). This is the walled-garden problem that we've seen before for MMA fighers - the users that want to keep them assure that "but they are very important" and could rattle off win-loss records and bunches of stats to show that, but never could produce sources to show that notability was there. Similar thing is happening here, in terms of putting excessive weight on the indicies while not actually getting to the material that WP articles should be built atop. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

A win/loss record on its own wouldn't got toward notability, but being listed in a list of 'The 500 best MMA fighters' (or whatever authoritative/recognized lists exists in the MMA world) which uses the win/loss record at its criteria would count towards notability. We do note quite clearly however, that "It is possible for a journal to qualify for a stand-alone article according to this standard and yet not actually be an appropriate topic for coverage in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject. Independent, third-party sources must exist for every topic that receives its own article on Wikipedia, without exception (see Wikipedia:Verifiability: "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."). For the routine, uncontroversial details of a journal, official institutional and professional sources are accepted." Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Masem, most everything you just asserted, I see as your opinion. And everyone is entitled to their opinion. And thanks. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 20:19, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• quick note... with regard to indexes and WP:RS - what I have written so far may have mislead folks to believe I am saying that the use of indexes isn't valid, and that the directory-like articles aren't valid either. Policy grows out of practice, and policy needs to change sometimes to catch up with practice. [{WP:RS]] doesn't currently mention the use of indexes as RS and it should do. Part of the reason for including a description of indexes here, is to help explain the background to the wider community when we go to update WP:RS. I would like to hold off on the NOTDIRECTORY discussion til later. One thing at a time! Jytdog (talk) 21:16, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

"Doesn't currently mention the use of indexes as RS and it should do", I'm not necessarily opposed to specifically mentioning indices as being RS, but as of writing, WP:RS is a very high-level overview of what constitutes and RS and what doesn't, with very very few direct examples of "this is an RS" and "this isn't an RS". I don't really where it would mention indices as themselves being reliable sources (or even why it should) when the only specific advice given is a very general one

"Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, or controversial within the relevant field. Try to cite present scholarly consensus when available, recognizing that this is often absent. Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications. Deciding which sources are appropriate depends on context. Material should be attributed in-text where sources disagree."

We however, already mention citation indices thusly

"One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes. A corollary is that journals not included in a citation index, especially in fields well covered by such indexes, should be used with caution, though whether it is appropriate to use will depend on the context."

"In recent years there has been an explosion in new journals of very low quality that have only token peer-review if any (see predatory journals). They simply publish whatever is submitted if the author is willing to pay a fee. Some go so far as to mimic the names of established journals (see hijacked journals).[1][2][3][4] The lack of reliable peer review implies that articles in such journals should be treated similarly to self-published sources. If you are unsure about the quality of a journal, check that the editorial board is based in a respected accredited university, and that it is included in the relevant citation index."

I honestly don't know, see, or understand, how someone could read the current version of WP:RS and conclude indices aren't allowed as reliable sources on whether or not a journal is indexed by that index, or as sources that journals indexed in selective indices are deemed influential in their field. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:50, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

That section does provide a hook, which is very useful, but it is not about reliable sources for generating content about journals nor about the notability of journals under a Notability analysis per se. It is about background work for editors to do while considering sources. Jytdog (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

That's because sourcing and notability are to completely different things, and it is very unnatural to try to somehow merge the two together. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:01, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Notability is to sourcing like gravity is to mass. You are going from unhelpful to completely clueless. Jytdog (talk) 02:40, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed revision of "Basic notabilty" section

What do folks think of the revision below? changes are shown with underlining and strikeouts, then a clean version is below. the goal is to integrate this better with N, and explain that indexes are considered RS, using content from RandyKitty's post above. This is just a draft and I anticipate changes...

Current

Extended content

Basic notability On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article. Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice". Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity—although those may enhance the acceptability of a subject that meets the guidelines explained below. Reliable sources Reliable sources as generally considered by the community 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 qua The consequence of this would be the following. 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 information: what does the journal cover, who is the editor-in-chief, some basic indexing information (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 journal has existed. If we delete these articles, readers would not be able to find even the most basic info on them anywhere on Wikipedia. Therefore, the community has determined that for academic journals, reliable sources for the purposes of notability testing and sourcing include ;No inherent notability Notable means "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice". It is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance". Please consider notable and demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. Major journals are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability; however, smaller journal can be also be notable if they can be considered to be influential in their field. Even if editors personally believe a journal is "important" or "inherently notable", journals are only accepted as notable if they have attracted notice in reliable sources. The fact that an journal exists is by itself not enough to support notability. Hundreds if not thousand of publications can exist in each field, many of them short-lived, while others amount to nothing more than predatory open access publishing scams. A journal can be considered notable if it can be demonstrated to have significant coverage in the media, or demonstrated to have a significant impact in its field. This is usually verified through the journal's inclusion in selective indexing and abstracting services and other selective bibliographic databases. No inherited notability In the sense that a journal has been published, it may have been noted by various entities like the ISSN International Centre and WorldCat, who assign and compile information about serial publications. For the purposes of this guideline, notable means having attracted significant notice in the spirit of WP:GNG. No journal is exempt from this requirement. If the journal has received no or very little notice from independent sources or from the academic community, then it is not notable even though other journals in its field are commonly notable. Likewise a journal published by a notable organization does not necessarily mean that the journal is notable. Likewise, just because the journal is indexed in a bibliographic database does not ensure notability. Several database, like the Directory of Open Access Journals, aim for being comprehensive, and will index almost everything they can, regardless of impact or significance. It is not the job of Wikipedia to needlessly duplicate content in these databases. This guideline does not prohibit the creation or maintenance of list articles that contain information about non-notable journals. However, such lists are still subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability and no original research, and editorial decisions to exclude non-notable journals from such list can apply.

Proposed

Extended content

Basic notability On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article. Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice". Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity—although those may enhance the acceptability of a subject that meets the guidelines explained below. Reliable sources Reliable sources as generally considered by the community 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. The consequence of this would be the following. 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 information: what does the journal cover, who is the editor-in-chief, some basic indexing information (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 journal has existed. If we delete these articles, readers would not be able to find even the most basic info on them anywhere on Wikipedia. Therefore, the community has determined that for academic journals, reliable sources for the purposes of notability testing and sourcing include selective indexing and abstracting services and other selective bibliographic databases. No inherited notability In the sense that a journal has been published, it may have been noted by various entities like the ISSN International Centre and WorldCat, who assign and compile information about serial publications. For the purposes of this guideline, notable means having attracted significant notice in the spirit of WP:GNG. No journal is exempt from this requirement. If the journal has received no or very little notice from independent sources or from the academic community, then it is not notable even though other journals in its field are commonly notable. Likewise a journal published by a notable organization does not necessarily mean that the journal is notable. Likewise, just because the journal is indexed in a bibliographic database does not ensure notability. Several database, like the Directory of Open Access Journals, aim for being comprehensive, and will index almost everything they can, regardless of impact or significance. It is not the job of Wikipedia to needlessly duplicate content in these databases. This guideline does not prohibit the creation or maintenance of list articles that contain information about non-notable journals. However, such lists are still subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability and no original research, and editorial decisions to exclude non-notable journals from such list can apply.

-- Jytdog (talk) 18:41, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I find this way, waaayyyy too rant-y and unfocused. Thought experiments? Whole paragraphs on "reliable sources" just to say that bibliographic indices are indicators of notability? They are not WP:RS (which is about WP:V) about anything, since they (usually at least) do not verify, they are indicators of notability. A complete rewrite of the "basic notability section" throwing out the very basic idea that the academic impact of journals is important? Throwing out "No inherent notability"? I honestly have no idea what this rewrite aim to achieve, but if you want to rewrite anything, I suggest you first address what exactly is it you are trying to achieve with this rewrite.

Now I'm not opposed to clarification where it's needed in the current version, but I'm strongly against what's been presented above. The CORE of WP:NJOURNALS is

• 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.

Whatever leads to this section needs to focus on those criteria. Clarifications can be made in the 'remarks' section, if needed. E.g. 1b) could possibly be expanded a bit, but a whole subsection on databases in the preamble is way unwarranted. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

unconstructive. i look forward to constructive discussion, that specifically deals with the atypical sourcing used by this project. I am sorry you find RandyKitty's description of why the odd sourcing is used here to be "ranty and unfocused". Jytdog (talk) 20:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I swear working with you is the most annoying thing in the world. Unscontructive? You haven't even mentioned what in the world you're trying to address with those chances. "Atypically sourcing"? Hardly, we write our articles following WP:RS. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Likewise. Read the very opening of the post and this entire page. You have your head in the sand and every comment you make here is defensive and unconstructive. This essay is going to change and be integrated with the rest of the encyclopedia. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

That remains to be seen. Because as far as I can tell, the essay is fine as is, and you haven't actually come up with any actual issue with this as far as it being a notability essay/guideline is concerned. There is no head in the sand, only unsupported claims that 'this essay needs to change' for unclear reasons. Clarify those reasons, and we can have a discussion. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:14, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

There are many different established Wikipedians commenting here that something doesn't smell right. You are arguing that you cannot understand what we are saying (though I will grant that we aren't all saying exactly the same thing, many of us are pointing out the broader issue). The problems as I see them are that this essay is (1) being used as a de facto guideline without any wider agreement by the community that it should be so used, (2) is admittedly a divergence from WP:GNG for reasons having to do with sourcing, and (3) being used to argue that any journal that is included in certain "selective" indices (how it was determined that these indices are selective enough for Wikipedia is not explained) or mentioned in Journal Citation Reports is notable enough for a standalone article. In fact, the essay can be interpreted around point (3), but in practice there are a group of editors including yourself who seem to have adopted a categorical stance towards journal inclusion in Wikipedia which brings us back to point (1). For me, it seems like there are many ways to resolve this. We could have a well-advertised RfC where the two different sides state their claims and we see if, for example, we should update this essay to guideline, leave as is, or mark as historical. We could try to add some explanatory text that explains the status quo. We could try to get the text to read less categorically. My guess is that the only approach you are going to even be half-heartedly supportive of is (1), but since these issues have not really been hashed out in a proper way yet, I think you're going to have to give us patience while we decide what the next steps are. It would help if you would assume a modicum of good faith on the part of those who disagree with you, even as I am trying to do so with respect to you right now. jps (talk) 12:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't know what to make of this. I think Headbomb needs to be removed from the discussion. jps (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

We'll just continue to work around them. I do look forward to constructive discussion. Jytdog (talk) 21:13, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I think your desire to add an explanation is good. It makes me understand at least where we're coming from. jps (talk) 21:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

It is completely inappropriate for a proposed notability guideline/essay/whatever to define notability by membership in a specified list ["The result of this would be that only the most notable of journals (such as Science or Nature) would qualify for inclusion in WP"] rather than by actual criteria. Also, that bar is way too high. This proposal is a non-starter for me: so far from reasonable that it's not worth wasting my time discussing the details of why it's no good. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:25, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

User:David Eppstein I don't think you read this carefully or all the way through. It maintains the status quo and just explains why for the purposes of journals, indexes are considered RS for notability - most of it is copied from RandyKitty's excellent post above explaining that. Jytdog (talk) 21:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I think it is perfectly reasonable for me to disagree with a proposal that defends the status quo, even though I personally also prefer the status quo, when I think that proposal is written badly. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

User:David Eppstein and User:Randykitty.... David, do you disagree with what Randykitty wrote here? Assuming David doesn't disagree, would one one of you please propose some language explaining the different way that RS is defined for the purposes of this essay, and explaining why? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I wish there was some explanation that was understandable, though. Basically, I think this page is written as a means to allow for inclusion of a certain critical mass of journals. The idea is that such articles would be written to explain basic and simple information about the journal, its publication, and what its stated editorial philosophy might be. The question I have is, why standalone articles? The argument has been offered that a list would be too ungainly. That may be true, but I read many of the articles on journals that are kept and have to just blink my eyes. They don't do much more than reproduce the about section on the journal's actual webpage. How is this WP:NOTDIRECTORY then? jps (talk) 21:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

A stub that just copies the publisher, ISSN, and scope of a journal is not worth keeping (example: the current AfD target APL Photonics). But a stub that covers the history and impact of a journal, with sources, should be ok. For instance, I think the stub on Mathesis (journal) (a somewhat obscure and now defunct mathematics journal, but sourced to four reliably published independent references about other topics that provide some detail about its history, one more source that appears less reliably published, and one catalog entry) is non-problematic. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:55, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

A statement like that would be fantastic. jps (talk) 22:36, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

A statement like that would be utterly wrong. We do not delete stubs because they lack content. That's what a stub is: an underdeveloped article. We delete things because they are non-notable. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:36, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

We do delete stubs that lack evidence of importance towards notability. --MASEM (t) 02:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• I think it is constructive. A bit wordy. Fundamentally, this page needs to choose between being a guideline or an essay.
• The three criteria are fine. It is Wikipedia:Notability_(academic_journals)#Remarks that goes off the rails. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Re:jps Most of those articles are at the stub level and could be expanded by following WP:JWG. WP:NOTFINISHED applies in many cases. The information on a journal is in many ways like information about some random astronomical object. A lot of what's important about a journal is the basic stuff (same for a galaxy). Picking NGC 17 randomly, you could argue that all this is WP:NOTDIRECTORY. It's just a list of basic facts about the galaxy, its physical properties, who observed it, etc. But there are two types of "directories" ones like this and ones like [2]. WP:NOTDIRECTORY takes the stance that Wikipedia is not the second kind, we do not just list indisriminate information, and uncurated collection of facts (e.g. we do not give tables of contents, lists of authors, etc. (see WP:JWG#What_not_to_include). Being the first kind of directory is perfectly acceptable. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:54, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The crucial difference between articles about galaxies and articles about journals are the plethora of reliable sources beyond NED or atlases which discuss galaxies. If we had as many papers written about journals as we do about galaxies, we wouldn't be having this discussion. jps (talk) 22:36, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Stop shifting the goalposts. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

LOL! You mentioned galaxies, not I. All I'm saying is that it would be nice if we had papers written about journals. But we don't, so here we are. :) jps (talk) 11:16, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• The GNG may be the way the world sees notability of most topics, but it does not match the way the world sees the notability of journals. As the main communication media in the sciences and hard social sciences, those people who are concerned about journals know perfectly well what it important, and we need only show it. The importance of a journals is basically that it publishes important articles--that;s the basis of its existence, and without that nobody would read it. Important articles are articles that hare heavily cited, and therefore the Journal Citation Reports works very well to match the real world for those fields it covers (it doesn't work for niche field, or the humanities, or non-English titles--these are all harder problems. (The Scopus covers some of this, especially for European languages)

There is more than a stub to be said about a journal. Relevant information includes its publishing body or succession of publishing body, its title changes, the sequences of the editors in chief (of critical importance here because e-i-c of a major journal alll by itself is sufficient to meet one of the standards of WP:PROF), the famous authors it has published, the individual famous articles it has published, the changes in availability by ejournals and then open access of various types. A full analytical article on a journal is quite complicated, which is why there are relatively few quotable studies, but the verified information can none the less be given. (Third part indexes and catalogs provide the verification). Some day after I get free from arb com I may write a few. DGG ( talk ) 10:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Might I make a request? I would like it if you would choose one of the fringe journals that have lately been kept to do this on first. I would like to see if you can find a way to properly contextualize, for example, a journal whose editor in chief was sued by his state medical board for dubious practices related to the very "alternative medicine", the same subject he is supposed to be expertly editing. jps (talk) 14:29, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

that is a somewhat different problem--how to handle subjects not notable except for something negative. There's also the possibility that the person is indeed an expert by the standards of his field, so how to handle alt med is yet another special case where there is little agreement. When I do this I will do it for ordinary journals. DGG ( talk ) 21:08, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Request moved below for a fuller discussion of how fringe journals should be discussed. Mostly to avoid the trolling seen below. jps (talk) 16:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The talk page makes it fairly clear that the sourcing of that specific claim is what's the issue. If this is as you say indisputably true, it should be straightforward to provide as source that meets WP:BLP standards, (or can explain why casewatch.org is the same as Quackwatch, or whatever). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:52, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Off topic, take it to Talk:Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine

I'm not sure about that, Headbomb. Well, I mean, it's just plainly true that casewatch and quackwatch are the same group, but I'm not in the mood to have that eye-rolling-ly obvious discussion. On the other hand, it's questionable as to whether it is BLP-worthy inclusion because, crucially, the journal is so obscure it could come across as a petty and coatracky hit piece to point out the quack-i-tude of the EIC. Just because something is true doesn't mean it belongs in an encyclopedia. That goes for BLP issues as well as journals which are obscure in spite of being included in all the fanciest of indices. jps (talk) 03:52, 10 January 2017 (UTC) "but I'm not in the mood to have that eye-rolling-ly obvious discussion." Then don't complain about good faith efforts from other editors. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:27, 10 January 2017 (UTC) Eh, WP:CIR, you know. It's pretty easy to click on the about page of casewatch. jps (talk) 16:57, 10 January 2017 (UTC) And when you click that link, a competent editor who knows how to read carefully will learn that one of the people behind Casewatch is also involved with QuackWatch. Apart from that, there doesn't seem to be any connection and nowhere on the "About" page of CaseWatch is it claimed that they are part of QuackWatch. --Randykitty (talk) 17:48, 10 January 2017 (UTC) More than one, my dear kitty. If you and Headbomb cannot figure out that the two websites are connected, I am very discouraged that you two are running the Journals WikiProject. jps (talk) 17:54, 10 January 2017 (UTC) Neither I nor RK removed that source, you're looking at an edit made by StAnselm for reasons they detailed on the talk page. I neither condone, nor condemn the edit, and would very much like it if you stop ascribing to us the opinions and edits of others. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:41, 10 January 2017 (UTC) There are two biosketches on the about page and only the one for Barrett mentions QuackWatch, my dear 9SGjOSfyHJaQVsEmy9NS. I would think that someone who is very active on keeping fringe science out of WP would know the difference between "connected" and "the same". That QuackWatch is an RS does not mean that another site, even if there's some personal overlap, is so, too (it was "QuackWatch" that you claimed in your edit, wasn't it?). --Randykitty (talk) 18:01, 10 January 2017 (UTC) You are making a fool of yourself. E-mail Barrett yourself and see how he prefers to describe the relationship between the two domains. Or maybe check the third-party sources about it. As I said, eye-rollingly obvious. jps (talk) 18:08, 10 January 2017 (UTC) If you think that emailing somebody and asking their opinion is an acceptable source on WP, you really need to read up on what constitutes acceptable sourcing. And saying that one website is a "sister site" to another one still does not make the sister site the same. You incorrectly wrote that QuackWatch said something. If your approach to creating reliable encyclopedic content is "it's a sister site and one person contributes to both so I can call it QuackWatch even though it's CaseWatch", then, for once and very exceptionally, I'll roll my eyes and tell you that the person making a fool of himself is you. --Randykitty (talk) 18:31, 10 January 2017 (UTC) You really are tiresome. If I didn't know any better, I would guess that you are somehow connected to the journal publishing business. But that wouldn't be right, would it? jps (talk) 18:38, 10 January 2017 (UTC) Because I try to be exact in what we write here and am a stickler for being correct, that makes me perhaps tiresome for people that cut corners, but how that would connect me to the journal publishing industry is beyond me. But your superior intelligence keeps surprising me, so perhaps I'm missing something yet again. I'm sure you'll explain it at length. --Randykitty (talk) 19:34, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Piotrus' thoughts

It seems I missed this very interesting discussion. Having caught up on it do some degree, here are my thoughts:

• regarding the current C1-C3 notability criteria:
  • I fully agree with C1 as worded right now, however "Examples of such services are..." is not acceptable. We need a comprehensive list of which indexes are sufficient for establishing notability.
  • I am not particularly fond of C2. It is too vague, and few people except <10 Wikipedians very familiar with this area will be able to use it efficiently. For the sake of an argument, I would like to ask if anyone can think of a frequently cited journal that is not indexed in database that fulfills C1? The only way I can think this could remain is if we can produce data on h-index for a given field, and agree on a cut-off point dividing notability from non-notability. Such h-index data could be presented in the "list of journals in foo field" articles. Without a clear number, I believe C2 is not useful (too easy to abuse).
  • As noted, C3 is redundant to WP:GNG, and I see no need to keep it.
• I agree that "WP:RS needs to be amended to include indexes as reliable sources", through it should only see the indices that meet C1 as reliable. Again, we need a comprehensive list of reliable indices.
• I agree that "WP:NOTDIRECTORY needs to be amended to allow the kind of journal articles that exist". There are other precedents - ex. monuments and objects of cultural heritage, about which we can barely write more than 2-3 sentences. This is however a discussion that would be better held at the talk of WP:NOTDIRECTORY.

--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:48, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

The point of a guideline is that it's a guideline, not a rule. Most of the specifics are best tackled on a given AFD debate, and whether or not something is 'selective enough' can't be addressed in bulk except in the clearest of cases, which are those mentioned. Compare to WP:NASTRO, which lists 4 catalogues (HR, Messier, Caldwell, NGC), out of the many that exists. We can expand the list to give a few more examples, but there are myriads of selective indices. Is ADSABS good enough? In most cases yes (as far as astronomy journals are concerned), but sometimes no (it indexes things other than journals, such as technical reports, monographs, preprints, books, etc.). "Cited often enough" is deliberately vague, because what is "often enough" depends on the field. If you can demonstrate it's cited often, and people agree, then it's good enough, and the article is kept. If people don't agree, it's not good enough, and the article is deleted. This is a feature of the guideline, not a bug. Having an arbitrary h-index cutoff ignores that this greatly varies by field, and with journal age. A 80 year old medical journal with an h-index of 30 is much less impressive than a 4 year sociology journal with an h-index of 30. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:46, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

@Headbomb: The myriad of indices should not be a problem. Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games created a page that lists and analyzes myriad of video games ources: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources (please look at this list, it is IMHO very impressive piece of work). I have never heard of ADSABS, but I see you know something about it - so you could make this comment on the list. If at some point you stop contributing to Wikipeia, we may lose our only editor familiar with this indice; and even now, can you be sure you can find all discussions that mention it and make such a comment if needed? If we have a list, you could share your knowledge of that indice there, and it would be easy for editors in all future discussions to refer to it and see if this indice is good or bad. Therefore I think it is totally feasibly to create such a list and to make all future AFD discussions easier by having a definite answer of whether being indexed in FOOINDEX is enough or not. If Video games fans can do it, so can we :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:18, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

ADSABS is known and used by virtually everyone remotely connected to physics and astronomy. I'm not against building a list of indices in general (would make a good addition to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Academic_Journals/Resources), but I'm against enshrining that list in policy. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Progress on guideline?

Has there been any progress on this fake guideline? Either make it a proper guideline, or make it an overt opinion page that asserts nothing by fiat as essays should be, or give it up and tag as {{failed}}. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:50, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Do you have something constructive to say? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:14, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

The status quo is pretty poor. Something needs doing. Denial is not productive. I have suggested merging journals, guidance for mention in table or list articles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:21, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I was reminded by Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Journal_on_European_History_of_Law_(2nd_nomination). This essay remains cited, but devoid of credibility or usefulness. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:14, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

The guideline isn't fake, and enjoys wide support. It may or may not have wide enough support to reach official guideline status, but it definitely wide enough support to remain useful and used as the best de facto guidelines in discussions on journals. So right now, we have the status quo. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:32, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

No, it's not fake, yes, it is currently the best there is. It's not very good. If it enjoys wide support, let's put it back through the {{proposal}} process. As an "essay", it is getting away with being sloppy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:11, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

It is not "sloppy", no. The only time there's an "issue" with this page is when people want a certain journal to get special treatment. It's most often because there's a journal being deleted because of it. This case often involves COI-people, like editors or authors that often published in the journal which thinks that by not having an article on the journal, it means their scholarship published in the journal is sloppy. We specifically mention that reliability (quality of scholarship) does not imply notability, and vice versa.

We occasionally get accusations of 'western/English' bias, but I never found this to check out (e.g. in this case, people have said 'European law journals' are niche, which is completely laughable). I'd be more than happy to have articles on Kenyan sociology journals published in Swahili, if it can be demonstrated via sources that this journal is notable. You will likely not be able to do this via 'Western' indices, but that doesn't exempt you from providing sources to demonstrate that notability in the first place. The guideline more than allows for this possibility.

Occasionally people object because a journal is kept because of it, which usually stems for an ideological battle against pseudoscience/poor scholarship, who thinks academia is compromised when we acknowledge that shitty scholarship can be impactful.

When there's disagreement on how to interpret the guideline as too restrictive (most of the time) / too permissive (occassionally), that pretty much tells you it's pretty near the sweet spot. When disagreements happen, the solution is not to WP:TNT the thing, it's to look at the core idea: has the journal been demonstrated to be impactful? If you can show this, the article should be kept. If not, the article should be deleted (or merged, which is often a better outcome than deletion). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:27, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree. And I like your edits. I think the way forward is to get this page recognised as a guideline. I like the notion of merging non-notable (non-impacting) journals to their publisher. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:38, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

The semester is ending here (and I suspect for a great deal of people at WP:JOURNALS), and I'm currently working on WP:JCW and [3]. Gimme 2-3 weeks and I'll be able to free some time to write a proposal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:47, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

• User:David_Eppstein, noting Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Journal_on_European_History_of_Law_(2nd_nomination). I think it is a verifiable worthy topic to cover, but not worthy for its own article. It needs somewhere to merge. What is your opinion? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
  • My opinion is that (although you voted to keep in the AfD and your side won) the new suggestion to merge comes across as an attempt to re-litigate the decision. I didn't participate in an AfD and haven't formulated an opinion on the notability of that specific journal, but the only plausible merge target is European Society for History of Law, a redlink listed within the article. But there's currently nothing to merge because that society's article doesn't yet exist, and in general notability of academic societies has many of the same issues as notability of academic journals (lots of people belong to the societies and use their journals, few reliable sources actually write about them in any depth). —David Eppstein (talk) 00:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
    • I'm definitely not here to try to win something. "What to do with non-notable journals" is an interesting question. To date, notability of a journal has not been well defined, with much of this "essay" incompatible with normal principles of Wikipedia-notability. But it shares something with WP:Prof. Non-wikipedia-notable journals includes niche impactful journals, fringe journals, fake journals and money making scam journals. And to keep it complicated, top journals blend into money-making scam journals. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:43, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
      • Yes, I don't doubt your good faith, it's just that a merge request now would seem to be odd timing. Anyway, I think trying to define notability of journals in a way that keeps the legitimate journals in and pushes the scam journals out is not going to work very well. Notability is too different a thing from legitimacy. I think the best we can do is try to keep the major journals in, make sure that scam journals are only included when they have enough coverage to properly source the fact that they're a scam, and not worry too much about whether standards that accomplish those goals end up keeping or excluding the minor but legitimate journals. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:48, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Fake journals

• I know this page is about identifying notable journals, but coming from the other end, how do you identify a fake journal? For example, the International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics. It appear to not be in databases. Please comment at Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Draft:Sukuma_Calendar. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:50, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Beall's List is a good place to start. It's best not to base arguments on journals that are run as complete scams according to Jeffrey Beall. jps (talk) 11:26, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Number 195. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
      • For those with academic backgrounds, you might enjoy that the paper mentioned at the DRv mentioned by SmokeyJoe has a fake doi and the paper has the following as a reference:

        McCarthy & Guinot: Julian Day Number (2013), 91–2, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_day

        Any paper with a reference like that has had no meaningful review. Presumably it means the McCarthy & Guinot reference (no. 5) from Julian day, which is actually a chapter in an edited book, but how it has appeared in this alleged "academic publication" is laughable! EdChem (talk) 12:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

  • For mathematics journals specifically, inclusion or non-inclusion in MathSciNet is a pretty good test. There are occasional unlisted but non-fake journals (e.g. on topics like recreational math) but in general they list the real ones and not the fake ones. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:43, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

As a point of order, these aren't fake journal, these would be predatory or scam journals. Or just low-quality journals. International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics exists, so to say the journal is fake is not quite the right word. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:54, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

A journal which is a scam can be safely called a fake or a phony. jps (talk) 17:59, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't really know what I'm doing on here, but the entry on the "journal of near-death studies" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Near-Death_Studies could use a review to verify whether or not it is legitimate. I find myself highly skeptical from what I'm reading. (anonymous user) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.239.214.11 (talk) 02:44, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Are Nature's subject specific journals notable via this standard

I created a page for Nature Ecology and Evolution and a PROD was added asking for it to be deleted. This journal has published research widely covered in the New York Times and other high profile outlets. The average publication in this journal has an altmetric score higher 90% of published papers with the top 10% of papers in the journal higher in the top 1% overall papers on altmetric. If it were to get indexed by ISI would that all of a sudden make it pass this guideline. --MATThematical (talk) 02:41, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Research gets mentioned in newspapers and magazines all the time. So to answer your question, unless you have couple of sources discussion the journal (rather than simply research published in the journal), that go beyond simply press releases, or can show the journal is indexed in selective database (such as several of the ISI ones, but others exist too), then no, the journal isn't notable. Or at least, isn't notable yet (see WP:TOOSOON/WP:CRYSTALBALL). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

RfC to amend this and related guidelines

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Amending_WP:NMEDIA_and_related_guidelines_to_accord_with_WP:PSCI.2FWP:NFRINGE -- Jytdog (talk) 21:22, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

What databases are and aren't selective?

I think there should be more information on this page about which databases are and aren't selective, as per criterion 1b. For example, I just came across American Journal of Applied Sciences and wasn't sure if it meets this guideline, as it is indexed in some databases, but none that I know are selective (SCI, PubMed, etc.) [4] I'm wondering what other editors think about this issue generally and w/regard to this journal specifically. Everymorning (talk) 20:01, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

According to MIAR, it's in Scopus, which we consider selective enough usually. It's also in Aerospace Database, Civil Engineering Abtracts, INSPEC, Metadex, and Communication Abstracts, although I have no idea about those databases' criteria for inclusion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:48, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Dictionary definition of guideline

user:Headbomb please explain why in this diff it makes sense to cite the dictionary definition of "guideline". Jytdog (talk) 16:38, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Randykitty:, mind restoring the longstanding version while this is being discussed? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:39, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That's non responsive but does demonstrate the kind of GANG behavior that leads the community to nominate projects for deletion. Recorded. Jytdog (talk) 16:43, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: simple: The word "guideline" is what is meant in its common sense, to distinguish from WP:GUIDELINE, which isn't meant. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:41, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

WP:Guideline has a meaning, especially here in a sentence that says "This is a X", a document which is very much in the WP:P&G regime. As you well know. If you wish to have this be a guideline and be able to say "this is a guideline" please put this through the process to elevate it to a guideline. Jytdog (talk) 16:45, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

And "This guideline essay" makes that clear that this is a guideline essay, and not a guideline. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

No, it is tendentious garble. Jytdog (talk) 16:49, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

No, it's the longstanding meaning of these words as written. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:50, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

To get around all of the jargon I tend to use the word guidance when referring to anything like this where I neither know nor care whether it is guideline/essay/explanatory essay/random meanderings which address the point or whatever. Jbh ^Talk 17:11, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

yep that is what i suggested below. Jytdog (talk) 17:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Would be acceptable to me, too. --Randykitty (talk) 17:19, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I could live with guidance, assuming it makes grammatical sense. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:43, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

so this? Jytdog (talk) 17:46, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

More like this (with a few this/these substitutions + grammar tweaks, it was a quick pass). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

once again overselling. This is an essay. Using "guidance" that way is straight down the same "dictionary sense of guideline" smoke and mirrors as where this started. This is an WP:essay. If you want to make it a guideline then do the work to make one. Jytdog (talk) 19:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

There is no overselling, you're simply being obstructionist. You don't apply essays, you apply guidelines (or guidance). Saying "applying this essay" would be like "apply this book". You don't apply a book, you apply the guidelines/guidance contained in the book. Same thing here. As for the smoke and mirrors, you really ought to look in the mirror. Everyone agreed, including you, that "guidance" was suitable, but you now claim it's not because of your downright hatred of the advice contained in this guideline. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:18, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Once again with the twisted semantics. I do not support the oversold version. It is silly and kind of pitiful. And again with the crazy paranoid "you are doing this because you hate it" nonsense. I wrote below that I think this could be a guideline. I oppose promotional bullshit everywhere in WP. It is not complicated. Jytdog (talk) 19:50, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Except for the glaring fact that there is nothing promotional on that proposal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:58, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Jytdog, the banner on top of the page clearly says this is an essay. At one time it was proposed to be accepted as a guideline, so that is the terminology used throughout. I don't see much of a problem with that. At the same time, I don't see much problem with replacing "guideline" with "essay", it won't change anything to current practice. You're both editors that I value highly and it pains me to see you butting heads like this. Jytdog, I know that we disagree about which academic journals merit inclusion. Some people, like DGG, are rather inclusionist (but don't forget those far more extreme people all over WP who think that any journal should be included). Headbomb is somewhere in the middle, I'm more deletionist than either of them. And you are at the other extreme... :-) But we all have several things in common: a determination to keep abusive ("predatory") journals out, keep good journals in, and generally stive to better the encyclopedia. We just differ on where to put the bar. Trying to do away with NJournals completely (which I hope you'll admit is behind your effort to replace "guideline" with "essay") is, in my considered opinion, counterproductive. Instead of fighting about wording, it would be a far better use of our time as editors to clean up the many journal articles that have never been edited by anybody from this project (and a lot of rubbish and promotional stuff is hidden there), or, perhaps even better, to try to come up with notability criteria for journals that are acceptable to all of us, which would make it much easier to get non-notable journals deleted. --Randykitty (talk) 17:00, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
  • The initial change was made by someone else, and it was a good change. And no I have no desire to "get rid of NJOURNALS" which is a horribly bad faith thing to even bring up. But the more you all play the walled garden game like you just did there, the more evidence you give that we should consider it.
  • btw in the lead, "This essay provides guidance about X" would be fine. Jytdog (talk) 17:03, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Come on, don't you remember this? How is it bad faith when I say that you would like to do away with NJournals? And how is it "playing the walles garden game" when I participate in this discussion??? --Randykitty (talk) 17:11, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

That was a reaction to the exact same kind of tendentious behavior being displayed here. Again. Jytdog (talk) 17:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Rather than playing this aspirational game with semantics, why not nominate this to be elevated to guideline status and see if it flies? it might do. Jytdog (talk) 17:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• That seems a reasonable thing to try. XOR'easter (talk) 17:11, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Unfortunately (and I agree that this would be the reasonable thing to do), I don't think it'll fly, based on my experiences of the past several years. Personally, I'd like to have NJournals tightened, because I think that too many marginal journals pass. Some want it tightened even more, basically requiring that GNG is met with in-depth discussions (and not accepting in-depth analyses of, say, citation metrics as such). And then there's a crowd of people who'd like to pull all NJournal's teeth and basically declare that WP:N does not apply to academic journals and that every non-predatory journal should be included (happily forgetting that you'll need sources confirming that a journal is not predatory...). You're welcome to try and I'll participate in the discussion, but I think that's heading to a firm "no consensus"... --Randykitty (talk) 17:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• Personally the fact that it's attacked both as too permissive (by people so hellbent on purging everything predatory/low quality that they're willing to burn good notable content as long as it means predatory is out) and too restrictive (by people hellbent on keeping all legit journals, even if they made no impact) means it's hitting the sweet spot of where it should be. The main issue is people insist on reading this as a rule, rather than guideline, and leave their brains at the door and forget that WP:IAR is a thing. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:40, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

• all WP guidelines (in whatever sense of the word) have meaning only in the manner in which they are interpreted, and effect only to the extent that they are followed. Just as we make our own rules; we do our own interpetation and our own enforcement, and allow our own exceptions. Our interpretations and the enforcement are whatever the consensus decides to do in individual cases. That's inevitable in a system like ours with no formal bureaucracy to enforce consistency.

I have learned ove the years that it is usually not wise to change the wording of long-standing wording of guidelines or policies at Wikipedia. Ther existing wording has its accompaniment of interpretation, which can cause confusion if the wording is modified, and there is considerable risk of unanticipated effects of the changes. If we value consistency andrationality, rather than getting what result wre individually prefer, aa a stable situation is better. Only with some degree of predictability can we realistically evaluate existing problems, or guide newcomers. Speaking for myself, I want to work in a practical way on problems, not reargue policy and guidelines from their fundamental principles every week from now to forwever.   DGG ( talk ) 01:22, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Rolled out an update version, per consensus that 'guidance' is suitable. Other spelling/grammar tweaks piggybacked on it. Also @DGG: you might want to copy-edit that previous post of yours, there's a bit more spelling mistakes than usual. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:03, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

the overselling actually diminishes the credibility of this essay; pitiful really. I won't stoop to dealing with this further. Jytdog (talk) 13:35, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that Headbomb's changes are improvements, even if they are perhaps not perfect. Jytdog, please don't leave the discussion. Instead, could you propose a wording that addresses your concerns (and might be acceptable for other editors here)? Where is this essay overselling and how can we address that? --Randykitty (talk) 14:46, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Notability of reliable sources - new essay

I drafted

• Wikipedia:Notability (reliable sources).

In this documentation I raise the issue of conferring notability to a source to have its own Wikipedia article based on its popularity as a citation in Wikipedia article reference sections. I would appreciate any comments on the talk page.

This could apply to newspapers, academic journals, other periodicals, and databases which are popular as reliable sources that Wikipedia articles cite. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:54, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure on this. I think we should have some "page" equivalent to Special:BookSources for an RS that gets more than 100-1000 uses (and deemed RS), but still doesn't necessitate a stand-alone article. This probably applies a lot to journals. --Masem (t) 16:10, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I moved it to Wikipedia:Notability of reliable sources so it's not confused for guidance/guidelines. It raises interesting questions in general, but I'm not sure if there's anything to be done about any of it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:36, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion of Criterion 1b in relation to the Directory of Open Access Journals

I want to respectfully point out that it is no longer true that the Directory of Open Access Journals is "non-selective". Since 2014 it has been weeding out poor quality journals that do not meet its best practice guidelines . For instance in 2016 it was announced that 3,300 journals had been delisted from it . It is therefore incorrect to refer to DOAJ as "non-selective" when clearly there is a lot of selectivity going on in which journals are DOAJ-indexed and which are not DOAJ-indexed.

May I propose that DOAJ-indexed journals become considerable for notability under Criterion 1b? This would be an important change to improve the global equality of what we consider 'notable'. Both Scopus and Clarivate's Web of Science indexes are well known to arbitrarily exclude the vast majority of South American journals . DOAJ is a little more inclusive of Global South journals, but also still selective of quality journals only. Metacladistics (talk) 11:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

It is still non-selective in the sense intended for this guideline. DOAJ's criteria is basically Open + Non-predatory, regardless of impact. Scopus and Web of Science are selective because they only index (or at least aim to) the top journals. The vast majority of South American journals are not indexed by these services simply because pretty much no one follows them, unlike say Revista Mexicana de Astronomía y Astrofísica or Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas, which are indexed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:04, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

References

Draft:Perth International Law Journal

I came across this draft in the WP:AFC queue. I wonder if members of the project could advise as to notability. As an open-access, student journal, I'm inclined to decline, but wanted to ask here first. --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:07, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Hard to say. The article looks general good, and most law journals/law reviews are student runs, so that's not really a strike against. WP:LAW would have insight here. It might be best to have an article on UWA International Law Club instead, and have the info about the journal there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:34, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you; I asked over at the LAW project. --K.e.coffman (talk) 05:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Is this a policy?

This does not appear to be a policy so it does not seem to be enforceable. It describes itself as an "essay" and is not listed at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines or Category:WikiProject notability advice. Naturally this brings up the question: Why is this essay being enforced like a policy? Invasive Spices (talk) 20:24, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

This belligerant wording suggests that you are in a dispute with someone over the applicability of this essay, presumably over Draft:Biological Invasions being moved to draft space for not making a clear case for notability, and over the suggestion on the draft page that you might look here for ways to make that case. You should be aware that the actual notability guideline (not essay) that would cover this topic, WP:GNG, is much more strict and demands that the journal be described in-depth (not merely by a summary number) by multiple sources that are reliably published, independent of the journal and its publisher, and independent of each other. Currently your draft has zero sources that would satisfy that guideline. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:04, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

:*My phrasing is not belligerant but this reply is, and aggressively does not answer my question. Invasive Spices (talk) 21:10, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

• Did you have an actual question, about this essay? It looked rhetorical to me. If you really mean to ask, why is a certain editor behaving the way they are behaving, then you need to ask that editor; we're not telepaths here. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:17, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Aligning the differing notability guidelines on news media

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability § Aligning WP:Notability (periodicals), WP:Notability (media), and WP:Notability (academic journals). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:21, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Canadian Medical Education Journal

I was directed here regarding the rejection of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Canadian_Medical_Education_Journal wikipedia page. I've checked the criteria, and I believe it meets all of them. Any further insight? Hickeygamez (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

ESCI vs. SCOPUS?

Given that SCOPUS is used to separate selective from nonselective journals, I like to urge the inclusion of Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index (it covered 7800 titles in 2015), and of course also the A&HCI (that is, all citation indexes of the Web of Science Core Collection). From my pint of view there is no justification to generally consider a SCOPUS journal more "notable" than an ESCI journal. oc 16:07, 9 April 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prooc (talk • contribs)

The ESCI is exactly for that. Emerging sources, i.e. sources which might become notable, but which aren't. That's the difference. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:26, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

So in your view the private company Clarivate Analytics decides wheter a journal is notable or emerging? Really? Is that Wikipedian style? I am sorry, but your argument does not work well. The point is selection and both SCOPUS and ESCI are by far not as selective as SCIE or SSCI. That is what I refer to: SCOPUS vs. ESCI (see title), not ESCI vs. SCIE/SSCI. Best, oc 18:18, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

The point is that ESCI is well below Scopus in terms of selectivity, so we don't consider ESCI selective enough. SCIE is also not selective enough, generally speaking, but SSCI will be. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:05, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

SCOPUS

is so selective, that being listed auto-entitles to a standalone article? Meh. ∯WBG^converse 14:10, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

I think C1 needs to be changed. For example: "Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles [...] of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals" I don't know how many journals have an impact factor calculated, but it's a very large number. Are we saying that there are at least 34,346 journals that should have wikipedia articles? Natureium (talk) 19:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't believe it auto-entitles to a standalone article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:52, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

35,000 seems in the right ballpark to me. Also Scopus inclusion doesn't imply an impact factor, that's computed by Journal Citation Reports. Scopus produces the SCImago Journal Rank however. Keep in mind, many of those will be treated as series (e.g. Current Opinion) or be part of a publisher entry instead. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:13, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

This seems to be a frequently asked question: Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(academic_journals)/Archive_2#SCImago. fgnievinski (talk) 16:46, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I went ahead and complemented 1.c based on 1.b: [5]. fgnievinski (talk) 16:58, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Idea for Criterion 4

There are some reliable categorizations of journals by the level of reputation. For example, Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator level run by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science (heavily used by Wikidata) categorizes journals into three levels: ordinary, distinguished, and exceptional. I suggest adding Criterion 4 to verify the notability of a journal quickly if it is in level 2 or 3 without going through the available three criteria, which are subjective and discipline-dependent. MojoDiJi (talk) 12:54, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

That's the same as Criterion 1. If DBRI points to a journal being 'exceptional', that's a clear pass of Criterion 1. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:48, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Headbomb, they're similar but not the same. Criterion 1 covers all specialized sources, but what I suggested is a speedy check through comprehensive lists. It can be implemented in Criterion 1 if establishing that listed at level 2 and 3 of Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator level automatically satisfies C1. I just wish to avoid wasting time over unnecessary and subjective discussions, as I raised the concern on Teahouse over Nano Energy. MojoDiJi (talk) 12:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

My advice is to ignore the teahouse/AFC brouhaha and focus on the AFD. Nano Energy is not in any danger of being deleted. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:10, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb:, it's not a matter of danger, it wastes time and energy of people who could contribute something new instead. MojoDiJi (talk) 14:52, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

You're not going to get 8 billion people to agree on everything. If 8 billion people agreeing is a requirement for your participation on Wikipedia, you're going to have a very very frustrating experience here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:56, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: it has nothing to do with the agreement, it is about clear guidelines. I can legitimately nominate Journal of the American Chemical Society for deletion since the references do not justify the notability (there is not even an independent reference; the first one is not even a proper reference, and the page itself is weaker than Nano Energy). But no sane person would vote to delete this influential journal. It is waste of time. MojoDiJi (talk) 15:20, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Taking that journal to AfD would be a failure of WP:BEFORE. What counts is not the sources present in the article, but the sources that could be in the article. This journal clearly meets NJournals, so taking it to AfD would be as mistaken as taking Nano Energy to AfD (and would be just as successful). --Randykitty (talk) 15:25, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Randykitty: that's exactly my point! We have to reduce such mistakes to avoid wasting the time which can be spent for contributing new materials. MojoDiJi (talk) 15:30, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. Inappropriate AfDs for academic journals are very rare and it takes just a minute to !vote "keep". --Randykitty (talk) 16:09, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Randykitty:, it's not that simple. When I created Nano Energy, an editor moved it to draft space. I had to complain on their talk page to restore the page. It's not an ideal procedure. MojoDiJi (talk) 16:58, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Again, this is because there are 8 billion people on the planet, which can all edit Wikipedia. Yes you can take Journal of the American Chemical Society to AFD. And it would be kept. People are allowed to be wrong, have different opinions, or even be ignorant of current standards. See also Help:My article got nominated for deletion! if you haven't already. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:50, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: then, why do we have protected and semi-protected articles? Because too many edits/reverts are exhausting. Then, why do we have Notability (academic journals) in addition to the general notability? Because we wish to facilitate the process. Let people to be wrong as they like and see how long Wikipedia survive. MojoDiJi (talk) 21:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

So far it's been 22 years and we're still going strong. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:08, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Wikipedia survived 22 years because it followed what I stressed. All the guides, policies, discussions (like this one) reduced the mistakes. MojoDiJi (talk) 23:19, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Google Scholar for C2

Google Scholar (probably the most common resource for citations) is named as a reliable source for verifying Criterion 2.b. However, Google Scholar does not provide the number of citations to a journal (correct me if I'm wrong). Instead, you can find the h-index of journals. I think it should be clarified to help the contributors in finding sources. MojoDiJi (talk) 12:47, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

H-index is what is implied here. If you see several papers with hundreds of citations, it's a highly cited journals. If you see a smattering of citations, it's (probably) not. But because GS is incomplete, that probably not is not a nail in the coffin, since it could still be highly cited/influential, just outside of things that are covered by GS. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:47, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Headbomb, that's my point! If it implies h-index, it should state h-index not citations to journals. Then, Scopus should not be on the list because Scopus reports the number of citations rather than h-index. The purpose of a guide is to lead people to the sources where they can get what is needed. MojoDiJi (talk) 11:55, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

H-index is based on citations to journals. It's one of the many ways of quantifying it, not the only way. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:06, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb:, H-index is not synonymous to citations. H-index is heavily in favor of older journals. The guide should clearly lead people to where they can find h-index and where absolute number of citations. MojoDiJi (talk) 14:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Indeed it's not, and that's why we're not saying h-index, but citations. As for 'favoring older journals' I don't really see what's that got to do with the price of beans, especially if you're bringing this up as a negative. It's not. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:55, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb:, newer journals have a low h-index no matter how influential they are because they have a lower number of papers in a shorter lifespan to have many papers with many citations. MojoDiJi (talk) 15:16, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

If they have a low h-index, then by very definition, they haven't had the time to become influential yet. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:47, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: it is utterly incorrect. New journals can be devoted to new topics and influential in their emerging fields. They should be compared with their counterparts. On the other hand, some most influential journals publish a limited number of papers and their h-index is not as high as their counterparts. For instance, CA with an impact factor of 508 is the exceptionally influential but its h-index is not as high as its impact factor. MojoDiJi (talk) 20:59, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I feel I'm talking past you. Yes, new journals can be notable. Citations won't show this however, and instead in those cases we rely on indexing in selective indexes like JCR (i.e. impact factor) and Scopus (i.e. CiteScore). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:04, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: believe it or not, scientometrics is an active area of research in which researchers are investigating various factors for more than 40 years. H-index, citations, IF, CiteScore or any other factor is not the ultimate answer. Anyhow, this is beside the point. As I said in the first line, a guide should direct people where to find what. It is useless to say citations are a good factor and Google Scholar is a reliable source; h-index is a good factor and Scopus is a reliable source. MojoDiJi (talk) 23:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Except that citations are a good factor and Google Scholar is one of the many possible ways to show that. For example, if GS show an h index of 3, that's not good enough to show notability. If GS shows an h index of 750, showing it is near the top of its field, that's enough.

The criteria are not exclusive. If there's a bias in a certain field, or for a certain journal, that just means GS fails to show notability for that journal. It's not a blocker. If a journal has an h index of 3 in GS, but it's got an impact factor of 12.5, the impact factor trumps the GS.

If you don't understand this, I suggest moving on from the area of academic journals and moving on to something you enjoy editing. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:04, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Is abstracting and indexing useful?

The criteria for the notability of academic journals are much stricter than the conditions for admission to any indexing system. As a result, all journals with standalone articles on Wikipedia are indexed by major indexing systems.

Visually, the largest parge of most journal articles on Wikipedia is the voluminous section of Abstracting and Indexing. I do not say not mentioning them, but is it really necessary/useful to allocate such a large part of the articles for something which is almost the same for all journals? MojoDiJi (talk) 23:13, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

"Almost the same for all journals". It varies a lot from journal to journal. And yes, indexing matters. Indexing is what tells us who considers the journal important. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:38, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: How many journals have a Wikipedia page and are not indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded and Scopus? Only very low level journals cannot get indexed. MojoDiJi (talk) 02:13, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Loads. They could be indexed in Science Citation Index instead. Or they could not be included in any WOS-related indices at all. Take for example Journal of Cosmology, or Journal des savants indexed in neither. Inclusion in SCI/SCIE/Scopus shouldn't be surprising given we use inclusion in either as a (usually) sufficient criteria for meeting WP:NJOURNALS, but there's loads of counter examples and other indices. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:15, 1 June 2022 (UTC)