The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Move to List of important publications in biology (which has slightly more support as an alternative name). I hope those who wanted this article not deleted and recognized the importance of watching it to prevent self-promotion will do so, it's a very important point. Mango juice^talk 16:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of publications in biology[edit]

24.163.65.156 added this AfD notice on the page. I'm making the AfD page for them. This article was previously nominated for deletion, and it can be seen here. I'm nominating this article for deletion under the pretense that this is such a general topic, and has no guarantee of veracity since it says "important publications". Some people might have different opinions about different publications, so this article isn't very factual and can't be verified. --Nishkid64 21:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Delete - This article is far too broad and biased toward certain publications. It is impossible to list all notable biology publications. This is an absurd idea. Also, many articles here are posted by the writers themselves (aka vanity). --24.163.65.156 22:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - It is the subject that is broad. The list of subcategories makes it workable. To be of value it doesn't need to list ALL notable publications, only a few in each area - then it serves as real value to those looking to find more information. SteveWolfer 16:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move to List of important publications in biology or something more specific. Personally I think its a great idea to attempt to list the most important publications in a field - I think it would be very useful to a lot of people. However, there need to be tougher inclusion criteria to prevent an overload of self-promotion. I'd suggest defining the inclusion criteria more strictly, eliminating the "Latest and greatest" option (since a "latest and greatest" idea should be inherently important otherwise and a separate listing may allow people to sneak in cruft because its new. Also, its probably a good idea to delete all the entries that don't establish why they're notable. GabrielF 00:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Making a page List of important publications in biology would violate WP:POV since you would be expressing your point of view on deciding which biology publications are important and which are not. And even if you could determine notability of all publications listing every single 'notable' publication is physically impossible. In my opinion, it would just be best to add a category of Biology publication/literature and then mark all biology literature pages with that category. [This may have been already done, you need to check]. --24.163.65.156 02:02, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Taken too literally, EVERYTHING is POV (isn't it your POV that 'importance' can't be determined except as POV?) We need to focus on value to the readers as well. This can be a valuable source of information. SteveWolfer 16:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Uncontrollable listcruft. Choess 07:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. However, all entries should not be kept if they do not assert importance and users should be free to call for a debate on the talk page about whether an entry should be deleted or not. If consensus can be reached about entries this is an important introduction for people to what are the most important publications in particular areas of biology. --Bduke 08:51, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - then the article will express the POV of several Wikipedians. --24.163.65.156 20:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Just like the results of AFD. Kappa 08:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete per everyone. Danny Lilithborne 00:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: this is something hard to impossible manage without stable article feature and expert overview. It has value but WP isn't yet ready for such articles. Pavel Vozenilek 02:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, more useful than a category because it can explain when something was published and why its important. And yes these things all belong in a category together. Kappa 08:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Rename to Seminal publications in Biology or a more specific name, otherwise delete. While it would be nice to have an annotated list of the key publication, these pages don't seem to do the job, ending up as a rag bag of books by peoples PhD advisiors. There might be a way to make such lists work by making them more specific and being vigriously monitored. Limiting the scope could work, say with one page for key historical works (say 100 years old or more), one for paradime shifting/breakthrough works, one for text books and one for popular science books. p.s. I've just removed all those entries which don't assert importance. --Salix alba (talk) 14:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Rename to Seminal publications in Biology or List of important publications in biology and live with the fact that it will be a conflict magnet and draw lots of 2nd rate books and need lots of attention. It is worth it. Few things are as valuable as a place to discover a good book in the subject area you want. Be firm in deleting entries with no justification or support and mark those in dispute with a letter D (in brackets) to indicate it is in dispute but has multiple supporters. SteveWolfer 16:04, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and do not rename. It's useful as is. ~K 17:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete list cruft that takes too much effort from too many good people to police. It should be a category at best. --Buridan 21:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I think it should stay, they could tighten up the criteria by including only publications that have merited an article for an author, the main theory purported or the book itself i.e Darwin's origin of species would count on all three, some of the others on this page would count on two counts as well. I still think this is an important page as a start for people, even if it doesn't conform to usual Wiki policy, although I think with my suggestion it gets closer. If absolutely necessary I'm sure we could get references that talk about science references in these sort of terms or even reviews in journals and newspapers. Terri G 14:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep (although I wouldn't oppose a rename). It is a useful page. Itub 15:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and possibly rename. Could be of interest to someone looking to purchase a textbook in a particular area. As it's an extremely basic guide to a few key publications in various biological subjects, a large number of people should be able to verify the book/article's importance, reducing the inherent PoV problems. Renaming could be useful; I'd suggest 'basic' or 'fundamental' rather than 'important', as many of these are student texts. Alternatively, it could be split into textbooks and historically significant research articles. Espresso Addict 19:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.