Recommend reinstatement of this edit

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[1] After protection expires, I recommend reinstating this edit. Note that there are three editors acting as de facto owners of this essay, but since it is not a user essay, WP editors are free to change it as consensus dictates.

This edit will make it easier to remove the WP:FRINGE-cruft these three editors have been tacitly and, likely, unintentionally, supporting by allowing Wikipedia to function as a WP:DIRECTORY for journals.

jps (talk) 16:28, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The essay reflects hundreds of deletion discus sions. So far, you have 3 editors that vehemently disagree with it because the community resoundingly endorsed keeping Physics Essays, and instead of writing their own essay, try to undermine this one and change its meaning. And that edit is already covered elsewhere at the very bottom of WP:CRITERIA. Go WP:ABF elsewhere. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:39, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's so vaguely worded that I don't see how it could actually help resolve any deletion dispute in practice; because of its vagueness, it could be read as either redundant with § Criteria or in contradiction with the rest of the essay, neither of which is desirable. Regardless of one's take on the overall situation, I don't think this specific addition works. XOR'easter (talk) 17:51, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree (see below) that this addition to this essay is unhelpful, as it describes a completely contradictory view to the rest of the essay. I suspect the point of view of the editors pushing this change is that we should not ever have essays interpreting GNG, we should just use the bare wording of GNG itself everywhere; if so, perhaps this explains their reluctance to write a separate essay setting out their alternative interpretation. However, such a point of view is not an adequate justification for sabotaging others' essays of interpretation by making them say the opposite of what their proponents are using them to mean. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:08, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with the others. And couldn't dispute FRINGE-cruft more strongly. By Wikipedia standards, our journal articles are well-maintained, mostly by editors with academic experience. They're a public good. When I cite a journal, I check our article on it. I don't have Clarivate access. If an infobox shows a low impact factor, or mass-resignation by the editorial board after pressure to increase acceptance rates, that's helpful info. For Physics Essays, I'd know to look for a better source. (Before you ask: yes, I still dig around, whether or not we have an article). What would deletionism achieve here? Bugger all. DFlhb (talk) 19:22, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@DFlhb, how can we write a neutral article on a subject sourced only to its own website and a couple unexplained metrics? Probably 98% of readers and the vast majority of editors have no idea what being delisted from Scopus or having a very low impact factor or being indexed by Index Copernicus implies since these attributes are not accompanied by any contextualization whatsoever. We wouldn't accept an article on a nonprofit or school or website where literally all of the prose description--including important details like peer-review--is (and can only be) derived from ABOUTSELF. Why should we do so for an industry with well-documented self-promotion[2], reputation manipulation and gaming [3][4][5][6][7], and other abusive business practices?[8] I also used to use our articles on journals extensively whenever I was at an NPROF AfD or evaluating sources on FRINGE pages. This ended during the height of the lab leak lunacy when I saw our article on BioEssays was exclusively sourced to its own website and an index from 2012. That journal published multiple awful lab leak-apologist papers by wholly unqualified authors (like this one by two DRASTIC affiliates--a mycology/botany postdoc and some guy with only a CS bachelor's who is heavily involved in life-extension woo; and this one by a retired genetic databases curator and his extremely unsavory son who proudly states he hasn't taken biology since high school), yet no one would ever be the wiser from visiting Wikipedia because the journal is too minor to be discussed directly in RS, and we can't coatrack in the bountiful criticism of specific papers either.
Further:
  • Inclusion does not correspond to SIGCOV in IRS; the essay proposes a completely separate route to notability than SIGCOV or secondary sourcing, which historically would need an even higher level of consensus than that expected for GNG-based guidelines. Citation indices are also nowhere near selective enough to ensure inclusion even incidentally predicts significant secondary independent coverage.
  • Citation indices are clearly not selective enough to exclude junk journals. If not being listed on Scopus is a red flag for a journal that otherwise appears eligible, then inclusion clearly does not imply a journal is among the best in the world. It implies it is probably not total garbage. Merely being reliable is not an indication of notability. More problematically, journals that were indexed briefly and then delisted are treated exactly the same as ones that were continuously indexed, which means a journal that was quietly delisted for, e.g., lack of peer review, without those reasons being made public, will forever be entitled to a wikipedia article mirroring whatever it claims about itself regardless of its current reliability. JoelleJay (talk) 05:13, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding and we can't coatrack in the bountiful criticism of specific papers either. Why not? Presuming at least some of that criticism is published in somewhere more reliable than forum posts (and/or that the subject-matter expert clause applies), I don't see a fundamental objection to including a journal's most-criticized papers in the article. We can't draw a new conclusion from that criticism, like saying "and therefore you should never publish here", but critiques of what a journal has published are pertinent information about the journal. Half of the Social Text article is about the Sokal hoax; Entropy has a whole section about a controversial paper and its fallout, as does Frontiers in Psychology, while Scientific Reports has a big one. XOR'easter (talk) 19:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There was extensive coverage of the journal's role in the controversy in each of those examples (literally front page NYT pieces for some...). The coverage doesn't merely excoriate an article they published. It would be coatracking to include the reception of individual articles that do not go into any detail on the journal itself. JoelleJay (talk) 02:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I still don't get it. The journal always has a role in the controversy, tautologically: they are the ones who made the choice to publish the article. The publication of an article is an act taken by the journal, so nothing in policy prevents us from writing about it when we write about the journal. The things that do tie our hands are not being allowed to synthesize a conclusion and not being allowed to start the criticism from scratch ourselves.
I am not sure that having a Wikipedia article makes a journal look more respectable to any practical extent. People believe fringe nonsense because they want to, and everything else is reinterpreted to suit. Wikipedia has an article that says nothing much about the journal that stands out in any way? Ah ha, the Truth will out! No Wikipedia article for the journal? Well, they weren't expecting one, and/or Wikipedia is part of the Establishment working to censor the Truth. Wikipedia has an article that calls the journal sketchy or predatory? Obviously, the Establishment is at work, suppressing all those who would speak the Truth. Heads I win, tails you lose; the enemy is strong and weak as the occasion demands.
Suppose we redirected BioEssays and maybe other Wiley journals to a list, as has been a suggested course of action for journals whose articles are too stubby. Would appearing in a list of Biology journals published by Wiley (for example) make it look more questionable to someone wanting to know if some new paper is serious? Maybe, but I'm kind of doubtful. XOR'easter (talk) 02:58, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We wouldn't include criticism of individual books at the publisher's page unless the criticism actually describes the role of the publisher. We don't do that with every controversial film at the articles of film production companies either. So why would we do the same for a journal?
Having a wikipedia article lends a ton of legitimacy toward a journal, just as it lends legitimacy to any business. It skyrockets the journal toward the top of search rankings. And since people expect articles on academic subjects in particular to be neutral and accurate, having an article on a journal sourced only to its own website and some uncontextualized numbers is even more misleading. Being in a list where the publisher's reputation in [field] is described provides a much less isolated treatment of a journal, doesn't confer the same degree of authority, and doesn't present ABOUTSELF from the journal as if it's a secondary independent evaluation. JoelleJay (talk) 22:09, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Since input was requested on the Village Pump, I'll state for the record, as a heretofore uninvolved editor, that I do not support this edit. First, by its literal terms it says nothing at all -- any subject may not be notable, for any number of reasons, so the fact that a journal with only index entries may not be notable provides no new information. Verbiage that adds nothing should not be added. Second, looking at what the edit implies but does not say, it suggests a harder line against databases than is supported by the current language of WP:N, where footnote 1 only states that databases (presumably including indices such as these) are examples of RS coverage that may not actually support notability when examined. Footnote 1 is careful to close no doors, and to leave this fact-sensitive question to be settled based on the particulars of each situation. I suppose that nobody could really object to including the exact language of footnote 1 here, but I'm not really sure why we would do that either. If this essay has merit, its merit comes precisely from saying things that other pages don't. Otherwise, why have it at all?
Having spoken my piece, I will now depart; if for some unlikely reason further input from me is required, please ping. -- Visviva (talk) 05:12, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Visviva: You're inconsistently condemning in one place then praising in another the same kind of may language. So, it's not easy to follow your rationale. Regardless, it seems pretty clear to me that what "may not" means in this particular case is that inclusion in an index isn't a notability indicator. Maybe it could be phrased more emphatically (if consensus arrived to include something like this at all, which is an open question.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:08, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would hate to give the impression that I am praising footnote 1, of which I am the opposite of a fan. But one thing that is true about that footnote is that it adds new information, which this language does not. (That is, the baseline rule would otherwise be that all RSs providing sigcov contribute to notability, so footnote 1's statement that some RSs may not do so adds new information.) The problem with language like the proposed edit, which by the plain meaning of its words adds no new information at all, is that the reader is naturally led to draw a Gricean implication that the language must be trying to say something that it does not actually say, since otherwise the maxims of relevance and quantity would be violated. So at best, it seems to me that this edit would leave us with yet another provision that will be prone to being given an exclusionary reading not supported by its plain language. -- Visviva (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a surmountable problem, of just needing to be written more clearly (in one direction or the other). And maybe "praising" was too strong a word; more like "relying upon".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:32, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that if you want to resolve the ambiguity, you change "may not be notable" to "may or may not be notable", and if you want to solve a bigger problem, you remind editors not to judge notability solely based on the sources that have already been cited in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:26, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some unifying principles

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While there is obviously significant disagreement over what sourcing should count towards notability for academic journals, I think there can be general consensus over some more general principles towards a common view of the subject:

Is that accurate, or is there some aspect to this debate that I have missed? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:36, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that you haven't mentioned the issue I have been complaining about all the time: namely that without WP:SIGCOV we don't have enough material to write an article about the journal. And we do need that, it's not only my personal preference. As WP:WHYN puts it: We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list.
I don't understand this burning desire for a standalone article for every reliable journal. Not having a Wikipedia article does not make a journal unreliable. There just isn't much to be said about it. And I see no benefit in insisting on a standalone article without much to say: what is the point of Journal of Physics A? What harm is there in merging that scarce information into IOP Publishing? (I chose this example because I have personally published in Journal of Physics A. It's a serious journal, but there's nothing remarkable about it.)
As a final point, WP:NJOURNALS implies that we should have a standalone article for all 34,346 journals in Scopus. Surely nobody actually thinks so? Tercer (talk) 19:07, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page"
There, WP:WHYN is simply wrong. We have plenty of stubs, and many permastubs, and that's entirely fine.
"What harm is there in merging that scarce information into IOP Publishing?"
Because there's a lot more than can be said about JPA in a standalone article than could be said about JPA in the IOP Publishing article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:10, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unlike WP:NJOURNALS, WP:WHYN is actually supported by consensus. Contradicting it is not fine.
And I'm curious where is all this information about Journal of Physics A. It's certainly not in the standalone article that is supposedly needed to contain it. Tercer (talk) 19:39, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When you write "without WP:SIGCOV we don't have enough material to write an article about the journal" as a statement of fact, it is obviously a falsehood. Because in fact we do have standalone articles about journals based on this material. Journal of Physics A is an example. We do have them, therefore we can have them. Additionally, your "without SIGCOV" takes as a given one side of the question that I have tried to address here, of how we should decide what counts as SIGCOV. Perhaps what you meant to say is that we shouldn't have these articles. But that requires an explanation of why we shouldn't have them, rather than a bald statement that the existence of such an article is impossible. Your stating that we shouldn't have them because we (falsely) cannot have them is mere circular reasoning. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:13, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I meant "article" as opposed to "stub". We have a stub about Journal of Physics A, but we have an actual article about Nature. Tercer (talk) 19:25, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also false. It is at least start-class. But there is nothing in notability saying "stubs can exist without notability but we must enforce notability standards for non-stub articles": stubs and articles alike are subject to notability requirements. So in situations where sourcing is adequate for a stub, but not for expansion into a longer article, it makes no sense to use that situation as a reason to say "a stub cannot exist". The stub obviously can exist. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:35, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:WHYN is very clear that if the coverage we have is only enough to produce a stub then the subject is not notable. So no, a stub cannot exist permanently, it only makes sense to have stubs as a work in progress towards an actual article. Tercer (talk) 19:48, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Go ahead, try and delete Grande Anse, Nova Scotia. See what happens. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:54, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are tons of articles in Wikipedia that violate the policies and guidelines. That's not news to anyone. If that stub bothers you you're welcome to propose its deletion. Me, I have no interest in it. Tercer (talk) 21:23, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Being a stub is not a "violation" of any guideline, and especially not of WHYN (which I wrote, BTW).
Being a hopelessly doomed permastub – an article that cannot be expanded past a couple of short, basic sentences, no matter how much time, effort, and money you put into it – would be contrary to WHYN. Most of our stubs aren't inherently doomed to stay that way; they only await the attention of a skilled and resourceful editor. For the Grande Anse example, that might require cultivating the acquaintance of a librarian in one of the local communities, but it should be possible. It is unusual for 100 people to live together for two centuries without anyone writing anything down, or their neighboring villages and towns taking notice of them, after all. (The Grande-Anse in New Brunswick is much easier to find sources for online.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:57, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
GEOSTUBs at least have guideline-level consensus. JoelleJay (talk) 22:32, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have SIGCOV from independent secondary sources. The journal's own website is not IRS SIGCOV. And bibliographic data hosted in an index certainly isn't secondary SIGCOV. JoelleJay (talk) 23:21, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If a merge discussion for Journal of Physics A came up, I'd advise against it. To be consistent, we'd then have to merge all or most of the IOP Publishing journals into that page, which would be unwieldy. XOR'easter (talk) 19:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would it be unwieldy? I'd put then in a table with stuff like founding year, editor, impact factor. We have list articles with much bigger tables. Tercer (talk) 21:14, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, let's look at the article Journal of Physics A. It says who the publisher is, what series the journal is part of, what sections it is divided into, what journal it split off from, when it started being available online, and where it is indexed. All of that is worth saying, but there's no practical way to make a table that could hold it; a column for each of those would end up being blank for many journals, and a miscellaneous "Notes" column would be so overfilled that it would obviate the point of having a table in the first place. If the concern is that Wikipedia is being too database-like, I don't see how that is alleviated by tabularizing the material. XOR'easter (talk) 22:00, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you !vote for splitting Journal of Physics A from, say, Journal of Physics series? jps (talk) 01:36, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you think that the paragraph immediately above your question does not already answer it? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:45, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because the paragraph above is talking about a hypothetical merge to IOP Publishing rather than on to the Journal of Physics series. jps (talk) 15:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've accidentally found a list of the sort I had in mind in Physical Review#Journals. I think it's really manageable. Tercer (talk) 22:15, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's stuff in some (maybe not all) of the journals listed there which would fit badly into a table, like the content of Physical Review B. XOR'easter (talk) 03:04, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Tercer, I attempted to do something similar at the List of MDPI academic journals, and it was reverted by editors who thought that it was "promotional" to say, e.g., that some of their journals have high metrics and some have (very) low metrics. Eventually, it appeared that the definition of "promotional" was that (unbeknownst to me) the journal publisher had prepared a similar list of metrics for their journals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's ridiculous. The impact factor is what 99% of our readers will be interested in (for better or worse). It is a number calculated by an independent organization. Of course, when the impact factor is large the journal will use it for promotion, but so what? Are we not allowed to list any good information about companies? And plenty of MDPI journals will have rather small impact factors. That cannot possibly be considered promotion. Should we then list only the small impact factors? Tercer (talk) 10:25, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I thought it would be an improvement, but the discussion at Talk:List of MDPI academic journals#Removal of Impact Factor and Scopus index percentile ranks went the other way. Promotionalism is in the eye of the beholder, no matter how many WP:UPPERCASE shortcuts they list to try to suggest that they're merely objectively applying the rules, that's not what's usually going on. The fear that some (read: many) editors have of Wikipedia "promoting" an organization or a product is deep and fundamentally irrational – meaning that you can't really reason them out of it, because it's ultimately based on emotions and values. This results in all kinds of stupid, like nominating one of the largest hospitals in the world for deletion because nobody ever wrote about it, and all the media reports (all the sources that he just claimed didn't exist?) were in his personal opinion "promotional". We shouldn't expect this one area to be exempt from it. In fact, the fear of unknowingly citing a source from a predatory journal (much less publishing in it), or a journal that's okay today but is involved in a scandal later, is so high in much of academic science that we should realistically expect even more of it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In that particularly case I think what happened is that the other editors didn't want to add information that would portray MDPI in a better light, because MDPI is infamous for their low standards. Tercer (talk) 19:54, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You could be correct. In some other subject areas (e.g., Multi-level marketing), we have editors who seem to believe anything that's not at risk for ((db-attack)) is an "obvious" advertisement, and it could be that some editors find it intolerable to have the numbers available. The Scopus numbers are all over the spectrum, from the lowest I've ever seen to some quite high numbers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I broadly agree with this summary, although I would strongly dispute that the indexes used by NJOURNALS are anywhere close to exclusive to "respectable journals". There are several categories of shitty journals that would pass NJOURNALS through Scopus:
  • Defunct journals that were indexed continuously, e.g., Akupunktur und Traditionelle Chinesische Medizin, indexed by Scopus from 1987 to 2006 without ever being delisted
  • Journals that were delisted from Scopus, e.g., British Homeopathic Journal; Revista Medica de Homeopatia
  • The hundreds of active journals that are currently indexed but are/would be deprecated as wiki sources for content in their field (big ol' [sic] to all below).
    • Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine (indexed 2010–present), includes such recent articles as "Revisiting the therapeutic potential of homeopathic medicine Rhus Tox for herpes simplex virus and inflammatory conditions"; "Deep vein thrombosis cured by homeopathy: A case report"; "Ancient wisdom of ayurveda vis-à-vis contemporary aspect of materiovigilance" (abstract end: The Ayurveda literature highlights that the ancient seers of Ayurveda were well aware regarding Materiovigilance in their own way. However in view of modern era and mainstreaming of Ayurveda heritage, critical revision, updating, systematically categorization of Ayurveda devices, development and implementation of AMv regulation is the need of hour.)
    • Alternative therapies in health and medicine (1995–), recent article "Schizophrenia and Homoeopathy: A Review" (article conclusion: As again pschizophrenia is a psychiatric condition which affects the mental process of patient, Homoeopathy can be used as an effective method of treatment but to establish the efficacy of it, more studies including randomized controlled trials are suggested.; "A Case Report of Tonsillolith Treated With Individualized Homoeopathy"
    • Journal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine (2006–), recent articles: "Wet-cupping on calf muscles in polycystic ovary syndrome: a quasi-experimental study"; "Can measurements be physically conditioned by thought? Further observations following a focused intention experiment"; "Evaluation of antipyretic activity of Belladonna and Pyrogenium ultrahigh dilutions in induced fever model: Antipyretic effects of Belladonna and Pyrogenium"; numerous articles published by the Department of AYUSH
    • Complementary Therapies in Medicine (1993–), recent articles: "Effectiveness of a homeopathic complex medicine in infantile colic: A randomized multicenter study" (conclusion: The current study indicates that Enterokind is an effective and safe homeopathic treatment for functional intestinal colic in infants ≤ 6 months.); "Anthroposophic Medicine: A multimodal medical system integrating complementary therapies into mainstream medicine"; "Expert consensus-based clinical recommendation for an integrative anthroposophic treatment of acute bronchitis in children: A Delphi survey"
    • Journal of Integrative Medicine (2013–), recent articles: "Apoptotic and autophagic death union by Thuja occidentalis homeopathic drug in cervical cancer cells with thujone as the bioactive principle"; "Double-blind evaluation of homeopathy on cocaine craving: a randomized controlled pilot study"
    • Complementary Medicine Research (2015, 2017–), recent articles: "Efficacy of Chininum Sulphuricum 30C against Malaria: An in vitro and in vivo Study"; "Some Remarks on QBism and Its Relevance to Metaphors for the Therapeutic Process Based on Conventional Quantum Theory" (authored by "independent researcher" Lionel Milgrom)
    • Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing (2005–)
    • Medical Hypotheses (1975–); most recent article: "Can Wim Hof Method breathing induce conscious metabolic waste clearance of the brain?"
    • The Scientific World Journal (2000–)
    • Homeopathy (1998–), recent articles: "Evaluation of Therapeutic Potential of Selected Plant-Derived Homeopathic Medicines for their Action against Cervical Cancer"; "A Case Report of Idiopathic OAT Syndrome, Associated with Necrospermia and Hypospermia, Reversed with Individualized Homeopathy"; every other paper in this journal
    • Numerous other active journals dedicated to homeopathy: Revue d'Homeopathie (2010–); International Journal of High Dilution Research (2011–); Indian Journal of Research in Homoeopathy
This was just a small selection of the 160 journals with 10+ article abstracts containing "homeopathy". JoelleJay (talk) 00:20, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"respectable" was never the metric. "impactful" is the metric. You can be a highly cited journal of crap. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:58, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the fundamental point is that some editors want only "respectable" subjects to be mentioned on Wikipedia, because even documenting various scandals is "promotional" in your eyes.
It reminds me of a story that Molly Ivins told about a Texas politician she despised: "I think the meanest thing I ever said about one of them was that he ran on all fours, sucked eggs and had no sense of humor," she said. "And I swear I saw him in the Capitol the next day and all he said was, 'Baby, you put my name in your paper!'" [9]
If you start with the belief that all publicity is good publicity – and this is just something that some people believe in their bones, and has nothing to do with our guidelines – then of course you will be appalled to see "unworthy" subjects getting any coverage at all in Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:11, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This was a direct reply to David's summary, which stated They primarily cover only the journals considered by the scientific community to be respectable (Physics Essays being a big outlier here). Basing notability decisions on this sort of source (regardless of its real depth) would allow us to focus our coverage of journals to include respectable ones, and exclude fringe ones. And why would the journals themselves get to benefit from the same "impact" that is specifically called out as not counting toward notability of academics? NPROF 8b implicitly acknowledges that a biography of someone only notable for head editing a fringe journal, and that can only be sourced with the same type of pseudo-independent and primary coverage accepted by NPROF, would likely have fatal NPOV issues. An article on a crap journal highly cited by other crap journals that exclusively reflects the crap journal's self-description and some unexplained metrics from the indexer of those crap journals is even worse. JoelleJay (talk) 01:49, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But is that true?
NPROF 1 is explained thusly: "The most typical way of satisfying Criterion 1 is to show that the academic has been an author of highly cited academic work" and I see nothing in here that says that being cited as an example of bad research does not apply.
So if a notorious researcher such as Andrew Wakefield would theoretically qualify as highly cited under NPROF1 for a fraudulent paper – Google Scholar tells me that the central paper, which has since been retracted has been cited more than 4,300 times – then why shouldn't a notorious journal equally qualify as having high metrics? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not talking about C1, I'm talking about C8b. JoelleJay (talk) 20:00, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think C1 is more analogous: The author qualifies as notable for writing a highly cited paper vs the journal qualifies as notable for publishing the highly cited paper. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the walled garden effect where journals people ignore Wikipedia wide standards on notability is untenable in the long run. If there is significant coverage in RS than it qualifies for its own article, otherwise the basic information on the journal should be covered in a list. (t · c) buidhe 16:13, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What benefit to readers would be provided by reorganizing things in that way? Note also that the availability of in-depth sourcing for even some major journal academic societies or publishers, such as IOP Publishing, may not be significantly better than for the journals they publish (for the same reasons: they're not what academics care to write about, and when they do write about them they publish them in non-independent publications). Even when sources about those journals exist they might reasonably not be construed as coverage of the publisher, and that publishers must pass the stricter requirements of WP:NCORP. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:13, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Who are journals people? Do I qualify because I've said on occasion that WP:NJOURNALS is pretty good advice for the most part? Or am I excommunicated because my 94% agreement with consensus in AfD's makes me too much a devotee of Wikipedia wide standards?
If the concern is that dubious/fringe journals look more respectable than they deserve if we provide their basic statistics, how does merging those statistics into a list make those journals look properly disreputable, particularly when dozens if not hundreds of decent journals would be treated the same way? What problem does mass listification solve, other than the "problem" we have defined into being? XOR'easter (talk) 18:48, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you don't mind if I answer a question you asked somebody else. First of all, mass listification would solve the problem of having thousands of permastubs. Apparently this doesn't bother many people, but it does bother me, and is a violation of Wikipedia policy.
But to answer about disreputable journals specifically: I suggested they should be merge to the article about their publishers. Consider a non-notable journal published by Hindawi or MDPI. These publishers are notable, we do have sources calling their reliability into question. In absence of specific information about the journal, a reasonable reader will conclude that the journal is not trustworthy either. On the other hand, consider Journal of Physics A. How is the reader supposed to know that it is a serious journal? In the article of IOP Publishing the reader can infer that from the good reputation of the publisher (granted, in its current state the article on IOP Publishing doesn't allow one to learn much, but it's just because nobody cared about the article, not because we lack sources; Institute of Physics is in a much better state and rightly inspires confidence).
And what about non-notable journals published by non-notable publishers? Their articles should be deleted. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Tercer (talk) 19:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What you have articulated, that we should cover respectable journals and not cover "non-notable journals published by non-notable publishers", is exactly what is intended by using coverage in the major indexes to guide our selection of what we include. What you suggest as a replacement, that we cover journals that have been successful in garnering external publicity for themselves, would have the opposite effect, because it is precisely those non-notable journals published by non-notable publishers that seek out this form of publicity. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:47, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As the Physics Essays debacle shows, your good intentions did not translate into good effects. And if you took NJOURNALS seriously and covered all 34,346 journals in Scopus you would have many more articles about non-notable journals published by non-notable publishers.
A non-notable journal that managed to get external coverage is a contradiction in terms. That makes them notable. Perhaps you meant unreliable? That is not a problem, if a journal is notorious for being unreliable we should definitely cover that in Wikipedia. Tercer (talk) 21:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What a stupid example to use to make your point. Physics Essays is an extreme outlier. Troll harder. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:59, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your behaviour is appalling. I joined this conversation under the assumption that you were actually interested in a productive discussion. Now I see that I was mistaken. Therefore I'll no longer interact with you. Tercer (talk) 22:07, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And how do you know it is an outlier? It took until I found some philosophy paper that described it, in a passing mention, as a forum for wacky ideas before we had anything to even convince several other editors that removing its claim of peer review might be warranted. If it's that hard to find a single trivial source that can positively contextualize a reputation that "everyone already knew" (if they were in or adjacent to physics research...), then how many other "obviously unreliable" journals in fields none of us are intimately familiar with are out there? How many of the ~800 journals discontinued by Scopus have serious issues that would be part of any NPOV article? JoelleJay (talk) 03:04, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can't speak to fields I'm not familiar with, but I have been watching fringe physics for years (technically I could even say decades) and paying attention to where it shows up. Physics Essays is unusual in just haw bad it is now, for falling to that status from the merely eccentric, and for having little written about its fall. It's an edge case, though of course it may have counterparts in other fields. XOR'easter (talk) 03:17, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, Physics Essays used to be a lot better in the past. It's undocumented though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:00, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You act as though all external coverage of a topic is orchestrated by self-promotion when a) we don't have evidence that all such media is "hype"; b) our policies already prohibit PROMO and encourage rigor in checking the provenance of sourcing; c) maybe your idea of what does constitute a GNG source is actually just way more permissive towards hype and routine coverage than how most of the rest of the community interprets GNG, re: interviews, awards announcements, speaker profiles from the host of the speaker, sports accomplishment recognition in local media, transactional news, etc.; and d) "accomplishment"-based notability criteria are also subject to promotional pressures and manipulation (and how do we determine an accomplishment itself is worthy enough without using external sourcing on it?). JoelleJay (talk) 02:38, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You act as though all external coverage of a topic is orchestrated by self-promotion... This is not exactly an unusual position. I've seen quite a number of editors strain to prove that a local newspaper report about how many people are employed by the biggest business in town is "self-promotion". The "maybe they took this number from a press release" paranoia is so common that I would not be surprised if I could find similar comments from you.
(The GNG doesn't accept non-independent sources, and that category includes some Wikipedia:Interviews and some speaker profiles. If the host of the speaker merely copies and pastes the speaker's autobiographical material (example), then the fact that they copied and pasted it does not make it independent.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:20, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rigorously checking each candidate source for evidence of promotion or non-independence, as I try to do at every AfD, is not the same as dismissing all external coverage as "hype". And material produced solely to advertise or promote a host event, such as basically all speaker profiles, is surely not independent of the host. JoelleJay (talk) 02:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You said that most of the community accepts "speaker profiles from the host of the speaker". Nothing published by an event host is entirely independent of the host or the event, but what I wanted to add is that what the hosts publishes may not be independent of the speaker, either. I've endured a couple speeches that minimize my faults and glorify my contributions without having any input in the material, or even known that it would happen, so I can attest from personal experience that such things do happen, especially at small community events. But if the host's involvement is merely copying and pasting from the speaker's website a bio pre-written by the speaker – neatly provided in the linked example in three different lengths, so the host doesn't even have to do any copyfitting – then that material would not be independent of the speaker (and it is generally the speaker whose notability is being considered in such cases). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No I did not say that. I said maybe your idea of what does constitute a GNG source is actually just way more permissive towards hype and routine coverage than how most of the rest of the community interprets GNG, re: interviews, awards announcements, speaker profiles from the host of the speaker, sports accomplishment recognition in local media, transactional news, etc. I'm saying most of the community has a stricter standard of independence that would generally exclude such things. I am aware of what goes into speaker profiles and the issues with independence, that's why I brought it up. JoelleJay (talk) 20:04, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're right; I missed the start of your sentence. Thank you for the clarification. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:21, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes: "If there is significant coverage in RS than it qualifies for its own article, otherwise the basic information on the journal should be covered in a list." (It need not be a bare list; there's no reason that drill-down lists of journals in paritcular [sub]topical areas can't have significant information about each list entry.) I also tend to agree with David Eppstein's summary at the top of this section, though I wonder if there isn't some other means of establishing the notability of a high-quality journal, by its general credibility in the field, so we don't lose articles on high-quality journals just because there's no scandal material about them. But just being listed in indices doesn't appear to be the answer to the need. [sigh] I don't have the answer, but I fear there's an element of the "any proposed solution must be better than no solution" fallacy at work in this page-wide discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:48, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Permastubs. If a journal meets NJournals (or GNG), then our journal article writing guide provides guidance on how to write an acceptable article that will be at least "Start" class. Too many of our articles are marked "stub" but are, in fact, start or even C or B.
  2. Inclusive philosophy: See our deletion archives (here and here]) to see the many journal articles that were deleted (redlinks) or merged (many of the remaining blue links) after being PRODded or taken to AfD. Many of these deletions were based on NJournals, so obviously NJournals does not lead to us being overtly inclusive.
  3. Lists: List articles are more tricky than people seem to realize. Leaving aside the fact that only a small part of the info that we routinely include in journal articles would not fit in any table, there is the fact that at this point, the vast majority of lists that we currently have only include journals that have an article. This way we ensure that predatory journals don't get the appearance of respectability by being included in one of our lists. If we would do away with every journal article that only meets NJournals but not GNG, we would have no easy way of keeping predatory journals out of those list articles.
  4. Which journals to cover: As has been remarked many times, it is rare that a reliable source publishes about a journal. There are many popular press articles that mention some article in a journal, either because it discusses some important health-related issue or because it discusses something that went wrong (failure of peer review leading to a nonsensical or fraudulent article being accepted). The first is usually all about the article and its authors, with the journal itself only being mentioned in-passing. In general, most journals that meet GNG will do so because something went wrong, not because of the good work that they published. Doing away with NJournals would result in us covering any journal here something went awry, but exclude the vast majority of solid academic journals (that , I may add, get cited all the time in WPs articles).
Thanks for reading this. --Randykitty (talk) 12:32, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, probably 99+% of non-journal sources cited by Wikipedia don't have articles here. That doesn't indicate a failure on our part. It may just be that due to lack of independent, in-depth, reliable-source coverage that most journals cannot effectively be encyclopedia-article subjects here. I'm not ready to go that far yet, but it's a real possibility that has to be considered (as much as I actually want to create a couple of such articles).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:37, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"That doesn't indicate a failure on our part". I would argue it does, when it comes to magazines, newspapers, journals, websites, etc. that have established presence. One-off authors or individual books are different. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your "journal article writing guide" cannot perform miracles. If the only source about a journal is its entry in Scopus or SCIE there just isn't enough information to write more than a stub. Do an exercise: select a couple of journals randomly from Category:English-language journals. What you get is almost always a permastub.
As for your concern about predatory journals, do you have an example where you have a non-predatory publisher, so that its list of journals would mix non-predatory and predatory journals, thereby giving the appearance of respectability to the latter? Tercer (talk) 10:43, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"If the only source about a journal is its entry in Scopus or SCIE there just isn't enough information to write more than a stub"
Luckily, for most journals, we have other sources than Scopus, we have the journal itself. This lets us write good quality start-class articles. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:09, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Writing an article based primarily on what the journal itself says does not seem likely to comply with the advice in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Selecting sources that "In principle, all articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."
So it might let us write a start-class article, but I'm not sure that an article based on the subject's own opinion of itself would necessarily be called a good one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No opinion is involved. You're not getting an FA out of it, but you do get a good little article, e.g. The Journal of Urology. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:35, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The question isn't whether the existing contents are subjective (about which subject, you may be interested in User:WhatamIdoing/Subjectivity in Wikipedia articles). The question is whether the existing contents are the things that sources without any self-interest would choose to write about. There is a risk in any article based almost entirely on non-independent sources it is non-neutral by omission.
For a completely made-up example, perhaps people with a vested interest in Journal of Important Stuff would choose to write about the impressive age of the journal and the list of editors, but perhaps if a completely independent source looked into J. Imp., they would decide that it was far more interesting to write about the journal's support for eugenics when that was fashionable a century ago, or the surprisingly high number of times the journal has been sued for copyright violations, or would discover that the journal was the first academic journal to switch from petroleum ink to soy ink. You can't know if an article is neutral when everything you know about the subject is what the subject tells you about itself.
Imagine that you write an article about J. Imp. today. It contains a couple of independent metrics, but otherwise everything else – every sentence, and half the infobox contents – comes from the journal's own website. It's neutral in tone, and you haven't written any individual facts that anyone would contest.
Tomorrow, you find a note on your talk page from an editor who says "Um, I'm guessing you didn't know that J. Imp. is on the Reputable List of Predatory Journals. I added this fact to your new article."
Question: Was your original version of the article actually neutral? Does an article that fails to relay such important information comply with NPOV?
I'd say "of course not" – but so long as you rely almost exclusively on non-independent sources for articles, you'd have no idea that the article wasn't neutral. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:23, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, agreed(!): you cannot write a neutral article if the only sources discussing the subject in detail are from the subject itself. JoelleJay (talk) 20:11, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is (surprise!) overly dogmatic. One might even say, it is based the dogma of GNG rather than on thought about what we are trying to achieve when we use GNG. It is quite possible, in many cases, to write a neutral article based on non-independent sources. What is important is that we still trust in the reliability of those sources, both for the accuracy of what they report and in the completeness of what they report. For non-controversial material about non-controversial subjects (such as the editorial direction of journals from major and respectable academic publishers) this is non-problematic. For predatory journals, in contrast, we have experience that statements from their publishers can be untrustworthy, and for those we definitely need independent sourcing for what we write about them. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:55, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this is based in the dogma of GNG (which I mentioned exactly nowhere, though I did quote WP:NPOV), and since I gave an example of "what we are trying to achieve" (namely, writing an article that can comply with the core policies), I'm not sure why you think that I didn't give any thought to what we are trying to achieve.
I don't believe that we can count on writing a neutral article based on non-independent sources. It might work out most of the time, especially for shorter articles – often, the basic description from the subject is the same as the basic description from independent sources – but it won't work out some of the time.
Consider: Could you write an NPOV-compliant article about Martin Kulldorff from non-independent sources? I think https://dc.hillsdale.edu/Academy-for-Science-and-Freedom/Martin-Kulldorff/ is his official website now; give it a try, and then compare it to the article we have that's mostly based on independent sources. Do you think you could you write an NPOV-compliant article about Barrett Watten from the kind of non-independent sources that we usually rely on for academics? His official page appears to be https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/ad6155 and it looks like it has a link to his blog.
If you were only working from non-independent sources, would you even know whether your article had missed something important? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:57, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference between being able to write a neutral article in many cases, and knowing with certainty that one has written a neutral article in all cases. Sources that are reliable but not independent are sufficient for the first of these two things. Sources that are independent are insufficient for the second of these two things; more strongly I think that certainty of that type is impossible – one can merely be more or less confident, not certain. So there is absolutely no justification for JoelleJay's "cannot". It is hyperbole, pure and simple. And so is your longer blustery response. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:29, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is policy that you should not write articles based on primary non-independent material. If that is what NJOURNALS is doing then there are even deeper issues here than I thought. I've tagged that article as needing secondary and independent sources. JoelleJay (talk) 20:09, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:POINT and WP:COMMONSENSE. You are putting your worship of ideals in the way of constructive editing. There is nothing problematic or unverifiable in the content of Journal of Urology and if you stopped for any reflection on the subject rather than quoting Wikipedia initials ad nauseam about how it must be that way because those initials say it must be that way, you would realize that. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How do you know there is nothing problematic about the content as presented? NPOV doesn't mean "assume what a subject says about itself adequately reflects all the major opinions on it from external sources". This would be acceptable for a simple directory, where the info for each entry is strictly limited to that which fills in certain basic data fields. No one expects a directory of all the journals published by Elsevier to include secondary commentary on any of them, even if it exists, because that's outside the directory's scope. An article in Wikipedia is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of a topic that goes beyond those routine metrics and reflects what the world at large says about it in secondary independent sources. The expectation is that such a balanced description is possible, and passing GNG+SUSTAINED can contribute to that balance directly via the sources it uses to demonstrate notability, or indirectly by predicting that further SIRS coverage will exist should the topic become controversial. NJOURNALS instead operates without any expectation or even weak presumption that meeting its criteria will correspond to adequate coverage in IRS of any NPOV-required controversial aspects in the event that they arise. That is a fundamental problem. JoelleJay (talk) 02:28, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would academic journals be covered by WP:SIRS? I hadn't seen anyone challenge the assumption, presented at the opening of the section, that academic journals were covered by the WP:GNG, and SIRS doesn't apply to the GNG (proposals to extend SIRS in that way having up to now been rejected by the community). Newimpartial (talk) 02:36, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, JoelleJay was thinking about that question at Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)#Are the autogenerated database metrics provided by an indexing service such as Scopus SIRS coverage of journals? It is not entirely unreasonable, since in some sense, any book, film, periodical, etc. is a "product", and CORP covers products.
But think of it as a shorthand: Why would a good editor create an article about a subject that is – that, to the best of the editor's knowledge can be – nothing (or very little) more than the subject's own curated image, repackaged to look like a Wikipedia article? It's not about WP:SIRS per se, but about the ability that a couple of SIRS-like sources would lend you in creating a decent article that isn't >90% taken from the subject's own marketing materials. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:01, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What "marketing materials" are you talking about here? SCOPUS and the like are not "marketing materials", although the numbers they produce may well be used in marketing materials by the publishers of the journals they analyze. It's like you're calling an article on Bill Cosby "marketing materials" because he was once used in ads for Jello. Or a government climate analysis for its jurisdiction "marketing materials" because it might be used by a tourist board. Under that level of extreme stretching, everything is a corporate product and everything is a marketing material. Maybe that's the world we're living in, but that way lies madness. We don't need to think like that here. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:26, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course Scopus isn't marketing materials. But Scopus (or indexing in general) is also not >90% of the contents of an article about an academic journal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You don't think IFs and CiteScores are used by journals to market themselves?? This paper literally states As we might expect, OA articles tend to generate more citations, feeding bibliometrics such as Google Scholar and IFs which have become prominent marketing tools. [...] The stark reality is that impact factor data are used as an indicator of quality and prominence and are thus a critical “marketing tool”. This paper in an ethics journal states ...the corporate attitude about the value of the journal impact factor (JIF), and what it represents, namely a marketing tool that is falsely used to equate citations with quality, worth, or influence. The continued commercialization of metrics such as the JIF is at the heart of their use to assess the “quality” of a researcher, their work, or a journal, and contributes to a great extent to driving scientific activities towards a futile endeavor.
There are numerous books written on how to market journals; this one states One might think that "everybody knows the important journals in their field," but marketing is an absolutely crucial function in journal publishing and In the journal world, the publisher's brand matters to the Editors-in-Chief who are recruited to manage a journal, but the brand known to authors is almost always that of the journal rather than the publishing company... Publishers naturally want to promote the journal's brand--and their own--as broadly as possible, and the multitude of marketing activities discussed in this chapter will help to define and reinforce such branding, has a 23-page chapter on journal metrics, and includes those metrics among its essential journal "marketing plan" components. It also has an in-depth discussion of the "virtuous circle" (marketing attracts authors and readers to the journal, which increases usage, which leads to higher citations, which leads to more subscriptions...and more profit. JoelleJay (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That they are used to market themselves is irrelevant. CPU makers advertise the number of cores and speed their processors have. Car makers advertise their horsepower. Just because something is used in marketing doesn't make it irrelevant information. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:53, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a bit nuanced: https://www.scopus.com/ is not itself "marketing materials". But journals and publishers can, and do, use the facts found therein as part of their own marketing materials. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh, WAID. I wish I had not opened that thread to read - so much confusion. Of course journals are businesses/business products...? - assuming the thing to be proved, and never letting go? And the pervasive, unfounded assumption that the GNG isn't flexible about the number and depth of sources it requires, when it explicitly says, There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected, and when the community has repeatedly rejected adding a specific number or a specific "depth requirement" per source into the GNG? Sigh.
Anyway, to answer your question, WAID, it seems to me that you are asking whether a higher degree of independent coverage, or perhaps of secondary coverage, is appropriate in this topic area. That is a valid question, but introducing SIRS into the discussion doesn't help ask or answer this question IMO. And as far as all transacted things being products, we don't treat books or films or works of art as "products" nor do we apply SIRS to them, and the idea that maybe we should strikes me frankly as a kind of "de-encyclopaedification" in which we stop recognizing topics based on what they actually are and instead treat them based on what we fear "bad actors" might make of them. I want an encyclopaedia to treat books as books, and not as potential instances of deceptive marketing by book publishers, if you see what I mean. Newimpartial (talk) 10:28, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I accidentally said "SIRS" once instead of spelling out "SIGCOV in IRS sources" in one comment where using the former term makes no meaningful difference to my argument, which doesn't otherwise make any assertions whatsoever about journals-as-businesses, and you decide to use your bludgeoning quota here nitpicking, strawmanning, and misrepresenting a discussion from a different page and condescendingly assigning some sort of IDHT attitude to me? JoelleJay (talk) 16:57, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My second paragraph - which was most of my comment - was a direct response to WAID's second paragraph and was not directed at JoelleJay at all. Any implication to the contrary simply represents maladroit writing on my part. Newimpartial (talk) 02:52, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Re JoelleJay's How do you know: Certainty is available only to saints and maybe some mathematicians. The rest of us, dealing with a human world, can only have greater or lesser degrees of confidence. If I see a journal from a known and respectable publisher, and I search hard for sources telling me about scandals involving that journal, but find none, I can be pretty confident but not certain that no scandals are known to be reported by us. That does not mean that the scandals do not exist, only that they have not been uncovered. But that remains equally true if I find in-depth histories of the journal published by historians of academia in impeccably independent sources. Those histories give me more to write about the journal, enough maybe to boost it to B-class or GA instead of the usual start-class, but they do not do anything to boost my confidence that there are more sources I didn't find. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:34, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a problem I see all the time. The publisher or group or EiC may be the one that is a problem rather than the journal itself. Frontiers Media comes to mind as an example. We host lots of articles on individual journals published by them which do not fully capture the issues with the publisher since it is hard to find a source which mentions a journal by name while criticizing the publisher. Or here's another example: journal capture happened a few decades ago where IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science started publishing plasma cosmology articles while basically no actual experts in cosmology noticed because research academics in astrophysics do not read engineering journals. Wikipedia does not seem set-up to handle such obscure issues. jps (talk) 13:16, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The solution to that isn't to genocide journal articles on Wikipedia. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:21, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. What's the solution, exactly? jps (talk) 13:22, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well... we've talked here about "articles" and "lists", but there is a third model. I want to be clear up front that it's a model usually implemented with complex templates (which I personally dislike), but if you are writing articles about subjects with limited independent sources, and you want to present a set of information that is bigger than trivially fits across a page in a couple of columns, then you could take a tip from the articles on television episodes, e.g., 90210 (season 3)#Episodes. If a television episode table can present a couple of numbers, title, director, author, date, viewership, and a paragraph of free text about the episode, then I don't see why a journals table couldn't present a couple of metrics, title, current editor, years of operation, and a paragraph of free text about the journal, maybe we'd even add a separate row for an ((hlist)) of past editors and indexing services.
I'm not sure that it'd make sense to do this per publisher (Elsevier has >2800, Wiley has 1,600...), but it could be done for smaller groups (e.g., MDPI's medical journals). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a reasonable approach to me. Can we include that as a recommendation in this essay? jps (talk) 13:32, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's already in there in WP:NJOURNALS#Journal series and in the section above with Consensus may also be that while a certain journal is notable on its own, it is best to cover the material in another article (for example, on the publisher's article). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:43, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's no help because it is presuming that the journal is still notable on its own. WhatamIdoing seems to be saying that there are instances where this is not the case and that is when you make a sort of expanded table that includes information about the individually not notable journals/episodes. jps (talk) 00:41, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're sneering at the first three words of my comment as if I don't address how the GNG, with its demand for secondary independent SIGCOV commentary, provides an infinitely greater potential for approximating NPOV "certainty" than a guideline that has no such requirement at all. NJOURNALS says an article can exist even if it has zero chance of being anything beyond a surjective image of the subject's website. JoelleJay (talk) 17:41, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But it's true. Demanding in-depth and independent sources provides no greater potential at all for being sure that your article is neutral. It provides potential for writing a longer article. It provides potential for writing an article that includes editorial opinions on the subject, which we cannot do with non-independent sourcing. But it gives us no information at all about whether we have done an adequate job of finding and using what sourcing there is about the topic. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:33, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do not agree. An article written almost entirely from the subject's own sources has a very high risk of being non-neutral, i.e., a risk of providing one POV and not others. When you have found and used multiple independent sources (independent from the subject + independent from each other), you might not wish to bet your life on full compliance with NPOV, but you should have a much higher confidence.
In the past, there has been a bit of special pleading. Editors would admit that it would be quite risky to try to write an article about a vote-grubbing politician or a money-grubbing business from merely the subject's own sources, but there's been a bit of a tendency to say that academics are so honest, so thoroughly square/Eternally noble, historically fair, so free of self-interest and self-deception (says nobody who has served on a tenure committee, ever) that it would be perfectly fine to present their own POV to the world as the only POV that could possibly matter.
There might be good reasons for Wikipedia to have articles (or at least information) about academic journals and other periodicals that we might wish to cite, even if we wouldn't normally want to have such thinly sourced articles on any other subject, but I cannot agree that an article that is not based primarily upon independent sources has only the same or a worse chance of editors "being sure that your article is neutral" as an article that has been thoroughly researched. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What part of "editorial opinions on the subject, which we cannot do with non-independent sourcing" did you not understand? The decision to include evaluations of a topic, versus a bare-bones factual article, depends on independence of the sourcing that can be found. If searches turn up no significant opinion-based material on the topic then an article that states only uncontroversial facts about the topic, without evaluation, is not problematic with respect to its neutrality. In contrast, it is common for axe-grinding editors to base content on independent sources that provide only one side of a story, conveniently omitting the other sources. Those articles have no problem with respect to independence of sourcing, but they are not neutral. So there is no logical relation between independence and neutrality. An article that uses the available sources appropriately (sticking only to facts when the sources are non-independent, bringing in opinion from independent sources, and thoroughly searching for what sourcing there are) can be neutral regardless of the type of its sources. An article that uses its sources badly (by selecting which sources to use or basing opinion on non-independent sources) is likely to be non-neutral. The only connection of all this with perceived uprightness of its subjects is whether we can trust the non-independent sources to be reliable about the factual claims that we take from them. But that is a question about reliability, not about independence. For some journal publishers, such trust is warranted, for others it is not. There is no special pleading; the same reasoning would apply in any other subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:02, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You have explained your POV. Do you feel like you understand the opposite POV well enough to describe it fairly? I suspect that many editors would feel like Wikipedia expresses two different POVs if it writes "It is an academic journal" vs "It is a predatory journal", and that when the second is true, they would not be satisfied with say thing first, even if you tell them that it's okay because it's cited to the journal's own opinion of itself and it expresses – in your personal opinion – no opinions on subject, not even by omission. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do we even have the same understanding of what a neutral article is?
I think that an neutral article is one that includes all the (significant) viewpoints held by reliable sources about a subject. Only the subject's viewpoint = not including all the viewpoints = ∴ not neutral.
You seem to think that a neutral article could include only the viewpoint of its subject, so long as that is written in a relatively restrained way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:32, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:JWG isn't about putting the subjects' own viewpoint in a straitjacket, it's to purposefully ignore the fluff and marketing claims and stick to basic facts. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:36, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We can distinguish between two kinds of content that an article may have: facts and viewpoints. For some reason you (WhatamIdoing) seem totally averse to facts and only interested in discussing viewpoints. Viewpoints require independent sources, as we expect even respectable subjects to have biased viewpoints that are (with some exceptions) not usually worth reporting. Neutrality requires finding and reporting on all mainstream independent viewpoints, something that goes well beyond independence alone. Independence alone cannot guarantee neutrality. When finding all mainstream independent viewpoints returns the empty set, the viewpoint aspect of an article will be neutral if it is equally empty. In such cases, it may well still be possible to have an article whose content consists entirely of facts and not of viewpoints. If we understand something to be a factual claim rather than a viewpoint, independence of its source is irrelevant; what matters is purely the reliability of the source. Applied specifically to journals, this means that statements like "widely considered the top journal in basketweaving" or "has been accused of predatory practices" require independent sources; statements like "published by Wiley, founded in 1972 by X, with Y as its current editor in chief" do not. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But if the only material we have about the subject is basic, boilerplate facts to fill in infobox parameters, plus a brief self-description, all found on the subject's website, how is it anything more than a directory entry that provides free advertising? An article on any other topic where the only things that could be said about it were "published by Wiley, founded in 1972 by X, with Y as its current editor in chief" would be rejected per NOTDIRECTORY; why should journals be treated any differently? JoelleJay (talk) 23:49, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A phonebook is a directory, a basic article that complies with WP:JWG and sticks to the basics is lightyears ahead of that. And again, it provides encyclopedic information, not advertisement. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:05, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
David, I don't think I've been clear. "Just the facts" is a viewpoint. If you write "J. Imp. is an academic journal" you are presenting a viewpoint in the article – namely, the viewpoint that the proper way to describe that periodical is to categorize it in the subjective and opinionated category of "academic journals".
That viewpoint might be the only viewpoint held by any rational person in the world, but it also might not be. It could be that there are two viewpoints, e.g.:
  • The subject's viewpoint: It is our opinion that we publish an innovative academic journal.
  • An independent viewpoint: It is my opinion that you publish an online magazine that you claim is an academic journal.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You are free to define terms in idiosyncratic ways, as you are doing, but then you must follow those definitions to their logical conclusion. If you want "J. Imp. is an academic journal" to be classified as a "viewpoint", then it is the kind of viewpoint that any rational person would consider verified by non-independent but reliable sourcing. I'm sure one can find editors who, without applying rational thought to the matter, think only "holy GNG holy holy" and jump to the conclusion that even such claims are impossible to verify by non-independent sources because holy GNG says only independent sources count. I hope you are not one of those. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:56, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you really think that any rational person would consider such a statement to be a trivially verified, essentially indisputable claim in all cases?
What if the next sentence in the article, also sourced to their own website, says something like "They consider themselves to be supporting citizen science by using post-publication peer review in the form of comments posted via WordPress blog software. They publish between three and four hundred articles per month on a wide variety of subjects, charge $3,000 per article in publication fees, and have an average turnaround time from submission to publication of six business days"?
In that case, would you still expect a rational Wikipedian to be satisfied with calling them an academic journal, or do you think that alternative viewpoints, like vanity press or predatory journal, might get mentioned in on the talk page?
What if it merely says "It is a for-profit business that is not affiliated with any academic institution"? Are you sure that would still be within the typical editor's idea of what so obviously constitutes an academic journal that any old ABOUTSELF source would be accepted as settling that question? I'm a bit doubtful that they would, even among those who are aware that Elsevier's profit margins recently have been unconscionable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:28, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What part of reliable but non-independent sources do you not understand? If they contradict themselves in the next sentence, we have good reason to believe that they are unreliable. Allowing sources that we have good reason to take as reliable despite their non-independence does not mean throwing away any filter and allowing all non-independent sources, even the ones that we think are unreliable.
As for Elsevier, I have been trying to avoid using them for years (not always successfully). But that's not the same as believing that journals published by commercial journal publishers are somehow not journals, or that Elsevier is not one of the mainstream commercial journal publishers. Those beliefs are, to put it politely, fringe. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Imagine that I start my own periodical. I create a website – it looks very nice – saying "Journal of Important Things is a new and innovative academic journal". I get an ISSN (which is free), post a submission process, charge fees a bit lower than the existing reputable journals, and publish a few papers.

Given the problem of predatory journals, I don't understand why you would expect editors to accept my self-description as being reliable for whether it's actually an academic journal, assuming that word is to retain any meaning beyond "magazine". And if they won't accept my self-description for my periodical, why would you expect them to accept any periodical's self-description?

I'll give you a real example: Would you accept an article that says "Current Opinions in Neurological Science (ISSN 2575-5447) is a peer-reviewed open-access academic journal"? Is their own self-description as "a peer-reviewed open access journal" actually a reliable source for saying that they are a peer-reviewed open access journal"? When I compare it against the usual requirements for reliable sources – Reputation for fact-checking their own marketing claims? No. Independent source? No. Appropriate for the material in question? Maybe. Non-self-published? No. – I don't personally see this as obviously reliable, but would you accept it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:42, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is your journal indexed in SCI? In Scopus? In any other reputable databases? If so, we can take your self description WP:RS and per WP:ABOUTSELF. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:53, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The question is moot: the journal is not included in a single academic database, so unless it (unlikely) meets GNG, we doon't want an article on it. If it were in, say, MEDLINE, we could certainly call is a "medical journal" (not "academic", that's for social sciences and the humanities). --Randykitty (talk) 16:04, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what (or if) it's indexed in. FTR, I'm also not aware of any source claiming it's predatory. (MEDLINE is very restrictive, indexing only about 15% of medical journals. Many legitimate medical journals are excluded.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:05, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, that's my point. If it were in MEDLINE, we would certainly be justified in calling it a "medical journal" and create an article on it. This journal is considered predatory (the URL you gave is highlighted in red on my screen, this is something Headbomb made, so he'll probably be able to tell us why it's so classified). --Randykitty (talk) 16:22, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Published by Scientia Ricerca, a predatory publisher. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:33, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then Scientia Ricerca should not be a redlink, so that editors can discover that more easily. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:12, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are thousands predatory publishers. This one isn't notable amongst them. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But you cannot base an article on ABOUTSELF, per policy. JoelleJay (talk) 16:33, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:IAR is policy, so we can. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:33, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IAR is practiced only under exceptional circumstances, and NPOV explicitly overrides it. JoelleJay (talk) 20:18, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. NPOV has a strong statement about being non-negotiable, which is a bit... over-simplified. Incomplete, let's say. A little bit of a Lie-to-children. The fact is that what gets added to a policy by consensus can get removed from a policy by consensus, even if the words in question say they can't ever be removed. Even if we stipulated that these particular words can't be removed, words on a page that don't have the support of community consensus won't get enforced, so they might as well not be there. There is no outside agency that can compel future editors to keep these words on the page, or to enforce them in the fashion that we're accustomed to. (In fact, there are several outside groups trying to force us to not have what we call neutral articles, because they want their countries' claimed borders to be recognized, or because they want to protect readers from certain kinds of information, or whatever else they believe serves their purposes better than our own approach.)
But since these words currently do have consensus and community support, the current state is that you can't reject the idea of neutrality. However, you can reject specific approaches to measuring whether an article is neutral. NPOV now says (at my instigation, and not all that long ago) that "in principle" (though not necessarily in practice) articles should be based primarily on independent sources, but IAR allows editors to say, e.g., that the most common way to determine neutrality is X, but in this case, we believe that Y is more accurate and appropriate method for determining neutrality. As long as an edit has consensus, the edit will stick. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would not take a self-statement by Current Opinions in Neurological Science as a reliable source, because it is from a publisher that is flagged as predatory and predatory publishers are known for stretching the truth about their journals. But we were talking about independence of sources, not reliability. It is entirely possible for a source to be reliable (for factual claims) but not independent. It is also entirely possible (such as in this case) for a source to be not independent, and also not reliable, even for factual claims. It is the reliability that matters, not the independence. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:46, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds above that for a claim of "is an academic journal", editors are mostly not trusting the ABOUTSELF claims anyway. They're trusting the indexing services and usual databases (which are independent sources, even if we're not citing them) to determine whether the journal is a real academic journal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's no need for hypotheticals. The current push for fixing NJOURNALS was sparked by Physics Essays, whose article gave little indication that it was a crackpot journal, and credulously repeated Physics Essays' claim of being peer-reviewed. We managed to remove this claim, by the way, over the strident objections of Headbomb. Tercer (talk) 19:16, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because it is peer-reviewed. Indexing in Scopus is proof of that. So is [10]. Or [11]. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:50, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was peer-reviewed at the time it was indexed. You can't claim Scopus is proof of its being peer-reviewed after it was delisted. JoelleJay (talk) 20:16, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus is that it's not peer-reviewed. See WP:DEADHORSE. Tercer (talk) 20:23, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the consensus is wrong. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:25, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If the consensus is wrong try to change it (btw i disagree with you on this consensus being wrong)196.250.212.180 (talk) 09:47, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tercer, you are flat-out wrong here. It is peer reviewed. That is not the problem with it. The problem is that the editors and peer reviewers are happy to publish peer-reviewed junk. Peer review ensures some amount of consistency but not quality. It is very susceptible to capture by a small in-group of like-minded authors, editors, and reviewers. In fact, that would be an accurate description of most subdisciplines, and most subdiscipline-specific journals. However, some subdisciplines are mainstream and some are fringe. That one is fringe. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:30, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such consensus, Like David and Headbomb I, too, maintain that this journal is peer-reviewed and have clearly argued for that on the journal article's talk page. Bad peer review perhaps, but peer review all the same. --Randykitty (talk) 07:52, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's funny, I distinctly remember everybody buy you three agreeing with removing the claim. Which is why it got removed, in case you haven't noticed. Tercer (talk) 08:08, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we need reliable sources to say in our article that it is peer reviewed. It's a factual claim, so the source could be non-independent, but it needs to be reliable. And, to me, the publishers of a self-published fringe journal are not a reliable source. Not being able to source a claim is different from that claim being false. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:39, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on notability criteria

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The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
It took me some days to finish reading this discussion and at last, I have some to a conclusion. I have read several guidelines/policies before doing this so that I can be guided. I saw the discussion from the closure request page and I was immediately interested in the discussion and decided to close since the last comment was on 16 September or so.

I am not an administrator but I guess I am allowed to close per policy.

The discussion revolves around the notability criteria for academic journals on Wikipedia, primarily focusing on the interpretation and application of Criterion 1 (C1) and Remark 1b (R1b) found in "Wikipedia:Notability (academic journals)" (shortcut: WP:NJOURNALS).

C1 states, "The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area." R1b, in response to C1, suggests that the most typical way to satisfy C1 is by showing that the journal is included in selective citation indices, indexing services, and bibliographic databases. It explicitly states that being included in comprehensive (non-selective) indices and services like Google Scholar and the Directory of Open Access Journals is not sufficient to establish notability.

Key points from the discussion

Some participants discussed the importance of whether a journal should be required to be listed in multiple indices, emphasising that it's not sufficient to be in just one.

The central issue is whether inclusion in a selective citation index, such as SCIE or Scopus, should be sufficient on its own to establish notability for an academic journal. Some argue that C1 is a valid standalone criterion, while others believe it should be a part of a more comprehensive evaluation.

The discussion underscores the importance of notability being about quality rather than merely quantity. Notability should reflect the scholarly influence and impact of the journal, which cannot be solely gauged by metrics like the Impact Factor.

The discussion touched upon the role of "NJOURNALS." Some argued that the criteria outlined in WP:NJOURNALS, especially Criterion 1, are often used in discussions at Articles for Deletion (AfD). However, others questioned the validity of using this essay as a guideline or the criteria it presents.

A few participants expressed the need for consensus on whether indexing in selective citation databases should be considered sufficient for notability. It was emphasised that even if there is consensus, this does not mean the criteria in NJOURNALS would automatically become a guideline.

Some participants brought up the importance of citations and whether they should be the primary criterion for notability rather than just inclusion in citation databases. Citations were seen as indicative of actual academic influence and quality.

The question of whether journal metrics like Impact Factor (IF) should be used as criteria for notability was raised. It was argued that while IF is important for some purposes, it doesn't necessarily reflect the quality or notability of individual articles published in a journal.

Several participants criticised the essay NJOURNALS and its criteria for not aligning with the General Notability Guideline (GNG) and for potentially being misapplied in deletion discussions.

The discussion highlighted the distinction between quality and quantity in notability determination. Some participants argued that a journal's notability should be determined by the quality of its content and influence rather than merely the number of citations or inclusion in indices.

There were criticisms about the inclusion of journals in citation databases like Scopus and SCIE, with concerns that this could be driven more by financial considerations and that this alone shouldn't equate to notability.

Some participants cited specific journals like Nature and debated whether high Impact Factors are indicative of notability, while others emphasised that citation count is more crucial.

It was noted that NJOURNALS and its criteria have had an impact on Articles for Deletion discussions, and this impact varies among participants.

My conclusion

There is no clear consensus reached in this discussion. Views are divided on whether the inclusion of a journal in selective citation indices alone should be considered sufficient for establishing notability. Some argue for a more nuanced approach, taking into account not just inclusion in databases but also the extent of coverage and quality of content, particularly the number of citations. There is also a critique of NJOURNALS as an essay, and some concerns that it may not align with Wikipedia's General Notability Guideline or be consistently applied in deletion discussions.

As it stands, there is no overwhelming majority consensus supporting a change in the current criteria or essay, nor is there a consensus to elevate NJOURNALS to a guideline. --Vanderwaalforces (talk) 23:57, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is inclusion of a journal in a selective citation index (such as SCIE or Scopus) sufficient for notability? Tercer (talk) 13:51, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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Pinging all journal-related AFDs participant in 2023.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:47, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why to we require "reliable sources" (typically dedicated, full length articles in reliable sources) for general notability? Gatekeeping. But we accomplish encyclopedic gatekeeping in some specialized areas in alternative ways; see for instance, WP:GEOLAND. Journal indices play the same gatekeeping role by measuring importance through the millions of implicit votes made by authors citing other work.
To recap:
  1. We need journal articles for encyclopedia developmental work, not just pleasure reading
  2. Citation indices are good evidence of notability and reliability.
--A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 19:14, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sincere question: wouldn't the same information presented in a list or as part of a larger article be just as useful? Does it really need to be a permastub? Tercer (talk) 19:38, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're free to propose article mergers. But in general, things are best treated in a dedicated article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:03, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was specifically asking for A. B.'s opinion, not yours. Tercer (talk) 20:08, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good question and a good idea. I'm happy with a list. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 22:33, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, you didn't address A. B. by name. Secondly, even if you had done so, this is an open forum, anyone can post a comment. Thirdly, Headbomb is cofrrect. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:54, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Convenience break

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I think I said (or wrote) "highly selective." I think I meant this as more of a description but didn't look it up in the essay. I suppose, this phrase reflects my experience more than what the essay says. I believe that if I had known this would be a problem I would not have written that phrase. In any case, I apologize for my mistake. I don't know if anyone else used that phrase. And looking at a previous post where I used that phrase — yes I meant it as a description. I say "selective" first, followed by "highly selective" in parenthesis. Briefly quoting myself, I wrote: "Notability is established by independent evaluation in selective (highly selective) databases. As I see it, the important thing is that these are independent of the journals and reliable. This also satisfies WP:V.---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:01, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I did use my web browser's Find function in an effort to find that phrase (which is ⌘F instead of ^F, because I'm using a Mac), and it wasn't there. I see Steve's comment that "Notability is established by independent evaluation in selective (highly selective) databases", and I understood this to mean that notability is established by the highly selective databases rather than by a somewhat selective database, but I do not see Scopus's name in that sentence. I'm specifically looking for a comment that says Scopus = highly selective.
I don't think that there is much, if any, difference between "a journal exists" and "a journal has an article on Wikipedia". I assume (and hope) that if there is a Wikipedia article about the journal, that the journal actually exists, but the fact that the journal has an article on Wikipedia means to me that ...the journal has an article on Wikipedia.
I do not normally assume much beyond that. Perhaps I assume that an individual editor actually wanted to create an article about that journal (or, more likely, about a whole list of journals). But I never assume that Wikipedia articles are correct, complete, or fair. I know that important information could have been omitted, or unknown to the editor, or recently blanked by a vandal. Important information may not be available, or may not be verifiable in suitable sources. You said that when you saw an article about a journal, you assumed "the lack of any negative commentary [in the Wikipedia article] meant a journal was actually widely considered reputable". When I see an article about a journal, my faith only goes so far as believing that a Wikipedia article exists. I suspect that you are much more like our typical reader in that respect. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whether it's actually highly selective or not, NJOURNALS editors consider indexing in Scopus to be sufficient by itself to confer notability. See the examples I gave below from AfDs where the editors most active in journal deletion discussions assert things like Wiki-notability is not temporary, and having been listed by Scopus in the past is traditionally enough to qualify, so by that standard, we'd be done. and this journal was listed by Scopus, which makes it a clear meet of NJournals. So Scopus is implicitly covered by Steve's comment on indexes that establish notability.
My assumptions about the reputability of these journals were the same as those from any of the other editors here who have stated they use our articles on journals to assess source reputation. Except that I was also assuming these subjects met GNG and thus that secondary independent SIGCOV actually existed even if it wasn't cited. A topic where I believe there is a strong presumption of GNG coverage gives me some reassurance that I would be able to find RS criticism if it did exist, and so I will feel more confident in a journal's reputability if my general searches for negative coverage don't return anything. That changes when the topic isn't expected to have garnered any IRS significant coverage, positive or negative. JoelleJay (talk) 01:23, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid this criterion comes from confusing reliability with notability (they are unrelated, neither implies the other), and a misguided desire to "reward" good journals with a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia articles should definitely not be seen as rewards to the things we like. And it doesn't matter how good the journal is, there is still no point in having an article about it if we don't have anything to say.
As a final point, note that Scopus indexes 34,346 journals. Surely nobody thinks we should have standalone articles for all of them? For comparison, we currently have approximately 7,309 articles about journals, the majority of which are already permastubs. Tercer (talk) 08:00, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Convenience break 2

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Convenience break 3

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However, a result of this and other discussions, I am seeing a chink in this armor. And it is this chink that is causing concern for some editors, resulting in seemingly numerous discussions surrounding the NJOURNALS essay. This chink can be defined as the keeping of crackpot journals. So, I have come to the conclusion that a caveat of sorts needs to be added to NJOURNALS.
It can be worded to say something like this: If a group of Wikipedia editors in good standing reach a consensus that "Such and Such Journal" publishes mostly bunk, junk, and/or crackpot theories, then that article should be deleted, based on this consensus. This is just an proposal idea. But, I think it should be somehow implemented. And I am basing it on WP:COMMONSENSE. Let's face it, if articles are kept on the basis of NJOURNALS, this proposal could also be possible. This can be implemented in deletion discussions. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 23:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If our notability guidelines cause us to decide that we should spend our editorial time and attention on one-off political peccadilloes like "covfefe" or pointless forced memes like "cheugy" (I wrote that article, so I get to say this about it), and that we should not spend it on Journal of Physics A, then they are not fulfilling their purpose (or, as the kids say, they are "scuffed"). The situation being proposed is that a journal which exists and publishes reliable output for fifty years (and is cited by everyone as being such) is not notable, but if a clickbait tabloid writes an article about its chief editor shaking their ass in a TikTok video, it is? Scuffed indeed; if the guidelines do not fulfill the purpose of creating a useful encyclopedia, it is the right and the duty of the editors to alter or abolish them. jp×g 19:46, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"If a clickbait tabloid writes an article about its chief editor shaking their ass in a TikTok video, it is?"
Not an independent source, not a good comparison. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:52, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are misreading. "Its editor" refers to the editor of the journal, not the editor of the tabloid. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:13, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What David said; I mean something like Slickman, Dick (2023-08-08). "Uh, It Turns Out The Twerking Professor Actually Runs, Like, A Real Academic Journal". Vice. or Trout, Kilgore (2023-08-08). "So, Like, Here's The Academic Journal That Professor From TikTok Was Trying To Educate Us About". The Daily Dot. If our system would count this as "significant coverage" and count the journal's normal operation as "run-of-the-mill", it seems like the system is kind of a bad way to ensure that an encyclopedia gets written. jp×g 00:54, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Misinterpreted, apologies... Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:43, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, I appreciated the opportunity to clarify (and write those headlines) :^) jp×g 18:16, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hear, hear. -- asilvering (talk) 05:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're dangerously close to the mentality that "good things should be rewarded with a Wikipedia article". That's definitely not how it's supposed to work. Journal of Physics A has done its job, congratulations (really, I have nothing against it, I have published there myself). There's still very little to say about it. What is interesting are the articles that are published in the journal, not the journal itself.
I'm genuinely curious about how on Earth could you alter the notability guidelines in this direction. Are you thinking about journals only, that all good journals deserve a Wikipedia article, or are you thinking about something more general, that even all good people deserve a Wikipedia article? How about stars? They're so big, generate so much energy, and have existed for billions of years. Do all of them deserve Wikipedia articles? Tercer (talk) 10:53, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm concerned and somewhat confused by your repeated use of phrasing like "rewarded with a Wikipedia article" and "deserve Wikipedia articles". Is this projection or is it a deliberate misunderstanding? It's not present, even in implication, in jpxg's comment, which is about creating a useful encyclopedia, the reason we're all supposed to be here. A Wikipedia article isn't some kind of award. -- asilvering (talk) 16:23, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been interpreting this as "academic things are inherently encyclopedic and thus deserve articles (especially since GNG gives us articles on so much non-academic trash)", which kind of is the temperament of some editors. JoelleJay (talk) 01:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think academic publishers occupy a unique position because their mission is parallel to (and intertwined with) our own. Their reliability as sources is directly upstream of our own reliability -- if journals are lying bastards, we have pretty dire problems with our own content -- and I think that there's a great deal of synergy between the processes of determining their reliability as sources versus their notability as sources. jp×g 01:46, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What about the hundreds of journals that are no longer considered reliable by indexing services but are nevertheless afforded an article uncritically repeating what they claim about themselves? Or the dozens of currently-indexed journals that fail RS/MEDRS/PSEUDOSCIENCE? JoelleJay (talk) 02:07, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They're a non-issue, to the extent that WP:ABOUTSELF still applies. A journal that ceased to be impactful does not suddenly became a lying sack of crap that can't be relied for basic self-descriptions like field, frequency of publication, etc... Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:26, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, it takes a lot for a journal to be delisted from Scopus. It's not only ceasing to be "impactful" (if it were, Scopus would be much smaller, there are plenty of journals there with no impact whatsoever). One of the reasons Scopus gives for delisting a journal is precisely problems with peer-review.
It makes absolutely no sense to have an article in Wikipedia because it was indexed by Scopus and still allow the journal to claim it is peer-reviewed, when Scopus itself won't stand behind this claim. Tercer (talk) 06:30, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Problems with peer review" doesn't mean there is no peer review. It means the reviewing is shit. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:48, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's just wishful thinking. You have no basis from which to claim the journal is still peer-reviewed. And it's not acceptable to claim in Wikivoice that the journal is peer-reviewed without any qualification. Our purpose is to serve the readers, not the journals. Tercer (talk) 07:10, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, wrong. We have multiple sources claiming Physics Essays is peer-reviewed (e.g. ESCI), we have the identity of several reviewers for Physics Essays, and Scopus did not delist Physics Essays because of problems with peer review (like you claim it did), but rather because of metrics (i.e. it's no longuer cited enough for Scopus to care about it). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:22, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Who said anything about Physics Essays? I'm talking about dropped journals in general. There are hundreds of them. Do you seriously claim that none of them were dropped because of problems with peer review?
And by the way, what is your source about Physics Essays being dropped only because of low citations? The Scopus entry doesn't give any reason, it simply says it was dropped. Tercer (talk) 08:59, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Headbomb, I'd really like you to answer this question. Why do you claim Physics Essays was dropped only because of low citations? Tercer (talk) 13:27, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that it was dropped only because of low citations, but "metrics" (i.e. low citations) is the reason given by Scopus for discontinuing their coverage see July 2023 list or this slightly outdated alternative. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:34, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tercer, if you look at the first link it says "Quality issues" which is a section heading at the top. If you look at the second link it says "metrics" in the column. I was thinking of providing two screen shots (one for each link), but I'm sure this is copyrighted material, and there would be a problem with posting those here or anywhere online. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 18:08, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link. Indeed it lists "Metrics" as the reason for delisting Physics Essays (I never claimed it had delisted it for lack of peer review, what I said is that problems with peer review is one of the criteria Scopus uses for delisting).
The spreadsheet does list, however, hundreds of journals as being delisted for "Publication Concerns", which may very well be lack of peer review. Which is the point I was making: it is not acceptable to tell our readers that such journals are peer-reviewed. Tercer (talk) 19:11, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On a second thought, the fact that Scopus delisted Physics Essays because of metrics, and not quality, is very worrisome. This implies that they would be happy to keep it indexed (as indeed they did for decades) as long as people were citing it? This implies that being indexed by Scopus means absolutely nothing about the quality of a journal, and we shouldn't use indexing by Scopus as a criterion for anything. Tercer (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In the first place, if you look at the first link again it says "quality issues" in the "quality issues column." The second says "metrics". So we have both. Second, claiming something implies something else is not based on factual evidence. Being delisted means just that. It means a journal cannot claim credibility based on Sopus. Additionally, if a journals are delisted for "Publication Concerns" (which I don't see as a criterion on the page) does not mean lack of Peer Review, unless it says specifically that was the concern. This is a leap of logic you are making without evidence. In any case, personally, I find it highly unlikely that any journal that ever was listed on Scopus doesn't have peer review. This seems to be a fundamental standard of all academic journals. I have yet to see one on Wikipedia that is not peer reviewed. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 20:31, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course there is one: Physics Essays, as extensively discussed on WP:FTN. That's why we removed the claim that it is peer-reviewed from the article. Tercer (talk) 20:41, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus is materially wrong about the facts here. It is peer-reviewed. It just has a shit reviewing process. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:45, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It has already been explained to you multiple times. WP:IDHT won't make it peer-reviewed. Tercer (talk) 22:20, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rather WP:IDHT won't make it not peer-reviewed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:42, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what the explanation was or is, other than removing "peer reviewed" from the "Physic Essays" article was accomplished by a consensus of a small number of Wikipedia editors. This does not mean there is no actual peer review. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very naïve point of view. It's well-documented that there are thousands of journals that are lying basterds.
And why would there be any relationship between reliability and notability? According to which definition of notability? Certainly the one in WP:N doesn't imply, and is not implied by reliability. Tercer (talk) 06:35, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If anything, this seems more like an argument for raising standards on what sourcing qualifies internet ephemera for notability, rather than lowering notability standards for academic journals. – Teratix ₵ 20:45, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
---That's fine. You have your point of view and I have mine and never the twain shall meet. Steve Quinn (talk) 07:27, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tercer, oh my, right you are! I changed my response, and added Clarification for the Confused (like me) way down below. Thank you for catching my confusion. :^) Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 01:21, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Markworthen, I do like your suggestions. There are some articles that say this journal is "the official organ of such and such society." Saying "articles published by respected scholars", or some "journal articles have demonstrated influence", or "some articles have been mentioned in respected sources" is possible, and in fact a good idea. Up until now, we have tried to minimize the prose in journal articles - but maybe this kind of content would work. I will take a look at this when I get the chance. It would be an opportunity for the sponsoring project to shine! ---Steve Quinn (talk) 21:53, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Steve, I routinely remove such author listings from articles, as they are almost always idiosyncratic collections of names that according to some WP editor are important. I only accept such lists if there are independent reliable sources that discuss the importance of an author for the journal or the other way around. Otherwise it's just name-dropping. The same goes for selecting influential articles, it needs sourcing. What can be done is list the 3-5 most cited articles from a journal. --Randykitty (talk) 07:47, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I meant that such additional criteria be considered when making the decision about whether a journal merits its own article or not. I did not mean to imply that if an editor decides to write such an article, that the article itself should include the editor's justification for notability (other than on the Talk page, if the editor wishes). Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 01:26, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Randykitty - I agree with you and that is the angle I was thinking of. Also, I am aware of your removal of idiosyncratic materials, and I agree with that. I don't know if it is necessary to list 3-5 of a journal's most cited articles, but that can be looked as well, and might be a good idea. I believe editors have done this in the past. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 18:21, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is all covered in WP:JWG Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:04, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Headbomb, thanks. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:35, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which is another essay with zero power to enforce rules... JoelleJay (talk) 03:54, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's because its main function is as a writing guide, not enforcing rules. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 07:27, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Journal sponsorship by a learned society wouldn't help with a journal's notability, as it's not inherited. fgnievinski (talk) 03:31, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fgnievinski - What I meant by "sponsoring project" is WikiProject Academic Journals. Journal articles that have other related information cited by secondary sources, as Randykitty mentions above, might make this WikiProject look good. It was just a thought. Sorry for the confusion. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 18:07, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Convenience break 4

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What a mess. People who vote here seem to think that:

- This essay is the law, instead of just an opinion. Please read Wikipedia:Essays

- An RFC where a bunch of people vote can somehow overrule WP:SIGCOV, which is one of the guiding principles of Wikipedia.

Neither of those things is true.

Now the question is; how do we end this farce? Polygnotus (talk) 12:11, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If we keep insisting we have to somehow "fix" this essay it will be very hard, because the problem is the line "If a journal meets any of the following criteria, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources, it qualifies for a stand-alone article" and if you delete that line everything else stops making sense. The lightbulb moment should be this: Look at the old versions of the essay. Its just a copy of another page, WP:PROF. Look at the version where the user copied it. WP:PROF contained some pretty reasonable stuff. Then 1 guy, in 2009, copied it, and changed the rules a bit so it was about journals instead of academics, and it has never been touched ever again... Do you really think this one guy has the ability to make the rules without any attempt at consensus building? Why would you need widespread consensus to undo the mistake of one dude? It is certainly easier to, if someone says "this essay proves my point", say "an essay can't override widespread consensus". Polygnotus (talk) 12:59, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that this essay is routinely quoted as if it were an actual guideline. Both by editors that were fooled, and by editors that know better and are simply lying. See [17][18][19][20] for some examples. There is also plenty of examples were people notice that it is just an essay and thus disregard it [21][22].
I think the best solution is to have an RfC to make it explicit that NJOURNALS is not supported by consensus. In the best case scenario we can then develop a notability guideline for journals that is actually supported by consensus. In the worst case scenario we will at least be able to point to the RfC when someone tries to use NJOURNALS as an argument for anything. Tercer (talk) 13:55, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
by editors that know better and are simply lying. So much for WP:AGF. The simpler explanation is that people who quote it agree with it. Wikipedia is not a strict bureaucracy, and does not have strict rules. You may consider GNG sacrosanct and unviolable, others may considered it for what it is, a good guideline, to which there can be exceptions. Others may also consider GNG sacrosanct, but have a different standard than you for what constitutes significant coverage. You can try as hard as you want, you will never succeed in barring people from quoting something that they, but not you, agree with. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:01, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreeing with it doesn't make it a guideline. I'm giving examples of people saying that it is a guideline. Tercer (talk) 20:33, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you think DGG wasn't for two seconds aware that NJOURNALS was not an 'official Wikipedia guideline', you really have no idea what you're talking about. When DGG wrote Scopus meets the usual guideline for academic journnals", he meant wikt:guideline, not WP:GUIDELINE. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course I'm including DGG among those that know better. Tercer (talk) 20:59, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And yet DGG felt NJOURNALS was not permissive enough. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:00, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
He was wrong about that. Tercer (talk) 21:17, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
He had a different opinion about that. Right and wrong is in the eye of the beholder. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone is free to argue how they see the merits of this essay — such as it doesn't overrule widespread consensus. No one is stopping anyone from saying that. And this is hardly one guy's interpretation. It has a had the support of a number of editors during its years-long history. There are many editors who agree with it, and this has been said a number of times in this discussion and in other recent discussions. And there is no way to change that. People have their own minds. Also, saying one group of editors are being fooled while the other group of editors is lying falls under WP:NPA. There is no evidence of either. I am glad these attacks are infrequent or I would feel the need to do something about it. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 00:59, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You don't think this !voter

Weak Keep I'd prefer to see this deleted based on the paucity of sourcing, however, by my reading of the standards of NJOURNAL (the journal being indexed in Scopus) I am, regrettably, compelled to !vote Keep.

might have been misled into thinking it was a real guideline? JoelleJay (talk) 03:06, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, he quite prominently didn't agree with GNG as a method of determining notability either. The way some people talk you'd never know that GNG is a guideline that reasonable people can disagree about, rather than an explicit rule. -- asilvering (talk) 03:03, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Saying that particular ivoter was misled seems to be based on an assumption. Are you not reading your assumption into this ivote? ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:17, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I counter propose a journal is significant if a significant number of its article content are significant.. So, if a good number of the articles (or the content within them) in a particular journal meets GNG, then so should the journal. Jagmanst (talk) 05:22, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think this "upward" inheritance of notability is generally an intriguing idea if used cautiously. In cases where appropriate, it might be a WP:Summary style article that makes the significant aspects of the subject clear (for journals, the set of notable articles). —siroχo 22:22, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen similar arguments for the notability of record labels, though label drama is covered enough for that case to be more flimsy. Mach61 (talk) 13:48, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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I'm glad I asked the question: it seems I'm not alone in being confused.
My impression is that answering either yes or no makes little difference, although the discussion wasn't limited to a binary yes/no, so a consensus may emerge which goes beyond the specific question. Whether Scopus and WoS are included in the list of examples for an explanation doesn't affect either the proposed criterion "be influential in its subject area" or its alleged typical implication of relying on "selective citation indices, indexing services, and bibliographic databases". I've seen very few comments on the relative merits of Scopus or WoS and many comments on the number of articles people desire to have about journals; but Scopus lists twice as many journals as WoS.
Discussing criterion 1 is also rather pointless as long as people keep relying on the long discredited Clarivate JIF as a short-hand for notability under proposed criterion 2 "frequently cited". Someone above even mentioned "having a JIF" as a relevant property, although it never meant much and it's going to mean even less as Clarivate is going to state a JIF for 9000 more journals this year while the terrain moves quickly (one day your journal has a Clarivate JIF of 10, the next day it's delisted).
A quick search in Category:English-language journals shows that most mention being in Scopus, about half mention WoS and a little less than half mention all of Scopus, WoS and an IF. (By the way, it's silly to maintain such information in free-form text rather than on Wikidata.) Whether inclusion in WoS or Scopus is upheld or not as a criterion, I have a hard time seeing many articles being affected. Nemo 06:45, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Move to close

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I move to close this discussion. It is obvious that none of the possible answers (yes, no, yes but no, no but yes, yes but yes, no never, etc) is garnering a consensus and this is becoming a huge waste of time. I would encourage participants in this discussion who have not or only rarely participated in journal-related AfDs to do so from time to time. Being better informed might eventually lead to a consensus that is acceptable to a majority here. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 21:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification for the Confused (like me)

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After reading many comments, I responded with the opposite of what I meant because I misunderstood the question. Apparently I'm not alone. Therefore, I wrote a revised version of the RfC (below) with two objectives in mind: (1) Please tell me if I still don't understand the question accurately, and (2) If my revised version (below) is accurate, I hope it might help others who are confused, including any newcomers to this (long, dense) discussion.

Revised version of the RfC question

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This RfC (Request for Comment) concerns the criteria we use to determine if a journal possesses sufficient notability for an article, i.e., a Wikipedia article about the journal. In the Criteria section section of this essay, Wikipedia:Notability (academic journals) (shortcut abbreviation: NJOURNALS), the first sentence is: "If a journal meets any of the following criteria, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources, it qualifies for a stand-alone article."

We seek comment specifically about Criterion 1 (C1): "The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area", and its corresponding Remark 1b (R1b): "The most typical way of satisfying C1 is to show that the journal is included in selective citation indices, indexing services, and bibliographic databases. Examples of such services are Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Scopus. Being included in comprehensive (i.e. non-selective) indices and services like Google Scholar and the Directory of Open Access Journals are not sufficient to establish notability."

We request comment (replies, answers, discussion, etc.) in response to this question: Is inclusion of a journal in a selective citation index (such as SCIE or Scopus) sufficient for notability? In other words, should we modify Criterion 1, Remark 1b (C1/R1b) or keep it as is? Finally, for clarity:

Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 01:08, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You're still missing two points. First, the singular/plural distinction: Currently it says that being "included in selective citation indices", plural, is enough. Second, this is an essay. Consensus that something is sufficient for notability should not be represented by an assay. So, if there is indeed consensus that indexing should be sufficient, then it would be an incorrect response to that consensus to merely edit the essay and keep it an essay. Conversely, if there is consensus that indexing is insufficient, then that consensus is inadequate for removing it from the essay; we have plenty of essays that make points that are not consensus, or even that contradict our consensus guidelines.
A proper yes-or-no RFC would have two outcomes that are logical contradictions to each other, so there could be no excluded middle. That is not the case here. If yes means that indexing is now consensus for notability (that is, has the force of a guideline rather than an essay), and no means that indexing is forbidden from notability arguments (cannot even be mentioned by an essay) then why should respondents have to choose one or the other? Why are you preventing respondents from taking a middle position: that this is a position on which reasonable editors can disagree, and should be allowed to continue to disagree, rather than either codifying one side as a guideline or forbidding the other side from ever mentioning it? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:56, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The editors who most often invoke C1b to keep articles at AfD don't seem to think multiple indices are needed... And anyway, it's pretty clear this criterion isn't being used as an "interpretation" of GNG SIGCOV but rather as a direct, alternate pathway to notability, otherwise the equivalent coverage in any RS database would equate to SIGCOV, not just the "selective" ones. And since this usage of the criterion is wholly outside what is allowed by WP:N, it is not a valid argument to make and should be disregarded at AfDs. JoelleJay (talk) 01:57, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of people at AfDs don't seem to think that more than one source is needed to pass GNG either. That doesn't mean we should change GNG to follow their misinterpretation, nor that we should deprecate GNG because it is frequently misapplied. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:28, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The vast, vast majority of AfD editors recognize that multiple sources are needed to meet GNG. That's very different from the editors who most often invoke an essay appearing satisfied with only one index. And what about the other 80% of my comment? JoelleJay (talk) 23:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
JolleJay, I see what you are saying this appears to be an alternate path. But, I believe editors who participate in WikiProject Academics see this essay as an interpretation of GNG. And I am not clear about you mean, when saying "...otherwise the equivalent coverage in any RS database would equate to SIGCOV, not just the "selective" ones."
And there are editors such as yourself who think the criteria or criterion in NJOURNALS is not a a valid argument and should be disregarded at AfDs. Yet, the years-long track record has been that NJOURNALS, or its criteria, have been invoked at many AfDs pertaining to Academic Journals. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:49, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Steve Quinn, what I mean about SIGCOV is that if editors believe that the material provided by Scopus is genuinely SIGCOV then the same extent of coverage provided by e.g. PubMed Central must also be SIGCOV. And yet editors claim coverage by the latter is not sufficient to pass NJOURNALS, so it's clearly not actually about SIGCOV at all.
That a small group of editors has misled others into thinking this is a real guideline does not mean it has achieved anything beyond local consensus. JoelleJay (talk) 20:44, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"PubMed Central" is not significant coverage because to get in PMC all you need to do is publish in an open access journal and be funded by US federal money. MEDLINE is more stringent but omission is generally more indicative of a lack of notability than inclusion is indicative of notability. Index Medicus is the truly selective index in Medicine. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
JoelleJay, you should have a closer look at PMC. It doesn't give any information about journals, let alone any metrics or whatever. It just lists manuscripts published in a journal and at best a table of contents. No analysis, no evaluation. And inclusion is automatic if you publish OA or was funded by US public money as Headbomb points out. --Randykitty (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Inclusion is also automatic if you publish in a Scopus-indexed journal. And sorry I meant the NLM catalogue, which contains exactly as much prose coverage as Scopus (none whatsoever) and comparable non-prose content. Autogenerated calculations from a database are not any more "secondary analysis" than an autogenerated NOAA list of the locations of today's ten highest reported temperatures is. No person is specifically analyzing the subject directly to provide context to those numbers and publishing it in their own words. JoelleJay (talk) 21:33, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you apparently do not understand what SIGCOV is. It is the extent of coverage, not "what it takes to get that coverage" or "how prestigious the source is". JoelleJay (talk) 21:04, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's also not the format that matters. I wrote a whole article from a single database record, and the reason it works is because the database record contains significant coverage. Ergo, the problem with NLM is that there's not much information there, not that the tiny bit of information is formatted as a list or table rather than in prose. Turning it into prose wouldn't solve the problem.
I could imagine editors wanting to restrict notability-indicating sources to human-generated sources. This is not something we've discussed in the past, but I could imagine the idea being particularly interesting to the folks working on Wikipedia:Large language models. I think an RFC to amend WP:GNG would approve of this idea; on the other hand, AFD would soon be filled with unfounded and unprovable accusations that all sources for any subject that IDONTLIKE are obviously generated by ChatGPT. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I've said before, the amount of information that verifiably exists on a topic is irrelevant if it does not comprise secondary independent SIGCOV. A catalogue that contains n non-prose parameter fields for each entry is just as unusable a GNG source as one that contains parameters because we have zero context regarding which ones are DUE or how any of them are important to the topic. Prosifying a database entry yourself is just flatly OR. JoelleJay (talk) 23:26, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I get what you mean, but the way you've written it is confusing. For example, "the amount of information" is the only thing that matters for SIGCOV. Sources must additionally (but separately) by secondary and independent. Prosifying a database entry is not OR. OR == material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. If you have a "reliable, published source" (e.g., a reputable database) that contains "facts" (e.g., 'ISSN: 2409-294X"), and you write a "material" that says exactly what that reliable, published source says (e.g., "This journal's ISSN is 2409-294X"), then you have in no way violated either the letter or the spirit of the Wikipedia:No original research policy.
I'd much rather have you tell me that you think I'm destroying Wikipedia than to tell editors that copying an exact, objective, verifiable fact out of a database is making up garbage that can't be sourced to any published reliable source merely because the reliable source they cited is organized as a database. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, that is precisely what I meant, and I apologize again for being unclear. I previously proposed a longer, more explicit version, but afterwards I'm afraid I took WP:RFCBRIEF too seriously. Tercer (talk) 15:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If that is what you intended, then this is not a well-posed RFC, because the yes and no outcomes are not actually the direct negations of each other. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:08, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that if one looks at articles, that number of citations is a better indicator than the impact factor of the journal in which it was published. (Not sure what is meant by IA, I assume this means IF?) For a journal, however, number of citations is rather meaningless, as it heavily depends on how many articles are published. That can be normalized by taking the mean number of citations per article, which, of course, is the IF. (BTW, Nature's IF is 64.8, not 4 and neither Scopus nor Clarivate charge any fees from publishers to include their journals.) --Randykitty (talk) 09:03, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cordless Larry so they say but then read the critique of the score in the page you linked. Oh and yes Nature is 64 not 4 my typo. However I do stand by the fact they mostly publish for purposes of a quick public grab not science these days. I prefer looking at the citations and downlads directly both of which are readily available on journal papers. By Nature I am only referring to their primary edition not the subsidurary journals which are very good. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 10:21, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Trying again...

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If we just removed 1b would this be able to make it to guideline status? Or maybe we can find something a bit more restrictive to use here? I'd like to have a leg to stand on for things like [24]. I don't think just being indexed by some site is ever going to gain acceptance as the bar for inclusion. But maybe a particular impact factor (as measured by a particular site)? Maybe something about publishing highly-cited work? Not sure. I think the GNG is too restrictive, but what we have here is too permissive. And with the GNG being so difficult for most journals to meet... Hobit (talk) 04:34, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You've probably seen  CheckUser is not magic pixie dust at some point, but if anyone finds some of that magic pixie dust, then I'd like to make writing academic journal articles about the journals in your field become fashionable. (I assume that pixie dust isn't strong enough to do something really big, like magically reversing all pollution.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:36, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My field doesn't have journals that are considered relevant. We're conference people :-). But the problem is that the journals just don't meet any inclusion guidelines and so folks won't write them just to watch them get deleted. Thus my belief that getting this fixed is important. Hobit (talk) 13:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you missed WhatamIdoing's point, that instead of working on the front end (what people see on Wikipedia) it would be helpful to work on the back end (creating and publishing reviews that could be used as sources). I have occasionally seen published reviews of journals but it's rare. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yep I did miss this. I was thinking that starting a journal that reviewed journals would be fun. Will I really have time to do this? No. Would it be fairly easy? Yep. I've been visualizing writing such an article (though again, for my area conferences would be more important) and I think it's possible to actually write meaningful stuff that would have use outside of Wikipedia. Hobit (talk) 18:53, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, exactly. Any academic field could provide us with some properly published, independent, reliable secondary sources. A nice little "Review of Cardiology Journals", even if it only gave us two sentences about each individual journal and a couple of quick compare-and-contrast points, would be extremely helpful to editors. An article talking about how your field is focused on conferences, with a quick description of the most important conferences, would be equally helpful. It wouldn't even have to be a peer-reviewed source (although Collection development#Journals suggests that might be possible, and subject-area journals might well be interested in describing their field); a column for The Chronicle of Higher Education or a trade rag (e.g., for an engineering subfield) would be enough.
In terms of existing resources, for medicine, I know that Doody's Core Titles in the Health Sciences is an important resource that might be useful to us. Although it's paywalled ($175/year for the version that contains the actual reviews), I think it still counts as Wikipedia:Published. Maybe User:Samwalton9 (WMF) could get a subscription for Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library, or something similar for other fields. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:01, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why do they have to be stand-alone articles? Is there a list of journals anywhere you could use to write an NLIST article? SportingFlyer T·C 17:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Naming other indexes as sufficient or not would be helpful

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So we could quickly (CTRL+F) see if being indexed in EBSCO or Medline or Copernicus or such is sufficient or not. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:35, 22 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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