Wikipedia talk:Notability (academic journals)

Discussion during initial formulation of proposed guideline

• Personally, I feel these are way too stringent and set standards which are incredibly hard to demonstrate because of lack of resources. Probably more than half our articles would be deleted under these standards. I would move for simpler, less verbose, and wider standards such as:
• Any journal which can conceivably be used to reference an article on Wikipedia
• All journals indexed in journal databases or covered by things such as the Journal Citation Reports, ISI Web of Knowledge, Science Citation Index, ...
• Regularly published pseudoscience/fringe journals which are considered "key publications" by a notable pseudoscientific/fringe movement. For example if there was a "Journal of Cold Fusion", that would be included, but something like "Polish Quarterly Journal of Ghost & Spirits" would be excluded.

Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:10, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for the feedback. I modeled this draft on WP:ACADEMIC and started with the criteria listed at Wikipedia:Notability (media)#Newspapers, magazines and journals.

I tried to be as inclusive as possible, but I fear that if we adopt a criterion like the first one you list, we may have trouble convincing the rest of the WP community to adopt our guideline.

Concerning your second criterion, that is basically the same as what I propose (anything in WoS or SCI will be in JCR), only I explain that in footnote 2 (in the style copied from WP:PROF). Footnote 1 actually goes much further, allowing a journal to qualify even if it is not in WoS, SCI, or JCR, it just requires that it is included in the "major indexing services in its field". Footnote 3 goes even further than that, it would basically be enough to show that there are a few reasonably-well cited articles to make a journal satisfy this criterion.

As for the fringe journals, I am not sure they should be part of the WP academic journals project, so I excluded them and referred to WP:FRINGE. However, if consensus here is that such journals are part of the subject matter of this project, then we should include something about them. Again, however, we may have problems convincing the rest of the WP community to adopt a rule stating "journals which are considered "key publications" by a notable pseudoscientific/fringe movement", because that sounds rather vague.

Does this sound convincing? --Crusio (talk) 14:58, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes I noticed you modeled it after the Media notability, and I find that guideline to be overly specific and WP:CREEP/WP:BUREAU-smelling. These are academic journals, no need to write a thesis-like guideline, let's keep it simple and focus on keeping the good stuff in rather than the bad stuff out. There's already plenty of policies which can be invoked to keep the crap out (including the media guideline you based yourself on), I don't think there's a need to duplicate them.

1) WoS/Sci/JCR = Major indexing services (I used examples instead of finding what the general term was)

2) The fringe criteria could use some work I agree.

3) I think the Journals project could be enlarged to cover anything that pretends to be a WP:RS on something which could be an academic subject. It's not like there will be a WikiProject Fringe Journal created for them.

Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• Why isn't WP:N enough? “If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.” That sounds to me like a very reasonable criterion for determining whether an academic journal is worth a Wikipedia article or not. Do you have some concrete examples where following WP:N leads to serious problems? — Miym (talk) 22:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples. It is, in fact, pretty rare to find an article discussing a journal, >95% or academic journals will never be covered that way. So going with WP:N would mean that we would have to delete almost all articles on the very journals that we normally regard as reliable sources for other articles, which is not really very logical. IMHO, most academic journals are not controversial, so I don't see much problems with using primary sources for our articles on them (much like primary sources can be used to source uncontroversial things -like birth dates- in biographies of living persons). If we would go exclusively with WP:N, we would end up having only articles on journals which had created some controversy, because that would have led to "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject". Hope this makes sense. --Crusio (talk) 22:32, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, using common sense, those "reliable secondary sources" could be, e.g., journal rankings, major indexing services, journals mentioned in textbooks and surveys, etc. Can you give concrete examples of Wikipedia articles on notable journals that were deleted because people interpreted WP:N too strictly? Or some other examples of confused discussions where this guideline would help? (Please don't get me wrong, the guideline as such makes a lot of sense. I just don't want to see too many notability guidelines in cases where WP:N (+ WP:UCS) is enough in practice. Detailed guidelines for very narrow topics such as pornographic actors or academic journals is a bit too much WP:CREEP to me. And as you said, most academic journals are not controversial – so where is the need for this guideline?) — Miym (talk) 15:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Well, for instance this article was transformed into a redirect despite excellent library holdings. BMJ, one of the most reputed medical journals, was tagged as needing reliable third-party sources. Molecular Medicine, a journal with an impact factor of 2.1 (actually, that was an old one, it is now 3.4) got tagged for notability. And have a look at Modern Theology (journal), its edit history, and its talk page. Many other journals (I can find examples if you like) get needlessly tagged with notability tags in this way. If we had a clear guideline for journals, these things would be less controversial. I agree with your point about WP:CREEP and agree that it applies to pornographic actors (and as far as I am concerned, to sports figures, too). But we are talking here about academic journals, which invariably are considered WP:RS when we are creating content here. It's too weird that articles on these very sources then get tagged for notability, simply because there are no (or hardly any) third-party sources. It's an unfortunate fact of life that obscure sporters and porn actors get more third party coverage than academic journals. This is also why I disagree with Headbomb about including fringe science journals and whatever. Let those be covered by WP:FRINGE. I bet that DGG could provide even more examples of reputable journals that were/are under attack for not complying with WP:N.

• A good job and a necessary one. Thanks for getting the ball rolling.John Z (talk) 13:18, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• • Yes, a very good job. Some comments:

1. The indexing services listed are of different exclusiveness. SCI and SSCI, (both just a little less selective than before), very similar now to the coverage of Scopus-(which should be added to the list) are much more selective than PubMed and MathSciNet (and Chemical Abstracts and Biological Abstracts and Inspec and PsychInfo). I agree with Crusio that I would not necessarily regard being only in this later group as proof of notability, since they cover all journals in the field, at least in English, with any actual research articles. This is going to be a critical point on occasion, and I have not been altogether consistent. It amounts to a full order of magnitude difference. This will particularly affect local journals. Point 5 says this for Pub Med--checking coverage, it should say it for MathScinNet also. Point one should list only SCI, SSCI and Scopus.
2. I guess we do need to say it also meets V, to anticipate objections, but I can not easily imagine a journal that we might conceivably want to include for which we could not find basic V.
3. Criterion 7 should refer to specifically to size, and in both directions. Large ≠ notable, and small ≠ non-notable. (especially in the humanities).
4. For non US journals, there are now better resources than worldcat which lists relative few libraries outside the US and Canada and Australia. -- see the page Book sources, which lists other regional and national catalog. There is a wonder multi-catalog gateway at Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog KVK. [1], which is what I would now probably use for anything difficult. And I would now as a matter of course search any non-US humanities periodical in Zitschriftendatenbank (ZDB) [2]--tho it only gives German libraries, they tend to be excellent for such titles.(hint: select the search under "Titelanfang"--first words of title. ) I think this has to go in the "Library Holdings " section
5. The library holdings section needs to say that it has to be judged a/c what is expected for the subject.
6. I do not agree with point 9. If they are in the major indexing tools they should be included--after all, not that many of them are & only the ones that pretend to some scientific style. For the ones that don't, the relevant rules are those for periodicals in general.
7. What about popular journals--same thing--if they are in the major indexing tools, they count. Otherwise they still might, but using the rules for periodicals in general.
8. Caveat 3 is a duplication
9. We need an explicit statement that for journals that are composite sections without distinctive titles, we will almost make a combination article even if they are individually notable. For journals that have semi-distinctive titles, it would depend on the importance. For example, most of the sections of Physical Review do not have distinctive titles. Although the most important group of physics journal in the world, it is still covered in one article only. On the other hand, Journal of Physics B is actually Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics and therefore has a semi-distinctive title. As it is quite important, it would get a separate article. (Though I would move it to t he full title to clarify this).
10. Older titles are a major problem. They would normally each of them be separately notable. Libraries have had 3 way of handling them, all with strong advantages and disadvantages
    1. List all of them under the original title (a common older rule in Europe)
    2. List all of them under the newest title (the US rule till the 1960's)
    3. List them in each part under its successive title. (the almost universal modern rule)

Normally, we have been combining them all under the latest or best known title in order to bring the information together. I think there should probably be exceptions to that for some cases, In analogous situations, for cities we use the current title, e.g.Gdansk is used for the entire history of the city, but for successive governments, we usually use separate articles, and thus there is also an article for Free City of Danzig. But there are separate articles for Constantinople and Istanbul. So I think this justifies our rule to combine, but with exceptions.

DGG ( talk ) 23:20, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I think we're ready to go live. DGG ( talk ) 04:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• What's the best way to do that? Do I simply move this into project space or is there a special procedure I should follow? --Crusio (talk) 11:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
• I have moved the proposal and it is now "life". --Crusio (talk) 15:37, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Opinion about the actual proposal

I think this works. It matches what we usually do. DGG ( talk ) 21:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Really? Any academic journal older than 3 years meets these Notability requirements. The proposal suffers from inadequate Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences engagement. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with DGG that it works: we have used it in AFD to keep a journal and to delete others and almost all agreed with the outcomes. As a biologist, it certainly is possible that I neglected some Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences aspects. I would be delighted if you could give us some suggestions how to improve that. --Crusio (talk) 08:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Discussion after going "live"

• I would remove three sentences from the criteria: The journal has produced award winning work because award is unclear (e g is it any grant?) and the the link to jounalism awards seems irrelevant for academic works, plus I can't see when the other criteria wouldn't suffice; Publications that primarily carry advertising and only have trivial content may have relevant details merged to an article on their publisher (if notable) because I think merging like this makes navigating harder, and the text about the journal will be just as problematic in the publisher's page as in its own page, and what does advertising have to do with anything? according to some weird US law, all journals with publication fees only consist of ads; For journals which have made substantial impact outside academia, but in their academic capacity, the appropriate criteria for that sort of notability apply as an alternative. If notable only in another capacity entirely, use the general criteria for that field. because this idea is repeated four times in the guideline. I think the notes and examples section captures deletion discussions well, so the less text in other sections that take focus away from it the better in my opinion. Narayanese (talk) 07:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

• I think these are good suggestions. If nobody disagrees, I'll implement them. --Crusio (talk) 10:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
• Done. --Crusio (talk) 11:34, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Capitals in title

Why "Wikipedia:Notability (Academic Journals)" instead of "Wikipedia:Notability (academic journals)" like all other notability guidelines? See Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines, Category:Wikipedia proposals. — Miym (talk) 11:45, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

• You're absolutely right. I have moved the page. --Crusio (talk) 11:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Medline/Pubmed

It may be a bad idea to warn that some of the publications in MEDLINE/PubMed aren't peer reviewed when such records comprise, if I remember correctly, less than 0.1% of the records in their databases. 98.210.193.221 (talk) 22:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Do you have a source for that? Do you know how we can find out which ones are peer reviewed and which ones are not? Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 08:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/jsel.html has some information, but not the statistic. It's somewhere around there. 98.210.193.221 (talk) 19:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Ulrich's. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Criteria 3

Could examples for Criteria 3 be provided (meaning added to the list on the main page)? After [this discussion, I can agree to disagree, but I think part of the problem is that Criteria 3 doesn't have much in the way of examples. --Firefly322 (talk) 12:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• That criterium indeed looks like the weakest one and could perhaps be phrased a bit better, too ("some sort"...). I'm at a meeting in the US, so I have currently no time for this myself. Suggestions are welcome! --Crusio (talk) 13:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I should probably try and give a suggestion, but I wouldn't want to upset our detente. :-) --Firefly322 (talk) 13:54, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• Don't worry about that, it wouldn't :-) Might be good to get another opinion on that one anyway. --Crusio (talk) 17:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Alright I wrote it on the main page. Feel free to check and correct it. --Firefly322 (talk) 17:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• • • I can't come up with an example that would qualify by #3 but is otherwise non-notable ((MHO) but how about... that Social Text would qualify by #3 alone for the historical role it played in the Sokal affair, or that Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society would qualify for being the venue for Newton or Darwin's papers? Pete.Hurd (talk) 15:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC) (who is not in Chicago talking Science and drinking beer, but wishes he was...)
      • Pete has made an excellent start. Awesome. --Firefly322 (talk) 16:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• Excellent suggestions indeed! --Crusio (talk) 17:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC) (who is in Chicago talking science, killing his back, and having a Coke - too early for beer :-)

Notes and Examples #10

Criterion 3 may be satisfied for defunct as well as extant journals. Journals that have major contributions from historically notable scholars or journals that have been the focus of historical analysis can be covered under this criterion.

This seems to suggest that notability can be inherited. If a journal pushed hard for the acceptance of a new field of research or theory (e.g., plate tectonics or fractals), then I would say that it has "has served some sort of historic purpose or has a significant history." Major contributions from notable scholars, but in such a way as to satisfy criterion 3 rather than criteria 1 or 2, however, is mere notability by association. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 18:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• It would seem to me that notable anytime in history means encyclopedically notable, as Notability is not temporary. Pete.Hurd (talk) 19:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• Do journals actually ever "push" anything? Outside of article selection and peer-review, aren't they supposed to remain and expected to be neutral? (Normally allowing those who publish in their pages to interact, disagree, and correct one another?) Perhaps like wikipedia they are merely a means of publishing that attempt to be objective and have no inherent point of view. --Firefly322 (talk) 21:10, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't object to the idea that notability isn't temporary. Rather, it is the second statement that seems wrong: journal X is notable because the über-notable Y published there a lot, whether the journal is defunct or active, seems a stretch. As to the complete neutrality of the peer-review process, I don't know that bears on this question. In any case, whom the editor sends a manuscript to can have a large impact on the reviews generated; peer-review makes journal articles better than blog posts, but it isn't quite neutral or pure. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 22:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• • "Do journals actually ever "push" anything?" well, you can see in the history of psychology how different schools of thought had to establish their own journals before they could get going. If the behaviorists hold a virtual monopoly over the major journals, stifling alternative views, then cognitive psychology journals could be viewed as pushing an anti-behaviorist viewpoint once they get established. I would suggest that new journals have generally been founded by societies that study a particular subject that is not adequately represented in existing journals, those societies will have paradigms, those paradigms will be pushed by the society's journal in the way Firefly suggests, but rarely will it be overtly obvious to the outsider why that society is distinct from previous ones in the discipline. My 2c on that. I'm happy with condition #3 reading something like "for example, journal X is notable because the über-notable Y published there a lot" and leaving out the extant/extinct bit. I really have no strong views on whether condition 3 ought to be part of the guideline, and probably won't have an opinion until I see that condition used on test cases. Pete.Hurd (talk) 22:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Alright, Pete, and others, what if the example read as follows:

“ 10. Criterion 3 may be statisfied if the journal has significant contributions (e.g., a well-cited and/or well-discussed article) from historically notable scholars or has been the focus of historical analysis. ”

Feel free to check and correct it. --Firefly322 (talk) 01:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

These examples are still too weak to establish notability of an entire journal. Verbal chat 04:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

My preferred version would restore the bit about defunct journals and remove the bare presence of notable contributors as conferring notability:

“ 10. Criterion 3 may be satisfied for defunct as well as extant journals. Journals that have been the focus of historical analysis can be covered under this criterion. ”

RJC ^Talk_Contribs 23:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

AGF

Hi, can I remind editors to WP:AGF and not make unfounded accusations, especially in edit summaries. I have been watching this page and following its development since Crusio first tolf me about it, while it was still in his own user space. Verbal chat 04:47, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

What now?

• The proposed guidelines have now been used in several AfDs (with both "keep" and "delete" outcomes) and the current text seems to have stabilized to a version that most (all?) of us can agree upon. Does anybody know what the procedure is to get this from "proposed guideline" to "guideline"? --Crusio (talk) 16:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Open an RfC, and add it to Template:Cent. Fences&Windows 00:13, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• I'm afraid I don't immediately see how this works. From Wikipedia:Requests for comment it seems to me that this is a procedure for dispute resolution. --Crusio (talk) 00:39, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• Both steps done. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 01:09, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• To address some of the concerns voiced in the RfC below, the current guidelines are not unabashedly inclusionist. A rapid look at the history of Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Article alerts will show that a fair number of journal articles have been deleted since this guideline was proposed (many after having been prodded of taken to AfD by myself). --Crusio (talk) 16:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Promotion to guideline status

• Is the proposed guideline ready to be promoted to the status of a guideline? RJC ^Talk_Contribs 01:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• No, see above regarding Humanities and Social Sciences journals, and any journal older then 3 years old being notable according to this guideline. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:12, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• Please explain how Humanities and Social Sciences journals don't get treated correctly under this guideline so that we can improve it if necessary. And I fail to see how journals older than 3 years would automatically qualify. --Crusio (talk) 01:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see where this idea of 3-year-old journals being notable comes from and why humanities journals are disadvantaged. Fences&Windows 01:57, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

HASS involves dense literary work. Any journal in HASS older than 3 years will necessarily meet criteria 1 and 2, as 3 years is enough time for those to cycle into the citation of literature. If all journals are notable, then this isn't a notability criteria. Note 6 is, in particular, less than useful. Ulrichs, the key journal (as opposed to article) indexation is mentioned nowhere. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:10, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly not the case that any HASS journal established more than 3 years will necessarily meet 1 and 2. There are tens of thousands of journals that are almost never cited, and that no scholar would take for authority. To see this, consider the very large number of journals held by almost no library. It's my estimate that under the proposed criteria, most of the journals published in the world would definitely not qualify. DGG ( talk ) 02:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Criteria 1 and 2 don't say something like "occasionally cited", but "frequently cited". There's a difference here. What, exactly, is wrong with note 6? And according to our own WP article on Ulrich's: "Ulrich's Periodicals Directory is the standard library directory and database providing information about popular and academic magazines, scientific journals, newspapers and other serial publications." That hardly seems to be a source to derive notability from, as it includes many non-academic publications, too. --Crusio (talk) 02:17, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

And back into the HASS problem. Show me the citation indices or impact factors? Additionally, as all referee'd journals are RS, this is beginning to sound incestuous for HASS notability. Ulrich's is an authority for three key data fields: Referee'd status, intended audience (academic / non-academic), and circulation figures. Being indexed by Ulrich's isn't useful data, but Ulrich's description of a text is useful. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• I'm sorry to appear dense, but I still don't understand your reasons to oppose. Nobody has said that Ulrich's is not a useful resource, but being listed in lrich's is not necessarily a sign of notability as an academic journal, so I see no reason to include this in this proposed notability guideline. We could link to it on the Wikiproject Academic Journals page, though. As impact factors are rare in "HASS", they cannot be used there, which is why we have other criteria that can lead to notability. I'd appreciate if you could indicate how we can improve the guideline to address your concerns. --Crusio (talk) 11:40, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• There's no issue with density, its a genuine HASS problem given the turn to research "metrics". The DUCK test works well in American fields, but peters out elsewhere. A much higher bar is required than 1 or 2 because RS cite works in journals all the time. Any other tests are going to be some kind of old boys (and girls these days) test. We all know Past & Present is notable, due to EP Thompson. We all known New Left Review is notable for its cultural impact. A journal which contains a paper establishing a sub-discipline ("social history"), or publishing a paper which starts a long running controversy ("structuralism" in history), or a journal which is the publication medium for a national disciplinary practice. Would Labour History be notable, should it be? What about Labour / Le Travail? If these are "notable" why not start articles on the edited collections in the humanities? Fifelfoo (talk) 11:53, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

the journals you are mentioning as criteria are more than notable, they are famous. Yes, journals like Labour History would be notable. As for edited collections, these are much less often notable, being one-time publications and not likely to have the long-term significance of journals. Some of them however are indeed notable. DGG ( talk ) 02:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• Support. The criteria are simple and should be effective. Fences&Windows 01:57, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: is too permissive and fails to adequately address the nutshell point of being "notably influential in the world of ideas". It is unclear how much the first (as modified by the notes) & second criteria rise above merely being a reliable source. These criteria would appear to be fairly easily met by worthy, if unexceptional (i.e. not "notably influential"), journals. The third criteria requires no RS to back up claims of a "historic purpose" or "a significant history". Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 02:48, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• I would think it self-evident that RS are needed to back up any argument relating to the third criterion, but that can easily be rectified. As for your other argument: "merely RS" leads to the situation where readers can find information in WP backed up by some RS, but then are unable to find even the slightest indication what that RS is. This guideline would lead to coverage of at least the most notable among them (many peer-reviewed journals would qualify as RS but not under this guideline, for instance a journal in medicine that is not covered by the SCI or PubMed). --Crusio (talk) 11:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Crusio, a journal in medicine published in the english language not in Index Medicus would have great trouble being accepted here as a RS for mainstream medicine. We've routinely used non-coverage there as a criterion for which ones are fringe. DGG ( talk ) 02:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• Strong oppose Absurdly permissive. Really, every journal in the Science Citation Index is notable? That's barely a minimum requirement for a journal not to be laughed out of the room. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes indeed, so they are notable. You';re thinking at famous, not notable. Most journals are not in SCI. The journals that would be laughed out of the room are the ones that are not notable (in the fields SCI covers adequately). That's exactly the intention. Now tell me why this is wrong. DGG ( talk ) 02:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Not every indexed journal is notable. Some are very obscure. However, I can't think of a constructive alternative that doesn't break WP:OR. So I'm unfortunately unconstructively opposing :(. Awickert (talk) 09:34, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

the standard is in being in major indexes covering the field--we are not proposing that every indexed journal is notable. DGG ( talk ) 17:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• There are tens of thousands of academic journals in the world (I think current estimates are way over 50,000). The SCI index only lists 6 or 7 thousand, the Social Sciences and the Arts and Humanities indexes cover an additional 2500-3000, which makes for a total of less than 10,000 (not counting any overlap, some journals are listed in more than one of these three indexes). That seems pretty selective too me. --Crusio (talk) 11:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• Support, per the arguments presented in my essay at WP:SJ.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 17:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
• Strong support First, about selectivity--In the pure sciences, WoS is probably overselective with respect to some subjects, and with regard to non English language publications in all subjects, and accepting it as one proof of notability is in my opinion a partial measure only--it's like saying that members of the National Academy of Sciences are surely notable--and a great many other scientists are also. The selectivity varies: there are a great many descriptive biology journals--even in English--that are notable and not included, but I would be hard-pressed to name an English language journal in chemistry or mathematics not on the list that is securely notable. 'The basic criterion they use is pretty much like the one we use elsewhere about academics and other things--that the journal is significantly cited. Second Ulrich's is just a minimum criterion--nobody is claiming that Ulrich's is proof of notability. the absence of a Western-language journal from there, except in unusual circumstances, would be proof of insignificance--It's just a preliminary screen, like having an ISSN is for recent titles. I do consider it reliable for more than existence, publisher information, and circulation--it also serves as a good source for the indexing services that cover a journal, and a preliminary though not fully detailed source for earlier title history. Third this proposal is a compromise--there are some people who would consider all peer-reviewed journals as notable for Wikipedia purposes, and all journals that have been cited in Wikipedia articles. I consider both views excessive, akin to considering all published books from academic publishers to be notable. fourth it is very much a shortcut to say that all peer-reviewed journals are RSs--they are of various degrees of reliability, depending on their reputation for quality of the peer review. They are all worth considering for reliability, but when we evaluate a scientist for notability, we here--just like the more respectable part of the academic world--consider what journals they have published in. A university department accepting just any peer-reviewed journal for tenure purposes proves itself to be second-rate. fifth all professions, including the academic, are intrinsically circular, as are: a lawyer is certified to be a lawyer by other lawyers; an editor or reviewer for a journal on the basis of what they have published in similar journals. finally, this criteria are not invented by Crusio (and me) --they represent the experience of what has and has not been considered notable at Wikipedia in the last two years. they;'re abstracting a prescriptive rule from descriptive information. DGG ( talk ) 17:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

example of a non-notable journal: Diabetic Hypoglycemia (journal) -- prod'd by Crusio. Not in Ulrich's though its been published 2 vols. already. Has ISSN, but anyone can get then for anything they even hope to publish, Publisher is extremely marginal. And most convincing: not in Medline, not cataloged by the NLM. May become notable, since notable ed. in chief. DGG ( talk ) 18:16, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• Strong support per all of my above comments. --Crusio (talk) 19:16, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Too permissive, per Short Brigade Harvester Boris and Awickert. I'm not sure why we can't stick with the GNG here, journals which receive significant coverage in reliable, third-party sources are notable and those that don't are not. It's that simple. I don't really see this as a compromise because the situation that DGG is presenting, that some consider all journals to be notable, rides completely against the idea that notability is not inherited, which is shared by a large majority of Wikipedians. This guideline should move closer to the standards of the GNG, if it needs to be separate from it at all ThemFromSpace 22:09, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• A large part of the problem is: people write articles to be published in these journals, but hardly anybody writes articles about these journals. Take the two most reputable journals around, Science and Nature, and have a look at their WP articles. Look at the references. Is there any article/book written about these journals?? No, there is not. When other sources refer to these journals, they don't talk about these particular journals either. They talk about particular articles published by these journals. Does that then mean that Science and Nature are not notable in the Wikipedia sense? Should we AfD and delete these articles? I think not. If we stick with the GNG here, we can count the number of articles on journals that we can keep on the fingers of our two hands, I fear. The question here is not that notability should be inherited. The question is whether we are going to decide that a journal can be used as a reliable source but apart from that is, in fact, not notable. --Crusio (talk) 22:49, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

almost the only time someone writes a substantial article about a journal is when there is some major scandal or controversy. I'm afraid that's more than 10, but it would very much overemphasise the less important journals--many of which would not be notable for any other reason. It rarely happens to the good ones. By the way, the same problem occurs with other media, including newspapers, unless they run into legal or financial difficulties. DGG ( talk ) 03:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

• Support A reasonable description of how we decide notability for journals. Using the GNG naively leads to peculiar results. Better coverage of journals will be a real improvement to Wikipedia for both users and editors.John Z (talk) 00:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

  whazzat "GNG"? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

  WP:GNG Pete.Hurd (talk) 04:39, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

• support per Crusio (especially rebuttal of Short Brigade Harvester Boris's point in Crusio's response to Awickert) and DGG + John Z (in response to ThemFromSpace's point). Pete.Hurd (talk) 04:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, nothing above convinces me that anything beyond the GNG is needed. I support the notion that journals of above-average scientific significance are presumed to be notable. But the only way to reliably measure this is the GNG. Otherwise we need to do original research about the scientific merits of a journal, and I would prefer that we do not do that. The proposed guideline is also badly worded. How can an journal be authoritative? I understand authority to be a characteristic of a particular scholar or book, not of a journal that features writing from a wide range of contributors. And what does "has served some sort of historic purpose" mean? That's vague to the point of meaninglessness. I might support an approach based only on objective standards, such as the inclusion in some widely-accepted and selective list, but that would need to be discussed field by field.  Sandstein  09:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

But, the vast majority of "journals of above-average scientific significance" will fail the GNG. Either we try to craft a guideline like this to put some vague definition on "above-average scientific significance", or we use the GNG and abandon the idea that "journals of above-average scientific significance are presumed to be notable". Pete.Hurd (talk) 03:29, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Support: Having edited several articles on journals, this, combined with WP:COMMONSENSE, is a sound guideline and a much needed improvement over WP:GNG which simply isn't adapted to academic journals. Tweaks are probably possible, but nothing that warrants withholding support.
  

1. The journal is considered by reliable sources to be authoritative in its subject area.
2. The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources.
3. The journal has served some sort of historic purpose or has a significant history.

is really all you need to go by. The first one ensure that we can have articles on the journal cited by wikipedia, these are our WP:RS. If we can't write an article on them, it's probably that we shouldn't use them as sources in the first place. The second one is the obvious "duh". If you are cited, you're obviously worthy of inclusion. And the third one covers journals with historic impact on their respective fields. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:14, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

• Support idea, unsure about wording - IMO, the GNG are a very poor indication of notability for source materials. It is quite rare for one reliable source to write about another. That doesn't mean they aren't notable though. In all reality, source materials are considerably more notable than their level of coverage indicates.

  Now, I am unsure about the wording. Of course any wording for a guideline like this (see WP:PROF which is perhaps our best specific notability guideline) is going to be subjective. The "notes" go a long way towards explaining what is really meant here, but I still am a big iffy on the wording. In particular, I am bother by criteria one: "considered by reliable sources to be authoritative." To me, authoritative means "the final word" or close to it. I doubt more than a handful, if any, journals meet that definition. I would prefer something like "held in high regard by its peers.") Scientists know what journals in their field are truly important and which ones are just for stuff that can't be published elsewhere, but of course WP:IKNOWIT is a pretty weak argument. So, in short I don't have any answer, but I think there is probably one out there. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• I see your point. Would "influential" do the job? --Crusio (talk) 01:47, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, I think "influential" would be preferable. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Qualified support: criteria 1 and 2 are quite good, but how are we to support 3? With reliable sources, we can show that a journal passes 3, but wouldn't a journal that passes 3 already pass the GNG? I don't have an objection to the idea of 3 per se, but by including it here, we would perhaps lay the way clear to its being interpreted as "I think it has a significant history, so it should be kept". If we would add a statement of "note that journals that pass 3 will generally pass the GNG", I would support it as well. Nyttend (talk) 01:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Done. --Crusio (talk) 01:47, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose the discussion at the AfD of Christians in Science Science and Christian Belief shows (at least to me) that this guideline aligns poorly with what editors actually think about the notability of journals. I have seen in the past small groups of editors work on a guidleine and then try to enforce it on the community. I do not at all wish to denigrate the hard work that has gone into it, but we must allow these things time to simmer and try them out IRL with lots of editors before we rush to promote them. Give it 6 months as a prototype and see how helpful it is. We also have far too many guidelines and policies at present, with no sensible way of pruning old ones.NBeale (talk) 19:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• I don't see any AfD for that article, I see it was once prodded, but I can't find an AfD discussion. puzzled... Pete.Hurd (talk) 20:54, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Science and Christian Belief was meant.John Z (talk) 21:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes sorry - I have used a strikeout to correct. (BTW FWIW I created that article when it was a stub, but it seems pretty clear that there is a strong keep consensus and was well before I joined that AFD debate) NBeale (talk) 22:44, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Before you joined that debate, as I count it, there were was nom+3 for delete, 3 for delete, and 1 weak keep. I wouldn't call that a "strong keep consensus". Pete.Hurd (talk) 04:04, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Science and Christian Belief was meant.John Z (talk) 21:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Must be, I see NBeale is the creator of that article, and seems to be arguing that this proposed guideline is too strict, because it excludes his article. I get the sense that most of the reservations held by opposers here are in the opposite direction, that it is too lax... Pete.Hurd (talk) 22:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. I think the desire to have a guideline specifically for journals has a good motive; many journals that academics know in their hearts are notable fail to have any mention in the usual secondary sources found in Google News and Books searches, and searching in Google Scholar is worthless, since it finds too much. But I question the need to have articles on journals at all. What do these articles say? Such-and-so is a journal founded in {year} and published by Springer/Wiley/whoever, and it publishes articles on the following topics.... This sort of article is too directory-like and unhelpful. Who needs to know this information? Grad students? They can ask their advisors/librarians. So I am arguing that creating a guideline based on sound library science principles will have the outcome of turning Wikipedia's coverage of journals into something resembling a library catalog, but it can never be as good as the real databases that this guideline is drawing from. Put another way, the reason we have a General Notability Guideline is because Wikipedia is supposed to be useful and interesting to a general audience. If there are no sources for the journal that can get it past the GNG, that means it is not interesting to the people who create such sources, and therefore is not appropriate for a popular encyclopedia like Wikipedia. I suggest that Lists are a better home for directory-like information, since the GNG is relaxed for Lists. Abductive (reasoning) 20:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• I think that it is genuinely useful to have Wikipedia articles for well-known academic journals that are used as sources in Wikipedia, even if we can't say that much about the journal (the same holds for, e.g., academic conferences in those fields in which conference proceedings are commonly used as sources). The general public can't read fluently lists of references that we have in Wikipedia articles; they don't immediately recognise which sources are books, which are newspaper articles, which are articles in academic journals, etc. However, if we can have a link from the title of the journal to a Wikipedia article about the journal, this helps a lot. Even if the article just states that "X is an academic journal" (with the link!), this already provides useful information to an average reader (who might have never heard of academic journals before). Other technical solutions might exist, but simply creating stubs for academic journals sounds most convenient to me; and in those rare cases where something non-trivial can be said about a journal, those stubs are easy to expand. Therefore I support the general idea of this guideline, which I might phrase as follows: To create a Wikipedia article about a journal, we do need reliable sources that are independent of the subject; however, it's ok to base an article on "trivial" mentions (e.g., the journal being listed in journal rankings). I think this is the only real difference between this proposed guideline and WP:GNG: dropping the requirement of "significant coverage". — Miym (talk) 21:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Journal rankings are secondary sources. If the third paragraph of the article on University of California, Berkeley can talk about its rankings from the various services that rank colleges, then articles on journals can mention if they are ranked by impact factor or some other metric. It is the journals that aren't ranked and/or don't have other secondary sources that this proposed guideline is addressing. Abductive (reasoning) 01:55, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• But they constitute a directory. There is a reason we want more information than is available in a directory before we write an article. Without that, we are left with only the existence of the subject (from the directory) and information from the subject in crafting the article itself. Protonk (talk) 21:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• I agree in part. Just having a journal ranking does not give us much to write about. But I don't think this is a simple directory: because it is a ranking it contains more information than the bare fact that a journal exists. Which is why I think we can use it as evidence of notability. Of course, more reliable sources are needed to write anything beyond that. --Crusio (talk) 23:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• That's why I think lists are better. For example, List of pharmaceutical sciences journals could be made into a table with information like founding date, impact factor, library circulation and anything else one can find out about them. The non-notable titles can be redirected there. Abductive (reasoning) 01:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose for now, at least. I agree with NBeale that we should let the guideline work its way into discussions for a bit longer and see how it is used, its strengths and weaknesses in practice, etc. This went "live" only a little more than a month ago. The fact that it has been cited in AfDs that resulted in both keep and delete doesn't seem like enough of a test drive. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 20:44, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. Conditions 1 and 3 are reasonable markers of when a journal would have coverage in reliable sources, not at all criterion 2. I'm floored that a group of wikipedians even vaguely familiar with the process of citation would conclude that criterion 2 was a good idea. Further, the first "note" eviscerates criterion 1 by conflating indexing with authority. I see indexing as a necessary condition to consider a journal like that reliable, not authoritative. Protonk (talk) 21:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Being indexed by selective indexes is a sign of authority. WoS does not index junk, and neither does Scopus. Journals try very bery hard to get into these indexes. Indexes such as Index Medicus will sometimes index very minor journals, and need to be used in connection with other criteria. DGG ( talk ) 01:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Not being junk is a much lower standard than "authoritative in the field". Please tell me I don't have to go find easy examples of indexed journals which are far from authoritative in their respective fields (much less in broader categories). Protonk (talk) 02:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose per Crusio. This guideline is either wrong or superfluous.

  On Wikipedia, "notable" generally equates with "warrants an article." But see Crusio's comment to DGG here, where he suggests the journal passes this guideline and yet still doesn't warrant an article because "there is hardly anything that can be said about" it. In other words, according to Crusio, the journal (1) fails the GNG, (2) passes this guideline, and (3) is not notable. So the sum of Crusio's statements entails support for the GNG and opposition to this guideline. This guideline is, then, wrong.

  Now suppose on the other hand that Crusio idiosyncratically considers notability to mean not "warrants an article" but instead only "worthy of mention somewhere on Wikipedia, possibly in a merger target." Indeed, merging is precisely what Crusio suggested in the same comment. Then this proposed guideline would seem to add nothing to wp:n, which already advises merging articles that fail the GNG. This guideline is, then, superfluous. 160.39.213.97 (talk) 04:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• There's nothing contradictory in my position at that particular AfD. WP:ACADEMICS, for example, states; "It is possible for an academic to be notable according to this standard, and yet not be an appropriate topic for an article in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject. Every topic on Wikipedia must be one for which sources exist; see Wikipedia:Verifiability." Do you know want to do away with that (accepted) guideline, too? --Crusio (talk) 04:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Comment: "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" is the General Notability Guideline for good reason -- it is the level of coverage required for an adequate article (and particularly one that does not fall afoul of WP:NOT). For Wikipedia to forego this requirement, I would suggest that it requires an exceptional justification. WP:ACADEMIC supports this view, as it requires a standard considerably above mere tenure (which could be considered as being 'worthy' rather than 'exceptional' -- though I'm sure we could all find a few examples of tenured professors we personally consider 'unworthy'). To me at least, simply being indexed represents the same level of worthiness as tenure -- enough merit to avoid being dismissed out-of-hand, but not sufficient to warrant an exception to WP:GNG. If somebody can articulate a credible and not-too-wildly-subjective standard of exceptionality for journals, I'd certainly be interested in hearing it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 05:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I agree completely with what you say about [WP:ACADEMIC]]. Living in the academic world myself I do indeed know of some tenured professors and certainly several that are unremarkable. However, I suggest that for a journal to be indexed by ISI is akin to getting a named chair for an academic. ISI is highly selective in selecting journals to include in its database. Scopus is already a bit less selective (as it tries to be more inclusive), PubMed less than that, and so on. I think that in the Sciences, there is nothing wrong with using inclusion ISI as a standard for notability. The problem is more in HASS, where ISI has a much lower level of coverage (although that implies that what I said for science journals goes doubly for those HASS journals that are included). I could live with a modification of this guideline to limit "indexing" to ISI, if that would get more people on board that currently are opposed. --Crusio (talk) 09:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• I don't know that I'd go so far as demand locking it down to only ISI -- but I'd certainly be far happier with some sort of restriction to indexes that aim to be discriminating rather than comprehensive, rather than "major indexing services" as a whole. Also, I get the impression that at least some indexes pick on the basis of individual articles, rather than the journal-as-a-whole. Is this a wide practice? If so, it might let generally-lacklustre journals in, on the basis of one or two good articles that got picked. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 09:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
• It's still a directory service. ISI's job is to index journals for researchers and students (or pump more money to Thompson). I'm not comfortable with building notability criteria based on a directory service. Protonk (talk) 18:25, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• I disagree, it's much more than a simple directory. Ulrich's is a directory, it lists journals and some relevant information about the journal, much like Peterson's Guide lists faculty at US institutions. ISI does much more than that, they actually analyze data (namely, citation patterns), resulting in quantitative rankings of journals. So whatever one may think of the impact factor, I don't think one can say that ISI's databases are simple directories. --Crusio (talk) 18:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• Its a directory with a ranking system. the word directory wasn't invoked to imply that we are dealing with a mere phone book of academic journals, but to contrast it with a source which might offer criticism and analysis. Third party coverage is nearly mandatory for balanced coverage. Without it we can report the existence of the journal (and its impact factor, if you will) and whatever the journal says about itself. That is insufficient for NPOV. In general a notability guideline should present a decent sketch of when sourcing is likely to exist. So our guideline on professional sports players offers a pretty good threshold above which some coverage will exist, even if we can't find it immediately. Ditto the guidance on academics. What I don't see in this proposed guideline is any good assertion or evidence that journals which meet the criteria are likely to have third party coverage and journals which do not meet the criteria are not likely to have the same. Protonk (talk) 19:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) For the sake of argument, lets take an example. The JCR shows 209 economics journals in their index (I'm just including the ones in the social science database under "Economics", nothing in finance, management, operations research, etc.). You are telling me that all 209 are "considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area" (Criterion 1, note 1). I think that's baloney. Just walking down the list (by impact factor), I would say that the first 60 could arguably be considered pretty influential (especially within their respective sub-fields and with some exceptions which probably have to do w/ impact factor calculations). 60-80 (page 4) is getting a little more scattered. 80-100 has about 5 that I would consider very influential, the rest are just run of the mill publications. Same is true from 100-120, though for different reasons (some of them are salient for belonging to specific sub-fields, others because they were previously much stronger journals then now). 120-140 is getting into the reeds. Likewise every one after that. More to the point, among the ~4-5 dozen journals I suggested were influential or salient, I'm not sure that substantive commentary exists on all of them. Protonk (talk) 19:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Editorial Boards

I've been thinking about the question of whether the composition of an Editorial Board is relevant to the Notability of an academic journal. It seems to me on reflection that it clearly is. Being on an E.B. involves a bit of work (and reputational risk) for AFAIK no pay. Less established academics might do it for the prestige, but by the time you reach the top you have far too many calls on your time and the only reason you serve on an E.B. is because you think that the journal is doing important work to which you can somewhat contribute. Therefore having top-flight people on a journal's E.B. says that they think it is important and is therefore certainly relevant to notability. What do people think? NBeale (talk) 14:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

So long as its' phrased as being indicative of notability, rather than an independent proof in itself, I'd go along. Some established people might serve on an editorial board just to promote one of their student's pet projects. There is a tendency to permit inherited notability which I think we should guard against. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 14:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• As an editor myself, I can tell you that NBeale is not completely realistic about editorial boards. When I started Genes, Brain and Behavior in 2001, I approached a number of people to constitute an editorial board. As far as I recall, 1 person refused (well, he just got the Nobel Prize the day before, so I guess he was swamped with requests), all others accepted. This was for a journal that did not even exist yet... Most of these people never had heard of me, so it wasn't my stellar reputation as an editor or scientist either... :-) Being on an editorial board carries very little "reputational risk" and always adds to one's prestige. In addition, usually there is hardly any (or none at all) work required. At most, boards are requested from time to time to provide advice on editorial policy and most scientists are always happy to do this even if they were not on the board. In short, it only would be remarkable if a journal had only mediocre scientists on its board. Now that would really be exceptional! :-)

In conclusion I have to say that I am strongly opposed to adding Editorial Board members to a journal's article and even more to adding anything about the prestige of the board to the current proposed guidelines. As far as I am concerned, if a journal must derive its notability from the people on its board, that would constitute prime evidence that the journal has no notabity at all and is far removed from ever attaining it. --Crusio (talk) 14:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Strongly agree with Crusio. If I saw an article about a journal that pointed out how distinguished its editorial board was, I would immediately jump to the conclusion that the journal had no intrinsic notability in its own right (like an article about a book that felt the need to list the people invited to its launch), and that the writer of the article was attempting to make the journal seem more important than it really is by means of an appeal to authority. All journals that are worth their salt have some distinguished people on their editorial boards. So what? SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 15:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

"All journals that are worth their salt have X" is not remotely an argument that "X should not be mentioned in an article about the journal". All journals that are worth their salt publish interesting and important articles. This is not an argument against referring to any especially interesting and important articles in a Wikipedia article about them. (and BTW the question is not "who was invited to a launch" - anyone can invite anybody - but if someone vv distinguished agrees to chair a launch discussion it is certainly interesting and suggests that the book is well out of the ordinary.For the bemused: Snalwimba & I are old sparring partners, & I am co-author of said book NBeale (talk) 18:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• My previous point was not that I "invited" all those people, my point was that almost all of them accepted the invitation, showing that such is nothing out of the ordinary. As far as I can see, the same goes for chairing a launch discussion, although I understand that this deals with book launches (and apparently one book launch in particular). However, the current proposal is concerned with academic journals, so please let's stay on topic. --Crusio (talk) 20:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• The editorial board of some journals are selective. this is not always the case--especially with lower quality journals. That inverse correlation with quality is part of the motivation for eliminating them from articles. Routine practice with a weak journal is to invite as many people to the board as possible, typically with the offer that a/they will get a subscription, and b/that articles the submit or sponsor will get favorable consideration--the unspoken implication is that these would be the articles from the less successful of their students, articles that would have difficulty getting published elsewhere. (I don;t like this game, and have turned down a few such invitations) There are, much less viciously, many older European national journals that have the practice of inviting every professor of the subject in their country to join as a matter of course. These people will likely be notable, but that they are on the board doenst say much about the journal. Crusio, I think that there would indeed be some journals where we would make an exception--but it would need to be justified rather strictly. This is exactly the quagmire that we've stayed out of in other fields also--we list the president of the company, and the CEO, and maybe the chairman of the board--but not the rest of the board, except possibly for the most famous companies. We always list the mayor of a town, but only for the largest cities would we list the city council. This is just the extension of a general practice--one that has proven necessary to reduce spam. We arenot the company's web site, nor the journal's.

In particular, there is one special case: where a journal dealing with a borderline subject tries to get mainstream scientists on the board to lend it respectability. The question always arises whether the people who sign up actually know what they are joining. The principle is, as those great cynics G & S have it in The Gondoliers:

DUKE. I sit, by selection, /Upon the direction/ of several Companies bubble--

As soon as they're floated / I'm freely bank-noted /I'm pretty well paid for my trouble--

  DGG ( talk ) 02:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)