Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in medicine: Difference between revisions

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List of important publications in medicine

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cf: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in sociology and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in biology; search revealed no compilation of important works in this field Curb Chain (talk) 13:37, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 18:50, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. With "important" undefined, this article is potentially limitless. Medicine was essentially reinvented in the 19th and 20th century, with 1000s of books and articles that could reasonably be described as "important". JFW | T@lk 21:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - As there is no official definition of an "important source" I see no reason for this article to exist as it is based off someones opinions on what is important and what is not. Peter.C • talk • contribs 22:06, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Whom says what is 'Important' (and by implication 'Unimportant'). Unless there are multiple reliable Secondary sources verifying the list, it is pure POV and OR. I am not going to repeat myself Ad infinitum, all my reasoning is in the prior List of important <stuff> AfD. Exit2DOS ^{• Ctrl • Alt • Del} 23:59, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have notified User:Sandstein and User:King of Hearts (the closing editors for the sociology and biology discussions) and Wikipedia: WikiProject Lists of this discussion. Jowa fan (talk) 00:43, 2 October 2011 (UTC) [reply]

Keep. This is one kind of the lists a curious reader of an encyclopedia would be interested in in furthering his understanding and knowledge on a particular subject. That we don't have another source (or more) giving exactly the same list that we are going to compile is not only a reason of avoiding copyright infringement but also the intricate matter of compiling survey texts: as long as material is notable it should be mentioned, under consideration of adhering to a NPOV. What this article needs is nothing but a precise inclusion criterion and reliable secondary sources for each entry stating its particularly notability. Cleanup is also no criterion for deletion. Nageh (talk) 10:42, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are six related articles like this opened right now, with the same rational being repeated on them all.
List of important publications in concurrent, parallel, and distributed computing
List of important publications in geology
List of important publications in mathematics
List of important publications in medicine
List of important publications in networks and security
List of important publications in theoretical computer science

And the argument seems to be the same everywhere, that being the word "important" being used. Dream Focus 09:56, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per no original research or merge/move to something like List of publications in medicine by impact factor Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:07, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The topic of the article is certainly encyclopedia-worthy (although the word "important" does not seem to do the topic justice: perhaps "landmark" is better). For instance, I don't think there can be any serious argument that De materia medica or the writings of Hypocrates are not "landmark" publications. The general arguments (WP:V/WP:OR) above are not compelling. The question is, can a list on this topic in principle be referenced in a way that meets our core principles? A quick Google search for "Landmark publications in medicine" turns up many promising sources on which to base an article (e.g., "Science and Technology in Medicine: An Illustrated Account Based on Ninety-Nine Landmark Publications from Five Centuries"). As for the subjectivity of the inclusion criteria, we have plenty of subjective articles without a problem: we just WP:ASF and use sources. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:29, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is running into WP:N territory. Are you saying that if someone comments and the positivity or greatness of a publication, it will be a citation and the paper can be included? At Micheal Jackson's funeral, many notables commented on him. Do all these comments come up on article?Curb Chain (talk) 18:26, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a straw man. I'm not talking about using the opinions of some random bloke on the street here, but serious scholarly sources. You know, like the kind of sources used to write an encyclopedia? Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:34, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The nominator's (implicit) rationale for deletion – no sources exist that define which publications are "important" and which are not – is unreasonable. What it boils down to is: "There is no reliable source proclaiming, The following are the important publications in [insert name of scientific field]: 1. ... 2. ... 3. ...; therefore it is original research and must be deleted." (And if such a source existed, the article would instead be speedily deleted as a copyvio – you can't win.) This is not a reasonable deletion rationale because it applies to basically any "List of ..." article. For example, for List of magazines in Pakistan, where is the reliable source that states: The following are the notable magazines in Pakistan: ...? A rationale that applies to essentially all stand-alone list articles is obviously too broad; if you wish to see this list deleted, a rationale must be presented that is somewhat specific to this list, and not so general that it applies generically to all list articles. --Lambiam 14:33, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The article should cite authoritative published sources saying the listed works are important in the field. But it is enough to have one or more authoritative published sources FOR EACH LISTED ITEM SEPARATELY. It is unreasonable to require a SINGLE source that gives the whole list. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:20, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I personally would even be happy with a Cite that lists 50% of the entries on the List, but the problem is, none have been presented or discovered during these AfD's. Editors are assuming that the entries are obvious & common knowledge, but saying "English Text X" is important, probably does not hold water in China, where "Chinese Text Y" is important. Is 1 more important than the other? Is neither important in Latvian? What is "important" to each person will be different based upon their own experience. Exit2DOS ^{• Ctrl • Alt • Del} 22:36, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep, per extensive comments by Geometry guy, most of which, including the need for sources, apply here. Geometry guy 22:57, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Reasons for inclusion are clearly presented at the top of the list article. If you have a doubt about any item listed, discuss it on the talk page. There are reliable sources already found to prove this is notable. No sense repeating everything said in the many places this same debate is going on at. Dream Focus 23:27, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, may main argument is here. --Pgallert (talk) 07:04, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Two reasons. Firstly the term "important" cannot be objectively determined. We don't have a "list of beautiful people". I've read Geometry guy's comments and don't buy his argument in this regard. We can find reliable sources that say someone is beautiful. The key is that the "important" is explicit rather than implicit and the scope is way too large. One could produce a Timeline of cardiology that included key findings over the years. Or a History of evidence-based-medicine that discussed the landmark studies. For those it is reasonable to cite our reliable sources and use them per WP:WEIGHT to determine inclusion. One might even, for a narrow scope, find a publication that provides the list entries in one go. The second reason is that the items in this list aren't homogeneous. The first section contains historical texts that collect medicial wisdom of the age or author. The later section contains the publication of landmark studies. It is actually the studies that are the notable fact. Nobody cares much about the study text or the publication they were within. So is this a collection of great medical texts or a collection of groundbreaking medical research studies? For our purposes, the word "publications" isn't helpful then. We're left with "List of ... medical ..." There are better ways to list this sort of information. Let's delete this one as unhelpful. Colin°^Talk 08:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for reading my comments: no purchase is required, but donations are welcome :). They were intended to show that the "cannot be objectively determined" argument is not automatically grounds for deletion, but also that reliable sources are needed both to support the inclusion criterion of the list and to support the inclusion of individual entries. There is quite a range between "beautiful people" and "landmark court decisions" or "major biblical figures", and intelligent discussion is needed to determine what is encyclopedic (beneficial, useful) and what isn't in any particular case. I've only looked into the details in the case of mathematics, hence my "weak" keep here. I hope other editors will welcome your thoughtful remarks and suggestions for alternative ways to approach this issue. Geometry guy 22:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Given that this deletion discussion is unlikely to go towards delete, a more productive approach is probably to consider the better ways of collating this information as a list or lists. Then, perhaps, these lists would be deleted as superseded. I suspect that "important" is already frowned upon by list guidelines, or at least should be. And the idea of collating all "publications" is perhaps not wise, if one uses the term to mean anything that has been published ever. Perhaps, in mathematics, the published academic paper really is a key document that first explained some new way of thinking. I don't think, for medicine, the modern academic paper itself is worth much -- it is the great study behind it that people praise, or the great mind(s) behind the concepts. Colin°^Talk 07:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This template must be substituted.

Keep. The main argument for deleting this list is nullified because a reference is provided for the list as a group (WP:LISTN) in the lead section. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:04, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think everyone in this discussion wants Wikipedia pages to meet a high standard. It seems to me that there is potential for agreement on criteria for acceptable lists of publications, and these criteria are pretty much the same for all the lists. I invite everyone to visit the revamped Science pearls Wikiproject and discuss the criteria on the talk page. I would like to make a clear statement on the WikiProject page that could be used by all the lists. RockMagnetist (talk) 00:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do the citations really use the word "important"? Or are are editors reading the article and then using it as a citation deeming it "important" fitting the inclusion requirements of this list?Curb Chain (talk) 12:58, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all We are capable of judging the importance of things. We do it every time we select what we want to include in an article. We do it every time we hold an AfD discussion. That's not OR, except to the degree that research is to some extent an inevitable and necessary part of encyclopedia writing. DGG ( talk ) 22:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In a list it is different. The nature of these articles require synthesis. The nature of different articles is different; they may be hoaxes, they may be about films that have not been made yet, they maybe be copyright violations. That's not a judgement of importance.Curb Chain (talk) 23:03, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rename to bibliography?

Keep and rename to Bibliography of Medicine. There are countless sources Bibliographies of Medicine. WP:list permits bibliographies and the sources show that books related to Medince have been listed as a group (duh a bibliography). Individual entries should be verified to a reliable bibliography but the list itself meets notability guidelines. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Did you look at the links Google returned? These aren't web pages. They are entire websites. Many have now been abandoned (computers index publications better than people). The NLM Bibliography of Celiac Disease alone contains 2,800 entries! The subject, Medicine, is of impractical size. Colin°^Talk 20:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Impractical would not be my choice of words. Impractical is a cop out. If there are 10,000 books on the subject of Medicine that would be suitable for a Bibliography of Medicine, then there are 10,000. Nothing impractical about that. We have lots and lots of lists that are sub-lists of larger lists, with collective entries in the 1000s. A well done Bibliography of Medicine might have dozens of sublists that do indeed contain 1000s of entries. But there is no doubting the fact that a Bibliography of Medicine meets our notability criteria (members of the list discussed as a group). We just need to work at the best why to organize it, and ensure all the entries are sourced to reliable sources. Nothing impractical about that. Oh! BTW do the same search with Books. Lots of bibliographies show up as well. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:29, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But what would the point of such a bibliography be? How are we to determine what gets included into the bibliography and what does not?Curb Chain (talk) 22:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- Suggestion Mike asked me for comments about his suggestion . I do not think a complete bibliography of books in the field of medicine or anything else is encyclopedic, except for bibliographies of the works of a notable author. I think they fail NOT INDISCRIMINATE, and they are not of value to people who go to an encyclopedia , who are normally looking not for all possible information, but for the sort of selection of important information that is in an encyclopedia. There are appropriate places for such lists, particularly Open Library. Selected lists are another matter. We accept Additional Reading sections. They're not just accepted, they're a significant feature that should be added to every appropriate article substantial enough in coverage to make them reasonable. For example, at present the article Medicine does not have such a section. What we should do, regardless of the results at this AfD, is write one, and similarly for the other topics here that might not have them. Whether or not the articles are deleted, the list of books in them would make a good start. In conformity to the usual method for breakout articles, I'd propose calling them Additional reading in medicine (etc.). I do not see how anyone would find that objectionable. Of course it would take judgment about what to include, but it's the same judgment and the same material for whether they are in a section or a separate article. DGG ( talk ) 22:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I highly doubt you will get support for that. There currently is no ==Further reading== in Medicine, and Medicine is so broad that such a list would be useless.Curb Chain (talk) 23:00, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That the section isn't there is not evidence that it is inappropriate or unneeded. I do not need support here to add such a section to this or any other article. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout guideline considers such sections a normal part of an article. You can of course challenge that guideline, or argue it does not apply to a particular article. You could also challenge individual items I added, but I would expect to be able to support any reasonable addition with a reference to a review or similar listing, though we do not ordinarily do that for such sections. DGG ( talk ) 00:22, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have created a discussion linking to this section at the WikiProject Science pearls site. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 ====Rename to bibliography?====
+<onlyinclude>
 * '''Keep''' and rename to Bibliography of Medicine.  There are countless sources [http://www.google.com/search?q=Bibliography+of+Medince&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADFA_en#hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7ADFA_en&sa=X&ei=umGLTt-6Ou-IsAKXlKGiBA&ved=0CBoQvwUoAQ&q=Bibliography+of+Medicine&spell=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=298cfbc9b6f1239a&biw=1097&bih=567 Bibliographies of Medicine].  [[WP:list]] permits bibliographies and the sources show that books related to Medince have been listed as a group (duh a bibliography).  Individual entries should be verified to a reliable bibliography but the list itself meets notability guidelines. --[[User:Mike Cline|Mike Cline]] ([[User talk:Mike Cline|talk]]) 19:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 **Did you look at the links Google returned? These aren't web pages. They are entire websites. Many have now been abandoned (computers index publications better than people). The [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/archive/20040830/pubs/cbm/celiacdisease.html NLM Bibliography of Celiac Disease] alone contains 2,800 entries! The subject, Medicine, is of impractical size. [[User:Colin|Colin]]°[[User talk:Colin|<sup>Talk</sup>]] 20:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
@@ Line 59: / Line 60: @@
 ::: That the section  isn't there is not evidence that it is inappropriate or unneeded. I do not need support here to add such a section to this or any other article. The [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout]] guideline considers such sections a normal part of an article. You can of course challenge that guideline, or argue it does not apply to a particular article.  You could also challenge individual items  I added, but I would expect to be able to support any reasonable addition with a reference to a review or similar listing, though we do not ordinarily do that for such sections.    '''[[User:DGG| DGG]]''' ([[User talk:DGG| talk ]]) 00:22, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 :::I have created a discussion linking to this section at the [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science pearls#Proposal: rename to bibliography?|WikiProject Science pearls]] site. [[User:RockMagnetist|RockMagnetist]] ([[User talk:RockMagnetist|talk]]) 23:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
+<onlyinclude/>