Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies/Science task force

Science is a long-term ongoing effort of humanity. Though it's of huge size, one can recognize a few publications of the largest value, certain achievements that have changed our world. The goal of this project is to identify these publications and make them accessible to the world. This project will gather the works of Einstein, Euclid, Freud and Darwin.

Other than this main goal, certain sub goals can be identified.

• Track the history of science in different areas.
• Allow a person with no proper background to browse the achievements and development of an area (and find out that some of the ideas of evolution were suggested 100 years before Darwin.
• Allow a person with proper background (as a graduate student) to enter a new research area by finding and reading the central publications.

Status

The current lists of important publications are shown below. The lists are also organized in the list of important publications in science and belong to the Category:Lists of publications in science.

Not all areas are currently covered. Lists for many other areas (history, law, etc.) should be created.

Note that not all list are of equal level. The loving care of a single expert can turn a list from a stub to a valuable resource. The List of important publications in computer science was the earliest list and as such it is of higher than the average level.

Computer Science

• List of important publications in computer science
• List of important publications in theoretical computer science
• List of important publications in concurrent, parallel, and distributed computing
• List of important publications in networks and security

Mathematics

• List of important publications in mathematics
• List of important publications in statistics

Natural sciences

• List of important publications in biology
• List of important publications in chemistry
• List of important publications in geology
• List of important publications in medicine
• List of important publications in physics

Social sciences

• List of important publications in economics
• List of humor research publications
• List of important publications in psychology

Internal lists

Internal lists are list that should be used as a guideline to the project at a certain topic but not displayed as a regular article.

• List of publications in philosophy

Objectivity

Any list of publications will be subjective at some level. To avoid needless subjectivity, use the following guidelines:

• Classification into sub areas – There is no use in arguments about the relative importance of geometry and number theory. Publications will be classified into sub areas and noted if they are important to the sub area and not necessarily to whole the area.
• The 90% rule – a publication should be considered notable if 90% of the experts to the area will consider it notable.
• Importance type – a publication may be a breakthrough though of minor influence. To avoid argument about the relative importance of theory and practice, several importance type were defined. One importance type should be enough to consider a publication as notable, though many pearls are important due to many aspects.

Note that wikipedia already contain many lists (scientists, books) that are just as subjective.

Global and local importance

There are versions of the lists in some wikipedias – Note a French list, a Hebrew list, Dutch and a German list.

These lists can help advance lists in other languages, but also create a problem. Some publications are important only in the local context. There is no German physics but there is German law, American history and French literature. Such publications should be classified a notable locally to avoid such differences.

Phases

The lists are not the most suitable structure to display such lists. Some publications belong to few sub areas and some sub areas belong to few areas. In some sub areas there are publications the should be noted but do not fit the general list.

At the long-term, we should create an article about any publication, possible with an article with the publication’s text at wikisource. The publications should be classified and found using the category system. The current use of list is use is it is an efficient structure for gathering the publications, a structure suitable for an expert to geology who is new to wikipedia.

Want to help

Those who want to help to the project, please sign your name under the lists in which you are interested:

Entire project

1. APH 05:56, 11 September 2005 (UTC).
2. Bduke 00:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
3. DGG 01:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
4. Lquilter (talk) 17:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
5. Gustavo Sandoval Kingwergs --(talk) 02:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
6. Kallimachus (talk) 21:57, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Mathematics

1. --R.Koot 10:19, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
2. --HappyCamper 00:37, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Natural sciences

List of important publications in biology

• Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids --JWSchmidt 16:42, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
• DGG 01:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

List of important publications in chemistry

1. Walkerma 15:40, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
2. HappyCamper 00:38, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
3. Bduke 23:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

List of important publications in geology

Pete Tillman 06:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

List of important publications in medicine

• JFW | T@lk 19:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC) (I have embellished many medical articles with their historical and breakthrough references; it remains to be established which ones are truly groundbreaking articles that should make it to our list)

List of important publications in physics

1. --R.Koot 10:20, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Social sciences

List of important publications in economics

• Added to tasks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Business and Economics

List of important publications in sociology - deleted

• -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  15:05, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Editors interested in deleted list on philosophy publications

1. Kzollman
2. Amicuspublilius