Talk:The Scientific World Journal

Impact factor in box

As pointed out in my edit comments, I don't think we should list the impact factor in the box on the right. I will often go to Wiki pages and only quickly read the box on the right (and I assume many others do too). It is convenient and provides some of the main info I am often looking for. A casual/quick reader will be mislead by the listing of the impact factor in this case. People care about impact factors as a judge of the reputation of a journal. While it technically does have an impact factor right now, the reputation of the journal for readers, reviewers and authors is not accuratley represented by this soon to be gone impact factor (a rare case). Of course we should state the complexities of this in the actual article--but including it in the box seems like the wrong way to convey the information. Let's discuss more and see if we can come up with a good solution to this or what others think.--Pengortm (talk) 00:09, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

It absolutely belongs in the infobox. It's sourced, it's current. That they are going to lose the IF is now mentioned in the lead, so our article is not misleading at all. It's indeed a rare case (a first, as far as I know). --Randykitty (talk) 08:47, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm usually a careful reader--but I've had occasions where I am deciding which journal to submit to and just quickly glance at wikipedia infoboxes to help decide which journal to submit to. At least in this particular usage, the sometimes careless rushed users like I would be mislead. I doubt I'm the only one. Perhaps an asterisk and note would be in order (not sure if the infobox allows that though)? --Pengortm (talk) 18:48, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't want to be patronizing, but if you were one of my students you'd now be in for a lecture of at least 30 minutes on the importance of choosing the most appropriate outlet for your articles. IF should be only one of several things to consider. In any wase, WP is a lot of things, but it is not here to warn people and such. (Recently somebody !voted "keep" on an AfD for a predatory open access journal using that as an argument). We present info in an NPOV way, without OR and SYNTH. --Randykitty (talk) 21:34, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

This is a bit of a tangent--but I did not say that IF was the only source I use to choose where I publish (or that this was a good idea). Regardless, what is the purpose of having the infobox? My guess is to quickly and accurately convey information to people without them having to dig around for the information in the article. It's pretty hard for me to imagine that someone who knows and cares enough about IF to know what it means would not care that the journal was about to lose its impact factor and feel kind of mislead by an unqualified statement in the infobox (if that was all they read). If we don't think some people are going to be only or mainly reading the infobox--than why have it at all? I realize this is a weird case here--but it seems being flexible to convey the information in an accurate way is the most appropriate course of action here. I do hope others can weigh in. Regardless, thanks for taking the time to politely discuss and for your edits which have helped to improve the article.--Pengortm (talk) 23:29, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

The fact that they'll lose their IF is now directly under the infobox in the second sentence of the lead think that is prominent enough. As for the OR/SYNTH regarding nulber of published items, that really is a very suggestive way of presenting those figures. And the source does not say that. It just presents a table with the raw data. It is also something that we rarely (if ever) present for other journal articles, unless there is a source commenting on it (which the JCR doesn't do). --Randykitty (talk) 08:28, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Again I ask--what is the purpose of the infobox and specifically having the IF there (aside from tradition)? I think by examining this we can start to see some of the problematic aspects of including the IF there. --Pengortm (talk) 15:55, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I was asked for an opinion-- I don't really see this as debatable: Infobox information is intended to be standardized: while it still has a current IF, it goes in the box. When it no longer does, it should be removed. Both now and later, the article should briefly give the details. DGG ( talk ) 01:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

IF should be included here, or else removed from all journal articles; doing otherwise is the essence of cherrypicking. You're mistaken in attributing extraneous meaning to IF. Please google "what impact factor is not". The purpose of IF in the infobox is just to inform what the IF is. What the reader does with it -- especially if readers misinterpret the significance of IF -- is totally up to them. Fgnievinski (talk) 02:33, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I fully realize that there are other complexities and debates to IF that go beyond what we would possibly want to include in the infobox. I am simply pointing out that listing an IF for a journal which is known to be about to loose this for sketchy behavior is misleading to a lot of potential readers. I think it should be removed now--but other thoughtful editors disagree and the issue will resolve itself in time when the journal will inevitably officially have lost its IF and one of us will update this fact.--Pengortm (talk) 03:14, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Related: Template_talk:Infobox journal#Eigenfactor?. Fgnievinski (talk) 03:57, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Agree with @Randykitty and @Fgnievinski. As of today, TSWJ officially has an IF, why should this be censored? Even if some sources say that TSWJ might lose it in the future, that's hardly relevant to an encyclopaedia - see WP:NOTACRYSTALBALL. Also, I'd argue that readers who don't understand what IF is won't judge a journal based on their IF. Anyhow, should we really care how readers judge the subject of an article? This is an encylopaedia, not a guide that tells them what to think! kashmiri ^TALK 11:06, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Not just some crystal ball pundit source suggesting this--this is coming from Thomson Reuters. I don't think it is radical to keep in mind how readers might (mis)interpret things and think of the purpose of including and excluding particular pieces of information. This could certainly be stretched too far in some cases, and there seems to be a legitimate disagreement here about how much or little this should be considered in this particular case. --Pengortm (talk) 15:25, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Look at it this way: suppose some journal announces that it will cease publication on Dec 31, 2017. We would certainly include that information in the article. But would we change the infobox line "history" to read "1950-2017" instead of "1950-present"? Of course not, because until then things may change. However unlikely, it is not impossible that Thomson Reuters change their mind when Hindawi appeals their decision. So the current situation is that their is an IF and we display it in the box, while noting in the text that TR is planning to scuttle TSWJ next year. --Randykitty (talk) 15:37, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Suggested addition about publication rates

I've suggested adding this to the article: "The number of published items increased from 227 in 2011 to 1,149 in 2012 (earlier years saw a much smaller growth rate)." Randykitty suggests it WP:SYNTH, while I have pointed out that "sentence is entirely from one source (i.e. not synthesizing from different sources) and accurately and simply portrays a series of five numbers.". Randykitty has some more reply in the above section on this issue. The number of published articles increasing five fold seems to be a noteworthy part of the history of the journal (and similar fluctuations are not apparent before 2011). Whether this is a good or bad thing is a separate issue that I agree is not appropriate to comment on without other reliable sources--but I think this is valuable information about the journal. WP:SYNTH does not seem to be an issue here nore id WP:PS since the statement fits pretty well with "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." --Pengortm (talk) 15:53, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Your source literally just says "2011: 227; 2012:1149". To judge the growth rates of earlier years and compare them with this one, you have to go to previous editions of the JCR and compare those rates yourself: that is OR and SYNTH, because the source does not say anything like that, it just present figures. And without interpretation (for which there is no source), those figures are rather meaningless. --Randykitty (talk) 16:26, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

The source lists all five years in one spot on the same webpage. I'm not sure the best way to give a link/source to this because of the damn paywall--but the information is all in one spot. If you really want further verification of this let me know and I'll try to find it. Rather than having a table to show this, it seems far simpler to describe it in a sentence--although I'm open to putting the information in via a table as well or simply listing it. --Pengortm (talk) 19:54, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Just went back to the journal citation reports to confirm and see if I could find a better reference. The information I cite is under the main entry for the journal under the "5-Year Journal Impact Factor" where it states in it's entirety (formatting slightly mixed up in past job--but should be legible and interpretable):

Cites in {2013} to items published in: Number of items published in:

	2012 =	1211 	 		2012 =	1149 
	2011 =	467 	 	 	2011 =	227 
	2010 =	468 	 	 	2010 =	210 
	2009 =	171 	 	 	2009 =	147 
	2008 =	120 	 	 	2008 =	141 
	Sum:	2437 	 	 	Sum:	1874 

--Pengortm (talk) 21:07, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

• @Pengortm:: I'm not saying the data are not correct (I have access to the JCR; I haven't verified your data, but I fully well trust they are correct). However, you are being VERY selective. The JCR lists much more than this info. Why not also copy the 5-year IF, the article impact score, the journal eigenvalue, the immediacy index, etc. We normally only list the I9F, because that is info people are looking for and generally know how to interpret. No, the reason you insist on listing the numbers of articles published is because your want to Make A Point. You want to suggest to readers that the huge increase of published volume must mean a decrease in quality standards of the journal. That is undue and also debatable: PLOS ONE has been showing growth rates like that, without anybody complaining about quality, for TSWJ the verdict is still out. I repeat, unless an independent reliable source has commented on it, we don't report numbers of published items for any journal, so I think the onus is on you to justify the inclusion of this stuff, which, again I repeat myself, is trivial without any interpretation. --Randykitty (talk) 22:33, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

• PS: I have posted a note on the talk page of the Academic Journals WikiProject requesting input from other editors there. --Randykitty (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for asking for the input, I've also asked for a 3rd opinion on the impact factor in infobox issue. It will be good to get some other eyes on these things. I agree with you that an increase in publication volume could occur without any decline in publication quality (e.g. they could be marketing their journal more to get more submissions of even higher quality). Regardless, the journal increasing in size five-fold seems noteworthy--and it is the place of other sources to interpret this. Your mention of PLOS ONE makes my point precisely--published articles is given in that journal as well--presumably because it has also recently seen big changes. If there were other things which looked noteworthy for showing incongruities in the reference I suggest we consider including that as well. I point out that we editors make editorial decisions all the time where we pick only some parts of sources to cite. I also note that the reasons you are suggesting for not including this keeps shifting and you keep imparting opinions to me which I do not hold and have not stated. --Pengortm (talk) 23:15, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

• I disagree. For PLOS ONE there's a clear rationale to mention the article figures: after only a few years, it was the largest open access journal in the world, a little bit later the largest journal in the world, and now many times larger yet again. There's a story there. Here, it's just dry figures, TSWJ is far from becoming the next PLOS ONE. The sourcing for the PLOS ONE stuff is only partly independent, but I am sure that better sources could be found there, just as I am sure that there won't be any good sources for TSWJ. --Randykitty (talk) 10:23, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I was asked for an opinion here also. Counting is not OR, in the sense used in WP. We could get this from any accurate source, but the way ISI counts "articles" is sometimes slightly different than Scopus or other sources, so it isn't absolutely straightforward, but ISI still a widely used source for the data. A fair summary of a series of numbers in words is reasonable, and can avoid the problems with giving exact numbers. I know we don't usually give it; perhaps we should. Most of our articles on journals could use some additional content. DGG ( talk ) 01:09, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's WP:SYNTH, but I think it's WP:UNDUE. I understand the scrutiny towards an alleged predatory journal, but you don't normally see that level of detail in other journal's pages. Fgnievinski (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

This has been stable for months and Randykitty has just deleted this again with no new discussion. Please explain why the new change here?--Pengortm (talk) 15:29, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The discussion is here. Fgnievinski argued that this is UNDUE, DGG was not sure (but noted that sources differ in the counts they give). The only one clearly supporting inclusion of this stuff is you, so consensus would seem to be that this stuff should go. That it got on the back-burner for a while is irrelevant. Please revert yourself according to the consensus here. --Randykitty (talk) 15:38, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

A longer time series would be of interest. Since ISI no longer includes this journal, we can;t continue with the article count from them--perhaps we should use Scopus. From a quick check in TSW, the number of articles in 2013 and 2014 are each similar to the count from 2012. Interpreting this is something we should not be doing in the article, but a sudden shift tends to represent a change in editorial policy. Does anyone know when they reduced the article fee to $800, thats another possible explanation. I consider such counts useful data, and we should include them for all journals. We similarly include fiscal series for companies, etc., where there is also a good set of data. It is not a rule that we include such information only if there is a secondary source that actually discusses it. WP:N does not apply to article content. DGG ( talk ) 16:47, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

DGG, I strongly disagree with that. I don't think we should include all kinds of statistics that have no easy interpretation. Besides the obvious fact that we lack the person-power to update all our journal articles all the time (we can't even manage the yearly IF update, some journals have 2009 IFs or older), I don't think that presenting raw data is encyclopedic. At best, this stuff is boring. A few changes in wording ("increased fivefold") and it becomes suggestive ("a change in editorial policy"). At worst it becomes SYNTH/OR, such as when you suppose a connection with a reduced publication fee... --Randykitty (talk) 17:38, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

So it seems I am not the only one who thinks this should stay. As well, skimming through our excrutiatingly long discussion on this, it seems the reasons for objecting to this keep shifting again and again. I suggest we keep this as is for now and perhaps get further opinions on the matter. I forget the name of the Wikipedia guideline, but the fact that something is not included in other articles is not a great reason to not include something here. Just because other articles are not as comprehensive does not mean we have to make our article fit the lowest common denominator. --Pengortm (talk) 21:40, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

What you're looking for is WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. The problem is actually the inverse: if we let this stuff stand here, people will take the fact that this crap exists to add similar crap to other journal articles. I already have enough work with POV pushers wanting to promote their journals on WP, we don't need this. It's not informative, unless those data actually mean something. As far as I am concerned, this is as interesting as the "information" that some other people added to some journal articles on how many pages issues had during the rag's history. Unless this has been the subject of some sourced analysis/commentary, it does not belong in an encyclopedic article. --Randykitty (talk) 21:54, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

• As a compromise, why not list the number of articles published in the last year for which counts are available? Fgnievinski (talk) 17:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Good try, but I don't think this is going to be acceptable to Pengortm, because that would remove the suggestive effect of the increase in number of articles that he wants to achive. And all the objections that I listed (non-encyclopedic, a bitch to update this in thousands of articles every year, etc) still apply, too. --Randykitty (talk) 17:34, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with you that historic rates is overkill. The current/latest number of articles is informative, especially for the present journal, because it seems to put it among megajournals (not sure if the low-selectivity criterion applies here, though). Fgnievinski (talk) 17:47, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Randykitty is correct that I think these numbers are worth including because i think a journal increasing in size five-fold seems noteworthy. Whether this is a good, bad or neutral thing is not for us to say--and in this respect I think we are all in agreement. Randykitty seems concerned that this will lead to us thinking poorly about the journal--that it is growing too quickly. It could also lead to thinking that the journal is very popular and becoming of increasing importance. It would be easier to discuss this if the reasons for suggesting not including this didn't keep shifting so much (i.e. first WP:SYNTH and then when this didn't stick new reasons not to include it keep coming up. I wish we could have settled this back in November when this was fresh in our minds and not so boring to have to go back to. --Pengortm (talk) 02:17, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

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