Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Astronomical Review

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. --MuZemike 00:38, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Astronomical Review

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New journal established last year, too young to have become notable yet. Not included in any selective major databases. Does not meet WP:GNG ~~or WP:NJournals~~. Guillaume2303 (talk) 06:14, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:43, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Aside from the notability debate, there appears to be an issue with disambiguation. A quick online search reveals this New Zealand publication (technically Astronomical Review) and this apparently renamed LGBT mag (listed at List of LGBT periodicals#United States, although the site doesn't seem to mention that name). -- Trevj (talk) 09:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There was an old website for the previous title at www.wh-magazine.com. This site is no longer active. The LGBT magazine is an unrelated publication published by a different publisher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.200.149 (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:18, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into SETI Institute article. Journal does not meet Wikipedia's academic journal notability guideline, and material is closely related to SETI Institute, so merger is appropriate. NJ Wine (talk) 04:17, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. WP:SJ applies here, I think.—S Marshall T/C 11:06, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:TOOSOON and per lack of evidence of passing WP:NJournals. Inclusion as an entry in a large database of journals doesn't seem to be enough to me to convey notability. And the connection with the SETI Institute seems too tenuous to me to warrant a merge; it seems to be less a sponsoring organization and more that they have a joint fundraiser together. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Per the relist request for non-essay rationales, I would add that I think this also fails WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I agree that WP:SJ applies here. --71.63.200.149 11:06, 30 May 2012 (UTC) — 71.63.200.149 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

WP:SJ indeed applies here and that would be relevant if it were policy. However, it's just the opinion of one editor that reliable sources should have an article here. Logically, it should also apply to books, magazines, etc. The result would be that for these publications, we throw away any consideration of notability. In the present case, we also need to discard WP:V, as all we have to verify information is the journal's homepage (and given the confusion about the journal's name and date of establishment signaled above, that could be better, too). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 08:20, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SJ and WP:NJournals are in direct conflict with each other. Both are officially essays but my opinion is that WP:NJournals is much closer to being a reflection of the usual Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and consensus, and that invoking WP:SJ is a very weak way of supporting a keep opinion. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:10, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SJ is the older essay, having been developed jointly by myself and User:Drmies in early 2009. It's very much an essay, consisting mostly of unsubstantiated opinion statements about the reasons why scholarly journals are in many ways Wikipedia's most important sources... basically, Drmies and I took the view that one of Wikipedia's strengths is in being more up-to-date than other sources, which we can achieve by our access to bleeding-edge research in journals that has yet to filter through to textbooks or print encyclopaedias, and we found ourselves saying the same thing in AfD debates so often that we summarised our view as an essay. NJournals looks like an essay that wants to be a guideline, to me, and it's unfortunate that the two essays come at the same subject from different points of view. But let's not pretend that one essay "outranks" the other, shall we?—S Marshall T/C 22:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 05:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relist comment: The above opinions are mostly based on two contradictory essays about journal notability. To obtain an informed consensus, we need more opinions that are based on accepted policies or guidelines. Sandstein 05:47, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - The lowest possible bar for scholarly journals, under the policy of IAR — use common sense to improve the encyclopedia. Footnotes often link to a journal title. Some verifiable and accurate information in a blue link trumps no information in a red link. Neither the essays cited above should be worth 5 cents at AfD — they are opinion pieces, not an approved policy (such as IAR) or guideline (such as GNG). Carrite (talk) 06:32, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment And the nom clearly states that this fails WP:GNG. So much so even, that this also fails WP:V, because there aren't any sources (apart from the not-very-informative homepage of this journal) that we can base an article on. To make this a bit clearer, I have struck the reference to NJournals in then nom. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 07:05, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I could see keeping The Astronomical Review via a Wikipedia:Scholarly journal lowest possible bar for scholarly journals under WP:GNG if articles within Wikipedia cited to The Astronomical Review, but there doesn't seem to be much usage of The Astronomical Review within Wikipedia per this search or what links here link. If you go around and improve 20 to 40 or so Wikipedia articles with citations to The Astronomical Review, then you might have a basis for keeping or recreating (if deleted) The Astronomical Review. External cites to The Astronomical Review would go towards make the collective event of citing to The Astronomical Review notable for a Citations to The Astronomical Review article (assuming third parties covered the topic), but still wouldn't WP:GNG help a The Astronomical Review topic as a stand alone article. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:42, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- ...how does citing within Wikipeida establish notability in any way, shape or form? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:05, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - It doesn't, but I think that Uzma is referring to the IAR argument used above by Carrite, saying that because the journal is not or hardly cited on WP itself, there's no use in invoking IAR. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:23, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Ahhh, I see now, thanks. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:57, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - By "External cites to The Astronomical Review", I'm referring to external scholarly journals citing to the external Astronomical Review journal, which goes into determining the Impact factor mentioned in WP:SJ. Such impact factor topic would be covered in the topic Citations to The Astronomical Review (assuming WP:RS wrote about how all these other scholarly journals are citing to The Astronomical Review journal), but still wouldn't WP:GNG help a The Astronomical Review topic itself as a stand alone article. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:54, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Wikipedia articles largely are built on inline references that cite to journals, nagazines, books, newspaper, etc. In the Wikipedia citation, the name of the journal often is dynamically linked (e.g., the [[ ]] are put around the journal name.) If there are enough of those, perhaps 20 to 40, Wikipedia should have an article on the journal, at least a stub, for at least Wikipedia purposes. For example, I recently created Orange Coast Magazine, which has 60+ (?) whatlinkshere article links.[1] The magazine exceeds WP:GNG, but even if it didn't, all those internal Wikipedia links might, in my view, justify maintaining a stand alone article on the reference topic. It's a unique feature of publications and probably could be mentioned at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes. Perhaps 5 to 20 citation dynamic links may justify a redirect. For The Astronomical Review topic, it lacks enough reference material to meet WP:GNG and is not being used enough within Wikipedia to even meet a Wikipedia:Scholarly journal lowest possible bar for scholarly journals under WP:GNG or even justify a redirect. These are strong reasons to delete. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:36, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep - To be honest, I don't see any truly, outstandingly convincing things to make me believe this article should be kept. On the other hand, I don't see any truly, outstandingly convincing things to make be believe that it should be deleted, either. Therefore I default to a position that this should be kept, although with no prejudice against a renomination sooner than would usually be considered non-pointy. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:57, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.