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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 delete. Despite spirited opposition to deletion by one editor, the argument for deletion that the subject is not covered in reliable third-party sources is compelling, and that's what consensus also amounts to. Can be redirected as suggested at the end at editors' discretion.  Sandstein  19:00, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies

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European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Non-notable new journal. Not indexed in any selective databases, no independent sources. Does not meet WP:NJournals or WP:GNG. Randykitty (talk) 13:25, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which databases relevant to archaeology did you check please? Johnbod (talk) 14:24, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The journal is not indexed in the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, British Humanities Index, or Current Contents/Arts & Humanities, which are the databases that, for example, the American Journal of Archeology and Medieval Archaeology (journal) are indexed in. The latter is also in the MLA International Bibliography, but I don't have access to that database so can not check it for the EJoPCA. The American Journal is also included in the ERIH list, but that one is currently not online (in the process of being transferred to a Norwegian organization) and is not very selective anyway because it basically strives for completeness. In addition to the foregoing, I also checked Scopus, which is rather inclusive (but still usually is taken as establishing notability). If you know of any selective archeology-specific databases that might be of importance here let me know and I'll check them, too. --Randykitty (talk) 16:42, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Established academic journal about to issue fourth volume. Reliable source for Italian archaeology. Agreed sources are not strong but it should be possible to expand it. Much content is in Italian and a search of google.it shows sources. We shouldn't discriminate against it just because it is mainly in Italian. Note WP:NJournals is an essay not a policy. (It's open access too) Philafrenzy (talk) 13:44, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course we should not discriminate against a journal because it is published in Italy. Neither does that mean that we should forget all notability criteria. NJournals is an essay, but it is designed to make it easier for journals to meet our notability criteria. If a journal does not meet NJournals, it almost certainly doesn't meet the general notability guideline either. The article has been tagged for lack of notability for over a month now, without any improvement forthcoming. --Randykitty (talk) 14:00, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Like you, I have many things I want to do here. There are a million articles here that need more sources. Have you looked at the editorial board? They are not writing it and publishing it for fun are they? Those articles are being used by students and academics or it wouldn't have got to four volumes (soon). Just because it hasn't been picked up strongly by Google is no reason to delete it. The encyclopedia is better with this article than without it and more sources will appear in the fullness of time. In the meantime it remains a RS in its area. Philafrenzy (talk) 14:07, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Expanded the article a little. The field of post-classical (medieval or post-Roman) archaeology is relatively new (1970s on) and one thing they do in PCA is publish memoirs from the first people working in the field describing their experience of trying to gain acceptance for the area, for instance Bryan Ward-Perkins on the difference between English and Italian approaches or the first uses of the Harris matrix in the field. There are many other articles they have published on this so far in addition to regular archaeological papers. As far as I know, nobody else is publishing this sort of historiographical (archaeolographical?) material and I think there is plenty of room to plug these open access articles into the encyclopaedia further. Philafrenzy (talk) 20:52, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • And again, publishing articles, whether interesting or not, does not contribute one iota to notability (unless it can be shown that they actually have been noted by third parties. And as the Google Scholar link above indicates, any evidence of that is lacking). As for your earlier remark that students and academics must read it otherwise it wouldn't still be around after 3-4 years, academic publishing requires patience and usually journals take more than that to prove to be viable or not. This is a bit different for an open-access journal like this, because those are "author driven", not "reader driven". Even if nobody ever reads it, such a journal will be viable as long as academics need to find an outlet for their articles (which they need to publish in order to be evaluated well for jobs, promotions , etc). So the fact that this has been around a mere 3-4 years is no indication of possible notability either. --Randykitty (talk) 21:29, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, no reliable third-party sources found yet, and alternative criteria suggested in the WP:NJOURNAL essay, such as inclusion in major indexes, do not seem to have been met yet. I am unswayed by the notability of the journal's contributors; an unnotable topic shouldn't inherit notability from people associated with it. The "Wikipedia is better with it than without it" argument just falls flat for me; most of the article reads like a reviewer's opinion piece about the journal, and while that's useful (reviews of things are popular, and I read them myself!), it's not the sort of verifiable, encyclopedic coverage appropriate for Wikipedia. If it were stripped down to a stub, just parroting the uncontroversial parts of the publisher's description (with attribution), it would at least be factual, and if article inclusion policy were up to me I'd probably adjust the policy to allow it, but the policy is not up to me. Based on information available so far, this seems like the sort of topic most of the community's policies seem designed to exclude from Wikipedia. Agyle (talk) 00:15, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You really want to delete a multi volume, peer reviewed, open access journal on archaeology with contributions from major figures in its field? How does that make any sense for the project? The policies are there to guide us, not for us to become slaves to them. Philafrenzy (talk) 01:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Much of the rationale behind the notability guidelines are to maintain encyclopedic integrity. With no independent sources about the topic, the article is limited to information from the publisher, and whatever unverifiable editorial content people generate, whether right or wrong. Agyle (talk) 03:44, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In the context of an academic journal that is not included in the relevant indexes (either because it is too new or has not paid to be or for some other reason) how would you see notability being demonstrated? We know that it has survived to volume 4 and does not appear to be vanity publishing as was suggested above as it has important figures in its area editing and contributing who have no need to pad their CVs. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:32, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know of a single respectable selective database that asks journals to pay for inclusion. If a journal is "too new", then that is a clear case of "too soon" and you should wait with article creation until it is actually notable, after all, WP:There is no deadline. If you read my above comments more carefully, you'll see that I did never say that this was a vanity publication. I really urge you to read up on WP's standards for sourcing and notability (and don't forget WP:NOTINHERITED), so that we can avoid having the same conversations over and over again. --Randykitty (talk) 14:11, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Philafrenzy, you're asking how to demonstrate notability of a publication that has attracted virtually no notice in independent published sources, has no demonstrable influence in its field, has no significant history, has received no well known awards, has made no major achievements, has been involved in no prominent scandals, has not been included in selective indexing services, and does not seem to be frequently cited in other notable scholarly publications. If I thought it were likely that notability could be demonstrated, I wouldn't have voted "delete" for now; I already considered the rationales that I can think of. I do not have access to good databases of academic journals, so I don't have a good feel for how often its cited, and might be swayed by statistics regarding this, even though it is not among the guidelines' explicit criteria. However, I am doubtful of this; usually books.google and scholar.google give some indication of third-party citation frequency even in fields they don't cover well, and they turned up nothing. Agyle (talk) 19:28, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some sources, which I agree are of varying quality:

My concern is we are looking in the wrong place as it defies common sense that a journal would get to four volumes, apparently be of a high quality, peer reviewed with notable contributors, yet be missed by every index and uncited. Is it because it is mostly in Italian? Philafrenzy (talk) 20:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Philafrenzy, it absolutely does not "defy common sense" that a journal that is barely 4 years old is not yet indexed or much cited. Citations take time to build up. Databases need to review a certain number of issues of a journal before deciding on their possible inclusion. Language has not much to do with it, as many journals in the humanities are not in English. None of your "references" listed above contribute to notability (or even provide any useful info on the journal). All they show is that people list articles they published in that journal on their CV or mention that they are part of the editorial board. --Randykitty (talk) 20:42, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure they'd convince some editors, given the vast range of opinions, but they're googleable links I already considered. On your question of whether the journal's inclusion of Italian-language articles was a reason for exclusion here, I can tell you it doesn't matter to me, and Wikipedia guidelines make no distinction (all things being equal, reliable sources are preferred in English, but all languages are acceptable). It is possible that it's a factor considered by indexing services, and I'd guess it impacts the journal's readership to some extent. I checked if there was an alternate, Italian-language title for the publication, that might return more search results, but I didn't find any, even on Italian-language web pages like Archeologia Medievale. Agyle (talk) 22:02, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't suggesting bias from anyone here and I am aware that we shouldn't discriminate against foreign language sources, merely that for practical reasons we might not be picking up on Italian language sources that, for instance, an Italian archaeologist would go straight to. We seem to be limited to academic indexes and Google, and I feel there is a world of web and offline sources outside those two. You could argue this is a case of systemic bias as it seems unlikely that the journal would be so un-noted if it was mainly in English. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:22, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your point, but having read several AfD discussions about journals, all-English journals seem to face the same difficulty with third-party notability. Even after decades of publication, it seems quite common for a journal to have attracted no significant coverage in independent sources; who would write an article about the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, except the IEEE? I'd presume that's why the essay WP:NJOURNAL was written to provide alternatives to consider in assessing notability. Most journal articles I've seen on Wikipedia, even when the consensus is that they're notable, do not expand beyond stubs. Agyle (talk) 22:47, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which means we are more or less letting the indexes choose what we include. I don't think anyone here has argued that this journal, for instance, is not a reliable source in its area and I think that should have more weight in the discussion. After all, if it is reliable, and particularly if it is open access and fully linkable, we are likely to start using it as a source as I have and ideally we would probably have an article for each reliable source? Philafrenzy (talk) 23:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's a different sort of question; in Wikipedia's meaning of "reliable source", discussed in WP:RS, "reliability of a source depends on context." For example, The New York Times is often considered a reliable source, but would not be acceptable for many medical claims, where more specialized sources are required (see WP:MEDRS). Similarly, its Op Ed section would generally not be considered a reliable source for facts, but may be considered a reliable source for statements about an author's opinions. In the case of scholarly sources: "One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes. A corollary is that journals not included in a citation index, especially in fields well covered by such indexes, should be used with caution, though whether it is appropriate to use will depend on the context." Agyle (talk) 02:09, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:37, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 03:37, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Gian Pietro Brogiolo the EIC, where the journal is mentioned. I can sympathize with Philafrenzy's frustration at excluding verifiable, serious academic journals that are not quite notable by WP standards. Notability thresholds will always ensure that WP is a curmudgeonly, trailing edge information resource full of holes in coverage. As far as I can tell, this is a case of WP:TOOSOON; not enough time has elapsed for the journal to appear in selective indexes or to be commented upon by independent RS. Nonetheless, uncontroversial facts, like the journal's existence and title, are verifiable in authoritative primary sources and the journal title is a plausible search term. If we had an article on SAP Società Archeologica, that would be a natural merge target, but we don't. Until the journal does become notable, a redirect to the editor in chief's article article seems the best way to preserve at least the journal's existence on WP. --Mark viking (talk) 18:19, 28 May 2014 (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.
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