Talk:Central African Journal of Medicine

Notability
@Randykitty I note the message that you left on my talk page indicating "Proposed deletion of Central African Journal of Medicine" because '''Non-notable journal. Not indexed in any selective databases, no independent sources. Does not meet WP:NJournals or WP:GNG.'''

I wish to demonstate how this journal is notable.

Here are the criteria for notability of an academic journal (If a journal meets any of the following criteria):


 * Criterion 1: The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area.
 * Criterion 2: The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources.
 * Criterion 3: The journal is historically important in its subject area.

The Central African Journal of Medicine is included in African Journals Online (AJOL) which is selective:


 * "Journals apply for inclusion on AJOL and are assessed according to the quality of their publishing practices, including the following criteria:
 * • The journal must be scholarly in content, and contain original research (in addition to other content)
 * • The content is peer-reviewed and quality controlled
 * • The journal has an established publishing track record
 * • The journal has an actively functioning Editorial Board (institutional affiliations and contact details required), etc."

The Central African Journal of Medicine has more than 4000 articles indexed for MEDLINE, which is selective, from 1955 to 2015 (60 years). This easily satisfies criterion 3. The journal is still active to the present day (2023).

Paradoxically Wikipedia itself has numerous pages which cite this journal as a source, which shows it is considered to be reliable.

Ear-phone (talk) 12:19, 23 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Reliable doesn't mean notable, and neither AJOL nor PubMed are selective services. AJOL is an access platform like ScienceDirect or Wiley Online Library, while PubMed just grabs pretty much anything it can related to medicine (even from predatory journals). I agree with RK on the notability of this journal, I just think merging to the University of Zimbabwe is a better outcome than deletion. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:34, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb: PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database which is maintained by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health. MEDLINE is a selective bibliographic database that applies stringent criteria before a journal is included. So it's completely untrue that, "PubMed just grabs pretty much anything it can related to medicine (even from predatory journals)".




 * Ear-phone (talk) 14:28, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm fully aware of what PubMed is, and PubMed has plenty of predatory journals in it. In fact, it is often required by law to include those because papers with US public funding must be included in pubmed regardless of where they were published. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb. I am afraid what you write is untrue.
 * Please see NIH Public Access Policy Details. There is no such law.
 * You seem to use MEDLINE and PubMed interchangeably. I encourage you to read the difference between MEDLINE and PubMed, which are commonly confused. The differences are explained here https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/difference.html I had said, "The Central African Journal of Medicine has more than 4000 articles indexed for MEDLINE, which is selective, from 1955 to 2015 (60 years)."
 * Ear-phone (talk) 22:05, 23 February 2023 (UTC)   Ear-phone (talk) 22:05, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Law, policy, same thing. (But yes, here it's a law too) &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:02, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb, can you simply quote or link the law or policy you are referring to and where it says what you write i.e. "papers with US public funding must be included in pubmed regardless of where they were published"? I do thank you for contesting the PROD made by @Randykitty, which should not have been made in the first place. The case of The Central African Journal of Medicine being notable according to the existing Wikipedia guidance is very clear-cut. Ear-phone (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * You just quoted it yourself above. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:38, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Something strange is going on... the journal was in MEDLINE/Index Medicus until 2015. The journal was also in Scopus until 2015. What happened in 2015 that databases dropped the journal from their indexing? &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:45, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

&#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:37, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb, like I said there is no such law or policy where it says what you write.
 * Thank you for showing that the journal was in Scopus, which further supports criterion 3 i.e. "The journal is historically important in its subject area." I had already mentioned up to 2015 for MEDLINE. I do not know what happened, but this does not change it's notability within the existing Wikipedia rules.
 * Ear-phone (talk) 23:56, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Then reread the law you quoted above because that's exactly what it says. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:58, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb: I have read the policy and it doesn't say what you wrote, that's why I asked you to provide the quote or link from the law or policy. Because what you wrote is untrue i.e. "papers with US public funding must be included in pubmed regardless of where they were published"?
 * Ear-phone (talk) 00:05, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
 * "The Director of the National Institutes of Health ("NIH")shall require in the current fiscal year and thereafter that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, that the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law."
 * @Headbomb, that is why I said you do not know the difference between MEDLINE, PubMed and PubMed Central. That's why I asked you to read https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/difference.html
 * Your statement, "papers with US public funding must be included in pubmed regardless of where they were published" is untrue.
 * Ear-phone (talk) 01:27, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I've directly quoted you the law saying they must be. The same law you first quoted yourself. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:46, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb, PubMed Central and PubMed are two different things. MEDLINE is different too. Did you read https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/difference.html? Your statement "papers with US public funding must be included in pubmed regardless of where they were published", is thus completely false. BW. I'll go to another page and other topics.
 * Ear-phone (talk) 02:15, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
 * They they're trivially different. Whatever's in PMC gets in Pubmed, save non-research stuff like book reviews. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:06, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I hope you recall that this discussion is about the selective MEDLINE database and the Central African Journal of Medicine's notability. The differences between PubMed, MEDLINE and PubMed Central are obviously not trivial. PubMed Central, for example, has its own separate criteria for inclusion. I wonder why I often encounter resistance whenever I create articles about clearly notable African entities. It's extraordinary as conventional Wikipedia notability criteria no longer apply. These articles are nominated for deletion or deemed not to be suitable as stand-alone articles. Good bye and BW. Ear-phone (talk) 11:24, 24 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Sorry that it took me a while to get around to responding here, but I was rather busy in RL. I agree with that neither AJOL nor PMC are selective in the sense of NJournals. As for me PRODding this, the case for notability is much more tenuous than you seem to think. The only argument in favor of notability is the fact that the journal was included in MEDLINE (and apparently even in the Index Medicus from 1965-2015). Unfortunately, the NLM catalog does not give a reason why the indexing was discontinued (an otherwise rather rare thing). So this might be seen as meeting NJournals, but only barely. At this point I'm undecided whether this should be a stand-alone article or merged. --Randykitty (talk) 15:57, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Scopus too. I just can't figure out what happened in 2015. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:53, 24 February 2023 (UTC)