Talk:Frontiers Research Foundation

Name
On their website, they now call themselves simply "Frontiers" and talk about the "Frontiers Journal Series". However, at the bottom of their website pages it says "© 2007 - 2012 Frontiers Media S.A.", so I must say that I find it difficult to decide what the proper name for this article should be. I have seen no evidence either that the Foundation does not exist any more. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 18:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the proper name should be Frontiers Media S.A, since it's on their homepage website. The content of the page relates to Frontiers as a Media Sa company, and not to Research foundation which was their old name, how they started it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdecerjat (talk • contribs) 09:46, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As they are now an "S.A." instead of a foundation, does that also mean that they are not a non-profit any more? (Changing the article's name also means changing the lead and I'd like to do it correctly). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 10:38, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, they still use the Foundation name, too, see here. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 10:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that it will be called Frontiers only because that is the brand under which the services are promoted. The specification of Sa or Media is uneccessary. Then, within the company, and that we can add later in the page description, the mission is supported via 2 organizations, of which Frontiers Reasearch foundation is one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdecerjat (talk • contribs) 12:19, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * And what would be the sources for that? --Guillaume2303 (talk) 12:25, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The source would be that I am an intern at Frontiers, and I've been tasked to change the name of the company's wikipedia page. Could you do that ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdecerjat (talk • contribs) 09:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No, sorry, but "I say so" is not a source. That doesn't mean I don't believe you, but if WP is to be a serious encyclopedia, we need better sources than that to verify claims. (And face it, anybody can create an account here and then claim whatever they want). In addition, you may want to read our conflict of interest policy. BTW, up till now Frontiers claimed to be a non-profit foundation. The word "foundation" has now disappeared almost completely from their website and the word "non-profit" seems to have disappeared completely. You now call it a "company", so has the non-profit status changed? --Guillaume2303 (talk) 09:49, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that Frontiers Media S.A. and Frontiers Research Foundation are two separate entities. The entries on the Frontiers website glossary page imply that the first is a for-profit corporation that publishes the Frontiers journal series and review platform, while the second is a not-for-profit organization that can donate money to the corporation in order to discount or waive publication fees for articles that are to be published by the corporation. If this is true, I suggest that first the page for Frontiers Research Foundation be appropriately updated, and second a new page be created for Frontiers Media S.A. Both pages might include a section which clarifies the differences between these entities. Otherwise, users might get the incorrect impression that the Frontiers operation is entirely not-for-profit. Would citing the glossary page be a sufficient reference in this case? Dascoyne (talk) 17:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

At Dascoyne, I'm happy somebody understands! This is exactly what we should do. Update the research foundation page, and create a new one for Frontiers Media. So what next? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdecerjat (talk • contribs) 14:56, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I disagree. The difficulties encountered to figure out what, if any, the difference is between the Foundation and FM SA illustrate why: there are no sources on which to base two articles. Also, the two entities are so much intertwined, that it makes much more sense to keep both in the same article where we can somewhere mention that FM SA is the publishing arm of the Foundation (if, indeed, we can confirm that the media branch is owned by the foundation). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 15:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Dear Guillaume, we understand your concern. However, it is precisely why we want to make two pages, they shouldn't be that intertwined and this is our role to make it clear for the visitor of wikipedia. They are two separate entities. Hdecerjat — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdecerjat (talk • contribs) 13:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, they are two entities that are closely intertwined. And two separate articles are only justified if you have the sources to back it up. What you or I know to be the truth is not important, it's what the sources say. And at this point, teher seem to be hardly any. A few lines on a glossary page of the organization itself is absolutely not enough for that. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 10:36, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

We would like to point out the following, and will add the corresponding sources: (in this case, we can create two pages, right?). FRONTIERS RESEARCH FOUNDATION Frontiers Research Foundation is a Swiss-registered, not-for-profit organization whose social mission is to enhance the capability of nations to generate research knowledge, especially in developing countries, by granting publishing fee waivers and discounts to authors who cannot afford the publishing fees of the “Frontiers in” journal series. This strategy extends beyond supporting free dissemination of knowledge, to helping the public to better understand research and its value to society, spark the latent researcher in school children, help students develop the skills to compete on the international research scene, support universities to attract students and funding, companies to advance their R&D programs and protect their intellectual property, and governments to build up intellectual capital and build advanced knowledge societies. FRONTIERS MEDIA Frontiers Media is a Swiss-registered academic publishing company specifically formed by the same founders of the Frontiers Research Foundation and purposefully aligned with the Frontiers vision. Frontiers Media is also committed to supporting and sponsoring Frontiers Research Foundation to achieve its social mission. The commercial mission of Frontiers Media is to introduce alternative revenues in order to maximally subsidize the cost of publishing scientific articles Funding for Frontiers Media came from the original sponsors of Frontiers Research Foundation. Frontiers Media is not funded by venture capital. -Héloïse de Cerjat — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdecerjat (talk • contribs) 07:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I still don't see any need for two separate articles and the text above (which actually makes a good case for keeping the two together: "the same...") is certainly not acceptable (please read WP:NPOV). In addition, your sources need to be independent of Frontiers and show notability for both entities in order to create two articles. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 08:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

advice
Guillaume asked me to review these articles, as one of the people here who also works with articles on scientific journals. And as an admin I also work a good deal with promotional articles, either rewriting or deleting them. I have by now deleted many thousands.

What I think best here is just as Guillaume says, to merge the two articles. (I read the articles and examined the websites before seeing his comments above.), I'm not quite sure what the title should be, but "Frontiers Media SA" as suggested  seems a good one, better than either   title as they stand now. The alternative would be Frontiers Media, but I think the SA makes it clearer the articles is about an organization--but in any case once the article are merged the titles can be changed to whatever is agreed on. It seems absolutely clear to me from the articles and web sites, and confirmed buy the discussion, that the Foundation is very closely related to the point where one article is sufficient. What's more, trying to split this into an unnecessary number of articles, especially when the notability in the first place is rather borderline, seems to indicate a promotional intent: merging will make the material much less likely to be deleted altogether. The material needs some shortening to make the key points a little clearer. In the merge, I think I can easily do that.

What I would appreciate knowing before I start this is: first, whether there are any other published articles or reputable blog posts from reliable third parties dealing with this project or the journals; and second, whether any of the journals published under this scheme are indexed in Scopus, Science Citation Index, or Biological Abstracts.

I mentioned promotionalism.

A Wikipedia article needs to be written like an encyclopedia article, not a press release--just saying in plain terms what they do, not talking  about the overall importance of their purposes. The general virtues of open access are covered elsewhere, and links to the relevant articles here is the way to do it. An encyclopedia article needs to avoid buzzwords and advertising jargon-- "a social mandate to help the public understand research and its value to society, ignite innovation and spark curiosity in research" copied from their web page, is the sort of non-information that we try to avoid. An article here must not  copy from a web site, even your own -- first it's a copyright violation, but, even if you own the copyright and are willing to give us permission according to WP:DCM, or if quoted, the tone will not be encyclopedic and the material will not be suitable--as is the case here.

An article must include only material that would be of interest to a general reader coming across the mention of the subject and wanting the sort of information that would be found in an encyclopedia. Do not include material that would be of interest only to those associated with the subject, or to prospective authors--that sort of content is considered promotional. And keep in mind that the goal of an encyclopedia is to say things in a concise manner, which is not the style of  press releases or  web sites, which are usually more expansive.

Additionally, a Wikipedia article needs to show notability with references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not unauthoritative blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. Guillaume mentioned conflict of Interest.

As a general rule, a suitable page will be best written by someone without Conflict of Interest; it's not utterly impossible to do it properly with a conflict of interest or as a paid press agent, but it's very much more difficult: you are automatically thinking in terms of what the subject wishes to communicate to the public, but an uninvolved person will think in terms of what the public might wish to know. These articles provide an relevant example of the reasons for our COI policies.

As we don't have COI, but are both quite familiar with the general subject, I can more effectively rewrite them & Guillaume can review me. But remember that anyone can still nominate the article(s) for deletion by a regular deletion process.

What you can best do now, Hdecerjat and Dascoyne, is give me the information I asked for on this talk page, and otherwise stop editing the articles. If you do continue. or attempt to keep it as two separate articles, I will delete both of them under our speedy deletion rule WP:CSD, "entirely promotional and not capable of rewriting by normal editing" and I will  block you as entirely promotional editors. I am putting a warning to that effect on your user talk pages. I hope you understand that what I am trying to do is rescue the material, and if you give me a chance, I will try to do it. It would be so much easier for me to delete the pair of them, but I'm one of the admins here most willing to try to rescue marginal   material.  DGG ( talk ) 16:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Point of information I'm new to this discussion (although I'm rapidly becoming convinced by the arguments of Guillaume and DGG), but here's some of the info you asked for: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience had a Thomson SCI Impact Factor of 1.58 in 2009 and 1.94 in 2010. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience was 2.58 in 2010 and Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience was 3.58 in 2010. Famousdog (talk) 07:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the delay in replying. I was disappointed to see that I have received a warning. I have not edited any articles. I have no affiliation whatsoever with Frontiers. I just contributed once to this talk page with a suggestion/query about splitting the article into two separate ones. At the time I did not know that the website glossary page was insufficient source to back this up. If it is not, and the two entities are indeed very closely intertwined, then I agree that there is little reason to create separate articles for Frontiers Media SA and Frontiers Research Foundation. I think that the current article now provides a very clear and adequate description of the differences between the two. Can you please revoke or withdraw my warning? I don't feel that it is justified. Dascoyne (talk) 21:17, 10 May 2012 (UTC)