Talk:The Archaeological Journal

Infobox
The history field of the journal infobox is meant to indicate start and (if applicable) end year of publication, not an exhaustive history of the society publishing the journal, please see Template:Infobox_journal. The history of the society/institute belongs in the article on the institute, which is linked here, and should not be repeated here (and even less so in the infobox). Please revert, thanks. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 20:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
 * A basic familiarity with bibliography might indicate that knowing who is listed as publisher of a journal is pretty central to the history of that journal. If you plan to turn the information into running prose in the article, by all means take it out of the infobox. If not, leave the information available for somebody who will.--Andreas Philopater (talk) 09:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * There is only one change of publisher (in 1845), which is described in the text. All other "changes" are just name changes of the publisher (i.e., the Institute). That is relevant info for the institute (and should be in the article on the institute, although currently it isn't), but is rather trivial for the journal and simply does not belong here. If you have sources that show these name changes are not trivial for the journal but actually have some importance, your free to add that to the text of the article, but please don't use an infobox for things that it wasn't meant for. Infoboxes are intended to give a brief overview, not an exhaustive description. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 11:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The changes are not changes of publisher, but changes of who is listed as publisher. Being able to understand the distinction, and its importance, without the need for such explicitation, is why a basic familiarity with the principles of bibliography would be helpful when dealing with entries on published matter. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 13:10, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the lecture. Perhaps we can agree that you assume that I have at least a faint idea of what I am talking about and then I will refrain from saying things like "Being able to understand what an infobox is for, and its importance, without the need for such explication, is why a basic familiarity with the principles of infoboxes would be helpful when dealing with entries on published matter". That would only lead to a shouting match and that is not very productive. Anyway, I note that up till now, nobody has even cared to say anything about these name changes in the article on the Institute itself. The publisher of this journal has been the same entity since 1845. An infobox should present a brief "in a glance" overview of the most important data of an article's subject. Anything else that is not trivial and can be sourced, should be added to the text of the article, not the infobox. And just as we delete biographical info on editors-in-chief (because that info belongs in the biographical articles on those editors), just so we delete histories of publishers from journal articles and put that stuff in the articles on the publishers. Imagine we would put the whole histories of publishers like Springer Verlag (which has undergone several name changes in its history) in all of the articles on the thousands of journals that these publishers produce... --Guillaume2303 (talk) 14:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No doubt you are a far more experienced and expert filler of infoboxes than I could ever dream of being. Nevertheless, to remove information for no better reason than "I don't think it's important", or "Imagine what would happen if we provided full details in other entries", rather underwhelms me as an example of constructive editing. It would be another matter if you showed any inclination to be adding the information to the body of the article, rather than reading the riot act to other users. But that aside, try imagining how fast Wikipedia would have grown if one of its basic principles had been "up till now, nobody has even cared to say anything about X in this article, so I'll remove it from a related article". Can I please get back to editing in article mainspace now? --Andreas Philopater (talk) 15:03, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for remaining civil. Can you please explain to this poor ignoramus, why it is essential that all this (unsourced) stuff appears in the infobox (or the article, for that matter)? And I would prefer a better argument than "Being able to understand the distinction, and its importance, without the need for such explicitation, is why a basic familiarity with the principles of bibliography would be helpful when dealing with entries on published matter". Up till now, you have not provided any explanation beyond "I think it is important". Thanks. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 15:25, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No, really, you're welcome. Thanks for letting me stay on wikipedia. Since you ask, it is a recognized principle of bibliographic description that "the name of the publisher is entered as given on the publication" (to cite the INIS Guide to Bibliographic Description, emphasis added), or rather more abstrusely "The publisher/distributor of the manifestation is the individual, group, or organization named in the manifestation as being responsible for the publication, distribution, issuing, or release of the manifestation" (to cite the International Federation of Library Associations' Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, emphasis added). Given that reliable third-party sources enjoin this, might we consider doing it? --Andreas Philopater (talk) 22:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the explanation. I still think this does not belong here. 1/ Wikipedia is not a bibliographic or library database. 2/ The purpose of an infoboxe is "to summarize key facts in the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance", the current usage clearly surpasses this. 3/ There is no source that clarifies that the name changes of the institute had any influence on editorial policy, content, distribution, or any other aspect of journal functioning. In any case, points 1 and 2 are sufficient reason for removal of this stuff from the infobox, it simply does not belong there. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 10:05, 4 April 2012 (UTC)