Template talk:Infobox journal/Archive 1

Impact factor
I did find sufficient information to compose a chart for Genome Research. The Image link from that article for the chart leads to information on the source of information for each of the years 1999 through 2003. It should be possible to use these information sources to describe the IF trend for that period, but I'm still not including this in the template as it is a controversial measure. Courtland 02:25, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Introduction
I looked around in WikiProjects, the list of Infobox Templates, and in Templates in general and did not find something that would suitably cover the salient bits of information that describe an academic journal. Therefore, I created this.

Courtland 10:29, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Degree of openness
With all the discussion about open access these days, it may be interesting to specify for each journal how much they are open-access. Given Wikipedia open nature, I think it would be of particular interest. Hard work, especially given that the number of open-access policy probably rivals the number of licence for open-source software, but probably worth doing. Having the relevant field in the infobox would be a start. Schutz 22:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Example cut'n'paste text broken?
I tried to cut-and-paste the example infobox from here, and found that it SEVERELY did not work. I had to: Check out Isis (journal) for the example; I left the old params in marked noeffect. I haven't ever tried to mess with templates before, but this seems like it SHOULD be a simple update to the guideline, not to the template itself? --Alvestrand 12:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
 * change publisher(country) to separate paratmeters 'publisher' and 'country'
 * change abbrev_title to 'abbreviation'
 * change publication_history to 'history'

Problem with ISSN part
Take a look at Journal of Physical Chemistry B, where the ISSN entry is:-


 * ISSN=1520-6106 (print edition) and 1520-5215 (web edition)

It gives:- Can this be fixed? I do not understand why it is doing what it is. We need to give 2 ISSNs in many cases. In some like Angewandte Chemie, we need to give four as there are German and English editions, each in print and online (Note: I edited this one so the template only has one ISSNs and the four are in the text of the article). --Bduke 02:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
 * (print edition) and 1520-5215 (web edition) 1520-6106 (print edition) and 1520-5215 (web edition)


 * I suggest the field be renamed to "id", as in WP:CITET, the citation templates. This allows both ISSN and OCLC (and possibly others) to be included. Bduke could try: (print edition),  (web edition) . I also suggest a new field "location". For U.S. publishers, it is standard to name the town and state of the publisher (not the country), e.g. Nashville, TN. -Colin MacLaurin 13:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion. This problem was fixed long ago, essentially by using {{ISSN|... as you suggest. --Bduke 20:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

New fields
I have added two fields to the template: Obviously, I have made these two fields optional so that no article containing this infobox should break. As an example, I have just added the infobox, including these two fields, to the article Cell (journal). Schutz 23:42, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * openaccess, which was suggested (by me) above, but that noone commented upon.
 * frequency, which seems quite logical to have.


 * Hi, openaccess is a great idea. I'm just reading up on open access now.  I think it would be more beneficial if we used keywords rather than, or as well as, free form text.  e.g. openaccess = gold, or openaccess = green.  Are there other open classifications ? John Vandenberg 00:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added openaccess=After 6 months to Biochemical Journal, using the information from the list at PubMed Central. John Vandenberg 00:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I am not sure how many models are around; the ones I can think of right now are:
 * No open access
 * Open access if paid for by the authors
 * Open access after a given time
 * Full open access
 * I like the idea of using keywords, but they should be self-explanatory, unlike colour codes (although these could possibly be added in addition). Schutz 00:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Would it were this simple. The terminology has been getting a little more consistent in the last two or three months, and I have added articles explaining
 * Open access journal - -what has been conventionally known as gold
 * Delayed open access journal -- such as most of the US society biomed journals, corresponds to after a given time
 * Hybrid open access journal --also known by publisher-specific names, such as "open choice", OA if paid by the author/sponsor
 * There's also those journals that are both delayed and hybrid, such as PNAS-- OA immediately if paid, otherwise 6 months. no std term yet.
 * There is a good list of the first, and no available lists whatsoever of delayed and hybrid!--if we make them, they will be the only ones.
 * Green is complicated--there are too many types, there's a partial directory of policy for many journals, but the variation is immense, including the ones that are green, but only after X months. There are two incompatible sets of detailed color names, which implies to me that we should stay away from colors. From a readers point of view, all green means is that you must check each article, & there's good evidence that a lot of people post even if prohibited, by Kristin Antelman —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DGG (talk • contribs) 01:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC).


 * The use of keywords was the extent of my thinking; something along the lines of openaccess=gold being transformed by the template into "Open access | gold", whereas openaccess=green would become "Open access | green" (see BMC Nursing). Those keywords are only selected because they are mentioned on the open access page; other keywords would work equally well, however colour coding is an interesting avenue I hadnt realised/considered. In the light of the background that DGG has provided, I think keyword should only be for the non-ambiguous types of open access, and the template needs to fall back to displaying the free form text if it isnt entirely comprised of known keywords (I've never tried this with templates yet, but it should be do-able). John Vandenberg 01:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Problem is, the color code only helps if the journal is true open access. It could also be done for delayed open access, but the periods keep changing, and now vary from 1 to 36 months, depending on publisher. This could be coded, but at this point not even services like Google Scholar have figured out how to do it. My guess is third quarter of '07 for them. And everything else is article by article, and this too is being worked on, by them and a lot of other people--my guess is 4th quarter '07.
 * But, as a strong proponent of open access, I think it reasonable to reward the true OA journals. The best database of them, DOAJ, does not quite keep up with them, but they try to cover even the smallest. has only 35. We could certainly keep up with the top ones--there are only about 150 in Web of Science so far,.  I have just written a WP article, open access journal, which explains some of this a little more--the Open access article is written by a strong proponent of self-archiving, and I just wanted to balance it (I have nothing about self-archiving, I do it myself). I am about to write a WP article outlining how to find everything findable, but this is WP and it can't be called "how to", and suggestions for a title are welcome.DGG 05:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It sounds like colour coding is stretching too far, too fast. A few questions:
 * For delayed OA, Is the delay usually constant for all articles within a journal?
 * For hybrid OA, is the cost usually fixed for all articles within a journal?
 * Does a journal usually nominate one archival repository for its deposits; is this useful to know?
 * British Medical Journal OA data found on PubMed indicates Immediate [non-research: after 12 months]; can someone explain what non-research means?
 * For the non-OA journals, are there different levels of closed-ness that we should also cater for (i.e. {half-jokingly} grey vs black).
 * As an aside, there are now 273 journals that use this template.
 * John Vandenberg 22:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

ISI listing
I think ISI listed should be added to indicate that the journal does or does not appear among the over 14,000 journals listed by the Institute for Scientific Information. The list includes over 1100 arts and humanities journals as well as scientific journals. This is an important indicator of journal quality and would be of interest to our readers. Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:39, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. --Bduke 21:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Microformat for citations
Please be aware of the proposal for a microformat for marking citations (which pages about journals are, in effect) in (X)HTML. See also WikiProject Microformats. Andy Mabbett 16:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Without CSS
With CSS disabled, this appears as:


 * British Birds
 * Discipline 	Ornithology
 * Language 	English

and so on. I think there would be some value in prepending the word "Title" to the first entry, then hiding it with CSS. Andy Mabbett 14:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

ISSN reversion
I reverted the recent change to the ISSN field. On most journal pages, this field is already filled in using. When this was combined with the external link format in the recent revision to the infobox, it caused these infoboxes to stretch most of the way across the article on hundreds of pages. Specifically it caused links like this in all the infoboxes:

If we want to make this change, we need to go through and change the formatting of the field on the 100s of pages that transclude this template. --JayHenry 06:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * There's a crafty way of getting around this which I'll implement. Verisimilus  T  13:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a nice bit of templature on the ISSN field. Good work!  I'm not sure about using the Web site field up top though.  It causes problems whenever the Web site field has an unusual formatting like Science (journal) or Geobios or The Lancet.  Also, I'm not sure if non-wikipedia editors will automatically recognize that the link up top is to the web site. --JayHenry 14:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks {
 * I'd been thinking of that - I think I might create a "links" section to the template, including JSTOR etc. Verisimilus  T  14:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Width problem, lost frequency
I'm not sure if this is related to the above change, but the infoboxes on several journals eg Biochemical Journal, AIDS (journal) appear to have doubled in width over the past couple of days. Is this an intentional effect? It looks very ugly.

Also the information on frequency is missing in the infobox, whilst filled in on the template. Espresso Addict 16:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, seems to be fixed now, although the links to the journal website are still displaying strangely eg [www.annals.org Journal homepage]. Espresso Addict 16:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * All issues should now have been fixed by my bot - apologies for the disruption during the transition to the more functional template! Verisimilus  T  19:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

website
How do we show more than one website? See the mess at Angewandte Chemie. --Bduke 00:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I fixed the issue at Angewandte Chemie. There are fields for multiple links, where you use link1 for the url and link1-name for what you want the link to say.  The feature was just added, so there's not documentation for it yet.  We'll fix that soon! --JayHenry 05:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's great. --Bduke 07:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

COinS
Any chance that this template uses COinS, in the same way as cite book? Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 11:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Add CODEN field?
How do I add a field for CODEN? Makes for very cluttered reading when in running text, eg. Angewandte Chemie Thanks, BlnLiCr 17:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

✅ Done. You can now add CODEN to pages, exactly the same as you add ISSN. --JayHenry 05:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Code cleanup
I think I've fixed most of the major issues. I saw a note about using both basic HTML and CSS, however, that practice isn't really used on templates. There is still some work to be done, however, it isn't urgent. Cheers. --MZMcBride 18:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking the time to do that! Do let me know of anything else that could be improved and I might be able to take a look at it. Verisimilus  T  19:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Automated links with OCLC and LCCN
On Annals of Internal Medicine I filled in the LCCN and OCLC in the infobox journal, but no links are being generated? Did I not format correctly, is is this functionality not available? It would be nice to have - I was not familiar with the OCLC and can imagine this number being helpful. I tried using Template:LCCN, but this was awkward appearing with the text 'LCCN' being repeated twice.Badgettrg 22:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have automated the link to OCLCs. I'll look into LCCNs next. John Vandenberg 00:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Link to NLM
Seems there should be a field that links to the Journals database at the NLM. For example, for the Annals of Internal Medicine, the link would use the NlmId 0372351 and would be go here.Badgettrg 22:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm wary that Wikipedia is not a directory of links; that page isn't really providing the reader with any useful information not included in the infobox already. We've so many ID parameters in there I feel there ought to be a strong case for including any more! Verisimilus  T  11:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Following on from Verisimilus's comment, I am curious why you want a link to the Journals database at the NLM. If it is because you prefer access journals from there, the proposal at 3663 may be the "right" solution. John Vandenberg 13:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Anybody mind if I add this? It would be trivial to implement, consistent with the use of external links in other infoboxes, and very useful. --Arcadian (talk) 02:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that John's cross reference to Bug 3663 (feature request supporting ISSN magic numbers) illustrates a superior solution. Right now the ISSN auto-links to http://worldcat.org/; implementation of the Bug 3663 could expand this treatment (albeit one hop away) to include NLM as one of the links referred to on a Special:JournalSources page similar to the existing Special:BookSources page (BookSources example).  However, if you feel strongly enough to boldly revise the template, I would suggest revising the existing ISSN field rather than adding a new field.  There is no reason why the existing ISSN field could not be revised to render two external links, one to WorldCat and one to NLM, given a single ISSN parameter ... thus adding functionality to the template without the need to make another parameter addition necessary by a person implementing the template &mdash; and also providing an auto-update to the functionality of all existing transcluded templates without filling in a new parameter for each. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 01:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I was not aware that ISSNs could be used to link to NLM in the same way a NlmId can be. What is the URL format for that? --Arcadian (talk) 05:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Example URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=nlmcatalog&Term=1539-3704%5Bjo%5D. See the "Journal [jo] and title abbreviation [ta]" subsection of http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/nlmcat_help.html#search_tags for the notation that ISSN search is included in the [jo] and [ta] qualified searches.  It does seem rather arcane to include it there instead of in, say, [other num]. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 02:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * P.S. By the way, I do not have a good explanation as to why http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=nlmcatalog&Term=0003-4819%5Bjo%5D returns two entries instead of one. If you can figure that out, let me know. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 02:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

online journals
Our template doesnt display the eISSN param unless a ISSN is also present. For online only journals, is their ISSN usually referred to as an eISSN ? See Nature China. John Vandenberg 02:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The eISSNs aren't referred to as such in the real world: I only named the template parameter that to easily differentiate it form the ISSN. It's always appropriate to use the "ISSN" parameter first; the eISSN should only be used when there's a separate ISSN for the online version.
 * Verisimilus  T  12:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * One reason behind my recent template changes and the above question is I was hoping to set up the template so that our meta data is "machine readable". i.e. the ISSN for web based journals can always to be found in the templates eISSN param.  This isnt so much so for external users, but because I would like to be able to run a bot task every once and a while to verify that our ISSN/eISSN fields are accurate against an authoritative directory.  If that underlying goal is also not grounded in the real world, I am all ears. John Vandenberg 13:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hm, by the looks of it, journals such as PLoS do refer to it as an eISSN. I'm not sure how things lie. It'd be easy to change the template if it was deemed necessary. Verisimilus  T  14:46, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Has anything been resolved on this issue? If an eISSN is entered it will not be displayed unless and ISSN is also entered. Also if the ISSN is missing it is added to the category needing ISSN's The only work around that I see is to add ISSN=none which then displays the eISSN Dbiel (Talk) 17:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * As online-only journals are likely to become increasingly common, it does seem that the ability to enter only an eISSN would be desirable... Lineata (talk) 15:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

CODEN linkage
The documentation currently says "link to CODEN", as if there was an obvious link for a CODEN, yet we dont have a CODEN or CODEN search link. The two that I have found are: Any others? John Vandenberg 02:43, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * WorldCat
 * CAS


 * I was trying to find the CODEN for Astronomische Nachrichten and found this page, which gives an old, five-letter CODEN of ASNAA. How do I find the six-letter CODEN? I tried various CAS look-ups, such as this one, and the ISSN finds this title, but not the CODEN. Can anyone help? I also tried finding JSTOR and atom links, but nothing. Maybe it should be made clearer that not all journals will have entries in all these systems? It would also be nice to include other databases, such as Astrophysics Data System, but including every database system might get silly... How should this be handled? At the moment, I've linked ADS in the external links for Astronomische Nachrichten. Carcharoth 18:50, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Funnily enough, ASNAA works for WorldCat, but not for CAS. I wonder why. Carcharoth
 * to the best of my knowledge, CODEN is almost obsolete outside of CAS. I have inquired about this on an appropriate list (CHMINF). . DGG (talk) 10:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * In agreement with DGG, I also think that CAS is about the only major indexing organization that still uses CODEN in an active way. I occasionally work with the CODEN values in a couple of contexts and despise the thing; it is really only useful in the context of  queries against CAS (and CASPlus, for instance) and I welcome the day when they abandon it in favor of ISSN or another comparable standard (if there is one).  P.S. There is a "Core Journal" listing of CODENs at http://www.cas.org/expertise/cascontent/caplus/corejournals.html; it is incomplete but useful &mdash; and remember 'CAS' stands for 'Chemical Abstracts Service', so it only covers a particular genre of published literature, and that CAS' bread has been historically buttered on the patents side of things and not the journal side. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 01:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If you want to get the six-digit CODEN, you need to look at CASSI (print) or CASSI (CD-Rom). The reason, why you found the old-5-digit CODEN in WorldCat is, because the data source, from with these was included in WorldCat, is the german Zeitschriftendatenbank (ZDB). But the owner of ZDB does not update bibliographic CODEN's, which are maintained in the database. THE 5-digit CODEN in the ZDB was once introduced automatically, just before the 6-digit CODEN was the standard. Since then, no update was run on CODEN in ZDB, so you can only find (not up-to-date) 5-digit CODEN in WorldCat (and elsewhere), too. But finally, the 6-digit CODEN for Astronomische Nachrichten (ISSN 0004-6337) is ASNAAN. Maybe that helps. --Steven69 (talk) 22:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

How do you find the JSTOR number?
When I search JSTOR for MELUS, I get most of the infobox numbers, but I don't see a "JSTOR number." Even when I click on the magazine itself, I don't see any special numbers in the URL.... Help? Has JSTOR changed its method of listing journals? Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Language parameter
Would anyone object if I modify the template to not show the language field if left blank? This is an English Wikipedia, and most content are in English, so it could be assumed that if the language parameter is blank than the template shouldn't need to re-iterate the obvious. Certainly, if the field were used, it would would behave the same as now. + m t  15:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Cover field needs further help text
It should be noted that, unlike most infoboxes, this template requires the insertion of the full wiki image code. i.e.: cover = , NOT cover = imagetitle.jpg Took me some time to figure this out. T L Miles (talk) 18:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Languages
Is it possible for the box to display the heading 'Languages', plural? Some journals publish articles in two or more languages. – SJL 17:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Suppressing ISSN needed?
Is there a way to suppress the addition of Category:ISSN needed for journals which long predate the ISSN system? It looks like currently that category is automatically added if no ISSN is given, but for pre-20th-century journals it doesn't make sense to say an ISSN is "needed", since one never existed. --Delirium (talk) 02:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * 30-Jan-2009: I will look to see what can be done. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If you put None into the ISSN field, it will get rid of the ISSN needed Category. Clifflandis (talk) 13:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

New parameter: boxwidth
30-Jan-2009: I have added the new, typical parameter "boxwidth=20em" to reset the width of the infobox. However, any wide image will push the width farther than boxwidth. The width can also be in pixels, such as: boxwidth=220px. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Validating parameter spelling
30-Jan-2009: I have added code to reject some parameters (rather than ignore them), when not spelled correctly. The parameter validation is performed for the spelling of parameters: license (not "licence"), url, JSTOR, ISSN, eISSN, LCCN, OCLC & CODEN. It is possible to code a template to allow any combination of uppercase/lowercase letters in a parameter name; however, that change would require bot-edits to also look for name variations, rather than edit all articles based on a single parameter spelling. The result could be a bot-edit that fails to update all articles to meet a new set of parameter names. Also, the current interwiki versions of the template might become incompatible if mixed-case parameters were allowed. Infoboxes are a major source of rapid translation to other languages: just copy the infobox parameters/content but display the infobox labels in the other language. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Rendering does not work
For example: renders "Publisher Acme Publications, Inc. (USA)" i.e., both publisher &amp; country on the same line. This also makes the box wider of course. Adding a br element just puts the country value one line below, rather than making the country field work properly. Incidentally, the wikEd gadget flags as a deprecated template. Please would somebody familiar with template syntax fix the rendering.
 * The 'publisher' and 'country' fields do not work properly (or I'm attempting to use them incorrectly&mdash;in which case updated documentation would be helpful).
 * discipline  = History of FOO
 * language  = English
 * publisher = Acme Publications, Inc.
 * country   = USA
 * frequency = Annually
 * history   = 1958 to present


 * Second it's not clear how to use the JSTOR field. Maybe JSTOR changed their URL format since this template was created? The template seems to try to generate URLs of the format http://www.jstor.org/journals/.html from the JSTOR "number" (like the commenter above, I can't find those numbers). From what I can gather they use lettered publication codes or journal codes like this or this, with individual articles at http://www.jstor.org/stable/somenumber . –Whitehorse1 18:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, there are two issues here for consideration.
 * 1) line break before country: this is easy to add, but it's not the conventional way that publishers are presented (standard formatting has the publisher and country on the same line). if there's some consensus to change that, I can do it in about 30 seconds.  let me know.
 * 2) the JStor number is the ISSN number of the journal. for instance, the Architectural History journal mentioned in the previous post is here.  I'll update the documentation to clarify that.  -- Ludwigs 2  20:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Ludwigs2.
 * 1) By way of example, with Architectural History, all I could put was the abbreviation 'UK', otherwise the box resized too wide. The country field value also isn't preceded by the parameter name, in the output. Having both on the same line just doesn't work IMO; nobody else has weighed in though.
 * 2) In a way it's strange the JSTOR param takes the ISSN value and links to that, when there's an ISSN field as well (which links to worldcat.org). Hmm, I see the ISSN link does direct me to the journal page on JSTOR, but requires me to log in; it looks like the other URL linked in my earlier comment links to the corresponding 'about journal' page without needing subscriber login access? –Whitehorse1 21:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * well that's fascinating - apparently it doesn't want to wrap the text like normal. let me look into it.
 * actually that makes perfect sense to me. JStor would want to index by something permanent and standardized, and the ISSN number is a near-perfect choice (why use a private, internal index when you can use a public, well-known one?).  and yes, you'll get a login request at JStor when you approach it from different places.  intellectual property annoyances.  -- Ludwigs 2  21:11, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * ok, found the problem. you had an errant and empty 'boxwidth' parameter.  I've removed it, and things are working correctly now.  that's not really expected behavior; I'll see if I can fix it in the template itself.  -- Ludwigs 2  21:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Pubmed page
Apologies if this has already come up, is it worth adding an argument for the pubmed journal page? It would be useful for verifying a lot of the information, though somewhat redundant to the infobox itself. Pubmed has a lot of info and a lot of pages for journals that it does not even index. What about an argument for "pubmed indexed" or something similar? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:14, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Multiple OCLC Parameters
OCLC maintains separate records for different instantiations of a journal. If journals change titles, has multiple formats, etc., each of these has a separate page with separate OCLC numbers (for example, AACN nursing scan in critical care has one for print and one for electronic). Wikipedia has a policy of creating redirects for these minor differences, so a journal's page should be able to have multiple OCLC numbers. I would make these changes myself, but I'm worried that I'd break the template rather than fixing it! If someone could give me advice/assistance/tutoring, I'll make the changes necessary to provide better metadata! Clifflandis (talk) 15:56, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * as for the print and electronic, there are two places in the box for ISSN, one for each; I suppose we could do the same for OCLC. A problem is that OCLC is not very good at bringing the various entries together even for the same version, whether for books or journals. If a library makes a slightly different entry, their software does not merge them. This has been a problem with them ever since they started.  DGG (talk) 20:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Placing the word "academic" in the documentation
Now that the merge idea is dead.... perhaps we could change the template doc just a tiny little bit?

Currently it says: Infobox journal can be used to display details about journal publications as a right-side infobox If it instead said Infobox journal can be used to display details about academic journals and similar publications as a right-side infobox perhaps we would have fewer editors confused about when it is useful? --Alvestrand (talk) 12:04, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Absolutely! Perhaps even posting a kind of disambiguation note on top of each one, directing to the other. --Crusio (talk) 12:19, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

CD-ROM ISSN
Physical Review Letters has a CD-Rom ISSN of . I've moved this to "cdISSN", but not added it as a template param yet.  Is this useful? Is it widely used? John Vandenberg (chat) 05:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

JSTOR not displayed when website is empty
The JSTOR param does not display unless the website param has a value. It is rare that a journal doesn't have a website these days, but .. surely there are journals in JSTOR that never had a website. John Vandenberg (chat) 05:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge Infobox magazine
Given the comments above, about the use of this template on Model Railroader, I propose that Infobox Magazine be merged onto this template. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 07:05, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * They're both periodicals, but are very different things with different attributes. I think they should remain separate. –Whitehorse1 07:11, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There are not two distinct sets of attributes, but a spectrum. I doubt the distinction is one made by many of our readers - as indicated by our own article, Journal. I can buy Nature from the "magazines" section of retailer; some "magazines" have the word Journal in their title (e.g. Model Railway Journal). Perhaps the merged templates should be called Infobox periodical. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 07:15, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Again, I disagree. There are two distinct sets of attributes (e.g. openaccess, impact, jstor params contrasted with simpler ones on the other template). I believe the distinction would be made by many of our readers. The existence of members of either group that overlap does not make all members of both groups indistinct. –Whitehorse1 07:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Whitehorse and am against a merge, these infoboxes are very different. I agree that it is a pain that they are completely different even in trivial details (such as using a parameter ISSN in one and issn in the other), so it's a lot of work to switch from one to the other. Perhaps they could be renamed ("academic periodical" vs "general periodical", or something like that), because some editors do seem to be confused and put the journals template on something that clearly is not an academic journal. A warning on top of each template page pointing to the other one would be appropriate too. --Crusio (talk) 08:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Resolving alternative names for parameters (ISSN/issn) is trivially easy. The amount of work involved in merging templates is not a concern, providing someone is willing to do that work. Perhaps you could point to a cast-iron definition of the difference between an "academic periodical" vs "general periodical"? Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * See academic journal. --Crusio (talk) 18:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you; I'm familiar with that article, and find nothing there which addresses my question. I do, though, see lots of caveats, confirming my suspicion that the boundary is both arbitrary and ambiguous. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:20, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it's pretty specific: "An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. ... Academic or professional publications that are not peer-reviewed are usually called professional magazines." If it's peer-reviewed and covers academic scholarship, then it's an academic journal. If it doesn't cover academic scholarship or if it is not peer-reviewed, it's not an academic journal but a professional magazine. --Crusio (talk) 19:32, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * "This article needs additional citations for verification.…Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)…Content typically takes the form of…practices differ in other regions of the world…" and so on. But note that I didn't ask you for a definition of an academic journal; asked you for a cast-iron definition of the difference between an "academic periodical" vs "general periodical". Without such, we're left with a continuum; a continuum for which one infobox, with a range of optional parameters, is best suited. BTW, your insistence on using mis-matched wiki mark-up makes the underlying HTML in this conversation semantically meaningless and less accessible to some people   Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The fact that the cited article needs sources is irrelevant here. You asked for an ironclad definition, I gave one. I am even willing to go further: if it's peer-reviewed, it's an academic journal, otherwise it's a magazine (I actually don't know of any non-academic journal that is peer-reviewed, just as I don't know of any academic journal that is not peer reviewed). I have not the foggiest what you mean with your remark on HTML, that's one language I don't speak (nor want to :-). --Crusio (talk) 22:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I oppose this suggested merge. I see almost no similarity between the two templates at all. It seems pretty clear that journal is not intended for any normal magazine, lacking many of the basic fields that the magazine infobox has. Such a merge would break/mess up some great GA magazine articles. Perhaps clarify the documentation to better indicate that there is a separate infobox for academic journals that look at different information and add notes on the see alsos for each to indicate when/why each is appropriate. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 12:42, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Such a merge would have no effect whatsoever on articles using either template. If you think otherwise, please explain how it would do so. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It would double the number of parameters, half of which are useless to one or the other with only a few in common between them. Its wasteful and excessive. Bad design. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 20:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Even if so, which is disputable, that supports your claim that "such a merge would break/mess up some great GA magazine articles" how, exactly? Our templates are designed to cope with optional parameters, which they do so easily, and well. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * This template has different formatting/organization, which does not work well for regular magazines. That isn't just an issue of coping with optional parameters, but two very different sets of almost completely unrelated criteria. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 21:46, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In addition, you should take into account that these templates are often used by editors that are less familiar with procedures, templates, etc. than you. My bet is that if you would merge these two infoboxes, we would see academic journal articles with circulation info, magazine articles noting that an impact factor is missing, and whatnot. Why make things more complicated than they already are? --Crusio (talk) 22:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I also oppose the merge. The templates should be kept different since they are not intended for the same things. Keeping them seperate also means they easier to manage and will cause less disruption when changes are made. Presentation and input can be uniformized, but the templates are distinct in purpose. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * This discussion doesn't seem to go anywhere, it is obvious that there is no consensus for a merge. I propose to remove the merge tag and close this discussion. --Crusio (talk) 23:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Apparently one editor decided that despite consensus above, he needed to send the Magazine template to deletion, so those who commented in this discussion may wish to also express their reviews at Templates for deletion/Log/2009 October 9 -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 01:14, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Late to the discussion I know, but... Oppose Merge: As a person who has done a fair bit of work knocking the Magazine template and its documentation into shape. The magazine template is for a type of publication that is totally different to a journal. This proposed merge appears similar to saying that the TV programme and the Film infoboxes should be merged because they both have actors and can be watched on a screen. Journal needs to be separate and Magazine needs to be separate, they are similar but very different publication types. - X201 (talk) 09:23, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I strongly oppose merging Infobox Magazine onto this template. A magazine and an academic journal are two completely different things. Mrs Underman (talk) 07:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Former names
Many journals change their names at some point. The infobox should include former names. Mrs Underman (talk) 07:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point. this for example shows a "Preceeding Title" and a "Succeeding Title", also expressed as "Continues" and "Continued By". Let's try not to invent yet another name for the same idea.LeadSongDog come howl  07:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I included a parameter simply called former name(s). I think in most cases where a journal simply changes its name but otherwise remains the same journal, the journals in question are covered in the same article, under the most recent name (a recent example). Mrs Underman (talk) 07:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

RSS and Atom field removal
Hi. There's a proposal at Wikipedia talk:External links, that involves this template (and 2 others). Rationale and prior discussion is at that thread. Your input would be welcome and appreciated. Much thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I have yet to see a journal where the Atom field is filled... RSS is very frequent, though. No opinion on whether this should be maintained or not. --Crusio (talk) 15:10, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

"Country" field
There was a discussion a while ago on the WP Journals project talk page to discard categories classing journals by country. The rationale of that decision was that nowadays journals are almost invariably international, with publishers in one country, editors, board members, and authors all over the world, and printers yet somewhere else. Similarly, most publishers (like Elsevier, Springer Science+Business Media) either have offices all over the globe or (like Wiley-Blackwell) are the result of mergers of publishers in different countries, with the original country barely recognizable any more. I therefore propose to remove the "country" field from the infobox. I will also post this note at the WPJournals talk page and propose to centralize the discussion there. --Crusio (talk) 15:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Quiddity, 14 September 2010
Please remove the following text from the template, per discussion at WT:EL, and the previous note above at.

I've already removed the fields from the /doc.

Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Dabomb87 (talk) 23:54, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Discipline and Publisher
When the  and   parameters are not entered the infobox shows like this:

Could someone fix this please? Or alternatively does the doc need to be updated to state that these fields are mandatory? Mhiji (talk) 00:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The template isn't protected, but I've fixed this in the process of cleaning up the code's conditionals. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * You also changed the layout and removed the color of the header. Perhaps you can explain what exactly you did and why for those of us that are less versed in template stuff? Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 17:51, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Italic title
I have reverted the latest addition of italic title per the concerns raised during the last revert. There appear to be articles using this template which should not have their title italicized. Please discuss here. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 02:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps this could be implemented in the same way as at Infobox film, Infobox book, Infobox album and others. Doing it that way means that it can then be disabled using no for the few articles where the title should not be italicised. Mhiji (talk) 02:37, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. Set the default as italics, with an optional parameter for non-italic titles. Adabow (talk · contribs) 04:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Will do. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 06:33, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Header color
Someone recently made several changes to the syntax of the template and I admit not understanding enough about this, but I assume there were good reasons for this. However, one change made was that the background color of the infobox header disappeared. I think it looked better the old way, so perhaps someone with a better understanding of this than me can see whether this can be changed back. Thanks! --Crusio (talk) 01:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I already gave an explanation for this when you asked me about it on my talk four days ago. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 05:29, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Where's the header gone? It should be back! Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I changed it back since it appears to be controversial. Please revert if there was some consensus to switch it to above the box. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  14:30, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

What, precisely, does having a pale green header do to aid the reader's understanding of the topic? It's an arbitrary embellishment. A table should properly be marked up with a  which describes its contents, not an arbitrarily styled header row. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 14:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Subheading "Indexing"
At present, the OCLC numbers and the ISBNs appear under the heading "Indexing". They should either have their own heading, standard numbers, or not be under any subheading. DGG (talk) 20:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "Indexing" seems plain wrong. I suggest "Identifiers" rather than "standard numbers", which arguably applies only to ISSN. Nurg (talk) 03:37, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

"JSTOR" in italics
Why is "JSTOR" rendered in italics? Shouldn't it be non-italicised? Nurg (talk) 22:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It has been that way since this edit in 2007. Looks like a simple error, but Martin may recollect. LeadSongDog come howl!  04:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I changed it to unitalicised. If there is a strong reason to have it in italics, please change it back.  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  21:55, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Suggested parameter "archive"
Many uses of this template populate link1 or link2 with the publication's own archive site. It would seem helpful to standardize and document a parameter for this purpose. When a convenience link to an article goes stale, this could help editors with repair. Similarly (perhaps more so) for template:Infobox magazine and template:Infobox newspaper. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LeadSongDog (talk • contribs) 19:38, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Caption parameter
Can someone please restore the caption parameter? It was silently removed earlier today by Crusio (clearly in response to my edit here a few minutes earlier). The last discussion on this subject showed support for the inclusion of such an option. mgiganteus1 (talk) 02:12, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Now restored. Please discuss here if someone wants to remove it.  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  04:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The removal of the caption parameter here has no effect on whether a caption actually is displayed or not, as far as I can see (I checked). --Crusio (talk) 06:27, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If the caption is placed in the caption, then removing the "caption" parameter from the template would make it no longer appear. However, if the caption is just appended after the image, then one is not use the caption and of course this case would not be impacted.  I suggest we discuss such changes first, since the functionality of the template is apparently confusing.  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  02:38, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

eISSN not displayed
Some journals like Nanoscale Research Letters have no print ISSN, only eISSN, which is apparently not displayed if entered alone. My head is not fresh now and I might be missing something obvious. If not, would it be possible to fix the template? Materialscientist (talk) 11:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I just tweaked the code. Did that fix it?  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  02:36, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It is visible now, thanks. Ideally, it should display (web) after the number, as e.g. in Nano Letters. Materialscientist (talk) 03:12, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I just noticed in Nanoscale Research Letters that although it now displays correctly, there still is the hidden category "ISSN needed". That should only apply if there is neither an ISSN or an eISSN. --Crusio (talk) 06:56, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * To reply to, it's mostly because it really improves multi-journal infoboxes, like that of Physica. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:42, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yep, I see what you mean. The "ISSN needed" is also gone, thanks! --Crusio (talk) 17:12, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

License
I would rename "License" to "Copyright status" in the Infobox journal.
 * 1) to precise terminology, when also there is also included information, that the journal is public domain
 * 2) to allow written into infobox not only information about that the content is free, but also the information, that the content is unfree (copyrighted).

This should prevent bias (that is a pillar of wikipedia called WP:NPOV). The reader do know nothing, when the "license" row is not fulfilled, if the journal is public domain, or have some license or copyrighted. When wikipedian will write "copyrighted" in the license row, other wikipedian will delete it arguing, that the Copyright is not license. Now its is possible to write info for example like this:
 * License: public domain
 * License: 1936-1965 public domain.
 * License: CC-BY-2.0
 * License: since 2005 CC-BY-2.0

Then it will be possible to write info also like this: --Snek01 (talk) 15:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Copyright status: 1936-1965 public domain, 1965-2011 copyrighted
 * Copyright status: 1952-2005 copyrighted, 2005-2011 CC-BY-2.0
 * Copyright status: copyrighted