Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ars Disputandi


 * 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   keep.  MBisanz  talk 00:21, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Ars Disputandi

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Article about an online journal with no sources at all except one merely showing that such a thing exists. This is a far cry from the multiple, independent reliable sources giving nontrivial coverage that is required in order to have a Wikipedia article DreamGuy (talk) 02:24, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. StAnselm (talk) 02:30, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. StAnselm (talk) 02:30, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep. Peer-reviewed academic journal published by a university press. StAnselm (talk) 02:34, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment I am on the fence on this one. The argument given by StAnselm is not at all policy based: no guideline says that it is enough for a journal to be notable just because it is peer-reviewed and/or published by a university press and I would personally oppose a guideline that would state something like that as too permissive. On the other hand, the journal is indexed in the ATLA database (I just added this info to the article), which is, I think, one of the major databases in its field. I refrain from !voting at this point, as this still is a bit meager, perhaps. --Randykitty (talk) 10:21, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep per Anselm. The independent sources in the article do not just that it exists but also that it is as it says it is - an independent peer reviewed journal published by an academic press. JASpencer (talk) 10:23, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment Nobody disputes that the journal is what it claims to be, but as I already stated above, that is not a valid argument for a !vote. I saw the EL that you added to the article, which is potentially more important. What kind of website is this? I got the impression that it is user-contributed, but perhaps I'm mistaken. Do you know more about it? --Randykitty (talk) 10:41, 2 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep The nomination for deletion is wholly without merit. The article is about an academic, peer-reviewed journal of philosophy published by a major university. Wikipedia has scads of theses articles, and they are useful to the reader. The fact that this journal, like other academic journals, is cited by other scholars demonstrates its (and their) notability. See many other similar articles in the category "Philosophy journals". There is no more reason to delete this article than there is to delete any other article in that category, or in any category of academic journals. FYI, as a matter of disclosure, I am the creator of the article. Mamalujo (talk) 20:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment The more I see !votes like this, the more I start to think that there is actually no notability here. None of your arguments are policy based: WP:ILIKEIT, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, WP:USEFUL, etc. --Randykitty (talk) 21:15, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

*Delete per my above-stated reasoning. --Randykitty (talk) 09:14, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I must make the point that none of the "keep" opinions above demonstrates any ars disputandi, making points that are totally irrelevant to the question at issue here. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per WP:V, part of a core policy, "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." The merits of the article subject, such as being an academic, peer-reviewed journal, are irrelevant in light of that policy.  Sandstein   08:32, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 11:17, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete nothing to warrant keeping it around. Being an independent peer-reviewed journal doesn't make it notable.  Looking at the comments, they resort to WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, WP:ITEXISTS, WP:USEFUL, and WP:INHERITED (this one based on the fact that a major university publishes it).  I shall refer you to WP:INN and WP:EDPN.   Mr. C.C. Hey yo!I didn't do it! 14:13, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Sources found:
 * The journal gets 370 hits at WorldCat and getting hits at WorldCat is relevant per WP:NJOURNAL criterion 1; I'd claim that 370 locations for a journal in a low-profile specialized discipline like philosophy of religion is quite a lot and indicates the journal is influential.
 * As mentioned in the article, the journal is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, itself a notable database in the field of religion. ATLA is selective of which journals they index on the basis of scholarly merit.
 * It is on a short list of journals discussed in the Philosophy of Religion: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide
 * Google Scholar has about 870 hits while Google Scholar isn't considered reliable, it gives some indication that this journal has citations.
 * In the ars disputandi of AfD, policy is what matters. Here I think the good number of hits in WorldCat satisfies criterion 1 in WP:NJOURNAL and the indexing in ATLA also contributes to satisfying criterion 1. If criterion 1 of WP:NJOURNAL is satisfied, then article should be kept. --Mark viking (talk) 15:06, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to see that someone with a bit of the relevant ars has put forward valid argument for keeping this. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment With all respect for Mark's efforts, but I am less impressed by the WorldCat figures than he is. Ars Disputandi is n open access journal and many libraries maintain lists of links to those: after all, it doesn't cost them anything. If these 370 locations were all paying libraries, that would be a lot different, but as it is, I think all we still have is only ATLA. --Randykitty (talk) 22:18, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment Mark, you've only found sources. You haven't bothered to add them into the article and expand it. Having sources doesn't guarantee the article will be kept. I'm treading into WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS here, I don't want to do it, but a lot of articles without sources are passed by. I'm a newbie when it comes to this topic of what the journal publishes. Now, there is nothing to tell me who founded it and other pertinent historical back information of this publication. All I know can surmise from the article is the fact it was started in 2001 and it is published at a university in the Netherlands. I find that this being the only information is not suitable to readers who don't know much or anything about the publication or the topic it covers. Mr. C.C. Hey yo!I didn't do it! 18:36, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It is true that this article is but a stub; it seems most of the academic journal articles I have come across are such. At AfD it is not my responsibility to add to the article, although I sometimes do so. Being a stub is not a criterion for deletion per WP:DEL. At WP:NJournals, under the Caveats section point 2, the journal's homepage may be used as a source for uncontroversial information. Admittedly, WP:NJournals is an essay, not an official policy, but it seems to be one that is followed in AfD discussions on academic journals. If the topic is shown to be notable, then development of the stub is considered a surmountable problem (see WP:SURMOUNTABLE for details) and the article should be kept. --Mark viking (talk) 19:20, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep. It meets the notability guideline, as it is included in the major selective database in the subject. Nothing more needs actually to be shown. The supplemental information that it is in almost 400 worldcat libraries is however relevant, as it is very high for a subject like this.  Most journal articles are stubs, and there is no reason why a stub cannot persist indefinitely.; however, this like most of them can be expanded, with at least a list of the most cited articles or most notable authors. I'm a little confused about the information not being helpful to readers: the information that it has been around fro 12  years, that it is published by a major university, and indexed in a major database, that it is in all major libraries n its field,  gives the information that it is a serious academically recognized journal, that it is available on open access with a CC-ATT license, and a highly reliable source for WP purposes, and that material published there can be included here freely if attribution is given --and also used as a RS  for other purposes, such as a reference in a school paper.  WP is an encyclopedia, and this is the sort of information someone would look for here about a journal., (as distinct from whatever self-advertising the journal might wish to give, or information which would be useful only to those who might want to contribute papers--those types of information we remove from journal articles). DGG (at NYPL) 20:58, 11 February 2013 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (NYPL) (talk • contribs)
 * Keep per DGG. Included in major databse in the field. However, I would like to make one comment: I agree that the article could be expanded with, say, the three most-cited articles it has published, because we have objective criteria for that # of citations). A list of notable authors, unless we can find a reliable source discussing authors in this journal (small chance...) would just be some editor's opinion of who are the most notable authors here and be inadmissible OR. I also maintain that the WorldCat counts are rather meaningless for an OA journal, as explained above. --Randykitty (talk) 22:41, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG, and if not that, then Ignore All Rules. Having an article on a university published peer-reviewed journal that is widely cataloguied serves the needs of our readers. Who are we serving, the rules or the readers? First Light (talk) 03:06, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * 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.