Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Doon Theological Journal


 * 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 No consensus to delete. While there is substantial and well-argued support to delete this material, this AfD has also attracted editors who have made diligent searches for sources. The validity of those sources has been challenged, which led to a lengthy discussion on the validity of the sources. Some of the points raised in their defence I found to be spurious, but additional sources were subsequently supplied, so I have not needed to parse that argument in detail. This discussion is now some ten days old, and still shows no sign whatsoever of reaching consensus, either on the strength of numbers or on the merits of the arguments. I have closed it accordingly. NAC by— S Marshall  Talk / Cont  13:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)'''

Doon Theological Journal

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  AfD statistics)

This article on an Indian journal lacks any secondary sources attesting to its notability. Deprodded. Abductive (reasoning) 07:11, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. This journal appears to at least be recognized in the scholarly theological community. It does garner some Google Books hits despite having only been in existence since 2004. As with other scholarly journals that have come up at AfD, I looked up the journal on three university libraries' catalogs, and two of them do subscribe to this journal. I believe the journal should be given the benefit of the doubt as to notability. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 19:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Please note that there are 300,000 journals currently in existence. Shall we give them all the benefit of the doubt? Abductive  (reasoning) 23:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Many of those publications are not scholarly journals. And of the ones that are, I'm only suggesting to give the benefit of the doubt to the ones that we can find in university library catalogs and which garner some Google Books hits. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The Google Book hits are citations for the articles that appear in the journal, not the third party analysis required to write an encyclopedia article. Abductive  (reasoning) 03:59, 20 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep, Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte. Archive for reformation history, Volume 36 (2007) includes items from this journal. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a listing in a government database, and hardly constitutes a secondary source. Wikipedia is not a catalog. Abductive  (reasoning) 01:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Not quite.  it's a listing in a  library catalog to indicate the title being referred to by the reference from google books. But one citation does not prove notability, and 3 subscriptions do not prove influence.  I'll need to look further: Theological journals are particularly tricky, due to their  usually very small circulation, and anything published in India is difficult to document. They have a very large university system, and publish many journals and books, but have no national database for publications or even a union catalog to determine how many Indian libraries have copies.     DGG ( talk ) 06:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It is Archive for Reformation History. I don't have volume 36, so I can't see whether it is cited within an article, or evidence of being abstracted in the literary review supplementary issue. -- John Vandenberg (chat) 14:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 22:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  -- - Spaceman  Spiff  03:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Worldcat shows at least 18 holdings in North American Theological schools. Figuring similar stats for India is almost impossible. - Spaceman  Spiff  03:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep It is a recognised academic journal. There is no discussion at the article's talk page and so the proper deletion process has not been followed. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:19, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I followed WP:BEFORE. This journal might be recognized by primary sources, but has nada in secondary sources and therefore must be deleted. Abductive  (reasoning) 08:26, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No, you didn't. For example, the folowing step has not been followed: "Read the article's talk page ... If there is no discussion then start one, outlining your concerns. Then watch for responses from interested editors."  Colonel Warden (talk) 08:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Why should I do that? There are no secondary sources for this journal, and no amount of discussion can change that. Abductive  (reasoning) 08:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You don't know that because you haven't tried. Your doctrine that the lack of secondary sources means that the article must be deleted is false.  Per WP:BEFORE] and WP:PRESERVE, alternatives to deletion should be considered.  It may be that there are Indian language sources or sources not searched by Google.  Because you have failed to engage with the article's editors at the article, proper discussion and consideration has not been performed.  AFD is not cleanup and should only be used for hopeless cases after ordinary editing methods and discussion have failed.  If we wanted a bot to go around deleting articles without sources, we could soon have one.  Your services in this regard add no value and so are not required. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete I've rarely seen an AfD with such a talk page discussion first and as far as I am concerned, proper procedure has been followed here. In any case, I don' think that the absence of a talk page discussion is a valid "keep" argument and the article's original editor has been notified and can participate in this discussion. Concerning the other "keep" arguments above, I am not too impressed with the Australian listing. Somewhere (I don't find it right now I'm afraid), DGG has posted some comments on that list and they strongly implied that being listed did not mean much in terms of notability. As for the reference that John Vandenberg found in the "Archiv", as DGG says, one reference is not enough for notability. --Crusio (talk) 08:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems that talk page discussions do not occur as they should, not because they are not required nor because it would be unhelpful but just because tools like Twinkle do not support them and so drive-by editors would have to exert themselves to start and follow a discussion. In other words, we get reflex button-pushing because it is easier than proper engagement with the topic.  But Wikipedia is not a first-person shooter. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Colonel Warden, you are usually so good at finding sources, why not with this one? Abductive  (reasoning) 09:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The editors above have conducted good searches and seem reasonably satisfied with the results.     I have looked enough to endorse their conclusion so that we may speedily close this overdue procedure and move on. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:08, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Which sources do you mean? One editor said "It's a recognized academic journal" without apparently any base and without explaining what "recognized" in this sense means. John Vandenberg found one "sources", and one citation does not really mean anything much. --Crusio (talk) 10:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Please see below. John Vandenberg has it covered and so the article is coming along nicely.   Colonel Warden (talk) 13:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * PS: The lack of secundary sources is a significant problem, per WP:V. --Crusio (talk) 08:53, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * What facts in the article are in need of verification? Do you dispute anything which is stated?  Citations are only required for details which are controversial or might be disputed.  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a search engine.  If people want sources, they can use Google themselves, so cutting out the middle man and getting an up-to-date listing. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It is that lack of encyclopedic content, such as might be provided by secondary sources, that is the problem with this topic. Abductive  (reasoning) 09:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is a stub and marked as such. As the journal is comparatively new, we can expect the entry to grow over time.  We have no pressing deadline to meet or word count to satisfy.  Deletion would just disrupt the natural process of slow accretion.  Colonel Warden (talk) 10:08, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And with that argument, we can speedily close every AfD currently in progress. --Crusio (talk) 10:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions.  -- John Vandenberg (chat) 11:15, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I've added two more refs, the first being a review in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, and the section is a mention in a list of resources, broken down into regions. It is included in Theological libraries all around the world, many of which are not in Worldcat. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:34, 27 December 2009 (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.