Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Journal on European History of Law (2nd nomination)


 * 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 delete. I hate to make a second close call in one week, but the basic argument, that we cannot have an article unless we have reliable sources that help establish notability, is the most valid of them all. It may be that bias exists--but such bias might prevent the journal from being listed in this or that index, not necessarily from being discussed somewhere. A merge/redirect/different article is proposed, but without a target, we have no place to go. In the end, existence does not equal notability, and without the "usual" measures we employ, there is no keep argument. It seems to me that that is pretty much the consensus--though man I hate deleting a journal. Drmies (talk) 03:38, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Journal on European History of Law
AfDs for this article: 
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A very similar version of this article was deleted after an AFD in 2012. Since then, nothing much seems to have changed. However, speedy deletion (WP:CSD) was denied because the journal is listed by a handful of library catalogs (fide WorldCat), certainly not enough libraries to indicate any notability. Also, this time around, there are two "references". One is a press release on a blog, the other a catalog entry. The only database that this journal is listed in is ERIH PLUS, a non-selective index. Article creator on the talk page argues that this should be kept because articles exist on 12 other language wikis (each one created by a different SPA), which is irrelevant, and that the journal has existed for 8 years, which also is irrelevant. In short, the deletion rationale of the previous AfD still stands: "No independent sources, not included in any selective major databases. Does not meet WP:GNG or WP:NJournals." Hence: Delete. Randykitty (talk) 10:59, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:11, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:11, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:11, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:11, 31 March 2017 (UTC)


 *  Potential keep -- It is difficult to provide independent sources for academic periodicals and learned societies, but I do not see that as a reason why we cannot have articles on them. The use of the word "scientific" in the text seems inappropriate, and may need changing to "academic".  I consider that peer-reviewed journals are probably notable, though we probably do not need separate articles on a journal and the society that publishes it.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:39, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You have given this reasoning in other AfDs before. My comment is also the same as before: Perhaps you can give a reason that is policy-based? As for "scientific": in many European countries that do not follow the Anglo-Saxon tradition, no difference is made between "academic" and "scientific". In those countries, "history" (of law or anything else), is a science. For WP this should indeed be changed, of course, but why bother, given that there is nothing confirming notability here? --Randykitty (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. A specialized humanities journal, for which our usual standard of being included in major indexes may not be effective. It covers primarily Roman law systems, and the various readily available law indexing services do not cover the field. U'm not sure what index would, as I know as little about these journals as anyone from a common-law country. I think this is a case of cultural bias,which is especially strong for periodicals. But I agree we should try to convert this into an article on the society,for which there is likely to be some information if it is a major international organization in the field.  I consider Peterkin's arguement policy based--the policy is the enWP covers the world, and this has the logical implication that we may need to adjust our standards to do so.That why WO:N is only a guideline: it does not always apply.  DGG ( talk ) 08:23, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'm all for countering cultural bias by creating articles on notable topics that are neglected by WP. However, I don't think it's a good idea to use "cultural bias" as an argument to keep subjects that do not have any coverage in third-party sources and simply are not notable. Journals like this can be notable: there may exist reviews of them in other reliable sources. They may be included in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, which contains thousands of humanities journals. Sure, enWP covers the world, absolutely. However, I don't see the logic that says this implies that we should therefore abandon all our usual inclusion criteria. --Randykitty (talk) 09:47, 3 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. The Journal on European History of Law is subscribed by a number of European university libraries (particularly in German speaking countries), especially involving universities dealing with the history of law and the Roman law. Moreover, there are also many American university libraries among the subscribers, such as the Yale university, the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago, the University of California - Berkeley, the California State University - Los Angeles etc. It is unlikely that the above mentioned university libraries would subscribe to a journal of poor quality. The plea that the journal must necessarily be included in the Scopus database or on the web of science, is not adequate for a journal dealing with humanities; in the branch of law and history, there are merely a few journals in the world that are included in the above mentioned databases. Nevertheless, there are also hundreds of quality journals not included in the Scopus database. I am strongly convinced that it would not be reasonable to exclude these quality journals from Wikipedia, especially provided that they are well-established and have a certain history. Considering that English is the lingua franca for the legal historians from many European countries, it is essencial that the informations about the Journal are accesible in English.  Legalhistorian11 ( talk ) 15:21, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: Being held in some university libraries is not in-depth coverage in reliable sources. Nobody says that in order to be notable a journal must be included in Scopus. We have many notable journals that are not in this database. Yes, quality journals should have an article but we need to have independent reliable sources that tell us a journal is a quality journal. Please have a look at WP:NJournals to see what is needed. Alternatively, any subject that meets WP:GNG (regardless of whether or not it meets NJournals) is considered notable. At this point, I have not seen any evidence of any independent coverage at all, nor have I been able to find any. Please note (and this goes for the above !votes, too) that !votes here need to be policy-based, otherwise they risk being ignored by the closing admin. At this point, only the nom provides policy-based arguments. --Randykitty (talk) 14:57, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Relisted after a non-admin closure contested at Deletion review/Log/2017 April 13.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   15:14, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment I have requested that this AfD be re-opened for further discussion, because I maintain that the !votes cast up till now are not policy based. I copy here what I posted at the DRV, as it pertains to this issue:
 * 1) "Potential keep", by, who acknowledges that it is difficult to find sources for subjects like this, but argues that "peer-reviewed journals are probably notable", without any further evidence.
 * 2) "Keep", by, who argues basically that "cultural bias" is at work here and that "specialized humanities journal, for which our usual standard of being included in major indexes may not be effective." I disagree with that reasoning regarding cultural bias ("I'm all for countering cultural bias by creating articles on notable topics that are neglected by WP. However, I don't think it's a good idea to use "cultural bias" as an argument to keep subjects that do not have any coverage in third-party sources and simply are not notable") as well as the assertion that such journals are rarely included in major indexes (see the similar European Journal of Health Law, which is included in a whole slew of such databases).
 * 3) "Keep", by the article creator,, who argues that the journal is notable because it is held (subscribed to) by several prestigious libraries. Legalhistorian11 repeats the (incorrect) argument that journals like this are rarely included in major databases (see preceding).
 * Given the above, I maintain that notability has not been established for this journal. --Randykitty (talk) 15:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There are no workable standards for humanities journals. We use a special standard (Indexing services) for academic science journals, because it is usually not feasible to meet the GNG for this type of subject; but there are generally no appropriate humanities indexes. That's what IAR is for: the question is should this be in WP or not?  DGG ( talk ) 20:21, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * So what you are saying is that for humanities journals (which by the way have their own specialized selective citation index), we should use our own judgment, even if there are no sources? --Randykitty (talk) 06:34, 14 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. Examination shows it to be squarely scholarly and reputable. Coverage of scholarly journals is important. "Delete" is an absurd proposition. The question is whether it should be covered in its own article ("Wikipedia-notability" decision) or covered in another article that covers many similar journals. The second makes more sense. Without significant independent secondary source coverage, there can be no non-proforma prose. Scholarly journals are only properly understood collectively. This article should be merged and redirected to an article that may not yet be written. Until then, "keep" don't destroy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment Apart from your personal judgment, on what sources is your !vote based? --Randykitty (talk) 06:21, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There are no independent secondary sources. I have used my judgment on nonindependent sources, considering reliability and subject area, to decide that it is worthy of mention in another article, not stand alone. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:06, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying that you like the journal. --Randykitty (talk) 13:29, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Randykitty, that is a little bit unfair. I have no particular care for this particular journal. What I like, for the scholarly integrity of the encyclopaedia, is that reputable scholarly topics get an easier run as inherently suitable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:45, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Believe me, I sympathize with that viewpoint. However, if we abandon the principle that we judge subjects based on reliable sources and not our personal opinion/judgment, that opens the floodgates to all kinds of problems. Once we accept articles like this one, what is to prevent sympathizers of OMICS Publishing Group and similar publishers to create articles for all their crappy journals using your argumentation? Should we then say, "I had a look at this journal and its crap, so delete it"? We cannot and should not start relying on subjective criteria. We need objective criteria and for those we need reliable sources (and for journals we already take the -not completely uncontroversial- shortcut of accepting inclusion in selective databases as "in depth coverage"). --Randykitty (talk) 13:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep Just because a journal is niche does not mean it is not notable. Some journals are hard to find - especially European Law journals. There are some that are only available in Oxford Journals - they can't be found in JSTOR or Hein Online-US. This isn't because they are not notable, but because European Law is a specialized topic - even more so for history of European Law. Seraphim System (talk) 00:48, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment As I show above, "niche" journals like this absolutely do get included in major selective indexes. Apart from your personal judgment, on what sources is your !vote based? --Randykitty (talk) 06:21, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete, fails WP:NJOURNALS/WP:GNG. For everyone arguing this is a notable journal, where are your sources? It's indexed nowhere except ERIHPlus (see 'visibility' tab), and the sources in the article are a trivial listing (meets WP:V, but not WP:N) and a press release commented on some guy's blog. Cultural bias or not, reputable or not, scientific/academic or not, notability needs to be backed by sources, and this simply hasn't been done. However, no objection to merge the existing content on a larger article covering the European Society for History of Law, which I consider the most desirable outcome. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:36, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete per Headbomb. We have standards for this type of article and there's no convincing reason given above why we should abandon them. Mackensen (talk) 13:21, 14 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete per SmokeyJoe: "There are no independent secondary sources." Exactly. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  16:19, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment (voted above) -- It is difficult to find "independent sources" on academic journals. I would have no objection to the article being restructured and repurposed as one on the parent society, but exactly the same issue is likely to arise - that the sources will be internal ones.  The reason for WP not liking such sources is that they may not be reliable, but what society is going to publish false information on its activities and publications for the benefit of its members: doing so would be counter-productive.  It should also be born in mind that the citation indices used for scientific publications are commonly not addressing humanities subjects well.  However, it is in fact included in this website and this one.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:23, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: the first link you give is from the website of STS Science Centre, according to what is listed as the journal homepage, this is the publisher of the journal. (In fact, I think this is the actual homepage of the journal, the other one is just a mirror on the society website). The second link is a post from Jaromir Tauchen, the secretary of the society and a frequent contributor to the journal. Sorry, but I find it weird that someone would base a "keep" !vote on this sort of evidence. --Randykitty (talk) 16:48, 15 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It is not in dispute that this journal exists, it is reputable, and it is held in some academic collections. None of these are the same thing as "notability" however.  In the absence of substantial independent sources about the journal, we have no choice but to Delete.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 00:26, 21 April 2017 (UTC).
 * Not true. It can be merged into another article. The content is perfectly acceptable, just not as a stand alone article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:25, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Well sure, what target would you propose? Lankiveil (speak to me) 06:33, 21 April 2017 (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.