Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kairos (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 keep. (non-admin closure) sst✈  05:32, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Kairos (journal)

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originally PRODed this with the rationale "Non-notable journal. Not indexed in any selective databases, no independent sources apart from a single blog post. Does not meet WP:NJournals or WP:GNG." As an ongoing journal of 20 years, it would surprise me (although it is not impossible) that this is indeed the case. I'm for the moment, neutral on deletion, leaning towards a delete, but I think this journal merits a bit more consideration than PROD.


 * According to MIAR the journal is indexed in the Modern Language Association Database, also ERIC, both of whose selectivity I know nothing about.
 * The 'single blog post'. however, has to be given due weight here. This is not some puff piece from a random blog we're talking about, but rather an invited in-depth interview on the 18 years of Kairos by the Library of Congress. This is the main thing that gives me pause. Why would the LoC interview these guys if they were not notable? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:30, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete It has been around long enough to be noted. Still, it is not even indexed in Scopus, the least selective database of those mentioned in NJournals. --Randykitty (talk) 06:16, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Indexing alone wouldn't be the criteria I would judge this journal by. It's strange that it's so poorly indexed, but searching reveals plenty of sources that discuss this journal in a more-than-in-passing way . I'm having difficulty judging whether they establish notability, given that quite often these are sources that seem close to the journal itself. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep It should be judged compared to other journals in the field, members of Category:Rhetoric journals (which I created now). None of them seem well indexed, so maybe rhetoric folks just don't care much about indexing. Wikipedia's journal inclusion rules should reflect the notability customs of the respective field -- most of the time that is indexation, other times just being cited a lot should count. Kairos and other journals are mentioned in a 2009 Wiley book authored by Wayne C. Booth, where it says (p.24), "there are now many journals and associations featuring rhetoric", followed by a footnote listing the journal names. fgnievinski (talk) 20:46, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Now that's an original interpretation of notability! Just create a category of non-notable stuff and then say that because it is as non-notable as the rest, it's actually notable! :-D We take indexation as reliable sources and because that goes together with an in-depth evaluation of a journal, we take it as an in-depth source meeting GNG. Being "mentioned" in a footnote in a book is far removed from in-depth coverage. --Randykitty (talk) 22:23, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You're trying to impose the notability rules of science journals on humanities journals. fgnievinski (talk) 22:54, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:27, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:27, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * NJournals is a stand-in for GNG. I'm trying to impose notability, period... If we follow your reasoning, we could just as well do away with AfD. --Randykitty (talk) 07:37, 12 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep&mdash;per WP:GNG. Additional citations (updated with notes 22:49, 15 February 2016 (UTC)):
 * 1.
 * "peer-reviewed, independent, open-acces journal" (p66)
 * "publishing screen-based, media-rich DH [digital humanities] scholarship since 1996" (p66)
 * "mission ... has been to publish scholarship that examines digital and mult-modal composing practices, promoting work that enacts its scholarly argument through rhetorical and innovative uses of new media" (p66)
 * "authors design their own Web texts" (p66)
 * Limitations on material accepted: "If we cannot host a Web text on our server, we will not publish it." (p67)
 * "no budget" (p67)
 * "staff uses the same technologies that were available in 1996: e-mail, listservs, SFTP, and HTML editors" (p67)
 * Received NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant (Level II, $50,000) "to explore building scholarly multi-media plug-ins for open journal systems" (67)
 * Compare to "several other online Web text journals in digital rhetoric, including C&amp;C Online and Vectors and ... Enculturation and Harlot of the Arts" in that "design is treated as an equivalent form of argument to written content." (p69)
 * Contrast with "Digital Humanities Quarterly or Journal of Digital Humanities" where "design as argument is mostly absent". (p69)
 * "As a case in point, one of the most innovative and compelling examples of new media scholarship that we have published in Kairos, Anne Wysocki's A Bookling Monument (2002), is no longer accessible in all current browsers because the version of Macromedia Director used to the create it is no longer fully supported by the latest version of the Shockwave plugin needed to view the work; moreover, that plugin is not available for Linux-based systems. And, between 2006 and 2008, no Shockwave plugin was available for Macs either&mdash;which is emblematic of the difficulties of maintaining digital scholarship over multiple platforms and in formats that may change over time..." (p75)


 * 2.


 * Note that this dissertation uses Kairos as a primary case study, and that only a small portion of the dissertation is available online.
 * Discussion of Kalmbach 2006 "Reading the Archives: Ten Years of Nonlinear (Kairos) History".  (p86)
 * Analysis of "over 230 webtexts" (p86)
 * "delineates eight distinct categories of hypertext design" including "simple linear structures to more sophisticated multi-media presentations" (p86)
 * concluded "majority of webtexts are still largely informed by a print paradigm" and "only within the last few years have more sophisticated hypertextual design structures emerged" (p87)
 * identifies three "eras" of Kairos: (p87)
 * "Beginnings: Moving Beyond Print" (v1–4), "a time of great diversity and experimentation" (p87)
 * "Adolescent Exuberance: The Computers and Writing Issues" (v5–7); "great enthusiasm and growth", "pressure to publish huge issues" (p87)
 * "Coming of Age: New Media and Beyond" (v8–10).  "a dramatic increase in the sophistication and an increasingly more confident balance between text, visuals, design, media and navigation".
 * "Many of Kairos authors have been graduate students, adjuncts, and untenured faculty members, and while they may write their webtexts for colleagues in computers and writing, composition, and technical writing, these texts are also being read and evaluated by colleagues who have likely never published online work. .... [E]ven though one's colleagues may recognize the peer review process Kairos uses and its high regard in the field, they usually lack the background to evaluate webtexts..." (p88)


 * 3.


 * "Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy" has been publishing "web-texts" since its inception in 1996."
 * "The journal was founded specifically to explore the ways that texts might evolve if freed from the constraints of word processing and the linear essay."
 * Instructions to authors: "Kairos publishes 'webtexts', which means projects developed with specific attention to the World Wide Web as a publishing medium.  We do not suggest an ideal standard; rather we invite each author or collaborative writing team to thik carefully about what unique opportunities the Web offers."


 * 4.


 * Note that only a single page of this document is available online. The title indicates that this is not a passing reference.


 * 5.


 * Kairos has a three-tiered review process for its Topoi section (the section containing the feature articles for each issue" (p135)
 * Tier 1: "webtexts are first reviewed individually by the editors"
 * Tier 2: "collaboratively reviewed by the whole editorial board"
 * Tier 3: "one-on-one mentoring by the editors" with authors for successful manuscripts.
 * Quote from "call for webtexts": "Submissions for Kairos are not blind-reviewed due to technological and media constraints, and moreover because the Kairos board is about collaboration and mentoring, not snooty gatekeeping."  (p136–6)
 * "the idea began when a group of then graduate students were stuck in a car together traveling to a concert. The question raised was what an online journal for those doing computers and writing would look like.  This group continued their conversation over a series of months on[sic] order to organize the journal." (p136)
 * "From its origins, Kairos has emphasized collaboration over hierarchy" (p136)


 * Thanks for these; could you please clarify if they just cite works published in Kairos or if they discuss Kairos itself -- and if so, how. Also, the PhD dissertations are not necessarily reliable sources, as per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. fgnievinski (talk) 13:52, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi . I provided the links to google books so you wouldn't have to take my word for it.  Rather than summarize I've added my notes from each source to the list of cites above.  In both dissertations the sections on Kairos are summaries and discussions of the primary literature, thus making them WP:SECONDARY sources (at least for our purposes here).  Lesser Cartographies (talk) 22:49, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 00:33, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. I added another source. I think there's enough coverage for general notability and enough historical significance (as supposedly the first journal to publish in webtext form) for WP:NJournals. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:45, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong keep Long established journal, been referred to in academic papers for about 20 years. SatansFeminist (talk) 03:02, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep After a long debate with myself, I think we ought to keep this one. The lack of indexing in selective database is a strike against notability, which is usually what we go by when we lack stronger, more direct indication of notability. But I feel that the LoC interview goes a long way towards establishing notability, because why would they have bothered to interview them if they were not worth taking note of? We also have secondary sources that did research on Kairos' impact, and while there seems to be some type of close affiliation between at least some of the researcher and the journal, there's also the fact that there's a historical aspect to the journal in that it pioneered certain webtext techniques. Taken together, I think that this journal at least meets WP:NJOURNALS and WP:GNG, even if WP:NJOURNALS is tenuous. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:43, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. Agree with Fgnievinski and David Eppstein. --Fadesga (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2016 (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.