Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kronos: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Synthesis (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 keep.  MBisanz  talk 00:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Kronos: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Synthesis
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Please see Articles for deletion/Pensée (Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered) (3rd nomination). This apparently defunct fringe journal does not seem to be have much coverage in independent sources (and, no, Henry H. Bauer of AIDS denial fame does not count). Some of the sources cited such as the famous 1974 AAAS meeting are not even about the publication. Material can easily be merged over to other articles on the broader, more encyclopedic subject. As it is, this is just a leftover part of a walled garden of Velikovsky nonsense that Wikipedia has had over the years and we have been slowly weeding for lack of adequate sourcing that isn't dominated by fringe or unreliable sources. jps (talk) 20:40, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 21:21, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 21:21, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

OK we now seem to have some sources the one I can check does seem to discus the magazine.Slatersteven (talk) 09:50, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 *  Weak delete Weak Keep I am seeing a lot of sources, but not many that would pass RS, can someone provide some evidence this is a notable journal? Slatersteven (talk) 12:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I would reject Bauer out-of-hand as he seems to make common cause with pseudoscience and the book he wrote about Velikovsky, while better than others, does not rise to the level I would like to see in a reliable source. He is too credulous when it comes to obviously incorrect claims such as those offered by Velikovsky. Other than the Gordin source, all the rest of the truly close to WP:FRIND sources are just offering passing mention. jps (talk) 23:04, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you think it would be useful to refer to some third-party independent reviews of Bauer and/or his book, in order to better assess it, per WP:TALK and WP:TALK? --Iantresman (talk) 00:29, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think if you can find one who mentions Bauer's connection to Society for Scientific Exploration and his AIDS denialism, that would be good. I haven't found any, which is disappointing. jps (talk) 14:22, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that be an association fallacy? Like trying to connect Newton to Occult studies, Nobel Prize winning physicist Hannes Alfvén to Plasma Cosmology, and Einstein to Pole Shift theory? The kind of sources I had in mind directly suggest that Bauer is unreliable, like we can do easily with Velikovsky (eg. "One can indeed legitimately call Velikovsky a pseudo-scientist in the sense that ..", Bauer 1984, and others too numerous to mention), although I am not aware of any of them retrospectively applying that to Velikovsky's earlier work in psychiatry. --Iantresman (talk) 15:39, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It would be association fallacy if the journal in question wasn't promoting pseudoscience. Bauer's promotion of pseudoscience makes him a WP:REDFLAG source for a journal that is promoting pseudoscience. If only pseudoscience-promoters seriously discuss a source, we generally rule that this does not qualify as a notable subject for an article at Wikipedia. jps (talk) 16:29, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't see the association fallacy make an exception for "pseudoscience". But we can cut short this "discussion" by simply having some sources that support this view. --Iantresman (talk) 00:10, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Um, no. The WP:BURDEN per WP:CHEESE is not on the person who points out the problem with the source to find yet another source that discusses the source. If the person who writes a book is a pseudoscience promoter, that's simply what they are. We aren't writing an article here, we are evaluating sources. jps (talk) 00:54, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete also. There needs to be a more robust description of notability.  sure they had some readers, but so does my twitter account.  --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:44, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. No evidence of passing WP:NJOURNALS nor WP:GNG. A brief mention in a self-published book (ref.11) doesn't count, and the rest of the references seem to be non-independent, not about the subject, or both. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:26, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. What a horrible article! Not only peppered with Prof. This and Prof. That, but also quite a lot of OR (I really laughed at ref 6) and then a whole load of "references" about an AAAS sumposium, without any evidence that this journal was even mentioned. Does not meet WP:NJournals or WP:GNG. --Randykitty (talk) 01:57, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. I was able to find the following independent reliable sources. I've included Bauer on the following grounds that (a) reviews of the book are generally good (b) his views on Aids are irrelevant to his book on Velikovskianism, otherwise we'd have to question Newton for his views on the occult (c) I asked whether Bauer would be an issue, at WP:RSN and others thought not. I also declare that I am under a topic ban, and while I thought that "broadly construed" did not appear to extend here according to guidelines as no part of the article includes the banned subjects, another admin thought that it did, but let it go. I also need to declare a potential conflict of interest, as I sell access to the contents of this periodical via my website catastrophism.com, though I have never made a profit, and it makes no difference to the sources provided. --Iantresman (talk) 23:25, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * McAulay, R., "Velikovsky and the infrastructure of science", Theory and Society (1978) 6:313. doi:10.1007/BF01715454
 * Michael D. Gordin, The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe, "Chapter 6: Strangest Bedfellows", University of Chicago Press, 2012 (Amazon) Numerous mentions
 * Waldron, Ann (1980). "Velikovsky Lives!" Science Digest Special, Sept/Oct, p. 94. (sorry can't find an online link)
 * Henry H. Bauer, Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy], (1984) University of Illinois Press
 * David Morrison, "Velikoysky At Fifty" Skeptic Magazine, Volume 9 Number 1 Spring, 2001
 * C. Leroy Ellenberger, "Hysterical Velikovskians Flee Own Frankenstein-Mongoose!", in Dio, Feb 1997 (Ellenberger is considered reliable)
 * Gordon Stein, "The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal", Prometheus Books, 1996 (Stein would be considered a reliable source)
 * Michael W. Friedlander, "At the fringes of science", Westview Press, 1995 (Book is considered notable, according to his article)


 * Keep -- Sure, the subject matter is rubbish, but Velikovsky's views have been much discussed and WP needs to reflect that. It is possible that the article has been improved during this discussion, which makes some of the tags no longer appropriate.  Peterkingiron (talk) 18:47, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * "It is possible that the article has been improved during this discussion...." No one has edited the article through this discussion. I'm not sure why you think otherwise. jps (talk) 12:09, 27 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep - This has already run the gauntlet at AfD and the debate was closed as Keep. Notability is not temporary. Carrite (talk) 15:27, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. notability as a journal is not limited to journals that support the scientific mainstream. I'f even argue that there's a special need for good NPOV coverage of the ones that do not, in order that people who encounter them will have  objective information about their nature.  DGG ( talk ) 09:55, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per DGG. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:53, 1 January 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.