Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of entomology journals


 * 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The result was keep, technically speedily as the nomination was withdrawn and there are no arguments to delete. --Core desat 03:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

List of entomology journals

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Contested prod. The article is simply a list of links to largely non-existent articles - it's impossible to learn anything from it or use it for further research. The article has been in existence for over two years but still has almost no usable content, so there's no reason to think it can or will be improved. "Wikipedia articles are not mere collections of internal links" (especially redlinks!) andy 22:29, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Nomination withdrawn - the article has been significantly improved with further improvements to follow. andy 07:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments / Request for further details

"list of links to largely non-existent articles."


 * The fact that the articles don't (yet) exist shouldn't be a reason to delete the list, it should instead be a reason to create those articles, where they are appropriate. If some entries do not deserve an article, then they should be trimmed from the list.

"Article has been in existence for over two years but still has almost no usable content"


 * What usable content you would expect a list like this to contain that it does not contain? Addition of that info would be an alternative to deletion, but we need to know what you have in mind.

"It's impossible to learn anything from it or use it for further research."


 * To say something is impossible requires an enormously high standard of proof ... is that really what you meant to say?

SP-KP 18:43, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment. This is well covered at WP:NOT. The essential question for any encyclopedia article is what useful information it conveys. This article lists the names of many journals but gives no information whatsoever about them, not even how to find them. Does this article actually tell anyone anything useful? If the name of one of these journals was replaced with The Beano would it alter the information content of the article? Compare with List of scientific journals in chemistry which has a ranked list of external links together with references to analyses of citations. andy 22:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of anything at WP:NOT which suggests that this kind of list is deletionworthy - which specific section do you mean? You might want to take a look at List guideline which gives more specific guidelines on lists. It contains links to lists which do not differ greatly in character from this one. It appears that the authors of the entomology articles have chosen to add websites directly to the article pages, rather than to this list, so readers can find them, with one extra mouse click. There's no reason why they couldn't be added here too though. If that was done, would that be enough to retain the article? If not, what else would you like to see? SP-KP 23:15, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to withdraw my nomination if the items in the list were verifiable (an issue raised at List_guideline). In practise the best way to do this is to provide external links where there is no WP article, and this would also enable the article to be used as a research tool. The recent comment about classification on the article's Talk page would make it even more useful. List of chess periodicals, mentioned below, is an excellent example. But right now, if I was to add a totally spurious journal to the list or move some of the entries to different countries there would be no proper basis to challenge my edit because there are no verifiable references. My word against yours. Give me one good reason backed up by references why The Beano should not be included in the list! This is a basic requirement of all WP articles. andy 10:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * KeepThis is a less developed article than chemistry, there being probably more chemists around here. The science people in general are writing articles about important journals as fast as they can, but there are many hundreds to go. The list provides more than title information--it contains the dates and the name changes and the country of publication. All 3 of these are very important and necessary parts of information about journals, and will be in the future articles as well. Lists give information about what the journals are--its the articles that need to give information about them. DGG 23:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep I just disagree with the nominator; it's hard to say it any other way. I believe that lists of subject-specific journals are useful, and if some of the journals are notable than the list is notable.  That's why I wrote List of chess periodicals, which is more informative but essentially similar in style and scope. Shalom Hello 23:57, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The difference with List of chess periodicals is precisely that it is informative. It's properly sourced and properly linked. andy 10:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep Useful list. I just learnt that it has many local entomology works, applied journals and annual reviews missed ! Needs more work but is potentially just as encyclopaedic as List of scientific journals in chemistry which nom as pointed out as encylopaedic. Shyamal 01:38, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. If kept, the redlinks in this article should be severed. It makes it look bad to have such a sea of red.  They can be re-wikilinked as articles about each publication are created.  Also, it would be nice to have some sources confirming that these publications actually exist, so we don't have any non-existent entomology publications such as The Beano in this list.   ≈≈Carolfrog≈≈♦тос♦ 02:44, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep WP:LIST explicitly encourages the use of lists for purposes of development. It is the third criteria.  Also, this is explicitly one of the goals of WP:MISSING.  The fact that nobody has developed parts of this region of wikipedia yet is not valid grounds for deletion.  If you can't verify the existence of specific journals on the list, that's a matter for the article talk page, but not a valid reason to delete the entire list.  Further setting a precedent for deleting lists of academic journals seems to me like a poor idea.  This is definitely an area that needs improvement, and definitely an area that should not be abandoned.  The future credibility of wikipedia depends on better coverage of academia perhaps as much as anything else! --JayHenry 22:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. I hate to be awkward but while WP:LIST does indeed encourage the use of lists for purposes of development it states very clearly that "as Wikipedia is optimized for readers over editors, any lists which exist primarily for development or maintenance purposes (such as a list of  red link  articles needed) should be in project or user space not the main space." What could be more clear? So what's the problem - someone who wants to keep it should fix the article! andy 23:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point Andy and perhaps I should've been clearer. This list still is an informational list as well, which is criteria #1.  This is an accurate list of entomology journals and someone looking for the name of entomology journals, or entomology journals by country or when journals were started would be well-served by the list.  It's not just a random list of red links.   And the fact that it contains many redlinks is not, by itself, a valid reason for deletion.  There's a big difference between links that are red because there should not be an article (i.e. List of Jefferson Elementary School Principals) and links that are red because a well-needed and perfectly valid article has not yet been written. --JayHenry 02:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Andy, the list doesn't exist "primarily for development or maintenance purposes". SP-KP 07:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That was JayHenry's view, not mine. Yet it clearly isn't fully developed, is it? Have a look at the edits I just made to the UK section of the article - isn't that an improvement? andy 08:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a difficult one - I'm not sure of my opinion as I feel the changes are an improvement in some respects, but not in others. But ... if the references were in one of the standard formats at WP:CITE I would definitely agree that this section is better. SP-KP 17:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no strong views on the format of the references - it's the existence of the references that's essential in a hypertext such as Wikipedia, and indeed in any academic text. JayHenry's recent edits are probably better than mine because they leave open the option for articles on each journal as well as external references. Whatever - anything is better than nothing. andy 20:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I've standardised the referencing format for both the US and UK sections (or what should be sections ... we need to convert those bold text pretend headings to real section headings). I've also added external refs for those that only had internal wikilinks. Just the remaining countries to go - that should keep someone busy!! SP-KP 22:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletions.   -- John Vandenberg 13:19, 5 July 2007 (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.