Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of scientific journal abbreviations


 * 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 per consensus, has already been transwikied. Pastordavid (talk) 17:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

List of scientific journal abbreviations

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This is an unusual deletion request. The list does not contain any fatal flaws: the abbreviations are correct, to the best of my knowledge. However, the list is unmaintainable. Every major academic journal (except ones with very short names, such as Nature) has an abbreviation. There are thousands of them. It is not worthwhile to attempt to compile the whole list, especially because librarians already have access to such lists.

The correct way to handle journal abbreviations is to create redirects on an individual basis. I will take responsibility to ensure that each abbreviation on this list redirects to the appropriate target. Then the list can be deleted. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 03:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Note I just created redirects to all blue-linked journals that didn't already have redirects. The redlinked journals should have articles, but that's a separate issue. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 03:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. This list is way shorter than many other lists of scientific journals. It should be stopped before people waste time expanding it. The lists of journals in several different disciplines are fine. Having redirects from the abbreviations is great. Some already exist. It is also worth pointing out that abbreviations are not unique. For example, Chemical Physics Letters can be abbreviated to Chem. Phys. Lett. or Chem Phys Lett, or CPL. --Bduke (talk) 04:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I notified WikiProject Academic Journals of this debate. It's certainly true that this list would be enormous if comprehensive. --JayHenry (talk) 05:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.   -- the wub  "?!"  12:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - this looks like a bad idea to me. While the information may be encyclopaedic, it's almost certainly better to preserve it in the form of redirects, as User:Shalom plans to do, than as a (potentially huge) list. Terraxos (talk) 23:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Move to WikiProject space either WikiProject Academic journals, or WikiProject science. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 22:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What use would be there? The articles on individual journals already have the abbreviations. Also the various lists of journals could have the abbreviations added, so a merge there would be more appropriate. I see also that it has been tagged to transwiki to wiktionary. I still think it is too small to do anything with. --Bduke (talk) 03:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * comment Lists like this are useful, and used, because bibliographies have to use the "correct" abbreviations. If you're going through a long-form bibliography and trying to convert it to short form, it's useful to have the list all in one place rather than having to search for each journal individually.  One example of such a list is .   However, these lists really are huge and labor-intensive---Chemical Abstracts Service http://www.cas.org/products/cd/cassi/index.html sells a CD of their list rather than posting it on the web.   This suggests, to me, that the list is unmaintainable in Wiki form, but perhaps a useful/informative page could be written which links to mainstream lists. Bm gub (talk) 19:02, 11 January 2008 (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.