Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Metal Ions in Life Sciences


 * 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. MelanieN (talk) 23:32, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Metal Ions in Life Sciences

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Tagged by Randykitty for speedy deletion as spam. Restored on request from the author. It has been around for nearly seven years and no other editors have shown much interest in it. Certainly far too long - we do not need a schedule of every article. And, in my view, lacking independent evidence of notability. &mdash; RHaworth (talk · contribs) 22:14, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

On the specific issue of evidence for notability. Each volume has been the subject of a number of reviews. I have not cited all of them because it seemed unneccesary. The fact that 16 volumes in the series have already been published is evidence of notability in itself.Petergans (talk) 22:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I have undone the massive and excessive deletions by User:HappyValleyEditor so that editors can can see the full text and therefore make fully informed comments.Petergans (talk) 08:12, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I have restored HappyValleyEditor's version. The version Petergans is referring to can be seen here. --Randykitty (talk) 09:34, 1 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. This a really disgraceful article. It's terribly organized, written and structured. Much of it just seems to be a restatement of the actual work it tries to describe. The lists are very irritating. Finding an article like this on Wikipedia is the equivalent of finding an old box of muffins in the garage that fell behind something when you were bringing in the groceries... in the 1980's. I agree with Randykitty that this is essentially an advertisement for the book (series). Since Wikipedia does not allow advertisements, my vote is delete. An additional argument might be that this article needs to be blown up and redone to even be able to see if there is anything remotely notable underneath all those moldy, mummified muffins. HappyValleyEditor (talk) 03:58, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 *  Keep . I think it is notable enough, per reviews cited in the article. I agree with HappyValleyEditor that it was overly long and unencyclopedic, with all those tables of contents, but after posting their comment above HappyValleyEditor has cleaned up the article (maybe not to what it should be, but at least in a right direction). Materialscientist (talk) 11:50, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I optimistically posted the above comment hoping that the article will be built up from the HappyValleyEditor's version. Instead of an anticipated collaboration (in developing the article) I see an editing disagreement. Given the marginal notability, I see no future for this article. Materialscientist (talk) 23:47, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep: First, the article as it stands is appalling.  However, the question is whether the book series is notable.  If it were a journal, I would look for an impact factor, but I think the relevant guideline is WP:TBK.  This guideline notes that "possible bases for a finding of notability include, in particular, whether the book is published by an academic press, how widely the book is cited by other academic publications or in the media, the number of editions of the book, whether one or more translations of the book have been published, how influential the book is considered to be in its specialty area, or adjunct disciplines, and whether it is, or has been, taught, or required reading, in one or more reputable educational institutions."  This book series has been published by reputable academic publishers including the RSC and Springer, is in preparation for its 17th volume, and has certainly been cited in plenty of articles on WP and presumably also in the literature.  As such, I would see it as notable but in need of a complete re-write along the style of a standard journal article (such as this version).  EdChem (talk) 08:52, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 *  Neutral  (changed to "delete" below) The way the article was when I first encountered it was indeed atrocious. I started an attempt at cleanup but was immediately reverted by the article creator, . At that point, I decided WP:TNT applied and tagged it as spam. After the excellent job that did, we have an acceptable stub that could be the basis for expansion into an acceptable article. The recent edit history does not give me much confidence that such will actually happen, though. (I realize that the foregoing is not a reason to keep/delete, it's just a description of events). As for notability, I note that there are some reviews for some individual volumes. I also note that (according to WorldCat) none of the books seems to be held by many libraries. --Randykitty (talk) 09:34, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

The use of terms "disgraceful", "appalling" and "atrocious" is not what I expect of Wikipedians. A word of explanation is appropriate. What I attempted to do was provide users with links to view specific article contents, which the publisher provides free of charge. This can be useful to researchers when the relevant volume is not held by their institution's library. I accept that this is not permissible under current WP rules; I imagine that these rules were drawn up before publishers like Springer offered free previews of book contents on the web. Petergans (talk) 08:33, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * When those rules were formulated, all big publishers already had well-established websites. And those rules are still very much relevant nowadays. It's definitely unencyclopedic to just have an "article" that consists of a bunch of external links and basically copies Springer's website for these books. Researchers interested in these books will look at Springer's website for links to the chapters, not WP. Like SwisterTwister, I'm curious to see what DGG (a retired academic librarian) thinks of all this. --Randykitty (talk) 08:24, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment for now as I'm uncertain and I'm asking for familiar analysis.  SwisterTwister   talk  05:09, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * delete I saw this and thought it was not an encyclopedia article, and asked Randykitty what their judgement was, as Randykitty is very experienced in these sorts of articles. Their judgement was the same and they tagged it for speedy.  That was the right answer in my view.  I am sympathetic to Petergans for having groomed this for so long but it is WP:NOT an encyclopedia article. Jytdog (talk) 08:32, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Randykitty tagged this version; the article is very different now, have a look. Materialscientist (talk) 08:39, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for asking! I should have looked and thought again, so really thanks.  It is better now.  But.  The biggest chunk of content was sourced to this dead link; the series is apparently now at CRC press - current ref is here.   So that biggest chunk of encyclopedic content is unsourced. (updated all that here)  And the sources (refs 1-4) for the encyclopedic content are all to the publishers, not independent or secondary sources, so no so good, even still...  but yes better than it was!  Jytdog (talk 08:54, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

The reference to CRC press is inappropriate. The publisher since 2012 is Springer http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319217550 Before that it was the Royal Society of Chemistry. Petergans (talk) 16:32, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * So a link that actually works and brings you to a place where the books are actually listed is less appropriate than a dead link in your view. OK then. 17:33, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The link to CRC Press refers to the prvevious series ""Metal Ions in Biological Systems", not to "Metal Ions in Life Sciences", which is the title of this article. Petergans (talk) 10:06, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; Music1201  talk  01:56, 7 May 2016 (UTC) This article (Metal Ions in Life Sciences) has now been revised in line with the comments above. I request that the speedy deletion tag be removed. Petergans (talk) 13:28, 8 May 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete. to the best of my knowledge, a not particularly notable book series published in part of a sequence of three  scientific publishers. As a librarian, yes, I subscribed to the series, but only because we bought essentially everything published of even minor significance in the field of biochemistry, whether of not it was of any great importance.   The reviews are utterly routine, amounting just to announcements. Very few papers of any  importance were every published in it.   The place for this sort of information  is in library catalogs. DGG ( talk ) 03:24, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete, per DGG. --Randykitty (talk) 05:20, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There is no speedy deletion tag on the article. One of your edits was to add a link to a T&F shopping cart (I guess that link only works for you yourself and that only transiently) and remove a "third party sources needed in this section" tag, despite the fact that all sources in that section ("Historical development") are to publisher websites. There is still no conclusive evidence that this series of books is notable. --Randykitty (talk) 13:38, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * weak keep. In my areas (inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry), this book series is decidedly not prominent. It never was prominent, but then again many once prominent book series are suffering in the digital age. User:Petergans cites from it a fair bit within Wikipedia, I recall. I dont see any harm in keeping the parent article describing the book series, so long as the series is not overly promoted within Wikipedia. --Smokefoot (talk) 03:49, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Nakon  04:14, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete as I am also convinced by DGG, this is still overall questionable. SwisterTwister   talk  04:29, 22 May 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.