Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philotheos: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology


 * 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. Michig (talk) 06:33, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Philotheos: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology

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This article recently passed a wp:PROD with no comment. Could someone verify that this article meets Notability (academic journals)? It is not apparent to me that it does. Thanks.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   17:09, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. It is not actually true that the unprod happened without a comment, but it was off-wiki. Here is what the person who requested that it be restored after the prod wrote:
 * "I am neither the one who first have written this article, nor I have contributed to it, but I think that it should not be deleted. Philotheos is probably the only journal in which one can find scientists together who openly write on theology and philosophy from an Orthodox perspective. I wonder why you have deleted it. Maybe you were led to this decision, because it is not a journal written only in English. The fact that this journal is written in multiple languages, should be in favor of maintaining this article. As a contributor to this journal, I can assure you that there are excellent scientific articles in all the past volumes of Philotheos. Many professors from Germany, Russia, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Italy, France, USA, etc. have contributed to Philotheos, and it would be a shame all this scientific work not to be mentioned in wikipedia. So, I suggest to allow this article to be restored, and if possible to be improved."
 * Of course, none of this addresses the criteria in WP:NJournals. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:37, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment I managed to find the website of the journal (on the faculty website, thanks to Google Translate... :-) Unfortunately, the site is very uninformative, don't even see the name(s) of the editor(s) mentioned, let alone some information on abstracting and indexing. The journal is not in any Thomson Reuters database, but it might be in some religion- or philosophy-related ones (I am less familiar with those). So I haven't been able to find any indication of notability, but given that it has been around for over a decade, I'll wait for a moment before I !vote delete, to see if someone more familiar with this type of journals can come up with something. --Randykitty (talk) 17:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Tending to  delete . I just did a GS search using "Philoteos" as query. Most hits are not related to this journal, those that are have not been cited. Does not appear to have had any significant impact (yet?). --Randykitty (talk) 17:47, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment This journal is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database (serial ID record ATLA0001591584). ATLA seems to be a major database of religious journals, but I do not know if it is considered selective. It doesn't appear to be in Religious and Theological Abstracts. --Mark viking (talk) 21:22, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:36, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Serbia-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:36, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:43, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:43, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment I used Google translator to give an English rendition of the Serbian website for this journal here (per Randykitty??). Hopefully this is helpful, and I will try to review this English translation later. Also, I notice that the "ATLA Religion Database" is an EBSCO indexing service, so there may be some selectivity because of that, but I can't say for sure. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 14:21, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: I have asked for recommendations from WikiProject Religion. --Mark viking (talk) 12:12, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment Google Scholar found that it is also indexed by the French refdoc.fr. I think it will be very hard for editors to determine if "The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area.", given that its subject area (Serbian Theology) is regionally limited. If it is published by the "Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Belgrade", then I suppose only the Serbian Orthodox Church would be considered a more "reliable source" on this subject area. Unless we can find some faculty member at a university outside of Serbia that just by chance wrote a thesis on this subject, I think it will be hard to find any other discussion of the subject. D kriegls  ( talk to me! ) 06:46, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment Refdoc is just a service that provides copies of articles published in as many academic journals as possible, so it is not very selective. And you're right, it's a rare journal that qualifies for inclusion under WP:GNG. However, to qualify under WP:NJournals, it suffices to be included in some major selective databases, which even for highly specialized journals like this one is definitely possible. --Randykitty (talk) 11:01, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 04:13, 14 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep The ATLA Religion Database is respectable enough, there must be some merit to the journal. Review of the ATLA Religion Database : "Despite the few shortcomings noted above, the coverage of titles in religious and theological studies is unmatched by other databases; this is an indispensable tool for scholars and students doing research in religion. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above.-A. Limpitlaw, Vanderbilt University" -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 17:25, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment That doesn't sound as if it is very selective, though... --Randykitty (talk) 18:09, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, the editors list their selection criteria here:, for whatever that's worth. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:00, 17 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep ATLA Religion Database editor selection criterion include the following points which seem sufficiently selective for a scientist like myself. --  D kriegls  ( talk to me! ) 23:45, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
 * As Peer-reviewed status of the journal and overall academic merit
 * Established and consistent publishing record
 * Format and content of the journal -- that is, preferred publications contain or consist primarily of research articles, bibliographies, and/or book reviews; ATLA RDB generally does not include current-awareness publications, newsletters, and the like, so these are typically removed from consideration --- Dkriegls 23:46, 17 September 2013‎ (UTC) (signature sdded by User:Steve Quinn }.


 * Keep per off wiki comment above, User:Atethnekos, and User:Dkriegls. Looking at the selection criteria for the ATLA Religion Database seems to indicate that it is highly selective, including the fact that it indexes only 550 journals. So this indexing service seems to be very picky.


 * In contrast, Science Citation Index Expanded indexes a 8,500 journals . And, one description of the Science Citation Index says that this database indexes 6,000 "key journals", and the Social Sciences Citation Index indexes 3000 "world leading social sciences journals" . These databases are held in high regard and are also considered picky, but with 15 times, 10 times, and 5 times the number of indexed journals.


 * Furthermore, according to World Cat this journal is cataloged by the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts library, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts library, two Swiss universities , Harvard University, University of Notre Dame , as well as other reputable universities and institutions in the U.S. and Europe (on the following pages of the World Cat entry). For a seemingly small Slovenianm journal it seems to matter to some high quality institutions.


 * Also, to me, it seems to matter that this journal is also listed in the Library of Congress (USA). It is not likely that an unimportant Slovenian journal would find itself listed in the Library of Congress. This is based on my experience, when previously, I have come across some notable scientific journals that qualify for an article on Wikipedia but cannot be found in the Library of Congress. That experience notwithstanding, it seems that the Library of Congress must have some sort of selection criteria, albeit different from Thomson Reuters, or any piece of writng or media might find its way into that catalog. So, I guess my comment here is based on my editing experiences on Wikipedia. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 04:15, 18 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Weak keep given the listing by ATLA. However, I disagree with most of Steve's reasoning above. ATLA only indexes journals on religion, whereas the Thomson Reuters databases mentioned cover all of (social) science. Those databases have no "religion" category, but I bet that at least 90% of those 550 journals in ATLA will not be in any Thomson Reuters database. The WorldCat links only confirm that a handful of university libraries hold this journal, which is to be expected and nothing out of the ordinary. (By the way, those links don't work for me, I think they depend on your location). Finally, I have noticed before that many major scientific journals are not in the Library of Congress, but even rather obscure journals in the fields of law or religion are almost always included. I think this reflects their acquisition policy. I don't think they have any selection criteria other than cataloging their holdings. Anyway, ATLA seems mildly selective in that it includes any serious journal in its field of interest. It appears to be the only database, though, which is why I go for a "weak keep" and not an outright "keep". Borderline. --Randykitty (talk) 08:47, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. On World Cat, try placing "Philotheos : international journal for philosophy and theology" into the search bar, as a search term. I am thinking you should get "Philotheos : international journal for philosophy and theology" with the first four listing. Then, notice the first three listings. One is for English, one is for Serbian, and one is for German (see just underneath the title). Each of these will have some different libraries that catalog this journal. Also, the catalog entries seem to be in English for most of these, which is helpful for me. Steve Quinn (talk) 22:38, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep, but it is marginal. Investigation by Atethnekos and Dkriegls has convinced me that ATLA is a well-respected index in the religion field and has some selection criteria; it can serve as a proxy for notability per WP:NJournals. That the journal isn't in  Religious and Theological Abstracts gives me some pause, but one reputable indexing service is good enough. --Mark viking (talk) 23:11, 18 September 2013 (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.