Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers


 * 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. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:29, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Institution of Mechanical Engineers are collectively the editors of this journal, SAGE Publications are the publishers (using their brand MetaPress), Web of Science and Web of Knowledge are brands of Thomson Reuters which is in a re-seller relationship with Sage / IMechE, Journal Citation Reports is a service of Thomson Reuters. User:AntonV is a paid employee of SAGE. Given these commercial links, my contention is that no references from any of these sources meets the requirements Independent of the subject requirement of WP:GNG. By this measure this page has no references. My further contention is that linking to content in Web of Science / Web of Knowledge (a million+ page website hidden behind complex paywalls) using only a link to the homepage is entirely inappropriate referencing behavior. The page creator (and only significant contributor) has previously defended his editing based on Notability_(academic_journals) (see my talk page) which as it says in the header has not been accepted as a Wikipedia policy or guideline. I have googled for references, but the use of the name in references makes it very hard to found sources about the journal. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep as per below. LiteralKa (talk) 01:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Over the last 3 years, the Notability (journals) has been always accepted as a practical guideline, whether for keeping or deleting. This is one of the most important groups of mechanical engineering journals in the world, as can be proven by the  numerical data, on the individual journal articles.  The argument for deletion is utter nonsense, and I've never said that before that I remember . All the commercial and society publishers in the world, and all the rest of the scientific journal system, is inter-related. The IME is an independent professional society. Most independent society journals are published for them by commercial publishers. Sage, a formerly independent publisher, is now an imprint of Thomson Reuters. Web of Science is published by Thomson, true, but is  nonetheless the most respected and discriminating indexing service in the world. The journal is also indexed by Scopus, published by Elsevier, Thomson's main competitor. It is also indexed by Inspec, published by the   independent IEE, and by every relevant indexing service in the world. Inclusion by the indexing services is the major standard. Being behind a payroll is irrelevant. Essentially every indexing service and journal in engineering is behind a paywall.  We actually have articles for every one of the component journals, each of which has sufficient standing to be independently notable.  The   impact factor data and the rankings, are on those individual pages. They could be tabulated here also, but it is not necessary.  Ideally journal publishers should not edit articles on their own journals, but many do, and almost all of them do a proper job  of it--the articles are formulaic enough that the conflict of interest is irrelevant. (A few had some problems in editing properly in earlier years, but I've taught them, in some cases by personal explanation to the relevant senior executives. I suppose the nom will think that too a conflict of interest.) As for sources, they (or their predecessors)  are all listed in Malinowski's standard Science and Engineering Literature, and in every existing guide to the scientific literature.    DGG ( talk ) 04:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for confirming that there is even more financial interlinking between these parties than I was aware of. On you user page you seem to indicate that you have a librarianship background, as I do; please be aware that the wikipedia concept of notability is not related to bibliometric or academic concepts what we may be used to but is spelt out primarily in WP:GNG and a small number of other places. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "Web of Science is published by Thomson" regardless of how respected it is, we need independent sources. LiteralKa (talk) 04:33, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment DGG correctly pointed out that I'm doing this as a test case. I should probably have said so before.  DGG and I are going to keep our further comments here and try and avoid making this personal (see my talk page). Stuartyeates (talk) 04:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  — --Darkwind (talk) 05:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions.  —202.124.72.35 (talk) 12:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is of world importance and its publications are also. We all know that commercial publishers have a stranglehold on their field but that does not make it any less important. A totally misguided nomination. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:26, 23 July 2011 (UTC).
 * Keep. Yes, AntonV works for SAGE. However, I have been following this editor almost since he started and he seems to be well aware of our policies concerning POV and such. His articles are devoid of promotional language. In addition, I patrol the new pages log every one or two days for new journal articles and screen/edit them if needed. I actually missed this particular article, but it is very factual and NPOV (and from the history it can be seen that it was vetted by Headbomb, another longtime editor of journal articles, who certainly would have removed any promotional language if it had been there). In short, AntonV is in my opinion a valuable editor, who openly has disclosed his COI (and remember that having a COI with a certain subject does not mean that one is not allowed to edit on those subjects). As for the reference to WoK, AntonV has actually copied that from me (I have used that reference in many articles). Headbomb recently pointed out to me that this reference was not very helpful and suggested another format (which I have just used in this article). The fact remains that it is behind a pay-wall, so that no direct URL can be given, but that is no impediment to using it as a reference (we also use printed sources as references, even if they are not online). As for the JCR not being independent, you've got to be kidding. Many newspapers, for example, are owned by the same mother company, yet the principle of editorial independence ensures that the sources remain independent. Thomson Reuters is smart, as soon as the JCR would start being less objective and treat journals published by one of their imprints differently from others, the JCR would lose its value and subscribers would defect in droves. This is also why large companies like them set up all these different subsidiaries, to keep some "walls" between them to avoid this kind of thing. Having said all this, even if you feel that the JCR is not independent, as DGG has pointed out, these journals are also indexed in Scopus (a competitor to the Science Citation Index and JCR published by rival Elsevier) and a slew of other independent, highly-selective, databases. In short, there's no doubt that this is a highly notable publication. --Crusio (talk) 09:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong keep and trout. Nomination is self-confessedly in breach of WP:NJournals, which is our standard guideline. The journal is indexed in standard indices and has been around for over 150 years. It is notable. -- 202.124.72.35 (talk) 11:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ our standard guideline is WP:GNG not WP:NJournals. Stuartyeates (talk) 11:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:NJournals has been used for journals for well over a year, just as WP:PROF is used for academics. This article satisfies the more general WP:GNG as well, with the journal appearing in multiple journal indices and books about engineering literature, but we use subject-specific guidelines to avoid pointlessly repeated debates about what WP:GNG means. -- 202.124.72.35 (talk) 12:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Strong keep and I support trouting as well. It easily passes WP:NJOURNALS with flying colors. Also per Crusio and DGG. In addition, AntonV's behaviour has been exemplary, coming to WP:JOURNALS for guidance on how to write these articles (see here and here). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment It does no harm to have guidelines tested from time to time to see if there is continuing consensus.  Normally, this is done by using a borderline article as the test case, but perhaps it is more realistic to use an ordinary level article or even a strong one.  What does harm is to continually test established and well supported guidelines to the extent that it becomes a nuisance but I do not think that is the case here. I made my original comment thinking this was an erratic AfD not a deliberate test, and I would have worded things differently in my first response  had i realised. WP attempts to judge what the world considers important, not what we at Wikipedia personally consider important. For most types of subjects, the usual GNG criteria make sense, for others they make no sense at all, either in a positive or negative direction. For academic journals, a journal is important if people cite it, and there is no other relevant meaning to notability that has any relation to the RW. This can be examined directly in citation indexes for the fields that have them, or by proxy relying on its inclusion in the major indexes, for if it is not in the major indexes, nobody will find the articles and cite them. It's a self-perpetuating system, as for the academic world in general. There is no point in having Wikipedia content diverge too greatly from the RW, in either direction, in any subject--it would make the encyclopedia useless in that area.  There are some real problem areas , where the GNG does not work very well and there are also no external standards, like computer programs or fictional characters, which cause some of the bitterest debates here). Some areas do have a formal standard,   the Olympic sports is the best known example here. Academic journals is also one of them.   There is another completely separate argument: these journals are used as references in Wikipedia articles, and we need some convenient way by which the readers can judge their reliability. Providing information about the sources used in Wikipedia articles is a valuable auxiliary goal  of importance to the project, increasing the usefulness of the encyclopedia , and would justify an exception if justification were needed. The rules are not here because of their intrinsic merit as rules, or as examples of brilliant conceptual thought or clear logic,  but because they are useful to the goals of the project. Everything here is to be judged in that light, and we've even managed to codify that as one of the foundations of the project in what I think actually is one of our conceptual brilliances: improving Wikipedia is a sufficient justification -- and indeed the only justification -- for  any rule or any exception.       DGG ( talk ) 23:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Individual AfDs are not a good way to change policy, and in any case this is a bad test case as it seems to pass WP:GNG (e.g. the mentions in Stankus, added to the article, and the JCR listing). —David Eppstein (talk) 23:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Thanks to User:David Eppstein for adding what appears to be an independent reference, for a total of one, by my count. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:27, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In what way is JCR not an independent reference? I don't understand your "reseller relationship" comment in the nomination statement. Sage and ISI are different companies and I have no reason to believe that ISI is in any way non-neutral in choosing the subjects for JCR or conducting its reports. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:42, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What I meant was that ISI resells / packages Sage-published journals to institutions, usually there's quite a bit of infrastructure involved (Shibboleth authentication, proxies, etc). Stuartyeates (talk) 05:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per Crusio, DGG and Headbomb. —Ruud 14:17, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Easily passes Notability (academic journals), which, while not an official guideline, still provides the most useful guidance on evaluating notability of academic journals. Nsk92 (talk) 14:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment the only "delete" !vote (apart from the nom) just was changed to "keep". Given the large number of policy-based "keep" !votes, I think that we have some unseasonal (atleast for the Northern Hemisphere) snow here. --Crusio (talk) 16:03, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article looks useful for historical research. I don't know these British journals but an analogous U.S. one is the Transactions of the AIME (American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers) which I have studied at length and can say with certainty was historically important (and it deserves an article when I can get around to it). In such journals new discoveries, inventions, and findings on 19th century iron and steel work were discussed, including railroad technology which helped economic growth happen. Even if one were to argue they only recorded past stale discussions, these journals are cited for evidence on what happened and what important people knew and thought back then, ergo are important for the activity of "doing history" now. The Library of Congress entry on the journal(s) under discussion suggests to me that it has a similar significant history of 160+ years, and from my bookshelf I see that MacLeod's Heroes of Invention (a significant work of economic and technology history of the industrial revolution) cites these Proceedings and the Institute. Happily I see in Notability (academic journals) this category of Notability: "The journal has a historic purpose or has a significant history." Present-day citations are not the only criterion of inclusion for an encyclopedia. (It would be good to see information in the article of present-day circulation or influence, but it's not necessary.) Side note: The arguments above include some hints of a sublime significance here that I can't interpret well: (a) This is a "test case" ... of what? (b) Notability (academic journals) isn't "policy." Well, it's a "guideline" and looks good to me; is someone saying it should or should not be "policy"?  I don't know whether making it policy is worth the trouble; (c) it can be argued that professional/institutional journals are not academic journals; is that in play here? perhaps different criteria apply, because e.g. they were not always been peer reviewed and have plainly for-profit participants; I don't see a need to get into that. -- Econterms (talk • contribs) 19:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. All these so-called "commercial" connections are of a superficial view, although I am sure it is in good faith WP:AGF. As was stated above by DGG (in so many words) these "Proceedings" are part of a supportive and interconnected system. Even a seperate and competing publisher has faith in the impact factor  as a rating system. This set of journals are also listed in other Thomson Rueters' databases, , , etc., etc. There is no playing favorites here. Here are the services that index two of these journals , . Also, I see no problem with Anton's editing behavior.  Steve Quinn (talk) 06:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. The fact that academic journals are a bit incestuous and often make a profit doesn't invalidate the journals' clearance of the WP:NJournals bar based on independent references to, citations of, and indexings of them. I'll admit, the for-profit journal industry sort of gives me the creepy-crawlies, but since there's no WP:GIVESFLUFFTHECREEPS guideline, that does no one any good. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:52, 26 July 2011 (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.