Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sports Lawyers Journal


 * 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 Redirect as although there are still comments considering delete would be best considering non-notability, there's enough to in fact confirm this is still not independently acceptable for its own article and there have been no claims or otherwise showings how this can be improved; if anyone wants to merge whatever as they need, it's available at the history logs (NAC). SwisterTwister  talk  00:31, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Sports Lawyers Journal

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Fails GNG: Unable to identify any independent, reliable sources in any language offering more than a trivial mention. — swpb T 13:03, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions.  WC  Quidditch   &#9742;   &#9998;  16:47, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 16:40, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 16:40, 8 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Redirect as WP:MILL to law school publisher Tulane University Law School. Almost every single law school has a law review, and most have additional journals. Unless there's some indication a law school law review/journal/brief is particularly notable beyond being published by a law school;, Wikipedia practice it to delete. See, for example, here, here, here and here. I note a couple of these have been re-created and have so far evaded AFD; at least one was re-deleted.  TJRC (talk) 22:56, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:NJournals. The journal is indexed in major citation indics, and per the Washington & Lee rankings, it is the fourth-highest ranking sports law journal (by combined score). It also been cited by several state supreme courts (see, e.g., Massachusetts and California). -- Notecardforfree (talk) 23:47, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. None of the indices listed are selective (even though I agree several of them -like HeinOnline- are major in the law field). Whether being the 4th ranking sports law review is sufficient for notability depends on how many such journals there are, I guess. When I look at the rankings in the category that W&L places this journal in (Arts, Entertainment and Sports), the journal ranks 14th out of 23. --Randykitty (talk) 09:00, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * the explanation for the first criterion in WP:JOURNALCRIT states that journals should be "included in the major citation indices, indexing services, and bibliographic databases in its field(s)" (emphasis added). As far as law journals go, it doesn't get any better than inclusion in Westlaw, Lexis, and HeinOnline's Law Journal Library; at the very least, it is the industry standard. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 10:12, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Looking at WP:NJournals, I just can't agree with that essay. Practically every law school journal is carried by Westlaw and lexis-nexis. That's no sign of notability. TJRC (talk) 21:53, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with TJRC. I haven't looked at NJournals in a while, although I regularly invoke it for PROD or AFD of articles on non-notable academic journals. I'm pretty certain that NJournals used to specify that inclusion in databases only indicated notability if those databases were selective (and not selective in the sense of "we only index law journals" but in the sense of "we only index the best law journals"). Indeed, the examples in note 1 are highly selective databases, including only a fraction of all journals in the areas that they cover. That is how NJournals has been used in years. Somehow, the "selective" part seems to have disappeared, but I'm currently traveling and don't have time to look into this right now. --Randykitty (talk) 22:24, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment WP:NJOURNALS always meant to have the selectivity of databases as a criterion, but looking at it, it does seem that it's never actually explicitly stated. It is however, implicitly stated through the examples and counterexamples which have evolved over the years. E.g. those with an impact factor are a pass, because Journal Citation Reports is selective, but PUBMED, despite being the major citation index in medicine, is not enough on its own because it's not selective. Is being the 4th journal in Sports Law good enough? If there's 120 journals, then clearly yes! If it's 6 journals, then that's not very impressive.
 * That being said, I've got no opinion on whether or not this should be kept, but my gut feeling is that it might be best to create Sports Lawyers Association and put the journal information as a section of that article. Their website however claims Sports Lawyers Journal is "the most widely read legal sports journal in the country." If that can be backed by an independent source, that's good enough for WP:NJOURNALS for "influential" in its field as far as I'm concerned. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:54, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * don't you think the journal is influential by virtue of the fact that it is cited by several state supreme courts? -- Notecardforfree (talk) 17:02, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm no lawyer, or judge so I can't opine on whether or not this is impressive or common. I would think that law journals get cited in court all the time, so while that may make the journal a reliable source, it doesn't necessarily make it notable. If, however, there was some objective/recognized measure (i.e. not WP:SYNTH) of its 'courtcase impact', then that could be used to establish notability. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:56, 14 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete or redirect I am going to jump in here and point out that this law journal ranks 609th out of approximately 1330 law journals according to the Washington and Lee indexing service mentioned above . I don't know what the scores in the column next to it mean: the one on the left is a "4" and the one on the right appears to be "0.24".


 * These results were accomplished by checking the small boxes entitled Combined Score and Impact Factor respectively, inside the larger top right box entitled 2. Choose Ranking Criteria at the top right of the page. After Clicking on the link I provided you will probably have to scroll down - and scroll down - and keep going - and scroll down some more - and so on. Or you can use the "Find" search box function available in the browsers. I plugged in "Sports".


 * Additionally, in the Notes and examples section of NJournals it seems clear to me that selectivity is the leading factor when considering rank in an index. 609th out of approximately 1330 Law School journals is not what I consider to be notable for Wikipedia standards. As an aside, Stanford Law Review and Harvard Law Review are ranked #! and #2 respectively. Or redirect per User:TJRC. -Steve Quinn (talk) 01:17, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Tulane University Law School, where it is already mentioned. --MelanieN (talk) 23:56, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Tulane University Law School; not independently notable per available sources. There's still insufficient RS to meet individual notability. K.e.coffman (talk) 07:46, 17 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep per Notecardforfree, or at least Merge with Tulane University Law School. There are not a lot of Sports Law Journals, so it is a unique niche, and being cited by SCOTUS in legal decisions helps confer notability is notable .   Montanabw (talk) 21:14, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Where was it said that it was cited by SCOTUS? --Randykitty (talk) 21:28, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * and, to clarify, this journal has not been cited by SCOTUS, but has been cited by a number of state supreme courts. I think that editors are discounting the fact that this journal is quite "influential in its subject area" (per WP:JOURNALCRIT). There really aren't that many sports law journals in the world, and sports law cases are also rather uncommon, so the fact that state supreme courts cite this journal signifies that it is considered an influential authority by jurists. I should also note that major legal treatises rely upon articles published in this journal, such as American Law Reports (see, e.g., 61 A.L.R.6th 603) and the Restatement of Torts (Third) (see, e.g., Chpt. 7, § 41 "Duty to Another Based on Special Relationship with the Other"). It is extremely uncommon for all kinds of academic journals, including law journals, to receive coverage in secondary sources, so it is important to consider other metrics of notability; one such metric is the influence in the journal's field, and I don't think there is any doubt that this journal has been influential. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 22:16, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected and have refactored my comments accordingly. Stlll notable.  Montanabw (talk) 22:41, 17 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge to Tulane University Law School. Law journals, especially ones published by American law schools, are a very different form of publication from the scientific or otherwise peer reviewed journals we're used to dealing with, particularly insofar as they're edited entirely by students. Though that would normally lean us towards delete within NJOURNAL, it's worth noting that not even Harvard Law Review or Yale Law Journal are peer reviewed or refereed like our guidelines seem to prefer, and all are edited entirely by the students of those journals. This is more one of those situations where the guidelines should adapt to the odd practices of a large and influential scholarly community. Anyway, for what to do with the present article: I'm looking on HeinOnline at their back catalog, and it's a one-issue-per-volume journal, with each issue running between 280 and 360 pages. The 2015-2016 academic year saw them publish Volume 23, which consisted of: 7 articles, 4 student notes, and the winning brief of a moot court competition. However, three of the articles were written by current JDs at other law schools, three of the others were by people who had graduated from law school in the last four years. The one remaining was written by an adjunct law professor. So they don't seem to carry high profile stuff. Their editorial board had 16 members, which is really small. Though what's strange is they seem to be published as a journal of a student group. I think the journal I was on at law school started that way. I just seriously doubt there's enough here to keep, no matter how forgiving a stance we adopt under NJOURNAL. But there's every reason to merge and redirect. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 22:55, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, contrary to what's said above about Hein, they are not very selective. Inclusion on Hein is not hard to swing; to my understanding it's just paperwork. Inclusion on West is also not too difficult; I think it's a matter of journal age and paperwork. My understanding is they were willing to take our then four-volume-old journal provided we actually got the paperwork done. Lexis seemed to be more selective, though I imagine they were less so 15 years ago. I would respectfully suggest that inclusion in Hein, Westlaw, or LexisNexis should count for very little other than the existence of the journal and its actual association with the law school. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 23:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * , I agree that West, Lexis and Hein are not particularly selective; I cited them as examples of "major" citation indices in the field, per WP:JOURNALCRIT. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 00:01, 18 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment -- I still don't see sources that discuss the subject substantially and in detail. In this case, redirect / merge is the appropriate solution. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:02, 18 September 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.