Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The R 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 keep (non-admin closure). Sir Sputnik (talk) 16:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

The R Journal

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Prodded and deprodded with more refs but the refs do not fix the problem. Not notable, with no evidence of notability. All the refs are to the journal itself so not evidence of notability, and should not be the only sources. A quick look at R (programming language) finds no mention of it, no use of it as a source which suggests it has little impact even in the field it covers. JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 14:11, 27 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I have no idea what "prodded and deprodded" means. On that talk page there is now another vote (and surprise at your marking the page for deletion). The citations to papers published by the R Journal show (as does it's IF) that is a notable peer-reviewed journal. As does the calibre of the editors, the use of the journal to report new directions for the foundation and core software. Tim bates (talk) 15:38, 27 February 2016 (UTC)


 * 'prod', WP:PROD, is proposed deletion. I proposed it for deletion,, that was removed (deprodded) which means someone disagrees, so I created this so we can have a fuller discussion.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 16:00, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for expanding on the colloquialism - have not seen it before Tim bates (talk) 08:36, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Delete and merge with R (programming language): I think it is hard to show that the journal has independent notability outwith of the R Foundation and/or R (programming language). It has struggled for some years to be indexed by the main academic journal indices, I'm not sure whether it is any closer to being recognised in this way and therefore getting an impact factor. It exists, some people involved in the R language know and use it, but it has a very narrow following. This might change in the future as the influence of the R Project expands, but at present it isn't notable. JMWt (talk) 16:36, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You're correct it is not indexed by pubmed or thomson - can you reference that it has struggled or even attempted to do so? The Journal appears in other lists, its articles appear in the main place people look these days (google scholar. For instance the Fox article on contrasts (not a stellar example, just a good one, and one that I had too hand) and dozens of others, e.g 43 citations to ggmaps article. Hundreds of other journals fail to get any papers cited this often. Any data on "narrow following"?  I think the evidence of authority, citations, durability and growing future all lead the journal to comfortably meet the hurdle of encyclopedic notabilityTim bates (talk) 08:36, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: The way this works is not that we all just make assertions as !votes to keep or delete, but that we give reasons which relate to the notability guidelines. There isn't one for academic journals, however WP:NJournals makes a strong case that a failure to be indexed is an indication that an academic journal is not notable, and you and I are agreed it is not in the main academic citation indices. Every page needs to be notable as per the WP:GNG which means that we'd need to be seeing references to this journal (and not the R Project, the language or the Foundation) in independent, secondary, reliable sources. I challenge you or anyone else to show me a significant descriptive reference in a secondary source, because I don't think it exists. As it happens, I know quite a lot about R and its importance.  And, believe it or not, I knew a lot about the R Journal before seeing this AfD. But neither of those facts are relevant: the thing still needs to be shown to be notable before it gets to have a wikipedia page. JMWt (talk) 21:44, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: Does Thomson Reuter's "Science Citation Index Expanded" not count as a "main academic citation ind[ex]"? I too would be interested in a link describing the struggle to get indexed; I don't keep my eye on it that closely, and so hadn't heard anything about that.

Keep: This is the leading Journal serving one of the largest (and still fastest growing) statistical systems in the world. It impacts on statisticians, journalists, academics, scientists, industry R&D workers computer science and followers of trends in Open Source. So notable Tim bates (talk) 13:54, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Keep: I am surprised to see saying the journal not notable. It's official journal of R and very reliable. So I recommend not to delete this page and agree with what Tim bates pointed out. Sulthan (talk) 14:24, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Keep: This journal is notable, at least according to criterion 1 in Notability (academic journals). The R Journal has an Impact Factor assigned by the Institute for Scientific Information's Journal Citation Reports (search for "R Journal", after "R & D Management" here and see the 2012-2015 impact factors for the journal here). As further evidence that it satisfies criterion 1, The R Journal is included in the Scopus database, one of the major citation indices (see here). As Notability (academic journals) is in essay and not a full notability guideline, The R Journal is also the subject of a sub-chapter in The R Book (Crawley, 2012) (see here). I plan to improve the article with this reference, as well as other references available from Google Books and the Google News Archive. Given more time, I can also update this post with evidence of how The R Journal fits other non-essay notability criterion. -  t u coxn \talk 22:29, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Notability (academic journals) is an essay not a guideline. The reference you have found is only a brief mention, a couple of sentences, not enough for notability which requires significant coverage. As the guildeline says '"Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content.', which is clearly not the case here. But I encourage you if you find such coverage to include it in the article, it would be the easiest way to change this from an obvious delete to an obvious keep.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 02:35, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I noted that WP:NJournals is an essay in my !vote. Another essay for use in determining notability for this article is Notability (media), which has a section on academic journals. Given more time, I will attempt to find more reliable sources for this article. -  t u coxn \talk 17:29, 29 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep and cleanup. Having an impact factor alone is good enough per WP:NJOURNALS. I would advise the writers to read and incorporate feedback from WP:JWG and WP:WEASEL. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:09, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, that is not a policy or guideline, just an essay. Having an impact factor just means that it is listed in some database, it does not make it notable, as the inclusion criteria for such a database is very different from our notability criterion.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 18:36, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Having an impact factor makes it notable, yes. Argue about semantics of essays vs policies all you want, but that's how journals are judged. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:31, 29 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep As mentioned above, having an impact factor alone is good enough per WP:NJOURNALS. While not an official guideline, WP:NJOURNALS has been the effective guideline for deciding notability of journals at AfD for years. --Mark viking (talk) 19:37, 29 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: just a second, the link that gives above (here it is again) is for a Russian copycat site called Prescopus - which seems to have no connection to Scopus. Can someone who has access to the real Scopus check that the claim made above is correct? Also the Thomson Reuters link is pretty useless as it does indicate that an "R Journal" is included (page 342 of the pdf linked above) but this does not give any information as to whether this is the same publication or a different one with the same name. The only identifier used is that it is based in Austria, I'm not sure if that is true for the R Journal discussed here. JMWt (talk) 11:53, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The real Scopus list of Journals is on this page but I can't get the file to open. Anyone else able to? JMWt (talk) 12:05, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I have been able to establish that it is indeed in the TR list, see here. JMWt (talk) 12:15, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The R Journal is listed in the Scopus database. See this Excel spreadsheet of the database here. Its "Sourcerecord id" is 21100255423 and it's listed between "R and D: Research and Development Kobe Steel Engineering Reports" and "R.I. medical journal". The link I provided in my earlier post was an easier way to find digestible information (even though it's a Russian copy). -  t u coxn \talk 18:13, 1 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep The R Journal has an impact factor, is indexed by Web of Science, and is the official organ of the R Foundation (an obviously notable organization). In my personal opinion (since there is no official guideline for academic journals) any one of those should be enough for notability. In addition, the first two are clearly sufficient to meet the criteria of the closest thing to an official guideline, Notability (academic journals). The article could doubtless be improved, and is doubtless obscure to many, but I don't see any issue with notability according to any theoretical standard that would broadly be suitable for academic journals. TimeLord mbw (talk) 18:49, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * According to Ulrich's R Journal is indexed by EBSCOhost, Scopus, and PubMed, in additional to Thomson Reuters (Web of Science). TimeLord mbw (talk) 22:38, 1 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I've s/t my !vote: I think we've now proven that it is now indexed in the main indexes, so according to the best available notability guides, that should be enough to keep. JMWt (talk) 09:03, 2 March 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.