Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bibliographies/Science task force

Soliciting Support for Draft WikiProject Bibliographies
Fellow Wikipedians, I have taken the initiative, in consultation with a few others, to draft a WikiProject for Bibliographies. I hope it will be of interest to members of this project. The genesis of this effort has been a recent spate of AfD nominations of lists of publications. For the most part, the articles were not deleted, but that doesn’t mean many of them didn’t need work. A WP article entitled List of subject publications or any list of works, is by any other name, a Bibliography. Bibliographies within WP are specifically identified as a form of List in WP:List, are subject to List notability guidelines and the List Manual of Style. Unfortunately, many of the existing Bibliographies (or lists of publications) are not up to these standards. And there’s a high probability that new lists of publications or new Bibliographies won’t completely meet these standards as well, unless we as a community bring greater visibility to this genre of lists.

So the explicit goals of this draft project are to establish project-level advice for creating good bibliographies, gradually bring the existing set of bibliographies (400+) up to standard and to encourage editors to create bibliographies on topics and authors where appropriate. The goal is not to create bibliographies of everything or on everything.

I think the draft Bibliography project is logically connected to this project and members here would have a lot to contribute. If you are interested in participating, please sign up on the draft project page. If we get sufficient interest, I will move the draft into the Wikipedia space and we can press on. Also, please don’t hesitate to make suggestions on the draft here. I am sure it can be improved, will need some work to comply with Project guidelines and that it will evolve as this thing gets going. Thanks in advance for your support.--Mike Cline (talk) 15:58, 30 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I have made Bibliography of biology (formerly List of important publications in biology) the first test case for the policies in WikiProject for Bibliographies. Help out if you can! RockMagnetist (talk) 17:58, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Bibliographies is now in article space. I have modified WikiProject Bibliographies to include Science pearls as a taskforce. You can see the result on talk:Bibliography of biology. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Task force?
Note that part of Mike's vision is that Science pearls become a Task force called the Science bibliographies task force. I heartily endorse this idea. Science pearls has too small a scope to thrive as a wikiproject. I think we should also rename our lists to bibliographies and follow his style guidelines (which are really well thought out) in the articles. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. This makes sense. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:27, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * We are now effectively a task force, and I have mothballed the Science pearls project banner. For now, there doesn't seem to be any need to change the name. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:50, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Bibliography of biology
I have been making Bibliography of biology into a test case for the guidelines in the draft of WikiProject Bibliographies. The bibliography is now organized and formatted according to those guidelines. I have also added all the relevant publications I could find that have pages on Wikipedia. The next part is harder. There are several general references for the list as a whole and some of the sections, but I have only limited access to their contents so they have very few citations. Also, most of the annotations still do not have citations. I would appreciate some help with that. RockMagnetist (talk) 22:46, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

We now have a featured list
If you look at the assessment table, you will see that we now have several more articles, including a featured list! That's List of scientific publications by Albert Einstein. I added all the bibliographies of scientists to our task force. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:52, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposed inclusion criteria
The Manual of Style for stand-alone lists states that "Selection criteria should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. " For bibliographies, I don't think we're quite there yet. If the subject is very restricted and well defined (for example, publications by a particular author), then there is no problem. However, where the bibliography covers broader territory, the discrimination has to be finer.

Publications covered by this WikiProject may fall into one of at least four types: Many editors of the broad-subject lists do not consider textbooks suitable and do not consider popular books at all. However, other editors keep adding textbooks, implying that there is interest in a list of such books. (Also, see below about notability).
 * Bibliography of X, where X is a broad subject like Physics.
 * Bibliography of textbooks on X
 * Bibliography of popular X books
 *  bibliography

Selection criteria for stand-alone lists mentions three common criteria for lists, one of which is "Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia." This criterion seems appropriate for the broad lists. However, some of the notability criteria for publications are rarely (if ever) mentioned in discussions of these lists. Here are three levels of notability:
 * 1) General notability guideline: If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list.
 * 2) General notability criteria for books: there are five different criteria that would qualify.
 * 3) Notability criteria for academic and technical books: most general standards don't apply; instead, consider whether the book is published by an academic press, how widely it is cited by other academic publications or in the media, how influential it is considered to be in its specialty area or adjunct disciplines, and how widely it is taught or required reading in reputable educational institutions.

Note that many textbooks would satisfy the notability criteria for academic books. Good popular science books could satisfy the first of the general notability criteria for books: "The book has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are independent of the book itself. This includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries and reviews. Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary." Note also that both categories already are represented by Wikipedia articles, implying that they are notable (or at least their notability hasn't been challenged yet).

I suggest that we use a hierarchy of notability criteria, depending on the breadth of the subject:
 * Bibliography of X, where X is a broad subject like Physics – Apply notability level 1 (in the list above).
 * Bibliography of textbooks on X – Apply criterion 3.
 * Bibliography of popular X books – Apply criterion 2.
 *  bibliography – Apply the criterion "Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group" from Selection criteria for stand-alone lists.RockMagnetist (talk) 23:52, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I like this approach I think. You're right about the three way division, and to me it's important - from a scientific perspective if nothing else - to keep firewalls between original research (i.e., very high impact and "important"), textbooks, and pop science works. (Though clearly all three are equally worth of attention.) I'm tempted to raise "reference work" as a separate criterion, though this could easily be folded into "original research", and I would say it would sit there better than in with the textbooks: to me a textbook is didactic, whereas a reference work presents data for scientific use. That's probably a semantic issue though, and not really important!
 * The only thing I might query is the terminology "Bibliography of X". I think this a. doesn't really sell the value of the article, when actually the content will have been sifted for high impact and very broad notability under notability level 1, and more practically b. will be a very tempting dustbin for entries which would be more appropriate under the "textbook" or "popular" categories. I think I favour the retention of "Bibliography of important/influential/groundbreaking publications in X" for this category, to try to emphasise this. Though I guess to some extent the really key thing will be making the standardized blurb that sits under the title at the top of the article really, really clear - and crossreferenced to the other bibliography types- so that this is less of an issue.
 * Basically, I fully back the standardised division idea though. Rest is fine detail. DanHobley (talk) 03:56, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Dan here, I would prefer 'influential'; to prevent the addition of works where person A of some ethnicity/nationality B allegedly discovered some important topic C before D. The main thing, though, is that the most restrictive bibliography should have the most restrictive qualifiers in the title.
 * Another thing to think about is how to sell this idea to the relevant projects. There will be some projects who fight tooth and nail to keep their own format and names. And maybe the name isn't what is important. Some projects may very well want to keep two or more of these categories in one article. One idea is to create a template such as that will include the standard criteria either on the main page or on the talk page for whatever categories they want to include in their list. TStein (talk) 04:45, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Everyone has their favorite superlative. Perhaps it would be better to put the name aside for now and focus on the content and associated criteria. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:01, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

An exercise
Here is a list of textbooks: All the entries are textbooks and have their own WP articles, so at least one person thinks they are notable. Which notability criterion applies to each? Which would belong in List of important publications in physics and which in a list of textbooks only? RockMagnetist (talk) 19:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Berkeley Physics Course
 * 2) Classical Mechanics by Goldstein
 * 3) Course of Theoretical Physics by Landau and Lifshitz
 * 4) The Feynman Lectures on Physics
 * 5) Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick
 * 6) Gravitation (book) by Misner, Thorne, Wheeler
 * 7) Stochastic Resonance (book) by Bezrukub and Kosko
 * 8) Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics by Sussman and Wisdom
 * Surely the whole point is that a defensible "important publications" list wouldn't be drawn up this way... we would need a third party reference (or several!) saying the books are influential (as we discussed on the geology article deletion page). I'm not a physics specialist by any means, so wouldn't even know where to start looking for such a 3rd party list. However, of these, I am familiar with the Feynman, and not with any of the others. To me, that's a pretty good sign the Feynman is probably more important than the others are, and would definitely make such a list. That's not to say others wouldn't, but were I to be looking over a hypothetical page listing all these, I would want to see the sources justifying their influence. Clearly they are all suitable for a textbook list though - except maybe those where the notability requirements of the actual articles themselves are dubious (e.g., Stochastic resonance is already flagged as possibly not notable). — Preceding unsigned comment added by DanHobley (talk • contribs) 21:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Part of the point of this list is that each entry links to an article which is supposed to justify the notability. Is it possible to tell from the justification which class each book falls into? RockMagnetist (talk) 22:04, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think in part. I could immediately tell from the articles that they were all appropriate for a textbook list, but couldn't necessarily tell they might or might not also be appropriate for list type 1. Though to be fair, for the Feynman you get some pretty heavy hints (e.g., referenced comment ("The Feynman Lectures are considered to be one of the best and most sophisticated college level introductions to physics."), possibly also for the Landau and Lifshitz. This list type I think should be drawn from third party summary references, as strictly per WP:LISTN - this information might not be in the source references, but it easily could be put there. DanHobley (talk) 03:34, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * ...In fact, I think a great advantage of getting these lists sorted out is they will force us to go back and improve the source references themselves. This is a pretty worthwhile aim in its own right. DanHobley (talk) 03:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Absolutely! I find that, when I am working on one of these lists, I discover a lot of articles that are in very poor shape. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:01, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

A further puzzle
The issue I am having the hardest time resolving is how to establish standards that are compatible with growth of a list. A regular article grows until a split is needed, and the articles so created may later be split, and so on. An example is Biology -> Evolution -> Mutation. After each split, the subtopics are summarized in the parent article. What is "summary style" for a list? RockMagnetist (talk) 16:44, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * If say Bibliography of biology splits off Bibliography of ecology, it gets listed under "See also". -- Bduke   (Discussion)  21:35, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, but in addition to what? A section that has nothing but "See also" is pretty bare. Some selection of particularly notable publications would be needed. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That is not what I meant. I meant have no section for "Ecology" and a link to Bibliography of ecology at the bottom of the article under the "See also" heading. Alternatively, what is wrong with the way it is done in List of important publications in computer science, which already has three sub-lists? -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:27, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * In a regular article, the appropriate role of a "See also" section is characterized by the statement: "A reasonable number of relevant links that would be in the body of a hypothetical perfect article are suitable to add to the "See also" appendix of a less developed one."

- WP:ALSO
 * So I'd prefer the links to be in the appropriate sections. However, I think List of important publications in computer science looks unbalanced because some important sections have little more than a Main template in them. Not that I have a better solution yet! RockMagnetist (talk) 22:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Rock, take a look at the Bibliography of fly fishing. At one time it was single list, but eventually evolved into three--each named to indicate its particular subset. Its one approach, but not the only one. Another good example of a summary list is List of people from Montana. Its not a bibliography, but If people were books, a summary syle bibliography might look like that. -Mike Cline (talk) 23:23, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Gorgeous lists - shows what can be accomplished in a mere 500-600 edits! So what is the criterion for choosing entries in the Politicians section? RockMagnetist (talk) 01:09, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I prefer using the template. The criteria I would use is "does it reasonably appear in a beginner to intermediate textbook in that subject". Using the example above if an ecology reference is important enough to mention in an intro level Biology textbook then it belongs both in the bibliography of biology and a bibliography of ecology, once it is formed. This means that you will have partial content forks if a bibliography of ecology is formed. But, I would argue that this is a good content fork, since there are direct links between the two and that they serve different functions (one for important works in biology the other in ecology). A smart editor would take the best of both to improve both. TStein (talk) 17:13, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
 * What does "reasonably appear" mean? If it is actually mentioned in a textbook, that can be cited. Most textbooks have pretty skimpy (and unreliable) coverage of history, so mention in a history of the subject might be better. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:29, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I am not the best at objective criterion, since I am an ignore all rules wp:iar kind of guy. You are right that is not the best objective criterion, but it is in fact what I think most people actually do when deciding. I ask myself 'how influential was this work to the forming the results that are seen in an introductory textbook in that subject.' This is subjective of course. We can come up with a set of objective rules if you like. But in the end, the best objective criteria will be the one that comes closest to that subjective statement; yet, will never be as good due to inflexibility. TStein (talk) 22:12, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Is it time to finish the transition to a task force?
See the discussion at the Bibliographies talk page. RockMagnetist (talk) 01:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

RFCs on citations templates and the flagging free-to-read sources
See
 * Village pump (proposals)
 * Village pump (proposals)

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:58, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

(Most) Important as a superlative (or ranking) category
I would like a new Category:Most important added under Category:Superlatives (or possible under Category:Rankings) that could list these most important scientific publications (or lists, subcategories, etc.). Note that it would not be just for science. For example Category:Important Bird Areas would also be so categorized. Dpleibovitz (talk) 20:09, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:List of publications intro
Template:List of publications intro has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page.

Please note that I am not the nominator but instead was the original creator of the template. As such, I was notified on my talk page by the nominator, User:Pppery. I am copying the notice to here since this falls within the purview of this WikiProject. - dcljr (talk) 01:37, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for Comment Robert Lanza
There is a Request for Comment about Robert Lanza that may be of interest to members of the WikiProject: Bibliographies/Science task force. Talk:Robert Lanza. I would encourage members of this project to consider participating to add diversity to the discussion. Sapphire41359 (talk) 17:28, 17 June 2021 (UTC)