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 no consensus. This discussion is a clear indicator that the community needs to have a full discussion (the RFC process comes to mind) on whether WP:NJOURNALS should be treated as more than an essay, or turned into de facto policy. I can assure you however, that such a consensus will not be attainable here. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 22:37, 23 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing

Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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Fails WP:NJournals and, surprisingly, the Wikipedians commenting the last time claimed otherwise even though it clearly does not. The three criteria are:

• Criterion 1: The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area.
  • This is not true. The journal is panned by those who have evaluated it.
• Criterion 2: The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources.
  • This is not true. The journal is basically never cited.
• Criterion 3: The journal is historically important in its subject area.
  • This is not true. The journal is of zero historical significance.

It is also clearly serving as a coatracking promotion of the fringe theories. jps ( talk) 16:14, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 16:14, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Comment (Note that I created this article.) How is the article acting as a WP:COATRACK? There is very little promotion, or even discussion at all, of any alternative medicine/paranormal/other pseudoscientific topics in this article. Also, jps would do well to look more closely at the NJOURNALS criteria, specifically the part that says: "For the purpose of C1 [criterion 1], having an impact factor assigned by Journal Citation Reports always qualifies." This journal does have such an impact factor: 1.012. [1] Everymorning (talk) 16:21, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply
  • It is a coatrack because it is trying to pretend that there is academic legitimacy to this pseudoscience. Elsevier is an umbrella group that gives full editorial control to its editors and only cares about subscriptions not content. Thus, using Elsevier as a shield to claim, "Look, we have legitimacy" is what is going on here. It's fringe alt med and paranomral enthusiasts pushing their ideas into Wikipedia. Very bad. jps ( talk) 16:24, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I think the OP means that the journal is a coatrack, not that the Wikipedia article is. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 16:30, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia's coverage of this obscure, non-notable journal is a coatrack for the idea that the ideas contained in this journal are mainstream. jps ( talk) 16:36, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I see what you mean. However the article creator seems a reasonable character who in fact merely bought into the argument that if it's in the medical databases then it must be allowed here. But it is clear that GNG trumps that anyway. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 16:42, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete doesn't appear to meet WP:JOURNALCRIT or be otherwise notable. Fringe coatrackery compounds the problem. Alexbrn ( talk) 16:26, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Just to clarify in the light of the following discussion, this is not true. The journal meets WP:JOURNALCRIT #1. St Anselm ( talk) 18:46, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Rubbish. Where is the evidence? Alexbrn ( talk) 18:50, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Perhaps if you had bothered to look for this evidence, you would have seen it in this very same discussion. Let me repeat: "For the purpose of C1, having an impact factor assigned by Journal Citation Reports always qualifies." Everymorning (talk) 18:57, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Maybe this will help:

Major premise: "For the purpose of C1, having an impact factor assigned by Journal Citation Reports always qualifies." ( WP:JOURNALCRIT)

Minor premise: "According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 1.012." (referenced in the article)

Conclusion: The journal qualifies under C1 of WP:JOURNALCRIT.

You're welcome. St Anselm ( talk) 18:59, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Except that's on old version of WP:JOURNALCRIT, and is not "C1". We need evidence of notability as defined by policy, not by circular argument in a weak essay. Alexbrn ( talk) 20:47, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: Per consensus at WT:NJOURNALS, that #1 criterion of having a JCR impact factor is no longer "always" and this argument is no longer valid. The "always" came from WP:PROF and was originally meant for Nobel laureates, nobody spotted the vast disparity between having a Nobel Prize and being one of the ten thousand journals that have an impact factor, however low. That has now been fixed, and there is agreement from Keep !voters here that thisd was appropriate. Guy ( Help!) 12:06, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Speedy keep. This was kept at AFD just 1 month ago and nothing has changed. A trout for the nom. -- Randykitty ( talk) 16:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply
  • Speedy TROUT for you because the AfD 1 month ago included very poor arguments in favor of keeping this non-notable piece of trash. jps ( talk) 16:36, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete Clearly not notable per the OP. I found a few citations in other sources, but one could not by any stretch call them reliable. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 16:40, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Comment Would the delete !voters please care to explain why this journal having an impact factor assigned by JCR, which WP:JOURNALCRIT explicitly says satisfies the first criterion of the notability guideline for journals, somehow does not confer notability in this case? Everymorning (talk) 16:44, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  I believe that "high significant impact factor" gives a better description of the criterion's intent and I do not see that reflected in JCR's pathetically low rating. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 16:53, 10 December 2016 (UTC) [updated 18:30, 10 December 2016 (UTC)]] reply

  An impact factor does not show the journal is "considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area". Alexbrn ( talk) 16:55, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  • Because that is not enough to satisfy the first criterion. It simply isn't. Having a low impact factor absolutely does not confer notability on a journal. Actually, having a high impact factor doesn't necessarily do so either (and, anyway, knowing where to draw the line between low and high is arbitrary). jps ( talk) 17:00, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply
    • You are making up straw-man versions of C1 and then boasting that the journal doesn't meet these fake versions of the criteria. Before jps recently decided to change the criteria so they would suit his personal vendetta against this journal, the criteria stated that having a JCR IF, high or not, qualifies as a pass of C1. [2] Everymorning (talk) 17:08, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• I completely agree with Everymorning. Taking this to AfD one month after it was closed a unanimous "keep", while simultaneously modifying NJournals to suit the arguments made here is more than a little bit disruptive. -- Randykitty ( talk) 18:07, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• My goal is to keep Wikipedia clear of bullshit like this. There seems to have been pushes trying to skew Wikipedia towards accepting pseudoscientific claptrap as legitimate research. I am unapologetic about pushing these problems out of here. jps ( talk) 18:24, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Regarding this article - I think something is fishy about this having an impact factor and it should not have one. I have edited on this project for a long time (off and on) and this is the first time I have seen a psuedo-scientific hocus pocus mumbo jumbo journal such as this have an impact factor. As I said, something is fishy about this, but I don't know what it is.(Redacted) -- Steve Quinn ( talk) 05:02, 22 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep per the AfD on this article one month ago. Per WP:DPAFD "users should allow a reasonable amount of time to pass before nominating the same page for deletion again". No specific amount of time is stated, but I'm pretty sure one month is not reasonable. Unless new information has since come to light that should have changed the previous discussion, let's avoid relitigating previous consensus so soon. Ajpolino ( talk) 19:06, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply
  • New information has come to light. The people who argued for keep did so for very problematic reasons. Such as the existence of an impact factor or the fact that the journal was indexed. Did you read the discussion above? jps ( talk) 19:48, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• That's not new information but was clearly stated in the previous AfD. That you don't like that is irrelevant. -- Randykitty ( talk) 23:07, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Comment can those bashing us over the head with WP:NJOURNALS and its section WP:JOURNALCRIT please note that it is an opinion essay - not even a guideline, never mind actual policy. It is worthless in the face of WP:GNG. And here, the existence of a few database entries and an impact factor does not provide RS for a significant level of citation and/or wider discussion. Given the lack of wider discussion and the pathetic level of citation, affirmed by the equally pathetic impact factor, no way can these toys establish notability of this journal. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 19:48, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply
  • This is just indicative of the larger problem here at Wikipedia where someone writes an essay, the teeming minions treat it as gospel, then they establish some "consensus" which is totally at odds with the way the world actually works. They then proceed to complain about "process" and "consensus" and "too soon" issues. C'mon, people. We're here to curate an encyclopedia, not to invent a WP:BURO. I hope the realpolitickers (i.e., sycophants) commenting here to the tune of "keep -- consensus" know that I am watching and will be interested in opposing their attempts to climb the power ladder at this website. jps ( talk) 19:56, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• What the heck is that supposed to mean? Don't vote "keep" or I'm coming after you??? -- Randykitty ( talk) 23:07, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 20:58, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Comment It is true that WP:NJOURNALS is not a guideline or policy, but rather an essay. However, just because you personally don't like a journal because you think it or its contents is "bullshit", as jps stated above, certainly is not a policy- or guideline-based reason for deleting a page either. This remains true whether or not you can get a whole bunch of your sycophants supporters to post delete votes in the same discussion, because Wikipedia is not a democracy, where the most votes determines the outcome of a discussion. Insulting a journal with your own unsupported claims that it consists of pseudoscience, bullshit, etc. is the least policy-based reason to delete a page. Everymorning (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  Ad hominem attack is also the least policy-based reason to keep a page that your victim thinks should go. Worse, it actively flouts policy, in the form of assuming good faith. Please strike out the word "sycophants" in your post and on the part of those who disagree with you. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 10:35, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  I have done so and replaced it with "supporters"; I hope this is an improvement. My apologies. Everymorning (talk) 14:18, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  Thank you. Much appreciated. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 14:25, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Redirect to List of Elsevier periodicals (with a mention there in the list). Since WP:NJOURNAL is but an essay, the next best notability rules come from WP:GNG. I cannot find anything but passing mentions (as in "According to a study published in Explore, bla bla bla...") in my GNews and GBooks searches. Ergo, not notable enough for a stand-alone article, but does exist, so it can be mentioned in a higher-level article. -- HyperGaruda ( talk) 22:11, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Try clicking the link to GScholar above. -- Randykitty ( talk) 23:07, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I clicked on it and again found nothing but passing mentions in reference lists. No significant coverage to support more information than a one-lined permastub. -- HyperGaruda ( talk) 06:28, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep The journal has an impact factor and is indexed in Scopus, thus meets notability criteria of WP:NJOURNALS, our de facto guideline at AfD. In short, nothing has changed since the last nomination. -- Mark viking ( talk) 22:37, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  No, as has already been pointed out, WP:NJOURNALS is not a guideline, it is an essay and as such stands only as an opinion piece which we are free to disagree with. This, along with the very low impact rating, are both new information to the discussion and therefore this AfD is not merely a repeat of the same old same old. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 10:42, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Yep, and WP:GNG is only a guideline and not policy. We can go on like this all day long. People refer to essays all the time, it's a kind of shorthand so that they don't have to repeat the same arguments over and over again (especially to people that have decided they don't want to hear them whatever be the case). -- Randykitty ( talk) 11:04, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• No, as has been pointed out many times at other journal AfDs, WP:NJOURNALS has been used as a de facto guideline for at least the four years I have been an editor. While WP policy has ossified to the point that it is difficult to get people to agree to creating new guidelines, in this case, precedent has been established. -- Mark viking ( talk) 12:50, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep per Mark viking. St Anselm ( talk) 23:41, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete. There are no reliable sources to confer notability. The impact factor is indeed low. Include in a list of Elsevier publications by all means, but I see nothing to indicate that a useful article can emerge from the present dismal stub. Mcewan ( talk) 00:40, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete, as appears to fail Wikipedia:Notability due to not having much discussion from other independent sources of any depth. Sagecandor ( talk) 11:35, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Comment. I don't think merely having an impact factor indexed by SCOPUS meets the "is frequently cited" of criterion 2 at the essay WP:NJOURNALS. Anyway, it seems likely that the correct guideline is not one about academic journals, but one about peddling in pseudoscience, WP:NFRINGE, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". There is at least one independent secondary source that mentions this journal in passing referred to in the article as known for publishing pseudoscience. (It gives the example of a study of whether it is possible to embed "intent" into chocolate.) It discusses this journal along with two others, and concludes that "these three journals are shams masquerading as real scientific journals" (emphasis mine). This strongly urges us to apply NFRINGE in our assessment of the journal, and if there are more such secondary sources, I think this article could be kept under that guideline. Otherwise, I do not think it meets that guideline, and therefore should be deleted. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 13:30, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  BTW, the "secondary source" Slawomir is referring to is this blog post on Science-Based Medicine. Everymorning (talk) 14:38, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  Thank you, I had not realized that it was a blog post. Better sources are required, even under WP:FRINGE. So, I'm going to go with delete, for lack of independent sources, unless that changes. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 16:48, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  Just to add to my last, since some editors here have raised the point that the NJOURNALS essay has created a de facto standard, I would like to rebut this. Although the essay has provided useful guidelines in assessing journals for their mainstream scholarly impact, it is singularly unsuited to dealing with journals on the fringes, which do require independent secondary sources in order to satisfy WP:NPOV policy, and (secondarily) our usual notability guidelines (which are actual, as opposed to imagined, guidelines). This essentially echoes Guy's comment below, which I think is the strongest policy-based argument in this discussion. Edges cases like this are one of the specific reasons that the essay [[W[:NJOURNALS]] failed to become a guideline in the first place. See the discussion. In any event, since I think this discussion would benefit from the insight of a library professional, I am pinging @ DGG:. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 22:36, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  Adding further, following Jytdog's comment below: "If there were strong sources discussing how garbagey it is, I would probably be !voting keep, but it is not even notable enough to have mainstream people discuss how bad it is." This is exactly the point. Notability is about whether a topic has been noted in reliable sources. Impact factor is just a rule of thumb used by WP:JOURNALS as a proxy for notability. In this case, however, notability fails rather directly because of a lack of sources. This also feeds into the issue of whether it is possible to write a neutral article based on existing sources (a blog post that says the journal is a sham masquerading as a real scientific journal. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 13:24, 15 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Comment In the present case, there's actually no need for NJournals, because I think this article arguably passes GNG. It is analyzed in-depth in reliable secondary sources (Journal Citation Reports and CiteScore) and there are in addition two references (one to a blog by a recognized expert in the field, one to Skeptical Inquirer), making for a total of at least 4 sources. Perhaps it fails WP:FRINGE (by now this debate is so long that I don't knwo whether that's above this comment or below...) but that is irrelevant because GNG trumps any SNG. -- Randykitty ( talk) 16:01, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• See my comment below that I do not think journal citation reports are appropriate as secondary sources, any more than library catalogs are sources establishing notability. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 18:43, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• I think EdChem's recent edit has tipped the balance towards weak keep for me. It's still a bit weak and coattracky, because the criticism seems focused on specific studies published in the journal rather than the journal as a whole. But this seems to be a weakness in the sources rather than something specific to our treatment of the subject, and I think it is now possible to write an article consistent with NPOV, provided that these details are included in the article. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 16:04, 18 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep, the journal has an impact factor, and is indexed in several selective databases, making it a clear pass of WP:NJOURNALS. Update And with sources such as " Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing is a journal known for its publication of truly ridiculous studies." /" It’s also published in the second woo-iest of the journals, Explore." / " (Elsevier) also publishes ... the quack journal Explore, which, as I described before, publishes Dean Radin’s pseudoscientific articles on “distant healing” and food imbued with “intent.”" it is also a clear pass of WP:GNG. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:10, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

You have just added references to 2 sources with passing mentions to your !vote, one cited twice as though it were two; one of them is a blog. Your representation of the sources and interpretation of GNG is about as solid as the science published by this journal. You also changed your !vote, which had already been responded to, without redacting. Also questionable. Jytdog ( talk) 18:30, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

First, NJOURNALS is an essay. Second, if simply having an impact factor is a "clear pass" then it is rather obviously the result of a group of editors who want as many articles on journals as possible, agreeing among themselves with absolutely no outside input or reality check at all. I've found impact factors as low as 0.15, which means probably well over 90% of everything published in the journal is never cited at all. 0.33 or less is common, which means that on average only one in three papers gets cited (and probably much less as it only takes a handful that are cited multiple times). Having an impact fator is a great criterion for a directory, but we are not a directory. Guy ( Help!) 20:10, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Actually, that's not what these IFs mean. 0.33 means that on average, one third of all articles have received a single citation in the first two years after the article was published. Not: "ever". In fields like mathematics, citations generally come much later than the first two years. In fields like systematic botany, they sometimes start coming in after decades and works that are a century or more old can still be cited with a certain regularity today. -- Randykitty ( talk) 20:27, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

And we most certainly do not want to have articles on "as many journals as possible". Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:08, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete, because there are insufficient reliable independent sources to write a verifiably WP:NPOV article. This is important because Explore, probably more than any other journal published by a mainstream company, is a platform for abject nonsense. A journal that can publish a paper on the medicinal efficacy of chocolate imbued with "intent" has completely lost any connection to the scientific method, and indeed the editor has described the teaching of science as tantamount to child abuse. He repudiates the scientific method., Thus, we can't have an article based solely on the self-description provided by the publisher, we absolutely must have solid reliable and above all independent sources. Most of the reality-based world imply ignores this journal. You won't find editorials in the NEJM saying that despite the latest paper in Explore, distant healing is still bullshit. Psychologists have come to the conclusion that Emotional Freedom Techniques is nonsense, the fact that advocates publish favourable papers in Explore won't change that and they won't comment on the journal that publishes those favourable results because it's ignorable. I have only found one source to date that comes anywhere close to WP:RS that actually talks about this journal, rather than one of its editors. Guy ( Help!) 18:59, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Most (but to be fair, not all) of your comment is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The fact that the journal publishes abject nonsense has absolutely nothing to do with whether it deserves an article. St Anselm ( talk) 19:06, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Comment: I !voted "Keep" at the first AfD with the edit summary reluctant keep - it may be a junk journal, but with an IF the criteria are met because there are established standards that have been applied relating to journals. They may need changing, but trying to change them during an AfD is unwise, not least because any local consensus formed will not stand up against a broader, pre-existing consensus. As I explained to JzG, Changing that practice is a different discussion, but I anticipate the standard approach will be applied [in that AfD]. I'm not saying the practice is a good one, nor that the journal is worth the electrons inconvenienced to display its website, I'm just saying that it is standard and applied dispassionately that means keep is the appropriate outcome. I strongly object to this post from jps which has a clear implication of intimidation and implies that those who disagree with him (the "teeming minions") are servile / unimportant underlings [3] [4] [5] of (presumably) Randykitty. Well, I've disagreed with Randykitty at times, and certainly would not automatically agree with anything s/he might say. I opposed deletion the first time this journal was nominated as the process being used is inappropriate to changing consensus, and the attempt to delete the WP:NJournals essay is an even more objectionable way to try to "win" an argument by avoiding having a rational discussion. As I noted in that MfD, we need a discussion of the essay and its content at its talk page. However, despite all the above, I am not yet !voting on this AfD because I think that a reasonable first step might be to change the rigid rule that IF = notable to (say) that having an IF gives a rebuttable presumption of notability, because setting an IF cut-off is nearly impossible due to differences in publishing practices in different academic disciplines – I know journals with an IF of 1 which are highly respected in their field. So, for me the question becomes whether there are grounds to rebut a presumption of notability in the case of the Explore journal based on it being a purveyor of FRINGE nonsense and PSEUDOSCIENCE. I would find an AfD premised on evidence (rather than assertion / opinion) in those areas much more persuasive – though even then, a list of such journals might be a useful resource for our readers, but not an article which gives the impression of it as a legitimate academic publication. EdChem ( talk) 23:43, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Keep. It meets the usual standards. It's included in JCR and that is the basis for notability of journals, because it's what the entire academic world accepts.We do regard it as a clear pass, just as we regard evidence of someone playing in the 1908 Olympics a clear pass, even if nothing else is known about them, and even if they came in last. WP:N is a guideline, and says right out it does not always apply.

The reason for deleting "because it contains nonsense" is a total and unambiguous repudiation of our basic principle of NPOV. We contain articles on nonsense using the same standard that we do for anything else. We make clear what it does contain, of course, like we do for anything else. There are various methods of doing so, appropriate for this or any controversial publication--for example, indicating who edits and contributes to it, and where it is cited. The very fact that this was raised as an argument would greatly influence my view about whether we should keep it. I'm a scientist by training and profession, and I have a very strong personal bias for the Scientific Point of View. Therefore I try especially hard to keep articles on the things which have an unambiguously anti-scientific point of view. Just the same as I try to keep articles on political views I think are utterly wrong and even dangerous. WP is not an instrument of propaganda. Even for the things which I think merit persuasion and advocacy, it belongs off wiki. DGG ( talk ) 00:34, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

No, that's not a rationale for deleting. The rationale for deleting is that it is well known to publish nonsense, but we cannot source that properly because the sources accepted as proof of notability are not independent (so don't mention the fact) and the sources which do mention the fact tend to be informal, of the kind we might accept when discussing a pseudoscientific topic but not generally accepted for journals. A cleft stick.

And why do we accept participation in the Olympics as automatic notability? How can we verify that the article is neutral if literally all we have is a scorecard? This is a bit personal for me since one of my boyhood heroes was my swimming teacher, an irascible Scouser called Bill Thornton, who was a multiple medallist (Gold, Silver and Bronze) in several swimming events and also basketball between 1960 and 1968, and I cannot source an article on him because this was paralympics. Guy ( Help!) 00:55, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I think you may have misunderstood me. Of course we cannot say this directly. It is nonetheless possible to indicate the content of a journal in many ways. The one I like best is to list the 5 most cited articles. This usually provides enough information for people to draw their own conclusions. This is applicable generally to pseudoscience --we do not have to say that something is bogus, we give the factual information from which a sensible reader will realize it by themselves. DGG ( talk ) 00:59, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Ha! Nice. Sadly the most ridiculous ones are never cited. The ones advocating water memory, distant healing, "intent" and the panoply of mind-body woo that the editors love, are simply ignored. Guy ( Help!) 01:04, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Just for the record, the most highly cited paper in the journal seems to be this, which has 190 cites on Google Scholar. Everymorning (talk) 01:12, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

And its lead author, Eric Garland, is definitely not a crank judging from his publication list. According to Google Scholar, this review has been cited 373 times, from a journal with IF = 5.88. Co-author on this 2011 paper in a journal with an IF = 10.38 (2015), and 189 GScholar cites. 185 cites, IF = 3.69 (2014), 174 cites, IF = 1.18 (2012), Scopus says h-index = 21. EdChem ( talk) 03:26, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep It publishes claptrap and nonsense, but is nonetheless notable for doing so. It has a healthy impact factor and (checks) 401 citations since 2006 in Web of Science. Seriously, there are many perfectly good scientific journals that have a lower impact factor than that. It has many more citations on the more promiscuous Google Scholar. Famous _dog (c) 11:50, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

"nonetheless notable for doing so": is it notable for publishing nonsense? The only secondary source is a rather weak one. If more such sources exist, this argument might carry more weight. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 12:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Weak delete. Clearly this passes WP:NJOURNALS, but of course that is an essay rather than a guideline. My general feeling is that NJOURNALS is an attempt to find an objective way to distinguish reputable from disreputable journals, and that it mostly succeeds in that purpose, but that in the case of this particular journal it has failed to do so. So, although I would usually follow NJOURNALS (as a convenient shortcut for straightforward cases), in this case I think we should fall back to our actual guidelines, which for this case are WP:GNG and WP:FRINGE (as alternative medicine is mostly a fringe topic). On the side of GNG we have that it is listed by various reliably published indexes, and that those indices' coverage of it is arguably in-depth. The Journal Citation Reports page for it, for instance, includes data for a dozen different summary statistics for the journal, broken down for each year over a roughly ten-year period, as well as its overall ranking and impact factor. So I think it is a pass, just as I think that the "included in multiple indexes" clause of NJOURNALS is a shorthand for the fact that the coverage in these indices will always provide a pass of GNG. On the side of FRINGE we need mainstream sources that assess the content of this journal from the mainstream science point of view, so that we can provide an appropriately neutral description of the subject. Here we fall down. We have only a single source with a single line, the source of the "truly ridiculous studies" quote, but no detail on what makes these studies ridiculous. Without more depth to this quote, it just comes off as an unbased attack, but without this quote we inappropriately legitimize this journal. Rather than fall into this dilemma I think it would be best avoided by not trying to have an article on the journal. But, as in most past instances where I have argued for deleting problematic but GNG-passing subjects, I expect the discussion here to go against me.— David Eppstein ( talk) 21:33, 12 December 2016 (UTC) reply

My view has always been that WP should go out of its way to find reasons for covering fringe topics, rather than reasons for not covering them. We are especially well equipped to provide neutral presentations of them, and have learned how to prevent their advocates from taking over the articles (tho it's been a hard-fought battle at times), All we need do is give the titles of articles. NBTW, many of the most cited articles are the ones that come nearest to mainstream, at least if omindfullness is considered mainstream. The most cited ones, though, are the reports of Robert G. Jahn's well-known and much hyped experiments. [6] Our job is not to legitimize anything, but to provide information, whether what we are providing information about is sensible or absurd. But an objective article on the jpournal Jahn publishjed them in will indicate the real situation. DGG ( talk ) 02:07, 15 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• delete I have been watching all this. Here is my take. yes the journal has an impact factor, but it is pretty low and probably a lot of the "impact" is people saying that article X is ridiculous. This is a journal that publishes bad stuff, and to address DGG's remarks above, the way we are dealing with that now is by citing (with some attribution) the usual skeptics (Gorski and somebody from the Skepitcal Enquirer) who do their blasting away. This is not really great. The best thing to do would be to say nothing about this journal. If there were strong sources discussing how garbagey it is, I would probably be !voting keep, but it is not even notable enough to have mainstream people discuss how bad it is. This is an instance where people trying to apply the "Impact factor rule" should take a breath and remember how unusual it is that WP:Journals even has a "rule" like this - rules are not something WP does much. And instances like this, are a reason why. Jytdog ( talk) 05:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Comment As it stands there seems to be nothing in the article, at all. It certainly does not seem worth keeping, but people are saying material was removed, I shall have to have a deeper look, but right now I am leaning towards delete (some RS establishing notability might help). Slatersteven ( talk) 19:30, 15 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Well I have tried to find this fantastic article we used to have, and am not seeing much mroe then we have (beyond a bit more about how rubbish the magazine is (really is that what it is notable for being a bit crap?). Slatersteven ( talk) 21:52, 15 December 2016 (UTC) reply

really briefly, there are many WikiProjects in WP, and many of them have developed notability criteria for their subject matter. The Journals WikiProject has an essay with notability criteria for journals ( WP:NJOURNALS that they have used for like 7 years now (a long time!) and has apparently served them well. if you read votes above, you will find that this essay contains a "rule" that says if a journal has been given an impact factor then it is "automatically" notable. They are frustrated that even though this article is clearly notable to them, other people are trying fiercely to delete it. People who don't regularly edit journals or deal with that essay and its criteria but who regularly deal with FRINGE-y content in WP have tried to delete this article because the journal is so flaky, and some of them have gotten really angry and behaved badly in face of the "rule" being deployed, and others are just being very determined to get this article deleted. So there is a big ruckus right now as the people in the journals Wikiproject and the Skeptics (all of whom are generally great Wikipedians) struggle over this culture clash. It is a hard issue. Jytdog ( talk) 23:42, 15 December 2016 (UTC) reply

As I read it C2 is the only one that might apply. The problem is that "impact factor" is not what is said, "The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources." is what is said, and impact factor alone does not establish that. In fact reading the impact factor article makes it clear that it is not a good way to determine how often an given publication is cited in RS (and in fact the system can be gamed, oddly the example given an similar impact factor similar to the one so prominently mentioned in this article). Slatersteven ( talk) 23:57, 15 December 2016 (UTC) reply

This ruckus has started a discussion of the essay and will probably lead to ~some~ changes to it and to how it is used (which is just as important). In the meantime, as a community we need to decide whether to keep or delete this article using the standards that are in place today. Jytdog ( talk) 00:03, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Comment That's a fair description of the issues, I think. What bothers me, though, is that the characterization of the journal as "flaky" or "fringe" is based purely on the personal estimation of WP editors, but not on reliable sources. In contrast, we do have reliable sources for notability. Besides being selected for the Index Medicus, a highly selective database curated by specialists of the United States National Library of Medicine, the journal has been selected for inclusion in the selective databases Scopus and the Science Citation Index. The raw citation data provided by those two sources are in their turn the subject of in-depth analysis in the Journal Citation Reports and CiteScore (a new service from Elsevier that has not yet a separate article).

I admit that I haven't read any article published by this journal. I don't think that is my job here at WP. Per WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, we are supposed to go by what reliable sources say, not what we personally feel or think. I realize that this might lead to the unpleasant situation where we have to cover a subject that we feel is not "worthy". On the other hand, if a journal is as bad as editors here claim it is, then there should be sources for that. There are plenty of magazines/websites that are RS and that report on fringe science. Have none of those reported on this one? GScholar indicates that some articles in this journal have been cited up to 200 times. Somebody above remarked that this probably was all remarks on how bad the article is. Frankly, I doubt that. Academics rarely cite an article to say that it is bad, even if it is directly related to their own field.

So in short, my take of this is that we have significant sources indicating that this journal is notable, whereas we have two sources saying that it publishes nonsense. (One is a blog, but written by a recognized specialist and therefore admissible as a source, in my estimation). Including these in the article would seem to me a clear warning to our readers that this journal may be shaky and I therefore don't see any harm in keeping the article as it currently stands. -- Randykitty ( talk) 07:27, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Can we have some links showing it has been included, rather then just assertions? Slatersteven ( talk) 10:16, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

All you need do is look at the article. All links are there (except the one EL that I give above). This more than meets C1. As for C2, there is one article mentioned here that has been cited around 200 times. You can verify that by clicking the "scholar" link at the top of this page. That's just one single article. I don't care much about C2, but if you do, then I think this is met, too. I don't see anything justifying a pass of C3, but with C1 being met, who cares... -- Randykitty ( talk) 13:12, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

r to User:Randykitty and User:EdChem (and really everybody who is just citing the "indexing" thing and considering this conversation over) i hear what both of you are saying with regard to NJournal's notability criteria

One of the problems that has beset this discussion is the way NJOURNALs has been used.... as though it is the only thing that matters. There is no discussion anywhere in WP where policy can set aside. And I will note that NJOURNALS says nothing about whether there are sufficient sources to write an NPOV article. It is silent on the question. That is a hole the academic journals project should address. It is an essential one, because the whole point of any notability guideline should be whether there are sufficient sources with which editors can generate an encyclopedia article that complies with all the content policies. All of them. I recognize that a problem that the journals wikiproject faces, is that the "reliable sources" for journals (and everything begins in WP with how you define RS) are databases, so most WP journal articles are really just collections of data and not what-we-usually-think-of-as "articles" that actually characterize their subjects, narratively. (Randkitty dealt with the problem of sources extensively here, and this brings up larger issues of NOTDIRECTORY that I will not get into here)

The discussion about deleting this journal in light of NPOV is entirely valid. I will ask people who have been saying this deletion discussion is invalid or should be speedy-closed, to rethink that in light of this hole in NJOURNAL, and to rethink your !vote.

This journal publishes a boatload of fringe garbage. That is a fact that anybody can determine from looking through some issues and has been described above. This is a "sky is blue" kind of fact but has been discussed above, a bunch.

With respect to people raising OR concerns about that...

Maybe you don't know this but in the subculture of dealing with FRINGE in WP (and especially in past decade or so as NCCIH has poured money into alt med and more and more journals have been created) we run into stuff like this journal all the time, where there is this veneer of rmainstream-ness and maybe one or two mainstream aspects) but things are fringey from the ground up. Often the only kinds of sources that really deal with this are skeptic refs like Gorksi etc.. The reason for that, us because it is too "out there" for mainstream people to even bother talking about - this is discussed somewhat in Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Sourcing which is a guideline - something that has wider consensus again than the NJOURNALs essay.

This is a real problem throughout WP and it is this project's problem too.

So Randykitty and Edchem, please describe, if this WP article is kept, how it can comply with NPOV. The current version of the article tries, by citing Gorski and Skeptical Enquiry and is pretty lame. My argument is that there are insufficient sources to allow us to write an NPOV-compliant article on this topic. DGG made an interesting suggestion above, of listing the titles of the top articles, which will speak for themselves (and I have asked him, if he has time, to try to implement that so we can all see it). But I am asking each of you, as Wikipedians who pay mind to all the policies and guidelines, how to address NPOV here. Thanks. Jytdog ( talk) 23:49, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep per the consensus in the last AfD. It meets the journal standard that's been used for a long time. Emily Goldstein ( talk) 07:22, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Keep: Earlier in this discussion, I mentioned treating IF as a rebuttable presumption of notability. Randykitty has explained one reason for this presumption, that the data to produce an IF is collected in selective databases and then processed by JCR to produce information about the journal which is not primary. The arguments based on FRINGE are weak in that they rest primarily on opinion and not on reliable sources, and sources could be added to comment on the journal in its article, also as Randykitty has noted. Further, the alleged most highly cited article from the journal is not by a crank but by an established academic with highly cited work in other journals and an h-index of 21, suggesting there is a mix of content. Based on the standards applied for years, Keep is the only possible outcome. Based on a rebuttable presumption, there has not been a sufficient case made for deletion in my opinion. I suspect this will close as 'no consensus' given the division of opinions, and certainly the discussion of NJOURNALS needs to continue (preferably without further POINTy AfDs / MfDs), and depending where it ends up, maybe we will need to revisit this case. However, the proper sequence is to agree a general position and then apply it, rather than to object to a general position so keep raising cases in an attempt to overturn the consensus instead of just holding a discussion at an appropriate venue, perhaps including an RfC seeking broader input. EdChem ( talk) 08:42, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete NJOURNALS is an essay that will never make it to guideline due to it being not fit for purpose. The relevant guideline would be WP:GNG which this completely fails to satisfy. Anyone who argues SCOPUS indicates notability needs a trout, only sources independant of the subject can demonstrate notability. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 18:04, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I think there are some very minor cites for this in RS journals (see the Psychology Journal cite I mentioned). But all the ones I can find seem to be of the "this is a pile of garbage" variety. None seem to actual treat this magazine as a serious piece of academic work. But I will still hold judgement for a while, they have been cited it's just a question of how we word the article (and as another user said, can it be neutral given the attitude the few cites we have, all of which seem to be negative). Slatersteven ( talk) 19:42, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

OK lets make this easy

Provide two LINKS fulfilling any one criteria. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:15, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Criterion 1: The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area.
• Criterion 2: The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources

Provide the citation, not just the fact it is cited by SOME sources, they have to be RS. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:15, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Criterion 3: The journal is historically important in its subject area.

• Answer: read the article and the comments above. -- Randykitty ( talk) 13:12, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I have read the article, and see nothing that establishes any importance. I see it in a list of publications (that merely establishes it has been published, can you provide an explanation of why these establish historical importance?). A couple (one by the publisher) of lists of how often it has been cited (policy says it is quality not quantity of cites that matter). A blog (not RS) and one source saying (in effect) it's rubbish (not exactly established any historical importance). Maybe I am missing the evidence, perhaps you would care to provide the link? As to the scholarly citations, which of these are RS? Why can you not just provide two citations as asked for? Slatersteven ( talk) 13:35, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• From the journal webpage, here are the most cited articles. Data is independent of the journal as it comes from SCOPUS. For each, you can click the article and get a SCOPUS report on that article – for example, the article at doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2010.12.003 PMID  21397868 has this SCOPUS report showing 71 citations.

Mindfulness-Based Approaches: Are They All the Same?

"...and the frequent differences across interventions with

respect to total duration, homework, practices, nonmanualized interventions (e.g., Toneatto &

Nguyen, 2007; Winbush, Gross, & Kreitzer, 2007)"

Seems to be questioning the methodology of the article, so yes it is a cite in an RS, but not exactly an endorsement of notability (beyond being a but poor). So again I ask for prof that this is cited in RS as a respectable and notable source, and not as one of questionable quality. But I agree this may go someway to establishing notability as a fringe and pseudo scientific publication Slatersteven ( talk) 13:57, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

And SCOPUS is not RS, it's by the publisher of the magazine. Slatersteven ( talk) 14:00, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Notability != Quality, and Scopus is RS. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:44, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

To be notable it must have notable mentions in RS independent of the subject, Scopus is not independent of the subject. Slatersteven ( talk) 23:08, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Yes it is. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:15, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

SCOPUS is an Elsevier product, which also publishes the journal under discussion. In that way, it is not independent of the subject. And anyway, I am very uncomfortable with the idea of using SCOPUS, which is just a database, as a secondary source in an article. That would be like arguing to use the output of a Google search as a secondary source. What's needed is an actual secondary source, providing an author's analysis of the subject, the kind of thing that normally qualifies as a "source" in an article (apparently, any article except for journals). That's important here because the journal under discussion has been characterized as a "sham masquerading as a real scientific journal", so proper WP:NFRINGE sources are required under actual black-letter Wikipedia policies, rather than imagined guidelines that were failed proposals. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 02:25, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Scopus is independent from other Elsevier journals. I know that people like to bash Elsevier, but please realize that whatever you may think of them, they are not stupid. Elsevier realized when they started Scopus that it would never take off if it were perceived as not being independent. It's in their own best interest if the academic community knows that it is editorially independent. Just like any decent academic publisher will not interfere with the editorial policies of journals that they publish, because any hint of improper influence will kill those journals (or Scopus, in this case). And I think that above I showed that there are secundary sources based on the raw citation data provided by Scopus and the Science Citation Index. -- Randykitty ( talk) 15:08, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Regardless of independence, I think you miss my main point, which is that SCOPUS is not a good secondary source for meeting notability under our guidelines. It is just a database that includes statistics about all Elsevier journals. It might be useful as a proxy for notability, in the same way that Google scholar citation numbers are useful as a proxy for notability of academics, but it does not guarantee that there exist reliable secondary sources. Those are still required for us to have an article about the subject. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 15:30, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Randykitty has pointed you to the google scholar data, but FYI this search returns 498,000 hits. Here is the list of 150 references which cite the first article on the search. We seem to be dealing with a journal with a mixture of pseudoscientific drivel and work which is cited and used. But it is cited, and by reliable sources. EdChem ( talk) 13:49, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

As I said, it is quality, not quantity that matters, that is why I am asking for actual cites, not just raw numbers. Slatersteven ( talk) 13:52, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

And if you follow the links, you can look at each and every citing article from the scholar searches, and you can do the same with SCOPUS if you have access. But expecting us to follow the links, cut and paste each citing article here for you, along with the journal information, etc, is (a) unreasonable and (b) not going to be done by me. Also, you deciding which citations are worthy for notability and which are not is original research. EdChem ( talk) 14:04, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I am not asking for all, I am asking for two (one of which I have provided), and no I am deciding which citation are worthy, you have provided one beyond the SCOPUS one, which as it is by the publisher woudl almost certainly fail RS, but you are correct. So I will take this to the RS forum. Slatersteven ( talk) 14:08, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

To be used to establish notability a source must be independent of the subject. Slatersteven ( talk) 17:57, 16 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• You know, this perfectly encapsulates the problem. The most cited paper is written by advocates to punt a therapy that lacks mainstream support, the subject would have been covered in a decent journal if the methodology had been better, the majority of the citations don't make PubMed (many are in woo-mungous journals of nonsense), and the citations include reviews that note substantial risk of bias. And that's the best paper they published. Others are frankly risible, such as the effect of intent on chocolate. It's a journal devoted to promoting the ideology of its editors. Its most cited paper has 71 cites, compared to the all-time record of over 300,000. A thousand cites is a decent number, an indication of a genuinely significant paper. 71, of which only 30 make PubMed? Not so much. Guy ( Help!) 00:15, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• You know, 1000 citations is something that only a vanishingly small proportion of articles reach. I just went through the Clinical Medicine section of the Essential Science Indicators (accessible through the Web of Science) and there are 370 articles with 1000 citations or more. This from among 25,182 "top papers" (the most cited ones in the field; 1.47%), themselves selected from a total of more than 2.5 MILLION articles (less than 0.015%) in this category! I also went to the Science Citation Index and generated a "citation report" for the journal. Since it was established 10 years ago, it has accrued 2477 citations (excluding self-citations). The 10 most-cited articles have been cited 34-86 times each. (Note that a similar exercise in GScholar will yield higher figures, because it includes many more sources - not all of them reliable. These figures are citations from the selected journals included in the Science Citation Index.) The top 3 titles are "The CONSORT statement: Revised recommendations for improving the quality of reports of parallel-group randomized trials 2001", "The effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on sleep disturbance: A systematic review" (concluding that "controlled studies have not clearly demonstrated the positive effects of MBSR"), and "The role of mindfulness in positive reappraisal". -- Randykitty ( talk) 15:48, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep It's published by Elsevier, one of the world's largest publisher of scientific journals. Some of the arguments to delete this article smack of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The argument that it's a WP:COATRACK is irrelevent as that's not a valid reason for deletion. If it was a coatrack, that can be solved through normal editing of the article. In any case, I just read the article as it stands today, and there's nothing coatracky about it that I can see. Maybe it was in the past, I don't know. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 18:03, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Comment. Even though I am one of the proponents for keeping this article, I have to point out that A Quest For Knowledge's !vote is not based in any guideline or policy and violates WP:NOTINHERITED. Who the publisher is, is immaterial. And not every journal published by Elsevier is automatically notable. (In fact, I just PRODded Beni-Suef University Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences). -- Randykitty ( talk) 18:47, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply
  • True, but I'm allowed my opinion. :) Honestly, I don't have the time or the inclination to find additional sources to make sure the article meets WP:GNG. It has 5 or 6 sources. That's good enough for me. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 19:10, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Well, that clarification is a policy-based !vote and you don't need IAR for that, either. -- Randykitty ( talk) 19:46, 17 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Sustain existing Keep consensus  Six months is the default minimal amount of time to wait to re-nominate after a Keep result, and even then should not be an attempt to roll the dice to get a new result, or an excuse for disruption.  Neither science nor Wikipedia dispense Truth^TM.  Unscintillating ( talk) 01:26, 18 December 2016 (UTC) reply

And now the only citation for an RS have been removed form the article, at least in part because it is only an oblique citation that does not contribute anything to the notability of Explore. so (Again) I ask for some citation, not a list a citation) that established that this is a notable publication. The removal of that cite proves that you need actual cites, and not just a list of what (maybe) trivial mentions. Slatersteven ( talk) 13:06, 18 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Slatersteven, you cited one paper that made comments about methods in alt med research and used it to support a claim that the journal in which that paper was published, rather than the authors of that article, had criticised multiple studies in Explore. It was never going to survive as it was a misrepresentation. EdChem ( talk) 15:58, 18 December 2016 (UTC) reply

@Everyone: I have expanded the response section with a series of criticisms from notable scientists. Please have a look. Thanks. EdChem ( talk) 15:58, 18 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks, good job. I've changed my !vote accordingly. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 16:05, 18 December 2016 (UTC) reply

User:Edchem and User:Randykitty thanks very much for your changes here. Two questions: do you believe these edits would be sustainable in the face of challenges that this content is WP:UNDUE in that it focuses on a couple of papers which may or may not be characteristic of the articles the journal publishes, and b) that if we are going to lower source quality and use refs like "Science-based medicine" to characterize this journal based on Emoto's and especially Radin's work, we should also bring in sources like say this book ( ISBN  9781504341059 page 168) that also characterize that work in particular? Am bringing this up because all although skeptics here may "like" this content it needs to be sustainable per policy and guidelines. If this is sustainable - if we are agreed that these are sufficient RS such that we can characterize this journal in a way that complies with PAG I will switch to "keep". Jytdog ( talk) 01:54, 19 December 2016 (UTC) (fix typo Jytdog ( talk) 02:44, 19 December 2016 (UTC)) reply

Jytdog, I think these changes are sustainable based on WP:RS/SPS as I am quoting content written by notable authors with experience in this field. I think UNDUE is a problem, but one I intend to address by adding a section on content, which will draw on the journal's own description of its content and balance it with criticism of individual papers. I plan to separate out criticism of the journal as a whole based on its editorial board, as there are RS materials on the executive editor and both editors-in-chief. I note, for example, that the journal homepage congratulates Radin on being given this award which has been given to other prominent fringe proponents. I am always open to comment / criticism / feedback based on policy and I favour an NPOV outcome, so if balancing is needed, I'm happy for others to look at it / change it, etc - I don't OWN anything, obviously. I started expanding from this version of the article and just added sources as I followed leads from the two references in the article, so the article-focus was inevitable. I've already noted at the talk page materials others can pick up and use before I get back to them if they wish. I see that book as usable for supporting that Radin's work has adherents, though I wonder if we'd also need to characterise Walmsley, the author. If there are papers that have been praised / used in mainstream RS, we should add that too. This is part of what I meant at the NJournal discussion about providing what is useful for readers, in line with policy constraints. EdChem ( talk) 02:38, 19 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• pinging those who !voted/commented with some intensity on the various perspectives on this article to get their thoughts on whether the article complies with NPOV sufficiently as it stands now: jps, User:Everymorning, User:Steelpillow, User:Randykitty, Guy, User:DGG. Jytdog ( talk) 06:43, 19 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  Yes. The evidence for notability is pretty slim. If we accept such slim evidence then we must accept the equally slim significance of the panning it receives by anybody reliable who bothers to check out its content. Indeed, the journal appears more notable for the panning it receives than for anything else. We have to reflect that. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 10:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC) reply

  Yes Pretty mush as above. The article must reflect what the sources being used to justify notability say about it. If it's notability is as a scholastically poor publication then that is what the article must reflect. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC) reply

The problem is that this is now just more of the same weak sources. I have a massive problem with sentences like "The 2006 Radin and Emoto paper showed an effect supportive of Emoto's theory" sourced to the paper itself, we really should never do that. Citing this bullshit paper twice as an actual source in the article is a sure sign we're doign it wrong. Most of the critique comes from Gorski, who is a well known critic of bullshit but in the end is just one commentator. The inescapable conclusion here is that as far as the scientific community is concerned, the bullshit is this journal is not notable enough to demand a response. Guy ( Help!) 12:38, 19 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Well spotted. we can cite a primary source for facts which support and illustrate the case verified from secondary sources. It is fair enough to say that "The 2006 Radin and Emoto paper claimed an effect supportive of Emoto's theory", as the subsequent dissection makes little sense without that claim. I have changed the article accordingly. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 13:29, 19 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete this pseudo-journal and move on. I'm not going to waste any more time on this. QuackGuru ( talk) 04:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete. Journals, like everything else, have to pass WP:GNG, i.e., need substantial coverage in reliable sources. The NJOURNALS page is an essay and therefore of no help in determining any presumptive notability. It is not apparent from either the article or this discussion what the reliable sources (i.e., presumably not any involved in propagating pseudoscience) that cover this journal in any depth could be.  Sandstein  12:57, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Comment As I have argued above multiple times, this passes GNG (so no need to bash NJournals, just ignore it). QuackGuru and Sandstein, please comment on that. -- Randykitty ( talk) 14:28, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Actually I think it doesn't. The sources are either weak or not independent. And don't get me wrong: I would love a properly NPOV article on this junk journal. That would be a public service. Guy ( Help!) 14:51, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Randykitty, I don't see how this passes GNG. Above you wrote that "Journal Citation Reports and CiteScore" are the relevant sources for that. Well, I don't find anything called "CiteScore" in the article, and it seems that Journal Citation Reports merely collects citation statistics, which I'd say are not the sort of in-depth secondary sources we can base an article on.  Sandstein  16:04, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Sandstein: The Science Citation Index collects citation data. Based on these primary data, the JCR provides an in-depth analysis of that, which indeed results in a number of statistics (2-year impact factor, 5-year impact factor, immediacy index, and a host of other ones). CiteScore is mentioned and linked above. I have not yet had time to add it to the article (I am currently traveling and visitng family, so my time is limited, but sources don't need to be in the article for the sake of an AfD discussion). -- Randykitty ( talk) 16:49, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• WP:N has only one requirement; and that requirement is not "Articles must satisfy WP:GNG.", which is the concept called "WP:GNG-centrism".  Unscintillating ( talk) 06:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I am so going to take your bait! In your view, User:Unscintillating, what is that one thing? Jytdog ( talk) 06:42, 22 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Done, see the talk page here.  Unscintillating ( talk) 07:10, 22 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Right, so you want to re-interpret WP:N based on some snippets of text you picked out of it and a template, and empower essays to take precedence over WP:PAGs. Not workable, and not helpful for the current discussion. Instead of looking down the tree to essays, it would be better to look up the tree to governing policy: WP:NPOV. Alexbrn ( talk) 07:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC) reply

GNG is effectively a requirement for a standalone topic, since "if a topic does not meet these criteria but still has some verifiable facts, it might be useful to discuss it within another article" (as is being proposed: stick this in the Elsevier article). Alexbrn ( talk) 06:44, 22 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Lets leave out the PA's shall we and try and keep it civil? Slatersteven ( talk) 18:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Who are you addressing this to? That remark sits directly below one of mine, but I don't see any PA there. -- Randykitty ( talk) 21:33, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

It is a general comment to a number of users, it's why I did not indent it as a reply to you. The standard of debate is turning a tad personal. Slatersteven ( talk) 21:43, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Keep Regardless of whether it passes WP:NJOURNAL, it passes WP:GNG since it has been referenced in independent sources multiple times. -- HighKing ⁺⁺ 21:50, 22 December 2016 (UTC) reply

hm. GNG is significant discussion in indepenent sources. part of what has roiled this AfD is the lack of substantial discussion characterizing this journal in multiple independent RS. (there are some stats on it in journal indexing databases etc... but those don't characterize it). GNG is not cut and dry here. I wish it were. Jytdog ( talk) 06:05, 23 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Both the coverage in JCR/Index Medicus/Scops, etc, as well as " Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing is a journal known for its publication of truly ridiculous studies." /" It’s also published in the second woo-iest of the journals, Explore." / " (Elsevier) also publishes ... the quack journal Explore, which, as I described before, publishes Dean Radin’s pseudoscientific articles on “distant healing” and food imbued with “intent.”" and many others are all "significant coverage". Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:34, 23 December 2016 (UTC) reply

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