A fact from Minds and Machines appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 October 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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An anonymous IP insists on including ranking info derived from Google. Google's ran king is based on a statistic called the "h5". Whereas there is an extensive literature discussing the pros and cons of impact factor rankings, Google's measures have not yet been the subject of such studies. In consequence, they are currently not included in any article on academic journals, except this one. As there is, apart from the primary source of Google itself no justification for using this ranking (apart from the unsourced assertion (in their edit summaries) that these rankings have been the subject of discussions among philosophers, I propose to delete that sentence and return the article to the state it was in before the SPA IPs and User:5thfloorlattimore started editing this article. --Randykitty (talk) 22:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Given that in my field, GS ranks having an arxiv preprint as more prestigious than several major journals, I too am skeptical of the meaningfulness of their numbers. I agree with your proposed deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:56, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What you say is reasonable and if there is any reason to not do this then the discussion should come to the talk page. Revert the article until then. Blue Rasberry (talk)14:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Given that kinks still need to be worked out in the GS ranking system, and that the GS ranking has undetermined notability, it may give a skewed impression of any subject's validity or notability. Therefore, it does not appear to be an appropriate metric to be used in any Wikipedia article. Also, being ranked 15th out of 20 journals is not significant, no matter the metric used. Finally, delete that sentence and I have done some copy editing after this discussion started. Thanks. -- Steve Quinn (talk) 14:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Details about abstracting, indexing, and frequently-cited articles
At first glance, it appears to me that this article goes into way too much detail about the journal's abstracting, indexing, and frequently-cited articles. As an example point of reference, I looked at the article on Proceedings of the IEEE, which is a very-highly-regarded journal. It doesn't include any of that stuff, which looks to me like some form of advertising and is probably copied from the publisher's web site. I suggest to completely remove those sections of the article (except the sentence providing the impact factor and the sentence describing the classification category). The article should instead draw from reliable sources that discuss this journal (if they exist) rather than just provide some kind of database cross-referencing information. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The abstracting and indexing section helps to show a given academic journal's notability, which is helpful for producing such articles on Wikipedia. The services listed are selective databases, which choose journals that have only certain standards. Creating this section is common practice for academic journal articles on Wikipedia. For other examples, please see Biomedical Optics Express of the Optical Society; Chemical Science (journal) of the Royal Society of Chemistry; Journal of Archaeological Science; and so on. There is a list of newly created journal articles here. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 03:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If the purpose is to attempt to establish notability for the journal, this seems like a pretty weak way to attempt it. Consulting the Wikipedia general notability guideline (WP:GNG), notability should be accomplished by the topic having "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", and "'Significant coverage' means that sources address the subject directly in detail". Mere listings in databases do not seem to meet that standard (similar to the notability guideline for a company or organization stating that "inclusion in lists of similar organizations" does not meet the WP:ORGDEPTH criterion). Properly, some independent sources should discuss the journal in detail – e.g., writing articles about the journal's prominence, history, and influence. Otherwise, the journal itself does not seem to meet the Wikipedia noteworthiness standard.
And what is the justification for the list of frequently-cited articles?
There is no real justification for the list of frequently-cited articles. Some editors simply add this section, but it is not common practice. It really doesn't have much to do with a journal's notability. However, it might be of interest to some readers who bother to look up the journal article on Wikipedia. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 04:37, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The indexing services or databases are considered to be independent reliable sources, pertaining to academic journals. The same can be said for the impact factor, which denotes notability as an independent reliable source. Many journals do not have impact factors and are not listed in selective databases. These will not make the cut for academic journal articles. By the way, I appreciate your interest in this matter. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 04:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
However, it is possible to make the cut on Wikipedia without an impact factor because (I think) some types of humanities journals don't have impact factors. It's been awhile since I came across this situation. Maybe another editor can answer that one. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 04:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
