Talk:Nova Science Publishers/Archive 2

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New published articles on Nova Science Publishers - a comment from Arno Tausch

This is all a question of scientific honor, involving dozens and hundreds of authors around the globe. Search on GOOGLE for publisher names, you will find that the Wikipedia results are very high up on the list, usually on page 1 of the results.

As it is well-known, many European authors published with companies such as Campus, IOS, etc. and also with Nova for the American and global market. As I have also shown, these dozens and even hundreds of authors deserve a debate, which tries to establish a more objective ranking of publisher quality and not just scathing Wikipedia footnotes like the expression "fringe", voiced on this discussion page above. As I also stated, the particular publisher in question would be well advised to take Mr. Bade's arguments about JOURNAL production seriously.

However, the Wikipedia article is not called "Nova Science Publishers Journals" but "NOVA SCIENCE PUBLISHERS". Voila, I tried my best and did a thorough 19 indicator analysis of the publishers, who are very active in my own field of studies and who frequently publish the works of European authors.

To start with, my analysis now came out in exactly the same electronic journal as the article by Mr. Bade:

http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00014330/

On the World Market Trajectory of 21 Major Book Publishing Companies in Globalization and European Studies in 100+ Countries Tausch, Arno (2008) On the World Market Trajectory of 21 Major Book Publishing Companies in Globalization and European Studies in 100+ Countries. Report.

(ELIS - i.e. the same journal which also printed the Bade article, whom, I must emphasize, I greatly respect as a colleague - only I am against the use of the indiscriminate use of his article on the WIKI page as the SOLE evidence on Nova)

The article came out also at the editor-reviewed and internationally highly respected Social Science Research Network in New York, whose materials are also re-transmitted by Chicago U., Stanford U., Seoul University and the Corporate Governance Institute in Brussels:

On the World Market Trajectory of 21 Major Book Publishing Companies in Globalization and European Studies in 100 Countries - From 'Amsterdam University Press' via 'Palgrave' and 'Nova Science Publishers' to 'Transaction Publishers' by International, 19 Indicator Comparison

Social Science Research Network, New York

Suggested Citation

Tausch, Arno , "On the World Market Trajectory of 21 Major Book Publishing Companies in Globalization and European Studies in 100 Countries - From 'Amsterdam University Press' via 'Palgrave' and 'Nova Science Publishers' to 'Transaction Publishers' by International, 19 Indicator Comparison" (July 17, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1162241

The paper also appeared in a condensed version at the E-Book-series of the Revista Entelequia at Cadiz and Malaga Universities in Spain:

Autor/es: Tausch, Arno

Título: «On the global efficiency of 21 major social policy book publishing companies and their impact in 100+ countries»

(Sobre la eficiencia global de los 21 mayores editores sobre política social y su impacto en más de 100 países)

Revista Entelequia, Cadiz/Malaga Universitz, Spain

http://www.eumed.net/entelequia/es.lib.php?a=b007

and at the editor-reviewed Munich Personal Repec Archive of Munich University and the IDEAS/REPEC Network at the University of Connecticut.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/9613.html

There will be also an electronic publication at the Centro de Estudios Internacionales in Buenos Aires.

To make a long story short, publishers like Monthly Review Press and Cornell lead the field, but Nova - especially its book publishing - deserves a more objective treatment. Read the article for yourself, and if you do not agree, write a counter-article.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.51.55 (talk) 23 July and 24 July 2008

I have split the article into a section on "Books" and a section on "Journals", and included the "Concerns" as a subsection of "Journals", to make it more clear that the concerns apply to that arena, and not to Nova's books. Is that acceptable to you? --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 14:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, certainly that is better than nothing, at any rate please feel free to quote from my now published comparative data - the ELIS - source is the same journal as the Bade article, and in addition it appeared at several other e-journals

ARNO TAUSCH —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.51.55 (talk) 20:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

PS from Arno Tausch - my analsis is also now available from the peer-reviewed Global Development Network at Sussex University at:

http://gdnet.org/middle.php?oid=237&zone=docs&action=doc&doc=14625 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.51.55 (talk) 17:36, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Bade and Tausch

I gave my opinion before. I respect his opinion very highly. I have not personally investigated the substance of the charges, but I have followed the discussion on various listservs in detail. We cannot include unpublished material of this sort. I have removed it again, and will block anyone reinserting it. E-LIS is not a publisher. I have some unpublished material there myself, and its not citable here. I have some published material there too, and that's another matter. If it does become published, it can be included. Postings on the Stanford or other university web sites are not publication either. Again, if published, they can be included. it would really clear this situation at Wikipedia up if they were, so I would like to know when that happens. Is there any published information that can be used about the books? Posting to SSRN or RePEc are not published material, and cannot be cited here. The same is true for GDN. According to its website, it is not peer-reviewed [1]. DGG (talk) 21:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the Tausch article in order to apply this decision even-handedly. Are there any online publishing servers for the humanities that meet the standard set by arXiv? Are we in a situation where (for practical purposes) WP will accept online preprints in physics but not in social sciences? What more can an author do if his manuscript is deemed trustworthy but not published for some other reason? At this point, publication may be quite improbable since this is no longer new work.

Remember that the posting on the Stanford site contains the explicit endorsement of a journal editor, though I concede that that in itself is less verifiable than could be preferred. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 18:11, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

no, there are no services I know of that are truly the equivalent of arXiv, which is unique, in that it does professionally screen the submitted material. Besides physics, mathematics, and some fields of engineering are fields where some unpublished papers can be given an almost equal status to peer-reviewed articles. Fields Medals have indeed been awarded on the basis of unpublished papers! Individual papers published only in ArXiv have sometimes been challenged here, but from multiple RS and AfD discussions, to a first approximation the appearance of a paper in arXiv is accepted to mean it is not pseudoscience, tho it may be somewhat fringy. (to a certain extent PMC has a similar policy, but it has never been much used or discussed, it's the survival of a proposal by Varmus). I know the standards of E-LIS, as I use it myself; they will basically take anything from anyone with some credentials. Too be fair, there are some notionally peer reviewed journals that have done pretty much the same.

The only way an author can publish is to publish. Alternatively, one can establish such a reputation that one's blog postings are accepted.--the field where this is most readily accepted here is in the criticism of science-fiction.

WP cannot be used as a soapbox. We've removed such negative material in all sorts of subjects even when the claims are almost certainly justified, if their is no formal publication. Personally, i consider this basic to NPOV, and I consider as do people here generally that NPOV is the essential necessity of a worthwhile encyclopedia.DGG (talk) 02:54, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Even published material is not ipso facto reliable; it still must be evaluated. The Stanford posting may fall under the category of a reputable and trustworthy blog. It was posted not by Mr. Bade but by the editor of the journal to which he submitted the manuscript. The blog is hoted by the Stanford University Libraries, which is also the institution of the journal in question, so I think we can take the editor's endorsement as genuine. The question is whether that is enough to make the source reliable. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 16:37, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Lead paragraph

Regarding Franz Weber's 17th Aug 2009 edit (which I reverted), I would argue that the controversy over cross-publication and re-publication is of primary interest and may even be the one fact that makes this publisher particularly notable and worthy of a WP entry at all... Famousdog (talk) 11:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

A friendly open letter to Mr. David Goodman on the Wikipedia article concerning Nova Science Publishers

Nova Science Publishers detractors are back again in what I perceive as an unfair anonymity which the system permits, to detract again the publisher in a general way, beyond permissable criticism, which might be raised against an academic publishing company (in the particular context on their journals, as stated in the article by colleague Dr. Bade from Chicago University Library, which should have a continued place in future Wikipedia articles on the company, as the "flagship of criticism"). To be honest, the recent and renewed changes to the article, which you, Mr. Goodman, improved months ago to meet Wikipedia standards of objectivity, could be - when published in the press - the subject of lengthy court-room proceedings initiated by the authors and the publishers against some of these anonymous Nova critics, and if Wikipedia takes no action, against Wikipedia itself. As an author who published with such publishing houses as Palgrave-Macmillan, Dutch University Press, Rozenberg (Amsterdam), Saint Martin's Press New York and Nova Science Publishers in English, and Braumueller, Wilhelm Fink and LIT-Verklag in German, and whose works were well received in such journals with a very high impact factor as the Journal of Common Market Studies, Politics Studies, etc. and who himself has written articles in journals around the world (just look at the EINIRAS network or Cambridge Scientifc Abstracts) I am really startled, as one of many Nova authors, by all this destructive rage and negative energy, which two of these anonymous authors develop on the pages of Wikipedia against this particular publisher.

As I could show on the peer-reviewed pages of the Social Science Research Network in New York, re-published at Chicago Business School, the European Corporate Governance Center in London, Korea University and Stanford Law School at:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1162241

Nova has indeed an average record as an academic book publishing company, and by July 2008, 518 world class scholars contained in the "Cambridge Cientific Abstracts" all published books and or articles with the company. Social science authors know that the most powerful companies are indeed such publishers as Cambridge UP, Cornell UP, Oxford UP etc. and authors also know that there are smaller book publishing companies, such as Amsterdam University Press (EU); Ashgate (EU); Campus (Frankfurt/Ann Arbor) (EU); IOS Press (EU); Nova Science Publishers (US); Springer-Verlag (US); and Transaction Publishers (US), which often serve as an outlet especially for authors from outside North America on the big and important North American academic market. Well-founded and legitimate and even tough criticism of the work of publishers of course is permissable. But it is beyond my comprehension to find now this Wikipedia piece on one of my publishers [with the Wiki article now ranked as number 2 or 3 also on "Google"], when searching for "Nova Science Publishers", stating in paragraph 1 of the article on Nova that:

"Nova Publishers is a publishing house based in Hauppauge, New York. Frank Columbus is the current editor-in-chief. They publish both books and journals for an academic audience, but have been criticised for republishing material in their journals that is available in the public domain, and so-called "cross publication," where the same paper is published in more than one sources"

as if that would be the most important fact, to be stated in paragrpah one. User Weber did not remove the sentence, but only moved the sentence downwards to a criticism paragraph, but to no avail, and User "Famousdog" states on the discussion page:

"Regarding Franz Weber's 17th Aug 2009 edit (which I reverted), I would argue that the controversy over cross-publication and re-publication is of primary interest and may even be the one fact that makes this publisher particularly notable and worthy of a WP entry at all... Famousdog (talk) 11:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)"

So, not the works of 518 internationally re-known scholars are worthy of a Nova Science Publishers entry at Wikipedia, but only this controversy (which by the way could be applied also to many other academic publishing houses). I only generally say here that the law of most OECD-democracies protects with good reason the credit and the economic existence of persons against incorrect statements by other persons.

What I say here is that such statements and the context of how they were formulated potentially infringe on sales figures of the company and the author royalties of hundreds of Nova authors around the globe, and that such statements really could become the subject of court proceedings in various countries.

I hope that Wikipedia editors take strong and firm action and fix the article in an objective way, i.e. by stating that Nova Science is an academic book publishing company with decades of record in academic book publishing and by giving also due room to the criticism formulated by colleague Dr. Bade, which should have a legitimate place in the Wikipedia article, but also to the facts stated by me in my SSRN article, transmitted also by various other high-quality academic networks.

Kind regards and thank you for your attention

Dr. Arno Tausch, Adjunct Professor (Universitätsdozent) of Political Science, Innsbruck University, Austria, Lecturer of Political Science at Graz and Vienna University, recent member of the tribunal in Doctoral Commissions at the Universities of Montpellier and at the Sorbonne in France etc.etc.

E mail address: arno.tausch@yahoo.de —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.158.226.129 (talk) 09:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

First, there would, appropriately, be an article even without the controversies. Nova is a sufficiently important publisher to have a Wikipedia article. Like most publishers, it is stronger in some fields than others; like all, not all the work it publishes will be of the same quality. The contents of the article will necessarily rely upon the sources, especially the 3rd party published sources. SSRN is an extremely important repository of research papers in the social sciences, but it is not a peer-reviewed publisher. I quote from the FAQ at [2] " We are unaware of any journals that consider SSRN's eLibrary or the email abstracting journals to be "prior publication" since our services are basically an aggregation of working papers and not a refereeing process." Unless published in some peer-reviewed journal or similar publication, the authority of a publication posted there is only that of the author; depending on the author, this can indeed be very high. If so published, the citation should be to the article in the journal that published it, giving SSRN as a convenient link to access a copy. it can be cited in Wikipedia for some purposes, though not for the purposes of negative comments with respect to any living person, according to our WP:BLP policy. With respect to the Stanford material, a signed posting on its library web site (which is what the SULAIRIC is) is the personal responsibility of the person writing it. Since it is a university website of very high repute, it can however be assumed that it does have institutional control to some extent.

I will check the article for neutrality, according to my opinion, as a Wikipedia editor (by which we mean a contributor--nobody actually edits Wikipedia in the conventional sense). Though I am an administrator here, this gives me the responsibility of enforcing our policies, not of affecting the content of articles. If an article is under controversy, I can offer my services to help resolve it, but so can anyone else here. The only things I can do with respect to the article, is to protect the article for a short time from changes if it is the subject of an edit war or being vandalized, and, if necessary, to block for an appropriate time from Wikipedia those who persist in vandalizing or edit warring. I have no special prerogatives in editing.

The responsibility for contributions in Wikipedia is that of the person making the contribution. For unresolved complaints about the material posted here, the procedure is explained at WP:OTRS. If asked, I would give my opinion that even the negative versions of the article, though not balanced, are not so outrageously unbalanced as to warrant their intervention--the matter can be dealt with by editing. This is probably a good place to warn Mr. Tausch about our policy about legal threats.

It is in my personal opinion appropriate to include substantial information about what the company publishes, and about the size and experience of the company. It is appropriate to include objective information that can be sourced regarding the nature and quality of its publication, as well as criticism. There is probably material that should be added or restored, and I shall check it. With respect to more negative material, the controversy is inappropriate to mention in the lead paragraph--moving it elsewhere was appropriate, and, as an editor , I restored it there. The discussion there should probably be expanded, and I'll look a little later at this. I very strongly urge that it not be returned to the lead--insisting on its placement there would give the appearance of an inappropriate degree of negative POV. I've seen many disputes here on the placement of such material: it is generally better for many reasons not to place it in the lead--it tends to give an appearance of unfairness that can distract from the proper evaluation of the criticism--and, in particular, a dispute over the placement gives the impression of a quarrel between people of a positive and negative viewpoint, rather than a neutral article.

To ensure i am not overly expressing my own views, I shall ask another editor who works with scientific publications, to have a look also. DGG ( talk ) 18:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Legal threats and appeals to ones' own credentials serve only to undermine your (quite possibly legitimate) case, Tausch. How about working within the Wikipedia framework to ensure the objectivity of this article rather than pounding your desk? Famousdog (talk) 12:50, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The view from a working astrophysicist

I recently received an email from Frank Columbus at Nova Science Publishers soliciting an article in a field which is only tangentially related to my actual work. Slightly suspicious, I went to the Nova website and did a search on "astrophysics" to see what these publishers had previously published in astrophysics. One telling case is a book entitled Black Holes and Galaxy Formation, Editors: Adonis D. Wachter and Raphael J. Propst. I expected to see contributions on black hole feedback, the black hole m-sigma relation, models of black hole growth and formation, etc. -- i.e. the typical topics under consideration in journals like the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, The Astrophysical Journal, and The Physical Review.

What I found instead was a seemingly random list of contributions with titles like "Biotic Dynamics of Galactic Distribution, Gravitational Waves, and Quantum Processes. A Causal Theory of Cosmological Evolution", "Black Holes and other exotica at the Large Hadron Collider", and "On the Information Paradox in Black Holes". Interesting sounding titles, but what in the world do they have to do with "Black Holes AND Galaxy Formation"? My problem is that the title makes it sound like an important book on a very popular current topic in astrophysics. But when you look just below the surface, you find a collection of works which I doubt any serious astrophysicist working in the field of black holes and galaxy formation would have any interest in reading.

There are a few seemingly germane contributions, and I fear that these authors are victims of Nova's indiscriminate solicitation of "experts" in a certain field. As a young or relatively unkown researcher in a field, it can be quite tempting to get one's work published in a nice shiny book free of charge and without review. If one is a shameless crackpot, then this is the perfect way to "publish" one's work and then refer to it incessantly in websites and spam emails to serious scientists and whoever else's email said crackpot can get their hands on.

I then did a google search on Nova publishers to find out more, checked the wikipedia article (which is ALWAYS a good idea), and now I'm here, reporting on my experience with this publisher to probably some of the only people who actually care. Perhaps the bizarre rantings of some of our prestigious Sorbonne-affiliated colleagues are unconscious defenses of their own work, published in areas where Nova publishers can be taken halfway seriously?

Finally, the book is listed at $130.50. It is really quite shocking to me, but I think I am betraying my naivete with respect to the publishing industry and their myriad methods for making a profit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.254.56.64 (talk) 17:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

this is not the place to express views on the publisher, but on the article. r DGG ( talk ) 01:22, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

As another (student) astrophysicist, with a similar story, I have a view about the article to express. Given that this information about the publisher is (a) true, (b) useful to readers of the article, and (c) expressed on the open net only on blogs and in forum posts; is it permissible for this information to be included in the article, or must readers go to the talk page to obtain it? --120.19.120.36 (talk) 00:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• Only information that is sourced to reliable sources can be included in an article. Apart from that, I repeat what DGG said just above, talk pages are for discussing on how to improve an article, not for discussing the subject of the page. --Crusio (talk) 07:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Cambridge Scientific Abstract Figures

The difference to the earlier figures is simply explained by the use of the exact term "Nova Science Publishers" (in parenthesis), which might exclude quotations like "xy (year), "title" Haupauge: Nova Science", (with the term "publishers" missing in the quotation) often occuring in the literature. However, using the term "Nova Science" alone might inflate the true figure.

The earlier limitation to the field of social sciences was an error by user weber, the CSA documentation system allows the search for the number of world class scholars, publishing for scientific book publishing companies FROM ALL FIELDS AT ONCE. The number 761 for Nova appears for ANY field of research - arts and humanities, social sciences, etc. Respective figures for some major competitors, comparable in size, and frequently publishing materials from social scientists also from outside North America are:

Amsterdam University Press 159 (NL) Anthem Press 62 (UK) Ashgate 3175 (UK) Cambridge University Press 8197 (UK) Dutch University Press 21 (NL) Edward Elgar 3475 (UK) IOS Press 337 (NL) Monthly Review Press 90 (US) Nova Science Publishers 761 (US) Oxford University Press 9514 (UK/US) Palgrave Macmillan 2688 (UK) Praeger Publishers 506 (US) Routledge 9455 (UK) Rozenberg Publishers 21 (NL) Transaction Publishers 411 (US)

For reasons of a fair comparison, only the EXACT variants of the publisher names were used here.

These figures reflect the number of scholars, who list a publication with one of the above mentioned publishers in their CV and - in addition - are authors of articles in the major global sources, listed in the CSA system. To be included in the CSA system is a certain quality indicator.

Correctly, these figures would have to be put into a relationship with the number of distinct authors, publishing with each of the listed companies etc. At the end of the day, the net result of such a comparison is that Nova certainly is a smaller company than the market leaders, like Oxford University Press, but that quite a number of world class scholars publish with them.

[by user Weber] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franz weber (talk • contribs) 12:10, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Listing non-notable journals

The journals formerly listed in this article do not appear to have an impact factor, are not indexed in any major databases, and probably do not receive significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Placing this list in the article seems to contradict WP:UNDUE and WP:SOAP. Wikipedia is not a collection of just any kind of information, and is not a venue for advertising, publicity, or establishing notoriety. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 03:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with this removal. We do not usually list journals in articles on a publisher, except for perhaps some very notable ones. Here, the listing and rankings are even somewhat disparaging, as all journals seem to rank at the bottom of their respective categories. The same goes for the article ranking social science publishers, although a case could be made that that should remain because it is a valid criticism with a reliable source. --Crusio (talk) 12:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

• The anonymous IP appears has not responded to this discussion. He/she has engaged in edit warring instead. Furthermore, it appears that the he/she has violated 3RR - please see edit history.

I quote the rule here: [3] "An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Violations of the rule normally attract blocks of at least 24 hours. Any appearance of gaming the system by reverting a fourth time just outside the 24-hour slot is likely to be treated as a 3RR violation". Steve Quinn (talk) 03:58, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Listing low-impact journals published by Nova serves only to show how non-notable they are - at which point we have to wonder why do we even have an article on them. The section on 'notable authors' (deleted by me) is clearly an attempt to counter material that shouldn't be here in the first place. Both sections need to go (and stay gone). However, I think the fact that Nova have received criticism in the peer-reviewed academic press is notable and the Tausch reference must remain. Famousdog (talk) 15:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I believe that there are no so-called "academic journals" published by Nova Publishers that have articles on Wikipedia. I can check that when I have the time - however I am pretty sure. There is nothing about these journals that would indicate notability. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 04:53, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually lists of journals are more than fine. The problem here it's that this was not a comprehensive list, and goes on giving information about that journals that aren't very relevant as far as the article on the publisher is concerned (such as impact/ranking, etc...). The notability of the individual journals isn't a factor here (that would decide if the journal should be linked or not, but not if it should be present in the list). Take for example, BioMed Central / BMC journals. The list is seperate, but it could certainly exists as a section of BioMed Central. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Notable authors

I am not sure that having a section on notable authors should actually be part of this article.---- Steve Quinn (talk) 04:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

• I agree. Again something that is never done in articles on other publishers. Seems to be part of the ongoing attempts to make this publisher seem more notable than it is. (Not very successful attempts, I have to say: the journals all rank at the bottom of their respective fields in the SCImago rankings that the IP editor insists to include, to the point of making me wonder whether this person wants to promote Nova or disparage them). --Crusio (talk) 08:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

• I removed the "Notable scientists" section. This section is added to this article against consensus ( 3 to 1 ). These are not all scientists and claiming this is so is WP:NOR. Only one paper (out of many) per author has been published with Nova. Therefore, this is giving undue weight WP:UNDUE to one single paper - as if this translates into notability for this publisher. Please note - these academics appear to have significantly contributed to their field, and one paper or chapter by Nova Publishers has no bearing whatsoever on their notability. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 02:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I've notified Penwhale that IP address 31.11.74.215 is continuing to edit war after his 24 hr block ended. Famousdog (talk) 09:32, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

More than 12 hours has passed, and the IP user has not revisited this article since the last removal that was done. Letting it go, for now. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 09:38, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree, lists of authors are completely irrelevant. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:47, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Use of Tausch, A. (2011).

Tausch, A. (2011) does not produce a quality ranking at all, please refer to the source before reverting an edit that correctly attributes the research of the source cited. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:46, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Academic or Vanity publisher?

As detailed in the Bade article, some of their publications make "no claim to be publishing either original or current research." I'm not sure if it would be better described as a vanity publisher, and that's why I think it's better to describe it as a "publisher" only, until better sources for more specific claims about the nature of its publishing can be found. -Hugetim ^(talk) 17:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

• Unless you have a reliable source that says so, you can't call it a vanity publisher (and from what I know about their publishing practices, although a bit shady, they're not a vanity publisher either). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 19:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
  • What reliable source says they are an academic publisher? I'm not sure about "what you know," but I can't find many reliable sources commenting on them one way or another. Forum posts and the like suggest they do not ask authors to pay fees for publishing, but they also are alleged to not pay authors or even provide promised copies of the books. There are also reports of sham peer review and non-existent editing. It appears to be "predatory" in the sense of OMICS_Publishing_Group. -Hugetim ^(talk) 20:26, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Not paying authors is something many academic publishers do. Although book authors generally get something, as well as journal editors, authors of chapters or articles almost never get paid. And I'm surprised about your insistence about wanting to remove "academic",it's not like that's an honorific, it's just a description. They produce academic journals and academic books. Granted, of low quality, but that doesn't change a thing: this is an academic publisher. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 21:48, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
      • (Right, but what has been alleged is specifically not paying book authors and editors. But I can't find any reliable sources standing behind those allegations.) Following the wording used about this publisher in an independent reliable source seems ideal, which is why I proposed the Bloomberg Businessweek company profile wording, "publisher of books and journals." I'm not sure why you insist on deviating from that. How about if the lead sentence reads "low quality academic publisher," as you grant, or "indiscriminate academic publisher" (with the emphasis on the quality of the publisher/editing, leaving open that some books with the imprint may be of high quality)? Otherwise, I do think the description "academic" functions as an unwarranted honorific in this context because good academic publishers use peer review and other editorial practices aimed at ensuring quality. -Hugetim ^(talk) 21:39, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on this. The current language in the article (Hugetim's version, I think) is "a publisher of academic books and journals." To me, this does not seem significantly different from "an academic publisher," but I like it slightly better because I think Hugetim has a reasonable point that there is no need to put Nova in the same category as more respectable outfits without RS support. On the other hand, "a vanity publisher" would clearly be out of line, at least without a RS to back it up. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 15:50, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

That's not Hugetim's version, I added the word "academic", I just put it before the word "books" instead of before "publisher". I don't care where the word stands, just so long as it is there. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:23, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The word needs to be there. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:07, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

And your source for that is? Fifelfoo (talk) 21:54, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Nova publishes books/articles that are written by a variety of people; however a large majority of them are written by doctors/professors who teach/work at colleges. Also, a lot of their books are designed for people just starting out in a particular field, for example, medicine. Royalties are paid out for those that write certain types of books. Pub Market (talk) 18:44, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Tausch article conflict of interest?

I think this is worth mentioning in the article if this reference is retained in the article. Footnote #1 in the Tausch reference states that "for obvious reasons of objectivity, this article does not include an impact analysis of University of Toronto Press, publisher of the Journal of Scholarly Publishing." Yet, nowhere in the article does he disclose that one of the publishers in his study has published the majority of his (then) fifteen books in English. -Hugetim ^(talk) 18:59, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

• In the AfD for Arno Tausch, the status of Nova became an issue, because Tausch argued that he was notable for having published books with them. So you're suspicion is not unreasonable. However, a suspicion is not enough to put that in the article. A you have phrased it, it is strongly suggested that Tausch was not objective in his article. This would be academic dishonesty, a very serious allegation. There is not a shred of evidence that Tausch was not meticulous in his study (and it should be noted that Nova did not really score very high in his ranking either). I am removing the sentence that you added. Tausch's study is a reliable source. And without a good source backing up that he was prejudiced and that this had an effect on his results, it should not be re-added according to WP:BLP. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 19:24, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
  • The creator of a work affects our assessment of its reliability. Arno Tausch is not a third-party source on this topic. A primary source analysis by someone with a conflict of interest (especially an undeclared one) is probably not appropriate for inclusion, regardless. Without even acknowledging the conflict of interest in the article, it must be removed. Evaluating sources is not original research - it's our job as Wikipedians. I am removing the paragraph. -Hugetim ^(talk) 20:39, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Sorry, but your reasoning is faulty. If you were right, no academic could ever do any study of publishers, because all academics publish and would then have a conflict of interest. His study was published in a journal of good standing and peer-reviewed. That makes it a reliable source and there is absolutely no reason to doubt Tausch's integrity. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 21:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
      • Not at all. He easily could have done the study on 21 book publishers that hadn't published him. According to one highly cited listing, there are [www.sense.nl/uploads?&func=download&fileId=855 80+ academic presses] more highly ranked than Nova that he could have ranked. Instead, he included all three that have published him. Or he could have just acknowledged the conflict of interest. -Hugetim ^(talk) 00:35, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
        • I'm with Guillaume on this. There's no basis for rejecting Tausch's article, especially considering how flimsy the link is (he published books with some of the publishers), and considering he ranked Nova 17th out of 21, which is hardly the position you would expect if he had the bias you say he has. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:35, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

@Hugetim: I strongly suggest that you restore the info to the article. In addition, the info you removed on the founder should also be restored: non-controversial information such as a non-contested previous position can be sourced to a primary source and there is no reason to remove it. Basically, the article should be restored to what it was before you started editing it. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 13:07, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Are you referring to a specific policy about the use of primary sources or just common practice or what? Maybe WP:SELFPUB? I just found it suspect that the publisher of this (which is what sparked my interest in this, full disclosure, in the drafting of this article) would have had a high-level position at a respected publisher. In other words, the claim is "unduly self-serving," it does "involve claims about third parties" (i.e. Plenum), and there is "reasonable doubt as to its authenticity." -Hugetim ^(talk) 22:22, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I think Hugetim has made a strong case. Anyone who peruses the talk archives for this page (go on, I dare you!) can clearly see that Tausch has a long history of tendentiously supporting the article subject. If you look at the date on which the Tausch article was published (I was actively editing this WP article at the time), it seems clear to me that Tausch posted it specifically so that it could be used in this WP article to counter the criticism by Bade. As Hugetim has pointed out, this is not OR, this is considering where the sources come from and judging them accordingly.

Furthermore, as Hugetim pointed out, Tausch could have considered 80+ publishers ranked more highly than Nova. His sample is thus highly suspect. Even though Nova comes out ranked near the bottom of his analysis, "17th out of 20" is still far better than they deserve.

Finally, Guillaume's counter-argument (that no one would be able to analyze publishers because everyone has a conflict of interest) does not hold water. Because of the pattern of publishers he has chosen, Tausch's reputation is unusually reliant upon questionably propping up the reputation of his publishers. The vast majority of respectable researchers, whose work is primarily published with high-impact journals and publishers, would not have the conflict of interest that Tausch clearly has. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 15:35, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• I know the talk archives quite well, after all, I wrote a big chunk of it under my previous username: if you look in the history you'll see my current username. In fact, this article and all the brouhaha around it was one of the reasons that I asked for a rename. Tausch had a rather puffed up bio here at the time, which got deleted after a big battle at AfD. At the time, I spend a lot of energy to get this article here neutrally worded. I am fully well prepared to spend the same energy in preventing it from becoming a hatchet job. And despite having worked hard to get the Tausch bio deleted, I will defend Tausch from the accusation of having published a biased article. This is a very serious accusation for an academic and should not be allowed to stand without solid evidence, which there is not. This is simple, straight-forward BLP policy. In addition, your reasoning is way too simplistic. Many honest and hard-working scientists have published with Nova and brushing them aside as you do is unwarranted. Yes, Nova is a publisher at the very low end of the market and they have pulled some shady stunts. That's all in the article (and should be). Tausch's article, in fact, is not very flattering for them either (I ask you, 17/20, that's well in the lower 25th percentile)... --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:41, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, I hadn't noticed that Tausch somehow got this work published in a peer-reviewed journal. In my defense, that was not formerly the case. Also in my defense, I was not proposing that we bad-mouth Tausch in any way (which would have been a BLP issue) but simply that we not mention his article. Furthermore, library science is not Tausch's field, so it was unclear to me why his word on the topic would have any particular value. The article becomes harder to exclude, though, now that it is published in a reputable library science journal (though that does not confer unimpeachability, and verifiability is based on the preponderance of sources). I'm still suspicious on account of the "shady stunts," but for now I'll wait and see what others say. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I sincerely appreciate the energy you have put into this article. However, I have not "brushed off" anyone, written a "hatchet job," or accused Tausch of biasing the article. What I have said is that he has an undeclared conflict-of-interest in writing that article and that, even if he did declare the COI in the article, it would not be a third-party source on Nova Publishers. These are simply facts and I am requesting you to strike your accusation that by stating them I am doing something untoward. Otherwise, please consider that this matters because the 17/21 "ranking" can be easily misinterpreted as in this diff. Better to base the article on only reliable, third-party sources as this version does. -Hugetim ^(talk) 22:09, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'm bordering on edit warring now and I'm supposed be on a wikibreak. I'm going to try to look away now and leave you all to do your best work. -Hugetim ^(talk) 00:04, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Fairness

Long rant, but little feedback that's actually actionable, click "show" on the right to display

I think the language used on this talk page about Nova Science Publishers and their authors, using words like “vanity press”, “shady stunts” etc. might not only contradict the laws of many countries (fortunately enough, I am not a lawyer) but is also morally unfair against the publishers in New York and also against all the authors of the thousands of books now on the market (http://www.worldcat.org/advancedsearch and http://www.loc.gov/z3950/) from that company.

Being a social scientist (and, as I said, thanks be to God/Allah, not a lawyer) from a developing country, I came across many critical studies on the capitalist world economy, published by Nova Science Publishers in New York. These interesting titles were written against the neo-liberal mainstream, so prevalent in economics and the social sciences in general in the West. Just take a look at the massive reader “Globalization. Critical Perspectives” edited by Gernot Kohler and Emilio José Chaves, which came out in 2003. I am particularly pleased – considering my own background – that Nova Science herewith also gave a public audience to Professors Sadik Unay, one of Turkey’s leading world systems analysts, who later on published with Nova also the volumes “Global Orders and Civilizations: Perspectives from History, Philosophy and International Relations” (2009); and “Neoliberal Globalization and Institutional Reform: The Political Economy of Development Planning in Turkey” (2006).

Instead of insulting the publisher, one should simply take a look at the articles in that particular volume, written by the real superstars of the world system analysis profession – Samir Amin, Christopher Chase Dunn, the late Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein.

Read these articles, published in 2003 and their predictions of a major crisis of global capitalism, and compare them with the world today. Such examples could be given, on and on, and publications as these can be used to put the language of some of the contributions here on this talk page into a true and more global perspective.

From the point of view of the ‘BRICS’ countries and the developing countries in general, Professor Joav Merrick, Medical Director, Health Services, Division of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services and Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Jerusalem, Israel was right in emphasizing in his tribute to the company founder Frank Columbus (https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=22414)

“Authors are located in every country of the world”

What a correct statement! Just take the example of the works of Professor Bulent Aras, who is nowadays the head of the Center for Strategic Research (SAM) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Turkish Republic (http://sam.gov.tr/short-bio-2/ ), and whose very first major English language book publication, back in 1998, - guess where? - came out with Nova Science Publishers. Everybody in the social science profession knows that Nova Science are not the top market leaders like Oxford University Press, but going through Nova’s publication catalogue one will find dozens, yes, hundreds of examples like this, and many, many interesting books. Nova was and continues to be a decent outlet of publications for many scientists from around the world on the Anglo-American market, especially for authors from Europe, the former USSR, and the developing countries.

In this context, the derogatory remark about one particular Nova author, Arno Tausch, who went to the defense of the company on the pages of Wikipedia, and the number of his books published with Nova (several of their authors returned to publish with them many times, not necessarily an expression of author dissatisfaction) are also unfair in this context – his other volumes came out with publishers like Anthem Press in London, Delhi and New York; with Palgrave Macmillan, with L’Harmattan, the market leader in France, etc. as well. Being a social scientist from the Muslim world, I happened to come across many of Tausch’s studies, indexed in the “Index Islamicus” as well as the book to which he contributed on “Security for the Weak Nations”, which came out decades ago in 1987 in Lahore in Pakistan. Ignorance may dictate such derogatory statements, but in countries like Turkey, Tausch’s contributions are well-known.

One contributor on this page mentions him like this:

“Furthermore, library science is not Tausch’ s field, so it was unclear to me why his word on the topic would have any particular value. The article becomes harder to exclude, though, now that it is published in a reputable library science journal (though that does not confer unimpeachability, and verifiability is based on the preponderance of sources). I'm still suspicious on account of the "shady stunts," but for now I'll wait and see what others say. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:25, 9 August 2012 (UTC)”

Well, I have come across some of his articles, published in journals like the “Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health”; the electronic edition of the “British Medical Journal”; the “International Journal of Health Planning and Management”; the “International Social Science Journal” (UNESCO, Paris); “Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia” (Moscow); the “Revista Internacional de Sociologia”, CSIC, Madrid; and “The European Journal of Comparative Economics” to know that he is familiar enough with international data analysis to warrant a minimum of respect. If BlueMoonlet is not satisfied with his article in the JoP, well, why doesn’t he start to count publisher impact and diffusion, as Tausch did, himself, for 20 or 50 or 100 publishers? And compare the results in the Tausch article with his own?

Did Nova’s detractors ever notice that the company is one of the 336 companies included in the Thomson/Reuters Book Citation Index, as a look at the website http://wokinfo.com/mbl/publishers/ will reveal to anyone interested?

Thomson Reuters say about their inclusion policy:

“With books, as with journals and conference proceedings, there is a need to select those publications that will most likely contain significant scholarship. Thomson Reuters has demonstrated that, by applying rigorous selection criteria to the literature it covers, researchers are able to quickly and efficiently discover the scholarly content that best serves their needs. The aggregation of important book content in the Book Citation Index within Web of Science also enables researchers to reveal their work to a wider audience and to measure citation impact across various publishing formats” (November 23, 2010: THE BOOK SELECTION PROCESS FOR THE BOOK CITATION INDEX IN WEB OF SCIENCE. James Testa VP, Editorial Development & Publisher Relations, Thomson Reuters, http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/bookcitationindex/

I was also stunned by one of the contentions – gossip - allegations – formulated on this talk page, which states that

“Forum posts and the like suggest they do not ask authors to pay fees for publishing, but they also are alleged to not pay authors or even provide promised copies of the books. There are also reports of sham peer review and non-existent editing. It appears to be "predatory" in the sense of OMICS_Publishing_Group. -Hugetim (talk) 20:26, 8 August 2012 (UTC)”

The truth is different: Nova Science, like many others of their competitors on the market, indeed publish their books with a clause in their contract stipulating that royalties are being paid only after a certain number of copies have been sold, as anybody can testify, who asked them to provide the details of their contracts, or whoever asked one of their numerous authors. What I expect from a modern open internet encyclopedia like Wikipedia is to keep certain standards; including legal ones. To refer to gossip in forum posts is utterly unacceptable. To pay royalties only after 250 copies or 300 copies were sold on the market is a standard international practice, especially among smaller international publishers.

I hope that all this controversy is not motivated by political considerations, but I am beginning to suspect such directions, considering that Nova Science Publishers in general and also Nova Science author Arno Tausch as well in particular have come out against Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and the main current of neoliberal thinking, so prevalent nowadays in many countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskender Iskender (talk • contribs) 12:37, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

{{Editprotected}}

I work for Nova Publishers and just created an account. I would now like to add some additional content (edits) to their page. The page seems protected. What do I need to do in order to make changes (edits)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pub Market (talk • contribs) 16:44, 19 October 2012

Hi Pub Market. Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for identifying yourself. The page is only semi-protected, so you should be able to edit it once your account is a few days old.

Please read the conflict of interest policy. This is very important given your employment situation. In short, it would be much better if you discuss your desired changes here on the Talk page before implementing them yourself. Thanks, --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 16:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

In fact, if you work for them, it would be preferable if you just avoided editing the article altogether, with the exception of the kind of uncontroversial edits set out here. -- Rrburke (talk) 17:28, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Pub Market should proceed with extreme care when it comes to editing the actual article. However, this does not preclude Pub Market engaging in extended discussion on this Talk page about his/her concerns. To quote WP:COI, "an editor with a self-evident interest in the matter turning up on the talk page is an indication that they are playing it straight". Pub Market is to be applauded in that. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 18:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Notability

I've placed the notability tag so other editors could find more reliable, independent, and secondary sources to support the publisher's notability. I gave the article the benefit of the doubt by not sending it to AfD. Currently, the listed sources are insufficient to justify notability under WP:CORP. Only one source discusses the publisher. The other independent sources merely list the publisher and don't discuss it at any length. If this publisher is clearly notable, there should be reliable sources to support it. If the publisher shouldn't be considered under WP:CORP, please indicate which notability criteria it is satisfying. –Temporal User (Talk) 11:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

• Feel free to take it to AfD, although I'm pretty certain that this would be kept. A "notability" tag means that you doubt notability, it is not asking for more or better references (we have special tags for that). --Randykitty (talk) 11:32, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

white wash allegation

Please cite credible sources for allegation. The paper by Blade is SELF PUBLISHED and it was never actually published by stanford. This is a forum where the editor of a journal asks questions about what people think about this article . The article was never published but people are citing it as if Stanford published it! Facts are facts. Do not give Wikipedia a black eye in academia. (Lowkeyvision (talk) 05:17, 9 February 2013 (UTC))

• If you really think that this is what the reference says, then you really need to brush up on your English. This is the official blog of Stanford's library. The post is from the librarian, who is also the editor of the journal you're talking about. He's not asking people what they think about the article at all. What he says is that he finds the article so important, that he thinks it should be published as soon as possible (i.e., without waiting to go through the editing process at his journal). That's not quite the same... --Randykitty (talk) 10:05, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

It was never published. As for claim of undue weight please cite other legitimate sources, otherwise it is just him. (Lowkeyvision (talk) 14:40, 14 February 2013 (UTC))

I think that you might have a limited understanding of the word "publish". Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:44, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Please read WP:Civil. Rather than vandalising the page, explain what you mean by it is published. Where is it published? On a website discussing possible publication? It was never actually published in a journal. If it was published in another journal please cite the journal it was published in.. And the citation has even been left up with the authors name with the link to the unpublished manuscript. If you want to generalize it as a general criticism cite more than one source and preferably ones that are actually published. (Lowkeyvision

• Nomoskedasticity was perfectly civil to you and the fact that you ask him to read WP:CIVIL suggests that you need to re-read it yourself to refresh your memory. As to what constitutes a reliable source on WP, please read up on the policy that I linked here. The source given is perfectly legitimate. If you disagree, go to the reliabl sources noticeboard and ask for other opinions there. But please stop edit warring here. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 22:12, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Why are you deleting the Reuters information and the SENSE information? I say leave the source on, but cite the name of it. (Lowkeyvision (talk) 02:09, 15 February 2013 (UTC))

Reuters: "Nova Science publishers is listed among the 336 book publishers in the Thomson/Reuters Book Citation Index": Nobody disputes that this is a book publishing company and the company's own website is reference enough for that. SENSE: an unclear internal document ranking book publishers based on unclear criteria. --Randykitty (talk) 09:34, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

• I was asked to take another look at this, 4 years after than my earlier edits. first, in 2009 I added a "notability" tag to the article. I think on reconsideration that the firm is clearly notable, and I removed it. In the back and forth since then, some basic information was omitted, which is the field in which the firm publishes and some idea of how many titles. I added the gerneral fields, together with up to date count of the number of currently published journals from their web site. A count of books or book series would be more difficult, because most of their books are published in one or more series, as is typical of academic publishers. If I can find an easy way of doing it, I shall.

I also revised some wording referring to the Blade study; after all, it dealt with only a few titles. I note the copy on the stanford site is a preprint, and it was accepted in a peer reviewed journal, as stated there, and posted by the editor of that journal. It's a RS, but it should not be used to imply more than it actually says.

I do not consider the listing in Book CI books all that important--it lists all substantial academic publishers. But I see no reason why it should not be included; it is true nobody doubts Nova is a significant publisher, but there is no reason not to document it. If it is included, though, it ought to be accompanied by a count of how many of their journals are in JCR-Science and JCR-Social science, since these are our standard references for notability of journals. There was a count in the article previously--the count at that time was zero, but it needs to be updated, especially since the ISI coverage has been broadened since that time. There is also no reason not to include other positive information, such as their most widely held books and journals.

Since I am quoted in the Stanford posting, I want to emphasize what I said and did not say in it. I said my own library had never purchased a journal of theirs in biology or chemistry; I did not say this of other fields, and specifically said I thought it was considered more highly in social science. Indeed, Princeton had then and still has some titles in the social sciences (and there is enough information in the public catalog record to show that some have demonstrable use by the patrons). Fair is fair. DGG ( talk ) 07:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed (Lowkeyvision (talk) 23:45, 17 February 2013 (UTC))

If anything the article from Stanfords blog that we didnt get a journal citation for is dodgy. The SENSE document was circulated throughout the attendance of SENSE conferences to document which publishers are worthy of sending publications to. It is of notability. (Lowkeyvision (talk) 06:12, 25 February 2013 (UTC))

"Notability" is established via coverage in secondary sources. You're using a primary source. please see WP:PSTS to learn about the difference. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:53, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

The sources cited in the article currently understate the criticism of this publisher.

I'm surprised to discover that the article, as now posted, understates the degree to which Nova Publishers has been criticized in the scholarly community as a vanity press with no meaningful editorial review. I'll have to visit my favorite academic library and seek out more sources about how to evaluate purported academic publishers. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

• I know people complain about them, but as long as they only say so and don't publish it in reliable sources, we can't integrate it in the article. And even in its current state, it should be clear to any reader that this is not exactly a top level publishing house... But if you find good sources then, by all means, let's include that. --Randykitty (talk) 19:59, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

November 2013 edits

Randykitty reverted some edits I made to the article, so I'll explain them here in more detail.

1- "Nova Publishers is an academic publisher of books and academic journals based in Hauppauge, New York."

This makes two claims not supported by the source used: that it is an academic publisher and that it publishes academic journals. Since Nova will publish pretty much anything anyone sends them, these claims are even more improper.

2- "The firm publishes books and journals in science and the social sciences. As of January 2013, it listed 110 currently published journals."

First sentence is not only unsourced it is also misleading since it makes it look as if that's the only thing they publish, which is most definitely not true (see [4]). The second one uses Nova's own site as a source and it is and irrelevant piece of information.

3- "Nova Publishers is an author mill based in Hauppauge, New York that publishes books, journals and e-books."

I added "author mill" with no WP:RS to back it up so I can understand it be reversed. I based that edit on this article so we can discuss whether it is a WP:RS or not. I also added that it publishes ebooks which was not present before. I'll await comments. Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 02:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• @Gaba_p: regarding your message on my talk page, I'm sorry, but I don't take back the edit summary saying "vandalism". Nova is a bottom-feeding publisher, I agree, and I have resisted efforts in the past to whitewash this article. I will just as much resist efforts to turn this into a hatchet job. "Academic publisher" is not necessarily an honorific, it's a description. Nova doesn't publishes novels and such, but academic books and journals. Perhaps of questionable quality, but that doesn't make them an "author mill". They are an academic publisher, period. Similarly, their journals are academic journals. Not very good perhaps, but academic all the same. I would similarly argue that journals published by predatory publishers are still "academic journals", even if their peer review is all but nonexistent. Nominally they are peer-reviewed, so they are academic journals.

If you have serious edits to propose, based on reliable sources, I'll be happy to work with you on improving and expanding this article. But only as long as things stay NPOV. We're here to report what sources say, not to settle grudges. --Randykitty (talk) 07:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Lets leave the vandalism accusation out of this talk page and concentrate on content. Would you please comment on my proposed edits (which BTW are of course "serious")?

1- "Academic publisher" implies science publisher which Nova is most definitely not. The fact it publishes journals (among other things) does not make it an academic publisher and again I note that the source used does not back this statement.

2- You didn't comment, please do.

3- The last point mentions a source for using author mill, do you contest the use of this source?

Thank you. Gaba ^(talk) 10:35, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

1) Academic doesn't imply science anymore than animal implies elephant. As far as the description goes, saying Nova publishes academic journals and academic books is both adequate and accurate. There is no judgement in quality here.

2) Not sure what you want use to comment on. Science + Social Sciences seems like an accurate description of their portfolio (https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=23&typesort=series, https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=125), with an outlier here and there. Journal count could be updated though.

3) That's a source, but at face value, it's a rather low-reliability one, and only weakly support for the claim of "author mill". I don't particularly have a problem with blogs, but they do need to be autoritative. Who is PaulVS, what is "The Doctoral Community"?, and how are they qualified to make a judgment on the quality of Nova as a publisher? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:24, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello Headbomb, thanks for commenting.

1- I beg to disagree, adding the academic qualifier does carry a certain "scientific" weight. Let me ask you a question: since the source used does not describe it as an "academic" publisher, why should we and based on what?

2- I don't think saying it publishes "books and journals in science and the social sciences" is an accurate description of their portfolio. I'd say at best it is a partial one, specially considering they also publish thinks like this or this or this. Furthermore, having no source to back the statement I move for it to be removed.

3- I agree that the source presented is not of the best possible quality, but given the other sources used in this article I don't think it is too far off. I'd also like to present this article as a source to descibe this as a Print on demand publisher.

Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 12:04, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Concerning 1), if you insist on giving inappropriate connotations to words they don't have, that's your problem. Someone who's a engineering professor or a English literature professor are academics, but they are not a scientists. It is likewise for the journals in which they publish. As for why we use the term, it's because it's what best describes what type of publishing they do. Concerning 2) saying you publish on topic A and B does not imply that you don't publish things in topics C. Removing A and B instead of adding C is does not make the article more accurate, it makes the article less informative. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:11, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok, here's a new proposal based on these sources [5][6] (note neither uses the word academic to describe Nova's type of publishing) to rephrase the first paragraph and this one [7] to source the "Print on demand" fact. It currently reads:

• Nova Publishers is an academic publisher of books and journals based in Hauppauge, New York. The firm publishes books and journals in science and the social sciences. As of January 2013, it listed 110 currently published journals.

My proposed edit is:

• Nova Publishers is a print on demand publishing house based in Hauppauge, New York. It publishes a wide range of materials in book, journal and e-book format, with subjects varying greatly including topics such as sports and athletics, transportation, agriculture and food science, children's books, philosophy, etc. As of November 2013, it listed 103 published journals.

I've removed the "author mill" claim since it was based on a blog entry and I've also updated the journals count. Please let me know what you think. Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 13:29, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Again the "print on demand" claim is not substantiated, nor is removing the word "academic". What that source writes is "Nova Publishers (aka Nova Science) - reprints scholarly public domain material and solicits recently-credentialed scholars to submit book chapters for academic monographs. Not exactly a self-publishing enterprise, but books do not go through a standard academic peer review process despite their academic focus." Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:08, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

If there's a good source asserting that they do not use standard academic peer review, then that definitely belongs in the article. (FWIW, I agree that Gaba's initial edit was not vandalism; on the contrary it was obviously a good-faith edit.) Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:17, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Headbomb how is it not substantiated? The name is listed in a Print on demand publishers list, how much clearer can it get? We have not one source using the word academic to describe the publishing made by this company and we have at least two (mentioned above) which do not. The closest thing is the third source I mentioned above which, as you point out, states clearly "books do not go through a standard academic peer review process despite their academic focus".

Nomoskedasticity agree with you that we could use that same source to mention the fact that it does not apply a standard academic peer review process. Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 14:40, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

And on that list, they write specifically "Not exactly a self-publishing enterprise, but books do not go through a standard academic peer review process despite their academic focus." which directly goes against your claim that this is a print-on-demand publisher. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:49, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

No, that goes against a claim of it being a "self-publishing" publisher which I never made. The list is of "print on demand" publishers, which is not the same as "self-publishing", and which is precisely what it's stated on my proposed edit. Please read it again. Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 00:07, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Headbomb is totally right here. As Randykitty pointed out below, there is no problem with print on demand per se, as long as the content remains under editorial control. The problem is when POD becomes a vehicle for self-publishing. With this now better clarified in my mind, I think my suggestion below should stop with the quote and not mention the comparison to POD. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I never said there was a "problem" with POD, I simply stated that a source listed this publishing house as such and thus so should we. And Headbomb is not correct because "print on demand" and "self-publishing" are not the same thing. I absolutely never mentioned "self-publishing", I mention POD because that's what the source says. Gaba ^(talk) 02:12, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

If you don't mean for POD to be entangled with the alleged lack of editorial control, then I don't know why you want to mention it in the article at all. Just because it's true or supported by sources isn't sufficient, because not every fact is encylopedic.

As for the source, perhaps you're right that its purpose is to provide a helpful list of publishers you might use if you happen to want POD services, and the comment about Nova's lack of editorial control is more of an aside. I had been interpreting the source as primarily a warning against publishers whose methods verge on self-publishing, with the comment about Nova being a caveat saying that it is not as problematic as some who go all the way into self-publishing. In either case, I think my suggestion below expresses what we can usefully take from this source. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 17:20, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I want to mention it in the article because there are very few WP:RS that we could use here (given the poor notability of this publisher) and this is one of them. We can disagree that it is not a reasonable piece of information to add. I believe it is and it's ok if you don't.

I agree with your proposed edit although I'd personally add the POD part and remove "academic publisher" as per the sources presented, but if there's no consensus for this extra changes then that's it. Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 12:08, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that this source has sufficient quality to support a statement such as this: "Library professionals warn that Nova's books 'do not go through a standard academic peer review process despite their academic focus' and compare Nova to a print on demand publisher." Note that the source of the epithet appears in the text, rather than presenting the epithet as Wikipedia's judgment. Also, this statement should not go in the first paragraph, but belongs perhaps in the third paragraph where other criticism already resides.

Regarding Gaba's other points, I agree with others that academic publisher is the proper descriptor, as it specifies the genre and not the quality. Also, with the exception of "children's books," the other topics in Gaba's expanded list ("sports and athletics, transportation, agriculture and food science, children's books, philosophy, etc.") are amenable to academic treatment and could be described as falling under "sciences and social sciences." Indeed, the examples of Nova titles provided by Gaba appear to be intended as academic treatments of those topics. As for "children's books," I don't see any support for that; there is a subheading of "Children and Families" here, but that leads to academically-intended treatments of that topic. So I would stick with "sciences and social sciences." --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 17:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• This has become quite a discussion since I last was here. Since my plane will be boarding in a few minutes, I'll only briefly comment on some issues raised above. MIT Press, Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press, to mention but three, all also publish more general, almost popular-zcientific books. Still, we call them "academic publishers" and justifiably so. I am returning from a trade fair where Springer Science+Business Media had a stand. They announced that their e-books now are also available as print-on-demand books. I guess they are now not an academic publisher any more either and just an "author mill"? Nova quite clearly is a (low-quality) academic publisher, not an author mill (far as I know, you cannot pay them to publish your crap), nor a pure print-on-demand publisher (like Springer; and even though some people compare them to such publishers). --Randykitty (talk) 01:12, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

But surely the e-books you mention still have their content under control by Springer editors, yes? I think what you've said here makes it more clear to me that POD by itself is not problematic. It's editorial control that is the main issue. In general, I think you have admirably stated the situation, Randykitty. Thanks for that. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The "author mill" qualification was dropped several comments above Randykitty. I did it to avoid unnecessary discussion on account of it being based on a blog, although I still believe the rest of the sources used in this article are not of the best quality either.

I do not care for articles on other publishers as per WP:OTHERSTUFF. I'm basing my proposed edits on the sources we have available for this one, and those sources do not mention it being an "academic publisher". Do you find something wrong with adhering to these sources? Or do you have sources that refer to Nova as an "academic publisher"? Sources are the key factor here people, we're editing WP. Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 02:12, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFF is a policy about deletion discussions, and not relevant here. We are talking about how to craft an article on a difficult subject, so it is useful to make reference to how consensus has been reached for other articles that present more straightforward cases. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 17:20, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

You are correct BlueMoonlet, that guideline deals specifically with deletions; thanks for pointing that out. I could swear I read a similar guideline regarding articles. Anyway, thanks again. Cheers. Gaba ^(talk) 12:08, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not a policy (not even a guideline) and as far as I am concerned, that argument applies outside of deletion discussions just as well. In any case, I have found an article quite critical of Nova, but still calling it an "academic publisher" and have added it to the article. The whole thing is rather silly, this is the first time as far as I can recall that we apparently need a source to say that a publisher of scientific books and journals is an "academic publisher". I propose that once everyone here is satisfied that this source indeed confirms that the use of "academic publisher" is justified, that we remove it from the lead again (leaving it further below to source the criticism of the OA cost. --Randykitty (talk) 08:41, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but that "Frank Truth" source is unreliable and even then you've cherry-picked it to call NP just an "academic publisher". Why don't we just say "publisher" since that is verifiable and true? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 08:45, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious to know more about "Frank Truth". A google scholar search doesn't help much. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:52, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

He sometimes uses the pseudonym Straight Dope. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 09:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Given that the discussion seems to have moved over to this section Talk:Nova_Publishers#Neutrality_concerns after many edits made to the article, I'll be commenting over there and request that others do the same as to keep the discussion from fragmenting. Thank you. Gaba ^(talk) 14:10, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Book Citation Index

Why mention this? Without some secondary source mentioning it, it's undue isn't it? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 06:43, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Not really. If a journal is included in the Science Citation Index or any other Thomson Reuters database, we also mention that in an article on that journal. Being included in such selective databases is an important measure of notability for journals (see WP:NJournals). As we include criticism of Nova in the article, for fair balance this should be mentioned, too, because it means that at least TR thinks this is a legitimate academic publisher. --Randykitty (talk) 06:55, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be done generally for book publishers (I looked at Ashgate Publishing e.g.). We shouldn't try and "even out" things by using primary sources, as that would give false balance ... the problem is that this does indeed look like some text that implies "it's a proper publisher really". If there's a source saying that we can use it; it's not our job to try and do it ourselves. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:06, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Well, that's the problem with articles on publishers like Nova, as compared to, say, Wiley-Blackwell (a completely legit publisher) and OMICS (a predatory publisher). Nova is a legit publisher, but obviously of low quality and with some shady characteristics. So we have to keep the article balanced. For journals, we regard inclusion in, for example, the Science Citation Index as definite proof of notability. Similarly with the Book Citation Index. A publisher like OMICS would never pass TR"s screening. That Nova did is worth mentioning. Whether that is a primary source is debatable. The BCI is a database and it cites Nova as a publisher worthy of inclusion. --Randykitty (talk) 08:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Surely I don't need to quote policy at you. It's not really "balance" to try and get a score-draw by selecting sources, is it. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 08:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

And hang on - isn't a book citation index an index of books not an index of publishers? Currently this article points to a "list of all publishers" on TR's page (with incorrect reference information) to support the statement that "Nova Publishers is included in the Book Citation Index". Huh? Not only is this a primary source, it looks like some kind of weird synthesis/misrepresentation too. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 10:05, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Alexbrn is correct here. The Book Citation Index (BCI) is an index of books, not publishers. I refer readers to the THE BOOK SELECTION PROCESS FOR THE BOOK CITATION INDEX IN WEB OF SCIENCE where it is stated that:

• The Book Citation Index covers only scholarly books that present fully referenced articles of original research, or reviews of the literature with the understanding that these books may be published in a wider variety of formats.

So as I understand it, the link currently used in the article means that at least one book published by Nova has been added to the BCI. I believe the use of the source is valuable, but this distinction should be made clear. Regards. Gaba ^(talk) 14:27, 17 November 2013 (UTC)