Talk:Sino-Platonic Papers

Notability?

Hi Crusio, thanks for fixing my mistaken abbreviation in the journal Infobox, which I've never used before. I (full disclosure) started this article and was surprised to see that you tagged the notability. I've learned from WP:NJournals that indexing services like JCR are the best test of notability, but I don't have access to any of them. Could you please, if you haven't already, check the impact factor? Keahapana (talk) 00:30, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

• Hi, this journal is not indexed by JCR and nothing about indexing is mentioned on its web site either. Which is why I tagged it... --Crusio (talk) 06:36, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you again. This SPP {oops} article needs work and I'll search for references. Keahapana (talk) 00:56, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Many Wikipedia articles cite Sino-Platonic Papers. Google currently finds 283 ghits under wikipedia.org and 111 under en.wikipedia.org. Keahapana (talk) 01:29, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

• "Internal notability"... Now that's an original notion... The references are not impressive. I must say that I find the quote from the Warring States Project showing some incomprehension about academic publishing. The other ref is just a blog and not a reliable source. --Crusio (talk) 01:59, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Original notion? WP:NJournals gives this caveat,

Note that as this is a guideline and not a rule; exceptions may well exist. Some journals may not meet any of these criteria, but may still be notable for the work they have published. It is important to note that it is very difficult to make clear requirements in terms of quality of publications: The criteria, in practice, vary greatly by field. Also, this proposal sets the bar fairly low, which is natural: To a degree, journals are the sources upon which much of Wikipedia's contents are built. It is natural that successful ones should be considered notable.

Many current articles quote content from SPP monographs. Keahapana (talk) 00:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

• "Successful" does not mean "articles for which people have successfully inserted references in WP articles". WP cannot be used to show notability, that would be a circular notion. --Crusio (talk) 05:44, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I quoted from 9 different Sino-Platonic Papers in my book, Through the Jade Gate to Rome (2009), and so far I have references to 13 Sino-Platonic Papers in my draft annotated translation of the Weilűe which I hope to publish late this year or early next year. I find them totally indispensible for my research. I think they are an essential tool for anyone working in the fields of Chinese or Central Asian history. And they are now freely downloadable by all. Three cheers for Victor Mair! John Hill (talk) 04:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

• Please note that "notability" has nothing to do with being good or bad, it's not a "quality" evaluation. Something may be notable because it is low quality. --Crusio (talk) 05:44, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with John Hill that SPP is undeniably notable and appreciate his improvements to this article. Crusio's interpretation of WP:N guidelines seems arbitrary, particularly in comparison with other major Asian studies journals like Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Monumenta Serica, T'oung Pao, Journal of the American Oriental Society, and Journal of Asian Studies. Do you consider any of these to be "notable"? Keahapana (talk) 21:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Reply to User:Crusio

Please be aware that I was responding to your comment about references in WP not being sufficient to show "success" or "notability" by showing that I, for one, have used, and am making further extensive use, of this important on-line resource. Please do not misrepresent what I say. Let's try to work together to make this a better article - not destroy it. BTW - why do you think a free on-line journal which has published some 207 articles to date - many quite long works by recognised experts in their fields - is NOT notable - or that it is not a "major scholarly monographic series"? Finally, why do you think one shouldn't mention here Victor Mair's present position - it certainly seems pertinent to me to have the series' editor's academic position mentioned without having to go to another page. I will try to make further improvements in good faith (and will certainly retain some that you have made), but I don't want to get in a bunfight with you. I must add, however, that a quick search on Google Books for "Sino-Platonic Papers" will reveal that there are a large number of published scholarly books which either quote from, or refer to, papers published in the SPP series (I gave up counting after 70). To me, this certainly considerably adds to the series' "notability," "success," and importance. I will, therefore, remove the tag about it perhaps not meeting the "general notability guideline" from the article. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 13:14, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

• I did not misrepresent what you were writing, you simply seem to miss my point. Something can be very good and helpful to some people, but not be "notable" in the Wikipedia sense. In WP, "notable" means that there are independent reliable sources that show that a subject is notable. This has absolutely nothing to do with quality, or good or bad, or something like that. Some murderers can be notable (because there was in-depth newspaper coverage about them - not just about their crimes), but the policemen who tracked them down and arrested them may not be notable (because no newspaper covered them in dept apart from in-passing mentions that murderer X was apprehended by policeman Y). For academic publications, it is often difficult to find good sources showing notability. Of course, coverage of the journal or series itself in other sources (such as the Times Higher Education supplement) is perfect, but lacking that, we also assume that a publication is notable if it is included in major indexes/databases (such as the JCR mentioned above). Citations to a publications are generally not very helpful for establishing notability (because they cite individual articles and are therefore not necessarily indicative of the notability of the whole series). If citation numbers are to be used at all, one would expect hundreds or thousands of them. Most publications will be cited occasionally, so that is nothing out of the ordinary and therefore does not indicate notability. Finally, I'd like to remark that all this started just because I put a "notability" tag on the article. All such a tag does is ask editors to help finding sources showing notability for a subject. It does not mean that an article is going to be deleted or something like that (although that is a risk if sources cannot be found, tag or no tag). With academic journals/monograph series I am more of an "inclusionist" than a "deletionist", but from time to time other editors come by who disagree with that and take articles like this to AfD. All I'm trying to accomplish here is that when that would happen, the AgD will be closed as "keep" because clear sources establishing notability without any doubt are provided. --Crusio (talk) 09:06, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Page views

The repeated insertion of a remark about the number of page views to the website of this monograph series is unwarranted. Not only is the number unlikely, it is not properly sourced. To start with I am unsure whether pinyin.info is a reliable source and even less so its news blog. In one of his edit summaries re-inserting this statement, User:John Hill asserts that this is "reliable, [because] Mark Swofford is webmaster for both Sino-platonic.org and Pinyin.info". That leads to the following problem, namely that this is obviously not an independent source either. In the latest round of reversions, John Hill asserts that #I don't need an 'independent source for this claim' as it is qualified by 'is said to have had'". WP should report facts, not rumors, and facts should be verifiable by references to independent reliable sources. I am getting a bit tired from the continuous wrangling with desperate attempts to show how terribly notable this series is (but without providing any sources for that). I urge the editors involved to familiarize themselves with the WP policies linked to above and then remove this remark themselves. --Crusio (talk) 09:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am getting very tired of all this too. I am particularly tired of you seemingly trying to establish that the Sino-Platonic Papers are not "notable" enough to have a WP article about them, and wonder why this is so important to you. I contend that notability depends a great deal on what audience and field you are talking about. I gather you are used to working in a scientific field which has relatively huge resources alloted to it - not one like Ancient History which is facing severe cutbacks in many countries, and for which available resources are quite limited. In terms of material available to historians working on Early Asian History, the Sino-Platonic Papers provide a very important and easily accessible source of recent work and thinking in the field - material which would otherwise be mostly unavailable - especially to those (like myself) who do not have access to decent library facilities - or even any grants. It is, therefore, very "notable" to people working in this field - but may be of little import or note to people working in science laboratories. I feel I should point out here that all my research over the past 30+ years has been self-funded, and that I live more than 1,500 km from the nearest half-decent research library. I can assure you the SPP series is very "notable" to me!

I think it is fair enough to state that a claim has been made (especially as a reference is given to that claim) - even if you personally do not trust the figures and do not think the source is "independent." (BTW why do you not trust the figures? Earlier on in this prolonged debate I believe you were saying that "over a million hits" in a year were not all that many anyway - I took this to be part of your argument that the SPP were not "notable" enough for your liking). Now you are saying that even this small number of hits is "unlikely" - I would like to know on what basis you make this remark? Are you insinuating that the person who made this claim is a liar?

If all claims made in the WP needed references to peer-reviewed works (which, as you know, is no guarantee that they are accurate), we would have a very diminished resource on hand in the WP. For starters, one would have to remove discussion of religious-based claims - for, under your rules one could not mention them - even if the claims are suitably qualified. Does the fact that there is no real evidence that either Jesus or Gautama Buddha really existed mean that they shouldn't be discussed in the WP?

Finally, I would appreciate it if you did not put other people's words in my mouth. I did NOT state that the claim made in Pinyin.info was either correct or not correct - only that this claim had been made. You have put another editor's comments under my name - I accept this is probably just a simple mistake - but please do check next time - though I am hoping I won't have to waste any more time on this issue. If you wish to take this further - please refer it to the WP Administrators for a decision. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 12:35, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Correct, that was not John Hill's edit summary, it was mine. Crusio, if these pageview data were posted on the official sino-platonic.org website, instead of the pinyin.info website managed by the same volunteer webmaster, would you continue to deny them?

I could be wrong, but I assume that if a reasonably prudent WP editor was unsure about whether a website met WP:RS criteria, he/she would investigate before assuming the negative. Pinyin.info is not a "blog", it is one of the most authoritative English resources on Pinyin romanization. Numerous Wikipedia article and talk pages quote it, for instance, this recent discussion.

Along with John Hill, I too have difficulty understanding your motivations for repetitively unconstructive edits and efforts to deny the notability of SPP. Do you have some personal animosity against Professor Mair or his (sometimes controversial) scholarship? I hope we can stop nitpicking and work together on improving the present article. Keahapana (talk) 21:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

• Could we please assume good faith here? I am not denying anything. I'm just insisting that you cannot put something on pageviews in the article based on a source that is not independent. The link to pinyin.info/news is called their "news blog" by the site themselves. But whether it is a reliable source is not even the main point, the point is that it has the same webmaster as the SPP site (as one of you two said in an edit summary). So it is not independent and does not belong in the article. And if SPP are so notable, then it should be a piece of cake to find sources showing that. As for "trivial", that was not meant to say that a million hits is not much, but that was meant to indicate that number of hits has not much bearing on notability. If you would just take 10 minutes or so to read the policies that I have linked to, you'd understand that. As for possible personal motives, I'm not even going to respond to that. --Crusio (talk) 21:30, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I will make this (hopefully) my last note on the subject, and keep it shorter for a change. Crusio, you ask us to assume good faith when you make an unsupported comment like, "Not only is the number unlikely . . . ." To me this seems like an unwarranted attack on the credibility of the person who claimed this figure. Further, unless I am misreading you again, it seems to me that you think that the Sino Platonic Papers are not "notable" enough to warrant an article in the WP, whereas I strongly disagree with you and don't know how we can resolve our differences on this point, which, I believe, is the main point to be made.

I think this discussion has gone on long enough and feel we probably need some mediation, but thought I should discuss this with you and other participants in the discussion first - especially as mediation is likely to draw the whole sorry saga out into a longer process. Please, everyone, either take a deep breath and see how we can work together to make a better article, or ask for mediation. I hope this this can be resolved soon, I am sure you all have other things to do with your time - I certainly do. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 22:39, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

It is lamentable that many journals that are outlets for smaller research communities are not indexed and indexing cannot be held as the sole measure of the impact the outlet has on the community. If a peer-reviewed journal has managed to stay in print (ie, garner enough 'quality' -- however that is determined -- material) for 20 years, that seems pretty notable to me (at least, within that research community). However, this page doesn't seem to provide much information about the journal other than to say that it converted to an online format and that some people like it (for example, is the publication peer-reviewed? Blind? Double-blind?). I am not understanding the import of the list of recent/notable contributions to the journal. Other pages about other journals do not make these lists. Not even Science or Nature have these lists, and they've got oodles of Very Notable contributers. Perhaps a list of the current editorial board would be more appropriate. I do not think that referring to a website counter is an accurate measure of notability, but there is precedent for it in the media when they recount, say, views of a YouTube video as a measure of its impact. If the counter is a dependent source, I would say that it is inappropriate in this case. Perhaps some information about subscriptions and circulation would be more reliable than the site visit counter? Not sure if it will, but I hope this helps. I'll remove the request from the Third Opinion listing. Ninjasinloaf (talk) 05:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)—Ninjasinloaf (talk) 06:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

• The WP Journals project banner at the top of this page contains a link (visible if you click "show") to the guide to writing journal articles. This contains a specific warning not to include listings of editorial boards and such (per WP:NOTADIRECTORY). Such listings are therefore systematically removed from all journal-related articles. As for your other comments: indexing is certainly not held as the sole measure of notability. As with all subjects on WP, non-trivial coverage in reliable secondary sources is the much preferred gold standard. In the absence of such sources, we assume that if a journal is included in major selective databases, that this indicates notability. I accept this, but note however, that many editors do not agree with this point of view and insist on independent sources. Here, we have neither, so that even someone with relaxed standards like me is left empty-handed. In any case, given this independent third opinion, I'm going to remove the page-view info from the article again. --Crusio (talk) 09:39, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Ninjasinloaf, Thank you for your considered and reasonable opinions. I agree that it is notable for an independent academic journal to stay in print for two decades, and will revert the Notability tag. Actually, I got the idea for including some exemplary SPP authors from the "Notable contributors" section of Journal Asiatique article (to which Crusio is the primary contributor). I'll concede deleting these pageview data. Thanks, Keahapana (talk) 22:18, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Small question

Can this journal actually be called "academic" in that a considerable number of its submissions are apparently written by individuals who have little or no apparent or demonstrated academic training in the fields on which they are writing? Y11971alex (talk) 18:45, 6 September 2018 (UTC)