Welcome

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Welcome!

Hello, Neilarmius, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! DoubleBlue (Talk) 23:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Couple of tips

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Please avoid capitals in article titles, headings etc (e.g. Scientific literature, not Scientific Literature). Also, please try to check that links go where you want them to, e.g. to Oikos the journal, not oikos the Greek word. The second one is a bit harder, as links don't always go where you expect them to. Cheers. Richard001 05:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

List of scientific journals

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Welcome to Wikipedia. I do not want to discourage your edits to this page, so I am discussing some issues that have come up before. First, it says at the top that the list "contains the most influential, currently publishing journals in each field. As a rule of thumb, each field should be represented by more or less ten positions, chosen by their impact factors and other ratings". Second, there is, a believe (although I proposed it) a consensus that if a journal meets the criteria above, then it should have a wikipedia article on it. Therefore it seems reasonable to limit the list to journals that have articles. Earlier, I removed all redlinks, moving them to the talk page so that they can be moved back if an article is written. I have been away recently and less active since I returned due to the other matters. I noticed that many sections of the list now no longer meet these points and I was planning to remove all the redlinks. This is not meant to be an inclusive list or even close. There are specialist lists for that. The journals under the headings "Acoustics" and "Optics" should either be added to the Physics list or new specialist lists should be created. The Anatomy journals should be added to the Medical journals list. The Agriculture and Agronomy should be put in a new specialist list. The Allergy and Anesthesiology journals should be also added to the medical journals list. What do you think? Let us discuss it here before we make changes. --Bduke 22:36, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your comment. I must admit I did do much of my work without understanding the scope of the wikiproject. Is List of scientific journals in chemistry an appropriate model to apply to other fields. I had begun upon List of scientific journals in earth and atmospheric sciences, but should maybe reconsider my approach. Apologies if you construed anything so far as undoing any of your own hard work.
Personally I think that if a journal is in the top ten (by whatever impact factor assessment scheme is being used) it should remain on the field list so as to inspire others to write that article.)
Is there consensus on the source of the impact factor rating or other ratings, to be used?(Neilarmius 04:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC))Reply
There is only one true source of impact factors, which is Journal Citation Reports, though in practice we accept that journal publishers report them reliably. A case can be made for using total citations as an alternative. There are in my opinion no other validated quantitative measures, though of course there are various proposals. The use of non-quantitative measures of quality is in my opinion not objective, and therefore harder to justify for a purpose like this.
Rather than inspiring others to write the articles, write then yourself! Even writing some few of them would really help. DGG (talk) 16:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is no need to apologize. I do not own these lists. Wikipedia is confusing and it takes time to get a grasp of the discussions. I must admit that I like the chemistry list approach and the way we listed the 10 top journals in chemistry on List of scientific journals, but others have argued that it is fine for chemistry but not not for some other disciplines. The discipline lists should be as inclusive as possible and redlinks are certainly permissible there. As for leaving a redlink for a journal that is high up the impact factor ratings on List of scientific journals, I see your point. However I think in those circumstances a brief referenced article could be easily written and it will later expand. When we selected the top 10 chemistry lists, we quickly wrote articles for the journals that did not have them. The problem with the list at present is that it is completely unclear in many cases why a journal has been listed. In those circumstances, I believe it is right to move such redlinks to the talk page. --Bduke 01:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)Reply