The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was No consensus to delete. While there is substantial and well-argued support to delete this material, this AfD has also attracted editors who have made diligent searches for sources. The validity of those sources has been challenged, which led to a lengthy discussion on the validity of the sources. Some of the points raised in their defence I found to be spurious, but additional sources were subsequently supplied, so I have not needed to parse that argument in detail.

This discussion is now some ten days old, and still shows no sign whatsoever of reaching consensus, either on the strength of numbers or on the merits of the arguments. I have closed it accordingly. NAC by—S Marshall Talk/Cont 13:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC) [reply]

Doon Theological Journal

[edit]
Doon Theological Journal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This article on an Indian journal lacks any secondary sources attesting to its notability. Deprodded. Abductive (reasoning) 07:11, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Many of those publications are not scholarly journals. And of the ones that are, I'm only suggesting to give the benefit of the doubt to the ones that we can find in university library catalogs and which garner some Google Books hits. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite. it's a listing in a library catalog to indicate the title being referred to by the reference from google books. But one citation does not prove notability, and 3 subscriptions do not prove influence. I'll need to look further: Theological journals are particularly tricky, due to their usually very small circulation, and anything published in India is difficult to document. They have a very large university system, and publish many journals and books, but have no national database for publications or even a union catalog to determine how many Indian libraries have copies. DGG ( talk ) 06:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is Archive for Reformation History. I don't have volume 36, so I can't see whether it is cited within an article, or evidence of being abstracted in the literary review supplementary issue. --John Vandenberg (chat) 14:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 22:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, you didn't. For example, the folowing step has not been followed: "Read the article's talk page ... If there is no discussion then start one, outlining your concerns. Then watch for responses from interested editors." Colonel Warden (talk) 08:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • You don't know that because you haven't tried. Your doctrine that the lack of secondary sources means that the article must be deleted is false. Per WP:BEFORE] and WP:PRESERVE, alternatives to deletion should be considered. It may be that there are Indian language sources or sources not searched by Google. Because you have failed to engage with the article's editors at the article, proper discussion and consideration has not been performed. AFD is not cleanup and should only be used for hopeless cases after ordinary editing methods and discussion have failed. If we wanted a bot to go around deleting articles without sources, we could soon have one. Your services in this regard add no value and so are not required. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It seems that talk page discussions do not occur as they should, not because they are not required nor because it would be unhelpful but just because tools like Twinkle do not support them and so drive-by editors would have to exert themselves to start and follow a discussion. In other words, we get reflex button-pushing because it is easier than proper engagement with the topic. But Wikipedia is not a first-person shooter. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The editors above have conducted good searches and seem reasonably satisfied with the results. I have looked enough to endorse their conclusion so that we may speedily close this overdue procedure and move on. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:08, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which sources do you mean? One editor said "It's a recognized academic journal" without apparently any base and without explaining what "recognized" in this sense means. John Vandenberg found one "sources", and one citation does not really mean anything much. --Crusio (talk) 10:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What facts in the article are in need of verification? Do you dispute anything which is stated? Citations are only required for details which are controversial or might be disputed. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a search engine. If people want sources, they can use Google themselves, so cutting out the middle man and getting an up-to-date listing. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article is a stub and marked as such. As the journal is comparatively new, we can expect the entry to grow over time. We have no pressing deadline to meet or word count to satisfy. Deletion would just disrupt the natural process of slow accretion. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:08, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
More