Talk:Bibliography of Aeolian Research

Contested deletion

This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because... My partners and I created the Bibliography of Aeolian Research, which resides on our webserver at the USDA-ARS in Lubbock, Texas. We were attempting to move it to a wiki format so that users of the bibliography can add bibliographic citations without sending them to us first. There is no problem with copyright violation since we offer this information to the public for free from a government website. We are a small scientific community that is attempting to keep other scientists abreast of new publications in the field of Aeolian Research. I am not sure, however, whether this type of bibliography belongs on Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikidata, or elsewhere? I attempted to contact people at Wikipedia and Wikibooks (info@wikibooks.org) but received no response. We, the editors of the Bibliography of Aeolian Research, would still like to move it to one of these platforms so that our users can contribute to this bibliography. We would appreciate any advice that you could provide. --Leaflet (talk) 01:38, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Leaflet. I'm sympathetic to what you're trying to do here. I think wikipedia would make a terrific clearinghouse for scholarly bibliographies, and that this is an area where we can provide far better work than is possible in print (or behind a paywall).

That said, there are three issues that need to get sorted out.

1. What is the copyright status of the original work, and how is it licensed? Stating that you're willing to give this work to the community is appreciated, but we really need to see a license.
2. Has the bibliography achieved that we call notability? See WP:NOTABILITY for an entry point into extended discussion as to what that term means here. The short version: can you point us to where the bibliography has been discussed in the literature?
3. Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies has a short discussion on how list-type articles need to be pretty tightly focused. I'm a little concerned that the article will eventually become indistinguishable from a google scholar search.

I'm happy to discuss any or all of these with you if you have questions. Best, Lesser Cartographies (talk) 02:24, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Um, Lesser Cartographies, I'd have to suggest that amongst the many things Wikiedia isn't, it isn't a "clearinghouse for scholarly bibliographies", and we shouldn't imply otherwise. If the bibliography can be hosted elsewhere, it might merit an article about it, but an encyclopaedia isn't the place for such material. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump, we do host[have] topical bibliographies, and we even have a project that provides guidelines for them: Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 02:43, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

No, we don't 'host' bibliographies - we do however create our own. Which isn't what is being proposed here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:51, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I've stricken host and replaced it with "have". I'm not following your point about "creating our own". If the editor was doing a cut 'n' paste of someone else's work, that's a straightforward copyvio, even under Adelman v. Christy. But surely, if the copyright Ps and Qs are followed, the editor can add their own work to wikipedia, so long as it does not contravene WP:PRIMARY, WP:OR and WP:NPOV, right? Lesser Cartographies (talk) 03:11, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I am sure we can handle any copyright concerns if necessary. With regard to notability the Bibliography of Aeolian Research was viewed 18,649 times in 2013. It is well known among those scientists who do research on wind erosion, dust storms, sand dunes, etc. We are simply looking for a wiki-platform that would allow users to contribute to the list of references. We thought it might fit into one of the Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource or Wikidata but we could not decide which one would be best. Apparently, Wikipedia was a bad choice. It would not be difficult to move it to another Wikimedia project, I just don't know which one would be appropriate. Any advice? --Leaflet (talk) 03:23, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet, after poking around a bit, I'm satisfied that the work is indeed released under public domain, and that it's likely that the bibliography proper would meet our notability guidelines. (Others are likely to disagree.) In my personal opinion, I would like the article to remain and would be happy to help in getting it in shape.

Let me ask you about the last of my concerns: what shouldn't go into this bibliography going forward? Are the entries limited to peer-reviewed work and textbooks? If a paper only mentions "Aeolian" in passing, should it be included as well? Basically, we need a set of criteria that non-experts can use to make sure the additions to the list remain relevant.

Finally, is the source of the bibliography in BibTeX or some other markup language? Generating an author and journal index would make the bibliography much more useful, and I'd be willing to take a crack at generating that. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 03:43, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet, Wikipedia determines notability on the basis of coverage in third-party sources, rather than in terms of page views etc - though in any case, I think you would do better to look elsewhere if your objectives include maintaining any editorial control over the bibliography, as that would not be the case here. If that isn't a problem, Wikiversity might be a possible alternative, and tends to be less strict concerning criteria for inclusion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:46, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I am one of the co-editors of the Bibliography of Aeolian Research. As a webpage that is hosted at a government site and edited by a government employee, the Bibliography of Aeolian Research should not raise additional copyright concerns. In terms of notability, the scholarly article (Stout et al.) describing the bibliography has 25 citations in Google Scholar, and a little more searching (for example, a Google Scholar search on the term "Bibliography of Aeolian Research") would indicate that the bibliography itself has been cited or attributed in about twenty additional scholarly publications, including key review articles. In response to your query about what goes into the bibliography: scholarly articles, peer reviewed or not, do go in: so do books, theses and dissertations, and published reports (for example government documents). Material presented as abstracts alone are not included. The three editors, all being aeolian research scientists, review the entries and while it is indeed somewhat of a judgment call, a paper that only mentions aeolian processes in passing, or is about other scientific studies merely happening in an aeolian environment (for example, the physiology of lizards living on sand dunes), are not included. I hope this clarifies the matter a bit more. Ferd Blivid (talk) 04:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

You do realise that any bibliography on Wikipedia would be beyond your editorial control? It would be the Wikipedia community that decided criteria for inclusion, rather than any existing editorial board - and we might very well make decisions that were incompatible with your objectives... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:34, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I am aware of the lack of control issue. I have started a few Wikipedia pages and watched them evolve. I also know how to revert a bad edit. I am sure many people thought Jimmy Wales was crazy when he started Wikipedia and allowed anyone to edit any page.--Leaflet (talk) 04:44, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not just talking about 'bad edits' though - it would be entirely possible (indeed I suspect quite likely) that Wikipedia might decide to substantially pare down the existing bibliography to a more manageable level, aimed at a broader, less-specialised audience, were it decided that the subject merited a bibliography at all. It would also have to seriously consider changing the name to one which was more meaningful to our readers. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:55, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because of the discussions going on in the relevant Talk page. Please hold up deletion for the time being. --Ferd Blivid (talk) 05:15, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Listcruft

This page may stand but it needs independent evidence of notability. The list itself I would reject as listcruft, as a secondary source when wikipedia is a tertiary source and for using Wikipedia as a free hot. If it is out there on the web already, we do not need it here. If it were a set of blue links to Wikipedia articles then it would be OK. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 08:40, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

RHaworth, I agree with you that duplicating a bibliography here that's already on the web isn't a good use of enWP. However, by putting the information here we have the opportunity to wikify it, add links to DOI locations, put in OCLC and ISBN data and links, create indexes, and all the other detailed work that makes bibliographies useful. I'm doing this now for a bibliography of Paul Erdos (currently at 1700 entries), and I've made the choice to generate the article offline, then build it up in my sandbox, and will (eventually) push it out when it looks like a proper encyclopedia article. The editors here chose not to go that route. I think that's unfortunate, but that's where we are.

All that being said, I don't see a copyvio here, and the article makes a plausible case for notability (not may scholarly bibliographies are covered in-depth in a peer-reviewed journal). If you don't think that coverage is sufficient, that's fine, we can argue about it at AfD. But having a plausible claim for public-domain status and a plausible claim for notability means these articles should not be speedied. Please consider reverting. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 09:18, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Continuing conversation from WP:ANI

@L.tak:, I agree with both you and RHaworth that the articles can't simply reproduce what's on another website, but I don't think anyone is proposing that. The number of entries is daunting, but we have two editors who have kept on top of the bibliography without the benefit of enWP's advantages, so I don't think that's a reason to shut the project down.

So let me offer a compromise. Let's userfy the pages that were speedy-deleted (maybe put them in the draft namespace?) and start a discussion as to what this kind bibliography should look like. We can then carve off a manageable piece (particular authors? chronological? topical?) and bring that up to mainspace quality, put it through WP:Peer review, etc. It may be that it's best to start with author bibliographies where the authors already have their own articles. Or maybe the consensus of the discussion results in this being moved to wikia.

Anyway, I think that would be a discussion worth having. We don't have many high-quality topical bibliographies, and I'd hate to see this one slip away due to a few early missteps and miscommunications.

Lesser Cartographies (talk) 12:40, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comments and suggestions. We have decided to move our bibliography to a less controversial venue. We will be looking for a webserver that allows our team members in Europe and the United States to edit the same list of bibliographic citations. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I will also try to modify the surviving main page so that it conforms more closely to the standard Wikipedia format. --Leaflet (talk) 14:47, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

• Suggestions? A wiki at Wikia. If you need them, I will be happy to email the pages you had created or transfer them direct to your new wiki. Incidentally, at 465k bytes the A page was far too big. My personal limit for a page is 64k bytes. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 18:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, I will check out Wikia. I do not need the deleted pages, I already have a copy of each page. —Leaflet (talk) 19:26, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

• Wikisource specifically encourages bibliographies and you don't have to be annoyed by ads. If you're looking for more a repository, that's what I would suggest. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:57, 20 July 2014 (UTC)