Talk:Nature (journal)
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Just to comment on removing " (in contrast to Science where articles tend to review recent changes to a subject in a more accessible way)" - as a subscriber to Science and regular reader of Nature, there is absolutely no average tendency for the research publications in Science to be less technical or more accessible than those in Nature. ~ Reaverdrop
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[edit] nature as a "sex appeal" journal
In my experience in astronomy/physical cosmology, people publish a Letter in Nature when they have a neat result and feel like they need some publicity, but AFAIK nobody (in these fields) really takes Nature seriously for proper research articles. The small size of the Letter format means that a lot of work goes in to compressing the paper, and people who disagree or are sceptical about something don't have access to the full calculations and discussions. Maybe in biology Nature is taken more serioiusly, but not in astro/cosmo. Of course, it's still good for your cv, so people still send articles there, and unfortunately, mainstream media access is still important for getting jobs etc or sometimes even for persuading colleagues that your work is useful - as the wikipedia articles states. So Nature will still hang around for some time yet... Boud 12:52, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Wikipedia
BBC NEWS: 10. Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia that is compiled and updated by volunteers and has frequently had its accuracy called into question, is about as reliable as the Encyclopedia Britannica, according to a study by Nature. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4520854.stm)
What about that? --Zhengfu 12:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- Here's an update. [1] Turns out the Nature information was fabricated.
- That claim was made by people with a financial interest in denigrating the results and was rejected by Nature. --CalJW 11:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Operation "Brownbeard"
Come on, guys. We are allowed a lit bit of fun...
"Wikipedia has already responded with a blitzkrieg code-name "Operation Brownbeard" to correct all reported errors before old man Christmas neutralizes their numerically supperior and ultra-loyal army of encyclopedists. "Nature error" casualities will be counted, compiled, aggregated, folded, spindled and mutilated and then reported here with all deliberate speed. Not since the advent of the Napoleonic code has the civilized (see WP:CIV) seen an assault and disorder and ignorance of this magnitude. Bots are already said to be rolling up the typographyical errors in army group "A to G" while army group "Q to Z" seems to have gotten bogged down in the massive area of "S". -- Fplay 16:41, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- That's complete unnecessary. -- Zanimum 12:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Wikipedia article
I am going to remove the section (again). It has gotten silly. Nature is one of the oldest and most notable scholarly journals in existence. None of it's countless individual articles deserves a mention really at all, except for ones that were news events in their own right. This is nowhere near that, and it is clear self-indulgence and self-reference. Now not only is there an entire paragraph of the stuff (oozing with pride), it has apparently supplanted the article's intro...? This is completely unacceptable, and really quite silly. And there's no way this is a current event. It comes out with new articles every week. This isn't notable to the journal itself (self-reference aside) and is way POV. Dmcdevit·t 20:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree, it has no place here. Bartimaeus 21:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
- (Cross-posted to Fplay's talk page) Still not quite satisfied with having that notice at the top. The point is that this has no place in an article about Nature. It's in the Wikipedia article, and that's where it belongs. How is the fact that it reviewed wikipedia notable at all to it? Nature has a more than a century-long history of scientific breakthroughs published. This story, sadly, is not that. In fact, the article about analyzing the mammoth's DNA recently made big news, much bigger news than this. This is just any other article. It's mentioned in Wikipedia, good, but it has no place in Nature (journal). If some publication with an article here published a review of EB (as I'm sure loads have), would you mention it in that publication's article? No way. What it amounts to is shameless self-promotion. Dmcdevit·t 09:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I removed the notice. It has no place there, and putting it in a "selfref" tag doesn't help. Putting that link at the top of the article on Nature does not improve Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. Instead it degrades it, by making it appear self-absorbed and more interested in touting its own merits than in recording knowledge in a fair and unbiased manner. It's much like the NPOV policy. Articles must be written in a neutral, unbiased tone not just to avoid argument, but because that is the style in which encyclopedias are written. Putting a a note like that at the top of the article on Nature gives the article a tone that is inappropriate for a serious encyclopedia.--Srleffler 00:59, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- Yeah, sure, fine. My whole motivation was driven by an early vesion of the template that only pointed to "Nature (journal)". It got updated to ponit to the appropriate Wikipedia: page (although I still find it a little hard to read and recognize the link) so now the any reader of the 38 marked articles-with-errors has somewhere to go to find out what is going on. -- Fplay 01:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Removed 12/20:
- Recently it has been reported (Internet encyclopaedias go head to head) by a Nature investigation that Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries [2].
This is good text, but unfortunately still violates the guideline to avoid self-references. A good encyclopedia does not blow its own horn, and as others have pointed out this article is not significant to the journal Nature. --Srleffler 07:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Here's an update. [3] Turns out the Nature information was fabricated.
- Turns out your update is from Andrew Orlowski of the Register, a regular Wikipedia basher (this isn't an exaggeration). I would suggest bypassing his crap and read Britannica's actual report. Also, Nature has already written a response to Britannica's report. Both are worth reading. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-03-24 06:08
[edit] Important third party input
User friendly has weighed in on Nature vs. Encyclopedia Brittanica here. (Warning, sense of humor needed.) -- llywrch 15:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Incorrect articles
Just a comment - the section Famous Nature papers that were fraudulent or incorrect referring to the physicist Jan Hendrik Schön implies that hisis the only major work to be retracted from nature.
While this was a major scandal, Nature does in fact retract many papers; it seems like the RNAi field in particular is rife with either fraudulent results or those that cannot be replicated. Dr Aaron 14:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] weekly / fortnightly?
Would be great if someone could add the periodicity of publication to the box in the right hand side of the top of the page, indeed to all articles about magazines
