Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science pearls

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[edit] Scope

How big should a list of chemistry publications be? In other words, how notable is notable? I realise this is a perennial Wikipedia question, and one which changes as Wikipedia gets ever bigger. However for this one page, do you expect 10, 100, 1000 or 10,000 "notable" publications? "Notable" really depends on your perspective. If you were to go to a conference just on fluorine chemistry (as I have), the attendees could (I'm sure) come up with 50 "really notable, must-have" articles on fluorine chemistry. Multiply that by the number of specialist areas within chemistry (hundreds or even thousands) and you have a lot of references! With around 3 million chemistry papers published this century alone, we have a lot to choose from. Where should we draw the line? Walkerma 15:58, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid that a list of 3 million papers won't fit in most browsers. I fluorine chemists say that there are 50 notable publication in their area, I'll take their word and would like to include all of them. Of course, Putting 50 publications in every sub area will cause the list to explode and will make it un usable. I think that currently we should include in the main list publications in fluorine chemistry that chemist that doesn't deal with this area will consider notable. The rest of the 50 publications should be added to a sub list - list of publications in fluorine chemistry.
By the time wikipedia include an article for every publication we will use the category notable chemistry publication for the fluorine publications that appeared in the main list and the publications for the sub list will be marked only with the category notable fluorine chemistry publication. Do you agree with this approach? APH 06:05, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
PS.
Shouldn’t we at least add a fluorine chemistry entry to the list of publication in chemistry ;-)?
Some criteria for "notable" journal articles. Some journal articles are so important that they are reproduced in other formats besides the original. For example, the original Watson-Crick article on DNA structure has been reprinted in books and republished in other journals. Also, some journal articles form a major part of the basis for awarding a major science prize such as a Nobel prize. --JWSchmidt 14:31, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the comments. I didn't want to spend a long time researching things only to find someone saying, "that's not notable enough, we only want the top ten." You seem to share my view of Wikipedia, where it seems to be getting ever bigger anyway. I will try to start with what I think are the top twenty or so. Thanks, Walkerma 14:51, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reservations

I have serious reservations about this; you appear to propose a bunch of Wikipedians adding which books are kewl. At best, the mathematics pearls, for example, will do nothing that cannot be done by History of Mathematics, combined with a category for influential mathematical publications (possibly combined {{otherarticles}} or a special related template which will permit quick access from one seminal work to another).

These articles are inherently PoV - for example, if I were to edit, I would remove Hofstadter immediately, and someone would disagree - and necessarily incomplete. I will consider whether my disapproval extends to an AfD nomination, although these seem to be, like Earth itself, mostly harmless.

The usual solution to PoV problems might apply, to make this explicitly a collation of various mathematicians' reading lists; would this be an acceptable amendment? It would require much more work than the present approach. Septentrionalis 15:31, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I totally agree with your analysis. As you can see in the objectivity section of the project, I also think that a list is subjective. I suggested some methods in order to reduce the level of subjectivity. As you can see in the project phases section, I also think that we should have articles on the publications and that the categories mechanism should be used to create the underneath structure. As you said, working on some list or even different articles will require more work. The lists exist for quite a while and still did not reach a satisfactory level. I am afraid that using other formats currently will harm the effort. The history of mathematics takes is similar to one aspect of the project but it cannot replace it. The history article should not include references and description of any paper, should get in depth of every sub area and will probably leave modern mathematics uncovered. Septentrionalis, since our views of the project are so close in spirit, I ask you again. Please, join us and make your contribution. Thanks, APH 07:07, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of publications in biology

List of publications in biology is currently up for deletion. --Salix alba (talk) 21:31, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

List of publications in biology survived the AfD process as there was no consensus. However, as someone who has been concerned with this Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls project for some months now, I am concerned. There is indeed a case that the material here is not free of a POV. How do we determine importance? Earlier this year the participants on List of publications in chemistry debated this and decided on two matters. First, they tightened up the criteria for inclusion, in particular insisted that publications that were important as an introduction had to have had a wider importance such as altering the way all future text books were written or altered the way the subject was taught. Second, they decided that all new entries should be raised for debate over a 10 day period on the talk page to determine whether they should be kept or deleted. Most existing entries were debated and several were deleted. This has worked reasonably well although it would be better if more people had participated. It is clear enough that it is not, for these articles, sufficient to allow anyone to add entries, as only very obvious nonsense is likely to be deleted. Each entry needs the consideration of several editors. I urge all interested in this project to look at what the chemists here have done and consider whether something similar or even better can be used on all pages in the project. I am going to put this paragraph on all the talk pages of this project. --Bduke 08:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delete this project?

List of publications in biology is up for deletion again. The arguments given for deletion to apply all the lists in this project. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of publications in biology (2nd nomination). Kappa 08:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks to me that this time it will be deleted. I am not sure I care anymore. The warnings I made above back in April have been ignored. The articles remain open to individual POV. No other group has followed the chemists in debating new entries or suggested better alternatives. The instigator of this project is no longer active on Wikipedia. Interest in the Chemistry page is very thin. A "debate" with no partcipants is taking place right now on a new entry! Maybe they should all be deleted. --Bduke 11:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rename all articles

My pessimism above was not entirely well founded as the Biology article was kept. However it was renamed to List of important publications in biology, which all agreed better reflected what it was trying to do. The chemistry list has now been also renamed. I am going to be bold and rename all of the articles. --Bduke 00:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
  • User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
  • User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now moved the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 14:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Header template to all project list pages

The header on all list pages is generated by this template:-

This is a list of important publications in {{{1}}}, organized by field.

Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:

  • Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic
  • Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly
  • Introduction – A publication that is a good introduction or survey of a topic
  • Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world
  • Latest and greatest – The current most advanced result in a topic

There has been debate on various AfD proposals about the notability of lack of notability of these lists. I am therefore attempting to make a set of much tighter criteria for inclusion. Note that the chemistry list made some changes as indicated on Talk:List of important publications in chemistry. So here is my first draft of a new template:-

New proposed header

Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as significant or important:

  • Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic of considerable significance.
  • Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly.
  • Introduction – A publication that is a good introduction or survey of a topic and that has also made a significant impact on the discipline such as in the way it is taught, or in other ways.
  • Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world.

You should expect to find an article on an important publication in {{{1}}}} elsewhere on Wikipedia.

Discussion

I have removed the latest and greatest because it not possible to determine notability for very new ideas, If they are notable, the breakthrough category will suffice.

Many comments on the deletion debates have stressed that the notability of entries should be judged by them having or at least deserving their own WP article. I have tried to add that to the header but it does not fit too well here. It would however be ignored if it was only mentioned on the talk pages.

I see that each of the criteria has the word "significance" in them. Maybe "significance" should replace "importance" in each entry. Or maybe, the wording of the first sentence will do.

If this proposal receives support, I will start rewriting the main project page. Please comment below. --Bduke 00:17, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

A little too far the other way, perhaps. I agree to get rid of latest & greatest--it could mean anything. I do not understand the difference between breakthrough and influence--does influence mean non-technical as compared to breakthrough? I do not think we will necessary need an article per publication--we will end up with article creep. But I suggest for "Introduction" that it read:
Introduction – A publication that is a particularly good introduction or survey of a topic at either an elementary or advanced level, and that has also made a significant impact on the discipline such as changing the way it is taught, being the current classic textbook in the field, or having been an exceptionally important previous classic textbook in the field, or in other ways.
I don't think of this as a change as much as an explanation of "way it is taught".DGG 01:07, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Some important points. Thanks. I think breakthrough means a new scientific discovery, theory etc. "Origin of species" would be a good case. Influence could be wider. "Silent spring" might be an example. I am not happy about the "current classic". How does one determine what the current classic is? Opinions will vary. The chemistry list has had a debate about the current classic in physical chemistry. It is a POV. I am thinking of introductory texts such as Atkins' "Physical Chemistry" which so made all the previous ones look stodgy that it altered the whole way that texts on physical chemistry were written. We could probably find sources that said that. I doubt we would find sources that said "X is the current classic textbook in Y", at least not without finding one that said "No, Z is". Article creep - you could be right, but the statements something like "entries in these lists can only be judged as notable if an article on the entry is notable" struck me as the most important point that was made on the AfD discusssions both about the Biology list and the CS list. It might focus people's minds to realise that some of the entries are not notable and should be deleted giving us much shorter but better lists. --Bduke 01:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

A comment on the template talk page at Template talk:List of publications intro prompts me to see whether we can reach consensus on a new and better wording. Taking into consideration the comments above, I suggest this:

This is a list of important publications in {{{1}}}, organized by field.

Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as significant or important:

  • Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic of considerable significance.
  • Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly.
  • Introduction – A publication that is a particularly good introduction or survey of a topic at either an elementary or advanced level, and that has also made a significant impact on the discipline such as changing the way it is taught, being the current best-selling textbook in the field, or having been an exceptionally important previous textbook in the field, or in other ways.
  • Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world.

Assertions of significance or importance should be supported by cited sources or by a properly referenced article on the publication elsewhere on Wikipedia.

End of proposal. What do you think? --Bduke 02:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks much better than the old one. I think it's right to get rid of the "Latest" class and to clarify the "Introduction" class as really significant works. Is there a more concise way to describe the "Introduction" type? Thanks, Walkerma 02:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I also agree that "Latest and greatest" should be removed. What do you think about creating a different list for introductions? They don't always fit the list and make it much longer. APH 12:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
By the way, do you think that we should order the publications in each section by date (and write it in the header?). I think it will be convenient. APH 12:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I would ditch Introduction as well, if an article matches the last rewording above it then falls under Influence. Most of the cruft removed from the maths page fall under Introduction. --Salix alba (talk) 19:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A title for the list and categories

It seems that the name of the lists is a source of needless arguments. I suggest that we will discuss several options and choose one in consensus. The current option are:

  • List of publication in X
  • List of important publications in X
  • List of notable publication in X

What do you say? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by APH (talk • contribs) 08:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

I suggest using 'List of publications in X'. Notable is always implied in WP Policy. And 'important' goes against that WP guideline that I mentioned on your talk page (and it causes problems in contentious areas - like philosophy). If only people worked together better and didn't get excited about excluding entries, then we could have two lists - one for all notable publications (just called 'List of publications in X') and one called 'List of most important publications in X'. I will go along with whatever the concensus is. Steve 08:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The 'Important' option was the first one we tried. Then it was changed to a list of publications and back to 'Important'. A possible implementation to your idea of 'very important' vs. 'important' can be the categories structure suggested in the discussion bellow. Do you like it? APH
I believe it would be okay to ignore a WP guideline (since they're guidelines, not policy - somebody correct me if that's a bad idea). But only if there was a good reason to do so. Creating a list or a category that would be very useful to the encyclopedia's users would be a good reason. But see if you can find the deleted article entitled "List of major philosophers" - they archive them somewhere - and look at the very heated discussions on criteria and the subjective nature of the word 'major.' And maybe you can find the page where the deletion of the page was discussed. The arguments never resolved and a good list was deleted. Some categories, like politics or philosophy, attract conflict and make things very difficult. People tried to find criteria to explain what would would constitute 'important' but that didn't work either. That is why I would not use the word 'important' in a category in the philosophy area - not until some time in the future where conflict resolution process is more effective and areas of contention are less like anarchy or war zones. Steve 17:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for entering the lists and categories

The aim of the project is to find publications that contributed to science. These definition is very vague and for time to time there are some arguments regarding that. Some claim that any such list will be subjective. I think that one can differentiate between the importance of the Euclid's Elements and a fourth grade pupil work on shapes. Though, making the criteria clearer will help to reduce arguments and further develop the project.

When the project started it was suggested that an agreement of 90% of expert will be needed to add an entry. Since then, in the chemistry talk page some more concrete rules were formed.

I would to note that now that we use categories we can be much more liberal. We can use the list as a useful interface to add entries. Afterward we can classify the most important publications in the main topic category (e.g., mathematics) and the less important ones in the sub category (e.g., geometry).

So, does some one has a specific suggestion for criteria or some other directions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by APH (talk • contribs) 09:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Scope of project

This seems a rather unusual project to me. How about changing it to something that can be understood from the title alone, my suggestion being Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientific literature. It would be unambiguous, broader in scope (filling a much needed niche) and wouldn't be subjective. It could still cover the same material it does now, but much more as well. Richard001 08:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for my late reply. I don't have much time lately. The idea you are suggesting is interesting.I agree that there is a need in a scientific literature project. However, the scope of science pearls project was intentionally not that broad. The science pearls topic should present the few publication that had a large impact. There are way too much scientific publications to include more. Though, extending the project in a moderate way might be a good idea. What do you have in mind? APH 06:19, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I found this project when I was trying to find something like, List of important publications in science or similar to put in the Template:Science-book-stub. Great idea for a project, I used the lists already for something else. How about Project:Science Publications. Fred ☻ 15:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I missed the earlier discussion under this heading. I think the problem with the project is that there are few people in the Project itself and few who appreciate the overall picture. There are many more who participate on just one list. I would support widening the Project to Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientific literature or Wikipedia:WikiProject Science publications and cover the whole field of articles on books and journals as well as the lists. This is very big, but it would attract more people and some might have a useful input on the current lists we support. I do not think it is way too much. In fact I think our experience is that this project is way too small. Wikipedia:WikiProject Journals has been proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Journals, with a draft at User:Jayvdb/Journals. Maybe we should suggest renaming that Journals --> Science Publications and make the Science Pearls a task force. Then of course there is the question on non-science journals. It is not easy to see a way through this. However, a few thinks are clear. This project is not working. We need a project on science journals if not all journals and we we need a project that includes science publications other than journals. We need more views. --Bduke 22:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Jayvdb/Journals has been launched as Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals in order to have the widest possible scope, attract members that have any interest in academic output, so that hopefully one day the project member list will hit 10! :-) I have listed this project as a sister-project on the new project page, but Bduke's idea of making this a task-force is a good one. John Vandenberg 01:58, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Having thought about this for quite a long time, I would like to formally propose that the Science Pearls project be changed to a task force of Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals. Does anybody object? I will make sure that APH, who started this project, knows about this proposal. --Bduke 04:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that the Science pearls project will benefit from an additional task force of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals. I don't have time to take part now but I'll return to the project when I'll have. APH 07:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC):This pearls idea is interesting, but terribly difficult to do well or objectively. My view is that timelines deal with this sort of thing much better. Have a timeline noting the key publications over the years. Carcharoth 01:18, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, it is difficult. I cannot see how creating timeline avoid these difficulties. I guess that we can give this approach a try. APH 07:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of publications on evolution and human behavior

While this list is not part of this project, you may be interested that it is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of publications on evolution and human behavior. --Bduke 03:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Standard reference format

I find the wide variance in citation styles unsightly. May I suggest we write a template?--Adoniscik (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

What sort of template? Would not the standard citation templates work? --Bduke (talk) 01:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps, but I notice the Pearl citations also indicate what makes them notable. The CS list is the de facto standard, so I suggest its format.--Adoniscik (talk) 02:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I am still rather confused. Do you mean the "importance" and "description" lines? That is what makes the entry notable, and really that should be referenced to someone who confirms it is important and why. Or do you mean how we cite the publication itself? Or do you mean a template to add a whole entry? Could you be specific with an example of exactly what you want us to do. Certainly it would be good to remove the "wide variance" in styles. On a slightly different point. The CS one was the pet project of the founder of the pearls articles. It is certainly the largest list. I concern myself with the chemistry one. We have tried on the chemistry list to raise the standard of what is important and hence have a system for deciding whether to keep or delete new entries. I am not sure which list is the best and hence the "de facto" standard. The truth is that all of them are rather poor because the importance of an entry is usually not verified by a source. --Bduke (talk) 07:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Standard citation templates like "cite journal" understandably do not have entries for "importance" and "description", so we can not use them for our purposes. I really did not mean to say that the CS list is the de facto standard so I apologize. In fact, I do not care which list is the best as long we can settle on standard presentation. That said, I am not convinced that this is a worthwhile project because it is prone to attracting spam (non-notable entries). I think the best thing to do is to write a "History of ..." article and link to everything there, but if we do stick with this project, we should at least make it presentable.--Adoniscik (talk) 05:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that few editors are concerned about these pages, but then few editors are concerned about the history pages you suggest. Some of these lists have been to AfD and only one has been deleted. That was Philosophy not a Science and was very different - just a massive list with no information. I am not convinced about a template. I think we should try to tidy up the articles so they have the same format, including the "Importance" and "Description" sections. We should try to get each importance section sourced. We can use any of the methods to write the reference. Sometimes the reference is a footnote plus a citation, so the various templatesdo not always work. If any entries do not come up to scratch, like having no statement of importance, then we should just archive the entry to the talk page. I'll have a go at improving the chemistry one. I added a new entry and three good references of independent sources talking about the notability of a book. Note spam gets quickly deleted on the chemistry list because we debate whether to keep or delete an article. Maybe you can take a look at that then and we can work together on the other lists. It will take time, but we do not have to get the encyclopedia perfect over night. What do you think? --Bduke (talk) 06:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)