Talk:Journal of Cosmology

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Infobox

Should the infobox (removed here) be restored?

b} 17:39, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Discussions/!vote

Yes there is zero reason for its removal, and it presents basic information about the journal in standard format. jps seems to be under the impression that an infobox is a 'reward' for 'good' journals. It is not. It is part of the standard presentation of any journal article. See also

b} 17:39, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

This RfC is out of process. No discussion was had as to how to craft a neutral question to consider. I have therefore removed the non-neutral question and encourage collaboration to get to the point where the RfC can be properly formulated. jps (talk) 17:41, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The question is as neutral as it gets. Restored.
b} 17:43, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I'm sorry, are you now the arbiter of
WP:NPOV? Where exactly do you get off? jps (talk) 17:45, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
@
WP:RFCST) means that the first !vote was copied to the RfC listings. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
That's a technical issue, not a neutrality issue.
b} 10:21, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

This is an RFC?, its badly formed. Slatersteven (talk) 17:43, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@
b} 17:44, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Where was the due diligence required before you post an RfC? jps (talk) 17:45, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@
WP:RFCEND. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Since you're uninvolved, could you please close the RfC (while letting the discussion go on)? I'd do it myself, but since I'm involved in the discussion I'm afraid we'd end up back at ANI. Tercer (talk) 19:43, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I got called here by bot, and um...I think the temperature here needs to cool down a bit. Jps, Headbomb, you're both respectable veteran editors, this doesn't need to be a spicy conversation. As to the substance of the matter, just because its a crap journal doesn't mean it isn't a journal. I'm not seeing that a different infobox would better cover the topic. Given that it has had an infobox for years, I'm inclined to leave the status quo be. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:28, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ohh this is a curious one. From my hometown, no less. Yes, the box should probably be restored. However I'm all for adding infobox options to allow for flagging non-standard / controversial journals + journals known primarily for being 'non-standard'. The article does this with the top section, the infobox could do the same. But what is the category / feature to highlight? Is there a precedent for an "infobox-banner" similar to a section-banner? – SJ + 19:51, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Feel free to propose such options at
    b} 19:55, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    This isn't "nonstandard". This is a website that promotes pseudoscience and academic slander (you should have seen the stuff they published about PZ Myers). jps (talk) 20:10, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sj: The {{Infobox journal}} template has a |peer-reviewed= parameter already, but the documentation seems to suggest using a different template in a situation like this: Put no if journal is not peer-reviewed (in which case {{Infobox magazine}} is probably more appropriate). If the situation is complicated, put "See text" and describe it in the text. If the field is blank, omitted, or set to yes, no field is shown, and peer-review status is implied. Rjjiii (talk) 20:18, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I see. "see text" seems appropriate here since they claim peer review and a review by a crack editorial board would let crackpot articles through. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sj (talk • contribs)
A "see text" is definitely warranted, I agree.
b} 20:32, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Lead copyedit

On my recent edit, I changed the lead of the article from

The Journal of Cosmology is a website that calls itself a "scientific journal".

to

The Journal of Cosmology is a self-described "scientific journal" website.

I believe the former wording is clunky. The new version is shorter and has a better flow. However Tercer has reverted this edit with an edit summary of "please stop edit warring". What do the people here think about the new wording? Ca talk to me! 13:55, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just say its a website, we can see it calls itself a journal by reading the article title. Slatersteven (talk) 13:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Immediately after your edit Headbomb removed "website" from the sentence, thus restoring his favoured version. I then reverted to the version before both of your edits.
I think what matters is what it is, not what it describes itself as, and this is what we should mention most prominently. Tercer (talk) 14:44, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, it matters what it is, and it is a journal.
b} 20:42, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I agree. A journal can be bad, and still be called a journal. It can claim to be peer-reviewed, or even actually be peer-reviewed, and still let junk through; that makes it a bad journal, but it doesn't make it not a journal. In being web-hosted rather than paper, it is indistinguishable from many good but self-published academic journals. Having a website is not what makes it bad and it should not be emphasized in the lead as the reason for its badness. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:52, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The other day I was cooking (don't worry, I'll never be so cruel as to subject anyone to the result... :-). I used the same ingredients as a well-know 3-Michelin-stars chef. Still, what the chef produced is a world different from what I created. Yet, nobody will think of saying that because my product was so much inferior from that of the chef I was not cooking. Same here. It's crappy, it's bad, nobody disagrees about that. But it's still a journal and it's subject matter is cosmology. Having an infobox and mentioning "scientific journal" and "cosmology" in the lead is not somehow legitimizing anything, but a neutral description. It's the rest of the (hopefully well-sourced) text that should establish that this is a crap journal, not our personal opinions or conclusion after examining the journal's content, just as "Randykitty is a cook" does not imply that I have 3 Michelin stars. --Randykitty (talk) 08:26, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We actually have a source saying that it's not a journal. And don't be disingenuous, we're obviously legitimising it by calling it a "scientific journal". This description makes the reader expect some minimal standards that it does not have. Tercer (talk) 09:00, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We also have many sources saying it is a journal.
b} 09:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Do we? I only see sources that uncritically repeat the "journal" from its name, no source that addresses the question of what it is and concludes that it is a journal. Tercer (talk) 10:38, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think we have to be careful about assuming that any kind of "neutral description" runs no risk of legitimizing it. It's too easy to fall into the trap of writing something equivalent to "Randykitty is a cook who uses the same ingredients as a 3-star Michelin chef. According to guests at Randykitty's table, his cooking was inferior to that of the chef." On one level, we might expect readers to learn from the second sentence that the first sentence needs to be understood in context. But that expectation ignores the reality that we shouldn't have written the first sentence that way to begin with. Same thing with this page. If we start out with text and an infobox that make it sound like a legitimate journal about cosmology, and follow that with criticisms that put it in "context", we are creating a point-counterpoint where one should not be, because that violates
WP:GEVAL. Instead, the page should be consistent, from start to finish, in describing the page subject as it actually is. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:52, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
So "The Journal of Cosmology is an online journal that promotes fringe science"? Slatersteven (talk) 17:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Um, no, but "The Journal of Cosmology is a website that calls itself a "scientific journal"." is better than "The Journal of Cosmology is a scientific journal." And having an infobox constructed to look like the infoboxes of typical scientific journals is a bad idea. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:22, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I agree with "it's subject matter is cosmology" after reading through some of the articles. One of them attributes the creation of the Dennis the Menace comic strips to "non-localized unconscious mental states in space and time" which I think are meant to be subconscious telepathic abilities, which if they do exist were probably kind of wasted creating rowdy cartoon children, no offense to Hank Ketcham and George Moonie. Rjjiii (talk) 01:14, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not exclusively cosmology, but cosmology is one of its main subjects.
b} 02:49, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
My opinion: Get rid of the infobox (or replace with infobox:website), phrase the lead to whatever most immediately conveys that this is a website(s) masquerading as a journal; in fact, stop describing it as a journal in general. The only RS that have actually engaged with the question of whether it is a journal have concluded that it is not. Also, having an ISSN doesn't make something a journal, it doesn't even mean the item is a serial at all; the requirements are trivial enough that wikis and most blogs that aren't a personal diary or commercial service could get an ISSN. JoelleJay (talk) 19:42, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that. And short of complete removal of the infobox, I'd at least get rid of that infobox image. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the image would go well in a infobox: website. Tercer (talk) 20:15, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really convinced that readers would see the difference between infobox-journal and infobox-website. But looking in detail at the two templates I find the following parameters that we are using in the current version of the page are not available (or don't have an obvious equivalent) in infobox-website:
  • Peer-reviewed: not clear to me that omitting this line would be more informative than what we have now.
  • Publisher: although we could instead use "owner".
  • ISO 4: no loss.
  • LCCN: no loss.
  • Links: we can give the url for J. Cosmol., but it looks like we probably would not be able to also include J. Astrobiol.
I'm not sure how much we gain by such a change. It seems to me the main change would be that we would not be able to say "disputed; see text" about peer review, and that might be a net disadvantage. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ISO 4 and LCCN would be major losses. As for sources that describe it as a journal (which, again, it is), see "published in a journal", "the journal publishing it", "The journal's editor in chief...", "In fact, this isn’t the first report of alien life to come out of the journal.", etc.
Again, it is not because a journal is shit that it ceases to be a journal.
b} 23:28, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Major losses to whom? And that some news reports refer to it as a "journal" does not override the fact that we also have RS that explicitly state it is not a journal. Sources that actually engage with the question of whether it's a journal should be given more weight. JoelleJay (talk) 00:59, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You have one blog that criticizes the journal as illegitimate. That does not make this publication not a journal.
b} 03:26, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
We have clear consensus that it is not a journal, so at the end of the day your obstinate refusal to accept that doesn't matter. Tercer (talk) 06:12, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Less clear than you may think. I'm very much with Headbomb here: this is a scientific journal, discipline "cosmology". There's a gazillion journals around that never had a print version but only were available online. So unless there's an RS that presents a text stating that this is a scientific journal, we should change those articles to "a website that claims to be a scientific journal"? Oh, right, I forgot, you'd delete all those journal article anyways. As for that consensus, I follow this discussion from a distance, but the continuous badgering keeps me from participating more here. Just because people with another opinion than you get tired and stop participating doesn't mean that you have convinced them and reached consensus. (I'm sure there's some cute acronym that applies to this behavior, but I'm not in the mood to look that up). --Randykitty (talk) 13:54, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was counting you and David Eppstein on Headbomb's side. The consensus is clearly against the three of you. Again, I might add. It does get quite tiresome to involve so many editors in order to make progress on trivial matters. Tercer (talk) 16:17, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I tend to agree that a garbage journal is still a journal. I mean,
talk) 16:49, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
The bar for being a journal is low, but it does exist. viXra, for example, is not a journal, as you would seem to agree. My blog is also not a journal. Neither is the The NEW REDDIT JOURNAL of SCIENCE. The latter actually has much better standards than "The Journal of Cosmology". Tercer (talk) 14:20, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that
talk) 17:11, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Actually I think viXra is more journal-shaped than the Journal of Cosmology. Have you tried to actually click through to its "volumes" and "articles"? Tercer (talk) 19:38, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nah viXra is just a repository of articles too shitty to even get hosted on arXiv. It's not set up as a journal at all. JoelleJay (talk) 20:04, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The majority is against you here. As are the sources.
b} 19:03, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I see a majority against you, actually. The editors that I saw clearly stating that it's not a journal are 6: Tercer, jps, Tryptofish, Slatersteven, Rjjiii, JoelleJay. The editors that I saw clearly stating it is a journal are 5: Headbomb, Randykitty, David Eppstein, XOR'easter, CaptainEek. There are 4 other editors that participated in the discussion but I couldn't discern their opinion: TrangaBellam, Ca, SJ, Silverseren. If I misread anybody's opinion please do correct me. Tercer (talk) 14:14, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Tercer But I never supported any side on this discussion? I just tried to edit the lead to be more natural(i.e. not in the tone of a debunkor). Ca talk to me! 14:30, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that, striking you out from the count. The sentence you edited was stating that it is not a journal, so I assumed you agreed with it. Tercer (talk) 14:48, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Tercer: I would personally not describe it as a journal given the commentary in the sources. For Wikipedia, I think the important thing is to make clear that it's not peer-reviewed as I think that would be the expectation of most readers upon hearing "scientific journal". After discussing the infobox, Tryptofish's comments especially "It seems to me the main change would be that we would not be able to say "disputed; see text" about peer review, and that might be a net disadvantage." have convinced me that Template:Infobox journal can work for this article. My reason for editing the lead to say it's a website, is that I didn't think the version that I was editing made the peer review issue clear enough.[2] That older version struck me as both ambiguous and complex. The current version could be understood by any high school student.[3] If someone wants to describe it as "a journal", that's the level of clarity that I would hope to see. Regards, Rjjiii(talk) 04:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, including you in the count. I don't like using the infobox:journal because it might mislead readers into thinking it is a journal. Websites aren't expected to be peer-reviewed anyway, and we are stating that it's disputed already in the second sentence in the lead. In any case, I think your version of the lead did improve clarity. Tercer (talk) 08:16, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If your concern is that infobox:journal would mislead readers into thinking it's a journal, I think it's important to realize that the overwhelming majority of readers will have no idea what the name of the template is. There's nothing about the template that says "this is a journal, not a website" in any sort of reader-facing way, other than the parameters that are displayed. And we can delete some of those parameters, including ISO 4 and the various indexes. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:31, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just "one blog". Here Kim Griest describes it as a “fake journal” and no practicing scientist ever looks at or refers to anything published in it. And then there's the very widely reported statement by David Morrison If Hoover wants to be taken seriously by the community of astrobiologists, he needs to publish this in a real journal and to respond to the criticisms from other scientists. Fake journals are in a different category than mere "shitty academic journals" or even predatory journals. JoelleJay (talk) 21:31, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Real journal" is the sort of hyperbole people use to disparage something. Like if I raved about a visit to a McDonalds in a travelogue and people criticized me by saying I should try a real restaurant. Used in that way, it doesn't mean that McDonalds is not actually a restaurant, but merely that it should not be taken seriously as a good example of one. The same appears to go for this quote. It is not at all obvious to me from this wording that this quote implies that Morrison thinks that J. Cosmo. is actually not a journal; it could easily be interpreted as meaning that he thinks that it is a journal but not a good one. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:16, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Griest writes This journal is now known by normal scientists as a “fake journal”, which lends a bit of weight to that, but closely parsing the phrasing details in a Medium post is starting to feel like splitting hairs.
talk) 17:08, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
We can definitely include multiple URLs in infobox:website. The text is clear enough about the (lack of) peer-review.
The problem I have with infobox:journal is that it makes it look as if it's a journal, because of the existence of the fields "peer-reviewed", "ISO 4", and "discipline" (that we are not even using). infobox: website does not. Furthermore, I don't understand why are you so keen in removing any infobox at all, and the image in particular. Tercer (talk) 06:23, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand why you are so keen on making our article as disparaging as you can, rather than being properly neutral and describing it as a fringe journal. We can hope our readers understand from such wording that its contents are not to be trusted (or, if not, perhaps those readers are beyond reach). Telling them IT IS A BAD THING THAT IN NO WAY SHOULD BE THOUGHT OF AS ANYTHING LIKE A JOURNAL in the lead does not help; all it accomplishes is to convince readers that we are biased against it. Setting a neutral tone and letting them reach that conclusion themselves is both more encyclopedic and more persuasive. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:20, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The "peer-reviewed" line says that this is in dispute. The "ISO 4" line gives an abbreviation for its title. Then there are some initialisms and numbers. Does any of that actually make J. Cosmol look respectable? Stepping back and trying to see how it looks from the perspective of somebody who just saw an alien-rock story on Facebook or whatever, I am doubtful.
talk) 17:17, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I think most laypeople have very little concept of "good journals" vs "bad journals" and tend to regard publication in any journal as legitimation of an article. We saw plenty of this among COVID deniers. I also think the universality of peer-review (and the expectation that it exists even in the lowest-quality journals) is not appreciated by most people, who may see the infobox "peer-reviewed" parameter as evidence that the process is optional (if every journal is peer-reviewed, why would this need to be a field?). JoelleJay (talk) 20:21, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're absolutely right that this field usually is not needed. That's why the infobox doc says to leave it blank unless the answer is "no" or something like that. And if someone doesn't read the infobox doc and fills in "yes", it won't get displayed. --Randykitty (talk) 22:12, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it would be more useful for us to discuss the issue in terms of whether it is a typical respectable scientific journal, instead of whether it is a real journal. I think it's pretty likely that we can all agree that it is not a typical respectable scientific journal, and that's something we might be able to work with, to move towards consensus on. I would argue that our goal should be to make the page free of contradictions about what it is not. If we can do that, then I would hope that we can get away from arguing that we should format the page like a "real" journal, and instead look at how we can present the page in a manner that does not mislead readers. I keep getting the feeling that some editors agree with saying in the text all the things that are wrong with the so-called journal, but then argue that as long as we do that, then we should use formatting and presentation style as we would for a typical scientific journal on the theory that doing so makes the page NPOV. I disagree with that, because I think it just makes the page self-contradictory. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Categories

A related point is that we currently have the page in categories that treat it as a science journal, and maybe we shouldn't. All but one of the current categories are for journals, and of the journal categories, all but one are for legitimate journals. This seems very inaccurate to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this really shouldn't be in legitimate journal categories. JoelleJay (talk) 22:45, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. TrangaBellam (talk) 09:40, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As of 4 September:
Possible options:
Holding off on editing the article as conversations seem ongoing. Good luck, Rjjiii(talk) 04:48, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support removing Category:Astronomy journals and adding Category:Panspermia. I also support keeping Category:Fringe science journals and Category:Astronomical controversies. However, I would prefer to remove Category:Academic journals established in 2009, Category:Open access journals, and Category:English-language journals, on the grounds that it is not a typical academic journal. I wish that we had a category for fringe science websites, but we apparently don't. I'd be OK with adding Category:American science websites. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a journal, and the journal categories belong. I have reverted these changes.
b} 10:12, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Nobody seems to object to the "fringe journals" category, so it would be inconsistent to call it anything else in the other categories. As an aside, I don't know what "legitimate journal categories" are, opposed to "illegitimate" journal cats? --Randykitty (talk) 11:45, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No we should not imply (even by association) that this is a respectable academic journal. Slatersteven (talk) 11:49, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • People seem unable to understand that neither "journal" nor "peer-reviewed" are anything else than neutral descriptors, not honorifics. --Randykitty (talk) 12:21, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actaully incorrect peer-reviewed does mean something. That is why its claim to be one has bee challenged by RS. Slatersteven (talk) 13:56, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The overwhelming majority of RS call it a journal. One blog calling it a 'fake journal' or some such does not make it stop being a journal. It's a crap journal, and that's why it's in
    b} 20:12, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Would anyone object to removing Category:Academic journals established in 2009? (In my opinion, whatever its status as a journal, it isn't particularly academic, and removing this one category would still leave the other journal categories.) How about adding Category:American science websites? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:26, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I would, because it's an academic journal established in 2009. Academic here means related to one or more academic disciplines, not "legitimate good journal". Contrast with Magazines established in 2009, Newspapers established in 2009, Comics established in 2009 (named comics debut, but same concept), etc.
    b} 23:58, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    OK, I looked for Category:Journals, and it really doesn't allow for journals that are not "academic". How about the other part of my question: adding Category:American science websites? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:03, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not a website. It has a website, but all modern journals have websites.
    b} 00:43, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    How tf were there 145 academic journals established in 2009...???
    And I think it makes sense to remove it from that category. One of the basic expectations of a scholarly journal is that articles are written by people with expertise in the field they cover.    [4][5] That is not the case for a large proportion of the articles in JoC. This college library states one of the 5 key characteristics of an academic journal (website) is a "Plain appearance with very minimal use of colour, graphics and/or images" and "Is the visual appearance of the website plain, with minimal advertising and colour? Or is it colourful and flashy with a lot of graphics and advertisements?" (Hmmm.....) It also suggests the less structured (in regards to having an abstract, background, research design, results, discussion) and the less focused its articles are, the more likely it is to NOT be an academic journal.
    So how would we describe this rambling essay on "quantum physics" by Kak--an electrical engineer--that predictably dedicates a whole section to promoting the "Vedic speed of light measurement" pseudotheory? What about the fact that the images in the paper were clearly hosted on the website itself rather than embedded in the article, resulting in missing figures? And how would the wildly variable formatting between articles in the same issue be viewed through the lens of the above journal criteria? Compare the Kak paper, hosted in html directly on the website, to this one by Leiter that opens as a PDF'd Word document with a misaligned screenshot of the JoC landing page at the top; or to theologist Theodore Walker's take on "quantum consciousness" in this piece, which retains the web-hosted experience of Kak while incorporating Leiter's "Key Words" (stylized "keywords" in Walker; a third (fourth?) format--"Key Words"--can be seen in this article by Neuman et al.) section below the abstract.
    How do we feel about mathematical formulae being typeset in Word?
    Do JoC articles even have DOIs?
    ...... JoelleJay (talk) 06:58, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    None of those things are required to be academic journals. Those are things typical of academic journals, but atypical journals exists. Plenty of journals are typeset in word. Plenty have 'amateurish' looking websites. Those are usually signs that it's a smaller journal run by people without advanced technical skills in publishing, and will often but not always, be signs of journal crapiness. But again, that a journal is crap does not make it no longer a journal.
    b} 09:32, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
A lot of "what is a scholarly journal" checklists state that these criteria are in fact key distinctions from magazines and other webhosted material. Here's the definition of scholarly articles by Oregon State:
A scholarly or research article is an article that presents the findings of a study, research or experimentation. This type of article is written by experts in a discipline for other experts in the discipline. Scholarly articles are considered more reliable than most other sources because the results are based on research not conjecture or opinion.
Several factors that have so far shown up in every one of these checklists are:
  • Articles are narrow in scope.
JoC articles are typically unfocused messes covering many topics.
  • Articles report research results and occasionally theoretical examinations.
The vast majority of JoC articles are not reporting any new findings and instead are putting forth hypotheses covering a wide range of topics.
  • Articles are written by experts in the field of study.
How many of the authors publishing here are actually writing within the scope of their professional expertise? Is it even possible to be an expert in pseudoscience?
  • Articles are written in technical language ("jargon") meant to be understood by experts in the field.
From the JoC submission guidelines: All articles must avoid jargon, and must be written to be understood by a wide range of scientists specializing in areas of science other than those addressed by the author.
It's also interesting to note that JoC is a walled garden by design: Approximately 90% of all articles submitted without invitation, have been rejected.
Emphases mine:
Extended content
Extended content

A scholarly journal is a periodical that contains articles written by experts in a particular field of study and reports the results of research in that field. The articles are intended to be read by other experts or students of the field, and they are typically much more sophisticated and advanced than the articles found in general magazines. This guide offers some tips to help distinguish scholarly journals from other periodicals.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHOLARLY JOURNALS

PURPOSE: Scholarly journals communicate the results of research in the field of study covered by the journal. Scholarly articles reflect a systematic and thorough study of a single topic, often involving experiments or surveys. Scholarly journals may also occasionally publish review articles that summarize the current state of knowledge on a topic.

APPEARANCE: Scholarly journals lack the slick advertising, classified ads, coupons, etc., found in popular magazines. The articles are often printed one column to a page, as in books, and there are often graphs, tables, or charts referring to specific points in the articles.

AUTHORITY: Scholarly articles are written by the person(s) who did the research being reported. When more than two authors are listed for a single article, the first author listed is often the primary researcher who coordinated or supervised the work done by the other authors. The most highly‑regarded scholarly journals are typically those sponsored by professional associations, such as the American Psychological Association or the American Chemical Society.

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY: Articles submitted to scholarly journals are evaluated by an editorial board and other experts before they are accepted for publication. This evaluation, called peer review, is designed to ensure that the articles published are based on solid research that meets the normal standards of the field of study covered by the journal. Professors sometimes refer to peer-reviewed journals as refereed journals.

WRITING STYLE: Articles in scholarly journals usually contain an advanced vocabulary, since the authors use the technical language or jargon of their field of study. The authors assume that the reader already possesses a basic understanding of the field of study.

REFERENCES: The authors of scholarly articles always indicate the sources of their information. These references are usually listed at the end of an article, but they may appear in the form of footnotes, endnotes, or a bibliography.

Extended content

The following characteristics list provides features of a Scholarly Article:

Often have a formal appearance with tables, graphs, and diagrams Always have an abstract or summary paragraph above the text; may have sections describing methodology Articles are written by an authority or expert in the field The language includes specialized terms and the jargon of the discipline Titles of scholarly journals often contain the word "Journal", "Review", "Bulletin", or "Research" Usually have a narrow or specific subject focus Contains original research, experimentation, or in-depth studies in the field Written for researchers, professors, or students in the field Often reviewed by the author's peers before publication (peer-reviewed or refereed) Advertising is minimal or none

Purpose Scholarly journals include one or more of the following:

Results of research (experiments and other research) Case studies Theories

Intended audience Scholarly journals are written for scholars and researchers in a particular field.

Authors Scholarly journal articles are written by experts in a particular field. In most fields, these experts are professors at colleges and universities. However, experts in some fields - like medicine and other sciences - might also work in hospitals, labs, government agencies, or similar organizations.

Characteristics Authors are clearly identified; their graduate degrees or credentials are usually shown too Words and phrases in the article may be used only by people in that field, or used in a certain way Mostly black & white May contain graphs or charts (photographs are less common) Articles usually have many references to works, scholarship, or personal communications Few, if any, advertisements

Publisher Many scholarly journals are published by professional associations, academic institutions, or sometimes commercial publishers.

Frequency Scholarly journals are usually published quarterly, monthly, or somewhere in between (so roughly between 4-12 times a year). Some scholarly journals are published weekly, but this is uncommon.

Scholarly journals are held to a high standard Articles in scholarly journals are peer-reviewed. This means that other experts review these articles before they are published. The publication process can take a long time, especially if the author(s) need to make many edits. It's not unusual to see an article about research that was done a year or two before!

More library checklists: Georgia State, West Virginia State, La Verne, Western Governors, U Wash, McMaster, Eastern Washington, St Mary's JoelleJay (talk) 17:04, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Silver seren @Slatersteven @Tryptofish JoelleJay (talk) 17:06, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with JoelleJay. I have a problem with treating a "crap journal" as being just "a journal". There's a space between being "a journal" and being "not a journal", and if one wants to think of it, informally, as "a crap journal", that works for discussion's sake. But it's wrong to say that we should treat crap journals the same as other journals. That violates
WP:NPOV. So I have a problem with arguments that "all modern journals have websites" or "atypical journals exists", because those arguments take as a given that we have to treat a crappy journal as "a journal". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
A pseudoscience journal pushing crap is still a journal. Heck, a predatory pay for play journal is still counted as a journal too, despite being just as much crap. SilverserenC 22:25, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say that they were not journals; in fact I said the opposite. But I'm saying that we should treat them as very different kinds of journals than normal academic journals. Treating them the same as normal academic journals violates NPOV. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:22, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My contention is that JoC fails the criteria expected of modern journals in ways well beyond what we see in pseudoscience or generally crap journals. OMICS, MDPI, et al publish articles where the failure is in the science being reported, the poor/non-existent peer review, the plagiarism, and the fraud, rather than in their inherent structure and presentation. These journals still publish articles reporting novel research results with a narrow focus, by people drawn from the academic community of the relevant field and who generally do hold academic positions but are in places where research output is measured solely by number of papers with no checks on publisher reputation, and are written for an audience of experts in their subfield. The journals are still typeset consistently, are accessed through the publisher's database rather than hosted directly online, and their articles follow the standard formatting and internal organization of the field.
JoC doesn't even attempt to resemble a professional journal and instead operates much more like a magazine, where ads are abundant; technical language is explicitly rejected because the intended audience is not expected to be familiar with the field of study; article content is broad, unfocused, opinionated, and non-experimental or even theoretical; and the authors come from a small selection of invited participants rather than from researchers in the field at large. JoelleJay (talk) 00:27, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Perhaps we should treat it as a magazine, rather than treating it as a journal just because that's what it calls itself. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:31, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As we already do for the Journal of Irreproducible Results. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:36, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Astronomy magazines and Category:Physics magazines. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Eh I think we can do without categorizing it as either of those. We don't have sources actually calling it a magazine. JoelleJay (talk) 21:36, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I thought it was worth pointing out. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly makes something a journal?

I think this needs to be clarified first, because there's a lot of conflicting statements above. First off, we know full well that journals don't have to be peer-reviewed. Nor does being on a website only matter, since we have plenty of journals like that. Nor does indexing matter, as we have a lot of really crappy journals that aren't indexed. So, what criteria does make something a journal? SilverserenC 15:14, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Does it present itself as a journal (i.e. does it claim to be academic in some way)? Yes. Does it do the basic things a journal do (compiled into volume, have editors, etc...) Yes. Do most people consider it a journal? Yes. Is it indexed by services that cater to journals? Yes. Sure, there are exceptions to all of those, because 'journal' is not a clearly-defined term, but it is by all account and the vast majority of sources, a journal. A shit one, but one nonetheless.
b} 15:29, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I disagree about not needing peer-review, I don't know of a single journal that doesn't at least claim to be peer-reviewed (this has changed, by the way, a century ago the norm as absence of peer-review).
Besides that, a fundamental characteristic of a journal is that it's supposed to circulate the research of a community, not mainly publicize one person's ideas (anyone remember the scandal of
Chaos, Solitons & Fractals
?).
Other universal characteristics is regularity (the most relaxed I've seen is publishing articles as they come, but with a fixed one volume per year) and well-defined focus (as no sane editorial board consider themselves competent to handle papers about anything under the Sun).
Note that these criteria still leave plenty of space for terrible journals. A hypothetical Journal of Relativity Denial that served the denialist community and asked them to review each other paper's would qualify, for example. Tercer (talk) 16:59, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was just thinking about Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, actually. Did El Naschie's antics make it a bad journal, or did he turn it into something that we shouldn't even call a journal? Would it fall into the same bin as your hypothetical Journal of Relativity Denial?
talk) 17:05, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
It was a major scandal. I think there's no controversy that this was not what a journal should do. El Naschie got removed as editor-in-chief, and supposedly the journal has mended its ways. Now imagine instead they had doubled down, said that's all fine and proper, El Naschie is such a genius that he doesn't need peer review, and the purpose of the journal is now mostly publishing whatever he writes. I think saying that the journal had become El Naschie's blog wouldn't be a controversial opinion. Tercer (talk) 19:34, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And yet Chaos, Solitons & Fractals is still referred to as a journal. SilverserenC 17:38, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
b} 17:48, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
And yet the article starts with Cureus, Journal of Medical Science, is a peer-reviewed open access general medical journal using prepublication and post publication peer review. Shouldn't you fix that? Tercer (talk) 19:49, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Our article academic journal says: "An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published." More specifically, a scientific journal "is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by sharing findings from research with readers. They are normally specialized based on discipline, with authors picking which one they send their manuscripts to." Even more specific, a medical journal "is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that communicates medical information to physicians, other health professionals." Note that only the latter mentions any special requirements ("peer review"). Also note that quality is not part of any definition. I'm writing this hesitantly, as I fear that bringing this here may lead to yet other endless talk page discussions with huge walls of repetitive text aiming to change these definitions. --Randykitty (talk) 16:04, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Since The Journal of Cosmology is not periodical, does this mean you have changed your mind? Tercer (talk) 16:51, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Journals don't have to be periodicals. They can have irregular publishing schedules, e.g.
    b} 17:20, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    What not Wikipedia links have to say [[6]] "Academic journals are a type of periodical" [[7]] "academic journal a periodical" [[8]] "A scholarly journal is a scholarly publication with multiple articles that is often subject specific or has a specific audience. Sometimes referred to as a periodical, because they are published at regularly occurring intervals.", so yes it seems that to be an academic journal (but maybe not a journal) it has to be published regularly. Slatersteven (talk) 17:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Most are. Some are not. If DGG were here, he'd tell us most librarians gave up on these pedantic classifications and just group everything under serials, and when pressed to do so, distinguish magazine, journal and newspaper by the type of articles published in them and their target audience.
    b} 17:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
I wonder what people here make of Qeios. It is a website where people can "publish" papers on any subject whatsoever. They claim to have "peer-review" in the form of comments posted on the "published" papers (I became aware of them when they sent me an automated email inviting me to "referee" a paper for them).
Is it a journal? Tercer (talk) 08:33, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's a publishing platform.
b} 10:18, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Why is it not a journal? Tercer (talk) 10:32, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems similar to F1000Research, which calls itself an "open research publishing Platform". --Randykitty (talk) 10:47, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No volume, no pagination, peer-review happens after publication, EiC has no input on publication, no one calls it a journal, etc...
b} 19:49, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Here is one answer. [[9]] Slatersteven (talk) 16:56, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that is a really good answer. It seems to be a useful definition. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 20:32, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lead sentence

After some new edits, the lead sentence is currently: The Journal of Cosmology describes itself as a scientific journal. That's a problem. According to

MOS:FIRST, the lead sentence should "tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is". The current sentence only tells us what it describes itself as, implying that it isn't really what it describes itself as. So what is it? And don't answer that it is a scientific journal in the commonly understood meaning of the term. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:36, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

As I wrote this, the changes were reverted. So this is a criticism of the now-reverted version of the lead sentence, and an argument in support of that revert. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's addressed right after. But yes, it is a scientific journal. A crap one, but one nonetheless. The original wording was better, "describes itself as a peer-reviewed scientific journal", because it's the reviewing process that's under question, not the scientific journal part. Alternatively, if we need to state in Wikipedia voice what is is, we could say a fringe journal of cosmology.
What it definitely isn't, is a website. See
b} 22:40, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
See
WP:DEADHORSE. Tercer (talk) 22:41, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
In any case, the lead has been stable for over a month, so let's work this out in talk, and I hope there won't be any further reverting. The problem I raised above is still a problem in any version of "describes itself as...". That problem isn't fixed by addressing it in later sentences, because that's not how lead sentences are supposed to work on Wikipedia. Now if someone wants to write "The Journal of Cosmology is a crap scientific journal"... --Tryptofish (talk) 22:46, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then let's write that. With 'fringe' instead of crap.
b} 22:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I like that. If other editors agree, that would be fine with me. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:58, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fleshing that out: The Journal of Cosmology is a fringe scientific journal that is published online. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:01, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't is a journal of pseudoscience? I don't see much fringe science. Just a lot of cargo cult stuff. jps (talk) 02:17, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It would have to improve a lot to become a journal of pseudoscience. Right now it's just a website that publishes rants on random subjects by the editor and his friends. Tercer (talk) 08:05, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fringe/Pseudoscience. Same difference. It used to be more legit, then the Hoover article got written and only the full quacks remained after.
b} 09:39, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
The Journal of Cosmology is a fringe pseudoscientific journal that is published online. Perhaps editors who want to argue that it's even worse than fringe and pseudoscience can leave that to the sentences that follow. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:12, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about being worse than fringe and pseudoscience, it's about being worse than a journal. It doesn't respect the basic characteristics of a journal: it's not peer-reviewed, it's not regular, it doesn't have a well-defined topic, it's not organised in volumes in the usual way. It fails almost every single criterion people have considered for something to be a journal in the previous discussion. Tercer (talk) 20:53, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I hear you, but I think "fringe pseudoscientific journal" gets that across. In fact, I think it's overkill, and would prefer either "fringe journal" or "pseudoscientific journal". --Tryptofish (talk) 20:55, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No. The Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine is a fringe pseudoscientific journal. Because it is still a journal. Tercer (talk) 10:11, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as long as we don't have a consensus one way or the other, we're probably just going to have to stick with the present version. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:22, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's consensus that this is a journal. That there's no real preference for "fringe journal" vs "pseudoscience journal" vs "fringe pseudoscience journal" is really immaterial. They all work.
b} 20:52, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I'm not seeing that consensus. It's what you say, whereas Tercer just said a very firm no. And I'm opposed to calling it just "a journal", without further qualification. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:08, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Asserting that JoC is a journal

I think since there are plenty of sources which dispute the legitimacy of JoC as a journal (in the colloquial sense), it would be best to avoid using the word in WP voice. We can certainly

WP:ASSERT that JoC is a website. No one disagrees with that. I have modified the language in the text to reflect this. jps (talk) 13:55, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

For what it's worth, I agree with the edits you made. I expect that some other editors may disagree, but I'll put myself on the record as agreeing. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:13, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly disagree with it. A journal is a publication format, and this is a journal by all definitions of it, backed by several reliable sources all calling it a journal. While it has a website, the journal is not a website.
b} 00:55, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I certainly don't want to discount your concerns, but I can offer this, which perhaps can help. When I look at the edits in the way that jps actually made them, and look at the text of the page as it exists when I post this comment, I don't really think that the language goes against what the sources say. We still have the infobox that treats it as being in the general category of journals. (I used the word "category" in the general sense, as opposed to the Wikipedia meaning.) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:18, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is an interesting philosophical question: if a "journal" exists solely as a website, can we say it is not a website? That seems... dizzying. jps (talk) 01:46, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it's a journal, albeit a crappy one. Beall treats it as a journal, a predatory one, but a journal none the less. As for the "website" comment just above, nowadays a majority of academic journals are published online only. Are we going to stop calling them journals and change to "website"? Sorry, but that's ridiculous. --Randykitty (talk) 10:38, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that we have a general agreement that this is a website. We don't have a general agreement that this is a "journal" in the narrow sense that some sources talk about "journals" (note that not every source is as expansive as Wikipedia and some librarians' definitions of the same). Incidentally, I used to talk to Jeff a lot about these matters, and I would not say he "treats it" or, really, anything on his list "as a journal". He listed all of those publishers and instances with cautious "potential, possible, or probable" adjectives meant to provide cover for all cases of questionability. It wasn't a declarative statement about any proper journal designation... the key was that he was identifying possibly preadatory outlets because they were either outright scams or they were so problematic in their (lack of) standards that it called into question the very integrity of the outfit. There was no indication that everything on his lists qualified as a bona fide academic journal. jps (talk) 18:52, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing on Beall's list was "bona fide", but all of them were (publishers of) predatory journals. The problem here is that you seem to think that "academic journal" or "peer review" somehow are honorifics. Compare it with the Daily Mail. There is strong agreement that this is an unreliable newspaper, so much so that it's banned as an RS here, but we still call it a newspaper, because that is what it is. In the same vein, this is a "peer-reviewed scientific journal". Bad peer review, unreliable content, certainly not an RS, but that's for us to source and make clear. --Randykitty (talk) 23:26, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
all of them were (publishers of) predatory journals At the risk of giving Trypt a stroke out of frustration, I must protest that this claim is not true. Some of those listed were taken off the list after Jeff decided that he was mistaken in his suspicions. He was always cautious about "potential, possible, or probable" and intended it to apply to everything that came after, both the "predatory" and the "journal" (and "publisher" for that matter). On purpose, Jeff never made a definitive category declaration about anything. If you want to argue that self-presentation is all that matters, then I'm glad that you admit my shopping list is a newspaper and a journal. At such a point, the words seem to lose all meaning, but okay. jps (talk) 00:18, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Let me suggest to Headbomb and Randykitty that you point out specific places on the page where you would like to change the content back from the changes that jps made. As far as the general concepts of this, everyone here already knows what everyone else thinks, so I'd much rather focus on specifics. As I said above, I looked carefully at jps' edits, and I don't really feel like there was anything that would contradict the source material. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:25, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review = no

Peer review states that

It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field.

In this case, all of the reliable sources that discuss this website say that there is no self-regulation by qualified members of the profession within the fields at issue. The only sources which dispute that are

not reliable
to make that call. Therefore, we need to say that peer-review = no, but I think the text makes it clear why that is the case.

jps (talk) 13:59, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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