Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Austin Publishing Group

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's
talk page or in a deletion review
). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:01, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Austin Publishing Group

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Austin Publishing Group (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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This is a company therefore GNG/

HighKing++ 13:25, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Flaky Academic Journals is a blog by David H. Kaye, an exceptionally well-regarded professor at
b} 17:35, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Thank you! Good points but for me, I disagree that those mentions meet the criteria for
HighKing++ 13:30, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
  • There are currently 12 sources in the article. Three are primary from the website. The others are as follows:
  • Flaky Academic Journals is a blog, fails as a
    WP:RS
  • Beall's List is just that, a list. No in-depth information, fails CORPDEPTH
  • Canadian Journal of Surgery contains in Table 1 "Summary of phishing emails" 45 companies including the topic company. No in-depth information provided, fails CORPDEPTH
  • American Academy of Opthalmology article "Predatory Publishing: Shedding Light on a Deceptive Industry" contains an extract from Cabell's Journal Blacklist which lists the topic company. No in-depth information, fails CORPDEPTH
  • The Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity paper entitled "Unmasking the Hunter: An Exploration of Predatory Publishing" analyses soliciting emails for journals and there are several mentions of journals related to the topic company. There is some classification on the soliciting journals but there is really no in-depth information or analysis on the company itself. Fails CORPDEPTH.
  • National Library of Medicine published "Not All Young Journals Are Predatory" lists, in Table 5, one of the groups journals but fails to provide any further mention of the topic company, fails CORPDEPTH
  • Science article doesn't even mention the topic company.
  • Business Insider article mentions "Austin Addiction Sciences" in passing, fails CORPDEPTH
None of the sources in the article meet GNG/NCORP criteria, nor is there a quantitative criteria of "enough sources" (which are nothing more than mentions). In a previous discussion some years ago, you said that the vast majority of predatory publishers were non-notable and including a list of all publishers would likely overwhelm any article - well it appears this company is one of the non-notable ones.
HighKing++ 17:01, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
  • Weak delete Many of the sources do not even mention the publisher or list specific journals. I only see two good sources that include this publisher (Bramstedt KA. 2020. Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity. 2(1). DOI: 10.35122/001c.13267) and (McKenzie M, Nickerson D, Ball CG. Predatory publishing solicitation: a review of a single surgeon's inbox and implications for information technology resources at an organizational level. Can J Surg. 2021 Jun 9;64(3):E351-E357. doi: 10.1503/cjs.003020. PMID: 34105930; PMCID: PMC8327997), but there isn't any more about the journal than is in the article here and neither are specifically about this publisher. The connection between this publisher to the Dr. Dog incident is only made in a blog post. The possibly reliable sources listed about that incident don't name the publisher or the journal.
I agree that it would be good for Wikipedia to be a place where people can come to check if a journal is legit. I just can't think of a good way to do that. Lamona (talk) 17:32, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Many of the sources do not even mention the publisher or list specific journals" literally all sources (save Science, which I've now removed) mention APG or one of their journals.
b} 19:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 22:47, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Headbomb, you are correct and I apologize - I missed some of the references to the Austin publications. The problem that I still see is that the only in-depth sources about Austin are their own sources and Beale's blog. The latter should not be considered a reliable source, IMO. Not only is it the un-reviewed thoughts of a single person, he was known for expressing some pretty prejudiced views. The other articles list one or more Austin publications but don't say much specifically about them. I'm still leaning delete. Lamona (talk) 03:03, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Beall pointed out some of the nefarious consequences of open-access publishing and for that some OA zealots claimed him to be biased/prejudiced. However, he was careful in his evaluations of publishers and if shown to be in error (like with MDPI, for example, not really predatory but bottom-of-the-barrel anyway) he changed his opinion. I find his blog reliable. --Randykitty (talk) 09:49, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Today, two references were added, one from the Irish Times, one from the Turkish Archives of Otorhinolaryngology. This adds to the previous references, Canadian Journal of Surgery, The Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity, Eynet (from the American Academy of Ophtalmology), The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, and Business Insider Australia. Kjalarr (talk) 10:00, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Added one more reference, a position statement from American College of Clinical Pharmacology, published in Clinical Pharmacology in Drug Development. Kjalarr (talk) 19:58, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In all of these the name of an Austin journal is given in a list of journals, but there is no further information about the Austin publisher or its journals. In the list of "Representative publishers" in the Pharmacology journal it is one of about 20 such publishers. I rather doubt that more mentions of this type will help establish notability. Lamona (talk) 23:21, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I partially agree, but also have some objections. The cited sources provide characterizations of Austin publishing group as fraudulent, predatoy, incompetent, or opportunistic. Indeed, they do not contain extensive or in-depth descriptions of that publisher, and some mention Austin publishing group only in a list. Nevertheless, the academic sources seemingly base their judgements on careful analysis, and the anecdotal evidence was published in several newspapers. Moreover, the fact that so many sources see themselves obliged to deal with Austin publishing group, might be considered as a hint to a degreee of relevance also sufficient for a WP entry. Kjalarr (talk) 16:47, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@
b} 20:22, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
@Headbomb:Thank you very much for your notice, but since I created the discussed article, my keep vote might be considered partisan. Kjalarr (talk) 21:15, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Fails GNG and, ORGCRIT, NCORP. Looking at the sources, I see brief mentions, primary, nothing that meets SIGCOV from Ind RS addressing the subject directly and indepth. The keep !vs above have words and opinions, but not sources showing notability. HighKing has responded to keeps with an eval of the sources, showing these are mentions, nothing that meets SIGCOV.  // Timothy :: talk  11:47, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Flaky Academic Journals and Scholarly Open Access are both direct and in depth discussions of APG. These, plus the vast ammount of coverage of individual journals are more than sufficient to pass
    b} 20:03, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:35, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete. I get a lot of emails from Austin Publishing Group, which I mostly discard unread, so I'm familiar with them. It's a very similar case to that of Juniper (above). Worth mentioning in a list of predatory publishers, but not worth its own article. Athel cb (talk) 09:02, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Agree with above comment - a publishing company being 'predatory' doesn't necessarily confer notability upon it - and where that company is a small and marginal one, even more so. Disintermediation is inevitable. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 10:14, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    "Small an marginal" seems not easy to objectify. So maybe we consult the accepted standards? E.g. Wikipedia:Notability: "Notable topics have attracted attention over a sufficiently significant period of time." Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies): "A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is presumed notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." Kjalarr (talk) 11:35, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete the publishing company is not notable via the avaialbe half-reliable sources. Rodgers V (talk) 15:53, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    But the Irish Times, Archives of Otorhinolaryngology, Canadian Journal of Surgery, The Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity, Eynet (from the American Academy of Ophtalmology), The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, and Business Insider Australia are not half-reliable. Kjalarr (talk) 11:27, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Without doubt, there is reason for the present discussion. But I am a bit disappointed about the quality of the latest contributions in favour of "delete". The quality of sources is in my opinion misrepresented, and no explicit reference is made to WP's standards for notability. Kjalarr (talk) 23:47, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's
talk page or in a deletion review
). No further edits should be made to this page.
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