Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of learned societies

: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 no consensus‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. plicit 07:10, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

=[[:List of learned societies]]=

{{AFD help}}

:{{la|1=List of learned societies}} – (View AfDView log | edits since nomination)

:({{Find sources AFD|title=List of learned societies}})

Indiscriminate collection of links to Wikidata, a user-generated database, which is not a reliable source. There is more to say about this particular list, but I am not going there because that would likely just distract from the main point. Randykitty (talk) 18:57, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academic journals, Organizations, and Lists. Randykitty (talk) 18:57, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Delete per WP:TNT. We should not be importing content from Wikidata, and that is the entirety of this list. It does not meet our standards for verifiability through reliable sourcing. And even for the entries that come with sources from Wikidata, they are of dubious independence from their subjects, generally formatted badly and unfixable by Wikipedia editing as the bad formatting comes from Wikidata. This should go as well for List of learned societies in the United States and List of learned societies in the United States, which have exactly the same issues. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:17, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • :Can you try to separate your misgivings of Wikidata from the issue of whether this list should exist (which is the purpose of AfD)? [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_learned_societies&oldid=1034515250 This is the version of the article] before it was converted to a table (using WD). This does not use any data from Wikidata but you will see that it is far inferior, with less information and no references at all — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:59, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment - it seems to me that there are two issues. First does the list meet the criteria of WP:NLIST and second is it a useful thing for navigation per WP:LISTPURP-NAV. On the latter point, this is a long list of wikilinks which is a recognised form of navigation, other examples include List of banks (alphabetical). Returning to the former point, the question is whether the list is of notable things to the extent that having the page helps with a user navigating the encyclopedia. On this point I'm currently undecided. JMWt (talk) 19:50, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Keep - So, returning to think about this some more. WP:NLIST states {{green|One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable source}} further nothing that the entirety of the list does not need to be noted just the group of things. So it would appear that a simple way to establish if a list of learned societies is notable is to see if reliable sources consider them as a group. Here are some references that do that [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.1609 1] and [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03075079.2013.773216 2] and [https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2024.1430 3]

: Clearly Learned society is a notable idea and reliable sources have considered them as a group. It also seems likely that a list sorted by country consisting of many blue wikilinks would be useful for navigation - for example by a reader wanting to see which learned society exists in their country.

: JMWt (talk) 09:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

::Could you maybe address the actual issue discussed in the nomination, which is not whether such a list could in principle be encyclopedic, but whether the list we have, based entirely on import from Wikidata, is appropriate to have? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:04, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

:::Well we are to make judgements against the policies and guidelines of en.wiki which I did. As far as I know, the fact that the list came from wikidata is irrelevant, but maybe there's a guideline or policy that I don't know about that you would like to point to? JMWt (talk) 20:00, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

:::*Wikidata is not irrelevant here. Fact is that this list cannot be edited n WP. If one would want to change anything that is currently displayed in this list here, that is completely impossible and one has to go to WD and figure out how to make the desired change there! In addition, user-generated databases are not acceptable as sources and creating articles that are more or less automatically derived from such a database is a complete no-no. --Randykitty (talk) 17:26, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

:::*:The fact that it can't be edited within en.wiki (which I didn't appreciate before) seems like an issue, albeit a solvable one if we don't like that.

:::*:But this thing about "user-generated" content seems to me like we are talking about two different things. Usually when we talk about "user-generated" sources we are pointing to a dif which has given a reference which is a blog or other unedited and self-published material. I don't think when we talk about it we usually are meaning wikidata.

:::*:Second, all lists on en.wiki are essentially user-generated because there are very few full lists in reliable sources for the majority of things we have lost pages for here. Also Wikipedia:NLIST doesn't even require a reliable source to show all of the things in the list.

:::*:So we are really just back to a complaint about the formatting that wikidata produces and whether that's suitable for a page on en.wiki. JMWt (talk) 16:40, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

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{{resize|91%|Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.}}
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 00:50, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

  • I'm afraid I have to go with keep even if I don't like the way this list has been generated, on the grounds that AfD is not supposed to be clean-up. The concept of a learned societies as a group is definitely notable, for example in the context of the long-running bust-up between academia and academic publishers, where many academics feel that the journals published by learned societies are less-predatory/profiteering than those published by the big non-learned publishers. This table, and the very similar table at List of learned societies in the United Kingdom (and one for the US too) are also very useful navigational tables. Elemimele (talk) 13:23, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

:*The argument for deletion is not that the subject doesn't merit an article nor that such a list is not useful for navigation. The point is that this list (and the US spinoff) is not edited on enWP, but on another website (i.e., Wikidata). WD is not a reliable source and cannot be used as a source. Even less should we import such unreliable content, that lacks overview by enWP editors. The current lists are unusable and to create an acceptable list, the current ones need to be blown up. --Randykitty (talk) 13:54, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

:*:I get that, but in a sense I still disagree. The existing list is, at the very least, useful for navigation (which doesn't require reliable sourcing). If we blow it up, unless someone actually replaces it with a proper list, we've lost the navigation aspect. It really embarrasses me to disagree with you and {{u|David Eppstein}}. Elemimele (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

:*::Navigation requires reliable sourcing! We might not require a blue clicky linky number on every item (indeed, sometimes that would be silly), but we do need a basis for it that is worth building upon, not a data dump from a site no better than Wikipedia itself. A list full of items that can't be trusted is not a trustworthy navigational aid. XOR'easter (talk) 17:25, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

:*:::To me this makes no sense. What do you mean it is not a "trustworthy navigational aid" and what policy of en.wiki does that violate? The items are literally blue links, the topic is evidently notable. The only issue you appear to have is the difference between wikidata rearranging WP content, which is then recycled back into WP and on the other hand someone creating exactly the same content using standard WP coding notation.

:*:::And as far as I see it isn't a "data dump" either, multiple editors were involved in adding content. Once the precedent was set for using wikidata notation, other editors followed suit. So where's the data dump? JMWt (talk) 18:32, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

:*::::No, the issue I have is that Wikipedia shouldn't be a Wikidata mirror. The items in this list are, as you said above, not editable within Wikipedia. The best case is that the data on Wikidata is derived purely from Wikipedia, and even that best case would just be a policy violation. And it doesn't matter whether the list is the work of one editor or many. Piecewise incorporation of unreliable data is still reliance upon an unreliable source. XOR'easter (talk) 01:09, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:*:::::But put it this way: if we simply copy-pasted the (text version of the) entire thing and stuck square brackets round each item, it would be a totally valid navigational list, because all the items on it have proper articles, and that they are learned societies is obvious from the articles to which they link. Actually: would it be reasonable to do this to the list, so it's then editable from Wikipedia and detached from Wikidata? Elemimele (talk) 06:47, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:*::::::I've tried doing that as an experiment and can't see that it's possible. But that might be my incompetence. JMWt (talk) 09:03, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:*:::::::I could have a go in my sandbox later today... Elemimele (talk) 14:09, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

  • Keep per {{u|JMWt}} and {{u|Elemimele}}. Topic clearly suitable for a list, and it satisfies the navigation use of a list. That the list is now coming from Wikidata is indeed irrelevant, because the issue can be dealt with editing, and deletion policy states that, therefore, this cannot be a reason for deletion (and no, WP:TNT is not policy; as for essays, see then WP:TNTTNT). --cyclopiaspeak! 13:14, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment I've had a go at List_of_learned_societies_in_the_United_Kingdom which as {{u|David Eppstein}} pointed out suffers from exactly the same problems as the current list. I've converted it to a simple navigational table with minimal extra information, derived from the original automated list, and put it at User:Elemimele/List_of_learned_societies_in_the_United_Kingdom. Having gone through this process, I am convinced that the current list needs to be delinked from wikidata. I didn't check exhaustively row-by-row, but in the process of conversion it was blatantly obvious that some entries were weird or wrong, so it's utterly necessary that they should be editable, easily, by anyone here who finds that they're wrong. Elemimele (talk) 16:07, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  • :How did you do that? If it can be easily done and will not take too long, the simplest solution would appear to be to do this conversion to standard notation JMWt (talk) 17:21, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  • ::I copy pasted the whole table into Excel, then edited it to replace blank cells with at least something (hence all the silly asterisks) and to remove weird locations and dates, and the references (since I was aiming for a navigational list, deriving information from the target pages, and the references might be more complicated to carry across). Then I saved it as a .csv file, and used the tool website that's on my user-page to convert the .csv file to a wiki-formatted table. It would be harder work for the current article as it's subdivided into a whole load of mini-tables for each country, but I'm from the UK so I thought I'd try the UK version first! Elemimele (talk) 18:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
  • :::Well it works but that seems like quite an involved process. JMWt (talk) 08:56, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  • ::::So the question now is what to do with the current article? So far as I can see, there are various ways this could go. The first big question is whether those who've !voted delete would accept an article of the sort I've put in my sandbox? If YES, we need to decide how to achieve it. I suspect those who want to delete will want a solid assurance that a Keep outcome doesn't just mean we all wander off and the existing wikidata-linked table remains unchanged. The article is too old to be draftified. One option would be for the closing admin to delete, but immediately do a refund of the existing article to someone's user-space (happy for mine to be used), where any of us can work on it at leisure, and resubmit it to main-space when it's fully converted. Would this be a compromise that would satisfy a majority, or are there still obstacles? Elemimele (talk) 13:31, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  • :::::... {{u|XOR'easter}}, {{u|Randykitty}}, {{u|David Eppstein}} you've all raised serious concerns. XOR'easter put it particularly well: the existing table is based on an unreliable source, so of course me "laundering" it into a purely Wikipedia table doesn't initially change the information. But I think it makes two fundamental improvements: Firstly, the list is fully editable within Wikipedia, independent of Wikidata, so errors can be corrected by any editor in the normal way. Secondly, as a navigational list, it is allowed to depend on the target articles for information and sourcing. In fact ideally we should be checking line-by-line that any extra, non-navigational information in the list (the date and location) matches the parent article and its sources. Any thoughts? Elemimele (talk) 13:40, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  • ::::::I support your efforts on this. I also think it probably wouldn't take a really long time to do it manually (as an alternative option). But there's no point if the page is then deleted - given the !delete voters above are not accepting that the problem is with notation. JMWt (talk) 13:46, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  • :::::::Let's give them a chance to reply. I think some of them are in the States and it's the weekend, so they may not have seen anything yet. Elemimele (talk) 15:21, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  • ::::::::The one in your sandbox is a good start but is totally inadequately sourced. If something like that were fully sourced, line by line, with all its content editable (as the one in your sandbox is), I would consider it acceptable as a list. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:47, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  • :::::::::I'm not convinced the tabulation is necessary in this case, and if claims are not made then there is no need for sourcing each entry. There are many lists on en.wiki which are simply navigational and consist of blue links.
  • :::::::::Anyway, this seems a distance from the discussion about notability. If the entries need sources then that's an issue of cleanup not notability - I've already shown that the collective group of learned societies are notable and nobody has refuted. JMWt (talk) 09:46, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
  • ::::::::::We need to decide which way we're going. The options are: (1) subject is non-notable or current version irreperably awful, in which case delete: (2) subject is a notable grouping, in which case we need referenced text about the group and its meaning, but completeness and links to other articles are merely desirable (the list must stand on its own two, referenced feet); (3) subject can be handled as a navigational list, in which case it is merely there to help readers find a lot of related articles. In this final case, the list should contain minimal extra information, and should not be sourced as it stands on the feet of the articles that it groups, and must not become a content fork of them. The latter two cases are keeps but need extensive work. Elemimele (talk) 10:15, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
  • :::::::::::My view is that (2) would be appropriate but no one here is likely to have time to make it happen, so (3) is a fall-back realistic ATD, allowing future editors to build if they wish, while preserving something genuinely useful to readers. I'm willing to put in the work to do (3) if that's the outcome. Elemimele (talk) 10:21, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

{{clear}}

: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.