Talk:Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Cleanup

Thanks for helping to clean this up. A few notes. The journal is active. (Also, note the dates when the issues are uploaded and compare them with the date of the journal; there clearly has been a publication lag, which is not too uncommon for independent journals not connected with a professional society.) Note the updated webpage's anticipated publication schedule.

The footnoted encyclopedia article is not necessary to verify the existence of the journal. It was cited to support the number of libraries that carry the journal. I will check that source and give a page number, and then reinstert the number of libraries that carry it.

Thanks for helping with the RSS=. I suspect the journal will eventually migrate from the .edu to the .com website, and at that time the RSS= will become relevant.Edstat (talk) 14:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

• Well, from the rudimentary websites and long publication delays (not so usual as you seem to think), it does look like the journal is dying, even though it still kicks from time to time... ALso, the RSS is active, even though also severely outdated, so I added it back. This way, if they ever get going again, the article will immediately be up to date. And for the moment all relevant links are in the article. As for the number of libraries that carry the journal, this will be difficult to establish. It is OA, so many libraries will list it, even if they don't carry a subscription to the print journal. --Crusio (talk) 15:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed that academics should should pay more attention to aesthetics and publication schedules! The quote in the encyclopedia, although from 2006, listed how many libraries carry it, but as you say, that indeed may be moot.Edstat (talk) 15:58, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

disambiguation

If anyone can help, I tried to disambiguate the "jackknife" internal link, but apparently I have not done so correctly. Please fix it if you can.Edstat (talk) 14:44, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

• Done. --Crusio (talk) 15:18, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

Website

Well, I suppose one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but PLEASE open any issue of your choice, and you will find the following: "JMASM is an independent print and electronic journal (http://tbf.coe.wayne.edu/jmasm)." That is the official web site, and the .com appears to be "in the making".Edstat (talk) 15:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Copyright

Please check this url: http://www.coe.wayne.edu/COE/Projects.html Thanks!Edstat (talk) 15:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, and? That page lists projects being carried out at WSU. So people from WSU are involved (which we know: the editor is at WSU). This does not mean, however, that WSU is the publisher. If it were, then the copyright statement would read "copyright WSU". --Crusio (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the point is WSU pays for it, and the publishing goes through them. There are many academic journals that are operated by universities in that fashion, even though the university doesn't maintain the copyright. On a practical note, the .com looks better, but it isn't updated as is the .edu. It appears as a test site that will eventually be migrated to.Edstat (talk) 16:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

• Although I don't think we can know whether WSU pays for it (apart from providing server space), but that is not important. Legally speaking, they are not responsible for the journal and they don't own the copyright. So they are not the publisher. --Crusio (talk) 16:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, you right. So, I see in each journal issue it says the copyright holder is "JMASM, Inc.", so I will put that in. I also see it says "sponsored bye WSU". I won't put that in, but that is where I was getting the "paid for". Thanks.68.43.236.244 (talk) 17:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Misleading citation indexing

It is okay to engage in original research for minor parts of the article, when the claims are easily verifiable and objective (and not point of view). It's fine to include information about journal rankings.

However, in this case, the old version was very selective, claiming that the this was classified as a core statistics journal (rather than it appears in a list of over 160 journals which are classified as core), and not mentioning the number of such journals. Even worse was just quoting the 2003 ranking, which was much higher than the (latest) ranking 2008 even among a very small subcategory, and omitting the fact that this journal appears in the bottom of the list of the usual category of statistics journals. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I will revert Edstat's revert and then add his material on 2003, which seems biased in favor of this weak journal. Give me a minute to do the editing. ThanksKiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC) Done Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

"Weak journal" - Please stop the opinions. You can add non-original research, but not original research. I suggest adding year by year. In other words, add cited info, don't delete cited info.Edstat (talk) 18:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I can get the year by year data and put it in, or put in something like "it was as high as X in 20xx and low as Y in 20xx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edstat (talk • contribs) 18:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

I wish that you would restore my edits, as I have restored yours. Will you explain why you selected 2003 to rank this journal, when 2008 data is available (although it shows a much lower ranking)? Will you explain why you used the very small category for rankings, which omits the main statistical journals, e.g. JASA, JRSS-A, etc. but not the usual "Statistics and Probability" cluster? Thanks, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I agreed with you. I think we had a series of "edit conflicts" where my edits were being overun by yours, and vice-versa. Anyway, I put in every year available. Now, as for being a weak journal, here are the journals that are in its class according to the Austrailian Math Society:

Applied Stochastic Models and Data Analysis
Applied Stochastic Models In Business And Industry
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics
Bayesian Analysis
Biometrical Journal: journal of mathematical methods in biosciences
British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology
Canadian Journal of Statistics
Communications in Statistics: Theory and Methods
Computational Statistics
Electronic Communications in Probability
Electronic Journal of Statistics
Environmental and Ecological Statistics
Environmetrics
Foundations and Trends in Stochastic Systems
Infinite Dimensional Analysis Quantum Probability and related topics
International Journal of Game Theory
Jahrbucher fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik
Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics
Journal of Applied Mathematics and Stochastic Analysis
Journal of Applied Statistics
Journal of Mathematics and Statistics
Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods
Journal of Nonparametric Statistics
Journal of Official Statistics: an international quarterly
Journal of Statistical Theory and Practice
Journal of Statistics Education
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series D-The Statistician
Journal of Theoretical Probability
Lifetime Data Analysis: an international journal devoted to the methods and applications of reliabil
Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability
Metrika: international journal for theoretical and applied statistic
Multivariate Behavioral Research
Open Systems and Information Dynamics
Pharmaceutical Statistics: the journal of applied statistics in the pharmaceutical industry
Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences
Quality and Quantity: international journal of methodology
Sankhya. Series A
Sankhya. Series B
Sankhya: The Indian Journal of Statistics
Statistica Neerlandica
Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology
Statistical Methods in Medical Research
Statistical Modelling: an international journal
Statistical Papers
Statistics and Probability Letters
Statistics Education Research Journal
Statistics: a journal of theoretical and applied statistics
Stochastic Analysis and Applications
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
Stochastic Models
Stochastics and Dynamics
Survey Methodology
Test

Are you calling these journals "weak" too?

Some of these journals publish interesting papers from time to time: I have added several papers from Sankhya to Wikipedia articles. However, most are weak. (Peter Hall discusses the politics of this list in Statistical Science, which is a much better journal.) Now, I look forward to your answering more questions of mine! Thanks, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

And these are the "C" rating journals below JMASM:

A St A - Advances in Statistical Analysis
Advances and applications in statistics
Advances in Data Analysis and Classification
Alea (Rio de Janeiro): Latin American journal of probability and mathematical statistics
Aligarh Journal of Statistics
American Journal of Mathematical and Management Sciences
Applied Bioinformatics

Austrian Journal of Statistics Brazilian Journal of Probability and Statistics (Brazilian Stat. Assoc.)
Calcutta Statistical Association Bulletin
Case Studies in Business, Industry and Government Statistics
Chance
Chilean Journal of Statistics
Chinese Journal of Applied Probability and Statistics
Communications in Statistics: Simulation and Computation
Discussiones Mathematicae Probability and Statistics
Epidemiology, Blackwell Scientific (Oxford)
ESAIM: Probability & Statistics
Far East Journal of Theoretical Statistics
IMS Bulletin
Integral and Stochastic Geometry
International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Statistics
International Journal of Biostatistics
International Journal of Ecological Economics & Statistics
International Journal of Epidemiology
International Journal of Reliability, Quality & Safety Engineering
International Journal of Statistics and Systems
International Journal of Tomography and Statistics
InterStat
J P Journal of Biostatistics
Jahrbuch fuer Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Journ@l Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilites et de la Statistique
Journal of Applied Mathematics and Decision Sciences
Journal of Applied Probability and Statistics
Journal of Applied Statistical Science
Journal of Data Science
Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics
Journal of Grey System
Journal of Japan Statistical Society Institue of Statistical Mathematics
Journal of Mathematical Sociology
Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community
Journal of Quality Technology: a quarterly journal of methods, applications and related topics
Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports
Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation
Journal of Statistical Research
Journal of Statistical Software
Journal of Statistical Studies
Journal of Statistical Theory and Applications
Journal of Statistics and Applications
Journal of Statistics and Management Systems
Journal of Systems Science and Complexity
Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society Series A-Pure Mathematics and Statistics
Journal of the Japanese Society of Computational Statistics
Journal of the Korean Statistical Society
Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland
Kybernetika
Mathematical Methods of Statistics
Mathematics and Financial Economics
Metron: international journal of statistics
Model Assisted Statistics and Applications: an international journa
Monte Carlo Methods and Applications
Oyo Tokeigaku
Pakistan Journal of Statistics
Pakistan Journal of Statistics and Operation Research
Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis: advances in mathematical theory and applications
Probability and Mathematical Statistics
Probability Surveys
Race Relations Abstracts
Random Operations and Stochastic Equations
Reliability and Risk Analysis: Theory and Applications
Revista de Metodos Cuantitativos para la Economia y la Empresa
Sampling Theory in Signal and Information Processing
Schweizerische Zeitschrift fuer Volkswirtschaft und Statistik
Sequential Analysis
Significance: statistics making sense
SORT
South African Statistical Journal
STAR
Statistical Analysis and Data Mining
Statistical Inference for Stochastic Processes: an international journal devoted to time series anal
Statistical Journal of the IAOS
Statistical Methodology Statistical Methods and Applications
Statistics and Decisions: an international mathematical journal for stochastic methods and models
Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research
Statistics in Transition
Statistics Surveys
Stochastic and Stochastics Reports
Stochastics: An International Journal of Probability and Stochastic Processes (formerly Stochastics and Stochastic Reports)
Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal
Survey Research Methods
Technology Innovations in Statistics Education
The Stata Journal
Theory of Probability and Mathematical Statistics
Theory of Stochastic Processes
Understanding Statistics
Utilitas Mathematica

Don't forget this journal is not yet 8 years old, and it is not supported by a professional society's dues.Edstat (talk) 18:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

First you select 2003, where your journal appears very high in one list. Then you delete the information about the mainstream statistical journals, in which your journal apppears very low.

They have categories for a reason. I don't think you should second guess why they have placed this journal in the category that they have chosen to do so. However, the Austrialian Math Society does not have such finely detailed categories, as you will note in the list above. In perusing their list, I note a number of very high profile journals in the "B" class, as well as the "C" class. Do you really want to defend your statement that would mean the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society is a weak journal because it is in the same class as JMASM, or Journal of Applied Probability and Statistics (a favorite of MathSciNet) is less because it is in the class below JMASM? Edstat (talk) 19:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Sawilowski's journal appears in two lists, one of statistical journals (with nearly 200 journals) and the other embracing fuzzy reasoning, etc., and containing less than two dozen journals. You removed all the information about the statistics and probability lsit.

There is no problem with also putting in the other list - I mentioned above that I think we edit conflicted out material we were saving at the same time. Any other ranking list is also welcome.Edstat (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

(From memory so more fallible): JRSS-D was for students. There are many applications in JRSS-A (society) and JRSS-B (methods), besides JRSS-C (applications, I think). Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be much of a point to peruse all the journals in the above list, but if your view is some of them publish something of interest on occaision (to paraphrase), then there isn't much purpose in continuing this discussion. Its one thing to denigrate one journal or two for whatever reason one chooses, but to call 54 journals in class "B" weak, and 96 journals in class "C" less than that, then there just isn't much to discuss, because that represents the bulk of published literature on statistics for the past half century!Edstat (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Hereafter there be opinion, I warn!

Advances are concentrated in the best articles in best journals by the best scientists at the best departments at the best universities (or research institutes) in countries with the best educational/research systems. For example, the break-fast table of David Cox is one of the research centers in the world, and outweighs most countries. It is neither desirable nor possible for Wikipedia to describe all journals in statistics, even the top 200 journals, particularly if each journal's is selectively polished by the cherry-picking of rankings.

(Indeed, statisticians are prohibited from reasoning to foregone conclusions by section 1.3 of the code of ethics of the ISI: "[Statisticians] should also not engage or collude in selecting methods designed to produce misleading results, or in misrepresenting statistical findings by commission or omission.") Yours sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 20:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It is not necessary for you to apologize for characterizing a journal as weak instead of citing secondary, independent, and reliable sources. Moreover, I certainly don’t consider it unethical for you to have done so, I just tried to make the point that opinion must give way to verifiable sources here.

The ranking for 2003 was factual. The initial text clearly said “as high as”. You are certainly permitted to put in “as low as”, out of N, etc., or whatever else you would ordinarily do on all other wiki articles (e.g., Billboard ranking for piano music). For my part, I already supposed that the several times I tried to save and got “edit conflicts” a few times is why your ranking text got deleted. That is why I said to put back in what I must have inadvertently took out. I can’t tell from the history pages what you were trying to do; it appears garbled to me, most likely because of the edit conflict didn’t save all that either you/I wrote. SO, feel free to put back in whatever it was you were trying to put in!

Now, back to the business at hand. It seems to me that some explanation is appropriate when citing sources. For example, a ranking service that does so based on how many times something is quoted, etc., does little to judge the quality. A math society of a certain country may have expertise in math, but it isn’t a statistics society, so although they can probably do more than a service that just counts google hits, they still aren’t really in the best position to judge. Thus, a ranking service that caters to statistics, by statisticians, would be the best source. I’m rather impressed that a Math society would rank this journal so highly, especially in view of how you have characterized it.

You asked why I have not responded to a number of your questions. I will respond on your talk page, which is the appropriate venue.Edstat (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

return of the bullet lists?

I like the way the rankings are laid out, but it does seem to violate the bullet mandate (see Shlomo Sawilowksy talk page) - the so called "tourist brochure" issue. So, what do other's think?Edstat (talk) 23:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

a table might be clearer. DGG ( talk ) 23:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Bullets are available as standard layouts on Wikipedia (and elsewhere). A column-ordered table format is best for reading (see Higham, Handbook of Mathematical Writing). In retrospect, can you see that your use of bullets on that article was unconventionally long? A few bullets go a long way, is a good motto. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Rankings

The number of journals covered usually increases from year to year, so that listing 23 (or 21) journals biases the ranking upwards, imho. I would suggest listing the total number for each year, if you want to keep the time series. I would much prefer to see only the latest year's ranking. Thanks, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

• I have removed the rankings in different years. In all the hundreds of articles on academic journals that I have seen, this is the first one where I saw them tabulated year-by-year. Besides not being very encyclopedic, there may be copyright issues here (I don't know about SCImago, but ISI does not like lists of impact factors to be published by third parties, although they don't object to individual journals posting their latest impact factor. I agree with DGG below that SCImago is not widely accepted a a method to rank journals and personally I also don't think that the rankings of one academic society carry that much weight either. I do think the journal meets our notability criteria, but it is borderline. (As an aside, their less-than-amateurish website does not help to instill much confidence, either.) --Crusio (talk) 23:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

opinion

I was asked for an opinion. A ranking service based on how often something is cited in proportion to the number of articles published, measured within a subject, is the normal way of judging the merit of a journal, though there is much debate about the measure that ought best be used for this, especially among the publishers of journals that do not rank highly in this criterion. For some purposes number of published articles is perhaps a useful supplementary measure. We normally use the most recent impact data for an journal, though we could use a series of them if available; I see no objection to doing so here. There is of course no need to say in an article that a journal is poor; the facts speak for themselves. Whether one regards mid-rank journals as important or not is not something that is matter of individual preference. However, it is my understanding as a science bibliographer, that mathematics is normally considered the field of science where the papers of importance are most dispersed over a wide range of journals; I do not know whether this applies to statistics also.

I added the fact that it is in Scopus, and also that it is not in Web of Science, as these are two widely used indicators of importance. I point out the SCimago is not the most widely accepted method of judging the influence of journals; most of the available information on its validity at present comes from its inventor. There is of course nothing more accepted here to use, since the journal isn't in JCR. SCimago is no doubt of use is such situations. DGG ( talk ) 23:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Australian rankings: Statistical Science special issue

In a recent issue of Statistical Science, probabilist/mathematical statistician Peter Gavin Hall and another author discuss the Australian system, and the political campaign to get some statistical journals moved up.

That issue has several articles about bibliometry by leaders of national and international statistical associations (and the American Mathematical Society), and so that issue may be of general interest to you all. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

rankings

Oops, I got another edit conflict when I tried to save. I'll try again. I liked the list (I didn't put it in) because it reads better, but I was hammered on another page for doing it. Either way is ok by me. As for only putting in the latest rating, the data is what the data is - another editor has suggested putting in the time series for a good reason and I agree. So I have reinstated it. As for the quality of the rating systems, I agree and have commented at length elsewhere, but again, it is what it is. Now, previously an editor took out what is in the journal, and now and editor wants to put what index the journal is NOT in? Edstat (talk) 23:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason to include 8 year-old-rankings (i.e., 2002), when the ranking are (apparently) recalculated every year. If we include every year, it should at least be in a list. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 00:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Italicized title

Why is the title of this article italicized? (An earlier change of mine was apparently reverted.) Wikipedia policy indicates that this should almost never be done. See: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(technical_restrictions)#Italics_and_formatting and Wikipedia:Article_titles#Special_characters_and_formatting. The first link says,

This [italics] should be used only in special cases – currently its only common use is for taxonomic genera and species.

Unless there's a precedence set (that I'm not aware of) to italicize the title of articles that concern academic journals, this title should also conform to the "policy". Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 23:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

• Re: this edit. Where is the consensus for this found? Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 23:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

• Found it: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Academic_Journals/Writing_guide Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 23:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Ranking again

Based on comments above on what is usually done about such things as being the standard (which seems precarious to me as opposed to citation of actual wiki policy), I have now looked at 30 stat/related journals, of which 29 have no rankings, and 1 has a ranking from 2006. On this page, we started with "as high as", then went to "as low as", then went to time series from 2002 - 2008 in prose format, then bullet list format, then back to prose format. We also have editors above who have concern with the value of those ranking "inventor's" unknown algorithms. Based on what I have seen, therefore, I am proposing to delete the section altogether. If anyone wants me to post the 29 journals so you can add rankings to them (if that is the preferred route), let me know and I will post them here.

Second, I saw some of those other journals list PsychINFO as an indexing service. JMASM is included in PsychINFO, but my understanding is that it is more of a search engine, as opposed to an actual indexing service. Should that be included here (or deleted elsewhere)?

Third, I don't see the purpose of indicating which indices JMASM is not indexed on - it is non-information, so I propose deleting it.

After that, I think the entry is about as stable as it will get, for a while at least.Edstat (talk) 18:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• Some anwers to your questions:

1. What "usually is done" has been hashed out over many discussion about the implications of actual WP policy.
2. As for those other journals, the argument that WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS may mean that the other articles need cleaning, not that new articles should be like them. Adding indexing information is standard, because it shows notability for a journal. For rankings, the latest figures are used, but sometimes nobody seriously looks at an article again and they don't get updated.
3. Indexing services show notability if they are selective. PsycINFO is, so it contributes to establishing notability. Google Scholar or the Directory of Open Access Journals are not, so they don't usually get mentioned in journal articles. If something is not in either of those two, that would be a sure sign of not being notable.

I agree that the fact that this journal is not included in WoS can be deleted (it's an argument that could be brought forward at AfD, though). I am against removing ranking information. Eventually, those other journals will get ranking info, too. No need to post them here. (I am going more or less systematically through all journal articles, cleaning them up, sometimes -when I have time and feel like it- I also add missing info such as indexing or rankings). --Crusio (talk) 20:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with Crusio in all but #3. (We apparently agree on WoS as well.) The fact that it's not indexed in WoS is of little value; it might indicate that the journal is not notable, but might also indicate that WoS is an incomplete indexing service. Such "negative information" (I don't mean "negative" as in "derogatory", but as in "A's not in B") is not really informative, and hints of violating WP:NPOV. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 21:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I added additional ranking indices, as well as rankings for the "Mathematics" category. If anyone knows how to remove those "pesky" numbers in the References section and wants to do it, please do. I would like to learn how to do it.Edstat (talk) 01:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• I am at a loss to understand why you insist on adding completely trivial rankings by, for example, number of citable documents... Also, I have never seen anybody compare journals by h-index, which is heavily dependent on the age of a publication (or the length of a career for a researcher). In addition, all those rankings result in very low, almost derogatory, results. --Crusio (talk) 08:03, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

John Vandenberg, thanks for clarifying the AuMS assisted ERA. The link given [1], however, says: "This site is not an official ERA site." Therefore I have reverted to the original official website that lamp.infosys.deakin also points to.Edstat (talk) 07:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

John Lamp's database is complete and accurate, and his system is more accessible than the ARC's Excel spreadsheet.

I don't think it is appropriate to mention the assistance of the Society unless you can find independent sources that describe this assistance in sufficient detail to be useful. This page outlines the relationship a little, but it isn't independent. Even so, the relationship is better fleshed out on the articles about ERA and/or the Society. The problem will arise when someone complains about the ranking given to a journal, and it will be interesting to see how the parties contributing to this journal list are going to respond. While it is reasonable to say, on a page about ERA, that they worked together to produce the list, there is no evidence that the Society agrees with the ranking given to this specific journal. Note that even the Society page I linked earlier says it was a working group, comprised of members of two organisations, which compiled their list. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:58, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, regarding Crusio's comment above, it is what it is, and I would assume if SJR has the category someone must be interested in it, although you apparently believe it is "trivial". I don't feel strongly one way or the the other, and based on the 30 relevant journals I've looked at with 29 having no rankings, I'm not opposed to deleting the entire section.

Regarding John Vandenberg's comment, I must have misunderstood what you edited. If indeed the AuMS had no role in this, as documented by a secondary source, mentioning them should indeed be deleted. I'll look to see if I can find such a source, and I have deleted it in the meantime.Edstat (talk) 15:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The society did have a role in this; my point is that we need an independent and/or peer-reviewed source about their role, and for it to be included in this article, that source needs to be very clear that their role included the ranking of this journal. If you can't be certain that their role encompassed the ranking of this specific journal, it doesn't belong in this article. However, the role of professional bodies in the development of the ERA journal list definitely warrants mention in the article about the ERA. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I see that the AuMS sent in their recommended ranks to ERA; but I don't see yet the extent to which ERA accepted it. I'm still looking....Edstat (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)