Should we merge all WikiJournals into one?

This resource is a wikidebate, a collaborative effort to gather and organize all arguments on a given issue. It is a tool of argument analysis or pro-and-con analysis. This is not a place to defend your preferred points of view, but original arguments are allowed and welcome. See the Wikidebate guidelines for more.

Should we keep the current model of having many WikiJournals? Or should we merge all of them into a single, generalist WikiJournal?

We're talking about the WikiJournals in the English Wikiversity, not other Wikiversities.

We should merge all WikiJournals into one

Arguments for

• Pro Having a single generalist journal would give a place to users working in areas that don't currently have enough peers to start a specialist journal.
• Pro Merging all journals would allow us to increase the publication rate.
• Pro Merging all journals would allow us to collaborate more effectively on common resources such as templates and documentation, and avoid unnecessary multiplication of templates, documentation, template documentation, etc.
• Pro Having only one journal reduces the risk of it falling under the critical mass of editors needed to continue in 10 years (probably the main risk for most volunteer projects, and could easily happen for a WikiJournal servicing too niche a topic).
• Pro If the WikiJournal project becomes a sister project, then Special:CiteThisPage would not fulfill its function if there are many journals, but it would if there's only one.
• Pro There's no Wikipedia of Medicine, Wikipedia of Science, etc. There's a single Wikipedia and then portals and categories for specific fields.
  • Objection The fact that Wikipedia works that way doesn't mean WikiJournal should too.
• Pro Having only one journal would greatly simplify the mailing list. Instead of having one list for the WikiJournal of Medicine, another the WikiJournal of Science and others for future journals, we'd have a single list for the WikiJournal, a single and thus larger suscriptor list and more regular emails.
  • Objection It will be harder for participants to receive emails in only their fields of interest.

Arguments against

• Con Retaining a separate WikiJournal of Medicine maintains the outreach and reputation so far built, even if small.
• Con The "WikiJournal of Medicine" name is consolidated in for example ISSN.org (for the International Standard Serial Number), Crossref (for doi codes), and the registration as a non-profit organization, so it would be a lot of work if we would need to change it.
• Con Specialist journals can be more attractive to authors. Certainly some medical researchers are more interested in publishing in a medical journal than in a generalist journal.
  • Objection The two most prestigious scientific journals (Science and Nature) are relatively generalist journals, although "Science" and "Nature" can also be regarded as specific fields. Also, PLOS, for example, has different publications for different fields.
• Con Journal editors and other volunteers may be interested and particularly knowledgeable only in specific fields.
  • Objection In a generalist journal, articles can be easily categorized per discipline, and the categories advertised so that users can quickly find articles in their field if interest.
• Con Different fields can have different expectations of peer review.
  • Objection Many generalist journals exist so they somehow handle these differences in expectations. For example, articles could be categorized per discipline and then subject to the appropriate standards for the field.
• Con Generalist journals can struggle (e.g. SpringerOpen closed down).
  • Objection Specialist journals can struggle too. There are a trillion that closed down.

See also

• WikiJournal
• WikiJournal of Medicine
• WikiJournal of Science
• WikiJournal of Business and Economics