Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Revue des questions historiques

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 keep. Stifle (talk) 07:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Revue des questions historiques

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Unsourced translation of the unsourced French article. What at first glance appears to be dozens of sources, turns out to be dozens of articles in the Revue about other things. A few passing mentions here and there, but no significant secondary coverage that I can find. Other than Google, I recommend searching Qwant and Persee; see those links among the set of find-source links on the Talk page. Mathglot (talk) 06:16, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Journalism and France. Mathglot (talk) 06:16, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep

Serious claim to be first modern scholarly journal in both France and the French language
Publication that went for 80 years
Important in France as an intellectual cornerstone of the Nineteenth Century Catholic revival
Important outside (and in) France as an early stage in exporting German "scientific history" methods
A linked internet archive and 4 (post AfD) references undermine the "unreferenced" claim

JASpencer (talk) 07:15, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Only ref #1 is promising; the rest are passing mentions:

Ref 1: One solid paragraph about the journal; borderline WP:SIGCOV. Replicate this several times in secondary sources, with sources that have deeper treatment, and you probably have it.
Ref 2: mentioned in passing (2x) on page 158; e.g., In sum, the Revue historique served ideological purposes no less than the legitimist and conservative Revue des questions historiques, an historical journal which began to be published ten years earlier, in 1886, and which, as Carbonell writes, has been just about totally ignored by the few French historians who have written on the history of history in France..
Ref 3: One passing mention:

One passing mention

Like the discipline of history, which was divided between the conservative and Catholic Revue des questions historiques (1866) and the republican Revue historique (1876), the major textbooks on the history of law distinguish between, on the one hand, the work of liberals such as Adhémar Esmein and Jean-Baptiste Brissaud and, on the other, those carried out by Catholic jurists (Ernest Glasson, Paul Viollet, and Émile Chénon).

Original: À l'instar de la discipline historique, clivée entre la conservatrice et catholique Revue des questions historiques (1866) et la républicaine Revue historique (1876), les grands manuels d'histoire du droit laissent distinguer, d'un côté, les entreprises menées par des libéraux comme Adhémar Esmein et Jean-Baptiste Brissaud et, de l'autre, ceux réalisés par des juristes catholiques (Ernest Glasson, Paul Viollet et Émile Chénon).

Ref 4: Ten passing mentions. Find more and deeper coverage like #1.

See the links at the Talk page for additional possibilities for sourcing. Mathglot (talk) 09:42, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academic journals-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 17:04, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you are continuing to add citations; that's great. Checking 5 and 6:

Ref 5: Ten passing mentions, with one on p. 111, as you noted. I don't see anything involving a significant treatment of the topic here, but if you can show that there is continual treatment on the three pages from 108 to 111 and not just passing mentions, that might help.
Ref 6: This is a 20-page article by esteemed French historian Charles-Olivier Carbonell about the birth of the similarly named journal, Revue historique, which to a large extent, was founded in reaction to the Revue des questions historiques and mimicked its format but not its content. I would say that this certainly counts as a reliable source with significant coverage of the topic (the first one that does, by my reckoning).

Is he the only French historian who ever wrote about it, or are there other serious treatments of it? Find two more like #6, and you're good. Mathglot (talk) 19:26, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per JASpencer. Absolutely notable. The French version of the article is in much better shape. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:14, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History, Conservatism and Christianity. JASpencer (talk) 17:49, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Responses to the source analysis from keep !voters would be helpful.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 03:48, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The "source analysis" misses the point to a large extent. It's applying a test for when notability is not asserted.

There are multiple claims of notability within the article, all of them sourced. The "source analysis" misses this out and applies a beauty contest metric, which is only intended when there are no clear claims of notability.

To take one claim, which on its own would justify the article, this is the first scholarly history journal in France. There's no attempt to say this isn't asserted in the article, or that the claim is not notable, or that it's not sourced, or that the source is unreliable. In fact the source is from its only possible rival for the crown of first French scholarly history journal, the Revue historique, a journal with a high incentive to claim otherwise. Although not currently linked if you follow the assertion in the RH's article it quotes the RH's co-founder, Gabriel Monod, who states that RQH is the only French history journal using the new methods up until this point.

But none of that's directly addressed. Instead there's something nice said about the author of the later RH article, nothing about the fact it was in RH, nothing about the claim, nothing about Monod's original acknowledgement - just a secondary discussion about whether this was a major or minor citation!

And there are other claims to notability in the article that are made, such as the prominent role it played - for much of its 80 years - in the late nineteenth century attempted "Catholic reconquista" of French culture. Again not addressed.

Notability isn't primarily a Pokémon hunt for references. That may be needed in a borderline case, and borderline cases naturally cluster in AfDs. But notability is about whether a notability claim is made in the article and it is backed by one or more credible sources.

And on this the article succeeds. Multiple times.

JASpencer (talk) 08:31, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Encyclopedic topic, encyclopedic article. It would be a pity if editors were deterred from translating articles from other Wikipedias by this kind of nomination. It sometimes takes a while to get a translated article into shape, because the emphasis here on inline referencing (undoubtedly a good thing in the medium term) is not the way other major Wikipedias see things. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:14, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that there's a different view of what makes Wikipedia. @Mathglot despite being almost as seasoned as us (vintage 2006) seems to have fallen into this German style view that Wikipedia entries need to be vetted first in draft form and that a partial article is worse than no article. Obviously this wouldn't apply to the present article which even on the idea of chasing references^[1] rather than looking at the substance of the claims for notability, it now meets the criteria. Still besides the point, but it clearly meets it.

I happen to think that draftspace is a fine discipline to editors who want to submit themselves to it, or troublesome editors who may be valuable but need to be monitored, but for the majority of well established editors this would be a massive change that would hinder the usefulness of Wikipedia particularly in areas that Wikipedia is already biased against - such as pioneering historiographical journals of not just nineteenth century French speakers but much worse backwards looking Catholics who so, so easily - even if unconsciously - meet the WP:IDONTLIKEIT criteria in the English speaking twenty first century online space (as Carbonell eerily pointed out).

If this were an nineteenth century English speaking moderately liberal freethinking journal with a tenth of the longevity (or a tenth of the Wikipedia references) it wouldn't attract a notability tag let alone a relisted AfD nomination.

References

^ An article in a French academic journal, an article in a German one and not one but two chapters in substantial academic books. That's before we talk about Monod's mention which is substantial ("this is why we started our journal") and not only independent but antagonistic.

JASpencer (talk) 16:48, 21 June 2025 (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.

[1] An article in a French academic journal, an article in a German one and not one but two chapters in substantial academic books. That's before we talk about Monod's mention which is substantial ("this is why we started our journal") and not only independent but antagonistic.

[1]