- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Dispute overview
- Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?
A large, ongoing debate on copyright ownership issues regarding the usage of the terms "reprint," "first serial rights," and "originally published in" to describe a few stories (specifically Gilgamesh in the Outback and Newton Sleep) in a larger series called Heroes in Hell is occurring at its talk page. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz argues that these stories were reprints from a prior magazine publication based on the sources he has found (some unreliable like this: [2], but others reliable like this: [3] and the author of Gilgamesh's own website). On the other hand, several other editors have argued that the use of the term "reprint" or saying that it is "originally published" in the magazine is misleading and wrongly suggests the original copyright is not owned by the series author, Janet Morris. Editors argue more accurately would be to say that the magazine had "first serial" rights. However, as of yet, no source points to the magazine having any such rights. They also argue that the story was intended to be written for the series, and as such, the magazine article is merely promotional, but not copyrighted. All of these arguments, however, lack sources. It is unclear whether it is standard for primary sources to provide this kind of "first serial" copyright information. Edit warring related to the above issues have occurred in the past week on both pages: [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]
Users involved
- Who is involved in the dispute? (Make sure you let them know you have posted here)
-
- Guarddog2 has said she is Janet Morris, the author of the series (Wolfowitz has challenged this claim)
- Bluewillow991967 has said she is Julie Cochrane, an author in the series
- Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, UrbanTerrorist, Bluewillow991967 have engaged in very, very lengthy debates. UrbanTerrorist's comments have sometimes been unreasonable "...I think you have are in a Conflict of Interest situation. I have no idea why you would be in a conflict of interest situation, but your irrational actions leave me no other conclusion." or just uncivil, "Wikipedia is always inaccurate until people like me step in and fix the problems. There's just too many idiots who think that they know what they are doing, and they to edit things.". Hullaballoo Wolfowitz and Bluewillow991967 have generally kept things cool, although it has been difficult to follow their arguments because of their sheer length and the number of other issues that are at hand with the article that I do not wish to discuss here.
- I Jethrobot is me, and have done my best to remain neutral in this argument. I am, however, responsible for merging the individual Heroes in Hell book pages to the main series page due to a lack of notability of the individual books and general consensus to do so. I do not claim to be have any expertise with the publishing process or of contract/copyright law.
- NebY, Hulcys930, and Knihi are only involved in so much as they have offered fair opinions on the discussion page and appear to have an interest in the page. Hulcys930 has made some edits that were justifiably reverted by Wolfowitz, but the edits were made in good faith.
Resolving the dispute
- Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?
This issue has been debated endlessly at the talk page, among many other topics. I attempted to search for sources myself to support either side and also tried to clarify Wikipedia policies to participants (see [9] and Guarddog2's talk page. No resolution is in sight after I have attempted to make multiple proposals that were intended to avoid the contentious issues about copyright, the contentions over the use of "reprint," and even the order in which the story was published. These proposals had some initial consensus, but in my opinion, were appropriately rejected by Wolfowitz because of sources that support that these stories were originally published in magazines, then later printed within the series.
- How do you think we can help?
I would like some consensus to be formed about whether it is important enough to include this copyright information, what information about Gilgamesh and Newton Sleep's prior magazine publications should be on the article page, how it should be phrased. Also, this issue seems to have been blown way out of proportion by several parties involved (myself included), and I am hoping that we can all work on trying to stay a little cooler in the discussion. There are so many issues involved with Heroes in Hell, that I cannot conceivably address them all here with any brevity. But I would like some help resolving this (and perhaps other) so that we can prevent any possibility of ongoing edit warring.
I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 06:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Heroes in Hell, Gilgamesh in the Outback discussion
Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.
- I happen to have a story in one of the recent volumes, but that's not at issue here. What most of you think you know about publishing is incorrect, and perhaps an article should be written to address that. You'll find that one of my three works for hire lists me as the (c) holder, even though Bill Fawcett and Assoc. owns the copyright. Publisher made an assumption and went to print. No one caught the error. It is also common for excerpts/shorts to premier in a magazine before official publication. In those cases, even though the periodical date is earlier, those are in fact reprints of the (later) original, with permission secured per contract. This happens all the time. I am constantly amazed at how many WP editors and staff are completely clueless about publishing, and toss around sales figures, numbers and money and try to attach significance to them. During the webcomic deletion debacle for example, one of the comments raised was that a certain comic "couldn't possibly have more than 100K readers," as if such a number were insignificant or not notable. I will go on record here that the WP community embarrasses itself publicly with these issues (such as regarding James Wesley Rawles, with hundreds of thousands of books in print, the go-to guy on disaster prep for CNN, the NYT, Fox, etc, whom a couple of editors persisted in WP:MOVINGTHEGOALPOSTS to try to claim was "not notable"). This is a repeat of that. Janet Morris is most certainly VERY notable in SF, and well-respected. Most, at the very least, of her works, are notable due to content, awards, sales figures, etc--certainly more notable than any of mine that have been contested and retained. There is certainly a personal bias here, which may be simply stubbornness on the part of certain parties. OrangeMike, despite his denials, has a very definite bias against her and should recuse himself from any discussion about her. To accuse her of not being who she says she is without checking first is hypocritical, self-aggrandizing, and pompous. Is it possible some of her lesser known works should be combined? Yes. Should any article be stomped on and erased within hours because some WPean can't be bothered to either aid in improvement, or do a little fact checking (rather than any BS about "consensus" from people demonstrably ignorant of the subject)? Not if this increasingly burdened and irrelevant bandwidth sink wants to retain any shred of credibility.Mzmadmike (talk) 15:54, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
- "even though the periodical date is earlier, those are in fact reprints of the (later) original". So reprints can take place before the original publication!? And TV shows can be rerun before they originally air. Let's do the time warp again! Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:34, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- I am Janet Morris (Janet E. Morris, Janet Ellen Morris) and I opened a new editor account only to deal with problems arising from the re-editing of a venerable series listed on Wikipedia entitled Heroes In Hell(TM). This series and franchise is my property and is a shared universe. I am not certain that it is appropriate for me to be here, although Jethrobot says that it is, since I am the proprietor of the Heroes in Hell series. I do feel it inappropriate for WP to be questioning my copyrights, contracts, and the terms and conditions of those contracts, some generated two decades ago and previously uncontested by principals. A debate over notability of various books in the series has morphed into one focusing on the articulation or purposeful obfuscation of the attribution of first serial rights, the deletion of a page called Rebels in Hell containing an award-winning story, and various disturbing and disparaging comments and unsupportable speculations from an editor called Wolfowitz: "By the way, Morris' ownership of the Heroes in Hell property couldn't have stopped Silverbob from writing the story without Morris's approval. She doesn't own all stories set in Hell, after all, just the original details that trademark the franchise. What she really owns via the franchise are some infernal bells and whistles and the occasional designer pitchfork." that show an intent to decouple certain works from the series that generated them (award-winning or nominated works with first serials) and minimize the importance of the series, which is listed on WP as "low" as opposed to some stories commissioned by me from various authors and written for the series, such as "Gilgamesh in the Outback" listed as importance "mid." Part of this dispute for me is whether or not editors with obvious, expressed biases (whether these biases count as COI in WP terms, I cannot say) against the series (or me) should recuse themselves from editing Morris/Hell pages. Please remove this comment if my participation is unwelcome. Guarddog2 (talk) 17:58, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
I am a neutral/clerk in this matter. The listing editor has limited the issues in this process to "whether it is important enough to include this copyright information, what information about Gilgamesh and Newton Sleep's prior magazine publications should be on the article page, how it should be phrased."
- 1. Do the other disputants have issues which must be resolved here? If so, please state the issue as succinctly as possible and say how you think that we can help. Please keep in mind that the primary function of this noticeboard is to offer neutral analysis, comment, and mediation and that we have no power here to issue penalties, orders, or binding judgments.
- 2. As for the copyright information issue:
- A. In looking at the diffs provided in the Dispute Overview section, above, I don't see any discussion of copyright though there is an obvious dispute over whether certain material was first published in one source or another. Does the dispute revolve around whether the specific words used in those edits imply, suggest, or have some legal effect upon copyright issues?
- B. Is there any dispute over where or when the works in question first appeared in print, in a strictly first-time-anyone-could-lawfully-acquire-them chronological sense? If so what is the dispute?
- C. Is anyone suggesting that there is no possible way to indicate their chronological printing order in these articles without having a potentially adverse legal effect on copyright issues? If so, why do you believe that, and why should Wikipedia, which is not a legal brief, contract, nor law journal, care about that implication, so long as it does not make an express allegation about the copyright? (And if no one is saying that there is no possible way to do it, then can any of those opposed to the current statements suggest a wording which they do not feel has that effect?)
- 3. Or have I entirely missed the point?
Note to other neutrals: By requesting this clarification I am not "taking" or "reserving" this dispute to my care, but am merely trying to get some clarification for whoever eventually chooses, if anyone does, to work on it. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
- Responding to the questions by TransporterMan that I am able to address:
- In looking at the diffs provided in the Dispute Overview section, above, I don't see any discussion of copyright though there is an obvious dispute over whether certain material was first published in one source or another. Does the dispute revolve around whether the specific words used in those edits imply, suggest, or have some legal effect upon copyright issues?
- While the diffs do not explicitly mention copyright, the talk page of Heroes in Hell certainly does. See this section and this section for the copyright disputes.
- Is there any dispute over where or when the works in question first appeared in print, in a strictly first-time-anyone-could-lawfully-acquire-them chronological sense? If so what is the dispute?
- Yes. Wolfowitz had this to say in this diff...
- There is no longer any dispute that "Gilgamesh in the Outback" and its two sequels, as well as "Newton Sleep," the other award-nominated story, were not originally published in the HiH series, but instead first appeared in magazines.
- ...whereas UrbanTerrorist has not agreed per this diff...
- In your mind there may not be [any dispute]. In words that even you can understand, a story doesn't exist without a market. Benford and Silverberg could not have written those stories without Heroes in Hell as a market. My understanding from Janet is that they were given permission to take the stories to the magazine market by her. In the magazines there was a good sized blurb about the anthology. It's called advertising. Free advertising. Do you understand the concept?
- ...and Knihi also responded to this saying the following in this diff, citing that we should not avoid differentiating between first serial rights & reprints, and also is concerned that the individual book articles were merged because of this concern over reprints (though there were other reasons why the merger occurred):
- I'm not sure why an encyclopedia would shy away from explaining terms like "first serial". The fact that it's little known outside the industry -- isn't that an argument for explaining it? To the point: I'm not sure "originally published" is the issue. Author is hired to write a story for an anthology. Author requests permission to pre-publish the story in another periodical. Permission is given. Story comes out in book for which it was originally contracted. Years and years later this discussion happens. "Aha," says an editor, "Story is a reprint! Strike the article on the book in which it appears, as without this story I feel the book is non-notable."
- Is anyone suggesting that there is no possible way to indicate their chronological printing order in these articles without having a potentially adverse legal effect on copyright issues? If so, why do you believe that, and why should Wikipedia, which is not a legal brief, contract, nor law journal, care about that implication, so long as it does not make an express allegation about the copyright? (And if no one is saying that there is no possible way to do it, then can any of those opposed to the current statements suggest a wording which they do not feel has that effect?)
- I feel this is an optimal solution, and prior to your suggestion, have already made changes on Gilagamesh reflecting the chronological publication order without reference to copyright. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 22:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
- Oh dear, it's late and I may not be writing very clearly, but I feel I need to put on record that I don't think the listing editor should have identified this as a copyright issue. Another editor thought the question could be answered by looking at copyright, but that was a red herring.
- The question is whether it's appropriate to use terms such as "reprinted" or "originally published in" to describe the work in question. Such terms may be at least neglectful and even denigratory. Yes, some books are collections of reprints, such as Best SF of the Year or Nebula Winners. Others such as Thieves World and its sequels contain work written for inclusion in those books. Such books are created with care in a creative process in which the individual authors knowingly collaborate, at the very least by working within parameters; they are not "mere" reprints.
- Yes, works are sometimes published in periodicals, in full or in abridged form, before they're published in their final or originally intended form. That does not imply that the later publication merely reprinted the former. It's normal practice and good money if you can get it. NebY (talk) 22:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed, I think this better captures the debate here. I apologize for not quite correctly describing the solution, but there is so much going on here, my head is in a fog whenever I begin to write about it. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 22:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
- This discussion has become a mess, because as with other recent ones involving editor-writer Janet Morris, a cadre of COI editors/SPAs has arrived to muddy the waters. There's been a significant amount of off-wiki canvassing going on, on Facebook, on a message board operated by Baen Books, the publisher of much of Morris's work, and elsewhere. None of these editors cite any Wikipedia policies, guidelines, or practices, or any external standards, relevant to the disputes. Several of these editors, including User:UrbanTerrorist and User:Guarddog2, who identifies herself as Morris, have advanced demonstrably false claims and engaged in lively invective about Wikipedia and its editors, always unsupported by facts or citations.
- The basic questions here are simple. First, is it fair to use terms like "reprint" or "reprinted" to describe publications which meet standard dictionary definitions of those terms, the Wikipedia article's definition of such terms, and the relevant professional writers' group's explanation of those terms? I think the answer should be clear, and the (neo)editors who argue otherwise present nothing but vague expressions of dislike. Second, should the Wikipedia article on a fictional work identify its original publication? Again, I think the answer should be self-evident. This is a basic piece of encyclopedic information which is generally included in such articles; the articles on novels typically identify the first edition (excepting, of course, the out-of-compliance articles which consist only of plot summaries). As a relevant sample, I reviewed all the articles on works which received the Hugo Award for Best Novella, the award won by "Gilgamesh in the Outback." There are 24 such articles. 21 of the 24 identify the first publication (sometimes only in the infobox). Two do not include the information. (One is ambiguous; it lists a publisher in the infobox, but that could refer either to the story's original appearance in an anthology or its reprint appearance in a collection where it was the title piece.) A full list follows; the titles in normal type identify the first/original publication; those in italics do not (or might not) do so. Wikipedia practice is clearly established, and no one has explained (or even attempted to explain) why this story would be a special case where original publication -- in a more prominent source with a larger circulation -- should be expunged from the article.
- We're dealing with organized promotional editing on behalf of Morris and her works, and quite a few of the users involved are writers who have sold stories to Morris, or hope to do so.
- Over the last few months, I've created dozens of articles concerning science fiction short stories and collections, and expanding scores if not hundreds of other articles concerning fiction in the genre. In virtually every case, if the information regarding original publication was not included in the existing article, I added it; and provided it in every article I created. Over many months and hundreds of articles, this has been entirely uncontroversial, because it represents basic encyclopedic information. The dispute here is manufactured for COI editors to disrupt normal editing and WP:OWN the articles involved. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:44, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Wolfowitz, you assert that canvassing has been taking place on Baen's Bar. I'm a member there, and have not seen such canvassing. Further, several searches have failed to show any sign of it. Would you please show which thread in which sub-conference contains such canvassing, since I have been completely unable to find it myself? Thanks - Luke Jaywalker (talk) 03:38, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Mike's Madhouse Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:25, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- As a former moderator of Baen's Bar, I have to take issue with the totally unwarranted attempt to drag them into this mess. Personally, I'm a tad insulted that anyone would think that if there was actual canvassing of Baen's Bar there would be this poor a turnout. Don't drag them into this, it's not their mess. Bluewillow991967 (talk) 03:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- See above. And if the thread should somehow disappear, I've got screencaps. Now do I get another apology? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:25, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- For my not asking you where you were getting that, yes. For my thinking you're reaching looking for conspiracies, no. I feel you've overreacted to a simple issue of neutral point of view. The relevant stories were clearly developed in and for a shared universe and any neutral POV article would need to be consistent with that. Why that basic fact--that the stories were developed in and for a shared universe--seems to upset you I've no idea. All I can do is try to stay as civil as possible while we all look for some NPOV resolution. This will be my last comment on the matter. Bluewillow991967 (talk) 04:59, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Although I cannot debate armed with the intricate rules of WP, I want to bring up one point that has been missed that does relate to copyright. Heroes in Hell(TM) is a shared world or shared universe. This is stated on the original Heroes in hell WP page and elsewhere and no one has ever contested it. Shared worlds/shared universes are complicated collaborative undertakings and WP has an entire page on "shared universes/shared worlds. I recommend that anyone evaluation my concerns over copyright look at the shared universe/shared world page on WP, then check to see that live links between Heroes in Hell series page and that shared universes/shared world pages do in fact exist today. WP is an adequate source on how shared worlds work. Additionally, here are quotes from Heroes in Hell with citations from accepted sources quotes on the HIH page: "The shared world premise of Heroes in Hell is that all the dead wind up together in Hell, where they pick up where they left off when still alive.[1] The Encyclopedia of Fantasy states "In the long series of shared world adventures begun with Heroes in Hell, Hell becomes an arena in which all the interesting people in history can come together to continue the relentless pursuit of their various ends."[2] Brian Stableford commented that the series "adapted the backcloth of Dantean fantasy as a stage for violent adventures with ironic echoes of infernal comedy". [3] See Heroes in hell series page for live links.
- I have asked someone from the SFWA grievance committee to look at this issue, so I hope this discussion will stay open for at least a few days. My concerns that my copyright and franchise will be diluted by imprecise wording of rights issues remains: a first serial (please see: http://www.asja.org/pubtips/wmfh01.php) which is a one-time use, is not the primary source of a shared worlds piece of fiction: the fiction is developed with the proprietor specifically for that shared world: the publication in the shared world first edition for which the collaborative fiction was written is the primary source. Such a story is not the creation of someone acting independently. The fact that both first-serialized stories from Heroes in Hell had copyrights for the first-serializing magazines does not change the fact that the stories were commissioned for a shared world series and under its rules and guidance, long before first serial rights were sold. As for awards, awards ballots commonly take the first publication cited, if not asked to ignore it for a later one.
- I hope this helps. Guarddog2 (talk) 02:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- This isn't about copyright, but even if it were, you're still misrepresenting an essential point. The Silverberg stories -- and as you've acknowledged elsewhere, there are three of them, not just one, all originally published outside your anthology series -- are based on his own original work, the novel Gilgamesh the King, conceived, written, sold, and published well before the Heroes in Hell franchise came into existence. The stories "cross over" between Silverberg's pre-existing copyrighted IP and your "franchise", and the claims made by you and your partisans denigrate his intellectual property and dilute his copyrights to at least as great an extent as you claim my comments do to yours. And what do you have in mind for the SFWA Grievance Committee to do? Griefcom exists only to handle disputes with "your editor, publisher, agent, or other writing-related business associate." I can't imagine they're going to be very impressed if you've shown up on their doorstep asking for them to expend their resources to take your side in a content dispute on Wikipedia. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
This discussion has become a mess, because as with other recent ones involving editor-writer Janet Morris, a cadre of COI editors/SPAs has arrived to muddy the waters. There's been a significant amount of off-wiki canvassing going on, on Facebook, on a message board operated by Baen Books, the publisher of much of Morris's work, and elsewhere. None of these editors cite any Wikipedia policies, guidelines, or practices, or any external standards, relevant to the disputes. Several of these editors, including User:UrbanTerrorist and User:Guarddog2, who identifies herself as Morris, have advanced demonstrably false claims and engaged in lively invective about Wikipedia and its editors, always unsupported by facts or citations.
That is a total misrepresentation. I have been an editor here on Wikipedia for a long time. I have never had any problems with any other editors in all of the years I've been here, until I set up the original Lawyers in Hell page and Orangemike decided to step in. I had never seen anyone break rules the way that Orangemike did. I think that he set a record that may never be beaten. I may have had some disagreements with Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, but compared to Orangemike, Hullaballoo Wolfowitz looks like Miss Congeniality.
That said, the paragraph above is essentially incorrect. To the best of my knowledge the only Single Purpose Account is Guarddog2 which is Janet Morris herself. Much has been made by Hullaballoo Wolfowitz of the fact that I know Janet. What Hullaballoo Wolfowitz doesn't take into account is that I'm a writer, and that I have the contact information for about three or four hundred writers in my electronic address book, and I'm in regular contact with about sixty or seventy of them.
Why would we cite Wikipedia policies, when the issue isn't a policy issue? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz wants to decide things by consensus that are not properly the domain of consensus. This isn't an exact analogy, but the equivalent would be to try and decide the solution of a mathematical question. It's not the correct place to use consensus.
I would also like to see Hullaballoo Wolfowitz prove where I've used invective. That would be interesting. Its an easy claim to make. As to the demonstrably false claims, what he means is that we wouldn't fall down and play dead to his superior knowledge.
The basic questions here are simple. First, is it fair to use terms like "reprint" or "reprinted" to describe publications which meet standard dictionary definitions of those terms, the Wikipedia article's definition of such terms, and the relevant professional writers' group's explanation of those terms? I think the answer should be clear, and the (neo)editors who argue otherwise present nothing but vague expressions of dislike.
The basic question is not simple. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz does not seem to understand that specialized fields use language in specialized ways. Writers and publishers have their own variation of English, as do Lawyers, as do Doctors. Because of this standard dictionary definitions are nonsensical when applied to those fields.
Second, should the Wikipedia article on a fictional work identify its original publication? Again, I think the answer should be self-evident. This is a basic piece of encyclopedic information which is generally included in such articles; the articles on novels typically identify the first edition (excepting, of course, the out-of-compliance articles which consist only of plot summaries). As a relevant sample, I reviewed all the articles on works which received the Hugo Award for Best Novella, the award won by "Gilgamesh in the Outback." There are 24 such articles. 21 of the 24 identify the first publication (sometimes only in the infobox). Two do not include the information. (One is ambiguous; it lists a publisher in the infobox, but that could refer either to the story's original appearance in an anthology or its reprint appearance in a collection where it was the title piece.) A full list follows; the titles in normal type identify the first/original publication; those in italics do not (or might not) do so. Wikipedia practice is clearly established, and no one has explained (or even attempted to explain) why this story would be a special case where original publication -- in a more prominent source with a larger circulation -- should be expunged from the article.
Since I haven't got the time to go over the list you've provided tonight, I really can't comment here. I'm behind enough as it is. However I would strongly suggest that you send the list to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, where you will get an unbiased opinion from experts in the field. You could also ask them at this point what the difference is between First Serial and Reprint, and again get Expert help. I would think the fact that you are getting so much opposition from people who know something about the field should be causing you to start wondering about what exactly is going on.
You might also want to consider your consistency. You aren't willing to accept information from Janet Morris, but you are willing to accept information from Robert Silverberg. You have a choice. Either accept information from neither, or both.
As to the book Concise Major 21st-Century Writers: A Selection of Sketches from Contemporary Authors which you've been quoting at length, I'd like to remind you that it is only accurate, if the information that the writer had is accurate. If she had been using the current Heroes in Hell and Gilgamesh in the Outback Wikipedia articles for research, it would be inaccurate. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 04:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Note that this reference does not say "first published" or "originally published" for the Asimov's July 1968 publication of Gilgamesh in the Outback. It only says "published." The same holds true for the other sources cited by HulaballoWolfowitz. He/she has made a logical error in assuming that because the Asimov's publication is listed first (perhaps because it's in alphabetical order by title) or that it is listed solely, that this shows it was the first publication. As I have patiently tried to show, all the remains certain is both versions were published in July 1986. Under the rule of "Which is most reliable?" all that can be said is both publications appeared in July 1986.Dokzap (talk) 05:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)Dokzap
- I am going to ignore all the personal comments and conspiracy theories from Mr. Wolfowitz, since they do not relate to this narrow discussion, except one issue, and on that one topic I will explain why his comments are immaterial: the fact that the mythical Gilgamesh character AS A CHARACTER WHO IS ALIVE was written by Silverberg in another book; and I will add that Benford used a fictional character he had previously used, when the fictional character was alive, elsewhere: previous stories about these characters when alive outside of Heroes in Hell are immaterial to this discussion: mythical characters cannot easily be copyrighted; rather, some specific version of them may be protected; mythical and fictional characters are often better protected by trademarking and then protection may extend only to a specific version of the character that some author has written.
- On a much happier note, I endorse the solution and edit made by Jethrobot, who says earlier today in this debate, and I agree, "I feel this is an optimal solution, and prior to your suggestion, have already made changes on Gilagamesh reflecting the chronological publication order without reference to copyright.
- So perhaps we have a happy ending. Guarddog2 (talk) 03:44, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- "Characters cannot be copywritten"? Are you kidding? If anyone wondered why I've been skeptical about Guarddog2's claims to be a certain notable editor/author, that comment ought to demonstrate why I have my doubts. "Copywritten" isn't even a word. And just to flesh out the shorthand, the copyright protection afforded an author under the Copyright Act extends to the exclusive right to create derivative works based on the characters in their original works. And if you can convince me I'm wrong, I'll quit Wikipedia and write a series of torrid novels about the heated romance between Harry Potter and Sookie Stackhouse. Maybe they'll have a threesome with one of those blue dudes from Avatar. Or at least a love triangle. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Mr. Wolfowitz, it would be very helpful if you would consult a legal professional or an agent who represents authors in order to have someone non-biased in any way explain to you the legal terminology first serial and reprint since these terms are not used in contracts with the common usage definitions. I realize you have a great deal invested in making sure Mr. Silverberg in not "denigrated" in any way, so you argue this point illogically and endlessly when the issue could be solved very simply. It is entirely possible for you to learn the legal definitions of the terms you use incorrectly. It would also be helpful if you would stop the personal attacks, insinuations and sarcasm as that does not benefit yourself, WP or certainly this discussion. You might also look up the definition of "good faith." Hulcys930 (talk) 05:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- General apologies for being too quick and sloppy with delete key while seeking brevity. There was errata in the text above, that Mr. Wolfowitz caught. Text should have read, and does read now: when the fictional character was alive, elsewhere: previous stories about these characters when alive outside of Heroes in Hell are immaterial to this discussion: mythical characters cannot be copyrighted; rather, some specific version of them may be protected as written; mythical and fictional characters are often better protected by trademarking and then protection may extend only to a specific version of the character that some author has written. Please see: http://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/faq/faqs.htm#P55_7616 Please also see on wipo: http://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/faq/faqs.htm: Is a character protected by copyright? A character could be protected under copyright if it is an original expression of an author. Merchandising items such as toys, interactive games, books and clothing including characters can also be protected by intellectual property rights in certain circumstances, mainly copyright and trademarks, along with other areas of law. See the WIPO Report on Character Merchandising (Adobe PDF).
- Mr. Wolfowitz, it would be to your benefit if you were to consult a legal professional or an agent who represents authors in order to have someone non-biased in any way explain to you the legal terminology first serial and reprint since these terms are not used in contracts with the common usage definitions (please do not attempt to portray this as a legal threat, since I am simply telling you how to obtain information that you lack). I realize you have a great deal invested in making sure Mr. Silverberg in not "denigrated" in any way, so you argue this point illogically and endlessly when the issue could be solved very simply. It is entirely possible for you to learn the legal definitions of the terms you use incorrectly. It would also be helpful if you would stop the personal attacks, insinuations and sarcasm as that does not benefit yourself, WP or certainly this discussion. You might also look up the definition of "good faith." Thank you. Hulcys930 (talk) 05:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- These definitions have already been presented in the talk page by Wolfowitz, where this contract publishing information by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Illinois State Bar Association delineates the definitions quite clearly (on pg. 15). Wolfowitz's comments appear to be consistent with those definitions, and any differences between his interpretation, common usage, and the legal terms seem unsubstantial. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 05:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- I was simply going by the fact that Mr. Wolfowitz seems to continue to insist that the chronology of the printing of a story controls what constitutes a reprint regardless of the actual, legal definition of reprint and first serial. I have searched the talk page (by that I assume you mean the Heroes in Hell discussion page) and do not find any reference to the SFWA/Illinois State Bar definition posted by Mr. Wolfowitz. Please give me a link so I can find what you are describing. I'm not trying to be difficult - I'm not sure I understand where you say this information was posted. Thank you.Hulcys930 (talk) 06:32, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Wolfowitz added it in this diff, right after "SFWA's presentation." I'm sorry it's a long page, but it's there. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 06:38, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you for the reference. As it plainly states in Mr. Wolfowitz' citation, "In SFWA's presentation "An Introduction to Publishing Contracts," online here [10], on page 15, "first serial" is limited in meaning to publication "prior to publication in book form," while "reprint" covers later publications in book form, including "collections."
- 1) The Heroes in Hell volumes are not "collections" (which infers gathering various stories together, stories not connected to one another, after previous initial publication.) All stories were written for and published in the "Hell" universe.
- 2) Stories written in and for a specific shared universe, using the individual milieu and rules of the shared universe, with the collaboration of all authors of each volume, are NOT "collections." Therefore, the "first serial" publication of Gilgamesh is in Mr. Asimov's magazine which was published contemporaneously with the initial Heroes in Hell publication in book form.
- 3) The month of publication in a magazine that actually sends out that issue of the magazine some weeks before the "issue date" is completely irrelevant.
- I am sorry this very simple definition is the subject of so much contention and I doubt this explanation will silence those who disagree. This issue is controlled solely by the legal contracts between the publishers and authors and is not subject to a "consensus" or "opinion." (That's why contract lawyers make so much money and Contract Law is the most hated subject in law school.) Thank you. Hulcys930 (talk) 11:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- This is what I wrote in the Gilgamesh In the Outback discussion page: Both publications of "Gilgamesh in the Outback" have a July 1986 publishing date. To call a work as "originally published," one would need citations of such things as printing and distribution records, appearance dates at newsstands and bookstores, all of which would be difficult. I would suggest avoiding this unnecessary controversy by simply stating the facts: "Gilgamesh in the Outback was published in the July 1986 Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and the shared universe anthology Rebels in Hell, published in July 1986 by Baen Books." I have listed the works alphabetically by title. To claim that the work was "originally" published in Asimov's implies that Silverberg wrote it for Asimov's first and then Janet Morris, the Rebels in Hell editor, reprinted it in her anthology. This allegation requires a citation. To support a reprint in Rebels in Hell one would have to look at Silverberg's Rebels in Hell contracts and his Asimov's contracts - again, another citation. But why go to this unnecessary work when for WP purposes a statement of the actual publishing history is sufficient? To belabor the "originality" claim raises issues of intellectual property and even libel, since they raise questions of the editors' skills. This article should state the facts simply and avoid potential legal claims. Dokzap (talk) 05:51, 17 August 2011 (UTC)Dokzap — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dokzap (talk • contribs)
I agree with and endorse Dokzap's solution. I would also like to point out that it preserves notability, as I believe is appropriate, should one wish to recreate a distinct Rebels in Hell page. I also suspect he meant for this to be in the discussion section. :) Knihi (talk) 13:05, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- I also agree with and endorse Dokzap's solution, which is appropriate as it lists both the first-serial publication in IASFM and the shared universe/shared world book publication in Rebels in Hell as having occurred in July 1986, which is the correct date and seems to fall within the Wikipedia rules. To do less would be incomplete. As for Wolfowitz's assertion that the July, 1986 date is wrong for IASFM's publication, at worst this is fabrication, at best it would be original research if it could be proved. I also urge all involved here to look at the Heroes in Hell series page where it says shared world and then go to the Wikipedia page about "shared universe/shared world." Not even Wolfowitz has dared to claim that these books were not shared world volumes. To be compliant with the shared world rules, no story could have been independently conceived and merely reprinted as a second serial. Guarddog2 (talk) 22:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Once again, "Janet," you're providing easily disproved misinformation. For virtually the entire duration of its existence, IASFM has provided "on-sale" dates for each issue in the pages of the one preceding it. It still does. Here's a link to the online posting of the "next issue" page from the current issue [11]. Here's a link to a Google scan for an issue from 1992 [12]. Here's a pair of GScans from 1989 [13]. While I can't turn up an online scan, I'll tell you that the June 1986 issue declared the on-sale date of the July issue to be June 3, 1986. You've just reported, from your personal knowledge of the book you edited, that the book itself actually went on sale in July. That should pretty much establish which came first. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- It would be interesting in a court of law, as in a statute of limitations regarding libel, whether the on-sale date or the publication date would be accepted.Dokzap (talk) 05:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)Dokzap
I disagree with the solution. The earlier agreed solution was a complete merge of all articles including all of the Heroes in Hell books and stories, and this is what I was trying to implement, and is what I think is still necessary. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 14:10, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- In the case of asserting which of two publications with the same month and year publication date appeared first, the burden of proof here is on Mr. Wolfowitz. In both the magazine and paperback distribution system at the time, publications with a month date of July could have been physically placed on a newsstand, mailed by subscription, or appeared at a bookstore prior to actual date of July 1. But which appeared first? And where? An advanced reading copy of Rebels in Hell could have been sent to reviewers before the Asimov's publication. A bookstore in Topeka might have received a carton of Rebels in Hell books in May. Who knows? Mr. Wolfowitz thinks he knows, but logically he has a heavy burden of proof here. For the purpose of the best scholarly accuracy, rather than expend useless energy counting demons on the head of pin, the better, and objectively least controversial solution is to state the best known facts. Both versions of Gilgamesh In the Outback have a July 1986 date. Move on.Dokzap (talk) 01:09, 18 August 2011 (UTC)Dokzap.
Okay, here's what I think, as a neutral:
- (a) The resolution of this dispute needs to center on Wikipedia and its policies and guidelines, not on extraneous issues.
- (b) As I previously noted, Wikipedia is not a contract, law review, publication copyright page, or other legal instrument and is not making legal representations by the particular wording it uses. Even if words have some specialized meanings in those contexts, if they have a generally-accepted English language meaning then that is the meaning used and meant here unless there is a clear and unambiguous indication that the specialized legal meaning is intended.
- (c) Moreover, even if some particular formula of words were to be used to avoid certain legal implications, there are significant practical problems with keeping it in place due to the wiki model, and that is especially true if the preferred locution is unwieldy or "clunky," in that there is no mechanism provided here to lock it in place and prevent it from being changed by the first WikiGnome who comes along and says "that doesn't read right." (And before someone jumps up and says, "We'll just watch it and make sure it isn't changed!" they need to read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles and also realize that the language must be inserted by consensus in the first place, that consensus can change at any time, and that arguing that "to change it the way you want it is illegal" is a disfavored, if not prohibited, argument at Wikipedia, which leads us into my next point.)
- (d) While certain legal issues such as (but not only) use of copyrighted materials without permission, defamation, and threats of violence are dealt with in Wikipedia policy, dilution of trademark or copyright is not, so far as I can find, and the Wikipedia community should not take it into account in making editing decisions. Indeed, there is strong Wikipedia policy discouraging the making of legal claims within the Wikipedia online framework because, among other things, the legal uncertainty of such claims are "show stoppers" which interfere with the free flow of debate here. That does not mean that someone who feels, as Ms. Morris may now or in the future, that her legal rights have been injured should just go away and forget about it. Instead, it means that those specific concerns must be directed directly to the Wikimedia Foundation by email (the best address is probably [email protected]) and not be discussed here, per the just-cited policy.
- (e) Whatever is introduced into a Wikipedia article must be, if challenged, documented with inline citations to reliable sources. That includes any representations about the sequence in which published works are printed. The editor who introduces or reintroduces material has the burden of providing and defending those citations. If reliable sources are not provided, then the information must be removed from Wikipedia, though the best practice is to give the introducing editor a reasonable amount of time to find and provide sources.
In light of the foregoing, if the printing order can be established through reliable sources, then a locution which states something like "first printed in x, subsequently printed in y" is probably preferable (and would appear to have some consensus support here), but "originally published in x and reprinted in y" is in no way forbidden or improper because that is, indeed, what happened when that locution is taken in its common English sense. I have some doubt about whether the "printed ... printed" formula will, however, survive in the long run here, but it might. Whichever form is used must be established by consensus. (And at this point, I don't see any consensuses being particularly affected by the alleged canvassing, but if anyone feels differently then they need to, first, read the canvassing rule carefully to verify that what they're seeing falls within the Wikipedia definition of canvassing, then report it to administrator noticeboard/incidents [here's my shorthand version, but your interpretation may vary: soliciting third parties to join in a discussion in a substantial way: fine, soliciting them to come in and just say "me too": bad].) Finally, I was writing this response when Urban Terrorist posted his note about merger and didn't see it until it came up in the edit conflict. I express no opinion about that subject, except that I suspect that it may well be a case of consensus can change in the light of the fact that no one has mentioned it here until now and that merger might well just move the dispute to a single location rather than solving it. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:03, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- Point of Order - Please note that deciding whether something is a reliable source is very much a judgement call. A source may be reliable on one subject, but unreliable on another, due to the author's lack of knowledge of the subject matter, or lack of appropriate source material, a point which I was trying to make to Hullaballoo Wolfowitz earlier, and which he/she/it totally misunderstood. Consider for example Wikipedia's article on ISBN which is inaccurate because it is mostly about the American system, and does not cover the ISBN system in other countries. I'm very familiar with the Canadian system as I am a Canadian Publisher and it doesn't work the same way. Almost all books which you can find on publishing are about the American system, and therefore not reliable sources for publishers in other countries. The book that Hullaballoo Wolfowitz is using as his bible may be accurate on some details, but may not be accurate on others. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 03:11, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- As briefly as I can, two independent reliable sources for publication history, reporting the magazine appearance as first/primary: reference work [14], anthology permissions page [15]. Corroborated by Silverberg's authorized bibliography [16], by ISFDB [17], the Locus Hugo listing [18], and the Locus Nebula listing [19], even by the official awards site [20]. I have found no similarly reliable sources contradicting these reports. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC).
- If the assertion is first/original publication, the references cited contradict that point. Nothing in them says "first" or "original." The Silverberg website lists the citations in alphabetical order by title, for example, and the presumption that this indicates "first" or "original" publication is wrong.Dokzap (talk) 05:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)Dokzap
- If anyone had any doubts about Dokzap's lack of good faith and disruptive intent, this should dispel them. All you have to do is click on the anthology permissions link I provided, immediately above, where it says, plain as day, "Gilgamesh in the Outback" by Robert Silverberg. Copyright © 1986 by Agberg, Ltd. First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 1986. Reprinted by permission of the author and Agberg, Ltd. As for Dokzap's claim that an academic/library reference bibliography is an unreliable source for determining original publication -- for God's sake, that's what the bibliography is for. He might as well argue that the (1899-1961) following Hemingway's name don't necessarily indicate birth and death, since the text doesn't say that in individual entries. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you for that additional citation. This comment by Robert Silverbeg on his web page may be helpful and more clearly explain how the work came to be. I would recommend adding this to the "Gilgamesh in the Outback" page: "This fits (more or less) into the shared universe of Hell lorded over by C.J. Cherryh and Janet Morris, though it's not mentioned in this book (probably due to somebody's contracts with somebody else). It continues the adventures of the mythical king into a strange version of the afterworld. I call it strange because it does not fit completely with any religious vision of an afterlife. In the other Hell books, there is a basic Christian slant, with demons presiding over the dead and occasional references to a satanic being in charge, but Hell is not just for sinners. Everyone is there, from Hitler to the saints, from the beginning of the human race to sometime in the 21st century. Silverberg takes a more general view, and the Christian elements of Cherryh and Morris's scenario are not present, and in fact this book stands a little outside the general tone of the rest of the series.
"One of the basic ideas of the Hell books is that once a person is there, it's forever. If you get killed you come back in a new body after a short time. Another basic idea is that there is no way out. Gilgamesh makes it his quest to find a way out of Hell, a way back to Earth. The irony is that in life, his quest was to make it to the land of the dead to be with his friend Enkidu, and now that he's there, he wants to leave, though he still seeks Enkidu.
"The book started as the novella Gilgamesh in the Outback in Rebels in Hell and in that form was nominated for Nebula Award for best novella, 1987. Chapters 1-5 are that novella. Chapters 7-11 were published as The Fascination of the Abomination in Angels in Hell. The title character of Lord of Darkness features prominently in this book as well. I've read a number of the other books in the Hell series, and while they're sometimes enjoyable, I'm not sure I can recommend them. Cherryh's stories are particularly grating to me (which is unusual as she is one of my favorite writers), with their idea that only the famous people of history are important and ordinary people don't even rate bodies in Hell (this is not the way it works in Silverberg's Hell stories, or even many of the other writers in this shared universe)." (Robert Silverberg, http://www.majipoor.com/work.phgp?id=1190)
- In Silverberg's own words, this clearly shows that Nebula nominated version of "Gilgamesh in the Outback" was the vesion written in Rebels in Hell. I offer this paragraph and citation as an amendment to my original suggestion as a resolution. Dokzap (talk) 02:08, 21 August 2011 (UTC)Dokzap.
- Well, first of all, we can't drop a large block of cut-and-pasted text like that into an article; it violates WPs nonfree content policy, and is likely an outright copyvio. Second, it's quite apparent that Silverberg didn't write that, and it shouldn't be attributed to him. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:54, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Wolfowitz quotes these citations above as if they are all equal, which they are not, and equally applicable, which they are not. The DAW collection permission page quotes the first serial of GITO as its source, because it is a second serial and someone chose the attribution -- but this citation shows that any reprint MUST have an attribution and be used by permission. Rather than proving what Wolfowiz thinks, it proves that Rebels in Hell was not a reprint, since the copyright page of Rebels in Hell bears no such notice, but only Janet Morris' copyright and the statement A Baen Books Original. If Baen Books/Simon and Simon & Schuster had lied about the book being an original, they could have been sued. The quote from Silverberg's website is inadmissible by definition: it is Silverberg's website, and at best contains an error of omission or at worst purposely omits the fact that the story was created in a collaborative environment: I doubt Silverberg created his own website, so this is probably just lack of familiarity by the website text creator that a person as old as Silverberg did not notice. The ISFDB citation above makes no errors: It lists the two publications in the same year alphabetically, and lists them as having occurred in the same month. So a good number of those citations are inadmissible, and the ones derived from the awards information are incomplete: by choice or because of alphabetization, only one of the two relevant citations for that year were represented. This doesn't mean that the second attribution is not correct.
Can this debate be widened to include possible COI or overzealousness or editorial hounding, in whatever terms WP phrases these, on the part of Wolfowitz, who seemingly has an agenda to strip the relevant award winning and nominated stories from the Heroes in Hell(TM) series so he can then delete the Heroes in Hell(TM) series page and all individual book pages (except, it seems, my good friend CJ Cherryh's, which remains untouched with only one review from Locus cited)? Wolfowitz has stated his intention to prove that the Benford and Silverberg stories were not written for HIH (a "low rent series," said Mr W.)in a collaborative environment, but are instead the individual and pre-existing product of Benford and Silverberg's imagination, a premise that is unprovable without original research and which is incorrect. We have explained earlier that having used those characters while the characters were purported to live does not dilute the fact that when dead in hell they were created subject to the rules of the Heroes in Hell(TM) shared universe/world and both authors agreed to these conditions before writing the stories, which were commissioned for the various volumes in which the authors wrote. Under these terms and conditions, both authors wrote more than one story for the series. If the authors didn't have a problem writing for a shared universe/world, why does Mr. Wolfowitz have a problem that they did so? These continued assertions by Wolfowitz that because a first serial MAY have appeared earlier in July than the shared universe book and that the earliest date confers some primacy are getting tedious. Alls tories for a book are turned in, copy-edited, and processed long before the publication and copyright date on the volume. Please see the Wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_universe, which has NEVER published a reprint, but only originals contracted for each volume. This site explains why no first-serial publication date in any way contravenes the collaborative nature of ALL stories written for the HIH series. The series is, multiple places (some cited above), and in reviews and on some volumes, clearly identified as a shared universe/world. Silverberg contributed not only once, but three times to this shared universe/world. Quoting from Wikipedia's shared universe page, we find: "A shared universe is a fictional universe to which more than one writer contributes. Work set in a shared universe share characters and other elements with varying degrees of consistency. Shared universes are contrasted with collaborative writing, in which multiple authors work on a single story. Shared universes are more common in fantasy and science fiction than in other genres. Examples include the Star Trek, DC Universe, Marvel Universe, Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, Babylon 5, Foundation series, Power Rangers, Man-Kzin Wars, and Cthulhu Mythos. A teen summer camp called Shared Worlds, started by author Jeff VanderMeer, is based around this concept." Is HIH listed there? No, but it could have been. Not all shared worlds are listed. As a matter of fact, many books are listed that are NOT shared universe volumes: A "List of CJ Cherry books" linked there in references shows group of titles on her website that can be purchased on Amazon from that link on WP's "shared universes" page, and very few of the Cherryh books being sold there are shared universes, if any. (Is this Wikipedia's vaunted neutrality? Or in business with CJ?) Since so far there has been no debate that HIH is a shared universe/world, the very fact that it is one and listed so on Wikipedia and in citations from several sources quoted on the HIH page on Wikipedia and stated elsewhere in Wikipedia, should end the debate about what the primary source of the work was: it was HIH, with a magazine serialization in IASFM that was required to list that the story "will be published in Rebels in Hell" -- a citation required if the story in IASFM was a first serial. As a matter of fact provided by Wolfowitz himself, the absence of a permission citation on the copyright page of RIH PROVES it to be the primary source of the GITO story. I strongly suggest that the attributions in Wikipedia for GITO be Dokzap's solution of both July 1986 publications being listed in alphabetical order with no use of the word "reprint" or "reprinted" or, failing consensus on that, that ALL related works, including CJ Cherry's Legions of Hell and the GITO page, be merged into the HIH series page as suggested by Urban Terrorist. And I ask once again for protection from this overzealous editor, Wolfowitz, so that those with an interest in expanding the pages aren't chased away by continual fear that he will unilaterally delete any contributions he doesn't like without giving editors the opportunity to improve their contributions. Guarddog2 (talk) 22:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
- This diatribe hurled in my direction is so breathtakingly inept that, even more than earlier ones, makes it exceptionally difficult to believe that this is Janet Morris, or anyone else with significant professional experience in the publishing business. I'll be brief, and just give two examples. "Janet" challenges the anthology permissions page I linked to (the "DAW collection"), saying that as a "second serial" it's somehow appropriate for it to attribute only the first serial. This makes no sense in terms of applicable law and standards, of course, but that's not the most important flub. The anthology, a book edited by the late Brian Thomsen and published by DAW Books, isn't a "second serial" publication because second serial publication refers to publication in magazines, newspapers, or similar periodicals. You don't have to take my word for that. Take the word of the Authors Guild, the leading US organization for professional writers. It says that right here[21] in section 2, "Subsidiary Rights". "Janet" also says that "first serial publication" in a magazine is "required" to list the upcoming book publication for works like these. There's no authority cited for that, because it's just not true. Here's a scan (from the Silverberg-authorized site) of the first two pages of the Silverberg story which appeared in Angels in Hell [22]. You'll noticed that although it carries a copyright notice on behalf of Bob Silverberg (aka Agberg Ltd), it doesn't credit, or even mention, you or Angels in Hell. Though there isn't a scan online for it that I've turned up, the same is true for the third Silverberg novella, "Gilgamesh in Uruk." Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 00:00, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
SUGGESTED RESOLUTION OF THIS ISSUE
I would like to suggest that the verbiage used on the Gilgamesh in the Outback Talk page by User:Dokzap here[23] be adopted as the language on the Heroes in Hell pages and stop this unnecessary waste of everyone's time. The quote from User:Dokzap is accurate and appropriate. Quote: "Gilgamesh in the Outback was published in the July 1987 Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and the shared universe anthology Rebels in Hell (July 1987)*, published by Baen Books."
Would everyone who is willing to accept User:Dokzap's wording for the Heroes in Hell page, please note that below this post? If so, possibly we might be able to conclude this discussion. Thank you. *(Publication date added in the interest of total accuracy) Hulcys930 (talk) 00:46, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- I would be happy to accept the User:Dokzap's wording for the Heroes in Hell page and for the Gilgamesh in the Outback page. Guarddog2 (talk) 00:54, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- First of all, Wikipedia is not a vote, and Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. Second, you have a clear COI and shouldn't be participating in discussions on what sort of credit you're entitled to benefit from. Third, it's been pointed out to me that you were indefinitely blocked last year for abuse of multiple accounts and related offenses, and shouldn't be participating at all; by creating a account after multiple unblock requests were refused, you've grossly abused access to this project. According to at least one of your associates, you've been canvassing off-wiki. And the flood of SPA's who've surfaced, arguing in concert and principally or only editing articles related to you and your works, indicates your abuse of multiple accounts has resumed. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 01:06, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- If you have such solid proof of malfeasance provide it with documentation. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 03:21, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- I don't know what you are talking about. I can barely manage to get around on WP. I was given this address by another editor who said it would be perfectly fine if I participated. I set up Guarddog specifically for the purpose of providing fact for HIH discussions: I said that on the page. You know that. You went there. You saw the disclosure I put there. Having seen the disclosure, I was told it would be fine if I participated. First you say I'm not who I say I am, and now you say I'm some sort of WP mastermind? Please make up your mind. As I said, I support the Dozkap proposal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guarddog2 (talk • contribs) 02:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- Wolfy, if you read the post you so kindly cited, you'll note that Mike (who is, by the way, not Janet; he clearly identified himself as the author of that post) was not canvassing for support; he was looking to gather *information.* Luke Jaywalker (talk) 02:35, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- I'll accept User:Dokzap's wording as well. We've wasted too much time on this, let's get back to being productive. I need to re-write the catalytic converter article again, some idiot who doesn't understand chemistry has messed it up. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 03:21, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- It seems to me that the core issue here is when a given story was first published. All this talk about copyright and publication rights is a load of hooey as I see it. We don't adjudicate legal or contractual issues here. That's the realm of lawyers and contracts - we describe what the reliable sources say in public, not what lawyers and their clients argue about in conference rooms and court rooms. The fundamental questions here here is: where could a science fiction fan first purchase and read this story? It seems to me that the evidence indicates that the answer is in Isaac Asimov's magazine. If so, the article should say so. And if the story then appeared shortly thereafter in a book, then the article should say so. If the story was, in effect, commissioned for that book, and fits in with the scenario and theme established for that book by the creator of that series of books, then the article should say so. When the article says such things, those statements should be backed up by references to reliable sources. This is especially important when, as in this case, (for some bizarre reason) the matter is contentious. All this commentary about how "clueless" Wikipedia editors are about publishing and that "the WP community embarrasses itself publicly with these issues" is really over the top. This is not a journal about publishing rights, and this article isn't the place to discuss such topics. I am a moderately experienced editor, and I'm not embarrassed by this kerfuffle, except vicariously for those who have expelled so much hot air here. Wikipedia is roughly the fifth or sixth most visited website in the world, and is number one in terms of original written content. Billions of people rely on Wikipedia, not because it is perfect (it isn't) but because it is based on what reliable sources say about notable topics, not what axe-grinders with obvious conflicts of interest are driven to say about those topics. So, to those new editors who are so hot and bothered here, I would advise you to get involved in the editing of 20 contentious articles on a wide variety of topics. When you return to this debate, perhaps you can see how inconsequential the issues here really are in the grand scheme of things. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 03:33, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, User:Cullen328 for your input. Hopefully, it will be followed... and by long-time editors with obvious "issues."
Mr. Wolfowitz: You seem to feel free to bandy about accusations of wrongdoing and impersonation with regard to Janet Morris (first, you accused Luke Jaywalker of being Janet Morris, second you accused me of being Janet Morris, but when Janet Morris signs on and identifies herself, you firmly insist she is NOT Janet Morris {oddly convoluted reasoning}). Then you make the following statements with no citations or backup of any kind as if by you asserting the accusation, it is automatically to be taken as gospel: "it's been pointed out to me that you [Janet Morris] were indefinitely blocked last year for abuse of multiple accounts and related offenses, and shouldn't be participating at all; by creating a [sic] account after multiple unblock requests were refused, you've grossly abused access to this project." So, as you insist others do, add the appropriate citations of the discussion/procedure in which SOMEONE was blocked for inappropriate behavior on WP, along with whatever evidence you have used to determine that person is, in fact, Janet Morris, or please withdraw the accusations. Hulcys930 (talk) 04:02, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- Hullabaloo Wolfowitz has presented the evidence, which I find persuasive, on the Administrator's noticeboard Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:08, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- Don't try to read my remarks as any criticism of Hullabaloo Wolfowitz's role here. His "issue" here is Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. The talk page for this article is packed full of false accusations that Hullabaloo Wolfowitz has a conflict of interest here. He doesn't. In fact, the editor claiming to be Janet Morris and the editors claiming to be contributors to the series are the ones who have a demonstrable conflict of interest here. Who knows if that editor really is Janet Morris, but if that's true, the conflict of interest is bald. Who knows if those other editors really are the authors, but if so, their conflict of interests are exposed by those disclosures. We have a procedure here, called WP:OTRS which allows editors to verify their real world identity in confidence. Any editor wanting to assert such a real world identity needs to go through that process, or be prepared to have their identity questioned and discounted here.
- If the editor claiming to be Janet Morris denies connection with the indefinitely blocked editor mentioned by Hullabaloo Wolfowitz, then we have highly experienced checkusers here who can determine whether or not those claims are true or false. Until then, experienced editors are likely to accept, at least provisionally, the assertions of an experienced editor like Hullabaloo Wolfowitz. All further arguments should be based on a deep and nuanced understanding of Wikipedia's over-arching policies and guidelines, not on the self-interested assertions of single purpose accounts and editors with a genuine conflict of interest. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:31, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
I would like to let everyone who hasn't received an Administrator's Noticeboard note that some of use have been accused of being sock puppets by Hullaballoo Wolfowitz. I checked the pages of everyone who I remembered as being involved here, and only some people got the notice, and curiously almost all of them were in opposition to Hullaballoo Wolfowitz. It appears if he cannot win one way, he's going to win another. If you disagree with this type of gamesmanship I suggest you tell him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UrbanTerrorist (talk • contribs) 06:46, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- Even for UrbanTerrorist, this an exceptionally weird complaint. As no one disputes, I notified everyone I was required to notify regarding the ANI complaint. To notify people not mentioned or otherwise involved in the subject of the complaint would probably have been a WP:CANVASS problem. I don't believe I've ever seen before an objection to an ANI for notifying only editors on the "other side" from the complainant. As a result of the complaint, Guarddog2 has admitted being an alternate account of the indef-blocked user Harmonia1, demonstrating that the complaint was valid and correct. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
- This statement by Hullaballoo Wolfowitz is technically true, in that the people he had made the complaint against were notified. However there were other people involved in this discussion, and they were not notified. I believe that they too had an interest in what was happening, as the outcome would affect them as well, so I made certain that they were notified by visiting their discussion pages and posting the notice directly to them. I also posted this on the discussion pages of other people who had been involved with the issue in the past. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 03:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
As you might deduce from my prior comments I, too, think that Dokzap's language is fine and you can add my support to the consensus growing in its favor. However, in light of the discussion ongoing at ANI, it would be inappropriate under the guidelines of this noticeboard to continue any further discussion here of the issues raised there, broadly construed, so I am asking as a neutral in this matter that all further discussion here be limited to the issue of the language to be used to relate Gilgamesh in the Outback to its various publications either to discuss the Dokzap proposal or to propose and discuss other language which an editor finds more suitable. I express no opinion about the matters raised at the ANI discussion, but would respectfully request that all further discussion of them take place at that forum, not here. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:29, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
- While I respect your efforts, I think you are dead wrong here. The templates and related documentation for WP:WikiProject Novels (which ought to be called WikiProject Fiction, since its scope has widened since it was named) call for identification of the first publication of each fictional work which is the subject of an article. In particular, the "Infobox: short story" template [24], which is used for all shorter-than-novel-length fiction, makes such information a standard infobox data field. There are no reliable sources contradicting the multiple sources I have provided and cited for the actual first publication. This dispute, to put it simply, is over the principle that Wikipedia is not censored to promote the economic interests of anyone, even if they recruit and cohort of their friends and colleagues to support their demand for a special exception from a general consensus. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
- So, any time someone edits a page of someone whom they know, even peripherally, they are attempting to use Wikipedia to sell something? Perhaps this is the fundamental problem - you BELIEVE that anything that even hints of a COI means someone is trying to use Wikipedia for promotional purposes, even if that was not their intention at all, and you respond in a knee-jerk manner attempting to "protect" Wikipedia from people you assume are using it for profit, instead of contacting the person to determine their intent and, if they have made mistakes in editing, help them do it properly. It is really very sad that attitude has caused all this sturm and drang. Hulcys930 (talk) 07:12, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
- I said nothing of the kind. My comments relate to the particular circumstances of this case, and to Guarddog2/Janet Morris's comments thsn presenting the accurate, verifiable information reported in independent reliable sources about publication chronology would have an adverse impact on her eceonomic interests. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:19, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
- Again, the sources cited do not show "first" or "original" publication. I apologize for repeating this observation, but I am trying to be thorough here in challenging an assumption which, on examination of the evidence, is wrong.05:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)Dokzap
- Guys, a few things. First, if it's that much of a sticking point, you can just leave out the field in the infobox; it's not a big deal. Second, regardless of what you decide to put into the infobox, you can still use Dokzap's proposal for the article text. Third, seriously, if you look at which was published first, ignoring who may or may not have owned the story at the time (which isn't something our readers are going to care about anyway), it shouldn't be difficult to figure out. Cheers. lifebaka++ 16:27, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
DELIBERATELY PRESENTING SELECTIVE AND MISLEADING INFORMATION AKA REWRITING HISTORY
The following information was edited into the Gilgamesh In The Outback page, along with the message to Mr. Wolfowitz, by someone not familiar with Wikipedia. However, in an abundance of caution that the information will be removed from the page at any moment, I apologize for the length but due to the subject matter I have no other choice and am copying the information here for the edification of the other editors:
Hullaballoo Wolfowitz: I want to apologize in advance for making these comments here, but there is no room to address these issues in the edit summary, so I will make them here and you can modify it. I think this comes under the WP "Ignore All Rules" rule. Anyway you keep reverting my edits and this last time you claimed my edit summary is utterly false and without credibility. I take that as an affront. I made my edits on the 23rd and you reverted them 3 times. You said my work was inaccurate based on changes YOU made to the source Gilgamesh in the Outback article on the 22nd that I had not even seen. The last time I looked at Gilgamesh in the Outback - you had not added the Plot Summary. Now that I see what you have done, I believe you have completely left the concept of NPOV behind and are actively working to skew the facts. You added the following to the Gilgamesh in the Outback article:
Robert Silverberg wrote that he was "drawn into" writing a story for for the "Heroes in Hell" project. While he remembered that the central concept of the series was "never clearly explained" to him, he noted the similarity of "Heroes in Hell" to Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld works, and decided "to run my own variant on what Farmer had done a couple of decades earlier." After writing "Gilgamesh in the Outback," he decided that, since the story "was all so much fun," to write two sequels, "The Fascination of the Abomination" and "Gilgamesh in Uruk." In writing those stories, as Silverberg recalled, he "never read many of the other 'Heroes in Hell' stories", and had "no idea" of how consistent his work was with that of his "putative collaborators"; instead, he had "gone his own way . . . with only the most tangential links to what others had invented."[6]
You injected nuance and insinuation with your selective choice of particular words and their quotation marks to take the true meaning out of context.
What Mr. Silverberg actually wrote was this (your source - same page - the actual wording - First Paragraph)[1]
"During the heyday of the shared-world science-fiction anthologies, back in the mid-1980's, I was drawn into a project called Heroes in Hell, the general premise of which was (as far as I understood it) that everybody who had ever lived, and a good many mythical beings besides, had been resurrected in a quasi-afterlife in a place that was called, for the sake of convenience, Hell. The concept was never clearly explained to me - one of the problems with these shared-world deals - and so I never fully grasped what I was supposed to be doing. But the idea struck me as reminiscent of the great Philip Jose Farmer Riverworld concept of humanity's total resurrection in some strange place, which I had long admired, and here was my chance to run my own variant on what Farmer had done a couple of decades earlier."
The second paragraph[1] described Gilgamesh's character development and companion characters.
The third paragraph[1] - again verbatim:
"It was all so much fun that I went on to write a second Gilgamesh in Hell novella, featuring the likes of Pablo Picasso and Simon Magus, and then a third. I never read very many of the other Heroes in Hell stories, so I have no idea how well my stories integrated themselves with those of my putative collaborators in the series, but I was enjoying myself and the novellas (which were also being published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine) were popular among readers. "Gilgamesh in the Outback," in fact, won a Hugo for Best Novella in 1987, one of the few shared-world stories ever to achieve that."
I am a Commissioned Officer in the United States Army. I know the various and sundry meanings of the word "Commission." What the first paragraph does do, is corroborate, directly from Robert Silverberg, that "Gilgamesh in the Outback" was commissioned for the series Heroes in Hell - the point I keep trying to make in the Heroes in Hell article. He signed a contract to produce an original story for the series. The third paragraph corroborates that - oh by the way - it was ALSO published in Asimov's - not originally published there. It was written for the book, with the magazine sale in the same month a first serial sale giving Mr. Silverberg extra income. I used a different source to talk to the pedigree of the story on the Heroes in Hell site - Silverberg's quasi-official website. Your source is better in that it tells the truth directly with his words, rather than his complicit blessing which you discount. Your insinuations make it sound nefarious, that Mr. Silverberg was somehow lured into participating in this lowly endeavor, while sharing the spotlight with other Hugo winning authors who wrote in this series such as CJ Cherryh and George Alec Effinger or Hugo nominees Gregory Benford, Robert Sheckley and Robert Asprin. Silverberg even states he had so much fun he wrote two more Hell novellas. Then he goes on to make the point, proudly, that his Hugo for the work, was one of the few shared-world stories ever to achieve that distinction. Note - "shared world" - part of a series - not a standalone story written for a magazine. I am not going to belabor this any longer. I hope you see that that your objectivity has somehow been compromised. Please do the right thing and correct the misconceptions so that WP can remain a valued "accurate" encyclopedic source.
ALL UN-BIASED EDITORS, PLEASE EXAMINE THE CITATIONS OF BOTH VERSIONS OF THE "GILGAMESH IN THE OUTBACK" PAGE AND DECIDE WHAT SHOULD BE DONE. THANK YOU. Hulcys930 (talk) 04:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hulcys930 (talk • contribs)
Heroes in Hell, Gilgamesh in the Outback resolution
- The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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