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Archive 1Archive 2

Passwords

Please stop reverting the text to include the password for all the websites. Not all are intended for general public use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.191.18.42 (talk • contribs) 18:23, 22 November 2005

For those wondering what this is about - the article used to have a link to a password protected site that had copies of the Weber works that are available from Baen's free book library. The password protection was there to keep search engines from finding these pirated copies and also that the site is connected to the Internet via slow DSL line. The link to this site was later removed from the article. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Talent

Could criticisms of the quality of his work be included here? The Honor Harrington series really suck pretty hard, they're total Mary Sue fests. RossTaben 12:32AM PST 12.29.05

Well, criticism of an author can be found on the pages of Isaac Asimov, so I would say it's not without precedent. FrozenPurpleCube 04:21, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed he is poor at characterization and the writing style is flat, but the Honor books are also inventive and complex. I would argue that like Clancy's books, people are looking for action and military detail, and the rest is filler. Any criticism of talent should reflect the positive as well. - the guy on the couch 19:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

He's very 2-dimensional... North/South/East/West on a galactic scale makes little since, since he doesn't have a towards/away from galactic center... and the thickness of the galactic disk isn't much compared to its circumference or radius. North/South is a small dimension, so his works all appear to be set in an annulus/cylinder...


Weber mentioned a couple times that N/S/E/W are almost totally artificial terms for human orientation to political "geography" on 2D star maps. I vaguely recall he might have said something about the hyperwave currents (apparently based on dark matter) being strongest in one direction but he didn't make much of its in later books when jump point battles dominate.
Actually mathematically his handling of space is done very well. Any time you introduce worm-holes or other restricted ways to greatly shorten travel time along certain vectors or streams -- the 3D aspect of space "dissolves" into a problem better manipulated and described by 2D graph theory. The 3D aspect for travel rules only when you must cut across space in a mundane manner at all times without any shortcuts.
Also Weber's Honor universe doesn't span significant distances closer or away from the galactic center even with jump points. Less than a thousand light years across all human space (not necessarily straight inward) versus 10000 light years radius. Plus Weber continuously points out that travel time not the path of light is what rules.
And of course without surface gravity, interplanetary combat tends to resolve the same way. When you have only 2-3 maneuvers groups then approaches will appear to be within a line (2 points) or plane (3 points) because that is where everything important to approach happens. Even 4 groups may reduce to a plane given standoff weapons - especially since many other approaches are undesirable since 1 force is "left out of play".
For 3D combat to come into play you really need dogfighting conditions where ships can move and turn faster than weapons can aim and fire again.
 69.23.124.142 (talk) 10:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

i am a fan of his i admit but personaly i belive he is a very good author.HonorHarrington 02:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Professional and noteworthy criticisms (i.e., something that can be sourced and referenced, such as from a newspaper or trade journal) could be included in the article. However, the article is not a blog space for people to post their personal criticisms. croll 23:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I really enjoy his works (namely the Starfire series...talk about Epic), though his characters are all fairly cookie cutter. Personally I don't mind this at all as I'm not actually looking for deep introspective characters. Furthermore, a much more valid critique (IMO) is the way his characters speak -i.e. very long run on sentences. If you ever try to read out loud some of their passages, you will find yourself out of breath. Then again, I really don't care. I enjoy his books just the way they are. Just saying, I wouldn't expect them to be added to an English classes reading list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.233.41.11 (talk) 02:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


Most of this has nothing to do with talent. It has to do with type/class of story the author writes versus what the reader wants.
For instance, stories can center on events (at extreme stuff like narrative history or naval battle analysis) or on specific persons (at the extreme stuff like soap opera/romance material). Weber tends to tell the overall story about events -- and weave in a fair amount of material about a few special characters here and there. Because Weber names a huge cast of people for the events, there is little space to develop any but the most important.
Or SciFi readers looking for rapturous psychological-theological thrillers (e.g. Solar) putting down military SciFi just because it is the wrong material for them. The problem is the reader is an idiot who isn't too observant about the book summary or first 20 pages. True you can get bad poop about a book from reviewers and places like Amazon.com trying to hawk a book to another audience -- but that is not the author's fault or lack of talent.
On the other hand Weber is one of those writers who sometimes commit to books when they are out of ideas or enthusiasm. There have been some books where Weber needed to have a co-author shore him up from mechanically trudging through the outline (a mere 6.5 rather than 9 of 10 score for readability and excitement).

10:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

  1. According to Wikipedia policy there is no problem adding either criticism or praise, as long as it's relevant, sourced and written neutraly.
  2. Please have a look at this. It implies that Talk pages are not meant for expressing our personal opinions on the subject, but for discussing the Wikipedia article on that subject. Debresser (talk) 13:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Starfire

I ran across some information that David Weber worked on the Starfire game (Taskforce games,) but I could not confirm this. This was a pretty cool game in its day, if anyone could confirm that he worked on it (although it sounds like his association was not always to his liking,) it would be nice to see this mentioned on the page.

MichaelJHuman 03:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll put it up soon, referenced and all. Debresser (talk) 19:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Themes

I removed the bit about him hating liberals, greens, religion, and oh, I dunno, puppies. Aside from the fact that the argument had flawed logic, his Honorverse books portray conservatives as selfish, corrupt, and incompetent. Rather than add that to the bit about the liberals I just removed all of it. If anyone disagrees, at least add the conservatives bit so we don't have to get partisan. - the guy on the couch 19:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Except it is common to Heir to Empire and Starfire series as well. My intent was to point out a very pro-military attitude, in that politicians of all sorts (I could have made that clearer) are raked over the coals over the slightest mistake, and are never given a chance to explain objectively sensible actions - while military commanders are repeatedly allowed to get away with the most amazingly stupid things. It's not so much that walking slowly towards to machine guns (in world war one) is the best, or least bad solution, but the only solution - and 'tank' is a four letter word. The only exception to this seems to be the Honourverse, where Buships acts this way instead of Captain Harrington. Is there a reasonable partisan way of saying this? ANTIcarrot 18:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, the trash he wrote with Steve White set in the starfire universe is the best example. His 'liberal' politicians are raving maniacs that serve as straw-opponents for his 'brave, noble, and downtrodden' military characters to crush. Oh, and they're also evil racists and drug addicts, because there's no such thing as going overboard...
Someone should definitly add a moderate version of that section back in. Therealhazel 04:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Someone doesn't pay much attention to all the scandals about real legislators across the world. Racist comments, cocaine, affairs with under-aged assistants, etc. And that is the better respected Democratic governments. Raving mad? If there is a fad there is a group that will elect them. But without saying anything bad about individual citizens -- you got to look at Italy's governmental problems to know that it is not always just a few stray problems in a legislature. Italy's had some bad years, even decades.69.23.124.142 (talk) 10:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that Weber is a Centrist given the complete form of his "good" governments in both the Heir to the Empire and the Harrington Books. In Heir this took the form of a very strong Executive Branch with a very complicated legislature that could be overruled during times of emergency but could also call for (successfully) for the ruling emperor to step down. In the Honor Harrington books the good government is clearly supposed to represent what he thinks 19th century Britain would look like if it took place on another planet. As such the form of the Government is strictly limited by his apparent desire to recreate the Horatio Hornblower environment. His political views do seem to show through in setting up the Liberals (libertarian position on the spectrum), Progressives (Left leaning redistributionists) and Conservatives (Reactionary) as the bad guys while Painting the Centrists and the Crown Loyalists as the good party. To claim that he favored either the Right or the Left as used in discussion of American Politics would be patently absurd. I imagine that there are elements of both sides that he likes and ones he thinks are absurd. Using the Empire of Man or Starfire series to judge his feelings would be difficult as they will both be heavily influenced by the other authors involved. Nalanthi 5 Oct 2006

Robert Heinlein said that there was a term that was descriptive of people who tried to determine the political position of fiction writers from the statements of their characters. He said that the correct term was "idiot." David is a very complex man and his political position can not be simply characterized. Rick Boatright 04:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I certainly agree that it's unreliable (at best!) to assume any given character is the author's mouthpiece. On that note, does anyone know an interview source for the claim that George Lucas favors benevolent dictatorship, or has someone mistaken him for Anakin Skywalker? I realize the section is already marked for lack of sources, but that particular unsourced claim-in-passing seems oddly out of place in a passage emphasizing that people shouldn't make assumptions about Weber's politics. Persephone Kore 22:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The source for Lucas was an interview in the NY Times back in (I think, don't quote me on this) 1997. He denigrated the value of democracy and favored an enlightened despot. He probably also referenced Plato as well, but it's been quite a while since I read it, so... --Gwern (contribs) 00:07 17 July 2007 (GMT)

While the majority of "liberal" characters in the books do tend to be portrayed in a negative light, it would be entirely speculative to say that those characterizations represent Weber's personal political views. Unless you can find a reliable source citing Weber's personal, "real world" opinions, it's entirely speculative and I can't see how it belongs in the article. croll 23:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

What? No one pointed out that Weber was creating the government the American Revolutionaries really wanted until George W. wimped out -- a constitutional Monarchy. British? Well a little. But it has a lot more Commonwealth features -- hierarchy of allies many of which are constitutional monarchies - even internally. Its also a very Catholic view as well. Divine rulership and all that. Heroes of breeding/training self-sacrifice and leadership. So basically it is either a fantasy element or that Weber believes that a certain moral elite will always rise to take charge in a crisis...against a general tide of incompetence rather than actual wide-spread evil. Optimistic pessimist is the term I think.
And yes real military tend to think poorly of political concerns in war which delay victory or intentionally trade lives for profit. The military tends to think such things should come after victory, i.e. their job is done. Just visit a few military forums if you don't believe.

69.23.124.142 (talk) 09:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Reduce external linking

Entries like:

  • On Basilisk Station (1993) ISBN 067157793X (read online)

should be transformeded into

No need to link to blurb (or full text twice) if we have an article on the books, and many Weber's books have their own articles.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I've got most of them fixed. --maru (talk) contribs 23:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd argue that having lots of links to the same (home) page is over-kill. That a single link to www.baen.com, for example, would be enough. - brenneman 11:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Sure, redundant links to the same place is bad. But they aren't linking to the same place - that's the point. If you want to go through and move the external link to the respective article (assuming it exists) and its external link section, feel free. --Gwern (contribs) 14:52 29 January 2007 (GMT)
They are linking to the same place, just different pages within the domain. It's massive overlinking. - brenneman 23:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Again, it isn't massive overlinking. Each link is relevant: the publisher's page devoted to that book is surely relevant, and there's no way linking to a page providing the book itself is not relevant. As I said, if you want to move the links to the articles, that's fine, but expurgating all the links from Wikipedia is not in the best interests of the articles! --Gwern (contribs) 01:15 30 January 2007 (GMT)

Character names

Worth mentioning, I suppose, is that aside from using (and re-using) the names of historical figures for their counterparts in his stories, Weber is also very prone to immortalize his fans by using their names or handles in the books. The fan communities ad Baen's Bar and alt.books.david-weber usually pore over each book to see who got the nod this time around. Also, some of the names used from history have been turned into rather groanworthy puns - for example, the leader of the Havenites through the second quarter of the series is called Robert Stanton Pierre, often shortened Rob S. Pierre... 213.114.138.6 00:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The character "Dr. Jordin Kare" is based on a real person whom I've met. I think he won a contest or auction or something for which the prize was becoming a character in one of Weber's books. Kare first appears in War of Honor". ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes, Tuckerization. Jordin Kare is noted for wearing a t-shirt which says "Actually, I am a rocket scientist!". -- Arwel (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, he's a fun guy. :-) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Duly noted in the article on Jordin Kare and the Trivia section of War of Honor. Debresser (talk) 20:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Photo added

I've added a photo of Weber and his wife at a recent convention. He's a really nice guy, and his wife is very nice, too. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the photo. On the other hand, should this not be cropped to show him only - no disrespect to his wife intended? Ingolfson 09:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Both he and his wife were fine with her being in the photo. I don't think it's a problem having both of them in there. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:16, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Debresser (talk) 13:50, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Non-consenual move

I really doubt that the David Weber (clarinetist) is better known than the writer. At this point, with only two articles for "David Weber", I see no problem with the writer being the primary topic. All that is needed is a DAB header (hatnote) at the top of the page for David Weber (clarinetist). The original mover is welcome to propose a move properly if they still feel the primary topic should be the DAB page. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 00:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The move has been corrected, and hopefully all the redirects are corrected as well. I think I got everything. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It's gone!?

I don't know how someone's managed this but it seems David Weber's page has disappeared into the ether with no way of tracking back the old copy in the history! It's now a loop of redirects. For now I've pasted across a copy lifted from upto11.net which is a copy of the article as it used to be but obviously the links are going to suffer until someone with enough time could go through it. Apologies if this is a noobie mistake that could be rectified more simply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.243.220.42 (talk) 01:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It's back, no worries. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Looks like it's been restored to the original version. "Thank You!" to the adimns who helped get this right. Hopefully we can go though the correct move-discussion process now, since this is obviously not a non-controveresial move now. - BillCJ (talk) 01:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Doing a quick search of Wikpedia, there are only two David Weber articles I can find, and the science fiction writer is by far the most well known one. With as many excellent selling books as he's had, it's not surprising (not sure if he's ever made the NYT Best Seller list). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Aw man, I wasted a fair bit of time trying to re-build it from a google cache :P Cheers though! - 128.243.220.42 (talk) 02:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, since there’s no controversy to be had, the move-discussion process should go smoother. --DavidD4scnrt (talk) 03:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

What this article is missing IMHO

Where did Weber learn or find the Russian he uses in the Starfire series. Or is that Steve White?

The second thing is where did Weber get his interest in military affairs, strategy etc.? Did he serve in the army? Did he take part in any wars? Perhaps friends in the military? The intelligence?

Even such basic information as "Weber's first published novels grew out of his work as a war game designer for the Task Force game Starfire." [1] is missing from this page.

A main subject should be 'recurring themes', like:
- politicians shouldn't interfere in military strategy;
- a clearly pronounced condemnation of religious extremism (like the Maccabeans of the Honor Harrington series);
- a bond between species (human-treecat, courser-Sothoii warrior);
- humor;
- batteling prejudice (and specifficaly the role of women in the army, religious society);
- survivor's guilt.

An interesting note might be the occurance of a planet by the name Manticore in a story from the Starfire series (Crusade, ch. Ivan the Terrible). The surname Santander appears in both The Apocalyps Troll and Sword BrotherI seem to remember there were some more instances of using the same names in unrelated stories. Your input, please. Debresser (talk) 20:25, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, most of what you're asking for amounts to Synthesis, if not outright Original Research. There was a section on "Common themes" which was close to what you're asking about, but it was totally uncited, and was removed as OR/synthesis in September, per this diff. Also, the article is an encyclopedia biography, and as such this kind of info is beyond WP's scope anyway, per WP:NOT.
Weber's background could probably be found in interviews with him. I've seen some of his interviews which address the question of his military interest and beckground, but most were not published by verifiable sources, ie. they were just transcripts posted on the web. Outside of reputable magazines and such (print or web), they wouldn't be useable. However, a brief summary of his background and interests culled from reliable sources would likely be a good thing. It could spark interest in others' to read the whole interviews, and possibly do more research on their own, which is partly the purpose of an encyclopedia as a starting point to further research by the reader. Hope that helps. - BillCJ (talk) 21:31, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Because I am not a native English speaker, and because I don't know all those bothersome rules of Wikipedia, I'll leave the actual research and writing to my betters. I just tried to raise some points, and hope you and others will pick up the leads. Debresser (talk) 11:54, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

References

This talk thread uses a <ref>.

  1. ^ http://www.webscription.net/s-108-david-weber.aspx

Revision

This page needs some expansion. I'm working on that. So far I've collected materials from online sources.

In the meantime I've made a few basic improvements, such as adding references, removing irrelevant links, small changes in the external links. I removed one statement about the origin of the name Honor Harrington. See here for the correct version. Debresser (talk) 23:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I've heavily updated, completed and corrected the Published works section. Debresser (talk) 20:02, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I finished writing on the David Weber article. Now let's please have your additions and changes. I have not divided the article into sections. That's the first thing I'd expect somebody to do. Debresser (talk) 18:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I whacked off some of the obvious peacock words but there's more such as in "Weber is a popular guest..." "His most popular character ..." is a link-copyvio but also is an unsupported statement as the sources and methods to measure "popularity" are not identified. I dealt with that but the remainder of the sentence about 11 novels, etc. is not cited and probably should not state the number of novels as presumably that's changing. Actually, as it is, the article's [2] cite says there are 13 novels and even that may be out of date. I left the 11 in there pending a way to rewrite this to not need counts. Maybe we have to use 13 as that's what the cite says and anything else would be OR or unsupported. Somewhere there's a WP guideline on not including numbers that change in articles but then I saw that violated a lot during the recent election season.
There's always things to polish but overall, it looks good. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I also didn't know what to do with the numbers, since the source was from 2006. So I quoted the actual numbers. I think, counting till 11 will not get me accused of "original research"...
But I will disagree with you on "popular and enduring". It's a quote and I sourced it. And it's true, also: the sources support it by evidence, the New York Times Bestseller List. We don't have to provide the evidence of our sources, we are just an encyclopedia of facts. So that I'll put back. Debresser (talk) 03:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I added the proof anyway, but when you read it you'll see why I didn't want to include it in the first place. Debresser (talk) 03:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Just a quick note on numbers that change: It's usually best to include both the source of the numbers and the date ("as of 2006"). That generally covers numbers that change. We deal with this type of thing all the time in the Aircraft Project with airliner deliveries and such, and "as of" is the only real way to handle it. In fact, there is an {{As of}} template used to mark potentially dated statements. That might be useful here. - BillCJ (talk) 04:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you BillCJ - that's an excellent idea.
Debresser; As you noted, it's an encyclopedia of (mostly) facts. My problem with the way it's worded now is that we should avoid WP:PEACOCK words and that it's the article that's using those words and not someone else. One way to insert them into an article would be to specifically quote someone. Who actually said "The series boasts over 3 million copies in print?" click on cite and it's Mr. Weber himself. Sorry, no go as he's definitely NOT a third-party and reliable source. Who calls Honor Harrington "the most popular and enduring character?" It appears to be Alyce Wilson but pay attention to the peacock article as those words appear to "merely promote the subject of the article without imparting real information". Ms. Wilson fails to tell us how the character is "popular" and how it's "enduring". I'd scratch that too as Ms. Wilson has not demonstrated that she's doing any fact-checking, citing her sources, methods, etc. To cite WP:BLP "Be very firm about the use of high quality references. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." That's exactly what I did and you essentially reverted my edit. Pretty much all of the references are in the "poorly sourced" category as Mr. Weber is simply not that notable. At present the references are:
  1. David Weber's publisher.
  2. Interview by Alyse Wilson - much of the material in this article is from David Weber and the remaining material is unsourced.
  3. An "Introduction by David Weber
  4. An article by David Weber
  5. David Weber's web site
  6. A blog by an unknown person that quotes David Weber
  7. An interview by Stephen Hunt, a big fan of David's books, pokes a microphone in Mr Weber's direction...
  8. Northern Illinois University web page that mentions "David Weber" as part of a list of names but it does not directly support the claim made in the article. Not mine. Debresser (talk) 17:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
  9. The Baen CD collection on someone web site. The cite is not directly supporting the claim made in the article.
  10. Another of David Weber's publishers (cite is only to support an upcoming book)
  11. A cite to support an upcoming anthology that plans to carry a David Weber story.
We have 11 sources with two of them being third-party and the remaining either being entirely from David Weber or with the bulk of the material from him. It comes down to that he is not a "notable person." WP:CREATIVE has four bullets and the existing citations fail to nail any of those points. The cites also fail to nail the points under WP:BIO#Basic criteria meaning the article gets routed to WP:BIO#Failing all criteria.
In looking at ISFDB's bibliography he appears to be a significant author in the science fiction field. Lots of books though so far the awards have been minor. I believe the guy should get a Wikipedia article as given the number of books published it's quite likely people will come here looking for an article. I also see that given he's not notable that we need to take extra care that the article does not read like an advertising piece. That's a big flag for getting onto the deletion queue. --Marc Kupper|talk 09:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I changed the name of the link to "WebScription". Because it was not David Weber himself who said that "The series boasts over 3 million copies in print". It's his publisher's website in its article about their author David Weber. That's the kind of mistake you get because I'm not a native English speaker. They might not be impartial, but they should know. And their claim as to the NYT Best Seller list is a serious one that can be verified.
"Wild Violet" is an online quarterly literary magazine. So that a serious source too. And I don't think they had to write these words just for advertising this online article. As you can see for yourself, they don't even have ads on their site.
Would you disagree with "Spider-Man made his debut in the last issue of a failed series, quickly got his own comic, and became Marvel's most popular and enduring character" or "the (literally) immortal Lazarus Long is the most popular and enduring character created by Robert A. Heinlein," or "Disney’s most popular and enduring character, Mickey Mouse"? These are facts, and their are well proven. So is this one, albeit a little less know. Did you know there are more than 80 articles on Wikipedia about this series of books? Notability doesn't seem to be our problem here. Debresser (talk) 13:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
About the awards, or the lack thereof, strikes me as strange too. I have no explanation for that. Debresser (talk) 13:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
When I woke up this morning I realized that "His most popular and enduring character is Honor Harrington whose story..." is Alyce Wilson's opinion and is not a "fact". The "fact" is that she stated this opinion. It's also not a NPOV opinion meaning it should be carefully balanced should we include it the article. Using the statement the way it is in the article is also a copyright violation. We can't just copy/paste stuff from people's web sites.
re: "They might not be impartial, but they should know." Publishers are in the business of selling books and will be constructing sentences to put the author and their books in the best light possible. Much of the information about an author will be directly from from the author. It does not mean we should not be looking at these statements but rathet that we should not be using them as the core foundation of an article.
"And their claim as to the NYT Best Seller list is a serious one that can be verified." Let's see of we can verify that it's true and to be able to cite original NPOV the sources as that's the exact sort of neutral third-party reference this article is starving for. The Baen press release is dated March 3,2000 and presumably is talking about best seller lists at that time.
I quote from the WP:PEACOCK page: "In some contexts, the fame or reputation of a subject may be an objective and relevant question, better supported by a direct source than by drawing inferences indirectly based on other facts (which would constitute original research or synthesis). A sourced statement that the subject is "famous", "well known", "important", "influential", or the like may be appropriate, particularly to establish a subject's notability in an introductory sentence or paragraph." I'd say this is the case, and I really, really don't see in this article a violation of WP:PEACOCK. Debresser (talk) 17:03, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
"'Wild Violet' is an online quarterly literary magazine. So that a serious source too." Sorry, Wild Violet is not a "serious" source. The material is not peer reviewed, does not cite sources or methods, etc. It amounts to a blog that's posted four times a year. I also found it curious that a journal that focuses on poems and other art interviewed a science fiction author but see that the interview happened at an SF convention implying Alyce Wilson is a fan. (she hints at this with her desire for a "retrofuturistic wedding").
re: Spiderman, etc. They have achieved notability. At present the David Weber article is not showing that he has also achieved notability. However, I believe the guy is notable. To be able to show this we need to find and cite the neutral third party references. The most obvious ones will be the bestseller lists. That there are 80 Wikipedia articles about his works is also excellent as they can be mined for references. You can't cite another WP article but if they are well cited then there should be no shortage of material. --Marc Kupper|talk 19:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Anybody willing to add the partition into sections? Debresser (talk) 14:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

It's ok to divide talk threads into sections and so you can do this yourself. I personally don't see any obvious sections. The main weakness is the present article is based on statements by David Weber about himself, by sources that are highly partial to David Weber, and and some (favorable) opinions of David Weber or his work that are posted on web sites. The goal is to build a good case for notability by using 3rd party neutral/impartial sources.
BTW - on the lack of awards Mr. Weber is in good company. For example Isaac Asimov did not get his first Hugo and Nebula until quite late in his career and was rather infamous for being the presenter of the awards and never the receiver of them. --Marc Kupper|talk 19:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I liked the example from Asimov.

I meant, anybody willing to divide the text of the article into sections, please? Debresser (talk) 16:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Peacock Words

Copied from the Revision thread above and broken into it's own thread as Revision is getting hard to read.

I quote from the WP:PEACOCK page: "In some contexts, the fame or reputation of a subject may be an objective and relevant question, better supported by a direct source than by drawing inferences indirectly based on other facts (which would constitute original research or synthesis). A sourced statement that the subject is "famous", "well known", "important", "influential", or the like may be appropriate, particularly to establish a subject's notability in an introductory sentence or paragraph." I'd say this is the case, and I really, really don't see in this article a violation of WP:PEACOCK. Debresser (talk) 17:03, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll need to read the help for a while but don't think I'll get to it this week. In my revision I was trying to deal with three things.

  1. The current wording is a copyright violation. It's a near direct copy/paste from the item that's cited.
  2. The current wording contains a peacock word (popular). These are always red flags that require huge amounts of documentation to back them up. A single person on a single web site stating her opinion simply does not establish "popular" as a fact. The only fact established is that she made the claim. She could make the claim on a million web sites and be the more revered person on the planet but that would not make her statement itself "factual."
  3. The same statement made a second claim that the character is enduring. Again this is only in the opinion of a single writer on a single web site. It is not a proven fact. The word "enduring" also carries a sense of "permanence". In Honor Harrington#Posts I get the sense that the character is maturing and at some point will retire, become a wise old woman, and die. The legend of Honor Harrington can become enduring but not this person. Some fictional characters are enduring in the case that they never "grow up" in decades upon decades of books.

Thus I had reworded the section to deal with all three of these points. It is not necessary to the article that the reader be informed that a single person believes a fictional character is "popular and enduring". Thus the rewording did not need to use those terms, or anything like it, but instead was based on verifiable facts from reliable sources, specifically, David Weber's books themselves. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, the fact remains that the character is popular, as witnessed by several million books in print (apart from electronic copies), and enduring, since 15 books (I include here the subseries as well) and more to come over the last 15 or so years seems to qualify as such. It is true that somebody has to be the first to say it, and even if not the first, somebody has to say it in order to quote it, but not because such is the opinion of Ms. whoever the fact becomes any less a fact. So I bring the fact and reference it to her. Debresser (talk) 11:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Debresser, so just say as much. Pointing out sales and number of volumes and stories focusing on her (or the Honorverse in general) makes any declarations of popularity or endurance entirely superfluous. --Gwern (contribs) 18:22 26 January 2009 (GMT)
You are right, in the technical sense. But the reader of an encyclopedial article has the right to receive straightforward information if it's relevant. And one thing he will expect to be told is who this author's most popular character is. That should not be left up to his brains, it should be spelled out. And fortunately we have a source that does exactly that. Debresser (talk) 21:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Debresser, you wrote "we are just an encyclopedia of facts" up above. Why are you now insisting that a single obscure person's opinion be included as encyclopedic material? --Marc Kupper|talk 00:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Because it's a proven fact. Not the martest question I've seen this year. Debresser (talk) 06:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking about something twice already and yesterday, when I asked another experienced Wikipedian to give me his opinion on our discussion here, he said the same thing. That the series is popular is a fact, in how far it will be enduring to posterity we may have an indication, but we do not know. Actually, User:Kupper first deleted the word "enduring" and in a later edit deleted "popular" too. If he would have kept it at the first edit, I'd not have reacted. So perhaps let's do that again: scratch "enduring" and keep the "popular". Debresser (talk) 06:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The popularity debate endures. :-) I don't have time to look over the edits but will say that the last time I looked at the article there was zero "proof" that the character is factually "popular". --Marc Kupper|talk 06:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
It just happens to be that what you call is "zero proof", I consider to be all the proof needed. And even more than that, since I already showed you that we don't have to proof all the fact we quote. Debresser (talk) 10:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

EL to excerpts and online reading

I noticed somebody removed all the links to excerpts and online versions of the books in the list of publised works. Is that in accordance with Wikipedia policy? I did notice the following on wp:el: "An article about a book, a musical score, or some other media should link to a site hosting a copy of the work if none of the "Links normally to be avoided" criteria apply" I admit that linking some 25 books, both to excerpts as well as to online versions might be more than intended here. Your opinions? Debresser (talk) 21:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Restore the links I say, where there is no better article for the link to go into. IIRC, the only problem is whether the excerpts/online versions are copyright infringements, and I'm reasonably the Baen links aren't. --Gwern (contribs) 21:50 26 January 2009 (GMT)

I'd like to add, that if I were somebody who had just read his first David Weber book, or who had just heard his colleague at work tell me about that great book by David Weber he just read, I'd be delighted to find those readily available links to excerpts and online versions. Debresser (talk) 21:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

See #Reduce external linking for an earlier, though brief, discussion on this topic. I'm not aware of any "policy" regarding WP:EL but rather it's a style guideline. Having every single story linked up to two sites war far, far, in excess of "they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article" (as quoted from the EL nutshell). The article is about DW the author and not a blow by blow of his stories. Ideally, DW or Baen would make such a list of links available on their own web site. The Baen Free Libary (BLF) does this in it allows you to select available books by author.
I'd been intending to remove those links for a long time and was reminded of it when someone tagged the article with "too many links". The links were unencylopedic in a number of ways.
  1. It made the bibliography feel like listcruft and did not themselves add to an article about David Weber the author. Also, see WP:NOTDIRECTORY.
  2. Wikipedia discourages links to external sites. This is mainly to head off using an article for advertising but also to discourage the unencylopedic feel articles would get if they turned into massive lists and tables of links.
  3. The "read online" links were not to an official Baen or David Weber site but were to a place where someone had either downloaded copies from Baen or apparently copied them off CD-ROMs shipped with some Baen publications. The author's have not given up the copyright to their works and thus linking to them runs into WP:LINKVIO, particularly when it's to a site that's not not the official publisher or author sites. From what I see on the BFL site they are not encouraging that people make full copies or mirrors of the BLF. Instead, the intent is that people who which to read the stories may download them directly from Baen. Linking to a third party site also deprives Baen the ability to see which stories, authors, or genre are popular. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Debresser wrote "I'd be delighted to find those readily available links to excerpts and online versions." Baen makes that list available here which also has the benefit of exposing the new DW fan to his interviews, and the non-BLF offerings. --Marc Kupper|talk 00:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

About the "read online" links going not to the publisher's site you are right, as well as about the article looking like a switch-board before. The reference to #Reduce external linking is only partially correct, because there the subject was triple linking (have a good look). Anyway works for me. Debresser (talk) 06:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The old list of books format had three links per line. 1) To the Baen blurb about the book. 2) To the ISBN. and 3) To the "read online". Two were internal and one was were external. Someone then updated the list and added a forth(!) link (to the Wikipedia article for each book). I edited it down to two internal links per line and personally feel the ISBNs for every single book are pretty unnecessary and adding visual noise. They can certainly go on the individual book articles if they are not already there. That would get the list down to one internal link per line. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The link you gave doesn't show the way to all his books. I included the correct link in the article. Debresser (talk) 18:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

That's fine - I started to make a copy of the original page with all of the links on my own web site so that there will be a single page that allows people to view/link to the material. It should look neater than the original list too as it won't have the arrow things Wikipedia inserts for external links. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for tailoring that link a little. Debresser (talk) 10:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Freely distributable CDs

I've added the "citation needed" back in for the sentences about "The first edition hardcover releases by Baen Books of ... each contained a CD, holding electronic copies of all books of David Weber up to that moment. The CD labels explicitly stated that the contents are freely distributable." There are three explicit claims made

  1. That specific set of books contained these CDs.
  2. That the Cds contained electronic copies of all books of David Weber up to that moment.
  3. That the CD labels explicitly stated that the contents are freely distributable.

All three of these claims are extraordinary and specific enough that they need to be backed up by a cite to rather reliable and verifiable sources. Citing some random person's web site won't do. Hopefully something about this can be found on Baen's web site, DWs, or an news article. I found one article with partial support for the claims

  • http://www.ereleases.com/pr/all-hell-is-breaking-out-in-the-book-business-2094 - Mentions these useful things that can be worked into the DW article
    • War of Honor was a New York Times best seller.
    • War of Honor is the first science fiction book in the history of book publishing to contain a free CD.
    • The WoH CD contains over ten million words of currently available commercial material.
    • The WoH CD contains twenty novels in several book reader formats.
    • This backs up that part of claim #1 is true (about War of Honor only but not the other books mentioned in the article), that claim 2 is false (the John Ringo CD has the author's full backlist but apparently not the Weber CD), and that claim 3 is likely to be false as it's so extraordinary that it would have gotten mention. I suspect with claim three that someone has confused "free to download for reading" into "free for distribution" which is something else entirely.
  • http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-23661963_ITM may be interesting. I don't have time to dig up the full article. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I am starting to get annoyed. You're asking for a source wich you have deleted yourself previously in some claim of rightessness or the other. So I put it back for you now. Debresser (talk) 10:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and that's why I specifically said the source needs to be very reliable. We have *no idea* if the original source is a flat out pirate site. The source made at least one extraordinary claim (about the CDs being freely redistributable) that needs to be backed up with extraordinary evidence. From the available evidence so far (from Baen, David Weber, and press releases) this claim is false. I will delete it from the article and expect you to not revert without specific and really good citations. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I know it's my Godgiven right to be annoyed as much as I please, but you are making a LOT of commentaries about a reasonably normal article. Debresser (talk) 10:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Please don't take the article, me, or anything too seriously. I'm only commenting on the things that scream "red flag". --Marc Kupper|talk 18:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I gave you the best source possible, the text of the Baen CD-ROM labels. But I'm starting to get your point. Let me summarize it:

  1. Everybody who has heard of David Weber knows that his most popular character is Honor Harrington
  2. Everybody knows about those CD's
  3. It's just that everybody, tens of people and websites in the world, are conspiring against you, the White Knight of Wikipedia.

Perhaps you think I'll present you with your own copy of these discs so you can read the labels yourself? Come on! You've got all the proof necessary. Stop undoing edits! I'm not talking about the mans intimate life, just about a freaking disc! The sources I provided are sufficent and more than that. Now stop obstructing the flow of information for which this encyclopedia was founded. Debresser (talk) 19:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

A brief google search would have turned up multiple sites that reference the existence of the promotional CD's, including some that are from interviews with Jim Baen. The site linked in the article, fifthimperium, is far from a "random person's" website. For those that enjoy the types of books that Baen publishes, it's the source to get early snippets of new books. It's a nice marketing tool that pulls in new readers. Ravensfire2002 (talk) 22:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Indeed so. I added an external link to it, that was subsequently deleted. Debresser (talk) 22:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
So just scan the face of one of those CD-ROMs and put the image in the article. Someone will probably claim that such a scan of a disc that all but demands people copy and distribute it is "copyvio". The contents of those discs are FREE and BAEN wants people to make copies and distribute them, for FREE. I guess some people just don't get the concept of FREE. Bizzybody (talk) 04:49, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect Series Name

The name of this series listed here as the "Heirs of Empire" series is listed on the Baen web site ( http://www.baen.com/series_list.asp#Dahak ) as the "Dahak Series". "Heirs of Empire" is the name of the third book in that series. Oracleofbargth (talk) 16:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

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