Talk:Sharon Weinberger/Archive

My judgment is that this Author stub for Sharon Weinberger is a marketing and promotional campaign for a new Op-Ed Blog that she introduced this month. If so it has no place in this namespace of Wikipedia. My concerns follow:

The first external link takes one to the Blog, that incidentally has a very political content.

This person has very little achievement or even visibility in the world of literature. For a baseline I searched the New York Times list of current "Best Sellers" and found the top ten as follows: New York Times (hardback best sellers, week of August 13, 2006)

1. Nora Roberts

2. Terry Goodkind 3. Daniel Silva * 4. Janet Evanovich 5. Scott Smith 6. Danielle Steel 7. Fannie Flagg 8. J. A. Jance 9. Sara Gruen

10. James Lee Burke

Only number 3 marked with the * has an Author page or stub in Wikipedia. He wrote 9 books since 1996 and that suggests some sort of baseline. Ms. Sharon Weinberger has written one book which sold fewer than 500 copies and raised very serious charges about the provenance of the events she described, as can be seen at the second external link to the critique of that one book.

The history section of this entry shows considerable contention that could indicate troubled matters.

Let's discuss and see if there are some extenuating circumstances for what otherwise will be a sharp lowering of standards caused by retaining this Author.

Drac2000 14:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

For the record I created the article because of an interview I heard, and I don't do marketing for anyone. The book's current Amazon rating is 7,779 indicating it's actively selling (anything under 10,000 is active). --Brat32 15:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

At this moment it is at 8721 at Amazon and was worse than 17,000 earlier this morning. At these levels it means about one book per day is sold, hardly a success by any definition. But even that is not the point. Even the ranking you cite should not justify retention of this page in Authors because there would be 7778 authors more justified in having an Author stub in this namespace, if popularity were the criterion. As I found only one of the top 10 in the NY Times list had earned entry into the Wikipedia and he had had 9 successful books.

I appreciate your mention that you did not do marketing so I suppose you would agree with the proposal to delete this page for Sharon Weinberger, because what it is doing has the effect of marketing for her new Op-Ed Blog.

Thanks for your insights. --Drac2000 16:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually I oppose the deletion pending other opinions --Brat32 16:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Could you please share your perspective with the community? If there is some compelling reason for retaining this proposed deletion, it should be possible to articulate it. With all due respect, I do not think that just saying you oppose deletion is helpful. --Drac2000 16:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

If Drac2000 doesn't feel author is important, why does Drac2000 spend so much time editing this page and posting comments on various blogs. Creepy. Ohiotam 23:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How about a discussion of substance, please? As of the time of reversion there were 13,597 higher ranked books than the one book written by this author. Why should this author have a promotional page on Wikipedia and not the others? What is so important about Sharon Weinberger? Please compare her page with other seemingly similar pages on the proposed deletion list.

--Drac2000 23:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

It is not acceptable to delete this article based on one person's opinion who appears to strongly disagree with the Sharon Weinberger's POV and book. This article has been edited be a number of different people who found no problems with its existence. I also do not believe that number of books sold has any bearing, and there are enough other points of notability to keep it. --Brat32 23:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's get rid of Tom Clancy http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425199533/sr=1-6/qid=1156204265/ref=sr_1_6/002-3554302-7768042?ie=UTF8&s=books ranking is #192,161 --Brat32 23:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Touché, and funny - that's good. Ohiotam is too intense. But Clancy wrote a lot of other books. This is a discussion page for a proposed deletion because there is no evident reason to promote this author to a Wiki page when 9 of the current top 10 authors as ranked by the NY Times have no such advertising pages. Please share your feelings that seem so strong before making such drastic changes. As we developed above, the rank is not the main thing. One is not entitled to a promotional page at any time, and what other matters are included to justify this page. --Drac2000 00:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Proposed deletion

Please note carefully http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Proposed_deletion#Contesting_a_proposed_deletion

Contested deletions: If anyone, including the article's creator, removes Template:Prod from an article for any reason, do not put it back, except if the removal was clearly not an objection to deletion (such as blanking the entire article, or removing the tag along with inserting blatant nonsense); however, if the edit is not obviously vandalism, do not restore it, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith. If you still believe the article needs to be deleted, list it on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. --Brat32 00:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete the Sharon Weinberger page. I reverted it this one time as explained in the following. I fully respect the seniority of Brat32, but on his own page he has links to Wikipedia:Deletion Policy where it says there are 3 main processes. AFD is not appropriate in this case because the challenge raised is "advertising, vanity articles, and the like". The try to say that this controversial page has converged is not supported by the history. Chris 73 who I consider just as senor as Brat32 reverted the page several times to a form quite harsh on this author's page.

Best here is to continue to see if anyone of the supporters of this page can articulate what makes it worth having in Wikipedia. --GoodElfNo3 00:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Brat32 is completely correct. Please do not keep replacing the prod tag on the article when there is a dispute, the next step, assuming y'all cannot come to an agreement, is to use the AFD process. Kuru ^talk 00:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This can't be a vanity page because the author didn't create it, nor has the author showed any sign of attempting to praise the book. Drac200 and GoodElfNo3 have through multiple edits attempted to insert their opinion and linked to a website dedicated to bashing the author and book. Compromise: If the entry is kept to basic biographical information and book title (and not discussion of the book, which they clearly disagree with), will GoodElfNo3 and Drac2000 leave the entry alone? Ohiotam 01:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this version acceptable to you, Ohiotam?

--Drac2000 14:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Drac2000, you initially opposed what you claimed was blog promotion, now you've added blog in, with a descriptive of "oped." You may take blog reference out and I won't object, but you may not give your own descriptive just because you don't like author. Also, as a courtesy, you are welcome take out the critique website descriptive (Doina and Carl Collins). In return, I ask that you leave this entry to factual info. How can you want it deleted, and yet continue to add to it? Makes no sense. Wikipedia shouldn't be used to launch a personal campaign. Ohiotam 16:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Look at the top of this page. Surprised me too, I did not do it. Now, we are considering a Biography of a living person and that must meet certain tests. We are not considering Sharon Weinberger as an Author. We are all asked by the Wikipedia community to try to improve and fill out the quite thin Bio so it has some chance of being retained as a biography. Education is a good part of a person's biography and should be there. It is to her credit that she has participated in several activities over her career. If you want to add something constructive, please do so. While it appears you, Ohiotam, want to inflame more edit wars, by introducing third-party issues, please reconsider and try to help reach some sort of convergence. The grammar corrections are good and I will try to get them as you recommend but all this takes time. In a bio, I find no problem with citing a blog as accomplishment. Do you?

--Drac2000 17:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Education is fine, except you're entering mistakes, Drac2000. And if you are concerned about bio, why did you delete employment history. No problem with blog citation---by why do you call it "Op-Ed," a blog is web log (i.e. a diary or journal). Also, since you put in the critique website link, why do you oppose noting that it belongs to Doina Collins and features writing by Doina and Carl Collins? Since you're sensitive to having Doina and Carl Collins name attached to their website, I've left it out as a courtesy. Are you fine with this version? Ohiotam 18:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, fine with this version.

--Drac2000 22:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Not Again (hopefully)

In the first 4 months that this article appeared in Wikipedia it gathered 60 edits, survived an AFD and arrived at WP:CON in the Markowitz version of 30 August 2006. Since then passions cooled and we all had time to do other things. There the existing links reflected a view of the topic of this article with generous breadth of content and a WP:CON menu of links from which those interested could inform themselves about the varied perceptions of the controversy over the subject author's work. Why disturb consensus?

--Drac2000 11:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The site is borderline libelous and violates BLP, for one. For another thing, it's not notable beyond evidence of Collins' obsession with her. There's no consensus about inclusion of the link because it never was discussed. Most of the edits of this page are you adding absurd POV material. It's painfully obvious that you have a conflict of interest and ought to stop editing this topic. Thanks. Bartleby 02:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Try for WP:NPOV yourself. You let my effort to accommodate your concern stay visible for only 8 minutes. I hope you can cool a bit and give me time to write my reasoning for making the compromise changes that you just reverted away.

The adjudication of an AFD can generate a great amount of discussion that when finished is filed somewhere in Wikipedia. This was one of those cases passionally fought and clearly you did not check those records for this topic before developing your own emotional response. OK, let's try again. The book has been argued to be about 95% fiction, but was marketed as a factual "expose." For political reasons, some factions like the fiction, others do not. However, the book never "caught on" and ranks so poorly at Amazon, that the individuals on the supportive side do not provide the Amazon link but rather the ISBN link that leads nowhere useful. Myself, I believe that this article should be deleted and if you contacted Sharon Weinberger yourself I would be very surprized if she did not agree.

Assuming that you, yourself do not have a conflict of interest, I ask you to please consider the merits of the editing I have done in response to your assertions. 1) Removed both the links to both sides, the critique that so upset you and the abandoned "Personal website of the author." The new link to WIRED is good, 2)I inserted "previously served as" instead of "was" when discussing the Author's previous position. It is more to her credit.

Do you agree so far? If so, that would leave only the problem of projection an endorsement of a book that it is a fictionalized account. If you read the book you would see it is a fictionalized account that denigrates a lot of scientists without factual basis. Ask some of the individuals targeted. There is a posted letter from the Office of the General Counsel of the US Department of Energy that absolutely refutes one of the "important events" that never happened, yet was "exposed" as fact in the book. Since, we are removing the link to the critique of the book that tended to provide balance, please without your using judgmental words like "absurd" and "obsessed" articulate what you would find objectional about the revised sentence describing the book in this article revision.

Also, please try to discuss any disagreement on this discussion page and give a little time for consideration before further revising. Now, I am going to rv back to get what I intended as a compromise version of the article.

--Drac2000 13:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

--- I have reverted Drac2000's edits. Can I suggest something: Let's assume good faith, as hard as that may be. Can I suggest a compromise so as to avoid an edit war: 1) Move the attack website to the nuclear isomer page, which Drac2000 has edited heavily; at least there it won't fall under the more stringent BLP policy. 2) Delete both the attack website and author website. But that also means Drac2000 needs to stop linking to the site in the entry, and in general should avoid attacking the subject. Drac2000: this is not an attack on you. Trying to come to a consensus. Lewisjaggers 14:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lewisjaggers (talk • contribs)

Sounds good, so let's try to deal with the issues. Many individuals have been damaged by political exploitation of the book, Imaginary Weapons, including the author. In a published interview which still exists online, the author disclosed that she had been advised that for a scientific "expose" to be marketable she would have to use a "trope" which means to fictionalize some of the content for impact. Being inexperienced, that she did in rather drastic ways. However, except for a few remaining partisans the conflict is over; but the book still exists, albeit in very few copies. I am going to try a confidence building effort at your request. Please do not just revert it and claim affection for compromise.

Let's consider the next version I am going to post in a few minutes. There are no links to critical material, though critical comment should have been accepted. Also, please notice that the critical link is NOT being moved elsewhere. No obsession here! However, "isomer bomb" is sensationalistic whimsy that is more professionally described as will be stated. Of course, "isomer bomb" is more dear to those with political interest. Please give it some thought and articulate a response...to those more emotional as well.

--Drac2000 15:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

-- Good faith means not inserting the word "fictionalized." Let's all try to get along. Again, I'm assuming good faith that you don't want to attack subject. I've added a New York Times review which provides a critical view on the book, plus I've left the link to the nuclear isomer page, which is edited mostly by Drac2000. Drac2000, are you fine with this? The author's website is also out. I'm bending over backwards here. 16:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lewisjaggers (talk • contribs)

Good faith means not censoring out critical review of Imaginary Weapons while adding an old supportive review that has been discredited for almost a year. There could be a perception of favoritism, as opposed to professed "bending over backwards to reach compromise". We had consensus for over a year with the Markowitz version of 30 August 2006. Book reviews appeared, but sales plummeted; nobody wants the book and there is very little interest, now. Adding the old review will only inflame the situation again, but not sell any more books. Who wants more conflict, you?

Actually, we may be making a little progress, so I am removing the old book review you introduced. If you are OK with that, it is finished.

--Drac2000 17:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay by me. Lewisjaggers. 17:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lewisjaggers (talk • contribs)

This is unfortunate. Drac2000 is using some idiosyncratic and frankly bizarre arguments ("the book has a poor amazon ranking" "nobody wants the book" "the book is fraudulent") that are only made by Collins and his sockpuppets. Anyone who can think the ridulous imaginaryweapons.net site belongs on this page about the author 'instead of her own official website' has no desire to make a useful page and should immediately stop editing this page. The contention that the book is "fictionalized" is probably libelous and claimed by nobody but Collins. If you want to make the claim that the book reviews are "discredited," please provide some evidence for that. Until you do, I will reinstate them.

There are a number of arguments against including the link to Collins' website. The main one would be that the link violates BLP and is probably libelous. The second is that this is about Weinberger and not the book. Finally, it's just a non-notable very poorly-made website. Not everything deserves recognition. On the other hand, there is one very good argument in favor of including the link to her official website; 'it's her official website.'

Drac2000, please stop bandying about "consensus" when you mean "what I want." A lack of edits does not equal consensus, it just means there are few editors involved. Bartleby 03:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But the attack website is out, and I'm just trying to come up with a solution that Drac2000 can live with (and thus leave this be). Lewisjaggers. 15:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lewisjaggers (talk • contribs)

Actually, I had supposed that Lewisjaggers might be a Bartleby sockpuppet with a cool touch, but I guess he is not. He is not my sockpuppet either. (Sorry Lewisjagger!) Bartleby, if you had not introduced the address of the already removed critique of Imaginary Weapons in your discussion, it would not be associated with this author entry and I do not introduce it here, because of the spirit of the compromise made above. Perhaps you would like to revise your previous statement above to remove it. Cordially,--Drac2000 15:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I was referring to your constant removal of the link to her own website. Bartleby 17:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)