User talk:Pernoctus

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Hello, Pernoctus, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Slashme (talk) 11:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

W. H. Pugmire

I saw your comment on Dennis Bratland's talk page and made a response there you may be interested in. I'm also willing to answer any questions you have about why I closed the AfD as Keep.--SouthernNights (talk) 01:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned in my perhaps too-lengthy reply on Dennis's page, no further questions or dialogue are necessary regarding this matter. I think that your decision is wrong, but the subject is not worth any more of my time. I am also reproducing my reply below, in case Dennis might (understandably) want to delete it from his talk page. It usefully memorializes this fiasco, I think.Pernoctus (talk) 10:32, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SouthernNights & Dennis Bratland:

Thank you both for your replies.

First, I do understand the protocol regarding deletion reviews, but I did not contact SouthernNights about his decision because, according to his page, he is often unavailable for long periods, and I did not want the matter to grow stale.

Now, I want to add some final thoughts on why I think that the "keep" decision is in error.

Anthologies: My understanding is that appearing in anthologies, as most of Pugmire's stories do, is insufficient to demonstrate notability. Likewise, the reference to "well-known small presses" puzzles me. Well-known to whom? To other fans of the genre? Is that really enough? Further, shouldn't subjects be mentioned in more scholarly secondary sources that are indexed in databases other than those that are devoted to a particular genre, e.g., JSTOR, Google Scholar, and the like?

I also think that SouthernNights gives insufficient weight to the principle that proof of notability needs to be independent of the subject. By all evidence, Pugmire publishes widely because he has a wide network of friends who are in the small press, and he has other personal friends to puff his work. Further, the overwhelming majority of his work is not published by the major publishers SouthernNights mentions. What is more, Pugmire not only has not had a collection published by a major publishing house, but he is merely one author among many in even the fan press anthologies. Are one or two appearances in books by major publishing houses really all that is required to establish notability? And likewise, one review in a (arguably) notable publication, one which, again, caters to a genre market?

I do not agree that appearing in the Daw's Year's Best series anthology automatically confers notability. I am looking at my copy of The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series II (1972-73). It contains a story by T. K. Brown III, and (s)he does not have a Wikipedia entry.

Perhaps most important, SouthernNights fails to distinguish between genre fiction (such as horror) and fan fiction (genre fiction written in imitation of a particular author). The distinction to me is crucial, and I find it difficult to believe that Wikipedia considers fan fiction notable. Pugmire is not simply a genre author; he is a fan fiction writer, and by his own admission. (See the link to lovecraftzine.com, below).

Finally, and with all due respect, I must question SouthernNights' objectivity in this area, precisely because he is a specialist in genre fiction, and therefore, I gather, automatically sympathetic to genre writers, over-inclusively considered. Let me be clear: I mean no disrespect by this statement, nor am I impugning SouthernNights' honesty or motives. We all have our personal interests, preferences, and even biases. For that reason, I was inclined to seek a deletion review by administrators who do not share that particular interest, and who look more broadly to literary value, professional publication, and frequent citation in reputable, scholarly secondary sources. If fan fiction (which is really what we are talking about here) gets a pass in all these areas, or is to be judged according to different standards, and that is Wikipedia policy, then that should be made clear.

That said, I will defer to Dennis's judgment that the matter is not worth the effort of pursuing as far as a deletion review. Still, I do so reluctantly, as the "keep" decision is disappointing for many reasons, not least of which is that I dislike seeing the poor arguments, the flagrant misunderstandings of Wikipedia definitions, and the personal attacks by Pugmire's fan base rewarded for their efforts. Of course, I understand that the matter is not about that, but I can't pretend not to be disillusioned that my arguments and others' were given short shrift in this instance, by contrast. In fact, I see no evidence that SouthernNights accorded the "delete" arguments any weight or merit whatsoever. Apparently, I don't understand Wikipedia much better than Pugmire's fans, as I tried very hard to grasp and follow the notability criteria, and I still firmly believe that a fan fiction writer such as Pugmire can be considered notable only if "notability" means "notable to a relatively small group of fans". Obviously, I do not think that authorial or biographical notability should be diminished in that way.

My apologies for the long-winded response, but, since the other discussion is closed, and this is my last word on the matter, I did not want to omit anything. Despite all the high-minded talk, the bottom line is that I was shouted down by Pugmire's fan club, and my arguments were never seriously considered. I "lost" my case because, unlike Pugmire, I did not have an online mob to whom I could publicize the situation (http://lovecraftzine.com/2013/02/01/urgent-and-important-w-h-pugmire-needs-our-help/), and mobilize to swarm and do battle. Nor was I fortunate enough to have a sympathetic administrator take an interest in this discussion.

At the risk of taxing your patience further, I'll add that this process, far more than the result, has frankly discouraged me from wanting to have anything further to do with Wikipedia (cue the cheering section from Pugmire's peanut gallery!), so it is unlikely that we'll cross paths again. Despite SouthernNights' kind invitation, I certainly have no interest in working on an article about a non-notable author whose fans think that accusing me of "homophobia" is a form of legitimate argument. After all this, I begin to understand better and sympathize with Wikipedia's critics, and I think that I'll stick to reading the Britannica, in the future. At least there I won't have to run into the likes of Pugmire, or his fans, or this sort of administrative fiat. At Wikipedia, there really are too many cooks, with too many recipes (or an inability to decide upon a recipe and follow it consistently), and, to my taste, the broth is beyond spoiled.

Thank you for your contributions to the discussion. It's been an educational experience!Pernoctus (talk) 09:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]