Wookieepedia:Votes for deletion/Quote:Karen Traviss

Quote:Karen Traviss
Nominated. Can a page with nothing but quotes still not be from a NPOV? You decide. -- Ozzel 02:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep

 * 1) Keep and expand. -- Darth Culator 02:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep and expand. Lowkey 03:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Keep and expand. Ibimus 03:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Kuralyov 04:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Strong keep and expand Kuralyov 04:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Strong Keep as long as we have controversial quotes from the master of upsetting people, George Lucas. (Oops, I guess we don't yet.) -- Riffsyphon1024 04:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Keep and expand. If the problem is that it's just the one author, then we should start quote pages for other SW people.  We should do that anyway, really. - Lord Hydronium 04:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Delete

 * 1) Ozzel 02:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Adamwankenobi Talk to me!  My home. 02:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Delete, see comments. RMF 03:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Dark Spork 03:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Neutral/comments

 * I personally think that this is embarrassing. I know it is just quotes, and I don't doubt the authenticity of them, but it's blatantly obvious that there is an agenda behind the creation of the page. We're an encyclopedia, folks. If somebody wants to make these quotes available to the public, then put them on your own website. But I think the page adds nothing positive to Wookieepedia and does nothing but make us look bad, and I say we should be rid of it. -- Ozzel 02:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Continued responsible editors and periodic admin review to remove any uncited quotes would result in the quotes being in context, as they are now. Remember the old adage about "mind your words... they become your character"?  That comes into play here.  If you don't want people to have statements from you that show you acting in a negative light, don't say such things in the first place.  -- Lowkey

I'd only vote keep if we restrict it to quotes which she personally said, which she made about her work, and which are still part of the public record (i.e. message board posts, quotes from printed media, and blog posts which haven't been taken down from public view.) If she doesn't like wikis, Tony Blair, smoked salmon, technically-minded fans, being flamed, the new X-Men movie, or me, personally: who the hell cares? The more we allow in, the more it's going to be end up a magnet for flames and counter-flames. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 03:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Lowkey, what she says in irrelevant. We don't have to post it. This vote is not about whether or not Ms. Traviss should be careful of what she says; it is a vote of whether or not we should post it on this wiki. -- Ozzel 03:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

As I've said before, selection, context (or a lack of context), and presentation can be as POV as anything else. We can't get away with ignoring context and expecting readers to hunt down every link to ascertain the author's true intent; that's just silly. In any event, I don't see how articles of this type are conducive to our goal of compiling a neutral, exhaustive (in terms of IU) encyclopedia. Now, before I'm accused of caving in at the first sign of heat, I'd like to point out that criticism is often beneficial, as it is in this case. External perspectives can be as valuable as internal ones, and sometimes more so. RMF 03:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Somehow, if we made a Quotes page about say, Timothy Zahn, Troy Denning, Aaron Allston, or even George Lucas, I doubt it would get this kind of reaction.  StarNeptune Talk to me! 03:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed. In fact, in light of the header quotes bit on the front page, I would suggest we start doing that, if only to provide a repository of possible bits.  Would that not go far towards meeting the NPOV bit, as it would be done across the board instead of for one specific author?  Lowkey 03:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oddly enough, none of those authors have openly wished death upon any segment of their franchise's fanbase. At least not that I've been able to find. If they have, we should quote them too. -- Darth Culator 03:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As she has removed that entry from public view, and it was a clear case of hyperbole in the first place, I'm not sure that's relevant. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 03:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So Culator, you are saying that we should have quote pages just to make people look bad? -- Ozzel 03:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No, we should have quote pages to record interesting things they say. That's all this page does. We should probably have a variety of quotes from those authors too. -- Darth Culator 03:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The fact that these make her look bad is more a result of the fact that she hasn't said much that makes her look good. I mean, if we did a page on Able, it would pretty much be nothing but jokes.  Because that's what he does.  He'll answer question, and then sit back and crack wise.  You you decry that page as an attempt to make him look like he doesn't take anything serious?  Meanwhile, the bulk of Ms Traviss' interactions with the fanbase have been negative.  So the bulk of quotes are negative.  If people want to add positive quotes there is nothing stopping them... except for the fact that there aren't really any out there.  Which goes back to my above point.  Lowkey 04:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Whatever one thinks of the person(s) in question, Wookieepedia is not the place for any one segment of fandom to advance their agenda regarding another. It only cheapens the site as whole. If we are going to preach nuetrality, we need to practice it as well. -- Dark Spork 04:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Its really hard to get more neutral then direct quotes and citations. In fact, really it would be the opposite of neutrality, it would be working to give someone a more positive appearance then they have by covering their tracks for them.  Lowkey 04:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Traviss's fans have spread their little brand of censorship and fan-worship to just about every major fansite on the web. By posting this we are doing our part to maintain overall neutrality. Let's be honest, if this wasn't about Traviss buit rather about KJA or Hambly no one would care. It's only because so many people have been convinced that she's some sort of martyr. Kuralyov 04:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * By quoting everything a person says, its call truth. -- Riffsyphon1024 04:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Role of an Encyclopedia
People keep bringing up that this is not what an encyclopedia is for. But as a counter to that I have to ask, has anyone heard of anything on this scale going down before? This fight has been going on for coming up on a year now, and it doesn't look like it is going to slow down anytime soon (look at the response to someone modifying the Firefly theme). Its an unprecedentedly massive schism between the authors and the fans. The exact job of an encyclopedia is to preserve things like that - hence why you have entries in them about Clinton's impeachment, or a civil war, or the protestent reformation, or the Vatican II Council. Now the issue is, how to do it in a NPOV. The best way I can think of is direct quotes. A direct quote with a link showing it in full context is about as neutral as it gets. Its the best solution we have to this - encyclopedias are suppossed to cover these kinds of events, yet this has to remain as fair as possible. Quotes do that. Getting rid of this, trying to whitewash history, is both a failing in the role of an encyclopedia, and in being neutral. -- Lowkey 04:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree.  StarNeptune Talk to me! 04:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, and we have to present the information as it was given. -- Riffsyphon1024 04:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Does anybody truly believe that this page was made by someone with a neutral point of view? -- Ozzel 04:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I was in the IRC chat when Culator suggested creating it. He only had "negative" quotes, and he asked another person in the chat to supply him with "positive" ones to balance them out. What you see now is the result.  StarNeptune Talk to me! 04:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I still fail to see how Wookieepedia is better off by having this page than by not having it. -- Ozzel 04:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Aren't we supposed to be the repository of all information? This of course coming from a inclusionist. -- Riffsyphon1024 05:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Linking to context after each quote is massively inadequate. 95% of the people who read the page are going to look at her quotes and move on, leaving themselves with a possibly mistaken impression because they missed a crucial bit of context. Of course, this is partly their fault for being too intellectually lazy to investigate the links, but it is also collectively ours for representing a quote without adequate background info – i.e. what it is in reference to, why it was said, whether there was sarcasm/hyperbole/etc intended, and so on. RMF 05:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The opinions of Ozzel are also suspect to me, since he's a mod at a website that has admitted to obeying the whims of LFL and any of its employees. This is obviously his attempt to export that censorship here. Kuralyov 05:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Let's not make this personal. I'm sure there are plenty here who have anti-Traviss sentiments that may have surfaced in the past; but let's just judge the article on its own merits. RMF 05:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Let me just say that aside from simply contributing occasionally to one section of their website, I have absolutely no say in the policies of TFN's site or their forums. I'll kindly ask that anything else about me personally be taken up on my talk page. -- Ozzel 05:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)