Romance Wiki talk:Policies

Self publishing

And also, this might deserve to be its own page, but honestly, AS DawnBurn has pointed out, does Romancewiki have a policy on self-published titles? On the one hand, I am not opposed to letting self-published authors use the wiki raise awareness for themselves (I file it more under "help the reader find books they might be interested in," once you add categories and so on) - and hey, additional content is additional content, if we don't have to add it, all the better - but I am quickly arriving at "If an author can't be bothered to put together a professional-looking, well-organized webpage, and a traditional publisher can't be bothered to print it, is it really worth my while to take whatever mess the author submitted, and spend my time formatting it?". In terms of dealing with unclear series titles and pages that make me listen to gothic music alongside my iTunes, I used to answer "yes," but now I'm leaning towards "no."

Now, as to whether we delete the content, leave it as and have ugly pages, or is format it thereby spending our time to add credibility to a self-published title with a bad webpage, Well...That's up for debate.

I don't think we should be in the business of policing what is 'acceptable' romance (aka 'wiki worthy'), which means no deleting, but...I also question spending so much of our time on self-submitting authors with very little or no distribution. I feel we'll be a more useful resource if we can cover what people are actually reading, and we are supposed to be a resource first, even if we are an outlet for self-promotion in some capacity. So perhaps we could make a policy of not deleting pages for self-published authors, but warning any wikigoers that the page is author-submitted content? We could have a box like the "marked for deletion" one.

That's my off-the-cuff $.02. --Robini 11:49, 18 September 2007 (PDT)

This is the thing that would be so perfect for the Community Discussion page, but until then... I am with you on getting fed up with authors who can't make a wiki page like other wiki pages. Some of them I sort of take to and fix and others I just think - WHY would I buy your book if you can't even use proper grammar and formatting here?? Thus you and Dawn and Amy have been finding the remains, the real dregs of the clean up job on non-categorized, orphaned pages - things I just got too annoyed to fix!! Ha! My take is to ignore them when you can (or when you get fed up). Some of them are just so bad.

On the topic of self-published, I agree with you, Robini, that it is a service to our users who may want to read these books and thus we have not had any policy about excluding any type of romance (so far).

On the other hand, I don't think we can "warn" users that the info comes from the authors themselves since most/a lot of content does come from the authors themselves. Just my $.02 so now we almost have a nickel. --Kay T 18:54, 18 September 2007 (PDT)

I agree that we should not be policepeople, but I have, in the past, made judgment calls about certain content that I felt did not meet the spirit of the wiki. This wiki is specifically for romance fiction. In my mind, that encompasses a lot of things -- from most women's fiction to erotica -- but sometimes content simply doesn't meet even that basic requirement. One thing I like to remind people, of course, is that authors like M.J. Rose and Mia Zachary started with self-published works.

Like Kay, I used to do a lot of clean-up on the "messy" pages, but it's a lot of work. The good news about the uncategorized, messy stuff is that it gets buried in system. The bad news is that when people stumble across this stuff, it creates a definite impression (which is why we were forced to add ReCaptcha for new users. @!@$# spammers!) I like the idea of noting -- much in the style of Big Wiki -- that the content hasn't been verified or vetted. Thoughts? Yeah, I guess we should move this to the discussion page. I'm all about democracy as I'm not the only one working here.--Romancewiki 16:04, 24 September 2007 (PDT)

I think if we move this to the discussion page it should be made into a pretty neutral question, and I am not sure at this point what the question is: Should we have any special notices for self-published authors? for pages created by authors about themselves? I think we are venturing into squishy territory here! Probably most users seeing Publish America on the book page and anyone going to the website will pretty quickly figure out what they are seeing. Then they can decide on the basis of the author's work/website whether it is something they are interested in. In the case that led to this frustration, it was pretty unclear just what was published and by whom, but we should just leave that confusion there, I think.--Kay T 17:01, 24 September 2007 (PDT)

Poking this again (move discussion?) because of Alathea Wright (new page). For an aspiring author, with no published credits and her first book coming out from Lulu, which is a vanity press (reputable). Leave the listing alone? We really should probably create a guide as to self-published versus not and whether or not RomanceWiki lists such. --DawnBurn 15:40, 12 November 2007 (PST)

Maybe moving it will get more people to give an opinion. My opinion is to leave the listing alone. But we might also need some policy about the self-published thing. Do you want to write something or wait to get more ideas? --Kay T 17:22, 12 November 2007 (PST)

I am of the opinion that an aspiring author without a published novel doesn't meet the spirit of the wiki. While I think it's very important to cover the breadth and depth of the genre, it seems to be time to start thinking about guidelines for self-published authors. The biggest problem in my mind is that so many of these entries are written as weird promotional items that don't work with the rest of the wiki content (yes feeling a bit cranky today). The positive thing is while these authors come in, throw up some content, and leave, most of this content is effectively buried in the site because there is no attempt to connect to the rest of the wiki.

I am turning thoughts over in my mind -- my come one, come all philosophy is warring with my standards-based mentality.--Romancewiki 17:32, 12 November 2007 (PST)

Yes, it is rather sweet that they think that throwing up a page on RomanceWiki is some sort of promotion. Maybe an unpublished author can keep stuff on her/his user page until actualy publication. But what about self-publication? --Kay T 20:22, 12 November 2007 (PST)

Oh, I'm way cranky about the self-published authors using Wiki as a promo tool without connecting their pages, formatting them properly and then not contributing to the community. But that's just me. I suppose it is a compliment that they look at RomanceWiki as a portal to more eyeballs. I think perhaps the solution might be to just have a policy that to be listed as an author (rather than aspiring info on user page) you have to have at least one published book. The catch there is what defines published? Obviously not just the traditional publishers since I think electronic publishers are valid too. But Publish America shouldn't count, IMO, nor Lulu nor just having the words up for free on your personal webpage. But that's hard to police and we should have a clear standard.

Kay, I recommend moving this discussion. To where, I'm unsure, but perhaps to the talk page of the unmade Help:RomanceWiki Policies or somesuch. And then linking to that on the Community Discussion page?--DawnBurn 12:21, 13 November 2007 (PST)

Ooh - now THERE's an idea I can go for: pushing unpublished author content to the author's personal page. Once it's there, if we're particularly hesitant to remove the page, we can have it say "such and such book isn't out yet/whatever, and therefore doesn't comply with standards for the wiki - but you can see it here on the Author's User Page." That might also come in handy if we ever want to start a category for fiction that's free on the web. --Robini 12:38, 13 November 2007 (PST)

Self-Published Authors/Books

I have given this a lot of thought this week, and here is where I am in this debate. I am interested in alternate views or arguments, believe me!

While I am strongly in favor of self-publishing as an option, I am not convinced that a self-published novel is enough for an individual to be considered an "author" for the purposes of being added to the wiki. Unless the book in question breaks new ground -- because it shows that self-published work can change the conversation via sales, reader awareness, etc -- I don't believe that these books are published in the commonly accepted sense of the word. I greatly admire the freedom offered by publishers such as Lulu.com and accept that sometimes the best choice for an author is self-publishing. I simply do not see that self-published authors and books have gone through the necessary community vetting to be considered part of the romance story.

If self-published authors wish to list their works on their user pages, I am absolutely fine with that. It is a fine way to raise awareness of a book. However, for the purposes of defining authors and books in the many ways we define them here, I am proposing that we do not include self-published authors and works. This also helps alleviate my concern that most self-published authors (and far too many e-published authors, but that's another topic) throw up content that is random, doesn't conform to the basic style guide, and isn't categorized or otherwise integrated into the wiki as a whole. So many of these pages just sit outside the solar system rather than flow into the rest of the site.

Agreements? Disagreements? Counter-arguments? Better ideas?--Romancewiki 18:21, 17 November 2007 (PST)

I agree 100%. I think the interesting part is going to be defining that self-published term. I'm with you on Lulu, or the author's blog. Those are easy. But what about Publish America or others that we haven't yet covered? I think that will be the hard part. Defining exactly what self-published means.

Also, does this mean we should move the Author pages created to the user who creates them? I mean, I generally believe such contributions ARE from the author in question but the user name isn't always clear that they are one in the same. So logistically, where do we move the content to? Or just delete content noting on the user talk page that such should be on the user page for the author? --DawnBurn 09:58, 20 November 2007 (PST)

Defining self-published is going to be hard. Broadly, the definition involves a situation where the author pays to have his or her book published and/or the book is published without editorial review or oversight. Publish America meets that criteria, based on everything I know about them. It also includes blurb.com -- who make absolutely gorgeous books -- booksurge.com and others. I do not freak out about advances being paid in defining "published", but I think an editorial review process coupled with a well-defined distribution model (e-publishers, for example, have worked this out) and remuneration are important.

As for your second question, you, Amy, and Kay have been much more involved in the content organization than I have lately (and I cannot being to express my appreciation -- you each have great minds whereas my brain has resembled icky mush since I started this new client project), so I am looking to you three for thoughts. I agree that information about self-published authors is almost always generated by that author. The lack of marketing support is another hallmark of that type of publishing. My first inclination is to move the content, but I do realize it's labor intensive (or, if you will, labor that takes away from fun wiki stuff).

Most of these authors come, add content, and then leave. My cynical side believes that if they do not care enough about promoting their careers to create a well-formed wiki page, they do not care enough to come back to see what's going on with their entry. If the content is there or not, it doesn't seem to matter to many of these users.--Romancewiki 19:40, 20 November 2007 (PST)

I am probably more inclined to leave the pages out there and not try to (create or) enforce a policy on this topic. Mostly I think that the enforcement will be a nightmare, but let me see if I can think this out here:

1- No matter how we define "self-published"- how do we know this information? Are we assuming that if the book is published by certain publishers then it is self-published? Are we going to have a list of these publishers? Who will keep up this list? Will it be protected so that only administrators can add or subtract from the list? Will we have a way for people to disagree with being on the list? What if it is difficult to determine who published a particular book (probably a bad sign)? How would we know whether there was "lack of marketing support" unless it is generally part of the publisher's modus operandi? [I know nothing about all of this so I am just throwing out things that pop into my head.]

What if a reader gets one of these self-published books and it is their favorite book and comes here and makes a book page for that book? How would that reader know that it is not acceptable? plus...

2- How would we go about deleting that book page? or the page of the author if it is not obviously created by the author? Would we have to have deletion nominations and then wait some period of time for people to comment like they do on Wikipedia? Would several administrators need to review the nomination before it is deleted? In the case of Wikipedia, in many cases if there is not a consensus to delete it is not deleted (unless it is libelous). Would there be a presumption that the page should be deleted if it is associated with one of the prohibited publishers?

3- Although it may have been my idea originally to let unpublished authors add info to their user pages, I agree with Dawn that this is easier said than done since the user page and the author pages are not always easily associated.

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving (or not if you are in a country that does not celebrate). I need rest. --Kay T 18:31, 25 November 2007 (PST)

Bumping this because a page related to this has been on my watch list for ages and I'm finally started to tackle some of the bigger issues I've noticed.

First, about the self-publishing thing... I've only encountered a couple Publish America books so far and I don't think they're doing much harm. Yes some pages definitely ignore all kinds of conventions -- which I think should be grounds for deletion on its own if a book page doesn't have the basic author/publisher/year information and categories. I've found too many pages with just a description dumped in that I've had to do major detective work for to bring it up to decent style-manual level. But I'm veering off topic. Perhaps a compromise would be to have a category to clearly show that those books are self-published.

I'm more concerned with pages for unpublished works and authors -- pages like Vashtan and Transgressions.

I agree that if users want to put such information on their user page that's fine, but just as Wikipedia has a rule that people must be important in some way to have their own page, I think we need some sort of policy about who qualifies as an author. Something as simple as the author the author must have a book available for purchase somewhere (this definition would cover self-publishers, I guess, but not free fiction). --Amy 15:48, 14 March 2008 (PDT)

Agreed, again (g). If there isn't a book with a firm publication date (some authors are creating their pages in advance of release, but they clearly have releases pending), and that includes "TBD" as a date, then the information should be part of the User page, not an author listing.

I'm also growing increasingly inclined to tag the self-published author pages as part of a self-published category. I mean, we give this type of publishing information for other authors -- who publishes them, etc -- so it makes sense. And, being lazy, a category makes it easier to monitor what's happening.--Romancewiki 17:21, 14 March 2008 (PDT)

That sounds like a good idea. A new category. --Kay T 20:37, 16 March 2008 (PDT)

Since we seemed to agree on the category idea, I've created one and tagged some books with it: Category:Self-Published Books. --Amy 10:47, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

The Internet Is For Porn

Well, it had to happen sooner or later - someone would post something that some people will say is erotica, and others will call "outright porn." The Literotica entry links to a site that boasts a lot of fiction. But, it also has pictures, videos, naughty Flash games, and personals. Ergo, kinda in the spirit of the wiki, but also kinda not. Technically, we can get this site on the "Fiction on the web for Free isn't published," nitpick, but then that does take out actual reputable erotica sites, like Cleansheets.com, etc. And these guys do have their own print anthology, which does not appear to be self-published (or available). We coudl get them on having pictures, but plenty of Erotica authors have over-18 pics on their sites, or galleries of their heroes/covers. Personally, I don't mind including this site in our erotica section, but it does strike me as the start of a slippery slope where pornographic sites are concerned. I presume were' against actual porn sites advertising here (or at least I am, not because I'm a prude but because those sites seem to find me JUST FINE without the wiki, it seems), and while this site specifically does not use or condone pop-up windows, if we have a lax policy on it, others probably will.

Or maybe the'll leave us alone - you never know. But I still think it's wise to have a policy in place on these things, BEFORE it gets to be a real issue. --Robini 10:57, 24 November 2007 (PST)