Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ron Horsley

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. Johnleemk | Talk 15:10, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ron_Horsley

• Hey, guys, look: I've gotten emails about this the last day or so, and I'm flattered that Zeppelin thinks I'm noteworthy enough for a Wiki article. When she first told me she'd done it I was upset that she hadn't asked first, and also bothered because it's become just another place where anonymous jerks can cast their insults at me because they can't deal with me directly or straight. I can even appreciate that she's passionate about what she thinks is right and that other people feel the same about their own convictions here. I like Wiki myself even though I'm not a regular visitor.

But the fact is, life's too short to be arguing over nonsense like whether or not a website article is "worthy" or something like that. Just take a break, go pet a cat, go visit friends. I know personally that none of this matters in the long run, okay? Take a cue and just go find things worth arguing about.

Zeppelin, calm down please, okay? If people want to attack me that's just them wasting their time on useless stuff, don't get caught up in it thinking you're somehow protecting some vital national resource. I'm just not that important.

I gave you the picture and the sources because you said you wanted to validate the article and improve it and I'm not going to say no to someone wanting to write about my work, and I stand by that work for the same reasons you've gone on about here. But I didn't give you the info or the picture or anything else to contribute to some vandal-defender war and abuse this site, all right?

Don't take it personally, it's just a website reference, okay? I've done what work I can in the time I've got and if I produce more or manage to get a bit more notice, fine and dandy. But this isn't the place to push such things and there are obviously people here already looking after the integrity of the site and its contents. Thanks. And Zep, thanks for letting me have some editorial say on the article, but as of now I'm done with it. --Ron Horsley

Vanity page Kynn 23:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• Keep The author and work has merit, even if the author is not a 'nationally known' figure. Only one work has been truly brought under question but other works of the author, either art or writing, have verifiable sources with legitimate publishers or websites.--Zeppelin85
• Delete. This page is a vanity page. Authors and writers are notable if they have released a book (other than through vanity press) --Kynn 23:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
  • The stories were published in recognized presses or are being released from recognized non-"vanity" sources (see the article. Locus Magazine's index has him listed for his book art and for his story publications, and one of his stories hasn't even been out yet but is already acknowledged on Shocklines). Are you only allowed writers if they're known for novels? I don't see that as being listed in the Wiki rules. We have poets here, as well as short fiction authors.--Zeppelin85
• Delete vanity or possibly attack page, as much of the content is pretty inflammatory. The website in question has no Alexa rank. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:VAIN. WP:DNFT applies. Alba 03:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep due to previous comments having been based on vandalism. I got fooled. Alba 12:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Evidence: The parts that had made me vote Delete were all edits by 64.223.126.242, a non-logged-in user whose only edits were to Ron Horsley. In short: it was malicious vandalism in an effort to get the page AfD'd, and I got sucked in. Thanks to Zeppelin85 for correcting me.

• Keep Seems like a serious author and/or artist of nascent popularity. He has published and been paid for his works so I think that qualifies as notable and verifiable. The article could use some Wikifying though. –Shoaler (talk) 13:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • However, published and been paid for his works isn't the standard used by Wikipedia. --Kynn 14:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
    • If published and paid for works isn't the standard, then why did you mention at all that the one book Mr. Horsley *edited* was a "vanity" press? Shouldn't that be inconsequential then, if we're discussing the "overall" merit of someone to have a Wiki article about them? Unlike some authors here, there isn't even a link to his site or any promoting/sales sites for his works. The only time it came up was when I (in error) did so to try and defend against the vandalism that occurred on the article (which, in fact, it was the vandals who first made any mention or link to his site). So if the sources are now provided for the claims, and the works have appeared in not just POD but legitimately-recognized publications, what exactly are you claiming as your source for merit? How many books or stories it was? What organizations a person is or isn't a member of? What authors they're friends or? If you can clarify exactly what your barometer is, I think it would help clear up what is your issue with nominating this for deletion some months after it was already on the Wiki system. And if you have some clear guidelines for your vote, then perhaps we could take those and see if there's any other article on Wiki that you've nominated (or maybe just overlooked) that come under the same guidelines. Wiki has to be treated with some consistency, even when we have case-by-case issues, or else its integrity would be compromised. If you're just ultimately saying "nobody's heard of him," then we could again go through Wiki, even just the writers' sections, and see if anybody's commonly heard of a number of authors in those areas.--Zeppelin85
      • As for why "vanity" press, see the rules on notable on wikipedia. I quoted from that directly. By the way, who are you and what's your name? You know mine, and yet you've accused me of being a fake person. Who are you and what do you do? (Are you Ron?) --Kynn 06:36, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
        • My name is Mary Lennell, and I am not a professional author but a fan of the horror fiction field. No, I am not Ron, as I've already said. I believe in his work because it attracted my attention when another author I like, Gary Braunbeck, began to mention his work on his site and through having Mr. Horsley design some of the book covers for his collections. As for what I do professionally, I don't see why you're supposed to have so much more information on me, I'm not more 'anonymous' than any other registered member of the site, merely a newer one. I had some interest in maybe writing fiction and started writing to Mr. Horsley about a year ago when he started promoting his availability to read and give honest reviews for people's work. I work in a customer service office, a floor supervisor for a medical supplies company. And lastly: you are still misunderstanding what I originally said when I had doubts about your motivation. I have *never* said you were 'anonymous,' I have never said you were anyone but who you say you are. The only time I mentioned anyone's 'anonymity' was with respect to the vandals who kept vandalizing the page for their own reasons. All I've ever mentioned doubting about you is your truer motivations behind asking this article be deleted months after it was created, and especially now that I've added the sources to verify its claims to legitimacy. You don't seem to be having any votes for deletion towards many other author articles with even less reason to be on Wiki and no verification sources cited. Go through what I wrote. I never once said anything about you being somebody else.
• I wrote this article for Mr. Horsley as he is a correspondent and writing friend of mine and I thought his work merited note just like many contemporaries of his that are also on Wiki. He did not write it himself. He is aware of the article but the vandals who have edited in the past with inflammatory remarks are to be blamed, not him.

The only time prior to my most recent edit that his website was even linked on his article was when vandals were attempting to draw further attention to him for purposes of defamation. They also posted links to another author's site, and those were similarly removed. I didn't put the page up to promote any product of his, only to show that he has worked to contribute to writing and book cover art design.

Many books by other authors on Wiki are POD releases or small-press releases. It's debated, but not any official recognition that these are the same thing.

I doubt many "vanity" press releases got noticed by the Stoker Awards or are given honorable mention by the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror for that year. Also, Gauntlet Press is releasing Masques V, which contains Mr. Horsley's last story, and it is not considered a 'vanity' press.' Nor are the other publications where Mr. Horsley has appeared. The book mentioned the Midnighters Club was edited by Horsley, not attributed as one of his novels or short stories. Other authors are recognized in the same article I wrote, and this article recognizes their contribution to that collection as well.

Wiki's own rules state: "An article should not be dismissed as "vanity" simply because the subject is not famous. There is currently no consensus about what degree of recognition is required to justify a unique article being created in Wikipedia (although consensus exists regarding particular kinds of article, for instance see Template:IncGuide). Borderline cases are frequently nominated for deletion and discussed on WP:AFD. Lack of fame is not the same as vanity."

"The key rule is to not write about yourself, nor about the things you've done or created. If they are encyclopedic, somebody else will notice them and write an article about them."

I know of Mr. Horsley through both personal correspondence and professional appreciation of what he's done the last few years in his field. That was why I wrote the article, and I felt it deserved recognition and accurate record (which Wiki prides itself on being and which I agree with). User: Zeppelin85

• • One last thing...just in randomly going through US writers stubs like the one I wrote, there are a number of authors with little or not information about any major accomplishments or clarification of their importance, either. Are all of those subject to deletion then? and I don't mean to sound like I'm casting aspersions, but I have to question motivation on this nomination in the first place. it's been on Wiki for some months now, and the first name I see here, "Kynn," is not listed as a registered user of Wiki, and when I did a search the only search result that came up was Nick Mamatas, an author who is one of the main critics of Horsley lately. Doesn't seem like a very objective, encyclopedic motive for someone asking an article be deleted for relevancy or vandalism, I'm sorry. If "Kynn" is voting for its deletion on realistic grounds, that's fine and open to discussion as it is here...but it doesn't seem like that's really the motivation behind this request, or else maybe Kynn should've been saying something when I first contributed the article. --Zeppelin85
    • I'm sorry, are you saying I'm not a registered user? I most certainly am, and have been for some time now. List of my contributions I'm also most assuredly not Nick Mamatas. Truth to tell, as a published author myself (albeit of computer books), I likely qualify for my own entry. But that seems too much like a vanity page. Here's my web site. Oh, here's Zeppelin85's edits, by the way. This page, plus a few Superman edits? Frankly, I think it's telling that I'm being accused of being a sock puppet by someone quite anonymous. --Kynn 14:47, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The Midnighters Club was "published" by infinitypublishing.com, a vanity publishing service. It is the only book Horsley has produced. Incidentally, the Bram Stoker award process is open to any sort of work, even vanity published work. This is a matter of some controversy within the Horror Writers Association, and receiving Stoker recommendations (one or more members voting for a short story or other item) in itself proves nothing about the status of a vanity press. A vanity press is a press where the author or editor pays the service to produce the book, and the service then owns the book. Infinity Press, the "publisher" of Horsley's only book, undoubtedly qualifies.

The HWA, which administrates the Bram Stoker award, has this to say, re: the importance of Stoker recommendations (http://www.horror.org/stoker-etiquette.htm):

You may mention that your work has appeared on the Stoker Awards preliminary or final ballot. However, you may not promote your work at all as "Stoker Recommended." See point 6 below. And you may not refer to your work as a "Stoker Nominee" unless it has appeared on the FINAL ballot.

You may not promote your work as "Stoker Recommended." Receiving a handful of Stoker recommendations is a far cry from winning the award or even from being listed on the preliminary ballot. It devalues the Stokers to have their name attached to works whose only defining characteristic may be that one or two HWA members liked them.

A "recommendation" is nothing more than a bookkeeping formality. It takes a large number of recommendations to achieve the preliminary ballot, and then the preliminary ballot is voted on by Active HWA members to create the final ballot. "Stoker recommended" can thus mean that only a single HWA member, including a beginning Affiliate member, enjoyed a story. It is not in any way a sign of superior quality or virtuous publication.

The same can be said for receiving an "Honorable Mention" in the Years Best Fantasy and Horror. Literally hundreds of stories per year receive "HMs", as they are known in the field. The back matter of ann annual YBFH will have dozens of pages listing honorably mentioned stories in a tiny font. It isn't unusual for an author to gain four-six HMs in a single year. Receiving an HM is of virtually no value.

• • • MY apologies, Kynn. When I last clicked on your name entry, it didn't come up with your account. Today it does. For some reason, though, when I did searched on the user name via the search field, the only article that kept popping up was the Mamatas entry.

And for the record, I never said you WERE that author, merely that that's the article that came up when your name was searched through that option. It did seem to make it suspect that you were asking for the article's deletion on top of having that reference result to your name.

And I might add that Wiki itself recognizes print-on-demand publishing for what it specifically is (here, just to help clarify, is the Wiki article Print on demand). Just to help clear this up once and for all, the DEFINING difference between a vanity press and a print-on-demand service is that a vanity press claims to be a publisher while charging fees from the writers. A print-on-demand publisher is up-front about charging fees to writers so that they have the facilities to self-publish their works for release (such as promotional books for copy, as well as small-press books that don't have their own resources to print). Several of the small-press groups in the horror field right now have utilized or are utilizing sub-contracted printing options such as this. It doesn't automatically make them 'vanity' press. A vanity press is often used to describe the scam groups that are trying to wholly masquerade as 'publishers' and actively solicit writers to get their money. Infinity has a website and a storefront; from what I see, they're not on any lists for soliciting or spamming anybody.

In fact, if you google them, Infinity looks to be one of those few POD publishers who are NOT pulling off scams and bad-quality print deals with the people who go to them.

I realize it's a fine distinction sometimes, what is vanity and what is POD, but it seems to me the biggest difference is who is printing books and who is just after people's money without producing anything. But again, even on Wiki's entry for "vanity Publishing," it says specifically:

"On the other hand, many reputable companies offer printing (and perhaps limited distribution) for a fee. If honest, such companies will explain their fees, what they do offer and do not offer, and how their service differs from that of a traditional commercial publisher. Such services can be a viable way for an author to self-publish without owning printing equipment."

I think that clarifies that at least for purposes of argument here, there IS a very clear difference still in existence between a POD service and a vanity press. If you honestly think Mr. Horsley only commissioned the book to be printed for his own amusement, perhaps you should contact any of the authors from that collection and ask if they were paid royalties from any copies sold, or if they were paid only partial fees for their stories. You won't necessarily hear about payment or royalties from some other supposedly-legitimate presses, and some of those aren't even still in business as the POD printers are.

And by the way, regarding the rules of etiquette on the HWA you refer to...these rules are with respect to promoting a specific work with the intention of helping its sales or award-recogntion, particularly during that period in which the work is still within the awards period.

It says nothing about being permitted to mention that a work is Stoker-recommended WHEN IT WAS in fact so recommended, as a matter of record. That's like saying we can't ever refer to a book as having been published if it didn't sell 'x' number of minimum copies.

The mention of the recommendations is a matter of fact, and I put that in because it is, in fact, true about the work and the stories that were recommended in it. It's only of the reasons I made to mention Darren Godfrey, Edmund Plante, and William Gagliani, all of whom had stories that got critical recognition thanks to their appearing in this book.

If you read that section as thoroughly as I did, you'd see that in the very first heading of explanation, it even says

"To clarify what's acceptable and what's not when promoting a work for the Stokers, HWA's Officers and Trustees have formulated the following guidelines."

I think you're missing the words "when promoting a work for the Stokers." It says nothing whatsoever anywhere in the etiquette about the mention of the work in perpetuity, in other contexts, with respect to its recommendation.

Wiki articles are meant to convey accuracy even if it's one that some people seem to find for some reason of their own undesirable to have recorded, and yes I have not written or edited many articles...for someone as familiar as you seem to be with policy, maybe you should also refresh the point about how it's not about how many articles one user has or hasn't contributed to.

I appreciate your argument, but I think it's based on popular misconception and not necesarily on any real desire to make sure that 'inaccuracies' are removed from Wiki. The article now has verification sources for its claims which should be sufficient to verify that it is accurate insofar as his work in book designs and publishing, only ONE credit of which is related to this POD/vanity debate at all.

John Kennedy Toole only wrote two books in his life, but the main one, "A Confederacy of Dunces," considered now a classic, even though it wasn't recognized until twenty years after he died. Would you like his entry removed because he didn't write more, or because his one book was only published because his mother solicited people to please publish it after he died? Or that we can't mention the Pulitzer it won because it's not Pulitzer committee etiquette to mention any such wins, nominations, or recommendations that the novel received?

Not to make a really absurd point, but nobody seems to mind Oprah's 'recommendation' being slapped onto the printing of a book cover today, and that's not even an award, it's just a celebrity thinking everybody should read a particular book.--Zeppelin85

• • I wish that Zeppelin85 could figure out who exactly it is responding to (hint: I only wrote the parts I signed), and I think the comparison of Ron Horsley to John Kennedy Toole is a pretty lame argument. But I've made my vote and made my case, so I don't see much point in continuing to argue. --Kynn 06:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I was answering all the points that had been brought up since last participating, Kynn, not just your own, sorry for your confusion. And I was not comparing the two men in terms of literary merit or influence. Once again, you're mixing up one aspect of the argument for another in order to not get the point. If you read my comments with respect to Toole, what I meant was to compare that the man is recognized for having literary and social significance even though his body of work was small and was only initially published at the urging of his mother after his death, not by his own promotional effort or a publisher being willing to undertake his work, but perhaps more from the motivation that his mother seemed to impress on those who later saw the book as viable. Even I'll agree that Horsley isn't Toole, please try to keep the idea of what's being specifically addressed straight.

And since you've made your case and stand by it, I think that's fine. As it stands, there are already votes sufficient to keep the article and sources cited to verify its claims, and all literary or Wiki issues regarding it meeting standards of non-vanity article are satisfied. I appreciate your effort to help keep Wiki truthful and accurate, but I think in this case the issue has been clarified enough. You might not agree that Mr. Horsley is worthy of note, but if that's the case then you and I could easily cooperate in clearing out a lot more articles that are currently uncontested on Wiki, and perhaps either way the standards will improve. --Zeppelin85

• Keep (Gah! too much discussion!) A borderline case, but a legit author. The article could stand to be cleaned up for neutrality, though. Mangojuice 20:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as Mangojuice. Article as it stands is a stub, but locus magazine is big enough.AKAF 17:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

If Wikipedia defines the difference between vanity and POD as stated above, then the vanity press article needs correction. The distinction between vanity and self-publication is not chicanery on the part of vanity presses (Vantage, for example, self-identifies as a vanity press and is honest about the fate of most of its titles), but on who owns the books once they are produced. If the author who has contracted with the printer owns the units, the author has self-published. If the "publisher" owns the books, and pays the author royalties based on sales, and offers the author an "author's discount" for purchasing units at a price above the costs of production, overhead, and the profit received as a printer, then the author has vanity published the book. This is the case with Infinitypublishing.com. The Midnighters Club is vanity published. It is the only book Horsley has produced. If individual short stories were sufficient for a wikipedia entry, there would be hundreds of thousands more of "authors" eligible for listing.

• • You make a solid point about differentiating the two types of press, however again I have to bring up that Wikipedia's own article still states that vanity presses can be considered legitimate forms of publishing for authors and writers who do not wish to go through the traditional and costly methods of publication/distribution. Also you state that a difference is whether or not the author receives payment or royalties. Mr. Horsley isn't the author, he's the editor of the piece. He chose the stories that went into the collection and made the arrangements for the publication they were to appear in. The funds sent to him, as I understand it, were then paid out as royalties due to the authors whenever copies were sold. If we're going solely by publisher definition, then it's still a fine line. If we're going on relationship from publisher to author, instead of just publisher to editor as middle-man in the relationship, then in this case the authors were paid royalties by the editor, via funds sent by the publisher to be so distributed. In the office I work in, such distinctions are fine but they're important in determining the definition of a given relationship. The original printing service may function to its direct author-contractors as a vanity press, but to the authors whose work was contributed to the majority of the book, it was a small-press publication via a POD relationship. Their work sells and they get royalties from the editor as the book is sold to a customer. Perhaps some clarification needs to be explored in the vanity press and POD articles, but it still seems like a strong difference to me.

The main reason POD has so quickly become associated with vanity press is not just the mechanism of distribution being similar, but because vanity press by its frequent abuse is already a lumped-in category of scam-artists and bad product. The fact is, POD is still a relatively new method of taking advantage of electronic advances in publishing. It doesn't mean it's to be immediately and forever discounted. If that's the case, then we can go ahead and say that websites and the internet in total are completely ridiculous and not serious avenues of commerce (which we all agree is long-since established not to be the case). The internet, even eBay, has been used for scams and bad management. So to has POD and small-press publishing. But you don't autoamtically say that eBay is a fraud, or that every website that goes up to sell something is automatically something to be laughed off. The dot-coms were a tremendous, public failure, just as many bad POD's and vanity presses have failed. It doesn't mean we write off the whole concept or say that it's forever second-rate. A lot of physical book chains laughed off Amazon.com when it started, too.

And again...if you're going to say that short stories are somehow not valid publishing credentials...then you're going by a discrimination against a single form of art and still allowing numerous others. In terms of content, you can't argue it:H.G. Wells was known for many short stories and essays, not just novels. In terms of literary recognition, go to any school English class and open the text: most of the material printed for education purposes are short stories. In terms of length, you can't argue: poems, haikus, and "flash" fiction are all far shorter, and still recognized as valid even here on Wiki (we have articles for Edna St.Vincent Millay, Robert Browning, etc.).

In fact, in going through some of those same articles today in response to your comments, I found an interesting bit in Browning's Wiki article:

"In May 1833, Browning's Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession was published anonymously by Saunders and Otley, in many ways a vanity publication financed by his family, and this marked the beginning of his career as a poet. "

Just because we've got the hindsight of the future to say it's valid because it's Robert Browning, doesn't make the commentary of this definition of his very beginning work as a significant poet any less of merit with respect to your argument.

If Mr. Browning can have his first major publication as poet discounted under your standard, and if the rest of his work can be discounted because it's poetry and therefore physically of less length than the average short story...and if we go further with your logic that it's the notoriety of a given subject that warrants note (look in the same article; it says clearly that in his first several works Browning received little if any public response to his efforts), then every argument here suggests that we should consider discounting at least about half of Browning's work, so that it's in keeping with a Wiki ideal of not recognizing anything but lengthy works that sold a lot of copies and were only novels in nature, not any short genre fiction.

I think if you can appreciate it'd be silly to discount someone like Robert Browning, then it would be similarly silly to start making unwritten rules that short fiction can't be noted for an author's record or their merit to be recorded. And as for the idea that we'd have that many more short-fiction authors listed on Wiki....are we running out of room here, necessarily? I realize there are server and bandwidth limitations, but are we really in peril to Wiki being "too big" with reference information about any and all viable subjects? --Zeppelin85

• • • Just for further reference on what we're debating here, you might want to look at these articles:

David Schickler Ana Castillo Breece D'J Pancake Michael Byers David J. Schow Noah Cicero

All of these, by the way, were found specifically in the Wiki section for American short story writers. So we can't discriminate against an author for being noted as a short story author. Some of these authors are little-known, some of them are only known for very little bodies of work, some are known only by having written short stories, while still others have had publications that have appeared thanks to less-traditional methods of publication or "vanity" press systems, still others amongst this list were people who are noted for having received awards, scholarships, fellowships, etc., from highly specialized and not-widely-known sources.

All of them are being, I presume, uncontested entries here on Wiki as valid records of valid literary contributors of one stature or another. (I list David Schow because he is a prolific and highly-regarded author, but even he has had his work appear in small-press publishers such as Subterranean Press). And Noah Cicero is noted as having his work "extensively published on the Internet" as a majority of his cited writing credit.

I think Wiki's big enough to list a lot more writers, big small and of all types of genre of writing. If we're going to start policing it based on certain arbitrary measurements, then we're not saving its integrity. We'll just be cutting subjects out that have merit in being part of public record. --Zeppelin85

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.