Talk:Linnea Sinclair

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External links[edit]

I might have overdone it with external links to various publishing houses and a literary agency. Your opinions please? Debresser (talk) 19:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Birthdate[edit]

Linnea's birthdate is not specified, as per her request and in accordance with Wikipedia's guidelines on Biographies of living persons. Debresser (talk) 19:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Copyedit & comments[edit]

Overall, the article looks very good. A couple of things got my attention.

  • "She has used the pseudonym Megan Sybil Baker. Published by Bantam Books." This seems choppy, especially for the lead paragraph. Would this be true? "Linnea uses the pseudonym Megan Sybil Baker when writing Paranormal Romance (or whatever genre she uses the MSB pen name for) for Bantam Books."
  • I would combine all four sections under Work into one or two paragraphs. I see it would be easy to segue Creative process into Writer and PI into Furzels and cats making for two sections under Work.

Debresser - I'd dive into the research/edits myself but have a huge list of things I need to deal with. --Marc Kupper|talk 09:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your nice words. It's my first whole article.
  • That's a good question. Somewhere later in the article it says that she's beeing published by Bantam since 2004. That could be worked into the lead, or the whole thing could be taken out of the lead. I prefer the latter. Any objections?
  • You're right. The two sections could then be called e.g. "Genre and style" and "Work and private life". But then again, apart from the subsections being small, I do not see any reason to do so. Your opinions? Debresser (talk) 11:24, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Genre and style" and "Work and private life" seems good. I believe what struck me about the current layout is that it seems the article is abusing Wikipedia:NPOV a little and I believe the narrative format would lessen this.
Another concern is many of the references are blogs and the article is running into Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources issues. I believe though that if WP:RS and related pages was the "rule of the land of Wikipedia" that 99% of the article content found on Wikipedia would have to be removed. Nearly every single person, organization, practice, etc. that currently has an article is simply not does not pass WP:Notability. Thus while Linnea Sinclair does not seem to genuinely pass muster as a "notable person" she's not a complete nobody either meaning the odds are that if the Wikipedia police notice this article they may well move on without tagging it for deletion as there are many references and other things that are making it a good article. --Marc Kupper|talk 20:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again, for your criticism as well as for your praise.
When I put together this article, I was well aware of the three weak points you mention. For obvious reasons I tried to overcome them as much as possible, and to hide them where I couldn't. You seem to have seen through. However, I think I could counter on all points.
  1. Although I am favourably inclined towards the work of Linnea Sinclair, I think I managed to keep the article on the correct site of NPOV. This I really mean.
  2. I did my best to gather as much sources as I could. It just happens that most interviews are posted on blogs. I would say that an interview in a blog, is not the same as a blog per se, which is little else than an op-ed column. Especially when different sources point to the same things.
  3. She is not Isaac Asimov, but I would contend she has made a name in her field(s), and I think that is proven by the well referenced awards you can see accompanying her various titles. Debresser (talk) 21:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Agreed - The article does not reek of fandom but still it reads like it's written by someone struggling to not appear too fannish. Part of the problem is the source for nearly all of the material is the author herself. Better sources would be reviews and where a person wrote about the author or her work from their own point of view and is not regurgitating the author's self promotion. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Notability (people). Linnea is borderline. I see that Fantastic Fiction has a page which is a good sign as the person who maintains that site does not index one-off authors. 37,200 web pages per Google is not bad at all.
  2. Agreed and I'm wondering if Wikipedia will change their stance on blogs and bloggish web sites and more and more mainstream people are publishing their work in this format. The hard work will be figuring out and somehow documenting that a particular blog is "reliable", "intellectually independent", and "independent of the subject".
  3. Yes, the awards are an excellent notability point, particularly the 2006 RITA Award which I just added to the lead-in as that in itself may well be the notability point that'll keep the article safe from the Wiki Police. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
About merging the subsections in the 'Work'-section. I think the Furzels deserve their own subsection, if only because it is something people might be looking for. Debresser (talk) 21:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While they seem to be cute the Furzels only rate 270 web pages. The odds are someone looking for one will use Google which tends to rank Wikipedia high and they'll find the article even if a Furzel was hiding in the body text. Anyway, I'm not overly concerned about the four sections. If Sinclair has other characters or themes besides Furzels showing up in more than one work then it would be worth mentioning as part of a common themes and characters section. The challenge is avoiding WP:OR as we'd really need a reliable/citable source to do the research/documentation of the common themes/characters which can then be noted/cited in the article. Overall, Wikipedia can be annoying at times. It's likely you are now among the world's leading Linnea Sinclair experts but you can't cite yourself... --Marc Kupper|talk 22:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Summary[edit]

I'm done on Wikipedia for the weekend but thought I'd wrap on outstanding items that got my attention.

  • The article is still choppy at times and it seems to be based largely on her self promotion. The independently established facts seem to be the awards, list of books, the pen name Megan Sybil Baker, and the genre those books appeared in. Nearly everything else is unsupported self promotion. I know some of it is from interviews, etc. but there no evidence that the interviewers tried to verify the information. I have not seen it in other articles but it may work to say "The author says of herself ...." I would run this by the Help_desk. I also thought you could apply to get a Wikipedia Mentor but I can't find that at the moment.
  • Wikipedia is not intended for lists and the article text is reading like a list of facts rather than narrative format prose.
  • The lead needs work
    • "She has used the pseudonym Megan Sybil Baker" - This is confusing as it's in the lead and then never mentioned again or supported. It appears from what's on Amazon that some of her work was either printed or reprinted under the MSB banner but I could not see a consistent pattern. For example, I did not see any works that were published only under MSB.
  • "Plays the piano, organ, guitar and harp" - probably belongs under "Personal" - it's certainly not "lead" material.
  • "A former news reporter" is mentioned a couple of times, including in the lead, but the article never mentions who she wrote for.
  • There was a minor conflict in that the lead says "retired private detective" but further down it's "She owns Island Investigations" in the present time. I see her LinkedIn page puts "Island Investigations" in her past (1989—2000) and so fixed that. As Island Investigations is entirely from her self promotion and not second source verifiable (unless you want to dig up PI and business licenses) I suspect this and other unverifiable information will need to be removed.
  • Something worth mining for additional information is the LinkedIn page to see if citable supporting references be dug up for the "Locus Top Ten", "USA Today Extended Bestseller list", and other claims. It'll probably be easier to e-mail her and ask for when she appeared on the USA Today list and then to go to the library to dig up the actual issues. You cite those with {{cite news}}. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:57, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You said 'I suspect this and other unverifiable information will need to be removed'. From reading about Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons I understand that it is allowed to bring biographical data from primary sources. Apart from that, there is an independent source, as you mention yourself in the next section. Debresser (talk) 06:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to find out which books she published under her pen name. There is some more information on that subject I forgot about. Please be patient one more day and I'll take care of that.
What instruments she plays is indeed not material for the lead. I also don't see any other place for it. Especially since it is not realy relevant information. Perhaps I'd better delete it. Debresser (talk) 07:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Island Investigations (1989—2000)[edit]

Debresser, regarding your reverting what I had added to the article. The web sites Linnea Sinclair has direct control over (her linked in page, personal web site, etc.) are consistent is stating she's a former PI. Her linkedin page also states

  • Current: Author at Random House
  • Past: Private Investigator at Island Investigations (Self-employed)
  • A former news reporter and retired private detective
  • 2004—Present (5 years) - Author for Random House
  • 1989—2000 (11 years) - Private Investigator for Island Investigations (Self-employed) Self employed private investigator in the Tampa FL area

Per what's she writing about herself she no longer owns/runs Island Investigations and apparently hasn't operated it for 8 or 9 years.

She does not have control over the secretsoftopprivateeyes web site as it belongs to someone else. That sites data may have been correct years ago and perhaps to help increase sales they simply don't bother to mention she has not been a PI for eight years. The home page is particularly misleading, or Linnea is wrong on own pages, with comments like "Linnea Sinclair, Private Investigator, operates the highly successful full service Private Investigator firm, 'Island Investigations.'"

Given the conflicting statements I'd tend to go with what she's saying today about herself on multiple web sites rather than this single site which exists to sell a $139 book and CD and likely would be considered a very poor source reference as it's clearly not neutral/researched information. --Marc Kupper|talk 04:15, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, you are mistaken about the secretsoftopprivateeyes 'may have been correct years ago', since it is dated and the date is October 04, 2008.
But the main thing is that the sources don't necessarily contradict. On her Linkedin page she says she worked as a PI from 1989 till 2000. On secretsoftopprivateeyes it says that shey owns the company. Two different things. Debresser (talk) 06:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You were right. She corrected it herself. :) Debresser (talk) 17:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. One comment is that the file date of a web page is often not reliable as a page could get updated to fix a minor typo for example. Also with some web software you create/maintain the site on your own computer and periodically push the entire site out. It'll also happen if you switch web hosting companies. In the case of secretsoftopprivateeyes it looks like a combination of both. The images are all dated May 22, 2008 between 4:58pm to 5:02pm except for one file that's dated May 23rd. printform.htm is dated Aug 4, 2008 and all of the other html files other than index.html are dated Oct 4, 2008. Index.html (the home page) is dated Nov 27, 2008. The implication is the entire site was uploaded, probably to a new hosting company, on May 22nd, and that there was a revision to the html on Oct 4, 2008 with the home page getting a final tweak a month later. The sample.html file has a copyright of 1992 to 2006 by Investigative Professionals. Presumably the course and later the web site have existed in one form or another since then. One of the two course authors, Anni Adkins, owns the domain (Aug 10, 2000 to present) and also has her personal site at www.anniadkins.com. This site mentions she's partnered with Joe Hoover who is the other course author. Mr. Hoover has www.joehoover.com where is bio reports more detail on PI related courses/programs (and the romance with Ms. Adkins providing more evidence that the guys and gals see things differently). Their www.HowToInvestigate.com domain was created in 1998 and www.InvestigativeProfessionals.com in June 2000 shortly before www.secretsoftopprivateeyes.com. Thus it appears these people have a side business since at least 1992 of creating PI related courses and presumably updating them meaning it overlaps well with Linnea Sinclair's time as a PI. The "Linnea Sinclair owns Island Investigations" statement is accurate if you look at in view of she did own it at the time the PI course was created (1992?) and that her contribution to the course has not been updated since then. I guess that's enough amateur sleuthing for now. :-) --Marc Kupper|talk 19:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not bad, my friend. Not bad. :) Debresser (talk) 21:32, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PEARL awards and Awards section[edit]

I was looking to see if PEARL is "notable" and noticed that a number of related authors have an "Awards" or "Awards and nominations" section

PEARL itself does not seem notable enough for its own article though it gets a section at Paranormal romance#Awards. --Marc Kupper|talk 19:14, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know all of the above.

I opted for intertwining the awards with the booklist. Personally I think this is a lot better. Thanks for the trouble. Debresser (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's an article on the P.E.A.R.L. award on RomanceWiki. I had an external link pointing there, but quite some external links have been deleted in accordance with Wikipedia policy. Debresser (talk) 20:58, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects[edit]

Since this is the second time my edit has been reverted I am bringing the discussion here. My edits keep being reverted saying that having redirect is intentional, this leads me to believe that redirecting is not sufficiently understood. The link Romantic fantasy, when you click on it, takes you to the article Fantasy romance which means that Romantic fantasy is a redirect link. If you want more information on redirects see WP:REDIRECT.

What I am doing is bypassing the redirected link but not changing the way the link looks. This is the wiki code: from [[Romantic fantasy|Romantic Fantasy]] to [[Fantasy romance|Romantic Fantasy]] and this is how it looks from Romantic Fantasy to Romantic Fantasy. It doesn't change but the redirect has been bypassed. There is no reason to go through a redirect when you can just link to the correct article in the first place. Do not revert my edit without discussing this here and do not try to WP:OWN an article; If you don't want your material to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it. --ImmortalGoddezz (t/c) 20:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And you might as well learn that even immortals are fallible. :)
Actually my reason is very simple, and you couldn't have known. On the other hand, I didn't expect anybody to be this stubborn about what must have looked to you as a minor detail.
When I first looked for an article on Fantasy Romance, I was surprised none existed. Then I found Romance novels with a subsection on Science Fiction Romance, which mentioned Fantasy Romance. But again not even a subsection of its own. As I wrote on the Talk page there, I hope somebody will make such a subsection, and I even have hopes that subsection (and the one on Science Fiction Romance as well) will turn into a separate article. Consequently I decided to create that page, Fantasy Romance, and to have it redirect for the meantime to Romantic Fantasy, which is very closely related to Fantasy Romance anyway. But, with an eye on future developments, I thought it better to let the link in this article point to where it belongs, which is Fantasy Romance, rather than pointing anywhere else and later changing it.
I hope you understand what I did and why. I am very aware of Wikipedia policy, and hope you agree with me I did the right thing. Debresser (talk) 20:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
ImmortalGoddezz, please see WP:R2D. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I am aware of that policy however the two topics, romantic fantasy and fantasy romance are very entwined. If a subsection is created it might be notable, but I doubt that there is enough distinction between the two to merit having a complete page on the subject. Since there is very little distinction between the two topics, as of right now somebody might wander over here and say there is no difference or very little difference that its indistinguishable, the link should point to the redirected page (not the redirect page) unless the redirect itself is going to be changed relatively soon (eg. a few days). As per Debresser's note on my talk page about WP:OWN comment: Reverting and giving this edit summary I'm the one who made that page and the redirect is on purpose. Even is you don't understand it without bringing it to the discussion page is pretty much saying 'I made this change, don't edit it' which is owning, however since we both reverted each other at least once and I could be called the same I will drop the issue and say it might have been premature on my part. --ImmortalGoddezz (t/c) 14:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it may be "pretty much" the same, but it isn't, and I never intended it to be. It would seem you had better pay more attention to what that same page you quoted says about "assuming good faith" and "accusing other editors of owning the article may appear aggressive". And believe me that pushing the undo button was not an easy decision for me. I happen to have read all the relevant policies before I did so, as well as taking into account your personal reaction. Please also notice that various other Wikipedians have made all kinds of changes to the article as well.
One experienced Wikipedian has already expressed his opinion that the previous version was fine as it was. I want to ask somebody else to express his opinion here too. I'm awaiting his reaction here soonest. Debresser (talk) 19:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Debresser asked me to comment and I will :D. Now people, lets not be lame here... I think you both have good points but are talking through each other, not talking about the same thing.
First, Marc is correct in linking to WP:R2D: redirects are not only used to disambig and deal with alternative spellings, but also as placeholders for upcoming information; sometimes redirects go to specific sections, rather than whole articles. Redirects are non-trivial, and sometimes get much less respect than they deserve by editors. This is not just about policy, but about making an encyclopedia: in paper encyclopedias redirects also happen, commonly in indexes, and usually accompained with comments like "See article on "X" or "Part of article Z".
So Immortal, try to understand that Debresser is trying to ensure that the change you propose happens with an understanding that it is not simply a trivial change. I think you have reason to think he might be being WP:OWNy, but he is not really being owny: he is explaining what the motivation of the original edit, prompted by your explanation fo your reversion. You make a good point, but you are failing to even consider his point, intead, you concentrated on him, as an editor - that hardly ever has any other result other than an edit war. I know, I have been 'there.
It is true he should be careful when saying things like "my article" or "I never intended to be", and he should have explained his first reversion of you rather than wait until you responded, but it is also true that he is making a very interesting point as to what is meant by the term, about nuance, and in fact about the core encyclopedic task of cataloging knowledge in ever smaller discrete chunks.
My suggestion to both of you is to try to agree on the general point of nuance in the difference of "romantic fantasy" and "fantasy romance" (as an uninvolved editor, I really have no idea what the difference is, and as a total nerd, would love to know!) and bring others to the discussion. Perhaps it is time a section appeared in romantic fantasy that covered the nuance with fantasy romance, or even time for a short stub article on "Fantasy romance". You both have passion and understanding, and would make a great team if you set your mind to it... and remember, a stub is perhaps the most important type of article: it invites others to edit them, and provide at least some information.
Dig this:
One of the first articles I created under this account was a stub for Tula Arsenal which was then moved to Tula Arms Plant. This was more than three years ago. Since i started it, others have greatly expanded it, renamed it, and even added a photo. I cannot call it "my article", but I am proud of it, even if is still a stub after all these years. It has grown, slowly but surely, and dozens, perhaps hundreds, or even thousands of people who search google for "tula arms", "tula arsenal" or somesuch get some information out of wikipedia, instead of none. That is why I edit, and have edited, and come back, wikibreak after wikibreak, in spite of the sometimes heated environment some articles have. I feel like I am bequeathing something to humanity. --Cerejota (talk) 22:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your wise words.
I would already have writen something about Fantasy Romance, but do not feel myself qualified, for various reasons. But who knows. I do have some ideas for working on pages about David Weber and his Honorverse, Catherine Asaro and the Skolian Saga, and perhaps this too. Debresser (talk) 08:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and wrote a stub at Romance novel#Fantasy Romance plus replied to your talk message on that page. The stub is a summary of what's on Romantic fantasy. The Tula Arms Plant seems like an interesting retirement home. :-) --Marc Kupper|talk 10:51, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Great. This is the beginning of what I was hoping for. Debresser (talk) 11:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Categories[edit]

Dear Bearcat, thank you for adding the category "American women writers". But why did you remove the categories "writers" and "science fiction writers"?? She is a writer, and she is a science fiction writer. Debresser (talk) 10:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, about the references in Space warfare in fiction you were right. My mistake. Sorry. Debresser (talk) 10:08, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are right again. I had a look at [1] and it said to preferably categorize writers by genre. And at [2] it said to categorize science fiction writers by nationality. I might not completely agree with these instructions, but since this is an official guideline, I feel it necessary to amend what I did before. My apologies. Debresser (talk) 12:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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