Talk:Heroes in Hell

Merger list

Response to Wolfie

I strongly object to any significsnt changes of the sort described above. The existing texts are factually accurate, are consistent with established Wikipedia practice, and fairly and accurately present the relevant material in an appropriate context. I'll try to present the relevant points as briefly as I can manage, which won't be very.

Why? If existing Wikipedia practice is wrong, why would you not want to fix the problem.

The matter of original publication became an issue raised in the Lawyer in Hell AFD, which also developed into an informal merge discussion regarding the other volumes in the series.

Ah, but do you know what lead to the original AfD? It all happened because Orangemike ignored Wikipedia's rules, and did certain things in a manner which was not in compliance with how Wikipedia is supposed to operate. He happened to do so in a way, at a time, that totally ticked me off. You can read the history of it on his talk page. His later calling an AfD on the Lawyers in Hell page was also against the rules of Wikipedia. At the time I hadn't read them. I have since then, and my rules lawyering during the AfD is part of what got certain people exceptionally upset.

I will admit that at that point I really didn't give a damn who I annoyed.

There is no longer any dispute that "Gilgamesh in the Outback" and its two sequels, as well as "Newton Sleep," the other award-nominated story, were not originally published in the HiH series, but instead first appeared in magazines. See the discussion immediately above, particularly the copyright citations I provided. Note also that the technical, moderately obscure term "first serial" is a more specific way of designating that original publication occurred in magazine form, so that terms like "original publication" and "first appeared" are correct whenever "first serial" would be correct, and are easier to understand for any reader of the article not steeped in publishing industry legalisms.

In your mind there may not be. I knew a few of the people involved in the original Thieves World. I also know people who wrote for TSR (both books and games), I know people who are past and current contributors to Heroes in Hell, I know people who wrote for Marvel and D.C. Comics. I know all of the people involved in the Fifth Millennium Project, and it looks like I'll be the publisher of record for two of them.

In words that even you can understand, a story doesn't exist without a market. Benford and Silverberg could not have written those stories without Heroes in Hell as a market. My understanding from Janet is that they were given permission to take the stories to the magazine market by her. In the magazines there was a good sized blurb about the anthology. It's called advertising. Free advertising. Do you understand the concept?

The idea was that the magazines and the books would be published simultaneously, or as closely as possible considering the technology available at the time. She had no idea that 25 years later someone with no understanding of the publishing industry would totally misunderstand the situation and decide that both stories were originally purchased by the magazines, and only later purchased by the anthology.

Needless to say she is pretty upset. Oh, and I did read your user page. No, I don't talk to her on the phone. I talk to her like I talk to you, via keyboard.

Wikipedia practice generally is to identify the original publication of shorter works (review, for example, the articles on other Hugo- or Nebula-winning novellas), and that the pertinent infobox actually includes a field for doing so. It would be completely contrary to Wikipedia practice to mention a later publication/reprint of the story while suppressing information on the original publication. Note that the original publication was cited in the article for three-and-one-half-years, until the accurate publishing history was defaced by an SPA last week.

It wasn't a defacement. I was completing the merge that everyone was so excited about. You wanted the entire series merged, I was merging the entire series.

The phrasing in the articles as they stand conforms to standard Wikipedia usage, standard dictionary definitions, and the usage of the relevant professional organization, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). In SFWA's presentation "An Introduction to Publishing Contracts," online here [1], on page 15, "first serial" is limited in meaning to publication "prior to publication in book form," while "reprint" covers later publications in book form, including "collections."

This is the reverse of what you were arguing earlier. It would be useful if you were to make up your mind.

There are many examples of Wikipedia articles where the first appearance of material in book form following "first serial" publication is described as "reprint" or "reprinted". Evidence (short story), Trends (short story), Heredity (short story), Homo Sol, Time Pussy, Sucker Bait, Breeds There a Man...?, —And He Built a Crooked House, Question and Answer, The Red Queen's Race, Marius (Anderson), The Men and the Mirror, Special Delivery (short story), Thing of Beauty (short story), Project Nightmare, Uphill Climb, The Bone Flute. There are many, many, many more such references; this is merely a sample of articles on sf/f stories with individual articles.

That doesn't mean Wikipedia is correct. Wikipedia was insisting that automotive catalytic converters converted exhaust emissions to H2 (atmospheric Hydrogen) until I fixed the article the other night. Some idiot who doesn't know anything about chemistry changed the article, and I had to fix it, once again.

Wikipedia is always inaccurate until people like me step in and fix the problems. There's just too many idiots who think that they know what they are doing, and they edit things.

The argument that Rebels in Hell was the more important publication of Silverberg's story is particularly lousy. At the time of its publication, Silverberg was one of the most successful post-"Golden Age" writers in the genre, and certainly, by far, the most successful among the writers Morris enlisted. If he wasn't "allowed" to sell magazine rights, the story wouldn't have been written; the anthology couldn't have afforded to pay him market rates. IASFM, where it was first published, had a circulation of about 80,000, probably higher than the total print run for the anthology. Silverberg was a big name; Gilgamesh the King might not quite have made the best seller list, but it came close -- the NYTimes listed it as a candidate [2]. And when Rebels was published, it was advertised with the tag line "As Gilgamesh the King steps off the National Bestseller lists and into hell!" [3] (By the way, Morris' ownership of the Heroes in Hell property couldn't have stopped Silverbob from writing the story without Morris's approval. She doesn't own all stories set in Hell, after all, just the original details that trademark the franchise. What she really owns via the franchise are some infernal bells and whistles and the occasional designer pitchfork. There's a whole genre of such afterlife stories ("Bangsian fantasy"). and Morris's version isn't much more than a cross between Farmer's Riverworld and Niven/Pournelle's Inferno.

If Silverberg hadn't have been included, someone else would have been. Maybe Harlan Ellison. Maybe Fred Pohl. Maybe Judith Merrill. You get rid of Silverberg you lose some readers, but you gain others. I know that Silverberg wasn't the reason that I bought Heroes in Hell.

That there has been a great deal of bad behavior in this dispute by SPAs and/or editors identifying themselves as people associated with Janet Morris. For example, after Orange Mike AFD'd Lawyers in Hell. he was groundlessly attacked for "an ongoing, malicious bias". After Dravecky noted that self-identified authors with stories in the book, he was added to the target list. When I reported accurate publication information,well, you can see what happened to me here. And of course there's Guarddog2, who identifies as Janet Morris, who popped in to cite an error in a review as "proof" that the publication data I cited was wrong, even though she knew full well it was correct -- an attempt to deceive that I find greatly surprising from a writer of Morris's credentials, and a reason I've had doubts about that user's identity. There's also been canvassing on Facebook and on the "Baen's Bar" website, which explains where these talking-in-unison SPAs have been coming from. It's not surprising that so many COI editors want to promote a franchise they work in, but they're not contributing to WP:CONSENSUS regardless of their number. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Orange Mike's bias was proven, by his decision to ignore Wikipedia's rules over and over. Dravecky? I don't remember him or her. You, well, your editing is sub-standard. You don't improve an article, instead you slash at it like old Leatherface with his chainsaw. You seem to deliberately misunderstand the simplest things, like the "Locus Nomination" - the word was clearly visible on the page.

As I said earlier, I think you have are in a Conflict of Interest situation. I have no idea why you would be in a conflict of interest situation, but your irrational actions leave me no other conclusion. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 04:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

You're grossly uncivil, you're rather free with accusations of bias, you're often inaccurate, and you seem to know a great deal less than than you think you do.

With regard to the articles merger, the entire discussion was as whether to merge the articles on the individual books, with no independent notability, into the series article. The individual Heroes in Hell anthology article wasn't merged, because it had enough coverage etc to establish independent notability. "Gilgamesh in the Outback" wasn't a book in the series, and having won a Hugo Award, was clearly independently notable. You swooped in without discussion and redirected it -- you didn't merge it.

With regard to the statement that "Benford and Silverberg could not have written those stories without Heroes in Hell as a market," that's ridiculous. Of course they could. They might have found it unprofitable to so without the sales to both markets, but who knows? In both cases, the "franchise" content is peripheral, and the stories could easily have been written without it. Nothing in Morris's IP rights could have prevented Silverbob from writing a story where his own character based on the public domain, mythic Gilgamesh met Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft in an afterlife. He could set it in his own idea of Hell. He could set it Dante's hell, like Niven and Pournelle did. He could set it in a Bangsian underworld. He could have made a deal with Phil Farmer and set it on Riverworld. Morris doesn't own the IP right to Hell(TM) or the afterlife. If I wrote a story where Osama bin Laden met Mohammed in Hell, would Janet Morris come after me? (There'd by a long line if I did that, I'm sure.)

And one more thing. That comment you made "In the magazines there was a good sized blurb about the anthology. It's called advertising. Free advertising. Do you understand the concept?" Truth. Do you understand that concept? I've got three of the four magazines involved in front of me right now. No such "free advertising". No "good-sized blurb about the anthology." You just made that up. Over three magazines, there's just a single, bland, one-sentence statement. And I already posted a link to the Google scan of it, so you've got no excuse.

It takes a bit more effort to base your arguments on facts than on insulting nicknames, but they work better when you do. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I missed this when you first posted it, and caught it just now when reading the Dispute Resolution. No, I didn't make this up. The part about the free advertising I got from you. Don't you remember? Or didn't you bother to read all of the links that you posted with your argument? Go back and do it. You'll see what I mean. It's quite clear, and back in those days when Science Fiction magazines were far more important than they are now, this sort of blurb would have helped sell a lot of extra books. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 01:45, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Edits

Please, if edits are going to be made, try to keep the tone and voice neutral and try not to cherry pick sentences from other pages. The quote from Robert Silverberg, taken out of context, sounds much worse than it originally reads. Also, since it appear others have used Silverberg's website for source material, it should be decided whether or not all of Silverberg's website is trustworthy or none of it. There should be no middle ground here. Thank you. Cordova829 (talk) 03:44, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

The deletion made Sept. 9, 2011, by Hullabaloo Wolfowitz, of major portions of the Contoversy section adding information about Robert Silverberg's writing of "Gilgamesh in the Outback" is curious. The editor who put this in cited Brian Thomsen's Novel Ideas -- Fantasy, DAW Books, 2006. For some reason HW has deleted that section and its citation. In the "Gilgamesh in the Outback" WP page, HW cites this same source to show that "Gilgamesh in the Outback" was first published in the July 1986 Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Does HW assert that the Brian Thomsen source is invalid? Or does HW just not like the paragraph in the Controversy section? HW should defend his/her/its deletion of the paragraph. If HW feels the Brian Thomsen source is invalid, this would be an instance of WP: Cognitive Dissonance. (No, I don't think that's a WP rule, but it should be.)Dokzap (talk) 06:40, 10 September 2011 (UTC)Dokzap.

Well, Cordova829, it appears that at least one "contributor" to this page is incapable of taking your advice. This was posted on my talk page, instead of here where it belongs:

"Since you're functioning as a publicist for Perseid Publishing, to say nothing of being published by it, you have no business trying to scrub Wikipedia articles clean of verifiable facts which happen to contradict the publisher's current spin. And your rationale for removing the publishing history for "Gilgamesh in the Outback" is palpably false, since the Hugo Award site lists the Asimov's appearance as the original publication, and more important, the records of the US Copyright Office, cited in the article on the story itself, confirm the publishing history. I don't know why your little coven is obsessed with falsifying the history of the story, but the recent effort to smear the reputation of the late Brian Thomsen as part of this is squalid and disgusting, and you should be deeply ashamed of yourself. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)"

"cite, please on her job as publicist. Provide statement from Perseid's website or promo material. Edited to add: I knew Brian Thomsen. Brian Thomsen was a friend of mine, and you sir, are no Brian Thomsen.108.86.132.22 (talk) 19:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)"

"http://www.perseidpublishing.com/blog/?author=2 Any other questions, mr or ms IP who appears to believe it's OK to defame the dead and defenseless, but not to disapprove of such defamation? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:41, 20 September 2011 (UTC)"

Not my fault that Wikipee can't maintain login information. This is who I am. "Muse" != "publicist." She serves as an archivist for one particular project only, unpaid. Learn to read, learn to be polite to your betters, and seek some therapy, fanboi.Mzmadmike (talk) 21:53, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't aware I had been given a job as publicist for the publishing company. You might try actually looking at the source quoted - The Hugo Awards official website where it shows that Robert Silverberg won the Hugo for the Novella GITO published in Rebels in Hell (that's on the 1987 Hugo Awards page on their site). So are you saying The Hugo Awards official website is incorrect? The only thing deeply "squalid and disgusting" is your refusal to accept reality and continued attempts to drag Mr. Silverberg into a dispute that was settled 25 years ago to which you had no access and certainly no genuine knowledge. Mr. Silverberg says he wrote GITO for Rebels in Hell as well as writing the two other stories appearing in the Heroes in Hell series, then combined them into a novel AFTER SCRUBBING ALL REFERENCES TO THE HEROES IN HELL Milieu so there would be no copyright problems. Had they been written independently, as you continue to assert, there would have been nothing to remove before being combined into a novel. Hulcys930 (talk) 09:32, 20 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hulcys930 (talk • contribs)

A curious note: In Hulaballoo Wolfowitz's discussions in various places of why "Gilgamesh in the Outback" was "originally published" in the July 1986 Asimov's, he has noted that the issue with a July cover date had an earlier sell date of June. Thus, the work must have been "originally published" in Asimov's and not in Rebels in Hell, which has a July 1986 publication date. On this very page, however, the list of reviews has this: "Rebels in Hell, Don D’Ammassa, Science Fiction Chronicle, March 1986, Volume 8, Number 6, page 43." If Mr. D'Ammassa reviewed "Rebels in Hell" in the March 1986, he must have received a review copy at least then, if not earlier. This would support the argument that the first appearance of "Gilgamesh in the Outback" was in Rebels in Hell, not the July 1986 Asimov's. Is this sufficient evidence for HW to support an edit removing "originally published" from the July 1986 edition? Or any independent, neutral editor?Dokzap (talk) 01:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)Dokzap.

Alternatively, one might conclude that somebody's trying to pull the wool over our collective eyes. That particular claim isn't referenced, but we can track parts of it down. A while back, one of the Morris-connected editors posted a list of reviews of the first volume, cited to this published index for 1986[4]. That index is compiled by an academic librarian, hardcopy-published by a respectable small press, and hosted on a university website, so there are pretty strong arguments for treating it as reliable. And when we turn to page 36, where Janet Morris-credited books are listed, Rebels in Hell shows up, but the D'Ammassa review isn't listed. The volume indexes Science Fiction Chronicle (which it abbreviates "SCC" for some reason); just look at the Heroes in Hell entry on the same page, which lists another D'Ammassa review, also listed in the Wikipedia article: "Don D’Ammassa, Science Fiction Chronicle, June 1986, Volume 7, Number 9, page 45". A number of thinks jumped out at me when I noticed this listing. First of all, if the Rebels review is correctly listed, Volume 8 of the magazine where the review appeared was published before Volume 7. This would be more than a little unlikely. Second, assuming that Science Fiction Chronicle was published monthly, with standard volume/issue numbering, and if V7#9 was June 1986, then V8#6 would be March 1987. That would make much more sense. So I find the 1987 volume of the same review index [5], turn to the Janet Morris listing, and there, on page 37, find the D'Ammassa review in question, listed for the March 1987 issue of Science Fiction Chronicle. So I think this is clearly settled as an error by a Wikipedia editor.

What's disturbing is that the incorrect listing was added, after the general Janet Morris-related dispute was underway, by an individual associated with Morris. Despite the fact that the listing was at best implausible on its face, at least two other Morris-related editors seized on it, almost simultaneously, to dispute the publication chronology uniformly supported by multiple reliable sources. The whole run of the sorry Morris-centered dispute is dominated by one Morris-associated editor saying things that aren't true (or, in some cases, are opinions unsupported by fact), followed by other Morris-associated editors trooping in, repeating the claims uncritically, then insisting that their agreement with each other demonstrates that they're right. It's worn very, very thin. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:25, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I stand corrected. It goes to show you need to pay attention when typing in any information. You are correct - the date is March 1987 vice March 1986 for that particular interview. All of the Reviews were added (except for the last one) at the same time. I am doubling checking to insure all the rest are correct as well. Sorry for the additional confusion this may have caused.96.255.31.106 (talk) 19:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Neutral Chronological Publishing History

Based on the suggestions of lifebaka on a related page, changed the publishing history of Newton Sleep and Gilgamesh in the Outback to strictly chronological, neutral listing. Removed inaccurate publishing history of The Prince and Baselius (bonus features in which a publisher prints a "teaser" (anything from a few pages to a chapter) in the back of a book to entice readers to buy a different and unrelated book by the same publisher are not considered "being published").Hulcys930 (talk) 21:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Ms Hulcy is, as usually, making things up and removing sourced information she knows is accurate to make the article match the spin from the publisher for which she is a promotional blogger. In two of the three changes to publication history she makes, she has deliberately misstated the date of publication of the stories involved. She as a unique definition of "chronological", which involves removal of virtually all chronological references. While she also claims (without citing any references) that stories which first appeared in print in 1985 were somehow not "published" at that time, reliable references and declared copyright dates say otherwise. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:40, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Ms. Hulcy is not making up anything. I was following the suggested wording from Lifebaka on a related page by simply removing references to "originally published," "First Serialized" and leaving it as a strict chronology. I would suggest checking with a publishing professional to find out if anyone else believes that an excerpt of a story added as a "bonus feature" in the back of an unrelated book is considered by anyone in the industry as an instance of "publication" which would be listed in a publishing chronology. Stories frequently have a copyright date slightly before the copyright date of the entire anthology, but that does not mean that the insertion of a "bonus feature" is the reason for the discrepancy of copyright dates.Hulcys930 (talk) 20:49, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak to the factual elements of this, but, as I've mentioned before, the simplest way to avoid these disputes is to stick solely to listing the dates of publication, without worrying about whether or not the first publication (chronologically) is considered "original". I don't want to see another edit war here over what appear to be the same issues as always.

Hullaballoo, be careful with the tone of your comments. Please comment solely on content, rather than also on Hulcys930 or anyone else. Cheers. lifebaka++ 22:59, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it is helpful to continually characterize my (and others') edits as being made to "make the article match the spin from the publisher for which she is a promotional blogger." First, I wasn't aware that writing a single "Welcome" boilerplate paragraph on a web-site constituted being a "promotional blogger." Second, the constant accusations that there is some "spin" or other promotional agenda being propounded in every edit has no basis in fact. Accuracy is not "promotional."Hulcys930 (talk) 20:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I have once again had to revert the non-NPOV edits made by H.Wolfowitz that do not follow the guidance of the administrator above. Removed instances of "originally published" in several places and added back the publishing history for various volumes, which had been removed by H.Wolfowitz; removed insistence that a "bonus feature" included in the back of a completely unrelated book by the same publisher constitutes "publication." Hulcys930 (talk) 04:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

For some unknown reason, Drmies reverted the instances of every change from "shared world" to "shared universe" as suggested by lifebaka that I spent some little time making. If it wasn't done correctly, could an explanation be provided before I spend the time it will take to put the references back in so they link to the "Shared Universe" WP page (since the "Shared World" page no longer exists and redirects to the "Shared Universe" page)? Hulcys930 (talk) 06:08, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

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"Legions of Hell" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Legions of Hell has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 May 26 § Legions of Hell until a consensus is reached. – Scyrme (talk) 23:05, 26 May 2023 (UTC)