Talk:Elfcon

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[edit] original version

I had a hard time researching this on the internet. The main source seems to be Lisa Star's page, which is obviously POV. There are also the Tolklang archives, but these are not indexed by search engines. I also couldn't find out anything about the original "Elfcons", except the years for III and IV. Please add information if you know more! dab 16:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


[edit] CFH's edits

Re: Elfcon, Elvish Linguistic Fellowship, Carl F. Hostetter

Mr Hostetter,

  • please avoid putting entire paragraphs in boldface
  • please understand that as a party to the dispute described, your edits are very likely to be one-sided. For example, that your list is "more schoarly" is a problematic statement, and also that your group consists of "distinguished scholars". While I don't dispute the possibility that this is the case, seeing that this is all surrounded by controversy, such statements are better left to uninvolved observers.
  • the wholesale removal of the "Elfcon" controversy is not acceptable. I daresay the material under your jurisdiction, and the controversy surrounding it, is what makes the term, and indeed your person, "encycolpedic material". I am painfully aware that I am not linking to a site that gives your version of the events. But this is because you choose not to comment on the issue. Obviously, if there was such a statement on your site, it would be linked from the "external links" section.
  • I tried to give a fair outline of the controversy, of which I am not a party and which I have tried to research without bias. If you feel that your side is misrepresented or underrepresented, please feel free to point to offening passages.

dab 10:08, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:128.183.221.44 dab 15:12, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate your interest in getting the facts right. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions you have (you know the address).

BTW, if my position and work makes me subject to this page of accusations, does not the same apply to Lisa Star, who in fact is far more party to what you wrongly call "the 'Elfcon' controversy" -- since it is really of her own making -- than I am? Will there be a "Lisa Star" entry, in which I can point out the rest of her fallacious and libelous fantasies?

Carl

First of all, your replies should go after the comments on the talk page, not on top of the talk page or anywhere at all in the article. I realize you're new here and don't know the conventions yet.
Second, Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy is very important to us. We'd all like to achieve a fair and balanced article. However, even if they are not founded in fact, opinions that are held by a number of people may deserve inclusion. Obvious the folks on the other side of the argument would say that you are the one making false accusations.
Perhaps the best thing would be for you to make your opinions public elsewhere, and then direct us to them, so that we can evaluate them in context and compile a more balanced perspective. I do think this article so far tries to present both sides. You may be too close to the issue to be involved in working on the article personally. I don't have any personal stake in this matter, so I really am open to both sides. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 20:15, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You write:

"Obvious the folks on the other side of the argument would say that you are the one making false accusations."

To the extent that the claims regard things that _I_ know about, and that "the other side" obviously can and do know _nothing_ about, such as under what terms and conditions material was made available to us, the nature of the work we do, permission (or lack thereof) to allow anyone else to access material, what "ELFcon" was and concerned, and the myriad other details that Lisa Star can obviously do no more than _speculate_ about, why on earth would you trust her over me (or at all for that matter)?

I suppose that if I post a web page somewhere that says "The moon is made of green cheese", then that counts as an opinion that should be reflected in the Wikipedia, by virtue of it being a published opinion concerning a topic of shared interest?

"Perhaps the best thing would be for you to make your opinions public elsewhere, and then direct us to them, so that we can evaluate them in context and compile a more balanced perspective."

This is nonsense. If you recognize that Lisa Star's "opinions" are unbalanced -- as surely you must, since even you must realize that she cannot _know_ most of what she asserts about us and our work -- what ever made you think that it was right to republish her views without at least contacting me for the other side of the story? Do you really mean to say that so long as someone somewhere publishes an opinion, you have no obligation to validate the claims or check with "the other side" before regugitating the opinion? Is this the standard of evidence, value and accuracy that the Wikipedia aspires to?

" I do think this article so far tries to present both sides."

Utter nonsense. You've done nothing but regurgitate Lisa Star's obviously unsupported and, as you surely must recognize, unsupportable opinions, and made no effort whatsoever to present "the other side", despite knowing full well how to contact me for comment.

By the way, have you wiped out the comments I've made? Dieter said he was going to take it into account and revise the article. Has he now been denied that opportunity? Do I have to explain all this yet again?


Carl

please give me a few hours, ok? I will try to live up to that tomorrow, see below. dab 21:10, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] C.F.H.'s statement

ok,ok, let's deal with this carefully. Aranel, while I agree with what you say, I think we should give Carl the 'benefit of doubt' normally accorded to a WP newbie. After all, I have invited his comments. Also, this is a matter that concerns him personally, so I htink it's understandable that he has an interest in what we will say here. That said, the article should of course be written by neutral observers. copy Carl's comments here, for the moment. I think they are indeed helpful, because I admit I was relying heavily on Lisa Stars page, which is of course just as biased and involved. With these comments, we have at least statements to account for both sides of the story, so that we may conceivably build a balanced article. Note that it is not the aim of the article to decide who is in the right, but to simply report what happened, and what are the different views. So here are Carl Hostetters comments (which should be treated as 'external evidence', on the same footing with L. Star's page.):

[Dieter: Carl here. I don't know how to reply to your message, so I'll use this forum to address the many errors in this article. First: ELFcon was not "organized by Carl F. Hostetter". It was in fact first proposed by Jorge Quninonez, and then organized and originally hosted by Bill Welden.]
[If you're going to permit this sort of one-sided set of accusations, then at least recongize that it belongs in a separate entry, as the term "Elfconner" as Lisa Star uses it has _nothing_ to do with ELFcon. Lisa herself participated (by phone) in an ELFcon, and yet she clearly does not include herself in the term. Other that have participated include Corwin Benedikt, Leonid Korablev, and Nancy Martsch, and yet none of those is included in Lisa's term. Lisa is selectively presenting and deliberately distorting the facts, in order to advance her agenda. If you continue to support her use of this forum for that purpose, then you should know that you are party to her suberfuge and libel.]
[Christopher Tolkien provided me and my four colleagues -- sent in small batches, over a span of a decade -- with a set of photocopies of his father's linguistic writings, for the purpose of having us -- and _only_ us -- order, edit, and eventually publish it. We were explicitly _not_ given permission to give copies of this material to anyone else. And as even the few people that were allowed to examine such material as we had in hand during the ELFcons abused that privilege and began "sharing" the material with others, against the explicit promise not to do so as a term for being allowed to examine the documents in the first place, and Lisa Star and her ilk furthered the abuse by publishing some of these note, the prohibition was extended so that we cannot now even allow others to look at the photocopies. These are the _facts_ of the matter; any other account that Lisa spews is pure, agenda-driven fabrication.]
[Also: we have no "originals"; nor did we make copies at the Bodleian -- that being prohibited by archive policies -- but rather made handwritten notes while consulting the original materials. Lisa likes to sprinkle her accounts with such nonsense, despite being in no position whatsoever to know what we do or do not have, and her contempt for the long work at the various archives I and my colleagues undertook, at our own initiative and expense, in order to complete the record of Tolkien's linguistic invention as much as is possible, is appaling, as is her outrageous presumption that she or anyone else is somehow entitled to the fruits of our work there. Lisa is as free as we were to apply to read at the archives and make her own notes, if she chooses to expend the time and effort to do so -- no more time and effort, surely, than she has already expended whining about not having everything given to her instantly and at no cost just because she wants its.]
[This is false. We did not receive a copy of the material containing Tolkien's translation_s_ of the Lord's Prayer, or even know of its existence, until well after 1994. If you're going to take Lisa Star's word for things that she clearly has no way of knowing about, such as what we received when, then I have to question your own motivation or reasoning.]
[What was meant by that is that we did not (and do not) have permission to _publish_ any of our work with Tolkien's papers _without the review and approval of the Tolkien Estate's lawyers_. This is so that the lawyers can work out the copyright statements that are attached to each work, as they retain all copyright in Tolkien's writings. Lisa has distorted and misrepresented this simple fact.]
[David is entitled to his opinion, but even you must see that it is purely self-serving: David is jealous that he does not have access to Tolkien's papers, and in an extreme outburst of sour grapes he has chosen to destroy whatever chance he might have had of gaining such access.]
[What "personal prestige"? What "influence"? David Salo and Helge Fauskanger are the ones leveraging their "fame" and popularity, largely on the back of the "controversy" they created. If my colleagues and I are interested in such an agenda, we're doing an awfully poor job of it, wouldn't you say? Also, we do _not_ deny access to others; that was accomplished by the antics of Lisa Star and her ilk, and is directed by the only person with any authority in the matter, Christopher Tolkien himself, who alone has legal rights to the papers and their contents.]
[What little reward comes from the long, hard work associated with editing and publishing Tolkien's linguistic writings has nothing to do with "prestige" or "influence", and it certainly has no monetary rewards (to date, the only person actually to be paid for working with Tolkien's languages has been David Salo himself, so far as I know, in connection with the movie and, soon, his book): but rather from love of the subject matter and the satisfaction of the work itself, and the privilege of being given the opportunity to study and present the whole course of Tolkien's long, every-changing invention. Fortunately for Lisa and her ilk, to date I've judged this reward to be worth the cost she and her cohorts inflict through their jealous and lunatic fantasies and libels, furthered in this very article. But I am under no obligation to continue doing so. I have _never_ wanted this work to be "about" me: all I want is to do the work given to me; it is Lisa and David and Helge who have and continue to personalize things and make these sorts of ad hominem assaults and to present and advance themselves as authorities and experts. I wonder if you have even tried to put yourself in my position, or question Lisa's claims or how should could even begin to know the many "facts" she asserts?]
[Finally, I remind you of what is stipulated at the bottom of every editing page of Wikipedia: "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it." Why do you have more authority over this entry than I do? Who are you? I at least know the facts of the matter, at any rate so far as they concern claims and accusations about what I and my colleagues do, the constraints and licences we operate under, and the motivations involved. Further, I point out that just because I don't see fit to host a web-page devoted to debunking Lisa Star's libellous site does _not_ either a) mean that the fact that she does choose to showcase her pettiness and libels makes her claims more authoritative than my own; or b) that I have not addressed the matter in other ways and other forums, including those to which you yourself allude -- so you should indeed know better.]

(see here for context: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Elfcon&oldid=6195049 ) Since I have not read through the entire forum archives, I do ont know all that was said about this, nor do I think that it's necessary. I think from these comments, together with Lisa Star's site, we can get a clear picture which points are disputed and which are not. I would rework the text immediately, but it's close to midnight in my timezone... Let me add that when I started this article, I thought the story was only of historical interest, and it only gradually dawned on me that this is very much an ongoing saga. dab 21:10, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. As I said, I am perfectly willing to answer any questions you have (and think it is unfair to require that I publish a web page somewhere first; I have reasons for not spending time on or hosting any such page). I do wish to reiterate, though, that by any objective standard, Lisa's claims and opinions about matters on which she has and can have _no direct evidence_ are hardly on the same level of evidence as my own _on those matters_. If Lisa claims that my middle name is "Fred", and I tell you that, no, it is "Franklin", do you really believe that her claim is on equal footing with my own? Yes, I _could_ be lying, but unless you're willing to believe that I am lying, and all other things being equal, you have to admit that I am in a much better position to know the facts of the matter than Lisa is. So with this.

Carl

I'm sorry, I should have copied the material here (as it is obviously appropriate to the talk page), but I was in a hurry earlier. I recognized that you were trying to respond with your own input, which is at least as valid as anyone else's. The reason I reverted it was that this sort of discussion does belong here on the talk page, although I understand some other wikis do it within the page itself, so it's quite understandable for a new user to not realize that.
It's not that I think you should be required to publish a response elsewhere, it's just that "So-and-so posted on the talk page for this article" does not sound very authoritative. Is there something on some website or in some publication that we could cite as a balance to, say, the Wired article? [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 23:44, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Revision of the article in the light of CFH's comments

I have changed the article text, taking note of the above comments. It is by no means a definitive version yet, even if it was up to me to decide this. A few remarks:

  • at least recongize that it belongs in a separate entry, as the term "Elfconner" as Lisa Star uses it has _nothing_ to do with ELFcon. - I thought about this. I think the text makes it clear that there is no direct connection. The term "Elfconners" has stuck, probably because of lack of an official name for the group. I now understand that this is because some of the materials were shown around on Elfcons. At least since Wired used the term, without quotes, I suppose it can be considered common usage.
  • Lisa herself participated (by phone) in an ELFcon, and yet she clearly does not include herself in the term. - Well, she does have the honesty to say: "Current Elfcon members are Chris Gilson, Carl Hostetter, Arden Smith, Bill Welden and Pat Wynne (which is why they are referred to as Elfconners, a name coined by Pat Wynne). Other participants at various times included me (Lisa Star), Nancy Martsch, Leonid Korablev, Corwyn Benedikt, Paul Nolan Hyde, Tom Loback, Jorge Quinonez, and possibly others, but we have all dropped out."
  • Christopher Tolkien provided me and my four colleagues: I don't exactly understand. In the original posts, there seem only four people involved. Lisa Star lists five: " (Chris Gilson, Carl Hostetter, Arden Smith, Pat Wynne and now Bill Welden)", suggesting Bill Welden was not involved from the beginning. While it is perfectly understandable that the Tolkien Estate wants a clearly defined body to edit the papers, the key question is of course, who restricts the size of this body, and why were not more people involved in the work during the past decade, especially if it is so very tiresome, and especially since many competent linguists have taken an interest in Tolkien during that time. I don't think the accusations imply laziness on the part of the Elfconners, but rather the "cabalist" tendency to reject the community that would be competent to provide help.
  • Why do you have more authority over this entry than I do? - I don't. This article will only survive by the consensus of the Wikipedia community.

dab 12:08, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • I suppose that if I post a web page somewhere that says "The moon is made of green cheese", then that counts as an opinion that should be reflected in the Wikipedia, by virtue of it being a published opinion concerning a topic of shared interest? - This is indeed a problem. Since Wikipedia is not printed on paper, and is therefore not bound by limitations of printing-costs or weight, many obscure notions that would be rejected in a paper-encyclopedia are included. There is, however, a standard of "notability" that should be met, meaning that purely personal and ad-hoc statements are rejected. But if you can drum up 200 people and found a cult that believes that the moon is made of green cheese, the cult (not the "fact" they believe in) could be noted on WP.
  • If Lisa claims that my middle name is "Fred", and I tell you that, no, it is "Franklin", do you really believe that her claim is on equal footing with my own? -
    • In my view, the whole thing is based on two radically different world views. To you, the papers you have are are private property, and, like your middle name, not the business of outsiders, and much less of an encyclopedia (even more so, as an official may request you to reveal your middle name, while nobody has a right to see your papers without a search warrant). This is the "legalistic" picture. Your critics seem to have a "moralistic" picture, regarding Tolkien's genius as belonging to humanity, and while maybe bowing to copyright, they deny that it is a private or personal choice how his legacy is dealt with. The law is clearly on your side (althogh not so clearly in the matter of letters and words, if Lisa's page is not altogether fabricated), but you should be aware that copyright law has outspoken critics, and we cannot treat it as inherently "right" here (which would be the legalistic POV).
    • Not all points are disputed. It was not denied, for example, that copies of 3000 pages written by Tolkien are indeed in the possession of your group. This alone would warrant an article, and these 3000 pages are what everyone is interested in, while personal animosities are only of interest inasmuch they help or hinder their publication.

dab 12:39, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for these further comments.

I think I begin to see the root of at least one of Lisa's delusions. To see this, let me first delineate the entities involved:

1) The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship (E.L.F.) is a loose, international association, defined at any time as composed of the editors of its publications (_Parma Eldalamberon_, _Vinyar Tengwar_, and _Tengwestië_), and by those who subscribe to _Vinyar Tengwar_ (the other two publication being offered either on an individual basis or online). Anyone can become a member of the E.L.F. simply by subscribing to _VT_. Lisa Star was at one time a member of the E.L.F., though she has since lapsed. Helge Fauskanger is currently and has long been a member of the E.L.F.

2) ELFcon was the annual conference of the E.L.F. It was open to all members of the E.L.F. (in fact, really, to anyone at all, even if they didn't subscribe to _VT_), and was advertised openly. The purpose of ELFcon was to present scholarly papers on any subject relating to Tolkien's invented languages, and then to discuss the paper amongst the attendees, and of course to serve as a friendly gathering of folks who share a common intellectual pursuit. Anyone who attended an ELFcon can therefore be said to be an:

3) "Elfconner" -- as used by it coiner, Patrick Wynne, _even_ according to Lisa Star, referred not to a "subgroup" as your article claims, but to _anyone_ who attended an ELFcon. Lisa has either deliberately or ignorantly misconstrued this term, and although relying on Pat for its origin nonetheless has misapplied the term in her own, idiosyncratic manner, and fostered this distorted use.

4) Christopher Gilson, Arden R. Smith, Bill Welden, Patrick H. Wynne, and myself, whom some have labelled "the Editorial Team" as a convenient collective. It is we five whom Christopher Tolkien has granted permission to to work with and (with approval) publish Tolkien's linguistic papers. (As you observe, Bill was brought into the project later, at our request and with the approval of Christopher Tolkien.) This project and its membership were founded in complete independence from ELFcon. While the other members of ELFcon were (unwisely, as we now see) allowed to look at and take notes from what photocopies Christopher Tolkin had sent at the time (with the promise -- violated in each case! -- that those notes were strictly for private use and would not be shared or discussed with anyone else), it was _never_ as an official function or privilege of ELFcon membership.

Another point: you claim that ELFcons continue. This is false. ELFcon IV was the last ELFcon, probably forever. (For one, Bill Welden, who originated and hosted the first ELFcons, is fulfilling his core purposes in ELFcon with a new International Conference on J.R.R. Tolkien's Invented Languages", see: http://hem.passagen.se/mansb/omentielva/ ) This ending came about for several reasons, chief among which were: 1) Although everyone who attended ELFcon was supposed to present a paper, and participate in discussing it, some were habitually showing up with no paper to present, and then spending most of their time not listening to or discussing papers, but scribbling notes from the photocopies; and thus the purposes of ELFcon were being ignored. 2) Those of us who _were_ habitually presenting papers and discussing them happened to be the members of "the Editorial Team", and we came to realize, esp. in light of the habits of the other members, that our time was better spent focussing on the editorial project than on writing analytical articles for presentation at ELFcon; so that ELFcon became for us a diversion from our new task. With the subsequent betrayals of word and privilege by _every person_ outside the "Editorial Team" that was ever shown any portion of the photocopies -- and I mean _everyone_ -- prudence became belated wisdom became necessity.

As for the two "world views", yes, of course that is apparent (nothing new to me!) I consider it infantile to believe that you are entitled to something just because you want it, but people are free to be infantile. What they are _not_ free to do is to tell lies and libel others, as Lisa Star has done.

I appreciate your willingness to set the record straight.

Carl

(BTW, as for Lisa's much touted "Legal Statement", two things must be observed. First, it was essentially "work for hire": Lisa paid a lawyer to write an opinion supporting her own opinion; so it is not surprising that the lawyer's opinion matches Lisa's, and thus carries no independent weight. Second, the lawyer's argument is in essence this: because Tolkien's languages are simply composed from smaller, abstract units of sound, they are not subject to copyright. This is an absurd argument on its face: by the same argument, no musical composition can be subject to copyright, because they are simply composed of abstract notes; no painting could be subject to copyright, because they are simply composed of abstract pigments; and no written works could be subject to copyright, because they are simply composed of abstract letters. Tolkien's languages are _not_ just random collections of sounds: they are an _artistic arrangement_ of sounds _by Tolkien alone_ into sequences and patterns that were pleasing to Tolkien _as an artist_; and these arrangements of sounds were further paired _by Tolkien alone_ into associations with meanings that were also pleasing to Tolkien _as an artist_. The composition by Tolkien of his languages was thus artistic at _every_ level, and thus just as subject to copyright as any other artistic arrangement of elements. Lisa's opinion utterly fails to recognize the role of the artist in Tolkien's languages, and thus has no applicability to the real matter at hand.)

Thank you for your clarifications. From your first edits, and from the structure of google hits, I have deduced that the "ELFcons" are no longer continued. I understand that the huge interest in Tolkien probably made your privilege a curse as well as a blessing. We do not need to qualify here, luckily, the malice or childishness of particular developments. I am content if there are no factual errors left (or at least none unattributed to an author, with a qualified contradiction by another author). As to the "legal opinion", I must say that I share your impression that the argument is rather shaky. It would have to be tested in court of course. It surprises me, on the other hand, that you have any interest in the legality of the use of Tengwar etc. by others, because it would seem that this is unrelated to your editorship and at best a case for the Tolkien Estate's lawyers. dab 14:42, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response to my comments, in the revisions to the article. Things are definitely shaping up! A few more comments, though:

1) You write: "Christopher Tolkien at one point invited a number of ELFcon attendees to participate in a group project to analyse and publish material about Tolkien's languages and alphabets"

This is true in that those of us who were asked to participate had indeed attended ELFcons; but it gives the false impression that we were chosen _because_ we had attended ELFcon, which is not the case. We were selected because we had all demonstrated the ability to write and publish serious, scholarly articles on Tolkien's languages that treated them on their own terms, as well as the ability to be trusted with unpublished materials and work with and according to the standards of Christopher Tolkien and the Tolkien Estate.

2) You write: " photocopies supplied by Christopher Tolkien to Carl F. Hostetter and four colleagues"

This gives the false impression that I am the chief liaison of the "Editorial Team" to Christopher Tolkien. In fact, the lead editor of the project is and has always been Christopher Gilson, and its chief activities carried on in the pages of the journal Chris edits, _Parma Eldalamberon_.

3) You write: "the four people mentioned by Star maintain that they did not have the permission to publish all material, and even if they had, it would take years to decipher and edit it, and that Star's outrage was due to a misunderstanding. Hostetter adds that, as of 2004, he still does not have permission to to publish any of his group's work with Tolkien's papers without the review and approval of the Tolkien Estate's lawyers for copyright reasons."

I don't think this accurately reflects the matter, as I've discussed before, esp. as it presents the restrictions on the rights to _publish_ (which are _of course_ contingent on review and approval by the Tolkien Estate, as they hold the copyright in Tolkien's writings) as something that are in place now, but could eventually be removed. This is putting the picture backwards. The Tolkien Estate holds and always will hold the sole publication rights to any unpublished material; at no time could there ever be or have been any question of anyone being provided carte blanche to publish without Estate approval. The mere supposition that there ever could or should be such a right is another core aspect of Lisa's profound misunderstanding.

4) You write: "Since Tolkien's work will remain copyrighted until at least 2048, the legal position of the Elfconners is unassailable."

This implies that as of 2048, all of Tolkien's work, published or unpublished, will be in the public domain. This is false, at least as it pertains to unpublished materials. The various archives have ownership of the physical documents, and as a requirement for access to those documents, readers are required to sign a statement avowing that they cannot and will not publish their contents without the express written permission of the archive and/or the Tolkien Estate. This will in itself preclude the unauthorized publication of any unpublished materials, as doing so will violate the reader's agreement, which is a binding contract. Of course, my colleagues and I will do our best to ensure that Tolkien's linguistic papers don't remain unpublished for that long! But let's not give the false impression that _unpublished_ documents are in the same category as published ones.

5) You write: "To what extent the seclusive behaviour, resulting in the slow pace of publication, has indeed been forced on the Elfconners by the Tolkien Estate, and to what extent it was chosen by the Elfconners themselves,"

First, this presumes that the pace of publication is indeed "slow"; what is the justification for this? How can anyone judge what is or is not a reasonable pace of publication, if they've not seen the scope and nature of the manuscripts themselves, and thus know how much work is required to put them into publishable form? Second, the pace of publication _of course_ has _nothing at all_ to do with the Tolkien Estate: it is driven _solely_ by what time is available to those of us engaged on the project. (And thus, so far as I'm concerned, this is no one else's business. Until and unless our critics wish to pay us a sufficient salary to quit our day jobs and work on the project full time, I feel no obligation to answer to them for how I spend my time or for the pace of publication.)

Finally, as regard my defense of the Estate's rights: to the extent that they are _attacked_ in public forums (by those insisting the Estate _has_ no rights, and urging others to pay no heed to any question or possibility of their being rights involved), I have every justification for _defending_ those rights. Besides which, I can participate in whatever discussion interests me, just like everyone else.

One further comment:

6) You write: "Some of the material was presented during the ELFcons (and later circulated privately), while some scholars were denied access, resulting for a time in a hostile split of Tolkien scholarship in "Elfconners" and non-"Elfconners""

This also gives a misleading portrait. _None_ of the unpublished material was ever "presented" at any ELFcon. (Some original work _using_ unpublished material was presented as part of the ELFcon program, e.g. my own Taliska word-list, which I compiled from Tolkien's as yet unpublished historical grammar of Taliska; but that grammar itself was _not_ presented.) Some members were (unfortunately, as it proved) allowed to look at the photocopies we had in hand then, but this was not and never could be any official part of the ELFcon program (however much some people came to abuse the privilege to the detriment of the official program). And since anyone who wished to attend at that time could have done the same, it is not correct to say that "some scholars were denied access", as though we had decided that some ELFcon attendees could and some could not see the photocopies. Had Lisa Star decided to attend in person (rather than by phone), she could have done the same; but _not_ as an official part of the ELFcon program, I stress again. And the fact that some of the notes certain members took were later "circulated privately" was, as I have explained, a _violation_ of the agreed-to terms under which they were allowed to examine the photocopies, and together with other abuses the cause of the now even tighter restrictions of outside access that we must operate under.

And one more:

7) The claim by David Salo in the _Wired_ article, and by the author of the article, that we have tried to use copyright to prevent others from publishing works is blatantly libelous. The reality is that while I have often spoken out against the publications of works that appear to violate the copyright of the Tolkien Estate and/or the archives (such as the publication of archive materials and notes without permission, or the publication of derivative works), I have _never_ claimed that works covered by Fair Use should not be published as Salo would have you believe. _Quite the opposite_ in fact, as I have probably done as much as anyone ever has to help further the discussion and publication on Tolkien's languages, and still do, as is amply evidenced by the activities cited in my Wikipedia article. The claim is fictitious and fantastic on its face, and utterly self-serving.

This entry is now vastly more accurate and balanced. I _really_ appreciate your letting me set the record straight on these matters, and your concern for truth and accuracy. Thank you.

I have just one more comment to make: you write that the _Wired_ articled claims that "the group had also threatened legal steps, on behalf of the Tolkien Estate". If so, this is also completely inaccurate. None of us are lawyers, nor do we have any legal involvement, representation, or rights in the matter save for our own work (i.e., that portion of which whose copyright is not ceded to the Tolkien Estate). We have _never_ threatened legal action "on behalf of the Tolkien Estate", nor _could_ we ever. All we have ever done is point out what the Estate's position on certain copyright matters (e.g., the derivative and thus copyright-protected nature of dictionaries of Tolkien's languages) is, as conveyed to us in our own dealings with the Estate, and our own opinions on the matters involved, and pointed out that telling others that there can be no question of copyright violation in the publication of certain works of this type is _not_ sound or safe legal advice; that in fact the Estate might well object. Period. I have _never_, and _could_ never, threaten any legal action save as it concerns my _own_ copyrighted work. Again, the claim is fictitious and fantastic on its face, and utterly self-serving.

Carl

I removed the summary of the Wired article, which I think was just confused (the summary, that is—I don't dare make any claims about the article). We can let the quote speak for itself, and the full text of the article is linked at the bottom of the page. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:02, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] consolidation

ok, I think the article is getting into good shape, thanks, everybody. However, I have concerns about a few of the recent edits: Carl's remarks have been very helpful to get the facts right. But now I fear, because he is doubtlessly better informed than any of us, we are in danger of forgetting that this is really a controversy. Just like when I started this article, Carls side was under-represented because I had no direct statement from him, I feel it will now be over-represented because he was able to give feedback. I can only shudder to think what would happen if e.g. Lisa Star would start posting on this talk page: She would probably claim half of Carl's statements were false or distorted, the discussion would dscend into a flamewar, and the article would be b*ggered.

  • "the four team members maintain that" is more NPOV than "the four team members explain that". We have no means of checking the facts, and they are possibly disputed. I think "maintain" does not imply untruthfulness but is a simple way of reporting what they said.
  • "highlighting that the group had also threatened legal steps, on behalf of the Tolkien Estate, to prevent other editors from publishing works about Tolkien's languages: " — Aranel, I admit that this was not very lucid. It should however be expanded rather than removed, since the quote is referring to an aspect previously unmentioned in the article, namely the alleged "copyright-policing" even outside matters of the "Elfcon" material.
  • Hostetter also insists that he has never claimed that works allowed under fair use should not be published. that's easlily said, but it seems to me the whole thing revolves around different ideas of "fair use" and judging from posts I have seen by "anti-Elfconners", it would now be their turn to say that we are "regurgitating Hostetter". After all, Lisa Star went and had her "legal opinion" (valid or not) drawn up, apparently because somebody was trying to prohibit her use of JRRT's alphabets, which would have been fatal to her journal.
  • The question of whether the pace of publication has been unreasonably slow is essentially unanswerable, especially because only the editorial team has direct knowledge of the difficulty of the material. — I don't think this is preferable to my version. It was often repeated that nobody is accusing the "team" that they had to make a living besides editing Tolkien, and I think that nobody expects a much faster pace, considering four people work on it parttime. The editing is excruciatingly slow considering what could have been acheived if people both competent and willing to contribute would have been allowed to edit: here is the core of the disagreement, the Elfconners say they were not allowed, because it's CT's decision. The anti-Elfconners say that CT is being used as a strawman, and with a bona-fide effort, the team could have been expanded further. It is this point that cannot be decided without an official statement from CT, where he either says that he is indeed to blame, or that he was indeed used as a strawman. It is clear that now, after so much hostility, the "anti-Elfconners" cannot work together with the Elfconners, simply for reasons of human interaction. There is, however, a whole stock of Tolkien experts at large that has not been involved in the dispute (Flieger, Shippey etc.) -- people who are probably very wary of approaching the subject, because they want to avoid being pulled into either camp. Note that this is my personal extrapolation, I have no first-hand knowledge about this.
  • especially because only the editorial team has direct knowledge of the difficulty of the material. — it's undisputed that some of the material is difficult indeed. At least the part that has been published can be assessed, allowing a judgement if 10 years is slow or not. But again, this is not the point, because nobody can blame the editors that they had to do it in their spare time.

dab 09:42, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

some notes in response to Carl's latest comments:

  • most of your points have been addressed now, I think
  • But let's not give the false impression that _unpublished_ documents are in the same category as published ones. — I had a look at the UK laws, and it seems that unpublished works are covered for 125 years after production, so that a paper written by Tolkien e.g. in 1937 would be free of copyright by 2062. But all this does not apply for another 40 years anyway, and laws may change in the meantime, so the point is rather moot.
  • How can anyone judge what is or is not a reasonable pace of publication — see above. I have seen some of your editorial work, and I must say that it is really very well and carefully done, obviously justifying CT's choice (and as far as I know, nobody is questioning your competence). I deplore that the TE should have such a rigid stance on these papers, considering that they will never make a profit from them even remotely approaching the money that is made with the LotR. But they are of course within their rights. I really have no way of judging the interaction between your group and the TE, and I can only say that vastly different pictures are painted, so that for our present purpose, we'll just have to summarize your statements and leave it at that.

dab 11:06, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For the record, I'm planning to ask David Salo to have a look at the article and give some feedback as well. He's a friend of mine too (in the online sense, at least), and I feel that he can be trusted to be just as willing to contribute constructively as Carl has been. I'll try to write to him soon. (Of course, it's naturally an open question if he'll have time for this sort of thing.)--Steuard 16:13, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

[I'm not sure where my subsequent comments should go in this structure, so feel free to move this about as appropriate. CFH]

1) Regarding the copyright status of the unpublished documents, my point (inadequately expressed) was not that they would not fall out of copyright -- as indeed they will, eventually -- but that one should not give the impression that just because they fall out of copyright means that any and every use of them will be permitted. This is so because _access_ to the physical documents is, according to standard archive policies, granted only upon agreement by the reader not to publish their contents without the permission of the archive and/or any relevant Estate. So that, it is not as though after X years anybody who wants to will be able to visit the archives, copy or transcribe the documents, and then publish them -- unless, that is, the archive policies themselves change. A subtle point, perhaps, but not insignificant.

2) You write: "The editing is excruciatingly slow considering what could have been acheived if people both competent and willing to contribute would have been allowed to edit". This attitude is further reflected in the current form of the article, which states: "The question of whether the editorial team could have been expanded to include other scholars, leading to a quicker pace of publication, is unanswerable". Both these statements are biased, in that they rely on prior judgement on two assumed positions for which you have provided no evidence: a) that adding more editors to the mix would indeed increase the rate of publication; and b) that the most important aim of editing Tolkien's linguistic papers is to get the out _quickly_. I disagree fundamentally with both assumptions, and I do so from a position of knowing exactly what the nature of the papers is, and what needs to be done to present them _properly_, on the terms set by the very nature of the documents and their contents, and of Tolkien's own purposes. The first assumption is essentially the Mythical Man Month: _if_ the purpose of the work were simply to _transcribe_ each page of manuscript in turn and "get it out there", this assumption _might_ have some validity (though even there, it ignores the very real factor of the difficulty of interpreting Tolkien's handwriting, which can be ameliorated only through long study and familiarity with his hand -- so that piling on more and more people with little or no familiarity with Tolkien's handwriting would certainly not speed things along) -- but Christopher Tolkien's purpose in having us edit his father's papers is most emphatically _not_ simply to make transcriptions of the material available to everyone, any more than that was his purpose for the literary papers in _The History of Middle-earth_. What Christopher Tolkien wants is for the material to be _edited_, and presented _properly_. What this means is, essentially: careful consideration, editing and presentation of each text and stage of his father's linguistic invention, within the context of the whole, and relating each part to it preceding, and wider, context. And that means a cumulative, chronological, and contextual presentation. Indeed many later parts can only be fully understood in comparison with earlier parts. Dividing up the papers into arbitrary chunks and farming each chunk out for transcription is _not_ going to help achieve Christopher Tolkien's purpose in making the papers available to us.

3) You write: "I deplore that the TE should have such a rigid stance on these papers". Then you deplore Tolkien's own wishes in the matter, who created the Tolkien Estate and assigned Christopher Tolkien as literary executor, with (_inter alia_) precisely the purpose of making proper use of his papers. I find it astonishing, not that people question Christopher Tolkien's choices or preferences, or even Tolkien's own, but that they feel that their own desires and the choices they _think_ they would have made if they were in Christopher Tolkien's position of editorial and fiduciary obligation, are _necessarily_ and _inherently_ superior, when they have little or no knowledge of Tolkien's own wishes, the nature of the documents and their contents, and how they all fit together.

4) These facts feed into the tepid response made in the article after the implication that Tolkien's manuscripts are like that Dead Sea Scrolls and that we have "abused there privileged access to unpublished material to enhance their own prestige". The article states only that "For the people in possession of the material, on the other hand, it is a simple fact that the material is privately owned and that nobody has any inherent claim to access it," which while plainly a fact does not go far enough. Christopher Tolkien has _reasons_ for wanting the material to be properly edited before publication, not merely transcribed; indeed the documents and their contents themselves demand this, by their very nature. The privately owned nature of these documents addresses not the concern it follows, but only the infantile belief that one is entitled to something simply because one wants it; it utterly fails to address the underlying assumption that the _best_ way to present the material is by rapid transcription, and the further assumption that anyone who disagrees with this opinion can only be doing so "to enhance their own prestige".

5) You write: "it seems to me the whole thing revolves around different ideas of "fair use"." You seem to be forgetting that my comment, from which the article statement that "Hostetter also insists that he has never claimed that works allowed under fair use should not be published" is derived, was made in response to the charge presented in the original version of this article that I was trying to block _all other works on Tolkien's languages_ from being published. This made no allowance for a distinction between Fair Use and un-Fair Use: the charge was that I was trying to prevent other scholars from publishing, which as I have already discussed is libelous and absurd on its face. Now, if you wish to branch out into a discussion of what I consider to be or not be Fair Use (such as the derivative nature of dictionaries of Tolkien's languages, my position on which I've already alluded to above), that's fine. But surely in the interest of accuracy, a blatantly false charge like was originally presented should no be allowed to stand uncontested.

6) You make repeated reference to "the "Elfcon" material". I would have hoped that by now I've established that there is no relation between the material at issue and ELFcon. Confusing the two issues is _not_ helpful, and in fact is misleading. Let's keep them straight.

7) I object to the repeated use of the misnomer "Elfconners" to refer to me and my fellow editors. In the interest of fairness and accuracy, you should at least put scare-quotes around the term, where you feel you must use it, in accordance with the Neutral Point of View policy of the Wikipedia.

Carl

  • I agree we should put quotes around "Elfcon" when not referring to the convention. The simple fact is that when I say "Elfcon" or "Elfconner" today, most people will immediately think of the "dispute" and not of the 1994 convention. "Elfconner" is a convenient term for "the group in possession of the material referred to above".
  • I do not think I deserve to 'have' something because I want it (nor do I think that a text can be 'had' once it is accessible to everybody). I have myself no particularly strong interest to see these papers, because, as you say, I could probably not even read them. I am entitled to deplore whatever I like, as long as my subjective view does not transpire in the article. The bias you detect in the text is not my personal opinion but my attempt to represent people who have not had the chance to contribute to this discussion page.
  • The "Dead Sea Scrolls" comparison is attributed to your critics and gives an idea of their stance. It is not a bias of the article itself.
  • I appreciate what you do for Tolkien scholarship. Without you, I would probably never have seen some of the texts you have edited. I cannot judge your claim to speak on behalf of CT, and would like to be spared the judgement. The discussion about how fairly you are representing his views has gone on for years, and it would be hopeless for me to form a valid opinion.

regards, dab 15:49, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

1) You write: "The bias you detect in the text is not my personal opinion but my attempt to represent people who have not had the chance to contribute to this discussion page." The bias I _see_ is in the statement I was taking issue with: "The question of whether the editorial team could have been expanded to include other scholars, leading to a quicker pace of publication, is unanswerable". Please read my comments on this matter again: this is a biased statement in that it _assumes_ that "expansion to include other scholars" would indeed "lead to a quicker pace of publication"; which assumption I disagree with.

2) You write: "The "Dead Sea Scrolls" comparison is attributed to your critics and gives an idea of their stance. It is not a bias of the article itself." I didn't say that presenting the comparison itself was biased (please read my comments again): what I said was that the _reponse_ attributed to myself and my colleagues was biased, in that despite its obviously being inadequate to the full criticism of the DSS comparison -- which _included_ charges of personal aggrandizement -- it was selected and presented as the whole sum of our response, which is not at all the case.

3) You write: " I cannot judge your claim to speak on behalf of CT, and would like to be spared the judgement." As well you should. Just as you should spare the readers of this article your judgement that simply adding more transcribers to the team would neccessarily speed things along.

4) You write: "The discussion about how fairly you are representing his views has gone on for years, and it would be hopeless for me to form a valid opinion." And yet you and certain others have no trouble with thinking obviously "valid" the opinions that things could and should go faster if only more people were thrown at the manuscripts, and that Christopher Tolkien and we editors can have no valid reason for instead proceeding in the manner we have. It is this bias that I object to. And for that matter, where is the corresponding gingerness with handling how others present _my_ views? My claims about what I think and why I do what I do -- which necessarily includes _some_ implication for what Christopher Tolkien thinks, or else why would he have selected us, and keep us yet engaged in the project? -- are surely _at least_ as noteworthy and significant to the issue at hand as what, say, David Salo and Lisa Star claim about what I think and why I do what I do.

Carl

  • 2) – you have a point, and I have added "Also, they maintain that they are only following the wishes of Christopher Tolkien in editing the texts carefully."
  • 1), 3) and 4) – I have changed the sentence, making it part of the allegation that more editors would lead to quicker publication.

dab 16:30, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)


1) The article now states: "their impatience was likely due to their simple desire to see and study Tolkien's writings as soon as possible, edited or not". On what basis can an assessment like this be considered "objective"? Is there an objective basis of likelihood of such things? At best, you can offer this as a _possible_ explanation for what you refer to tepidly as "impatience" (David and Lisa e.g. were and are far more than "impatient": they are unrelentingly _abusive_ towards anyone that dares to thwart their wills in these matters); but I see no objective basis upon which to ascribe likelihood. This is clearly a personal judgement.

2) The article now states: "The question of whether the editorial team could have been expanded to include other scholars, and whether this would have led to a quicker pace of publication, is unanswerable, precisely because of the unavailability of the material, at least as long as Christopher Tolkien does not comment on the issue." This has not clarified the matter. Again, it begs the question of whether "leading to a quicker pace of publication" is unquestionably a good thing, as it utterly fails to take into account that rapid pace may not be (indeed _is_ not) the primary goal of the project, and may in fact be harmful to it if it were taken as the highest priority. I also disagree that Christopher Tolkien has not commented on the issue: while he has not done so explicity in public, he has done so implicitly in public, by continuing the project (despite the antics of some, of which he is fully aware) and by keeping us as the editors. He did not and does not have to do either, and the fact that he does must count as _some_ kind of evidence of support, surely. As for whether "the editorial team could have been expanded to include other scholars", this is not unanswerable, as it has already been answered by the addition of Bill Welden to the team. The question is whether adding more people would or could enhance fulfillment of the goals of the project (not _just_ its pace); and since there is so much open contempt for the the editorial, contextual, and scholarly purposes of the project, and for its subject (being "immature", "obsolete", "invalid", and simply "of no interest", to cite just the principle characterizations of the material by my most "distinguished" critics), and since there seems to be so little understanding or recognition that the goals and even the value of the project are _not_ what others presume them to be, or that they could _possibly_ be different from these presumptions and yet still be principled; at the moment at least the answer to that is very much a big, fat "no".

3) The article now states: "Also, they maintain that they are only following the wishes of Christopher Tolkien in editing the texts carefully." No, that is not what I maintain. I maintain that we are proceeding in the manner that will permit the documents to be presented _properly_, as determined from the nature of the documents themselves and their contents, and that Christopher Tolkien shares that judgement, and constituted the project with specifically this judgement and goal in mind, and not any other.

Carl

  • first of all, if you were entirely happy with the text, I would be worried that we have given you too much control.
  • 1) this particular phrase originally said, such desire would presumably have been "sufficient motivation". I don't know which is better. However, it is hard to see how such impatience could have had any other cause before personal feelings became involved. It would still not make the impatience justified, of course. To imply that there has been malice against your person rather than interest in the papers would rather sound like a conspiracy theory. It is a statement about the beginning of the conflict. Clearly, soon later there were indeed personal feelings, and abuse, involved.
  • 2) it is, nevertheless, the question that is being asked (that is to say, if Welden, why not also others). I understand your reply to that, but I understand just as clearly that some people are not satisfied by it.
  • 3) I have added your precise wording to the text, to appease you, and to counter the possibility that "anti-Elfconners" are indeed overquoted because their quotes were more readily available.
  • I hope you are prepared to call it a reasonably fair deal now.

dab 16:58, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am, except for the last two sentences of the article, for which my objections stated above remain, as does my previous objection to the following sentence: "Hostetter adds that, as of 2004, he still does not have permission to publish any of his group's work with Tolkien's papers without the review and approval of the Tolkien Estate's lawyers for copyright reasons."

Carl

Actually, there is one more statement I have object to, right near the start: "The term "Elfconners" has subsequently been used by critics as well as members, at least in quotation marks, to refer to a clearly defined group of people who had access to unpublished material by J. R. R. Tolkien, although in some instances members have rejected the term as derogatory and preferred the neutral term "the Editorial Team"." First, at the start of the statement, by "members" do you mean "members of ELFcon", or members of what has been misnomered "the Elfconners"? If the latter, you will need to show me at least one instance of any member of the editorial team using the term "Elfconner" in this manner. Second, it is insufficient to say that we "rejected the term as derogatory"; we also rejected (and reject) it because it is both inaccurate (due, it appears, to a set of profound misunderstandings on Lisa Star's part) and misleading.

You write: "if you were entirely happy with the text, I would be worried that we have given you too much control". Since every word of the article as it now stands was put there by someone who isn't me, I don't see where I have any "control" at all. If you mean that you worry that I've had too much influence on what you choose to say, well, first, I could point out that by the same measure Lisa Star had too much influence over the first version of this article; and second, since I am the subject of the criticisms and character assassinations, I should hope my addressing them and presenting my "side" of things would be _at least_ as valuable as evidence for your article as the quotes of my critics. Note that I have not objected to your including quotes from "the other side"; that they said those things is objective fact. The claims in them, however, need to be evaluated critically, and the objects of charges given the opportunity to address and/or refute them in an unbiased forum; and anyone who would think ill of that should not be taken seriously. I thank you for your willingness to hear my side of things, and to consider my own questioning of the charges and their presentation both. And in fact, I could be entirely happy with a text including the charges, so long as they are presented in a balanced and unbiased way (which I maintain we have not yet quite achieved, though it is certainly much better than originally!)

Carl


As to the term, neutral moderators and people sympathizing with the group have used it, with or without quotes:

Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 15:38:36 -0800
To: Tolkien Language List <tolklang@dcs.ed.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Long time no see
Accounting the "Elfconner's" among my friends and having spoken with them in
times past about the pace of publication I would like to add my humble
thoughts.

Bill Welden has used it without quotes, reluctantly accepting the name:

From: BillWelden
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 18:17:38 EST
To: tolklang@dcs.ed.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Long time no see
Helge --
You can add my name to the list of Elfconners.  I have recently joined the
team.  No, I don't like the name very much and I suspect it was given in
contempt, but nobody has suggested a better one.

I think this is a red herring. The term is in itself not insulting, and we might as well use it, too because still nobody has suggested a better one (or if somebody has, it hasn't caught on) dab 08:09, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The sentence "as of 2004" is meant to convey that this is not stale information from 1998, and god knows where these papers are today, but that nothing has changed. It is not meant to imply that you expect this state of affairs to change, at any point. Theoretically, the Tolkien estate could post these papers on the internet next month, and you could do nothing about it, but everybody agrees that this is not going to happen. I understand that "as of 2004" can be taken otherwise, but it is Wikipedia policy to avoid expressions like "until today" or "until now", "still" that could render the article inaccurate at a later date. dab 08:09, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have amended the sentence, though, because the "as of 2004" could have been taken to be attributed to you. I think it's more accurate, now. Well, it is a new experience for me to write a Wikipedia article about somebody who is commenting in real time on the talk page. I think we can call it a fair effort, now, after all, this is not a legal document. dab 09:21, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wired article

I've added a link to a 2002 article by Mike Glyer, in which he responds to the charges made in the Wired article. I'd ask the author of this page to read the article and consider incorporating its point of view into the reporting.

thanks, I hadn't seen it. Since Carl Hostetter (=you?) gave direct feedback to to this article, I think the "Elfcon" POV is already suitably represented, but I inserted mention of Glyer's article as a qualification of the Wired one.
Personally, I dont think that "Salo's fears have been cleverly slanted to disregard the real issue: does his manuscript include material he needs the estate's permission to publish?" is entirely to the point, because the emphasis was on "*informal* copyright police", i.e. I don't know if Salo ever raised similar complaints against Estate lawyers who are actually employed to protect JRRT's stuff. I am glad, however, that we now have a "pro Elfconners" link. In my original version, as is still visible on the top of this page, I was disconcerted because I had only found "anti Elfonner" sites on the internet. cheers, dab 13:45, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright term

The 125 year term for copyright of unpublished works is only for Crown copyright works. To my knowledge nothing that Tolkien wrote was for the British Government and thus none of his works would come under Crown copyright. If this is the case then copyright in all of his works will expire at the end of 2043 as that is after the transitional period for the 1988 Act with respect to unpublished works. David Newton 18:06, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I see - well, I'll fix that then. dab (ᛏ) 7 July 2005 10:35 (UTC)

[edit] Debate

I've (Carl Hostetter, Aelfwine) removed the following section from the "Debate":

"In the course of the conflict, their critics have been accused of having their own private agendas, although before the rise of personal hostilities their impatience was likely due to their simple desire to see and study Tolkien's writings as soon as possible, edited or not. The question of whether the editorial team could have been expanded to include other scholars, and whether this would have led to a quicker pace of publication, is unanswerable, precisely because of the unavailability of the material, at least as long as Christopher Tolkien does not comment on the issue."

for these reasons: 1) The "agenda" in question IS the personal hostility of the "critics"; so while _personal_ there is nothing "private" about it -- just look at what they write -- nor does the (putative, speculative, and unsupported by reference to any statement) motive for this hostility in any way excuse or have bearing on the nature and mode of furtherance of this agenda. 2) The "question of whether" etc. is "unanswerable" in the same way that the question of what would have happened had the South won the American Civil War: you can't rewind history and replay it under different conditions. Further, the question _has_ been answered by those of us -- and ALL of us -- who DO have access to Tolkien's papers, including at least implicitly by Christopher Tolkien himself -- after all, he could remove any or all of us from the editorship of his father's papers at any time if he were dissatisfied with the results and progress, and he has not. The fact that this answer is not accepted by our critics does not mean that the answer is not accurate. 3) Who says that the "desire to see" etc. is "simple"? This is POV -- it could just as easily be due to jealousy or to personal animosity predating the (venomous) publication of the "impatience". 4) The materials are NOT _completely_ "unavailable": SOME independent judgment of the nature and difficulty of its preparation and publication CAN be made by anyone who wants (seriously and without prejudgment or agenda) to consider the material that has already been published.

cfh 01:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hostetter's Hijacking of the Article?

It is becoming more and more clear that Hostetter (as a person referenced in the article here and in other locations) is engaging in imposing his version of "N"POV which is as blatent as Lisa Star's POV on this article. It would be prudent for the owner of this article to review all of Hostetter's changes, especially in the light of his reverts and his defence of POV language.

[edit] "Anonymous" comments

I have given the reasoning behind my comments. If you disagree with that reasoning, then address it on those terms, not by vague general accusations. Further, my "changes" have all been extenstively "reviewed" -- have you read the discussion to which you've appended these comments? And finally, what "defense of POV language" are you referring to? In _fact_, I'm specifically _questioning_ what I see as POV language in the section I've highlighted above.

cfh 04:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verifiability seems to be forgotten in this article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. This means that we only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources.

Wikipedia:Verifiability is one of Wikipedia's three content-guiding policy pages. The other two are Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. They should therefore not be interpreted in isolation from one other, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three. The three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors' consensus.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.49.237.136 (talk • contribs).

What part(s) exactly do you believe to be unverifiable? Personally, I can easily verify all but the last paragraph, which is essentially a statement of personal opinions about what the future holds.
cfh
Since you seem to be joking, it must make it all right if you can give this personal (POV) verification. Prehaps this equates to "reliable, published sources". But since dab seems to have no problems in letting this breach slip through the many cracks that is Wikipedia, who are we to correct?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.49.237.136 (talk • contribs).
I am most certainly not joking. You raised the issue of verifiability. I want to know what precisely you think unverifiable. (I also want to know how you determine what is or is not a "reliable" source, esp. when the source in question obviously can have no actual knowledge behind their conjectures, but that is a topic for another time.)
Actually, I will broach the subject now after all. You will note that the original version of this article was based, as dab acknowledges right up there on the top of this page, on a _single_ source, sc. Lisa Star's page. He also correctly if grossly understatedly notes that that source is POV (to say the least). Add to this the fact that Lisa Star _obviously_ cannot know most of what she asserts regarding my group's position and motives, and I have to turn the question back on you: how can you think that this article belonged on Wikipedia at all, under the "reliability" clause and the other guiding principles you cite? My contributions to this article give it what factual and balanced nature it now has; in its original form, it was little or nothing more than a re-airing of grievances by obviously self-interested, resentment-filled parties who can in fact have no direct knowledge of the things they charge my group with. I invite you to go read the guidelines you yourself link to, and compare them with what this article _was_, and further compare that with what it now is.
cfh
"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. This means that we only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources."
However since dab allows your edits then who are we to object? You might want to double check the aims of Wikipedia rather than use it to stop people calling you an "Elfconner" and giving your critics a POV label ("self-interested, resentment-filled"). I am merely pointing it out here in the discussion board for the public record. What the author does is ultimately his call but his allowing a POV hack to edit this article is open for all interested parties to see.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.49.237.136 (talk • contribs).
When you're ready to answer my questions instead of simply repeating yourself, we can continue this discussion. Until then, have fun venting your spleen. (I see from your IP address that you're not exactly a neutral party yourself, anyways.) Caio! cfh

The evidence here shows that you are more interested in using your POV as verifiability. Hence this "discussion". I find it with great irony that you fail to see any problems with this. I guess this is why we have the word hubris?

But I'm not going to bother with editing the article rather I will leave it to the author since you have shown youself via your contribs list (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Aelfwine) as a hack who has a lot of time to engage in endless POV reverts. If dab wants these against his article....fine. It wouldn't be the first article that Wikipedia has problems with. Bon Sewer :-) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.49.237.136 (talk • contribs).

what has this got to do with me (why do you keep mentioning me), and what do you want, in the first place? If there is something wrong with the article, try to improve it or make a suggestion, don't just bitch about it. dab (ᛏ) 09:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

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