Talk:Jo Walton

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[edit] Usenet Salute

I reverted the "see also" link to Usenet salute because it's really tangential: that another article has a "see also" to something Walton wrote isn't sufficient reason to link to said other article. Vicki Rosenzweig 01:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not offended by this. They both had so few links that I thought a tangential link was better than none at all! JJL 03:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I've added one that I think is relevant. Vicki Rosenzweig 14:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Any relation to?

There's a Jo Walton credited as a backing vocalist on "Life in a Northern Town" by The Dream Academy. 121a0012 00:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no relation between the two; I don't think this Jo Walton has ever sung professionally. (Any relation other than identity would be on the order of "ex-husband's second cousin.")Vicki Rosenzweig 22:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

==

"Manual of style" is not a mandate (unlike the rules about avoiding potentially actionable content), and in any case does not say that things like where someone was born or that they're married aren't appropriate content. Vicki Rosenzweig 03:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

No, manual of style is not a mandate, but it is a guideline. So, to address my changes:
  • I've rewritten the first paragraph to bring it into line with WP:MOSBIO, in particular guidelines concerning the opening paragraph. Although I think it is best placed elsewhere, I have left mention of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the World Fantasy award in the opening paragraph. I've returned mention of Montreal as the place where Walton now lives to the base of the article. Its place in the opening paragraph doesn't match the description given in the guidelines.
  • Birthplace is, of course, an important piece of any biography. "Welsh in origin" may be refering to a birthplace... or it may refer to ethnic background. As the meaning is vague, I made a bold edit and removed these three words.
  • Mention of her marriage to Dr. Emmet O'Brien was removed for two reasons: it didn't appear to be worthy of note and is unreferenced (runs counter to WP:BLP).
  • I removed the "Biography" header as the section contains almost nothing in the way of biographical information - the primary focus is on the subject's publishing history.
  • I removed the redlinks to Farthing, as they've been in place for eight months. Merely a matter of tidying. I'll leave them in place.
  • I've restored the citation request, which appears to have been deleted in error. Victoriagirl 15:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation request

I've returned the citation request, originally placed in August, to support the following statement: "Her poem "The Lurkers Support Me in E-Mail" is widely quoted on it [which I take to mean "online fandom", though this is unclear] and in other online arguments, often without her name attached." My issue with the sentence has to do with prevalence not plagiarism. While I acknowledge that the title garners 324 ghits, I see no real evidence that the poem is "widely quoted". In fact, a google search combining the first two lines ("The Lurkers support me in e-mail" + "They all think I'm great don't you know") provides only 11 unique ghits. The citation request was appended on the assumption in good faith that there existed a source to support the associated claim. Unfortunately, I've yet to see one. Victoriagirl 03:03, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"[O]n it" meant "on Usenet". The plagiarism is more prevalent in Usenet than in the websites indexed by regular Google. When I used the same two lines you sought in Google Groups (the index for Usenet), I got 490 hits! If this makes the matter clearer, please remove the cite request yourself, to symbolize your concurrence. --Orange Mike 03:54, 14 September 2007 (UTC) (the guy who yanked it before)
Googling "The Lurkers Support Me in EMail" (without the -) garners another 632 on the web. So that's just shy of a thousand unique hits. Given that the text is discussing Usenet, a quick search of Google Groups yields 1590 hits for "The Lurkers Support Me in E-Mail" (and 18 without the -). I'm not sure if there's an international standard for "widely quoted" but over 2500 unique threads/sites should be at least worth this mild claim. And examples of quotation without credit to Walton abound (for example, this one at BoingBoing) and 759 of the web hits on the phrase do not contain "Walton" while just 225 do. Dang, if only there was an article about this in a reliable source such as a publication that covered science fiction fandom or filk music. - Dravecky 04:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
My appreciation of your good work. I'll remove the request. To be frank, I expected that there would have been some coverage from a verifiable source supporting the claim. Victoriagirl 13:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that a petty irritation like this tends to be brushed off, rather than documented in a print source. The purloining of Jim Nicoll's Usenet quote about English mugging other languages for their words is a rarity in that it has attracted attention in print media, in part due to the mundane world's tendency to credit it to a loftier source. Item's like Jo's little filk tend to be snatched up and swallowed, then regurgitated all over the 'Net, often with the attribution stripped off.--Orange Mike 13:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Characters not based on Walton's son

The article currently has the statement, "Many of her characters are based on her son, Alexander.[citation needed]". This statement is not just unsourced, it's actively denied by Walton herself.[1] I'm therefore removing it.--Goldfarbdj (talk) 08:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the cite. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)