Talk:David Weber

Removed links

I removed most of the recently added External links for a variety of reasons:

• No response from server:
  • InfoDump AKA Pearls of Weber — includes maps, timeline
• No content yet:
  • David Weber's Home Placeholder
• Copyright infringement:
  • "Baen" CD Library — whole CDs and the files on them
  • Oberon — whole CDs, Torrent links, some indexes

I have intentionally not included the URLs for the copyright-violating sites. — Jeff Q 10:03, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

On the other hand, the Baen Free Library offers official free versions three of Weber's "Honor Harrington" novels: On Basilisk Station, The Honor of the Queen, and Changer of Worlds. I've added that link. (Thanks to Wikipedian Wwoods for the tip.) — Jeff Q 00:38, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

To the user who removed links to the Baen CD Library Disks due to copyright infringement, you should have checked before you assumed. There's absolutely no infringement involved. All 6 CDs are clearly labeled, "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold". (emphasis thiers) It is perfectly legal to distribute this CD, either physically or in electronic form. -- 68.39.81.43 00:17, 9 Mar 2005

To the anonymous user (68.39.81.43, whose signature I added because they did not): you should not have assumed that I removed the "Baen" CD Library link without checking. I did check it before doing so. What I found at this site, which the contributing editor suspiciously labelled "Baen" CD Library, as if to avoid legal action from Baen, was the following:

• A bold statement that the site was not affliated with Baen Books, yet was claiming that these copyrighted materials were freely downloadable as long as they're not sold. There are tens of thousands of people with similar sites who seem to feel that anything they can upload to a website should be available to anyone to download, as long as no money is made from it. That general assumption is absolutely false, and I thought I had found yet another attempt at illegal distribution.

• Pictures of CDs that are contained within copyrighted books. Those disc pictures have tiny white print (containing the aforementioned permissive statement) that is completely illegible on my 1024x768 laptop screen. That is not an appropriate use of the phrase "clearly labeled".

• A link to Baen's main webpage, which makes no direct reference to these CDs.

Had I done more research, I would have found the official statement on Baen's generosity behind the "About the Free Library" tab on Baen's main webpage. Also, I later realized that the disc pictures could be clicked on to provide a much larger image, on which one can read the white print. (Even then, I'd suspect it, as I could slap such a plain-text statement on a digital image with primitive graphics tools.) Given the other suspicious elements of this link, however, I felt I'd found a copyvio. I was wrong, yes, but I had made an honest effort to uncover the truth.

About a week after I removed this doubtful link, Wwoods pointed out to me that Baen is, in fact, offering the contents of these CDs available, even online, without cost. Rather than making a bald, unsupported assertion, Wwoods provided me with a useful link to the verifiably official Baen Free Library webpage, which happens to be the page that the "About the Free Library" link jumps to. This was a direct link to the permission needed to avoid copyright infringement. I happily and promptly added the link to this official statement to the article's External links, as I mentioned in my 9 January posting above.

It is true that I did not restore the "Baen" CD LIbrary link, which is indistinguishable from a copyvio site without that official statement. In these days of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, that site's webmasters are quite foolish in merely claiming the material is distributable, rather than clearly stating that Baen has given its permission, and also in providing a general link to the Baen site, rather than the specific link to the explicit permission to distribute. (I repeat that a child could paste the permission text onto those disc images.)

If someone wants to restore this link, they're welcome to do so. It does provide a quicker way to get all the material, as the Baen Free Library site requires one download per book per format. — Jeff Q (talk) 06:33, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Link added. John Ringo told me that Baen described these CDs as "A license to print money!" and wants them spread far and wide. To he who removed the link saying that the text on the disc is illegible: buy a book. There's a nice long blurb about how the only readon they're giving away CDs and ISOs is to be mercenary bastards. The burden of proof that I'm lying is on you; if people have to prove everything they do is legal then nothing happens. But I think I will anyway.

Are the CD-Rom links going to be put on this page or not? They keep being edited out for no apparent reason when someone places them there after repetedly pointing out its a legal copy.

---

Hmmm, as part of that studious investigation, did you do something as simple as Googling Baen, CD, & library? (Like I did to find this page) If so, you'd get the following link.

http://www.baen.com/orientation.htm

Written by Jim Baen, referring to the Honerverse CD, and stating in part, "If you missed the first edition you can obtain a copy of the CD as an ISO image you can use to burn your own copy!"

With just a bit more searching, you can find the authors telling you to distribute them. John Ringo has said it, and so has Eric Flint. I'm sure others have as well, check the Baen Bar, it's probably there.

So, to reitterate, the Baen CD Libraries are Free. They are freely distributable. They may be copied by anyone, as long as they aren't sold.

Links to the CDs http://baen.ghostwheel.com/ http://www.neologism.co.uk/baen/ http://gryffindor.dnsalias.org/~thj/Hobbies/baen.html There are some others, and Bit Torrents, just google as above.

Signed--User:68.39.81.43 Mike S. 5/23/2005 (So as not to appear rude by being too anonymous)

Complaining vs. doing

Three users have been complaining about this article's content (or, more accurately, this Talk page's content) for the past two months without taking any action on the article itself. It occurs to me that this may be because they are not familiar with the concept of wikis. I am not going to go over all the relevant information they should be accumulating by regular use of wikis, as that information is available in many places, starting with Help:Contents. I'm sure some of the problem comes from these users' apparent focus solely on this article (based on a review of their edit histories). There's nothing wrong with that; no one need work on anything they're not interested in. But the tone of criticism and complaint is not becoming in a wiki, and is certainly not geared toward getting cooperation. Please allow me to make the following points:

• Anyone can edit the article itself. When I said that anyone was welcome to restore the link I removed, I was being literal. I don't recall why I just didn't do it myself, except perhaps that I may have been a bit irked at the accusation that I hadn't done any checking (to which I responded with a detailed account of exactly what checking I had and hadn't done), and I just wasn't in the mood. Petty, perhaps, but wikis are an entirely voluntary effort, and I spent all my energy on this topic defending my actions and confessing my failure. I imagine I thought someone would quickly make the simple edit to put the link back in the article. To date, no one has done this.
• 19 days after my mea culpa, Chrontius responded by telling me to spend money on the book and do yet more work, rather than simply restore the link him/herself, as if I am somehow solely responsible for this page. This is a misunderstanding of the wiki process. If you want something done, either do it yourself, or ask others nicely. Complaining and needling others rarely gets you any action on a wiki. And the action Chrontius urged was moot, as I'd already acknowledged that the CDs were legit. Continuing an argument after you've already won is another way to encourage people to ignore you.
• Chrontius also changed the header of the discussion from "Removed links" to "Un-Removed links", rendering the start of the discussion confusing to anyone coming to this topic later. One should always consider future readers when making retroactive changes in wiki discussion pages. I have fixed that error.
• More than six weeks later, 217.155.134.154 asked about the links, and complained that "they keep being edited out for no apparent reason when someone places them there after repetedly [sic] pointing out its [sic] a legal copy". Please note that, in a wiki, it is possible to verify exactly what editing action has taken place. 217's statement is absolutely incorrect. I added the Baen Free Library link on 8 Jan, an anoymous user vandalized the page on 11 Feb (which was quickly reverted by another user), and two tweaks were made to this article's categories. No links were either added or deleted in that time. As far as the Talk page goes, no links had been removed since I posted my original copyvio concern. The edit histories are available for anyone to examine.
• 15 days after that, 68.39.81.4 (or "Mike S.", as he kindly informed us) made another snarky criticism of my efforts and tried to bolster the case that had already been won. He added several links to this page (not the article, where they matter). I haven't checked them, and don't intend to, as I've already spent far more time on this entire topic than I wish to, despite my enjoyment of Weber's works. I repeat that anyone can (and should) add links to the article, and that telling me to do it — after insulting me again — is counter-productive.

These users have got me so annoyed with their inaction and complaints about a resolved issue that I want to wash my hands of this whole situation. As a Wikiquote sysop now, I spend a considerable amount of time fixing frequent vandalizations, researching quote subjects, debating policy issues, and assisting polite users who don't demand that I do their work for them. I could take five seconds out to add the link(s), but that would be like feeding a village instead of teaching people to grow food. To those three dissatisfied users, I say "be bold!" Please review Wikiquette for tips on how to work successfully with other wiki users, read about general wiki use, and consider making the edits you desire yourselves. That's your right and your great opportunity in this project! — Jeff Q (talk) 06:28, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Removed FifthImperium link

I've just removed a link to what appears to be a fan-driven auxiliary site (baencd.thefifthimperium.com) providing nothing not available from the official site. Anticipating another complaint storm similar to the one laid out above, I'll justify my action by pointing out that Wikiquote is not an internet directory or a place to advertise one's related site. We provide quotes and links to sources for those quotes, but we always favor official sites over fan sites. If there is a compelling reason to include an unofficial site for quote research, please make the case here before restoring the link. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:01, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

The site you removed contains all of his books many of which are not in baen's free library. You invited users to replace links to the cd library so I did. This site also states that use of the cds is permitted. Did you bother to look at the site or just delete it without checking? I would think a complete set of his work would be more useful than a partial but what do I know? By the way, the site was already referenced in the infodump link. so I will just link to the weber saganami cdrom. [user:guit4r9uy]

Thank you, Guit4r9uy, for your prompt clarification. This time I intentionally did not investigate the site, preferring to put the onus on link-adders to justify the links. You're on the record now averring that this site does have permission. (I do see their own rather informal statement. I'd still prefer seeing the actual Baen statement on the material, but I'll accept it at face-value, given Baen's now-existing practice.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:20, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

just one expletive-deleted minute. you expletive-deleted removed my link without checking it while you stated that it provided nothing extra from the baen home page ? what did you use to reach this conclusion a expletive-deleted seance? expletive-deleted you -- Guit4r9uy 08:43, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid I've not been very clear. When I say I did not "investigate" the site, I meant I did not go wandering through the site to find its contents and analyze them. What I did was go there, look at the links, which looked like simple links to CDs that should be expected (if actually released by Baen) to be available on their site, and figured they were probably redundant. Apparently I was wrong, and I apologize for my hastiness.

But you should understand that we have over 4,500 articles here on Wikiquote, and people are constantly adding irrelevant links to many of them. There are, however, only half a dozen people actively monitoring pages for extraneous links. Do the math and you can see that it's extremely difficult to spend any significant time doing research on most pages. I am trying (however inadequately) to encourage people to give reasons why they add such links.

It would help a lot if people would use the "edit summary" box provided during every edit to explain what they're adding, as they're supposed to. We could have avoided this whole situation if you'd simply commented in the edit summary "+distributable CD images not yet avail on Baen site", or something similar.

And as I pointed out above in earlier conversations, you'll only get so much cooperation from people by vicious retorts, however self-censored. You might want to review Wikiquette. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:38, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

HEYJEFF. HERE IS A VERY EASY WAY TO GET SOME CLARIFICATION. DAVID WEBER AND JOHN RINGO WILL ANSWER ANY EMAIL. ASK THEM. YOU ARE NOT THE LONE INTERNET RANGER. STOP ACTING LIKE IT! —This unsigned comment is by Drgnrbrn33 (talk • contribs) .

I would point out 1) all capitalized message is not reader-frinedly and 2) frequently considered as intimidation. Humbly I recommend you to follow Wikiquette. Thanks.

And Drgnrbrn33, if you think it appropriate to ask something to Mr. David Weber, it should you to do so, you have no good reason to order a volunteering Wikiquote sysop to do anything. You cannot make him do what you want, you need to do it by yourself at your cost. Please note this project is run by volunteers and only as for content. --Aphaia 22:16, 29 April 2007 (UTC)