Talk:The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, and Other Stories

Untitled

Didn't some of these stories win awards ?

-- Beardo 06:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I seem to remember there was a story about extreme surfing, too. Can anyone comfirm this, and tell me the title? Thanks tim 00:00, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 13:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Links to copyrighted material

@Ylee: I see that you've restored the links to the copyrighted material. I also found your edit summary a bit bizarre, in that you say that I performed original research when, in fact, my own edit summary gave the Library of Congress renewal number for the entries. For your convenience, here it is again. As for your statement (in your edit summary) that Zelazny's heirs and the InternetArchive engaged in some sort of agreement to release the copyrighted material for free use, neither you nor the InternetArchive uploader has presented any evidence at all. The Archive hosts material uploaded by individuals and we simply cannot assume that all of the uploads were proper.

Immediately after posting here, I'll be removing the links again. I encourage you to engage in discussion here before restoring the links. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:43, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, giving the renewal number alone, and expecting doing so to control the content of edits, is OR. Edit summaries are not cites.

I did not say that Zelazny's heirs and IA had some kind of agreement. My point is that it is Zenazny's heirs' responsibility to contact Internet Archive and have any material IA should not post removed by the archive. Until and unless that happens, it is not up to Wikipedia editors to decide the propriety of links to IA, a well-known Internet resource. Ylee (talk) 22:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for engaging in discussion. I must admit, though, that I'm a bit puzzled by the first part of your response. Of course edit summaries are not citations, but are you suggesting that I needed to add a citation to the article in order to justify the removal of the links? I think that providing the LoC renewal number was all that was needed to alert you to the copyright status of the linked material.

As for the second part of your response, you're right -- you didn't say there was an agreement between the copyright holder and the Archive. Instead, you said it was "up to Zelazny's heirs and IA itself", which I took to mean some type of agreement. But as you point out here, you simply meant that if the Archive hasn't been made aware of any copyright infringement, then it is permissible to link to it from Wikipedia. But this runs afoul of WP:ELNEVER, which explicitly prohibits us from linking to material when we have reason to believe that the material is being hosted in violation of copyright.

You might also want to take a look at WP:ELLIST, which calls into question your practice of adding external links to the main text of the article, even if there are no copyright issues.

Thanks again for the discussion. I look forward to your response. NewYorkActuary (talk) 20:11, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

"Of course edit summaries are not citations, but are you suggesting that I needed to add a citation to the article in order to justify the removal of the links?" Yes, that would be helpful; if nothing else, it would be relevant information to Wikipedia. Are you and I, however, interpreting the results of the copyright search with that renewal number correctly? Is any renewed copyright still valid today, given how applicable laws have changed? This is a good example of why WP:PRIMARY exists.

"But this runs afoul of WP:ELNEVER, which explicitly prohibits us from linking to material when we have reason to believe that the material is being hosted in violation of copyright." No. As that section goes on to say,

External links to websites that display copyrighted works are acceptable as long as the website is manifestly run, maintained or owned by the copyright owner; the website has licensed the work from the owner; or it uses the work in a way compliant with fair use.

And, in fact, WP:COPYLINK says "The copyright status of Internet archives in the United States is unclear". (Given that the Wayback Machine is mentioned in the next sentence, the reference to the Internet Archive specifically is clear.)

Were the links in question to Scribd or YouTube (two sites WP:ELNEVER uses as sources of frequent copyright violations), or to MyAwesomeMagazineArchive.com, this discussion wouldn't be happening at all. I don't know whether the magazine issues in question hosted at IA are considered fair use, or some other non copyright-infringing status, perhaps akin to IA's specific exemptions from copyright regarding software. My point is that IA is special and the Wikipedia MOS treats it as such. It is not a straightforward WP:ELNEVER case, and/or one that justifies deleting relevant wikitext with only a "LoC copyright renewal number" in the summary.

Regarding WP:ELLIST, in addition to what I said above about IA's special status on Wikipedia, I quote the last sentence: "This section does not apply if the external link is serving as a citation for a stand-alone list entry that otherwise meets that list's inclusion criteria." In other words, don't insert an external link if there is a valid wikilink. The entries in question are of stories that do meet the list's inclusion criteria, but don't yet have Wikipedia articles of their own. When they do, the EL should go in those articles specifically and wikilinks to those articles should replace the EL. But not until then. Ylee (talk) 21:58, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

My apologies for the delay in response. The holiday season left me with little time to work on Wikipedia and I am only now just digging out of the backlog.

I continue to be puzzled by your now-repeated insistence that I should have left a citation in the article for material that I had removed from the article. Perhaps you would be so kind as to demonstrate exactly how this might be done.

But let's move on to the more substantive issues. Your various responses and arguments are an odd assortment of misinterpretations of the guidance. Your statement that WP:ELNEVER supports your position is bizarre, all the more so because you actually quote the criteria that permit a link to copyrighted material -- that the website be run by the holder of the copyright, or that the material has been licensed to it, or that it is complying with "fair use" laws. And in this case, none of that is true. Neither the Internet Archive nor the anonymous uploader who goes by the name of "Sketch the Cow" is the copyright holder here, there is no evidence of a licensing agreement, and a full duplication of the material is not "fair use". And so, your own quotation works against your position. Equally incorrect is your assertion that the section of WP:COPYLINK discussing the Wayback Machine is really talking about the Internet Archive's book collection. Those are two different things and that guidance simply doesn't apply to the hosted books and magazines. And I'm flummoxed at your assertion that adding a link to a copy of the book is a "citation". If you really need to cite the fact that the story appeared in the collection (and you don't really need to do this), then just cite either the book's Table of Contents or its listing at the ISFDB.

But most basic of all, there is nothing "special" about the Internet Archive. This is especially true for the uploads by good ol' Sketch the Cow, who never actually says that the material is in the public domain and offers none of the evidence that would normally appear in the "Copyright evidence" field on the details page of the upload. Much more reliable than Sketch the Cow's silence is the evidence of copyright renewal provided by the Library of Congress. There is no need to interpret that entry -- it clearly states that the copyright was renewed and, under current law, that copyright will remain in force for another forty or so years.

I don't expect that you will agree with any of this. But perhaps we can agree that WP:NOCON requires you to achieve consensus when adding material to an article. You have manifestly failed to do that and I'll be removing the links in a few minutes. If you want to discuss the matter further, I'll be happy to do so. You might also want to seek advice at the copyright questions page, or to open a discussion at the External Links noticeboard. Or at the Dispute Respolution noticeboard. I'll be happy to participate in whichever forum you prefer. But in the meantime, please do not restore the links. If you do so, I will file a report at an appropriate Administrative noticeboard.

I look forward to your response. NewYorkActuary (talk) 00:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)