Talk:Robert A. Heinlein/Archive 3

Heinleiners?
This term (last sentence of paragraph 3) is a new one to me. I recall John Varley's subculture of Heinleiners in Steel Beach, but I've never come across the term in the wild in the sense presented here. A quick Google yielded 30-some hits, most of which either point to Varley or to somebody called KazVorpal--who inserted the term here. There is a Slangsite.com entry, but it points to Varley. (And is this really a lexicography site, or just another collection of unfiltered internet noise?) Unless someone can come up with a stronger source, I'd say cut this--it sounds like a neologism to me, and not in common use. RLetson 22:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. I almost removed it a while ago, then decided to wait and see if anyone else agreed with me.... Hayford Peirce 23:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You been reading Variety again, Hayford? RLetson 23:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I used to read it in the barber shop of the Beverly Hills Hilton a gazillion years ago, about the time I bought the first edition of Stranger in a Strange Land and very carefully threw away the dustjacket (and several thousand dollars of value) upon sitting down to read it.... Sigh, for misspent youth.... Hayford Peirce 23:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Kazvorpal added discussion of the term to the lead, but I've reverted the edit. Although Kazvorpal did provide documentation that some people in SF fandom do really use the term, there's no evidence that it's important enough, or sufficiently widely used, to be included in the article, and I certainly don't think it deserves to be mentioned prominently in the lead. This is just fan trivia, IMO, nothing like a term like "grok" or "waldo" that has actually entered the vocabulary of the language.--WPIsFlawed 14:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I followed a couple of the links from the "Heinleiners" Wiki article and noticed that 1) while the Yahoo! group is indeed called "Heinleiners," the IRC sites are not so named; and 2) KazVorpal is involved in both. To me the insertion of the term in this article looks a bit like self-promotion or promotion of an in-group identity. I repeat that I have never encountered the term in ordinary use in the SF world. I recommend cutting the reference here--and I wouldn't weep to see the "Heinleiners" article removed, either, but I'll let others fuss about that. Unless I can offer "Russellism" as a term meaning "a playful yet incisive insight into the workings of popular literature" and have an article dedicated to examples found in my collected review columns and Wiki discussion pages. RLetson 04:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Had you used the basic wikipedia technique of checking Google, you'd have seen that there are a few hundred references to "heinleiner", including a great many different people referring to themselves by that term. While heinleiners.com now points at the official Heinlein Society website, it was also its own website at one time. Several of you here have an ugly habit of deleting, rather than fixing, things to which you have objection. It is a typical symptom of bad editors, certainly not fitting for a Heinlein entry.--Kaz 00:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, since you're the one who has brought up Google, here's the result of the correct way of searching for "Heinleiner" using Google. Type in the following: "-Kazvorpal -Varley +Heinleiner -Wikipedia -amazon.com"  The minus signs are to keep out mentions of you, Varley, and Amazon comments.  The result: 135 mentions.  You may disagree with me, of course, but I don't think that that is a notable enough number to merit a 50-word sentence or two about "Heinleiners" in the Heinlein article.  It's akin to a mention that in 1969, during the Moon landing, Heinlein told Cronkite on national TV that July 29, 1969, would become recognized as Day 1 of the new way of doing the calendar.  I think I've seen evidence that he actually had some letterhead printed using that day.  But I looked up a letter that he wrote me in 1980 that had his formal letterhead on it and there was no sign of his revolutionary new calendar dating.... Hayford Peirce 01:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe it was July 20th, 1969. I remember it pretty vividly, 'though I was not quite two years old. And I'd say that, indeed, Heinlein's mention of that is of sufficient interest to be included in the article. See, this isn't a print encyclopedia. It is intended to be far more exhaustive, not required to weigh everything for maximum delivery of information.


 * But, as I noted before, it would have made more sense to move and shorten/edit the items you considered less important, rather than delete them completely. Effort should always be made to fix, rather than to censor. That's a pivotal trait of a good wikipedian.--Kaz 04:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * First thing I did on seeing "Heinleiner" three weeks ago was Google it, since I had never, repeat never in 30 years of fannish activity and 40-some of studying and writing about SF (with a special interest in Heinlein), seen or heard it outside of Varley's novel. Next thing I did was what Hayford has already suggested. Just did it again, and depending on whether it's "Kaz Vorpal" or "KazVorpal" that I minus out, I get 20 or 32 hits. This does not strike me as a significant level of usage outside of a small circle of on-line folk, and certainly not enough to rate a mention in a lead section. The word is an almost inevitable formation and may indeed someday come into common (or at least subcultural) usage. But it isn't there yet. I really hate to see this degenerate into a "Does not!" "Does too!" exchange, but I wonder what the threshhold is for a term to achieve recognition as more than in-group slang. RLetson 05:51, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Articles for deletion/Heinleiner may be of interest to folk on either side of this discussion. --Calair 01:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The term is not notable, and in addition, it's ridiculous to keep adding it to the lead. The lead is only for the most important facts, and this topic isn't even notable enough to belong in the article, much less in the lead.--WPIsFlawed 16:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

(see further discussion under Varley, below)--24.52.254.62 23:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

conflicts with Scribner's over juveniles
The article mentioned Heinlein's conflicts with his editor over his juvenile novels in two different places. I've deleted one, since it seemed redundant and out of place. However, probably a couple more sentences should be added to the article about this. If nobody else wants to, I can write it, since I have the sources handy. There's quite a bit of discussion of this in various sources, IIRC, such as Grumbles from the Grave and the Baen edition of Podkayne of Mars. And of course there was the ugly way that Scribner's terminated their relationship with him over Starship Troopers. The remark that I deleted was trying to make a link between the editorial issues he had with the juveniles and his conscious decision to delay publication of Stranger. It seemed to me to be completely a matter of speculation whether there was any such link in his mind. One expects that certain types of content will not be allowed in a juvenile, and that doesn't necessarily imply anything about an adult novel. Although Stranger was cut drastically in the version that was originally published, I believe it was merely for length, not content. In fact, I don't think there's any evidence that there was any editorial censorship applied to any of his adult work, merely self-censorship in the form of delaying publication of Stranger. If anything, novels like I Will Fear No Evil would have benefited from some more aggressive editorial work, IMO.--WPIsFlawed 15:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * And how! Most of the extra material in the "complete" edition of Stranger was unnecessary.  When Heinlein got too big for editors, his work lost focus.


 * For whatever it's worth, RAH believed that Stranger had indeed been cut too much...it was cut to such an extent purely because of space constraints, not because it was so large that it lost focus. Indeed, Virginia Heinlein has said that it had been a mistake to cut the book. --Kaz 00:12, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

But as one of the people who have been editing the article around the conflict around Heinlein's works for juveniles, I keep having to correct a misconception: Podkayne is not a juvenile. It was not published by Scribner's. Heinlein (read the full Baen edition) describes it as a "cadet" book, good for kids and true young adults. It was published in 1963, when Heinlein wasn't writing his juvenile series anymore. It is similar in tone to his juveniles, but it is not one.--Wehwalt 18:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If this is to be emphasized in the article, then it would be necessary to break down the books generally into more categories. If the approach is generally to have a dichotomy of Adult and Juvies, then it's fairest to put Podkayne in the latter category, and simply mention the difference in a quick note. --Kaz 00:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Variable Star
Why is the article under Robert_A._Heinlein%27s_Variable_Star instead of Variable Star? Everything appears to indicate the actual title of the book is Variable Star. Any objections to the change? --Lukobe 17:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * BTW, why aren't the titles in the box at the bottom of the page italicized? --Lukobe 17:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't have the finished book, but on the title and copyright pages of my bound advance review copy it's just Variable Star. RLetson 18:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Linguistics section
User Norm mit added a section on linguistics, but I've deleted it. I think it's much too detailed to belong in this article, which is already very long. The article does already mention Korzybski and general semantics, and I think that's plenty on that topic.--WPIsFlawed 16:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

World as Myth -- are there any references?
I just put the following into the World as Myth Discussion page: Are there any references of outside sources that refer to this World as Myth stuff? I know that there are gazillions of references to Heinlein's Future History but I don't know of any to World as Myth. I'm sure they exist, but shouldn't there be at least one or two citations here and in the main Heinlein article? I've been reading Heinlein for, let's see, about 49 and a half years now, and own all his books, and have read a lot of critical stuff about him and have never encountered this term before. That's undoubtedly just me being stupid, but I'd still like to see a reference. Thanks. Hayford Peirce 00:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm in a similar situation, but noticed the term recently. Here's a link to the Nitrosyncretic FAQ that mentions it: []. Googling yields lots of hits that wind up being the same references and claims, notably that RAH himself coined the term, but a quick survey hasn't revealed where. The phrase seems to have taken root, but I argree that it would be nice to have some idea of its origin. RLetson 05:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've been trying to track down the World as Myth business. A bunch of places refer to it as being Heinlein-inspired, or Heinlein-created, but NOBODY tells me WHERE he did this.  Did he or didn't he?  Did he invent the phrase or did someone else?  If he did, then WHERE did he do it?  Let's have a reference, people.  If a University of Maryland professor first used the phrase in his doctoral thesis, then let's say so.  If it was a reviewer in Galaxy, then ditto.  If it was RAH himself, then it ought to be easy enough to cite.  I gotta say, this whole thing sorta annoys me.  It's as if I went to the Asimov article and suddenly discovered that seven of his novels had been catagorised as the Walkalamie Variables, because that's the way Asimov thought of them. Nobody *else* uses the phrase, and nobody tells us *where* Asimov used it, but since he did, then the whole thing ought to be self-evident.  Okay, fine.  If the World as Myth stuff really exists, please give us a reference and we can go on from there.  Short of that, one of these days I'm just gonna delete it from the Heinlein article as being a hobbyhorse of someone or other along the lines of "Heinleiner" and of no more significance. Hayford Peirce 23:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Start at the top of page 364 of "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls." (Berkley Books edition, 1986) There's a good explanation of the idea that goes on for a page or so. -Zeno Izen 02:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

William H. Patterson, Jr., and Andrew Thornton, The Martian Named Smith: Critical Perspectives on Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, p. 128:
 * "His books written after about 1980 ... belong to a series called by one of the central characters 'World as Myth.'"

The term doesn't occur in the indexes of Panshin and Franklin's books, but that's not surprising since Panshin's book is from 1968, and even Franklin's was published in 1980. The term doesn't appear in the index of Gifford's Reader's Companion. Instead, Gifford consistently uses the term Multiverse. Two uses of the term "World as Myth" on the web, by people who appear to know what they're talking about:
 * http://www.wegrokit.com/caa.htm
 * http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/rahfaq.html#0402

(The second one is from the web site of Nitrosyncretic Press, which was the publisher for both Gifford and Patterson.) The term "pantheistic solipsism" doesn't occur anywhere in the indexes of Panshin, Franklin, Patterson, or Gifford.

So the situation seems pretty clear to me. Critics have universally recognized this set of books as forming a well-defined set of books, distinct from the Future History set. The term "World as Myth" was first used by Heinlein in one of his own novels, and is now in widespread use, both in print and on the web. The alternative terms "Multiverse" and "pantheistic solipsism" have much less currency when referring to Heinlein. The WP article pantheistic solipsism seems to be saying that "pantheistic solipsism" is more general, as opposed to World as Myth, which refers only to Heinlein. I don't know how widespread the use of the term "pantheistic solipsism" is.--24.52.254.62 21:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's a very good explanation. And I see that there is now a footnote in the main article explaining the term.  Very nice -- now I won't have to do it myself, hehe.... Hayford Peirce 22:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Individualism and self-determination
Having just read it, how does Double Star jive with the theme of "...the struggle for self-determination of individuals, rather than of nations?" Admittedly, I'm a Heinlein neophyte, but the line near the end where Smythe says "...in order to let Bonforte live again, that seedy actor had to be supressed--completely" seems pretty telling. Sure, it's his choice to become Bonforte and put on this 'ultimate work', but it's still almost a literal self-sacrifice (to crib from the Double Star entry) for the good of the extended nation. I'll also mention the emperor's mentioning of becoming a shop foreman were he not emperor, as being somewhat in the same vein. A contrasting study?
 * I think this is more of a general theme throughout Heinlein's work: the tension between one's own freedom as an individual, and one's duty (to friends, family, tribe, nation, ...). There are a million different angles on this. Beyond This Horizon has the protagonist feeling that his society per se is anemic and not necessarily worth saving, but he's prepared to lay down his life to save its gene plasm bank. The first couple of pages of The Puppet Masters are another interesting take on this, from a completely different angle (and similar to Double Star, because there is a strong element of personal loyalty and respect, stronger than abstract loyalty to the nation-state). Although there are many different nuances to this, and it's a tension that helps to drive a lot of the plots of his books, I think the basic answer is that the individual has to choose what it's worth putting himself on the line for, and if he make a choice that involves self-sacrifice, it *is* an expression of his freedom as an individual. I've made an edit to the Individualism and self-determination section to try to reflect this; what do people think? --WPIsFlawed 16:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

edits by 128.31.16.98
User 128.31.16.98 added the following:
 * Heinlein's time travel stories, especially 'By His Bootstraps' and '-All You Zombies-', have been influential in philosophical discussion of the possibility of time travel; they are cited by David Lewis in 'The Paradoxes of Time Travel'. Unlike many such stories they appear to be consistent (the past never gets 'changed'), and they provide graphic examples of time travel 'loops': finite series of events in which each member is caused by one of the others, so that they appear ungrounded (see, for instance, the case of the notebook in 'By His Bootstraps').

I'm skeptical of the claim made by this paragraph, so I've cut it. Just because one person mentions them as an example in a book, that doesn't mean they're influential.--WPIsFlawed 22:02, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Without taking either side in this matter, I wonder if the David Lewis book by itself is important enough to warrant a mention, though? Hayford Peirce 22:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

conditions for franchise in Starship Troopers
User Phrost made the following change:
 * The book's main political idea is that there should be no conscription, but that suffrage should belong only to those who have served in the military.

to:
 * The book's main political idea is that there should be no conscription, but that suffrage should belong only to those who have earned it through government or military service.

with this comment:
 * ST's "Citizenship" wasn't granted only to those who served in the Military, but those who sacrificed by serving the whole of society.

I think this is a controversial point, and we might want to talk it over thoroughly and make sure we're getting it right. The article on the book (which is an FA) has a couple of apropos quotes:
 * "the franchise is today limited to discharged veterans," ch. XII
 * "people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears"

I recall that in one place, they say that if someone is blind, deaf, and crippled, they'll still let him qualify for the franchise, but the assignment might be something like counting the fuzz on the back of a caterpillar. I think the version before Phrost's change is probably not literally factually correct, but I'm not sure Phrost's version is better. The new version would seem to imply that you could volunteer to drive an ambulance, or work in a hospital back on Earth; however, my recollection is that that is not correct -- they ask Rico his preferences, but they don't give him the choice he asked for, assigning him to the MI instead. I also don't think you are told what duty you'll be assigned to until you've already signed up. IIRC, Rico signs up, they tell him he'll be in the MI, and they tell him that after that point, he can still fail to show up for duty without any penalty whatsoever, except that he'll miss out on the franchise.--24.52.254.62 23:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Citizenship requires federal service, and anyone who signs up has to be accepted, though assignment to any given branch is not guaranteed. Joseph Major's Heinlein's Children has a long chapter on ST that addresses (among other things) the question of how much of federal service is militarized, how much is militarized but essentially support & logistics, and so on. Based on my recollection of the book and Major's detailed commentary, I believe the terms that best describe the kind of service required would be "federal" or "government"--that leaves the debate over how "military" the service actually is to commentators. RLetson 23:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

John Varley
(discussion moved from Heinleiners, above): User Plumbago added a mention of Heinleiners:
 * The science fiction author John Varley, whose works often include themes that overlap those of Heinlein, even introduces a liberatarian group dedicated to interstellar travel, the Heinleiners.

I've reverted the edit, since there's been a clear consensus expressed here that the term is non-notable.--24.52.254.62 20:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Plumbago reverted my revert, and Hayford Peirce did a further edit, with a comment indicating agreement with the inclusion. I don't want to get into a revert war, and would like to hear more opinions to see if we have a consensus on the use of the term in this context. I actually think the entire paragraph is not very notable, mostly unsourced and unverifiable, and should be deleted, since the article is already very long. In the past, this paragraph has been a battleground for people trying to put in mentions of their favorite authors, including spammish listings of non-notable authors. I don't think a laundry list of authors influenced by Heinlein helps the reader, and I don't see much information to support an assertion that these authors, in particular, had more of a Heinlein influence than others. I've de-wikilinked the term Heinleiners, since the article has already been deleted as being non-notable.--24.52.254.62 22:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi there. I didn't mean to step on any toes by adding John Varley to the section on influence, but he's a notable writer in his own right, and his work is fairly clearly influenced by Heinlein. I don't know for a fact, but it seems likely that his creation of the Heinleiners is an acknowledgement of this debt.

On the direct subject of notability, and without wanting to be rude about it, Varley seems at least as notable as John Ringo, Eric Flint or David Weber (who seem to operate in some kind of cabal anyway). They're hardly well-known. And it's clear at all that Clancy's work has been influenced by Heinlein (but that's likely ignorance on my part).

Anyway, apologies if I've stepped over some line, but a dismissive revert isn't enough in my book on such a clear case. Cheers, --Plumbago 21:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Naw, you did exactly the right thing. Mentioning Varley in terms of the "Heinleiners" is worthwhile; the other mentions of them wasn't. Hayford Peirce 22:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Plumbago -- Sorry you felt that my rv was dismissive. Maybe you weren't familiar with the fact that the inclusion of the term Heinleiners in the article has been extensively discussed recently on this talk page (see above; I've moved some recent text out of that section and into this one), and that the Heinleiners article was recently deleted. I agree with you that Ringo, Flint, and Weber are not very notable, and probably less notable than Varley. In fact, I think the whole paragraph is non-notable, and should be deleted, since the article is already extremely long. I've deleted the mentions of Ringo, Flint, and Weber as non-notable and unverifiable, and the mention of Clancy as nonverifiable. I would support the deletion of the whole paragraph, though.--24.52.254.62 23:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I have no strong opinion on whether Varley's fiction is notable here, but I think it's a separate question from "are real-world people calling themselves 'Heinleiners' notable/verifiable?", and I think the deletion decision on Heinleiner had more to do with the latter than the former; had the article been primarily about Varley's fiction, I probably wouldn't have nominated it for deletion as I did. --Calair 00:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah-ha. Sorry about the confusion I caused reintroducing the Heinleiners.  I hadn't realised an article on them had existed, had been about a group of people I wasn't expecting, and was subsequently deleted.  I assumed (from the John Varley page) that it just hadn't been created yet, so I wikilinked in hope.  Ooops.  My apologies.


 * 24.52.254.62 - thanks very much for your comments. I labelled your reversion as "dismissive" partly because it was just so fast.  :)  I entirely understand your reasons for wanting to keep the article a reasonable length, and keeping the writing tight.  I've seen enough pages go to bloat in my time already.  Anyway, I'm happy with the trim that the article currently boasts, so thanks for your efforts.  I won't be so quick on the revert next time.  Cheers, --Plumbago 06:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * What's strange about this whole discussion here is that it doesn't really say anything about a single, overwhelming fact: that the writings of RAH influenced more SF writers than anyone else in history. From the moment his first story appeared, other writers instantly saw that *this* was the way an SF story should be told.  An earlier paragraph in the article says that many writers tried to emulate him, with varying degrees of success, and I guess we'll have to leave it at that.  Grumpy old Jack Vance once told me that he'd never read anything of Heinlein's and was never influenced at all by him, but Jack is sui generis.  (A month or so later, RAH said to me: "Jack Vance?  Isn't he that old guy who used to write back in the 1930s?")  In any case, I think his influence is so overwhelming, and so pervasive, that no bothers to even think about it -- it's like the air that we all breath.  There ought to be a quotation or two around somewhere that would say what I've just said, but I'm not gonna bother to look for it.... Hayford Peirce 16:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Freemasonry
I almost inhaled my own face when I realised that in the main themes Freemasonry wasn't mentioned, further more when I did a search of the article and didn't find any reference to FM what so ever. I'm honestly aghast that such a significant feature of ALL his writings has been left out. All of RH's works had heavy masonic undertones, even blatently outright references to significant portions of initiation ceremonies and other such things in many of his novels.

Would someone care to include such a significant portion of this mans works, writings and life? I would do so, however I am not an editor here and prefer to leave it to the locals. Jachin 02:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, if everyone else here is like me, and knows nothing whatsoever about FM, and even less about RAH's references to it, how can *we* do it? You're the one who knows about it, evidently -- why don't you write up some material?  There'll be plenty of people to edit it if it needs it.... Hayford Peirce 02:30, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I can recall various references to fraternal organizations, although not to freemasonry. For instance, there's a shriner's convention involved in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. I also seem to remember Lazarus Long exchanging a secret handshake with his grandfather in Time Enough for Love, but again, I don't think it was freemasonry. Jachin, how about providing us with a verifiable source for your claims? Ginny specifically stated that he was not a freemason: http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/FAQrah.html . There is a note in the article on “If This Goes On—” claiming that the Cabal is an organization led by freemasons; I strongly doubt that's correct, but I'll take a look. The Heinlein concordance at http://www.heinleinsociety.org/concordance/C_HC.htm#cabal says "It seems to have been similar to Freemasonry," but basing a fictional organization on the freemasons is very different from having it be run by masons. --24.52.254.62 02:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm...I went through “If This Goes On—” pretty carefully just now, and can't find a single explicit reference to freemasonry. There are references to "master of this lodge" and "the grand lodge," which sound like they might be masonic. This article http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/works/novels/ifthisogoeson.html, however, by Bill Patterson, claims that it's a "consortium of groups led by freemasons." I just can't find anything like that in the story. I'm working from the longer version of the story, as published in The Past Through Tomorrow.--24.52.254.62 04:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I posted on rec.arts.sf.written about this, and got some helpful replies, including a couple from Bill Patterson. If anyone's interested in reading the thread, the title is "Heinlein and freemasonry?" Patterson thinks I misread his article, and that the article basically agrees with what I'm saying: there's a lot of masonic terminology, but that's it. I'm going to change the text of the [“If This Goes On—”]] to be more accurate. Patterson also says that Heinlein wanted to join the masons when he was at the Naval Academy, but didn't have enough money, and by the time he had enough money he was no longer interested enough to do it.--24.52.254.62 16:53, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Many of the rituals, such as in .. crap, what's the novel where the false prophet dystopian society has an underground movement? Where the main character falls in love with what was to be the prophets bedmate and they run off to be initiated into an underground organisation?  Well, that one, involves word for word an EAF degree that is accurate and not derived from Duncan's rite or any other popular (or even obscure) publication or exposè of ritual.  There are a few elements within this story that an FM advisor wouldn't pass on, nor that could be read, that substantiate him being a Freemason.


 * For the record, reference to 'this lodge', or a 'grand lodge' is exclusively Masonic. You won't find explicit reference to Freemasonry in any authors work, Heinline's flirts with it more than any other author I have come across however.  To set the possibilities to rest, if anyone here has a reasonably concise list of the states / regions he lived in through the duration of his adult life (21+) and could post them to me on my talk page, I will have a brother in those regions go through the archives and see whether he turns up on the records. Jachin 16:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The story you're referring to is “If This Goes On—," the story I discussed above, and yes, it does use masonic terminology. Heinlein was not a mason, as I discussed above. If you think you might have access to primary source materials that would be relevant, then you should contact Bill Patterson, who is writing Heinlein's biography.--24.52.254.62 16:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * FWIW the terminology 'this lodge' and 'grand lodge' could reasonably apply to a number of different contexts. Orange Lodge is one that springs to mind, but when you look at the cultural context of pre WWII and post WWII there were a number of fraternal organisations quite active in the US.  The Shriners thing is a fairly explicit Masonic reference, but that's the only one that I've seen that was specific, the rest are generic.ALR 20:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Freemasonry
I almost inhaled my own face when I realised that in the main themes Freemasonry wasn't mentioned, further more when I did a search of the article and didn't find any reference to FM what so ever. I'm honestly aghast that such a significant feature of ALL his writings has been left out. All of RH's works had heavy masonic undertones, even blatently outright references to significant portions of initiation ceremonies and other such things in many of his novels.

Would someone care to include such a significant portion of this mans works, writings and life? I would do so, however I am not an editor here and prefer to leave it to the locals. Jachin 02:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, if everyone else here is like me, and knows nothing whatsoever about FM, and even less about RAH's references to it, how can *we* do it? You're the one who knows about it, evidently -- why don't you write up some material?  There'll be plenty of people to edit it if it needs it.... Hayford Peirce 02:30, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I can recall various references to fraternal organizations, although not to freemasonry. For instance, there's a shriner's convention involved in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. I also seem to remember Lazarus Long exchanging a secret handshake with his grandfather in Time Enough for Love, but again, I don't think it was freemasonry. Jachin, how about providing us with a verifiable source for your claims? Ginny specifically stated that he was not a freemason: http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/FAQrah.html . There is a note in the article on “If This Goes On—” claiming that the Cabal is an organization led by freemasons; I strongly doubt that's correct, but I'll take a look. The Heinlein concordance at http://www.heinleinsociety.org/concordance/C_HC.htm#cabal says "It seems to have been similar to Freemasonry," but basing a fictional organization on the freemasons is very different from having it be run by masons. --24.52.254.62 02:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm...I went through “If This Goes On—” pretty carefully just now, and can't find a single explicit reference to freemasonry. There are references to "master of this lodge" and "the grand lodge," which sound like they might be masonic. This article http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/works/novels/ifthisogoeson.html, however, by Bill Patterson, claims that it's a "consortium of groups led by freemasons." I just can't find anything like that in the story. I'm working from the longer version of the story, as published in The Past Through Tomorrow.--24.52.254.62 04:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I posted on rec.arts.sf.written about this, and got some helpful replies, including a couple from Bill Patterson. If anyone's interested in reading the thread, the title is "Heinlein and freemasonry?" Patterson thinks I misread his article, and that the article basically agrees with what I'm saying: there's a lot of masonic terminology, but that's it. I'm going to change the text of the [“If This Goes On—”]] to be more accurate. Patterson also says that Heinlein wanted to join the masons when he was at the Naval Academy, but didn't have enough money, and by the time he had enough money he was no longer interested enough to do it.--24.52.254.62 16:53, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Many of the rituals, such as in .. crap, what's the novel where the false prophet dystopian society has an underground movement? Where the main character falls in love with what was to be the prophets bedmate and they run off to be initiated into an underground organisation?  Well, that one, involves word for word an EAF degree that is accurate and not derived from Duncan's rite or any other popular (or even obscure) publication or exposè of ritual.  There are a few elements within this story that an FM advisor wouldn't pass on, nor that could be read, that substantiate him being a Freemason.


 * For the record, reference to 'this lodge', or a 'grand lodge' is exclusively Masonic. You won't find explicit reference to Freemasonry in any authors work, Heinline's flirts with it more than any other author I have come across however.  To set the possibilities to rest, if anyone here has a reasonably concise list of the states / regions he lived in through the duration of his adult life (21+) and could post them to me on my talk page, I will have a brother in those regions go through the archives and see whether he turns up on the records. Jachin 16:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The story you're referring to is “If This Goes On—," the story I discussed above, and yes, it does use masonic terminology. Heinlein was not a mason, as I discussed above. If you think you might have access to primary source materials that would be relevant, then you should contact Bill Patterson, who is writing Heinlein's biography.--24.52.254.62 16:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * FWIW the terminology 'this lodge' and 'grand lodge' could reasonably apply to a number of different contexts. Orange Lodge is one that springs to mind, but when you look at the cultural context of pre WWII and post WWII there were a number of fraternal organisations quite active in the US.  The Shriners thing is a fairly explicit Masonic reference, but that's the only one that I've seen that was specific, the rest are generic.ALR 20:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * But most fraternal organisations and varying rites of Freemasonry require the participant to have undergone instruction in blue lodge. Thus, shriners or not.  Lodge and Grand Lodge may be pertinant to various other fraternal organisations over the years, however Revolt in 2100, c'mon ALR.  You know it.  I know it.  UGL-ACT/NSW, Australia has it as recommended reading for EAF's.  ;)  As an aside, 24.52.254.62, that book in question was just added to the cultural references section of the Freemasonry article, it's Revolt in 2100.  I could have kicked myself for forgetting it's name.  :P  (As an aside, as this thread is less than five days old I've brought it out of the archives into this segment again for further input by passersby and other editors, I'd love to know, once and for all.) Jachin 03:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * tbh I've got no recollection of having read it, I'm not sure I've ever read any of the short stories.ALR 12:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It might be worth a read to you, from a masonic research POV. It goes through the EAF ritual and depicts the cellular existance of the Craft as successful in the means by which it was designed, ie: to survive governments, wars and disasters and keep the ethics and morals of society alive through the Craft.  Very, very good read and the prime give-away that RAH was most probably initiated into the Craft at some stage, which, given the era, would be totally unsurprising if not expected, unless he had a criminal background at any stage.  But anyhoo.  211.30.80.121 14:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * "[A]s an aside, 24.52.254.62, that book in question was just added to the cultural references section of the Freemasonry article, it's Revolt in 2100." No, that's an anthology. The story "If This Goes On" is in the anthology.--24.52.254.62 15:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to de-indent, but I feel I really must, in the interest of people browsers with 80 characters per line or the like. In regard of freemasonry, I think the book where Heinlein makes most direct explicit reference to it, is Take Back Your Government ( - A Practical Handbook for the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy to Work ). I am not interested enough to dig out the precise page numbers, but he makes recurring comments on masons in a favourable light in that book. Nothing that would indicate whether he is or is not one himself in any determinative fashion. From what I can remember of discussion on alt.fan.heinlein, several people with masonic connections on that list have been intrested in tracking down if he might have been member of some lodge, but have not expressed conclusive results either way. So it would be untrue to think that this matter has not been researched before, but it would indeed be untrue to say that it has been settled either. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 15:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * "So it would be untrue to think that this matter has not been researched before, but it would indeed be untrue to say that it has been settled either." I think it has been settled. Patterson, Heinlein's biographer, has collected the available data, and it seems to be pretty definitive that Heinlein, although sympathetic to the masons, was never a mason himself. That would seem to jibe with your memory of Take Back Your Government (which I haven't read). When the Patterson bio comes out from Nitrosyncretic Press, it'll be interesting to see if it gives us information that makes us change this article, but on this particular issue, Patterson has already weighed in publicly.--24.52.254.62 00:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Punctuation
User Signinstranger did a bunch of cleanup to the punctuation, most of which was good, but in some cases he did British-style punctuation instead of US. I've reverted it in those places. I'm also not sure how to punctuate the titles of two of the stories, whose titles I believe actually include the quotes ("If this goes on" and "all you zombies"); it seems like it would look goofy to have quotes inside of quotes, so I've left them with a single set of quotes. Or maybe they should have single quotes inside double quotes?--WPIsFlawed 22:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The correct forms are "'If This Goes On--'" and "'All You Zombies--'" (singles inside doubles, with the -- being an em dash). RLetson 04:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Edited as indicated above and also followed US practice of placing commas and periods inside quotation marks. RLetson 05:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm no punctuation expert, but I think working links are more important. I used piped links to keep your punctuation but make the links work. Also, it looks like you missed a few instances. —Keenan Pepper 09:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm probably displaying my wiki-naiveté here, but why not fix the article titles to reflect the correct forms of the story titles? RLetson 16:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * “If This Goes On—” seems correct already. Should "—All You Zombies—" be moved to “All You Zombies—”? —Keenan Pepper 19:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what the Wiki style book would be on this--it depends on how article titles are to be formatted. In normal body text, a story title goes in double quotation marks, so for ITGO and AYZ (which start with double quotation marks, since they're utterances), you add double quotation marks and reduce the original doubles to singles. So if the article titles are treated as "normal body text," they need this operation/transformation; if they're acting like bare titles, then they don't. (Sorry to get so pedantic about this, but I spent a couple decades as a professional pedant, English comp division.) RLetson 19:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that means the articles should have double quotes, but the single quote versions should be redirects for ease of linking. —Keenan Pepper 19:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

User Violetriga has changed the punctuation to the British style. I reverted it, and then she changed it back again. She left a message on my talk page saying that the standard style on WP is to use British punctuation, even when the article is in American English. She appears to be correct, based on WP's manual of style: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Quotation_marks. However, it just looks stupid, IMNSHO. You can't arbitrarily mix American and British English -- it's subliterate.--24.52.254.62 20:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It had never occurred to me that the Wiki style book would do something as silly as "splitting the difference" between US and UK punctuation. Now I'm waiting for the Wiki community to vote on the value of pi. (Yeah, yeah, I know, math isn't linguistic usage. But it still feels like letting comp students vote on grammar.) RLetson 00:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was speechless when I read this a couple days ago. Or, if not speechless, at least writing-a-commentless, hehe.  Verra weird! Hayford Peirce 01:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

You folks might want to weight in at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#British_punctuation_in_articles_written_in_American_English. One person there says that it doesn't apply to US-specific articles. On that interpretation, I'm going to go back and correct the punctuation in this article.--24.52.254.62 04:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#British_punctuation_in_articles_written_in_American_English shows that there's quite a bit of controversy on how flexibly to interpret this rule, especially when it comes to articles on American topics, written in American English. However, another officious busybody has come along and changed the article to British punctuation again. I've reverted it, but I don't want to be accused to getting into an edit war, so I'd appreciate it if others who agree with me would help to express the consensus here by keeping an eye on this.--24.52.254.62 00:22, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Okie, if that person reverts it, I'll revert it myself to keep you from having to do it. Two, three, or more of us ought to be able to wear him/her down.  And after the 3rd revert we can maybe find an administrator to step in.  By the way, this Brit business brings another chain of thought to mind.  See new topic at the end.... Hayford Peirce 00:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no intention of reverting more than once, pending the conclusion of further discussion. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Heinlein as a veddy veddy American taste
I recall reading in more than one place that Heinlein as a taste is one that does not travel well. That particularly in England his name is, if not mud, then at least seen on the level of cowboy-Ronald Reagan-typical American loudmouth. A shoot-from-the-hip engineer whose stories are definitely inferior. Does anyone recall the source of this? It was certainly a very reputable one that might be worth a mention in the article: Heinlein as the expression of quintessential Americanism, or some such.... Hayford Peirce 00:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, Heinlein's quintessential Americanism is a big thesis of Franklin's Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction. A lot of his stories do depict space as the Western Frontier translated into outer space, from the 1776 retelling of Red Planet to the pioneer story in Time Enough for Love. In The Number of the Beast, there's a funny part about an alternate universe where Mars is part of the British Empire, which causes the protagonists severe indigestion.--24.52.254.62 02:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, interesting. I've never read Franklin, however, so I so it somewhere else.  Probably 15 or 20 years ago.  It's probably a fairly well-known thesis, then.  It was probably a couple of book reviews by card-carrying Brits such as Kingsley Amis that I'm thinking of.  If I can track it down, I will. Hayford Peirce 03:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

American atheists category
User Homagetocatalonia added the article to the "American atheists" category. I don't really think that's correct, so I reverted it. Heinlein was hostile to fundamentalism, and sometimes to organized religion, but I hardly think the man who wrote the slogan "Thou art God" qualifies as an atheist.--24.52.254.62 02:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Tramp Royale
Use Shsilver added the following:
 * His experiences on the world tour described in Tramp Royale may have influenced his outlook in darker ways. Corruption and a near-rape in Indonesia, along with the staggering population density there, caused him to declare in the final chapter that the world may have already exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, and that the future would bring attempts by the high-population nations to take over all remaining lands, specifically the comparatively under-populated United States of America.

Chapter X of Tramp Royale describes their visit to Indonesia, and does describe an incident in which a soldier snuck into Ginny's room on the ship, apparently intending to rape her. However, I think this text represents a vast oversimplification of the comments made in the last chapter of the book, and the part about "may have influenced his outlook" seems like nonverifiable speculation. It also seems unlikely to me that the experience in Indonesia was such a huge deciding factor in making him focus on overpopulation, because Farmer in the Sky (1950) deals extensively with these issues, three years before the trip. I've deleted these two sentences.--24.52.254.62 03:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Moonbat
Seems a little misleading to say that he originated the term moonbat. The Safire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/magazine/03wwln_safire.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (free registration required?) says that he was the first to use it in print, but he didn't use it in the sense in which it's currently used at all.--24.52.254.62 05:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

lead
A couple of people have been editing the lead. I think the lead did have two problems before their edits: (1) the third paragraph combined two unrelated thoughts; (2) one of the thoughts in that paragraph was basically uninformative, unverifiable, and POVish. So I more or less agree with the net result of the edits, except that I think the part about "grok" is the kind of thing that *does* belong in the lead. For a reader who's not an SF fan, and isn't going to read the rest of the article, it's the kind of thing that they're glad to know: "Oh, 'grok' is a word that this guy made up? OK, interesting." I've inserted it at the end of the paragraph that lists the awards he was given. To me, this new paragraph (awards+grok) seems like it has more of a coherent theme, which is to document his importance and influence.--24.52.254.62 23:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree 100% with your comments -- the previous version was awkward and disjointed. On the other hand, "grok" IS a word that is used, or at least seen.  The other words, such as "waldo", can be mentioned much further down the article. (By the way, can anyone cite a mainsteam source in which "waldo" is used?  The National Geographic?  Time?  The New York Times?  Anything like that?  I've been looking for over 40 years and never seen it once.  This is a word that I don't think has really taken hold -- maybe The Journal of American Nuclear Power Plants uses it....) Hayford Peirce 00:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This might be a bit pedantic, but I still have a concern about the assertion that the language has absorbed "several words" from Heinlein's fiction. several says "more than 2 but not very many", which is about what my Random House Unabridged says. Can we substantiate "more than two" significant neologisms coined by Heinlein?  Grok, to my surprise, actually does appear in my Random House Unabridged.  I'm not sure how mainstream it is, though; it's always struck me as more well known to SF fans.  I've always thought of 'waldo' as a fairly well known term for 'remote manipulator', but it might also be marginal.  TANSTAAFL never made it to the mainstream at all.  The William Safire article doesn't assert that the modern use of "Moonbat" can be directly traced to Heinlein.  And at this point, I can't think of even marginal examples.  If we can't substantiate at least 3 or 4 notable neologisms, I'm still not sure that this belongs in the header.  (That having been said, I've taken my shot at editing the lead, so I'm not going to make any more changes to it.) -- Jim Douglas 00:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Re "waldo:" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=waldo+manipulator&btnG=Google+Search . TANSTAAFL is less well known, but is a shibboleth of the libertarian movement. "Moonbat" is weak, IMO, as I've opined before; I'd be in favor of removing it.--24.52.254.62 00:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Honestly, for all the spotlight, I don't think the language has really absorbed grok. I think grok has had its day, come and gone.  It is an uncommonly used slang term, which was once part of the counterculture to a limited extent.  Waldo is the term which is more commonly used today.  I will work on a way of rephrasing that.--Wehwalt 00:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, "waldo" is a technical term that is securely ensconced in the vocabulary of 0.0001% of the population, and is never going away. On the other hand, "grok" is a word that I'd guess at least 10% of the population knows, even if they wouldn't say it in everyday speech.--24.52.254.62 01:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Future History Template
I created a Future History template, Template:Future History, since most of the short stories in the series have their own pages. It could use some work with the formatting by someone who's better at that than me. Hopefully you all think it's a worthwhile endeavor and a good starting point. mosesroth 04:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Moses and I have started a discussion about this on Talk:Future History. -- Jim Douglas 16:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Near Stroke
I have replaced 'near stroke' with illness. A stroke is a boolean thing. You either have one or you don't. If someone knows the exact nature of this illness perhaps they can add the details. Morgan Leigh 07:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * FWIW, here's how Patterson describes the incident:


 * "'Early in 1978, they were walking on a beach at Moorea, Tahiti, when he had a Transient Ischemic Attack, a brief blockage of blood to his brain that can be a precursor to a cerebral stroke. [...] A heart catheterization for angiogram [...] revealed that his left internal carotid artery was completely blocked, too high for surgery.'"


 * -- Jim Douglas 07:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've revised those sections based on Patterson's account. -- Jim Douglas 05:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I figured it might have been a reference to a TIA, but lacking actual data decided to leave it out. Thanks for making this change.
 * Morgan Leigh 06:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
I do think that this page needs some NPOV work. There is a lot of 'many people think' or 'most readers think' etc which is without citations. I know this kind of stuff is hard to reference, but if a source can't be cited then it's opinion and as such not suitable for an encyclopedia article. Morgan Leigh 07:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Can you point us to some specific places?--24.52.254.62 23:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * For starters, this entire section. Refer to WP:WEASEL for comments about this sort of writing:
 *  Some feel that his later novels were not up to the quality of his earlier work, sometimes suggesting the quality drop stemmed from his illness in 1978, while others consider the period to include some of his best efforts. Heinlein's books of the 1980s sold well, in spite of some critics lack of enthusiasm; many readers believe that those who criticize them are missing what they perceive as the books' irony and self-conscious parodying of both science fiction and literature in general. Many other readers regret what they see as poor efforts on the part of a great writer.
 * -- Jim Douglas 23:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, I've done a cut there, plus a rewording to get rid of the weasel wording. I think part of the problem here is that there's a dearth of criticism in print for the recent books. Panshin and Franklin were both writing before these books were written. The books from Nitrosyncretic are more recent, but one of them is strictly about Stranger in a Strange Land, and the other (the reader's companion) isn't really criticism, it's just a compendium of facts about Heinlein's writings.--24.52.254.62 15:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Robert_A._Heinlein
I added Take Back Your Government to the list and bumped up the count to five. -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs)  17:45, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

infobox, shminfobox
Someone added a template saying that this article must MUST MUST have an infobox. Pfui. I tried adding the following infobox to the top of the article, and checked out what it looked like in the preview. (Adding the infobox text to the discussion page causes the infobox to appear on the right. To see the markup of the template, edit the discussion page.)

Well, it looks stupid. It fills up a lot of space with information that's already given in the article. It has a gazillion optional fields, almost all of which are lame and useless. I see this as another example of the busybody impulse at work, like the case of the people who felt absolutely compelled to change the style of punctuation to British. I suggest we simply don't add an infobox. I'm going to take down the template that states that the article must have an infobox, because it's not clear to me that this is any kind of official requirement.--24.52.254.62 01:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I like infoboxes for providing summary information without needing to read the entire article, if that's what the reader wants. It doesn't concern me that it would take up take up space, since most of the space it would take up is currently unused, to the right of the table of contents.  In your sample above, I added all of the options so that people would know what you were referring to, and filled in some with what I (at least) thought was relevent information about Heinlein, so that people could better judge whether it was worth putting into the article. Gaheris 17:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * If the infobox is correct, I have no particular quarrel with it in theory. However.
 * This is, um, wrong:
 * movement = New Wave
 * And this is an opinion:
 * magnum_opus = Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961
 * -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs)  17:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This is Wikipedia -- if it's wrong, correct it. :) (I just did -- although I remember reading an author article recently that classified Heinlein as "New Wave", but he's not in the New Wave (science fiction) article, so that must have been bad info).  As for his  "Magnum Opus", the Wikipedia definition is that the term refers to "the best, most popular, or most renowned achievement."  According to this very article, Stranger in a Strange Land is his best-known work, so that's why I put it in.  I'm sure several other of his novels might qualify as well -- a Google search on his "Heinlein" and "Magnum Opus" turns up Stranger..., Time Enough for Love, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and  Starship Troopers.  Actual hit numbers for titles and "Magnum Opus" are: SIASL (1730), ST (1210), TEFL (225), and TMIAHM (140).  However, many author boxes on Wikipedia (e.g., Alexandre Dumas) list several works in the Magnum Opus field. Gaheris 19:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * If I thought it was salvageable, I would have corrected it. :-) If you're looking to put Heinlein in a box, he's most commonly put in a group with Clarke & Asimov under a 'golden age' heading.  But, without straying into hagiography, he's not easily categorized because he holds a singular position in the history of SF.  He showed up from nowhere in 1939 to dominate the field within a very short time.  Also...back to the infobox...the Magnum Opus field doesn't work for Heinlein; he's popular for his body of work, not for one particular book.  I'm really struggling to understand what the infobox brings to the party; as far as I can tell, it just restates the basic information that's already in the first sentence. -- Jim Douglas (talk)  (contribs)  19:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It is pointless. Get rid of it.  Some infoboxes are helpful.  This is useless.--Wehwalt 21:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I respectfully disagree with Geheris. I like infoboxes for providing summary information without needing to read the entire article, if that's what the reader wants. But the summary box, in the format that's been suggested, doesn't summarize anything worth knowing, so it wouldn't serve as a substitute for reading the article, for those so inclined. It doesn't concern me that it would take up take up space, since most of the space it would take up is currently unused, to the right of the table of contents. It's not so much a matter of space as of attention. It screams for your attention, saying "Look at me, look at me! I'm an infobox!" Then when you read it, you feel used, because there was nothing useful in it. All of the useful, vitally important information from the infobox is already given in the first sentence of the article: "Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of "hard" science fiction. " The information in the infobox that's not in the first sentence is all relatively unimportant, or redundant. It's not that important that he died in Carmel. It's redundant to state (in the required field) that he's an author.--24.52.254.62 03:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)


 * If we are going to have an infobox, I would suggest including the following: first novel and year, last novel and year, Hugo awards won, and any other similar info.  The infobox should focus on Heinlein as writer.  That is what the casual information seeker is likely to focus on.--Wehwalt 12:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)