Talk:The Ragged Edge of Science

Notability and usefulness
This article appears to neither assert any particular notability or impact for this book, that would make it stand out from the lengthy List of L. Sprague de Camp works, nor provide any useful information about its contents (most of the chapter titles, which is almost all that is included about the book, being entirely cryptic). If somebody wants to retain this article, I would suggest that they expand it to address both points. HrafnTalkStalk 17:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The article meets criteria 1 of WP:NB and the references are already cited in the article.
 * I'd also question the other issues mentioned in the Articleissues tag. The link in the Articleissues tag: embedded lists advises to avoid "lists of links".  In this instance the list is the contents of the collection i.e. a list of previously published articles that are collected in this book.  Presenting these in a prose form would be much more difficult to read and doesn't appear to be what that style page is suggesting.  Nearly all the articles on collections that I have encountered have presented their contents in this manner.  Lastly, I'd ask what specifically should be cited by inline citations rather than the existing references section.  WP:CITE states that general references are appropriate "If a source supports a significant amount of the material in an article", which is the case with both the Laughlin/Levack and the Chalker/Owings references.  If there is a statement that you feel requires a more specific citation, please point which one it is.--Rtrace (talk) 01:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * (i) None of the references give any indication that the information contained in them on this topic is "non-trivial" (and the brevity of the content argues against this), so it is unclear that the topic meets criteria 1 of WP:NB. I am requesting quotes from these books to gain an indication of what they do say, and whether it is non-trivial. (ii) The problem with the list is that it dominates the article -- turning it into little more than a regurgitation of the book's content page -- clearly unencyclopedic. This may not be a problem when either the contents page is short, and/or the article has some substantive content, but is clearly problematic in this instance. At the very least, some attempt should be made to elucidate the contents of the more cryptically-titled essays. (iii) Given that the only material in this article that is "significant" is the contents regurgitation, I don't see how the quoted passage from WP:CITE applies. The references appear to be there merely as a defence against WP:NB, not because they support any substantive content. (iv) The underlying problem is that this article contains nothing more about the book than could be expected to be contained on an Amazon blurb. HrafnTalkStalk 03:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm never comfortable with quoting directly over worrying how much should be quoted before running afoul of copyright. Both the references that existed before the one I just added support everything in the infobox as well as the statements made as to the number of articles in the collection, what their subject matter is (science and pseudo-science), who illustrated the book.  The Laughlin/Levack also supports the statement as to the original source of the collected articles.  Aside from the bibliographical details it describes the book as "A collection of 20 articles and two book reviews surveying the doubtful borderland between science and myth, magic and pseudo-science.  These essays and book reviews were published in periodicals, science fiction magazines, science digests and newspapers over a twenty-six year period: 1950-1976.  De Camp discusses such diverse topics as: The Diffusionist Controversy, the Pyramids of Kush, the "falls" of ancient Troy, Charlatanism, the Fourth Dimension and the theories of Volikovsky and von Daniken, and many others."  It also does have entries for the articles, though some are merely bibliographic. Frankly, when I originally added the reference, I didn't go beyond the entry for the collection itself. In addition to its bibliographic details, Chalker/Owings describes the book as "Collection of deCamp nonfiction articles mostly concerning the pseudo-sciences and far-out theories with deCamp's skeptical eye. Does for the pseudo-sciences what Spirits, Stars, and Spells did for magic. Originally announced by Mirage Press.".  The Clute reference is trivial, merely mentioning it as a nonfiction book by de Camp published in 1980, however, I did add it as an additional support of those facts.  I don't agree that listing contents of collections is unencyclopedic.  There are print encyclopedias that list collections and anthologies in just such a manner (e.g. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Donald H. Tuck).--Rtrace (talk) 04:25, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * What you state as to the contents of these references do not appear to meet the requirement of criteria 1 of WP:NB that "Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary." Also see the footnote that "The 'subject' of a work means non-trivial treatment and excludes mere mention of the book, its author or of its publication, price listings and other nonsubstantive detail treatment." HrafnTalkStalk 07:25, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Just my two cents. To my mind, none of the objections listed in the tag on the article seemed valid except perhaps for the one on notability, for the reasons Rtrace mentions. I have since added a statement on notability. The number of other articles linking to this one would also tend to support the collection's notability, incidentally. I agree that a more detailed description of the collection's arguments and information would make for a better article, and anyone interested in adding such is welcome to; however, the lack thereof does not demonstrate non-notability of the collection, just room for improvement of the article! Need I add that the main (and most appropriate) source for the content of the article is the book itself? — an obvious point in regard to articles on books that for some reason often escapes article critics, who often want detailed citations on where the information on content comes from... I don't feel it should ever be necessary to cite the book itself as a source for an article thereon, but maybe that's just me. Rambling a bit here, don't mean to imply that Hrafn is that kind of critic! BPK (talk) 07:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd depreciate this "two cents" to a farthing. Of the "number of other articles linking to this one", only 9 are in mainspace. Five of these are simply due to its inclusion in template:Pseudoscience, and all but one of the others are mere-mentions-in-lists (two are the article and list-of-works on its author, a third was added by Rtrace themself). The sole exception to this is the article on its illustrator, which states "Simpson's credits as an illustrator include illustrations for L. Sprague de Camp's The Ragged Edge of Science (1980) and..." This does not appear to be indicative of any significant notability. This book appears to fail criteria 1 of WP:NB for the reasons I stated above. If it does not meet any of the other criteria of WP:NB or the general criteria of WP:NOTE, its future is hardly assured. At the very least, if this book is notable, there should be an in-depth review in a WP:RS of reasonable prominence. HrafnTalkStalk 08:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I notice that the "issues" box pasted to the article has been restored, along with all the original objections. The "citations" and "embedded lists" objections have been argued out above, and opinion among the three participants in the discussion is two to one that these are bogus, for the reasons advanced. I don't see that anything new has been asserted that renders them valid. Certainly the mere repetition of the objections doesn't do it. Therefore I am once again deleting these from the box. "Notability" is perhaps still arguable, and has been allowed to remain. BPK (talk) 16:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

HrafnTalkStalk 17:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) The article does not provide inline citations, so it is unclear what, if anything at all, the three inaccessible general references provide verification for. Are they just there for decoration? If you insist on fact-tags, to go with it, I'll be happy to provide them (though I would have thought that they were redundant, given the limited content of the article (other than the chapter list).
 * 2) The article is mostly just a list of chapter/article headings. This is unencyclopedic, and provides little useful information. To some extent the problem is an overlapping one partially covered by both template:cleanup-laundry and template:plot -- so I chose the one that was most applicable. Regardless, the article requires critical commentary, not just a regurgitation of the contents page, to be encyclopaedic.


 * I have added inline citations for two of the three statements that Hrafn has challenged. It was not obvious which statements required inline citations.  I didn't feel the statements tagged were likely to be challenged nor did I feel that they fell under any of the other categories in WP:CITE where inline citations are recommended.  I do have a citation for the remaining challenged statement.  However, it is in the form of a quote from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction that appears on the dust jacket of the book in question, and gives no information as to author or which issue of the magazine.  I removed the request quotation templates as the quotations were provided in my second post from 12/18.  I believe they make it clear what those references were supporting.  WP:CITE states that general referencing is appropriate when the reference supports "a significant amount of the material in an article".  As I stated before, the references support the bibliographic details of the book as well as the other statements.  The only one of these references that I would concede is inaccessible is the Chalker/Owings.  I'm referencing the 1998 edition that came out on CD ROM and Mirage Press appears to have ceased business.  However, I would imagine that the 1991 edition ISBN 088358204X would also cover this book and is available at several libraries.  There are several copies of the other references held in libraries listed in worldcat.


 * I still disagree that a list of essays that are gathered for a collection is entirely encyclopedic. I referred to a print encyclopedia in a previous post that presents collections in exactly this manner.  template:cleanup-laundry refers to WP:EMBED which discusses using prose vs using lists and when each is appropriate.  I don't think presenting the essays in prose would work as well as a list does. template:plot appears to refer to fiction and plot summaries that are too long and I don't see how it could apply to a collection of essays.--Rtrace (talk) 05:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * template:cleanup-laundry states "The lists in this article may contain items which are not notable, encyclopedic, or helpful. Please help out by removing such elements and incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article." (my emphasis) If the individual article titles aren't sufficiently "notable" to warrant discussion in the prose, then they (are inappropriate and) should probably be deleted and replaced by some third-party-sourced discussion of De Camp's views expressed in the book -- this would certainly be more "helpful" than a bald list of generally cryptically-titled articles. If such third party discussion is not available, then the topic clearly fails WP:BK #1: "Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary." (With the contents listing standing in for a 'plot summary' in this case.) HrafnTalkStalk 06:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've put back the general references as they support more than the statements in the article where footnoted. Also the Schweitzer review of this book was not intended for further reading, but rather as further support as to the article's notability.


 * The list of contained essays is both encyclopedic and helpful. Other encyclopedias list contents of collections.  It is certainly helpful to know whether any particular de Camp essay is included in this collection or not.  I'll argue that WP:BK #1 would apply if one were to write separate articles about each essay, not for the collection as a whole.  I wouldn't expect the list of contents in this article to have critical commentary any more than I would expect there to be critical commentary on the page count, publication year or any other bibliographic details.--Rtrace (talk) 13:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

HrafnTalkStalk 14:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) "Other encyclopedias list contents of collections." Where and in what context? How many of them have the list as the majority of the article?
 * 2) "It is certainly helpful to know whether any particular de Camp essay is included in this collection or not." Why? It would only be "helpful" if you were looking to buy/borrow the book. WP:NOTDIRECTORY
 * 3) "I wouldn't expect the list of contents in this article to have critical commentary any more than I would expect there to be critical commentary on the page count, publication year or any other bibliographic details." Yes, but we don't waste more than half the article on such bibliographic details. and the article contains no "critical commentary" at all. The article is nothing but "bibliographic details" -- suitable for an online bookstore listing, but not for an encyclopaedia article. If you want to write such then go work for an online bookstore -- this is WP:NOT what wikipedia is for.

Reference irregularities
"the general references that were removed support more than the footnoted statments, and are appropriately general, the Schweitzer review supports notability"

This sort of nonsense is exactly why I've been demanding inline citations. What "more" is there beyond "the footnoted statements" in the trivially short article prose? If "the Schweitzer review supports notability" then what does it say about the book? If it doesn't contain useful material to go into the article, then it doesn't add to notability. If it doesn't verify specific information in the article, then it isn't a reference. HrafnTalkStalk 12:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not going to engage in edit warring, but I contend that both the Laughlin and Chalker references support all of the data in the info box, the illustrator, the publisher and the date of publication. The Laughlin additionally supports the list of contents. Removing them from the References section leaves those facts unsupported. While I do not have access to the Schweitzer review, it's there to support WP:BK #1. i.e. it is a non-trivial published work whose sources are independent of the book itself.  --Rtrace (talk) 13:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * So you are throwing in 'references' sight unseen? This is exactly the sort of 'tomfoolery' I was afraid of. Elements such as illustrator, publisher, date of publication and table of contents are all stated in the book itself, so do not require a secondary source. Further, they are most certainly "trivial" coverage as that term is defined in WP:NOTE. HrafnTalkStalk 13:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Glad to finally see the point acknowledged that the primary reference is the book itself. While you are correct that references are not needed to support the basic bibliographic data, I don't believe that has anything to do with his particular inclusion of the Schweitzer review as a reference. As he tells you, it's there to support notability. I believe Rtrace's point is that the existence of a book review is in itself an acknowledgment of at least some degree of notability; after all, it was worth reviewing. Admittedly, I have seen plenty of reviews (particularly movie reviews) stating that the material under review is worthless trash and one should steer clear of it, though that is unlikely in this case; Schweitzer is a known associate and supporter of de Camp. That said, yes it's much better, as a general rule, to cite sources one has actually seen. But labeling another contributor's contributions as "nonsense" or "tomfoolery" is both counterproductive and in contravention to wikipedia policy. Can we all agree to refrain from negative labeling? BPK (talk) 15:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Let me take this through point by point: It is therefore unclear as to how the book meets Criteria #1 or how the unseen review helps it meet it. Pulling in this review as reference appears to be introducing exactly the sort of uncertainty that WP:V is meant to avoid. Whilst it is permissible to introduce references that are inaccessible by other editors, it seems absurd to allow the introduction of a reference that is inaccessible by editor introducing it. At this point we aren't really using the review as a source, merely the search-engine (or whatever) that led Rtrace to learn of the review's existence. This whole thing is highly irregular. HrafnTalkStalk 15:41, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) WP:BK #1 states that "Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary."
 * 2) Neither the material that is inline-cited, nor the "basic bibliographic data" that Rtrace is claiming the general references as an (unnecessary) source for, contain such "critical commentary".
 * 3) Without having read the review, Rtrace has no way of knowing if it contains "sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary".

I would further question what legitimate purpose or policy loading up the article with superfluous 'general references' serves. It certainly doesn't appear to be in keeping with the spirit of WP:CITE. HrafnTalkStalk 16:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Two more references with quotations from their content have been added, which should satisfy even Hrafn. BPK (talk) 17:48, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

ISFDB ref
Could somebody please explain to me what part of "Most of the book's constituent articles were originally published in a variety of science magazines, science fiction magazines, and other publications from 1950-1976, including Science Digest, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Astounding Science Fiction, Science Fiction Stories, Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories, Science Fiction Quarterly, Dynamic Science Fiction, Fate, Exploring the Unknown, Fantastic Universe, the Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin, and Amra. Others were published for the first time in the collection." is sourcable to this reference cited for it? There appears to be no overlap whatsoever. HrafnTalkStalk 16:09, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Elementary, my dear Watson. Click on each article in the contents list, and you will be taken to a reference to the publication in which the article originally appeared. I could, of course, have cited each of these references individually, but that's so untidy, and it's reasonable to presume a certain degree of net-experience among followers-up of references, IMHO. You're welcome. BPK (talk) 17:21, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, the Laughlin book also cited as a reference for the same information does contain it, to my certain knowledge. The ISFDB reference is included because it's more accessible to the general reader. Just in case you were wondering. BPK (talk) 17:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Not so "elementary" as the first couple of links don't provide such information (presumably as they had not been published previously). Some explication in the footnote would be warranted. HrafnTalkStalk 04:37, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Feel free to put it in, if you feel it is needed. BPK (talk) 06:04, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Synopsis section
I think the new Synopsis section contains too much editorial commentary, that probably isn't permissible (lacking a third party source that makes the commentary for us) per WP:SYNTH. HrafnTalkStalk 04:48, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The commentary accurately reflected the point of view expressed in the book; as for a third party, the ILL-ADVISED review makes similar points. However, I have gone through and removed everything that could likely be regarded as editorializing. You appear to be a difficult person to please. It looks to me like you are determined to be dissatisfied, not just with the article as it stood before you took aim at it, but with everything that has been done to improve the article in response to your own suggestions. Aside from negative criticism of the efforts of others, I have not observed that you have done anything to improve the article yourself. If you don't like what others do, why not do the work yourself, the way you want it? Carping from the sidelines is easy. Try carrying the ball. BPK (talk) 06:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

'Plot Summary' tag, Unreliable Source & Farewell
But why should I be surprised? This is after all an article where the WP:CONSENSUS is to throw in references sight unseen, and to provide multiple references for information already contained in the book itself. The consensus appears to be to WP:IAR and throw any old garbage in. So be it. I don't hold with fighting losing battles, even when I am 'fighting the good fight' of upholding policy. I will therefore leave you in possession of this cesspit. Good day to you. HrafnTalkStalk 08:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The 'plot summary' of the 'Contents' & 'Synopsis' constitutes 3,525/8,850 bytes of the article or 40%. This would seem to be excessive, but YMMV.
 * A blog is rarely a WP:RS, and no indication has been given why 'Ill advised' should be considered to be above the herd.


 * Can't take what you habitually dish out, eh? Sorry to have let my annoyance show and to have responded in kind when the exchange fell short of civility, but I'm not the one who took it there. Honestly, that was the way you were behaving from the very start. BPK (talk) 02:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)