On Mar 28, 2007, at 10:45 AM, Stephen Bain wrote:
Your implication that she is always a reliable source about publishing is as misguided as the assertion you are arguing against, that she never is. A big problem is that you fail to distinguish that for which she is a reliable source.
Her claims on matters related to publishing are sufficiently significant that they can reasonably be reported. Where there is disagreement, they should be clearly attributed to her point of view.
Her blog is *always* a great source for her opinion. It may or may not be a reliable source for fact, and is probably not most of the time, no matter how often she's actually right.
And her opinion on publishing matters is worth including. One such notable opinion is "Barbara Bauer is a fraud."
As to your point about where her words are published, yes it does make a difference. When what she says comes from an interview and is published by an intermediary, we have that intermediary's reliability to hang our hat on. When what she says is delivered in a lecture, we have the host's reliability to hang our hat on.
Nonsense. When I invite a speaker to the University of Florida to give a lecture at a conference, I don't intend our invitation to be a warranty of their factual accuracy. Nor do we offer such a warranty when and if we post the transcript or video of the lecture on our website, or even in our journal. All we do is vouch for the accuracy of the transcription and claim to its significance in some fashion.
In the case of Teresa Nielsen Hayden, though, that significance is no longer in doubt.
There are two questions that matter here.
1) Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters related to publishing? 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
-Phil