[WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

[Philip Sandifer]

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