Talk:Carl Brandon Society

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Does the use of a pseudonym "create" a fictional character, as in "the fictional male writer James Tiptree, Jr.?" For instance, I don't believe there are many who would say that George Sand was "fictional." I'd like to rephrase the paragraph that mentions Carl Brandon and Tiptree to use the word "pseudonym," but I'm uncertain how to approch it. AdmN 05:43, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In this particular case, I think it's appropriate, because Alice Sheldon created an entire persona for "Tip" (as his buddies called him). "Tip" was a hoax, one in which many people believed and whose unveiling left some of them hurt or disappointed; just as happened when "Carl Brandon" was revealed as fictitious.--Orange Mike 23:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Some information on just who or what Carl Brandon is supposed to be would provide some welcome context here! -Toptomcat 01:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

From some of the organizers of the Society: "We named ourselves after the fictional fan of color "Carl Brandon, Jr." created in the mid-1950s by Terry Carr and Peter Graham. They used that construct to explore concepts of race within the pages of the influential FANAC fanzine, which Carr co-edited, during a time when the landscape of speculative fiction was decidedly monotone." [1] Ron Ellik and Dave Rike also contributed to the hoax, establishing a full-blown persona and biography for Carl which explained why local fans never seemed to meet up with him in person (I think he had family responsibilities and lived in a 'bad' part of town). As a fannish reference work puts it, "Carl Brandon's specialty was writing full-scale fannish parodies that went quite a bit beyond pastiche; they were close to word-for-word 'translations' of certain mundane works into fannish. Brandon's parody of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, for example, has Holden Caufield getting kicked out of FAPA rather than an exclusive boarding school, living in a slan shack instead of a dormitory, interacting with other fans rather than school mates and faculty &c. By elevating fannish concerns to such levels, the works often served as effective satires as well." [2]

--Orange Mike 13:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Tiptree

The description of James Tiptree, Jr. was changed from "fictitious male writer" to "pseudonymous male writer". I reckon he/she ought to be either fictitious male or pseudonymous female; "pseudonymous male" is likely puzzling (why specify 'male'?) to those who don't know. —Tamfang (talk) 03:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixed in an adequate manner, I think. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm satisfied. —Tamfang (talk) 08:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

referenced proof for the listed awards and credits

An editor wrote the following on my talk page:

Hi Marc. Please provide referenced proof for the listed awards if you can, otherwise they may be deleted under WP:BLP. Cheers, --Kudpung (talk) 06:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll respond here as it's more about this article. Hello Kudpung - I am little confused. Carl Brandon Society is an organization and not a "living person" and so WP:BLP would not apply.

Kudpung, it's not clear if you were asking about my specific edit, which in hindsight should not have been done. However, as long as I'm staring at that edit, the page then, and now, it brings up some issues.

Do we credit award winners in a list:

• How they are credited by the awarding organization? (note - we may need to see how she was credited at the time of the award as the web page may have been revised). This article on the awarding organization's web site currently has "Okorafor-Mbachu, Nnedimma"
• How they are credited in the physical publication? The article cites the Houghton Mifflin edition. That is [on Amazon and there is also a Look Inside available where we can see she's "Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu" on both the front cover and title page.
• Something else such as the author's current preferred spelling? Her web site uses "Nnedi Okorafor" and her most recent book, "Who Fears Death," uses the same.

Okorafor's credit is complicated and I wrote Talk:Nnedi_Okorafor#Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu -> Nnedi Okorafor about this a while back.

A second issue is that the Carl Brandon Society article gives no evidence that the Society, or its award are notable. Do we need this article? --Marc Kupper|talk 19:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello Marc. I left you a message about this as you were one of the of the only two editors to have made significant contributions to the page for a long time. Indeed your edit was in February 2009. I also left a message for OrangeMike, but his reply was about thnings which of course I already know. I was drawn to the article from NPP at N. K. Jemisin and then through this 'award winner' link: Ahmed Khan of which dabs exist for 3 pages, none of which is about a contemporary author. I immediately doubted the authenticity of the Carl Brandon Society after visiting their website and doing one or two other searches. Generally, any contentious material about a living person - on any page - comes under policy at WP:BIO, and can be removed if it unsubstantiated. I'm very wary of claims to things like awards and degrees etc., and have come across a great many fake claims on Wikipedia. I'm not a deletionist per se, so I tagged the article and notified a couple of editors. I thought it was the fairest thing to do. However, now that I have done even more research, and following you own comment: do we need this article? regards, Kudpung (talk) 03:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Kudpung, it looks like we're on exactly the same page and maybe you have more free time than I do... :-) A while back noticed a number of bios that seemed "pinned" to Wikipedia by virtue of awards that appeared to be non-notable. The Carl Brandon Society is one and others I've run across are GetAbstract International Book Award, Miller Lite Comedy Search, and San Francisco International Comedy Competition. What I never had the time to do was to dig hard to see if any of these are notable, and then to see if they survive CSD/AFD.

Another thing that caused me to shift these award article projects down the queue was that I found that many people (essentially the consensus) had a more liberal interpretation of "Significant coverage" in WP:N than what I had been using. Since then I'll xFD pages that are flagrant advertising or self promotion. The Carl Brandon Society article is NPOV and informative though outdated.

There's a handful of articles in the Google News archives. None were detailed coverage. Google Scholar finds 10 articles with the only interesting one being "An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson" (behind paywalls and so I won't link) who is one of the founders of the Carl Brandon Society. That won't qualify as a notability point but it can be used as source data for the article. Google Books gets 34 hits. A quick scan did not find detailed coverage. Thus while it seems to be a good cause I'd say it's not notable. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Marc. I'm not a deletionist per se, but I apply the rules very strictly when it concerns WP:BLP, and living people mentioned on pages, partly because I helped craft the policy. Do whatever you think fit - perhaps PROD first if you are sure of your facts, or then Fad AfD there is a slight doubt. You have my support. Kudpung (talk) 09:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Within the science fiction community, the Society is taken seriously, especially by writers and other fen of color; they are a very visible presence at conventions like Wiscon, Readercon and Gaylaxicon. Like many minority topics, the coverage in the "mainstream" press is iffy. What can I say? The publishers take the CBS awards seriously, although they're not up there with the Hugos or even the Tiptrees. I don't want to make a big deal of this, but a case could be made for cultural bias here. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Since this was written the awards, and the society, have gotten some more press. Palmwiz (talk) 19:57, 1 September 2011 (UTC)