Talk:Wordos

comments

I would say one of the most notable characteristics of the Wordos is the fact that new, non-established writers receive serious critiques from established and respected authors in the field of speculative fiction, and vice versa. This provides the new writers with highly professional polish for their material, and the established writers the ability to capture the direct input from untrained readers who will likely read their stories the way they might be read in a magazine.—Preceding unsigned comment added by GoodDamon (talk • contribs) 08:45, September 17, 2006

...and, as the article states, it is, "one of the longest running speculative fiction critque groups and arguably the highest concentration of speculative fiction talent in the United States."—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bifurcation (talk • contribs) 16:32, October 1, 2006

I would add that individual members of the Wordos have gone on to have significant impact on the world of speculative fiction. Jay Lake, Jerry Oltion, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and other award-winning members have made notable contributions to the literature after "graduating" through the Wordos. GoodDamon 05:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Deletion?

I'm not entirely sure why this article has been flagged. I see other workshops with notable members, such as Sycamore Hill Writer's Workshop and Viable Paradise, that aren't flagged, yet are little more than lists of participants. Certainly, this article could use some cleaning up. But with members like Jerry Oltion, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Jay Lake, it certainly seems to meet the notability criterion. --GoodDamon 22:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't see who did it, but is it possible that it was someone who went to Wordos and left? Maybe someone just has a grudge against the Wordos. I'm a member of the group, so I'm biased towards it.

JoshEnglish 00:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I checked the diffs and see that an anon added the prod tag. I wouldn't assume malice is involved, but I removed it. If s/he wants it deleted s/he will have to take it Afd. This article really does need some more cleanup and references to firmly establish notability. I see the group had a writeup in the Register-Guard--if you can add more citations to things like that it would help. Phrases like "people who work with words in a fiercely Eugenian kind of way" need to be cited. I'm from Eugene, so I understand the sentiment, but without citations it's just opinion or original research. It's obvious the individual writers are notable, but the article needs some work to show that the group itself is notable. Oh and BTW "other stuff exists" isn't an argument that does much good in Afd discussions. Thanks for acknowledging your bias--be sure to check out the conflict of interest guidelines for more information about how to edit articles about subjects you're associated with. Happy editing! Katr67 00:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, just realized I didn't make that clear, either. I'm also a member. Fortunately, it's not exactly a controversial topic, so it should be pretty easy to remain WP:NPOV. Anyway, I'll track down those refs and do more cleanup on it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by GoodDamon (talk • contribs) 04:09, August 18, 2007

Inset reset - Hello, I suggested this article for deletion. I was doing some searching for Eugene related information and stumbled on it. No maliciousness was intended and I had never heard of your group before seeing the article. I was hoping an editor would take a look and make a judgment call. It was in pretty bad shape before, it does look much nicer now. I still don't think the group is notable enough to have its own article. Notibility of individual authors is fine but just because they belong to a group doesn't mean the group is notable. Of course the best test of that is if anyone who is not a member of the Wordos is working on the article. Any members working on the article would have a conflict of interest as discussed above. I would point out the following line from the CoI article: "It is not recommended to write an article about yourself. If you are notable, someone else will notice you and write the article." I'm not going to mark the article for deletion again but if this is nothing but a vanity article someone else probably will. 71.236.147.130 04:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

That's fair. I would point out that WP:COI does allow for editing in fields where you have professional experience. But it also prohibits self-promotion. I don't *think* this article falls into that category, but just to make sure, from now on I'll restrict my edits to minor corrective or structural changes (such as changing the layout of the awards section for readability), and discuss any major changes or additions here. Ideally, someone else who is familiar with the Wordos will contribute, making it a better -- and more straightforwardly notable -- article. --GoodDamon 15:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

References

Thanks to those who found and added links to some outside sources. It's better though if these are used as citations in the article, which is still mostly unsourced. See WP:CITE and WP:RS for more information. Let me know if you need help formatting the refs. Katr67 20:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Ugly formatting for awards

The awards section formatting is pretty beastly. Is there a better template somewhere that we can use to clean it up? Perhaps something more like a table layout, or maybe a multi-column layout? If I come up with a good idea, I'll post it here and see what people think.

header 1	header 2	header 3
row 1, cell 1	row 1, cell 2	row 1, cell 3
row 2, cell 1	row 2, cell 2	row 2, cell 3

That's the standard table format, and it's OK, but there's gotta be a better format somewhere. --GoodDamon 23:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I would organize them by member instead of award, or by year. The header and list is fine, or a table like

Year	Member	Award	Work
2007	Jerry Oltion (with Adam-Troy Castro)	Seiun Award	"The Astronaut from Wyoming"

Adding links as appropriate. JoshEnglish 17:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I ended up going with ordering them by member. I think it looks pretty clean now. You know, despite the (probably valid) notability questions, this page is beginning to look like a model Wikipedia page for writing circles. --GoodDamon 20:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment on assessment

I can't see that this is going to be more than start-class or any more than low importance in the grand scheme of things for Oregon. Were you looking for an upgrade to B-class? Katr67 22:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It was a thought, certainly. I put a lot of work into formatting, structure, and getting it into a more neutral, encyclopedic tone. But I agree on the low-importance rating. Thanks for responding so quickly! --GoodDamon 22:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Did you read the assessment criteria? Take a look at our Category:B-Class Oregon articles. I don't think there's quite enough content to raise it to that level. But I'll see what Aboutmovies thinks--he's our resident assessment expert. I see some more cleanup that needs to be done (but I'll see about doing it instead of just talking about it), but thanks for the excellent effort--the article has definitely come a long way. BTW, is there a WikiProject Science Fiction? It would be nice to have someone look at the article besides me and people who are members of Wordos. Katr67 23:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, I think you're probably right about the content. I didn't see that -- I'm still new to this whole WikiProject thingamajig. I'll see what else I can scrape up, and thanks for your understanding.

There is a WikiProject for science fiction. I'll ping them and see if they're interested. There are a bunch of science fiction writing circle articles that could probably do with some serious maintenance, if they're interested. --GoodDamon 23:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

This has certainly improved and is getting close to B. But more content is needed, as if you take just the four sections and combine you have very little content. I would look to expand the history section since I'm sure something happened between 1987 and 1995, and 1995 to now. Under members, maybe expand with something like "essayist John Doe, novelist Jill Doe, etc." if it would not be too repetative. Then even non-notable members (for Wiki at least) can be added (just no wikilink) to help round things out. Under awards, need to convert all to footnote citations to match and then maybe note for each award something like "L Ron Hubbard Award for blah blah blah. Basically add some context for those not familiar with the subject. Lastly it looks like this might be a SciFi themed group, if that is true maybe add a note about that in the lead. You might find sources in The Oregonian, Register-Guard, or a writers journal to help expand. Good job on the improvement. Aboutmovies 03:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I appreciate that. I'll see what I can do about getting the greater science fiction projects interested in working on the writing circles -- not just Wordos, but all of them. --GoodDamon 22:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Publication credits

I've been thinking another way to expand this article would be to work on notable publication credits that have passed through the workshop. Non-notable small presses and stories that weren't routed through the workshop wouldn't be notable for the purposes of a publications section, but bigger ones would be, and would also be significant encyclopedic content. --GoodDamon 22:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Awards section again

There are many awards not listed in the table, which could go a long way towards better establishing notability. It could also include stories that are nominated for prestigious awards, even if they don't win. --GoodDamon 18:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

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