Talk:The Concept of War (novel)

Investigation

Hey. Admin here. Prima facie this seems to be legit. However, this page was briefly created in 2017 by a user who was since blocked for sockpuppetry, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The page was then deleted with the rather bizarre rationale that "Only source is invalid", which doesn't seem to be logically applicable to a real-world page about a story, so I think there was some sort of mistake.

However, all that background is, well, fishy, if you'll pardon the expression.

Thread:190950 gives us a precedent for a completely illegitimate "spin-off" about a DWU species of fish-based aliens, and that is such a specific precedent that I think The Selachians bears further investigation, even if there is no evidence at this time that it is in any way related to whatever was going on with The Piscons.

This isn't an exclusion debate — yet. (It couldn't be, we don't have any forums.) But this is a call to anyone with any information on the matter to provide any data that would suggest The Concept of War was not actually a licensed DWU spinoff. Or, conversely, any additional evidence that it was licensed by Steve Lyons, which would place it beyond reproach (unless it happens to fail Rule 4, but that seems unlikely).

In your investigations, bear in mind the basic summary of our policies at Tardis:Valid sources#Terminology:

We also specifically do not consider the quality of the narrative when deciding whether to exclude a story. Instead, we are guided by the legal status of a work as well as the authorial intent. Those things which don't have the permission of all relevant copyright holders, or those which were never meant to be continuous with the established DWU, are excluded.T:VS

P.S. I'm not going to tag the existing The Concept of War (novel) page as invalid, because either Concept of War is a valid story, or it's fanfic we shouldn't even have a page about. In no plausible scenario could it be covered-as-invalid. But that doesn't mean the Wiki am not approaching this with a healthy degree of skepticism. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 14:57, October 27, 2020 (UTC)

I want to be honest here, and while I would love for evidence to surface that proves this story's legitimacy, with what evidence I can find, I'm not exactly hopeful. The fact that it was published in a physical format in such a small quantity nobody appears to own a copy, and the only way to read it is to purchase this dubious looking ebook for best part of £100, the whole thing seems awfully suspicious to me.

As for the author, he doesn't even appear to have a bibliography (so how would an unheard of author get permission to write the first story in a series (unless if it's a pseudonym)), and his writing style, as evidenced by the "look inside" section on its Amazon listing, in my opinion, is pretty poor. The only evidence of it being licenced is its front cover, which could easily be a lie.

While I believe this should be covered by this Wiki for now, as it seems to be a case of innocent until proven guilty, I'm not holding my breath for this story, and this is coming from a guy who wants to be as inclusive of all stories as possible. Epsilon ^{Contact me!} 15:13, October 27, 2020 (UTC)

I would like to note that I did not create this page. The information was already on the Selachian page, I simply linked the story to another page. Apparently that page was previously deleted, but I did not recreate the page. PoolsideJazz ☎ 15:16, October 27, 2020 (UTC)

Oh, it's not your fault! You were simply being a good editor for fixing a link. (Keep up the good work!) It's my curiosity that lead me to putting some investigation into it, and asking Scrooge to restore the previously deleted page. Epsilon ^{Contact me!} 15:20, October 27, 2020 (UTC)

Epsilon, personally, I share your bad feeling. But I don't want to delete this without any hard evidence, either — on the basis of a "bad feeling".

As the paragraph of T:VS I quote emphasises, quality isn't evidence. This is a weird book and by all appearances a pretty, er, bad one. But if we started discounting things because they're kind of shabbily-produced, we'd end up ruling out Troughton-era bases-under-siege by the wheelbarrow, to say nothing of various VNAs or BBV stories!

Certainly only existing as an ebook doesn't in itself make something suspicious. And with the bizarre price, it could be the case that this is some kind of "legal" swindle, as it were — a matter of acquiring the Selachian license for cheap (but legitimately), and then selling the book for a ludicrous price with the expectation that a few diehard completists will buy it anyway, thus turning a neat profit. A pretty bitter reason for a DW spin-off to exist, but the producer being morally bankrupt is also not something that disqualifies a story by T:VS.

I'm not especially keen to keep this story on the Wiki — but if we end up excluding it, let's do this by the book, please. I don't need to remind you of the unpleasantness a year ago when an actually perfectly-licensed ebook release was wrongly branded fanfiction, a crisis to which we lost two admins and the better part of our spirit of community. I'd like to avoid a repeat of that, please.

And even if we do end up deleting it again, the 2017 rationale clearly doesn't hold any water. This is new terrain for all intents and purposes. ---Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:22, October 27, 2020 (UTC)