User talk:Amorkuz

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Cwej anthology timeline clarification

Hey Amorkuz, I know that you'd prefer that we forever forgo any semblance of friendly conversation, but I think I could provide some helpful context about the timeline of the Cwej anthology. Namely, as you can see in the initial tentative announcement, the anthology didn't originally have any connection with Arcbeatle; instead, it was expected that Andy Lane would be releasing it in his own publishing house. If you scroll down, you'll see also that the Arcbeatle connection wasn't announced until December 20th. As someone who was pitching a story to the anthology throughout the initial debate, I wasn't even informed by the Cwej editor about Arcbeatle's potential involvement until after the deletion of the first thread, and I would be somewhat surprised if Revan's experience was any different! Since you expressed your frustration that you could no longer see a way to maintain good faith in Revan, I just figured you'd be interested in this information, as it provides an easily-accessible explanation that doesn't involve any of these serious accusations about Revan deliberately concealing his involvement.

PS: It was my understanding that T:FORUM indicates that kudos don't count as contributions to any conversation, since they are not counted by admins for the counting of opinions. But just in case, I've gone through and carefully expunged my kudos from Thread:260549. – N8 (☎/👁️) 02:08, January 9, 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Nate for fighting my corner. I'd like to post this message as a full disclosure on the subject. I have always tried to remain as transparent as possible when it comes to my status on the wiki, and I think further clarification over accusations made about my behaviour is necessary. The Cwej anthology started out as a publication of Andy Lane's imprint Slow Decay Books. At the time of the Dawns thread opening, as far as my knowledge went, this was still the case, so I took part in the debate without any kind of agenda. However, towards the end of the original debate, I did learn of the Cwej anthology's move to Arcbeatle, and when Fandom asked that anyone involved with Arcbeatle not participate in future threads, I followed their wishes. You'll notice from my edit history that I've made no contributions to the further two Dawns threads, as that would cause the conflict of interest from which you imply. At the time I could not divulge the reason for my silence on those threads, but with the announcement from Arcbeatle about the anthology I'm able to clarify things.

I have to say, I am disappointed this issue was first brought up on a public thread. By assuming good faith I would have expected the first questions about my involvement with Arcbeatle to come from my talk page. In future I'd like that to be where the discussion (if you feel there needs to be any) to continue, as I refuse to partake in the thread because of my interests with Arcbeatle.

Thanks --Revan\Talk 15:33, January 9, 2020 (UTC)

Hi Amorkuz. I've read your latest posts on the thread, and while the subject of the discussion is not and should not be about me, but the stories for inclusion, I feel best to address the matter.

The kudos system is fairly new. As you can see from the debate, there is much discussion among users about its relevence to the thread, and whether it is counted when making a final decision on the topic. It was a bad decision for me to lend kudos to the debate, and given that I'm involved in an Arcbeatle project, I decided it best to remove my kudos before a final decision was made, in case in any way it affected the judgement of the closing admin. I shouldn't have done that either, but I felt that by removing my kudos I was remaining true to my original comment and also leaving the thread in the capable hands of those partaking in the debate.

Now finally, I'd like to stress the nature of your behaviour towards my character. Clearly, in the eyes of an outsider, I have been percieved to be all the things you say. While my interests have been influenced by my recent affiliation with Arcbeatle (by which I mean my dropping off the discussion with no explanation as I had no right to announce the Cwej book as now being published by Arcbeatle), I believed I had done the right thing by not influencing the second and third debates by any posting anything.

I feel victimised and, quite frankly, bullied by your behaviour, and your need to twist my comments and broadcast them for all the community to see. I don't believe it's the behaviour of a responsible admin, and I do feel it's a personal attack on myself, regardless of what intention you may have had.

Finally, I'd like you notify you that I will be ceasing my contributions to the wiki. Your behaviour has made this environment toxic for me, and with recent added pressures to my life, I think it best for my own health to step away.

I only wish that you continue this debate focusing on the actual subject, and not the behaviour of people involved in the original debate (which, if I recall rightly, Fandom asked to be scrubbed and start the debate from scratch in debate 2). The users involved in the debate are so passionate about the inclusion of these stories, and I'd hate to see them alienated.

--Revan\Talk 08:49, January 11, 2020 (UTC)

Requested Clarifications and Q&A

In your reply to my note on your talk page, you asked several questions and identified several points that you found unclear. I cannot and will not speak for Revan, Arcbeatle, or the Cwej anthology editors, so I am unable to fully answer all of your questions. Nonetheless, they were addressed to me, so I will give them my best shot. By doing this, I hope to clarify your points of confusion and move toward de-escalation of this disagreement.

Note to any onlookers: I regret my violation of T:SPOIL in my previous message on this talk page, and I have considered redacting it, but since Amorkuz quoted that message in full in his reply, there's not really a point. As for this post, it does not discuss future releases any more than Amorkuz's comments in that thread.

Following your example, I will quote each point in full.

• "It is not clear why NateBumber thinks he is sufficiently aware of business arrangements between James Wylder and Revanvolatrelundar to respond on the latter's behalf."

At no point did I claim to be responding on Revan's behalf; if you review my comment, I actually specifically stated that I had no idea if my anecdotal experience matched Revan's. (Although, as it happens, it did.) I also was not attempting to respond to your specific questions to him (unlike what I'm doing now). My actual motivation for sharing the information was spelled out in the original message, and it was quite far from "speaking for Revan":

Since you expressed your frustration that you could no longer see a way to maintain good faith in Revan, I just figured you'd be interested in this information, as it provides an easily-accessible explanation that doesn't involve any of these serious accusations about Revan deliberately concealing his involvement.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I am baffled by your failure to simply take me at my word.

• "It is not clear why NateBumber treats the description from T:FORUM of "a statement of being for" as non-participation. T:FORUM does call it unhelpful. In this particular case, NateBumber's kudos were also against the explicit requests of FANDOM. But expressing one's support for validity is very far from not participating in a validity debate."

... I know, right? That section of my comment was explicitly a parenthetical aside to admit a mistake. My reasoning was flawed, because ... my reasoning was flawed. I wasn't arguing with you there.

Or, at least, that's what I believed at the time. Looking at it, Revan was an admin for 6 years before you were first nominated, and he came to the opposite conclusion as you; no third admin has weighed in, so I don't know who to believe. It is worth noticing that while the addition of new posts or even new "related pages" to a thread will be reflected on a user's list of contributions page, "Kudos"es do not. While Revan and I have both removed our "Kudos"es out of respect for your wishes, I reserve judgment regarding that particular issue.

• "NateBumber misrepresents T:FORUM. [...]"

I believe that I adequately answered this in my response to the previous point.

• "It is not clear why NateBumber thinks that removing his kudos well after Thread:260549 was closed changes anything. However, I appreciate him being public and clear about what he did and why."

By my reckoning, Thread:260549 is not closed, so it shouldn't be at all unclear how this "changes anything".

That said, despite your appreciation, I do sincerely regret my action, since - despite the fact that it was motivated by respect for you and your wishes - it inspired Revan to do the same, opening himself up to your extremely uncharitable accusations that he was trying to "cover up his participation" to "make it appear that [you] were lying".

• "NateBumber's link to Gallifrey Base is not "easily accessible" because the link does not work without a login. Accordingly, I did not verify whether the details provided by NateBumber match the link."

I apologize for assuming that you either had access or would be able to make an account. Given your admirable penchant for chasing down every lead, whether it involves an ISBN search engine or an archived version of an obscure Tumblr post, I assumed that this would be no problem for you. My mistake.

That said, I do stand by my characterization of Gallifrey Base as "easily accessible". It is trivially simple to make an account, as testified by the fact that – in the words of User:CzechOut – it is "perhaps the world's largest online Doctor Who forum", which earns it its enviable position as one of only two fan websites covered on this wiki.

In any case, screenshots of the aforementioned posts are available in this Imgur album. (Note that the second screenshotted comment also includes a quote of the full text of the link, without any changes as far as I can see, but it didn't fit in the screenshot.) These will inform my replies to your final four questions. If you doubt the accuracy of the screenshots, I invite you to create a Gallifrey Base account and independently verify it for yourself.

• "Were Andy Lane planning to publish the book, why would Hunter O'Connell collect money for it without mentioning Andy Lane as the publisher?"

The answer is that he did mention Andy Lane as the publisher, in the screenshots I provided. Looking at the crowdfunding page, I fail to see any description of the book at all besides the campaign title, so it's unsurprising that the publisher was unmentioned.

• "Was Andy Lane planning to publish a charity book of his own character with zero publicity?"

No, because there never was a "charity book". If you're talking about the Cwej anthology, the fact that Slow Decay never advertized it is unsurprising. In my experience with Obverse Books, anthologies are worked on for months before they are publicized by the publisher, and Big Finish is known to commission, record, and edit (eg) Fourth Doctor Adventures audios for years before announcement.

• "How and when did this charity book become an allegedly fully commercially licensed regular book?"

It was never a charity book; your only evidence for this is a quickly corrected mistake made by an artist last summer. (Contrast with the GallifreyBase screencaps from months earlier, which are very clear that it's fully licensed.)

• "Just like with all other future projects of Arcbeatle Press, what is the evidence that commercial license was granted by all copyright holders?"

The evidence is that Arcbeatle Press says it is. That should be enough, unless you're accusing a publisher of lying about their own legality. That has been a historically contentious approach, but by all means, don't let me stop you from pursuing it.

Now I've answered your questions and clarified your points of confusion, I hope you will entertain me as I ask you some questions of my own. Out of respect for your time, I'll limit myself to 6:

1. You opened your response by noting that "Not for the first time, the first to react to a question regarding commercial interests of Arcbeatle Press was NateBumber". This is literally untrue, since Borisashton's response predated mine by nearly an hour; even if it were true, I fail to see why this would be helpful or relevant information or context to provide. As it stands, the only explanation I can imagine is that you're trying to cast shade on my motives, but I refuse to believe that, and T:FAITH mandates that I look for an alternate answer. Could you help me?
2. Your chain of questioning regarding the future anthology seems to suggest that you suspect that the editor secured non-commercial rights from Andy Lane to make a Cwej charity anthology, then changed it to a commercial release without permission. Is this an argument you are indeed making?
3. Regarding the previous question: If the answer is No, why would it be important or relevant even if Down the Middle did start as a charity anthology (which it didn't), when the wiki covers plenty of stories that were originally intended for or published in charity publications before being released as professional, licensed fiction?
4. You mention that Thread:260549 is "closed", with the added implication that it was closed long ago. Do you therefore respect Doug86's 16 November positive verdict on the validity of the stories as a closing admin?
5. Despite the fact that it is normal to reply to Talk Page messages with a Talk Page message, you instead replied to my Talk Page message with a Forum post. You did this in the knowledge that I could not reply in the forum, and in the knowledge that my comment (and your reply) entirely concerns User:Revanvolatrelundar's behavior and the future Cwej anthology, neither of which are related to the topic of the thread, as specified in its title: the stories Rachel Survived, White Canvas, The Gendar Conspiracy, and Life After Death. Why did you reply there?
6. I second Revan's confusion about why your initial, fully-debunked accusation that he had maliciously lied and concealed a conflict of interest was first raised in the thread rather than on his talk page. Even if Revan did conceal a conflict of interest (which he didn't), how would that have any effect on the ability of the four short stories to pass the four little rules?

Best regards! – N8 (☎/👁️) 20:50, January 11, 2020 (UTC)

Contextual quotes in response to claims being made in Thread:260549

In keeping with my own request for everyone to confine personal matters / representations of individual users to user talk pages, I will post some quotes here which provide context to the quote which you brought out at Thread:260549 to make claims about my past decision-making.

Looking at the surrounding context, first of all from just a few minutes earlier, I put it well enough in the following quotes (without quoting other people without having obtained their permission):

"I understand that. What I now realise I did not communicate at the time is that I have had an incredibly busy week, the last few days in particular, so I did not see those messages when you sent them, and I did not have time to get into a full discussion on the matter when it was brought up at earlier times My lack of response was not agreement, merely.. a lack of response"SOTO

"On the fanfic issue, I’m willing to go along with whatever we decide"SOTO

"Right, but that’s what gives me pause. These stories do have the rights to the DWU elements which they use"SOTO

And most tellingly, on August 27th, I re-affirmed my position of "neutrality but I won't get in the way of a consensus" in the following message:

"(First off, I remain neutral, and I’ll go along with whatever decision is made, as I said when we discussed this privately)"SOTO

This was my response to the claim being made about three admin, just one week after the decision was made. My silent "agreement", as I had to make clear (above) once again just 7 days this passive assent, was in fact another phrasing of "I still haven't had the time to look into this, but since I am being called upon to state an opinion here, I will get in the way of what would otherwise be a unanimous decision, as I haven't yet had time to get my facts in order".

With full context, in case you missed those messages at the time, I hope this clears things up.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 00:31, January 12, 2020 (UTC)

RE: additional tangent

I would also like to respond to the following quote from the same thread, which again I will do here as this has no bearing and no place in a forum discussion:

I am sure the whole community would highly appreciate to learn about these results. Personally I am ready to argue about your findings [...] Since you yourself now think that you were wrong during the initial decision, it stands to reason that you might be wrong in (some parts) of your researched material. Thus, it would make sense to present it to the community before doing anything rash.

So I don't know how to clarify this any more than I have, but I'll try. First, my assent at the time of the initial decision was both passive and conditional. Helpfully, you included the most important part of my sentence when you quoted me: "As long as we're being fully consistent". Together with the complete context, it's clear that I had nothing to be "wrong" about here. I was relying on the assumption that the research conducted by yourself and any others involved was correct and that the conclusions drawn were consistent. I agreed not to get in the way of a unanimous consensus expressly on the condition that this was, in fact, correct.

As the person who actually wrote the sentence which you've quoted, I remember exactly what I had in mind when I based my assent around that conditional phrasing. Perhaps I could have worded it better, this I do not deny. But nonetheless I still did make clear, on top of emphasising my neutrality before and afterwards, that my passive assent in that moment would be withdrawn if facts come to light which suggest that deletion would not be consistent with policies and precedent.

As for your final claim, equating my act of conducting independent research in the interest of fulfilling my role as a closing admin (as one of the only active admin who has remained neutral throughout) to "doing [something] rash", I have to say that this reading is more than a little surprising. This has been how we close threads, as a matter of course, for at least as long as I've been participating on this wiki, and certainly how it has been done, in accordance with T:FORUM, throughout the 7 years I have been here as an admin.

"Please try to remember that admin often put hours, days or sometimes months figuring out the fairest way to end a discussion."T:FORUM

There is nothing out of the ordinary about my collecting data and evidence prior to making a final post. That's kind of the whole thing about being the closing admin in a thread. It's about looking into all the relevant policies, and past discussions, as well as taking time for a close reading of the thread in question, before coming to whichever conclusion fits all the evidence. No matter what conclusion is arrived at, there will be users unhappy with the decision which was made. Once again, this is nothing out of the ordinary.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 01:09, January 12, 2020 (UTC)

I'll be returning to the thread tomorrow to iron out how the T:SPOIL vios are being dealt with and then to lay out what happens next, as the thread as it now exists devolved into many counts of violations around T:FORUM and T:SPOIL. So I'll be addressing that tomorrow. I'll just say briefly now that I was already doing my due diligence, making sure I've looked at this from all corners, before you came into the thread, and no it is not convenient that I ended up having to close the thing before things got further out of hand. I have not "joined" any such movement as you describe, and in fact have taken great care to make sure I'm addressing this without preferential treatment toward anyone or their positions. This ultimately has to be someone impartial's duty as an admin, hence why I have refrained from participating or taking sides this whole time. To be clear, I have not yet issued a closing statement. It was simply my duty as an admin to put a halt to this. Now, as I said in the current final message, more to come tomorrow on how we can move forward. Thank you for your patience on this matter.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 08:10, January 12, 2020 (UTC)

I also happen to be the foremost expert on my own thoughts and personal experiences, by the way, so I don't appreciate being told that I'm lying about my own historical intent. I provided additional quotes, above, which actually contextualise what you removed from context, and they clearly show that I am expressing the same thing here as I was at the time. If this was not effectively communicated in my wording in one message at the time, if taken out of context, there isn't much I can do about that, other than, again, clarify, and bring out the context you may have missed the first time around. In any case, I fail to see the relevance; I'm only clarifying because I do not appreciate being misrepresented, even if, as in this case, it's about very minor things. I can speak for myself.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 08:25, January 12, 2020 (UTC)

My response to comments about me

Hi there. I'd like to address some of your comments at User talk:SOTO#Closing threads, lies, leadership and responsibility. You claim that I started the most recent thread regarding 10,000 Dawns as soon as the prior one was closed and without any new evidence. This is simply not true. There was over two weeks between the two threads which was the time given by User:CzechOut as the cooling off period when the first thread was deleted. As for new evidence, is it not significant that Arcbeatle increased their DWU output by 25% with the release of a new story? Even if it isn't, surely a statement from the writer and publisher of the stories that they are "set in the Doctor Who Universe" is pertinent when the prior thread deemed that the stories were intended to be set outside the DWU? This was just some of the new evidence outlined in the OP.

I'll briefly mention Eloquence here. In short, I redlinked it because we cover a ton of unofficial reference books and I don't see how this is any different to be honest.

Finally, I'd like to ask you kindly one last time to stop implying untruths about the circumstances of the creation of the spoilerific anthology page. It was very clearly created by User:OncomingStorm12th so if you have any questions about it I advise you visit his talk page. Please stop associating me with it by saying things like "Borisashton's edits alerted me" when it is just another one of the thousands of pages I have edited. Thanks, --Borisashton ☎ 10:48, January 12, 2020 (UTC)

Another reply

You criticise me and others for a supposed "hypocrisy", but I fail to see how your behaviour, from an outside point of view, would lead to different conclusions. These controversial debates are difficult waters to navigate as it is; please, don't make assumptions like that about other people's intent, lest others make the same about you and it all descend into a mire of personal attacks and ad hominems.

With the following quote:

defending your guy no matter the facts:
* Eloquence of blah is an academic work and, hence, can use whatever trademarks one likes (says Scrooge).source

you construe my guess regarding the fact that An Eloquence of Time & Space may have had leeway to use the image of the police box thanks to its being a book about the TV series Doctor Who rather than a piece of fiction, not only as some sort of definitive "that's the way it is and I'll take no arguments" statement from me, but you also accuse me of only making this guess in a desperate effort to "defend [my] guy no matter what".

Yet on the thread, when, concerned about the impact such words might have on the Wiki's reputation, I asked if you were accusing Arcbeatle Press of legal wrongdoing, you replied:

TI clearly stated that I would like OP (or indeed anyone else) to explain how it fit with the copyright. I did not state that it does not. I do not understand how it does and asked for a clarification. Asking for clarification is not an accusation. source

If you have every confidence that Arcbeatle did respect copyright law in this instance, and are only confused as to the how… well, as I told you then, what does your lack of understanding have to do with anything? And how does venturing a guess as to said "how" constitute "defending [Wylder] no matter what"? If you were making no accusations, what would I be defending him from, exactly?

That being said, from the following quote—

And if I point out to their past deceptive practices, I am being biased and these past deeds anyway have no bearing on the debate.source

—it sure does sound as though you are accusing Arcbeatle Press of deceiving its readers. Perhaps this wasn't yet your position when you replied to me earlier about the dangers of accusing real-life businesses of wrongdoings; but when you begin to talk about "past deceptive practices", when you act as though they are facts that you are simply "point[ing] out", I fail to see how that is not an accusation.

That being said, what "deceptive practices", anyway?

(…) These grueling debates are nothing but a marketing strategy. They would like to use FANDOM's excellent SEO to better sell their books, and use it for free. That is why James Wylder put an enormous amount of efforts into fulfilling the validity conditions, helped and advised by our editors/his collaborators no doubt, but failed to actually start selling these books.source

Arcbeatle Press stands accused of… seeking to be recognised by institutions of the online Doctor Who fandom? How is trying one's hardest to create licensed, valid Doctor Who fiction, and then pointing out that one has done so, "deceptive"? It would be deceptive if Arcbeatle Press hadn't actually created the licensed Doctor Who fiction they say they did, certainly, but as I was just saying, it seems unbelievably risky to me to accuse an actual business, and actual individuals, of copyright fraud on the Internet.

By all means, if you believe Arcbeatle is running some kind of scam, inform the non-NateBumber copyright holders of your beliefs, and let's see how that goes.

But if Wylder & Co. did obtain the licenses they say they did, then for God's sake, what is your problem with this situation? Where on Earth does it say in Tardis:Valid sources that making an active and knowing effort to comply with Tardis:Valid sources renders one invalid?

And I can't even follow your bizarre reasoning all the way through: if this is all a ploy to get more attention and sell their books, why would Arcbeatle not starting to sell these books just yet constitute a smoking gun of a mercantile mindset of that kind? If you think SEO is all there is to it, the pages already exist on Tardis and have for ages now. I'm not sure what more "promotion" the removal of the {{Invalid}} would award it. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:06, January 12, 2020 (UTC)