Talk:Michael O'Brien (Canadian author)

message: This page originally read like blatant self-promotion, and much of it was lifted directly from O'Brien's official web site; we must watch that this page maintains a more neutral point of view. I've made a significant edit today to address that. 216.209.114.49 13:01, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Michael O'Brien (Canadian author). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060325232425/http://www.ignatius.com/ViewProduct.aspx?SID=1&Product_ID=681&SKU=LWD-P&Category_ID=100 to http://www.ignatius.com/ViewProduct.aspx?SID=1&Product_ID=681&SKU=LWD-P&Category_ID=100
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111010222102/http://www.studiobrien.com/novels/foreign-translations.html to http://www.studiobrien.com/novels/foreign-translations.html
*Added  tag to http://www.vivificat.org/2006/04/book-review-father-elijah-apocalypse.html
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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Please see WP:IS#Why independent sources are required and WP:MISSION. I've never seen any Wikipedia article for an author or book quote from the publisher's mission statement. Mission statements are typically unduly self-serving primary sources. It's fairly common for a Christian publishing company to have a bit on its website about religious beliefs/purpose: e.g., InterVarsity, Randall House, Moody, Sophia Institute Press. It would be weird if I were to go add quotes from these statements to the BLPs of anyone who'd ever published through these companies.
Is there any particular relevance for O'Brien? I wouldn't expect that he had any say in his publishers' choices of mission statement. Nor do I think that the publishers' saying that they are faithful Catholics/publish books in line with Catholic teaching lends any extra weight or credibility to O'Brien's apocalyptic views or his opinions on fantasy literature. Cheers, gnu57 14:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The relevance is that he's a Catholic writer about Catholic subjects published by Catholic publishing houses and reviewed by Catholic publications (with one significant exception). He's part of a bubble, a "Catholic Echo Chamber", and the reader deserves to know that - not because it's a Catholic bubble, but because it's definitely a bubble, and that is significant in judging his notability, not for the purpose of Wiki-notability, which I've conceded, but for the reader to know exactly where the author stands in the world, what his influence (or lack thereof) is, and whether he's part of the general zeitgeist or not.  He'ss had a lot of books published, which looks impressive, until one realizes that they're all published by a small number of publishers, all of whom share a particular religious orientation.  Then his prolific output is put into context: it appears that one of those publishers will put out pretty much anything he writes, which dissipates the apparent impressiveness of his output. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the fact that his publishers are Catholic is worth mentioning, but disagree that the fluffy quotes from their mission statements are due. Please see this diff: I did not remove "Catholic". (It occurs to me that there might be some distinction made between "X calls itself Catholic" and "X is Catholic", but I don't think that's important here.) Cheers, gnu57 15:33, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mission statements of his publishers