[HP4GU-FAQ] Um... question on hubris.

[cindysphynx]

Oooooh, a good question!  Here's the answer:  "I dunno."
 
Now, a bit of history . . . 
 
Way back when, Dicey, Tabouli, Elkins and I put pen to paper on
Hypothetic Alley.  We soon realized the obvious - because we had all
been very active in what ultimately became Theory Bay, most of the posts
we cited were our own.  Ew, how self-aggrandizing! we thought.  But then
again, we *had* to include those posts, not because they were fantastic,
but because . . . well, if you wanted to be up to speed on SYCOPHANTS,
you had to read Elkins' posts on the subject.
 
We dealt with this in a few different ways.  First, we included links to
the various theories in HA, but we didn't include any names of theory
proponents themselves in the text.  So you won't find "Elkins, founder
of SYCOPHANTS, explained the theory thusly . . . ."  Nevertheless,
anyone willing to click a mouse can figure out which listmember was
involved in this or that theory.  
 
We also didn't include individual authorship credits for HA submissions.
So Eloise wrote the entry on Hedgehogs, and Pip wrote the MD entry, but
you'd never know that from reading the document.  Instead, Eloise is
credited in the acknowledgements, and Pip's contribution seems to have
been completely ignored.  <whoops; gotta fix that>  Part of our thinking
there was that, although Tabouli put the "stick" in LOLLIPOPS, if you
will, she was not the first to make the canon argument.  Personally, I
felt that crediting one person with a theory was likely to cause others
who may have said something similar to feel slighted.
 
This was less of a problem when I wrote "HPfGU:  A History."  I cited
none of my own stuff there because I was but a glimmer in Penny's eye
when all of that history took place.
 
Regarding the "Mysteries" update, I did notice that the same people were
having their posts cited over and over, myself included.  Because of
that, I, er, went back through the later draft and deleted some links to
my own posts and instead linked to someone else who had also posted on
the subject.
 
That said, I know others have done things differently.  The Snape FP,
for instance, does credit authors of posts and theories by name.
Perhaps its authors (Porphyria and Gwen?) will elaborate on how that
worked out or why they approached it that way.
 
Tom does raise an interesting question, though.  To date, FAQers have
chosen to work on whatever was of interest to them.  Would it be better
if we all tried not to work on something in which we've been intimately
involved to avoid any accusations or suspicions of self-promotion?  I
dunno.  I'm just tossing the idea out.
 
Cindy - who had a blast working on HA Back In The Day
 
 


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