Views from Medina Road

I have a perhaps unjustified suspicion of websites that do not identify their authors or hosts. That's one reason I've never added http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/ to my Links pages; despite its evident scope, its frequent citation as a source for bibliographic data on SF authors (cited almost as often as the ISFDb), and its frequent high placement in Google search results, the only hint of authorship (much less authority) that it offers is 'webmaster@fantasticfiction.co.uk'. Given that, and the fact that (like, ahem, ISFDb) its content is not always highly reliable, I've not permanently linked it.

Similarly Big Dumb Object, an SF blog covering both media and literary topics, by 'James'. Who be 'James'?

I suppose this is unfair. Does it matter who is behind these sites? (Maybe, as the joke goes, they're dogs.)

For that matter, Wikipedia, which has undergone some recent criticism and vindication in recent days' news stories, is written, as far as is evident, anonymously. So there. In fact, I was impressed enough by the detail on its Kenneth Bulmer page that I linked it with Bulmer's death notice, posted earlier today. The article isn't much more than a detailed list, but still.

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... I'm tentatively planning to be away for an extended weekend, to a distant mountainous place where wifi connections may be few and far between. So there may be no posts, or even email replies, for a few days.