Talk:Cassandra Clare

Untitled

Does Cassandra Clare meet the criteria for notability? I had held off from creating an entry for her book/series because I did not think it met grounds for notability. Currently the sources cited are her own website and links to fanfiction which is attributed to a different spelling of her name (without making light of the name change).

At this point in time I don't believe this author merits an entry Nancy Vandal 06:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if she's notable in herself, but the controversy on LiveJournal and in the fanfic community surrounding Clare's plagiarism of novelist Pamela Dean in her Harry Potter fanfic might be notable. Although, honestly, this article probably belongs on AfD.75.17.201.223 01:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

AfD result

The consensus of the debate was keep, but there was also a suggestion to merge the the article. Editors are certainly free to come to a consensus about merging content. Cool Hand Luke 05:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

copyvio or COI?

This whole article is pretty closely cribbed from:

• http://www.cassandraclare.com/bio.html

by User:Cassieclare

Comments before I tag it as a copyvio? --Jack Merridew 10:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Draco Trilogy

Where's the mention of Draco Dormiens/Draco Sinister/Draco Veritas that we KNOW belongs in this article? The Draco Trilogy was largely responsible for a number of highly common portrayals of Draco, in addition to extremely popular methods of 'shipping him. I suggest working off of [ here ] in terms of information, and the actual text can be found here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.75.21.94 (talk) 17:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sources

In my search for some sources to show notability, I found these interviews but I couldn't figure out how to work them into the article:

• Blog Critics
• Powells
• Write Words

If someone else could weave them in, that would be great. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 16:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of City of Bones

An article that you have been involved in editing, City of Bones, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/City of Bones. Thank you. Jack Merridew 12:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Sources on Fan Fiction, Plagiarism debate

I've journeyed into Lexus Nexus to add more than a half-dozen relevant legal journal, newspaper, and book sources for these claims. Can we please put this to rest now? The last thing this article needs is a reliable host for CC's well-known fan fiction. How can this be accomplished? Infoaddict1 (talk) 22:14, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Awards section

it seems that most authors' articles don't list every award/nomination. Some articles include a link to a separate "Awards earned by Author X" article, others, like JK Rowling only note a few awards within the article's text. For now, I'm going to remove all the nominations and leave the wins, and note that she has received numerous other nominations. If someone else would like to create the page "Awards and nominations of Cassandra Clare" they would be more than welcome to. Infoaddict1 (talk) 22:25, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The current dispute

Right now we have an edit war occurring on this article, and I'd like to head this off before any sanctions need to be handed out. Reverting edits you disagree with as "vandalism" is factually incorrect and not productive, but any BLP concerns regarding controversial material must be addressed. At least one party has tried to bring this to the talk page, so maybe we can come up with a compromise. I've left a message with a few of the recent contributors to ask if they're interested in giving input as to how they'd like to settle this dispute. -- Atama頭 06:03, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

There are two issues as I see it. For some reason, the other editor doesn't see CC's fan fiction as being at all notable; furthermore he sees the inclusion of fan fiction on her wiki article as being an attempt to embarrass CC. If she were embarrassed about this, she wouldn't have kept her pseudonym, I imagine!

Beside that, I did not originate much at the fan fiction material on this page; as far as I have read back on the CC page, fan fiction has been mentioned, because it is how her career started. As far as I know, that hasn't ever been a disputed piece of information. Furthermore, CC has been interviewed or mentioned in numerous publications due to her relationship to the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings fan fiction, as I've cited.

When I originally sourced the article back in June, I didn't have access to a better search portal than Google to find valid publications about CC. However, when an editor earlier today pointed out the unreliability of some of the citations I used, I spent the entire day gathering very credible and appropriate citations from: io9, The Age, Mail on Sunday and a number of law journals and books via Lexis Nexus. Many of the mentions of CC in these articles/books can be found in abstracts online for free. As I stated above, I removed ALL blog sources for the plagiarism debate, and have only now cited published works.

As I see it, all my citations about Clare's fan fiction, plagiarism scandal, famous fan fiction stories, and relationship between The Mortal Instruments series and The Draco Trilogy stand fine. If there are issues with some of the personal (still cited, mostly from her own website) information posted that need to be addressed, I'd like to understand what those issues are. I'd like to resolve this issue quickly, however, before the page requires extensive editing to be reverted back to an adequate state. Infoaddict1 (talk) 06:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no deadline. The edit history of this article isn't going anywhere, not unless there's some BLP violation so terrible as to require oversight, and if there is then this discussion is moot anyway. On that note, I need to sleep, but I'll be around tomorrow to help out. Thanks. -- Atama頭 07:29, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Question to clarify dispute

Are we talking primarily the differences between these two versions [1]? Active Banana (talk) 14:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe that is the case. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz believes that the sourcing is inadequate for those statements in a BLP and went as far as to call it "vandalism". It might be best to discuss each piece of information and source individually. -- Atama頭 16:38, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

With a quick glance, I have to say that I share Hullaballoo Wolfowitz's concern that many of the sources appear questionable at best. Twitter, some sites that are being blocked access for questionable material etc. Some of the sites that should be reliable dont really seem to support the phrasing and content as included in the article. With a BLP article, we need to be on very firm ground with the quality of sources used and with the proper representation of their content. Active Banana (talk) 17:02, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm reverting to my last version + changes that have been made since then. Please look this over to see that everything is adequately covered. Unfortunately I've changed the lede from "controversial" fan fiction to mention the plagiarism scandal because the other editor strongly objected to the term "controversial", so I figured I'd just post the terms used in the sources.

Twitter (for a direct reference to her boyfriend) was used because it had already been used to establish CC's location. She has never been shy about her boyfriend; he's mentioned off and on in her personal blog not usually by name, but by mostly by handle (protean, and previously something else which I've forgotten). I've removed the link, however, and anything that's now blocked (I see that the Mortal Instruments original story has been blocked from archive.org)

As to phrasing, I suppose because MOST OF these articles mention the plagiarism ACCUSATION but don't go into many details (which can be found online easily), that should be amended. I've only included the details directly stated in each of the sources. I've also added a link to cassandraclaire.com, but am not quoting anything from there, just adding it to show that it exists. Is that an okay use? I've kept the lede "best known for" as I've seen it on other pages, and I don't know that it conflicts with "has written" if both the fan fiction and pro writing is mentioned there; those are the only 2 things the author is known for, from what I understand.

One quick thing--is there a reliable place to host some of her fan fiction? as fan fiction, it's doesn't qualify for DMCA protection, but most sites have removed her work due to cease & desist letters. The original "Mortal Instruments" story is the one I really care to preserve, due to its name and content similarities to her published work. Any ideas? Thanks! Infoaddict1 (talk) 19:05, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I started going through to verify and found far too much that was far too questionable re WP:BLP and WP:V and WP:RS to allow your changes to stay. I have reverted back to the minimal version and suggest that each proposed change is community vetted on the talk page first. Active Banana (talk) 19:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

First, Infoaddict1, please don't revert to a version that contains questionable information. Biographies of living people are very sensitive subjects and it's best to not have that information available to the "viewing public" to run across during the discussion. There's no need to have it in the article to review it, it's all present in the article history and can be linked to (as Active Banana did above). I know that you're new and I won't hold this against you, but just know that it's not necessary to restore material for others to review it and in this case it's especially important to avoid doing so.

Twitter is really just unacceptable, please see WP:BLPSPS where it explicitly mentions "tweets" as an unacceptable source. The only exception is if the tweets are from the article's subject, but even doing that has certain restrictions. As for using self-published sources, they aren't disallowed in BLPs, but go by the guidelines at WP:SELFPUB to make sure that they're being properly used.

As I'm not a lawyer, I can't really advise how to avoid lawsuits or cease-and-desist letters when publishing fan fiction online. -- Atama頭 20:01, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure why we would want to link to her fanfiction? Active Banana (talk) 20:06, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

We wouldn't. That would possibly be a violation of WP:LINKVIO. But I assumed that Inoaddict1 was asking for personal reasons, I have had similar questions asked of me by other editors who wanted to publish their own works online somewhere. -- Atama頭 21:26, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't violate WP:LINKVIO because her fan works are not copywritten by their very nature of being fan works. Disclaims on the works state clearly she doesn't own the characters, places, etc. Potentially there could be an issue with JK Rowling but she's publicly stated she doesn't care about racy fan fiction. Infoaddict1 (talk) 21:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

That's completely wrong. Fan fiction is copyrighted, but the master copyright belongs to the creator of the underlying material, who has the exclusive right at law to create "derivative works." Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 22:21, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Completely wrong? I said the only issue there could possibly be is with JK Rowling, the original author of the material. But the Legal issues with fan fiction page cites confirmation from Rowling's attorneys that she has no problems with HP fanfiction being released online. As the owner of the material, she has given her approval for it to be linked wherever. Infoaddict1 (talk) 23:36, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Quick things:

• 1) Her 3 most well-known stories were a) The Draco Trilogy b) The Very Secret Diaries c) Mortal Instruments. Her works have no copyright protection, and most authors whose work falls in the the PD have their works linked on their wiki pages. Very Secret Diaries has its own Wiki page, Draco Trilogy was deleted yesterday by HullaballooWolfowitz. IMO either they should all have pages or they should all be deleted. If links exist for those 2, Mortal Instruments should also be linked to due to its relevance to her published work.
• 2) no tweets are cited. CC's twitter page was used to show that CC lives in NYC, as per her personal, verified account. She has since changed her bio on her twitter page, but her official livejournal lists her as living in Brooklyn, New York http://cassandraclare.livejournal.com/profile. Her myspace lists this as well.
• 3) Her first "fame" came as a fan fiction author--as the numerous sources on the page mention. This fame was enough to get her mentioned in major publications..
• 4) The Anelli book mentions, on page 223 "[stories were] moved over to FictionAlley, the site that Heidi [Tandy, Clare's friend and attorney] set up after Cassandra Clare had been banned from Fanfiction.net for including large, unsourced patches of other published work in her fanfic." Anelli has defined plagiarism in this passage, and there is no mention of accusations. This is not a self-published book, in fact it was published by Simon & Schuster, the same publisher that publishes CC's novels. CC was a contributor to this book, and is thanked in the acknowledgments.

That being said, I understand the point about not having questionable content public as we edit. So let's just look at the citations in the last edit I made one by one to discuss.

• 1) NYT Bestsellers listed. No questions there.
• 2) Telegraph -- mentions accusations of plagiarism. Does it really matter who accused her when the accusation is published in a credible source like the telegraph? I'm unclear as to how nitpicky we get on sources on wiki.
• 3) Geek Speak magazine article. This is a notable blog, but IMO could be removed since it just repeats the mention of the accusations already mentioned in the Telegraph article.
• 4) The Anelli book, see above. The Anelli Book also mentions CC's fame as a fic author and her works.
• 5) Author's blurb at Sony.com, a reputable seller. Blurb was provided by the publisher, includes mention of her work at the Hollywood reporter, specifically. Don't see why this is suspect.
• 6) Cassandra Clare's twitter page, mentioning her living in Brooklyn. Since this isn't spelled out clearly enough, we can use her Myspace and/or Livejournal for the same purpose.
• 7) Q&A Interview with Powell's bookstore, a reputable seller. Available online, again don't see any issues here. This just mentions her cats.
• 8) CC's FAQ page on her official site. Mentions her living in Massachusetts, her writing group based there, and the works that inspire her. Don't see an issue here, obviously very official info.
• 9) This is news report, just used to again specify that Clare lives in Amherst near friend Holly Black. Don't see anything biased/off about this one. Am I wrong?
• 10) This book simply cites that CC was a famous fan fiction writer. Nothing not established previously.
• 11) CC's official bio on her site, which mentions her moving around/avid reading/origin of pseudonym
• 12) JIVE magazine interview. This interview has been on most incarnations of this page since the interview took place. Seems reputable to me.
• 13) The Age, very reputable Australian paper. Mentions Draco Trilogy, # page views.
• 14) Mail on Sunday, again reputable. Mentions CC's autograph signing, fame, age, more about draco trilogy
• 15) Law journal specifically discussing fandom and legality. LONG article. Relevant passage is reproduced here: "The fan fiction community takes plagiarism very seriously. n146 Simply by being presented as fan fiction, these works are unlikely to be mistaken for original works, but it is still common practice to include disclaimers (generally something along the lines of "I do not own these characters, this person does, please do not sue me"). n147 Although disclaimers do not have an effect on potential legality, they showcase the respect that the community has for the original author. n148 Fan fiction authors concede that they are borrowing worlds and characters, but are always quick to note where those elements originated rather than taking any credit of their own. n149 Cases where [*753] fan fiction allegedly plagiarizes by wholesale copying or fails to cite source material have brought about some of the most severe sanctions within fandom. n150 In one well-known case in the Harry Potter fan fiction community, fans accused a popular fan fiction writer of lifting lines or scenes from various television shows and novels without proper attribution to the original sources. n151 The fall-out from this incident lasted more than five years and continued to haunt the author, even when she went on to publish original novels. n152"

• Citations in the above specifically mention Cla(i)re:
• n150. See Fandom Wank Wiki, Plagiarism and All That, http://wiki.fandomwank.com/ index.php/Plagiarism and All That (last visited Feb. 16, 2008) (summarizing a set of plagiarism accusations that led to a well-known writer being banned from FanFiction.net; as another forceful form of ridicule, an anonymous person registered the domain of her name and redirected it to information about the scandal).
• n151. Posting of White serpent to JournalFen, http://www.journalfen.net/community/ bad penny/8985.html (Aug. 4, 2006, 13:46 UTC).
• n152. See generally Fan History Wiki, Cassandra Claire, http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php?title=Cassandra Claire (last visited Feb. 16, 2008) (describing the alleged plagiarism in detail). The original accusations surfaced in 2001, and a lengthy account of the entire affair brought it back into the spotlight in 2006. See Posting of White serpent, supra note 151. Even after changing her name slightly, discussions of her newly published original novels among fans mentioned the scandal. See Posting of Seto fangirl to JournalFen, http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom lounge/ 309198.html (July 21, 2006, 14:15 UTC). Additionally, a Google search for the author's new name, Cassandra Clare, turns up several pages about the plagiarism issue on the first page of hits, such as the Fan History Wiki entry on Clare and postings to JournalFen about Clare and the scandal. See Google, http://www.google.com.libproxy.usc.edu/search?hl=en&q= Cassandra+Clare&btnG=Google+Search (last visited Feb. 16, 2008).

• Perhaps you'll argue that this persons citations don't meet Wiki standards; but the sources were more enough for the publication it appeared in, and its appearance in that publication meets Wiki standards.

• 16) Cassandraclaire.com -- as I mentioned earlier, I don't know if this link can be included. I've just included it to show that it exists, not to prove anything.

• 17) i09 is part of Gawker Media, a legitimate online publishing source. Article mentions that CC wrote slash fiction and that she removed it from online.

• 18) the dedication page of City of Bones. Don't see any issue here.

• 19) Blog interview with Cassie, mentions her grandfather died before the book sold and that's why the book is dedicated to him. It's a blog, but I don't see a major issue here.

• 20-31) Undisputed various references from her books, publishers, and YA award wins Infoaddict1 (talk) 21:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm particularly unimpressed by the "law journal" mention in n15 as a reliable source, given the current state of several of the pages cited for factual content in the referenced article. [2] [3]. Looks like anybody can edit there without much oversight, even a cranky geezer with an axe to grind or a point to make. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:18, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I've used toe law journal mention not as a source to prove the plagiarism happened, but to prove the accusation happened. Again, the editors of the law journal found it worthwhile enough to publish. Does wiki usually cherry pick which sources' sources are credible? That opens a whole can of worms that's not really worth getting into. I think at this point no one is denying a) that she was a fanfic writer and b) that there were AT LEAST accusations. The journal_fen article cites numerous primary sources, the plagiarized text itself, and CC's response. There is clearly no lore or rumor being fabricated here, the question is simply whether the sources of the allegations are substantial enough for Wiki to publish her as a plagiarist. The answer seems to be no, BUT the allegations are substantial enough for Wiki to publish her as an ACCUSED plagiarist. Why don't we make the official word that she was accused, and leave it at that? Infoaddict1 (talk) 23:29, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi -- just a thought. I don't think anyone is denying that the subject here was a well-known fanfiction writer, and that her role as a fanfiction writer was covered in newspapers and the like. But an article was created for her, before she had any original work published (AFAIK), and it was deleted per the (at the time) Articles for Deletion standards. (This is also before the new BLP standards went into place, I believe.) So while perhaps the fact that she was a fanfiction writer who now is a published writer of original fiction is a notable fact about her, all the detail of her travels and travails within the world of fanfiction online would seem to have been already deemed non-notable and the facts of her fanfiction have not changed at all since the article for deletion went through; I'd take this as guidance that fanfiction-specific stuff about her should be kept to a minimum since it's clear that it doesn't mean normal WP standards for notability. (As a side note, I'd make this argument about the existence of the Draco Trilogy page, created by User:Infoaddict1 earlier, since I don't believe individual works of fanfiction -- however well-known in their time -- are considered notable works, especially when they were taken offline officially in around 2007 and the only sources for them are now Wayback Machine archives or (in the case of the Draco Trilogy) PDFs hosted on Russian servers of dubious provenance.

It's also, I think, pretty clearly not the purpose of WP to provide links to fanfiction for interested parties. Perhaps Clare did indeed write a piece of fanfiction with the same title as her first trilogy of published original work, but since the title is itself from a Shakespeare quote, who cares? That seems like a tiny piece of trivia, not a major fact that requires that the old work be not only mentioned in detail but linked to directly.

I'm not experienced enough with the WP:BLP standards to really know what the citation standards are -- I'll leave that to the rest of you to discuss -- but my two cents would be that it's common sense that blog posts making unsourced assertions about a piece of fanfiction that is no longer available online except through dubious channels don't mean credibility standards. In places where I've in the past removed uncited material it has been because either it was unsourced, or the sources provided didn't actually in any way verify the claim being cited.

In general, though, let me say that I'm really pleased that this article is seeing some attention -- in the past it's been something of a honeypot for vandalism with the problem that it wasn't really viewed enough to garner much effort to make it a good article. Glad to see a bunch of people interested other than me in working on this! Rkramden (talk) 22:59, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there was some discussion as to whether mentioning her fan fiction past was vandalism or not. Clearly not -- she kept the same pseudonym, she kept the same livejournal, she made no effort to disconnect herself from her fan persona OTHER than to remove her stories, ostensibly because they contain adult material, but one can't truly be sure. The publishers may have had other reasons. The fan fiction past of the author is clearly made relevant by her subsequent professional publication. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason her original Wiki page was deleted was because haters didn't want her to have one, and perhaps that page was not adequately sourced as I have done with the above citations, most of which were not original to this article when I started editing. Also aside from the geekspeak blog which was mentioned as unnecessary above, all current sources mentioning the plagiarism accusations are book/newspaper/credible online newsmag sources. no personal or self-published blogs are cited at all. I agree that the FACTS haven't changed since the article was put up for deletion, but the CITATIONS absolutely have. Infoaddict1 (talk) 23:29, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

(←) I'll give my response to Infoaddict1's comments regarding sources above, please anyone feel free to weigh in as well.

2) We get really nitpicky with BLPs. Basically, if we say something, we really need to back it up. If Cassandra wants to sue Wikipedia or malign it in the press, Wikipedia can "shift the blame" to another publication of that other publication is solid. It has happened before. Perhaps we might be able to specifically mention that The Telegraph claims there were allegations of plagiarism, but that's still a grey area and with a BLP the rule is almost always better safe than sorry. Really, how important are these plagiarism claims to mention in the article? When we can't specify who made the accusation on what was a plagiarism of what, and what evidence backs that up, it's more like Wikipedia is spreading a rumor. I like The Telegraph as a source, with Cassandra herself acknowledging the low quality of some of her fan fiction, but using it as a source for plagiarism accusations is probably unwise.

Yeah, what's frustrating about the whole thing is that there are clear records of a) who made the allegations b) what text was plagiarized and where c) what CC's response was, they just don't meet wiki verification. Honestly, I think that because the author is a professional writer, the plagiarism accusation at least is necessary to make sure the page is fair & unbiased. I totally understand that Wiki needs to protect itself from possible litigation, but at the same time, there are plenty of Wiki articles that mention accusations and rumors. In this case, I see the descriptors of "rumored plagiarist" as too soft and "plagiarist" as too strong, given the sources, but "accused plagiarist" seems to fit in okay. Infoaddict1 (talk) 00:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The "clear" fact that joblo on a forum website called someones work plagiarized is not in any way compatible with including that claim or references to the claim into an article. Active Banana (talk) 18:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The fact that she's a published author means that we need to be very, very careful about including any accusations of plagiarism to the article. They have to be air-tight. I don't see "rumored plagiarist" as too soft, anything negative that we can't verify by Wikipedia's standards is a BLP violation and we can't even call her a rumored plagiarist if we can't source that very well. There are certainly other BLP articles that have unsourced negative information and rumors, but that doesn't justify repeating the problem here, that only means that those other articles need to be cleaned up. This past year there has been a pretty strong push to do so, see WP:BLPPROD which is a stronger version of our proposed deletion process specifically for BLPs that requires every BLP to have sources or risk deletion.That policy is less than 6 months old. -- Atama頭 19:37, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

3) Blogs are very rarely reliable sources, see WP:SPS. Blogs that are attached to a major publication, such as a blog for a newspaper, can be acceptable. Since blogs aren't generally subject to editorial oversight, they aren't suitable as references.

Agreed. As I mentioned, this citation is basically a duplicate of the Telegraph article citation, so isn't totally necessary.

6) Uncontroversial information that is provided by the subject herself should be acceptable even from a self-published source.

8) See answer to 6.

11) See answer to 6.

After removing the problem mentioned in #3, the only blogs used as citations are Q&A interviews with the author herself, also uncontroversial. Does this clear up any issues with blog use for this article? Infoaddict1 (talk) 00:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

16) Her personal web site is more appropriately listed in the External Links section, per WP:ELOFFICIAL, where it is currently located.

Just a note -- this is NOT her official site. cassandraclaIre.com is different from cassandraclare.com -- it is a direct link to a wiki page about the scandal (with many of its own references). I noted it in my edit because it was one factor in Clare altering her pseudonym, and an example of how the scandal has not yet died down even to this day. Infoaddict1 (talk) 00:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I need to look over the law journal cited in #15, it might be worth querying the reliable sources noticeboard for other opinions about it. -- Atama頭 23:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Again, as I've mentioned in previous edits, there isn't really a debate as to whether plagiarism occurred, but whether it can be adequately shown via wiki-approved sources. The most important citation to me is the Anelli book, which mentions that plagiarism occurred and doesn't acknowledge the incident as only an accusation. If this is the only source that flat-out states it was plagiarism then perhaps the best thing to do is knock it down to "accused" for the Wiki article, but if the Anelli book is a valid source, that the Telegraph article back into play. Infoaddict1 (talk) 00:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, where accuracy takes a backseat to dick-waving and ass-covering every day of the week.

'Fan fiction' should not be mentioned in this article

This article currently states that Ms. Clare is partly notable 'for writing Harry Potter fan fiction'; I'm going to remove this claim. Firstly, it's poorly sourced: the information in the source is trivial, and there isn't enough there to even verify that it's referring to the same Cassandra Clare, or just some Harry Potter fan who happens to have the same name as a published author. But even if it is the same person (and I'll WP:AGF that it is), it seems in no way relevant or significant enough to deserve mention in a Wikipedia biography, least of all in the lead. If anyone wants to re-insert this claim, they'd need to provide two things:

• Clear attribution to a reliable source that links this Cassandra Clare with Harry Potter fan fiction.
• Some indication of why this is relevant to her biography or worth mentioning. I'm sure lots of modern authors self-published things on the Internet before getting a book published; in 90% of cases, that's not interesting or significant.

Robofish (talk) 20:08, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

'Fan fiction' section back

any chance any admins are still keeping an eye on this article? i agree with Robofish above that, whatever attributions there may be for the relationship of this author to the fanfiction author of the same name, i have no idea why "author writes some things online before being published" is notable enough to be part of the article. besides, the massive discussion above is, to me, a convincing argument for keeping this section out of the article -- the intricate details of online politics and scandal of interest, and indeed comprehensible, only to the people who were involved at the time, seems clearly to be cruft. i'm going to go out on a limb and say that the vast, vast, vast majority of readers of this article are here for information about the publishing career of this professional author, rather than some stuff that may (if the same person) have happened in an internet community a while back. admins? any thoughts? 76.118.3.91 (talk) 04:57, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Considering all the trivial nonsense that goes unchallenged on the articles for other "professional" authors, I don't see why a brief mention that she wrote fanfiction is so offensive. It's not as if every author wrote fanfiction, or in fact first became notable for doing so. It is a distinguishing characteristic from many other writers, and it has no doubt in some way influenced her "professional" writing.174.31.191.189 (talk) 01:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)