What is naturist fiction? How is it conceived and qualified, defined and quantified?
In the interest of answering these questions for a general public, it would be great to have a “naturist fiction” page on Wikipedia. To that end, I submitted a draft article in January 2019, as you can see in the screenshot below:
I remember consulting with Paul and Robert about this at the time. Within a few days, I received the rejection response below:
I remember sharing this response with Robert and Paul, but to my knowledge the topic hasn’t been addressed in this blog. I also have a recollection that another attempt at a Wikipedia article was made -by Paul?, earlier this year? but I don’t know the details.
Earl, founder of clothesfreelife.com, has set up a naturist wiki on his site, and that deserves recognition as a truly great service. There may be a naturist kind of “wiki” somewhere on Reddit, I don’t know. But I would still prefer for there to be an entry for “naturist fiction” on the standard Wikipedia so that it is available for anyone, and with links to and from general topics already on Wikipedia such as “naturism” and “fiction.” That would be ideal as we continue to accumulate critical mass for this relatively new genre (or mixed genre) that we are developing as we go.
So for that to happen, revisiting the feedback above, it looks like we need any or all of the following:
(1) an article or articles on naturist fiction in a magazine (or magazines) such as N, H&E, Going Naturally, AANR Bulletin or similar.
(2) an actual scholarly article or articles in one of the many dozens of literary journals that publish literary scholarship by writers and professors.
(3) an article or multi-title review in a more mainstream publication, either one that was originally print and now also has an online presence, or a newer one that is online only.
For any of these, it would be preferable that it be written by someone who is not (or not yet) a published naturist fiction author. What do you think? Any suggestions on how to move forward?
I did indeed once devise a set-up for a new Naturist Fiction page on Wikipedia. Somewhere in the busy times, that fell away from the radar.
Ah yes, the busy times. They are still upon us…
Wikipedia has a policy, which I only discovered fairly recently, which means that contributions – including editing of existing articles -must not come from anyone with a stake in the topic they are reporting. That may be a bit strong, but not much.
As Will is a published author of naturist fiction, I suspect the Wikpedia “third party” / “independent” rules make him ineligible to contribute to Wikipedia on the subject.
The Wikipedia naturism/nudism pages, and at least some of those related to / linked from those pages, do appear to include contributions and edits from naturists and nudists – I find it difficult to believe that they would have the knowledge needed other than from personal experience.
Until a non-naturist non-writer non-publisher (ideally an academic writing in a peer-reviewed journal) says something about naturist fiction, I fear Wikipedia will stay silent on the topic?
Thanks for your comments, Tim! To answer your question, yes – I think that is probably the case. I do also think that a general article in a naturist publication would still be helpful. “The growing genre of naturist fiction” or similar…