site submit status: Iceberg Slim Biography

Sorry - the URL is too long to post in the subject field.

http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/iceberg_slim.html

submitted several times to:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Ethnicity/African/African-American/Literature/Authors/

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I assume that this has been rejected because of the author's controversial subject matter. However, he is african american, and he is the author of many books - some of which are in the top 100 best selling books by black authors.

thanks.

That would be http://dmoz.org:/Society/Ethnicity/African/African-American/Literature/Authors . The site is waiting for review there.

directory.google.com

my bad. sorry about that. Sometimes it is faster to open the google version - while the upgrade is ongoing.

BTW I was going to add that if the site were to be rejected, it would more likely be due to insufficient content than because the author is controversial (the ODP lists tons of sites about controversial subjects).

With the exception of the Kids & Teens branch, the guidelines are such that just because the topic of a site is controversial shouldn't be a reason why it wouldn't be listed:

"Contrasting points of view on major issues. The ODP attempts to cover the full breadth and depth of human knowledge, representing all topics and points of view on those topics."

If I am editing, if my reason for not adding a site is "I disagree with that site's point of view", this would be an improper reason. And, as motsa says the ODP lists lots of controversial sites. I edit Recreation/Drugs, and a lot of people would object to sites listed there. And, many would object to the entire Adult branch. This site is about a pimp. Wouldn't make sense for the ODP not to list that, while simultaneously having a branch of the directory that is nothing but pornography.

Sorry. Since this page has been pending review for perhaps 12 months or so, and I saw that other sites were added, while it was not, I assumed that there was some other reason for the site not being added. I wrote this biographical summary about 7 years ago, and since other web directories had seen fit to include it - I jumped to the conclusion that there was some other reason for it not being added.

It is hard to dig up any factual information at all about Iceberg Slim, and that I why I transcribed several articles and obituaries when I initially created this page - in order to give people the most information available.

>I assume that this has been rejected because of the author's controversial subject matter.

Your prejudice is unwarranted. In the real world, as you could find out fairly easily from either this site, the directory itself, or other forums, the facts are:

-- We have whole categories for controversial sites, and either promotion or condemnation of the prostitution business doesn't even twitch our internal controversiality-meter. (We have well-established categories for both.)

-- We have hundreds of thousands of submittals to review, millions of unsubmitted sites to find and then review, and so far nobody has volunteered to look at that particular .00001% of our backlog, that's all.

Yes, I know, you don't care about the way the ODP works, that's not _your_ site; your interest is only in your site. That's fine. But what you need to understand is that when an editor is working on the ODP, their interest won't be in your site, it will be in the dmoz.org site. And for them, your site won't have the mythic proportions it assumes in your mind, it'll just be one of a thousand site submittals they looked at -- this week.

I should mention that the site DOES fit a profile ("book promo sites"), and the vast majority of sites that fit that profile ARE rejected, for inadequate content (or "inadequate non-advertising content," for those who think "content" = "promotional verbiage"). A quick overview of the site does indicate that it falls on the high end of such sites, so far as content goes. But ... enough to get it listed? I don't have a definite opinion on that, and without a better knowledge of that niche of literature (I fall on the "bee" end of Jonathan Swift's hymenoptera scale) I'll leave the site to those who can form a more educated opinion (and the John Milton category still needs a lot of work that I should be doing.)

Thank you for your replies. I am not naive as to the enormity of the task that is the millions of pending sites in the ODP - and the even more daunting task of deciding if a site really belongs or not.

I regret posting my "assumption" - chalk it up as a hasty aside.

However, if my recollection is correct, several sites have been reviewed in this category since my original submittal. Perhaps I am wrong -- I have no way of checking.

I apologize.

However, let me just say that I am not complaining because the site I submitted 2 weeks ago wasn't added to the directory. I was only asking why a site that was submitted 12(?) months ago hasn't been added, when, it appears, that other sites in that category have been added. And I do realize that there are sites that have been waiting even longer than that.

I appreciate your time here - the time you (you as in y'all) take to post, and the time you dedicate to the ODP. It wouldn't be there if it weren't for people like you.

>if my recollection is correct, several sites have been reviewed in this category since my original submittal.
This may be true.

Again, for general information, let's watch an editor working in the Arts/Literature area. He has two windows open, one with a pet category (um, say, "Nature Poems") he's trying to build up with Google searches, and one in Arts/Lit/niche/Authors/D.

Now, Josef Doe, famous Hungarian playwright, has a couple of unreviewed sites. Where to put them? In the "works" subcategory? Hmm. It seems several of his plays have their own subcategories, but there's no category, and only one site, for the play "Jepthah Triumphant". Well, if there were a few more JT sites out there -- and surely there are -- we could have a JT category. Googling through a few screens ... yes, sure enough there are. Create category, move site down, add sites. Review submitted sites: one is a one-page blurb at a big affiliate site: flush it; one is vanity-domain spam for the term-paper racket: flunk it; one is a really idiotic mis-submittal for a porn site: bounce it; one is a cute little illustrated biography on geocities that might be worth listing if it's unique: leave it for later (not knowing, you see, what the other biographies in the category contain.)

On to John Doe, who has half-a-dozen submittals waiting (and, coincidentally, has written some nature poems.) First move some sites down into the "Works" category, then look at the submittals. Again, one is a work that doesn't yet have its own category. Googling, googling ... yes, we can build a category about that work. Hmm... scan page of critical essay, mentioning Richard Roe's "Lives of the Nature Poets" as an important source. Now, I know I saw an incomplete e-text of LNP when I was looking for information on famous nature poet Chuck Coe. Googling again...YES! the CC essay is up now -- off to add it to the Chuck Coe category. And -- the John Doe essay is already added to the John Doe category, but the whole e-text isn't yet in the Richard Roe category -- off to add it there. But the distractions haven't even BEGUN yet. Seems there's a fantastic Richard Roe doorway page (by an academic at a university site), with lots more links than the ODP category has; and did I mention that the LNP site has lots of links for each poet -- again, some of which the ODP doesn't have? None of these last links were ever submitted to the ODP, and yet they come with excellent attestation --some PhD Lit prof has put his own reputation on the line that they're good sources. And I really ought to e-mail the LNP webmaster telling her about the online version of Chuck Coe's "Nature Poems for Children" which I had created for the "Classic Nature Literature" site, and that reminds me that I need to get the CC essay on "effective nature poetry" ready for publication also.

Now, with the exception of the small website for the Richard Roe Society of Nether Sniggling (which was a quick and easy review) the submitted sites in these categories are still waiting. (And at least one of them was over a year old.) But I have no compunctions and no apologies about checking those academic links out first: we're building a directory, not assembly-line-processing submittals. The submittals are there not to control us but to help us -- and, despite the spam, a large minority of submittals DO help...eventually. As experienced editors have often pointed out in our internal forums, 60% of submittals may be spam, but over 90% of the results of deep Google searches on obscure topics can't be made into ODP listings either; and even academic link lists are plagued by link rot. There are no perfect sources. So editors try to achieve some kind of personal balance between personal knowledge, searches, submittals, and link lists: and, in order to remain active, editors that must be enjoying whatever it is that they're doing at the moment (even if it is only the anticipation of having a cleaned-out den of diamondback spammers.)

Which brings up another question: Do you have a broader interest in all this than this particular site? The controversy? the business? the community? contemporary cultural literature?

And would you enjoy doing something like what I described for any of those topics? The ODP (and regional categories and AA Lit categories in particular) can always use more editors.

I wrote the Iceberg Slim my biography 8 years ago because when I owned a bookstore and one day someone special ordered one of his books. I flipped through it, and since I had never heard of him before, I read the first chapter. Aside from the "shock value" he has a broad appeal to the fans of hip hop, the black community in general, and fans of "independent thinking" - because he "played the system". I stocked a few of his books, and read them all - and eventually sold about 80 - 90 copies per month of his most famous title for the 4 years I ran my store. It was our bestselling backlist title by a factor of 4.

One day I looked in *the* search engine, Altavista, for info on Iceberg Slim (this was 8 years ago) and couldn't find anything at all. Since I had a good relationship with the publisher, Holloway House (we were their best selling independent bookstore) they sent me photocopies of old newspaper clippings and interviews with Iceberg Slim, which I transcribed and then used them and his books as my source to write his biography and put it on a webpage. 3 or 4 days after I submitted it to Altavista, the site started getting hits for "Iceberg Slim" from AV (back in the good ol' days).

Frankly some of his writing is amateurish, and repetitive but it is also funny, outrageous, and interesting as a historio-cultural artifact. His books are frequently cited in books on "Black English" - because he was thoughtful enough to include a slang glossary in the back of most of his novels for those not indoctrinated in the colorful language of his time and social group.

To give a easy citation of his influence both Ice-T and Ice Cube adopted "Ice" as tributes to his books & influence.

My site has biographies of a lot of controversial people from Timothy Leary to Aleister Crowley to the Marquis de Sade.

The fact that the Iceberg Slim biography is my most visited biography (of 20 or so) on the site tells me that a *lot* of people are interested in learning more about him.

My second most visited biography? The Marquis de Sade. The third? Its a tie between Che Guevara and Dylan Thomas. After that it is perhaps Bettie Page or Aleister Crowley. Philip K. Dick, B. Traven, Pancho Villa and Georges Bataille all make decent showings.

I use the Amazon affiliates program to pay for the server and domain and it makes me a little extra money aside (about $60 per month). But I have literally spent hours researching various biographies, reading the subject's books, biographies, articles, doctoral theses, microfiches in the UT library, and any other sources I could get my hands on.

Most of the subjects of these biographies, when they were written, had no information online about them. I don't have a biography about George Washington, because you could find that anywhere. But one day I looked for Aleister Crowley and the number one hit was a page that said "Aleister Crowley Rocks!!! 666!". So that inspired another biography - one that actually has been cited in numerous theses and other scholarly works on him.

You know what? Saying he was interesting is an understatement. Why did I research the Marquis de Sade? Because he too is a victim of his own controversy. People know him for the cachet of his "scandal" but they do not know him or his works. The movie Quills definitely perked up interest in him, and the traffic to the site for the Marquis quadrupled for about 18 months.

The Che Guevara biography has become popular of late, I suspect, because I see that many different clothing companies began throwing variations of the famous "Korda" portrait on t-shirts.

I would still have the site, even without the Amazon affiliates program, because I consider the site a "gift" to the internet.

I put a donation box online and people have actually chipped in to it, much to my surprise. On the homepage, I have a little paragraph telling people that the site makes money from the amazon affiliates program - and I know (because they emailed me) that several people go to my site if they plan on ordering something through Amazon as a sign of support.

I only tell you this because the project's inception had nothing to do with Amazon or any other affiliate program, archive.org can prove it.
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Even Iceberg Slim's US publisher Holloway House saw fit to link to my biography of their author - the link is still there - though it is pointed to the original domain that housed the biography - a domain that hasn't had a server for a while now. I guess I need to write them and ask them to update that link, if they have the time.

But you made your point - this author is not John Milton, nor W.E.B. Du Bois, nor Richard Wright - he's Iceberg Slim - never destined to be consider a literary giant - yet still a very widely read black author: Pimp: The Story of My Life - Amazon.com Sales Rank: 5,331. (not the universal yard stick of booksales, but still - easily at hand - and easily confirmable)

I made the mistake of assuming that this author's biography, was in ODP's "unreviewed" because of his controversial nature - but now it is clear by your statements - that either the site or the subject matter is not worthy of immediate addition to the cat.

The ODP (and regional categories and AA Lit categories in particular) can always use more editors.

Click to expand...

I find that statement terribly ironic, don't you?

At any rate. I do thank you for the time you took out of editing the John Milton section (or whatever other duties fell under your purview) in order to respond so lengthily to my query.

No, that wasn't at all my point. The ODP has categories for "Madonna" and the "Back Street Brats", so there's no basis for an elitist charge in general. My post deliberately used aliases for the exact names and categories, to avoid that kind of confusion. I forgot the John Milton reference earlier. For that matter, my current research interest in John Milton is on the illegal singing of not-particularly-poetic but highly-controversial songs that landed him in jail (thus, BTW giving him time to work on the poetic arts.)

And my statement was not at all that academics think John Doe (or anyone else) was a good writer; but that some academic thought he had found good LINKS for John Doe. (Aside: try to find academic work on Catherine Winkworth, another obscure niche writer and fascinating personality that I've tried to build and find web content for. Other than the book by Robin Leaver, I don't know of anything.) My POINT was that GOOD editing requires drawing on many different sources of knowledge (including but not limited to site submittals), so editors are allowed and EXPECTED to sometimes pass by submittals to do something else.
I have a bad reputation for low irony, but the reason ODP needs more editors is that we don't currently have any active editors with a major knowledge and interest in contemporary AA Lit. I personally have more interest in medieval English lit (which I can hardly read, but it piques my curiosity) than in contemporary lit. And I personally have an interest in certain kinds of religious literature -- leading to some editing work in James Weldon Johnson. But that hardly makes me an expert -- or particularly good editor -- even for the Harlem Renaissance.
That's why we need editors who know the broader topic -- writers good, bad, or very ugly, and which are which. We could even use an editor to focus on our neglected John Milton category -- not because there are a lot of submittals to weed through, but because there's a lot of websites with good relevant material not yet listed.