John Ordover - Fanlore

John Ordover is a science fiction editor who managed a series of Star Trek tie-in novels in the late 1990s. He somehow discovered USENET in 1998 or 1999, and visited several fan fiction newsgroups to express his disdain for amateur versions of what he edited professionally.

On alt.tv.x-files.creative, this developed into a long-running series of flamewars, known as the Ordover Wars [1]. For many participants, this constituted their first flamewar, their first encounter with a professional editor, and possibly their first direct exposure to disapproval of fanfic as not worthwhile. Ordover managed to sockpuppet himself (perhaps unintentionally, signing in from different accounts at work vs. at home), and generally caused ire and fannish solidarity, and despite its flameyness many old X-Philes recall the Ordover Wars with great fondness.

He did the same on alt.startrek.creative, where he also trumpeted his plan to get fans to write 'real', published work, by publishing an anthology of Star Trek short fiction. Several ASC fans were, in fact, published in the resultant anthology, Strange New Worlds.