Talk:Lucy Seaman

I found an obituary for a Lucy Seaman who died in July 2014 in the American Midwest. It states that she was an "accomplished artist and writer" and "belonged to SCA, Magnificent Seven, Dorai, IMC Group, Science-fiction groups." Night Rain (talk) 04:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Great find Night Rain, thank you! That may be this Lucy Seaman. I'll look into it later and try confirming it with whoever added her to the "deceased" cat just to make sure --Cavewomania (talk) 05:09, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

MPH – Would it be okay to add the obituary as a reference in the article? I've held off linking it directly because it names some relatives. But I believe it's the same Lucy Seaman as the article subject. The reference to the show Magnificent 7 fits even though the obituary writer seems to have mistaken it for a sci-fi club/organisation. Night Rain (talk) 18:11, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I've cited obits as refs, but at times I feel uncomfortable about it as it delves into connecting personal and fannish. I think we're going to have to live with the reality that sometimes when a fan passes, there isn't going to be a hard and fast citation to prove it. Especially when pseuds are involved. Sometimes information is passed around in fannish circles and the person adding the category is just going to have to use their best judgement to determine if the information is credible, and the fans seeing the information is hopefully going to go to a place of trust of why it was added. (not always reality, I know).

I hope that you aren't taking off the category of deceased when there is scant documentation, as that category is the only way to track the information for some archival purposes as well as being helpful to help other fans down the line to get other documentation. I think it's important not to lose the information we have. MPH 20:35, 6 December 2023 (UTC) Edited: Because of this, I'm added the category of Deceased back in. MPH 20:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Some fans are more comfortable blurring the line between their personal and fannish existences. For some fandom and daily life are fully enmeshed. When the subject of an article is living, it's possible to take direction from them. When they are gone, we are left to make decisions in how they are remembered, imperfect as those decisions may be. Some guideposts would be helpful here. Like, if someone used their wallet name (or a version thereof -- e.g. Jen from Jennifer) in fandom, and their obituary specifically mentions their fannish activities, it's probably safe to connect their Fanlore article to that obituary? Night Rain (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

There was a photo of her as Queen Zarina published in The Pittsburgh Press, September 3, 1978 (paywalled link, OCR text readable). Unfortunately, this isn't in the freely-accessible Google News Archive for September 1978, since this collection doesn't seem to include Sunday editions. There was photo of her working on the Goodyear Blimp printed in the Akron Beacon Journal, November 8, 1987 (paywalled link). Finally, there's a photo of her working on the ET puppet in the September/October 1982 edition of Cinefantastique, page 53. Working on this article was neat. Her history was surprisng to uncover. Night Rain (talk) 10:07, 8 December 2023 (UTC)