Talk: The Entropy Effect

Summary

Hi, all; new here, first post. I know the novels are considered non-canonical, but I'd like to see a bit more story info on them, so I've added my own synopsis for this one to see how it goes over. Good, not good, too much, not enough? Let me know and I'll continue or not, as the consensus indicates. CanadianLemming 20:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for writing this excellent summary. Contributions are always encouraged, especially to our relativaly lacking novel pages. Jaz ^talk 21:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Mary Sue character

The character of the Security Chief, Commander Flynn, may be a "Mary Sue", as she appears to be a projection of the book's author. Flynn, a red-haired Irish woman like the author, becomes romantically involved with Hikaru Sulu. Other novels by the same author are particularly complimentary to Sulu, whom she at least once described in prose as "the good-looking Asian man." (Novelization of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.)

Hmm.... JM Dillard wrote the novelization of Star Trek VI. Perhaps the the author of this note meant another novel? – The preceding unsigned comment was added by EnterpriserNX01 (talk • contribs).

I found the error. Just a typo. Disregard. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by EnterpriserNX01 (talk • contribs).

Man from UNCLE

Entered on the page, but it might be removed on account of not having a direct citation:

"The minor character Ilya Nikolaievich is possibly a reference to TOS's contemporary show The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin. The novel's author is a self-described "huge fan of the show" and particularly of Illya Kuryakin (as mentioned in her blog post [1], 2/9/2009) and not only Ilya's name but also his physical description: "shorter than Sulu, but similar in build: compact and well-proportioned [...] His heavy straight blond hair fell across his forehead" (pg. 109), hair-trigger reflexes, and Spock-like self-control are all extremely reminiscent of David McCallum's fan-favorite Russian character."

If anyone has a direct citation for this, it would be great. To anyone familiar with the character in question, this is a very obvious cameo. The name "Nikolaievich" is a common fan spelling for the official (nonsense name) "Nickovetch" and "Ilya" is the corrected spelling of "Illya". That a known fan of the character of Illya Kuryakin would include a minor character named after him, with a physical description that exactly matches him (the full description is "Ilya was shorter than Sulu but similar in build: compact and well-proportioned, slender but muscular. His heavy straight blond hair fell across his forehead, nearly to his eyebrows, and below his collar in back" and also describes his "his square-jawed sculptured face") and not intend it as a reference is a little hard to swallow... – The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.18.185.114.

There's an updated version of this with a bunch of other semi-related notes, but none of them still cite it directly. Just suggest it. -- sulfur 20:27, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

...Unless MA style for citations is defined somewhere other than Memory Alpha:Cite your sources I'm pretty sure my edit was closer to yours, Sulfur. Also, what exactly was the point of just removing the links to, for example, the wiki article on patronymics? I'd think that would be helpful for readers not familiar with the term. And this article does have links to articles on 'history' and 'the universe' in its first sentence, which I'm pretty sure are concepts readers are more likely to grasp without a hyperlinked reference.--69.183.237.21 21:38, December 12, 2009 (UTC) <-- it was me, typo killed my sig-stamp

[I don't know who wrote the preceding, but it wasn't me. --24.18.185.114 21:32, December 12, 2009 (UTC)]

I removed the 'incite' tag, after correcting the style of the citation 24.18.185.114 had already provided (the article where Vonda McIntyre declares her MUNCLE fannishness) and providing several additional links and/or citations in support of the 'Ilya Nikolaievich = Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin' idea, and I think I formatted everything per Memory Alpha style. The section about the possible resemblance has also been reworded (by various editors) to the effect that it's merely a possible resemblance, and toned down to the point that it's verging on leaving NPOV out the other side. I'm not sure whether the user who put the incite tag on in the first place wanted the citation style standardised, more references provided, or both, since they didn't put anything on the Talk page. At this point, I'm not sure what else could be provided (outside of a direct quote from McIntyre stating she based Ilya on Illya, which while possible isn't especially likely) but in my opinion, at least, nothing more should be required. If a Wookiepedia editor described Wookiee fur as 'yak-like,' they wouldn't need an interview with George Lucas or Peter Mayhew, or even the Episode IV costume designer, documenting that Wookiee fur 'officially' looks like yak fur; a link to a photo of a yak (or the Wikipedia article on yaks) would suffice. If our hypothetical Wookieepedia editor was suggesting that Lucas had a particular interest in or liking for yaks, that would have to be documented... but it's precisely this sort of citation-requiring information which has been source-cited in this article. I personally have never seen The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in television, film or other form, and learned everything I know about Kuryakin today... and I find the resemblance too obvious to be coincidental, particularly given Vonda McIntyre's admission that she was not just aware of but a "huge fan" of both the show and the character. – 69.183.237.21 21:06, December 12, 2009 (UTC) (Sulfur posted while I was writing this up, LOL)

Hey, cool, thanks for the update.

The thing is, at the time, this was not the obscure reference it seems nowadays. MUNCLE was the most popular show in its day (it had 50% of the viewer shares at one point), more so than Star Trek, and even in the early '80s most people still remembered it, especially Illya Kuryakin; for most Americans, at least, that would probably be their first association for the name "Ilya." This cameo is equivalent to a known X-files fan writing a character named Fox Mooldar who is an angsty government agent who thinks his sister was abducted by aliens, and who looks exactly like David Duchovny. It's worth mentioning the possibility even if it's unconfirmed by the author.--24.18.185.114 21:22, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

There's still no citation stating specifically so the incite will go back. — Morder (talk) 21:11, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

In this case, there is a statement several lines up that also should require citation; the suggestion that one original character is a "Mary Sue" of the author because of a couple of shared traits is more tenuous than this, where everything is shared.--24.18.185.114 21:30, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

Added incite tag for that one as well. — Morder (talk) 21:32, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for coming to the Talk page and joining the discussion, Morder! You still haven't specified exactly what kind of citation you believe is needed, though. Maybe you should just find something you consider suitable and add it yourself?– 69.183.237.21 21:40, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

Just so you know all new conversation items belong at the bottom do not add your statement after another statement in the middle. Second, I don't need to find a citation for something I know nothing about. I did ask for a proper citation from the person who posted it and explained exactly what was required. If you don't know what that is here is one citation that would fit the bill. You must find a quote by the author that says something like "My character is a reference to the character from The Man From U.N.C.L.E.". — Morder (talk) 21:48, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

"all new conversations items belong at the bottom do not add your statement after another statement in the middle." Hm, really? That's not the way you put it on your own Talk page (where it's more of a suggestion); and with multiple people editing this page nearly simultaneously — I had to redo my own additions to this Talk page more than once because someone else finished adding their own while I was writing mine — it seemed less confusing to put replies next to what (and who) I was replying to. (If not to make conversation threads easier to follow on Talk pages, what are indent-colons for, anyway?) But sure, whatever. I'm replying to what's currently the last comment on this page anyway, so it's a moot point.

No, you don't "need" to do the research to provide missing information on a topic you "know nothing about" — but I don't "need" to either. I made a good-faith effort to do it anyway, because I spotted your "citation needed" tag and thought (wrongly, apparently) that it would be easy for me to fix.

I have no idea when or where you think you "explained exactly what was required" to satisfy the needed citation, but I did not see it anywhere on this article. You didn't contribute to the Talk page for this article until after my first edit on it, and snarking "that is not a citation" in the edit summary doesn't explain a thing. I have a fair amount of experience editing Wikipedia, but since I know different Wiki projects have different standards, I made a point of researching exactly what the Memory Alpha Policies and Guidelines were, particularly in regard to the preferred citation style, since I thought that might be at least some of what you felt was "wrong" with 24.18.185.114's edits (and there were, again, no details as to what you believed was missing). I spent a fair part of my Saturday learning about MUNCLE and patronyms and what Vonda McIntyre has written besides Trek novels and a bunch of original fiction that won Hugo and Nebula awards, so that I could try to improve this article.

As I said, I have a fair amount of experience as a Wikipedia editor. I'm used to subsequent editors replacing my good grammar with atrocious grammar, or even merging a page I spent many hours on into another page and keeping the version with broken English, no section breaks and hardly any source citations instead of the one I'd built up from a stub into a full article. Still, I don't expect to have pertinent links I add to an article reverted away almost immediately and for no apparent reason, to say nothing of seeing the citations I "credited to the best extent possible" turned into simple numbered links.

After going to your Talk page, Morder, I was frankly stunned to see that you're apparently an admin here, because you certainly haven't been behaving the way I expect wiki admins to. Perhaps you didn't intend to, but you've come across as rude and even hostile in regard to this article. I can't help but wonder if your feelings about Trek novels as no better than fan fiction, as stated on your Talk page, are influencing your treatment of this article and new users trying to contribute to it. After checking the Talk and History pages of this article earlier today, I decided to hold off on registering to edit articles here, in part to avoid being mistaken for a sockpuppet of 24.18.185.114, and in part because I figured I might as well see if I was going to make more than a few minor grammatical edits once in a while before I bothered. Half the time I don't even bother logging into Wikipedia when I edit there because I mostly just fix typos, ungrammatical English, and otherwise awkward writing and don't much care about getting credit for my pedantry.

I actually own all of the Bantam and Pocket novels up through when they started putting out TNG tie-in novels, and a few from after that (I collected them as a kid, right up until Pocket started publishing so many a year that my allowance couldn't keep up) and so, once I realised that Memory Alpha actually has articles about the tie-ins, I'd been thinking I could look for novel stubs and other novel articles with missing information I could fill in from my handy collection. (Well, once I unboxed all the books. I haven't re-read any of them in years.) But if your and Sulfur's behaviour is indicative of how newcomers to Memory Alpha are "welcomed"... well, I have more than enough stress in my life, thanks.

To 24.18.185.114 (who I know only by that IP address and only from this article): Good luck, if you choose to keep editing here.--69.183.237.21 01:00, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

Read our guidelines. If you read them you'd know what was required but you didn't. Regardless, I posted the information required to the user to posted it initially. You made and effort and I stated our policies require more information not fan speculation. Period. — Morder (talk) 01:22, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

So Morder, I'm rusty on the precise guidelines, but would I be correct in saying that this information should not be added unless there is a source, such as an interview with the author?

Basically, if the author said "yes, i named this character after something" in a public way, we could cite it, and include it?

And that, otherwise, there's really no justification for adding this information now? I think that's my interpretation of how the rules work. -- Captain MKB 02:04, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

Basically the note can be added and cited later if it's sort of a common knowledge sorta thing. I gave the initial poster the benefit of the doubt and assumed he/she was probably right I just asked for a source to prove it. An interview would be just fine or even publicized notes by the Author. The problem with most items like this is that there's an assumption that it's right because they put two and two together and came up with four rather than finding something that says two and two equals four. We had a similar issue with the episode "In the Pale Moonlight" where everyone assumed it was a reference to Batman because "why wouldn't it be" yet other users found that an older reference could be found in a Dickens tale. This is why we must cite our sources. If a citation isn't found after a while the note may be removed. Anything that is obvious speculation could be removed outright but this particular one sounds plausible and is probably right. We just need a source to show it's right - an interview would fit the bill. — Morder (talk) 02:22, December 13, 2009 (UTC)