Talk:The Egg (Weir short story)

proper category

I almost added this to Category:American science fiction short stories, as I think speculative fiction is an appropriate genre for "The Egg". Thoughts? - Paul2520 (talk) 00:45, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

In any case, it woulda fit well within the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which uses to, or used to, publish all kinds of speculative fiction with a higer literary and/or philosophical merit. --2003:71:4E07:BB23:9163:E32E:3FE1:A5D3 (talk) 20:25, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

History Section removal

I've removed the History section because it made an outright claim that the story was plagiarized while offering no sources, data, or evidence. Sephalon1 (talk) 00:12, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Egocentric presentism

I believe that this book doesn't actually invoke solipsism, but rather it invokes contextual egocentric presentism. If absolute, egocentric presentism would be a subcategory of solipsism, but I believe the story subverts it's initial solipsism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:A927:1900:9147:8665:2BA8:2620 (talk) 21:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Prior Art/Inspiration Claims

I've reverted contents of this article claiming that this story is inspired by an earlier work. The citation provided is simply a link to the earlier work, which is insufficient evidence of the claim being presented. This statement requires a source explicitly stating it is an inspiring work. There are two sources I think would be valid here:

1. A primary source stating the inspiration from the author or a person or organization otherwise directly associated with the work this page is about. For instance, in this case, an acknowledgement from Andy Weir, his editor, or his publisher as an organization.
2. A neutral source stating that the origin of the story has been contested, for instance a news article about a court proceeding.

The addition of the author of the earlier work as a "co-author" can only be substantiated by a direct acknowledgement by the author, publisher, or perhaps a relevant court decision. As this work is not presently published with that distinction, it is nonfactual.

Further User:Chiyote is the author of the work they are adding as a citation. Though this doesn't have direct bearing on the factual status of the claim, it appears to be a possible WP:COI, especially since the factual status seems dubious and adding this claim to this page has been the majority of the activity by this user account. Dylan (talk) 17:35, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Plagiarism Claim

The contents of recent 'Plagiarism Claim' section seem to be related to the 'Prior Art / Inspiration Claims' which have previously been subject to an editing war and were eventually removed. These claims are only supported by the personal site of the person making the claim that the work is plagiarized and as such, may not be notable enough to justify inclusion in the article.

It should be noted that the 'Jeromie Gentry' cited as making the plagiarism claim is the same User:Chiyote whose account was blocked due to edit warring on this article about these same plagiarism claims. As such, I believe that any future additions about this topic should be scrutinized heavily.

I suggest that this section either be removed or, at minimum, the claims sourced using an independent source other than the personal site of the person making the plagiarism claim. As I recently removed the 'Origin' section I will defer to others so as to not get involved in an editing war on this page. 24.35.79.78 (talk) 05:25, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Regardless of if one believes the claim or not, it is a fact that the claim is being made. Mr. Gentry has spent many months publicly making the claim on Reddit, Facebook, Quora, and even on this Wikipedia article as you pointed out. It should also be noted that Andy Weir is the same User:Sephalon1 who has removed claims of plagiarism on this article in the past. This is a conflict of interest as he would have a personal interest in removing negative claims even if the claim was valid.

As far as sources, Mr. Gentry is the source of the claim as they are the one making the claim. An independent source would also source Mr. Gentry directly.

Considering the lengths Mr. Gentry has gone through to make the plagiarism claim, it is a notable part of The Egg's history. For the sake of maintaining a truthful and unbiased article, the fact that a claim is being made should be included. 205.144.221.118 (talk) 14:46, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

All contentious claims on Wikipedia must be supported by reliable sources otherwise they will be removed and are not suitable for inclusion. I've removed the plagiarism claim information for now and it should not be added back unless reliable sources can be provided. -Liance^{talk/contribs} 14:45, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The source provided is a primary source, the most reliable of sources as per Wikipedia's policy. 205.144.221.118 (talk) 20:06, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

The issue is that the only source for the plagiarism claim is self-published - Anyone can create their own website claiming whatever they want and for this reason, personal websites are largely not considered acceptable sources. Please review the guide on verifiability regarding self-published sources: Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources

Given that this plagiarism claim's sole source is the personal website of the person making the claim, it should not be included until a non-self-published source for the claim can be provided. 24.35.79.78 (talk) 00:00, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

The same goes for Mr. Weir, he is the only source for his own claim that he wrote The Egg unaided. The Egg is self published on his personal website. But there is a difference that makes Mr. Gentry's claim stronger. If you've visited the website of Mr. Gentry you would notice he doesn't just make the claim but also provides a YouTube video showing the essay in an email from 2007. The essay Infinite Reincarnation does makes many of the same points as The Egg, including word for word verbiage that is the same as The Egg. The website of Mr. Gentry isn't just the claim, but also evidence of the claim. So while you're right that anyone can make a claim, regardless of facts, there are facts in this case that do verify Mr. Gentry's claim to a level worth taking seriously. 205.144.221.118 (talk) 14:24, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

The personal webpage of the person making the claim does not qualify as a reliable source. While it is factual to say "Jeromie Gentry accused Andy Weir of plagiarizing his story" (as the accusation was definitely made), a reliable third party source (i.e. it must not be self-published material of the person claiming they were plagiarized) is necessary here to demonstrate that the accusation has significant coverage and is notable enough to be included on Wikipedia. Since Andy Weir is a living author, this also falls under BLP (see WP:BLPRS), which means it's subject to additional scrutiny and we should err on the side of removing challenged material immediately. I've removed the claim.

I also agree that there should be additional scrutiny around any change to this page or related pages attempting to reintroduce this claim. User:Chiyote has made it clear that they intend to get this added to Wikipedia in any manner possible and previously suggested they are actively brigading on Facebook and Reddit. Multiple editors have weighed in on this specific issue and User:Chiyote has been blocked for continually reintroducing it with no effort to understand Wikipedia's policies. Please do not reintroduce this information to the page without further discussion here. Also, I was one of the editors who originally reverted the claims when they first appeared and am happy to escalate this to ANI if you think that affects my neutrality in any way. Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 22:39, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

The personal website is the source for the essay in question that the person making the claim is saying was plagiarized. The essay is a valid source regardless of where it is published and who published it. The personal website is not the only source. The person making the claim has also provided verified evidence that supports there in claim in the form of an email dated 2007, before The Egg was published. 68.169.177.202 (talk) 13:09, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Respectfully, I feel that you aren't understanding the point multiple editors have tried to make clear to you.

The source you've provided for Gentry's claim does not meet Wikipedia's guidelines for reliable sources. The chief issue is notability - Any person can make a contentious claim about anything, but until such claims have been seen significant coverage by a reliable third party source, such claims are not notable enough to be included in a Wikipedia article. Until Gentry's claim is covered by a reliable third party source, it simply is not notable enough of a claim to be included in this article.

I'd encourage you to review Wikipedia's guidelines for Wikipedia:Reliable sources in its entirety, including in particular the section, Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources. 24.35.79.78 (talk) 17:34, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

I can understand how the policy here might be confusing. The important thing to understand here is that the question is not "is it true that this claim has been made," but "is it notable that this claim has been made." It's trivial for anyone to make a claim about anything, but mentioning unsubstantiated claims without notable coverage would give them undue weight. As an example, I could go post on my personal website that I am actually famed actor George Clooney, and all of his films were actually made by me. This would make it technically true to say "Dylan Nugent has claimed that George Clooney is a fictional character he created and has portrayed in all of Clooney's films," but we wouldn't put that claim on Wikipedia; if we were to include any claim that was made, most articles would be made up almost exclusively of unsubstantiated claims. On the other hand, we have an entire page covering the Shakespeare authorship question, despite the fact that modern scholarly consensus is that Shakespeare did in fact write all of his plays, because even though the claims that someone other than Shakespeare wrote his plays are likely false, they are notable.

I assume the users adding this claim to the page believe that The Egg was plagiarized. I understand that it can be really frustrating and enticing to correct something wrong on the internet; I'm certainly a frequent victim of that instinct 😄. The important thing to understand here is that we aren't asking if the claim was made (it was) or if it is valid (it's irrelevant), but whether it's notable enough to be included in the article. The evidence needed for that would be significant coverage of the claim by a reliable secondary source.

Also, it's not really important (since the claim isn't notable), but the Chiyote website doesn't make any reference to their legal name, so I'm not really clear how that wound up in the article, or for that matter if it's even factual. I'd recommend we stop using it on the talk page, as that's one of the few remaining references to it online. Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 21:36, 11 October 2022 (UTC)