User talk:Originalmichaelamartin

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Welcome[edit]

Hello, Originalmichaelamartin, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions.

I notice that one of the first articles you created was Michael A. Martin (science-fiction author), which appears to be an article about yourself. This is a common mistake made by new Wikipedians—as this is an encyclopedia, we wouldn't expect to have an article about every contributor. Your user page, however, is a great place to write about yourself, making sure to stay within user page guidelines. Just click your user name at the top of the screen when you are logged in, and edit it normally.

The page you created about yourself has been or will shortly be speedily deleted from Wikipedia, but if you want to use the content from it, don't hesitate to ask anyone from this list and they will copy it to your user page.

If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Dave ♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫® 12:21, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the welcome, Dave. (My apologies in advance if my replying via "edits" isn't cool; I'm new to wikipedia and couldn't find another way to reply to you, such as a "reply" buttom.) First off, I did not write the article about me (Michael Martin, science fiction author). I merely stumbled across it, sometime last year, I think. I have no idea who wrote it. Very recently I discovered that somebody had deleted it, and I was trying to get it restored. How do I do this, bearing in mind that I don't have a lot of spare time to devote to wikipedia, taking tutorials to learn the lingo, and so forth. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Originalmichaelamartin (talk) 17:50, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Autobiography of Michael A. Martin (science-fiction author)[edit]

File:Verifiability and Neutral point of view (Common Craft)-en.ogv
A video showing the basics of verifiability and neutral-point-of-view policies.
  • About your earlier question here, allow me to explain this to you:

Please leave your question(s) here if you need any further clarifications and I will get back to you ASAP, thank you and best. --Dave ♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫® 12:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
An encyclopedia is a written compendium of knowledge.
Wikipedia is freely available, and combines many features
of general and specialized encyclopedias and other reference works.
Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for random information.
Wikipedia is not for unverifiable material.
Wikipedia is not for medical advice or guidance.
Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy.
Wikipedia is not a soapbox.
Wikipedia is not a social networking site.
Wikipedia is not censored.
Wikipedia is not a web directory.
Wikipedia is not a democracy.
Wikipedia is not a free advertising space.
Wikipedia is not an anarchy.
Wikipedia is not a place to publish your opinions.
Wikipedia is not a place to publish your own ideas.
Wikipedia is not nearly this in-your-face most of the time.

See also[edit]


Are you, in fact, Mr. Martin?[edit]

Could you provide some confirmation to either myself or the Foundation office that you are, in fact, the Michael Martin claimed to be? Otherwise we will have to block your account for impersonation. Daniel Case (talk) 15:02, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I suggest you check Diane duane (talk · contribs)'s contribution list, to get a better idea of how to handle articles about yourself. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


I am indeed Michael A. Martin, the author and coauthor of a heap of Star Trek novels for Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster. Thanks for the tips, BTW. (My apologies in advance if my replying via "edits" isn't cool; I'm new to wikipedia and couldn't find another way to reply to you, such as a "reply" button.) First off, I did not write the article about me (Michael Martin, science fiction author). I merely stumbled across it, sometime last year, I think. I have no idea who wrote it. Very recently I discovered that somebody had deleted it, and I was just trying to get it restored, since there didn't seem to be any solid logic behind the deletion (I mean, my books merit their own wikipedia pages, but the guy who wrote them doesn't? Makes no sense.). How do I do this (bearing in mind that I don't have a lot of spare time to devote to wikipedia, taking tutorials to learn the lingo, and so forth; I would just like to see my bio restored)? Thanks for any help you can provide. Originalmichaelamartin (talk) 17:56, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's exactly the way you reply here. It's frustrating sometimes, but we make it work. :-) In any case, I have restored the article at Michael A. Martin, and another editor has nominated it for a week-long deletion discussion. For the article to be kept, it needs to have verifiable information in it, cited to independent reliable sources. It should also show notability -- the specific guideline applied to authors is at WP:AUTHOR.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:06, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Sarek! Originalmichaelamartin (talk) 19:16, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. :-) As far as proving you're not impersonating yourself, you can send an email to info-en@wikimedia.org from some verifiable address (mmartin@gmail.com would not qualify, for a randomly-chosen example) and the OTRS volunteers can mark that you are who you say you are.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:18, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just tried to do that, but aol didn't recognize the destination email (email|info-en|wikimedia.org). Is there a different email address I can use, or some other sort of workaround for this problem?

Originalmichaelamartin (talk) 20:50, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You could just type the address in, instead of copying it, but then you'd run into the problem of verifiablity I mentioned above -- anyone could sign up for an AOL account under your name. You'd have better luck getting your editor at S&S to forward a note from his work email -- that's much more verifiable.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:56, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But nobody can sign up for an aol account with the same email address I've been using for the past 16 years. Also, if I (or one of my editors) types in the email address, does that include the vertical-line character that appears twice in the email address? I suspect that character is what causes the email to bounce. Is it standing in for some other character, a dot perhaps, or an @ sign, the latter of which I don't see in the email addy? At any rate, something seems to be intrinsically wrong with the destination email address, at least as it appears on my screen, and I'm not sure what difference typing it in (as opposed to just copying it) will make, if the address isn't right to begin with. Again, I apologize if these difficulties stem from my unfamiliarity with wikipedia, but I need to sort out the email issue before I will ask an overworked editor to spend any of his time on this. Can you help?

98.246.162.158 (talk) 21:14, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The address you need to type in is the standard email address you see when you look at the page, not the one you see in the edit window - that's obfuscated to fend off spambots. Apparently, copying it from the page works -- I didn't realize they had it set up that way. :-) You could always just wait and see what happens, you might not need to authenticate at all.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:29, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen his email on OTRS now. He also says " Further verification should be coming soon from one of my editors at Pocket Books/Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster), from a Simon & Schuster email address." We can accept that this is his account. Dougweller (talk) 13:56, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of pages associated with you[edit]

Hi. If you know of any sources that would comply with Wikipedia:Reliable sources that review your works, would you mind listing them or putting them in the articles about you or your works. Currently, the article about you, Michael A. Martin, is up for deletion. I argued "keep" based on the fact that your first solo novel The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing has its own Wikipedia article, but that article would likely get deleted too for failing to meet the Wikipedia:Notability guidelines (I searched and could not find any reviews of this other than on merchant sites, forums, blogs, other Wiki sites — none of which would be considered reliable sources). ~Amatulić (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Thank you for advocating for keeping my bio article, Amatulic. Regarding so-called reliable sources, I would turn to Amazon and the many Star Trek BBSs that can be found all over the web (I'm afraid I don't have a handy list). If wikipedia considers none of these "reliable," then I guess wikipedia and I have a basic difference of opinion as to the definition of the word "reliable." (I recognize, of course, that this is not your fault.) For what it's worth, I would also argue that all of my post-television-series ENTERPRISE novels are notable in that they are the only official, CBS-authorized accounts of events in the Star Trek universe that chronologically follow the fourth and final season of STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE. Again, thank you for your help. :)

98.246.162.158 (talk) 08:27, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just tried to send some identity verification to the email address that appears in the actual wiki window. The address evidently contains an error and doesn't work. Can you supply a correct address? I've already forwarded the bad address to my editor at Pocket Books, but I need to correct it this weekend so that he has the appropriate email addy asap. Thanks in advance.

98.246.162.158 (talk) 16:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops. Looks like I just sorted out the email address problem myself. Sorry to have bothered you. :)

Oops. I forgot to log in before I made the previous post.

Originalmichaelamartin (talk) 21:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Originalmichaelamartin (talk) 16:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Reliable sources clearly defines what is considered reliable and what isn't. Generally, sites consisting of user-generated content with no editorial review are not considered reliable. This would include all reviews on Amazon, any BBS postings, and messages on social networking sites. Your point about CBS-authorized accounts of events following the final season of Star Trek Enterprise is a good point about notability, but such a claim would need a reliable source (such as a statement from a CBS representative) backing it up. If you know of any, it would be a great help in rescuing your biography article. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:47, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I confess I haven't taken the time to read the rules re notability; I've been assuming that my bio must be notable because several of my Star Trek novelist colleagues (not to mention some of my own novels) currently have wikipedia pages. Re my point about my ENTERPRISE novels being the official continuation of the ENTERPRISE television series, getting an exec at CBS to validate this would be redundant and a waste of said executive's time; the point is validated. factually and legally, by the novels' story content, by the "historian's notes" in the books explaining the time frame, and by the legal indicia pages (which show CBS's ownership of STAR TREK) located at the beginning of each novel. That is to say, all the info you need is contained in the books themselves. Thanks again for your attention. :)

98.246.162.158 (talk) 21:20, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Editing my bio[edit]

I have a question re the "Michael A. Martin" article (the bio about me). Since I've authored three solo novels (all published by Simon & Schuster) since the most recent title cited in the article, is it considered all right for me to edit the article myself to include the newer releases? Or would that be a problem because the article is about me. Thanks for any and all guidance.

Originalmichaelamartin (talk) 00:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see it as a problem for you to make minor edits like this, particularly if they make the article more complete (more encyclopedic). Your conflict of interest would cause problems if you made any edits that would affect the article's neutral point of view, such as adding promotional text or puffery words, or deleting any negative information cited to a reliable source. For those kinds of edits, it's best to discuss it on the article talk page first. But if you just want to expand the list of publications, I see no problem with that. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:08, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Amatulic. Sometime over the next few days (I'm on the road this week) I will add in the most recent Star Trek titles bearing my name, just listing the factual information (the titles, release dates, and which parts of the Star Trek universe each book deals with. :)

Originalmichaelamartin (talk) 17:57, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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