User talk:Mark McWire

Welcome to Memory Alpha, ! I've noticed that you've already made some contributions to our database – thank you! We all hope that you'll enjoy our activities here and decide to join our community.

If you'd like to learn more about working with the nuts and bolts of Memory Alpha, I have a few links that you might want to check out:


 * Our policies and guidelines provides links to inform you on what is appropriate for Memory Alpha and what is not. Particular items of note are the and  policies, the, our ,  and guidelines for proper.
 * How to edit a page includes a basic tutorial about how to use our special wikitext code here on Memory Alpha.
 * Naming conventions provides guidelines on how to name a new page that you may want to create.
 * The Manual of Style is an overview of the basic guidelines for how to format and style your articles.
 * How to write a great article is a list of suggestions that can help you put together an article that might end up on our Featured Articles list someday.
 * See the user projects page for current projects of our archivists, or help us to reduce the number of stubs.
 * Look up past changes you have made in your contributions log.
 * Keep track of your favorite Memory Alpha articles through your very own watchlist.
 * Create your own user page and be contacted on this page, your talk page.

One other suggestion: if you're going to make comments on talk pages or make other sorts of comments, please be sure to sign them with four tildes to paste in your user name and the date/time of the comment.

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in our Ten Forward community page. Thanks, and once again, welcome to Memory Alpha!--Alan del Beccio 21:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Septimis v Septimus
FYI, the script that was released with the digital companion edition has the spelling as "Septimis". Transcripts are also always best guesses. -- sulfur 16:06, November 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * My source is Transcript from Chrissie's Transcripts Site and in most or all other language-versions (German, Netherlands, etc.) was this location pronounced Septimus. I think it is an typo, because u and i neighbours on keyboard. --Mark McWire 16:18, November 20, 2010 (UTC)

Her spellings are best guesses. Actual script is here. -- sulfur 16:26, November 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * In my opinion this script are not reliable and not final dialogue. Best example are Episode "The Outrageous Okona".
 * Script:

DATA Sensors report a minimum range combat craft of the Squadron Class, twenty-six crew.

WORF (overlap) Captain, they have locked phasers.

PICARD (somewhat puzzled) Phasers?

RIKER (same look) Regulations call for a Yellow Alert.

PICARD It's too small of a craft to be of any threat to us. Do you agree, Lieutenant Worf?

STAR TREK: "The Outrageous Okona" - 10/4/88 - ACT TWO  30.

35  CONTINUED:

WORF We could blow it out of space before it could scratch our hull.

PICARD And I doubt that they are so			primitive that they wouldn't know it. Ensign Crusher, reduce speed to allow them to overtake.

RIKER May I ask why, sir?

PICARD They show a great deal of courage. Perhaps I would like to show them some respect, or perhaps I'm just curious.

RIKER I understand, Captain. Would a			"courteous" Yellow Alert apply at this time?

PICARD (covers a smile) That won't be necessary, Number One. But continue to hail them and prepare for a gentlemanly surrender if needed.
 * episode-dialogue:

DATA: Sensors show it to be an interplanetary vessel, sir. Class seven, crew complement twenty six. WORF: Still no response. Captain, they are now locking lasers on us. RIKER: Lasers? WORF: Yes, sir. PICARD: Lasers can't even penetrate our navigation shields. Don't they know that? RIKER; Regulations so call for a Yellow Alert. PICARD: A very old regulation. Well, make it so, Number One. And reduce speed. Drop main shields as well. RIKER: May I ask why, sir? PICARD: In case we decide to surrender to them, Number One.
 * So I think, that transcript is right and script is false. --Mark McWire 16:31, November 20, 2010 (UTC)

They do not always match final dialogue. But we take our spellings from them. Scripts are the studio source the episodes are created from. Some bits are cut, others added for time (that's the nature of TV and film). Not from transcripts written by some random person on the internet. -- sulfur 16:37, November 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * So, i watched DVD with German and English soundtrack and in both variants this location was spelled with u, so I'am right. In German spelling the u is clearly recognizable, in english its mixture of u and i. Riker spells more i, Data more u. --Mark McWire 16:49, November 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * So i do not move the page again, because the english MA-Version is not my assignment. In German the article should stay de:Septimus Minor, because u is in no uncertain manner. --Mark McWire 17:06, November 20, 2010 (UTC)

I don't care what the MA/de version is. You guys can sort that out however you want, basing things on the transcripts written by a random person on the internet if you want. The MA/en version has an "i" because that's what the script spells it as. It doesn't matter how the word is pronounced, it is how it is spelled. There's a huge difference there. -- sulfur 17:13, November 20, 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, the soundtrack from DVD or TV beats script, because the script is not the final version of episode. But if you dont think so, i can life with. I do not edit this article again. --Mark McWire 17:19, November 20, 2010 (UTC)

Article requests
The best way to request articles is to create links on appropriate pages, like in the episode reference sections. - 13:00, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * You're right. I have begun to fill in the missing links to the English MA. I noticed these missing items, as I watched the first item in de:Spezial:Fehlende_Interwikis. Too bad that this work can not leave a bot. There are missing hundreds of cross links. I would have not thought that lack of English MA in so many references to German counterparts. You have here at least 10,000 articles more than us. My problem is, that with the rebuild of articles rarely paid attention to links in other languages :-/ I will arrange first what is there, before I start new articles. I have absolutely no overview over which relevant information is really missing. --Mark McWire 13:22, December 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Several of the articles listed as "missing interwiki links" won't ever be created, though. There are many articles about voice actors for the german translation, for example - and other articles that would probably be deleted as "purely descriptive" and/or "duplication" here. An example is de:Alliierter (Ally), which only describes the basic fact that "an ally is someone who is in an alliance". -- Cid Highwind 13:47, December 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Honestly .. that's not my problem. I see only the English scripts and the associated German articles and then think that it lacks an English article. Problem is as I said, that almost no user pays attention to the interwiki links. And I try the repair now. --Mark McWire 13:57, December 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Interwiki links should not be created unless the article already exists. Chances are that, due to English being your second language (like German is my 4th), the term that you choose will not be quite accurate as to what the article really should end up being at this end. -- sulfur 14:02, December 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah. It's not "our problem", either. Interwiki linkage is something that should grow naturally. If you write an article on MA/de (or find one that doesn't have an interwiki link yet) - try to find a proper match on MA/en and link to it. If there is no proper match, then it might be a "problem" on MA/de just as much as it might be a "problem" on MA/en. Perhaps it isn't even any problem at all, just two sub-communities disagreeing on what should be the subject of an article and what shouldn't. In each case - consider whether just "spamming" a link to the page that doesn't exist yet is the best approach. You probably wouldn't like it if we went through MA/de and link everything that we consider to be "article-worthy", either. -- Cid Highwind 14:13, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

I link everything that happens in dialogue, in the hope that it will eventually create. Also MA/en is not complete, especially with technobabble. As far as I've noticed in discussions, you have a much more liberal interpretation than the German MA, which not even accepted terms such as "Akira-Klasse". --Mark McWire 20:52, December 8, 2010 (UTC) I will pay in the future on it, whether it is thematically similar article, but I do not always carry out the long-term research. If a term literally appear in the dialogue, I'll put the link (so it will not forget later) and MA/en to point to the absence. --Mark McWire 21:01, December 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey I was thinking about seriously editing the German MA. I was raised there and am fluent, it's like my second native language or something, and i watched all Star Trek in German first but I been here so long I forgot what some of the tech-terms are called you know? I was a kid when I watched TNG and never paid attention apparently. Anyway I might look into it as it does need some serious expanding ;) – Distantlycharmed 01:54, December 9, 2010 (UTC)

In Memory Alpha:Requested articles are some examples. When I see that the very word "subspace" in the 700 canonical episodes was at least 1000 times mentioned in various contexts, I can not believe that nearly 30,000 articles really cover the entire Canon. Based on the steady additions of Blair2009/AngryRomulan so you can see that there's something lacking in technobabble direction. He does here what I do in the German MA. Sure, there are discrepancies, as each language has its own criteria of relevance, but it lacks in all languages are still some substantial information. My personal relevance criterion is very simple, all that was said in the dialogue, has an encyclopedic-canonical relevance. And if it is missing here, it should, together with the source, will be added later. Since I can not work simultaneously on dozens of construction sites, I put the article in German first, and then of course I insert an english interwiki-link to the word/term from the original sound. The procedure, first let the interwiki-link away for later retroactively to supplement with great effort, I personally find silly. Then I create the links rather immediately so that it will not just forget how it has been forgotten in many existing articles. If you want to criticize me for it, go ahead. However, I believe this workflow for the better. The missing items on the English page you can later add or modify the link, if necessary, to existing articles, if the requested item is not desirable for you. --Mark McWire 04:02, December 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * What you think is "silly", others consider the best approach. After all, there's a whole special page dedicated to finding articles that do not yet have any interwiki links - but there's no such page to detect articles on which "currently wrong" interwiki links have been placed. With no possibility of detection, and not much interest by others to manually find and correct them, these links might linger forever. Random visitors will probably consider that to be an error on the part of the wiki that contains these wrong links, and not on the part of the wiki where these links lead to. In the end, do as you wish, but please keep in mind that not everything you can do on MA/de will also get consensus here. -- Cid Highwind 14:39, December 9, 2010 (UTC)

I am now even a man who is very attached to structures in which all must be as complete and consistent. Correspondingly, the way I work. --Mark McWire 16:54, December 9, 2010 (UTC)