Memory Alpha
Encyclopedia
Memory Alpha is a wiki
that is an encyclopedic reference for topics related to the Star Trek
fictional universe. Conceived by Harry Doddema and Dan Carlson in September 2003 and officially launched on December 5 of that year, it uses the wiki
model and is hosted by Wikia, Inc. on the MediaWiki
software. According to Jane Klobas, the site is a large and vibrant resource. Memory Alpha contains over 31,000 articles in its English
edition alone , making it one of the largest wiki projects. The site is also available in several other languages, including Bulgarian
, Chinese
, Czech
, Dutch
, Esperanto, French
, German
, Italian
, Japanese
, Polish
, Portuguese
, Russian
, Serbian
, Spanish
and Swedish
.
The two decided on a wiki format, which allowed for more collaboration than other formats available. As Carlson said in the Charlotte Observer, "The idea I latched onto with the wiki concept is you can spread the work around. Everyone can pitch in and go in on their own special interest." After experimenting with TikiWiki
software, they switched to the MediaWiki
platform, finding it less cumbersome. The platform of choice for Wikimedia proved to be, in their opinion, more stable and efficient, and they brought a testsite online on November 11, 2003. Memory Alpha officially launched on December 5 that year.
The site gained momentum in the following months, aided by a mention on the Star Trek fan site "TrekNation" on December 23. Memory Alpha reached 1,000 articles by January 12, 2004, but on March 23, the site's database
was accidentally erased during an upgrade of the MediaWiki software. Although this caused six weeks of work to be lost, the project expanded to include Dutch and German versions on April 10 and May 14 respectively. It remained stable until the following year, when the fees associated with hosting the site became more than the founders could afford.
In February 2005, Memory Alpha switched hosting servers and joined Wikia
, a free for-profit wiki-hosting company started by Wikimedia Foundation
board members Jimmy Wales
and Angela Beesley. The site remained stable on Wikia, opening a Swedish site on May 5 and a French one on November 5. It also received several distinctions that year, such as the Ex Astris Excellentia award from Ex Astris Scientia, a Star Trek reference site, in September 2005, and it was featured as the Sci-Fi Channel's
Site of the Week for October 10, 2005. Star Trek: Voyager
and Star Trek: Enterprise
writer/producer Mike Sussman joined the community that year as well.
Technical issues led the MediaWiki software to believe Memory Alpha was started on November 23, 2004, and despite the inaccuracy, this date was adopted ex post facto as Memory Alpha's "birthday". To celebrate the occasion, Uncyclopedia
(which is also hosted by Wikia) altered its main page to be a parody of Memory Alpha on November 23, 2005. The spoof page was retained under the namespace
"tlh:", for tlhIngan Hol (the Klingon
name for the Klingon language
), modeled after the way wikis link to pages in other languages.
The latter part of 2005 and early 2006 saw several new features added to the site. Among these was a peer review
process, implemented on September 21, 2005 in response to questions about the process by which articles become featured. On November 20 of that year, Memory Alpha began a "Babel" program, inspired by and modeled after that of the Wikimedia Commons
, to help users who speak the same language. Other recent innovations include an area for user projects, sometimes referred to as WikiProjects on other wikis, and coverage of fan film
s.
The site has remained popular since its inception, although its growth has slowed in recent times. For instance, it was the largest project on Wikia until October 2005, when its article count was surpassed by Wookieepedia
and Uncyclopedia
. Today, it has approximately 1300 registered users (80 of whom are active) and upwards of 17 million page views since its move to Wikia. , it receives on average, slightly more visitors and page views per day than the official Star Trek website according to Alexa
.
Memory Alpha has influenced the design of other wikicities dedicated to information about television franchises, including The X-Files Wiki http://x-files.wikia.com/wiki/X-Files_Wiki:About and the 24 Wiki http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Wiki_24:About. It is a resource used by mainstream journalists for information on Star Trek related issues. Influential edublogger Will Richardson
hailed the site in his 2006 book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms as "one of the most impressive [wikis] out there".
On June 12, 2007, Memory Alpha reached a milestone of 25,000 articles with the creation of the article Robert Iscove.
Entertainment Weekly
named Memory Alpha one of the 25 Essential Fansites in 2007. In comparing it to other Star Trek sites, the reviewer wrote, "Memory Alpha wins out for its handsome, intuitive presentation and its overwhelming mass".
), followed by the name of the episode in double quotation marks. So, in order to cite information from the Star Trek: The Next Generation
(TNG) pilot "Encounter at Farpoint", one would add: (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint"). The same rule applies for films, without the series prefix and with italics in place of quotation marks. The same method of notation is also used in the printed Star Trek Encyclopedia, which is unrelated to the Memory Alpha wiki.
Articles on Memory Alpha are written from two points of view: "in-universe", which are written as if the reader is a part of the Star Trek universe, and "production", which speak from a real-world perspective. For "in-universe" articles, behind-the-scenes information is not included in the main body of the article; rather, it is placed in a separate background section or included indented and italicized to separate it from the in-universe perspective. The latter method is used in cases where either the information is particularly important (such as conflicting information from two canon sources) or there is not enough background to justify a separate section. In most cases, the background method is preferred and italics are used sparingly.
Like many wikis, Memory Alpha has a section for "featured articles", those believed to represent the best the community has to offer. The criteria for this distinction are that an article must be well-written, comprehensive (which includes citing sources), accurate and undisputed – criteria any article could hypothetically fulfill. This has caused some conflict over the criteria involved (see Current issues section). To be featured, an article must be nominated by a user and unanimously supported by at least five other users; any objections must be fixable and may be invalidated if deemed irrational or unreasonable. Each week, one of the site's featured articles becomes the "Article of the Week" to be displayed on the project home page.
Several methods of communication are available beyond conventional talk pages. The "community portal" section of the website is named after Ten Forward, a locale frequented by characters on The Next Generation. Issues discussed there range from disputes between users to new ideas on how to improve the site to upcoming projects. A separate area, the reference desk, exists for discussions and questions related to what is considered canon, discrepancies between sources, and other such topics. However, "meta-Trek" topics (a term used for Star Trek-related topics that do not pertain in any way to Memory Alpha) are not discussed on the wiki; a separate IRC
chatroom exists for these discussions.
is that anything outside live-action television episodes and movies is apocrypha
l, or non-canon. However, grey areas in this policy, especially in relation to the canonical status of Star Trek: The Animated Series
(TAS), further complicate the matter and have led to many debates among fans. In light of this, Memory Alpha crafted its own unique definition of canon in relation to what may be used as a "valid resource". The Animated Series is included as valid, or canonical, for a number of reasons, such as the fact that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry
and most of the cast of the original series
were involved with it and the existence of several references to TAS events in later series.
Information taken from the Star Trek Encyclopedia and Star Trek Chronology is mostly accepted on Memory Alpha as well, to the extent that it does not break from established on-screen facts. Content from these sources is an acknowledged grey area of Memory Alpha's canon policy and is disregarded if deemed speculative or contradictory. Thus, in some ways they hold the same weight as novels and other publications do for Star Wars canon
: a "second tier" of canonicity, which is subservient to primary (on-screen) sources.
Other sources such as books and computer games are not included as canon, but are covered by Memory Alpha in a way which sets it apart from other Trek resources: books, comics, and other products are included as articles about the products (i.e. from a "production point of view"), but "in-universe" information unique or new to them is covered on the product page. For example, in the Star Trek: New Frontier
line of books, a new host of characters is introduced to the Trek universe, and their vessel is known as the USS Excalibur. The characters, ships and information from New Frontier books do not receive pages of their own, but they are covered on the pages about the books. In this way, Memory Alpha remains all-inclusive while attempting to distinguish canon from apocrypha.
Non-canon characters and topics are instead covered at Memory Beta, and fan-films and other fan-created material at Memory Gamma; both are hosted by Wikia. The Star Trek Online Wiki, hosted by curse.com, covers the Star Trek Online
MMORPG
.
The question of what content Memory Alpha should cover has plagued the project since its creation. On the project's home page, it describes itself as "a collaborative project to create the most definitive, accurate, and accessible encyclopedia and reference for everything related to Star Trek", but fans often have different interpretations of what "everything" means. In some cases, one or more users may add content about a subject – such as a website, fan club or parody – that does not fit existing pages, necessitating a community decision about whether to keep the content and, if so, what to do with it. Such incidents led to the creation of an article on Star Trek parodies after several questions were raised about where to put information related to, but not a part of, the Star Trek franchise. An example of the reverse case is "The Sunspots", a musical group consisting of Patrick Stewart
, Jonathan Frakes
, LeVar Burton
and Michael Dorn
. Although the actors involved were all prominent parts of Star Trek: The Next Generation
, several articles on the group have been deleted because the community deemed the topic not directly related to the franchise. , information about The Sunspots can be found on the different actors' pages rather than a single, separate article.
Perhaps the most heated issue on Memory Alpha in recent years is the controversy surrounding their canon policy. Aside from issues of length and excessive use of legalese, this policy has been put into question by several of the site's regular users because of its rule that articles and information which were not seen on-screen but were derived from official production sources are not considered canon on Memory Alpha. The site's archivists are divided as to exactly whether such information should be allowed as canon; some want only to allow what was seen on-screen while others wish to include that which was originally intended to be used on-screen but never made it, such as information from deleted scenes, early script drafts, etc. The latter archivists believe that such information can be included so long as it does not contradict what was seen on-screen and so long as it states where the source of the information comes from. As of July 2006, this debate has died down significantly, with most having accepted the terms of the new policy.
Despite early concern about how to incorporate information from the 2009 movie Star Trek, which is considered a semi-reboot of the original series, Memory Alpha members found a solution to the issue. All information from this film is recorded as separate articles, which are titled according to their subject with the term "alternate reality" included in the title. This is from the term used in the movie itself to describe the new continuity. For example, the article Nyota Uhura discusses the character as portrayed by Nichelle Nichols
, while the article Nyota Uhura (alternate reality) discusses the character as played by Zoe Saldana
.
Attribution-Non-Commercial license. Because this license does not allow commercial reuse, it is incompatible with the GNU Free Documentation License
(GFDL), and material from the site cannot be copied into projects that use the GFDL. This distinction makes Memory Alpha a "sister project" of the GFDL-based Wikia
project. Memory Alpha is cited as a source by academic journals, scholarly studies and books as well as Star Trek-universe novels and reference works.
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
that is an encyclopedic reference for topics related to the Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
fictional universe. Conceived by Harry Doddema and Dan Carlson in September 2003 and officially launched on December 5 of that year, it uses the wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
model and is hosted by Wikia, Inc. on the MediaWiki
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
software. According to Jane Klobas, the site is a large and vibrant resource. Memory Alpha contains over 31,000 articles in its English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
edition alone , making it one of the largest wiki projects. The site is also available in several other languages, including Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, Esperanto, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
.
History
Memory Alpha aims to create a comprehensive database for all fans, but was not conceived as a wiki. Two concerns spurred its creation: many Star Trek references of the time were incomplete, and the most promising would shut down regularly, like the site TrekPulse, which closed inexplicably in late 2005 to be reborn the next year as TrekCore. Doddema and Carlson christened their project Memory Alpha, after the Federation's largest information archive, from the original series episode "The Lights of Zetar".The two decided on a wiki format, which allowed for more collaboration than other formats available. As Carlson said in the Charlotte Observer, "The idea I latched onto with the wiki concept is you can spread the work around. Everyone can pitch in and go in on their own special interest." After experimenting with TikiWiki
TikiWiki
Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware, originally and more commonly known as TikiWiki or simply Tiki, is a free and open source wiki-based, content management system and Online office suite written primarily in PHP and distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License license...
software, they switched to the MediaWiki
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
platform, finding it less cumbersome. The platform of choice for Wikimedia proved to be, in their opinion, more stable and efficient, and they brought a testsite online on November 11, 2003. Memory Alpha officially launched on December 5 that year.
The site gained momentum in the following months, aided by a mention on the Star Trek fan site "TrekNation" on December 23. Memory Alpha reached 1,000 articles by January 12, 2004, but on March 23, the site's database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
was accidentally erased during an upgrade of the MediaWiki software. Although this caused six weeks of work to be lost, the project expanded to include Dutch and German versions on April 10 and May 14 respectively. It remained stable until the following year, when the fees associated with hosting the site became more than the founders could afford.
In February 2005, Memory Alpha switched hosting servers and joined Wikia
Wikia
Wikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...
, a free for-profit wiki-hosting company started by Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an American non-profit charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, and organized under the laws of the state of Florida, where it was initially based...
board members Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
and Angela Beesley. The site remained stable on Wikia, opening a Swedish site on May 5 and a French one on November 5. It also received several distinctions that year, such as the Ex Astris Excellentia award from Ex Astris Scientia, a Star Trek reference site, in September 2005, and it was featured as the Sci-Fi Channel's
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
Site of the Week for October 10, 2005. Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while...
and Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...
writer/producer Mike Sussman joined the community that year as well.
Technical issues led the MediaWiki software to believe Memory Alpha was started on November 23, 2004, and despite the inaccuracy, this date was adopted ex post facto as Memory Alpha's "birthday". To celebrate the occasion, Uncyclopedia
Uncyclopedia
Uncyclopedia is a satirical website that parodies Wikipedia. Founded in 2005 as an originally English-language wiki, the project currently spans over 75 languages...
(which is also hosted by Wikia) altered its main page to be a parody of Memory Alpha on November 23, 2005. The spoof page was retained under the namespace
Namespace
In general, a namespace is a container that provides context for the identifiers it holds, and allows the disambiguation of homonym identifiers residing in different namespaces....
"tlh:", for tlhIngan Hol (the Klingon
Klingon
Klingons are a fictional warrior race in the Star Trek universe.Klingons are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and eight feature films...
name for the Klingon language
Klingon language
The Klingon language is the constructed language spoken by the fictional Klingons in the Star Trek universe....
), modeled after the way wikis link to pages in other languages.
The latter part of 2005 and early 2006 saw several new features added to the site. Among these was a peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
process, implemented on September 21, 2005 in response to questions about the process by which articles become featured. On November 20 of that year, Memory Alpha began a "Babel" program, inspired by and modeled after that of the Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation....
, to help users who speak the same language. Other recent innovations include an area for user projects, sometimes referred to as WikiProjects on other wikis, and coverage of fan film
Fan film
A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by...
s.
The site has remained popular since its inception, although its growth has slowed in recent times. For instance, it was the largest project on Wikia until October 2005, when its article count was surpassed by Wookieepedia
Wookieepedia
Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki is an online encyclopedia for information on the Star Wars fictional universe—including information on all six films, as well as The Clone Wars and the Expanded Universe...
and Uncyclopedia
Uncyclopedia
Uncyclopedia is a satirical website that parodies Wikipedia. Founded in 2005 as an originally English-language wiki, the project currently spans over 75 languages...
. Today, it has approximately 1300 registered users (80 of whom are active) and upwards of 17 million page views since its move to Wikia. , it receives on average, slightly more visitors and page views per day than the official Star Trek website according to Alexa
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
.
Memory Alpha has influenced the design of other wikicities dedicated to information about television franchises, including The X-Files Wiki http://x-files.wikia.com/wiki/X-Files_Wiki:About and the 24 Wiki http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Wiki_24:About. It is a resource used by mainstream journalists for information on Star Trek related issues. Influential edublogger Will Richardson
Will Richardson
Will Richardson is the author of the highly ranked and read edublog Weblogg-ed and author of the book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Richardson is also active on the web, he has both a twitter and Youtube channel....
hailed the site in his 2006 book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms as "one of the most impressive [wikis] out there".
On June 12, 2007, Memory Alpha reached a milestone of 25,000 articles with the creation of the article Robert Iscove.
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
named Memory Alpha one of the 25 Essential Fansites in 2007. In comparing it to other Star Trek sites, the reviewer wrote, "Memory Alpha wins out for its handsome, intuitive presentation and its overwhelming mass".
Structure
Several aspects of Memory Alpha set it apart from other reference works, such as its method of citing sources. All information must be cited from a valid source (see Canon section below), but rather than a "Works Cited" or "References" list, Memory Alpha prefers stand-alone inline citations, which are placed in parentheses after the sentence or section in question. For television episodes, this consists of an abbreviation for the series from which the information came (e.g. DS9 for Star Trek: Deep Space NineStar Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...
), followed by the name of the episode in double quotation marks. So, in order to cite information from the Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
(TNG) pilot "Encounter at Farpoint", one would add: (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint"). The same rule applies for films, without the series prefix and with italics in place of quotation marks. The same method of notation is also used in the printed Star Trek Encyclopedia, which is unrelated to the Memory Alpha wiki.
Articles on Memory Alpha are written from two points of view: "in-universe", which are written as if the reader is a part of the Star Trek universe, and "production", which speak from a real-world perspective. For "in-universe" articles, behind-the-scenes information is not included in the main body of the article; rather, it is placed in a separate background section or included indented and italicized to separate it from the in-universe perspective. The latter method is used in cases where either the information is particularly important (such as conflicting information from two canon sources) or there is not enough background to justify a separate section. In most cases, the background method is preferred and italics are used sparingly.
Like many wikis, Memory Alpha has a section for "featured articles", those believed to represent the best the community has to offer. The criteria for this distinction are that an article must be well-written, comprehensive (which includes citing sources), accurate and undisputed – criteria any article could hypothetically fulfill. This has caused some conflict over the criteria involved (see Current issues section). To be featured, an article must be nominated by a user and unanimously supported by at least five other users; any objections must be fixable and may be invalidated if deemed irrational or unreasonable. Each week, one of the site's featured articles becomes the "Article of the Week" to be displayed on the project home page.
Several methods of communication are available beyond conventional talk pages. The "community portal" section of the website is named after Ten Forward, a locale frequented by characters on The Next Generation. Issues discussed there range from disputes between users to new ideas on how to improve the site to upcoming projects. A separate area, the reference desk, exists for discussions and questions related to what is considered canon, discrepancies between sources, and other such topics. However, "meta-Trek" topics (a term used for Star Trek-related topics that do not pertain in any way to Memory Alpha) are not discussed on the wiki; a separate IRC
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
chatroom exists for these discussions.
Canon policy
The question of Star Trek canon is a complex one and has plagued fans since Star Trek began in 1966. The general policy of Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
is that anything outside live-action television episodes and movies is apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
l, or non-canon. However, grey areas in this policy, especially in relation to the canonical status of Star Trek: The Animated Series
Star Trek: The Animated Series
Star Trek: The Animated Series is an animated science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe following the events of Star Trek: The Original Series of the 1960s...
(TAS), further complicate the matter and have led to many debates among fans. In light of this, Memory Alpha crafted its own unique definition of canon in relation to what may be used as a "valid resource". The Animated Series is included as valid, or canonical, for a number of reasons, such as the fact that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry
Gene Roddenberry
Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist, best known for creating the American science fiction series Star Trek. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, California where his father worked as a police officer...
and most of the cast of the original series
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
were involved with it and the existence of several references to TAS events in later series.
Information taken from the Star Trek Encyclopedia and Star Trek Chronology is mostly accepted on Memory Alpha as well, to the extent that it does not break from established on-screen facts. Content from these sources is an acknowledged grey area of Memory Alpha's canon policy and is disregarded if deemed speculative or contradictory. Thus, in some ways they hold the same weight as novels and other publications do for Star Wars canon
Star Wars canon
The Star Wars canon consists of the six Star Wars feature films, along with all officially licensed, non-contradicting spin-off works to the six films. As once defined by Lucas Licensing:- History :...
: a "second tier" of canonicity, which is subservient to primary (on-screen) sources.
Other sources such as books and computer games are not included as canon, but are covered by Memory Alpha in a way which sets it apart from other Trek resources: books, comics, and other products are included as articles about the products (i.e. from a "production point of view"), but "in-universe" information unique or new to them is covered on the product page. For example, in the Star Trek: New Frontier
Star Trek: New Frontier
Star Trek: New Frontier is a Star Trek novel series created by John J. Ordover and Peter David and published by Pocket Books. The idea behind it was to create a Star Trek book series with its own continuity and not one that is purely a reaction to the television shows. Nearly every story of the...
line of books, a new host of characters is introduced to the Trek universe, and their vessel is known as the USS Excalibur. The characters, ships and information from New Frontier books do not receive pages of their own, but they are covered on the pages about the books. In this way, Memory Alpha remains all-inclusive while attempting to distinguish canon from apocrypha.
Non-canon characters and topics are instead covered at Memory Beta, and fan-films and other fan-created material at Memory Gamma; both are hosted by Wikia. The Star Trek Online Wiki, hosted by curse.com, covers the Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online, often abbreviated as STO, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Cryptic Studios based on the popular Star Trek series created by Gene Roddenberry. The game is set in the 25th century, 30 years after the events of Star Trek Nemesis...
MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
.
Organisational
Several issues face the Memory Alpha community, one of which is the question of which articles should be given "featured" status. Under Memory Alpha's current policies, both major and minor topics are eligible; however, the question has been raised of whether the criteria for featuring should be more subjective, i.e., if a topic is not significant enough, it should not be featured regardless of how comprehensive its article is. There is currently no consensus in the Memory Alpha community about the topic, although there has been no change in featuring policy.The question of what content Memory Alpha should cover has plagued the project since its creation. On the project's home page, it describes itself as "a collaborative project to create the most definitive, accurate, and accessible encyclopedia and reference for everything related to Star Trek", but fans often have different interpretations of what "everything" means. In some cases, one or more users may add content about a subject – such as a website, fan club or parody – that does not fit existing pages, necessitating a community decision about whether to keep the content and, if so, what to do with it. Such incidents led to the creation of an article on Star Trek parodies after several questions were raised about where to put information related to, but not a part of, the Star Trek franchise. An example of the reverse case is "The Sunspots", a musical group consisting of Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
, Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Scott Frakes is an American actor, author and director best known for his role as Commander William T. Riker in the Star Trek franchise, as well as for his tenure as host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction ....
, LeVar Burton
LeVar Burton
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, Jr. , professionally known as LeVar Burton, is an American actor, director, producer and author who first came to prominence portraying Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning ABC television miniseries Roots, based on the novel by Alex Haley...
and Michael Dorn
Michael Dorn
Michael Dorn is an American actor, and voice artist who is best known for his role as the Klingon Worf from the Star Trek franchise.-Early life and career:...
. Although the actors involved were all prominent parts of Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
, several articles on the group have been deleted because the community deemed the topic not directly related to the franchise. , information about The Sunspots can be found on the different actors' pages rather than a single, separate article.
Perhaps the most heated issue on Memory Alpha in recent years is the controversy surrounding their canon policy. Aside from issues of length and excessive use of legalese, this policy has been put into question by several of the site's regular users because of its rule that articles and information which were not seen on-screen but were derived from official production sources are not considered canon on Memory Alpha. The site's archivists are divided as to exactly whether such information should be allowed as canon; some want only to allow what was seen on-screen while others wish to include that which was originally intended to be used on-screen but never made it, such as information from deleted scenes, early script drafts, etc. The latter archivists believe that such information can be included so long as it does not contradict what was seen on-screen and so long as it states where the source of the information comes from. As of July 2006, this debate has died down significantly, with most having accepted the terms of the new policy.
Despite early concern about how to incorporate information from the 2009 movie Star Trek, which is considered a semi-reboot of the original series, Memory Alpha members found a solution to the issue. All information from this film is recorded as separate articles, which are titled according to their subject with the term "alternate reality" included in the title. This is from the term used in the movie itself to describe the new continuity. For example, the article Nyota Uhura discusses the character as portrayed by Nichelle Nichols
Nichelle Nichols
Nichelle Nichols is an American actress, singer and voice artist. She sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before turning to acting...
, while the article Nyota Uhura (alternate reality) discusses the character as played by Zoe Saldana
Zoe Saldana
Zoe Saldana , sometimes stylized Zoë Saldaña, is an American actress. She had her breakthrough role in the 2000 film Center Stage and later gained prominence for her roles as Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek, and a starring role...
.
Licensing
The contents of Memory Alpha are licensed under the Creative CommonsCreative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
Attribution-Non-Commercial license. Because this license does not allow commercial reuse, it is incompatible with the GNU Free Documentation License
GNU Free Documentation License
The GNU Free Documentation License is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and...
(GFDL), and material from the site cannot be copied into projects that use the GFDL. This distinction makes Memory Alpha a "sister project" of the GFDL-based Wikia
Wikia
Wikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...
project. Memory Alpha is cited as a source by academic journals, scholarly studies and books as well as Star Trek-universe novels and reference works.
External links
- Memory Alpha's main page