Changes: Memory Alpha:Ten Forward/Archive 2006

Revision as of 20:24, 1 February 2006

Template:Tenforward

Article records

Are the articles that hit a certain number of viewing recorded somewhere? I just noticed that the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine article has been viewed more than twenty thousand times. Was the 10,000th article recorded? Excelsior 10:53, 4 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Individual page hits can be found here: Special:Popularpages. The 10,000th article wasn't recorded automatically, but a user posted it here a while ago. Apparently, this topic has been (re)moved. -- Cid Highwind 11:28, 4 Jul 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines of a special page (a hall of fame if you will) that would show the articles that hit a certain number of hits. The DS9 page hitting 20,000 is excellent is it not? It should be recorded for posterity. Tough Little Ship 23:26, 4 Jul 2005 (UTC)

The 10,000th article topic was apparently deleted by an anonymous user without being archived, but I've recovered it and placed it in the archive. For the record, T'Pring was the 10,000th article. -- SmokeDetector47 // talk 01:26, 10 Jul 2005 (UTC)

I just noticed DS9 has just hit 30,000! Tough Little Ship 23:49, 16 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Contradictory info

There are many bits of info in star Trek which lack consistency. For example:

In Voyager it says that the Breen use biological based ships like Species 8472, but in DS9 it shows metal ships flying through space.
Damar and Weyoun argue over the climate of the Breen Homeworld, but in a previous episode Dukat states that there is a Cardassian embassy on Breen

These are just 2 examples. What should writers do about these Contradictions while wrtiting artciles?

For #1 i would ask you: is it entirely impossible that the breen have used two different types of ships in their history? -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 06:39, 10 Jul 2005 (UTC)

If the information is indeed contradictory, both facts should be noted, accompanied by a small note stating the contradiction. No speculation. -- Cid Highwind 11:54, 22 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Do you think contradictory information should be noted under a specific heading such as Summary or Background Information for episodes? Is there a specific place for errors and inconsistencies? - GrilledCheese17 05:45, 30 Aug 2005 (UTC)

I just thought of another piece of contridicatry info. At one point it is stated that the Dominion is 2000 years old, yet at another it is stated that it is 10,000 years old. Tobyk777 01:49, 3 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a simple footnote could be included. Then asterisks or superscript numbers can be added to the contradicted info, and then it can be explained in the stated asterisk or superscript number in the footnote. Enzo Aquarius 01:54, 3 Sep 2005 (UTC)

For example, with a reference to the Dominion, it could be phrased like this:

The Dominion was thousands of years old by the 24th century.

In Episode X, the Dominion was stated to be over two-thousand years of age, however Episode Y stated that it was of an age approaching 10,000 years.

Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, this type of format could be used:

First contact with the Klingons occured in 2151.*

Footnote (In title form of course, I just don't want to mess up the formatting of this area) *Though first contact was visually shown in "Broken Bow", it is mentioned in TNG that first contact with the Klingons occured Year

-- (Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 02:01, 3 Sep 2005 (UTC))

Now, your idea is also great Mike, however it's not the most convenient in a large article (Unless it's done as a footnote at the end in italics of course and not in the middle of the article). Enzo Aquarius 02:12, 3 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why it would be inconvient. I think that this is a great way to sort it out. Tobyk777 06:09, 5 Sep 2005 (UTC)

It's a good solution. The tricky thing about contradictions that is often forgotten, is that characters can be lying or wrong. Jaf 13:11, 11 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Right, that's why there is the italic writing. ;-) --Memory 18:37, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

This is hanging around here for a long time, can we form this into a standard for MA:MoS? Maybe adapting the Wikipedia Footnotes? --Memory 18:37, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I don't like the Wikipedia footnotes (and they seem to be controversial even on Wikipedia). Hasn't the i&i style be included in the MoS already? If not it should, of course. -- Cid Highwind 16:43, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Links to Alpha or Beta Quadrant article

There are many location articles which state a location in either AQ or BQ as definite (see "What links here" for AQ and BQ) although this was never mentioned in canon. Often, this is just personal speculation. I suggest to check all these articles - if nothing definite about the location was said, we could instead link to an article (simply called Alpha or Beta Quadrant, for example) that basically states that the location is "somewhere in the neighborhood" and links to both Alpha Quadrant and Beta Quadrant. -- Cid Highwind 14:24, 5 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Any comments? -- Cid Highwind 11:17, 16 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Why use an article for this? Just add "Alpha or Beta Quadrant". --Memory 18:41, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Because simply linking to the two possible locations would lack the explanation that could otherwise be included on the new page. An explanation that could eventually prevent the next-best contributor to simply change the ambiguous location links back to a single one because he thinks he knows where a specific planet is located. If it's just the name that is considered problematic, we could of course use a different one - what about Local space or something...? -- Cid Highwind 16:20, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with vandals

I just want to remind everyone that we can only lose if we try to play the game on their level. If the vandal(s) return(s), please don't insult or start vandalizing yourself - just use the established ways to revert the vandals' actions, let the admins know about it and ignore him otherwise. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 21:03, 5 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I want to infom you that there was a vandal on my talk page about 5 min ago. Although he posted a compliment, it was vandalism. The exact message was : "Tobyk777 rules, unlike the Breen, they suck!" Just thought I would report that. I deleted the message. Tobyk777 01:06, 6 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Also, try not to harass IP users or new users until they actually vandalize something. It's really easy to frustrate a new archivist by reverting all of their edits, without explanation. Frustrate someone enough like that and I'd wager they might get angry enough at your insensitivity to start some vandalism of their own.

Reverting someone's edits without initiating any talk at all or trying to explain to them how to use a discussion page may be construed as harassment.

If you revert an edit, have a thought and leave some talk. Its policy. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 15:05, 10 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Featured articles reading like episode summaries?

I can understand ojections to some articles becoming featured articles due to the fact that they may read like an episode/movie summary (or at least part of one). What I don't understand, however, is that some articles that read like episode/movie summaries are featured while other articles on a similar topic also read like episode/movie summaries don't become featured even though you could argue that both articles are as well written. I think the best example of this practice is with the articles on the Battle of the Bassen Rift and the Battle of the Mutara Nebula. Both go in to good detail of events and both read like summaries yet the former is featured and the latter isn't. I'm not complaining about the failure of the Battle of the Mutara Nebula, per se, to become a featured article but rather about how one of two articles on similar events written in similar styles with similar levels of detail became featured while the other one didn't. I won't accuse anyone of double standards but it really looks this way to me. Better yet, should I just take this matter to the featured article removal page and nominate the Battle of the Bassen Rift?--Scimitar 13:39, 9 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Star Trek: Enterprise reference site

I discovered a helpful site full of trivia and references related to Enterprise written in note form - [1]. I just thought I'd share that with the MA community! --Defiant | Talk 14:08, 9 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Nits

There's discussion on a couple of user pages on a Nits (or Nitpicks) policy. I think this would be a valid and useful feature to have incorporated in most episode articles and that it should be made official. Consensus/comment is sought. Specifically, Nits should be a third-level category under Background Information. The stuff that's under Background Information now should be placed under the third-level category Notes (unless it's already under something more specific as it is in a few ep articles). So it would look like this:

==Background Information==
===Notes===
*NOTES ABOUT THE EPISODE

===Nits===
*NITS FROM THE EPISODE

Opinions? --9er 14:28, 6 Nov 2005 (UTC)

I still oppose the idea of a "nitpick" section. In my opinion, nitpicks tend to be subjective and "unencyclopedic". On one of the user talk pages, the TATV-nitpick that was removed was brought up again, and I think that this is a good example. That nitpick was about the apparently missing security guards when Enterprise was boarded in that episode. My question: So what? There surely are precedents for guards arriving too late or not at all, there are dozens of other good reasons for that, and the scene doesn't violate continuity in any way. If we allow all subjective nitpicks, we're opening a big can of worms.

However, I don't have any problems with a "continuity" section (like on These Are the Voyages...) to compare different episodes and also note objective discrepancies between them. -- Cid Highwind 15:44, 6 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I am undecided for this. I have no problem with a nitpick section, but it could get out of hand, however, if done right it could keep the formal nature of MA. For example, check out "The Naked Now". In the Background section, there is a slight nitpick, but it is kept formal. However, if done incorrectly, nitpick sections would have to be moderated a lot. Now, for a Continuity section, I support that. - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 15:50, 6 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Having had time to think about this, I agree with Cid that nitpicks do tend to be subjective and therefore should be limited to describing only the apparent violations of continuity (i.e. Romulan cloaking devices in the 22nd century or the like). Therefore, I think an actual nitpicks section is not needed, but a continuity section sounds like a great idea. But, if we do describe discrepancies, we must also describe references to continuity that are correct. The section in the article for "These Are the Voyages..." is a good example of what should be done (kudos to Defiant and anyone else who worked on that). Before, I was complaining about the removal of the nitpick I had added (the one mentioned by Cid, about the lack of security in the episode) because I didn't fully understand why it was removed. Now that I do, however, I believe I agree with the decision to remove it. I also believe the "Naked Now" nitpick pointed out by Enzo falls under the same category - it, too, seems a big subjective, even though it, like the lack of security in TATV, is an oddity... maybe that's just me, though. Anyway, in sum, I think nitpicks should be placed within the context of continuity, that they should be formal and not based on a personal viewpoint, and that they should be listed along with references which do keep continuity intact. Knowhatimean? --From Andoria with Love 04:52, 7 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Rather than postings a "nits" section on the episode page, why not just reference the errors on the specific article that makes specific reference to the person or object that is in error in that pages respective background section? Personally, that is what I dislike about "background" section on episode pages. Unless there is something that has to do with the production of the episode, the rest should go on to individual article pages. I've noticed a lot of useful information for article pages that is simply stashed on the episode page that isn't being used to enhance the page that contains the information the so-called "background" info is explaining. --Alan del Beccio 18:26, 13 Nov 2005 (UTC)

There appears to be little consensus on this. But check out the Nitpicks section on Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (which I didn't add by the way). Would that be better in a Continuity section (between episodes), or only in a non-episode article, like the one for the Galileo? I think not. And there's nothing subjective about this particular nit, though I grant that the border is hazy on the edges. -- 9er 03:50, 15 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Is there really that little consensus? Most of us seem to agree that subjective nitpicks shouldn't have a place on MA. Regarding the LTBYLB-nitpick, which is about a "wrong" registry number on the Starbase 4 shuttle - according to Alan's suggestion, I would put that on either an article about that shuttle (which doesn't exist yet, but could be created here: Starbase 4 shuttle) or the Starbase article itself (if a shuttle article should not be created). It could additionally be appended to the item in the "Background information" list that already states that "Stock footage from "The Galileo Seven" is used for all of the shuttlecraft shots.". -- Cid Highwind 11:30, 16 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Problematic about nitpick sections -- its quickly becoming a showcase for people who don't understand the plots of the episodes, or simply aren't paying close attention, and assuming that there are mistakes.

I've removed a background note on Star Trek: Insurrection dealing with the scene where the senior crew confronts Picard (planning to disobey orders and join the battle on the surface), and all the officers except Geordi and Riker are out of uniform. It seemed obvious to me that the officers in civvies were wearing those clothes because they intended to join the captain, and at the end of the scene he does indeed allow them to come with him. Riker didn't really have that option, he must realize that if Picard leaves the ship, he has a heavy responsibility of command -- i maintain he never had the option of leaving, but having already discovered the plan, the rest were simply being well prepared by changing ahead of time -- i.e. they already knew who was leaving and who was staying.

Also, syndication has cut many TOS episodes down by almost a full 10 minutes, since TV shows in the 1960s were usually 46-48 minutes sans commercials, nowadays, shows are typically around 42 minutes -- these cuts are not studio edits, they are done by other sources -- sometimes at the local level. There is really no excuse for assuming there's any intention of "changing" the story, unless you think that Bob the late night tape editor at W3RF in Sheboygan is an authority on Star Trek.

I'd support a project to try and "Empty out" the Background section of every episode -- and place the episode in more usefyul places (like your Starbase 4 shuttle comment, Cid. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

This is my next project (removal of nits). Can we impliment this into our policy or manual of style, along with point of view and how to write backgrounds? --Alan del Beccio 22:32, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Background information comes from a production POV, yes, and limited goofs are okay such as the note on last week's featured article Paradise that neutrally says "Sisko begins his station log aboard a runabout." That's my take anyway. Johann 22:40, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I think nitpicks have there place here, they really help to expose problems as to hash them out. Most TOS and TNG error's are not that bad, I suspect the problem with Nits is that fans don't like the glaring errors DS9 Voy and Ent have. But Nits are important because without the section people writing articles may include a "So called error" that really works out easily. What I suggest are articles like this TOS Nitpicks Season 1. The structure will be that each Nit has a bullet, and explanations have indented bullets. Some error's even with explanations should be kept on article, but some should be removed the explanation clear. I think this is the middle ground. --TOSrules 22:27, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I think that is absolutely not "middle ground". In fact, you are actually suggesting the opposite direction. While the consensus so far seemed to be to move those comments that are considered valid from a central "episode" page to various relevant "object" pages, your suggestion is to collect even more of those nitpicks on one page. I don't think this helps in any way, because a) we would still end up with "unencyclopedic" nitpicks instead of just valid comments and b) to paraphrase Alan's earlier comment, if it is valid information about something we have an article about, it should appear on that page. -- Cid Highwind 23:41, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

For example: the nitpick that Kirk's eyes move when he is frozen by the Kelvans "paralyzer device" or whatever it is called -- some say this is a mistake, that he shouldn't have been able to. Others maintain that if a device that paralyzes people is used on Trek, but they cvan still move their eyes, that is a result of the device paralyzing you and allowing your eyes to move. Seems to me deciding either way would be speculation -- and that the info would belong best as background information at paralyzer device (i don't think its really called this, but i.e.) -- it would be better placed there than in By Any Other Name since it involves the device more than the episode -- and we've been over why we shouldn't duplicate data, instead we should put it in the most relevant article, and link to that article from the more general article. If you want to make a "nits" section, perhaps it should just be a list of links to a list of actors, devices, planets, ships that have oddities noted about them (and also, i hate the name "nits" -- its undescriptive). -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

So it is more "Encyclopedic" to have the subject defused around the site, then to have one easy to reference area where it all can be found? A Nitpick is a subject of it's own in it's own way. I know you can't find a canon line for that, but neither can you for 47. When Star Trek is talked about, you will get around to the problems, especially on a site like this. At least we'll have an index for the subject. Although it still does leave the issue, what do we allow on the Nitpick Pages. --TOSrules 01:46, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

"Alternate timelines" section

I think the title "Alternate timelines" (seen in quite a few character pages) should be changed to something like "Alternate Realities". Information could then be taken from sequences that are not strictly alternate timelines, such as Barash's illusion of the Enterprise-D crew that Riker witnessed in TNG: "Future Imperfect". I'd still appreciate other users' opinion on that before making changes. --Defiant | Talk 14:26, 18 Nov 2005 (UTC)

i'd support this. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

Hyphens

2 or 3 years ago -- I read in a wiki guide that was linked from one of our policy pages that we try and avoid hyphens in article titles (and therefore article links) whenever possible, to avoid delimiting searches and other wiki-tech related issues.

Its been a while and we've moved servers, so i can't find any policy pages or talk relating to it, but I'm sure that's what i read. This is why we do not hyphenate the title 22nd century or Constitution class.

I ask because there is a new user who needs it explained. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

German MA moved all articles missing the hyphen to the correct German spelling with it a long time ago (e.g. "Constitution Klasse" to "Constitution-Klasse", the redirect remained). Up to now I thought the "not-hyphened" writing is correct in AE. Is it not? --Memory 23:06, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration

Our policy and introduction(s) are very clear -- if you start an article about a subject, you should expect other archivists to make corrections, because the article doesn't "belong" to any one person -- it belong to the community.. if you write something, and someone changes it, for the love of the Great Bird, just ask that person WHY THEY CHANGED it, instead of starting an argument.

If you want to write an article on a topic that you don't want changed -- that'd probably be a good start for your own blog or website. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

I don't know about the issue of things being "my" article or whatever, but I do think the burden of proof, so to speak, would be on the person who reverts it. To a newb -- and for the record, I myself was unaware of the hyphen thing, although I never noticed the lack of them either -- reverting over something trivial like that would look pretty petty, so I can somewhat understand their position. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 21:59, 25 Nov 2005 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Vedek on this one. Vandals aside, reverts should be a last resort. In improv, you learn that you should never negate someone else's contibutions but always add to them. It's not precisely the same situation here, but when I see a new contribution that I don't approve of, I'll try to find some third way that might work for everyone. Facts that are plain wrong are another matter, but I think it should be incumbent on the reverter to show cause, especially if the reverter is reverting to his own edit or an article he's contributed heavily to. --9er 05:38, 26 Nov 2005 (UTC)

I, too, think that it should be the "first reverter" who has to explain his reasons. I surely don't manage to do that every time, but I try to add a comment either on the article or the user talk page whenever I revert an edit that isn't very obvious vandalism. Mike is right, though - if something gets reverted and a reason is missing, it might be a good idea for the initial contributor to start the discussion instead of trying to be stubborn. -- Cid Highwind 06:46, 26 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Woha, I agree with Vedek and 9er o_O That leads me to this:

--Memory 22:18, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Rollback policy

You know, we had some trouble with the practise of reverting lately (see Duty Roster issue too) and this is not the first time something like this happens, so we might need a policy on that. As I did somewhere else I suggest some rules for one of the policy pages (or an own for the subject). These could be:

Immediate reverts are allowed for the following cases:

Vandalism / Spam
Jokes
Apparently non-canon content has been added (if you are not sure that some facts are canonical, just add the template {{pna-inaccurate}} to the top of the article and write a note on the talk page)
Test-edits that should be made at the sandbox
Categories have been added that were created without discussion

All other cases have to be discussed on the talk page of the article or (if it concerns e.g. templates) on the talk page of the affected user before reverting.

-- I think this could prevent edit wars and/or misunderstandings. --Memory 22:18, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think a policy is really needed. If the information added is of a great quantity as it was with Oberth class and is still questionable, it should be reverted and the info moved to the talk page for discussion. Minor things, however, don't really need to be reverted until discussed. This is just my view, of course. --R.I.P. Vincent Schiavelli From Andoria with Love 22:28, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Navigation addition suggestion

I think it would be very useful to have additional links on the left-hand navigation area. Quick-links to specific series and their epsiode lists would be helpful, similar to the menu bar on Wikipedia's Trek pages but simplified.--StAkAr Karnak 23:27, 30 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Template for MA links

if you want to link someone to our uber-helpful introductions or policy pages, use the template {{ma}} -- for example, {{ma|policy}} will form the link policy, etc. etc., -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 15:46, 1 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I advise against this as it's simpler and quicker to use redirects such as MA:MoS. :) I only wish there was a unified place listing them, although I'm sure that will come in time. --Broik 02:06, 27 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Policy Reminder - Summary field

I think it is necessary to remind ourselves of the policies from time to time. Policy of the day: Always fill summary field

Whenever I have a look at the "Recent changes", only about 10-20% of the edits contain an edit summary. Please, try to use that feature more often and, if possible, try to make the summary meaningful by really describing what exactly you changed on the page. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 09:29, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also, I would discourage archivists from marking major changes to an article as "minor" -- there are a few who have never made a non-minor article edit, but also never even tried to use the summary field. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 13:38, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please, try to use that summary field... It's useful! -- Cid Highwind 13:06, 13 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Everyone who is too lazy to use the summary field should have a look on my user page ;-) --Memory 19:21, 4 Aug 2005 (UTC)

There are still too many edits without any edit summary... -- Cid Highwind 11:16, 16 Nov 2005 (UTC)

No offense, but I think the admin are just as guilty as anyone of doing this. Not you personally, but in general I think the proportions -- excluding new users, who probably haven't read the manual of style let alone this message -- are about the same. It is important to keep in mind though. --Broik 02:08, 27 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I definitely wasn't excluding admins here... ;) -- Cid Highwind 10:33, 27 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Fan fiction

There have ben numerous instances of "fan fiction" style publications being mentioned here -- some discussions:

Fan productions (moved from reference desk)

Since I have added an article on fanon, do I need to include several Star Trek fan series and fan films? If not, where should I add Star Trek related fanon material?

Not on MA, I'm afraid. Please read our Memory Alpha:Canon policy... -- Cid Highwind 20:50, 22 Aug 2005 (UTC)

The future of Memory-Alpha.Org

Memory-Alpha.Org will run out of canon soon. The reason Memory-Alpha.Org sticks to canon is because we could barely keep up with canon. This is no longer true. We have an inexhaustible store of Star Trek as yet untapped:

Noncanon. We could write articles about fanfiction (we should not allow fanfiction itself because it would cause people searching the encyclpædia to get stories instead of technical articles). We can include speculation such as the the Xindispecies, being so obviously related, yet representing five families, four classes and two or three phyla (¿are the Aquatics chordates?) must be the products of genetic engineering. We could start an article about the eternal favorite of Star Trek Versus Star Wars (a single Imperator-Classstardestroyer could easily defeat a Borgcube).

This is not the end. We just have to broaden our mandate. A few months ago, Someone started an article about the respectful but hilariously satirical STAR WREK — The best 'Star Trek' parody since 'The Next Generation'! The response was that at the time we could not broaden our mandate with about two dozen canonepisodes of Enterprise for processing an year to process. That certainly was true at the time; but now however, we literally have nothing else to do but create a synopsis for every character of STAR WREK . — — Ŭalabio‽ 04:16, 20 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to make your text so bulky? (I've since tightened it up). Anyway, "Soon"? I don't see that we are anywhere near running out of canon anytime "soon". So without giving an opinion on anything else other than that, I think this conversation is overly premature. Other than that, I don't like this idea at all. Lets get to point "B" before we start heading for point "C". --Alan del Beccio 04:33, 20 Oct 2005 (UTC)

We "literally" have plenty more to do, so i say no -- the logistics (not to mention the copyright problems) are kind of mind boggling. I'd rather not disrupt the achievement of a canon database (our ultimate goal) by mixing the data with fan fiction and parodies (completely irrelevant, in my opinion).

I like non-canon, if you'd like, see how pages on novels and comics could be expanded -- I think its an important part of Memory Alpha. Perhaps suggest a website directory that we could police and monitor, to link to gaming or creative sites that are outside of our parameters.

I won't allow this site to be turned into a commercial for cheap knockoffs of Star Trek when theres a perfectly good original series, its spinoffs and movies and tied in licensed media like collecible publications. I'm not a fan of much stuff that Joe Schmoe ran off in his garage, or put on his website -- expecially if we are talking about a commercial venture to capitalize on Star Trek. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 04:37, 20 Oct 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Check here to see how much still needs to be done! --T smitts 04:43, 20 Oct 2005 (UTC)

MA definitely won't "run out of canon" soon. There's still much to write about, and even more to "write better" about. Until both has happened, there's no need to discuss the possible inclusion of fan-fiction and other unofficial material. -- Cid Highwind 09:46, 20 Oct 2005 (UTC)

*lol* Look at this or this, that's work for years... --Porthos 10:08, 20 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, 747 stubs and 183 incomplete articles...out of the current 57,147 articles, that means roughly 6% of the content we have in M/A still needs some sort of attention, and that doesnt even count what hasn't be written yet. --Alan del Beccio 18:14, 22 Oct 2005 (UTC)

This is why I thought Memory Alpha:Refit of the Week was a great idea, but apparently no one was interested, which is indicative of the larger problem: Most of the easiest stuff has been covered, and people get lazy. Even once we finish cleaning up things like the technobabble no one actually understands or the actor pages where no one's sure what to add, I think there are more encyclopedic (but also more difficult) things to write about, such as Ethics and Politics of the Klingon Empire. Weyoun 18:58, 22 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Hey Alan, dont be so cynical. The reason why Memory Alpha is cool is because everybody contributes.

How am I being cynical, unsigned user, by simply stating the facts? --Alan del Beccio 18:18, 13 Nov 2005 (UTC)

I thought about Memory-Alpha, and if it would run out of material after some time. But we still have LOTS of work to do, not to mention tons of episode reviews (And with Star Trek magazines, new information is always released every month). Then, of course, new books are always coming out, and TONS of books don't have a page here. So there is still lots of work ahead! - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 23:51, 23 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Strongly Against - Not that this vote is really needed ;-) I very much DON'T like this idea. Fan fiction is just ridiculous, I could write a story right now with references out the BAK, and we'd be making ridiculous articles for years. We clearly have more articles to make, and if it runs out, we'll simply find more. I know many episode summaries that could use a lot of work, and if not work, improvement. Among other things, their "references" are ridiculously small. Not to mention the many actors and actresses we have to do. Which are constantly being added to. A movie may be coming out in the coming years. But yes, if all goes well, we'll run out of canon material, which means we'll have to work on the pages for all those novels that could use work, the comic books, and many others. I don't think we need to worry about running out of articles yet, and when we do, I will strongly oppose the includinh of fan fiction and the kinds of speculation that were referred. - AJHalliwell 00:33, 24 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Also Strongly Against - I personally don't read the fan fiction. Although some of it is good, some of it is garbage. I'd hate to come here to read about some topic and have to dig through piles of minutia that's completely irrelevant and non-canon to me. Perhaps an entire second site called "Memory Beta" should be set up with that stuff, so people can read it and others can enjoy MA without having to deal with it.

And even when we run out of articles, there are always ways for improvement. For example, take a look at the Amanda Rogers page (and there's even 4 articles linked to it which aren't done). A one-timer Star Trek appearance/mention, and the article is quite expansive and detailed. A number of character pages could have the same amount of detail (If not more) in the future. Additionally, there will always be something new found or observed, especially with background information (stuff on LCARS displays especially). - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 21:59, 24 Oct 2005 (UTC)

How about the New Voyages (the professional-quality fan-produced extension of TOS)? Normally I wouldn't suggest non-canon, but since it has the endorsement of Gene Roddenberry's son and the cooperation of original TOS actors (like Walter Koenig) and writers (like D.C. Fontana), maybe data from that series could be added?

EmiOfBrie 23:28, 4 Nov 2005 (CST)

This topic was already discussed previously, and the idea was rejected. Click here to learn more. --From Andoria with Love 05:45, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Fan fiction reference works

I separated several "bootleg" publications into a separate list on reference works -- is something that ws published without the consent of the Star Trek franchise owners, writers and production staff really have anything to do with Star Trek?

In the past we've deleted or removed links to these(such as USS Enterprise Officer's Manual, considering them outside of MA's scope -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 18:08, 1 Dec 2005 (UTC)

In MA/de we had just a month of conversation what to do with unlicensed games. We came to an agreement to create de:Fan-Rollenspiele where all the individiual games would be stored, as we already started on de:Fanfiction. So these books should be treated likewise and create fan fiction books (or alike), but keep the redirects. What comes to my mind is that the page might need to subdivided a lot (technical manuals, episode guides, other) just by looking at my own collection. -- Kobi - (Talk) 20:08, 1 Dec 2005 (UTC)

In accordance with the German edit, created the page fan fiction to serve as top-level in this matter. Fan films has also been created without content, because of problems listed below. Films with Walter Koenig and Eddie Paskey are obviously relevant, but how irrelevant would they have to be to not be listed/be removed from that list. Tough questions.

Frankly, i created it just to keep people from listing garbage "bootleg" tech manuals in reference works -- a lot of those books, besides being illegally (or "semi-legally") published, aren't worth much of the paper they are printed on, however, some were written by young Trek artists, and the fanzine scene is a fascinating scene to research -- but soon we'll have to administrate the removal of explicit slash fiction sources, so expect bumps.

It'll be good to keep such pursuits separate from our main articles on novels, etc, as well as separate from our articles on canon -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 20:57, 5 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Try http://startrek.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page for non-canon information Keras 23:30, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Addition to policy pages: reproducing book art

Just clarifying a point regarding our image use policy, i recommend adding these explanations to some policy pages, just making sure that what i said conversationally matches with other admin's view of the copyright license's application on this matter, and we can entertain suggestions from the community as a whole here. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 02:36, 5 Dec 2005 (UTC)

From Image talk:Ds9ops.jpg:

How is that (a reference works illustration) more of a copyright violation than a screencap, cover of a book, etc? Roar 21:42, 4 Dec 2005 (UTC)
- A screencap is a scene from an episode -- you can see the episode for free on syndication. As long as you don't reproduce long video or audio clips, a still frame' isn't infringing the episode creator's right to sell or broadcast their product.
  - (however, despite a fair use of their image, using the still frame for a commercial (for profit) purpose is illegal, because they retain the copyright -- we have a non-commercial license -- we do not sell information or images for money)
- A cover of a book is used to sell the book -- you can review it any time through a bookseller -- by reproducing it you aren't infringing the book creators' right to sell their product
- A book's interior text and artwork should only be available to someone who has paid for the book -- copying or republishing artwork for free without permission infringes the rights of the artist and publisher to continue to sell the product. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 00:36, 5 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I'm speaking from my own point of view here, but it feels wrong to reproduce any or all of the illustrations made for various Star Trek texts that are copyrighted and in publication across the globe -- things like this are why our copyright license has to be so specific -- also, since this is a wiki, people should be finding ways to create their own accurate diagrams and illustrations, not resubmitting those of others. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

I support these clarifications, a few months ago large parts from the fact files were uploaded to MA/de. Regarding user created schematics, de:Benutzer:Shisma was quite productive -- Kobi - (Talk) 17:26, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for not responding to this earlier, but I agree (and already suggested some images for deletion). "Fair use" images used on MA should be restricted to screenshots and cover art. -- Cid Highwind 16:30, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)

How about screen-caps that are available from Magazines? I know, if its either an artwork or something that hasn't come from on-screen sources, then its wrong, but what about if the picture is a screen-cap? I've got about 100 issues of Star Trek Monthly which have probably got some pretty useful images from on-screen shots. Are these useable? Zsingaya ^Talk 13:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandals on other Memory Alpha's

Tonight we once again had vandalism on the English MA, like most of the contributors here it's my task to revert the changes they make. The problem on our Dutch MA is that we don't have a lot Admins, and they are all from The Netherlands or in the neighbourhood. Recently we had a discussion on whether or not we should ask for help on the English MA for Admins to keep an eye on the Dutch MA on times that we're asleep. (eg. Admins from the America's or Asia, if there are any). So I'm asking you to join us on the Dutch MA, just to keep an eye on vandalism --Eelco 00:06, 7 Dec 2005 (UTC) (Admin on the Dutch MA)

I would if I could but I cant. my admin priv does not extent beyond the english borders. --Alan del Beccio 00:17, 7 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Too many stubs

I just checked the Category:Memory Alpha stubs and was a little shocked to see that it lists about 800 pages marked as "stubs". This is more than 5% of our articles! If you have some minutes to spare, please check that list and see if you can enhance one or two of those articles to at least "incomplete article" status (then replace {{stub}} with {{pna-incomplete}}). I know I will try to make that part of my "daily work"... -- Cid Highwind 23:41, 7 Dec 2005 (UTC)

As a test/suggestion, I added a new line to the links on the "Recent changes" page, listing five stub articles similar to our wanted pages list. Please comment/discuss here, let's see if this is useful or should be reverted. -- Cid Highwind 10:28, 9 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I think it's useful, but perhaps the "more" should link to the Category: Memory Alpha stubs instead of Memory Alpha: Find or fix a stub so that people can see which articles are stubs? Just a thought...anyway, good idea! --Starchild 23:31, 10 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Of course, thanks. -- Cid Highwind 12:42, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)

New Pages page is hard to read

Does anyone know why the New Pages page has a yellow background, instead of the same background as the rest of the site? Or is it only me? It's very hard to read... Renegade54 17:23, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I can see it as well... :) I guess the problem is that this site uses three different levels of layout formatting - there's the sitewide CSS, the user CSS on top of that, and there has to be some original Wikipedia-style formatting hidden somewhere. I will see if I can find the class that needs to be changed... -- Cid Highwind 17:30, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

The problem lies with the class "not_patrolled" - I just ran a test, marking an article on there as patrolled, and the colouring cleared. Now, to track down the relevant code line... -- Michael Warren | Talk 17:39, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I found as well - and fixed in the Monobook.css by letting that class "inherit" the background color of its parent. Please check. I think the whole CSS is in need of some clean-up work... :) -- Cid Highwind 17:46, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Ahhh, much better... thanks for the quick response! :) Renegade54 17:51, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

No problem. :)

For future reference, the following CSS file is included before the main Monobook.css: main.css -- Cid Highwind 18:08, 13 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Weird. That background still does look bright yellow to me (I'm using Firefox here). Shanok 15:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Site background

Erm... does everyone else have a white background when viewing MA, or is it just my computer? --From Andoria with Love 03:03, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I've got part of the normal background, but it's white on the sides. So no, not just you. --Starchild 03:08, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Thanks. :) The white against black is pretty distracting, though, so I hope they fix it soon. --From Andoria with Love 03:17, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I like the old version better. This theme is stupid.--141.157.14.187 04:06, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

What on earth has happened? The background outside the tables (which is what I think Starchild meant by part of the normal background) is white. Whatever has been done, please undo it. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 04:13, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Yea, that's what I meant. I wonder if Cid's edits to the Media Wiki: Monobook.css did something odd? --Starchild 04:31, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Shran changed it back and it didn't do anything, so I'm at a loss for words. I forgot the name of the image file that's used for the background, so I dunno. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 04:33, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Well, at least now I know it wasn't just my computer screwing up. What's up with the white background?--Mike Nobody ^=/\= 05:02, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this helps, but I just want to point out that the German Memory Alpha (here) is not affected by this? Meaning it's just our's. The problem is... if it's not monobook, what could it be? Like I said, don't know if that helps any. --From Andoria with Love 06:46, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what it is. The German, French, Dutch, and Swedish versions are all looking normal. I checked memory-alpha.org/en/graphics/background_monobook.gif and I see the same dot (That I guess is repeated and represents the background) that I do at /de/graphics... or even at memory-alpha.org/graphics..., so I have no idea what the problem could be, but it seems to be centralized at the English Memory Alpha.--Tim Thomason 06:55, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I edited the main Monobook.css, but not any parts that have to do with background color. For what it is worth, I'm not seeing it, either. White background can happen if the MA CSS files don't load properly at all, because in laymans terms, the "Wikipedia-white" is some sort of default behind it. I can revert my changes, but I doubt that would change anything. Can someone provide a screenshot? Perhaps try to force a reload of the existing CSS by loading this page: [2]... -- Cid Highwind 09:01, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I saw the same effect after logging out, so apparently something in my custom CSS prevented that bug from showing up. Reverting the CSS and reloading the file helped, so please try that yourself, now. I'm still not sure what exactly caused the problem, though. -- Cid Highwind 09:50, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

It looks like (on my IE browser, at least) you fixed it, Cid. Good job!--Tim Thomason 09:53, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Everything seems to be back to normal now. Thanks, Cid! Of course, we still don't know what caused the problem... which means it will likely remain one of those great mysteries in life. You know, like the Bermuda Triangle... or the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body... or why "Threshold" was written. But, at least its fixed now. :) --From Andoria with Love 17:42, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Succession Boxes

I propose that we introduce (re-introduce?) the Wikipedia-style succession boxes on appropriate pages. I realize that this would be a fairly large "can of worms," but I always thought it looked nice on articles, and I'm sure will only add to some articles. Of course, these succession boxes should only be used when appropriate (obviously, one name preceding or succeeding). Here's an example of what a finished succession box would look like for James T. Kirk:

Preceded by: Captain Christopher Pike	*Commanding Officer of the USS Enterprise* (NCC-1701)** 2265-2270	Succeeded by: Captain Willard Decker
Preceded by: unknown	Chief of Starfleet Operations 2270-2273	Succeeded by: eventually Admiral Richard James
Preceded by: Captain Willard Decker	*Commanding Officer of the USS Enterprise* (NCC-1701)** 2273-2278	Succeeded by: Captain Spock

Please discuss any opinions on whether or not this is a good idea.--Tim Thomason 08:17, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I personally think it is not a good idea because, compared to Wikipedia, there are only very few examples where we do know predecessor/successor, most of which even were just temporary. Even in the example above, there are two unknowns, and two lines are related to a temporary change (Decker). Such a table might make sense on Wikipedia, where positions often are related to dozens of persons, and someone might be interested to, for example, read about all 15 captains of ship X. Something like this doesn't really happen here. I think that standard text combined with lists at the positions' article and perhaps some of the existing templates (we have "Enterprise Captains" or something like that, right?) is more than enough for our needs. -- Cid Highwind 12:01, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Cid. --Memory 22:01, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I tried a long response once, but my computer/browser messed things up, so I'll try again. First, I think it was a good idea. I included Kirk to specifically show an "unknown" and "eventually" field. I'm pretty sure that would be his full succession box if this were to be accepted (I realize there might be a problem with the kinda non-canon 3rd 5 year mission). I created succession boxes for about 30 characters, in trying to see how viable this idea was, so I don't think that should be a problem. Here's an example of someone (Charles Tucker III) without any "unknown" or "eventually" fields:

Preceded by: None	*Chief Engineer of Enterprise* (NX-01)** 2151-2154	Succeeded by: Commander Kelby
Preceded by: None	*First Officer of Enterprise* (NX-01)** 2151	Succeeded by: Subcommander T'Pol
Preceded by: Commander Kelby	*Chief Engineer of Enterprise* (NX-01)** 2154-2161	Succeeded by: None

Also, temporary shouldn't be a problem if you look from an in-universe POV. From that POV, Decker was in command for 2 and a half years, and was preparing for a new mission. He picked out a crew, and was a genuine Commanding Officer of the Enterprise, deserving mission in the succession boxes in my opinion. Counter that with William Riker. He was field promoted by Admiral J.P. Hanson, because Jean-Luc Picard was "out of commission." Riker was only "acting Captain" and stepped down as soon as Picard was de-Borgged. On Picard's succession boxes I would exclude Riker (but I would include Edward Jellico, but that's debatable). Anyways, It is quite easy to "work around" temporary assignments by combining all of the positions into one, for example, Benjamin Sisko:

Preceded by: Gul Dukat Gul Dukat	Commanding Officer of Deep Space 9 2369-2373 2374-2375	Succeeded by: Gul Dukat Colonel Kira Nerys
Preceded by: None Akorem Laan	Emissary of the Prophets 2369-2372 2372-2375	Succeeded by: Akorem Laan None
Preceded by: None Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax	*Commanding Officer of the USS Defiant* (NX-74205)** 2371-2374 2374-2375	Succeeded by: Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax None

That's just an example, I still think it would look okay without combination. We should deal with those on an individual level anyway. I created the "Enterprise captains" template, and if these were accepted, I would have nominated that template for deletion.--Tim Thomason 06:11, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

One thing I don't see addressed yet is the fact that a navigation table like this just doesn't make as much sense here as on Wikipedia. There, one might start of the first person having that title/position/... and then use the template to navigate through all of them. Often, there are dozens of articles linked that way (for example, US presidents starting with Wikipedia:George Washington). Because of the fictional nature of this project, a navigation help like this isn't as useful here. Besides, this information is most often already listed on the article about the position itself. -- Cid Highwind 14:57, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I'll spare you any more "examples." First of all, on Wikipedia they often link to articles in the middle that contains a list page. In fact the George Washington page contains a list of Presidents just under the succession box for President. I still think this would be quite useful here on Memory Alpha. I've also seen succession boxes used nicely on other similar articles in similar fictional franchise projects.

For example, if you were to look through all of the pages on the Chief Engineers of the USS Enterprise-D, what page would you go to? We could create a page entitled "Chief Engineers of the USS Enterprise-D." We could also create a template and place it on Sarah MacDougal's, Argyle's, Logan's, and La Forge's pages. Even though it is noted on all four of their pages, I'm sure there's a position (perhaps Flight controller) where this template will help create new links.

The point is that I find them to be quite useful, snappy, and a good addition to an articles page. However, since I'm the only one, I guess it could just wait till after a couple months this is archived, and then in a few years, after I become some corporate shill or something somewhere, some teenage/twenty-something will find this in one of the archives, or accidentally post the same idea. Then it might be accepted, filled up most places, and then within a week to a few years, someone else will decide it was a bad idea, harkening Cid's motif, and then delete it again, only to have it pop up once more a few years later (assuming we survive 2012).--Tim Thomason 16:08, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Maybe some form of timeline of functions, on a single page, with respect to who fullfilled them and when ? -- Q 18:59, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

One point I don't like is that this is so ... "dominant". If there is a way to do this simpler (smaller), with less code, I would support it. --Memory 21:57, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Tense: Past or Present?

Okay, I have looked high and low for policies on what tense to use in articles, be it past or present, and have only found a few discussions on the topic which don't really define it as policy. Personally, I thought we were looking at the POV of the 24th century, post-Star Trek: Nemesis, and therefore, all historical articles should be in past tense except for those subjects which are currently still around or active in the 24th century. However, Q has been changing several articles (United Federation of Planets, Andorian, Tholian) to past tense. Is this right? What, exactly, is MA's policy on this? And if there isn't one, could we perhaps create one? --From Andoria with Love 11:37, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I like what Michael Warren suggested in an archived Ten Forward discussion:

The perspective of Memory Alpha is that of the late 24th century - ie, several years past Star Trek: Nemesis, so that all events that have happened in the regular Trek timeline have already happened. ... The only exception to the past tense rule should be things that aren't a time-specific reference, ie, saying "Phasers are directed-energy weapons..." or "Archer IV is a planet...", and similar.

That's what I thought we were doing all along. Am I right here? --From Andoria with Love 11:46, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Consensus the last times we discussed this topic seemed to be to use past tense throughout exactly because the in-universe part of the encyclopedia is written from an in-universe POV (meaning that everything has to have happened already). In my opinion, to createe a consistent style, this should include everything and not be restricted to events having happened before some arbitrary date in the late 24th century. I suggest to use past tense for all in-universe articles and whatever tense seems appropriate for meta articles. -- Cid Highwind 11:51, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I personally use the following. All articles should be in past tense except the episode summaries who also might be in present tense. (some argued because they are running episodes and therefore did not needed to be past tense, which is fine by me) This means, to me atleast, that the reader is looking back from a far away future back to the StarTrek universe and is reading about the history of it. Because of the lack of a 'real tense policy' I use this as reference on which I base my edits. (hence why I changed the tense on the above mentioned articles) So as far as I am concerned "Archer IV is a planet..." should be "Archer IV was a planet...", because who says that in the years after StarTrek, the timeframe of the reader, it didn't explode or existed anymore ? The same goes for the phasers. Please correct me if I am wrong. -- Q 13:07, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I'm not saying you're wrong (because I have no idea), but I was under the impression that we were looking at it from the POV of a few years after Nemesis, not far in the future. It would be nice to have some clarification on this, which is why I believe a tense policy should be enacted... once we find out what the policy will be, of course. :-P --From Andoria with Love 13:20, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

The usage of tense within MA always confused me, partially because of the lack of a good tense description, and still does, so I adapt as I go along. I didn't even known about the 'few years after Nemssis POV, go figure. I will refrain from changing tense in articles for the time being and see what this discussion brings -- Q 13:34, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

A few years after Nemisis is what I was working from, I was wondering why the species articles were being made past tense. Jaf 15:10, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)Jaf

I think "a few years after Nemesis" is a good rule of thumb, but shouldn't be made official policy. What if there's some future series or movie set after Nemesis - do we rewrite all articles that now use present tense? What about events that "we" know of because of time travel? Do we use future tense in those cases? I think the most logical approach would be to use "far future" as our POV, which means past tense for all in-universe articles. Of course, articles about "timeless" things (for example, theories&principles) could be written in present tense, althought I don't know if that wouldn't make it confusing for readers? -- Cid Highwind 15:39, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

After some searching I found this, Memory Alpha:Point of view. I must admit it this not clarify the tense to use, atleast not to me. -- Q 15:49, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

The idea of making everything past tense is appealing to me, for the sake of simplicity. However, the "a few years after Nemesis" idea seems prevelant, as in William Riker and others that speak in the present tense when introducing the topic. Cid's point is a good one, and I agree that "far future" is the best policy to avoid inconsistencies. Q is also right about episode summaries, all of which are in present tense from what I've seen. --Broik 17:44, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

My take, FWIW: All events should be described in past tense, from the vantage point of some arbitrary amount of time after the event itself. Future events should be described in past tense too, from the vantage point of an arbitrary amount of time after the knowledge of the future events was gained in the past (e.g., "in this future timeline, Janeway had become an admiral".)

All people should be described in past tense, even those who might be expected to live way past our arbitrary amount of time (e.g., Q, the Metron, or the Prophets).

All objects should be in past tense, but classes of objects should be described in present tense, because the class still exists even if no instances of it still exist. E.g., "Starships are" but "the U.S.S. Enterprise was".

Locations, including planets and cities, should always be described in present tense, because there's an expectation of permanence there, and it's a little jarring to hear "Earth was..." The exception of course is for those places that are known to no longer exist. E.g. "Vulcan is" but "the Genesis planet was".

Political entities should always be in past tense, e.g. "the UFP was" and "the USA was", because these are more in the realm of people, where there's no expectation of permanence, than in the realm of locations, though it will be fuzzy at the edges.

Episode summaries are ok in present tense, as these are a special type of article and it seems to work just fine.

Have at it. --9er 18:10, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I agree to adding a determined time-POV to Memory Alpha:Point of view, but maybe 2380 might be better than far future because writing about all the main characters (of this time) as if they are dead sounds a bit... strange. --Memory 22:22, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Memory, I believe the idea is to have all articles written from a POV an arbitrary number of years after the events took place, no matter when they took place, and not to name a single year and have all articles written from that POV. Doing it the second way, ENT articles would read like ancient history, while VOY eps would read like recent news.

Also, I hadn't noticed that some character articles were written in the present tense. I took a look and the TNG characters seem to be in present tense, but most DS9 character articles are in past tense. I think the TNG character articles are in the wrong POV. --9er 23:04, 18 Dec 2005 (UTC)

As a casual user of MA, let me add that I think this is the most significant problem with the entire project. Comparing MA to other comperable projects, the clear lack of consistency in POV exposes this reference to be, frankly, a work of amateurs. And debating at which year to set the POV will only exacerbate the problem. What will MA do when another Star Trek incarnation moves the timeline past whatever arbitrary year we set the POV? And setting up extremely complex rules like "planets are always in present tense" will only lead to inconsistency and continued confusion. The only way to solve this problem is to redefine the entire philosophy. Then, this new philosophy on POV should be written into the introduction, the guidelines for posting, and everywhere else prominent. It seems to me that the new philosophy should be this. All articles should be written in the past tense. All of them. Picard was not is the Captain of the Enterprise-E. Earth was not is the location of Starfleet Command. And so on. This POV is one of detached omnipresense, and is the most appropriate for a reference work like MA. Please, take this existential issue more seriously. --68.74.12.137 04:30, 31 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I agree with 9er. We should talk about it as best we know about it, the last time we checked in. I was favoring the post-Nemesis idea, but I like this better. As we learn more about something, it should move up the tense. If we saw the person die (or things regarding their death occured), it should be past tense, like Trip Tucker and Tasha Yar. However, to avoid everything in Enterprise and TOS sounding like ancient history, they should refer to the last we know about them. True, we know that T'Pol is long dead in the later series, but her death is never mentioned (AFAIK), so it would work to refer to her as if the ENT finale just occured. Also, with events in the far future, also past tense. For example, Captain Braxton travelled back in time, not he will travel back in time. However, this only works with biographical articles. For historical articles, the post-Nemesis thing works best. We need to retain one viewpoint for an entire article. For example, if we were describing Earth's history, we wouldn't want to talk about different people from different times like they lived together. Episode summaries are fine in present tense, like a running description. To sum this whole thing up, as Braxton said in "Relativity," "I gave up trying to keep my tenses straight years ago." -Platypus Man | Talk 05:19, 31 Dec 2005 (UTC)

How will that help either? It doesn't work for biographical references because some characters span more than one series, thus bringing up more confusion over the POV. Are we supposed to refer to Spock in present tense in Unification and past-tense for Amok Time? Imagine having to change the tense of an article every time a new episode or movie came out... Now that I think about it, I just find it professionally unsound to use different tenses for different situations, because not all people will be aware of certain guidelines, causing mass confusion, edits, and reverts with the original editor wondering why people keep changing his tense when he thinks it's a few years after Nemesis. Also, if we go by that Nemesis idea, then we have to refer to events in the future as future tense... i.e. the Enterprise-J, Tox Uthat, etc. I say we just write up a convention that dictates past-tense only. --Madame Arsenic 22:09, 4 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying that we change from present to past; it would stay in the past tense, but from when will we be looking will change. In your Spock example, for his bio, we would refer to the events of both episodes in the past tense, but "Unification" would feel more recent than "Amok Time." For Uhura, however, we would use the past tense from the last we saw or heard of her (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, as best I know) so that her life wouldn't seem ancient. We wouldn't write her history as if she died centuries ago, but like if Undiscovered Country just happened. -Platypus Man | Talk 02:51, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've read all your comments on this and gave it a try to put in words. I made a temp page of it which you can find here, Memory Alpha:Point of view/temp. I myself feel this change needs voting to make it 'official'. Please comment on the article tense. -- Q 20:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hm, ok, let's take it. --Memory 21:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

technical problem

It seems Ripway.com has gotten a bad spamming reputation lately. Although I've used their hosting service for awhile without any problems, Wikipedia, Uncyclopedia, and now Memory-Alpha have it listed in the anti-spamming blocker. I cannot edit my User page. I just got a message that Ripway is the reason. Is there a way to keep their services or does anyone suggest a good free hosting site? I'm using Rapidshare.com for bigger files, but it has the annoying habit of redirecting users to their site to hear MP3s or see videos. I'd rather not use it for some files. Suggestions?--Mike Nobody ^=/\= 01:21, 20 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Move protections?

Okay, this is just a suggestion... I'm not saying this should happen, I'm just laying it out there for ya'll to discuss. As you may know, we've had trouble with vandals moving pages to inappropriate names (such as our "Yada yada yada On Wheels!" vandal). However, I was looking at the protect stub for one of these pages, and I noticed we have the capability to protect pages from being moved while still permitting them to be edited. So, here's what I propose: we protect all the main character, series, movie, and episode articles from being moved. Think about it: what would they need to be moved to? Jean-Luc Picard will always be Jean-Luc Picard; Star Trek: Voyager will always be Star Trek: Voyager. So why not prevent those pages from being moved, and then us having to move them back when they are moved? This makes sense, doesn't it? Again, it's just a suggestion... --From Andoria with Love 18:08, 21 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I would support this move if the situation became so bad that it was absolutely necessary, but I'd really rather not. It's not that it would look bad (99% of people wouldn't notice once it was in place) or that it's illogical (it makes perfect sense), but much like the Wikicities policy that people should ideally leave their front page unprotected unless vandalism becomes too bad, I think it's the idea. We shouldn't need to do this, and I don't think we will since it only appears to be one person. If we encourage them by doing this, they'll look for something more creatively destructive. So we should do this only as a last resort. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 21:20, 21 Dec 2005 (UTC)

This will be an adequate precaution. Although, to "protect" about 100 articles of 15K (still counting) won't help much for real vandalism. I'm looking forward to MediaWiki 1.5-software upgrade. There will be a log for movements plus the ability for sysops to revert these changes quite fast. — Florian - ✍ talk 15:25, 22 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Rumors...

I received an email from a fan i correspond with, he said that Paramount Digital Entertainment is becoming a casualty of the Viacom-CBS split and http://www.startrek.com could close down, possibly as early as the 31st.

Anyone wishing to cache it or check facts from there should take note.

Also, someone I talked to raised questions as to the continuation of the Star Trek franchise -- the novels and games continue even though hollywood production shut down, but somebody said they weren't sure whether theyd be reporting to Viacom or CBS for re-acquirung the rights. Dows anyone know anything about this? I'm not sure whether to take it with a grain of salt -- or is Star Trek XI defunct or to be at a new studio? -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

I had heard about the possibility of StarTrek.com closing down from TrekToday back in early December (you can find the article here), but I didn't think much of it since all they have to do is find another company to buy and run the site. I'm certain they'll find someone interested in the official Star Trek web site.

As for the other thing, I've heard this and that about Trek's future on film and television being up in the air with all the changes and splits. I'll have to look more into it, though. --From Andoria with Love 15:57, 23 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I can tell you now, with the eleventh film's writer having already moved on to other things with the film supposedly still in early development, things certainly don't look good. You can find more info on this and the Viacom-CBS split here. However, I think Trek will return in some form or fashion... we just don't know who will produce it. --From Andoria with Love 16:02, 23 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Star Trek reference books

A quick question: should we use info frm Star Trek reference books (Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, Star Trek: Star Charts, etc...) be used to elaborate more on certain things such as Antimattter Injector for example, and other things, like sectors? Tholian2000 15:58, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Only if the subject was referenced in canon, otherwise the information does not receive an own article, but may be mentioned in on the source's page, as it is done on Spock's World for example. -- Kobi - (Talk) 18:56, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Formatting non-canon separately from canon should follow this example:

The antimatter injector was used aboard Deep Space Nine. (DS9: "Duet")

The antimatter injector's inner workings were depicted in the Star Fleet Technical Manual, where it was mentioned to have an output in 3.7 gigacochranes.

This way the canon data is kept before the episode citation, and all of the rest is italicized and indented. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

Or in the case of extemely or distractingly large chunks of (italic) text we add it to a "Background" subsection. --Alan del Beccio 11:51, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Database erasure prevention

I read in the Wikipedia article on Memory Alpha (here) that:

"Operations [at Memory Alpha] continued smoothly until March 23 [2004], when the site's database was accidentally erased during an upgrade of the MediaWiki software. The only backup available was six weeks out of date; nonetheless, the project moved forward undaunted."

Do we have proper measures in place to prevent this from happening again? --From Andoria with Love 02:20, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Well back then, I gather, Memory Alpha was a separate site just using MediaWiki software. Currently, the site is operated by/with Wikia and Wikicities, and has the support of Wikimedia technicians, so the chances of erasure are extremely lower than they were a year and a half ago.--Tim Thomason 02:37, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Whew! Okay, that's good to hear. Thanks. :) --From Andoria with Love 03:15, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I started a similar discussion at our forum, but there was not much response to it. I found out that the database (only written content, not the pictures) is available for download via the link on my userpage (or here). I started to download the dumps four month ago, repeating it every month. At the moment I'm writing this, the 12/05 backup is downloading to my HD, for all language editions. I might be the only one who is doing this. As far as I know, the daily backups of wikicities are stored at the same serverfarm (Seattle?), on a backup server. So if the place is erased by a hurricane (or Klingons?), there will be left our backups only. --Memory 20:08, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)

As a reseller for VERITAS/Symantec Backup Exec I would love to sell them some Backup Exec licenses ;-) --Funkdubious 21:21, 31 Dec 2005 (UTC)

About Babel categories

Several "Babel categories" have been suggested for deletion on MA:Vfd, and I agree with that suggestion. Related, I'd like to propose moving the remaining categories (however the vote turns out) to a more verbose title - instead of "User XX" or "User XX-n", I'd like to see those categories following our informal naming convention for maintenance categories: "Memory Alpha users speaking XX" or something similar. -- Cid Highwind 23:01, 1 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Like I said on the Vfd page, I'd have initiated a discussion here, but I wanted to get the deletions out of the way since any conversation here would end in either "Let's delete the categories" or "Let's keep the categories." You're right about the naming as well, perhaps "Memory Alpha speakers of English", "Memory Alpha speakers of German", etc would work best. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 23:07, 1 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I'm not experienced with Wiki-formatting tables, perhaps someone else can edit Memory Alpha:Babel's tables to remove the superfluous categories without making it look disorganized. I tried and it always looked wrong somehow. I've removed the superfluous category listings from the English tags at any rate. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 21:13, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Non Canon vs. Semi Cannon vs. Apocrypha

Do we distinguish between Apocryphal material (disproved by onscreen evidence) and Non-Canon material (unsupported by on-screen evidence)? For example fans called the Reliant 'Avenger Class' = Apocrypha. Various computer games gave names and registery numbers to ships of this class = non-canon.

Furthermore, what do we with background material that was written and utilized by the production team, but not see on film? Here I'm thinking of the background alien descriptions in ST:TMP and ST:IV.

As far as I know, apocrpyha and non-canon sources are one as the same. As for background info, that can be added to the article, but it mst be seperated from the rest of the text, indented, and italicized. For large amounts of background info, a "Background" section in the article will be necessary. I hope this helps.

In the meantime, I think this question would be better suited for Ten Forward, as the reference desk is for questions pertaining to incidents within the Trek universe. Hope this helps, too. :) --From Andoria with Love 07:28, 4 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Yes the term "apocrypha", by the dictionary definition, means "anything not in canon." However, there is a divide in apocrypha, into two types:

licensed works - this means a work licensed by Paramount to use the Star Trek name -- ideally, i feel only licensed comics, novels, collectibles and games should be put into the articles those words link to.
unlicensed works - this refers to fan fiction, fan films, fan publishing, etc.. -- these books are unlicensed and unauthorized. Many will say so, such as a critical review or fanzine. Some have been sued or at least stopped production because Paramount forbids companies or persons from earning profit of the copyright to the name and marks of Star Trek. This is an area MA is just starting to examine.

I think its an important distinction to make. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

de-stubbing articles

There seems to be continuing confusion over what constitutes a stub, and what is a pna. In fact, in our zeal to get rid of our "massive stub count", archivists are just going through and removing the stub message from dozens of incomplete articles at a time -- sometimes without adding new content or a "pna" message -- the stub message was added to show that someone thought the article still needed work, in a lot of cases this seems true.

Even if an article subject was only mentioned once, in passing, in a single episode -- there is still the matter of describing the context the article subject appeared or was mentioned in: who mentioned it, what were they talking about, where was this thing? -- these are all missing factors in many article which people have been removing the attention messages from

I thought the stub message was there to gather attention for articles that could use this information added, I'd support either leaving the stub messages in the article, or replacing them with "pna-incomplete"s. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk

Can you provide an example of such articles? I've been going through some of the stub articles recently, but I've always attempted to add as much content and context I'm aware of to the page before removing the {{stub}} plate... if there are still things missing, anyone can, of course, add a {{pna}}. Otherwise, I haven't really noticed a large volume of articles being de-stubbed without purpose in the recent changes. -- SmokeDetector47^{| TALK} 17:23, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm talking about changes made in recent weeks, so its probably been nothing i've noticed since the holidays -- I didn't want to enter a discussion previously because i wasn't sure it would be well received, and felt an admin presence might be counterproductive -- I did end up re-stubbing or pna-ing a certain number of articles over the past few months, but now that there is increased interest due to the stub template on the recent changes header, i thought i'd float this out and see (again) where we should draw the line between stubs and pnaincompletes -- but emphasize that either way i feel articles could and should be marked when they could be expanded.

One article I noticed today is Rectyne monopod -- an archivist asked why the article was marked as a stub, as it contained all of the technical information about the animal that we know -- its weight. However, I feel the context is greatly improved by listing the fact that Chief O'Brien described a situation where monopods were being herded with painstiks. The article is about three times as long now (even if it is still only a paragraph or two), and I feel this is a good situation for leaving an article marked for expansion (that is, when it lacks context of how the subject appeared, acted, or came up in conversation). -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 18:46, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Week

I think a big problem with MA right now is that while we are all willing a make little changes, nobody really wants to do the major work on something like an episode summary, or major event (ie Earth-Romulan War, and Babel Crisis) I think a partial sollution would be to create a Collaboration of Week on the main page. It would be the main focus, and after a week is replace with another major page needing attention. Jaz 02:25, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I think this idea was already brought forth within the past month or two with the name Refit of the Week. The idea had some support at first, but it eventually was dropped. I personally supported the idea and would still support it if the idea came up again. - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 02:28, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I also supported the idea and was disappointed when it was deleted due to lack of interest. Like the duty roster and peer review ideas, it had a lot of steam at first but simmered down and came to a near-halt. The difference is that with the Refit of the Week you (obviously) have to change it weekly and thus need the entire community to back the idea because it can't sustain itself without constant attention. There are various arguments in favor of or in opposition to the idea, but ultimately I think that was why the RotW died.

However, in defense of current efforts, the duty roster is there for people who want to take on the somewhat tedious task of summaries and I think there are a lot of major events that have been featured. Also James T. Kirk has made a huge amount of progress these past few days, even if only because of one person. :) --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 02:56, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I just feel like we have these huge articles on tiny topics that are easy to right about (which isn't a problem), while things like Starfleet are left incomplete. We need to work on them as a collective, and we need to put it on the main page. I'd like it if we could reach some sort of consensus on this over the next few days, and hopefully, for the admin to add it to the main page. Jaz 05:42, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Since there doesn't seem to be any opposition to this, I'd like to formally request that the admin add a collaboration or refit of the week to the main page, as well as a talk page to discuss future refits (I would but it is a protected page). Thanks a lot :) Jaz 06:20, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's a whole discussion about the old&failed "Refit of the Week" in the Ten Forward Archive, including its Vfd consensus to delete the page. The "technical" question of simply recreating a page that had deletion consensus aside, I myself don't want to simply repeat an old mistake (let's make new ones...;) ), so perhaps we should find out first why that page failed and how/if we can avoid that the next time. -- Cid Highwind 12:06, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

In addition to the above, I just want to reiterate and explain some of my concerns with the old refit page.

Overlap with PNA lists and peer review:We have the various PNA messages (in this case especially pna-incomplete) and related lists to both mark articles and find them for further editing. We also have the peer review page to further enhance articles. I think that another page to find and enhance pages that need work will not miraculously solve all problems that the existing pages don't manage to solve. Starfleet, for example, is marked as incomplete since March 2005, but has no discussion regarding this status on its talk page. Instead of creating another discussion page, wait for that article to become selected, then wait again for others to participate, one could simply add to the article what he/she knows, then start a discussion on Talk:Starfleet to invite others to add known facts, and in a last step, create a peer review for it.
Complex voting procedure:The procedure described on the now deleted page was to nominate articles you think need work, then let others vote on articles they think should be made the "Refit of the Week", then choose the one with the most votes to become the new "Refit". Why does it have to be so complicated? I'm either interested&able to contribute to an article (in that case I could just do it instead of voting to do it later), or I'm not (in which case I probably won't even vote). Leaving that voting procedure aside, we'd either end up with a page where people add articles they think need work by someone else (that's exactly the function of pna-incomplete), or with a page where people promise to work on an article if others at least give hints about what to do (that's approximately the function of peer review).

-- Cid Highwind 15:09, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I actually haven't read most of the comments on here yet, but as the person who created the refit page (it was under discussion, as can be seen on the archive page, and I took the liberty of creating the page when someone linked to it) and was a big proponent, I think it's best to let sleeping dogs lie and not be bold in (re-)creating anything similar. Weyoun 21:27, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

(Whoops, a misunderstanding) - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 22:57, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Non-canon performers and staff

There is currently a discussion over at Vfd as to whether or not people who worked on non-canon Star Trek products should be given their own articles. The example here is Courtney Taylor, whose sole Trek credit is voice work in a Star Trek video game. My question is, should those performers and production personnel who only worked on non-canon items such as video games have their own articles? Personally, it seems rediculous to have articles for people who had nothing to do with the canon universe -- but then again, we do have articles for those who write the novels, which are considered non-canon. So what should be done about this: do we leave the Courtney Taylor article alone and thereby allow articles for video game personnel or do we delete it? That's all I have to say about that -- now have at it!!! :-P --From Andoria with Love 11:48, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC)

A difficult question. I think the authors of novels definitely have their place in MA, but so might the producers of non-canon works have. It is difficult to judge wether or not they have submitted enough work to receive an own article. I think of people like Larry Niven: ok not a good example, because TAS is canon, but he is normally involved in other projects than Trek, but provided material for the franchise. OTH I don't expect Warren Holland to have an article here, who was the publisher of Star Trek: Communicator (at least publisher of issue #142), either. -- Kobi - (Talk) 13:14, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Moved from Vfd

Courtney Taylor: Actress whose only credit was a voice-over in a non-canon Star Trek video game. Having articles for those who worked in canon productions is one thing, but I don't think we need to start creating those who worked in non-canon items. At the very least, this should be merged with Star Trek: Starfleet Command III. --From Andoria with Love 01:29, 2 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Delete: I don't even think this info should even be included on the Starfleet Command III page. Memory Alpha is about everything related to canon Star Trek, not everything related to things related to canon Star Trek.--Tim Thomason 06:27, 2 Jan 2006 (UTC)
unsure -- should contributors to non-canon pursuits (writers and editors and illustrators and artists of comics, novels, toys and games) be given credit here? for voiceovers and some types of comic artists i'd at least say some sort of central table could be created (to see which contributors have been in every release, which have recurred or worked for different companies). i think this master list might be a better idea, if other archivists think giving courtney and her peers their own articles. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk
Keep for now. We certainly need to open a dialogue on whether or not real-life people attached to non-canon yet sanctioned Trek projects deserve their own pages. -- SmokeDetector47^{| TALK} 03:01, 3 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Well, we do have pages for authors and illustrators of Trek books, so I don't know. I think we should just delete this, otherwise we may be giving the okay to create pages for others involved in non-canon merchandise (i.e. individual video game engineers and developers). I think that would be going a bit overboard. Just giving them credit on the game's article should be enough. --From Andoria with Love 04:39, 4 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Delete. Too many degrees of seperation. If she had worked on an episode of movie, keep it, but this seems so obscure. Jaz 08:52, 6 Jan 2006 (UTC)
- A discussion as to whether to keep or delete this article and others like it is currently being held over at Ten Forward. --From Andoria with Love 11:51, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Image description texts

When uploading a new image under an old filename, especially if the new image has different content, please check the description texts on the pages that already use this image. For example, an image on Weytahn was described as showing "two ships in orbit", although the image actually showing this was replaced with an image of just the planet some time ago. Thanks. Should this be added to our Memory Alpha:Image use policy? -- Cid Highwind 13:00, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Advertising Banner

I've just come to the stage of sorting out my links page on the RPG I'm working on. I've started putting banner graphics up for a lot of the sites, but Memory Alpha doesn't have one. Does anyone fancy chucking together a suitable graphic that people can use to link back here? It looks better than just having it done with text. --Jace 17:56, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)- Jace

There's a variety of banners on Memory Alpha:Spread the Word. Thanks for linking to MA. :) -- Cid Highwind 18:05, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Scripts

Moved from Memory Alpha:Category suggestions.

Since I own the shooting scripts for Season One of Star Trek (plus "Kitumba" from Star Trek: Phase II), and since some of these contain scenes that were deleted/edited, I would be willing to put some time into noting these differences. I'm still shaky on my coding and so forth, and might need a good editor to go behind me to clean things up.

Damn, put this in the wrong place! Sorry. - Sir Rhosis 21:55, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea and would definitely support it, but I moved this here because I'm not sure where we'd put it exactly. We had an issue with "Memory Alpha LCARS" or something similar where a user was essentially posting unformatted scripts onto MA which in addition to being a copyvio had in the text something along the lines of "these are not for distribution". Basically, I think it's a great idea so long as we're not posting entire scripts and whatnot onto MA. --Broik 22:04, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. No, I'd NEVER post full scripts, just small excerpts of deleted scenes which would fall under fair use in the body of a review (or so I think)--98% of the text would be critiques, opinions, etc. It would be easy to do, I'd simply copy and paste my own script critiques that I have done elsewhere, then wikify them. - Sir Rhosis 22:10, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I'd be very interested in this and once a name is agreed upon this could go under other topics since it fits the bill with other pages listed there. Only one word of caution, make sure you keep the critiquing to an NPOV. :-) Trekkers are like Bajorans in terms of opinions, everyone has one and everyone is more than willing to share it (especially if you disagree). Weyoun 22:17, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I agree, I would delete the personal opinions from my originals and present them as de facto changes/differences between what was written and what aired. People over at the TrekBBS have urged me to create my own site dealing with the scripts, but I'm still new to PCS, having used a simple webtv unit until this past year. - Sir Rhosis 22:21, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC)

As an encyclopedia, we generally don't do "critiques, opinions", but a description of deleted scenes or major last-minute changes sounds intriguing. I think this might be a good addition to the "Background information" section of the episode articles. Perhaps you can just add such information to one of the episode pages and we'll find the best way to keep that information there together? -- Cid Highwind 15:40, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, as long as no admins have a problem with it. If I hear no objections, I'll give one a shot in a few days and see how it goes over. - Sir Rhosis 23:13, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced merge suggestions

In the past few weeks, several deletion suggestions appeared on MA:Vfd that were actually misplaced. The most recent one, for example, was Vaadwaur history and it was suggested even in the initial entry that this page should not be deleted, but merged with another page. Merge suggestions, however, do not belong on a page for deletions because, if done correctly, the resulting redirect is kept and the only necessary deletion is a temporary one to do the history merge - and that temporary deletion doesn't need to have consensus. This isn't the fault of the contributors who suggested these merges, of course - it's a fault of MA because we don't have a formal way to suggest page merges yet.

With that in mind, I created a template {{merge with}}, similar to those used on Wikipedia (just simpler, I don't think we need the overhead of 5 or six different templates at the moment). It is used with the name of the target page as a variable and looks like:

Notice

It has been suggested that this article should be merged with TARGET PAGE.
You can discuss this suggestion on the talk page.

All we need in addition to that is a guideline - I will put a suggestion on Memory Alpha:Merge. I think we can keep this simple for the moment and see if it works, then make it more formal later in case it doesn't work. -- Cid Highwind 14:14, 10 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Server trouble

Memory Alpha seems to be having technical difficulties since its server went down a few days ago. Among the problems I have encountered are:

Longer loading time
Loading errors (inability to load pages, necessitating need to go back and re-do)
Constantly being taken to the "show preview" page despite selecting "save page"

Does anybody else have these (or other) problems, or is it just me? My computer's had a little trouble today, so I don't know for show. If it is a server problem, hopefully someone can fix it soon. --From Andoria with Love 05:07, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I've been having these for the past few days. Also, a lot of times IE tells me that a page is "Done, with errors" and has the yellow exclamation point instead of the blue logo. Anyone know the problem?Jaz 05:23, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad I'm not alone, at least. It would have had to question my virus/spyware detector's capabilities and dug deeper to find the problem. I use Mozilla Firefox when viewing MA, so I don't know about the "done, with errors" message. (I am checking it now, and so far I haven't had that problem.) Evidently, some bug entered the system that was either the cause or a result of the server crash a few days ago. I think it needs to be brought to someone's attention. The next time anybody has an error message while attempting to load a page, there should be an e-mail address on it telling you who to contact (some guy whose name starts with a "J", I think.) Contact that guy, and let him know the problem (although they probably already know). --From Andoria with Love 05:43, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

...Has anyone taken a look at the wanted pages page lately? Seems a little... empty. --From Andoria with Love 06:28, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

We also lost the notice at the bottom about how many times pages have been accessed. And I think your guys' problem is that you're using IE in the first place... :) No, actually I don't know what's going on, but I've noticed the stuff you're talking about, except for the "done with errors" part, which I haven't seen anything of in Firefox or Opera. So who knows, maybe part of the problem really is that you're using IE. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 09:06, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Yesterday MA don't let me log in. *grr* --Memory 12:34, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Reports about server issues can generally be found on the following page. There were issues, but those seem to be mostly fixed now: http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikicities_Status -- Cid Highwind 15:37, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Additionally. I just was told that some of the more resource-intensive pages were disabled for the moment to increase general performance. This includes some of the pages in "Special:" namespace like the "wanted pages" page. This will eventually be fixed. -- Cid Highwind 15:49, 11 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, the special pages have been fixed (not the visitor counts on the bottom though).--Tim Thomason 12:43, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but the visitor counts are not accurate. To speed up access to your wiki, we use squid caching, which means unregistered users see a cached page, which doesn't update the count. Angela (talk) 21:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Performer's credit

Before I go and edit the articles, I need to know -- does a performer's name get placed in the text of a main character's article if the actor's name is already in a table? An argument has recently risen on my talk page concerning referencing a performer in parentheses when their name is already place on the table. The thing is, the table is only supposed to supplement the text, not replace it. This is proven by the fact that all other bits of info in the table -- date/place of birth and relatives -- are also placed inside the article. Currently, there are some main character articles (James T. Kirk, Benjamin Sisko) that have the name only in the table, and some (Hoshi Sato, Travis Mayweather) that have it in both the table and the article. Anyways, I need to know which is correct/preferred before I go and add names to the articles. --From Andoria with Love 03:25, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Both, I'd say. As you stated, the table should be an additional summary of the most important information, not a replacement. -- Cid Highwind 09:28, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that we need both if the page is relatively short and has a sidebar. --Memory 22:57, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I don't think size of the article matters much; in fact, short article probably don't really need a sidebar at all, since those types of articles generally don't have a lot of info on them anyway. Anyways, I agree with Cid, but I would still like input from a few more archivists before editing the articles. --From Andoria with Love 03:52, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Ok, "short" means something like Tuvix, which is short compared to William T. Riker. --Memory 20:45, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Year pages

I'd like to hear some opinions on adding non-canon info on year pages, because some was recently removed but I can't see a problem with having it. If we have an apocrypha section on the year pages, just like we do everywhere else, it will give at least two benefits IMHO:

We get to see some of the interesting events, character development, etc that happened in the better novels
We will better appreciate the canon firewall when we read some of the more ridiculous ideas (like the Q Continuum being assimilated).

Figured I'd bring it up here in case anyone has something against this idea. And no, I don't want to go adding an Apocrypha section to every year page and add "No events yet" the way blank year pages have. This is just for future reference and so archivists know what's appropriate and what's not. So long as it's appropriately labeled apocrypha, it couldn't hurt, right? --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 04:13, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

BOO!!! Get off the bloody stage!!!! Oh, sorry... :-P Seriously, though, I don't really have a problem with apocrypha sections on year pages, unless there's some policy against it that I haven't heard of yet. Support --From Andoria with Love 04:23, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Its completely against our policy and mandate. Many of us don't even read any non-canon material. I myself have never read a trek-book (and I'm a quite avid reader) or played any star trek video games. I suggest you try the non-canon star trek wiki...Jaz 04:36, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

You just proved my point, so thanks. A lot of people, myself included, don't read the novels and therefore don't know what happens. That's why it would be helpful to include this information. What policy is it against? We have apocrypha on character, event, location, etc pages... I'm surprised you haven't lobbied to remove all the character info from the novel pages if you feel that strongly about it. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 05:06, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I , too, think that this should be avoided. First, I don't know if the apocrypha sections are really "allowed" or if they are just "tolerated". Even then, we generally still make it a point to keep non-canon info only if there's a canon article to surround it (keep the info in one place). Second, I see the year pages not as standard articles, but rather some sort of extended navigation. We add short descriptions of events there that link to longer explanations on the article pages. In the case of information from novels etc., wouldn't it be better to have something like "The novel Title of novel takes place in this year.", or even a section listing all novels just like we have "Episodes" sections instead of describing events separately that could only link to the same source anyway? -- Cid Highwind 09:52, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that's exactly what happened to spark the conversation; someone added on 2379 that the events of Borg Invasion 3D (Star Trek: The Experience) take place. Listing novels would work and make a lot of sense (perhaps a short sentence or two describing the book, but that's not necessary I guess). --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 09:57, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I just had a look at the relevant revision of that article. I think that, as long as we have an article about that non-canon resource (which means, it has to be an official product, not some fan fiction or film), we should link to that resource from the year page(s) in which the described/depicted events take place. It just should not be placed in the "events" list, but in another section, like the "episodes". Someone remind me, what exactly is the purpose of the "Notes" section again? Wouldn't these references fit there quite nicely? BTW, I also think that an "episode" listing should be below the events, not above it. -- Cid Highwind 11:26, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Agree about moving the canon "events" above the meta (outside POV) "episodes" list.

About apocrypha, its good to know that my work here is... tolerated :P thanks a lot for the gushing praise. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 19:59, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Awards

There has apparently been some discourse on whether or not "administratorship" is being given out as prizes to worthy users. Without getting too much involved in that discussion, perhaps our lack of any "award"-giving, community-involved procedure is to blame. I think we should open up a discussion on some kind of "archivist of the month" or even some kind of Star Trekky barnstars system (I know that's been tried before, but I don't think it's been proposed). I'm open up to any suggestions, and believe this might help limit the admin nominations (we just had one like last week, but, oh... wait...) and also might help make the often stated to be "close-knit" community bigger. Any opinion, suggestion, insult, or whatever is welcome and appreciated.--Tim Thomason 23:53, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like an interesting idea, Broik tried something like that out with a "Barnstar of Persistence" with a picture of Janeway talking to a tiny version of The Doctor, the award being for "takig care of all the little things the rest of us take for granted". And the picture was from the episode "Persistence of Vision" too, so I have to take credit for the irony since it way my idea. :P --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 05:00, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Nice idea, but how to organize? A "simple" Barnstar that everyone can award anyone? Something more official (an user project?) with nominations and voting? --Memory 13:59, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

The original example can be found at User talk:Bgtribble. I am of the same mind as Memory on this one. Makon 14:27, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Pentarus I, II, III, and IV

We currently have pages (albiet stubs) for Pentarus I, Pentarus II, Pentarus III, and Pentarus IV. I don't believe any have ever been mentioned, but they are all inferred from Pentarus V, which was. Do they need their own pages? Jaz 06:14, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

We typically don't link to (or create articles of) planets that haven't been mentioned directly but could be inferred. Of course, if there's a fifth planet in a system, planets 1-4 are a valid assumption - but if there's nothing to say about them, why have an article. Generally I'd say, unlink planets 1-4 and change them to redirects to the system page - hopefully without this becoming another case for someone to go around and create eleven redirects for every twelfth planet ever mentioned... But before doing so, check the scripts - some of those planets might actually have been mentioned. -- Cid Highwind 11:10, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

The remainder of the episode takes place on Lambda Paz, a moon of Pentarus III, and Pentarus II is mentioned as, along with Pentarus V, being one of two class M planets in the Pentarus system. So the articles on Pentarus I and Pentarus IV seem unnecessary, unless they appeared in the episode in some manner (background art/computer graphic/etc..) not revealed in the two seconds of text-only research i just performed.

I used google to find the script :) -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 14:14, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

...hopefully without this becoming another case for someone to go around and create eleven redirects for every twelfth planet ever mentioned...

...And apparently, exactly this just happened with Pollux I, II and III. Does anyone have further sources for these? Otherwise, they should be handled as decribed above. -- Cid Highwind 22:54, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Memory Alpha Wikimedia Commons

Is there a "Wikimedia Commons" repository on Memory Alpha as per Wikipedia.org? => http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Instead of uploading the same image on other language page, you could save bandwith and storage space by this method. Im french and looking forward to this implementation of your server... My 2 cents. Conruyt 17:27, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

The issue was raised before, and I was (or at least would have been) a strong proponent, but the Wikicities people informed us it's currently not possible. If we were an independent organization like Wikimedia, I suppose we could (assuming someone knows how) configure something like this, but we're hosted on Wikicities (for free) and have to work within the limitations of what's possible there. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 17:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. So, we are going to upload "x number of" images. Multiply this number by "each languages hosted on this server" if people is looking forward having the same look & feel than the english pages. I find this ridiculous!. I'm sorry to say so. Conruyt 19:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

No need to apologize - I feel the same way, but unless you have a location where Memory Alpha could be hosted in such a way as to allow for a commons, I'm afraid things will stay the way they are. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 19:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Please don't think things need to stay the way they are. Wikia is hoping to soon find funding for development related tasks like creating a new Commons for Memory Alpha, so what wasn't possible in the past, can certainly be considered for the future. I've added this to bug:221 so it doesn't get forgotten about. Angela (talk) 21:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

~~What about another feature for MA? => a "Printer Friendly" button/link on each page (with copyrights bottom lines of course)? Angela, thx to add a bug in bugzilla.~~ yup, seems that when I print, it is ok. Sorry. Conruyt 10:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Great to know the high-and-mighty are still keeping an eye on us little people. :) Wikicities is great, and I really don't think we ever will move so long as the company is around. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 06:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.5 Comments

Discussion

OK, so we were upgraded to MediaWiki 1.5. I wanted to make a few comments, and I thought this to be the best place. Not that this will probably change anything, but I wanted to talk about it.

Broken links are a darker shade of red. Don't like it.
The search is has the Wikicities logo on it. I know it's not really any different, but I like the old one without a logo better.
The Google search has got to go. What's the point? Also, it looks bad with the dark background.
~~The red exclamation points on the recent changes page. What's up with that?~~ Nevermind, they're gone now.
A few technical problems, like an odd looking list on (at least my) watchlist and an "[undefined]" link at the bottom of some TOCs, like the one on this page (but technical problems are to be expected an will be fixed).
The dealy on the top of image pages. Is that really needed?
It wont let me keep the space at the beginning of my signature like it used to. Now I have to manually put a space between my text and the ~~~~. (Added 13:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC))

Now you know what I think. Comments? -Platypus Man | Talk 05:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The darker shade for the links don't bother me. And I think the Google search engine is a great, handy thing to have; it makes it easier to search for Trek-related items and possible copyvios without opening another page. However, the outline for the Google logo could be done better.

The red exclamation points are still on the rc page, and are very distracting, although I guess we can live with that.

As for the Wikicities logo, it should either be replaced with an MA logo or removed altogether.

There are several technical problems still to be worked out, specifically with links in the MediaWiki templates. Also, the white background on the Yahoo! ad bar to the right needs to return to its original black color.

And that's all I gotta say 'bout that. --From Andoria with Love 05:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I have different things to address: on my laptop the google ads on the right side are overlapping the text. In the TOCs the header is big and yellow, undefined was already mentioned above. The red exclamation marks are white for me, so I think it is a css thing. Yesterday in fr the navigation was missing, though it seems fixed now. -- Kobi - (Talk) 08:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding those ads, I had to switch to IE to see them because I've had them blocked on Firefox for longer than I've been here. I agree that they would/did look better with a black background. Of course, the best solution is to not see them...-Platypus Man | Talk 13:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I will try to look into some of the CSS issues later today - please still post them and others as you find them. There seems to be an issue with HTML code in messages in the Mediawiki: namespace, for example. No idea if this is a temporary issue or if we'll have to find ways to use Wikicode only there. The Google search can be useful from time to time, because the internal search sometimes doesn't find what you want it to find. The image used at the moment is ugly, though, that's correct. -- Cid Highwind 14:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Anyone experiencing the "Ads overlapping the right side of the page" bug should hit "ctrl-F5" (or however you force a refresh on your particular browser or OS) to purge the old style from your cache, the ads load fine after this. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 14:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Mike, you saved my computer from an atroce murder (by me). Since the upgrade, I took twice the time to look and edit the pages with this Google overlapping. There is still a problem with images : there are now headers (Image, historic, link) before the image, then there are technical infos about the image ["Ten_Forward_(bar).jpg (43Ko, type MIME: image/jpeg)"] just before the legend, which make image article completely stupid. It is possible that it only occurs with the french preferences of navigation. - Philoust123 14:59, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that the image legend "dealy" has a wikimedia/wikicities style artifact giving it a light background (a lot of "light background" areas have been showing up, these could be corrected on some of our style setting so they look less intrusive). If a consensus exists, possibly alter the color format for some of the other changes (like the darker red links). If these changes are truly possible, i'd suggest not only darkening the light backgrounds, but somehow centering or de-accentuating the MIME type data so it can be more easily discerned from the image description. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 15:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The Google logo currently being used is http://www.google.com/logos/Logo_25wht.gif [3], which is dithered for a white (or light) background. Try replacing it with http://www.google.com/logos/Logo_25blk.gif [4], which is dithered for a black (or dark) background. -- Renegade54 15:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The black background for the Google logo looks a lot better. Can somebody make the changes? Also, to Mike, I support any changes which make the site look better, although I am indiferent to the brightness of the links (at the moment, anyway :P). --From Andoria with Love 16:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Has anybody noticed that instead of an arrow we now have "&larr" when reviewing an article's changes? :P --137.155.51.176 16:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

That's because "&larr" is the HTML code to insert the symbol "→". The new version of the software doesn't support such HTML tags, so any like these would have to be fixed.

:P indeed -- there's no need to stick out your tongue -- although i feel like doing that whenever i have to remind people not to use HTML tags on MA ;). -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 16:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess I'm a bit confused... HTML tags seem to work just fine on the pages. For example, here are the tags for the left and right arrows: ← → They seem to work just fine, as do all the other tags on all the pages. So... why aren't the ones in the MediaWiki space working? (And why are we not supposed to use them here?) -- Renegade54 16:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they work fine -- on some pages, such as the main article space. They do not work across certain types of code variations (for example the site coding contained in the MediaWiki namespace -- they don't work there because those codes are being saved on one page, but displayed by the wiki code on special pages). They probably don't work well when a normal article page is processed or queried by our special pages or search features -- which is exactly why our policy states that in all cases, HTML should not be used when there is a wiki code or another way to insert a character, table or etc., it should be used. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 17:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the diffs issue, there are pages Mediawiki:Previousdiff and Mediawiki:Nextdiff, but the wording used there is different from the one used on diffs. Maybe what we see there is hardcoded somewhere, where the content of those Mediawiki: pages should be used instead? -- Cid Highwind 17:16, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't change anything yet, but had the chance to ask Jason on the wikicities chat about the problem I mentioned above. The "diff" issue seems to be fixed now, so whatever the problem was with the existing Mediawiki: pages not actually being used, it seems to be fixed now. Please check again all pages you had HTML issues with and remove/add them from/to the list below. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 16:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

TOC heading issue. I don't see that here, and already left a note on Kobi's talk page. Does anyone else that? If so, please post here so that I can see if it might have something to do with custom CSS files. -- Cid Highwind 16:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Custom signature issue. I don't know about that, but it might be some sort of new feature instead of a bug. Workaround: Try to start your custom signature with something else; for example, add the double dash typically used to your signature. -- Cid Highwind 16:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Google image. I removed the image temporarily, but in the long run, something else has to be done. I already asked about the possibilities to change these boxes somehow. -- Cid Highwind 23:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the custom signature thing should be an issue really - I can see where it would remove an extra space at the beginning, kind of like leading zeros in a number. Just put the space in. :)

As for Google, Shran was right about it being useful, but 90% of us probably have that box already, whether it's the search box for modern browsers or Google Toolbar for IE. Either way, having that box is really about Wikicities getting money from ads you click when your search originates there.

For some reason the "Search This Wiki" picture is there but not, like I get a box with the text, like it's downloading the image but never gets there. Once we get past all these other issues, we should discuss some cosmetic changes, because I don't know if it's the upgrade or I'm just noticing, but the dark blue color for visited links is really hard on the eyes with our current background (that's probably a discussion for the "layout committee" page though). --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 21:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the dark blue the same as before? I think only the red for dead links changed and is darker now (what I don't like too). Concerning the WC and Google logos: just remove them, they waste space at the left side. Replace them with a small sized font saying "Internal search" and "Google search". --Memory 21:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the first picture is still missing. Problem with the original image was the fact that it was not located somewhere where we could simply upload another one. I made the Wikicities guys aware of that, and the image apparently was removed from there, although the sidebar code still points to it. I guess this is one of the minor issues currently on their list, and will get fixed soon.

Regarding the link color, both should be exactly as before, but I'll look into that again. I guess that really is a case of "just noticing", because dark blue on dark grey always looked a little suspicious to me... ;) I'm also not a big fan of glaring red on dark grey, so we definitely should add link color to our list. -- Cid Highwind 21:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Red link color. You were right, I was wrong... I checked the exact color of our redlinks, and it was one not defined in any of the standard CSS files. Apparently, there's another file since the update that contains nothing but the definition of a slightly darker red for those links: see here. I don't have any idea why this might be useful in any way... but it's there (for the moment). -- Cid Highwind 22:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Addition: It's there because one of the developers decided it would be a good idea to use hardcoded color values in one of the program files running this site. This is a known bug, so maybe it'll get fixed some day. Meanwhile, the only possibility to get rid of that color is to create a user stylesheet "User:YOUR-USERNAME/monobook.css" and add to that page the following:

/* Fix for generated user stylesheet */
a.new, #quickbar a.new { color: #BA0000; }

This will override any color settings in the sitewide stylesheets. -- Cid Highwind 11:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Search images: Still an ugly hack (perhaps even more than the first one), but now we at least have images that actually work until someone comes up with a better solution... ;) -- Cid Highwind 22:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

List of design issues

Note: Please continue the discussion above, but feel free to list each issue here as well. I (or perhaps, someone else who wants to) will strike out each issue as it is fixed. -- Cid Highwind 16:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

~~Color of exclamation marks.~~
~~light background on image legend (please specify); related: suggestion to center legend~~
- ~~Image:Imagepageissues.jpg -- this image should show what we are dealing with with image pages. - Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 17:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)~~
~~Ad bar overlapping content (still happens here after forced reload)~~ A problem with my custom css, apparently.
~~the unresolved New Pages page is hard to read issue (probably old news, but still an issue) Shanok 18:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)~~ Fixed again, css class was renamed.
~~"Odd looking" watchlist (please replace this with a more specific description)~~ I assume this referred to the broken message on top, because it looks normal to me. If it refers to something else, please add it again with a more specific description.
~~"undefined" after TOC~~ Whatever that was, it no longer exists.
~~size of table header and numeration: image (though in german, it is the same here) -- Kobi - (Talk) 17:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)~~
~~Broken links are a darker shade of red.~~Checked and updated CSS, should be fixed. Let me know if not.
~~Wikicities and Google logos. Remove or replace.~~ See also Image talk:Search_logo.png
*I've replaced the Google logo by the black background one as suggested above. If you remove the CSS hack you'll see it. What do you want me to do about the Wikicities logo? -- Tim Starling 01:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
:*For the Wikicities logo, I say we remove it completely like it was before the upgrade or change it to a specific Memory Alpha logo, but I would prefer the first one. -Platypus Man | Talk 20:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
~~Ad bar background color.~~
- ~~Fixed -- Tim Starling 01:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)~~
the space before a custom signature will not stay permanent as it did before. -Platypus Man | Talk 20:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Try   -- Tim Starling 01:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
- ~~Cid Highwind already suggested that, but it didn't work then. For some reason, it does now, though. Thanks! -Platypus Man | Talk 20:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)~~
Change the other languages version of MA after all new designs have been approved - Philoust123 16:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Visitor count at page bottom -- Rcog 16:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

HTML code

Note:List pages that show HTML code here, so that the appropriate templates and Mediawiki: pages can get fixed

The Searching and matching page (the MediaWiki page for this can be found here; one of the codes was fixed, but there may be a better way for that)
The protected page warning (this can be found here; I have corrected this for the time being, but there may be a better way to fix it)
~~The arrows for going to previous and next pages when searching through an article's changes (I have no bloody idea where the page for this is). --From Andoria with Love 17:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)~~
~~The Watchlist. -Platypus Man | Talk 20:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)~~

Blue Dots

Does anyone else notice that the blue dots next to external links often cover parts of the text? Admin/Wikicities people, is it possible to fix this? Jaz 06:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean the "pointing out" arrow? That never happened to me. Is this a new bug / can you provide a screenshot / which browser/version are you using? -- Cid Highwind 11:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Jaz is speaking of the globes in external links: instead of appearing after the text, they are now right-aligned to the text and appear above the text. [5] -- Kobi - (Talk) 12:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Strange, I don't even see these icons... Anyway, a "padding" instruction seemed to be missing, which I now included. Can you check if that solved the problem? -- Cid Highwind 12:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Cid, I'm using Mozilla Firefox, becuase IE gave me about a hundred times more bugs (pages load w/ errors, or not at all). Jaz

As much as I enjoy using Firefox, I think we should resolve such issues instead of just switching browsers. Not that I'm complaining, but seeing how the majority of Internet users still do use IE, we should figure out what's wrong and fix it to avoid giving a bad impression. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 06:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Is it intentionally that the Wikipedia and interwiki links have blue dots now? -- Kobi - (Talk) 13:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

In the CSS file, this bluedot/globe thingy is used to mark all links that contain an URL starting with either http or gopher - which basically translates to "external link", because internal links use a relative URL instead. Apparently, Opera doesn't interpret these instructions correctly, so I'm personally not seeing any icons (there are also supposed to be icons for https, mailto, ftp and others). What do you guys say, should these icons be removed completely, changed to something else, or what? -- Cid Highwind 18:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Protection

I know I am not an admin, so I probably am missing something. Anyway... :)

Why don't we protect all the help pages (e.g. policies or how to use wiki markup), because these are very commonly referenced and could be a large magnet to vandals. That way, only very experienced admins could edit them (and I don't think they require much editing).

I just had this Idea when I was viewing Recent changes and I saw that Shran protected the main help page because of a lot of vandalism. Just an idea. --Galaxy001 04:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

And a very good idea, IMO. I honestly don't know why the help pages have not been protected (I may have read something about it, but I can't remember). I assume it's to allow anyone the opportunity to make slight alterations or whatever, but any non-admin wishing to make any changes can simply request them in the help's talk page. --From Andoria with Love 16:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Like the suggestion that we protect pages from being moved, this idea isn't (or at least shouldn't be) necessary. Page protection should be used like the DEFCON system: the level of implementation should only be raised when there's a threat posed. Putting MA on permanent lockdown would be more like Bush's Homeland Security Advisory System - all it really accomplishes is worrying people. :) --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 17:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I definitely agree with the Vedek here. Protecting a small subset of pages will only redirect the vandalism to those pages that are not protected in the long run. Protecting individual pages (temporarily) after they were vandalized several times seems to be the better option. -- Cid Highwind 17:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right, of course. It was just a suggestion (not mine of course, but a suggestion nonetheless). For the record, though, I don't think it was ever suggested to put MA on lockdown, it was only suggested we protect all policy and help pages, since our current spammer seems to be more attracted to those at the moment. But I guess he'll probably quit on his own one he realizes he's wasting his time. --From Andoria with Love 06:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Goofs, Bloopers, and Continuity

I have an idea for a new page; something along the lines of "goofs", "bloopers" or "continuity errors". It would be from production POV and would not be a dumping ground for theories on ENT, or anything like that. The goofs I mean, are ones like where parts of the set are visible, or something blatantly contrictory is said, within the same episode. I don't want this to turn into a critique, or nitpick area, just a place where very obvious production screw ups can be documented. Jaz 22:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Something like Denise Crosby waves goodbye? I think this belongs on the episode pages, like it is done on "Symbiosis". --Memory 00:24, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course, information would remain on the pages of the episodes they relate to, and link to this new page, to build the web. Jaz 01:06, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Memory. This info can be added to the Background section of episodes. --Galaxy001 06:13, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that we should make a distinction between background information (like trivia information) and mistakes made by directors, producers and the cast. I actually found this wiki because I was thinking about creating a wiki for mistake information in ST because the IMDB doesn't have it for specific episodes. To make a bold move, I have started this new format in the article for the episode Samaritan Snare. The title Mistakes is used for a section and then subsections are named as for the type of mistake that they cover. For instance Continuities. --Suso 05:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

IRC

So why don't we have an IRC channel on FreeNode? :-) Weyoun 03:42, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Because no one saw the need yet, but actually, it might be a good idea to simply chat about things once in a while. Just join channel memory-alpha and let us know, I know I'll be there if I have the time; not in the next hours, though. -- Cid Highwind 12:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

~~Apparently either someone is unfamiliar with IRC or a vandal beat us to the punch... I tried to join that channel and it says "Access to channel #memory-alpha is blocked".~~ Problem solved - it was an issue with the allow list. Anyone unfamiliar with IRC, visit irc.wikicities.com and, once connected, paste this into the text box: "/join #memory-alpha". Anyone else: click here. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 23:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

We do have an IRC channel now, and in case anyone hasn't noticed, it's the "Chat" link in the navigation bar. Anyone who hasn't checked it out yet should do so, it's a great way to communicate and coordinate efforts. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 18:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Hide "wikicities" nav?

Shran just told me that Angela and Tim suggested to remove the wikicities box from the navigation sidebar on the left. What is everyone's opinion on this? I personally don't really need it, but on the other hand, it isn't too distracting, either. -- Cid Highwind 14:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, they suggested we not move it, simply hide it. I, too, don't have a problem with this. --From Andoria with Love 15:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't have a problem with it at where it is positioned now. The leftside is fine by me. -- Q 19:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think everyone got a 19", and I vote for hiding it, or at least putting the more useful boxes above it (also think that one search box would be enough) Rcog 16:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikistats

Does anyone know why our wikistats (found at http://www.wikicities.com/wikistats/Sitemap.htm ) haven't been updated in 2 months. The page says it should be updated daily. Jaz 05:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Jason is working on this. Sorry that I don't have any useful information on when it will be fixed, but it is on the "high priority" list. Angela (talk) 00:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Patrolled edit

Anyone missing the "patrolled"-feature? No? Whatsthis? ok.... just like I thought. Nobody needed it so "they" (read wikicities) shut it off. — Florian - ✍ talk 18:34, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think we've used that function because, frankly, it would be more trouble than it's worth here. It's a nice feature for other Wikis but not one I really care about. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 18:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

It's only really useful, I think, on a wiki much bigger than Memory Alpha, which there aren't that many on Wikicities. I noticed the missing explanation marks on a couple of wikicities earlier, and thought it was a nice improvement.--Tim Thomason 18:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I kind of miss them already. They were usefull to mark IP edits as valid -- Kobi - (Talk) 18:52, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't use them because, with anyone being able to mark articles as patrolled and no way of knowing who did it, this feature was rather useless IMO. I'm glad it's gone, but I think there were talks about making this an optional feature. If there's a need for it, we could always request to have that available again. -- Cid Highwind 19:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Layout committee / TOC design suggestion

I'm putting this here to make more people aware of the project I started: Memory Alpha:User projects/Layout committee, and especially to invite comments on the first topic discussed there, which is the design of article TOCs. Please visit and comment, if you're interested... -- Cid Highwind 20:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Pholleter class starship

The Pholleter class has 2 matter/anti-matter drives (1 in the secondary hull and 1 in the saucer section) and the saucer section has warp drive capabilities for emergency escape. Those warp nacels are housed inside the saucer until needed and are located beside the navagational marker becons.

What does this have to do with anything? --Alan del Beccio 02:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Whoever posted this was probably testing or did not read about what to post on Ten Forward. I don't know... --Galaxy001 00:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Novel Duty Roster??

Over the past week of so I've been trying to overhall our novels pages. As most of you know, there is enormous work to be done. Only about 50% have cover pictures, even less have summaries from the back cover, and only about 5% have there own original summary. I wanted to bring up the possibility of a Novel Duty Roster, inspired by the Vedek's Duty Roster of course. If you guys are interested, this could also be applied to our comics pages, which are, with all do respect, appalling, probably since not too many of us have actually read any of them. Jaz 03:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you want to take care of it? If so, just go ahead... :) -- Cid Highwind 16:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea if you wanna take the next step towards adminship. Although, this would be a bigger project probably and would be less accessible since people have to put actual effort into novels as opposed to sitting through 45 minutes of television, and they can't just fast-forward to the point they need to look stuff up. Either way I say go for it - like I said when I started with the original duty roster, in the absolute worst-case scenario it can essentially be your personal to-do list. --Vedek Dukat ^{Talk | Duty Roster} 18:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Good luck, I've begun to make it for comics, and a single comic takes me at leat 6 hours. Here is one exemple (in french) Malibu DS9 #1-2 - Stowaway. I'm sorry, but I can't translate it into the english MA because I'm very busy beeing the only admin on french MA. It took me a long time to make the article for the french MA and I don't want to translate a translation. - Philoust123 20:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Good idea! This is something that would definetly help MA, especially because the novel pages seem to be the least worked-on. --Starchild ^|<Talk> 00:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I would be interested in helping out with formating and cover pictures (I've already made a few changes in that department). I could help out with summaries on a few novels but I haven't read that many so It'd be hard for me to take on a lot of responsibility in that area. I could also take on some of the responsibility of creating the duty roster. I wonder if there is a list of all the trek novels somewhere. I know we're missing pages for some of them, and I'd gladly get to work adding those pages. docdude316 01:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I've created a subpage of my userpage at User:Jaz/Novels. ~~It's going to take me a couple of days to get it up and running, since I'm in exams right now, but I will inform the community when it is ready. Jaz 02:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)~~. Please submit suggestion for improvement of the talk page (or just do it yourself, that often works best). Jaz 04:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

More sounds!

I was wondering other people's opinion on this idea. Should we add sound effects to pages (e.g. a transporter sound effect on the transporter page), like the main title sound files we added on the star trek series pages? I was wondering because I already uploaded a phaser sound file and I wanted to know other people's opinion on this. --Galaxy001 03:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea, but I'm also a little worried about it taking up to much space. Also, I wonder if people would really care all that much about sound effects. Theme music is intimately tied to the show, but sound effects, although recognizable, are not nearly as special to people.

Revision as of 03:12, 1 February 2006 (view source) Galaxy001 (talk \| contribs) (More sounds!) ← Older edit		Revision as of 20:24, 1 February 2006 (view source) Docdude316 (talk \| contribs) (→‎More sounds!) Newer edit →
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	I was wondering other people's opinion on this idea. Should we add sound effects to pages (e.g. a transporter sound effect on the transporter page), like the main title sound files we added on the star trek series pages? I was wondering because I already uploaded a phaser sound file and I wanted to know other people's opinion on this. --[[User:Galaxy001\|Galaxy001]] 03:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)		I was wondering other people's opinion on this idea. Should we add sound effects to pages (e.g. a transporter sound effect on the transporter page), like the main title sound files we added on the star trek series pages? I was wondering because I already uploaded a phaser sound file and I wanted to know other people's opinion on this. --[[User:Galaxy001\|Galaxy001]] 03:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
		+
		+	:I like the idea, but I'm also a little worried about it taking up to much space. Also, I wonder if people would really care all that much about sound effects. Theme music is intimately tied to the show, but sound effects, although recognizable, are not nearly as special to people.