• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Memory Alpha and Memory Beta

Enterprise1701

Commodore
Commodore
How many other users of The Trek BBS contribute to the de facto Star Trek wikis? Earlier this year, I decided to join to do some writing about starships in Star Trek: Picard despite my longtime misgivings about the Wikia UI. I guess the Memory Alpha admins are alright if a bit narrow-minded. As for Memory Beta, it's more of a dead site headed by one cantankeous admin.
 
I realised my idea of Star Trek wasn't mainstream enough for those sites long ago. Although I recall editing the pages for the Kelvinverse Enterprise and Constitution-class during the Starship Size Argument wars.
 
I contributed to MA for a brief time before an idiot pushed an idiotic argument past all reason. Now I don't give a fuck what they they post there.

It's a resource, I use it, I quote from it, with all the caveats of a Wiki that might but may not have any bearing on the truth. But I've zero interest in making it better. It's a waste of time, and fuck that noise.
 
I don't like contributing to articles but I have made two comments on two Fandom wikia, one of them Memory Alpha. That's about it. I like them but also don't give a shit. I do quite like Memory Beta for giving info about the books and noting down ships and whatnot, like EVERY Enterprise EVER. Enterprise-∞. Sometimes I really enjoy it when there's just a bunch of lies on an article, like saying Mark Jameson was meant to be Kirk in the TNG episode "Too Short A Season", not really to fuck with people but more it's a bit like storytelling potential for alternate universes. I did have fun reading some argument someone was having about the Briar Patch and then even Mike Sussman got involved.
 
MA is a site governed by a double standard, specifically their alleged "strictly canonical only" policy which they cling to and hide behind as their excuse for why they won't use the term "Kelvin Timeline" (it was never called that onscreen) or why they won't acknowledge Adira on Disco is non-binary (they were never specifically stated to be onscreen). Yet they used the term "Mirror Universe" ever since the site first started, and that would not be spoken onscreen until 2019. To say nothing of all the starships that never had the name of their class stated onscreen, yet MA lists them by that name, or characters who were never named onscreen, but their names come from the credits or script, which MA lists them by. Probably the most egregious example is the Captain of the USS Yorktown from TVH, who MA lists by the name Joel Randolph, a name which was not mentioned in dialogue in that movie or listed in the movie's credits, it comes from the movie's novelization. I'd love to hear how MA tries to rationalize allowing something from a novel under a "strictly canonical only" policy.

MA clearly operates on a "if we like it we'll accept it" policy. Their decision to refuse the term "Kelvin Timeline" undoubtedly earned them points from the anti-Abrams gatekeeping crowd. While the crowd their Adira decision would appeal to most certainly don't deserve to be catered to.
 
MA is a site governed by a double standard, specifically their alleged "strictly canonical only" policy which they cling to and hide behind as their excuse for why they won't use the term "Kelvin Timeline" (it was never called that onscreen) or why they won't acknowledge Adira on Disco is non-binary (they were never specifically stated to be onscreen). Yet they used the term "Mirror Universe" ever since the site first started, and that would not be spoken onscreen until 2019. To say nothing of all the starships that never had the name of their class stated onscreen, yet MA lists them by that name, or characters who were never named onscreen, but their names come from the credits or script, which MA lists them by. Probably the most egregious example is the Captain of the USS Yorktown from TVH, who MA lists by the name Joel Randolph, a name which was not mentioned in dialogue in that movie or listed in the movie's credits, it comes from the movie's novelization. I'd love to hear how MA tries to rationalize allowing something from a novel under a "strictly canonical only" policy.

MA clearly operates on a "if we like it we'll accept it" policy. Their decision to refuse the term "Kelvin Timeline" undoubtedly earned them points from the anti-Abrams gatekeeping crowd. While the crowd their Adira decision would appeal to most certainly don't deserve to be catered to.
From MA's Adira Tal page:

Adira Tal was a non-binary Human who lived on the planet Earth and later the USS Discovery during the late 32nd century. Adira preferred to be addressed by the pronouns "they" or "them".

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Adira_Tal
 
Quite so. Back in 2021 it was an issue MA took a rigid stance on which generated a lot of controversy to the point that even Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz were publicly speaking out against MA because of it. MA's initial response to this backlash was to go through every single character in the franchise to determine if they were ever explicitly stated in dialogue to be the gender or sex we always assume them to be. That's how dedicated MA were against acknowledging Adira was non-binary.

Here's the thread we had in our Disco forum on the matter.
 
Probably the most egregious example is the Captain of the USS Yorktown from TVH, who MA lists by the name Joel Randolph, a name which was not mentioned in dialogue in that movie or listed in the movie's credits, it comes from the movie's novelization. I'd love to hear how MA tries to rationalize allowing something from a novel under a "strictly canonical only" policy.

Actually, MA says it's from the script, not the novel.
 
Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to. It's still outside of what would be considered "strictly canonical." Besides, to a majority of fandom, they would have likely seen it in the novelization first, as that would have been more readily available to the public before the script was.
 
Actually, MA says it's from the script, not the novel.

The Trekcore version of the script confirms that the captain of the Yorktown was intended to be Joel Randolph at one point, but that dialogue was edited out in favour of comm traffic referencing Communications Officer Trillya and Captain Clampert of the Shepard instead FWIW.
 
Well, MA can't avoid having reams of pages of unnamed characters (most of which are incidental - spoken of only or in the background), but any time they can give one their own page with a (reasonably provable) name, it frees the clutter and gives featured roles (this character being played by a (celebrity?) tennis player, not just an unknown extra) visibility.
 
Then there was the Picard "death" and seperate Picard golem page. Fru fru..
It ain't perfect, and is subject to the biases of whomever is in charge, but it's a decent reference.
 
Think of it this way: you're helping future show, book, movie, and comic writers find information. So you're an (often) uncredited participant.

IIRC, MA began as a place to catalogue unique to Trek things; ships, characters, planets, species, alien devices, and so on. But it's just as important to preserve species and character's opinions/usages of things like cookies, hammers, baseball caps, etc, and concepts like justice, honor, liberty, hunger, and so on, in a place where you can more easily find what you're looking for, rather than the writer combing that species or character's page for insights themselves.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top