Memory Alpha responds to JJTrek

[Admiral Buzzkill]

They have an announcement here:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Memory_Alpha:Announcements/Star_Trek_release_announcement

Rather interesting - guess they're expecting to be flooded with attempts to revise Kirk's bio, etc.

 

[Devon]

Oh my. The nets will be a flutter that day.

Slightly off topic - I remember during the big J.J./Fan interview thing that happened on TrekMovie.com last Jan/Feb, someone who either ran or contributed to Memory Alpha asked the crew if MA was used in research for the film. I think it was either Bob or Alex who said that Memory Alpha was indeed used and they would check in giving the site a credit at the end of the film. I think that would be cool if they got it but I haven't heard yet.

 

[gaghyogi49]

I'm glad we will close MA for some hours. This gives us the time and chance to enjoy the movie and not race home to constantly revert massive changes made to the articles. This will give us some time to discuss how to list the new information from the movie.

As to MA receiving credits in the end credits: That won't happen. I must honestly say that of all the Star Trek relates sites, I guess trekmovie.com should have been the one to receive credit, but no site was listed.

 

[MvRojo]

That's a pretty cool way of going about making sure people don't get unnecessarily spoiled.

 

[curson]

I think it's a sensible decision, even if it wouldn't be hard for users to simply avoid going to Memory Alpha before seeing the movie, if they really are afraid of spoilers.
On the more technical side of things, I think it's an even wiser decision, to allow time for the wiki structure to absorb the impact of the flood of new updates and changes that inevitabily are going to follow the movie.

New Star Trek stuff, put it as you like, but it's exciting!

 

[Michael]

As to MA receiving credits in the end credits: That won't happen. I must honestly say that of all the Star Trek relates sites, I guess trekmovie.com should have been the one to receive credit, but no site was listed.

Hm, why not? If they really used Memory Alpha as a recource, they should receive credit for that. Speaking from my own experience, I use Memory Alpha virtually every day to check back facts before I write a post here. So I know how helpful it really is.

 

[erastus25]

As to MA receiving credits in the end credits: That won't happen. I must honestly say that of all the Star Trek relates sites, I guess trekmovie.com should have been the one to receive credit, but no site was listed.

Hm, why not? If they really used Memory Alpha as a recource, they should receive credit for that. Speaking from my own experience, I use Memory Alpha virtually every day to check back facts before I write a post here. So I know how helpful it really is.

Wiki's are considered open source material and thus do not need to be cited (i.e. wikipedia can't sue you for plagiarism). And any good researcher knows that a wiki ought to be used only as a guide, and not an actual source, so I could see why they wouldn't sort MA.

 

[FlyingLemons]

I'm just wondering what they're going to write about the new timeline that's created as a result. There's the James T. Kirk article, another called James T. Kirk (mirror), and now a third will have to be created as this new incarnation has the potential to accrue quite a lot of new continuity.

 

[erastus25]

I'm just wondering what they're going to write about the new timeline that's created as a result. There's the James T. Kirk article, another called James T. Kirk (mirror), and now a third will have to be created as this new incarnation has the potential to accrue quite a lot of new continuity.

I'm almost thinking the JJ TrekVerse should eventually have a separate MA, if it picks up steam and there are a bunch of movies, books, maybe even a TV show, etc.

 

[Jimmy_C]

As to MA receiving credits in the end credits: That won't happen. I must honestly say that of all the Star Trek relates sites, I guess trekmovie.com should have been the one to receive credit, but no site was listed.

Hm, why not? If they really used Memory Alpha as a recource, they should receive credit for that. Speaking from my own experience, I use Memory Alpha virtually every day to check back facts before I write a post here. So I know how helpful it really is.

Wiki's are considered open source material and thus do not need to be cited (i.e. wikipedia can't sue you for plagiarism). And any good researcher knows that a wiki ought to be used only as a guide, and not an actual source, so I could see why they wouldn't sort MA.

Just because it is open source doesn't mean you can't be sued for plagiarism. You have a license to use the work on the site. You can quote part of it under fair use, but using the content in full requires complying with that license.

 

[erastus25]

Hm, why not? If they really used Memory Alpha as a recource, they should receive credit for that. Speaking from my own experience, I use Memory Alpha virtually every day to check back facts before I write a post here. So I know how helpful it really is.

Wiki's are considered open source material and thus do not need to be cited (i.e. wikipedia can't sue you for plagiarism). And any good researcher knows that a wiki ought to be used only as a guide, and not an actual source, so I could see why they wouldn't sort MA.

Just because it is open source doesn't mean you can't be sued for plagiarism. You have a license to use the work on the site. You can quote part of it under fair use, but using the content in full requires complying with that license.

Maybe I'm mistaken then. From Wikipedia's website:

Wikipedia's content is licensed under GFDL. Contributors continue to own copyright to their contributions, but liberally license it for reuse and modification. GFDL does require attribution."

Doesn't that mean you can use it however you want without attribution? I seem to remember a professor who was accused of copying wikipedia into the book he published and I thought wikipedia's response was that they have no grounds to sue him. The university, on the other hand, was displeased. Sadly I can't find what I'm talking about (lame, I know)! Anyway, this intellectual property stuff confuses me so I have no idea if I'm making sense or not.

 

[Michael]

Well, I'm most certainly not talking from a legal perspective here. I don't think they have to credit Memory Alpha. It would be a very nice move, though, as I'm sure the people at Memory Alpha put a lot of time and effort into writing the content.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Quoting someone's writing may bring up issues of credit, plagiarism and so on. If the writers used M-A as a reference resource to find out factoids that the wiki writers have culled from other sources - say, Kirk's age as stated in "The Deadly Years" - that's no different from looking up the atomic weight of uranium in Encyclopedia Brittanica so that a character can mention it in the movie. And all canon Trek factoids already belong to Paramount by definition.

 

[Squiggy]

Wow...a full lockdown. How will we cope?!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Wow...a full lockdown. How will we cope?!

Let's go to TNZ and all pick on [redacted]!

 

[Squiggy]

Whew! Sweet release.

 

[gastrof]

I'd like the continuity to be one unified whole, with all official sources (and quai-official fan sites) updated because of the movie, but this also means losing so much info from the original timeline, not to mention the horror of trying to mesh the new TOS history with everything that followed.

Spoiler: movie events

For example, does Sarek survive the destruction of Vulcan? If he does, where does he have Kirk bring Spock's body after the Genesis incident (assuming all of that even happens)? When Picard goes to see Sarek during "Unification", WHERE does the Enterprise-D go? Vulcan ain't there any more so where would Sarek and Perrin be living?

Updating the TOS portion of Trek history means little if we don't know HOW the changes affect later Trek events, and my heart goes out to anyone CBS or Paramount authorizes to adjust those events so's to mesh.

Maybe it'd be better if any updates do NOT eradicate the old TOS history, but rather be put into a whole new catagory of "revised timeline" or something.

 

[Jessop]

Given the film takes place in an alternate timeline, why would we overwrite any of the old articles?

 

[gastrof]

Given the film takes place in an alternate timeline, why would we overwrite any of the old articles?

If that's a reply to my post,

Dennis said in the thread-opener
"guess they're expecting to be flooded with attempts to revise Kirk's bio, etc."

And gaghyogi49 said
"I'm glad we will close MA for some hours. This gives us the time and chance to enjoy the movie and not race home to constantly revert massive changes made to the articles."

By the way, it's NOT an "alternate timeline".

It's THE timeline, except it's being changed by way of time travel.
Seems from now on, what the movie depicts IS the official Trek universe.

 

[pookha]

yeah just note abramverse..

really in the past when contradictions occured it didnt wipe out the earlier episode,
just that differences occured.