I was just curious why every single article in the Memory Alpha wiki is written in solely the past tense. While certain contexts would make it an obvious choice, use of the past tense for a fictional "universe" or world like that of Star Trek, as well as its events, characters and other data is illogical and opposite to most of the accepted writing styles for wikis and other non-fiction writing.

For instance, on the page for "Star Fleet Academy", the introductory statement begins "Starfleet Academy (also referred to as the Space Academy) was a department within Starfleet. The main purpose of this department was for . . .".

There are two reasons the use of "was" is incorrect in this and every other article on the wiki, unlike nearly every other published wiki when referring to a still-existing universe. First of all, and most importantly, the Star Trek universe still exists, and so does Star Fleet Academy, many characters and many other things in the Star Trek universe. Referring to it in the past tense, then, is not only counter-intuitive, but also simply incorrect according to pretty much every manual of style, grammar guide and other specification of the modern English language, especially for a published work like a wiki.

Secondly, and in the case of the Memory Alpha wiki and Star Trek universe, in particular, the use of the past tense is completely illogical because the *vast* majority of each series of Star Trek is set in the *future*. Saying that "Starfleet Academy WAS" is ridiculous. The only way it would be correct to use the past tense with regard to the Star Trek universe is when an event is being described that took place after the time reference of the current context it is referring to; i.e., the pluperfect or past perfect, grammatically. For instance, "Starfleet Academy was old when Jean-Luc Picard attended" or "Jean-Luc Picard had gone to Starfleet Academy during this time."

But using the past tense to refer to everything that EXIST-S (present tense, because it still does exist—the universe Star Trek takes place still does exist and will continue to unless some series describes the end of that universe) and is basically timeless from our perspective is absolutely ridiculous, and takes your mind away from what your reading.

Anyway, I know I can't change an entire wiki by making the verbal tenses used correct (because they currently are incorrect), and wouldn't have the inclination to anyway, but it is just frustrating after reading ten or twelve pages from the wiki and hearing that the writer obviously seems to think that the Star Trek universe, for instance, just ceased to exist, and that nobody will ever write about it or add new stories or chapters to it and the characters it includes. At least, that's what is meant by the words they use whenever they incorrectly use the past tense.

Language is unimportant for some people, mainly barbarians and those who are not interested in appearing to be civilized human beings (that is, mainly barbarians), but since we all rely on language and its proper use to communicate nearly everything we want to, it would make sense to not confuse people. Perhaps the writer(s) of this wiki are ESL (English as a Second Language) people or something, or perhaps they slept through most English classes in high school, or just have no common logical sense, but whatever it is, it's frustratingly annoying. I mean no offense. I'm just answering the prompt at the top of the page that says "What's on your mind?". But I'm not judging either. I just needed to vent, and sincerely hope I'm not the only person who reads the wiki that realizes this obviously logical and grammatical blunder, or else the English speaking population of the world is in a very sad state of mind.