 | This page documents one of Memory Alpha's guidelines. |
The standards and practices described below are widely accepted and should not be substantively changed without consensus. If you have any questions, suggestions, or complaints, please post them on the talk page. |
The point of a wiki is to build the web by creating an ever-expanding network of interlinked articles. Don't create links to external pages as part of the article text – more than likely, we'll want to have an article on that subject right here on Memory Alpha. Links to nonexistent articles are perfectly all right – in fact, they're encouraged (under the appropriate circumstances, of course).
For example, don't write something like this: "The USS Wellington was a Niagara-class starship" – note the external link to another page. Certainly, Bernd Schneider's site is an excellent resource for starships of all sorts, but the link is in the wrong place. Where would we put the link to Memory Alpha's article on the Niagara-class?
Instead, external links should go in a separate section of the article (at the bottom of the page), where these links can be listed for further reading. In this case, the external link to Ex Astris Scientia should be placed at the bottom of our Niagara-class article.
Related to this, readers don't always have the time to conduct their own in-depth research on a specific subject. It can be time-consuming to evaluate a website's content. As such, providing a plain link like this...
... is often not useful, because the reader has no idea just what the linked website is about. Who maintains it? What is its focus? How good is it?
Instead, provide a short description about the link to assist the reader in evaluating it, like this:
- Ex Astris Scientia - Bernd Schneider's website is devoted to the careful analysis of starships of all sorts. Includes reconstructions of the kitbashes seen in the Wolf 359 wreckage and a database of all starships seen on screen.
Additionally, if the external link is to a specific page that requires special software to interpret (for example, a PDF document), it is useful to add a note to that effect.
Keep in mind that you may need to login to some websites in order to view their content.
Common external link sites[]
- StarTrek.com, the official Star Trek website
- Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Internet Movie Database, a repository of film and television credits