Memory Alpha has some policies and guidelines that have been developed over the years and are generally accepted by the community. Please read through the policies below to familiarize yourself with our common practices and rules. If you have any questions, suggestions, or complaints, please post them on the talk page.
Most of the time, enforcement of these policies and guidelines is handled by the general membership. Politely pointing out each other's mistakes is generally sufficient. If this approach is ineffective, the administrators may intervene by temporarily protecting a page or blocking disruptive users.
Policies[]
Remember that above all else, Memory Alpha is an encyclopedia. Like the television shows and films, it is primarily, but not always, family oriented. It is a community that is solely devoted to the development of the Star Trek reference database; it is not a chat room or discussion forum. The talk pages are specifically for discussing the writing of articles, and nothing else.
The following are general policies concerning the overall goals and functions of Memory Alpha:
- Bans and blocks
- Bots – bots on Memory Alpha
- Cite your sources
- Content policy
- Copyrights – that unavoidable legalese
- Deletion policy – for when deleting pages becomes necessary
- Featured article policies
- File use policy – the rules for uploading files
- No personal attacks
- Point of view – maintaining the proper POV in articles
- Privacy policy
- Protection policy
- Resource policy
- Retroactive continuity policy – dealing with conflicts in in-universe resources
- Spoiler policy – let the reader beware!
- Username
- What Memory Alpha is not
- Your user page
Guidelines[]
General guidelines[]
- Be bold
- Contribute what you know or are willing to learn about
- Editing guidelines – a guide on how to edit articles, and how to style them
- Make omissions explicit
- Strive for community solutions
- Use common sense
- Most common Memory Alpha faux pas – some useful information for newcomers
Behavior guidelines[]
- Be considerate to new members
- Log in before making drastic changes
- Sign your posts on talk pages
- Etiquette – useful advice for when disagreements arise
Content guidelines[]
- Avoid blanket statements
- Use category sort keys properly
- Check your facts
- Define and describe subjects
- Establish context
- Explain jargon
- Use external links properly
- Find and fix stubs
- Inform and entertain the readers
- Make articles useful for readers
- Remember that perfection is not required
- Deal appropriately with patent nonsense
- Use templates when appropriate
- Note pages needing attention
- Why some words may be censored while others are not
Style guidelines[]
- Always fill summary field
- Build the web – avoid making your articles orphans
- Balance parts of a page
- Category tree – guidelines on the use and creation of categories
- Disambiguation – for potential article title conflicts
- Don't include copies of primary sources
- Follow highlighting conventions
- Manual of Style
- Naming conventions – how to name articles
- Subpages
Miscellaneous[]
- Vandalism
- Editing the main page
- Recommended changes – a few changes to the default user preferences Memory Alpha recommends
- Dealing with possible copyright infringements
- Deletion guidelines for administrators
- Do not disrupt Memory Alpha to prove a point
- Featured article criteria
- Merging and splitting articles
- Renaming articles
- Silent consensus
- Working with production staff
- Redirects
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