Memory Alpha:Glossary

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About → Glossary

This page is for providing a convenient reference of common words, terms, and acronyms that are used on Memory Alpha. If you find a word that isn't on the list, which you think should be, please add it!

A

Admin

One of the administrators of Memory Alpha. These contributors are responsible for cleanup and other "housekeeping" chores on the wiki. Also known as a sysop.

Anchor

An HTML term for code that lets you link to a specific point in a page, using the "#" character. You can use them to link to a section of a page.

Article

An encyclopedia entry. All articles are pages, but not all pages are articles. See What is an article? at Wikipedia.

B

Blanking

Removing all of the content of an article. This differs from deletion, as the article link remains valid.

Block

Action by an admin, removing from a certain IP-number or username the ability to edit a wiki. Usually done against addresses that have done vandalism or against users who have been banned.

Boilerplate text

A standard message which can be added to an article using a template.

Bot

Short for robot; a program that applies changes on its own. See Memory Alpha: Bots.

Broken link

A wiki link (created [[like this]]) for which the article has not yet been created. These links appear in red text.

Broken redirect

A page that redirects to another page that does not yet exist or has been deleted.

Bureaucrat

An administrator who has the ability to make other users into administrators.

C

CCL

Acronym for the Creative Commons License which governs submissions to Memory Alpha.

Copyvio

Shorthand for copyright violation. See Memory Alpha: Possible copyright infringements.

Cut and paste move

Moving a page by taking the text of the page and pasting it into the edit window for the second page. Generally considered worse than the "move page" option because it causes the page and its edit history to be in different places. Cut and paste moves can be fixed by administrators. See also How to fix cut and paste moves at Wikipedia.

D

Dead-end page

A page that contains no links to other pages.

Diff

Short for difference. Used on Recent Changes and page histories to show the difference between two versions of an article.

Disambiguation

Resolving the conflict between two or more subjects with identical or similar titles

Disambiguation page

A page solely intended to link to different pages with similar titles.

Double redirect

A redirect that leads to another redirect. These should be eliminated by linking directly to the target redirect.

E

Edit conflict

Two or more archivists attempting to save edits to the same page at the same time.

Edit summary

The contents of the "Summary:" field below the edit box on the "Edit this page" page. See Help: Edit summary.

Edit war

Two or more parties continually making their preferred changes to a page, and undoing the changes they don't agree with. Generally, an edit war is the result of an argument on a talk page that could not be resolved. See also Edit war at Wikipedia.

External link

A link to a web page outside of the Memory Alpha wiki.

G

GFDL

GNU Free Documentation License. Most Wikia content is released under this license. See also Wikia copyrights. Note that Memory Alpha content is licensed by the CCL instead.

GPL

GNU General Public License. The MediaWiki software, which runs Memory Alpha, is released under this license.

H

History

All previous versions of an article, from its creation to its current state. Also called the page history.

I

Internal link

A link to a page inside Memory Alpha created by using the wiki markup double square brackets ("[[" and "]]"). Also known as a wikilink.

Interwiki

A link from Memory Alpha to another wiki, such as Wikipedia or Memory Beta. See Help: Interwiki link and Memory Alpha: List of interwiki prefixes.

M

MediaWiki

The wiki software that runs Memory Alpha.

Merge

Taking the text of two pages, and turning it into a single page.

Meta page

A non-article page that defines policy or other administrative details. Meta pages reside in the Memory Alpha: namespace.

N

Namespace

A method of classifying pages. Articles reside in the Main namespace; other namespaces include Talk:, User:, Memory Alpha:, Help:, Forum:, File:, Category:, Template:, Portal:, and MediaWiki:. See Help: Namespace.

NPOV

Neutral point of view, or the agreement to report subjective topics objectively.

O

Orphan

A page that has no other pages linking to it. You can view lists of orphaned articles and images.

P

Page

Any individual topic at Memory Alpha, regardless of namespace. Page content is defined as the text contained on a page, minus the auto-generated top, bottom and side bars.

Patent nonsense

Text with no practical meaning. See Memory Alpha: Patent nonsense.

Piped link

A piped link uses the pipe character ("|") character to allow a link to show up differently than the page it is named after. eg. [[James T. Kirk|Kirk]] shows up as Kirk.

Point of View (POV)

The perspective from which an article is written. On Memory Alpha, most articles are written from the point of view of a character inside the Star Trek universe. See Memory Alpha: Point of view.

Protected page

A page that is unable to be edited by ordinary users, either for security or in the event of conflict over article content. Admins and developers can edit protected pages. See Memory Alpha: Protection policy.

R

Redirect

A page that automatically redirects the browser to another page, for convention and naming reasons among others. Also known as a redir. See Help: Redirect.

Red link

See Broken link.

Revert

An edit that reverses changes made by someone else. See Help: Revert a page.

Rollback

To revert a page to a previous version. Admins have special tools to do this more easily.

S

Sandbox

The test page where users are encouraged to try out their wiki linking. See Memory Alpha: Sandbox.

Section editing

Using the "edit" links to the right of the page, one can get an edit window containing only part of the page, making it easier to find the exact spot where one wants to edit. JavaScript is needed for section editing. You can turn section editing off in your preferences under the "Enable section editing via [edit] links" option.

Self-link

A wikilink contained in an article that points the reader to that same article, for example, linking phaser in the article "phaser". Such links are automatically displayed as strongly emphasized text rather than links, but the more complex case of a link which redirects to the same article is not, and should be de-wikified.

Sock puppet

A user account created by an existing user, typically used to "bump up" vote counts or attack other users.

Split

Separating a single page into two or more pages.

Stub

An article that is shorter than one paragraph. See Memory Alpha: Find or fix a stub.

Sub-stub

An article that is a very short stub. These generally fail to cover the necessary information on a subject.

Subpage

A page associated with an article, usually as a subdivision of the subject in question. Subpages are generally frowned upon, unless as part of a copyvio procedure.

Sysop

See Admin.

T

Talk page

A page set aside for the discussion of an article or page. See Help:Talk pages.

Template

A way of automatically including the contents of one page within another page, used for boilerplate text, navigational aids, etc. See Help: Template.

Troll

A user who incites or engages in disruptive behavior (trolling). See also Internet troll at Wikipedia and What is a troll? at Meta.

U

User page

A personal page for archivists at Memory Alpha. Most people use their pages to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used to communicate with other users via the user talk pages. See Memory Alpha: Your user page.

V

Vandalism

The act of defacing or deleting content from a page.

VfD

Shorthand for "votes for deletion".

W

Watchlist

A set of pages selected by the user, who can then click on My watchlist to see recent changes to those pages. See Help: Watchlist.

Wikia

The company that owns Wikia and provides hosting services for Memory Alpha. See About Wikia.

Wikify/wikification

The process of adding wiki markup to a page. See Help: Wiki markup.

Wikilink

A link to another page on the same wiki, as opposed to an external link.

Wikimedia

Properly Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., the non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia and other projects. Wikimedia is not officially affiliated with Wikia. The name is often confused with MediaWiki. See also Wikimedia.

Wikipedia

A project run by Wikimedia to create a free content encyclopedia using wiki software.