[WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

Mon Sep 12 23:50:34 UTC 2005

On 9/12/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think this is an excellent point, actually - I think Memory Alpha
> is another example of a Very Bad Thing, and that the fact that they
> forked and used a different license is a devastating blow to our Star
> Trek coverage that will NEVER HEAL. 

Memory Alpha was never a fork of Wikipedia. Please see 
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Memory_Alpha:General_FAQ#What_are_the_goals_of_Memory_Alpha.3F
and
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Memory_Alpha:History
for details of how the project got started. 

The founders were inspired by the collaborative nature of Wikipedia,
but they were not intending on forking it, as evidenced by the fact
the license they (wrongly) chose meant they could never use Wikipedia
content. This was also not a fork of the Wikipedia community, but
instead drew individuals from the various Star Trek communities,
especially since this replaced the former Star Trek Encyclopedia
project which had started in the mid 90s. Whether or not those people
might have started editing Wikipedia is unknown, but it is simply
wrong to claim that they forked either the content or community of
Wikipedia.

Angela