Get the latest scoop about what's new at Memory Alpha! This page is used by the administrators to post relevant announcements, so check back occasionally to get the news.
April 12, 2004
Memory Alpha has completed its move to its new server. We are now situated at www.memory-alpha.org. Please update your bookmarks. The database is once again open for editing, with some minor upgrades to the MediaWiki software, and any bugs should be reported to Dan Carlson. -- Michael Warren
We're pleased to announce the opening of the first multilingual edition of Memory Alpha! The Dutch edition is now open and functional, although it has practically no pages at the moment. If you speak Dutch, please drop in and lend a hand! -- Dan Carlson
March 31, 2004
Harry and I are currently planning to move Memory Alpha to its own hosting account and domain name. We've agreed that the existing arrangement is simply not sufficient for the long term as Memory Alpha grows. The switch will probably happen in a couple of weeks. However, it's going to be a bit of a strain for the two of us to pay for this new hosting account, so we've set up a donation page should any members have some extra funds they can spare us. It would be greatly appreciated! -- Dan Carlson
March 28, 2004
If you try to upload an image and receive an internal error message saying "could not rename file", please contact Dan Carlson. It's likely that someone uploaded an image of the same file name during the "lost weeks"; that means that the file itself is intact in our upload directory, but the database thinks there's nothing there. I will need to know the exact file path of the image that you tried to upload (it's given in the error message, for instance "/hsphere/local/home...."). -- Dan Carlson
March 26, 2004
After first backing up the wiki to ensure there wasn't a repeat of this week's unpleasantness, we have finally managed to upgrade the MediaWiki software to the most current version. There are some new features available, try experimenting with them! Updated help pages for features such as the new image syntax will be coming soon.
Please also note that our URL has changed slightly — instead of being located in the /mediawiki/ directory, the pages are now located in the /en/ directory. I've set up a .htaccess redirect, however, so no one should encounter any problems. The /wiki/ shortcut URL should still work, regardless. Please contact me if you have any questions! -- Dan Carlson
March 24, 2004
In an extraordinarily unfortunate accident, Memory Alpha's database was wiped yesterday during an upgrade of the system to MediaWiki version 1.2. This occurred due to an unforeseen error in the database upgrade script. As a result, Memory Alpha has been forced to revert to the last backup — which was made on February 6. All updates after that date have been lost, as have any new user registrations after that date. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. -- Dan Carlson
March 8, 2004
We apologise for the continuing access problems with Memory Alpha (and the other sites on the st-minutiae account). This is due to a problem with the host server, and unfortunately is beyond our (or rather Dan's) control. This may or may not reoccur in the near future. If it does, please watch the SCN for information. For the full detail, please see this page at STM. -- Michael Warren
February 13, 2004
For anyone who noticed the brief locking of the database, this was because of a potentially major error that was being returned at random points while submitting a new or edited article. At first, it looked like we were going to have to roll back our site to the previous version of MediaWiki. Fortunately, that wasn't the case, thanks to some very useful and timely assistance from the MediaWiki contributors' mailing list. If you encounter any further database errors, please report them so we can look into them. -- Dan Carlson
February 10, 2004
Apologies for the brief outage accompanied by weirder-than-usual error messages; the wiki software was being upgraded to MediaWiki v1.1.0. This version includes several security and bug fixes, as well as a couple of other interesting features that should make things interesting -- like automatic messages built into the wiki system. If you find a bug, as usual, please report it after checking the bug reports link (also found on the quickbar). -- Dan Carlson
February 1, 2004
We apologize for the two-day-long server outage that completely crippled Memory Alpha (as well as the other sites hosted in the same account). According to our host, the server suffered a hard drive failure and had to be restored from backup. In the mean time, FTP access was unavailable so a manual restoration from my hard disk was impossible as well. Hopefully, this will be the last problem with the server for a long time to come. -- Dan Carlson
January 17, 2004
You may have already noticed the new links on the quickbar. Two of these are there for convenience, to pages that already exist: this announcements page, and the Memory Alpha forum at the Subspace Comms Network.
The third link is to a brand-new feature for Memory Alpha -- a Trek websites directory. An open directory designed specifically for Trek sites should nicely complement our open encyclopedia. Go check it out, and add your own site to the list! -- Dan Carlson
January 16, 2004
The database problems have finally been solved. After the server software upgrade yesterday, our host experienced further difficulties which were restricting the number of requests allowed to flow into the databases -- this had the annoying effect of creating unpredictable and intermittent access to Memory Alpha pages. As of this morning, everything appears to have been solved.
Also, Harry and I have made the decision to change the Memory Alpha copyright policy to adopt a new license, a Creative Commons License. This was done primarily to make it easier for us to display images and other copyrighted media on the site under fair use rules. If you have any questions or complaints, please post them on Memory Alpha talk:Copyrights. -- Dan Carlson
January 15, 2004
Our apologies for the unannounced downtime that was experienced this morning -- our host was performing an upgrade of the MySQL server software. Everything should be up and running normally now, however! -- Dan Carlson
December 29, 2003
Our big brother Wikipedia is in trouble! Read this letter to see how you can help! -- Harry Doddema
December 23, 2003
Some cool news: Memory Alpha was mentioned today in TrekToday's news bullets. The word is spreading! -- Dan Carlson
November 26, 2003
The first announcement. Move along, nothing to see here... -- Dan Carlson