| abstract | - I've been looking through are various policies but cannot seem to find any established rules on article tense (past, present, future). The examples I've seen used in the guidelines show both past and present, and I've noticed most articles around here are in past tense - as are the ones I typically write. I noticed that User:Mark 2000 had a concern about this, and I thought I would ask you about the scenario. --Gvsualan 07:43, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) I believe a general consensus for past-tense was reached in discussion -- however, policy pages are slow to follow discussion sometime, so I'm not sure where this ended up getting added. If you and I discuss this with a few other administrators and archivists, I'm sure we can find a way to disseminate this style policy. I think Ten Forward might be the best place to do this. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 07:46, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) See, I couldn't even find that discussion. Just this. --Gvsualan 10:05, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) This is connected to some discussions about our "point of view" that we had in the past - though I can't find a central location for that discussion, either. Basically, we're talking about events happening in three different centuries (with some special cases happening even outside that range). The only point of view that makes sense for MA, in my opinion, is one of a person existing "inside" the Trek universe and "after" the last of the events we are writing about. In this case, it only makes sense to write about everything in the past tense. -- Cid Highwind 13:51, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) What about background info, and distant future events like the Enterprise-J, etc.? --Defiant | Talk 22:17, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) That's difficult to answer, because (in the case of Enterprise-J, for example), we're not only talking about something that happens later, but about something that might happen later, an alternate timeline. For the sake of simplicity, we might want to choose to write all articles in past tense, but it would be equally valid to write about possible future events in future tense, as someone from the 24th century would do. What do you all prefer? -- Cid Highwind 15:43, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) I also read somewhere that the past tense was preferred over future and present tense but I cannot remember where. I think it had something to do with MA being a library and that in this context past tense would be preferable. That was also the reason why I changed the Nog article to past tense. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to write an episode summary like a book, in present time like you are experiencing it. As far as I am concerned episode summaries would be the only articles valid for present time. -- Q 06:39, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) We should write all articles in the present. This is what the books say to do. Alternatively, we could write everything in the future now and in the 22nd century, start changing the tense to past. By the late 24th century, almost all articles will be in the past. I prefer the first idea better. As an example, last night, I wrote in Hoshi Sato (mirror) she poisons Jonathan Archer (mirror) and becomes Empress Hoshi Sato Ⅰ. Within hours, it became she poisoned Jonathan Archer (mirror) and became Empress Hoshi Sato I. 1.
* She will not do those things for 1½ centuries. 2.
* ¿What is wrong with the Roman Numeral Ⅰ as opposed to the letter I? — — Ŭalabio 21:48, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) You're looking at this from completely the wrong perspective. The perspective of Memory Alpha is that of the late 24th century - ie, several years past Star Trek Nemesis, so that all events that have happened in the regular Trek timeline have already happened. And, what books? The Star Trek Encyclopedia, the only comparable reference work, takes the same view. The only exception to the past tense rule should be things that aren't a time-specific reference, ie, saying "Phasers are directed-energy weapons..." or "Archer IV is a planet...", and similar. -- Michael Warren | Talk 22:35, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) The books are the writing manuals from University. Basically in fiction, one writes things happening at the now of the characters in the present with things happening in the future of the characters happening in future and things happening in the past as past. When writing about fiction, on uses the same conventions. As an example, in "The Trouble with Tribbles" , tribbles over run Deep Space K-7 and the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701). — — Ŭalabio 04:43, 5 May 2005 (UTC) Don't miss the point -- in the 2380s, the tribbles overran K-7 over 120 years ago -- and Sato poisoned Archer in the mirror universe over 225 years ago. We are writing from a point-of-view of the late 24th century -- everything up to the end credits of Nemesis happened in the past. From the point of view of the Nemesis era, all of these things are behind us. That's the tone a normal encyclopedia reference writer would take -- we are trying to emulate a normal encyclopedia of the year 2380+. (and also, not to write fiction prose as may be recommended by writing guides, but a reference about a fictional topic. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 05:17, 5 May 2005 (UTC) So Memory-Alpha.Org has its servers on the planetoid housing Memory Alpha in the closing days of the 24th century. —— Ŭalabio 06:23, 5 May 2005 (UTC) And another thing, from your argument we should be writing these things not in the past OR present tense, but in the future tense. If your arguement is that these things haven't happened yet then technically neither the present or past tense would be correct, only the future would be. That seems pretty obviously unworkable so the convention is to use the past tense in keeping with encyclopedic style.Logan 5 19:06, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) A big part of this, or perhaps related but separate, is just the generally poor use of grammar on so many pages. The use of past tense, especially in English, is far more standard than all the verb conjugations of the present tense. It also makes for far easier reading and standardization across articles when you have some users who are either just bad writers, or may be using English as a second language and clearly aren't familiar with the use of passives, etc in the present tense. Beyond that, I agree with the general point that encyclopedic references - and not fiction - take a historic viewpoint. No one is saying these events have already happened, but only that we are writing from the point of view as if they had already happened. It's also worth pointing out that all of the editions of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, which is clearly an inspiration for this site, used the past tense just as any Encyclopedia would. Logan 5 18:58, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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