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Memory Alpha  AboutPolicies and guidelines → Spoiler policy
Memory Alpha
This page describes one of Memory Alpha's policies and guidelines.
Please read through the policy 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.

In order to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information, Memory Alpha contains details about all Star Trek episodes and films that have been released in the United States.

Warning! Memory Alpha contains full spoilers for all aired episodes and released films.

Wikipedia has this to say about spoilers:

A spoiler is an element of a disseminated summary or description of a media narrative that reveals significant plot elements, with the implication that the experience of discovering the plot naturally, as the creator intended it, has been robbed of its full effect.

Star Trek presents an especially difficult situation due to its worldwide popularity. Episodes and films are generally not released at the same time globally, and some markets may have to wait weeks or even years before getting the same content. This means that while some fans are eagerly discussing the latest release, others must carefully avoid spoilers or lose any benefit of surprise once they finally get to see the same thing. On film and episode articles, it is recommended to restrict any information relating to later productions to a "Continuity" section. This reduces the chance of readers who have not seen more recent releases coming across this information.

Information about upcoming episodes and films, including information from released trailers or previews, may not be included in a Memory Alpha page, aside from official cast and production information released by Paramount, CBS, or credible news sources. Moreover, this information can only be added to pages told from a "real world" point of view, such as the articles for the episodes and films themselves; pages told from an in-universe perspective, such as the articles for ships or characters, cannot contain any information from a film or episode that has not yet been released. Spoilers that violate this policy may be removed by any user, and adding spoilers to in-universe articles may result in an administrator blocking you from editing the wiki.

Article notification[]

Fair warnings will be placed on several introductory pages, and individual warnings strongly recommended on related individual articles, especially if when revising the article's virtual content with new information.

These articles should be marked with the relevant spoiler template specific to the series from which the latest spoiler originated: e.g. {{spoiler DIS}}, {{spoiler LD}}, {{spoiler PRO}}, {{spoiler SNW}}, {{spoiler vST}}.

Also consider the following when implementing the placement of a spoiler template:

  • Only one spoiler template per article – again, specifically from that of the most recent reference – is necessary.
  • The template is to be placed below any other headers (such as those indicating the article contains info from alternate, et al., universes), but above any sidebars, disambiguation links, or article quotes, etc. (See: MA:EXAMPLE)
  • These warnings should stay on the articles for at least two months after the final episode of the season has aired in the US, or are superseded by another series' spoiler template, whichever is first. In the first case, the tags should only be removed by an admin or through an administrative process.

Finally, encountering spoilers is sometimes unavoidable, however, at the same time, users should still be able to freely visit the site without encountering deliberate or even unintentional attempts by others to spoil ones visit to this site.

  • Contributors should not indicate spoilers in an article's edit summary. To that end, the reminder to all contributors – "PLEASE AVOID PUTTING SPOILERS IN EDIT SUMMARIES" – is clearly noted above the edit summary and below the edit window.

In addition to being poor etiquette, intentionally doing so makes reviewing the recent changes without encountering spoilers next to impossible. Those who are posting such information may also be blocked from editing the wiki by an administrator.

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