TrekNation

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This article is about the website. For the 2006 film, see Trek Nation.

TrekNation
TrekBBS front page on 19 August 2007
URL http://www.treknation.com
Commercial? No
Type of site Fan site
Registration Free
Owner Christian Höhne Sparborth
Created by Christian Höhne Sparborth

TrekNation is a reference and community website for the long-running Star Trek franchise. It also serves as a hub for its network websites: TrekToday, a news site updated nearly daily; TrekBBS, which describes itself as the largest Star Trek community on the Internet;[1] and Jammer's Reviews, a Star Trek review site.

Contents

[edit] TrekNation

[edit] History

TrekNation was established on June 27, 1999 by Christian Höhne Sparborth as a network site for Sparborth's sites TrekToday and TrekBBS after he left another network, the TrekZone Network, over disagreements with TrekZone's founder. [2] Other websites included in TrekNation were Jamahl Epsicokhan's review site Star Trek: Hypertext and the now defunct Warp Eleven.

In addition to serving as a network site, TrekNation conducted a number of interviews with past and present Star Trek cast, crew, and contributors; published articles and columns on the Trek franchise; and posted reviews of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. The site also maintained both an episode guide for the various Star Trek series and a now defunct section dedicated to the Wildstorm Star Trek comics.

After the cancellation of Enterprise, the articles and interviews began to slow down. As of 2007, TrekNation's main updates are "Retro Reviews" of the original Star Trek and The Next Generation.

TrekNation and its networked sites have been affiliated with the UGO Network since TrekNation's founding.

[edit] Trek Nation Episode Guide

TrekNation still maintains an episode guide for all Trek series (including The Animated Series). Although information on the episodes themselves are not as detailed as that at Memory Alpha, all episode pages for Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise contain links to both TrekNation's review of the episode and reviews on other websites. Links are not provided to the Retro Reviews of Star Trek and The Next Generation. Most episodes from all six series also include a parody written by FiveMinute.net.

[edit] TrekBBS

TrekBBS main page as of February 24, 2008
TrekBBS main page as of February 24, 2008

[edit] History

TrekBBS, founded in late 1998, is the largest and most active section of TrekNation, with over 8500 registered users. Sparborth, the site's founder, was the first head administrator. In June 1999, TrekBBS became part of TrekNation, and was updated with a new layout, known to many posters as "Big Blue". The site also became affiliated with UGO at this time.

In December 2002, a banned troll crashed the database by creating thousands of blank accounts. Unfortunately, the database was unrecoverable, and Sparborth had to restore the database from an old backup created in September 2002. This meant a loss of four months' worth of posts and user accounts. The board was also upgraded to a newer version of UBB.threads, complete with a new layout ("Big Gray", the current layout), however, the server had continual issues with the new version of the software, and continues to have problems to this day. Most of these problems have been corrected with the switch to vBulletin, which occurred on February 23 through February 24, 2008.

After restoring the boards, Sparborth decided to step down as head administrator, and turned the job over to the administrator Lisa, who had been the de facto head for several months.[3] In September 2004, Lisa resigned as well, and Bonnie Malmat, known on the BBS as T'Bonz, replaced her as head administrator, a position she still holds. [4] In 2005, Malmat was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times on her views of fandom in light of and about TrekBBS's stand on the contentious issues surrounding TrekUnited's "Save Enterprise" campaign. [5] In 2007, the Los Angeles Times again interviewed Malmat for her opinion of fan reaction toward plans for a new Star Trek film by J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof. [6]

[edit] Forums

The board includes dedicated forums for all aspects of the Star Trek franchise, including each television series, the movies, novels, games, and fan creations such as fan fiction. Additionally, there are a number of forums for discussion of topics other than Star Trek. These include forums for other science fiction shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, Doctor Who, & Lost, as well as forums on less specific topics, including general media, politics, and miscellaneous discussion. The board also has an active social community, which has led to the creation of several spin-off boards.

[edit] Notable Members

Several Star Trek professionals frequent TrekBBS. They include actress Chase Masterson,[7] frequent illustrator Rick Sternbach,[8] graphic designers Michael Okuda[9] and Andrew Probert,[10] and Enterprise producers and writers David Goodman[11] and Mike Sussman.[12]

Additionally, many professionals affiliated with Pocket Books post about Star Trek novels, including current editors Margaret Clark[13] and Marco Palmieri[14] and former editor John Ordover.[15] Authors such as Christopher L. Bennett,[16] Margaret Wander Bonanno,[17] Greg Cox,[18] Keith R.A. DeCandido,[19] David R. George III, David Mack,[20] Andy Mangels,[21] Michael A. Martin,[22] Terri Osborne (who is also currently a moderator on the board),[23] Geoffrey Thorne, and Dayton Ward[24] also make regular posts at TrekBBS. Because of these visits, several authors have included TrekBBS in their acknowledgements, particularly in Articles of the Federation[25] and The Art of the Impossible,[26] both by Keith R.A. DeCandido, and Ex Machina[27] by Christopher L. Bennett. Additionally, Margaret Wander Bonanno credits TrekBBS and several of its posters (including two former moderators) for reviving her Star Trek writing career on the dedication page of Catalyst of Sorrows.[28]

[edit] TrekToday

TrekToday is TrekNation's news site. It went live on February 5, 1999 [29], and has had near-daily updates since then. In addition to posting news about Star Trek, Trek Today posts TrekNation's Retro Reviews and Site Columns, highlighting past Trek news and highly active threads on TrekBBS. The current news editors are Sparborth and Michelle Erica Green, who also writes the episode reviews.

In early 2001, TrekToday was the first site to post information about the characters for the then-upcoming Enterprise.[30] Sparborth was later interviewed in 2002 about the possible end of the Star Trek franchise.[31]

[edit] Jammer's Reviews

Jammer's Reviews, formerly known as Star Trek: Hypertext, is the only TrekNation site not founded by Sparborth. Instead, the site was founded in 1995 by Jamahl Epsicokhan, known on TrekBBS and his site as Jammer. Jammer's site originally focused on reviews of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Andromeda. Star Trek: Hypertext was part of TrekZone before migrating to TrekNation upon the latter's founding in 1999. In 2000, Jammer was invited by Voyager producer Joe Menosky to pitch a story, although nothing came of it.[32] Also, from September to December 2000, Jammer's Voyager and Andromeda reviews were syndicated by Space.com. This ended in January 2001, when Space.com closed their science-fiction section.[33]

On TrekBBS, Jammer is one of the moderators of the Deep Space Nine forum, a position he has held since the forum's creation. On his website, he has begun reviewing the new Battlestar Galactica and The Next Generation.

[edit] Spin-offs

Sparborth owns two other websites which are similar to TrekNation. The first is CSI Files, launched in 2003. It publishes news on CSI: and its spinoff shows. It also includes a TrekBBS-like forum, TalkCSI. The second site is Get Desperate!, a site for Desperate Housewives news. This site launched in 2005. Sparborth owned a third site for Andromeda, Slipstream Web, but this site is now defunct.

Several message boards have spun-off from TrekBBS itself. Among these are Flukie's Cafe, Kelly'z Korner, LoNAF, rEFCL, Renaissance Next, TerranBBS, Troll Kingdom, and Wordforge.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Trek Nation Accessed on August 22, 2007
  2. ^ TrekToday News Archive — June 1999. Retrieved on 2007-08-19.
  3. ^ On the software update & on my resignation. TrekBBS. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
  4. ^ New Management. TrekBBS. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
  5. ^ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Effort to save 'Star Trek' goes boldly — nowhere", Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2005-5-2. Retrieved on 2007-08-18. 
  6. ^ Los Angeles Times. "How do the Trekkers feel about Abrams’ ‘Star Trek’?", Los Angeles Times, 2007-10-10. Retrieved on 2007-10-14. 
  7. ^ Chase Masterson's member profile. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.
  8. ^ Rick Sternbach's member profile. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
  9. ^ Mike Okuda's member profile. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
  10. ^ Andrew Probert's member profile Accessed on August 23, 2007
  11. ^ David Goodman's member profile. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
  12. ^ Mike Sussman's member profile. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
  13. ^ Margaret Clark's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  14. ^ Marco Palmieri's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  15. ^ John Ordover's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  16. ^ Christopher Bennett's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  17. ^ Margaret Wander Bonanno's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  18. ^ Greg Cox's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  19. ^ Keith DeCandido's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  20. ^ David Mack's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  21. ^ Andy Mangels's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  22. ^ Michael A. Martin's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  23. ^ Terri Osborne's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  24. ^ Dayton Ward's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  25. ^ DeCandido, K.(2005): 399. Articles of the Federation. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 1-4165-0015-4
  26. ^ DeCandido, K.(2003). 353: The Art of the Impossible. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-6405-2
  27. ^ Bennett, C.(2005): viii. Ex Machina. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-9285-4
  28. ^ Bonanno, M.W.(2003): dedication. Catalyst of Sorrows. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-6407-9
  29. ^ TrekToday News Archive — February 1999. Retrieved on 2007-08-19.
  30. ^ Allen, Jamie. "Site offers possible glimpse at new 'Star Trek' cast", CNN, 2001-03-06. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. 
  31. ^ DiLiberto, Jr., James. "Witnessing the End of the Enterprise?", Fox News, 2002-12-13. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. 
  32. ^ Jammer Goes to L.A.. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
  33. ^ Jammer's Reviews — FAQs. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also