If you are just exploring Memory Alpha for the first time, you might be wondering, "Why should I contribute? Just what makes this so great?" There are plenty of different ways to answer this common question, by way of explanation and argument.
- Accessible: As a wiki website, Memory Alpha is by nature a completely open and inclusive project. Every article is easy to edit, and anyone can contribute anywhere.
- Collaborative: Compared to other Star Trek references, Memory Alpha has the potential to become much more reliable, accurate, and timely, as many contributors share their knowledge by adding to the collected whole. If anyone spots an error in an existing article text, that mistake can be quickly and easily fixed, rather than simply mailing the webmaster, pointing out the error, and waiting for the next weekly (or even less frequent) update.
- Available: Memory Alpha's content is freely available for anyone to redistribute, making it a useful source of information for any Trek webmaster.
- Voluntary: Contribution is not compulsory, either in general or for specific topics. Visitors who wish only to browse our content are of course welcome to do so, and no one is required to write about any topic in which they're not interested. At this stage, there may be many more gaps, but that just makes it more fun, because there are more opportunities!
- Innovative: More than a decade before it came into widespread use, Gene Roddenberry saw the potential for a widespread computer network that would offer a means to store and share the collected knowledge of Humanity – the phenomenon that became the Internet. Memory Alpha is just the newest way to combine one of the Great Bird's predictions with the futuristic universe he helped create.
- Informative: In recent years, Memory Alpha has been increasingly consulted by writers, production staff, and performers alike as a valuable research tool that enables them to increase the accuracy and continuity of their lore, develop more realistic portrayals of familiar characters, and mine obscure trivia and references for inclusion as "Easter eggs".