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

TrekNation
Type of site
Internet forum
OwnerChristian Höhne Sparborth
Created byChristian Höhne Sparborth
URLhttp://www.treknation.com
CommercialNo
RegistrationFree

TrekNation is a popular 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, the largest Star Trek community site on the web, and Jammer's Reviews, a popular Star Trek review site.

TrekNation

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History

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TrekNation was established on June 27, 1999 by Christian Höhne Sparborth. TrekNation was established 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. [1] 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 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. However, when the new Star Trek movie goes into production, the site is expected to return to publishing articles and interviews.

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

Trek Nation Episode Guide

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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 both TrekNation's review of the episode and reviews on other websites. For some reason, however, 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.

TrekBBS

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History

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TrekBBS, founded in late 1998, is the largest and most active section of TrekNation. With over 8500 registered users, it is also the largest Star Trek fan community on the web. 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. Plans are currently in place to upgrade the forum to vBulletin, however, it is currently on hold as technical issues are worked out. [2]

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]

Forums

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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 lead to the creation of several spin-off boards.

For some odd reason, there are two separate FAQs. This will be fixed in the vBulletin upgrade.

Notable Members

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Several Star Trek professionals frequent TrekBBS. They include frequent illustrator Rick Sternbach[6], Enterprise producers and writers David Goodman[7] and Mike Sussman[8], and graphic designer Michael Okuda[9].

Additionally, many from Pocket Books post about Star Trek novels, including editors Margaret Clark[10] & Marco Palmieri[11] and former Pocket Books editor John Ordover.[12] Authors such as Greg Cox,[13] Keith R.A. DeCandido,[14] David Mack,[15] Andy Mangels,[16] Michael A. Martin,[17] Margaret Wander Bonanno,[18] Terri Osborne (who is also currently a moderator on the board),[19] and Dayton Ward[20] also make regular posts at TrekBBS. Because of these visits, several of the authors have included TrekBBS in their acknowledgments, particularly in Articles of the Federation[21] and The Art of the Impossible,[22] both by Keith R.A. DeCandido, and Ex Machina[23] by Christopher L. Bennett (another frequent poster at TrekBBS[24]).

TrekToday

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TrekToday is TrekNation's news site. It went live on February 5, 1999 [25], 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.[26] Sparborth was later interviewed in 2002 about the possible end of the Star Trek franchise.[27]

Jammer's Reviews

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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.[28] 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.[29]

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.

Spin-offs

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Sparborth owns two other websites which are similar to TrekNation. The first is CSI Files, launched in 2003. It publishes news and 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 Kelly'z Korner, LonAF, Renaissance Next, TerranBBS, Troll Kingdom, and the now defunct EFCL.

References

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  1. ^ "TrekToday News Archive — June 1999". Retrieved 2007-08-19.
  2. ^ "The Great vBulletin Adventure" (Free registration required). TrekBBS. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  3. ^ "On the software update & on my resignation". TrekBBS. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  4. ^ "New Management". TrekBBS. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  5. ^ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (2005-5-2). "Effort to save 'Star Trek' goes boldly — nowhere". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved 2007-08-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ "Rick Sternbach's member profile". Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  7. ^ "David Goodman's member profile". Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  8. ^ "Mike Sussman's member profile". Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  9. ^ "Mike Okuda's member profile". Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  10. ^ Clark's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  11. ^ Palmieri's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  12. ^ Ordover's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  13. ^ Cox's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  14. ^ DeCandido's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  15. ^ Mack's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  16. ^ Mangels's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  17. ^ Martin's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  18. ^ Bonanno's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  19. ^ Osborne's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  20. ^ Ward's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  21. ^ DeCandido, K.(2005): 399. Articles of the Federation. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 1-4165-0015-4
  22. ^ DeCandido, K.(2003). 353: The Art of the Impossible. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-6405-2
  23. ^ Bennett, C.(2005). Ex Machina. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-9285-4
  24. ^ Bennett's member profile Accessed on August 20, 2007
  25. ^ "TrekToday News Archive — February 1999". Retrieved 2007-08-19.
  26. ^ Allen, Jamie (2001-03-06). "Site offers possible glimpse at new 'Star Trek' cast". CNN. Retrieved 2007-08-21.
  27. ^ DiLiberto, Jr., James (2002-12-13). "Witnessing the End of the Enterprise?". Fox News. Retrieved 2007-08-21.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  28. ^ "Jammer Goes to L.A." Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  29. ^ "Jammer's Reviews — FAQs". Retrieved 2007-08-20.
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See Also

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