Startrek.com Shutting Down

Curlsman writes to let us know that the fan site startrek.com, operated for 13 years by CBS, is being shut down and its staff laid off. Is this site worth a write-in campaign? From the (perhaps final) post: "Goodbye from the STARTREK.COM Team. Sadly, we must report that CBS Interactive organization is being restructured, and the production team that brings you the STARTREK.COM site has been eliminated. Effective immediately. We don't know the ultimate fate of this site, which has served millions of Star Trek fans for the last thirteen years. If you have comments, please send them to editor @ startrek.com — we hope someone at CBS will read them."

Re:Not Quite

[DeeQ]

you work somewhere for 13 years and get laid off, I would use eliminated too.

Last editorial...

[Anonymous Coward]

The last editorial on the site is about the writer's strike. It would be logical to draw your own conclusions.

Re:great news?

[marcello_dl]

An "It's dead, Jim" 404 page would be most appropriate.

Re:Say Wha!?

[rucs_hack]

Don't Paramount have a movie coming out, by the very name "Star Trek", for Xmas next year? Seems like a dumb time to drop the site.

Not if they plan to re-use the domain to promote that film.

My e-mail

[chi_thirdrail]

It's unfortunate that the Star Trek site is being discontinued. Even if the site cannot be maintained any longer (despite a movie apparently being in production), the resources accumulated on the site are important, at least from a historic perspective. For a television and movie franchise to last around 40 years, and have the influence it has had on pop culture and scientific development (the standard "flip phone," for example, was created by a Motorola engineer who readily admits it was inspired by the "communicator" from the original Star Trek series), it deserves at least a Web site that archives important information about the show. I used to work for MSN (at Microsoft's Redmond-West campus, where MSN was operated out of) in the late 90s, when the site still existed in its early state startrek.msn.com. Even after moving beyond the days of "MSN Shows" this very site lived on and evolved to keep up with the series and discuss the latest episodes of DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise, as well as maintain a comprehensive history of the various series and movies. It never outlived a purpose as a site. I, personally, maintain several Web sites, including one that has sent over 240,000 letters to legislators in Illinois to encourage proper investment in public transportation infrastructure in the Chicago area. Considering that I personally spend about $200/year on the sites I am in charge of, it's shocking to me that StarTrek.com can't even be maintained as an informational resource by such a massive media conglomerate. Even if a salary needs to be paid to a developer to maintain the site, it's still peanuts. Even if there can't be the kind of investment to keep the content fresh, what exists now deserves to remain available to the public with whatever little maintenance it requires. Please, at the very least, maintain the Web site as it has existed as a resource to the fans, to the occasional watcher, and to the curious about the details of literally hundreds of installments of high-quality and socially important science fiction television and movies that have influenced generations of people to set higher standards for advancement, understanding, and peace. Star Trek, a fan of the show or not, must be acknowledged as having had a huge impact on pop culture and our technological and scientific direction. The least one can do is keep a Web site running on a server for what amounts to peanuts.

And takes out 5000 blogs...

[tekrat]

Seriously... This is something I always wondered about with blogs -- what happens when a major site like this (that I'm sure has been linked to by blogs and used as fodder for blog posts) shuts down? Can you imagine how many blogs will be inconvenienced when Youtube goes the way of the dinosaur as well? All it takes is some bean counter to kill half the internet.

Live Long and Prosper, "startrek.com" .... or perhaps not.

Re:Not Quite

[Anonymous Coward]

, if you're 33 (that means, you've been involved in that since you were 20) and your main occupation has been 'maintaining startrek.com' (or any one website), maybe it's time to move on, and fatten up that CV.

Ah, the modern world of work. No such thing as enjoying your craft, no such thing as loyalty to or from your company. All about "climbing the ladder" and "fattening up your CV". What a waste, 8+ hours a day spent on a rat race instead of practicing what you love.

You can earn all the money in the world with your sort of attitude, but you'll still have approximately the same number of days on this earth as I do. The "pursuit of happiness" is an on-going experience, not a goal. If someone wants to spend a third of his working life maintaining an excellent web site (+other resources) on Star Trek, good for him. He's happy, he's harmless, he's giving other people joy.

If you haven't found what makes you happy yet, heed the example of this sort of person - don't put him down.

CBS figures

[Trikenstein]

Why should they pay salaries and provide bandwidth when fans/geeks will do it at no cost to CBS.
Memoryalpha and other fan sites will continue to exist. CBS will retain ownership of Startrek,com and use it as they see fit. Probably for new ST universe projects they have an investment in.

They really could have been more sensitive about their timing of firing the staff though, and I hope they reap all the negative karma they deserve.

Re:great news?

[Superpants]

Or perhaps they have a deal with Paramount, who will take over as I don't think CBS has anything to do with Star Trek anymore.

Kill it now!!

[p51d007]

Kill it off now! Make it disappear for 5-10 years. THEN bring it back. The problem with the entire ST franchise is that it has been run into the ground. Kill it, let people forget about it for a few years, THEN bring it back. Hopefully by that time, Rick Berman (however you spell it) will have died off and some other writer can bring back this franchise.

Re:Not even worthy of thinking about letter writin

[TigerPlish]

So, "Piece of the Action" didn't have a message. Like how foolish it is to base a whole society's rules and morality on one book of unknown, unproven origin. Right. Check.

So, "Balance of Terror" wasn't referring to nuke all-out warfare from the submariner's POV. Right. Check.

So, "Who Mourns for Adonais" doesn't indicate that one day, this planet will cast aside the notion of supernatural "gods." Right. Check.

That you fail to be receptive to the not-so-obvious stuff in pop culture tells me that you're only skin deep, and fail to look deeper, past the glossy, campy, Technicolor surface. Let me guess, you likely think Hendrix, the Beatles and Pink Floyd were just pop acts.

S'okkay, for every 1000 of you who aren't receptive to the undercurrent of fresh ideas buried deep in the arts, there is probably 1 to 10 who are receptive -- they are the ones who'll change the world.

Not you.

Re:Not Quite

[Martian_Kyo]

hilarious isn't it....when you die we use kind words such as 'departed' and 'passed away'
yet when you get fired they use harsh words such as 'eliminated' or 'terminated'.

Makes it seem like getting fired is worse then dying.
I bet George Carlin would get a kick out of that. :D

Re:Not Quite

[Lord Ender]

You can earn all the money in the world with your sort of attitude, but you'll still have approximately the same number of days on this earth as I do.

Actually, if you earn "all the money in the world" and you live modestly and invest big, then you only have to work 15 years or so before you can live ENTIRELY off of your investments.

Once you reach that point, your days on this earth really are your own, and they count for a lot more than the days of a cube-dweller trying to convincing himself that he has a good job.

Very very VERY few people can legitimately say they would still do what they do for a living if they were independently wealthy. Most who make that claim are trying to fool themselves by comparing one crap job to some other slightly crappier jobs. I don't know many billionaire trust fund babies working in cube farms because they really "love what they do."

My advice: Chase the high paying job, stuff as much as you can into the stock market (use leveraged funds like those from ProShares if you're brave), and start picking out "retirement" destinations in your mid thirties.

Re:Not Quite

[feepness]

My advice: Chase the high paying job, stuff as much as you can into the stock market (use leveraged funds like those from ProShares if you're brave), and start picking out "retirement" destinations in your mid thirties.

And don't have kids.