Where do we go from here?

While that would've been what I was after at first, Shady, it is not what the thread became about.

The thread became less about things that still need development, and more about whether we ought to rethink what are we developing for, and maybe develop it differently. I think you'd mentioned it had been played by ear too, and in the end, that made a bit of a mess which is pointless to develop, because at the root of it, it won't make sense either way.

Something I've noticed while trying to write The Artist Formerly Known As Nina is that, of the already established things in the wiki missing detail, like the Rosics and their village, it's very difficult to get confirmation on these details or new details one comes up with to fill them in from the original contributors because they're either very absent and hard to get ahold of (Lookin' at you, SilentEric, if that even IS your real name) or just because they've left Felarya in their past. After we sort out this idea of Felarya's direction and all that (that stuff is kind of over my head so I've been staying out of the conversation ^^; ), we'll need to figure out a way to fill in these holes where nice ideas exist and are popular but need more detail. For this, I think the idea that Seneca mentioned, having Karbo bring them up and hold, I guess you'd call them contests, to see who can come up with ideas to fill them in, would really work well, because then we get different ideas from different places that we can hodgepodge together to create something unique while still keeping in the spirit that the original contributors intended (hopefully).

As for the direction of Felarya as a whole...well, that's always been Karbo's domain...but maybe that's kind of the problem? I think the idea of a page on the wiki like he described a few posts ago will help Felarya fans as a whole have a better grasp on how he sees Felarya, and I think that will help us contribute better to the overarching idea for it. For me, I like being able to participate in building the world and making things other fans and writers can use in their work as much as I like creating my own works about it. As it is now, I feel like we're just kind of left to ask, "okay, what MIGHT Karbo like?" and then try to come up with something to flesh out the world in a way he likes without really knowing what he wants to see. Which isn't to say that the only reason to try to add to the world is to get it on the wiki, but at the same time, that's really the best way to make sure people will be able to find your ideas and put them to use, especially considering that getting something on the wiki is considered having it "canon". Am I rambling? I don't feel very coherent right now. Okay, let me try to organize.

Point one: As Stabs and Shady have been saying, a lot of areas of the wiki need more love. I think that having Karbo himself discuss them one at a time among us fans and contributors as a group and taking everyone's input would be a great way to get them fleshed out.

Point two: Even though we're not supposed to create specifically to get our ideas in the Wiki, having an idea in the wiki still comes off as a goal to strive towards because then more people get to see it and it's considered "canon" to the setting. If there were a way for people to have their ideas more widely seen and used outside of the wiki, maybe it'd be less glamourized? Also does this related at all to the topic at hand?

Point three: If we are meant to try to get our ideas canonized in order to contribute to the world proper, it would be nice to have a better idea of what Karbo would be more likely to consider adding to the wiki. The page about Felarya's foundations and fundamental aspects would probably help with this. But at the same time, it wouldn't solve the problem of people seeing getting ideas canonized on the wiki as a goal. Unless that's not a problem and I misinterpreted something someone said in the past.

I think you've done a good job summarizing the critical points. There are two halves to the challenge, 1) identify what areas can be developed [the original intent of the topic], and 2) identify the channels through which the development should occur.

In response to your points:

1) This kind of focused discussion or contest can't hurt, but it still leaves a lot of pressure on the decision maker, and I'm not sure Karbo wants that kind of pressure. But if anyone wants to try a short story contest to provide sample details for a new idea, I would be willing to put up prize support (Amazon gift cards?).

2) Your conclusion makes sense: an entry in the wiki can be seen as a goal because it adds value and traffic to the author's work. Creating an alternative means of prestige could circumvent this, but I'd be wary that either a few authors may horde the accolades, or the awards might be distributed evenly and become meaningless. This issue is somewhat related to the topic at hand, because it impacts the way in which the new ideas are developed and accepted.

3) Maybe a "bounties" page, where Karbo can post loose ideas for writing assignments (and others can nominate subjects)? Then accolades can be doled out for participation and placement in the contest? Just spitballing here. But a semi-formal channel to "recruit" new talent can't be a bad thing.

If I may...

No need for gift cards, Hyde. All of us who are here love what we do, or else we wouldn't be doing it. That said, I have to admit the wiki's a big part of it, as Nyaha pointed out- discussion on ideas used to be a big part, but it doesn't happen as much as it used to.

Entries in the wiki don't really give the writers extra traffic, as we found out. Might seem that way because of Frenchsnack, but he doesn't get that many views from editing the wiki. He gets that many views because he's Frenchsnack.

But let me say that you seem... satisfied... with doing mostly pictures, as you are doing lately, Karbo. While you haven't quite hit second job level, you've admitted that development is the hardest part for you.

What if instead of adapting articles to develop Felarya, you give us something to work on? I'd really like it if we could work on your yarn as you spin it, instead of volunteering finished products from the ground-up. That may be part of why we wound up with the current hodgepodge we're complaining so much about, and why we've had all this mess about credit.


My suggestion, though I know it would take a lot... could you think of a few bullet points and then show up, say, every other week for an hour on chat, so we can do a group discussion? That way I can leave you alone the rest of the time, and you can at least originate the ideas. We used to do this on the forum, but if you aren't the one coming up with the stuff in the first place, you will have limited control over its tone and mood.

Being honest stabs, it's only way to figure out what karbo would like help woth but as stabs said Karbo that takes your time just to message a small idea or thought that you had so that we can all tackle it, but that's if your up to that task in relaying that. As much as we like to do stuff on our own some direction that you'd like to see elaborated helps A LOT.

On other things wiki needs and update as everyone saids but a problem is one person is handling it. You got one interpretation of how an article can look and that sort of creates missing holes of what could be in this article, you need to see different perspective of how one article can play out so that it can either be exanded or simplified. But, that takes a few more people, saying that since french snack isn't that much a socialite and Karbo, you and him look at this forum on an observation level as is, seems like you guys need help with an information train of the thing you are looking at as a suggestion. It allows you to either look at all the ideas one or two contributuers could report directly to you then you just decide and discuss what more could be worked on in that specific area as stabs was saying. Second paragraph is just a re-affirm that.

@Stabs I think I need to clarify one thing. I didn't mean that having ideas on the wiki will give the creator more attention, but give the idea itself more attention. For me as a creator, my ultimate indication that I did a good job is seeing or hearing about other people making use of my work. The best way for people to be able to find it and be inclined to use it is if it's right there on the wiki.

jedi-explorer wrote:

And you've done this with the wiki being the "law" of the universe and only you or French Snack being able to add articles....

For the record, I don't add articles to the wiki. I just do a bit of tidying up, fixing minor phrasing issues, adding occasional internal links or redirects to facilitate navigation, etc… I only work on the technical side of the wiki.

What gets canonised in the wiki is up to Karbo.

For the rest, this is an interesting thread discussion. I confess I have no specific useful ideas to contribute - perhaps because the stifling, baking heat here right now is inhibiting my brain.

French snack wrote:

For the record, I don't add articles to the wiki. I just do a bit of tidying up, fixing minor phrasing issues, adding occasional internal links or redirects to facilitate navigation, etc… I only work on the technical side of the wiki.

Maybe that's another thing we should think about while we're at it. I'm sure the wiki would get a lot more love if more people were able to work on it like a regular wiki. I think we have a good pool of trustworthy people that we can pick to carry out a wiki edit checklist written by Karbo every month or so, eh? Or something along those lines.

Something like that could work well as long as the team is well managed, and therein lies the difficulty. But if the decision makers want to give it a try, it could be a worthwhile experiment. It could even take the shape of a general audit, where the committee reviews wiki pages, highlights opportunities, and brings the biggest opportunities into focus.

A small recommendation in this regard, in case this option is exercised, is to establish term lengths for editors to avoid fatigue or awkwardness around termination of status.

And regarding my comment about the difficulty of managing it, that's because outsourcing the ability to edit will only make the problem of small contradictions worse. Every change would basically need to be reviewed seriously, not just skimmed, to keep things like that from happening. So it's definitely possible that the status quo gives us better results per effort, even if it's not perfect. But it's definitely good to brainstorm and consider the pros and cons of all options.

EDIT: If such a big call rests in the balance, then maybe we should tell the dA group too, so that anyone who may want to put a word in may: though dA affects the wiki and the development more rarely, its reform would concern the material they draw from as well. The forums aren't visited as often as they used to be- we can't just assume all of the dA folk heard about it already.

Let's not rush into anything until we've given everyone in dA time enough to respond. I'll get on making the blog post immediately.


Here's what I said, so that I don't have to type it again later.

Spoiler:

That's another thing we should look into: Consolidating all the Felarya fans from across the web into one place. I don't know if we need to make a new place or just find a way to make information sharing easier, but it's something we should think about. Felarya has fans here, on DA, on Eka's, Karbo has a Tumblr I think? Or some kind of individual blog - There's a lot of places for people to be exposed to Felarya, and it'd be nice to have either one specific place for everyone involved in it to meet (Which I think was supposed to be this forum, but clearly that's not working out very well), or some way for fans from different sites to communicate and share stories and ideas.

I know AetherNavale was working on a new forum for Felarya, complete with multi-room chatbox and stuff, but I don't know what the status is of that. Nor do I know how we'd convince everyone involved to all use the same one site.

Nyaha wrote:

I know AetherNavale was working on a new forum for Felarya, complete with multi-room chatbox and stuff, but I don't know what the status is of that.

Part of it is finding the right that guys that don't care for NSFW stuff and making the UI accessible and easy to understand for everybody so that pivs, blogs, and stories (even your own rooms) can be in one place, so it's on the back burner).

Nyaha wrote:

"Nor do I know how we'd convince everyone involved to all use the same one site."

You don't you say "It's time for and upgrade and it has come" Then you link it with both deviant art, Ekas and what's soever so people get the memo. This site is archaic and as you can tell is having a lot of issues on it's own regard, When need be and if possible, a new Forum hub should be considered when opportunity arises. Once that happens though, there's no going back. And anything idea, picture, patreon, or forum related for cirtical news should be posted on there so everyone is aware instead of doing it individually. like i said before, this forum isn't even put up for refrence on deviant or ekas (and most definitely not tumblr) making people more aware that these exist would be a nice change of pace of the forum "lull" of sparse engagement and activity, Timing, presentation, and organization would be key though.

I've seen Stabby's post on dA so, even if I've been for the most part completely absent from debate and felaryan creation, i still check out new artworks regularly and keeping up with recent developments on the world (even how tiny they are). I'll probably be direct, as I am sleepy but inspired to say what i have in mind.

first of all, the wiki, a beautiful and useful one, lacks depth, details, and new canon. I mean, it's as if felarya is running on old canon from the past and, for the present, prefers to rely on what has been done in the past. This is called conservatism, and i'm more for progressism. stuff needs to be added. Felarya, the map and the world, thats a very, very huge place, but so empty it sometimes hurts me. yes, few cities here and there, magic things that makes the said place special but, as said earlier, cruelly lacks details. so my first recommendation would be chaotic but its my humble opinion: make the wiki both canon and fanon (a simple banner at top of page saying if its canon or fanon would be so easy to make), double pages and contents, triple people who can have access to it, make it participative, and why not all just try to expand that wonderful world. im pretty sure there are enough places for all our crazy ideas. Felarya is BIG (I insist on that word) maybe its time for Expansion, Part II. by the way, the wiki does not, for me, need to be coherent as felarya is a chaotic, organied incoherent world. i mean, isnt this world about shifting dimensions and deep magic? its okay to have inconsistency, it adds to the mystery of the world. hopefully some changes will come when karbo reaches the second-job level on his patreon, which will probably happen sooner than we think. felarya is due for some foundation shakeup and new stones.

the other thing i saw was people arguing about the vore fetish aspect. just take away an inch of it, and you lose all the purpose of felarya. felarya is vore world and should stay vore world, because it is the best vore world ever created. without vore, felarya just become boring ecchi sexiness boring world like any other fetish-fantasy based world. felarya is great because it is the only good vore world availble on the entire planet and it needs to stay that way.

so i guess this is it for now. the world has recently been expanded with a wonderful new map, now its the wiki that needs to be expanded. what can appear on the wiki (for now, solely canon) is way too strict. lets loosen up and enjoy newcomers ideas.

P.S. if someone who has power in the wiki is reading this line, please, on the homepage, just underneath the new expanded map, there is a link that unfortunately is leading to the old, less gigantic map. so im asking to change to the link to the new map because the map on the wiki has no good zoom in as it as on karbo's dA. so, maybe, please, just change the link? thatll be so sweet. take care yall!

In my opinion, the talk about how to make the wiki more elaborate isn't leading us to our goal: to make felarya easier accessable while staying true to is roots. Thats not a problem with the wiki, but the stories written.

Sure, it should clarify the most important things and could use some work but that is not the point. Sometimes the wiki hinders the artistic freedom of the stories while not providing a solution for what to write. But that is it, there is no ultimate solution for what to write and then the wiki becomes more of a guideline what to write, not a source of inspiration.

So I think, rather then forcing more strict guidelines on the authors of this community, you should give the authors themselves the responsibility how they interpret Felarya. Like it has been said before on this topic, there are multiple approaches on the topic of felarya that can differ greatly from the source material.

I'm also guilty on this, while I use ideas and topics that come from the community, my stories are far from light hearted vore stories with lots of humor. No wiki can change that, it is just the way I like my story to be.

But on the other hand I also enjoy the source material, which felarya originated from and it should never lose those roots. With all stories out there, you are right, it loses consistency. Like you said, if you try to appease everybody, nobody will like it.

So I would suggest that you distinguish between the art that is more true to the roots, all light heartedly and vorish, and the more serious art, which has also a right to exist in my opinion. If you have to distinguish between canon and fanon, i honestly dont know. Karbo decides what is canon, and its good that way. I just dislike the idea that everyone who writes something new "forces" their canon on everybody else. You can use the territorial map as a metaphor for that. I think there can be a way to make the stories you write "true", but also respect the ideas from other authors and the source material, of course.

Furthermore, as a way to do this, the "what can you expect" is a great way to do so. Not just that readers know what it is about what they read, but It also gives the author the responsibility to explain what differs from the setting that they build their story on.

(And now I will use the opportunity shamelessly promote my art. If you like the serious tone to felarya, please come to DA to check out my latest installment to Mercy and desire, I would love to hear some feedback. @Stabs please feel addressed ^^ )

TheAssassinGuy wrote:

Sometimes the wiki hinders the artistic freedom of the stories while not providing a solution for what to write.

No. No, it does not. If you think that the wiki as is hinders artistic freedom, then you, sir, are critically lacking in creativity. Creativity comes in the form of making your ideas work within the restrictions. Any old bloke can just say "bollocks to that" and go contrary to what the setting has been established just to fit their own needs, like Jake did, just like anybody, if tasked making a bird house as their art assignment using only a specific set of given tools, can just go use something else or tell a more experienced carpenter to do the job for them, but a truly creative mind will find a way to adapt their vision within the confines of the setting and make it work.

The very reason why this thread exists, why there is so much talk of "canon" and "fanon" is because, as Kisexy and Stabs pointed out, the wiki is severely lacking in details. Authors come up with their own interpretations to fill in for those missing details, such as Negav's technology levels, but each interpretation is different, which lead them to clash with one another. You can interpret the giants as cutesy and pleasing to the eyes, or horrible monsters, and both are valid interpretation because of their relationship with humans. Those are perfectly mutable details that are open to interpretation. But what the technology level of a city, or how advanced or quirky its healthcare system, are not mutable details. One guy in-universe can't see Negav as this bastion of advanced technology with flying cars everywhere, while another sees it as a borderline pre-industrial magitech city. That would make no sense. Yet, this is that kind of stuff that the wiki isn't clear about, and this is what needs improving first and foremost.

I can agree to that without hesitation. Please dont mark me an enemy of the wiki, I am not ^^. Clarification for the means of understanding the world is great, yet you shouldn't forget to come up with own ideas for your story and as I see it, if there is nothing specific written, you should come up with own concepts without forcing others to use them ^^

I have to say, reading all your contributions on this thread is great and motivating

And you are all right that's it's about time to expand and solidify things out. And maybe it could be time to open more the wiki indeed.

Stabs, you made the same suggestion as Jedi-explorer a little while ago, of picking a particular topic and really have people of the forum tackling it and coming up with ideas to develop it. And I think it's a very good one ^^I could perhaps help as well with some drawings to go with it.  But yes let's take a go with this one

Looks like we have a dual conversation to pay attention to. If you haven't checked it out, there's a ton of feedback on the DA comment you posted only yesterday (45 comments thus far). I haven't read it all myself, but people started writing essays toward the end. It's good, though. Feedback is valuable.

This question might be not really expedient, but what exactly should be done?
I read the posts here. I read the stuff at dA... but what exactly should be done?

New Wiki? Remove articeles? Remove ideas? Money for greece? I lost track...

I'll try and do a catch-up journal in dA later with a synopsis of the points presented and the decisions that have been arrived at, if nobody beats me to it, Dai. It's been a ton* of posts, but I'd rather do this after it's over.

(*The internet ton has therefore been christened to mean 132 posts )

I have some concerns, rather than post here I made a seprate thread. I know it sounds stupid, but I'm actually having a good deal of anxiety about it.

https://felarya.forumotion.com/t3886-felarya-concerns#120740

I would like to mention something very clear here also that i think we're oversighting with the canon and fanon thing. I don't think "fanon" is the right word. Rather more close to apocryphal. And what i mean by that is that you have your established canon, but then you have here say tales, stories, depictions of other authors that is part of the same universe that might not be entirely true to the particular canon probably, maybe even setting. But before that happens. I'm agreeing with amaroq here, some more things in the wiki themselves and how to go about creating content need to be more clear some inconsistencies don't arise as much (Best if not at all).

That's the direction where karbo wants this. and it's totally salvagable with a retcon and not having to go through the difficult process of what's fanon and what's not and dividing them into their different places. But this would require a critic to decide if that fanon or apocryphal writing (or karbo himself) to see if it actually with most of what felarya is. Now going through the wiki when people say inconsistencies. I'd like you to verify from now on going forth an example. It would be easy to check, but we're most likey going to do this anyways with the voluntary think tanks in the forums and possibly deviant.

Stabs wrote:

I'll try and do a catch-up journal in dA later with a synopsis of the points presented and the decisions that have been arrived at, if nobody beats me to it, Dai. It's been a ton* of posts, but I'd rather do this after it's over.

(*The internet ton has therefore been christened to mean 132 posts )

That would be great.
In regards to the "Fanon" and "Canon" discussion.. are you going to move stories between those things? Are some stories be added to Canon? Clean-up can not mean just to remove things, right? Would be interessing to know Karbo's view on things in regard to that.. clearing out the Augean stables.