Proceedings of the forum discussion

I've decided to put forward the proceedings of the forum and dA discussions. Many posts and comments have been walls of text: reading through one is admirable, through 140 is a task which we shouldn't all be doing if one of us can do already. I know some of you are pretty busy arguing with people on the internet, or rescuing busty princesses, or whatever it is you do.

The following is a collection of quotes that address certain topics. I've tried to trim as much material as possible while still keeping the intention behind the post unchanged, so as to shrink the wall of text a little. Yeah, I do fairy magic.

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DarkOne at the forums got the ball rolling by pointing out that Felarya started out as camp and carnivalesque. Then people started making more serious material, completely contrary in tone to the source material. While it had its weaknesses, people at least knew what they were doing.

DarkOne: "You end up with a setting that in someways too silly to be taken seriously and too serious to be taken light heartily [...] This is an issue that can’t be fixed by burying it under the whims of the contributors, piling on new races, cities, magic systems and weapons and so on would do nothing but dress up the already schizophrenic setting with even more trifles and window dressing."

He made two suggestions: either giving it a sense of purpose and direction, or restructuring it so it had a mythology rather than a canon. We'll touch upon them later. Karbo said he agreed.

Karbo: "yes there is no denying that there is schizophrenia in Felarya and what it is and what it's trying to be. And you are also right when you point at me trying to have it both way..
Because the thing is I like both of those aspects.
I like the light-hearted, fetishy, wacky premise of Felarya. Without them i feel the world would lose a lot of its identity and appeal and become too generic.
But on the other hand I really love the more realistic world-building aspect of it. it adds hugely to the identity of Felarya and without it, Felarya would lose a lot of its identity as well and becomes too shallow. But I have to agree that the more it goes, the more this double identity disparity is growing and is becoming quite problematic. it makes its development feels like a jigsaw puzzle or a tightrope walker act at times.  There is some thinking to do on what exactly Felarya is and where we go from there. And perhaps some retcons could be in order as well."
P.S: "on second thought, I owuld [would] have perhaps insisted less on the dual identity of Felarya being a problem and more on how to make things clearer"

jedi-explorer: "This [Karbo's position on tone] I agree with heavily! I try to balance the horror and suspense with light heartedness and comedy. I'd hate to see either dissapear froom Felarya entirely."


And then it started.

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The themes that were discussed individually were vore and realism.

Archmage Bael: "I think realism is important and should be included where we can. Though the problem I think is that most people try for earthly realism inclusions, and Felarya's realism will be a lot different, as long as we keep that in mind, 'realism' should be fine. (once again reiterating that 'realism' for felarya is different than 'realism' for earth)"

DarkOne: "The realistic world building of Felarya has always been in reaction to the fetish premise and try to make it realistic simply for the sake of making it realistic, and not making it realistic because there's an idea behind it that requires that realism. The humour likewise is generally for the sake of humour. There's not many moments in Felarya where the lighter moments and the serious moments work together towards a higher purpose."

Krisexy26: "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."

Claire: "I don't understand why people keep saying Felarya is "more" then a fetish world. There is nothing wrong with a fetish world and it can still be successful with the fan service [...] we can still enjoy Felarya for what it is, the noms and there is nothing wrong with that. Trying to make it into something it is not is like comparing apples to oranges."

Amaroq (P.S): "I do think realism needs to be tackled, and it is safe to assume that, unless stated otherwise, for convenience earthern standards should be able to be applied as a general note, where noteworthy exceptions such as the square cube law or the previously mostly unexplained desire to eat stuff and especially people whole and alive should be mentioned and pointed out. It doesnt HAVE to be explained for its reasons, but AT LEAST for the presence of such exceptions, because I often see arguments coming up about exactly those things, especially when newer people join the community and arent familiar with those unspoken traits. This way it will be much easier for new people to find into the world setting.
As for vore: I admit I came to felarya for vore and it kept me because of the vore for a great part. I am not the only one thinking like that, so I believe felarya should remember its roots and stay with the fetish aspect making up a great part of it to prevent it from becoming Jurassic Parc Giantess edition as said before. "

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Here's what has been said regarding the solution of picking a direction, a tone, a purpose, or a theme.

DarkOne: "What Felarya really needs is a sense of purpose and direction that makes it easier for contributors to blend their ideas with the setting with minimal chaf."

Amaroq: "What the setting needs first and foremost is a rough Guideline about what the setting should feature at its very core. Not examples like "there are Laser rifles but no nuclear devices" as that makes little sense, but roughly what SPIRIT and THEME the world should have. [...] Felarya needs more precise guidelines, an agenda of expectations so to speak, where people might be clear about what can be found on Felarya innately, and what could only possibly be brought from other worlds in very rare instances, as the world at this point is WAAY too big (pun intended) to be grasped by anyone trying to portray it and make a clear line between canon or not."

Stabs: "Once upon a time, I would've protested against Felarya getting a sense, a purpose in its design philosophy, but over time I've realized we had one all along. There are things you [Karbo] explicitly never wanted in Felarya- people beating up giant nagas with their bare hands, all-encompassing empires, and resurrection. Nobody would resent you for tightening the design [themes] a bit more."

Karbo: "But this idea of let's say a page describing in detail what Felarya is, with its fundamental aspects, a recap of its foundations to paint a more coherent and clearer picture.... yes I think it's a very good idea and something I'm willing to work on."

Nyaha: "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."

Stabs: "could you think of a few bullet points [...] so we can do a group discussion [to develop an idea]? That way [...] you can at least originate the ideas [...] 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."

TheAssassinGuy: "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."

SenecaHyde: "This kind of focused discussion or contest can't hurt, but it still leaves a lot of pressure on the decision maker"

Karbo: "you [Stabs] 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"

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The idea of switching over to a mythology had its share of the discussion.

DarkOne: "Or, if failing the grand design purpose idea. Felarya perhaps should abandon the concept of an ‘canon’ and opt for a mythology structure, where contributions are not necessary set in the same world as Karbo’s but their own worlds that share many themes and certain rules, but are otherwise allowed to reinterpret Felarya’s depiction."

Bluehorizon: "I'm kind of with what Darkone and [Aethernavale] are saying. Separating the canon from the fanon makes things less confusing but it gives more variety of reader or creator preference of what type of felarya you are wanting to look at with out totally abolishing the core of the universe. But what questions me most is that both need a cleaning up to make a bit more sense."

Karbo: "To be honest, the canon / fanon route looks rather intimidating to me. This would create a huge variety of problems and headaches.. and I'm not really convinced it's required at this point"

Krisexy26: " 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."

TheAssassinGuy: "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."

Amaroq (P.S): "Adding more lore and mythology such as rumors would fit greatly to the aforementioned idea of having themes and possibilities rather than hard facts and differentiations between canon, majorly accepted fanon and nonaccepted fanon."

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That's not to say the current model found no traction or support. Some people believed that continuing to flesh out things was at least part of the best course of action.

Shady_Knight: "Well, Karbo, the first suggestion I would make is to actually put down concrete information. That is the biggest flaw with Felarya and the wiki in general, too many areas have important details that are conspicuously absent and are only added when someone prods you to or brings them into question. Take Negav, [...] It's this kind of lack of attention that keeps leading me to say that the wiki isn't so much updated as it is patched. [...] We can't read your mind, Karbo, if there are quirks to the setting that we should know, then it should be written down."

Nyaha: "Something I've noticed [...] is that, of the already established things in the wiki missing detail [...] 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 [...] we'll need to figure out a way to fill in these holes where nice ideas exist and are popular but need more detail. [...] 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."

Krisexy26: "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."

TheAssassinGuy: "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."

Shady_Knight (To TheAssassinGuy, in response): "No, it does not. Creativity comes in the form of making your ideas work within the restrictions."

Karbo: "you are all right that's it's about time to expand and solidify things out."

Amaroq (P.S): "I do not think major changes are required to happen, slight adjustments are welcomed though, especially rgarding the guideline principle I mentioned above, to make it easier to add content to the world, be it stories, pictures, games or wiki articles, so a better consent can be achieved. There are a few things that would be nice to have a rework of, but those are more exceptions rather than the norm"

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The number of wiki editors was also brought into question.

Nyaha: "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."

SenecaHyde: "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. [...] 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."

Krisexy26: " 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."

Amaroq (P.S): "I do believe that more editors would lead to more content, but before we can add more editors, we need to be clear that there is a consent about what felarya is, should be and will turn into, should it not stay the same. Before we tackle this issue, we should solve our current problems."

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Regarding retcons, removals, rescinding:

Claire: "Adding new entries to the wiki will not improve Felarya's plot, I think its not salvageable because of all the people that left. If the plot was to improve major changes would have to take place."

Karbo: "Some trimming could be useful as well. [...] If there are indeed retcons to be made, they are going to be discussed thoroughly first"

Stabs: "A retcon, discarding stuff by order of importance, might make it a lot easier for Karbo to get the world making sense just the way he wants it. There's aplenty, maybe it's best to trim some fat. A full-on redo from scratch would fix almost everything, methinks. Any dead ends, clutter and dead weight will simply be lost in the transition, unless it's judged important enough to redo. As for the bits someone owns, I expect most of them not to be carried over, unless they're important enough to keep."

Amaroq: "Seeing how i myself reworked content that has been kind of abandoned I am obviously biased, and say that it should be possible to do so with underdeveloped content or where content just isnt up to date anymore. Ideally with the consent of the original creator of course, should they still be around. "

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There's been a post-scriptum discussion regarding the canon and the wiki.

Frenchsnack: "I'm tentatively of the view that the wiki should remain a repository of canon. It's useful for contributors who want to work within the canon, and to draw inspiration from it. There should continue to be a distinction between stuff which is canon; stuff which isn't canon but which fits with the canon; and stuff which doesn't fit with the canon. (So as to avoid confusing new contributors.)

Shady_Knight: "I need to ask: what exactly IS canon in Felarya? I think before we resolve this issue of canon and fanon, if that's the solution that's going to get pick, we need to pinpoint what exactly is considered canon in Felarya."

SenecaHyde: "I'm concerned that the wiki isn't a very accessible source for new enthusiasts. That doesn't mean the wiki is the flaw here; it just might be that we need some other kind of resource to get people started. The issue is pronounced by how over time, as more material gets added to the wiki, it becomes, almost by definition, harder for new enthusiasts to learn all the material. That means that as anyone drops out of developing the universe, they're less likely to be replaced, and much more likely that the replacement has a looser grasp on the material."

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There were other subjects touched (such as the possibility of moving the forum elsewhere), but I've chosen not to repeat them here.