A dedicated section for fangames?

[PluMGMK]

I agree with dr_st. While a character appearing in multiple fangames could end up with a really long page, I think it's OK as long as the sections are demarcated. I also agree on hoping for RaymanPC to be an authoritative source, but I may be open to persuasion...

[Mortamon Saturn]

So another thing we could do (depending on how devs and the community want to organise that) could be to start making articles about every Rayman fangame including those planning to have their own wiki. Then, if and when they do get it, we could let them use the original articles as a base for their own and then possibly remove the originals from the global wiki (or at least mark them as a candidate for deletion or something), then adding a link to the dedicated one on the front page (and other necessary pages) for example.

I strongly object to ever removing hypothetical content from the main wiki on RaymanPC, just because someone wants to have their own wiki. I specifically want RaymanPC to be the authoritative source for Rayman material - whether official games or fangames.

I agree with your point of view and Plum, but I'm kind of split.
Aside from redundancy, a reason why I considered that possibility is search visibility, as devs making their own wiki could be overlooked in favor of another one they didn't made.
An example of that is the official Terraria wiki being overshadowed by the FANDOM one, as the latter always comes up first in search results despite being not as good.
As a content creator, I personally think that my own platform crafted with love by my own hands should be the first result that comes up when anyone searches anything about what I made. The creators should be the ultimate authority on their creation whenever possible, even if it's fanmade.
That's how I view it at least, but the end goal is to have something that satisfies the most people, so it should be further discussed until we're sure we have a good consensus on what would be most preferable if such a situation should arise.

To take the two examples you brought up, I envision the fangame wiki having the following pages:

Page: Rayman (fangames)
With subsections for the various fangames. For example:
1. In Rayman Redemption/ReDesigner - Rayman is the same as in [[Rayman 1]] (link to main wiki her) and spinoffs. (mention any differences in appearance, new powers...)
2. In Spooky Raymansion and sequels...
3. etc. etc.

Page: Noseless Rayman
Noseless Rayman is an enemy appearing in... His origins are from... Cameo apperances in ...

Seems like the proper way to do it.
But another question is to decide how to order such sections if we really speak of shared elements like Rayman for all fangames.
For obvious reasons, we can't just prioritize specific games based on their fame.
So perhaps we could simply organize these sections by taking into account the release date of each fangame? Some games could still be shared in their own subsections and only the first game bundled with it would influence the order.
Any thoughts/other ideas?

[Greengoop]

Can you give a quick rundown of what we’ve got so far?

[dr_st]

As a content creator, I personally think that my own platform crafted with love by my own hands should be the first result that comes up when anyone searches anything about what I made. The creators should be the ultimate authority on their creation whenever possible, even if it's fanmade.

I think the best answer to that is that the content creators contribute to RayWiki. I mean, most of them publicized their creations on the forums in the first place...

Seems like the proper way to do it.
But another question is to decide how to order such sections if we really speak of shared elements like Rayman for all fangames.
For obvious reasons, we can't just prioritize specific games based on their fame.
So perhaps we could simply organize these sections by taking into account the release date of each fangame? Some games could still be shared in their own subsections and only the first game bundled with it would influence the order.

Yes, that is also how it is generally handled on the Raywiki currently. When a character/object/concept appears in multiple games in the franchise, the sections in the page are order by release date of the games.

[Hunchman801]

I'm split on whether there should only be one article for entities relevant to several games (or series), or several. I think it will be important to get every contributor's input on this, as some might prefer having their content clearly delimited, and in that case the main article might simply link to all the others (along with summaries for each section, maybe). On the other hand, having everything together, sorted by chronological order, makes a lot of sense too. Let's see what people think!

[dr_st]

Let's see what people think!

My opinion on it is like this - the Wiki is a documentation project. Just like with all such projects, the people who call the shots are the collective contributors to the wiki. Not the contributors to the content that'd being documented. We don't consult Ubisoft on how to divide and manage the official sections, do we? Neither do I believe that in the case of fangames we should actively seek the inputs of the content creators. If someone feels very strongly about what, how and where should be said on their creation - they are very welcome to contribute to the wiki and engage in open and useful discussions about it. That's how we've been doing it on Raywiki all along, and I think this is precisely why it's probably one of the best, healthiest documentation projects out there.

[Hunchman801]

That's a very good point, and indeed, it's the opinion of the contributors that matters, whether they are also the content creators or not. Like you said, everyone is welcome to contribute, after all!

[hoodlumsworld]

In an ideal worlds, the editors would also be the game developers, but I agree with you guys here.

[Mortamon Saturn]

And it's now a reality!
https://fan.raymanpc.com/wiki
It sure came far since the "idea" stage, doesn't it?

With everything we've achieved on this fantastic platform, now I don't even understand some of my own past suggestions/arguments here!

[Hunchman801]

Indeed, this topic had gone quiet, but there was a lot going on behind the scenes.

[RayCarrot]

Really nice work on the new wiki It was a really nice surprise during the Rayman Alive event! I have a few questions though. To begin with, I'm wondering what the List of notable Rayman fangames article is meant to be for exactly. It makes it sound as if it's only for fan-games, but it also lists fan translations. I'm thinking maybe it'd be better to either rename the article, or create separate list articles?

On the same topic, I'm wondering what types of fan content is meant to be on this wiki. For example, say I wanted to make an article about Rayman Control Panel, how would I go about this? I can see us having a category for Tools, where other common ones like Ray2Fix, Better Rayman 3, Rayman Legends Challenge Manager, Ray1Map, RayMap etc. can be in as well.

I'm also wondering about structure of articles and language to be used. A lot of articles seem to be written in a very informal way (for example Fat Frog Games). Is this intentional? I also think it'd be nice to create some common structure for these articles, alongside templates for infoboxes etc. Right now many articles appear structured in different ways.

And lastly, probably no big deal now, but I noticed the links at the bottom of the wiki lead to non-existent pages (Privacy Policy, About and Disclaimers).

[Mortamon Saturn]

Really nice work on the new wiki It was a really nice surprise during the Rayman Alive event! I have a few questions though. To begin with, I'm wondering what the List of notable Rayman fangames article is meant to be for exactly. It makes it sound as if it's only for fan-games, but it also lists fan translations. I'm thinking maybe it'd be better to either rename the article, or create separate list articles?

On the same topic, I'm wondering what types of fan content is meant to be on this wiki. For example, say I wanted to make an article about Rayman Control Panel, how would I go about this? I can see us having a category for Tools, where other common ones like Ray2Fix, Better Rayman 3, Rayman Legends Challenge Manager, Ray1Map, RayMap etc. can be in as well.

I'm also wondering about structure of articles and language to be used. A lot of articles seem to be written in a very informal way (for example Fat Frog Games). Is this intentional? I also think it'd be nice to create some common structure for these articles, alongside templates for infoboxes etc. Right now many articles appear structured in different ways.

And lastly, probably no big deal now, but I noticed the links at the bottom of the wiki lead to non-existent pages (Privacy Policy, About and Disclaimers).

Thanks, we're proud of how it turned out! Even if many things still need some work... speaking of which...
I've been thinking about that too! The issue is that we originally copy-pasted the RayWiki's list for testing purposes (it was the very first article we made while I was working on the big Noseless Rayman one which released just a bit later) and so it would be featured on the more fitting platform...
But there's still a lot to update about it (like implementing the extra categories for animations or comics I mentioned in one of my latest update logs), and the name "fangames" just won't cut it anymore and we should change it to "fanworks".
Fan creations have become increasingly diversified in the recent years and so even the RayWiki's page is in need of a serious rework.

We discussed that a lot while working on the Rayfanpedia. While fangames are the main goal like the games on the RayWiki, there shouldn't a problem about adding content likes creators/teams or any of the tools you've mentioned (the RCP was even the first one we considered), or animated/comic series. Basically the equivalent of everything we already do on the RayWiki, except for their fanworks counterparts.
We can definitely make a category for tools and document them like pretty much anything else.
However, we have to draw a line somewhere, and that line is still a bit of a grey area for some stuff... In my opinion, things like individual animations or fanfictions should be excluded unless they're relevant enough (e.g. the Thank You For Playing Rayman creepypasta).
I think documenting fanarts wouldn't have a point, while custom things like Designer/ReDesigner levels or graphics would flood the Rayfanpedia with too many articles (so we should stick to """official""" ones like the four levels created by Ryemanni as they're bundled by default in their game).
"Fanon" content like random OCs/theories/ideas don't have a place here as it's not intended to be a fanonwiki.
Though my personal suggestion would be that such "excluded" things could still be shared on a user's personal userpage, so it can still have a place while not "spamming" the Rayfanpedia. For example, I tried that for my own user page by listing my ReDesigner creations. After all, there's no harm in putting anything on your own page as long as it's not illegal or NSFW content.

The articles should use the same structure and language as the RayWiki.
So indeed, pages like the one you pointed out are not meeting the intended standards of Rayfanpedia as it was written like someone's personal page (even if it's your own creation, you shouldn't be informal and try to describe the content from a completely exterior point of view), so they'll have to be updated accordingly.
Fanwork creators and other users can take example on both the RayWiki and on some of the best game articles dr_st and I wrote (like Rayman Redemption, ReDesigner...) so they can replicate their format and conventions.

And you are right about those too, we'll need to get to them when we have the time!
Anyway, all of this is my personal input based on the discussions we had, and I don't want to speak on behalf of the whole team so feel free to join the discussion.

[Hunchman801]

Thanks for the kind words, and for bringing up these very good points!

Rayman Saturn has pretty much said it all, so I'll just add that I also don't really see the point in having the "list of notable Rayman fangames" article in its current state on Rayfanpedia, since it was meant as a condensed way to document fangames on RayWiki where full coverage couldn't be provided. Separate lists would probably work better, if they add actual value compared to a simple category page.

As for coverage, there's always going to be a grey area but I have no doubt we'll be able to navigate it with a little bit of common sense. Surely, it makes no sense to cover every single ReDesigner level out there, but when you look at Saturn's recreation of Rayman 1 on the GBC, it's basically an entire game, so I wouldn't be against including it, for example.

Anyway, there's still a lot to be defined, and we count on your input to help us with that!

[dr_st]

One thing I would add is that IMO, the "Notable fangames" article on the main wiki should be retired, and instead just point to the one on Fanwiki. No sense in updating two separate articles.

[Hunchman801]

I agree, and I'll take care of this after we we've dealt with the article on Rayfanpedia itself.

[Mortamon Saturn]

It's true that the list doesn't make that much sense with every fanwork being able to get a full article now. It's pretty much as if we had a "list of Rayman games" article on the RayWiki, instead of simple templates or categories.

I guess Rayman GBC ReDesigned could be documented even if I initially rejected the idea after some thinking... But then the same should be done for other recreations of similar scale (like the Rayman 1 PC/PS1/2D Prototype, Designer and Reign of Terror recreation sets by EthanW0518)
I suppose we could make some other exceptions for ReDesigner content. I'm mainly thinking of Mr Stone's Armada as it required so much work and was featured in Rayman Alive (also has it own artworks by Nic).
And maybe we can select a few with the most downloads or views (content getting over 1000 downloads on Redistributor like Monster Mountains, levels receiving over 10k views on YouTube like Adventure to Infinity or Rock'n'Run... Not that I consider Rock'n'Run that worthy of an article, but its showcase is the ReDesigner video with the most views by far [48k + 5k from its Casual Mix] and it got over 1000 downloads on Mediafire when counting all of its versions).
We could probably do something similar for unofficial Designer levels... But in my humble opinion, all of this is *far* from being a priority and we should focus on the bigger Rayman fan projects for now.


On a side note, looking at the RPC's main page now makes me regret we didn't spell Rayfanpedia with the same naming conventions as the RayWiki, RayTunes and RaySaves, cuz it kinds of sticks out and I'm not sure if it's in a good way.
While I'm mentionning RaySaves, I think it could do with some new stuff in the future because it's always been the RPC "expansion" with the least content...
While we're on the topic of fanworks, wouldn't it possible to expand it with save files from fangames? I didn't check yet, but I believe many saves from some games like Redemption or RDMRT could work when shared.

[Hunchman801]

While I'm mentionning RaySaves, I think it could do with some new stuff in the future because it's always been the RPC "expansion" with the least content...
While we're on the topic of fanworks, wouldn't it possible to expand it with save files from fangames? I didn't check yet, but I believe many saves from some games like Redemption or RDMRT could work when shared.

Sure, a fangames section in RaySaves would probably be a good idea!

[dr_st]

And in RayTunes!

[Master]

While we're on the topic of expanding our existing projects, I think it's also appropriate to mention that we should probably have a banner and link to the Rayfanpedia in our affiliates page, seeing as all our other projects have been featured there.

[RayCarrot]

I didn't check yet, but I believe many saves from some games like Redemption or RDMRT could work when shared.

They could definitively work. You can also edit saves from almost all supported Rayman games in RCP (including console games, starting with the GBA ones now), which could help with adding new games to RaySaves. Just let me know if anyone needs any help with that. Especially the GBA ones would be easy to add But other ones like Redemption would work too.