The Mega Man Universe is Now Open to the Public

For those interested in the content of our Mega Man Wikipedia, The Mega Man Universe, I have some exciting news.
When we relaunched the site, we had initially implemented the wiki system as a means of updating site content and information with a greater ease than we had previously, and had hoped to have the most complete, encyclopedic database of Mega Man anywhere. From the USA to Japan to Europe, from the video games to the cartoons to the comic books, manga, and toys– the idea was for The Mega Man Network to be your one-stop resource for any and all Mega Man information.

Then, reality wrote us something of a check.

We reopened in September of 2007 to celebrate the anniversary of The Mega Man Network, with plans of going ahead full-steam and getting everything patched up after the fact, as we still had a ways to go where the data entries in the site were concerned. Ideally, we would have everything from past Mega Man titles filled in, so that going forward, we would only need to add new information as it arose: New titles, such as Mega Man 9 this past year, or new revelations about old games, such as when Inafune revealed why he did not like Mega Man 3 as much as other titles.

For various reasons across the staff, this has not happened. We aimed to keep the circle small, contained, so that we could make sure that any information added to the website was as accurate as we could possibly make it; we did not have an open wiki for fear that those who might be misinformed on various topics might spread such misinformation, thus making the truth more difficult to find.

Perhaps we overestimated ourselves, as adding content to the wiki has not gone as quickly and smoothly as I had hoped; we still lack several key entries in our database, including such obvious ones as ProtoMan.EXE. And in order to hopefully build The Mega Man Universe into a resource all fans of the Mega Man franchise can enjoy, we’re turning to those very same fans for help in filling out the database. And with any luck, if this proves successful, we would like to expand the concept so that fans can include their own ideas and concepts without intrusion into the “canon” entries… but first things first.

Right now, this is a trial run, and we are keeping an eye on things. You have to be registered to edit or modify the wiki, but e-mail is optional; you may want to enter it in case you need to retrieve your password. We’ll be drawing up some guidelines to help users in adding to the Wiki– code, templates, headings, categories, things of that nature.

Rules:

This is just a rough right now, but things to keep in mind when going about your business on the wiki. We don’t want to have to shut this experiment down, but are fully prepared to if we must to preserve the integrity of the MMU database.

Of course, we reserve the right to edit any entry, most notably for minor things, such as grammar, misspelling, redundancy, or, in a worst case scenario, vandalism.

As noted before, we’re interested in providing the fandom with a resource full of facts— theory, conjecture, speculation, anything without an official source, we don’t want here and will remove, with possible exception to context. That will be judged on a case-by-case basis. But no, we don’t want any “Cataclysm” stuff here, with all due respect to Bob & George. We’ll make a note of how to properly source your entries soon, and we aim to do the same for entries we’ve previously made as well. Heck, if you know where our info comes from, feel free to add the source yourself– we won’t mind.

No cursing. This site is meant to be family-friendly, but some will be allowed within reason and context, such as quotes featuring “damn” and “hell,” words seen in actual Mega Man materials. But short of quotes, there should be no reason for it in entries.

It is preferred if, when editing and adding entries, the writer sticks to the proper notations for each series, as explained here. This is a more minor thing, but still preferred, as it helps to maintain a consistency across the entries.

And finally, for the moment at least, don’t mix canon. Games need to be kept separate from cartoons, which need to be kept separate from comics and manga. Each can have their own section under a character’s entry, however: ProtoMan.EXE, for example, could have character history sections separated into MegaMan Battle Network (games), MegaMan NT Warrior (manga), and MegaMan NT Warrior (anime). Plus, if one desires, a section which looks at toys based on the character.

It should be noted that by working on the Wiki, you are acting as a contributor, and anything added to the site will remain with it, as is the general case with systems like this. Of course, since we’re sticking to official information and easily-referenced materials, that shouldn’t be an issue.

If you’re unsure about anything, you can feel free to PM us on the forum… that is, until we add a new subforum for that specific purpose. In addition, if you would like something quick and easy to reference, then I highly recommend the Teletraan-1 TransFormers Wiki, as it tends to cover a similar scope as we’re trying to do here, albeit on a much larger, grander scale.

And I believe that’s everything there is to say for right now. I’ll answer any questions as best as I can, if you leave them below. Now, here’s hoping that the experiment will be a success!

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

LanceHeart