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2012-2013: New beginning and the Apogee
 | Creating a partnership with Moonscoop and professionals | |
|  | The partnership with Moonscoop is largely created through a fan: Kerian. Member and ex-moderator of CodeLyoko.fr, Kerian has been very active after the end of the series, getting information from Moonscoop about the grey areas in the series.
Moonscoop chose CodeLyoko.fr to be the main community site. The criteria for selection were content quality, its still-active community, and its nice design. At the end of 2011, Moonscoop recognises our site as its partner.
From there began a long conquest into the professional world. It's very hard to be recognised in the professional world because we're only seen as fans. But we won. Go to the “Professionals” page to see our success.
Our first contact took place in March 2012: the CodeLyoko.fr team were the beta-testers of the Code Lyoko Social Game on Facebook, in collaboration with 3DDuo. From there, we regularly exchanged emails with 3DDuo, until we scored a visit to their studio in April 2013.
Contact with Moonscoop is more difficult. Certainly we got some exclusives, like the first official image of the Megapod on the 14th of June 2012. However, the partnership also presents a lot of constraints: confidentiality contracts, more or less a ban on revealing leaked information. When it came to the actors' identities, we had to wait until September 2012 to reveal them, even though we already knew since June.
The most important thing brought by the partnership ensures our presence at every fan event linked to the series. On the 4th of July 2012, a member of the CodeLyoko.fr team represents the fan community at the auditions at Futuroscope. Charente Libre interviews him. The 8th of July, two members of the team are officially invited to act as supervisors at the Code Lyoko Cosplay event at Japan Expo.
Even more important: Tuesday, the 28th of August, a member of the CodeLyoko.fr team is invited to the filming of Code Lyoko Evolution. He then got the opportunity to reveal the name of the seventh main character: Laura.
Later in autumn 2012, a member of the team is invited to the series focus group to represent the “old fans”, proof of Moonscoop's great trust.
Finally, the CodeLyoko.fr team got 5 tickets to the advance screening of Code Lyoko Evolution in Paris at the start of December. The webmasters get the exclusive opportunity to interview people without any other fans present. We also meet the Youth Manager at France 4 who, after the interview, placed our logo on France 4's Code Lyoko Evolution site.
The rest of the year is more quiet, but the links between Moonscoop and CodeLyoko.fr are still there: the team got the official episode summaries and some documents: renders of the heroes, a promotional video to celebrate our 5 million visitors.
The last big event: the organisation of Japan Expo 2013. Moonscoop reserved the Kids Space for CodeLyoko.fr on Sunday afternoon... CodeLyoko.fr took advantage of it to invite two actors for some dedicated time. | | |
| Reforming a competent team | |
| | Kerian is talking to you for this bit
The most difficult feat. Indeed, Kerian, alone with his partnership beneath his belt, arrives to a sleeping forum and a staff who don't appreciate the Code Lyoko universe.
Aquatikelfik answered the call and helped him to relaunch the entire site.
This was the moment an old dinosaur raised his nose, his curiosity piqued by the alluring scent of a nice meal...
Shaka had returned! After some days sceptically observing the community's sudden jump, he saw the partnership as an opportunity for a resurrection, to finish off a site that was left out in the cold.
Unfortunately Aquatikelfik didn't want to completely involve himself in the project, and left the scene shortly after.
But after that, the team began to expand, with Kerian and Shaka recruiting different people to help them, aware that they couldn't do it all alone.
They are joined by a number of people, some of whom left shortly after, realising that the workload was too tiring or not corresponding to the expanding vision of CodeLyoko.fr.
They are joined by a team composed of both old and new members, coming from all sorts of places like other communities in order to give your favourite fansite a community with energy that was often imitated, but never equalled.
The key moment in the relaunch was Japan Expo, at which Kerian, Aquatikelfik, Shaka, Etienne and Wilson met for the first time. A sturdy core team was remade.
After months of work, the roles expanded naturally. Kerian handled the site's external relationships (professionals, other sites, partnerships).
Etienne took charge of the Media section of the site, he himself being a great collector and connoisseur of such things. Expanded on by Shaka, he also became an indispensable updater of the site.
Shaka handled the writing, as he usually does, and also managed everything else.
Wilson also became an important member of the site, managing technical Media things (making the episode galleries, handling the YouTube channel, etc...).
The first fundamental and successful recruitment was Pikamaniaque and Icer as Fanfiction referees. Reinvigorated on the forum, they took on their new roles wonderfully.
The forum moderating team is then expanded, notably thanks to the (slightly stormy) fusion with CodeLyokoForum.org, which saw the arrival of Zoddo, Azer56, Thran and Apolyon. Julrose also came back from his holiday. Among these people, only Thran, Apolyon and Julrose are still active on the forum, all helping on the site.
The site network is expanded, other people are roped back in. Kasux from CLF.org, and Poppy, already met at Japan Expo 2012, became Fanart referees.
Then came the question of site design and graphic artists.
Shaka didn't want to fall back into past habits when the site only had a single graphic artist linked to it, creating workload problems, so he decided to adopt a new technique. He created a network of occasional collaborators; not really “team members” as such, Shaka simply proposed that they work as volunteers on the site in goodwill. They fulfil occasional requests. In exchange, CodeLyoko.fr ensures them some promotion, a public file of their work in a known area...and some Made in CL.fr presents from time to time =P
The first of these graphic artists to work on the site was Nelbsia, forum member and indispensable asset of the site, since September 2012. He was then joined by other talented artists from deviantART (Rui, BassoonistFromHell, A_QueenOfFairys; 2013). The team can also count on the graphic artists among their ranks (Kasux, Poppy, Apolyon).
Finally, the site can continue to count more regularly on some difficult tasks getting done: the two old webmasters CyberjujuM and Johann, who often lend a hand with technical things.
A very strong partnership is also born with Immu, who moves the IFSCL to CodeLyoko.fr shortly after the advance screening of CLE, to which he had been invited by the site. Occasionally, he offers his services for difficult graphic tasks.
CyberjujuM and Johann are two old webmasters who give often their help for the technical aspects. | | |
| Getting the site afloat again | |
| | Getting CodeLyoko.fr afloat means relauching both the site and the forum at the same time.
So began a massive spring clean, sorting out, organising, tidying up topics, updating the tutorials and rules.
With a good team like we have, the work done was...absolutely colossal.
The first three huge tasks completed were done by the three webmasters.
The creation of the Lyoko-Network by Kerian is detailed below.
Shaka, following conversations with CyberjujuM, became autonomous and set to work on the things he hadn't been able to finish before. He quickly finished the season 4 updates that had been abandoned.
He then totally rethought the internal organisation of menus on the site and over the months, he develops a system that led to the one you see today. Proper, efficient, well-kept...and exhaustive!
Then came the time for innovation. He prefers to wait until the end of Evolution to tackle that section. Nevertheless, many other things saw the light of day!
26/08/2012: Addition of “Matrix” and “Teleportation” files in the “Files” section
08/09/2012: Updates to files + addition of a new file “Japanese culture in Code Lyoko”
14/09/2012: Addition of the file “Code Lyoko Evolution” that summarises information on the series
30/09/2012: Update to the “Code Lyoko Evolution” file (“Discovering the actors” page + file “All about Code Lyoko Evolution”)
Update to the “Moonscoop” page
Update to the “Code Lyoko in the Press” section
Update to the “Partners” section, replacing the “Links” section
Update to the “Kadic Academy/Lycée Lakanal” file
06/10/2012: Addition of the “Code Lyoko Evolution” gallery available from the “Photos” menu
08/12/2012: Addition of the file on the advance screening of Code Lyoko Evolution
Addition of the episode files for “XANA 2.0” and “Cortex”
Update to the file “XANA Attacks: The Complete Guide”
09/12/2012: Update to the related products section (return of the “Games and toys” page + addition of the “Card game” page)
16/12/2012: Update to the LyokoStats system + creation of CodeLyoko.fr's history section
19/12/2012: Update to the “XANA 2.0” episode file
Creation of the “Spectromania” episode file
21/12/2012: Addition of the “XANA 2.0 episode gallery” + addition of the rules of the “Code Lyoko” card game
30/12/2012: Creation of the “Actors” section
03/01/2013: Creation of the “3DDuo” section + update to the presentation of the Code Lyoko Social Game
05/01/2013: Update to the “Garage Kids” section
New “Lyokostats” file that summarises the statistics per season and over the entire series
06/01/2013: Addition of a “Critiques” section in the Episode Guide
25/01/2013: Addition of a menu section for Immu's IFSCL
26/01/2013 – 27/01/2013: Celebrations for the site reaching 5 million visitors. A number of new things arrive, inlcuding CodeLyoko.fr's Attic
26/02/2013: Update to the Code Lyoko Evolution episode galleries
Update to the “Card game” page
Update to the “Concepts” page
01/03/2013: Update to the “Actors” section + addition of a “Media” section for each main actor
06/03/2013: Update to the side menu
The “Photos” section becomes the “Image galleries” section + update to this section
11/03/2013: Update to the “Attic”
Update to the “Contests” page
Creation of the “International team” page
Update to the quotes system
To be continued...
Finally, note that as the Evolution episodes aired, the Episode Guide was updated.
Etienne didn't get to rest. He had...an absolutely titanic job: reopen the Media section, which had been closed since the site moved to V5. This was done on the 2nd of November 2012. Since then, he's been updating it regularly, notably thanks to his successful weekly news spot, every Sunday: “The Findings of Dude Dudu”. In this news spot, Etienne gives out exclusive media (music, images, videos) to do with the series that he's found over his years of web research during the Great Cutoff. Visit the page dedicated to it!
02/11/2012: Return of the “Media” section
11/11/2012: Premiere of “The Findings of Dude Dudu” + opening of CodeLyoko.fr's YouTube channel
03/01/2013: Creation of the “3DDuo” section + update to the presentation of the Code Lyoko Social Game
05/01/2013: Update to the Flash games + addition of three games: “Odd's battle”, “Aelita's Battle” and “Code Lyoko Galaxy”
26/01/2013 – 27/01/2013: Celebrations for 5 million visitors to the site. Etienne creates the “Renders and HD images” page
26/02/2013: Update to the episode galleries of Code Lyoko Evolution
06/03/2013: Addition of two Flash games: “Manta Bomber” and “Sector 2 Escape”
The Fanfiction and Fanart referees totally remotivated the creative life on the site, boosting healthy creative competition on the forum, helping good artists and writers branch out on the site, etc... With Shaka's help, at the start of 2013, the Friday news spot is launched: “Our Community's Got Talent”. It allows for the promotion, among other things, of the best creators in the community.
It goes hand-in-hand with the “Gems Online” section, which gives creators their own pages.
Finally, note that the site creates social networking accounts...and eventually an English version... | | |
| Becoming the community's central platform: the Lyoko-Network | |
| | Kerian is talking to you for this bit
The Lyoko-Network is a concept created by Kerian with a simple goal: to gather together the Lyokofan community around a single platform combining Lyokofan talent. because CodeLyoko.fr is also made of its volunteer fans who help uncover news, decorate the site with their creations, and give it life.
So Kerian set his goal: to be ready to welcome Code Lyoko Evolution, the site will be reorganised and become the one and only official site for the Lyokofan community. For a community built on co-operation and hope!
With this in mind, Kerian started to search the net for some traces of the community, such as other sites that are still active due to the passion of its founder, or projects developed in secret, fleeting memories of Code Lyoko's golden years.
One by one these sites and projects are linked to CodeLyoko.fr, securing the Lyokosphere's future with it.
A partnership to unite them, a partnership to help them,
A partnership to bring them together and link them in the Lyokosphere.
Today, we're proud to tell you that ALL the most interesting fanprojects are on CodeLyoko.fr. Look at the partnership section to see the fruit of Kerian's work. | | |
| Becoming the community's central platform: En.CodeLyoko.fr | |
| | The final immense project of 2013: the internationalisation of the site.
Even before the arrival of the English version, CodeLyoko.fr was known all over the world for its quality content and rapid news. But the site was still in French, a language that's difficult for foreigners to access. As such, we would often see our news and articles being translated by foreign fans and relayed through Tumblr, etc.
The idea of an English version had long been in the minds of the old creators of the site. Time had always gotten the better of us. However, as the heart of the community, CodeLyoko.fr was having trouble fulfilling its role within its international dimension.
Everything began as a friendly partnership with Anglophones on the forums LyokoFreak and CL-Evolved. CodeLyoko.fr brought them great help in secret in subtitling episodes. That was in November 2011.
Exchanges remained very discreet but very real. Links between Shaka and bridges to the international community were reinforced. Notably with the webmaster of CL-Evolved (Xiao) and two of its members: A_QueenOfFairys and Kelsey.
In January 2013, Shaka got confirmation from CyberjujuM that an English version could be created. The amount of work was colossal. Work on the internal site structure. All buttons and images in the page structure to be changed from French to English...and the translation...
The work took months, Julien only being available at certain intervals. But finally, on the 10th of July 2013, the start of the English version opens its doors. It allows for the translation of most of the written pages, the publication of English news, an entirely English menu. Some sections haven't yet been touched (Media, Fanfiction and Fanart) but the hardest work has been done.
The translation work now falls on the Anglophones, who are off to a flying start (many pages and the entire episode guide have already been translated upon opening). But for now, it seems that the English team is a little preoccupied with Hungarian business... So, let's wait and see!  | | |
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