Board Thread:News and Events/@comment-13593058-20161104152912

Hey Fanon, Dust here with a rather unusual PSA: The nature of the "Accepted" category.

First off, I'd like to state what's on everyone's mind when they think of a character as "Accepted" and it goes a little like this:

"Accepted means your character is up to par with RP Moderation Team (Staff) standards and thus is allowed to participate in Roleplays on the site."

This is technically wrong. So I'd like to clarify this to all users and, hopefully, to fellow reviewers as well so that we may all have a bit less tenstion between staff and user.

Being "Accepted" is NOT an award by Fanon Staff
Contrary to popular belief, accepted is not an award for having an exceptional character determined by the review team. It is not a "gold star" so to speak and should not be treated like one.

What it is is an "all clear" from dedicated members of the community, who are known for writing consistent material, based on community decided guidelines that are open to change and argument. It is a tag, agreed upon by all users, that certifies a character as AAA Angus Beef and should be an option when considering an doing an RP.

It is a user's own choice to pick their RP partners, the "Accepted" is just a recommendation tag.

Not being "Accepted" DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN'T RP/EXIST
This is another thing I would like to point out. While some interpret RWBYFanon Wikia as a dedicated RP site, which it is, that does not stop you from using Wikia provided sources.

The staff does not "own" this site per se, so staff cannot, and should not, stop RPs/Characters that do not follow the community guidelines. HOWEVER, if said actions do pose a problem to staff or several users, Staff will not hesitate to take action.

In other words, "It's not illegal if we don't know about it."

But if you flaunt whatever you're doing and put a clearly overpowered and rulebreaking character into Pending, you can expect more than just redicule.

Final Thoughts
This annoucement is mostly to clarify and ease tensions between Fanon Staff and Users. For 4 years of my time here, many of arguments I saw could have been avoid if this mindset were clarfied from the beginning.

But it wasn't, so it created a divide wher the users had a view of the staff as elitist while the staff were bickering amongst themselves that no one had the right idea they had in mind or caused that one staff member who had a bad they and just decided to put every single mean thing they can say about a character into their review.

So here's the thing, accepted shouldn't mean jack shit to any of you who just want to RP with whatever overpowered, canon-interacting, Yang-dating shit you come up with; just keep it on the down low and make sure whoever you're RPing with is okay with it. It's your story and it's not the Staff's problem until you make it their problem.

For those who respect what the Staff are trying to accomplish and are content with the system in place now, just keep in mind that the Staff are here to help you. They exist because they feel that this community is worth their time to manage.

Stay in school kids. 