Hey all, long time no thread. As the title suggests, we need to have a serious talk about what's been happening in these forums recently.

Now, for those of you who've been in the WBA for a while, you've probably noticed that the way the forum works has changed since this group's inception. At the start, we tried to contain all discussion pertaining to a single species to one thread, to help encourage debates on headcanon and keep things organised. The idea was that if it was all in one thread, it would be easier to find ideas that conflicted, contrasted or built upon your own, helping people develop their own theories as to how the MLP world works.

But it wasn't perfect, as such a system made it hard to share the truly different, or even revolutionary ideas by forcing them into neat categories that they didn't really fit into. For example, a thread about Gods wouldn't comfortably fit into any of them, or a discussion about territories might relate to Buffalo, but it's not solely a buffalo's concern.

Since then, we've been allowing users to create threads to share their ideas without forcing them to put it as a comment (assuming the thread was suitably non-pony, of course). But recently, there's been a surge of threads that we're not comfortable with. Threads where Skyrim, How to Train Your Dragon, Green Lantern or all manner of other pre-existing universes have simply been copy/pasted onto MLP, with little-to-nothing else done to it. And that isn't world-building. It's a crossover.

I've taken to calling these threads world-borrowing. And that's not what we're about.

So. Starting now (and applying retroactively), no more threads will be allowed which boil down to "X, but with MLP". And to assuage any fears, we are not banning references to pre-existing ideas. If you want to say "In my headcanon, magic works like it does in Dragon Age", or "This guy is basically Alduin", that's perfectly fine. However, if you're going to call upon the mythos of another's world you must clarify further, saying that it's about mana, or he's the eldest son of the Time God, or whatever.
Being inspired by concepts, places or people is fine, as is basing your creations on the work of others. Directly lifting them into Equestria is not.

If you're not sure, treat whatever property you're referencing like it's a story on fimfic. My ideas for changelings might be similar to Wanderer D's story The Three Sisters, but I wouldn't expect everyone on the forum to have read that story (which you should have, btw. Please don't hurt me D)

If a thread of yours is one we consider to be world-borrowing, then one of the admins will PM you, letting you know you have a couple days to either justify it's place in the forum, edit it to better fit the forum, or to save a copy so you can paste it in the Crossovers group.

In addition, all the previously stickied threads about canon equestrian creatures have been de-stickied, as they aren't as relevant as they once were.

IN OTHER NEWS: We're looking at ways to reboot the Writing Prompts. No promises yet, but we'll see what we can do

~The WBA Admins

2950713 This makes me wonder if I did a boo-boo, since you posted this only minutes after my latest crappy rant.

2950726
Nah, we've been discussing this for a while. Coincidence, I believe.

We'll be PMing the people who've been borrowing worlds over the next couple days, so if you don't get one, you're fine

This is why I don't create threads, but simply comment in ones already created and approved

2950713

As a new member, this seems like a good rule.

I enjoy world-building in Equestria because of the potential it has and stories it can tell that the show, by demographic, will never address: not to copy-paste from elsewhere.
_______________________________________________________

I'll try to keep within the rules in threads, but I have a bit of a question.

I know this is chiefly a group to flesh out races and areas given little attention, but are discussions on the existence or nature of Earth Pony magic allowed?

It seems to be implied to exist in the show with the thing about crops, but never really elaborated on.

2950889
Discussion of Earth Pony magic would be totally fine in a thread where you discussed your magic theory in general, or relating it to a similar race (possibly Zebras/Crystal Ponies?), but posting a thread about Earth Ponies on their own isn't really what we're after.

2951004

I'd probably combine a thread on Burro/ Zebra/ Crystal/ Earth Pony magic to go over all the unaddressed ones in such a thread.

2951023
Sounds fine to me, then

2950713
Well that makes what ever I do a bit interesting since I do tend to borrow, or at least be inspired by others

2952149
As it says, being inspired is perfectly fine.

Sticking Batman in Equestria, less so.

2953055
Don't need to worry about that from me

2950713 My threads didn't break the rules, did they?

2953159
Not that I've noticed, no

2953174 Thank you.

2953055

Sticking Batman in Equestria, less so.

Aw, c' mon. What could possibly go wrong?

~Twi

2950713

I've had a thought that it may be good to keep a sort of master thread over official or at least significant discusions.

Not 8 stickied threads clogging the front page, but one thread linking to interesting worldbuilding discussions.

It is incredibly difficult to find something in these forums once they have been buried, and I'd rather not lose out on reading some of the better threads.

2954112
We've been discussing multiple ways to help prevent threads from being lost, and that's one of them. We'll post a heads-up when we've finalised what we're doing

Thank goodness for this being implemented. I've been looking at a lot of recent threads on here and it really does seem like they've been borrowing from other sources. Not only is it very unoriginal, but I really don't have the time or patience to look up lore for a video game or book to even understand just what the OP wanted.