[Mr. Game & Watch]

Hello all, after some discussion amongst the staff, we have decided that the rules surrounding the Tone Clause are a bit too vague and unclear, leading to disagreements on what does or doesn’t fall under its guidelines. To repeal it though, we must have a new system to safeguard against unwanted franchises/characters that the community would prefer not to be apped. Who better to determine those than the community itself?

As such, we are putting a new ban list system into place where members may request for series to be banned and the community gets to vote whether it stays or goes. This new system will be put in place as a Sub Board in Suggestions/Comments, which will be put in place later today. Along with that, we will test out the polls with a few series that we the staff have had to discuss in the past and have not given our approval since then. Though, there are two bans we have put in place without putting it to poll, but they are in place for obvious reasons and we probably won’t change our stance on them anytime soon. Not that anyone will miss them.

The rules for the Ban List are as follows:

Characters from these franchises may not be made into a character application. While we welcome character diversity and members that think outside of the box, it is in our best interest to keep our identity as a Super Smash Brothers website rather than a general video game crossover forum. In addition to that, we as a community have decided that these franchises do not fit with our tone nor are there any characters from which we are interested in having interact with our own.

For a franchise to be considered for this list, please contact a staff member so that it can be submitted for a suspect test. While under a suspect test, a franchise will be put up to a public poll for all members to decide whether it should be legal to app or not. A member may submit an argument for and against the franchise as a reply below the poll, however, we aren’t interested in a three-page debacle, just information on the franchise in question and why or why not it should be considered so members can make an informed decision. Each poll will be given 4 days before it closes and if the decision is unanimous against it, it will be placed on the ban list. If there is at least 40% for or against, it will be discussed by staff. And naturally, if it is unanimous in favour, it will be safe from the ban list. During a suspect test, an app will not be considered for said franchise.

Franchises that are present within the official Super Smash Brothers games will not be considered for the ban list, same goes for franchises that are currently present on the site. Suspect tests will not be conducted if they are clearly being used to heckle another member on the site, nor will franchises that have recently been through the suspect test, unless under special circumstances (poll tampering, etc.).

Ban List

• Hitler from any game
• Porn Games

Polls expected to be posted by the end of the day are as followed:
-Assassins Creed
-Call of Duty
-Civilization
-Fortnite
-Grand Theft Auto
-Heavy Fire
-Mad World
-Saints Row
-The Sims
-Sniper Elite
-ZombiU

If anyone has more franchises they would like to see be added to this first round of suspect tests, please post below. If you are against any of these franchises being put through, feel free to list your reasons when the polls go live.

[Maverick Hunter Zero]

To me; Any Star Wars game in the titular franchise fits this bill, as does any anime/manga/comic/movie that did not have a game come out beforehand with certain exceptions for characters if they didn't appear in in the aforementioned medium and are wholly exclusive to the games they have appeared in.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

The ban list doesn’t replace any rules we had before the Tone Clause (the rule about how franchises that didn’t separate themselves from real world lore wouldn’t be considered for apping), so Star Wars and other franchises that didn’t begin as games would be redundant to put on the list. Allowing characters from those franchises that only appeared/first appeared in video games of that franchise is a bit sketchy and complicates things a bit too much.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

After some clarification, Mad World is being removed from the suspect test. There was an error in communication on my end where it was mentioned for having problematic subject matter, but was not being considered for being banned as a whole at any point in time. As such, it being considered for the Ban List was a mistake and the Staff do not see it as an issue otherwise.