Animation Source Forums

Indeed - but mates for someone's character is fine. Mates in forum-roleplays are fine. Mates in the shoutboxes and "real-life-but-still-just-online-mate-I-will-kill-you-if-you-touch-him/her"-mates are forbidden.

If any other mods reads this; did I forget to mention some?

Also; not so sure about contests. A contest mod will have to enlighten me.

Well to be honest yea it will get irritating but mainly all you can do is just watch since its written in the rules area "No.19 3. Mates are allowed in projects and contests IF the purpose is fanfictions, other types of art accepted on the site, or roleplays (in the forum roleplay section).
Everything else to do with mates is FORBIDDEN. (Mates are NOT allowed in PMs)"

So unless that rule is reinstated its not against the rules.. but how ever it is possible if steet allows restriction to the amount of mate contests there are. Like 2-3 for each person for a month for example.. The downside here though is that people are already complaining about the rules becoming up tight. So if this rule is stated it may cause a lot of problems and make members leave but the decision is up to steets

Getting a bit mixed up with which "mates". It is very confusing.

As Lux and Mo said, Mates for fictional characters is fine (Example: Achak is Kiona's mate and vice versa) but "mates" in the sense of members using it as an "online boy/girlfriend" is not allowed.

All these "make a mate for "char name"!" contests are annoying and boring but not against the rules, so long as it IS just a character, not yourself.
I think restricting it may be a good idea...there are so many that they clog up the contests section.

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Yes! It's SO annoying! "Mate for (insert character name)" or "(insert character name) needs a mate!" contests are so uncreative and over done. It's not against the law for your character not to have a mate.

You create a character or a litter that has only been drawn once and OH EM GOSH (insert character name) doesn't have a mate!
I can't be bothered designing one myself.
If I get one from the adoption topic, chances are I'll have to draw it at least once!
Le gasp!
I know, I'll go to the contests section!
Someone else is probably thinking the exact same thing as me.
But I'll still create my OWN, rather than looking at other people's.
Just so I can spam up the section.

Now, before you all go flaming me, I AM aware that there are exceptions and some people would like to use an already developed character with an extensive history and would like to combine the 2 for fics and arts and images. But making a topic in the contests section JUST for the sake of your new character to have a mate, even though it's something/someone you'll never draw?

Maybe there should be sticky that's for posting your mateless character's ref sheets and then you can PM someone in that topic and suggest your characters be mates. In fact, do you think that I should do this? It would stop the section from flooding in needless spam.

And another thing. Most of these aren't contests, but request. The prize is like "You get to draw my character and have it as your mate!!!"

The contest prize like that are yes wrong, but wouldn't that give you the same problem? i mean then you'll see that place loaded with ref's in it. plus people will mainly be ignored and over looked. Since there are so many choices in it. At least in a topic you actually open the topic look judge and then decide. Here you wont get the chance

You've just practicly posted exactly what everyone has said above. Please don't do that, if it;s not already considered spam, it should be.

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Pretty much with my opinion it all sums up with UK's post.

Huh? There are a few people on this site who have actual relationships. Real-life boyfriend/girlfriend relationships are not forbidden, but just having a pretend 'mate' on the shout box is. There's a difference between mates and gf/bfs.

But anyway, I don't even bother going to the Contests section anymore, simply because it's flooded with Mate contests. It was a nice idea at first (even I made one) but now it's just annoying.

Whatever happened to creativity? Why can't people come up with mates for their own characters??

Yes, that is correct. So long as the mate is for a fictional character, it is allowed, though like many others have said before me, they are quite numerous and tiresome after a while. Not every character really needs a mate. And for those that you want to make a mate for, try turning to your own creativity before making a contest for it. You'll be surprised what you can come up with by yourself. Yes, contests are fun, but that doesn't mean you have to make 50 of them that are exactly alike. Contests need to be a varied, occasional thing, that way you can generate enough interest from other members and actually have it be successful instead of having only one or two people join, which is what a lot of the ones that I've been deactivating for the past couple of days have been like.