The Half-Blood Prince Compliancy [Or Lack Thereof]
With the advent of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, there is a distinct dilemma in the fanon realm; to comply, or not to comply? This is a very large problem for many writers, particularly sticklers for canon, such as myself. Until HBP, at the time of writing, each of my stories did not directly contradict canon. Obviously as time progressed (from the PoA, to the GoF, to the OotP), original stories were completely disproved -- but at the time of writing them, they weren't incorrect.
This is no longer the case. Half-Blood Prince was so revolutionary in terms of characterisation that it is difficult to write particular fanfiction stories to follow canon. Even if, through some authorial contradiction of intent, Hogwarts is open for Harry's seventh year, Draco/Anyone shippers can kiss goodbye any school-based romance goodbye.
Since I have several school based fanfictions planned, I don't want to abandon Hogwarts as yet. In fact, I may never want to abandon it.
And thus follows the idea of HBP Non-Compliancy.
HBP Non-Compliancy is for the authors who love the sixth book and acknowlege its existance -- but are not ready to write fics that completely agree with the new canon. It's not simply ignoring the book, it's an indication that this fic a) does not contain spoilers and b) while it may take place after the sixth book, it does not follow canon, however, is true enough to the older books not to really qualify as an AU fic.
Since an AU fic is defined as "A story in which facts deliberately deviate from the way they occur in canon. A fic in which Harry was sorted into Slytherin, or in which the Potters didn't die on Halloween, or where Neville, not Harry, was the "Boy Who Lived" would be defined as an AU." [Lumos Dissendium], it is entirely possible to regard HBP Non-Compliant fics as AU.
The thing is, not acknowledging the newest events and characters in the books is not quite the same as putting a Gryffindor in Slytherin, or directly challenging the events of the books. It is not a 'what if' scenario.
And so HBP Non-Compliancy comes in to fill the void and make the distinction between the two.
If a fic I write is HBP Compliant, it is marked as such. At present, Non-Compliant fics are not marked. I may, in future, use the 
and 
buttons.
But until I -- and, I suppose, the rest of the fandom, although they may not term it as such -- reconcile the difference between my fanon tendencies and the new canon, HBP Non-Compliancy will live on.
