Not Fanfic, Not AU, It's Original Fiction
I'm rather miffed that something which was a mainstay in the older additions of Wikipedia's page on Alternative Unverise (fan fiction) has been removed in the latest editions of the page.
AU controversies
Many fan fiction readers and authors dislike AUs because some AU writers disregard the canon of official work composed or approved by the original author. However, some authors write AU fiction specifically to explore issues not fully addressed elsewhere, and may develop their own meticulously researched universe which follows logically from the original canon.[citation needed] Some also object to "wish-fulfillment" characters (aka a "Mary Sues").[14]
A common mistake made by inexperienced fan fiction writers is to believe that writing an AU fan fiction means that the writer can acceptably and drastically alter the personalities of major characters; in fact, the point of AU fan fiction is that the characters' personalities remain as much the same as possible, and the only changes are those that could rationally be caused by the differences from canon.
First, if citations are needed, add them. Second, the controvesies listed here are valid issues within the fanfic community, but I'm also speculating the edit occured because some butthurt person who didn't like being told what they were writing wasn't a legit AU decided to edit this section out. In particular, I don't think they liked the last part about drastically altering the personalities of major characters. That's one of the major issues though that has been cropping up, but because this hasn't been fixed - and I can't fix it as I don't have the ability to edit the wikipedia - we have writers arguing that an AU is definitely anything you want to be.
However, even in original fiction an AU is about the possible outcomes, not the impossible ones. For, just as there are an infinate number of possible worlds, there is an infinante number of impossible ones. Stop using a genre I love - the alternate universe - to excuse your poor writing choices. If you really love the canon then why are your stories not canon. For something to fanfic, it must be derivative of the canon material, and if it is not canon it is not derivative of the canon material.