Canon

Fluff that is officially approved by whomever is in charge of that intellectual property. In essence, the notion that some made-up stories are more "real" than others. It should be noted that canon ≠ cannon, no matter how frequently it is used as such.

A lot of people confuse Canon with Continuity or Consistency, or state they have a "personal canon". Sadly, that's not how canon works. Canon is when someone who is in charge of a particular fictional world tells you what counts and what doesn't count.

Canon itself can be sometimes unclear or subject to change, especially in works which have more than one author and works which have gone through more than one version. The latter can be often seen in changes that occur between editions of a roleplaying game; for example in 3rd edition D&D the transformation of a Drow into the monstrous Drider was a punishment, in 4th edition it is a blessing the goddess bestows on the best of the society. When canon is changed in a way that counteracts previously established canon, it is called a Retcon. Retcons induce rage.

Doctor Who is an example of a work involving multiple authors where the shows producers have officially denounced the notion of canon, by stating; "It is impossible for a show about a dimension-hopping time traveller to have a canon." The show (and spin-offs) has continuity and consistency, but no official canon.

The accursed nemesis of many a canon is the infamous C.S. MULTI-LAZOR for this pleases him. Worse now is the mutilated dreck that spews from the mouth of Matthew Ward that corrupts all things, and changes universes at his beck and call. Games Workshop's official stance is that all of the fluff is told by an unreliable narrator, and is therefore true and false at the same time. Again, Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 have continuity and consistency, but nothing can be truly described as canon, as the powers that be never set anything in stone.

The /tg/ consensus

When it comes to things like Warhammer 40,000, fa/tg/uys tend to throw canon out the window and deal with the setting in their own continuity. Picking and choosing which retcons to accept and which to ignore is one of /tg/'s greatest pastimes, and to this end /tg/ has an established a board-wide consensus for almost any setting with more than one edition or author (all of them). This consensus tends to cross-pollinate with the shit non-/tg/ fa/tg/uys also tend to like.

To again use Warhammer 40k as an example, an entire "secret" un-official official consensus has arose within the fandom, a continuity that "fixes" poorly received retcons and tends to lighten the characters and infuse awesome into the setting wherever possible. /tg/ has even developed an entirely separate universe wherein fa/tg/uys can put all of their homebrew characters and factions.