Category: Admin Stuff

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Admin Stuff Aurors Blog Future HNZ OOC Plans Positivity

HNZ: My hopes, plans & ideas

So, normally I use HNZ to blog rant about whatever has been annoying me, on or off of the site. I’ve even considered writing a “how to blawg rant” sort of blog rant where I would analyze my own blog rantings to see what made them so humorous to some and offensive to others. This post, however, will be more blog and less rant. Surprising, I know.
So, without further ado, the blog itself:

Contrary to what it seems like, I do have a lot of ideas, hopes, and plans for HNZ. Some of them are a lot larger than others, and some of them are quite unrealistic, but nevertheless I have them and strive toward implementing them.

Some of the ideas you’ve already seen thrown in to action with little to no consultation with the site, some of the ideas I’ve heard as suggestions and am just waiting for the right form to execute them in, others are ongoing as I type and many, many, others are just little inklings of thought in the back of my mind.

So, where does Nick see HNZ going? What big plans and hopes do I have for the site? I’ll share a few with you now. ^_^

Right, so first I’ll start with some of my more minor ideas – easy to implement, but I mostly want feedback on or need the help of members to do.

  • Twitter Profile Field
    The Twitter profile field was added to HNZ, but I’ve been thinking about updating its coding just a little such that if the user has inserted a link to their twitter account it becomes clickable. It’s a small thing, and easy to do, but I’m not sure it’s worth the extra three lines of code on the site.
  • Constant Feedback (Through the proper channels)
    Recently the giant suggestions topic disappeared and in its place came the Suggestions & Feedback forum. This was in an effort to invite users to openly post their own suggestions or feedback about the site, then facilitate discussion on the topic instead of just having one response and things moving on. You’ll notice, however, that the forum is no longer just ‘Suggestions’. It is ‘Feedback’ as well. This means we want to hear what you think, not just grumblings over MSN and whatever spam topic is open. An excellent example of this is Interactive Lessons. Recently a discussion has been opened about them where users were invited to share their ideas and opinions. Now, interactive lessons began several months ago and I’ve heard grumblings about it on and off since then. What stopped those users from posting feedback, constructive criticism, and their own ideas? Nothing on my end, I should hope – but I don’t know.
  • A better understanding that Livvy & I work as a team
    This has become difficult as of late, because often it is only one of us that warns any given user, or one of us that replies stating an application has been denied. Often, when it is the same admin and the same user over time, the user develops animosity toward the one admin and favours the other, somehow thinking that our opinions differ, when this is very seldom true. Hopefully I’ve taken a step toward mending that, where one of us takes all the heat, in the most recent update to the applications system – but we’ll have to wait to see.
  • All (or most all) Applications on Webpages
    Right now we seem to be caught between two systems. The older, ‘copy/paste this form to apply’ system (still used for Hogwarts Staff, Professors, Shopkeepers, and Ministry Officials) and the newer webpage/mostly automated application system (as seen with Purebloods, Plot Requests, Special Abilities etc.).
    The trouble with updating is many-fold. First, making the webpages is time consuming. This is not a large concern of mine, but it is one to consider in conjunction with the others.
    Next, for Professors – applications are only open when we are specifically hiring for a post. Otherwise, the form is moot. How, then, are we to indicate when/if we’re hiring – and would we have to update the form every time we need a new professor?
    The final trouble is the shopkeeper application. Shopkeepers can open their own shop (note: that is currently on hold) or fill a vacant shop. If they are trying to fill a vacant shop, the same trouble as professors pops up.

Of course, I also have some much larger plans than those – many of which are just pipe dreams, but thoughts I’ve had nonetheless.

  • Member Run: Aurors & Death Eaters
    This is something I, personally, would like to see in the future some time. A few trusted members taking on Aurors and Death Eaters, keeping Admin in the loop, and ensuring things stay active and exciting. Livvy and I have tonnes on our plates, we’re trying to organize and encourage DE/Auror activity while still monitoring it/tempering it so it doesn’t get out of hand. In the past, Death Eaters have been self-run, and I think both groups could do so with OOC leaders from the member base. Maybe just not yet.
  • Ministry of Magic: Election(s)?
    This is something that is likely happening, and soon. Possibly starting in Y10, if I can get some things together for it.
    Gellert Coote has been Minister for Magic for at least eight years. That’s a fair length of office term, and it’s time he retired. So who is next to lead the Magical Community of New Zealand and its Ministry in to the future? Well, I’d like that to be up to the residents of New Zealand themselves. I think it’d be a grand way for members to get involved in the site. Create characters to run in the campaign (or, better yet, use existing ones) have speeches, slogans, buttons and banners, make election promises nobody can keep, expose skeletons in each other’s closets… and then… voting day! New Zealand elects its newest leader.
    Of course, some OOC strings would need to be attached too – as having such an important character for the whole site makes things a bit complicated. The roleplayer of that account would need to talk to Admin frequently and keep us in the loop on things – but I think that’s something fun to look forward to that could add so juice to the Ministry-aspect of HNZ. ^_^
  • A New Custom Theme?
    HNZ has been using the same amazing theme made by Athene Perthro for nearly two years now. It’s excellent, I love it, it means “HNZ” to me – but sometimes change is nice. Something fresher and newer could likely entice visitors to join the board and I’m always one to see what new things might work.
    This is something I’ve pursued to some degree previously, but unfortunately it hasn’t come through, so it’s something I keep in my mind. If we were to have a new theme designed for HNZ – or even coded for it (though I could do that myself, really) – it would be a nice way to liven up some aspects of the board (though I always intend to keep Athene’s skin in the theme chooser).
  • Web Hosting for HNZ
    This is one of the larger dreams really that I have for the site. I say dream because of how unlikely it is to happen, but it could be quite awesome if it ever did.
    What would web hosting mean? Well, it would mean that we would be able to integrate some PHP to the forum and host many things ourselves – such as the galleons script which, currently, is being graciously provided and hosted by my friend Scott (Slayer766) on his web host. This would also mean that HNZ could be given a front page of sorts before accessing the forums, which would contain quick links, information, announcements, a login system of sorts etc. which could all be tied directly back to the board with ZetaBoard’s upcoming API.
    Now, why is this unlikely to happen? The simple fact of web hosting costing money. The most basic plan with the company I buy HNZ’s domain from is $72.24(CAD) for a year of hosting. I already pay ~$25(CAD) a year for the domain and my privacy protection on the domain – so that would be nearly $100 a year spent on the site. Not too terribly much, when given that it’s a whole year – but it’s a fair amount when I don’t have a credit card to pay through (so I buy stupid prepaid ones) and my job isn’t that great. Plus, I’m going in to University and will therefore be in debt the rest of my life, the way it’s looking. I also never want to put up a paypal link asking members to donate to HNZ, nor do I want to start a project that costs money without personally having the means to back that project for an extended period of time. It would suck if I paid for a year, then couldn’t pay for the next year and somehow no members came through with donations, and we lost whatever we’d become so used to/dependant on.

That’s about all the plans/hopes/ideas/dreams I think I want to share right now.
I would like to comment that in the past week, maybe two weeks, I have thoroughly enjoyed the air about the community on HNZ. A lot of negativity and animosity seems to have been taken away somehow, and I’m very optimistic for the future. ^_^

Thank you all for making HNZ so awesome, and I welcome you to share any feedback on these hopes/plans/ideas of mine. ^_^

~Nick

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Admin Stuff Life Livvy

My Greatest Disappearing Act Evar!

Okay, so maybe not. xD If I were a magician, I would have been fired already. Or my pet rabbits and doves would’ve revolted and become meat eaters. All that’d be left of me would be my silk handkerchief and my spiffy black and white shoes. No repeat performances. haha!

The truth in a nutshell is that life has gotten out of hand for me as of late. I’m a newly single parent to a wonderful boy, who has Asperger’s Syndrome. Which basically just means he has a harder time socializing with his peers and conducting strong communication. He’s very smart, always ahead of his class academically. lol. He just has to have speech and occupational therapy. As it’s approaching summertime, I’ve had to take a lot of time getting him into not only a summer school style program (through my new job thank the Lord!) but also securing him a spot in a new therapy place not far from home. So that he won’t regress. He’s made a lot of progress just in a year’s time, which means that everyday I have to put my time/energy forward too, to make sure I’m setting him up for success and not for failure. Our goal is that by the time he’s 10 years old, no one will ever know that he has Asperger’s. 🙂 Which means that he will be able to function in society appropriately and live an awesome life full of adventures. 🙂

Another thing that’s taken my time from HNZ is my new job. I love my new job. The hours are great, I love what I do and it’s a lot of fun. Not only that, my little boy gets to come with me and be in a wonderful woman’s class this summer. So I’ll know exactly how he’s doing every single day. ^^

We moved back in February and our new place was closed up for quite a while. It’s beside family, which is wonderful. But it needs a lot, and I do mean a lot, of TLC. I’ve thus far got to paint my living room and the bathroom. The other 3 rooms that need painted have to have the wall paper taken down, walls sanded, some fixed, then primed and painted. No way am I doing all that! So thus begins my search for reliable, affordable painters in my area. haha.

I was supposed to start school the 18th, but am unable to until the fall now. It’s just one of those things, a lot was happening with my son so I chose to hold it off until his routine was more stable and he and I could cope with everything that’s happening.

I’ve been playing catch up on HNZ. If I’ve not responded to your PM, please be patient as I will get to you this week. 🙂 Also with applications. I apologize for the length of time it’s taken me to respond to them. Please do not get snarky with Nick or blame him, as he has had to wait on me too. Sales receipts will be caught up by this week as well. Any RPs I am participating will be replied to asap too. ^_^

I just wanted to take a moment to let you all know what was going on and to ask for your patience, prayers and understanding. There’s a lot I didn’t/couldn’t type out as it’s too personal that’s going on as well.

Thank you again,
Your friendly neighborhood Admin,
~Livvy

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Admin Stuff HNZ OOC PMs

Sending a PM: The importance of your title.

A minor annoyance of mine is this:
People who send me personal messages on the board but title them whatever they’d like, or like they’d title a roleplay – perhaps with nothing to do with the contents of the PM or with very little to do with it, at any rate.

Often, I’d even prefer no subject at all ( a simple   in the PM title field will make the title a single space ) to the subjects some people give me. When I sign on my PM inbox might look like this (as it did today, nearly):

Random PM Titles
Open Full Image in New Window

Only one of those message titles is even helpful to me. One or more of them makes me think the user is annoyed with me (which they were not) and the others… lolwut?

I do two things when I have PMs:

  1. Try to reply in order of importance
  2. Give consideration to the length of time a PM has gone without reply

I am perfectly able to do that second thing just by a glance – but the former? How am I to determine the importance of each PM with random titles? Or how am I to determine if I am in the right mood/mindset to read the PMs (I don’t want to read a PM telling me off (like ‘GRRRR’ could have been, but wasn’t) if I’m already upset)?

I think that PMs are quite different than topics on the board. PM titles should give a glimpse of what is inside of the PM before the user opens it.
That’s my opinion, anyway.

What’s yours?

~Nick

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Admin Stuff Changes HNZ OOC Positivity

Posi-Blawg: A little bit of a positive rant

I try to blog monthly now, though for a while I was attempting once a day (long, long ago), and I recently noticed that, by the time I’m ready to blog again – something has come up that really irks me, warrants a rant, and may come off negative-sounding. I tend to try to put a positive spin on things (like in the Cliques Blog, where I asserted that HNZ obviously has groups of close friends, but the site as a whole is one community). So, never having been one to always like to focus on the negative, I have taken it upon myself to rant, or at least list things off, about how awesome HNZ is, and perhaps even my life in general. ^_^

It is with this sentiment and explanation that I hereby begin… THE Posi-Blawg:

  • People are appreciative & understanding:
    It kind of sucks how one person, or a few people, ruin so much greatness – but that’s what the people on HNZ are: great. For as many people that really grind my gears there are ten who see my point of view and try to help me in whatever situation I’m in. Sometimes after blog rants (as it is often after people read them that they become most understanding and appreciative – just human nature, I suppose) I get messages from people stating how much they appreciate me, the work I do on HNZ, the staff, the site itself, etc. These messages often come from people who I never would have thought to care that much at all, and they tend to make me smile. Without those kinds of messages, I think I would have left HNZ a long time ago – so you all are truly that awesomely amazing. There are very few people I can honestly say I’ve met on HNZ and disliked, and those people are gone for the most part. (I suppose if you can’t stand an admin, you don’t tend to linger on the board long.)
    People are also always willing to help out. Sometimes it takes being approached, sure, but I think I’d rather be approached about helping than volunteer sometimes, too. It lets people know that you value their assistance and likely makes them feel special. Whenever help is truly needed around the board, however, I know I can always ask somebody and if they’re able to, they will help – because they know if somebody wasn’t necessary I wouldn’t ask, and they care about HNZ that much. There are two pages of slaves to the Nicktator members who I figure would all be willing to help out with HNZ things if I asked them. I think that’s amazing.
  • Everybody on HNZ is there for the same sort of reasons
    We all like Harry Potter, and eventually we all become acquainted with/like roleplaying. There have been very few members who don’t, and they don’t last long. So how is this positive? Easy. There aren’t huge feuds and wars and flaming and such. Things are, for the most part, pretty civil and enjoyable. I think being on a board where at least two common interests are shared between members aids in this process a lot.
  • I’m always learning, improving, and there’s always something to do.
    If nothing else, HNZ keeps me busy, and has caused me to learn about a lot of things that I could have otherwise cared less about. Through HNZ I have learned HTML, CSS, and some JavaScript/a lot of jQuery. It is through this knowledge that HNZ’s InvisionFree skin was converted to a ZetaBoards theme, that many of HNZ’s minor codes have appeared, and that the custom webpages (from webpages defining seasonal temperatures to ones for submitting applications) have all appeared. This knowledge has benefited me off of HNZ, too, and now I am much less of an interwebz n00b because of it.
    Aside from that there are all sorts of things which I regularly get ideas for on HNZ, most of which I forget, and so many ways I plan to/hope to improve the board. I think it’s great that I get to experience putting little tweaks in to a board here and there, knowing members will take them/accept them as I fiddle with things (unfortunately, live testing has become a habit of mine), and give me feedback as I require it. This is especially true as I see so many boards where admin have good ideas and no chances to implement them as their board dies – or the board thrives, there is a lack of ideas, and then the board dies – or the worse of all possible situations, the ideas presented cause the board to wither away. In that regard, I’m eternally grateful for HNZ and its community.
  • People are super-talented on HNZ
    I notice this more and more as time goes on, likely because people are just getting better and better, but whether it be graphics, writing, both, or something else entirely – HNZ has some awesomely talented people who, very thankfully, share their talents with us all and I’ve oft’ smiled because of it. :wub: talented people.
  • People are nice… and welcoming.
    It’s quite amazing how nice, helpful, and welcoming HNZ is considering its size (and how cliquey some people like to pretend it is… sorry… I had to slip a negative comment in here somewhere. 😉 Too much positivity is just uncharacteristic). I’ve visited at least one forum, roughly ten times the size of HNZ in members and over 10 times its size for activity – and I posted a welcome topic. That topic got a grand total of 0 replied until I complained about it being ignored in their feedback forum several days later. On HNZ, I’ve heard countless times from newer members that they felt overwhelmingly welcomed and knew we were willing to help them with anything. Normally new members get their first welcome to the board on the day they introduce themselves, and soon enough they’ll have five or more ‘welcomes’ to add. We can always improve, of course, but I think we’re doing great.
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As you can tell from the above, most of the reasons I can be positive, and most of the reasons HNZ is awesome, for me, are because of you guys. You’re all overly amazing and awesome and st00f. Without you HNZ wouldn’t be around, and I certainly wouldn’t enjoy it at all without all of the above positive aspects of the board, and our community.

I know this blawg wasn’t as amusing, perhaps, as others – but I think it was necessary.

So, thank you all, and see you on the board! (Winky Face!)

~Nick

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Admin Stuff Blog crazies General Discussions HNZ Names OOC Rants Spam

Cliques, Clicks… Wait! Who started this?

Over the past several months I’ve heard too much about this topic, mostly people complaining to each other, some random discussions over IM, and a few PMs sent to me. It seems to me that there seems to be a deluded sense that HNZ is either “one big clique” or just divided in to a whole bunch of cliques, with no real community.

Define: Clique

Those are the definitions I will work with for the sake of this blog rant, since I feel a well defined definition is better to work with than some vague one different people conjure up in their minds.

Is HNZ a clique?
No is the simple answer. We are a group of people who share interests (Harry Potter, Roleplaying), patterns of behaviour (signing on to the board), but we are not exclusive. Registration is open to everybody and we’re quite welcoming to anybody who looks for help or introduces themselves (I, for instance, encourage new members to PM me and subscribe to the Welcome Forum so that I can say hello to everybody who takes the time to say hi to us). I know that plenty of people who have joined HNZ have felt overwhelmingly welcomed, and this helped dispel some of the overwhelmingness HNZ can hold for people knew to RPing.
So while the site as a whole has some characteristics of a ‘clique’, because it is not exclusive to only a set group of people, it is not one.

Are there cliques on HNZ?
This one is slightly more difficult to answer. I suppose to some it may appear that there are. There are certainly groups on the board who interact with each other more than others, who have developed a strong relationship off of the board as well and that’s great! It’s also human nature. Unfortunately, or perhaps even fortunately, we don’t like everybody equally. We can’t relate to every single person on this planet in the same way, and that’s definitely a blessing. So the simple fact that I am close friends with person X, Y, and Zed doesn’t mean I refuse to speak to, or help, anybody else – and I trust that is true of most people on HNZ.

Community Signature Thus Far

HNZ’s Community Signature – it certainly doesn’t look full of cliques to me. Perhaps I should draw some lines on it to separate me from other people and give the complainers the satisfaction of knowing that they’re right. Hmm. A thought to be considered?

I wish I could stop this blog post there, but I can’t. I wish things were that simple, but they’re not. Not only are some willing to go so far as to say their are cliques and exclusive groups on HNZ – but that unless you are in a certain clique, a certain ‘in-crowd‘ you won’t get anything on the board. Your applications will be denied, your characters will never be given major roles, you’ll never be asked to help out, you’ll be entirely ignored by others, etc.

When I first heard that… it hurt… a lot. I spend a decent amount of time on HNZ. I try pretty hard to interact with as many people as I can, get to know people, and with all that I obviously try to be as fair as possible with things like applications. I’m sure when people say things like that, they don’t think of who might read them, and who it reflects upon or hurts directly, but I rather think they should start. I was in shock completely and wondered how many people thought that of me, of Livvy and I, and if I should even bother continuing to try with things on HNZ.

It’s kind of ironic, too – because the people who I’ve seen say things like that are the same ones that rave about HNZ being their home, and how much they enjoy the site, and how they like everybody in it – but then they got a few applications denied and obviously it was because Livvy and myself don’t like them (not because they didn’t put much thought in to the application or its effects on other areas of the board). Or their character didn’t become prefect/headboy/headgirl and it’s obviously because the head-of-house/admin are just choosing their friends (it’s quite clearly not even conceivable that things like that are largely in-character, where lesson attendance and character behaviour actually matters).

Livvy and I take great care to deal with applications on their own, but we don’t just consider the application, we also consider:

  • Past Requests
  • Warning history of the user (if you’ve caused trouble on HNZ recently, it makes sense for you not to get superb privileges
  • Quantity of requests coming in (if 50 pureblood requests come in one week, it’s likely that most of them will be denied, even if they’re all excellent).

We do not consider ‘Hey, Livvy is my friend, I’ll approve this plot!’ or ‘Oh, Julie is nothing but mean to me, I’ll never accept this!’ – because that’s not what HNZ is. I know, for myself, I have accepted applications for people that I know hate me with all of their being, people who I’ve never gotten along with, people I don’t even know, and yes – even my friends. ;) In fact, when Livvy makes a request for a plot I treat it, or try to treat it, just like I would anybody else’s request (the difference being that she can see my post, my exact response, and reply to it). I also know that were I to make any sort of request, Livvy would handle mine the same way.

It frustrates me to know end, knowing personally the efforts I go to in order to ensure I’m not seen as ignoring any one person or their ‘group’, I talk to as many people as possible, will just quote any random person’s post in a ‘spam’ topic and work with it, try to be almost super-human in how I look at and handle applications – then I feel like people just look at it all and slap me in the face by saying that the site staff/admin are just as biased/clique-based as could be.

I’d like to give a concluding example of how wrong this assumption on the part of some users is. Six months ago, I barely talked to Kaitlyn. I mean, I talked to her in GD, I had already given her her nickname of Sir Kaitlyn, but I thought she rather disliked me/was pretty mean to me at times, and barely considered her to be a GM. Other members of the site staff who did know her vouched for her, and brought to light some excellent points (how well she knew the board rules, how often she reported topics, etc. All things which would be useful in a GM). So I trusted the opinions of the others and Kaitlyn was made a GM in January. Before her promotion many of her applications had been approved (though I was rather neutral on her as a person, again, thinking she didn’t like me much) and after her promotion some of her applications have been amended/tweaked/denied – just like anybody else. Since her promotion I have gotten to know her quite well, and see her very differently then I did before – I’d even go so far as to say she and I are pretty good friends now. I think that’s a fairly good example of how un-cliquey I myself am, and how un-cliquey I see most of HNZ to be.

As I admitted before, it is human nature to group off, find people you’re close to, and talk to them the most – but to think that HNZ has an ‘in-crowd’ where if you’re not a part of it you don’t get anything from anybody is simply absurd, and, quite frankly, insulting.

I present to you, once more, our community signature:

Community Signature Thus Far

No sign of cliques there for me. Just a bunch of people who are enjoying HNZ and how great it is, hoping that it will last out another five years. Am I missing something that you see there, somehow?

~Nick

P.S: Additional plug… HNZ’s birthday is awesome and ongoing! Be sure to check it outtttt!

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Admin Stuff Blog busy Changes crazies HNZ Livvy Plans Rants weekly updates

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

Disclaimer: This is Nick venting. If you have no interest in reading Nick venting or you get upset/take offence easily then I advise you stop reading at this point. If you enjoy sarcasm, humour, and Nick at his wit’s end: read on, brave knight!

This is a three part blog rant. Each part will build off of the last mentioned part. We’ll start off slow, with the obvious, then work our way up to my deepest frustration. Then I might cool things down a bit with a few funny remarks, positive comments, or hints about the direction which I hope to see HNZ heading near the end. But be warned: this road is rocky before it is smooth (narrow before wide, uphill before downhill, take your pick).

So, as promised, the most obvious point:

I post updates/information on HNZ for my own good health.
It’s true and don’t let anybody tell you it isn’t! Myself and the rest of the site staff really don’t want to keep members in the loop at all. In fact, we hate not having to answer a thousand redundant questions because people have read the Weekly Update and global announcements, or read tweets or clicked rule topics. It annoys us and shakes us to the very core of our being when our hard work is actually used. It’s quite absurd, really. We simply post endless announcements (in the simplest and shortest terms possible) for our own health. It’s to benefit us and solely us. So I encourage ignoring all updates made by myself or others because really – it’s irrelevant to you and you should know that by now. ;)
Note: The above was sarcasm.

Next up to bat:
The Halloween Feast
Part of this may be Déjà vu for many of you, especially if you read my first ever blog post on HNZ – but it continues to persist despite my begging, pleasing, and obvious hatred of this: Members are still using the actual image of something to be their character in costume.
Sure, they’re witches and wizards and therefore some leeway is allowed with regard to how amazing their costumes should look. However, let’s be reasonable.

Banana
Nicolas King as a Banana

That is not Nicolas King as a banana! It’s a banana! Sheesh! >_<;

My next point of contention with the Halloween Feast is it has largely been left unroleplayed in.
There have been 30 some-odd entries to the costume contest – and at the time of my typing this, nowhere near to even 30 some-odd posts for roleplaying in the feast. That doesn’t seem very right to you, does it? HNZ is still and RPG first and foremost, correct? I’m tempted to not consider any costume contest entrants that are not roleplayed in the feast. Something for me to consider, I suppose, as right now it’s not really fair to those who are taking the time to have their characters be there. =/

Finally, the grandest rant of them all:
Site Wide Plots
Since the Dawn of HNZ (or very nearly thereabouts) people have requested, nay, demanded site wide plots. For what reasons, I am still unsure. They take a large amount of planning and dedication and often they do not allow for as great individual development of character as everybody doing, for the most part, their own thing and mid-sized plots involving handfuls of people popping up now and then.

So, Livvy and I and the site staff at the time (so not Kaitlyn), after New Years, made a resolution for HNZ: Larger plots. More focus on roleplays. More awesomeness.
Simple enough, right? Well, I thought so too.
The fact of the matter is, however, that it is now nearly the end of February and we’ve held up our end of the deal. Despite Livvy’s absence, despite Abby’s computer problems, despite all the usual busy-ness (and extra busy-ness) of the rest of our site staff… yes, despite all those things we have held up our end of the deal. We have provided, so far, the makings of an excellent TriWizard Tournament which every member of HNZ can take part in in some way, or some form. We have expanded Ministry/Auror and Death Eater plots. It’s currently only one large one, with a few key players, but there are more in the works. Sure, you might not be the one pulling the strings of the plot (Members never are in site wide plots) but it’s your job to play it up with your characters! Have them react to the plot! Have it effect their lives somehow! What has it done for the most part? Nothing. What have members of HNZ done with it, for the most part? Nothing.

Even regular things that effect only most of the site don’t get the attention they should. Case and point? The Halloween Feast.
Why is this? Maybe people aren’t reading announcements that are posted? Maybe people are lazy? Maybe people just don’t want site-wide plots as much as they think they do? I don’t know. Maybe you should tell me.

With all this extra effort on the part of myself and the site staff, I find it amazing that some members still have the absolute audacity to request/suggest “site wide plots”. Applications for various things with the field(s) about site improvement often get a classic line about site wide plots. Alright. OK. We got it! We acted on it! We’ve started to implement it. Small things at first (though, by my calculations, the TriWizard Tournament is not small) and large things later. But what is to be our motivations for those larger things when these things that we have now are completely ignored and/or used very minimally? I don’t see any reason to keep on trying with it. People that are still suggesting site wide plots need to open their eyes and try to take part in the ones that are sitting right in front of them. They only work if everybody is in them, and right now – everybody is not in them. Heck, it’s the people who I very rarely hear wanting these types of plots taking the most part in them. Does that seem wrong to you?

Otherwise, I think HNZ is doing quite well. :) It’s active almost all the time. (Yes, during the day it’s slow because of school, but it’s never really dead. It’s not like many boards where a day goes by with only two posts or a week goes by with no member log ins.) It’s exciting, and a lot is happening. I enjoy getting the positive feedback I receive, and I also enjoy taking constructive criticism, talking to people about it, and molding HNZ to become better as a result. I really do love HNZ and I think all you members are awesome. I think, however, that a lot of members do need to pay more attention to what does go on – and not complain unless they know what they’re talking about. Ignorance is my chief grief with regards to the site right now.

I caught up on a lot of HNZ things today, and will have more to catch up on tomorrow. I think I’m doing fairly well as short handed as I am – but I’m quite anxious for Livvy’s return and the site staff being in full force once more (once Abby gets her internet back up and if/when Linda’s busy-ness decreases). I thank every member who has offered to help me over the past several weeks, and especially those who have. I also thank all of you who have listened to me vent and just dealt with it (I know I can be super annoying sometimes ;) ).

~Nick
P.S: I hope you find the title to this blog post as poetic as I think it is, given all I’ve mentioned.

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Admin Stuff Changes emoticons General Discussions HNZ Rants weekly updates

The Problem of Change

Change in life is inevitable. This is true of any life form, as adaption/reactions to environment are one of the key factors in determining if something is living, or not. How can an organism react or adapt to a stagnant environment? It cannot. It is obvious, therefore, that environments and circumstances change and that living things must change with them.

This is true, also, in the life of a forum and a forum community. Change on a forum, and in a community, is not possible to avoid. In fact, avoiding change often will become the death of a forum and its community. As circumstances change on the board and for the people who make up the site – HNZ must change as well.

Now for the most part change has been, and will always be, extremely welcomed on HNZ. On InvisionFree we changed from the InvisionFree default theme to a theme custom designed by Athene. This, a major change, was accepted for the most part quite easily. (There are always those who complain, but they were fairly quiet in their protest) Next, we had a series of new forums open (Character Development, Plotline Development, Guide to roleplaying). These too, for the most part, were welcomed with enthusiasm and are now an integral part of the forum today. Soon enough a domain was purchased for HNZ by Athene and after much frustration with trying to set it up, the domain simply forwarded and masked to HNZ. While this instance of change was not a complete success, the point of my mentioning it is that the members were entirely supportive and patient while things were fiddled about to get everything operational.

In fall of 2008 HNZ converted to ZetaBoards, with the support of most of the community. Then followed easily six months of transition in to the brand new forum software – trying out the codes that would best suit the board, removing them, about as much as you can imagine. Still, members were patient and supportive. Also in fall of 2008, HNZ was set up to its present domain of http://hogwartsnewzealand.com . This, too, took some time to set up properly but guess what? The site was still supportive and patient – this time it paid off and the board is still using its custom domain name.

The list goes on and on. Of large changes which were worked in to the board and generally accepted with ease. New lessons policies. New forums. Seasons being corrected to match those of New Zealand. Board codes being added. Different styles of updates, competitions, and events being tried over time. Still the board allowed it all.

There have been times when change was considered, opened to site vote, and then shot down. One instance of this that comes to mind, for instance, is the possible use of the ZetaBoards AIO (All in One) code which could have been the money system on the forum, because of its incompatibility with Internet Explorer. That had been my uneasiness with the code at the time, so I understood and respected the site’s decision. (Note, too, that that code has since been made Internet Explorer compatible but has not been re-propositioned to HNZ because I do respect the first decision made by the board and there are still other negatives to trying to install it.)

With all this in mind, at how exceedingly open the community of HNZ has always been to change, even if that change didn’t work out as well as we’d hoped, one might imagine that changing smaller things on the board would be welcomed evenly more openly/widely, or even just not noticed/commented on at all. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

As some of you have read in my blog “That Which We Call a Rose“, the recent change in name from “General Discussions” back to “Spam” in our random chatter-type topics was met with not insignificant opposition. I fear that opposition to such seemingly insignificant change has come up once more.

This evening a goal I have had for several months came in to effect: HNZ is now using only one set of emoticons. For quite a while, HNZ had been using three sets. I managed to reduce this to two. Then, Tony (out of the awesomeness of his heart) made a custom set for HNZ. This were all added to the board, but some of the other sets remained behind. We had three sets again. So, slowly but surely, I phased out emoticons of the other sets. Asking Tony to create replacements for the emotion being represented each time to ensure that nobody would be unable to express a meaning in their post with the selection of emoticons. This afternoon the final two emoticons were replaced: Console and Frantics.

The new emoticons for console (:console:) and frantics (:frantics:) are extremelyawesome and (dare I say it? yes.) cute, I think. However, they are:

    1. No longer animated

and

  • No longer the exact same yellow emoticons

 

So this is obviously cause for uproar. My opinion is that the site looks more cohesive and professional on one set of emoticons – and these emoticons are special, made by Tony, and therefore unique to HNZ – unlike the generic IPB emoticons found on most forums based off of that system. I knew the change would be noticed, and disapproved of by many. But I also felt the change needed to happen, and that it would be small enough that people would just get over it – no matter how attached they may have been to the old emoticons. I loved the purple glomp. I also loved a few of the Yahoo! emoticons – but they’re all gone now, right? It’s not like I’m just doing whatever I like – I’m doing what I think best for the site, and when it comes to such small changes as this, I should hope that can be understood.

Here’s to hoping people understand and we’re able to enjoy Tony’s awesome creations together,

~Nick
(Also: Tony gave us an extra emote this time! :voldy: )
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Admin Stuff Blog crazies HNZ Livvy Plans Rants

Admin..ing Solo

So, as most of you should know, Livvy (Cecily Zdablooptybloop) has been absent since about the 20th of January. That means that I have been administrating HNZ on my own for over two weeks at this point, and Livvy intends to be gone likely until things resettle for her at the end of February or beginning of March.

I knew, when she told me how long she’d likely be gone, that this would be tough and her being away would be uber suckage – but I don’t think I truly realized how different things would be. I knew, for instance, that I would have to process all sales receipts on my own, and fill in for everything else Livvy does on HNZ so frequently. Those things in themselves make it quite difficult for me to play both our roles on HNZ – but I hadn’t realized (although I did within the first week of her absence) just how much I relied on Livvy for things other than handling her sections of the site. For instance, I loved running ideas by her, discussing things I had just thought up and would likely mull over on my own for another month before putting them in to action (yes, that’s something we do fairly often), or bouncing random ideas off her, commenting on certain member’s behaviour and discussing how best to deal with certain situations. She was also normally the one to keep me up to date on what was happening in character on the board (as, generally, I’m so involved with running the actual board, and the technical side of things, that I am quite clueless). We really do have quite the partner dynamic to running the board and that simply disappeared as soon as she left.

All of a sudden not only were all the routine tasks on my shoulders, but all the special plans we had for the coming months fell solely on me as well, and I was suddenly no longer able to bounce ideas off of somebody constantly. It was likely this last bit that has been the toughest for me. I can do sales receipts, I can even figure out how we would deal with most applications on my own – but I can’t bounce ideas off of myself. I can’t get Livvy’s perspective on things just from my own mind (of course, she and I agree ninety nine and a quarter percent of the time (yes, a fraction with a percent. Love me, math people. 😉 ) ) and I certainly hate implementing things that I’m not sure she’ll support upon her return.

Assuming I ignore the relationship in running the board that I cannot have when Livvy is gone, the tasks themselves simply pile up and make it impossible for me to do very much of what I’d like to do on HNZ. There are the normal tasks that have always and will always exist:

  • Member group changes (Normally split between us)
  • Applications for everything (about ten a week) Discussed by both of us
  • Warnings/Member Disputes (Discussed between us and sometimes Global Moderators – member is contacted by either Livvy or myself, we split this)
  • Answering FAQs(Normally split between us)
  • Posting announcements (Normally split between us)
  • Sales Receipts (Normally Livvy)
  • Updating Site Documentation as things change (Normally me, sometimes pawned off on Livvy)
  • Replying to suggestions. (Normally me, sometimes pawned off on Livvy)

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, what I can think of right now, with regard to standard site operation.

Then, there’s the awesome timing of Livvy’s hiatus (through no fault of her own, obviously). She left and sorting was still happening. No big deal, I normally handle most of sorting. I took it on myself to even deal with every transfer application on my own to not pester her as she prepared to leave – despite that being something we traditionally do together. The real kicker is that this is to be a TriWizard Tournament year on HNZ. A lot of the planning was still only rough outlines, no formal posts had been written yet, and it had been Livvy and my intentions to run it together. That, obviously, has not panned out. I have been running it largely on my own and I hope it should go well.

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The TriWizard tournament is a substantial amount of extra work: from planning, to posting, to organizing, to prodding champions to get off their bum-bums to telling the SUPER HELPFUL ( ^_^ ) volunteers how they’re supposed to do what they need to do. =D

I also believe HNZ’s TWT is cursed. The last time we did this Alicia had to leave and we sort of strategically killed the plot line at task two. Now this time, Livvy has had to leave us for a month and we have no intention of it dying… unless the champions don’t start posting (Can you tell I’m bitter about TWT activity? No? Not obvious yet? Hmmm. I’ll work on that.)

Needless to say, I have been getting tonnes of help and support from our awesome Global Moderators. They’re all super busy right now, too, but they’ve stepped it up quite a bit for me, and for Livvy. We’re working on keeping things as active as we can and up to date as we can. I think, without the global moderating team, I would have collapsed by now. I wub dem guys. ^_^ (They’re even letting me bounce ideas off them once in a while! They’re not as good as Livvy … (no offence, guys) but still – it’s nice enough =D )

With Livvy gone, though, I have noticed some other things about the site:

  • Some members are mean no matter what. Ignore them. Don’t let them get to you. If you do, you’ll hate HNZ and not want to do anything at all.
    I was very close to just going on my own break at one point because of member comments and gossip in the past week
  • No matter how much you do, people don’t have to thank you for it if they don’t want to.
    True story.
  • No matter how fast you work, people want you to work faster.
    Also a true story. I’ve been clearing out applications about once a week. It’s the most I can do, seeings how I’m running most aspects of the site for now. However this is still not quick enough for some members. I still get PMs ‘reminding’ me to process things that I know about, and I still get very frustrated by that. 😉
  • Nice people should be glomped. All. The. Time. If you don’t, they’ll forget you wubbles them. They forget soo0o0o quickly. =(
    Unfortunately, I have learned this in the past week. I fear I have hurt somebody’s feelings, not by my words (though they passed it off as by my words, I think… my words were simply the unrefined truth about something on the site), but by my lack of words. Words which I had assumed to be understood.

I am, obviously, quite anxious for Livvy’s return and have quite a bit of February left to go before that will be a reality.
Any support from the members of HNZ in this time would be greatly appreciated. I’ve kept it up for over two weeks now, and I’m wearing down a bit. I can keep it up, but I need to know that

  1. The site is behind me

    2. and

  2. The site is patient with me

    3. and

  3. I’m not going to hear mean things about me through the grape vine when everything I’m doing on HNZ is for the members. I get very little out of being an admin, and I think it’s the site that truly profits. I guess that’s just one man’s opinion, though.

Thanks for reading this, guys, and be sure to keep Livvy in your thoughts/prayers over the coming weeks – she needs it. As much as it sucks that she’s gone, her absence is necessary for her and the easier this time is, the quicker she comes back. ^_^ So ya – keep her in your thoughts. =)

~Nick

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