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Admin Stuff Blog Bruises community HNZ OOC

Listen, we need to talk…

Two and a half years ago I left the site – but I stayed connected with Cyndi and Donna, lest they ever needed any help. From time to time they did, and often I heard snippets of their woes about the site – many of these were familiar, and some were far less so.

One thing which I heard again and again that I just didn’t understand was the problem with Skype. Skype, as far as I knew, had been a wonderful way for members to get to know each other more. While it had certainly taken away much of the on-board OOC discussion, that didn’t seem like the worst price to pay.

It took my return to the board, merely six months ago, to fully recognize the problem.

Skype is killing HNZ.

That’s not fair. Skype isn’t doing anything, really. I should rephrase that.

You’re killing HNZ.

At least, the HNZ that we all know and care for is dying a slow and painful death because of how Skype has been used.
The HNZ I know and love is welcoming, and passionate, and diverse! It’s a place where very different people get along because of a common love for writing and a common love for Potter – and more than get along! They collaborate and create beautiful, interesting, engaging works of art together!
That’s the HNZ I love, and I suspect it’s the one you love, too.
How has Skype been used to kill that?
It’s been used to ostracize people. It’s been used to spread lies, and rumours, and sad half-truths.
It’s been used to bully people. To harass, to gang up on, to be children toward, fellow members of the site.
It’s been used in every way possible to evade our board rules and our Netiquette guide.
This is not okay. This is not the HNZ I know.
Skype is being used to get away with things that one would never get away with on the board – and it’s letting some people act like children while others are being abused, hurt, and chased off the site.
I’m sure we can all agree that it’s the people who are being hurt who we’d much rather keep around than the people doing the hurting.

Something’s got to change.

Let’s start here:

  • Block the Bullies
    If you’re in a Skype chat with somebody who’s treating you the above ways. Block them, then talk to us. We can’t punish people for things off the board that we can’t investigate, but you don’t have to endure the abuse.
  • Check Your Facts
    If you hear something that doesn’t make sense, from a person who doesn’t make sense to know/tell you that – talk to a member of the staff or the person who it’s about.
    We’ve had people think the staff has a vendetta against them just because one user told them so, like they knew, when it absolutely wasn’t true – and it created deep tensions until we discovered the problem! Talk to people, and don’t trust nonsense.
  • Offenders Be Warned
    If one name comes up very often as problematic off-site, we’re going to have a chat with that person and their time on the board might come to an abrupt end. Assume that Netiquette applies off site from now on.
    We’re not going to be talking people out of leaving because of your abuse anymore. Instead, we’ll be forcing you off so the board can be legitimately enjoyed again.
  • Site Talk on the Site
    We think it’s awesome that so many people have met in real life, know each other personally, are friends beyond HNZ – but maybe talk to those people only about not-HNZ stuff on Skype.
    Try to keep as much HNZ talk on HNZ as you can. Need to plot? PM. Want to talk to a bunch of people? Spam or shouty (seriously, just treat it like a group chat convo where you know if somebody is a bully they will be dealt with because we have the records).

We can’t resolve this alone. We need all of you to cooperate, especially those of you who aren’t part of the problem but know what we’re talking about.

I know many of you noticed that this year’s birthday celebrations didn’t include a site-wide Skype chat. Not surprisingly, this is why. The staff have no interest in organizing something that is being used to push people further and further away from the board and its community. That’s not okay, and we’re not endorsing it any more in any way – and we’re going to steer clear of Skype and the poison that comes with it until this changes. HNZ should be an escape from this kind of behaviour that many of us have experienced in real life, not a community that repeats those behaviours on our own.

HNZ is a lot better than this.
We’re all a lot better than this.
Let’s do better together.

-Nick

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Admin Stuff Blog HNZ OOC Rants

Try to enjoy the journey (Or “A Roleplay is not a Fanfiction”)

Anybody who was part of a conversation in Shouty tonight likely spied a seemingly random outburst on my behalf – raging against something which many probably see as a non-issue.

Excerpts from my glorious rantings included such gems as:

Neville also didn’t fit the Gryffindor image. Lesson: Stop ‘yer cryin’. Sorting hat did it right. Make it work. Develop a character. Dare to have your plans be dynamic.

The point is the sorting hat gets it right. A roleplayer would put Neville in Hufflepuff and say he has his brave moments but is mostly a Hufflepuff.

My point is that roleplayers are dumb. They plan a whole character’s life and have a tantrum if their character’s life is interrupted in its idealistic perfection at all by actually interacting with other characters or responding to situations

and

It defeats the purpose of an interactive RPG if we all define our character’s paths and have them go down them in a straight shot without room for deviation or error.

I’d like to preface the following by stating that it’s not directed at anybody in particular. The conversation in shouty definitely brought it back to mind, but this has been something that has bothered me for some time (as you’ll see in my rant to follow).

My point is a simple one, and I think it ties tightly back in to what Amanda posted nearly a year ago in her post Open Says Me – the fun of roleplaying (to me, at least) is the insane things that just happen. How two people in the real world, with very different lives, writing styles, and ideas, come together in collaboration to create something epic – each controlling a character and writing in half of a story, all the while actively enjoying and reacting to the half that they have no power over. Influencing their own half of the story. Veering off course wildly – perhaps never to return.

Ever since Sorting on HNZ began people have gamed the form. I’m no fool: I know it’s done, and it frustrates me. Not because we suddenly have 1000000 stereotypical Slytherins demanding Slytherin or death to all (though, don’t get me wrong, that’s absolutely dumb) – but because it steals some of the excitement away from the sorting process and the actual roleplay. You, as a roleplayer, have developed a character with certain hopes and dreams you have – but you’re a roleplayer in a text-based, play by post, RPG. You’re not an author of a fanfiction. You, perhaps unfortunately (though, in my view, quite fortunately), have merely 50% of the control. Sometimes less. You can shape your character. You can mould your character. You can put your character in the right place at the right time. You can’t determine their fate in every respect. Because you need to work with other people. When we refuse to do that, or we game the system, we rob not only others of a proper and full experience – but I think we rob ourselves of some of the excitement of roleplaying, as well.

Fanfictions are great. Novellas, and literature: can’t get enough of it. But HNZ isn’t for those things. HNZ is for coming together as a community and crafting something brilliant and unique. Bringing our own ideas to the table and compromising with other people to see what new and exciting things will come out of it.

My case-in-point for this argument is a topic I had when HNZ was perhaps the most fun it ever has been for me. It’s a roleplay which, while I cringe to link to it now after so many years, still makes it in every reminiscing sufficiently veteraned members of the site makes. Countless lists of favourite roleplays include this thread. A Brotherhood Sized Bet. If you haven’t read it: do.

That thread, an icon of HNZ’s past and of what is great about roleplaying, happened almost entirely spontaneously. My entering it, unplanned. What happened to my character: grossly unexpected. I had no idea. And I had to react to it as I read the post. No preparation, no planning ahead, no avoiding the topic lest it should change something key about my character, no shutting down the roleplay as soon as I didn’t like where it was heading.

We all have plans and goals for our characters. That’s natural and to be expected. But, as in life, it’s the journey that our characters go on that counts. Fast tracking and pre-planning everything, while ensuring it happens, steals something gravely important about the experience that HNZ offers from you. Something that definitely should never be stolen away. I miss it severely and I don’t want to see others never having experienced it at all.

“Make it work. Develop a character. Dare to have your plans be dynamic.” I think that’s a fair summary of what it is that needs to be done. Developing a character should be an active process, ongoing and changing as roleplays happen and partners in the roleplay throw in unexpected, amazing, surprises – like life offers to us each and every day. Have plans be organic, not static – make the roleplay interesting, not scripted and entirely two dimensional. Boring. When somebody offers you something in a roleplay that didn’t quite fit the master plan, or the sorting hat puts your blood supremacist sadist in Hufflepuff: make it work. It’s an opportunity to have a lot of fun, not a sentence to death and destruction for your character (though that could be fun too, couldn’t it?).

Hoping you’ll soon find your characters entirely out of control, developing whole new lives of their own, and surprising and surpassing even your wildest thoughts and plans for them,

~Nick

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Admin Stuff Blog

What the HELL is a [Pureblood]?!

I’ve been seeing a lot of pureblood applications and denying my fair share of them. But why are so many of them denied?

Put simply, I’m not convinced that people on HNZ really understand what it is to be a Pureblood.
The Pureblood Site Doc explains that:

J.K Rowling has stated that ‘true’ pure-bloods do not exist in the magical world, and that any family that claims to be entirely ‘pure’ has simply erased muggles and squibs from their family trees.

This means that “pureblood” by definition can never be entirely met. So what, then? The site documentation goes on to explain what we’ll consider a pureblood:

With this knowledge in mind we have set our definition of a ‘Pureblood’ to be that all great-grandparents and any direct ancestors below them were all magical. This, of course, also means that your character can have two magical parents and still not be a ‘pure-blood’.

What the document fails to explain is that your character can also have two parents who are not pureblood and still be, themselves, a pureblood (for the considerations of HNZ).

“How is that even possible?!” you may be thinking to yourself. Well, it’s quite simple, actually. Just take a look at this helpful chart I’ve made:

Pureblood Explanatory Chart
Nick’s awesome art explaining HNZ policy

In the above image, only the person in red is a pureblood. The rest of the family, though, is obviously magical. Why aren’t the pureblood’s parents also purebloods? We simply don’t see their great-grandparents (another set of 8 people per parent (16 more people if you consider them together), one of which could have surely been non-magical – who knows?). Maybe their parents are purebloods. But then the odds of their grandparents also being purebloods? Extremely unlikely – another 12 people per grandparent to consider.

So, when a person submits a pureblood request but says that their character is a pureblood because all the way back to their great-grandparents are also purebloods… that’s just ridiculous. And approving 15 purebloods at once is something we’re extremely unlikely to undertake.

So, when you apply for a pureblood remember these simple things:

  • Your character’s direct ancestors, up to their great-grand parents are required to be magical but not purebloods
  • Your character can be the first pureblood in their family.
  • Approving 15+ purebloods at once is not something we like to do, or likely will do.
  • Your character can’t be part-giant/part-veela/part-monkey and still be a pureblood
  • Nick likes cookies and Cyndi likes chocolate
    These point will help you a lot!

I hope this clarifies a few things and helps you in all future pureblooding adventures!

~Nick

Post-Script: And try not to be too cliche in your applications! Originality gets you 5 million bonus points. The cliche applications are:

  1. My character is pureblood, thinks they’re better than everybody else, will hate everybody – not being a pureblood will change their character tonnes
  2. My character is pureblood, thinks they’re better than everybody else, but this will change and they will see the error of their ways
  3. My character is a pureblood, but doesn’t think anything of it. They will show that not all purebloods are bad. (Or they will crusade for the rights of people who aren’t purebloods.)

If you could shy away from those topics… that’d be grand. 😉

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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 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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Categories
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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Categories
Blog General Discussions HNZ Names Rants Shakespeare Spam

That which we call a rose…

General Discussions VIII was closed today and a new topic was opened: Spam Again… Again!” This change, even in topic title style, has sparked considerable discussion and I feel I should share my entire thoughts on the topic. Give the history of the topic we’re using, my reasoning behind the change, and my own thoughts on all the feedback I’m getting so it’s all out there once and for all.

General Discussions has, for the past eleven months, been Hogwarts New Zealand’s general/random chatter topic. Where members can go to get to know each other, talk about anything and everything, and just truly enjoy each other’s company. Now, prior to March of 2009 HNZ still had topics that were, in fact, exactly the same as “General Discussions”. These topics, however, had been called “Spam”. This “Spam” topic had first been started by Bellatrix Green with a first post that included “Pee in to the wind!” It was, truly, a topic to do pretty much anything and everything. This topic was started in 2007, my first year on HNZ, and was the first topic in the board to reach 50 pages. It was then deleted and Spam 2 began. This, too, reached a certain number of pages before being deleted. This pattern continued up to Spam 7, with Spam 6 being revived and a Spam 6 part 2 having been begun at one point.

Then the titles for these topics started to get even more creative, with such titles as “§pam for the Ages“, “Spam, Egg, Bacon and SPAM“, and even things as random as “Exploding Penguin“. It simply became a fun tradition on HNZ. Starting ‘spam’ topics once they reached a set number of pages, making a fun name for it, and having the same awesome chats with the same (and new) awesome people. The memories were, and are, all priceless and they really do deserve the mention they receive from members who were around for such events.

However, during Spam Light, I started to notice a trend of true spam; that is to say, a trend of pointless and annoying posts about nothing. Breaking board rules was becoming the normal. I recall going away for a time, coming back, and finding the topic a mess. So, after dealing with said mess I was tired of ‘spam’ (in the true sense) and thusly was tired of general chat topics which opened the doors to ‘spam’. I discussed this with Livvy, who felt similarly, and Spam Light was closed until we decided what to do next.

We decided that the best course of action, however poorly received was to open a topic with a new name, but the same meaning at heart. We felt that “spam”, as a title, was confusing newer members – telling them that it was okay to literally spam the topic named spam. So we opened General Discussions. This topic had firmly laid out rules, and a very obvious threat attached to it: if spam appeared, the topic would be gone for good. We still wanted the atmosphere and the heart of the original ‘spams’, but didn’t want to run the risk of confusing new members. This seemed, to us, a logical alternative.

Immediately the community reacted. Admin were the bad guys who wanted to destroy HNZ and its OOC Community. Of course we did not, but that was how we were received. Members, generally, didn’t see the point of the name change and disapproved of it. They felt that the new topic format had to be entirely formal and serious, and that we had taken away a part of what the experience of HNZ was to them. Others simply viewed this “General Discussions” idea as “Spam with a fancy name” and so General Discussions, the first, by its end, had turned out just as poorly as Spam Light. It was closed for a time, and General Discussions II was opened with even more defined guidelines, a netiquette guide to accompany it, and the hopes of things turning out differently.

They did, very fortunately. There were the odd members who tried to spam the topic, but they were dealt on an individual basis and the topics continued. GD III, GD IV, GD V, GD VI, GD VII and GD VIII – which brought us in to 2010. 2010. The new year. A new decade (some think) and new years always mean new, fresh, starts. New chances. New goals. New everything. So, today, on February the sixth of that new year, and almost a whole year since the original falling out in Spam Light, I decided it was time to give GD VIII its rest and open a new topic. That new topic, I felt, could be brought back to its ‘Spam’ origins, if not just for the nostalgia of old members but also for the enjoyment of new members and maybe even a little bit as an experiment on my end of things, to see if continuing “General Discussions” for eight instalments was wise or necessary. (In addition to this reformatting of the topic title, I also recovered many older Spam/GD topics to be viewed by members of HNZ at their leisure here)

As I stated above, this was met with mixed reviews. Older members seemed to appreciate the change back, the fond memories of their earlier days on the site, the ability to access some of those long lost topics, and hope for newer members of the board to have similar experiences as they did in the series of general chat topics to come. Newer members, however, have seemed to disapprove of the topic title change immensely. Stating they “Miss General Discussions” and other such statements. Of course, both the topic and the people are still precisely the same – but the title has changed and therefore nothing is the same any longer.

In this situation, it is clearly impossible to please both parties – and both options have a positive and a negative. I feel that opening up the older topics for viewing, and giving members another shot at the fun times of being able to start their own general chat topic as one dies, choose their own title, and give the first post of the new (soon to be eight hundred page) topic their own spice, is worth the possible trouble of a few members trying to legitimately spam. Of course, that is the sad truth: with this change of style back, members will be more likely to attempt to spam. With three global moderators (who are all amazing), I felt like that was a manageable consequence/risk, but it definitely is a downside to the change.

I can understand new member’s and their comfort being in “General Discussions” and not anything “Spam” related, however does it make that much of a difference? Need I fight another war and taking all the beatings people wish to give me through their words over a name change once more? Does the name change the type of topic it is? The type of conversations it holds, or the type of people who are in it? I would argue not. The only thing this name change does is offer sentimental value to older users, and allow for more opportunities and involvement of members in the creation of future random chatter-type topics. I didn’t expect this kind of adverse reaction when I created the new topic. Not at all.

So does it change that much? The name? I don’t think so. It changes a bit – but the essence of the topic itself is still the same, is it not?

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Shakespeare got it right, there, I think. But it seems HNZ disagrees.

~Nick
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Categories
Aurors Blog HNZ Introduction Life Plans

A Return to Blogging

I’ve decided to try blogging again, once in a while, but now on HNZ’s blog with the rest of HNZ’s site staff helping out, posting their own little blog entries, and hopefully having a very awesome area for members to check in on the site, and its staff, in one place. Individual blogs on ZetaBoards are great, but sometimes it’s hard to notice new posts and things – with this it will be possible to subscribe to the blog, follow it, and get relevant updates as need be. Which is pretty nifty, I think.

So life over the past week has been insane for me. The week started off well enough, I suppose, but then Tuesday evening, when I got home from school, my mom’s cat (Hobo) wasn’t doing so well. I was concerned about him, but had to go to work. So I set him down on my mom’s bed (he couldn’t walk for some reason) and left for my job. I called home to check up on him several times throughout the night, and when I got home and checked on him myself he was on my mom’s bed, dead. He was 18, and I’d known him my entire life. My mom’s had him longer than she’s had me. It’s tough thinking that he’s not around the house any more and we all miss him immensely.
I had a test on Wednesday, and one on Thursday, but with Hobo’s death I was certain that if I wrote them I’d fail. So I didn’t go to school Wednesday or Thursday, I spent time with my mom instead – which was alright, I suppose.
Thursday night I had a session meeting at my church, the first one since I became an elder, and that went alright. I came home and my mom told me about some family drama (which I don’t feel comfortable sharing at the moment) that I now also have to deal with.
Then Friday came. Friday was a P.D day (no school! Thank God!) but I had to go to school anyway to work on filming a Literature project with my group. That, too, went alright but it took a fair deal of time and I’m sure I could have spent my day some better way.
Today I’m trying to rest, relax, get some sleep maybe. I’m also planning on seeing The Blind Side with my family and a friend this evening, which I hope to be enjoyable.

Tomorrow I might be going to see 2012 with my church youth group, and I have to study for all the tests I’ve missed. :)

So now for the portion of my blog where I discuss HNZ.
I feel a bit bad for Summer Break being cut a day or two short, but it’ll be closing Monday, most likely, as that is when Semester two begins.
Along with Semester 2 comes Apparition lessons for sixth years, and lots of other exciting things (I hope).
I’ve been tyring to revamp the Ministry a bit, as it has been inactive, mainly by bringing more Aurors in to the picture. Death Eaters on HNZ have always been strong – so now making it easier to become an auror should help balance things a bit.

Other than that, planning for Y9’s Tri-Wizard tournament is underway and a few more surprises are hidden about.
As far as the OOC Community goes, I’m hoping to get voting prepared for the OOC Superlatives and then wait most anxiously for the results. xD

~Nick

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