Category: HNZ

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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 community HNZ Positivity

HNZ & All Around the [Real] World

“All Around the Wizarding World” is a familiar enough phrase to those of us who have been a part of HNZ for any period of time. It’s been on our banner for forever – we have always roleplayed well beyond the bounds of New Zealand and had characters coming from all kinds of walks of life.

Far more interesting to me, however, is just how far reaching the site has been in the real world. We’re not a bunch of Kiwis. It often surprises people that it was an American who started HNZ, or that I am a Canadian who has never set foot in Aotearoa. But North American people are mundane to me: there’s no excitement in knowing I’m on a website with Canadians and Americans. The fact that we have actual Kiwis, though, that excites me. Despite having a very specific geographic niche to the site, its reach has never been limited.

In fact, HNZ has been accessed (and frequented) by people all over the world. In far flung countries and exotic lands I could only imagine, that the Internet brings far closer to me, and that HNZ has enabled me to get to share a passion with the natives of. In fact, in the past three years on the site we’ve reached people in all these places:

Map of the world, most of the world coloured in by visitors
Click for the full image!

While we certainly have a larger presence in certain places, the fact that we’ve been seen and shared in so many different places amazes me.
“Now Nick,” I can hear you starting to say – “just because HNZ has been visited in all those places over three years doesn’t mean very much – it could just have been one-off random flukes!”
And I say to you: fair enough – but look at this map from just the last three months:

A map of the world, with almost all the same places shaded in - some noticeable gaps.
Click for the full image!

Definitely fewer places, but still mightily impressive in my books.

It’s not just that people from Australia and Tanzania, India and France, Texas and the UK, have all visited HNZ that staggers me; it’s that HNZ has impacted lives, been shared, chattered about in an excited tone. People have met because of this site! We have frequently joked of a giant HNZ meet up or convention, but smaller versions of this happen frequently! People in the same country find ways to meet, peoples in the same area but might require crossing an international border have had annual get togethers, and when travelling there’s often a quick HNZ connection to be made if you want it. Friendships that would never have existed do now because of HNZ.

Even more powerfully, classrooms in the Philippines and in the Netherlands have been abuzz with chat about this character or that all while, seemingly a world away, a school teacher in Canada desperately hopes his students never find the site he has come to enjoy so much, but uses a similar concept as a teaching tool so they, too, can enjoy a piece of what he has so come to appreciate.

In places I’ll probably never have the privilege to visit, friends share the site with each other and the community we’ve all come to know and love, that has become a piece of who we are and that we’ve left a bit of ourselves with, travels the globe, a person at a time, a web search and a click at a time, little by little, making itself known and loved. In fact, we were even submitted to TotalGirl Magazine, which I’ve always thought was the coolest.

HNZ featured in a 2011 issue of "TotalGirl Magazine"
Click for the full image!

I really am frequently amazed at the impact HNZ has had on people, and how powerful a tool it has been in so many lives. People who have struggled with depression and belonging find a safe space on HNZ where they’re warmly welcomed and they most certainly belong. People for whom English is not their native language, HNZ has been a kind and patient teacher, giving them a leg up above classmates and helping them in their goal of bi- (or sometimes tri- or even quadri-) lingualism. Even people for whom English may have been the only language they have ever known credit HNZ for the improvements they have seen in their own writing, giving them a safe space to practise, have feedback, enjoy their art.

HNZ is art. Art that has been collaboratively accomplished by hundreds of people in scores of countries around the world, with a diversity of lived experience that boggles my mind. Art that is still being made, lovingly, passionately, sometimes painstakingly, a post at a time, creating something beautiful that none of us has known before, and that would not at all be the thing it is, if it weren’t for the incredible breadth and mixture of people taking part. If it weren’t for the Kiwis and Aussies who called us to account for the seasons being distinctly Northern-Hemisphere and not at all representative of the reality, if it weren’t for Europeans who speak a wealth of languages from which they can draw and enrich their characters, if it weren’t for schoolchildren in all kinds of countries in Africa and Asia for whom the site has perhaps held the most excitement, drawing them into a whole new world, and encouraging them forward even as they deal with the realities of their education and life beyond.

The beauty of the Internet has provided this safe space and opportunity, this welcoming and passionate community, to people from all kinds of walks of life all over the world, has allowed us all to make wonderful art together, and I love it for that.

HNZ & All Around the Wizarding World only exists because our people are from All Around the [Real] World. And it’s a magical thing.

I hope you find it as magical as I do.

~Nick

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Admin Stuff Future HNZ OOC

What goes into implementing a suggestion?

Suggestions are something I care very deeply about, but I know that from a user’s perspective it can seem like they’re not very often considered, or the answer is “no” far too often than it’s “yes”.

Lately, James has taken to making suggestions fairly frequently; which is great. I like having ideas thrown around, and implemented one of his suggestions, pointed out that another suggestion has been an ongoing discussion on HNZ for a while now, and had to say ‘no’ to at least one major idea. I don’t like saying no without explaining myself, but I also decided to seize the opportunity to explain what goes into a ‘no’ response most of the time. You can read my original post here, but I know that not everybody reads every suggestion topic or reply and that specific topic will be buried soon enough: so why not immortalize the process in a blog post?!

Why not, indeed. So that’s what this is!
Boiled down, when we consider a suggestion we ask three main questions:

  • How hard is it to do?
    This can be the most difficult question for people outside of the staff team to answer, so I don’t want it to be something that dissuades people from making suggestions. Sometimes you’ll think something is quite hard but it’s simple enough, and other times you’ll imagine something to be quite simple (because the concept is simple) but it’ll be very involved to implement.
    This is also never the sole determining factor in a decision. I don’t shy away from difficult projects, but each question is considered in relationship to all the others. Our first consideration is simply getting a sense for how big of an undertaking something might be. What would it take to do it, assuming we do?
    I will say, though, that it can be incredibly frustrating when users assume things about whatever they’re suggesting and how simple it really should be to just do, without having any sense for things behind the curtain, as it were.
    So suggest freely, please! But also please remember that this isn’t something you can gauge, and trust us to be able to determine what a suggestion will take to make a reality.
  • How useful is it? To how many people?
    Plenty of ideas are neat and creative, but maybe not particularly useful. Sometimes neat things are done just for the sake of something cool being around even if nobody will ever really need it and it won’t make anybody’s life easier on the site. Once again, this will never be the sole determining factor in if we act on an idea but already you can see how these questions interact with each other. If the suggestion would be a colossal task to implement, but isn’t going to change anything tangible on the board, it doesn’t seem like a great idea to pour time and energy into something like that.
  • What impact will it have on site activity?
    We care about HNZ and its general health and activity, so when we make changes we need to be mindful of how it will influence the activity on the board: both positively and perhaps negatively. Sometimes a major change is suggested that we know may upset some users, and so trying to gauge what the risk of such a change is and if it’s worth doing despite that risk is important. Alternatively, some changes may promote increased activity and still others might be a net-neutral change.
    Obviously this factor, too, is never the sole determining factor in the fate of a suggestion – but it is weighed against the others. Perhaps a suggestion would slightly increase activity (great!) but would be a lot of hard work for the staff to make happen – we might feel that the staff time could be better spent doing something else that might encourage user participation on the site even more.

In my original post on this matter, I provided a few tangible case-studies for applying these criteria.
First, the Quidditch System was a fairly large amount of work (and, truth be told, work is still ongoing!) and while it’s highly useful, it’s only useful to set of users with active student characters on house Quidditch teams. At this point, it would seem adding it isn’t worth the effort. But Quidditch was always very popular on the site and spurred plenty of discussion and followup RPs – this knowledge allowed us to determine that it would be worthwhile because it’d let us have Quidditch played more easily and so more often.

Even small suggestions like being able to clear more than one notification at once work well with these questions: It’s not much work, it’s pretty handy, and it won’t really impact site activity either way – so why not implement it?

These questions are by no means a law, and there’s plenty of wiggle room for considering what people just want, or what might be an interesting project for us to work on (or a new opportunity for the site to grow, even if it’s risky), but it’s been a helpful guide and I think knowing about it will help people better understand where we come from when we approach suggestion topics.

Keep your ideas coming – even if they’re not all adopted, the ones that are make it all worthwhile!

~Nick

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Categories
Changes HNZ Life OOC Rants

Starting a New Era: College Life

Not many know that I’m actually going to college now. Not much of a surprise but whatever. After two years of trying to find a permanent home to settle down and start college, somehow I got in last year and went to classes online. This year is different. I fought to get In-State Tuition because I feel like this is my home now. I’ve never lived in this part of the county, but Cohutta is amazing on so many levels. Small, quiet, but lots of bugs out in the country. Can’t expect more in the south though. Anyway I am going to classes in 16 days. I’m counting down in my head because I’m excited. My classes are as followed:

  • Calculus and Analytical Geometry I
  • Principles of Programming I
  • English I
  • Fundamentals of Speech
  • American Government

I am a Sophomore and it is hilarious that according to this college, I’ve taken English II before English I. I needed English I for my major. Anyway, that is what I have, and I go to school all weekdays. I begged for five classes, and that was what I wanted. What can I say, I really wanted it. This will bring about some changes to my life though. One thing, never been in a campus classroom before so that will be an exciting change.

Changes for HNZ though? I might not be on for like 24 hours a day. Probably a similar schedule for what I had when I was working a full time job, or a part-time one. All of the pages of Accio! that I do will be closing earlier, which was why it was in the BWU several times. Bringing out a new set of pages so keep a look out on that! But with that in mind, anyone that is not pictured at all, won’t be. Not even the seventh years. I used to spend a good two to three hours looking for pictures and the full name for those that did not post pictures. Not anymore. I just wish that some people would take like a couple minutes out of their lives to post a picture for their student and answer to the PM if there was one. It makes the pages really worth while! It makes them bigger and fuller! But I guess it isn’t that big, which is why there isn’t going to be IC Superlatives for a while. That itself takes sooo long to do. It isn’t worth counting the votes if only 4 OOC people voted.

I might not be able to do lessons for my students anymore, especially my third years. Less to grade I suppose but eh. I liked it. I want to focus on school, but I am going to have fun in the meantime. It might take some time, I’m sure that this will be easy to balance out after a couple of weeks. I am superb at time management. When I want to be that is.

Sigh. I’ll just wrap this up then.
~ Kaitlyn

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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 crazies HNZ Rants

The insult that is stealing

This post was started in March, saved as a draft, then forgotten about. I’m publishing it now for no reason, really.

It can be pretty frustrating, being a content creator on the Internet. (Or, as most of you on HNZ know I don’t create much content anymore, I fear – a content administrator. 😉 )
The problem often is that your stuff gets stolen, taken by other people, and you find out about it somewhere down the line when it’s too late to really react. It’s an unfortunate reality, and for all the safeguards that exist to prevent this, none of them work really perfectly – and none of them work very well when you consider the ZetaBoards forum platform.

That all said, it hasn’t usually been malicious third parties taking things randomly from us. In fact, random third parties more often request permission to use our content and attribute it to us. The real evil seems to come from members of our community.

Countless users of HNZ have decided, after some time, that HNZ might not be just right for them, for whatever reason. So they decide they’ll start their own RPG, but instead of spending time creating their own content (codes, documentation, etc.) they take what HNZ already had in place. This has always been quite confusing to me. HNZ isn’t good enough for them, so they want better and know they can do better – but in the process of doing better than us, they just take what we have and claim it as their own.

Traditionally, I’ve come across communities made by HNZ people with other HNZ people as the regular membership filled with HNZ content. Not just their characters and their RPs (which they’re free to do with as they will, obviously) but also our rules documentation, our forum images, anything that tickled their fancy, and I’m left amazed.

More recently, however, a beast of a different kind has reared its ugly head. HNZ now has a set of useful and dynamic tools that set it apart from similar boards. These tools include the gradebook, the shop system, galleons, etc. etc. etc. These are uncommon codes because they take webhosting and a little bit of coding know-how, two things a lot of people can’t be bothered with. So instead, they try to take HNZ’s.

The thing is, with an external host it’s pretty simple to track down who’s accessing your site, and how they’re doing it. I’ve caught four boards now trying to use the like system from HNZ, if not the gradebook and galleons as well. (They’re pretty much useless without approved staff accounts being able to set up galleons, or assign grades, or anything else, but it’s still the thought that counts – and this thought was malicious.)

Additionally, I’ve caught a couple of the same people stealing HNZ’s custom themes for use on their own boards.
Fortunately, being on the support staff makes it easier to prove stolen content is mine and have such communities closed – but it’s an inevitable and unrelenting frustration to see things stolen, and people believing that we’re stupid enough for them to get away with it.

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Admin Stuff Applications HNZ Life OOC

Applications: What the heck is up and how are they processed?

Introduction
Applications are a very important part of HNZ. They moderate who can say their character is/does what, and helps keep the board from becoming rampant with Mary Sue type characters which would surely annoy most people on HNZ. They have become ingrained in the culture of the site, I believe, and when they cannot be processed as quickly as I would like, or you would like, it becomes a frustrating matter.

Yes, me.
What’s this? Processed as quickly as I would like? Yes, me. I like applications to move quickly as well. I don’t like holding on to them for ages – they clutter things. 😉 Having them around for too long makes me go a little bit crazy.

So what’s the hold up?
Right now, as many have noted, applications seem at a bit of a stand still. This is as frustrating to me as it is to you all, but likely even moreso to me. Why, you ask? Well, you’re waiting on one or two applications. I see all twenty or so currently in queue. The hold up? As you should know, Livvy has been dealing with some large real-life problems and (as says what has effectively become the ancient statement of HNZ) ‘Real life comes first’.

Real Life Comes First
I think it’s humorous that when members are going away and leaving behind work for the Global Moderators or Administrators to catch up, for the sake of the site, we still say ‘Real life comes first’. However, when it is an Admin who needs the time off, nobody seems to be able to have patience. At all. The song of ‘real life comes first’ fades away to a mob of angry villagers, pitchforks in hand, ready to go find the monster.

Trying to Catch Up
Nearly every application, however, does have a response from me. Some are even mid-discussion between Livvy and I. Unfortunately, it seems Livvy’s life has taken her for another whirl and HNZ time has had to be cut. Livvy doesn’t like to hold things up, but she loves administrating HNZ and definitely wants to be a part of the approval process. So, I trust she will catch up in a timely manner. If she knows she won’t be able to catch back up in a timely manner, then she will ask me to process applications until she can catch back up. As much as ‘real life comes first’, there are still ways we can adhere to that without ensuring applications drown.

Mid-Discussion? Wait, so how do applications work – exactly?
I have a feeling, based on some of the results from the recent site poll that not everybody is aware of how applications are processed on HNZ. What we look at for them, and why it is that applications get denied – even when hard work has obviously been put in to them.

Every form that is sent in is given a topic in a hidden forum. There are plenty of these forums for every type of application, with approved and denied archives as well for future referencing. It’s all very helpful, actually. When a new application comes in, Livvy and I read the topic then post our initial reactions. We discuss the application with each other if applicable, and either: Approve it, suggests tweaks to it and approve it when the tweaks are ironed out, or deny it.

So what is it, exactly, that we look for in applications? Here are some of the basic things:

  1. Is it canon?
    If an application, in any way, breaks with our knowledge of the canon Harry Potter universe – it is denied.
  2. Does it make sense?
    We look over applications to ensure that what they say makes sense. If a person applies to be a Death Eater, for instance, but comes from a loving household, doesn’t believe in any sort of blood supremacy, and has no reason to be a Death Eater – then such applications are denied. It may be funny, but if something doesn’t make sense then it could really screw other things up. Making sense is very crucial.
  3. What would the repercussions of this be?
    For many applications, especially plot requests, things effect characters outside of the plot, too. Usually this is in minor ways, but sometimes it can be major. Take, for instance, a plot request where an unspeakable has found a cure for werewolves. It doesn’t go against canon – nothing says there can’t be a cure. It might make perfect sense, too. But the plot would effect everybody on the site and the future of the site as a whole. It would likely negatively influence many other character’s developments as well. If that is the case, that the repercussions of a request would be largely negative and widespread – it is denied.
  4. How common should it be?
    For special ability applications especially this is considered. We only truly meet one metamorphmagi in the Harry Potter novels, through all seven books. This indicates how truly rare the ability is. We receive plenty of requests for this gift, however. So we must consider how common it should be and, if enough have already been approved for the time being, no more are accepted (even if they’re all pretty good) unless the application just blows our minds.
  5. How many other special things does this roleplayer have?
    This is something that must be considered in conjunction with How common should it be?. We don’t want two roleplayers having a character with every possible special ability and nobody else on the site being able to have anything. We want to spread the wealth a little, so this must be considered. Has the person had many applications recently? How many special things does this person already have? Could we approve this for somebody else who does not have as many special approvals?
  6. Is this user in good standing?
    This is also something we must consider. Members who constantly break board rules, are rude to anybody and everybody, etc. shouldn’t be given special allowances. It is a reward, almost, to have special plots approved, have characters with special abilities, etc. So why should a user who doesn’t care about site rules be given plenty of extra awesome things while rule-abiding members might not? It’s just one of the many prices of rule breaking.
  7. Plenty More
    There are several more considerations that are given to applications in that time that Livvy and I review them. It’s not just a quick read and a rash response, thought is given to applications, and the most appropriate response given – even if it’s not something the applicant wants to hear.

Conclusion
In summary: Stop complaining. Don’t be hypocritical. We take necessary time and thought for applications.

That is all. ^_^

~Nicolas

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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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Categories
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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Categories
busy HNZ Life school

Warning: This is a Typical Abby Post

I don’t mean to steal the thunder from Linda’s very first blog post ever, (as an avid blogger who once wrote an article titled “To Those About to Blog, I Salute You” for a high school newspaper, I salute you Linda 😉 ) but I figured it was about time for a post from me. I’d been pretty much AWOL around HNZ for a long while, something which still upsets me, and it was always for different reasons each time; and I apologize for never really posting an absence post, I mostly only tell the staff that I’ll be missing for a while. The most recent reason was that it was now March and I still had no idea what I was going to do for school exactly. Those of you who know me well/personally, know that school is really important to me and I’m very bitter about the subject of college, or university, as they call it in other places. But for all I know, I’m just a “grass is greener on the other side” type of person who just longs to be in school, but once I actually attend, I’d hate it just as much as most of my friends do.

Anyway, I had an emotional breakdown after having a conversation with my younger sister about her future plans and saw that hers actually seemed to be in motion, or at least seemed like they were tangible. Now I love my sister to death, but school and rules and the like have never been her strong point, ever. And since she had a baby last year I expected her to be even further behind on getting her life together as I assume lots of teen moms are, (no offense to any out there! :x). So when afterward I sat there crying, asking myself what I was doing with myself and why I was letting myself waste time, this wasn’t like me at all. If I wanted something I worked hard for it until I got it (such a Slytherin 😉 ). I had applied to St. John’s a while earlier, but because the acceptance process was so long, the deadline for Housing had past, and since I wasn’t an admitted student yet, I wasn’t allowed to pay any deposits, just in case I was rejected it wouldn’t be money down the drain. Since I live in Texas, living on campus was the absolute most important thing to me, since even the cheapest apartment in New York is completely out of my family’s price range; so since I had missed the deadline for Housing, I considered the option of St. John’s gone, thus creating more hysteria about what I was to do.

After getting myself together, I started writing the essay for an application to another school, and before I knew it, I had submitted my application even though the deadline had long passed. I don’t know why I still decided to submit my application even though the deadline had passed, but I just decided “Oh well, at least they’ll have my application on file,” and literally the next week I got a call from the school. That’s never happened before, a school taking an interest in me personally! We talked on the phone about what else I needed to submit before being officially accepted and I asked about my priority, Housing, and said it was nowhere near close to deadline. This was music to my ears, I cried, out of joy this time, because I felt that I was finally making progress. The only downside was that it wasn’t in New York, and it wasn’t St. John’s, my dream school. Oh well, I could live with that. At least it was anywhere but Texas! (And Ohio isn’t that far from New York). I’d go there for one year and transfer to St. John’s the next, this was just getting my foot in the door, I could live with that! I soon began getting really excited at the fact that I might be going to school again, and the thought of it being in a small town in Ohio (a place I’ve always wanted to visit for some reason) was making me giddy! I had convinced myself that this school was going to be awesome and St. John’s could suck it for not taking an interest in me personally and thought “That’s their loss!”

Then came the mass emails from St. John’s. I had officially been accepted so now they were just going through their routine mass emails to newly accepted students – Come visit the campus! – -Don’t forget to register at our website! – – Want to study abroad? You can with STJ! – the usual. This was my fourth time being accepted to St. John’s so I knew the routine. I was going to delete the emails, I had too many of the same ones from previous times anyway; it felt like a bad break up where I was trying to get rid of old love letters or something. But even with old love letters, I can’t help but open them and read them, which is always a bad idea because old feelings come flooding back and then the waterworks start, or at least that’s the way it is with me. I learned though that the longer it had been between a break up, the less it hurt and the easier it got to throwing away the love letters (or deleting in this modern age). It wasn’t like that with St. John’s; I couldn’t bring myself to delete the emails, and there I was, reading every single email and then going a step further with my pain by visiting their website and I couldn’t take it. I reminded myself what I thought earlier “This is my FOURTH time being accepted to St. John’s”, was I really going to reject them for a fourth time?! Granted they weren’t as invested into the relationship as I was, but really? Four times? That got me into thinking why I kept putting off St. John’s and then it hit me. I had always refrained from admitting it but the reason I kept putting if off was because I was scared of the heartache. I was scared of getting so attached to St. John’s the way I had that very first time I was supposed to go, 2 years ago, that I distanced myself and I called things off before they could, to save me the pain.

So St. John’s was officially back in the running. Even though I had no idea if I could still live on campus or if it was too late for me to accept my place, enough was enough, no more putting it off and living in fear; no more wondering “What if?” I chose St. John’s. Even though Ohio was the safest choice for me, it never stood a chance against my dream school. I paid all my deposits the very next morning even though the Housing deadline had passed, and this time things were different, I started getting new emails from them that I’d never read before. It was the new post-acceptance emails, and this time it felt real. The emails were more personal (still mass-sent emails) but more towards students who had made the commitment to St. John’s rather than the old “You’re accepted, now confirm you wanna come here!” emails.

Things changed from then on. I had chats with Admissions workers and called them frequently for information (who cares if I kept getting transferred to 5 different departments within 10 seconds each time!) And then came the chat with all the Deans. After that chat session with the Deans of St. John’s, I can honestly (and very arrogantly) say I made quite an impression on them, I even got asked to please visit their office when I went to campus in the fall. 😀 And now the emails I get aren’t the mass-sent emails but the personal one-on-one emails regarding my enrollment status directly. The chat sessions aren’t private since students can just pop in whenever they want, so I know that these invitations and requests for my email address aren’t normal, seeing as they didn’t ask any other student who joined the chat. /boasting They not only helped me with the usual FAQ’s incoming freshman have, but they helped me decide what I should study. Journalism was always going to be my major, but lately I had become interested in Politics, which they gushed was excellent to study alongside Journalism, so I wasn’t sure whether to take that as well, or Business. In the end we decided on a double major in Journalism and Politics, with a minor in Business – and if that proves to be too much for me, then the Politics can just become a minor too. 🙂 BEST OF ALL? They pretty much guaranteed I’d have a dorm since I’m a freshman! You have NO idea how ecstatic I was when I heard that!

So it’s official, I’M GOING TO ST. JOHN’S!!! Registration for classes doesn’t start until June, and they won’t start sending out Housing notices until then either, so all I have left to do is wait. I got my financial aid and I still have to apply for a few loans and save up money to go, but I don’t care, I’M GOING TO ST. JOHN’S! I can’t believe it’s actually happening. I said it before, and I’ll say it again, this is my year, I can feel it! In a few months’ time, I’ll be living in the best place in the world, going to my dream school that is so utterly perfect for me. <3 And hopefully in a year’s time I’ll be getting ready to meet Pattycakes and Galinda for the first time too and we’ll all go see Wicked. 😀 And what this means for HNZ? Well as I said, all there’s left to do is wait until June, and now my sister’s out of high school so expect me to be on more often, finally! 😀

Finally, a happy update from me! 😀

~Elphaba

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