Frequently Asked Questions
Written by Catalina Cavales
In Character Questions
Do I have to sign up to go to classes?
A class has already started, can I still go? Will I be late?
I don't see any common rooms, what's up with that?
Can I be an Animagus or a Metamorphagus?
Can my student Apparate?
Can I play Quidditch?
How many Quidditch games are there?
I want to duel, where can I do that?
Why do some posts have names in parenthesis?
Out of Character Questions
When can I have an older student?
How can I apply for a book character or professor?
Why do some people have their names in color?
Why do some people have ‘IC Prefect’ below their House Group stars?
Can I become a staff member?
I have a question, can I send a PM to a staff member or e-mail the question?
I'm going on vacation, do I need to do anything?
I was on the vacation list and now my character is gone, what happened?
How do I put a picture up and change my display name?
My profile says "Select Skin", what does that mean?
What is Karma?
How can I keep informed about important dates?
I want to change my character's year, can I do that?
I heard this site closes during summer and winter vacation. Is that true?
This site is cool, do you guys get paid to run it?
Miscellaneous
Do I need to read all the Harry Potter books before I can join?
I have not finished reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Will I run into spoilers on this site?
The board keeps saying "Too many connections." What is that?
I didn't receive an email yet with my password and activation code, what do I do?
Can I advertise my own RPG site?
Do I have to sign up to go to classes?
Some professors will put up a post in the Plots board asking for students to sign up to attend the class. This is generally used to help the professor get an idea of how many will attend so they can set up the class accordingly. If you didn't sign up, you can still attend the class.
A class has already started, can I still go? Will I be late?
If the class has already started you can still attend. If this is the case, simply post that you had been there from the beginning of the class. If you post walking into the class late, you will certainly lose House Points.
I don't see any common rooms, what’s up with that?
When you first join the site you won't be able to see any Common Room. Once your character has been approved, you will be put into your House Group and you will then be able to see YOUR Common Room, but not the others. If you have been approved but still can't see your Common Room, let the staff know. Please note that Catalina has to put everyone into their House Group so give it a couple of hours before you tell a staff member.
Can I be an Animagus or a Metamorphagus?
Becoming an Animagus is a very long and difficult chore; as such no student is allowed to be one. Metamorphagus is an even more rare power and likewise no student is allowed this power. If you want one of these powers, you may ask the staff but be warned, permission has only been granted 3 times since this site opened in August 2003.
Can my student Apparate?
To be able to Apparate, a student must be at least 17 years old. If your student is old enough, simply ask the staff to take the test and you'll soon be able to Apparate.
Can I play Quidditch?
To be a member of your House Quidditch team, check the Quidditch page on the forum and look at your House roster. If you see an opening, then you are free to try out. There are always openings as reserves, regardless of whether there are openings on the starting teams.
How many Quidditch games are there?
When possible, each house plays 3 matches a year. October, January, and April. Unfortunately due to illness, vacation, and many people busy with school, we do not always manage to get the full set of games in every year.
I want to duel, where can I do that?
If you wish to duel you must first find someone willing to practice with you. It's easiest to do this in the Plots board. Once you have a partner, go to the Class board and post in Professor Suivant's Dueling club post. He will then set up the classroom for you and let you know when you may begin.
Why do some posts have names in parenthesis?
Names in parenthesis let everyone know who the post is intended for. A post entitled "In the Library ( Harry & Ron )" means that the post is meant only for the person who wrote it, Harry and Ron. Many posts don't have names in parenthesis, meaning anyone can join them.
When can I have an older student?
Everyone is required to start with a 1st-4th year student. After 2 weeks they may apply for another student here. If the staff feels the player is posting well, they will be granted a new character. If the staff feels the person is not experienced enough yet for a 2nd character, 1st - 7th year, the player will be asked to wait a couple of weeks and work on improving their RPing. At which time they can again apply for a 2nd character. Occasionally, a player who the staff recognise is very active, but do not feel is ready to role-play at a 1st - 7th year level, may be granted a 2nd character at 1st - 4th year level.
A month after you've gotten your 2nd character, you may apply for a 3rd student, 1st-7th year, a Graduate, a book character or a professor. Again the staff will decide if the person is experienced enough. The 3rd character is a bit harder to gain as we expect top notch role playing at this level. Once you have 3 characters all with an active bare minimum of 10 posts, you may apply for additional characters at any time so long as you are able to actively keep up with all your characters. If you're not able to keep up with them all, you may be asked to drop one.
How can I apply for a book character or professor?
If you have already been granted permission for a 2nd character you may try out for a minor 1st-5th year book character. If you have been granted permission for a 3rd character you may try out for any book character or professor. To see which book characters are available, go to the lists of characters in the Approved Characters board. If the person you want is not listed, then they are up for grabs!
Why do some people have their names in color?
Anyone you see with a colored name is a staff member. Their colors - Red, Green, Blue and Yellow - show which house they represent on staff. Looking at the stars beneath their display name will tell you what rank they are. Purple stars denote the Head Girl, Blue stars denote a Prefect and Green stars denote a House Guardian.
Why do some people have ‘IC Prefect’ below their House Group stars?
Characters with ‘IC Prefect’ below their name are In Character Prefects. This means that their characters are responsible for maintaining order and decorum within the school role-playing boards. If you post your character doing something against the school rules, they may interrupt your post to give you detention! There is also an IC Head Boy and Head Girl. You can read more about IC Prefects here. IC Prefects/Heads are NOT to be confused with staff member ‘Prefects’ (although staff member characters may also be IC Prefects). A staff member will have ‘Staff Member’ below their member group stars.
Can I become a staff member?
We do not take applications for new staff members. We add new staff members when the amount of members and the workload per staff member is very high. In those cases the staff discusses who the best new member would be and we then promote that person. The people who get promoted are those who have the following qualities: 1. They're dedicated to the site, they've been active members for many months. 2. They are good Role Players that can be role models to our new members. 3. They're honest ( have never tried to fool a staff member ) and helpful ( either helped out the staff or helpful towards newer players). If you show these traits, then you MAY be promoted to a staff member if we need more staff.
I have a question, can I send a PM to a staff member or e-mail the question?
If you have a question the best place to put it is in Talk to the Staff. There the next available staff member will answer your question. If you PM a question to one staff member, you will have to wait for that one person to log on. Sending an E-mail to the site's address is the slowest way to have a question answered. Someone checks the e-mail account once every couple of days as we mainly use the e-mail for web rings and top site listings.
I'm going on vacation, do I need to do anything?
If you go on vacation, you need to post in the Vacation List so that people you are Role Playing with know that you are away so they don't think you have abandoned the post.
I was on the vacation list and now my character is gone, what happened?
The staff deletes characters that we feel will not be coming back. If you posted saying you will be gone only a week, and a full month has passed, the staff may delete your character.
How do I put a picture up and change my display name?
When you log in click on "profile", it's at the very top of the page, there is also one at the bottom of the page just above the color coded wands. You can also just click on your own name. All of these will bring up your profile, from here click on "Modify Profile" that will let you edit your display name, add a picture and change other personal settings.
My profile says "Select Skin", what does that mean?
We have created 5 color schemes called a "skin." There is the default one that show the Hogwarts crest and generic colors, there is also a skin for each House that features that House's colors and their crest. Choosing a skin simply tells your computer what color scheme you want, you can change your skin as many times as you want.
What is Karma?
Karma is a reflection on a character's actions on site. A person with a high Karma is most likely someone who has been on site a while, they're a very experience role player and they're generally helpful towards others. This however does NOT mean a character with little or no karma points is a bad role player. Some characters are used less frequently than others and therefore have much less karma, yet they can be played by some of the most experienced players on the site. To find out more about Karma on this site, click here.
How can I keep informed about important dates?
The best way to stay informed on this site is to check the Important Notices board whenever there is a new post. Also the site's calendar is also useful as classes, homework, Quidditch games and other events are put on the calendar. The calendar can be found on the menu bar right next to your profile.
I want to change my character's year, can I do that?
When you are approved for a new character, you are allowed to move your current character up a few years to your new status level. However we encourage people to simply create a 2nd, older student. By changing your character's year during the school year, it is a major change to your character and all his/her friends. Many times these changes lead to the character being too difficult to role play with and that character has to be dropped back down their original year anyway.
I heard this site closes during summer and winter vacation. Is that true?
No that is not true! When it comes time for summer and winter vacation, the site does NOT close down! But, some things do happen. The SCHOOL boards are all closed during summer because it's vacation time and there wouldn't be any students at school anyway. Instead, all students are to post outside of Hogwarts - that could be Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade or the Outside Hogwarts board. Vacation time is a very fun time since students get to hang out and get to do many things they normally wouldn't, such as go to the movies, and play soccer with friends.
This site is cool, do you guys get paid to run it?
The staff does not get paid to run this site. All the staff work here on their own free time. Eventually we would like to get the site to the point where we can make a little money to pay for yearly internet fees, but that is a way off still.
Do I need to read all the Harry Potter books before I can join?
Certainly not! You can join even if you haven't read any of the books! However, we do follow the books fairly closely so if you haven't read all the books you may run into a few spoilers here and there as to the fate of certain characters. Also we follow the BOOKS, not the movies, so if in doubt about something, refer to the book, not the movie.
I have not finished reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Will I run into spoilers on this site?
We have one post on this site where our members discuss "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." If you have not finished the book, do NOT go into that post or you will find tons of spoilers. Most spoilers will be in black to make it easier for you to avoid reading them if you do stumble across them. Now for Role Playing. For the 2007-2008 year, we will be playing the 2nd year after Harry’s graduation, so 2 years on after his 7th year. However, we decided to go off of the plots that have developed on our site since 2004. We don’t want to lose all the work and unique ideas that members and staff alike have put into the plots over the years.
The board keeps saying "Too many connections." What is that?
We are on Proboards server 26 along with several hundred other boards. All the boards on server 26 share the same bandwidth. When all the sites on server 26 are really busy the server slows down and you get the "Too Many connections" notice. There is nothing wrong with your computer and also nothing you can do but wait 30 seconds and try again.
I didn't receive an email yet with my password and activation code, what do I do?
Many email systems treat email from Proboards as spam. So check your junk mail folder, it might be there. If it's not there, click the button to have Proboards resend you the email and look for it. If you still don't get it, let the staff know.
Can I advertise my own RPG site?
You may NOT advertise any other web site here without permission. If you have a site you'd like to advertise, PM the link to a staff member. Please note that we will NEVER allow the advertising of other Harry Potter RPG site.
Create a free website at Webs.com