- Messages
- 14,986
- OOC First Name
- Linda
- Wand
- Cherry/Maple Wand 13 1/4" Essence of a Dragon's Heartstring; 10 1/2" 4wood mix - unicorn hair core
Global Moderation in Moderation
It all began after the last birthday really when our two amazing administrators got the best idea they ever had and that was deciding that a global moderator was needed, mainly moi Linda
So I came on board as a member of site staff, polishing shoes and what not and generally getting in their way 
when in April of that same year, it was decided that the site was hectic enough to warrant another 
global moderator... enter Abby but because Charlie and Bosley had three angels, our two admins discovered that three was indeed a magic number and in January of this year the third addition to our wonderful site team came on board.. Kaitlyn. The admins won't rest until you are all wearing darkorchid 
The End of An Era ... or is it?
Nicolas King stepped down as headmaster of Hogwarts,
we were all sad to see him leave (okay so some students cheered but we served them detention fairly quickly ) he reprized his role as an auror only to be elevated to the Head of the Auror Department (we are still questioning if he had a hand in the murder... it all became very conveniently an open and shut case)Whatever Happened too?
Scott Pollard?
I mean one minute he was there and the next he simply wasn't and parents still send their children to that school? How many disappearances will it take before they realize it's just not safe!! (well come on poisonous plants, potions that make boys resemble girls, blasting holes through hedges ... the list goes on
)Not an easter parade...
We don't do 'nice' here on HNZ, we do awesome and as such was the march of a large group of Death Eaters on Obsidian harbour. Pandemonium ensued of course what with the dark mark overhead, mothers and children screaming and running for cover, shops closing early but would you believe it.. they had only wanted to pay their respects to the late Antonin Dolohov. Death Eaters + peaceful walk = WTH!!
Seasons in the South:
For quite some time the rp's were running as if the climate and seasons in New Zealand were the same as the Northern Hemisphere. So the Elite Members and Nicolas got together and deviced the Seasons Board. Kudos to them for this because it is really awesome.
Community Poll
The first ever site wide community poll was held by our administrators and from it was discovered that ...
*Over 70% of active members like all the changes they've seen in HNZ's community in the past six months.
*Over 20% like the majority of them. That tells us we're heading in the right direction, but as always we can still improve.
*That the community doesn't feel its suggestions are heard as often as they should be, and that perhaps more time should be spent explaining why suggestions might not be as plausible as they seem would be valuable. (To display that suggestions are heard and that there are valid reasons to why they're held off/postponed/rejected)
*That the community would like to see more raffles (
*That Weekly Updates are awesome - and should remain weekly.
*That you guys still think HNZ is awesome
Blogger:
Blogs on HNZ were enabled and later again a Site Blog was created.
New Additions:
A world clock was added as was a World Map
Publications:
We saw the rise and fall of the infamous Gossip magazine that had us all gripped to our seats awaiting its next issue so we could see
who was getting chewed up and spat up by the anonymous (or not so anonymous now) editor.
The Hogwarts Monthly returned with some great new talent on board and the Daily Prophet entertained us once again. As much as we dislike Cynthia Vandervoot, she does write some rivetting articles.
Kandyland:
It was Utopia for such a short while, there were minions and everything but Kandyland was faced with a major coup and fell to the hands of the Nicktator and now we are all his slaves
We remember ... kandyland
Year 7:
We finally saw our very first graduation class grow up and fly away. It was the end of an era, some have returned to the school in teaching positions but they'll never again be those students who made us laugh and cry so hard with their antics. Joyce did up a video to commemorate the occasion.
Emoticon King:
Tony, The Toneh or Toki whatever name you wish to call him, know him always as the emoticon king.
We have him to thank for our awesome emoticons and then to go even a step further... he created special Quidditch emoticons as well.
kudo's. New Groups:
New user groups were created for Durmstrang, Beauxbatons and Other Employees with forums for the students to post up in as well.
We can now stay in touch with our charries who transferred away from us
Shsssh Keep it Down...
Into our awesome index page was added the loudest spot of all, the shout box. Great new addition which does NOT detract at all from our spam // GD // SRL
New Stooofs:
Zetaboards introduced us to automerge
how did we ever live without it; and with this upgrade came spoiler tag titles, and image resizing. Nick then added new fonts, and new colours to choose from in the dropdowns. He ain't the Nicktator for nothing Tweat.. tweet.. twit.. what?
Yes .. we has Twitter, HNZ has it's very own twitter page - enough said really
Revelations Threads:
Every once in a while one of the MESSI crew actually does think up something ingenius and special and the A Thought or a Prayer thread that can be found in the absence forum is just that.
Also we have the wonderful Positives thread done up by our Livvy which can be found in the OOC area.
Not everything is always doom and gloom, somewhere there is a silver lining and when you find it... write it up, bring a smile to someones face and make their day
Weeky... Woky... Woo;
HNZ has Wiki this huge project is still underway, many of you still pop into it from time to time to add or alter some details relating to your characters, the places or shops.
Year Book:
Out with the old and in with the new
The Yearbook got a completely new look in more ways than one. The title changed to Accio and graphics competitions were held for a new cover. Julie also took over the running of the yearbook from Debs and is doing an awesome job well done Julie - don't forget to get your pictures in.Shops and more shops:
Makutu Mall opened it's doors and a whole new shopping experience hit HNZ.
Landmark Post:
It only took 5 years but we did it ... our 500,000th post. How awesome are we, for those of you who have missed it, not to worry Nick captured the moment for all to see ... screencap
Intruder Alert... intruder alert..
keeding of course; we welcomed members from HWA to our site and now love them as dearly as if they were our own. You guys are awesome More ... and more and more:
Nick never stops, I'd imagine even when he sleeps his brain is still whirring around thinking things up for HNZ and to this end he gave us New Site Documentation in his rather limited free time... . Hats off to the big guy because let's face it, the stuff is amazing
WHY AM I SHOUTING?!
No i wasn't shouting just referring you all back to October 22nd and INTERNATIONAL CAP LOCKS DAY For those of us who missed that particular one don't be alarmed there is another. Abby went digging and discovered that there are in fact 2 INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAYS in a year and the next will be June 28th. SO MAKE SURE YOU'RE AROUND FOR THAT ONE
Zhefarovich's take another:
Cecily Rambolt left us all high and dry
... we were all saddened as for years we thought she would become Cecily King but noooo, she turned to the family with the hardest to spell surname ever . After falling madly in love with our favourite muggle professor (no offense Evie) Prodan Zhefarovich, they tied the knot and have since their first meeting given us nothing but awesome rp's to lurk. Thanks you guys Teenagers just can't control themselves ...
Year 8 saw many a strange thing happen at the school, hormones seemed to be lit up like a christmas tree and racing at an all time high. A massive bust up ensued at the Halloween feast which led to major detentions for all students involved and there were lots of students there; this subsequently led to Centaurs arriving INTO the school itself.
The Russian Doll effect ...
You know the one's I'm on about, the cute big doll with the smaller one inside and then another inside her
Well our forums were made into subforums and new subforums were also created. The hospital wing and trophy room; the duelling chamber all became subforums while The Students Lounge a very welcome edition to the school became a new subforum of the 6th floor Bow over for Brandon:
We now have a totally awesome Search Feature thanks to Brandon, the creator of ZetaBoards. It doesn't really matter, what does is he's sooo cooool for creating this for everybody (a finally operational search feature) and weee sooo love it
Hush it's the Big Guy:
This year we also saw the first ever Secret Santa on the site. It was an outstanding success and much hard work and effort went into it. Perhaps we might do another
Goblets... Fire... Aquamenti!!
And into the fray we threw you the second ever hosted TWT on this site. With the opening of the new forums Durmstrang and Beauxbatons it was so much easier to manage. Our Hogwarts students got a trip to France where our champion is getting his ass kicked by two girls
(third time lucky Mike) The admins, Abby and Kaitlyn worked really hard on this soo puleasseee make sure to mention it in your rp's as the latest news topics or someting; that you get whatever charrie you have that is eligible to post at the tasks, does so to cheer on the champions. It's been tons of fun so far, breathes held for the third and final task!! There was an old woman...
Well she isn't really old but she does have a lot of kids, though none are really her own. The Halfway House opened it's doors to accept children from the school to stay during break times when they had no where else to go. Make sure you avail of it's hospitality
A journey far far away...
well in theory anyhow .. HNZ went all around the Internet
So now you have your linkage to twitter, blog, facebook, bebo and whatever else is out there We know you polled it:
So you all did state in the community poll that you thought the weekly update was awesome and that it should be weekly but as time went on and our lives got massively hectic, we realised that there was more stuff to fit into bi-weekly updates and a lot of pressure was effectively taken off whichever of the staff was posting it up. But not only did it change to bi-weekly but on Nicolas' suggestion, Abby gave our updates a spot of pimping
Awesome job Lookies I knows your name now...
Onto our profile page was added a new field that we could use for posting our RL names because lets face it it's not just Linda who is useless for knowing whose who at the best of times and never gets it right when she's left to guess the person behind the 'new' character
This is not a drill...
Slayer766 came to help out with some awesome coding and what was the result? Our brand new Galleons Script.
Zdablooptybloop:
Recognize the name? well you should because for one whole day you and you and even you were all Zboopitybloops IC and the Nicktator OOC
fun and game were had by all on April Fools day. We all got our colours changed to blue and became the fools while the admins retained their awesomeness with darkmagenta and wielded the ban hammers See who says those in authority can't have fun The Bunny...
MESSI were just relentless and at easter time you were all sent on our first ever easter egg hunt. A special few (emphasis on the special
) managed to find all the eggs and got themselves a pretty banner for their efforts. Overhaul:
Character Developments have been plugged relentlessly by the admins and GM's to enlist all members of the site to aid in them. We sport awesome siggys for the cause and even the area itself got an overhaul. So make sure you do assist because who knows the very character that doesn't get developed from lack of participation could be yours.
Documents up the Whazoooo:
Nick spends alot of time attempting to make life easier for all of us on the site and he's done so again by introducing us to some New Applications Documentation.
So there you have it in a nutshell, the past year was rocky in parts, smooth in others and as I'm sure you'll all agree fun all the way.
Here's to another great year
The Awesome Site Staff of HNZ
(Interested in reading about the four years prior to this last? Read this thread!)