Suggestions Thread

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Would it be alright for the Daily Prophet to have a forum (Inside the daily prophet of course XD) where we can discuss things in private (Like article Ideas and such)...

It could also have a place where we can put unfinished articles before their put out in the open...

It could also help the reporters make real issues rather than simple articles as it currently is...

(Sort've like what Hogwarts Monthly has, I think...)
 
now that we have decided on keeping Archived lessons we could always keep achieved grades as well
Like Y7 Term 1
Then Year 7 term 2 and continue to show encouragement to the students who do their homeworks and lessons

Another thing I wished to suggest is that we could put awards for the OWLS and NEWT toppers per subject or maybe just the first three rankers or something of that sort which could help in later years when one might wish to rp about his occupation or boast about his good grades or someone congratulating them or younger students willing to get good grades like them
 
I know I just made a suggestion but I have another one... I've been playing the HP Game and found there are alot of areas we could add.. like a boat house for the lake and a few courtyards (They have the main courtyard, the transfiguration courtyard {which leads to the Ravenclaw Towers} and the Pale Courtyard (It may have a different name {It's under their clocktower}) Anyways I just though it might be a bit fun to add maybe a few of them....
 
Well I was thinking about how Andy mentioned having something along the lines of whatever happens happens for Character's Relationship Status and I understand it would be pointless to have tons of different explantions for their relationship status so I was wondering if we could consider leaving the relationship status open so that people can best explain their relationship status in their own words and those who are seeing people couls say who they are seeing....
 
Erica Matthews: You have a PM.


Andrew Bruke said:
now that we have decided on keeping Archived lessons we could always keep achieved grades as well
Like Y7 Term 1
Then Year 7 term 2 and continue to show encouragement to the students who do their homeworks and lessons
I think this is a possibility, and it would be helpful - yes, but it likely would not be applied until Y8 sometime.
Andrew Bruke said:
Another thing I wished to suggest is that we could put awards for the OWLS and NEWT toppers per subject or maybe just the first three rankers or something of that sort which could help in later years when one might wish to rp about his occupation or boast about his good grades or someone congratulating them or younger students willing to get good grades like them
OWLs and NEWTs are standardized tests, pretty much. Most countries have some sort of standardized educational testing, so that's the example I'll used. They're not for competition, they're for determining if you can/should proceed to higher learning. So I guess the reward of doing well is a better future. :r:


Brian Getathorn XIX said:
I know I just made a suggestion but I have another one... I've been playing the HP Game and found there are alot of areas we could add.. like a boat house for the lake and a few courtyards (They have the main courtyard, the transfiguration courtyard {which leads to the Ravenclaw Towers} and the Pale Courtyard (It may have a different name {It's under their clocktower}) Anyways I just though it might be a bit fun to add maybe a few of them....
While a courtyard might be logical and possible on the ground floor (I'll talk to Livvy about adding one), I don't think we'll be adding too many more forums to HNZ - there are plenty of places to RP, and some to discover before you can RP in them (acquiring the password to the Restricted Section, following clues to the Room of Requirements). I might be more open to adding more forums if/when we have the opportunity to condense the forum index into one "Hogwarts" category with many subforums like we'd tried before but encountered some ZB bugs. :)


Ares Taylor said:
Well I was thinking about how Andy mentioned having something along the lines of whatever happens happens for Character's Relationship Status and I understand it would be pointless to have tons of different explantions for their relationship status so I was wondering if we could consider leaving the relationship status open so that people can best explain their relationship status in their own words and those who are seeing people couls say who they are seeing....
I presume you're talking about the custom profile fields? :unsure:
Certain profile fields I feel should not be left open to inputting whatever a member pleases. There are enough options in teh dropdown that any possible relationship status you could give me I could fit into one of those. "It's Complicated" being the easiest one. Those profile fields are used for quick reference regarding your character. Anything detail specific can and should be put in your character's biography. :)
 
Another suggestion!

Since we have several people that don't work for the ministry or shopkeepers or the school could we have another member group listed as 'non-ministry workers' or something similar?

I figured it would work for people that worked for the Daily Prophet, Quidditch Players, Explorers, Carnival people.... it'd be better then just having the 'member' title...
 
was wondering about 'wills' really...

say a character dies and bequeaths his or her property to some other character, his or her money etc. is there a way to ensure that this actually gets to that character?
I know people are always looking for another shop or business etc, what about a lawyer / solicitor that could deal in this sort of thing. Like Luxen had left the Silver Snake to Andy and her uncle (must produce will soon), has left her some galleons and his custom made wand - how can I or anyone else in this situation acquire the things willed to them?

more of a question I suppose...
 
Andromeda Fiorelli said:
was wondering about 'wills' really...

say a character dies and bequeaths his or her property to some other character, his or her money etc. is there a way to ensure that this actually gets to that character?
I know people are always looking for another shop or business etc, what about a lawyer / solicitor that could deal in this sort of thing. Like Luxen had left the Silver Snake to Andy and her uncle (must produce will soon), has left her some galleons and his custom made wand - how can I or anyone else in this situation acquire the things willed to them?

more of a question I suppose...
I don't think a whole will-setting-up-character-system is required. :p
Just PM an Admin *cough*Cecily*cough* and have us transfer the stuff. :)
(Cecily deals with vaults, that's why I suggest her. ;) )
 
*puts hand up*
I have a suggestion! Having a guest-friendly question board, where guests can ask questions or whatever, without having to register. Because registering just to ask a question, even if one is not sure if one wants to join the site yet, is a waste of one's time.
 
I've never liked guest-friendly areas, they end up being not fun to moderate.
It's possible that when the shoutbox exits beta testing we'll enable guests to shout. Otherwise, I'll talk to Cecily about adding a forum that only site staff and guests can view/post in. :)
 
The current description for the Leaky Cauldron in Obsidian Harbour is this:
Leaky Cauldron
A gateway between the non-wizarding world and Diagon Alley, the Leaky Cauldron has remained a famous and popular place for five hundred years

It's just a small thing, but I suggest it should be changed, as Obsidian Harbour is not Diagon Alley, and New Zealand has only been settled by Europeans for less than 200 years, so no buildings are older than that.
 
Haha, I'll rectify the situation. :)
That is likely left over from way back when Obsidian Harbour was actually Diagon Alley and it was the Diagon Alley in London. =))
 
I know the sorting season is almost over but to make it easier for the next time round I was wondering if it was possible to have text in the reply box when you make a new topic? e.g. in the House Points section when a Professor goes to added points there is already writing there so you just have to fill in the blanks. Something like:
Name:
Amount:
Date:
Or along those lines.
 
Sure I can set something like that up later. :)
Done :)
 
This is just a personal peeve thing, seeing as I tend to write novels, and I totally understand if this idea gets shot down upon reading but here's my suggestion:

As an admin on an old site which advertised to cater to beginners through advanced/literate RPers, we wanted to encourage the beginners to write more and become stronger RPers while at the same time giving the adv/lit writers a little extra something to work with when RPing with someone of a lower level than themselves. Thus came the post limit. Now, I'm not saying require beginners to write three paragraph, 100 word per paragraph posts. No, that's just far too mean. I'm saying encourage them to write a full paragraph at least, around 6-7 good sentences. I have a documentation laying around somewhere that I can dig up entitled "Writing 101" that I will happily allow you to use with credit.

Just to sweeten the deal, how about a few examples of how this has worked, and how it will make your site even better:

-Everyone starts out as a beginner, writing delicious one-liners that beginners love and adv/lit players despise. Heck, I still remember writing two word posts way back when. Then I joined a site that had a two paragraph word limit and you see how my RPing is now! It's simply about getting used to the limit and then embracing it.
-On the site I admin'd on, we had one person who was absolutely terrible with the word limit. She wrote the full limit every time, but the posts were just atrocious. After a little bit on there, however, she got steadily better and eventually was writing posts similar to something like what I just posted in Ollivander's. She embraced her challenge and evolved into an amazing writer.

Again, this is just a suggestion but it may really help some people on the site, could turn out some amazing writers because everyone on this site has such potential, I just feel like they need a little puch in the right direction.
 
I don't know if this has been suggested just yet, but my suggestion is that we have a journal section in the Handbook because it creates a lot of clutter in people's biography and some even post completely different things in the biography section or in their blogs (Yes I'm a lurk :shy: ). And to remove even more clutter (although at the beginning it would be a little tedious to move the topics) make different sections for student biographies like a Slytherin one, a Hufflepuff one, a Gryffindor one and a Ravenclaw one, where the people in that house would post, of course.
 
Jadyn: Wow, I thought I'd responded to you long, long ago. @_@ My apologies for the delay.
HNZ has never ever been about how much people post, or how well people roleplay - it has always, and will continue to be, about having a good time. So long as people are having fun doing what they do I'm not going to say how long a post should be. If somebody is a person who likes to roleplay with several paragraphs, they are never forced to roleplay with somebody who is currently only at a level where they write one word posts. So people can create their own comfort levels that way, too. We do offer a forum to help improve roleplaying skills, and character development skills, but it's not the main focus of the site.
I started out with simple one line responses and posting out of character in obviously in character areas - and now I'm an admin here. It took me a while to develop, and I didn't use any of the resources HNZ now has, I just wanted to get better so I could roleplay with certain people more or what have you. In my opinion word count requirements will stress people out more than it will - even if it was just a strong recommendation of "6 to 7 good sentences" it can still create some anxiety and an atmosphere where some people would feel it's OK to tell others they should write more, or that their post sucks, or whatever - when that's not what HNZ should be about.


Abbey: I'm not so sure about a journal section. People should RP their character as writing a journal entry, then they can keep a list of the RPs where their character wrote an entry in a biography post or even on the wiki article for their character.

As to sectioning student biographies by house: That's a good idea that may be helpful. :) I'll talk to the Biography people about what they feel about it, and site staff, then see about setting it up. :)
 
You may notice I've been on and off this site for the past two years. (I know its crazy really) But I simply can't stay away from it, its fun and addictive at the same time. :wub: Thanks to this site I improve on my rps, my writing in rl n,n which is good when I go back to school. I notice that there are quite a few plot sites, but not that many. Meaning there should be more involving the whole site like for an example: D.E attacking the school+ wizaring world, there should me more of those plots besides main events. I was also wondering if more creatures could be made like giants, giant trolls, mermaids, even vampires, dragons? If it was discussed already than my apology, was curious if this topic ever came up =D
 
Link Woods: Site-Wide plots are a lot of work, and often they interrupt other things that are happening, so while we do have the occasional one pop up we try to limit them and let everybody else just be creative and do their own things.
Also, the same old "Death Eaters attacking the school" stuff gets very old, very quickly. It's also absurdly illogical. Think about it, if Hogwarts was invaded even twice within a five year span would it not be shut down or guarded by Aurors constantly? That's already happened, so we're not pushing boundaries further.
As to creatures: people are free to create creature accounts whenever, but we enforce that any creature characters must be sentient beings (capable of thought etc. ).

Leah Winters: :blink: The Site Calendar
 
I was thinking that we should have interactive lessons instead of the basic ones. The lessons now basically go in the format - Teacher comes in, posts, you do what teacher says, leave. It's simple and short, but not exactly what anyone would call - How you say it - Fun? Interactive lessons, like one where the teacher comes in and teaches and posts like a regular RP, would give the chance for lessons that have more roleplay potential. If I'm not wrong, in the actual Harry Potter books, many of the scenes were set in the classrooms, so it'd be an interesting idea, if you think about it.

Might add to the teachers' workload though, so it'd compromise a standing education system. Idunno. Just an idea I had at the time.
 
That is always an option for professors, and nothing stops students from posting again in lessons (except, maybe, some individual classroom rules). This isn't something we'd force on professors, and while I've seen it done in the past (and I know some professors do it semi-regularly) I know that it is a lot more work for them.
Being a professors on HNZ is a tonne of work. Every lesson is posted, graded, house points added up, marks recorded in a grade book, exams are posted then graded, and it all adds up to a tonne of time. Now imagine having to sift through a possibly several page story line before you could grade a single person, then you'd have to repeat that for up to 30 people (especially with some first years). That's chaos and a lot of work. To add to it all, Professors often have their lesson pre-written. If we changed to what you're suggesting (and what has been suggested in the past) professors would always have to type up a new RP, and keep up with all their Lesson RPs and try to wrap them all up within a week. For some professors that could be seven lessons, seven RPs, every week - just 'mandatory', not in addition to regular RPs for fun. Then all the time spent marking it? You couldn't mark as you go, you'd have to mark it all the night before or something - when the RPs are all finally wrapped up.
So if a professor wants to do that, they can, but no way do I intend on even recommending that they switch to that format. It is a lot more work, and they all already do a tonne (which I'm completely thankful for all the time ^_^ ).
 
Hey there :)
I'm pretty sure this hasn't been suggested yet, but sorry if I'm wrong :p
Could we extend the Halloween, Yule Bal ect. celebrations (RL)?
Because for some of us, especially students, it's really hard to have a good RP, when they only last two days. I can only manage to post once or twice per character which is unfair on the person I'm RPing with, because nothing much happens.
Just a suggestion :)
Thanks, Lizzy. ^_^
 
The last Halloween Feast lasted about four days, over a weekend. They're always situated over a weekend. We can't really extend them more than four or five days because of the entire site calendar, so they're kind of fixed.
 
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