Hogwarts Live Blog

Please do not send administrators more than one owl until they respond to your question. It is quite annoying to receive more than one owl in a row from the same person in succession. I'm sure the moderators do not wish to be pestered either. Also, please only send out one petition; even if you've been waiting a while, sending multiple petitions postpones the entire process. Please make sure you do not send admins questions directly related to game play such as "What title comes after...?" or "Where is...?", please keep those type of questions to the commentaries/chats and the roleplaying forums (the same goes for suggestions). I will be more than happy to help you with any questions related to donations and most personal matters. Other than that please utilize the petition for help link in order to receive the most expedient assistance with regard to technical problems, bugs, and abuse/harassment issues. Also, please read the FAQ in its entirety along with all posted warning messages such as the one that appears before owling a staff member. It is made clear not to ask for special favors such as gems and gold or raised stats. If you feel you have been wrongly treated please read Section 6.a of the Terms of Use agreement as well as the Forum Guidelines before complaining. These documents are correspondingly located at the subsequent locations:

http://www.usharrypotter.com/harry-potter/terms-of-use#6

http://www.usharrypotter.com/forums/antechamber/the-notice-board/forum-guidelines

Some of you may have noticed that I have not been online lately. This is due to the fact that I have been swamped with final projects and have been desperately trying to get my grades up by studying hard that way I will not lose my scholarship, which would be a very costly mistake on my part if it were to happen. I will be in Albuquerque, NM starting tomorrow for about a week and then I will be in Los Angeles, CA for a few days. I will come online on Monday probably to settle everything, but I have to write some essays to test out of some courses first. Bellatrix, Edmund, and Errol can assume my role as Headmaster if I am absent for prolonged periods of time. I just need to be notified of their actions when I return to make sure I agree with their decisions.

In an effort to speed up the website over all, we are now enforcing rules on how often you must sign in.

I have just completed purging all accounts that are first year (never killed Voldemort) and haven't signed on to the site in over 50 days. The reasoning behind this is that if you sign up for the site, but you never beat Voldemort and then sign out and don't come back in over 50 days, statistically speaking you will never come back so your space should be made available to new players.

Also, I have deleted all users with less then 28 VE (As in less then a God or Goddess) who have not signed in in over 160 days, as someone who is gone that long is also unlikely to return.

We feel that these numbers (50 days for firstyears, 160 for everyone else) are fair representations of people who are no longer wanting to be a part of the game.

This change should help increase the speed of the site, as it will decrase the size of the rapidly growing database to a more manageable level.

Any of the staff members who appear on the Champions List have absolutely no powers that enable them to cheat in any way! Errol, Inee, Edmund and Bellatrix have the ability to but to my knowledge only Errol and Inee have exercised these privileges. Also they are all very highly ranked players and only a select few can even *choose* to attack them. I hope this quiets any rumors that by becoming a staff member you somehow have an unfair advantage over other players. Cause you do not. Actually, to make this perfectly clear as a staff member you lose privileges because you have to treat everyone cordially and not get into heated arguments.

Take a look at this message that was sent to the ISP of a repeat offender, (you do not want to break our rules):

To Whom It May Concern:

A person at this IP address: 195.92.168.173 (Most recently: 195.92.168.170)
Has been habitually harassing the staff and members of my website, www.hogwartslive.com
This has to stop, I have already blocked the entire 195.92.168. IP range to prevent him from visiting my site anymore. However I do not want to prevent legitimate users from accessing the site so could you please somehow block this person from accessing my site or notify his parents of his heinous violations of our Terms of Use Agreement, which consist of sexual harassment and verbal threats upon my life. I am still afraid he may be able to evade the ban on this IP range and I may have to take more drastic measures if nothing is done about this such as banning the 195.92. IP range as well as an enormous amount of proxy servers.

Sincerely,
Danilo Stern-Sapad


I wrote him a nice message for when he tries to login:
"I have notified your ISP, and the owner of your internet account will be contacted. Bite me!"

People who have been banned in the past will not be even considered for staff appointment. This is final. This rule will NEVER be changed. There will be NO exceptions to this rule. I'm sorry to those players who have tried to change, but circumstances have forced me to establish a more rigid policy for staff members.

Thank you.

Should we allow repeat offenders to keep their accounts? That is after they have been permanently banned (which is really difficult to get) and decide they wish to change their ways? I consider cussing to be one of the most serious offenses that can be committed such as spam, sexual harassment, and virtual rape.

Note: I am legally obligated to prevent cussing on this website, Hogwarts Live could lose its sponsors or advertisers if I do not make an active effort to filter foul language. Children under the age of 13 use this website and I have to censor inappropriate content. I don't totally agree with censorship, but that's not the point, the point is I respect the laws of the United States of America and I want to continue operating this game in a legal, family-friendly manner.

Click here to vote on "Should we allow repeat offenders to keep their accounts?" poll »

On Monday August 15 we lost a fellow student, wonderful friend and great player of this game… Goddess Seductress or Sky as her friends knew her died from a sudden brain aneurism… Those that knew her loved her dearly and we cherished our time with her…
Try to be like Sky and be kind to everyone and do your best to make someone smile each day that is what she did for me and I will miss her dearly….

Bellatrix

The staff (Alchemists & Aurors alike) do a lot!

Edmund helps me tons with server configuration and he walked me through the whole transfer of the data from one server to another. The other staff members also help me a lot with answering petitions, moderating the chat rooms, mediating conflicts, and in some cases assisting me with my homework. So, please don't criticize people who do their best when they're not even getting paid. Happy gaming everyone, and a happy Staff Appreciation Week! :)

Welcome everyone to the new and improved server. HogwartsLive and usharrypotter.com has been successfully moved to it's new home. We may still have more upgrades to come in the upcoming weeks to get it fully functional, but the server transfer itself is now complete.