January Newsletter

Sorry for the slight delay in this month’s newsletter, humans, but here we are! It is time for January’s newsletter, the first newsletter of 2019!

So, let’s just get started, shall we? Yes, yes we shall!

I. January Birthdays
II. January Events
III. January Free App Group & Needs/Bans
IV. War of the Words
V. Purgatory Updates
VI. Creative Teams Poll
VII. Activity Requirements Poll
VIII. Development Challenge
IX. Magical Abilities Housekeeping
X. Important Housekeeping



As you all saw, Tori’s site resolution for herself is posting all of the birthdays in updates in the morning so that we know whose birthday it is that day! Which is hella convenient, give it up for Tori!

But, I’m still going to chuck all of them up here too, because I like to, okay?

She also changed all of the un-updated birthdays from last year so all character ages are now accurate! But let’s try to be better at changing our own birthdays this year, guys! Let’s make it our site resolution! When you get a birthday tag, go change that birthday. We got this!

1st → @bryan
1st → @holiday
1st → @lily
1st → @vlad
1st → @oneandonlyzeus
2nd → Rhaelle Senya Maenlarys
3rd → @niles
3rd → @ophelia
4th → @casper
5th → @anicka
6th → @arianna
7th → @fernando
7th → @oralee
10th → @killian
11th → @vie
13th → @contessa
16th → @ahmet
17th → Anton Karkarov  
17th → @ares
17th → @sabine
19th → @archibald
19th → @clarissa
19th → Emma Alice Longbottom
19th → @flint
19th → @terrianne
21st → @damion
21st → @kiera
21st → @seamus
23rd → @lorelei
23rd → @ursula
24th → @eleanor
28th → @alois
28th → Watson Stroud
29th → Flora Megaera Carrow
29th → @kit
30th → @caerus
30th → @caleb
30th → @zuri
31st → @zaleska
31st → @olya



Quidditch - European Cup
Week 1 - Sunday, January 6, 2019
Week 1 - Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Week 2 - Sunday, January 13, 2019
Week 2 - Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Week 3 - Sunday, January 20, 2019
Week 3 - Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Week 4 - Sunday, January 27, 2019
Week 4 - Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Check out the full European Cup schedule RIGHT HERE!

Hogwarts
January 4 - End of Holidays, train departs from King's Cross at 11:00 A.M. to return to school
January 12 - Quidditch Game: Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, 11:00am
January 19 - Quidditch Game: Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor, 11:00am
January 26 - Quidditch Game: Hufflepuff vs. Slytherin, 11:00am

Gráinneog Institute
January 16-18 - January Welcome
January 21 - Classes Begin

Lufkin University
January 7-11 - January Welcome
January 14 - Classes Begin

University of Bangor
January 14-16 - January Welcome
January 17 - Classes Begin

Lig-Na-Paiste is still on their winter break until February!

Full university calendars can be found RIGHT HERE!



This month, we are not having a free app group, while we all recover from last month and characters galore! So take this time to get your new characters situated! Free app group will resume next month, where Activity Requirements and Deletion rules will once again apply!

We did update our needs/bans page however, and you can check that out RIGHT HERE!

If you don’t want to check it out, well I’m here to tell you that we need:


And we are still on our partial pureblood ban, which, if you recall, means that you have to have a personal percent less than 30% for any purebloods to be accepted! Also while we are talking about purebloods, remember that new families need to be registered HERE!



As you all know by now, it is officially War of the Words month! I love this game, I don’t know why, but I do. So if you haven’t signed up yet, what the heck are you waiting for? Go ahead and go RIGHT HERE to sign up!

And I am sorry that I haven’t updated the word count yet! I promise that will be something that I do soon, within the next couple of days, to see who is currently leading the pack.

Again, go sign up. What are you waiting for? It’s fun. We’re competitive people, after all.



I just wanted to give two updates regarding Purgatory to anyone who might have missed it on Discord, and just because I like information making it on site too and not just on the updates page of Discord so here is the update that most of you probably saw already:

1.) Because of problems with timing on threads, and people’s legitimate concerns that threads would be sent to Purgatory that are from the end of the month (which would not make them that old), we have changed how we send threads to Purgatory.

Instead of just chucking a whole month in there, we have decided instead to put the last half of one month, and the first half of another. This ensures that threads put in Purgatory are at least two months old and then still get a fighting chance of getting a reply before it’s sent to hell archived!

We think that is a better plan, so we hope you all agree!

2.) Now the second update had not yet been put on Discord so this might be new information for some people. There were questions about absences! As some of you know, we used to have two kinds — full absences where you wouldn’t be posting at all, and partial absences where you knew you wouldn’t have as much time to post for a while, but you would still be around!

We got rid of partial absences when we got rid of Thread Monitoring, because there wasn’t much of a reason for a partial absence when you guys had more time to reply to threads! But since the start of Purgatory, there have been questions about partial absences, to avoid thread being archived!

Now, technically speaking, we are not bringing back partial absences. We are just sticking with absences as they are, but in them you can explain if you are going to have time to post or if you won’t! If you don’t, then we will be holding your Purgatory threads for ONE additional month.

But we will still be moving them to Purgatory. This is for your benefit so you see what threads are your oldest, but also for ours, because having those threads in one place makes our jobs easier! So threads will still be moved to Purgatory while you are on an absence, but they will stay there for an additional month.

What happens if your absence continues, you might ask? Well, those threads are going to be archived after that additional month, even if your absence continues! This is because an additional month means the person you have the thread with is going to be waiting nearly four months for a reply, which is too long in our opinion!

I hope that very long explanation makes sense! Moving on!



I talked about this a little in Discord, again, because we talk about everything there, but I once again want everything over here too so we’re all on the same page!

Most of you already replied to the poll about creative teams. I just want to issue one more reminder to please give us your opinions on it as soon as you can, to see if we are going to try it again this year!

That poll can be found RIGHT HERE!



Okay everyone, something else that is brand new that I haven’t talked about on Discord yet! We have another poll regarding Activity Requirements. As you know, all systems require some tweaking to make them perfect!

We had changed the rules so that everyone above twenty-five characters has to do four posts a month per character — and I sort of expected that before too long, y’all would realize that adds up and can be a whole lot of posts to do!

I offer my first alternative suggestion so please make sure you click the poll below to vote on what you prefer and give your opinions.

So, I am unwilling to just drop it down to three posts per month! I eliminated more posts to make a character and this was the compromise to that, so I’m not just going to drop it back down to three! I just want to make sure that’s perfectly clear.

However, I am willing to drop it down to three and initiate strikes for all Tier Four characters and not just canons! So to fully explain — you will only have to do three posts a month per character, but if you do not get those three posts, your character will get a strike. The same system will be in place for those characters as canon characters, ensuring that you are keeping up with the amount of characters that you have. Canons will still need their four posts, that is not changing.

It is, in my opinion, a fair compromise! It’s an easier AR goal, but with consequences, as opposed to a harder AR goal!

Of course, if y’all hate that idea, that is completely fine, I just wanted to bring it to the table as an alternative to our current system. Make your opinions known RIGHT HERE!



Our writing challenge came to an end last month with a sad zero replies — I’m not judging, it was a busy month!

However, that means that it is officially time for another dev challenge, and you guys have been hard at work at it already! But of course, I’m still going to mention it here, because that’s what I do.

So this month’s dev challenge is Near Year resolutions for your character! There needs to be at least three items on the list for it to count as an entry. You can do them in first person or third, however you like.

They have been making me laugh so far, so keep it up! That, in case you missed it, is RIGHT HERE!



I just wanted to drop you all a line to make sure that something is clarified, because I’m not sure that it is! When you claim a magical ability on an application, you still need to go to magical abilities application afterwards to fill out that form! I will not be adding abilities after applications are accepted, it still needs its own sign-up!

I only say this because I know for a fact that we have some characters out there that claimed magical abilities in their applications but they never filled out the form!

So take a look and see if you are missing any claims! If I have time this month, I’ll compile a list of the ones that I know of, to let you know, but just to take a good look at your character lists and see if there are any magical abilities that you are missing!

• As you all know, as your final present last month, I gave you all a break from Activity Requirements. However, that break ends this month, obviously! I just wanted to let you all know in case you miss it — on the first of February, when I check posts, it will only be for January posts. It will be like a normal Activity Requirements update. December posts will not count!
• And on that same page, this stands true for canon characters as well! So keep in mind potential strikes. Your posts in December will not save you, everything needs to be from January!
• Remember to nominate for January characters! We already have a great turnout of nominations already, but I want everyone to nominate, so get going!
• Also, with the influx of new characters last month, I want to remind you all to do your claims! I know that it’s difficult to do it during the madness, but now that we’re out of it… do your apartment claims, do your wand applications, do NPCs, get it all done! It will make you feel accomplished, and it will make me feel like everything is caught up and organized!
• Same with plotters! Let’s get our plotters updated and ready for a great 2019, shall we?

I think that’s all ladies and gentleman! Happy 2019!