INSURRECTION UPDATE #1

HOGWARTS LOCKDOWN

As most everyone is aware by now, the End of Term Ball took a turn for the unexpected in the past couple of days. It wasn't anything that anyone saw coming, so we'd like to apologize for the surprise because we know that not everyone likes surprises! However, in light of the events at the dance, which ended with the fortunate/unfortunate maiming of @bonbonfils -- either fortunate or unfortunate depending on who you're asking, the school has been put into a complete lockdown by the Minister of Magic. More details will be given to students and staff in the dance itself, but I will break down the need-to-know here, because obviously everyone needs to know!

• No mail will be entering the castle, and no mail will be leaving it. To ensure this, because I know not everyone might see this post, I'll be changing the permissions on the boards to make sure students can't send letters and if someone sends a letter to a student, I'll be PMing the member just to make sure they're aware their student didn't get it!
• This lockdown is indefinite. This means that, if the public does not cooperate, students will not be leaving the castle on June 9th as originally planned. The entire school will, for lack of a prettier word, be held captive until the public cooperates with the new Department of Muggleborn Regulation and Control. For now, this does include the students of Death Eaters as well.
• No one is allowed out of the castle, and that includes staff. The only staff members allowed to go to and from the castle are @sebastian , @lucian , and @carlisle . For the time being, Death Eater staff members are the only ones that can leave. To ensure this, all Floo fires have been shut off, the wards tightened, the secret passageways closed, and there is obviously no apparating in Hogwarts already. I won't be changing the permissions for staff because I know you most have plenty of threads out of Hogwarts right now already going, but I'll be keeping an eye out in case anyone misses this announcement, and PMing people if I see any threads by staff trapped in the castle.
• Just to clarify, this does mean that any students with an internship will not be allowed off grounds for their internship. All necessary Ministry departments, publications, etc., have been made aware of this.
• There are now patrols of the castle and grounds, particularly at entry points by Death Eaters. Not just the ones that are professors in the school, but ones that have been assigned to the castle for the sole purpose of patrols and keeping the peace.
• For another bit of clarification, yes, students and staff are still allowed access onto the grounds. They are not confined to the castle!
• Classes will be resuming as normal. The Quidditch Championship will still take place tomorrow. Everything is continuing as normal, with the rather massive exception of them not being able to leave the school after the term ends.

• I will be PMing students with Muggleborn characters with more information. If you have a Muggleborn character and receive a PM please keep calm and keep the secrets (Isn't that how J.K.'s saying goes?)

• Finally, and for this I offer my sincerest apologies -- but I will be having to look and see if any Hogwarts staff member/student with an internship has posted a thread outside of Hogwarts grounds this past week. If they have, I'll have to PM you and talk out maybe moving it to the pensieve for a different day. For that I really am truly sorry. I know that's incredibly inconvenient, but no one knew this time last week that the dance would result in a lockdown, but since it is strictly enforced and there is no way off of the grounds, there can't really be any exceptions to that rule. So look out for a PM if that's the case and if it is, again, I'm sorry times a million.

As far as information goes, I believe that's about it! Again, sorry that this just sort of cropped up. Please be on the lookout for another thread that I will be posting later tonight, where you can opt out of being involved in the site plot. There will be more details there on all of that, and when I post it I will link it HERE. This will work out much better if we all work together -- so if you see someone popping online that hasn't been on in a few days, maybe let them know what's going on if they don't know. If you see someone sending mail to a Hogwarts student, shoot me or them a PM! If we're all keeping an eye out, I'm sure this will go marvelously!

And hopefully this is fun! Nothing like a spontaneous school lockdown to catch everyone off guard. Again, this will be until the public cooperates with the Department of Muggleborn Regulation and Control, so keep an eye out for more information on that!

INSURRECTION UPDATE #2

DEATH EATER PATROLS

Plenty of you have probably noted that your Death Eaters now have access to Hogwarts! That is no mistake. This is simply because, for the remainder of the lockdown, there will be Death Eaters patrolling the halls and grounds of Hogwarts to keep the peace. But because we don't need a million Death Eaters at the school at once, we have drafted up an official rounds sheet. This is when your Death Eater will be expected to be in Hogwarts for their patrols. Anyone with a Ministry job obviously is excused for these rounds -- any other job that has a problem with a Death Eater missing a shift for rounds may take it up with the Ministry.

These will be released by week, because each schedule will not be the same. That would be too predictable, of course. Yes, your Death Eaters may start threads in Hogwarts and interact with students and staff, but only when their rounds have them in the castle! If you have any questions, please just PM us and let us know!

Note: There will always be ten Death Eaters patrolling Hogwarts at any given time. They will not always be played characters. This means that while I will more than likely only be posting one to three names per shift, there is still ten total in Hogwarts at a time.

	Shift One Morning 8:00-4:00	Shift Two Night 4:00-12:00	Shift Three Overnight 12:00-8:00
21 May	Beckett Archibald Graves Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {8 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs {9 NPCs}
22 May	{10 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
23 May	@griffith Sloane Cressida Rosier {8 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
24 May	{10 NPCs}	@anicka {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
25 May	@malcolm {9 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs              Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {8 NPCs}	Rodolphus Azazel Lestrange {9 NPCs}
26 May	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
27 May	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
28 May	Rodolphus Azazel Lestrange {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
29 May	@anicka @malcolm {8 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
30 May	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	@griffith Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {8 NPCs}
31 May	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
1 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Beckett Archibald Graves Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {8 NPCs}
2 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
3 June	{10 NPCs}	Sloane Cressida Rosier {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
4 June	{10 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs       {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
5 June	Beckett Archibald Graves {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange        {9 NPCs}
6 June	{10 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs       {9 NPCs}	Sloane Cressida Rosier {9 NPCs}
7 June	Rodolphus Azazel Lestrange {9 NPCs}	@griffith {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
8 June	@anicka {9 NPCs}	@malcolm {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
9 June	{10 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs       {9 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange       {9 NPCs}
10 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
11 June	{10 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs     {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
12 June	@griffith {9 NPCS}	{10 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange     {9 NPCS}
13 June	@malcolm {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
14 June	Rodolphus Azazel Lestrange {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Beckett Archibald Graves {9 NPCs}
15 June	@anicka {9 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs {9 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange     {9 NPCs}
16 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCS}	{10 NPCs}
17 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Sloane Cressida Rosier {9 NPCs}
18 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange   {9 NPCs}
19 June	{10 NPCs}	Beckett Archibald Graves @griffith {8 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
20 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {9 NPCs}
21 June	Sloane Cressida Rosier {9 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs   {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
22 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {9 NPCs}
23 June	@malcolm {9 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs   {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
24 June	Rodolphus Azazel Lestrange {9 NPCs}	@anicka {9 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {9 NPCs}
25 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
26 June	{10 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs   {9 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {9 NPCs}
27 June	@anicka {9 NPCs}	@griffith {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
28 June	Dani Kopitar-Higgs {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Sloane Cressida Rosier {9 NPCs}
29 June	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	@malcolm {9 NPCs}
30 June	Rodolphus Azazel Lestrange {9 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
1 July	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {9 NPCs}	Beckett Archibald Graves {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
2 July	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	Beckett Archibald Graves {9 NPCs}
3 July	@anicka {9 NPCs}	Sloane Cressida Rosier {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
4 July	{10 NPCs}	Rodolphus Azazel Lestrange {9 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
5 July	@malcolm {9 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs {9 NPCs}	Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {9 NPCs}
6 July	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
7 July	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}	{10 NPCs}
8 July	{10 NPCs}	Dani Kopitar-Higgs Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange {8 NPCs}	@griffith {9 NPCs}

INSURRECTION UPDATE #3

THE RELEASE OF SOME HOGWARTS STUDENTS

As of today, the following students and staff members are allowed to leave Hogwarts. The train left at 12:00 today, since all Floos and other methods of exit are still entirely closed off.


Amelia Aziza Travers
@shi
@imogen
@kit
Oralie Slughorn
@truly
@walker

As you can tell from a glance at the list, these are the children of Death Eaters, and purebloods with seats in the Wizengamot. The remaining students and staff are still in Hogwarts for the time being. Let us know if you have any questions!

We will be putting these students into a group that will allow you to see both Hogwarts and out of Hogwarts boards. We are doing this so that it is still extremely easy for you guys to reply to your threads within Hogwarts but please note that you cannot start new threads in Hogwarts. This grouping is simply to make it easier to reply to your current threads. Thanks! If you have a student with a former internship, then they should already be in this grouping!

Note for now graduates seeking employment: Just to help out anyone now looking for their graduates' jobs. Healers-in-training with the proper NEWT scores can begin training any time. Same with aurors-in-training, unspeakables-in-training, and hit-wizards-in-training. Graduates with ambitions with Quidditch can be accepted as Reserve players, since getting scouted right out of Hogwarts is incredibly difficult, especially since it is now mid-season. Those that want to pursue higher education can start fall term, though feel free to sign up as a first year student. Your character will be given the tag, they just won't be able to start classes until Welcome Week in September. Ministry employees can begin as well, but obviously only in starting positions. If you have any questions, let us know!

INSURRECTION UPDATE #4

OFFICIAL END TO THE LOCKDOWN

Yes, you heard it here first. The Hogwarts lockdown has officially come to an end. The Hogwarts Express left at exactly 11:00 AM on Saturday. Yes, yes, yes, I know that that hasn't actually happened yet but look. I want to get this done before I go to bed, and so I figured I would just post this early so that you all know that it's coming. YES. THE MOST TALKED ABOUT EVENT IN THE SHOUTBOX HAS FINALLY COME TO PASS. IT IS OVER. So the train left at eleven in the morning, back to London, as usual apart from being almost a month later than it was meant to be. 

So, here's what you need to know:

• All threads in Hogwarts will be moved to the Threads to Finish boards, so you can find them all there. This is because...
• Hogwarts will not be visible at all to students over the holidays. It will only be visible to Hogwarts staff, and it will even be disabled for guests to see as well -- simply because it's nine nearly empty boards and trust me, you'll be happier not having to scroll through empty boards for the next two months! 

Obviously, we are also now accepting student summer jobs for those that were on lockdown! That's all. Please let us know if you have any questions!

INSURRECTION UPDATE #5

RULE CHANGES

As of the first of January, we will be eliminating Thread Monitoring. In recent months, it has seemingly been losing its effectiveness, and has become more work for staff to keep up with, than effective for keeping people on top of their posts! It's a system that has been with us since the beginning, but we think it's time to let it go and try something new.

So, we will stop putting new threads on TM, as two weeks from yesterday will be January 1st. However, threads on it will remain. We will continue archiving them after those two weeks up until the 31st of January. Then the Thread Monitoring thread will be archived, and that system will be no more. Instead, we will be doing sweeps at the end of every month. Any thread that has had no response for three months will be archived.

However, because this, we have also decided to raise the posts needed before accepting a new character, since no one will have TM to contend with! So as of January 1st, characters will need ten posts before a new one will be accepted!

Again, this is all as of January 1st. Let us know if you have any questions!

INSURRECTION UPDATE #6

NEW MINISTER NAMED

Everyone can feel free to check out the Prophet article HERE for all of the details. I'll let that do most of the IC explaining because it's 1am and I have a headache but pretty much... those that have been reading some posts particularly at the Solstice Ball, but mostly in the last month or so,
will realize that there has been support gathering behind the scenes, and today (well yesterday) that show of support had Andromeda Lestrange going to the Minister and taking the position for herself.

If there are law changes, they will be announced. For now, the only changes made have been a few in staffing which I'll list for anyone curious.

• Not wanting to keep Ares' support staff, Athena Finley and Constance Leysa Mountbatten  have lost their jobs in the Minister's office. The only played character replacement in her office is @isolde , as her adviser.
• Hesper Elladora Gamp has been named Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.
• Rodolphus Azazel Lestrange has stepped down as head of the aurors' office and has named @griffith as his replacement. He also is going to head up the Death Eaters.
• @andi obviously has stepped down at the hospital. Her replacement is being recruited by St. Mungo's from outside the country. 

That's all for now!

INSURRECTION UPDATE #7

POWER POSITIONS

Hello beautiful people of Insurrection. We wanted to put an announcement here because it's the best place for everyone to see it!

We are currently looking for a new Deputy Head of Hogwarts. This can be a character already created, or a new one made for the position. If you want to use a character already created, they would have to fit in this position and would have to be someone that @sebastian would have to have logically chosen. Making a character admittedly might be easier, because then you could plot with Seani someone who would fit in well with Sebastian and the position. Also note the deputy heads usually have a teaching position as well (by usually I mean, probably always but I don't have the entire history of Hogwarts)! But as far as we know, every deputy head in canon also was a professor... McGonagall as Transfiguration, Albus as Transfiguration, etc.

So if you are interested in making a character for deputy head / trying to get a current character into that position, PM @seani! Or me! Or both

Also we are still looking for a new leader of Incolumem Sanctuary! PM me for information on that!

INSURRECTION UPDATE #8

CREATIVE TEAMS

Hey everyone -- so this is exciting news, and we will do our best to explain it in detail here, before seeing who is interested. As you all know, in the past week we have been trying to solve member complaints / answer some suggestions that we have had for the site as well to try to make us better! And in some member answers, we have found that some of you think that the site plot is too much in staff hands. As you all saw, we are trying to open up power positions to other members, but even still, there are only so many of these.

So that is where creative teams come in! These teams will be made up off four-six members (it depends on how many people sign up), and they will be in charge of plotting together to come up with ideas for the site. This is how it will work! Say you are team one: your team will be in charge of trying to come up with at least two site events for the period of time that your team is in charge. Now depending on the sign ups, we might have a team for every quarter, so you'd have four months of being in charage, or three times, or two. Or more even! It all depends on how much interest we have.

Every team will have one staff member on it! And your job is simple... you guys just chat about what you want to see happen, ideas you have, and just brainstorm together to try to figure out some plot movements and site events that can happen while you're in charge. There are really only three important things to note about this:

• You can't have a plot idea of killing someone else's character, unless they're okay with it. So no assassination plot ideas!
• We are not looking to have a complete government overthrown every couple of months. These plot ideas do not all have to be absolutely massive. It could be something like 'Maybe the Ministry should have a community picnic.' or 'Maybe Hogwarts should have some kind of mini-Tri-Wizard tournament with just the houses.' So don't think that every plot idea you guys come up with has to be world explosive. Definitely feel free to plot on a smaller scope as well!
• It can be at Hogwarts, or outside of it! And we would all love to see more happening at Hogwarts so feel free to try to figure out plots there!

The application page is HERE!

INSURRECTION UPDATE #9

CANON CHARACTERS

As everyone knows by now, we are currently working through our suggestions/complaints, and we have two updates as far as canon characters go.

The first one is that we will no longer be requiring a roleplay sample when creating canon characters! This is simply because we all picture canons different ways, and so there's no real reason to require a roleplay sample for them!

But the second one is regarding activity for canons. We have gotten some comments about people maybe not using their canons as much as they should be, so we're doing a change in Activity Requirements as far as canon characters go! This is to make sure that if you choose to have a canon, you are active with them -- and if you aren't, then they are opened up for someone that will be active. Here is the rule and the explanation of the rule:

As of 17 January 2018: we are putting in place a system to keep canon characters active. This is to keep things fair for members that may really want a specific character, but can't because they are being used by another member that might not be using them as much as they should. It goes like this: if you miss a month for their AR, you get one strike. If you miss it again, you get two strikes -- if you don't make AR for them three times, you will be asked to delete them to give other members the opportunity to play them. But there is a redeeming system in place for this as well. So say you didn't make AR two months in a row, but you make it the third. You lose a strike, and are back down to only one. You make it again, and you've eliminated all your strikes against your character. But if you ever get to three, you will be asked to delete that character.

Note that this means if a character doesn't meet it to begin with. If your character did not meet AR on the first, then they are tagged on the list, as you all know. Before a new character is created, everyone has to meet AR and get off of that list. This is not what we mean for this rule. If a canon is tagged to begin with, that is a strike! Getting the posts done after the fact does not erase this strike. You can still get it removed by fully meeting it for the next month. But they will still get a strike if they are tagged to begin with.

So pretty much, this rule just states that if any member is consistently not keeping a canon character active, then they will be asked to delete that character. It isn't meant to be a diss, or anything like that. It just means that at this time, a member isn't utilizing a canon as much as they should be and that we think there should be an opportunity for other members to make them. Hopefully that makes sense! Please let us know if you have any questions!

INSURRECTION UPDATE #10

UPDATE ON PUREBLOOD BAN

As you all know, we have had a pureblood ban in place for the past three or so months, in attempts to get our pureblood ratio under control. It's been quite the struggle, for anyone that is keeping up with it! With how many characters we have on site, we think it's likely we'd have to keep the ban for the rest of 2018 to even attempt to get us under 25%! We are currently at 36%, and we were at 41% when it began! So obviously, three months have not had much of an impact!

We do still think that getting our pureblood ratio under control is important. However we don't believe that a full ban is going to be helpful for this long -- or fair to people that may have ideas that they can't put to action! Especially for members that don't have all that many purebloods! So the pureblood ban is getting a kind of... edit.

The ban is lifted for members whose own personal pureblood ratio is at 30% or less! It's easy to calculate, just your amount of purebloods divided by the total amount of characters you have. For those people, the ban is lifted! But please keep in mind that if we get a huge influx of new purebloods again, then the complete ban might have to be put into place again. So make sure you are only making purebloods that you really want, and that you're not trying to make five or six or however many your ratio would let you!

Now for those of us that already are exceeding 30% (and there are plenty of us, I know! And I am amongst that group), we are not asking you to delete people! It's totally okay to have higher than 30%, but the ban is still in place for you. No pureblood characters will be accepted from those members at the current time. If any of those members has a pureblood character in mind and wants to discuss if it is possible to make them, definitely PM me or message me on Discord and we can talk about it. We may be accepting... exchanges, for lack of a better word, for new characters. As in, maybe you hav two purebloods that you are thinking about deleting, you could delete them and make a new one. This is obviously just situational for people that might have a new character idea that they want to act on.

So hopefully that makes sense to everyone. The pureblood ban is in place for members with a personal pureblood ratio of above 30%, and if anyone's ratio is 30% or under, the ban has been lifted. We're going to try this out and see how it goes, though of course, as everyone knows, we would love our actual ratio to end up going down to 25%. It's a dream we're dreaming, at least, however hard it may be!