Changes

[Head Girl Andi]

We're looking to hear the ideas of our few remaining members on how to keep Four Houses alive and to bring in some new members. Any ideas will be helpful at this time and disagreement to the ideas posed in the Important Notices thread are welcome as well. Please take the time to read that document.

[Ivy Tunstall]

(Maybe surprisingly), I'm not opposed to you deleting old accounts - we have built up a lot of redundant ones and I agree that it can put new members off.

However, have a think about what compromise to strike between deleting old accounts and not losing our history. I think it can be encouraging for old members, if they come back, to find that their account is still there and that they haven't been forgotten. Maybe you've already discussed this and decided just to go for cutting all inactive accounts, but have you considered introducing a cut-off point above which you will keep an account? 200 posts? 150 posts? 100 posts? Anyone with that many posts has put a significant amount of effort into this place in the past, and may consider coming back.

On that note, it is worth... not harrassing, but... gently coaxing anyone who you would really appreciate having back here. I used to send an email or catch people on MSN. Yes, it means that you become an annoying person and it can be hard to live with yourself (sorry, I'm sure I will have annoyed certain people in the past and I'm afraid I did realise how annoying I was being as well)! - but so long as you don't overdo it, occasionally it works, and every extra person makes a huge difference. I think it might be worth you doing that with certain old members BEFORE you delete their account. Give it two weeks and if they don't materialise, then delete it. It is worth a try - new members don't stop by that frequently, so don't throw away the old ones without trying to get them back.

To help out with coaxing old members back - and encouraging new ones to stay! - maybe all of those of us who are left could have at least one character with whom we spring in to offer posts to new members. This may get in the way of our ongoing plots - I don't think I really have time for both this summer... but giving new members the chance to see how fun RPing on Four Houses can be, and old members the chance to get their characters re-established, probably ought to take precedence as it'll be better in the long run. Any other members who'd be willing to help out in this way?

(I'd probably offer Sita (H6/H7) - she's easiest to post just doing random things - and possibly make a new Ravenclaw for the purpose (I'd either use Anna Monkshood - R5/R6, or make a new account, probably an R2 character). If Katie has any time to come back over the summer, I'd love to post Justin...)

Giving the boards and layout a bit of a rethink sounds good. Do keep at least some of the classics! And keep in mind that, past a certain point, less is more.

Sorry that I can't be around much anymore to help. I have only one opportunity to go to university - I want to make the most of that and to do that I have to devote most of my time to studying. That's just the way of things, and I always said throughout my time here that I wouldn't be able to carry on as before when I went to uni. But I'll always come back to Four Houses when I can, and I admire you for taking on the challenge, Mandi - I know it's hard. You've got our support.

[Bradley Jameson]

I agree with Izy in that you shouldn't hasten to delete old accounts. I understand the desire to do so 'cause you want to completely revamp the site - which I 100% agree with. But you should also keep in mind that the old members who left, some were extremely, extremely loyal to Four Houses for several years, and they didn't leave here lightly. My choice to lower the amount of time spent here was a very difficult decision, but one that has been much better for my general health and happiness, considering my real life. The same, I'm sure, goes for the other old members who have left. But I very much enjoy coming back every now and again to see where Four Houses is at, and read my old characters' posts, and reminisce. And I'd hate to see my accounts deleted if I came back after a few years, and they'd done it without my permission.

Certainly, I think the idea Izy has offered is a good one; although it's a hassle, get in contact with the old members via email, and tell them about the site revamp - try and coax them back, and even if they don't want to, explain the deleting of accounts and ask them if they want to keep their's for the future and if they want and if they have any ideas to better the site. The old members were the ones who made Four Houses brilliant, and although we can't rely on them to maintain its brilliance, as people come and go - it's the way of life - we need to ensure they don't feel like we've moved on and we don't want to remember the good that they did for this place.

Also, like Izy said, you may want to keep some of the accounts with a lot of posts even if they don't contact you back, purely to show new members how insanely passionate many of the old members were. I'd hate to see Ariane's account gone, one of the reasons being I like to see how much I spent my life on here for three years!

[Grace Hunter H5]

Sounds good guys!
and all of my characters are able to have new posts with new members, etc.

[Vincente Faire H7]

Anyone know how to advertise on the Harry Potter fan fic sites? I think we could probably coax some good writers into coming here since they seem to like writing stories and such about the books. Besides, from what I've seen of other rp sites, Four Houses is one of the best out there and I do say so myself.

[Grace Hunter H5]

Yup, agree with that. This site is the only 'mature' one out their, all the others have Draco and Harry's children running around Hogwarts fighting with dragons and changing the colour of their hair, etc.

If we can find a way of attracting the talented writers that are out their to the site, then i'm sure we will be a popular sight once again. Maybe a new site layout/look will also encourage new members.

[Pyro Blackfire S5]

Well, I'm not quite sure how things have changed over the year. So maybe what i'm about to say is a little out dated. But perhaps the view on character profiles should be a tad more lenient. Maybe focus a little less on perfect grammer and punctuation and more on storytelling. I know that even I, a hardcore and well respected member for more than 4 years, was having trouble getting some of my profiles approved due to small grammatical mistakes.

Now some of you may say that because I was such an experienced member the staff looked more harshly on my grammer than newbies, but I was seeing the same trend in other characters profiles. Yes, I read other character owls, but really who didn't?

So, thats just my oponion. Again, I dont know whats been going on this past year so things may have changed. If they have, disregard this post.

[Grace Hunter H5]

Good point, but i'm sure grammar correction won't repel potential new members. All staff are doing is making sure that they get set into a good habit, the last thing we won't is our boards of creative inspiring stories to get choked up with text talk abbreviated nonsense.

[Pyro Blackfire S5]

Well i'm not saying to let grammer mistakes like that slip by. Yes it would be annoying if all the new members posted like this. "How R U Doin 2day?" I'm simply saying a capitalization mistake, a spelling mistake, misplaced comma's. Those aren't that big of a deal. I mean, view some of my first posts, they were horrible compared to my last posts. But with time I got much better, and I know when I was new I was glad that my profiles weren't being combed through with a fine toothed vintage grammer nazi comb. .

All i'm saying is that it might seem a little intimadating to have a new member put out there best effort in a profile only to have it returned and there is a plethora of tiny mistakes highlighted. It intimadates new members and makes them think this site is too advanced for them so they don't end up joining or drop shortly after approval.

[Grace Hunter H5]

That is actually a very good point :'D hope some changes like this start to take affect, heheh.

[Ruby Lehane]

So I've been gone for a bit, but I've taken a lot of what has been said into account. I've nixed deleting character accounts, since so many people were against it. However...if we don't see a change in people joining after the rest of the changes take affect then that will be revisited.

---

Regarding character bios...a new character bio format is in the works...it will be a bit more, what's the word, intense. Not as easy to get through and I think that will bring in some good writers. I'm also going to be starting a RP Tip thread that will help the newbie's move up quickly to better postings.

Pyro...things have changed for the most part...we haven't gotten a lot of new members since you left and the few we have had were newbies and their bios were not picked over. Part of what happened before was our push to make everyone a better writer. To a few of us, those simple mistakes are just that...simple, so we figure that someone that has been around the site this long should know to proof read and fix those mistakes, but at the same time we (at least I tried not to) shouldn't have been denying those bios. I used to just make a small mention of the mistake, telling the writer that they needed to be aware of their grammar or spelling, especially if they made the mistake more than once during their bio.

However as I said this is hardly of consequence anymore. Until the bio system is fixed things will remain as is and I'm sure you would have no problem getting a bio through right now.

---

Keep a look out for new changes...now that I have a computer again I'm not going to give much warning for the new changes. So be aware of that.

[Ivy Tunstall]

I came here to post up that I agreed with Pyro about being too picky with the grammar, but that was before I realised you'd posted again, Mandi. From what I've seen, I think it has still featured in a bit in recent approvals - unfortunately it has been taking people ages and ages to get approved recently. It might worth having whatever staffie is next available deal with charrie approvals that are waiting, even if another staffie has posted there previously? - the three of you are busy and overstretched at the moment, but getting people approved quickly needs to be more of a priority.

Anyway, hopefully the new biography system will help - I'd still favour something fairly straightforward, and definitely something that will speed up the process, as we can't expect newbies to want to spend forever tweaking their biography. We want to put them into role-playing with other people as soon as possible because that's the part that's the most fun!

An RP Tips thread is a brilliant idea!

Also, have you still got time to give the boards a bit of a rethink/pruning? You could make use of sub-boards to make the main page a bit more compact... maybe have the The Great Hall/ The Student Lounge as sub-boards within Hogwarts, & maybe put The Courtyard within Hogwarts Grounds? If you didn't mind doing a spot of archiving part way through the year, you could take the Hogwarts Express down at times of year when it won't be in use (October, November, February, May, June)?

[Aisling Fraser R1]

I do not know if you know of the site The Petulant Poetess, but they link to a lot of different sites. The Poetess is a HP fanfiction site for all ages and ships, cannon and not-so cannon. I know a lot of people visit them often, so if it is possible, maybe asking them to link to you, and visa versa might help traffic for the 4Houses.