HOL News

Wizarding Times End of Year Edition

pr_chu — 2009-07-13T14:59:56Z

It's been a while since you've heard from your dedicated magazine staff, but that's only because we've been working extra hard on our end-of-the-school-year issue! It's chock full of goodness, including (but not limited to) what to do for your summer HOLidays, summer-inspired recipes, an important notice for all badgers, book and movie reviews, and some really lovely creative pieces.

We have classic movie reviews, book reviews, great art, and you can even see a few things I'm watching on TV this summer! Plus, a lot more!

So stop by and pick up your copy today!

Prof. Anya Chutney
(nabbed from the Sett announcement made by Cosmo!)

2009 Head of House Awards for Hufflepuff

pr_chu — 2009-07-12T19:31:16Z

I want to congratulate the following folks, who have received the 2009 HoH Awards for Hufflepuff:

Head of Hufflepuff Award of Merit - For that Badger who deserves recognition from the Head of House--for a variety of reasons: Rorey Padfoot

The Alektaia Khalikiope Memorial Award – For that Badger (Staff or Student) who has given so unfailingly and whole-heartedly to Hufflepuff that we cannot imagine what the Sett would be without them: Prof. Anne Damhsoir

Head of Hufflepuff Award of Friendship - For that Badger who has shown us what Friendship means: Celeste Marivaux, Rose Alstien, and Twilight Hodges

Head of Hufflepuff Award of Appreciation– For that Badger who has done something very much deserving of the Appreciation of the HoH: Prof. Opal Dragonfly

Badger-of-all-Trades Award – This award is given out to the staff member or student who demonstrates willingness and ability in more than one area of HOL. It's for that person who just can't sit still and must have their paws in more than one type of project: Zoki Phantom

Lockhart is back!!!

pr_esc — 2009-07-07T22:02:34Z

The dream of all girls is back from St. Mungo's Hospital to teach at HOL, and he already has homework for you to do.

Check it here!!!

Alte is UP!!!

pr_esc — 2009-06-29T23:00:32Z

Class applications are now open

pr_esc — 2009-06-25T22:05:41Z

Do you want to teach a class in HOL?
Now is your chance!!!

What kind of classes are we looking for?

--Classes that have some tie in to the HP universe are usually a good thing. For instance, we have Herbology, which
is one of the Canon classes in the HP universe--but, we don't teach it the way Professor Sprout does!

--Lessons that are well thought out and of a good length get high marks from us. Take a look at the lessons that
are being taught now--how long are they? What kind of subject matter do they use? Our current and active classes
are always good to use as a rule of thumb.

--What is already being taught? We don't need 25 Muggle Studies classes! LOL If someone is already teaching it,
you might want to either choose a different subject or find a way to put a more unique.

Read more here

Battle of the Elements (GSC)

pr_mis — 2009-06-24T19:20:11Z

It's that time of year again! As you may have been able to tell, the common room has been aflutter with activity. We're all getting ready for our yearly summer camp! o/

In previous years we've done Olympics, pirates, and many other things.This year our theme is a Battle of the Elements and the first team to make it to Mythical Mount Olympus will win! Of course, there will be many battles along the way...

Sign up today (you Gryffindors in hiding) in the common room for the best adventure you could have this summer!

An Second Historic Event on the Same Day!

pr_lov — 2009-06-22T22:31:20Z

In addition to the grand opening of the new and improved Slytherin Dungeons, the most noble House of Slytherin is also proud to present to the masses today the first ever Summer Issue of The Serpentimes!

Following are only some of the wonderful features which are presented for your education and entertainment:

Ms. Ardeliah Longbottom has presented, complete with illustrations, a guide on surviving one of the most horrible of experiences: an excursion to a muggle beach.

Ms. Tarma Black has miraculously managed to debunk the myth surrounding the best time to harvest dung beetles.

Mr. Zoki Phantom, et al. will tell you a fairy tale in a writing style known as IRC.

Professor Lorelei Lovegood-Snape will explain what is appealing as well as what is appalling about the compilation DVD "Tales of the Black Freigher/Under the Hood."

Ms. Megaera Selwyn will explain proper beach etiquette for those of the canine persuasion.

A photo gallery will be presented. The featured photos, all taken by Ms. Ashlee Sully, have a certain "Australian" flair to them.

Ms. Holly Muse will share her thoughts on the lovely season known as "Summer."

Many more submissions from members of all HOL Houses grace the pages of this groundbreaking masterpiece.

Due to high demand, it is highly recommended that one obtain a copy of The Serpentimes for themselves immediately. Copies may be secured here.

Dungeon Renovation part Deux COMPLETED!

pr_byn — 2009-06-22T15:04:37Z

After much hard work of our little snakes Ashlee Sully & Faye Roderick, our dungeons is finally completed. Walls are freshly painted, floors polished (students toothbrushes shall now be returned), and the interior decor is now all snakey love. Please head on over to the new dungeon and look around.

Arcade games will be added. No need to re-sign up if you already did. If you didn't...then what are you waiting for. The new addy for the dungeons is:

http://dungeons.org.uk/forum/

Yes... maybe you could meet the Doctah >_>

pr_esc — 2009-06-19T01:41:57Z

Slytherin Dungeons Closed for Renovation

pr_lov — 2009-06-19T00:55:40Z

The dungeons will be closed for a few days while renovations take place. We expect the new shiny forum to be available by Monday. Please keep an eye on the HOL blog and forum, which is where you will be notified when the new forum opens.

Please note that you will not be required to sign-up again as all members and posts will be converted. However, members who are inactive in HOL, have zero posts and have not set foot in the dungeons for several months will be deleted in an effort to clean the place up.

If you have any questions/suggestions please send a HOL message to Ashlee Sully.

The Call for PiTs

pr_esc — 2009-06-12T00:26:38Z

And what is a PiT, you may well ask? Well, a PiT is a Prefect in Training in Ravenclaw House (more accurately, a Reserve Prefect in Training, but RPiT sounded too much like armpit and, well, I digress) ...

PiTs are those who, if accepted after a rigourous training regimen, move on to the ranks of Reserve Prefect. It is from those ranks that new, full-fledged Prefects are chosen. So if this sounds like something you would wish to accomplish in your time here at HOL, this is the place to start!

If you have been a member of HOL and Ravenclaw since at least December of 2008 and are interested in applying, please send your application to me (rhiannon_llewellyn2@yahoo.com). In the application, tell me why you think you would make an excellent Reserve Prefect, what activities you are involved in at HOL, classes you have taken in the past, how much time a week you can devote to HOL and Ravenclaw, and anything else you think is pertinent. I will be accepting applications until Saturday, 27 June. Please be aware, however, that simply applying for PiT-hood does not guarantee you will be accepted to Reserve status. Remember -- many will enter, few will win (or something like that)!

After I receive the applications, you will be turned over to the tender mercies of Head Prefect Alexia Riaper (*evil chuckle*) and she will take over your training from there.

Prof. Rhiannon Llewellyn

Toys are magical!!!

pr_esc — 2009-06-07T16:02:05Z

Well, not all games nor toys. Muggles have the more boring games on earth!!!

What if we could help them and picking one of their toys or games we make it magical?

Go on, tell us what would you choose :)

Calling all Gryffindors! (Preferrably active ones)

pr_mis — 2009-05-22T05:49:25Z

It's been decided that it is time to resurrect GLib, our Gryffindor Library and we'll need help from active Gryffindor's in order to do so. Our darling prefect Lily Padfoot is in charge of this project, so if you are interested, please make sure to PM her on the Gryffindor Common Room Board. If you want better details, please check the Announcements Area of the Common Room. And for laziness purposes I shall repost, most of her post.

What is GLib?

GLib stands for Gryffindor Library. If you scroll down the forum index page (of the common room) you might notice a section for it in Queen Maeve's Quarters. You might also notice it's rather empty and dead. Several years ago when GLib first started it was only on the forums. Then after a while all those posts were archived and moved onto a website. That website has since been taken down and we are pretty much starting fresh with GLib. Which is why we need your help.

What changes are being made?

Well, several actually. First, we are back to having GLib only on the forums. Second, we will be adding some new sections of the library that didn't exist previously. Third, we are putting together a staff to take over the responsibility of running GLib and getting some activity once again. Hopefully all this will lead to a place for awesome contests and another way for Gryffs to show their insane creativity.

Positions Available:

We are looking for 3 individuals to make up the GLib staff. These individuals will need to work together and communicate with each other to keep Glib running smoothly. All Gryffindor professors, prefects, JPs, post-graduates, and students may apply.

* Head Librarian
* Assistant Librarian
* Book Club Leader

The Head and Assistant Librarians will be working very closely. They will be responsible for establishing forum guidelines, running contests, making suggestions to improve the library, moderating the forums, checking appropriateness of submissions, and just generally encouraging involvement in GLib. In addition, the Head Librarian will be responsible for delegating work and will have final approval on any changes to GLib (guidelines, contests, or really any topic that needs a final decision).

The Book Club Leader will be responsible for running the Gryffindor Book Club within GLib. Responsibilities include moderating the forum and choosing topics to discuss each month. There are a few very old book club threads if you want to see how things used to be setup. You can run things similarly or make changes you see fit. Keep in mind that it is difficult to choose a set book each month as it would need to be appropriate for all ages and easily available to everyone, which is why just a theme was chosen in the past.

Qualifications:

You must have joined HOL prior to the start of the current term.
You need to be a self-starter, creative, organized, and willing to work with others on the GLib staff. It will be entirely up to the GLib staff to come up with activities and encourage participation.
As you are running a library, you should have a strong grasp of the English language. This is why some of the application questions require a bit of writing.
You will need to have enough free time to put towards running GLib.
You will need to be active around Gryffindor and/or HOL in some way. This can include posting on forums, participating in contests, taking or teaching classes, or helping in your dens. This will hopefully be an indication that you intend to stay active with GLib.

GLib Application:

* What position(s) would you like to apply for? (You may apply for multiple positions, but if chosen you will only hold one.)
* What Gryffindor and HOL activities are you currently involved with?
* How much time would you be able to commit to GLib each week?
* What ideas do you have for encouraging participation within GLib or the book club?
* What is your favorite book and why? (150 words minimum)
* Why should you be chosen as a member of the GLib staff? (150 words minimum)

Please send your completed application to Lily Padfoot on the Gryffindor Common Room only - by PM with the subject line "GLib Application" by June 20th at 11:59 pm HOL time.

GLib staff members will be decided soon after by a group of 4 Gryffindor staff members.

Ravenclaw Newsletter

pr_esc — 2009-05-09T03:35:55Z

Clicky on the handsome Dalek :)

Call for Submissions for the Wizarding Times!

pr_chu — 2009-05-04T12:11:01Z

Greetings HOL!

The Wizarding Times is working on our last issue of this term...and, we'd love to see contributions from all houses!

If you have an article, bit of poetry, piece of art, etc...PLEASE e-mail it to : wizardingtimes[at]gmail.com. Replace the [at] with the @ symbol.

Lovely Prefect Rorey Padfoot is our new Submissions Coordinator and will be handling all incoming (non-staff) submissions and fielding any questions you might have.

Any submissions sent to any other e-mail or through HM, or PM will not be accepted. :) It's our way of streamlining things to make it easier for all involved.

Rorey will be happy to talk to you about what we need for this issue, what points can be gained, and advise you on whether or not an article is appropriate for the WT.

Thanks and we look forward to seeing your submissions!

Oh well, what can we do? We are bored.

pr_esc — 2009-05-01T21:12:10Z

So yah, another Alte Sententiam issue.

Go read it, please? Maybe it will be good this time, if not, just blame Cassie as usual.

OWLs

pr_esc — 2009-05-01T00:16:08Z

Hey all! So sorry this took longer than expected, but the OWL lessons and assignments are all up now. There's around 2 months to complete them all, but you only need to do (and pass) 6 OWLs to earn a quill (and be able to take part in the NEWTs). Also, please pay attention to where you're sending the assignments, while most of them are to the same place, others are not.

Anyway, without further ado: Your OWLs are HERE.

Again, I know the time-crunch is crazy for some, so I apologize this didn't get updated any sooner!

Head of House what?

pr_esc — 2009-04-29T00:00:15Z

If you ever wanted to be on your Head of House's good side, this is your opportunity.

We want to know how much of a suck up you are. :)

Ravenclaw Newsletter

pr_esc — 2009-04-06T23:28:38Z

And the Eagle goes to…

pr_esc — 2009-04-03T00:58:21Z

It’s that special time of year when as part of RPM (Ravenclaw Pride Month) members of Ravenclaw House are rewarded for their dedication, their hard work, and their quirky and weird ways. Yes, it is time to bestow the Eagle awards to a group of deserving eagles. The full list of awards can be found
here.

Congratulations to all winners!

You are a snowy owl

pr_esc — 2009-04-02T04:15:43Z

Yes, you are Hedgwig, the most famous owl in the Harry Potter saga, and we want to know how was your life with Harry during that 7 years.

Flutter your wings and share with us any adventure you had.

Please don't leave any mouse on the desk... it's just gross.

The Sett is back!

pr_chu — 2009-03-25T00:54:33Z

The Sett is back up and running...mostly. :)

If you happen upon the Sett being offline, try back in a few hours. There are all sorts of things going on to make the Sett come back to life and somethings those things make it go offline for a bit.

And, three cheers for Cosmo! And, for everyone showing such wonderful support...and, for the Badgers for being so patient.

Cheers!

Anya

Hufflepuff Common Room--an Update

pr_chu — 2009-03-19T11:54:55Z

I wanted to thank everyone for their patience while we are dealing with some issues with the Hufflepuff Common Room. We are still not back up and running--we are having to rely on technical support from our hosting company, which as many of you know can take quite some time. ;)

It's nothing as simple as forgetting to pay the lighting bill. :)

For now, we'd love it if you want to come hang out in #hufflepuff on IRC. If you need to contact someone in Hufflepuff, you can do so by e-mail or by PM in the main HOL Forum.

At this time, we have decided against doing a temporary forum...if our technical issues continue to be...well...issues *G*, we will consider setting something up.

For now, however, Cosmo is working diligently on getting the Sett back up and running.

Thank you again for your continued support and patience. We truly do appreciate it!

*HUGS*

Prof. Anya Chutney
HoH Hufflepuff

Hot off the Press!

pr_lov — 2009-03-18T22:14:50Z

With a brand new layout for a brand new year, the Spring '09 Edition of The SerpenTimes is now available for your reading pleasure.

Read about Basilisk bones discovered in Columbia!

Feel your skin crawl as Ashlee Sully relives her harrowing ordeal as a hostage of DaKeed Nappers!

Find out why you need to read The Watchmen, watch The Watchmen, and listen to "The Watchmen!"

Witness Megaera Selwyn help people teach an old dog new tricks and deal with doggy depression and puppy hunger strikes!

And if that's not enough, there's puzzles, riddles, artwork, poems, and short stories galore!

This edition of The SerpenTimes is a wonderful smattering of delectable submissions!

Your own personal copy is waiting for you right here.

RPM Week 3: Wanted - Personal Ads

pr_esc — 2009-03-16T02:12:22Z

Need a fairy godmother? Want a knight in shining armor to save you from the monstrous dragon? Want a damsel-in-distress to save? If you're looking for various people willing to do tasks for you, then send in a request! The local fairy newspaper is now taking personal advertisements for fairy-tale needs. If you're seeking for a potioneer, then send a request! If you're missing your pet hippogriff, send us a picture of your pet for a "lost" ad!

The newspaper is taking both graphics and text ads. You can view examples of both below.

TEXT:
1) "Wanted. Beautiful, talented princess in need of real prince. Must be willing to laugh in the face of great danger. Preferably star-material. Toads need not apply."

2) "Skilled hunter needed for ridding loserface infestations. Please include words-per-minute record, and send all applications to the Fantastic One."

GRAPHIC:

(Make sure your graphics are no larger than 400x400. And please DO NOT animate them!)

You can send one or the other, or both! We are taking ads until Sunday, March 29, at 11.59 pm HOL. Please send all personal ads to cassie@hol.org.uk with "RPM Task 3" as a heading.

Happy ad-making/concocting!

Hufflepuff Common Room--DOWN!

pr_chu — 2009-03-15T13:28:58Z

Just a heads up to all Hufflepuff students and staff that the Sett (Common Room ) is down. Cosmo is working on it. Please be patient and hang tight and we'll have more information for you as soon as we can.

Thanks!

Anya

Alte

pr_esc — 2009-03-07T23:00:12Z

The new issue of Alte Sententiam is up, go read it... now!

'cause I say so :P

And Cassie says it is amazing >_>

And yes, this is a CONCISE blog post.

The Snow is Melting

pr_dyb — 2009-03-02T16:33:48Z

Now I just need to find my enchanted quills...

Educational Decree Number Thirty

pr_esc — 2009-03-02T02:09:58Z

BY ORDER OF THE LIBRARY HEAD

All students and professors in HOL are invited to write your own Decree following the next guidelines:
-Must apply to any situation related to HOL only.
-Must be like if it was written by our "beloved" Prof. Dolores Umbridge.
-Must amuse me lots and a bit the people who will rate it.
-No minimum of words required.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Thirty.

Signed: Prof. Ulol Kimil, Head of HOL Libary

New WT!

pr_chu — 2009-02-28T19:07:02Z

The Newest Issue of The Wizarding Times has hit newstands! Check it out!

Prof. Chutney

Ravenclaw Pride Month

pr_esc — 2009-02-27T02:59:51Z

Did someone mention Ravenclaw Pride Month?! It's one of the most amazing times of the year in the Roost.

Of course, after a short debating, RPM this year would have a Fairy Tale theme! (And yah, I don't believe in fairies but was outnumbered).

So, while walking through the "enchanted" forests, I've heard rumours about kissing toads, Eagles in fairy tales, and did someone mention Hansel and Gretel? And I thought I saw a bunch of Eagles sitting over there giggling... Will this be the year that the Prince and Princess of Ravenclaw are crowned?

Anyways... our first task:

In accordance to Royal Decree number 175, the King and Queen of the realm of Roost, King (Emperor) Ulol and Queen Rhi, have announced that each of their two sons must find a suitable princess to be their wife. The sons, Mark Mandrake and Finn Cullen, have thus set upon the difficult task of finding suitable princesses. Daughters of the realm, we need your help. Could you be the chosen princess for one of them?

In order to find the princess who is most suited to them, the princes have chosen to mask themselves under pseudonyms. They believe that their chosen one will be able to see past this mask, and see the prince behind it. As such, for the duration of their search, they will be referred to as the Gemstone Prince and the Star Prince (in no particular order).

If you, dear maiden, believe that you could be a chosen one, we invite you to participate in this quest. Each potential princess who wishes to vie for the attention of a prince and become his chosen one, should send an email to the following address, RPM.Bachelor@gmail.com (yes... the Realm of Roost is quite technologically savvy, thanks to one of our princes).

Your first task, dear maiden, is to identify the prince for whose heart you would like to compete, specifying either Gemstone or Star. You should identify WHY you wish to compete for this particular prince, with a short explanation. Secondly, you will have to give yourself a codename, with which you will be identified for the duration of the quest. For example, a lady wishing to win the Gemstone Prince, could identify herself as being the Emerald Princess, or the Diamond Princess, and so forth. We also ask you to explain WHY you chose that name for yourself. Please be advised, that your answers will be made public and will be read by our Bachelors in their efforts to find their perfect princess.

Following this first task, each princess will be invited to participate in a series of tasks (4 tasks, one for each week of RPM), where she will answer various questions. Based on these responses, the princes will eliminate 1-2 princesses each week, until they've found their perfect match!

Having been appointed by their Royal Highnesses to aid in the search for the next Princesses of the Roost, Addie and Rosa would like to invite all eligible princesses (meaning all Ravenclaws!) to put on their fanciest dresses, their most valuable jewels and to get ready to party. The princes await you!

All applications are due by 11.59PM HOL time, March 3rd, 2009
Remember to send those to RPM.Bachelor@gmail.com

Earn Points with The SerpenTimes!

pr_lov — 2009-02-19T01:40:39Z

Do you dream about seeing your name published in The SerpenTimes? If so, here is your opportunity to make that dream a reality (and earn some points in the making)! The Spring Issue of The SerpenTimes is due out in a few weeks and we need more articles!

We are looking for:
Reports (Wizard-Related)
Fictional Stories
Reviews
Poems
Puzzles
"How-To" Guides
And More! - Anything you can think of will be considered!

We are also calling for questions to be submitted for two of our articles:
1. "Ask Ashlee" - Send in a wizard-themed question and she'll give you honest advice!
2. "The Dog Scoop" - Does your dog have a funny habit or something that worries you? Send Meg your question and she'll do her best to help!

Please see the SerpenTimes Welcome Page for the "Points Guideline."

All submissions should be sent to holserpentimes@gmail.com. Please include your HOL name!

Submissions are due March 6 (date has been extended). Get writing!

If you have any questions, please contact Megaera Selwyn, as Ashlee Sully is still missing!

Mommy mommy, there is an inferius in the closet

pr_esc — 2009-02-04T01:16:21Z

WHAT???
But why there is an INFERIUS in your closet?
Dun dun duuuuun...

Yeap, this is your chance to face your fear and have a chat with an inferius so... click here.

Will you dare?

Note: From now on, comments are mandatory for all ratings. At least 8 words must be used in all comments (and yes, they must be different words and make sense).

Calling all Hufflepuffs!

pr_chu — 2009-02-03T14:00:57Z

You've finished your first term classes...you've gotten your Quills...

Want something extra from your Head of House?

Earn Bonus Citrines!!!

Quills can equal Citrines? How? Click that link *points up* and find out how. You've got to be registered for The Hufflepuff Common Room (aka "The Sett") in order to take part...so, if you've not registered--head on over and do that, too!

You've got to do your part--so, read the rules and follow through...do NOT reply to this blog looking for Citrines. *grin* Not quite THAT easy. *shakes head*

Prof. Chutney

Slytherin Pageant Winner

pr_byn — 2009-02-02T23:56:23Z

The month long pageant to find who best represents Slytherin house has come to an end. I would like to thank all that have participated and those that voted. I hope we can do this again next year now that we can fix a few kinks that occured in this years First Slytherin Pageant.

So without further ado I present to you the winners:

In 3rd Place Daphne Marin
In 2nd Place Ariel Kingston

And coming in 1st place, voted by you in HOL is.....

ASHLEE SULLY!!!

She is the first ever Miss Slytherin. She will have many duties to fulfill like go to the openings of supermarkets, promo pictures with little witches and wizards at Hogsmeade stores, and flying in the annual Yorkshire pudding parade.

If for some reason Miss Sully can not complete her reign or if she is suddenly attacked by a band of hippogriffs let loose by the other contestants, then the runner up (Ariel) will take her place.

Again thank you all for participating and take a look at the nice awards:

The crown is for the winner of the pageant
the silver locket for 2nd place
bronze locket for 3rd place
and the pink bowtie goes to the assistant(s) for the pageant and that goes to Zoki Phanton and Lilly Stargazer.

Thank you again and See you next year!

Class Sign Ups are now open!!!

pr_esc — 2009-02-01T00:00:15Z

We thank you for your patience, but now the time has come and you all can go and sign up for the new classes.

Remember that you can only sign up to 5 classes and no more.

Some classes are full-year, so it is up to the professor if he/she allows new sign ups.

All the rest are one term classes and just check the requisites before signing up.

Class sign ups will remain open until the end of February.

Have fun class hunting!!!

Alte Sententiam soars again

pr_esc — 2009-01-31T23:12:18Z

Yeap, the Ravenclaw amazing newspaper released a new issue for your enjoying and pleasure... not.

But at least, if you are bored, take a look at it and make the editors happy because really, who wants to read a house newspaper full with jokes and science and scarves and penguins and book reviews and poetry and brain challenges and puzzles and all that jazz?

Well.. I do. And I hope you too.

So clicky here and be amaaaaaazed!!!

And so it begins...

pr_dar — 2009-01-29T05:21:59Z

It was a dark, dank, and dismal night in the dungeons...and Professor Angelus Darklost was sitting in his office, finalizing the Mid-Term grade reports to send out to the parents off all the Hufflepuffs. In amongst the stack of papers on his desk, he found a page torn from a book. "Odd," he thought, as he perused the page, noticing that there was a message written in black Perma-Magic marker (with extra sparkle even).

Thinking nothing of it, he resumed his work...losing track of time.

Several hours passed, and with the candle in his office burned out, Professor Darklost finally got up, stretched, and wandered out into the corridor. Walking by, with a worried expression on her face, was Ravenclaw, Cassandra Lobiesk.

"Good evening, Cassie. What brings you down here?"

Holding up a book with a broken spine and a page ripped out of the middle, Professor Darklost recognized that this was one of Maya Winter's (another Ravenclaw) favorite book. "Oh my! That's not right! Maya would hurt the person that destroyed her favorite book. Where did you find that? And have you seen Maya?"

Cassie shook her head and stated quite dreadfully, "It was in the Great Hall at the Ravenclaw table. I haven't seen Maya since everyone left after dinner. She stayed behind to just 'get one more chapter in'."

With a bit of concern, Professor Darklost and Cassie returned to the Great Hall. Upon arriving back at the Great Hall, the pair saw a trio of First Year Gryffindors staring in the direction of the marble staircase. Walking over to where they were, Cassie and Professor Darklost saw written in dark ink "And so it begins...."

Spamming in the blogs

pr_obi — 2009-01-26T12:33:39Z

Recently we have seen some people spamming in the blogposts. The same rules apply for commenting in the blogs as they are for everything else in HOL. We thought that would be obviuosly, but apperantly it was not.

Spamming is very much not liked here, and anywhere else. Offenders will have points taken away from them, and in severe cases might risk expuslion from HOL.

A Hazy Shade of Winter

co483 — 2009-01-26T08:17:33Z

It never rains but it pours with the Art Department, right?

We in the Art Department know that it's the dead of winter at Hogwarts, but we're curious folk and want to know what January looks like for you.

Let's see how the whole project is written up, shall we?

"It's the middle of January, and you know what means at Hogwarts. Students roaming about quite quickly (to keep warm), all bundled up in their scarves and hats and mittens. Huddled groups around the fireside in the evenings, enjoying good company while "working" on lessons. *cough*

"But, for those of us not literally at Hogwarts, what does our January look like? Is it cold and snowy? Is it mild and rainy? Is it scorching and overbearing? Let us know!

"The rules are pretty simple: share with us a photograph of what January (well, and February) looks like in your neck of the planet. Your picture should be no larger than 700 pixels wide by 525 pixels tall with a maximum file size of 200 kb, which should give you room to add a caption, giving your general location (no cities, of course, but countries, states, provinces, etc. should be okay)."

If you have any questions, be sure to ask in the Art Department Discussion Board.

Love Is In The Air, People!

co483 — 2009-01-21T06:53:39Z

Greetings, all you cats and kittens! After something of a hiatus, it's time for another installment of Project Art Department!

In this episode, we're asking you to get into that favorite holiday of all, Valentine's Day, by creating a Valentine's card to give to folks. Because nothing says, "I care" so much as a themed graphic, right? ;)

Here are the full project rules, as posted:

"No, really, it is. I'm certainly feeling it. Love and trust and hope and joy. It's all there. And it's time we did something fun with it.

"Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to make a Valentine's Day themed card^[1] you could give out to other folks at Hogwarts. It can be funny, lovey, or silly; sincere, punny, or heartfelt^[2]. It just needs to be about one of the many forms of love.

"The specifics: Maximum file size is 300 KB, with a maximum dimension of 800x600 (minimum is 300x300). This is a creative project, so have fun with it.

"^[1] Card is a loose term, since we're talking about the internet here. You can make something like a traditional folding card, or you can try for something more postcard-sized. Or, you could even consider making something desktop wallpapery, if you're so inclined.
"^[2] References to fresh pickled toads are not necessary, but occasionally appreciated. ;)"

Coming Soon...

pr_esc — 2009-01-13T18:57:11Z

A rose is a rose is a rose...

pr_esc — 2009-01-08T22:59:34Z

Right... well that's a poem, isn't it?

But now you have the amazing chance to write a poem, with ghosts, at Hogwarts... what can be cooler than that?

So click here and amaze us with your poetry... or at least amuse us... or try not to ruin our day?

No vampires allowed in the stories, no no no. This is about ghosts. And only ghosts. Got it? Good.

The Wizarding Times--all students welcome to contribute!

pr_chu — 2009-01-08T15:10:24Z

A new term is starting soon--and, that means the staff of the The Wizarding Times is busy getting ready for a new issue!

We just wanted to remind ALL HOL students that you are welcome to write a story, article, poem....create a graphic...to be published!

Please contact me via PM or HOL Message *only* as my e-mail tends to get flooded. :) If you do creative writing or art, be prepared to show me examples.

We publish stories on a variety of topics. Check out one of our past issues to get an idea of what we are looking for!

When you send a message, let me know what your interests are...and what kind of article you might like to write!

We do give points for participation (HOL Wide). We DO NOT need any other editors at the moment. *nods*

Wizarding Times Participation Points:

Article: 10 points per published submission (maximum 20 pts. at any time)

Art: 5/10 points per published submission (maximum 20 pts.)

Fiction: 5 points per published submission (maximum 10 pts.)

Mr or Miss Slytherin Pageant...Begins yay!

pr_byn — 2009-01-02T10:08:13Z

Hear ye, Hear Ye!! The competition has begun. These 13 brave snakes have thrown their names in the hat and have us..yes all of HOL decide who represents Slytherin through and through best! (They actually all are true Slytherins for we love the chance to prove our loveliness *wink*)

Here are your lucky 13 contestants:

Emily Cullen
Meg Selwyn
Daphne Marin
Nassa Dikaios
Ashlee Sully
Faye Roderick
Lorelei Sands
Ariel Kingston
Opal Curare
India Jolly
Mia Vardales
David Koche
Tambaqui Balthazar

The First Task is up and voting will begin on Januaray 9th!
If you want to watch and vote click here!
If you haven't signed up yet, then sign up here!

(you can also play our growing arcade just remember to click the stay logged in forever buttin *winks*)

Attention Gryffindors!

pr_mis — 2009-01-01T20:22:34Z

Beedle the Bard Challenge

Gather round all Gryffindors!

In celebration of JK Rowling’s new book, there will be a Beedle the Bard challenge for all Gryffindors brave enough to enter.. So get to the Common room, and join if you dare.

There will be 6 Terrible Tasks which the teams have to fulfil, testing your wit, creativity and cunning, all in theme of Rowling’s new book. This test of endurance and skill will start on February the first, but there is already an opportunity to get your team some early points to get a bit of a head start..

So don’t wait any longer.. Join now!

Teams

Two heads are better than one, and the challenging nature of this challenge requires you to battle in a team of two (so two people in one team).
Found a team member? Then you can sign up in this thread.
You want to participate but haven’t found a team member yet? Then refer to this thread.

Scared that’s it undoable? Don’t dare to join?
Don’t be! Find your inner-Gryffindor and subscribe today!
Not scared at all?
Prove it! Find your inner-Gryffindor and subscribe today!

Haven’t read the Tales of Beedle the Bard yet? Don’t worry! There is a tale in the Deathly Hallows which you can use as well! Haven’t read Deathly Hallows? Then you can just come up with a story! So no excuses not to join, it will be a lot of fun.

See you there!

- Ronja Liek
- Barbara Phoenix

For more information regarding the Beedle the Bard Challenge, go to thisthread. Any questions left unanswered? You can ask them here.

Ravenclaw's Holiday IRC Party

pr_esc — 2008-12-22T02:15:01Z

All of HOL is invited to the party, which we'll be celebrating with lots of butterbeer, games, butterbeer, overall fun with friends (old and new), and did I mention butterbeer? Even if you're only on IRC for a moment, just pop in #ravenclaw and say hello or greet us a Happy Holidays and New Year!

Two parties will be held (you're of course welcome to visit both!): one at December 31 from 10:55 pm HOL (5:55 pm EST) and January 1 from 3 am HOL (10 pm EST on December 31).

So add the dates on the calendar, put your fiercest clothes on, and shimmy it up for some PARTYING! We're looking forward to see you there!

From Santa's Ravenclaw lame helpers.

Welcome new Badgers!

pr_chu — 2008-12-19T17:43:19Z

Greetings new Badgers (those would be new Hufflepuffs). The Hufflepuff staff is working hard on getting a message out to each and every new member of Hufflepuff. For now, however, I’d like to greet you here and give you a bit of information that’s important for you to know!

While it is not mandatory that you come to The Sett which is what a Badger calls his home and we like to call the Hufflepuff Common Room), you might find it fun to meet your fellow Badgers and participate in some of the activities that we have there.

If you have any questions, please contact a Hufflepuff Prefect (*points below*)

(Everyone at the Sett has their own personal Prefect for any questions or problems that they might have. Everyone is sorted alphahuff-like and it goes by your FIRST name.)

Prefect Narcissa Heart - A - B
Deputy Head of House Felicia Hartwick - C - D
Post Graduate Anne Damhsoir - E - J
Prefect Tarma Black - K - L
Prefect Rorey Padfoot - M - P
Prefect Askeron Kyle - R - S
Prefect Kath Snape or Prefect Neville Prongs - T - Z
(If you meet a Badger who forgot who their own Prefect is, you can refer him or her to that list so they remember!)

Welcome to HOL and Hufflepuff! We look forward to getting to know each and every one of you!

Sincerely,

Prof. Anya Chutney
Head of House, Hufflepuff

Mr. and Miss Slytherin!!

pr_byn — 2008-12-18T15:02:47Z

SLYTHERINS!!!!!!!!

Time has come to show your love of Slytherin House. The Mr. & Miss Slyth Pageant is the place to show who is the most all around Slytherin...both in fashion and in how you think. BUT this pageant will be decided by not only your fellow Slytherins but we are inviting the other houses to help vote.

Sign ups start now and end Jan. 1st Midnight! The list will be put up January 2nd on who will be participating along with the first round "task" which will then be open for voting on Jan. 9th.

(for other houses to vote in the pageant you must sign up in our forum.)

Here is the schedule for the pageant:
Sign ups - Now - end Jan 1st
first task - Jan 2nd - End Jan 9th (open voting)
2nd Task - Jan 9th - End Jan 16th (open voting)
3rd Task (final task) - Jan 16th - End Jan 23rd (open voting)
WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED Jan. 30th!

Who best portrays Slytherin in mind, body and soul!? Sign up and let us know!
Slytherins sign up here in this thread!

banner made by Aidan Argent

Class Applications

pr_esc — 2008-12-15T20:21:11Z

If you want to teach a new class for the next term, or if you want to renew your 1 term class, click here.

If you are or want to be a student teacher, remember to write it. We remind you that only a few new student teachers will be hired, so your chances for your class to be accepted will increase if you apply as full Professor.

If you are actually teaching a full year class, ignore this and go nag your students to do their work :)

Note 1: For new classes, we are looking for "canon" classes, so those have a better chance also to be accepted.

Note 2: Read the application instructions carefuly and fill in all required fields in the form, incomplete applications will not be processed.

Slytherin Arcade - Open for Business

pr_byn — 2008-12-10T16:43:33Z

That's right. The wonderful people at Slytherin want to open our dungeon game room doors to the rest of HOL. We are a competitive bunch and would like to see if any of you non snakes can over take our arcade. So if you are bored, competitive, and just want a little fun, head on down to the dark dungeon arcade and play some games.

Just sign up on the forum and wait for validation and Voila! you are all set to play....oh its just 2 knuts for unlimited play. Just insert your money into the Basil Statue's mouth...just make sure it's not the real Basil...or he'll eat chu'.

SerpenTimes Winter '08 Issue

pr_byn — 2008-12-08T23:20:04Z

Get chur' paper!! Get chur' paper!! Hot off the presses!!

The winter '08 edition of the SerpenTimes House paper is now available. Read the Ask Ashlee to the Quidditch spotlight report to your movie and music reviews and so much more!

*coughdungeon ofhorrorssectioncough*

Right here off the presses Winter '08 SerpenTimes

If you want to contribute ( you get lovely house points!!) Click here
Info to Contribute

Jingle bells jingle bells

pr_esc — 2008-12-08T05:07:03Z

Jingle all the waaaaaay!!!

And it is time to have fun!!!

So let's party at Hogsmeade and crash some parties \o/

Gryffindor Board Open to Other Houses (for real this time)

pr_mis — 2008-12-07T23:50:23Z

I'm pleased to announce that after a bit of arguing with the Gryffindor Fat Lady, I managed to convince her to allow people into our Waffling's Ward area of the board, where we keep our RPG area, Birthday Wishes (etc) area, and our Godric's Gate area (where you can pretty much talk about anything as long as there is no bashing).

This means for those students who have already signed up as a guest on our forum, and were upset or surprised to find you could not post - this has now been fixed. So feel free to sign in and post away, just remember to post responsibly and follow the rules of the boards as written.

Also, this is a great opportunity for those who have not signed up to go ahead and do so, but make sure to follow the sign up instructions listed in the announcements area on the forum! And remember, it can now take up to 1-2 weeks for me to approve you, so you really want to make sure get it right the first time!

This should work out correctly this time, without all those other nasty messages being put on the forum by non-HOL members. So, make sure you have fun!

December is Slythmas for Slytherins!!!

pr_byn — 2008-12-03T14:03:39Z

Hey you snakes! If you are a bit tired after the Green vs. Silver battle don't worry, December is Slythmas month! Fun activities throughout the month!

You can claim your day for giving gifts to the house or even a person if you want to! and our lovely coloring of fun!!...remember participation earns your SAP points! so visit this link to see where you can start the fun!

Slythmas

And rack up those SAP points see who will come out as Champion!

(oh and remember to stop by this link to post your fav fall recipes for our Seasonal recipe cookbook and also submit your fall cookbook covers! details follow the links!
Fall Recipe thread
Fall cook book cover Contest )

Slytherin House : Green Vs. Silver Results

pr_byn — 2008-12-03T13:51:43Z

Now that the month of November has past, the first Green vs. Silver battle has ended. Which side was victorious? Do any of our Slyth student have battle scars? Who can raise the Cup in Victory???

It was a very close battle, however the first year's winner of the Color wars is...........................

YAY!! Congrats to both teams for your hard work!

Here is the breakdown of the competition:

First Friend Project

pr_esc — 2008-12-02T04:48:12Z

The First Friend is a project that new students at HOL (or even older ones) can join, in which they will be paired up with a more experienced HOLer. With this program, not only is the new student learning the ins and outs of HOL, the rules, and have someone to turn to with questions, but they are making a new friend.

This project is open for all HOLers.

WT Fall Edition NOW Available!

pr_chu — 2008-11-26T18:56:48Z

The Wizarding Times November Edition is now available!

Head on over and check us out!

-

Your tale has been rejected

pr_esc — 2008-11-10T13:36:19Z

A publisher's office in the middle of nowehere.

"We are sorry to inform you that your tale submitted to be part of the book The Tales of Beedle the Bard has been rejected."

"What? But it is the most amazing tale ever!!!" - you can hear Mr Beedle shouting.

"Well, you still have the chance to publish it, Mr Beedle, but first you have to show it to the board of HOL critics and they will decide if it is worthy of a second chance or not."

BOO!!!

pr_esc — 2008-10-28T06:03:01Z

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

It's Halloween time!!! So witches and ghouls and vampires and mummies and zombies and ruber ducks and teletubbies and purple dinosaurs are wandering everywhere trying to scare us.

But over all, some new ghosts have been seen around HOL.

Who are they? Why are they floating in our own school? Did you see any of them?

Tell us!!!

Slytherin Dungeons --RE-OPENED FOR BUSINESS!

pr_byn — 2008-10-26T16:18:40Z

After almost a week of our dungeons being in disarray and utter clutter, the only solution for us was to just start from scratch. We renovated the entire thing..new walls, fresh coat of paint, new layout.

Only sad part is...we need to make sure you are who you are...ya know security measures, SO please take 30 seconds to register at the door and then you are more than welcome to enjoy the fun!

DUNGEON DOORS!!

Show us your monster mash!

co483 — 2008-10-20T07:11:41Z

Hey, everyone,

Rorey and I thought we should throw a nice Art Department Halloween party, and you're all invited... to show us your pictures of Halloween!

That's right, there's a new photo contest in the Art Department: Halloween Haunts. Starting today, you can submit a photo of your Halloween experience this year. But don't dawdle; this contest ends on November 2nd.

Here are the details:

"Halloween is nearly upon us, and we here at the Art Department want to see how you are preparing for this ghoulish event.

"Take a picture of something Halloweenish in your area. Are you dressing up this year? Have you turned your ordinary house into a haunted house? Did you visit a pumpkin patch this year? We want to see what you are doing to celebrate the season.

"There is no creative photoshopping in this contest, just photos. Submissions should be jpgs no larger than 200kb, with dimensions of either 640x480 or 480x640."

If you have any questions, you can message Cosmo Brown or Rorey Padfoot, or you can ask your question here.

Slytherin Green vs Silver Challenge

pr_byn — 2008-10-15T16:16:08Z

Yes yes it's time! You heard it right, it's coming in NOVEMBER, which is like SOON. Which means the Green versus Silver month! The battle of glory and PRIDE! All month long! \o/ Which side will you be on? How far would you go for victory? Join up for Green vs Silver and find all the answers!

The sign up for Green vs Silver is now officially open, to sign up just simply post your name in this thread - CLICK HERE FOR THE SIGNUPS
before November 1st. All Slytherin house members are invited to participate in this event, so come along!

All the sign ups will then be randomly split into two teams: Green and Silver team. Some of the challenges you'll be facing will include an arcade tournament and QUIDDITCH!

What are you waiting for?? Sign up NOW!

My dragon is better than your puffskein...

pr_esc — 2008-10-06T03:21:28Z

In fact, my Peruvian Vipertooth could eat your little puffskein, so keep it away and safe.

So yah, I love to have a magical pet. And if you have one, I would like to hear about it. So write a little story about your pet and tell us what kind of magical being it is.

I promise you that Raksha won't eat it... yet *g*

Alte Sententiam roars!!!

pr_esc — 2008-10-05T15:38:36Z

Ladies and gentlemen, witches and wizards, the new issue of Ravenclaw's newspaper Alte Sententiam is now available.

The things you can look forward to regarding this issue:

Advertisements: We have the October Birthdays, as well as club ads (Alte, RQT, and Debate Club). We also premiere a new addition: The RQT Trading Cards. Every issue, we will be featuring two RQTers (can you guess which ones got featured first? *g*).

Articles: Not familiar with the HOL clubs or want to know what classes are worth taking? How about the better ways of purchasing movie tickets, the current HOL trends, or the inner workings of an eagle? Try these articles on for size!

Puzzles: New Ravenclaw Brain Challenge is up! See if you can crack the puzzle. Also, Rorey Padfoot and Madras Bubbles have provided us with a Sudoku and a Word Find, respectively.

Columns: We have two new columns this term: Addie’s Movie Mayhem and Keety’s Palace of Poetry. Of course, Faye also graces the world with her presence in Faye-mous Last Words, while Cassandra doodles in her corner all day.

Reviews: Travel to the tomb of the dragon emperor or the futuristic world. Journey on a search for a star, or experience the clash in the Industrial Revolution. Regardless of where you end up, these reviews are interesting reads!

Scientifics: Sit with Rosa as she explains the workings of the Large Hadron Collider, or with Lissa as she gives you an insight in coastal erosion.

Poem and Short Story Showcase: We have a ton of poetry and short stories to give you. So pull up or conjure a bean bag and make yourselves comfortable, because the showcase will take up some of your time!

FallI Issue of the Wizarding Times!

pr_chu — 2008-10-03T14:22:57Z

The Fall issue of Wizarding Times is HERE! (That is the Hufflepuff Newspaper for those of you who may not know)

Thank you to everyone (from all houses) who worked so very hard to get everything up and running for us!

Enjoy!

New Art Project: Your Ad Here!

co483 — 2008-10-02T05:14:31Z

It's a new month, so it's a new art project: Your Ad Here!

"October is a special time of year. The days grow shorter, the air a little crisper. The grounds look dangerously close to bursting into flaming autumn colors. You've even survived your first month of classes at Hogwarts, and that's cause for a celebration in Hogsmeade.

"The first Hogsmeade weekend of the year is just around the corner. What shops will you visit? What alluring signs will be beckoning you to come in and spend your galleons and sickles and knuts? What new shops have opened this year? What absolute bargains can you find?

"Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to create an advertisement sign for a business (canon or invented) in Hogsmeade. It can be about a particular item, a special sale, new management, or anything, really, so long as it's a display sign. Be sure to include the business name somewhere on the sign.

"Minimum dimensions are 400 pixels square; maximum dimensions are 800 pixels square. (Square is not, of course, required.) Submissions should be jpgs no larger than 200kb."

If you have any questions about the project, you can ask in the project's discussion board thread, or you can message either me or Rorey.

In the meantime, you can still rate and review the last contest. Voting will be open for that until October 15, so you've still got time. Remember to read over the project's guidelines before you review, though, because, really, the guidelines are more what you'd call rules than actual guidelines.

Gringotts Bank

pr_dyb — 2008-09-17T12:32:14Z

Gringotts is open for business now.

Every HOL Member does automatically have their own vault. You can deposit some or all of your Beans there and earn a 2% weekly interest on your savings. There are some rules to follow, though:

The minimum deposit is 50 Beans and you can deposit your Beans only in multiples of 50 (50, 100, 150, 200, ... 1000, 1050...). Each Bean transfer from your Bean Pouch will be stored in its own bag in your Gringotts vault. You can only withdraw a complete bag. The Gringotts goblins will not bother going down to your vault, open your bag, take out a few Beans and lock it all up again. So if you intend to frequently withdraw some Beans you are advised to deposit them in small portions of 50 each.

Interest is paid weekly for each of your positions seperately. Gringotts will transfer your earnings directly to your Bean Pouch when you visit the bank and it is pay day. Interest cumulates which means that if you don't visit Gringotts for several weeks you will get paid for more than one week when you go there to grab your Beans.

Gringotts pays you 2% interest a week or 1 Bean for each 50 Beans in your vault. However, Gringotts is a business itself so they will change you a service fee of 4% when you want to withdraw your Beans. Do the maths... if you put Beans in the bank you'll have to leave them there for at least 3 weeks to make profit, if you withdraw a position before 2 weeks have passed you will make a loss.

The idea behind this is that you can earn some Beans from your savings especially in times when you have less opportunity to make Beans from regular HOL work. For example during HOLidays (summer, Christmas), you go on a vacation, you have to be away for a while etc. - you can also decide to save up for a certain goal which will go faster if you let Gringotts help you with that.

Again, do not deposit Beans you intend to spend in the near future - Beans you put in Gringotts are not available for you as they are locked up in a vault and too frequent transfers will eat up your savings as the service fee will add up to large amounts.

There is also a "Business" tab in Gringotts where you can see what the individual stores have made in profit so far and where that profit is coming from.

Don't change anything!!!

pr_esc — 2008-09-16T00:50:02Z

But of course, you did. And so you changed the present just because you wanted to have a pet dinosaur.
AAAAHHHHH!!! It wants to eat me!!! *hides*

Thankfully this never happened, as you don't have a Time Turner. But, what could happen if you do?
Would you use it and change something from the past... from the future?

Click here and tell us!!!

Beans, Shops, Gringotts and Trades

pr_dyb — 2008-09-15T00:00:34Z

All the Hogsmeade businesses (and beyond, like the Greenhouse) are now recording their sales and they also keep the profit they make as their budget. This enables those businesses to also make bean payouts wherever this is justified or to hold certain events or special offers. The Hogsmeade Herald will be able to pay their staff soon, how much solely depends on how much money the paper makes from sales and "sales".

All the shops' revenue reports, pay-outs and the status of their accounts will be public as soon as Gringotts will open (probably Thursday/Friday). I'm a huge fan of "full disclosure", so nothing is going to be secret = best way to avoid fraud if the public has a supervising role over business finance, hehe. You will also be able to open your own vault at Gringotts, but it only makes sense if you want to save up some beans for the future. Gringotts will pay some interest but also charge you a fee (they are a business as well), so short term savings will likely cost you some beans.

Also next week you will be able to privately trade your items. You can then trade your extra wizards cards for beans or another card you need for your collection and don't have to dump it in the Thrift Store anymore. So keep your doubles until the trades are implemented. If you don't know anyone to trade with you can always advertise your extras using the Crabbeslist on the Hogsmeade Herald.

Slytherin Coming Attractions

pr_byn — 2008-09-14T20:29:37Z

Are you ready Fellow Slytherins? Are you ready for the new school year? The staff of Slytherin house has plans to keep you in the hunt. We plan to sharpen your senses, mold your knowledge, test your skills, and challenge your true nature of mind.

We can't say too much here, but be prepared, in the coming term you will see Slyth-o-Ween, Slythmas, Mr & Miss Slyth, The Salazars, and the mysterious Green vs. Silver....and much much more. So just ask yourselves...Are you prepared for the first half?

**poster created by Tambaqui Balthazar**

Fall Edition of the SerpenTimes

pr_byn — 2008-09-14T17:52:10Z

Ashlee Sully (Editor In Chief) along with the staff of writers from all houses, is very proud present the first issue of the SerpenTimes for the 2008/09 school year.

I along with everyone in the Slytherin house want to send a huge thank you to Ashlee and all the other writers and contributors in resurrecting the paper. They are:

Adeliene Cromwell, Alva St Clair, Ariel Kingston, Astrid Shadows, Darik Limewire, Ellie Warhol, Evelina Hawthorne, Faye Roderick, India Jolly, Jenna Hathaway, Mia Vardales, Nikki Walker, Noora Novel, Professors Angelus Darklost and Opal Dragonfly, Sarah Matrix, Tambaqui Balthazar and Zia Stonebury.

Also a special thank you to the editor, Megaera Selwyn, whom we thank for your hard work.

Everyone who contributed this month has received house points! Yay! We are open to accepting submissions for the next issue, check out the website for more information.
Please click the link below to visit the paper :)

Hogsmeade Day

pr_dyb — 2008-09-13T13:57:25Z

Today is HOGSMEADE DAY which means HOL Hogsmeade is officially opening!

Let me introduce you to all the new features step by step. It's going to be a long post but I recommend that you take the time and read it before you do anything in Hogsmeade, helps avoiding misunderstandings and unnecessary questions later, heh.

The Map of Hogsmeade was drawn by Slytherin's Aidan Argent. She also drew all the more detailed images for the individual buildings and the art just couldn't have turned out better. I love it!

Everything on this map will be important later; you can see many buildings which are not yet clickable but they will unfold step by step. The roads will be important as well as the relative locations of the buildings to another. You will see. Not everything will be explained to you, a major point of Hogsmeade will be that you have to explore and discover on your own - this is a good part of the fun.

However, Hogsmeade will start with seven buildings today and I will introduce you to all of them in detail now.

The Hogsmeade Herald is the official newspaper of HOL Hogsmeade. It covers HOL happenings as well as stories from Hogsmeade. There is a huge fictional element to Hogsmeade which will unfold mostly through the Herald. You might even get hints to villagers and secret locations through Herald stories. But there is also extensive HOL coverage with reports, interviews, editorials and news items. Main point here is 'freedom of speech and expression,' which means that the Herald staff will not censor any opinions as long as they are written in a tasteful way and follow HOL rules for language.

The Hogsmeade Herald staff has been working hard for the past six weeks to put together a first issue full of interesting stories. Through 'issue' is not the correct term for the future as the Herald is set up just like any other online newspaper. New items are added whenever they are submitted and there will be no numbered issues. So if you want to follow the paper - checking for new stories or a new chapter for the serial novel - you can go there several times a week and likely find something new to read every time.

The Herald is very interactive, your input is very welcome and even required. You can comment on all stories (same rules here, be respectful and avoid personal attacks and you can freely express your opinion) if you agree or disagree with what's being said there. If you want to write for the newspaper then contact the staff and ask if they have openings. If you just want to write an opinion piece then post a letter to the Editor.

Say Ouais ("ouais" = French for "yeah") is the Letters to the Editor section. Such "letters" are meant to be meaningful opinion pieces and not one-liners or congratulations or just blabla like "hey I love the magazine xoxoxo". Those will be deleted instantly. But if you want to write something about a current event or issue and you are not on the HH Staff, if you want to post an alternative opinion on what's being published, if you want to let HOL know about something you consider important... then post your item to "Say Ouais" and you get the exposure.

Crabbeslist is the Herald section for Classified Ads. The Herald charges a small beans fee for publishing your ad and you can advertise anything you like as long as it is related to the wizarding world of HOL. No commercial Muggle ads and nothing that would violate HOL rules. Ideas for Crabbeslist items would be advertising your profile, asking for a pet sitter when you go on vacations, trading double wizard cards, promoting a Quidditch match or a House event, job offers like artist wanted or referee needed and so on. I am sure you can come up with many useful, interesting or fun ads.

I leave it up to you to discover the rest on your own. Let us make the Hogsmeade Herald a big success!

Dervish & Banges is selling magical equipment, potions and potion ingredients. Do not waste your beans on potions stuff now as the potions lab will not open anytime soon. However... hint hint... I heard rumours that the store has planned to give out some gifts on opening day only. You might want to get some Knotgrass or such to try it out.

Flourish & Blott's is the Hogsmeade book store. Some of the books are useful beyond what the cover might say, others are fun to read, and some are just there for you bookworms to collect. I personally recommend to check out Prof. Dragonfly's "Wizard Wit and Wisdom" series which has been added to F&B's General Books section. Naturally the book store's inventory will grow majorly over the weeks and months to come.

Honeydukes is selling chocolate, candy and generally sweets. You can buy Chocolate Frogs now if you want to work on your Wizard Cards collection. More sweets will be added when Ambrosius is back from London, and by then you will also have more reasons to buy things from Honeydukes.

The Thrift Shop has been there for a while already. It is the one place in Hogsmeade that will always buy your goods if you want to turn them back into beans. As a rule of thumb... it buys from you for half the retail value and sells those items 25% cheaper than the other stores in Hogsmeade. Or to give you a concrete example: If you need a Mandrake it will be cheapest to grow one yourself in the Greenhouse, and most expensive to buy it from Dervish & Banges. But as people who have harvested some Mandrakes will likely sell some to the Thrift Shop you should check there first if you need one as you might save up to 30 beans there compared to Dervish's price.

Happy Hogsmeade Day!

This Saturday is...

pr_dyb — 2008-09-11T21:42:07Z

Art Department News

co483 — 2008-09-09T22:10:29Z

Greetings, HOLers,

This year is a big year for the Art Department: it's our first fully-functioning one! We hope we can bring you exciting and interesting contests and challenges.

To further that goal, I've spoken with Miss Gypsy Ardor, my partner in artsy crime. She informed me that she has a marvelous opportunity to study ancient compassionate magic, so of course I told her to go right ahead and not to worry about the Art Department, that I'd find someone with wit and wisdom and a can-do spirit to help out.

Which brings me to the next bit of news. After careful consideration, I asked Miss Rorey Padfoot to assist me in running the Art Department as the new Deputy Head of the department. Thankfully, she agreed.

If you don't know Rorey, you're in for a treat. She's hard-working, creative, enthusiastic, and generally awesome. She's already had some exciting ideas for future projects, and I think you're all going to love them.

So, please join me in welcoming Rorey Padfoot as the new Deputy Head of the Art Department, as well as offering thanks to Gypsy Ardor for her tenure here.

I'm excited; it's gonna be a great year.

Welcome to the New School Year

pr_dyb — 2008-09-02T11:05:24Z

I want to welcome all new and returning students and professors to the new school year that started yesterday.To celebrate the good days everyone active with an open bean pouch got a gift of 100 Beans from the Head Office. Keep your beans together, you might need them soon for Hogsmeade, also the Greenhouse will be open this week.

If you have friends or family who still want to sign up for HOL this summer, please tell them to hurry up. Sign-up will close on September 15th for this term.

The Alte Wants YOU

pr_esc — 2008-09-01T17:59:10Z

Ravenclaw’s Alte Sententiam invites HOL to send their ideas and submit articles for the term’s opening issue in October! Your ideas can range from articles, scientifics, poems, short stories, ads, graphics, even puzzles!

The due date for this issue’s submissions is Tuesday, September 30, so please try to contact Cassandra Lobiesk beforehand so she can let you know if your idea is approved!

Submission points will be awarded as follows:
10 points per published article
10 points per published graphic/ad

So why wait? Write us a piece and get it published in the Ravenclaw newspaper!

For all ideas/submissions, please send an email to alte.sententiam@gmail.com

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Some Maintenance

pr_dyb — 2008-08-27T15:23:21Z

As I have announced a couple of weeks ago, we will start to delete old log entries and messages from the server when the new school year begins. This is necessary as we do not have infinite space to store stuff like this and even if we had it would make everything loading slower and slower with the time.

So from September on all messages and log entries (HOL logs and pet logs) will be deleted if they are older than 120 days. You can protect HOL messages from deletion by locking them, you should have that option on your messages screen.

Here are the current numbers, just in case anyone is interested:

Total logs in database: 94253
Logs older than 120 days: 59660

Total pet logs in database: 59238
Pet logs older than 120 days: 20837

Total HOL messages in database: 6475
Total protected HOL messages: 24
Unprotected HOL messages older than 120 days: 0

Yup, there aren't any messages older than 4 months now, but there will be soon...

Unrelated, Cosmo asked me to make a few changes to the Trading Cards. So now you can hide your card if you don't want it to show on your profile or in the Art Department anymore. You can still update your card when hidden and also make it visible again at any time. You can hide and "unhide" your card from within the Art Department, click on 'View your HOL Trading Card' at the top of the page.

Oh, and all missing thumbnails for the cards should have miraculously appeared now.

The Olympics are Over...

pr_dyb — 2008-08-26T13:18:11Z

...and we are just 5 days away from the start of term. As usual we begin the new school year with a staff meeting on Sunday, August 31, 6pm HOL Time on IRC in #staffmeeting. All Professors, Head Students and Student Teachers are invited to attend this meeting.

Staff Meetings are for HOL Staff only. Professors and Head Students are invited to all meetings, and Student Teachers are invited to the always first and last meeting of each term only. Then we will most likely discuss classes and to avoid bad communication it is a good idea that everyone who is in charge of a HOL class should be allowed to join this discussion.

I've also made a few changes to the site in the past few days.

HOL Calendar

You find this now in the right hand menu, it has replaced the HOL Timetable. The calendar should give everyone a quick overview on upcoming dates, events, deadlines etc., Prefects and higher can add new calendar events at any time. You will only see events that matter to you, so even if the calendar seems empty it probably is not. For example, the staff meeting dates can not be seen by normal students as this meeting doesn't apply to them. And Hufflepuff students will not be able to see calendar dates for internal Gryffindor events and vice versa. I think this setup makes the most sense.

Discussion Boards

I had to make a few changes to the boards because the performance was not acceptable. So now you can not see the name of the last poster anymore unless you open the thread. This small inconvenience should be okay as all the boards will open much, much faster now - no more annoyance.

New Library Project / Epilogue - Nineteen Years Later

pr_esc — 2008-08-25T17:11:47Z

Many people didn't like the Deathly Hallows' Epilogue. Some think it lacked info about what happened with some of the secondary characters. Others feel like it was written in a rush and not in JK's style.

So, if you are one of them, and you think you can do better, this is your chance!

Click here and show us what would be the perfect ending for our beloved series.

Missing Quidditch Logs

pr_dyb — 2008-08-25T12:50:27Z

The Quidditch Department is missing some match logs. Please check your IRC logs and if you find any of the missing logs send them to the Quidditch Board.

Thank you!

About Online Safety

pr_dyb — 2008-08-22T22:42:21Z

Please read the following very carefully (everyone, and yes, you too).

It is very important that you follow the basic rules for keeping yourself safe on the internet. Do not take this lightly, I know it is so easy to get lazy because nothing ever happens but if something should happen it will be too late to make these changes.

Real Names: Do not use your full real name for signing up anywhere if you can avoid it. On HOL you are strongly encouraged not to use your full real name but to make up a name for your HOL identity. We do not know if you (accidentally or not) used your real name, so if you have done that please send me a HOL Message with a new name and it will get changed for you.

Passwords: This is VERY important. Do not use the same password everywhere on the internet, do never use your email or bank (duh!) or IM password for HOL or anywhere else. If you think there is nothing that anyone could gain from phishing your password you might be right now, but don't even get started with this bad habit. The single most cause for criminal "hacking" etc. is that the bad guys get your password from somewhere else and just try it in "important places." You also never know how secure the servers on third party sites are - they might even distribute the data they collect from you for money.

For HOL everyone should please use a unique password that you use nowhere else. If you are afraid that you will forget it this then write it in your notebook, use Firefox which remembers all passwords for you, there are also many software tools that keep track of your passwords etc., please don't be lazy here. Also, you should change your password regularly. If you haven't done that on HOL for a while, please go now and click on the Change HOL Password link on your profile.

HOL Accounts: We have rules on HOL and we are doing very well with these rules for many years. One of the main things is that you are allowed only one account, and it really bothers me that our admins are so busy with deleting dozens of doubles every day.

Now is this related to "online safety?" Whenever you browse the internet you have an IP address attached to your computer. This address is public and it reveals already quite a lot about you (your country, state, town, service provider etc.). Your browser even does a lot more than that: anyone who maintains a website you are visiting can not only see pretty much everything about your computer but also where you came from, and they could even check which other websites you do usually visit. And now imagine what anyone could do with that information if they also have your real name or password.

But regarding double accounts which get deleted... there is no point in complaining or making up something that you wouldn't have made several accounts on HOL. We can easily prove that two accounts are made by the same person (unless you use special software or thought carefully about avoiding to leave any traces beforehand). It's just really a bit annoying if there are so many...

Thanks for reading this all. Now please do not forget, if you accidentally used your real name here, message me with your new name and it will get changed. If you haven't changed your HOL password in a while or if your current password is not uniquely used on HOL, please change it right now. And believe me, I am certainly the last person who gets paranoid about "online risks" and such, but I want everyone on HOL to be safe and these things are really basic, elemental precautions everyone should take online, especially but not exclusively if you are still underage.

Improved Member List and House Multiplier

pr_dyb — 2008-08-20T21:13:30Z

When you click on the Members link to do a search for HOL Members of all sorts you will now get improved results. In small print under the main entry you will see something like "Last seen on August 20, 2008 in the Library" or "Last seen on August 13, 2008 looking at Profiles". And if someone hasn't been logged in at all since last year you will read "Has not been seen since October 2007."

So this improvement serves two main purposes:

First, as every summer, we get a lot of sign-ups who just do the sorting and never come back. Or people who signed up multiple accounts and we did not catch them. All these people cause a lot of work for their house staff and prefects as they might try to contact them when they are not really here. Now everyone can sort through the members list and see if that person has been on HOL recently or not really at all.

Most importantly, those "ghosts" should not count for the House multiplier, no matter if they just signed up yesterday - who doesn't even log in can not sign up for classes or even be active for their house. The House multiplier is there to make sure that the house whose active students do on average win the most points will win the House Cup. Naturally not all Houses have the same number of students or active students and without this multiplier the smaller houses (Hufflepuff, Slytherin) would not stand a chance against bigger Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.

Now we do usually count as active anyone who has won points for their House in the past 90 days but at the beginning of a new school year this system doesn't work - none of the new First Years would count as active and the active students from last year can not win points during summer holidays so they would become passive when they are not.

In the past this problem was handled like this: all new sign-ups were considered active, all active students from last term as well, and also everyone who won some points since the start of term would be set to active again. This was not an ideal solution but it should have evened out between the houses pretty much. However, many students who were not really active would have been carried on until November 1st when the 90-days rule came into play for the new school year.

However, I have changed this now to a better system which I believe is much more fair for all. Everyone was set to passive, no matter if oldie or newbie - then everyone who logged in to HOL in the past 90 days was set to active, as we can safely assume that most of these people are active, and from September 1st on everyone who wins points and who is currently passive will also count for the multiplier from the moment they win these points on.

These changes led to many of the new sign-ups now showing up as passive in the member lists. If they decide to become active (to sign-up for classes) they will have to log in to HOL and become active automatically. All of the old members who have been here at the end of last school year are active as well, as the end of term is not yet 90 days away. But should they be gone now they will be "passive" soon. Funny enough, all these changes did not have much of an effect on the actual multiplier - I believe the biggest change for any of the houses was 0.03 points.

From November on everyone who has not won any points this school year will be passive (not count for their house multiplier) no matter of they log in to HOL ten times a day or not.

Prefects and up can see the current lists of active and passive students in the staff room. Whenever anyone calls the actives page all falsely active members will be set to passive automatically.

Upcoming Arts Project

co483 — 2008-08-20T17:18:17Z

Greetings, HOLers,

Starting August 20 — meaning today, right now! — there is a new Art Department project: My Summer HOLidays.

The project is open until the end of September, so you should have plenty of time to come up with something wonderful.

If you have any questions regarding the project, there's a thread in the Art Department discussion forum for just that purpose; you can find it here.

Here's what the project entails:

School traditions die hard, and one of those traditions is the annual report on one's summer vacation. This time, though, we're having some fun. Instead of writing about vacation, we're depicting it with pictures! Exciting, right?

Make a creative image (minimum dimensions 250 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall, maximum dimensions 640 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall; maximum file size 100 KB) of any sort -- photograph, illustration, some combination of the two, derivative -- showing what you did for your summer vacation.

Get those creative juices flowing and start creating!

Staff Changes

pr_dyb — 2008-08-20T11:36:19Z

Prof. Anya Chutney has left the HOL Head Office for personal reasons:

"I'm stepping away from the Head Office and returning to just being a Professor and Head of House. At this moment in my life, I need to focus on real life, Hufflepuff, and my classes. My stress level has risen over the past year, and even though this is a hard decision for me to make--it's something I need to let go of. :)

I hope everyone will understand -- and, I want all of you to know what a pure joy it has been working with you in the Head Office. I feel blessed to have have had the opportunity to work alongside such amazing and talented folks as yourselves. I'll obviously still be around and active at HOL, and if anyone needs my help for any reason, I'm always here."

Thank you Anya for all your hard work in the HO for the past years, and I am sure everyone will fully understand that as real life always comes first you need to cut back on the work (and it is a lot of work the Head Office has to do).

Prof. Allie de Mauvaisefoi has stepped down as Deputy Head of Slytherin, also for personal reasons ("the next term is going to be quite busy for me in real life"). Allie says "I still love HOL and I still love Slytherin and I will return in January hopefully." Her Witch Trials class has been cancelled for the autumn term.

Orphen Eyeless Cain has been promoted to professor. Welcome to the staff, Orphen.

Unrelated to these staff changes... everyone should now see My Discussions in their right hand menu, clicking this will open a page with all the Discussion Areas that apply to you: General areas, special areas where applicable (HOL Board, staff etc.) and class discussion boards for classes you take, teach or assist.

Some Changes to Classes

pr_dyb — 2008-08-18T21:30:13Z

This is going to be a longer post, please be seated.

I've completely revamped the way classes are presented on HOL because there was really some room for improvements.

The links on the main Classes page do no longer all go to the class room but to a new Class Start Page, where you can see the status of this class, how popular it is, how many members it has, and how active it is. The always 50 latest points submissions are also listed there, which should be helpful to see if/when your homework is being graded.

You can no longer find email links on the Classes page (or in most other places on HOL). Please use HOL Messages instead. Spambots from all around the globe are constantly scanning the internet for harvesting as many email addresses they can get - and well, besides that this is unpleasant, there is no reason anymore to publish anyone's email on HOL - Class Professors who want to get email from their students can publish this on their class websites.

Class Professors can now enable a discussion board for their class in their class offices. I personally believe (although not everyone shares this view) that having the class discussion directly on the class page is much much more convenient than having a Class Forum on the main HOL Forum. The idea behind this is that all students can access the discussion areas for their classes from the main classes page and also from the new start pages, don't have to login somewhere else, don't have to search for news and won't get bothered with xx other Class Forums for classes they do not take.

This is optional and the discussion areas can be opened and closed by the class professor at any time. There are (or will be) other such discussion boards in areas where they make sense, like the HOL Board or the HOL Library. You shouldn't have to go and log in somewhere else to discuss issues from the area you are currently on and all users and visitors of any HOL Department should be able to follow the current discussions right from within this area.

One last thing for all class professors: if you set your class assistants in the class office please add only the HOL ID in the form field, not any extra information like the name or house. Class Assistants are now listed on the new Start Pages with their full info and links.

And I used Professor Gaidin's class as an example for the links in this post as it looks like his class will be great fun (I signed up!)

The Wizarding Times Wants YOU!

pr_chu — 2008-08-18T00:28:43Z

Greetings new and returning students and staff! Term starts very soon, class sign-ups are underway, and we are getting back in the swing of things!

That means we'll have our first issue of the Wizarding Times (The Hufflepuff Magazine) up (hopefully) in September.

I'm putting out a call for participants! Do you write Poetry or Fanfic? Would you be willing to interview new/returning Professors/STs about themselves and their classes? How would you feel about running a poll and doing a bit of research on the answers? Do you do graphic work or draw pictures?

These are the kinds of things (and folks) we are looking for at the moment. If you have any other ideas, well, we welcome those, too!

Please contact me via PM or HOL Message *only* as my e-mail tends to get flooded. :) If you do creative writing or art, be prepared to show me examples.

We do give points for participation (HOL Wide). We DO NOT need any other editors at the moment. *nods*

So, come out, come forward, and come be on staff or just an occasional writer/creator for the WT.

Wizarding Times Participation Points:
Article: 10 points per published submission (maximum 20 pts. at any time)
Art: 5/10 points per published submission (maximum 20 pts.)
Fiction: 5 points per published submission (maximum 10 pts.)
Editors: Up to 30 points (At discretion of leaders)

Class Sign-Up is Open Now

pr_dyb — 2008-08-17T23:05:25Z

You can now sign up for up to five classes for the next term. Sign-up for all classes will stay open at least until September 1st, so there is no need to hurry. Many classes will probably stay open for sign-ups until the end of September unless they get full early.

Happy days :)

Let's Write Some Books!

pr_dyb — 2008-08-13T16:58:08Z

The HOL Library has a new long-time project: Collaborative Book Writing.

We are writing our own versions of all the Harry Potter canon books and beyond. The finished books will be turned into items which can be bought from Flourish & Blott's, and most books can also be borrowed from the HOL Library.

All books are divided into chapters which are being written separately, so each book can have multiple authors. You can claim a chapter for a book you like and by doing so you promise to submit the finished chapter within seven days. As soon as your chapter was reviewed by the library staff you (or someone else) can claim to write the next chapter, and so on... A book for which a new chapter is currently being written is locked for more claims and you can also claim no more than three chapters at a time.

All submissions have to be on topic and if you are not writing the very first chapter for a book your chapter should work as a follow-up to those that have already been approved. You can read all current chapters of a book before you claim to write the next one. The library staff can reject your submission for several reasons and you will get a log entry if that happens.

Your chapter should be 300 - 500 words long. This is a guideline and not a rule but it is very likely that a shorter submission will not get accepted (as this project is house points relevant) and you also shouldn't write too much at a time. You can claim to write the always next chapter of a book as soon as your current submission has been approved.

All submissions have to follow HOL rules for language and content. Also good language is very important, you are writing for a book which will be read by hundreds of people and this requires more care than posting a comment or throwing out some lines in a chatroom. Please mind your spelling and the fundamental rules of the English language (capitalization, sentences, paragraphs, absolutely no netspeak). The library staff has strict instructions to reject (delete) submissions that require too much editing.

Please make paragraphs and do not submit one huge blob of text. You can use basic html for formatting your text (such as <b>, <i> or <u>), but most other html tags will be stripped. Please do not add images unless you think this is absolutely necessary.

Every chapter submission that is approved by the library staff is worth 10 House Points (Points won during HOLidays will be show up on your profiles on September 1st).

I saw many of you have already discovered this project, and Barbara has already written the introduction to "The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore" - you guys are faster than the speed of light :)

Introducing the HOL Board

pr_dyb — 2008-08-12T22:05:42Z

Something that I wanted to add to HOL for a long time has now come to life

The HOL Board gives everyone a chance to get involved in decisions that affect the whole school, whether they can make live meetings or not. The outcome of the polls is not binding to the Headoffice but they are trying to follow it where ever they can (sometimes legal or canon reasons might speak against the decision of the HOL Board).

Prefects are representing the students in their house, so they are really strongly encouraged to participate in all polls. All votes are public and not anonymous, everyone should be able to see what the others think about a controversial topic.

Who is on the HOL Board?

· all HOL Professors (active, non emeritus)
· all HOL Staff (caretaker, groundskeeper, admins, department heads and deputies)
· all Head Students (active, not passive)
· all Prefects (active, not passive)
· all Post Graduate Students (active, not passive)

There are currently 72 members on the HOL Board, all of them can vote in the topics. Students whose accounts are set to passive will no longer be able to participate in the HOL Board, that is until they win some points again so they return to active status.

What is being voted on?

Basically the HOL Board votes on controversial issues. A new topic can be added by HOL members with user level 30 (Deputy Head of House) or higher. If you want to add something to the Board but have a lower level then please bring it up to your Head of House or Deputy. Topics are ideally of interest for the whole of HOL and not house internal things or relatively unimportant matters that can be decided on elsewhere. If you want to know the opinion of HOL on something bigger then feel free to bring this to the HOL Board.

The first topic that is up for decision is the number of O.W.L.'s that should be required for 7th Years to take their N.E.W.T.'s. We have never really decided on this matter and for now all 7th Years will need only 2 passed O.W.L.'s for taking their N.E.W.T's, but that will change depending on the decision of the HOL Board.

Quidditch Try-Outs

pr_dyb — 2008-08-12T11:51:36Z

The Quidditch season begins mid-November and if you want to play on your house team (which is usually not an easy task) you will have to take some action now. All four teams are usually holding try-outs over the summer, attached you find some information about your team:

Gryffindor: For further and future information regarding tryouts for Gryffindor's Quidditch team, please check the Gryffindor Common Room and/or the Quidditch Forum in the HOL Forum. We look forward to seeing you at tryouts!

Hufflepuff: Are you in Hufflepuff and want to play Quidditch? The team captain is me, Tarma Amelia Black and Lilly Stargazer is my co-captain. Check this link for more information and PM us if you have a question!

Slytherin: All Snakes interested in joining the Slytherin Quidditch Team can view the tryout information here in the Dungeons. Please contact Faye Roderick for more information or to set up tryout session. You can also visit SQT channel at #slythquid on IRC.

Double Sign-Ups

pr_dyb — 2008-08-08T17:11:49Z

Dear new students,

I must bring up this issue again because there are apparently many new members who have chosen to ignore the first paragraph in the HOL Admission Office:

You are allowed only one HOL account per person, or in other words... you are NOT allowed to play more than one character in our school. Double Sign-ups will be banned or deleted.

You can not create two or more accounts. You can not quit the first one you created (because you were unhappy with the house the Sorting Hat put you in) and sign-up more accounts until you hit the house you want to be in. The Sorting Hat can not be tricked like that. Your first account will be the only one that can stay, whether you like it or not. All additional accounts that can clearly be identified as doubles will be deleted and your first account can be reopened if you quit it already.

Sorry folks, but at HOL you do not choose your house, the Sorting Hat does it for you.

New Gryffindor Head of House

pr_dyb — 2008-08-06T09:32:46Z

The Headoffice is happy to announce the new Head of Gryffindor:

Prof. Missa Matz

We believe that Missa will be doing a wonderful job leading the biggest house in HOL. Please give her all your support and a warm welcome.

Prof. Hatshepsut Nahyan left HOL to pursue other opportunities in the wizarding world. Thank you, Hat, for everything you have done in the past years for Gryffindor and HOL. Good luck for everything and we hope you will stop by for some tea and cookies at HOL whenever you are in the area again.

New Library Project / Quidditch Joke

pr_esc — 2008-08-04T12:38:46Z

One day in the Three Broomsticks, Prof. Kimil was trying to hit an annoying snitch that was fluttering around his head with his broom, when suddenly Opal (who just reffed a game) came in and yelled...

Of course this will never happen... or it will?

Check the new Library project and write your own quidditch joke.

New Member of the HOL Head Office!

pr_rhi — 2008-08-02T09:26:09Z

Please join me in congratulating Prof. Ulol Kimil, newly-appointed member of the Hogwarts Online Head Office! I look forward to the wisdom and humour (and also milk and Dark Mark cookies) he will bring to the HO!

*tosses never-ending confetti*

December 4th is the Day

pr_dyb — 2008-07-31T14:47:54Z

"The true jewel of this new edition is the enlightening and comprehensive commentary (including extensive footnotes!) by Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore."

Great News! Not really HOL-related but I just HAD TO post this here.

Wand Shop

pr_dyb — 2008-07-30T13:47:45Z

Link: Wand Shop

Sorry, Voldemort can get quite demanding.

Classes for 2008/2009

pr_chu — 2008-07-29T01:51:08Z

The Head Office is still busy at work deciding on a few final classes. However, as the classes are approved (and as Professors and Student Teachers have time), our staff is advertising what is being taught next term!

So, keep an eye out on The Class Advertisement Thread. Profs and STs will be putting up more information as we get closer to term!

Only Student Teachers and Profs can reply here--so, please don't reply.

Class Sign-up HAS NOT Begun. That date is on the HOL Timeline. *nods*

Artists Wanted

pr_dyb — 2008-07-28T23:04:16Z

Good evening :)

I am looking for 1-2 artists who enjoy making icon-size graphics for Hogsmeade and possibly other places. We will need many, many of them... books, potions, rings, lockets and the like.

Specs: all graphics must be 40x40px transparent gif or png and they must fit into the theme of wizardry/Hogwarts (in other words: fauvism, office style or anime do not work so well *g*)

If you are interested in helping with this, if you are willing to make many such graphics, if you think you really enjoy making these icons... please make one book icon and one potion icon and send me a HOL message with the links (or email works as well if you message me here that you sent an email).

Thaaaank you.

Unrelated but maybe also interesting: The Wand Shop is open for business.

New Hufflepuff Staff

pr_chu — 2008-07-27T18:38:12Z

I'd like to give a warm welcome to some new staff members for Hufflepuff House:

Post Graduate Felicia Hartwick is now our Deputy Head of House!

Kath Snape and Neville Prongs have both graciously accepted the job of Prefect.

I'm so very proud of each and every one of my staff-members and I know that these three amazing folks will only add to our wonderful and dedicated staff in Hufflepuff. So, if you see them around, give them a round of applause, will you?

--Anya

Changes to the Staff of Gryffindor

pr_hat — 2008-07-25T22:38:08Z

After many days of beating my head against the side of the Gryffindor tower and running the house alone, I have come to the decision that I cannot run it all by my lonesome. My staff helps enormously but I still needed a second in command. I have searched hi and lo in the Gryff house to find someone who I could trust with the secrets of Gryffindor and some people when approached ran away from me screaming. The one person who has always been there helping without question has been Missa Matz, and I didn't even realize that she already knew the most important secrets of the house anyway, some of which she taught me on my first day as a student.

I've always had my eye on Mrs. Matz but wanted to wait until she had finished her educational career here at HOL, but now I do believe that she has graduated. A task that is very hard to do.

Without further ado, and gnawing your ear off anymore, I'd like to announce that Missa Matz has accepted my offer of being the Deputy Head of House of Gryffindor. When you see her in the halls please treat her as you do all the rest of the deputies, but try not to hurt her too much. She did play 7 years if quidditch after all.

Prof. Hatshepsut Nahyan

Some News about Hogsmeade and Beyond

pr_dyb — 2008-07-24T11:51:51Z

As some of you have already discovered the Thrift Store (and bought its entire inventory), I think I should talk a bit about what's planned for Hogsmeade.

First of all, the entire Hogsmeade part of HOL is optional, you do not have to participate in any of this if you are just interested in school and classes, but if you want to do any of the fun things in Hogsmeade you will have to be active in your classes and the HOL departments as most of the activities will require Beans. One of the reasons behind all these new features (besides me being a bid kid who enjoys fun things like that) is to give you another strong incentive to do your class work and reward the professors for all the work they put into these classes with staying active.

You do already know about the Hogsmeade Herald, the official newspaper of HOL Hogsmeade that will be launched soon. It will have stories about both HOL happenings and Hogsmeade events and gossip. This includes fictional stories, reports, opinions, even classified ads. It is set up to be very interactive, incl. letters to the editor and commenting. First principle is freedom of speech and opinion, there won't be censorship unless the content is inappropriate (language basically).

The Thrift Store is a place where you can sell items you don't need for instant Beans. Those items will be available for buying again at a lower price than in the other Hogsmeade stores. Say someone wanted to turn their Chocolate Frogs into Beans rather than opening them, you could buy those same frogs from the Thrift Store for a lower price than in Honeydukes. The Thrift Store is already open but hasn't been announced yet because there aren't many items that you could buy or sell. All you people who bought the Alihotsy Leaves and Mandrakes I put in there... what do you want to do with this? They won't be any useful until the Potions Lab is implemented.

HOL will have a Greenhouse where you can grow herbs and magical plants. You need to buy seedlings, plant them, take care of them, and after a while you will be able to harvest. Those items will be useful for several things, above all making potions - when the potions lab has been added (not anytime soon...). Until then you can sell your harvested goods for a small Bean profit to the Thrift Store.

I am pretty sure I can sense the question that is forming in your head... what do we need potions for in HOL? Right... let me tell you just that much for now: drinking a strengthening solution comes in handy before engaging in a wizard duel. You could even throw a Confusing Concoction at your opponent.

That's right - HOL will get a Dueling Club. This should be great fun if it works out as planned (and dueling will not even cost beans). But for a wizard duel we do first need the most important tool - a wand. I am currently working on the Wand Shop which should be open next week. There are currently 8064 possible combinations of wood, core and length so it's quite unlikely that two of you will get the same wand. Each combination has different effects, for example Ash is associated with magic and healing while Mahogany will increase your strength. The wand chooses the wizard and the first wand will be free for all active members from the Wand Shop.

The whole dueling system is very complex and it will take a while until it is finished. We need spells, charms and hexes first unless you planned on sticking your wand up your opponent's nose. It will also need thorough beta testing so don't expect the dueling club to open anytime soon after you got your wands. I just want to let you know where this is all heading to.

Hogsmeade will have all the known shops and locations which will unfold one after another... Zonko's, a book store, Gladrags, Honeydukes and so on... and I hope Professor Olivia will still remember that I hired her for running the Hog's Head when the pub will open this fall.

Serpentine Summer Project!

pr_adm — 2008-07-23T15:23:21Z

Dearest Slytherins,

In relation to the Dungeons summer celebration, all Slytherins are invited to sign up for the Serpentine Summer Project !

You will compete in a team with your fellow house members to finish the challenging tasks and getting to know each other too in the process!

Just head over HERE and sign up your name to participate in this activity !

The sign ups will be closed on August 31st, so hurry up and put down your name!

For further details, please stalk your prefects :)

Ice Cream Cones

pr_dyb — 2008-07-23T12:24:55Z

To celebrate the 104th anniversary of the invention of the ice cream cone I have acquired a huge pack of catnip balls and everyone who has HOL pets should now find 2 balls for each pet in their treasures. I would have got you all ice cream but after having visited the Owlery I figured that you could very well use some catnip.

So if your pet is unhappy or depressed feed it one catnip ball and it will love you again and come out of hiding.

During summer holidays your pets need more attention than usual as you can't earn any points or awards when the classes are closed. If you do well in school your pets will be proud of you, they just don't understand the concept of "holidays", I'm afraid. So don't forget to give your pets some attention if you want them to be happy.

Completely unrelated but still important: there was a problem with creating new bean pouches which has now been fixed. All new First Years can now create their bean pouches again and receive 10 Beans for free.

Ravenclaw Orientation Camp

pr_esc — 2008-07-21T22:03:38Z

The Ravenclaw Summer Orientation Camp sign-ups are open, but will be closing in a few more days.

Games, quests and activities have been planned, and everyone is getting excited.

The camp itself will start the beginning of August, so any Eagles that are interested in signing up should do so soon!

Just a note that all Eagles are able to participate - we just have some activities that are geared towards helping the new Eaglets find their way around!

Hufflepuff Orientation

pr_chu — 2008-07-21T20:15:12Z

Hufflepuff Orientation 2008 has begun! All Badgers are invited to join in on the fun! Orientation will run throughout the summer, ending right before term starts.

Wizarding Times

pr_chu — 2008-07-19T19:13:37Z

The Wizarding Times last edition for this school year is now live! What is the WT? It's the Hufflepuff newspaper, of course.

We've got some wonderful gems in this new edition, so The Wizarding Times

Some Minor Changes

pr_dyb — 2008-07-19T11:33:42Z

Good morning HOL :)

The 'year' has now changed to 2008/09 throughout the site. 2007/08 is closed now. Send any late changes to the points or quills database to me via HOL Message only.

Heads of House and Deputy Heads of House can now group message their new First Years. This might be helpful for sending reminders or newbie Newsletters or whatever you do in your house for new members.

Post Graduate Students are now listed on the house pages right below Professors.

In the future logs and messages will be automatically deleted after four months. We do not have infinite space on the server so this is necessary. All HOL logs, pet logs, and HOL messages that are older than 120 days will be deleted from the server automatically with the daily clean-up.

We will populate the classes roster for next school year very soon. You will get a HOL Message from the Head Office both when your class application was approved or rejected. This will not all happen at the same time, please be patient, we will add classes from last year's professors or student teachers first as those can usually be approved without much work.

Have a great weekend.

Hogsmeade Herald Deadline Tomorrow

st_pix — 2008-07-19T09:45:29Z

Just a reminder:

Anyone wanting to apply for a position in the Hogsmeade Herald (the official newspaper for the upcoming HOL Hogsmeade) needs to send in their application by midnight HOL time tomorrow.

The previous post: http://hol.org.uk/blog.php?post=87

We are also looking for house reporters -- one very active person from each house reporting on their respective house's news. The deadline for these applications is not tomorrow, but we would like to get the ball rolling on this as soon as possible.

Email all applications and inquiries to hogsherald@gmail.com

Thanks!

New Head Students

pr_rhi — 2008-07-19T02:59:42Z

It is on the behalf of the Head Office and with great pleasure that I announce the HOL Head Students for the upcoming school year -- Cassandra Lobiesk and Mark Mandrake!

*tosses confetti over all*

Graduation

pr_dyb — 2008-07-18T00:14:07Z

Graduation has been processed now. Check your logs, some of you should find some gifts in their treasures :)

If you passed the year you have been advanced to the next year now (also in the HOL Forum your user group has changed). Our 15 HOL Graduates should have received their diplomas.

Congratulations to all students who have passed the year!

If you haven't advanced to the next school year but you believe you should have, please send me a HOL message and I will check your case a.s.a.p.

Congratulations Hufflepuff!!

pr_dyb — 2008-07-17T15:10:45Z

The winner of the House Cup 2007/08 is Hufflepuff

Congratulations Badgers! For now astonishing five years in a row Hufflepuff students won the most points for their house and the most prestigious trophy of HOL goes to Hufflepuff again. Truly very remarkable in every aspect!

The final standings of the House Cup 2007/08 are:

Hufflepuff - 114,318 Points
Ravenclaw - 112,138 Points
Slytherin - 95,471 Points
Gryffindor - 87,530 Points

Congratulations to all four houses. Never before in the history of HOL so many house points have been awarded. If you are interested in previous years' results then check out the HOL History Page.

Every one of you who has won points for their house has contributed to this success, as you can see from the close race between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff - every single point counts in the end. But I also want to acknowledge two students individually in this post because they hold a top position for the full school year:

Rosanna Gullveig of Ravenclaw won the most individual points of all students this year. 3880 Points are the most a Second Year has ever won for their house. The overall record of most points in a school year is still held by Gryffindor's Missa Matz with incredible 4563 Points in HOL 2006/07.

The best of last year's newbies (aka new First Years) was Castora Grimsby who won 3178 Points for Gryffindor. Congratulations, Castora!

Graduation will be processed later tonight so everyone has enough time to celebrate!

N.E.W.T. Results

pr_dyb — 2008-07-17T11:00:42Z

We now have the first 15 students who have successfully completed their seven years of HOL education and passed their Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests (N.E.W.T.'s). Congratulations to all of you, it takes a lot to make it through seven full years, to meet all the requirements for advancing every year and the N.E.W.T. exam was certainly not easy.

You will receive your Diploma of Graduation later today and you will move on to Post Graduate status where you can either further improve your wizard education by taking more classes or move on to join your house staff and become a professor. Whatever direction you will choose, I hope you will stay for another seven years at HOL :)

Here are the full N.E.W.T. results:

Missa Matz, Gryffindor - 102%
Leah Samson, Ravenclaw - 99%
Felicia Hartwick, Hufflepuff - 94%
Belle Black, Hufflepuff - 93%
Anne Damhsoir, Hufflepuff - 90%

Sindor Aloyarc, Ravenclaw - 85%
Vladmic Clwyd, Slytherin - 76%
Hermione Pena, Gryffindor - 75%
Ororo Granger, Ravenclaw - 75%
Claudia Broom, Slytherin - 72%

Seven Ashitaka, Gryffindor - 70%
Rogue Granger, Gryffindor - 64%
Krystal Jester, Ravenclaw - 54%
Alanna Pierce, Gryffindor - 53%
Marie Alexander, Hufflepuff - 48%

Professor Applications Are Closing

pr_dyb — 2008-07-16T20:49:51Z

One week from tomorrow the professor applications will close. If you don't have your calendar by hand... the last day you can post your application for teaching a class next term, whether as student teacher or professor is next Thursday, July 24th.

We are looking to finalize next year's roster on the last weekend in July, so soon after you should know which exciting classes HOL will have to offer for the Autumn Term 2008/09 which begins on September 1st. Sign-up for classes will start on August 18th.

If your new HOL Account was deleted...

pr_dyb — 2008-07-16T15:24:06Z

...then you most probably did not follow the naming rules. I will repeat them for you all now:

All HOL'ers from last year do not have to sign-up again. Your HOL-name must be firstname - lastname (eg. John Doe), not some one-word nicks or some nonsense as "Hermione43" or "OhMyMalfoy" - it must be a name. Offensive names are not allowed. All Harry Potter character names are not allowed in HOL - no "Oliver Wood" or "Ron Weasley". Invalid names for HOL are also: any impersonation of a celebrity (Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, George Bush, Katie Couric), a name of a well-known fictional character (Artemis Fowl, John Locke, Rory Gilmore, Bruce Wayne).

Ergo we had to delete some new student files today, incl. Esme Cullen and Scorpious Malfoy. You can find the complete list of rejected accounts here.

Signing up for the Hufflepuff Common Room!

pr_chu — 2008-07-15T22:47:56Z

Greetings new Badgers (those would be new Hufflepuffs). The Hufflepuff staff is working hard on getting a message out to each and every new member of HOL. For now, however, I’d like to greet you here and give you a bit of information that’s important for you to know!

While it is not mandatory that you come to The Sett (http://thebadgersett.us/forum/) which is what a Badger calls his home and we like to call the Hufflepuff Common Room), you might find it fun to meet your fellow Badgers and participate in some of the activities that we have there.

If you have any questions, please contact a Hufflepuff Prefect (*points below*)

(Everyone at the Sett has their own personal Prefect for any questions or problems that they might have. Everyone is sorted alphahuff-like and it goes by your FIRST name.)

Prefect Narcissa Heart - A - B
Deputy Head of House Felicia Hartwick - C - D
Post Graduate Anne Damhsoir - E - J
Prefect Tarma Black - K - L
Prefect Rorey Padfoot - M - P
Prefect Askeron Kyle - R - S
Prefect Mopsy Prewett - T - Z
(If you meet a Badger who forgot who their own Prefect is, you can refer him or her to that list so they remember!)

Welcome to HOL and Hufflepuff! We look forward to getting to know each and every one of you!

Sincerely,

Prof. Anya Chutney
Head of House, Hufflepuff
Deputy Headmistress HOL

N.E.W.T.'s Close Tomorrow

pr_dyb — 2008-07-15T15:40:41Z

Now that almost everybody has taken their N.E.W.T.'s we will close the exams tomorrow. The only two candidates missing are Venefica vom Lehn of Hufflepuff and Mirabella Nevlome of Gryffindor. I heard rumours that they are both currently hunting dragons in Mongolia, but should they come back from this before September they can contact the Head Office for an individual N.E.W.T. appointment.

N.E.W.T. results, House Cup Winner and Graduation should be announced on Thursday, unless something unexpected is coming up.

New General Chat Room: #hol

pr_dyb — 2008-07-14T16:11:29Z

The official general IRC channel for all-HOL chat has been changed to #hol now. All the links will now point to this room instead of old #hpgalleries, which is no longer an official channel for HOL.

Thanks to everyone who joined and participated in our IRC meeting last night. Great turn out, 3 1/2 hours... but we have accomplished a lot in this meeting.

The Chat Ops Committee has been elected (details on the HOL Contacts page) and the chat rules and guidelines have been discussed thoroughly. There is now a link from the main page to the partly revised HOL Chat rules and guidelines, please have a look at this page.

If you are very interested in every detail that has been discussed last night -- you will find the complete meeting log at the end of that new page.

New Library Project / Memories

pr_esc — 2008-07-14T11:16:29Z

Believe it or not, it’s been SEVEN years since HOL has first formed. Students and professors have come and gone. Various contests, events, games, competitions, and stories that can be told around a circle have taken place. The big question is: What do YOU remember the most about your time at HOL?

Click here and share with us

Welcome New Students

pr_dyb — 2008-07-13T12:55:52Z

Welcome to HOL!

If you have just joined please sign-up for the HOL Forum and additionally for your Common Room. Click on the Houses tab in the menu and follow the links to your house and common room.

Important pages for you to check are the HOL Handbook and the Timetable where you can find important dates like Start of Term and Class Sign-Ups. Please read those pages before you ask around in the forums, most questions will be answered in the handbook especially.

We are now in summer holidays, that means you can not win points for your house because the HOL House Cup is based on the school year and we are all in the well-deserved summer break now. However, there will be open contests in the Library and Art Department during the summer and you will also be able to post your personal Getting Into Harry Potter Story and HOL Trading Card as soon as the 2007/08 school year has been properly closed (takes 1-2 weeks from now).

You are very welcome to join us all in the HOL Chatrooms to get to know your new school mates. You can access the HOL Chat via the form here on the main page or - recommended - by using your own IRC client like MIRC (there is a section in the handbook explaining how that all works).

I hope you enjoy the HOL experience and will stick around until 2015 when you will hopefully graduate the school. Sounds far away right? Keep in mind we do currently graduate our first Seventh Years and they are all on HOL since Summer 2001.

See you on the HOL grounds soon.

HOL Chatroom Meeting - Sunday 9pm HOL Time

pr_dyb — 2008-07-12T13:08:39Z

On IRC in #titan - everyone is invited, encouraged to come. If you decide to join the meeting please be constructive at all times. Student sign-up will begin tomorrow and I do not want the same problems to occur that I've been told from many people during the previous sign-up periods.

Topics:
1. changing of the official HOL Chatroom to #hol
2. behaviour in chatrooms
3. language in chatrooms
4. channel operators
5. COPPA, privacy and child protection

The following is up for discussion, please read this before joining the meeting tomorrow.

1. The official chat room should change to #hol. The current #hpgalleries is a relic from 2000 and hpgalleries.com does not exist anymore for about five years. It is not clear especially for newbies that #hpgalleries is THE official HOL channel.

2. Everyone should feel welcome in the chatroom. That includes people who are from non-English speaking countries, people who are used to hanging out on MySpace or Neopets, people who are a bit different or who happen to express themselves differently than the majority, people who just want to have some fun. Channel ops should only interfere if there is a reason to do so, they are encouraged not to actively police the channel and hunt down offenders - that makes everyone feel unwelcome and uncomfortable and it is not necessary.

HOL has the "green light" from the Family Online Safety Institute (click on the ICRA link at the bottom of each HOL page), which is important because it is used for most parental control settings. If we have a green light we are accessible as a child-friendly, child-safe environment.

The label requires:
* No nudity
* No sexual material
* No violence
* Mild expletives
* No potentially harmful activities
* User-generated content such as chat rooms and message boards (moderated)
* This material appears in an educational context

I will break that down for everyone now.

No nudity means there are no pictures of naked people posted anywhere on HOL. This is what this is about. It does not mean that the fact that there is naked skin somewhere under the clothes is a subject that is forbidden to talk about. It is not offensive to talk about nakedness when it is not in a sexual context, ever.

No sexual material means pornography, sexually explicit texts or talk, discussing sexual acts etc. - it does not mean that talking about romantic relationships, kissing, love, feeling attracted to people and so on is a taboo subject anywhere on HOL. In fact, these are integral and important parts of the Harry Potter books and films, and rightly so because romantic feelings are nothing that is restricted to adults or older teenagers as most of you will probably know by experience. People need to be able to talk about what matters most to them, also in HOL channels, as long as it is not vulgar, sexually explicit or similar.

Also, the Harry Potter books and especially also HOL is all about tolerance. This is very, very important to me. I frankly do not care if anyone believes that homosexuality or the words "gay" or "lesbian" are offensive in any way - they are not in the Harry Potter universe (Dumbledore even) and they are not in HOL. We have to be tolerant here and we have to actively express that.

No violence should be pretty self-explanatory but let me try to briefly get into this as well. People who believe "The Simpsons" or "Tom and Jerry" are not suitable for children because they are "too violent" do not share the approach HOL is taking. We are not a site for first graders and we should not act like we were. If we go with standard movie ratings we will find huge gaps (Simpsons go from age 6 to age 16 for example), so this does not work and it doesn't apply here anyway as we do not show movies on HOL. What applies is common sense: violence that is directly potentially harmful for people in the room or forum - explicit imagery, videos, threatening language, bullying - is forbidden. Mentioning a book or movie that is the current box office star but might not be PG rated is certainly not forbidden.

Occasional uses of mild expletives are allowed on HOL. They have always been and they will always be. This is how people, especially maybe teenagers, do communicate - in a not always polite way - and this is perfectly fine. Nobody has a problem with that anywhere on the internet. There are a myriad of phrases that are used in casual spoken language that might fall under "might expletives" but the vast majority of people do not even think about feeling offended by these. "This movie sucks" is a mild expletive, also if you just check out Ron Weasley's language in the Harry Potter movies you find him saying "bloody hell" over and over again. There is also "bitch", "bastard", "arse" and other words in the HP books which are mild expletives.

Using mild expletives in normal chat is certainly not encouraged, but it is forbidden only if people use this to stir trouble or to provoke and disturb the harmony of the chatroom. And it is certainly not forbidden to directly quote from the HP books, whether in a signature or in an IRC quit message.

3. The official language in HOL is English. This means all discussions should be held in English because having a private chat in German or Spanish in the official channel is just rude to all of those who can not follow this language - take it P2P or a private room when not in English. It does not mean that the use of non-English words or phrases is in any way forbidden, and certainly no channel op should ever reprimand a user for saying the most obvious terms in a language other than English. Examples would be "merci", "hola", "auf wiedersehen", and the like. It is also perfectly fine if a non-native speaker who does not know the correct term for something is trying to express himself in his native tongue for having someone help him out. The language rule is not anything that should result in lecturing or reprimanding a user unless there is a whole conversation between 2 or more people held in the public channel.

4. Channel Operators. Reorganisation of the "Channel Ops Committee" if necessary. Does everyone feel represented? Should Channel Ops be active members of HOL? I do currently not know enough about this to make further statements.

5. The single most important thing for ops to take care of is protecting the identity of minors. HOL does not store any personally identifiable data on its servers so we do not know for sure who actually is older than 18 and who is not - therefore these rules do apply to everyone in all areas of HOL: chatrooms, forums, profiles... -- Do not share any personal information -- your name, phone number, address, name of school.

HOL is not responsible for what everyone is doing outside of these areas (MySpace, Facebook, Instant Messengers etc etc) but we do not want anyone to reveal their real life identity in public areas like chat or forum. We have never had problems with this and we do not want to have any ever in the future. Your real name combined with the name of your school is already enough to find out everything about you. Same for street address and phone numbers. We all use HOL Identities and the only thing that currently connects your HOL Identity to real life is your email address. But I am planning to remove access to the email address anywhere on the site if possible - we do have HOL Messages now which are internal only and 100% safe.

This is important as it is the basic line of defense against anyone who might want to intrude the privacy of minors, even for completely harmless intentions nobody should be put into a situation where their identity is revealed to a third party without their consent.

Current HOL IRC Guidelines

1. Use your a variant of your HOL name as your only nickname when you first begin chatting. Offer it freely when asked by the channel operators.
2. English is the official language of the HOL chats.
3. Netspeak is not tolerated.
4. Spam is not tolerated.
5. Do not share any personal information--your name, phone number, address, school or town. Countries and states are fine.
6. The HOL chatrooms also include members in the 9-12 age group--keep your content tasteful and appropriate.
7. Links must be approved by a channel operator before they are shared. Do not advertise private channels in public chats.
8. Spoilers should be kept out of the chatrooms--we will let you know when the ban on spoilers is lifted.

Channel Ops need to know who you are because this is an official channel where you can even win (in theory) or lose points for your house. It is always a good idea to use (a variant) of your HOL identity in chat unless you are that established that everyone knows who you are anyway.

Netspeak and SPAM are not tolerated, but please everybody keep in mind that this guideline was made to secure a fluent conversation, if possible on-topic. This is the ideal case, and all of you know that a chatroom is usually different and conversations come and go and resume or end abruptly. These guidelines are not meant to instantly correct every single use of netspeak or abbreviations. Especially new people who just joined HOL might be used to a different way of expressing themselves and even if they make all the effort the occasional "ur" might slip and this is not a problem at all. If "we" lecture them each and every time they use chatspeak in the channel, they will most likely just go away because they feel unwelcome.

In Guideline #6, the use of the words "tasteful and appropriate" makes this highly subjective which is not what we want. I have explained earlier in this post what appropriate language and what inappropriate (or not tasteful) topics are in the official chatroom - and this is what we should stick to instead of having every op personally decide what is "tasteful and appropriate." Because, let's face it, you ask any two people what this is and you get two different answers, how can a student act accordingly without feeling like walking on raw eggs most of the time.

The Guideline for Links is something I personally do not agree with but I see its merits. However, I will propose that all HOL staff, professors, head students and prefects are exempt from having to run to a channel op to get their link approved. This seems to be vastly overdone as we trust everyone with a position in HOL with running the house, classes, their prefect group etc. but we still believe it's possible they would publicly link in chat to inappropriate websites?

Another issue that I want to address is "forbidden subjects" in HOL - where there seems to be a huge misunderstanding from what I can see. HOL is an entertainment site, it is an online school, it is an international community of many different languages, cultures, religions, political systems and colours. I mentioned before that the first and foremost principle is tolerance which is why it's being said you should not hold discussions about religion, race, politics in HOL. Those tend to get beyond controversial very quickly as they might hurt the other side's innermost beliefs, intentionally or not.

But tolerance also means "freedom of speech" and "freedom of expression" - two very important principles that are both present in the HP books and in HOL. You can talk about anything if you do that in a tolerant (not missionary, not derogatory) way. It's not forbidden to state that you are a born again Christian or support Obama or that you are Jewish or divorced or gay or whatever, really... it just matters if you discredit other people's beliefs or if you do act missionary, intolerant or even racist. We can not turn into a bannable offense what is perfectly normal anywhere in communication but we will ensure that no members of HOL are discredited for their sexual orientation, religion, political belief or race.

Thank you for reading all this.

We will discuss all these matters tomorrow at 9pm HOL-Time (London Time, or 4pm New York, or 10pm Paris) in the IRC Meeting. Everyone is welcome to join the meeting and to make sure you know what we are talking about you should have read this post - but if you made it that far you will most likely have read it.

New HOL House Logos

co483 — 2008-07-10T17:14:28Z

The recent (and successful) Art Department contest to create new house logos for HOL has been voted on, the winners have been determined, and their work has been put forward for all to see.

Three cheers are in order for Cosmo Brown, whose shields you can now see on the individual house pages, as well as profile pages. These are now the official house logos of HOL; use them with abandon! Also deserving a hearty congratulations is Pezzie Wolfe, whose charming emblems can now be seen as the house avatars.

There was a lot of good work in the contest, and we hope to see even more in the future, as the Art Department heads towards its first fully-functioning year.

Missing Quills and Closing Classes

pr_dyb — 2008-07-10T12:37:36Z

This is a reminder that the term is ending and that all classes have to be closed by Saturday. So if you are running a class, whether as student teacher or professor, then please set all current class members to either "graduated" or "not graduated" and when there are no more members in your class office then you can see the close this class (LOCK) button - push it :)

If you set a student to "graduated" you have to award them one quill. To avoid mistakes it is recommended to first award the quills and then to graduate your students. I found several missing quills from the autumn term and awarded them now so everyone has the corrent number of quills when it comes to advancing to the next HOL year.

26 missing Quills for Dreamology 101 (604)
1 missing Quill for Magical Charms and Talismans (601)
1 missing Quill for Magical Musicology (631)
1 missing Quill for Mexican Mythology (576)
1 missing Quill for Traditional Home and Folks Remedies (635)
1 missing Quill for Wands Workshop (577)

All classes that have not been closed by Saturday will be closed by the Headoffice on Sunday. Graduation will not happen before all missing quills have been properly awarded, so no worries if you have one missing at the moment.

Some Interesting Facts

pr_dyb — 2008-07-09T23:14:23Z

I was curious how HOL is doing in the huge new world of Web 2.0, so a few weeks ago I installed a fancy new analytics program and tonight it popped up again from the deep dark dungeons of my brain. It looks pretty good over all, since we launched HOL 4.0 we steadily got more visits - so people seem to like it.

I checked where all these new people were coming from and what I found was quite interesting (and surprising). So I thought I'd share that with everyone and return the favour by backlinking to those sites who sent us the most visitors.

Number one is Wikipedia. We are listed on the Hogwarts page which is nice. But of course we deserve to be listed there after more than seven years.

Number two is Winzi.com, a site I have never heard of before but I can't know everything, heh. It's nice that we are the #1 match of 5,980 for Virtual Hogwarts and I don't mind that the Warner Bros. site is second place.

And the honourable mention goes to the Gryffindor Gazette where we apparently won the "site of the week award" some two years ago. Not that I remember having been told about that award but thanks nonetheless.

This Sunday the Admission Office will open again for new students, so all of you who come here for the first time from these or other references can join the HOL fun in just four more days.

Hogsmeade Herald Staff Members Wanted

st_pix — 2008-07-08T19:19:36Z

Attention all HOL students and staff:

The Hogsmeade Herald, the upcoming newspaper for your neighboring wizarding village, is now accepting staff applications.

Needed: Editors, HOL reporters, Hogsmeade reporters, and Graphic editors.

We will also be needing some freelance writers, so even if you feel that you are incapable of fulfilling the duties of a regular staff member, please feel free to apply.

If interested, send an email with samples of your writing/graphic editing ability to hogsherald@gmail.com before July 20th.

Thanks!

Pix Ouais
HOL Groundskeeper
Hogsmeade Herald Editor-in-Chief

New Library Project / Summer Adventures

pr_esc — 2008-07-07T17:49:11Z

There's a new project in the Library.

Do you remember your old summers? Tell us about how fun (or boring) they were.

Click here

New: Art Galleries

pr_dyb — 2008-07-04T13:54:49Z

We have so many awesome submissions in the Art Department that do not get the exposure they deserve. This is going to change now as I have added a neat gallery page where you can easily browse through all the art in a form that you will probably enjoy:

HOL Art Galleries

When I find some time I will add all submissions from previous HOL Challenges there, because many of you probably haven't seen them at all.

Enjoy the new galleries.

Set and Remove HOL Positions

pr_dyb — 2008-07-03T12:14:39Z

There is a new link in the Staff Room, HOL Positions, where you can (and should) set and remove positions which you are in charge of. You can only see those options that apply to your position, so this post only applies to the following groups:

Heads of House and Deputies

You can set and remove Prefects, Quidditch Captain and Quidditch Co-Captains of your own house. Heads of House can appoint their deputies here. So if there are changes in your house with prefects or quidditch captains you can make these count instantly, no need to post in the forum anymore.

Quidditch Captains and Co-Captains

Quidditch Referee is a new position. Please ask around in your house who is able to or wants to be a referee in an official match next school year and assign those people the referee position. Every house is strongly encouraged to provide several referees to make sure that referee points are distributed evenly and well... all the games need referees. Also, referees will get access to certain areas in the Quidditch Department (like the Question Set Generator) and will be able to test/download a new ref bot, if that works out as planned.

Headoffice

All members of the HOL Headoffice can manage all positions across all houses, incl. Heads of House, Head Students, Department Heads and members of the various committees and boards.

Thank you.

Changes to User Levels and Positions

pr_dyb — 2008-07-01T13:32:39Z

This is going to be a long post, please be seated :)

There will be several (long overdue) changes to how user levels and positions are handled in HOL. Your position(s) determine your user level and with that what you can access on the site. For example a Prefect has user level 5, a Professor is level 20. The higher the level the more you can do (points, awards, editing stuff and so on).

For now seven years we had only one position field which made everything very complicated as you can either be in the Headoffice or a Head of House but not both. You could either be a Prefect or a Fifth Year Student, not both. When you were set Prefect or Head Student your year was actually lost in the database. This was not really a problem as your HOL-ID hints at your current year (assumed you haven't missed one inbetween but that is quite unlikely for Prefects) but now we are running out of numbers so this is no longer the case.

From next school year on (effective earlier, as soon as I have changed everything around) there will be the following general positions:

- Student (First Years to Seventh Years)
- Post Graduate Students
- Professor
- Headmaster (moi!)
- HOL Staff

- Promoted to Staff (former student accounts from professors)
- expelled Students
- quit Students

- Professor Emeritus (profs that do not currently teach)
- Staff Emeritus (former staff, now on vacation or inactive)

As you can see, Prefect, Headboy, Headgirl, Headoffice, Deputy Head of House, Head of House and so on will no longer be a general position and all of you who currently find these on their profiles will be reset to either Student (First to Seventh Years) or Professor.

You will then get additional positions assigned and you can have several of these. You can be a Prefect and Quidditch Captain and Deputy Head of the Music Department and so on... Depending on your position you can also assign positions to others. Heads of House can set their Deputies, Quidditch Captains and Prefects, Quidditch Captains can set Quidditch Referees, the Headoffice can appoint Head Students and Heads of House and so on...

The User Levels will slightly change. There will be a couple of new ones as there will be some new features which require a more flexible access structure. Here is a list of all positions and user levels:

Quit Student (1)
Professor Emeritus (1)
Staff Emeritus (1)
Promoted to Staff (1)
First Year Student (1)
...
Seventh Year Student (1)
Post Graduate Student (2)
Prefect (5)
Head Student (10)
Student Teacher (15)
Professor (20)
Mayor of Hogsmeade (25)
Deputy Head of House (30)
Head of House (50)
HOL Caretaker (90)
HOL Groundskeeper (90)
HOL Headoffice (100)
Headmaster (100)

There are more positions which are not relevant for the user level: President of an official HOL Club, Head or Deputy of a HOL Department, Member of the Quidditch Board or an official Committee, Quidditch Captain, Quidditch Co-Captain, Quidditch Referee.

You should find all your positions on your profile:

My name is Prof. Emerald Dybendahl and I am a House Neutral Headmaster. My current positions in HOL are: HOL Headoffice, Quidditch Board.

If a position you are holding is not listed then please send me a HOL Message and I will correct this.

Headmaster Award for Prof. Anya Chutney

pr_dyb — 2008-06-30T14:58:30Z

The Headmaster Award has been given out to

Professor Anya Chutney

Anya is one of the most hard-working people I've ever met, always reliable, full of dedication for HOL, and you all can't even imagine what all she is doing "behind the curtains" to keep the school running smoothly and sort out problems and questions.

Thank you, Anya!

Take a moment to vote - HOL Idol!

pr_chu — 2008-06-27T15:37:06Z

Please take a moment to vote in the Final Round of HOL IDOL!

And, a special thank you to everyone who has been involved and worked so hard this year!

4.0 Directory Disabled

pr_dyb — 2008-06-26T13:07:54Z

I have now disabled the http://hol.org.uk/4.0/ directory. You can not use this for accessing HOL anymore. I need this as a testing environment for new features but it seems that some of you are using this for general stuff - this leads to errors all around and things not working properly as this is... well... a beta/testing environment.

Please use only the main URL (http://hol.org.uk/) for accessing HOL and update your bookmarks if you have the 4.0 directory somewhere in your files.

Thanks.

Owlery and Catnip

pr_dyb — 2008-06-25T13:57:45Z

I have added the Owlery today where you can see all owls and their current status. You can feed the owls if you feel social or just want to save them from starvation - quite a few are very, very hungry at the moment. Certain owls might go into hiding if they are particularly unhappy, and if you can't find them you can't feed them.

Owls should become more useful next school year, it will be good to have a happy, active owl as a pet.

I have also added Catnip Balls, which you can get in certain places if you're lucky (you'll get a log entry so you don't miss it). All your pets (also owls and toads) will love those herbal balls, so if you ever have problems getting your pet happy and proud again, having a Catnip Ball around will do the trick.

HOL Challenge Winner

pr_dyb — 2008-06-24T15:03:04Z

Winners of the HOL Challenge 2007 are:

Serpens et Aquila (Lalaith Lomion and Prof. Ulol Kimil)

Congratulations! Great work on all ten tasks led to you both winning the Challenge by a wide, wide margin!

Please check the Challenge Office for the final ranking, poll results and all submissions.

All teams who have completed five or more tasks have been awarded real house points now. Both members got one point for every ten Challenge Points earned. You should all find those points on your profile now.

Thank you all for participating in the HOL Challenge!

Feed your Pets today!

pr_dyb — 2008-06-24T13:23:55Z

There was still some glitch in the pets script so only about 10 of the pets were updating their status correctly. That has been fixed. So if you have a HOL Pet make sure you feed it today because it might just run away tomorrow when the script is running properly.

Fair warning :)

OWLS points/Awards

pr_chu — 2008-06-23T19:04:23Z

I have spent some time matching up points and awards for the students of the 2007/2008 OWL class. If the OWL students could check their profiles for me and make sure everything looks correct, I would appreciate it!

The Divination OWL has not come in for grading/awards, yet, so you should not have anything for that one...yet. :)

If there is a problem, please reply here and let me know.

Thank you!

Prof. Chutney

RSS Feed

pr_dyb — 2008-06-21T14:09:05Z

I have added a RSS feed for the HOL Blog (this one!)

So if you have a RSS reader (Google Reader is pretty good), if you want to syndicate HOL News anywere on your site or a service you use (like Netvibes, Google Homepage, MyYahoo and all those customizable fancy web 2.0 things) then add the feed.

http://hol.org.uk/rss/holblog.xml.

Student Teachers (again)

pr_dyb — 2008-06-19T22:44:12Z

Thank you all for commenting on my last post about student teachers. (And Belle, of course I do remember you!)

We introduced student teachers I think five years ago for the reason you mentioned most in your comments: people want to make it through all seven years of HOL as a student and earn points for their house (back then there was also 'playing on the Quidditch team as a reason, but house staff can play on a team now).

That is a very good reason if you are actually active, earn points and quills and especially graduate the year. Sure, all of you who have commented on the last post are doing that and beyond but not everyone who is a student teacher manages to do that.

The biggest problem with student teachers as such is that many are younger than 17 (which is the age limit for becoming a professor), and teaching a class for a full year is a commitment, time-consuming, can be exhausting and annoying and above all real life can get in the way.

Real life always comes first. It's just like that, this here is the internet and family, work, school, love and such are just more important. When you are a teenager and applying for teaching a HOL class, you have no clue what you're going to do with your free time in twelve months - this is an awful long time at your age. I have no doubts that every single student who applies wants to teach and believes that they can manage at that time. But maybe you will have to focus extra hard on school to reach your goals, maybe you fall in love and nothing else matters, maybe you rediscover the virtues of Neopets and maybe you go clubbing 4 nights a week (there might be a million reasons why you have or feel you have no longer time to run your HOL class).

This is not limited to teenagers or student teachers, but true to a greater extent than for those grown-ups who are somewhat settled. And this is the main reason why we do limit student teacher classes, look carefully what the student did in HOL so far and why we usually have to reject your student teacher application if you are just too new or too young. After all there are no student teachers in JK Rowling's Hogwarts.

But having student teachers was the right decision, we had and have many great classes run by students and HOL would be much poorer without them.

In your comments some of you also mentioned that they are disappointed that professors and staff can not earn points for their house. This doesn't work for multiple reasons. First we try to stay true to the Harry Potter Universe whereever we can - house points are given out mainly by professors (and prefects, headstudents) and earned by "the house". Even though there is an individual ranking of house points those do not belong to the student but always to the house.

You get points for "HOL Extra Work", for assisting a class, for student teaching, for a variety of reasons a professor would never get points because that is just their job. If professor points would count for the house cup we would run into a cat-chasing-tail type of points race where professors award professors points, professors feeling guilty for not taking classes themselves and earning the utmost points for their beloved house, and generally a house that is not trying to get the most points to their own staff falling behind in the cup race.

However, what I will do is setting up an area in the staff room where all professors and the student committee can voice their opinion (poll-type) on certain controversial subjects regularly. There are some open questions regarding procedures for next year where it would be good to have everyone's opinion heard before a decision is made. Felicia mention one of these in her comments, another one would be the required O.W.L.'s or certain chat room rules.

Thanks for reading :)

Regarding Student Teachers

pr_dyb — 2008-06-19T00:43:10Z

I was browsing through the class applications that are already in and noticed very many student teachers, old and new ones. While we appreciate very much that so many of you want to offer a class, I was wondering why you apply to be a student teacher instead of a full professor.

I am sure one house or the other would love to have some more active professors in house matters. The more initiative comes from the house professors the more interesting your common room and house affairs will be.

I am really interested in learning why everyone who applied to be a student teacher chose that way instead of applying for Professor. It would be great if you could comment here with your reasons.

We can only have a limited number of student teachers per term and we don't want to disappoint someone with a good class application just because we just do have to draw a line somewhere.

Cheers

Reminder - Class Apps Info

pr_chu — 2008-06-18T15:47:49Z

Just a small reminder to those 7th years who are Student Teachers or are wanting to teach next term. After you graduate, you can no longer *be* a Student Teacher. You'll need to apply as a Professor. *nods* Thanks!

All HOL-IDs are lower case

pr_dyb — 2008-06-17T14:39:55Z

You login to HOL with your HOL-ID and your password. Your HOL-ID (students only) consists of two lower case letters and 3-4 numbers. There are no capital letters in any HOL-ID. While you can login with AB123 instead of ab123 (I might change this later) you can not access more sensitive parts of the site, like your private messages as the message script is case-sensitive.

So if you experience problems with your messages please log out and login again with your lower-case HOL ID.

Thanks a bunch :)

Library Project / Among the Stars

pr_esc — 2008-06-16T15:56:43Z

Mr. Xeno Lovegood is hunting for new writers for The Quibbler, and he is quite sure he can find them in HOL.

He asks you to write about "The Battle of Hogwarts", because there are so many weird stories around and he wants the truth, no matter from which side it comes from.

If you need more info, and the chance to be part of The Quibbler's staff, click here.

Class Applications - FALL 2008 - NOW OPEN

pr_chu — 2008-06-16T14:42:26Z

For those of you who were eagerly awaiting the news....

CLASS APPLICATIONS are now OPEN! They will be open for at least THREE weeks. I will update this post when we have a firm end date in mind.

You will find the application under the drop down menu for "Main Areas" to your right.

When considering whether or not you will apply to be a Professor or Student Teacher, you need to keep a few things in mind.

1) You must be 17 or older to be a full-fledged professor. Student Teachers can be a bit younger.

2) We ask that you have your website up and running (and active!) with links to at least two lessons.

3) The MAXIMUM points you may give is 30 points per submission.

4) Plagiarism is absolutely NOT allowed within HOL. Do NOT copy your lessons directly from another source--and, credit any sources you do use.

5) Professors may gain points, BUT they do not go toward the multiplier! Student Teachers may gain points like regular students.

6) We will be LIMITING the amount of Student Teachers we accept this year!!!!

Consider carefully whether or not you want to be a full fledged Professor or a Student Teacher. BOTH Professors and ST's are required to sign the Prof/ST FAQ each term and are required to adhere to the rules and expected behavior of a member of HOL. In other words, we all have to behave!

Current Professors and Student Teachers need to check the Staffroom and Student Teacher Lounge for info on re-applying for their classes.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, please send a HOL Message to the Head Office.

More information can be found in the post in the Announcements Section of the HOL Forum.

Thank you!

The Head Office

IE 6 Issues

pr_dyb — 2008-06-16T13:06:04Z

I've got several reports today about rendering bugs in Internet Explorer 6.

List of Bugs

Internet Explorer 6 is an old browser version (designed in 2000-2001 and released in October 2001) and a very buggy browser that no longer is maintained even by Microsoft. There are more than 100 known rendering bugs in IE6, and to make a modern layout work in this thing you have to hack a zillion fixes. IE7 is much better, although it still has too many bugs.

I am adding fixes for IE7 all the time and the site should work fine there, it is hard for me to hack fixes for IE6 as I don't even have that browser installed anymore. If you want to upgrade to IE7 or - much better - just use Firefox like the majority in HOL fortunately does, then you get a much better HOL experience. Sorry for this but I don't know when I can add fixes for outdated browsers.

But things are not looking that bleak. Firefox 2 is the most used browser on HOL (40%), followed by IE7 with 39%. In case you did not know, tomorrow is the big release day for Firefox 3 and I can strongly recommend to upgrade immediately as it is noticable faster than the current version and naturally beats the Microsoft thing in just about everything.

So maybe those 13.5% of you who still use Firefox 1 and especially the seven year old IE 6 want to upgrade their most important internet tool now. It takes just a few minutes after all.

Logs and Frogs

pr_dyb — 2008-06-13T00:23:03Z

If you got multiple logs telling you that you have been added to the N.E.W.T. class, then this was because some old code hidden in the dungeons of HOL was throwing you out again (this is the first year we have N.E.W.T.'s). That's been fixed now as I poked the troll with my wand :)

And I have some free Chocolate Frogs, message me today or tomorrow if you want one, hehe.

HOL 4.0 Launched

pr_dyb — 2008-06-11T00:53:15Z

In case you haven't noticed, the layout has changed :D

But not just the layout, there are many things that are new (and many more things we plan to add over the summer).

If you find some bugs, please send me a HOL Message (in your menu on the right under "My Messages"). I really prefer if you message me for all things HOL that way and not by email, forum pm or whatever else you think is just convenient at the moment. I have a hard time finding all these things and replying to them on time - so if all things HOL are together in the HOL Messages I am in heaven!

I know that the new site is hard to read on your smartphone or blackberry, so I am planning to add a mobile style for handheld devices at some point. But that is not top priority at the moment as it is a lot of work and not of the fun kind (adding Chocolate Frogs is more fun!)

Hope you like the new layout.

N.E.W.T.'s

pr_dyb — 2008-06-08T11:03:21Z

All students who are qualified to take their Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests this year should have received a log entry now. If you think you are qualified and haven't received such a note, please send a message to the headmaster.

You need to be a Seventh Year student and you must have the required O.W.L.'s for taking the test.

The Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests should be available by June 16.

House Multiplier

pr_dyb — 2008-06-04T15:17:01Z

Something has been fishy about the house multipliers for a while and I have finally figured out what's wrong. Basically the same problem as with the HOL Pets not updating... the HOL server somehow got rid of the daily cron job that updates active and passive students.

Well that has been fixed now and the multipliers have slightly changed:

Gryffindor: from 0.68 to 0.76
Hufflepuff: from 1.75 to 1.53
Ravenclaw: from 0.73 to 0.71
Slytherin: from 1.75 to 1.59

To avoid that something like that happens again, I've set up an Active Students List (accessible for Prefects, Head Students and Professors) in the Staff Room. The list shows all currently active students of the four houses, today's active/passive cut date and when they earned their last house points.

HOL 4.0 Preview

pr_dyb — 2008-06-04T00:35:04Z

It is 90% done and should go live in the next few days.

http://hol.org.uk/4.0/

No need to keep it hidden anymore - you will also see the HOL Messages from one of my earlier posts, sorry bout that. If you find some bugs please send me a HOL Message (don't email, pm or whatever). Also if you have some great ideas about which features could be added.

Please don't forget that it is just 90% done. Not working at the time of this post is bulk house points submission, and I will also add full transparency for the house multiplier - so everyone can see who is currently active for their house.

Use Firefox!

pr_dyb — 2008-06-03T23:54:11Z

I've just spent HOURS fixing several stupid bugs evil Internet Explorer has with HOL 4.0!

Please use Firefox if you can, it is still the much better browser and you keep me from losing the rest of my sanity.

This translates as: if you find some more Internet Explorer bugs leave a comment here or send me a HOL Message.

HOL Messages

pr_dyb — 2008-06-03T12:15:10Z

While I am working on finishing HOL 4.0 one major new feature is already fully functional.

You can now send internal HOL Messages to any HOL-ID. If you have new messages you will be notified on the main page.

This feature will solve several problems at once: for anything HOL related you do not need to check multiple locations anymore: Forum PM, email, and the like. Every HOL member can be reached no matter if their email address is outdated or not checked. You can always see if the HOL Message you've sent has been received and read.

Also, depending on your user level and position in HOL, you can send Group Messages now. For example, Heads of House (and deputies) can group message all their house prefects, class professors all their students and the Headoffice all professors. More group options can be added on request (like all house newbies or even prefect groups if they are not organized randomly).

We have New Winners

pr_rhi — 2008-05-29T15:59:09Z

Be sure to check out the latest project in the HOL Library!

Congratulations to the following Gryffindor award winners:

The Curious Kitten Award: Lucy Berkeley
The Fellytone Award: Barbara Phoenix

And congratulations to the following Ravenclaw award winners for the month of April:

Blue Virtue: Finn Cullen
Bronze Ambition: Fallon McKnight
Ravenclaw of the Month: Neti Maulani
Hawking HOLer: Alexia Riaper

Congratulations also to the following Hufflepuff House award winners!

Bright Badger Award: Kath Snape
House Spirit Award: Rorey Padfoot

The latest edition of the Alte Sententiam, Ravenclaw House's newspaper, is now available.

HOL Pets Bugfix

pr_dyb — 2008-05-26T14:35:16Z

As some of you might have noticed your HOL Pets didn't drop in stats (happiness, prestige) for a while. That was due to a cron job not running properly. This has been fixed now.

Your pets will now get unhappy again if you don't take care of them properly - eventually they will run away.

April 2008 News

pr_rhi — 2008-04-16T15:50:56Z

Be sure to check out the latest project in the HOL Library!

The latest editions of The Paw Print (Gryffindor House's newspaper) and The Wizarding Times (from Hufflepuff) are now online.

Congratulations to the following Ravenclaw award winners for the month of March:

Blue Virtue: Adelline Aldridge
Bronze Ambition: Elfe Hart
Ravenclaw of the Month: Rosanna Gulveig
Hawking HOLer: Mark Mandrake and Neti Maulani

Congratulations also to the following Hufflepuff House award winners:

Order of Helga (Hard Work): May Lee
Badger Cub Award: Nerissa Allison
Bright Badger Award: Kath Snape (February) and Belle Black (March)
House Spirit Award: Celeste Marivaux
Botting Monster Award: Tarma Black
Badger By Another Name: Catriona Watson (Ravenclaw)
Alektaia Khalikiope Memorial Award: Prof. Olivia Rictusempra

Prof. Kimil wishes to announce a new HOL-wide contest, Reproduce HP Book Covers -- Prisoner of Azkaban!

March 2008 News

pr_rhi — 2008-03-14T04:25:11Z

The latest edition of the Alte Sententiam is now available!

Prof. Chutney wants you for the Wizarding Times !

Congratulations to the following Slytherin House award winners:

Singular Slytherin Award: Prof. Allie de Mauvaisefoi
Smug Snake Award: Tambaqui Balthazar
Eagle in Snake's Clothing: Prof. Ulol Kimil (Ravenclaw)

Congratulations also to the following Ravenclaw award winners:

Blue Virtue: Catriona Watson
Bronze Ambition: Phedre Montreve
Ravenclaw of the Month: Thalia Krum
Hawking HOLer: Momoko Asakura
Eagle's Talont (RQT): Ryan Lobiesk, Alexia Riaper, Mark Mandrake, and Adeliene Cromwell
Captain's Choice (RQT): Cassandra Lobiesk

And congratulations to the following Hufflepuff House award winners!

Badger By Another Name Award: Prof. Rhiannon Llewellyn (Ravenclaw) and Prof. Paddy O'Brien (Slytherin)
Order of Helga (Hard Work): Belle Black, Felicia Hartwick, Kath Snape, Luisa Paula, Mopsy Prewett, and Prof. Olivia Rictusempra and Prof. Anya Chutney
House Spirit Award: Kath Snape
Scholarly Badger Award: Belle Black, Tarma Black, Mopsy Prewett, Kath Snape, Neville Prongs, and Fawn Warwick
Hungarian Horntail Award: Neville Prongs

Semi-Finals for HOL Challenge

pr_dyb — 2008-02-28T13:37:06Z

Semi-Finals for HOL Challenge

Task 7 - Part 1 | Task 7 - Part 2
Task 8 - Part 1 | Task 8 - Part 2
Task 9 - Part 1 | Task 9 - Part 2

You need to be logged in to vote. You can vote in all six semi-finals. The polls will close at midnight on March 8th.

February 2008 News

pr_rhi — 2008-02-08T21:41:56Z

Prof. Chutney has posted the list of new classes. The next term will be starting shortly.

The February issue of the Alte Sententiam is now available! As is the new Prose and Cons Challenge!

January 2008 News

pr_rhi — 2008-01-30T17:10:29Z

Term 2 will be running a few days late this year due to the massive amount of work the Head Office is dealing with currently.

Congratulations to the following Hufflepuff House award winners for November / December:

Badger By Another Name Award: Prof. Ulol Kimil (Ravenclaw)
Bright Badger Award: Kath Snape (November); Belle Black (December)
SpiffySpiffy Award: Peter Aldridge (November); Narcissa Heart and Lilly Stargazer (December)
House Spirit Award: Marcie Hobber
Botting Monster Award: Lilly Stargazer

Congratulations also to Hufflepuff on their recent Quidditch win over Slytherin House! The next match, between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, 2 February.

New Year Haiku

pr_rhi — 2008-01-05T19:48:42Z

There's a new HOL Library Project, "New Year Haiku."

The latest editions of the Paw Print (Gryffindor House's newspaper) and the Alte Sententiam (from Ravenclaw House) are now online!

December 2007 News

pr_rhi — 2007-12-17T17:10:40Z

Congratulations to the following Ravenclaw House award winners for the month of November:

Blue Virtue: Annie Chandran
Bronze Ambition: Belladonna Caoimhe
Ravenclaw of the Month: Jenna Hathaway
Hawking HOLer: Prof. Audiaa Martin

The latest edition of Ravenclaw House's newspaper, the Alte Sententiam, is now online!

Congratulations to Gryffindor on their recent Quidditch win over Slytherin House! The next match, between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, 12 January.

November 2007 News III

pr_rhi — 2007-11-30T16:25:02Z

A new HOL Library Project has been posted!

Congratulations to the following Slytherin House award winners:

Singular Slytherin Award: India Jolly
Smug Snake Award: Aidan Argent
Sagacious Slytherin Award: Lalaith Lomion
Eagle in Snake's Clothing: Severus McGonagall (Ravenclaw)

Congratulations also to the following Gryffindor award winners:

The Curious Kitten Award: Joel Aireserkeiel
The Fellytone Award: Zenix James

The latest edition of The Serpentimes, Slytherin House's newspaper, is now online!

November 2007 News II

pr_rhi — 2007-11-17T21:21:05Z

Congratulations to Ravenclaw on their recent Quidditch win over Slytherin House! The next match, between Gryffindor and Slytherin, is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, 1 December.

Prefects, Headstudents, Professors and staff are invited to sign up for an HOL Email account.

Congratulations to the following Ravenclaw House award winners for the month of October:

Blue Virtue: Adeliene Cromwell
Bronze Ambition: Rosanna Gullveig
Ravenclaw of the Month: Cassandra Lobiesk
Hawking HOLer: Maya Winters

The latest edition of Hufflepuff House's newspaper, The Wizarding Times, is now available!

Be sure to check out the newest Prose and Cons Challenge!

November 2007 News I

pr_rhi — 2007-11-10T10:21:58Z

Congratulations to Gryffindor on their recent Quidditch win over Hufflepuff House! The next match, between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, is scheduled for Saturday, 10 November.

The HOL Book Club has officially re-opened its gates!

Students are encouraged to read the revised IRC guidelines.

Congratulations to the winners of September and October's Hufflepuff House Spirit Awards!

The November issue of Ravenclaw House's newspaper, the Alte Sententiam, is now online!

There's a new project in the HOL Library, the HOL school song.

Congratulations to Zia Stonebury and Castora Grimsby, recipients of the Pen Pal Club's Friend to All award for October!

October 2007 News

pr_rhi — 2007-10-17T15:47:44Z

Sir Paddy would like to remind the general HOL population that not everyone in HOL is a native English speaker.

The latest editions of the Paw Print (Gryffindor House's newspaper) and Alte Sententiam (from Ravenclaw House) are now online!

Congratulations to the following Ravenclaw House award winners for the month of September:

Blue Virtue: Keira Ashworth
Bronze Ambition: Tara Aurelium
Ravenclaws of the Month: Gypsy Ardor, Maya Winters and Momoko Asakura
Hawking HOLer: Prof. Ulol Kimil

Missing O.W.L.'s are up

pr_rhi — 2007-09-30T21:26:50Z

Seventh year students are invited to send in the work for their two missing OWLs.

The HOL Pen Pal Club has some new Halloween activities!

September 2007 News

pr_rhi — 2007-09-06T16:31:24Z

Regarding the HOL Challenge, teams are asked to follow the correct rules for choosing a name.

Don't miss your chance to be in the next edition of Slytherin House's newspaper, the SerpenTimes!

Ravenclaw House's newspaper, the Alte Sententiam, is also accepting submissions!

Congratulations to the winners of Hufflepuff House's Summer and Spirit Awards!

HOL Challenge Announced

pr_rhi — 2007-08-20T21:10:36Z

Are you ready for the HOL Challenge?

Class sign-ups are now open! Also, many courses have discussion areas in the class forum area, so be sure to check out the information there.

Hufflepuff wins House Cup 2007

pr_rhi — 2007-08-08T19:52:32Z

Congratulations to Hufflepuff House, winner of the House Cup 2007, and also to Ravenclaw, winner of the Quidditch Cup 2007!

Class sign-ups are scheduled to open on 18 August. The new school year (HOL 2007/08) will officially begin on 1 September.

Seventh Years can expect to be taking their NEWT exams next spring. More information can be found in Headmaster Dybendahl's post.

Congratulations to Mark Mandrake, winner of this year's Headmaster Award!

Congratulations also to the winners of the end-of-the-year awards for Ravenclaw!

Tryout information for the 2007/2008 Gryffindor Quidditch Team has been posted in the announcements section of the Gryffindor Common Room.

Come to #sql on Friday, 10 August, to watch the Pride of Portree play the Kenmare Kestrels in game of daring-do Quidditch! The game may be watched (no talking) in #sql; you may watch and cheer on the teams in #sqlstand. The game is scheduled to start 10:00 pm HOL time (5:00 pm USA Eastern and 2:00 pm USA Pacific).

New Students Registration is Open

pr_rhi — 2007-07-18T15:22:49Z

Most of the main HOL forum has been closed to ensure privacy for readers of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Certain areas will remain open and / or password protected to avoid spoilers. The Slytherin Common Room has also been taken down for a short time for the same reason.

New student registration is now open!

The latest edition of The Serpentimes, Slytherin House's newspaper, is now online.

Don't forget to enter the Deathly Hallows Prediction Contest! (The deadline is 9 pm HOL time on Friday, 20 July .)

July 2007 News

pr_rhi — 2007-07-04T21:11:09Z

Prof. Dom Gaidin wishes to warn students that "a computer virus that claims 'Harry Potter is dead' before infecting a machine is spreading ahead of the release of the wizard's final novel."

Congratulations to the following Hufflepuff House award winners for the month of May:

Badger By Another Name Award: Ayahzy Nahki (Ravenclaw)
Bright Badger Award: Danya Amaritu
House Spirit Award: Felicia

The HOL Pen Pal Club (and associated Summer Camp) will soon be re-opening!

If you are interested in participating in HOL's Summer Quidditch League this year, you have until 8 July to join a team.

June 2007 News II

pr_rhi — 2007-06-24T03:15:26Z

Applications for Professorship are now open, through 15 July.

There's a new HOL Library project.

All Book 7 discussion should be posted in the HP7 board, located in the General Harry Potter section of the HOL forum (you must be logged in to view the board).

Congratulations to the winners of the Fluffy Wand Award!

The latest issues of The Paw Print (Gryffindor House's newspaper) and Alte Sententiam (from Ravenclaw House) are now online.

Congratulations to the following Ravenclaw House award winners for the month of May:

Blue Virtue: Ayahzy Nahki
Bronze Ambition: Maya Winters
Ravenclaw of the Month: Isabella Kettleburn
Hawking HOLer: Cassandra Lobiesk

June 2007 News I

pr_rhi — 2007-06-06T01:56:19Z

Prof. Rhiannon Llewellyn wishes to announce that Prof. Ulol Kimil has been named co-Deputy Head of House for Ravenclaw.

Congratulations to the winners of The Tarots contest!

The latest Muggle Question of the Month has been posted.

Congratulations to the following Hufflepuff House award winners for the month of April:

Badger By Another Name Award: Marie Thenes
Bright Badger Award: Adelline Aldridge
Hufflepuff House Spirit Award: Belle Black

Congratulations also to the following Ravenclaw House award winners:

Blue Virtue: Bev Grey
Bronze Ambition: Olive Snitzberry
Ravenclaw of the Month: Rosanna Gullveig
Hawking HOLer: Phedre Montreve

And congratulations to the Slytherin House award winners!

Singular Slytherin Award: Faye Roderick
Smug Snake Award: Nassa Dikaios
Sagacious Slytherin Award: Lalaith Lomoin
Eagle in Snake's Clothing: Severus McGonagall (Ravenclaw)
Lion in Snake's Clothing: Prof. Ben Quaddler (Gryffindor)
Badger in Snake's Clothing: Lilly Stargazer (Hufflepuff)

Don't forget to check out the latest edition of Slytherin's House newspaper, The Serpentimes.

It's down to the final four in this year's HOL Idol!

Vote for HOL Idol

pr_rhi — 2007-05-16T15:55:32Z

The latest edition of the HOL Pen Pal Club Newsletter is now online.

Don't forget to vote for your favourite in Round 1 of HOL Idol!

May 2007 News

pr_rhi — 2007-05-03T15:42:06Z

The latest edition of Gryffindor House's newspaper, The Paw Print, is now available!

Congratulations to the following Slytherin House award winners for the month of March:

Singular Slytherin Award: Ashlee Sully
Smug Snake Award: Olivia Charm
Sagacious Slytherin Award: Lalaith Lomion
Eagle in Snake's Clothing: Prof. Ulol Kimil (Ravenclaw)
Lion in Snake's Clothing: Eve Shay

The Tarots Contest, vol.2 is up and running!

Warm up your singing voices; HOL Idol is back for 2007!

And be sure to check out this month's Prose and Cons Challenge!

April 2007 News

pr_rhi — 2007-04-17T16:08:30Z

The newest edition of The Squibbler is now online!

The HOL Art Department is experiencing temporary technical difficulties.

Don't forget to submit your Knock Knock joke for the latest HOL Library project.

The Pen Pal Club is now accepting submissions for Spring's Anam Cara column.

Congratulations to the following Ravenclaw House award winners for the month of March:

Blue Virtue: Rosanna Gullveig
Bronze Ambition: Morag McQueen
Ravenclaw of the Month: Bev Grey

Congratulations also to the following Hufflepuff House award winners:

Order of Helga - Creativity award: Narcissa Heart
Order of Helga - Hard Work award: Keaira Filan and Samuel Craft
House Spirit Award: Elyranna Reginhart

The latest edition of Slytherin House's newspaper, The Serpentimes, is now available!

HOL Pen Pal Club's Friend to All Award

pr_rhi — 2007-04-03T15:47:52Z

The Muggle Question of the Month for April is now online!

Congratulations to the following recipients of the HOL Pen Pal Club's Friend to All Award:

January: Allison Prencer
February: Cyriel Aurorus
March: Catriona Watson

March 2007 News II

pr_rhi — 2007-03-14T17:36:57Z

There are new and ongoing projects in the Art Department and HOL Library!

Congratulations to the following Hufflepuff House award winners for the month of February:

Badger Cub Award: Adelline Aldridge
Order of Helga-Creativity: Ashley Johnson
Badger By Another Name Award: Prof. Emerald Dybendahl
Bright Badger Award: Annastasia Bee
Hufflepuff House Spirit Award: Kath Snape

Congratulations also the following Ravenclaw House award winners:

Blue Virtue: Jenna Hathaway
Bronze Ambition: Mark Mandrake
Ravenclaw of the Month: Gypsy Ardor

The latest edition of Hufflepuff House's newspaper, the Wizarding Times, is now online!

And be sure to check out this month's Prose and Cons Challenge!

March 2007 News I

pr_rhi — 2007-03-02T18:40:02Z

Sir Paddy wishes to remind all HOL students that if they ever feel the need to quit HOL, please do not send mail or PMs to people asking to be deleted. Instead, post in this board so that your request can be dealt with.

There's a new project in the Art Department!

The latest edition of Ravenclaw House's newspaper, the Alte Sententiam, is now online!

There's a new Muggle Question of the Month for March.

If you are having difficulties editing your HOL Profile, make sure that when you log in, you enter your HOL ID in lowercase.

It's time again for the announcement of the annual Eagle Award winners!

February 2007 News

pr_rhi — 2007-02-12T20:07:56Z

Prof. Ulol Kimil has posted information on how to rate an HOL Library project.

Congratulations to the following Gryffindor House award winner for the month of January:

The Platinum Quill Award: Missa Matz

Congratulations also to the following Hufflepuff House award winners:

Badger Cub Award: Andie Tucker
Hungarian Horntail Award: Jake Patil
Scholarly Badger Award: Danya Amaritu (First Year), Rorey Padfoot (Second Year), Mopsy Prewett (Third Year), Tarma Black (Fourth Year), Rachel Sandersen (Fifth Year), and Felicia Hartwick (Sixth Year)

And congratulations the to the following Ravenclaw House award winners!

Blue Virtue: Severus McGonagall
Bronze Ambition: Ireth Halliwell
Ravenclaw of the Month: Catriona Watson
Hawking HOLer: Sandra Bloomwicks

The newest issue of the HOL Pen Pal Club Newsletter has just been released.

New Library Project

pr_rhi — 2007-02-05T19:12:58Z

Congratulations to Team Gryffindor on their recent Quidditch win against Ravenclaw House!

The Library has a new project: Create HOL House Mottos!

Prof. Pendragon wishes to let his Arithmancy for Amateurs students know that Lesson 1 has been posted and is due 28 February at midnight HOL time.

January 2007 News

pr_rhi — 2007-01-31T22:09:03Z

Congratulations to the following Hufflepuff House award winners for the month of December:

Badger Cub Award: Danya Amaritu
Badger By Another Name: Mark Mandrake (Ravenclaw) and Moiraine Lee (Gryffindor)
Order of Helga (Hard Work) Award: Prof. Olivia Rictusempra, Prof. Anya Chutney, Cosmo Brown, and Lera Kamerat
House Spirit Award: Jake Patil
Bright Badger Award: Tarma Black
Golden Foster Award: Keaira Flian, Melody Greenspell, Mopsy Prewett, and Tarma Black

Congratulations also to the winners of the Day After contest!

Untitled

pr_rhi — 2007-01-26T17:33:51Z

The latest edition of The Squibbler is now online!

The HOL Library has two current projects: Getting Into Harry Potter (continuous) and First Day of Class After Christmas Holidays (ends 4 February).

There are also two opportunities in the HOL Art Department: HOL Trading Cards (continuous) and Deathly Hallows User Icons (ends 28 February).

Don't forget to submit your category suggestions for this year's Eagle Awards, coordinated by Prof. Angelus Darklost!

Untitled

pr_rhi — 2007-01-14T23:27:41Z

Class sign-ups are now open! Some classes are available for new student registration; others will open up closer to the end of term (31 January). The list of classes currently being offered can be found here. You may sign up for up to five classes through your HOL account (log in and click on HOL Classes).

The Goblet of Fire is now open! Could you be the next Quad-Wizard Tournament champion?

Untitled

pr_rhi — 2007-01-11T18:08:37Z

Congratulations to the following Gryffindor House award winners for the month of December:

The Curious Kitten Award: Brenna Westfeld
The Fellytone Award: Joanne Grey

Congratulations also the to the following Ravenclaw House award winners:

Blue Virtue: Chryseis McSylvester
Bronze Ambition: Alexia Riaper
Ravenclaw of the Month: Momoko Asakura
Hawking HOLer: Tinuvie Levante

January's edition of Ravenclaw House's newspaper, the Alte Sententiam, is now online!

And be sure to check out this month's Prose and Cons Challenge!

Happy New Year

pr_rhi — 2007-01-03T18:23:00Z

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