Increasing Transparency

Some months ago when we made a change to how users deactivate, we said that we would be increasing transparency of deactivated accounts. The return of former users to a site where those around them do not know who they are interacting with is a violating experience even when there was no ill intention.

This is a log of former accounts that have deactivated. [Link]

I would like to thank @Bubba McGarry for helping me clean the thread.

Further Increases to Transparency
As a part of the changes to transparency and the increased clarity around identities, future professors and assistants will no longer be able to keep their student accounts anonymous. For the record, no professor or assistant is presently anonymous.

This system was initially put in place during the early days of the site when there was noted harassment against professors with public student accounts. Since that time, the community has settled and harassment of any kind is not tolerated nor accepted. Furthermore, there are formal processes that have been put into place to ensure that members are safe when taking part on the site, including DNCs.

Players have a right to know who they are interfacing with, and this right extends to include members of staff.

Addendum: I will be making further announcements regarding this in coming weeks.

New Lore

New lore has now been posted with respect to law and government, and the dark arts.

Our newest team member is one we already had and will be Logan Baird for Professor of Herbology, also now known now as Nancy McLoughlin. Logan was an explementary Prefect and while the Prefect Team will miss her, we are excited to see what she will bring to Herbology. This also means that we will be saying good-bye to Tuesday Jeremiah Irons, also known as Jack Warren. Tuesday has been with us for a little over a year, having been voted in on 2 Sep 2021. We appreciate all of his hard work and his consistent dedication to the community. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors in his real life, he has not been able to dedicate enough time and energy to this role but we will miss him and we will wish him the very best in all that he does. Thank you do much Tuesday.

This does mean that we will be opening up applications for Hufflepuff Prefect in coming hours. Applications will be open for the week, so closing Dec. 2.

The school is decorated. There is snow all over the gosh darned placed and there is even a advent calendar (in your drop down) thanks to our personal Santa, Zach. Have a wonderful holiday season, stay safe.

Our newest Hufflepuff prefect is actually a former prefect (and former professor at that), Howard White. He is taking time out of captaining the Hexwizard team, quidditch and breaking numerous 6th year girls' hearts to patrol the hallways for us!

In the past we used to change the first post in a club to the name of the user taking over the club. This way the thread(s) used could stay intact. However, there is an issue with banned IPs and club ownership. If you had a club and it was taken over by someone else because you lost interest, got busy, etc. and this new owner gets banned. Your IP is under their name and this would result in your IP being banned also. This would prove problematic for users that do not have discord and have limited means of contacting the staff. Also, it is scary seeing that you have been banned and not understanding why (because you should not have been banned). As such we make a NEW thread and lock the former club.

Bubba McGarry has been named our newest Ravenclaw Broom Racing Co-Captain. He will be replacing our pepper spray queen Auria Ranvier who will be leaving us to pursue her other passions, probably cat related. We are very excited about our newest addition to the team, please everyone welcome Bubba.

Books... Books... and more Books...

We have a new Librarian, Mateo Sáez who will be replacing our former Librarian Colette Simmons as a Gryffindor Staff Member so you will be seeing them in the Gryffindor forum areas.

Colette Simmons was played by our dear Maria Dee. She will be dearly missed, @Colette Simmons has been with us on staff since 2 Jun 2021, 20:10. Please express your gratitude to @Maria Dee.

@Mateo Sáez will be played by Pax Zhang, they have served as captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team for some time and have proven themselves to be reliable, responsible, fastidious and level-headed. His dedication to the community is nothing short of impressive, so please extend your congrats to @Pax Zhang.

Holiday Homework

December comes with a number of holidays that people celebrate in real life. Everyone has different availability during this month, depending on the individual's culture, region, traditions and beliefs. Whilst we do try to grade homework in a timely manner, please note that due to the concentration of holidays, any homework submitted in the last two weeks of December may not be graded in time.

The end of the month is also a holiday (New Year's Eve) that many of our staff may be celebrating. As such, last-minute submissions will not be graded. Please do not submit any last-minute homework in an attempt to race to a victory. Whilst you might be okay with them not getting graded until the new year, they do place unnecessary expectations on the professors, which isn't fair. So please be mindful of that when submitting homework.