HOL Forum
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Introduction
The HOL Forum URL is http://hol.org.uk/forum/
The HOL Forum is a place for everyone to enjoy, where everything linked to HOL is discussed, but also all Harry Potter subjects and even more general ones. Everyone is invited to join and sign-up, being a member of HOL or not, as long as you agree and are prepared to follow these guidelines.
Forum Administrators
The main administrators of the HOL Forum are Emma and Prof. Rhiannon Llewellyn. Both are verifying new accounts and sign-ups, adding new areas, dealing with login problems, wrong student names or ID's, bans and word filters. For everything related to the forum, please listen to Emma and Rhi!
Emma and Rhiannon are the most helpful people you could meet -- in fact they both already deserve an Order of Merlin in Gold for all the millions of things they are doing for all of us here in HOL -- so if you have a problem with the forum (login, your account, anything admin related), PM Emma or Rhi, but please do not annoy them, and do not discuss about things like what an appropriate forum name or signature is etc..
All admins have the authority to individually disable features as avatars, signatures, ability to use images etc. if a user is overdoing it and ignores the well-meant reminder to keep the board enjoyable for everyone.
Registration
Everyone can sign-up/register for the HOL Forum, no matter if they are a member of HOL already or not. All new registrations are manually verified by the Administrators, for a successful registration you will need the following:
- a valid HOL name (even if you're not part of HOL, it still is the HOL Forum). No names from the Harry Potter books, no celebrity names, no nicknames (no "supercoolsk8ergurlchica"), and no "stupid" names (sorry... but "Some Stuff" is not a name). Your forum name must consist of a first and last name, seperated by a space. Please capitalize the first letters of each word.
- If you are a sorted HOL student, please bee careful with your typing, your forum name must exactly match your HOL name, so that your user group and HOL ID can be automatically updated in your forum profile. Again, this is what you need to get it right: a space between first and last name, no underscores ("_"), capitalized first letters but don't write your name all in caps. All of these forum sign-ups would not work and would be deleted by the Admins: DoloresPotter (no space), Dolores..Potter (two spaces), Dolores_Potter (underscore).
- Your name must be "clean" as well as your email address. Nothing offensive (vulgar, sexual, violent) please. HOL is a family friendly site for all ages.
- You need a working email address, because it's where your password will be sent to, if you forget it. Security reminder: Do NOT use the same password for everything in HOL, and certainly do NOT sign up with a password that you use somewhere really important (ISP, bank, eBay, PayPal, email, etc.). Do not worry about too many passwords that you might forget, modern browsers such as Firefox do safely keep all the passwords for you.
After you have registered, your account needs to be approved by an Administrator, and this can take a bit of time, so please be patient. Also, do not create double forum accounts. If you have a problem to log in, or to retrieve your password, please contact an Admin. Do not sign up twice or more.
User Groups
There are many different user groups in the forum, which for the most part correspond to your position in HOL. In the board statistics (the active users list at the bottom of the forum main page) usernames appear in different colors. Each color corresponds to a user group.
For example, Novices are grey as well as Guest Students and Professors (old HOL members), First Years are blue, Second Years are green, Third Years are pink, Fourth Years are cyan, Professors/Staff are orange, Prefects are purple, Head Students are brown, Admins, Headmaster, Head Office members, and Head of Houses are red.
Novices is the user group for people who are not part of HOL (yet). It is the default User Group. You'll stay in this group at first, even if you're a HOL Student already, as your forum account will need to be updated by an Administrator and this can take some time, so please be patient. Admins are in charge of the forum and take care of the problems linked to it - For forum questions and problems, PM them, and only them.
Forum Rules
General
The HOL Forum is available for open discussion and the free exchange of ideas. The individual postings are not edited for content, style, or errors of any kind. However, the forum best serves the community when everyone follows basic standards of conduct. Your privilege to use and contribute to the HOL Forum depends on your compliance with the guidelines below. HOL may revoke your registration privileges and/or take further measures to enforce said guidelines if violations are brought to the Administrators attention.
You are entirely responsible and liable for all activities conducted through your account. Listed below are examples of some, but not all, violations that may result in the termination of your account (and in severe cases, expulsion from HOL. By registering with the HOL Forum, you agree to not engage in any of the following acts:
- Harass, threaten, or distress any other HOL Forum participant, HOL member, or any other individual or group.
- Impersonate any person.
- Transmit via the HOL Forum any information, data, text, files, links, software, or any other material that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, libelous, obscene, pornographic, anything that is racially, religiously or ethnically hateful, or transmit any other content that would give rise to liability or which violates the law.
- Post or transmit any information, software, or other materials that violates or infringes in the rights of others, including material that is an invasion of privacy, without first obtaining the necessary permission. This includes posting private conversation transcripts (chat, email, instant messaging), without the consent of both/all participants.
- Knowingly post or transmit any information, software or other materials that contains a virus or other harmful component.
- Post or transmit any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or any other form of solicitation.
- Violate any applicable local, state, national or international law, including but not limited to any regulations having the force of law while using or accessing the HOL Forum or in connection with your use of the HOL Forum in any manner.
HOL reserves the right to monitor some, all or none of the HOL Forum for adherence to the rules and regulations mentioned above and/or any other rules that may be published in the future. HOL does not undertake any obligation or liability relating to any content or activities in a topic area.
Posting Rules
All HOL rules apply in the HOL Forum. Make sure you read the Announcements area, and all pinned topics. The forum is a place for people of all ages, all origins, all cultures, to enjoy reading everyday. It's not a place where we want to see arguments, fights... going on. Everyone should respect the other's opinion in the forum, all the time, even if you do not agree with what is said. The HOL forum is not a place to discuss your political views, no political discussion whatsoever is permitted. Same goes for religious issues. There are places all over the internet to discuss these topics.
HOL's official language is English. You are not allowed to post in any other language. If you have difficulties understanding English, there is a list of people who can help you here.
Netspeak
Netspeak is not allowed in the forum, and your post will be deleted if you use it. Netspeak is like: "hello plz hlp me wit sumtin' ppl", "c u", "u r 2 b...". This also includes all caps posts. It makes you look stupid and uneducated and is also hard to translate for HOLers who don't use English as their first language, and there are many. Please write the entire words. It doesn't only show you are intelligent and respectful, but it also makes it easier and more enjoyable to read for everyone. I don't think you'd want to read HP books in netspeak *g*
External Links
Links on the HOL Forum have to be G-rated. The only link you may have is on your WWW-button. No links in your signature, in your profile or in your post UNLESS these are HOL-links like newspapers, house papers etc. These people know that they are allowed to link to them.
Links to any other community, forum or school-simulation are NOT ALLOWED. You are allowed to link to your private homepage or another Harry Potter site or any other site as long as it is G-rated and not a kind of commmunity/forum. Also, LiveJournals of any kind are banned from now on. This is because we can't control what is posted in LJs or other forums/communities. Contents there can change very quickly and may not be G-rated at all.
Another thing that is clearly against the rules is advertising another community/school simulation, even if there is no link, like: "I want to do another school simulation, if you want to help, please PM me." It should be clear that things like this are against the rules, Hogwarts would not allow Durmstrang to advertise inside their castle.
Images
The only images allowed in the forum are the one in your signature, your avatar, and your personal photo. Images are not allowed in posts, as the forum would then become too difficult to read if full of pictures, and this would require a lot of work from mods.
SPAM
Spam can be a lot of things: Useless or pointless posts, especially anything whose sole purpose in life is to hike up your post count to get a broom, one word post, multiple one word posts, simple "I agree" posts, creating new threads on subjects which are already discussed in another topic, discussing your broom, your lack thereof, the arrival of your new broom... all that is considered SPAM, but is by no means an exclusive list. Having a huge signature is also considered as spamming, as well as using colors/size which are not appropriate. Spam is a waste of bandwidth which costs money, so please make efforts smile.gif
If you're not contributing anything to the discussion, don't post! You may lose points for it. At the very least, you risk irking your fellow schoolmates and professors, spam is annoying. Remember that we are managing over 3000 registered students. Keeping the chaff (SPAM and junk) down will help ensure the grain (good discussion) doesn't get lost in the jumble.
You get brooms in the forum according to the number of posts you've made.
- 100 posts: Oakshaft 79 - 200 posts: Moontrimmer - 300 posts: Silver Arrow - 500 posts: Cleansweep One - 750 posts: Comet 140 - 1000 posts: Cleansweep Two - 1300 posts: Cleansweep Three
And then: Comet 180, Tinderblast, Swiftstick, Shooting Star, Nimbus 1000, Nimbus 1001, Nimbus 1500, Nimbus 1700, Twigger 90, Nimbus 2000, Nimbus 2001, Firebolt...
Do not post on the boards only to get a broom. If a you spam, you will get a warning. If you keep spamming, you will lose points. If that is still not enough, your number of posts will be set back to 0. And you could even be banned from posting for a while if you keep disrespecting the forum rules.
Disclaimer: By posting to the HOL Forum, you agree that HOL can display, modify, or delete your posting without permission from or contact to you. HOL is not responsible for the content of posted material of any kind. HOL may remove postings at any time at their sole discretion.
Profile Information
AVATARS
An "avatar" is like a little picture that is right below your name when you post. You can upload an avatar right now on the forum if you are Second Years and up, but it would be fine if you would use the link option and load your avatar from your own server, this reduces the server load. If it gets too heavy, uploads might be disabled again. The maximum file size for avatar uploads is 6KB and the maximum size of the avatar is 100x100 pixels. If you upload your avatar on your webspace, please keep the file at a reasonable size as not everyone has a fast connection for loading big files quickly. You are NOT allowed to hotlink any files for your own use (this is using someone else's webspace without their permission)
You can also upload a personal photo to your profile, as long as its size is 100x100 pixels max and under 100kb. It works like avatars but will only be visible when checking your profile, and will also be linked to from the member list.
SIGNATURES
There are specific rules to follow for your forum signature. If you make a post, it should not just be for displaying your extra-cool signature. The forum must remain easy to read for everyone. You can have a maximum of four lines of text and one picture with a maximum of 100 pixels in height and 250 pixels in width. To check the size of your picture, right click it, choose "Properties" and check "Dimensions". And also, please keep your picture file at a reasonable size as not everyone has a fast connection for loading big files quickly.
By decision of the Headoffice, no links to external websites are allowed in students' signatures, no exceptions. This is necessary as people have repeatedly posted links to websites with inappropriate / not G-rated content. No HP books spoilers are allowed in signatures, and you are not allowed to use the spoilers tags ( ) in your signature. If your signature does not follow the rules, you will be informed by PM and you will have to change it. If you don't, the moderator will change your signature by himself, and you will get a warning/lose points.
