2. GENERAL COURTESY, NETIQUETTE
AND HPFGU-SPECIFIC CONVENTIONS/POLICIES -- [Go]
2.1 - Be Courteous -- [Go]
2.2 - Use The Right List -- [Go]
2.3 - Spelling And Grammar -- [Go]
2.4 - Quoted Material -- [Go]
2.4.1 - Attribution -- [Go]
2.4.2 - Snipping -- [Go]
2.5 - Subject Headings -- [Go]
2.5.1 – Prefixing -- [Go]
2.6 - Introductory Posts -- [Go]
2.7 - One-Liners and 'Me Too' Posts -- [Go]
2.8 - Factual Questions -- [Go]
2.9 - Observe Spoiler Rules -- [Go]
2.10 - Failure To Observe Posting Guidelines -- [Go]
3. OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION -- [Go]
3.1 What All Those Abbreviations Stand For -- [Go]
3.2 Very Frequently Asked Questions (VFAQ) -- [Go]
3.3 HPfGU's accumulated wisdom: Fantastic Posts and Where to Find Them -- [Go]
3.4 The Files and Polls Sections -- [Go]
3.5 The Archives Group -- [Go]
4. OTHER AREAS OF ONLINE HARRY POTTER FANDOM -- [Go]
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- [Go]
* * *
1.1 Welcome!
Welcome to Harry Potter (HP) for Grownups! The purpose of this group is to provide
a fun, friendly, interesting place for adults to enjoy discussion of the Harry
Potter books. Before you jump on your Firebolt and owl us your burning questions,
amazing new discoveries and morsels of wisdom, we highly recommend (actually,
we require) that you read this document, which provides important information
about participating in this group (including our slightly idiosyncratic posting
conventions). Yep, it's a few pages long, but you've probably read over 2000 pages
of Harry Potter. This is much more worthwhile! (Kidding, folks...)
HPfGU is a mailing list-based community hosted by Yahoo!Groups. Our members are
a diverse group of individuals who love in-depth, thought-provoking and fun discussions
of the Harry Potter books (and the movies, merchandising and other aspects of
the HP phenomenon). Most of our members are over 18. Mature teenagers may enjoy
the group, but we cannot, for legal reasons, accept members under the age of 13.
We are a large group (over 11,000 members), and we usually post between 50 and
150 messages a day.
1.2 Getting Started: Finding Your Way Around HPfGU
HPfGU has four main groups:
We also have the HPFGU-Convention list, where you can learn about HP conferences
and other gatherings; various regional groups such as HPFGU-NewYork, HPFGU-London,
HPFGU-Germany, HP4GU-GreatLakes, HPfGU-MountainWest and many others for localized
get-togethers; and HPforGrownups-Archives, which contains the searchable archived
messages posted prior to our move to eGroups (YahooGroups' predecessor).
We have also recently opened HPfGU-Feedback, a forum for discussing list policies, administration, and technical issues. This list can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-Feedback.
All these groups can be found through
our Portkey, at http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/P.html.
You'll note that some of the groups have "HPFGU-" at the front, while others
have "HP4GU-" or even "HPforGrownups-". We're sorry -- they were created by
a variety of people and are not standardized. Oops. Our bad.
We have a weekly chat on Sundays from roughly 2pm US Eastern (7pm in the UK,
11am US West Coast). To get to the party, go to any Yahoo Chat Room (for example
the one on our main
list), then type "/join hp:1" (without the quotation marks). You can also
use CheetaChat (for PCs), which can be downloaded here.
1.3 Receiving Messages
You can receive group messages in several different ways - Individual Emails,
Daily Digest, Special Notices, or No Mail.
Note: When you join a Yahoo Group, you are automatically set to receive individual messages. If you use a free email account and do not regularly maintain it, the 'individual emails' setting will soon have your inbox full and your account will go bouncing. To help avoid this, you can use one of the other settings.
A) Individual emails: all messages
are sent to your inbox and the subjects are prefixed with the name of the list.
When you hit "reply" the reply will go to the entire list.
B) Digest: you can also opt to receive digests of list discussion. Each digest
is a long email containing up to 25 posts.
C) Web View: many people like to read the messages on the list websites. This
has the advantage of not clogging up your inbox, but the disadvantage that you
can't download all the posts and then go off-line to read them. If you are particularly
irritated by pop-up advertising, click on "expand messages" (which allows you
to scroll through 30 messages on a single screen). You'll avoid the pop-ups.
If you click on "thread" and then "expand messages" you
can view a complete thread on one screen.
D) Special Notices: This is like webview, except that we can send emergency
emails to your mailbox. The List Administrators use the Special Notices feature
responsibly, only sending Special Notices in the case of important ADMIN messages,
so they prefer that members are on "Special Notices."
If you have any questions, feel free to email your List Elf, or email the list
administrators directly at HPforGrownups-owner@yahoogroups.com.
1.4 Legal Issues
By posting on any of the HPFGU lists, you agree to adhere to the Yahoo Terms
of Use located at http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/.
Further, in so posting, you also grant the HPfGU List Administrators the license
to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt and publicly display such post(s)
for the purposes of providing and promoting the various HPfGU groups and sites.
Links to electronic texts (etexts) of any Harry Potter book and any file containing
the audio versions of the books or the movie(s) may violate the Yahoo TOU, so
please do not post any or we'll have to delete the post. It's also a copyright
violation to reproduce substantial portions of any article or book, but you
can post links to them.
Material posted to other forums is
also copyrighted and may be forwarded to HPfGU lists only if the post states
that the express permission of author has been granted, even if the author also
belongs to HPfGU. Otherwise, you can provide a link.
1.5 List Administration
List administration is handled by a team of List Elves and Poltergeists. The
admin team is collectively responsible for all administrative and policy decisions
governing the entire HPfGU community. List elves take care of the day-to-day
administrative duties. Poltergeists (or "Geists") are former list elves who
have remained as advisors to the admin team and/or perform various administrative
duties for HPfGU.
The present team consists of:
Ali (Merry Elf)
Amanda (Amandageist)
Debbie (Debby Elf)
Dicentra Spectabilis (Dicey Elf)
Eloise Herisson (Weezy Elf)
Grey Wolf (Fluffy Elf)
Jen F (Jenny Elf)
Jim (ex-Jimmy Elf)
Jo Serenadust (Dusty Elf)
Joy (Help Desk Diva and ex-Joysie Elf)
Judy (Judey Elf)
Kelley (Kelley Elf, ex-Mod)
Kirstini (Teeny Elf)
Maria Alena (Manya Elf)
Marina (Filky Elf)
Melody (Aphrael Elf)
Mike (Aberforth's Goat, ex-Mod)
Paul (TechnoGeist)
Petra Pan (Penapart Elf)
Phyllis (Poppy Elf)
Pippin (Peppy Elf)
Saitaina (Saity Elf)
Sheryll (Rylly Elf, The Birthday Elf)
Steve (Keeper of the Lexicon)
Tabouli (ex-Tooly Elf)
1.6 Posting by new members
To help members adjust to our list's unique posting conventions, all new members
start out on "moderated" status. This means that your first few posts will automatically
take a detour to our List Elves. One of the elves will review the post to make
sure it is formatted correctly and conforms to the posting guidelines before
sending it on to the main list.
The elves may make some minor edits to your post, such as correcting typos, adding a signature, fixing the subject line, snipping extraneous quoted material, etc. If your post was edited, the elf will let you know what was changed. The substance of the post will never be changed, but if you'd rather we not make any edits, please let us know.
The elves may instead return your post to you with a note of explanation so that you may make the edits yourself. Please don't be offended; this is quite normal as we realize that our posting conventions are a bit unique and may take some getting used to. As we do return posts or contact people offlist about their posts, please keep an eye on your email account, especially while you're still on moderated status and especially if your posts are not showing up on the list.
Sometimes a list elf will add an "Admin Note" (a short comment) at the end of a post; this doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the post, usually it's a reminder directed to readers of the post. For example, "Though this post is on-topic, please remember when replying that OT subject matter should be sent to HPfGU-OTChatter".
Moderated status also applies to
the OTChatter, Movie, and Feedback lists. All posts to the Announcements list
are moderated; please note that this group is not a discussion group, but serves
as a "community bulletin board". Please also note, the posting rules
below in Section 2 apply to all our groups.
1.7 Communications from List Administration
Onlist messages from the admin team will always have the prefix "ADMIN" in the
subject line, and they will be signed by a list elf on behalf of the admin team.
The admin team uses Admin messages primarily to announce new policies and other
matters of interest to the HPFGU community, and to issue periodic reminders
of our posting guidelines. Please read these messages.
Members should not query or discuss an Admin message onlist. If you have a question
or comment about an Admin message or any policy, please contact the admin team
at HPforGrownups-owner@yahoogroups.com or post about it on the Feedback list.
The list elves also send messages offlist to members, for example, to welcome
new members, answer members' questions, provide posting guidance for new and
old members, and send howlers. These are also official communications and will
be signed with the list elf's elf name on behalf of the admin team.
When list elves and poltergeists post on their own behalf, you will know this
because they are not signed on behalf of the admin team.
1.8 How to Get Help
Simple. Email your personal List Elf, who will have contacted you within a couple
of days after you joined or write to the admin team at HPforGrownups-owner@yahoogroups.com.
We want all of our members who wish to post to be able to do so without it being
a burden, but we realize that our standards for spelling and grammar might be
problematic for some. So, we offer members with any issues that might make posting
difficult (such as dyslexia, visual impairments, English as a second language)
the services of our Help Desk. The Help Desk would be happy to proofread your
posts, or help work out the best way for you to participate fully in our community.
If you think you could benefit from their help, please contact them at HPforGrownups-Owner@yahoogroups.com.
Please, use these resources. List Elves love getting mail. Contact us with anything
you're not sure about. Technical problems. Book questions. Legal issues. If
we don't know, we can find out for you. Really, email us!
[back to top]
2. General Courtesy, Netiquette, and HPfGU Specific Conventions and Policies: Our posting conventions may be summarized as ordinary netiquette plus a few quirks that we think are particularly worthwhile in our community. Please observe the following:
Do not flame, send obscenities or
spam, engage in other discourteous, disrespectful or illegal behavior or discuss
list policy onlist (send comments to HPforGrownups-owner@yahoogroups.com instead).
We welcome debate, but do not attack or insult other list members. Consider
how other members of our diverse international community might react to your
post. Remember that sarcasm can be difficult to convey in written form, and
that expressing opinions as fact is a sure way to provoke Snape-like responses.
When in doubt, save your message overnight and reread it in the light of dawn.
2.2 Use the Right List
Put on your Sorting Hat and send
your posts to the correct list. All posts to the main list should discuss the
"canon," that is, the written works of JK Rowling. Discussion of the
HP films should go to HPFGU-Movie. Any post that does not discuss the books
or movies should go to HPFGU-OTChatter.
2.3 Spelling and Grammar
Use standard English grammar, spelling, and capitalization (beginnings of sentences, proper nouns, etc.); Please do not use all lower-case letters or ALL CAPS. Netspeak (e.g. "u" for "you", "4" for "for") is not allowed. Please break long blocks of comments into paragraphs, separating them with an empty line. This makes it much easier on the eyes when reading your posts.
*Please proofread your post before
sending it.*
2.4 Quoted Material
Please put quoted material before your own comments, and identify the author at the beginning of the quote. When replying to a post containing comments from more than one person, make sure you attribute the comments to the proper person.
You may preface your comments with your name or handle, but please do not use "Now me:" as readers of down-thread responses may have difficulty properly attributing your comments. And leave some blank space between the quote and your comments. Also, please sign your posts at the bottom with your name or pseudonym -- it helps people quoting you if they know what you'd like to be called.
Please clearly indicate quoted material (for example, by using chevrons (>), which Yahoo and many email programs insert automatically; or by putting quoted material between quotation marks).
To be kind to those with slow internet connections, please snip (edit down) all quoted material, leaving only the minimum necessary for others to understand your reply. This can be trickier than it sounds, though, so here are some additional guidelines:
As both attribution and snipping can be confusing at first, we ask that before you post to the list you first read our Formatting Tutorial: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%20Files/HPfGU_Formatting_Tutorial.html
Use appropriate subject headings
so that others can find the topics that interest them most (e.g., not "Digest
5000," and not "Snape's greasy hair" if the topic has changed
to "Lupin's gray hair"). Not everyone has a good threading function
on their e-mail. If you are combining responses to more than one post, please
change the subject heading to reflect that (e.g., House Elves/Hogwarts Plumbing/Evil!
Albus).
2.5.1 Prefixing
We've found that some topics provoke a strong reaction. Some people run screaming at the sight of them, while others can't get enough. As a courtesy to other readers, please use the prefixes listed here.
FF: - Fan Fiction - for cites to or short excerpts from derivative works or ficlets used to illustrate canon points, or the relationship of fanfiction to canon; discussion of specific works of fanfiction should be posted to OTChatter.
FILK: for HP song parodies
SHIP: Canon-supported speculation about romantic relationSHIPs between the characters
TBAY: HPfGU's wild and wacky role-playing
posting style, featuring cyber-action role-playing (CARP) using fictional settings
such as Theory Bay and/or extended metaphors to make a canon point. For more
information and examples, visit http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/hypotheticalley.html#history.
2.6 Introductory Posts
Don't post just to say "Hi, I'm Melanie
from Wisconsin". We do want to get to know you, but conventions have to be adjusted
for a list that gets an average of 10-20 new subscribers in one day. Instead,
include your introduction within your first substantive post, or post it to
OT-Chatter.
2.7 One-Liners and "Me Too" Posts
Send comments like "me too!," "LOL!,"
or "Great filk!" to the poster offlist, or cleverly insert them into longer,
more substantive posts. One-liners that would be fine on a low-volume list get
burdensome on a list that averages 50 posts per day, so please combine them,
especially if they pertain to a single thread.
2.8 Factual Questions
For the same reason, don't post to ask a simple factual question (e.g., "How do you pronounce Hermione?"), as this tends to cause a small avalanche of identical replies. Instead, check the VFAQs (see below) or ask your List Elf.
Similarly, please do not post to
the main list asking when Book 6 will be out; we don't know, but as soon as
there's an official date, we'll all be sure to know about it.
2.9 Observe Spoiler Rules
If any spoiler rules are in effect, observe them. Also, please be considerate when revealing spoilers from other works (such as "The Lord of the Rings"), keeping in mind that many members will not have read those books.
In other words, observe basic netiquette
and the conventions of the list. If you're not sure of either, ask your List
Elf. We lives to serve, sirs and misses!
2.10 Failure to Observe Posting Guidelines
"Should tell Filch, I should," said
Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own
good, you know." - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
No, not quite. We all make mistakes from time to time, and occasional lapses,
such as spelling and grammar errors, will not earn anyone detention.
However, ignoring our netiquette or posting conventions will result in an offlist reminder. Repeated violations or more egregious ones, such as personal attacks on other listmembers, or doing anything that could be construed as illegal, will result in an offlist Howler. Receiving too many Howlers could result in you being placed back on moderated status.
For security reasons, we will place
anyone who sends spam or viruses to the list on moderated status immediately.
If this was inadvertent on your part, please let us know so your privileges
can be restored.
[back to top]
3. Other Useful Information:
3.1 What All Those Abbreviations Stand For
We've collected a list of the most common abbreviations used at HPfGU, including
internet abbreviations, HP abbreviations, fanfic terms, emoticons--and put it
into a separate file which can be found here.
And don't forget to check out Inish
Alley where you'll find a complete list of acronyms coined by HPfGU members
to memorialize their favorite theories.
3.2 Very Frequently Asked Questions (VFAQ) and OOTP VFAQ
HPfGU has put together a list (two lists, in fact) of answers to Very Frequently
Asked Questions. Please read them before posting.
The VFAQ can be found here,
and the OOTP VFAQ can be found here.
3.3 HPFGU's accumulated wisdom: Fantastic Posts and Where
to Find Them
HPFGU's Fantastic Posts series of topical essays based on the great posts of
yesteryear can be found here. They cover a wide range of topics,
from JKR to the HP world to the characters, books and fans. All members should
read them -- they're witty, entertaining and informative (low-calorie, too!).
3.4 The Files and Polls Sections
Many things can be found in the Files Section, which is larger than Mad-Eye
Moody's trunk. These include old contests, pictures, photos of various things,
including list members, film locations and possible geographic locations for
places in the books. And check out our polls, where you can register your opinions
on a variety of topics. There's even more material in the OTChatter Files Section.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/files
3.5 The Archives Group
HPforGrownups-Archives contains all the messages which would not fit in the
Messages Section of YahooGroups, including messages from our old Yahoo Club.
Thanks to Paul Kippes for the wwwizardry involved. : )
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups-Archives
[back to top]
4. Other Areas of Online Harry Potter Fandom:
The online HP fandom is wide and mainly child-focused. However, we at HPFGU
know of many places where Grownups And Other Mature People are in the majority.
Check out this
list. You may find some names you recognize!
[back to top]
Various incarnations of this document
have been written and coded by Amy Z, Debbie, ~Joy~, Kelley, Maria, Queer as
John, and Wendy, with many contributions, blatant nickings, and edits from various
sources, including list elves, poltergeists, and Members Like You.
We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge all those who have worked tirelessly
over the years to build and administer HPfGU, including:
Do you have comments or questions about this file? Do you have a question not
answered here? Ask your list elf or e-mail the list administrators directly
at HPforGrownups-Owner@yahoogroups.com..
Revised April 4, 2004