ADMIN: Welcome!

[John Walton]

No: HPFGUIDX 9141

Hello and welcome to the Harry Potter for Grownups discussion group!

Welcome especially to new members who found out about us from Salon.com and
CNN. In the interests of getting to know you and you getting to know us as
quickly and easily as possible, please read this message thoroughly. If you
have any questions, please contact the moderators at
hpforgrownups-owner at egroups.com.

We're dedicated to in-depth, thought-provoking and fun discussions of the
Harry Potter books, as well as the movies, merchandising and other aspects
of the phenomenon we've come to know and love. While there is no age
requirement to join the group, you should note that most of our members are
over 18. Mature teenagers may enjoy the group, but may find themselves more
at home in a group of their peers.

In any case, we strongly encourage use of proper spelling, punctuation and
grammar in posts, and expect all our members to observe common sense,
courtesy and netiquette at all times. You can find out more about the
netiquette of this club in the Files section of the eGroups site. The
Moderators will also be sending out a separate netiquette message later this
weekend.

We moved here from Yahoo! Clubs, and have archived the messages from that
service (about 8,000 of them!) at a separate eGroup with a search feature.
You can access them by joining the HPforGrownups-Archives eGroup -- either
send a blank email to HPforGrownups-Archives-subscribe at egroups.com or visit
http://www.egroups.com/group/HPforGrownups-Archives

We're currently going through "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" on a
chapter-by-chapter basis and holding detailed character discussions on a
weekly basis. For a list of the contributors, see the files section. For
details of past discussions, you can use eGroups' nifty search function.

To help new members get into the swing of things, a team of members is in
the process of compiling an extensive set of substantive FAQs (Frequently
Asked Questions) in essay format, gleaned from past list postings and
covering subjects such as Mysteries and Inconsistencies, Wands, Wizarding
World Governments and major character sketches. We'll post them as they are
completed and notify the group. REALLY frequently asked questions, such as
the order Harry's parents come out of his wand, the gleam in Dumbledore's
eye can be found in the RFAQ, which is still under construction.

For detailed information on every aspect of the HP books, we highly
recommend the Harry Potter Lexicon, maintained by Steve Vander Ark, one of
our members. It can be found at http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon

We're also investigating the possibility of a UK Tour, taking in sights
relevant to HP such as King's Cross, Edinburgh, the Scottish Highlands and
more. Planning has moved to the HPTour eGroup -- to subscribe, send a blank
email to HPTour-subscribe at egroups.com or visit
http://www.egroups.com/group/HPTour

General questions can be directed to the List Owner, Penny Linsenmayer, at
pennylin at swbell.net

Legal stuff:

In posting to this group, you grant the Moderators the right and license to
use the content of your messages in other contexts. At this time, the
Moderators intend to use this permission only for purposes of archiving and
creating topical FAQs for the group, but reserve the right to use them for
other purposes. If you have any concerns about infringement of your
copyright, you are advised to contact the List Owner. Should you have any
further questions, feel free to contact the List Owner.
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John Walton     john at walton.to     Moderator With Rock #47

When I am an Evil Overlord...#50
My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be
completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh computers.
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