ADMIN: Poll on list closure at HBP release

[herring_elf]

No: HPFGUIDX 126978


Greetings from Hexquarters!

When Order of the Phoenix was released in June 2003, the HPfGU list
was closed to posting for 45 hours, beginning with the UK official
release time of 12:01 a.m. There were many reasons for this closure,
foremost among them the desire to provide list members with a period
of time in which to read the new book without encountering spoilers,
as well as an opportunity to formulate their thoughts, ideas,
reactions, new theories, etc. Additionally, the list closure allowed
the Admin Team a chance to themselves read the books and to prepare
for the expected significant jump in posting and membership which
tends to accompany new canon.

We will again close HPfGU to posting for a period of time when Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released. As with OoP's
release, this will not affect HPfGU sister groups, such as OT-
Chatter, nor the HPfGU main list archives and Fantastic Posts, which
will remain searchable during the posting shutdown.

To assist you in determining how the various closure options would
affect you where you live in the world, a table has been created for
numerous time zones and list closure options. If you would like to
consult this table, please follow this link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/ and click on the
file named "HBPTimes.htm."  Alternately, you might visit either of 
the following sites:
http://www.timeanddate.com 
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc


At this time, we would welcome HPfGU members' submitting their
preferences in the HBP List Closure poll, which can be found at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=1748067 .
While your opinions will be very helpful to us, there are a number of 
administrative issues to consider, and so the Admin Team will make 
the final determination on list closure.  Therefore, this poll will 
be advisory and not binding.

If you have any comments to make about this issue, please do not
do so here on the main list; instead, join the discussion already
underway at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-Feedback .
You should read the instructions there on how to join if you are not
already a member of Feedback.

Please do not attempt to reply to this message to cast your vote, as
poll votes are not collected via e-mail. You must go to the Yahoo!
Groups site listed above to cast your vote.

Thanks!

Shorty Elf, for the HPfGU Admin Team