We recommend that anyone interested in joining our school get sorted into a house and check out the common room before subscribing to the mailing list or requesting to be made an official house member / student. To do so, simply visit our Sorting Hat and then request your house's password via "owl" (email). Everyone is welcome to be sorted and select a wand in one of our Wand Shops, but the password will not necessarily be available to all, as we have only a limited number of students who are permitted to join each term.

Once you have the password, you should visit the common room to make sure that your computer's browser will allow you to access our common room message forum. Browsers which are not Javascript-enabled will not be able to participate in common room or Great Hall activities and will receive an "Invalid Password" message when trying to enter. If this is the case, you will not be able to participate in our website. We have no control over this and recommend either that you try accessing your common room from another computer or that you join another website.

Once you have selected a wand, been sorted, and visited your common room, you may decide to enroll as an official house member and Hogwarts student. To do so, you must do the following:

1. Subscribe to your house's Mailing List. 
2. Once you are subscribed, you will receive instructions on how to enroll, and you will begin receiving your house's Gazette via email. 
3. Read and familiarize yourself with the rules and guidelines given in this Handbook.
4. Send us your enrollment information (name, wand, pet, Bertie Botts) and verify that you have read the Handbook.
5. When your enrollment information is received, you will be added to your house's roster, provided that there are openings for new students. At that point, you may begin participating in the house points system.

This process can take several days. Please be patient.

Students who have been added to the Mailing List but who did not make the cutoff for student enrollment may request to be placed on the Waiting List for the next term.

All students who wish to remain enrolled for future terms must earn at least 50 points per term, must abide by house rules, and must request to remain enrolled for the next term as per our instructions.

Re-Enrollment
At the end of the term, students will be sent a "Re-Enrollment Request" message specifying that they send a message verifying that they have read the Hogwarts Handbook and requesting to remain enrolled for the next term. They will be given approximately one week to respond. Students who do not earn their 50 points or who do not send in the re-enrollment request within the alloted time will be removed from the roster and mailing list.

Inactive Status
If you are unable to participate for a term for whatever reasons, you may request to remain on the mailing list and be placed on the waiting list for the next term. Your name will remain on your house's roster but your student Status will be changed to "Inactive" until your return.

Expulsion from Hogwarts
Students can also be expelled from Hogwarts, removed from their house's roster, banned from their common room, and removed from the mailing list at any time for gross violations of Hogwarts' rules. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse, as all students are required to read the Hogwarts Handbook before enrolling.  Violations that may warrant immediate expulsion include the following:

1. Breaking into another house's common room and posting offensive messages there.
2. Revealing the passwords to your house or any other house to other students.
3. Using foul language or obscenities in messages.
4. Posting messages that insult or attack the character of another student.
5. Treating professors, prefects, or the headmaster with disrespect.
6. Impersonating another student or professor in the common rooms or Great Hall.

Warning
You may think that we cannot detect your identity if you post an offensive message without writing in your name or email address, but we can! (And have!) Every computer leaves a trail, and rule-breakers can often be identified quite easily. So don't be tempted to break the rules, or you will have to face the consequences of your actions.

You don't have to be an official Hogwarts student in order to be sorted and post messages in the common rooms or chat in the Great Hall, but you do have to abide by our rules. Please read them carefully before visiting the Great Hall or your common room:

Proper Message and Chat Etiquette
Please be respectful of others in your common room and in the Great Hall. Insults, obscenities, and inappropriate language is forbidden. Obscene messages will be deleted and may result in a loss of points or expulsion from Hogwarts. Feel free to role play and to develop a persona as a Hogwarts student, both in the common rooms and in the Great Hall, but be careful about acting out animosities with others.

How and When to Post A Message
Newcomers should introduce themselves in their common room the first time they visit it by reading and replying to the "Please Introduce Yourselves" or "Tell Us About yourselves" message posted there. It may be lower on the page or even on another page. Don't ignore the messages lower on the message board or on other pages, as they may offer useful information or interesting topics you'll want to reply to. Scanning through "older messages" also keeps you from repeating information or questions that have already been posted. If, after reading through the other messages and carefully reading this handbook, you still have new questions or a topic to raise, you may post a new message.

Replying to Messages
When posting a message in reply to a topic or person, reply directly to the message itself instead of posting a new messages at the top of the message board or. Only new topics should be posted at the top. Also, when there is a message which has already received several replies, don't just post your reply at the bottom of the heap. Reply instead to the highest message (the one most to the left) to which your answer applies. This helps prevent topics from "sliding off the right side of the page."

Speed of Message Board Postings
Sometimes it will take several minutes before you will see your message posted. Instead of immediately resubmitting your message, wait a minute or two and then hit "refresh" or "reload" to see if it appears.

Waiting for Message Board Replies
The common room is a message board, not a chat room or an instant message center. Replies to your messages will not be instantaneous and, in fact, may take a day or two. If you want to know exactly when someone replies to your message, include your email in the appropriate box and check the optional "email notification box" when posting. If you check this box you will receive an automatic email notification of any replies made to your message. To see if someone posting at the same time you are, reload or refresh to see new postings rather than ask if "anyone is here?" Members who want to chat and desire an instant response are encouraged to visit our Great Hall chat room. (See below).

Composing Interesting Messages
Messages should have a descriptive Subject title and should have a point. No one is going to reply at length to a message that simply reads "Hi. I'm new. What's up?" If you want people to reply to you, you should ask a specific question or say something they will find interesting. "I'm bored. Will somebody please talk to me?" probably isn't going to elicit much of a response. "Has anyone heard who is going to play the parts of Lupin and Sirius in the 3rd Movie? If I were the casting director, I'd select Guy Pearce as Lupin and Luke Wilson as Sirius. Who would you pick?" is much more interesting and is much more likely to compel others to respond.

Using Descriptive Subject Titles
Your message's Subject title should tell what your message is about so people will be more likely to read it. Examples of good Subject titles for messages are "Disgusting Bertie Botts Bean Flavours," "Why I Like Professor Snape," "Need Help with HP Party Ideas," and "My Favourite Harry Potter Scene." Examples of bad Subject titles are "Hi," "I'm New," "Help," "Hey!", "No Subject," and "Anyone There?"

Great Hall Chatting vs. Common Room Conversing
In the common rooms, students are encouraged to converse, discuss, greet each other, reply to each other, and engage others in group conversation. Students who are online at the same time and wish to chat one-on-one should go to the Great Hall instead of posting messages in the commons. The common room is not the place for long one-on-one chats such as the following:

Student A: Hey, what's up?
Student B: Not much. You?
Student A: I'm bored. Wanna talk?
Student B: Sure.
Student A: Okay. Did you see John today?
Student B: Nah, he was sick.
Student A: Oh. Too bad. I really wanted to know whether he was gonna go this Friday or not.
Student B: Yeah, me too.
etc...

Long chats like the one above are discouraged in the commons because (1) other house members cannot take part in them and (2) the message board quickly fills up with pointless messages, and other messages are then automatically deleted as a result. Therefore, this sort of "chat" should be moved to the Great Hall instead. 

Asking Others to Join You in the Great Hall
To invite others to the Great Hall, e-mail anyone who you've noticed has recently posted messages and ask him to join you there. Or keep a record of the emails of others who often frequent the Great Hall, and send them an owl asking them to join you when you're online. You can also set a daily time to meet with others in advance. But perhaps the best way to catch others who wish to chat is to sign into the Great Hall as soon as you get online, and stay there. You can always open another window and answer your email or work on class assignments while you wait for someone else to appear. If all you do is pop in and disappear, chances are good that you will miss the opportunity to chat with others who "pop in" just a few seconds earlier or later than you.

Questions of the Week (QOTW)
Only prefects are allowed to post "QOTW" or "Questions of the Week." Other members may indeed ask trivia questions but they should not be entitled "QOTW" or "My QOTW" or "My Question of the Week," etc... because this is confusing to members who think they will earn points by responding. When replying to a prefect's "Question of the Week," please remember not to post your answer on the message board where others can see it, or the question may have to be disqualified and no one will earn any points. You can answer the question and earn your ten points by emailing your answer to your prefect, whose email address will be given in the message or can be found in the Prefects' Lounge.

How to Earn Points
Once you have been officially enrolled and added to the house members roster on your house's common room entrance page, you can begin earning points for yourself and your house. Remember that you must earn at least 50 points during each term to remain enrolled. Ways of earning points include the following:

1. Earn points by completing Class assignments which are given in our Classespages. You do not have to "enroll" for classes. You simply complete whichever assignments you wish. In most cases, you will have at least 2 weeks to complete your assignments. We recommend that you "attend" at least 5 classes each 2-week session by completing the assignment for the 5 classes you select. For example, you may wish to attend Charms, DADA (Defense Against the Dark Arts), Herbology, Potions, and COMC (Care of Magical Creatures), or perhaps you will select Herbology, Muggle Studies, Flying Class, Divination, and Astronomy as your core classes. In any case, don't limit yourself to those 5 classes: If you have time, do all the class assignments! 

Just remember that while students can share website addresses and book titles that might be helpful in completing assignments, they cannot share answers. Plagiarism, copying, or sharing answers are considered cheating and can result in a loss of points for you and your house, so make sure your work is your own!

2. At the end of the term, each professor will select a "Star Student" whose name will be mentioned on that professor's class page. Star Students will earn an extra 20 points in addition to being recognized for their superior work. In order to be considered for this honor, you must have completed all assignments offered during the term in that class, and you must have received full points for all those assignments.

3. Earn points by solving the Quote of the Week which is listed in your weekly gazette.

4. Earn points by solving your prefects' Questions of the Week (QOTW) which are posted in your common room. Answers should be submitted by e-mail to your prefect.

5. Earn points by writing a story for your Gazette. Stories and news articles should be submitted to the Gazette Editor, whose email address is given at the bottom of each Gazette.

6. Earn points and compete for prizes by taking part in the Monthly Contest.

7. Other ways of earning points will be given in your gazette. These may include playing "Who Wants To Be A Galleonaire," helping with new activities, coming to Great Hall events, or voting for the website. If you have additional suggestions for activities that might be added in order to offer students more point-earning opportunities, and you are willing to help set them up, contact Ali at hpthemepark@swbell.net .

8. Don't forget that points can also be deducted for posting rude or inappropriate messages, for breaking into other houses' common rooms, for posting messages in another person's name, or for behaving in an inappropriate fashion in the Great Hall. You may think that you are impossibile to identify if you don't give your real name, but WE HAVE OUR WAYS of identifying intruders, imposters, and troublemakers.

Future Points-Earning Activities
In the future, we hope to add other fun activities that students can participate in to earn points, such as trivia Quidditch teams. Many of these activities require the assistance of dedicated, responsible, mature, organized individuals with various talents who will be willing to invest their time in helping to set up, build, and maintain these extra-curricular activities. Without these volunteers (who would of course earn points for their hard work), we cannot set up new activities, no matter how fun they sound like they would be.

Honoring High-Points Earners and Awarding the House Cup
Students who earn the most points in their house will be recognized at the end of the month. The house that earns the highest average number of points per student during the month will win the House Cup. At the end of each month, the Monthly Points will be cleared, but the Yearly Points will continue to grow. Students who become inactive and do not earn at least 50 points per term for their house will be removed from the roster and mailing list.

Student Status
Student status is determined by the number of consecutive months you have been participating in the points competition, (not by age or grade in Muggle school), as follows:

Prefects and professors will be periodically be added to houses. To find out if any prefect positions are currently open, visit the Prefects' Lounge. Advertisements for professors will be placed in the Gazette or on the appropriate Class page when there is are opening.

Prefects must be at least a 2nd year student and a high points-earner. Prefects will be chosen from among students who regularly post meaningful messages regularly throughout an extended period (that is, several weeks) in their common rooms and who have time to handle additional duties. Other considerations include writing and expressing yourself well, polite and helpful behavior, attendance at Great Hall events, and recommendations made by current prefects. Prefects who do not fulfill their duties on a regular basis can be replaced at any time.

Professors must be either adults or older teens with excellent writing and communication skills. High points-earners have an additional advantage, as do those who regularly post helpful, mature messages in their common room.