Prof. Cosmo B. Mott

(Yay, people!) Psst... so there have been a couple instances of people being logged in and not being able to see forums or threads that they're supposed to see. It seems like logging out and logging back in fixes that. So if that applies to you, do the logging-out-then-in-again thing, and let me know if it doesn't work. This new forum is a bit quirky, y'all.

Welcome back, everyone! Thanks for your patience. I know it's been a burden not to be able to play more games and chat and stuff. With any luck, we won't have to deal with this sort of downtime again. Hopefully you can still find your belongings and your way around the tunnels. If you notice things seeming out of place or missing or something, shoot me a message and I'll look into it. It might just be hiding somewhere or have a different name. But yay, we're back!

Hi, everyone, In the next few days, the Sett is going to be upgraded to a new version of the forum software. There will be a few noticeable changes. The most obvious one is that the skin will change and we'll lose our lovely custom... well, everything. (I'll be working on getting something cozier than the default skin, but I don't know how long that will take.) Also, instead of having "friends," you'll have "followers." Beyond that, well... I don't know, to be honest, but we'll all be learning about the new forum together; won't that be fun? If, after the upgrade, you have issues or questions, please reach out to me, Cosmo, through HOL message, and I'll see what I can do to help.

Jon_E, I can't find you in the HOL rolls. Please sign up again with your proper HOL name. Thanks!

james, please sign up again with your HOL name and email address. Thanks!

Evey Summers, your HOL account was deleted as a double. Please sign up again with original HOL name and email address. Thanks!

Sett Messenger Options If you haven't poked around the messenger, it's got some really neat upgrades from the previous Sett. For starters, messages don't exist solely on their own; they're part of conversations. Much like a forum thread or even Gmail's threaded emails, you can see everything that's been said in reply to the original message. This means that quoting isn't strictly necessary, but you can, of course, quote to your heart's content. Also, you can send the same message to multiple people (the number is determined by your user group). There are two options for doing this. If you want each person's replies to be private, seen by only you and that person, you should choose Copy from the "Send to others as" drop-down menu. This could be considered the equivalent of the bcc/"Hide CC recipients from others?" option from the other forum. If, however, you want to share the replies with everyone who received the message, choose Invitation from the "Send to others as" drop-down menu. This is an updated version of the cc/carbon copy option from the other forum, and it becomes an actual conversation, where it functions much like a private forum thread, where all the messages in the thread/conversation are visible to everyone involved.

Spell-check in Firefox If you use Firefox with the full-featured, WYSIWYG post box, you may have found that spell-checking doesn't work. If you can type out a nice keysmash or some gibberish and still get no red squiggles beneath them, here's how to fix it. Click inside the posting area of the WYSIWYG editor and start typing, then right-click in the middle of a word or something and look for an option that says "Check Spelling"; this should be checked. Now, beneath that should be a fly-out menu called "Languages". Make sure that English is selected, and once it is, you should have your spell-checking squiggles!

Hermione, I can't find you in the HOL member database; could you sign up again using your full HOL name and email address? Thanks!

This isn't about any account being deleted (yay), but I want to remind everyone that you need to validate your email address before your account is approved. You should get an email with a subject line much like "New Registration at Hufflepuff Common Room", and in it you'll find a section called "Activation Instructions". That's got the instructions you want to follow. If you didn't get it in your inbox, check your spam or junk mail folder; sometimes the email gets sorted there (it happened to Felicia!). As I said in the HOL Forum post, I know there are issues with Hotmail users receiving the email, but there may be more email providers that are feeling persnickety. If you haven't received your email, and you've checked your inbox and spam folder (and maybe even tried requesting the validation email again, just to be sure), send me a HOL message so we can discuss your options. Thanks, everyone! PS: I just had the forum resend the validation emails to those who haven't validated yet. Hopefully you've got something now! *crosses fingers* Known Persnickety Email Providers - Hotmail/MSN/Outlook (basically Microsoft-owned addresses) - AOL/AIM