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5 hours ago, facingthenorthwind said:

Hello! I just noticed a typo in the most recent +prefect blog (in the little credits bit it says 'women's sufferage' which I imagine is quite different from suffrage), but despite having posted it, I cannot edit it? I'm... confused, honestly, because I know that prefects have edited the prefect blog posts before. Has something gone weird or is this by design?

Hmmm... I'm wondering if you weren't given editing privileges to the Prefect Blog?  That's my best guess.  I think it's tricky for admins to keep up with assigning editing privileges to each area when we get new prefects/staff members.  I've edited it for you - so we should be all set!

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Yeah, in the past, we had to give prefects moderating powers individually, and to individual areas one by one, and we often forgot something. :P With the newer software, though, we linked (almost?) everything to a prefect group, so you definitely have editing powers in the blog. ^_^  I'm suspecting that the issue is that you'd passed your editing time limit - it's longer for prefects than for members, but it's not unlimited.

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Hey, I'm not sure if it's just me but when I go to edit a chapter, I'm finding a bunch of � where there should be hyphens, ellipses, single quotation marks and double quotation marks. I'm on a Mac and using Safari.

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Okay so I asked around because I didn't know the answer and it turns out that your text has to be in plain text to prevent that from happening. Apparently, this problem does not always show when you first post it, but shows up when you edit it, like in your case. If it isn't possible to get the document in plain text by pasting it again with eh... the mac equivalent to ctrl+shift+v (is that command+shift+v?), then try changing the punctiation you have problems with to the html code (link thanks to @Alopex).

 

I hope this helps!

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Thank you much! I suspected it might have to do with the fact that I always save my stories to Word for Mac. I'll make sure to make use of TextEdit (the Mac equivalent to Notepad).

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2 minutes ago, Alexis Black said:

Thank you much! I suspected it might have to do with the fact that I always save my stories to Word for Mac. I'll make sure to make use of TextEdit (the Mac equivalent to Notepad).

Word is a bad offender for punctuation being "fancy" instead of plain. Pasting it through Notepad or another plain text editor will fix a lot of that—but not everything. I personally have had the most trouble with quotation marks/apostrophes and hyphens/dashes. Changing the punctuation to write out " and — and so forth (look up whatever you might need) helped me.

The archive software doesn't use utf-8, which is the reason for the super frustrating character weirdness. I am wondering about the feasibility of converting it. Another topic for us to research...

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  • 4 weeks later...

I was wondering how much of a foreign language we are allowed to include in a chapter? 

I want to include a brief conversation in French between Fluer and Victorie and will include the translation at the bottom of the chapter, I just was wanting to make sure I don't overdo it. 

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Oh my god I am so sorry I thought I'd responded already but apparently I did not.

 

Just a question - how brief is brief? Because a few sentences are okay, but it shouldn't be much in comparision to the entire chapter. You can PM me it if you'd rather have that!

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Do we have to say at the beginning of a story, "Everything is owned by JKR/all rights to JKR," or something like that? I haven't been, but I don't want to do anything illegal...

Also, why no Disney? Just curious. 

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10 minutes ago, javu said:

Do we have to say at the beginning of a story, "Everything is owned by JKR/all rights to JKR," or something like that? I haven't been, but I don't want to do anything illegal...

Also, why no Disney? Just curious. 

You don't have to write a jkr owns HP notice. Our site tos covers that jkr owns HP. 

The Disney rule is because they tend to go after fanfic for copyright and include the hosting site as culpable for the copyright infringement. There's an argument that fanfic is fair use but no one has the money or lawyers to take that to court. 

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1 minute ago, toomanycurls said:

You don't have to write a jkr owns HP notice. Our site tos covers that jkr owns HP. 

The Disney rule is because they tend to go after fanfic for copyright and include the hosting site as culpable for the copyright infringement. There's an argument that fanfic is fair use but no one has the money or lawyers to take that to court. 

Okay, thank you.

And for the record, I get the whole copyright thing, I just was curious as to why Disney in particular. 

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Are we allowed to nominate the same story for sotm if it didn't win the previous month? (Asking since for slytherin sotm or motm we have a rule against nominating the same story/person in subsequent months)

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Hello! I have a couple of questions about claiming badges, in particular the ones relating to the challenge badge:

  1.  When placing in a challenge, do you get credits for placing and entering, or only for placing?
  2.  Does Throw Down the Gauntlet! count as a staff challenge? (I feel like it does, but I'd appreciate clarification)

Thank you! ^_^

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@esmeraude

Quote

 When placing in a challenge, do you get credits for placing and entering, or only for placing?

You get credits for placing or entering, but not both.

Quote

Does Throw Down the Gauntlet! count as a staff challenge? (I feel like it does, but I'd appreciate clarification)

We counted Fic Feud so I feel safe in saying yes, it does.

Edited by TidalDragon
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Guest Rumpelstiltskin
On 9/30/2018 at 4:21 PM, starbuck said:

Are we allowed to nominate the same story for sotm if it didn't win the previous month? (Asking since for slytherin sotm or motm we have a rule against nominating the same story/person in subsequent months)

Yes, you can nominate the same person two months in a row if the nominated story didn't win. 

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On 10/3/2018 at 7:44 PM, TidalDragon said:

We counted Fic Feud so I feel safe in saying yes, it does.

I can confirm that it indeed does count as we've categorised it under Staff Challenges in our masterlist. :) @esmeraude

 

Edited by Theia
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I couldn't find it in the site guidelines so I thought I'd ask here. 

What are the rules about using deceased Historical figures in stories?  (Specifically Reverend Putnam and Abigail Williams from the Salem Witch Trials) they are just mentioned by name a few times (think 3-5 each) and can easily be changed if need be. 

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1 hour ago, MalfoysAngel said:

I couldn't find it in the site guidelines so I thought I'd ask here. 

What are the rules about using deceased Historical figures in stories?  (Specifically Reverend Putnam and Abigail Williams from the Salem Witch Trials) they are just mentioned by name a few times (think 3-5 each) and can easily be changed if need be. 

Dead people are okay! 

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I have a story with some a bit of sexual content in it I was hoping to get checked by  a validator before I post it? because I don't want to keep writing it if its not acceptable. :) 

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@Hobbit Feel free to PM it to one of us! I'm around all morning.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey Loves,

Question about the Queue. Does it operate the same as it used to, wherein, if something is rejected, we receive a PM stating that it's been rejected and what needs to be changed to get it through the validation process. I submitted a chapter the other day, and I can't tell if it's just still in the queue, or if it's been rejected...??

 

xx-Ellie (a.k.a. Wolfgirl. a.k.a. Kittenshift17)

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Hi!

 

Yes - whether it's validated or rejected, you should always be getting an e-mail from us. It happens fairly often, however, that those e-mails end up in your spamfolder, so it's always wise to have a look there. As of your chapter - it seems to have been rejected, but I can also see that you deleted said chapter yourself. I'm not quite sure what's going on there or what the reason behind that is, but I'll shoot you the rejection e-mail via PM just in case your spamfolder has emptied itself already, as the e-mail had been send out a couple of days ago!

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Hello! I had a chapter rejected but can't find the email in spam or my inbox. Could a validator let me know what I need to change? Thank you! ^_^

Edited by facingthenorthwind
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