Forumming Etiquette

[Draco Malfoy]

There are certain ways you behave on a roleplay forum that might not necessarily be in the rules. Alot of it is just good manners and good sense. Some of the things in this thread are to be considered and adhered to out of politeness.

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Please be aware that you cannot plug other roleplay forums in a post anywhere on this board. This is against MM policy and the link will be deleted immediately. If you have found a forum or are a member of one and you are looking for members, please apply for affiliating in the correct manner. Or I can direct you to some advertising sites that offer this service. We do talk about other forums such as the Lush forum, with occasional links, since our link is in our signatures over there. In general, if our link is on a forum in your signature or in an advert you have posted, then it's acceptable to talk about that particular forum here.

Stealing our graphics, ideas, icons and banners is a big no-no and creates bad feeling. Our graphics have either been collected specially for MM or designed from scratch. There are many sites offering a free graphics service and free icons for you to use. I will be happy to direct you to them.


As mentioned below, if you are a visitor to the Manor, you have to act in the Manor as if you were a guest in someone's home. That means knocking politely and not just suddenly appearing in a room in their home. Would you just let yourself in to someone's home in real life? There are very few characters that can get away with just appearing in the Malfoys home. These very few only include family members and family friends, as it is in real life.

Regarding Private Messaging

Please do not ask any members via private owls for any of their personal information, their real name, where they live, their real age and so on, or even what other characters they play on the boards. Only PM others when it is entirely necessary and do not ask questions that don't concern you. The PMs are only to use to write a quick note to someone OOC regarding the roleplays or an important question if you need help. They are not used to advance a storyline in private when it would be perfectly suitable for the boards.
It's best to not repeatedly Private Message one person in particular. It's too time consuming for that person and an invasion of their personal space. If you feel like someone is acting inappropriately in PMs to you, please report it to a staff member straight away.

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Other General Rules of MM Etiquette


Editing or deleting posts - It is really bad form to delete or edit your post and negate your actions within a thread. This can cause great confusion when others have already replied. On that same note, mods and admins may find it necessary at times to edit or delete posts. We will always do our best to contact you with a reason as to why this was done, though.

Leaving a thread - Do not just abandon a thread when you have to depart. Most players here will play for a certain amount of time and when they have to log off they will take their character out of the thread with an action (examples: *disapparates* *leaves the room* *floos out*). Please post that you are leaving or if the storyline needs to be stopped and continued later, please owl (PM) the other player.

Involving other players - Please do not involve other characters in a storyline without their permission. This could create confusion or perhaps a conflict with the direction they may have intended for their character to take. The same goes for including their reactions in your post. It should be their decision, not yours.

Old and new threads - Old threads are the ones that have either not been posted in for weeks or just fizzled out for any given reason. Please do not post in these and "bring them back from the dead". We would rather have you create a new thread as a continuation for an unfinished storyline or to just give your character a fresh start.

Another note on private messages - If you have owled someone and they haven't immediately responded to your message, please do try and have a bit of patience. Do not continue to send messages, they will get back with you as soon as they can.

Private homes and chambers - Some characters at MM have their very own homes and private chambers within. Please do not just appear or enter there (chances are they are guarded by charms or locking spells anyway). Please knock at the door and wait to be invited in.

All-knowing characters - If you have read a storyline but were not present at the time, please do not act/react like you have knowledge of what has occurred. There may be instances where you may happen to walk into a conversation and gain some insight as to what may be going on, but since you did not actually hear everything that was said you should act accordingly.

[Draco Malfoy]

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RPing Etiquette

RPG Etiquette

1. Posting Order and Multiple Posts

Posting order is not a strict rule, but generally more of a well-respected guideline. For example, say Luna, Neville, Harry and Ginny are RPing in a thread. Luna starts the thread, then Neville replies, then Harry and Ginny join the thread.

Luna: *walks into the room, and places a vase of flowers on the table*
Neville: *also walks into the room, and hangs some decorations for a party*
Harry: *enters the party room, smiling, with Ginny*
Ginny: *accompanies Harry into the party, and helps set up the decorations*

Now, we have established what's happening in the thread, and what everyone's doing. We have also established a general posting order, until more people join. In a large thread, with more than six or so RPers posting away, posting order can get lost very quickly. Providing that nobody makes multiple posts, this isn't a problem. However, let's see what happens when Marietta Edgecombe joins the thread.

Luna: *walks into the room, and places a vase of flowers on the table*
Neville: *also walks into the room, and hangs some decorations for a party*
Harry: *enters the party room, smiling, with Ginny*
Ginny: *accompanies Harry into the party, and helps set up the decorations*
Marietta: *runs in, everyone is happy to see her and shouts hello*
Luna: *Waves at Marietta and the others as they enter, then summons a pack of balloons, and begins to magically inflate them with her wand*
Neville: *approaches Luna, and offers to help*
Marietta: "The party can start now I'm here!" *waves her wand and hangs all the decorations instantly, and makes the music start*
Harry: *Looks at Ginny* "Can you give me a hand with the refreshments?"
Marietta: "I've already sorted that, Harry! Now come dance with me!" *Grabs Harry and drags him off for a dance, and he only has eyes for her*

Oh dear ... Marietta made several mistakes here, but the one we'll focus on here is posting order. Marietta should have waited for Harry and Ginny to post first before she posted again. There may have been a plan in place for who was going to do certain tasks at the party, so that conversations could be had between different RPers and relationships developed, and so on. Harry could have been using the refreshments as a ploy to get Ginny away from everyone else so he could tell her he loved her, either that or to quietly and politely tell her that her fly was down. Either way, we'll never know, because Marietta didn't give enough time for people to reply.

This also leaves the other posters in a difficult situation, because nobody knows who's up next any more. It also means Harry or Ginny have to rude, and either tell Marietta to back her crazy train up, or else be passive and tell her to go right ahead and steal the Boy Who Lived for a dance. So, as a general rule, give other people in the thread a chance to reply before using a ballistic approach to posting. And don't make multiple posts out of boredom, or out of a desire to bump a thread and get it moving more quickly. Nobody wants to be like Marietta.

2. God Mode

Now for the breach of etiquette that makes everybody hopping mad. God mode, or power play, involves writing another character's actions for them. Let's look back at our previous example.

Luna: *walks into the room, and places a vase of flowers on the table*
Neville: *also walks into the room, and hangs some decorations for a party*
Harry: *enters the party room, smiling, with Ginny*
Ginny: *accompanies Harry into the party, and helps set up the decorations*
Marietta: *runs in, everyone is happy to see her and shouts hello*
Luna: *Waves at Marietta and the others as they enter, then summons a pack of balloons, and begins to magically inflate them with her wand*
Neville: *approaches Luna, and offers to help*
Marietta: "The party can start now I'm here!" *waves her wand and hangs all the decorations instantly, and makes the music start*
Harry: *Looks at Ginny* "Can you give me a hand with the refreshments?"
Marietta: "I've already sorted that, Harry! Now come dance with me!" *Grabs Harry and drags him off for a dance, and he only has eyes for her*

In the bold text, you can see where Marietta went wrong. Instead of writing ONLY her character's actions, she wrote everyone else's rather than waiting for people to react to her. She also tries to move the thread along quickly by doing everything instantly (hanging decorations and playing music), but not only is this bad etiquette according to our previous rule, it is also power play. No spell will do all of these things instantly, so Marietta being able to do so is not possible by the rules of the HP world. Furthermore, Marietta interrupts a sub-RP between Harry and Ginny by dragging him off, and writing his actions for him. Harry may not want to dance with Marietta, and Ginny may be the only one he has eyes for. Doing this is a surefire way of annoying other RPers, and also makes your character seem completely over-powered and selfish.

How can we fix Marietta's posts? Unfortunately, we can't change the former posts, because other RPers have already replied. However, Marietta can either delete her most recent post (and politeness would suggest she would send a PM to Harry apologising for her lack of manners) or she can modify it to say something like:

Marietta: *steps forward shyly* "Sorry to interrupt, Harry, but I could help you with those if you like? And maybe we could share a dance later?" *Looks apologetically at Ginny, feeling bad for interrupting.

Obviously, if your character is brash/arrogant by nature, they wouldn't be apologising, but if that is the case, Marietta could edit her post to say something like:

Marietta: "Someone else can take care of the food and drink, Harry! Now come dance with me!" *Ignores Ginny, and grabs Harry's arm to try and drag him off for a dance*

Much better. She's still interrupting, but she's giving Harry a chance to either courteously ask her to hold on a moment while he has a word with Ginny, or else rudely tell her to get up out of his grill if she knows what's good for her.

3. Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling and the Great Wall O' Text

Now, in asterisk style RP *demonstrates here* we don't expect seventeen paragraphs of Elizabethan English, but we do expect a little bit of effort put into posts. That means no text speak or abbreviations that people will find hard to follow, (e.g. ROFLMAO, etc.). For your convenience, there are spell check buttons on both the quick reply and long reply posting options, so any misspelled words will be caught. Also, if you are posting para-RP, it is considered good manners to use correct punctuation where possible, and to break it up a little bit by using your return key. For example:

marietta walks into the party she knows nearly everyone there from dumbleodoures army a few years ago in skool she sees harry hermioninny ginny nevil and loads of others and she says hi guys did you miss me she then tries to help with the decorations and dishing out food and drink 4 the party & asks harry 4 a dance

This post is hard on the eyes and on the brain, and makes the other posters think it was written in about 60 seconds on the back of a napkin and tossed into the internet. Here's how Marietta could improve it.

*Marietta walks into the party*

*She recognises nearly everyone there from Dumbledore's Army a few years ago in school*

*She sees Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and loads of others*

Hi guys! Did you miss me?

*She volunteers to help with the decorations and good*

*Approaches Harry and says*

Harry, would you mind dancing with me later on?

See how much easier that is to read? If you are unsure about how to spell proper nouns (names, place, etc.) give it your best shot, and character names are always on view so you know how to spell the names of people you are RPing with.


4. Thread Hijacking

This is a process whereby the thread is established, everyone is playing nicely, and then a new RPer joins the thread and tries to change what the thread is about. For example:

Luna: *walks into the room, and places a vase of flowers on the table*
Neville: *also walks into the room, and hangs some decorations for a party*
Harry: *enters the party room, smiling, with Ginny*
Ginny: *accompanies Harry into the party, and helps set up the decorations*
Marietta: *runs in, everyone is happy to see her and shouts hello*
Luna: *Waves at Marietta and the others as they enter, then summons a pack of balloons, and begins to magically inflate them with her wand*
Neville: *approaches Luna, and offers to help*
Marietta: "The party can start now I'm here!" *waves her wand and hangs all the decorations instantly, and makes the music start* "Oh my gosh, guys, forget about the party! There's something really important I need to talk to you all about. My parents are dead. Voldemort murdered them five minutes ago, and I need you all to leave the party right now and help me kill him!"

There are several things wrong with what Marietta has done here. For one thing, if her parents were murdered five minutes ago, she shouldn't be going to a party in the first place. She should be contacting the Ministry of Magic, and reporting their murder. She should also probably be crying quite a bit, depending on how much she liked her parents. And finally, she shouldn't be making the party thread all about her. How can Marietta fix this?

Luna: *walks into the room, and places a vase of flowers on the table*
Neville: *also walks into the room, and hangs some decorations for a party*
Harry: *enters the party room, smiling, with Ginny*
Ginny: *accompanies Harry into the party, and helps set up the decorations*
Luna: Wait, wasn't Marietta supposed to help us set up?
Neville: Yes, she was. I'll drop her an owl later and see if she's still coming.
Harry: Oh, well. I don't mind helping you set up.

**MEANWHILE, IN ANOTHER THREAD**

Marietta: Oh my gosh! The blood! My poor parents! *cries loudly for a long time* I need to get the Aurors!

Well done, Marietta! Clearly, she PM'd the people involved in the thread, informed them that she wouldn't be RPing in it due to the party thread and her parents' murder thread happening at the same time.


5. Character Background

Another minor thing, but it can get quite annoying after a while is character background. Imagine sitting on the Knight Bus, waiting for your stop, when a complete stranger sidles up to you and tells you EVERYTHING about himself, from how he wet the bed until he was nineteen right up to his particular preference for pickled herring for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Your first thought, of course, will be along the lines of "freeeeeeeeeeeak ..." swiftly followed by, "Why is this complete stranger spilling his guts to me when I'm sitting here minding my own business?"

Let's watch Marietta make the same mistake.

Marietta: "The party can start now I'm here!" *waves her wand and hangs all the decorations instantly, and makes the music start* "Oh my gosh, guys, wait! Forget about the party! There's something really important I need to talk to you all about. My parents are dead, my parents Edwina and Federico Gonzalez Edmundo Consuela Edgecombe, who had me twenty-three years, four months and eighteen days ago! Voldemort murdered them five minutes ago, and I need you all to leave the party right now and help me kill him! He murdered them because my mother refused to knit him some new socks and become the official Death Eater's sock mistress, and because my father would not become a Death Eater and manufacture cauldrons for him! Ohhh, the agony! Ohhh, they must have vengeance! Sweet, lemony fresh vengeance must be mine! Aaaaargh! Mother! Father! Their blood types were O negative and B positive respectively!"

Besides the Wall O' Text going on there, Marietta also put in WAY more info than we needed. As my old English teacher used to say, don't use a complicated verb when a simple one will do, and the same goes for RP. Marietta is trying to convey information here quickly, so instead of being long and elaborate, here's how she can make her post simple and brief.

Marietta: *Looks very upset as she walks into the room, and shouts* "Oh, Merlin! Can someone help me please? My parents were just murdered, and I'm pretty sure it was You-Know-Who what did it!"

Keep it simple. Even with today's modern wonders like Facebook and Twitter (where you can find out which member of Sex & The City your best friend is most like, or whether your boyfriend is more like a ninja or a , or who's been poking who), Muggles STILL don't know everything about their friends. It's only a very close circle of people who know everything about a person (and still like them!) so it is wisest not to spill the beans the first time you meet someone. Even if said someone *IS* David Bowie, and you believe he *DOES* desperately need to know about how much you fangirl him.

Even Marietta can learn from her mistakes and improve, so don't lose heart if you have made these mistakes! We all have to learn etiquette at some point, and we were all newbies at one stage. Have fun!

with thanks to Ophelia for submitting the above.