Co-Headmaster here. Hiya.
So it would seem I keep catching myself falling under the "when I remember this place" portion of the poll, and do not find it fair to the few members who are still active and wish for the board itself to be active.

The thing I wonder, though, is how often other members seem to fall into the pattern as well. With the so few members actually using this board, and the overall decreasing activity of the Harry Potter community itself, I wonder what exactly is left for an old RP board like this.

That is why I want to put up this poll and thread to discuss this directly with you all. To the active members, and the not so active members.

What would you have me and my fellow admins/mods do with such a place? Again it wouldn't be fair to the few members who continue to write and socialize here, as well as the facebook page. But then again, it is because there are so few active members here, that I do question whether or not we are all simply "beating a dead horse", to turn a phrase.

Take the poll. Make a post. Offer advice for change or a way to adapt for this old board. Should we keep working as only Harry Potter and RPing?

Are there other interests genres we could fall into, or should we just keep trying for new RPers and HP members?

Surely this old place has a chance to become relevant again.

please don't get rid of this place!! I don't come on here often but i do like to come on and look at it every once in a while. I have made friendships on here that 5 or 6 years later I STILL have.

i love this place :)

I hear ya. I doubt this will come down to shutting down this board. It's just that, every once in awhile, I still get pm/facebook messages about this place.

I just think this place could do better.

Hello people! Gosh, how I miss this place <3 And to think that many years have passed and many of us still remember this place and have fond memories of it.

It's funny how it works, isn't it? We all continuing to pop in and out after all this time.

I pop in once or twice a week.

Kinda upset with a lot of you all right now, you talk about revitalizing it and you do but then you abandon it and it dies again and then the process repeats. If you don't have time time that's fine but at least promote those who are still here and using the site so we can keep it going. I'm not the only one that feels this way. I love you all though

Currently the usergroups are setup for one bulk email for each of the groups. There is a limit to how many emails can be sent, I'll have to google the number lest the entire bulk email fail, but since the usergroups were divided into sub-groups for each of the houses, we can email more dedicated members in the first bulk email then we can work our way down to the users with less posts until ultimately the entire site has been emailed.

That is how the admin cp is currently right now and would be our ticket to revive this place. Yet this site needs a lot of clean up too to brings this place up to date again. Esp the mod team to set the example so people can find their way around the place.

I think more than anything this place just needs some active posters. Once there are posters they attract other people to post. For instances if not for this thread, I would not be making this post right now lmfao.

i have a proposal. I think that we should keep the School part open for those who still want to RP.

However, I think that we should make that a little smaller, and also add a section for the rest of us with our lives. I would love to know what is going on with everyone in their actual lives and have a section to discuss that. A lot of us have grown to be great friends OUTSIDE of the site, and I think I would be more active if we had a section just for real life in addition to HP RP.

For example, Shawn joined the army and is over seas now, I am in college getting my degree.

Since we have all grown so close why not turn part of the site into a place where we can discuss it all.
just an idea.

A big reason for the poll asking for activity levels is because I also believe a change in mods/admins is in order. I can't expect for support from the active members if I rarely take part in the effort, as well as the other lingering mods.

If you have suggestions for who to promote, and how to promote, I am all ears.

As far as how to organize the board, I agree to the part about compressing the overall size of all the categories we currently have. We have too few members for too many topics. The muggles section should be cleaned up too.

Sending out a bulk email might be a good idea, though I wonder just how up to date all the emails in everyone's profile are. Probably still worth a try.

But like I said, I think a more relevant set of administrators/moderators should come first. Even now I know I can't commit to participating in the board itself, but I would still like to help in the maintaining of the site.

KerryWeasley has a point. Sadly my RPing knowledge is next to zero so cleaning up an RPing board would be hard for me since I'm not sure what RPing areas work best etc. This sort of thing really requires more of a "feminine" touch which I'm not in touch with.

So how exactly should we split the board? I can start you off with an "off-topic" category and see where it goes.

The re-organization of the forum sounds good. Dividing things in a way that people don't see this place only for RP but to talk and discuss about anything.

The email should be sent after things get a bit cleared up. But if there are members that you guys think could help with re-building this place they should be contacted first.

I'm not sure how much I can commit to this place. To tell you the truth my life has been consumed by work & family. But I still want to help in any way I can.

Edit;
@Ultimater I haven't RP in so long I may be just like you are xD

There ya go. New section up for real-life/off-topic kind of chat. We'll see where it goes and perhaps add some more sections later for real-life kind of chit-chat.

Lizzie, McDeans and I are on almost every day if not every other day.

Should we have a sub-forum about Pottermore? Maybe in 'A Muggle's Life For Me'?

Hello - In my opinion, I think that we should keep the old RP area open as well as having an ' real life/off topic' area.

But let us not cut out any RP place to play yet, maybe someday one of us or a new person might want to go there. (or an admin make a place not mentioned: Somewhere Else i.e. Stonehenge, Mail Owl Message Place,---They just need to put it somewhere in the first sentence so people will know where they are roleplaying.

wow...this place has changed so much...its hard to believe how active this place was 3 to 4 years ago and its hard to believe back in 05 i joined on here haha time flys man...how have you all been?

Hey Sean!

Ulti, Lizz, and Max is presently in the Three Broomstick. Guess we can still RP when/if we have time in our busy lives. Thankfully it doesn't have to be over a paragraph reply...unless we want to. ;)

Ok I don't think we should close the RPs, but there are definitely things that need to get cut for right now. I think we should close off at least the lessons, but not the Hogwarts RP. I do not think we have enough active members to hold lessons, especially since we need to count up and fix the list of professors.

I know I've been coming back randomly and saying I wanna fix things up but then things in my life would lead to me not being able to come online at all, let alone RP sites.

But now I've got my life set in motion and I'm here to tell you all that I wanna help as best to my ability. I've gotten rusty with coding and CSS and stuff, but thankfully we have the genius Ultimater here.

I'm glad we added a section so we can catch up, that will be awesome.

I'm thinking of being more active again so anything you need for your grand plan just say the word

I actually do come back here every once in a blue moon...

However, every time I come back no one's on!

Well I'm still checking in on a frequent basis

I come and check up on the boards as often as I can. I would RP but whenever I come on there are never any others online.

Out of curiosity do you happen to have contact info for everyone?Mayhaps we can get something going again

Hey. I almost forgot about this site.... I think that someone created a Facebook page for the Black Forest users... I might check on old stories that I helped participated.

Yeah, the facebook page is the only contact information I know of. The admins should have a list of e-mail addresses, but I don't know as a mod how I could possibly get ahold of it.

wow.........................i can't believe I haven't been in here in forever :(

I decided to check in here today. Guess we all have busier lives now. The RP was fun while it lasted at least for now.( I know that in his PostHogwarts days, my Max McDean character would have been working or part owner in a Magical Pet Shop on D. Alley and may occasionally fill in for Hagrid's teaching at Hogwarts.)--- Hey, I could pretend. :hug:

This place needs a jumpstart

We need to find a time when all the active mods and admins that want to jump start it to come on so we can actually get an actual discussion done and get stuff done...That would probably be one of the hardest things to do though with time differences and real life getting in the way

I think a message should be sent to all the members on the FB page calling for them to come back and post when it's convenient for them. That sets a model for new members.

I have to Agree. It would be awesome to have everyone back on here.

I would love to say that I will help get BF back on it's feet, but honestly between work and college I don't think I would be able to commit full time. I would definitely post about once a week if other people were online (and I promise my writing has gotten better!!) :P

If people come and stay I will stay miss u all

Where have you been all my life??? *hug*

....No, I haven't missed RPing with you...what? :ninja: