SITE RULES

[googlefont="Great Vibes:400"]- Site Rules -

WELCOME
Welcome and thank you for your interest in Hollow Creek. Upon creating your account, we ask that you please change the display name to be the first and last name of your character, with proper capitalization. If you are unsure of how to do this, then please contact a member of staff and we will be glad to assist you. We also ask that you do not use any special symbols or fonts so that everything looks the same in terms of the name.

SETTING
This site takes place in current time. There are brand new classes that have been added to the school in order to accommodate future career choices of students, with new staff making their way through the doors at the same time as the new students are arriving. This site will run entirely based on the plot outline as well as character driven plots that help to keep things moving forward.

RATING
In accordance to the Proboards Terms of Service, our site has a PG-13 rating. This means that references to sex, drugs and rock and roll are pretty well minimized and should fade to black if the encounter becomes a little more graphic in nature. Anyone who breaks this rule not only endangers their continued presence on the site, but endangers the site itself, and so this will not be tolerated at all. In addition, please be aware that this site has a 200 minimum word count imposed upon it for all in-character threads, so one liners and single paragraphs will not cut it here, as we are a literate site. If this is an issue for you, then this site might not perhaps be the place for you.

PLAYBYS
Selecting a face to represent your character can sometimes be tricky, but it's important to their creation, right? If ever you need assistance with this, you are welcome to ask a member of staff for their opinion, or perhaps some of the other members may be able to help you. While we seldom ask you to select an alternative once you have posted the application, we ask that you use common sense when making the character come to life. Granted, we will be willing to work with ages and such a little, but let's be reasonable. We will accept models, actors and actresses, musicians, Disney kids...basically everything except perhaps some of the scene kids and Myspace/Youtube/Twitter/Instagram personalities. Just make sure you consider everything you can before you make a final choice. Please carefully consider the age of the character you are applying for when you select your playby. Using Hugh Jackman as a fourth year makes no sense. When in doubt, feel free to ask a member of staff. A basic thing to look at is the age of the actual celebrity, as we do not permit the use of pictures from their youth to be used to represent a character. Also, if your chosen celebrity is almost twice the age of your character, this might prove to be an issue and a backup choice is recommended. Please make sure that you select who you like from the beginning, as we do not permit playbys to be changed once they have been accepted.

If you wish to use a face that is posted in a request, please know that the face is not reserved for that ad. However, you will be asked to approach the person who has put them into their wanted ad to discuss alternative face selections if you do not wish to get involved in the plot that the face is currently attached to.

DISCRIMINATION
This environment is a safe place for all sexualities, where people are welcome to create gay and lesbian characters without fear of discrimination or hate. If you have a problem with this, then perhaps this site is not meant for you, as we will not tolerate any slurs against people of different races, religions or sexual orientations. Anyone feeling as if they are being targeted by another member is encouraged to message a member of staff and it will be dealt with right away. There is nothing worse than feeling put upon by someone else just because they are insecure with such things. In addition, if you cannot plot with characters of such orientation because of your own personal beliefs, then please do not become upset with your find yourself limited with character interactions.

CHARACTERS
There is no limit to the number of characters you are permitted to make, provided that you can handle them all. Please be cautious of creating Mary and Gary-Stus, meaning that they are perfect without some kind of flaw or hardship in their life, or end up being so beaten on that nothing ever goes right for them. We also do not permit characters from other fandoms, meaning that you cannot create an Edward Cullen or an Annabeth Chase. That's takes away from the creative side of the site, as you are then using someone else's ideas entirely as your own. And think them through. Make sure that things make sense before you ask the staff to look things over for you. Please also keep in mind that we want to achieve a balance of genders and member groups on this site. Characters can be as young as fourth year, with no limitation as to how old they can be.

Characters and families from the original Harry Potter series are also not going to be seen or used around the site unless they are used for plot purposes. If this happens, they will be NPC'd by staff only.

ACTIVITY
As we want to keep this site active and booming, the staff reserve the right to delete any and all accounts that have not been logged into for a period of two weeks or posted within the last month without notice. If you are leaving, or need to take a break because real life has gotten a little crazy, please leave us a note in the absences board. Failure to do so may put your characters at risk of being deleted if you don't log into the accounts. In the event that you return and want to take your characters back, provided that their face is still available, all you need to do is remake your account and we will set your application back in order. If you need to drop a character for whatever reason, please use the correct thread to let a member of staff know so that we can move all of your threads to the graveyard for storage.

While we will not restrict the number of characters you create, we will be implementing a 5 IC post rule. In order to be allowed a second character, we are asking that you reach a minimum of 5 posts with your first character. In order to be allowed a third character, you must reach this minimum post count with your second character, as well as prove that your first character remains active through threads and plotting (a minimum of 2 posts within the last month). If at any time staff do not feel that you are keeping all of your accounts active we will restrict the number of characters that you have on a temporary basis until such a time as you are full active with all of your accounts once more.

GRAPHICS
We ask that your graphics not stretch the board, but there are a number of icons that you will see used in the mini-profile. The first icon you add will be 150x150, and will show up when you hover over your mini-profile as well as at the bottom of the site to list you as being online. The hover image itself is 220x350 and should be an image of your character's playby. A good size for a signature is 500x300. Those can probably be a little bigger, but if they stretch the board they will be removed and a message left asking you to resize it. If you can make your own graphics then feel free to use them, but in the event that you cannot, you're welcome to request them under the graphics board. All that we ask in that regard is that you credit the person who made the graphics for you, and that you do not use them outside of this site without express permission from the artist. Anyone caught doing so will be reported to every available head of Proboards staff.

INTERACTION
Here on Hollow Creek, the staff have done their level best to ensure that this environment becomes as fun and interactive as possible. We are already working out the details to various site events and plots for future use, and we encourage everyone to get involved in the things that happen around the school and the wizarding world. In the event that you wish to suggest something to the staff, feel free to complete the form located under the member lounge board and tell us what you think. We want this place to be successful, which means that little things will happen to make everyone happy and involved without making this place a chore. Classes will be set up by professors as they are created, and those threads are designed to help characters interact with one another, help members earn house points and perhaps make something fun out of something that we'd love to experience ourselves. No member is required to post in these lessons, but the more you participate the more plots we can create.

In addition, please note that, just like in the real world, there are consequences to every action that your characters take. This means being caught by adult characters in inappropriate situations that can result in lost house points, detention, expulsion, the loss of a job and in extreme cases, criminal charges. If you are not sure about something, please do not hesitate to ask. Otherwise you might not like what happens as a result of attacking someone or sneaking off of the school grounds.

PROFESSORS
In the event that you choose to create a professor character, there are a few things that we will ask of you. Firstly, we're going to ask that you be active, because your professor will become responsible for the subject that they teach at Hollow Creek. If you want to do some research so that you know a little more about your subject, that would be fantastic! However, we realize that some of these subjects are not conventional and don't have mountains of information out there.

That being said, no professor is required to make homework posts, just as the students are not required to do them. If you want to throw them in there for something else to do, please feel free! We would love to see this place as interactive as possible! But we do ask that you attempt a few lesson threads over the course of the school year at the very least.

RESPECT
Everyone wants to feel safe and secure here, and this is how it is done. Treat everyone with kindness and respect and you'll find that they treat you the same way. If you ever feel that you are not being treated kindly by another member or by staff, do not hesitate to pm someone and let us know. We want everyone to get along and be happy, but we won't be able to do anything if we don't know what's going on. Follow these rules, PM the staff with any questions, and don't forget, you're going to want to remember 'zero to hero'. That phrase might come in handy later, since it is the password you need to complete your application. Thanks for reading, and be sure to check back every so often to see if the rules have been updated.