News

New Mods!

Thank you all for the applications. You did not make our decision easy (considering how long it took) but we finally made one. Meet your new MNFF moderators:

Fresca (Colores)
KC (sayiansirius)
Kristin (coppercurls)
Laura (Insecurity/TyrannoLaurus)
Nicole (NikkiSue)
Tash (Pondering)

Good luck to you all!

Your MNFF - The Results

So... the time is finally here!

Thank you everyone for your votes, we had almost 200 votes and we have found our final five designs!

Firstly, congratulations to everyone that took part in this competition. All of the designs were brilliant and it was really hard to pick these winners. We'll be keeping as many designs as possible on file incase we want to come back to them in the future.

So, I know you're all dying to find out who the winners are and what the skins look like. The reason for the delay in announcing these results is that... we were coding them. When you read this message, you will be able to go to the archives and choose one of our fantastic five!

And so, without further ado, our winners are...

A Thousand Years - crazy_purple_hp_freak
Guidance - Eowyn89
Lumos - striped_candycane
Mischief Managed - Hatusu
Forever Three - Sentinelity

Congratulations all of you! I hope you are happy with how your skins have turned out, I definately am.

If you find any problems with any of the skins, please contact me over on the beta forums.

Thank you very much and enjoy your new skins!
~ Roxy

Queue Wait Time

Due to a variety of circumstances, the time submissions are in the queue awaiting moderation has gone up. We, the moderators, realize that many of you have become dissatisified with the amount of time it is taking for your submissions to be moderated, especially in the larger categories.

The moderators are doing what we can to bring the wait time back to the normal seven to ten days. To do so, we are asking that you not contact a moderator until your submission has been in the queue at least twenty-one days. After your submission has been in the queue at least three weeks please contact the moderator in charge of the category to which you submitted your story/chapter. For the general categories modded by everyone, please contact the staff email.

Here is a list of which moderators work in which categories:
General ~ Everyone
Historical ~ MithrilQuill
Mystery ~ Andrea (Ravensgryff)
Poetry ~ Jan (Magical Maeve)
Post-Hogwarts ~ Beth/Brosna (Marauder by Midnight/mooncalf)
MWPP ~ Vindictus Viridian/Elysa (PhysicalGraffiti)
Humor ~ Everyone
Dark/Angsty ~ Everyone
Ron/Hermione ~ Roxy/Josh (Roxy Black/x2pttrclue32)
Harry/Ginny ~ Danielle (bogus)
Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny ~ Roxy/Josh (Roxy Black/x2pttrclue32)
Other Pairing ~ Julie (myownmuggle)
Harry/Hermione ~ Elysa/Rachel (PhysicalGraffiti/lily_evans34)
Hermione/Draco ~ Anasuya/Karin (Potterphile12/songbook99)
Hermione/Snape ~ Kim (Phoenix5225)
Various Pairings ~ Julie (myownmuggle)
Ron/OC ~ MithrilQuill
Harry/OC ~ Abby (Eponine)
Draco/OC ~ Elle (Sly Severus)
Hermione/OC ~ Elle(Sly Severus)
James/Lily ~ Anasuya/Rachel (Potterphile12/lily_evans34)
Draco/Ginny ~ Rachel (lily_evans34)
Remus/Tonks ~ Danielle/Karin (bogus/songbook99)
Same Sex Pairings (all cats) ~ Andrea (Ravensgryff)
Alternate Universe ~ Beth (Marauder by Midnight)


Reducing the amount of emails and PMs the moderators receive will hopefully allow us to spend more time in the queue moderating your stories instead of answering your emails.

We appreciate your patience with the moderating process. Without all of you, we wouldn't have a site to maintain.

Hiring Closed

Applications for mod hiring are now closed. No more submissions will be accepted. However, if you do have a last minute recommendation to send in, you have until tomorrow night.

Keep watching this space for updates on our progress as we deliberate over the apps.

Good luck to all who applied!

Mod Hiring

Well, I hope you all enjoyed our April Fool's Joke. I see that some did more than others. But today, it's back to business on MNFF. As you can see, we have a rather nice new site and with a new site comes the need for some new mods. Yes, we are hiring again.

We will be accepting applications starting today and ending on April 16th. Now before I get into the substantive stuff, I would like to give you all a warning: I know that everyone gets excited when it comes time to hire, but you should know that this is a very time-consuming position and there is a good deal of stress involved. In short, it is not for everyone. That being said, if you feel that you're up to the task, then we look forward to your applications.

Right, so what do you need to become a MNFF moderator? Well, there are two things that we require of every mod. You must have AIM and you must have a Livejournal. You need AIM because this is where we hold our staff meetings. If you don't want to download the software, you can use free services such as AIM Express or Meebo, but you must sign up for an AIM screenname. Also, you need a Livejournal because this is how we communicate if the forums go down. You do not need to use the account, you just need to have it and check it on occasion. These are the two things that we require, no exceptions.

Furthermore, you must be comfortable reading a variety of fics, including those with various ratings and various pairings. Obviously, you will not be forced to read anything that makes you uncomfortable, but sometimes situations arise and you may have to read a pairing that you don't like.

Please fill out the following form when applying:

Screenname/Name:
How long have you been part of MNFF? Stories on MNFF:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Qualifications (Beta work, PI accreditation, RL qualifications):
Possible Problems (Anything you see that may hinder your ability to mod. Please be honest):
Categories/Pairings that you would be willing to mod:
Categories/Pairings that you would be unwilling to mod:
Why you want to mod:

In addition, you'll also be required to include three recommendations from other site members. Remember that the best recommendations are ones that are objective and highlight both strengths and weaknesses. Many members are willing to give constructive recommendations, including some moderators. However, due to the increased workload with the new site, we are capping the amount of recommendations that each mod can write, so as not to give them increased stress. Each mod will only be able to write two recs, so if they decline when you ask them, please don't take it personally. Please respect the decisions of all members when asking for recommendations.

Please read the following very carefully: Do NOT send your applications to the staff email. All applications should be sent to Anasuya@fanfiction.mugglenet.com. Also, recommendations should be sent directly to me, NOT through the applicant.

If you are submitting an application, please include this in your subject line: 'Moderator Application for (your username).'

If you are submitting a recommendation for someone, please include this in your subject line: 'Moderator Recommendation for (applicant's username) from (your username).'

I'm going to be getting a lot of emails, and this will help me keep track of them.

Also, if you are sending me more than one recommendation, you may send them in one email. Just make sure to specify that there is more than one.

I think that's everything, but if you have any questions, feel free to comment here or email me.

Good luck!

April Fool's!

Well, it is time for the moderators to own up to our little prank. The Updated Submissions Policy was a hoax. Yes, that's a right, just a lovely little prank pulled by the moderators to help celebrate the birthday of those beloved twins, Fred and George Weasley.

We hope all of you enjoyed it, though it appears to have distressed a few.

Just to make everything crystal clear, though, MNFF is not charging the users a fee for anything. This site has always been, and remains, a free site. Enjoy!

Edit: While the charges were a joke, there were some things that came out in the comments that should be taken seriously.

First off, this joke grew out of how many submissions we receive where it is blatantly obvious the people did not read the submission rules. The lesson there is: Always read the Submission Rules before submitting.

Secondly, along with the idea of reading the rules, it is always recommended that anyone planning to submit have a beta reader look over their submission before adding it to the queue. Even if you are fabulous with writing, chances are that you have a few typos sprinkled throughout your story/chapter that you will not catch because your mind will skip right over them. Please, please have someone look over your submission before you send it in.

Finally, rudeness on the site will not be tolerated. Not between members and not directed at moderators. We are all here to have a good time.

Update in Submissions Policy

Hello all,
Thank you for all of your kind words and support over the past few weeks. We’re very glad to say that the update has gone exceedingly well and we’re well on our way to ironing out our problems and glitches and getting the site running smoothly again. However a further problem needs to be addressed.
After much deliberation, the moderators of MNFF have decided that we will need to charge our authors for each mistake they make in their fictions to make the site financially viable. Our site is always expanding and unfortunately cyber-space is money. We have talked long and hard about the best way to go about this and have devised a little price list which we believe to be both fair and reasonable.
Obviously, MNFF is a site which values the promotion of good writing, and so we decided that it would be errors in fictions that we would charge, rather than the fictions themselves. This makes our lives as moderators easier and I hope you’ll agree that the prices we’ve come up with are equivalent to each error.
Please see below for our list of prices:

$1 for each spelling or punctuation mistake
$2 per canon error
$3 for every multiple category submission
$5 for each tiresome cliché
$10 for every incorrect title or poor summary
$20 for characterisation problems
$50 flat rate for dialogue errors

We will flag up the cost of each mistake in the rejection letters you receive with information on how and where you can pay.
Thank you,
~ The MNFF Moderators.

Guidelines For Submissions

We have now passed 300 fanfic chapters waiting in the queue -- do please be patient with our modding speed.

Also, we have changed none of the submission guidelines. Stories need to have ONE category heading only, and absolutely must be carefully proofread to conform to standard English -- preferably British English. Literary experiments with form or style must be clear. Your title should look like a title; your summary should summarize and be as well-proofed as your fic. Certain topics, body parts, and activities are still not permissible: bestiality (including Animagus/animal), incest, and so on, for instance, will not be posted here. You may have two chapters in queue only if they are of two different fanfics in two different categories, but definitely no more than that, or of a single story. The only exception, ever, is if you have made special arrangements with your category moderator -- such as if your whole fic was accidentally deleted instead of a single chapter.

We would genuinely LOVE to have a 100% validation rate at this site because we had 100% high quality submissions, but, sadly, that hasn't happened yet. We're getting closer all the time, though! Thank you to all of you, writers and betas together!

MuggleNet Fan Fiction Updated

After a hellish weekend (which included Monday and Tuesday), MNFF has finally upgraded the system.

Some information may have been lost. If so, we apologise for the inconvenience but would like you to re-input the information yourself.

Here are some new features that are available:

+ Co-authors
+ Read count
+ Table of contents
+ Story notes and end-of-chapter notes
+ Member-chosen default story sort
+ "New!" next to recently updated stories

There are also some features that have been revamped:

+ Must preview story/chapter before submitting
+ New table of contents
+ More specific Rejection/Acceptance letters (now it includes which story/chapter is being rejected/validated)
+ "Manage Reviews" is now combined with "Manage Stories" (click on 'Manage Stories' to see your reviews)
+ Annoying tags should be gone
+ Add link to your Livejournal account in bio

While the storm is over, there are still chances of light and heavy showers all over the site. We'd tried very hard to solve these errors before opening this new site, there are some we have missed. Please report any that you encounter in this forum so that the coders may address it as soon as possible. Please read the first post carefully.

That forum is also the place to ask questions about how to use some functions.

Any questions about how to use the new site and any reports of glitches in the comments below will be ignored. This is our method of consolidating everything in a neat place where everyone knows what's going on.

SITE UPGRADE IN PROGRESS

SITE UPGRADE IN PROGRESS!

YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE. PLEASE LEAVE BEFORE YOU BREAK OUR SITE! CLICK HERE AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN!

Thank you for your support.

Site Upgrade Status

Dear Authors,

I'm sure all of you are itching for the queue to open so you can submit your wonderful stories and read what others have planned during this very very long upgrade process. We apologise for not having the queue available for you in a timely fashion.

However, we have begun the upgrade process by backing up all stories and reviews that exist on the database. Any story or review that has been submitted (not necessarily validated) by March 12, 2008 will be backed up and should be safe should we run into upgrade problems. The queue is still unofficially closed, and we ask that if you can hold off on your submissions for two weeks, please do. It will save me a lot of space on my hard drive as I save all 7000+ stories on my computer.

The actual upgrade will occur on the weekend of March 14, 2008. At that time, the queue will be officially closed to submissions from March 14 until March 16, 2008 at the earliest. We also ask that you avoid visiting MuggleNet Fan Fiction during that weekend. Please check the beta forums during that weekend for any updates on the upgrade process to make the upgrading faster, easier, and smoother. We will use the forum, which will remain untouched during the upgrade, to let you know when the site will be open. We are hoping that the site will be up and running (with brand-new and WORKING functions) by March 16th.

If you have any questions about the site upgrade, please contact Beth (Marauder by Midnight) or Roxy (Roxy Black) privately or post here.

On an unrelated note, the FAQ section has been edited to reflect the names of current moderators. The Formatting section of the Help page now includes a "How to get rid of those pesky breaks between paragraphs" for those of you whose stories are constantly rejected for formatting errors. I'll take this time to reiterate that you MUST use the "Preview" button before submitting. It will save you and us a lot of time.

One last very important note: Avoid accessing the site between March 14 through March 16. Use the forums to contact moderators or to keep up with the upgrade status.

Thank you so much for your patience through this rather stressful period. We're almost there!

Your MNFF – Graphics Design Challenge

Calling all graphic designers. As you know, our site has recently been undergoing some problems. This has convinced our moderators to make the site even bigger and better than before. To do this, we are going to be requiring some new “skins” for the main archive page! Our amazingly wonderful Haley – QueenHal, the original BA-mommy – designed our last ones so we thought it would be fitting to ask our members to do it again.

So this is it, here’s your challenge.

We would like you to create a new background, or ‘skin’ for the MNFF Archive pages.

Each new skin requires a colour scheme, a main banner and so-called “block banners” that go where the ‘Navigation’ and ‘Categories’ banners are now. (Like this)

Once the designs are all in we will have a vote to decide the winner (or winners if possible) and your design will be made into a new skin for the site – with your name on the page!

If you are interested in joining this challenge, please see this thread for more details.

The competition will close on the 18th March so get designing!

Database Glitches

Dear Authors,

You all must know by now that we've been having some serious problems with the archive due to both the hacker situation and the sheer size of the archive. Our priority these past few days have been limiting the glitches, but they are beginning to mount to the point where we may need to initiate a temporary queue shutdown. Over the course of the next few days, we will be trying to do a site upgrade, which will hopefully fix the problems we're having. The number and frequency of glitches may escalate over this period, but we ask you to bear with us.

There are several ways you members can help us:

+ Do not submit any new chapters or stories to the queue starting from now. Doing so will add unnecessary strain to our already wobbly system and may threaten the existence of every single story and author stored on the database.
+ Back up your stories and/or reviews just in case the worst happens. We will try not to cause an MNFF apocalypse, but no promises can be made.
+ If you have a fic you've wanted to get rid of or an abandoned fic you aren't going to continue, now is the time: just go in and delete it from the archive yourself.
+ Queue wait time is much, much longer at the moment due to, again, our focus on stabilizing the database. We will try to mod stories as often as we can, but complaining about your wait time will only serve to deter us from our main goal which is to make sure this site continues to exist.

Here are a few glitches that have already been noted and that we will try to correct over the next few weeks.

+ Edit bio information - Reported error is "Method Not Implemented: POST to /user.php not supported."
+ Switch categories and Add stories/chapters - Reported error is "That category is locked. Please select a sub-category."

Several people had reported errors when contacting users via the "Contact" button on user profiles; that error has now been fixed.

Finally, as we are updating behind-the-scenes codes, we will, as humans, make mistakes. Therefore you will see some pages/functions glitching. Please do not report it until 24 hours after first experiencing the particular glitch. That way, you do not waste your time reporting a glitch we know about and will have already fixed; if it is not fixed within 24 hours, most likely we don't know about it and would like you to contact us.

We will keep you updated on glitches and fixes. We will also notify you when you can begin submitting stories in a (nearly) error-free environment.

If you have any questions about this don't hesitate to post them here, but please don't waste our time with off-topic ones that should go elsewhere. As you can see, we have more than enough to do at the moment.

Thank you ever so much for your patience and cooperation.

EDIT: If your story suddenly disappeared from the queue, please don't be afraid. It is not a glitch. Your email provider merely weeds MuggleNet Fan Fiction emails out and refuses to send your rejection letter. Instead of posting in the comments, please post here at the Beta Forums.

UPDATE: We do NOT have an estimated time for when the queue will be "reopened" or when the update will be done because we're running into some difficulties with a third party. Now that that has been answered, please stop asking the same questions in the comments section. Please take the time to at least skim the already existing comments.

2007 Mod QSQ Winners Announced

Alright. Well, the nominations have been reviewed and the votes have been tallied. It is time to reveal the winners of this year's Mod QSQ's. So, without further ado, I give you the Modly winners:


Best Cry Fic:
Winner: A Destiny in Time - gmariam
Runner-up: Rain - Potterphile12

Best Humor Fic:
Winner: Collected Works of Semony Lnicket by x2pttrclue32
Runner-up: Draco, the Babysitter by mugglemathdork

Best Romance Fic:
Winner: Er-my-nee by Ravensgryff
Runner-up: Even Fallen Angels Love by Vindictus Viridian

Best OC:
Winner: Alex Black by Snape's Talon in Child of the Hunt
Runner-up: Maeve O'Malley by Magical Maeve in The Daughter of Light

Best Novel-Length Fic:
Winner: In the Eyes of Others by Vindictus Viridian
Runner-up: Halfway to Inifinity by Eponine

Best Poetry Fic:
Winner: As Honourable Men Leave Quietly by myownmuggle
Runner-Up: Not a Bang but a Whisper by Magical Maeve

Best One-Shot:
Winner: Give Him A Mask by Marauder by Midnight
Runner-up: Brothers on a Hotel Bed by Dory_the_Fishie

Best Dark/Angsty Fic:
Winner: Therefore, x+y = Death by mooncalf
Runner-up: Hermione's Horcrux by Ravensgryff

Strictest Mod:
Winner: Magical Maeve
Runner-up: myownmuggle

Best Head of House:
MithrilQuill

Best Prefect:
RoxyBlack

Biggest Fangirl Mod:
Winner: Snape's Talon
Runner-up: Ravensgryff

Best Mod Title:
Winner: mugglemathdork
Runner-up: x2pttrclue32

Most Undercover Mod:
Winner: Bogus
Runner-up: Eponine

Most Hardworking Mod:
Winner: songbook99
Runner-up: Marauder by Midnight

Congratulations everyone!

On behalf of all of the moderators, I'd like to thank you all so much for voting and thank you to all of the fabulous people who took over running these awards.
We're all very proud to work for such an amazing site and, in light of our recent problems, we're very glad of your support.

Cleaning Continued

Hey all

As per my last post, we're going to be starting our username purge, but due to some queue troubles, we'll be doing it manually. All this means is that it will take a bit longer and that we might need a bit more cooperation from you all.

First, I would like to stress again that ANY profile with a story under it WILL NOT be deleted. So if you have a story, please don't worry. Starting tonight, we will be sending out emails to users who don't have stories and whose profiles seem to not be in use. If you don't have any stories on MNFF but would like to keep your account and you'd like to help us out a bit, please edit the following at the top of your author page bio:

Please do not delete

If we see this, we promise that we will not delete your account.

Now as much as we might try, there may be an accident or two along the way. If your profile is accidentally deleted, you may of course sign up again with the same username. Your reviews will not be deleted. We will try to avoid this at all costs, of course, but sometimes accidents happen.

And again, we'd like to stress that if you have a story that you know you won't be finishing, we ask you to remove it to relieve some stress on the database.

Lastly, we'd like to thank you all for all your support and your understanding. MNFF is a great community and we want to keep it around as long as possible and this wouldn't be possible without your continued loyalty.

Thank you.

MNFF Cleaning

As you've noticed recently, there have been quite a few glitches with stories, emails etc. Some were due to the hacker attack, yet others are due to the sheer size of MNFF. We're outgrowing our database. To help relieve some pressure, we're going to be purging old usernames and inactive accounts.

Please read the following VERY CAREFULLY

ONLY accounts that have had no activity for the past 6 months will be deleted. Activity can be generally defined by logging in. So if you've logged into MNFF in the past 6 months, your account will NOT be deleted. This includes the Remember Me feature. If MNFF remembers you and you've been online in the past 6 months, your account is safe.

As long as you have a story on MNFF, your account will NOT be deleted. Only accounts without stories and without activity will be purged.

If you're in doubt about your account or would like to keep it, simply log in. That will keep it safe.

This will be happening sometime within the next week or two. I will make another post right before it happens.

Also, in order to relieve some more stress on the database, we will be doing an abandoned story purge in the near future (within the next month). However, if you know of a story that you will not be completing, we would be very grateful if you took the liberty of deleting it yourself. It will save us all some time and our servers will thank you for it.

Again, I can't stress how wonderful and patient you've all been. We're working hard to correct everything and you all are making it much easier on us by understanding. Thank you.

Queue Troubles

As some of you may have noticed, there are some problems with certain categories and subcategories when you try to submit stories. Unfortunately, the hacker attack has had an impact here at MNFF too, and we are unable to access certain controls needed to fix the problems. We don't know how long they will last but we'll keep you updated.

We're very sorry for the troubles this has caused and thank you all for your continued support.

EDIT: Unfortunately, due to the hacker situation, we're unable to access any of our staff emails. This includes individual mod emails and also the site staff email. If you've emailed a mod recently and haven't got a reply, this is why. If you're in desperate need of mod attention, please try PMing us over the forums.

Open again

The queue is now open and ready for submissions. We hope you all enjoyed your holidays and thank you for sticking with MNFF for another year. We look forward to making this one as successful as last year.

Happy writing!

Change of Closure Dates

Due to unforeseen circumstances, MNFF will be closing tonight at midnight EST, approximately two and a half hours from now. This is a change from the planned date of tomorrow at midnight.

You can still submit stories until the designated time. Any stories in the queue as of the closure will be moderated. Anything that finds its way into the queue after the closure will be rejected without notice.

Thank you for your understanding and we apologize for the inconvenience.

EDIT: The queue is now closed. Please hold onto all your submissions until January 3rd.

Happy Holidays from all the staff here at MNFF!

First Annual Modly Quicksilver Quill Awards Now Closed!

The first annual Quicksilver Quills: Modly Version is now closed for nominations! Thank you all for your kind words. Keep checking in here for the winners to be announced towards the end of January.

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