Ask a Moderator - Part 21

[luinrina]

JokerBlue, try contacting the SortingHat via this link.

Annie, we're regularly banning spam users and their IP addresses. Unfortunately, there must be a nest somewhere; spam just doesn't stop. If you notice such posts, please contact the moderator in charge of the forum or any other mod really. Please do not reply. We'll deal with those posts.

[Tim the Enchanter]

Tim: I would whittle it down to referring to them by their title. For example, "The Minister of Magic (you can insert their name here, whoever it is) has a meeting today in Muggle London with their Queen."

. . . or something to that effect. It's acknowledging that the queen exists (or the President of the United States, Prime Minister, King, etc.) and, in a way keeps it current to the times.

If another mod disagrees, feel free to holler but that's my opinion.

~Nicole

The specific names of certain real figures is of plot significance in a story I am planning, however. In this plot bunny, Voldemort Imperiuses various Muggle national leaders, but he is unaware of the fact that the Soviet Union had collapsed several years earlier. Due to his ignorance, Voldemort casts the Imperius curse on former Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev instead of the current Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Yeltsin is dead, so he won't mind if he's mentioned. But Gorbachev is very much alive, but I can't very well refer to him as the "former General Secretary of the Soviet Union" all the time, especially considering that Voldemort demands to know his actual name from a confused Muggle.

What do I do about this?

Tim the Enchanter

[OliveOil_Med]

Let me go off on that question as well. Can we use the names of current (or past) or living political figures? Or can we only use the names of people who are dead (like when Homer Simpson got a job killing of celebrities so their images could be used in commercials)?

What about musicians, actors, or other figures? Does the Public Figure Act very into this at all? What are the spesific rules? Can a living person be named as long as they are not active characters, but we just achknowledge that they exist?

[coolh5000]

Gina: We haven't forgotten your question but the mods needed a little bit of time to discuss it among ourselves (since there is no already established rule on theme park and video game canon) and we should have an answer for you sometime tomorrow.

Tim and Molly: Our submission rules are quite clear on this:

MNFF does not accept any of the following:
[...]
-Stories that use real living people as characters. Most commonly these are JK Rowling insertions. We do NOT archive them.

We cannot accept stories to our archive which characterise real people, whether they are politicians, celebrities or anyone else. However unlikely it may seem that they will ever stumble across it, it is too big a risk for us to take, and this has always been the case. We operate a 'better to be safe than sorry' policy.

The rule has occasionally been relaxed in the case of older historical figures, but I would even be wary about using the recently deceased who may still have family likely to get offended by such characterisation.

As far as passing references go, be very very careful. Acknowledging someone's existence can be acceptable but they must not become characterised or developed in any way. It will be up to individual moderator's discretion whether or not to accept fics that reference real people, depending on whether they feel the reference is appropriate and within the limits of what we can accept.

[OliveOil_Med]

Recently I have been having a problem when submitting pms. I click Send, but then I get a message saying I cannot send pms so close together (even if it the only pm I send for the day), and that I have to wait 6000 seconds to send it.

Is this some sort of glitch? Is anyone else having this problem?

[Karaley Dargen]

Molly: If you have a look at this thread, you'll find that people before you have asked the same question. Yes, it is a glitch, and other people have been experiencing the same problem. There doesn't seem to be much at the moment that we can do about it. The two commonest suggestions (in this and previous threads) seem to be to check your cookies, or just wait (which is a nuisance, I know, but there's just nothing else that we know about at this point).

[Seer_Witch]

I was toying around with an idea for a fic, but I wasn't sure whether or not it would be accepted, and if it was even worth my time.

Basically, some Hogwarts kids of various ages and time periods were going to each get a one-shot (compiled into a chapter fic) of them experiencing different types of wizard drugs (around the effects of weed). One drug per one-shot.
No Dark/Angsty aspect, more of a mature humor fic.

Assuming that it would be an acceptable concept, what rating would be attached to that? 6-7 year or Professor? I figured it would be the former, but just wanted to be positive. I intend to have the 'Substance Abuse' label on it, of course.

Thanks! In advance.

[welshdevondragon]

I was just wondering- I've just written an one-shot about two characters in a longer story I'm writing. However since the one-shot is set before they even knew wizards existed there is no mention of anything specific in the Harry Potter universe. In the longer story they appear in there is, but this one-shot could be an OF. Would it be all right posting it on archives or not?

Also a few times last year I didn't receive an e-mail when my story was validated or when I received a review. This then stopped for a few months, but the last chapter went up and I didn't get an e-mail. I check MNFF fairly often so it doesn't really matter, but I was wondering if anyone else had this problem/ what might have caused it?

EDIT: One more question I've been wondering- if you edit a story whilst it's in the queue does it automatically go to the bottom of the queue or not?

Thank you!

[Midnight Storm]

If I'm tagging a story as Book 7 Disregarded, does it also need am AU tag?

Thanks!
Annie

[Colores]

Seer_Witch: It would depend on how graphic you make it. From your description, 6-7 sounds okay, but I can't be sure without reading more.

welshdevondragon: If there is absolutely no mention of anything from the Potterverse, then it is OF and should not be posted on our archives. The email problem seems to have resolved itself. And...I really should know what happens to an edited story, but I don't. I do know it's been answered before in an Ask a Mod thread, so I'll leave you to search for it.

Annie: That depends, but no, it wouldn't necessarily need an AU warning. An example of a fic needing an AU warning would be one in which Sirius doesn't die, or Lily and James don't die, or Harry has a twin sister no one knew about. If it's all canon up through HBP, then you don't need an AU warning if you have the Book 7 Disregarded one.