Hello, VTM members!

The House Cup for October went to Slytherin! If you're a member of that house, please feel free to add this image as your avatar or as a part of your signature (please continue to follow the rules):


Welcome to the House Cup thread for October! Please read through the information below so you will know what types of posts gain your house point and what types of posts lose them. As always, if you have a question, please PM me or any other staff member.

Best of luck to you and your house!

Please send me any submissions for the design for the November House Cup avatar! This is another good way to gain your house points as both submissions and the winner receives points! Please make sure you put include an indication of the month, year and house as well as including VTM House Cup. I know it's a lot to fit in, so be creative!

As you know, we strive to provide a safe and fun atmosphere for people who enjoy Harry Potter to hang out and get to know other fans. The staff often brainstorms ways to make your time here more enjoyable. We've come up with something new that we think you will all be excited about!

The VTM House Cup!

The staff of VTM are going to be patrolling the forums and awarding or deducting points from the four houses that you were either sorted into from the sorting quiz or the house that you claim.

Here's how it works!

All you guys need to do is continue posting as normal, abiding by the rules. As the moderators and Head Aurors (and admins) go through our daily jobs, we'll keep an eye out for exceptional posts and rule-breaking. Following the rules could potentially earn your house points. Breaking rules might get points deducted.

Here are a few things that will get points awarded to your house: Great posts, fanfiction of the month feature, winning the fanfiction contest, certain Quidditch Pitch answers. . .pretty much anything! At times we also award random points for things that amuse us!

Some things that might get points deducted: One-liners, netspeak, rude posting.

If you earn your house some points, you will see a staff member post in this thread telling everyone who won the points for which house and how many points are awarded. If you lose your house points, you will see a post that merely says the certain house has lost points. You won't be singled out. You may receive a PM telling you that you've lost your house some points, or you may see that information in the moderator edit in your post that has broken the rules. We will not single you out in this thread.

Mistakes happen, so please bear this in mind if your house loses some points. Do not search the forums to rant at the person who has lost points.

Awarding points is totally subjective. Not every post will earn or lose points even if some of you think the post should do one or the other. The points are at the sole discretion of the staff member who is awarding the points, so please do not start PMming staffers to tell them about a post you think deserves points. Though most of the staff members have been sorted and also have a house, we promise you that we award points without any bias towards a particular house. Half the time, we don't even know what house a person belongs to until we PM them to ask.

At the end of the month, the house with the most points will win the VTM House Cup for that month! The House Cup will be an avatar you can display, provided you follow the avatar/signature rules, in your avatar or signature. You'll be awarded the Cup in this thread where you can copy the image to your computer and upload it to your choice of photo sharing sites to use on VTM.

Please do not post in this thread but do check here often to see how your house is faring.

If you have not been sorted into a house, consider taking the sorting quiz or at least claiming a house. If we do not see a specific house, we will contact you via PM to see if you have a house that you prefer. It makes it a little easier on us if you have your house listed somewhere, whether it's in your signature or in your profile.

We will update the totals periodically throughout the month.

passerby

____

House Points: October

GRYFFINDOR: 120

HUFFLEPUFF: 55

RAVENCLAW: 65

SLYTHERIN: 10

cool
this system is beter instead of people going like "plz plz plz plz give me 50 points my family is poor and my computeer sucks plz plz plz plz"
you monitor the posts and give points to the houses
that system raises alot of questions though.
the person monitoring has to be unbelivably inpartial and not like any house at all to raise fairness
im sure you are very impartial but i think it could be improved just a bit!

First, I'd like to point out from my original post:

If you have a question, please PM me or another staff member. We'd rather this thread not be cluttered with posts that do not pertain to awarding or deducting of house points.

I am going to respond to your concern, though, as I'm sure a lot of members share it.



First, I did comment upon this in my original post:

We are not objectively looking at each post, and we do not have a certain numeric system to determine who gets points and who does not. We merely award points to those posts that strike us at the time. We are not an objective system. However, we do not try to favor one house over another when we award points. Most of the time, we do not even know to which house a person belongs before we decide to award the points - so we must PM the member to find out. If one house seems to be getting all of the other houses for a certain month, it is because the members of that house have stepped up their participation and quality of posts.

In fact, when we notice that one house has a marginally smaller amount of points than other houses, we often try to keep a careful eye out for that house so we can award them some points.

Secondly, I believe that having this system where awarding points is subjective to the staff member makes the atmosphere more in tune with the books. You'll notice that each staff member had a house, and some of them would try to favor that house when awarding points - or looked for ways to take points away. They were niether always fair or always objective in awarding their points.

Yes, each staff member has likely been sorted into a certain house because all of our staff members were once regular members like you. However, we do not use staff members as "heads of houses". Therefore, you will not see any one staff member favoring one house over the other.

If you have any further questions or concerns involving the House Cup system, please send me a PM.

passerby

Points go to both Nasuada and Hermione17 for their posts in Your Political Views. They have been sharing their views in a pleasant format in a topic that has the potential to be heated. And we appreciate their open, well-spoken, thoughtful posts.

Congratulations, you've won GRYFFINDOR and HUFFLEPUFF 10 points each!

10 points to Ravenclaw for Alastorlet_and_Proud!'s posts in the Ravenclaw Common Room regarding the correlation between Grindelwald and World War II! It is a very interesting topic to discuss, extremely creative! You can see the question here and the answer here. Join the discussion and share your views! Congratulations!!!

Congratulations, HPnerd_0512, for correctly answering this week's Golden Snitch. You've won GRYFFINDOR 20 points!

Congratulations, uzzzkata! You've won RAVENCLAW 20 points for correctly answering this week's Golden Snitch puzzle!

I'm awarding 10 points to Hufflepuff because lupin<3tonks suggested an article for the Daily Prophet!

Congratulations!

DeSs has just won 10 points for Gryffindor because of her well thought out post in the Great Hall here. Congratulations!

20 points to GRYFFINDOR for Radcliffefreek's acceptance into the Great Hall. Congratulations!

The results of the Random House Points Challenge are in!

Alastorlet_and_Proud won Ravenclaw 20 points.

Jilly bean won Hufflepuff 15 points.

DracosLady won Slytherin 10 points.

bookworm_1918 won Ravenclaw 5 points.

Congratulations guys!!!

I have chosen to award 20 House Points to Hufflepuff House. New member scsmith478 has been a wonderful overall member, posting in a wide range of topics in many threads. She follows the rules, doesn't cuss, leaves no one-liners, in general, this member shows the qualities Hufflepuff is famous for--hard work, interest in many things, honesty, and loyalty. Thanks so much, Savannah, and congrats to the Badgers!

5 points go to...*drums* Gryffindor for this post made by Priya!

You did a great job reading what people ahead of you had posted; that's always greatly appreciated!

Congratulations!

Congratulations, zwillo, for correctly answering this week's Golden Snitch. You've won GRYFFINDOR 15 points!

We had three submissions for the House Cup Avatars this month.

10 points each to: Ravenclaw for BRoyal's submission, Gryffindor for Nasuada's submission, and another 10 for Gryffindor for DeSs' submission!

Congratulations, guys!

The winner of this month's avatar contest is . . . Nasuada! Gryffindor receives 20 points for the winning submission!

This month's winner is:

GRYFFINDOR

Congratulations! Here is your winning avatar!