We've had reason lately to bandy the subject of 'retconning' around in the staff room. Up until now, Sonora has never had, nor really needed, to take a particular line on this. However, as we have more and more alumni years, it seems to have become necessary.
Please read and follow
** What is retconning?
Retconning is short for 'retroactive continuity.' It means going back and changing the established facts of a story line to fit new information. For example, if we started talking about a big fire that burnt down half the school last year, when this was never written about at the time, we would all have to come up with how our characters reacted and what happened to them during that incident.
What is our policy on retconning
Retconning is generally to be avoided, especially for big incidents – it just involves a lot of talking out of character to work out what would have happened. However, we have one exception. When someone claims a parent or older sibling attended Sonora, this can lead to a small amount of retconning. As we now have several years of graduated students, we often know this “isn't true.” However, it makes sense for parents to send their children to their old school, or to the same school as older siblings. In order to allow new authors to have a connection to the school, we allow the notion that previous family members attended, with the following provisos:
it helps to keep it vague, in terms of what year they were in and who they knew. If you feel the need to specify details you may specify year OR house only. Not knowing exactly who their room-mates would have been is helpful, as otherwise role-played characters would have to rewrite their memories of school (many are still played via our sister site on insanejournal). never claim a relationship with another author's character without their permission if the year they would have been in was role-played (see alumni at the bottom of the student list to calculate how far back this affects) , specific honours, such as Quidditch captain or prefect cannot be claimed, as for all graduated years we know who these went to certain years may be vetoed if large events happened – for example, all seventh years in T18 led Challenge Teams, so it is less practical to assume someone else was a seventh year at this time any family members referred to must have graduated. You cannot refer to a brother 'in fifth year' who is not a role-played character. If you wish to role-play an older sibling, you may apply with them and they can “transfer in” from their “current school.”
Ok, thanks for the heads up. We hope you'll find Sonora an enjoyable place and will stick around. We're also keen to get people's feedback, so if you decide it's not for you, and there's a specific reason, please drop us a line to let us know. Or do so before making the decision, as it might be something we can fix.
This post will be moved down to the 'others' section, as we're trying to keep the OOC board to a few specific sections, so that it's neat, tidy and everyone can find things easily. I just thought I'd give you a heads up so that it didn't seem like your post had been deleted when you saw it wasn't at the top any more.
0DH SkiesRe: Just trying out the site.26DH Skies05
Yeah, it's time I left the site. The reason could be I'm not that into Harry Potter as the many people here are. Plus, I'm out of it and don't really remember as much. The point is I'm not really feeling ready to try out a roleplaying website and stick with it. I may have been beginning out, but that's the fact. Plus, I have other tasks going on right now. I'm sorry, but there's my reasons for leaving this site.
Hey all, you might have guessed from Daphne's total absence so far this term that I'm not able to post much at the moment. In fact, I can't see I'm going to get round to posting her at all this IC year. So, if it's okay with the Headships, please assume that Daphne has taken a year out IC to go traveling with her Mom, and fingers crossed she will return at the start of next term.
(I'm still vaguely here as Jera will still be covering classes from time to time but it can be weeks between me managing to check the boards so if I'm needed for anything urgent, find someone who has my e-mail or facebook details.)
I'm sad to say that my personal life is starting to get too busy for Sonora and I don't envision it clearing up anytime soon. As such, I will be leaving the site.
However, I've asked Liliana to take over for me and so by the end of next term she will be writing for Ava, Emrys, and taking my place to collab with Atlas for Olivier.
I'm quite sad to go because I love writing here and I hope that one day I will have the time to come back.