News
Attention All SH Authors
I just tested out all the symbols that authors might use in titles (story title and chapter title) and the only character/symbol that is being changed from this time forward are the { } brackets.



All other characters/symbols are alright to use, and they are the following:



/ \ ~ ! ? : ; & % $ # , ( ) ^ @ * [ ] ` (this symbol is on the same key as ~ (at least on my keyboard))



If there are any questions, please email us or post here.



Thank you,

Metamuse



(Just updated at 11:25pm EST)
--MetaMuse on 09/07/2006 09:45 pm (2 Comments)
SH Expenses
Please keep us in mind. . . In addition to our usual server costs, SH has been paying for extra programming costs. Currently, our programmer is hard at work on the merge program that will move the SH archives onto Mage. With that in mind, we are hoping that you will help us out just a little. We do know that many of you recently traveled to Las Vegas for Lumos and thus things may be a bit tight right now budget-wise. But if you can even spare just a couple of dollars towards SH, even the smallest of donations would be greatly appreciated. As always, thank you for your continued support!



To donate please visit this page for more information: Support SH.
--MetaMuse on 08/23/2006 10:26 pm (3 Comments)
Attention All Sycophant Hex Members
It has come to our attention that AOL and Hotmail email accounts are no longer able to receive emails from sycophanthex.com addresses. Due to this problem, we recommend that all Sycophant Hex members use other email providers; this is especially important for authors, as you may be unable to receive letters regarding your stories if you have an AOL or Hotmail email address listed in your profile.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding in this matter.

SH Admins
--MetaMuse on 08/18/2006 12:51 am (2 Comments)
Fandomopoly
Sycophant Hex sponsored a total of five spaces on the Fandomopoly board for Lumos: Sycophant Hex, Slash, Snupin, Snarry, and Snape/Granger. We wanted to be able to put artwork on four of them for fanfiction and the fifth be an SH logo.



I was able to contact two artists who were associated with SH. Liquidscissors and Snapekisser were kind enough to let me use their artwork. In addition to Liquidscissors and Snapekisser I was put in contact with Gloredhel for Snarry artwork, and contacted Undun for Snupin artwork. All of them were kind enough to reply within a few days of my request to use their artwork and it looks wonderful on the Fandomopoly board. Thank you very much Liquidscissors, Undun, Gloredhel, and Snapekisser!



Three boards were made for Lumos and put up for auction. I was able to get the last board during the auction (and going over my spending budget just a tad, hehe).



The links to the artwork are these:



Undun: "Master and the Wolf"



Liquidscissors: "Young Men of Wasted Promise"



Gloredhel: "Pairing"



Snapekisser: "Craving"



Pictures of the Fandomopoly board are available here including the game properties cards and action game cards:



Fandomopoly
--Metamuse on 07/31/2006 02:40 pm (2 Comments)
Missing Admin Letters
New 'Every Submission Gets a Letter' policy
We seem to have had quite a few admin letters disappear into the email abyss lately. We will, therefore, be sending out a letter to every author whose story is worked in the queue even if it is posted completely error-free (we do love those). If you do not receive an admin letter when your story is posted to an archive, please check your bulk or junk mail box and make sure you are able to receive mail from any @sycophanthex.com address. If you still do not find an SH admin letter, please contact us at admins@sycophanthex.com . Please always remember to include your penname, story title and the archive (Ashwinder, Chaos, etc.) where your story is posted so that we can look it up in our records and answer.


EDIT:
Please note that the letter will be sent out when the submission is worked in the queue. Our standard processing time is seven (7) days or less. (See Submission Rules) Please contact us if you have not received a letter and your submission is no longer queued or it has been more than a week.


Thanks for your understanding.

Estrilda, Deputy SH Mistress/Senior Admin Mistress
--Estrilda on 07/29/2006 09:05 pm (3 Comments)
Attention: Authors With Multiple Usernames
This notice only applies to authors whose posted stories need to be combined under one penname.


If you have different pennames over various archives, please contact us immediately at admins@sycophanthex.com with your preferred penname, the ones you currently have stories written under, and the location of the archive they are on. Due to the archive merging that Mage requires, different pennames at different archives will no longer be needed, and we want to make sure everyone has their work under the penname they wish to have, if possible.

In some instances, two different authors have the same penname on different archives; on Mage, this will not be possible. In instances such as this, the author who registered the penname first at Sycophant Hex will be given that screenname, and whoever registered second (or third, in some cases), will be contacted by the admins to arrange for their stories to go under a new name. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause authors who are affected by this policy.

SH Admins
--Metamuse on 06/26/2006 01:18 am (2 Comments)
Attention Lumos Authors
The SH staff is starting to get things ready for the move to Mage. It will at least be another week before the actual data is ready to be moved, most likely. But in the meantime, as we go through sections of data, new data cannot be entered into the database because it will not be moved to the new site.

We will try to make this painless as possible to all authors and readers, and apologize for the inconvenience, but this is how it must be done.

Currently, we are not accepting submissions to Lumos from any author who has not previously posted a story to the archive. Once the move to Mage is complete, we will be back to regular operations and all authors can submit their work.

We will keep you posted as to our progress.

If there are any questions, please view this board:

Mage Forum

Thank you.



EDIT: Attention All Validated Authors:

To prepare for our move to Mage, 'validated author' status is being turned off for ALL authors. Once we complete the move, we will begin to place authors who meet the submission rules and guidelines back on the 'validated authors' list.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our validated authors, but it is necessary.

Thank you for your understanding.

--Metamuse on 06/25/2006 06:25 pm (2 Comments)
A Letter From Gringotts
Authors, readers, Muggles and Squibs – take notice.



It is with remorseless pleasure that we, Gringotts Wizarding bank, inform you of the imminent foreclosure of your account.



Griphook has swept the corners of your vault, amassing the princely sum of three Galleons, fourteen Sickles and a frightened Pygmy Puff masquerading as a Knut. The Insolvency of your financial predicament, while giving us great delight, has led to the seizure of your archives effective in seven days.



Thereafter, the site known as Ashwinder will be renamed ‘Goblin’s Glory’, ceasing to feature Hermione Granger paired with anyone other than Skimpole, Manager of this esteemed financial institution.



Occlumency will be renamed ‘Accuracy’, and will be solely for stories featuring numeric correctness and the scintillating subject of calculating gross annual interest.



The Burrow will become ‘The Catacombs’. All existing stories that do not have Gringotts goblins as centric characters will be deleted.



Pureblood will be for fiction devoted only to goblins who can trace their lineage back to Alguff the Awful.



Wolfsbane will remain open as a Hunting Sanctuary. Silver is money, you know, even if the bullets are incredibly messy on recovery.



Lumos will be dedicated to the pairing of all goblins. Slash, three-ways, and femme-slash will be greatly appreciated.



Chaos is no more. Now that the goblins have control, everything is orderly and the trains WILL run on time!



All future stories will be written in gobbledegook. All existing stories must be translated. The writer is to bear the expense of translation spells, available exclusively at Gringotts branches worldwide.



Flashing advertisement banners will be displayed on every page. Pop-up ads will also be appearing periodically; the company supplying them is working now to thwart the nefarious Anti-Pop-Up Jinxes. Those who may be adversely affected by the colourful, bright banners (ie. Those with migraines, headaches, vision problems not corrected by spell, or seizure disorders) may wish not to return.



Because some writers complain about the waiting time, we will also be offering more select services. For every Galleon you pay, your story will more up a notch in the validation queue. Beta and editing services are available for a competitive fee. Heck, pay us enough and we'll write the damn thing for you!



Thank you for your many years of pitifully profitless custom. I shall be visiting your offices on the first of July to finalise these changes.



Yours vindictively,



Eargit the third.



(This was written by Wartcap, an SH author, who wanted to help garner some donations while having some fun at it. Any donation is helpful and if you are interested in donating please view this page. Thank you everyone, and thank you, Wartcap. This was fun to read!)
--MetaMuse on 06/24/2006 01:52 pm (2 Comments)
The Creativity Booth at Lumos
FictionAlley and HPANA are thrilled to announce that sign-ups are now
open for The Creativity Booth at Lumos [http://www.fictionalley.org/lumos_creativity]! If you're registered to attend Lumos, we'd love to have you take a seat in the Creativity Booth, which will be situation in the Vendor Room; you'll be part of the booth staff for a one-hour time-slot, and your fellow attendees will be able to request a drabble, a sketch, a filk, or a bit of meta/debate from you. We have almost 100 slots available for artists, writers and filkers, so we're hoping that a lot of you are able to take an hour and join in the fun!
--Metamuse on 06/04/2006 12:39 pm (1 Comments)
Illusions administration
A recent upgrade to Illusions has caused the deletion of many of the email addresses. If you are a posted artist, please check your account to make certain that your email address is available and correct.

All submissions to Illusions must have a valid, current email address in the submitter’s profile. This is required not only for any questions by the SH staff regarding the work, but also for consideration to be a featured artwork.

Email addresses included for admin purposes only and are not viewable by the public or by other users. Email addresses will not be used for any purpose other than contacting a member regarding a submission. Should I encounter any submitted or pending artwork without a valid, current, available email address in the profile, the work may be deleted without notice to the submitter.

Thank you for your co-operation!
--liquidscissors on 04/28/2006 12:42 am (2 Comments)
Canon List of Words
Attention Authors!

The Canon List of Words (by the SH Staff) has been updated. It includes SS/PS, CoS, GoF, and part of OotP (US/UK). HBP is being worked on, so there might be a few things in there.



Canon List of Words
--Metamuse on 04/13/2006 02:20 am (3 Comments)
Donations
It's that time again... as much as I hate to ask, SH needs donations. We have almost enough for two more months of our server, but I don't want to wait until the last minute to ask for help.



Personally, I cannot bear as much of the financial responsability for SH as I have in the past several years, so I am asking for anyone who can spare a bit and who enjoys SH to please take the time to donate.



We have three ways to donate, and this information can be found here: Support SH.



Thank you,

Metamuse
--MetaMuse on 04/06/2006 03:04 am (0 Comments)
Mage and SH's Future
We are pleased to be able to finally release some details of Mage, our brand-new, specially-designed archiving program for Sycophant Hex. We are confident that Mage will solve many problems that have long plagued fanfiction archiving and contain many additional features that will delight both our authors and our readers.



The biggest request for upgrades and features at Sycophant Hex has always been a universal log-in between all the archives. Installing this type of feature would have closed SH down for several weeks. Fortunately, we have created what we feel is an even better solution. We are pleased to announce that we now have the server capacity and programming capability to combine all the archives (Ashwinder, Chaos, Lumos, & etc.) to create one central library: Sycophant Hex. Instead of closing down SH for several weeks, we will be closed only for several days while everything is merged into one database.



The SH Admins have been planning the transition needed to switch programs and merge the archives for several months. When we are finished, all stories posted in all the archives will be retained and will be easily accessible through a central source. We will do everything in our power to make this upgrade as painless as possible for all of our members. The projected date of our move is late Spring or early Summer. More details will be available in the near future.



If there any questions or concerns, please post them to our forums under the “Mage” thread. We will develop a list of Frequently Asked Questions with official SH Answers as we get closer to the big event.



Sincerely,


The Staff of Sycophant Hex



PS: Admins will fixing formatting issues on older stories to solve any problems for our new program.
--Metamuse on 03/28/2006 08:38 pm (0 Comments)
Admin Positions
SH is looking for a few admins right now. We are understaffed and spread pretty thin. So if you have a knack for grammar and Harry Potter canon information, please take the SH Admin's O.W.L. exam/interview. We ask that all prospective admins be able to commit six to eight hours a week. For more information please visit:



http://www.sycophanthex.com/exams/adminapplication.html
--Metamuse on 02/21/2006 09:28 pm (3 Comments)
Deathday Festival Winners
I am pleased to announce the three winners for the Deathday Festival stories part.



First place:

The Invisible Son by RaeWhit



href="http://theburrow.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=433">http://theburrow.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=433





Second Place:

Shifting by jadzialove



href="http://erosnsappho.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=1986">http://erosnsappho.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?

sid=1986




Third Place:

Aspersions of a Death Eater by Nyx



href="http://pureblood.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=954">http://pureblood.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=954





I will be posting more stories over the next few days.



Congratulations to the winners!
--Metamuse on 02/14/2006 01:17 am (0 Comments)
Thank you!
Hi everyone,



As most should know our server was upgraded. This will ensure for a faster and smoother experience on Sycophant Hex. It was decided to uprade the server because the site was going down almost every 30-45 minutes, which is not what SH wants to be known for. So, with the decision of getting a new server, a call was put out for donations to help fund the project. With the help of generous donors our hosting costs are covered for the next two months; I will still pay as much as possible so the donations do not dry up that fast though. I personally cannot say thank you enough to everyone who donated! As a simple way to acknowledge the donations names have been added to our Supporters list, if I don't have a name then I put "Anonymous". Please take a look, it's quite impressive over the last few days alone. The list has been kept for the last two years.



To keep up with demand on SH we must keep the server so a new habit is going to be formed (which in the past I have hated to do) that is to ask for donations regularly. We are going to be looking in other ways to raise money to support SH and its new server. For information on donating please click here (the option of donating directly to our host is available).



Because the server was upgraded there were problems for people connecting to SH, but those should be resolved now for almost everyone. Basically the computers (DNS servers) around the world had to update their data to the new location of the site before the users in their area could access it. At times it could be a few hours or can take up to 24 hours or even 48 (though rarely have I heard of that) to update the DNS servers.



But since there was some confusion and the upgrade was sudden with only a few hours of warning, I am reminding everyone that if there are any future problems with SH to please visit our LiveJournal (LJ) for updates as to what is going on. It is open to everyone, anyone can post there as long as they have an LJ account, and replies to entries can be made by non-registered users. All are welcome to visit. Majority of the SH staff have LJs and try to keep the SH LJ up-to-date. The SH Yahoo group is another source of site information, but is limited to members only.



Thank you again everyone,

Metamuse



PS - Thank you again to those who donated! :)
--Metamuse on 01/05/2006 10:47 pm (2 Comments)
Server Upgrade


Hello everyone,



As some of you have experienced lately, the speed of Sycophant Hex has been touchy

lately. At times it will time-out or move at a turtle's pace. Because SH has grown over the

last year the server we are currently occupying is not able to handle our site anymore. So,

we are pleased to announce that we are upgrading the server.



To help cover the costs of the new server we are in need of donations. We have several

ways to donate, but the two best options are: Amazon Honor System and Paypal. To

donate through Amazon please click here. To donate through Paypal directly to

Nexcess.net (our host) please click here for further information.




For the best news, the server is being moved tonight. At 3 AM Eastern Standard Time the

server (and all the sites on it including: sycophanthex.com and shillusions.com) will be

shut down.
This is to ensure while the server is being moved no one is able to update or

post any information that may be lost during the move. The approximate time frame for the

move is: 3 hours.




In addition, we'd like to let our readers and authors know that our new, exclusive program

will be released soon and that means bigger, better and faster times for everyone. With

this new program we will have an enhanced review system, image uploads, email alerts for

story postings and many, many more features.



Thank you for your patience during this time.


Metamuse

--Metamuse on 01/04/2006 12:54 am (2 Comments)