User Invention: How Users Adapt

People are smart. Surprisingly so at times, given what can be a restraint on them, but I think it goes to show how the individuals that lead the user groups on Pottermore have in talent, and what common users have in regards to our shared human instinct, to make things easier for ourselves in obtaining our goals, so for today's post, I'll be blathering a bit about user inventions, focusing on four things users had created and how that may continue.


Among the things users have created, four pop up into prime use, as they have effectively shaped how individuals use Pottermore now, and they have been touched upon lightly, and some deserve posts of their own. These aspects are "language," "social value," "aid locations," and "economy".

Language, while seeming to be a trivial thing to accredit to users, is a rather important aspect, as I note how it has to be used in the English common rooms. At a time when numbers are banned, people would need to find new words to fill the function, and while it was left to roman numerals for a while in beta, ultimately, individuals seemed to agree quickly to a rhyming homonym way to go about talking of amounts, such as "tin" for ten, "too" for two, "sicks" for six, and "hive" for five.

Such a trivial task seems basic, but as limitations on word count matter, it developed a style, and new abbreviations as well, prompting a sort of Pottermore-english, where one can say they "need sicks uni horns for anti, will send ings in return." However it is not just numbers, but some other words that have been appropriated, primarily for vulgarities (which I will not mention explicitly, save for "hex" which plays off of the same homonym rule as before).

Without this language, the second thing, social value, couldn't have been expressed. Now that all the users understand each other, they have worked to demonstrate what they value, now the way that this tends to happen is through likes, but as users have no way to disapprove a comment aside from disagreeing in the chat sections, users would report the comments. This tended to launch into "report-a-thons" where one side may be ruthlessly reporting another, though the reports may be equally distributed between fighting parties as they attempt to ban one another or let them know that they disapprove of their behavior.... by participating in the same sort of behavior. Really, this is an aspect that can be seen in the two main sections of users, role players and point earners, which there is still contention as fights still occur over the focus of communication centers, prompting the virtual slap-fight/duel that occasionally ends in a suspension.

It's also noteworthy that different houses have different values, depending on leadership, presence in the common rooms and so on.

So, while people have learned to communicate on Pottermore, it still does not lend itself well to communication or instruction, prompting aid locations. Most of these were made during the beta period, when most users could not get in, or do much at all during the time that they were there. These places provided instruction that is now passed down and distributed through the internet quickly due to Facebook, twitter and sites like Gryffinroar, Pmpotionchamber, and Hypable. Importantly, these locations serve as places to debrief house members as well as assist in making house members more accessible and easy to plan with.

With these three, they assist in the formation of "economy" or how trade erupted on Pottermore. Beta was a time with especially scarce resources. For over a year, individuals had a set fund that they could not "borrow" from the future for, had one game, and had no discernible way to "grow" their funds.  As such, economies broke out, as individuals traded ingredients, primarily for the earning of points. This is the formation of what is now referred to as a "bank," where a banker may give ingredients to others for the earning of points, in order to maximize returns for the house. This, and the focus towards points per minute both helped potions, as more focus was put on by bankers towards those items that they needed help in collecting, and less on what could be gathered free of cost. Of course, this isn't the only way "bankers" have developed, best known from beta were KeyScale126 and Catwillow7, largely credited with the idea in Slytherin, with some acting as collectors trading various items for others that they value, taking the gathering of points out of the equation all together.

Users have proven to have better ideas than Pottermore's staff has had from time to time, and have more than proven how effective they have become in working "kinks" out of the game, to maximize their own enjoyment and utility from the games.