Student creates ‘Harry Potter’ role-playing forum to bring fans together to create and share

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Shelby Caruso created an online forum to connect and create with fellow “Harry Potter” fans all over the world.

The Waterford sophomore said she co-founded the Novitas Harry Potter forum with fellow fans Lauren Henry of Australia and Natasha Chapman and Keeley Middleton of England. They modeled it after others already in existence, while trying to keep it unique.

The forum is centered around members role playing as if they are actually attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

“It’s like attending Hogwarts without physically going there,” Caruso said.

Henry said when they created the site they hoped it would be more successful than its predecessors.

Caruso said her interest in the series began when she lived in England in the summer of 2007, when she first bought the “Harry Potter” novels.

The forum has members from all over the world, ranging from 12-year-olds to 20-somethings, she said.

Caruso said members can either be teachers or students in the forum, but in order to become a teacher they must be granted access by the Wizard God, or site administrator.

Once members become teachers, they are recommended to give lessons similar to those that would be given at Hogwarts, she said.

“Creating one of our own Harry Potter sites gives us more of an opportunity to play characters with more authority, like a teacher, or to just have something to work together on,” Henry said.

Students do not have to attend lessons, but can if they want to. Caruso said she enjoys teaching herbology because it is based off plants author J.K. Rowling used in the series.

“Students can attend anything, and we pretty much have a teacher for everything,” Caruso said.

Middleton said the best features of the forum are the community and the professionalism it holds.

“We are a group that has known each other for a while now, but newbies are always welcome,” she said.

Caruso said she has several accounts she plays on.

“It is silly stuff, but it is fun to role play on the site,” Middleton said. “The role playing is fun, but they still take it seriously, as if really becoming the character of the accounts they play in.”

Members are allowed to make suggestions and share ideas they have for the site, Caruso said. The board votes on everything, so if the idea is good enough, it goes up for discussion and ultimately has the potential to become part of the site.

Caruso said a lot of the members have the potential to be great writers, and the purpose of the website is to foster creativity.

Henry said she hopes Novitas remains a popular role-playing forum and people continue to have fun with it.