Dear Pottermore CEO,

Hello! Congratulations on the new position. As you said yourself, Pottermore is an exciting project and fans are chomping at the bit to see what’s next. But the community has been very vocal when it comes to their issues with the site so far. And you’re probably aware of quite a few of them. But we want to be on the record.

1) Let us see real names. Or at least let us see a user’s first name and last initial. It is a huge, huge annoyance to receive a friend request and have no idea who it’s from. In order to find out, we have to go out on Twitter or Facebook and yell from the highest peaks of the internet, “Who is CatSeeker949?! Let me know!” Then we have to be lucky enough for CatSeeker949 to have noticed the message and get back to us.

Here’s my suggestion: Let us choose whether or not we can display our real name. That way parents and Potter fans have a choice.

And with that in mind…

2) Give us more ways to interact with friends. While we understand the importance of making any site child-friendly, the lockdown on the site is so crippling that we think Pottermore is going to suffer in the longrun for it. Our biggest issue with the vast amount of child safety precautions is this: J.K. Rowling said herself this is a thank you to the fans – we presume she’s talking about those fans who were in line at midnight and/or read the books feverishly between 2000 and 2007. Those people are not kids anymore. We figure that the majority of diehard Harry Potter fans who are using this site are old enough to be socially responsible on the internet. It feels like those who were/are a part of the vibrant Harry Potter book fandom are getting less than the site’s full potential in order to cater to a small portion of the Harry Potter audience.

3) Tell us when Chamber of Secrets will be available! We’re guessing it’s going to be a while (we’re sure pushing the eBooks back to 2012 didn’t help), but we’d like to at least know when to expect the next big addition to Pottermore. At least give us some clue more refined than a “2012” timeframe.

4) The Purple Screen of Death has got to go. Fans have seen the “We are sorry Pottermore is currently unavailable” message too many times. It’s a huge turn off, and it’ll be frustrating if this message is still appearing once we’re out of the beta period.

5) Are we truly being sorted into our Hogwarts House? Each house currently has within 1000 students of one another. It doesn’t seem like the even number of people in each house happened by coincidence. Are there truly an even amount of Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw students in the real world?

If the system is rigged so that the Houses have a fair shot at getting the same amount of points, then the point system should be thrown out altogether. The ability to truly sort yourself – and see how you compare to your friends – is much more valuable a feature than competing for points.

6) Add features that make us want to visit the site on a daily or weekly basis. Presently, once you get through the Sorcerer’s Stone book on Pottermore there is little else to do. You can brew a potion or duel a friend, but these get tired after a few rounds.

We’d like to see something that brings us back every day. I have a suggestion that some people won’t agree with, but I know it will help me come back daily. Let us take care of our pet. Let us feed, clean, and play with it. I play a game called WeRule which requires that I harvest my crops multiple time a day. What kind of reward do I get? Absolutely nothing other than the pleasure of tapping my crops to harvest and plant new ones. Yes, it’s sad. But it works.

I’d be happy to visit Pottermore every day to take care of my Owl. I would feed him, clean him, play with him, and do whatever else you could come up with. Simply reward me by flashing messages in my face which read, “Okay, Hedwig is now well fed!” and “Thanks for cleaning me! I feel fresh and new.”

These are my suggestions for improving Pottermore. Fans are still thrilled that Jo and your team provided such an amazing website for fans. We only want to help make it even better!

Sincerely,
Hypable

P.S.: Take a look at the comments below this letter. I’m sure you’ll find other suggestions.