One of the news articles that J K Rowling wrote on her old website was about how she tried posting Book 7 theories on Mugglenet's chatroom.
Monday 15 March 2004
Mugglenet Chatroom Uninterested in JKR's Theories
A few weeks ago I did something I’ve never done before and took a stroll into a Harry Potter chat room: specifically, MuggleNet’s chat room. Although I was concerned to find that many of the moderators feel their spiritual home is Slytherin, this is a great site. Nobody was remotely interested in my theories about what’s going to happen in book seven, though. In the end, I gave up trying to impart any gems of wisdom and joined in the discussion about SpongeBob SquarePants (don’t ask).
I would like to take this opportunity to say that the practise of calling Lord Voldemort ‘Voldie’ must stop, as must the insistence that with a bit of therapy ‘Voldie’ would be a real sweetheart.
I might drop in again some time to check that you’ve done as you’ve been told. Look out for ‘Squidward’.
In a 2023 podcast interview, JK Rowling discussed this incident again.
So I chose a random name that was not a potter-related name. I was almost scared, even though they’ve all got potter-related names, that I would choose a name that was a little, I don’t know, I was just scared I would somehow rule for self-reveal. So I go into this chatroom and people are sharing some theories and I gave an opinion that was very bland and I got rounded on by users who told me in no uncertain terms just to get out. I’m not familiar in that room, I’m clearly an idiot who doesn’t know anything. But I genuinely, and I left, I left, and I was thinking, I do know what, I promise you this is what I thought. I thought: “I’ve written three and a half books, I think it would have been at that time, where bullying is such a thing from the very first page where bullying and authoritarian behavior is held to be one of the worst of human ills.”