Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Religious debates over the Harry Potter series

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 01:38, 29 September 2007.

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Religious debates over the Harry Potter series

This article's last FA nom was something of a train wreck, but I can't think of any more ways to improve it. A subsequent peer review went nowhere, so I'm nominating it again, because even if it doesn't win I'll have some idea of where to go from here. Serendi^podous 10:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm seeing a lot of little mistakes - two mispellings, an ambiguous they, two names should have been linked that weren't, the &^%#$ing Microsoft Word punctuation - ‘’“” instead of standard 8-bit ASCII ones. I fixed them, but I'm sure there are more. Raul654 11:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The intro does not adequately capture the content of the article and needs to be rewritten.--Nydas^(Talk) 06:49, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you be more specific? Serendi^podous 07:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not got a worldwide point of view. There's a full paragraph about US schools and nothing about the rest of the world. The wicca thing doesn't warrant mentioning at all in the intro.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:28, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've edited it. Serendi^podous 09:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The US paragraph is still too long and detailed. The book challenges warrant no more than a sentence. Anyone reading just the intro would get the feeling that Harry Potter is some hot-button political issue in the US.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

It is. Most "moral panics" become hot-button political issues in the US, at least for a while. Regardless, reduced US to one sentence and combined it with following paragraph. Serendi^podous 10:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Are presidential candidates taking sides on this issue?--Nydas^(Talk) 15:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think any of them would dare it. Wrad 15:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Obama said he liked em. And he got burned for it.Serendi^podous 16:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

He didn't get burned by anyone important, just a YouTuber dedicated to slagging him off.--Nydas^(Talk) 16:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what this has to do with anything. The lead has been adjusted. Is there anything else that you want to say about the article, given the changes? Wrad 16:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The lead says there have been calls to ban the books in American schools, but doesn't adequately express the miniscule impact that these calls have had in a country with 75 million schoolkids.--Nydas^(Talk) 17:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you source that statement? We can source ours. It's all about the sources. If they make a big deal out of it, then we can try to tone it down, which we have, but we can't say what you just said without a source. That is OR. I fail to see how merely saying that "there have been calls to ban books" is misleading in the way you seem to see it. The fact is, there have been. It's 100% true. If someone stuck the word "widespread" in there, then maybe I'd have a problem. Wrad 17:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It's sourced in the article. Only 7% of Americans have a negative view of Harry Potter. The article should be built around this fundamental fact, rather than treating it as an afterthought.--Nydas^(Talk) 11:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

What percentage of Muslims worldwide are members of Al-Qaeda? What percentage of Catholics are members of the IRA? What percentage of those against abortion murder abortion doctors? Yes, a small minority of people are against the books, but that small minority has had a notable impact on the books' history and how they are perceived (I can back this up: 17 percent of Harry Potter related Google hits also refer to religion or Christianity, compared with just 14 percent for Lord of the Rings and 21 percent for Narnia, both Christian allegories). The real issue here is that you do not consider this topic notable, and that's your perogative. But if you feel that this topic fails on notability grounds, nominate it for deletion. I doubt you'd get far. Serendi^podous 12:08, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems as though you are saying that you feel the article highlights anti-Potter religious sentiment too much, and needs to make it clearer that it is only a small group. I would support adding the 7% fact to the lead, and possibly highlighting it more in the beginning of the Evangelist section. Wrad 22:13, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the lead to reflect religious conservative rather than merely Christian conservative opposition, since the lead, and the article, is not only about US Christian opposition. Since that statistic refers only to US Biblical literalists, it should not be in the lead. Serendi^podous 14:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support Seems to address the major problems pointed out in the last FAC. Doesn't blush to report what the sources say about what is a notable cultural phenomenon and a notable theme of the Harry Potter series. Doesn't have POV issues. Unless there are minor things I'm missing, this is an FA. Wrad 23:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I don't think mention of the US views unbalances the article. The thing is, most of these religious debates (at least the verifiable ones) have their roots in the US. -Mgm|^(talk) 09:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is what I found just by reading the lead:
  • "Religious debates over the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling stem largely from a number of Christian conservatives who assert that the Harry Potter stories contain occult or even Satanic subtexts." "a number of" is completely redundant.
  • "The most obvious opposition to the series has come from the United States, where calls for the books to be banned from schools have led occasionally to widely publicised legal challenges, usually on the grounds that witchcraft is a government-recognised religion and that to allow the books to be held in public schools violates the separation of church and state mandated by the United States Constitution." "most obvious"? What do you mean by that?
  • "Even Christians have claimed that the magic in Harry Potter bears little resemblance to the magic of "real life" witchcraft or occultism, and more to the mechanical, fairy-tale magic of Cinderella, Snow White and other fairy tales, and also to the works of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, both authors frequently endorsed by Christians." The word "Even" seems to suggest a POV.--Carabinieri 13:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Lead edited. Serendi^podous 14:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Overall, the article actually looks quite good. These issues still need to be taken care of, but I think it's close to FA:

"Accordingly, Harry Potter has been the subject of at least three local book burnings" Accordingly to what? The sentence immediately preceding this one is about someone who defended Harry Potter, so I think the "accordingly" sounds kind of odd, but I can't think of a better way of putting it.[done]

""It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly." (translated from German)" I don't think the part in parentheses is necessary. Wikipedia often uses translations without identifiying them as such, especially if the they come from reputable sources.

That source is lifesite.org. They were the first to translate that letter into English, and it seems all other sites just took that translation from them. But a native German speaker on Wikipedia complained that that translation wasn't accurate, and inserted that line as a qualification. I've removed it, but I would prefer a source that gave a better translation. Serendi^podous 07:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

"According to a spokesperson from the education ministry of the UAE government, the books' fantasy/magic elements were contrary to Islamic values." The Manual of Style discourages use of slashes as it "suggests that the two are related, but does not specify how". Wouldn't a simple "and" do in this case? [done]

I'm assuming the "KidSPEAK!" section is included in this article, because this superintendent removed the books on religious grounds. This should be stated explicitly to justify the section's inclusion.

The earliest citation I can find does not really specify the reasons the books were restricted. Later responses, however mention witchcraft as the reason. It's all a bit vague, and the only way I could solve it permanently would be to find the December 10, 1999 edition of the Holland Sentinel, which, seeing as I live in London England, is not likely. Serendi^podous 07:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

"On her website, she states, "Harry Potter is being used to teach and promote witchcraft, Wicca, a U.S. Gov't recognized religion, in our schools, classrooms, and to this entire generation."" I would replace "Gov't" with "[government]", since abbreviations like that seem kind of odd in encyclopedic writing. [done]

"Schoeffer has cited the books' treatment of divination as an example of what she considers their innate sexism, for in the Harry Potter universe, "the entire intuitive tradition of fortune-telling, a female domain, is discredited."" I don't know if that's really important for the religious debates.--Carabinieri 00:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC) [done]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.