Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels/Harry Potter task force/Archive 10

Move of "Differences" articles

I have med all the book/film differences articles (Differences between book and film versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, etc.) temporarily out of the main namespace, until we can cut down all the information and cite it. Then, it will probably be moved into the main film article. There was an AfD which only kept the articles for being torn between delete and merge. It was in August but I didn't learn of it until about a month ago, and I haven't really had the time to put any effort there. The pages can now be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter/PS Differences or whatever the two-letter book abbreviation is. Hopefully we can work on getting this information back up soon -- I didn't want to delete because of all my research that went into this, but then again, it was my research. So it's a good reference personally, but not encyclopedically.

If we can also start to remove all links and references to these pages, that would probably be good. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 05:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be pretty hard to incorporate this info anywhere. Also, the cross-namespace redirects need to be deleted. John Reaves (talk) 06:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, some of the stuff is rather important and many film articles have sections about differences between the source material and the film. Also, I already re-redirected the articles to the main film article. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 18:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I know that a least one of the talk pages redirects to the Project namespace, which I assume is the result of a move. I don't have time check/change them all at the moment, but the talk pages should also redirect to the movie pages, not the Project. John Reaves (talk) 20:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Well this sounds as if it is rather after the fact, but looking at two sources notionally about the same thing and making a list of the differences between them is entirely encyclopedia building and not original research. Sandpiper 09:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Err again, why exactly is this going on? where can I see the drelevant deletion debate? all it says on the page, tracking it back is that there was no consensus for deletion. So why are we deleting it? Sandpiper 09:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'd like to know that as well. If the articles need to be rewritten to ensure that they are properly sourced or formatted, that's one thing, but moving it off the main articlespace when the result of an AfD was no consensus? When an AfD is closed as no consensus, that means that the AfD defaults to a "keep" (or whatever is the non-delete "second action" in the AfD). Moving the article and redirecting it to another article effectively erased the article history from the main articlespace, which requires a clear delete consensus in an AfD to do. Instead, you should have copied and pasted the article into the temporary version in the Wikiproject directory structure while leaving the article (or at the very least, the article history) in the main articlespace. I think I need to undo this damage by undeleting the article or merging the article histories, actions that take some time to do because of the complexities involved with moving an article back to an old article with an article history (and requires admin access), and providing a copy & paste version of the article (with no article history) into the new version. That way, the temporary article has no article history, while the original article still retains it. If we decide to keep the temporary article, we can then go through the effort of merging article histories from the temporary article to the main article. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I've restored the article back to the main articlespace. Since Fbv last had these articles redirecting to the main "book" article, I also did so since I'm not objecting to Fbv's decision to redirect the article (though not necessarily endorsing it), but at least now the article history is still in the main articlespace. As is normal for a usual merge and redirect result, I've left the talk pages intact (not redirected). Sorry for my testiness, but moving articles can take some effort to undo. What we do with these articles is up to us: As I usually note down when I close a keep or merge AfD (and as the AfD closer here noted), whether an article is kept or merged is a discussion that can be held outside of AfD. So let the discussions resume. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Major apologies to Deathphoenix for making you undo all of that, and further apologies to the WP for the confusion in this whole matter. I had seen an overwhelming AfD with only a half !vote for keep, and then it was prodded, so I figured action was really geared towards getting it away. I have absolutely no idea how to cite this appropriately – besides the fact that it is really difficult to reference occurences in films (since you don't cite a time in the film that a scene appears), do you have to cite a source that analyzes the critical commentary? Is this in violation of WP:NOT#IINFO or WP:OR? I certainly am hoping not, but I had seen so many others speak to the contrary that I figured it was. Sorry for the mildly hasty action, and I do hope that we can keep the info! --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 22:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, no problem. What it comes down to is that everything can be undone (except for the dreaded Wikipedia:Office Actions and Wikipedia:Oversight, of course), so there's no lasting damage done. I should probably work more on being less of a grumpy old man, especially when I'm not actually that old (I think). --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, well… Sandpiper restored these pages, what action are we now going to take on them? We should try to make it among our top priority articles to work on. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 00:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Article Improvement

Given that we now have a Good Article in Lord Voldemort (and a belated well done to Onomatopoeia for that), I think it would be a good idea to choose another article to rewrite in the same fashion (rather than either everyone running off and creating poor/unnecessary/contradictory rewrites, or the progressive desire losing momentum). And then, if that one works, choose another. Et cetera. Anyone have any suggestions? Michaelsanders 12:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Harry Potter is very close to FA standard. A couple of us have been doing some editing on that one, and its down to 47kb. Theres a to do list I created earlier too. RHB ^{Talk - Edits} 13:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the flowers! Harry Potter looks good indeed. Concerning chars, I propose Hermione Granger: main character in books and films, enough material to write about, appears in interviews by JKR, possibly also interesting to analyse as prime example of real-life "shipping wars". —Onomatopoeia 13:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

How about Severus Snape? PeaceNT 17:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Depends whether we're up to the challenge. It would be very difficult to write an article to these standards on him without treading on peoples toes. And it would need substantial revision once we found out from HPDH whether he is truly evil or truly good (or whatever). On the other hand, if we could pull off a GA for him, especially under such circumstances, it would certainly be impressive... Michaelsanders 17:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The only thing about Harry Potter, I've just realized, is that since the article has a "future" section, there's no way to get it to FA before July 21. But we should certainly try to get GA- and A-class articles in characters, all set to go to add on information from DH, like Onomatopoeia (further congrats!) did for LV. I think that the only articles we could hypothetically have at FA standard now would be those that don't deal directly with information found in DH, namely, the first six books, the first four movies, and J. K. Rowling. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 21:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Reliable Sources

This issue has developed out of a comparatively minor one on the Deathly Hallows page. And since it is going nowhere there, it needs to be discussed here, separate from the original issue. So here it is.

What do we define as a Reliable Source for use in Harry Potter articles? Where do we draw the line between wiki-OR and expert-OR? And to what extent do we allow Speculation if we are not the ones speculating? Michaelsanders 21:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, can the word "expert" in the Wikipedia context (that is, "professional researchers in their field of expertise") really be applied to unknown fans attempting mind-reading (ie guessing the content of a book that have not yet been publish) on JKR ? Folken de Fanel 23:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

My view would be that experts on the HP books are just as good at analysing them as any professor in an ivory tower. And I would hve to say that that some of the people running these webistes are precisely 'professional researchers' writing about their own 'field of expertise'. Sandpiper 23:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

We're speaking about speculations, here, absolutely no one can be an expert on an unpublished book, except the author.

Analysing is a thing, trying to guess the content of the next book is another.

No one writing for these websites is a "professional researcher" (meaning that it's their official job to study literature, and that they have all the knowledge to do it, a knowledge that was evaluated and recognized by official professors and all) in their "field of expertise" (ie having studied HP for years and having presented various works to academic authorities).

"Expertise" is not defined by how many times you've read the book and searched on the web for etymologies. It's defined by studies supervised/approved by an academic expert.

As the rules of Wikipedia say, "anyone can pretend he's an expert", so it takes more than a few etymologic researches and a thorough compiling of facts from the books to be called an "expert". Any fan that has time to lose can reference the 6 books and do some minor etymologic researches.

And even if these persons were to be concidered experts (which is not the case), the speculations they write would be out of their field of "expertise", since the said field is in that case, the referencing of published books and not reading the mind of JKR about book 7 (and mind reading isn't officially concidered as a competence yet). Folken de Fanel 01:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I've been following this discussion a little, and though I haven't participated and read absolutely everything, my feeling is that there is no verification for listing connections to "deathly" and/or "hallows" unless the author of the speculation (research) has deliberately linked them to the Deathly Hallows in JKR's seventh book, which is not possible yet. I think only the brief definition of the words is all that can be included without creating original research – original research because, though the speculation has been done by others and has been published, it is we, Wikipedia editors, who are drawing the parallels to the book. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 01:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I think most professional researchers would be very disappointed to learn that it is impossible to research something which does not exist yet, or write respected, accepted, referenceable material about it. No rocket to Mars, then. Since it doesn't exist yet, obviously no one can write anything worthwhile even about how one might start to build one. Sandpiper 19:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Main characters

Regarding Template:Harry Potter characters, I moved Dumbledore and Snape to Main characters, besides Harry, Ron, Hermione and Voldemort. Hope no one has any objections. PeaceNT 04:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Harry Potter fandom -- another call

Hello all, I know I've brought this up before, it's just that I started this a month and a half ago and haven't finished yet, due to being busy with school. I'm trying to rewrite Harry Potter fandom and so far, the parts that I've finished could easily be GA status. However, the Roleplaying, Podcast, and Music sections I haven't completed. You can see the rewrite page at Talk:Harry Potter fandom/Rewrite. I know a fair amount about Podcasts and Wizard rock, and if necessary I could write a section on them. But I honestly know nothing about the roleplaying aspect of the fandom, and for somebody to write that would be tremendously appreciated. You don't really have to know too much, just a basic knowledge, and be good at Googling for references -- that's all it takes, if you know something is true and have a decent idea where you can find information on it. If you want, you can go ahead and write Podcast and Music sections as well. (I've also created, but not written anything in, an "Iconic landmarks tours," referring to the tours that go through England and Scotland that point out locations for the films and the café were JKR wrote PS, etc., so working on that too would be great.) I just have a lot of work, and would love to see this finally get done! --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 04:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

What the hell, I've got the day off tomorrow, I'll have a go at it. TonyJoe 05:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Ron Weasley

I recently rewrote a lot of Ron Weasley to match the new, out-of-universe design on Lord Voldemort, but the Ron article is still a little lacking in stuff besides role in the book. With just a little more time we could get it up to GA level. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 00:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks very solid. Some minor points: 1) it probably needs a copyedit in "Attributes" (as a GA patrol guy, I can say that sections with only 1 sentence are frowned upon), 2) a dedicated "Appearances in Film" section would be good, 3) as you said, more out-of-universe statements, from JKR or Rupert Grint, if available. But these minor things aside, it is a big step towards . —Onomatopoeia 13:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't have time to flesh out those one- or two-sentence sections, but I wanted to create at least a foundation. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 21:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What to do with Minor actors and actresses in Harry Potter?

I'm debating whether to send this article to AfD. When the proposal to create the article was tossed around, I was all for it, but now I'm seeing that, if an actor is only notable for small appearances in Harry Potter films, they probably don't pass WP:BIO. I don't think anybody on that page is currently notable elsewhere, so they wouldn't be lost if the article was deleted. Besides, they're all mentioned on the individual cast pages and List of Harry Potter films cast members. The article also posed some problems with having a plethora of FU images, which I eventually just got tired of and temporarily put comment markers around until something was figured out. Any thoughts on this? --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 22:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I say send it to Afd, it's especially redundant given the main list. John Reaves (talk) 23:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

All right, nobody else has anything to say so I'm going to send this guy to AfD… --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 22:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Harry Potter characters

I have added NavFrames to {{Harry Potter characters}}. Comments? John Reaves (talk) 09:41, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Mr Borgin

Hi, why is there no article about Mr Borgin? / 81.226.194.196 21:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

See Borgin and Burkes, its merged into that article. RHB ^{Talk - Edits} 21:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)