Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Harry Potter/archive1

Harry Potter
I nominated this because it was one of the best I've seen, and is better than some featured articles I've seen in the past. andrew... 13:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Object. I read this article a week ago while trying to find out information on the next book (perhaps due out next year) and found the article to be poorly organized and extremely frustrating to read. For example, there is no listing and summary of the six published books in the series (along the lines of what the article gives for the main characters). In addition, the overview of the series devotes a ton of space to the first book and then one short paragraph to summarizing the next five books. Finally, I never did find the link to Harry Potter book seven and had to search elsewhere to find it. Overall, this article is not an example of Wikipedia's best.--Alabamaboy 14:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I need to read the article more thoroughly in order to make a full comment/vote, but will just add that I read the article yesterday, and exactly the same concern struck me - no neatly laid-out overview of the books whatsoever, and no discernible link to the seventh book (which is what I went to the article looking for in the first place). Seb Patrick 15:40, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Response to Objections *First off, this nomination surprised the hell out of me. A series overview can easily be written if this is what is needed, but I'm personally of the opinion that the status quo will do. If you go through each novel's respective article you'll find them teeming with information, it's practically a chapter by chapter cliff note. I don't imagine that they were always that way, but people just kept adding crap on top of crap. A neat chapter by chapter guide resembling the character guide in this article would probably lead to the same. In my opinion, cut the crap early and maintain more control over the article by declining to send an invitation to a stream of eager annonymous editors who are sure to bring a ton of spoilers that will piss someone off; less is more. It's not that it's impossible to write (if it's absolutely essential I'll suck it up), but it wasn't really out of carelessness that it wasn't added. I also don't think its absence makes the article "poorly organized," as far as I can see and what's been said so far, the rest of the article is quite good. (A link to every published book, video game, movie, and future installment can be found in the link in the series template box at the bottom of the page, by the way, though every book save the seventh was linked to throughout the article and it has since been linked to in the future section) TonyJoe 03:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I hate to differ, but in this case "less is not more." Myself and another editor independently went to the article and were 1) Unable to find info we wanted to find and 2) Believed the article should have a listing of each book. Just because that info is in related articles doesn't mean it shouldn't be summarized in the main article. However, there are other issues with the article that also need to be addressed. For example, in the first paragraph of the "Themes & motifs" section, the article states that "One of the most enduring themes throughout the series is that of love..." The reference for this is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (U.S. Hardback), pages 844 and 511. As an editor who works on numerous literary articles here, this is the first case I've seen where critical analysis such as this is only supported by referencing the original work. This strikes me as original research. What should be referenced are critical reviews, essays, or critiques of the books which state what the themes and motiffs are, not passages from the books themselves. The entire "Themes & motifs" section suffers from this and, as a result, is probably original research and not allowed. Please don't take me wrong on all of this--I love the Harry Potter books. The problem is that this article needs a lot of work before it can become a FA. Best,--Alabamaboy 13:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I understand the desire here to add book details, this is most likely true. In addition your opinion on themes and motifs seems valid. However information on the seventh book can be found is almost any Potter article, they are at the bottum in the nice template. Sorry Guy 00:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment It can be improved by reducing links to solitary years. A monobook tool allows this to be done with one click on a 'dates' tab in edit mode. You can then accept or reject the changes offered and/or do more editing before pressing 'Save'. Simply copy the entire contents of User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to your own monobook. Follow the instructions in your monobook to clear the cache (i.e. press Ctrl-Shift-R in Firefox, or Ctrl-F5 in IE) before it will work. Hope that helps. bobblewik 17:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Object. The article has greatly improved of late, but this FA is far premature. The prose is weak: for example, "Criticism" could be slimmed down a bit (does it really need six or seven setences on what Steven King thought when three or four would do?). Half of the paragraph discussing Taylor from Salon.com is one huge sentence! "Origins and publishing history" needs a lot of work (both blockquotes could be rewritten as regular text); some of its later material seems like it could go under "Commercial success" or "Pottermania" or elsewhere. "Themes and motiffs" is still under-cited as it is, and really should still be slimmed, since you're summarizing a separate article (see WP:SS). I'm personally unfond of character lists, since they enable cruftiness (in myself not least!). I would prefer that each character receive two or three sentences at most and that be it, and to have them all is flowing paragraphs. There really also should be a discrete subheading for the plot synopsis. In my opinion, there's still not enough on the films for a FA. I understand the books drive the franchise, but the movies are important. (Side note: if you were to follow the example of Revenge of the Sith or Attack of the Clones, you could probably get the HP movies featured.) I'm unsure what value the photo of the boxes of books adds. --Monocrat 15:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Object. (This version: ).  I have many concerns.  Ones marked with "m" are minor points.  (1m) There are two spoiler warnings.  Is the one before "origins" really needed? (2) Generally speaking, there are some long, awkward sentences, and the text doesn't always flow.  Two examples: in the lead, the full stop after "criticized, both literarily and otherwise." was very annoying, and left me wanting to read at least a brief summary of the criticism, and the flow to the next sentence is very bad.  In the origins section, the transition after "He sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury..." is bad.  First of all, the use of an ellipsis is probably a bad idea most of the time in encyclopedia articles, but here particularly, there's a stop after Bloomsbury, and in the next sentence there's a link for Bloomsbury, and you then explain what it is.  (3)  I think the statement that "J. K. Rowling" was used instead of "Joanne Rowling" to appeal to males needs specific sourcing.   (4m) I don't like the use of superlatives and comparatives in this article.  "very popular."  "very high profile".  Drop the word very.  Putting it another way, show, don't tell.  Generally speaking, I felt like the prose was gushing about the books and their popularity in some places.  (5m) Nice use of bildungsroman, but could you maybe hide the actual term?  It's very distracting.  Perhaps novels of education ?  (If not, at least pluaralize).  (6) I strongly object to referencing the Voldemort article in this article.  See WP:ASR.  Also, WP is not a reliable source.  Cite a linguistic source of some kind for the claim.  In fact, I'm quite suspicious of the sourcing of the Themes & Motifs subsection in general: surely there is an analysis of Harry Potter that can be cited?  Citing the books directly in a section that analyzes them is a kind of original research.  (7) The criticism section needs work.  You discuss what A. S. Byatt says, but the importance of that particular piece of criticism is not at all clear.  It would help if you mentioned the venue that criticism appeared in, and the fact that it prompted reactions from many other authors.  Also, the context into which A. S. Byatt's remarks fits is not given.  That was a review in 2003, LONG after the series was published.  What was the general reaction from critics before that?  In summary, I see issues of undue weight in this section, and I also have concern about the neutrality: in essence, the text lets Stephen King and Charles Taylor have the final word, while critics who agreed with Byatt get only two lines of mention.  Is that the actual landscape of the reaction?  Frankly, it may not matter: I think probably this whole Byatt business isn't really that important, and should be reduced to at most a couple of paragraphs.  (8) In the Controversy section: shouldn't the Christian witchcraft denouncement thing come first?  You're presenting a history here; you should probably give some dates, and put things in chronological order.  (9) I find the article insufficiently illustrated.  I would think someone could find a reasonable image of J.K. Rowling (actually, the one in the JK Rowling article has a fair use claim for this article, but it seems a little out of date there), and perhaps a screenshot or poster for one of the movies?  (10) The cultural impact section needs work, or could even be removed.  It's no surprise that Harry Potter has been parodied, and a link to the Harry Potter parodies article is reasonable, but this section seems like a "Trivia" section (not something I want in a featured article), and a thin one at that.  Surely the few facts in this section could be incorporated elsewhere, except for the emergency medical assistance bit, which should probably be removed.  (11m) As a general point, I agree that some brief mention should be made of each of the books, so that it's clear which books are in the series and which is which.   (12) There are ten books in the Further reading section written by people other than J.K. Rowling about the Harry Potter world or the Harry Potter books.  However, none of the references in the article currently refer to the books.  I think most of the specific references are reasonable, but it would be nice if this article used those books are sources more and used the Harry Potter books less.  We should, after all, avoid primary sources when we can.  Okay, that's it.  Huge chunk, I know.  I'm not sure if any editors of Harry Potter are actually fighting for this FAC; in case they aren't, I put a permalink up top so if someone wants to know later which version I was looking at, there it is.  Mango juice talk 19:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Another small objection: I think it might be premature to feature this article before the last book comes out. Not that every FA of this type needs to have its subject itself "complete" - but in this case, the last book, one that could upset nearly everything about Harry Potter (or could not) is probably about a year away. Can we wait a little bit on this one?
 * And if not, well, there are still many other problems with the article. It's just not very well-written. The second sentence is already about criticism, and uses the word "literarily"? Immediately following we have the empty, unmodified "this", an awkward phrase (in addition to its original medium) splittling a verb and its objects, and it doesn't get much better from there. A high school English teacher would tear this apart. zafiroblue05 | Talk 21:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Just for curiosity's sake, what's wrong with the usage of the word "literarily?"TonyJoe 01:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, for one, it's just an awkward word in and of itself. But the real reason is that it's used incorrectly in the sentence. Saying "the books have been criticised... literarily" means that the books have been criticized in regards to literature, which is meaningless and gibberish. What is meant, of course, that the books have been criticized in regards to literary merit, but that's not what the sentence says. zafiroblue05 | Talk 03:45, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I considered objecting b/c of the 7th book not being out yet. But it doesn't really make sense to me.  That material can become incorporated later.  And it's not like any subject is totally static; new developments can occur for just about any article.  Besides, feature status isn't irrevocable.  If the article becomes bad later it can be delisted.  Mango juice talk 21:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Object. Reading through several of the sections in this article I must agree with many of the above objections. In addition the prose does not seem FA in multiple locations. I will do my best to fix these myself and hopefully change to support soon. Sorry Guy 01:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong Object and suggest Peer Review: A Good article, but I think that this Article needs a Peer Review, where it will hopefully highly critical comments. False Prophet 17:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)