Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels/Harry Potter task force/Archive 4

Addition of "Real-life topics" to the HP Watchlist
Hi folks, I've added a new section titled "Real-life topics" to the HP Watchlist, and added Rowling and the three main cast members to this list. I'm a little busy at the moment, but if you guys could take the time to add more actors to this list, that would be greatly appreciated. --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I have added quite a few more, I've only added those actors who are very notable or if they play a major character, there are dozens more minor actors/charcters and I'm not sure they should be included. What do you think? Death Eater Dan   [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px|  ]] ( Muahaha ) 17:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Much appeciated, that's exactly the level of notability (of the actor or the character) that I was looking for, thanks. --Deathphoenix ʕ 06:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Edit War - Info Box Colours
I have to say I tire of the constant edit warring with the colours of the info boxes used throughout the Harry Potter articles. Can we gain some consensus please on this talk page to bring it to a long overdue end.

I am not going to talk about the trolling thats going on changing the colours just to enflame the situation, what does need sorting out however is that there are two view points here - one which is pushing for a standardised colour for all info boxes and the other that is using the colour categorisation set out in the templates page of this wikiproject which has been in place for over 9 months now.

So can we decide on here which to stick to, or reformulate the colours into categories everyone can agree on.

I would also like to remind everyone that civility should be maintained and try not to use so many brow beating edit summaries. Thank you. Death Eater Dan   ( Muahaha ) 23:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * We have a guideline on infobox colors here. Point anyone who reverts away from versions of that to this page to discuss it, and also let us know specifically where you're having issues and we can help you out. Cheers, &Euml;vilphoenix Burn! 23:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you Evilphoenix, the link you have provided is the same as I have included in my opening comment, the problem has been prolific on many of the Harry Potter pages(example). I personally have not envolved my self in this edit war, but I brought it here in the hope of resolving it. Death Eater Dan   [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px|  ]] ( Muahaha ) 00:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't even noticed that the colours meant anything. Is this going a bit far? Sandpiper 01:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sandpiper, haven't seen you around much lately, hope everythings well. To be honest I hadn't paid much attention to the colours myself either, until this annoying edit war started. But thanks to &Euml;vilphoenix everything is nice and calm again. Death Eater Dan   ( Muahaha ) 10:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * just busy elsewhere, but nice to be missed. Using colours seems to be going a bit far to me. What about the oddities, like it says filch is loyal to his cat? No, absolutely not a different colour for each. Shouldn't the loyalty line instead say something like neutral? Sandpiper 06:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey buddy, good to see you back. Take a look at Argus Filch. I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised. I agree, though. These infoboxes are very subjective. Either keep them all the same colour, or I have a different proposal: Only have three colours: One for those with allegiance to the Order of the Phoenix, one for Voldemort, and one for everyone else, regardless of allegiance. Having different colours for being loyal to Draco Malfoy, one for unknown, one for none, seems kind of superfluous to me. --Deathphoenix ʕ 12:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

"Loyalty" field needs standardisation
As pointed out here, the "Loyalty field" in the infobox Harry Potter (character) has six entries, only two of which are for actual organisations. I think we need to be more ruthless in how this field is used. I think organisations should be given precedence, and only if the person in question has no loyalty to any organisations should individuals be used. This looks like a great case for an entry in the Conventions section of the Templates page, once we come to a consensus on how this horribly-abused field should be used. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC) Oh, and I don't think more than two organisations should be listed in the Loyalty field. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that these should be probably be trimmed down for all HP articles. The point of the infobox is to make a clear, concise point, and the original intent of the loyalty part was likely to indicate which side of the war each character is on. For example, the info that Harry Potter is loyal to Sirius Black or Albus Dumbledore, while true, isn't significantly different than saying he's loyal to the OotP. Any other information about relationships Harry has with those characters can be explored in detail in the article. (Note: I use Harry as an example; I think whatever the consensus turns out to be, it should be applicable to all characters, as characters such as Ron Weasley have similar issues.) E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 18:22, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S.- I just wanted to add that there may be some cases in which adding loyalty to individuals might be completely appropriate, particularly where Rowling takes the time to make the specific point about that loyalty. However, in many cases it is likely unnecessary. E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 18:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, to expand upon having an individual in the Loyalty field if there are no groups, there are a couple of people where this would be appropriate: Lord Voldemort and Professor Quirrell (since he was never proven to be a Death Eater). --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok. So should we start fixing all of the loyalty sections for the characers? So that they only list up to two organizations, and organizations instead of people if at all possible? Emily (Funtrivia Freak) 20:14, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * That's what I'm proposing, yes, though we should probably wait until we get a fairly clear consensus before doing so. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Emily (Funtrivia Freak) 20:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, there is far too many variants in the loyalty field, and as pointed out on Talk:Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter (character) had a whole glut of them. I was bold and chopped it down to 2 = Order of the Phoenix and Albus Dumbledore. However no sooner had I done that along came an anon and re-added the extra loyalties. Now I have no desire whatsoever to engage in edit wars so I will wait for consensus on here. Death Eater Dan   ( Muahaha ) 05:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Once we come to a consensus, we can add it to the Conventions section and cite that any time some other user wishes to keep reverting our changes a la infobox colours. Conventions and consensus give us weight. --Deathphoenix ON WHEELS ʕ 07:01, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Created the Loyalty conventions
Since there were no objections, I created a section on conventions for Loyalty here. Please take a look and let me know what you think. I'll take off the "Proposed" text when we come to an agreement. --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me! (And I don't know if I should put this here, I had this problem with the "Loyalty" section before, and if no one else does, then it's just my picky personality, but for everything except Death Eater that someone can be loyal to, it makes sense to say "they are loyal to _____". You can be loyal to Draco Malfoy. You can be loyal to Hogwarts. You can be loyal to Dumbledore's Army. If you add the natural word "the", you can be loyal to the Order of the Phoenix. But you can't be loyal to Death Eater. You ARE a Death Eater- by being one you are swearing to the utmost loyalty for Voldemort. But It would be bad to say for all the Death Eaters "Loyalty: Voldemort"- because that doesn't differentiate between people like Quirrell, or even could possibly be confused with people like Narcissa Malfoy. But I still don't like it... just saying... otherwise it looks great!) Emily (Funtrivia Freak) 22:56, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * One way around this would be to use the plural form. There's nothing wrong with saying "they are loyal to Death Eaters" (or the Death Eaters), right? --Deathphoenix ʕ 04:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, Narcissa Malfoy, the example I brought up earlier, is loyal to Death Eaters (say Draco, Bellatrix, and Lucius...). But not all Death Eaters are loyal to Death Eaters- they are loyal to Voldemort- and quite possibly not other Death Eaters. As discussed below, changing the word to "Allegiance" might make it clearer in terms of it meaning orginizations and not people, and sounds fine to me, but doesn't make saying "Allegiance: Death Eaters" sound any less like Peter Pettigrew is loyal to Death Eaters or the Death Eaters... I'm sorry, I think I've caused a problem, I see you've changed the template... Emily (Funtrivia Freak) 21:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think there are a few people who would qualify as being loyal to Voldemort but not the Death Eaters, as shown in my examples in the new Conventions section: Professor Quirrell (loyal to Voldemort, but not proven to be a Death Eater) and Voldemort himself. --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I know, but what about people being loyal to "Death Eaters"? I understand that there are multiple reasons not to say that any given Death Eater is loyal to Voldemort- one being the fact that people like Quirrel would have no distinction, another being that it would take away the useful link and their important Death Eater status- but doesn't it seem like, by saying "Loyalty: Death Eater(s)" they're then loyal TO Death Eaters, like Narcissa? I quote you here: "There's nothing wrong with saying "they are loyal to Death Eaters" (or the Death Eaters), right?". This is what I see wrong with it. There is something wrong with saying "they are loyal to Death Eaters"- they're not. Emily (Funtrivia Freak) 21:41, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I changed the text to Allegiance, so that's a moot point. --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess that's kind of true... see my comments below in the next section... about it being changed to "allegiance". I mentioned that already. Emily (Funtrivia Freak) 21:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Weel, it looks like you actually have seen that... I don't know what Allegiance implies. Let's just keep it not plural (as in singular)- can we do that? Because it's much easier for it to be mistaken for meaning that one is loyal to Death Eaters than allegiant to Death Eater- the bad grammar makes the actual meaning more clear. Emily <sup style="color:red;">(Funtrivia Freak) 21:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think grammatically, the plural "Death Eaters" is better. It's like saying "I am allied with the Order of the Phoenix"; "I am allied with the Death Eaters"; "I am allied with Draco Malfoy". "I am allied with the Death Eater" or "I am allied with Death Eater" doesn't make as much sense, grammatically. --Deathphoenix ʕ 01:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Then plural it is. Emily <sup style="color:red;">(Funtrivia Freak) 03:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Change Loyalty to Allegiance
Hi. Um, is this a good time to revive the discussion about renaming the Loyalty field in the character infobox? I think part of the reason why the Loyalty field invited a lot of additions is because of its name. People who are unaware of the infobox's usage guidelines might be applying a common-sense or dictionary definition to "Loyalty", which would be fairly broad. Hermione Granger is unquestionably "loyal" to Harry Potter, Marge Dursley is "loyal" to Ripper, the Malfoys are "loyal" to their family members, and so on.

If loyalty to organizations is what's to be emphasized, a word with more specific senses that suggests groups or institutions could be used instead. For example, "Allegiance" is loyalty or devotion to a cause, organization, as well as persons. "Affiliation" refers to membership in or association with a group.

I personally prefer "Allegiance" over "Loyalty" and "Affiliation". As I've said, "loyalty" seems too broad for the purpose; a character could easily be said to have many loyalties. "Affiliation" emphasizes membership rather than true loyalty; this could invite things like Cho Chang is "affiliated with (member of)" the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team, Vernon Dursley is affiliated with Grunnings, Stan Shunpike with the Knight Bus, etc. I think "Allegiance" has the deeper meaning of loyalty to higher, larger things that unites a person with people of similar loyalties (on the same "side").

"Allegiance" is both semantically adequate for the purpose, as well as a word Rowling herself has used (e.g., in the Harry Potter & Me BBC special) to refer to the Death Eaters and such loyalties that drive her characters. --Mercurio 00:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Renaming "loyalty" to "allegiance" sounds great to me, and I'd fully support it. I think that would clear up a lot of the confusion. E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 03:42, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) That's a great idea. I'll officially endorse it by being bold and changing it to Allegiance. Oh, but I must note that the attribute will still be "loyalty", it's only the text that will show up as "Allegiance", so some of the confusion will remain. I might clear up some of it by also allowing the use of "allegiance" in the template, if I remember how. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. The template works for "allegiance=The Grand Poobah" and "loyalty=The Grand Poobah" as legacy. Basically, whether you want the text to be Loyalty or Allegiance is still up for discussion; however, I implemented the template so that the calling attribute names themselves will work with either. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Why didn't people like the term "Affiliation"? Perhaps it doesn't convey any sense of loyalty, as some people are certainly loyal to, say the "Order of the Phoenix". People aren't just members of it- they are completely devoted to it's cause. But that could be shown by their character in the articles... and I think saying "Affiliation: Death Eater", "Affiliation: Dumbledore's Army" and even "Affiliation: Hogwarts" would serve our purpose well. To affiliate means to "associate as a member"- but it seems to be what we're really looking for. Even though Arthur Weasley was willing (I believe) to risk his life for the Order, I don't think Terry Boot would risk his life for or display unwavering devotion to Dumbledore's Army. Just my thoughts... Emily <sup style="color:red;">(Funtrivia Freak) 21:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Take a look at the template discussion here. This is not supposed to convey unwavering devotion, but merely what side of the fight the character is on. Affiliation means they're a member, which doesn't really apply to certain cases. Allegiance is much better as a moderate description. --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, "allegiance" conveys that meaning "which side one is on", without going into the degree of devotion, so it seems to be what we want here. "Affiliation" can be a synonym but mostly it emphasizes membership - Fred & George are affiliated with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes (same for all the shop owners to their businesses) and the Gryffindor Quidditch team; Rita Skeeter is affiliated with the Daily Prophet, the Quibbler and Witch Weekly. So a person who does not know what's been discussed here and sees "Affiliation" in the infobox might be tempted to add something like Dumbledore's resume with the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards. Harry is affiliated with S.P.E.W. and the Slug Club, but his allegiance (or loyalty) is not to these. "Allegiance" is closer to "loyalty", but the former emphasizes causes and sides (which tend to be groups), while the latter is more general (not just causes, but also friends and family). --Mercurio 00:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Conventions completed: feel free to use
I've closed the "proposal" part of these conventions, so we can now start changing the Loyalty/Allegiance entries for the various characters. I'd suggest that we do the following:
 * 1) Change the attribute name from loyalty to allegiance. Even though I edited the template so that both attributes work, using "allegiance" will emphasise to future editors what this field is supposed to entail.
 * 2) Reduce or fix the entries to match these conventions (two entries, precedence given to organisations as opposed to individuals).
 * 3) Use the following edit summary to prevent edit-warring similar to what we saw for the infobox colours (you can simply cut and paste the code if you wish):

I'll mark this down as an open task in the Wikiproject. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Foreign book covers?
I've noticed that in the past few days, User:Rhindle the Red has added a picture of the French cover to each of the Harry Potter books. (For an example, you can see Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone). While I don't have a problem with this, I think we should get a consensus on whether we should have foreign language book covers (at least as far as it concerns HP articles) on the English Wikipedia. Keep in mind, there are quite a few. So I guess our options are: I don't have a personal opinion, but I figured I'd put it up here to try and get comments/consensus on it. E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 18:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Only have English covers
 * 2) Only have a few covers representative of major languages
 * 3) Have as many foreign language covers as we can get our hands on
 * I think the issue of overloading the individual pages is a valid one. I think there should certainly be a selection of foreign covers, just to show the variety, but too many will make the pages look cluttered.  However, I also think it would be worthwhile to establish a new page (not unlike the one linked to above) that collects as many covers as can possibly be found for the sake of completeness.Rhindle The Red 19:20, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * While that might be interesting, we also have to remember that Wikipedia is not a collection of images, so a single page just for that purpose would probably not be encouraged. E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 20:56, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I would argue to just include the British bookcovers, as to the rest, who is to say which country/languages editions are more noteworthy than others for inclusion in the articles? Why should the American and French editions be there but not the German or Spanish? So on that point I think only the British (original publication) covers should be used. The exception to this however would be the U.S. cover of Philosophers Stone which I think warrants fair inclusion due to the change in title. <b style="color:arial, helvetica;color:#ff0000;">Death Eater Dan</b>   ( Muahaha ) 23:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * If the consensus eventually becomes to be exclusive rather than inclusive, I would still argue to include the American editions as well, simply because this is the English Wikipedia and these editions were published in English. Personally, I think the inclusion of only American and British editions makes the most sense, but I also don't have a problem with #2 above, with major languages such as Spanish and French being represented. (So, to summarize, I don't have a strong opinion, but I would support #1 above, with acceptance of #2.) E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 23:47, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I see you're point, but what about the Canadian, Australian & New Zealand editions? they were all printed in English too. Also I think we are getting into dodgy ground by limiting it to major languages, as who is to say which are the major languages? which is more worthy of inclusion than another? it leaves us wide open to POV. I admit that if the consensus is to include one other, in addition to the British, then common sense would dictate that the American edition would be the one simply because of the size of the American publication. So I agree with you in that I would go for #1 but would acceot the U.S. if consensus dictated. <b style="color:arial, helvetica;color:#ff0000;">Death Eater Dan</b>   [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px|  ]] ( Muahaha ) 00:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Which is why I think it would be a good idea to do a whole page that shows all the covers we can find. I am willing to spearhead this endeavor (since it was my fascination with the French covers that brought about this discussion), but I don't mind if someone else wants to get a head start.  I think a comprehensive guide is a nice idea because it shows what common elements are used and how different culture interpret the characters.Rhindle The Red 15:00, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * As I hinted at before, this should only be done if you can make the page more than just a collection of images. It would have to contain verifiable text descriptions and comparisons. If you feel you can do this, I say go for it. Otherwise, I don't doubt that someone out there would send it to Articles for deletion under WP:NOT an indescriminate collection of images or a web-host. E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 16:30, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Assuming that the List of titles of Harry Potter books in other languages survives the attempt to delete it, I could add images to it to make it more useful rather than start a new page. Regardless, I still like the idea of a few foreign covers on the main page, just to give an idea how Harry has been viewed in other countries.Rhindle The Red 12:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I've just closed the discussion as no consensus. H e rmione1980 19:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What does it mean for someone to "close the discussion"? On the question of foreign book covers, my opinion is that illustrations should only be present to complement the text.  So, foreign book covers would go with text describing foreign/international aspects of the topic.  If Rhindle The Red wants to include a collection of book covers, he should first write an article for which they would be suitable illustrations.--SmokeyJoe 00:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't know, but I do think you've reached a consensus actually. The British version appears supported, as does Rhindle The Red's interest in the international aspect. I believe your conclusion leads to the creation of a separate entry on Harry Potter in International circles. CMacMillan 00:39, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It's the discussion concerning the potential deletion of the List of titles of Harry Potter books in other languages that has not reached consensus. (Votes were pretty evenly split, with I think "keep" up by one).  This means the page survives for now.  I will focus any energy I expend on foreign book covers in that direction.Rhindle The Red 03:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that's a great idea. List of titles of Harry Potter books in other languages seems perfectly suited for what you want to do, and I think the images will fit nicely. Good find, and best of luck in your efforts! E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 06:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

While we are on the subject, there has been a difference of view over placing book covers in a gallery box, or spreading them through the text. i am very firmly in favour of spreading them through the text, as every article needs a picture to make it look better. But you can have too much of a good thing and there has to be enough text to balance the pictures. So I am quite content for the overspill pictures to appear in a gallery at the end. But priority should be given to english editions, which people are likely to come across if they are reading the english wiki. The total number of book covers must be hundreds for each edition and it would swamp the page if even a small proportion of the total was included, even in a gallery. Sandpiper 07:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

IIRC, it is against Wikipedia's Fair use policy to place fair use images in a gallery. It was one of the reasons why I had to change WikiProject Harry Potter/Images to link to the images rather than display them. --Deathphoenix ʕ 12:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Well i just spent the best part of an hour researching your last post, and the firmest conclusion I found was a number of people moaning that people uploading images do not understand the rules. Well i do not find that surprising in view of the time it takes to read them, never mind try to understand them. however, i did not notice one word about galleries in the fair use article you mention. There is an unexplained comment that use of a fair use image is unacceptable to identify something unless accompanied by critical commentary. What the hell does that mean? I suspect not what it actually says. The basic statements of law would appear to indicate that a collection of cover pictures would be quite acceptable for the purpose of showing what we are talking about. However, stylistically, it really isn't acceptable. I don't want to see a gallery of cover pictures unless it is making a point in itself about the differing ways the books are portrayed/marketed, or some such. A few examples seems good enough for that. Sandpiper 22:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The argument was presented at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter/Images by someone whose judgement I trust a great deal. There's nothing in WP:FU explicitly against the use of galleries of images, but it's what a gallery represents: a whole swack of fair use images transcluded into an article. In the above MfD, people were about ready to delete what was a valuable workshop for us because there were a whole bunch of transcluded fair use images in that page. That a gallery was used to display the images was immaterial: even if I had removed the gallery and simply presented the images differently, the page would still have been deleted as violating Wikipedia's fair use policies. I had to remove the images from the articles themselves and replace them with links to each image. Using a gallery full of fair use images (regardless of whether you use  to present them or not) requires excellent justification as to why so many fair use images are being presented in this manner. Also, each image in the gallery needs some justification about why it needs to be used. It's hard enough to justify a few fair use images, let alone a whole gallery of them. People were already getting into edit wars over using Time Magazine covers in articles about what the covers are illustrating, which is totally against fair use rules (this argument is disputed, suffice it to say, I agree with TBSDY on this one). We have to be careful about copyright and fair use. If we're using one or two foreign book covers to illustrate how the foreign books look (for example, to compare the different versions of HBP), that's fine, but I find it difficult to justify the use of a whole gallery of fair use images simply to display foreign book covers. If such a fallery exists in a place external to Wikipedia, I'd much rather link to such a site (and let that site get sued if it violates copyright laws) than expose WIkipedia to this problem. --Deathphoenix ʕ 05:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've made no recent study of "fair use", but to my understanding, if you are simply "illustrating", that is not good enough. Make you own illustration.  Fair use of an image means that you are discussing the actual image that you are showing.  Therefore, if you want to show all the book cover images, you are going to have to make it quite a detailed article. --SmokeyJoe 05:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Clean up of "List of Spells" Pages
I have tried to change all the links from the old "List of spells in Harry Potter" to the new Canonical spells in the world of Harry Potter as per the things to do list on the project page. I've done all the ones I can and the ones remaining are either archive material which cannot be changed or contain the "to do list" which has the old link. I hope I've done it properly, I'm new. Kelly elf 12:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I've now also checked all the pages that linked to the canonical spells page. All the links now point to the particular spell of interest and not just the whole page. I appear not to have anything better to do today :-) Kelly elf 14:03, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Protecting Dumbledore article
Out of all the Harry Potter articles, it seems that Dumbledore's is in a constant edit war, people are especially adamant about putting forth their own theories under the speculation section. There is a section on this in Talk:Albus Dumbledore. I think its time to vote on whether to protect that page or not, at least until book 7 comes out? I also think that if protected the page should undergo peer evaluation; to fix the mess.--Phnx2ashes 16:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Take a look at Protection policy and Semi-protection policy. Both types of protection are for pretty drastic circumstances. Some Harry Potter fans wanting to insert some fan speculation hardly qualifies, IMO. Just some good ol' fashioned mediation should do the trick. If the editor in question continues to edit war, a WP:3RR block may be appropriate under these extreme circumstances, but protecting the article until book seven comes out is overkill. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:32, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Deathphoenix that I don't think you would find an administrator willing to protect this kind of situation. However, I DO think a peer review would be a good idea and worthy of pursuing, with or without protection. E WS23 | (Leave me a message!) 16:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * OK protecting the page is overkill. Im relitively new to wikipedia, don't know the exact policies, but ill read them now that i have the links. How would we start a peer reviewed article?--Phnx2ashes 20:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * No problems. A formal peer review might also be overkill, as it's usually a general start to getting an article up to featured article status. In any case, you could do it by posting it to WP:PR. Barring more formal procedures, a group of us in this Wikiproject have generally been editing it on a more informal basis, though it's been a while since I last took a real stab at it. I already see some things that should be pruned. Cheers, Deathphoenix ʕ 20:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, now that I see the peer review process it is a bit of an overkill, having the wikiproject group keep an eye on it would be best. "Constant vigilance"--Phnx2ashes 21:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll add it to my Watchlist, I normally hadn't been watching it. Also, just to let out a sneak hint here, but I'm hoping to ask for a PR on J. K. Rowling here in the near future. I have some material that's been removed because of citation issues that I'd like to get through verifying and citing first, but I thought I'd just mention it. Cheers! &Euml;vilphoenix Burn! 23:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

What do I do with The Weird Sisters
Hey folks, what do you think I should do with The Weird Sisters? Do I leave it as a standalone article, or do I merge it somewhere? If I merge it somewhere, where should I merge it? I've been looking through the other lists of minor characters, and am uncertain which one would be the best place for this. Also, please note that Weird Sisters also exists, but describes a different band. Thanks for your feedback, Deathphoenix ʕ 01:18, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi. I think these characters are too minor to stand alone.  How about merging it into the Wizarding world article (which itself could use some cleanup), perhaps in a new Culture/Music/Entertainment section?  Such a section could describe the arts and/or leisure aspect of Wizarding culture, and also cite Celestina Warbeck, The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, etc.
 * If it is to keep its own article, I think at the least it ought to be renamed Weird Sisters (Harry Potter). Thanks. --Mercurio 04:03, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Infobox colour proposal
Hi guys, I'd appreciate any thoughts you'd have on a proposed change to the infobox colours here, originally started due to the oddity of having Draco as a possibly entry for Loyalty. Conversation has stagnated somewhat, though it's probably due to lack of advertising on my part. If there's no objections, I plan to replace the current conventions with these new conventions and (sigh) go through all the character infoboxes and replace the colours with these new ones where necessary. I'd also welcome any colour tweaks as well as the main categories. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:04, 11 April 2006 (UTC)


 * (Removed yesterday's fully expanded sandbox edition, which included Hogwarts house colors, replaced it with this updated proposal - - which includes a general "Hogwarts" box as a "maybe"...) --T-dot 09:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Nah, I'm in favour of simplicity here. It'll confuse folks why characters are in Gryffindor colours rather than Order of the Phoenix colours, or such similar things. I'm strongly in favour of not confusing the reader, and I think the best way to accomplish that is to have as few colours and classifications as possible. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there any way we could change the pink, though. It's just so odd- is that really the only color not stated in the book as implying loyalty to something? I mean, isn't red a Gryffindor color- so why can't green be the unknown color? Just asking... Emily <sup style="color:red;">(Funtrivia Freak) 00:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * As a matter of a fact I was also thinking about suggesting the Tan background I selected for Ravenclaw, to use for "other" instead of Pink. Pink does seem a little - I don't know - off target... --T-dot 00:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Tan would be good. I'd like that. Let's hear what other people have to say! Emily <sup style="color:red;">(Funtrivia Freak) 00:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

How about the below idea? I've changed some of the color, but the most notable change is using a border color rather than font color to denote alliance. It doesn't work really well for Ravenclaw, but IMO the rest look much better. — Cuivi é  nen , Wednesday, 12 April 2006 @ 01:14 (UTC)

I don't know how the border would look in an infobox, but it certainly looks decent for the last four. I'm still in favour of only using four infobox colours, but your revised colour for Other/Unknown is a good one, IMO. --Deathphoenix ʕ 02:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah- I think we should leave a box for being loyal to Hogwarts (The border looks fine here, but either way the- brown, is it- looks good). I also agree that the last 4 look good and that tan is a better color choice. Emily <sup style="color:red;">(Funtrivia Freak) 02:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The black on brown proposed for Hogwarts is not very easy to read. Black on Blue is not good either, Black on red is just about ok. I guess there will not be very much of it, but in general I HATE websites that use non-contrasting foreground and background colours. Sandpiper 19:18, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Infobox color coding is a prime example of going way too far into the universe of Harry Potter. (See below: this-universe perspective).  It seems unashameably an orignal research analysis of characters.--SmokeyJoe 01:23, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * OK well it was really just an attempt to classify and group the characters by their canonical loyalty or affiliation as defined in the books (to date), not by any means "original research", but you raise a good point - they could all be color coded the same as "Harry Potter Characters" and be done with it. --T-dot 01:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The only thing better than my proposal for just four colours is SmokeyJoe's proposal for just one colour. I would much favour the use of just one colour. That keeps the infoboxes consistent, and it keeps edit-warring to a minimum ("No, he's loyal to the Inquisitorial Squad!" "No, he's loyal to Draco Malfoy!" "No, he'a loyal to the Death Eaters!"). --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not at all sure I could agree that there is such a thing as getting too much into the subject of an article, but I think this discussion is beginning to demonstrate that loads of colour combinations is a bad idea. It also smacks of creating a complex code which only insiders understand, and which does not help a casual reader of pages one single bit. (rather the reverse, distracts them with the puzzle of why colours differ on different pages) Sandpiper 15:35, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Are there any objections to converting all the coloured bars to the one colour? What colour?  Even though it currently looks like original research, maybe the above work could be converted to a section or page called "Allegiances in the Harry Potter Series"SmokeyJoe 13:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * My preference is the yellow background with black letters with no borders. I don't think "Allegiances in the Harry Potter Series" is necessary as a seperate article. It would be too crufty and a very likely candidate for AfD. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Just to be complete, I added this proposal to the workshop page. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:46, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

This-universe perspective
User:TheGrappler at Talk:Lord Voldemort (Only Just!) has just made some quite important points that I think apply to nearly every Harry Potter article. I feel he is absolutely right, and that the Harry Potter project has been partly misguided for some time. The only exception seems to be the Harry Potter article itself. In my words, there has been far too deep a decent into the "Harry Potter Universe". Things missing that bother me especialy are the lack of critical review, and the lack of stuff on the real-world reactions to Harry Potter (including the amazing amount of global excitment and anticipation of the release of the later books of the series). I believe that all the troubles of original speculation being added by visitors can be attributed to the entrenched problem of perspective, as addressed very well by TheGrappler.

I suggest two additions to the "To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter:" table. Much of the content that will need to be re-written could be transferred elsewhere (eg www.harrypotterwiki.org or harrypotter.wikia.com/)--SmokeyJoe 01:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Convert the Harry Potter articles to a this-universe perspective.
 * The inclusion of material that is sourced critcial review of Harry Potter literature.
 * Well, first of all, the Wikis you mention are not sister projects with Wikipedia, so you can't just readily Transwiki content to there and still easily preserve GFDL as you can for Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikibooks, etc. Second, you have a point, but only up to a certain level. Yes, some of the detail has become too much, and the level of literary analysis and speculation strays into the original research territory. However, in the path of a fictional universe, these articles are fine as long as it is pointed out in the introduction that these articles describe facets of a fictional universe. There are similar articles on Wikipedia giving treatment to various facets of other fictional worlds (such as Starcraft, The Belgariad, even The Smurfs). What needs to be made more into "real world" type of articles are articles about real world things, such as the actors, J.K. Rowling, the books, the films, and the video games. I don't think a complete removal of content from the other articles is the answer. Cleanup, yes. You have to remember that these articles are describing fictional elements with a fictional universe, just like other articles in Wikipedia that do the same thing, and treat these articles accordingly. Articles don't have to be treated any differently (either way) just because a lot of people happen to like Harry Potter. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:23, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I, (SmokeyJoe 01:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)) want to push my point further than you seem to concede. I am seeking agreement that the Harry Potter articles would be better if we adopted the this-universe perspective as a guideline.  I think the advantages will be a more intellectual collection of articles, less violation of the Original Research policy, and less confict with eager newbies.  To address your points individually:
 * RE: transferring content. There is so much good stuff, and if anything has to be removed, then I’d like to see it go somewhere.  Also, the fantasy-compendium that the Harry Potter pages are leaning to are a lot of fun and very interesting in their own right, and I mention those two sites as sites that others here have called for help to expand.
 * RE: detail. I don’t agree that there is too much!  The problem is that it is written from the fictional Harry Potter universe perspective, which I agree with The grappler and his sources is an inherent problem because it tends to overly rely on the work of fiction itself as a source, and invites original research.  I do agree that there tends to be original research, and that this is a bad thing.
 * I don’t agree that an opening paragraph stating the fictional nature of the work is sufficient to justify subsequent fantasy writing. Lord Voldemort, for example, begins with a paragraph (~106 words) that is in a this-universe perspective.  The subsequent ~3400 words (to the end of the Section “The Second War”) is entirely from the fantasy perspective, except for figure captions.  It could even be argued that this plot summary, being a stand-alone significant work but devoid of critical comment, is a copyright violation not covered by “fair use”.  From the Section “Personality and Traits” onwards (~950 words), there are occurrences of real-world perspective (eg. It begins “Voldemort is described as”), there is some cross referencing, and some discussion (Original Research?) (eg. “Voldemort, in his arrogant belief in his own superiority, has a tendency to forget seemingly unimportant details from the past, which has led to his undoing on several occasions.”)  However, the perspective is overwhelmingly not this-universe.  From the Section “Representation within Film” onwards (~500 words), the perspective is in the encyclopaedic this-universe perspective.  It should be the other way round, with the this-universe discussion dominating the article and only a small proportion being fantasy-perspective plot summaries serving to illustrate the discussion.


 * RE other articles (such as Starcraft, The Belgariad, even The Smurfs), I’d rather not get into criticizing them. Lets just get Harry Potter right.


 * I agree that more “real world” articles would be good. Note that they are written from a this-universe perspective!


 * RE: removal of content. No, keep the content, but fix it.  A fair bit of critical commentry will need to be interspersed in lengthy plot summaries.


 * RE: Deathpheonix’s last two sentences. I don’t see how this addresses my argument that all the articles should be written from a this-universe perspective.  Read TheGrappler’s comments.  The use of a this-universe perspective doesn’t appear to be an official guideline, but I think it should be, for the reasons given.SmokeyJoe 01:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Um, okay, I don't think I really have time to think and respond to all your notes right now, so I'll try my best with a couple. First, GFDL requires proper attribution, and since your proposed target Wikis are not sister projects of Wikipedia, you cannot easily move the content there without violating GFDL, and most of these Wikis don't want a verbatim cut & paste of Wikipedia articles into their articles. Some may have different requirements, but I don't pay too much attention to the Harry Potter Wikis to know what their requirements are. I know that Hermione1980 is on one of them, so she might be able to shed some light on this.

Now, I happen to agree with you in some respects. Taking a real-world perspective would go a long way to eliminate some problems, but it won't eliminate rampant speculation. However, critical analysis is exactly the sort of thing that Wikipedia is not. That is original research, something that is forbidden on Wikipedia. What might be acceptable, if consensus so decreed, is reporting on such analysis, but only by notable people (for example, Stephen King's favourable review, though of course, it must be paraphrasing and not copying). For example, reporting that HarryPotter89163's favourite book was the second one is not acceptable. As for long plot summaries... well, there's been some discussion about that. I think plot summaries should be short and concise, while some people think they should be ultralong and detailed. I know that Wikibooks has a very long, chapter-by-chapter description of the plot, but I don't know if that makes these plot summaries any better. In the interests of my own sanity (not to mention being sick of constantly being in conflict with people who want to expand plot summaries to ridiculous levels), I have decided not to edit plot summaries for length anymore.

Anyways, since this thread has become a "review" of the current state of Harry Potter articles, well, I just want to say that I'm definitely not happy with the state of some of these articles. Harry Potter (character) has this weird "Strengths", "Weaknesses", and "Notable possessions" sections that read like an RPG character sheet. Most of the articles on the major characters give a book-by-book detailed story about exactly what they did in each book. These details make the articles so unwieldy that I no longer read them. I only look at diffs and try to remove speculation. I'd really like to flag several of these articles for major editing, roll up my sleeves, and just go waist-deep in the muck and shovel out the shit, but I simply don't have the uninterrupted time it would require to do that. Some of your points, I agree with, some I completely disagree with, and some break GFDL and are therefore illegal to implement. We agree on one thing, though. These articles need fixing. How to fix them is where we differ. Now I'm off to bed. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I seem to be a little late coming to the party, but no, the Harry Potter Wiki doesn't want exact copies of WP articles. We do want articles written from an in-universe perspective, but we don't want to have to deal with the redlinks that copying from WP inevitably entails. I don't particularly have an opinion on the topic at hand, just thought I'd clarify this one point. H e rmione1980 21:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, to wade in with my ten cents. First, this has become quite a long series of books, which logically means there is quite a lot to write about in some situations. Second, some of the articles are too long, but not many. I define too long as being unmanageable to read. The point of an article is to inform the reader, so it must do that.

My own view of the greatest shortcomings of the articles is lack of analysis of the stories. This has been commented on in a general sort of way about wiki articles when reviewed by outsiders. It is an inherently wiki problem, because wiki does not support an editorial view on the subject of an article, which in topics like fiction might be expected in a classical encyclopedia. This naturally leads to articles which have a disproportionate amount of description of events rather than analysis. In part, this is back-door analysis, which is actually permitted under wiki rules. It is expected that wiki editors will use judgement in selecting the inmportant facts to include in an article. It is just that they can not then go on and draw the conclusions which might be drawn in a newspaper review, or a different kind of encyclopedia. So this is likely to appear as endless narrative, when it is in fact subtly more than that.

As to reporting external reviews, welll fine, but where are they? The best external reviews exist in fan discussions and internet fora, which are reported here.

I don't see that in general removing anything currently included would improve the articles from a readers perspective. Sandpiper 20:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm regretting mentioning the idea of moving stuff to other sites. Let's forget it. I was hoping for more comment on converting articles to a this-universe perspective. I have trouble understanding the position of Deathphoenix. Hermione1980 and Sandpiper don't seem to be opposed. Everyone else is silent. It isn't a simple thing. Pieces of fantasy-perspective must be allowed, but how much? Maybe a few sentences, a few hundred words are so? SmokeyJoe 14:07, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * In a nutshell, my position is to give it a shot, but try not to put critical analysis in the articles. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:17, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course, what is most obviously lacking from our encyclopedia entries is exactly critical analysis. But I am still unclear how you might change the approach of most of the articles. As far as I remember literary analysis traditionally assumes that the story and characters are pseudo-real, and analyses then accordingly, how Juliet feels discovering Romeo dead etc, etc. Sandpiper 17:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

If I could draw you're attention
I would appreciate members views on a discussion going on in the Harry Potter template talk page. There is a bit of pulling and tugging going on so I would appreciate it if you could comment, maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree on there, but hey I'll go with the flow of consensus. <b style="color:arial, helvetica;color:#ff0000;">Death Eater Dan</b>   ( Muahaha ) 16:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I put my grumpiness in there even before reading your note above, but yes, I think some of the edit warriors need to see some more discussion on the talk page, since we've already hashed out (a long time ago) that B.E. spelling and titles are the way to go. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * See my comments there. &Euml;vilphoenix Burn! 17:52, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Your comments on the US alternative ended up shorter than your comments in this section. ;-) God, I'm just getting more and more crotchety these days. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:40, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * So? &Euml;vilphoenix Burn! 19:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Muggles Guide
I am beginning to find this a little tiresome. All these adverts for the muggles guide suggesting it is 'in-depth'. It has some rejected content from here and much less about just about everything than is on wikipedia. I can stand for people to mention it, but claiming it has more to offer than wikipedia is simply untrue. These are encyclopedic entries, not a text book teaching someone how to build their very own HP universe, that is why they belong here on wiki, not on wiki books. Now how about we reign back some of those inaccurate claims? Sandpiper 23:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, especially since Muggle's Guide will probably be deleted soon. But don't worry, it will probably be moved somewhere else. Just letting you all know. Thanks. -- LV <sup style="color:#3D9140;">(Dark Mark)  23:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Good Article?
Does anyone believe that the Harry Potter series article is ready to be nominated as a Good article?TonyJoe 11:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion on merging Harry Potter podcast to Harry Potter fandom
I think Harry Potter podcast should be merged to Harry Potter fandom. I'd appreciate any feedback on this subject here. Thanks, --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a template that might be useful.
Template:Book Series infobox can be used in each of the HP books. This has a chronology beneath it so it'll be helpful. The articles are protected and hence can't be modified. If you wish to see how it looks. Please visit some Tintin comics say, Tintin in Tibet. Any member who has permissions to change can do that. Regards --54UV1K 11:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit: The Template also has provision to incorporate most of the tags/values in the existing box. --54UV1K 11:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I like just about everything in the existing box but I also like the chronology in yours. Could you add the chronology section to the existing box ? In my opinion, that would be the better edit.TonyJoe 04:51, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

People working
I moved this comment from the main page to this talk page --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:24, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Put your name who is working in the Wikiproject Harry Potter. It is better to learn who is working, you know... And alphabetically

Englishfun (talk)

Book referencing
I wonder if we could make a decision on the best way to make references to books.

So Far, I have used the following

Harry Potter has a god father

Anti Weasel Words League
I have been contemplating helping to form, hopefully with the assistance of some of the other dedicated HP Project leaders with more experience, and assuming it doesn't already exist, an Anti Weasel Word League, bent on stamping out the weasel words that keep cropping up to legitimize rampant speculation ... eg: "It has been said that..." and "Some fans believe..." etc. etc. ad nauseum. This practice of cloaking speculation is forbidden in the guidelines: Avoid Weasel Words. The AWWL would be in the same vein as the Counter-Vandalism Unit, the Recent Changes Patrol and the WikiProject Spam Anti Spam efforts. It seems to me that many of the HP articles are peppered with weasel words, with new examples appearing daily, and it seems that it comes mostly from relatively new Wiki HP fanatics who perhaps are unaware that speculation, original research, and especially weasel-worded speculations are disallowed. Most of the "new" information comes directly from the fan forums and blogs. Thoughts anyone? Any interest? --T-dot 14:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The thing is, that while these certainly may be used as 'weasel words', in a subject like HP they may also be true. Some fans believe that RAB is Regulus Black. Well, by now, rather a lot do. In fact this example, by now, is probably incorrect the opposite way, in that it currently hugely believed that RAB is regulus, and people would be very surprised if it turns out not to be.Sandpiper
 * But we could have a source for these, like articles or columns written about how they think RAB is Regulus. I don't doubt many people do think RAB is he, so I would guess there would be a way to empirically show this opinion in a way that is other than "some people believe..." -- You Know Who <sup style="color:#3D9140;">(Dark Mark)  19:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Joining in
I'd like to join the project... What do I have to do?! I checked the To-Do list and I think I might be useful...

User:Halyks June 15 2006

An image
You may find this image useful. Dread Lord C y b e r S k u l l ✎☠ 05:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Started to work on a new HP Article
I started to work on Snape's Worst Memory... the article is really crappy so far because i'm new to Wiki... anyone willing to help making it look good and have more information are welcome.

-Halyks, June 16 2006, 11:22am EST


 * I've added HP-Project and done some cleanup. ForestH2

Revising templates
I've been working toward merging the several templates for HP character, HP Character Foreign, HP Elf Character, HP Forest Character, and maybe HP Animal. This would be the complete list of combined parameters: Harry Potter character

Gender          : gender Sex             : sex        [from Forest] Hair colour     : hair Eye colour      : eyes Residence       : residence  [from Forest] School          : school     [from Foreign] House           : house Family          : family     [from Elf] Species         : species    [from Elf, Forest, Animal] Owner           : owner      [from Animal] Special powers  : powers     [from Animal] Blood purity    : blood Allegiance      : allegiance Allegiance      : loyalty Film portrayer  : portrayer Voice Actor     : voice      [from Elf, Forest] First appearance : appearance
 * 1) Sex is redundant, but there's only four articles, which could be changed easily enough.
 * 2) Currently only the centaurs have residence s, but it could be worth using elsewhere. I suggest it only be used for adults of settled address.
 * 3) Currently school is only for non-Hogwarts characters. I suggest that there's no need to specify Hogwarts if a character's house is given.
 * 4) Family is the family to which a house-elf belongs. Maybe merge with owner ?
 * 5) Humans and part-humans are described in blood ; species is strictly for non-human characters.
 * 6) Only pets (and maybe house-elves) should have owner s. It seems to me it'd be rather dangerous to tell Aragog differently.
 * 7) Currently, only animals have special powers.
 * 8) Loyalty is redundant. Are there any articles still using it? If not, we can just delete this.
 * 9) Obviously, CGIed characters have voice actors, the rest have protrayer s.
 * 10) I'd like to suggest a policy of abbreviating the book titles in appearance, or failing that, of forcing the linebreak after "Harry Potter and"; e.g. The Philospher's Stone or Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone.

I don't have an opinion on the colour-coding issue; is there a concensus?

The way I've rewritten the HP character template, parameters without specified values simply don't show up in the infobox, so it's not necessary to put in placeholders like "Unknown" or "None"—just skip them.

Comments? —wwoods 22:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Changes made. See Template:HP character and Template talk:HP character. —wwoods 04:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Excellent work, Wwoods. --Deathphoenix ʕ 13:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

standardized format
I think we need to create some sort of standard format for HP-related articles, in particular those related to characters. These articles frequently become cluttered with too much hardly-relevant information, speculation, and unencyclopaedic nonsense.

All that is needed in the average character article is:


 * Intro (including a sentence on the actor who plays the character in the movies)
 * Background and role in the novels (can sometimes be split if there is good reason)

For some major characters some more information is needed, which may require additional sections. However, what we do not need is "literary analysis" sections, "speculation" sections, or any of that other stuff that constantly creeps into such articles. Exploding Boy 15:44, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I completely agree with you. I'd like to see a standard format to make these articles consistent. We should consensually come up with a consistent format for all these articles, maybe something resembling the biography style guide. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Rather misses the point, that I suspect most people looking up the characters also want to know what other people think about them. Sandpiper
 * After thinking on it, you have a point. I was just thinking "What is encyclopedic?". If an article is overanalytical, particularly if it's original research, it's definitely not appropriate for Wikipedia (what, with its long-standing No original research policies and all). However, if we note that, for example, that having two of Harry's father figures dying is a common literary tool because it allows him to "come of age" and develop the needed strength to fight his foe, there's an argument that this could be included. However, putting such a statement should still not violate Wikipedia's original research policies, so one could put this in if one also backs this up with a citation from somewhere else (preferably a peer-reviewed literary analysis). A great example is Stephen King's review where he identified Dolores Umbridge as a great villain, and how the success of a novel is determined by its villains (or words to that effect). So I'll soften my stance in response to what you said: it's okay to include literary analysis as long as it is cited. --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, as I recall, a great deal of useful "literary analysis" content could be derived just from Rowling's interviews; I'm thinking that she made a lot of useful comments of a "literary analysis" nature in the MuggleNet/Leaky Cauldron interview, such as, say, Ginny being the ideal love interest for Harry. --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The difficulty with this is that there is still something of a shortage of citeable sources, despite the widespread interest. No doubt in 100 years there will be a lot of PhDs written about the phenomenon of harry potter, but not yet. We need to be carrying content in the period between now and the actual publication of book 7, which will settle most of the disputed points. The best available sources are all internet websites.
 * Although we now carry some of the more popular fan speculations (well, by now they are fan conclusions), we still have virtually no traditional literary criticism, of the sort which would be taught in classes when discussing literature. When I have seen it, sometimes well considered and the more interesting part of an article, frequently someone comes along and strikes it out as unencyclopedic, despite it being precisely the type of content which ought to be here.
 * As to quoting JKR, yes we certainly can, and I think the article on Book 7 is now getting quite intertesting on the basis of what she has said over the years. Unfortunately it is a bit awkward, generally, relying on an author to make literary criticism of her own work. To a degree she has explained things she has written, but with one book still to go she remains rather cagy. Sandpiper 21:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

On a different point, I noticed that JKR has frequently chosen interesting and meaningfull names for her characters and these also deserve a mention in article as a short section. As a case in point, it would rather seem that both Wulfric Dumbledore's name and to a degree his enemies and life story fit the names and story of Beowulf. Not mentioned here, I found it mentioned on redhen and hplexicon. Always did wonder why he had such a long name.Sandpiper

We should not be allowing any Wikipedia article to become cluttered with the type of nonsense I've been removing from various Harry Potter articles recently. Musings on what things "might" mean, what things "may" have been inspired by, or what events "could" refer to is original research. Wikipedia is not Coles Notes. Exploding Boy 05:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know what Coles notes is, but you are making sound an interesting read.Sandpiper

The question of literary analysis is perhaps a bit to complex and to prone to disagreement (as the above demonstrates) for us to agree on a hard and fast rule. However, I think there are a lot of bigger problems with the harry potter articles to solve before we would even need to worry about how this one impacts the quality of the articles. I was going to list things here like statements about characters emotions and motivations but these tend to get removed as soon as they are added (which is every day). Instead I think we should add a html comment at the top of each article encouraging people not to include any references to statements about or speculation involving the characters emotional reactions and motivations unless they are relevant to the article and supported with a referenced page number or interview. We could reduce this problem significantly by removing as much as possible from the articles references to events in the book which seem to be included simply as trivia. Every time we see a retelling of something that happened in the book we should be looking at the section it appears in and ask "is this really needed". The nature of the fan base here is against us to some extent so I think what I am saying is that as a first step we should try and structure the articles to discourage the editing tendencies that damage them. Dalf | Talk 05:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. Please take a look at Manual of style (Harry Potter-related articles).  Exploding Boy 17:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The trouble is, I remain to be convinced that many of these inclusions are damaging the articles. Most of them are not ridiculously long. I agree with what seems to be the spirit of the style guide, that the major deficiency is of critical content and analysis. It is not very meaningfull to say there is too much of something else, when there is presently little prospect of better balancing the articles by including more of this. Sandpiper 14:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Manual of style of Harry Potter-related articles
Does one exist? I'd like to create one if not, or look at it if so. Exploding Boy 05:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see one on the list, so I'm creating one: Manual of style (Harry Potter-related articles). Exploding Boy 05:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Resurection of WP:WFs
This fellow (rather mature middle aged) fan of Harry has been buried in another favorite series, and it was suggested that I resurect the WikiProject Fictional series project as one means of developing standards. My 1632 series articles have potentially far more characters, places, and historical matters (it's an alternate history set back in the 1630's, which makes it another sort parallel universe like Harry's and Honorverse (not to mention most speculative fiction genre that become series), another series I contribute some.) than Harry Potter books, assuming she stops after seven novels.

I'm just getting started on 'blowing off the dust' on the Project page, so can use some help, and I'm sure as mature as this project looks, you will have some interesting input and experience on how to juggle, arrange, and format the myriad details that go into a deeply developed complex milieu such as these have become.

1632 series has some unique issues in that it is currently about 75:25 short fiction to Novels, but that will change rapidly as it is also a collaborative fiction experiment that involves literally dozens of authors, most of whom have been active participants helping the principle author and editor define the canon for the series... essentially research and development in matters historical and technical, as the works are making a serious attempt to keep realistic assumptions given the series premises&mdash;a small town of about 3,000 souls, Grantville, WV finds itself confronted with the religion based Thirty Year's War, Machievellian politics, and large armies. At the moment, five hardcover book releases are planned to my knowledge in the coming year&mdash;which is saying a lot at at least 400pp per book.

To add insult to injury, the works (by design) aren't published in the order of any particular timeline outside the 'main storyline threads', of which there are five... so this makes it like five sub-series, but one's in which the short fiction anthologies are canonical, a very unusual feature in a shared universe setting. But that's part of the great scope of the milieu, which is fascinating if you are at all interested in history and how the modern world came about&mdash;the effect of all that research and pre-planning via the internet. (It's not too great a stretch to think of it as a wikiproject, save the issues are the talk forums, and the article outputs are generated by individual or teams of writers working their own sub-projects.)

Enough of my problem, what I need is help defining standards from others involved in similar wikipedia tasks like yourselves (WikiProject Novels in general) for such a mixed series. So watchlist the talk page, and WP:WFs, sign on, and integrate your project cats, templates, etc. into Category:WikiProject Fictional series, list your Project on the see also there, along with it's cats (Being a project cat, the navigation from project to project is for us editors to use, not the general public, so WP:Btw!) so other fiction related editors can find your stuff, secrets, and vice versa.

I'd also like to point out an oxymoron of sorts. The WPP:Books is parent to all these heirarchially lower projects (Novels, series, etc.), yet has the smallest membership list of the lot. Makes no sense! Please sign up and ditto WPP:Novels, and WPP:series for news and contributions. Best regards to all! // <B>Fra</B> nkB 20:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Sirius Black
Hi there, I'm new to this so I didn't want to make the changes myself (and potentially ruin something important), but I noticed that the Sirius Black page doesn't have any of the usual Harry Potter associated templates on it. Could someone with more experience please put them in? Thanks.--Shinku Hisaki 11:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hogwarts Article Is Getting Rewritten
E946 has suggested a complete rewrite of the Hogwarts article and has created a draft. I just thought it was appropriate to mention this in the WikiProject discussion. Indeed, it might be a good idea to do this for some of the other HP articles. This change can be discussed on the Hogwarts talk page. -Phi*n!x 02:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

New User
Hello, I am Wikiuser98 and I feel like joining in the WikiProject. What do I have to do to join?


 * Nothing. Just add your name to the praticipants page. ForestH2  t/c 00:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

What's up?
There doesn't seem to be anything going on in Wikiproject HP. The to-do list hasn't changed in ages.  Demon blade   12:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Actor's photos -> drawings
A year ago there was a similar suggestion, and since no consensus was reached I would like to discuss this again. I strongly feel that, on the pages about Harry Potter characters, the top picture shouldn't be of the actor playing the role in the film adaptations. Harry Potter is a series of novels. The films, however good and Rowling-approved they may be, are nothing more than adaptations. Therefore I feel using a photo of the actor as 'the main picture' of the article creates an unnecessary bias in favour of the film. It implicitly tells the reader "this is how the character looks" - but that's not true, it's only the actor playing the character. This way, the Harry Potter article at first glance seems to be about Daniel Radcliffe, because there's a huge photo of him at the start of the article. I think it would be much better to make the first picture a drawing. Of course, in another section of the article a picture of the actor can be included, no problem.

See, for example, the article about Gandalf. The main picture is a drawing of the character as is printed on the book cover. Further down in the article there's a photo of the actor in the film adaptation.

Again: this is not about liking or not liking the films. It's about whether the film actors should be presented as the characters from the books. MrTroy 11:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Why not? People remember the character's feature based on what they seem in the film. Look in wookipedia, all the fictional characters that had actors portray them use the actor's pictures.  Demon blade   11:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally I think it makes complete sense, since the Harry Potter universe started out as as a series of well-read books which were extremely popular, even before the movies started to come out, to have each of the important characters represented first from their book appearance, and then from their film appearance. The main hitch is the Copyright laws, and the Rights of the Publishers and the Artists to protect their property and regulate the distribution and sale of their goods. To get character images posted from the books, someone would have to scan the desired images, and then upload them to the Wikipedia. But if you look on the copyright page of each of the books, you will see something like this: "Illustrations by Mary GrandPré copyright (c) 2003 by Warner Bros." and "No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. (or something similar for the Bloomsbury (UK) and Raincoast (Canada) editions)" As far as we know, nobody has ever sought permission from the Book Publishers, Mary GrandPré, or from Warner Bros. to post copies of their rightful intellectual properties on the Wikipedia for the purpose of illustrating the respective articles. Most of the images of the actors "in character" or "as themselves" have been uploaded either as low resolution screen shots off of the DVD's, or as publicity photographs provided by the Warner Bros. Studio to the press. These kinds of images are considered allowable under Fair Use principles - see also Fair use, as long as the images are used for the right reasons. For example, an image created by Mary GrandPré might be used fairly to illustrate her article as an example of her artwork, but we cannot upload an entire gallery of her artwork to illustrate both her article and also the subjects that the images are intended to portray - eg: Harry Potter, his friends, enemies, teachers, family members, etc. - without risk of legal action. I believe we would have to get a release from the Publisher to scan such images from the books, for the purpose of posting on the Wikipedia, and that may not be forthcoming. Once the images are posted on the Wikipedia, even for the best of reasons, they are suddenly in the virtual public domain, and everyone could re-download them and use them as they wish on their own pet websites and for other purposes - the Publisher, Studio, and Artist would lose control of the right of distribution of their copyrighted images.

This is why the more experienced editors and administrators of the Wikipedia have resisted the urge to scan and upload all the "good" images they find in the books to illustrate the articles of interest. It would open up the Wikipedia to possible expensive lawsuits for copyright infringement.

Feel free to try to get us permission though - it would be nice to have those "canonical" images illustrating some of the major characters, rather than the actors who portray them, even though arguably the movie images have, to an extent, surpassed and supplanted the book images for most people. Thanks for asking! --T-dot 12:54, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't see why drawings by Mary GrandPré are more representative of the characters than the film actors. The actors and their appearance in costume were chosen to fit the characters described in the books, and some at least have had comments from Rowling as to how well they accord with her idea of the part. Also, my UK books do not have illustrations by anyone, so i would be not a little confused to find a drawing I had never seen appearing in the article to represent the character. With regard to the copyright issue, it seems to me both in law and in practice that showing one still from a film does not offend against the film producers, rather the reverse since it tends to publicise their work. But showing a drawing is to publish the entire work as it is intended to be seen, which is not fair on the author. Sandpiper 22:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. Although I see the point about the difference between the books and films, I don't view Mary GrandPré's drawings for the US editions as "canonical".  MrTroy notes that a film image "implicitly tells the reader "this is how the character looks" - but that's not true, it's only the actor playing the character."  However, this is true of any image - no drawn image is "true" either, it's only the imagination of the illustrator.  The images I originally picked up from the books were from the UK book covers by Thomas Taylor, Cliff Wright, Giles Greenfield etc., but those too are only interpretations.


 * My question would be, do we need a "top picture" at all? Many articles about fictional characters don't have one - Frodo Baggins is one example - and as Sandpiper says, most editions of the Harry Potter books don't have internal illustrations.  If it is a problem, it might be easier to go down the route that other fictional character articles take, and just move the photo from the film adaptation a bit lower down in the article.  Tobelia 10:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the pictures of the actors in costume should remain there. If we could get an actul drawing- not a fan drawing of a character like Luna Lovegood has. Besides, as Sandpiper said the actors in costume fit there roll described in the books. And Rowling has said some of them look wonderful- just like how she imagine's them in real life. You can tell the difference between a Harry Potter article and Daniel Radcliffe because Radcliffe is not in costume in one of the top pictures. BTW, SpongeBob SquarePants also has this; the actor dressed up so you'd have to bring it up also if you wanted to at the Wikiproject SpongeBob SquarePants. Sugar  pine t 14:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I think all articles look better with illustrations. In this particular case the individual character articles are really of interest both to people who have watched the films, and those who have read the books. We do not have separate articles for the character in the film and the character in the book. (no...please don't go that way!) It would be odd to not have the film representation. The situation with 'Lord of the rings may be a little different. (I don't look at those articles, so don't know what's there). In my mind I think of LOTR book and film as somewhat separate, having met the books many years ago. Whereas with HP the two series are running together, with advice and consultation with Rowling about the characters portrayal in the films. Most people's idea of the characters will have been shaped by watching the films, before the book series was nearly finished.
 * By the way, I notice that what I had taken to be fan drawings included in some of the articles are really Grandpre, and I noticed that Snape's at least claims to be a fair use book cover (which it isn't). I am a little unhappy about this. Sandpiper 09:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I really think illustrations shouldn't be used at all. The reason is because the illustrations will either be fan-drawn (not official) or semi-official. The reason why there's no official ones, is because the illustrations change from edition to edition and none are drawn by Rowling herself (the only one who knows exactly what she intended them to look like). Therefore the only ones that are universally recognisable would be the actors. For example, the Irish/UK Bloomsbury ones don't have illustrations inside at all, but even if a film is dubbed, the appearance of the actors doesn't change. - <sup style="color:#f80000;">Рэд <sub style="color:#ff8a0d;">хот 14:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Professors
There are some inconsistencies with the hogwarts professors' pages. Some, like Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin and Severus Snape do not have "Professor" in front of their name, while others like Minerva McGonagall and Horace Slughorn do? Should all hogwarts professors have the title in their name or should there not, because their job discription is in their articule?Phnx2ashes 02:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Please keep an eye out on the Black family tree
Hi folks, here's another article that is rife with speculation and original research: Black family tree (Harry Potter). Currently, Michaelsanders keeps trying to add a Potter-Weasley connection, saying that Harry and Ginny will produce inbred children. I've tried to engage in discussion as I revert, but he has now taken to ignoring me. I am so seriously contemplating blocking him that I know I shouldn't do it. In addition, the "Analysis" section is rife with speculation and original research. Could you guys take a look at this article and let me know what you think? I'm beginning to feel like the Lone Ranger here. --Deathphoenix ʕ 05:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Somehow I did not have that page as set to watch until now, so I did not notice the excessive speculation that the user has been obsessively insisting on. Sanders would have to come up with absolutely verifiable proof from a reliable source that there is a closer than second-cousins Harry-Ginny relationship, and furthermore that such kinship would result in a high probability of genetic birth defects, in order for this obvious original research and speculation to have any chance of passing muster.  We know that James Potter came from a wizarding family, but Harry's mother did not, so any "cousin connections" with the Weasleys would be several generations and levels removed, and the probability of "inbreeding" genetic defects with that kind of blood separation is astronomically small - see Cousin.  MichaelSanders is WAY out of line on this, and I'll attempt a cleanup when I get a chance, and keep an extra eye on it.  We all should require Sanders to produce proof that this is not original research that cannot be independently verified with reliable sources; otherwise this is just his theories which cannot be included in the Wikipedia. Mr Sanders must cease and desist from adding speculative nonsense which clearly damages the integrity of the Wikipedia. --T-dot 10:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Follow up. Here is "my original research".  Harry is presumably the son of the "Male" James Potter, alleged son of Charlus Potter and Dorea Black, daughter of Violetta Bulstrode and Cygnus Black, son of Phineas Nigellus Black who would be Harry's great-great-grandfather.  That represents 4 generations of separation.  Now Ginny is daughter of Arthur, son of Septimus Weasley and Cedrella Black, daughter of Acturus black, son of Phineas.  Again 4 generations.  According to the math or the Charts, with Ga = 4 and Gb = 4 then x=4 and y=0, thus they would be x-1 = 3rd cousins, not second cousins.  And this assumes that the "Male Potter" is James, which is speculative at best.  --T-dot 11:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking a look at it, T-dot. And judging by this separation, Harry and Ginny would only be connected by law, not genetically, and all this talk of inbreeding still speculates based on the assumption that Harry and Ginny will produce children. And, there's still the possibility that Harry will not survive his battle with Voldemort. ;-) As for it not being on your watchlist, I hopefully took care of that by adding it to the Harry Potter watchlist. --Deathphoenix ʕ 13:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * True - being "inbred" is a matter of Consanguinity, which is also discussed in the Cousin couple article. Genetic problems, called Inbreeding depression, from "cousins inbreeding" occur among FIRST cousins at about a 1.7 to 2.8% rate, no worse than the rates which occurs in 40 year old women giving birth.  The consanguinity and probable defect rate due to that falls 4 times with each generation of separation, so a theoretical Harry-Ginny child would have at worst a 0.2% probability of genetic defects - less than the rate seen in random coupling.  An "inbred child" resulting from a union between Harry and Ginny is a non-issue from a genetic point of view, and is also a non-issue from a legal point of view: marriages between second and third cousins is not prohibited anywhere in western society.  Only about half the states in the US prohibit first-cousin marriage.  And by the way, the according to the Inbreeding article Queen of England and her husband are third cousins via Queen Victoria, and also second cousins once removed via Christian IX of Denmark.


 * Watch out - he is also doing it on the Relatives of Harry Potter article. He just does not get it.  --T-dot 15:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, he gets it. He's doing a nice little example of WP:POINT. Much as I'd like to revert his disruption, it's quite refreshing to see a rabid fan be so vigilant in removing speculation. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:
 * User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
 * User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
 * User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
 * User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now moved the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 14:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)