Talk:Harry Potter fandom/Archive 1

Current discussions can be found at Talk:Harry Potter fandom.

Most of the discussions here have been moved to Talk:Shipping in the Harry Potter fandom

This page was extracted from the main Harry Potter article, one reason being the recurring problem, how much, and which fandom links to show.

Now as a separate article, the fandom information can be expanded, within limits.

07:41, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ginny Weasley, Why? essay

There is a link on this page to a website that states this essay was written by "Cressida," but the essay is also listed on the Harry Potter Lexicon, where it is credited to "Water Witch." Is someone plagiarizing?

They're the same person. 212.235.36.100 16:56, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

How do you know? Why does she go by two different names?

Personally, I go by Kizor, Kizor Nerdbringer, Remora, Ariman, Pseudonym, K. J. D. Moosedance and a Finnish version of that last one. There's lots of reasons for people to use different nicks. Their tastes changing over time, going incognito for whatever reason, using a more appropriate name for a particular place... I see no reason to distrust this claim. - Kizor 20:35, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But going by different names to post the same essay...

Cressida is a pen name under which I have written fanfiction, hence the use of Water_Witch, my old livejournal identity, to keep that purely canon based essay separate at the Lexicon. Since its publication a number of other people have requested permission to reproduce the essay and have chosen to do so under the name Cressida. Since I no longer have any stories published, they have all long since been withdrawn, it would seem churlish to spoil people's enjoyment of their own web sites by asking them to make changes retrospectively . Cressida aka Water Witch.

But what if this is the plagiariser themselves, posing as Cressida in order to throw us off course? Dun dun DUUNNNN! --AceMyth 03:00, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC) (:P)

Trust me this is really Cressida AKA Water Witch! If anyone is concerned they may contact The Lexicon to confirm my identity as we discussed publishing rights at the time. --Cressida

I am sorry if it didn't come across clearly that my response was VERY obviously in jest. I know you, I know you go by two names, heck, I even happen to be the mysterious I.P. address that earlier flat-out answered "they're the same person". --AceMyth 21:40, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that Acemyth and for your support and also huge apologies for the misunderstanding. Cressida AKA Water Witch. --Cressida 06:50, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC) (:P)

Are You A Muggle poll

Is the Are You a Muggle poll really relevant? I mean.. it's quite out of it... Harry/Luna more popular than Harry/Hermione? Pull the other one.

On the basis of purely the laws of probability, anything with a random sampling size as large as 4609 people is all that relevant and a bag of chips (see Bayesian inference). Any concrete suspicion as to its credibility would be, of course, quite relevant as well. --AceMyth 03:06, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Hm... isnt the mugglenet poll more accurate? It has surveyed far more people.

Noted and added. But since the poll is very recent and still only accessible from the main page, we should keep an eye out for when it is moved from there so we can update the link. --AceMyth 00:28, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)

External links

If we're going to include sites such as Mugglenet, shouldn't we include all the sites that have won a fan site award from J. K. Rowling? And also, Rowling has mentioned The Leaky Cauldron as being one of her favourite fan sites, and it is widely known within the fandom, so I'm thinking we might should include it, too. Just a thought. Hermione1980 23:36, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't really know. I pretty much snipped most of the bottom links and only reviewed the top links. In my opinion, external links should merit the reader's mind, and I saw Mugglenet as having more content than The Leaky Cauldron (although I didn't look through it very well). Obviously, you would be better to choose which sites go in there (I'm not exactly an expert on Harry Potter), but it would probably be best to exclude forums, games, RPGs and etc.. Non-commercial, highly information [1][2] websites would be excellent candidates — but that's just my opinion, so, feel free to do whatever. :) ✏ OvenFresh² 00:15, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I liked the section with the Roleplaying Games actually, I found a couple of really cool sties that way. Maybe we should divide things up by Official or Unofficial then have subcategories under Unofficial for General Fan Sites, Fan Fiction & Fan Art, and Roleplaying Games. I can review sites if you would like. I get around, since I'm online for the most part of the day. Ariadoss 17:30, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind that myself; however, if you're going to do that, do keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a link repository. A few more wouldn't be too bad, especially if they're categorised—but there are probably hundreds of Harry Potter websites out there. Only those that truly merit inclusion should be included. I would suggest you find some sites and post them here, at the talk page, before including them in the article, to see what others think. I personally like the Harry Potter Realm, but that's just me. I'm going to add at least some of the official sites myself. Hermione1980 00:29, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Will someone review these sites and clip them out if they're not worthy? I'm a bit too busy to do it myself.

• Harry Potter Warcry, fansite featuring news, databases, discussion forums, image galleries, recipes and other information.
• PottersRealm.com, an online resource for Harry Potter fans featuring news, video downloads, fan fiction, discussion forums, image galleries and other information.
• The Wizarding World, fansite set at Hogwarts with RPGs and news
• Mystic City RPG, fansite dedicated to RPG and the Harry Potter Series.

Someone (or more than one someone, I can't remember) recently added these to the page and the number of external links is, once again, getting a bit on the ridiculous side. Hermione1980 21:57, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I personally do not find those sites to be good RPG sites. I added three that I frequent often and find very interesting (they also have active member bases). Ariadoss 05:53, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

I was going to add Harry Potter Warcry because of the immensity of their databases until I saw that you all don't agree. Maybe it's just that you haven't visited it yet; I also have a hard time going to other fan sites after falling in love with a certain site. The news updates on hp warcry seem to be the fastest and most comprehensive of the Harry Potter fan sites that I have seen to date, so possibly on that merit it should be added. I'll pause for a few days to allow discussion before I edit it in.--Cleverusername 14:58, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! I see this is your first edit as a logged-in user. I haven't been to Harry Potter Warcry and I don't have anything against it, but what I see here on this article is (on 800x600 resolution on a 17-inch monitor) is four screens of article and three and a half screens of external links. While all of them may be wonderful and informative, Wikipedia is not a link repository, so we have to trim things out sometimes. Both the Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet are well-known and have a reputation for swift reporting. Can you do at least a partial list of what's available at Warcry so the busier ones of us can skim it? Thanks. Hermione1980 22:46, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Hmm, ok, here are a few links to what I thought made the site notable:

Character database that actually relates to the actors. I've never seen a character database so huge.

A news feed that actually works and updates often enough to be of interest.

A timeline of all events from all the books, and it's usable (not incredibly wordy).

Of course, interviews and reviews.

And the largest database of other "stuff" I've ever seen on the web about Harry Potter. Like all the chocolate frog cards, complete list and details of Harry Potter Lego stuff, even recipes from the book you can make in real life.

So, that's a few links, but the site is kinda big. Hope that helps some. --CleverUserName 15:54, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't mean to "diss" your site, but from your descriptions, the character database is probably available in a different form in the Lexicon, the news feed is definitely available from the Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet, the timeline from the Lexicon, interviews from the Leaky Cauldron, Quick-Quotes, and Mugglenet, and reviews from the Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet. I'm not entirely sure why lists of HP Lego stuff is extremely interesting. The Floo Network (available via a link from either the Leaky Cauldron or the Lexicon) posts general information and trivia almost weekly, including recipes.

I'm not sure about the opinions of the other editors here (maybe I'm just the black sheep), but it seems to me that almost everything has been covered already. The only thing would be if it receives as many or more visitors than, say, Veritaserum or something. Comments, anyone? Hermione1980 21:02, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good point, but their site does it all, so it's possible to take the others off, since you are looking for ways to lessen the external link count. /shrug --CleverUserName 21:28, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I believe I was the one who removed it (Warcry), I feel that is was inappropriately categorized as an RPG. I feel that there should be strict rules as to what kind of a site constitutes as a “Harry Potter RPG.” Ariadoss

So you feel that if it's properly categorised, it should be included? Hermione1980 14:43, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I feel it would be more appropriately placed under a "General" category; though none exists, perhaps the "News" or "Other sites" sections? Though I think we should be really picky about what kinds of sites are added, personally I feel that sub-domains should not be allowed. Top level domains seem to me more credible, and it is easier to gauge the amount of traffic of one of those and to properly assess if the majority of Internet Explorer users (it is difficult to collect information on other browsers) find that resource to be informative and accurate. Ariadoss 08:12, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

(Seven colons. Wow.) All right, then. I think, given the content of the site as given by User:Cleverusername, it should go under "Other sites", most likely. It doesn't really fit exclusively into any other category. Hermione1980 12:02, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(Eight, yay) I'll go ahead and add it to another category simply named "Other sites". Would have done it sooner, but a London vacation trumpts everything.--CleverUserName 15:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

I removed a link to a Russian HP fansite. I do not believe that non-English websites should be linked to from an English Wikipedia article. Ariadoss 08:21, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, a better place to put it would be on the Russian Wikipedia. Hermione1980 12:02, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I have another suggestion. Maybe we should just link to some link directories/repositories. Here are some directories I would suggest (though this list is biased to my own personal taste in websites):

• HPSE – The Harry Potter Search Engine and Link Directory.
• Google Directory – Google Directory listings for Harry Potter.
• HLLDE – The Hogwarts Live Link Directory and Exchange (this directory is not that good).
• HP Links – Godric’s Hollow Harry Potter Links.
• Yahoo! Directory – Yahoo! Directory listings for Harry Potter.
• ODP – The Open Directory Project listing for Harry Potter.

I know for sure there are other great link repositories/directories dedicated to Harry Potter, and if you guys like this idea I will find them. --Ariadoss 20:29, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I would rather be given a few really good sites straight out, rather than wading through a list of sites that may or may not be good. What I would like to see here in this article is three or four really great sites in each category, not links to sites that link to other sites. Just my $.02. Hermione1980 00:06, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That works too :). --Ariadoss 01:36, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

"Shipping" section

I'm not advocating reverting the shipping section back to the monster of information it was, pre-condensing, but I do find the current treating of the subject quite inadequate, considering how important the issue of "shipping" is to the Harry Potter fandom in general. I don't exactly know what could be added to give it a more comprehensive glossing without letting it all go crazy again (a la User:Hermione1980/Harry Potter shipping), even though I found that article quite informative. Therefore, I am not going to be bold in this case, but I really think that section needs more information. If anyone has any suggestions (even if it is to just let sleeping dogs lie) please comment here.

On a side note, is anyone else (not) surprised that the number of edits to this page has dropped dramatically since the shipping section has been snipped? Hermione1980 00:11, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hm... tough call. When I first set up the "extended" format of the shipping section I thought that at least some elaboration could do the subject good and that's going to be where it'll remain, but in hindsight this was probably just naive, because if you're a shipper and you see two paragraphs about your ship, then, well, why not write more?. I also thought I could aspire to the page being as neutral as possible, but sadly I could only do so much, and I am not much of a paragon of neutrality on the subject to begin with. (Though I'm happy to say Harry/Hermione shippers have run across the section about their ship, which was effectively my creation, and liked it very much, not suspecting for one second that the words they're reading are coming from a person who personally believes any theory claiming to objectively predict H/Hr a display of utter and absolute irrationality).

I'd really love to say, go ahead, expand it, the sky's the limit, this time it's going to be different. I liked the fact that a subject received recognition in Wikipedia just because people are crazy about it, even though it's insignificant, awkward to the average person and I'd even go as far as saying it borders on taboo. I contently smirked at the bittersweet irony of links to essays popping up on ship sections, as I felt my duty as a wikipedian was demanding me to plug my own essay, an act I would have deemed absurd in almost all imagineable different circumstances. But the truth is, the moment you add another sentence, I can imagine the two more that'd soon follow, creating a paragraph; and the moment you have a paragraph, I can imagine shippers coming across this page and adding another twenty. People care so much about shipping that I'm afraid the choice here is all or nothing, and as the people of Wikipedia have cast their vote against "all", you can do the math of what this leaves us with yourself.

Something I guess might be added without too much risk is at least mentioning the three or four most popular ships or so by name. There's no point in diving into even a single argument for them, because a theory's treatment of one tiny piece of data cannot possibly indicate how the theory fares overall when confronted with all of canon and all of Rowling's statements, and can easily be non-representative. You may also want, in external links or in the description, to at least give the reader some indication as to where they might be able to experience just what sort of web phenomenon shipping is and what sort of interaction and theories it generates... And beyond that, I frankly don't know what could be added without starting to tread the slippery slope of "Supporters of Harry/Hermione cite their identical initials if they were to marry, HJP, as possible evidence." --AceMyth 06:29, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, now you put it like that, I suppose I see what you mean; Wikipedia really isn't the place to cover shipping in detail, although I enjoyed reading it (particularly the idiotic names they came up with for themselves). Most of the major ships are already listed, though maybe a bit of formatting could be done, I'll look at that. I've got the old shipping article saved as one of my usersubpages. As you seem to be a bit more acquainted with the subject than I am, would you look at the external links section and tell me which ones could/should be added? (And on a side note: you initially wrote the H/Hr section and you don't support it? I'm impressed!) Hermione1980 18:05, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

As for the external links - I'd say most of them are irrelevant. "The Sugar Quill" is some sort of a benevolent, otherwise harmless R/Hr clique reveling in countless inside jokes, and really not the natural gateway to shipping culture, since it isn't THAT focused in shipping anyway. Portkey is roughly the same thing, only much less cliquey, much more focused on shipping and much less harmless. And everything else... Well, it's everything else. Either not shippy by definition or not any more notable than the thousand other minor shippy forums out there. *sigh* You just can't win, can you :P

As for the essays - most of them are, I'll be blunt, masterpieces of nonsense. They usually don't even specify what they're trying to prove - the ship's eventual occurrence in canon, the ship's moral higher ground, the ship's potential to be a superior brand of morning cereal to all others. Usually they operate on bizarro logic based loosely on transitivity, intended to show that their ship is greater than some imaginary, utterly irrelevant measuring stick. Like for example, Harry>Ron, therefore H/Hr>R/Hr. Or then there are the symbolism essays, which tend to be the worst. Apparently nobody has ever thought of putting some restriction or definition on what defines concrete symbolic foreshadowing, and basically anything is fair game as long as you can find some weak, contrived connection between something that happened in the books and romance. Most of these "symbols" are obviously arrived at when searching for justification for a theory, rather than recognized intuitively - what I often ask myself to undo that mode of thought is, what are the odds of the symbol having occurred given the ship vs. regardless of the ship? (see, again, Bayesian inference.) You'd be surprised at how many popular "symbolism" arguments fail this simple test, and on the contrary how many non-symbolism arguments that pass it with flying colors lie in the chasm of obscurity, invoked rarely if ever. Symbolism is popular because it's the most easily accessible type of evidence in its current form (which is "draw the shortest line possible between whatever part of the books you feel like and a ship").

I don't think there ARE any natural links that obviously should be included. The choice will have to be arbitrary, and inject the undiluted absurdity to the reader's veins so they quickly realize just what they're dealing with. Maybe a link to CoSforums' "divination studies" forum, where you're bound to see the "Who will get together with whom, version umpteen" at the top of the threads. Or a transcript of the actual ship debate panel from the Nimbus 2003 Symphosium could work as well. Or maybe I could make a portal of sorts to "renowned" essays for all ships, sense or not, and have it take the space of only one link on this page as opposed to seven.

As for H/Hr, I actually went as far trying to cover my anti-H/Hr bias that the majority opinion among those encountering the article was that it was pro-H/Hr biased, which amused me to no end. --AceMyth 00:16, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

• snorkle* That's amusing given that you support OBHWF don't you? I think I've seen some of your essays around :) paradox01

External links, again

User:PurplePopple reformatted the article and placed the external links mostly within the article. I disagreed with this edit and reverted, citing the fact that it's common practice to put the external links in a separate section in my edit summary. In subsequent edits, I also rm'd some other links. PurplePopple then proceeded to (I think) revert my edits, with the rather confusing edit summary of "What do these links have to do with the fandom? Write up why they matter. Random links make no sense." followed by "Actual information about the Harry Potter fandom put back in". For one, I'm completely confused about what PP is getting after here; I, for one, would prefer seeing the links all gathered together down at the bottom rather than all throughout the article. His/her second edit summary sounds rather condescending/insulting, although I don't think it was intended to come across as such. I'll ask for a vote on this page comparing this (diff) before I revert. Hermione1980 5 July 2005 00:14 (UTC)

In any other article I would've voted revert, but seeing as this one is about fandom and fandom is made up of online sites and interactions, methinks in this case having the links interwined in the article may be a good idea. Though certainly 1. User:PurplePopple would have been much better off explaining their position here on the talk page instead of just reverting opposing edits over and over, and 2. The criterion for what constitutes a "random" link and what constitutes "actual information" should definitely not be what one person happens to have come across and deem as such. I didn't investigate and compare Purple's new links vs. the old ones, so I'm sort of lost regarding whether they're legit or not. Why'd you remove them? --AceMyth July 5, 2005 00:34 (UTC)

I skimmed through the diffs of PP's edits and didn't see that s/he had added any new ones. I only deleted links that had been there for a while to try to trim down the ridiculous number that exists. My only objection to having the links intertwined in the article is that if you're just wanting to find Harry Potter links, it's easier to find them at the bottom rather than all throughout the article. Hermione1980 5 July 2005 00:50 (UTC)

If you're looking for something specific, the context provided by the article might actually be helpful rather than a hindrance; and as for people just generally browsing for links, if the decision is between their convenience and the coherence of the article, I'd ultimately pick the latter. After all, the links in this case don't illustrate the subject matter; they are the subject matter. Trimming down the number of links, however, is obviously a good idea. --AceMyth July 5, 2005 02:03 (UTC)

Lists of links

This page seems to have become a page of a list of links. What Wikipedia is not seems to suggest this is not an ideal. Rather than shoving links and links, maybe some one can flush out the article so either the links don't dominate the page or maybe some one can weed through the links. --PurplePopple 29 June 2005 20:31 (UTC)

articles about harry potter

added articles about harry potter to this page from the main harry potter page. it fits in better here. --jonasaurus 22:00, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

ship debates gobsmacked, currently unconscious

{{spoilers}}

I have changed the shipping section so it reflects the fandom's initial reaction to the ship-bomb that was Half-Blood Prince. We should keep an eye on how this develops (personally methinks the ship debates are dead now and there's nothing that can be done about it). --AceMyth 22:55, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

First part of JKR interview with Melissa and Emerson published.^[3]

[talking about a certain plot development in book 6 which isn't tied to shipping]

MA: Well, there are conspiracy theorists, and there are people who will claim -

JKR: Cling to some desperate hope [laughter] -

ES: Yes!

MA: Yes!

ES: Like certain shippers we know!

[All laugh]

The Hippogriff tatoo jab and now this. JKR is being plain old mean to the Harry/Hermione people now. Though I bet she'd been waiting to get it out of her system for ages. I may add this to the article later. --AceMyth 16:09, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

{{endspoiler}}

rm'ing external links...

Sorry about repeating my edit four times, but the Wikimedia server was giving me grief and it wasn't showing up on my watchlist. Anyway, I was yelling in my edit summary, but I didn't mean to yell at y'all four times.

That being said, don't add any more external links without discussing it here first. It's written in the source code at the beginning of the "Unofficial sites" section. Follow those directions, please. Hermione1980 00:17, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

What a waste of space

This article is merely an extention of the HP marketing empire. It is not encyclopedic-worthy by any stretch of the imagination. I will be putting it up for VFD -max rspct 14:12, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

"An extention of the HP marketing empire?" WTF? O-o

Precedent of Harry Potter related VfD votes indicates that chances of the result being delete on a relatively non-fancrufty page like this are small. I wouldn't bother if I were you. --AceMyth 15:09, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

New external link

Following my own instructions here — what say other editors about adding the Harry Potter Wikicity to the list of external links? (Also, someone has added the Harry Potter Fan Zone, D69 Forum, ThinkPotter, and a whole fanart section, all without following the directions in comments about asking here first. I'm getting tired of reverting them and telling them to come here first, so let's either approve them or ditch them, once and for all.) Hermione1980 21:33, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Add to that list I Hate Harry Potter. Isn't this supposed to be about the fandom, not the anti-Harry Potter community? Hermione1980 21:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand how that new section about Harry Potter communities is pertinent, isn't this whole article about various communities? I'm going to remove it, if you feel that was wrong please leave me a message. I see no problem with adding the Harry Potter Wiki, though a lot of its content is taken from wikipedia. I personally am trying to start my own wiki on fantasy and science fiction topics because a lot of people think articles such as this one should be deleted. --Ariadoss 00:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

RPGS

Harry Potter RPGs went thru VfD with no consensus. I can see we already have a section here for this, so I'm going to try a redirect. I've saved the old page content here in case there's things in there people want to merge. Friday (talk) 14:56, 25 August 2005 (UTC)