Talk:J. K. Rowling/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Article Discussions

This page isn't about Rowling. It's about the Harry Potter books. Seems a bit misleading to me -- Derek Ross

I think that way too; I moved some of the stuff to Harry Potter. I think it would be best to stick to the convention of putting "real world" stuff (J. K. Rowling herself, bibliography) under J. K. Rowling and the "Harry Potter world" stuff under Harry Potter. It is done in this very helpful manner i.e. under J. R. R. Tolkien and Middle Earth. --Uriyan

I can supply long and probably tedious notes on the various editions (UK and US, deluxe editions, different publishers, and so on) of the Harry Potter series, but not sure if it'd be much use. any opinions? And should it go on the Harry Potter page? --AW

Rowling is reportedly still working in the café where she wrote the early books, which suggests she may be suffering from writer's block; an alternative rumour is that the book has been held back until after the film release of the second Harry Potter film at the end of 2002.

"She was enormously relieved after a U.S. court threw out rival author Nancy Stouffer's claims that she stole words and characters from Stouffer's books." -- NY Post, 9/20/2002

I don't understand why Ed a few edits back changed "Book Five" to "Year Five". The latter sounds very odd, to UK ears at least, so I have changed it back, in fact on a rethink I am changing it to "The fifth book" which I think sounds more natural anyway. If I have trodden on toes, or if "Year Five" is some sort of publishers' or HP enthusiasts' Term of Art or something, please let me know - no intention to annoy anyone! Nevilley 10:57 Nov 23, 2002 (UTC)

probably because each book covers one year of school. British 2ndary school used to run from 1-5, then 6th form, before all this year 11 nonsense, rant, grumble, fuss and bother -- Tarquin (showing his age...)
heheheh - indeed. I have that prob too, someone says "Year 2" and I stare at them blankly for about 30mins till a filing drawer in my brain marked "top Infants" pops open! But whilst you may well be right - the book covers the "Fifth Form" - i.e. nowadays Year 11, as you say - I still think it clouds it a bit for people less than X years old or not from the UK! :) Nevilley (dare not admit his age ...)


I was actually at school when the change took place -- so my class appeared to jump 7 years in one summer holiday. I just have occasional young fogey affectations ;-) -- Tarquin
"Year" does seem to be a jargon term used by the US publishers, Scholastic, but not by Bloomsbury in the UK. See http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/books/ --rbrwr
The video and DVD covers for the first two films, at least in Britain, have small portraits of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) on the spine, labelled "YEAR ONE" and "YEAR TWO". -- Lee M
The spines of the newer editions of the books have "Year #" written on them. --Lowellian 17:47, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)

Was the change from Philosopher's Stone (UK) to Sorcerer's Stone (US) seen in the movie as well as the book? The article says yes, but I wonder if there was a separately dubbed and titled movie for only the "English English" market as opposed to the American and world market? Ortolan88

I got this from uk.imdb.com:
The movie is known as "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" everywhere except the USA and so every scene in which the Philosopher's Stone was mentioned was filmed twice, once with the actors saying "Philosopher's" and once with the actors saying "Sorcerer's".
Hephaestos

Ortolan88, I hope I have understood your question correctly, but if you are asking, "was the film in the UK called ... Philosopher's Stone?" then the answer is yes. I've got the DVD box on my desk here and that's what it says. I don't know what (English-speaking) markets had what division of titles etc - it would be interesting, indeed, to know this - but I don't imagine that, compared to the overall costs and complexity of the film, covering these two aspects woudl have been such a big deal. And given that JKR is known to be extremely protective of her product and NOT wanting to Hollywood-ize it (sorry, no insult intended) too much, I assume that it is something the film company would simply have had to put up with if they wanted to make the film at all.

Here's an example btw:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/05/10/harry_potter_and_philosophers_stone_2001_dvd_review.shtml

"She wrote two adult novels" - does that sentence imply what I think it does? Maybe it should say "non-children's book" or something slightly less misleading.. --Gabbe

that's only because "adult" is used as a euphimism... -- Tarquin 18:36 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)
Sad but true. I reworded it to avoid misunderstandings. Nevilley 17:58 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

Just a small confusion when reading the article. The first paragraph ends with "she is the richest woman in England", I had understood that she lived in Scotland at the moment (Perthshire). Am I mistaken or has the author confused the two regions of the UK?

Here's the reference for her living in Perthshire:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1670067.stm

John McCallum 00:00 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Middle name

I note that someone has inserted the name "Kathleen" into the first sentence making it look as if this is genuinely her middle name. I was under the impression that it is not really her middle name, she uses it as part of her nom de plume. Any justification either way? --Phil 11:59, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC)

I've done some research and I can't find any firm evidence either way, she first use the initial K for he first HP book due to a request of her agent and that K was based on her grandmother Kathleen (who incidently was married to Scott of the Antarctic). Whether she legally adopted the name Kathleen I've been unable to find out. If anywhere has the definitive answer it's probably in the biography "J.K. Rowling: The Genius Behind Harry Potter" by Sean Smith. The closest thing I've seen to providing an answer was a newspaper article which states "The 35-year-old author, who received her medal [OBE] for services to children's literature under her full name Joanne Rowling, has sold more than 30 million copies of her schoolboy wizard books worldwide." --Imran

It was Louisa Young's grandmother Kathleen who married Robert F. Scott. As far as I know, Joanne Rowling's grandmother Kathleen married only Stan Rowling. - Nunh-huh 17:27, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Quite right, she hasn't "changed" her name, Kathleen isn't her name and she never uses it for any purpose other than to put a K. on the front of her books. It shouldn't be made to look like sha has changed her name. Mintguy (T) 01:39, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Rumours of litigation

Could someone expand on these rumours of litigation other than the Stouffer case? Thanks! Rosemary Amey 02:42, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

For the full Neil Gaiman story, read:
For the Jill Murphy rumor, see:
The above rumor seems to be quite false, and has no corroboration anywhere else. One would expect that if Murphy had actually filed charges against Rowling in 2001, by 2004 there should be at least something about it somewhere else online. Also, Jill Murphy has given interviews in which she mentioned Harry Potter favorably, giving the impression that in general the Harry Potter books have been good for her business (I've read more than one such interview, but I can't find the reference). --Woggly 06:01, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
I have submitted a deletion request to the IMDb, so we'll see what happens. --Phil | Talk 10:59, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

JK Rowling pictures

I hope that no-one minds, but I added some pictures and some more notes to JK Rowling's biography... I think she is such an amazing woman so I just wanted to contribute a bit to this... thing :) Jo-Rowling-rocksBecca the Jo Fan

Thank you for your enthusiasm. Unfortunately the largest picture has huge text emblazoned all over it which frankly sucks rocks, so unless it can be cleaned up, it's not really useable here. The others are nice but placement needs to be adjusted a wee bit. Prepare to be edited mercilessly (not necessarily just by me I should add :-) --Phil | Talk 16:51, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)
I also think it exceedingly unlikely that the magazine or news show images are Public Domain, as they're marked. Though the one you took yourself - Image:Jo-premiere.jpg - is an excellent addition to the page - do you have a larger scan of it? You can go quite large here and then thumbnail it for the article page ;-) I have unlinked the other two, and unless you're quite sure they wouldn't get Wikipedia into trouble (see Wikipedia:Copyrights) you may wish to ask for their deletion from the server (see Wikipedia:Copyright problems - David Gerard 16:58, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sorry I don't have a bigger one :( It was taken on my digital camera on the 30th May... at the London premiere for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban... it looks like I got really close to her, doesn't it? But I just used the zoom... I wish I had gotten that close to her! Jo-Rowling-rocks

Richest Woman in UK?

A recent news posting on Mugglenet ( http://www.mugglenet.com ) proclaimed her the 9th richest in the UK, whereas this article says she is the most richest.. =\ What's right? User:212.219.188.240

I think the article is exaggerating. I dared to be bold and edited.--Deadworm222 19:14, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
I can't find the article on Mugglenet that you're referring to; could you post the exact link? In any case, that article on Mugglenet is wrong, as Rowling is not the 9th richest woman; she is the richest (maybe she's the 9th richest woman in the world as opposed to the UK?). See [1], which has the quotation "Rowling at 38 is one of the youngest people on the list, and the only British female" (granted, Forbes does not list nobility in the list referred to here, but the only UK woman close to contending w/ Rowling is the Queen, and Forbes estimates her net worth elsewhere to be less than Rowling). Alternatively, see the chart at [2]. —Lowellian (talk) 05:01, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
She indeed appears to be the richest woman holding United Kingdom citizenship. The richest woman residing in the UK, according to the Forbes list, is the Dutch "beer maiden" Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken.--Eloquence* 14:38, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Jorge Arantes in army?

I find no evidence that Jorge Arantes was in the army at the him of his marriage, as our article used to state. All our sources refer to him as "Portugese TV journalist" so we'll leave it as that. DJ Clayworth 21:48, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Expansion

This article still needs some real expansion on Rowling herself, her life and history. I've added the basics, but it still reads like it's about Harry Potter and not her. DJ Clayworth 22:01, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

--

On the topic of irrational lawsuits: Rowling ought to be happy Squaresoft didn't sue her. Their "moogles" in the Final Fantasy games predate her books by a good few years. *grin* -Kasreyn


Spielberg's Tantrums

I am interested in discovering why on earth just because Rowling refused to use american actors in the Harry Potter films Steven Spielberg refused to contribute to the project in any shape or form? Seems either odd or extremely petty. Also on a seperate note why has the US targeted the books so heavily? Attempts to get the series banned, vilified and even attempted to use fraudulent litigation? It smacks of something unwholesome, especially when the series and author can be attributed with introducing literature to the MTV generations.

Do we have any references to support (1) that Rowling was the only person involved in the production who was against American actors and (2) that actors nationality was the deciding factor in Spielberg's refusal? The article as currently written seems to imply both these things. Also, is Rowlings bio the best place to discuss this?
  • Here's your answer. Hogwarts is in Scotland, which is part of Britain. Only British kids go to Hogwarts. Why would anyone have an American accent, unless there was an immigrant (no immigrant is mentioned in the books)?

Birthplace?

The opening sentence says she was born in Yate, but under "Early Life" it says she was born in Chipping Sodbury. Most sources on the net seem to say she was born in Chipping Sodbury General Hospital, and spent the early part of her life in nearby Yate. However this link http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookarama/smithbio.html says that the book 'JK Rowling: A biography' by Sean Smith reproduces Rowling's birth certificate and she was actually born in Yate itself. Has anyone read this book that can comment? 143.252.80.124 10:42, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Rickman and Coltrane

She has also said that she has told Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane certain secrets about their characters that are not yet revealed.

Having read the books, I would assume that perhaps this refers to what has now been revealed in Goblet of Fire and Half-Blood Prince? Exactly how old is this statement? What's the source? --195.92.67.76 01:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC) Harry Potter Rocks!

about you

i want to nowhat are some hobbies you have, education, and accomplishments you had in your life?

I went to NYU and I do a lot of reading. Wait a minute . . . you must mean Ms. Rowling. This is not the place to contact her, sweetie. Nelson Ricardo 01:43, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

cookery demonstrations

Rowling is not famous at all for her cookery demonstrations, so I removed that part from the intro. If you can provide a reference, please feel free to put it back in. Natgoo 16:28, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Illustrators for the books by J.K. Rowling

dsaklad@zurich.csail.mit.edu 28 November 2005
a.
Who are the illustrators for the books by J.K. Rowling?... including the illustrators for all the foreign editions around the world !

b.
Where around the web are there links with information about or listings of the illustrators for the books by J.K. Rowling?... including the illustrators for all the foreign editions around the world !

Rare radio interview

Does anyone have a source for the radio interview mentioned in the "After Harry Potter" section? I've heard in several places that she may use a pen name, but never that it's definite. Brendan 05:14, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Never mind. Found a link myself. Brendan 20:37, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It was in an Interview called "Living with Harry Potter" on BBC Radio 4 (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4) The article says with a "BBC Journalist"- actually its with Stephen Fry, the Narator of the UK Audiobooks. He's not a BBC Journalist.

JKR image, is it proper to use it here?

I read the rationale for allowing the use of the image as PD, but I'm not convinced. There should be a suitable alternative image of JKR available somewhere, and if so, that would make use of a copyrighted image unsuitable. - Bevo 22:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

name pronunciation

I'm sorry; is there a ban against listing the proper pronunciation of her name? I posted a small edition, thinking it was common sense, but then got it deleted and called vandalism. I think any article about JK Rowling would have to feature at least three words explaining how to properly pronounce her name, since it is one of the most common mistakes people make when mentioning her. Serendipodous 17:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the vandalism revert was because of the edit before yours, by an IP address, which deleted a lot of content from the article. Your addition simply got lost in the shuffle. I don't think there's anything wrong with adding a pronunciation note, but per WP:MOSIPA it needs to include IPA format in addition to the "sounds like" comment. Brendan 20:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry; can't believe I missed that previous edit. Why would anyone do that? Serendipodous 14:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This page has gotta get changed

Why do they name it J.K. Rowling if theres almost nothing here about her?


Anyone else a little peeved that the German mirror of this page got featured?

I've been reading it in Google translation and it makes some pretty flagrant howlers; for instance, it says flat out that Harry Potter was inspired by Neil Gaiman's "Books of Magic," which even Neil Gaiman has said was unlikely. It also claims Rowling's statement that she was born in Chipping Sodbury was made for publicity, which would be pretty tough to verify. And, like every other Wiki article on Joanne Rowling, it gets her name wrong. Serendipodous 18:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

So fix it. We can edit the German site, just like everyone else. DJ Clayworth 20:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Love to, but I haven't spoken German in 15 years, and despite the fact that a number of people with at best a semi-coherent grasp of English still feel it is their right to edit English pages on this site, I don't believe I should attempt to edit a page in a language I don't fully comprehend. Serendipodous 21:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I suggest making a note on the Talk page, or, contact someone from the German Embassy on En or theEnglish Embassy on De and ask for their help, I imagine they'd be thrilled...I'm an "ambassador" to fr and noones contacted me, and I'd be thrilled if they did, so give it a shot. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 19:09, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Rowling helping children in Eastern Europe

How awesome. This warms out the cottles of my heart.

Sure lots of kids will help their fellow kids if they know their favourite author is doing this.

--EuropracBHIT 20:47, 4 March 2006 (UTC).

Uncited material

There's a fair amount of material in this article that is uncited. I am currently working on removing uncited material from Harry Potter articles. By Wikipedia:Verifiability, "Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed." I am archiving uncited material from the article to J. K. Rowling/Uncited. Please contribute by providing references for this material and replacing it on the article page. Thank you. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 19:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you are being extreme in the interpretation of this policy. Removing the biography entirely from the article was close to vandalism and shocked me. I have replaced it with 2 general citations. We want to avoid libel but declared facts which cannot be immediately supported in the listed citations merely need the suffix [citation needed] added to begin a citation process. Lumos3 09:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm being extreme, but I still think I'm within the wording of the policy, as I am challenging uncited material. I basically am willing to accept material that is well established (for example, something like J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books is fine, but something like J.K. Rowling is the richest author in the world needs to be backed up). I'm sorry to remove good quality text, but I'm also not wanting unverified information in the article. It's my intention to spend time at some point working on finding citations for some of this myself, but it's my feeling that in the meantime, uncited information should be removed from Wikipedia articles until it can be verified. That's the first step, then it can be added in with citations. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 22:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
What I don't get is, why, instead of self-righteously deleting information you felt didn't adhere to your standard, did you not try looking for the citations yourself? It took me, oh, I'd say about ten minutes on Google to find the correct citations for the information you removed. It took me the better part of two hours to redraft the article after you savaged it. By the way, "challenged and removed," implies that the material should be challeged, then removed. You removed without bothering to challenge first. If you had simply made a request for citations on the discussion page, this issue would have been cleared up in minutes. Serendipodous 10:18, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
In my mind, challenged and removed can go together as one thing. There doesn't have to be a time gap in between them, in my interpretation of the policy. Part of why I feel this is so is because if I simply challenge the various assertions that need citation, 1. there's really no impetus on anyone to do anything about it and 2. Uncited material remains present on the article page. So by removing uncited material, what material that is there is well cited, and what material that is removed is present on the Uncited archive. As far as redrafting the article, I kept the content in sections and spaced out where there were gaps that I didn't remove on the Uncited page, so hopefully that provided some guide to you in re-working the article. As far as why I didn't find the citations myself, well that is the next step in the process, but it's one I simply hadn't gotten to yet, namely because I have some other articles in HP space and various others that I'm watching that I'm working on culling uncited material from first. I've also been working on a project to re-factor the categories within the HP scope, and having done that, I worked on clearing up citation issues on articles that were in the high levels of Category:Harry Potter, which would be mainly this article and the Harry Potter article itself. Future projects for me include going then through the lower levels of the categories and doing cleaning and removal of unsourced material. Additionally, a task I have pending with this article is to review your edits and citations, and work to line up this article with the Uncited page, ie removing text from the Uncited page that you've provided citations for, and working to make sure the citations are well placed and correctly formatted. It's just a question of when I have time to go through it in that level of detail. However, I do want to thank you for taking the time to locate the citations. If you'd wanted to make notes on the Uncited page with the citations you'd found, I'd be happy to work on re-factoring the material back into the article myself. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 03:45, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
In response to your removed comment, I don't think it was hypocritical, as I don't see how I allowed anyone else more time than myself. I removed the uncited content, so the content was just as not-on-the-article-page for me as for you. I'm saying that it's the first step to remove the uncited content..that is the short term solution that makes the fastest improvement in the article quality. I'd rather take out 75 percent of the article, leaving the 25 percent thats cited, and slowly add in cited material. That way, all of the article is cited, which makes it a much better article. It's much easier to take out the uncited material, then work in the background adding in citations, as well as patrolling the article to remove uncited additions. Check out Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film). When I started patrolling that article it was a miasma of various rumors and claims about who would and wouldn't be in the movie, none of which was backed up. I started off by moving every. single. actor. to the Unconfirmed section, and reverted any changes that placed actors in "Confirmed" that didn't have a citation. I also worked on keeping out uncited rumors. Guess what? Now every single confirmed actor in that article has a citation, almost all of the commentary about the movie is cited, and there's even a beautiful little References section down at the bottom that someone did. You may have delayed in posting citations, but doing so weakens the article. It's much better to add whatever content you add with some kind of citation, then someone else can come along and clean up the citation. This is a team project here, its not something anyone on their own can do. I'm basically just working to lay the groundwork for improving certain articles that I think are important and that I happen to patrol regularly. For what it's worth, I'm starting now to post comments to Talk pages in advance of culling Uncited material, in response to your critique. I'm also about to hit up two schools that I attended, which I'm not going to enjoy doing, but I feel that it's neccessary (and fair, ya know?). Understand that I'm just trying to improve article quality, and inspire others to make these articles higher quality to. In my mind, one of the first steps is getting Uncited material out of the article, and adding back in what is noteworthy and citable (and not speculation). Ëvilphoenix Burn! 15:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Further comment

Just so you understand where I'm coming from better, I'm working my way through the edits you made adding content back in to the article. I just spent about an hour and a half or more, and I have made it through the first three edits that have been made since I culled uncited material, with about thirty or so to go, it looks like.Specifically, these edits. This is how I updated and linked those citations, and this is the corresponding series of edits I made to J. K. Rowling/Uncited to update for cited additions. Serendipodous, your edits were helpful in that you linked specific assertions to specific sites that had those claims. Lumos3, your edit simply restored the entire section, and merely linked in to Rowling's biography page without further citation. Going back and checking the information on Rowling's page, there was quite a bit of material that was not discussed in that reference. I then compared revisions, and located the further citations that Serendipodous provided, which helped further cite some of the information I would otherwise not have been able to put back in. However, there is still some information that is not cited, as it's not contained in the three references I've worked through so far.

I'm going through this to demonstrate the level of citation that I'm looking for. The Early Life section is now very well cited, and the references are clearly labelled. Now, as much as you can help me with this process, I appreciate. If you don't want to deal with the complications of using the {{ref}} template and all that, that's fine, I just need the links to reference in, and I can format the assertions. It would also help me if you would edit J. K. Rowling/Uncited as well, and remove any content you place back in the article from that page. The idea is that the article and the Uncited page are maintained as closely in line as possible, so that stuff listed on the Uncited page is assertions that are not in fact in the article, and that once material is properly cited it's removed from the Uncited page. However please dont just add wholesale sections back in, because not everything in that section is neccessarily referenced in what references we currently have listed. I hope this makes my intent more clear. Best regards, Ëvilphoenix Burn! 21:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

All your crusade is accomplishing is making my life and the lives of the other writers on this page unnecessarily difficult. If you had any interest in looking up citations yourself you could solve your issue without deleting anything. If you have issues with citations, bring them up on the discussion page; stop taking perfectly good material and logging it on a virtually inaccessable subpage. You want a citation for Rowling's charity work in Bucharest? Try the front page of her own website. You want a citation that her daughter is named after Jessica Mitford? Try every interview she's ever given. For future reference, if you want a Rowling quote, try her website, then try here: [url]http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/index2.html[/url]Serendipodous 00:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't have any interest in looking up links. I have interest in editing text and formatting Citations. However I don't mind searching for links, but I'm not going to do that yet because I still have good links in the article itself that need to be formatted before I want to do that. You're a step ahead of me. That's fine, you finding links makes things a ton easier for me because then I can work on formatting links and making nice citations instead of looking for references that should have been provided in the first place. J. K. Rowling/Uncited is hardly a "virtually inaccessable subpage", I've linked it multiple times, on this Talk Page, in edit summaries, etc. It's available there as a resource, and it's helpful to me to keep track of what information I removed from the article that still needs citation. Not everything that you're making citations for works, because if you actually go and look at the sources, which is what I am doing, not every assertion is being discussed, so I'm removing the ones that aren't covered from the article. The front page of her website is not an acceptable citation because the front page will change, and ideally the citation will be to a page that is more permanent. But as I said before, I'm working on making the citations that are already in the article work, and making sure that they accurrately describe the content of the article, before I go and look up new citations. However the more citations you provide, the more I have to work with. Why don't you try checking out the use of the {{ref}} and {{note}} templates, they're not that hard to use. As far as me being on a crusade, we now have an article that's starting to look a whole lot better, and be much more substantially referenced. That's a good improvement in quality, and that's all that I'm after here. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 00:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
There is something about your methods I don't understand. It is actually easier and less time consuming to simply go onto Google, type the necessary words, and then paste the resulting citation onto the article, then it is to delete the information and put it on a separate page. What you are doing makes what could be a thirty-second job into a laborious, five-to-ten minute process.Serendipodous 00:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I think that what you are not understanding is that I don't want uncited material in the article. At all. I want everything to be cited. The way to make sure that everything is cited is to remove everything that isn't cited, then go back through and add material back in with citation. The question is what to do with the material that isn't cited. My choice is to archive it, so that it's not lost in the edit history as it would be if I simply removed it. That way, as I go back through, and remove the material that citations have been provided for, I can account for what still remains to be cited, and what I still will want to look up citations for. But before that, I cite and format what's already in the article. I don't intend for you to do my work for me, it's not my work, it's Wikipedia's work. It's the work of making the encyclopedia better. I do appreciate your contribution however, as it is actually helping me get the article where I want it to. You're good at finding the information, I'm good at editing it and citing it and making it look good. That's all there is to it, but there's not pressure on you to look this stuff up, other than your choice to do so. I don't expect your help, but I do appreciate that it does help me. I just wish you'd understand that I really am doing this in good faith, and there is a logic and reason to what I'm doing. Where we are in disagreement, I think, is what order things should be done in, and what should be done with material that is uncited. I think it should not be in the article in any uncited fashion for any time, not when I'm working on getting this article through the Verification process.
Check out {{Opentask}}. Verify is one of the major steps on there, it's in there with things like Copyediting, expansion, and NPOVing. This article has been decently expanded, it's pretty well copyedited and NPOV, now I'm working on bringing the article through the Verification stage. It's not an easy task, I'm discovering it's really quite tedious. But it's worth the effort IMO. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 02:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Citation is not the issue here. Its your method of removing everything to another page and then expecting everyone else to put it back with citations. There are gentler methods like flagging each citation that is needed with the tag [citation needed] at the place in the text where its needed. The bigger issue is that you started this without any consultation or warning to the others who maintain this page. You’re not making yourself popular. Please work more collaboratively . Lumos3 15:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

J._K._Rowling#Nancy_Stouffer

In response to the comments I've been receiving, I'm going to post here first about some concerns I have about this section. The first citation provided, Entertainment Law Digest, appears to go to a site where payment is required to access the information, and the relevant information is not visible, which is less than helpful. I had some concerns about the other citation, but after double checking WP:NOR I'm fine with using that as a source. However even with that one I think it would be more helpful to have maybe an news article talking about the judgement rather than just the actual judgement itself, especially since it's the only citation in that section, and there's a lot of assertions that may not be specifically covered by the judgement. I'd really love any help you guys could give me looking for some more sources for this section. Thanks! Ëvilphoenix Burn! 00:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Bibliography includes unpublished seventh book?

I noticed that Harry Potter: Book Seven is mentioned in Rowling's bibliography, even though it hasn't been published yet (or even named, for that matter). I don't think that a bibliography should include unpublished works (or even unfinished works, for that matter). I have several unpublished works of fiction, and if I were ever notable enough to get a Wikipedia article, you'd never see me list them in my bibliography. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed before, and it was decided to retain it, seeing as, while it is unpublished, barring Rowling's sudden, tragic death, there is no chance of it NOT being published. Actually, even if she were to die, there would almost certainly be an attempt to ready the book for publication anyway, based on the notes and drafts she left. It's similar to actors and directors' pages listing films that they haven't completed yet. If there's no reason to assume they won't, then there's no reason not to include them. There are a number of other unpublished works mentioned in the article, such as her "political monster story" and her collection of short stories, that shouldn't be included in her bibliography, as there is no guarantee they will ever be published, but book seven, come hell or high water, will be.Serendipodous 18:22, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I still disagree with the rationale, but since it's already previously-established consensus, I won't rock the boat any further by revisiting an old discussion. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The $1000 or $2000 advance? Anyone know?

Was it Bloomsbury that gave her the tiny advance to publish her book. The article just says a 100k auction, but I'd read that the advance was only one or two thousand dollars. So I'm guessing the Bloomsbury company was the one who gave her the small advance. Does anyone know? DyslexicEditor 19:29, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The precise amount Rowling recieved in her initial advance from Bloomsbury isn't clear; different sources quote different numbers, and they're all most likely based on hearsay anyway, but the generally accepted figure seems to be about £2000, or just under $4000. Serendipodous 19:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

There seems to be some problem with the numbering of the footnotes, the one marked [n] does not correspond to footnote n at the bottom. --80.129.76.120 19:24, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The footnotes are in alphabetical order. Some footnotes refer to more than one citation. Serendipodous 20:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

It is ok to have them in alphabetical order, if one wishes. But then it would be good not to insist on [n] as the nth footnote appearing in the text, because the footnotes don't appear there in alphabetical order, of course. Can this be achieved somehow? It is a bit weird to follow the last some ten footnotes (wrt the alphabetical order), because they are not shown as the first line after using the hyperlink within the text. --80.129.76.120 21:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't the new procedure described in Wikipedia:Footnotes work out properly? --80.129.122.28 22:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to say it is extremely difficult to follow the current method of citations. For example, under section "New York Daily News", when i click on citation [69] i'd expect to see footnote #69 to be what i'm looking for, and then realized there's no footnote#69 at all. Took me a while to find out what i'm searching for is footnote#44. I'd disagree sorting the footnote in alphabetical orders + [n] in the text

If you click on the citation, it will automatically take you to to the appropriate reference. Your browswer should outline the appropriate footnote if it doesnt happen to scroll to the top of the page. Yes, it would be possible to do the supposedly newer and better system. However, as the person who wrote the citations, and maintains them, I prefer alphabetical. That's all there is to it really. Also, please sign your posts. Thanks. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 22:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The conversion to Cite.php using Ref converter has solved these concerns. --Cyde Weys 20:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Man you guys are really challenging my ability to remain civil while discussing this. I'm so close to getting some serious Rogue Admin points by blocking the everloving goodness out of the next person who comes along here and converts this article. I started an entire discussion on Wikipedia talk:Footnotes, where multiple people have complained about articles they've worked on being converted to this new system. Cyde you participated in that discussion, did you not read the comments there? Please do not convert this article to cite.php. I do not want this article in that format while I'm maintaining it, and I am maintaining it.Ëvilphoenix Burn! 01:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I for one am reluctant to second-guess the regular contributors to this article as to what note numbering system is most appropriate, so I've added a comment to that effect to the references section. Frankly, I don't care, even if I do think the new system has more advantages. But, Evilphoenix, I'm rather concerned about the statements you made here. Saying "I do not want this article in that format while I'm maintaining it, and I am maintaining it." appears to clearly violate WP:OWN, and threatening to block those who disagree is even more worrying, for reasons I think I need not go into when talking to an administrator. Please elaborate. Sandstein 06:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Like I said I was rather irritated at the time. I was merely expressing my temptation, but thus far I haven't actually blocked anyone over this. If you think I'm violating the Owning Articles policy, well then, ok, but, I spent several weeks working on those citations, which is an ongoing project of mine. I've repeatedly stated my reasons for disliking the cite.php system, reasons which I believe are valid and that I am not alone in holding. I'm open to quality content changes to this article, but vandalism to this article and radical changes to the formatting of the citations section I will fight with utter tenacity. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 16:47, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Evilphoenix, you are blatantly violating WP:OWN with this statement: Please do not convert this article to cite.php. I do not want this article in that format while I'm maintaining it, and I am maintaining it. Consider this a strong recommendation to stop "maintaining" this article because you are doing more harm than good. --Cyde Weys 18:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Stop converting the article. Your converter is flawed, and the cite.php system is poor and unwieldy. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 18:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The current system is just as poor and unwieldy, and it confuses the heck out of the readers as well. Johnleemk | Talk 16:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I never even realized how poor the existing use of footnotes in this article is. It's unacceptable. You have 71 different numbers in the text linking to only 48 different numbers in the references section, and not only that, none of the numbers even match up (except by coincidence). This is so unusable it isn't funny. I'm not going to force Cite.php upon you but this had better be fixed. You can do it with proper use of {{ref}}, {{ref label}}, {{note}}, and {{note label}}. --Cyde Weys 17:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing that some of those footnotes intentionally link to the same {{note}}, and have different numbers so as to be unique (unlike with the {{ref label}} or m:Cite system where the numbers are not unique). I have no idea why this would be desired, but hey, this article's citation system is seriously an outlier. Johnleemk | Talk 17:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't help but jump in the discussion... I was trying to look at one footnote in the article, and got confused when the browser presented me a footnote with another number than expected. It may have been the correct one (or maybe not, if I was close to the bottom — but this is not something I want to have to check every time I look at a footnote), but there is no way anyone can look at the footnote and not be confused. This is definitively counter-intuitive. What is the point of keeping the numbers altogether if they don't match to anything ? Looking at this talk page, I am glad to see that this discussion has already happened, but I hope that a good solution will be found (although obviously, given the comments above, I won't try anything myself). Schutz 23:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The Hogwarts School Scarf

In the films, a lot of the Hogwarts sequences are shot in and around Alnwick Castle in Northumberland. I haven't been following very attentively, but in Chamber of Secrets, I noticed that the Hogwarts scarf is purple and gold, the colours of the ancient flag of Northumbria (King/Saint Oswald's flag)as described by Bede in the 7th century AD. This is the oldest flag description we have, and the flag is displayed by patriotic Northunmbrians today.

Ms Rowling admired Jessica Mitford, of the Northumberland Redesdale family, and I was wondering if anyone can tell me more on this subject. Is there anything about this in the books?

Bandalore 21.25 15 April 2006