Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Harry Potter/Notability

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[edit] Guest9999's list

Yes, let's eat it all as Cruft! - Arcayne (cast a spell) 18:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe not all of it! But a lot of it certainly needs to be gobbled up. Happy-melon 19:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Template of articles to keep started at User:Basar/Sandbox. I'll transclude it here if no one minds. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 01:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Good work. How should we go about deciding here? My only thought would be to post concise comments after each entry if you have an opinion. That could get the listing to look a bit busy, though. -Phi*n!x 04:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking we could nominate someone who is sufficiently inclusionist, perhaps Happy-melon, to mark which articles we will definitely cut/merge/redirect, and then engage in some discussion/research about the remaining. That way we would have a list of articles we are definitely keeping and ones we are definitely removing (and the remainder). If we are going to follow the secondary sources rule of WP:N, we could make notes next to each of the remaining articles of secondary sources supporting it and base our decision on such discovery. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 05:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd be happy to do that, if people will give credence to any list of mine. I do appear to be one of the more inclusionist editors on the project. Happy-melon 11:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd be willing to second the nomination. I trust that what Happy-melon sees as cruft to be deleted really should be deleted. -Phi*n!x 03:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
1. I really thing we should keep the "minor characters' article, if only for the sole reason, that we could move some of the deleted articles in that section. Because otherwise, new articles about the deleted subjects will be written in no time. This way, we have the information in Wikipedia, but not in countless different articles. 2. Martha Wells has written an essay about Neville, called "Neville Longbottom, the hero with a thousand faces". It's in Mercedes Lackey's "Mapping the world of Harry Potter". That could be a good sceondary source. Only problem is, that I have only read discussions about the article, not the article itself (since it isn't available here in Germany), I therefore could add some of Wells' arguments, but no quotes. Has anyone else read the essay? Neville Longbottom 09:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Do you know where it can be found? -Phi*n!x 03:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
It's in a book called "Mapping the world of Harry Potter" by Mercedes Lackey. I have only read discussions/ reviews of that book, but not the book itself. As I understood from the review, Wells is comparing Joseph Campbell's famous work about the hero and the heroe's journey with Neville's role in the series, and comes to the conclusion, that Neville is besides Harry the other character in the series, who went through such a journey. Neville Longbottom 09:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad that people think this list may prove helpful, I'm sorry if I generated any ill will in the past - it was not my intention. [[Guest9999 12:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)]]

No harm done. You seem to have the integrity of Wikipedia at heart :-). -Phi*n!x 03:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I have decided to join this "group". And was just curious the template above is a lits of all the articles that are going to be kept? Because if that is true, Alastor Moody should be on that list as probably many others. If someone can just get me up to speed. Thanks! ** ko2007 ** 03:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Welcome to the "group". The above template is just a starting point of articles that (I think) we have all agreed to keep. It will likely be added to. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 04:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I was just wondering. Thanks! However like I said about Alastor Moody, he should be a definate keep! ** ko2007 ** 11:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Keep proposals

I found a list of books available on Amazon.com that may be useful. Unfortunately, I don't have any of them, but their descriptions are interesting. [1] There are 11 books listed there if you follow the "Harry Potter Myths and Theories" link. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 04:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I would like to propose keeping a few articles on the list [not only these, just a few I think can be justified now]: Historical characters in Harry Potter, Death Eater, Magical beasts (Harry Potter), Magical objects in Harry Potter, and at least one differences between film/book article. I have found in the Amazon books that several include lots of analysis of magical objects and magical beasts. Since I don't have the books, I don't know which objects/beasts have enough coverage for their own article, but I think it is safe to say they will have enough information at least for a general article on each subject. Several of the books relate real world history and mythology to the origins of HP, so I think keeping Historical characters would be good. Probably the most common theme, due to religious commentators, is the analysis of good/bad and as such I think it would be safe to keep Death Eaters. I also saw one book that commented on the adaptation to film, so I think at least one article on the adaptation of the books to film would be good. I don't know if a differences between book/film would be possible for each one; the current articles are awfully OR prone. I think much of the differences articles could go into the respective film articles and a general adaption article. So, what do you all think? -- Basar (talk · contribs) 01:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I would definitely say to keep Death Eater, though it might need a bit of a rewrite. Historical characters in Harry Potter is a collection of 2-liners. I think it should be merged to an "in pop culture" section of each real person's article. I'm not sure how many of the magical beasts have direct mythological counterparts. If they do, they could also be merged into an "in pop culture"-type section. -Phi*n!x 17:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect proposals

I would like to suggest a few that I think are the most obvious candidates for redirecting. Grandchildren of the Weasley family to a minor character list, Relatives of Harry Potter to Harry Potter (character), Tobias Snape and Eileen Prince to Severus Snape, International Confederation of Wizards to Harry Potter Universe, List of Hogwarts Quidditch Teams to Quidditch, Being (Harry Potter) to Harry Potter Universe, Spinner's End to Severus Snape, and Money in Harry Potter to Harry Potter Universe. Let me know what you think. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 03:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My two cents

Most of this is unnecessary and/or cruft, and ought to be merged or (in some cases) deleted (Double Trouble (Harry Potter)? WTF?!). But there are a great many which are notable/deserving of an article, though they admittedly lack secondary sources. If you'll indulge me, I'll repeat my Keep argument from the recent Horcrux deletion debate:

*Keep This is, unfortunately, a weak part of Wikipedia. This really is an "all or nothing" issue. We are dealing with an integral construct within the most popular book series of all time. Despite it's popularity, how many HP related articles truly pass WP notability guidelines? Three, maybe four characters? I don't think anyone would argue that Hermione and Ron don't deserve their own articles; they are immensely important characters in (not to sound like a broken record) the most popular book series ever written. But technically speaking, do they pass notability more than the other HP articles which are constantly being nominated for deletion by deletionist editors who simply don't like it? The two policies that I cite as relevant to my "keep" !vote are Wikipedia is not paper and ignore all rules. There is simply no good reason to delete this article, the encyclopedia would not benefit from its removal. The importance of the topic is fairly obvious, even if it might not pass WP:N. Given this, I believe this to be a prime example of when we should ignore the rules. faithless (speak) 12:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

BTW, the "Three, maybe four characters" I was referring to are Harry, Dumbledore, Voldemort and Snape. Many of the articles listed should never have been created in the first place, but we should also use common sense when it comes to deleting/merging. Gobstones? Chuck it. Minerva McGonagall? Keep it. Most of them are just that easy. faithless (speak) 05:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Ya, I understand your feelings, but I don't think WP:N is broken. I have found quite a few large books on Harry Potter that will provide the reliable secondary source material to support quite a lot of HP articles. If one looks hard enough, reliable secondary sources can be found for truly encyclopedic topics. I think Troy McClure and The Bus Uncle are great examples. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 07:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I know there are some HP books out there, but I've never read any. Perhaps I'll pick up a few next time I'm at B&N and try to source some stuff. faithless (speak) 04:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
That would be wonderful. I've just started a project subpage copied from the Simpsons project on sources, and I have put a few of the books I referred to there. – Basar (talk · contribs) 06:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Happy-melon's list

As requested above, I have sorted the list according to whether I, as a known inclusionist, consider the articles worthy of removal. The vast majority of removals are merge candidates. I have collected a few pieces of utter cruft into a "delete" section, and some of the "miscellaneous topics" articles may also warrant complete deletion. Consider the remainder to be "unclassified".

Two points I would raise. First, This discussion, being in userspace and now spreading over several pages, is fairly isolated and also easily fragmented. I would recommend moving to a Project subspace, perhaps /Restructure, and reorganising this discussion somewhat. Secondly, I although the current article count in the assessment page is 276, we have only 140 or so represented here. Of course many of these are actor biographies and non-fictional articles, but I would suggest that this review should be comprehensive. I plan to have a brief look at the other articles so we can divide the whole project scope into "articles under review", which should really consider every fictional article in our scope, and "articles not under review", which includes most factual articles. If we're going to the trouble of looking at a whole host of articles, it might as well be a comprehensive review. Happy-melon 08:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm with you with almost everything, with just two exceptions, one minor and one major. First the major one: I think we should keep Percy Weasley as an article. He's certainly more important than for example Mad-Eye Moody, Cho Chang or Fleur Delacour, and he even has his own subplot during the course of the series, which cannot be said about many characters. And if an interview with the actor suffices to make that article noteable, I could easily add one. Since the actor, who plays Percy, is, sorry, someone, who never seems to shut up, there are countless interviews with him floating around. The minor one is that I wonder, why you consider to merge the Crouches into minor characters, instead of Ministry for Magic for the father and Death Eaters for the son. Neville Longbottom 08:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. That's a lot of progress we just made. I'll add those articles that you two agree with to a template of articles we have agreed to remove in some fashion. Moving to a project sub-page is fine with me. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 16:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
New templates created; feel free to modify them if I made an error. – Basar (talk · contribs) 22:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I definately have to say that Order of the Phoenix (organisation) should definately be kept. ** ko2007 ** 03:55, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I moved everything around now. There are definitely some articles we have missed because I found at least one at /Index that was just created. – Basar (talk · contribs) 06:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A bit late, but oh well

After writing up a proposal for what to do with the Pottercruft, this came to my attention. I request that you all look at my proposal, and see if we can merge the efforts into one. Thanks. i said 21:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the group. We have a number of proposals up that people have written, but we haven't got down to discussing the details yet. I'm not sure how we will do that. I would personally like to be a little more inclusive than your character list since there have been a few fairly minor characters with featured articles such as Jabba the Hutt and Troy McClure. – Basar (talk · contribs) 22:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
They have real world notability. As far as I'm aware, none of the standalone articles do, save the ones I suggested keeping as their own. And would you give me links to the proposals? I'd like to read them. i said 22:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
They are in the section headers on this page. – Basar (talk · contribs) 00:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
With respect, I believe that my proposal is the best one to work with. I have a more thorough proposal as to what the end result would be, how we would get there, what is merged where etc. It discusses all (I believe) of the Harry Potter related pages. I do not say this out of arrogance, but I honestly believe it is a better format to work with. If the people here who have already begun discussing this disagree, I shall of course bow to them, and discuss in their format. i said 05:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
The merits of your proposal will, of course, be given equal weight to the other carefully reasoned proposals that have been forwarded, and the comments of other project members. You may wish to review your list and compare it to the box "articles agreed to be merged", on the mainpage. You will probably find that there is a large overlap. Once we have agreed a format to discuss the remaining articles, your contributions to the discussions will be invaluable. There is, however, no reason to discount the work of other editors in favour of one proposal. Happy-melon 10:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I know, I'm just mad that I spent all that time to have it not used lol. As for the ones Agreed to Be Kept/Merged, where was this decided? i said 22:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Real World Content

I think that one of the main problems with the articles is the complete lack of real world content (as described in WP:FICT. I think that if things like lists/descriptions of minor characters are to be kept they should be catagorised by there real world relenvance rather than ficitonal importance. Rather than having pages for characetrs in fictional Houses or organisations it might be better to link them together by the real world book they appeared in. Maybe something like Characters introduced in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, etc. Of course if teh information contained within the article could be placed within the article for the books that would be better. I essentially think that everything fictional which isn't definately notable should be linked directly to the books which clearly are and not to aspects within the books which probably are not. [[Guest9999 11:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)]]

That is certainly a possibility. I think we intend to start as inclusionist as possible, and work our way up. Once we've removed some of the utter cruft, we'll be left with a body of content that we can organise as appropriate, and as dictated by the final version of WP:FICT. I think everyone's reluctant to do anything too drastic, until we know what notability criteria we're dealing with. Happy-melon 13:46, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to note that there is one FA similar to these articles, Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, before I leave and go do some things in the "real world". – Basar (talk · contribs) 18:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Batch of unincorporated articles

Got to get ride of the "differences" articles, no hint of any notability. Others to consider getting ride of would be Diggory, Fleur, Historical characters, malfoy family, money is harry potter, patronus charm, riddle family. They just aren't notable, even if I like some of them! :) These articles are under our jurisdiction, and should be put on the chart somewhere. Judgesurreal777 17:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I suppose, though they present a different issue because they are all about real-world things, such as real fansites. I don't think that the 5 people listed on top really need to be included as none of them is exclusively tied to Harry Potter, and all of them are real, relatively prominent people, so we don't need to worry about fiction notability. -Phi*n!x 20:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Ok, removed those five, but what about the others? Some of them may do well going into the parody or the fandom articles. Judgesurreal777 20:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template format for discussions

I have created a template to standardise the discussion process for the remaining list. It, and its documentation, can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter/Notability/Template. Note the transclusion of the discussion page into the main page, to enable a summary to be shown from the top of the discussion page. This requires the use of <noinclude> tags to prevent the whole discussion being transcluded. I think it would be a good idea to group discussions wherever possible. Our first discussion is /Teachers. Happy-melon 20:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some thoughts on which ones to keep/junk

Got to get ride of the "differences" articles, no hint of any notability. Others to consider getting ride of would be Diggory, Fleur, Historical characters, malfoy family, money is harry potter, patronus charm, riddle family. They just aren't notable, even if I like some of them! :)

A thought I had about the list of minor griffendors/etc... is to combine them as well as students in harrys year into the main characters of article. And also do away with the minor characters article; their minor, so not notable. Judgesurreal777 21:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, it looks like Molly Weasley isn't notable either, sadly. Judgesurreal777 21:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Ya, I think it is reasonable to ditch the differences articles especially since the most pertinent information in them can and should be covered in the individual film articles. There is also an article on the films in general which can describe the basic principles and methods used to adapt the books to film. – Basar (talk · contribs) 23:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Note: I unilaterally moved some of the above to its own subpage. – Basar (talk · contribs) 23:46, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Question

In the templates, where was it decided which articles were kept, and which need to be discussed? The best I can see on this page is #Redirect_proposals. But there are pages "agreed to be removed" that are not in this list. I presume this was discussed somewhere? i said 01:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh we just based it off of Guest's and Happy's lists. We just thought they would be the two extremes of thought, so we jump started the process by keeping whatever Guest thought was OK and merging whatever Happy thought everyone would be ok with merging. It would of course be ok to call one of those moves into question, but nobody has made any objection yet. – Basar (talk · contribs) 03:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Ok. So, then using my proposal and a jumping point has been rejected,(?) how are the discussions going to go? As subpages like this one? i said 03:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Well we made the keep/remove lists long before you made your list, so it doesn't have anything to do with rejecting it. I feel that people are going to want to discuss each of the remaining articles in detail, so the subpage system that we have now seems to be reasonable, and we can incorporate everyone's ideas for how to proceed in those discussions. – Basar (talk · contribs) 03:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
By all means, list what you think should be done with the articles here, and we can take it into account, kinda merge it in. Judgesurreal777 14:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
The articles on the front? I did at my sandbox. i said 22:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bringing things to AfD

It would be great if we could discuss bringing to AfD articles whose fates are still undecided here, at the project, first, rather than bringing them to AfD and letting the project comment on them there. The AfD process would go through much more easily if the project came to some consensus which could be presented at the AfD (sort of a "disclaimer: the WPHP agrees with the deletion of this article"). --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 01:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

That would be a good idea; some of my deletion nominations have run into difficulty, and the Wikiprojects support would do wonders I think. Judgesurreal777 01:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Why would we need to take to AfD? Where has opposition arisen? i said 02:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I had Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Order of the Phoenix (organisation) in mind when I wrote this, but in general it's always a good idea to have the support of the WikiProject you and the article are a part of. Judgesurreal, this wasn't only towards you with that nomination, but should be a guideline to all. Incidentally, I feel like there's some adage that discusses the importance of having the support of your "allies" -- can anybody think of one? --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 02:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Auror

I have merged Auror to the ministry of magic page! ** ko2007 ** 20:44, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Agree to keep beasts?

I didn't want to create a subpage just for one article. I think it is bad now, but if we merge all the other creature articles into it, it should be reference(able) enough. Rowling did write that separate book just on creatures. – Basar (talk · contribs) 22:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I think so. In general, the articles that we are merging things into should be given a chance to be improved, and later we can merge if needed. Judgesurreal777 02:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Updated thoughts :)

  1. Azkaban - merge to locations or world of HP
  2. Blood purity (Harry Potter) - try to source
  3. Death Eater - merge to HP universe
  4. Diagon Alley - merge to locations or universe
  5. Ghosts (Harry Potter) - merge to universe
  6. Horcrux - try to source, if not, merge to spells or magic
  7. Magical creatures (Harry Potter) -keep for now, try to source
  8. Magical objects in Harry Potter - keep for now, try to source
  9. Magical portrait (Harry Potter) - merge to magic article
  10. Money in Harry Potter - merge to universe
  11. Order of the Phoenix (organisation) - possibly delete, if not merge somewhere
  12. Patronus Charm - merge to spells or magic
  13. Potions in Harry Potter - try to source, if can't be, merge somewhere
  14. Spells in Harry Potter -try sourcing, if not major trim and merge to magic
  15. Unforgivable Curses - merge to spells
  16. HPANA - keep, looks like it could be GA
  17. Harry Potter Movie Magic Experience - DEFINITE MERGE to article about either the new theme park or fandom
  18. Muggle Quidditch - keep, silly but could be GA, gotta check, otherwise could bolster quidditch
  19. Draco and the Malfoys - Keep, could be GA material
  20. Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon - unless can be expanded, merge to fandom
  21. Tanya Grotter - could go for GA!
  22. The Harry Potter Lexicon - merge to fandom article
  23. Floo Network (web ring) - merge to fandom article

[edit] Unsure

  1. Hogsmeade
  2. Hogwarts Express
  3. Hogwarts houses
  4. Hogwarts subjects
  5. Goathland railway station
  6. GWR 4900 Class 5972 Olton Hall
  7. Harry Potter Fan Zone
  8. MuggleCast
  9. MuggleNet
  10. PotterCast
  11. The Leaky Cauldron (website)

[edit] Comments

Lucius Malfoy has a cast-iron notability claim from his place on the Forbes fiction 500. I would support merging Lucius and Narcissa together, possibly with Draco as well. Lucius can then hold the whole family above the water. In general I think this list might be a little ambitious - let's not try to accept or discount "the list" but instead consider each on a case-by-case basis. Happy‑melon 08:33, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

A subject is considered notable if it has significant coverage by multiple reliable, independent secondary sources - (WP:NN). Being mentioned once by one secondary source does not - in my opinion - construe significant coverage or establish notability - are there any others? [[Guest9999 09:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)]]
"Significant coverage is more than trivial but less than exclusive... The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally preferred"[my emphasis] - it's rather more than trivial. In fact, in this instance, the coverage is exclusive. Stephen M. Ross gets an article (as far as I can tell) purely because he's #117 on the real Fortune400. I know WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS but I don't agree: OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is an argument of sorts. Stephen Ross is totally unimportant except as a rich person. Malfoy's importance is not, as far as I'm aware, in any doubt - only his notability. I would argue strongly that the depth of coverage and quality of the source is sufficient to create a case for notability based only on this source - not, of course, to say that no other reliable sources can be found. Happy‑melon 15:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Just flicking through the Stephen M. Ross page it seems he has done other things including winning awards and donating large amounts to charity that will probably have been covered by the press. There also seems to be a school of buissness named after him. Any buisness man that successful will almost definately have had a lot written about him by different press and media outlets. Also he exists - Lucius Malfoy doesn't, mainly because of this I still think that more than one source should be found to establish notability of a fictional concept or character. However as sources could well be found for Draco Malfoy (more major character (in my opinion) - probably more interesting to analyse) maybe all the family members could be merged there? (Pretty much what you said to begin with). [[Guest9999 15:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)]]
Let's try and avoid the "not real therefore inevitably and without exception non-notable" argument. Other than that, I agree, and there is certainly enough real-world notability to cover the three of them (even if Narcissa is rather supported by the other two). Happy‑melon 17:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there a problem with the fan sites? I'm sure you could dig up a whole lot more notability citations for them than for something like blood purity. As they are actual, real world things, they have much more significant coverage than the in-universe terms. The fact that they're all been acknowledged by Jo is a start; Google News searches for at least Leaky and MuggleNet return a ton of responses. I'm also hesitant about merging a lot of stuff into the fandom article, because that's pretty much set to send off to FAC and I don't think it needs anything more. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 15:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the fan sites per se, its just that a few of them could be Good articles and some aren't as notable as others and should be a part of the fandom article. The ones I listed as unsure are ones I am not familiar with the site or its potential notability. Judgesurreal777 21:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Also, I think Horcrux is just one of those things where you WP:IAR and keep the article, and cite it as much as possible. As its AfD showed, this is an article whose deletion would not benefit Wikipedia, and its merging wouldn't help either. Definite keep for me. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 15:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that the "list of HP characters" that some of you are planning is a really really bad idea. In the end, there will be no individual pages for any character. To this point, there are only 15 individual pages, the rest is lists and groups of characters, that in my opinion are OK without creating larger lists. Something like this: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figuren_der_Harry-Potter-Romane is completely annoying. Lord Opeth 01:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
That is perhaps the largest article I have ever seen. We certainly will not be doing something like that as we have already agreed to keep 12 individual pages. The three remaining are Bellatrix, Pettigrew, and McGonagall. I personally do not have any strong opinion on how our characters section should turn out, but I would be interested in hearing your opinion since you are one of the more prolific character editors. – Basar (talk · contribs) 02:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps, once merged, the characters list could become a whole characters of harry potter article, not focusing on every character but how Rowling came up with them, their collective notability, and that way we can defend that article from bloating or having people recreate the minor characters as individual articles. Judgesurreal777 03:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Even by only pointing how Rowling came up with them, the article would be way too long. I would suggest, for instance, that we keep the article lists for Dark Wizards, Ministry officials, Order of the Phoenix members, etc. and begin the merging of other stuff not related to characters (for example, Plants in Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows objects, and more). I also suggest to keep separated articles for Bellatrix and McGonagall. Bellatrix's article contains a good number of third-party sources, and is well written (though it still needs some clean up). Lord Opeth 20:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Weird Sisters

Why are we keeping this article? Far more notable characters have had their pages deleted and, to me, the only part of this article that seems not to be cruft or OR is the lawsuit section. asyndeton 17:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The WS are only peripheric characters with neither notability nor importance in the series. Merge them somewhere else. Lord Opeth 22:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
The reason is because of the lawsuit regarding them. Perhaps it would be appropriate to merge it with the legal disputes article. – Basar (talk · contribs) 22:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. asyndeton 16:24, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I also agree with Basar, merge them into Legal Disputes. Lord Opeth 20:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, their notability is probably too limited. Judgesurreal777 21:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Characters proposal

Well, characters seem to be one of the more difficult areas we have, so I would like to make one sweeping proposal based on a number of other people's input. How about one main article like Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, 10 to 20 individual articles (currently around 14), and several logical groups where the combination of several characters aids in their depiction (like the Weasley family). Reasonable groups would seem to be the Weasley family, Hogwarts staff, maybe Ministry of Magic officials, Order of the Phoenix members, death eaters, students, and the Dursley family. The total article count would be approximately 15 to 30 articles (I would guess 21 or so). The advantage of this would be the easy interconnectivity and the framework for describing the way Rowling created these characters. – Basar (talk · contribs) 03:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

That's fine with me. Modeling after the Final Fantasy article would be a good idea. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 15:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
This sounds good. I predict two bones of contention: which "groups" are worthy of inclusion, and who is worthy of inclusion on the main list, which will start of massive. While the groups issue is one we'll have to debate over, I think we can say that the right approach to the main article is to include everyone that is currently scattered over all these other articles, and start a pincer movement. We start formatting the more important minor characters, and start removing the obviously less notable characters. The article size will start coming down, and when it gets to a sensible size, we know we've been harsh enough. Modelling on FFVIII seems reasonable to me too, although it cannot be a perfect match because there will be a larger proportion of minor characters in our main list. Happy‑melon 18:02, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Group pages

I think that we can merge, move and redirect some character group pages into others, so that we can have a smaller number of character articles. First of all, I suggest to create an article called "Dark Wizards in Harry Potter" and another one "Order of the Phoenix members", without the word "Minor" at the beginning, so that we can include some notable but not main characters in there. I'm going on details:

  • Keep separated pages for Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and Slytherins.
  • Keep the article about James and Lily that contains also the information about the grandparents and the Gaunt/Potter/Peverell relation.
  • Keep the articles about Ghosts, Portraits and House-elves. The three of them contain the information about characters like Nearly-Headless Nick, Dobby, Kreacher, Gray Lady, Myrtle, Fat Lady, and more (I propose to move Walburga Black into Portraits).
  • Black family: redirect the general information of the family to the already existing article about Blood Purity. Phineas Nigellus can be moved to the Hogwarts staff section. Move Regulus to the Dark Wizards article, and Walburga to the Portraits article.
  • Dumbledore family: move the information to the "Family" section in Albus Dumbledore's article that, right now, only contains a small family tree. Move Aberforth to the Order of the Phoenix Members article, move Ariana to Minor HP characters, and get rid of the information about Percival and Kendra: everything is contained in Albus, Aberforth and Ariana's article.
  • House of Gaunt and Riddle family: we can add a general but brief summary of both families in Lord Voldemort's article. Some section that says "Family" and two sub-sections containing "The Riddles" and "The Gaunts", without creating individual sections for Tom, Thomas, Mary, Marvolo, Morfin and Merope. Redirect the information about the Gaunts to the Blood Purity article concerning the House of Gaunt.
  • We can also add Bellatrix Lestrange, Gellert Grindelwald and Wormtail into the Dark Wizards article.
  • Merge The Weird Sisters into Minor HP characters.
  • Lupin and Tonks family: move Lupin to Hogwarts staff, move Nymphadora to the Order of the Phoenix Members article, and move Teddy, Ted and Andromeda to Minor HP characters. Redirect the page to Lupin himself.
  • Malfoy family: move both Lucius and Narcissa to the Dark Wizards article. The general background of the family can be placed in the Blood Purity article, and redirect there the "Malfoy family" page.
  • Merge Minerva McGonagall into the Hogwarts staff article.
  • Delete the article about Death Eaters, most of the information is included in Dark Wizards, Lord Voldemort, and some plot related sections.

That would leave us a total of 12 individual pages (Harry, Ron, Hermione, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape, Hagrid, Sirius, Ginny, Neville, Luna and Draco) and a total of 15 character groups pages (Dursleys, Weasleys, Hogwarts staff, Potters, OotP members, Dark Wizards, Ministry officials, Ghosts, House-elves, Portraits, Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, Slytherins and the Minor Harry Potter characters). That leave us a total of 27 character related pages. Lord Opeth 16:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

This sounds, in general, like an excellent roadmap. I have taken the liberty of reordering Opeth's comments into (approximately, IMO) order of increasing controversy. I have put the single "delete" at the bottom as AfDs really stir up the fancruft-lovers on Wikipedia who are certain to come out in support of it, no matter how useless it might be. I propose we start from the top and work downwards, working quickly until we start hitting opposition. Then we debate, of course. In general, sounds good. Happy‑melon 20:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
We must definitely get ride of "Minor" out of the title of these articles though, because, as someone pointed out in one of the deletion discussions, what constitutes "minor"? That's a judgement call the articles shouldn't make. Judgesurreal777 01:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Upon review, it seems that the only one left is "Minor HP characters"...could be hard to fix, perhaps merge to the regular HP characters list? Judgesurreal777 20:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, duh, the four "minor griffindor" and the other three houses are labeled "Minor", lets just list the names of the major characters with links to their articles and remove the "minor". Thoughts? Judgesurreal777 21:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Please explain again. Happy‑melon 21:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with what Lord Opeth said, that seems like a good idea. I also think the four articles for the houses at Hogwarts (as well as any other lists that survive): need to be kept to important things only. I've been saying for a while now: the minor lists need to go, as they become dumping grounds for anyone that appeared briefly in a book or movie (or someone mentioned by JK Rowling once in an interview as a possible character or whatever). Wikipedia has been cluttered with Potter cruft for too long, I hope this sticks. There is still 2 movies coming: and I can bet the articles will get constant changes and vandalism then. A person will see someone walk by Harry: and it will be put in articles as "the unnamed wizard that walked by Harry" I bet. I'm in no way against Harry Potter, I just strongly feel Wikipedia shouldn't be a guide to every plot detail and every character. RobJ1981 05:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Peversely, a character that Rowling considered but which never made it into the books is more notable than "boy who walks past Harry"!! But I take your point. I think any lists we create should have clearly defined inclusion criteria, as we've done for Spells in Harry Potter - we decided that either the 'official' vernacular name or the incantation must have appeared in the literary canon, which excludes things like "Dumbledore's Jinx", "Streamer Charm", "Narcissa Malfoy's jinx" etc. We can work on good criteria when we've worked out which lists to keep and which to chuck. Happy‑melon 09:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Real life stuff

Draco and the Malfoys
Goathland railway station
GWR 4900 Class 5972 Olton Hall
Harry Potter Fan Zone
Floo Network (web ring)
HPANA
Harry Potter Movie Magic Experience
Muggle Quidditch
MuggleCast
MuggleNet
PotterCast
The Harry Potter Lexicon
The Leaky Cauldron (website)
Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon
Tanya Grotter
The Weird Sisters (Harry Potter)

What are some thoughts on this? These are one of the last groups to deal with, and they really must be dealt with, because even though some are good to go on their own, like HPANA and Muggle Quidditch, many of these would do well being merged due to their limited scope and notability. Thoughts? Judgesurreal777 22:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I have some suggestions:

  • What about a "Harry Potter websites" article for all these notable websites?
  • Keep Tanya Grotter.
  • Merge all the stuff about the stations and trains to somewhere else.
  • I remember someone (I am sorry, I do not remember who is it right now) suggested to merge The Weird Sisters into the Legal Disputes article. I think it fits there, because TWS as characters are only incidental mentions.
  • Keep Draco and the Malfoys. Lord Opeth 15:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
The discussion of real-world topics is tangential to this discussion, and we must be careful not to allow ourselves to apply the same reasoning as we have (successfully) been using for fictional topics. "Merge" is a less common option here - there is no need to condense Harry potter websites into a list, for instance. Either a website has notability to stand on its own (per WP:WEB, or it doesn't, in which case it is deleted. The rules for factual articles are much more black-and-white than for fictional topics. That said, I suspect that Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon should be merged to "Parodies of Harry Potter". I would not consider The Weird Sisters (Harry Potter) to be a factual topic - merely a fictional topic with notability from a real-world lawsuit. From prior knowledge, I suspect that all the articles above are sufficiently notable to justify their own existence. Happy‑melon 17:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, we can probably foregoe merging and get to deletion in most cases or build toward GA. Several of them seem to have very limited notability, and should either have a sentence mention in the fandom article, or should be deleted. Judgesurreal777 22:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I also agree about the web sites -- why merge when you can keep, quite legitimately? If sentences/citations are needed to establish notability, see the Harry Potter fandom article. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 00:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Well that's the whole idea, is to decide which of these web sites are notable and which ones aren't, and I mean individually, I'm not saying keep or delete all, but to take an individual look and decide if it can become a GA article or should be merged/deleted. Judgesurreal777 05:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Ok, now that we've had a few weeks to think about it, what shall we do? Judgesurreal777 03:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Locations in Hogwarts

Hi guys. This AFD, has been closed as "merge to Hogwarts". I have done a very basic merge - the Hogwarts article probably now needs revising. Neil ☎ 10:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Character Pages

So I suppose we finally reached the point in which no more merges can be done to the characters pages, almost all articles are already strong. We have almost 150 characters, 13 of them have their own pages, the rest are divided in 9 group pages (Weasleys, Potters/Dursleys, Hogwarts staff, students, Death Eaters, OotP, House-elves, Ghosts, and the Minor characters). There are also some pages that are not for characters but feature characters like the Ministry of Magic or the Magical Creatures. Newt Scamander is listed in Fantastic Beasts, Kennilworthy Whisp in Quidditch Through the Ages, and Nagini in Horcrux.

The Death Eaters page already features those notable characters that are Death Eaters like Bellatrix, Lucius, Wormtail, Crouch Jr or the Carrows. The Order also features some relevant characters like Tonks, Aberforth and Kingsley. The House-elf and the Ghosts articles are somehow weak but the Magical Creatures article is already large, so I'm for keeping both of them. The House-elf features important characters like Dobby and Kreacher, and the Ghosts have the 4 Hogwarts ghosts, Myrtle and Peeves. The Minor HP characters article lists some secondary characters with a notable information that cannot be lost, such as Narcissa Malfoy, Gellert Grindelwald, Viktor Krum, Rita Skeeter, Ariana Dumbledore, Ollivander, etc.

We have a total of 22 characters pages then. I suggest we include all of them in the Characters section in the HP Template. Thoughts on this? Lord Opeth (talk) 18:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)