Talk:Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter

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Contents

[edit] Project standards

The Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter is meant to provide an extensive detailing of all things in the Harry Potter universe. An important goal of the project is to make this book a useful standalone guide not only for adults but for children and young adults of similar age to the Harry Potter characters. Therefore, several standards have been put in place to ensure proper quality of articles and the overall structure of pages in the book:

  • Follow the present structure of the site:
    • There are six main sections to the book: Books, Characters, Places, Major Events, the Timeline, and Magic. Place your content in one of these.
    • Sections and articles are normally very distinct entities within the book. A chapter in a Harry Potter book goes on its own page (i.e. Chapter 6 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince goes in like this). There is a hierarchical system stemming from the five main sections listed above.
  • Articles are generally not incredibly long. If the content is useful, by all means, include as much as possible, but remember to break up information into one of the five main sections if you can. Forming an intermixed yet individually distinct set of pages is ideal.
  • The Index provides an alphabetical lookup. This may be the single most useful page in the whole book, especially for readers only looking for reference information. Whenever you add a new article, make sure any important characters, places, or events in your article get referenced on the index page.
  • If you plan on making significant edits, by all means, be bold, but don't forget who you are writing for and what the rest of the book's authors would like. Any radical new formatting techniques should be discussed.
  • When writing articles, refer to events and characters in the present tense.
  • Frameworks for each section of the book exist to make new page formatting easier. Please follow them exactly when creating or laying out a page.
  • Character page section descriptions should follow this format:
    • Attributes: general descriptive statistics. A small amount of text about how the character looks, acts, etc. No analysis (i.e. looks, demeanor, main activities and occupation).
    • Role in the Books: details of the character's actions in the book. Some reflection on the cause and effect surrounding a character but mostly factual and extremely light on analysis. This is still the descriptive phase of the page (i.e. killed X in Book 5).
    • Strengths and Weaknesses: some analysis on where the character has faults, etc. Beginning of inserting facts to back up character statements (i.e. has trouble with confidence, crafty).
    • Relationships with Other Characters: interactions with other characters and the character's stance on others. Personal referencing (i.e. affectionate towards Y).
    • Analysis: general analysis on the character. Whereas the Role section covered how the character acted, this covers why the character acted. Some content here can tie in with relationship analysis the section above (i.e. X feels at home when at Y and feels a great sense of protectiveness over it).
    • Questions: reflection questions for the reader. Made to help the reader gain insight on the character (i.e. does this character really care about X?).
    • Greater Picture: present on many other pages, this is the true "tie-in" section. It points out what the character is likely to do / how likely to act. Point out future controversy and where the role of the character is headed, especially in reference to other characters (i.e. X is likely to go after Y in Book 7 due to his infatuation with Z. After Z's death this damaged X greatly).

Enjoy. -withinfocus

[edit] Links

We have elected to use absolute links (of the form [[Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Harry Potter|Harry]]) rather than relative links (of the form [[../Harry Potter|Harry]]) throughout this work. This was originally done because of the tool used to convert Wikitext into PDF in preparation for printing; this tool is incapable of handling relative links, and was not likely to be changed by the toolmaker in a reasonable time frame. It appears that this also makes it easier for novice editors to add links, as a specific page is linked the same way from every other page. Relative linkage can be hard for the new user to understand.

As a side effect, however, we have lost one useful simplification. If we have a relative link on the same level, ending it with a slash causes the last part of the link to appear as the link (e.g. "[[../Severus Snape/]]" on a Character page appears in the text as "Severus Snape"). This does not work with absolute links; the link "[[Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Severus Snape/]]" appears as a redlink, as the Wiki interpreter looks for a subpage of the Severus Snape page with an empty name. Thus every link must have not only the full absolute path to the page, but also the text to use for that link.

[edit] Names and Spelling

The first book of the series came out with two different titles. In the UK, it was named "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". Apparently the US publisher felt that the US audience would not have sufficient background into classical mythology to know what the Philosopher's Stone was, and so titled the book "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". The author has stated that she rather wishes she hadn't given in to her US editor on the matter of the title. While many fan sites, mostly in the US, have chosen the US title, this book uses the UK title as being somewhat closer to the author's intent.

By the same token, some words are spelled differently in the UK and US versions of the book. One in particular is the word "defence", which is spelled with a "c" in this book, following the UK practice. As this one word is used so frequently in the series (in the course title "Defence Against the Dark Arts", and in all of the teachers of that course), and as we have standardized on that use in topic headings and link targets, that same spelling should be used throughout the text. While we encourage British spelling (colour, rumour), with the one exception noted above we should not insist on it.

Finally, there is at least one character who has a slightly different name in the US book. The Divination instructor is named Sibyll Trelawney in the US edition, Sybill Patricia Trelawney in the UK / Canada edition. Contrary to our usual practice, we use the US variant of her name throughout, though in the article on the character, we do note the alternate spelling. Chazz (talk)

[edit] Review Standards

We need to decide loosely what we'll look for when marking a page as reviewed. First thoughts? -withinfocus 23:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay -- there are three categories in which we are asked to rate things, and I think we may want to have separate conversations about each. I'll suggest that we should sign our comments in each subhead so we know who's talking.

[edit] Composition

First is Composition. This is pretty much self-explanatory; level 1 is "correct spelling and grammar", level 2 is "good structure", and level 3 is "consistent style". All pages are at level 1 now, and most of the ones I've worked on, and pretty much all of Raven's, are at level 2. I don't know if I can claim "consistent style" because I don't know what the style should be. This is where I would like to get help from Raven, in particular. Chazz (talk)
All of our pages are highly structured and organized, so I don't think this one will cause much trouble. Almost all pages will receive a 3 in my opinion, and the small number of 2s will most likely due to the page being empty or unformatted. We tend to have very little spelling mistakes or grammar issues, so I think we don't need to worry about this since the existing frameworks have taken care of it already. Just make sure the page has our correct framework, the proper intro paragraph and detail infobox, and has content in the correct sections. -withinfocus 03:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
I can certainly work with Chazz on the "style consistency". This certainly seems a bit more abstract because, as Chazz pointed out, we don't know what the style should be, and everyone has an individual approach. Grammar and spelling are certainly good, and I'll defer to Chazz regarding grammar, as he's better at that, although there are US/UK differences, but I try to stick with the British style (which I have to guess at sometimes), as that reflects not only the books, the website. I've mainly been working on chapter analysis for all the books. I framed in the main points (as has Chazz), but I am now working on tying in the broader themes of the entire series.PNW Raven (talk) 22:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Accuracy

Second is Accuracy. Level 1 is Acceptable, level 2 is Good / Average, and level 3 is Verifiable. The areas I have been writing, summaries and such, generally are at level 2, some to level 3. I don't know if we can say any of the analysis is actually verifiable, without talking to JKR herself, so it's a definition of the term I'd be looking for here. Oh -- and lack of vandalism fits in this category as well; vandalism is, by its nature, inaccurate. Chazz (talk)
We might want to just shift the numbers around for our uses since we're working on fiction. Unless a brand new editor has added something I think we can assume 2 in most cases and 3 once another user has come across the detail. For instance, if a new user adds a supposed fact then that's really unreviewed or at a 0. We can pass by 1 and once a solid user like one of us comes in and adds a detail it will be treated as a 2. When another one of us passes through and verifies the reference then let's go with 3. -withinfocus 03:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
"Accuracy" on the analysis sections does seem a bit trickier, as by its very nature, it is someone's interpretation of the author's work. Certainly there are facts associated with it that need to be accurate, and for the most part, we've achieved a good level of correct information combined with opinion. I agree with Withinfocus' suggestions.PNW Raven (talk) 00:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coverage

Third is Coverage, level 1 is Acceptable, level 2 is Good/Average, and level 3 is Great. Again, the analysis is an area where there doesn't seem to be a clear idea of what the standard is. Can coverage be even Good if the analysis is lacking? I can write everything that Arthur Weasley did, but without analysis as to why, or information about how the author was building Arthur's character, can it be a good article? Chazz (talk)
This is where I think we will have the most work. Not too many of our pages will have a 3 from the beginning. We can go through the same iterative process as the above section maybe. Undeveloped articles start of course at unreviewed or 0, we make a first pass which sets us at 1 (most of our pages can default to this), and then to go to 2 or 3 I think Chazz, Raven, or another seasoned editor needs to make some swoops on it. The Trio most likely represent 3s. Maybe a 2 shows significant detail, not much analysis but some, and overall a complete but not full-bodied page. A 3 can be all the final touches including Raven's copyediting and a full analysis / greater picture. -withinfocus 03:09, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
I will suggest that the Trio are not at a 3 level yet. Hermione may be a 3 for coverage, though I think she needs more analysis and greater picture yet. Ron is definitely only a 2, and I suspect Harry is only a 1 -- I forget whether I've had the chance to give him the full treatment yet. Chazz (talk)
On re-examination I find that Harry is about 1 on coverage, as is Ron, in my opinion. Hermione could be a 3, but I think she's closer to 2 as analysis is still a little scant. Mike.lifeguard reminds us that 4 is meant for Featured Books and may not be appropriate for us yet... Chazz (talk)

Is it time to start reviewing on the basis of what we have here? Raven? Chazz (talk) 20:29, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Based on what we have here, I think it is probably time to start reviewing, at least as we edit. We have over seven hundred pages... it would be good to start getting them reviewed. Chazz (talk) 22:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Guys, this is a great description of how these things should be used. Can one of you put that in a project page (maybe move Help:Article validation too Wikibooks:Article validation and add it to that page?) double-checking that stuff specific to this wikibook is generalized to we can apply it more widely? Thanks in advance.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 01:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

We could... but bear in mind that it is also wrong. Looking at Help:Article validation I see that what I had thought was level 1 is actually level 0; as an editor, rather than a reviewer, I can't even see level 4 in the drop-down boxes. Which means that a lot of my reluctance to select level 4 is invalid. In any event... I'll look at this tonight, correct that here, and then see if I can generalize it. Chazz (talk) 01:44, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Now revised to have the correct levels, to match what is on the help page. Next, to see if I can take out the MG-specific stuff... but it all looks MG-specific... Chazz (talk) 07:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
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