User talk:Withinfocus

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Contents

[edit] TOC

Looks good, except... missing Books/Deathly Hallows/Extended Analysis sections.

I'll have to go over it in more detail to confirm that we've got all the characters listed, and all the magic. You were using All Pages as your guide? Because I have been trying to keep that up to date... that's largely what I would use as cross-reference, at least initially. Chazz (talk) 20:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

One other item... in Places you have Azkaban and Azkaban Prison. Azkaban Prison has had a Suggested Merge mark on it for a year. I'm going to suggest you take Azkaban Prison out of the TOC, and I'll merge and speedy it. Chazz (talk) 20:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for handling Azkaban... I would have gotten around to it, I'm sure I would have <grin> Chazz (talk) 19:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Too big? Hmm... I won't say I'm surprised. Not now that my fingers are as worn down as they are... <grin> Chazz (talk) 17:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Just finished going through the chapter summaries. There are now no redlinks in the chapter summaries, as well as the TOC being clean. I noticed that you removed a couple of links; I re-instated them, and write articles to fit them, then linked the articles to the TOC, and did the same for a couple of other redlinks I found. Every other redlink so far has been a link typo. Fun... but The End Is In View. Chazz (talk) 19:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Yet more characters

ChazzJr pointed out this morning that there are a number of red-lit characters on the Places/Ministry for Magic page. I've looked at them, and these are all trivial characters, mentioned once or twice but never formally introduced. Proudfoot, for instance, is one of the Aurors guarding the school in HBP, but we never see him, and he may also be mentioned in OotP once, but again we never see him. We're told that Marietta Edgecombe's mother works in the Floo Regulation department, but we never see her. And so forth. How should we handle them? Leave them redlinks? Delink? Or throw together pages for them? Chazz (talk) 17:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

'Owzat, then? Chazz (talk) 07:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
While I didn't count them, it does look like about fifteen redlinks on the contents page. I don't think any of them are minor enough to eliminate. Most of them are spells used once or twice, or magical creatures mentioned a couple of times (Chimera, for instance, is mentioned twice, once when discussing Buckbeak's defence, and once just after Hagrid's return from the mountains of Eastern Europe). If the PDF generator is complaining about them, I'll try to get content into them over the weekend – I was working on people, was going to do Magic later, but I can take a little time now to make sure we have at least something for each of those. Chazz (talk) 19:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Going through the redlinks on the contents page, I note that there are items in Magic that aren't on the contents page. Two cases in point: Transfiguration Today which appears a few times, and Foe-Glass, which is mentioned at least twice. Minor items, granted, but they should be there. I'm going to do a more serious cross-check between Magic and Contents later, will let you know when I've done that. I'll also re-check Major Events, though there aren't so many of those that I would expect any to go astray. Should I also keep All Pages up to date? Chazz (talk) 21:40, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay; the Magic items are updated, and there are now a few more redlinks there. I'll clean those up in the next couple of days, and I'll also check against Places and Major Events to make sure we haven't missed any of them. Still haven't dealt with syncing "All Pages" though. Chazz (talk) 01:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
That makes things a little easier. I can use the Related Changes link on the Contents page as I used to use the Related Changes link on All Pages to see everything that has changed; I think that's why All Pages was created in the first place. I have now checked Places (all present) and Major Events (some big ones unaccountably missing) and that's all up to date. Now all I have to do is go through and clean up the remaining few redlinks on the Contents page, and we'll be fine. Chazz (talk) 20:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
And that should be all the redlinks. If you find any anywhere, let me know; I'll be going through the articles individually to find any that are left, but I think that's the lot of them... Chazz (talk) 21:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] re:Bot

I've been working on this bot script for a while, and I think I have a pretty robust solution set up. I also found the list of pages at Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Contents, is this a complete (or mostly complete) list?

I'm going to look through the book now to make sure that I am accounting for all the usage patterns that are in use there. I'll test it out on a few pages first, and then we can move forward to a full-scale runthrough. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

First Test:
http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Muggles%27_Guide_to_Harry_Potter/Books&diff=1124955&oldid=1113127
Second Test:
http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Muggles%27_Guide_to_Harry_Potter/Books/Philosopher%27s_Stone&diff=1124957&oldid=1113967
Do me a favor and double-check these tests. I want to make sure there are no bugs before I screw up 500 pages in less then 5 minutes. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. I asked Chazz to double-check me, and now it's over. I hope this fixes at least one problem. Let me know if there are any problems. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 02:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, rather a lot of things broke. Details on Whiteknight's discussion board... we'll get them fixed, but it's a little messy at the moment. Chazz (talk) 06:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
That's the way it always is, right? I tested it on two pages when I should have tested it on at least three. Of course, if I had tested on three, I would have missed problems on the fourth, and so on.
Luckily, I think that all the newly created problems are easily fixable. That is, of course, assuming that I understand the extent of the problems. I'm hard at work on it now, and should have something to show for my efforts soon. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay, i think that just about everything is fixed now. Chazz pointed out yet another problem with some corner cases, so i'll see what I can do about those. Beyond the small issues, I think that all the links are basically expanded and fully-qualified. Now we can start thinking about how to make that print version and PDF version. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

According to my software and the list on the Contents page, your book has at least 786 pages in it. That's pretty impressive. I thought you would find that tidbit interesting. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How much use is the Muggles' Guide getting?

PNW Raven raised a question this morning, and I can't answer it. It is simply: is there any way to know how much a WikiBook is being used? I mean, it is certainly easy enough to find out how many edits are happening, but can we get page views? Is there any indication of how much actual interest there is in the book, apart from edits? I seem to recall some talk of using Google Analytics on our pages, is that being done with the Muggles' Guide? And if so, is it possible to see the results? Chazz (talk) 17:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

And so we know not whether we are preaching unto the multitude, or unto the void. Alas. Oh, well... maybe one day someone will tell us that they were taught using this as a textbook. Chazz (talk) 21:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Going off the data from the hit counter (and this data is about a month old, and has some known bugs in it), I would say that your book is getting anywhere from 500-1500 total hits per day. According to the page counter, it's about the 7th or 8th most popular book on Wikibooks. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Borgin and Burkes...

I think the problem is in the name of the page, actually. The fact that it contains an ampersand may well be the core issue. Ampersand is a special character in a lot of windowing systems... it may be that we're not allowed to use it. That is the only place we have an ampersand in a page name AFAIK.

If you do rename it, could I suggest that it should be named "Borgin and Burkes"? That is how it appears both in CoS and HBP. Chazz (talk) 01:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean, I was right? Good grief... I don't even know which LaTEX converter you're using. "Yer a wizard, Chazz..." Chazz (talk) 02:02, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Wild-arse guess time again? I'm going to suggest that the issue with "Books and Textbooks" may be under T: The Standard Book of Spells has a number of lines that start "*:*" for the individual years. If the Magic page works, then probably the prefix ":*" would work, because Magic uses that. Chazz (talk) 02:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I've made that change... would you try it again, see what happens? Chazz (talk) 06:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, now that's simply not supposed to happen. Twice you've asked a question about issues in a tool that I know nothing about. Twice I've made seriously off-the-wall guesses. Twice they have worked. I'm going out to buy a lottery ticket. Chazz (talk) 23:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Wait, what? Intimate with Wiki formatting? Me? With the help page up in the background? I don't think so... Actually, in my daily life I'm a developer, and so I tend to think the way programmers think, thus also the way computers... well, "think" isn't quite the word, but I can't find a better one. And so, armed with the intimate knowledge of what makes computers fall flat on their faces, I look for the inconsistencies in the pages. Twice now it is the inconsistency that has broken the converter. So... informed guesswork is all. Chazz (talk) 01:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Muggles' images tagged for deletion

G'day, please take a look through Category:Candidates for speedy deletion for some images used in Muggles' guide (e.g. logos for the various houses). They have been tagged for deletion by the bot that chased down fair use images with no rationale. Please supply a fair use rationale, or unlink from the book. cheers, Webaware talk 06:41, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bunch of new pages...

ChazzJr suddenly discovered that there are magical creatures mentioned in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that haven't yet made it on to the Magic page. Who am I to stand in the way of enthusiasm? So I've been helping out a bit by making sure the pages are properly frameworked and listed on the TOC... now, all we need to do is get them filled in a bit. Chazz (talk) 18:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of which -- I've been putting them on the Contents page, but I haven't been updating the All Pages page. Perhaps it's time to consider transclusion of the Contents page? Or should I simply update the All Pages page? Chazz (talk) 06:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The special pages on All Pages that aren't in Contents are Harry Potter, Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter, Infobox/Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter, Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Contents, Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Print version, Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Print, and the templates. Everything else should be listed in Contents. If we can dynamically include the Contents page into the All Pages page, once we've trimmed All Pages to just those specials listed above, that would be sufficient, I think. Chazz (talk) 22:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
What would happen if a link to Contents was explicitly included on the All Pages page, as well as the page being transcluded?
As it is, we don't seem to have anything that will show when changes have happened to the Contents page itself. Apart from that, though, it looks all right. Chazz (talk) 00:12, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I made that change and nothing seems to have exploded... a Related Changes from Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/All pages now shows the deltas to the Contents page as well. I hope that has it... Chazz (talk) 01:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Magic Creature features

Concerning these pages from Muggles' Guide:

Let's say we take this page; in the overview box, it defines the features of that creature. What exactly are the types of features that should go in those boxes? Cysiro (talk) 13:28, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Second Opinion

I'm looking for a second-opinion on this issue: [1]. The current User:Chico has no edits or log entries, but the account is only 7 months old. I know we don't have an official timeline or anything, but do you think 7 months is enough time to declare an old account "abandoned"? I'm inclined to say yes, but I would like the second opinion. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re:INDIAN DRAGON

I was asking for confirmation for two reasons:

  1. To prevent some sort of abuse, where a person creates an account here that is the same as an account elsewhere, to be used for defamation. This is the same kind of reason why we wouldn't allow an account named "Jimbo Wa1es" (notice the number "1" instead of the letter "l" in the name).
  2. To prevent future conflicts from SUL. If we allow somebody to usurp an account which is being reserved here for SUL purposes, that's just going to create a conflict that we're going to be asked later to resolve.

Further, I'm willing to be nice and rename people who have no intentions of actually contributing here if it resolves SUL-related conflicts. However, this courtesy is only really granted to people who actually are editing another project under that name, and are trying to resolve a conflict. If a person is not planning to edit here, and is not an active member of another project under that same name, I see no reason to rename here. That's just me, of course. None of these points are show-stoppers, just personal preference on my end. If you don't require confirmation for such cases, that's fine with me. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pages with wrong titles...

To what do you propose that we change your user page's name? --Remi (talk) 03:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I get it now. haha. :) --Remi (talk) 21:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Usurpation Mania

I'm sending this message to all our current bureaucrats, User:SB Johnny, User:Derbeth, User:Withinfocus (and myself).

If you take a look at WB:AN, you'll notice that we've been swamped with username usurpation requests because of SUL. This isn't even the half of it, my user talk page as well as Mike.lifeguard's are being loaded with them as well. I've been handling the majority of them, I've seen User:Withinfocus handle a couple as well. This volume of requests is likely to stay steady at least, and may rise as more users find naming conflicts.

I'm thinking that we need a more organized way to do this, at least temporarily. en.wikipedia has a nice model to follow, they have a dedicated rename requests page (several, actually), and they use a series of templates to create a lot of links to help the bcrats out. w:WP:USURP is the page, I believe. I would like to create a discussion page (Wikibooks:Reading room/Administrative Assistance/Renames is an option) where all rename and usurpation requests can be directed. The page can contain some basic instructions about how to request a rename, and maybe a few basic rules about it. I know we don't have any "official" rules yet, but maybe it's something that we can think about doing. This is another page on your watchlist, and more procedure, but it would help to ease the work flow a little, I think.

User:Withinfocus and I have already had at least one disagreement about a rename (it was very minor), but maybe it's worth coming up with some guidelines as a group? If we have a few points of consistency, that might help to streamline things a little.

Also, considering that bcrat-related activity is in a spike, and some of our current bcrats are less active here then they used to be, I think I would like to seriously field some new candidates for the position. If anybody has any comments or suggestions about this, I would love to hear them. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 05:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've created a subpage, perhaps temporarily, at Wikibooks:Reading room/Administrative Assistance/Renaming. I'm going to try to funnel rename requests to this new page, so that the WB:AN page can be less cluttered. I dont think we need to be militant about it, especially since it's probably temporary. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] B'crat nomination

Hi Matt. I know you tend to want to keep the numbers small on this sort of thing, but Whiteknight is getting swamped by the SUL issues, and Derbeth and I are both very busy these days (I'm in my spring crush, and won't have much time until at least mid-July). I'm nominating Mike.lifeguard for the job, as he's pretty much our main maintenance guy these days and won't mind the workload. He's been an excellent CU for us, and has been active on other projects as well (at least I've seen a lot of him on commons and meta).

Like you, Andrew and I tend to want to focus our efforts on content creation, and the onslaught of SUL-related stuff is likely to continue at least for some months as things get sorted out (why they didn't institute SUL before making multiple wikis I'll never know). Mike's willing and quite capable, and also has a good grasp of the foundation-wide policies on usurpations. --SB_Johnny | PA! 10:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for a partial page lock...

Matt, it looks like we've got a bit of an edit war happening, and I would like to request a partial page lock on two pages: Chamber of Secrets chapter 17 and chapter 18. We have an unnamed editor repeatedly moving the action from McGonagall's office to Dumbledore's... if we could temporarily lock those two pages to anonymous edits that would be useful. Thanks. Chazz (talk) 01:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll lock the pages now since I'm online. You can deal with the problem and unlock them later if you want. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that, Whiteknight. I'd post on his talk pages, but that seems to be a dynamic IP... Chazz (talk) 03:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Looks like it's over and I've removed the blocks. Usually things this light don't need protection. Revert twice yourself and if that still isn't the end, contact the user. If the user will still not stop, then let's make it a sysop issue. Thanks. -withinfocus 04:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Noted. Chazz (talk) 21:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to re-open this request. The guy has a dynamic IP; he's come in from two different IP addresses so far, at approximately the same time of day, and he's made the same change each time, approximately, and been reverted. Because he's dynamic, messages left on his IP won't reach him. Maybe a temporary protection on the page will convince him to get an ID? Chazz (talk) 07:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether this is still an issue. He may only edit on weekdays. He may pay attention to the edit reasons on the page history -- he certainly fills them in. Thinking about this, I'll say: let this rude for now, and I'll ask again if he edits inappropriately on Monday.
Actually, I see the ongoing vandalism and small, single-issue edits as a good thing -- it shows that people are coming to, and in a lot of cases, actually reading the book. Chazz (talk) 23:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First sentences

In Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter, I will be manually editing "Severus Snape is the Potions teacher...," to "Severus Snape is the Potions teacher...", etc. on most pages (i.e. The first use of an article's title in that article will become plain bold instead of bold-italic). See here or here. Letting you know so you don't mistake the edits for vandalism. >>>CysiroT/C 16:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted the changes I made. I felt it was a necessary change — sorry for any inconvenience. Cysiro talk! 18:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Prince trailer... and other stuff

I had heard that was out. If you look in the Related links, you'll see also the Official trailer, which is identical except it says "November" instead of "This Year", and lists the official web site as "www.harrypotter.com" instead of "www.harrypotter.co.uk". What I've heard is that they are doing a decent job on it.

On an unrelated note: I see that the {{alphabetical}} template on the main MG page is complaining that this is not a title page for a book. I don't know how to fix that... Chazz (talk) 18:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I saw a red message this morning that said "Not a book title page; please do not use {{alphabetical}}". That message is now gone. Possibly just someone playing with the templates... Chazz (talk) 23:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Side note: The Prince release date has been pushed back six months, in case you hadn't caught that tidbit... and there are reports of some people associated with MuggleNet having seen the previews. Chazz (talk) 16:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ~vacation...

No, not a vacation... Real Life™ interfering. In this case, four computers with virus infestations, a new school opening and needing computer setup, and a new business needing full network and phone install, plus one of my own computers blowing a power supply and one blowing a mainboard (possibly because of another failed power supply). What with one thing and another, I was simply too tired to do any real editing... here's hopes I can get back into the swing of things shortly. Chazz (talk) 16:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the welcome! Shruti14 (talk) 20:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request unlocking of "Second Life" entry

We have a 400-page curriculum written to address learning standards and developed with grant funding from the MacArthur Foundation. We need this name space to host it. It belongs in the "Second Life" entry.

The original textbook here: http://www.rezed.org/group/GKslcurriculum

See the Wikibooks prototype here: Global_Kids_second_life_curriculum

A video overview of the curriculum project here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02CKx3OMnU

My Wiki* portfolio here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jeremykemp

Jeremykemp (talk) 06:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quick question re: Hermione

As we discussed earlier, I had thought that it would be a good idea to hyper-compress the Trio. I've been trying to do that with limited success. (Harry's entry for Philosopher's Stone may be a little too compressed, for instance.) Over the past while, I've been beating on Hermione' entry. As the author, I can't tell how well I'm doing, obviously; I would greatly appreciate it if you could cast a quick eye across that (I'm working on Prince now, about 3/4 of the way through it) and let me know if I'm over-compressing or not compressing enough. Thank you very kindly. Chazz (talk) 23:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I guess you've noticed that I have been purely doing summary and roles? I'm a little unsure of myself when it comes to analysis. Tell you what – I'll rework Ron next, see if I can do a reasonable job there with analysis, and then if that works out I'll come back to Hermione, Harry, and Severus. One big issue with Severus is, of course, that one can't analyze too much without spoiling things... Chazz (talk)
Did you want to change the project standards to reflect this change in what we expect on character pages? Or should I do it, with my less perfect understanding? Chazz (talk) 23:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Seems reasonable... Did you see any other majors, apart from the Trio, Dumbledore, and Snape? Those five, at least as far as I can see, seem to be front and center throughout, with the caveat that Snape isn't revealed as being front and center until DH:33. I don't know what to make of Voldemort / Riddle: he's central, of course, and would be a major character, but he is not one we ever see directly, we only see him filtered through Harry, and he certainly doesn't grow any as the series runs; rather, if anything, he diminishes, almost falls to pieces before the end of things. And should there be an analysis warning at the start of the role section for the majors? Chazz (talk) 17:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "See also" section

I suggest adding a "See also" section (with internal and external links) to pages in the Muggles' Guide that will attempt to expand the knowledge of the reader. It would be fine to just add the sections to appropriate pages as we go along, but completely forgetting them where not useful (unlike Greater Picture, etc. which appears on all pages regardless). What do you think? Cysiro talk! 16:03, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SUL : Account usurpation request

Hi, I am using the SUL Trace. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Trace

I see the Trace account exists on en.wikibooks.org, but didn't post anything : http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=User:Trace

Could you allow me to usurp this account ? Thank you.

You wrote on http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Trace :

Please edit here with your username Trace confirming that you have requested this on en.wikibooks and leave me another message. Thanks. -Withinfocus (d) 8 octobre 2008 à 23:57 (CEST)

Here is my message : yes I made this request. Thank you for replying so fast.

[edit] Stable Versions

Does seem rather intriguing, yes. But there is a question... who decides? Certainly you have that option, as admin... but there are a massive number of pages in this book. Who gets to spend the time to decide? And that's only for this book... there are thousands of others. Valuable, but also a lot of work. Chazz (talk) 07:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Umm... I'm suddenly a reviewer? Chazz (talk) 00:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
You got autopromoted by the system :
# 00:03, November 22, 2008 Chazz (Talk | contribs | block) changed group membership for User:Chazz from Rollbacker to Rollbacker and Editors ‎ (autopromoted)
 — Mike.lifeguard | talk 00:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Eek. Now, I guess I have to decide what makes a particular revision good... oh, dear. Chazz (talk) 00:16, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
PNW Raven should absolutely be included in any discussion about quality; she is by far the most prolific editor here, is one of the few who I feel I don't have to check up on, and she has been trained in technical writing. Perhaps she should be granted Reviewer permission? As for using a bot to automark pages: I'd be against that, if only because I know so very many of the Magic pages are substandard at the moment.
So where shall we start? Did you want to talk to Raven, or shall I? Chazz (talk) 18:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Well, it wouldn't be a bot per se, but rather a maintenance script. It would flag all pages to the lowest level possible ("sighted" - which just means its free of vandalism). I think that'd probably be a good idea, since we otherwise have a huge backlog of things to flag.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 21:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Mike, I could deal with that as an option.
Matt, I have left Raven a message; she's on about every day now, we'll see what she has to say. Is she already an editor? If I'm reading the autopromote script correctly, she may already have editor status. Chazz (talk) 23:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent new page creation...

Matt, I remember not too long ago seeing a redlink somewhere in Deathly Hallows, but I cannot now locate it. I remembered it as being a pointer to a spell used only once... something like the Revulsion Jinx Hermione used against Yaxley on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place. Do you know whether a page was created for that redlink? Or was the link simply removed? I don't see anything like a page creation in the recent changes list... Chazz (talk) 23:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Muggles' Guide - new magical item?

Normally I wouldn't bug you about this, if I found a magical item I'd simply add it. But...

When Harry uses the Resurrection Stone, and in the graveyard when he is dueling with Voldy, Harry manages to summon the spirits of his parents and others. These don't fit the definition of ghosts, as they are not permanent, but revert when the spell summoning them is ended. JKR never gives these ethereal beings a name. The term "spirits" is too loaded, so I have been referring to them in my summaries as "shades", using the term for the departed spirits in Hades, from the Greek mythos.

Given that this seems to raise some question, and given that the term "shade" is never used in canon with this meaning, I am uncertain whether it is a good idea to put the term "shade" in the Magic section. It would give us a place we could point to clear up the confusion, but it is not canon and therefore might be considered OR.

Thoughts? Chazz (talk) 19:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. I've got some initial thoughts in Ghost already; I can just expand on that. Chazz (talk) 19:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Muggles' Guide: enhancement to canon?

Granted we don't want or need a new section for it... but should The Tales of Beedle the Bard be considered canon? Reason I ask is that apparently there are marginalia nominally by Dumbledore that may improve understanding of his character... or may not, I haven't yet read it. Chazz (talk) 00:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

We are in complete agreement, then. I'll see if I can scare up a copy on the weekend... Chazz (talk) 22:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] max doeys

hey, matt! this 'max doeys' person is not making very good edits so far, and i think it is time we took him off the muggle's guide. You were the first admin i could think of asking, so could you think about it for a while? thanks.ChazzJr (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Slight correction: he is making nothing but bad edits... Chazz (talk) 00:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] beedle

lo, whithin. i have read beedle cover to cover, and there is no such thing as 'applegrunt potion' in there. so if you're still wondering about it, there is no such thing as applegrunt potion in the tales of beedle the bard, or anywhere else. bye.ChazzJr ello! 04:45, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] the Shrieking Shack

It looks like we have two articles for this subject. I can merge the text, if you want, though that shouldn't be too much trouble as they both cover much the same ground; do we need to merge the edit history of Shrieking Shack and The Shrieking Shack? Chazz (talk) 20:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge is done, everything now points to Shrieking Shack, and The Shrieking Shack is on speedy. Chazz (talk) 20:37, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] MG print version page

Looks like an anonymous editor has undone your emptying of the Muggles' guide print page. Did you want to re-clear it? Or leave it as is, see if it works? Chazz (talk) 04:09, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Might want to make a note on that page as to why it has been blanked, then, to prevent that from happening again... Chazz (talk) 02:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Lily Potter

Should Lily's loyalty include Snape? Isn't that rather a spoiler?

I'm tempted to yank that whole list, and, like Snape's, put it under the Advanced spoiler. Chazz (talk) 18:03, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Seems to me that there are only two characters where the loyalty constitutes a spoiler... and that would be Snape and Lily. The only other ones which seem to be radically different in books 6 and 7 would be Dumbledore and Voldemort, and their loyalties don't change; Voldemort falls apart mentally, while Dumbledore has a shady past revealed. Oh, and Dudley... but I don't know if we can say that what he has is "loyalty", exactly. Toleration of Harry, yes, but that's all... Chazz (talk) 23:24, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Revision: Sirius Black's loyalty also constitutes a spoiler. Chazz (talk) 21:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] MG PDF version

Matt, User:Adrignola has suggested using the {{displaytitle}} template on MG chapter pages, and it sounds to me like a good thing, but I don't know how badly it will mess up Hagindaz' Wiki2LaTeX script. I've suggested that he put the template on the 17 chapters of PS, and once he's done that, perhaps we could run the script on those pages, see if it complains? Thanks. Chazz (talk) 18:32, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Adrignola has commented on my talk page. I'll add that what displaytitle does is change the tab to read "chapter 1" instead of the more generic "module", and change the page title itself to (e.g.) "The Boy Who Lived" instead of "Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Philosopher's Stone/Chapter 1". If it works with the print version, and Adrignola seems to think it will, it is an improvement. Chazz (talk) 21:21, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] MG timeline

Is there any benefit to extending the series timeline into the past to show the events of Dumbledore's youth? Specifically, I'm thinking of his friendship with Grindelwald and Ariana's death, and Grindelwald's reign of terror and defeat. Chazz (talk) 17:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Not really a separate section... I was thinking more that, right now the series timeline goes back to Voldemort's birth in 1920. I was thinking that we could push it back to Dumbledore's birth in 1890 or so, and have the attack on Adriana, Dumbledore's entering and leaving Hogwarts, and Adriana's death on there, as well as adding Grindelwald's reign. Chazz (talk) 14:24, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] MG: Orion Black

Matt, a new author has appeared posting from an IP, who seems keen on writing a section for Sirius Black's father and linking it in. I've said it doesn't seem necessary, but he seems to disagree. The page he created is here, and he has linked to it from Walburga, though not from Sirius. I'm really of two minds: it would at this point take relatively little work to bring it up to spec and link it in fully, and Orion is mentioned more than many other characters who have a single mention (at their Sorting) and still have their own pages. And yet we know so very little about him. Do you have an opinion? Chazz (talk) 18:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Noted. I'll do a little fact-checking this evening and bring it up to spec. Chazz (talk) 22:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
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