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See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:HP -- JHunterJ ( talk) 03:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, earlier yesterday I was came to Chronology of the Harry Potter stories and looked at the bottom at all the references to the books, Some referenced one special book, most a chapter, some with the chapter names etc. I took it on myself to put every book reference in there to the same style that was the most used already. So now later I started looking at the book referencing on other articles and seeing almost each article references the book differently. Examples:
Now there are probably many more different ways they have been referenced, but wouldn't a standardization be in order here? I sould suggest some sort of chapter referencing (so it can easily be used multiple times, instead of page references, and less times than just referencing the books), though I don't really have any suggestion for the format of it, though I sorta liked the way it was done on most (and now is) references in the chronology article Chandler ♠ TALK 22:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
This is mostly because the Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter/Templates doesnt seem to be used all the time Chandler ♠ TALK 00:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe use the {{ PStone}} {{ CS}} {{ HP-PA}} {{ GF}} {{ OP}} {{ HBP}} {{ DH}} who includes Chapter numbers, but add in the references from HP#ref Chandler ♠ TALK 01:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
A proposal to add a symbol identifying Good Articles in a similar manner to Featured ones is being discussed: see Wikipedia talk:Good articles#Proposal. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast ( talk) 19:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
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Cheers! Wassupwestcoast ( talk) 15:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been looking that there is a great difference between the 6 main characters' pages (Harry, Ron, Hermione, Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Snape), and the secondary, yet really important 6 characters. One of the main differences is that these characters (Hagrid, Sirius, Draco, Ginny, Neville, and Luna) have only a section for character development or background, and appearances (with Hagrid having a section for his pets, and Sirius and Draco for their families), but none of this 6 characters have sections for Attributes (outward appearance, personality, magical abilities, etc.) Should we work on this in order to improve this pages, or shall this Attributes section remain only for the 6 main?? -- Lord Opeth ( talk) 20:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
The article on Rob Knox has been proposed for deletion here. Please comment there if you like. Epson291 ( talk) 02:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Would any of you guys know the answer to the question here: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment#HP3 Film? Thanks, Zain Ebrahim ( talk) 07:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey. This is entirely random, so I thought I'd stop by and leave a note. I noticed that, on The Tales of Beedle the Bard, there are publishers listed. Since each book was handwritten by Rowling herself and wasn't published, then there shouldn't be any publishers listed. The problem with the page is that the HPBooks template has the publishers hardcoded. As such, I've been bold and am changing the page from using the HPBooks template to just using the Infobox Book template. You may want to consider changing the HPBooks template, or if you're okay with the infobox one being used, that's okay too. Thoughts? — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 13:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I hadn't realized until just now, but while listining to a recording of a press confrence with J.K. Rowling, JK announced that Dumbledore was meant to be a gay character. This is not a pratical joke. I have not looked for any sources on this but I know it has been anounced. Try finding some sources on the web it will make a good addition to the Dumbledore article(this is not a joke!). Gears Of War 14:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
In case you hadn't noticed, the image that has been on the top-of-talk-page template has been deleted. Anyone got any ideas about what could replace it? I don't know if it has to be free/fair use/whatever, so suggestions and instructions are welcome! -- THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR 03:16, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Why is Albus Potter in the Weasley family article. Shouldnt they either be talked about in Harry's article or have a Potter family article and mention them there? Gears Of War 15:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
As per my posting above, I am porting over the discussions from the Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom article discussions which speak to (redundantly) the proposed merger of both articles into a third, Dumbledore's Army. As a larger consensus from the wikiproject would seem advisable, I think it best to continue discussion here.
If someone could apply that wiki-magic that allows for the collapsing/hiding of the full text of the section, that would be splendid. It would allow everyone to get up to speed on the prior discussions before moving forward from there.-
Arcayne
(cast a spell)
The merge proposal for Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood into Dumbledore's Army is because of Wikipedia's policy of Notability. While Neville and Luna are indeed important characters within the series, they are not Notable in the real world as single topics, they have not been covered by external and reliable sources apart from the HP topic itself, and they seem not to have popular culture impact and references. Help was requested here in the WikiProject to improve not only Neville and Luna's, but also all individual characters' pages, and no one cared about it. Because of this, Neville and Luna's articles are poor if compared to the other characters with individual pages.
I repeat again that this does not mean that Neville and Luna are minor characters, they are major supporting characters, but also other major characters like McGonagall, the Weasley twins, Lupin, Umbridge, etc. are already merged because of the same reason. Importance within the series is not equal to Notability, and this merge is because of Notability.
Here is This draft to give you an idea of how the D.A. article would look like with these changes. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 19:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal
I have come with this proposal for both articles about Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood as, since we at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter began with Notability issues, both of this characters have failed to meet the criteria, and there are no third party references and real-world impact of the characters. Apart from this, both Neville and Luna cannot be considered among the 12 more important characters in the series, as it is like placing them in the same level and status as, for example, the trio, Voldemort, Snape or Dumbledore, whose both appearances in the series and Wikipedia articles are much more important and notable. For example, Neville plays an important part only in 2 books, McGonagall and the Weasley twins made much more appearances than Luna (who actually has no great plot involvement in the series), and there have been some other really important characters that have been already merged (Lupin, Umbridge, Bellatrix, Wormtail).
I have made This draft to give you an idea of how it may look like (it is a revision so that it also shows the images). -- Lord Opeth ( talk) 18:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
- Do it, Luna probably won't be able to become a good article on her own, but as part of the DA, then it might be a featured list. Judgesurreal777 ( talk) 23:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose - There's far too much topic-specific content in the Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood articles to be merged into the already long Dumbledore's Army one. An article that "probably won't be able to become a good article" is not grounds for removal by any Wikipedia standard. -- Oakshade ( talk) 03:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, but the "too much topic-specific content" is mostly fan-cruft and overdetailed scenes not really important for the plot in general. If you take a look at the draft, the sections for both Neville and Luna are trimmed to really important information about the characters and some comments from Rowling. Apart from this, the characters are not neither among the most notable of the HP in real world, nor among the most important characters in the series. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 16:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
- They're both very popular, especially Luna Lovegood. There's much more information that can be written beyond the limited scope of your stripped down merged proposal. With another Potter film n the works, the available sources will only become more plentiful. -- Oakshade ( talk) 03:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
- This is not a popularity contest. I think that Lupin, who is already merged, is much more popular as there are plenty of fanfics and stuff about him. Same with James, or even Pansy Parkinson. But a character is not notable according to the Wikipedia policies only if it is popular, but if it has impact in the real world, popular culture references, and third-party reliable sources. Both Neville and Luna have failed to meet that. My merge proposal's scope is not limited, what is limited is the scope of the articles themselves, only limited to the appearances and character backgrounds, and no more.-- LøЯd ۞pεth 18:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
- Luna Lovegood easily passes the core criteria of WP:NOTABILITY ("If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable."). Just a google news search alone brings up literally hundreds of secondary sources that Luna Lovegood is the subject of, satisfying the main criteria of WP:NOTABILITY . Sure, not all are primarily about her (not a requirement of WP:NOTABILTY anyway), but the secondary coverage by reliable sources is far beyond WP:NOTABILITY's scope of "passing mentions". A character does not have to be the "most notable" or "most important" to have an article under any Wikipedia guideline. Your "actually has no great plot involvement in the series" is a completely subjective opinion and in fact has no baring in Wikipedia inclusion standards. -- Oakshade ( talk) 19:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
- This is not a deletion discussion but an info presentation discussion, and we have to consider notability, redundancy and undue weight of elements. E.g., there is no question that the Flux capacitor is notable, but it's still only a section in the De Lorean time machine article.
Having said that, I'll need a closer look at both character articles and the draft to form an opinion, as both characters seem to be borderline cases for keeping/merging.– sgeureka t• c 05:37, 10 July 2008 (UTC)Oppose- First Neville. Neville is very important to the story as either him or Harry could have been the person referred to in the prophocey. Also, like Luna, his "text time" only increased as the books progressed. Without Neville the final books would have been far to predicatable. Luna was a indeed a minor character early on, but in the last few books her status was eleveated. I dont think importance should be confussed with time in the series. Also who said there can only be 12 important characters? Why have 12? Why not 20? Why not 5? Skiracer712 ( talk) 21:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Some thoughts: Evanna Lynch is commonly known as Luna's actress, not an actress on DA, and I think Rowling considers Luna as an important, although "new" character. Interwikis are separate articles. -- Thi ( talk) 21:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
- What you people seem not to understand is that no one is saying that Neville and Luna are needless or that they had no importance at all in the series. Of course they are important, but they have failed to meet Notability in the real world, they seem to have little impact in spheres that are not part of the HP fan community, and no reliable third-party citations are given for both of them. Both of they articles focus only on character background and appearances. You should take a look to Harry's or Snape's articles to see what I'm talking about.
- The argument about Evana Lynch I think that doesn't fit into this discussion: Maggie Smith's character, Minerva McGonagall (who is much more prominent than Luna), is already merged into Hogwarts staff, and no one thinks that Maggie Smith is an actress on Hogwarts staff. And I can go on with countless actors whose characters are already merged (Imelda/Umbridge, Helena/Bellatrix, Isaacs/Lucius, Broadbent/Slughorn, Walters/Mrs. Weasley, etc.)
- Also, no one is saying that there are only 12 main characters, but 12 is the number of characters that have individual articles right now, hwoever keeping Neville and Luna is like placing their level of notability on a level similar to that of Voldemort, Snape, Dumbledore or the trio, which obviously is not the case. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 23:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge I read the draft, and I trust Opeth to already have merged the most notable bits there. However, I'd still say Luna's merged part is 1/3 too long, mostly for the plot details and lack of included real-world info ( WP:UNDUE/ WP:WAF). This counts against keeping the article and encourages a merger. – sgeureka t• c 11:51, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
- Well, there are more opinions favoring the merge and it has been more than 3 days so I have merged the article into Dumbledore's Army. Discussion is still going on Neville. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 00:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- 2 in favor and 2 against is not in any manner consensus. Three days for a proposal is not at all sufficient amount of time for a merge proposal to be presented for a consensus opinion. A month would be sufficient. -- Oakshade ( talk) 02:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Lord Opeth has been working on Harry Potter articles every day for as long as I can remember, so he's not just some random person, so let's not treat him that way. Second, consensus is generally weighed by who is the most active, and again Opeth carries a lot of weight there too. We don't need to wait months to merge articles that cannot sustain themselves in terms of notability and real world sources. These articles have been hanging around long enough, and can be safely merged. Unless you can show that these articles have more real world notability, then merging is the natural thing to do. Judgesurreal777 ( talk) 03:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- While i appreciate his hard work, we need many editors, ether what is considered "active" or "non-active" to weigh in on such a major proposal (there is no "active editor" clause anywhere in WP:CONSENSUS, by the way). One month, not months, is sufficient time for editors to weigh in on the subject, not 3 days. -- Oakshade ( talk) 03:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Oakshade, you should check also Neville's talk page, there are some other opinions in favour of the merge (more for Luna than Neville). And, without those opinions, in this talk page there are still 3 opinions favouring the merge, and only 2 against. Also, you should read the policy Sgeureka mentioned, and also what the Help page says about merging: "Merging is a normal editing action, something any editor can do, and as such does not need to be proposed and processed. If you think merging something improves the encyclopedia, you can be bold and perform the merge, as described below. Because of this, it makes little sense to object to a merge purely on procedural grounds, e.g. "you cannot do that without discussion" is not a good argument." In this case, I presented a discussion in order to further explain the reasons for merging this. Those who have voted in favour of the merger have understood that, while the characters are important in the series, a couple of interviews with the portrayer and the author are not enough to establish notability. I want to remind everyone again that this is not a popularity contest, this is the normal procedure while working with non-notable elements of a work of fiction. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 04:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Lord Opeth, you conveniently left out what follows the sentence you quoted from Help:Merging and moving pages which states "If the merger is controversial, however, you may find your merger reverted, and as with all other edits, edit wars should be avoided. If you are uncertain of the merger's appropriateness, or believe it might be controversial, or your merge ends up reverted, you can propose it on either or both of the affected pages.". "You cannot do that without discussion" is fact is a great argument. In fact it is the basis of WP:CONSENSUS, which is the core policy Wikipedia that always needs to be followed. Referring to some opinions on a different page is not establishing consensus. -- Oakshade ( talk) 05:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- I proposed the merger 4 days before performing it, I didn't act without reading opinions from other Wikipedians. Referring to some opinions on a different page is not establishing consensus, I agree, but those opinions count too as the proposal was placed for the same reasons at the same time in both talk pages, not only in here. I am not going to debate this further with you, as I'm not interested in making you to change your mind, and you would obviously not going to change mine (you must visit the Harry Potter wikia, EVERY character has an article there). Good luck. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 05:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not at all saying there might not be a consensus for this merge. As a matter of fact, I placed a merge tag on the Dumbledore's Army article (it was never there) and notified the HP project of this proposal in an effort to gain a thorough weigh-in of this subject. After a sufficient amount of time (for controversial merges, most merge discussions go on for about a month), if consensus desires the merge, as always I will respect it. -- Oakshade ( talk) 05:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- I'll agree with Oakshade that three/four days was a little short, and propose to leave this merge discussion open for 10 more days at least (2 weeks to 1 month is the generally accepted merge proposal time). I'll also state that the only good reason to not merge is the addition of real-world info, and the extra time allows interested editors to look up sources. We can then tell whether Opeth's assessment was right (I don't doubt it, but I've been positively surprised before). – sgeureka t• c 06:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Comment - Category:Characters in The Lord of the Rings, Category:The Chronicles of Narnia characters There exists articles like Mrs Macready Bill Ferny and Grimbold and probably other less important characters (for the series) than Luna and Neville with own articles (and not as good(?)). I don't see why it hurt to have the characters on own articles instead. — chan dler — 05:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- That's a reason to cleanup the articles in this category as well, not to keep other "bad" (in the WP:WAF sense) articles around. – sgeureka t• c 06:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Comment - Mrs Macready has been merged into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe#Character List by another Wikipedian, who probably didn't know about this debate. -- THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR 23:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose Both the articles at the moment are diabolically awful, but as noted above, the potential for improvement is there. We shouldn't focus on what the articles are like now, but what their potential appearance is. Characters like Lupin have, unfortunately, no chance of ever becomming good or featured articles; Luna and Neville, by contrast, have a wealth of reliable sources behind them. They need a lot of cleanup, but they'll get there eventually. Happy‑ melon 09:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Some comments here...
- Sgeureka: I have performed in the past dozens of mergers and this is the first time someone is doubting they are in good faith and in order to improve the topic. I might say again that I myself looked and added a couple of comments from the author to create more sections (apart from Appearances and brief backgrounds), and I also asked for help in the WikiProject, but no one else helped with it. It was some months ago, and the articles are still in this state.
- Chandler: as Sgeureka said, it is not a good argument to have and keep lots of poor articles if other WikiProjects do the same. The LOTR especially is known to be one of the must crufty there, just look at the categories they have (with only 2 articles listed) or articles 3/4 written in Elvish and the rest in poor English.
- Happy Melon: how many time has it been since we were debating Notability in the WikiProject, and no one has managed to write down a line to prove the supposed notability of Neville and Luna? I mean, take McGonagall, who was clearly more important than Luna, and as important as Neville, and appears in much more parodies and stuff about HP than both of them; or Lupin and the Weasley twins that appear in much more fanfics, parodies and stuff. I highly doubt that there are indeed reliable secondary sources for Neville and Luna. I think that this sources actually focus in the main characters and most prominent elements of the plot, and I also think that a couple of interviews with the actors are not enough to establish notability. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 16:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- This character passing WP:NOTABILITY is directly addressed above. -- Oakshade ( talk) 18:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- My friend, a bunch of interviews with Evana and some reviews that are not particularily about Luna are not enough. I have seen lots of interviews with Katie (Cho Chang), Robert (Cedric), Clémence (Fleur) or the Phelps twins, and I don't recall their characters have been kept. Not even Umbridge, who was claimed by Stephen King as one of the greatest villains since Hannibal Lecter, and had also some interviews with Imelda Staunton, has her own article.-- LøЯd ۞pεth 17:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
- My friend, here's the opening of of WP:NOTABILITY (put in bold as you seemed to have ignored it above, as you did with the Help:Merging and moving pages guideline above):
"If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable."
My friend, this topic has received an abundance of significant secondary coverage. My friend, even if you omit the term "Evanna Lynch" from a google news search, there still is HUNDREDS of secondary sources covering Luna Lovegood [1]. If you include "Evanna Lynch", there are hundreds more. [2] As mentioned above, maybe not all of the secondary sources are primarily about Lovegood (not a requirement of WP:NOTABILITY anyway), but the secondary coverage by reliable sources is far beyond WP:NOTABILITY's scope of "passing mentions". My friend, you cannot get around the fact that this character passes the core criteria of WP:NOTABILITY easily.-- Oakshade ( talk) 19:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)I am not completely sure if a google search is enough to establish notability, at least the policy has never stated that if the subject of an article appears in google searches, it is automatically notable. Just to prove that it is not 100% accurate (because it is not 100% wrong also), here I have google news searches for other HP characters that have been already merged (each one have HUNDREDS of results too):
- Minerva McGonagall
- Professor Flitwick
- Pomona Sprout
- Professor Quirrell
- Gilderoy Lockhart
- Remus Lupin
- Mad-Eye Moody
- Dolores Umbridge
- Horace Slughorn
- Sybill Trelawney
- Fred and George Weasley
- Arthur Weasley
- Molly Weasley
- Bill Weasley
- Charlie Weasley
- Fleur Delacour
- Nymphadora Tonks
- Kingsley Shacklebolt
- Bellatrix Lestrange
- Lucius Malfoy
- Narcissa Malfoy
- Barty Crouch Jr.
- Peter Pettigrew
- Lily Evans
- Vernon Dursley
- Petunia Dursley
- Dudley Dursley
- Cornelius Fudge
- Rita Skeeter
- Viktor Krum
- Cedric Diggory
- Cho Chang
- Pansy Parkinson
- Vincent Crabbe
- Gregory Goyle
- Dean Thomas
- Dobby
- Kreacher
- Grawp
- Aragog
It seems like LOT of job to do then, shall we begin to retrieve individual articles for this characters? Shall I begin then to re-create a characters template in order to better organize all this extremely notable articles? -- LøЯd ۞pεth 23:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
- I'm sure many of the sec. character could stand on their own, but I might just be better to have them "sorted" in fewer articles, it will make it easier to keep track of them all, so less vandalism can find its way in. And that they are notable, perhaps, but this isnt a proposal to delete any characters, so they will still exist. — chan dler — 23:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
- It's not a google search or any other type of search that establishes notability, but the coverage by reliable sources that are found on those searches are what demonstrate it and the passing of WP:NOTABILITY (I can't believe I needed to explain that). -- Oakshade ( talk) 04:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal - arbitrary break 1
- Counter proposal: Opeth, just copy-paste the trimmed version of Luna over the existing version, and do an careful extra trim to remove unnecessary detail. Then create empty real-world info sections (Concept and creation, development, reception, themes, personality - I don't know how novel characters are structured) with {{ expand}} tags, add a
{{ notability|fiction}}
tag (leave the merge tag in) at the top and wait a month. After the month, the article has either improved so that it can stay, or it's still as bad as to make a merger feasable – either (1) there is no significant usable info to establish WP:NOTABILITY or (2) no one fulfills their WP:BURDEN (which some people here seem to want to push on you, when it's really theirs). – sgeureka t• c 09:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)- Oppose although Luna Lovegood appears late in the series, her importance to the plot grows as does her importance to the main character Harry Potter. In the final book, if you measure importance by page mentions (just to point out one criteria), Luna actually is more important in DH than Ginny Weasley a far more important than Neville Longbottom. The author also chose to highlight the character by having her take part in the final decisive duel with the leading Death Eater, with the two most important female student characters, Hermione and Ginny. If she was such a "minor" character as some here think she is, I doubt the author would have chosen to highlight her in the climax of the book.-- Count Westwest ( talk) 16:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose. Luna is a major character, as is Neville. If Harry and Hermione deserve their own articles, then so do they. Serendi pod ous 10:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
- The criteria is not page mentions or duels (if so, then McGonagall, Kingsley and Slughorn should get back their articles as they did duel Voldemort, who is more important than Bellatrix). Also, in my proposal I never said Luna or Neville are minor characters, indeed there are major characters that have not their own articles (see some examples in the proposal). The criteria is Notability, which this articles have not met. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 17:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
- Lord Opeth, as you are under the incorrect impression that this topic fails WP:NOTABILITY and you don't seem to be building a consensus for this merge, you might as well bring this article to WP:AFD as AfD is meant primarily for topics that fail WP:NOTABILITY. -- Oakshade ( talk) 20:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
- What are you talking about? First of all, consensus is built by several users, not only by a single one. Everyone, including myself, have the right to express points of view, and I am only doing the same thing you are doing: commenting and defending points of view. Several people that have voted here seem to think that a merge proposal is equal to saying a character is not important. Of course not! There are much more major characters in the HP series, but not all of them have their own articles and not all of them have met notability. I say that Neville and Luna are important in the series, but so are McGonagall, Lupin, the twins, and many more, and all of them are already merged into lists of characters. Second, and this is really important, this discussion is not a nomination for deletion. Merging and deleting are very different things: my main proposal is not to delete all information on Neville and Luna. My proposal is only to merge both of this elements of fiction into a major list, in which not big content will be lost. I still don't know why this is such a big deal if other important characters (like those I've previously mentioned) are merged too, especially if both articles are not too long and focus almost entirely on appearances in the series. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 21:28, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose, I think that the fact that both Neville and Luna helped Harry in the Department of Mysteries in the fifth book clarifies that they're very important to the series. Jammy ( talk) 21:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
- Well, Lupin, Mad-Eye, Kingsley and Tonks appeared in the Department too, and none of them have their own articles. Also, and I will not be tired to repeat it, this merge proposal doesn't mean that Neville or Luna are not important in the series, but some participation in battles is not enough to establish Notability in the real world. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 22:04, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose as well. It's not going to work in the long-term, for the reasons noted below. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 10:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal - arbitrary break 2
- I had actually tried to stay out of the conversation, as there are too many fans with keyboards, and my metaphorical wiki-bat would metaphorically splinter before I could make sufficient metaphorical impact (read: metaphorically cracked skulls) amongst them regarding actual wiki policies and guidelines.
- I sometimes find Lord Opeth to be a little too quick to implement change in articles. While his heart is in the right place, he does tend to seek changes that the rest of the community might not be ready for. However, that doesn't necessarily make the suggested changes a bad thing.
- I would submit that, having been able to step outside the series for a time, I have begun to see a pattern in wiki articles about series, be they television programs, movies and books. When initially popular, the wiki will have articles on every facet of a particular subject (ie. Rambaldi Cube, Sorting Hat, or Sonic Screwdriver). This initial popularity is not the same as notability, as notability does not fade; over time, as these various facets are shown to not "shine" as brightly as others in the overall subject, they are merged into relatedly less important articles, so as to avoid the problem of undue weight being given to something that is less important to a particular subject than something else.
- The question prior to this merging becomes (at least in this particular discussion) 'what makes them vitally important to the series'? Can the series be accomplished without Neville or Luna? Undoubtedly, yes. They assist those characters who are central to the main story, but their presence or absence doesn't specifically help or hamper the overall story. Therefore, giving them their own articles - when we have the benefit of the full story presented in the novels and are fully aware of their lack of vital importance to the main story - becomes an argument of undue weight.
- I favor the proposed merge. Luna and Neville, while being notably important enough to the overall story to warrant mention, they are not notable enough - given our greater understanding of their total actions within the completed series - to warrant their own articles anymore. Merging them into an article with others of less than vital importance is both appropriate and encyclopedic.
- On a side note, am I the only one who has noted the discrepancy between the articles? In Luna's, it says she marries Neville. However, in Neville's, it says he marries Hannah Abbot. So, who wants to be a fly on the wall when Neville is found out for the bigamist he apparently becomes? ;) - Arcayne (cast a spell) 10:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
- Again, Merge the two of them - Unless a lot more information has been found to establish notability, they should be merged, pure and simple. Judgesurreal777 ( talk) 22:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal
I have come with this proposal for both articles about Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood as, since we at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter began with Notability issues, both of this characters have failed to meet the criteria, and there are no third party references and real-world impact of the characters. Apart from this, both Neville and Luna cannot be considered among the 12 more important characters in the series, as it is like placing them in the same level and status as, for example, the trio, Voldemort, Snape or Dumbledore, whose both appearances in the series and Wikipedia articles are much more important and notable. For example, Neville plays an important part only in 2 books, McGonagall and the Weasley twins made much more appearances than Luna (who actually has no great plot involvement in the series), and there have been some other really important characters that have been already merged (Lupin, Umbridge, Bellatrix, Wormtail).
- I have made This draft to give you an idea of how it may look like (it is a revision so that it also shows the images). -- Lord Opeth ( talk) 18:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
That's fine by me. I mean, McGonagall (as an example) doesn't even have her own article, so merging Neville's and Luna's into the DA section makes sense. Heck, Luna barely figured in the final battle in Deathly Hallows. If this proposal is given the green light, some content would be removed so the main article isn't excessively long. I agree, let's leave the personal articles for the characters pivotal throughout the entire series (the trio, Snape, Dumbledore, Voldemort). Beemer69 chitchat 21:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, definitely there is some content that should be removed from both sections, especially cruft and unsourced material. In the draft I made, some content is already cut to have reasonably sized sections.-- Lord Opeth ( talk) 23:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
- Trimmed down to their essentials, they would fit into a character list article like the D.A article, but doesn't have enough content in its own. Judgesurreal777 ( talk) 00:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
- I never quite understood how Luna's article survived the earlier merge-spree of HP (aside from the fact that she seems to be quite popular). I would say that Neville deserves his own article; he's certainly the most borderline case, I think, but I'd say the article is warranted. faithless (speak) 02:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Faithlessthewonderboy that this is the most borderline case. However, in the merged draft, I still see a lot of original research in his second paragraph, and too much plot detail in the description of how he got his wand and how he participated in the final fight - i.e. his coverage can be even trimmed further without losing much. He may have slightly too much info for a merge into Dumbledore's Army, but definately too little siginificant info to support his own article in the WP:GA sense. If I had to go for the lesser evil, I'd reluctanty pick the merger. OTOH, if real-world info of two or three paragraphs worth can be dug up against Opeth's expectations, I'd !vote against the merger (but support a trim) in a heartbeat. – sgeureka t• c 12:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
- Sometime ago I looked for quotes about Neville in pages like Lexicon and stuff, and added them (for example, that Rowling wanted Neville to do something important in the first book, or that you as a teacher should not bully students, and Neville/Luna's shipping), but apart from that I didn't even could make an Attributes section like those I created in Sirius, Hagrid or Draco's articles. I asked people in the WikiProject for help but no one (except User:The dark lord trombonator) replied, maybe because there is little more for Neville to be said that comes from reliable secondary sources, which proves that he is not that Notable. As for the draft, I also noticed the wand stuff from book six, I think that we shall trim that, but I don't think that the second paragraph is OR: most of it is "explained by Dumbledore" in the fifth book - maybe only the "second only to Hermione" thing is OR, and it shall be removed. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 21:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Who exactly are the 12 most important characters? The trio, Voldemort, Snape and Dumbledore I can understand - but who are the other 6? By the way I oppose the merger for Neville, though support it for Luna. Neville was a pivotal character for the series and had one of the greatest character developments. As it stands, he doesn't really belong in the DA article as his role in the series extended well beyond that. The only thing he is missing to outright deserve an article of his own is a popular culture reference. Iciac ( talk) 02:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Iciac, I didn't intend to make it look like there are precisely 12 main characters in the series, but that there are only 12 characters with individual pages left. Importance in the series is not enough to establish Notability, a policy that has much more weight that any character development. I have given some examples of other pivotal characters like McGonagall or Lupin that are already merged. Lupin's involvement in the series is not only in the Order of the Phoenix, but because he has failed to meet notability, he doesn't deserve his own article and that's why he was merged into the most suitable article. Same applies to Neville and Luna: both of them are more than just D.A. members, but it is the best article to merge them if they have to be merged. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 04:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Support I've read over the draft, and agree that (as of the article now) he should be merged. However, as sgeureka stated in the Luna Lovegood discussion the actual merger should be delayed by a couple of weeks to allow editors time to attempt to find sources which support his notability, and thus would be weight against the merge. I myself could find none in his Harry Potter wikia article. Iciac ( talk) 11:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Comment "Dumboldore's Army" only appears in a one or two of the series...so you are telling me that the D.A. is a better article than, say, Students who attend Hogwarts or something similar? (The D.A. would only include students who are on the side of "good". Example: No Crabbe, Goyle, etc.) the_ed 17 20:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- There was an article about "Hogwarts students" previously, but it was over 80 KB and there were still some characters missing, including lots of minor Quidditch players and stuff. The article had not a definitive inclusion criteria because having a section for every single student would give us an article over 120 KB (for example, why wasn't Warrington mentioned at all, Montague was in the "Others" section, and Theodore Nott had his own section if all of them were minor characters?), that's what it was decided to retrieve the article about the D.A., that would include only the D.A. characters, in order to have a definitive inclusion criteria. At that moment, "Dumbledore's Army" was merely a link to a section of the article about the fifth book, which is not the case because the D.A. also appeared in the final book and had some little involvement in the sixth. Other non-D.A. members have sections in the supporting characters article: Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, Cedric, Oliver.-- LøЯd ۞pεth 17:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Neville is as important a character in this series as say, Sirius Black. He deserves his own article. Serendi pod ous 10:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Maybe it's jsut me, but it seems incredibly wasteful to have the same conversation in two different articles. I suggest that this entire discussion be ported over to WikiProject: Harry Potter for a more complete discussion, which will allow for a more durable consensus. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 12:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I guess no input regarding the matter has been forthcoming. I think we should wait a day and then merge. Silence is consensus, at least unless there is all the screaming and gnashing of teeth at the merging. A week should have brought that out, though. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 15:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
(←dent) While it could be argued that the inclusion of these two articles into a third doesn;t necessarily constitute a "large" merge, it is clear that you are upset about the merging. While the "voting" seemed to be tied, there was precisely no movement on the proposal to close the merger discussion, and after it was moved to a single place to sidestep the possibility of duplicated response, there was no activity for six days. As the discussion was about merging the two, and the last arguments argued in favor of performing the merge, it is usually assumed that the last arguments were persuasive in convincing that the merge was useful. You may not have intended that to be the case, but that's what happened.
Now, if you wish to start a discussion that the merge shuld be undone, or that the articles merged were of such value that the merged article deprive the encyclopedia of their intrinsic value, please, go ahead ad do that. Turning back time isn't the best use of our time. -
Arcayne
(cast a spell)
23:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I just want to add that Oakshade made a mistake while counting votes: he counted an editor twice in "Those Opposed to the merge"
With this, it is 8 in favor and 7 against. Apart from the consensus there's still the fact that the articles remained poor and no improvement was made, a fact that supports the original views of the proposal.-- LøЯd ۞pεth 23:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
8 vs. 7 isn't consensus in any sense. I don't think the merge was done properly at all. Can the two articles be restored until there is actual consensus for merging? Sorry about commenting late, but for the record, I am against Nevill Longbottom merger. -- PeaceNT ( talk) 03:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) (Response to Lord Opeth's comment made at 16:47)
Trust me, you're not the only one person finding this whole issue frustrating.
It seems we're having disagreement over whether there was consensus for the merge or not. I should think you'd agree that 8 for / 7 against is not clear consensus whichever way to look at it. I'm not confusing consensus with unanimity. I've had some experience working with (on-wiki) consensus-building discussions. One of the things I learn is that when consensus is unclear, people often invite a neutral third party to jugde & close the debates. You are the proposer; naturally you are biased. But apparently you and user Arcayne (who incidentally seems to be the strongest supporter) together just decided between yourselves that some consensus existed for this proposal. I'm disappointed with this decision-making process, and I don't trust your interpretation of consensus here. I don't agree with your "absence of continued opposition" basis, either, but I already explained my view about that above.
I cannot deny I'm a shamefully inactive member of WPHP and lost this project talk page from my watchlist some time ago; only saw this discussion today because I happen to watchlist DRV. That is to say I wasn't aware of this discussion before; I didn't deliberately ignore the proposal in order to "revive a discussion that was technically ended". I'm not so much worried about things not going my away as concerned about unfair process. Two/three days on Wikipedia isn't that big deal, the bottom line is that, as far as I can gather, you still don't have consensus for this proposal. -- PeaceNT ( talk) 18:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I've protected the two articles involved and the Dumbledore's Army article until we can either get a consensus or get a clearer consensus. Request unprotection at WP:RFPP when that happens.-- chaser - t 18:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment I'd like to remind everyone that this is no longer the discussion as to whether we support this proposal or not. Ergo, arguments against/in favor of the proposal, though maybe useful for future reference, are off topic and for now unhelpful. What to do now is to determine whether or not the contentious merge had consensus to be performed. If there was no consensus, then it was a bad merge, and can be reverted by anyone. Just making things clear so there is no confusion about what to discuss. -- PeaceNT ( talk) 14:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
PeaceNT, while I respect those who voted against, most of them used arguments like "Luna participated in battles", "Neville was the other boy in the prophecy" or "both of them appeared a lot in the final book". These people based their votes according to appearances in the series, not according to Notability. It is not Arcayne's, Sgeureka's or my imagination. I need no more proof of this than the revision history of Neville and Luna's articles. If you take a look at the Table of Contents of both articles, you will see that there is only an introductory section for background, an Appearances section, and the references and external links. I see no sections with reception, discussions, popular culture impact, concept and creation, etc. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 18:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Note: Since we are straying from the point of discussing the basis of the original merges, and have already moved on to the debate about whether to accept/reject the proposal. I have requested unprotection of the three pages in question, so articles can be restored to the state before the controversial changes. -- PeaceNT ( talk) 06:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
"All policies and guidelines are open to interpretation of editors." PeaceNT ( talk) 03:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC) I begin now to partially understand this, but I still have one main question: does this apply to all editors, or just to some editors? PeaceNT clearly seems to be one of the editors that can interpretate policies and guidelines the way she likes: Notability does not matter for fiction at all; 8 out of 15 is not majority; one doesn't need to get consensus to revert an edit that was performed according to other Wikipedia policies some time ago. But if some other editors defend the fact that, numerically 8 out of 15 is majority in Wikipedia and everywhere in the real life, and we interpret this plus silence plus the fact that no one improved the articles as consensus and as a strong point to perform the mergers, then we are wrong. What are we playing at? -- LøЯd ۞pεth 01:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I am only going to answer the actual RFC - was there consensus. I would call 8 for, 7 against is a pretty flimsy majority on which to base an action which clearly many of you feel very strongly about. The negative response should have been expected, thus the action to merge was probably incorrect. In my opinion the correct time for an RfC would have been before the merge was made, so you could get some external, completely NPOV assessments of WP:N with regards to the articles. Further, WP:BRD, while it gives a BRD(bold again) breakdown, refers to "agreed upon changes". 8-7 in a do or dont motion is not really "agreed upon changes".
Thus my opinion is there was no consensus and further that, if you felt the 8-7 deadlock over this issue was important enough to wiki to warrant it, you should have initiated an RfC on the issue to break the impasse rather than just go ahead and merge. Arguments that "it would have happened anyway, eventually" are pretty much irrelevant as Wiki has no deadline.
While legitimate arguments exist that Wiki is not a democracy or bureaucracy and that its guidelines are not hard and fast laws, the dispute process (such as RfC) exists precisely to break impasses like this in a manner that will hopefully be satistfactory to all parties. I would say that knowing the likelyhood of initiating an edit war, ignoring all rules and merging anyway was probably the least useful option available here. Jaimaster ( talk) 08:21, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:HP -- JHunterJ ( talk) 03:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, earlier yesterday I was came to Chronology of the Harry Potter stories and looked at the bottom at all the references to the books, Some referenced one special book, most a chapter, some with the chapter names etc. I took it on myself to put every book reference in there to the same style that was the most used already. So now later I started looking at the book referencing on other articles and seeing almost each article references the book differently. Examples:
Now there are probably many more different ways they have been referenced, but wouldn't a standardization be in order here? I sould suggest some sort of chapter referencing (so it can easily be used multiple times, instead of page references, and less times than just referencing the books), though I don't really have any suggestion for the format of it, though I sorta liked the way it was done on most (and now is) references in the chronology article Chandler ♠ TALK 22:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
This is mostly because the Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter/Templates doesnt seem to be used all the time Chandler ♠ TALK 00:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe use the {{ PStone}} {{ CS}} {{ HP-PA}} {{ GF}} {{ OP}} {{ HBP}} {{ DH}} who includes Chapter numbers, but add in the references from HP#ref Chandler ♠ TALK 01:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
A proposal to add a symbol identifying Good Articles in a similar manner to Featured ones is being discussed: see Wikipedia talk:Good articles#Proposal. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast ( talk) 19:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Vancouver Meetup Please come to an informal gathering of Vancouver Wikipedians, Monday, May 5 at 6:30 pm. It will be at Benny's Bagels,
2505 West Broadway. We'd love to see you there, and please invite others! Watch the
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Cheers! Wassupwestcoast ( talk) 15:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been looking that there is a great difference between the 6 main characters' pages (Harry, Ron, Hermione, Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Snape), and the secondary, yet really important 6 characters. One of the main differences is that these characters (Hagrid, Sirius, Draco, Ginny, Neville, and Luna) have only a section for character development or background, and appearances (with Hagrid having a section for his pets, and Sirius and Draco for their families), but none of this 6 characters have sections for Attributes (outward appearance, personality, magical abilities, etc.) Should we work on this in order to improve this pages, or shall this Attributes section remain only for the 6 main?? -- Lord Opeth ( talk) 20:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
The article on Rob Knox has been proposed for deletion here. Please comment there if you like. Epson291 ( talk) 02:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Would any of you guys know the answer to the question here: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment#HP3 Film? Thanks, Zain Ebrahim ( talk) 07:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey. This is entirely random, so I thought I'd stop by and leave a note. I noticed that, on The Tales of Beedle the Bard, there are publishers listed. Since each book was handwritten by Rowling herself and wasn't published, then there shouldn't be any publishers listed. The problem with the page is that the HPBooks template has the publishers hardcoded. As such, I've been bold and am changing the page from using the HPBooks template to just using the Infobox Book template. You may want to consider changing the HPBooks template, or if you're okay with the infobox one being used, that's okay too. Thoughts? — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 13:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I hadn't realized until just now, but while listining to a recording of a press confrence with J.K. Rowling, JK announced that Dumbledore was meant to be a gay character. This is not a pratical joke. I have not looked for any sources on this but I know it has been anounced. Try finding some sources on the web it will make a good addition to the Dumbledore article(this is not a joke!). Gears Of War 14:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
In case you hadn't noticed, the image that has been on the top-of-talk-page template has been deleted. Anyone got any ideas about what could replace it? I don't know if it has to be free/fair use/whatever, so suggestions and instructions are welcome! -- THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR 03:16, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Why is Albus Potter in the Weasley family article. Shouldnt they either be talked about in Harry's article or have a Potter family article and mention them there? Gears Of War 15:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
As per my posting above, I am porting over the discussions from the Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom article discussions which speak to (redundantly) the proposed merger of both articles into a third, Dumbledore's Army. As a larger consensus from the wikiproject would seem advisable, I think it best to continue discussion here.
If someone could apply that wiki-magic that allows for the collapsing/hiding of the full text of the section, that would be splendid. It would allow everyone to get up to speed on the prior discussions before moving forward from there.-
Arcayne
(cast a spell)
The merge proposal for Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood into Dumbledore's Army is because of Wikipedia's policy of Notability. While Neville and Luna are indeed important characters within the series, they are not Notable in the real world as single topics, they have not been covered by external and reliable sources apart from the HP topic itself, and they seem not to have popular culture impact and references. Help was requested here in the WikiProject to improve not only Neville and Luna's, but also all individual characters' pages, and no one cared about it. Because of this, Neville and Luna's articles are poor if compared to the other characters with individual pages.
I repeat again that this does not mean that Neville and Luna are minor characters, they are major supporting characters, but also other major characters like McGonagall, the Weasley twins, Lupin, Umbridge, etc. are already merged because of the same reason. Importance within the series is not equal to Notability, and this merge is because of Notability.
Here is This draft to give you an idea of how the D.A. article would look like with these changes. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 19:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal
I have come with this proposal for both articles about Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood as, since we at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter began with Notability issues, both of this characters have failed to meet the criteria, and there are no third party references and real-world impact of the characters. Apart from this, both Neville and Luna cannot be considered among the 12 more important characters in the series, as it is like placing them in the same level and status as, for example, the trio, Voldemort, Snape or Dumbledore, whose both appearances in the series and Wikipedia articles are much more important and notable. For example, Neville plays an important part only in 2 books, McGonagall and the Weasley twins made much more appearances than Luna (who actually has no great plot involvement in the series), and there have been some other really important characters that have been already merged (Lupin, Umbridge, Bellatrix, Wormtail).
I have made This draft to give you an idea of how it may look like (it is a revision so that it also shows the images). -- Lord Opeth ( talk) 18:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
- Do it, Luna probably won't be able to become a good article on her own, but as part of the DA, then it might be a featured list. Judgesurreal777 ( talk) 23:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose - There's far too much topic-specific content in the Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood articles to be merged into the already long Dumbledore's Army one. An article that "probably won't be able to become a good article" is not grounds for removal by any Wikipedia standard. -- Oakshade ( talk) 03:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, but the "too much topic-specific content" is mostly fan-cruft and overdetailed scenes not really important for the plot in general. If you take a look at the draft, the sections for both Neville and Luna are trimmed to really important information about the characters and some comments from Rowling. Apart from this, the characters are not neither among the most notable of the HP in real world, nor among the most important characters in the series. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 16:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
- They're both very popular, especially Luna Lovegood. There's much more information that can be written beyond the limited scope of your stripped down merged proposal. With another Potter film n the works, the available sources will only become more plentiful. -- Oakshade ( talk) 03:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
- This is not a popularity contest. I think that Lupin, who is already merged, is much more popular as there are plenty of fanfics and stuff about him. Same with James, or even Pansy Parkinson. But a character is not notable according to the Wikipedia policies only if it is popular, but if it has impact in the real world, popular culture references, and third-party reliable sources. Both Neville and Luna have failed to meet that. My merge proposal's scope is not limited, what is limited is the scope of the articles themselves, only limited to the appearances and character backgrounds, and no more.-- LøЯd ۞pεth 18:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
- Luna Lovegood easily passes the core criteria of WP:NOTABILITY ("If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable."). Just a google news search alone brings up literally hundreds of secondary sources that Luna Lovegood is the subject of, satisfying the main criteria of WP:NOTABILITY . Sure, not all are primarily about her (not a requirement of WP:NOTABILTY anyway), but the secondary coverage by reliable sources is far beyond WP:NOTABILITY's scope of "passing mentions". A character does not have to be the "most notable" or "most important" to have an article under any Wikipedia guideline. Your "actually has no great plot involvement in the series" is a completely subjective opinion and in fact has no baring in Wikipedia inclusion standards. -- Oakshade ( talk) 19:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
- This is not a deletion discussion but an info presentation discussion, and we have to consider notability, redundancy and undue weight of elements. E.g., there is no question that the Flux capacitor is notable, but it's still only a section in the De Lorean time machine article.
Having said that, I'll need a closer look at both character articles and the draft to form an opinion, as both characters seem to be borderline cases for keeping/merging.– sgeureka t• c 05:37, 10 July 2008 (UTC)Oppose- First Neville. Neville is very important to the story as either him or Harry could have been the person referred to in the prophocey. Also, like Luna, his "text time" only increased as the books progressed. Without Neville the final books would have been far to predicatable. Luna was a indeed a minor character early on, but in the last few books her status was eleveated. I dont think importance should be confussed with time in the series. Also who said there can only be 12 important characters? Why have 12? Why not 20? Why not 5? Skiracer712 ( talk) 21:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Some thoughts: Evanna Lynch is commonly known as Luna's actress, not an actress on DA, and I think Rowling considers Luna as an important, although "new" character. Interwikis are separate articles. -- Thi ( talk) 21:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
- What you people seem not to understand is that no one is saying that Neville and Luna are needless or that they had no importance at all in the series. Of course they are important, but they have failed to meet Notability in the real world, they seem to have little impact in spheres that are not part of the HP fan community, and no reliable third-party citations are given for both of them. Both of they articles focus only on character background and appearances. You should take a look to Harry's or Snape's articles to see what I'm talking about.
- The argument about Evana Lynch I think that doesn't fit into this discussion: Maggie Smith's character, Minerva McGonagall (who is much more prominent than Luna), is already merged into Hogwarts staff, and no one thinks that Maggie Smith is an actress on Hogwarts staff. And I can go on with countless actors whose characters are already merged (Imelda/Umbridge, Helena/Bellatrix, Isaacs/Lucius, Broadbent/Slughorn, Walters/Mrs. Weasley, etc.)
- Also, no one is saying that there are only 12 main characters, but 12 is the number of characters that have individual articles right now, hwoever keeping Neville and Luna is like placing their level of notability on a level similar to that of Voldemort, Snape, Dumbledore or the trio, which obviously is not the case. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 23:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge I read the draft, and I trust Opeth to already have merged the most notable bits there. However, I'd still say Luna's merged part is 1/3 too long, mostly for the plot details and lack of included real-world info ( WP:UNDUE/ WP:WAF). This counts against keeping the article and encourages a merger. – sgeureka t• c 11:51, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
- Well, there are more opinions favoring the merge and it has been more than 3 days so I have merged the article into Dumbledore's Army. Discussion is still going on Neville. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 00:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- 2 in favor and 2 against is not in any manner consensus. Three days for a proposal is not at all sufficient amount of time for a merge proposal to be presented for a consensus opinion. A month would be sufficient. -- Oakshade ( talk) 02:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Lord Opeth has been working on Harry Potter articles every day for as long as I can remember, so he's not just some random person, so let's not treat him that way. Second, consensus is generally weighed by who is the most active, and again Opeth carries a lot of weight there too. We don't need to wait months to merge articles that cannot sustain themselves in terms of notability and real world sources. These articles have been hanging around long enough, and can be safely merged. Unless you can show that these articles have more real world notability, then merging is the natural thing to do. Judgesurreal777 ( talk) 03:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- While i appreciate his hard work, we need many editors, ether what is considered "active" or "non-active" to weigh in on such a major proposal (there is no "active editor" clause anywhere in WP:CONSENSUS, by the way). One month, not months, is sufficient time for editors to weigh in on the subject, not 3 days. -- Oakshade ( talk) 03:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Oakshade, you should check also Neville's talk page, there are some other opinions in favour of the merge (more for Luna than Neville). And, without those opinions, in this talk page there are still 3 opinions favouring the merge, and only 2 against. Also, you should read the policy Sgeureka mentioned, and also what the Help page says about merging: "Merging is a normal editing action, something any editor can do, and as such does not need to be proposed and processed. If you think merging something improves the encyclopedia, you can be bold and perform the merge, as described below. Because of this, it makes little sense to object to a merge purely on procedural grounds, e.g. "you cannot do that without discussion" is not a good argument." In this case, I presented a discussion in order to further explain the reasons for merging this. Those who have voted in favour of the merger have understood that, while the characters are important in the series, a couple of interviews with the portrayer and the author are not enough to establish notability. I want to remind everyone again that this is not a popularity contest, this is the normal procedure while working with non-notable elements of a work of fiction. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 04:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Lord Opeth, you conveniently left out what follows the sentence you quoted from Help:Merging and moving pages which states "If the merger is controversial, however, you may find your merger reverted, and as with all other edits, edit wars should be avoided. If you are uncertain of the merger's appropriateness, or believe it might be controversial, or your merge ends up reverted, you can propose it on either or both of the affected pages.". "You cannot do that without discussion" is fact is a great argument. In fact it is the basis of WP:CONSENSUS, which is the core policy Wikipedia that always needs to be followed. Referring to some opinions on a different page is not establishing consensus. -- Oakshade ( talk) 05:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- I proposed the merger 4 days before performing it, I didn't act without reading opinions from other Wikipedians. Referring to some opinions on a different page is not establishing consensus, I agree, but those opinions count too as the proposal was placed for the same reasons at the same time in both talk pages, not only in here. I am not going to debate this further with you, as I'm not interested in making you to change your mind, and you would obviously not going to change mine (you must visit the Harry Potter wikia, EVERY character has an article there). Good luck. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 05:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not at all saying there might not be a consensus for this merge. As a matter of fact, I placed a merge tag on the Dumbledore's Army article (it was never there) and notified the HP project of this proposal in an effort to gain a thorough weigh-in of this subject. After a sufficient amount of time (for controversial merges, most merge discussions go on for about a month), if consensus desires the merge, as always I will respect it. -- Oakshade ( talk) 05:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- I'll agree with Oakshade that three/four days was a little short, and propose to leave this merge discussion open for 10 more days at least (2 weeks to 1 month is the generally accepted merge proposal time). I'll also state that the only good reason to not merge is the addition of real-world info, and the extra time allows interested editors to look up sources. We can then tell whether Opeth's assessment was right (I don't doubt it, but I've been positively surprised before). – sgeureka t• c 06:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Comment - Category:Characters in The Lord of the Rings, Category:The Chronicles of Narnia characters There exists articles like Mrs Macready Bill Ferny and Grimbold and probably other less important characters (for the series) than Luna and Neville with own articles (and not as good(?)). I don't see why it hurt to have the characters on own articles instead. — chan dler — 05:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- That's a reason to cleanup the articles in this category as well, not to keep other "bad" (in the WP:WAF sense) articles around. – sgeureka t• c 06:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Comment - Mrs Macready has been merged into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe#Character List by another Wikipedian, who probably didn't know about this debate. -- THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR 23:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose Both the articles at the moment are diabolically awful, but as noted above, the potential for improvement is there. We shouldn't focus on what the articles are like now, but what their potential appearance is. Characters like Lupin have, unfortunately, no chance of ever becomming good or featured articles; Luna and Neville, by contrast, have a wealth of reliable sources behind them. They need a lot of cleanup, but they'll get there eventually. Happy‑ melon 09:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Some comments here...
- Sgeureka: I have performed in the past dozens of mergers and this is the first time someone is doubting they are in good faith and in order to improve the topic. I might say again that I myself looked and added a couple of comments from the author to create more sections (apart from Appearances and brief backgrounds), and I also asked for help in the WikiProject, but no one else helped with it. It was some months ago, and the articles are still in this state.
- Chandler: as Sgeureka said, it is not a good argument to have and keep lots of poor articles if other WikiProjects do the same. The LOTR especially is known to be one of the must crufty there, just look at the categories they have (with only 2 articles listed) or articles 3/4 written in Elvish and the rest in poor English.
- Happy Melon: how many time has it been since we were debating Notability in the WikiProject, and no one has managed to write down a line to prove the supposed notability of Neville and Luna? I mean, take McGonagall, who was clearly more important than Luna, and as important as Neville, and appears in much more parodies and stuff about HP than both of them; or Lupin and the Weasley twins that appear in much more fanfics, parodies and stuff. I highly doubt that there are indeed reliable secondary sources for Neville and Luna. I think that this sources actually focus in the main characters and most prominent elements of the plot, and I also think that a couple of interviews with the actors are not enough to establish notability. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 16:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- This character passing WP:NOTABILITY is directly addressed above. -- Oakshade ( talk) 18:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- My friend, a bunch of interviews with Evana and some reviews that are not particularily about Luna are not enough. I have seen lots of interviews with Katie (Cho Chang), Robert (Cedric), Clémence (Fleur) or the Phelps twins, and I don't recall their characters have been kept. Not even Umbridge, who was claimed by Stephen King as one of the greatest villains since Hannibal Lecter, and had also some interviews with Imelda Staunton, has her own article.-- LøЯd ۞pεth 17:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
- My friend, here's the opening of of WP:NOTABILITY (put in bold as you seemed to have ignored it above, as you did with the Help:Merging and moving pages guideline above):
"If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable."
My friend, this topic has received an abundance of significant secondary coverage. My friend, even if you omit the term "Evanna Lynch" from a google news search, there still is HUNDREDS of secondary sources covering Luna Lovegood [1]. If you include "Evanna Lynch", there are hundreds more. [2] As mentioned above, maybe not all of the secondary sources are primarily about Lovegood (not a requirement of WP:NOTABILITY anyway), but the secondary coverage by reliable sources is far beyond WP:NOTABILITY's scope of "passing mentions". My friend, you cannot get around the fact that this character passes the core criteria of WP:NOTABILITY easily.-- Oakshade ( talk) 19:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)I am not completely sure if a google search is enough to establish notability, at least the policy has never stated that if the subject of an article appears in google searches, it is automatically notable. Just to prove that it is not 100% accurate (because it is not 100% wrong also), here I have google news searches for other HP characters that have been already merged (each one have HUNDREDS of results too):
- Minerva McGonagall
- Professor Flitwick
- Pomona Sprout
- Professor Quirrell
- Gilderoy Lockhart
- Remus Lupin
- Mad-Eye Moody
- Dolores Umbridge
- Horace Slughorn
- Sybill Trelawney
- Fred and George Weasley
- Arthur Weasley
- Molly Weasley
- Bill Weasley
- Charlie Weasley
- Fleur Delacour
- Nymphadora Tonks
- Kingsley Shacklebolt
- Bellatrix Lestrange
- Lucius Malfoy
- Narcissa Malfoy
- Barty Crouch Jr.
- Peter Pettigrew
- Lily Evans
- Vernon Dursley
- Petunia Dursley
- Dudley Dursley
- Cornelius Fudge
- Rita Skeeter
- Viktor Krum
- Cedric Diggory
- Cho Chang
- Pansy Parkinson
- Vincent Crabbe
- Gregory Goyle
- Dean Thomas
- Dobby
- Kreacher
- Grawp
- Aragog
It seems like LOT of job to do then, shall we begin to retrieve individual articles for this characters? Shall I begin then to re-create a characters template in order to better organize all this extremely notable articles? -- LøЯd ۞pεth 23:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
- I'm sure many of the sec. character could stand on their own, but I might just be better to have them "sorted" in fewer articles, it will make it easier to keep track of them all, so less vandalism can find its way in. And that they are notable, perhaps, but this isnt a proposal to delete any characters, so they will still exist. — chan dler — 23:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
- It's not a google search or any other type of search that establishes notability, but the coverage by reliable sources that are found on those searches are what demonstrate it and the passing of WP:NOTABILITY (I can't believe I needed to explain that). -- Oakshade ( talk) 04:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal - arbitrary break 1
- Counter proposal: Opeth, just copy-paste the trimmed version of Luna over the existing version, and do an careful extra trim to remove unnecessary detail. Then create empty real-world info sections (Concept and creation, development, reception, themes, personality - I don't know how novel characters are structured) with {{ expand}} tags, add a
{{ notability|fiction}}
tag (leave the merge tag in) at the top and wait a month. After the month, the article has either improved so that it can stay, or it's still as bad as to make a merger feasable – either (1) there is no significant usable info to establish WP:NOTABILITY or (2) no one fulfills their WP:BURDEN (which some people here seem to want to push on you, when it's really theirs). – sgeureka t• c 09:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)- Oppose although Luna Lovegood appears late in the series, her importance to the plot grows as does her importance to the main character Harry Potter. In the final book, if you measure importance by page mentions (just to point out one criteria), Luna actually is more important in DH than Ginny Weasley a far more important than Neville Longbottom. The author also chose to highlight the character by having her take part in the final decisive duel with the leading Death Eater, with the two most important female student characters, Hermione and Ginny. If she was such a "minor" character as some here think she is, I doubt the author would have chosen to highlight her in the climax of the book.-- Count Westwest ( talk) 16:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose. Luna is a major character, as is Neville. If Harry and Hermione deserve their own articles, then so do they. Serendi pod ous 10:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
- The criteria is not page mentions or duels (if so, then McGonagall, Kingsley and Slughorn should get back their articles as they did duel Voldemort, who is more important than Bellatrix). Also, in my proposal I never said Luna or Neville are minor characters, indeed there are major characters that have not their own articles (see some examples in the proposal). The criteria is Notability, which this articles have not met. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 17:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
- Lord Opeth, as you are under the incorrect impression that this topic fails WP:NOTABILITY and you don't seem to be building a consensus for this merge, you might as well bring this article to WP:AFD as AfD is meant primarily for topics that fail WP:NOTABILITY. -- Oakshade ( talk) 20:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
- What are you talking about? First of all, consensus is built by several users, not only by a single one. Everyone, including myself, have the right to express points of view, and I am only doing the same thing you are doing: commenting and defending points of view. Several people that have voted here seem to think that a merge proposal is equal to saying a character is not important. Of course not! There are much more major characters in the HP series, but not all of them have their own articles and not all of them have met notability. I say that Neville and Luna are important in the series, but so are McGonagall, Lupin, the twins, and many more, and all of them are already merged into lists of characters. Second, and this is really important, this discussion is not a nomination for deletion. Merging and deleting are very different things: my main proposal is not to delete all information on Neville and Luna. My proposal is only to merge both of this elements of fiction into a major list, in which not big content will be lost. I still don't know why this is such a big deal if other important characters (like those I've previously mentioned) are merged too, especially if both articles are not too long and focus almost entirely on appearances in the series. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 21:28, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose, I think that the fact that both Neville and Luna helped Harry in the Department of Mysteries in the fifth book clarifies that they're very important to the series. Jammy ( talk) 21:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
- Well, Lupin, Mad-Eye, Kingsley and Tonks appeared in the Department too, and none of them have their own articles. Also, and I will not be tired to repeat it, this merge proposal doesn't mean that Neville or Luna are not important in the series, but some participation in battles is not enough to establish Notability in the real world. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 22:04, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
- Oppose as well. It's not going to work in the long-term, for the reasons noted below. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 10:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal - arbitrary break 2
- I had actually tried to stay out of the conversation, as there are too many fans with keyboards, and my metaphorical wiki-bat would metaphorically splinter before I could make sufficient metaphorical impact (read: metaphorically cracked skulls) amongst them regarding actual wiki policies and guidelines.
- I sometimes find Lord Opeth to be a little too quick to implement change in articles. While his heart is in the right place, he does tend to seek changes that the rest of the community might not be ready for. However, that doesn't necessarily make the suggested changes a bad thing.
- I would submit that, having been able to step outside the series for a time, I have begun to see a pattern in wiki articles about series, be they television programs, movies and books. When initially popular, the wiki will have articles on every facet of a particular subject (ie. Rambaldi Cube, Sorting Hat, or Sonic Screwdriver). This initial popularity is not the same as notability, as notability does not fade; over time, as these various facets are shown to not "shine" as brightly as others in the overall subject, they are merged into relatedly less important articles, so as to avoid the problem of undue weight being given to something that is less important to a particular subject than something else.
- The question prior to this merging becomes (at least in this particular discussion) 'what makes them vitally important to the series'? Can the series be accomplished without Neville or Luna? Undoubtedly, yes. They assist those characters who are central to the main story, but their presence or absence doesn't specifically help or hamper the overall story. Therefore, giving them their own articles - when we have the benefit of the full story presented in the novels and are fully aware of their lack of vital importance to the main story - becomes an argument of undue weight.
- I favor the proposed merge. Luna and Neville, while being notably important enough to the overall story to warrant mention, they are not notable enough - given our greater understanding of their total actions within the completed series - to warrant their own articles anymore. Merging them into an article with others of less than vital importance is both appropriate and encyclopedic.
- On a side note, am I the only one who has noted the discrepancy between the articles? In Luna's, it says she marries Neville. However, in Neville's, it says he marries Hannah Abbot. So, who wants to be a fly on the wall when Neville is found out for the bigamist he apparently becomes? ;) - Arcayne (cast a spell) 10:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
- Again, Merge the two of them - Unless a lot more information has been found to establish notability, they should be merged, pure and simple. Judgesurreal777 ( talk) 22:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Merge proposal
I have come with this proposal for both articles about Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood as, since we at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter began with Notability issues, both of this characters have failed to meet the criteria, and there are no third party references and real-world impact of the characters. Apart from this, both Neville and Luna cannot be considered among the 12 more important characters in the series, as it is like placing them in the same level and status as, for example, the trio, Voldemort, Snape or Dumbledore, whose both appearances in the series and Wikipedia articles are much more important and notable. For example, Neville plays an important part only in 2 books, McGonagall and the Weasley twins made much more appearances than Luna (who actually has no great plot involvement in the series), and there have been some other really important characters that have been already merged (Lupin, Umbridge, Bellatrix, Wormtail).
- I have made This draft to give you an idea of how it may look like (it is a revision so that it also shows the images). -- Lord Opeth ( talk) 18:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
That's fine by me. I mean, McGonagall (as an example) doesn't even have her own article, so merging Neville's and Luna's into the DA section makes sense. Heck, Luna barely figured in the final battle in Deathly Hallows. If this proposal is given the green light, some content would be removed so the main article isn't excessively long. I agree, let's leave the personal articles for the characters pivotal throughout the entire series (the trio, Snape, Dumbledore, Voldemort). Beemer69 chitchat 21:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, definitely there is some content that should be removed from both sections, especially cruft and unsourced material. In the draft I made, some content is already cut to have reasonably sized sections.-- Lord Opeth ( talk) 23:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
- Trimmed down to their essentials, they would fit into a character list article like the D.A article, but doesn't have enough content in its own. Judgesurreal777 ( talk) 00:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
- I never quite understood how Luna's article survived the earlier merge-spree of HP (aside from the fact that she seems to be quite popular). I would say that Neville deserves his own article; he's certainly the most borderline case, I think, but I'd say the article is warranted. faithless (speak) 02:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Faithlessthewonderboy that this is the most borderline case. However, in the merged draft, I still see a lot of original research in his second paragraph, and too much plot detail in the description of how he got his wand and how he participated in the final fight - i.e. his coverage can be even trimmed further without losing much. He may have slightly too much info for a merge into Dumbledore's Army, but definately too little siginificant info to support his own article in the WP:GA sense. If I had to go for the lesser evil, I'd reluctanty pick the merger. OTOH, if real-world info of two or three paragraphs worth can be dug up against Opeth's expectations, I'd !vote against the merger (but support a trim) in a heartbeat. – sgeureka t• c 12:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
- Sometime ago I looked for quotes about Neville in pages like Lexicon and stuff, and added them (for example, that Rowling wanted Neville to do something important in the first book, or that you as a teacher should not bully students, and Neville/Luna's shipping), but apart from that I didn't even could make an Attributes section like those I created in Sirius, Hagrid or Draco's articles. I asked people in the WikiProject for help but no one (except User:The dark lord trombonator) replied, maybe because there is little more for Neville to be said that comes from reliable secondary sources, which proves that he is not that Notable. As for the draft, I also noticed the wand stuff from book six, I think that we shall trim that, but I don't think that the second paragraph is OR: most of it is "explained by Dumbledore" in the fifth book - maybe only the "second only to Hermione" thing is OR, and it shall be removed. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 21:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Who exactly are the 12 most important characters? The trio, Voldemort, Snape and Dumbledore I can understand - but who are the other 6? By the way I oppose the merger for Neville, though support it for Luna. Neville was a pivotal character for the series and had one of the greatest character developments. As it stands, he doesn't really belong in the DA article as his role in the series extended well beyond that. The only thing he is missing to outright deserve an article of his own is a popular culture reference. Iciac ( talk) 02:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Iciac, I didn't intend to make it look like there are precisely 12 main characters in the series, but that there are only 12 characters with individual pages left. Importance in the series is not enough to establish Notability, a policy that has much more weight that any character development. I have given some examples of other pivotal characters like McGonagall or Lupin that are already merged. Lupin's involvement in the series is not only in the Order of the Phoenix, but because he has failed to meet notability, he doesn't deserve his own article and that's why he was merged into the most suitable article. Same applies to Neville and Luna: both of them are more than just D.A. members, but it is the best article to merge them if they have to be merged. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 04:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- Support I've read over the draft, and agree that (as of the article now) he should be merged. However, as sgeureka stated in the Luna Lovegood discussion the actual merger should be delayed by a couple of weeks to allow editors time to attempt to find sources which support his notability, and thus would be weight against the merge. I myself could find none in his Harry Potter wikia article. Iciac ( talk) 11:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Comment "Dumboldore's Army" only appears in a one or two of the series...so you are telling me that the D.A. is a better article than, say, Students who attend Hogwarts or something similar? (The D.A. would only include students who are on the side of "good". Example: No Crabbe, Goyle, etc.) the_ed 17 20:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- There was an article about "Hogwarts students" previously, but it was over 80 KB and there were still some characters missing, including lots of minor Quidditch players and stuff. The article had not a definitive inclusion criteria because having a section for every single student would give us an article over 120 KB (for example, why wasn't Warrington mentioned at all, Montague was in the "Others" section, and Theodore Nott had his own section if all of them were minor characters?), that's what it was decided to retrieve the article about the D.A., that would include only the D.A. characters, in order to have a definitive inclusion criteria. At that moment, "Dumbledore's Army" was merely a link to a section of the article about the fifth book, which is not the case because the D.A. also appeared in the final book and had some little involvement in the sixth. Other non-D.A. members have sections in the supporting characters article: Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, Cedric, Oliver.-- LøЯd ۞pεth 17:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Neville is as important a character in this series as say, Sirius Black. He deserves his own article. Serendi pod ous 10:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Maybe it's jsut me, but it seems incredibly wasteful to have the same conversation in two different articles. I suggest that this entire discussion be ported over to WikiProject: Harry Potter for a more complete discussion, which will allow for a more durable consensus. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 12:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I guess no input regarding the matter has been forthcoming. I think we should wait a day and then merge. Silence is consensus, at least unless there is all the screaming and gnashing of teeth at the merging. A week should have brought that out, though. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 15:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
(←dent) While it could be argued that the inclusion of these two articles into a third doesn;t necessarily constitute a "large" merge, it is clear that you are upset about the merging. While the "voting" seemed to be tied, there was precisely no movement on the proposal to close the merger discussion, and after it was moved to a single place to sidestep the possibility of duplicated response, there was no activity for six days. As the discussion was about merging the two, and the last arguments argued in favor of performing the merge, it is usually assumed that the last arguments were persuasive in convincing that the merge was useful. You may not have intended that to be the case, but that's what happened.
Now, if you wish to start a discussion that the merge shuld be undone, or that the articles merged were of such value that the merged article deprive the encyclopedia of their intrinsic value, please, go ahead ad do that. Turning back time isn't the best use of our time. -
Arcayne
(cast a spell)
23:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I just want to add that Oakshade made a mistake while counting votes: he counted an editor twice in "Those Opposed to the merge"
With this, it is 8 in favor and 7 against. Apart from the consensus there's still the fact that the articles remained poor and no improvement was made, a fact that supports the original views of the proposal.-- LøЯd ۞pεth 23:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
8 vs. 7 isn't consensus in any sense. I don't think the merge was done properly at all. Can the two articles be restored until there is actual consensus for merging? Sorry about commenting late, but for the record, I am against Nevill Longbottom merger. -- PeaceNT ( talk) 03:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) (Response to Lord Opeth's comment made at 16:47)
Trust me, you're not the only one person finding this whole issue frustrating.
It seems we're having disagreement over whether there was consensus for the merge or not. I should think you'd agree that 8 for / 7 against is not clear consensus whichever way to look at it. I'm not confusing consensus with unanimity. I've had some experience working with (on-wiki) consensus-building discussions. One of the things I learn is that when consensus is unclear, people often invite a neutral third party to jugde & close the debates. You are the proposer; naturally you are biased. But apparently you and user Arcayne (who incidentally seems to be the strongest supporter) together just decided between yourselves that some consensus existed for this proposal. I'm disappointed with this decision-making process, and I don't trust your interpretation of consensus here. I don't agree with your "absence of continued opposition" basis, either, but I already explained my view about that above.
I cannot deny I'm a shamefully inactive member of WPHP and lost this project talk page from my watchlist some time ago; only saw this discussion today because I happen to watchlist DRV. That is to say I wasn't aware of this discussion before; I didn't deliberately ignore the proposal in order to "revive a discussion that was technically ended". I'm not so much worried about things not going my away as concerned about unfair process. Two/three days on Wikipedia isn't that big deal, the bottom line is that, as far as I can gather, you still don't have consensus for this proposal. -- PeaceNT ( talk) 18:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I've protected the two articles involved and the Dumbledore's Army article until we can either get a consensus or get a clearer consensus. Request unprotection at WP:RFPP when that happens.-- chaser - t 18:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment I'd like to remind everyone that this is no longer the discussion as to whether we support this proposal or not. Ergo, arguments against/in favor of the proposal, though maybe useful for future reference, are off topic and for now unhelpful. What to do now is to determine whether or not the contentious merge had consensus to be performed. If there was no consensus, then it was a bad merge, and can be reverted by anyone. Just making things clear so there is no confusion about what to discuss. -- PeaceNT ( talk) 14:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
PeaceNT, while I respect those who voted against, most of them used arguments like "Luna participated in battles", "Neville was the other boy in the prophecy" or "both of them appeared a lot in the final book". These people based their votes according to appearances in the series, not according to Notability. It is not Arcayne's, Sgeureka's or my imagination. I need no more proof of this than the revision history of Neville and Luna's articles. If you take a look at the Table of Contents of both articles, you will see that there is only an introductory section for background, an Appearances section, and the references and external links. I see no sections with reception, discussions, popular culture impact, concept and creation, etc. -- LøЯd ۞pεth 18:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Note: Since we are straying from the point of discussing the basis of the original merges, and have already moved on to the debate about whether to accept/reject the proposal. I have requested unprotection of the three pages in question, so articles can be restored to the state before the controversial changes. -- PeaceNT ( talk) 06:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
"All policies and guidelines are open to interpretation of editors." PeaceNT ( talk) 03:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC) I begin now to partially understand this, but I still have one main question: does this apply to all editors, or just to some editors? PeaceNT clearly seems to be one of the editors that can interpretate policies and guidelines the way she likes: Notability does not matter for fiction at all; 8 out of 15 is not majority; one doesn't need to get consensus to revert an edit that was performed according to other Wikipedia policies some time ago. But if some other editors defend the fact that, numerically 8 out of 15 is majority in Wikipedia and everywhere in the real life, and we interpret this plus silence plus the fact that no one improved the articles as consensus and as a strong point to perform the mergers, then we are wrong. What are we playing at? -- LøЯd ۞pεth 01:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I am only going to answer the actual RFC - was there consensus. I would call 8 for, 7 against is a pretty flimsy majority on which to base an action which clearly many of you feel very strongly about. The negative response should have been expected, thus the action to merge was probably incorrect. In my opinion the correct time for an RfC would have been before the merge was made, so you could get some external, completely NPOV assessments of WP:N with regards to the articles. Further, WP:BRD, while it gives a BRD(bold again) breakdown, refers to "agreed upon changes". 8-7 in a do or dont motion is not really "agreed upon changes".
Thus my opinion is there was no consensus and further that, if you felt the 8-7 deadlock over this issue was important enough to wiki to warrant it, you should have initiated an RfC on the issue to break the impasse rather than just go ahead and merge. Arguments that "it would have happened anyway, eventually" are pretty much irrelevant as Wiki has no deadline.
While legitimate arguments exist that Wiki is not a democracy or bureaucracy and that its guidelines are not hard and fast laws, the dispute process (such as RfC) exists precisely to break impasses like this in a manner that will hopefully be satistfactory to all parties. I would say that knowing the likelyhood of initiating an edit war, ignoring all rules and merging anyway was probably the least useful option available here. Jaimaster ( talk) 08:21, 7 August 2008 (UTC)