Harry Potter Wiki:Community Portal Archive

Welcome
Welcome to the Harry Potter Wiki! I started this Wiki with the hope of constructing a huge encyclopedia of the magical world of Witches and Wizards described in J.K. Rowling's famous books, as well as the popular feature films they have spawned. I hope there are other potential Wikipedians out there with an equal love for the books, and that together we can make this the most comprehensive Harry Potter encyclopedia on the Internet. SeanR 11:06, 5 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Logo
To start off, I'd like to call out to all the artists among us and have a competition to create a suitable logo for our Wiki. The logo should be 135 pixels wide and 155 pixels high, and should immediately identify this site for what it is.

Please post links to your logos below, and the community can decide on the best one. - SeanR 11:12, 5 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Here's four (from the cover of the latest book): My Favourite Version, White Text, White Text Bottom, Text Not Centered. 01:47, 23 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd pick either the first or the last pics. My Photoshop was unfortunately wiped out by a virus, and I lost the CD, so I can't make any logos anymore, but I'd suggest something more all-encompassing. Don't ask me what that is - I'm still thinking. : ) Chosen One 17:32, 26 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Here's another design, from the poster of the second movie: . 06:25, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * I like the first one best.    12:55, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * My first attempt at a logo is here. - Vostok 02:01, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * I uploaded my version as a nicer-looking temporary image. If we agree on a better one then we can replace it then. - Vostok 08:00, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think it was uploaded properly, it still is the old one. 10:20, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Check out the logo in the German Wiki . It looks good, though not very original (typical of my fellow people;) ). I was wondering how to get at it, so we could get the H and P and use them in our logo. Otherwise the lettering in Sean's image looks good.    10:41, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Rainer - it took a bit of refreshing for it to work for me... weird. Chosen One - indeed that logo is fantastic.  I just used a Harry Potter font I found for mine, pretty simple, but something closer to the professionalism of the German Wiki would be very cool. - Vostok 11:37, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Copying articles from Wikipedia
To get the content started quickly, I'll be copying a lot of the pages from Wikipedia. However, any pages copied should be edited to fit into the style of this Wiki. - SeanR 11:26, 5 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi, just found this wikicity today. Are you wanting all the Harry Potter articles from Wikipedia copied, or just some of them? I'd love to help with that and anything else. (A to-do list might be good to have on this page!) Hermione1980 21:26, 7 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Welcome! I think to start, we should move all the character pages and novel pages, then move on from there.  A good place to start might be Wikipedia's list of Harry Potter characters. SeanR 09:00, 8 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Speculation/original research?
Someone asked on the WikiProject Harry Potter page on Wikipedia whether speculation and/or original research would be allowed on here. Is it? Hermione1980 13:25, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd think a little won't do any harm. 17:13, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Copy from Wikipedia
What was the reason for not copying directly from Wikipedia? Is it only the busted links to ordinary words that's bad? Help your Dark Lord out. I expect an answer by tomorrow. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:59, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * Many reasons, originality being one of them. Another is the don't-bore-the-reader policy. 21:04, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * Have people been putting the word out about this Wiki on mugglenet et. al.? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 12:50, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * No, and with good reason. We have to get this thing through "early development stages" first before we introduce all the grammar problems, typos, and vandals into the system.    12:56, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, point taken. But it doesn't seem like there are very many editors here. I just thought it would be good to get some volume here. But if no one else agrees, that's fine. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 16:31, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah after doing a quick look, I only count about 20-25 editors, some of which are ip numbers making one edit. It would just help jumpstart this if we could get around 100 or so to make a few edits. Just my thoughts. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 17:01, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Well, if we could get the article count to at least 150, it will be much easier to do damage control. Why don't we discuss this on Saturday, 22:00 UTC (Wikitime), over here? I admit that we are too few and too scattered to do any serious groupwork, so perhaps a little summons might work, won't it, Malicious Mass Murderer? ;)    20:53, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Dumbledore's Army
Should Cho Chang, Marietta Edgecombe, and Zacharias Smith be put in the Dumbledore's Army category? Hermione1980 18:52, 30 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * And this is probably a stupid question, but should Peter Pettigrew be put in the Order of the Phoenix category, because he was a member at one time? Hermione1980 19:04, 30 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * I think yes to Cho Chang, Marietta Edgecombe, and Zacharias Smith being in the DA, but as for Pettigrew I'm not sure. 10:22, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed with Cho et al. being in Dumbledore's Army. As for Peter Pettigrew, perhaps it would be useful if we separated the Order of the Phoenix into first founding and second founding?  Members of the first but not the second also include the Potters and the Longbottoms, as well as a few of the others in the photo that Moody shows Harry in the book... actually as I write this it is starting to get a bit confused... I'd say stick Pettigrew in Order of the Phoenix.  Snape belongs there too although we all know what happens to him... - Vostok 11:42, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * K, Cho's now in the DA cat, Pettigrew and Snape are in the Death Eaters and Order of the Phoenix cats. Marietta and Zacharias aren't in the wiki yet. Second Vostok's suggestion about having a separate cat for the first and second Orders. Hermione1980 17:32, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * First Order of the Phoenix and Second Order of the Phoenix categories sound great. We can do it... this aint that stuffy WP. This is specifically about Harry Potter, so I think it's a good idea. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 14:10, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

First Group Discussion
In here.

Character Info-boxes
I've been going through and changing many of the copy-pasted infoboxes to the template variation I made. However I thought I should point out my ideas about the use of the character infoboxes.

Please have a read of the Usage of the Character Template. If you've got any suggestions for improvement to the template or the colour schemes, please mention them. - Vostok 08:04, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Stub categories
I added a bunch of stub categories. I'm not even sure this is necessary yet, but I figured that it might be down the road. New templates include:
 * for stubs relating to a place.


 * for stubs relating to a specific character.


 * for stubs relating to magical animals.


 * for stubs relating to magical objects.

I hope this doesn't get too confusing. If it does, we don't have to use them. I just thought they might be nice to have. You know, just in case. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:58, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

And Brand New:
 * for Quidditch related stubs.

Just adds a little something, ya know? I also made it easier with the "expanding it" link on the rest of the stubs. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:36, 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Site Title
Shouldn't the site title as MediaWiki knows it as, be renamed from just "Harry Potter" to "Harry Potter Wiki"? This would rename official HPW pages like Harry Potter talk:Community Portal to Harry Potter Wiki talk:Community Portal, which I feel is more appropriate, seeing as the name of this Wikicity isn't "Harry Potter", but "Harry Potter Wiki". Also, the bar at the top of the browser window would change to the right name too. 11:33, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, it should be "Harry Potter Wiki". How would we go about having the official title changed? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 14:22, 2 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * A person who can access the MediaWiki files can change this in LocalSettings.php (I think), which means only someone like Angela could do this. 06:51, 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree it should be "Harry Potter Wiki". I just put the name as "Harry Potter" when creating it so we could get the URL we have.  Changing the name won't change the URL, will it? - Vostok 10:44, 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think it would. 06:01, 4 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I think we've made a decision, especially since Vostok agrees, so I'll ask Angela. 02:29, 27 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Jason has just changed this. If you had any links pointing to the old project namespace, you might want to put redirects in place since that isn't automatic. Angela (talk) 06:09, 28 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks Angela. - Vostok 08:32, 29 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Characters without first names
I had a thought whilst splitting up the Minor Teachers page... should characters like Professor Binns be listed as "Professor Binns" or simply just "Binns"? Obviously whichever we choose, the other one will redirect, but I feel we should have some consistency as to which page has the actual information on it. Personally I vote for leaving out titles, so in the above example the page would be "Binns". What do others think? - Vostok 10:41, 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that, where character's first names are not known, they should simply be known as their surname . In fact, I think all characters should be listed in the 'Surname, First Name' format (as in 'Snape, Severus' or 'Binns, Professor'), as this creates consistency with all formatting and with other encyclopedias (including Wikipedia). - Batiu-Drami 11:20 3 Aug 2005


 * Nah, I prefer Professor Binns. And articles should be at First Name Last Name. Which articles on WP have Last Name, First Name? I don't recall any. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 15:00, 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * My bad, I thought Wikipedia used that format. It's just printed encyclopedias that use that system (like Brittanica or World Book), and that would just be for ease of searching.  Ignore me :P --Batiu-Drami 00:49, 4 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Year Pages
I added a note to the 1997 page, making reference to the lack of concrete information regarding years. I think that this should be added to all pages, but held off to see what others thought. I actually don't think that year pages are necessary, as mostly they are directly connected to one of the books or characters anyway (or provide real-life events which have nothing to do with the Harry Potter books). Just some thoughts. - Batiu-Drami 12:55 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I'm starting to expand this page and could use as much help as possible for it. Just thought I should put this on the portal. Cheers.Ginny Weasley 20:24, 5 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * While I'm thinking about it, I also combined Colin and Dennis Creevey's pages into one page - Colin and Dennis Creevey. If we want two separate pages, I apologize and we can dismantle the redirects.  I just thought one page on such minor characters would be better.Ginny Weasley 20:42, 5 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Ginny, we've pretty much decided we'd like a separate page for each character in most cases. In the case of the Creevey brothers I think this is important, since Colin is a significant character throughout Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, while Dennis is not in that book at all.  So at the very least, Colin deserves his own page.  The one exception to this I would say is Fred and George Weasley, as they are virtually just one character. - Vostok 06:41, 6 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * That's cool, Vostok. Thanks for letting me know.  If you haven't already de-combined them, I'll go ahead and do it.  Cheers.Ginny Weasley 14:28, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay I lied. I de-combined them, but I don't know how to make the "Colin and Dennis Creevey" a speedy-deletion page.  Help a Weasley out?Ginny Weasley 14:39, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Patrolling Recent Changes
I've noticed nobody patrols the recent changes. (Or at least, that's what I've inferred from looking at the past 500 edits on the recent changes page.) At the Homestar Runner Wiki we have a Recent changes patrol, to prevent trolling and to help ensure the validity of information in the articles. As this site gets bigger and more popular, it's going to be more and more important to have something like that in place. So... I suggest we do that. -Polly 11:50, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * The Recent Changes page is usually my first port of call to look at what has been done in my absence. Currently, I don't think we need anything official in place, but as the Wiki grows we may need to institute a policy. - Vostok 08:03, 9 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Recent Changes is a fairly often visited page for me as well. We do what we can. Vandals haven't been a big problem yet. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:11, 15 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Nothing to do with this Wiki per se I guess, but thanks for pointing that out Polly. I always wondered what was up with the exclamation marks on MA. One of the admins there didn't know either, so that shows you how widely used it is. --Schrei

Movie links
I have seen both Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (movie) and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film), which one should be used? --Dragonclaws 17:40, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Film. It is used more often than movie... could be wrong though.  Actually this gives me an idea... - Vostok 08:05, 9 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I think we should go with Film. That's what's in use at Wikipedia, anyway. 11:14, 9 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Redirects?
Did I miss something? Why does the main page now redirect to Wikipedia?

I changed it back, because an IP address changed it, not a known user. Suspecting this might fit under vandalism, now --Batiu-Drami 03:29, 14 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * This is the revision that was left (don't know how to link to this using Wiki linking, so it shows as an external link). --Batiu-Drami 03:33, 14 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Married women
Should articles on married women be located at their married name or their maiden name? For example, currently we have Narcissa Malfoy, but Bellatrix Black, so should Narcissa's article be moved to Narcissa Black, or should Bellatrix's article be moved to Bellatrix Lestrange? And that creates another problem &mdash; if Bill and Fleur's wedding takes place next book, would that article be Fleur Delacour or Fleur Weasley? Hermione1980 22:59, 15 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I realized that there was a slight oddity at Bellatrix Black, but I didn't really know what we wanted to do. I suggest moving/merging the article to Bellatrix Lestrange and change it to a redirect. More people know her by her married name. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 13:43, 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I second Lord Voldemort's suggestion. I think married women should be listed under the name they are more commonly referred to throughout the books.  So that would be Narcissa Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, and Fleur Delacour.  Using the same logic, You-Know-Who's primary page is Lord Voldemort and not Tom Riddle. - Vostok 00:07, 17 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Might need some help...
Anon user:70.19.154.123 created a bunch of pages that are not that great. We need to go back through his/her edits to fix a lot of things... including this page here. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 21:10, 17 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay... I restored this page... Still lots of edits to go through. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 21:12, 17 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Here's the link to all the mistakes. All his/her contributions. This is going to be awhile. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 13:26, 18 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Requests for deletion

 * Category:Places has no articles in it, having been replaced by Category:Locations.
 * Category:Members of the Order of the Phoenix has no articles in it, having been replaced by Category:First Order of the Phoenix and Category:Second Order of the Phoenix.
 * Headmaster is a perfectly worthless article, imho.
 * Add List of Harry Potter articles for the same reason.
 * And Harry Potter (plot). I don't know if this article will eventually be necessary; surely we can include the plot in the books' articles.

Hermione1980 22:49, 18 Aug 2005 (UTC)

I concur.

Soon we'll have to set up a more formal way to handle deletion of pages, but until then I think we should get the agreeance of at least three members of the community before the pages are deleted.

In a slightly related topic, I'm thinking of simply deleting all of the pages created by User:70.19.154.123, since they have virtually no content. While most of the pages created will be necessary eventually, at this point in time we are not ready for them and it will take a while to clean them up. So my solution is to delete them until we are ready to recreate them. But I didn't want to do such a mass deletion without the approval of the community, so let me know if you agree before I do it. - Vostok 08:27, 19 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I've added some stuff to some of them, so don't delete those, I guess. --Dragonclaws 08:45, 19 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm in the process of at least putting a sentence or two of useful information in all his/her articles, so I don't know, given the speed (or lack thereof) of the way I'm going through their contribs, if you still want to delete them or not. (Did that make a lick of sense?) Hermione1980 21:53, 20 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll just go through and delete those articles I think would be better off not existing, but not all of them. - Vostok 23:12, 20 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Voldemort vs. Lord Voldemort vs. Tom Riddle

 * The following originated on User talk:Schrei.

I would like to object to your moving Lord Voldemort to Voldemort; he is more commonly known as Lord Voldemort, the anagram of his name is "I am Lord Voldemort", and he refers to himself as Lord Voldemort. Also, the picture of Riddle being in the infobox for Voldemort spoils the storyline for Chamber of Secrets. Feel free to respond on my talk page, or to the community portal to get a wider opinion.

Again, welcome! Hermione1980 21:44, 20 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry if I messed anything up. About moving Lord Voldemort, the main article is normally the name without title (Lord Byron redirects to a page with the full name of the man even though 9 out of 10 times he's called Lord Byron) except for clarity (Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom). Not sure how you guys wanna do it on this Wiki though.
 * I've never read any of the books but my instinct is to make a separate page for Tom Riddle and put Image:Tom Riddle.jpg on there, kind of an Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader idea. Was he always evil though? Anyay Hermione's right about it being on Voldemort's page - maybe Voldemort's pic should be a question mark since he's an evil spirit ghost creature type thing (at least in the movies).
 * --Schrei 23:17, 20 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * How about putting a pic of Voldemort as seen in PS in the infobox and a link to a Tom Riddle picture in the spoiler area? --Dragonclaws 00:51, 21 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I too am uncomfortable with the move from Lord Voldemort to Voldemort. While the argument may hold for someone like Lord Byron, the reason Voldemort gave himself the title of Lord is so it fits his anagram, so it seems important enough to keep.
 * As for the picture of Tom Riddle, perhaps it would be better if we had a separate page for Tom Riddle, separating him and Lord Voldemort. However the Tom Riddle page would really just state that Tom Riddle was the birth name of Lord Voldemort (preceded, of course, by the spoiler tag), in addition to having a character box with the picture of young Tom Riddle.
 * In future the movement or renaming of major articles like this should be discussed before it is carried out. - Vostok 02:27, 21 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry again about that. I should probably stick to MA from now on. :) --Schrei 22:09, 24 Aug 2005 (UTC)