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Article Discussions

This page isn't about Rowling. It's about the Harry Potter books. Seems a bit misleading to me -- Derek Ross

I think that way too; I moved some of the stuff to Harry Potter. I think it would be best to stick to the convention of putting "real world" stuff (J. K. Rowling herself, bibliography) under J. K. Rowling and the "Harry Potter world" stuff under Harry Potter. It is done in this very helpful manner i.e. under J. R. R. Tolkien and Middle Earth. --Uriyan

I can supply long and probably tedious notes on the various editions (UK and US, deluxe editions, different publishers, and so on) of the Harry Potter series, but not sure if it'd be much use. any opinions? And should it go on the Harry Potter page? --AW

Rowling is reportedly still working in the café where she wrote the early books, which suggests she may be suffering from writer's block; an alternative rumour is that the book has been held back until after the film release of the second Harry Potter film at the end of 2002.

"She was enormously relieved after a U.S. court threw out rival author Nancy Stouffer's claims that she stole words and characters from Stouffer's books." -- NY Post, 9/20/2002

I don't understand why Ed a few edits back changed "Book Five" to "Year Five". The latter sounds very odd, to UK ears at least, so I have changed it back, in fact on a rethink I am changing it to "The fifth book" which I think sounds more natural anyway. If I have trodden on toes, or if "Year Five" is some sort of publishers' or HP enthusiasts' Term of Art or something, please let me know - no intention to annoy anyone! Nevilley 10:57 Nov 23, 2002 (UTC)

probably because each book covers one year of school. British 2ndary school used to run from 1-5, then 6th form, before all this year 11 nonsense, rant, grumble, fuss and bother -- Tarquin (showing his age...)
heheheh - indeed. I have that prob too, someone says "Year 2" and I stare at them blankly for about 30mins till a filing drawer in my brain marked "top Infants" pops open! But whilst you may well be right - the book covers the "Fifth Form" - i.e. nowadays Year 11, as you say - I still think it clouds it a bit for people less than X years old or not from the UK! :) Nevilley (dare not admit his age ...)


I was actually at school when the change took place -- so my class appeared to jump 7 years in one summer holiday. I just have occasional young fogey affectations ;-) -- Tarquin
"Year" does seem to be a jargon term used by the US publishers, Scholastic, but not by Bloomsbury in the UK. See http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/books/ --rbrwr
The video and DVD covers for the first two films, at least in Britain, have small portraits of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) on the spine, labelled "YEAR ONE" and "YEAR TWO". -- Lee M
The spines of the newer editions of the books have "Year #" written on them. --Lowellian 17:47, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)

Was the change from Philosopher's Stone (UK) to Sorcerer's Stone (US) seen in the movie as well as the book? The article says yes, but I wonder if there was a separately dubbed and titled movie for only the "English English" market as opposed to the American and world market? Ortolan88

I got this from uk.imdb.com:
The movie is known as "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" everywhere except the USA and so every scene in which the Philosopher's Stone was mentioned was filmed twice, once with the actors saying "Philosopher's" and once with the actors saying "Sorcerer's".
Hephaestos

Ortolan88, I hope I have understood your question correctly, but if you are asking, "was the film in the UK called ... Philosopher's Stone?" then the answer is yes. I've got the DVD box on my desk here and that's what it says. I don't know what (English-speaking) markets had what division of titles etc - it would be interesting, indeed, to know this - but I don't imagine that, compared to the overall costs and complexity of the film, covering these two aspects woudl have been such a big deal. And given that JKR is known to be extremely protective of her product and NOT wanting to Hollywood-ize it (sorry, no insult intended) too much, I assume that it is something the film company would simply have had to put up with if they wanted to make the film at all.

Here's an example btw:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/05/10/harry_potter_and_philosophers_stone_2001_dvd_review.shtml

"She wrote two adult novels" - does that sentence imply what I think it does? Maybe it should say "non-children's book" or something slightly less misleading.. --Gabbe

that's only because "adult" is used as a euphimism... -- Tarquin 18:36 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)
Sad but true. I reworded it to avoid misunderstandings. Nevilley 17:58 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

Just a small confusion when reading the article. The first paragraph ends with "she is the richest woman in England", I had understood that she lived in Scotland at the moment (Perthshire). Am I mistaken or has the author confused the two regions of the UK?

Here's the reference for her living in Perthshire:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1670067.stm

John McCallum 00:00 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Middle name

I note that someone has inserted the name "Kathleen" into the first sentence making it look as if this is genuinely her middle name. I was under the impression that it is not really her middle name, she uses it as part of her nom de plume. Any justification either way? --Phil 11:59, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC)

I've done some research and I can't find any firm evidence either way, she first use the initial K for he first HP book due to a request of her agent and that K was based on her grandmother Kathleen (who incidently was married to Scott of the Antarctic). Whether she legally adopted the name Kathleen I've been unable to find out. If anywhere has the definitive answer it's probably in the biography "J.K. Rowling: The Genius Behind Harry Potter" by Sean Smith. The closest thing I've seen to providing an answer was a newspaper article which states "The 35-year-old author, who received her medal [OBE] for services to children's literature under her full name Joanne Rowling, has sold more than 30 million copies of her schoolboy wizard books worldwide." --Imran

It was Louisa Young's grandmother Kathleen who married Robert F. Scott. As far as I know, Joanne Rowling's grandmother Kathleen married only Stan Rowling. - Nunh-huh 17:27, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Quite right, she hasn't "changed" her name, Kathleen isn't her name and she never uses it for any purpose other than to put a K. on the front of her books. It shouldn't be made to look like sha has changed her name. Mintguy (T) 01:39, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Rumours of litigation

Could someone expand on these rumours of litigation other than the Stouffer case? Thanks! Rosemary Amey 02:42, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

For the full Neil Gaiman story, read:
For the Jill Murphy rumor, see:
The above rumor seems to be quite false, and has no corroboration anywhere else. One would expect that if Murphy had actually filed charges against Rowling in 2001, by 2004 there should be at least something about it somewhere else online. Also, Jill Murphy has given interviews in which she mentioned Harry Potter favorably, giving the impression that in general the Harry Potter books have been good for her business (I've read more than one such interview, but I can't find the reference). --Woggly 06:01, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
I have submitted a deletion request to the IMDb, so we'll see what happens. --Phil | Talk 10:59, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

JK Rowling pictures

I hope that no-one minds, but I added some pictures and some more notes to JK Rowling's biography... I think she is such an amazing woman so I just wanted to contribute a bit to this... thing :) Jo-Rowling-rocksBecca the Jo Fan

Thank you for your enthusiasm. Unfortunately the largest picture has huge text emblazoned all over it which frankly sucks rocks, so unless it can be cleaned up, it's not really useable here. The others are nice but placement needs to be adjusted a wee bit. Prepare to be edited mercilessly (not necessarily just by me I should add :-) --Phil | Talk 16:51, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)
I also think it exceedingly unlikely that the magazine or news show images are Public Domain, as they're marked. Though the one you took yourself - Image:Jo-premiere.jpg - is an excellent addition to the page - do you have a larger scan of it? You can go quite large here and then thumbnail it for the article page ;-) I have unlinked the other two, and unless you're quite sure they wouldn't get Wikipedia into trouble (see Wikipedia:Copyrights) you may wish to ask for their deletion from the server (see Wikipedia:Copyright problems - David Gerard 16:58, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sorry I don't have a bigger one :( It was taken on my digital camera on the 30th May... at the London premiere for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban... it looks like I got really close to her, doesn't it? But I just used the zoom... I wish I had gotten that close to her! Jo-Rowling-rocks

Richest Woman in UK?

A recent news posting on Mugglenet ( http://www.mugglenet.com ) proclaimed her the 9th richest in the UK, whereas this article says she is the most richest.. =\ What's right? User:212.219.188.240

I think the article is exaggerating. I dared to be bold and edited.--Deadworm222 19:14, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
I can't find the article on Mugglenet that you're referring to; could you post the exact link? In any case, that article on Mugglenet is wrong, as Rowling is not the 9th richest woman; she is the richest (maybe she's the 9th richest woman in the world as opposed to the UK?). See [1], which has the quotation "Rowling at 38 is one of the youngest people on the list, and the only British female" (granted, Forbes does not list nobility in the list referred to here, but the only UK woman close to contending w/ Rowling is the Queen, and Forbes estimates her net worth elsewhere to be less than Rowling). Alternatively, see the chart at [2]. —Lowellian (talk) 05:01, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
She indeed appears to be the richest woman holding United Kingdom citizenship. The richest woman residing in the UK, according to the Forbes list, is the Dutch "beer maiden" Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken.--Eloquence* 14:38, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Jorge Arantes in army?

I find no evidence that Jorge Arantes was in the army at the him of his marriage, as our article used to state. All our sources refer to him as "Portugese TV journalist" so we'll leave it as that. DJ Clayworth 21:48, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Expansion

This article still needs some real expansion on Rowling herself, her life and history. I've added the basics, but it still reads like it's about Harry Potter and not her. DJ Clayworth 22:01, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

--

On the topic of irrational lawsuits: Rowling ought to be happy Squaresoft didn't sue her. Their "moogles" in the Final Fantasy games predate her books by a good few years. *grin* -Kasreyn


Spielberg's Tantrums

I am interested in discovering why on earth just because Rowling refused to use american actors in the Harry Potter films Steven Spielberg refused to contribute to the project in any shape or form? Seems either odd or extremely petty. Also on a seperate note why has the US targeted the books so heavily? Attempts to get the series banned, vilified and even attempted to use fraudulent litigation? It smacks of something unwholesome, especially when the series and author can be attributed with introducing literature to the MTV generations.

Do we have any references to support (1) that Rowling was the only person involved in the production who was against American actors and (2) that actors nationality was the deciding factor in Spielberg's refusal? The article as currently written seems to imply both these things. Also, is Rowlings bio the best place to discuss this?
  • Here's your answer. Hogwarts is in Scotland, which is part of Britain. Only British kids go to Hogwarts. Why would anyone have an American accent, unless there was an immigrant (no immigrant is mentioned in the books)?

Birthplace?

The opening sentence says she was born in Yate, but under "Early Life" it says she was born in Chipping Sodbury. Most sources on the net seem to say she was born in Chipping Sodbury General Hospital, and spent the early part of her life in nearby Yate. However this link http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookarama/smithbio.html says that the book 'JK Rowling: A biography' by Sean Smith reproduces Rowling's birth certificate and she was actually born in Yate itself. Has anyone read this book that can comment? 143.252.80.124 10:42, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Rickman and Coltrane

She has also said that she has told Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane certain secrets about their characters that are not yet revealed.

Having read the books, I would assume that perhaps this refers to what has now been revealed in Goblet of Fire and Half-Blood Prince? Exactly how old is this statement? What's the source? --195.92.67.76 01:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC) Harry Potter Rocks!

about you

i want to nowhat are some hobbies you have, education, and accomplishments you had in your life?

I went to NYU and I do a lot of reading. Wait a minute . . . you must mean Ms. Rowling. This is not the place to contact her, sweetie. Nelson Ricardo 01:43, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

cookery demonstrations

Rowling is not famous at all for her cookery demonstrations, so I removed that part from the intro. If you can provide a reference, please feel free to put it back in. Natgoo 16:28, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Illustrators for the books by J.K. Rowling

dsaklad@zurich.csail.mit.edu 28 November 2005
a.
Who are the illustrators for the books by J.K. Rowling?... including the illustrators for all the foreign editions around the world !

b.
Where around the web are there links with information about or listings of the illustrators for the books by J.K. Rowling?... including the illustrators for all the foreign editions around the world !

Rare radio interview

Does anyone have a source for the radio interview mentioned in the "After Harry Potter" section? I've heard in several places that she may use a pen name, but never that it's definite. Brendan 05:14, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Never mind. Found a link myself. Brendan 20:37, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It was in an Interview called "Living with Harry Potter" on BBC Radio 4 (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4) The article says with a "BBC Journalist"- actually its with Stephen Fry, the Narator of the UK Audiobooks. He's not a BBC Journalist.

JKR image, is it proper to use it here?

I read the rationale for allowing the use of the image as PD, but I'm not convinced. There should be a suitable alternative image of JKR available somewhere, and if so, that would make use of a copyrighted image unsuitable. - Bevo 22:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

name pronunciation

I'm sorry; is there a ban against listing the proper pronunciation of her name? I posted a small edition, thinking it was common sense, but then got it deleted and called vandalism. I think any article about JK Rowling would have to feature at least three words explaining how to properly pronounce her name, since it is one of the most common mistakes people make when mentioning her. Serendipodous 17:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the vandalism revert was because of the edit before yours, by an IP address, which deleted a lot of content from the article. Your addition simply got lost in the shuffle. I don't think there's anything wrong with adding a pronunciation note, but per WP:MOSIPA it needs to include IPA format in addition to the "sounds like" comment. Brendan 20:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry; can't believe I missed that previous edit. Why would anyone do that? Serendipodous 14:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This page has gotta get changed

Why do they name it J.K. Rowling if theres almost nothing here about her?


Anyone else a little peeved that the German mirror of this page got featured?

I've been reading it in Google translation and it makes some pretty flagrant howlers; for instance, it says flat out that Harry Potter was inspired by Neil Gaiman's "Books of Magic," which even Neil Gaiman has said was unlikely. It also claims Rowling's statement that she was born in Chipping Sodbury was made for publicity, which would be pretty tough to verify. And, like every other Wiki article on Joanne Rowling, it gets her name wrong. Serendipodous 18:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

So fix it. We can edit the German site, just like everyone else. DJ Clayworth 20:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Love to, but I haven't spoken German in 15 years, and despite the fact that a number of people with at best a semi-coherent grasp of English still feel it is their right to edit English pages on this site, I don't believe I should attempt to edit a page in a language I don't fully comprehend. Serendipodous 21:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I suggest making a note on the Talk page, or, contact someone from the German Embassy on En or theEnglish Embassy on De and ask for their help, I imagine they'd be thrilled...I'm an "ambassador" to fr and noones contacted me, and I'd be thrilled if they did, so give it a shot. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 19:09, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Rowling helping children in Eastern Europe

How awesome. This warms out the cottles of my heart.

Sure lots of kids will help their fellow kids if they know their favourite author is doing this.

--EuropracBHIT 20:47, 4 March 2006 (UTC).

Uncited material

There's a fair amount of material in this article that is uncited. I am currently working on removing uncited material from Harry Potter articles. By Wikipedia:Verifiability, "Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed." I am archiving uncited material from the article to J. K. Rowling/Uncited. Please contribute by providing references for this material and replacing it on the article page. Thank you. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 19:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you are being extreme in the interpretation of this policy. Removing the biography entirely from the article was close to vandalism and shocked me. I have replaced it with 2 general citations. We want to avoid libel but declared facts which cannot be immediately supported in the listed citations merely need the suffix ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› [citation needed] added to begin a citation process. Lumos3 09:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm being extreme, but I still think I'm within the wording of the policy, as I am challenging uncited material. I basically am willing to accept material that is well established (for example, something like J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books is fine, but something like J.K. Rowling is the richest author in the world needs to be backed up). I'm sorry to remove good quality text, but I'm also not wanting unverified information in the article. It's my intention to spend time at some point working on finding citations for some of this myself, but it's my feeling that in the meantime, uncited information should be removed from Wikipedia articles until it can be verified. That's the first step, then it can be added in with citations. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 22:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
What I don't get is, why, instead of self-righteously deleting information you felt didn't adhere to your standard, did you not try looking for the citations yourself? It took me, oh, I'd say about ten minutes on Google to find the correct citations for the information you removed. It took me the better part of two hours to redraft the article after you savaged it. By the way, "challenged and removed," implies that the material should be challeged, then removed. You removed without bothering to challenge first. If you had simply made a request for citations on the discussion page, this issue would have been cleared up in minutes. Serendipodous 10:18, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
In my mind, challenged and removed can go together as one thing. There doesn't have to be a time gap in between them, in my interpretation of the policy. Part of why I feel this is so is because if I simply challenge the various assertions that need citation, 1. there's really no impetus on anyone to do anything about it and 2. Uncited material remains present on the article page. So by removing uncited material, what material that is there is well cited, and what material that is removed is present on the Uncited archive. As far as redrafting the article, I kept the content in sections and spaced out where there were gaps that I didn't remove on the Uncited page, so hopefully that provided some guide to you in re-working the article. As far as why I didn't find the citations myself, well that is the next step in the process, but it's one I simply hadn't gotten to yet, namely because I have some other articles in HP space and various others that I'm watching that I'm working on culling uncited material from first. I've also been working on a project to re-factor the categories within the HP scope, and having done that, I worked on clearing up citation issues on articles that were in the high levels of Category:Harry Potter, which would be mainly this article and the Harry Potter article itself. Future projects for me include going then through the lower levels of the categories and doing cleaning and removal of unsourced material. Additionally, a task I have pending with this article is to review your edits and citations, and work to line up this article with the Uncited page, ie removing text from the Uncited page that you've provided citations for, and working to make sure the citations are well placed and correctly formatted. It's just a question of when I have time to go through it in that level of detail. However, I do want to thank you for taking the time to locate the citations. If you'd wanted to make notes on the Uncited page with the citations you'd found, I'd be happy to work on re-factoring the material back into the article myself. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 03:45, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
In response to your removed comment, I don't think it was hypocritical, as I don't see how I allowed anyone else more time than myself. I removed the uncited content, so the content was just as not-on-the-article-page for me as for you. I'm saying that it's the first step to remove the uncited content..that is the short term solution that makes the fastest improvement in the article quality. I'd rather take out 75 percent of the article, leaving the 25 percent thats cited, and slowly add in cited material. That way, all of the article is cited, which makes it a much better article. It's much easier to take out the uncited material, then work in the background adding in citations, as well as patrolling the article to remove uncited additions. Check out Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film). When I started patrolling that article it was a miasma of various rumors and claims about who would and wouldn't be in the movie, none of which was backed up. I started off by moving every. single. actor. to the Unconfirmed section, and reverted any changes that placed actors in "Confirmed" that didn't have a citation. I also worked on keeping out uncited rumors. Guess what? Now every single confirmed actor in that article has a citation, almost all of the commentary about the movie is cited, and there's even a beautiful little References section down at the bottom that someone did. You may have delayed in posting citations, but doing so weakens the article. It's much better to add whatever content you add with some kind of citation, then someone else can come along and clean up the citation. This is a team project here, its not something anyone on their own can do. I'm basically just working to lay the groundwork for improving certain articles that I think are important and that I happen to patrol regularly. For what it's worth, I'm starting now to post comments to Talk pages in advance of culling Uncited material, in response to your critique. I'm also about to hit up two schools that I attended, which I'm not going to enjoy doing, but I feel that it's neccessary (and fair, ya know?). Understand that I'm just trying to improve article quality, and inspire others to make these articles higher quality to. In my mind, one of the first steps is getting Uncited material out of the article, and adding back in what is noteworthy and citable (and not speculation). Ëvilphoenix Burn! 15:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Further comment

Just so you understand where I'm coming from better, I'm working my way through the edits you made adding content back in to the article. I just spent about an hour and a half or more, and I have made it through the first three edits that have been made since I culled uncited material, with about thirty or so to go, it looks like.Specifically, these edits. This is how I updated and linked those citations, and this is the corresponding series of edits I made to J. K. Rowling/Uncited to update for cited additions. Serendipodous, your edits were helpful in that you linked specific assertions to specific sites that had those claims. Lumos3, your edit simply restored the entire section, and merely linked in to Rowling's biography page without further citation. Going back and checking the information on Rowling's page, there was quite a bit of material that was not discussed in that reference. I then compared revisions, and located the further citations that Serendipodous provided, which helped further cite some of the information I would otherwise not have been able to put back in. However, there is still some information that is not cited, as it's not contained in the three references I've worked through so far.

I'm going through this to demonstrate the level of citation that I'm looking for. The Early Life section is now very well cited, and the references are clearly labelled. Now, as much as you can help me with this process, I appreciate. If you don't want to deal with the complications of using the {{ref}} template and all that, that's fine, I just need the links to reference in, and I can format the assertions. It would also help me if you would edit J. K. Rowling/Uncited as well, and remove any content you place back in the article from that page. The idea is that the article and the Uncited page are maintained as closely in line as possible, so that stuff listed on the Uncited page is assertions that are not in fact in the article, and that once material is properly cited it's removed from the Uncited page. However please dont just add wholesale sections back in, because not everything in that section is neccessarily referenced in what references we currently have listed. I hope this makes my intent more clear. Best regards, Ëvilphoenix Burn! 21:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

All your crusade is accomplishing is making my life and the lives of the other writers on this page unnecessarily difficult. If you had any interest in looking up citations yourself you could solve your issue without deleting anything. If you have issues with citations, bring them up on the discussion page; stop taking perfectly good material and logging it on a virtually inaccessable subpage. You want a citation for Rowling's charity work in Bucharest? Try the front page of her own website. You want a citation that her daughter is named after Jessica Mitford? Try every interview she's ever given. For future reference, if you want a Rowling quote, try her website, then try here: [url]http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/index2.html[/url]Serendipodous 00:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't have any interest in looking up links. I have interest in editing text and formatting Citations. However I don't mind searching for links, but I'm not going to do that yet because I still have good links in the article itself that need to be formatted before I want to do that. You're a step ahead of me. That's fine, you finding links makes things a ton easier for me because then I can work on formatting links and making nice citations instead of looking for references that should have been provided in the first place. J. K. Rowling/Uncited is hardly a "virtually inaccessable subpage", I've linked it multiple times, on this Talk Page, in edit summaries, etc. It's available there as a resource, and it's helpful to me to keep track of what information I removed from the article that still needs citation. Not everything that you're making citations for works, because if you actually go and look at the sources, which is what I am doing, not every assertion is being discussed, so I'm removing the ones that aren't covered from the article. The front page of her website is not an acceptable citation because the front page will change, and ideally the citation will be to a page that is more permanent. But as I said before, I'm working on making the citations that are already in the article work, and making sure that they accurrately describe the content of the article, before I go and look up new citations. However the more citations you provide, the more I have to work with. Why don't you try checking out the use of the {{ref}} and {{note}} templates, they're not that hard to use. As far as me being on a crusade, we now have an article that's starting to look a whole lot better, and be much more substantially referenced. That's a good improvement in quality, and that's all that I'm after here. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 00:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
There is something about your methods I don't understand. It is actually easier and less time consuming to simply go onto Google, type the necessary words, and then paste the resulting citation onto the article, then it is to delete the information and put it on a separate page. What you are doing makes what could be a thirty-second job into a laborious, five-to-ten minute process.Serendipodous 00:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I think that what you are not understanding is that I don't want uncited material in the article. At all. I want everything to be cited. The way to make sure that everything is cited is to remove everything that isn't cited, then go back through and add material back in with citation. The question is what to do with the material that isn't cited. My choice is to archive it, so that it's not lost in the edit history as it would be if I simply removed it. That way, as I go back through, and remove the material that citations have been provided for, I can account for what still remains to be cited, and what I still will want to look up citations for. But before that, I cite and format what's already in the article. I don't intend for you to do my work for me, it's not my work, it's Wikipedia's work. It's the work of making the encyclopedia better. I do appreciate your contribution however, as it is actually helping me get the article where I want it to. You're good at finding the information, I'm good at editing it and citing it and making it look good. That's all there is to it, but there's not pressure on you to look this stuff up, other than your choice to do so. I don't expect your help, but I do appreciate that it does help me. I just wish you'd understand that I really am doing this in good faith, and there is a logic and reason to what I'm doing. Where we are in disagreement, I think, is what order things should be done in, and what should be done with material that is uncited. I think it should not be in the article in any uncited fashion for any time, not when I'm working on getting this article through the Verification process.
Check out {{Opentask}}. Verify is one of the major steps on there, it's in there with things like Copyediting, expansion, and NPOVing. This article has been decently expanded, it's pretty well copyedited and NPOV, now I'm working on bringing the article through the Verification stage. It's not an easy task, I'm discovering it's really quite tedious. But it's worth the effort IMO. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 02:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Citation is not the issue here. Its your method of removing everything to another page and then expecting everyone else to put it back with citations. There are gentler methods like flagging each citation that is needed with the tag ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› [citation needed] at the place in the text where its needed. The bigger issue is that you started this without any consultation or warning to the others who maintain this page. You’re not making yourself popular. Please work more collaboratively . Lumos3 15:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

J._K._Rowling#Nancy_Stouffer

In response to the comments I've been receiving, I'm going to post here first about some concerns I have about this section. The first citation provided, Entertainment Law Digest, appears to go to a site where payment is required to access the information, and the relevant information is not visible, which is less than helpful. I had some concerns about the other citation, but after double checking WP:NOR I'm fine with using that as a source. However even with that one I think it would be more helpful to have maybe an news article talking about the judgement rather than just the actual judgement itself, especially since it's the only citation in that section, and there's a lot of assertions that may not be specifically covered by the judgement. I'd really love any help you guys could give me looking for some more sources for this section. Thanks! Ëvilphoenix Burn! 00:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Bibliography includes unpublished seventh book?

I noticed that Harry Potter: Book Seven is mentioned in Rowling's bibliography, even though it hasn't been published yet (or even named, for that matter). I don't think that a bibliography should include unpublished works (or even unfinished works, for that matter). I have several unpublished works of fiction, and if I were ever notable enough to get a Wikipedia article, you'd never see me list them in my bibliography. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed before, and it was decided to retain it, seeing as, while it is unpublished, barring Rowling's sudden, tragic death, there is no chance of it NOT being published. Actually, even if she were to die, there would almost certainly be an attempt to ready the book for publication anyway, based on the notes and drafts she left. It's similar to actors and directors' pages listing films that they haven't completed yet. If there's no reason to assume they won't, then there's no reason not to include them. There are a number of other unpublished works mentioned in the article, such as her "political monster story" and her collection of short stories, that shouldn't be included in her bibliography, as there is no guarantee they will ever be published, but book seven, come hell or high water, will be.Serendipodous 18:22, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I still disagree with the rationale, but since it's already previously-established consensus, I won't rock the boat any further by revisiting an old discussion. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The $1000 or $2000 advance? Anyone know?

Was it Bloomsbury that gave her the tiny advance to publish her book. The article just says a 100k auction, but I'd read that the advance was only one or two thousand dollars. So I'm guessing the Bloomsbury company was the one who gave her the small advance. Does anyone know? DyslexicEditor 19:29, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The precise amount Rowling recieved in her initial advance from Bloomsbury isn't clear; different sources quote different numbers, and they're all most likely based on hearsay anyway, but the generally accepted figure seems to be about £2000, or just under $4000. Serendipodous 19:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

There seems to be some problem with the numbering of the footnotes, the one marked [n] does not correspond to footnote n at the bottom. --80.129.76.120 19:24, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The footnotes are in alphabetical order. Some footnotes refer to more than one citation. Serendipodous 20:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

It is ok to have them in alphabetical order, if one wishes. But then it would be good not to insist on [n] as the nth footnote appearing in the text, because the footnotes don't appear there in alphabetical order, of course. Can this be achieved somehow? It is a bit weird to follow the last some ten footnotes (wrt the alphabetical order), because they are not shown as the first line after using the hyperlink within the text. --80.129.76.120 21:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't the new procedure described in Wikipedia:Footnotes work out properly? --80.129.122.28 22:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to say it is extremely difficult to follow the current method of citations. For example, under section "New York Daily News", when i click on citation [69] i'd expect to see footnote #69 to be what i'm looking for, and then realized there's no footnote#69 at all. Took me a while to find out what i'm searching for is footnote#44. I'd disagree sorting the footnote in alphabetical orders + [n] in the text

If you click on the citation, it will automatically take you to to the appropriate reference. Your browswer should outline the appropriate footnote if it doesnt happen to scroll to the top of the page. Yes, it would be possible to do the supposedly newer and better system. However, as the person who wrote the citations, and maintains them, I prefer alphabetical. That's all there is to it really. Also, please sign your posts. Thanks. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 22:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The conversion to Cite.php using Ref converter has solved these concerns. --Cyde Weys 20:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Man you guys are really challenging my ability to remain civil while discussing this. I'm so close to getting some serious Rogue Admin points by blocking the everloving goodness out of the next person who comes along here and converts this article. I started an entire discussion on Wikipedia talk:Footnotes, where multiple people have complained about articles they've worked on being converted to this new system. Cyde you participated in that discussion, did you not read the comments there? Please do not convert this article to cite.php. I do not want this article in that format while I'm maintaining it, and I am maintaining it.Ëvilphoenix Burn! 01:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I for one am reluctant to second-guess the regular contributors to this article as to what note numbering system is most appropriate, so I've added a comment to that effect to the references section. Frankly, I don't care, even if I do think the new system has more advantages. But, Evilphoenix, I'm rather concerned about the statements you made here. Saying "I do not want this article in that format while I'm maintaining it, and I am maintaining it." appears to clearly violate WP:OWN, and threatening to block those who disagree is even more worrying, for reasons I think I need not go into when talking to an administrator. Please elaborate. Sandstein 06:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Like I said I was rather irritated at the time. I was merely expressing my temptation, but thus far I haven't actually blocked anyone over this. If you think I'm violating the Owning Articles policy, well then, ok, but, I spent several weeks working on those citations, which is an ongoing project of mine. I've repeatedly stated my reasons for disliking the cite.php system, reasons which I believe are valid and that I am not alone in holding. I'm open to quality content changes to this article, but vandalism to this article and radical changes to the formatting of the citations section I will fight with utter tenacity. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 16:47, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Evilphoenix, you are blatantly violating WP:OWN with this statement: Please do not convert this article to cite.php. I do not want this article in that format while I'm maintaining it, and I am maintaining it. Consider this a strong recommendation to stop "maintaining" this article because you are doing more harm than good. --Cyde Weys 18:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Stop converting the article. Your converter is flawed, and the cite.php system is poor and unwieldy. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 18:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The current system is just as poor and unwieldy, and it confuses the heck out of the readers as well. Johnleemk | Talk 16:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I never even realized how poor the existing use of footnotes in this article is. It's unacceptable. You have 71 different numbers in the text linking to only 48 different numbers in the references section, and not only that, none of the numbers even match up (except by coincidence). This is so unusable it isn't funny. I'm not going to force Cite.php upon you but this had better be fixed. You can do it with proper use of {{ref}}, {{ref label}}, {{note}}, and {{note label}}. --Cyde Weys 17:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing that some of those footnotes intentionally link to the same {{note}}, and have different numbers so as to be unique (unlike with the {{ref label}} or m:Cite system where the numbers are not unique). I have no idea why this would be desired, but hey, this article's citation system is seriously an outlier. Johnleemk | Talk 17:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't help but jump in the discussion... I was trying to look at one footnote in the article, and got confused when the browser presented me a footnote with another number than expected. It may have been the correct one (or maybe not, if I was close to the bottom — but this is not something I want to have to check every time I look at a footnote), but there is no way anyone can look at the footnote and not be confused. This is definitively counter-intuitive. What is the point of keeping the numbers altogether if they don't match to anything ? Looking at this talk page, I am glad to see that this discussion has already happened, but I hope that a good solution will be found (although obviously, given the comments above, I won't try anything myself). Schutz 23:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The Hogwarts School Scarf

In the films, a lot of the Hogwarts sequences are shot in and around Alnwick Castle in Northumberland. I haven't been following very attentively, but in Chamber of Secrets, I noticed that the Hogwarts scarf is purple and gold, the colours of the ancient flag of Northumbria (King/Saint Oswald's flag)as described by Bede in the 7th century AD. This is the oldest flag description we have, and the flag is displayed by patriotic Northunmbrians today.

Ms Rowling admired Jessica Mitford, of the Northumberland Redesdale family, and I was wondering if anyone can tell me more on this subject. Is there anything about this in the books?

Bandalore 21.25 15 April 2006

The poll below has been closed by Francis Schonken 12:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Note
Following Snoutwood's suggestion, there has been given enough time to (possible) further objectors to the proposed footnote technology change, and, besides, the current change wouldn't make objectors impossible to voice their concerns here or on talk pages of WP:FN or WP:FN3 or on Village pump pages etc.
Result of the poll: There appears to be a broad consensus to convert the numbered footnotes on the J. K. Rowling page to cite.php. So, anyone performing that, by Ref converter or otherwise, is free to do that, and should not be reverted.

References straw poll!

Evilphoenix (talk · contribs) blanked this straw poll and replaced it with a comment; I've restored the poll and placed the comment below at Comments. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


In an attempt to find consensus, we are going to run a straw poll. We are comparing two versions, current and Cite.php. Please vote below. And if you wouldn't mind, please include comments on why you are making your vote. Remember, we are voting solely on references style; everything else in the two versions is identical. The earliest this poll may end is on three days after its date of creation, which was 2006-04-25.

On a slightly more civil note, 1. There are some references out of alphabetical order. These were added by other users and I haven't yet corrected them, because I am too busy trying to convince people not to convert this article to cite.php. 2. This article is not the poster child for the anti-cite.php movement, as there is no anti-cite.php movement. I am not against cite.php, I am perfectly fine with it. I'm not going around converting articles from cite.php to ref. If I go and wander into an article reffed with cite.php, I'm going to use cite.php, and if I add any references to it, then I'll use that system. What I am against is the way this is being pushed forward (I don't endorse the RfC on Cyde being published, but do read my notes on the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Footnotes. I counted more people voicing opinions against what is going on than for. If someone wants to point out to me where it was decided that ref is deprecated, other than someone simply stating it to be so because there was a "newer" system, please be my guest. However, for this article, which I am a heavy contributor to (unlike those advocating a change), I prefer using the ref templates. This poll is illegitimate, because none of you are actually contributors to this article, and therefore should not be attempting to dictate changing this article to a controversial referencing scheme. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 21:32, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

You are mistaken that our not being contributors to this article illegitimised the poll. If that were true, then *fD, PROD, RM, et al. would all be in violation of that policy. Snoutwood (talk) 21:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Prefer current version


Prefer Cite.php version

  1. Polls are evil, but it looks like we have no other way to go about this. This article is being cited as one of the poster-boys for the anti-Cite.php movement, even though the fellow who prefers the very very confusing and strange citation system no longer endorses the RfC concerning this issue. Johnleemk | Talk 03:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. OK. I don't really understand the current system in the way it is being used here now, and I think standardisation is a good thing. Sandstein 04:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  3. See my comments above in the Footnotes section. Schutz 05:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  4. There are two main issues with the current version that make the Cite.php version vastly preferable. For one, the old {{ref}}/{{note}} system has very bad maintainability (in fact, the current version on this page even contains a broken note that isn't linked from anywhere in the article text). And the other issue is that the current system is just downright confusing. There are 71 numbered footnotes in the body but only 48 numbered footnote texts at the bottom of the article, and even worse, none of the numbers even correspond to each other. The Cite.php version is demonstrably better because it correctly handles multiple links to a single citation and the numbers match up, which is much more intuitive for 99.9% of the users out there. --Cyde Weys 05:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  5. What Johnleemk and Cyde said. Snoutwood (talk) 06:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  6. What Johnleemk and Cyde said. Alphax τεχ 09:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  7. Prefer anything more consistent than the current mish-mash. It's not even clear that the current system is alphabetical: it took me some considerable time to tumble to it because the "key" upon which the items are sorted is not even consistently displayed. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  8. The Cite version looked much better (editing and reading), IMO. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  9. Converting any type of numbered footnotes to Cite.php footnotes (which is just state of the art technology for the numbering) should not be problematic. If Cyde's tool repairs the errors (resulting from inappropriate application of wikipedia:footnote3 by EvilP and possibly others), there should be even less a problem, please go ahead ASAP, the current version where the numbers don't match between the body of the text and the list of footnotes is way below wikipedia's standards (and guidelines). I see no intention from EvilP's (or other) side to fix the use of ref-and-note templates according to WP:FN3, which would be a minimum if they want to stick to the obsolete system, so, one reason more to move up to cite.php, wikipedia's current state of the art re. numbered footnotes. --Francis Schonken 15:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  10. Cite.php may not be perfect but it is certainly better than this. What is the rule used for ordering the references? Alphabetical? Time order? Random? Confusing to say the least. Joelito 20:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  11. No reason not to use it. Ashibaka tock 23:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  12. Template:Ref is kludgy and deprecated, cite.php is designed specifically for this role and is the manual-of-style standard. I don't see why this is even up for a vote. Convert over. Bryan 21:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
  13. Cite.php is the right tool for the job. Warrens 05:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Dislike deception

  1. Waiting until Evilphoenix goes on Wikibreak to hold this poll and to also invent unsubstantiated claims about whether or not he support the current Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Cyde is very dishonest, and borders on bad faith.[1] Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
    I reckon that this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't moved and restored the RfC right after Evilphoenix said that he wanted it to wait until he came back. You can't start an RfC in his absence and then complain that people are responding while he's gone. Snoutwood (talk) 06:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
    How can I make you happy? First you assault me for converting references styles without consulting the talk page and attempting to achieve consensus. So now I am consulting the talk page and trying to achieve consensus and you're still assaulting me. I guess the only way you'll be happy is if you get your way despite what anyone else may think on the matter. So much for consensus. --Cyde Weys 10:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments

Screw that. No, seriously, screw that. I don't get people claiming (as I have seen stated) that the citations on this page are ugly somehow. I grew up writing term papers and essays in college where I cited my sources in fucking alphabetical order, and that's exactly what I did on this page (with the exception of a few that got added by someone else, that I haven't had time to fix because I've been too busy trying to keep the whole referencing system in general from getting fucked up). Cite.php creates FOOTNOTES. What is in the article now is REFERENCES. Please understand that there is a difference. I don't care if twenty million of Cyde's friends wander in to vote on some stupid "Poll" in favor of cite.php, {{Ref}} is still a valid way of referencing this article, and it should NOT be converted. If you are not a contributor to this article, please do not try to dictate how it should be referenced. There is one other editor whose opinions on this will have any chance of swaying me, and that is Serendipodous, because he is the one who looked up all these links, and he is the one who wrote most of the copy. If you're going to come in and claim to have a valid voice to make a major change to this article, then you better be willing to A. Keep this article clear of vandalism B. Be prepared to spend time researching citations still missing C. Better be damn good at figuring out the shit that cite.php generates, because I sure can't stand it, D. Be a good copy editor, and actually make improvements to the article. Also, E. research new content. If you aren't going to do these things (which none of you voting on this poll are going to do), Fuck. Off. Wanna discuss how you think the article should change? Put in some damn editing time on the article, and then we'll talk. And for the record, no, I don't support the damn RfC on Cyde getting filed, because I specifically blanked it, left a note saying I was going on break, didn't feel it needed to get filed, and to leave it the fuck alone. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 20:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Articles are not owned by their contributors. Although I can understand that it's frustrating to have others who haven't worked on an article that you've put a great deal of time into wanting to change things on it, you should be aware at this point that that's how a wiki works. In fact, people like myself who are uninvolved with the article can often give good critiques on how the article could be, since we haven't any vested interest in the article itself, and, as we're only readers, we can give advice on how the article could make more sense to a reader. You have no more right to dictate the way things are going to be on this article than anyone else, whether that other person has worked on the article from day one or if their changes were their first edits.
Since you say that you don't understand why people dislike the citations on this page, it's because your footnotes are numbered and the numbering is madly out of order. This is extremely confusing to a reader. A reader is not going to know the name of a citation, and so the alphabetic system isn't helpful, unless you use a Harvard style of referencing (where instead of a numbered reference, you have the author and the date of publication). It's unreasonable to expect a reader to click on reference #68 in the text and figure out that it corresponds to note #19, which is the current state of affairs. Snoutwood (talk) 21:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I guess this kind of invalidates all those other article strawpolls we've had, doesn't it? Oh, wait... Johnleemk | Talk 04:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
While I understand and sympathize with your frustrations, and agree that editors should defer to the article's main content contributors in deciding the most suitable format for the presentation of references, I have to agree that the ordering of the references in this article is confusing. The references use numbers that don't agree with the numbers for the citations, and the method of alphabetizing is not obvious (sometime alphabetized on the author's last name, sometimes on the name of the source, sometimes on the name of the article.) —Doug Bell talk•contrib 17:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Jesus. Wikipedia is not paper! Term papers are completely different spiel here. This is Wikipedia, not some term paper. In term paprs, you have a stangant "Works Cited," with a simple citation like (Rowling 35). You are writing your own paper and only have a few sources. Not so here. You have to specifically link to the source from the article reference itself, and this is where it gets hairy. As Snoutwood put it, References #68 corresponds to Note #19? The hell? How confusing and unintutive. You also have multiple editors contributing to this article; as someone pointed out, you do not own this article. You have constant contributions of new sources and the like, all of which are hindered by the unintuitive, time-consuming, and steep Harvard method. I'm not voting in this poll, but Evilphoenix's latest rant is clearly veering off course. Hbdragon88 21:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Evilphoenix stated that s/he did not wish to pursue an RfC until s/he returned from Wikibreak; however, s/he did write much of the draft of the dispute statement for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Cyde
And would have changed the wording on a lot of it, had I actually chosen to file it. As I did not, I make no claim whatsoever to the wording of that RfC. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 21:06, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Can someone close the poll - and perform the conversion to cite.php?

Just asking. Or do we still need to wait for more votes or anything else? I mean, I can perfectly understand that Cyde doesn't feel like firing RefConverter to do the transformation on this article any more, but this article was removed from the list of problematic cases on the RefConverter page [3], and the poll indeed seems pretty unambiguous, who volunteers:

  1. To close the poll?
  2. To perform the transformation of the numbered footnotes-by-templates to cite.php on this page?

Tx! --Francis Schonken 19:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm more than happy to go ahead and do it manually, but I think that it should wait until Evilphoenix returns from his break, as he's the main opposer and hasn't really defended his point yet. He'll be back May 1, according to his userpage. If the consensus continues until a few days after he's back, then I'd say that conversion is O.K. Snoutwood (talk) 19:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Why would you want to go ahead and do it manually when Ref converter works perfectly fine? I don't understand .. Cyde Weys 22:25, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Um, I think that I just wasn't thinking very clearly (there was some complaint about information loss when converting Harvard refs, but then J. K. Rowling doesn't use Harvard). I don't think that in this case there is one, it's just a slip on my part. Snoutwood (talk) 02:13, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I think enough time has elapsed, and consensus is unanimous. Time to update the references. Y'all know the drill. --Cyde Weys 23:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I maintain that waiting one more day to May 1, the day Evilphoenix gets back, an preferably at least until May 2 or 3 so that he can be certain to voice his opinion, is a good idea and of no detriment to anyone. Snoutwood (tóg) 23:54, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to revert again, but I'm stating for the record that I think that it's a poor idea and of no benefit to anyone to convert it now, before Evilphoenix is back. No real advantage is gained by doing so, and what is lost is his say in the matter. Snoutwood (talk) 06:07, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Evilphoenix's dislike of Cite.php is entirely justified, and his work on improving the article's references is appreciated, but there is clear WP:Consensus on the subject, and that should be respected. A better long-term solution than endless bickering over citation formats, is to get Cite.php improved so that references can be alphabetized or separated out as is merited by individual articles. Warrens 06:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes. However, since he is the most vociferous opponent to the conversion of this article and yet still hasn't been able to speak his mind, I'm very much interested in the points he will make (which may be convincing, who knows?), and I think he has a right to make them. That we have consensus doesn't change that we can easily wait for him to come back and hear what he has to say. Snoutwood (talk) 06:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Other thoughts after closing the "conversion to cite.php" poll

(feel free to add your thoughts:)


Requested move

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
Quote: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things. There is another naming convention that applies here, which I mean gives us a different indication on what to do. –DamslethTalk|Contributions 11:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely not. Please read the examples there: the whole point of that guideline is to avoid potentially insulting group names, and so we prefer "Roma" over "gypsy". "J. K. Rowling" is clearly the name she has chosen to be known to the world by.--Pharos 12:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Then I misunderstood the policy. I stand corrected. Thank you. –DamslethTalk|Contributions 12:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I call(ed) the idea stupid, not the person behind it. I don't claim to be a good editor, but I don't see why good editors would waste their time dealing which proposals that no amount of good faith can assume to be well-thought. Has it found any support yet?--Matthead 02:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
That's still against the good-faith guideline. — Mütze 23:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

Based on Wikipedia policy about naming conventions. Excerpt:

When naming or writing an article about specific people or specific groups always use the terminology which those individuals or organizations themselves use.

Are we writing an article about a trademark or a person? Or perhaps the article should be moved to Joanne Kathleen Rowling? –DamslethTalk|Contributions 10:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

If you want to know which name she uses, just look on the covers of her books. "J. K. Rowling" is the name she uses professionally, so that's where this article should be. — sjorford++ 11:25, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, but I already know what name there is on the books, having read them all a fair few times. I'm just trying to make this article as informative as possible, while complying with our policies, which tells us to be as specific as possible. I also don't think it's a good idea to use an abbrevation in the page title, because it creates ambiguity (and we already have a disambig on Rowling). –DamslethTalk|Contributions 11:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Her name is not "Joanne Kathleen Rowling." It's just "Joanne Rowling." And, if you want to get really specific, that's wrong too. Her married name is Joanne Rowling Murray, which she uses for private business and correspondance. So which is correct? Her pen name, by which she is largely known, her given name, or her married name? I feel that mentioning her married name would be somewhat intrusive; Rowling signs her name "JK Rowling" when dealing with the public, and I see no reason why not to stick to her preferred public moniker. Serendipodous 12:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Result

Strong opposition against move. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 20:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


Richest woman?

How does she rank in terms of the world's richest women? I know she past the Queen of England, but I have my doubts about Oprah. savidan(talk) (e@) 17:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

She has barely $1 billion, which puts her on the Forbes list, but not very high up at all. Serendipodous 10:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Forbes magazine in 2006 listed four women among its 25 richest individuals -- Liliane Bettencourt, daughter of the founder of L'Oreal cosmetics, and the widow, daughter, and daughter-in-law of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. The estimated wealth of each ranges from $15.7 to $16.0 billion (US). Oprah Winfrey is estimated at $1.5 billion; J. K. Rowling at $1.0 (#746 on the Forbes' list of richest people, which doesn't sort by sex). — OtherDave 13:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

How is it that Rowling has got so rich so quickly? Writers like Stephen King (who has been writing bestsellers since the 1970s and has had many books made into movies) have not made as much money as Rowling.192.139.140.243 03:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

King's individual sales are nowhere near the level of the Potter books; the fifth volume sold 5 million copies in the U.S. on its first day, thanks in no small part to "pre-ordering;" the sixth sold nearly 7 million on its first day. Total sales of her books passed 250 million in 2003, reportedly. Also, while several King books have been turned into films, few have had the mass audience appeal or opportunity for related products like games, toys, or clothing, that the Potter books have had. — OtherDave 13:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you OtherDave. Where can I go to find out information on an author's sales or a specific book's sales, or on the net worth of an author? Articles on Wikipedia do not typically contain this kind of down-and-dirty info. 192.139.140.243 08:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I found Rowling's sales figures in newspaper archives (googling things like "Rowling" and "sales," then poking around a bit). The Forbes estimates are just that -- estimates -- so take them with some skepticism. That said, which writer gets wealthy from writing isn't necessarily an indicator of the artistic value of the writing; it's more a measure of a match between the writing and a market for the writing. King writes in the horror genre; like the mystery genre, that's a reliable niche but not necessarily one that will propel him into billionaire status. Rowling's books are for a potentially much larger audience: children (say 8 - 14 years as a generalization), and the parents/relatives/well-wishers of such children. That's also a market that renews itself every six or eight years (an entire new crop of 8- to 14-year-olds), a characteristic that companies like Disney have capitalized on for generations. (For whatever it's worth, www.horrorking.com, a King fan site, claims on a page dated July 2006 that he has "over 100 million copies" in print.) I suppose you might also try checking press releases on a publisher's site, to see if they were bragging about the sales of one of their writers. — OtherDave 15:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Translation

I translated the german wikipedia article and it can be found HERE. It's somewhat informative (but probably riddled with spellling errors) but I'm not sure if it will really actully help at all. I wouldn't have made it a featured artcle. Dark jedi requiem 09:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Featured articles in other languages are held to a lower standard. That article's actually a lot better now than it was when it was first featured, and it seems to have been "de-featured" since then. I read it in Google translation, and it seemed to draw a lot of its information from an unauthorised biography by a British tabloid journalist named Sean Smith. (not that it cited any of its sources) Luckily a lot of that "info" was taken out, yet it still, rather infuriatingly, claims that Rowling came up with the idea for Harry Potter after reading Neil Gaiman's "Books of Magic", which Rowling denies and even Gaiman has claimed was unlikely. I'd appreciate it if someone with a better grasp of German grammar could take that down.Serendipodous 09:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I've deleted that clause. The german article is currently marked as "worth reading" which is less than "excellent". The article here is clearly much better, in particular because of the references. --80.129.111.115 22:14, 3 July 2006 (UTC)


Religion

Shouldn't there be something in here about the religion contraversy? It is a big part of Harry Potter and J.K.'s effect on the world. And what about J.K.'s own Religion?

DISCUSS!

No. Religion is dealt with in the Harry Potter article. Rowling's personal religious views have nothing to do with the manufactured controversy. She has remained very closed about her religious beliefs and any discussion of them in this article would be speculation. Serendipodous 19:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I was afraid of that. I wasn't able to personally discover much about her religion. Nothing that I can back up with fact. but from what I have read she went to Church while she was growing up. and the Harry Potter books certainly share some very strong themes with Christianity.

Ghost writer accusation

Film director sparks debate over origins of 'Harry Potter' Silly, too much beer? Yes. But's it's a verifyable source. Where in the article could this be mentioned? Under the Hary Potter books? --GunnarRene 17:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Since it's complete lunacy, I doubt it really has a place anywhere. As Rowling says in her debunking of the rumour on her webpage, anyone who thinks this could possibly be true has never heard of the British tabloid press. If they haven't found it out, it's not worth knowing. Serendipodous 21:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
It's verifiable lunacy though. Perhaps the best "debunk" is to note that Rowling has an OBE, and that only real people can receive an OBE? --GunnarRene 01:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
But where would you put it? It would need to have its own section, and that section wouldn't really have a purpose, except to tell this story. It has no reason to be on the page. Serendipodous 07:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Hahaha! I didn't know about this one. Crazy! But what if? She kind of looks like an actress in her photo here in the article. Moonwalkerwiz 03:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Rowling's ethnicity

I'm reposting this from the article to here, as it has become a discussion.

Note to those wish to describe her as English, rather than British: Rowling lives in Scotland, but was English-born, therefore "British" is arguably a better term, since it covers every ambiguity. Serendipodous 16:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

RE: in actual fact, her living in Scotland leads many to believe that she is Scottish, whereas she is English and living in Scotland has no effect on that.
Living in Scotland doesn't make you Scottish? Then what does? Obviously not citizenship; she can't get a Scottish passport. And obviously not birth; Tony Blair was born in Scotland and I don't see anyone calling him a Scot. Serendipodous 16:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I define nationality in terms of what our parents were. As Rowling was born in England and had (as far as I'm aware), English parents, she is English. I live in Scotland, but there is no way in hell I would refer to myself as Scottish! I'm English Jamandell (d69) 16:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
So where does that leave me then? My father's half-Scottish, half-English; my mother's half-American, half-Swedish, I was born in America, but live in London and have a British passport.Serendipodous 16:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Look at the article on Ethnicity - Serendipodus is one quarter Scottish, one-quarter English, one quarter Swedish, and one quarter American - if you're talking about ethnicity. I'm one quarter Austrian - because my father's father is Austrian. But my parents and I were all born in America - and thus I'm American. My ethnicity isn't American - I'm an American-born citizen. My nationality is American - as Rowling's nationality is English (it's more specific than British). Emily (Funtrivia Freak) 16:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
No, her nationality is British, just like everyone in Scotland, not to mention England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. If Scotland were to declare independence, than that would be a different story, but until then it is Rowling's ethnicity that is under discussion here, not her nationality. Serendipodous 18:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Not all countries of the world recognize the british military occupation of Northern Ireland. Some recognize the territorial unity of Irish Island and hold the free republic as its sole legal owner. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.70.32.136 (talk) 14:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC).

Fixed


"American" is not an ethnicity. 216.114.203.113 01:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

South Gloucestershire, Avon or Gloucestershire?

This article lists Rowling as being born in South Gloucestershire, however, that didn't exist until 1996 when the County of Avon was abolished on 1 April 1996. Avon itself was only formed in 1974. I'm not entirely sure what came before Avon as Rowling is generally believed to have been born in the Yate/Chipping Sodbury area - that may have just been in the County of Gloucestershire in 1965 - someone will have to confirm. But as her place of birth is now in South Gloucestershire should we list her as being born there or in whatever county existed in 1965? I looked at the Mikhail Gorbachev page for some inspiration and that has him listed as being born in the former Soviet Union not the present-day Russian Federation - any thoughts?

My feeling is that, as Wikipedia is a reference guide, you would want to give as accurate a picture as possible of where someone was born. Someone looking up the birthplace of JK Rowling might want to visit it, and it would be better to give accurate directions. I suppose it might be more historically accurate to say "Gloucestershire", but I think the modern county name should be listed as well. Serendipodous 20:45, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Her name

The Winterbourne page now references a published list of primary school starters in 1970, which gives her name as Joanne Kathleen - not just Joanne. Ghmyrtle 13:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

If you refer to this (RTF file): It is a file in Rich Text Format, which didn't exist in 1970, and probably the admissions were not stored with a computer then. Moreover, the name "Joanne Kathleen Rowling" is printed red (as well as "Potter" three times). It appears that it is not quite an unaltered copy of the original list. More importantly, Mrs Rowling stated clearly several times that she chose the name "Kathleen" later (interview on darkmark.com [5], biography on jkrowling.com [6]). I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the admission register simply didn't withstand the extraordinary pressure to insert this name... --80.129.108.245 15:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Now would be a very good time to get ahold of Jo's birth certificate. It would not only settle this but also put to rest those rumours about her fudging on where she was born.Serendipodous 16:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
No, it wouldn't... ;-) --80.129.86.173 18:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

this needs to tell when it was published? . . .okay?. . .okay from ....... =]

Rowling Gate

Indeed there is a housing development near Bristol called "Rowling Gate", but can anyone actually find an authoritative source claiming it was named in her honour? Because I can't.Serendipodous 13:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The mysterious biography in references

The (current) number 5 reference, with the tag name "rowling-bio", is cited eight times in the whole article, but has no real reference and shows up empty in the References section. I checked about twenty recent edits and didn't find any related changes. Has this reference ever existed? If yes, it should be restored (probably after checking all eight citations are correct). If no (or nobody can find it), we should change those citations and reference other sources. — Ming Hua 06:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, the footnote was removed by User:Baileyrand on August 7. The mysterious biography is the one on Rowlings website. Probably an accident. I have reinserted it without thinking it necessary to recheck the citations (though, however, checking is always a good thing). --80.129.104.160 17:43, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for finding this missing footnote! I've now checked all the eight citations, and with one exception they all match Rowling's biography on her own site. The only part I am skeptical is that the article claims Rowling and her first husband had one child, Jessica Isabel, before divorcing in 1993. But the biography only mentioned the child's name as Jessica, not her middle name, and definitely nothing about the date of the divorce. I may be missing something, though, can someone double check? — Ming Hua 07:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I can vouch that that info was added later, and is unsourced. Serendipodous 09:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Good to know. I found the divorce date in the article from about.com, and added a citation to that. I also removed the middle name of Jessica. — Ming Hua 06:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

J.K. or J. K.?

I know it's a bit silly to ask, but on all the covers of the British editions there's no space between the initials, neither there is on J.K. Rowling's official site, so maybe the article should be moved to J.K. Rowling instead. Sorry about the nitpicking :). --Lividore 18:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

You might as well ask about the font size of the letters J and K, too. Moonwalkerwiz 03:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a perfectly legitimate question, and it's too bad there was a sarcastic to it. I believe there's a space -- imagine if her name were real full names. You'd put a space. I don't think it should be any different with initials, though I can't find the convention for that right now. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 05:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

A quick googling of "space between initials" showed that it is around 50-50 between space and no space in the various style guides. The Wikipedia style guide is to use the form of the name which she is known under, so Lividore is right, there should be no space in this case.--Per Abrahamsen 10:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I am not familiar with english name shortcuts - I do not see any difference between J. K. and J.K. Is any ? ≈Tulkolahten≈≈talk≈ 10:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Eh, yes. The space between the initials is larger in the first case.--Per Abrahamsen 14:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to be clear...

Both Rowling and Murray were divorced when they married, though Murray had not yet divorced his wife when they met. They had, however, been separated for a year. Not that it's anyone's business. [7] Serendipodous 09:04, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

"Female authors who wrote under male or gender-neutral pseudonyms"

Should this article not be included in the category "Female authors who wrote under male or gender-neutral pseudonyms"? I thought that Rowling adopted the 'K' initial so that the name would be gender-neutral and appeal to a male audience. 82.26.30.32 20:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

It should be fixed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.175.34.218 (talk) 09:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

Don't see it. By the way - feel free to fix any vandalism yourself, next time you see any. John Broughton | Talk 14:18, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


It's not appropriate to repeat the exact words of blatant vandalism on this page. Revert/delete vandalism and move on.


Origin of the Harry Potter Character

I added a section in regard to the origin of the Harry Potter character. There was already a character named Harry Potter in the film Troll very much like Rowling's. This was in 1986. It brings into question of just "Who is" Harry Potter. When asked where she got the idea from, she claims she has no idea. Her response should raise eyebrows.

"Harry Potter first appeared as a ordinary kid that discovered magic in the 1986 film 'Troll.' In this film the dark haired boy learns about magic and fights a troll. In an interview with Stories on the Web, Rowling was asked where she got the idea for Harry Potter from, and she answered 'Where the idea for Harry Potter actually came from I really couldn't tell you.' This brings up the legal question: Who owns Harry Potter, makers of the movie Troll, Rowling, or the public domain?" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clydeman (talk • contribs) 20:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

There are many books, films and comics with similarities to the Harry Potter universe. To draw attention to "Troll" as one, when there are so many others that share far more in common is just silly. Apart from the names of the characters and the common fantasy genre, the two works have nothing in common. Suspicions could justifiably be raised if the two characters were named "Tetrabellius Smellings" but both "Harry" and "Potter" are common names and really there's no more reason to suspect plagarism than if the two characters were called "Jason Smith." People tend to forget that JK Rowling lives in England. That she would have drawn inspiration from a trashy mid-eighties American kiddie horror flick at a time when it took up to a year for US releases to even be screened in the UK seems highly unlikely. Regardless, the contention raised by that website is nonsensical. Yemets never claimed his book wasn't inspired by Rowling's works: he tried to hide under the shield of parody, but his books were judged not to be parodies. Even so, two main characters sharing the same name in two different works is not illegal; only if it is clear that the creator is attempting to pass the character off as the same or similar to another is it considered plagarism. If "Troll" had been called "Harry Potter and the House of Trolls," for instance, the filmmakers may have a case against Rowling. There is no law, nor has there ever been, in creating a work that has similar themes, storylines and characters to another's work, unless the similarities are judged to have been the result of plagarism. So far, despite the many similarities between Harry Potter and, say, The Worst Witch, no judge has declared that Rowling's works are plagaristic. Serendipodous 16:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Good Article Status

I've given this good article status though I am hesitant as there is no free photos (all fair use). Computerjoe's talk 11:11, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images

Can we be a little more careful in using fair use? If you replace the existing photo, please list the original one for deletion. I've just had to hunt back through the history and tagged Image:Jk-rowling.jpg and Image:Rowling.jpg, unused fair use photos. Also, I find it a little ridiculous that we're even using fair use. Rowling is a highly prolific author - it shouldn't be hard to find a free photo of her. Hbdragon88 18:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, OK, but I have no idea how to locate a public domain image of a living author; most, if not all, images of the author would fall under the copyright of the photographer, correct? And given how Wikipedia's entire Harry Potter domain seems ruled by screenshots from the movies, it seems a bit odd to go against fair use for this article. Serendipodous 14:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't have to be public domain; it just has to be freely licensed. Someone here with a camera can go to a book signing or whatever and take a picture of her. But fair use is discouraged - the philisophy is to use it only when it's necessary. It is inevitable that we must use fair use movie screenshots for the movies, but for its author? - it should be relatively easy to find a freely licensed image of her. Hbdragon88 18:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
It's a harsh image policy indeed that places fair use below stalking. Serendipodous 19:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh give me a break. If Jimbo had his way, he'd probably have deleted the image by now. It would techincally violate criteria one of WP:FUC - FU is supposed to be used if a free imae can't be located. As a living person it shouldn't be hard to find an image. And stalking? Pfft. She's a celebrity and presumably goes out on book signings. It would be stalking if someone got an image while she was at her house or something. Anyway, Flickr turns out nothing, so I suppose that this image will stay for now. Hbdragon88 05:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
So basically, we have a choice between using a picture without the photograper's consent, and taking a picture without Rowling's consent. Which is worse? Serendipodous 07:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Without the photographer's consent is breaking the law (copyrighted image). Without Rowling's consent is at least legal (in a public setting, mind, not in her backyard or anything). And who says it has to be done without permission? See Image:KatarinaWitt_1.jpg and Image:JakeGyllenhaal.jpg for pictures taken with the subject's permission. Hbdragon88 09:16, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to revive this discussion because it seems a little absurd this is no photo of Rowling in the article. Since no free alternative can be found, fair use is acceptable here, I think. In that case I'd think something like this, meant for publicity (it's from a book cover), should qualify, no? --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 00:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

No Fair Use image is suitable as a Free image can be created, purely because JKR is a living person and it's neither impossible or difficult to create an image to release under a free licence. I've removed the latest image uploaded as it's one of them "from some website" jobs too. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 02:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
All this bullshit about images is nonsense. Can't you do something more constructive than policing pages for questionable images. Just forget the rules, this helps nothing. John Reaves 05:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Tagged the image with {{Replaceable fair use}}. Flickr still yields nothing, just idiotic pictures of people who think it's so cool to take a photograph of the books they hvae. 'Till next time. Hbdragon88 05:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

My feeling is this: anyone who claims that a fair use image of JK Rowling is easily replaced should buy a ticket to Scotland, track JK Rowling down, and ask her permission for a free image to be used for Wikipedia. If such an undertaking is indeed as easy as they claim, then they are free to do so. As none of the officious pedants who have raised this issue seem bothered to follow up with anything requiring such effort, they aren't in a position to complain. Why should they expect anyone else do to something they themselves refuse to do? Serendipodous 18:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the statement that she makes "regular public appearances" is false; she in fact has only been seen in the recent past at Radio City in August 2006, where photography was not allowed inside the building, and prior to that in July 2005 for the release of HBP where she read an excerpt of the book for children starting at midnight. And, as we have said, no free images have been found. Just because she's living doesn't make her an easy subject to photograph. Besides, the pictures on the back of the books are meant for promotion and certainly, if the photos we've found recently don't work, the "About the Author" qualifies for FU. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 13:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's an idea. Go find a Harry Potter forum or two, and post a request! Someone there will have a photo they took at a book-signing. Another idea - is it possible to find a list/forum of Scottish wikipedia users/admins? Maybe go post a request on the "Scotland" discussion page. CraigWyllie 18:18, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

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