Talk:Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Places/Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Teachers' Hours
The paragraph starting Other fan sites have noted that there are not enough teachers for the stated school population... amounts to having a problem with teachers teaching up to 28 sessions a week, and making an assumption that there are other teachers for the same subjects. While I'm sure there would be unnamed members of staff at Hogwarts, assuming a lesson at Hogwarts is approximately an hour in length, that amounts to 28 hours a week of teaching time, far shorter than the 48 hours maximum limit for UK staff. Even with all the extra work teachers have to do, and the residential status of Hogwarts staff, this doesn't really seem to be a problem! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pookiyama (discuss • contribs) 14:08, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The calculation is based on the assertion that it is impossible for Hermione to take 12 subjects without recourse to a time-turner to increase the length of her day. It is only by dropping two, leaving her 10 subjects, that she is able to continue without a Time-Turner. If it is impossible to take 12 subjects, the assumption is that it is equally impossible to teach 12 subjects, let alone 28 (7 years in each of four houses).
 * Your calculation of 28 hours a week is suspect also, in that it implicitly assumes only one one-hour instructional section per week for each class. If we instead guess that there are six classes in a day, thirty a week, for students, that would mean that Hermione's full schedule contains three classes per week in each subject. Three instructional hours per week, times seven grades, times four houses, is 84 contact hours a week, almost three times as many hours as classes are in session. Chazz (talk) 16:12, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Revision: There is mention that classes are one and a half hours. A full schedule of 10 courses would then be either 20 classes, as 4 classes per 6-hour school day, five days a week, or 25 classes, as 5 classes per seven-and-a-half hour school day. In either event, we are still looking at either three contact hours (as two classes) in the first case per course per week, or an average of three and three quarters contact hours per week (assuming 2 classes in week A, three in week B, alternating, so five classes, seven and a half contact hours, per two weeks). In either case, we're still looking at significantly more contact time than there are hours in the working week: in the first case, the same 84 hours per week to be fit into 30 instructional hours, in the latter case, an average of 105 hours per week to be fit into 37.5 hours. Chazz (talk) 19:56, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Characters Missing from Infobox
Is there a reason that many characters are missing from the infobox as permanant residents (eg: Dumblebore, multiple professors etc.)? I will add these soon if there is no response of why they arn't included at the moment. --DanielBC 10:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Go for it. The page just hasn't been filled in yet. We need a lot of that around here since the content base is so large. -Matt 14:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The staff, as you see in HBP does not live at the school, only during the school year. However, the grey lady is not mentioned in the permenant residence, she's the Ravenclaw ghost.
 * Isn't that the idea of a Wiki? You see a mistake, you're always free to fix it. In any event, I have made that change... Chazz 16:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Map
Were all the countries on the map in existence in 1991-1998? Therequiembellishere 21:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Does it matter? If we wanted to pick nits, we would actually have to go back to a medieval map, because it is, after all, supposed to reflect the wizarding world; and the names of the national Quidditch teams seem to reflect the world map from ca. 1600. Transylvania? As it is, we show the areas where the schools possibly are and where they draw from, and you can superimpose the national boundaries that you yourself prefer. Chazz (talk) 07:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Map of the locations of the know wizarding schools in Europe
Is this image worth putting in this book, and is it valuable for this particular page? Image:HP Wizarding Schools possible locations.PNG


 * Here are my assumptions for the coloured areas:
 * First assumption: the school is located in a place where the language of the school is a mother tongue of the surrounding population.
 * Second assumption: It is very difficult for an 11 year old student to follow the lessons in a language that is not the students's mother tongue, therefore the school is recruiting primarily in countries where the school teaching language is mother tongue.
 * Third assumptions: The school may also recruit, but less frequently, in places where the language is close enough from the school language so that the students do not have to learn a language that is too different from the school language.


 * Locations
 * Hogwarts location: Rowling says it is in Scotland in an Interview. I have assumed that it is not in the populated areas (Edimbourough and Glasgow) since GoF says the nearest muggle town is several miles away (that does not exist around Edinburgh and Glasgow). I have also excluded the Scottish Islands, since you can go to Hogwarts by train from London.
 * Beauxbatons location: French speaking area. Hot weather (school uniform is very light), bouillabaisse is part of the food.
 * Durmstrang location: Slavic country (Victor Krum is from Bulgaria, all other known students/teachers have a slavic name, all have a slavic accent when they speak). Latitude needs to be higher than Scotland (Dumbledore says that they are "from the North" while he is ins Scotland), and Krum says that the winter days are very short, and summer days particularly long, compared to Hogwarts. Also her says that there are lakes and mountains around it. I have chosen those spots that match all 3 pieces of information (Slavic language, latitude higher than Scotland, lake + mountain areas).


 * Recruitment ground
 * Hogwarts recruitment ground: Britain, but maybe Republic of Ireland (no language barrier to prevent it).
 * Beauxbatons recruitment ground: All french speaking countries in Europe + maybe other latin speaking countries (the languages are close enough to French to make the linguistic jump?) and north African countries where French is taught in primary school.
 * Durmstrang recruitment ground: once we have established that Durmstrang can only be in northern Russia, we can assume that Russian speaking countries are the primary recruitment ground. Bulgaria and other slavic speaking countries qualify as secondary recruitment ground because the other slavic languages could be close enough to Russian for the students to learn it.

I am happy to discuss the level of speculation that is acceptable for this book, and provide a new version of the image with less speculation if the muggle's guide main authors feel it is better so.

I can't wait for your feedback! --Lgriot 12:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That is certainly a well-thought-out argument. It would be great if you could integrate this into the image's discussion on the actual article page. I haven't criticized this technically since I'm a bit busy but users Chazz and Jokes Free4Me will most likely want to discuss this a bit. -within focus 14:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I actually was subconsciously making the same assumptions when I originally saw the map. I have to agree with all of them, and say that your comments are better reasoned than I had ever managed to come up with. My only concern is that I'm not 100% sure of how we define "original research"... but to my mind, this is much less speculative than many other things that we have speculated on in the process of writing these articles. To my mind, this is a useful image, and I would like to see it re-instated on the page. Chazz (talk) 04:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks both for your support. Unless Jokes Free4Me (I have contacted him) opposes it by tomorrow, I will add the map this week-end to the "location" section of the page with a written explanation that uses the above and hopefully fits with the style of the page. --Lgriot 12:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Fwiw, my own (probably biased) opinion would have been that the images are quite valuable... They are in the spirit of the textbook: they are "commenting" on (or, they represent views based on) existing information about the discussed subject. They only present it better. :-D -- Jokes Free4Me 13:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay, everyone, the map is finnaly back. --Lgriot 19:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

"The Black Lake"
A number of times, editors have called the lake on the Hogwarts grounds The Black Lake. I have just realized where that comes from. During the run-up to the Second Task in the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I watched last night, it is referred to as the Black Lake repeatedly. Thus I think that it is purely an artifact of the films, as I certainly don't recall it being referred to by that name in the books. Chazz (talk) 00:20, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Class Sizes
One of the biggest problems in this series is the population of the school.

The author has pleaded an inability to work with numbers, saying that she had not been able to work out the size of the Wizarding classes, but that she had intended the student body at Hogwarts to number between 600 and 1000. The closest we have to a true number is that in chapter 12 of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where we are told that the normal class size is 30. While we only ever see Harry's dorm mates, Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus, and two of Hermione's, Lavender and Parvati, it is possible that there are additional dorms, possibly totaling three 5-person dorm rooms per year. The author has said that she limned characters for five male and five female individuals per house per year, and didn't carry things beyond that.

Given 30 students per House per year, then, each year group has a population of 120, for a total school student body of 840. This seems to tally with the mention of "hundreds" of students in the Great Hall at Harry's arrival, and the "hundreds" of people in the Slytherin stands at Quidditch — Slytherin house, with 30 people in each of 7 years, would have 210 students.

This number does seem unworkable on a number of fronts; in particular, it seems "double Potions with the Slytherins" or "double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs" would put sixty adolescent students in one dungeon or greenhouse under the supervision of a single teacher. Further, it would seem that with 28 sections (divided by house and year), a teacher of one of the six core subjects would somehow have to multiply themselves in order to teach more than once a week, as there are either 20 or 30 class periods in a week. Yet, the only subject with more than one teacher is Divination, which is jointly taught by Trelawney and Firenze after Harry's fifth year, despite Divination only being available to third-years and higher, and thus presumably needing fewer total contact hours.

The description of the first flying lesson in the first year mentions that there were 20 broomsticks waiting, and each student in the lesson (combined Gryffindor and Slytherin) gets a broomstick.

???
Why are the Questions and the Greater Picture' sections entirely blank? --Whoop whoop pull up (talk) 00:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Because nobody has yet come up with anything to put in either of those sections? For characters, if they don't appear in a book, we can eliminate the section for that book in the character write-up, but that is a sub-section, where Questions and Greater Picture are main sections. Chazz (talk) 18:21, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

More countries green
Shouldn't the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, the German-speaking portion of Switzerland, and the Swedish-speaking portion of Finland be colored light green in the map, as they all speak Germanic languages like English? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 18:49, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd argue against. Scandinavian countries, while they do teach English in school, don't generally have school-age students who are fluent in English; and we don't see any Scandinavian natives in Hogwarts during the seven years there. And likewise, English in the German areas you discuss is pretty thin on the ground. Chazz (talk) 20:35, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Fewer countries green
Shouldn't only the English-speaking parts of Ireland be colored green (because Gaelic is not related in any way to English), and shouldn't they be colored medium green, like most of Great Britain (because they speak the same language as said country)? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 23:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there any Irishman who does not have a working knowledge of English? For that is the criterion here, not what they name as their native tongue when asked.--2001:A61:260C:C01:F8FA:881C:C75F:F533 (discuss) 20:37, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

More fewer countries orange
Shouldn't Romania and Moldova be colored light orange in the map, as they both speak Romance languages, such as Romanian? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 18:49, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. As with the green areas mentioned above, the language being in the same family does not imply an ability to speak that language. I think Romanians would have a great deal of trouble learning magic and French at the same time... in fact, I have some trouble with Spain and Italy being colored light orange, having been fluent in Spanish and knowing the difference between that and French. I could see Spain and Italy sharing a magic school, however... Chazz (talk) 20:35, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In that case, don't you think Italy, Spain, and the Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland be recolored from light orange to gray, because of the language difference? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 23:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

New boundaries
Should we redo the map so that medieval boundaries are shown in dotted red lines in addition to the modern boundaries in solid white lines, since the characters and localities mentioned seem to have strong ties (Transylvania etc.) to medieval countries and locations? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 23:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Would it really help? In my not-so-humble opinion, it would add confusion for not much actual gain. Chazz (talk) 16:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Fewer countries pink?
Just exactly how close are the other Slavic languages actually to Russian (especially the South Slavic languages, such as Bulgarian and Croatian)? --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 23:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

More magical schools?
I don't know whether someone updates this book, but computer game in 2014 stated that Russia has it's own magical school. So Durmshtrang is Scandinavian most likely. --185.13.35.122 (discuss) 16:03, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
 * We've determined that the computer games, not having much input from Jo, are in fact not canon and so aren't considered for this book. Chazz (talk) 16:14, 16 June 2017 (UTC)