User talk:Cysiro

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Magical Creatures
Forgive me for poking my nose in here, but I see that withinFocus hasn't answered your question yet, so I thought that as another relatively major contributor I should try to answer.

Features in a magical creature? Well, that's very much up to you. What normally I would suggest there would be either a quick description of the physical or magical characteristics of a creature, with emphasis on the specific characteristics that are involved in the story. For instance, the Murtlap, characteristics could mention basic shape (rat-like with sea-anemone-shaped growth) and definitely should mention story related features (tentacles have healing qualities). Creatures like the Ashwinder, of course, that have no real story role, should only get a physical description. We have to limit the amount of description, that box being meant for a quick once-over only.

Hope that helps. Chazz (talk) 16:46, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It did help. Seeing as some creatures have quite a few features, I was wondering which go in that box. Thanks --Cysiro ( page ) ( talk ) 17:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Just have to pick the most important... important being what, if anything, plays a part in the story. In the case of Acromantulae, it's hard to tell... spiders, venom, large size, sentience, and ability to talk are all important. Chazz (talk) 18:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * For editing questions Chazz is your best bet as he's the most active lately. Thanks for your contributions. -within focus 21:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Info boxes at the top of the article
I note that in the info area for the spell Wingardium Leviosa, you have added a link back to Magic#Spells. Generally, we haven't been doing that; normally, we would just leave it as "Spell (Charm)". While I understand the reasoning, there are about a hundred magical items that would have to be altered at this point if we were to make that consistent, and probably two hundred characters... and characters would be a real bugbear, as (for instance) Draco is in the Slytherin House group, in the Death Eaters group, in the Malfoy Family group, and in the Inquisitorial Squad (if we have as yet created a group for them), and which of those would you link back to? I suspect it's probably best to just allow backtracking by means of the "breadcrumbs". Chazz (talk) 16:20, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I did see your response here, and felt I couldn't add anything to it... why I said nothing.
 * I'm still not convinced of the value in having a back link to the magic page, but I have no objection to it. It is slightly redundant because of the breadcrumbs (top left of page, any Magic page will have links to Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter > Magic on it) but because it goes back to the section rather than just to the Magic page, it still has some small value. I won't quibble, and won't revert, if you want to put those in. Chazz (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Clabbert
I'm away from my sources and can't check that at the moment, but that page is scheduled for a visit soon anyway. If you wish, you can move the page, which would correct the spelling; or I can do that later -- someone's going to have to revisit that page anyway.

By the way, signing your comments with four tildes ~ is always appreciated, as that way we know immediately who made the comment. Chazz (talk) 19:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I moved the Clabert to Clabbert, and changed it on the Magic page. I'm not sure how to delete the old one. ~Cysiro ( page ) ( talk ) 07:14, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Taken care of. -within focus 22:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

One other thing...
So long as you are going through the various magical items, there is one other thing that you might look at. We changed the standard framework some time back, so as to allow some magic description before the spoiler, and that change has not yet replicated throughout the Magic area. If you could, it would be useful to make that change as you go by...

The old framework looked, in part, like this:

Analysis
Updated, the same part looks like this:

Analysis
If you could, inserting that Extended Description, and perhaps breaking the text into what belongs before the spoiler warning, and what belongs after, would be extremely useful. Chazz (talk) 18:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

First sentences
I have no real issue with it either way... but it has been bold italic since I started working here a couple years back, so I have continued in the same vein. If there is guidance in a Wikibooks style guide, I would accept that over Wikipedia's style guide.

One thing to be aware of: I suspect there are at least 300 pages that are done consistently in the bold italic style. It would be a tedious job to make the change to simple bold, and we stand a very good chance of losing consistency. I personally feel that there is no point in making a change that involved for purely cosmetic reasons. Chazz (talk) 18:30, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, the Wikibooks Manual of Style states: "It is suggested that: ...the first use of the title words or words that are akin in sentiment to the title words are marked in bold... when a new term is introduced, the term is italicised." I suppose that the idea of bold and italics was that this is not only the title, but the first use of the term. And of course, it is only suggested, which tends to lighten the weight of the recommendation.


 * That said... I have no objection if you want to change the standard, but I don't see any significant difference in appearance, and don't think it's worth the effort of doing it manually. If I felt a need for it, I would talk to Whiteknight, and see if he could do it with a bot. If you do want to it manually, I would drop a note on Whiteknight's, mike.lifeguard's, AdRiley's, and withinfocus' Talk pages, so they don't revert you thinking you're vandalizing.


 * And I will quietly point out that you were, at one point, going to go through the magic pages classifying spell types, and lost interest after doing 9 of the hundred or so. If you are going to change formatting like this, you really should plan to set aside enough time to do the whole project, rather than leaving us with two different standards. Chazz (talk) 21:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not really interested in that so please don't continue. We've been doing it this way since the book's inception and I don't really care what any style guides external to our book are saying (despite that they don't disagree with what we're doing anyway). We have our own procedure and two of us (me, the person who created the entire system in the first place, and Chazz who does almost all the editing nowadays) aren't that interested, so I'll say this is a no-go. Please revert what you've done or tell me what you've done and I will take care of it. I like that you want to do work here, but I don't feel this is a supported change and there is better work to be done elsewhere. -within focus 21:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for changing it back. In the end I feel we could definitely use your talents on something else and don't think such a change is necessary. If you were to see our book in LaTeX or PDF format you would notice that it's more pleasing to the eye as well. I certainly don't want to scare you away from the Guide. Good luck with all the other tasks our book needs. -within focus 22:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Magic item...
Hate to trouble you with this. I note that you made a change so that Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes was a footnoted reference... but somehow, that also made all of the Unforgivable Curses become footnoted with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Did you want to straighten that out? Or should I? Chazz (talk) 18:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * A bit of a fight to find information on reference groups, but it is now dealt with. And it's not ideal, but it is, I think, the best we can do for now. Chazz (talk) 21:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

In re Rolanda Hooch
I am somewhat unsure of whether Rolanda is actually given as a name for Madam Hooch in the books or not. I seem to have a faint memory of McGonagall using the name in warning at some point, but I don't know exactly where and I can't put my finger on it now.

On the other hand: According to the FAQs on Rowling's site, there were in fact two sets of cards, the trading cards game and the Chocolate Frog cards. While Rowling has stated that she was the author of the descriptions on the cards, she didn't say which set, though of course it could be both. As such we could consider the cards canon as well, though we tend to deprecate them. The reason we don't have Quirrell's full name on the article title is that one set of cards gave his name as Quirinus, the other as Slatero, leaving us with no valid authority. Apparently, both sets of cards give Madam Hooch's first name as Rolanda.

On the gripping hand: I am currently working my way through the characters, trying to complete at least the "role in the books" sections. Several supporting characters appear many more times in the books than they do in the summaries: Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan being classic examples, along with Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell, and Angelina Johnson. I'm keeping notes of these characters as I find them, and will do a full re-read of the series with them in mind once I've finished the easy ones. Madam Hooch is already listed among them; if it turns out that her first name is not given in the books on careful re-read, I will change the article name. Chazz (talk) 03:19, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

See Also...
I would suggest that the person to ask there would be Withinfocus. I'm really more of a writer; he's more on the policy side. Chazz (talk) 03:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Umm... a small suggestion?
Instead of going over and over and over stuff that is already present, like one particular chapter of the Muggles' Guide, perhaps I could suggest that there are still a lot of empty areas, notably in analysis both of the books and of the characters, that could use new content? I'm not saying that what we have is perfect, but I think that at the moment we are still far more in need of new stuff, rather than polishing what we already have. Chazz (talk) 21:40, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Where else? Oh, there are so many... let me see. At this point, we have summaries for all of the chapters of the books, but the Analysis and Greater Picture sections on all of them are sorely lacking, except in a few places like PS1, which has, I think, rather been worked to death at this point. We're sort of breaking questions in the chapters into Review for the ones that are answered in the summary, and Further Study for those that aren't. In Characters, I'm dealing with the role in the books sections, but the Analysis still needs work in a lot of places. Many bits of Magic still need Analysis and Greater Picture. Many of the magical creatures mentioned in FBaWTFT need actual write-ups; they are just placeholders now, but as it was ChazzJr who wanted them in there, if he doesn't write them up I guess it will fall to me. Major Events are languishing, and we're likely to have missed several, particularly ones that occur in DH. I guess, pretty much across the board, we need work on analysis. If you don't feel that your strength lies in analysis, we still need Overview and General Description work done on a lot of items in Magic and Major Events. Chazz (talk) 17:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)