Talk: Community Portal

Welcome

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

Logo

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

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

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

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

Here's another design, from the poster of the second movie: [1]. «Rainer » 06:25, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)

I like the first one best. The Chosen One ^{(Choose me!)} 12:55, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)

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

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

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

Check out the logo in the German Wiki [2]. It looks good, though not very original (typical of my fellow people;) ). I was wondering how to get at it, so we could get the H and P and use them in our logo. Otherwise the lettering in Sean's image looks good. The Chosen One ^{(Choose me!)} 10:41, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)

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

Copying articles from Wikipedia

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

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

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

To-do

1. Expand:

These articles have little or no text in them. Since we cannot build an encyclopedia out of infoboxes, I believe this is what we have to do first.

2. Upload

There are many file paths leading to nonexisting pictures. This is the next step to comprehensive reading material.

Check

for starters.

3. Write

The writing of completely new articles is necessary for the existence of this Wiki - it must not (may I repeat, NOT) be an exact copy of En articles, lest people take this to be an unnecessary carbon copy of the orig. articles. I myself have been frustrated many times when I searched for a topic on different pages, only to find that they contained the same text.

That's all for now. I'm sure this will keep us occupied for a couple of weeks or so. The Chosen One ^{(Choose me!)} 18:00, 26 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Inferius

I was wondering how I should categorize Inferius - it's not a magical creature, nor is it a spell. Any suggestions? Chosen One 10:44, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Speculation/original research?

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

I'd think a little won't do any harm. The Chosen One ^{(Choose me!)} 17:13, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Copy from Wikipedia

What was the reason for not copying directly from Wikipedia? Is it only the busted links to ordinary words that's bad? Help your Dark Lord out. I expect an answer by tomorrow. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:59, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Many reasons, originality being one of them. Another is the don't-bore-the-reader policy. The Chosen One ^{(Choose me!)} 21:04, 27 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Have people been putting the word out about this Wiki on mugglenet et. al.? --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 12:50, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)

No, and with good reason. We have to get this thing through "early development stages" first before we introduce all the grammar problems, typos, and vandals into the system. The Chosen One ^{(Choose me!)} 12:56, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Okay, point taken. But it doesn't seem like there are very many editors here. I just thought it would be good to get some volume here. But if no one else agrees, that's fine. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:31, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Yeah after doing a quick look, I only count about 20-25 editors, some of which are ip numbers making one edit. It would just help jumpstart this if we could get around 100 or so to make a few edits. Just my thoughts. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:01, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)

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

Dumbledore's Army

Should Cho Chang, Marietta Edgecombe, and Zacharias Smith be put in the Dumbledore's Army category? Hermione1980 18:52, 30 Jul 2005 (UTC)

And this is probably a stupid question, but should Peter Pettigrew be put in the Order of the Phoenix category, because he was a member at one time? Hermione1980 19:04, 30 Jul 2005 (UTC)

I think yes to Cho Chang, Marietta Edgecombe, and Zacharias Smith being in the DA, but as for Pettigrew I'm not sure. «Rainer » 10:22, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Agreed with Cho et al. being in Dumbledore's Army. As for Peter Pettigrew, perhaps it would be useful if we separated the Order of the Phoenix into first founding and second founding? Members of the first but not the second also include the Potters and the Longbottoms, as well as a few of the others in the photo that Moody shows Harry in the book... actually as I write this it is starting to get a bit confused... I'd say stick Pettigrew in Order of the Phoenix. Snape belongs there too although we all know what happens to him... - Vostok 11:42, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)

K, Cho's now in the DA cat, Pettigrew and Snape are in the Death Eaters and Order of the Phoenix cats. Marietta and Zacharias aren't in the wiki yet. Second Vostok's suggestion about having a separate cat for the first and second Orders. Hermione1980 17:32, 31 Jul 2005 (UTC)

First Group Discussion

In here.

Publicity

User:Lord Voldemort once remarked that we should post mention of this wiki on public forums, e.g. Mugglenet. We could do this, but first, let's have your opinions.

Pros:

more editors
work gets finished faster

Cons:

risk of vandals
risk of misprints
bleak and unfinished pages are turn-offs

Feel free to voice out whatever you're thinking. The Chosen One ^{(Choose me!)} 00:27, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Approximately how many regular editors do we already have? Hermione1980 01:06, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

I think we should publicise it once we have about 250 articles. «Rainer » 06:30, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

I'd say 200 articles, but 200 decent articles. Not 200 articles that are either copy-pasted from Wikipedia or just empty pages with infoboxes. We certainly need more editors and I tend to think a mention on Mugglenet will attract more willing contributors than vandals. But the unfinished pages are a turn off, so lets get 200 finished ones done. - Vostok 07:58, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Character Info-boxes

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

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