Talk:The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Why?

Why was this nominated for deletion by PageantUpdater? How can s/he do that without posting here?

I see no reason to delete this.

s/he can, if s/he wants, but the reasoning is explained there. This article could sensibly be made a redirect to Deathly Hallows (objects), and if this was not now an AfD, I would do that now myself. There is lots of info already in that article, more than ought to be here, and it explains the part played by the book. Also, there is a list of fictional books within the Harry Potter series where the book should just be mentioned, and I have put it in the list. Sandpiper 08:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

As you may see now, the book is not a fictional book anymore.Pmuean (talk) 13:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Amazon.com Review / Summary

Amazon.com has now posted two reviews / summary of two of the tales ( "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" and "The Fountain of Fair Fortune"). The summarizes can be found here [1]. Does Amazon.com's synopise consitute a relable source to update this entry and other Harry Potter enteries? Jvsett (talk) 05:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Considering they are the purchasers, I would say so. They have now posted reviews of Tales #3 and #4: "The Warlock's Hairy Heart" and "Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump." The problem now is, how do we include the info in the article about the tales? Amazon is already summarizing the stories. Do we summarize the summaries? Or should we just do big quote sections? I'd rather not do that, but I don't have any other ideas. Anakinjmt (talk) 03:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't supposed to have this much detail for the story. The story itself is published on here. The summary should only include major beginning, middle, and ending details. Other major info about the book should also be included, but everything else should be disposed of. I'll try to work at fixing the article.-BlueAmethyst .:*:. (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 05:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

A link to the review may be sufficient. -Phoenixrod (talk) 04:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I finally had a nice moment to fix up the stories, but now they are all gone! Wow, well, it's not shocking that this happened, this was a major spoiler to all.-BlueAmethyst .:*:. (talk) 05:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Spanish

Why is there a link to "Spanish Translations of Beedle the Bard" on the English Wikipedia? I am inclined to remove it. What is its purpose? -Phoenixrod (talk) 17:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Dunno. Doesn't bother me too much, but feel free to take it out, if you haven't already. Anakinjmt (talk) 15:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I have taken out the link to a Spanish blog repeatedly, and a changing IP of the range starting with 201.210 keeps re-inserting the link without comment. I see no purpose to a blog in another language on the English Wikipedia. The onus is on our anonymous editor to justify the link's inclusion. -Phoenixrod (talk) 18:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Is that a word?

What is with "duuuuuupty?" im going to delete it. Bmc152006 (talk) 20:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Added summaries

I have added the summaries. There might still be problems with spelling - I haven't checked it. diego_pmc (talk) 08:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Why? Is it not enough to link to Amazon's? -Phoenixrod (talk) 06:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Eh, no! That's why WP is an encyclopedia, and not a collection of useful links. The link to Amazon is still there (in both External Links and references sections) in case someone wants a more detailed summary of any of the five stories, or more pictures. diego_pmc (talk) 21:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Naturally. My point, however, is that we don't have any sources for the long summaries in the article now. How do we verify the contents? If it's a re-hashing of Amazon's summaries (or a summary of a summary?), there's not much point. If there's another reliable source, we need to cite it. -Phoenixrod (talk) 22:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

These need to be rewritten as actual summaries of the stories in a proper encyclopaedic tone ("The story is about an old man..."), rather than the current cut-down versions ("There once was an old man...") which I took at first glance to be straight copyvios. --McGeddon (talk) 13:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with improving the tone. About the refs, the summaries are cited, but not in the standard way. If you look at the References section, you'll see I added the Amazon link there. diego_pmc (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The Amazon link already existed under the External Links. But the summaries as written in the article are original research. We cannot synthesize existing summaries that way; WP:V isn't negotiable. We'll have to remove the summaries if they cannot be sourced. I'm sorry, but "the summaries are cited, but not in the standard way" won't cut it. -Phoenixrod (talk) 07:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how they're O.R.; why isn't every other summary on Wikipedia O.R. then, if these summaries are? I simply had no better way to reference them, then by just placing a link in the References section. There is only one big ref for all the summaries, it just wouldn't be practically (nor esthetically if you think about it) suitable to place the same reference throughout the whole section. diego_pmc (talk) 10:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a fair question. I think they're OR because the actual stories are not publicly available; we have to rely on other people's statements to know what is in the stories. And if we're relying on those accounts, we need to cite them. Otherwise it's our original synthesis. What is the source for those summaries? Where can I find the information that led to the summaries in this article? If the source is exclusively Amazon, then summarizing a summary is silly. The link does that already. -Phoenixrod (talk) 10:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The only summary that shouldn't fall into this discussion is The Tale of the Three Brothers (I've made the summary based on the story from HP7). At any rate I am against the claim that a link is enough, because WP is an encyclopedia. Anyhow, whether this is OR, or not is disputable, and I personally don't agree (and not because I've done the summaries). The Amazon link (reliable, BTW) is still the only source we have, regarding the summaries, and probably the only one we'll have for at least another 75 years (when the book will enter PD). diego_pmc (talk) 13:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with details from "Three Brothers" coming from HP7, since HP7 is a publically available, verifiable source for such information. I agree that the Amazon link is likely the only reliable source on the other stories; that's why I want simply to link to Amazon per previous discussion above.

Let me try a different tack to explain my position. Obviously WP is an encyclopedia, as you point out, but that doesn't mean it's an indiscriminate collection of information. According to what Wikipedia is not, "A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work." The key word is "concise": I strongly question how a summary on WP can be nearly as long as the only publically known information (via Amazon) about each story. Additionally, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(writing_about_fiction)#Plot_summaries says, "The length of a plot summary should be carefully balanced with the length of the other sections." I think such lengthy summaries give undue weight to the plot of the stories when the emphasis should be on why this book is significant in the first place. -Phoenixrod (talk) 05:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

They're not exactly 'nearly as long' as the ones on Amazon [2] Anyway, the problem of the article (after looking at the policies you pointed) would be that the summaries are still a bit too long. It would be ideal if they all were approximatively as long as The Tale of the Three Brothers or The Wizard and the Hopping Pot. And also the other sections could be expanded, though a quick search gave me no extra information about the subject. So I guess we could try to further shorten the summaries. diego_pmc (talk) 11:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

You're splitting hairs with the "nearly as long" comment. I must have been looking at the unexpanded versions of Amazon's reviews, but the point about undue weight is still primary, as you note. I think we're getting onto the same page here. I don't greatly mind short summaries, but given the dearth of citable material, they'd have to be only a couple sentences rather than long paragraphs. (And if they're only a few sentences, I'd prefer the simple link for the full versions. But again, I'm okay with very short summaries). -Phoenixrod (talk) 16:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should ask for a review. Is there a project that takes care of such things? diego_pmc (talk) 10:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

We could try Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter or WP:THIRD if you like. I am trying hard not to WP:OWN this article, but since I've been working on it since saving it from a merge last year, I have an interest in making sure it's a quality article. -Phoenixrod (talk) 15:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I understand you want to make sure this article doesn't go wrong, but I'd also like you to understand I also have the same interest, since I contributed with a pretty big part at it. The HP project is quite dead. I asked for a reassessment of this article quite some time ago, and the request is still there. Of what I understood you also agree the summaries would be fine if they were shorter. Well, we could try to fix this, since we've reached this agreement. Does the League of Copyeditors also do these things? Of course, we should ask them only if we can't deal with it ourselves. diego_pmc (talk) 19:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
EDIT: I shortened'em diego_pmc (talk) 09:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Bede

Can we assume Beedle is derived from Bede? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.117.92.219 (talk) 17:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

We could, but we couldn't include it in the article, since that is original research. diego_pmc (talk) 17:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Availability

Is the text of this book available online. I'm curious how we can include summaries if it is not. Also, has there been leaks? Stargate70 (talk) 06:56, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I am concerned with the same issue. If the summaries aren't attributed to a source, they must go. We already link to Amazon's summaries, which ought to be enough. -Phoenixrod (talk) 07:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The reference is this one. It simply is not enough to just place a link in the article, and this is a general rule, to all articles, not just this one. This Amazon link is also placed in the references section, because in-line referencing is not appropriate in this case. This kind of referencing is also used in other articles (see: Caesar cipher, which is a featured article). diego_pmc (talk) 10:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:CITE#Maintaining_a_.22References.22_section_in_addition_to_.22Notes.22, I have made separate sections for the footnotes and your reference. I'm still baffled why it must be included when it's already in the External Links, but whatever. -Phoenixrod (talk) 05:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually that policy seems to refer to something else. When there are multiple notes from, let's say a book, with pages indicated, and such, it is also useful to make a References section that would only mention the book(s)/work(s) used. This is not that case here. diego_pmc (talk) 11:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Er, how on earth do you interpret that policy as irrelevant? I'm sorry, but I don't understand your position. It's the policy on citing sources.... We are citing sources. I'm thinking of an article like Learned Hand, which many editors are trying to bump up to FA status right now, and that article has the same layout I've used here.

So what do you think the policy refers to? I'm curious what makes you think it "seems to refer to something else". -Phoenixrod (talk) 16:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I said above. Anyway, I asked here, and it seems the person who answered agrees that there's no need for separate sections in this case. Where can we ask for this article to be reviewed so tha this would be solved? diego_pmc (talk) 10:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

"Seems" again. I don't think you have accurately described the situation going on this article. I don't interpret the reference issue the way you did in your talk page post at WP:CITE, and I don't think the response you got there reflects this article (rather, it reflects the question that you asked, which again doesn't seem to me to be the case here). Also, you have chosen to re-combine the Notes and References sections under the "References" banner while maintaining an incorrect format, as pointed out at the same section, Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Non-in-line_citing.

This is a matter of the interpretation of policy. The policy at WP:CITE says, "When footnotes are used, some editors find it helpful to maintain a separate 'References' section"; I am such an editor. I think it looks horrible to have two different citation styles in the same section; consistency should be the principle we strive for on Wikipedia. The way that Learned Hand cites is what looks best to me for this article. -Phoenixrod (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

That's just POV. Anyway I'll try to explain what I understand from that policy once more. If multiple pages from multiple books are cited within the article, some editors find it helpful to also have a References section where to mention what books were used, without mentioning the pages or any other details, just the books, so that it'd be easier to know which books were used. Anyway, seems this part isn't going anywhere at the moment, so I'll try to concentrate on the summaries first. diego_pmc (talk) 19:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
EDIT: I have made a change to the way it looks, trying to address this issue you presented: "I think it looks horrible to have two different citation styles in the same section". diego_pmc (talk) 12:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The Tale of the Three Brothers and The Pardoner's Tale

I the fan interview JK rowling gave after DH came out, she said that The Tale of the Three Brothers was inspired by The Pardoner's Tale by Chaucer and the two tales have similarities. Should a mention be made of this? {font-weight:bold;color:#002b78} (talk) 12:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Good thing you mentioned, cause I didn't know that. It seems pretty important so we should include it. At the moment, I'm trying to improve the article, but it's all going pretty slow. There also are a few other things that haven't been mentioned, and I plan to do. But sources are needed. Do you have a link to the interview? diego_pmc (talk) 16:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if there was anything more after Rowling's original statment, but a web search turns up that original statement (looks like) here, or here. There's also an extensive comparison of the stories (both Brothers/Pardoner's and HP/Canturbury) here. Pi zero (talk) 18:17, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

JKR's statement is the most reliable source for this kind of information that can exist, IMO. If it was from another source (reviewer) , we probably couldn't have included it, or could only mention it very briefly. diego_pmc (talk) 09:11, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Publishers?

Why are there publishers in the UK, Canada and the US listed for this book? If each book was handwritten and crafted by her, then there shouldn't be any publishers. Since the publishers are hardcoded into the HPBooks template, per WP:BRD I've changed from the HPBooks template to the regular book template, and I've left a note at WT:HP so someone can resolve this. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 13:21, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The HPBook Template puts those automatically, I don't know how to remove them. diego_pmc (talk) 06:52, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixed, all you have to do is simply not fill it in and it wont show up in the article. Jammy (talk) 11:40, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

You fixed HPBooks? I just tried using the template without the Publisher field and it still put it in. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 14:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

If we're taking the position that it wasn't published — and for now I'll just accept this nuanced interpretation of the word publish — then surely it can't have a publication date? I'm asking here, rather than editing the article, because I'm not comfortable with just removing it from the template. It seems like "2007" ought to appear in there somehow; publication date just isn't the right name for it. Pi zero (talk) 12:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but there aren't any other better fields in Infobox book. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 14:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

How about a generic infobox, modeled on the source for infobox book? The greater question would then seem to be, what should the field name be changed to. Perhaps simply  Date ? Pi zero (talk) 18:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems like a lot of work for such a small fix. I don't really have the time to deal with such a thing, but you're more than welcome to take a shot at it. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 19:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Differences

Where exactly should differences should be placed? I think there's an issue here, cause it can't be in the Real Version section because it talks about certain aspects which would rather fit into the the Fictional Version section. And a separate section just for this doesn't feel like necessary, since there's not that much to say. If I were to choose one of the existing two I would chose the Fictional section. But maybe that would mean the real version would have to be presented first. But if the real version would be presented first the summaries should also be moved next to the real section, so in the end it would look like Summaries/Real/Fictional/the rest, which I don't really like. diego_pmc (talk) 14:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, it shouldn't really be here. It's entirely unsourced, which makes it WP:OR. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 15:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually no, the fact that one of the stories is not mentioned is said by the author on her own site. diego_pmc (talk) 15:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Then it needs to be sourced. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 15:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)