Age Debates/Topic Summary

[carolynwhite2]

--- In HPFGU-Catalogue at yahoogroups.com, "Debbie" <elfundeb at c...> 
wrote:
> 
> Carolyn, re tiresome age debates:
> 
> <<Reluctantly, I think we keep it - though only good posts, please, 
> not short one-liners.>>
> 
> Yes!  All grants of authority to reject will be gleefully 
accepted.  I worry that I'm cataloguing too much junk.  For example, 
I've just been through a batch of mostly tiresome prefect 
predictions.  We have a category for "Predictions - No Canon" but the 
posts that I would code up there are almost always posts I want to 
reject.  I would be only too happy to consign all such posts to the 
reject bin, ;-) but wonder what would be left in that category.  My 
personal view is that we should reject any prediction that's covered 
by a past or present poll question unless it includes serious 
analytical discussion.  Is there a definitive rule?

Carolyn (again):

Oi, Deb..it was you that wanted to keep the Weasley age debates last 
time for posterity! Slash and burn is my motto, and increasingly so, 
the more I code. I am rather proud of the fact that we have currently 
only kept 13500 posts out of the 33700 reviewed - just 40%. I hope we 
can cull that further at a later stage.

The prefect predictions are extremely boring, I agree, especially as 
we know the answers now. I have only kept long, carefully-argued 
posts, and coded them to 'predictions with canon'/prefect category 
under Hogwarts.  I carelessly bin a lot of the rest; please feel free 
to do the same.

Do we have a definitive list of past/present poll questions? Could 
you post it? It would help a great deal in cleaning out the 
predictions section when we come to do the second edit.

Can I remind people that you shouldn't be coding to the main code on 
predictions for any book, but should always make a decision about 
whether it is a canon/non-canon prediction and only use a sub-code.

Having said that, Barry - this 'with canon/no canon' distinction 
under predictions was mostly put there after a broadside from you at 
some point - would you care to re-define what should go under what 
heading? I sometimes get confused myself. Ta.



Carolyn:
> > I'd be interested to know what kind of FPs/FAQs were currently in 
> the pipeline - Debbie, Jo - would you care to comment? Would they 
> overlap at all with these sort of topics ?

Debbie:
> 'In the pipeline' is something of an exaggeration at this point, 
> since we're waiting on the catalogue rollout to jumpstart the 
> project.  The existing organization is a bit different than the 
> catalogue categories.  It's mostly by character, so I'd say 
> characterisation is a primary focus of the current FP list (as well 
> as the group generally).  So I'd expect to see V's agenda in the 
> Voldemort FP and Dumbledore's in his.  
> 
> There are FPs planned for Class/Gender/Racial prejudice.  The 
> existing HypotheticAlley covers a lot of back history theories.  
And one is planned on the DEs that would definitely cover espionage.  
> However, the existing list doesn't cover a lot of stuff.  
> Suggestions are always welcome, and overlap is perfectly 
acceptable, 
> in my view.
> 

Carolyn:
Hm, an interesting response, but not entirely unexpected. Two 
comments:

- we have to get to post-OOP before the catalogue stuff will be 
useful to update anything; in my view up to post 100 000 at least. 
Most FPs & FAQs stop dead at GOF, or earlier.

- IMNVHO most of the discussion on the main list is dead boring at 
present (probably because I've now been a member too long, and there 
is a natural life-cycle to everything), but nevertheless, I think a 
new series of topic posts would do wonders to kick-start debate; I 
wish they could be sooner than next summer at the earliest.

Any thoughts?

Carolyn