Age Debates/Topic Summary

[Debbie]

Carolyn:
 
> 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.

I do want to keep them, but partly because I think that whatever JKR 
says on her website is not the last word, and partly because there 
are well-reasoned posts on timeline issues that we should preserve.  
Do not fear . . . I can be quite ruthless about rejecting silly 
posts.
 
> 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.

I will upload it to the files (if I have privileges) so it will be 
easy for cataloguers to find, as soon as I post this.


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.

We're looking at what kinds of structured discussions we should do 
after the chapters are done.  A couple of years ago we had a series 
of discussions based on discussion questions from Dr. Philip Nel's 
study book on HP.  Now there are lots of books and essays out there 
which could be used to stimulate discussion.  Or we could do topics 
like the ones they were doing back in the day (but I hope we can 
find something more scintillating than Food and Drink).  Topic 
suggestions are welcome.

> Kathy (Potioncat:

> I think the chapter summaries are running through January. It 
looks 
> like there are volunteers for all but one.  And it would seem to 
> make sense to start the Theme Summaries after that.  Unless of 
> course you think it wouldn't compete. 
> 
> How did it work before?  Did an elf come up with a list of topics 
> and ask for volunteers? Or were ideas for topics tossed out to the 
> masses?

I think in the old days they asked for victims on the lists.  The 
Nel topics were handled by the elves, though, and I didn't even 
think they wanted help from the list until I asked when one of them 
would be taking place and they responded by asking me if I wanted to 
do it.

Carolyn:
But I would 
> be interested to know more about how the topic list is/was agreed 
on.
> I think it would worthwhile to put a suggested list of topics to 
the 
> members (maybe on Feedback), and see what responses there were. 

Do you mean a list of FP topics or topics for structured list 
discussion?  Either way, it was before my time.  But since I seem to 
have inherited the FP project, I'm for considering any topic people 
want to see.  Overlap can be dealt with via links.

> Personally, I think the concept of FAQs should be re-thought. 
> Dumbledore's gleam, to take the most frequently cited, is in fact 
a 
> very interesting question, and I think this could be more usefully 
> treated within a longer essay. Its a moot question whether that 
essay 
> should, essentially, be a DD character review (I think not), or a 
> mixture of character/plot review.

When I first joined the list the elves were prohibiting discussion 
of topics in the FAQs.  My first crusade as an elf was to convince 
the old-timers that discussion of the gleam should not be squelched 
just because they were tired of it, because it did not have a clear 
answer.  However, I'm interested to know why you think it should not 
be part of a character review.  Perhaps the answer turns on whether 
you're interested in plot or in characterization.


Carolyn:
> Looking forward to binning all the HBP predictions just as soon as 
> Book 6 appears - keeping only the most bizarrely wrong, and a few 
of 
> the nearly-right for posterity.

Can we bin them now?  We've got a poll question to cover it.  All we 
need to do is save the really well-reasoned ones.  Like Boyd's, 
which was priceless and deserving of a triple FEATHERBOA.


Debbie
who once thought she was so clever to question whether Lily was 
really nice, about 10,000 posts after Eric Oppen did it