Talk:Controversy over Harry Potter/archive 1

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[edit] Proposed merger of Laura Mallory

The following discussion is an archived debate of the merge proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was merge. -- Addhoc 10:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thought I can't find the exact discussion now, somebody brought this merge up at Talk:Harry Potter, where the general consensus was to merge. Of 12 !votes at the article's AfD, two are for delete, and both suggest mention to this article, three are for merge, and all suggest to this article, and seven are for keep, and one suggests a possible merge to this article. All believe she deserves mention somewhere; her article as it current appears (minus the infobox, headers, and TOC) can easily be condensed into one paragraph, two at the most. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 01:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Support. It means less BLP grief, and emphasises that we're talking about opposition to Harry Potter, not about Mallory. Andjam 03:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - firstly the closing admin has already given his view, and secondly, WP:BLP would still apply. Addhoc 08:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
    • The closing admin is not the be-all and end-all. They summarize the consensus of the AfD, not give a !vote which counts more than anybody else's. If you personally believe that Laura Mallory should be moved, the administrator's ruling of the AfD will not contradict that. Also, Andjam is not saying that BLP would not apply, but that it would be a harder target for vandalism, as the article is not primarily about Mallory, but only mentions her. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 01:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
      • um yes, I meant given her view of the consensus. Not sure how you read a "harder target to vandalism" into Andjam's comment, or for that matter, why it would be a harder target. Addhoc 18:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Sorry, what I meant was that AfD does not govern moves, simply whether the page should be deleted or not. If this new discussion generates a consensus to move, than it shall be moved. As for BLP grief, I was simply reinterpreting Andjam's comment for you, which I think you misinterpreted… eliminating articles on living people and moving them into articles where the subject is not people creates a harder target for vandals, as I was saying. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 15:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - She needs her own article Lizzie Harrison 17:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Can you please elaborate why you feel this way? Let me show you the entire text of the article, without the infobox, headers and TOC:

Laura Mallory is a critic of the Harry Potter book series. A mother of four children in Loganville, Georgia, in 2006 she made several attempts to have the books banned from her children's school library. Mallory said the books carry "evil themes, witchcraft, demonic activity, murder, evil blood sacrifice, spells and teaching children all of this." Mallory also commented that she has not read the book series partially because "they're really very long and I have four kids. I've put a lot of work into what I've studied and read. I think it would be hypocritical for me to read all the books, honestly." [1] Mallory presented her concerns to the Gwinnett County Board of Education, but the request was rejected. Board of Education attorney Victoria Sweeny said that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban "Macbeth" and "Cinderella." Later, she lost an appeal with the Georgia State Board of Education. Mallory has said that she will try to appeal the Georgia state's decision to allow the books in schools.[2] Mallory was named the Washington Post's 2006 "Idiot of the Year."[3]

  • Do you feel that text of this length merits an article of its own when it still most certainly belongs in this article? The merger is not trying to deem her nonnotable, but rather a subject whose information might be better suited as a paragraph of a larger article than the whole of her own. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 01:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • How many of those news stories are actually reporting different events, though? Perhaps searching for her name within just one publication would be a more accurate representation of the number of stories she appears in. I could not imagine more than 4 per publication, which discuss each of her many appeals. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 18:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly support. As the condensed version above shows, the Laura Mallory article isn't a biographical article about Laura Mallory but a resume of Laura Mallory's opposition to the Harry Potter books. Apart from a brief contextual mention of her having four children and living in Loganville there is no other information about Mallory herself at all. As such it's functioning purely as a subsection of Controversy over Harry Potter even if it's not here at the moment. Tobelia 16:54, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose she may be a dumbass, but she is a notable dumbass and deserving of her own article. trying to improve the aricle in biographical content Munkee madness 02:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Having followed the fan sites devotedly since long before the beginning of the whole Laura Mallory thing, I can tell you that there's not much more to it than what's in the article. If you want to go get a personal interview with her, go ahead, but as for information released in newspapers and online, that's about it. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 23:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support per Tobelia. She's only notable for one reason, and we appear to be unable to expand on her article any more than that. Daggoth | Talk 13:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Her page is small enough to make a single article here, and it makes sense. -Somebody?
  • Do not merge. Never heard of her, then reading the article I realised that I had. As a noteable person (whatever the reason) she ought to have her own entry, not merely a note inside another article. I agree it is rather short and could do with more content. I suspect it does not do justice to her arguments, and currently portrays her as a bit of an idiot, which might not be NPOV. I think the world of HP is robust enough to give her a good hearing in her own article. Sandpiper 08:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
    • As you yourself said, you had never heard of her, at least by name. Thus, her article is not doing much good without being in conjunction with this article here. And I am quite honestly telling you there is no more biographical information on her than what you see in the article as is stands. Consider that she is more of a reference needed for this article, than a biographical figure of note who happens to be mentioned in this article. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 04:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
      • What I meant, is that i did not recognise the name. However, after reading the description I realised that I knew who they were talking about, because she is sufficiently noteable to have made it into the media. Logically, there does exist more biographical detail, it is just that we do not have it here. I imagine she has parents, a home, a job, significant others, whatever, just like anyone else. I guess, what you mean is that none of these details is particularly interesting. Well, that may well be true, but it is a bit like the nutter who shot arch duke ferdinand, and started world war 1. No doubt a total nobody of no interest to people, except for this one thing. Similarly, the people who flew a plane into a certain skyscraper, the guy who wore a coat on the tube and got shot for it? It is the incident which makes the person noteable, not the boring details of the rest of their life. So if by chance someone has come across the name and wants to find out what there is to know, something ought to pop up. A google on her name popped up nearly one million references (ok, 40,000 when i put it in quotes). The article on Gavrilo Princip (which I discover from wiki was the name of ferdinand's killer) contains such exciting information as Princip was born in the village of Obljaj, near Bosansko Grahovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina the son of a postman. His parents, Peter and Marija (née Mičić), had nine children, five sons and four daughters, six of whom died in infancy. His health was poor from an early age. He contracted tuberculosis when he was a teenager, which led to his death in 1918. That he was already dying from this disease may have added to his willingness to undergo such a brazen assassination attempt as his one on Archduke Ferdinand. His impoverished parents could not afford to feed him and sent him to live with an older brother in Sarajevo. Really exciting stuff, but actually what i would expect to find in a comprehensive article.
As you might imagine, i disagree with her point of view, but a quick look at some of these googles suggests that a lot of people are ridiculing her, without considering that she is attempting to make a seriously held point. If some of those were in wiki, they would deserve to be trashed for non-neutrality. Report what she does without spinning it. Now, if the reality is that lots of people have done exactly the same thing, then her noteability would come into question. Even then, if she uniquely got the publicity, then she would still be noteable. I think her actions are a comment on society as much as upon HP. The issue is not whether she is relevant to an Hp article, but whether her actions would justify her having an article anyway. Sandpiper 21:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Even if her actions did justify her having a decent biographical article, which I'm not entirely convinced about, we're apparently unable to provide one. At least the information quoted on Princip is biographical. A biographical article surely requires some kind of biography. So far there seems to be almost no information about Mallory that isn't highly specific to Controversy overy Harry Potter. In any case, if the article's merged, anyone typing "Laura Mallory" into Wikipedia (or Google) will be directed to this page, which would provide all the information which is likely to interest anyone other than her friends and family. Tobelia 16:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Besides her opposition to HP, there's nothing to expand her article on. It doesn't seem at all like a proper bio article, if the only bio elements we can find are her age, children, adress...As other have said, it's more like a subsection of Controversy over Harry Potter. If the only notable element is her opinion about HP, I really can't see the need for a biographic article, which doesn't even have enough material to look like a proper biography...Folken de Fanel 13:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support: This woman's whole issue is non-notable. The "Harry Potter is Satanic" bandwagon left the tracks in about 2003. In order to prove her case, Mallory has to show that the books promote a religion, Wicca, and thus that placing them in a school library would violate the separation of church and state. They transparently do not; ergo her case has no merit and has been rightly shot down. Even if she takes this all the way to the Supreme Court, she cannot win, anymore than if she were attempting to legally prove the sky was green. Within six months no one will remember her or her fight, just as no one remembers the dozens of other people who've tried and failed to ban Harry Potter before her. Serendipodous 15:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting to note that she is no longer in Google News. Serendipodous 14:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

That's six to four in favour with no responses in three days. I think this matter is closed. Unless someone objects, I'll perform the merge tomorrow. Serendipodous 10:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.