Talk:Harry Potter (character)/GA1

GA Reassessment

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As part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles' Project quality task force, I am re-reviewing this article to ensure compliance with current good article criteria. I have determined that it doesn't meet criteria for the reasons outlined below and needs so much work that I find it unlikely an editor or group of editors could bring the article up to spec in the general week allotted for improvements, so I am boldly delisting it. The issues, as I see them:

• Factual accuracy/verifiability: There are large swaths of the article that are unsourced, particularly in the character history section. While generally the plot sections of works do not need to be sourced as it is assumed all the info comes from the work in question, when you're dealing with a combination of sources you need to be explicit about what info comes from where. There are also random knick-knacks here and there (lots of "Rowling said..." that need to be sourced, but I think might be better off just cut, see below.)
• Broad in coverage: the article suffers from a critical imbalance of in-universe information compared to info about the development and reception of the character. We don't need a family tree, which even reading much of the article will be inscrutable for non-Harry Potter fans. Remember that this is written for a general audience, and paradoxically the more details you throw in, the less comprehensible it will be to the average reader. Basically, cut down the appearances, characterization, and family sections. Juggling them about might also help—for instance, having the development of the character, then the overview ("Characterization") then his progression throughout the books ("Appearances"). There's some good development-type info about Radcliffe's portrayal, but comparatively very little about Rowling's development (and it's rather spread out in an odd manner where it might be better to consolidate it all.) The "In popular culture" section is the closest to a character reception section as can be in the article, but dwells too much on parodies (often unreferenced and trivia-filled) and not enough on what critics thought. In contrast, look at the latter sections of Master Chief (Halo): there's information about scholarly analysis of the character's parallels to other heroes in literature and films, as well as an overview of critical impact and discussion about how the character was received, and his importance. With Harry Potter, I'm sure you can find even more information.
• Images: Overall, not too bad given the usual proliferation of trivial non-free images, but I'm not sure that File:HPBOOK.jpg has much of a defensible rationale unless there's critical commentary on that artistic portrayal of the character.

Remember that you can renominate an article at any time via WP:GAN. As I am not watchlisting this review, direct all comments and queries to my talk page. Thanks, --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)