Monday, July 14, 2014

Something Wiki this way comes...

Wow, the people who update the Harry Potter Wiki site are fast, aren't they? No sooner does J.K. publish the Rita Skeeter article about the Quidditch World Cup and someone has already updated the Wiki entry for Hannah Abbott to include the details related to "Hannah" included in the Skeeter piece.

But are they right to do so? The citation for the information added to the Hannah Abbott Wiki entry is the Skeeter piece, according to the site, but I have to figure there is more than one Hannah in the magical community. And Skeeter omits any reference to the birth name of "Hannah" in her article.

So how can they be so sure that Neville Longbottom, in fact, married Hannah Abbott, rather than some other Hannah (Smith, Jones, Leduc, Jeudesor)?

And why do the entry editors assume that whatever Hannah Neville married would take his last name in place of her own? They refer to her as "Hannah Longbottom (nee Abbott)" in the entry. Why make that assumption?

And why do they describe her as the "landlady of the Leaky Cauldron" in the Wiki entry? The Skeeter article merely says that Neville and Hannah "lived above the Leaky Cauldron"; it makes no mention of her having been the landlady (and, therefore, owner) of the pub.

Don't get me wrong. I think the Harry Potter Wiki is an amazing resource and I respect the work that went into creating (and still goes into maintaining and updating) it.

But this update of Hannah Abbott's entry causes me some concern about the accuracy of all of the other entries as well.

I shall have to take the information included on the Wiki with a grain of salt from now on, won't I?

On the other hand, when I read in the Skeeter article that Neville had married a woman named Hannah, I too immediately thought of Ms. Abbott. But the Skeeter article certainly falls far short of confirming that the Neville's partner is indeed Hannah Abbott.

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