Talk:Wizard (fantasy) - Misplaced Pages

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This article was nominated for deletion on 23 November 2006. The result of the discussion was Keep.

Rule of Thumb

See also: magician See also: alchemy and alchemists See also: shamanism and shaman See also: witch See also: warlock See also: jedi

In general, if the information you are thinking about adding here is more suited to one of the above articles (or any similar article), then place it THERE and not HERE.

Just because one of the names some person or persons may have been called is a wizard, does not mean that such persons should be listed in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jc37 (talk • contribs) 03:53, 22 July 2006 UTC (UTC)

General Comments

As suggested at talk:wizards as a race I merged that page into this one. However, it's not clear to me that the additional information is encyclopedic ... or even accurate. The Istari are better described as incarnate angels than as a race, and I have no knowledge of the other examples given. Thoughts? Zack 03:31, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What is paranormal magic? How does it differ from magic? Harry Potter is an example of a wizard in training to use MAGIC.

I suspect that paranormal magic is magic in the mystical sense, whereas regular magic is what's practiced by Penn and Teller. Snowspinner 17:20, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Should this maybe be a disambig page leading to the various types of wizards? Snowspinner 17:20, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How many types of wizards exist inside and outside our imagination? They all do magic limited by psi? A wizard's hat can make a broom come alive. How is this related to the limits of psi? A wizard could change young Arthur into animals? Psi???

Wizards as administrators in MUDS and MUSHES, Wizard as in the Who musical, Wizard as in the bands, Wizard as in a utility in a program to fast-create something... Snowspinner 17:55, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think sorcercerers have an evil connotation while wizards, good.--Jondel 08:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've just removed the following from the main page since it isn't actually true (the five magics in the book are in fact separate disciplines, not a hierachy):

"Lyndon Hardy's Master of the Five Magics suggests ascending ranks of thaumaturgist, alchemist, magician, sorcerer, and wizard."

Kvetch 15:45, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

"Stage magician" vs. "Illusionist"

"Illustionist" is also a (A)D&D character class of magic (paranormal) users.
From Magic (illusion): "The practitioners of this mystery art may be called magicians, conjurors, illusionists or prestidigitators."

So one can hardly say 'stage magicians' are "properly termed" 'illusionists' instead. And I don't see the need of lots of examples for stage magicians. Anyone can look them up at the Magic (illusion) article. TowerDragon 09:05, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Star Wars image

What's the image of the Star Wars guy doing here? He's not a wizard or sorceror; he's a Sith! He doesn't even use magic; he uses the Force. → JarlaxleArtemis 00:28, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Even if he is a sorcerer, it's borderline. I've removed it.--JiFish 14:15, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh, is that so? Even if YOU - but one person- agree, doesn't mean YOU should remove it...Isn't "the force" some kind of magic, per se? Which makes "a Star Wars"-guy proficent in it, some kind of wizard - in a sense. Who says they have to be medieval? P.S., He's name's Yoda, and's more of a wizard than a sorceror. The force is Star War's magic.--OleMurder 16:33, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Certainly I a agree that he could be considered a Wizard. However, it never states it specifically in the movies. I don't believe we need to confuse the subject with borderline cases. This is an encyclopedia, not a trivia book. Also, I don't think they have to medieval. Use a clear case of a Wizard in a modern or futuristic setting instead.

Finally, the original objection was online for over ten days. People had more than enough time to justify why it should stay. Nobody responded. ----JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 11:45, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh yeah? Just 'cuz the "silent majority" roared it's head again...well, the burden of proof is still on the claimer why it should be removed...and I objected to the removal, why doesn't it count? My "justification" is that the removal is unjustified. There's no definition of Wizard set-in-stone. I still think so: Get it back. They don't have to SAY Wizard for him being a Wizard. Keep'rat in mind.--OleMurder 18:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Three reasons not to put it back: First and most important, the list of fictional wizards and wizard-alikes is already too long. I'm seriously considering hacking it down to about ten (based on cultural prominence) and dumping the rest into a category, if there isn't already one. We certainly don't need more images. Second, it would be ridiculous to list every single Force user from Star Wars canon, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is already mentioned (with better justification for his inclusion, since he is referred to as a "wizard" by Uncle Owen) -- I admit that Yoda is probably the best-known Jedi, but his portrayal in the series bears absolutely no resemblance to the typical wizard archetype. Third, it's been gone since May! This horse has shuffled off the mortal coil! (And editing your comments after the fact is bad form.) -- Zack 00:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, im a guest, but the force is a concept derived from chi right? They're all monks are they not?Last i heard most wizards don't meditate either.

Dumbledore reference?

While it really boils down to a matter of opinion, I would like to advise the editor/maintainer of this wiki that the front page image citing "Albus Dumbledore, from the Harry Potter series," as one of the "most well known traditional literary wizards" is a little absurd. While the statement may be true for Harry Potter fans, it doesn't grant Albus Dumbledore a status that is traditional or literary, simply because he has barely been around long enough. If Dumbledore is meant as an example, I would suggest a more "traditional" or "literary" wizard to be on the front page, such as Merlin or Gandalf (thankfully, he is indeed displayed below), or urge the rewording of the citing sentence.

Agreed. I've exchanged the Gandalf and Dumbledore images - Gandalf's literary precedence is well established, imo - and moved both Dumbledore and Tim the Enchanter down to the list of fictional wizards. Zack 22:52, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Cool, thanks, nothing against Dumble (since the poor dude is about to be punked anyway) but Gandalf definitely trumps him. 4:41 AM, July 17 2005 EST

Well, touching this subject, shouldn't Merlin actually be mentioned first? He is the most "traditional" one, since he is present for quite some time... --Arny 13:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Move to Magic (practitioner)?

I would love to see this moved to a more general topic of practitioners of magic and then allow it be broken down basically by style. Right now wikipedia is very inconsitent with how it deals with practitioner terms. ie enchanter(he who uses enchantments) takes you to enchantments(the practice of).--J E Bailey 15:34, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Wizard is probably the commonest term, so this one is defensible. Probably should redirect the other terms. Goldfritha 22:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorcerer: From a non magical perspective

From a non-magical, non-fairytale perspective sorcerer defines one with the ability to connect with the super mundane. Everyone and every thing is connected to this ulimate source but only a sorcerer possesses the tools and the know how to tap into it. Any person who has mastered the art of connecting with the source is a sorcerer and each sorcerer’s mastery of the connection measures the degree of sorcery possessed. -PGH 10:45 AM 4 Dec 2005-

Spoiler(s)

IMO "Fizban is the mortal avatar of the god Paladine from the Dragonlance fantasy novels." is a major spoiler and should be removed.

List of wizards in fiction

This part of the article is an unreadable sewer. I'm going to clean it up, shortly. Nandesuka 01:32, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Good job. Thanks. TowerDragon 01:26, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Are any of the wizards cited from videogames relevant? Also, should it be mentioned that many characters from the Harry Potter series, including the title character, are examples of wizards in fiction? Aak044 20:38, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Swapping images due to fair use concerns

Please note that it is not considered fair use (according to Misplaced Pages policies) to use images of movies, books, etc., to illustrate articles other than their subjects. So using the Gandalf image, for example, is fine in an article about Lord of the Rings, but is questionable when used to illustrate the Wizard article. Therefore, I'll be swapping the Gandalf image for one of Merlin, and removing the Dumbledore image. I'll look for a suitable public domain image to replace Dumblodore when I have time. Nandesuka 14:59, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

This is just fine, I believe Merlin deserves to be a representative of wizards here since he is the oldest wizard character among them, and practically the wizard archetype. --Arny 02:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

==Mageborn merge==

There has been a mergeto tag on Mageborn for some time now, but no comments have been made. Does anyone have an opinion? I lean towards not merging as the content (or lack of it) in Mageborn doesn't really fit anywhere obvious in this page. Kcordina 12:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Support. Another alternative is to move mageborn to the Wiktionary. Either suits me Matt Deres 22:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Various lists of wizards

I am concerned by a number of recent changes to the lists of wizards in the articles. Generally speaking, i don't think we should be letting these lists become too long. In a series of edits starting here and ending here , User:Max rspct added some specific information to the Jehoshua Ben-Pandira entry, and then proceeded to strip out every reference to every non-Christian reference, managing in the process to even blow away John Dee, arguably one of the most well-known "real-life wizard" in history. Max rspct, can you please explain what in the world is going on here?

On another topic, this article is truly terrible. Even with all the cutting we've done, the laundry lists take up over half the article. I would like to propose that we freeze the laundry lists and work instead on expanding the actual text, with an eye towards eventually removing the laundry lists. Because laundry lists are always bad. Nandesuka 11:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Your just peeved because I took out your list of cultists. Hindi Sadus are not Wizards and are definately not sourced. John Dee was an Occultist. Go evangelize somewhere ELSE! -- max rspct leave a message 12:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Er, no, I'm not "peeved" and they're not "my" cultists; if I had my way, the entire laundry list would be removed. As for Dee, the Misplaced Pages article on John Dee states that "He was by now widely reviled as an evil magician", and confirms that he has a reputation as a magician, so he clearly meets the criteria for that section. In the meantime, please remain civil. Nandesuka 12:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

RFC

I have posted an article RFC to try to get some more eyes on this. Nandesuka 13:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup and ReOrg

The article appeared to be a mixture of original research, and lists of people, characters, and beliefs.

Several points:

1.) Added more citations and links

2.) Clarified non-supernatural wizards from supernatural wizards.

3.) Moved the wizard/sorcerer comparisons to the Magician article (which needs even more work).

4.) Removed examples of "other" magicians, and replaced with:

See also: Alchemists, Shamen, Witches, and Warlocks.

Among other issues, this should keep the article down to a managable size.

4a.) Added Rule of thumb to the top of this talk page, above. (Added Jedi, due to other comments on this talk page.)

5.) Created categories for expansion. In most cases with just a sentence or two starting the category, to hopefully elicit further expansion.

5a.) The fairy tale, myth, and legends section needs filling out, probably to be split into 3 sub-sections. Though it should be kept concise.

5b.) While I left the list of fictional wizards from fictional works mostly intact, I think that we should limit ourselves to the "most famous". (Especially since there already exists a category listing them.)

- Jc37 03:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

This is more a comment about the disambiguation page- I don't follow the main page- but hopefully you'll understand that I reverted your changes. I recommend taking a look at MoS:DAB. Normally, colons aren't used; also, even though they might be mentioned in the main Wizard article, articles with a name of the style Wizard (Something) still normally deserve to be on a disambig page (things like Wizard (Middle-earth) and so on). Also, I removed the wiktionary links from here; this is an encylopedic article on the subject, so a dict def shouldn't be necessary. Traditionally, the wiktionary links go on the disambig page, as noted in Misplaced Pages:Sister projects.

Now, most of what I mentioned above are style rules as opposed to rule rules, so if there's a good reason why we'd want the wiktionary links here, please feel free to go ahead and put 'em back. I just don't immediately see it.

As for the article itself... ugh. Random bolding, no introduction, and parts of it are completely random (Why on earth are we using jargon like black-box systems, something from computer science, when talking about wizardry?). It definitely still needs some work. SnowFire 21:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me take your thoughts one at a time.

1.) Didn't know about the colons. Was using them because they were/are grammatically correct.
2.) The disambiguation page is for everything that "isn't" related to the information on the main wizard page, with a direct link to the wizard page itself (which I did). It's do differentiate between other uses of wizard.
3.) Also by doing the revert, you removed some things that were moved there from the wizard page
4.) Wizard does not necesasarily equate to magician. As was stated in the article. Which is why the link to magician and to the magic disambiguation page rather than to the supernatural article.
5.) The wiktionary links were there for just this reason, so that the various uses of wizard could be clear to anyone who wanted to read further. However, I read in the style guide for amb pages that it should be there as well.
6.) The definition was the introduction, for now, as I mentioned above, I left the sections basic so that others could expand upon them.
7.) Black box systems was a description of "magic" as it is in terms of a "wizard". Look at Arthur C Clark's third law, for instance. (It's in the magic (paranormal) article.) It's accruate across all the semantics of the use of the word wizard. It's someone who knows knowledge that the rest don't, and so it looks like magic. You could call a mechanic a magician, since you don't have to know how to build/fix an engine to operate the car. It's become even more prevalent in modern usage due to the use of computers, which apparently work "by magic" to those uninformed. And since the Wizard is specifically about the use of less commonly known knowledge (whether how to play pinball effectively, or how to summon a dead spirit), it very much belongs here.. what you did show me, however, is that it needs better explaining in the article : )
8.) And finally, yes the article still needs work. I don't intend to rv your work, but I'll work on merging the two.

- Jc37 01:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I wholly agree that wizard does not necessarily equate to magician. I tried to make that very clear from my changes; if you feel that it wasn't, then feel free to add so. That said, it is very important to explain the supernatural side of things and mention it. You'll note that in my list of things wizards were known for, I tried to mix "scientific" practices with knowledge that would today be considered "supernatural."

I know I knocked away some things from the wizard page that got moved to the disambig page, but they were generally irrelevant things. The fact that Deepak Chopra uses the word wizard is not interesting enough to stick either in this article or in a disambig page; if we included every semi-famous person who's used the word wizard in an odd way, we'd have an extremely long disambig page. The same with wizards being administrators on some MUDs; this is entirely true, I'm sure, and I can only begin to count the number of similar usages of random terms I've seen.

As for Black Boxes, don't get me wrong, I happen to be a computer programmer by trade; I "got it." That said, if we have a choice between using clear terms or using analogies that rely on jargon, I say we go for simplicity (having been on the receiving end of other profession's inside terms elsewhere; try editing some philosophy articles! ;-)). It now says, right in the intro, that wizards know "hidden" knowledge. I suppose to be more specific we should say "knowledge hidden to those who require a wizard's service," but I think it's okay for now.

Anyway, I'm glad you're trying to help the article; it certainly needs it! I just think that we need the cleanup box still, and with any luck it can be removed soon enough. SnowFire 01:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I can't say I agree with your latest series of edits. While wizards were not entirely identified with magic, it would be incorrect to say that they were not associated with arts that would flagrantly be considered "magical" today. A good analogy might be alchemy/chemistry and astronomy/astrology; these arts were tied together and the line separating them wasn't clear back in those days. Therefore, I was trying to emphasize that they were skilled in both things modern people would consider magical and things we would simply call skills; the thread holding it together is knowledge, no matter the type.

All the talk that others didn't understand their abilities and chalked it up to "magic" may be true, but that ignores the important fact that many "wizards" were in fact interested in magic, regardless of whether people misinterpreted their "standard" knowledge as also magic (or, in proper Snake Oil salesman fashion, sold anything they did as magic). More to the point, it is indisputably true that in modern usage, a wizard is simply someone who uses magic. Especially since the historical wizards section is woefully short (as noted by the expand tag I stuck on it), we should not be over-emphasizing the modern interpretation.

As for the list of historical wizards, why did you remove Dee & Zhang Jiao? They perfectly fit what you refer to as far as being "sages" to a degree. I would venture to guess that if there is any one Western historical figure who would be called a wizard (thus ruling out Merlin most likely), it would be Dee.

As for cunning folk, I've never heard of the term before, but it says outright on the page that they were referred to as wizards, and their list of services sounds exactly like what a wizard could offer back in the day. I fail to see why it should be removed.

After those content discussions... stylistically, I still disagree. I'm obviously biased, but I put some thought into my opening paragraph to make it clear; the new version is stilted and disjointed. The random bolding is back; this is fine for disambig pages which need to set off each section, but there's no need to re-bold wizard later on in the article. Additionally, this is more a personal thing, but I think that Wiki-links in section headers look awful, especially when they're about to be referenced right below. The wiktionary links still add nothing; if you feel that the definitions are direly needed, this is an encylopedia article; feel free to talk about them! Also, while mentioning black box systems might (might, might) be appropriate for an analogy within the article, it is in no way what someone is expecting to see in a "See also" box at the very top of the page.

I'll refrain from editing for the moment, but suffice to say I prefer things in the version I had before as a temporary measure. Would you be up for waiting to see if someone else has any comments, or perhaps asking for a Misplaced Pages:Third opinion? (Edit: Just to be clear, only if no one else shows up for a while, since you're not supposed to run to those too quickly?) SnowFire 05:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

1.) Since the rest is still in the article, I think you're talking about these two sentences?

In modern times, wizards have grown considerably more identified with the outright use of magic as other knowledges such as history or botany have grown more easily accesible.

Common arts associated with wizardry include necromancy (conjuration of spirits), astrology, astronomy, medicine, history, herbalism, and fortune telling.

The former is misleading, to almost being untrue. If it was patently true, we couldn't have the computer science reference.

As for the latter, the sentence makes it sound as if those "arts" are exclusive to a wizard.

One could just as easily state: Common arts associated with magic include necromancy (conjuration of spirits), astrology, astronomy, medicine, history, herbalism, and fortune telling.

Wizardry (in this context) is a subsection of magic, not the other way round.

2.) As I explained in the edit box: (Removed the cunning folk, the sorcerer, and the astrologist. Though they all likely belong on List of occultists, they are not specifically wizards.)

Zhang was clearly a sorcerer. (Which it says in the article.) If you can show different, I would be all for him being on the page (as you said, we could use more historical wizard claimant examples.)

When I went to "dee" it said this:

"was a noted British mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, occultist, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He also devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy."

I am hard pressed to show how this person was a "wizard" and not just a occultist/prognosticator interested in the future. (Else we start adding people like Nostradamus.) Plus as an alchemist he should be listed there anyway. (Which he is : )

I'm somewhat "on the wire" about the cunning folk. The problem is that they come off more as local midwife (old wives' tales) or, honestly, like the local witch from fairy tales, than the actual term wizard, which appears to have really only found common usage in the late middle ages. Simply, the term "witch" was just more widespread, and more useful in describing such examples. What places me "on the wire", is that Tolkien (a linguist, among other things) used "cunning man" for the translation of Curunir (Saruman) the Wizard. Which suggests to me that it's possible that the cunning folk may end up being wizards in some obscure translation. It's just too close to original research for me, so I have been erring on the side of caution. If we find out some more information, that would be greatly helpful.

3.) Wiki links in section headers is common throughout the encyclopedia. (plus it cuts down on the number of "seealso" lines : )

4.) I disagree about the wiktionary links. Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary So I think it's better to link to where the definitions are, rather than reprint them in the article. I looked at MoS:DAB and Misplaced Pages:Sister projects, and I don't see what you're referring to.

5.) blackbox systems - where this really belongs is in an article on magic. However, after looking over magic, magic (paranormal), and magic (illusion), I don't see where it "fits" thematically, due to how they have been forked and defined.

I put it at the top because I saw how it was confusing as written, and I'm planning to rewrite the concept later : )

6.) I have been seriously thinking about forking the historical claimants section to it's own article (or merging it into magician). If I do, that leaves wizard as a "term" (jargon) in colloquial speech (including role playing games), and fictional wizards.

While I shy away from the "notable" reasoning for anything, I think that if a person comes to a page called "wizard", that is what they should likely expect, rather than homegrown herbalists and such, which have really only had the term adopted in recent times. (Hence the see also magician at the top)

However, on the other hand, I don't want to do that, because it is that section that explains how, in some ways, wizard is becoming synonymous with magician.

As shown in the etymology, wizard is very much an english term, and not an world-wide term by any means (another section on this page that could use editing), until VERY recently (the last 50 years or so).

9.) By the way, if you have the inclination, all of the things that you seem to want to add here are fully something that would be more useful in the magician article, which REALLY could use quite a bit of what you want in the historical section, including a section on comparing the various names for magicians, and what each means as a subgrouping of the larger term: magician. (It also needs cleanup even more than this article : )

And btw, thank you for the input, I'm a strong believer in the "many eyes" concept. (The bolding is a good example of that : )

- Jc37 06:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

In re-reading this discussion, I've noticed that there have been a few places where things were clarified by us in a way that should probably be placed in the article itself. Going to give more thought to this : )

- Jc37 07:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, I think we should side step the question of historical wizard claimants and merely have them listed on List of occultists. I see that Lee is already there (as I was noting above), but I don't see the other two. I would think just adding them there, and having a link to it on this page should be enough. - Jc37 09:16, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I think we may have to hit the books again on this one; sadly, most of my knowledge comes from friend's books I've read in the past, so it may take a bit for me. But we seem to have fundamentally different conceptions of what a wizard is. That statement is not "misleading, to almost being untrue. If it was patently true, we couldn't have the computer science reference." This is an article about a wizard, unadorned. Hence the topic is wizards. Go ask somebody on the street what a wizard does, and 98% of them will say magic. Any use of wizard to not mean that in a modern context needs a modifier, and then it's understood that their expertise with that subject is "like magic" as an automatic analogy. And some "historical" wizards did in fact dabble in magic! I don't see why you apply such a high standard to calling someone a wizard; sure, it's possible that they were an alchemist, sage, etc. too, but it doesn't mean that they aren't a wizard. Newton was a phyicisist, chemist, alchemist, optician, mathematician, astronomer, and lord knows what else; no reason why more occult-focusing figures can't also bear many titles.

Now, again, I see your point about wizards not necessarily implying magic, which is correct. But it is incorrect to move all references to magic over to other articles, unless the books that I intend to dig up completely surprise me.

Furthermore, I agree with the comments Jim62 added. Even ignoring the content dispute, the current section is not clear on what exactly you mean with lots of sentences that start abruptly and don't finish their thoughts. Again, I understand what you're trying to say having read the talk page, but it's not as well-written as it could be. That's more what I was protesting; the entire introduction.

As for your minor notes, it says right on Misplaced Pages:Sister projects for usage:

At the top of the page for disambiguation pages).
Next to any cross-reference to Wiktionary, if there is one.

This isn't a disambig page, and there currently isn't a cross-reference to Wiktionary (you do have one to Bartleby, sort of; that link appears broken). If you added one, then the wiktionary link would go at the bottom of the article along with the references. Regular articles that use wiktionary links almost always stick them at the very bottom along with the Wikimedia commons link. SnowFire 17:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

1.) "That statement is not "misleading, to almost being untrue. If it was patently true, we couldn't have the computer science reference.""

Presuming that this is the statement (since it was what I made that comment about):

In modern times, wizards have grown considerably more identified with the outright use of magic as other knowledges such as history or botany have grown more easily accesible.

It is, because the reverse of that statement could be said to be true. In modern times, wizards are considerably becoming more identified with a "wiz" at something than magic, hence more common usages of the examples (like computer science). I didn't say it was false.. I said it was misleading to almost being untrue.

The term is branching out, just as language can have a tend to do. (Bad having a meaning of good in certain contexts is an extreme example of that.)

2.) "Any use of wizard to not mean that in a modern context needs a modifier,"

While true in many cases, not true in all. For example, we have the shortened forms: "Wiz"; "Wizz"; etc. (Which I think, should also be explained in the article.)

I think we would be more accurate to say that it needs a modifier, either stated, or unstated.

(Just like the "presumed 'you'" in the sentence "Go." "Run." "Stop.")

You're a wiz (at this).

So:

"Any use of wizard that does not imply that (practitioner of supernatural magic) in a modern context is modified by the context, either stated or unstated."

And that sentence (or at least what it's attempting to convey), is likely worthy of the article itself. (Though I think I'll look for a grammar wikilink for "unstated".)

3.) "no reason why more occult-focusing figures can't also bear many titles."

Which is, I believe, why the List of occultists groups them together, instead of trying to sort them by their specific titles. Since depending on how broad or narrow we define this, we could end up re-listing the entire List of occultists on this page. (Especially since each occultist typically makes his/her own personal definition(s) of such titles.)

I think in that section we are better off explaining the morphology of the term "wizard", and how it's being used in modern parlance as a magician, with a Template:See also or even a Template:Main for the List of occultists and Occult.

4.) "Go ask somebody on the street what a wizard does, and 98% of them will say magic."

I presume by that you mean Magic (paranormal)? : )

And ask those to give an example and I think 99% will say either Merlin, Gandalf, make a Harry Potter reference, or the character class from role playing games.

(Though I think we both need to look for citations to support those two statements, even though I presume we both agree with them : )

5.) "But it is incorrect to move all references to magic over to other articles"

All references to magic?

No, that was not my intention at all, stated or unstated. I even added an expand section for Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends....

In the introduction, I was/am trying to find a concise way to inclusively describe all references to the wizard, user of magic - jargon, supernatural, and whatever else. The goal is to be inclusive in the description.

6.) "but it's not as well-written as it could be."

I think we're all agreed on that : )

It's a start to build upon, as we have been, in this discussion : )

7.) Ok, I looked at the link again, and here is what I found:

"Links to sister projects are best placed in the section of the article to which they relate. For example a link to Wikiquote might be placed next to any discussion of quotations, and a link to Wikinews next to the event that is sourced. Convention is that within an article a reference, link or definition is included only once, at the first appropriate point. Otherwise, they are usually placed in the External links section (not the "See also" section). In some cases, such as disambiguation articles, they are best placed in the article's introduction."

(And ignoring, for the moment, that it's a guideline and not policy : )

It merely says that in the case of Disambiguation articles, do "x".

Not only doesn't it exclude other kinds of articles, it suggests how to place it in them. In our case, since the introduction is explaining wizard and sage, and describing them (and especially in a situation like this where we find ourselves dealing with semantics), where we should place the wiktionary links are right by the section. Which is what I did.

8.) "one to Bartleby, sort of; that link appears broken"

Well, not broken, but something about their site apparently doesn't allow you to link directly to any interior page.

For example: http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE556.html

You actually have to manually click the links to get there.

a.) on the right hand side: american heritage dictionary (4th ed)
b.) scroll down to appendix I: Indo-eurpopean roots
c.) scroll down to weid-

Which gives you: http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE556.html

So it's not broken, but it makes it so that apprently we need to find another dictionary site, or find a way to actually link to the definitions.

-Jc37 15:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Comments and Ideas

I stumbled across this article and added some internal comments, as well as a number of tags where cite would be of great value. Please don't think I'm meddling, but I think that, with a bit of work, this article could get all the way to FA status (and as I've co-written two FA's in the past 6 months I know a little about the process -- P.S. - I'm not bragging, just trying to give you an idea of where I'm coming from). Anyway, some other thoughts:

Try to gather like thoughts into paragraphs rather than having the thoughts as isolated sentences. I know isolated sentences are all the rage in much of today's writing, especially in the media, but they're really not appropriate for encyclopedic writing.
There is some confusion regarding the use of magic/magician vs wizardry/wizard. Sometimes they are used in apposition, other times interchangeably an synonymously -- it might be a good idea to pick a standard definition of each word and remain consistent throughout the article.
Sources -- I see you've discussed this above, but you really do need more sources -- grab some books from the library, as very often they are excellent sources (just beware of copyvios).
See the comments I left in the article -- you have to look at them via the edit function.
A section on the genesis of the concept of wizards would be an excellent addition. Wizards existed, for example in ancient Rome (veneficus and magus) -- in fact the Magi (plural of magus) in the nativity story were considered wizards, not kings of the orient.
Make use of the Magic (paranormal) article and its "Varieties of magical practice" section.

OK, just a few ideas. Take anything you like, and things you feel are irrelevant feel free to ignore. If you ever need assistance, just contact me on my user page. In any case, I'm looking forward to this article reaching Featured article status. Jim62sch 10:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

You're NOT meddling : )

(I accidentally closed the window - sigh - so I lost everything I was typing, so trying to recreate, forgive me, if I miss something : )

Thank you for the comments about the introduction, btw, I agree that it still does need some work.

While the Fiction section could use expansion, it would appear that the main concerns SnowFire has are about the historical claimants section, and how the introduction introduces it.

The problem is trying to explain the semantics between magic as jargon, magic in general, and magic as ascribed to a wizard.

If you use magic, you're a magician. Simple definition of the -ian ending.

However, the whole thing is obviously NOT that simple.

Part of the problem has to do with the "source" of the magic. Is magic a tangible field, like Star wars' the Force? is it merely technomancy? herbalist? satanism?

The semantic difference between a wizard and a magician, is that the term magician is broad enough to encompass all of that and more (see magic (illusion), for example), while wizard is a bit more focused on knowledge of the world around us, and the usage of that knowledge. What that knowledge is is the crux of the situation.

It also depends on the user of the term. In modern fiction, a wizard is slowly becoming synonymous with a magician. Primarily because, unlike most occult terms, "wizard" has not picked up as much negativism. So a wizard is "safe" to write children's fiction about, as opposed to using another term like witch. (Harry Potter proves the rule, and then becomes the exception by using "witch" as contextually analogous to wizard.)

So with that in mind, I see the historical claimants section as a general explanatory section about the history of the concept of it, as well as how wizard is becoming mass- (and mis-) applied nowadays.

A large part of this is Dungeons and Dragons, and the modern fantasy explosion following Tolkien/Lewis/Zelazny and others. (And in the last few years, The Harry Potter series.) WHich have all brough the term "wizard" to fore of the modern consciousness.

One further thought: Once we have fully defined what a wizard is as opposed to isn't, we can start making a choice of who, historically, fits that. but until then, I think List of occultists should be the reference.

I'll see about fixing those things you commented on : )

I appreciate any and all continued thoughts on this - Jc37 11:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I have this page on my watchlist, so I'll be able to see where you (plural) get with it. I admit that a lot of what you're trying to do with the article comes down to semantics, so it's definitely best to pin down the definitions you want to use -- especially as "magic" is a very slippery concept/word (probably on purpose -- if the meanings become vague enough virtually anything can be called magic).

Let me see where you get over the next few days, and think about where else the article can go -- I'm hardly an expert on wizards, so I see this as a learning experience in a way -- I sometimes manage to come up with half-decent ideas. Jim62sch 22:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. As I've said above, I like "many eyes", and hopefully a better article will come from the discussion : ) - Jc37 15:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I am beginning to think that maybe the disambiguation page should be "Wizard" (without the parenthetical modifier). And this page should either be moved to Wizard (fantasy); or (to keep history somewhat intact), it should be merged with magician, with Wizard (fantasy) created as a new page (with the work we've done so far moved to it).

I've been going through and fixing links on pages that have wizards, and most don't even know the pages exist, so they just bracket "wizard".

Except for the need to "finallize" the introduction, and to now work on cleaning up , this should make most of the discussion here moot. This will also be a HELP for other editors to link to more accurate pages in their own articles.

I suggest moving the etymology and introduction to the disambiguation page, and the "historical" section to magician (since it's mainly explaining the wizard as a knowledgeable/wise magician, and about comparable analysis of the word wizard as opposed to other casters.)

I would like to hear your opinion, please, before finding an admin to facillitate the move. - Jc37 09:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That all makes sense to me and sounds like it will resolve the issues. But, good news, you don't need an admin to do the move. Just use the move tab and change the name of the article. However, you need to be really careful about double redirects, so when the page comes up showing what links to this article, just check to make sure the links still work. Jim62sch 11:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, going to try it right after saving this : )

My only concern is that when I move wizard to another name, it automatically turns "wizard" into a redirect page, so I don't think I'll be able to move "wizard (disambiguation)" to "wizard"? Anyway, I'll try. I'll comment back here if it fails : )

PS. Even though it'll somewhat be a moot point, I'm still interested in your opinion of what I recently did with the introduction (for one thing, commenting out the sections of logic I wrote that were too near magician/magic).

- Jc37 17:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well unless you were suggesting something else and I misunderstood, my concern happened. The redirect page prevents the moving of the disambiguation page. For now, I'll set the redirect page to point to the disambiguation page, until we can have an admin facillitate the move. - Jc37 17:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Apperance/Attire

Shouldn't the stereotypical pointy, wide-brimmed hat and long robes and staff be mentioned?

Hi : )

Sounds good to me (probably a sentence after the wise old man paragraph.) Though a link or two showing examples would be nice. (Also, please sign your comments on a talk page with four tildes (~).) - Jc37 09:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree.

This is a mess. I'm sorry if this comes off too harshly, but I want to be very plain, since it seems my attempts at subtle hints weren't working.

See, I disagreed with Jc37's slant on the article. Rather than simply reverting his unsourced theories with my unsourced theories, I was actually looking up sources and doing research. I also asked Jc37 to slow down a bit, as I was intending on presenting a new version on historical wizardry once I'd researched the issue better, along with sources for my version of the introduction. But it seems that I've been too slow.

For reference:

A wizard is a skilled or clever person, with the implication of knowledge less commonly known. (Totally ignoring the magical aspect.)

During the 15th century, the term "wizard" referred to a philosopher or sage. (No explanation or further thought. 15th century seems picked out of nowhere.)

Semantically, the distinction between having knowledge and the active use of that knowledge is the difference between a sage and a magician (literally: a user of magic). (Why is this in the intro?!)

Such a person is thus noted as being wise to the knowledge, and utilization of such knowledge is often called magic by those not likewise informed. (This sentence just needs to be shot.)

Anyone who is especially adept or talented in such utilization may be referred to as a wizard (such as a "computer wizard", or in reference to the eponymous character in The Who's song Pinball Wizard), and its utilization called wizardry.

In modern colloquial usage, a wizard is often seen as a practitioner of supernatural magic, such as found in mythology, folklore, fantasy-themed works of fiction, and role-playing games. (Extra comma, and why do we need this list?)

An attribution of wizard to a person which does not imply that, is typically modified by the context of the attribution, either stated or unstated. (For example: a "computer wizard", or in reference to the eponymous character in The Who's song Pinball Wizard.) (This isn't a sentence, and this is also false.)

Look, Jc37, your sociological theory is all well and good, and is perhaps deserving of a section in the article (especially if it can be sourced). It is not a good introduction. Let's ignore the quality of the writing for the moment (I'm very good friends with multiple English teachers, and they agree that your section was a mess, with unclear statements, dangling participles, sudden jumps in logic, and odd wikilinks; Jim62 put some of the problems with that prose into comments) and focus on the content. Imagine if an article on what a psychic is began with "Psychics are frauds who play on the insecurity of people. They tell them vague things that their clients wish to hear, often for money." As a matter of fact, this is probably true. That isn't a psychic, though. A psychic is someone who can fortell the future, see a person's past, read minds, etc. There then are people who claim to be psychics who you can see in dimly-lit stores. It's the same here with wizard. We want to know what a wizard is supposed to be before you then explain what the people behind them actually were. There's also the simple fact that the language has moved on. Regardless of what wizards may or may not have been in the 13th century, "wizard" nowadays means "magic user." The article needs to accept that fact.

As for your desire to add Black box systems to the Magic page and everywhere.... again, I know that you think that Magic "is really" just Black box systems underneath, which may be true in history. That is NOT Magic magic, though. Magic is the love potion given to the bumbling aristocrat, the curse transforming the hunter into the wolf that gets chased, the spiritual force that binds people together, and so on. Your rationalization isn't the thing to stick on a disambig page. (This is especially true since that definition is already on the disambig page in the one discipline where it is appropriate, computer science, in Magic (programming)!).

You moved your version of the introduction to the disambig page. This is not what a disambiguation page is for. We should be avoiding long digressions on the topic if possible, and the page should whisk you to where the article is.

The historical categorization thing I'm less sure on, but again, I wish you had waited for some research to be done. I'm not at all convinced that magicians, wizards, and so on can be neatly categorized like you'd like to do. That said, my research is incomplete here; the word "wizard" actually turns up surprisingly little in most mythological texts I've found (though obviously magic and the like turns up plenty), and most general histories are too focused on politics and not the peasantry.

I'm going to go knock on some doors in other projects and see if we can get more people here now. It's possible I'm totally wrong, but at the very least Jc37, please slow down. This is not something that is going to be done overnight. SnowFire 20:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit: Just to clarify, I suspect I would be in favor of going back to having historical and fictional wizards in the same article, and having a sourced introduction on what wizards are (magic-users, pretty much) and what wizards were (where we'll need the sources).

It still needs to be cleaned-up and expanded. And it needs sources. (SnowFire, I only noted some by way of providing examples, otherwise I'd've rewritten the whole thing, which would not have been fair to all of you who've workerd on the article -- yes, I know, anyone can edit, but still, you guys have done the work so far, carry on!) As for recombining fiction/history in the article, that's up to you -- the current split presents no real problems. However, a lot more research is needed, and a lot more data. Take your time and enjoy the process...it'll be worth it in the end. Jim62sch 22:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

First, not that it matters any to this discussion, but today is my birthday : )

(well, by this time, yesterday)...

It's been a good day including a party among friends and family : )

Anyway, as for the article.

Before I go into snow's response, I wanted to make a comment, though wholly my opinion, based on my own observation.

Jim, if you want to edit the text of the article, please feel free (besides the standard wikipedia stance). You've shown that you're not only willing, but prefer to discuss changes, and as a whole seem to be someone looking to make things better for everyone. And I've enjoyed your constructive feedback, and just general positiveness: "Take your time and enjoy the process...it'll be worth it in the end." : )

I said, and have said again several times that the introduction needs work. I've been working on the article, and rather than simple reversion, I've made attempts to merge other opinion into what I've been doing... there are several examples where I've tried to discuss, and have worked with, not against. Assume good faith, it says... and I've made that attempt.

In all of this, I've made no bones about commenting out my own entries, editing them, merging them with other ideas, and attempting to move forward. You will please pardon me if I haven't felt the same towards me. Flat reversions that even wipe out other editors edits with a "not important", have, to me, felt to be an almost flippant, "I can't be otherwise bothered", response.

As far as I can tell, this started because I came to an article that was in need of cleanup, and I did so... At the time I made it clear that I was mainly doing organization, and put a couple sentences as a beginning for others to expand upon. In very few cases did I wipe out even a full sentence (2 exceptions are in the process of being discussed above), but instead moved them, or merged them into other articles.

Anyway, all of that aside... Let me attempt, in good faith, once again, to go through and respond to the various statements.

1.) First, Snowfire, I want to thank you for finally coming forward and explaining your point of view. NO sarcasm intended, sincere appreciation, since, as I've said all along, whether I agree or disagree, I want the discussion. In my opinion, It will only be through many editors that this or any other page becomes better.

2.) "as I was intending on presenting a new version on historical wizardry once I'd researched the issue better"

Nod, I understand. Your focus is, and has been, about historical wizard claimants. You want an article on historical wizardry. There is no reason for you to not write one.

But that is wholly different than an article on fictional wizards in a fantasy setting (no matter what media, including games, that that setting is in).

Other than on a disambiguation page, I think we would be making a mistake having the two on the same page. They are wholly two different topics. And this is just these two... Go through the "what links here" of the wizard page... it's of types all over the ambiguation page.. anime, video games, music... When editors make their pages, they just haven't been "doing the research" to find the disambiguation page. So by making the dismabiuation page the "wizard" article, then editors can easily find the correct link they need, and MANY articles get better in the process.

3.)"During the 15th century, the term "wizard" referred to a philosopher or sage. "

This has been retained throughout because it was the work of a previous editor. If we get a reference for it, that leaves some previous editor's work (in some form). I am not a fan of idle reversion. I think most any attempt at prose can be worked on to become something better.

4.) The rest of your parentheticals (of your opinion about the introduction) do not seem to me to be of a constructive nature. (Not to mention that they are about a previous version of the intro that doesn't even exist any more. The last version was as a result of me listening to some of the positive criticism, and was attempting to do something about it.) You don't like it? Ok, I agree and have agreed... let's discuss and work on it all becoming inclusive.

5.) However, that said, I have to respond to the last one....

"(This isn't a sentence, and this is also false.) "

Well, since it was sourced from a sentence you said on the talk page, and which I added to the introduction, because it was YOUR suggestion, and I was attempting to work with you...

Oh, and as an aside, it is a sentence.

"An attribution of wizard to a person which does not imply that, is typically modified by the context of the attribution, either stated or unstated. (For example: a "computer wizard", or in reference to the eponymous character in The Who's song Pinball Wizard.)"

An attribution of something to someone which doesn't imply the aforementioned assertion, is typically modified by something, either this or that.

For stylistic reasons one may wish a semi-colon or a couple dashes, but besides that, it is a sentence.

6.) "Let's ignore the quality of the writing for the moment (I'm very good friends with multiple English teachers, and they agree that your section was a mess, with unclear statements, dangling participles, sudden jumps in logic, and odd wikilinks; Jim62 put some of the problems with that prose into comments) "

You know, I kind of appreciate that you took time in the last 3 days to go to multiple english teachers to find out all that information. After all, we've established that the intro was unclear, etc. I would be interested in each teacher's thoughts and specific suggestions. I know that one of the sentences that was bothering me (that I was trying to find a better way to say) was:

"A wizard is a skilled or clever person, with the implication of having knowledge less commonly known, and the presumed ability to act upon that knowledge by those not otherwise informed."

Everything following "by" was an unclear modifier.. If one didn't know what we were talking about, they might ask if those not otherwise informed were the ones acting on the knowledge. So it contained what I was attempting to say, but not a great way to say it.

7.) "Regardless of what wizards may or may not have been in the 13th century, "wizard" nowadays means "magic user." The article needs to accept that fact."

The last sentence is where I disagree. The introduction for the previous, all-inclusive article, should have included both the 13th century wizard and wizards of today, both of jargon and claimed supernaturalists. So the simplest way to do that is start with the most fundamental statement about it and branch off into the different ways that it has grown beyond it.

8.) "As for your desire to add Black box systems to the Magic page and everywhere.... again, I know that you think that Magic "is really" just Black box systems underneath, which may be true in history. That is NOT Magic magic, though. Magic is the love potion given to the bumbling aristocrat, the curse transforming the hunter into the wolf that gets chased, the spiritual force that binds people together, and so on. Your rationalization isn't the thing to stick on a disambig page. "

But that is exactly the best place for it. It is something "similar". It just has a different setting. Otherwise you could not have magic (illusion) and magic (paranormal) on the same page. It wasn't even in the disambiguation section, it was a "see also".

9.) "the word "wizard" actually turns up surprisingly little in most mythological texts I've found (though obviously magic and the like turns up plenty), and most general histories are too focused on politics and not the peasantry."

It's rather anglo-centric, as I recall. Though for english translations of other lands, particularly the far east, translators seem to like to use wizard (and for middle eastern they use sorcerer, or some other term).

Further muddying the waters are things like nintendo's stance of demythologizing (best word I can think of at the moment) their games for the west.

10.) "I'm sorry if this comes off too harshly, but I want to be very plain, since it seems my attempts at subtle hints weren't working."

I've had a fair idea of your opinion for awhile, at least I would like to believe so... And by the way, in my opinion, you greatly misrepresented my opinion on someone else's talk page, as well. I decided to not respond at that time, because I felt that that person had the opportunity to come here and read what was true. The bias that you've admitted to above, and have (again in my opinion) shown by referring to historical magic claimants as "all magic" is understandable, and so I've been taking it with a "grain of salt". : ).

11.) I would like to take a moment and suggest that you write up the bare-bones (or even completed, for that matter) article on historical wizard claimants. As a help, I might suggest that you take a look at the magician page, there are several examples there about comparisons of wizards to other sorts of casters.

12.) "please slow down. This is not something that is going to be done overnight."

Well, actually... If we were not having this discussion, I would have entirely re-written the article by now (likely several times). Instead, I've worked on tangent issues, and on things we've discussed on the talk page, attempting to make everything better, while, at the same time, attempting (apparently unsuccessfully) to make sure that you feel that you're in the discussion... Because, in my opinion at least, you are, if you wish to be. : )

OK, so moving to solutions.

1.) The biggest concern seems to be a differing opinion about the introductions (length, content, etc). Rather than suggest some more, I want to ask: Besides simple reversion, ignoring all current versions, what does anyone think would be a good introduction?

This has become long enough for now : )

Tentatively looking forward to responses - Jc37 07:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello again. Sorry, been busy, and I really shouldn't be looking at Misplaced Pages at work as much as I do. I also want to thank you that you're not too horribly offended; I too prefer a civil atmosphere, but I was freaking out that you were seemingly making large changes which seemed to me to be shaky at best, and I needed to figure out some way to hit the "alarm button."

My main interest is still the Wizards disambig page. Now, let me first say that this is fairly weird for me to say, because I normally am of the type who strongly favors longer entries on disambig pages. I have no problem at all with, say, there being a three or four sentence mini-article in a slot, or having weird etymological sidenotes in disambig pages.

That said, there are certain standards for disambig pages. If you examine MoS:DAB and the current way many people edit pages, you'll see that disambig pages are supposed to be efficient ways to whisk you to the page you actually want to get to. Sure, they can be somewhat useful for information on the topic, but strictly speaking, you're not supposed to get too detailed in (which I disagree with). Very strictly, you're supposed to favor

Anna Karenina, a book by Leo Tolstoy

over

Anna Karenina, a famous novel by Leo Tolstoy that details the lives of an adulterous woman and Russian noble

Let alone add any more sentences detailing it! (You're supposed to stick to one short sentence fragment if possible).

Now, obviously, I technically break this rule a fair amount. That said, the spirit of the rule has a point. When I add more explanation, it's because it's needed to understand what's happening, not to write a mini-article. The mini-articles are usually only appropriate when there'll never be enough for a stub, but there's more than two sentences worth of info.

The crucial difference is that the information you'd like to add should be part of the main article. It's part of the regular definition of wizard, which easily qualifies as article length. Perhaps some examples would be good:

Tempest - a fairly standard disambig page with nothing but quick links.
Force (disambiguation) - note the the linguistics meanings mentioned are when Force means something much different than the standard definitions of force; they aren't etymologies of the standard Force info.
Reformation (disambiguation) - I wrote a fairly long intro here, but that's because I don't think that there was a simple one-sentence dictionary definition. It doesn't really get deep into the concept.

Now, to some extent, I will add one big caveat. I am currently asking for the disambig guidelines to be changed on MoS:DAB's talk page. Perhaps we should have actual word etymologies on disambig pages. Currently, however, that is not the standard.

Now. If you want, we can create a "Types of Magic use" or something page, and have big "See alsos" at the top of most wizardly pages where we can hash out these categories (see, that's another issue; if we want to move to a stricter categorization system, we need to make very plain what fits in what category. I'm still somewhat confused as to why you disagree with certain historical figures I proposed as being wizards, at least if you accept that wizards can be involved in the occult). I worked on a long-form semi-disambig page recently that could be a useful model: Will (philosophy). Will can mean several things in philosophy, so this acts as an actual article and overview of the different types, but is somewhat disambigy since most people want to get into the nitty gritty of one type. If we can actually come up with a properly sourced differentiation, perhaps that could be a useful article to link to. That said, even if we made that article, the disambig page would still look something like

A wizard (actual link to actual article on wizards!) is a person with magical (modern main definition, modern usage, so it goes here), or at least exceptional, abilities. (See also: Types of occultists).

It can be similar to the Who is a Jew? article that gets linked from every list of Jews.

As for the wizard page itself... while I was in fact running to bookstores and the like on Monday & Tuesday, I havne't been able to yesterday or today. I will have to get back to you on that. (Might post more tonight, we'll see.) SnowFire 03:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

1.) I think we can ignore the etymology and jargon issues, because it sounds like we agree that they are easily added to the dismabiguation page in some form.

2.) The part that you appear to missing throughout all of this is that there is a difference on wikipedia between magic in fantasy fiction and magic claimed in history. One is fantasy, and the other is occult.

Evidence of your "misunderstanding" this is here, here, and here. As you claim: "He seems determined to remove practically all references to magic in the "Wizard" article..." As stated many times above, I am not doing that, nor have I. (And by the way, again I think I should point out that I feel that you have misrepresented me, and this discussion, on all 3 pages, in several, though somewhat varying, ways.)

As an illustration of the difference, look at the first line of the occult article:

"Occultism is the study of occult or hidden wisdom. To the Occultist it is the study of Truth, or rather the deeper truth that exists beyond the surface: 'The Truth Is Always Hidden In Plain Sight'."

Sound familiar?

If some occultist wants to call themself a wizard, or if someone wishes to ascribe the term wizard to an occultist, that does not mean that either is "true", but at the same time, does not mean that it is not true either. (This is already stated on List of occultists, and take a moment to look over the see also on that page, as well.)

I would support the idea of a Wizard (occult) article. Much of what is on the magician page would be well suited for it, as would many of your suggestions. This is also comparable to the previous decision (precedent) of magic (paranormal) and magic (illusion).

3.) If I understand you, I think what you're looking for in a disambiguation page already exists in the style guidelines, it's just not concretely denoted, which of course means that it needs further clarification. When I have a moment, I may wander that way myself.

4.) "see, that's another issue; if we want to move to a stricter categorization system, we need to make very plain what fits in what category."

I agree, and that was what I had originally intended to have happen in the magician article, since it already has comparisons, and, I would presume, is the more generic term (just as magic is the more generic term).

5.) Also check out the semi-related: spellcaster

-Jc37 06:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Reference

This might be worthwhile if someone wishes to get it: Wizards: A Magical History Tour, By Tim Dedopulos. 123 pp., color illus. on every page, 9" x 11", ISBN 1842224883 Jim62sch 12:11, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Fantasy

Here's the quote I was suggesting to you: "In its broadest sense, fantasy covers works by many writers, artists, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends, to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today." And before thinking about altering that page, you might want to read an associated page: History of fantasy. In short: mythology, legend, folk-tales, and faerie tales, and the like ARE fantasy. I hope these references helped : ) - Jc37 11:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

(Responding to edit summary)

While I would like to WP:AGF, disregarding several well-references articles because you don't agree with them might be a sign of POV.
Discussion might have been better helpful, had you explained your position better, I think we might have prevented several of your reverts.
1. Characters from myth, legend, etc. ARE characters from works of fiction. (T.H. White's A Once and Future King, for example.) They are also character from various legendariums, which also places them firmly in fantasy (as stated clearly in the fantasy article.)
2. However, I looked over the article, and edited several fiction references, because I agree that they were likely "unclear".

Any further concerns, please feel free to discuss them here. - Jc37 01:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

While I would like to WP:AGF, disregarding several well-references articles because you don't agree with them might be a sign of POV

As I said in the edit summary, Fantasy is a modern phenomenon, a genre of fiction. It was "pioneered" or invented by people such as C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and George Macdonald.

The thing is that, even if fantasy fiction had certain "paralleles" in myths and legends, that doesn't make them part of the same genre. The same goes even if mythical and legendary "wizards"(the concept of wizard is a modern phenomenon either way. Magician is more aptly put) were used in a fictional work, no matter what reason. Myths and legends themselves are two distinct types of narratives, anyway. If it was so that, for example Merlin is used in a work of fantasy fiction(which I certainly know he has), it should be stated so, as the fantasy genre borrows a lot from mythical and legendary material, but they can't be made synonymous.

The Fantasy-article isn't even referenced, contrary to what you might say.

Also, it might be wise to seperate fairytales from myths and legends, as while myths and legends aren't fiction, fairytales are. (Folktales may or may not be fictious. It depends). Lemegeton 12:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

"Fantasy is a modern phenomenon, a genre of fiction. It was "pioneered" or invented by people such as C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and George Macdonald. "

No, they brought it into the "mainstream". When doing your searches for citations, etc., try variant spellings, such as phantasie (though you may also get musical works of "fantasy"), and certain morality plays of the middle ages. And check out some works, such as the Faerie Queen by Spenser, and Mid-Summer Night's Dream, and The Tempest, both by Shakespeare. Read over J.R.R Tolkiens' "On Faerie Stories" which is considered a benchmark work in that sub-field.

"(the concept of wizard is a modern phenomenon either way. Magician is more aptly put)"

Again, I would point you towards Shakespeare, but also Milton, and many others, including some quite older Greek and Roman authors. Wizard is a middle-english word that was/is used in trans-scriptions of much older works from the far east and the middle east. Check out the 1001 Arabian knights by Sheherezade, and many, many chinese folk-tales, such as the 7 brothers.

"the fantasy genre borrows a lot from mythical and legendary material, but they can't be made synonymous."

First, I placed an "expand section" there, previously. I removed it when I placed the over-all banner at the top, but that section is in need of expantion. Let me quote myself from this page, further up: "5a.) The fairy tale, myth, and legends section needs filling out, probably to be split into 3 sub-sections. Though it should be kept concise."

But since it's such a small section currently, They are grouped together as non-modern interpretations.

Second, They all have similar sources. Bards, skalds, heralds, and all sorts of other travellers who share information, whether to entertain, or infom, or both. This idea goes at least all the way back to Ancient Sumeria/Babylonia.

"Also, it might be wise to seperate fairytales from myths and legends, as while myths and legends aren't fiction, fairytales are. "

Whether you or I may personally believe that such are "real" or "fiction" is absolutely besides the point. NPOV presumes that we shouldn't have that as bias.

And Fairies/Faeries were/are no less a part of a certain country's mythology than any other aspect of myth or legend, including the deities of myth. Heroes such as Paul Bunyan, and Captain Stormalong of the U.S. should be just as comparable to the stories of the "Children of Dana" (Tuatha De Danaan), or Utnapishtim, or Nimrod/Nimrud the mighty hunter, or Sigfried, or Thor, or Hercules, or Jason and the Argo, or Circe, or, or, or. "Truth" (or what is "real") is not a determination in the definition of fantasy.

(PS. Let me apologize in advance for any spelling errors and the like. This is early in the morning for me, and all off the top of my head, atm.)

-Jc37 14:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

No, they brought it into the "mainstream".

Oops, sorry. I confused it a little with high fantasy. It was a little inaccurate of me to refer to Tolkien as inventing it, it's probably more correct to call him "the father" of it.

But I don't think you'll find many who'll see the fantasy genre as dating back to, say, antiquity. I don't think it dates much farther back than the 16th century or so. For example, Beowulf, while fictional, isn't part of the fantasy genre, and neither do I expect to see many experts on literature to consider it so.

While Shakespeare is debateable, Milton is unlikely. I can't really think of any particular writer from Antiquity whose works could count as fantasy fiction.

I wasn't thinking about the word "wizard" itself, as I know where it stems from. I was talking of the concept itself of how it is used in fantasy, and of it as a stock character. Employing the concept together with word in a historical context is improper.

While borrowing was, and is, common, the situation isn't really comparable. Myths and legends, which were the most common types of narratives in ancient times, aren't invented and isn't a part what is properly called fiction.

Whether you or I may personally believe that such are "real" or "fiction" is absolutely besides the point. NPOV presumes that we shouldn't have that as bias.'

The word I used was fiction, right? I don't used the word fiction as a synonym for "false", "untrue", but in its proper academic concept; That is, as a genre.

Fiction implies that it is invented, devised. Myths and legends aren't invented, but are a part of tradition, and commonly as part of the beliefs of specific groups; commonly a religion, or a culture further back in history. Just because I employ fiction "on one hand", doesn't mean the word "true" belongs on any other end. That would be incorrect, and is what I avoid. Myths and legends can be true or false, but just because I reject fiction doesn't mean that "true" is the remaining logical conclusion.

The proper NPOV would be to call fiction, "fiction", and to leave myth and legend out.

And Fairies/Faeries were/are no less a part of a certain country's mythology than any other aspect of myth or legend, including the deities of myth.

Fairies as they are properly understood, yes, does feature in myths and legends. I never said otherwise. A fairy tale on the other hand, is a specific type of fictional narrative. It is thus are not a part of mythology, but belong to folklore, and therefore is studied by folkloristics, and doesn't "stretch" to mythology.

Heroes such as Paul Bunyan, and Captain Stormalong of the U.S. should be just as comparable to the stories of the "Children of Dana" (Tuatha De Danaan), or Utnapishtim, or Nimrod/Nimrud the mighty hunter, or Sigfried, or Thor, or Hercules, or Jason and the Argo, or Circe, or, or, or.

But they don't feature in the same type of narratives, and therefore there aren't any incentative to treat them as equal. We must remember that myths and legends are "true" narratives, that is, they are considered to be true by the group they belong to. Fiction isn't in the same boat. Paul Bunyan-tales are even considered to be fakelore by some scholars.

"Truth" (or what is "real") is not a determination in the definition of fantasy.

Again, as I have pointed out, "fantasy" is a genre of fiction. In essense it isn't true. Fantasy doesn't have significant bearing on the real world. Lemegeton 18:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The simplest answer to your response would be to say that this article is Wizard (fantasy) NOT Wizard (fantasy fiction).

And that includes fantasy gaming (btw, the ampersand (&) is the preferred use for Dungeons & Dragons), among other things (which is stated in the first sentence: "Wizards are most commonly found in works of fantasy, such as mythology, folklore, fantasy-themed works of fiction, and role-playing games."}

There is a distinct difference between saying that something is a work of fantasy and saying that something is a work of fiction. Fantasy is the broader grouping, fantasy fiction is merely a sub-group of it. - Jc37 11:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason to assume that the Fantasy-article and any other related articles and categories are about anything but fiction.

At the disambiguation for "wizard", it says: "Wizard (fantasy), fictional interpretations of Wizards".

Merriam-Webster gives the primary definition of fantasy as an obsolete synonym for hallucination; Secondary definition as a synonym for "Fancy": "the free play of creative imagination"; Third, and apparently its most broad meaning:

a creation of the imaginative faculty whether expressed or merely conceived
1. a fanciful design or invention
2. a chimerical or fantastic notion
3. Fantasia
4. imaginative fiction featuring especially strange settings and grotesque characters -- called also fantasy fiction(bold emphasis added).

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica: "imaginative fiction dependent for effect on strangeness of setting (such as other worlds or times) and of characters (such as supernatural or unnatural beings). Examples include William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and T.H. White's The Once and Future King. ...".

As MW puts it: "a creation of the imaginative faculty whether expressed or merely conceived".

Creation of the imagination. That implies nothing but fiction as far I'm concerned. Call it whatever you like, but it's still fiction.

I can't see anything of that "distinct difference" you mentioned. Lemegeton 09:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Moved copied section

This section was copied directly from the "wise old man" article, which doesn't really make sense when a link will do....and possibly some newly written material that covers this concept of a fantasy wizard.

Wise old man

Main article: Wise old man

The wise old man (or "Senex") is an archetype as described by Carl Jung. It is also a classic literary figure, and may be seen as a stock character.

This kind of character is typically represented as a kind and wise, older father-type figure who uses personal knowledge of people and the world to help tell stories and offer guidance that, in a mystical way, may impress upon his audience a sense of who they are and who they might become.

The wise old man is often seen to be in some way "foreign", that is, from a different culture, nation, or occasionally, even a different time, than those he advises.

Dreadlocke 04:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually this is common convention on wikipedia see The West Wing (TV series) for example. It's what the {{Main}} template is exactly for. I'm going to restore the section. If you wish to discuss other archetypes that you feel also represent wizards, I would love to discuss it. It may be lost in the discussions above, but there was a previous discussion of attempting to get this page to featured article status : ) - Jc37 11:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The article definitely needs a lot of work. We can discuss putting the copied information from the "wise old man" article back, but I don't think it added very much to the article - it needs to be comprehensively re-written. Just copying word for word the first couple of paragraphs from the main article isn't the best way to do it. Plus the section headings that included links were against WP:MOS Linking. Please don't revert those again without discussion. Thanks. Dreadlocke 15:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, can you clarify what edits you were referring to when you said "mistaken undertsanding of the difference between fantasy as a broad group, and its sub-group fantasy fiction"? What is it that indicates that and how do you propose fixing it? Dreadlocke 15:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, the disambiguation link at the top of the page needs to follow proper formatting too, see Misplaced Pages:Disambiguation#Template_examples. Also, the first section heading was titled "Wizards of fantasy" which is essentally the same as the article title "Wizard (fantasy)", one should avoid repeating the article title. Dreadlocke 15:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

In order:

1.) I totally agree that the article needs work.

2.) Wise old man - Misplaced Pages:Editing policy - If you feel that it needs re-writing, then do that. But outright deletion when you agree that it has some informational value?

I'll restore the section, feel free to suggest replacement summary ideas for it (or make them, being bold in addition).

3.) Section heading links - agreed. some of what you found in the article is "left-overs" from previous versions. (another part of the article that needs work.) The opening line has most of those links already, and any others are to be put near the top of the section as per the MoS link you mentioned.

4a.) My edit summary was combined because I responded to 2 sections at once. scroll up for my other response. In hindsight, "mistaken understanding" might not have been clear enough. How about: attempting to clarify what seems to be a mistaken perception, apparently causing a mis-understanding? : )

4b.) "What indicates that...?" - The above editor's statements. The following statement should sumarize the issue: "The word I used was fiction, right? As I don't used the word fiction as a synonym for "false", "untrue", but in its proper academic concept; That is, as a genre of literature.

Fiction implies that it is invented, devised. Myths and legends aren't invented, but are a part of tradition, and commonly as part of the belief of specific groups; commonly a religion, or a culture further back in history. Just because I employ fiction "on the one way", doesn't mean the word "true" belongs on any other end. That would be incorrect, and is what I avoid. Myths and legends can be true or false, but just because I reject fiction doesn't mean that "true" is the only logical conclusion.

The proper NPOV would be to call fiction, "fiction", and to leave myth and legend out. "

He appears to be totally submerged in the idea that fantasy = fiction. Which is obviously not the case, as is explained elsewhere, in the examples I gave above, among other places.

4b.) "How do you propose fixing it?" - between editors? Through discussion. As, I think, you can see if you read this entire talk page : )

5.) Dab link - that's because I haven't gotten around to asking an admin to rename Wizard (disambiguation) to Wizard. Go to the wizard redirect, and check out "what links here". Most editors were/are unaware that the wiz dab page even exists. That was part of the stated reason for the page move. But you're right in that it should be dealt with soon in order to deal with "double redirects".

6.) Duplication between header and article name - agreed. That's another left-over from when the article had an much broader scope.

And now from me:

1.) What is your issue with fantasy role playing games? Especially considering the direct effect that RPGs (D&D in particlular) have had on fantasy? There is a difference between the novels, and game world settings, especially when dealing with game mechanics, and how a wizard is presented to the player. (Which can be different than how a wizard is presented in a particular novel.) There are other RPGs that are notable in this case as well. Restoring the section. (And please, if you think of further examples to expand the section, please do.)

2.) (In further resonse to "How do you propose fixing it?") - As shown on my user page I tend towards inclusion. That means that I think there is room in WP for most information. Just not necessarily in a single article.

Just as magic is a disambiguation page, so too should be wizard (as I mentioned above).

Let me quite a statement by Snowfire, from above: "...what wizards are (magic-users, pretty much)..."

That is quite contradicted by the disambiguation page itself.

Initially, my attempt was to try to be all inclusive of all the various aspects of the word wizard. But that caused the article to go in too many disrections at once, and causes an immediate concern about the introduction, since it too has to be "all-inclusive". Magic apparently faced similar issues, and the solution was separate articles, with magic being the disambiguation page. And so we are following that precedent here.

And while I fully support the idea that such "real-life" claimants should have their own article, it's already been debated by others elswhere that the word to use is occultist. And so lists of such people would be on List of occultists. I don't believe that we should fly in the face of that concensus now. As I stated above, if someone wants to make a Wizard (occult) article, I would be quite in favor of that. This would also foster NPOV, rather than making it appear that there is a bias is favour of wizard only applying to "real-life" occultists, or even as magic-users. Each aspect of the idea/concept of wizard should have it's own NPOV hearing. And each article doing so should be listed on the wizard disambiguation page. That's just, fair, and doesn't discriminate.

3.) All of that said, I would be happy to work WITH you (plural) to make this a better article, presuming that that is "our" intention. - Jc37 23:31, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I think you may have misunderstood my questions, I wasn’t impugning your desire or ability to work in good faith with other editors, I just didn’t understand your edit summary on the reversion of my edits – now I see that you were combining responses to two different editors and issues. My question “how do you propose to fix it” was a literal one, not meant to be about process, but about the actual fix itself – mainly because I didn’t understand your objection or reversion.

I see that once again you have merely copied and pasted directly from another existing article, this is not the proper way to add information to an article nor is it the right way to use the main template.

I suggest you read over the characteristics of a summary section which describes usage of links via Template:main, here is the relevant section:

“those sections will eventually provide summaries of separate articles on the subtopic covered in that section (a Main article or similar link would be below the section title—see Template:Main.) Each article on each subtopic, as well as the main article have lead sections that are concise encyclopedic article in their own right.”

It’s used when a section is too long and has to be summarized, giving a link to a main article where more detailed information is given. The current “wise old man” subsection in the Wizard (fantasy) article doesn’t fit that usage. It would be far better to write a section that includes the concept in the "wise old man" article, then use a wikilink – similar to what I already did, but perhaps a bit more expansively.

BTW, I did not perform an “outright deletion,” I rewrote the reference and linked it, an edit that you reverted and replaced with the copied material.

My reason for removing the section is actually in the policy on editing that you quoted above: editing styles section where it says:

Reasons for removing bits of an article include: duplication or redundancy

That’s all that section is: duplicated and redundant information from another article.

As for the disambiguation link, I took care of both issues, Wizard (disambiguation) has been moved to Wizard, and the disambiguation links at the top of the Wizard (fantasy) page were removed by an administrator who explained that since the page is located with the parenthetical identifier (fantasy), the only way someone will arrive at that page is either from the link at Wizard, or directly from another article that linked to Wizard (fantasy). Either way, there is no way that the person could have arrived at the article mistakenly; therefore, no disambiguaiton links are needed.

Detailed discussions of the various disambiguation pages should be done on those talk pages, not here. I do have to say that the current structure of the Wizard and Magician articles as they relate to historical or fantasy wizards is confusing.

The current Wizard (fantasy) article is a mess, and is really nothing but a list of links and information copied from other articles. The onus is on the editor adding the material to rewrite, so it’s something you should do instead of just copying word-for-word from somewhere else and then expecting someone else to rewrite it. If you continue doing that, you’ll probably run into copyvio issues – which can be big trouble.

I don't have any 'issues' with Fantasy Role Playing games, I do have an issue with two sections basically titled "Dungeons & Dragons", which is what my edits addressed. I think you may be confusing me with the other editors you are in dispute with.

I don't have a quarrel with the article title including (fantasy), but I don't see the difference you are attempting to make between fantasy, fiction, myth and legend as it relates to this topic. Now the genres of "science fiction" and "fantasy" are different, but that isn't the issue here.

I suggest you cite your sources, because right now the article appears to be mostly original research, which violates WP:NOR. Even the “wise old man” section looks like your own opinion of what a fantasy Wizard is, rather than being sourced according to WP:CITE, WP:V and WP:NPOV.

I think it needs an RfC and a major rewrite - especially the "wise old man" section - speaking of NPOV, "kind and wise" may describe someone like Gandalf but it doesn't quite capture the essence of wizards like Sauron, Saruman or even Voldemort... heh...

Dreadlocke ☥ 05:48, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

RfC is not the appropriate next step. See WP:DR (for the disputed items), and think about mediation. Second, see WP:Peer Review, this would be a much better avenue than an RfC. (The reasoning being that RfC's tend to be contentious and can cause as much harm as good). Of course, if I were a wizard a simple incantation would make this all better. ;) Jim62sch 11:56, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right, RfC isn't really the best next step - I was thinking of ways to get more eyes on the article for expansion and content rather than to address any of the disputes, which seem to be very minor thus far. I don't think we're advanced enough in the content area for a Peer Review, unless you can wave your magic wand and create some content for us! I guess we'll have to take the long road and actually write something... :) Perhaps we should create a sandbox for ideas and collaboration? Dreadlocke ☥ 16:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, there’s an RFC for Talk:Wizard, . Dreadlocke ☥ 23:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

That was about this article, even before the ReOrg, check the dates. - Jc37 23:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Before I respond to anything, let me say this first:

Thank you.

I appreciate your insights. If you felt slighted by anything I may have said, please understand that none was meant. (This is in no way meant as a slight to anyone else, either, by the way.) The only way to understanding here is through communication. And as I have said many times, I appreciate discussion.

Also, thank you for facilitating the move.

As I mentioned above to satanael, I don't have a whole lot of time for a response, but let me cover the quick points.

1.) I'm starting to think I want a nickel for each time I mention "I think/agree that this article needs a lot of work" : )

Right now, in my opinion, this "article" is merely a "lists" page, with some headers. That wasn't the intital intention or layout, it's just what we have ended up with. In my observation and opinion, in the past, rather than expand sections, and help with citations (such as the quick list of examples I just listed above for satanael), it's been deletionist, instead.

As I mentioned above, the structure of what "was" has fallen apart with the various removed text and so on. I would be eager to discuss the structure of the article. Also in that discussion, we should take a look at magic, and how they have disambiguated their terms (not to mention their article pages). I think we should follow at least a similar convention. And other articles that we should at least think about while writing this would be: magician, spellcaster, and any of the various "other" names for paranormal/fantastic users of magic.

2.) "but I don't see the difference you are attempting to make between fantasy, fiction, myth and legend as it relates to this topic."

I'm not certain I understood this statement. (Especially considering the discussion I am having above.)

3.) wise old man - I never said that this was the ONLY archetype possible. It's just a rather common one. All I need to do is look to merlin to see the varied types: Merlin in Zelazny; Merlin in TH White and Mallory; Merlin ambrosius; merlin in the movie merlin; merlin in the lastest king arthur movie; the comical merlin from disney's sword in the stone; etc. Not to mention that we have the blurring of definitions of magic-users, and their "types".

As I said before, I have no problem replacing the text, as long as we cover the information with more than a "see also". I can't think of the link atm, but there was something I recall about see also not being used for "buried treasure"; information that should be included in the article itself.

4.) One serious option we have is to merge this article across the other articles that are in "see also" links at the top of each section. If we do, I think that the current introduction should be merged to the Wizard dab page.

5.) How do we "fix" the current one"?

Expansion. try to move away from just bulleted lists, and towards explaining why and how those lists have fantasy wizardic cultural value, the section on roleplaying, for example, begins to do that. A quick summary of merlin, leading to his main article, and others, such as Gandalf or harry potter. A few of the fiction entries already do that.

There are many other RPGS games that should be listed as fantasy influences/influenced by fantasy. And not all of them are RPG in the sense of D&D. (If you can think of a better name for the D&D novels section, that would be helpful too.)

I also think RPG video games might have a section.

I think that we could also mention how fantasy wizards have influenced in "real life" people in naming, culture, etc. (not just occultists, there was a lawsuit awhile back, dealing with "Gandalf the wizard clown"). However, my concern is that it may (as in the past) "take over" the article, bringing a lot of original research, and bringing it out of NPOV. One merely needs to read this page's history, and this talk page to see that.

Origins, and etymology I think would be useful, as well as the choice of translaters in using the term "wizard" to apply to certain people in other lands.

And all sorts of other things. (really running out of time.)

The main point is that we should have consistancy and coherency. And in my opinion, to do that we'll have to make certain that similar articles use similar structure. (And since most of those are stubs or require cleanup, it looks like we almost have the start of a wiki subproject.)

If, due to hurrying, I missed anything, or was unclear, please ask!

(PS, thanks for the response Jim, but you snuck in while I was typing... so had to repaste lol.) - Jc37 12:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts? - Jc37 23:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Magic (paranormal)

Magic (paranormal) has a long section on magic in fiction that treats almost solely fantasy magic (and the rest is historical) and would probably be more appropriate here, since the topic of wizards is not really separable from their wizardry. Goldfritha 02:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Split the section to Magic (fantasy) so that it can be a link for several articles. Very good idea, btw : ) - jc37 16:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Witch vs. wizard

We have works where these are sex-linked titles for the same types of magic, and works where these indicate that men and women do different magic. And

" or perhaps indicating something else entirely."

What is meant by this? If the terms are used to indicate something else, it should be put in, and if not, this is unneeded. Goldfritha 00:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The examples are innumerable. - jc37 03:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Magic vs. wizard

The magic (fantasy) article is about the magic. This is the article about the people who do magic. Removing terminology about people who work magic to the article about magic is inappropriate.Goldfritha 00:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is not about general magic-users, but wizards, specifically. (See the rather long discussion above.) If you feel, for some reason that you don't want "wielders of magic" in the magic (fantasy) article, then perhaps spilt it to Magician (fantasy). - jc37 03:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I've read that long discussion. It does not substantiate your claim. It contains no consensus that this article is exclusively about one type of practioner of magic. And it would be rather foolish to do so, as the types are not so well defined so that a given term, applied to a fictional user of magic, can clearly tell you other traits of that user.

If you feel that "Magician" is a better generic term, we can certainly move this article to Magician (fantasy). Goldfritha 23:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome to create a new article. This article is specifically about wizards in fantasy, not generic magic-users. The sorcerer and wizard disambiguation pages give some good examples of what types of articles to look for. You might consider going through the edit history of magician, it's been pruned quite a bit in the last several months. Spellcaster is another (albeit short) article that may be helpful.

List of magicians in fantasy and List of fictional witches should be helpful resources as well. - jc37 08:59, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome to stop making indefensible edits to articles.

If you think that this article being about wizards rather than all wielders of magic in general is defensible, go ahead and defend it. It is not a defense to asserting that two identical wielders of magic are respectively covered and not covered by this article because of the terminology. Goldfritha 22:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I have, BTW, hunted entirely through your links. They do not substantiate your case, any more than your reference to the discussion above did. Goldfritha 22:20, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

(restarting the indent)

"If you think that this article being about wizards rather than all wielders of magic..."

(Looks at the name of the article and all references within the article)
Huh? How can one not say that an article named "wizard" is not specifically about wizards?

And the disambiguation pages (wizard and sorcerer) show exactly that. Not to mention List of fictional witches. The terms are different semantically, hence the varied articles with varied names. The names are also different in different venues, such as role playing (ask anyone who plays the current version of D&D the difference between a wizard and a sorcerer).

(And I think you obviously saw my point, since you are suggesting a merge between wizard (character class) and spellcaster.)

The generic terms for those who "use magic" or "practice magic", tend to be words that have "magic" as the root word. In english this is done with either the -er ending, or the -an, -ian endings. Hence: magician. Magus is the nominative form in Latin for one who uses magic. And "Magic-user" is typically used to disambiguate between stage magicians and those who claim actual paranormal powers.

Finally, the onus is not on me or anyone to "prove" that this article is about wizards. Its very name does that (See: Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions and Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (precision)). The onus is on you to show otherwise. However, I don't think you dispute that, since you suggest renaming it to ], above.

I also might suggest that you consider your tone, both here, at magic (fantasy) and in edit summaries. (If in doubt, I would be happy to post diffs/links of rather specifically what I mean.)

In any case, I restored the "wielders of magic" text in Magic (fantasy). If you wish to develop either article, that's up to you, but please do not re-add it to this article, as it's extraneous information. - jc37 23:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I will start out with the observation that the merge you claim I proposed -- I did not propose. I saw that someone had made the merge without putting in the parallel tag, and added it. You should not try citing it as evidence for anything.

Semantic origins are irrelevant, as the terms are used interchangable; this no more justifies separate articles than the semantic difference between "horse" and "equine." The disambigution pages show nothing of the sort. How could they? They merely list uses of the term. Furthermore, you know that the semantics are irrelevant, since you preserved the term "witch" which is also semantically distinct from "wizard."

The question is whether the terms are distinct.

Your claims about "generic term" are not true. Particularly your claims about "magic-user" which, so far from being typically used, is a role-playing game term. But, as a compromise, I proposed changing the title to "Magician." It is, in fact, much more rarely used in fantasy, but if you think that's the generic term -- do you have any reason why there should be a distinct "wizard" article?

Finally, I have made the case for this being about generic wielders of magic. I have pointed out that the terms are not distinct, and that therefore talking about other wielders of magic will, in fact, tell the users what they have come to this article to find -- which is exactly what the Naming Conventions say they should. You have made no counter-argument except your claim that they are semantically different, which is irrelevant, and which you do not adhere to yourself. Goldfritha 00:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Come to think of it -- even if the terms were used in a distinct manner, the terminology section, explaining the differences between wizards and other types of magic wielders, would still be appropriate. So far from being extraneous, it would exactly explain what a wizard is, by pointing out what is not a wizard, and how they differ from those non-wizards. Many of the Category: Fantasy genres articles in fact devote much of their space to distinguishing that subgenre from others, and (assuming for the moment that the distinction is valid), the terminology section here should also distinguish between the subject of the article and non-subjects. Goldfritha 01:07, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that the dragon article includes information about the Chinese dragon. Because the Chinese called them dragons? No, because the Chinese dragon was recognizably the same sort of creature as the Western dragon. The same applies to those who practice magic as wizards do: they are recognizable the same sorts of creatures (and usually the resemblence is far more than between the Western and Chinese dragon). Goldfritha 23:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Just a suggestion, but I might think you would want to do some additional research about the western and chinese dragons before using them as examples to support your point of view. - jc37 00:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Just a suggestion, but since I have already done the research, you can try pointing out what you think invalidates that article as an example. Goldfritha 00:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Reading an article on Misplaced Pages does not constitute "research" : )

However, you may wish to at least read Talk:Dragon for some issues others have had about the article.

Anyway, the reasons I made the comment in the first place, however, is that you disprove your own arguement with that example, due to an apparent lack of awareness of the rather dramatic differences between chinese "dragons" and the several western dragons. The application of a name by (hopefully) well-meaning translators doesn't make the terms synonymous.

That said, I took my own advice, and created the Magicians in fantasy article, culling information from several others. That should provide a central article for discussing the names of various magic users, and such. - jc37 09:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The dramatic difference, rather, is my argument, because they are included in the Dragon article. The differences between the types of fantasic practioners of magic is lesser, and therefore what is justified for dragons is justified here.

But if you are willing to have a central article, I can work with that. I have, of course, proposed the necessary merger. Goldfritha 00:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment

This is a dispute about whether the terminology section should contain discussion of other terms, such as enchantress, sorcerer, or warlock, that are used in fantasy to refer to characters who practice magic. 00:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

The terms do not, in fact, refer to distinct classes of characters. What one writer calls a wizard another will call a sorcerer, and the distinctions that one writer draws between two terms is often reversed by another, so the article should deal with the entire class of fantasy users of magic. Furthermore, if the class were actually distinguished by a set of rules, explaining how wizards differ from other users of magic would be entirely suitable for a dedicated wizard article. (The magic (fantasy) pages to which they were relocated is unsuitable because the terms are not about magic as such, but about those who practice it.) Goldfritha 00:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Other editor may be willing to accept if the article is named differently; see merge proposal comments below to know. Goldfritha 00:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments

Where to put the terminology section: Superficially, the discussion of different terms for magic users belongs into an article about magic users, while a discussion about different types of magic would belong into the article about magic (fantasy). Then again, a given term for magic users often describes users of a specific type of magic, so one discussion can hardly be done without the other. As a conclusion, I have no really strong opinion on the question into which article the terminology section belongs. But given the current wording (that primarily focuses on magic users) I would put it into this article. —TowerDragon 23:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
What to put into the terminology section: Because the distinction between the different terms for magic users is far from clear (as is the distinction between different types of magic) splitting them into different articles would be rather arbitrary. So keep them all in one article and call it whatever you like (i.e., whatever is determined to be the most neutral word). Always keep in mind that D&D terminology is not the one and only way of describing and categorizing magic users in fantasy. —TowerDragon 23:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Merger

I proposed merging "magicians in fantasy" and this article. The terms do not, in fact, refer to distinct classes of characters. What one writer calls a wizard another will call a sorcerer, and the distinctions that one writer draws between two terms is often reversed by another, so one article should deal with the entire class of fantasy users of magic. Goldfritha 00:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. Heck, I would actually be somewhat in favor of combining the "historical wizards" back together into one proper article, since disentangling fact from legend can be difficult, and the topics are very interrelated. Don't want to get too much more into it, but I will only also add that this article remains completely unsourced. I happen to believe that Jc37 was enforcing his own view of the situation before which I too believe to be incorrect, but I laid off because I did not have time nor inclination to properly research the issue (after some facile investigation didn't lead to much). And it would be hypocritical of me to keep fighting when I've challenged others to provide sources for their assertions in other articles.

Anyway, surely SOMEONE'S written a good account of comparative mythology, even in fiction. If someone can find that, we can put this matter to rest once and for all. SnowFire 02:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for resolution of concerns

I have been working on a referenced "Wizard (fantasy)" article on my computer for some time, though it's nowhere near a state for posting. However, as I look at it, and look at Wizard (fantasy), and further, as I consider the actual page history (excepting my contributions), I think that I will "give up the ghost" on this article.

Here's what I suggest (in steps - the key one being step 5):

Step 1: Merge the Wizards in works of fiction and the Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends sections to List of magicians in fantasy, and create a "see also" section in this article with a link to the list.
Step 2: Remove the Wise Old Man section. Add it to "see also".
Step 3: Merge all the information in Magicians in fantasy into this article.

Step 4: Delete Magicians in fantasy
Step 5: Rename Wizard (fantasy) to Magicians in fantasy

This should take care of my concerns, and should also deal with the varied concerns on this talk page.

It also retains the page history, which I think is rather important in this case.

Once all is done (steps 1-5), but not until then, I also suggest archiving this talk page, to give the article a "fresh start".

I'll give this a day or so, and then start in on the merges. If those who have commented here agree (or disagree) with this, please feel free to comment. - jc37 19:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

It's customary to give a proposal like this more than just a day or so, usually at least five days. I would say that until the other involved editors on this page respond, the proposed changes should remain on hold. Personally, I won't be able to read this entire thread over until early next week - but it looks like we might be moving in a good direction. Dreadlocke ☥ 21:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like it would work to me. Goldfritha 00:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I did the merges to Magicians in fantasy and List of magicians in fantasy. In retrospection, I think maybe the best course of action would be to delete this article and move on. - jc37 04:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

No, it should redirect to that page; this lets people find it, and preserves history. Goldfritha 16:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I've redirected it. Goldfritha 16:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I redirected it to Wizard, since there are now quite a few redirects that now will need fixing, and for ease of navigation for readers. - jc37 13:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Ease of naviagation? If it was pointing here, it should point to the location that the information went to. Ease of naviagation called for it to point to "Magicians in fantasy." Goldfritha 19:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Looked at the links. Which of them do you think more suitable for wizard? Goldfritha 19:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Depends on how it was referenced. It's possible it could be any of the links in the "Literature" or "Games" sections, for example. Hence the redirect to Wizard. It helps for navigation. Remember that this page was mostly lists of literature and games. - jc37 08:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

What about Harry Potter?

It is my belife that a section pertaining to the wizards in Harry Potter should be added since they are among the most commonly known in the modern world.

The question is whether Harry Potter includes such distinctive traits in its wizardry as to make it illuminating in this article. Goldfritha 02:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment

This is a dispute about whether this article, which has been merged with Magicians in fantasy, should be pointed to it, or whether it should point to Wizard. 00:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

The information that was here is now in Magicians in fantasy. Since the link points here for the information, it should now point there. Pointing it to "Wizard" actively hinders users' ability to navigate. Goldfritha 00:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, the Misplaced Pages policy on merging calls for the other page to point to the one with the data -- not elsewhere. Goldfritha 00:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you want to get technical, the information in this article was mostly merged to List of magicians in fantasy. And if you want to really technical,

If you really really want to get technical, read about merging, which is what you were doing, and find that redirecting to the merged pages is the only thing to do, and so there is no ambiguity in this case. Goldfritha 03:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Did you even read any of my responses? Specifically about the part about the merger wasn't a single page to a single page, which totally contradicts your statement about merging. - jc37 07:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes we read them, and addressed that issue below. Please don't start insulting us. Dreadlocke ☥ 16:27, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

No insult intended. A genuine query, since I've been consistantly showing diffs, and explaining, and apparently it's still not being understood. - jc37 17:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

If you didn't mean to insult, then you should have worded it differently, perhaps making the implication that your own statements weren't clear. Several of your comments here seem rather insulting - but perhaps it's unintentional on your part. Dreadlocke ☥ 18:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments Is the main concern over the "what links here" to the Wizard (fantasy) article? Or is there some other reason to keep it as a redirect? Dreadlocke ☥ 01:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Besides the links -- there is, of course, preserving the history. Goldfritha 01:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I will be happy to take care of the links. Is the edit history of Wizard (fantasy) that significant? I can understand archiving the talk page to a link off the new merged article, but I don't understand the significance of the article's edit history at this point.. Dreadlocke ☥ 04:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

If you're willing to take care of the double redirects, that would be great. : )

The reason for moving rather than cutting-and-pasting articles is to preserve history. And the merge directions call for it to be a redirect to the new article, rather than be deleting -- or redirected elsewhere -- so we should assume it matters here too. Humm. Something to put up there. Goldfritha 00:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

If your presumptions were true, articles would never be deleted : ) - jc37 00:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty, I checked with an administrator who is experienced in redirects and article deletions. It seems that the Wizard (fantasy) redirect can't really be deleted because it contains a list of editors who contributed to the Magicians in fantasy article, and we need to keep that list the satisfy the GFDL licence that Misplaced Pages uses (the only way it could be deleted is if the page was moved to Magicians in fantasy or something). So the options are to redirect to Wizard or redirect to Magicians in fantasy. Since Wizard is just a disambiguation page, and the "real" content went to Magicians in fantasy, the redirect should point to Magicians in fantasy and not the Wizard dab page. Dreadlocke ☥ 18:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem with that is... it didn't. Please read the notes above, especially:

"Well, if you want to get technical, the information in this article was mostly merged to List of magicians in fantasy. And if you want to really technical, [[Magicians in fantasy is not sourced solely from Wizard (fantasy) (check my edit summary at the page's creation). And if you really really want to get technical, read about disambiguation, and find that redirecting to the disambiguation page (Wizard, in this case) is the best thing to do when there is ambiguity (which there very much is in this case)."

But let's take it a step further: Here's the article before I did the ReOrg on it: .

Here's the article after:

Notice anything "missing"? Well much of the article went to magician, or List of occultists. So maybe we should redirect to one of those two? Your friend is incorrect, in that they didn't explain that the "redirect" necessary is a mention in the edit summary. (Which is what I did on each occasion of merger, both then and now).

This is why it's actually rather important that it redirects to the disambiguation page, if it's to be a redirect at all. This page is confusing enough that I think it should probably be deleted. (Note that a "deleted" page still exists".) - jc37 23:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Reverting to Wizard, while under discussion. - jc37 23:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Fine. I'm not going to engage you in an edit war over a redirect, and I'm certainly not going to continue in some long, extended, complicated discussion with you over the issue. I'll let you argue it out with an administrator. If the concern is over licensing and who contributed, then redirecting to a disambiguation page that does not have the content in question doesn't make sense to me. Dreadlocke ☥ 23:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The idea is that the dab page has links to all the pages in question (or, in some case, links to pages which defininitely have links to the pages in question). Navigability. - jc37 00:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

That's your opinion, and on some level it does make a bit of sense, but as Goldfritha points out:

"read about merging, which is what you were doing, and find that redirecting to the merged pages is the only thing to do, and so there is no ambiguity in this case."

I've done a huge number of dabs in the past, and your interpretation and usage of ambiguity is incorrect for this case. I don't think redirecting to the disambiguation page is the way to go. Redirect to where the content is - or at least a portion of it -navigability is simpler that way, not by redirecting to a disambiguation page full of links (over fifty links!), a huge majority of which have nothing whatsoever to do with the edit history of Wizard (fantasy).

Dreadlocke ☥ 00:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

And most of Magicians in fantasy has nothing whatsoever to do with Wizard (fantasy). - jc37 06:49, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The consensus on these discussion pages has been clearly against your view that "wizard" is a distinct group, somehow distinct from "magicians" in general. It is improper for you to attempt to enforce your contrary view. Goldfritha 15:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I was/am talking about content. Which at least Dreadlocke has been understanding. - jc37 17:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

When you say "And most of Magicians in fantasy has nothing whatsoever to do with Wizard (fantasy)", it's irrelevant because that is the article where the content from Wizard (fantasy) was merged or moved to. As Goldfritha points out below, this is normal for a merge, and not a reason why the usual redirect is improper. Dreadlocke ☥ 16:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

One more thing, I read through the other articles you point out as receiving content from Wizard (fantasy). First, I don't believe it should redirect to any of the "lists" articles, because they're basically just lists. This really only leaves magician or magicians in fantasy. When did you do the merge to Magician? I don't see it in the history. Perhaps magicians in fantasy should be merged with magician, that would solve the entire puzzle. If not, then the old (fantasy) should redirect to the new (fantasy) - it only makes sense. In any case, it shouldn't redirect to the dab page, and really belongs redirected to Magicians in fantasy. Dreadlocke ☥ 02:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Why be prejudiced against lists? Consider that essentially that's all this article was (despite my efforts to expand beyond that, with additions like roleplaying classes and Wise old man). The largest part of this article was indeed merge to lists. If you prefer that this redirect to List of magicians in fantasy, I wouldn't oppose that, since the majority of what recently was this article was merged there (and also was the longest existing part of this page). Here's the diff for merge, please show me the vast amount of information which was added. All I see is the roleplaying section (itself duplicated from other pages), a few "see alsos", and some foreign language categories. So please, share with me how it's not the literature list that the other pages were linking to. - jc37 06:49, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Becuase the "lists" articles are merely lists of other Misplaced Pages articles, the licensing question is moot with those. You merged the content of concern with Magicians in fantasy, that's where the redirect should point to. Dreadlocke ☥ 16:32, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

But those "lists" were quite a bit more than simply listing a link. Which is not "moot" at all. - jc37 17:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Another thing: you cited, "Magicians in fantasy is not sourced solely from Wizard (fantasy)" -- but this is normal for a merge, and not a reason why the usual redirect is improper. Goldfritha 02:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Let me see if I have this straight, Magicians in fantasy was created from information culled from Magician and Wizard (fantasy), but there is little to no content from Wizard (fantasy). If this is the case, then why do we even need an article that is mostly a copy of Magician? I think we need to move all the content from Magicians in fantasy to Magician, delete the first and redirect Wizard (fantasy) to Magician. What do you think Goldfritha? Dreadlocke ☥ 16:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Magician was it's own stub, I merged actual content from Wizard (the name of the article at that time) to magician, and also List of occultists. The Wizard article was mostly a bunch of lists. I organised what was left, and added the RPG and Wise old man section (copied from other articles). That was months ago. As for the recent merging, I merged several terminology additions to Magic (fantasy) (which Goldfritha apparently didn't like). I then moved much of the terminology section in magic (fantasy) to Magicians in fantasy. Later I merged the RPG section from Wizard (which, as I said, is merely a copy from the source articles), and removed the copied wise old man section, just adding a "see also". The bulk of the Wizard (fantasy) article was merged to List of magicians in fiction. - jc37 17:01, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

You've been busy with this, that's for sure. Unfortunately, "months ago" doesn't really count, only the final merge/move counts regarding the redirect. To be honest, I'd rather just delete Wizard (fantasy), but since it has to be a redirect due to licensing concerns, I think it needs to point to the best choice article and not a dab page. I've read the "lists" articles and I don't see any truly significant content in those - they look "moot" to me from a licensing perspective. The best choice seems to be Magicians in fantasy. Why you continue to argue against that, using everything including the kitchen sink, is beyond me - unless there's no content from Wizard (fantasy) in there. With that in mind, I don't even see the need for Magicians in fantasy, I think it should be deleted (since there's no history to speak of, and the Wizard (fantasy) article redirected to Magician. Dreadlocke ☥ 17:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

" I've read the "lists" articles and I don't see any truly significant content in those " - While I appreciate your perspective, I respectfully disagree.

Besides that, I believe that we can actually delete the article and still fulfill licensing "concerns". ("Delete" only "hides" an article from non-admin view, AFAIK.) - jc37 17:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

So far we have two (possibly three) editors who disagree with you and none who back your views. Goldfritha has pointed to the relevant merge article that refutes your points, and an administrator has stated the licensing concerns as I have outlined, something you apparently still disagree with - yet only provide "afaik" as evidence. Let's see how this plays out for the rest of the RfC, this argument is just going around in circles now. Dreadlocke ☥ 18:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, we should have some "third party" opinions now. I put it up for discussion. - jc37 20:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the administrator I contacted is a third party and not a "friend" as you incorrectly assumed in one of your earlier posts. Good idea for putting in the AfD, it was a move I was considering as well, to put an end to that aspect of this discussion. By the way, that's "AfD" as in "Article for Deletion" not discussion. Dreadlocke ☥ 20:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

So, jc37, now that deletion is no longer an option, we're back to the issue of where the article should redirect. Perhaps you should submit an RfD - or even better, just concede the issue. :) What are your thoughts at this point? Dreadlocke ☥ 03:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm waiting to see what more Carcaroth has to say. He seemed to imply both below and at the AfD discussion that there was something more to this than just what we were/are discussing. And I'm interested in finding out additional information. Besides that, I'm considering the lack of interest of even those people who once used to frequent these pages, and I'm beginning to wonder if this is just a "tempest in a teapot", as they say : ) - jc37 12:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the whole series of articles around this topic need more tidying up and editing before sorting out the redirect structure. It would be best to concentrate on that, instead of arguing over this. Maybe revisit this topic in a few weeks or months? The encyclopedia won't collapse if one redirect is pointing the wrong way. But the edit history here definitely needs to be kept, and this must not be deleted. Jc37, if you ask at WP:RfD, I think you'll find they say the same thing. Carcharoth 13:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Merging, splitting and redirecting

OK, from what I can see here, the issue is more complicated than a simple merge. This is really a case of a split (see Misplaced Pages:How_to_break_up_a_page). The instructions over at WP:MERGE are referring to complete merging of an entire page from one location to another, hence the talk over there about redirects. The talk about redirects being needed for attribution is also slightly misleading. The real necessity for attribution is to have the page name noted in the edit summary, so people looking through the page history of an article know where to go when they see large chunks of copied and pasted text popping in and out of articles. This is especially the case when the contents of a page are split between several different locations (as here). The attribution in those cases is done by noting in the edit summaries at both pages where the text has come from, or has been moved to. If the splitting out of content (also seen when starting daughter articles) ends up with nothing left behind (as here), then the redirect should point to the most logical place. In this case, Wizard, Wizard (disambiguation) (a redirect to Wizard), or Wizards in fantasy. I'm not entirely happy about the confusion being generated between the terms Wizard and Magician, and the pages involved here still need a lot of tidying up and improvement. Carcharoth 13:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The terms "wizard" and "magician" are intrinsically confused. Fantasy writers freely use the terms to mean the same sort of practioners of magic, and when one writer makes a distinction between them, another writer -- or the same writer in different works -- makes a totally different one, or even reverses the distinction.

This is why there should be one article on such practioners of magic, and the redirects should point the reader to the location where the information is. "Wizard" is a disambig page. Goldfritha 00:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

In fact, the Wizard article is a disambiguation page, and has the appropriate rule on itself

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Clearly, someone looking for "wizard (fantasy)" intends to find the article about practioners of magic in fantasy, which is the "Magicians in fantasy" article. Goldfritha 18:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Wizard in the Jargon File, and its Wiki version