When I start reading the Lexicon, I find myself following link after link, rediscovering the rich world of Harry Potter. I might end up reading some old essay or finding a page about nicknames or a map of Quidditch teams of the world … and before you know it, an hour’s gone by and I can’t even remember where I started. I’m not alone in this. I’ve received plenty of emails from people who tell me that they “just spent the last three hours here at my desk, reading things on the Lexicon when I should have been working.”
Well, the same thing happens when I start editing. Over the past few days, I’ve been updating sections of the site. I’ve been reformatting pages to the new style (and cleaning up the navigation in the process). I’ve also been adding canon information all over the place, and not just from book seven. I’ve also been adding notes from the WOMBAT tests, Tales of Beedle the Bard, and Pottermore.
By the way, I’m not including nearly all the information from Pottermore. I’ve been adding some basic information (such as Mr. Ollivander’s first name) and then linking back into Pottermore itself so fans can read all the details on Rowling’s own site. Take a look at the new Herbology page to see what I mean. On Pottermore, Rowling writes extensively about wand woods. All those types of woods are listed on the page and as part of the description, I’ve included a small quote from Ollivander along with a link back to Pottermore’s wand wood page. I like this approach because it doesn’t in any way replace the experience of reading the original source while it does make the connections to the rest of canon which fans appreciate about the Lexicon.
The sections I’ve been working on include:
Herbology – I’ve added missing plants, sources, and canon references to make this the central resource for plant information; I’ve also updated the formatting to put list boxes on the right-hand side and “On this page” navigation at the top.
Potions – I’ve removed duplicate information and added links back to the Herbology page
Bestiary – I’ve updated the information with more canon and sources; I’ve also updated the formatting to the new page style
other creature pages – this is ongoing; I’m updating all the individual Bestiary pages, the ones for dragons, dementors, and so on, changing them to the new style and adding canon and source information
Besides those, there have been edits and updates all over the site because, as I mentioned, I keep wandering off and discovering things which need attention. Sometimes these edits are small. Other times, they get pretty extensive (and I end up with a page half-edited when I run out of time for the night). That’s what happened to several of the spell pages, for example, as I tried to integrate some of the new information from Pottermore.