Talk:HBP

Half-Blood Prince

HBP is most definitely a common acronym for Half-Blood Prince. It was removed by Tony Sidaway in his crusade against "harrypotterisms" (see [1]). When you do a Google search on HBP, it even suggests "See results for: half blood prince". And this use of the abbreviation isn't any less verifiable than, for example, Hit by pitch, because none of the entries in this list are sourced. Melsaran (talk) 11:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you source that this is a commonly used acronym outside of online Harry Potter fandom? That is, is the ordinary user of this encyclpaedia likely to use this acronym? --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 12:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I've never actually seen an entry in a disambiguation page that cited a source. It would be a little weird to cite a source for every Harry Potter acronym while no other disambiguation entry cites a source, just because Tony Sidaway has a bias against "harrypotterisms". And that Google suggests "See results for: half blood prince" establishes that it is frequently used as a abbreviation for this, imo. Melsaran (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm okay with it (or any other use of HBP) being added to the article if it is verifiable. Use amongst a few fan websites isn't enough.

HBP as an abbreviation for "Hit by pitch" seems to be in common use in baseball and softball. For instance it's used in the official record book of the Rochester Institute of Technology [2], and is listed in the glossary of the Baseball Almanac [3]. The Boston Herald uses the abbreviation HBP in a headline about a "Hit by pitch" incident involving Orlando Cabrera, the Angels shortstop in their recent Red Sox game [4]. --Tony Sidaway 12:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay Tony, but why are you mass-removing "harrypotterisms" on disambiguation pages because they are not verifiable, while nothing on disambiguation pages is sourced? If you remove Half-Blood Prince as a possible meaning because it is unsourced, I might as well remove all the other abbreviations on this page, because none of them cites a source. Melsaran (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do remove unsourced items from those pages when they come to my attention. See my comment on Talk:POA [5]. --Tony Sidaway 12:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'll assume good faith, but it'd appear to me that you are biased against Harry Potter abbreviations if you mass-delete all Harry Potter-related entries on disambiguation pages as "harrypotterisms"[6] and leave the rest alone. Melsaran (talk) 14:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I back Melsaran up, you are biased against "Harrypotterisms" as you call them, even the BOOK NAMES. Half-Blood Prince should be listed here as it is a widely used abbreviation for the 6th Book. Also, when searching on Google for 'HBP', Half-Blood Prince is what it searches for (And others)[7], not HBP. I will add it back. Arry

HBP was removed by Tony Sidway because it was 'unsourced', HOW is it unsourced? Arry

In Talk:POA Tony Sidaway says "We should not list all those titles, only those that are widely known by the three-letter abbreviation." Do you know HOW many people call Half-Blood Prince HBP? Arry

Please stop adding this unverified material to Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 22:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Like redirects, if the term is used, but incorrect it is appropriate for a DAB page - they are here to facilitate navigation of the encyclopedia. Viridae ^Talk 22:33, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is not the function of disambiguation to correct incorrect usage. Please see the disambiguation guideline. In particular: Disambiguation pages are not search indices. --Tony Sidaway 23:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not what I meant. If the term is in use, as you admit, but not the correct name, then it is appropriate to list it on a DAB page directing people to to the right place. If there were not a DAB page here then it would be an appropriate redirect. Viridae ^Talk 00:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think I understand what you said. Disambiguation pages are not redirects. Their primary function is as stated in the guideline and this would be severely compromised if we added ad-hoc abbreviations, misspellings and the like. They're Wikipedia content, and as such the policies of the encyclopedia apply, including wikipedia:verifiability. --Tony Sidaway 09:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to fight for this to be here. I read through WP:DAB andWP:MOSDAB and can't find anything that suggests that HBP shouldn't be here. On WP:DAB, "Ask yourself: When a reader enters a given term in the Wikipedia search box and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result?" When typing in HBP I would except Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, not links to a baseball term and a railway station (Though I'm sure that they are just as important). I can say I was shocked that Half-Blood Prince wasn't on this page when I first saw it. On WP:MOSDAB, "There is no need to emphasize the link with bolding or italics, although titles (such as for books and movies) may need to be italicized, in conformance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)." It says right there that book and movie titles are allowed, why isn't HBP? ArryStreet 00:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're lookinng in the wrong place. Try the Verifiability policy. Just because HBP means "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" to you and maybe to some Harry Potter fans, does not make the letters HBP a disambiguation for the articles on that subject. The reason for being strict about the verifiability requirement here should be obvious, but on the assumption that it isn't as obvious to everybody as it is to me I'll try to illustrate:

Let's suppose I am a Sherlock Holmes fan and I've acquired the habit of referring to the sleuth as SH and his companion Doctor Watson as DW. My favorite novel is of course HB (The Hound of the Baskervilles) and my favorite short stories are RHL (The Red-Headed League) and SB (The Speckled Band).
My friend Norris, on the other hand, is a Stephen King fan, and among his favorites are PS (Pet Semetary), GM (The Green Mile), and DC (Dreamcatcher).
My sister Christine is a soap opera fan, and likes nothing better than to kick back in the sofa and watch an episode of CS (Coronation Street) or EE (EastEnders).

Carry on in this vein and pretty soon we've covered the entire alphabet to two and three letters deep with useless, rarely used, ideosyncratic abbreviations for perfectly well understood titles, cluttering up disambiguation pages and making it harder for people to find the commonly used terms they are actually searching for.

So the fact that you and a few other people may strongly associate the letters "HBP" with the Harry Potter novel doesn't really mean a lot. Especially, it doesn't mean enough to relax the verifiability requirements. What evidence do we have that the general population refers to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as HBP? What evidence do we have that they are likely to enter a sequence of initials when searching for an article about that novel? I submit that we have very little evidence, verging on none, to support those presumptions. Until we do, we cannot add that novel to this disambiguation page, and I'm sorry if that shocks you. --Tony Sidaway 01:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I won't add it again this time, but what I think you are missing is how many people know Half-blood Prince as HBP. Go to MuggleNet[8] or Leaky[9], they are littered with abbreviations like HBP which carry down to the thousands of fans that visit their sites. ArryStreet 02:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To add to this, Chamber of Secrets[10] (Which I sometimes refer to as CoS, just like the second book title), the official forums of Mugglenet, has 80,528 members at the present time. I'm sure at least half, if not all would refer book 6 as HBP, and that's only one of the forums. Another forum, Leaky lounge[11] has 69,140 members, though I am sure (as you probably are to) that some of those are members of CoS as well. If, say, 30,000 people were members of both, we'd have 119, 668, quite a considerable amount. If, say, 20,000 of those didn't call Bk 6 HBP (I personally think it wouldn't be that much as the thread titles allways say HBP, and they always use HBP instead of Half-Blood Prince), we'd end up with 99,668. Is that enough people (Even though there is bound to be more) to put HBP on the list? ArryStreet 02:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You keep adding in references to fan forums, which only makes my point. This is a group of people who in a certain context use an abbreviation for the works of an author, just as I suggested that one might abbreviate the works of other authors such as Conan Doyle and Stephen King. To keep Wikipedia useful we don't fill it up with unnecessary clutter. That's why the verifiability policy is so important: we could fill every article with every possible connotation of every phrase (Catch Bull At Four contains the term "Catch", so it's possible that the reader was searching for Catch-22, right?) but this would render Wikipedia unusable. We draw the line, pretty generously I think, at verifiability. Let's seem some reliable sources. --Tony Sidaway 03:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What would you need to see to call Half-Blood Prince for HBP verifiable? Arry 05:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We would need to see substantial evidence that the term HBP is regarded as synonymous with "Half-Blood Prince" or "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". I'll take the page's current contents as examples:

Hit by pitch: the abbreviation HBP is widely used in baseball and a related sport, softball. It appears to be as widely recognised as its cricket equivalent, LBW. The evidence for this is its appearance in most online baseball statistics sites I consulted. This appears to be an accepted abbreviation common to a whole sporting community.
High blood pressure: widely used as an abbreviation in the industry, as evidenced by US NIH and CDC websites, the BMJ, Rutgers, American Heart Association and others.
Hornbeam Park railway station: HBP is the official abbreviation used by National Rail [12].

It's that quality of information I'd expect to see. The term HBP is obviously widely used and understood in some major fields (all baseball, all heart medicine, all UK rail) to mean a specific thing in those particular contexts. If HBP means "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" outside the very small context of a few fan sites and whatnot, then the evidence should be abundant. --Tony Sidaway 00:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hit by pitch is only known as HBP by baseball fans and whatnot.--ArryStreet 04:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, without breaking a sweat I'm able to source it to broadcast media, baseball almanacks and the like. --Tony Sidaway 11:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but I must say I've never heard of the abreviation before. ArryStreet 01:48, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

HBP (Half-Blood Prince) is commonly used jargon! It will be added. Arry 01:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well will you look at this! A breakthrough in my research. Off to edit —Preceding unsigned comment added by ArryStreet (talk • contribs) 07:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A website the seems to rank search hits? Please let's stick to Verifiability. --Tony Sidaway 16:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've read Verifiability, and I don't get why You don't allow the previous sources, or any of them. Perhaps I need to show you when the author wrote the abbreviation herself.Arry 20:09, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well here they are: in each of these she says HBP at least once Arry 20:19, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]