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I saw this question today:

Is Voldemort called “Tom Elvis Riddle” in the French versions of Harry Potter?

It was something I'd seen before (maybe it's already been asked on SciFi.SE?), but I thought to myself "the information I've seen was about the books, but this is Movies.SE, I wonder if the movies made similar changes".

However, none of the answers actually mention the movies specifically. One of them specifically mentions the books. From the given answers, I cannot tell what the French version of the Harry Potter films does when referring to Voldemort.

It seems to me like this is a problem. Either the question needs to be more specific (OP does not specify if he means books or movies), or should be closed/migrated because it's not about movies, or questions about books that have movie adaptations are on-topic here.

I'm not very active on this stack, so I don't know how you guys handle things here. But I didn't see any discussion on these potential issues in the main question, so I thought it'd be best to bring it up here.

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    Hmm, for all intents and purposes you can assume the question asks about the films. However, if the answers really all just talk about the books, that's certainly a problem. So I guess clarifying the question a little might indeed be a good idea. Thanks for bringing this up.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    Apr 13, 2017 at 19:40
  • The same anagram appears in the movie. Tom Riddle draws his full name with a wand in the air, and it re-orders to I Am Lord Voldamort.
    – iandotkelly Mod
    Apr 13, 2017 at 20:07
  • @iandotkelly Sure it does, interesting meta point nevertheless.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    Apr 13, 2017 at 20:18

1 Answer 1

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I'm the OP of the question. Just getting that out the way.

Honestly this question could be asked on a variety of StackExchange sites. The ones I had to choose between were:

  • French Language
  • Movies & TV
  • Sci Fi
  • English Literature

Really questions can traverse a majority of sites and there is no obvious solution to questions like this.

For example, quite a few questions about films that are adapted from books, such as Harry Potter, can cross these boundaries quite easily.

In conclusion,

  • I think that I could have specified in the question if this issue was raised before any answers were posted. However if I limit the information allowed now, that could invalidate at least 2 of the 3 answers
  • I don't think it should be closed because the only criteria would be "Wrong Site" which could be solved by my next point
  • The question could be migrated but, as I pointed out above, it would be difficult to decided which site to put it on. Also, if we do migrate it, it could be closed on the other site
  • I believe that book-to-film-adaptations can be on-topic just so long as the question and answers are primarily about the movies, not the books. References to the books are fine of course, for example the question may be about differences between the books and the films of Harry Potter which would require references to the books.

All in all, while the question wasn't well written (in hindsight) I believe that as it is, it is close enough to stay open and on this site. The sheer fact that it's become one of the Hot Network Questions shows that others seem it okay.

I hope this answers your issue and that I wasn't too weighted towards myself.

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    It's not really so much about "limiting the information". Your question was always implicitly about the films anyway, and so the answers have to be. Otherwise it's simply off-topic. Your last bullet point is of course correct. But it's a problem if none of the answers actually adress the film. Noone is going to close it, but rewording it a little bit might help to reduce the controversy (and maybe clean out the answers a little). Becoming HNQ doesn't say much about its validity, though. Questions become HNQ rather easily and external visitors don't really care about site scope.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    Apr 13, 2017 at 20:32
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    The only site this question is 100% on topic is SF&F. All three other sites have some issues. Moreover, that is a specialist site with numerous HP-fans. If I want a really nice piece of quality meat I'll visit a butcher, not a large supermarket and certainly not a bakery.
    – BCdotWEB
    Apr 15, 2017 at 15:54

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