#accuracy matters

I’ve seen these little mistakes over and over and I just want to help writers get them correct in the future.

1.  Gellert and Albus made a blood pact.  Not bloodpact or blood pack.  Blood troth is also a good choice, as it was called in the FB2 screenplay, leading to the fan theory that they made the pact similar to that of a marriage ceremony.  <3  The physical object that holds drops of Albus and Gellert’s blood is called a pendant.  

2.  It’s Godric’s Hollow with an O, and Deathly Hallows with an A.

3.  They met in the summer of 1899.  I know it says 1898 on Gellert’s “hookah skull”, but that’s not the right date.  

4.  Gellert got sent to Nurmengard prison NOT Azkaban.

If you don’t have these things correct, I usually won’t read your fic.  

Bonus:  Also, one thing I didn’t know for like six months is that Albus’ favorite candy is sherbet lemons, not sherbeRt lemons.  I had that in my fic for months and no one told me! 

The image reads: @WWF_Tigers: “More privately-owned tigers exist in US than wild ones in the world. WWF continues to call on US legislation to better control ownership of big cats, and prevent them from being laundered into wildlife trafficking rings #HoustonTiger” The image is a link to the CNN news story about the tiger. 

This is a problem. 

The number of tigers WWF is quoting here is 14 years old.

They’re from that one non-peer-reviewed census by Werner in 2005. As far as I can tell, WWF has been sourcing their 2008 “Paper Tigers” report for an estimated number of 5,000 tigers in the United States for the past 11 years. (Only 1,129 of those were actually in private or “pet” homes) The authors who wrote that report didn’t do their own census work on US tiger populations - instead, they used Werner’s 2005 paper as a major basis for their analysis, noted that it might not be completely accurate because of off-grid / hidden tigers, and ended by concluding there’s a “rough estimate of some 5,000 tigers in captivity” in the US. There has not been a single follow-up study in over a decade that has checked if those numbers are still accurate. (Except for mine, which indicates they’re not). 

More importantly, that report by WWF in 2008 found zero evidence that US tigers from the pet population were ending up in international black markets. They recommended a number of changes to the US regulatory system - like the closure of the generic tiger loophole in the Captive Bred Wildlife program - which have actually been implemented since, and laws about ownership and breeding of dangerous big cats in the US have only gotten stricter since 2008. It stands to reason that you’d expect less trafficking in that situation, not more. This assumption is reinforced by the fact that in all of the exposes about tiger farms and international black market trafficking of tiger parts published in the last couple years, not a single one even mentioned the participation of US entities or the involvement of US tigers! 

So, to sum up, WWF’s tiger account is tweeting out 14-year-old data and actively contradicting the results of one of their organizations’ own major reports. Apparently the “number of pet tigers in the US” is such common knowledge now that even international conservation organizations don’t need to fact-check it before they make public statements. 

read it on the internet, must be true -

In my capacity as a teacher, I deal with a lot of issues involving children. Duh. It means I read a lot of literature, I’m very aware of situations involving children and their well-being; my job expects me to know. 

Time and time again, because it is rightly a topic of significant social interest, I see the word ‘pedophile’ turning up on my newsfeed. Most of the time, it is applied a little too liberally and it kind of drives me bonkers.

Sex crimes against minors are despicable acts that should be dealt with swiftly and severely, make no mistake about that. But, in the interests of addressing the problem correctly, let’s at least call a spade a spade.

Pedophilia: a primary or exclusive adult sexual attraction to children under the age of 13.   

Hebephilia: a primary or exclusive adult sexual attraction to pubescent individuals, typically ages 11–14.

Ephebophilia: a primary or exclusive adult sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19.

In all three cases, the sexual attraction must be a very strong, almost exclusive, preference for the age bracket, not isolated incidents.

So why does it matter?