Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/archive10

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  • 9
  • Archive 10
  • 11
Tolkien articles by quality statistics (worklist) :
Tolkien articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA Total
FA 1 1 2 4
FL 1 1
GA 9 50 99 63 221
B 8 28 45 81
C 24 67 91
Start 3 144 147
Stub 3 1 4
List 2 6 10 1 19
Category 171 171
Disambig 33 33
File 17 20 17 17 19 90
Project 3 3
Redirect 2 6 313 321
Template 40 40
Other 2 2
Assessed 27 80 182 358 581 1,228
Unassessed 2 2
Total 27 80 182 360 581 1,230
WikiWork factors (?) ω = 1,808 Ω = 3.30
Archive
Archives

If anyone wants to pull out or copy a previous discussion, feel free to to do so. —Mirlen 17:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Shortcut

Community

Roll call: July - September

Please sign your name below and on the front page. Comments are optional.

  1. I'll keep an eye on this and see if I can help, add anything etc --Gothaur 09:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
  2. Will do what I can when I can. Big fan, but not much on the languages, just the lore. Rosseloh 22:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  3. Present and accounted for... Ryecatcher773 14:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  4. Busy, but checking occasionally. Available for admin stuff. --Fang Aili talk 14:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  5. Here, but not doing much right now. --Eruhildo 22:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  6. Trying to get back into doing some Middle-earth stuff. Carcharoth 12:27, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
  7. Doing what I can. Gildir 17:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
  8. I just joined and I will do what I can to contribute --Onceonthisisland 16:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
  9. Did a little template stuff. Looking at lists. --CBD 14:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
  10. Also doing what I can. Uthanc 08:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
  11. I forgot about this for a little while, but I'm back now. --queso man 17:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
  12. Why not? I can do cleanup if needed. Will (talk) 22:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
  13. I'm new here, I'll see what I can do. FlamingSilmaril 00:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  14. Been busy, but I'm still here. Ryecatcher773 01:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  15. Psyche825 (talk) 20:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  16. Busy elsewhere, but keeping an eye out. - PKM 16:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  17. Glad to be here. Ojevindlang 11:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  18. Busy, but still here. >^..^< Nimfaelin 16:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
  19. Just signed up, I'll do what I can. EvertoExcel 15:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  20. I'll do what I can. --Curtis95112 12:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
  21. Dreamafter —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreamafter (talk • contribs) 18:32, August 27, 2007 (UTC)
  22. I can't say I'm back officially — I've been receiving some email from several people interested in improving Tolkien articles, so I think it's only fair I say something to let them know what my status is as of now. I'm not quite ready to return actively, nor am I quite ready to retire completely. If I do contribute, it'll probably be restricted to minor work. Thanks to those who've been keeping up the WP, and I apologize for my long absence. —Mirlen 01:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
  23. Am not that good in editing the pages perhaps (don't know exactly, haven't tried yet!) BUT I can provide the articles with nice charts for several purposes, especially for the list pages. See my User page for example (in german). Abalone76 12:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
  24. I'm still lurking out there.... LotR 13:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
  25. Still here...though I've been kind of busy. I'll still pop in now and then. :) Merond e 10:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
  26. OK, it's October, but.Solicitr 16:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Issues

Images for Deletion

Articles for deletion

Deletion proposals

Move expired proposals below.

None at present.

Recent deletions

I was looking through the log here and noticed several recent deletions. What should be done about these, if anything? I think expired prods can be contested, but ones deleted via AfD will be more problematic. These are also a mixed bunch, some are rubbish articles, while some are worth saving, in my opinion. Carcharoth 09:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The one I am most interested in here is Middle-earth in popular culture, as that forms part of the "After Tolkien" article series. I don't remember it being as bad as the AfD says, so maybe it got vandalised at some point? Carcharoth 09:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Update: I found a mirror version of 'Middle-earth in popular culture', and after looking through it, I'm taking this to deletion review. There needs to be a longer discussion on this. I'll post a link here once I've started the review. Actually, first, I'm discussing with the closing admin and the original AfD voters. Carcharoth 11:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that ME in popular culture should be looked at again. At least, I think that an encyclopedia article could certainly be written about it, without resorting to lists of "when Gandalf was mentioned in XYZ sitcom". Tolkien-based Warcraft III games should be looked at my someone with knowledge of these games; I cannot tell if the article is talking about fan-created stuff or actual notable games. The other articles were rubbish and should stay deleted. --Fang Aili talk 14:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Salvage Jenny Dolfen (PROD, see below) if you can... She's a published illustrator. Uthanc 15:44, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
We should probably be careful about having too many people articles. I've got this in a subpage of my user pages, but I've never found the time to see whether it is worth salvaging or not. As for my views on ME in popular culture, see my comments here. I'm waiting for a response there before I go to deletion review. Carcharoth 16:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I've restored Jenny Dolfen per Uthanc's request--prods should be restored if anyone reasonably objects. We can further discuss the merits of the article if needs be. --Fang Aili talk 15:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The 'Middle-earth in popular culture' article is being rewritten in my userspace at User:Carcharoth/Middle-earth in popular culture. Please feel free to help out with writing it. In fact, we should have a page in the WikiProject to place pages (as subpages) for rewriting. Does that sound like a good idea? Also, one of the sources I want to use is Brian Rosebury's book which includes a chapter ""The Cultural Phenomenon." In this chapter Rosebury examines the "afterlife" of Tolkien's works and attempts to bring Tolkien criticism up to the present moment by considering the "cultural afterlife" of The Lord of the Rings in popular culture." Unfortunately, I don't actually have a copy of this book. Can anyone help? Carcharoth 09:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind a rewrite area within the project. Let's make sure it doesn't get out of hand though, or people will start yelling at us. :) --Fang Aili talk 15:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Elendor - "oldest and most popular Tolkien-based MUSH on the Internet" - see "MUCK" section below Uthanc 14:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Result:No consensus, defaulted to keep. Carcharoth 21:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Ren (Middle-earth) and others - Articles about individual Nazgûl, using names from pre-Jackson merchandise. I voted redirect to pertinent "names" section in Nazgûl. Uthanc 14:49, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Result:Delete. Redirects later created to direct readers to the right location and to discourage recreation. Carcharoth 21:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Battle of the Pelennor Fields - nominated following deletion of Second Battle of Hogwarts. Carcharoth 21:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Redirects for deletion

Most of the Middle-earth redirects there and at other RfD discussions were kept. They can now be found, along with others, in Category:Middle-earth redirects from redundant titles. Carcharoth 21:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Templates for deletion

Both deleted. Carcharoth 21:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Categories for deletion

Articles already deleted

Articles newly made/found

Please ensure these are all added to Portal:Middle-earth/Pages. This is a list of all the pages related to the project, to allow related changes for that page to be used to watch changes to all the pages - please add template, categories and similar pages to that list as well. Though there should be periodic attempts to redo the list in a comprehensive fashion, keeping it up-to-date manually will be a great help. If you are uncertain about whether a page belongs there, list it at Portal talk:Middle-earth/Pages. Please also ensure that {{ME-project}} is added on the talk page of new articles, try to give them an initial assessment, and place them in the correct categories. The top level categories are Category:Tolkien and Category:Middle-earth. Carcharoth 16:11, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

New stuff

Edain

I'm currently busy on pages about Edain, already created a couple of new articles, expanded others and planning to add a few more (or expand lists and add redirects). When finished, I'll update List of Middle-earth articles and similar. Súrendil 08:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Portal:Middle-earth/Pages should be used in preference to that list, and that list should be moved out of article space (to a subpage of this WikiProject). Carcharoth 13:07, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Frodo Lives!

Middle-earth battle template

Battlelore albums

Discovered articles on the four Battlelore albums:

Middle-earth inns

Some more

Found three more and created six new categories. Carcharoth 12:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"...the film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings" looks awkward and unwieldy to me. Uthanc 13:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, but couldn't think of anything better. Technically List of original characters in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy should be List of original characters in the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy... One of the reasons I shoved those article off into their own categories was because I thought the main category looked better with just the film trilogy article and its subarticles. Because those articles have such long titles, the category looks horible with all the articles in the main category. Feel free to try something else! :-) Carcharoth 13:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yet more

The above are some video games and role-playing games that were created recently and, in the first case, not so recently! Carcharoth 11:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Two more

As we now have three articles on board games, I created the category to hold them. The Hildebrandt article also has a strong Tolkien connection now. This should be the last entry under new stuff for this period, but the board game article existed for a year before I noticed it being linked from an article on my watchlist. There may be more articles like this out there. Keep your eyes peeled! Carcharoth 16:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

One more

Súrendil found and tagged Vera Chapman. Carcharoth 13:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Move proposals

New proposals

From what I can tell, these moves/merges have gone ahead. Carcharoth 15:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

More merging discussion

Split off into new section by Carcharoth 09:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the current Beregond article is part of what I see as a huge, pointless accumulation of Tolkien fancruft. There's practically nothing to say about most of the people in Tolkien's fictional lineages; in most cases we have nothing but a name. The only reason many of these articles seem to exist is to provide a target for a succession box, to ensure an unbroken chain. In this case, there's all of one sentence about his accomplishments in office, and in any other context this would obviously not be worth an article. The line of the Chieftains of the Dunedain is much the same. Take Aragorn I -- the only thing to be said about him is that he came after Aravir, before Araglas, and was killed by wolves. The fact that he was raised at Imladris can't even be specifically proven from the source -- it's just something that's true of all the Chieftains, and the only reason to mention it each time is to pad out the articles. IMO, these do not belong as separate articles and should all be merged in cases where there's so little to be said about them. Which is the case for nearly all of them. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think we are all agreed that merging such articles is a good idea, and succession boxes be hanged (they can use redirects to anchor links, anyway). The main trouble with some merges is that some merge targets can end up looking very similar to what Tolkien produced, especially in the case of the Numenorean kings and queens. The other problem is finding the time and motivation to perform merges. I tried doing a few, and it is rather boring work. It is also important to get the links in the edit summaries correct. And then what do you do with the talk pages? Carcharoth 01:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Here we go. Terribly tedious 6 or 7 step process. Carcharoth 01:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I tell a lie. 10 step process. And I forgot the talk page. Carcharoth 01:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
And we even have a horribly underpopulated Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged. But unless target articles are decided on, we will all merge to different locations and create a mess! Carcharoth 01:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it even necessary to have these articles at all? They're not integral to the story and are most often mentioned only in the Appendices, but if someone has read the Appendices he already has as much information as there is on the subject. Apart from a few notable individuals, they barely exist. If you look at the line of Chieftains, Tolkien didn't even devise their names with his usual linguistic rigor; he had no idea what any of them mean. He seems to have just jotted down a series of names as they occurred to him to fill out the timespan of Aragorn's lineage. With something like List of Middle-earth weapons even if they're not mentioned in a main text somwhere -- and I think all of them are -- there's at least linguistic information to discuss. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

You have a fair point, especially about the linguistic aspects), but deleting them might start a slippery slope we don't want to go down. I think carrying on with merging is the best thing for now. Look at articlesn like Arnor, Rangers of the North and in particular at the list at Rangers of the North#Chieftains of the Dúnedain. Click on the links to each king and consider how best to merge the information. I might even make a start tonight. Carcharoth 00:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Hoax pages

see above Uthanc 15:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Ierleaf - According to this, C. Tolkien writes the Encyclopedia of Arda.
  • Atasarias - not directly a Tolkien hoax article, but read...
Perhaps we should have our own Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense? Is it against the rules? Uthanc 15:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
No, but probably best not too. You could keep a list here, but don't overdo it. Carcharoth 11:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

New deletion stuff

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth#Recent deletions. Been away for a while, trying to get back into the swing of things round this WikiProject, and I find that Middle-earth in popular culture got deleted! :-( From memory, it was unsourced, but it was the beginnings of an article on the subject, and contrary to what the people at the AfD said, there have been studies on this topic. Carcharoth 09:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

A mirror copy of the 'Middle-earth in popular culture' article can be seen here. Carcharoth 11:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Redirects reorganised

Have a look at Category:Middle-earth redirects! Some great work has been done there by Súrendil, showing how our redirects should be organised, and the advantages of such organisation, showing how redirects to lists and sections can really help organise merged lists and avoid having hundreds of short stubs. This also reduces the amount of material that needs assessing as well, once the "merge era" is finished. Carcharoth 11:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Inspired by that, I created and have started to populate Category:Middle-earth redirects with possibilities. Carcharoth 15:55, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Best articles

Currently we have 15 articles that are considered examples of the best articles we have. I am going to list them below so that people can enjoy reading them, help improve them, and have a model for articles they work on. These are from Category:FA-Class Tolkien articles (WP:FAC is a separate peer reviewed process); Category:A-Class Tolkien articles (examples of the best articles we have - effectively an internal wikiproject assessment); Category:GA-Class Tolkien articles (the WP:GA process is a separate review process). I haven't included any of the 85 current B-class articles at Category:B-Class Tolkien articles, but if any of those are especially good in your opinion, please re-assess, or list or discuss below. Also, please raise any concerns you have with these articles below, though remember to take extensive discussions to the article talk pages. It would be nice to update this every couple of months to see what progress is being made. I'm also going to update the section at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth#Accomplishments. Thanks. Carcharoth 12:31, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

FA, A, and GA articles

Discussion

Please add discussion here. Carcharoth 12:31, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Models for merges

There are some articles that I think are good models for how to merge material from stubs and reference it (well, at least in some cases). If you see any articles that you like the look of, please add them below. Carcharoth 22:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Examples

See also Category:Middle-earth lists. Anyone have any thoughts about the advantages and disadvantages of these different styles? Carcharoth 22:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

MUCK article up for deletion

I noticed Elendor was proposed for deletion. Don't suppose anyone could provide some references for the material within it, or rewrite it such that it might be kept? It seems like a worthwhile topic, given its age. GreenReaper 08:48, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The result was no consensus, default to keep. Carcharoth 21:23, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

More tidying

Lots of administrative tidying has been done. See Category:WikiProject Middle-earth and its subcategories for the new structure. The only category that is still a bit untidy is Category:WikiProject Middle-earth participants, because people put the user template anywhere and everywhere and all the pages end up in that category.

Anyway, for the record, here are some pages that were deleted. I don't think I remembered them all, but here are the ones I did note down (these ones are renames or lists, so no information was lost):

The actor categories became, or returned to being, lists in the various places. See Template:LotR casts navbox. Carcharoth 21:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Archive notice (6 July 2007)

I've just archived to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/archive9 the entire page as of 6 July (this version here). Anything after that won't have been archived yet. I then ruthlessly removed anything before 5 July with this edit, but unfortunately that included several long-standing and unanswered questions. Please do dig through the page history and archive to bring these up again if answers are needed. There are also some rather long discussions up above that need to be closed and archived. I'm hoping to get more active here in the next few weeks, and one of the things is sorting the page structure out and archiving more regularly. Carcharoth 00:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Update

The move discussions have finished. I've archived them to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/archive10. The next archive should go to the same page, with a date filled in, and then normal archiving can resume. I pity whoever tries to work out the order of discussions from the archives. At some point, old version links for this talk page should be added to the archives, as all the discussion ultimately resides in the edit history of this page. Anyway, the talk page is a bit clearer now, so if you have time, please do one of the following:

(a) Have a look at the above discussions/notices and add your comments;
(b) Restart unfinished discussions from the talk page archives (see box at top right of page);
(c) Start a new discussion below!

Thanks. Carcharoth 10:14, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

I've trawled through the archives and updated our AfD list, but have used the talk page as the front page is an old discussion. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/AfD. More still to be found. Carcharoth 17:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Found a big list of 31 past AfDs using the method at User:Carcharoth/Finding AfDs, so there are now lots and lots of past AfD discussions to read through at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/AfD, if you like that sort of thing. Still need to find deletion debates where pages were deleted, as well as looking at categories and suchlike. Carcharoth 17:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Another assessment/merging drive?

Well, I say another, though the previous one never really took off... I noticed that some people are busy merging and assessing articles, and as you can see from Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Tolkien articles by quality statistics, the number of assessed articles (534) is close to overtaking the number of unassessed articles (603). So let's aim to cross the halfway stage soon! Remember to consider merging before you assess something, as assessing is pointless if the article is later merged. Any questions, please ask. Carcharoth 21:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Silmarillion

I've been trying to add references to the Silmarillion, and I've found two things I want to cite in the foreword to my edition of the Silmarillion (ISBN 0-618-13504-9). If I use the ME-ref template, should I put "Foreword" where the page should go, or the Roman numeral page numbers? If the latter, would someone with the edition used by the ME-ref template (ISBN 0-395-25730-1) please tell me what (Roman numeral) page numbers the Foreword occupies with the first and last few words on each page, either here or on my talk page? Thanks, Psyche825 (talk) 04:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

If you don't have the editions mentioned in the ME-ref template, just enter the details of your own edition. It is not compulsory to use the ME-ref template, which is provided as a convenience for those who want to enter the details of their editions. If you are uncertain, the best thing to do is to enter the reference with the ME-ref template, and use the page numbers from you edition. Put either "Foreword" or the Roman numeral page numbers - that doesn't matter too much. If any of this is unclear, please ask. Carcharoth 17:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Eh, I could've sworn I replied to this already. Anyway, thanks for your help! I've added the references to the article.
Psyche825 (talk) 21:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Battle articles may be up for deletion!

Battle of the Pelennor Fields, of all things, is on AfD! Second Battle of Hogwarts was recently deleted and redirected to Harry Potter's war article, and they've set their sights on Tolkien battles. Apparently, their reasoning is if you delete one fictional battle you'd have to delete all of them. Uthanc 17:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

The result was keep. Carcharoth 21:22, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Tolkien's influences and influence

I was just reading Harry Potter influences and analogues. Do we have an equivalent article for Tolkien? Should we have one? It should be quite doable given the sources out there. Carcharoth 11:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The best I can find is Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien and Adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and J. R. R. Tolkien#Writing. Carcharoth 12:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In universe and out of universe; Canon

I find it problematic the way issues like the paternity of Orodreth and Gil-galad are treated as though there is only one answer. In the case of Orodreth, he was the son of Finarfin for most of the history of the development of the story, and only became son of Angrod very late - and this change was never incorporated into the Silmarillion narrative. In the case of Gil-galad, Tolkien was never really sure where to put him - he was the son of Finrod for most of the earlier period, and was briefly considered as a son of Fingon before settling as a son of Orodreth. Again, though, this change was never incorporated into the Silmarillion narrative. I don't think that the statements of the Silmarillion should be taken as truth, but if they are not to be taken so, so much less should be information from various unassembled notes and linguistic writings of Tolkien's last years. I think what is needed here is to take this back and realize that there is no "real" history of Orodreth or Gil-galad. There are various versions of the story that Tolkien wrote about, and we should be clear about them. In cases like these, I think what we ought to do is be very clear on sourcing, and to indicate a) what the published Silmarillion says; and b) what Tolkien said about them in different stages of his writing. In cases where the account of the published Silmarillion does not match with Tolkien's latest conception of the story, we ought to discuss this, but we should be careful not to create our own "canon". john k 02:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Previously, the attempt to stick to a "canon" was tried, but I never liked it myself. Just documenting the version history, so to speak, is what we should do. There are various standards page scattered around that need updating. I'll start that now. Carcharoth 14:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The Lord of the Rings (1978 film) FAR listing

The Lord of the Rings (1978 film) has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--Dark Kubrick 19:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

New images process

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Images/Disputed images. Carcharoth 03:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Images by Ted Nasmith tagged replaceable fair use

Copied from Image talk:Morgoth Punishes Húrin by Ted Nasmith.jpg. Carcharoth 11:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I have consolidated the RFU discussions for all the Ted Nasmith paintings uploaded by YLSS on 8/4 and 8/8. I chose this location for no better reason than that it's the first one I noticed and happened to tag, and where I saw that YLSS had responded.

Images tagged:

The following were not uploaded by YLSS, but I have also tagged:

Other images by Nasmith, untagged:

Non-free use

Copied from Image talk:Morgoth Punishes Húrin by Ted Nasmith.jpg. Carcharoth 11:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The reason to keep is really not to the point. There's nothing irreplaceable about these images, and any competent artist can come up with something equally informative. That no one has yet done so does not speak to these images' inherent replaceabilty. They're not even necessary. The subject here is literary, the very nature of which means that everything known about the subject can be conveyed in words. There are no images in the source material, so what we see is mainly the conception of the artist and not the author, especially in the details. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. My position is that we should have an article on art inspired by Tolkien, and use one or two examples of works by the prominent Tolkien artists, but (sadly) not use them throughout the articles, or skew coverage excessively towards one artist (regardless of whether they are free or not). There was enough excessive use of film images. By the way, if this image and its talk page get deleted, you might want to move the content here somewhere else. We have an Images subpage at the WikiProject. The location doesn't matter too much, as long as it is a stable area that won't get deleted. Carcharoth 23:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and the permission given by Ted Nasmith really needs clarifying and confirming. Preferably with an OTRS ticket to a set of permissions mailed from Nasmith to the Wikimedia Foundation, or something stronger than just unverified e-mail correspondence with members of the WikiProject. Carcharoth 23:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
It's a very common mistake when obtaining permission from copyright owners to forget to tell them they must be specific about the license, and that restrictions they might otherwise rely on (such no commercial use) will render their permission moot. The general permission Nasmith gave no indication he was aware of the issues, and the user who originally obtained the permission never bothered to post what exactly he asked Nasmith permission for. I know that Uthanc tried to contact the artist about this, but if he ever heard back he hasn't said. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree. So what now? Will all the above get deleted at some point? Should we tighten up our WikiProject-internal image policy? I've just been letting the film images get cleaned up by the image police squads, as adding fair use rationales to lots is silly, but I do feel we should have one or two fair use images in some articles, just to indicate the wide range of different representations out there (eg. several Jackson film images, several Bakshi film images, several Nasmith images, several Lee images, several Howe images, and so forth). What do you think is the best way forward? Súrendil, if you are reading this, what do you think is the best thing to do? How familiar are you with Wikipedia's policies on images? I'm asking because you've been doing great work on the articles, but image policy is a difficult thing to understand. Uthanc will tell you that he wishes we could use more images, but most of time we can't. Carcharoth 01:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm really at loss. When I began uploading these, I was just following the example of other pictures and articles. For example, Maedhros and Faramir articles I suppose would not have reached A/GA rating without the illustrations; and many of those that I added in my opinion can be quite useful. The policy of replaceability is in this case not fully valid, as I don't suppose that any illustrator who created suitable images would ever release them into public area/free use. Concerning usefulness, I can't judge. Possibly for major characters/topics, we can create a separate section for adaptations by artists, so that users will get an impression of how the subject is usually imagined. In case of Morgoth, for example, this is supposingly essential: there was quite a lot of requests/discussions on images for the article. If such a section is created, John Howe's pictures (from covers to Morgoth's Ring etc.) used together with Nasmith's will 'add significally' to the article. The same goes for Faramir, Túrin, Lúthien etc. In case of minor topics - delete, if policies are violated, though in some cases images can illustrate conceptions that are not readily understandable from text, e.g. appearance of Balrogs, Valar, or the correct representation of Andram as a precipice/'fall' rather than line of hills. Súrendil 08:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
It's no fault of yours. Rather, the "permission" from Ted Nasmith should have been marked as needing more clarification. It is highly unlikely he will or can (many were commissioned work for calendars and books) release the image rights to the extent needed for use in Wikipedia. We can only use them under fair-use, even with permission, and that has been tightened up a lot recently. I suggest we use external links for now, linking to a range of "depictions" of various sorts. Once the images have been orphaned (not put in any articles), they will eventually get deleted. You could put them up for deletion anyway. And this discussion really, really, should be moved. Moving to the WikiProject talk page. Carcharoth 11:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Nasmith hasn't responded at all, and it's been months. Nazgûl currently has movie-based fan art released under the GNU Free Documentation License. Perhaps we should scout for nice exclusively book-based amateur art, along the same lines, to use in character, battle and location articles... fidelity to the text would be an issue (i.e. no plate armor). If we actually commission some, I'd even advise the artist(s) to stray from the film visuals as much as possible while still being faithful to the text (i.e. a black or dark brown-haired Legolas, which is certainly possible). Uthanc 16:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree commissioning free fan art would be great, but you will get people worried that this is original research. I'd say go for it and see what happens! For now though, we need to decide what to do with Nasmith's artworks (and the other artworks). As I said before, keep one or two for fair use in an "inspired by Tolkien" article (and Nasmith's article), get rid of the rest, BUT, still link to them in some "external links" section. We could have an external link to nearly every Nasmith/Lee/Howe/Garland/other pictures, but need to get the balance right. Adding them all to one artist first, without the others, could be considered link spam. Inaccurate artworks should not be linked or shown, unless there are secondary sources discussing the inaccuracies. Carcharoth 07:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
but you will get people worried that this is original research — I was about to complain that you must be joking, but then I realized with a sinking feeling that you're probably right. But I think this is a fantastic idea. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
In a sense, all artwork is original research, so I think the argument will centre on whether it is OK to commission free artwork for Wikipedia articles. We should still use fair use and linking to examples of artworks where needed. Carcharoth 10:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

<deindent>Let's not get distracted, though - what are we going to do with the artwork that is already here? I'm not comfortable with the imbalance towards Nasmith at the moment. I think we should decide here and now whether to go ahead with: (a) removing all but a few artworks by each individual artist; (b) replacing each removed artwork with an external link to the source. Carcharoth 10:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I admit what images we have by Nasmith, Howe, Lee, Jenny Dolfen, and Anke Eissmann violate current fair use policy, because of their "inherent replacability". We could have a "inspired artwork" article - possibly part of the "works inspired" one - with actual images, because we'd be then writing about the art itself. For characters, places, etc. I'd say just use links, giving priority to older artists (Nasmith, Howe, Lee, Hildebrandt Bros.)
Free images we do have (thanks very much, artists!):
I'd tend to put "not movie-like" on the positive side of the balance. (Speaking as a long-time pre-Jackson fan.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding "Original Research": Non-free images have to have been published elsewhere first, but free images are fine. We publish "original" photos and images all the time. – Quadell (talk) (random) 01:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

And how much are those images derivative works of the story? -- Bryan (talk|commons) 08:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Good point. See also Commons:Commons:Fan art. I'd forgotten that. I guess it seems different when someone is faithfully re-drawing a map (that is obviously derivative) and when someone is going through the creative process of interpreting (and sometimes extending) a piece of text to end up with an artwork. It is obvious that this requires more creativity than taking a photograph of a Mickey Mouse toy. I will say, though, that it is rare for copyright holders to crack down on derivative fan art, which raises the question of why Wikipedia places itself in the position of the copyright holder and says "no". I wonder if there is a fair-use fan art tag we could use? Carcharoth 15:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Asked at Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions . Uthanc 05:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Image update

As is evident from the red links, most of the Nasmiths are gone. What's left should follow too. The GFDL Witch-king image [1] was deleted from Commons by Bryan at my request, before I or anyone else got to re-upload it in "Wikipedia proper" space. But I think it's best to drop it following TCC's remarks at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions and Commons talk:Fan art; it was specifically movie-based and thus indisputably a violation - book-based art, like Tttom's (whose images aren't in Commons anyway) are supposedly a different matter. Uthanc 04:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. I think the next stage is to clear out the film images and other art images. And then list the various adaptations and artists and come up with a strategy. At least one fair-use image per artist or adapatation, and then a selection to show variation across characters, places, and so on. And continue to work on the "fan art might be OK as it interprets text rather than being derived from a visual work" angle. Carcharoth 12:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand how this material is replaceable. Aren't they all derivative works, and thus fall under the Tolkien Estate's copyright? Furthermore the idea that "any competent artist" can replace these works is absurd - Nasmith is a professional illustrator whose illustrations have been published in editions of Tolkien's own works. As such, his works have a completely different significance from random fan art. john k 21:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. That is why I foresee a future state where there are only one or two Nasmith images, used under fair use, with the other articles using external links to his website. Ditto for other professional Tolkien artists (Garland, Lee, Howe, etc.). Fan art depends on whether the artist releases them for free. Whether or not fan art based on books are derivative is still, in my opinion, an open question. Wikipedia may be getting this wrong. Fan fiction attempts to reuse the characters in written form. As long as artists don't attempt to imitate Tolkien's visual art, then basing visual art on his written art is, well, an interesting question. Carcharoth 17:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Thoughts on generic, "free to use" images and specific details: Dwarf uses a black-and-white drawing of a "generic" fantasy-style Dwarf, though "fantasy Dwarf" implies it owes more to Tolkien than Snow White. Now it's not obviously based on any specific fantasy Dwarf (to my judgement) and thus not really "fan art". While it's free to use for any purpose, I feel it's inadequate to illustrate, say, Gimli. Now Tolkien doesn't really describe him in detail (which gives artists a lot of leeway) except that he has a beard, a round head, and wears a hood and a chain mail corselet, which the drawn dwarf doesn't have. He also wears a helmet at one point. Since the dwarf could as easily be Gimli as he could be Thor Thunderbeard, it's arguably inappropriate due to lack of specifics. If a mail shirt was added and nothing else, could the dwarf pass for Gimli? Now a free black-and-white Robin Hood-like illustration could easily pass for Legolas - he has a long knife, but that can be obscured.
To use non-Tolkien examples, how is an image of a black-haired boy with glasses Harry Potter if he has no lightning bolt scar? And if I recall correctly his glasses are specified to be round.
Colors, of course, would complicate matters. And there's the problem of whether people will accept generic images used to identify specific characters... Uthanc 18:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, in the discussion at the Commons I point out exactly a pre-Harry Potter magic-using British boy with black hair and round glasses: Timothy Hunter from The Books of Magic comic book series. So even the glasses aren't a determinative. They are otherwise very different characters, but the fact that their images are so similar (Tim lacks the lightning scar, but you don't see it on Harry most of the time either) speaks to my point that most of what's copyrightable about a character doesn't transfer to an image. A literary character is really just a collection of abstract characteristics that are expressed over the course of a story. An image displays characteristics that are not at all abstract, and a single image doesn't tell a story. At least under US law names cannot be copyrighted, so even attaching a name to an image doesn't suddenly make it someone else's property. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Maps

And the maps keep reappearing. See Commons:Category:Middle-earth. I spotted the latest one in Frodo Baggins, and have now removed it. Carcharoth 13:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Why are you removing the maps? With the remark they were "derivative". I find that outrageous. Cush 07:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree 100% with Carcharoth's decision. I've seen the Tolkien Estate send cease and desist letters and shut down websites for two reasons: If the site has images by J.R.R. Tolkien or has maps, regardless if they are even derivatives. The Estate owns the rights to the majority of the names of characters and locations in Tolkien's works, and therefore using the names, or even implying it is a "Middle-earth map" infringes on their rights. --Hyarion 14:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the 'we own this name' cases are usually issues with Tolkien Enterprises (unrelated to the estate)... which has trademarked many of the unique names/characters in the stories. Artwork actually created by Tolkien on the other hand is in almost all cases still held by the estate. As to 'derivative works'... any recasting into a new form of a copyrightable portion of an artistic work is always a derivative of the original. Previous discussions on Commons have held that all verbal descriptions of unique persons, places, things are copyrightable... leading to the deletion of all the maps off Commons. However, there is currently a discussion where it is being claimed that most textual descriptions are NOT copyrightable and thus a map of some region Tolkien never mapped out himself (e.g. Aman) or a drawing of a character from the books which didn't look overly like any of Tolkien's drawings or representations of the character in subsequent paintings, films, et cetera would not be a derivative work... though it might still be a trademark infringement. Anyway, until this week Commons had held that all of these images were not 'free use' and the debate now is only whether that should be changed to most of these images are not 'free use'. There isn't any question that I've seen that all maps of the Middle-earth continent itself are derivative of Christopher Tolkien's original map AND various licensed variations made since then. --CBD 16:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Hello CBD, sorry to go off on a tangent, but do you where I can find some information on the Enterprises legal cases you're thinking of? I've been attempting to compile a list of Tolkien-related cases here. From what I can tell it looks like the Map-related take downs (specifically the "Tolkien Map Raid of 2004") were all on behalf of the Estate. My legal knowledge is very limited, but I believe Enterprises could not sue anyone for using the word, let's say "Hobbit" on a map, as their trademarks are for specific things, such as using the word Hobbit in relation to tobacco products. While I would imagine the Estate could sue anyone for using any word in Tolkien's works when it attempts to use the fame of his works to their advantage, they've even successfully brought down a domain with "Shire" in it. I think even if we were to only upload maps which were not based on illustrations by CT or JRRT, as long as we imply they are maps of Arda, it's still infringing on their rights. But the guys over at Commons are definitely going to be much more legal savvy than I. If you like I can try contacting the Estate, their responses take a while, but it would be nice if we could get an explicit answer from them. --Hyarion 20:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow, nice page. Afraid I don't have anything quite so organized. I just recall various cases; Tolkien Enterprises vs 'Gandalf the Wizard Clown' (Michael Kaplan), John Cooney (had a computer game with a "hobbit" in it), Iron Crown Enterprises (after I.C.E.'s license had expired Zaentz forced them to take down some of the Middle-earth RolePlaying, aka MERP, materials from their site), www.jrrtolkien.org.uk, shiremail.com (You have this one on the list as the Estate, but I think it was actually Zaentz and New Line that sued), and of course TSR for having 'hobbits' and 'ents' in D&D (though I've heard that was settled with just a 'cease and desist'). The only Tolkien Estate case I can recall offhand which isn't listed was the one over what eventually became Mike Perry's 'Untangling Tolkien' book. On the maps, yeah those would be infringing on the artwork rights held by the estate... in this case >Christopher< Tolkien's artwork. I recall hearing from some old time Tolkien Society folks that there was a fight back in the early 80s where Zaentz DID try to control ANY use of the word 'hobbit' and there was some silliness with a 'hobbite' spelling for a while before it got sorted out... apparently the Tolkien Society and the Estate started asserting their rights and Zaentz backed off a bit. --CBD 06:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I am quite familiar with the "Tolkien Map Raid of 2004", as it affected two of my websites (tolkienion.com, tolkien-maps.com) and much material I had shared with other websites on Hyarion's Image disputes list (all except isildur.com, and he forgot John Ohara's Tolkien Atlas which is also down now). Iirr the lawyers representing the Estate were pursuing the removal of maps websites because they wanted no competition for The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-Earth (Sibley/Howe). That was three years ago, but I have not heard of any activities from those lawyers since then. Cush 08:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
It probably had more to do with the need to assert copyright than eliminating competition. Basically, if they didn't seek to get unauthorized maps shut down, and thereby demonstrate that they were protecting and maintaining their copyright, they could have a hard time asserting that copyright on the new maps (licensed derivative works) they were releasing. Sort of the 'use it or lose it' clause of copyright law. --CBD 10:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
But holding a copyright just to keep anyone from redrawing maps you intellectually owns is pointless (for lawyers) as long as that doesn't work for your financial benefit. If there were enough maps available on the web then no-one would buy the (rather crappy) maps that ere officially published. As I said that was 3 years ago, and those maps now posted on wikipedia post no threat to the Estate's copyrights. Has the Estate ever contacted wikipedia? Cush 15:29, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
"If there were enough maps available on the web then no-one would buy the (rather crappy) maps that ere officially published." - are you suggesting that the maps available on the web somehow improve on the originals? I also heard somewhere that the Estate has actually only been successful in cases settled outside court. Cases that reached court they lost. I thought, for example, that Perry (or his publishers) won their case? Which is not to say that future cases won't succeed, or that I'm just plain wrong. Carcharoth 02:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
When Cush said "official" I think he meant books like The Atlas of Middle-earth, Journeys of Frodo, The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth, etc. and not the maps by CT/JRRT. All this map talk has made me want to see more maps online as it has been hard to find good collections the last few years. So I got together a few other map collectors and with a lot of help from Cush we uploaded a couple hundred maps here, I'm sure we're missing some but its a start, hopefully we can convince Wikipedia to let us upload some here someday. I've always thought each of the location-related articles should have at least one map image that shows where it was in Arda as I tend to have a difficult time remembering where everything is located. --Hyarion 01:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
On the Perry 'Untangling Tolkien' case: No, Mike (who was his own publisher) lost the initial hearings and was enjoined from publishing or advertising the book. He then settled out of court with the Estate and was allowed to publish the book in modified form. I've always thought the whole thing could have been avoided if not for the staggeringly inept and belligerent way he handled it. Not contacting the Estate about your plans to publish, refusing to provide a sample (when requested) so they could see what you were planning, reaching out to David Day (who has a long history of conflict with the Estate) for help, running to the press to denounce them, filing a complaint seeking to get the lawyer who contacted you disbarred, and inserting yourself into a personal dispute between Christopher Tolkien and his son Simon are not the best ways of responding to a letter stating concerns that your book violates the Estate's copyright. It's a good way to go about getting sued for defamation, but that's about it. I don't see how he could have handled it worse if he'd tried. I told him so at the time, but he wasn't exactly listening. --CBD 09:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
And now what? As long as the Estate does not ask Wikipedia to remove any material there is no need to do so in advance. Cush 20:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes there is. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
What is the Tolkien Estate actually holding copyrights to? Cush 13:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Likely anything that was creative and came from Tolkien's mind. The copyright expired 1 January 2045. -- Bryan (talk|commons) 19:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bryan (talk • contribs)
And the ones drawn by Christopher Tolkien might be even longer than that. Carcharoth 00:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It's certainly longer than that, particularly as he adds new material that didn't appear in the older ones, or makes corrections. It's also worth remembering that he drew some of the original maps in the first place. The larger scale map usually included in RotK was his IIRC, and the clock doesn't start ticking down on the copyright for that until he dies. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

<deindent> That's kind of what I meant, but you said it much better than I did. :-) Maybe with that we can put this "maps" thread to rest? Carcharoth 02:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

BTW, if Christopher Tolkien was not explicitly credited when the RotK map was published (though maybe he was), does that affect anything? If CJRT was not mentioned, then it would be sort of like a work-for-hire that was published under the copyright claimed by his father, wouldn't it? Carcharoth 02:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not so familiar with UK copyright law, but I believe that since he was not his father's employee it would become work-made-for-hire only if there was an explicit agreement saying so. [2] Otherwise it would remain CJRTs. Although since he based it on sketch-maps made by JRRT, it's a derivative work and he only owns the creative material he contributed. Not that it makes a great deal of difference, practically speaking. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Assessment update

The assessment stats have been updated by the bot. See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Tolkien articles by quality statistics. We have reached and passed the Caradhras-like peak of unassessed articles! There are now less unassessed articles than assessed ones. 575 have been assessed, and 566 remain to be assessed. As I said last time, remember to consider merging before you assess something, as assessing is pointless if the article is later merged. Rather out-of-date (though mostly OK) assessment criteria are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Assessment. Merging instructions are here, though that summary fails to mention that talk page discussion should be archived at the new location (though it can also be left at the old talk page), but the important thing is to remove the {{ME-project}} from the talk page of the redirect left after the merge, which will removed it from the list of pages to be assessed. A very incomplete listing of pages for merging is at Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged. If you are unsure about a merger, or where to merge to, discuss here and leave a note on the talk page. The template {{Merge JRRT}} can also be used to tag a page for merging. Any questions, please ask. Carcharoth 11:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Mass nominations at AfD

Please look at WP:AfD, and the contributions list here. Most of the articles nominated should be merged, but we haven't got round to doing it yet. I am marshalling a plan and links to post at each AfD. Help removing the PRODs would be appreciated. Carcharoth 10:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

OK. There are only two AfDs at the moment: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Green Dragon and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bay of Andúnië. Lots of PRODs, some of which have been removed. I will put lots of the PRODs into Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged, and will explain our plans for merging at the AfDs. Carcharoth 10:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
The AfDs have been withdrawn by the nominator, but we should still consider merging them a high priority. --Hyarion 17:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Most of the AfD and PROD nominated articles are now in Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged. Now 127 articles. I will try and work on them later this weekend. Carcharoth 18:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Request feedback on guidelines

I would like to have the feedback of active wikiproject members on the following. Wikipedia has a number of guidelines on articles about fiction, predominantly WP:FICT and WP:WAF. These guidelines have been rewritten some time ago, but this appears to have been done without substantial input from editors who write about fiction.

Guidelines on Wikipedia are supposed to be a description of common practice. At present, however, these guidelines call for the removal of most material that does not include real-world information, which could be read as to include most articles about fictional characters, locations and concepts, such as those about Middle-earth.

This does not reflect actual practice, because Wikipedia has thousands of such articles. Now there's no need for alarm, because to my knowledge, nobody is actually deleting any of this. However, it would be prudent to reword and update the aforementioned guidelines to accurately reflect how, and on which aspects, articles on fiction are written.

Please feel free to update the guidelines as needed, or direct your feedback to their respective talk pages. >Radiant< 10:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. I think the current state of play is that most active members of this WikiProject are (or should be) aware of the need to write in an out-of-universe style, and to focus on, or give equal weight, to the real world aspects of an article's topic. ie. Literary history (say up front what Tolkien wrote and when), fictional information (short character and plot summaries), links to other books Tolkien wrote (with references), any posthumous material (the books published by Christopher Tolkien), the developing legacy and response (adaptations, literary analysis, views of critics, academic papers and books, popular culture). I think that covers everything. Essentially, the fictional plot summaries and character details should be reduced and the real word information expanded. Difficult for some articles, but this is the ideal that is being aimed for. Unfortunately there are a lot of articles, and not that many active editors. It will probably be another year or so before things improve to the required standards, but progress is, in my opinion, being made.
Current efforts are focused on merging, to avoid having lots of unexpandable stubs. After the merging, I foresee an effort to finish the assessments, followed by adding of (a) Tolkien references (to books by Tolkien to verify some of the non-obvious statements); and (b) Non-Tolkien references (this includes references to books by others about Tolkien). It is the latter references that are probably needed most to make the articles encyclopedic.
Images is another area currently being discussed. See above for more on that and other topics. Carcharoth 10:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I do think it's important to consider the fact that much of Tolkien's work (J.R.R. & Christopher) is not a typical literary work, being pseudohistorical, mythologic and linguistic in nature. As such, it is dubious to apply many of the fiction guidelines to Tolkien's work. I don't really have any opposition to mergers when information is not lost and redirects are kept in place though (up until the point that the main articles become unmanageable in terms of size). IronGargoyle 13:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
That is a good point. What do you think of List of Middle-earth weapons as a model for the sort of collation of linguistic and textual information in the form of lists? Carcharoth 14:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that list is pretty good I think. As long as no information is lost in the mergers and the redirects are kept intact I am fine with that. IronGargoyle 21:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

reference?

The page Gulf of Lune states " At the location of Mount Dolmed and the Dwarven citadel of Nogrod, Belegaer broke through the mountains, creating the Gulf of Lune.". 12:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Also "Ossiriand was the only part of Beleriand that survived the War of Wrath, but Belegaer the Great Sea broke through the mountain chain at the former riverbed of Ascar, creating the Gulf of Lhûn. " from ossiriand

87.102.47.218 12:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't 100% confrim this myself..87.102.47.218 12:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I can think of no reference for this information and strongly doubt its veracity. Tolkien drew the original drafts of both maps on grids and carefully reproduced parts of the Beleriand map, including Mount Dolmed, on the LotR map. While these were redrafted by Christopher the connection remains in the published maps. Look at the two side by side. Towards the northern end of the chain on the LotR map there is a mountain which juts out further west than any of the others... in the same spot on the Silmarillion map this mountain, Mount Rerir, juts out just the same. Just to the west of this mountain on most (not all) copies of the LotR map is the island of Himring, just where the Silmarillion map has the hill of Himling. These are two alternate spellings which Tolkien used for the same place, and he noted that Himling/Himring survived as an island (TOI, The Council of Elrond - 4th version, pg 124 HMCO). Further south another mountain juts out to the west of the main chain... on both maps. This is labeled on the Beleriand map as Mount Dolmed... well to the north of the Gulf. On the same page cited above Tolkien indicated that the Gulf of Lune came in through what had been Ossiriand... which we can see on the Silmarillion map is south of Mount Dolmed and thus corresponds with the rest of these details. I'll make an update based on this citation until someone can dig up a reference for the other location. --CBD 21:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I found the himling/himring stuff, the mount rerir connection also (lake helevorn has dissapeared), can't pinpoint mount dolmed to the same accuracy. However there seems to be a similarity between the curves in the southern half of the mountain chain's in both maps. The article specifically links the river ascar with the new gulf - it's possible that it's in one of the later history of middle earth books (that I haven't got) - a text confirmation would be best.
Ascar becomes the gulf seems like a good bet.. Which interestingly leaves the treasure from Doriath (death of thingol, stolen by dwarfs (various texts)) somewhere in the Gulf of Lhun - now that is speculation..87.102.20.77 22:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Also made some minor changes to Anglachel which was on a list of things to do. So someone might want to check it.87.102.47.218 13:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Turin didn't kill Brandir in all versions of the story, but that's there are alot of textual variations like that which need to get sorted out. --CBD 21:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Novelty userboxes

Plug:

This user is a servant of the ruthless House of Fëanor.
{{User:Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici/Userboxes/HouseFëanor}}
This user is a servant of the noble House of Fingolfin.
{{User:Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici/Userboxes/HouseFingolfin}}
This user is a servant of the peaceful House of Finarfin.
{{User:Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici/Userboxes/HouseFinarfin}}
This user believes Tolkien's Balrogs don't have wings.
{{User:Uthanc/userboxes/Balrog1}}
This user believes Tolkien's Balrogs have wings.
{{User:Uthanc/userboxes/Balrog2}}

All from Wikipedia:Userboxes/Media/Books. The "Balrog" is just a fire. :-D We could use "blond/not blond Legolas" boxes. ;-) Uthanc 14:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I was checking these out just the other day, I think the wider selection we have the better, "This user believes the Entwives will [never] be found" is another one we should have. Another is having "Lore level" boxes that work much like the Language level infoboxes, but describe how well you are familiar with Tolkien's works on a 1-4 level scale. How about "This user's favorite Tolkien illustrator is $1". I'll try and think of some more. --Hyarion 15:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Forgive me if I don't participate in this discussion other than to say I have a very low opinion of userboxes... :-) Carcharoth 12:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

ref desk questions

I have asked a series of questions at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#literature_-_notability_-_serious_question (re ask) concerning derivative works, and the lack of cited references in this project. So please feel free to respond. My main concerns are the numbers of totally uncited articles, and the way in which the project is derivative of Tolkien's work itself.87.102.21.232 09:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

references

With reference to references I ask - are pages numbers good - I mean across different editions, and publishers.?87.102.88.218 14:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

At the moment page numbers (preferably of popular editions) are all we have, but some of us have just started to develop a solution. One solution, however tedious it may be, would be to convert Tolkien's legendarium into verses, much like the Bible. We would then have a database of the text which would allow fans to search for a quote, and return a verse number they could use to reference. The downside is until verses are listed in published versions, everyone would have to use a website to convert the quote to verse number. Another solution we are thinking about is using an algorithm to count characters/words per page of every single edition and allowing fans to convert quotes to sentence IDs and paragraph IDs. The IDs could then be converted to page number of the fan's preferred edition. But we just started on this a week or two ago, so for now page numbers are much better than nothing :) --Hyarion 16:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I wondered about just using the chapter numbers/titles (which shouldn't change) OR referencing to the index of a book - which in some obscure things seems a good idea but in general is a stupid one.87.102.81.184 16:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I might be useful to expland on the template Template:ME-ref to include subbooks and chapters, for instance the silmarillion has several 'subbooks' in it, which each contains chapters, eg {{ME-ref|book_title=Silmarillion|Book=Valaquenta|Chapter=1|}}
The template Template:ME-ref/TH shows that there can be a problem sometimes.
In many Tolkien discussion forums a standard has grown up of using the chapter names and any other easily identifiable sub-section ('first draft', 'note 16', 'commentary', et cetera). Page numbers are cited less often, usually in addition to the above, and generally only in reference to texts which have not been published in numerous different formats. I still follow that standard here (just putting the chapter and sub-section information in the 'page' parameter of ME-ref) out of habit and I've seen others doing so as well. Not 'precise', but it is usually quite easy to find info with such directions. We have previously discussed the possibility of establishing conversion charts from all known printings of the texts to get from the page number in one version to an approximate page in any other... but that's quite alot of work and would require looking up the charts each time. --CBD 22:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I see no reason why that shouldn't be included in the manual of style Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Standards#References ie to include chapters in the reference.87.102.5.137 09:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I've made changes there to reflect this (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Standards#References 5
It would be a good idea to get the template changed before adding many more references to prevent remedial work later on. I've no idea how to do this but will ask - if anyone else knows how please do it.87.102.5.137 10:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The Hobbit

There may be a problem with copyright violation on the "the hobbit" page - I've mentioned the problem on the talk page - see there for further details.87.102.81.184 17:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

List of Middle-earth weapons

Two questions that are related -

firstly the label 'middle earth' - is this to be taken absolutely literally - eg if we have a list of middle earth mountains would that include mountains in aman

secondly the list of weapons is missing Farmer Giles of Ham's sword - a quite famous sword - can I take the phrase 'middle earth' here to be a used in general for all tolkiens 'fantasy' creations or is the aim to be more specific?

Personally I'm of the view that it would be nice to include Farmer Giles - after all isn't he a character from the Fourth Age (also compare Aelfine of England appearing in the Lost Tales?)87.102.5.137 09:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

This issue comes up alot. Tolkien used the term 'Middle-earth' to refer both to the specific continent where most of the tales took place and to the entire mythology around those tales. It is this latter meaning which we use for 'Wikiproject Middle-earth', the 'Middle-earth portal', 'List of Middle-earth weapons', and dozens of other 'all inclusive' pages. We do not use 'Ea' because that term is far less well known, was not used as a description of the full mythology by Tolkien himself, and would actually not be 'all inclusive' as it would still leave out the Timeless Halls and (in most conceptions) the Void.
As to Farmer Giles of Ham, Tolkien described it as one of the few tales which escaped his tendency to link everything in with his primary mythology. We could say that because Middle-earth is our Earth, and the realm of Farmer Giles is as well, that it can then be included... but at that point we could include Excalibur too.
There is one other option for an 'all inclusive' term which would fit the scenario you describe; 'Tolkien'. As in, 'List of Tolkien Weapons'. We've considered this option in the past as well. The usual concern then is that Tolkien worked on alot of things which really have no connection to his mythology... for instance Excalibur could come in again, through Tolkien's acclaimed version of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. --CBD 12:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Map (europe/middle earth)

See Middle-earth#Correspondence_with_the_geography_of_Earth and Talk:Middle-earth#A_real_world_map - I'm only suggesting this as an interesting footnote, note as the basis of any addition to the text, or as representing any major insight etc. Take a look anyway if you are interested in geographic parallels between middle earth and europe. Enjoy.87.102.5.137 10:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. One thing. Your IP keeps changing, so it is difficult to know who we are talking to. You might want to consider registering an account. See WP:ACCOUNT for the advantages of doing this. Carcharoth 11:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes I know - happens when I switch on/off, Having a bit of trouble finding a username that hasn't already been taken - will try to get round to it...87.102.5.137 11:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

References (again)

Further to a discussion above (and others) I've started asking about getting the {{ME-ref}} template expanded to inlcude various (optional) sub-fields eg chapter etc. The headings I've asked for are

<chaptername>
<chapternumber>
<subbookname> This refers to 'books' contained in a bound edition eg 'Quenta silmarilion' in Silmarilion,
<subbookchapter>
<publisher>
<edition>
<imprint>
<volume> ie Vol 1 in LOTR is the fellowship of the rings

If I've missed any obvious ones etc please add to the list or mention. It's important that the new fields are optional - so that any references that use the current format will not become unuseable.

I've started my quest here Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#Templates and hope to follow it to a conclusion..87.102.5.137 11:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

A better place to ask would be the template talk page. Try Template talk:ME-ref. The creator, designer and maintainer of that template, User:CBDunkerson is fairly active, and should get back to you on this soon. I agree, chapter/section names are a good idea. Carcharoth 11:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I'll respond to your similar posting at Template talk:ME-ref. --CBD 11:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

more madness

Not sure what is going on here but user:Irongargoyle is removing notability tags that user user:Guest9999 is adding. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20070829021431&limit=500&target=IronGargoyle (18th august and before)

Why? 87.102.17.39 19:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Just see above and User talk:Guest9999#Notability tags. Súrendil 19:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I've seen that but why remove the tags - they're there to bring to attention the need for improvement, merging or deletion. Why remove?87.102.17.39 20:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Now User:YLSS has removed the tag I re-added - this is stupid - why are you sweeping genuine things under the carpet.?87.102.17.39 20:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Are all these articles due to be merged?87.102.17.39 20:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes. I'll explain below. Carcharoth 21:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I was going to reference most of the geographic articles to The Atlas of Middle-earth (a very respectable secondary source), but it's a daunting task (even if I didn't use inline citations) and I was trying to figure out some means to speed it up. I stand by my assertion that the tagging was disruptive and done to prove a point. I would have reverted it even if I had no intention to improve the articles (which I do). My reversions need to be taken in the context of Guest9999's overall behavior. IronGargoyle 21:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't comment on their behaviour, a certain interpretation of the guidelines suggests that many were 'clear deletes', however tolkien has got a large fan base which is a factor, the purely textual nature of many (no attempt at references) doesn't help - a well referenced stub looks far better (at least in terms of effort) than a paragraph or two of plain text. If I had no inkling of the topic many of the selected articles I'm sure would shout 'irrelevence' at me.
Please don't use The Atlas of Middle-earth as a reference - a primary j tolkien source, or c tolkien would be much better. Also many will not have that text.83.100.254.70 21:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
You are contradicting yourself. First you want the templates that demand secondary sources, and then you say don't cite the atlas. That doesn't make any sense. IronGargoyle 22:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
JRR Tolkien is a primary source, the books edited by C. Tolkien can be considered secondary sources.. Please use a primary source see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Standards#References if possible - for a variety of reasons including accuracy, as well as accessability to the maximum number of people.83.100.254.70 22:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I will agree with you that C. Tolkien is a secondary source. A lot of participants in various Tolkien AfDs seem oblivious to that fact. I still don't see the problem with the Atlas though. It is a high quality, and I would argue scholarly, source. IronGargoyle 22:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict)JRR Tolkien is a primary source, the books edited by C. Tolkien can be considered secondary sources.. Please use a primary source see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Standards#References if possible - for a variety of reasons including accuracy, as well as accessability to the maximum number of people.83.100.254.70 22:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Erm, the template doesn't ask for secondary sources as such - it asks for third party sources - however it's debateable that a Tolkien compendium or companion book is what is needed - what is really wanted to establish notability is "real-world context" - this could be if the subject came up on a radio program, or was in an article or essay in a newpaper that was not specifically concerned with tolkiens world.
So 'bilbo baggins', is clearly notable since there are numerous references to him in popular culture eg songs, stuff like that.
In general the name 'bilbo baggins' or 'a hobbit' would be known to someone who has not even read the books etc.
However 'the gulf of lune' will not be known to many people outside those who have read the books, - this makes is 'non-notable'83.100.254.70 22:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Re: The Atlas of Middle-earth As far as I know the altas was built around the books of J Tolkien (primary) and C Tolkien (Secondary) - (apologies if I'm wrong) - this makes it a tertiary source, note that in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Standards#References "The Complete Guide to Middle-earth" counts as a tertiary source, this book is of a similar standard to the altas. Maybe there should be a separate discussion to clarify this.83.100.254.70 22:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
(There isn't anything in the atlas that can't be found in the original books - I'm 99.9% certain of this)83.100.254.70 22:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it is always possible to say 'this book is a primary/secondary/tertiary source'... many include passages which fall under more than one of those categories. Anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien is inherently 'primary source' material, regardless of where it is found. There are even some things written by Christopher Tolkien which would qualify as 'primary source' material where they relate to his work on preparing the original editions of LotR - particularly in reference to his maps. Secondary sources are texts where anyone makes commentary or analysis about the above primary source materials and tertiary sources are those which cite and comment on the commentary of others (secondary or tertiary) about the primary sources. Thus, any of the History of Middle-earth volumes would contain all three... primary source texts by J.R.R. Tolkien, secondary source commentary on those texts by Christopher Tolkien, and tertiary source commentary by Christopher Tolkien on comments made by other reviewers.
All that being said... any details of the stories/settings should be referenced directly to primary source texts rather than texts which cite them at one or more removes. On the other hand, any 'analysis' and 'commentary' about the stories should be referenced to secondary or tertiary sources rather than stated as our own views (which would be 'original research').
Thus, 'The Atlas of Middle-earth' can (and should) certainly be used as a secondary source for citations about Fonstadt's analysis of possible demographics, troop sizes, movement of forces, et cetera... but for details about the story and geography that are actually in the primary sources we should cite those directly rather than citing Fonstadt's interpretation of them. --CBD 14:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

notability

There's really no need to attempt to save articles from deletion - having numerous articles of limited notability really does the project no favours.87.102.17.39 20:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

If you think something should be merged, please put it in Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged. If you want to carry out some mergers, please see the guidelines here. Apologies for those guidelines being hidden away on a talk page archive. Also have a look at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Middle-earth#Models_for_merges and to look through previous deletion discussions, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/AfD. Have you managed to decide on a name for your account yet? :-) Carcharoth 21:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I must say I encourage the 'merge to discourage recreation' comments I saw taking a brief look at AfD, that seems to be the way to go. And in this case having a list seems to work better.
I looks like that Category:Unassessed_Tolkien_articles might as well be mixed into Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged as well, the most notable I saw was misty mountains and there a train of thought that even this isn't notable.. Though it probably just is - via numerous prog rock songs etc..
Still no user name I'm afraid.83.100.254.70 21:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
By the way do we have a manual of style/guidlines for info from the films, or other media - it seems clear that it should have a separate section for 'in other meida' in article.83.100.254.70 22:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
To answer your last question, the subsection would be called "Adaptation." In character articles, they are under the heading, "Appearances." In other subjects (i.e. place, books), Adaptation(s) becomes its own section. —Mirlen 20:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

tertiary sources

See discussion two above about The Atlas of Middle-earth, I'm adding this to the list of tertiary sources not to be referenced (if possible) in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Standards#References just to make it clear.

I realise that both The Complete Guide to Middle-earth and The Atlas of Middle-earth are good resources, and most likely totally error free, but a primary source is always prefereable, and in most cases more accessable to more people. Please comment below if there is a problem.83.100.254.70 22:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

While both are very good overall there are known errors and unproven assumptions in each. Fonstadt in particular had to perform some guesswork on various mapping issues. Thus, primary sources are always better for information found therein. However, we do also need to cite secondary and tertiary sources... for conclusions they draw based on primary sources. --CBD 14:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Per CBD. Speaking of sources, I was wondering if we could add Vinyar Tengwar on to the entries of Template:ME-ref... Some issues of the journal contains unpublished material written by JRRT, so I think it'd be considered primary material in a secondary/tertiary source. —Mirlen 20:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I added this to the list, though since it is a journal with numerous issues and authors rather than a book with one or two fixed authors like the rest of the entries on the list I had to add some additional parameters to specify the journal and article. Information on these parameters is listed on the template page... basically I just copied the standard parameter names to be passed to Template:Cite journal. --CBD 21:23, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! But I didn't get all the parameters to show up when I filled out the form to test it out: {{ME-ref|VT|author=J. R. R. Tolkien|title=From The Shibboleth of Fëanor|volume=41|year=2000|month=July}}. —Mirlen 22:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I forgot to pass the new parameters on to the format template. Should work now: Hostetter, Carl F., ed. (2000). "From The Shibboleth of Fëanor". Vinyar Tengwar. 41. The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship. ISSN 1054-7606. --CBD 23:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

external links

See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Standards#External_links Number 2.

Specifically the sites listed may not now represent particularily useful resources - they could be linked from say the main middle earth page as tolkien specific wikis, but in general I don't see them containing any significant reliable further information to what is here. ie info may now be out of date - anyone know which sites actually are good.

Secondly the part about " On controversial articles that contain multiple POV..." - should we even have POV in articles? are there any cases where POV is allowed (please don't mention balrogs wings)..?83.100.254.70 22:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia itself must retain a neutral point of view. However, one aspect of doing so is describing (with citations) non-neutral points of view that exist. We can't very well have an accurate and neutral article on abortion without citing the opposition to it... and we can't just cite the opposition because that wouldn't be balanced. So yes, there are absolutely cases where POV is allowed... and even required. As cited opinions... rather than as a position taken by the Wikipedia text itself.
The above also ties into when external sites should be linked... when they are the source for a particular POV or 'secondary source' analysis. Other sites can also be linked if they contain more information than is recorded here, though as you note, that should be rare. --CBD 20:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

merge

Can I suggest a merge - "battle of pelennor fields" into "pelennor fields"87.102.17.14 10:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think Battle of Pelennor Fields stands fine by itself, however Pelennor Fields does need some expanding. I think there is quite a bit of information out there that pertains to the location and not the battle which can be added to the Pelennor Fields article. Something like this is most likely best brought up on the article's talk pages. --Hyarion 15:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:TolkienGateway

Just noticed Template:TolkienGateway and not sure whether it is useful. -- Bryan (talk|commons) 18:25, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I just noticed that as well, that's a nice surprise :). I had actually been thinking of making one for at least EoA and maybe TG. While I do think the template may be a good idea, the amount of articles using it seems to be rather overwhelming and in some of the circumstances the article on TG is not much better than Wikipedia's article, so we should at least scale back on the usage. It also may be a bit overboard to use the infobox for the link, a regular external link template might be sufficient, if a template is even necessary. --Hyarion 19:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if the template is really needed, but there is need to be, I think an external link template would be best. Those kind of templates are only made for Wikipedia's sister sites, isn't it? —Mirlen 21:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Tolkien Gateway should be treated like other external sites, not like a sister project. Having said that, it is, in my opinion, one of the best Tolkien wikis out there. EoA and Thain's Book are non wikis, as far as I know, though corrections can be submitted to EoA (Encyclopedia of Arda). If we were to properly co-ordinate efforts with any other wiki, I think Tolkien Gateway would be a good one. Such co-ordination would probably involve drawing a bar of notability below which people are directed to the Tolkien Gateway. The Tolkien Gateway articles on topics that are notable enough for Wikipedia entries can take a different style and approach to the way such topics should be treated on Wikipedia. I've just been going through Category:Middle-earth games, and I'm not sure how many of those have entries on Tolkien Gateway. I have been reading TG's entry for [3], and it is impressive, but in a style totally different from Wikipedia. Carcharoth 11:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Elf (Middle-earth) has had a Peer Review

See Wikipedia:Peer review/Elf (Middle-earth)/archive1. The article is being actively edited at the moment. In particular, a large chunk of probable original research got removed. Possibly bits can be gleaned from that and properly sourced. There is also a problem with the refs that I can't fix though. Carcharoth 21:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Were do I put comments - at Wikipedia:Peer review/Elf (Middle-earth)/archive1 ? is that the right place?87.102.89.127 14:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
section "second and third age" is a bit speculative - terms such as "heavily imply" "it would seem" "it seems unlikely" suggests a bit of original research - I think it would be best to try to minimise the analysis.
Also contains estimates at populations " and the impression is that the population of Silvan Elves that constituted the majority of Lórien's people numbered at least in the thousands" - personally I don't think this is encyclopaedic - it's analysis - and needs to be cited or put somewhere else.
Also do we really need a "do elves have beards" discussion?
Plus analysis comparing elves sexuality to Tolkien's catholicism - is this necessary
The article gets better again at section "naming conventions" - it's just the bit inbetween.87.102.89.127 14:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I liked the rest by the way - and even the stuff I thought unencylcopedic was nicely written..87.102.89.127 14:53, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Those were my comments by the way - I've also edited a bit see the main page and talk pages...87.102.89.127 15:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

While I don't exactly disagree with the assessment at the removal of its contents due to OR, I do believe that some of the info there could be referenced to reliable sources and rewritten properly as so not to come across as OR. —Mirlen 00:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Elves

This debate has probably taken place before but are the articles like Amroth (Middle-earth) prosperous? The character appears only on some pages of the book and everything that can be told about him is told in a couple of sentences. I propose merging of basically all articles about elves into List of Elves in Tolkien's mythology. No need for separate articles, really. --Tone 14:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't suggest merging all of the Elves into a single article, as some of them such as Legolas, Galadriel, etc. definitely deserve their own article. While I have nothing against dedicating an entire article to Amroth as I've always thought lists make it slightly more congested and difficult to read, I suppose some of the minor Elves could be merged into List of Middle-earth Elves as this seems to be the standard for rivers, weapons, orcs, etc. If you look at the List of Middle-earth Elves however, the bulk of the entries seem lengthy enough to deserve their own article. Maybe we should come up with a minimum length for articles, if we can't write more than that limit, then we can merge it with the list. --Hyarion 18:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course, those elves that appear more often like Legolas and Galadriel surely deserve their own articles. But most of the articles are just the brief summear of what the book says and are therefore excessive to the book synopsis. See Denethor (First Age), Indis or Daeron. For those that have a family tree, one is enough for all, more or less. Some of the items on the list are even not Elves, see Gondolin. And I don't agree that a list, if well written, are more difficult to read, the very idea of making a list is that it cuts what is not needed for an encyc. --Tone 19:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
It helps if a list is focused though, and organised. Alphabetical listings should really be done in categories by categorising redirects. A list of all minor elves would be too unfocused. Possibly three or four lists are needed. Carcharoth 10:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree with Carcharoth; list intended for mergers should ideally be readable as a common article. This is indeed quite a diffucult question, encompassing a lot of Middle-earth topics, and I intended to raise it myself when the present page is archived next time... Súrendil 14:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Tolkien's universe contains on the order of a thousand Elves and while a bunch of them are significant and deserve their own articles, most should be covered in a list format. This is really a readability issue. --Jack Merridew 07:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about other minor elf articles, but in the case of Amroth and Nimrodel I think we should merge those two articles together (and any others applicable to their story, if there are any) and title the article something like "The Tale of Amroth and Nimrodel" or simply "Amroth and Nimrodel." --Merond e 10:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you look at the talk page I said we would merge those who need merging someday. Uthanc 13:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Perrot's folly and all that

Hi. Not my normal haunt, but this seems like the best place to ask a question. I was peer reviewing Architecture of Birmingham yesterday and found this in the article: "In 1758, John Perrott built the 29m metre high Perrott's Folly in Ladywood. The tower became the inspiration for one of the towers in J. R. R. Tolkien's novel, The Lord of the Rings. It is believed the tower at Edgbaston Waterworks was the inspiration for the other tower." The reference for this is is here. A similar claim is made in the articles for the Folly and the Waterworks. Another reference is given here.

Now, as it stands, this looks a bit fishy to me. The actual references refer to the towers inspiring 'The Two Towers' itself. This seems to rely on the idea the 'The Two Towers' was conceived and written as a book about Two Towers. To the best of my knowledge, Tolkien wrote LoTR as a single novel, structured into 6 books. The division into three volumes came about when the publishers, nervous about such a novel novel (apologies for the pun) and also anxious about costs, decided to publish in three separate volumes, two books to each volume. It seems unlikely that the two books which make up TTT were deliberately conceived to be about 'two towers' - and they were certainly not named such when written.

JRR Tolkien's Letters makes it pretty clear that Tolkien (as usual!) went through several iterations of names for the three volumes, well after they were written. He eventually settled on 'The Two Towers' for the second one, but remained unclear as to which two towers were meant. He claimed several times that they were Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol, although other indications are that Minas Morgul was the second tower. (For a start, the Tower of Cirith Ungol isn't in 'The Two Towers', it appears at the start of 'The Return of the King'.) He also recognised the liklihood that readers would see them as Barad Dur and Minas Tirith. This degree of uncertainty also makes it seem extremely unlikely that he was inspired by two real world towers to either write a book called 'The Two Towers' or call a book already written by that name.

I've skimmed Letters and found no reference to Perrot's Folly or the Waterworks. I've also looked at the indices of Tom Shippey's two books, the biography and 'Tolkien and the Great War' and found nothing, other than that for Tolkien towers were a frequently used symbol. I can hardly claim to have gone through all the sources in detail, though. Has anyone here ever seen a good solid source that suggests that Tolkien really was inspired in some way by these two towers, or is it, as I suspect, wishful thinking on the part of Birmingham city council, hoping to feed the currently profitable Tolkien industry? Grateful for any light that can be shed. Cheers. 4u1e 10:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It definitely wasn't an inspiration for the book title. The issue of which towers were meant by that title is complex, but nothing to do with any real towers in Birmingham. The Birmingham connection is usually best stated as a vague "he grew up there and was familiar with the towers and they may have inspired him but there is no definite connection despite the links made by the Birmingham tourist industry and some fans and critics". There should be more in "The Roots of Tolkien's Middle-earth ". I'll try and look that up later. Carcharoth 12:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
For now, I've tidied up the two articles you mentioned, making the link more for towers in general in his writings, rather than the specific book and title. Carcharoth 12:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Uthanc has removed the towers ref from Architecture of Birmingham and replaced it with the much more solid Sarehole Mill. Cheers. 4u1e 09:39, 12 October 2007 (UTC)±
Sarehole Mill was already there, just mentioned Ted Sandyman. Uthanc 13:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Was the Tolkien link to the Mill mentioned? No worries either way. 4u1e 15:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion in progress

Discussion taking place at Talk:Tolkien's legendarium, in case anyone is interested. Carcharoth 13:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

mmh interesting - is this about the use of the word 'legendarium' - it is (in my view) at least slightly 'insular' and perhaps a little 'vain' .. and whether or not it is the absolutely correct usage (for an encyclopaedia) is debateable.. yes the term has been used in this context - but by the author/closely related sources.. Does the term 'legendarium' give the wrong impression?
The question in my mind seems to be "what are the alternatives" - has anyone got any ? "Mythos" seems a possibility - but is it better. We need something shorter (and better than) than "Tolkien's fantastical created world".
Plus "legend" implies that it took place in human history..(some of us believe that!) - was the issue resolved?87.102.7.57 13:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Point 2. Wouldn't Mythopoeia be a better (encylopaedic) description..?87.102.7.57 13:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I think both terms should be discussed. As you can see from following the above link, the Tolkien and Mythopoeia connection is already well discussed. It probably should be made clear that in the context of Tolkien's works, legendarium is practically synonymous with mythopoeia. But then you have to consider what the difference is between a myth and a legend. Carcharoth 15:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
We have a see also pointing from Tolkien's legendarium to Mythopoeia (genre), which should be enough for now, though there may be better ways to present this information. Carcharoth 15:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
It's possible to distinguish between Tolkien's legendarium (note the use of the possessive case), and the 'middle earth' mythopoeia - however it's noted in various C.Tolkien sources that Tolkien did intend the Silmarillion to be a mythology for the English "These stories were to comprise an English mythology, intended to explain the origins of English history and culture" from Silmarillion. I would find 'myth' preferable to 'legend' - legends typically have some historical foundation. That said I don't imagine changing from 'legendarium' to 'mythopoeia' would bring any real benefits, except being minutely more correct.87.102.7.57 16:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a case where you need to use several different words to describe something that doesn't admit to an easy description. The ones above, and corpus as well. The closest article we have there is text corpus, but that is a specialised linguistic term. The meaning I mean is given as part of the Wiktionary definition: "a collection of writings, often on a specific topic, of a specific genre, from a specific demographic, a single author etc." (here, the single author bit). Carcharoth 16:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
A web search suggests that both "tolkien's legendarium" (trying to exclude references to the book itself) and "Tolkien mythos" are about equally used - with 'mythos' being more popular with sites less directly related to fans of the genre.. That's from my brief analysis - it isn't reliable in itself.87.102.7.57 20:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

If it's any consolation to you hard workers - the article itself Tolkien's legendarium makes for a splendid read .. and is (in my opinion) entirely encyclopaedic -well done87.102.7.57 20:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Special project templates

From my talkpage:

're "ME-fact"

I can't see any benefits of changing {{fact}} to {{ME-fact}}, all it seems to do is hide the fact the article has unsourced statements on it from the rest of Wikipedia. It could be my ignorance, but I know if no other wiki-projects which do this. It seems incredibly insular and ultimately self-defeating, surely the more editors out there who might look for sources, the better chance of finding them? --Davémon 12:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, it helps editors interested in the material to find articles... but you have a point. Uthanc 14:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this edit fixes the problem. The articles with ME-fact now appear in both categories. So those who want just ME stuff can look through Category:Tolkien articles with unsourced statements (48 pages), while those wanting the general category can look at the undated area of Category:Articles with unsourced statements (now increased to around 550). I also considered putting the ME category as a subcategory of the general category, but that might have been too much like "hiding it". Though the editors here are likely to be able to address ME-fact concerns (and please, give us time to do so - prod me enough and I do provide references eventually), Davemon is right that keeping the "citation requests" as open as possible will bring in others who will find references. Though hopefully not of the common garden variety that are sourced to a random webpage that parrots the real sources. Carcharoth 16:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Carcharoth pretty much says it all. —Mirlen 04:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
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