The mid-January to mid-February roll call was stolen by our friendly pet balrog. Apologies for the delay in updating the project talk page. Please sign your name below. Comments are optional.
Just updated the talk page and tried to archive it. Could someone check I didn't brush current discussions under the carpet? Also, I left the two sign-ups above in place, as they are the recent February sign-ups. Carcharoth12:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
First sign-in. i recently added info on the talk page to merge gothmog and gothmog(third age) pages. hope i can contribute. Zroberts05:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
First sign in as well. 22:13, Soarhead77 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Result - kept with extensive changes - the family tree was moved to Tolkien family and the template turned into a navbox to showcase the Wikipedia articles on Tolkien family members. Carcharoth01:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems the general consensus is to use "Tolkien's [Middle-earth] legendarium". I suggest making "legendarium" link to Tolkien's legendarium. Just not "Middle-earth universe" or "fictional universe of Middle-earth". Uthanc18:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Lots of stuff in archives
Snipped lots of stuff here that should really be resurrected from the archives and discussion restarted/concluded. Carcharoth12:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
In particular:
I wonder if folks could have a look at what was done here: [1]? I reverted, since it seemed unsuitable to me for several reasons even aside from the formatting problems. The editor who wrote that section understandably disagrees. If anyone else has an opinion, I would welcome your comments at Talk:War of Wrath. TCC(talk)(contribs)21:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
So I was looking over the old discussion here. What kept me from going further was the confusion inherent in trying to divide the geography articles into "Beleriand", "Arnor", "Aman", etc. I personally don't know the legendarium well enough to determine where exactly a location fits, and some locales will undoubtedly belong to more than one. What if we just combined all the location articles into one? The minor locations would get a few lines (whatever is in their current stubs), and the major locations might get one or two lines and "See main article X". This way we can combine all the tiny geography stubs into one article without worrying about putting them in the correct sub-area. It could be named List of locations in Tolkien's legendarium or Geography of Tolkien's legendarium (other options welcomed). What say you? --Fang Ailitalk16:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd prefer just one big list also. Someone might be looking for info on 'Avathar', but not know that it was in Aman. I'd be fine calling it 'Middle-earth places', as I consider 'Middle-earth' as much a term for the legendarium as a whole as for the continent of Endor. I don't like the 'Tolkien's legendarium' wording because 'Farmer Giles of Ham', 'Mr. Bliss', and the like could certainly be described as portions of his legendarium. How about, 'Places in the Middle-earth legendarium'. Having large articles on Middle-earth, Arda, Aman, et cetera with links to related areas still makes sense... and a 'Geography' article which explained where the major regions were located in relation to each other might be good also. --CBD19:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Two-to-one does not consensus make, but is there some way we can come to an agreement? This is just going to sit around again, and meanwhile we have some hundreds of location stubs that should be put somewhere. Carcharoth? Other project members? --Fang Ailitalk17:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I think we should create one large inclusive list (alphabetical) of all places/locations at List of Locations in the Middle-earth legendarium, despite the fact that Middle-earth is actually in Arda (as Middle-earth has been adopted by Christopher Tolkien to refer to his father's legendarium). The stubs (using ones in Beleriand as an example) that need collected into larger articles could be grouped on Geography of Beleriand, where their links on the list page would direct. Or they could simply be added to a new section titled "Minor Places in Beleriand" in the Beleriand article. >^..^< Nimfaelin04:34, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm just a regular lurker here and don't know if I've ever posted in this WikiProject, but my two bits worth are that maybe the legendary geography should be treated like any other geography in Wikipedia, i.e. by category based on location; Middle-Earth is part of Arda (as are the Undying Realms, yes?), Eriador is part or Middle-Earth, Arnor is in Eriador, and so on; Tolkien's generally quite clear in his regional divisions and the geography would seem to be dealt with best as a hierarchy; a straightforward list is just an alphabetization; but it would help tk onw that Gondolin is/was in Beleriand rather than Eriador, so I'd say Category:Places in Beleriand and Category:Places in Eriador, Category:Places in Gondor, Category:Places in Mordor, etc should be the model, if not the title, for how to look at it; it will also help sort out the various Erressea/Valinor/Undying Lands geography IMO, i.e. what was where.Skookum107:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. I agree that having geographical lists and/or categories would be very helpful, but the point of merging is to avoid short, stubby articles (Places in Mordor for instance - you can't say that much about them), so I think the best thing to do is have several lists, with redirects pointing the names at the right place in the lists, and then you can create geographically sorted lists and tables galore, with the links taking the reader to the entry for that place in the list(s). The key is to avoid permanent stubs like Taur-im-Duinath - which is a classic case of a candidate for merging, and replace them with redirects like Amon Ereb. Carcharoth17:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I think a good starting point would be to tag Tolkien-related articles for merging. Once we can see what needs merging, a clearer picture might emerge. From the assessment table at top right of this page, I see that there are over 700 unassessed pages. There will be some assessed stub pages that should really be merged, and some stubs that need expanding. How about we create a "merge" template that we stick on the bottom of candidate articles, with a parameter so we can label it with a subject area for merging to? This would also add the articles to a category. This would work in a similar way to the {{tolkien-stub}} template we already have, that adds articles to Category:Tolkien stubs. User:CBDunkerson knows a bit about templates, so I'm going to drop him a note. Carcharoth01:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
If you don't mind a hand
(from this old fan! <g>)
CBD gets busy sometimes, and I wanted some diversion whilst watching a DVD movie with my teens, so...
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabartus/tmp2#Tolkien_Merge_Template. Just take that section, cut it into the temlate redlink (accepting or changing the template name as you choose). If you want a mergeto/mergefrom template instead, I can do those too, but this one template will do the task.
Cool! Thanks. I might tweak the names to be "Middle-earth" instead of Tolkien, but this is just what I think we are looking for. Thanks so much. Carcharoth10:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Frank. This looks great. I copied this logic over to Template:Merge JRRT and switched the wording to 'Middle-earth' as Carcharoth suggested. I think we could use {{merge JRRT|Gondolin|Places in Beleriand}} and the like... that would link the article Gondolin to the page Talk:Places in Beleriand. Even if the latter page did not actually exist we could still get a 'What links here' for it to see all the pages which had been suggested for merging there. --CBD11:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
PS. I picked Amon Hen almost at random, but we know enough about this place that it might need its own article. But I'm really just trying to pin down how to use the template properly. Carcharoth12:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Another thing. I'm not sure about the big template at the top of these stubby articles. I was hoping to have a system with just the category tag, and a small, unobtrusive link at the bottom, like the "stub" template. I'd also like to identify what needs merging, and then look at the overall picture, before people start merging. Otherwise things could get out of hand - merging can be quite tricky to get right. I'm worried that people might come along and start merging the wrong way, if you know what I mean? If we add the merge category tag by hand, that might work as well, but I think a better way to proceed is to get the template problems ironed out, and then (off-wiki) I'll generate a large list of candidate merge articles and destination articles, and offer them up for discussion. Carcharoth12:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I assume you used, {{merge JRRT|{{subst:DATE}}|Minor places in Middle-earth}}. That creates the message suggesting a merge to 'Minor places in Middle-earth', but since there is no subsequent parameter the 'Discuss' page defaults to the talk of the current page... 'Amon Hen' in this case. If you wanted the 'Discuss' to point to Talk:Minor places in Middle-earth you would use, {{merge JRRT|{{subst:DATE}}|Minor places in Middle-earth|Minor places in Middle-earth}} instead. We could change that so the 'merge to' page is also the default 'discuss' page. The appearance/position of the notice can also be adjusted. --CBD13:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
That is what I used, yes. Should I have put the date in manually, or something? I actually did want the talk page default to point at Talk:Amon Hen, but that is something that can be tweaked later. The important thing is that the merge tag works, though I'm still not happy with the size and obtrusiveness of the tag, even when moved down. I've been going through Category:Stub-Class Tolkien articles and picking out merge candidates by hand and putting them in Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged. A mixed bag to be sure, but I'm finding it easier working this way. Once I've done that, a few of the groupings should become clearer, though the categories do most of this grouping already. Ultimately, I want to end up with several lists of articles to merge to a candidate list article, and use that as a basis to work from. The critical thing from my point of view is leaving the category in place on the redirect left behind after a merge, so people can still find articles by browsing the category system. Carcharoth14:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I've never been a fan of the banner tags either... but thought would be best for a first go to just duplicate the current tagging system. Template:Merge JRRT(edittalklinkshistory)
I just made it into a 'inline' style with a nearly invisible graphic image; this better? Or would you still prefer it to have a border and box around the message. (This has no change to how to use it... Display changes only.) // FrankB19:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
That looks a lot better. To be honest though, I should have thought this through before yelling for help, as I personally prefer using just a hand-added category tag, and nothing else, and only then manually sorting the merge candidates into groups to merge to a list article. The extra effort in adding this tag to each page will take more time than tagging the article, manually sorting, and then doing the merges. I think. This tag is after all meant to be temporary. Shouldn't take more than a month or two to get the stubby articles merged into the lists... Carcharoth00:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
There is no reason we can't set up a parameter to add your sortkey(s) to the template's arguements. Currently, the page would sort only by PAGENAME, but easy enough to insert [Cat... |{{{3|}}}{{PAGENAME}}]] instead, or use any other parameter, etc. That seems a bad reason to invoke the trump card WP:IAR. Do keep in mind, the template is at least keeping lip-service to guidelines; just adding a category, hides the intent from parties who might have a dissent, by-passing due process since it spurns comments by others. // FrankB17:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Templates II
It's not the category sorting tags I'm worried about. It was more not really knowing what the lists would be until seeing the overall picture. I'm happily chugging away at Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged which I've populated by hand. Now I'm going to come up with a list of possible lists. If you think notifying anyone watching the articles is a necessary step, then we could set up some automated way to tag all the articles using the templates. I'd prefer to go ahead with the merges after discussion here - the merges will show up on the watchlists as well, and can be reverted if there are objections. Sorry if that means not using the template we've been discussing. Though there are other template questions I have if you would still be happy to help with those? It's to do with the assessment parameters in the {{ME-project}} template and whether the templates {{ME-category}}, {{ME-disambiguation}} and {{ME-template}} can be integrated in any way? What I'd ultimately like is for them to end up being registered at this log, not as quality levels, but just any deletions or renamings being noted in the log. Also, there are plenty of templates in Category:WikiProject Middle-earth templates - any suggestions for improvements would be very welcome. Below, you mention redirects - would you have any other tips on ways to tidy up Category:Middle-earth redirects? Templates marking spelling redirects, redirects to lists, redirects to synonyms, and so on, would be good. There are general redirect templates for that sort of thing, but how easy is it to apply it to a specific project? Carcharoth22:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about the delay answering. RL is cutting my Wikitime for a while. I've got maybe 20-25% of the time I had for wiki's a compared to a month ago. RL pays the bills, and wiki's don't add to my retirement funds! <g> A) If the merge template isn't beneficial, I'll be glad to db-author it. Just say the word. B) Adding some parameters and logic so that 'ME-project' can duplicate the effects of the others you list is feasible, but has a couple of drawbacks. Chiefly, whatlinkshere effectively categorizes your current types of pages by use, and combining such takes away that as a tool. C) But aside from that, all can be rolled into one using some parserfunctions and parameters to set some modes up. D) One Benefit there would be it's what links here list would then give you all pages in the project, but loose the distinction as to type of page tagged. E) Now to confuse you, one can keep both sets of benefits... use the extant 'other template names' as a front-end template calling the new combined template preserving the same arguments and parameterization currently used. See for example, Template:Ltsmta, Template:Ltscms, Template:Ltswpd, Template:Ltsany or Template:Wpd-catlist-up, Template:Cms-catlist-up, Template:catlst where in each case, the last listed does all the work, but is 'programmed' by the 'front-end' template. Since the working template is called by all the others, it's whatlinkshere is inclusive of all pages tagged, whereas the whatlinkshere pages for the others still break things out by tagging type. That assumes there are some benefits to such breakouts, and that those are better than a category listing in some way, or else it'd be much easier to just add the same category to all the templates. I'd want you to specify how that should all work together, and what should be displayed under what circumstances, but it is all feasible.
My advice after taking a look at these would be to
A) change {{ME-template}} as a direct tag like {{Commonstmp}} that is applied directly on the template, vice the template talk page, including small style and lack of verbosity. This will have the immediate benefit of having the associated category be a page of links directly to the templates allowing them to be seen and compared, and at the same time, eliminate (at least the categorization tagging and where possible the entirety of) their talk pages unless they have significant discussion content. Set it up so if a trigger parameter (e.g. Catthispage=) is defined, then the category asserts, which would require no immediate edits to those pages (all seem to be talks) and one can go back later and delete the unneeded one's at one's leisure using AWB (or ignore the issue... the deletion of such pages is not a high priority, but would in time return the memory used by their history and old versions to the Foundation--it is a common misconception that deleted pages are kept forever, this is not so.) Such scavanging of harddisk resources is delayed a long time, and it seems that way, but a deleted page does eventually go away forever per Brion Viber. An alternative way to the same end would be to write and just tag with a new {{MEprojtmp}} template on the templates, and use the current template to cull those that are useless talks from the useful, deleting accordingly, and either keep {ME-template} solely for those talks you need to keep, or delete it too, depending upon what is left.
B) Do the similar move with the disambig template, or at least fix it up so if on main space pages, it does nothing but assert a ME-Project category name crafted carefully to be short and unobtrusive as possible. ( 'MEP-disambig' or the like, where 'MEP' is Middle Earth Project. The current category name is probably OK on generic disambig pages such as 'Ori' were it to have a quiet mode, so it doesn't display, but just asserts the autocategory) I'd add a redirect page only functionality though. You can see most anything in Redirect templates, but take special note of {{R to list entry}} and {{R to section}} for redirects type pages where long articles are actually unlikely. (Seeing Ori and it's relation to List of Middle-earth Dwarves triggered this thought. The project, especially with the focus on merging is likely to need this functionality a great deal. There is no reason one can't add a parameter to trigger an extra category (ME's) onto those two triggered by a parameter, but that's invasive of main function. OTOH, (my recommendation is) one can have a {{R to ME page}}, which with a parameter or two, calls either of the main templates (integration with normal practices) and adds your own special category (or categories) page tagging at need--sub-cats of your current disambig category, allowing segregation and evaluation by page type. Bottom line, you don't need a banner tag on a talk page anywhere if that's all the page is holding, and I'd clean all those up when and where direct tagging can be used to benefit from direct linking navigation. I know 'display tagging' on main space pages is discouraged, but I don't believe that applies to categorization, and I see no benefit in listing talk pages which contain nothing but project tagging. It obscures such real talks are important.
C) {{ME-project}} can use some evolution and built in logic to sense the namespace it is associated with on a particular tagging, and alter it's message accordingly. I started to place it on the template category page, and it certainly isn't flexible enough at the moment to be used to identify all your pages (with an appropriate message) but it can be evolved to do so fairly easily, which is maybe what you were asking for. Basically, such templates can be made to have broader applicability at the expense of some routine parser functions quieting or allowing certain features by either namespace auto-detection and branching, or by using an overt parameter. (e.g. see my recent edits to Template:Template category(edittalklinkshistory), which are precisely those types of 'branching' feature and message edits.)
D) This deep into the age of a project however means such changes need additional care need be given in thinking through side effects, goals and messages. You don't want to be creating unnecessary extra work... especially the need to reedit a page more than once to implement a strategically advisable change. But that's true of good designs always. The rest is just common sense and having an eye on efficiency. If you want to define some messages by page type for {{ME-project}}, and overall general appearance, that's probably the best way to procede. Without such definition, I'd be shooting blind, and guessing.
E) Surveying your needs further in comparison to my (and CDB's) likely time availability, you might consider advertising for a template coder that is young and energetic with ample time. Leave a note on WT:TFD and WP:TEM and see if you can attract a Tolkein fan with less RL demands. Also, on WP signpost maybe, or even WP:AN... such pages are watched by a fair number of younger editors that can contribute a lot more time sooner and faster--all they need is definition of what is needed, and certain many such are better coders than I. If you can put up with an unsteady pace and slower results, I'm glad to help... but might be better used as a sounding board, as I simply don't have time to give ME a lot of time at the expense of other commitments on and off our wikis. WP:TSP is and has to be my big wiki effort for the near future, and I'm definitely the central editor on another large involved book series (1632 series) that I've been neglecting badly. I'm at least five full books tardy on that, save for stubs, so responsible evaluation suggests I'm not the best man for your needs for an involved template coder in the project. I'm willing to help with the odd contribution, but a lot of effort on my part would in fact be irresponsible. I can think of a couple of people in WP:Novels that might be an asset to tap for a particular modification but would suggest you need someone interested in templates within the project as the best solution. So spam a message in likely places (Add VPT!) and go from there. In the meantime, I'll be glad to address questions and/or make a specific alteration, but reediting, retagging, etc. long lists of pages is something I need to do on too many other projects to give that sort of help to you now. Best regards // FrankB17:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Wow. Thanks for all that. It is certainly enough to be going on with. Unfortunately I'm a bit short of time (at least at the moment). It would be great to set up something like what you are describing, but I'm not sure yet exactly what is needed. Will need to think about it (and discuss here) a bit more. Thanks again for the detailed thoughts. Carcharoth17:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Middle-Earth: Arda or Ennorë?
Looking around at random, I came across the article on Isilmo, the younger brother of Tar-Telperiën of Númenor, and found him to be in the category for "Middle-earth Dúnedain", along with a lot of other Númenóreans. I know I'm not a wikiproject member (although I'm quite familiar with the Matter of Arda on all sides), but I'm curious: does these Númenóreans really belong in a Middle-Earth category, when (if I remember rightly) the Akallabêth states that Númenor was not part of Middle-Earth, or Ennorë? Or is "Middle-Earth" simply used for Arda? Nyttend15:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Many people, starting with Tolkien himself, have used 'Middle-earth' as a name for the entire 'legendarium' in addition to the land mass where most of the stories took place. That said, simply using 'Dúnedain' as the category name would be clearer. --CBD19:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
You could also have a "Numenorean Dunedain" category, though I think we already have an Edain category. Similarly for First Age/Second Age/Third Age Edain categories. No category system will ever slice things up neatly without any overlap, and in any case, some of these articles are stubs that will eventually end up in a list, with the current locations redirecting to the relevant section of that list. Carcharoth16:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I would see simply "Dúnedain" as a better category name, since the only non-royally-connected people I can think of in Númenor would be the widow, the bad boy, and the friend of Aldarion, all from Emerië. I suppose that it would also cause overlap with people such as Aldarion (and those who survived the Akallabêth!), which simply "Dúnedain" would not do. Nyttend13:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Style of introductions
Can people here have a look at the introduction to War of Wrath? The style used there (developed by me and User:Tttom) is different to the standard "in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium" lead sentence that is the current standard style. Instead, that article spends a few sentences and footnotes going into external details about the history of the text and which published works the article relates to. Nothing extensives, but setting the scene so to speak. The reader is only then launched into the "in-universe" perspective. In my opinion, this approach helps to avoid the sometimes jarring in-universe emphasis of most of the Middle-earth related articles. I can't reproduce the footnotes exactly here, but have tried to do so below.
"In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the War of Wrath, or the Great Battle was the final war against Morgoth at the end of the First Age. It appears in the earliest versions of his legendarium [1] and also appears in the The Silmarillion [2]. The War of Wrath is mentioned in passing in The Lord of the Rings at the Council of Elrond, and the Tale of the Years[3]. The details about the war are fragmentary, and are scattered through the various versions of the tales."
[1] written in the 1920's -1930's and published posthumously in the History of Middle-earth series 1983-1996
[2] (1977), the work published posthumously by the author's son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien
[3] Lord of the Rings, 1954-5: I, p.256; III, p.363 Appendix B
I like it, but think we would need some sort of standards on which references to include... if we cited all relevant texts the lead of Elf (Middle-earth) would be very long. I might suggest something like 'earliest' reference, 'major works' (i.e. Hobbit/LotR/Silm), and 'latest' reference. The 'latest' reference might only be needed for things which 'dropped out' of the mythology or for which there is some debate about whether Tolkien intended to drop the idea. --CBD11:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Good points. I like the 'earliest, major, latest' framework. Do you want to give it a go for Elf (Middle-earth), and see how that works out? Good luck in figuring out where Tolkien first wrote about elves... (maybe Elf is a bad example?). Carcharoth13:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I've been going through the 493 assessed articles (see table at top right) and identifying candidates for merging. I've put them in Category:Wikiproject Middle-earth to be merged. I've still got the 274 "Start" class articles to check. Then after that there is the large group of 722 unassessed articles. Most of the stubby articles will be there (though obviously not all stubs are merger candidates - some stubs just need expanding and finishing). I've tended to leave real-world stuff to have their own articles, and it is really just minor stuff inside Middle-earth that I'm pulling out as candidates for merging. Does anyone want to help out? Any redirects in the unassessed articles should be placed in Category:Middle-earth redirects. If anyone wants to help with the actual merging, which will take longer, please say so as well, as there are several important points about how to do a merger correctly, which I'd like to discuss and sort out. Carcharoth10:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and if anyone disagrees with any of the articles being merger candidates, please say so here so we can get an idea of where the boundaries should be. I've tended to go by how much can be said about the character, event, object, place. If only a paragraph or two will ever be possible, then that is a merger candidate, IMO. Carcharoth10:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
OK. I've selected nearly 100 merger candidates so far, from the 493 assessed articles. I'm now going to try and identify the best list articles to merge to, if they exist, and suggest new ones if nothing exists. The unassessed 722 group will have to wait for another day/week. Carcharoth17:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
You may want to take note of a (currently just an alias) redirect template I jinned up for tagging redirects from such short topics. There is an {{R to list entry}}, where it currently redirects, but I conceived it for such composite shorts that have bigger section entries in list-list form... Template:R to section(edittalklinkshistory). It currently has no intrinsic category associated with it as until such gets widespread use, that seemed inappropriate. // FrankB18:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm a bit busy nowadays, so just this: See some of my questions at Talk:List of Middle-earth Elves. I believe the merger of minor Kings/Ranger Chieftains/people into lists (with major ones getting own articles) was identified as a future task. Uthanc18:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I am petitioning to have this page altered to rmeove the restriction against using succession boxes for fictional characters. I think this group has an interest since several related pages for fictional characters are already using these boxes. Please Vote Here.--Dr who197518:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
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