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Revision as of 22:06, 25 July 2006 editCBDunkerson (talk | contribs)Administrators15,422 edits →Infobox: Ok← Previous edit Latest revision as of 08:30, 10 October 2024 edit undoChiswick Chap (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, New page reviewers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers296,631 edits →Maria Skibniewska: r 
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==Community==
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===Role call: Late July &ndash; August===
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==Article alerts==
#Here for now although unable to put in work for awhile. ]] 19:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
The following list is updated daily by a bot. For manual entries, add a thread as usual at the bottom of this page.
#Doing organizational / cleanup work mostly. --] 20:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
#Aha! A roll call! :-) Trying to do too much and ending up doing not a lot. Though I did do some work on a timeline, spellings and (following on from earlier work) redirects. Have a look at ] - did you know we probably have over 600 redirects pointing at articles associated with this WikiProject? The silliest is probably . ] 00:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
#I'm doing absolutely nothihng. Before the month is up, I'm going to pick one article to work on, and focus soley on it and improve it best I can. But which one to pick? :/ --] 03:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
#Here, continuing sporadic edits. I've merged all the minor river articles and will probably start on locations soon, also adding ] to all M-e pages I come across. <span class="internal" title="View my user page" style="white-space: nowrap;">-- ]&middot;]</span> 14:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
#I'm trying to rewrite the Elf article ] 18:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
#Hey! I just joined WikiProject Middle-earth so I am here! --] 10:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
#Willing to help but currently unable to do much. My Ph.D. exam is imminent and I am also planning major Tolkien revisions in the de:Misplaced Pages once I have a little more room to breathe. --] 16:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
#Here, at least I think. ] 15:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
#Okay, I'm really, really sorry for my much extended wikibreak &mdash; it was needed, but I'm back...sort of. I'm not ready to make regular contributions back, but hopefully I'll be back on track. —''']]]]''' 20:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


{{Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Middle-earth/Article alerts}}
==Issues==
<!-- ] 05:39, 13 August 2030 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1912829949}}
=== Example of "in universe" style and "out of universe" style ===


== ] ==
One of the articles held up at ] as an example of the worse sort of "in universe" style was ]. Shall we try and write a few examples of how to best phrase this sort of thing?


New article you may enjoy - translated b/c of my suggestion. A Polish translator of Tolkien works. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 07:57, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
* (Current style - "history") ''"The first sighting of the Nazgûl in Middle-earth was reported in 2251 of the Second Age. For the next 1200 years, the Lord of the Nazgûl would serve Sauron as his second in command. He fought in the war against the Last Alliance of Elves and Men between 3434 and 3441 of the Second Age. It was in 3441 that Sauron was defeated by Isildur and the nine Nazgûl disappeared from Middle-earth."''


:@] Close to a GA level, perhaps? I could help a bit with Polish sources or such if you'd like to work on that. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]&#124;]</sub> 07:58, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
* (More remote style - "as a story") ''"The Nazgul are first introduced to the reader when Gandalf tells Frodo of the History of the Great Rings. . More of the history of the Nazgul is given in the Appendices to ''The Lord of the Rings'', and in ''Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age'' (published in ''The Silmarillion''). There are also further details to be found in the later book ''Unfinished Tales'' and in several of the volumes of ''The History of Middle-earth''. The history of Tolkien's conception of the Nazgul and the Lord of the Nazgul, can be traced in the drafts of ''The Lord of the Rings'', as done by Christopher Tolkien."''
::I think it's splendid: good work! But it's more like yours, you should take it to GAN, not me – all you have to do is to work in some of the Polish sources as it's already of a decent standard. In any case, as you can see above, my GAN queue stretches back six months or more, and in fact I'm successively dropping Middle-earth GANs as I work biological topics up to GA. Who knows, I might even review the article! All the best, ] (]) 08:28, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not saying one style is better, or more desirable than the other. Just that different styles are possible, and I would like to see both styles written eventually. ] 02:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

:So according to ] All Middle-earth article have to be written from an "out of universe" perspective? It's going to be a bitch changing every Middle-earth article. --] 02:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

:Personally i feel that the "in universe" example provided a better and more complete understanding of the subject. it seems like the first is about the Nazgul and the second is about the publication history of the Nazgul and where to find more info. I feel that a combination would be ideal.--] 19:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

::I agree. Though this _is_ just a style ''guideline'', so we don't really have to change anything. Only if it became "policy" would there be a lot more pressure to make such changes, and (despite having, maybe rather prematurely, said I'd support a change from guideline to policy) I don't think it will become "policy" anytime soon. It just might limit the style of article that could make it to featured status, as those have to conform to the MoS.

::Also, if there was a wholesale movement towards this kind of style of writing, I'd want to see the "in universe" style articles preserved in that style. The easy option is to have a link on the talk page pointing to an old version that was the most mature "in universe" style. The more involved option is preserving the "in universe" style off-site, say on another wiki. But that would be a big change. At the moment, I think we should pick a few articles and try and rewrite them in this "out of universe" style.

::Note that for book articles like ] and ], this "out of universe" style comes naturally, as we are talking about a book with a real-world publication history, a real-world author and real-world readers and fans, and all that. The problem seems to come with articles purely about the invented world, or aspects of the invented world, such as characters. Maybe we should just go ahead with the suggestion to do a collaboration on ] and see what happens? ] 10:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

:For the purposes of Misplaced Pages, I tend to agree that the "out of universe" style does feel more appropriate. And really, the example used here almost convinces me that articles would be ''more'' useful written this way: it makes citation of references automatic and part of the flow of the article so that readers quickly get an idea of where to learn more about the topic. (Yes, a well-footnoted article of the "in universe" style could accomplish the same thing, but only readers dedicated enough to delve into the footnotes would get that benefit.) This style would also flow more smoothly into the "Other versions of the legendarium" section in cases where questions of canonicity arise.

:As for the effort involved in changing everything, I agree that it would be considerable. But it doesn't have to happen all at once! If people editing Tolkien articles just start shifting their new edits to this style, the material should gradually be shifted over without all that much additional effort required.--] 17:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I suggested similar changes in the de:Misplaced Pages a while ago. Not the least, there's plenty of even academic secondary literature available. However, at the same time, I have likewise concerns for a radical shift towards total "out-of-universe" perspective, not the least because it is not practiced both in encyclopedic practice and in academic discourse: Not the least characterizations of literary characters require some "in universe" sentences to demonstrate the perspective of the character, but also on a larger scale, some "in universe" perspective is usually needed to make it clear to the uninitiated reader without the reference materials at hand to what the "out-of-universe" perspective is actually referring to. E.g. I don't think I can talk in an understandable fashion about Tolkien's own system of morals reflecting in his work if I don't describe what the creation-internal system of morals is, if I don't describe the relation between Melkor and Eru, or Frodo failing in his quest, the corrupting power of the one Ring, free will as the gift of Illuvatar etc.... --] 07:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

=== Another example ===

A classic of "in-universe" style is ]. The key point that Smaug is a character in ] is not given!! There is only a throwaway sentence at the end: "In the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit, Smaug was voiced by Richard Boone." Similarly, ] fails to mention that this dragon appears in ], and ditto for ], though ] is named. I'm leaving these articles as they are for now, as classic examples of the need to avoid this sort of style. ] 13:26, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
:Smaug sems to be a reasonably short article, which might make an interesting example if someone wanted to convert it to out of universe, so we might all see what the difference is supposed to be. My difficulty with this debate, is exactly what difference in material there will be after it is changed. Admittedly, it does not make much mention that it is fiction, but suggesting that a reader would not understand it to be about fiction is rather insulting their ability to read the opening line. Leaving out the mention of which book it comes from is clearly a deficiency, but does not really say anything about its in or out universe general style. ] 12:35, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
::Right, I've made very minor alterations to this as an example, which in my mind improves the article far out of proportion to the words I actually changed. ] - ] 18:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
:::I agree. Allow me to make a few more... ] 22:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
::::OK. I abandoned that because I found myself having to write stuff that was already at ]. This is part of the problem. A stand-alone article on Smaug would have to explain a lot. Having link to other articles helps solve this, but only to a certain extent. I'm torn between duplicating stuff between ] and here, and having this article redirect to a section on Smaug at ] (yes, I know you can't redirect to a section, but it would be nice). The basic problem is that when you have an article like ] and ], the two articles can't be written independently. You need to get the balance right between them, so a reader of either one will feel comfortable moving back-and-forth between them. ] 22:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

=== New article! ===

I stumbled across a new article: ]. The article is really good, but it wasn't categorised. If you create a new article like this, can you please remember to categorise it. Thanks. ] 10:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

=== Fair use of movie screenshots and posters ===

See ] for a relevant discussion on the fair use of movie screenshots as relating to Tolkien articles. Note that using movie posters is not acceptable other than on the article about the film itself. ] 10:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

=== Tolkien timeline ===

I recently cobbled together a Tolkien timeline at: ]. Please add comments to the discussion page there (and here as well if you want). I would like to move this to article namespace, but need to wikify it first. I'm also unsure what would be a suitable title. Would ] be OK? ] 14:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

=== Some suggested guidelines/reminders for the project===

Here's some I thought up. Perhaps we can tweak the ] a little, or put these somewhere else.

*Don't use "trilogy" for ''The Lord of the Rings'', use "novel"(?) instead. Don't use "novels" for the three volumes because it's just one book; use "volumes" or "books".

*Take note of how names and words are spelled. Since Tolkien was a philologist, names and languages were important to him, and nearly all of them mean something. So, write Th'''é'''oden and And'''ú'''ril instead of "Th'''e'''oden" or "And'''u'''ril". Don't use "Middle-Earth" for ], unless describing something actually named that way, like '']''.

*Take note of plural and singular forms of terms. Some respective examples are "]" and "Uruk", "]" and "Elda", and "]" and "Dúnadan".

*] are goblins. Goblins are orcs. ] are still orcs/goblins; don't use "Uruk-hai and Orcs" but "Uruk-hai and other Orcs", or just "Orcs".

*Be mindful of all adaptations. When referring to ], always put "film trilogy", "live-action trilogy", etc. or relate them to New Line or Peter Jackson. Using "Lord of the Rings films" is imprecise since there is the ], which is not part of the trilogy. Jackson's films may be currently the best known adaptations but they are by no means the only ones made. Also, don't just use ''The Return of the King'' to refer to the New Line films as there is the ], not to mention the book. Use ''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'' instead.

*Only put book illustrations in the infoboxes, if possible. Screenshots and other images from Peter Jackson's and any other Tolkien films properly belong in an Adaptations section.

*Don't assume that the Jackson films were faithful to Tolkien's writings in every detail. Don't just insert info from ''The Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare'' or give Legolas' age as 2901 years. Put these in the Adaptations section, and identify their source.

''(I wrote this in lieu of these additions — and , about Jackson's "Fountain Guards" of Minas Tirith and "Royal Guards" of Rohan.)''

*Avoid adaptation-derived terms to describe the ''original versions'' of characters, concepts, etc. Only use those terms to refer to ''their counterparts in adaptations'', and point out that the terms are original to the adaptation. For example, the Dead Men ''from the books'' are properly called the ] instead of the "Army of the Dead". Tolkien never used the latter term in the book, but Jackson did for his ''Return of the King'', so "Army of the Dead" belongs in the Adaptations section.

*When in doubt about the source of your info, ask on the article's talk page (and ] too).

Hope this helps. ] 02:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

:I agree with all the points you raise. I think some of the guidelines need a little rewriting to be shorter and clearer, with less explanation (which can sometimes come across as being a bit condescending - in particular I would remove "Since Tolkien was a philologist, names and languages were important to him, and nearly all of them mean something" - it is true, but the 'this was important to Tolkien' is not needed, IMO). It would be better to say "do this, not this", rather than "do this because this common mistake is wrong and this is why it is wrong".
:Two quibbles:
::1) For the third Jackson film, even though the official title is ''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'', as you say, I fear this could still be confused with the third volume of LotR. Hence I would add that the filmic context should be given in this case, and in nearly all cases. For example, say "''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'' '''film'''". And in any case, a brief mention of the year and director and studio is always good writing. Don't rely too much on people clicking a link to find this sort of thing out.
::2) My second quibble concerns the use of the word 'novel'. I would suggest using the words 'story' (for the story as a whole), 'book', 'books' (both for the LotR, its volumes and the 6 books - but make clear which you are referring to), 'volume', 'volumes' (for the three volumes of LotR). Explain other people's use of the word trilogy, but don't use it ourselves. I would suggest avoiding the use of the word novel. My reasons are given ].
:So who wants to update the standards page? And does anyone want to start organising things around here a bit more? There should have been a July roll call, but that hasn't happened yet. I would love to do more organisation, but I fear I don't have enough time. ] 10:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
::Just a note that 'Uruk-hai' as plural of 'Uruk' might not be the best example because some people contest it. The argument is generally that 'Uruk-hai' really means 'Orc-folk' and is thus comparable to 'humankind' rather than 'humans'. There is some merit to that, but I don't agree because I think Tolkien used Uruk-hai synonymously with the anglicization 'Uruks'. However, there is no definitive proof of that. I'd suggest including a small table with the most common singular and plural confusion cases (Vala -> Valar, Ainu -> Ainur, Istyar -> Istari, et cetera).
::On organization and updating, I'll try to find time to update and reorganize the standards page, but I think in general people should just go ahead and make updates where they feel it is needed or would be helpful. --] 11:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
:::Suggestions noted. Yeah, the way I put may seem too condescending. Feel free to tweak... I should add this too:
*Be careful when using the books of David Day and the original edition of J.E.A. Tyler's ''The Tolkien Companion'' as sources for information, as they are inaccurate in many respects. See and ] 00:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
This all reminds me. I have a list of Tolkien words with diacretics/umlauts/accents/whatever. I'll try to put that up somewhere when I have time. Does such a "spelling" page already exist? ] 09:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

=== Ñoldor vs Noldor ===

I would like to get some input on how we should spell Ñoldor in the Misplaced Pages. Should we keep using '''Ñoldor''', which is apparently author's last intent but rare outside of academics, or use the more common '''Noldor''' everywhere?
Discussion at ]. <span class="internal" title="View my user page" style="white-space: nowrap;">-- ]&middot;]</span> 15:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

=== Spellings ===

Would this page be useful somewhere? ]. ] 01:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
:I've been thinking that the standards have grown to the point that they should be separated out into sub-pages by topic. This list of standard spellings for accented names would make a good sub-page of its own. Might be worth adding commentary on some to explain why we chose a particular form as the standard if the spelling varied over time (such as when we settle the ongoing issue with 'Noldor') or to list common mis-spellings like 'Illuvatar'. --] 20:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
::Right, and someone who actually knows what the thingies are called (ie. not me) could write something about that as well, and that could eventually be suitable for main article space. I believe that this could clear up some of the confusion over pronunciation, etc. ] 10:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
:::A starting point: ], ], accent marks (] and ]), ] or ], ] (another name for an umlaut). All summarised at ]. There. Using Misplaced Pages I now know more than I did 5 minutes ago! ] 10:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of which, I wonder if ] has anything to do with the Noldor pronunciation and orthography discussion? ] 10:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

=== Spoiler warning RfC ===

{{notice|There is a ''']''' currently going on at ''']''' about spoiler tags and if they should be used or not on Misplaced Pages. Please see there for the on-going debate about these issues.}} Is there a more appropriate place for this notice? (I thought this might be relevant for Middle-earth, since many of the articles included have spoiler warnings in them.) --] 02:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
:It is relevant to us. I'm going to have a look at the debate (I personally don't like overuse of spoiler tags). ] 09:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
::I don't like overuse either. I see spoiler tags as something that lets me read as much as possible about a work of fiction, and if they cover too much they're less useful. --] 14:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

=== Books notability guidelines ===

I found this interesting proposed guideline: ]. Obviously Tolkien's main works pass this with flying colours (not so sure about his minor works). But what about the books ''about'' Tolkien and his works. I think some of these have articles, and some are planned, but I think this proposed guideline would reject some of the books about Tolkien and his works. So what should we do? Should we draw the line somewhere ourselves, or wait until the rest of the Misplaced Pages community draw it for us?

Also, see ] for something that would theoretically reject a lot of the articles about characters from the books! ] 23:48, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
:I don't see the "Derivative articles" section as rejecting all of the Tolkien profiles. It does say that there is an exception for famous books. I would definitely consider Tolkien's major works famous books. So the character articles for characters in Tolkien's major books could probably be kept under the conditions of the passing of this guidline. --] 08:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

=== ] ===

] is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found ]. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. ] 17:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

===Infobox===
I know this issue has been brought up before, but it was never quite resolved (or perhaps I missed it being resolved due to my extended absence). The Tolkien infobox has been bothering me, and I thinking to get rid of the 'weapon' section &mdash; it really is an unnecessary field and more suited to the likes of RPG guides than an article. I was also considering to get rid of some other fields, but I wanted to hear some input from the rest of the participants as well. Thoughts? &mdash;''']]]]''' 20:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

:I kinda got the same impression myself when I first saw the Tolkien infobox. Let's see what others think. --] 11:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
:Fine by me. --] 22:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

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Maria Skibniewska

New article you may enjoy - translated b/c of my suggestion. A Polish translator of Tolkien works. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:57, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap Close to a GA level, perhaps? I could help a bit with Polish sources or such if you'd like to work on that. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:58, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
I think it's splendid: good work! But it's more like yours, you should take it to GAN, not me – all you have to do is to work in some of the Polish sources as it's already of a decent standard. In any case, as you can see above, my GAN queue stretches back six months or more, and in fact I'm successively dropping Middle-earth GANs as I work biological topics up to GA. Who knows, I might even review the article! All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
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