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If anyone wants to pull out or copy a previous discussion, feel free to to do so. —Mirlen 01:40, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Community

Role call: Late July – August

Sign your name below and comments are optional.

  1. Here for now although unable to put in work for awhile. SorryGuy 19:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
  2. Doing organizational / cleanup work mostly. --CBD 20:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  3. 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 Category:Middle-earth redirects - did you know we probably have over 600 redirects pointing at articles associated with this WikiProject? The silliest is probably this one. Carcharoth 00:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  4. 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? :/ --Ted87 03:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  5. Here, continuing sporadic edits. I've merged all the minor river articles and will probably start on locations soon, also adding Template:Me-project to all M-e pages I come across. -- Jordi·✆ 14:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  6. I'm trying to rewrite the Elf article Bryan 18:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  7. Hey! I just joined WikiProject Middle-earth so I am here! --Merond e 10:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  8. 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. --OliverH 16:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  9. Here, at least I think. Bornagain4 15:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  10. Okay, I'm really, really sorry for my much extended wikibreak — 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. —Mirlen 20:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Issues

Example of "in universe" style and "out of universe" style

One of the articles held up at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) as an example of the worse sort of "in universe" style was Witch-king of Angmar. Shall we try and write a few examples of how to best phrase this sort of thing?

  • (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."
  • (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'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. Carcharoth 02:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

So according to Misplaced Pages's manual of style 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. --Ted87 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.--Elatanatari 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 The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, 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 Gandalf and see what happens? Carcharoth 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.--Steuard 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.... --OliverH 07:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

As an added point, I'd like to use the examples above: Yes, the second is well-referenced. But what information does it contain? It says when the Nazgul were introduced and where information can be found. Is that the task of an encyclopedia, to send people looking for information elsewhere? I don't think so. It should be clear what purpose the Nazgul fulfill in the story and what concepts they are based on, and for that it will be hard to avoid doing some in-universe recapitulation. --OliverH 11:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Another example

A classic of "in-universe" style is Smaug. The key point that Smaug is a character in The Hobbit 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, Ancalagon fails to mention that this dragon appears in The Silmarillion, and ditto for Glaurung, though The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is named. I'm leaving these articles as they are for now, as classic examples of the need to avoid this sort of style. Carcharoth 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. Sandpiper 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. Morwen - Talk 18:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Allow me to make a few more... Carcharoth 22:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
OK. I abandoned that because I found myself having to write stuff that was already at The Hobbit. 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 The Hobbit and here, and having this article redirect to a section on Smaug at The Hobbit (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 Smaug and The Hobbit, 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. Carcharoth 22:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

New article!

I stumbled across a new article: The Hobbit (1968 radio series). 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. Carcharoth 10:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use of movie screenshots and posters

See here 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. Carcharoth 10:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Tolkien timeline

I recently cobbled together a Tolkien timeline at: User:Carcharoth/Tolkien_timeline. 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 Tolkien timeline be OK? Carcharoth 14:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Some suggested guidelines/reminders for the project

Here's some I thought up. Perhaps we can tweak the Standards page 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 Théoden and Andúril instead of "Theoden" or "Anduril". Don't use "Middle-Earth" for Middle-earth, unless describing something actually named that way, like Nightfall in Middle-Earth.
  • Take note of plural and singular forms of terms. Some respective examples are "Uruk-hai" and "Uruk", "Eldar" and "Elda", and "Dúnedain" and "Dúnadan".
  • Orcs are goblins. Goblins are orcs. Uruk-hai 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 the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, 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 1978 Lord of the Rings animated film, 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 1980 Return of the King animated film, 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 Dead Men of Dunharrow 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 this talk page too).

Hope this helps. Uthanc 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 here.
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. Carcharoth 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. --CBD 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 Uthanc 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? Carcharoth 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 Talk:Ñoldor. -- Jordi·✆ 15:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Spellings

Would this page be useful somewhere? User:Carcharoth/Tolkien_spellings. Carcharoth 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'. --CBD 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. Carcharoth 10:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
A starting point: tilde, umlaut (diacritic), accent marks (acute accent and grave accent), caret or circumflex, diaeresis (another name for an umlaut). All summarised at diacritic. There. Using Misplaced Pages I now know more than I did 5 minutes ago! Carcharoth 10:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of which, I wonder if Ngh (letter) has anything to do with the Noldor pronunciation and orthography discussion? Carcharoth 10:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler warning RfC

There is a Request for Comment currently going on at Misplaced Pages:Spoiler warning/RfC 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.) --GunnarRene 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). Carcharoth 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. --GunnarRene 14:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Books notability guidelines

I found this interesting proposed guideline: Misplaced Pages:Notability (books). 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 Misplaced Pages:Notability (books)#Derivative articles for something that would theoretically reject a lot of the articles about characters from the books! Carcharoth 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. --Merond e 08:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Middle-earth

Middle-earth is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 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 — 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? —Mirlen 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. --Merond e 11:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Fine by me. --CBD 22:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Fine by me as well. Changing the subject completely, I'm going to be absent for a while, possibly a few weeks. I'll try to check in on the Middle-earth review process now and again. Carcharoth 09:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Seems like it's a concensus, so I got rid of the weapon section — be back whenever you can, Carcharoth, no worries. —Mirlen 17:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

New syntax

Other fields to get either keep or drop (idea borrowed from Carcharoth):

image_character = Example.jpg| KEEP
image_caption = | KEEP
character_name =| KEEP
character_alias =| KEEP (For exceptions, see below)
character_title =| KEEP (For exceptions, see below)
character_race =| KEEP
character_culture =| KEEP
character_gender =| DROP
character_realm =| DROP (or only use if appropriate)
character_sub_realm = DROP (or only use if appropriate)
character_lifespan =| CHANGE (For proposal, see below)
character_weapon =| DROP (see above comments)
character_actor =| DROP
character_voice =| DROP

Exceptions: I like CBD's idea of using the names/titles in the infoboxes for characters who do not have an extensive amount of names and titles, such as Maedhros. For characters like Aragorn, I think a seperate section would do nicely, with a weeny little note in the infobox to see the seperate section.

Lifespan: I agree with Carcharoth on changing this to two seperate fields: 'Birth' and 'Death'. Having a lifespan section means that we'd have to guess when the characters were born or killed, which is alright on a fansite, but not on an encyclopedia, where all information should generally be factual, not speculative. Having 'Date of birth' and 'Date of death' fields would avoid speculation; therefore, a more ideal alternative.

Adaptations: I think the infobox should be kept literary. Tolkien's legendarium was originally a work of literature, not a film, radio drama, etc. My apologies to movie fans, but all information concerning the adaptations should be kept in its own section.

Adding a section?: Either way I don't really care, but I think adding a section in which it would indicate which book(s) a character appeared in isn't a bad idea. I like having the categories as it is now, but perhaps having it more visible would be better.

Thoughts? —Mirlen 22:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that the birth and death dates, if not known precisely, could say "First Age" or "Second Age" or "Third Age", or "Unknown", and leave details to the article. I'd describe Ainur as pre-Arda, or something, or just omit birth and death dates as meaningless. BTW, I didn't completely finish work on the categories - I think a few characters might have got left out. Also, I won't be away completely, I'll be able to pop in now and again. Carcharoth 08:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)