Template talk:ME-ref/Archive 1

message: Attached below is a list of all the references which can be called with this template.
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Please place any thoughts on changing the template to reference alternate versions for any of these books below. --CBDunkerson 01:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of References 

message: Many, many thanks for all your work on this, Conrad. Further to my desire to use these templates to find all articles referencing an individual book, I have realised that I will be able to (sort of) use "What links here" to find articles referencing the books, as long as each book has its own Wikipedia article. Will this be workable? If not, I would like to consider having separate templates for each book. Will this require a lot of extra work? Carcharoth 08:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, 'What links here' would not include the books linked on the page unless the articles for those books had links to that page. I'll redesign the template so that it calls sub-templates with the actual reference text in them. Then you can check 'What links here' from those sub-templates to get all pages referencing that book. --CBDunkerson 13:25, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But it would work for books that had articles? For example, for Letters, you could examine this list here. I think this would work well (with a few false hits) for my "general references to any editions of a book", and the templates would work well for "references using a specific edition of a book". Of course, this system still falls down when the book doesn't have an article. I tried doing what links here for sections of a page, but it doesn't seem to work. Carcharoth 21:13, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, because the references include links to the books you can get 'What links here' from that... even if there isn't an article on the book. For instance, Special:Whatlinkshere/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_A_Reader's_Companion provides a list even though there is currently no article on that book. --CBDunkerson 21:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wonderful! For most books that should work very well. Please don't worry about getting the "What links here" to work for the templates, unless you still want to do that. I am quite happy to use "What links here" for the book articles or red-links. Carcharoth 11:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Listing articles that use references 

message: How about "Biography" for Carpenter's biography, "S" for Silmarillion? Carcharoth 09:00, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll add these if there are no objections. I actually considered both, but didn't know how common 'S' was as an abbreviation for Silmarillion and wondered if there might be objections to promoting Carpenter's biography as THE 'Biography' (though it is generally recognized as such). --CBDunkerson 13:25, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to be fairly commonly accepted that Carpenter's Biography is the biography, though not definitive (maybe that will come later, with the passing of the years, if another biographer is allowed access to the papers again). I believe it is also the only official one. I've seen a couple of other books with varying amounts of biographical material, such as "Master of Middle-earth" (Kocher), "J. R. R. Tolkien - Architect Of Middle-Earth" (Grotta), one by Michael White (can't remember title), but they all seem to rehash material from Carpenter's Biography. The "Tolkien and the Great War" (Garth) book does have new biographical material not found in Carpenter, so that should probably be on the list. I'll try and dig out the details sometime. Carcharoth 20:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More abbreviations 

message: There are lots of templates on this page, but some articles may have even more templates than this! This will mean that the pages will take a long time to load (like this page) and place strain on the Wikimedia servers (I think). Is this a bad thing? Carcharoth 09:13, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup. I've got an idea for re-designing it which should process faster. It's not as 'pretty' code wise, but I'm working on it now and we will see if it fixes the load time issue. --CBDunkerson 13:25, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Much faster - thanks! Carcharoth 20:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page takes ages to load!! 

message: Ok, I made the design updates. I was still getting a slow load time though... not sure why since the new design is very similar to what I've used in other templates which load quickly. --CBDunkerson 14:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Made a further adjustment which seems to have largely resolved the loading speed issue. --CBDunkerson 16:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update Made 

message: Would it be possible to have a step-by-step guide to adding new editions to these templates? I think it would involve creating a sub-template page, plus some instructions on the front page, and then updating the "higher-level" templates. I'd be happy to add some editions if that would help. Carcharoth 11:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's settle what we are going to include first. I'm very concerned about having multiple editions of each book because it just seems extremely complicated and then becomes impossible to standardize the page numbering. If we use a single set of references then all page numbers consistently refer to that edition. Obviously this is ideal for people who have editions consistent with that page numbering scheme (and thus I think that we should pick editions consistent with the most widely available page numbering scheme), but I believe it is beneficial even for people whose editions have different page numbering... because it would then be consistently different. Instead of every reference using a different set of page numbers they would all be based on one set and we could have conversion formulas for various other editions. --CBDunkerson 11:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. I agree that having multiple editions is not workable, but I do think that there should be templates for more than one edition. There should be a standard edition, but we should also recognise that this may change in the future. We should have a set of current, standard references, but leave enough flexibility to update this later. Also, people will always ignore a template system and just reference the books they have. I'll try to expand what I said above about several sets of templates, using the examples I can find. Carcharoth 13:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding editions to these templates 

message: Let's start collecting information on various editions of the books. If we get full  details for every edition we can find and the page numbering scheme we can see which page numberings are most common and set up the conversion formulas. Comparative page numbering is usually handled by listing the page number for the start of each chapter in a given edition and then devising a formula which evaluates to one set of 'chapter pages' when the other set is plugged into it... this can be off by a page or two for individual entries, but is usually quite accurate. We can use the talk pages of the individual reference templates. I'll build a framework and then put in some examples this afternoon. --CBDunkerson 11:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see Template:ME-ref/TH. I listed all of the editions of The Hobbit I have and the two Carcharoth listed above (please add page numbers). Unfortunately, thus far only two of them use the same page numbering. Most of the books will have greater consistency, but this one and LotR are going to be all over the map. I didn't put in conversion formulas yet because we don't have an agreed standard to convert from. --CBDunkerson 23:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks great! I'll add the information from my editions later. Carcharoth 13:59, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion 

message: The two websites I know of with good information about the various editions are: The Tolkien Collector (books section) and the excellent website by Mike Brinza Mike's Tolkien Resources (JRRT section) and in particular the  gallery of covers from different UK and US editions Carcharoth 13:51, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Stug (Mike Brinza) is an old friend and I've seen 'The Tolkien Collector' before - I agree that those are the best resources for general info about various editions which I have seen. The 'Descriptive Bibliography' book also has extensive info on the various editions. These would be good for updating things like Early American editions of The Hobbit & English-language editions of The Hobbit, but to work out page number conversions we'll probably need the actual books or things like the 'gory details' page you listed above. It might make sense to merge Early American editions of The Hobbit and the page numbering stuff I started at Template:ME-ref/TH into English-language editions of The Hobbit to have a single spot for all info on different editions. However, only the 'main' books are likely to have articles detailing the editions like this. --CBDunkerson 14:23, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More information about Tolkien editions 

message: While doing some housekeeping (see :Category:WikiProject Middle-earth templates), I discovered Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Templates and the section Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Templates#Book_references concerning references. Is that just an old, never-implemented structure that is being superceded by this one? Carcharoth 15:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. I originally copied alot of stuff over from another Wikiproject to get the initial setup for the Middle-earth one. That reference structure was used and looked interesting so I included it, but the various sub-templates called by this one are essentially the same system and this template then 'wraps' them all together. --CBDunkerson 18:57, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Found old references page... 

message: This may be a silly question, but is there a reason why there is a sign saying 'Improper reference format' on top of the page? —Mirlen 00:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's the default result of the template if no parameters are set, as is always the case on the template page itself. If it is confusing it could be hidden by putting 'noinclude' tags around the code at the top. --CBD 18:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: Can we have entries for
:The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology
and
:The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Reader's Guide
please. Thu 22:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you provide authors, ISBNs, etc.? -- Jordi·✆ 08:50, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Chronology = Chr, Reader's Guide = RG. -- Jordi·✆ 08:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done what I can, Amazon only has one of the ISBN numbers (I own the UK edition). Thu 09:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Are these out? I've had them on pre-order with Amazon for a couple of years now, but haven't seen anything yet. Last I heard Wayne said they had been delayed by work on the revised edition of LotR and then the reader's companion and other projects. I didn't think they were going to be available for a few more months yet. Looks like Amazon still has them listed as 'forthcoming', but I've had to order some of these books from the UK because they often come out a month or two earlier there. --CBD 13:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just found them on amazon.co.uk I think, in hardcover. Chronology (v1), Reader's Guide (v2), Combo (v1+v2). Only very few copies left. -- Jordi·✆ 14:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New entries 

message: I appreciate the ingenuity that went into this template, but it is horrible in terms of server load. It should always be subst:ed, with a huge warning sign showing up whenever somebody transcludes it. Also, it is a very (very) bad idea to give the full bibliographic info in each footnote, as this template encourages. Look at the footnotes in JRRT. This is not what we want! Instead of tons of footnotes each reading "Carpenter, Humphrey and Tolkien, Christopher (eds.) (1981). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, no. XY. .", we want footnotes like "Letters no. XY", with one single entry giving full details. As it is, JRRT provides the reader with the ISBN of Letters more than twenty times over. dab (𒁳) 15:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Part of the reason for transcluding is to allow 'what links here' to be used to track the use of Tolkien references. WP:PERF says server load is not a problem. I agree that using the template more than once for the same book in an article is silly, but that is a separate issue. Carcharoth 12:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that 'one use per book' should be the norm and indeed that was the way the Tolkien page was set up. That got lost when people started going nuts with 'every sentence must have a reference link'. The 'server load' of this template actually isn't that great, even when transcluded dozens of times... if used correctly it wouldn't be an issue at all. As to substitution... references could still be tracked from 'what links here' to the book titles, but there would be some false positives from links to the books in actual article text. The biggest reason to transclude rather than subst is actually to allow for 'updates'. There are some disputes about which version of each book to include... and these may change over time. For instance, right now someone is arguing that we shouldn't use the first edition LotR volumes because the library of congress online catalog doesn't go back far enough to list their LCC numbers. If people agree that this should be changed it can be and would immediately cycle down to all the pages using this. --CBD 13:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deprecate this! 

message: I'm mystified why a 1987 edition is being used for these references. Why not the 1966/67 second edition or the 2005 edition. Thu 19:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the comment immediately above your own. Originally this template did use that earlier edition, but there were objections that it pre-dated the library of congress catalog system and thus it was changed to the earliest edition which is listed in that source and kept the page numbering scheme common to most versions before the 1990s. I've never really seen much point to the disagreements over which edition to use. It impacts page numbers, but in cases where there are dozens of different numbering schemes we shouldn't be using page numbers anyway. In rare cases we might be referencing some change to the text between editions (e.g. the rewrite of the Gollum chapter in later editions of The Hobbit), but in those few cases we should write out references to the relevant editions manually or use Template:Cite book. The idea of this template was to be a quick way to cite texts without having to look up all the publication info each time and try to have the default citations be to versions of the books which used the most widely distributed page numbering scheme. --CBD 11:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  LotR edition 

message: The list of works for this template is getting rather long. Can we subdivide it? Primary works, biographical material, Christopher Tolkien's works, secondary works? Also, it might be helpful to archive this talk page. Discussion is ongoing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth#A list of potential sources? (for more potential additions - I think the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia and Tolkien Studies should be added) and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/Standards#References. Carcharoth 07:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I had actually split the table displaying the works along similar lines prior to seeing this note. I added automatic archiving to the top of the page to start clearing out some of the older stuff. --CBD 14:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subsections? 

message: I am going to convert the sub-templates here from using  and  to . For the most part this should have little or no apparent effect on the output. The primary difference will be that we can then use  to place multiple citations to the same book in the text and have all of them link to a single reference about the book. Thus, 'ME-ref' will only be called once per book on each page rather than once per citation. --CBD 14:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harvard References 

message: See here for a list of all subpages. Carcharoth (talk) 12:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subpages link 

message: Since this template is intended to be used only in References section and not in-line, maybe it would be better to use  instead of  to get rid of brackets? (If anybody carries the revision, please also categorise the subtemplates to :Category:Middle-earth source templates to keep track of them.) Súrendil (talk) 19:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with categorisation of subtemplates (will do this now), but no opinion on the harvard reference things (cos I haven't looked in detail at it). Droppped a note off for CBD to have a look. Carcharoth (talk) 12:21, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking over the templates it seems like 'harv' is meant to be used to place templates inline in the text itself... though it is almost always used to put them in the references section instead. I agree that 'harvnb' looks better for those purposes and will update the templates to do so. The fact that this template is substituted will mean that this won't update existing usages, but those can be changed by adding 'nb' to the template calls on the pages themselves. --CBD 18:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brackets 

message: I merged the ME-cite talk page and redirected the ME-source talk page here. This should help to consolidate discussion as the three templates are very closely inter-related. I'll add sub-pages links for both ME-ref and ME-cite to the documentation, which is also shared by all three templates. --CBD 12:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge