Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/archive11

message: Tolkien articles by quality statistics (worklist) :
Archives
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*Archive 1 (25 Nov., 2005 – 02 Apr., 2006)
*Archive 2 (05 Apr., 2006 – 15 May, 2006)
*Archive 3 (15 May, 2006 – 30 June, 2006)
*Archive 4 (1 July, 2006 – 17 Aug., 2006)
*Archive 5 (23 Aug., 2006 – 29 Sept., 2006)
*Archive 6 (30 Sept., 2006 – 7 Dec., 2006)
*Archive 7 (8 Dec., 2006 – 21 Feb., 2007)
*Archive 8 (22 Feb., 2007 – 24 April, 2007)
*Archive 9 (25 April, 2007 – 23 July, 2007)
*Archive 10 (24 July, 2007 – 21 October 2007)
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If anyone wants to pull out or copy a previous discussion, feel free to to do so. —Mirlen 17:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

message: Please sign your name below and on the front page. Comments are optional.
*Hello, I'm new. And it's December now. Isn't that great!? Sageofwisdom (talk) 17:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably will have less time these coming days. Uthanc 15:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Roll call: October - December

message: :Strike out expired proposals with  and note result. Uthanc 15:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please also add the links to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/AfD. Thanks. Carcharoth 00:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Each film article already has a "changes and omissions" section, with filmmakers' excuses (still not convinced). Of course, some changes are more notable than others: for example, "Elves at Helm's Deep" and character  changes > "Everard" Proudfoot and the length of Gandalf's beard. If we continue to cover these (and a separate article for RotK is too much, IMO) it should be in the main film trilogy article and/or in the individual films, and/or characters. Also, more evaluation from Tolkien scholars like Tom Shippey would be nice. Right now, the only such one mentioned in the trilogy article is Wayne Hammond, and he's pretty negative. How about a more positive opinion? Uthanc 05:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The prod was removed. Should we go to AfD on this one? Carcharoth (talk) 23:15, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Really delete.87.102.66.10 (talk) 14:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Uthanc 16:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion proposals

message: *Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Minor places in Middle-earth Kept
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Minor places in Arda Kept
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Minor places in Beleriand Kept
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gondor Speedy kept per WP:SNOW
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Belegaer Kept
*The "Minor places..." article AfDs were closed with the note: "with a reminder to actually address the raised points on the basis of the indicated sources and editorial commitment". Some (slow) progress is being made on this. Carcharoth 16:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Each film article already has a "changes and omissions" section, with filmmakers' excuses (still not convinced). Of course, some changes are more notable than others: for example, "Elves at Helm's Deep" and character  changes > "Everard" Proudfoot and the length of Gandalf's beard. If we continue to cover these (and a separate article for RotK is too much, IMO) it should be in the main film trilogy article and/or in the individual films, and/or characters. Also, more evaluation from Tolkien scholars like Tom Shippey would be nice. Right now, the only such one mentioned in the trilogy article is Wayne Hammond, and he's pretty negative. How about a more positive opinion? Uthanc 05:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The prod was removed. Should we go to AfD on this one? Carcharoth (talk) 23:15, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Really delete.87.102.66.10 (talk) 14:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Uthanc 16:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Articles

message: *The Cursed Ring - deleted via PROD. Not a great loss. Stub still exists at The Ringbearer's Diary. Carcharoth (talk) 11:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Already deleted

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

message: *Bridge of Khazad-dûm should probably be merged into Moria (Middle-earth). Uthanc 15:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi! I'm here too (currently). Done the suggested merge - article still needs work. Also pictures in article are 'not the best' - if anyone has any better.. See the talk page for anything else.. ?87.102.0.6 12:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Question - article uses the term "The Valian Years" - is this in common use - seems to be about the first age??87.102.0.6 13:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move/merge proposals 

message: Have a look at :Category:Middle-earth redirects! Some great work has been done there by Súrendil, showing how our redirects should be organised, and the advantages of such organisation, showing how redirects to lists and sections can really help organise merged lists and avoid having hundreds of short stubs. This also reduces the amount of material that needs assessing as well, once the "merge era" is finished. Carcharoth 11:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Inspired by that, I created and have started to populate :Category:Middle-earth redirects with possibilities. Carcharoth 15:55, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could I suggest making additions to the redirect page, rather than creating new articles - I'm sure 'spiders of mirkwood' would make a fine addition to the article mirkwood, but might not stand as well on it's own..87.102.0.6 13:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirects reorganised 

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

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

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

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

message: :Carried over from last archive. Uthanc 15:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion in progress 

message: Anyone want to take a look at the exchange under "Incorrect passage" at the bottom of Talk:On Fairy-Stories and weigh in with an opinion before I attempt to perform major surgery on the article? Deor 01:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Requesting opinions

message: I made some adjustments to  and created a new  template. The complete spectrum of these templates can be seen here and instructions are displayed on the template page(s). The general idea is that you can do  to create a reference link like --> . That then shows up in a  section as; . If you then put  in another section you can click the 'Return of the King 1955' link in the reference above to jump to and highlight the full description --> . Thus, the full publication details for the book only go on the page once, but all the individual citations are linked to it. The ME-ref template can still be used exactly as it was before, but I think there will be alot of advantages to using ME-cite for the inline citations (with sections and/or page numbers) and then ME-ref for the full reference details. --CBD 00:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I made updates to Lothlórien as an example of using these templates as described above. --CBD 00:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That looks great! The cite template will be really useful. One thing, I think the section with the inline cites should still be called "References", but and what you've called 'References' should be "Works cited". See, for example, James I of England, though I now see that that article has "Notes" for the inline cites and "References" for the list of works consulted. Hmm. Carcharoth 00:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Standard appendices and descriptions says it is "Notes" and "References". Carcharoth 00:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reference templates

message: Someone needs to disambiguate Irmo from the Tolkein character.  The town in South Carolina is much more relevant to the wikipedia searcher than the character.  I will try to do it but may error, so I'd like some assurances I did it correctly.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kylelbishop (talk • contribs) 15:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I made Irmo itself a disambiguation between the character, the town, and the school. I'd say that the character probably IS the most searched for of the three, but likely not so overwhelmingly that it should be the default search result. --CBD 17:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Irmo

message: (Time to brush up my nerd cred, I guess.) We've had an article Awakening of the Elves since 2004. It's full of statements which in a factual-history article would require specific hard cites. It has a general "Reference" (The War of the Jewels), but it does not have such specific cites. Is this article okay? Is it plagiarism of some sort? It it adequately cited? Is it accurate? -- Writtenonsand 16:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not plaigiarism. More like a copyvio. Needs severe trimming. Carcharoth 17:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Awakening of the Elves]] 

message: :Category:Middle-earth Dragons seems ripe for merging, either into Dragon (Middle-earth) or a list, but there's only four of them. Note that Chrysophylax Dives is part of Farmer Giles of Ham. Of the four, Smaug and Glaurung are the only true "characters" as Scatha and Ancalagon appear to be little more than footnotes/anecdotes, discounting evolution. Uthanc 17:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good. Smaug and Glaurung should keep their own articles, but should also have overview paragraphs in the summary/overview article. Carcharoth 17:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Scatha says that "Glaurung ... was quite small (for a dragon). ... [Scatha] was not the longest or tallest dragon in Middle-earth ... though he was still larger than Glaurung." -- I don't believe that there are any canonical sources for this assertion of Glaurung's small size - rather the contrary. Glaurung says that he was "the largest of dragons, before Ancalagon", which is more in line with my understanding of the matter. -- Writtenonsand 19:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Target merges

message: Something unrelated brought me to Tar-Telemmaitë an unreferenced stub in :Category:Rulers of Númenor, which tagged accordingly. I check two more, then tagged all three for merger, but looking further through that category it seems that there are a few long articles (but some, such asTar-Aldarion are unreferenced), and lots of unreferenced stubs which should be merged.  I suggested merging to Númenor, but a better merge get might be List of rulers of Númenor. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you believe we know about those articles? :-) I know, kind of difficult to tell isn't it? Thanks for pointing them out though, as it is better they get dealt with sooner rather than later. I think the last time we looked at this there were concerns that an article on these rulers would basically be practically identical to the existing text (mainly the bit in Unfinished Tales). This is not too surprising, as Tolkien often presented his background material as appendicecs or chronicles, as an encyclopedia article on that will look very similar. To avoid charges of in-universe writing and excessive WP:PLOT, we probably have to interleave the information with textual history (ie. when Tolkien was writing this stuff), and material from other sources. That should reduce the reliance on single primary sources, which as you are quick to point out, is a Bad Thing (tm). Carcharoth 23:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That starts to sound to me like a case for deletion, or at least for radical trimming to a bare list of names and dates. Surely it's not the role of Wikipedia to duplicate the appendix to a book, even if leavened with some textual history? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly. Have a look at the appendix in The Return of the King and the material in Unfinished Tales yourself and see what you think. Do you have copies of those books? Carcharoth (talk) 23:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Do we really need three lists of Númenóreans rulers? IMHO, it would be far more useful (and easier to handle) if we merge them to List of rulers of Númenor. The only possible advantage of the current disposition is that it lessens somewhat the accusations of plottism and copyvio, but not much. BTW, any thoughts about where to merge all non-royal Númenóreans? Some "Line of Elros" won't serve, as there are also Vëantur, Beregar, Zamîn, Henderch, Lindórië etc et al. Or do we choose "a slippery slope we don't want to go down" ;) to forget them? Súrendil (talk) 19:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My idea was more that the main list was a short summary, while the other lists went into more details of the reigns. My main point here was to reduce the number of small stubs, but still gather the information in one place to help decide what to do with it. I've left them in a very unsatisfactory state, and a lot more work is needed to avoid, as you say, excessive plots, but that is an indication of what I think is needed. Possibly the lists should be converted to a minimal format just to tell people who this fictional character is, and nothing more. The wider notability and mentions in secondary literature (few and far between) could be merged to the Akallabeth or Numenor articles. It is a difficult conundrum to get the balance right. Carcharoth (talk) 11:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rulers of Numenor 

message: When the next update occurs, the number of unassessed articles should be below 400. At around this time last year (see here) there were 1368 unassessed articles (including redirects and stubs). At that time (11 December 2006) there were a total of 1399 articles tagged with . The current update (30 November 2007) shows a total of 1067 articles, which shows that some progress has been made with merging (though more work needs doing). The short-term aim should be to get the total below 1000. I think, with the right sort of merging, that the total number of articles should number in the hundreds, rather than over 1000. For a full history of the additions and changes, see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Tolkien articles by quality log. The earlier history has been truncated to keep the page short enough to load - see the page history for that earlier history. Carcharoth 14:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unassessed is down to 346. Total should be below 1000 at the next update. Carcharoth (talk) 16:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment update

message: I made a few small edits to the Shelob page today, and would really like to get this one out of start class and further up the quality scale. I was thinking of including information such as discrepancies between Tolkien's spider anatomy and actual spider anatomy (ie stinging vs fangs), further expansion of her relationship with various ME characters such as Gollum and Sauron, and expand on her role in the plot. Any opinions on the relevance of these or suggestions for inclusion?
I'd also like to move onto working on the Ungoliant page once I've got to work on Shelob (input appreciated on that also), and was wondering if there's a page anywhere about the Mirkwood Spiders? There doesn't seem to be anything specifically about them which seems odd, and if there isn't a page, I'd be willing to create one, as I think they're notable enough within The Hobbit to merit it. Might as well establish myself as the Weird Spider Geek on here as I have done in the real world... :) Faerie Queene (talk) 04:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Honestly, I don't think there's too much more to say about her role in 'the plot' as she was an unknowing participant in the conspiracy. She's have eaten Gollum if she had caught him. Sauron arrived in Mordor after Shelob was already dwelling in its mountains (see Book IV, chap. 9), and as a descendant of Ungoliant, was not subject to Sauron at all (she ate his orcs, but was tolerated by the Dark Lord because she guarded his realm). So far as the Mirkwood spiders go (I was just on the Mirkwood article cleaning it up a bit), my suggestion would be to include the spiders there as a subsection. They don't really appear outside of the related chapter(s) in The Hobbit, and there isn't much info to be found on them except for speculation that they are likely descended from Shelob, and lurked in Mirkwood after Dol Guldu was built.Ryecatcher773 (talk) 05:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, an article Great spiders of mirkwood existed once, but was turned into a redirect to Mirkwood as non-notable enough to merit a separate page. Carcharoth tagged it as a redirect with possibilities, meaning that it does merit a section within another article, e.g. Mirkwood. Personally, I would prefer to create a "List of Middle-earth animals", paralleling List of Middle-earth plants: this would be a good merge target for such stubs as crebain, kirinki and Kine of Araw. The questions are, where to draw a line between "animals" and "?sapient beings" (e.g. Huan, Eagles, ?Wargs), and how to synchronise this with Bestiary of Middle-earth? Súrendil (talk) 19:43, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The pre-redirect version of the article is here. I agree that a section in Mirkwood, or a section in a list is best. I think the main link from other articles should go to the list, which should then direct people to the section in the Mirkwood article, or just the Mirkwood article as a whole. I think many of these "minor characters/place/races" lists should be minimally annotated (1 or 2 paragraphs", and act as navigation aids outwards to other articles, or between different articles. A diagram showing the desired linkage pattern might help here. Carcharoth (talk) 11:58, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Work on specific pages: input and opinions appreciated

message: There is currently an arbitration case in progress on how to behave in disputes over possibly non-notable fictional articles. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters/Workshop. This may be of interest to those working on merges and notability of articles edited by this Wikiproject. Carcharoth (talk) 12:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fictional content arbitration case

message: Could someone deal with this please? I changed Elfwine to redirect to the father of the real-world person. I created Elfwine (Middle-earth), but most of the links are pointing to the wrong place. I'm away for a few days now, so could someone fix those please? Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 16:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, fixed :) --Hyarion (talk) 18:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Carcharoth (talk) 05:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation at [[Elfwine]]

message: I tried to change the article on Durin's Folk to include a link to Gimli, son of Glóin, son of Gróin, but somehow it was messed up. Fix the article, and try to link to Gimli, son of Glóin, son of Gróin. Sorry about this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.152.239.101 (talk) 23:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed the formatting. Thanks for bringing it up. --FlamingSilmaril 00:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Please fix my attempts

message: I would like to know if anyone could look at the page for Caras Galadhon so that its notability tag could be removed.
I've worked on the page for a week and I think it's becoming pretty acceptable. Please let me know what you think. I would be very appreciated if you did that, please.
Superlost (talk) 21:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see the notability tag has already been removed. Nice work on the article. Still a few problems. It is too much "in universe". See WP:WAF (ask here if you have any questions). Also, film screenshots shouldn't be used to illustrate the article. They can be used, if essential, in a section about the adaptation of Caras Galadhon to film, as long as the picture is showing some difference that is commented on by secondary sources. I also note that you use the Encyclopedia of Arda as a reference for some of the language stuff. That should properly be referenced to a primary source such as the Etymologies. I probably haven't explained this very well, so please ask if you have any questions. Carcharoth (talk) 22:04, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your explanation about the main problems in the article. About the images, do you think it should be better if I put them on a Gallery instead? About the Encyclopedia of Arda, I was thinking of erasing those links and replace them with sources connected to Tolkien's work (mostly his books). I also noticed you wrote the text was "too much in the universe". I wondered if you were saying that because of Sindarin nouns such as Mellyrn or Ered Nimrais I used when writting it. If that's it, he guess we can change them to other with the same meaning, such as "Mallorn trees" or "White Mountains". Obviously, others like Talans cannot be change in the same way, but we can always work things out for the best. Please rewrite anything you deem less understandable or strange to other people. I appreciate your help helping me improve this article! Superlost (talk) 00:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The film stuff tends to get put in a section titled "Adaptations". The only justification for a gallery might be if you had screenshots from different films to show how they depicted Caras Galadhon differently. The real trouble with the screenshots though is that they are what we (Wikipedia) call "non-free". Read our non-free content policy. What this means is that the use of non-free images must be minimised and must only be done with good reason. Finally, when talking about out-of-universe" writing, what that means for Tolkien is not writing from the perspective of an inhabitant of Middle-earth, but from the persepctive of a reader. In practice, articles about fiction are a mixture of both styles. In this example, "the chief city of Lórien and home of Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn" is in-universe, while "Caras Galadhon was the name given by the author J. R. R. Tolkien to a place in his fictional work The Lord of the Rings" is out-of-universe. More examples of out-of-universe stuff is talking about the films, role playing, other games, also talking about when the author first wrote about Caras Galadhon, saying that Caras Galadhon is mentioned in the following books (give list), all that is an out-of-universe perspective. Have a look at Lothlórien for more ideas. Generally, the broader the article, the more out-of-universe stuff it will have. Look at Middle-earth for example. Carcharoth (talk) 01:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caras Galadhon's notability tag 

message: Can anyone check "what links here" for these lot that I've created after some merges, and fix them?
*Valandil
*Elendur
*Eärendur
Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 18:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone through them and I think gotten all of the ones that needed to be changed. – Psyche825 (talk) 22:17, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a quick check and it looks like you got them all. Thanks! Carcharoth (talk) 22:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguations needed

message: Is there a coordinator for this Wikiproject? And should we start a role call for this month? Harland1 (t/c) 12:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really, though some are more active than others. We've all managed to get along OK without one. But things are a bit disorganised and slow at times. The most pressing administrative tasks that need doing regularly are: (1) Archving the talk page (can be difficult because of the way it is structured - best to copy everything over, and then selectively remove old stuff to make newer stuff get more attention); (2) Starting the new roll calls every two or three months (used to be every month!). Carcharoth (talk) 15:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinator