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Archive 1Archive 2

Untitled

Well, as for the check for copyright violation, I wrote the entire thing from memory. Wikify and formating would be a plus, but I wouldn't know where to begin. I purposely avoided a blow-by-blow comparison to other fandoms because as the article says, Ringers are such a motley group that they defy comparison. Namarie. - Ricimer 2:06, 12 Mar 2004 (EST)

So you're User:130.64.139.68, then? If so, I'd suggest you head to Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit so you can earn a little Wikilove for your efforts.
I'm also at a loss on where to start in formatting and sectioning. That's why I posted the To-Do list - so that someone else can come through and get the ball rolling. Wikification is fairly easy, though - it boils down to finding places in the text that could benefit from linkage, and adding such links.
And I didn't mean that the article necessarily needs "blow-by-blow" comparisons — I was thinking more along the lines of the occasional "Ringers generally X, unlike Y fans who generally Z". - jredmond 15:09, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I intend to start contributing to the effort. This is interesting information that is worth compiling! I think I'll start with some links and breaking off into sections.

Some thoughts:

  • The bell-ringers I know generally refer to themselves as "bell-ringers" or "bell players" or "change-ringers" or "pealers", depending on what kind of bells they play, but "ringer" is a perfectly acceptable word used by many people (in, say, the article on bellringing).
  • Where did this term originate? First of all, it's not a universal term like "Trekkie" that covers the entire fan base. My impression has been that it has been popularized largely by theonering.net [1] and I'd like to see this information included (once I can verify it, of course). Aranel 18:59, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Shouldn't it just be merged with Tolkienist? Ausir 19:22, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Sure, but "Ringer" is the more common term. And anyway, I'm currently mid-edit. It's a long edit. Don't do anything drastic. Aranel 19:27, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Some changes:

  • I dispute the notion that prior to the movies, most fans were young obsessive-compulsive male geeks. The fans I knew prior to the movies were of a wide range of ages and plenty of them were female (we were, however, definitely obsessive-compulsive geeks). The majority might have been male, but then, the majority of internet users at that point was also male.
  • I worked on the part about Arwen. I hope that it now simply illustrates the point, but I could use someone who's not already biased to tell me if it works or not. Because I am most definitely extremely biased. I tried in generally to make the whole thing sound less like it was written by one of the die-hards, but as I am one of the die-hards, I can't really judge this.
  • We still need to establish the history of this term. When I say "we", maybe I mean "I". Certainly "someone".
  • Where does the "Deplorable Cultus" reference come from?
  • If anyone disagrees that it's generally better to use the (safer) "Tolkien fans" or "Lord of the Rings fans" when in doubt, I'd like to hear what you have to say. I, personally, am too much of a purist to call myself a "Ringer", but maybe it doesn't matter to most people.
  • I don't thnk that Rhys-Davies or Christopher Lee fangirls are nearly as significant (or as annoying to die-hard book purists) as Orlando Bloom fangirls. If you disagree, you can put them back in.
  • The Silmarillion is only technically a prequel. In my infinite obsessive-compulsiveness, I removed that reference, since actually the Silmarillion material predates LotR significantly, although Tolkien never published it.

Aranel 20:16, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Largely lacks discussion of Tolkien-related fanfiction, a less-visible but very present part of fandom. Fhocutt (talk) 06:17, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

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Some scholarly sources discussing Tolkien fan works

  • Abrahamson, Megan B. (2013). "J.R.R. Tolkien, Fanfiction, and "The Freedom of the Reader"". Mythlore. 32 (1).
  • Walls-Thumma, Dawn S. (2019). "Affirmational and Transformational Values and Practices in the Tolkien Fanfiction Community". Journal of Tolkien Research. 8 (1).
  • Walls-Thumma, Dawn S. (2020). "Diving into the lacuna: Fan studies, methodologies, and mending the gaps". Transformative Works and Cultures. doi:10.3983/twc.2020.1871.
  • Walls-Thumma, Dawn S. (2016). "Attainable Vistas: Historical Bias in Tolkien's Legendarium as a Motive for Transformative Fanworks". Journal of Tolkien Research. 3 (3).
  • Alberto, Maria (2016). ""The effort to translate": Fan Film Culture and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien". Journal of Tolkien Research. 3 (3).

I collected these up to source a section of Works inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien about fanwork and wound up using relatively little of these there, but there's a bunch of interesting stuff in them that would fit well in this article. FrankSpheres (talk) 07:03, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

TheOneRing.com (TORc)

An IP editor has repeatedly tried to remove mention of TheOneRing.com from this page. However, it is a long-established fan forum, very much the subject of this article. It gets less coverage (and less prominence) in the article than TheOneRing.net, but it is notable in its own right, and has been consulted by academics who value the informed opinions its members can provide. It is certainly a part of the Tolkien fan scene and a valid element in this encyclopedia article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:58, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap:: Hi. Are you sure you're not confusing it with TheOneRing.net, which is already discussed in great detail within the article? TORc is a completely different site. If it is as notable as you claim it is, surely there are better sources to support it besides their own about us page. Wikipedia goes by reliable secondary sources, and this is neither secondary, nor reliable. My main reason for removal is encountering multiple mentions of the site among certain seedier parts of the internet, as well as consistent, concerning behavior over several months, including incitement of harrassment and promoting disinfo sites and false rumour mills, from what I have no reason to doubt is their official representatives on social media. A prestigious website would go after impersonators hard. I made the conclusion that this is an internet culture-war hub, similar to Bounding into Comics, and that its mention on this site, which doesn't cite any reliable sources, is self promotion, so I removed it. I made this reasoning explicit in my edit summaries TWICE, and the accusations that I didn't are getting a bit silly. 46.97.170.151 (talk) 11:28, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
As I said, it's a second fansite. Our job is to report on the scene evenly and impartially. Big items naturally get more coverage. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:24, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Please provide reliable secondary souces to support your claim that it's a valid fansite. Also, wikipedia isn't required to include everything. 46.97.170.151 (talk) 12:40, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Hmm. There is no indication at all in this case that there has been the slightest amount of competitive fan-editing on this article in the past few years. Instead, the mentions of different aspects of "Tolkien fandom" have been cut down from what was a large and in many places uncited article to a smaller and fully-cited text, which I've attempted to make balanced across countries, societies, websites, and activities, of course an impossible task. Rather than try to cover everything, the article pays attention to "the main points", as is proper. If you'd bothered to read my edit comment response, you'd have seen that I have already provided a scholarly source, an unusual thing for a fansite; I've added it to the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:25, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
I see. As I stated above, the site caught my attention because of social media activity relating to the recent Amazon series. TORc doesn't simply strike me as "a second fansite" but an outright fringe counterpart to TORn. Even if it was a big deal in the past, their Twitter and youtube channels seem to be focusing heavily on the internet culture wars stuff, and they explicitly promote Bounding into Comics, which is a major red flag. 46.97.170.151 (talk) 17:06, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Well, we don't even mention those channels, and if I had looked at those things, I would certainly have decided not to give them any airtime here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:57, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Those accounts are run by Jonathan Watson in his official capacity as the site founder and maintainer. You can't just separate them from TORc itself, they're part of the greater whole! 46.97.170.151 (talk) 09:29, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
Indeed, but we don't need to mention them specifically, nor do we do so. Wikipedia covers many distasteful topics; the role of a global encyclopedia is to cover each topic impartially. Doubtful or even outright illegal activity is no reason not to mention something; we have articles on paedophiles, rapists, murderers and indeed dictators and torturers, so I'm afraid that merely being involved in social media nastiness, if that is the case here, is a non-starter as far as exclusion from coverage is concerned. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:36, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
Distasteful topics and doubtful or even illegal activity, yes, but not misleading information. The article is about the Tolkien Fandom. Just because a guy with a website claims to represent the Tolkien Fandom, doesn't mean that wikipedia should take his word for it. Especially when the guy openly associates with people who have a widely known and established reputation of infiltrating various fandoms to spread hatred and to harass people on grounds of race or sexual identity. It's obvious that this website and the people running it do not represent the Tolkien Fandom, and wikipedia should not be treating them as if they did. 46.97.170.151 (talk) 10:09, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but you are writing in a way that implies you have a personal axe to grind with TORc. You are entitled to your views, but they have no bearing on any Wikipedia article. The very brief and neutral coverage here does not support any of the nastiness whose existence you assert; even if your claims were all true, it wouldn't make any difference here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:34, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
It's no secret that I have a bit of an axe to grind with the Gamergate crowd, but that is immaterial to my point. The culture-war aspect is the most obvious and apparent aspect of TORc. Scraping together mentions of the site doesn't mean anything when there are no reliable sources covering what the site primarily is and what it's known for, and a "neutral" coverage that ommits that crucial information is not neutral at all. It takes less than 10 minutes to verify everything I have said. If there are no reliable secondary sources covering any of it, than that's because the site does not have any mainstream notability whatsoever, and consequently, shouldn't even be mentioned. The Tolkien fandom is large and diverse, and plenty of fansites exist. If those aren't notable, I don't see why this one would be. 46.97.170.151 (talk) 09:10, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

This article isn't about The One Ring Dot Com, ergo WP:NOTABILITY does not apply to this discussion. Chiswick is correct that the link is fine. Also be aware WP:BLP applies to talk pages, be very, very careful what you type about people in the talk page, without strong (and notable sourcing) you are at risk of falling foul of BLP. GimliDotNet (talk) 17:32, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


Proposed merge of Tolkien fan fiction into Tolkien fandom#Fan fiction

The Tolkien fandom article is currently pretty tiny, and it seems like this topic can easily be merged there with no loss of information, especially since the Context section is essentially duplicated.

Since the article talks about fan films and other media rather than just fan fiction, the section can be renamed "fan works" and have "fan fiction" as just one subsection. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:32, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

  • Oppose, this is a large subject, just begun; and the small selection of the many citations available that are already there prove that it is separately notable. Even at its length when you saw it, 1,700 words excluding the lead (over 4 pages of A4 printout), it would already have been a very uncomfortable WP:COATRACK fit for Tolkien fandom. Since then it has been developed to 3,400 words, more than in your proposed merge target (which is 2,400 words).
  • Further, the proposed target article has quite a different subject, namely the history of fan activities, rather than the literary qualities of fan writing and the challenges that it faces. The article would in no way benefit from such a merge; instead, we have the simplicity and convenience of one article for one topic, another article for another. I placed the short summary of the fan fiction article into the fandom article, with "main" link, precisely not to unbalance that article.
  • This seems to have been not just misplaced, but a drive-by nomination. I suggest that this should simply be closed as not agreed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:07, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
    There's no such thing as a "driveby nomination" for merge or AfD. It's just a nomination. You are free to disagree and it certainly looks like it will fail, but you don't have to accuse others of WP:BADFAITH while doing it. Doing so gives heavy vibes of ownership.
    The article has been expanded a lot since the nomination but it is concerning that parts of it seem to be "padding" to make it seem massive. The "copyright" section can essentially apply to all fanfiction, and all the blockquotes in the article don't seem to be necessary, those particular passages are not the subject of analysis. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 09:05, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
    There is no "padding" of any sort. Part of the Copyright section obviously has wider applicability, but it is specifically applied to Ring of Darkness and The Last Ringbearer, with multiple citations that discuss those two particular Tolkien fan fiction cases. The quotations are there to give the general reader an idea of the materials that are discussed, selected to fit the cited scholarly analysis. For instance the 'Letters from Bree' snippet is specifically from the story that is analysed in the text beside it. As for talk of massiveness, that is simply pejorative, and no editor should be going there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:04, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, per WP:MERGECLOSE, closing this now, no merge. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:31, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

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