User talk:CBDunkerson/Archive3

Middle-earth articles

Looking at some of your recent edits, I can only assume that you noticed the source of some of the statements you were correcting. (Heck, you were probably able to guess who had made those changes even without looking at the edit histories or talk pages.) Have you also looked at the discussions that he and I had on, say, Talk:Middle-earth, Talk:Middle-earth canon, and Talk:J. R. R. Tolkien? I simply haven't had the time (or desire) to hold up my end of what could have turned into an edit war, especially without any apparent support from the rest of the community here. (And I really don't have time now!) Also, I'm hesitant to proceed here until I've resolved my committment (wise or not) to finish a revision of that essay/debate summary on the Uruk-hai that I posted to the newsgroups a few months ago. But in any case, I'm quite happy to see you involved here too. Just don't let it sap too much of your time!--Steuard 21:36, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Middle-Earth

I've just sen your wikiproject - nice work :) I am an author of polish Middle-Earth portal - and I think you could find there something useful :) In example I've made some timeline templates, they need only few translations and would be ready to publicate here. Probably I'll have some free time to do it on saturday. Links to polish versions you can find at the bottom of the portal - write if you like it, and if you'd like to change sth in english versions :) Nameless pl 21:10, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Middle-earth portal formatting problem

The text from the boxes in the right-hand column overlap, and I can't figure out how to fix it.

A drastic solution, but one that would definitely work, would be to start over, using the code from the Philosophy portal as a guide. We've worked out all the bugs, and it is very stable. And it uses subpage transclusion rather than template transclusion. Go for it! 11:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm almost done converting the portal over to the philosophy format. It should be another half-hour or so. Go for it! 11:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Middle-earth portal conversion complete

Using search/replace to swap the colors went faster than expected. The portal is ready for your inspection. And yes, the boxes automattically size themselves to accomodate whatever you put in their corresponding subpage. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. Go for it! 12:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. It lacks edit buttons, but there is a link under miscellaneous to a list of all the subpages. You can easily edit them from there. I also put a couple links under miscellaneous for tracking changes to all the pages of the portal. Go for it! 12:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just didn't know how to implement the edit buttons. Thanks for showing me. I've added the feature to the philosophy portal. Thanks! Go for it! 14:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

portal links

I appreciate your work on the portal, but I have my doubts about your template. Adding it to all Tolkien related articles is "template creep" imho, but that's a matter of taste and I won't argue that point. But I do think you should add it to "see also", and not at the top of articles. Also, while I understand "Speak, friend, and enter", it is less than self-explanatory, and a prosaic "Middle-earth portal" would be preferable as a caption (especially since one is not required to "speak" to enter, at all). best regards, dab (ᛏ) 10:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

sorry, I hadn't seen your post about the copyright before. With "fair use" you'll be on the safe side. I'm not sure if it is even evident at this low resolution whether it is a slightly different image, or the original one. Anyway, I don't personally care. I don't think we'll have much trouble if you claim the image as your own. It is still clearly a "derived" work and therefore in my understanding falls under copyright. The same would hold for the maps you mention, and just because the Tolkien Trust didn't choose to sue in that case does not mean that they are actually outside copyright. Again, this is not something I care about very much. I don't want to spoil your fun by being pedantic about the template placement either. I may move it down in a couple of instances where I feel it distracts from the actual article, but hey, it is not something about which there should be edit wars; what I told you above is just my personal opinion, and things will depend on what other people think. best regards, dab (ᛏ) 18:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:Middle-earth portal

Template:Middle-earth portal has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Middle-earth portal. Thank you. --Qirex 01:23, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bellakar, Anarikê, Sakal an-Khar

These subjects are submitted to wikipedia because Bellakar was earlier submitted.

Yes, this is fan creation, and I see no reason why these texts are "candidates for deletion" while it opens interest to readers. The assumption "candidate for deletion" violate wikipedia as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alcantar (talk • contribs)

Bellakar, Anarikê, Sakal an-Khar

These subjects are submitted to wikipedia because Bellakar was earlier submitted, and because the debate for deletion was not made open.

Yes, this is fan creation, and I see no reason why these texts are "candidates for deletion" while it opens interest to readers. The assumption "candidate for deletion" violate wikipedia as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alcantar (talk • contribs)

Middle-earth maps

Hi, you've tagged a number of maps as {{cc-by-2.0-map}} (which would entitle commercial use of the work) that I had earlier tagged as {{CopyrightedNotForProfitUseProvidedThat}}. The maps are clearly not under a CC licence as can be seen at http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/faq/use.html, and commercial use is specifically not allowed. Given that, would you not agree that the previous tag better describes the licencing situation of these images? Thanks/wangi 17:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

reference

Yeah, I know that such images are deprecated - but that is intentional, if the content cannot be used commercially then we shouldn't be using it on Wikipedia since we can have commercial downstream users. For more info see this email from Jimmy Wales. Such images are deprecated, not the template - it correctly identifies the copyright of the image.

The real solution here is for someone to recreate these maps themself - perhaps you can ask someone to do that on the Middle-earth WikiProject? Thanks/wangi 18:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or contact Encyclopedia of Arda to get permission to use the maps commercially on this site? wangi 18:51, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright issues give me a headache. I've switched these back (while leaving in the explanation that Encyclopedia of Arda's copyright itself may be questionable). I think I've seen an Aman map on CC which can be used in place of Encyclopedia of Arda's version. I'll look into getting freely available versions of the others (though their copyright status in relation to the originals by Christopher Tolkien will always be open to question). --CBD _☎ ^✉ 19:23, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Middle-earth

Just to let you know, that the Things to Do page is up...so add anything you feel like needing! —Mirlen 15:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

J. R. R. Tolkien

Hi! My name is Mike, and I wanted to let you know that this article is up for Featured Article Status! It is SOOO CLOSE! And as someone who has worked on this article a lot in the past (having checked the history) I thought you could help me fix the inline citations. As I have none of the books in question, I am out of luck, but thought real enthusiasts might be able to help. So, please help, or get those who you know can to help make Tolkien a featured article! Thanks much! Judgesurreal777 18:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Standards

Just thought you know that standards should be decided for family tree templates and tenses concerning the articles, so please respond—share your thoughts...you and I seem to be the only one in the WikiProject though :P. (BTW, if you could reply on my talk page, that'd be appreciated :) ). —Mirlen 04:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are probably right. Too many links probably overwhelmed them. (Sorry about that *blushes*). However, I do want to keep the 'Things to Do' page at least. Thanks for responding, btw. Sorry if I keep pushing for you to respond, but I do need people's input on things—after all, I'm only a fifteen-year-old newbie Wikipedian writer/sort-of-manager on these things compared to all the wholly older, more experienced and more knowledgeable on Wikipedia. —Mirlen 04:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maedhros

I have question. How are you having the whole date format? Does that mean that for the War of Wrath, the date should be tweaked to Y.S. instead of F.A. (First Age)? —Mir l e n 00:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up :). Hey, I don't know if I mentioned this, but perhaps it is time to archive the talk page? I could do it for you if you'd like :). —Mir l e n 01:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Sorry for pelting from time to time with so many questions :P, but I was wondering if you knew whether the correct spelling would be to refer the House of Fëanor members. Is it Fëanorion, Fëanorean, or Fëanorian? —Mir l e n 20:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. :) By the way, do you have any suggestions to improve Faramir's article? I do agree that I did go overboard with the biography, so do you have any critiques? —Mir l e n 20:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really have a problem with it. It could be more concise, but I don't worry much about the stylistic issues. Only suggestion might be to cut down and/or merge the 'biography' sub-sections. Keep details about Faramir himself but reduce the information about what he did. Possibly move that info to The Two Towers to expand the chapter summaries there. That'd make one central location for plot rather than the same plot details appearing in Faramir, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Gollum, et cetera. --CBDunkerson 21:05, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I'll work on it. Thanks for your critique, CBD. When Ted and I are done, hopefully you'll see an improvement. :) It'd be nice for some of the Tolkien articles to be on Wikipedia 1.0, like the J. R. R. Tolkien article. —Mir l e n 21:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Found a contradiction on the Elves article:

A fourth type was the patronymic — the father's name with the suffix "-ion" added. Thus, Gildor Inglorion is "Gildor, son of Inglor".

Is the information on the page wrong—because if the above was true, then it be Fëanorion...? —Mir l e n 18:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Appendix E.II.i, "The Fëanorian Letters" and "Gildor (Inglorion)" in the index. Thus, "Fëanorian" and "Inglorion" are both 'correct' in that they were used by Tolkien. The '-ian' ending is an anglicization (i.e. in English '-ian', '-ien', and '-an' are used to indicate 'of'). Theoretically, one or more of the sons of Fëanor could have been given a name something like 'Maedhros Fëanorion'... but there isn't any reference to such. --CBDunkerson 20:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Thanks CBD. So the names for any of the sons of Fëanor would be, like you said, Maedhros Fëanorian. —Mir l e n 21:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

References

There's a user who added awards that Ian McKellen won in the Gandalf article, and referenced it from an IMBD site. What would be the proper ciatation then — and is a source really needed then, since it's a factual information that's generally in all sources and not controversial/disputed? (Could you respond on my talk page?—thanks!) —Mir l e n 20:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay thanks, btw, I was browsing around the internet, and guess what I found on — content from the HoME books (I don't have them right now):

From Volume 10: The Annals of Aman:

1495 - The Flight of the Noldor begins.

1496 - Prophecy of the North.

1497 - The Exiles reach Helcaraxe. Fëanor sets foot upon Middle-earth.

1500 - Host of Fingolfin reaches Beleriand.

From Volume 11: The Grey Annals:

1500 - Host of Fingolfin come at last into Beleriand. "Even as they set foot upon Middle-:earth, the age of the Stars were ended, and the time of the Sun and Moon was begun, as is told in the Chronicle of Aman."

Year of the Sun

1 - First the Moon came forth as Fingolfin began his march into Middle-earth...soon after there came the first Dawn of the Sun.

On the ending of the First Age:

From Volume 11: The Tale of Years

545 - War of Wrath begins.

587 - War of Wrath ends.

590 - Melkor is cast out. The First Age ends here.

When I get the HoME books, I can accurately reference it and fix up the Timeline of Arda. —Mir l e n 22:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tenses

Sorry to badger you again CBD, but are the Tolkien related articles in present or past tense? In this discussion it is said that it should be in past tense, (which I agree with, partly because it's strange to write in present tense for Tolkien articles), so I thought it'd be written in past tense, but somebody reverted the tenses on a Tolkien related article saying the the MoS said to write it in present tense for fiction, so now I am rather confused. —Mir l e n 14:05, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks CBD, I think I will plead our case in making an exception for Tolkien articles, btu I will start with baby steps at a time in this, of course. —Mir l e n 16:12, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see how it turns out. And I'll defend our case through thick and thin...I think I have some reasonable rebuttals. I may a pacificist, but as my userbox says, I am a pacificist who will fight for his/her beliefs 'til the bitter end. ;) (I'm awaiting response from the user about the tenses, so I have to see how it turns out). —Mir l e n 16:30, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Standards

The templates sounds like a good idea! As for the rest, I'll talk more tomorrow. I'm getting kicked off the computer. :P —Mir l e n 02:10, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree — the more that's included in the standards, the better. I'm unfamiliar with the name translation at the top. I've always placed them in the 'Trivia' section, but if placing them at the top is the standards, then alright. Do you have an example I could follow? (Not that I don't believe or anything). As for the spoiler warnings, I think they should be placed after the intro and before the contents. I think legendarium should be used because people will be tempted to put 'fictional universe' of Middle-earth — where there's places like Aman/Valinor. Date formats, course. I also think instead of explaining what happened and say, "in the Return of the King..." — we should use the dates (i.e. 2987 T.A.). The rest I agree with. I've been placing the banner on the talk pages of articles. —Mir l e n 23:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Finally done with the Standards page! (However, it is far from being finished, as it needs to polished and issues that need a concenus on). --Mir l e n 19:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Usenet notability

Was just browsing VFD from the ME WikiProject and noticed this: Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Meow_Wars. Surely if that survived VfD then certain other flame wars might stand a chance? :-) I've also been checking out Category:Newsgroups, but can't work out what the bar for notability is for Usenet newsgroups. Carcharoth 11:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of Arda template

I've made some changes to the History of Arda template, and started a discussion on the template talk page. I'm a bit stuck on some bits of table formatting and linking, so I wondered if you'd be able to help? Carcharoth 07:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Report

Reporting for duty, sir! ;) I was wondering if you could check over the Maedhros article before I have it peer reviewed (I want to get at least one [character] article to G.A. status). An IP user inserted some unsourced information in the Trivia section, and I managed to find the references to two of 'em, but I was wondering if you knew the source for the last bullet. (I am about 50%-60% completion of the redesigning of the Standards page, so when it's around 90%-95% finished, I'll post it up and have our members look over it). —Mir l e n 23:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for those edits and citation, CBD! Oh, by the way, Happy Easter! Even if you don't celebrate it (like me), the chocolate is something that shouldn't be forgotten, right? —Mir l e n 18:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As for the spellings for Tolkien related articles, we use British, right? —Mir l e n 19:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the chocolate, no problem. You think Maedhros article is ready to undergo peer review (we should say something about how past tense should be used, since I know somebody is going to say something abou that)? Oh btw, you should check out the Maedhros article's talk page concerning references... —Mir l e n 22:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Boromir change

i know the date that boromir left minas tirith to go to rivendell but i forgot it.

thank you

Thank you for telling me out borimir.

86.140.5.53 18:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination

I think the Maedhros article is ready for G.A. nomination, but I heard that an external editor had to nominate it for G.A. I couldn't find this on the G.A. pages, but is this true? —Mir l e n 17:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, okay. I was worried when I heard that. Thanks. —Mir l e n 18:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Lord of the Rings Peer Review

I have make extensive changes to our Lord of the Rings article in an attempt to work it up to Featured Article status. In order to find more suggestions I have listed it under Wikipedia:Peer Review. Under the guidelines to nominations I am required to notify others of knowledge in the area to review it. I have decided that the best group for this would be our WikiProject. So I ask you all to look at the article and make any suggestions you can. Hopefully we will be voting this FA soon enough. Sorry Guy 00:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Beleriand map

I noticed that the copyright status of the Beleriand map can't be used and therefore needed to be renewed, but instead a map showing a small section of Beleriand, how about a good quality map like this? It's a colored version of Christopher Tolkien's white-black (and red) map. You can find the colored map on numerous number of sites. There is also this version as well, which is very nice. Both appear to be safe to use, since the lawyers have not removed the colored versions of Beleriand maps as they've done for tons of other maps here. The best source of map (the one by John Howe) I'd like to use is the one in the HaperCollins' Silmarillion Gift Pack — they also have nice heraldry images of the Elven houses. —Mir l e n 01:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The third link wasn't taken down, it's just the crappy server of Geocities. It's up now again. You can see it from this link. Also, the map on the first link is uploaded on a lot of other sites as well (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Well, getting a high resolution image and turning it into low resolution, dubbing with its respective tag, writing a fair use rationale for it is what I've been doing the Tolkien illustrators' arts after emailing them for their permission. So, I see how the Arda maps are convienient, but I do like more detailed and higher quality map as opposed to a little section of it. So, I'll reload the Beleriand map to the colored version of Christopher Tolkien's map. I just wanted to ask if you were okay with the idea of having a new map...so since it's not taken down, it can be used, right? (Found out where the map is from: HarperCollins 1992 edition of The Silmarillion).

BTW, when I entered the realms of Beleriand in the Beleriand section, the box ended up stretching all the way across the article... —Mir l e n 21:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh good, so I'm not the only who thinks the EoA maps are rather crappy. :P Thanks, CBD! —Mir l e n 00:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problem is though, what fair use copyright should it be tagged with? If I use the generic tags, it'll have a limited use of the map (the maximum is five). The only art tag is the 2D art tag... —Mir l e n 00:40, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, sounds good. :) —Mir l e n 13:21, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, and can you delete the EoA Beleriand map image? I had to use a JPG file because I only compress JPGs, and also because art must be in JPG file. You can find the new map here: here.

Silvan

Hi! I'm glad you liked my chart. The subject of the origin of the Silvan language seems to be a little confused. Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings claims that the Elves of Mirkwood and Lórien were "East-elves", as opposed to "West-elves" such as the Sindar. The draft of the same text in The Peoples of Middle-earth (p.79) clarifies that "Eastern Elves" were those that "had hearkened no summons to the Sea ...". This seems to state clearly that the Silvan elves were Avari, and since this is what Tolkien wrote in the one text that he actually published, I have opted to follow that in the chart. Appendix A of "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn" in Unfinished Tales, on the other hand, state that the Silvan were "in origin Eldar". Several other texts make similar claims. This discrepancy should perhaps be noted in the article.

So the Silvan elves (and hence their language) seem to be attributed sometimes to the Avari (LR, QE), sometimes to Nandor (HGC). However, I am not aware of any statement that the Silvan language was descended from both Nandorin and Avarin. As for Sindarin, there is the note that it was spoken with an 'accent' in Lórien, but I can't recall any statement that Silvan was likewise affected by Sindarin.

Of course, many of the languages borrowed from each other, most notably Sindarin and Quenya. The Silvan language may have borrowed extensively from both Nandorin and Sindarin. The chart does not purport to illustrate this, only to show the direct descent of the languages. See my more extensive diagram: http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_ldev2.html.

--Mansbjorkman 07:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we can come to no firm conclusion regarding the origin of the Silvan language. There are at least three sides of the problem:

Tolkien may have changed his mind. Certainly the development of the languages was considered very differently before The Lord of the Rings and afterwards.
The division of the Quendi into different groups is occasionally very confusing. Members of the Telerin 'clan' were (according to QE at least) found among both the Avari and those who embarked on the march. The Nandor seem to have been regarded sometimes as Eldar, sometimes as Avari.
As you point out, the merging of Avarin, Nandorin and Sindarin cultures may have left the origins of Silvan obscure. (Though not necessarily so: though the English language was heavily influenced by French after 1066, linguists still regard English as a Germanic language.)

I have altered the Elvish languages diagram to reflect the difficulty of (3), and added a note.

--Mansbjorkman 11:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Realms of Beleriand

Hey, have a question. What are the Beleriand realms exactly? I think the information listed on the Beleriand article is slightly inaccurate. Here's what I know of the realms of Beleriand so far (please correct me where I might be wrong): Doriath is a given, of course. Thingol allowed the Ñoldor to establish their realms/kingdoms in Beleriand, which were Hithlum, Nargothrond, Nevrast, and the March of Maedhros. After Morgoth drove the Ñoldor out of the earlier stated realms, they settled in Ossiriand and Lindon. There is also Falas. (Estolad I would consider as a sub-realm rather than a main realm since it's within the March; Dor-lómin I would also consider as a sub-realm). But the rest listed in the article I know of our simply lands, forests, etc. I think the resouce used for that information was probably the Encyclopedia of Arda, but the Encyclopedia is not entirely accurate. —Mir l e n 01:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, thanks CBD. I'm going to tweak the listings of Beleriand realms. Or would it be better to literally create a Wikipedia:List of Beleriand realms? What do you think? —Mir l e n 00:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox Tolkien

Just letting you know that there's a new proposal of the syntax by Carcharoth here, so please share your opinion as a WP:ME participant. —Mir l e n 22:50, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New Article

Hi, I'm new here. I just created an article called the Destruction of Isengard. But is is not showning up when I type it up in the box. What do I do?Also, how do I add it to the War of the Ring campaignbox template? Thanks.--Barnikel 05:51, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is still not showing up from the search box. Is there anything I have to do to make it show up? --Barnikel 18:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm....I tried clicking the Go button, but still no good. Wonder what's going on.--Barnikel 05:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the image labelling

Hi there. Thanks for the image labelling at the Middle-earth images gallery. I see you didn't manage to do them all in one go! It is really the "other" section (the last one) that I am most interested in, but looking at the key you supplied, and the licence you get when clicking on the pictures, I think I understand this whole copyright/licencing thing a litle bit more clearly. Thanks! Carcharoth 20:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, you did a great job collecting images so it took a while to get through them. Yeah, the license pages are usually the best bet once you know what the different categories mean, but there are always quite a few which are mis-labeled (though that usually gets corrected eventually). --CBDunkerson 00:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Middle-earth

Hi there. I was just wondering about the May roll call for WikiProject Middle-earth. I mentioned it to Mirlen before she went on her WikiBreak, and she said I should feel free to call one. Trouble is, I am going to be rather busy this weekend, and it is nearly the end of May. On the other hand, there are now 20 participants signed up and lots that could be done (or maybe people are working away on their own little areas - hard to tell). What do you think is best to do? Carcharoth 02:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll wait til June. Good idea about having the roll call separate from the participants list. This is the first place on Wikipedia that I have encountered the concept of a roll call. I was a bit taken aback at first (sounds like being back at school), but I like the idea now. Maybe rephrasing it as "active members" is a bit better. Trouble is, there will always be those names that are long-term inactive, which is why I like the idea of a "thanking past participants" bit. How should this be done? I would guess any changes would need to be discussed among active members at the WikiProject?

Another thing, is that I'm still really trying to get the hang of the ropes here and stay on top of things and keep organised. Even in what is really quite a small area of Wikipedia, I still feel that things get unmanageable very quickly. Too much spotting one thing, then moving on to something else before really finishing that thing off. Still trying to find the balance between organising, editing, reading Wikipedia content, and reading/learning Wikipedia policies and tools! Oh, and also the delicate balance between "being bold" and "forming consensus"!

Maybe the idea I saw somewhere (either the portal or the WikiProject) of agreeing on a collaboration of the week might help? Carcharoth 17:15, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ME reference templates

Thanks for tidying up the Simbelmyne article. I noticed that the reference style you used was to refer to the chapter, rather than the page number. This seems like a good idea, as it would avoid the messy thing with page numbers. I wonder if the book title link could be to a list of editions, or if the reference template, while giving details of one edition, could incorporate a "other editions" link - or would that contravene the house style of Wikipedia? Carcharoth 15:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changes at History of Arda

Hi Conrad. Someone changed History of Arda with this edit and this edit and several subsequent ones. What I think the difference is between the terms "Years of the Valar" and "Years of the Lamps" is given at Valian Years. But the changes to History of Arda seems to contradict this. Can you give these articles the once-over again, to check they aren't saying the wring things. Thanks. Carcharoth 15:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I made the changes myself. Would you be able to check them? Thanks. Carcharoth 15:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the changes you made and added a couple other small updates. --CBD 20:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Middle earth

I could upload the images here, though I had also thought using maps based on the map currently on wikipedia. I was hoping before that a simplified map could be released under the gfdl, but since its going to have to be fair use, then it may as well use a more detailed map. --Astrokey44 15:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quenya on Wikipedia

Hey CBD!

Since you have Category:User que on your userpage, I thought perhaps you'd be interested in expanding the test Wikipedia in Quenya, located here. Best, Firsfron of Ronchester 06:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge in Elf article

Hello, CBD, I was wondering if you could use your admin powers to official-ize the proposed merge that was proposed here. The debate — the formal word for it as I know — has been in a consensus to accept the merge and it's been there for a couple of days. —Mir l e n 23:10, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ME-ref template

It took some careful reading of the template, but I see how it works :) As for other texts, if I come across any sure I'll add them. I guess the logical way to go about it is by adding references to existing articles, any M-e related book not yet in the list can then be added. That's why I added the Roman numerals: I usually refer to the HoMe books as HoMeII p123 or VIII p16 etc., the same style CJRT uses. -- Jordi·✆ 07:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tense issue

A little help here. (Sorry to keep on bothering you like this CBD.) —Mir l e n 00:41, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding my changes to BFME2 units list

Hello, i recently edited the BFME2 units section and you claimed that I posted nonsense. Which of course is completely untrue, I was merely correcting mistakes, as well as adding three confirmed new units. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.27.221.31 (talk • contribs) .

Hi. Sorry, but I'm not sure what you are talking about. You were apparently using a different IP address because the above was the first edit made by this one. I am guessing that 'BFME2' is The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, but I only edited that article once... in February... to add info, and I've never edited the associated List of units in The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II at all. Looking back through my contribution history for the past few months the only thing I've called 'nonsense' in an edit summary was when someone added 'Chris Jones' to a list of hobbits. Could you give me some more info about the incident you are referring to? What article was it in? What date? Et cetera. --CBD 12:17, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After further research I am guessing that you are referring to these edits of yours (which look fine to me) and this message of mine on the talk page of the same IP address. Note that my message is dated April 12th... more than five months before your changes to the list of units and thus completely unrelated. My message was actually directed at this edit from that IP address listing "Adam Wisbrock" as a famous resident of Lossarnach. Most likely your ISP randomly assigns IP addresses and the IP you were using at the time had previously been used by someone else. This also makes it difficult to get back in touch with you... because if I left a message at the talk page of the IP address you most recently used you probably would get a different IP next time and not see it. You might want to create an account to help avoid confusion like this. --CBD 12:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Issues of tense

As you know, the debate on whether novels related to Tolkien related articles should be in past tense or not is going on. I was thinking of involving WP:Novels (after all, they too were involved in the collaboration of making The Lord of the Rings a FA article) and presenting our case with solid, justified reasons (and perhaps a bit of passionate pleas in there as well) here. But before I did so, I wanted your advice and feedback on whether that plan of action is either good or ill. —Mir l e n 14:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like there is just one person arguing for present tense. I'd really like to see if he has a reason other than 'because that is the way it is supposed to be'... which isn't strictly true (there are exceptions) and doesn't explain what is 'good' about it in this case. Explaining how Tolkien's texts differ from other novels may be more difficult with people who are not all familiar with them. Opening it up for comment by more people may be needed if he is set on this, but he has to at least give some reason other than 'following what I think a guideline says' first. --CBD 14:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your advice, CBD, and I do agree with what you said. The other reason given was confusion, which I did not consider it as a justification. I did post a comment on the talk page of where the dispute resides but he has not replied yet. If no reply is given in 1-2 days, should I revert it back to past tense, or should I prod the user (for the third or fourth time as you can tell by reading my comments) for a reply? Frankly, I'm for the first plan because I am tired of prodding for a reply (since unreplied comments w/clear majority seems to me as a settled dispute)...but I don't want it to turn into an edit conflict, so perhaps waiting is the best course of action...? —Mir l e n 00:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd go ahead and put it back, but not repeat if he reverts it. If he reverts to enforce his version, but can't give a solid reason then I guess we'd have to take it to the next stage of requesting comment from a wider audience. I agree that 'possible confusion' doesn't seem like a big issue as alot of people won't be familiar with the guideline, but most of those who are might well also know that it has caveats... and in any case, as was noted, we can point them to both the Wikiproject standards and the guideline itself for explanation. --CBD 00:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, thanks CBD :) (and for dealing with my endless barrage of questions). —Mir l e n 00:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Morgoth article moved to Melkor/Morgoth Bauglir

...and several other moves as well! See the talk page. Do you know enough about page moving and page histories to undo this mess? Thanks. Carcharoth 00:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note the triple redirect when clicking on Morgoth! Carcharoth 00:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ambar - deleted and then restored

Not sure if this has been pointed out, but it looks like AfD screwed up. Just to start the ball rolling and institute a culture change, I'm trying to get all admins closing things at AfD to remember to check the page history of an article before deleting, so that drastic changes in the nature of a page are spotted, and also urging those voting at AfD to do the same. See the following for details:

Copied to closing admin, restoring admin, deletion nominator, all who voted in the AfD discussion, and the AfD talk page. Carcharoth 23:49, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another example of change followed by deletion

I recently rescued Ailinel from its deletion after it morphed into a non-notable band. See here and here. Also, the talk page for Ambar hasn't been restored yet. See here. Do you think you could deal with that? Carcharoth 00:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned talk pages

Thanks for restoring that talk page, and for the suggestion over at Afd. I was wondering if you would be able to help with some other red links I found a week or so ago at the assessment log for the Tolkien/Middle-earth articles. They are mainly orphaned talk pages, some where the article page seems to have never existed! I'm not quite sure what to do with them. Would you be able to have a look at them? They are at User:Carcharoth#Orphaned_talk_pages. Thanks. Carcharoth 12:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted most of these. Wasn't sure what to do with the two that are redirects. I don't think redirects really need a talk page, but there are different methodologies of tracking these right now... the redirect category, the talk page banner, article lists, et cetera. Think that all needs to get sorted out to some sort of consistent method. Let me know if you have other ideas for handling these and the other articles on that list. --CBD 12:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I started the redirect category method for the ME redirects. Quite a few now. See Category:Middle-earth redirects. For some reason I am having problems putting the Bard II redirect into that category (Database error: A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "Article::updateRedirectOn". MySQL returned error "1062: Duplicate entry '7724316' for key 1 (10.0.0.235)".). I agree that redirects don't need a talk page, but deleting blank ones is probably not worth it. Articles, templates, categories and Wikipedia namespace pages are being tracked with talk page banners (specifically, Template:ME-project (with importance and quality assessments for articles and class=NA for Wikipedia namespace pages) , Template:ME-template, Template:ME-category), thus a default article list if they have all been tagged with the talk page banner, and once the categories, templates and redirects have been weeded out, will be at the list starting here. That then needs to be compared with the old list mentioned at User:Carcharoth/Desk#Clean-up. I want to eventually move that list to Wikipedia namespace, and also update the category structure at Portal:Middle-earth/Categories, which is also now rather out of date. Carcharoth 13:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates discussion at LotR

See Talk:J._R._R._Tolkien#Template_clutter. Carcharoth 18:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tolkien terminology

Hey CBD, could you give your comments considering this issue here? (I'll even hand out free chocolate! ;) Surely you can't resist that...^^) It's about standardizing terminology usage in Tolkien articles, so it's crucial and a consensus is needed. Thanks! —Mir l e n 05:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Two recent Tolkien deletions

Two pages were recently deleted, as I discovered when checking here: (1) Quenya Swadesh list and (2) List of Middle-earth Men. What do you think should be done about this? What can be done about the latter, which was a properly run AfD? Carcharoth 04:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you don't mind me jumping in and editing that ME-men list. How do you see it ending up? Small entries for all of them? Carcharoth 12:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh. It's a real mess... <sidling away> :-) Carcharoth 12:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)The Swadesh list I think works fine on Wiktionary and can be linked to in the Quenya article. I moved the other to User:CBDunkerson/List of Middle-earth Men for now. Obviously it is better to have the one list than dozens of little articles, but it needs to be cleaned up and expanded first. --CBD 12:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Middle-earth men list should be designed similar to List of Hobbits... and at one point it was. People just had different ideas and mangled the heck out of it. I'll try to clean it up again and just put in the 'As' or something to get it started. --CBD 12:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You created a redirect to the copy of the List of Middle-earth Men in your userspace from the Main article space. I have tagged it for speedy deletion in accordance with WP:CSD#R2. You are welcome to work on it in userspace and then propose it for undeletion at DRV but until then the article should stay deleted (i.e. a red link). Note that I will probably still argue for deletion in the future given the arguments I made in the AfD. One, since Wikipedia is not an indiscrimnant collection of information we don't need any information about the most obscure characters; and two that lists of this type should be deleted in favour of categories like Category:Middle-earth Men. Eluchil404 21:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using a category encourages creation of separate articles for each character... whereas a list helps to consolidate them in one place. As to 'obscure'... everyone is going to have different estimations of the point at which that becomes the case. Rather than fighting endless battles over whether each individual character article is notable a single article listing all (with links to separate articles on the most significant characters) avoids the problem and is surely notable. In short, I don't agree with your conclusions and maintaining such information as a list is the usual standard on Wikipedia. As you'd seemingly be aware given your involvement in Characters from the Incredibles. About the redirect - sorry, just didn't think about the fact that moving the page would leave one behind. --CBD 12:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a more elegant way?

Wikipedia:Help_desk#Category_Help for a disambiguation issue and possible ways to get pages to display in categories without the (Middle-earth) thing. Carcharoth 01:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ages of Middle-earth

Hi Conrad. You created the 'Ages of the Children of Iluvatar article in October 2005. I just noticed Ages of Middle-earth and a merge comment on the talk page. Interestingly, the order or creation seems to have been Ages of Middle-earth; Timeline of Arda and Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar. Anyway, not sure what to make of it all, but I'm pleased to see someone is doing some article assessment (that is how I noticed all this). Carcharoth 05:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Previously there was an Ages of the Sun article. I redirected that to (and created) Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar to reflect the actual situation in the books (it is a very common misconception that the 'First Age' began with the first sunrise, but all the texts are absolutely clear that this was not the case). I agree that some kind of merge with Ages of Middle-earth makes sense and will comment on the talk page. --CBD 12:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Balrog1.gif.jpg

I have listed this image on deletion requests instead of speedily deleting it. Bryan 21:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old South Road

Do you have any idea how confused you made me? ^_^ I thought I was loosing it, "What was I talking about article doesn't exist? Why didn't I go for the merge anyway?" /* scratches head */
brenneman 05:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. It's all in your imagination, the 'Roads of Middle-earth' article was there all along. :] Actually it was Fang Aili who started it. The Middle-earth Wikiproject has been moving towards merging everything into lists like this for a while now... there is just so much stuff that it is going to take a while. --CBD 09:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But the roads article looks good now. We now have a merged weapons article, roads article, rivers article, minor places, horses. Now I just need to figure out how to use embedded anchor links to take people directly to entries in those lists (using redirects per the new 'anchored redirects work' thing). Don't want to use subheadings in all the lists. Any tips? Carcharoth 12:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See List of Hobbits... it sets anchor points directly without using sub-headings. --CBD 12:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. I remember now! Thanks. Carcharoth 12:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anchored redirects

Hmm. Adalgrim Took is not working properly. Maybe this is like a double redirect, and it doesn't like it? Strange, because Bill the Pony and List of Hobbits#Adalgrim works OK. Carcharoth 12:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, clicking on the Bill the Pony entry at Category:Middle-earth_characters works, and that is like a triple redirect (1. Go to redirect page; 2. Redirect to article; 3. Switch down to anchored heading). Carcharoth 12:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to tell you to use just 'Adalgrim', but it looks like you figured it out. --CBD 12:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. I changed that, but still not working. Click around the above links and for me Adalgrim Took (a redirect to the anchor) takes me to the list, but not down to the entry, whereas List of Hobbits#Adalgrim takes me straight to the entry. In contrast, Bill the Pony, anchored to the heading, not a div-id tag, goes straight to the entry. Hitting the browser 'back' button on Bill the Pony takes you back up to the top of the article the section is in, but hitting the 'back' button for List of Hobbits#Adalgrim takes you back here. I wonder what happens with Horses of Middle-earth#Bill the pony? Hitting the 'back' button there doesn't take you to the top of the article, but takes you back here. Any idea what is going on? I suspect that going to a section through a "section heading anchored" redirect such as Bill the Pony acts like a double redirect (but is allowed), and going directly there, such as by a piped link like Bill the pony is not a double redirect. But going to a div through a "div-id tag anchored redirect" doesn't yet work. Probably something to do with the way the anchored redirects feature was enabled (see meta:Help:Redirect#A_redirect_to_an_anchor and bug 218 and meta:Help:Section_linking_and_redirects#Section_linking_and_redirects). Any idea what to do? Carcharoth 12:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked up rev:18220, so I'll drop a note off to see if Tim Starling knows what is happening here. Carcharoth 13:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The 'Adalgrim Took' link in your first sentence above has worked correctly for me since the first time I tried it... which was after you corrected the anchor point to '#Adalgrim' from '#Adalgrim Took'. If you tried it prior to that it would have failed and maybe now you just need to clear your cache or something. --CBD 13:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aggh! I tried clearing my cache. But that didn't work. It works now, for some reason. Strange. Oh well. Glad that wasn't anything major. Maybe a job queue thing, though as it worked for you, probably was a cache issue. F5 normally clears my cache. Maybe I needed a more vigorous way to clear it? Carcharoth 13:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Page caching invariably annoys me so I have long since turned it off entirely by setting the cache size to zero and instructing my browser to reload every time a page is visited. Seems to be the only thing which always works. Otherwise, even when you clear the cache sometimes it has a copy of the page in memory and you have to close and re-open the browser before it will display correctly. --CBD 13:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Post-script: can you think of an easy way to update those redirects to include the anchors pointing at the div-id tags? I'm thinking of generating a list of Hobbit redirects (which should already exist) for the list of Hobbits, then manipulating the text at List of Hobbits to find out what the div-id tags are for each hobbit, then using that to form the correct anchored link. I guess I would then have a series of several hundred AWB edits to make. Which would require me to learn how that works... I think this will gon very low down my list of things to do! :-) Carcharoth 03:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The process you describe sounds about like I would do. One tip might be that in most cases the div id is just the first name. There are some exceptions to that where the first name isn't known or is shared by several people, but those would be a small number of cases. That said, when I set them up in the first place I did it manually and that didn't take too long. --CBD 11:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

AfD Nomination: Middle-earth cosmology

An editor has nominated the article Middle-earth cosmology for deletion, under the Articles for deletion process. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the nomination (also see What Wikipedia is not and Deletion policy). Your opinions on why the topic of the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome: participate in the discussion by editing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Middle-earth cosmology. Add four tildes like this ˜˜˜˜ to sign your comments. You can also edit the article Middle-earth cosmology during the discussion, but do not remove the "Articles for Deletion" template (the box at the top of the article), this will not end the deletion debate. Jayden54Bot 15:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Page list at Middle-earth Portal

I've been checking through that list, and I found a few things that probably shouldn't be on there, plus some capitalised versions were missing (eg. Tolkien studies was there, but not Tolkien Studies, and Tolkien's legendarium, but not Tolkien's Legendarium). I assume the latter just got missed off, but I wanted to check the way you set things up didn't strip out things with different capitalisation. I know the way I compare lists (in Excel) doesn't take capitalisation into account (there probably is a way, but I haven't found it yet). Anyway, the things that probably should be removed from the list are:

ENT (disambiguation) - this is a redirect to ENT, where the Ent dab is
Goblin (disambiguation) - no mention of Tolkien's goblins/ors here, dab needs to be added?
Hayward (disambiguation) - this is a redirect to Hayward, where the Hobbit family dab is
Headstrong - dab page for two music albums - neither seem to have a Tolkien link
Patience (poem) - the current version of this page attributes work done on this Middle English poem to Tolkien, but I think the person who added that was confusing this with the Pearl (poem) and other Pearl poet works Tolkien worked on. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think Tolkien worked on this poem, though he did work on Gawain, Pearl and Sir Orfeo.

What do you think? I'll leave you to remove anything not needed from this lot, or change the pages as needed. Carcharoth 15:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I hadn't realized that Excel's 'if()' logic ignored case... I'll have to try to find a way to get the capitalization differences back in there. I can't recall having heard about Tolkien working on Patience either. I'll look into that a bit and remove it if I don't find anything. As to the disambiguation pages, I'd prefer to keep them precisely because they get changed around and the Tolkien disambigs lost... for instance 'Headstrong' has previously directed to the hobbits page and then to one of the songs with a link to the hobbits page in a hatnote... but now the hobbits link has been removed entirely. I'll put it back into the disambiguation page. --CBD 11:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, the 'exact()' function in Excel does case sensitive comparisons. I've updated the list with various case variation pages. --CBD 19:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's good to know. I've used both IF and EXACT functions before, but will have to remember that the IF function is not case-sensitive. Carcharoth 13:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've just been looking at those new pages. Some interesting ones there. Have you found any new sources, or is it still the same old combination of surveying watchlists, whatlinkshere, categories, and new additions at the assessment log? In particular, I'm still interested in finding the redirects pointing at these articles. Any ideas on how to do that for the 1000+ articles listed there?

In particular, I saw your addition of more deletion discussions. How are you finding those? discussions? Other than going through the entire history of VfD and AfD, I'm not sure whether any list of deletion discussions would ever be complete (though it would be nice to have one). Also, finding articles that got deleted under speedy deletion criteria would be even harder (though finding those is not as useful - you would hope most were nonsense, and that anything worthwhile was later recreated), as there tends not to be a record of those. They will be in the deletion log somewhere, but that is not really searchable or browsable. One that you did miss was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tolkien and racism - which was probably salvageable. I found an entry on Tolkien and racism in the new J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia - would that be enough to justify a Wikipedia article? Would it get out of control? (Almost definitely). Could it be kept under control? (Maybe). I think some of the recent deletion discussions listed at the WikiProject are also missing. Would it be worth listing that CfD discussion. Are there old CfD and TfD and IfD discussions missing? What about the Commons debate on the map images? Aagh! The list is never-ending!! :-) Carcharoth 14:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Using the Special:prefixindex, I found Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tolkien_depot and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tolkien metal and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Middle Earth Center. The Tolkien metal debate is Tolkien music-related (kind of), but not sure about the other two. Carcharoth 14:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And somehow Music of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy remained uncategorised and unknown for over a year. Actually, on closer examination, it lost its category here, and was moved to a new title at some point. The redirect (The Lord of the Rings music) is in the list at the portal, but not the new page. Can it be added to the list of pages to add. In fact, would it be best to set up a section on the talk page to add any new stuff that is found, or is there an easier way to maintain the list? I can see things slipping through the cracks unless one person (you) maintains the list. What do you think? Carcharoth 01:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I copy the existing list into Excel as a first step in making updates. Then I compile all the pages I want to merge into a list, remove duplicates, get just the pages which aren't on the original list, and go through those. Thus, the best way to get things into the list is to just add them... they'll automatically be carried forward in future updates. They don't even have to be in alphabetical order and even duplicates aren't a problem since I cut those out before repasting the list. I've been thinking that I may also set up an 'exclude' list so that people can see things which are somehow connected to Tolkien on Wikipedia that aren't being included. --CBD 21:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

middle earth maps

Hi CBD, could I ask for your opinion on commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Category:Middle Earth maps. (I happened to notice your edit to the middle earth page on commons removing the maps as being derivative, so I thought they should be nominated for deletion again since the last discussion was somewhat inconclusive.) --Astrokey44 03:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I commented there. Now that 'imagemap' is possible I had been considering making a clickable map of Middle-earth for the portal... but 'fair use' images aren't allowed on portals. It's all very frustrating. --CBD 11:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Middle-earth merges

I've recently done some merging into Regions of the Shire, and I see you have as well for Middle-earth cosmology. One thing I've noticed is that people might now arrive at these 'entries inside an article' in one of two ways. The first, if they click on a link from another Tolkien-related page is fine, as they realise what they are arriving at. The other way is people typing something in the search box. If you type 'Vaiya' into the search box, you arrive in the middle of a list. If you know it is a Tolkien phrase, then fine, but if you don't, it is confusing. Previously, there would have been the "this is a fictional ... from Tolkien's legendarium" bit, but now the reader jumps straight into the middle of a page. It's probably a necessary trade-off between having hundreds of stubby pages, and having well-organised list articles, but I wondered what you thought about this? Carcharoth 16:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. I think we can follow disambiguation procedures on this... if a word is only used for Tolkien or uses of it with some non-Tolkien meaning are rare / unlikely to be searched for, then we can go directly to the section on the page. If the term has one or more other meanings that are notable then typing in the term should probably go to a disambiguation page (or one of the other meanings, with a Tolkien hatnote, if they are much more prevalent)... if for some reason the term doesn't go to a disambig page, but instead direct to a Tolkien list then I think we would want it to go to the top of the list and have a hatnote to other meanings there. --CBD 17:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That sounds good. Carcharoth 23:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image:InscripSmall.JPG listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:InscripSmall.JPG, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. MECU≈talk 00:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tolkien merge templates

Hi Conrad. Would you have time to pop over to the WikiProject ME talk page and comment on this edit I made? It's a template question... Also, the bit I added somewhere there about the style of introductions could use some input. (I also spotted the 'writing systems' assessment box - how did they get over 1000 articles on writing systems! :-)) Carcharoth 01:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I jinned up an {{Merge JRRT}} template for them in my sandbox since I was watching a movie any way with the birthday boy. Course, I've been into Tolkien since '69-'70, so hope you don't mind me lightening your load! (That's a first! <G>) Also: On Carcharoth:

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Middle-earth#If_you_don.27t_mind_a_hand on behalf of CBD, an little boost from WP:TSP! (Not like I hadn't maintained the merge templates before) Cheers! // FrankB 06:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GROWL! Can you take a peek at the test in Template talk:X5 and the cases which should be meaning 'non-matching with anything' (i.e. the case would allow me to eliminate the {{CommonscatNo}} template) that invoke the second switch:{{{1|}}}... Switch characters would be !,#,$ in any combo as parameter '1' and '2'. I keep getting a display of Category:! as a category. Perhaps the proper short question is this: "can one use a second switch inside a first switch like this"? Or are the overused pipe operators likely to be 'confused' here? Thanks // FrankB 23:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you can stack switches like that. I assume you are referring to this version of the logic. Looking at that I wonder if the problem might be the line, '{{#switch: {{{{{2}}} }}'. That's not a switch on the contents of parameter 2, but rather a switch on the contents of a template named by parameter 2. So, when you set parameter 2 to '!' it is calling Template:! and then trying to switch on the contents of that, which happen to be just a '|' character. I think you may need to change that line to, '{{#switch: {{{2}}}'. --CBD 11:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Damn, I need your eyes... or something. Do you have any idea how many hours such things cost me? Great and thanks... // FrankB 17:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thought you'd be interested....

Why Wikipedia content cannot be trusted for Tolkien stuff, by Michael Martinez. We could use his help, but he hasn't edited following disputes. Uthanc 06:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd seen it. As you may know, Michael and I have a strained history going back nearly ten years. I don't think he could adapt well to the collaborative environment of Wikipedia, which he spends alot of space denouncing as inferior to 'expert written' texts in that column, and the fact that I'm here makes it unlikely he'd try. --CBD 12:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No doubt he comes up with reasonable-sounding complaints about Wikipedia in his columns, but if you look at the progress of the disputes you'll see his real problem is that his word wasn't taken as absolutely authoritative. There's no reason why it should be of course, any more than anyone else's, but he was never willing to compromise and seemed to think he could comport himself here as he does on Usenet and his own forums. It's not just Conrad here; anyone who gives him a well-reasoned argument that contradicts one of his opinions becomes the target of his wrath. Conrad's just been doing it longer and more competently than anyone else. It's unfortunate, because he's quite knowledgeable (although not remarkably so as far as I have ever seen) but he's too deeply in love with his own conclusions to ever compromise over them. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He does overdo it slightly as well: "As matters stand now, it will take Tolkien fandom years to recover from the damage inflicted by Wikipedia." - Hmm. Anyway, my view is that there has been promising progress in some areas, but the sheer bulk of material is a problem. We desperately need to prioritise stuff. Any ideas? Carcharoth 14:52, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the amount of work to be done is daunting. Only idea I have would be to identify one thing at a time and direct all members / visitors to the Wikiproject to work on that until it is done... then identify another. --CBD 20:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Middle-earth canon

They've set their sights on this now. By the looks of it Middle-earth Cycle may soon follow. User:Blackthornbrethil edited these articles into much of its present state, and he's inactive - and the project's not particularly active either right now... Uthanc 20:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think both the 'canon' and 'cycle' pages should be redone. The first into a referenced discussion of different ideas of 'canon' and the second merged into Tolkien's legendarium. Finding the time to do that, and everything else, is the issue. --CBD 20:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it has been improved enough for the moment. We need to keep an eye on stuff like that though. As you say, time is the issue. On another issue, the maps finally got deleted. Would you be able to pop over to the WP talk page and give your views? I foudn several articles where the old links hadn't been removed. Is there an easy way to check all the articles that had maps in them? Carcharoth 17:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned non-free image (Image:Monogram.jpg)

Thanks for uploading Image:Monogram.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BetacommandBot 03:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tolkien stuff

According to this site (Spearhead magazine) Tolkien subscribed to Candour, a right-wing magazine, and highlighted, not wrote the quotes below in copies now owned by the article writer. Information from it, incorrectly attributing them to Tolkien himself, had been added to the Orc (Middle-earth) article, but it's been removed with VandalProof.

The dissolution of the British Empire was viewed by Tolkien as a tragedy, which would have permanent negative consequences for its indigenous populations:

‘Africa is not peopled by Black Europeans, but it is a continent full of tribes mentally and morally at the dawn of history.

‘Self-government does not mean democracy - Liberia and Abyssinia are two warning lights. African hegemony would lead to the suicide of the White community in East and Central Africa and to the ruin of African hopes of sustained progress.’ (3/10 August 1956, page 44)

I brought this up to User:Csernica and he replied:

He was concerned not about racial issues there, but about political issues and monetary policy. In terms of the politics, that view was largely borne out anyway if one is to be perfectly honest. "At the dawn of history" in context is talking about the continent's political institutions, not their status as human beings.

The version of the article containing these quotes accuse him of "denigrating blacks". But as Csernica says, the original Candour quotes were not about race per se, so the Wikipedia editor who added them put them out of context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uthanc (talk • contribs)

I agree that the text is clearly dealing with political and social issues rather than racial, and attributing anything to Tolkien based on lines is clearly a stretch. Even assuming he made the underlinings in question we have no idea what he was thinking in doing so... these could have been passages he meant to challenge the veracity of as easily as ones which he agreed with. --CBD 13:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ME in popular culture

Hi Conrad. I saw your recent ME edits, and wondered if you had an opinion on the deletion of the Middle-earth in popular culture article? My thoughts on that are on the WikiProject page and here where I'm waiting to see what the closing admin says before going to DRV. Carcharoth 16:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I looked at it. I can restore the page in your user-space if you want to work on it. In general I agree that we should have an article on Tolkien's impact on popular culture... but that listing lots of references to Tolkien as the page mostly did previously isn't the right approach. Citing trends and outside commentary on his impact, like the book you referred to, would be a stronger article. --CBD 01:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've suggested that to the admin who deleted it. Best to wait and see what they say, but yes, I'm thinking a userspace rewrite is probably the best option. Carcharoth 02:17, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Middle-earth Cycle

Hello, Mr. Dunkerson. I'm only leaving this message to inform you that in my proposal to merge or redirect Middle-earth Cycle to the main Middle-earth article, I quoted a statement of yours regarding the fact that "Middle-earth Cycle" is a term that has never been used by Tolkien or any notable reviewers. In my proposal I've further argued that the article is unreferenced and reads like a personal reflection or essay regarding Tolkien's work and should not be allowed to remain in its present state. If you could weigh in on the discussion, it would be appreciated. --Ace ETP 01:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Middle-earth/Pages updates

I added some new pages to Portal:Middle-earth/Pages. I didn't perform a full merge, but set up some sections so it is easier for people to add new stuff. Do you think that will work? Carcharoth 16:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I've been merging things to identify and remove duplicates, but there should be no harm in having a separate section for recent additions and then eventually merging those into the full list. --CBD 13:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frodo Lives!

Frodo Lives! finally got created, but I'm wondering whether it should be merged with Tolkien fandom. Can it be expanded? Uthanc 17:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added some material to the article. Overall I think it probably makes more sense as a separate entry. It could be included in Tolkien fandom with a redirect to that section from the main term, but the fandom article is fairly long already. --CBD 13:23, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tidying up location of lists

I moved List of Middle-earth topics to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/List of Middle-earth topics, as the list was becoming unwieldy there, was not really suitable for article space, and was duplicating efforts at Portal:Middle-earth/Pages. As you set that up, I thought I'd check with you. Now, the question is what to do with List of Middle-earth articles by category? That looks more usable to me. What do you think? Carcharoth 13:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the 'List of Middle-earth topics' shouldn't be in article space, and indeed created the list on the Portal with an eye towards eventually removing the other from article space. On the 'by category' list... I'd hope that would eventually be made obsolete due to use of the actual Wikipedia category system. At some point we should have some sort of 'List of Middle-earth lists' page, and the 'by category' page might serve as a starting point for that. --CBD 17:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We do have Category:Middle-earth lists if that helps. Carcharoth 17:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete old template?

I was tidying up some templates (see Category:WikiProject Middle-earth templates) and found Template:Valar which doesn't really seem to be in use (I checked what links here and removed or struck out a few links from project talk pages). It is now only listed at the "list of all pages" areas, so I was thinking you might want to delete it altogether as you were the only contributor (apart from me sticking a category on it). It also seems to be fairly redundant to {{Ainur}}, though that doesn't show who 'married' who (which is in any case covered in the articles). What do you think? Carcharoth 02:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I also found the following two: Template:Middle-earth Labelled Map (interesting, but maybe best to discuss on its talk page); and Template:PoemOfTheRing (not the best way to use templates, in my opinion). Should that latter one be got rid of, do you think? And would that require a TfD nomination?

I also did one of those searches that can throw up new templates. See here. Possibly this needs to be quietly put out of its misery, or maybe I might turn it into something usable... Anyway, I also found the following, which seem to be old portal templates. You know more about how the portal works. Are they needed?
Template:Middle-earth portal/Featured article (Portal:Middle-earth/Featured article)
Template:Middle-earth portal/Where to start (Portal:Middle-earth/Intro)
Template:Middle-earth portal/Categories (Portal:Middle-earth/Categories)

I think they got replaced by the ones in brackets. Carcharoth 04:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall, I copied the 'Valar' text to that template to remove it from some pages where it had been hard-coded. As it is no longer used I just deleted it as a G7. I'd agree that 'PoemOfTheRing' doesn't really need to be a template and could be put directly into the articles. The map one is nice though. Your changes to the Elves template make it more viable. The portal stuff came about due to alot of different designs on how that should be set up. They are obsolete now and may have never actually been used. There isn't a 'speedy deletion' criteria for 'templates that have been unused for years' but I went ahead and deleted them anyway because I can't imagine anyone objecting... or noticing. --CBD 12:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. I've now subst'd the poem one, so that could go if you think no-one will object. The articles it was used in were, unsurprisingly, One Ring and Rings of Power. The original creator of the template hasn't edited for over a year. You could deal with the talk page at the same time. As for the map, the image can only be used under fair-use I think, so it might not be worth investing too much effort in that, but I agree, it is nice. Do you have any idea why some of the links don't work? I've asked at Template talk:Middle-earth Labelled Map. Carcharoth 12:39, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I almost forgot! WOuld you be able to look at User:Carcharoth/Sandbox2 and User:Carcharoth/Sandbox? I've been trying to force a "display mode" for the template so that it can be displayed without inflicting its categories on inappropriate pages. As you can see from my fumblings in the page history of User:Carcharoth/Sandbox2, I don't really understand the code. Can you help, or even better, explain to me how that works or point me in the right direction? Thanks. Carcharoth 12:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And while I'm on templates, I spotted this. Does it affect the ME templates? Carcharoth 13:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PoemOfTheRing - Since it was in use until today probably best to let it sit for a while or list at TfD in case someone feels it should be a template.
Map - I fixed the problem. The centering was being done inside the link and causing problems - I just moved it out around the link.
Sandbox2 - I'm not entirely sure what you want it to do, but the primary problem was that you were using {{#ifeq:{{{class|}}}|NA|display|...... which translates to something like, 'if class equals NA then print "display" otherwise...'. Presumably you wanted to do something if class equalled NA >or< display, so I changed it to a 'switch' statement.
Rick block page - No, that issue had to do with links to discussion on category pages missing a : and thus actually adding the category to the page rather than the link to it. Our banner templates link to the wikiproject discussion pages rather than discussion on category pages and thus don't have the issue. --CBD 14:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all that. What I was trying to do with the "display mode" was to get it to look like it does for "class=NA", but to (a) remove the categories (I think I managed that myself, but you should probably check) and (b) lose the link to a picture or template (the redlink currently appearing when I do {{User:Carcharoth/Sandbox2|class=display}} at User:Carcharoth/Sandbox). Does that make sense? Carcharoth 14:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ie. Replace the "NA. This page is not an article and does not require a rating on the quality scale." with "Display. This template is in display mode." (PS. Me putting the class=NA example on the sandbox has, of course, brought the categories back). Carcharoth 14:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, hang on, I'm being silly! In display mode (ie. on pages giving examples of what the template looks like) we want all the stuff showing, not removed as it is in NA mode. Duh! What you have done is fine. I'll sort the redlink myself. Carcharoth 14:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've now changed Template:ME-project and created Template:Display-Class. The what links here for the latter shows where I've used this. See here. The display at my sandbox looks OK, but the template looks awful inside the tables at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Templates and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Templates. It looks like there are empty boxes floating around. The other thing is that the "display" text is a bit inconsistent. Ideally it should read exactly as it would if it was unassessed, with an extra bit somewhere saying "This template is in display mode - see here for details on how to use this template." (incorporating Template:Display-Class if possible, to track use of this parameter). Is that too complicated? Carcharoth 15:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tolkien battles in danger of deletion

Battle of the Pelennor Fields, of all things, is on AfD! Second Battle of Hogwarts was recently deleted and redirected to Harry Potter's war article, and they've set their sights on Tolkien battles. Apparently, their reasoning is if you delete one fictional battle you'd have to delete all of them. (I mentioned this on the M-e project page and to Carcharoth.) Uthanc 16:32, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:Infobox Canadian Trails

Template:Infobox Canadian Trails has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Patleahy (talk) 22:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tolkien

Just to correct one of the malicious lies so prevalent on the Web:

Re Tolkien and the magazine Candour: this is the assertion of a fascist called Stephen Goodson, based in South Africa, and associated with Holocaust-denier Ernst Gundl. The assertions made by Goodson are deemed by the Tolkien Estate to be "incredible" (to use their most anodyne term). No copies of anything remotely similar were ever sold out of the Estate. --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.157.226.20 (talk • contribs).

Dates

I wanted to talk to you about the dates concerning YT and VY. I fixed the dates in the House of Finwë article, but some dates contradict the other YT dates on other articles (i.e. Fëanor). I've fixed the dates on Fëanor's article to keep consistency, but I was wondering if there was ever a concensus decided on whether we were going with VY with YT (continuing on from VY 3500 to 3501) or with regular years (ending with VY 3500 and starting with YT 1). —Mirlen 21:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recall seeing a standard agreed upon, but most often I see VY for VY 1-3500, YT for VY 3501-5000 (YT 1 to 1500), and YS for VY 5001 onwards. Note that this corresponds to Tolkien's usage for 'Annals of Aman' in Morgoth's Ring and thus is in most cases the same as people citing whatever figure is given in the reference they are using. I know the timeline sticks with VT throughout the years of the trees for consistency purposes (and since the conversion is so easy) and some of the hobbit related pages use years of the Sun rather than Shire Reckoning for similar reasons. I definitely don't think we should use Valian Years after the start of the Years of the Sun because Tolkien never did and the conversion ratios changed over time. --CBD 22:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Faramir

I've to look over it again more thoroughly, but just skimming through it a little more closely, it seems ready for GA. I'm not sure why WP:Films has the article as a whole rated "start" though... Your input? —Mirlen 00:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overall it looks good. I made some adjustments, but it could still use further review and more references. The films project rating looks like it was added some time ago, and is probably based only on the 'adaptations' section. --CBD 21:37, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably right on the latter. If I find the time, I'll try to get in more references if I can... —Mirlen 01:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT: Just added in a few references. The only other references I think should be added are the translations of Faramir's and Boromir's names, but I can't remember where the info was from. Probably either from the appendixes or HoME volumes — do you remember? —Mirlen 01:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I put in references and some updates for the names. --CBD 22:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Legendarium and related matters

Hi Conrad. Would you have time to look at Talk:Tolkien's legendarium? I'd appreciate another viewpoint there. Thanks. Carcharoth 13:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tolkien AfDs

Uthanc 08:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]