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The below articles in this section are no longer active merger candidates but most are still stubs or have been tagged for notability or in-universe style of writing. De728631 (talk) 12:31, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

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Moved to Talk:History of Arda

In History of Arda Why are Finarfin and his children (esp. Finrod) not mentioned in the Years of the Trees, or the First Age? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.155.3.135 (talk) 18:10, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Character boxes

Tagging @Elphion: I think we should add the first and last appearances for both the novels and films. The novels are totally different to the movies. Characters like Tyrion Lannister for example, has his first appearance listed for both the ASOIAF novels and TV show. I think we should add images into the infoboxes, maybe something like characters from The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes's infobox pic is him in both mediums (Comics and TV show). The Optimistic One (talk) 18:15, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The project has not discussed how the change from {{infobox Tolkien character}} to {{infobox character}} should affect the project pages. There are many more parameters, not all relevant to these articles. That's why the specialized infobox template was developed in the first place. In particular, the primary target of the articles is how the subject is treated in the books, not in adaptations. The infoboxes should thus refer to the books. (Most of the adaptations of interest already have their own articles.) By project consensus, illustrations in the infobox should only come from editions of the books or other material by Tolkien, not from adaptations (precisely because most adaptations deviate so significantly from Tolkien's vision). Also, in the general template many of the fields are not precisely defined. What does "first appearance" mean? First in MS, first published, first in Middle-earth chronology? If we're going to use these fields, the project should define how they are to be used. -- Elphion (talk) 04:05, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

More on character boxes

The character box property "portrayer" (and some of the other film-related properties) are being filled in -- but these appear at the top of the character box, implying that the films supersede or are more important than the books. I would delete these unless the they can be displayed at the end of the character box. --- Elphion (talk) 17:24, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Middle-earth

Portal:Middle-earth, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Middle-earth and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Middle-earth during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Guilherme Burn (talk) 14:50, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

AFD running on list of middle earth places

Please consider Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Minor places in Middle-earth (2nd nomination). —Doncram (talk) 16:17, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Pretty much every fiction article is up for AfD, by a couple of editors, with a handful of supporters. Tolkien has suffered a lot already, but it's broader than that. Is there anyone still active on this project, or has the time of men now passed? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:55, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm still here (and I'm sure a lot more people will be comming in once the new show starts getting trailers). I agree I find it a bit bothersome that there are so many AFD now days instead of trying to improve pages that are flawed.★Trekker (talk) 00:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I see, All that is gold does not glitter has been deleted, a shame, I think it had enough merit to stay.Halbared (talk) 20:42, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I see Finarfin and Amandil will be deleted on the 6th without further edit. I am undecided as of yet. Is there sufficient information to warrant keeping these two?Halbared (talk) 22:27, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The deletionists have had their way with a large number of minor articles, I think correctly as they wouldn't be notable however well-written (the reliable secondary sources simply don't exist). Now there are only a few articles left, and those are on the more significant topics. I'd like to say they are obviously safe because their notability is obvious, critics and popular sources have written about them so there's no problem. But that isn't so: the articles are written almost wholly in-universe, and if they're cited at all, it's to Tolkien himself, a WP:PRIMARY source "if ever I heard one" (as the dwarf said of the hammering in the Mines of Moria). I took a look at Mirkwood and was horrified to discover how badly it was written (as a Misplaced Pages article with standard criteria, rather than as a lump of legendarium). Basically it made almost no claim to notability, waffled on at great uncited length about things barely mentioned even by Tolkien, and ignored all the other Mirkwoods but Tolkien's: not terribly helpful, and wide open to AfD. And that's a major and highly defensible topic. I've added a bunch of secondary sources and quotes by other novelists, so I guess it's safe enough for now; I then looked at the other core Middle-earth places, expecting to find things a bit better, but no: Rivendell, Mordor, Moria, Lothlorien, and even The Shire (though it at least mentions some decent sources) are all in a dreadfully vulnerable state. It's a pointless disaster in the making. Evidently, in-universe Wikidom was tolerated back in the 2000s when these articles were created: the '20s will be entirely different, and ruthlessly correct. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, the in universe style seems, not appropriate. It seems a large job. I see things like Rhovannion go, and think ot possibly didn't deserve a page. What do you think on Dol Amroth, does that have any validity to stay? The ones you mention I would think so, but I have not read them yet.Halbared (talk) 23:02, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
I think Dol Amroth should redirect to Gondor where, frankly, it's a minor detail. Chiswick Chap (talk) 23:07, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
What is needed is for all these articles to have the uncited material cut; the Tolkien paraphrases cut down to reasonable proportions; the literary critics to be cited and paraphrased; the popular sources (newspapers, film critics) to be mentioned and cited decently. Then we'll have a set of key articles that will assist the reader, demonstrate scholarship and popular interest, and ride out the storms of AfD. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
@Chiswick Chap: I strongly agree with you on this point. This might seem odd coming from one of the users who has been active in deleting the minor articles, but I think with Tolkien, we're getting close to where I draw the line of "this stays." I'm thinking White Mountains (Middle-earth) could probably go, but I think we're getting down to the proper core group of places. Now is the time to start improving what's left, so people don't get too carried away. Before the AfD wave, there was a intricate web of Tolkien articles. I'm hoping that once this wave is over, there will be another interconnected web of Tolkien articles, but one more focused on impact and broader topics and less on reproducing genealogies of hobbits and elves. Hog Farm (talk) 23:10, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
Excellent. I am minded to mention one more property of a well-constructed encyclopedia: closure, namely that when the reader finds a term, it is explained either right there or in another linked entry. That could be a list or an article on another topic (like the plot summary in one of the books); and it implies we aim to keep redirects for all reasonably significant chaps in the text, even if they haven't attracted notability through literary criticism. Fingolfin is a case in point. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Many tolkien articles date back to the first 100,000 articles on Misplaced Pages, even the one on Barahir did, and it never had any source listed at all. It was not until maybe 2006 that the concept of notability was forged, and many of these articles date to 2002 or 2003. I have yet to see one date to 2001, which is the year Misplaced Pages launched, but it did not pass 100,000 articles until January 2004. Conveniently Dec. 2001 is when The Fellowship of the Ring is released in theatres, followed by The Two Towers in Dec. 2002 and The Return of the King in Dec. 2003. Yes in the 2020s we have realized that Wikia allows people to create fiction based, in-universe articles so we are calling for an order of things.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:13, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

What's the deal with Lists of Middle-earth articles

I'm not sure what this page is supposed to be. It seems to be a list of all Middle-earth lists, i.e. a listification of Category:Middle-earth lists, but the title does not reflect this. Is it meant to be an index of all ME pages? In its present state, it should be re-named to List of Middle-earth lists. But alternatively, it could be merged into the Outline of Middle-earth. Thoughts? BenKuykendall (talk) 04:05, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Lists of lists are perfectly proper: they assist navigation and can be used as See also items and so on. The real issue is in the thread above, that all these articles will beare being deleted unless properly cited to reliable sources. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

RFD flood

There are dozens of RFDs for obscure Middle-earth geography terms, some might be fixable if you offer a target. –84.46.52.190 (talk) 10:34, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, many should point somewhere helpful. That will be easier when we have some better-structured and better-cited articles (or lists, again decently cited) for them to point at. At the moment nearly everything needs to be cut down and to have reliable sources added. I'll do what I can but everyone can lend a hand, there is much to sort out. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:39, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
As the person who's been doing the RfD's, I have been trying to retarget the redirects when possible, but yes, I have made a couple misses. There's been a lot of Middle-earth related AfD's that have resulted in redirects into the sections Middle-earth#Geography, and I've been trying to clean up the stray ones not mentioned at the target article either by retargeting to more specific article where they are mentioned, or at RfD. If I make a mistake by RfDing one that has a target, then point that out at the RfD page and I'll withdrawn the RfD. Hog Farm (talk) 15:40, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
Aha. Well, my view would be that we should have as you say a list of places; I think we also need a decent list of the main players (is people the word? --- I see we are losing the (over-detailed) lists of individual elves, dwarves, etc, but we do actually need one list of the key players, and that would go a way down to major mythological figures like Nimrodel who now has no landing-place at all, not great), and of the main objects (famous swords, etc). These will then provide landing-sites for a good number of redirects, indeed we might need to create some. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:14, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
@Chiswick Chap: Right now, I think the best "landing pages" are the main works that a character/locations/swords appears in. As a good example: Beleg redirects to The Silmarillion. (At the moment, I can't find a plot summary that mentions Nimrodel -- I know there was a poem about her in Fellowship... but is there another work she plays a bigger role in?) I also want to caution against redirecting to places like List of Middle-earth characters, which is only for characters with their own articles. On the other hand complete lists like List of The Hobbit characters are good targets. (see WP:CSC for the difference.) In any case, we can't redirect to articles that don't exist yet. If patently bad redirects get deleted, so be it. We can re-create them once appropriate high-level articles are written. BenKuykendall (talk) 20:04, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Note that not all the redirects are showing up in our article alert tracker (since not all of the redirect pages are part of the project). Thus if you want to see all of the ME RfDs, you need to scroll through the past few days of logs. BenKuykendall (talk) 20:08, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm sensing that there's a bit of frustration with this process, and I can see why. I think part of the issue is that, for years, the focus almost seems to have been on quantity of Middle-earth articles, not article quality. There are several Middle-earth articles that I would consider to be definitely notable, like Mirkwood and Rohan (Middle-earth) that are in horrible shape because the focus when the articles were created was documenting every detail that Tolkien put in. I'm a fan of Tolkien's works, in big part because of his attention to the minutest detail in his works. However, not all of this detail needs to be reproduced on Misplaced Pages. I think User:BenKuykendall's suggestion that we should redirect to the works in which the characters appear is a very good one in cases where the character fails GNG. Likewise, I think the redirects of places not major enough to be mentioned in the geographical overview at Middle-earth#Geography should be redirected to the more specific geographic articles like Moria (Middle-earth), Mordor, and others. And frankly, if the location is not important enough to get described in one of the more specific articles, I don't think it should be a redirect. Hog Farm (talk) 22:19, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

We should use present tense for character summaries

This is the general duirection of guidlines on how to write plot summaries of works of fiction. I have tried to bring this about, on articles on a variety of characters. It worked until I ran into aq hard headed opponent of reasonable control with me edits to the article on Théoden. It is this hard headed territoriality by hard core fans with no interest in focusing these articles in ways that they really conform to the focus needed in a general encyclopedia that has caused there articles to languish in a horrid state for 8 years and more. Misplaced Pages has an amazingly out of control coverage of fictional places, people and events. The Tolkien coverage is not actually as out of control as some, but it has stood longer than most other out of control examples.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:02, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

This issue has now been brought up for the umpteenth time. In the past, a consensus was establish at this project not to use present tense for Tolkien's fiction because the author presented it as a fictional history of the real world. The main argument was that, per WP:FICTENSE, "discussion of history is usually written in the past tense and thus 'fictional history' may be presented in that way as well." Of course, consensus can change, but this hasn't yet happened. De728631 (talk) 04:59, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
It seems quite clear that fictional history may be presented in the past tense, and the articles certainly read much better that way. In addition, the conversion of some of the text to the present tense was very rough, apparently done using global replace without checking, so not only was WP:FICTENSE not followed, but the text was disrupted with numerous grammatical and spelling errors. Consensus is to remain with the past tense. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:25, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
It seems John Pack Lambert is not only assuming bad faith, he’s also ignoring discussions on the talk page of the article in question, and has ignored responses to his query here and is now attempting to force his viewpoint. Lava Lamps (talk) 19:16, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Why are we being bound by some ancient consensus, instead of discussing things anew. The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are no more written in other than present tense than a huge number of other works. I think people should at least defend with actual arguments such ignoring of the rules, not try to defer to some past consensus. We have seen that many other LotR past consensuses were just plain wrong. Doing it this way makes the articles inevitably seem more in universe, and also seem more like they are reporting on factual things in an encyclopedia instead of reporting on fiction.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:23, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
We are discussing things anew. What you did, was ignore the discussion because you didn’t agree with any other contributor, called me a liar and attacked users and not the argument. That is not conducive to civilised discussion. Lava Lamps (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hogwash. Chris Chipswick is falsely accusing me of using global replace when I went through myself and edited each passage. He is disparaging a hardworking editor with false accusations and I do not apprecviate it. I have put my best efforts into the better writing of these articles, and all I get for it is this kind of malicious attack that falsely accused me of "disrupting" text and the like. This type of harrassment is how articles are kept in walled gardens and how editors who want to actually contribute to making readable articles are driven off. The above is a clear case of harrassment, flase accusation and speaking ill of an editor who never once cheats and uses sub standard methods but seeks to contribute to the work of Misplaced Pages even though it involves sacrificing hours in editing at times to have all my work just reverted by editors who would rather maintain a walled garden than actually see improvement. I do not appreciate such false statements about my methods.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:46, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
You’ve called me a liar, and accused other editors of racism because the Gondor article is overlong. I humbly suggest you take a breather. You’re far to experienced an editor to be behaving this way. Lava Lamps (talk) 21:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I do not apprecite reverting my edits when they make total sense or blocking any positive contributions. I do not appreciate how my work is brushed aside and destoyed totally.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
And I don’t appreciate being called a liar. But that’s the situation we are in. Lava Lamps (talk) 21:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Treabeard or Fangorn

Somewhere I seem to remember that Treebeard's proper name was Fangorn, but this does not seem to be reflected in our article. I think the forest he lived in was named after him.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:15, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The lead now reads "Treebeard (Sindarin: Fangorn) ... He lives in the ancient Forest of Fangorn, to which he has given his name, ..." De728631 (talk) 05:03, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Proper versus common names

I have been thinking that Merry and Pippin should be in articles reflecting how these are their common names, and not articles that use their proper names.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:15, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Not sure I'm understanding what you mean, but am I right that you would rather have the articles Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took moved to something like Merry (Hobbit) and Pippin (Hobbit)? That would go along with WP:COMMONNAME. De728631 (talk) 05:08, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Those are incredibly clunky and require parentheses. An alternative already in use in some articles would be to use Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took (much, indeed, as other hobbits would have disambiguated them if there was risk of confusion with any other Merry or Pippin). I see that those are (very sensibly) already redirects, so a requested move will be needed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:37, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took are indeed the better choices. If there is support to move the pages there, I could do that. De728631 (talk) 20:32, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Either form is better than what they are currently at.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:20, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I’m not convinced there’s enough coverage for separate articles on the hobbits Merry and Pippin. Outside of plot and adaptation there isn’t much to the articles that couldn’t got into a list of hobbits page Lava Lamps (talk) 11:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
The consideration isn't so much what is in the articles as what ought to be in there. As for "adaptation" (film and so on), Shippey points out in The Road to Middle Earth 2005 that there is a much larger audience for the three LOTR films than the already enormous audience for the books; and in the film "world", the characters of the hobbits are very significant. Merging to a list of hobbits is a very doubtful proposition, not least because most of the "list of Middle-earth XXXs" have been deleted as mere cruftfests. I think we'd best look out more critical and scholarly sources about the little fellows. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:33, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

While they are expanded in the films, that in itself isn’t really significant. There’s a few books out there that describe merry and pippin and the roles they play in the narrative. I need to pick up a copy of a couple of them to be able to properly reference them. Lava Lamps (talk) 12:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

My point isn't that we can cite the films, but that the films extended both the hobbits' importance and discussion of them. It's the critical books and papers that we need to cite, as you say. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:35, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
something like this Lava Lamps (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
Go for it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:47, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
  • The link above does not actually go to a text. I have to admit I have my doubts that we will ever get support to cut articles on a character who appears with dialogue in all 4 books. If it was not for what happen's in The Return of the King I would advocate a joint article on Merry and Pippin. I still think merging the articles may have some merit, but they diverge enough in that book that I have a strong suspicion that we would get lots of opposition to that idea.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
  • FWIW, I have now moved the two pages to Pippin Took and Merry Brandybuck respectively. De728631 (talk) 06:14, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
And I've added critical and scholarly sources to both articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:46, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
Excellent work. @Lava Lamps: as they were thinking of adding something from some of the chapters in Unsung Heroes of the Lord of the Rings: From the Page to the Screen by Lynnette R. Porter. The chapter titles look interesting: 'Literary and Cinematic Heroes, 'Merry as a Knowledgeable Hero'; 'Pippin as Impulsive Youthful Hero'; 'Éowyn as Action Hero', 'Galadriel and Arwen as Inspirational Heroes', 'Legolas and Gimli as Intercultural Heroes'; 'The Changing Social Definitions of Heroes'. Her sources are well worth looking up as well. There is also a book on Aragorn: Aragorn: J. R. R. Tolkien's Undervalued Hero by Angela P. Nicholas, originally published in 2012 but republished a few years ago in 2017. Carcharoth (talk) 13:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)