User talk:Grobtak

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Grimhelm 14:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Style of Articles: War of the Ring Campaign and Dark Council
Nice to see you've joined Wikipedia. I can see you've made a long edit to wikipedia's War of the Ring Campaign article, but these edits seem a little too detailed and not in the standard Wikipedia style. The article was fine beforehand, but now it is full of superfluous information making it (unneccessarily) longer than the War of the Ring article. It is also quite opinionated, in comparison to the neutral stance the article formerly held. I'd like to inform you that some other Wikipedians may mistake it for vandalism, just to give a warning. I'm not sure exactly what to do with this, but it'll definately have to be shortened. Perhaps you should move most of this to the Dark Council article, to which it more specifically relates (you failed to establish its notability, by the way), and take a good long read of Wikipedia's Manual of Style. I'll come back for the task of cleaning up these articles later. Grimhelm 22:52, 10 March 2006 (UTC) (yes, that is me from the War of the Ring)

Replying to Grimhelm
"I can see you've made a long edit to wikipedia's War of the Ring Campaign article, but these edits seem a little too detailed and not in the standard Wikipedia style. The article was fine beforehand, but now it is full of superfluous information making it (unneccessarily) longer than the War of the Ring article. "

I just added some information, what's wrong with that? If you want information you don't need to read it all, you can always just skim it. And what do you mean, different style? I just edited the original page and added information, and I don't think I used a different style.

"It is also quite opinionated, in comparison to the neutral stance the article formerly held."

Is it? It looks quite neutral to me. What I said was either based on hard facts, or the opinions of the players. For example, the "Ruthless efficiency of the dark council" bit was picked directly from the good forum. I admit that I can't be sure just how much influence the alliance of Light had, but that was also taken from what the good players said. Most of them were under the opinion that they didn't need a council, and few listened to you. The dark council however, was widely seen as the leaders of evil, according to what was said on the forums of both good and evil. Also, I did say that good copied the strike forces idea from evil. This might make it seem biased, but if I remember correctly good didn't deny this. They did say, however, that since evil got it from Storm of chaos, good was allowed to use it too. Which is true. If my information is incorrect, please say so, but be more specific. Or if you want, I can remove that part entirely, since it is not that relevant anyway.

"I'd like to inform you that some other Wikipedians may mistake it for vandalism, just to give a warning."

Vandalism? According to Wikipedia, vandalism is intentionally adding false information or remove existent info. What I did was add unbiased information to an existing article. I fail to notice how anyone could see that as vandalism.

"I'm not sure exactly what to do with this, but it'll definitely have to be shortened. "

Once again, why? Just read what information you wish, skip the rest. it is impossible to read everything that is on wikipedia, but the idea is that you can find it if you want to. So if someone wants a detailed report on the war of the ring, it is there now. What's wrong with that?

"Perhaps you should move most of this to the Dark Council article, to which it more specifically relates"

Not really. What I wrote is about how the campaign went. I think it is a lot more logical to put it in the War of the Ring article.

"and take a good long read of Wikipedia's Manual of Style."

I did, but I don't seem to have done anything wrong. If I have, could you please be more specific?

Please reply soon.

Grobtak, 10:51, 11 March 2006

Further Comments
First of all, your reply is like a forum reply - you have to get into the habit of using unfragmented wikipedia replies (that took me a while to get used to too). It might also save you some time if you sign your name with 4-tildes (a tilde is this symbol: ~) - Wikipedia will automatically sign your name for you if you do this (it also took me a while to figure that one out). Aside from that, I suppose I'm being a bit to hard on your first edits (mine were pretty messed up on the War of the Ring when I first joined). Okay, so maybe people might want to skip past them, but it could be confusing to people who weren't actually in the War of the Ring, and a lot of it also seems more relevant (but then that's just my opinion) to articles on the various councils.

I suppose "vandalism" might be taking it a bit too far, but the Dark Council Article is definately in need of cleanup, and you have to establish notability not just for the GW Community, but for people who were not participants of the War of the Ring. Another editor (not me) tagged the Dark Council Article with "An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia...", naming various missing criteria. Here's what I think should be done. Mention the information briefly on the WoTR article, and move most of it to the DC article, so if someone wants to read further they can click on the link to the Dark Council. Another problem with the DC article is its lack of internal wiki-links and its use of abbraviations the casual reader may be unaware of, but I'll clean it up later.

And on the issue of neutrality, despite being a good player, I was not a member of any forums outside the GW one, despite actually being invited to the Alliance of Light Council. Why? Because I wanted to maintain neutrality. I'll admit that not many people would listen to me (I definately know a few did - CaptainIngold is an example), but that is merely because I was only one person offering roleplay as either an alternative to (or a reason to follow) the AOL. My advice was somewhat redundant, though, when the Grand Host of Light took over the task of roleplay.

I played a good amount of Good games, and even a few as Evil, but I had fun at it. While I learned a good bit about the DC from your edits, I still think it focuses too much on the interior workings of the DC rather than the WoTR Campaign as a whole; this is why I feel it is more relevant to the DC article, unless you want to comment also on the interior workings of The Alliance of Light (which is impossible for either of us to do first-hand). Grimhelm 11:18, 11 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, I just cleaned up both articles. I moved most of what you added on the War of the Ring Campaign to The Dark Council. I left some of your relevant edits on the WoTR article, and generally expanded the DC article using the left over material. One of the first things I noticed was the use of abbreviations such as "lotr". Firstly, it is important to avoid using abbreviations as they might confuse readers, and secondly, the "lotr" abbreviation applies to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, whereas I think you meant to use "LoTR SBG" - id est "The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game". Hopefully you will find the edits I made to The Dark Council useful, and perhaps you might have a relevant picture or logo for the article (though that could be some what difficult to procure for a forum article!). I also added the standard formal introduction to Wikipedia at the top of the page. Grimhelm 14:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Replying again
Sorry for not replying in wikipedia style, as you know, I'm still a newb here. Please bare with me.

Ok, I can't say I'm quite happy with some of your changes. First of all, the lotr campaigns link now doesn't direct to anywhere. Also, there are several inaccuracies: The dark council was not the result of a merging of councils, they were there from the beginning and were unrivalled. The taskforces idea was not a major part of evil's success, most players were directed without strike forces.

Also, yes, the dark council article wasn't very good. but previously, you linked to a dark council article, but there was nothing to link to. So I thought I'd write a bit up for the dc. I was going to extend it later on. But agreed, some of the information I wrote on the campaign is better fitting there.

Yes, the "lotr" abbreviation was confusing. You're right about that.

Also, good did win with 3 victory points. My fault, sorry.


 * Fair enough, I understand you were only filling in the link (back when I started the War of the Ring Campaign article, it was only about a paragraph long); but you will find this is common place on Wikipedia. When you write an article, you provide links to what you feel would be useful if a reader wanted to find out more. Sometimes an article hasn't been written on the subject - if the link appears in read instead of blue, it means the editor hopes that someone will write an article on the subject (which I actually did hope someone would do, so I guess it was good that you wrote the DC article - I would never have got around to writing it otherwise). The Campaign of LoTRs link doesn't go anywhere because I haven't got around to writing it - after all, I have only just registered for the campaign, and am as yet still unaware of how it works. Perhaps you'd like to write something on it.


 * I also wrote a brief article on The Alliance of Light, but that's for someone else with better knowledge of it to expand later.


 * I don't think I had any inaccuracies, but then again, I was never on the Dark Council. You might be misinterperting this line: "Towards the start of the campaign, they were the most quickly organised forum, uniting the Forces of Evil against the various Good forums (which were at the time vieing for dominance)."


 * What I meant there was that the Dark Council organised itself more quickly than the Good councils, and that it did unite the Forces of Evil (not to be confused with uniting Evil forums - I was actually referring to it uniting the individual players). However, you are right. It is a little ambiguous, so I have edited it to: "Towards the start of the campaign, the Dark Council was the most quickly organised of any campaign forum (on either side), uniting from the beginning the outnumbered Evil players against the various Good forums (which were at the time vieing among themselves for dominance)."


 * Hopefully this will help. Grimhelm 22:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I was referring to this bit:

"both two sides had formed independent forum websites, referred to as "councils", to direct the progress of the battles. Ultimately, a merger of the lesser councils had formed two main councils"

This is only the case for the alliance of light (And as far as I know, they never had real influence until the very end of the campaign). The dark council were the leaders from the beginning.

Also, the strike forces were not devestating, they were a fairly unimportant part.

But apart from that, both articles are now fairly accurate.

As for writing an article about the campaign... I'm rather busy these days.. but I may get around to do it later if I get the chance. Or maybe after it is finished, since there are only two weeks left.

Grobtak 22:17, 12 March 2006


 * Ah, I see, but that was referring more to the Good side anyway. Nonetheless, I have added this bit to the end: "(the latter had been dominant from the beginning)."


 * As for the strike-forces, I don't know how important they were to the DC, but from what I could tell, they were a key to victory for the AOL in the final weeks. From what I could see, the AOL became truly effective after Helm's Deep, when the roleplayers (Rohan in particular) finally looked beyond their lands. Grimhelm 21:30, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Campaign of LoTRs
Now that the campaign is over, you may want to expand the article on it. Thanks for any help! Grimhelm 21:56, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Since I'm having a lot of free time, I'll have a look at it now (finally). I'll also update the DC, WOTR, and AOL articles, since the campaign is no longer running, but finished. I'll also change any inacuracies I can find, and maybe add some information. Grobtak 10:58, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

New User Template
Since we have more LOTR SBG users coming into Wikipedia, I felt it might be easier to keep track of them by adding the following template to their userpage: Template:LOTRSBG

Hope you don't mind that I've done this to yours, but if you don't want it you can just remove it :) Grimhelm 22:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Overall comments
Nice idea for the user template.

I don't agree with some of the article changes though. The main WOTR article now revolves too much around the forming of councils etc rather than the actual campaign, IMHO. And talking about cheeseweb just because they were created first is not a good reason. A brief mention, ok. But it shouldn't even be in the AOL article, in my opinion. They don't have any relevance with each other after all. Also, the custom campaign article is now rather going overboard with usernames. It's nice to be recognised, but most readers won't be interested to know that "Grobtak and Rayrn" helped with the campaign by "Althamus Deiterion and Elegost".


 * Those additions were made by Cheeseweb members mainly. I think the Campaign of LoTRs is the only one that needs to be changed - the names of almost all the participants are a bit unnecessary.Grimhelm 06:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah, right. Until now you and I were the only ones who edited it, so I assumed it was you.

Anyway, I'll remove the redundant names from the Campaign of LoTRs article now.

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Empires of Ambition
I've closed Articles for deletion/Empires of Ambition and deleted the two articles. I figured you'd like to know this as you were the only one arguing for their retention. --- Deville (Talk) 17:24, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

EoA
''So, you deleted the Empires of Ambition articles. I admit that it could be argued if EOA is big enough to have its own article on wikipedia (I agree with the removal of the Scarab article either way). But... you claim I'm the only one who wanted to keep it? You did read it thoroughly, didn't you? Because there was one other guy. Which is not much, but I do find it rather strange that you didn't notice his posts. --Grobtak 21:48, 01 October 2006''


 * It has been twelve days, and you still haven't replied to my objection. And yet, you have frequented and even edited this page. It seems obvious you are intentionally ignoring me. If you don’t respond to this message before 18 October, I will bring back the EOA article on grounds of the removing admin being too lazy to either read the discussion or the Objection to its deletion. Thank you. --Grobtak 18:12, 13 October 2006


 * What you probably shouldn't do is bring the article back directly, because it can then be deleted by any admin because it is the "recreation of deleted material"; see WP:CSD, particularly G4. If you do this, the article will be deleted quickly.  If you think the article should still be here, and you disagree with how I have closed it, what you should do is bring this article to Deletion Review.  Read the instructions there and see if you can figure it out; if you can't, ask me for help and I'll help you list it. -- Deville (Talk) 18:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The Dark Council
Sorry for the late reply; I've been a bit busy lately.

The Dark Council article was deleted over a week ago, but the background to it goes back a week before that. An article about The Last Alliance Website was submitted that was of poor quality. I tried to improve its standard but it got deleted too soon; its deletion logs are at Articles for deletion/The Last Alliance and Articles for deletion/The Last Alliance Website.

Understandably, some members from TLA were unhappy at this, and one proposed the Cheeseweb article for deletion at Articles for deletion/Cheeseweb. Although the originally nominator withdrew the proposition, it had already started a cascade effect: the article was deleted, in part because some users felt the AfD was being hijacked by sockpuppets and people trying to strengthen the argument to restore The Last Alliance Website article.

As a result, The Dark Council, The Alliance of Light and The Campaign of LoTRs were proposed for joint deletion at Articles for deletion/The Dark Council. The deletion of the Cheeseweb article was used as a precedent for their deletion. The concensus that seems to have emerged from the debate is that they can be briefly mentioned under "Games Workshop Online Community", but that a site should not have its own section unless it has more than 2000 members. I know it must have been frustrating that you weren't contacted by the nominator, but with the deletion of both the CW and TLA articles there was little that could be done. Of course, it is still possible to merge them into both Games Workshop Online Community and War of the Ring Online Campaign.

--Grimhelm 17:59, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, my opinion of wikipedia continues to decrease. Nevertheless, thanks for informing me about this, I appreciate it. How can I merge it with the other articles though, if the DC article is deleted? I have a backup, but it's rather old.

--Grobtak 22:35, 10 November 2006''


 * I could e-mail you my backup, which is quite recent. --Grimhelm 13:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I would appreciate that. Or maybe an admin could supply the lastest version before deletion? I believe they are supposed to do that when asked, right? --Grobtak 00:31, 12 November 2006''

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