Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth

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Other specific issues regarding Tolkien-related Wikipedia content.

The Fellowship of the King
Notable, or too ONEVENTish? Probably worth a redirect and a mention in some place (Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien?). Sample RS (The Guardian). Some earlier coverage of when the suits started:,. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:19, 19 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Ping @Cunard - I can't find any reviews of this book, but maybe you will have better luck. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:20, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi . All of the coverage I found was related to the lawsuit. I did not find any book reviews. I agree that a mention in Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien is the best approach for now. The lawsuit was filed at the beginning of 2023 and the judged ruled on the lawsuit at the end of 2023. If the lawsuit receives continued coverage a few months later, the lawsuit would have received continued coverage and would be considered notable. If that happens, I recommend creating an article focused on the lawsuit rather than the book. Cunard (talk) 02:00, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Ping @Chiswick Chap - do you agree we should mention it briefly there? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * A brief mention in 'Works inspired...' seems right to me. Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Revised and expanded Letters in new ME-ref template
Project members will know that HarperCollins have brought out a new edition of Tolkien's Letters. Articles have up to now used   to reference letters. There is now a new template, Template:ME-ref/Letters23, which will be cited using  .

The good news is that, with one exception, all the "old" letters have the same numbers in the two editions; and that the "new" letters are numbered to avoid conflicts, e.g. #140c to sit between #140 and #141.

The procedure for updating an article is explained at Template_talk:ME-ref/Letters. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:15, 4 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Why should there be two separate templates/references for essentially the same thing? As you note, the letter numbers are consistent. Thus, even someone with the 1981 edition who wants to cite letter #87 could easily use a template giving the details of the 2023 edition... because the letter in question is still #87 there. Splitting the editions referenced this way will lead to madness if applied to the dozens (hundreds in some cases) of editions of various other Tolkien texts. Even in this single instance it is an unnecessary complication. --CBD 15:48, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Because the dates are not the same: and there is a kerfuffle, too, with letters #219 and #220 which are swapped over, hence update steps 3 and 4. It may be helpful to note, as mentioned in the first paragraph here, that the date forms part of the Harvard link to the templated source. If you're happy to do a global replace according to the now-documented update procedure, which has 4 steps, then we can cheerfully ditch Carpenter 1981. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:54, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Done. Any thoughts on whether we should have all the 'ME-cite' templates I used subst'd? That can be done easily via bot by just changing a parameter on the /doc page. Just not sure about current preferences. The original ME-cite templates, which were deleted somewhere along the way, were designed to be subst'd because there used to be 'concerns' about 'double transclusion', but these days there are numerous templates that are nested six levels deep. --CBD 22:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Not at all sure about substing or not, implications are unclear and very possibly extremely unwelcome, don't know. Nor at all happy with using ME-cite, especially as from now on ME-ref/Letters is once again perfectly up to date and can be used normally. This looks like a major and systemic change and its implications should have been thoroughly explored and agreed first. I suspect that at the moment, nobody knows how to go about using the new approach, and that includes you (subst or not? etc) and me.
 * I note there is an overlooked (1981 presumably) page ref in Helm's Deep, perhaps there are others - people may have added these in multiple ref formats long ago. There is another ref in that article which just provides a number, no # and no text: it might be an uncompleted letter ref or a 1981 page number. Maybe there are more of those in other articles too. These need to be changed to full letter citations.   Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:02, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * FYI: SUBST does not work within tags. -- Verbarson talkedits 11:00, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. Well, then we either have to have the ME-cites as they are or replace all of them with harvnb|Carpenter|2023 etc. On the Helm's Deep ref [T4], "210" is certainly #210 to Forrest J. Ackerman, June 1958: I haven't edited the ref. Any other page refs surviving from the Elder Days will similarly have to be looked up and replaced. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:39, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Let's see;
 * The substitution will work just fine, as shown here . I change a 'no' to a 'yes' in one spot and the bot will do the rest.
 * No, not a "major and systemic" change, and indeed entirely transitory if that is what people want. This IS the discussion to agree how to go forward. Either we subst all of the ME-cite/LETTERS templates I created to harvnb|Carpenter|2023 and then continue using harvnb (and various other templates / manual references) going forward... exactly as people have been the past several years OR we revive ME-cite (or fold the functionality into ME-ref), which was part of the original design of this system precisely to standardize reference formats and make edition transitions like this easier. That was all removed without being "thoroughly explored and agreed first".
 * The Helm's Deep ref says 210 because that's what it said before the 'change'.
 * I didn't notice that the other Helm's Deep ref listed the page # after the letter number. Would probably be fine since the letter number is there, but I removed the page #. --CBD 13:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, well, I'd like to have harvnb|Carpenter|2023 please. I'll fix the HD ref now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:12, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Seeing no objections... done. --CBD 11:52, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Seeing no objections... done. --CBD 11:52, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Use of non-free illustrations in Illustrating Tolkien
A discussion has begun at Talk:Illustrating Tolkien on the use of non-free illustrations in the Illustrating Tolkien. Middle-earth project members are invited to contribute to the discussion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:40, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

A modern perspective on Rings of Power
A discussion has begun at Talk:Rings of Power on whether Sauron's efforts to enslave the bearers of the Rings of Power owe something to Tolkien's experience of cryptanalysis. A text, formerly in the article, is now on the talk page. Project members are invited to decide if it should be included as it is or modified, and if so, where it should go in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:49, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussion on List of translations of The Lord of the Rings
A discussion has begun at AfD as to whether List of translations of The Lord of the Rings should remain as an article on Wikipedia.

Project members are invited to contribute to the discussion at Articles for deletion/List of translations of The Lord of the Rings. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at The Hunt for Gollum (2009 film)
I have started a requested move discussion for this article, which was recently given unnecessary disambiguation following the announcement of an upcoming film that may potentially have a similar name. - adamstom97 (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of deletions at Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lord of the Rings
A discussion has been started after an editor has made a series of deletions in this article, which may have removed needed components of the text. Project members are invited to view the changes in the article and contribute their views to the discussion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:25, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Tolkien and race
A discussion has been started by an editor on this article's talk page about its neutrality. Project members are invited to join the discussion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:00, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Cleanup listing
I have added this project to the list that is processed every Tuesday by CleanupWorklistBot. The latest listings are available as alphabetical or categorized lists, or as a downloadable CSV file. A history will accumulate. On the first run, it has flagged 186 (16%) of the project's 1175 pages (articles, redirects, disambiguations) as needing attention. -- Verbarson talkedits 21:54, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Legends of Tomorrow episodes
So the actor Jack Turner appears in the Legends of Tomorrow episodes The Fellowship of the Spear and Aruba as Tolkien in a guest star role? Would either of these be worth adding to to the task force? The first one exists as a redirect but the second is an article I'm hoping to refine. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 02:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for asking. The answer here is surely no, any connection is marginal and tenuous at best. Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:53, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry I clarified a the reason a bit, but presumably still the same? Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 05:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Can't forget the brilliant episode "Guest Starring John Noble" haha - adamstom97 (talk) 07:56, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power episodes
Can I suggest/request that all articles about episodes of The Rings of Power be titled for consistency and to aid recognition of the subject? An article entitled Udûn should be about Udûn; a TV show episode should be labelled more clearly. This would currently affect A Shadow of the Past, Partings and Udûn, and bring them into line with the other five episode articles. This should apply to all future seasons, once episode names are known. -- Verbarson talkedits 15:29, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 *  (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power)
 * I have little interest in TV episodes, but I wonder if it can be standard practice to name episodes by topic rather than by series? It could well be that "series.episode" would be the preferred naming convention, useful from the direction of knowing the series (or directors or actors), and it may well be the norm for that reason. The other thing that springs to mind is what happens when there is more than one topic? So "The Great Wave" brings to mind "Cataclysms", "Númenor", and "Recurring Dreams" (Tolkien had the Great Wave dream/vision many times). Lots of redirects? and then which one becomes the title, hmm? And what if a title is chosen for its obscurity to maintain suspense, rather than for its content? Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The current article names are correct per WP:NCTV. The title of the episode is used where there is no other article of that name, otherwise they are disambiguated with the series' name. We don't add unnecessary disambiguation just for consistency across episode articles of the same series. - adamstom97 (talk) 18:53, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Granted; but the primary topic for Udûn is clearly Udûn, Mordor, not The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power S01E06. I think this is a case where the function of the encyclopedia is improved by breaking the rules a little. [Edited to link to policy, not joke] -- Verbarson talkedits 19:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * We can have a move discussion about that specific example. There was already a bit of back-and-forth about it last year as the episode was originally at Udûn (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) before it was moved to Udûn. I think if there was going to be any change it would make sense to redirect Udûn to the disambiguation page at Udun. - adamstom97 (talk) 19:42, 20 June 2024 (UTC)