Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/archive15

Roll call
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 * Glad to help out! --JediActor1998 (talk) 9:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
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 * Still here. Seemed to have been kicked upstairs, but have a commitment to do content work in my spare time and this is one area I will work on soon. Has been too long! Carcharoth (talk) 16:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm still hanging about, fixing vandalisms and updating minor areas. Not to confident in my writing skills to do massive updates though :-( Carl Sixsmith (talk) 18:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Still present. FlamingSilmaril (talk) 18:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Here, but not as active. – Psyche825 (talk) 23:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
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 * Mìthrandir Huge Tolkien fan, wan't to help out in any way possible.
 * User:Akrabbim 13:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
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 * Elsendor --I'm new to the force...decided to search for an LotR project and sign on. Let me know if I can help in any way.
 * Thejadefalcon -- Thejadefalcon Sing your song The bird's seeds 17:30, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Christopher Paul Lee Formerly known in these parts as TolkienGeek. —Preceding undated comment added 12:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC).
 * Archer884. I specialize in removing commas. I used to say that I moved them, but I have found no fit place for most of them. Such is Wikipedia. J.M. Archer (talk) 19:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * MithrandirAgain. Wow, this is awkward. 2 Mithrandirs on one page. *starts Twilight Zone theme.* (I am a HUGE Tolkien fan, yet I always stay NPOV.) :) --MithrandirAgain (talk) 21:19, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Nrodovsky Ooh, pick me, pick me! I'll help when I can, depending upon how many spoons I have. Evening Scribe (talk) 02:42, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
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 * I'm not much of a joiner, but there's no point pretending I'm not here. -- Elphion (talk) 20:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Maelstromlusby I know a lot about the topic, and I figure I can help out whenever I see an article that needs sourced or a page that needs expanded —Preceding undated comment added 03:36, 5 August 2010 (UTC).
 * I'll do what I can to help. ~ Ara  gorn  135   02:42, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah well, for the record: I'm still on board. De728631 (talk) 20:47, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi again : ) - jc37 02:10, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
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 * Hullo. Just joined.  Would love to help out any way possible. Lolinder (talk) 04:38, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

FAR
nominated The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Are there enough articles on this subject to justify an Outline of Middle Earth?
By the way, here's a relevant discussion about subject development you might find interesting.

Now back to the question...

The Transhumanist 01:23, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

The Tolkien Society
FYI - The Tolkien Society has been nominated for CSD (by another editor). 7 06:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Future film update (The Hobbit)
Would anyone here be able to do the update suggested here? Also left a note at WikiProject Films. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 02:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes
I'm suggesting that the infobox should be removed form this article; User:De728631 feels that it is better there. I'll explain my reasoning a bit more fully, and hopefully we can get to an agreement.

Several of the problems raised in the recent GA fail were to do with the infobox:
 * 'Why is Immortal the date of birth?' This is fair criticism - immortal isn't a date of birth, it's a characteristic. Saruman was presumably created before Arda, but there's no reference for his specific creation so we would have to leave it blank.
 * This leads me on to the date of death: who says Saruman died in TA 3019? As for all the other Maiar, his body dying doesn't mean the end of the entity involved. Have we put Gandalf's date of death? Or Sauron's as SA3319 (Fall of Numenor and destruction of his body), SA3441 (defeat by the Last Allliance and death at the hands of Isuldur) and TA3019 (Destruction of the Ring)?
 * Is Istari a race or title. Neither, really. If you've got fill in a title in the infobox then Istari is possibly the closest thing. However, Istari is plural (singular presumably Istar?) used for the group. Saruman is never referred to as "the Istar Curunir".

These are not major reasons for the fail, but they got me thinking. As also pointed out in the GA fail, Wikipedia articles are intended for lay readers who are not especially familiar with the topic. Infoboxes are intended to present summary or overview information of the topic. It seems to me that the information on race, culture, titles, dates of birth and death is far too detailed for a lay reader: it's meaningless as summary information unless you are familiar with Tolkien's other, less read works. It also seems to me that giving dates of birth and death for a fictional character is inherently in-universe, and therefore unsuitable for Wikipedia. Saruman doesn't really exist, so it's hard to see why anyone other than a hardcore fan needs to know the date on which he died in a fictional alternative calendar which has no relation to our own.

At least one of WP:M-E's (very few) character GAs does not use the infobox, and taking a wider view very few FA literary character articles use infoboxes. Those that do tend to be for comic characters.

Since the WP:MeS does not require the use of an infobox for characters from I think we're better off without it. I look forward to others' comments. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 06:22, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * As much as I love the information boxes, I can admit they are a little bit fan-centric so they should go really. I think we should move this discussion to the middle earth project to get project wide consensus. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 07:50, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Carl is right that this discussion needs to be on the project page. Elphion (talk) 15:30, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Happy to move it there - although bear in mind that the style guide for this wikiproject does not require the infobox to be used, so we can have different solutions for different articles. 4u1e (talk) 21:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * In contrast to WP:MeS, the WP's article assessment requires the presence of a "key element" like an infobox as a criterion already for class A articles - as seems to be the rule for most other projects as well. I do think that these infoboxes, fan-centric or not, can provide for a quick overview of any Tolkien-character article. And yes, they are in-universe because they deal with fictional characters in the first place. Let's leave them as they are. De728631 (talk) 21:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * De728631 - thanks for moving this across here. I've been a bit short of time and hadn't gotten round to it!
 * In response to your points: I don't read the article assessment criteria the way you do. The 'key element' bit is in the section on start-class articles, not the A-class ones, and says that start-class articles may be lacking a key element "such as an infobox". It says nothing about whether or not infoboxes are 'key elements' for character articles, the style guide seems to say that they are not. Having said that, we can agree as a wikiproject to include character infoboxes in our style guide if we wish.
 * WP:WAF says that "Wikipedia articles should describe fiction and fictional elements from the perspective of the real world, not from the perspective of the fiction itself". If the information in the infoboxes is 'in-universe', then Wikipedia's guidelines are very clear that it should not be included. There is wiggle room for 'some exceptions', but I come back to my previous point that this information is not in any case useful to the lay reader who is our target audience.
 * I've got nothing against infoboxes per se: we could agree a different set of 'real world' information to go in them, although all that I could think of was the list of books that the character appears in. 4u1e (talk) 06:29, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * In that case WP:Star Wars need to redesign their character boxes as well, have a look at Luke Skywalker. As to the distinction between fictional universe and real world, you know that the boundaries are quite weak in all our Tolkien articles, not to mention the old past/present tense struggle. And while WP:WAF is clear about the articles itself I still don't see the need to gut the Tolkien infoboxes. But if has to be done, we must at least keep the "other names" variable to list the many aliases some of the characters have. I would even go a step further, or backwards in terms of the template's history, and add a section about the portraying actor/the voice in the films. This would be info on real world adaptations. De728631 (talk) 18:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:Star Wars does indeed have the same problem. The fact is they have very few GA or FA articles, and none of the character FAs were promoted later than 2006; perhaps their current approach is not well suited to Wikpedia either? I don't propose to try and solve that problem, though! I really just want to try and get Saruman to GA and then perhaps FA.
 * Do we have a consensus to include a requirement for character infoboxes in the WP:M-E style guide, but to also re-write the infoboxes to reflect an out of universe approach?
 * I suggest we should use the following elements in a new character infobox:
 * Names
 * First appearance (i.e. the date on which the character first appeared in a published work)
 * Books (i.e. books the character appears in)
 * Films (i.e. films the character appears in)
 * Other media?
 * Portrayed by?
 * Any other ideas? 4u1e (talk) 19:29, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This list of yours looks good. I wonder though about the first appearance date. I'd rather hint at the book where the character had their first appearance, not so much at the real life date. But yes, lets have the "new" character infobox as a requirement of style for our articles. De728631 (talk) 13:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Sorry, two editors agreeing does not constitute consensus, especially on as large a change as this. You're talking about changes that will require a hell of a lot of work; let's give this some time to percolate. Elphion (talk) 15:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem with that, Elphion. Should we post a link at the infobox talk page, and perhaps some of the more frequented character articles? Anyone know how many we have, by the way? 4u1e (talk) 21:35, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I just had a look at the general, which is in fact full of in-universe data. And again this makes me think if we need to redefine our box at all, given that everybody else seems not to have any problem with in-universe info in an infobox. De728631 (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Only time for a very quick point: everyone else doing something isn't always a good reason to follow. What should we be doing? 4u1e (talk) 07:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * With a little more time: Look again at the general character infobox. Most of the data in there is not necessarily in-universe. To know that a character is a Spanish Catholic born in 1930 tells the general reader all sorts of things about them because Spain, Catholocism and the Anno Domini system are all real things, even if the character is not. The point about our infoboxes is that they rely on in-universe concepts that you have to understand before the infobox becomes useful. 4u1e (talk) 05:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * We should try to stick to the general rules of wikipedia, and if that means removing in-universe stuff from the info boxes then so be it. I don't think we should try doing something different just because we feel we have ownership of the middle-earth project, bit like the past-tense debate, that debate seems to have fizzled out without a clear resolution, I suggest we be bold and make a start on the info boxes at an agreed date if no-one raises any objections. We could put a deadline of 2 weeks or something before we start. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 08:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Well, let's see how many bridges I can burn here. Let me start by saying that I don't pay much attention to the info boxes, but they do sort of visually anchor the page, so do serve some sort of function. (But why do some have color bars at the top and others not?) I think the important stuff to include there is where the character fits in the story: which books? which Age? which land? possibly which race, but we need a list somewhere of appropriate choices. Specific birth and death dates, ancestors and descendants, "culture", "titles" are all overkill. Significant aliases would be useful. I would include for Imrahil, e.g., "Prince of Dol Amroth" as an alias, not as a title; for Aragorn: "Strider, King Elessar".

I think we should not put images in the box, from the films or even from books: people's ideas of these characters just vary too much. I don't like the idea of including film information in the box at all; these articles should be primarily about the books.

The representation that the info boxes are an obstacle to GA status is overstated. The reviewer of Saruman was not objecting to the "in-universe" style of the info in the box, but that someone not familiar with the details of Middle-earth would not understand what was meant by the information given there for Saruman. The infobox is not the place for out-of-universe discussion; that's what the prose is for. Basically, anything that would require a footnote is already too complex. And the notion that adding film information somehow increases the "out-of-universe" content is just bogus; that's "in-universe" for the la-la-land of Hollywood.

And frankly, we already pay too much attention to the guidelines for GA and FA status. I don't want a Good Article, I want a good article, one where it is clear where the support in Tolkien's text comes from. The article on Dol Guldur is rightly derided as ridiculous puffery (the "Politics" of Dol Guldur??), but keep in mind that the editor responsible for that transformation was transparently gunning for GA, bending over backwards to use 20 "out-of-universe" words where 2 ordinary words would suffice. As for the importance of secondary sources, yes that's fine, when available. But so much nonsense has been published about Tolkien that you can find support for lots of crack-pot theories; it is often essential to provide the textual context. Finding refutations of crack-pot theories in secondary literature is often not possible; we *have* to use some judgment in filtering stuff out, and Tolkien's text is the best source.

Summary: I don't favor significant changes to the info boxes, especially since there are so many of them; but making the info more intelligible to the casual reader might be useful.

Elphion (talk) 20:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Elphion - thanks for commenting. I agree with much of what you say, although not all of your conclusions!
 * First off, my apologies if I implied that the article had failed largely due to infobox problems. It didn't - as I wrote above only "Several of the problems raised in the recent GA fail were to do with the infobox" but "These are not major reasons for the fail". If necessary I can fix them satisfactorily and leave the infobox in. My later mentions of GA and FA were intended as counters to the argument that since other articles do it like this, it must be right.
 * Secondly, I don't think the GA and FA guidelines have anything to do with the appearance of articles like Dol Guldur. The author may have been gunning for GA, but if they were intending to create an out of universe article they have completely misunderstood what is required. Attempting to write about a fictional location as if it were real, by including 'learned' discussion of its politics, geography etc is the very essence of in-universe writing. Writing out of universe requires looking at that fictional topic as it is actually covered in the real world. This might include: what inspired the author to create it; how does it reflect the themes of the book; have other artists been inspired by it? In the case of Dol Guldur I strongly suspect there is virtually no real world coverage at all of the topic and if pushed we would struggle to justify the notability of the article. (This may be an extreme view :D)
 * I agree that images should not go in the infobox, for the reasons you suggest. It looks like we also agree that from the current template:Infobox Tolkien character, we could usefully remove birth and death dates, departure date, title, culture and realm as these will if anything confuse an average reader. On reflection, I would probably leave race in, and it looks as if you are open to this possibility too. Several of the possible categories are readily recognisable to general readers (Elf, Dwarf, Man, Troll etc) and some critics have suggested that Tolkien effectively used race as a shorthand for character.
 * You say you feel the infobox shouldn't include film information. I'm less sure about this - most of the articles contain some discussion of the characters appearance in other adaptations. Surely this is necessary for comprehensive coverage of 'real world' content? Like it or not, these characters now have a significant life on the silver screen as well as on the page and that should be reflected in the articles although I agree that the books remain the major source. I don't understand in what sense listing the films in which a character has appeared is 'in-universe'.
 * I'm also unsure of the value of specifying what Age or land the character is from. How does this help the general reader understand the character?
 * Would a modified character infobox that looked like this work for you:
 * Name
 * Aliases
 * Race
 * Books (w dates)
 * Adaptations (w dates)
 * What do others think? I've posted links to this discussion at the infobox talkpage and the talkpages of several of the major characters. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 19:40, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Going by a quick scan of 'what links here' it looks like the character infobox is used on on between 150 and 300 articles. Biggish job, but manageable, I would say. Here's a mock-up of the suggestion above for Saruman:


 * Elphion suggests above that we should also have Age and Land, which would add
 * Age Third Age (Although implicitly Curumo must go back to before the creation of Arda, I don't think this is explicitly stated anywhere, is it?)
 * Land Isengard (or Rohan?)
 * I'm not convinced that helps the casual reader, but what do others think? 4u1e (talk) 12:00, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent)OK, I think we're looking at a fairly inconclusive 'no-change' here. De728631 and Elphion were both disagreeing when they last commented, although Elphion thought a small amount of change might be useful, while Carl agrees with my suggestion. I've dropped requests for comments (for or against) on the talk pages of those still listed from the last roll call, but if there's no further movement in the discussion, then I feel we'd have to keep the status quo. In that case I would suggest that we at least add the character infobox to the Middle-earth style guide for consistency's sake. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 21:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I actually agree that changing the infobox would be a good idea – currently, even for somebody who has read The Lord of the Rings, the infobox on Saruman's page doesn't make sense. It only makes sense for fans like me, who read The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. My personal opinion of the above suggested infobox is better; my only comment would be do we need the dates after every book and film? What do they add? And I think "Age" and "Land" are just going to add more difficulties. What is Gandalf's land? Darth Newdar  talk  06:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Please excuse my current state inactivity regarding this project... I'm all for getting more out-of-universe and improving readability (while retaining as much info as possible), but have little to add though. Regarding book appearances, what about the volumes of The History of Middle-earth and the similar one for The Hobbit? Adaptation appearances are okay but the section needs to be thorough for at least film and radio. What about stage, games, etc.? And stating Saruman's race as "Men/Maiar" (use plural or singular?) seems a little odd, like he's a crossbreed, but Istari is indeed not a race... If we do decide to list "portrayed by", we should list all portrayers, not just the New Line folks. If I remember correctly, the reason for removing film stuff like actors and images from the infoboxes was that it made them too New Line-centric.
 * At least you've kept active. Waiting for Carcharoth's (an active admin) input. By the way, I think his namesake article should be merged into the Tolkien animals list. And about past vs. present, just use present to comply with general rules, I guess. Uthanc (talk) 03:20, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments guys. I only have a couple of minuts to comment, but a couple of points: giving the year of the book is to give general literary context. In very, very broad terms, Tolkien comes after Poe and Wells, but before King and Rowling, in writing of the fantastic. Those are terrible examples, by the way, but I hope you get the point.
 * The books selected are intended to be those that are generally fiction. The HoME books are generally non-fiction literary detective work and criticism.
 * Saruman's race is difficult. If you put Maia you are referring to something that most readers know nothing of, and is not relevant to the story at first reading. If you put Man you are being strictly inaccurate. That's only a problem for a relatively small number of characters though, and should probably not drive the general solution.
 * What's missing in terms of adaptations? Arguably I should have put DVD as well for the first two Jackson films/ There was an earlier BBC radio version (not available, broadcast live, I think) and there is a (late 1970s?) American radio adaptation, but I didn't find any hard evidence that Saruman was in either of them.
 * Appearances in games etc. Yes, but we may need some criteria for what constitutes a notable appearance, and my sources are not very good for that. 4u1e (talk) 18:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * As Uthanc says, we do have THoTH, and HoME, I think it might be fun (encyclopaedic, useful) to add a creation date as well as first publication date. I'm pretty sure Christopher Tolkien has done a good job of dating his fathers texts and these are mostly available. Of course, this isn't always clear, but it might be useful. Perhaps a "first appearance" as well. Helps with the old "out-of-universe" perspective a bit? The "adaptations" bit in the proposed infobox might get very repetitious very quickly, also I wouldn't consider the adaptations particularly notable in relation to understanding the character, unless the actor won an oscar or something for that portrayal (might just be me tho'). Davémon (talk) 20:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The adaptations element is in danger of overwhelming the rest, certainly. Notable adaptations? But then how to define notable? Award-winning (or nominated?) I agree about date of creation, which is easy enough for almost all (all?) of Tolkien's characters and there's often a large gap between that and the actual first appearance. (Turin Turambar must be 70-odd years!) The other reason for giving publication dates for the books is that it also covers 'first appearance', so I don't think we need that as a separate section. Do we need page number? If you have the book, Saruman is listed in the index. The precise page reference is given the main text, too. 4u1e (talk) 06:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You are right, the 'first appearance' is properly covered by the Books. Turin is really a good example of why the creation date is interesting. Also I think "Fiction" rather than Books might help distinguish from HoME or Letters etc. I'm still not keen on including adaptations, even award winning / nominated ones. The Hobbit (1982 video game) won a Golden Joystick and the Rankin/Bass The Hobbit (1977 film) was also nominated for a Hugo and won a Peabody, plus the RoTK Jackson movie won an Oscar or two. I'm doubtful of the benefit of putting all of this into the Bilbo Baggins infobox, rather than just the main article. I've updated my version of the infobox. Davémon (talk) 20:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * My interpretation of 'award winning' would be a bit more restrictive than that - it's not the adaptation, but the portrayal of the character that is relevant. Which suggests that it should be called notable portrayals not notable adaptations. Of course, that's actually so restrictive that other than Gandalf (Ian McKellan's Oscar nomination), I don't know that any other character would qualify. 4u1e (talk) 22:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. I think I've persuaded myself that adaptations doesn't really work as it stands, so I'd be happy to leave that out. 4u1e (talk) 06:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Suggested final version: Thanks to everyone for their comments. I think we've now had a good discussion around the various changes that could be made. The way I read the conversation, I expect that everyone who has commented would be reasonably happy with Davemon's latest version above (Name, Aliases, Race, Created, Fiction), which leaves out the elements that there appears to be no consensus to retain/add. I propose that if no-one raises a further objection by 23 October, we take this version as the agreed one. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 06:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Regarding "Created", how do we judge when a character is created when Tolkien kept evolving his concepts? This may prove thorny for some if not many. For example, was Frodo created when Tolkien created Bingo Bolger-Baggins, or Aragorn created with Trotter? Does Sauron's origin lie with the Prince of Cats or with the Necromancer? Uthanc (talk) 14:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the above suggestion is fine, apart from the "Created" heading, as per above. Take that away, and I fully support changing the infobox. Darth Newdar  talk  14:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I made an earlier suggestion here. That was over three years ago(!), so I can't for the life of me work out what was implemented in the end, but what's been worked out above looks good. More out-of-universe focus is the way to go. Everything else, if people want it in the article, they need to attribute to a reliable source. Carcharoth (talk) 13:46, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that creation date will be that much of a problem. Trotter is the first appearance of Aragorn (who didn't get that name, even as a man, until very late in the process). Bingo is also surely the first appearance of Frodo. I'm pretty sure HoME would explicitly support both of those statements. Pippin would be a more difficult case, because as completed he's a composite of several earlier characters, but even there CJT is content to state that "'Odo' became 'Pippin'" even if the process involved several other characters and was "strangely tortuous" (Return of the Shadow, discussion at the end of Chapter II). In most cases it's quite simple to identify and source the creation date: we don't "judge" when it is, but report the views of reliable sources. Where there are none, we just leave it out. Darth and Uthanc, are you content to keep the 'created' field in on this basis? 4u1e (talk) 16:48, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * If there are direct statments to support the "created" parameter, then it's fine to keep it. And as you point out, if non-existent we can leave it out. So, yes, I am happy to support all infobox changes. Darth Newdar  talk  20:05, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I just got back from an unintentionally extended Wiki-Break, and saw 4u1e's comment on my talk page. I am jumping in at the end, it seems. I must say I agree with much of what Elphion said above in "burning his bridges", except for the inclusion of pictures. I believe that a picture does help the reader to get some idea of the character, even though it can only be an artist's rendition. I imagine most people do not have a problem with illustrated editions of Tolkien's books, as they can keep their own perception of the character distinct. But I digress. I wholeheartedly agree that we should aim for a more out-of-universe perspective (even though I personally like all of the info in the current infoboxes, it is not of great use to the average reader). The two topics of interest now appear to be the inclusion of adaptions and a creation date.

Adaptions: I say no. For major characters (e.g., Frodo and Gandalf) it is likely to run on to a cumbersome length and would be of little use. The characters originated in the books, and the article should focus on that; however, a sub-section in the article itself for "In Other Media" might be useful, say under Appearances in the Saruman article. I suppose one could put something similar in the infobox as well, though I wouldn't be crazy about it.

Creation date: I do not have a definite opinion either way. It could be interesting, and it could be nothing but trouble. I am of Uthanc's mind in that judging a creation date is particularly difficult due to Tolkien's process of character development. Sauron is an especially good example, as Tolkien was working on the character who would evolve into Sauron for over twenty years I believe, before the Lord of Mordor emerged in his final incarnation. Being able to leave the creation date out is an advantage, of course (for dubious situations as well as unknown ones), but I do wonder how important it actually is in an infobox. Articles usually have (or should have) a "development" section, where such information could be better explained with greater detail. Instead of a creation date, I feel that a "First Appearance" note would be better. What I would advise is to give dates of first publication for each book. For the layman, this would likely be much clearer and relevant.

And finally, I would support a "Books" heading, rather than a "Fiction" one. A character is a work of fiction, and it could be confusing to have such a heading in the infobox. Because the character is part of the universe, we need only include the fiction books. To put in the commentary ones would be (a stretched analogy, I know, but all I can think of at the moment) similar to putting a section in J. R. R. Tolkien's infobox listing biographies of his life. – The Fiddly Leprechaun ·  Catch Me!  20:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops - back from my own unintended wikibreak. Leprechaun - I think the only definite change you are proposing is a return to using the 'Books' heading rather than the 'Fiction' one. I'm happy with that - we can cover any potential confusion in the guidance. Sounds like you'd be happy to leave Creation date in, with the proviso suggested above that it's not used if there's no clear referenced statement to back it up. We'll have a better feel for whether it works after we've tried to complete it for a number of characters, which may inform the debate further. First appearance/publication dates are already in the format. I'll proceed on this basis.
 * Given that I'm only sporadically on Wikipedia these days, I'll proceed in stages (and if anyone wants to jump in and do bits if I seem to be taking too much time, please go ahead!).
 * Delete no longer used elements from the infobox template (leave the images until the end, since they need to be moved elsewhere in the articles).
 * Add new elements to the template.
 * Trawl through the character articles deleting those bits that are no longer used (Could this be done with a bot?). (Started)
 * Move images elsewhere in the article, where necessary. Delete image from template.
 * Trawl through the articles adding the new elements (Could this be partially done with a bot?).
 * Update guidance to match.
 * Thanks to everyone for their involvement. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 07:39, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Ents
Anyone care to weigh in on the usefulness of Ents? I started a discussion on it back in 2007 and I just bumped into it again. It's frustrating to click on those links only to go to the Ent article in most cases. —Mrwojo (talk) 19:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think it's pretty useless.--Michael X the White (talk) 19:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree as well; the template is only used on two articles: Treebeard and Ent. As noted, all specific Ents are mentioned in the Ent article, apart from Treebeard. We do not need a template just for one article. Darth Newdar  talk  19:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, before introducing another special Tolkien template, let's fix our existing character template (see discussion above). De728631 (talk) 20:12, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It's been 24 hours and the opinion has been unanimous, so I've placed it on Templates for Discussion recommending deletion. Thanks. —Mrwojo (talk) 19:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You don't actually have to delete it. You can just remove it from the articles it is used in, and mark it as historical. Carcharoth (talk) 13:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Archiving this talk page?
If anyone wants to jump in and help around here (it's been a bit quiet), archiving the old talk from this talk page, and looking through some of the old pages and identifying things to do would be a good start. I can answer any questions if it's not clear what some of the older pages are for. Carcharoth (talk) 13:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Sources for List of Hobbits
Although most articles should be supported by third-party sources, I think the nature of List of Hobbits allows us to make exceptions, since the list is supposed to be based entirely on Tolkien's works. Is this correct? If so, I'll start checking and sourcing it. Mario777Zelda (talk) 01:41, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Lord of the Rings FA push
Prompted by comments from Mario777Zelda at Talk:The Lord of the Rings I was wondering whether we could get some WP:ME editors behind a push to get LoTR up to WP:FA or at least WP:GA status? Essentially rather than everyone working on the different Tolkien articles, that we band together and determinedly focus and work on this single, hugely significant article. Perhaps starting with a Literature Peer Review and working from there? What do other editors think? Anyone up for it? --Davémon (talk) 14:11, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, it was a featured article back in 2006, and it has since fallen in status. IMO it should at least be at GA, considering the number of hits it is likely to get. I support it fully, though I do not know how much I can contribute due to my busy-ness in Real Life.
 * By the way, Davémon, I edited your post above to switch the link from Lord of the Rings:Talk to Talk:The Lord of the Rings. :) Cheers! – The Fiddly Leprechaun ·  Catch Me!  00:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll support this effort. The article is almost GA right now in my opinion, and could be improved to FA if we work together.--Mario777Zelda (talk) 01:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Davemon's suggestion of starting with a peer review. Working from any issues identified there, we could sketch out the work required and perhaps get volunteers to deal with specific elements. It's a big topic, and one that might choke us if we try and gobble it down all at once. I'm happy to help, but my contributions would be rather sporadic, so it would have to be a long term push. 4u1e (talk) 19:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Glad to see there is some support. I think the FA board is much stricter nowadays than in the past, especially when dealing with high-profile subjects, but I'm sure we'll be able to win them over. I'll go for a peer-review first, and we can build a "to-do" out of that. Davémon (talk) 20:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Music
Sally Oldfield produced her album Waterbearer around 1978, which features a kind of mini musical of five tracks, written in Quenya, and relating events told in The Silmarillion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.229.183 (talk) 10:05, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Stage adaptations
Adapted for the stage by Glyn Robbins and directed by Roy Marsden (who played Adam Dalgleish in the PD James adaptations for British ITV), the stage play of The Hobbit has been touring for a few years now (first performance unknown) and looks set to continue touring into 2010. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.229.183 (talk) 10:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The Hobbit films
The Hobbit films is up for renaming, see Talk:The Hobbit films

76.66.197.2 (talk) 06:27, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge Meduseld into Edoras, rather than Rohan?
I brought this up a while ago, but there was no response, so I thought I would repeat it in a place where it is more likely that someone will see it. I am thinking that Meduseld should be merged into Edoras, rather than into Rohan as was suggested over two years ago. (It was also suggested at the same time that Edoras be merged into Rohan, but I disagree with that.) Meduseld --> makes more sense to me, as there really is not enough info about Meduseld to warrant a separate article, but Edoras has a fair degree of notability in both the books and films. What do you all think? – The Fiddly Leprechaun ·  Catch Me!  19:11, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I totally agree with you. Darth Newdar  talk  20:51, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Just as a random thought, how much material on Edoras can you find outside of in-universe encyclopedias and gazeteers? But I have no objection to your solution. If we agree later that there isn't enough to justify Edoras either, it can always be merged again. 4u1e (talk) 21:56, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, the Rohan main article has already become quite long as it was decided that the Rohirrim stand-alone should be merged into it. So Meduseld should go to the town's article. De728631 (talk) 19:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * My thoughts exactly, De -- and IMO we should avoid putting all the Rohan-related material in one article; it is too varied and would bog down the reader. Off the top of my head I can think of one of out-of-universe source for Edoras info, and there are probably a couple more.
 * Anyways, as it has been almost a week and a half, I shall consider this as consensus. I am slammed by my studies at the moment, but I'll merge the articles and redo all of the links as soon as I have the chance. – The Fiddly Leprechaun ·  Catch Me!  01:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late
The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late is on AfD here. Come to the rescue if you want. --Pgallert (talk) 13:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 04:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on Biographies of living people
Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:

Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, nearly all wikiproject topics will be effected.

The two opposing positions which have the most support is:
 * 1) supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
 * 2) opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect

Comments are welcome. Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment.

Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced BLP articles if they are not sourced, so your project may want to source these articles as soon as possible. See the next, message, which may help.

Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people
If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here
 * List of cleanup articles for your project

If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip
 * Moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation pages"

If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip
 * Watchlisting all unreferenced articles

Ikip 02:22, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Article for deletion: Belegost
The article Belegost has been nominated for deletion. I noticed that someone proposed merging it with Beleriand. Someone who is into this Middle-earth universum ;-) please do it now or improve Belegost before it gets deleted. Here's the deletion nomination. However the article does need help, otherwise it will be deleted. Regards, PanchoS (talk) 16:11, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like Akrabbim merged it into Minor places in Beleriand last week according to the consensus at Articles for deletion/Belegost. I've removed the merge notice from the article. – The Fiddly Leprechaun ·  Catch Me!  17:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Ungoliant
Just started a major re-write of the Ungoliant article, might need looking at by someone with a better skills but it needed starting somewhere, the previous version was all over the place. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 20:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

We really need to get merging/redirecting done.
There's been a spate of AFDs of Tolkien stuff, all easy merge/redirects. Uthanc (talk) 05:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I updated the to-do list above since a lot of the listed articles were redirected/merged long ago. De728631 (talk)
 * I just came here from doing a load of Nov '07 merge requests - if this is being actioned (even at entmoot speed!) then I'll leave the Tolkien articles to you guys. Totnesmartin (talk) 19:38, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I've been quite hasty then and put this into work. De728631 (talk) 21:47, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Forgotten mergers
In November 2007 User:YLSS placed a Merge JRRT template on Dor Daedeloth, recommending that it be merged with Beleriand. (That user does not appear to have edited since 2008.) No corresponding merge template was placed on Beleriand, however, and no merger discussion was initiated. I would suggest that either a discussion be initiated at Talk:Dor Daedeloth, or that the template be removed. See Help:Merging for more information on proposing mergers. Cnilep (talk) 15:15, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think we need a discussion for that one but can rather quickly merge it to Angband, which itself could need some fleshing-out. De728631 (talk) 16:37, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Same thing, all marked non-notable and certainly most, merge to:


 * 1) Ered Mithrin
 * 2) Ered Wethrin
 * 3) Eregion
 * 4) Esgaroth
 * 5) Ettenmoors
 * 6) Harad
 * 7) Hithlum
 * 8) House of Hador
 * 9) Lond Daer Enedh
 * 10) Luthany
 * 11) Meduseld
 * 12) Menegroth
 * 13) Minhiriath
 * 14) Morgul Pass
 * 15) Nargothrond
 * 16) Orocarni
 * 17) Osgiliath
 * 18) Ost-in-Edhil
 * 19) Pelennor Fields
 * 20) Reunited Kingdom
 * 21) River Sirion
 * 22) Torech Ungol
 * 23) Umbar

Rich Farmbrough, 03:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC).


 * User:Arskwad has merged a lot of those today. What still remains is shown in the "Issues" section above. De728631 (talk) 19:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I would take a crack at Umbar, which needs a serious rewrite, and merge Corsairs of Umbar (another forgotten merger not listed above) there as well (again with rewriting) -- something on the models of Rhovanion and Rohan as parent articles hosting peoples and realms that occupied the territory. Umbar itself should remain as an independent article; there's really no good merge target. -- Elphion (talk) 15:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Del Toro quit The Hobbit project
As of 31 May, Guillermo del Toro has resigned from directing the "Hobbit" movie(s) due to various delays and unresolved issues. I guess there's going to be a bit of confusion for a while until a successor has been found, so we should watch the relevant articles and update them if applicable. De728631 (talk) 00:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Middle Earth Places
[Initial conversation transferred from User Talk pages referring to Infobox Me place. Goustien (talk) 17:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)]

There is already a middle earth place template. Please use this instead of the fictional country one. Please see Gondor for an example. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 07:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't Template:Infobox Me place be reserved for sub-national entities? Notice for other fictional locations, there are separate templates Template:Infobox fictional country and Template:Infobox fictional location.  The country template allows fields for a flag, coat of arms, capital, government, etc., which are useful for presenting country data. Goustien (talk) 07:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello again :-) The country box does allow flags, but to my knowledge there are no original flags out there, therefore any flag added would only be either o/r fan cruft or taken from an adaptation; and as per WP:ME consensus we try to avoid specific adaptation related material exception for the adaptation section. (for example loads of movie fan boys would have us think that frodo looks like Elijah Wood). Carl Sixsmith (talk) 07:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Most of the flags and emblems are described by Tolkien and even sketched by him (see J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator). I think the emblems on Wikimedia Commons commons:Category:Heraldry of Middle-earth and its subcategory for flags are pretty reliable. I tried adding the flag to the infobox on Gondor. It allows one image only. Goustien (talk) 08:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I wonder how much trouble it would be to alter the ME-place template. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 11:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello. In this discussion at WikiProject Middle-earth it was decided that we don't want too much in-universe facts in infoboxes on ME articles, so let's better represent the flags and coats of arms in the article proper. De728631 (talk) 12:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello. I just pointed it out to Goustien that we've had the infobox discussion at the ME Project where it was decided that we don't want lots of in-universe facts in infoboxes, so I'd say let's deal with flags etc. in the articles proper. De728631 (talk) 12:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I forgot about that discussion! Carl Sixsmith (talk) 12:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem, I've changed some boxes back to Infobox Me place. De728631 (talk) 13:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I've updated the infoboxes on Rohan and Dol Amroth from Infobox LOTR place to Infobox Me place, and added the infobox to Arnor. The newer infobox is an improvement, if only because it lists Books, to ground the article in the real world. The old infobox didn't even display all fields (it had "hidden" fields such as Type and Realm).

I'd like a little more discussion of what images are appropriate in an infobox. I understand the argument against images in the Infobox Tolkien character because there is no definitive artistic interpretation of Middle-earth characters (no illustrations, not even Tolkien's own, are iconic in the way that Tenniel's illustrations are integral to Alice in Wonderland, or Denslow's are to The Wizard of Oz). With Middle-earth places, however, it seems to me that flags or maps are appropriate to define the entity--Tolkien gave detailed descriptions and sketches of each, and I can hardly imagine reading LOTR without reference maps. A reference work like The Dictionary of Imaginary Places includes maps (and flags?), and it is appropriate to include them here, just as one would for real-world places. Of course, we should not include one artist's idea of what the "flag of the Shire" should look like, since it is not described in the books.

P.S.: Regarding maps, I went back in the archive and found a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Middle-earth/archive10. It seems all Middle-earth maps have been removed due to copyright issues, but I still wonder if a Fair-use rationale can be developed for low-resolution maps, such as is used for book covers? Goustien (talk) 17:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think one of the issues with including images and in-universe stuff in the info boxes was that it was stopping articles from reaching good-status. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 18:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Tolkien does describe a very few flags: King Theoden (white horse on green, near the end of "The Ride of the Rohirrim" in RK), Dol Amroth (white swan ship on blue, "The Houses of Healing" & "The Field of Cormallen" in RK), the Steward's flag (all white, App A "The Stewards"), and the King's Standard (flowering white tree on sable with 7 stars and a helmet crown, ibid & "The Battle of Pelennor Fields").  The description of the royal standard says the white tree was for Gondor; the standard with stars and crown was probably not a flag for Gondor.  Likewise, it is not clear that any of the others was a "national flag", as opposed to a personal flag of the current ruler.  The depictions of these in Commons are all suspect, and not taken from any drawing by Tolkien that I'm aware of.  (Artist and Illustrator does not include flags, just personal emblems, mostly of various elves.)  I dislike the Commons images; they're not how I imagine the designs, and I grump at the implication that they are in some sense standard or "official".  We should do without this sort of fancruft. -- Elphion (talk) 20:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Although Tolkien didn't draw flags per se, he drew some of the emblems that he describes as emblazoned on flags or shields: the White Hand, the Red Eye, the White Tree. Måns Björkman has created a nice site about Middle-earth Emblems and Heraldry. He is careful to adhere closely to the information in Tolkien, but the results do not differ substantially from the versions on Commons. Goustien (talk) 04:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Where not copied from Tolkien, these are still recreations by other hands. If you want to use these images, you need to take them out of the infoboxes, insert them as ordinary images, and in the caption identify the artists. I would argue against including any images in the infoboxes. -- Elphion (talk) 05:24, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, heraldry relies entirely on descriptions instead of copies of a standardised image, there is no "right way" to depict a coat of arms; all it needs, are the proper figures and colours based on the description. How these figures may look like is left to the artist. That said, I'm still against including flags and arms into the infoboxes, because while we can easily do with artists' renditions of a character or image, the "flags" are unclear and the arms would need an explanation that would leave a footnote in the infobox. Which is really undesirable except for real referencing. The artist of a character portrait can be mentioned in the caption, but for heraldry we'd need something like "as devised by Tolkien" – and that's the problem: we'd have to explain everytime how this is not exactly Tolkien's original drawing but based on his ideas. And that can as well be done in a separate article section dealing with the appropriate heraldry of the place. De728631 (talk) 13:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the rules of heraldry vary by place and time. The point of these articles shouldn't be "does this image conform to (your favorite rules of heraldry)?", but rather "does this image reflect Tolkien's intention?".  The White Horse of Uffington, for example, proposed by Shippey as Tolkien's inspiration, is very different in style, detail, and feel from the horse currently displayed in the box at Rohan -- and Tolkien does say "running", not "rearing".  I'm not against including images from non-Tolkien sources (we have many, after all), but they should not be in the infoboxes, and their captions should clearly identify the artist, and ideally the rationale.  The user should not have to guess what is Tolkien and what is not. -- Elphion (talk) 18:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You raise some good points, and I had noticed the horse was not "running." I've replaced the image with a different one from Commons, which better fits Tolkien's description. Goustien (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Three Rings
A new section has been added by User:Kian2002 that compares the powers and abilities of the Three Rings to those of certain Valar, e.g. Nenya, the Ring of Water, corresponds to Ulmo, etc. While it all looks logical and consistent and would really improve the article, it's most likely OR so I wonder if we can find anything to back it up. De728631 (talk) 21:51, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Ouch - the article is entirely unreferenced (and must therefore be vulnerable to charges of non-notability). Having said that, I guess it's a topic that someone other than Tolkien has written on. There's not much available in the Tolkien Encyclopedia via Google Books, but it looks like there might be something on page 572, which is excluded from the preview. 4u1e (talk) 05:13, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Music of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
An IP that had been editing a larger section beforehand suddenly claimed copyright re a not yet published book and removed the entire section on leitmotifs in the article. We're now discussing that on the article's talk page. De728631 (talk) 17:08, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Update: a new user has turned up and suggested restructuring the page because Doug Adams recommended it on his website. And of course the new structure would have a detailed section about Adams' upcoming book; see the article talk for details. So I think we should better monitor that page. De728631 (talk) 17:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Tolkien articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
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Articles needing attention
Please consider adding links to the "Issues" section above as well.


 * Eregion and Esgaroth are been tagged with Notability Tag since October 2007. Would some on mind look it over and see if they meets Notability Requirement for WikiProject Middle-earth or if they need deleting merging ect? The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 02:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Examine Harad as well The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 03:10, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Tolkien articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Tolkien articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

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Shameless canvassing - might be of interest
Per this, please see this and express opinions here. Thank you for your support of the Wikipedia project in all its manifestations. Volunteer Marek (talk) 03:40, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Osgiliath and Hithlum
Osgiliath and Hithlum have been prodded for deletion by someone. 184.144.166.27 (talk) 05:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)