Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/Standards

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Lists

A recent change to List of Middle-earth Men brings up a question about how to handle long lists. That page had anchor tags ('<div id=') for each name, but these have been changed into titles ('===') for several of them. I think we should use one method consistently and would like to discuss which that should be. I originally used titles on List of Hobbits, but then changed that to the anchor points for cleaner formatting. Also, what's the difference between this 'Standards' page and the new Middle-earth_Style_Guide link on the main project page? Should these be combined? --CBDunkerson 13:31, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not aware of the this page. Well, just have the /Standards be the Middle-earth Style Guide page so we can delete the latter. I like the idea of using titles because then we are still able to link the minor characters' descriptions as where else we use the Hobbits format, then we're not. —Mirlen 13:34, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean. Anchor tags provide the same linking capability as titles. For instance List_of_Hobbits#Gorbadoc goes directly to Gorbadoc Brandybuck on that page. The titles format would add links in the 'table of contents', but with a long list of names I'm not sure we want that - an 'alphabet' TOC can take users to specific sections without listing everything in a long box at the top. The only other difference between the two methods which I can think of is that titles forces the name to be a separate header while the anchor tags can be anywhere, allowing the names to be shown as headers or inline with the rest of the text. --CBDunkerson 13:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Eh, never mind then. I wasn't aware of that linking process. *feels stupid* Well, I guess using the alphabet would be cleaner. Alright, then, let's have the lists follow the alphabet format, like the Hobbits page. Also concerning this, could you respond to the splitting proposal concerning the Middle-earth Men list here?
Also, I was hoping to set up this page like Wikipedia's Manual of Style page, so is it alright if this talk is archived after we've decided the standards for articles/list so we can set it up like the Manual of Style page, like a Guide after the discussion. What do you think? —Mirlen 13:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. BTW, there are links to prior discussions for the items already on the standards page. If we want to change any of those discussion can go on the basic talk page as you suggest. --CBDunkerson 13:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, cool. So now that the list standards is discussed, how about the...? (Make sure to respond to the splitting proposal. I just want some feedback before I start ahead.) —Mirlen 14:01, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Articles

Standards for articles. How do we want the sections to go and everything? —Mirlen 14:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, for the most part I think we can follow the primary manual of style on that. The only layout issues I can think of would be whether and where we want to use 'spoiler' warnings (I don't think we need them - story is fifty years old) and how we want to handle situations where there are different versions of the story. Prior discussion of the latter resulted in the {{Mecanon}} template to specify that the main article assumes one version and other variants are explained at the bottom of the article. However, that has recently been disputed by some at Talk:Middle-earth canon with a suggestion that all variations be given equal weight and be discussed together. So, instead of the lead saying 'Gil-Galad was the son of Orodreth' with a link to explanations at the bottom of the page we'd have several paragraphs towards the top tracing the dozen or so different parentages Tolkien considered for Gil-galad, why Christopher chose Fingon as his father in The Silmarillion, and how Christopher later concluded that this was an error and it should have been Orodreth instead. Note that currently the article only covers the two 'most common' versions rather than giving equal weight to other ideas Tolkien had at some point... such as that Gil-galad was Feanor's grandson. I can't think of any other 'layout' issues offhand. --CBDunkerson 12:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Well there are some variations concerning headings in character articles. In some articles, they have a seperate appearance section and names/titles section. Couldn't the appearance section somehow be merged within the character's history and the names/titles in a trivia section? Also, what do you think of placing leadoff quotes on the beginning of the page to spice up the articles a bit :)? —Mirlen 02:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Also, concerning tenses. Should the articles be in past or present tense. There seems to be a variation between that. —Mirlen 23:28, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Never mind, found the discussion and so we are doing it in past tense. —Mirlen 21:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Family Tree Templates

There also seems to be inconsistency in family line/trees templates.

Examples of different styles:

Which style shall we settle on? I like the Elendil-style, but the Tookclan is more Tolkien-format and easier, so yeah...And also, instead of attaching the famiy tree to each character's article (which takes up space), I think, what would be better and is more commonly done, is to have a 'See also' section and put the link of article describing their family line/house. —Mirlen 23:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Overall I like the 'Tookclan' style best. The 'graphical' format recently implemented on Elendil and some other trees is interesting, but seems to generally take up more space and allow for less flexibility in notes and commentary. --CBDunkerson 01:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I experimented with the graphical format...like you've said, it takes way too much space—and there were some family members I had to cut down when I experimented to get it to a suitable size. —Mirlen 04:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the 'Elendil' style is similar or identical to the style seen at here at Ñoldor. It doesn't seem to take up a lot of space there, so maybe it is usable? Carcharoth 06:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

It is the same template, but they've just reduced the font-size... and consequently the box/overall size. Some variation on this would probably be workable. It does rely on smaller text than the 'ASCII' trees, but some reasonable middle ground between 'readable fonts' and 'compact trees' could probably be found. Substituting the templates for the underlying markup is also still a possibility. --CBDunkerson 19:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Character disambiguation

If there is one or two more other characters in Middle-earth with the same name, should we have a disambiguation page? —Mirlen 04:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Probably depends on the situation. If there are multiple minor characters with the same name, 'Galdor' for instance, then I think they could all be included on the same page together. However, in cases where one character is more prominent than the others, such as 'Boromir', I think it makes sense to have the main page on that character with a disambiguation line at the top to the pages of other characters with the name. --CBDunkerson 12:02, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Here's an example I was thinking needs to be disambiguated. Finduilas of Dol Amroth and Finduilas. IMHO both are somewhat minor chrarecters. Would this fall into articles that should be disambiguated? Ted87 23:40, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
If there are only two things to be disambiguated, the usual procedure is to use a hatnote at the top of both articles, telling the reader that there is another article with a similar name, and giving a link. Carcharoth 16:47, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing Middle-earth

At least we should change all references to Middle-earth as a fictional universe, since it's part of Tolkien's version of our ancient Earth, which would be Arda. -- Uthanc 06:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I've seen this changed back and forth between 'universe', 'world', 'stories', 'legendarium', 'mythology', et cetera. Middle-earth was originally the name of a land mass and then used more generally for the whole Earth. However, Tolkien's stories also incorporated explanations of the whole universe (Ea) and the 'Timeless Halls' beyond. I don't have a particular preference, but agree we should try to keep the articles consistent. --CBDunkerson 11:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Either Fictional universe or fantasy universe. —Mirlen 22:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC) —Mirlen 21:33, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking, perhaps saying legendarium would be better. —Mirlen 21:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree, "legendarium" would be best. But I think we need an article explaining Tolkien's legendarium before we start changing stuff. At the moment, an explanation resides at Legendarium. If Tolkien was the only person to use this term, we can expand that article, but I think they should be separate articles. Carcharoth 10:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Legendarium is an old term for a written collection of legends, such as the 'Anjou Legendarium'. There is a Middle-earth Cycle article, which is sort of a non-standard term for the same thing, that might be cleaned up and moved to 'Tolkien Legendarium' or 'Middle-earth Legendarium'. --CBDunkerson 13:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing the books

Is there a standard for how to reference the books? Is this applied uniformly across the articles? As there are only a limited number of books by Tolkien that are likely to be referred to, could these be listed somewhere in a standard format so that people know how to reference them? As for page numbers being different across different editions, probably the best way to deal with that is to leave blank spaces for people to fill in the publisher/publication date/page numbers for the particular book they are referring to. Carcharoth 23:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, once you take out the Publisher name, location, publication year, ISBN, and page range there isn't really much left except the book title and author. Some example book citations are;
A list like this might be useful for cases where the printing/page number don't matter. CBDunkerson 00:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Do you know which ones have the same page numbers in different editions and printings? And what should we do with the other ones where the page numbers can vary? At the very least, all references in a single article, to the same source, should use the same edition and page numbers. And this should be made clear in any standard. All my references will be to books published by HarperCollins in the UK. Shall I just start adding some and see how it goes, or shall I wait until a standard has been thrashed out? It might also help to see what the standard of referencing is so far. You and others will probably have a better idea of that than me. Carcharoth 01:23, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
PS. Shouldn't the History of Middle-earth references mention Christopher Tolkien as well as JRRT? Carcharoth 01:24, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, there is a separate parameter for 'editor' (as used on Letters). Oversight. As to your question about page numbering; All printings/editions of Letters thus far have the same page numbering, but it is that 'thus far' which is the problem. There was a time when there were only two different numbering schemes for LotR... now there are dozens. The HoME texts used to have only one numbering scheme, but a couple of years ago they came out with the 'omnibus' editions that combined several HoME volumes together (and sometimes left out chunks of material). Thus, it is usual practice to cite the version of the text being referred to. The MoS actually suggests use of references to multiple different versions, but I agree that we should standardize wherever possible. However, the only way to do that is to have someone go through and adjust to a single version. In most cases I'd suggest a first edition hardcover from Allen & Unwin / HarperCollins or Houghton Mifflin... as those printings always used the same page numbering as each other. For LotR I'm tempted to instead suggest the 50th anniversary edition due to the meticulous corrections. Still, that volume isn't widely used so it likely makes sense to stay with the old A&U/HMCO three volume hardbacks that are much more common. --CBDunkerson 01:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
So I think it sounds like the guidelines should be: (1) Reference the text you have in front of you (simplest); (2) Use the standard reference if possible - if not, someone will eventually fix the reference; (3) Refer to <this list> for examples of citation style and books that are commonly referenced.
I have a copy of the 50th edition of LotR. I only have one complete three-volume set of LotR (though a few single volumes from different publishers and dates knocking around). I have a complete set of the History of Middle-earth volumes, and Letters and Biography. That should be enough to get by for now.
Two things I am confused about are: (a) the order of the Notes/References/External Links/See Also sections - I looked at the Manual of Style, but they seem to give a different order to what many articles use (including the Tolkien article). Which order is correct? (b) Whether to use the Footnote3 method (used at Timeline of Arda) or another template method or the php cite method given at Wikipedia:Footnotes (used in Tolkien)? I think the last one is the recommended one. Carcharoth 02:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I too, was confused on the other of the whole References/See also/Trivia. This is the order I see often:
  1. Trivia
  2. See also
  3. References - A lot of articles have Notes/References merged due to a new format, which I like better than the old one.
  4. External links
For footnotes, this style (the example I'm showing has Good Article status) seems to be the most recent and adapted one.
 After sentence that needs referencing, 
 insert this code: <ref name="subject">Insert reference here.</ref>

 In References, insert this code: 
 <div style="font-size: 90%">
 <references />
 </div>
—Mirlen 21:59, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Note that <ref> is good enough in most cases. The <ref name="whatever"> format creates a 'whatever' anchorpoint which can be linked to using wikimarkup such as [[#whatever]]. Only really useful if you want to be able to 'jump' to that reference from other parts of the article (or other articles entirely) rather than just from the 'references' list itself. --CBDunkerson 22:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
True, but if you have lots of references, it might be useful. :) —Mirlen 00:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Left aligning. The standard order of sections is 'See also - References - External links' per WP:GTL. I suppose 'Trivia' could go above that or at the bottom like 'Quotations'. --CBDunkerson 14:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks CBD, fixed the order above. I would say to list Trivia before References section in the very least, since misc. information sometimes require sources. —Mirlen 11:17, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Templates

Please see {{ME-lang}}, {{ME-date}}, and {{ME-ref}} and let me know what you think. The third one for references is incomplete, but you should be able to get an idea of how it will work from the example shown. The general idea with all three is to provide a standardized format for commonly used items (languages, dates, and book references) which is also shorter than typing the full wiki-markup. For instance,

  1. {{ME-ref|10}}
  2. [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] (1993). [[Christopher Tolkien]] (ed.) ''[[Morgoth's Ring]]'', Boston & New York: [[Houghton Mifflin]]. ISBN 0-395-68092-1.
  3. {{cite book|author=J. R. R. Tolkien|authorlink=J. R. R. Tolkien|editor=[[Christopher Tolkien]] (ed.)|year=1993|title=[[Morgoth's Ring]]|location=Boston & New York|publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin]]|id=ISBN 0-395-68092-1}}

Each of those three forms produces identical text, but the first is obviously the easiest to use. The '10' is because Morgoth's Ring is the 10th book in the History of Middle-earth series. When completed the template will also accept 'MR', 'Morgoth's Ring', and likely other options to display the same result. Examples of this sort of 'abbreviation list' can be seen on the two completed templates. --CBDunkerson 16:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Just what I was looking for. Thanks for this. Looks great. When will they be ready to use... :-) Carcharoth 21:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I can never remember, are these templates meant to be used as active templates or substituted templates? Also, will it be possible to use "what links here" to get a list of all articles using that reference - ie. not just the template, but generating a list of all articles that reference volume 10 of HoME?

And the date template - is it possible to get the date to link to a page that lists everything we know happened in ME that year - much like the way clicking on a Wikipedia date gets a page showing what happened that year? Or is that difficult to maintain?

And the language template - I was wondering if it could be incorporated into the character infoboxes somehow, so that instead of Sam's Westron name appearing under the heading "other names", it appears under a heading "Westron". Carcharoth 21:12, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Heh. Ok, let's see. These templates should be transcluded rather than substituted (substitution doesn't work well with conditional templates like these and if something is substituted you can't track it on 'What links here' or make universal format updates). The way the references template is currently set up you would not be able to get 'What links here' for each book. That could be done by changing it into multiple templates; 'ME-ref/10', 'ME-ref/The Hobbit', et cetera which could then each be checked with 'What links here' for just that book. That'd be alot of different templates (especially if we want to allow users to select '10' / 'MR' / 'Morgoth's Ring' for one book - the extras could be redirects, but still alot of pages).
For the dates, yes it could be changed to jump to a 'Middle-earth <age> <year>' page when the year is clicked. Since we don't have such pages currently and many years would have very sparse contents I might suggest jumping to the appropriate section of Timeline of Arda for now. Would require 'id' links to be added to that article.
Finally, on the languages - the 'ME-lang' template could currently be called within the 'other names' parameter of the Infobox. Making it show 'Westron', 'Quenya', et cetera would require changes to the infobox template itself and might be complicated since some characters have multiple names in the same language (e.g. Artanis / Alatariel / Nerwen... aka Galadriel). --CBDunkerson 21:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
To quote Carcharoth, "Wow! Just what I was looking for." Again, I love the idea. Thanks for making them, this will help with making Tolkien articles uniform. Also, on the ME-lang box, was that to be placed on top of the article for name translations, or is that a different thing? —Mirlen 00:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the language template grew out of this discussion. Basically just suggesting that rather than putting {{ME-lang}} after every use of a Tolkien language word we only do it once, for the article subject at the top of the article. This can be seen in practice on the Nunduinë article. --CBDunkerson 00:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Just an update - These templates are now ready to go 'live'. The ME-ref template has a good sized list of books and I'll expand it with more in the next few days. I'm interested in feedback on the versions of each book currently listed and options that could/should be used instead. The talk page there might be good for discussion of what the standard versions should be. Also there may be different ideas for the abbreviation list - I think the ones I've got in there currently make sense, but there is plenty of room to add more. --CBDunkerson 01:33, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I've added comments over on that talk page. One template I discovered recently is Template:fact, which I am considering slapping all over Tolkien articles to try and point out the stuff that is obscure enough to need references (or should we try and reference everything). Might it be a bit rude to use this template, though? [citation needed] Carcharoth 08:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Wonderful templates, CBD! Not rude, Carcharoth, so don't worry. It's just saying that the statement needs referencing. —Mirlen 11:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
In reference to the 'fact' template - I'd suggest using it sequentially. That is, don't just put in a 'citation needed' note every time you see a fact in need of references. Doing so could wind up with dozens of such notes in many articles which then sit around for months before being cleaned up. Instead, we could have an open list somewhere here on the project page of 'articles needing citations'... limit it to ten or so articles and don't add 'fact' templates to new pages until some of the ones on the current list have been cleaned up. As to what to reference - I'd say that general information can be covered by listing 'The Hobbit', 'The Lord of the Rings' and/or 'The Silmarillion' at the top of the references section and then only having specific reference links for facts from other texts or those which are often over-looked in the primary texts. --CBDunkerson 13:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Ditto to CBD's words. Things that'd need referencing are probably anything from the HoME books, I'd have to say (i.e. information on earlier drafts of the legendariam, etc.) — which would, most of time, should be in the Trivia section. —Mirlen 15:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, I'll use it on a few articles, and then add them to the 'articles needing citations' list, and then see what happens... One more thought, is that we could russtle up some "fact" templates specifically for Tolkien articles. The convenience of that is that the template automatically assigns the articles to a category that we create (say, Tolkien articles needing citations), and we then have a list automatically! The inconvenience is that when the template is removed (when the citation has been added), the article is removed from the list. I guess one way to add in a step is to replace the "Tolkien fact" template with a "citations need checking" template" if you are uncertain, and then someone else removes that if they are happy with the citation. Though that might be too much red tape... Carcharoth 10:10, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. The citations list is a bit hidden away, here. But I'll start the list going. I would prefer to use a Tolkien citations template though. I'll see what I can come up with. Carcharoth 10:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Very good, but shouldn't we standardise on the original publisher? A&U, HarperCollins etc rather than the US publisher?. Thu 07:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
See Template talk:ME-ref. There is some dispute as to which references we should list or listing them all. The primary problem I have with listing first editions is that I don't HAVE the first editions and thus don't know the ISBN... though first editions of The Hobbit and LotR actually pre-date the ISBN system. Other than that I agree with the 'first editions' view in most cases - and most of the current references are US first editions, which were released around the same time and with identical page numbering as the UK first editions. There is also the issue that the first edition of The Hobbit is in places different than the story most people are familiar with because it was significantly rewritten after publication... for example it would be impossible to reference page numbers for Bilbo's invisible escape from Gollum against the first edition because it didn't happen in that version. As to allowing references to all different versions, I think that would be extremely complicated to maintain and use and at that point we aren't using consistent referencing at all anyway. --CBDunkerson 11:32, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
No, I don't see any value in listing the same reference to multiple editions (except in extreme circumstances). I'm just coming at it from the opposite end to you owning UK editions almost exclusively.
The Hobbit is, of course, a special case. I would recommend that most references are to the Third Edition except when discussing the plot changes. Thu 12:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing the Encyclopedia of Arda

I've seen quite a few references to "The Encyclopedia of Arda" (EoA) in various articles, and I feel quite strongly that all references should be to Tolkien's original books and writings, which will be where the EoA got their references from (if they have them).

Can we make it a standard that it is OK to check stuff at EoA, and to put external links to them, but to encourage the use of primary sources (Tolkien's books), instead of other encyclopedias? Carcharoth 08:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I 100% agree. —Mirlen 11:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Ditto. At some point we should make a concerted effort to check EoA info and pull out references to it. Note that some of those references are because text was actually copied from EoA. While it is generally a good resource it does contain errors and in any case I think we should be using original wording for our articles. --CBDunkerson 12:57, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Which reminds me, we should have some sort of compilation of a list (not a literal one created) on the 'Things to do' page on articles that list the Encyclopedia of Arda as a reference. —Mirlen 15:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Not quite sure I understand what you mean by "not a literal one created"? Carcharoth 20:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I meant that not a seperate heading or page of making a list. It's nothing really — I was just proposing to make a list on the Things to do page. —Mirlen 19:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Body sections

I was rather unsure of how to type up this section as since this hasn't been discussed too much. I think there should be a skeleton layout for major articles like books, characters, locations, military conflicts, races, etc. I drew a blank of books and races (I don't think subsections are needed for military conflicts), so any suggestions are welcome. --Mirlen 18:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standards update

Great work on the expanded list of standards / Manual of Style. A few comments;

  1. 1.4.2 - Suggest rewording this slightly. In the example 'Middle-earth Dunedain' is the parent category of 'Dunedain of the North' thus only the latter should be used. However, if two categories from different sub-branches both applied it would be proper to use both... for instance List of Hobbits should be in both 'Middle-earth lists' and 'Middle-earth races'.
  2. 2.2.1 - I think this is generally true, but obviously articles about Tolkien and his family should not lead off with, "In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium...". Also, do we want to use that lead in for non Middle-earth texts like 'Farmer Giles'?
  3. 6.3 - We might just want to add a general note that there should not be translations of every name in the article, only those particularly relevant to the article... translations of other names mentioned in the article can then be found on the main page for that topic. Just to discourage tons of unrelated translations being given.

--CBDunkerson 22:41, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks.
  1. 1.4.2 - Done.
  2. 2.2.1 - Fixed it, totally forgot about that. About non Middle-earth texts, are there any suggestions?
  3. 6.3 - Right. Done.

Thanks for the suggestions CBD. :) —Mirlen 17:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

For non-ME texts, I'd suggest people are left to their own devices. The standard sort of thing used elsewhere is something like: "Foo is a work of fiction by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is set <blah>. It was written <blah>. It was published <blah>. <Short details> etc."
Generally, looking at other articles will give good ideas for how to phrase things. Carcharoth 08:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spellings

In addition to the standardisation on British English spellings shouldn't there also be a note of certain words that alternate spellings?

e.g. Ñoldor is preferred to Noldor, Númenórean etc. Thu 14:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Added. :) —Mirlen 16:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Hold on a sec. Why on earth should Ñoldor be preferred to Noldor? Does the former ever appear in, say, LotR? Yes, Tolkien tended to use the tilde in many of his later writings, but there is something to be said for conforming here to the usage in the books that are familiar to the general public. (There's also the fact that our canon policy has pretty firmly been to give preference to published texts like LotR over unpublished writings.) Also, at Talk:Noldor, JulianBradfield argued some time ago that by the Third Age, Ñoldor had in fact evolved into Noldor story-internally (and that this is consistent with most of Tolkien's usage: the late writings that use Ñoldor are almost all about the First Age). At this point, I'm strongly opposed to the use of the Ñoldor form as Wikipedia's standard.--Steuard 05:04, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't care too much either way since there is a redirect that gets people to the right page with either version. However, I agree that 'N' was Tolkien's more usual spelling... though the 'Ñ' version was 'later'. Like I said, doesn't bother me much either way. --CBDunkerson 21:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
My concern with the 'Ñ' spelling is largely that it looks a bit pretentious to me. Maybe that's unfair, but when I see "Ñoldor" a part of me reads "We had a choice, so we picked the more obscure spelling that makes us look smarter than you." That certainly wasn't the intent behind this choice, but it can have that feel nonetheless. I'm a big fan of getting things right even when doing so is inconvenient, but when there are valid arguments for multiple approaches there's something to be said for going with the one that makes articles as clear and accessible as possible. (And as for "Ñoldor" being 'later', we don't necessarily prioritize later texts (particularly over published works), and there remains the argument mentioned above that the Ñ->N change was intentional story-internally.)--Steuard 22:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Can we agree which variant of British English spelling we use? Specifically -ize/-ise. The OED uses -ize but that by no means reflects common usage here, the BBC web site uses both (but the -ise form seems more prevalent) Thu 12:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I think wiki-standard is '-ize' as the more formal spelling. I hadn't realised that '-ise' was becoming common in British English spelling and would probably have used '-ize' if I were trying to 'Britify' a page. The '-ise' form is American standard. Might be worth trying that if it is common British usage also, but I'd expect some random passerby to revert it to '-ize' from time to time. --CBDunkerson 21:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Scanning the UK edition of Letters it appears JRRT used '-ize', I'll try and tweak my spelling checker... Thu 08:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

I noticed that is says that Middle-earth articles should start with "In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium..." Was there a consensus for this? Because most articles start of with "In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth" which is also my personal prefrence. Just thought this should be addressed. Ted87 01:42, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

This was discussed further up the page and has been talked about previously as well. It is generally agreed that we should use the same wording consistently to avoid it being repeatedly switched back and forth by different people, but there are different thoughts on what that wording should be. Some like 'fictional world' or 'fictional universe', but others object that it was supposed to be 'our own real world in a fictional time'. The 'legendarium' form was Tolkien's own usage, but is not a commonly known term. Personally I can live with any of them but do think we should have one standard. --CBDunkerson 16:59, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, not only because some object because such phrase would criticize it as if it was, to quote CBD, "supposed to be 'our own real world in a fictional time'", but also, you have to take consideration into the fact that not all characters/places/items/etc. belong in Middle-earth (e.g. Finarfin, Nerdanel, Aman, Two Trees of Valinor, and so on). True, you could just have 'fictional universe', but people will be tempted to put in 'Middle-earth', and would want us to be more specific and a vague 'fictional universe' — since there are many fictional universes. (BTW Ted, it says, "Only articles related to Tolkien's legendarium", not Middle-earth articles. There is more to his universe than just Middle-earth, after all. And despite the rather slightly misleading name, our scopes and goals focus on all Tolkien related articles, not just Middle-earth). —Mirlen 00:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest that the lead-in sentence says "legendarium" in some form (though someone really needs to write the article that references what Tolkien and others mean by this phrase, so we can link to it - and in more detail than the current legendarium article). I would also suggest that somewhere in the next few sentences the precise context within what is, after all, a large legendarium, is made clear. ie. Middle-earth, early writings, late writings, LotR, Silmarillion, other writings, etc. This would be more helpful than the sometimes vague term "legendarium". Incidentially, while on the subject of context, can I ask if something could be added to the Standards page to say that it is important to be aware of dates in Tolkien's writings, by which I mean the dates when he wrote things. His writings (published, unpublished, drafts, letters, poems) cover almost all his long life, and it is important to give (where known) dates when something was written. So, for example, a book article should mention composition dates (if known), and the publication dates. Posthumous writings should have composition date and when it was published. All these statements obviously need sources as well. References to a particular 'Letter' need a date, and whether they were drafts and who they were sent to. Maybe all this kind of thing could be summarised in a timeline in the Tolkien's legendarium article? Carcharoth 08:57, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Canon

Since the 'other versions of the legendarium' goes under the 'Trivia' section as stated in ME:S, I am going to tweak the Canon template for the readers to see the 'Trivia' section instead of 'Other versions of the legendarium'. Any objections? (There weren't before about the merging of the sections, but just in case). —Mirlen 21:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Ooh. Thanks for asking, as I've been meaning to ask about this for some time. My problem is that, to my mind, "Trivia" sounds, well, trivial.... :-) "Other versions..." sounds more formal and professional and encyclopedic. And in some cases, variant versions within the legendarium are far from trivial! My gut feeling is that this is something that should be left for a case-by-case basis. Sometimes the mention of other versions is important enough to be woven into the main article, sometimes it is insignificant enough to be listed at the end (but under a nicer name than "Trivia"), but we shouldn't impose a standard if it maybe isn't needed. Anyway, I thought "Trivia" sections were more like a section for interesting tidbits that don't fit anywhere else - my feeling is if they don't fit in the main article, they should be left out. If there is a need for such a section, I would prefer to see it called "Other", "Textual history", or something of the sort. Carcharoth 09:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
*Nods* I see where you're getting at. Hm, I do like the idea of 'Textual history', but perhaps we should just stay with 'Other versions of the legendarium'. —Mirlen 23:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
This actually goes beyond just "sounding encyclopedic", I think, and on to "being encyclopedic". As one of the folks who originally hammered out the canon template (and for that matter the canon article), I had a fairly specific vision for what it was for. Long-term, I would like to see each article where that template is used have a reasonably well-developed "other versions" section, not as any sort of "trivia" but as a story-external discussion of the development of the topic at hand. That sort of discussion may well be more encyclopedic than our typical canon-based approach (as argued by some folks at Talk:Middle-earth canon around the time of the recent massive rewrite of that article), and even though I prefer a "canon first" approach here I still feel that eventually this sort of story-external discussion should be an important part of most major Middle-earth articles. Burying it under "Trivia" would seem to undermine that goal.--Steuard 05:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed text tweak ME:S 2.4.5

The current text for ME:S 2.4.5 (References) says:

"Do not cite sources such as the Encyclopedia of Arda. Instead use reliable sources such as the texts by Tolkien or The History of Middle-earth books."

I propose the following changes:

"Where possible, concerning details of Tolkien's fiction, do not cite secondary sources or tertiary sources, but use the primary sources of published texts by Tolkien or the secondary source of The History of Middle-earth books published by Christopher Tolkien. Examples of secondary/tertiary sources are the Encyclopedia of Arda, Robert Foster's The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, and David Day's A Tolkien Bestiary. Such secondary/tertiary sources can vary in quality and reliability. See also reliable sources."

And on a similar topic;

"Sometimes it is desirable to reference a book by others about Tolkien (eg. Carpenter's Biography, Garth's Tolkien and the Great War, Shippey's The Road to Middle-earth), or to quote and reference other people's views in general (eg. Christopher Tolkien's commentary in the History of Middle-earth series, the commentary in Anderson's The Annotated Hobbit or in Hammond and Scull's The Reader's Companion). In such cases, the editor must cite their sources and make clear that someone's commentary, or original publication of a primary source material, is being quoted."

This might be a bit long-winded, but does something like this sound reasonable? Carcharoth 09:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Primary/secondary/tertiary sources

I managed to get myself very confused with the above. Could we just go the whole hog and define what are considered primary/secondary/tertiary sources in Tolkien scholarship? I would say that published writings by Tolkien are a primary source. Something edited and published by someone else, using primary sources and with commentary, is a secondary source (eg. Silmarillion, HoME, Biography, Letters) - but that some are in a first-rank of secondary sources (such as the ones mentioned). A lower-rank of secondary sources is academic articles and books with commentary on Tolkien and his works (eg. Road to Middle-earth, Tolkien and the Great War). I'm not sure where to put things like the previously unpublished material published in Vingar Tengwar and books like the Annotated Hobbit and the Reader's Companion. I would definitely place Encyclopedia of Arda, Tolkien Bestiary, and Wikipedia itself, in the tertiary level of sources that are, effectively, summarising primary/secondary sources.

This seems to relate to the ME-canon issues, but maybe it is slightly different? Carcharoth 09:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd written a couple of paragraphs on 'primary vs secondary' sources (I hadn't even gotten to tertiary yet) and it's just too much so I tossed it. I think it would be better to avoid those labels and use something like: 'Where possible citations about the details of Tolkien's legendarium should be from texts published during JRRT's lifetime. If none are available for the topic or point being referenced then other materials written or stated by JRRT should be used, but it may then often be neccessary to note the existence of variants Tolkien considered. Speculation or assertions of Tolkien's intent by others should be avoided in almost all cases, and if absolutely neccessary restricted to such views by CJRT and others with first-hand knowledge. Citations about Tolkien himself or 'analysis' of his work may, of course, be drawn from third parties.' --CBDunkerson 22:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the primary source being published writings, secondary sources edited and published using primary sources, and tetiary sources Encyclopedia of Arda, but it's too complicated because there're many other works that'd need to be considered carefully. So I'd agree with CBD about the labels, and judge such problems with citations in articles with a case-by-case basis for the sources that we're aren't sure where to categorise. —Mirlen 23:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More clarification of references

To get back to basics, maybe it would be even clearer to emphasise, in any "references" bit on the standards page, that the key point of references is to guide the reader to the original text. A reference to another encyclopedia, or book about Tolkien, doesn't do that. When writing something, consider where you first read about this and how you know that what you are writing is correct, for instance, "Brego was the second King of Rohan". That is fairly easy. From the same article is: "Brego had a third son named Éofor. Éofor was an ancestor of Éomund of East-fold father of Éomer." The source for this is a bit harder to recall - it could be in Appendix A like the other one, or it could be somehting published later in HoME.

It would also be nice to say where to draw the line, and how to refer to general references (though I think "general references" is already covered on the Standards page). For example, would you give the main reference early on and then assume the reader knows that everything else in the article comes from that reference, or do you make it more explicit? For example, some of the character articles draw lots of material together from all over the books, but what style is preferred? A flowing biographical style with only a few footnotes for obscure points (call this a "narrative" style - one that summarises the story of the character), or an article that traces in great detail, with many references, where the character appears in the books and what happens at those points (a "textual" style)? The former is more readable, the latter is more accessible and transparent, IMO (it shows where the editor gets the information from for each bit of the article).

I'll try and do one of these "textual" style articles to show what I mean. Carcharoth 11:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hobbits or hobbits?

Rule 1.3.2 currently says:

Use capital letters when addressing the Middle-earth races in plural form (e.g. Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits).

This seems a bit too simplistic. At Talk:The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Hobbit_or_hobbit?, CBDunkerson said:

Tolkien used 'hobbits' to speak of a group and 'Hobbits' to speak of the type. Thus, 'seven hobbits' but 'Hobbits had furry feet'. Ditto for 'elves', 'dwarves', 'men', et cetera.

This sounds right to me. I suggest the rule is expanded to read:

Use capital letters when addressing each of the Middle-earth races as a whole (e.g. Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits). Do not use capital letters when referring to a specific individual or group (e.g. the three hobbits).

-- Avenue 13:10, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, I look at the sentence, and if I can replace "elves" or "hobbits" or "men" with "the Elven race" or "the race of Hobbits", etc, then I capitalise. Similarly for adjectives, thus "Elven-lord" is a "lord of the race of Elves", but "the three elves ran out of the door" does not get capitalised. I agree, the current guideline is too simplistic, and I'll update it. Carcharoth 09:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quotations

There seems to be a wide variation in the formatting of quotations in articles: some are indented, some are not, some are italic, some are bold etc.

Can we have a standard for formatting them? Thu 08:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for delay in replying. I think the "block quote" thing should be used, and maybe italics, but definitely not bold. Let's see what others think. Carcharoth 09:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Tolkienchar}} or {{Infobox LOTR}}?

Point #1 of the character section instructs us to use {{Tolkienchar}} for characters, but I notice that a lot of articles use {{Infobox LOTR} instead (e.g. Faramir). Should we be converting these? JordanSamuels 03:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Yup. {{Tolkienchar}} was created to replace {{Infobox Tolkien}}, which we felt was to RPG-gaming as opposed to being encyclopedic. —Mirlen 04:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Balancing OOU/IU, past tense, and verbosity

Following a very fruitful user-talk exchange about OOU vs IU between Mirlen and me, I thought I would bring the discussion here. The discussion was originally about my tagging The Lord of the Rings with {{in-universe}}, but it seems to me that the issue of how to resolve WAF issues is somewhat central to a lot of what we'll be doing in refactoring pages for the Middle-earth project. I wonder if we can take some simple examples and try to strike a balance between OOU and IU, and between pithy and verbose, while preserving the past tense all the while (and even replacing some present tense with past -- I'm guessing Mirlen won't object :-) ). I'll start with this snippet at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings#Back_story, and in my first attempt I'll apply a somewhat aggressive level of transformation just to "get something on paper", while still trying to preserve the spirit of the original spirit if not the entire content.

Original (latest version as of this writing)

The back story begins thousands of years before the action in the book, with the rise of the eponymous Lord of the Rings, the Dark Lord Sauron, a malevolent incarnated immortal spiritual being who possessed great supernatural powers and who later becomes the ruler of the dreaded realm of Mordor. At the end of the First Age of Middle-earth, Sauron survived the catastrophic defeat and exile of his master, the ultimate evil figure, Morgoth (who was formerly counted one of the Valar, the angelic Powers of the world). During the Second Age, Sauron schemed to gain dominion over Middle-earth. In disguise as "Annatar" or Lord of Gifts, he aided Celebrimbor and the other Elven-smiths of Eregion in the forging of magical rings which confer various powers and effects on their wearers. The most important of these were nineteen, called the Rings of Power or Great Rings.

My first attempt:

Tolkien created a rich back story for his novel, one which began several thousands of years before the action in The Lord of the Rings. In this larger saga, the eponymous Lord of the Rings, who appears in the novel as the Dark Lord Sauron, survived the catastrophic defeat and exile of his master, the ultimate evil figure, Morgoth. Sauron was a malevolent incarnated immortal spiritual being who possessed great supernatural powers and later became the ruler of the dreaded realm of Mordor, while Morgoth was even more powerful, and was formerly counted as one of the Valar, the angelic Powers of the world. During the Second Age (which ended roughly 3000 before the beginning of The Lord of the Rings), Sauron schemed to gain dominion over Middle-earth. In disguise as "Annatar" or Lord of Gifts, he aided Celebrimbor and the other Elven-smiths of Eregion in the forging of magical rings which conferred various powers and effects on their wearers. The most important of these were nineteen, called the Rings of Power or Great Rings.

The main point for me is to try to increase the OOU-to-IU ratio by adding (hopefully interesting and informative) asides rather than converting the existing text to OOU by brute force. But the above is just one attempt by one guy, and I'd be delighted to see others approach this snippet or other similar ones. I'm hoping that by looking at several different attempts we might create a useful consensus on how to attack this difficult yet oddly satisfying challenge. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JordanSamuels (talk • contribs).

For those who might be interested in our fruitful exchange, you can find it on our respective talk pages under the heading, The Lord of the Rings. Anyway, I am full agreement with JordanSamuels that an OOU-IU ratio is needed to balance the wording of the article. I do stand that I object to a full out OOU-perspective presented in WP:WAF for the same reason why Tolkien articles are in past tense (which you can read on the Standards page), however. In this aspect, JordanSamuels and I are also in agreement.
Reading your rendering of the first paragraph of history sections in The Lord of the Rings article, I think it's vastly improved and I like it a lot (in fact, I would say to go ahead and replace the text). What I am concerned with, is the overall writing of the history sections (Back story and synopsis) in the article. —Mirlen 04:04, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/k/Wikipedia_talk%7EWikiProject_Middle-earth_Standards_c4c9.html"