Template talk:Infobox Tolkien

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1 Infobox Syntax
2 Hey, Jackass, Peter Jackson's films weren't the only film adaptations
- 2.1 I apologize for the insults, AreJay
3 Format
4 Make more generic?
5 Infobox on characters
6 New syntax?
7 New template?
8 Template not working?
9 New syntax

[edit] Infobox Syntax

{|align=right
|-
|{{Infobox LOTR |
image_character = Example.jpg|
image_caption = |
character_name =|
character_alias =|
character_title =|
character_race =|
character_culture =|
character_gender =|
character_realm =|
character_sub_realm =|
character_lifespan =|
character_weapon =|
Jacksom =|
Bakshi =|
RB-Hobbit =|
RB-Return =|
BBC =|
}}
|}

Why are we plastering movie pictures all over Wikipedia articles about the characters? I agree that it's nice to have pictures where possible, but these characters predate the movies by decades and they are likely to outlive the movies. Can we come up with some alternative? -Aranel ("Sarah") 22:01, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Why in the usage of templates are Hobbits classified under Men? Though the races are related, I think this classification is wrong, as it is contradicted by a statement in Appendix A to LOTR.

That being said, I'm not entirely confortable with having this template and with the overuse of infoboxes in general. Sometimes they are appropriate, and sometimes not. When you create an infobox you are designing a model that everything must fit into. In this case, particularly the "weapon" category makes the assumption that characters' choice of weapon is important, and that there is one and only one weapon to be associated with each character. This category makes it feel like we're deeling with some kind of RPG or card game. Eric119 03:19, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

My feelings exactly. If these are used at all, they belong in a section of the article discussing the movie, not at the top. But I'm not sure they belong, period. "Realm" doesn't make a lot of sense for, say, Gandalf, either. Gandalf doesn't belong to a particular realm. He's Gandalf, for goodness' sake! -Aranel ("Sarah") 02:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the tag "alias". It makes little sense for, say, Galadriel. None of the names listed are aliases. They're just other names. It would be like listing someone's middle name as an alias (in the case of Nerwen and Artanis). If anything, Galadriel is the alias, as it is an invented variant. I think I'll change it to "other names". -Aranel ("Sarah") 20:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hey, Jackass, Peter Jackson's films weren't the only film adaptations

[edit] I apologize for the insults, AreJay

Whoever created this Infobox has made it significantly impossible for the voice credits from the animated films to be added. Until someone fixes the Infobox so that the credits for the animated films will be listed, film credits should not be listed in the Infobox. To deny the existance of all other portrayals of J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork is truly ignorant, as these animated films (especially The Lord of the Rings Part 1) inspired Peter Jackson to create his film trilogy. (Ibaranoff24 02:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC))

I assume you've got a brain and a pair of hands, moron. You've clearly demonstrated that you have way too much time on your hands to sit around complaining about stuff you that could probably fix and perhaps improve upon. The infobox does not deny the existance of anything -- if there's additional information that you would like added, please go ahead and modify the infobox and the various articles as necessary. But then, I wouldn't have to be explaining this to you if you could even vaguely fathom the concept of wikipedia AreJay 04:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

There was absolutely no need for personal attacks. If you actually took the time to read my complaint, you'd see that I tried to make these changes, but was unable to because of the code you used. If I could fix this problem, I wouldn't have said anything. I've tried multiple times to fix this problem, but the code won't work correctly. (Ibaranoff24 05:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC))

What is all this nonsense? You start your comments with the heading "Hey, Jackass, Peter Jackson's films weren't the only film adaptations", and then go on to insinuate that I am "truly ignorant" and expect me to reply back with civility and restraint? No personal attacks??? Maybe you need to go back and read what you wrote in your first post and then judge who started the personal attacks. Hint: It wasn't me. Speaking of which, why exactly did you delete the subject title of your December 10 comments [1]? I have put that back as the title to help remind you exactly what you said in your comments.

Let me speak plainly: If you can tell me exactly what you want added to the infobox, I can make the necessary modifications myself, or atleast tell you how you can make those changes. If you have the necessary information with regards to the animated films, I will help you put them in the infobox. That is, if you're really serious about improving the quality of the Lord of the Rings articles. I don't have the time and I'm not interested in exchanging purile jibes, if you're here just to start something.AreJay 22:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right. I apologize.

I wanted to add in two seperate credits, one being that of the actor who voiced the character in the 1978 animated film version of LOTR, and the other being the actor who voiced the character in the two Rankin-Bass TV specials (The Hobbit; The Return of the King). I tried to add these credits to the code, but it wasn't coming out right.

I was in a really pissy mood when I started this "fight." I apologize for the personal insult. All I want to do is try to improve this website in any way I can, that's all.

(Ibaranoff24 03:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC))

No harm done, Ibaranoff24. Can you tell me where I can find information pertaining to the 1978 animated film and the Rankin-Bass TV Specials? I will make the necessary modifications over the weekend and then update the character pages as necessary based on the information you provide. Thanks. AreJay 02:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Info on the animated films' voice casts can be found here, here, and here. I hope this is helpful. (Ibaranoff24 23:01, 13 December 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Format

I have a question. Why is the Realm section indented? —Mirlen 01:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Make more generic?

Would anyone object to renaming this template to 'Infobox Tolkien' or something like that and changing the header from "Character from The Lord of the Rings" to Character from Tolkien's legendarium or Tolkien character. The template is already used for Thorin Oakenshield, actually a character from The Hobbit, and the related Template:Infobox LOTR place is used for Angband from The Silmarillion. --CBDunkerson 23:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I think it's a great idea. Go for it! AreJay 23:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey CBD, I think that instead of making the other fields "unconditional", insert a code so that the new templates will ignore the blank fields. So instead of putting 'None', it won't have the field appear at all. I don't know what the code is, but the Star Wars Wiki has it. The character infobox codes can be found here. —Mir l e n 01:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Much better :). —Mir l e n 01:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

edit conflict - Yup, that's what I did. If you remove the 'None' attributes the unused lines just won't show up now. Any thoughts on what we should rename the page to? 'Template:Infobox Tolkien', 'Template:Infobox Tolkien character'? --CBDunkerson 01:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

'Template:Infobox Tolkien character' would be more proper, but 'Template:Infobox Tolkien' is simpler. Hm, I'm not sure, I don't really have a preference in this one. —Mir l e n 01:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox on characters

Copied from Talk:Maedhros

Taking Maedhros as an example, I want to raise a few points about Template:Infobox_Tolkien (comments also copied to the talk page of that template), and some of the entries I disagree with. In general I am uncomfortable with the idea of assigning characters to a realm or culture, and especially a weapon. It comes across very much like a role-playing card, or "attributes" list, rather than a character within a work of literature. I have been trying to find suitable "literary" infoboxes, but failing. The key fields I would like to see in a Tolkien info box should show the key points about the character, not the incidential and sometimes trivial aspects.

When I think of Maedhros, I don't think: Sword, Noldorin King, or even his other names (a complicated matter). I think of "Sons of Feanor", "The Silmarillion", "Noldor" and "Elf". And not a lot else.

Taking another example, with Samwise Gamgee, his "other names" are again something that is not trivial and not easily summarised in a box. That sort of thing should be dealt with at length in a section of the article. His title of "Mayor of the Shire" is a spoiler anyway, and also not something that is key to the character until the end of the story. And saying that his weapon is "barrow-blade" makes me laugh, unfortunately.

When I think of Sam, the key points that come to mind are: "hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings", "Fellowship of the Ring", and so on.

My point is that we should maybe be adapting these character templates a lot more to fit Middle-earth. Maybe even adapting them to fit different races, different books, and moving them from a "wargaming" slant to a "literary" slant. For example, the language might be a better way to characterise characters in Middle-earth, as that would be more natural for Tolkien's writings. Carcharoth 21:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New syntax?

Suggested new syntax:

image_character = Example.jpg| KEEP
image_caption = | KEEP
character_name =| KEEP
character_alias =| DROP (discuss in section of article)

ADD HERE: Something for the book(s) the character appears in.

character_title =| DROP (or only use if appropriate)
character_race =| KEEP
character_culture =| KEEP
character_gender =| DROP (not necessary)
character_realm =| DROP (or only use if appropriate)
character_sub_realm = DROP (or only use if appropriate)
character_lifespan =| CHANGE (put dates in article - use this for number of years)
character_weapon =| DROP (too D&D)
character_actor =| DROP (keep this literary - keep film stuff in its own section)
character_voice =| DROP (keep this literary - keep radio/cartoon stuff in its own section)

What do people think? Carcharoth 22:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Support, with few exceptions - I agree with everything that needs to be dropped save the names and titles. (For that reasoning, read my comment here). As for the books section, I think that can be addressed in the summary paragraphs, but if it needs to be addressed, I think it should be placed as a last section of the infobox. Or alternatively, we could have a seperate section called 'Appearances', in which we list the books the characters are in, but I'd prefer to address in the introductory paragraphs (not exactly in the first sentence, however). —Mir l e n 22:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Support, but don't change lifespan, and keep realm. I don't see why we should change lifespan from dates to only years? And I think realm is a quite important thing for a summary to have. Bryan 08:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

My reasoning behind the lifespan one was wanting to avoid leaving it to people to calculate the ages themselves. On the other hand, since we don't always have exact birth and death dates to the day, we can only estimate the lifespan to +/- a year. But I think it would be useful to have both dates and age at death (where known) in an infobox. Carcharoth 12:29, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Keep everything except for the fallowing:

character_actor =| DROP Will already be given in image caption and adaption section of article.
character_voice =| DROP Dido

Note: Since character_sub_realm is merged with character_realm (and is only shown when something is typed in), I think it's okay to keep. I think for a new section we could add is "works appeared in" or something to that affect. For charecter title/alisas, I think there needs to be some sort of agreement as too what should be considered for these sections so we don't get infoboxes that look like the ones on Aragorn's article. —Ted87 23:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Heh, Aragorn is a special case but yeah alot of Tolkien's characters have numerous names and titles. I might suggest using the infobox as is for the characters who only have a few names/titles, but having a 'See Names and titles section' note or something like that in the Infobox for characters like Aragorn and Turin who have alot of them. Devoting a separate section in the article would also allow the basis of each name/title to be explained rather than just listing them all.

On the whole DROP/KEEP discussion I generally agree that most of them can go. I suspect that may be an issue for film/radio/whatever fans though. Note that the images are basically all taken from the Jackson movies. Excluding text about those versions is going to be difficult. Movie fans of Legolas will expect to see 'Orlando Bloom' in that infobox and want to add it if it is not there. --CBDunkerson 00:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the film/other adaptations fans, how about having a separate infobox that goes in the "portrayals" section of an article, and gives extra information? I'm a big fan of keeping these things as separate as possible... Also, having read a bit more about templates, I think I get the "conditional" bits now, but I'm still very confused over how to set them up. I tried to start one at Template:Tolkienchar, but I'm now hopelessly confused. Can anyone help? Carcharoth 07:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that template looks/works fine currently. You don't need the {{!}} in the image link... a '|' inside there would get evaluated before being passed to the #if: and thus not treated as a '|' separator for a new parameter in the #if: condition. You can get info on different conditional methods at Wikipedia:Qif conditionals. The template is currently using a variant of 'Plan A' on that page... leaving out the HTML close tags (</th>, </tr>, et cetera). You can usually get away with that as they are assumed to close when the next row/cell is opened, but sometimes it can get messy in complicated templates. For this template you shouldn't have any problems. I might suggest using shorter parameter names if you are setting up a new template for the movie/radio adaptations... 'name' works just as well as 'character_name' or 'image' instead of 'image_character'. Doesn't make sense to go through and redo these on all the existing template calls, but a new template could use shorter parameters from the start. --CBDunkerson 13:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New template?

Have a look at User:Carcharoth#Tolkien_infoboxes. Do people think that looks better? Carcharoth 17:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Better. I'm glad we've gotten rid of the whole 'portrayl' section in the infoboxes. I'm for keeping those seperate. However, the character names/titles section is there if it is approriate, right? —Mir l e n 18:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I may have removed more than needed. But it can always be put back in again if needed. What I did at Template:Tolkienchar was really just a test. I guess what we need to do now is tidy up both templates, and make one the "adaptations" infobox. The other thing I should say, is that, on reflection, I am finding templates to be a bit inflexible for infoboxes, but maybe I am using the wrong sort of set-up. What I think would be nice is to have the flexibility to change the templates to fit individual cases. In other words, rather than use a "one template fits all" approach, I'd almost like to be able to edit the infoboxes to fit each character. The downside being that this loses the ability to change the general layout of an infobox across 20-50 different characters. Currently 50 pages link to Template:Infobox Tolkien. Carcharoth 19:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, that was the general driving force behind the development of conditional logic. Make the template flexible enough to accomodate all the variations you want to display. Take a look at Template:Taxobox or Template:Infobox Language some time for extreme examples of that... the first is used on tens of thousands of articles for extinct species, plants, animals, life-forms with disputed classifications, et cetera and the second is used for every language in existence whether natural or constructed, spoken or signed, living or extinct, et cetera. Whatever variations you may have in mind there are ways to incorporate them into a template. --CBDunkerson 22:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template not working?

Have a look at the use of this template on Theoden. The entries for Bernard Hill are not showing up. Strange. Carcharoth 13:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The variable should have been "Jackson", not "character_actor". It should be working fine now. AreJay 14:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. And I still don't want that sort of thing there at all... :-) Thanks anyway. Carcharoth 15:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New syntax

Other fields to get either keep or drop (idea borrowed from Carcharoth):

Exceptions: I like CBD's idea of using the names/titles in the infoboxes for characters who do not have an extensive amount of names and titles, such as Maedhros. For characters like Aragorn, I think a seperate section would do nicely, with a weeny little note in the infobox to see the seperate section.

Lifespan: I agree with Carcharoth on changing this to two seperate fields: 'Birth' and 'Death'. Having a lifespan section means that we'd have to guess when the characters were born or killed, which is alright on a fansite, but not on an encyclopedia, where all information should generally be factual, not speculative. Having 'Date of birth' and 'Date of death' fields would avoid speculation; therefore, a more ideal alternative.

Adaptations: I think the infobox should be kept literary. Tolkien's legendarium was originally a work of literature, not a film, radio drama, etc. My apologies to movie fans, but all information concerning the adaptations should be kept in its own section.

Adding a section?: Either way I don't really care, but I think adding a section in which it would indicate which book(s) a character appeared in isn't a bad idea. I like having the categories as it is now, but perhaps having it more visible would be better.

Thoughts? —Mir l e n 11:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

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