Forums:Quenya declension template appearance: Difference between revisions

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Alright, I've shrunken the font size of the table title to 150% of the current font size, rather than 200% as it was before.  It should not usually be larger than the page title now. - [[User:Gilgamesh|Gilgamesh]] 17:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Alright, I've shrunken the font size of the table title to 150% of the current font size, rather than 200% as it was before.  It should not usually be larger than the page title now. - [[User:Gilgamesh|Gilgamesh]] 17:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Something occurred to me.  Maybe it's not so much the colors clash, as it is the luma that does.  If I use a gentler difference in luma between the cells, they might be easier to read.  Maybe if I shrank the overall font sizes too, to conserve even more space...  I'll experiment. - [[User:Gilgamesh|Gilgamesh]] 17:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Revision as of 17:45, 12 February 2010

Tolkien Gateway > Council > Quenya declension template appearance


I've done a lot of technical work over the past few days, and now the state of the Quenya declension templates seems to have mostly stabilized. But now that I have the templates working and in place in many articles, I realized... They need more style, more elegance. They need to fit in more with the feel of the other infobox-like templates on this site. So, while I handle technical issues, does anyone feel up to helping me stylize the presentation tables? The relevant templates are Template:qya-decl-full (nouns inflected by multiple numbers), Template:qya-decl-sg (nouns inflected only in singular: tall version) and Template:qya-decl-sg2 (nouns inflected only in singular: space-saving version). They are mostly the same, not considering their different layout schemes. I could also potentially reduce some of the repetitive table cell code with templates themselves, but I'm concerned about style at the moment.

Meanwhile, I've also been considering other grammatical infobox templates. Maybe Sindarin nouns, maybe Quenya verbs, who knows? I probably won't need to do a whole template for Quenya adjectives though—they inflect so simply as it is (just singular and plural). - Gilgamesh 10:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations for your effort and work. I would be skeptical about such templates because of the lack of grammar. Since Tolkien never wrote any definite rules for the verbs, making such tables and presenting forms of verbs never inflected by him, would be fanon. Better leave this job to linguistic pages like Ardalambion who attempt to reconstruct the languages. An encyclopedia shouldn't take this role so boldly.
Personally, when I write dictionary entries and the "other forms" (see for example Ea_(verb)#Other_forms), the forms are those presented in Tolkien's writings, and aren't presented as an inflection/declension guide. Sage 11:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I asterisked the speculative forms, just like Ardalambion. Besides, I believe linguistics and linguistic issues have every place on this wiki, whether or not they have solid references. With the advent of various Neo-Quenya texts, the language has become more of a living thing than mere dry attestation. There's even a Quenya Wikipedia Incubator now. It has become virtually impossible for hard Tolkien canon to dictate all the notable manifestations of such popular languages. - Gilgamesh 12:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Besides, Tolkien was all about linguistics. What better for this wiki than to serve some modest functions of a grammar and lexicon as well, in addition to its role as an encyclopedia? There is just too much curiosity and potential to ignore. Ardalambion doesn't have a complete monopoly on documentation and grammarian thought. - Gilgamesh 12:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
By the way, on the issue of fanon, I think it's perfectly alright to cover non-canon and fanon as long as it's notable and marked as non-canon. Template:Ardalambion link is extremely notable. Besides, there's a fair-sized category of Non-canon maps, and some of them are very well-publicized. - Gilgamesh 12:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Also, thank you for bringing up canon issues. I've added a small-print canon notice to the templates. "Asterisked forms are speculative. Chart may not be canonical." - Gilgamesh 13:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
To my experience Elvish are not more living than they were during the movies hype. Fan fiction has also been a thriving community but that doesn't give it legitimacy to be included in a wiki.
And that's why we have been working on extensive articles about the Tengwar and etymologies. But that's not the same with "teaching" the readers or making suggestions according to our or someone's theories. I disagree with this encyclopedia being used as a guide by some fan who wants to "learn Elvish" or make compositions, and mistakes our suggestions as valid and definite rules, because they aren't.
It took me some time after considering Ardalambion a gospel to realize that "possible", "logical" and "widely accepted" do not equal "truth".
As for the maps, the legendarium does not have a canon visualization, except the Hobbit illustrations perhaps. All Tolkien art is by definition fanart. That's why we can have two differing images of Gandalf in the same article. Sage 13:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I really disagree that the Ardalambion-like linguistic detail has no place here. I mean, I'm actually not really a big Tolkien fan, but I've always been drawn to the linguistic aspects. Linguistics is the primary reason I became interested in this wiki. I would find it absurd to only include detail that is etched in stone by a commercially published source, when there is just so much study out there. Besides, I've actually asked for peer review before in the forums, but there was no one around at the time who specialized in this kind of thing. The basic consensus was for me to use my best judgment. I'm not extremely worried about air-tight edits—a wiki, given the manpower, is constantly evolving in its peer-review process. It's not my problem if the actual active pool of editors is so light. I actually moved here from Tolkien Wiki, after I came to realize how badly deserted it was. I'm a compulsive editor, documentor and linker. And I have a legitimate interest in this wiki. And if I had that interest, anyone can. I'd edit at Ardalambion if it were a wiki. - Gilgamesh 15:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Sage on this, and I have problems with the templates on a number of levels:
  1. It isn't our place to state grammar in a very matter-of-fact manner. The very fact we say "Chart may not be 100% canonical." surely sheds doubt not only on the entirety of the chart, anyway, but on the entire article.
  2. "Asterisked forms are speculative." is our speculation. Our job is inform readers of facts, helping people to find the information that they are after, not teaching the public others' speculation which we are passing off as our own. This takes me to my next problem...
  3. There are no references to any of these.
  4. They're ugly and vulgar with header-text larger than the page-title (a cardinal sin in my eyes) and colours which often clash. This isn't really hard to solve but I just don't find them pleasant to look at, at the moment.
  5. They're very... "clutterful" especially on disambiguation pages in which they really dominate the page and distract from it.
We can have articles which talk about Sindarin and Quenya grammars and other people's speculations (with references), but to state them as fact in so many articles and then in the small print say "this might not be true" is dodgy ground for me. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 15:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The source is Template:Ardalambion link. The asterisking and the non-canon noticed were suggested to me after the fact, and I did my best to follow Ardalambion's recommendations of what was speculative and what was certain. Besides, the charts make the articles much more beautiful, and I love the colors. - Gilgamesh 16:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Now the canon notice includes a source. - Gilgamesh 16:56, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

By the way, you mentioned the colors clashing. Do you mean within the chart? Or between the chart and the Gateway To Ithilien wiki skin used in the background of every page? The background appearance of the wiki is a variable, and can be changed by any registered user through skin-changing and through their own custom style sheets. As for the charts themselves, I've tried to tweak their colors so that - regardless of hue/saturation - the border has a YUV luma of 25%, the top cell has a luma of 50%, the header cells have a luma of 75%, and the transcription cells are white (luma of 100%). The text in all chart cells is black. This applies equally to Category:Quenya declension templates and Category:Sindarin noun templates, with Quenya using blue and Sindarin using silver-grey. - Gilgamesh 17:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I've shrunken the font size of the table title to 150% of the current font size, rather than 200% as it was before. It should not usually be larger than the page title now. - Gilgamesh 17:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Something occurred to me. Maybe it's not so much the colors clash, as it is the luma that does. If I use a gentler difference in luma between the cells, they might be easier to read. Maybe if I shrank the overall font sizes too, to conserve even more space... I'll experiment. - Gilgamesh 17:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)