User talk:Ederchil/2010

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Latest comment: 19 November 2010 by Morgan in topic MECCG
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Welcome to Ederchil's talk page archive.
This page is ment to relieve tension on my Talk Page. If you deem any of the below discussions unfinished, respond to them on my Talk Page, and not here.


My Bot[edit source]

Hi Ederchil, is it possible you could add User:Mithbot to the bot usergroup (no idea why that's a redlinks: it works for me) so I can do some menial and boring tasks quickly? Thanks, --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 19:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm only a sysop, not a bureaucrat, so I can't change user group rights. You could PM or email Hyarion for this. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oh, OK, I thought you were (wishful thinking!). Thanks anyway! --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Actually, I thought I was too :) -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 22:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Main page spelling mistake[edit source]

Hello - while using this wiki, I noticed that main page's featured article has a spelling mistake. It should be borne not born in the sentence "Glamdring was the sword once born by Turgon, King of Gondolin." I can't edit the page! :) Darth Newdar 17:27, 18 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Peril to the Shire page[edit source]

Just wanted to know why you keep editing the page I'm building on "The Peril to the Shire". I worked rather hard on it, yet you keep re-arranging and deleting stuff. It would be nice if you asked first, or at least let me know what you are up to.

Doug Dunklin, producer/director of "The Peril to the Shire" "Ltcdunk 20:29, 19 January 2010 (UTC)"Reply[reply]

I figured you were involved in production. First of all, thank you for contributing.
I basically rearranged a lot to make it fit our Manual of Style and deleted a lot because it was (in my eyes) repetition. Also, a lot of text in long sentences does not improve readability, and detracts attention from your own website (we don't want to be too complete now, do we?). --Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

An image page won't load[edit source]

I was trying to load the entry page for File:Pete Fenlon - Map of Middle-earth (large).jpg, and all I get from the server is an empty page. I reloaded repeatedly, and I still get an empty page. I tried other images in the category I found it in, and many other pages load fine. But this page won't. A couple others won't too—I suspect that the large file size may have something to do with it, but that's just a guess. Maybe the server is failing to generate a thumbnail for images that size? I just don't know. - Gilgamesh 17:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not really having trouble with the image itself, but I think you're referring to Middle-earth Role Playing Poster Maps, the page on which it is embedded. I have the same issue. I managed to sneak into the history via Morgan's contributions and removed the image (resizing it gave problems again). -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Now an entire category page won't load, and I didn't exactly embed images into the page body either. o.o Category:Maps of Minas Tirith. It displayed mostly alright after I created it, but now the category page is just a white blank, like some of the image pages. Is it possible that MediaWiki or one of its backend programs is running out of memory? Or another kind of error? How do we fix this kind of thing? - Gilgamesh 09:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Apparently a new image problem, "Error creating thumbnail: Invalid thumbnail parameters". Don't know about the category. i'll see if I can email Hyarion about this. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 14:24, 31 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've seen that problem before, on Wikia. The problem is, an image has too many millions of pixels to buffer into memory to create a thumbnail. It doesn't matter if the file itself is small—if it has very large dimensions, the thumbnail backend software runs out of memory trying to generate a thumbnail for it. This can be fixed by increasing the amount of memory it's permitted to allocate, if that is possible. I've been thinking that memory increase may greatly benefit the particular Tolkien interest that involves very highly-detailed maps, as Tolkien is full of those. Either that or we split up some of the largest images into multiple segmented image files. That'll be easy for PNGs, but not for JPEGs. Recently I uploaded some very large maps, including one of Middle-earth (Role-playing Game canon, I think), and another absolutely gorgeous non-canon map of Minas Tirith (which may have been involved in making that category page show blank). It would be a shame if those couldn't be displayed. - Gilgamesh 14:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Image:Minas Anor 2000.jpg‎ is the new Minas Tirith map I uploaded. (It's fantastic, don't you think?) It's the only Minas Tirith image of the new maps I recently uploaded, and it almost certainly is related to the page Category:Maps of Minas Tirith showing blank now.
Honestly, Tolkien wiki has hundreds of wonderful maps, and it would be in our interests to be able to display all of them, even the very large files or the images of very large dimensions. - Gilgamesh 15:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Anna Lee[edit source]

Sorry about the peacock-term "beautiful". - Gilgamesh 15:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No problem. Though I do agree, it's just not encyclopedic. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

On the future of dictionary-style entries[edit source]

There has been a recent heavy debate on this at Forums:Quenya declension template appearance. Since you have weighed on this before, could you weigh in now? I originally went ahead with this project after asking about it, and you seemed to approve. To be honest, my concern is mainly linguistic and grammatical, and I didn't want to get so involved in a debate about whether linguistics on this wiki are at all even noteworthy. - Gilgamesh 01:35, 15 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry, my attention tends to drop away with long paragraphs and no images :), so I didn't respond. Will do now. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 13:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you for your feedback. You always seem like a gentle voice of wisdom here and I appreciate it. - Gilgamesh 18:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Withdrawing inflection templates[edit source]

Considering the highly-controversial and sometimes flame-war-bait nature of trying to fully inflect Tolkien's languages in this wiki, I want to withdraw the entire inflection project. But I'm not sure how to do it. I think it would involve deleting all the embedded templates and "Inflection" sections. But considering the heavy time and energy I put into it all, it may take about as much just to remove them. I just don't know how to get it done quickly. But I want to get this all behind me and away from this controversy. And I swear, swear, swear that I didn't have a clue about the elvish.org vs. Ardalambion controversies, etc. My primary source of all data was Ardalambion and closely associated sites. I didn't know there was such a heated holy war involved in the issue. I think I would generally agree with Ardalambion (elvish.org's FAQs sound really stuck-up to my inner anti-copyright liberal socialistic streak), but I don't want to be on the front lines of this—I don't want to be confrontational, not on purpose. I'd rather practice the fan-standardized aspects of the languages in my private user pages or other informal venues, and only practice harder data in the articles. Ederchil, please help me. Are there any more powerful wiki tools (bots, etc.) we can use to clean this up? I have to make this right. - Gilgamesh 05:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It's a pity, because you've certainly put lots of time in the process. But you could blame us in a way; we should've responded earlier.
We do have bots, though I fear this kind of job would have to be done by hand. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 08:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ouch. Well, at least they're all marked with "inflection" (an easily searchable word), and the templates are currently hidden from display (but near "inflection" making them easy to edit). I suppose this is a job that could be done gradually over time...if everyone pitched in, I mean. It's just...well...I want to get past the issue, very much so. I want to get past potential future forum postings of "what are all these invisible templates and why are they all over the place"? I cringe thinking of that. And I feel like having a wikistress attack when I search "inflection" and see hundreds of results that are all my work. I wish there were an easier way through this. - Gilgamesh 09:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I just removed one search page's worth. About 19 or 20. And then I clicked "500", and it refreshed the first page, and...there are more than 500. How on earth did I embed so many in seemingly such a short time? I've ruined your wiki. :( - Gilgamesh 09:58, 17 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It's not mine, so it's okay :). I'll see if I can do some of them. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I know you don't own it, but you are a sysadmin. It's practically yours. You have so much work to do here as it is, and I'm certainly no help. I mean, I do...maybe...IPA, categories, userboxes, navboxes... ...oh. Well, I guess I've done something. And then I filled half the wiki with controversial inflections. I have this feeling like I'm a small child who's been caught covering the walls of an entire house with crayon. This all would be hilarious if it weren't all so...inconveniencing to people. XD - Gilgamesh 10:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've removed some more inflections (a few dozen, maybe), and now there are less than 500 articles with the word "inflection" in them. I've been working from the opposite end of the search results, so that I wouldn't step on your toes in case you were working from the top of the list. - Gilgamesh 21:45, 17 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I just want to apologise. I didn't intend for all of these to be removed in their entirety, there was definitely something there worth having, just probably not in its current appearance or scale. Does that make sense? I am sorry, though, you've felt the need to remove the lot.
If Mithbot had been approved by Hyarion (where is he?!) I would get it to do all this work on (y)our behalf. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 11:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Since Hyarion finished school and has a job, he has found himself having less and less time for the internet.
I think it's better to do it manually, actually, because it also gives you the opportunity to clean the articles up a bit. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 11:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It won't be a complete loss. Once all the templates are removed, someone can go back and make a brief note about Quenya nouns' stem forms and Sindarin nouns' special conditions (like whether a noun that begins with b/d/g mutates like b/d/g or like mb/nd/ng), and also notes regarding Sindarin plurals and Quenya irregular plurals (that may have just been fickle because of Tolkien changing his mind at least once). Then, if you believe in regular rules, you can read them and ascertain inflections for yourself.
Anyway, Mith, I'm also sorry for grating on your nerves before. You can read my final explanation on my chronically abnormal way of communication at the forum post where we did most of our talking. I'm always going to be very strange to talk to, and I don't want you grated or anything (I never did in the first place), but I'm hoping you can at least acclimate to it and see my good faith, even if most times I have no common sense.
And if you need your bot approved, and Hyarion is not available to provide approval, then does anyone (perhaps Ederchil) have the authority to (at least tentatively) approve it? - Gilgamesh 18:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Nope. I'm not a bureaucrat. See above. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Mith, you don't have to have your bot user made into an official bot for it to work; the only thing it will do is hide the bot's edits from the recent changes page - so if the other contributors don't mind it clogging up the recent changes page, I'm sure you could use it. ;) -- KingAragorn  talk  contribs  edits  email  11:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

MediaWiki memory limit[edit source]

I read on various MediaWiki support sites that the reason categories and image pages with very large images (in file size or dimensions) show a blank page is because of a PHP error caused by running out of memory. Since Tolkien Gateway is never going to have a shortage of highly-detailed high-resolution maps, is it possible we could ask Hyarion to increase the wiki's memory limit? Perhaps to 64MB or more? - Gilgamesh 05:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't know yet when I'll mail him, but I'll ask him. You can also mail him yourself, of course :). -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 08:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I didn't know how to contact him. Besides, he and I have never been acquainted in a wiki-working interaction. I'd be a stranger who was feature-begging. - Gilgamesh 20:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I have so much free time now (a cold took my voice away and a sprained ankle) that I keep forgetting to mail him. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 22:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Main Page[edit source]

Hi, could you make another article the next improvement drive article? I think Barad-dûr has improved quite much and although the "Portrayal in adaptations" section lacks some information about the earlier films I think that we should take the next article on the Main Page. What do you think? A few suggestions: Angband, Battle of Dagorlad, Bywater, Dale, Glaurung, Peter Jackson, Mount Doom, Treebeard, Tuor -- Eldarion Telcontar 23:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've been meaning to do the Adaptations section but I keep forgetting. Since I only now realize I'm already already half an hour into Sunday, let me just say I'll do it this afternoon.
As for the new one, my vote's for Tuor. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 23:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I was just about to suggest Tuor! Great minds... --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 00:13, 7 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Great! Then let's take Tuor. -- Eldarion Telcontar 08:49, 7 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Tuor is now okay, I think. How about moving on to another one of Eldarion's suggestions? I wouldn't mind taking a crack at Glaurung. —Aulë the Smith (Tk·Cb) 15:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yeah, Glaurung definitely needs some love. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 15:23, 23 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Games[edit source]

hey

Ringen is a LOTR-game. So maybe the link has to stay on the games-year article.

--Amroth 17:13, 21 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Already reverted it. I'm busy cleaning everything up. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 17:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
okay, I'm adding the game called Shadowfax here. --Amroth 17:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

.mp3[edit source]

How can you upload .mp3, because I tried to upload a mp3-file and didn't work, it said it was the wrong file.

En zou de grootte van het bestand kunnen verhoogd, voor een dag ofzo. Dan kan ik een paar liedjes van Blind Guardian uploaden zodat ze gelijk te beluisteren zijn. --Amroth 14:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hele liedjes is geen fair use. .ogg en .mp3 zouden gewoon moeten werken - er staan er al heel wat op de wiki. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 14:10, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

My Source[edit source]

Ok, you recently sent me a message explaining why you deleted (not very grateful about that) the pages I wrote.

Well, my source is a book I checked out a few weeks ago (before I discovered this site) called something like "Tolkien's World". It explained the history of Arda, but was not writen by any member of the Tolkien family, but by a close "associate", so I don't know how accurate it is.

The pages I wrote is based on a series of maps within the books, the first being a complete map of Arda, witch was divided into four continents: Aman, Hyarmenor, Middle-Earth and Eastland. Middle-Earth was inturn divided into Endor (the northern half) and Harad (the southern half).

After that map, there were five more maps - one of Aman, Hyarmenor, Eastland, Endor and Harad. The map of Endor realy grabbed my attention, because is showed the region of Middle-Earth (in detail!) east of Rhûn. Apparently, Rhûn goes on untill the Red Mountains (labelled "Orocarni") and an unnamed river that flows north-south from there down into the Enegaer (Inner Sea - can not believe that this site does not name it). This region is labelled "Rómen" (with "The East Lands" writen below in brackets - should not be confused with the continent "Eastland"). The region of Rohan, Rhûn and Rhovanion (everything between the Misty (I think) and Red Mountains) is labeled "Central Endor".

The map also names the north most region "Formenor" with "The Northern Waste" writen below in brackets (like with Rómen - this probably implies that the region has an alternative name).

After looking around in Google images, I managed to find a version of the full map of Arda, though it is coloured differently and is labeled unlike in the book:

image:John Ohara - Arda in the Second Age.jpg|right|150px[former link] Middle-Earth is dreadfully mis-labeled, though. The "Formenor", "Endor" and "Harad" labels are correct (though Endor and Harad should be writen larger to show that they are the names of a group of regions). Also, "Hither Lands" wasn't writen there. Instead, "Middle-Earth" was writen in the centre of the continent in large letters.

Everything else is basically exactly as shown on the map in the book. I was unable to find the exact map or the detailed maps of the conitinents.

Do you think that counts as a reliable source? -- Explorer of Arda 19:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You're going to have to be a bit more specific - there's at least six books going by the name "Tolkien's World". I know for a fact that it's not in Helms' book or Paintings of Middle-earth. I haven't read Day's books, but he has a reputation for making stuff up. None of the authors are "close associates" of the Tolkien family. It wouldn't have mattered either way.
The only full World map Tolkien made can be found in "The Shaping of Middle-earth". It does not contain the names "Formenor" or "Eastland". A quick google search on either term only results in fan fic sites. They're not in the index of The History of Middle-earth, the Reader's Companion, or the "major" reference works by Robert Foster and J.E.A. Tyler.
As in terms of reliable, if it's not primary (i.e. by Tolkien himself) it's caveat lector. If it cites a source, double check. If it doesn't, double check anyway. Can't find it? Don't add it. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:35, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ah. But I just want to know something. This site doesn't mention the Eastern or Inner Sea (as far as I know of) at all, though they appear in the inacurate map suplied. I know that there are some pages on this site with something at the top that says the page is speculative/inaccurate, so couldn't the pages relating to the above mentioned regions/seas be topped with that? -- Explorer of Arda 19:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think you mean [Template:Noncanon]. That's for stuff from The History of Middle-earth. Meaning it did come from Tolkien, but he abandoned or revised the concept, or it doesn't fit into later work. Or this template (Template:Fanon), which concerns wide-spread fanon and unlicensed adaptations. Or this one, for licensed adaptations like movies, games and MERP. But without the source, I can't tell if it's any of them. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 19:07, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
P.S. You can sign by typing four tildes: ~~~~
Yes. That's what I mean.
Oh, and thanks for the tip! ^^
Anyway, do you know if Tolkien ever made a complete map like that? if so, I'd love to see it. For now, I think I'll keep the fanon version of Arda in my own augmented reality of it. -- Explorer of Arda 19:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The only thing closely resembling a map is a pencil sketch in The Shaping of Middle-earth. The shapes of the continents are consistent with the map above, but it's a very rough sketch, nowhere near as detailed as the other maps. Here it is.
Also, I deleted your image as it turns out it was already uploaded. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 19:26, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's fine. I've allready saved the image to my PC! ^^
As for the pencil-map, I see that it must be from a time quite a while before the third age, since Beleraid is still there, the Sea of Helcar hasn't dried up yet and the Misty Mountains haven't formed yet. Harad, Hyemenor, Eastland and Aman are basically the same, though.
You sea the mountain range running north-south east of the Sea of Helcar (the inland sea in the middle of Middle-Earth)? Those are the Red Mountains. East of that (apparently) lies Rómen and west of that lies what is to become the regions of Middle-Earth seen in The Lord of the Rings.
The sea that separates Middle-Earth from Hyemenor (aka The Dark Land) is (apparently) called Enegaer (the "Inner Sea"), while the sea that separates Middle-Earth and Hyemanor from Eastland (the cresent-shaped continent to the far east) is called the "East Sea".
Say, now that I come to think of it, does this site have pages on how the Misty Mountains were formed? Because (according to the map you provided) there was once a time when they didn't yet exist. -- Explorer of Arda 19:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Misty Mountains were formed by Morgoth, hoping to delay the Elves on their great march West. That was after Aulë created all the other mountains. The map shows Arda at its creation. No other full world maps exist.

I know where the Orocarni are; it's just that Hyarmenor, Romen and Enegaer are unattested in Tolkien's own work. They're later fabrications by I don't know whom. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 19:44, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Of course! *Facepalm* I knew that!
Anyway, so Tolkien origionally left those regions unnamed? Did he atleast name the seas? I know he atleast named the Outer and Great Seas, but I want to know if he also named The East and Inner Seas (the "Inner Sea" being Enegaer). -- Explorer of Arda 19:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The East Sea is the sea between Harad and the Dark Land. The Sea between the Dark Land and the Walls of the Sun is not named. I can't find any indication that Tolkien came up with "Inner Sea" or "Enegaer". -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:05, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ah. Guese the auther of the book I read (aswell as the map) realy did make stuff up. A shame, realy. It's also quite a shame that Tolkien never finished the naming prosses, but, meh, we can leave that to his decendants.
Well, that's all I need to know. Thanks! ^^ -- Explorer of Arda 20:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There's also a map in The Book of Lost Tales 1. But thats a verry old map, and not canon. The only place with isn't renamed is Cuivienen. However its fanon, it would be funny to read. --Amroth 18:20, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

8000+[edit source]

Tomorrow or today we'll probably have 8000+ pages! Keep up the good administrative (and all other) work, Ederchil! --Morgan 23:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You keep up the actual editing ;) -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 07:43, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

yeah, we have 8000 articles. Hopely we once get bigger than the wookie-pedia, hopely it wouldn't be as much a mess as there. If I see that there, there is almost no canon there. They use books with are not of George Lucas, the inventor. --Amroth 18:23, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Expanded Universe is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is.
WookieePedia has a lot more articles, and personal taste in canon aside, it is a well-kept wiki with lots of sysops and editors. It's even more bureaucratic than Wikipedia. Three seconds after some anon creates a new page, three editors have wookieefied it.
This wiki still needs work, though. A lot of characters miss categories, sources, are straight rips from Wikipedia, need images, or otherwise a major update. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
but its the expanded universum, expanded by other people. I think thats uncanon. I know its realy big, but your rigth I can't say how big it is. LOTR idem tito, however it is still smaller because the Tolkien Estate deosn't want more authors of the work, while George Lucas doesn't care. (or am I wrong?) --Amroth 19:03, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Idea[edit source]

Maybe its a idea to add the voices of actors who speak memorable quotes (like "I see you" from Sauron) by adaptions. Or is that against fair use. --Amroth 18:26, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not sure I get what you mean. You mean sound files? They're okay, we already have some of those uploaded. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:32, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Categories[edit source]

Something which often confuses me when creating pages is that some categories have initial capitals on some words. For example, we have "Images of Authors", "Images of Merchandise"; but on the other hand we have "Images of books" and "Sindarin locations". By now I've memorized some of the variations (since "Images of Books", e.g., will yield a red link), but do we have a standard for how to write categories? --Morgan 08:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, but we probably should. I favor the non-capital version if ti comes up for a vote. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:38, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Standards for bibliography[edit source]

Where can I find the standards for how to write a bibliography on Tolkien Gateway? Thanks / --Morgan 20:11, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There's not really a standard. I usually just use
  • Year: Title (editor or something)

for books and

  • Year: Magazine Title #issue
    • "Article"

for articles. See Tom Shippey for a long example. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:17, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Spams[edit source]

That was quick! I thought the hour was late, but your eyes weren't far away! ;-) BTW, seems like the spammers are quite active right now, sometimes you feel like writing angry emails to the companies that hire spamming services (like the Bluemountain Trips, or whatever their names were). Cheers/--Morgan 21:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Na, wasted effort. They won't listen. They're just a nuisance, as the links aren't picked up by search engines.
Just be glad neautograph hasn't popped up yet. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:48, 16 April 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Deletion request[edit source]

Is it possible for you to check the page "A Long Expected Party: MECCG Sites & Scenarios"? It's still left in Category:Books, but the page doesn't exist. --Morgan 20:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It's the ampersand problem again. Will check it out. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you! --Morgan 21:12, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Deleted question[edit source]

The question about the Angus McBride picture was because I wanted to know who else was in there besides Galadriel. I have never be able to figure it out, despite how much I read.

Was my question wrongly put? Should I not ask such things?

Thank you. - Kementari02

I've deleted so many things over the past few weeks that I can't quite remember what you're talking about. What image was this about? -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I assume you mean this pic: "Image:Angus McBride - Galadriel.gif"? If so, then it is a fanon scenario. You find a description of the other characters in the art/rpg book Angus McBride's Characters of Middle-earth, published by MERP. (Maybe move this thread to the forum?) --Morgan 21:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you. That answers my question. - Kementari02

Writings, books, essays, etc.[edit source]

Ederchil, I've been examining the Cat:Writings, and it's quite difficult to know how to handle it. Right now, it contains anything written by JRRT which it's not published separately (in general). The idea of the category is of course good, but I find a couple of questions and thoughts:

  1. Should the category only include JRRT material (the cat, e.g., included Epic Pooh, although I recatted it to "Published articles" for the moment)?
  2. If not, do we need a "...by J.R.R. Tolkien" for every sub-cat? I guess the more TG expand, the more "writings" by other authors will need to be categorized.
  3. Perhaps we should state that the cat only contains writings which haven't appeared in a publication on their own (or published under their own title)?
  4. The head-cat for Cat:Writings should be Cat:Real-world, and perhaps stating in Cat:Publications that this category only contains media published separately with a title of their own (or something like that).

Thanks for you time/--Morgan 21:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'd go for "Published articles by J.R.R. Tolkien" as a sub cat. Re: 3, yes. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've been moving some book chapters from the head-category "Writings". However, as it's a big difference of the (related) chapters of, e.g., The Lord of the Rings, and the chapters of, e.g., The History of Middle-earth books (as these often are a presentation of a single manuscript), I created the Cat:Manuscripts. --Morgan 23:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Books portal[edit source]

May I change the intro to "Welcome to the Books gateway, here you will find links and information relating to any and all publications relating to J.R.R. Tolkien and his works."? Books is too specific a word for all the info we've so far covered on Tolkien Gateway. I thought I'd ask first since it's one of the main pages of TG --Morgan 19:48, 27 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Go ahead. I hope it fits on the line. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:01, 27 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Talk:Tar-Elendil[edit source]

Is there a way to lock

Talk:Tar-Elendil[former link] from being edited? It appears it has been the target of a spam bot. --Pinkkeith 19:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
When the spamming first started, I protected all spammed pages and blocked all spammers, but that didn't seem to help much. It merely shifted the spam to other pages. I'd rather have them make a useless talk page 7 times a day than having to revert or delete higher profile pages. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:52, 28 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Youtube[edit source]

I noticed that the <youtube> command is either bugged or taken out. If it has been taken out could you let me know, please? I can remove it from some of the LOTRO articles. Thanks. --Pinkkeith 19:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yeah, it's a problem on more wiki's. For now, I think it's best to just put the video's between <!-- --> tags, so it'll be easier to revert once it works again. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:52, 28 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Concerning S.R.T.O. d'Ardenne[edit source]

"S.R.T.O." seems to be the name she used most, and by which is referred to in scholarly books (like J.R.R. Tolkien, we don't write John Tolkien). --Morgan 14:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC) ‎Reply[reply]

On a second thought, "Simonne d'Ardenne" is used both in The Tolkien Family Album, and by Johan Vanhecke in "Tolkien and Belgium" in Lembas Extra: Proceedings of the 5th Unquendor Lustrum. I'll create a new page and redirect "S.R.T.O. d'Ardenne".--Morgan 23:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dates and Rock-roses[edit source]

Hello Ederchil; two quick things:-

  1. What are Rock-roses? (I see you added them to Rose (disambiguation) yet I have no idea what they are.)
  2. I've just made Template:SR; I was wondering whether you thought it was worthwhile changing it (or making a separate template) so that is displays converted dates, rather than simply linking to them, as well? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  1. "yellow rock-roses" are mentioned in "Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire". See also here.
  2. I like the template. I think something along the lines of "S.R. 1400 (T.A. 3000)" could work. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:43, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  1. A-ha! Thanks.
  2. Thanks - hopefully it will save people having to (sometimes incorrectly) calculate dates themselves. Couldn't doing that get a bit messy, though? I think that could look very untidy, particularly in infoboxes. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 17:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
2. I think it would look better in infoboxes, but not in situations like these, so I now favour the short version. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
2. Great! If it makes you feel more comfortable, on my to-do list is a template which displays Shire Reckoning dates on the individual year pages so when people click on, e.g. SR 1400 they're not too confused when they see they've got TA 3000. (This is for when I get off disambiguation pages and back onto dates.) --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:37, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It'll be long work, but all year pages probably need a header of sorts, like the real worlds years. It could include an automated option for SR, of course. Probably need #explode for that. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've just been playing around in my sandbox and I don't think we have the requisite extension installed: #explode (or, my other option, #sub) doesn't seem to do anything at all, which throws a pretty big spanner in the works. Unless I'm doing something wrong? (My current rough code is: {{#ifexpr: {{#explode:{{PAGENAME}}| |-1}}>=1601 | This is the equivalent of the year {{#expr: {{#explode:{{PAGENAME}}| |-1}} - 1600}} in [[Shire Reckoning]]. }})
Re: spam. Well done on keeping on top of all the spam; I've been dipping in and out whenever I can to try and help but, alas, there is only so much I can do.--Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm getting a bit tired of it, really. And it's nearing bed time, I don't want to know what I wake up with tomorrow.
Got a reply from Hyarion, he would try to increase the Captcha requirements "this afternoon". But he's on Pacific Time, so that's gotta be soon now.
If he pops by, ask him about #explode and #sub. The StringFunctions extension is required for that to work. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:20, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Anti-spam strategies[edit source]

Not sure if I can be of any help concerning the attack storm of today, but I just wanted to recommend Mediawiki Anti-spam features. Do we have any of these features enabled? --Morgan 10:05, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I emailed Hyar about it, but still don't have a response. I'll see If I can think of something, because today's horrible. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sent him another one. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:16, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Great! Let us know if something gets implemented - it would be interesting to see if it has any effect. --Morgan 23:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The current spam attack makes me wonder if we (Hyarion) should make TG into a closed, registration-based system..? We would loose some (good) edits by unregistered users (although these are very few from my experience), but I'm just afraid if you, Ederchil, will loose interest in deleting/reverting, since TG would be a mess after just a few days. Hopefully I don't need to worry about this! --Morgan 14:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Hyarion said he would improve captcha requirements, but we only had a break for a couple of days. When I came home yesterday, I spent the first half hour deleting stuff... great job to you and all on doing what you can, btw.
Although it's a last ditch effort, I don't mind locking up for unregistered users completely. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 14:45, 20 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I have to say, I've also been giving this some thought and I tend to agree that - as a temporary measure, perhaps - we close TG to unregistered users. This continual stream of spammers is time-consuming, irritating, and frankly wrecks good articles for visitors. Do we have any idea, incidentally, what has caused the sudden bout of spamming? I also agree there are some good edits by unregistered users, but they are very few and far between in my experience, too (mostly limited to correcting typographic errors) - perhaps we should focus our efforts on encouraging these people to register? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 15:51, 20 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Siege of Mirkwood[edit source]

The expansion known as Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood did include the final book to Volume II: Mines of Moria. Also, the expansion Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria included the final book to Volume I: Shadows of Angmar. Turbine makes you buy the next expansion in order to complete the previous one. It is a marketing tool to get you to buy it. Siege of Mirkwood is an expansion in its own right and not sololy the final book to Mines of Moria. --Pinkkeith 21:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Years before JRR's birth[edit source]

Is there a consensus on TG to not include year pages before JRRT's birth? I was on my way to add the birth of Charles Williams when I discovered this detail of the year pages. --Morgan 23:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If you want to, go ahead. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 05:44, 8 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ad Nonsense[edit source]

You probably won't find my contributions worthwhile at all then. (I see what you are doing here.)

It would be against tale logic for Entwives to be lost forever. The sadder the story, the more pressing somebody will feel the urge to amend.Unsigned comment by Wasdf (talk • contribs).

Still not making sense. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:13, 8 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It's more like interpretations and guesswork. You may basically remove my username altogether.Unsigned comment by Wasdf (talk • contribs).
Interpretations of what?
Also, it's impossible to remove an account. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 06:30, 9 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Adaptation info- how much is TOO much in an article?[edit source]

Having browsed Tolkien Gateway for several years prior to joining as an editor, I'm familiar with its book-heavy leaning, and wanted to make sure going in that I knew how much information on the adaptations was appropriate to put in "Appearance in Adaptation"-type sections of articles. In particular, I've always been a big fan of the Rankin/Bass animated adaptations, and I noticed the Sting article has nothing on its appearance in those in it, and that's what prompted me joining. But before I added that information in, I wanted to make sure I knew how much information on sources other than the books themselves was TOO much, so I don't go overboard and make the more knowledgeable and experienced editors have to waste time they could spend on more important things cleaning up after me. Wouldn't exactly be the most GLORIOUS start to a career editing here, now, would it? Dinosaur bob 01:51, 10 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All licensed adaptations can have as much information as there is available. So go ahead, add it. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 06:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Large Family Trees[edit source]

Is is possible that you could delete these three family trees: User:Aule_the_Smith/GiantFamilyTree? They won't (and never have) load for me and my bot keeps stumbling over them in an attempt to fix things, but, obviously, all it does is create loads of 500 server errors. If you could get rid of them of them it would be handy for me otherwise my bot is going to keep on getting stuck. Thanks. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I can understand your concern; I can't load the first two either. However, I won't delete a personal sandbox without that user's permission. I know Aule hasn't been here in a while and it's simple to undelete something, but still. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits)
OK, I understand (although disagree). How long would Aule have to be gone before you would consider deleting it? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 19:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
A lifetime, maybe two. :) -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 19:22, 14 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
But hey, it seems kind of strange to keep a userbox if it's causing internal problems. If, as you say, it's easy to undelete and if the user hasn't been active in a long time - I believe it's fair enough to empty the problematic page for the moment being (and perhaps create a special template to put on such pages). Just my two pennies worth--Morgan 22:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My other reason was: if it gets a 500 server error, I can't delete it. But I figured out I can by accessing it via the url.
I'll delete them, for now, but I'll leave a message at Aule's to notify him. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 07:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you! (Although I had actually done a work-around to avoid it, but thank you nonetheless!) --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:23, 15 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I stopped working on that precisely because once they got to a certain size the engine couldn't handle it. The pages are not actually causing "internal problems" though Morgan. Whatever errors my large tree threw up, MediaWiki is perfectly capable of containing them on one page on my User namespace. It is Mithbot that has the problem parsing the subset of possible MediaWiki pages that consist of 500 server errors. From a software development point of view it would be infinitely better to have the bot able to handle exceptions like those pages than removing them manually and hoping that they never happen again (when someone might not be around to do the necessary maintenance). But programming fussiness aside, I certainly don't want my old personal projects causing problems for other users, so delete away. Perhaps Ederchil could undelete them temporarily so I can save the source, though? --Aule the Smith 17:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you, I've saved the sources in case I ever want to do anything with them. Feel free to re-delete the pages if they are still causing problems. However strangely enough I'm not getting an error when viewing them any more. --Aule the Smith 17:36, 21 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bot[edit source]

I just wanted to apologise if Mithbot's clogging-up of the Recent Changes has been an irritant over the last few days. I've just been very keen to sort out some of the mess and make TG that bit more professional. Hopefully when Hyarion is next around he'll make it an official bot so it will be hidden from Recent Changes. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 12:23, 18 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Book project[edit source]

Do you think it would be possible for me to be included as a co-supervisor for Tolkien Gateway:Projects#Books? Do we need a vote on that first? --Morgan 21:27, 28 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm cool with it. As far as I'm concerned, you can add yourself. But maybe it's better to raise the topic on the talk page first. As per the meeting, inactive supervisors can be removed; frankly, on the field of books, I've been quite inactive. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yeah, I've notived that ;-) So, would you still like to be a supervisor (together with me) for the books, or shall I suggest a change of project leader on the talk page? --Morgan 21:40, 28 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Mith's reorganization of the page made me go "Wait, I'm book supervisor?!?". You can be supervisor on your own if you want, I'll stick with adaptations. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:49, 28 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Images and articles[edit source]

Ederchil, do you think we need some article pages for certain images? I just created one for Lamb's Farm, Gedling. Or would it be better to include this info on the image page? If the former is the case, which category do you think would be fitting? --Morgan 20:26, 29 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't think including that much info on the image page is a good idea; it generally does not get as much traffic as main space, and it's easily missed as it requires the reader to scroll down in most cases. I think having a separate article for art by Tolkien is a good idea; maybe name the cat "Art by J.R.R. Tolkien" and include a link to "Images by J.R.R. Tolkien", which can be reserved for the actual images for the sake of navigation. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Cat:Images of publications[edit source]

Whenever you have time, could you please check what's wrong with Category:Images of publications? I just get a blank page when trying to create the cat. --Morgan 15:34, 30 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No idea, I get a blank page too. Usually, it's an image's fault. Is this the first image you put in that category? -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:47, 30 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Nope, there's a whole bunch of pictures that I've put in that cat. Maybe a task for Hyarion? --Morgan 19:32, 30 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Definitely. It's not the first time. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 19:46, 30 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Definitely odd and annoying, on it. --Hyarion 03:52, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Your Opinion, Please[edit source]

As you might've noticed, I've got some things cluttering around my Sandboxes (some of which have been there a long time). I would like your opinion on a couple:

  1. In Sandbox2 I've been working on a new system for sequences (as I find the current ones messy and overly space-consuming). I've created a Plan for this, and I was wondering what you thought, and more, important, what I should name the several templates what I create it?
  2. After about two years I finally finished the Sundering of the Elves Template - what do you think about it? I'm a bit worried that I've put too much in and, as a result, it's too cluttered. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 14:27, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  1. I fell in love with the wikified variant the moment I saw it. DOB/DOD info needs to be a bigger font size, though. Maybe you could rename "sequence thing" into maybe "sequence header"? And the color could be combined with whatever color we use on Template:Character Infobox, if we ever decide to get that running and/or I ever finish it.
  2. It's good, not too much info. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 14:45, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Maybe you could make the name of the character Bold, so from Aragorn to Aragorn. Except that both are realy nice. --Amroth 14:49, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
OK, I've made the DOB/DOD larger and bolded the character name as per both your suggestions (why I haven't done this before is beyond me).
About naming, I have a couple of concerns: the first is that if I change Template:Sequence to that it's going to instantly wreck many hundreds of sequences; second I'm worried users might get confused between top and header (although a well-written usage guide will probably save this); and third, the naming conventions are different elsewhere. For our Template:familytree we have the various templates as subpages whereas, on Wikipedia, the equivalent of these three new templates are S-start, S-hou and S-end. (They have no equivalent of sequence itself.)
Do you think it needs to be able to have multi-sequence successors like with Aragorn and Eldarion?
That's an amazing suggestion! As such, I've added in {{{race}}} which can be a switch to produce the desired background colour and font colour. Incidentally, I started Sandbox2 with the intention of working on the Character Infobox Template myself! --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 15:48, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The changing color does not quite work that simple. See the character template's code. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 15:57, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oh, I know: it's just there as a placeholder 'til I actually code the full thing. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:18, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
OK, I've now added the full #switch (with the gold colour of Wikified as default), as well as the ability for multi-row results like in that example. Based on that example, the only thing this template doesn't do if remove "Preceded by:" with "Vacant" (as this would require a ridiculous amount of extra coding for a very rare occasions). So, unless you have any other suggestions, I think it's ready to go.
I'm thinking about naming the four {{seq-start}}, {{seq-head}}, {{seq}} and {{seq-end}} (possibly without hyphens). This will enable us to phase it in over time rather than having to deal with the car-crash that would be the mess caused by just changed Template:Sequence straight off. How does this all sound to you? (There are 250 uses of the existing template so I want to make sure we get this right first time - sorry if I'm hassling you.) --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 23:02, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Code doesn't seem to difficult; {{#if:{{{Preceded|}}}|{{{Preceded}}}|'''Vacant'''}} or something?
Like the names. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 06:33, 2 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
OK, after much faffing around I've finally finished it all off, with the vacancy function. Two examples in my sandbox pretty much demonstrate all the functionality. I have just one problem now: links in the header. It seems as if the colours of links are uniquely incompatible with virtually all the various infobox colours. Do you have any suggestions as to how to sort this (short of editing TG's css file). --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 12:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm finally done. I've created fool-proof guides on the templates, and I've also changed the text of maiar and valar from black to cream (as white wasn't really working. With regards to links, when the text is white the links are cream (and vice versa); all I need is for you to add the following to MediaWiki:Common.css in order to make them work:
td.seqwhite a {color: #FFFFFF !important;}
td.seqwhite div span a {color: #FFFFFF !important;}
td.seqcream a {color: #FFFDD0 !important;}
td.seqcream div span a {color: #FFFDD0 !important;}
I'm so glad to be done! Thanks for all you help. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:22, 2 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'd rather not mess with the css as I don't fully understand it and I don't like wrecking it (that usually happens to me in those cases). Better ask Hyarion, or wait until you're a sysop yourself ;) -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:59, 2 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Don't worry about 'wrecking it', you won't. The CSS in MediaWiki:Common.css won't affect the site layout, it just adds new classes for situations just like this. If you're that worried, I've done it for you: just copy the contents of this, replacing the contents of MediaWiki:Common.css with it. -- KingAragorn  talk  contribs  edits  email  21:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

People[edit source]

Hi Ederchil! I see that you too add some cats to the people articles. Would you mind also adding CAT:People by name? (so we don't have to do double work...). /Cheers --Morgan 16:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

On it. I'm just searching the database for Dutchies. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Arne Björkman article issue[edit source]

Would you be kind to help me on the article Arne Björkman? I can't get the quote template right (having tried a variety of things).--Morgan 22:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The = usually gives that problem. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 22:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
BTW, "A Campaign of Indoctrination from Hell" - that must be one of the most harsh titles of negative reviews about LotR! Do you have anyting from the Netherlands which can beat it? ;-) --Morgan 22:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Out of my currently very sleepy (didn't notice it's past midnight) head, I don't. Let me get back to you on that when I'm awake. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 22:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Database syntax error[edit source]

Do you also get the database syntax error? Is this something we should worry about? (Does it corrupt the database - I'll make a search on the mediawiki site).--Morgan 08:17, 29 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have absolutely no idea. I'm reckoning it's a byproduct of Hyarion's moving servers and updating mediawiki. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 08:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Citation templates[edit source]

Ederchil, do you think my citation templates for VT and PE are okay? Since we often give references to the JRRT manuscripts featured in those journals, I thought it would be fitting with proper templates.--Morgan 22:20, 31 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think it's good; It's better that it's purely the Tolkien texts otherwise it would have been too long. I would suggest incorporating something like {{VT|5}} which would give "''[[Vinyar Tengwar]]'' [[Vinyar Tengwar 5|#5]] (May [[1989]])". That way, earlier articles can get referenced like this:
  • [[Arden R. Smith]], "Translation from the Auld Elvish", published in {{VT|5}}, pp. 11-12.
All individual texts could include a letter, even the issues with one text (40a instead of 40 for Narqelion). What do you think? -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 07:20, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Would the argument be that you don't have to remember if an issue had one or more manuscripts (which makes sense)? I'm just hoping the argument is not too strong, since I don't want to go back and edit all those "Inserting VT template", ;-) But I'm starting to feel that this is too good an argument - I hope some bot could make the edits (if so, I will contact Mith or KingAragorn about it once the server becomes more stable again). --Morgan 11:49, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My main point would be consistency. 40 = "VT40 (Date)"; 40a = JRRT article 1, 40b = JRRT article 2, et cetera. So you wouldn't have to change all the links, just the ones without a or b. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 12:16, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I see. Let me just oppose a little more (not just because I'm lazy): wouldn't it be better to rather include a code line for | 40 |? This would, IMO, also make the template consistent. Somehow, I don't want to take away the intuitive aspect of just using the simple, e.g., {{VT|49}}
In my experience, templates tend to be a kind of "gnostic" knowledge - it takes some effort to start using and understanding them since you gotta be proficient in the way the coding works. I'm still a bit newbie (after spending more than a year here on TG) at using citation templates. What I'm trying to say is that often the inclusion of citation templates is made by some other than the original creator of an article (in case the article is not written by someone proficient in using citation templates). --Morgan 13:55, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm not sure whether I get your first point. Do you mean the line "[[Arden R. Smith]], "Translation from the Auld Elvish", published in {{VT|5}}, pp. 11-12." is too much work for editors? I definitely agree, though code-wise it's simpler. It would require lots of additional code (not difficult code, just a lot of work) for all the issues and all the articles to be covered. Or maybe we could do a template like Wikipedia has for referencing, more like "{{VT|issue=|author=|article=|page=}}"
And as for usage, that's mostly true. It takes a lot of knowledge to know what the key is. That's why I decided to include key words rather than just numbers on most of the book templates. The easiest template for users is probably the Letters one. When we've finished these templates, the Help section could do with a rewrite on this point. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 14:07, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It's turning into a confusing discussion (it's very theoretical/technical, so it's not strange, I guess!) ;-) I'll try to be clear:
1) I think, like you, that we would need to stick with code lines like "[[Arden R. Smith]], "Translation from the Auld Elvish", published in {{VT|5}}, pp. 11-12." when giving references to more rare articles (that is, not so often being cited). It would be too much work to add all the articles from all issues, of course.
2) Since, for example, the Vinyar Tengwar issues often include more articles than just the JRRT "features" (as called by VT), it would be consistent to have the possibilty of just writing {{VT|[Issue number]}} when referring to any issue.
3) Then, for those with a knowledge about how the VT template works, you could also be more specific if you want to give a reference to the JRRT feature. In other words, you could, e.g., use both {{VT|49}} and {{VT|49a}}, the former however only referring the issue as a whole. (why only have extra codes for the JRRT features? often being cited and difficult to spell). Maybe this was what you meant? ;-) --Morgan 14:28, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Mostly, yes, apart from the second one. "{{VT|issue=|author=|article=|page=}}" would work just like the book template: "{{VT|issue=5|author=Arden R. Smith|article=Translation from the Auld Elvish|page=11-12}}", which would rquire something along the lines of this:
  • {{#if:{{{Author|}}}|{{{Author}}}, "{{{Article}}}", published in {{{Issue}}} (Date), page {{{Page}}}.}}
Needs some fine tuning, of course, but it's not as much work as adding everything. The dates can be added with a #switch:
{{#switch:{{{issue|}}} | 1 | date | 2 | date }}
If that messes up the code too much, we can always use subtemplates. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 14:52, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ah alright, I think I get your points now although I'm not knowledgeable enough to implement the wikipedia style template (though it looks nice!). Template:VT looks a bit more like you intended now, right? (I'll add all earlier issues too). --Morgan 14:59, 1 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I saw that you started working with an improved citation template for VT. Can I continue to edit (and use) the old template, or should I wait until you finish? --Morgan 16:35, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You can also finish mine, if you want to. It's almost done anyway. It only needs dates added and some final touchups. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Would you mind looking into why the VT template doesn't show up correctly (as on the page Ortírielyanna)? I'm not confident with the more advanced coding you added to the template. Thanks! --Morgan 18:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've moved it to a separate template for now, to make sure it doesn't obstruct the articles in which the template is used. It needs some more touch-ups, it seems. I'll see if I can find out how to do that best. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:33, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Editcount-Template doesn't work[edit source]

When I looked at my own userpage I saw that the Editcount template didn't work, aswell as by you and others. Could you, or somebody else, look in it if you have time. --Amroth 17:33, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It seems the Edit count option has gone missing in the server update/move/whatever. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The issue was brought up on the IRC chat yesterday, it might be that Hyarion has disabled the extension in order to try and see why the server locks up (if it's related to some extension). --Morgan 18:02, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's the most likely reason, and AFAIK TG has been running a lot more smoothly since.-- KingAragorn  talk  contribs  edits  email  18:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It certainly seems a lot better today. --Aule the Smith 18:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I e-mailed Hyarion earlier in the week asking if any progress has been made, and so it seems there has! From what I can work out from Special:Version, the following extensions have been disabled: Editcount, Forum, Google Video, Inputbox, Show/Hide (which didn't work) and YouTube. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dutch name[edit source]

Although I guess that a "Mr Joukes" (to whom Tolkien sent a letter which was reprinted René van Rossenberg's Hobbits in Holland) has a Dutch surname (and therefore probably is/was Dutch), I thought I might doublecheck that with a native. --Morgan 19:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Joukes is a Dutch name, yes. It's a patronym of Jouke, which is a Frisian name, so I'm pretty sure he's Dutch (and not, say, Belgian). -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 19:29, 23 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I should also point out that, though Mr Joukes apparently lived in Antwerp, Belgium, when Tolkien sent that letter to him (at least it was addressed ‘Antwerp’), by the time Hobbits in Holland was compiled he was living in Utrecht, Netherlands (stated on p. 36). So I agree with Ederchil, he is most probably Dutch. — Mithrennaith 00:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

MECCG[edit source]

I just thought to let you know that I've browsed all the MECCG pictures, except for one expansion (the first, METW - the online ones are of such of a poor quality that they are hardly usable, but I do own almost all METW cards myself and will scan relevant images later). --Morgan 21:16, 16 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I still have some in my folder:
Though I don't know out of my head from which books they came. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm done with browsing the last expansion to MECCG (METW). --Morgan 17:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]