User talk:Mith/2010

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Latest comment: 23 November 2010 by Mith in topic Hi its me Multibot !
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Apostrophes[edit source]

Hello Mith! Since I'm not a native English speaker I'm a bit curious about the correct grammar of, e.g., 1920s/1920's. Initially I wrote "1920s", but Ederchil changed it to 1920's. Is it a question of American English and British English? I happened to watch the film Goodbye, and Good Luck, which featured an old commercial spelling "in the 1920's and 1930's". Are you able to shed any light on the issue? Cheers/--Morgan 22:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I did? Far as I can find, it's 1920s in English. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 22:36, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Maybe it was a mistake ;-) I checked if I remembered wrong, but going through the revision history of "Books by year", you suggested the "...'s" in the revision as of 11:46, 18 April 2010. What I remembered wrong was that you didn't change it, just added the decades from the earlier year by year. Anyway, I'll google the issue and see what comes up. --Morgan 22:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
A google search of "In the 1920's" (I used that sentence since only 1920's also yields the possesive usage) gave 11 900 000 hits. "In the 1920s" gave 47 400 000 hits. This is a method used by some linguists trying to find the most common usage of grammar, but is there a grammatical rule applying to this case?--Morgan 22:53, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Here is what the Guide to Grammar and Style (by Jack Lynch) says: Using an apostrophe to refer to a decade — the 1960's versus the 1960s — is another matter of house style; again, journalists tend to use the apostrophe, and most other publishers don't. I prefer to omit it: refer to the 1960s or the '60s (the apostrophe indicates that "19" has been omitted), not the 1960's or (worse) the '60's. --Morgan 23:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Although some would consider it a stylistic issue, strictly it is grammatically incorrect. An apostrophe is used for a) possessive/genitive or b) missing letters; neither case applies to "1920's" - the apostrophe serves no function whatsoever. Certainly in the UK it would be considered very poor style indeed to apostrophise "1920s"; I don't know the style in the USA. That article was annoying me so I had to remove them! --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:27, 23 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Grammar[edit source]

I hope you don't mind that I from time to time ask questions about English grammar and spelling ;-)

If I want to say that something was written in 19XX, at an unknown date, do I say "it was written some time in 1957" or "it was written sometime in 1957"? As far as I understand it, the sentence "it was written sometimes in 1957" is clearly wrong. --Morgan 10:17, 27 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Of course I don't mind, I'm happy to help!
You are right, "sometimes" is wrong. I suppose the correct use would be "sometime", if you ask me (definition from CEOD), but that's not to say that "some time" is incorrect; it's one of those occasions (like "can not" and "cannot") in which it all comes down to your personal preference.--Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:25, 27 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Translation of interview[edit source]

Hi Mith! I've translated about a third of the interview by now. Would you mind sending your email to morgan[at]kingtape.se, so I can send you the file? --Morgan 00:20, 29 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Done. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 00:26, 29 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Mithbot[edit source]

Sorry, Mith, but your bot has been making errors. It was a good idea to change link to "Took" into links to "Took Family", but where this also resulted in links to "Firstname Took" changing to link to "Firstname Took Family" (which are redlinks) the result was a bit unfortunate. Also, changing links to "Maggot" into links to "Farmer Farmer Maggot" is overdoing it a bit. I have corrected these errors in the article Translated names, but I have no idea where else they may have been made, and not much time to search. Maybe your want your bot to have a go at it? ;-) — Mithrennaith 01:52, 3 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No need to apologise, it's entirely my fault. Unfortunately Mithbot couldn't fix the mess (as it kept encountering a 500 server error every time it hit Bilbo Baggins), but I have made the necessary by hand. Thanks for informing me. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 07:07, 3 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You’re welcome, and thanks for dealing with this quickly :-) Those 500 errors are getting to be a nuisance ;-) — Mithrennaith 01:47, 5 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Angerthas[edit source]

I used the slash to indicate subcategory or subdirectory of a topic which I think it's a feature overlooked in wikis. I participate in a wiki of alternate realities and we make heavy use of such slashes, which indicate the alternate version of each topic. To my experience, slashes make it more tidy and "make more sense" since they are adaptations of the same concept. I see no problem with them since they are redirected from their simple names, and they are visible in their categories. It's logical they are not linked from other articles since they do not belong in a narrative or story but to the historical background. Sage 08:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dates[edit source]

I notice you've started changing the format on the letter articles I've been editing. I don't mind, I'm all for consistency and will use that style in the future. In fact I've sort of been waiting for someone to challenge me on them so I can ask the question: is there a standard date style for TG? Before I embarked on the letter articles I

a) checked the Manual of Style
b) did a quick sampling of other articles

And couldn't find a definitive answer, which is why I decided to just do what I thought best. --Aule the Smith 10:40, 13 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There isn't really a definite format, no; I just changed the links so readers could find their way to the required day, as well as just year, easily enough. I didn't change the links in the infoboxes, so readers do have the option. I wouldn't trust the Manual of Style: it's woefully out of date and hideously inadequate!
About the infobox, would you mind if I widened it? I noticed that many common topics (e.g. The Lord of the Rings) are wider than the infobox allows for, so it might be best to widen it slightly to accommodate them. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Not at all. --Aule the Smith 10:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Regarding date formats, perhaps a template might be used to introduce consistency across the wiki (and make things slightly easier). So the input would be like {\{date|2010-08-10}} (i.e. the ISO standard format), which could then be converted to whatever format and method of linking desired. Of course the hard part would be changing the thousands of current entries, but maybe your bot could help with that. —Aulë the Smith (Tk·Cb) 12:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'll look into it (although I'm a little apprehensive about infringing on personal style too much). I'll ask see if the bot could do it, although the several hundred dates written in a variety formats may make it pretty tricky. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 13:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sources on Gandalf[edit source]

Gandalf is a featured article (i.e. it's supposed to be among the best), and moreover a very highly visible one. I think for those reasons you should at least give some explanation on the talk page before putting an ugly cleanup box in front of it. It seems well-sourced to me, and if there is a particular part of it that you feel isn't you should make that explicit (as well as the talk page also consider using {{fact}} or placing {{sources}} in a specific section).

(P.S. I don't know about TG but on every other wiki I'm involved with it's considered very bad form to revert somebody's non-vandalism edits without a summary) —Aulë the Smith (Tk·Cb) 10:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

My mistake, it was only nominated for featured article status some time ago. Maybe that box should be removed too. Still, the point about high visibility stands. —Aulë the Smith (Tk·Cb) 10:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. It was nominated at a time, I would argue, when our standards were lower than they are. Also, since Ederchil added the sources template, the number of sources throughout most of the article has barely improved (notable exception being the first three sections).
I am aware that it is one of the most popular articles, but our "ugly cleanup box" is probably better at the top rather than putting the "ugly cleanup box" in all other sections, or sticking Template:Fact after every sentence throughout the entire article (which would be a very tedious job). Anyway, we put those template at the top precisely because we don't want people to miss them and to encourage editors to rectify the situation.
I don't work on any other wikis, so I don't know how they operate. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 12:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In/of[edit source]

I don't mind, of course (just glad to get response)! But didn't you confuse Belegaer with Beleriand? I guess it would either be "Remnants of Beleriand" or "Remnants in Belegaer", right? --Morgan 18:10, 24 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ah, I did; I mis-read it - I apologise. I think I prefer "Remnants of Beleriand" because then Lindon could be included in the template, what d'you reckon? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
How about making the template more like Template:Cosmology? It could then perhaps look something like this: User:Morgan/Sandbox. /morgan (on Chrome!)
It looks good (although aren't they remnants in the Second and Fourth Ages, too?). The fact you're using Chrome is less good! --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC) (on Firefox 3.6.8!)Reply[reply]

Dragon infobox[edit source]

I was thinking of making a dragon infobox. Is that OK with you? —Aulë the Smith (Tk·Cb) 10:06, 28 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I was going to edit the evil infobox so it would display race under the name of the character, including dragons, but sure. Is it worth it, though - there's only a few? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:10, 28 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Only four, yeah, but I figure there's quite a few fields that only apply to dragons: whether they had legs, whether they flew, fire-drake/cold-drake, items in their horde. That sort of thing. Is there an existing infobox in particular I can copy to make it up to date with your latest revisions? —Aulë the Smith (Tk·Cb) 10:18, 28 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
None of them are actually finished because I keep discovering missing fields: I never realise just how much of a mess the infoboxes were in terms of their coding and their lack of standardisation. The closest to being finished are Edain infobox and Half-elf infobox; I've not added a "{{{rule}}}" to them yet, though. Not sure if it's relevant to you or not (although I suppose Smaug ruled Erebor...). --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nomenclature template[edit source]

Hi Mith! I added the line {{HM|N}} to use when giving references to the Nomenclature. Should we use it (instead of typing out the whole reference)? --Morgan 00:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sure. I honestly don't mind, though, how people write out references, so long as they take the right form. By the way, I was going to ask, how come you put page numbers in brackets in references - I've never seen that done before? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 00:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
True, it might be more standard to use ", p. X". I think I started using it when pondering about how to best give references to the HoMe, where I have different paginations in my DelRey and HarperCollins's editions: "(p. X; HarperCollins 199X)" or ", p. X (HarperCollins 199X)". But perhaps the latter is better. --Morgan 00:29, 11 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Userbox[edit source]

No problem, I was hoping for some help! :-) I think I understand how to do it now. --Morgan 19:47, 11 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Tables are one of those things which are really quite difficult to understand. Wikipedia has a pretty good tutorial, but essentially you need to do remember to do "|-" for every row, and then "|" for every cell within that. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 22:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dates[edit source]

I noticed you were the "dates supervisor". I was wondering if non-canon lore dates could be added in the articles for the dates if it is stated it is non-canon? -- User:Pinkkeith

Apologies for the late reply, I haven't been around much over the last 48 hours. My personal inclination is to say no because I already think we're quite generous with non-canon people/places/events and I sort of like the idea that it doesn't find its way into all articles (not to mention that {{noncanon}} is ugly).
Saying that, I probably shouldn't make a unilateral decision.. If no one else replies here, I reckon either a forum topic or just edit a couple of dates as examples to see what people think. How does that sound? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 08:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It sounds fair to me. I just added a date to one of the LOTRO aricles and noticed it was red. I know in many articles we have a "Portrayals in Adaptations" section for many articles. I was thinking something similar might be good for articles related to dates like "This Date in Adaptations" or the like. It was just a thought. -- User:Pinkkeith
If we have such a heading, I wouldn't mind Pinkkeith's idea. --Morgan 10:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My concern is that a year in which only one known event happens (as with the vast majority of dates articles) the article could be completely swamped by a Portrayal in Adaptations sections. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 14:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I was looking at the dates corner on Main page today, and just thinking how it might look if a ‘This date in Adaptations’ section were added. On balance, I think I’m rather with Mith on this one. — Mithrennaith 01:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You actually could use the <noinclude> tag on the "This Date in Adaptations" section so that it won't show up on the Main page of the Tolkien Gateway. --Pinkkeith 16:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think <noinclude> would have to be included in any case, but that wasn't really my concern, as such. It was more about very small year articles being taken over by adaptations ones. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 11:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I agree with Mith. --Amroth
I agree with Nick Mith. -- KingAragorn  talk  contribs  edits  email  17:08, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I agree with Nick. --Morgan 17:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Mithbot requests[edit source]

When you come back:

  • All pages in
Category:Images of Peter Jackson's The Return of the King[former link] to Category:Images from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
  • All pages in
Category:Images from Peter Jackson's The Return of the King[former link] to Category:Images from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
  • All pages in
Category:Images from Peter Jackson's The Two Towers[former link] to Category:Images from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
  • All pages in
Category:Images from Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring[former link] to Category:Images from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Thanks in advance. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 11:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

All done. I've not created or deleted any of the affected categories as I'm not sure what you want to do about
Category:Images from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings[former link]. I'm guessing you want to move it to
Category:Images from The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy[former link] (or something similar)? Also, what do you want to do about
Category:Images of the Premiere of Peter Jackson's The Return of the King[former link]? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 09:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
"Category:Images from the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"? -- 09:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Sure. In what category? I'm not convinced it fits where it is now. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 09:53, 17 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Neither am I, but I find it a bit too much to create an "Images of Events (real-world)" for this.
By the way, could you also move all the other movie images to categories of "Images of {{PAGENAME}}"? Bakshi and Rankin/Bass, I mean. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
OK, all of the film trilogy is sorted. So you want the Bakshi and Rankin/Bass moved to "The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)", "The Hobbit (1977 film)" and "The Return of the King (1980 film)"? I assume you mean "Images from BLA" rather than "Images of BLA"? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My bad, yeah, I meant that. --Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 21:48, 17 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
All done. I've sorted out the entirety of Category:Images from Adaptations whilst I was there. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 15:03, 18 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Character templates[edit source]

A couple of points I'd like to raise:

  • Royalty infobox could probably best be moved to/changed into "Arnorian infobox", because we're missing a real template for the denizens of the North-kingdom that aren't royalty. I think, in that case, a light blue is better suited as a colour.
  • The Men Infobox probably needs most work of all. It simply is too different with the Men sub-templates.
  • On second thought, let's just get rid of the Men infobox altogether. We'd need separate ones for Northman, Dale-man, Ent, Eotheod, Beorning, Enigma/Mystery, Dunlending, Pre-Numenorean, Bree-man, Middle Man, Black Numenorean and maybe a couple of others.
  • We probably need some sort of field or link acknowledging the artist of the mainpic.
  • Just my ideas. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 20:19, 16 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  1. My intention was to move Template:Royalty infobox|Royalty[former link] to Arnorian, but I see you've created a a template for it now. You've tagged it as claimed by me - I take it you'd like me to polish it?
  2. I hate the Men Infobox - it's of very little usefulness and it ugly with dull colours, anyway. My only concern with sub-dividing Men too much is that each infobox could have only five characters for which it would be useful. How many Beornings do we actually known, for instance? (In fact, the number of known men in the whole of Rhovanion isn't great.)
  3. I've thought about image descriptions before. It can be done already within the image (e.g. Pearl Took) but it is a bit awkward, I accept. If we do insert an image description, would we have to move the names of characters to the top of the template like this or this? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 11:59, 19 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  1. I tagged it as claimed because I cribbed it off the Gondorian infobox and never bothered to remove it.
  2. My original plan was a sort of master-character template with custom themes, if we don't go ahead with that (because it can't be bot-changed), maybe we could make a miniature version for Men? Oh, and we know two Beornings and what, four Dalings?
  3. Not necessarily a description, maybe just an image link or something? I'm not against moving the name to the top of the template, but I'd like to hear other people's opinions on it before doing it.
  4. Extra point; maybe we should use the color codes for the character templates at the Race template too? The red one is just ugly, and unfitting in many cases (Ents red?)
  5. Extra point, II: Do you have any idea on better colours for the Half-elf infobox? I don't really like the purple.-- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 12:48, 19 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  1. I remember the master template, but I didn't want to interfere. Anyway, I thought in the meantime we could get the existing ones in order before anything else happens. You're right about not being about to bot it, and the uber-template would get incredibly complicated when dealing with the various parameters on specific races (especially with something like the evil infobox). We could do that for men, I suppose, it just feels a bit... "indulgent" giving pretty rare groups of men their own colour (not to mention running out of colours distinct enough to differentiate).
  2. I agree we need to ask others about moving the name to the top. Aren't images de facto image links?
  3. The race template is a joke. I tidied it up a bit but it's such a pain that I got bored of it. It did, actually, have a parameter to manually set the colours but I took it out because no template made use of it. What would we do about races which don't have their own specific infoboxes (e.g. elf or troll)?
  4. The half-elf one bothers me, too, but I haven't changed the colours on it yet because I was thinking about shuffling some colours. I was thinking of giving the Noldor a royal blue and the current red colours on Half-elf, don't know if that's much of an improvement, though. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi its me Multibot ![edit source]

Now I would like to thank you on your information about my editing. Now I would like to point out that I do not edit all the battles and military articles. Also I would like to point out that many battles I base it on 3 things : The time that it took place. The strength of the Kingdoms/empires during the particular time and similarities with other battles in the past. For example the Battle of The Plains I noticed that it was just 46 years from the siege of Umbar in T.A 1810, in which Gondor was still recovering from the Great Plague. Now the Great Plague decimated Gondor to the point that ,"if the Easterlings or Haradrim attacked Gondor it would have fallen" that would mean that Gondor's army at that time was much too weak for offenses and defenses. Now almost 2 centuries have passed and the Corsairs attacked Gondor and in 1810 Telumehtar gathered a great force and took Umbar. Just 46 years later in T.A 1856 the Wainriders attacked. Now there was an article here that said that Gondor paid a heavy amount of casualties for the victory in T.A 1810 so it just sums up that Narmacil only would have gathered a force of around 10,000 soldiers at the time to fight the Wainriders as Gondor's military would have to leave most of its army to defend other places in Gondor. For the other armies such as the Northmen's and Wainriders I base it on mostly the same things too . If you have any other information about the battles feel free to contact me :) Unsigned comment by multikillerbot (talk • contribs).

Mith's point remains. It's still guesswork. I have other information: there are no exact numbers. -- Ederchil (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 10:29, 23 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, we need to know on what basis you are defining these troops numbers, such as this...

Ten thousand spears I might have sent riding over the plain to the dismay of your foes. It will be less now, I fear; for I will not leave my strongholds all unguarded. Yet six thousands at the least shall ride behind me.
Théoden in "The Muster of Rohan", The Return of the King

This is a clearly identifiable source - in a reliable publication - and Ederchil could go away and check that I haven't made it up. If, however, I just wrote "6,000 Rohirrim" in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields it could be a work of fiction as nobody is able to check it.
If your figures are baseless guesswork they really have no place here; if they are guesswork based on known facts, I suggest discussing the matter in a talk page first; if they are based on fact, please supply the source; and, finally, if they are based on supplementary publications I suggest including them in a "Portrayal in Adaptations" or something similar.
As it stands, we can't accept sourceless troop numbers. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 11:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]