User talk:HiddenVale

Archive 1

/Archive 2/

Assumption/citing question
Sorry about any confusion in regard to the assumption template on the 'South' article... I planned to use the "fact" template as you mentioned, but it seems like a fair portion, if not most, of the article consists of assumptions and speculation, and as such would in theory require the template after almost every sentence. Certainly none of it is cited. Is there a procedure or other template we use to reflect such a situation? Or am I misjudging this particular article in terms of canonicity? In any case I just want to be sure I'm following the correct process in the future. --Bitterhand (talk) 19:00, June 22, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense! I think that new template is a good idea. And if I can get my hands on one or both of those books the Atlas of Middle Earth, I'll be sure to utilize that info. Let me know if there's anything else I can assist with. --Bitterhand (talk) 22:04, June 22, 2018 (UTC)

On Mergings
I believe that the following should be merged into Weapons article. I'm not putting this up for a vote because of the historical lack of participation.

--DarkLantern (talk) 09:15, June 26, 2018 (UTC)
 * Bow and Arrow
 * Axe
 * Swords
 * Spears
 * Pike
 * Whip
 * others

I agree. If there's essentially no difference between these weapons and their real-world counterparts, I see no reason to have a separate article for them. People aren't coming here to learn about generic axes and swords; that's what Wikipedia is for. The same also goes for any other common-noun articles there might be. --Bitterhand (talk) 13:18, June 26, 2018 (UTC)

Concerning Holman Greenhand
So recently I realized that some of the information in the page formerly titled "Holman Greenhand" belonged to a hobbit known as 'Holman the Greenhanded' per the Longfather tree in Appendix C. As all of the pages of his children linked to the "Holman Greenhand" page, I renamed the page "Holman the Greenhanded" since that's what the Appendix gives his name as, and to avoid confusion with his similarly-named grandson Holman Greenhand. But now I see I should probably have created a new page for Holman the Greenhanded (grandfather) and changed the relevant hyperlinks, because now I'm not able to create a separate page for "Holman Greenhand" (grandson) due to the redirect page of the same name. Is it possible to delete the redirect page, since all the hyperlinks have now been updated to the correct name? I apologize if this seems confusing and for any trouble; please let me know if you have any questions. --Bitterhand (talk) 23:04, June 26, 2018 (UTC)

Re: Kindle refs
Thanks for the tip; I hadn't noticed that before, but I'll be sure to change that accordingly when I come across it in the future. --Bitterhand (talk) 00:58, June 28, 2018 (UTC)

Re: Holman Greenhand
It's a redirect page titled simply "Holman Greenhand". Here's the url to it: https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Holman_Greenhand?redirect=no. Also, thanks for reviewing my recent edits. I've tried to stick as close as possible to what's already established as far as formatting and material go, but it's helpful to be able to go back and see which details I missed or wasn't aware of. --Bitterhand (talk) 00:44, June 29, 2018 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! I'll create the new page shortly. Also, quick question: is there an agreed-upon policy for distinguishing article titles for two identically named characters? (e.g May Gamgee and May Gamgee). I ran into that a couple of times creating new pages for the Cotton and Gamgee hobbits, and differentiated them as "Hobson's daughter" and "Hamfast's daughter" for example. Is that appropriate, or do we usually do something else? --Bitterhand (talk) 01:07, June 29, 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Background Image
I'm not sure where to post this suggestion, so I'll just send it to you if that's okay.

This is about the background picture... The Wiki is in English, which is a left-to-right language. On every page, our eyes start on the left. There are more words and content to the left side thant the right.

The background picture has all the bad guys on the left. When reading this wiki, my peripheral vision sees them far more than the good guys on the right.

My request? Could you please flip the picture horitzontally so the good guys are mostly in our vision and the bad guys aren't?

I know, wierd request, but I hope you'll consider it. Thanks.

69.47.235.105

On references
Without a references guide of any kind how is one supposed to easily make a citation? Or aren't you finished yet. I personally believe that a new and refined references guide should be drawn up. Whether or not it is divided up into sections made up of separate pages. A lot of work went into that guide!--DarkLantern (talk) 18:13, July 1, 2018 (UTC)


 * Your guide instructions were not really confusing! I guess I was trying to argue for the breaking-up of the Gradivus style guide into parts. The reason I still support it is because I guess I prefer a spelled out cut and paste list of the chapters for the convenience of things. Something that I or others can keep in another window or tab and cut and paste from out of it. This is how I was using it!


 * Well, I guess we will see how things work out with your guide. I don't want this to become an argument because that is unproductive. All I ask is that you not dismiss all or some of my suggestions above.--DarkLantern (talk) 02:31, July 2, 2018 (UTC)

Re: Citations Guide
I think it's actually pretty readable; though I do tend to use a lot of clarifiers and parenthetical phrases in my writing. The only thing that isn't clear to me is when/if book titles (i.e the Two Towers) are italicized. I think if you were to make that a little clearer it would be helpful. And also, thanks for the heads-up! --Bitterhand (talk) 22:22, July 1, 2018 (UTC)

Odd page
Just a quick note whenever you have time to look at it. I found this page earlier and was wondering if you know what it was supposed to be, or if it needs to be deleted. I just thought it was odd since it didn't have an edit button, but I would guess it can be deleted since it doesn't link to anything. In any case, thanks! --Bitterhand (talk) 19:12, July 2, 2018 (UTC)

Re: The Referencing Guide
Mae Govannen, HiddenVale. Thanks for leaving the link to your referencing guide on my talk page. I think it's readable and easy to understand, although leaving examples of the way each reference appears when done correctly would be helpful. Thanks for consulting my opinion! ;)

"ℌ𝔦𝔰 𝔏𝔬𝔳𝔢 𝔑𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔉𝔞𝔦𝔩𝔰!" (𝙻𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝙼𝚎 𝙰 𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎) 17:01, July 3, 2018 (UTC)

Gandalf's Fireworks
Just wanted to offer a little clarification on the "Gandalf's Fireworks" section in Articles to be merged, as I realized it may be sort of confusing. For some reason there are two separate but very similar pages for this, and the website only shows one of them as an option to link to. The only way I can figure out to link to both of them is by including the urls: https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Gandalf%27s_Fireworks, and https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Gandalf’s_Fireworks. Not sure how there got to be two identically named articles, but in any case it's not a major issue. Just wanted to share so to avoid any confusion! Thanks, -- Bitterhand (talk) 02:03, July 6, 2018 (UTC)

Great, I'm glad we could get that resolved. And I think I see what you mean with the whole tense deal; I'll try to implement that in the future. -- Bitterhand (talk) 22:20, July 6, 2018 (UTC)

Various questions
There were a few things I've noticed/been wondering about, and wanted to mention or get your opinion on.

1. The 'Quest for Erebor' non-canon campaignbox seems to mix canon and non-canon events. This wouldn't be a problem, except canon pages (i.e Destruction of Lake-town) have the same template, and thus people looking only for canon events can be directed to movie-only events. Also, some of the articles linked to in the same template have the non-canon alert even though the event happened in the book (i.e Attack of the Spiders), but in my opinion that alert could be removed, or the page merged with its book counterpart if there is one. Do you think there's a good solution to this? I would suggest making a separate template for a sequence of book-only events, then keep the current one as-is, but there may be something better.

2. https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Citation_needed This template appears to have been a mistake, and I think can be deleted, especially since it doesn't appear on any pages.

3. The Fandom category. I know most of the pages here are probably allowed to remain even though the wiki policy says fandom is not allowed, but I think the https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Fan_videos page and the https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/The_Return_of_the_Lord_of_the_Rings_to_the_Two_Towers page we might need to look at again. The former seems to me sort of unnecessary (maybe move the relevant videos to the videos link). If it were just up to me, I would delete the latter since it isn't an adaptation but a parody, not to mention including some questionable content and a couple of highly inappropriate external links towards the end of the synopsis. In any case, I believe it contains far too much detail on the subject and should at least be shortened to a brief description of what it is.

4. Is the Grond article editable only by admin? I noticed at least one error but was unable to correct it.

5. What is our policy on articles beginning with "The"? I've noticed that some articles don't include it (Mouth of Sauron) and some do (The Hammer of Sauron). Does it depend on what it's describing, or is one preferable to the other?

Sorry if any of this is hard to understand, but I just wanted to ask/bring it to light. Also, please don't feel rushed to respond or that I'm demanding for any of this to be done; I just didn't want to do anything major without getting approval first. Thanks! -- Bitterhand (talk) 22:04, July 10, 2018 (UTC)

Re: Various Questions
Always glad to help; thanks for the response. And I didn't even realize there was a difference between fandom and fanon. Glad you cleared that up! :) I'll start on fixing the aforementioned issues soon. I also have a suggestion that we move the page Men of Rhudaur to a portrayals in adaptations section in the page Hill-men. The latter page contains an image of the former, and the former states that the men of Rhudaur are simply Hill-men living in Rhudaur. Thanks! Bitterhand (talk) 14:18, July 11, 2018 (UTC)

Articles to be deleted and merged
Just wanted to mention there are quite a few blank/duplicate articles - eleven, I think - that another user discovered and put into the articles for deletion category. It looks like there's several images as well to be deleted that look to have been there for a while. Also, I discovered another duplicate page of Isumbras Took III which I put in the articles to merge page. P.S. I now realize what I was doing wrong with regard to references; I was following the references guide and thought the quotes included went with the actual reference. So, glad you cleared that up. Thanks! -- Bitterhand (talk) 02:58, July 13, 2018 (UTC)

Hill-trolls
I just noticed that the Hill-troll article is listed as non-canon, even though Appendix A mentions them as having killed Arador the grandfather of Aragorn. Do you have any objections to me removing the non-canon tag and moving the info in the article to a Portrayal in adaptations section? Also, I noticed that the titles of some of the troll articles are plural (Mountain-trolls; Snow-trolls), and the rest are singular (Hill-troll). Is one or the other more correct? It seems to me we should keep them all the same at least for continuity's sake. There are probably a lot of other non-troll articles with the same potential issue as well. Thanks! -- Bitterhand (talk) 20:53, July 15, 2018 (UTC)

A few other questions and notes
Just had a few other various things I've noticed and wanted to mention:

1. How do we determine which characters/places are precanonical? In my mind, pages such as Rimion would qualify, since Bregor is later established to be Beren's grandfather, and both can't be correct in the finished canon. Probably Idis as well. Maybe my understanding isn't quite correct, but I just wanted to make sure.

2. I took the liberty of organizing many of the "unknown category" templates, but there are 14 or 15 left that are protected and I am unable to make any changes. It appears they should go into the "data" category as there are some similar templates there. It may not be all that important, but just wanted to mention. Also pertaining to the family tree templates, in https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Complete_Line_of_Tooks the links to Isengrim III and Isumbras IV appear to be broken, but I am also unable to edit the template.

3. Is there anything we can do about the "non-portable infoboxes" linked to on the right side of the recent activity page? It says converting is supposed to make the template compatible on mobile devices as well, and I can confirm at least one doesn't show up right on a mobile phone. I previewed converting one, but it seemed to mess up the original template, so just wanted to mention that as well.

4. For pages of rivers in Beleriand, I noticed some have the RiversofArda template, and a few have only the RiversofBeleriand template. Is one of these preferrable to the other, since Beleriand is included in Arda and all info in the RiversofBeleriand template is included in the one for Arda?

5. Might we ought to have separate pages for "Erebor" and the "Lonely Mountain"? In my understanding Erebor refers primarily, if not exclusively, to the dwarven city within/underneath the actual mountain, while "The Lonely Mountain" refers to the geological mountain, which would have had to have existed prior to the dwarves' discovery of it. Just a thought.

6. A couple more pages I found and put in Articles for deletion and Articles to merge. I didn't add The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth (List of units) since it very well may be allowed to remain, but it seems maybe more like the kind of thing that belongs on the Wiki for Middle-earth.

7. For the tengwar script template we have at the beginning of important articles (i.e Peregrin Took), the background is still white and looks clunky against the light gray wiki background. I remember when the skin changed a few years ago thus creating this problem, but I think it would look more professional if we were to match the template background with the article background. I feel like there's a relatively simple way to do this with wikitext, but I couldn't figure it out. Do you know if that's possible?

Again, no hurry to respond to any of this, and thanks for your help! Bitterhand (talk) 16:41, July 17, 2018 (UTC)

On second thought, the background on the mobile interface is still white, so perhaps there's a way to make the Tengwar template have a clear background? If not I suppose it isn't a big deal. -- Bitterhand (talk) 22:54, July 17, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, all that makes sense. Here's the link to where I was finding the templates: https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Templates. There are also some family trees here: https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Templates?type=design that appear to be in the wrong category.

Also, one other thing I wanted to mention, and this is just an idea that I've had for a while after seeing something similar at other places such as the Narnia wiki. For persons/things that are given no official name by Tolkien, but are later given names in non-canonical sources (the example I have in mind is Dain Ironfoot's red axe, called Barazanthual in the Battle for Middle-earth I think), there is the possibility we could have a canon article for the axe with the non-canonical title. The item itself is canon since Tolkien referenced it, but we could both avoid having two articles for the same thing and using the conjectural title notice. I made the following template for fun as what the notice might could look like if we were to do that, but in any case it's just a suggestion that I thought it might be kind of neat. Thanks again! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 01:18, July 18, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I completely agree when you put it that way... In light of that I guess it was sort of a silly suggestion. Good points about our universe being preceded and created by the Word and about the game producers being able to name stuff whatever they want. I've never actually played the Battle for Middle-earth, so I don't really have an affinity for it; and I would agree it's much better to not do what I suggested. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 12:19, July 18, 2018 (UTC)

Vandals
Just a heads up, User:PreSerumSteve, User:96.48.177.33 and User:24.129.165.118 have been vandalizing several pages over the last few hours. I've undone the harmful edits but they probably still need to be blocked. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 19:40, July 19, 2018 (UTC)

Other questions
I came up with several more questions over the last week, so I thought it would be best to bring them to your notice. I appreciate you taking the time to respond!

1. I have a suggestion to slightly modify the "stub" template. There's several articles I've noticed, such as several of the dwarves from The Hobbit, where the biography/history section needs to be expanded but not necessarily the rest of the article. Would you be open to amending the stub template to the following, or something similar?

This way, it can be used for both entire articles and individual sections, and could be used as an "expand" notice if a certain part needs to be elaborated on.

2. Following up on a question I asked a few weeks ago, should we add "The" to the titles of articles such as Mouth of Sauron and Mouth of Dol Guldur? Or remove them from articles such as The Hammer of Sauron and The Hand of Saruman? It appears the policy on Wikipedia is to exclude "The", but I wasn't sure if we adopt the same here.

3. I noticed we have an article for Faramir's sword. In light of your most recent response, should we delete this, since the sword isn't named and doesn't directly impact the story in any way?

4. I left a comment on Talk:Troll Purses which pretty much explains my thinking about this article. I've personally never seen anything to suggest what's currently written in the article is actually the case.

5. Not a huge deal here, but in line with regular encyclopedia standards, I changed the titles of the troll articles to singular as opposed to plural (hill-troll instead of hill-trolls), but there's a redirect page to Mountain-trolls titled "Mountain-troll", which prevents changing the title.

6. Speaking of the previous issue, I noticed that we have no articles for two chapters from The Fellowship of the Ring (novel): The Bridge of Khazad-dûm, and The Breaking of the Fellowship. I was also unable to create these, since for some reason identically-named redirect pages already exist. Can these be deleted? I can't see any reason why either of these need to redirect to the novel page, and it seems to have created a problem with the relevant hyperlinks.

7. Do you know why the deceased actors category keeps appearing when editing a living actor page? I created the article for John Tui today, and added the category even though I hadn't selected it, and there seems to be no way to get rid of it. I think Cate Blanchett has the same issue.

8. What are your thoughts about having separate articles for a character's title, for example Elbereth, simply another name for Varda? I've seen a few others, but I can't recall them at the moment. It seems to me that these should be merged and have the original title page redirect there, but perhaps there's valid reasoning for it.

9. Added merge suggestions for Hind, Badgers, and Middle-earth animals with List of animals. I don't really see a reason to have separate page for a female deer when "deer" is already in the larger list, and "badgers" can be included for the same reasons all the other animals are.

10. The article for Ered Glamhoth has no non-canon alerts or categories, but I have been unable to find any canonical source for this name; the only places it is referenced seem to be The Lord of the Rings Online and Middle-earth: Shadow of War. Do you have any idea about this? Also, are you familiar at all with the "rare map of Mordor"? There's a category for this with a grainy image, but I've been unable to find any references or info on it either.

11. One final thought; what do you think about creating a notice template for pre-canonical articles? My reasoning is that if an article has no notices or alerts, it should be safe to assume as an actual canonical thing (to use your analogy, in-universe "fact" as opposed to "fiction", as clear non-canon topics are). In my mind, things that are pre-canonical and have thus been replaced with something else are no longer "fact" in the most up-to-date version of the legendarium, as Tolkien discarded the idea. As you said, it is not "non-canon" since it still originates from Tolkien, but I think it might be good to make the differentiation a little clearer for the casual reader. The template could possibly look something like this:

That's just an idea of course; it could just as easily be something less attention-catching.

I know this is a lot of info, so don't feel hurried to respond. I'm interested to hear your thoughts, and thanks again for your assistance! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 02:18, July 25, 2018 (UTC)

Awesome! One other question; how do I revert the renaming of an article? I had already changed quite a few of these to the singular form, and I can't see how to undo that, since there are plural redirect pages now. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 02:16, July 26, 2018 (UTC)

Oh, wanted to ask this as well; do you think anything that only appears in the Book of Lost Tales (such as the Cottage of Lost Play and related things) can/should be considered pre-canon? It seems that most if not all of those stories were abandoned/replaced/heavily revised later on. Or should the category only apply to things that were directly replaced? -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 02:27, July 26, 2018 (UTC)

I thought that might be the case, so good to know. Also, will an admin have to revert/change the singularized page titles? I still can't find a way to fix that. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 12:18, July 26, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, sorry about the trouble! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 22:10, July 26, 2018 (UTC)

Non-canon Nazgul
What do you think about deleting the pages for the Nazgul identities created by the Games Workshop (i.e. The Dark Marshal, The Betrayer, etc.)? Essentially all the info on those pages is already included in the relevant section on the Nazgul page. <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 14:02, July 27, 2018 (UTC)

I checked and ensured all the info and pictures were already at Nazgûl, so these seven articles should be ready to delete. I'd be happy to do it myself, but I don't have the option to do so. Is it only admin that are able to delete pages? Or is there another level of access available? -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 21:59, July 27, 2018 (UTC)

Great, that needed taking care of. Also, just a note that The Tainted still needs to be deleted. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 02:19, July 28, 2018 (UTC)

Various things
Thanks for bringing up that about Uglúk; I previously removed the Servants of Sauron category, but didn't want to get in an edit war when that user replaced it.

Also was wondering; should we/do we have an infobox for real people who aren't actors? I've noticed several pages such as Emilíana Torrini that have the actor infobox and thus put them in the category for actors from that nationality, which I would imagine needs to be rectified.

And what do you think about the article for Nazg? To be consistent, we would either need to add all the other Black Speech words from the Ring poem, or delete it.

Thanks! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 00:15, August 2, 2018 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. Speaking of consistency, Dragon, Ent, and Warg need to be pluralized in the titles, as they were the only other race articles that had conflicting redirects. I've ensured the rest of the race articles are corrected. Also, I've added a few things to the Merge and Deletion categories. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 00:37, August 2, 2018 (UTC)

Re:

Ah yes, thanks for bringing that up. I used that category since it was already created, but I'll go back and add the corrected one to those pages. Also, I added a couple of new issues to the merge forum; if you could see what you think about those, that would be great. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 01:29, August 3, 2018 (UTC)

Ugluk
I put him in the category Servants of Sauron for a non-canon reason. In the books he a commander of the Isengard Uruk-hai soldiers sent by Saruman who is the Dark Lord's official ally while he secretly seeks the Ring for himself. But in the films Saruman serves Sauron thus if Ugluk serves Saruman he also serves Sauron. It's like a chain-of-command in Isengard in the films. Sauron is the Overlord, Saruman second-in-command and Ugluk like third-in-command (only for the Peter Jackson adaptation of The Lord of the Rings). So it's non-canon. If you wish to remove it's fine to me. Is there a problem that it's not canon?SwtorPlayer (talk) 10:12, August 5, 2018 (UTC)

Mordor locations
Before I go any further, should we have Non-canonical Mordor locations in addition to the Locations by the Landofshadow.com, since the latter is included with the former? -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 23:11, August 7, 2018 (UTC)

Got it, that makes a lot of sense. One other quick question: for the non-canon character infobox, should we edit it so the only actor/voice actor option isn't under "Peter Jackson's film trilogies"? There are, obviously, quite a few non-canon characters portrayed by actors not from Peter Jackson's trilogies; 'Born of Hope' or various video games for instance. Or another possibility I guess would be to make the current one specifically for PJ's films, and make another more generic infobox. Just thought I'd bring it to your attention. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 00:49, August 8, 2018 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake. It's the servants of evil infobox; such as in Bolg, with the same issue. The elves of Rivendell infobox as in Arwen has the same issue now that I look at it, and is, by the way, misspelled. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 01:05, August 8, 2018 (UTC)

Sauron's Fortress & Strongholds
Shouldn't Angband be in this category? For a time it was Sauron's fortress while Morgoth himself lived in Utumno before his return and theft of the Silmarils. After that Morgoth took Angband as his own. What do you say?SwtorPlayer (talk) 07:32, August 9, 2018 (UTC)

New issues
Just a few things I've noticed recently:

1. This user: "Quimirluna" recently moved the Moria page to "Khazad-dum", something I wouldn't ordinarily be opposed to, but our own policy page specifically states it should be Moria and not Khazad-dum, in keeping with the most common usage. Not sure if this is a big deal or not.

2. There's a couple of articles in both LOTR:Articles to be merged and LOTR:Articles for deletion that may have been overlooked.

3. Have you ever heard of a Inigo Baggins? I never have, and this page may be a candidate for deletion.

4. What is your opinion on the precise canonicity of The New Shadow? I know that this being a book-first wiki means that "canon" is anything in-universe that Tolkien wrote, but to me at least, the fact that he quickly abandoned the story because he specfically realized he disliked the premise seems to suggest we should include a caviat of some kind on characters/topics from that story. I don't know if that would be a simple notice, or a "Post-canon" category, or something else. Just my thoughts.

What are your thoughts on creating different pages for Fili and Kili? Judging from the title of the current article's talk page, this has come up before, but there seems to be several other users who also think they should have separate articles. As noted there, the characters have different pages on the Tolkien Gateway, and quite frankly, I think it makes more sense even if they are always mentioned together in the book, especially following The Hobbit films where they are given more individual personalities and stories. As I've never been a fan of putting two or more characters into one article, I'd also support different pages for Elladan and Elrohir, though that may be a somewhat different case from what I've already mentioned.

Thanks again! Let me know if you have any other questions or comments. <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 14:18, August 15, 2018 (UTC)

LOTR:Administrators
Hey, just wanted to let you know that the final paragraph of the first section of LOTR:Administrators is outdated. Wikia janitors have been renamed to VSTF (stands for Volunteer Spam Task Force—see the help page). Just thought you might want to know so you could fix it. Cheers,

Doesn't matter if it looks terrible,it needs to be said
Looks terrible?

The change in TLotR text about Aragorn's age has implications about the age of Arvegil that need noting.A "looks terrible" impression on your part doesn't change that.12.144.5.2 05:20, August 22, 2018 (UTC)

Responded here. '<font color="#248f24">HiddenVale -  <font color="#cccc00">TalkPage ' 00:41, August 23, 2018 (UTC)

Herumor (Fourth Age)
If he led a cult that worshipped the Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron alongside Saruman of Many Colours shouldn't he be put in the categories Servants of Morgoth, Servants of Sauron  and '''Agents of Saruman. '''Even if he hadn't been there to actually serve them he still worshipped them. What do you say? Have a nice day!SwtorPlayer (talk) 19:15, August 28, 2018 (UTC)

Vandal
Hello, could you please consider giving this vandal a block? Thanks.

My recent edits
I have just edited lots of articles but have realised that in Appendix B, in Shire Reckoning, SR 1541 is FO 120, which corresponds to SR 1540 in the Year template. Is there something wrong with my edits as some articles, I saw, were one year different from Appendix B ? I’m sorry for the inconveniences, SamtheHobbitoftheShire (talk) 14:54, August 30, 2018 (UTC)

RE: Small thing
Oh, my bad! Thank you for catching that. I have fixed that and re-added the rest of my edits.

Image Categories
What categories should I add to this image and this image?


 * Thanks, I have done as you said.

Vandal
Please consider blocking this vandal.


 * Another.


 * Another.

Vandalism
Hello there, I want to infrom you that this IP has vandalized pages here. Could you review their contributions and take any necessary actions? Thanks!

I've undone the damage done by this user, but I actually think they may not be intentionally vandalizing these pages. Most of the actual edits appear to be relevant or in good faith, and information was somehow deleted in several cases. Might want to clarify with the user first before blocking him. <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 13:48, September 6, 2018 (UTC)

Couple of questions
Could you delete this redirect so that a page with the same name can be created? The redirect's title is the name of a separate soundtrack from the complete recordings of the Fellowship of the Ring, but links to the corresponding track from the original recordings (The Prophecy). Since in every other case we have separate articles, I thought it would be best to keep that continuity.

Also, is it possible to rename categories without creating a wholly new one? I ask since this category contains only film soundtracks, which I take not to be actually non-canon but instead real-world, for the same reason we don't label the film articles as non-canon. If possible, I think we should consider renaming it, but if not, don't worry about it. That would be a huge project to create and update every soundtrack page with a new category.

Thanks! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 03:14, September 8, 2018 (UTC)

Great, thanks. I've recreated the correct article for the soundtrack. Have a great week as well! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 17:24, September 11, 2018 (UTC)

Template:T
Hey there, I've got a simple proposal for you. At present, Template:T doesn't even work like it's supposed to (example of how it's supposed to work); at present it really doesn't do anything. I'd like to clean up so that it actually works like the example above. I'd just like to make sure that's ok with you. :)


 * Excellent, will do tomorrow.


 * Done. Can you please delete Template:T/piece and Template:T/piece/doc? Both are unnecessary since the new version of Template:T uses Module:T instead of another template to function. I've already cleared Special:Whatlinkshere for them. Thanks!

Questionable pages
Just wanted to get your thoughts on this page and this page. I don't think either topic really deserves a page, though the list of upgrades article might could be whittled down and merged into the main game article. I see no reason at all to have a page for female hobbits; we don't have articles for female elves, dwarves, etc.

Also, it looks to me that List of animals should be merged with Middle-earth animals in some manner, as well as the Badgers article. It doesn't really make sense to have two similar pages about this.

Let me know if you have any questions! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 16:23, September 24, 2018 (UTC)

Ecthelion II of Gondo
Hello HiddenVale I created an article called Ecthelion II of Gondo which was supposed to be a redirect page as when linking to Ecthelion II this came up. I attempted to redirect it, however it has not worked and a useless article has now been created. I am sorry for the inconvenience, SamtheHobbitoftheShire (talk) 16:17, September 25, 2018 (UTC) It has actually just sorted itself out. Thank you, SamtheHobbitoftheShire (talk) 16:42, September 25, 2018 (UTC)

Profile Tags
Please remove the  tag from Jiskran, as they are no longer a member of Council. Thanks!


 * Done, but I've actually read the reverse. Linking like Pineapples is more efficient wikitext than Pineapples.

Bot
Hello, at present there is a template,, which does literally nothing. Apparently it was added by bots a while back and does not affect the page in any way. However, it clutters up a page's wikitext and is useless, so I'd like to remove it. If you think that's a good idea, could you ask FANDOM Staff to give my bot a bot flag in order to perform this action? Just to show that I know what I'm doing, here are a few examples of what I've done with my bot on other wikis: Anyway, once I perform this task I could also do some other actions, after checking with you, such as replacing  with   (as this is a bad practice). Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, as flagging a user as a bot is not something to be taken lightly. Thank you for your consideration!
 * Dev
 * Diep.io
 * Flanagan
 * MooMoo.io


 * Excellent. I see the rights have already been added, so I will get started tomorrow. Thanks!


 * Hahahaha, one time they sent this. :P

List of animals
I've merged the Middle-earth animals article into List of animals in the best way I could determine; if it looks good to you then the former article should be ready to delete. If not, just revert the edit and we can figure out another option. <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 20:50, September 28, 2018 (UTC)

Visual Editor
May I ask why you still use Visual Editor? Source editor is a lot more powerful, supports clean wikitext, loads faster, and results in greater editing efficency. I highly recommend that you enable it in Preferences. It takes a bit of getting used to but is a worthwhile investment.

Hobbit families and users
Just wanted to ask about a couple of things that occurred to me recently. First, should the title for a page about a certain Hobbit family be pluralized, or not? Some (Bolgers, Brandybucks) are pluralized, while the rest are singular (Boffin, Cotton). I'll be happy to standardize them to whichever option is preferable.

Also, is it acceptable to change categories on others' user pages when appropriate? I understand that it isn't allowed to edit the user pages themselves (nor do I have a desire to do so); however I only ask because I've noticed that there are at least several users in the "Active Contributors" category that have been inactive for over (or well over) three years. There are several other, mostly inactive, users that have superfluous categories as well.

Let me know if you have any questions!-- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 22:50, October 1, 2018 (UTC)

Infobox issues
Couple of quick things, firstly regarding the person infobox. I've noticed it includes the "characters" category, which is fine in most cases, but rather out of place on the article for Tolkien. It also appears on the articles for a few other real people, which can be seen in the following link: I recall you said that real people shouldn't have infoboxes, but it seems that in Tolkien's case it is warranted, especially with the amount of relevant information in it. Might we create an infobox specifically for real-world individuals? On a side note, several of the templates at the bottom of the page here: appear to warrant deletion, since they have been superseded by other infoboxes and aren't used on any pages.

Hope this makes sense; let me know if you have any questions. By the way, do you know what happened to the skin/background? I'm not sure what it's supposed to be showing. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 01:24, October 10, 2018 (UTC)

Also, forgot to mention there appears to be an issue with the actors infobox again, as seen on the Tom Walsh page, with the category appearing at the start of the article. I tried to fix the template code, but I couldn't seem to figure it out. Just wanted to give you a heads up on that. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 12:43, October 10, 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your kind message! I will do that definitely. I'm not at all savvy about how this site works yet sorry. Cheers.Roac&#39;s Wife (talk) 22:06, October 11, 2018 (UTC)

Re: Literature tiers
Cool, sounds like a good idea to me. I'll add it to the books I know off the top of my head and then as I come across the others. In related topics, what should The New Shadow be categorized as, since it was never finished and never fully published? Have a good day, -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 13:34, October 17, 2018 (UTC)

Reviewing our edits?
Are you really reviewing our edits? :P

<font color="blue;" font-family="Calibri;">Daryurian ( The Mighty Turian ) 06:46, October 19, 2018 (UTC)

Vandal
Hi I don’t know where I should leave the message but can you block this vandal? https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/User:MadIsOnNeRDY He deleted Hobbits and wrote actors’ names. Thanks, SamtheHobbitoftheShire (talk) 09:09, October 22, 2018 (UTC)

I’ve undone what he did. SamtheHobbitoftheShire (talk) 09:10, October 22, 2018 (UTC)

I’ve just found two more vandals: https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Contributions/216.159.104.204 https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Contributions/168.8.216.250 The first added an inappropriate phrase and the second (168.8.216.250) corrected “to” to “too”. Does that count as vandalism? Block the first and please decide on the second. SamtheHobbitoftheShire (talk) 17:54, October 23, 2018 (UTC)

I caught this IP vandalising on “Stumpy” sectioni in Guldur Olog-hai

Undid the edit and please block him.

SamtheHobbitoftheShire (talk) 07:21, October 26, 2018 (UTC)

BOTFA category
All the images from the old category have been moved to the new one. I think we can go ahead and delete the original category, since we might as well correct the name if we decide to make a category for images solely from the battle itself. Also, the following categories need to be deleted as well as they are empty and have been replaced: [], [], []. Have a good day! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 14:34, October 24, 2018 (UTC)

Bot Update
Hey, I've removed  from about 720 articles. You can review my contributions here if you wish. I must apologize for how long it took, but the template had been added in such a way that I had to make my edits semi-manually. Besides removing this template, I also took the opportunity to do some minor formatting. In addition, I removed and added many "External Links" headers based on if they had any links below them or not. If you could delete Template:Space, as well as Template:Botremoved, that would be great. I've already cleared Whatlinkshere for them and marked them for deletion. In a few days I'll hopefully run my bot to fix a few minor things (e.g.  ->  ).


 * No problem.


 * Did you ever get a chance to delete those two templates?

Thoughts on canonicity
I posted a message on LOTR talk:Canon about this; just wanted to see what you thought. Thanks! <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 19:55, October 30, 2018 (UTC)

Canonicity
In regard to my earlier message about canonicity, DarkLantern cleared up some confusion I may have had, since for some reason I had forgotten that what was finished of The New Shadow was later published in The Peoples of Middle-earth; my mistake. In my understanding, though, there is still discussion on whether or not it should be considered canon, along with things from The Book of Lost Tales that are clearly from a point where Tolkien had a different view of his legendarium. Our policy seems to say that we consider "canon" anything Tolkien put down on paper pertaining to Middle-earth, and I have no problem with that. I do think, though, that it's impossible to say for sure what Tolkien himself believed in regard to the "canonicity" of his earlier writings by the point at which he wrote The Lord of the Rings. With that in mind, I think it might be a good idea to include a small notice on ostensibly relevant articles that there is discussion as to the status of the content, something possibly akin to the attached template.

For reference, the Tolkien Gateway has a similar category containing what they consider disputed material. Please understand I'm not saying we have any obligation to copy what TG does (we don't); I only mention it as an illustration.

I also just want to be clear that I'm not demanding this or saying it's a necessary idea, because it's just that, an idea. I don't want to beat a dead horse, just wanted to make sure I clearly expressed my opinion. Please feel free to disagree or let me know with any thoughts or comments. Thanks, and I appreciate the feedback! <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 20:40, November 2, 2018 (UTC)

I think that topics from works such as The Adventures of Tom Bombadil would certainly qualify (the article itself even says so), since it's not clear if the places/beings mentioned are real or imaginary. There's quite a bit of material from The Peoples of Middle-earth and The Book of Lost Tales that, while not explicitly replaced by anything, seems fairly logical to me to assume that Tolkien moved on from (Pixies, Sprites). I would also consider things involving characters that are clearly pre-canon (Ælfwine) to be disputed, since without the pre-canon character there wouldn't really be much of a story there (The Cottage of Lost Play). I hope this makes sense, and again this is simply my opinion. We certainly have to be careful labeling things, but in this case we'd just be saying "we're not sure", as opposed to "this is not canon". -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 21:29, November 4, 2018 (UTC)

Do you think that Roverandom and Farmer Giles of Ham would fall under disputed canonicity, or simply not connected to the "canon"? The texts do contain some allusions to Middle-earth, but it seems pretty obvious they weren't intended to be a part of the main continuity. Obviously, works like Mr. Bliss, Smith of Wootton Major, and probably Leaf by Niggle were never intended to be part of Middle-earth, so I can't see any controversy/uncertainty there. <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 21:13, November 5, 2018 (UTC)

Real
Hello! Right now we have Real, which adds a small icon to the left hand side of pages that are about "real world" things. The problem is that right now it tends to overlap with text and images, resulting in a strange appearance, not to mention making it harder to see. Here's an example of this happening. However, there's a pretty simple way for us to solve this issue: import the EraIcons script. This will move the icon above the page header, putting it in a logical and easily-seen spot that won't overlap with the page's content. If you think this is a good idea, just add  to MediaWiki:ImportJS and I can handle the rest. Thank your for consideration and have a great day!


 * Hey, I've implemented the script, although I did forget one part. Please add  to MediaWiki:Common.js so that it will recieve appropriate styling. AS you can see here, the template is in about the right spot but the hover tooltip is messed up. I think this should fix it. Don't forget to submit the page for review, so that Staff can approve the changes. Cheers,


 * Looks like they've accepted the JS change. Let me know if you're satisfied with the style or if you want any changes. Also, are you aware of any other templates like this one?

Hi can you block this [] user? Has been replacing vital information on important pages with random phrases. SamtheHobbitoftheShire (talk) 08:02, November 11, 2018 (UTC)

Questionable articles
Would you take a look at these articles when you get a chance? Some, if not all of them, may deserve deletion or a rehaul. Just wanted to make sure they didn't get lost behind more recent edits. Thanks! -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 17:40, November 12, 2018 (UTC) Agreed, there's just no sense in having articles for non-unique things/animals, however well-written they may be. Also, I found this in a seemingly forgotten, duplicate category; it appears to need some updating but I'm not sure if there's a formal policy as of now. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 18:48, November 13, 2018 (UTC)
 * River Hobbits
 * Potato
 * Fish and Chips
 * Morgoth's other creatures
 * (Obsolete category for Rhun)
 * Hobbits and Wizards.com
 * Middle-earth animals (This one might should be shortened to just a list of named animals and renamed. Everything else is already at List of animals.)
 * Template:Conjecture (No reason for redirect)

Vandalism of Isildur page
User 2601:182:4201:F9A0:4D5F:76D0:54D:B659 made many vandalizing edits to this page. I undid them. Please check it out.

Xkcd1BeretGuy (talk) 08:42, November 13, 2018 (UTC)

Blocked
Hi HiddenVale, this is Bitterhand. Apparently I made a mistake when trying to revert the spam left on the "Hobbits" page yesterday, but somehow it shows that I replaced the spam. This was not my intention whatsoever, obviously, but DarkLantern blocked me without a warning and I have been unable to make any contact here, as I have no ability to edit anything. I left DarkLantern a message on the Fandom community site, but I'm afraid it didn't go through. This IP address, by the way, is an older device of mine that I used to contribute some years ago. If you could help or contact DarkLantern for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks! 68.113.85.254 22:39, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! That was indeed me from another device. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 03:55, November 20, 2018 (UTC)

Year template
I left a message here yesterday, but I'm afraid no one saw it since it didn't show up on the main activity log. Not sure how familiar you are with the relevant coding; but just wanted to let you know. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 18:57, November 24, 2018 (UTC)

Great! I see what you mean there with the grammar error, but otherwise everything looks like it's been corrected. I'll take a look at the code, but I won't change anything unless I can definitively find the error. Also, would you delete the redirect SR 1540 as long as we're fixing the date system? I'm not sure why it's redirecting to SR 1541. -- <font face="DK Northumbria">Bitterhand <font face="Angerthas">(talk) 04:02, November 26, 2018 (UTC)

Beware this user: Adding non-canon characters
Hi HiddenVale. Be aware a user with [|this IP] may add non-characters. I've already undid his/her edit to the Dunedain page. Xkcd1BeretGuy (talk) 08:42, November 27, 2018 (UTC)