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)