Talk:The Lord of the Rings

Hope I am on the right page! Clearly this entry is just starting, but I figured better to get something set up and work on it over time! Sorry for missing name! Robinr 20:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

A nice start :) Just a thought -- do we want to use "The" before this title? I tend to think more common usage drops the The. If we decide to leave it, a redirect page will be needed. PS - don't forget to sign your comments on talk pages, or we don't know who made them. Use four tildes to sign and date. Cheers. -Melina 19:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we definitely want them sorted by "Lord of the Rings, The" rather than "The etc." because otherwise we'll have a 'the' section a mile long. I've edited the categories using Hope's thingamabob at How to add categories --Betty 21:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with regard to the sorting, but that is a separate question, I think. Also, since this entry seems to be focused on the book, I'm wondering if it shouldn't be named "Lord of the Rings (book)" to distinguish it from Lord of the Rings the movie, however we want to name that... and we might need a disambiguation page. Oh fandom, why some complicated :) -Melina 22:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops! Yeah, totally separate, I mostly just wanted to try out the categorization thingy. And I'd agree with the (Book) rider, but maybe it's worth leaving that decision until we see how entry grows? It might be simpler to have book and movie categories on the page until it gets big enough that that's unwieldy, or do them as subcategories? Betty 00:37, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll probably be working on both in the early stages, and would think it best to have them as separate entries. I thought having the category marker as Books & Literature would be enough, but maybe not. The fandom will be a real challenge since book fandom existed for decades before the film came out!20:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Keygenre terms: I have them listed in the template, but they are not showing up on the page: genrekeywords= fantasy, epic fantasy, novel, quest fantasy Robinr 20:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I think Hope decided to take the genre keywords out of the template, the thought being that they were redundant and not really that helpful. -Melina 21:29, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I got here from Smial--a subpage of Lord of the Rings, but apparently, not a subpage of The Lord of the Rings. Is there some way to automatically move subpages when a main page redirects? (Also, are there other subpages to Lord of the Rings that are now orphaned? My wiki skills aren't quite up to sorting that out right now.) --Elfwreck 22:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I think I have it all sorted now. The old page no longer reports any subpages, and the listing here has the 3 I just moved. --rache 22:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

There are several other pages that are still subpages of Lord of the Rings and therefore aren't linked from here. Lord_of_the_Rings/Frodo_Baggins, Lord_of_the_Rings/Meriadoc_Brandybuck, and Lord_of_the_Rings/Samwise Gamgee are ones I want to work on. Is there an easy way of moving them? I'm also uncertain as to what should be subpages of this page and what should be subpages of Lord of the Rings RPF. --Sophinisba 22:38,

24 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: the subpages here, I'm not sure of their relevance - the focus of the page needs to be on the fandom around Lord of the Rings, rather than the canon. If there ought to be a page about fannish engagement with and exploration of Bag End, then certainly create a page, but if it's just a documentation/explanation of the canon, then I think we can just point people to one of the multitudes of LOTR wikis and fansites out there *g* You're welcome to create a section to "further resources" on the main page to link people to such places where they can get more info on the canon. --Hope 22:40, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I do see your point, but a fandom like LOTR has at least some - maybe lots of - specialized terms. I could see moving all the definitions to one subpage (a LOTR glossary, I guess?), but (and this is just my opinion, of course) definitions of words like "smial," "mathom" and "moot" are useful in fandom context. For instance, fandom gatherings in LOTR and LOTRPS came to be called "moots." We could do them as footnotes, but I think they would re-occur more than once.

And I am confused about the "not enough fannish content" tags on the subpages. For instance, I haven't gotten back to the Pippin page, but it's been tagged as having not enough fannish content. Well, I don't know if anyone else is working on it (and if they are, I'd like to hear their input), but right now I'm just starting off with basic definitions, so I can work my way to the fandom interpretations. I feel a bit rushed, seeing that the tag has already been added when I haven't even finished a basic description of the character to give readers a place to start. I just started the entry on October 5th, you know? I think adding these tags to entries a week after the wiki has opened is a bit hasty (as Treebeard might say). Should I consider the tags as a notice that the page will be deleted if more fannish content isn't added soon? Because if not, I don't see the use of them (at least as they're worded now); and if so, I feel hurried and, frankly, a bit irritated. I'm happy to keep working on the wiki - I LOVE it, I honestly do, but I don't have time to do it constantly, and, well - did I mention that it's only been a week? --User:Apple_pi 19:24, 13 October 2008.

The tags were added because there's too much canon focus. I haven't really looked at the LotR pages, but like with the SGA pages, some of them had 1000 words of canon info. Regardless of how much fandom info eventually gets put in, a lot of that canon info needs to be trimmed down. Canon info should be a teensy part of any page. --Kyuuketsukirui 00:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess I disagree, there. The fandom information will (I hope) grow and continue to grow as the fandom changes and as people add more information -- especially this! The wiki is still in its infant stages, and I don't think it's realistic at this point to expect that every entry will be completely fleshed out.

That said, the canon information is important, I think. I don't see the point of having a discussion without any context, and a page about a character which ignore the context, or minimalizes it, doesn't sound either useful or interesting to me. Looking at this as an archive for later fen, I think having the canon information present adds to the depth of the fandom discussion. --User:Apple_pi 20:08, 13 October 2008.

I suspect that many fandoms could have a "canon details" heading on their page (or something like that), and very large fandoms could have a "canon details" subpage--not an in-depth glossary & history, but enough to allow someone unfamiliar with the canon to appreciate fanworks created for it. Very, very large fandoms (LotR, HP, ST) might have a handful of canon subpages, but still not a page for every canon character or concept. --Elfwreck 23:17, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the key, really, is that Fanlore is not meant to be a substitute for a huge canonical resource like the Encyclopedia of Arda or a similar resource. We can link to those resources or refer to them, but an incredible level of canonical detail isn't really appropriate for Fanlore -- it's primary focus has to be fandom. So for example, an explanation of terms widely used in the fandom is great, but a detailed history of Elvish history since the First Age, probably not so much :) -Melina 04:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, the point of the page is a starting place for LOTR fandom, because canon's really covered elsewhere, with links to some good sources like wikipedia and war of the ring and so on. We should probably put stuff like the Ringers movie in here, plus links to pages on Hobbit fandom and Men, and Men/Elves and stuff like that. --Msilverstar 00:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Fandom-oriented section reorganization

I'm rearranging the sections to focus more on fandoms and events. I'm not wedded to any of it, just a first stab at this kind of organization. --Msilverstar 03:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Golly, there's an LOTR Wiki with 2948 articles. lotr.wikia.com/.--Msilverstar 04:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Turned out to be a wikipedia scraper. But I found lots of other cool sites! --Msilverstar 05:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Fanfic archives section in Lord of the Rings FPF

Most of the fanfiction stuff should go in Lord of the Rings FPF and Lord of the Rings RPF, but we'll need lots of links from here to those pages. --Msilverstar 07:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Should those 2 pages be subpage of this master listing? Right now, they are separate master pages, and would need to be moved to 'The Lord of the Rings/FPF' and 'The Lord of the Rings/RPF'. --rache 23:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

If that's how other fandoms are doing it, I'm all for consistency. --Msilverstar 01:17, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Pages moved, Sub-pages recalculated for front page

I moved the RPF and the FPF pages under this main one, and then modified the main page to get all the subpages to display. If some are still missing, please use the Template:AttentionGardeners, and let us know which ones still need to be rounded up. --rache 02:37, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

fandom?

What should I be using as the fandom when I'm adding Tolkien zines? "Tolkien"? "Lord of the Rings"? A variation of this? Mrs. Potato Head 19:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd link to the Tolkien page if it was a Doylist zine (like talking about the author), to LOTR if it was Watsonian, or to both if it was unclear what the focus is.--RatCreature 20:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that the ones I'm doing now are more about the books. But I'm going to add both just in case. Mrs. Potato Head 20:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyone up for expanding this?

It really needs help. I can add to the later movie fandom, but have done as much as I can with book fandom. --msilverstar 03:22, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

What here and what on the Tolkien page?

That top section on Tolkien's view on fandom feels to me like something that should go on his page J.R.R. Tolkien instead. And some of the fanclubs mentioned, which sprung up around this book fandom,feels like it might have overlaps with other works like the Hobbit (especially when named something like Tolkien Society) - in which case, would it be good to move some of the content to the Tolkien page? Distracteddaydreamer (talk) 15:58, 7 February 2024 (UTC)