Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/Pages

	This page is within the scope of WikiProject Middle-earth, which aims to build an encyclopedic guide to J. R. R. Tolkien, his legendarium, and related topics. Please visit the project talk page for suggestions and ideas on how you can improve this and other articles.Middle-earthWikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earthTemplate:WikiProject Middle-earthTolkien articles
Note: Though it states in the Guide to writing better articles that generally fictional articles should be written in present tense, all Tolkien legendarium-related articles that cover in-universe material before the current action must be written in past tense. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Standards for more information about this and other article standards.

How is the list generated?

Nice list! How is it being generated? I've thought of doing something like this, but never got round to it. Will something like this (for the articles) replace List of Middle-earth articles? I guess it is possible to get something similar if you use Special:CategoryTree and apply it to Category:Tolkien. I guess category and template lists can be generated from the template categories, and/or using "what links here" for {{ME-category}}. Carcharoth 03:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Another list (articles only, no redirects), generated using Special:CategoryTree on the root category, with duplicates removed, is page-history-linked at Category:Tolkien. Go there and click on the link, or follow this link (same as link on category page). That list has 1332 articles, and includes things like the film actors and other stuff only vaguely related to Tolkien. How does this list compare with the one on this portal subpage? Carcharoth 04:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The list so far was generated from my watchlist + List of Middle-earth articles + List of Middle-earth peoples + a few other big list pages. I've just been grabbing lists from various places and using Word & Excel to manipulate them into a consistent format and eliminate duplicates. Currently I am going through a printed copy systematically and marking items that shouldn't be in there for removal... though some of those are judgment calls. I wasn't sure about things like ZAngband or Alfheim. Both have Tolkien connections, but my goal here was to use this for recent changes to Tolkien articles. If we included every page which links to Middle-earth in any way there'd end up being alot of not really relevant issues listed as 'recent changes'. I've been contemplating some sort of standard like 'if 75% of updates to a page are going to have nothing to do with Tolkien then it is not a Tolkien page for purposes of this list'. Anyway, after removing things I was going to merge in the contents of a few more lists, duplicate and adjust that whole list to add all the corresponding talk pages, and then actually announce that I'd got a starting point ready for this / see how many of the 'articles which mention Tolkien' people would want to include. --CBD 12:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I contributed the category list (linked above), which after comparing the lists, resulted in the articles below to consider for addition. Is that useful or was that part of the "few more lists" you are planning to use? What other lists/sources are you thinking of using? A category list of the articles in Category:WikiProject Middle-earth might be useful (I found three new templates the other day, which had been created in October 2006: {{AnarionHeirs}}, {{IsildurHeirs}} and {{Arnor}} - what is the best way to improve this process so the list can be kept up to date?). One category causes problems at the moment because it is so big (at least for my method of listing articles within a category structure) - the redirects category has more than 200 pages, so that has to be treated separately.

About relevance. I remember, a while back, going through "what links here" for Middle-earth and Tolkien, and discussing the results with you, but I agree that lots of those would be irrelevant. Rather than work with the whole list. How about the list below is used as an example of where the line should be drawn? I'll give a few examples below it. Carcharoth 15:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and updated the list with a fairly low relevance thresh-hold. I included most of the pages linking to J. R. R. Tolkien, only excluding those where Tolkien got a one or two line mention in a large article. I also copied in all the talk pages so that a recent changes display for this page should cover almost everything Tolkien related. If we find that there is too much extraneous stuff we can strip out some of the less relevant pages. --CBD 17:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statistics

The list at Portal:Middle-earth/Pages (as of 20/01/2007) has 3115 entries. The list here has 1332 entries. Intersecting these lists can come later. Carcharoth 05:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are 1161 pages on both lists, around 170 only on the category list, and 1954 only on the portal list. There is one repeat on the portal list: Húrin I. The 170 pages that are on the category list, but not on the portal list, are lots of actors, but also some genuine Tolkien-related articles that probably should be on the portal list. See below. Carcharoth 05:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Articles to add to the list

Well, maybe not the actor articles. But some of the others should be added. A quick scan down the list reveals that MAngband got missed, though you did have ZAngband. Don't know how the portal list missed Magic (Middle-earth) and List of Middle-earth Dwarves, but those have to be in there. Carcharoth 05:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Full list removed to page history. See here. Carcharoth 15:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Subdivisions of the above list

The following are subdivisions of the above list of around 170 articles not yet on the main Portal list. The subdivisions are intended to help clarify where to draw the line on what to include in a "Related Changes" page for WikiProject Middle-earth. Carcharoth 15:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tolkien

Articles on non-Middle-earth Tolkien-related stuff. 100% relevancy.

Middle-earth

Articles probably directly related to Middle-earth. 100% relevancy.

People

People associated in some way with Tolkien or what happened After Tolkien. Relevancy varies.

After Tolkien

Articles on fandom and inspirations after Tolkien. Relevancy varies.

End lists Carcharoth 15:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Missing stuff

Some large groups of missing stuff include the images at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Images, though that is a good record in itself. I also found a category of images at Category:The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game Images. Carcharoth 12:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removed entries

I have just removed several entries from the list since they had little connection to Tolkien/his works/fandom etc. but were constantly present on the recent changes page (notably Led Zepellin, which is even listed on Special:Mostrevisions.) Moreover, I generally support the notion proposed above to remove similar links: for example, Orlando Bloom or Christopher Lee articles, though certainly more important to the WikiProject than some redirects, already contain all relevant information, so we naturally do not need to watch them (there are other Projects that do this). The same goes for people who had dubbed a single role in an animated movie and for 'influenced' bands. Súrendil 20:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remove them, sure, but maybe set up a subsidiary list for "peripheral" stuff. It is worth keeping an eye on them to make sure they don't get Tolkien and Middle-earth stuff wrong. I'd add in here anything that links to J. R. R. Tolkien, his works, or Middle-earth, but isn't within the scope of the WikiProject. Carcharoth 23:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]