Purpose of this pageEdit

The name of this page suggests that it should be a doorway to all main parts of this wiki. Initially, the Main Page has had much of that. Please "Discuss this page" if you have any ideas for what should be here.

Re-writing/re-organising Edit

Feel free to re-write and re-organise the articles here as you see fit, especially those articles which have come from Wikipedia. Be bold in making changes to the articles here. Much of the content has come from Wikipedia, where it is written to be a general encyclopedia entry, whereas this is a Middle-earth encyclopedia, which is completely different.

Talk pages Edit

Full list: [1]

Video Edit

You can add Youtube video to any lotr wiki page, see Help:Youtube for more information.

MergingEdit

The template {{merge}} can be added to articles which need merging - if a duplicate article exists. We should have different pages for places and people with different names, for instance there should be separate articles on Minas Morgul and Minas Ithil; and on Aragorn and Strider (which makes us different to wikipedia), however there are some articles which should be merged, such as where it is exactly the same subject, for instance Fangorn Forest and Fangorn forest is the same thing with a different case letter. When merging, try to preserve content which has been contributed by LOTR wiki contributors, at the expense of that which has been copied from wikipedia. See LOTR:Merging and moving pages

Making new articlesEdit

See Help:creating articles.

Dealing with spamEdit

Most of our responsible contributors look at the list of Recent Changes. Spam is removed when seen. It should then be reported at http://www.wikicities.com/wiki/Talk:Spam_Blacklist.

Guidelines for copying articles from Wikipedia to LOTR-WikiEdit

1. Copy as much as possible.
2. Do not just copy an article from wikipedia:Wikipedia and paste it on top of one of our articles. Adding a few words copied from Wikipedia may be OK, but if it is more than a few words you have to say exactly which Wikipedia page it came from.
3. See LOTR: copying from Wikipedia.

Also check WikiProject Middle-earth/AfD which has information about Middle-earth related articles which are currently or were previously listed for possible deletion. Wikipedia's policy towards Middle-earth articles has been discussed here

"Help" pagesEdit

As with many other MediaWiki projects, "Help" has a separate namespace (and related talkspace) all to itself. Start at Help:contents, and if any subject is getting a bit long move it (leaving link) to another "Help:..." page (easier to type than "LOTR:Help:..."). There may be a corresponding page at Central Wikia, which may be copied or linked to.

Particular pages that may be useful are:

• Help:creating articles
• Help:editing

Middle-earth datesEdit

At this moment we have at least 40 links written in the form "xxxx T.A.". But Wikipedia uses "T.A. xxxx" and there could be value in following that.

For less typing, long-term, however, we could (on the analogy of the modern "AD xxxx") remove the full stops and say "TA xxxx" for the Third Age and "FA xxxx" for either the Fourth or the First.

Please see the discussion at Category talk:Dates for questions and opinions.

AdministratorsEdit

See LOTR:Administrators.

Projects Edit

There are several lists at Wikipedia for Middle-earth related articles. These have been copied to List of Middle-earth articles and List of Middle-earth characters. Help turn all these red links blue!

CategoriesEdit

If you have a "spare" half-hour, look at http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Uncategorizedpages and see if you can put some of those pages into categories. Use the Wikipedia categories (with name-changes where necessary) unless sure that there are better ones here.

Encyclopedia of ArdaEdit

The Encyclopedia of Arda has lists of middle earth articles. We should try to have an article for every article they have. Information must not be copied directly, since it is copyrighted (Wikipedia however is licenced under the GFDL) but the lists there (which claim to have nearly 5000 headings) can serve as a guide to creating articles. Their list of most recently updated articles has 3014 entries currently.

A "welcome" template Edit

You can use the {{subst:welc1}} template to welcome newcomers: just place it on their talk page. This template can be edited here or you can copy it to make your own personalised welcome.

StatisticsEdit

The standard "statistics" page is a bit bare. Much more detail is at Wikistats. See which contributors are really helping and how long they have been with us!

Article Attack AwardEdit

Main Project Page: LOTR:Article Attack

See main project page to make nominations for articles that need article attack.
The article attack award is a new way, in which contributors can enhance pages in great need of work, and detail. The user who contributes the best edits will be awarded the Article Attack Award.