LOTR:Community Portal

re-writing/re-organising

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 an encyclopedia entry, whereas this is a middle earth encyclopedia, which is completely different.

Merging

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

Purpose of this page

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.

Making new articles

See Help:creating articles.

Dealing with spam

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-Wiki

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" pages

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 Wikicities, which may be copied or linked to.

Particular pages that may be useful are:

• Help:creating articles
• Help:editing

Middle-earth dates

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 the Fourth.

Please use this page's discussion page for questions and opinions.

Administrators

See LOTR:Administrators.

Projects

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!

Encyclopedia of Arda

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 (unlike Wikipedia) but the lists there (which claim to have nearly 5000 headings) can serve as a guide to creating articles. here is their list of most recently updated articles, and they say they have 3014 entries currently.

Featured pictures, Featured article, Collaboration of the Month, Articles for Deletion, DidYouKnow, Missing encyclopedic articles

J.R.P.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium
Published works	The Hobbit (1937) • The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring [1954] • The Two Towers [1954] • The Return of the King [1955]) • The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book [1962] • The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle [1967]
Posthumous publications	Bilbo's Last Song [1974] • The Silmarillion [1977] • Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth [1980] The History of Middle-earth (The Book of Lost Tales Part One [1983] • The Book of Lost Tales Part Two [1984] • The Lays of Beleriand [1985] • The Shaping of Middle-earth: The Quenta, The Ambarkanta, and The Annals [1986] • The Lost Road and Other Writings [1987] • The Return of the Shadow [1988] • The Treason of Isengard [1989] • The War of the Ring [1990] • Sauron Defeated [1992] • Morgoth's Ring [1993] • The War of the Jewels [1994] • The Peoples of Middle-earth [1996] • Index [2006]) The Great Tales of Middle-earth (The Children of Húrin [2007] • Beren and Lúthien [2017] • The Fall of Gondolin [2018]) The Nature of Middle-earth [2021] • The Fall of Númenor [2022] • The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien [2024] Articles about Middle-earth by... Category • Name • Writings • Characters • Living Creatures • Rivers • Realms • Ages