User talk:Akhorahil

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-- Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 12:47, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Talk pages

It is admirable your commitment to recognising the need for consensus in the community, but I think you need to be a little bolder. Talk pages primarily exist to raise questions with other editors or to resolve issues. Talk pages aren't for:

• Declaring whether you don't object to an edit
• Feeling you need to comment on other people's edits to your edits
• Gaining permission from others

You will find that when you edit an article that will bring it to the attention of everyone else, and therefore the are themselves much more likely to edit it. I would encourage you to simply accept this rather than commenting every time. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 22:09, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Maps

Hello, I am happy for your positive comments about my edits. As for the things you asked me, I am presently using Reader's Companion for sources, and I don't have any knowledge about the maps you are referring to, and don't have any information that I could add about them. Sage 06:06, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Criticism of Lalaith

Hello, thank you for correcting my old edits. I used to follow Lalaith in his forum and website posts and I admired his wide knowledge and ability to connect and combine information from various sources. It is obvious that 10 years ago it seemed to me a good idea to use some of his work as sources to improve the articles here. I was shocked when I read in one of your posts that you compare Lalaith to notorious David Day. It is great that you can point out mistakes and misunderstandings in his articles, and correct some "damage" we might have done. Feel free to correct any "Lalaithisms" from my past edits.

I notice that you often mention that his commercially-published articles can be read for free in the internet archive, but I am not sure how much it is legal or ethical to point it out. Any creator can publish their work for free, and then has the liberty to unpublish it and/or change its license at any point later and commercialise it. The fact that it once had been free, or that its formerly free version has been backedup somewhere, doesn't give us the right to behave as if it's always free. The operation of the IA itself raises such legal copyright and privacy issues. I don't know if Lalaith would have the legal right to sue anyone who points out (or encourages reading) the free online versions of his articles, or ask the IA to remove them from its archives. What do you think? Sage 08:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes you are right I used Lalaith's page while writing that article, years ago, when we didn't ay much attention in sources. I thought the way he found minute details about those obscure peoples, his insights and how he combined them to make a narrative was encyclopedic and belonged here, especially since I didnt have ready access to those sources. I don't disagree to your objections and I don't intend to do the same in the future. I am sure you can make a better job than him. Sage 17:32, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

British English

Medieavalism is an acceptable spelling (particularly in British English). I take the point on the second mistake; the first spelling was not a mistake and I expect an apology from you for your rude and inaccurate edit summary. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 15:18, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I accept the fact that mediaevalism is an alternative spelling of medievalism that is included in the dictionaries that you just cited. Before I made my edit I looked up mediaevalism in the Merriam Webster dictionary and the entry for mediaevalism says that "The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary" and it shows medievalism as a spelling suggestion. I also clicked on the medievalism spelling suggestion and the page in this dictionary does not show mediaevalism as an alternative spelling. I assumed in good faith, but in retrospect in error, that mediaevalism was not a correct spelling. This leaves the question why you invested your time to change medievalism, which is the primary spelling in the dictionaries that you cited, to mediaevalism, which is only an alternative spelling? As you admitted, the second point in your edit was a mistake, and it is a fact and not rude to state that introducing a mistake is not tidying up, when the person that introduced the mistake expressly claimed to have tidied it up. I perceive your frequent edits with extremely brief comments in the summary box without discussing your intent to make changes to edits on which other users have spent time and effort on the talk page of the page that is edited as rude. Several other users who frequently make changes first propose to make changes and discuss them if the changes are not restricted to correcting spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, adding missing references or correcting wrong references. I perceive the behaviour of those other users as polite and respectful of the time and effort that other users have made to edit those pages. If I find errors in your edits, I will correct them and provide a reference to prove that they were errors. --Akhorahil 16:45, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Mucho texto. As both words are correct, we should use "Medievalism", as it is the spell most widely used in the wiki. Akhorahil, be more polite: Mith is the only active admin, and his revisions may seem rush, but without that this wiki would be a mess. --LorenzoCB 18:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

You say you acted in good faith, but continue to assume I acted in bad faith. You conflate "tidied up" (which I did do) with "fixing"/"correcting a mistake" (it isn't); we're all human and mistakes can be introduced when tidying up. You also refuse to apologise and instead proceed with a type of "whataboutery" with regards to talk pages when I have explained to you above what talk pages are not for. I'm disappointed in you, and I will shall remember this for our future interactions. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:18, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I notice that you haven't responded to the above. What you are doing instead is attempting to embarrass me, or insult me, via edit summaries, implying that I am somehow accountable for every American spelling you find on this wiki on a page I have edited. This is not friendly behaviour and if you persist I will take further action. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:26, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

In fact, looking at the histories of the articles, some are plain wrong (such as Causeway Forts where the error was inserted after I edited it) and others are basically slanderous (like on Beleg where the wiki software was older and different back then and I did was move the content, see the content of the article Beleg Strongbow). As you cannot change an edit summary, you will apologise to me or I shall take further action. --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:33, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

As you have edited a couple of articles, you surely must have seen the above messages. Do you wish to apologise? --Mith (Talk/Contribs/Edits) 18:18, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Recent edits to Narchost‎ and Carchost‎ articles

Hello, I saw you recently added to the Narchost‎ and Carchost‎ articles, but note the message at the top that states these are in the process of being merged into Towers of the Teeth. It would be better to add directly to the Towers of the Teeth article instead of expand on these two articles that will soon be redirected to it. --Oromë 15:02, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I saw the merge tags on the Narchost and Carchost pages and the discussions about merging them with the Towers of the Teeth page before I made my edits. I decided to make the edits on the Narchost and Carchost pages first and to edit the Towers of the Teeth page later, since it has not been conclusively decided to merge those pages with the Towers of the Teeth page. I will edit the Black Gate page later, because the history of its construction is different and because it needs more and different references than the Towers of the Teeth page. --Akhorahil 15:52, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Paul Strack

I like the work you do on etymologies and find it to be quite helpful. It might be worth making a Paul Strack page, since his name is appearing in many etymology sections of articles (example 1, example 2). A quick google of “Paul Strack Tolkien Gateway” suggests there are at least 20-30 articles on TG whose Etymology section contains a phrase such as “Paul Strack suggests”. I am no expert on etymology, and so at first I was wondering who Paul Strack is and why he appeared to be a reputable source I could trust. Therefore I think that having a short page on him (answering questions like those I've mentioned above, and that could link to Eldamo) that people can quickly have a look at would be really helpful for users in a similar position to myself. What are your thoughts on this? --GondolinFan 17:05, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

There is a page for Eldamo on Tolkien Gateway, which says that Eldamo is maintained by Paul Strack. The eldamo.org dictionary contains translations of many words in many languages that were created by J.R.R. Tolkien into english. I consider the translations in eldamo as reliable, because the entries in eldamo show on which publication that was written by J.R.R. Tolkien or by Christopher Tolkien or by another Tolkien linguist the respective translation is based. Sometimes I followed the references on eldamo and read the respective page in the publications by J.R.R. Tolkien or Christopher Tolkien when I had access to them (unfortunately I do not have access to Parma Eldalamberon or to Vinyar Tengwar, but I trust eldamo when they refer to PE or VT). A lot of the translations in the etymology sections on Tolkien Gateway did not have references. I wanted to be sure that those translations are accurate. As a consequence, I looked up the words in eldamo.org and added the respective entries in eldamo as references and changed the translations to the ones from eldamo if there was no reference. In some cases where eldamo did not contain a translation I looked in Helge Fauskanger's (another Tolkien linguist) list of Quenya words if it contained a translation. I am not done and want to finish checking the etymology sections for the Line of Elros, the Kings and Stewards of Gondor and their families and for the Kings of Arnor and Arthedain and the Chieftains of the Dúnedain. My main interest is the Second Age and Third Age. I appreciate it when other users do work on the First Age, the Years of the Trees or the Spring of Arda. --Akhorahil 17:27, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain that to me. --GondolinFan 17:58, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it is good to have a page for Paul Strack. But there is no need to edit articles only to add a link to his article. This can be done slowly by revising other things or maybe with Mith's bot. I'll ask him about that. --LorenzoCB 15:04, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Undo several edits

You can undo several edits at once via selecting them in the Revision history of an article, like this. This way you don't need to undo the several bad edits one by one. --LorenzoCB 10:24, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Paragraphs and Discord

Akhorahil, can you please divide your (larger) edits into paragraphs, so that it is easier to read? The way you've been editing up to now has been good and thorough, but those are some walls of text!

Also, would you consider joining the Discord (in the 'Chat' portion of the TG)? Most of the other editors are there already, and we make much of our decisions there, and it is pretty easy to use - coming from a first-time user of Discord myself. - IvarTheBoneless 14:36, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Recent edits

Akhorahil, I've seen that you made some edits to my recent work on the Arathorn I, Argonui and Dirhael pages. I just have one question: why is it that you are keeping the birth-years of these characters in the infobox (which is otherwise reserved for the material belonging to the main section of the article), but are not including the related material (such as, for example, Dirhael being a descendant of Arathorn I)? Or, alternatively, why don't you relegate all the material from the histories of the 'Appendices' into the OVOTL, including birth-years (and material relating to their genealogy)? It'd be nice if you could clarify. - IvarTheBoneless (talk) 09:12, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for writing me. I intended to write to you about that on your user page. In general information from manuscript versions of what would later become Appendix A or Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings belongs to the Other versions of the legendarium section, if it is not also included in the published editions of The Lord of the Rings. The reasons why J.R.R. Tolkien did not included information in the published editions of The Lord of the Rings or included it in a different or changed form in the published editions of The Lord of the Rings are not known. It should be kept in mind that J.R.R. Tolkien had the opportunity to add additional information when the second edition of The Lord of the Rings was prepared to ensure getting a copyright in the U.S. and that he added some information (e.g. additional information about the origin of the Kin-strife about Rómendacil and Valacar) and that he added some changes/corrections in the second edition of The Lord of the Rings. I intend to do that on further pages, which mix information from Appendix A with information from manuscripts of The Heirs of Elendil or manuscripts of The Tale of Years of the Third Age, especially where Umbar is mentioned. Readers should be made aware that this is not canon and is merely included in manuscripts. However, since J.R.R. Tolkien did not in general include the birth years of the kings and rulers (except the Kings of the Mark) in Appendix A and since the birth dates have already been used in infoboxes of kings and rulers on Tolkien Gateway and it is possible that J.R.R. Tolkien omitted the birth years to save space (but it is also possible that he could not decide about the age and the decreasing life-span of the Númenoreans), I left the years of birth in the infoboxes and in the main text and I am happy with the practice of the year of birth in infoboxes or in the main text of the article in general. However, it should be explained in the Other versions of the legendarium (OVOTL) section that the information about the year of birth comes from a manuscript version of what would later become Appendix A and not in a footnote. This has the advantate that the information can be quickly seen in the infobox and/or at the beginning of the text of the article, but it is disclosed in the main text of the OVOTL that this information comes from manuscripts. I am also happy with including it in the genealogy section as long as it is mentioned in the OVOTL section that his information comes from manuscripts, because having multiple versions of genealogy trees would require too much space. However, one can debate about the placement of years of birth and about including information in genealogy trees. --Akhorahil (talk) 10:10, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I see. Thank you for clarifying. However, in your edits to Arathorn I's article, you retained the mention of him having "at least one other child" in the infobox, which is why I added "at least one other sibling" to his son Argonui's infobox. Was that a slip up, or did you intend to do so?

At any rate, I added internal references to these articles (the "NB", or "nota bene", referring to the OVOTL section of their respective articles for additional clarity). - IvarTheBoneless (talk) 10:26, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your recent corrections of slips that I made in my recent edits. I think that adding the internal references with NB was a good idea. As far as information from manuscripts about the ancestry in the infobox is concerned, I can live with leaving that in the infobox, because the info is also included in the family tree with an internal reference. However, can we really be sure that as descendant of Arathorn I "by a younger branch" in manuscript C can only mean that Arathorn I had at least one other younger (male or female) child other than Argonui? Could "by a younger branch" also have the meaning that another descendant of Arathorn I had more than one child and that this younger branch is further down the family tree and that Arathorn I only had Argonui as a child. In general, we do not know if J.R.R. Tolkien mentioned all children of a person in texts or in family trees. He seems to mostly have cared about first born male descendants and seems to only have provided additional information if somebody died childless or if somebody did not have a son or if somebody's sons died and a person was succeeded in some other non-standard way. Should "At least one other child" or "At least one other sibling" be qualified with presumably, possibly or probably? I do not want to split hairs too much, but I am not absolutely sure about the meaning of "by a younger branch", but I am not expert in the genealogy of noble houses and the use of language when writing about it. --Akhorahil (talk) 11:51, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

You are right, I should have qualified that statement about Argonui's sibling(s). And yes, now that you mention it, it is possible that Dirhael was descended from say, Arador's younger sibling for example. However, I don't see why Tolkien wouldn't just say that he was descended from Argonui, instead of Arathorn I, if that was the case. Also, there aren't that many generations between Arathorn I and Dirhael.

All in all, I think a qualifier of probably can be reasonably applied here. - IvarTheBoneless (talk) 17:51, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Ok, go ahead and add a qualifying statement, such as "Probably" before "at least one other child" in the infobox on the Arathorn I page and before "at least one other sibling" in the infobox on the Argonui page. In my opinion, that is enough because there is not enough space in the boxes for the unknown child in the family trees on both pages and there are already internal NB references that point to the Etymology section in the boxes in the family tree on both pages and it is explained there that Dirhael was descended from Arathorn I "by a younger branch". On a second thought, do you really think that the internal NB references that point to the OVOTL section for the year of birth, the Probably at least one other child and the Probably at least one other sibling and the unknown child in the boxes in the family tree are the best solution? There are several different references in the OVOTL section for the year of birth and for "by a younger branch" as the basis for this child/sibling. Would it not be more precise to simply use those references and add a name to those references so that the name of the reference can be reused when they are used a second time in the OVOTL after they have been used in the infoxboxes? The most important thing is that the OVOTL explains that it is the manuscripts where the year of birth comes from and that they say "by a younger branch" so that people can figure out that this is the basis for "Probably at least one other child" and for "Probably at least one other sibling" and for the "unknown child" in the family trees. --Akhorahil (talk) 09:33, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I applied the qualifier probably to Argonui and Arathorn I's articles. And as for your suggestion that we apply the same reference multiple times within an article (if I got your meaning correctly), such as in an infobox, for example - well, I think I already did that in my original edits, but you removed them.

That said, I still think an internal NB reference is the best way to go when including uncertain OVOTL material in the infobox or the genealogy.

Also, would you wish to proceed with editing other articles on the chieftains of the Dunedain and their kin, or should I? Because this isn't currently my area of focus. - IvarTheBoneless (talk) 10:40, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Wizards

I would like to ask you something.Why did you reversed my editings that I did on the page Wizards? I think this information-regarding to adaptations-is unecessary.I mean there is every page for every wizard of Middle-earth.For example, Gandalf has his own page here, on Tolkien Gateway, and Gandalf's page says clearly in which adaptations he appears.The same thing happens and for Saruman, and for Radagast and for Blue Wizards, too.That is why I think this information is unecesary on the page Wizards, and that is why I deleted these information.Do you undersatnd what I am saying? --Γιάννης Ευαγγελίου (talk) 18:35, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Where did you read that I reverted ("Undo revision by 362057 by Γιάννης Ευαγγελίου") your edits on the Wizards page? Did you click on "Recent changes" and on the Wizards page entry or did you click on "History" on the Wizards page and read the revisions to the Wizards page? If you used any of those two methods, you can see that I left the comment "It is clearly written at the top of the page that you should discuss your intent (on the talk page) before editing, because I am busy editing the page" when I undid your edit. Did you read the top of the Wizards page before you made your edits? On the top of the Wizards page it is clearly written in a green box "Akhorahil is currently busy with major revisions to this article. Before editing, discuss your intentions on this article's talk page." You did not not state your intent to make an edit to the Wizards page on the talk page ("Discussion") of the Wizards page before you edited the wizards page. I undid your edit, because you did not do that. Did you click on "Recent changes" and read the entry 18 November 2022 23:59 (Block log)? There you can see that the administator LorenzoCB blocked you user account for 2 weeks with the comment "Consistently ignoring policy: Uploading images with no proper file name". You can also see there that LorenzoCB unblocked your user account because the block affected other IP addresses. --Akhorahil (talk) 10:20, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Edit reversion on the "Bree" page

I was wondering why you reverted my edit on the Bree page. You said in your edit summary that it was an "unnecessary low quality edit". I am hoping that you can perhaps clarify what you meant by that. Which part of my edit was unnecessary? I changed how the page said that it was in Arthedain because of how it is unknown whether Bree was in Arthedain or Cardolan. The page should not say that Bree was in Arthedain. My other edit on the page was because Bree is on the East Road, not near it. Besides those two edits, I did make a few minor grammatical fixes.Dour1234 (talk) 13:13, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Your questions are unnecessary. You could have answered them by reading the sources written by J.R.R. Tolkien and by looking at your edit again. Deleting "On" and information from the location line in the infobox, and adding information about the location in the description line of the infobox although it is the location of Bree and the not the description of Bree, replacing a comma between Men and Hobbits in the inhabitants line in the infobox, creating a grammatical error by inserting "the" before Fornost Erain, adding blank spaces after "==" and before "==" in the Geography and description, History, Etymology and Portrayal in adaptions sections, adding "a" before "part of the kingdom of Arnor and adding brackets to make another link to the Arthedain page, although there already was already a link to the Arthedain page further above, were unnecessary. The Bree page contains many other errors, which you did not correct in your edit and it hardly had any references and you did not add any missing references. Appendix A (I) (iii) The North-kingdom and the Dúnedain says that Arthedain "included" also the land north of the Great Road as far as the Weather Hills that Weathertop stood "at the borders" of the realms of Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur and that Cardolan was in the south of the Great Road and that the possession of the Weather Hills and the land westwards towards Bree was a "matter of debate". So Bree, which is mostly north of the Great Road (houses in the Plan of Bree in the Return of the Shadow) which passes through Bree is included in Arthedain and there is merely a debate with Cardolan, which only says lands "towards" (which means in the direction of) Bree, but does not even say up to and including Bree, which does not change that Bree was a part of Arthedain. In addition J.R.R. Tolkien deleted "(where later were Bree and the Barrow Downs)" after Cardolan in an earlier version of The Heirs of Elendil, which became appendix A and from an entry in an earlier version of the Tale of Years. I did not spend large amounts of time to correct a mostly unnecessary edit when it is much quicker to revert it and then take the time for throrough changes, which are supported by references. Reverting a mostly unnecessary poor quality edit is quicker and sends the signal that the edit should not have been made. I told you before to check the sources before you edit and not to make unnecessary micro-edits --Akhorahil (talk) 18:01, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Warning beacons of Gondor

Sorry if I messed you up, I went ahead and added an image to Warning beacons of Gondor so I wouldn't forget, but I know you're working on rewriting that article so feel free to overwrite the change, no worries. Thanks! --Hyarion (talk) 18:47, 18 May 2023 (UTC)