Talk:Tolkien's maps/Archive 1

New Section (February 2022)

This following section of the article 'may' be true but has no sources and has incredible author bias: "A later redrafting of the maps by the publisher HarperCollins however made the maps look blandly professional, losing the hand-drawn feeling of Tolkien's maps." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:980:742A:1:97D:F602:E819:880F (talk) 16:22, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty to add a section header to this comment. I agree, it's unsourced and should go. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:02, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

No it's not, you will see that it's a summary in the lead of fully-sourced material in the article body from Campbell, ref #1. She writes, among other things:

"HarperCollins commissioned a redrafting of the maps for a new edition ... The resulting Rohan/Gondor/Mordor map has large, dark, practically unreadable realm names that detract from the map's clarity. The scale is missing initial and final number. The charming hand lettering of the original maps, which maintained the illusion of Bilbo's own fair copies of older maps and which suggested a culture without printing presses or engraving, has been 'improved' to bland, modern, professional illustrations of maps. The overall result is an unintentional reversion to decorative but technically inaccurate medieval-style maps. These modern redrawings are on the wrong track, for this is one area where Tolkien desired accuracy more than decoration."

Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:43, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Okay, cheers for the clarification! Catfish Jim and the soapdish 11:43, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Original Research and the Behaviour of the Tolkien Estate

An editor apparently had a dispute with the Tolkien Estate and wants therefore to insert an account of their copyright policy and defensive behaviour here. Unfortunately, their own experience is considered by Wikipedia policy to be Original Research and is forbidden in articles. But the behaviour of the Tolkien Estate at some period in the past no more belongs here than in the articles on his scripts, his artwork, his calligraphy, his poetry, or for that matter his prose --- all of it is in copyright, and the Tolkien Estate can if it sees fit use the law to defend all of it, as any copyright holder can in the case of their own works (however much that may resemble pushing water uphill with a rake, against the infinite and ceaseless flow of the Internet). It's not therefore a subject for this article. Adding Original Research doubles the mistake, but even if it were cited – and that would have to be to a Reliable Secondary Source, not the Tolkien Estate as it is the Primary Source in this case – it does not belong here, but perhaps in an article on the Behaviour of the Tolkien Estate or some such, if that were considered notable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:09, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Please try not to own this article or its subject matter. This article is about Tolkien's maps as well as other people's works derived from them (as indicated by the existence of the section "Fan cartography"). Issues surrounding fan publications in print media or the internet seems relevant to this article, otherwise the section should be removed or moved to another article. BTW, TolkienGateway does count as a reliable source in Tolkien matters. cf Image disputes ♆ CUSH ♆ 18:56, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

This was a while back. I see that your edit was in fact wholly uncited; when it was deleted as such, as stated above, you promptly tried to reinsert it (into what was already a fully-reviewed GA), still with no source, obviously contrary to core Wikipedia policy on verifiability, WP:V. I would have thought that any other editor would have felt that the material in that form, and the willingness to reinsert uncited material, was unacceptable, so diving straight into personal attack with nonsense about ownership is pretty much irrelevant, if not simple rudeness really.

The existing material in the brief section on "Fan cartography" is reliably cited to a paper in Journal of Tolkien Research. If other reliable sources offer further views on that subject, they can of course be summarized and cited in that section. The WikiProject has long also had an article on Tolkien fandom. The objection is not to the topic, but to the quality of material added.

Tolkien Gateway is a Wiki, and as such not a reliable source: its main page welcomes the reader with the banner "Welcome to Tolkien Gateway, the J.R.R. Tolkien encyclopedia that anyone can edit.", directly echoing the Wikipedia Welcome "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Whatever you may have read about Tolkien Gateway, it demonstrably does not meet Wikipedia's criteria for reliability, in particular WP:UGC which states in terms:

"Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is generally unacceptable. Sites with user-generated content include personal websites, personal and group blogs (excluding newspaper and magazine blogs), content farms, Internet forums, social media sites, fansites, video and image hosting services, most wikis and other collaboratively created websites." (emphasis added)

I do hope this is clear; it's a straight matter of policy. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:26, 12 May 2023 (UTC)