Talk:Eärendil and Elwing/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: RockMagnetist (talk · contribs) 18:31, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I am going to review this article. RockMagnetist(talk) 18:31, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

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My overall impression is good and I don't think this is going to take very long.

Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:44, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   • A few sources are not properly cited: The Return of the King, The Book of Lost Tales 2, and The History of Middle-earth are just links to Wikipedia articles.

   • Linked those to sources for you.

   • The citation for Pearl (Secondary ref. 14) is pretty skimpy. You should probably add the (unknown) author and translator at a minimum.

   • Author and translator added.

   • A couple of comments that do not affect the outcome of this review: I think the division of references into primary and secondary sources is only of interest to a Wikipedia reviewer, and not necessary. Also, where the citations are referring to one of the references in Sources, a citation anchor would be more useful than a redundant Wikilink (Primary refs 1,2,3,5).

   • Noted. It may be worth mentioning that the WikiProject had major issues with (lack of) secondary sourcing, now happily mainly a thing of the past.

   • I cannot access the contents of Carpenter's bio, so I'm adding other sources where I can.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments

Fictional history

This section is so lacking in context that is means almost nothing to someone who is not already a serious Tolkien geek. It needs some basics like: What age is this, and how does it relate to the age that The Lord of the Rings takes place in? What is the geography? (File:Sketch Map of Beleriand.svg might help with this.) What were the major events that were relevant to the lives of these characters, what were the peoples and who were the major characters?

• Led in with some context on Elves and Men in the First Age of Middle-earth.

Just to give some examples of my confusion as I'm reading this:

• which is the elf, Tuor or Idril?
  • Added. The family tree is just below.
• what people lived in Gondolin?
  • Added.
• who sacked Gondolin and why?
  • Added. Maybe why is a bridge too far for this context.
• where was Arvernien relative to Gondolin and what people lived there?
  • Added map, written a caption on that.
• who was Morgoth and why did Men and Elves need aid against him?
  • Glossed.
• what was the Silmaril and why did Beren want it?
  • Led in with a brief account...
• who were the "the remaining sons of Fëanor" and why did they care about the Silmaril?
  • No need to go far into that here; just said "Fëanor's sons". Described.
• what was Valinor?
  • Glossed.
• what were the Valar?
  • Glossed.
• who was Manwe? Why was a punishment of death the default response to this errand?
  • Glossed.

I don't think a lot of detail is needed, but the reader needs to know they should care about any of this. Some space can be freed up by cutting the extended quote, which adds little to the story, and replacing it by a summary sentence.

• • We aren't short of space, and the quotation provides both the central element of the story and a flavour of the story's style.

I think it's worth adding that I have read Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, the latter a long time ago, and knew some of the answers at one time, so I'm probably your baseline for likely readers of this article. RockMagnetist(talk) 20:52, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• All good suggestions, have done a bit of reshaping to make it a bit more approachable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:55, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Looks great! All we need now is a couple of citations for the first two paragraphs of this section. RockMagnetist(talk) 05:02, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I think I'll go ahead and sign off on this, and trust you to add those citations. Nice work! RockMagnetist(talk) 05:08, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks, will do. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:14, 26 January 2022 (UTC)