Talk:Palantír/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Amitchell125 (talk · contribs) 07:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Happy to review this.

Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:55, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Assessment

General points

• A minor point - I'm unclear when you use double quotation marks (e.g. "myopically") whether this is quotation from a book, a person, or not a quotation at all. Consider using single marks unless someone/something is actually being quoted, in which case the origin of the quote should clearly be stated with the quote. (It's not required for GA though).

Noted.

• There is seems to be an inconsistency in terms of the spelling of palantír(i) and whether it is in italics - e.g. ...uses of Palantíri,…, ...the palantíri of Minas Ithil…, etc. The spelling needs to be consistent throughout the article.

Fixed, italics throughout. Palantír is the singular, Palantíri is the plural.

Lead section

• The link to magical leads to a specific example of magic (Magic (Middle-earth)), and not to the article you would expect to go to (see MOS:LINKCLARITY).

Done, it's the rare case when more specific isn't what's wanted.

• Try to separate adjoining links (MOS:SOB): magical artefact; J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium (consider linking this phrase to Tolkien's legendarium, and elsewhere in the article); hobbit Pippin.

Not always possible; I do try to avoid "walls of blue". Sorted Pippin.

• Link the world (change to 'Middle-earth' and link to Middle-earth).

Done.

• Unlink Fellowship of the Ring, as it leads to the book, not the Fellowship.

Ah, we do need a home for that major definition. I've created link anchors at the target and updated the redirects so it now works again.

• ...ball of indestructible crystal,... - amend to 'indestructible crystal ball' so that you can link crystal ball.

Linked.

• Link Saruman.

Linked.

• Unlink Steward of Gondor (Gondor is already linked in this section).

Gondor not present in lead apart from here.

My error.

• Use single quotation marks for translating unfamiliar words in Quenya (MOS:SINGLE), so A palantír (Quenya for "far-seeing"… becomes 'A palantír ( from Quenya palan 'far and wide'; tir 'watch over')…'.

Done.

• ...what is left of Middle-earth's network of seven palantíri,… - could this be read to mean the objects are in some way damaged?

No, it means the network, most of the palantirs and the towers they were housed in, had largely destroyed. Reworded.

• Why use namely?

For clarity, but we can omit it here.

• As a summary of the main points, imo you need to include some mention of the origin of palantíri and something about the commentary by other authors (Kocher, etc..)

Done.

Fictional artefact - origins

• Unlink Noldor ('Elves' is already linked) and Elendil ('Númenor' is already linked).
• The link to Amon Sul leads to The Fellowship of the Ring. Links should go where the reader expects them to, and the reader is not expected to search within an article for the correct place where the term can be found. You need to check the article for any examples where links do not lead where a reader might expect them to, and remove/replace the links accordingly (see MOS:LINKCLARITY).

Fixed. I've updated the redirects Amon Sul, Weathertop, and Amon Sûl.

• Unlink Avallonë which links to this section of the article (MOS:CIRCULAR).

Done.

• Link Saruman.

Done.

• Unlink Steward of Gondor (Gondor is already linked in this section).

Done.

Fictional artefact - characteristics

• Remove duplicated link Nazgûl in the table, and check for (and remove) other examples of where links are duplicated in the text (MOS:REPEATLINK).

Removed several overlinks. Seems reasonable to overlink Nazgûl in the table (the tool thinks so too), as readers may glance at lead, table, and figures rather than studying the whole text. :)

• Link Christian, not in Christian terms.

Done.

• Unlink propaganda (it's in a quotation. see MOS:LWQ).

Done.

• Ditto the links in ...from world war to cold war..

Done.

• Link Latin.

Done.

• In Tolkien's high fantasy The Lord of the Rings… - this phrase should surely be at the start the subsection above, not here.

Moved.

• ...by one man. - Éowyn says to consider amending to '...by one person alone.' :).

Done.

• The image is not relevant, and the caption is already contained within the body of the article - there's no need for the image or the caption.

Removed.

• Ditto the image from Capra's film.

Removed.

• Tom Shippey's analysis… - This where he needs to be described as a critic, not lower down.

Done.

• ...the experience of Peregrin Took and possibly Saruman. - why possibly?

Removed.

• Even Sauron… and ...even to Sauron - Why even? Clarification needed here.

Done.

• ...but could selectively display truthful images… - the prose needs correcting here, as it doesn't really make sense.

Done.

• The scholar of English literature… - amend to 'The English literature scholar...' and link English literature.

Done.

• (Latin: speculum) - consider amending to '(Latin: speculum 'glass or mirror'), it's slightly more accurate.

Done.

• Amend notes to 'noted' as Kocher died in 2009.

Done.

• ...Pippin's apparently foolish look… - is apparently what Kocher said? If it is, a page number is needed, as I can't seem to be able to find it in the book. If not, remove the word to avoid it looking like an editorial comment.

Removed.

• Edit the paragraph beginning The scholar...—it consists of a single overlong sentence—and split the citation into three separate references.

Split the sentence. The reference is to a small number of pages, all in the same book and on the same topic.

• …,gazing… - 'by gazing'?

Ok, done.

• ...and exploring "all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom" - I think it needs to be made clearer why this is a sin.

Done. The sin is pride.

• ...Catholic author Joseph Pearce… - why mention his religion?

Removed.

• ... to the communications technologies… - 'with', not to?

Done.

• ...Tolkien was writing "when the world lurched uncertainly from world war to cold war". - the relevance of this quotation needs to be made clear to the reader, at the moment it looks a bit random.

Paraphrased.

• She notes that it is ironic… - the reason why there is irony here needs to be made clearer, perhaps by replacing myopically to 'in a near-sighted way' (to help readers who don't know what myopia is, and to emphasise that Saraman—as far as we know—had perfectly good eyesight).

Done.

In adaptations

• Who is Peter Jackson? Also, amend to 'Sir Peter Jackson'.

Glossed as 'the film director', though this is redundant to the rest of the sentence; and titles are deprecated.

Understood. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:21, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• The sub section title seems misleading to me - the text only refer to Jackson's work and no other adaptions, so why is it plural?

Changed.

• The first sentence requires a citation.

Removed: the described usage is not different from the book, so it's redundant.

• The Harl citation (ref 7) requires a page number, as I cannot verify the text easily without it (pp. 66-67?).

It is standard practice to provide a page range for journal articles. A direct quotation from Harl is provided. I retrieved the article from JSTOR but as it's also freely available I've added the free official URL.

Thanks for that, I hadn't spotted the standard practice before, for some reason, although in my comment I meant "can you tell me the page"—apologies for the confusion. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:21, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Influence

• Link telescope; curvature.

Done.

• An astronomical telescope at the Lowell Observatory… - remove astronomical as that's the only kind at Lovell.

Done.

• This officially stands for… - is officially needed here?

Removed.

• The full name doesn't need quotation marks (the sources don't use them either).

Removed.

See also

• One Ring - already linked in the text, so it doesn't belong in a 'See also' section.

Removed.

• Why are Rings of Power and Silmarils included in this section? The connection between them and this article may not obvious to readers: in fact I would delete the whole section.

Removed. For the record, Silmarils could be defended here, as similarly ancient artefacts embodying power; as indeed are the Rings of Power in their way. I'm no great fan of 'See also' but if anyone wants to put them back, we should let 'em.

Thanks.

References

• Etymologies; Unfinished Tales; The Two Towers - you can't use Wikipedia articles as references, which is what it looks like has happened here. The references need to refer to the actual sources of information.

Unlinked the cross-references. These are short-form citations to the relevant subsections of the named books by Tolkien, which are listed in 'Sources'.

• Link McCray, W. Patrick (W. Patrick McCray).

Linked.

• Consider linking ref 8 (Mulvey) to this. Can you provide a single page for the citation?

Added URL. It's normal to link to the page range of an article or chapter, but it's page 59(ff) in the linked PDF.

The quotes including She gives as an example the sequence... are from Harl, not Mulvey, which is why I couldn't find them. Perhaps other readers might make the same wrong assumption that I did, in which case it might be worth considering tweaking the text accordingly. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:40, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Said "Harl".

• Ref 5 (Tolkien's Art) gives p. 25, but I found the information on p. 39 and p.163 (here).

I've cited the 1980 edition, and p. 25 is correct there.

Understood. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:40, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Sources

• I would... ...link Master of Middle-earth: the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien with this. ...link Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England with this. ...link The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology with this .

Thanks, but they all seem to be different editions from those cited in the text.

I'm placing the article for hold for a week, please get back to me about anything. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 19:28, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Amitchell125: Many thanks. I've replied to all the comments. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:13, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Passing

Hello Chiswick Chap, the article is definitely good enough now, thanks for your thorough work on my comments. Passing now, all the best. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:44, 17 May 2020 (UTC)