Talk:Rohan, Middle-earth/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 17:03, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

I'll take this review. Nice to see Tolkien articles get improved, as a whole they were in pretty poor shape just a couple of months ago.

Many thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Comments

Lead I'm not the greatest at comma usage, but there's some odd-looking commas in the lead.

Commas adjusted.

Infobox - The date that Rohan moved its capital from Aldburg to Edoras is not cited in the text. The exact date might be a little crufty in this case, but if you decide to keep it, the date's somewhere in the ROTK appendix.

Removed.

Geography - Would the fact that this represents a continental climate be obvious from the description, or does the climate type need a citation? I'm not familiar enough with climatology to know if this is a readily-discernable statement.

Removed.

Can we really say Treebeard ruled Fangorn? If he was a ruler, he was a very passive one, and the need for the Ent-moot suggests that the Ents were at least somewhat democratic. And the GA review just descended into fancruft

;-} Said "led by".

"The town is protected by a high wall of timber, and a one-way road allows access to the town." Ummm ... Maybe this is a stupid question, but how do you leave a town that can only be accessed by a one-way road? I'd recommend either explaining or removing that detail.

Removed.

"North of the Folde, the boundary between the two runs along the Snowbourn River and the Entwash.[T 7]" It might make more sense to introduce the Folde before stating that something was north of it.

Edited.

"This earlier concept of the Folde found its way onto the map of Gondor published with The Return of the King." I'm not sure - Do we need to cite the map, or is the statement that this is found in the map sufficient to indicate the source of information?

Removed, we're already discussing the "King's Lands".

Culture - "the Rohirrim were portrayed as Middle-men," What does Middle-men mean?

Removed.

The Uffington White Horse as the source of the White Horse of Rohan emblem is relegated to a caption. Would it be possible to bring some of that into the main article text, too?

Done.

Horses and warfare "There are also companies of infantry and archers, as seen in the Battle of the Fords of Isen. Rohan's armies were mainly a well-trained militia called upon in times of war. They are armed with long spears, swords, axes, light helms, round wooden shields, and mail armour." - Citation needed, at least a primary one.

Removed, it's basically crufty repetition of what we have already, better cited.

War of the Ring War of the Ring is a further information section hatnote, but is just a redirect to The Lord of the Rings. A section-specific link would be more helpful here.

Removed.

"with victory in early battles at the Fords of Isen, killing Théoden's son, Théodred" - The Battle of the Fords of Isen is not described in the chapter cited, I believe.

Added ref.

Portrayal in adaptations - "The theme for Rohan is played on a Hardanger fiddle." - I can't access the Lord of the Rings Location reference, is the theme being played on the Hardanger fiddle cited in that?

Added ref.

Images I'm not 100% sure of the relevance of the panache image, since the text is referring to the flamboyent manner and the image is about the plume, but that's not a big issue here.

Shippey discusses both in the quote, emphasising their connection.

References Is the Encyclopedia of Arda a reliable source? I have some doubts, but am willing to be persuaded if you can provide proof that it is reliable.

Removed.

Works Cited Should Shippey and Tolkien be wikilinked in every occurence of their names in the Works Cited section?

Removed a couple; the Tolkien links are provided automatically by the ME-ref template, so ripping them out would mean replacing those completely.

External links Tolkien Gateway likely runs afoul of WP:LINKSTOAVOID #12. Encyclopedia of Arda may run afoul of LINKSTOAVOID #11. (Not as familiar with that source).

Removed both.

Duplication report

Earwig suggests "In the 13th century of the Third Age, the Kings of Gondor made close alliances with the Northmen of Rhovanion, a people said in The Lord of the Rings to be akin to the Three Houses of Men (later the Dúnedain) from the First Age. In the 21st century, a remnant tribe of such Northmen, the Éothéod, moved from the valleys of Anduin to the northwest of Mirkwood, disputing with the Dwarves over the treasure-hoard of Scatha the dragon."

and "The first line of kings lasted for 249 years, until the ninth king Helm Hammerhand died. His sons had been killed earlier, and his nephew Fréaláf Hildeson began the second line of kings, which lasted until the end of the Third Age.

In 2758, Rohan was invaded by Dunlendings under Wulf, son of Freca, of mixed Dunland and Rohan blood. The King, Helm Hammerhand, took refuge in the Hornburg until help from Gondor and Dunharrow"

may be copied from [1]. I'm wondering if this is the other way around, because the other website has "For other uses, see Rohan (disambiguation)." at the top. I'd appreciate it if you look into this, I wouldn't pass this as a GA until I was confident that our content is the original one.

"Academic Kids" has certainly copied Wikipedia here. It says it was updated on 22 June 2005. Compare it with Wikipedia's "Rohan" of 20 June 2005, which is strikingly similar. Case proven. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:12, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

A bit of work is needed on this one yet, but great job overall. Not to long ago, there was some secondary discussion about whether this article would survive an AfD (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Éothéod). Now, it's close to a GA. That's called good work in improving. Hog Farm (talk) 22:16, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks. I've responded to all the comments above. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:38, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: Good work! Passing as a GA now. Hog Farm (talk) 19:22, 13 February 2020 (UTC)