Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

Romeran wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:31 pm

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:21 am
To the one who solved the dread riddle of @Drifa, I can deny nothing. Look for a thread on the main lore forum next week. However, I ask one condition: if I convince you (no certainty), you change your signature. Deal?

Deal (I wont point out that I already decided to clear my signature )

So, having woken up a little more i gather that you have (most suitably) established a paradox. If I post a thread with the content 'Romeran is convinced' and you change your signature, that change is a mark that my claim is correct. Right? (How you had already decided this I cannot fathom, but as already indicated, one who recognizes the horse of Eorl should not be underestimated.)

Aiks, I live on the edge of the countryside and in the pandemic we started keeping chickens. we have many cats but they are useless and lazy (evidently). also, quite likely your plumbing in holland is better - the rats ate through the pipes with ease because they are plastic.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 5:39 am So, having woken up a little more i gather that you have (most suitably) established a paradox. If I post a thread with the content 'Romeran is convinced' and you change your signature, that change is a mark that my claim is correct. Right? (How you had already decided this I cannot fathom, but as already indicated, one who recognizes the horse of Eorl should not be underestimated.)

Mostly I just decided I didn't like having an extra line after all my posts

Romeran wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 4:43 pm

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 5:39 am So, having woken up a little more i gather that you have (most suitably) established a paradox. If I post a thread with the content 'Romeran is convinced' and you change your signature, that change is a mark that my claim is correct. Right? (How you had already decided this I cannot fathom, but as already indicated, one who recognizes the horse of Eorl should not be underestimated.)

Mostly I just decided I didn't like having an extra line after all my posts

i'm gonna assume that your signature change reveals a new and enlightened attitude to Betrand somehow arrived at on your part before i even wrote a post, which is now redundant.

by the by, did you ever read Russell on proper names? that, and his attitude to fiction, would have been my main concerns in the post.

Fuin Elda wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:17 pm @Chrysophylax Dives you absolutely are welcome to email me at that account in terms of further idea discussion I'll have to actively check it it's not my primary anymore but it does filter into my primary email account

email sent yesterday. (not prodding for a quick reply - i've got my hands full with the rats atm).

@Chrysophylax Dives Got it and replied good luck with your rat issues.

Fuin Elda wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 5:37 am good luck with your rat issues.

War! No quarter. No compromise.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 6:51 am

Fuin Elda wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 5:37 am good luck with your rat issues.

War! No quarter. No compromise.

As it should be. The only rats we give quarter to are pet rats living in cages (I have a mouse problem in my yard but that is the reason I now own 6 barn cats that are keeping themselves fantastically fat.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 3:18 am i'm gonna assume that your signature change reveals a new and enlightened attitude to Betrand somehow arrived at on your part before i even wrote a post, which is now redundant.

by the by, did you ever read Russell on proper names? that, and his attitude to fiction, would have been my main concerns in the post.

I'd still like to get your thoughts on Russell and The Hobbit. As I said before mostly my experience with Bretrand is in mathematics and this one essay on idleness from where I took the quotation, it was more that I liked the idea (especially as someone who spends a great deal of time on "useless" Tolkien lore and enjoys it immensely) than the author, but I don't like uncited quotations. I'm not terribly familiar with his attitudes towards proper names or fiction but I gather from reading between the lines that he is not of the same opinion as you or possibly Tolkien

Romeran wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 4:49 pm I'd still like to get your thoughts on Russell and The Hobbit. As I said before mostly my experience with Bretrand is in mathematics and this one essay on idleness from where I took the quotation, it was more that I liked the idea (especially as someone who spends a great deal of time on "useless" Tolkien lore and enjoys it immensely) than the author, but I don't like uncited quotations. I'm not terribly familiar with his attitudes towards proper names or fiction but I gather from reading between the lines that he is not of the same opinion as you or possibly Tolkien

My problem with Russell is autobiographical: four years ago I concluded that Tolkien had adopted Russell's theory of proper names and that this was a key to The Hobbit. I then spent three years in the wilderness, building castles in the air and falling into bottomless holes. Then, in the first year of the pandemic, when home education became necessary and i still had some energy, I read some Russell with my eldest son and we then looked at a short book on proper names published in 1940 by an Egyptologist named Alan Gardiner. A lone voice in his day, Gardiner declares Russell's theory of proper names "a wholly pernicious aberration of thought". After reading both, my son declared (in effect) Throw logic to the dogs, I'll have none of it, and I saw that he was right. Since then I've been turning inside out and upside down my earlier thinking on The Hobbit - and am now convinced I am on the right track. In other words, Tolkien was aware of Russell's theory but rather than adopting it he plays with it while showing you the correct notion of a proper name.

The problem with explaining further - and this does actually touch on the original theme of this thread - one has to begin unpacking Russell's peculiar doctrine of proper names. I'll happily go there with and for you, but it is rather tough and abstract matter. But if you want more on this just say and I'll start a thread in lore.

Fuin Elda wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 7:13 am As it should be. The only rats we give quarter to are pet rats living in cages (I have a mouse problem in my yard but that is the reason I now own 6 barn cats that are keeping themselves fantastically fat.

When we moved in we adopted some stray cats - rather, i fed a mother and her babies, and every time she had some more (quite often!) she brought them round to our house to be fed. We ended up with about 10, though some have since died. But on the rats they are absolutely useless!

But i replied to this post because one of the mental and emotional problems i have at the moment is that i used to have rats as a pet when i was younger, and they were without doubt my favourite animal. It is tough realizing that we have now been invaded by what are really the most amazing creatures.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 7:44 am Tolkien was aware of Russell's theory but rather than adopting it he plays with it while showing you the correct notion of a proper name.

The problem with explaining further - and this does actually touch on the original theme of this thread - one has to begin unpacking Russell's peculiar doctrine of proper names. I'll happily go there with and for you, but it is rather tough and abstract matter. But if you want more on this just say and I'll start a thread in lore.

I’m not familiar at all with this theory of proper names nor how it relates to Tolkien although I can see how Tolkien would be related to a theory on proper names. Most proper names in Tolkien have some meaning, explicitly or otherwise. I’d love to learn more of this in a thread in lore!

Romeran wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 4:25 am I’m not familiar at all with this theory of proper names nor how it relates to Tolkien although I can see how Tolkien would be related to a theory on proper names. Most proper names in Tolkien have some meaning, explicitly or otherwise. I’d love to learn more of this in a thread in lore!

Done.

We have decided that we will not be re-opening or creating a new “scholars” or “advanced lore” forum or sub-forum at this time. While we are sympathetic to the desire to have a more formal (sub) forum where individuals can publish polished pieces, we believe ultimately there is an insufficient supply of such articles such that dividing the content of Lore is more likely to reduce engagement than increase it. We would like to encourage this type of writing, if there is interest, and ensure that these articles get the viewership that they deserve instead of hiding them in a harder to discover forum which generates lower traffic.

If there is a substantial increase in the rate of posting within the Lore forum such that these pieces are getting insufficient attention, we can reconsider this decision. Until such a time, we would like to encourage people to tag their thread titles with [Essay] or [Long-form] and if truly no further discussion is desired then it can be requested to be locked, similar in spirit to when people post (private) in an RP. We would like Lore forum, like the rest of the NuPlaza, to remain user-driven. For example, if users would like to open threads which contain finished articles or even a “research diary” thread we would encourage those individuals to pursue this endeavor.

So speaks the royal voice of Admin Romeran!

For what it is worth, you and @Winddancer convinced me that this was not the way to go in the discussion above. My other takeaways from the above are:

1. If such directions arise again i would look to the nulibrary, and collaboration with @Fuin Elda.

2. In any case (putting any scholars' stuff aside) you admins need to help Fuin Elda clear out and organize the nulibrary.

In addition, these conclusions on my part, as a member of the plaza, spark a post-election swivel of this thread - i might go see if i can rename it as i recently read one of you somewhere explaining how to do that.

Why is the halfir archive not in the nulibrary? This appears (as a front page) confounding of categories of old and new. An archive should be housed in a library, the nulibrary is - or so i presume from its name - the library of the new plaza. so nu?

I've put a request to move the icon threads back to colo that I control./was put in charge of by Liri. The rest we will need to give more time as the thread creators have now been tagged as is the normal standard. If the are and admin threads need to wait as well that's acceptable but I was left in charge of them as it were so however it needs to be done is fine even if I have been left in charge of them

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 1:16 am Why is the halfir archive not in the nulibrary? This appears (as a front page) confounding of categories of old and new. An archive should be housed in a library, the nulibrary is - or so i presume from its name - the library of the new plaza. so nu?

The halfir archive was made first, before the Nulibrary. And it's an archive specific to him. It also has a personal intro for him as a person, by Saranna, which we could not have if merged with NuLibrary. I would personally like to keep it that way, but if enough chime in and say they want it merged then that is fine.

Have responded to Fuins request and we will discuss it asap :)

Winddancer wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 7:16 am The halfir archive was made first, before the Nulibrary. And it's an archive specific to him. It also has a personal intro for him as a person, by Saranna, which we could not have if merged with NuLibrary. I would personally like to keep it that way, but if enough chime in and say they want it merged then that is fine.

As i said above, i do not have the history that y'all have with old plaza so i appreciate this may be delicate. My own take is - and the reason i put in so many hours helping make the halfir archive - is that 'Peeling the Onion' has real 'lore' value (in all sorts of readings of lore) - it is simply the most useful thing on TB that is out there - that for this reason alone (and i appreciate there are also others) it is a good thing for the nuplaza to preserve it (likely this goes for some of halfir's other threads too, but i don't know them so well). But it does not make sense to maintain it as a separate sub-forum in addition to a library. And i had thought that part of what you were saying above is about not dividing the place too much?

I do see that the halfir archive touches on deep matters of identity for some older members and y'all may for this reason wish to keep it as a separate thing. As with the scholars forum idea, it does not really matter. For me it is a matter of tidiness and putting things in their proper places (i.e. Admin business).

Whatever, we absolutely cannot lose @Saranna's Introduction! But I'm sure a way could be found to incorporate it in a move.

A subforum was made for halfirs stuff because you asked for it :P

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: ↑Sun Jun 07, 2020 5:50 pm

Sil wrote: ↑Sun Jun 07, 2020 4:36 pm Would it be better as a forum for comment, or as a collection of published essays in library pages?

The old one was like the collection of published essays. i would push for a new one, if there is one, to allow comments. (speaking as an author, the new online JTR is in some ways preferable to Tolkien Studies because it is open access. but it can feel frustrating to put a paper up on an open access forum and not receive feedback).

Fuin Elda wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 4:29 am I've put a request to move the icon threads back to colo that I control./was put in charge of by Liri. The rest we will need to give more time as the thread creators have now been tagged as is the normal standard. If the are and admin threads need to wait as well that's acceptable but I was left in charge of them as it were so however it needs to be done is fine even if I have been left in charge of them

TRs are indeed in charge of their threads. However an admin team of 4 and Liri decided to put them there. Also 2 of those admins are now here again, so we will need to discuss this again and see if any valid points have been made for moving them away from where we put them 2 years ago. We are actively looking into it and will get you an answer asap :)

I know the library was opened officially on the 11th of December 2020 and suddenly 10 days later December 21st the admin team asked Liri if the could move the threads there it wasn't so much of a discussion and more of a hey we wanna move these to the library section are you okay with that as the admin team couldn't reach her on discord. If that helps you find when any discussions were. I know none where held with me or in the library voting thread about it being anything other than a quote bank

https://lotrfanaticsplaza.com/forum/vie ... 326#p40326

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=645

If those help you find the previous discussions that is the only discussion visible on the non admin side of the plaza.

@Chrysophylax Dives who said 'Whatever, we absolutely cannot lose @Saranna's Introduction! But I'm sure a way could be found to incorporate it in a move.'

That's kind - and I do like to feel that the new Plaza is aware of the elements that made the old Plaza, whether we keep them or decide they aren't necessary now - it doesn't make sense, I suppose, to have the same material in two sections, one as a sort of memorial and one interactive (hey I'm 74 soon, I don't honestly know how all this works!) But I like the past, it's where we all come from - so I'm rather between two stools here. Majority decision I think would be the answer. You can't make huge decisions based on how useful a few lines by an oldie might be. I seem to recall that shortly before the old Plaza died some of us were musing on the notion of a dedicated memorial thread - outside of this forum we are, after all, mortal. Maybe it was even triggered by the shock of halfir's death. But many may hate that idea. I am neutral on it I think. Bet none of this is helpful at all. I am going to be away quite a lot in the next few months, on and off, for family reasons. Don't wait for me to appear again before deciding.

@Saranna

Saranna wrote: ↑Sun Mar 20, 2022 1:40 pm Majority decision I think would be the answer.

On old and new plaza, my way has always been "what Saranna says."

When we all made the halfir archive i was doing what i was doing for you as much as for the preservation of halfir's valuable lore posts. as i now look on it, the very idea of messing with what we made is just off the table. it was a good thing we all did, and your introduction is an integral part of it. if there is any risk to that, I will oppose a move.

Speaking to everyone else: What we have before us is a bit of a mess, made by contingencies of which nobody is to blame, but difficult to sort out now without tact, kindness, and a little generosity on all parts. I'm speaking about the two outer space subsections of lore, the archive and the nulibrary. the problems could easily become intractable. the halfir archive was the first institution and dates from the very early days of nuplaza - big thanks the 2 admins of nuplaza who are ever the admins of my heart, you know who you are, without whose massive generosity of time and spirit, Saranna, myself, and @Boromir88 would never have been able to make the archive.

In those very early days the word on hidden threads and discord chats was that nuplaza would be "what the members made of it!" - an admirable sentiment, close to my own heart, and the spirit in which we made the halfir archive.

Nulibrary came a little later, yet already the place that is nuplaza had evolved, and it was voted into existence as a quotebank. But over the course of time (perhaps due to a lack of serious lore grappling with the sewage system of Minas Tirith (eh, @Winddancer? And yes, @Romeran, i am serious!), nulibrary has become a lumber room where admins dump threads they will not flush but don't know how to archive.

So we/someone needs to face the wider archiving issue, but if we are not careful we are going to fall into an unhelpful fight about politics! And because the best way of not falling into that bottomless pit is to procrastinate and not do anything, we gravitate to the status quo of not doing nothing = more clogging of the sewage pipes. @Windy, yes, we need to work out when and how to flush and where it all goes!

But in the meanwhile, @Fuin Elda and myself would like to breathe some life if we can into nulibrary. But we find that we cannot even think about this while nulibrary is the unflushed ocean that it is now - a less odorous metaphor: Nulibrary has become nuplaza lumber room and we request a spring clean!

I'm aware that this is just shifting the problem; but even if you just made a subforum, named it archive, and put most of the present content of nulibrary into it that would be better than the present situation, which just makes a mess of nulibrary.

Indeed after much discussion @Chrysophylax Dives and I both came to the conclusion that what he wanted and what the NuLibrary might be good for in terms of what he wants without changing much aside from it currently being made into a storage location by the former (and some current) admins. Once we discussed it further what he wanted seemed to fall very much in line with the original thought for the quote bank and would make it much more 'member open' along the lines of members being able to post and use it which right now does not come across as viable for. Thought the Quotebanks themselves won't change in that regard but other threads could be created by members as they like with Chrys' idea.

Where the admins may want to create the new archive is up to them/the members of the plaza but I am quite in agreement that the NuLibrary should return to what it was originally voted for by the members which was a quotebank for lore uses and if it is to be expanded upon then that is something that the members should decide by their activity and not the admins by some vote or decision of their own. I am quite happy as I have already stated to have the threads I'm in charge of moved (in some cases back) to COLP until a better archive location can be decided upon.

Fuin Elda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:59 am ... in line with the original thought for the quote bank and would make it much more 'member open' along the lines of members being able to post and use it which right now does not come across as viable for.

Aye We are working on a proposal that we can put to you for, as Saranna says, a majority vote.

Guess I am now the Sewer Queen!

Just want to pop it in here that if we are moving threads, lets not move them into a place where they might get moved from again. If we are moving any, we need to find their permanent home and not a temporary one as that is just silly and cause for confusion :) So we need to find out where every thread in Nulibrary needs to go and be in agreement with that (or as much as possible), as I do not see icon threads as belonging in CoLP, given all the dates and history attached to those icons. They arent picturemaking threads, they are records of who once ruled OP (and NuP).

Just popping in between family commitments - you are all bringing this together I can see; I may do more lurking than working for a while but forgive me on that one please. I will certainly vote!