User:Sindi/Geography

This is documentation for my Geography / World Categorization project.

The purpose of this project is to ensure that

1. The Geography category tree (and related, like Category:Places) is up to date
2. Improved descriptions & guidelines for both Users and Editors are in place
3. Existing 'location' pages are all categorized properly
4. (If I get that far) Appropriate templates / boilerplates are in place for existing pages

Scope: I will not be adding pages (except for stubs), nor completing/correcting information on pages. This project limits itself to the 'architecture' and 'metadata' of location-based content.

I will attempt to be as thorough as possible for the sake of future editors.

Notes

References on this page to map-<term> refer to items on in-game maps, vs. wiki-<term> which refers to how the same term is used in lotro-wiki

Do set drawings of categories (current assumption: lots of orthogonal overlap)

How location info is currently categorized

• Geography Tree
• Lore/Places
• "Other Locations" (where in tree? Category:The Shire Other Locations)

Region defn wip

A Region is never a (in-game) map under a map. A Region is only a Region if in-game zoom-out (right click) of the map goes directly to the Land map.

Settlement defn wip

All Cities, Towns, Villages are also Settlements. Can be blue icon on in-game map (Filter Map Notes - Settlements) but does not follow this 'rule', since some in-game (Tom Bombadil's House - dwelling, Mincham's Camp - camp) are clearly not wiki-Settlements. Rusfold is a map-Settlement that is considered a Village. Also most Gondor maps exclude in-game 'Filter Map Notes - Settlements' as a choice.

Landmarks defn wip

Anything with flag on it in in-game map (Points of Interest on in-game maps)

Any place where radar mini-map changes name to something that is not the region/area name.

Can be cross-referenced w Humanoid geography (Iron-Mongers' Gate - Gate) and/or Physical geography (The Frogmoors - Marsh)

Tree wip

Regions in Eriador and Rhovanion only have the name of the region as a category
Look here https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php?title=Western_Gondor&diff=prev&oldid=757956 . Now look at the regions like Bree-land and Great River and East Rohan to see what the code says to show which categories they are in (maybe figure out what pipe star means). Find out what the '|*' means.

Maps wip

Gondor maps don'f follow category tree. If I change, what breaks?

ToDos

Questions that need answers marked with Q.

Geography Tree First Level

Current

Physical

Humanoid

Political

• Make sure Category Drill-downs on different places use (the same code?)

Geography Tree 2nd Level - Physical

looks ok

Q. Should 'Interior' (Political) caves/lairs also be categorized as such

Q. Should 'Instance' (Political) caves/woods (Huntsman's Vale)/etc. also be categorized as such

Geography Tree 2nd Level - Humanoid

Q. Should Cities, Towns, Villages be subcategory of Settlements

• Outposts (Echad Garthadir), Fortresses (Esteldin), Camps (example?) seem to be sometimes categorized as Settlements, other times as Landmarks, sometimes both

Geography Tree 2nd Level - Political

Lands

• Add Gondor to Categorization trees
• Check all references to "Lands" to ensure 3 current lands are reflected as such
  • Remove references to '2' or '3' lands, to prevent having to fix when 4th / 5th Land added

Regions

• Check all references to "Regions"
  • Remove references to 'n' Regions, to prevent having to fix when n+1 / n+x Region added

Q. See if I can get a good explanation from anyone regarding "Region" vs. "Area", current logic

Q. ** Why are eg. Nan Curunir, Gap of Rohan, Dead Marshes in parentheses

• The Regional Navigation Template (with 2 pairs of curly brackets) seems to include W, E, C Gondor + Old Anorien + (Dead Marshes) in Gondor "Regions"

Q. How do i see these Regional Navigation Templates (where are they getting info from, because it's NOT from category tree) A. Get to it from World Project page, link from the other place i found is obviously broken

Q. and how do Regional Navigation Templates work wrt Category tree?? (are they restricted to higher lvl editors)

example:

Areas

• check definition

Q. Why aren't Land, Region, Area hierarchical levels in tree? Several places mention "Lands consist of Regions consist of Areas"

• Add super-categories under Areas (eg. Areas/The Great River Areas) of missing 'region supercategory for an area'
• Categorize all Areas pages under proper super-category (eg. Areas/The Great River Areas/Thinglad)

Landmarks

Q. One page referenced "Other Locations" that can be a Landmark, find this in the Category tree

Q. Should a Landmark always be cross-referenced with a Physical and/or Humanoid feature? (gate, hill, hill and enemy holding)