Tolkien discussion ideas

[Sister Golden Hair]

Welcome to the Middle-earth forum.

In an effort to promote discussion of Tolkien's various different works, we would like to invite you to post your ideas in this thread. List any topics you would care to discuss. Even topics that you feel may have been overdone or recently posted are welcome. Please feel free to make suggestions as to how you think we can improve our Tolkien community and its forums. We especially wish to invite and strongly encourage all newbies to join in.

We look forward to reading your topic ideas and suggestions.

Thank you for your participation.

[Elanor the Fair]

Thanks for the great idea SGH.

I am a "newbie" so I thought I'd post some ideas here as well.

I posted some ideas in the LOTR thread that would be relevant here, such as:

1. The variety of books that have been published, including collectors editions, support books such as maps, glossaries, illustrations etc.

2.Chronology would be very appropriate here - what was happening when, to whom, and where. Perhaps we could have a discussion of a decade at a time?? We could also plot these occurrences on a time line.

3.Relationships and genealogy - who is related to whom and how.

4.Character analysis - not as easy here as in the LOTR, however, we could discuss motivations and our perception of the characters.

Just a few ideas - I hope somebody thinks of a few more.

[brownjenkins]

good ideas... i especially like #4... maybe pick one character a week to delve into

[Artanis]

Good ideas folks I just wonder why we are asked to post here first on what we would like to discuss. Why not just go ahead and start a new thread?

[Sister Golden Hair]

So that I can get a better idea of what will be permitted. As you know, there is a rule in place about discussing topics that are less than 6 months old in a new thread. This way, I can figure out what people want to talk about and if a thread isn't that old or long, we can maybe revive it rather than start a new one. I think though, that if a thread is too lengthy, nomatter how old, we could post a new one. This also gives members a chance to express their areas of interest giving me a better idea of what upcoming threads may be. I originally wanted to make this a way of listing topics that were liked and then have members vote to see what would be the most popular ones, and then start threads omitting the rest.

[Artanis]

So the preferred procedure is: First to post in this thread that I would like to start another thread and on which topic, then wait for confirmation before actually starting the thread? Sorry, but this sounds a little cumbersome to me, and also too controlling.

Aren't you admins able to merge threads too, if encessary?

However, I like the idea of character analysis, perhaps carried out as a project in the same manner as the Sil project and the LotR project. Could be some interesting discussions emerging from that.

[Valandil]

No Artanis, I don't think the idea was ever to create additional procedures or set up more controls. All we were trying to do was create more dialog between members and staff about how to enhance the Tolkien-related parts of this board. A lot of this sprang from Beren's 'Don't Forget About Tolkien' thread of GM. We're actually discussing relaxing some of the rules (like limitations on how soon a thread similar to another could be started).

Sorry if you got the wrong impression.

[Sister Golden Hair]

Originally Posted by Artanis

So the preferred procedure is: First to post in this thread that I would like to start another thread and on which topic, then wait for confirmation before actually starting the thread? Sorry, but this sounds a little cumbersome to me, and also too controlling.

Hmmm, do I detect a condescending note here?

So we may still start new threads as before then?

I don't believe it was stated that new threads couldn't be started.