Talk:Mithril

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Mithril/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ldm1954 (talk · contribs) 12:03, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks! I'll aim to respond to your comments promptly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:39, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I like the article. I have read the books, but I have not memorized them. There is one big issue that I found by accident: copyright with respect to The Lord of the Rings Wiki. Obviously some of the material has to be the same, but there should be something (at a minimum a link).

Thank you! We've not copied anything from there, so any overlap is accidental or inevitable, as you say: and there's therefore nothing to worry about or to link. I've run Earwig's Copyvio Detector as you suggest; it returns what looks like a high similarity, but on inspection the overlaps are either titles like "The Lord of the Rings", "The Fellowship of the Ring", or direct quotations from Tolkien about the metal, like "It was close-woven of many rings", which we've cited and attributed.

A few minor comments/suggestions:

Lead The second paragraph of the lead is somewhat disjointed, it is not clear what this is on except a collection of sentences. I suggest rewriting and/or reference to later #Analysis

Reworded; added summary of its metallurgy; reparagraphed.

Properties

Why is it common silver and not common silver?

Fixed.

There seem to be some contradictions. In one case you say "wrought of pure silver", in the next sentence "silver-steel". Perhaps you need to say that he was not a metallurgist, so some of the descriptions are a bit inconsistent.

Ah, yes, see Tolkien's ambiguity. Basically, he's always like that, sketching impressionistically rather than metallurgically. But these are direct quotations, and we need to be careful not to add original interpretations. I've added a "Metallurgy" section, see below.

The mithril-coat

Did Frodo take it with him when he left or leave it to Sam. Perhaps add, for completeness.

He left it behind. Added.

Analysis

I think you need to expand a little on some of the terms and metallurgy. For instance, wrought is a specific term, whereas silver-steel would imply some form of silver alloy. I am not on top of all the Tolkein literature, so I realize it may be tough to find sources for this. Ldm1954 (talk) 18:55, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Added a "Metallurgy" section which makes suggestions as to chemistry and metallurgy, and the possibilities for use as hard alloys and soft malleable elemental metal. "wrought" is in a direct quotation from Tolkien, as is "silver-steel", so these things can't be taken literally.

Overall it looks good; I will go over it in more detail in the next few days 🤞

Super. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:50, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Please remove the sentence "Since it remains shiny even when stored for long periods, Kundu observes that either it does not readily oxidise, or its oxide is as shiny as the metal." She does not know enough about oxidation -- I have published in the area so I know she does not understand protective oxide layers (oxides are typically transparent to light when thin). Losing it won't hurt the article. (James Owen seems to know a fair amount of metallurgy, perhaps more than I do.)

Removed it.

I do think the metallurgy section could do with an initial statement that there is no "real" material that comes close to its properties, unless you feel this is too close to WP:OR. Make the first and (optional) second and I will approve the GA. Ldm1954 (talk) 13:41, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, I've had a go, it's just about justifiable by the citation.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.