User talk:Chiswick Chap

Mathematics and art: the Fraser spiral illusion (made of concentric circles) says something about visual perception, and is a forerunner of Op art.

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DYK for Coconut

On 8 January 2026, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Coconut, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the coconut (examples pictured) may have bisexual flowers? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Coconut. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Coconut), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to nominate it.

Dclemens1971 (talk) 00:02, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization

Category:Fictional characters is a child category of Category:Fictional elements. Category:Fictional characters by year of introduction is a child category of Category:Fictional elements by year of introduction. My edits were consistent with the accepted categorization scheme. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 06:56, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That is a very aggressive tone to adopt, not appropriate for talk pages. I will say at once that I am a content editor, familiar with the books and the literary criticism of them. Something must have gone wrong with the categorisation scheme if things are indeed laid out as you say, as characters, places, and story elements are mutually exclusive from a literary point of view. I suggest that some renaming and restructuring may be needed, but that is not my area. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:07, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry if my tone came off as aggressive; that was not my intention. Feel free to correct the category scheme. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 07:14, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

…and I just realized that my referring to my tone instead of myself as aggressive could (understandably) be perceived as trying to distance myself from accountability. I'm sorry for that and did not intend it, so let me try that again: I'm sorry if I came off as aggressive; that was not my intention. Feel free to correct the category scheme. (I legitimately don't know whether or not you would be upset with me if I didn't apologize and correct myself, probably because I have autism. I'm sorry for messing up.) Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 07:34, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for the apology. I don't specially want to get involved in redesigning category schemes, but I may take a look to see if something simple can be done to make it work a little better. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:42, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The_Nth_User — I am really not at all pleased to find that first you apologise profusely (and I accept that), then I spend a while studying the mess and cleaning it up, and then you see fit to double down and increase the complexity of the mess, ignoring the fact that we have an ongoing discussion here! That is no way to proceed. We do not need either of the two categories that you have now created, for the good and simple reason that the existing 24 Middle-Earth categories amply describe the articles involved, covering objects, themes, languages, regions, castles and more in already-intricate detail. Creating new and exceptionally klunkily-worded categories is really not terribly helpful, and ignoring consensus while pretending to discuss (and indeed, pretending to agree and inviting me to fix the mess, then undoing it all again) is extremely uncollegiate, to put it mildly. I'd be really grateful if you'd either discuss the matter properly, and stick to whatever decision we reach, or just to stop and leave it all alone — it wasn't broken and it didn't need fixing. Many thanks for your attention this time. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:16, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The reason that I think that we should have separate categories for this is because of Category:Fictional elements by year of introduction. When going through the various year categories, I noticed that Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1954 had significantly more members than the surrounding years, so I looked through the members, and I saw that over half of them were from The Lord of the Rings, so I figured that I should make a subcategory for them to group them more closely instead of letting Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1954 be dominated by one book. (For the sake of transparency, I shall mention that I added some characters before you alerted me (in the sense that I got an alert displayed when clicking on the bell icon in the top-right corner of my window) since I had noticed that Category:Fictional characters is a child category of Category:Fictional elements, but they were not in Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1954 beforehand, but everything else that I added to Category:Fictional story elements introduced in The Lord of the Rings was already in Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1954.) While I acknowledge that there is already an extensive categorization scheme present, it is inadequate for this particular purpose because the various categories for Middle-earth cannot be made subcategories of Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1954 because J. R. R. Tolkien has written other works that were published in other years (besides 1954), that are set in the same universe as The Lord of the Rings, and that have their own additions/introduce things themselves. When I noticed this message, I was part of the way through typing a new section in Talk:Battle of Helm's Deep, which would have made that same point; I shall paste my partial message here verbatim (with the sole exception that I shall increase the indentation by two colons) as it was when I noticed your message. (I shall note that I had typed the beginning and the very end but not all of the middle yet; I sometimes do that when that is the order that I think of words in.)

@Chiswick Chap: Concerning the categorization of this article, I think that this page should at the very least be in Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1954 (that is, fictional story elements), like it was before I diffused it. I do not believe that categorization in Category:Middle-earth battles covers that because one of the members of Category:Middle-earth battles is Battle of the Five Armies, which is from The Hobbit, which was published before 1954, so Category:Middle-earth battles is not a subcategory of and should not be made a subcategory of Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1954. (Yes, it's a redirect, but any categories that it is in, either directly or indirectly, should still be accurate.) Thus, I think that

WP:DIFFUSE would seem to dictate that this page should be diffused from Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1954 to Category:Fictional story elements introduced in The Lord of the Rings but I will wait for your feedback before instituting that. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 22:09, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I had figured that a case-by-case partial reversion that takes your feedback into account would be respectful and otherwise okay. I realize now that I was wrong, so I apologize and shall stop, and I thank you for mincing your words. Also, I misinterpreted your typing "I don't specially want to get involved in redesigning category schemes" to mean that you did not intend to discuss this further, so I (as I realize now, mistakenly) did not think of the discussion as still ongoing, so I again thank you for mincing your words. In hindsight, I should have clarified, and I apologize for not doing so.

I shall note that the categories Category:Fictional elements by work and Category:Fictional locations by work already existed (along with other related categories in the same scheme, such as Category:Fictional organizations by work) and already had child categories for specific works (such as Category:Marvel Cinematic Universe features and Category:Gulliver's Travels locations) even before I started these edits, so there would seem to be precedent for letting the categories that I have created exist. However, since I understand that this discussion is still ongoing (and I apologize for being the type of person to whom you needed to clarify that), I shall at least delay finishing populating Category:Fictional story elements introduced in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and creating Category:Fictional story elements in Nineteen Eighty-Four until this discussion is done (possibly never, depending on the outcome). However, I would like you to note that the intended category title of the latter did not include the word introduced. This is because I only viewed that word as necessary for works set in the same universe as other works. (In hindsight, it's actually only strictly necessary for works written later than other works set in the same universe (although it is possible that it could prevent some confusion for works written earlier than other works set in the same universe), but I unfortunately did not think of that until typing this reply to you.) I do intend to finish tagging the categories that I listed for discussion in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2026 January 10#Category:Fictional elements, but I don't think that that is controversial (especially since I'm pretty sure that I have a responsibility to tag them since I have already listed them), so I'm only mentioning that in order to avoid the illusion of nontransparency.

I shall mention that a quicker and easier method requiring less cleanup (all compared to restructuring category trees) for fixing perceived discrepancies between a category's name and how editors seem to use that category is to rename the category to make it more in line with how it is used. The aforementioned discussion that I started at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2026 January 10#Category:Fictional elements intends to do just that, so if you know of a term or phrase that does a better job of including all of fictional characters, fictional locations, fictional objects, plot elements, etc…, feel free to post it there, and I will support it. (This wouldn't automatically rename the categories that I have recently created, but if the consensus is to rename to category titles that begin with something besides fictional story elements, I will ask for those categories to be speedy-renamed under WP:C2C and WP:C2E.) As another argument for renaming instead of restructuring, I shall note that Category:Fictional elements currently has twenty-six child categories, most of which would become additional (direct) child categories of Category:Fiction under restructuring in line with a narrow interpretation of fictional (story) element, and is a child category of Category:Fiction, which already has thirteen other child categories; therefore, making Category:Lists of fictional things, Category:Fictional activities, Category:Fictional characters, Category:Fictional currencies, Category:Fictional history, Category:Fictional holidays, etc… all separate child categories of Category:Fiction would seem to give rise to undesirable clutter. As for possible alternative category titles, looking at the immediately adjacent part of the category tree (i.e., the parents and children of Category:Fictional elements) gives me two ideas, specifically fictional things and fictional creations. (These are from the fact that Category:Fictional elements is a child category of Category:Nonexistent things, a parent category of Category:Lists of fictional things, and a parent category of Category:Fictional creation stubs.) The term fictional things would more clearly include at least some of the classes that fictional (story) elements does not clearly include, such as fictional objects and fictional battles, but its applicability to fictional characters and fictional locations is debatable (although probably less contentious than referring real-life places and real-life people as things). With informed context, fictional creations would clearly include fictional characters and fictional locations, but I'm concerned that without informed context, it could be misinterpreted to only refer to things that fictional characters are depicted as creating or having created. I definitely could support either, but further discussion about renaming to a clearer category title probably should be conducted in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2026 January 10#Category:Fictional elements, so feel free to suggest one of them or anything else that you like there.

Lastly, thank you again for your patience. Not everything that is obvious to most people is obvious to me, and I am prone to misinterpreting things, so thank you for trying to accommodate that. I appreciate it, and I apologize for being the type of person with whom you need to take that extra time and effort to clarify. (As part of appreciating your patience, I appreciate how you did not revert any of my edits again. I'm not sure that outright thanking you (which in most cases would be the standard way to express appreciation) for that would be the best way to express that because I now realize that I should not have made that second round of edits, so I worry that thanking you could downplay the fact that you would have been well within your rights to revert them and the fact that I shouldn't have made them in the first place (and thereby potentially invalidate your frustration with me, which I don't want to risk doing because you very much have a valid reason), so please accept this explanation of what I'm trying to convey in lieu of the less tongue-tied way in which someone with a normal to high level of social competence would have expressed it.) Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 22:09, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the repeated apologies, and the acceptance that your "second round of edits" was edit-warring.

It is not really acceptable to make posts of over 10,000 bytes on talk pages: that is indeed trying people's patience overmuch. I have no intention of getting involved in complex multi-category discussions, it isn't my interest, but you are no doubt right to go there to reach consensus on any general issues.

On the specific Middle-earth categories you have created, there are several points to note.

Firstly, you do not have my personal agreement that the new categories make any sense. You are using "story elements" so widely, including places for one thing, that the term "story" is debased so far as to be basically meaningless. A place is a context for story, but does not form a part of it. "A miller's son left the village of Mill and went to see the King" names a village, but the village is not a "story element" in any literary sense, whereas the action named in that sentence is a conventional story element. Your choice to include (almost?) everything that comes under the Middle-earth umbrella makes "Middle-earth story element" redundant to "Middle-earth" as a category, i.e. it's a waste of time.

Secondly, I'm not in a position to grant you rights to make free with the Middle-earth categorisation system, even if I agreed with you — which I don't. My view is that everything you've done on it so far is a mistake. If you believe, contrary to what I've just said, that you need to go further, then you must seek specific WikiProject Middle-earth consensus from people who like managing Middle-earth categories. Currently you do not have any such consensus. I hope this is all clear; it means that there is no point continuing this discussion here on my talk page, as it's the wrong forum. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:24, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

WP:GAR Barnstar

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		For Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Syntactic Structures/1. TompaDompa (talk) 17:27, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

WP:GAR Barnstar

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		For Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mahatma Gandhi/1. TompaDompa (talk) 17:30, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]