Maps & Middle-earth
I spent a lot of time staring at the above when I was a youth, since I am both a map nerd and a Tolkien nerd. Many, many minutes of my young (and not completely young life), imagining how it would be to ride over those lands and visit every corner.
But like I said, also really into maps and globes – so there were always parts of the Middle-earth map that seemed, I don’t know, funny.
That’s why I was just so entertained when DiaryMistress shared this with me yesterday:
Tolkien’s Map and the Perplexing River Systems of Middle-earth
OMG! I saw the picture on the front page, nerded out, and was then going to share the Tor.com article with you. Are you a regular there???
I would love to say I am, but have only been there a few times in the past – may visit more regularly in the future!
@thediarymaster I have an account there (have for nearly 10 years), haha. I recommend doing a search for any of JLaSala’s Tolkien entries, they are the greatest. (I comment under the handle Lisamarie).
Also, as an FYI, I never got any indication that you replied to this note, I just happened to see it when I came here to leave another one. Can that be added to the notifications and future note list?
@asilliamagdalene comments and replies are going to be added to the notifications, thanks! Thanks also for the pointer to JLaSala’s entries, I will have to check that out.
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Interesting article!
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I just bombarded your system with tickets, but a few things:
1)You can disregard my ticket about a friends list, as I just realized one of the options under the ‘person’ icon is in fact ‘Friends’ that has a list of friends. Duh. (I still would like an entry worklist though).
2)This is more of a question, but is there any formal definition of privacy settings? How public is public? Can anybody ‘off the street’ see a public entry? Can search engines? Or do you have to be a logged in member to see a public entry?
3)How does the activity log interact with privacy settings? If somebody is looking at the ‘Friends’ view of the activity log, will private entries be excluded? Private notes I leave other people?
There will be a formal definition of the privacy settings in the documentation when that is added to the support page – the easiest way to think of it is that the diary level privacy setting supersedes the entry level privacy setting. So if your diary is set to private that means all of it will be private even if there are entries that are set to public.
How public is public is a good question – we don’t have a “Members Only” privacy setting for diaries, but that is something there was on the old site and several testers have asked for it back. We are still deciding what parts of the site (if any) will be open to the public or people who are not members.
@thediarymaster Cool. My biggest concern is that I keep most stuff (about work and kids) close and I don’t want to be easily found (I had a nasty experience several years ago with something like that). So by default most entries are Friends Only. But I would still like to have some entries be discoverable by new people who are members on the site. I would not want anybody that is not a member to be able to see anything or know that I exist.
@asilliamagdalene okay thanks for the input – I really do think we will need a Members Only setting, seems like that is necessary.
You had another question above about activity logs and privacy – your activity log (indeed, your whole profile) should only be visible to you. Other members can not see anything that is under your profile, they can only see your diary front page.
@thediarymaster …I personally would like to have a blog that anyone could visit and leave notes without signing in.
@georgette thanks, that’s noted!
@thediarymaster my question about the activity log was actually about the fact that there is a section that lets me see the activity of my friends. So my question is, what shows up on my friends’ log? If I leave private notes or write private entries, does that show up on their log? I’m guessing no but figured I’d make sure.
Or, what if I leave notes on an entry that they don’t have access to?
@asilliamagdalene oh right – sorry, that makes sense. Any private activity that you do (entries or notes) won’t show up in the feed. Leaving notes on an entry they don’t have access to I’m actually going to go test, because I don’t know the answer to that!
Seems like it could be a loophole around privacy constraints. I could write an entry about <embarrassing medical condition> I only want friends to know about, and then Friend X leaves a note saying “sorry about <embarrassing medical condition>”! and Diarist Y (not my friend, but X’s friend) then sees that note preview in their activity log.
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Also, this is a must read 😀
http://the-toast.net/2015/06/23/the-most-metal-deaths-in-middle-earth-ranked/
Thanks, that was awesome! Fingolfin’s passing was indeed the most metal, I agree.
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Similarly, I’m all about the Game of Thrones interactive map!
https://quartermaester.info/
😎
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Delightful. Thanks.
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In another life I was a cartographer…at least, I imagine it so.
I would take that as a job!
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My late husband loved hand drawing topographical maps. His maps were fantastic. We lived in California back then. The mountains on his maps, spoke to me, and I just loved them. I still have some in my storage!! I need to get those out and hang them up!! :*)
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