Forum:"Original" vs "Original Continuity"

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The similarity and crossover between the terms "Original" and "Original Continuity" as used in this wiki is causing me some confusion. "Original" refers to the first 38 novels published and is in direct contrast to "Revised", which refers to the updated versions of these novels published from 1959. Confusingly the term also refers to the first 58 novels, including the originals, their revisions and twenty further unrevised books. In this sense it is in contrast to "Digest" and "Casefiles" etc. This is confusing enough, but the "Original Continuity" includes the first 58 novels and the Digest series.

Don't get me wrong, I understand all these distinctions, I simply feel they need clarified. Take for example, the titles of the entries [[Frank Hardy (Original Continiuty)]] and [[Hardy home (Original)]]. In both these cases, the terms "Original Continuity" and "Original" mean the same thing - the continuity the articles are relevant to. However, for the entry [[The Great Airport Mystery (original)]], the term "Original" refers to the book being the original text. Although it is written in almost the same format as in [[Hardy home (Original)]], it refers to the book having been written prior to 1959, rather than it being one of the 190 books of the Original Continuity.

I think a possible solution here is to make it quite clear which of the three Originals we are referring to whenever it is necessary to state it at all. There are less ambiguous terms we could use: "Original text" vs "Revised text", "Original series", vs "Digest series" and "Original continuity" vs "Casefiles continuity". If it's necessary to have separate articles for disambiguation purposes, these terms should be used in full. Therefore we would have [[Frank Hardy (Original Continuity)]] and [[Frank Hardy (Casefiles Continuity)]] (which we do) and [[Hardy home (Original Continuity)]] and [[Hardy home (Casefiles Continuity)]] (which we don't). Also, we'd have [[The Great Airport Mystery (original text)]] and [[The Great Airport Mystery (revised text)]] (which we don't). A side effect of this might be that we'd have to have [[Blown Away (Casefiles series)]] and [[Blown Away (Undercover Brothers series)]] instead of just [[Blown Away (Casefiles)]] and [[Blown Away (Undercover Brothers)]]. Slightly wordy but helpful in the unlikely event there's ever an Undercover Brothers called The Missing Chums. :-D

Also, throughout this post, I've used quite mixed case. Sometimes "Original Continuity", sometimes "Original continuity". This also needs to be standard. I'm in favour of using all lower-case in brackets at the end of article titles. So instead of [[Frank Hardy (Original Continiuty)]], we'd have [[Frank Hardy (original continiuty)]].

Okay, pause for breath...

Anyone else have any thoughts? There are no prizes for reading all the way to the end of this post, btw. :-(

Paulhassett 22:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

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I've noticed this too. The reason why some articles have (Original Continuity) and some just have (Original) in the title is because I'm thinking of ditching the word "continuity" in all articles.

So when distinguishing between different continuities, do like this:

• Article name (Original)
• Article name (Casefiles)
• Article name (Undercover Brothers)
• Article name (1955 TV)
• Article name (1969 TV)
• Article name (1977 TV)
• Article name (1995 TV)

And for different versions of a book:

• Book Title (original)
  • Note: original is in lowercase here, but when talking about the continuity, uppercase, since that is the "name" of the continuity, while this isn't a name.
• Book Title (revised)

For different books with the same title, like Blown Away, etc

• Book Title (Digest)
• Book Title (Casefiles)
• Book Title (SuperMystery '88)
• Book Title (Undercover Brothers)

As for lowercase over uppercase, at first I was in favor of all uppercase but now I'm trying all lowercase in article names, like we already do with category names (e.g. Undercover Brothers books, Casefiles cover art).

So unless the words are part of a name (e.g. Undercover Brothers, Chet Morton, Dead on Target, etc), use all lowercase. Note the "O" in "Original", would still be capitalized since it is part of a name, Original continuity.

Just my suggestion, you can agree or disagree, but personally I think it would work.

WHLfan (talk to me!) 23:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

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Okay, I take your point about capitalisation. Book series titles and continuity titles should legitimately have uppercase.

I would say that at the very least we should have "original text" and "revised text" in full. Capitalisation isn't enough to distinguish the two. It's basically this which has caused me confusion. Also, "original text" and "revised text" are accepted terms within the Hardy Boys collector community which will be easily recognisable to those people and which newcomers should be encouraged to understand and use.

Would you mind explaining your reasoning behind removing the word "continuity" from titles? Is it purely because it makes them too wordy? I think we should be as clear as possible what an article is about and words like "Original" and "Undercover Brothers" on their own do not communicate this sufficiently IMHO.

In terms of the series titles, perhaps we have the best case for not appending the word "series" to all titles. After all, this is where we originally got the names of the continuities from. When I see the words "Casefiles" or "Undercover Brothers", I think of a series of books, not a continuity, so that's pretty acceptable. The only exception I would make, would be for the word "Original" again.

Okay, let me illustrate my revised proposals in the same way you have:

To distinguish continuity:

• Article name (Original continuity)
• Article name (Casefiles continuity)
• Article name (Undercover Brothers continuity)
• Article name (1955 TV continuity)
• Article name (1969 TV continuity)
• Article name (1977 TV continuity)
• Article name (1995 TV continuity)

To distinguish texts:

• Book Title (original text)
• Book Title (revised text)

And to distinguish series:

• Book Title (Original series)
• Book Title (Digest)
• Book Title (Casefiles)
• Book Title (SuperMystery '88)
• Book Title (Undercover Brothers)

And lets not forget, these are mostly only necessary for disambiguation, most book articles won't need them and neither will the vast majority of articles overall.

I realise I'm possibly not giving much ground here :D however I really do think that the word "original" should never appear alone, in brackets, at the end of an article title. It's simply too confusing when there are at least three interpretations of it.

Still open to persuasion, despite appearances :D,

Paulhassett 08:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

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I admit that is a very good idea, and I think there's a good possibility we could see your suggestion turn into a policy! That's hear what others have to say first...

The only reason I was dropping the word "continuity" was yes, I thought an article like Gertrude Hardy (Undercover Brothers continuity) would be a bit wordy. But if every one else is fine with it, I think, like you said, for clarity sake, including "continuity" would be best.

Thanks for your suggestions, I'm always looking for ways to make this wiki better!

WHLfan (talk to me!) 18:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

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For what it's worth, and as somebody who knows relatively little about the Hardy Boys universe, I'd vote for dropping the word "continuity" but leaving in "text" and "series". Incidentally, wouldn't any book in the Original Series automatically be either an Original or Revised Text??

Anhow:

To distinguish continuity:

• Article name (Original)
• Article name (Casefiles)
• Article name (Undercover Brothers)
• Article name (1955 TV)
• Article name (1969 TV)
• Article name (1977 TV)
• Article name (1995 TV)

To distinguish texts:

• Book Title (original text)
• Book Title (revised text)

And to distinguish series:

• Book Title (Original Series)
• Book Title (Digest)
• Book Title (Casefiles)
• Book Title (SuperMystery '88)
• Book Title (Undercover Brothers)

That'd by my vote as someone more outside of things. Cheers. -- Wendy (talk) 05:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

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Wendy, hi. Thanks for your vote. Incidentally, your statement and lists don't match up; you say you vote for keeping the word "series" but then haven't added it to the titles in your list. Also, if anyone's going to list the disambiguation options this way, could they please add an option for distinguishing Original series? Thanks.

As for your statement: "wouldn't any book in the Original Series automatically be either an Original or Revised Text?" No, there were 58 original books in the series, only 38 of which were revised, so an original or revised text would, by definition, be part of the Original series but you couldn't say for definite that a book from the Original series was an original or revised text. And that's precisely my point. There are two terms: "Original series" and "original text", one is a subset of the other, so simply writing "original" in either case isn't distinguishing enough.

Paulhassett 07:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

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Hi -- sorry about that -- I meant only the "series" with the original ones, not the others... poorly phrased. I added "Original Series" back into my list. -- Wendy (talk) 14:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

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I just say your post Wendy - don't know how I missed it but i did. Anyway your idea is pretty good sort of a combination of Paul's suggestion and mine.

What do others think?

WHLfan (talk to me!) 19:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

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I'm in favor of Wnedy's revision of Pual's idea, and if no one has any opjections I'm going to write this into the Naming Convention. Here's the idea:

To distinguish continuity:

• Article name (Original)
• Article name (Casefiles)
• Article name (Undercover Brothers)
• Article name (1955 TV)
• Article name (1969 TV)
• Article name (1977 TV)
• Article name (1995 TV)

To distinguish texts:

• Book Title (original text)
• Book Title (revised text)

And to distinguish series:

• Book Title (Original Series)
• Book Title (Digest)
• Book Title (Casefiles)
• Book Title (SuperMystery '88)
• Book Title (Undercover Brothers)

WHLfan (talk to me!) 03:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

That looks sensible. I'm going to start moving Book (orignal) articles to Book (original text) articles now.

Paul Hassett 09:27, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

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I see you implemented the convention in pretty every article - thanks! I'll write up a naming convention page soon.

WHLfan (talk to me!) 20:05, 16 August 2008 (UTC)