Talk:Tales of the Black Widow Company

Foreign-Language Editions

Context: I am working to unformize the formatting of foreign-language edition notes across various product and novel pages. A pattern for novels seems to have been worked out. See Warrior: En Garde#Foreign-Language Editions for an example. Now I am examining product pages.

This particular product page is indicative of an issue that will arise with several product pages. There is an existing section called "German Edition" with a substantial amount of content. (See Technical Readout: 3025 for antoher example.) It seems wise to use this page as a plan prototype before continuing to others.

My idea/proposal (for this and other similar pages) would be twofold:

(i) lower the section level of "German edition" and its subsections by one and put this under a section called "Foreign-Language Editions", and

(ii) rename the section from "German Edition" to "German".

So all content will be preserved, this is simply modifying the section structure and names.

I have already done step (i) to this article, but not step (ii). I don't see any functional issues with step (i). A small potential issue with (ii) is that renaming the section may neccessiatate some effort in link renaming. In the longterm, it would be best to have a consistent section/subsection naming structure to refer to specific language sections foir wiki-links. So, before diving in too much further it seemed wise to get input on foreign-language section structure using this article as a sample.

Please feel free to share thoughts whetehr to approve or revise this plan. --Dude RB (talk) 00:18, 18 June 2022 (EDT)

I have no real opinion regarding your plan, and am fine with it. Just a word of explanation regarding the German translation though: I don't know other translations, but I know that the German translation by FanPro is special because there is almost no product that wasn't tweaked, changed, updated, revised or otherwise fiddled with in translation. I wasn't initially aware of this and only realized it when I got my hands on the original (english language) material as I fell down the Sarna rabbit hole.

But while the German editions were definitely different, I felt they didn't warrant their own article, being just a translation of the original canonical material with (non-canonical or at best apocryphal) changes; at the same time, the changes were sometimes significant enough that I felt they deserved to be mentioned. Thus, I inserted subsections into articles where I gave details on the German edition and the changes that they made in it for a given product. (Particularly egregious examples would be TRO:3026, the Solaris VII boxed set, and the five original housebooks that were rearranged into two thicker volumes.)

I think what then happened a decade down the line is that Pserratv started working on the Spanish edition, and used the treatment of the German edition as a template. I believe he wasn't aware of the special status of the German material and that it wasn't merely a straight translation. Subsequently, other languages were also included... and now we are where we are. I don't know enough about the other foreign language editions to tell if these, too, contain substantial changes. If they don't, I reckon they don't really require an in-depth coverage here. Frabby (talk) 06:10, 18 June 2022 (EDT)

Frabby, thanks for the context and background regarding both German editions and their relation to Sarna history. I have already seen some of the notes highlighting differences within some the German editions (including some of the practices regarding mech names). Fortunately, I think that the faithfulness of translation question is independent of what Pserratv has done with Spanish editions and of the work I am doing. The Category:Foreign-Language Editions and its various subcategories have a nice disclaimer "Note that foreign language editions of sourcebooks and game supplements may include changes to the source material, i.e. leaving out original content or adding new (potentially apocryphal) content.", with emphasis on the word 'may'. This makes it clear that one should not try to reverse-engineer too much about the originals, and it acknowledges that the level of translation fidelity may vary across works and languages. Many of the other language edition notes are fairly brief, focusing on publication years, translators, publishers, and covers. Because of the umbrella disclaimer, there is not an obligation to detail what is or is not different. Yet, if someone has the sources and translation skills to highlight certain differences those difference can be highlighted.

My current goal is simply establishing a common top-down section structure for discussing the various foreign language editions of a particular work (whether it be a game product or a novel). With common section and subsection titles, it becomes a bit easier to reference the foreign edition segment within an article. Also, just as print and digital editions are handled within the same article, so this provides a venue for discussing the various foreign language editions within one article. The German sections will definitely be more detailed than those for other languages for the present.

Side Note: I had (briefly) contemplated creating a section called "Edition History" or "Edition Notes" that would allow one to record all the editions, print and digital, foreign and domestic, etc. Some of the issues concerning potential differences with foreign editions also occur with certain digital editions. But I realized that would be a bit too ambitious (at least at the present) as the notes regarding digital editions are integrated into these articles in a significantly different manner. So I narrowed down my current focus solely to foreign-language editions. But this broader view of handling editions may be something for consideration down the road. --Dude RB (talk) 11:28, 18 June 2022 (EDT)