Template talk:Other versions

Support for multiple targets

Other versions

This section was previously at User talk:Neo-Jay. I'm moving it here to consolidate discussion. Hesperian 03:02, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi,

No objection to you nesting versions / translations pages. I agree it should be done for the Bible. I did it myself for Daisy Miller, which is a much simpler case:

• Daisy Miller (James) (versions page for the tale in all its forms)
  • Daisy Miller: A Study (versions page for the short story)
    • "Daisy Miller: A Study" in Cornhill Magazine 37 (222–223) (June–July 1878)
    • "Daisy Miller: A Study" in Littell's Living Age 138 (1777 & 1780):
    • "Daisy Miller: A Study" in Home Journal, 31 July – 14 August 1878:
    • Daisy Miller: A Study (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1879)
    • "Daisy Miller: A Study" in Daisy Miller: A Study, An International Episode, Four Meetings (2 volumes, London: Macmillan & Co., 1879) 1: 1–193.
    • etc. etc. etc.
  • Daisy Miller: A Comedy (versions page for the play)
    • Daisy Miller: A Comedy (Not published, 1882)
    • "Daisy Miller: A Comedy" in The Atlantic Monthly 51 (306–308) (April–June 1883)
    • Daisy Miller: A Comedy (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1883)

Some propositions for you:

1. The graph is a tree. Each node may have multiple children but must have exactly one parent.
2. That is, a work will be listed on no more than one versions/translations page. And where there is nesting, a versions/translations page will be listed on no more than one parent versions/translations page.
3. {{other versions}} points from a page, back to the one and only versions/translations page upon which it is listed. Hence it is an error, leading to confusion, to support multiple such pointers.

Hesperian 07:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

@Hesperian: Many thanks for your message. I changed Template:Other versions and Template:Other translations in line with Template:Similar because I happened to meet The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken, which had two {{other versions}} linking two articles: Austria (Haydn) and Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken. It seems to be an exception to the above graph in that the child edition page seems to have two parent versions pages, one for tune and the other for lyrics. Could you please check The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken to see whether such two {{other versions}} are used reasonable? Further discussion can be found at Template talk:Other versions, where Beleg Tâl has posted some comments. Thank you. --Neo-Jay (talk) 15:01, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Multiple other versions

I notice that a recent change was reverted regarding whether it should be allowed to have multiple "Other versions" pages linked. As you may have noticed, there are many works that are actually a combination of works. Translations are the obvious example, though for this I would use {{other translations}} to link to other translations of the original work, and {{other versions}} below it to link to other versions of the same translation.

Another common example is hymns, and some songs. The lyrics are usually a poem written independently from the tune, which may be unrelated to the words written. Thus you get instances of the following:

• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Come, Thou Almighty King
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/I Am Trusting Thee, Lord Jesus
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Soldiers of Christ, Arise
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Onward, Christian Soldiers
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/O Beautiful for Spacious Skies
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Faith of Our Fathers, Living Still
• The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow

For this reason, I think it is not always reasonable to expect there to be "a single "root" versions page for this hatnote to point to". —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:22, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Hi guys, I confess I had not thought of the lyrics-versus-tune case. And the example edited into the documentation was not of that form and suggested that the idea hadn't been thought through.

I have reviewed Page:The Army and Navy Hymnal.djvu/182, and I agree that once it is fully transcribed — i.e. both score and lyrics — then it will indeed be a version of more than one work. Or rather, it will comprise components each of which is a version of something else.

I'm still not very happy about the proposed solution, however; I'm concerned that it will encourage misuse and misunderstanding.

What I would prefer to see is an optional override on the words "this work", allowing substitution for "these lyrics" and "this score" respectively. The template could then be applied twice, yielding two hatnotes, each on their own line:

For other versions of these lyrics, see Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.

For other versions of this score, see Austria (Haydn).

What do you guys think?

Hesperian 03:02, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent solution, and will also be good if there are other use cases that we haven't thought of. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 04:00, 22 January 2016 (UTC)