Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-24894325-20151119211902/@comment-5918438-20151229053153

I agree with P&P: we have individual series (season) pages for television, so because all media are equal, we should be doing the same for audio. So if a season/series is given a specific name and released as a box set, the season name gets that name. Otherwise, it's season/series/volume 1 (range). Come to think of it, I don't think we need (box set) dabs. The ruling that all stories need be dabbed applies to stories only.

...I'm confusing myself right now. Do we need (box set) and (anthology)?

And if the box set is the season/series (which term is used most by BF? we need to choose one, and stick with it), then do we write it as a box set, or as a series? There are some box sets which are not series. The box set is a mode of distribution. The series is an inherent organisation scheme for the stories themselves. I'm sure there have been at least some retroactive BF box sets, with stories that have already been released. Didn't they do that for certain Doctors around 2013?

If precedent matters here, the series of Torchwood marketed as "Torchwood: Children of Earth" has the page name Series 3 (Torchwood) here. We stuck to our series conventions for COE and Miracle Day. We consider Children of Earth: Day One to be its own TV story rather than simply a part of Children of Earth because COE is series 3, a series, and the designation that comes next in television, after series, is TV story. The designation that comes after series/season/volume (oh yeah, maybe volume is used most by BF lately — or maybe we use volume for everything 2012/2013 on, and stick with series for before then?) is audio story.

Perhaps, we should stick with regular naming conventions and go with Series 2 (Dark Eyes), which was released as "Dark Eyes 2", which maybe would get its own page under Dark Eyes 2 for the box set? Nah, I think not. I think Dark Eyes 2 should redirect to Series 2 (Dark Eyes), as with COE, and the title "Dark Eyes 2" could go in a new variable for. We do not currently, at least, have separate pages for box sets of TV series, so there's no reason to do that for audio.

Maybe a special new infobox template, "Infobox Box Set", is also in order, for box sets which are not series.

In any case, I disagree with P&P on another detail: it is not splitting hairs to make this very important distinction. Big Finish makes the same distinction themselves; above, we quote them essentially apologising for calling something an anthology even though the stories are marginally connected.

What's important, too, is that we have a clear rule we can follow that tells us whether something is a box set containing stories with a continuing narratives, or simply a story with named parts. In other words, is it Torchwood: Miracle Day or The Sensorites? Are the named stories contained within distinct stories, or simply episodes/parts within the larger audio story which we mistakenly thought was a box set? So: what defines a box set which would not apply to a single-story release with named parts? I think it's important to look at marketing language, cover conventions, etc, with regards to this distinction, hopefully in line with the same distinction they make in official statements on the site.

(If they are, in fact, named parts, then I suppose Hartnell conventions would come in, and we'd encourage sourcing by the specific named part, with "quotations marks" rather than italics.)

I agree that the policy should be "whatever BF officially calls it", but we need to have infrastructure in place for where the words "box set", "anthology", etc can't be found at all. What then? What if you can't find them defining it? Cast lists are always included both online and with physical copies. Categorising it into box set or anthology doesn't always happen. Perhaps we should say that all anthologies are box sets, and thus anthology is a more specific term. If no name is given, and the release includes multiple stories, box set is automatically what we call the thing, and how we categorise it.