Talk:On the Trail of the Golden Owl

Rewriting?
Some rewriting seems necessary - especially the last section 'The Lawsuits': and details of the clues etc do not appear on the other two language versions. Jackiespeel (talk) 23:09, 5 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I've started rewriting it, but am hindered by the language barrier (I can read quite a bit of the French websites/sources, but not perfectly, and auto-translate is often dubious for such arcane text).


 * Re big table of clues: isn't this excessive? It reproduces most of the text of the book! And the book isn't even solved, so it's hard to know how accurate/complete the solutions are.--twl_corinthian (talk) 11:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Fixing misc problems

 * Moved the page to "On The Trail Of The Golden Owl", a more accurate translation.
 * Added book infobox with front cover image.
 * Changed the order and sections to better reflect the chronology.
 * Reorganized the riddle table columns and pared down the 'solution' text.
 * Corrected transliterations of "quete", "recherche" and "jeu de sagacite" (etc) to "armchair treasure hunt" & similar.
 * Corrected translation of "cachee" to "cache", because "cover" didn't seem right in English. A transliteration would probably be "hide" or "covert", which are a bit archaic when used as nouns. Imho this is all in line with Verifiability.
 * Clarified that the book is the main subject of the article, rather than the hunt (as the latter is hard to delineate).

Still to fix (imho):
 * More re-writing to do.
 * The "Theories" section seems like it's mostly bullshit (it's tough to determine notability for a theory about an unsolved riddle) but I can't be sure without learning French and finding the damn owl.
 * Riddle translations may not preserve the necessary features of the text. Is it better to transliterate (even if the riddle then makes no sense in English) or to translate creatively to ensure the riddle works (not very encyclopedic)?? Not sure what to do about this, afaik there are no "official" translations.

--twl_corinthian (talk) 14:14, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Cut bits

 * "Most theories cannot withstand the huge volume of corrections and clarifications given by Max Valentin. Even if a theory is well structured and planned, there's always a flaw somewhere. The hunters remember most of the information, and the exchanges on the forums help to detect the inconsistencies." - generalizations from particular groups online
 * "The main decryption of the riddles was accomplished by 1996. Some riddles took considerable time to crack (B order then the use of the A=0 rule in the linked riddles 580 and 600)." - redundant and/or inaccurate, since some riddles are still unsolved.
 * "The riddles are so ambiguous and complex that there are almost as many suggested solutions as there are readers." - vague and hard to prove.

It can all go back in if there are good sources.--twl_corinthian (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Factual Error from a Linked Source
This is only the second oldest armchair treasure hunt. “The Secret” is the oldest. See the Wikipedia entry for Byron Press, where details of “The Secret” – including publication date – are discussed. (I’m surprised it doesn’t have its own entry.) A quick online search turns up other sources for the publication date.

The source cited for the “oldest” claim does indeed say that, but it’s just incorrect.

(I’m mentioning this here, instead of editing the article myself because I’m on mobile, and I’m sure I’ll mess up an edit. If someone else could fix this, that’d be great.) Mjschryver (talk) 16:53, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The only problem with this is that there is no article for Byron Press. I think you meant Byron Preiss. I've made the change.-- Auric   talk  19:24, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

'The Golden Key' - 1982
Sorry - it is the third oldest. 'The Golden Key to a £50,000 Treasure' by Don Shaw (William Maclellan (Embryo) Ltd, Glasgow, was also published in 1982. Don Shaw may have dug up the key and the £50,000 (at 1982 prices) disappeared, apparently contrary to the contract in perpetuity he clearly stated in the book, but I and a dedicated band are still trying to solve it.

86.187.166.146 (talk) 20:57, 6 March 2019 (UTC)