[Aiwendil]

I would rather keep it simple and use the [] for normalization, grammatical insertions and outline expansions.
Aiwendil, what is the difference between grammatical insertions and outline expansion?

I took "grammatical insertions " to mean, for example, the addition of words like "and" and "but", as well as the addition of commas and such, when we combine text from different sources. It is not used to make a direct change to the base text, but rather used when another change (almost always an angular bracket insertion) is being made, in order to keep things grammatically correct.

Outline expansion means taking a base text that is in outline form and rewriting it in grammatically correct form.

I'm not sure I agree with collapsing all three - normalization, grammatical insertions, and outline expansion - to a single notation. On the other hand, I suppose I could see using the same notation for grammatical insertions and normalization. But on the whole, I lean more toward Findegil's suggestion to keep them separate.

However, I do think it might prove confusing to use slashes for one thing and backslashes for another.

BoLT 1 The Book of Lost Tales 1 (HoME 1).

I think it would be better to simply use Roman numerals for the HoMe volumes - so I means the Book of Lost Tales part I, V means The Lost Road, etc.

Findegil wrote:

I agree to the list of abbreviations, but I think a complete List would in the end be very unhandy.

I would prefer to stick to abbreviations rather than insert comments on where to find the material. Personally, I would kind of like to have a master list of abbreviations. But you do have a point when you say that such could be unhandy. If not a master list, then, perhaps whenever someone makes reference to a text for which there is not yet a common abbreviation, that person should define one.

What is missing is the convention to number the changes. I found that very unhandy in the last discussions. If the changes were once numbered, it was not so easy to find a number for a new change found to be needed. At first I found the system of numbered §§ more convenient until I worked out a different plot for the DoF and tried to apply Maédhros § numbers to my text. But that was very special case.

You are right. I found it very confusing that the original numbering of the FG changes was replaced when the individual section threads were opened.

I suppose the main thing in the future, then, is simply to stick with whatever numbering system we use initially.

I think the original system used for FG is sufficient for the future. That is, each change is designated with something of the form XX-YY-ZZ where XX is the chapter/project code (so FG = Fall of Gondolin, RD = Ruin of Doriath, etc.), YY indicates the section (and this division is arbitrary and can be defined simply as the chunk of text a person is making changes to - so in FG we have "TG" for "Tuor in Gondolin", "A" for the attack, "C" for the closing portions), and ZZ is the number of the change.

If we want to add a new change in between two existing changes, we can assign a decimal value to the number code, so that the changes remain sequential. Thus if I propose a change between XX-YY-05 and XX-YY-06 I could call it XX-YY-05.5. If someone proposes another change after 05 but before 05.5 it could be called XX-YY-05.3 (or XX-YY-05.4, etc.). There is a continuous infinity of real numbers between any two numbers, so we shouldn't run out of them.

The only possible problem would be if someone proposes not just another change, but the use of a whole new base text. In such a case, there might not be an obvious sequential relation between the changes proposed for that text and the changes previously proposed using the other text. One way out of this would simply be to use a different YY code for each such proposal. So, for example, if someone has used a certain base text for a section, and numbered the changes XX-Y-01, XX-Y-02, etc., and I want to present a proposal for using an entirely different base text, I could number my changes XX-Y2-01, XX-Y2-02, etc.

This sounds a bit complicated, but I don't think it really is. Most of it has already been done in the Fall of Gondolin.