Format/Notation Issues

[Findegil]

I am rather for keeping a difference for

[ ] Normalized, usually used for proper names indicating they are here in final form, not as in original text. Eg. "[Huor]" probably represents an original "Peleg", "[nor]thward", represents original "southward", and "[']" represents original """.

<u>Underline</u> Material inserted for grammatical reasons or as editorial bridge.

and

/ / Material altered in accordance with our principle 6c; mostly used for expansion of outlines. In this case, I will show the deletion of the original as well; for example: {Coming thither of Elwing} = /Elwing came thither/.

And I like Aiwendils suggestion of \ \ instead of <u>Underline</u>.
What I think we will indicate mostly by this are editorial bridges.
What for me is still missing is a possibility to indicate a commentary of the editor in the text. The only one allowed by that convention (beside the convention it self, which is a kind of categorisation of the change made) is the "code ... after the opening angle-bracket, eg. "<QS77 "" Since we do clearly have not for every source a code and I would find it very unhandy to have to look back to a listing of codes to find out of which text this came, I would at least suggest a sign as break between source info or commentary and the inserted text e.g.:
<QS77; from chapter XY | whatever text is to be inserted>.

I agree to the list of abbreviations, but I think a complete List would in the end be very unhandy. For that I think we should ever allow for the full info (see above).

One possible convention would be to indicate what base text one is using at the beginning of a section, and then only indicate changes (that is, not copy the whole text) using the angular brackets as necessary to indicate insertions from other sources. Then, if the base text changes for a significant length of text, indicate the switch.

Agreed.
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.

Respectfully
Findegil