A funny thing happened on the way to the canon

[Aiwendil]

My greatest desire with it all is to provide a seamless chronological tale of the History of Arda, so that people can read and enjoy all of Tolkien's Legendarium without having to examine the endless pages of confusing lore. All the repeated, outdated, and conflicting scraps thrown together in HoME and other sources.

Well that's exactly what we're attempting to do here. I know that posting here is pretty infrequent, but don't be deceived; this is an active project. It's always good to see someone new interested in helping.

Regarding your proposed methods of operation: we're actually fairly well underway with our first section of revisions. Rather than the Tale of Years structure you suggest, we're pretty much just taking the Silmarillion chapter by chapter. I'm not convinced that a detailed Tale of Years is a necessary first step; all the major plot points of the Silmarillioin are more or less agreed upon, and the tricky parts often need to be looked at in conjunction with whatever text we're using, rather than just as part of an abstract chronological chart.

You may want to browse through some of the old threads to see what we have so far; a good deal has actually already been established concerning procedure. We are close to having a rough final version of the Fall of Gondolin, incorporating most of the Lost Tales version. We have also come to an informal consensus on several other issues in various threads. And in the "Principles of editing the Silmarillion" thread, you'll find our list of rules to follow in determining our final text.

There's currently a vote going on in the "Translations from the Elvish" forum on the infamous Balrog numbers issue with regard to the Fall of Gondolin. You have to be an "official" member of the project to vote, which just means that you have to post in the "Introduction to the Forum" thread and Lindil will give you the password.