GeneticEditionDraf1Comments

The proposal suggests that multiple drafts of the same work be represented as separate digital copies, interrelated by means of links. This strategy introduces a massive redundancy that only serves to increase the work of editors and software in maintaining copies of text that are supposed to be linked or identical. It would be much more efficient and simpler all round to represent each instance of a piece of text that occurs exactly once in a work by one unique piece of text.

The section on "grouping changes" implies that manuscript texts have a structure that can be broken down into a hierarchy of changes that can be conveniently grouped and nested arbitrarily. Similarly in section 4.1 a strict hierarchy is imposed consisting of document->writing surface->zone->line. Since Barnard's paper in 1988 where he pointed out the inherent failure of markup to adequately represent a simple case of nested speeches and lines in Shakespeare - sometimes a line was spread over two speeches - the problem of overlap has most certainly not gone away. This representation, which seeks to reassert the OHCO model, which has been withdrawn by its own authors, will fail to adequately represent these genetic texts until it is recognised that they are fundamentally non-hierarchical.

I am also curious as to how you propose to "collate" XML documents arranged in this structure, especially when the variants are distributed via two mechanisms: as markup in individual files and also as links between documentary versions. Collation programs work by comparing basically plain text files, containing only light markup for references in COCOA or empty XML elements (as in the case of Juxta). The only collation program that can handle XML is TUSTEP, but this leaves unanswered the very real problem that unmatched tags may appear in the apparatus. The virtual absence of collation programs able to process arbitrary XML renders this proposal at least very difficult to achieve. It would be better if a purely digital representation of the text were the objective, since in this case, an apparatus would not be needed.

The mechanism for transposition as described also sounds infeasible. It is unclear what is meant by a standoff mechanism. However, if this allows chunks of transposed text to be moved around this will fail if the chunks contain non-well-formed markup or if the destination location does not permit that markup in the schema at that point. Also if transpositions between physical versions are allowed - and this actually comprises the majority of cases - how is such a mechanism to work, especially when transposed chunks may well overlap?