Methodology

The archive presents editions rather than silently blending them. Every passage keeps its printed stanza number, wording, line divisions, notes, source reference, license record, and review status.

Source acquisition

Text is acquired from a named edition through a documented manifest. Public-domain Bellows and Thorpe transcriptions can be staged from traceable repositories. Bray is checked against the 1908 scan. Pettit is acquired only from the official CC BY-NC 4.0 release while the project remains noncommercial. A readable web mirror is never treated as automatic permission or as a distinct edition.

Alignment

Canonical passage references are internal finding aids. Bellows numbering supplies the initial anchor because its complete public-domain text is available, but that choice is administrative, not a claim that Bellows gives the single correct division.

Other editions retain their own printed numbers. Alignment records support one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-one relationships, plus an explicit uncertainty state. The proposal script can flag likely matches, but it cannot publish them. Relocated material, merged stanzas, split stanzas, and edition-specific closing formulas require human review.

Publication states

Fetched records begin as needs review. Validation checks structure, numbering, Unicode, line content, and alignment metadata. Only an editor may approve and publish a corpus. Publishing also enables its edition record; an unreviewed file remains invisible in the public browser and comparison tool.

Editorial layers

Source text, translator notes, published commentary, editorial notes, personal notes, and reader discussion are stored and labeled separately. Community opinions never become scholarship merely because they are popular.

Corrections

Accepted textual corrections create revision records. The project does not silently modernize wording, normalize an edition to match another, or repair a source based on guesswork.

Limits

Where source rights, page references, alignment, or commentary are not verified, the interface shows the uncertainty or an honest empty state.