textual-editor

[bwiernik]

In English, the term “editor” is used for both an editor who is a direct contributor to a work (a textual or critical editor) and an editor who organizes contributions to a larger work (editorial director, as in the editor of an academic handbook, “directeur de la publication” in French).

Other languages, notably French but occasionally others, distinguish these roles (eg, "éd." vs “dir.”).

The role “editorial-director” was added to distinguish the roles for these locales, such that “editor” refers to the textual/critical editor and “editorial-director” refers to the organizing editor/editorial director.

I’ve started to question if this was the right call. It seems to me that the “editor” role is primarily cited as the organizing editor of academic edited volumes, so the vast majority of data in the wild uses the role “editor” to refer to organizing editors, not textual editors. As a result, if a style assumes that “editor” is a textual editor, the incorrect term will be used by default, and it will require substantial style-specific data revision.

Entering organizing editors as “editorial-director” can be problematic because very few styles use this role, so item data would again need to be revised when moving between styles using editorial-director and most other styles.

I propose that we add the role “textual-editor” to explicitly indicate the textual/critical editor and shift our assumption that “editor” by default refers to an organizing editor for locales that distinguish such roles.

Thoughts?

[bwiernik]

@denismaier @adam3smith @adunning @bdarcus

[denismaier]

I think that would be the right choice. I'd also think of "editor" as the more common role and of "textual editor" as the exception or more discipline specific role.