Michael Hart wrote:
This is exactly the reason for having a separate number, so people will NOT get the .nfo format unless they want it.
The latter is a fine goal, but it seems to me that giving a Folio file a separate etext number achieves precisely the opposite effect. If a volume is available in several formats, the easiest way to convey this fact is in a tabular listing with a "format" column. This is what the PG online catalog's 'bibrec' pages do. However, (I'm pretty sure) a bibrec page can only show data associated with one etext number. Conversely, the pages that show info for multiple etexts (e.g., search results or browse authors) do *not* convey format information. Thus, having a different etext number for a Folio version (or for any particular-format version) actually obscures the format distinction, making it *more* likely that someone will get the .nfo format when they don't want it (or plain text when they'd prefer html, or vice versa, etc). Of course, the decision for Decline & Fall was made back in 1997, before we had bibrec pages, or even much of an online catalog, I think. Perhaps it made more sense given the access and indexing methods of the day, though as far as I can tell, very little use was made of etext numbers in accessing files. (Instead, one used filenames like etext97/dfre310xx.xxx.) Anyway, the argument of people not getting unwanted formats would seem to point in the opposite direction now. Or, as Marcello put it: "The Right Thing to do is to reindex all formats (TXT, HTML, Folio) under one etext number. Then the software would sort it in a sensible way." -Michael