: this question of canon has come up also at barrowdowns and there I have
: put forth [somewhat tentatively] the idea for a "council" of those
: interested to create a final Silmarillion canon from the wealth of
: posthumous writings.Obviously this would be a major undertaking {and one
: which CRRT is the obvios candidate- and if anyone has connections to him
: by all means inquire}.

: but I rather guess that if he wished to do it he would have mentioned it
: in the last volume of HoME.

: so I am posting this idea to see if there are any others who would be
: interested.

: there are a few details mentioned on the dunharrow site re: legalities
: and such { which could be solved- I yhink by A} getting permission
: {{unlikely}} B}not putting the full text online but discussing the
: passages in question and their source texts. -an obviously cumbersome
: but seemigly legal method.

: anyway starry-eyed idealist that I am .

: I would love to see [and have } a "final" version of the silmarillion
: {and appendices for it} that even if it did not get official publication-
: would be available at least in online piecemeal form for people to do
: with as they wished-even if it meant having an outline for example:

: silm ch.5 first 3 sent. then to UT ch.3 par 4 3 sent. etc.
: actually I am sure some of us could come up w/ a more elegant system.
: any way there is the idea.

: and to whoever decides such things feel free to give it it' own thread
: if you feel it so deserves.

Such a project, no matter how many people joined, would never achieve the status of "official" because it wouldn't be sanctioned by the Tolkien Estate. I don't think there is any hope of getting Christopher Tolkien (or any member of the Tolkien family) involved, but what you might be able to achieve is the creation of a semi-official sanctioning body.

I propose that you look instead into creating a Tolkien Debating Society (and you would probably want a better name than that). The purpose of the society would be to foster serious debate and discussion according to guidelines the society sets forth.

Having helped to create volunteer organizations, I can tell you right now the odds are stacked against you. First of all, even if you get many eager volunteers, most of them will know virtually nothing about how to set it up (which won't be any fault of theirs. Secondly, having worked with many volunteers through the years (or simply having sat on the sidelines while people I know have worked with them), I can tell you that the vast majority of your volunteers will sign up with enthusiasm and leave you to weather the storm in Valley Forge by yourself. Most people just don't approach these kinds of projects with the kind of enthusiasm and dedication that is required of them.

All that negative stuff said, what you may be able to do is get an established debating organization to work with you to create a special chapter. Toastmasters is not exactly a debating organization, but they ARE a volunteer group who have wide open membership requirements (if you can breathe, they'll most likely accept you) AND they have enjoyed a fair amount of success in creating new chapters where people actually show up and do things.

The biggest challenge in creating such an organization (or special chapter) won't be so much in finding people to do the debating as in finding people to write the rules. Who should write them? People trained in formal debating methodologies who have the time, patience, and charisma to enable them to teach many people over the Internet how to do it right (and that means teaching people not to resort to cheap shots and snide remarks and outright blatant lies when they cannot win an argument).

If you really want to do it, plan on putting about a year into getting to a point where you can start publishing debates. You need an organization that people can use to define the boundaries of your "canon". If it becomes well-established and accepted, people will use its guidelines even without joining it.

I suppose you could look at the venture as a Tolkien Canon Society. And it doesn't have to have a single canon. Since there are many canons, what you may really be after is defining a formal set of rules for canon. i.e., Let people agree to use "canon set 1" or "canon set 2" in their discussions.

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