To annotate or not to annotate

[Peter Giordano]

A reasonable annotation policy can be found in the LIBRARY OF
AMERICA volumes - They produce notes to things which can't
be expected to be found in standard reference works like the
Webster's Biographical Dictionary, the Webster's Geographical
Dictionary or the Britannica

The key word in the above is "reasonable" so that leaves certain
segments of Pynchon-l out - Of course, any criteria for  such
a policy would have to be agreed to before hand and since I could
have bet money that this project, like most other "cooperative" 
internet project would devolve into an opportunity for the clowns to
call attention to themselves - (The the father in the BROS. K?)I
don't know if Doug and company did set up such criteria

I was struck by the concerns of the foreign readers say that they needed
more detailed commentary - That's an interesting point - What purpose
is a commentary supposed to serve - Can it answer every possible question
that comes up?  Should it?  It would be interesting to look at the
debate over Nabakov's commentary on Pushkin (actually it's a translation)

One puzzlement:  If everybody is reading this commentary via the internet
how many of the more basic questions can be easily answered via readily
available internet reference sources - I've not tested this, of course -
But does a commentary have to be "one stop shopping" - One danger in
this is that any specific commentary is my nature an "editorial" or
subjective remark and limits the pleasures of serendipity in the
quest for information/understanding

The above should not be taken a rejection of the notion of a detailed
commentary -I just wonder how far one needs to go

Peter