In order to extend the history of the LCO backwards and forwards in time, it is important to understand the data structure used in this website. There are two main types of data used here. The first is "Statutes," which hold the text of a particular statute and are assembled into Documents. For instance, every numbered constitution or ordination is a separate Statue, but so is every chapter and section heading. The LCO starts with one Statute that has three child Statues: "The Fundamental Constitution," "The Life of the Brothers," and "The Government of the Order." These in turn have their own children and on it goes to assemble the entire LCO Document. Each Statute has a "Type" denoting if it is the head of a document, a chapter heading, and section heading, and ordination, a constitution, etc.
The second important data type is "Incorporation Dates," which connect any particular version of a Statue to the Document and paragraph that authorized it.
- Changes to the LCO do not happen all at once. Changes to particular statutes are proposed at one General Chapter and then have to be ratified at following chapters. This complex process is outlined here. What this means is that any particular version of a Statute will eventually have multiple Incorporation Dates for when it was incorporated and ratified or rescinded. It could also have multiple Incorporation Dates because different paragraphs in a particular ACG had a hand in changing it.
- Incorporation Dates are tied to specific paragraphs inside Documents (typically the Acts of a General Chapter). In this version of the LCO, particular Acts of General Chapters are represented by Statutes of type "Document." The paragraph numbers inside these ACGs are simply represented by a text field.
- Incorporation Dates also have to include what kind of change this is "confirmata", "inchoata" etc.
- The the promulgation date of this version of the Statute is denoted by the "Published On" date of the Document that the Incorporation Date is linked to,
To add to the history of a particular statute, one begins with the Latin version. This is the definitive text and contains links to the ACG that authorizes the change that are not editable in the translated versions.
- Create a Statute of type Document representing the Acts of the General Chapter which authorizes that change you are documenting (if not already created).
- Create an Incorporation Date with the relevant ACG and paragraph number that authorises this change.
- "Clone" the existing Statue that this one replaces or is replaced by, and then change the new text, marking words as "added" and "deleted" in the text editor. At this point, the new Statue looks quite similar to the paragraph in the ACG.
- Link this Statue to the Incorporation Date you created above.
- Note that the Identifier and Book to which this text belongs is the same at the text that this replaces or is replaced by. This unique Book/Identifier is what the system uses to link various versions of the statute over time.
- You will most likely leave "Type" the same, unless the paragraph number is being vacated or recycled.
- You can also look and see where it is in the structure of the Document under "Book Outline." This probably will not change, but sometimes does and the structure of the LCO changes.
- Save your changes.
When you Save the changes, the system makes some calculations about how this Statute relates to other Statutes is already has, such as what timeframe this version is in force, and when other versions start and stop. You can then enter the translated versions of this Statute in the Translate tab.
If your change is simply confirming an existing text, you create the "confirmata" Incorporation Date and link it as a second one to the statute.