So far we've talked mostly about what words to include in a dictionary. I should say something about what is and ought to be expected in the way of information about the words. The traditional elements have been for some time: spelling and syllabication, pronunciation, definition, and etymology. To these we have added the new dimension of large-scale information about usage.
Spelling is rather well established, thanks to generations of copy-editors, but we have been able to confirm preferred choices statistically with the Brown corpus.