When GoGodotJam 3 comes, i will want to prepare an empty project with some basic generic metadata, such as

• a GoGJ3-themed Splash Screen
• the game name ‘gogj3’
• the Export templates
• the most important and most time-consuming part: the Licenses that i’ll need to open-source my project

but i will not make any gameplay or visuals or sounds before the theme reveal (generic means ‘not specific’, after all).

if i do this, ¿will my project count as a legitimate GoGJ3 project because i didn’t start making the actual game before the jam, or will it be removed because the file manager shows i have created/changed project files before the jam?

IMO you are absolutely fine preparing the metadata stuff in advance. You simply save your time on the stuff that has to be done but is not exactly related to the game. I think you should go for it.

yes, it's ok. Also, GoGodotJam is abbreviated GOGJ, not to be confused with Global Game Jam which is GGJ

I have already spelled it as GGJ in

• the URLs of my GoGJ 1—2 games (ggj-tree-invaders, ggj2-super-runner)
• the Android package name for Super Runner (ggj2.sosasees.super_runner)
• GoGJ1 and GoGJ2 community posts

It’s very impractical to go back and correct the spelling, because:

• changing the URLs will break all links to them, and
• i have made enough GoGJ community posts for it to be tedious to change every instance, also i don’t think these were any ambiguous because of the context.

But now i know how to spell GoGJ in the future. Thanks very much to Adrian for correcting this, and to Adrian & John for answering my original question.