Re: [xbiblio-devel] Counting authors

[Frank B. <bie...@gm...>]

On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Frank Bennett <bie...@gm...> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 11:23 PM, Bruce D'Arcus <bd...@gm...> wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Frank Bennett <bie...@gm...> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Bruce D'Arcus <bd...@gm...> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Frank Bennett <bie...@gm...> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> ....
>>>>
>>>>> No, the last two items should be in year order, ignoring all authors
>>>>> but the first.
>>>>
>>>> Are you sure? I'm re-reading the style guide, and I'm not seeing this.
>>>> Can you point it out for me?
>>>
>>> Yes, very sure.  Their example has Jones after Roberts.
>>
>> OIC; got it!
>>
>> Let's see if we can first describe this in plain English, as
>> succinctly as possible. How about ...
>>
>>    "sort by first author, then number of contributors/authors, then year"
>>
>> ... ?

FWIW, I've hooked up bibliographies in citeproc-js, done a trial
implementation of form="count", and have sort_NumberOfAuthorsAsKey
passing.  I'll set up the AGU example as a test later today and see
how that goes.

Andrea, if you have a little time do you have thoughts on the
respective proposals?  The essence is in the examples:

## Counting authors with form="count"
http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/citeproc-js/branches/fbennett/std/humans/sort_NumberOfAuthorsAsKey.txt?revision=893&view=markup

## Counting authors with count-max:
http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/citeproc-js/branches/fbennett/std/humans/sort_NumberOfAuthorsAsKeyCountMinMax.txt?revision=893&view=markup

Both do the same thing, by different means.  The issue they address is
the need to include an integer count of item contributors in the bib
sort key, which is required by the sorting conventions of some common
styles.  (Personally, I'm fond of the form="count" approach because
it's shorter and easier to code, but I won't scream if the decision
goes the other way.  If we can reach consensus, though, we can put
this one behind us.)

Frank


>>
>> Or am I missing the fact that it makes no difference if there are
>> three or four or five author; that all of them get treated the same?
>
> There's a threshold.  If there are two, they are placed in the second
> group, and the second author is used as key #3, then year as key #4.
> If there are more than three, the other authors become irrelevant --
> year effectively becomes key #3 for that group.
>
>>
>> If yes, is there some necessary connection between this particular
>> aspect of the rules, and the et al specification?
>
> It's just a succinct way (in the sense of not extending CSL or the
> implementations) of disabling the third key in the third group.
>
>>
>> Bruce
>>
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