Re: [Refdb-users] "reversibility" patch

[Bruce D'A. <bd...@fa...>]

On Jan 7, 2004, at 9:26 AM, Marc Herbert wrote:

> You really do not understand that, if some information is lost in this
> great process, whatever its noble purpose is, some author may _never_
> see his name printed as he would like to, even when some stylesheets
> allow it.

The issues here are rather larger and more complicated than they appear 
on the face of it, and I think it's best to recognize this on both 
sides of the issue.  One way to highlight this is to ask this simple 
question:

How do you -- the person entering name data -- know exactly how the 
author intends their name to be represented?

It's rarely adequate to look at a heading in an article, or in a 
reference list, for example.

In an ideal world, there's be a central repository with definitive 
listings, available as a web service.  Until that day, though (maybe 
never), this will always be a difficult issue.

Bruce