GOST variants

[avram]

These styles were submitted to me by Roman Raspopov.

[rmzelle]

I see he commented here as well: http://chetvericov.ru/stil-oformleniya-dlya-mendeley-i-zotero-csl-po-gost-r-705-2008/#.UfKF_Y3FV1Z (I don't read Russian, though)

I need more information in order to merge this (and the style metadata needs some work regardless). Can these styles be used to replace https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/master/gost-r-7-0-5-2008.csl and https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/master/gost-r-7-0-5-2008-numeric.csl ? And is there a real need to have 3 differently sorted variants of the numeric version?

[avram]

@romanraspopov -- just comment here in response.

[avram]

@romanraspopov -- the biggest questions are

1. What is the reason for having three different styles for numeric that differ only in sorting? If they are all in the GOST document itself, then that makes sense, but we don't want to have extra styles with very minor distinctions unless they are justified.
2. Metadata. The style names need to be changed.
3. Comparison to existing. Are these replacements for the existing GOST styles?

[romanraspopov]

1.   Is there an opportunity to switch sorting within Zotero or it`s Word plugin? I didn`t find it, that is why I created separate styles. They can be combined into one – it`s a question of convenience of use.
   

2.   How exactly should they be changed? Are there any requirements?
   

3.   They can replace the existing GOST styles, since they contain many improvements, but it would be best to ask users.
   

[adam3smith]

1. No, this needs to be defined in the style, question is are those
   variants actually all needed (i.e. are they specified in the manual)?

for 2. see here:
https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/wiki/Style-Requirements

1. Polling users isn't really feasible. If you say they're better than
   we'll use them to replace the old ones.

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 12:11 PM, Roman Raspopov
notifications@github.comwrote:

1. Is there an opportunity to switch sorting within Zotero or its Word plugin? I didnt find it, that is why I created separate styles. They can
   be combined into one - it`s a question of convenience of use.
2. How exactly should they be changed? Are there any requirements?
3. They can replace the existing GOST styles, since they contain many
   improvements, but it would be best to ask users.

From: Avram Lyon [mailto:notifications@github.com]
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 11:31 PM
To: citation-style-language/styles
Cc: Roman Raspopov
Subject: Re: [styles] GOST variants (#649)

@romanraspopov https://github.com/romanraspopov -- the biggest
questions are

1. What is the reason for having three different styles for numeric that
   differ only in sorting? If they are all in the GOST document itself, then
   that makes sense, but we don't want to have extra styles with very minor
   distinctions unless they are justified.
2. Metadata. The style names need to be changed.
3. Comparison to existing. Are these replacements for the existing GOST
   styles?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub <
https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/pull/649#issuecomment-21635770>
.ïÐÉÓÁÎÉÅ: òÉÓÕÎÏË ÕÄÁÌÅÎ ÏÔÐÒÁ×ÉÔÅÌÅÍ.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//pull/649#issuecomment-21638226
.

Sebastian Karcher
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Political Science
Northwestern University

[romanraspopov]

1.  I have combined all three numeric styles into one with the opportunity to comment/decomment specific parts of the styles. So only two styles can be left: author-date and numeric. But users often need to make sorting in order of appearance in their papers and rarely in chronological order. What do you advise: to leave those as separate styles or merge them into one?
   

2.  Done.
   

3.  Yes, they are better. And I added a documentation on Zotero-CSL field correspondence (link in the styles).
   

[rmzelle]

For 1, what does the GOST style guide say about sorting, specifically?

[romanraspopov]

I checked the GOST documentation - all those sorting options are standard and all of them are needed. So this is correct to provide all of them separately.

I have just updated all four styles.

[rmzelle]

I checked the GOST documentation - all those sorting options are standard and all of them are needed. So this is correct to provide all of them separately.

Thanks, that's what I needed to know.

Your styles don't pass our automatic testing (see https://travis-ci.org/citation-style-language/styles/builds/9598031 ). First, it appears your styles aren't valid CSL (see https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/wiki/Validation). I can't give you specific errors since http://validator.nu/ is down at the moment and http://simonster.github.io/csl-validator.js/ doesn't give any output for your style (maybe it trips on all the XML comments). Second, the style names have to be changed a little. For instance, GOST-R-7.0.5-2008-author-date-alphab.csl should be renamed to gost-r-7-0-5-2008.csl to match the existing style (since we want to replace it), and the style ID and "self" link will have to be changed to match. (I'll give the desired names for the other three styles once you address my question below)

Also, I looked at your chronological style, and its bibliography is first sorted by <key macro="author-title"/>, which seems an alphabetical sort. Is that intended?

[romanraspopov]

In chronological style the first sorting option is then . Maybe the commenting signs “<!--” are a bit confusing.

I wish I knew how to validate them…

Style names can be replaced as follows:
gost-r-7-0-5-2008-author-date-alphab.csl -> gost-r-7-0-5-2008.csl
gost-r-7-0-5-2008-num-alphab.csl -> gost-r-7-0-5-2008-numeric.csl
gost-r-7-0-5-2008-num-appear.csl -> gost-r-7-0-5-2008-numeric-appear.csl
gost-r-7-0-5-2008-num-chrono.csl -> gost-r-7-0-5-2008-numeric-chrono.csl

[rmzelle]

@romanraspopov, you're right, I was confused by the XML comments.

First, let's deal with the style validation. Validator.nu is back up. See e.g. http://validator.nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fraw.github.com%2Fajlyon%2Fstyles%2F82ada0277c8c773926b212093b4be590eff47ef5%2FGOST-R-7.0.5-2008-author-date-alphab.csl&schema=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fcitation-style-language%2Fschema%2Fraw%2Fv1.0.1%2Fcsl.rnc&parser=xml&laxtype=yes
(https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/wiki/Validation has instructions on how to use this website)

Note that "language" is not a variable in CSL 1.0.1, even though citeproc-js will accept it. (the reason is that the language field will typically hold a language code, which is unlikely to ever appear in a printed citation or bibliography)

[romanraspopov]

I see…

1.  The point is “language” is a key field in sorting and there is no other way to distinguish English items from Russian. It`s good that “the language field will typically hold a language code, which is unlikely to ever appear in a printed citation or bibliography” – that`s right what we need.
   

2.  Attribute “suppress-min” is also compulsory to meet GOST requirements about the number of authors in bibliography item.
   

3.  “locale” and “layout” in element bibliography are needed to combine items of different languages with language-specific formatting into one bibliography.
   

4.  The only thing I can change is to remove attribute “page-range-format=”” ” as redundant.
   

What if the styles are not validatable?

[adam3smith]

we don't accept styles that don't validate. CSL styles are used in different software, relying on at least four different processors (i.e. software that interprets them), we have no idea what may break with styles that don't validate according to our published schema.

[rmzelle]

1. There are some ideas for improving language support in CSL (although development lately has slowed a bit), but we don't accept invalid CSL styles, so using "language" is currently off the table.

2. Where did you find mention of "suppress-min"? It has been discussed, but never made it into CSL.

3. The problem is that you have two <layout/> elements within <bibliography/>, and a "locale" attribute on one of them ("locale" is not a CSL attribute).

4. The attribute "page-range-format" must be set on <style/>, not on <layout/> or <bibliography/>.

[romanraspopov]

1.  I hope this issue with the language support will be solved soon.
   

2.  I found "suppress-min" on some forum I suppose, and it works with Zotero – Word plugin. Just what we need according to GOST.
   

3.  Two <layout/> elements are included deliberately – formatting for items on different languages must be also different.
   

4.  Got it.
   

Looks like these styles can only be used “unofficially”, beyond repository. Let it be. I just wanted Zotero users (like me) to do their research papers more conveniently.

[avram]

I don't know what the best way is to distribute styles that can't be put in the general repo -- you are welcome to keep them in this fork of the styles repository, so at least we can benefit from Github's hosting and version control.

And if we find that GOST can't be implemented within the spec, these styles are a strong argument for revisions to the CSL specification going forward; widely-adopted governmental standards should be able to be represented in CSL.

[rmzelle]

I think the workaround for 2) is to redefine the "et-al" term as an empty string and just rely on the normal et-al abbreviation logic.

( "suppress-min" and the multiple <locale/> elements are both part of CSL-m, a fork by @fbennett, the author of the CSL processor used in Zotero. See http://citationstylist.org/docs/citeproc-js-csl.html )

@romanraspopov, if you're willing to strip out the non-validating changes to the GOST styles we can accept them in the official repository. Other than that, you're of course free to distribute the original styles yourself.

[rmzelle]

these styles are a strong argument for revisions to the CSL specification going forward; widely-adopted governmental standards should be able to be represented in CSL.

I don't dispute that there is work to be done here, especially on the language front. CSL development is just slow because: a) I volunteer a lot more time nowadays on accepting styles into the repository, b) Frank is quite busy with MLZ, and c) motivation is an issue, for both Frank and me.

I've often found it more productive to team up with Frank than to solely rely on the xbiblio list. Since I'm not worth much as a programmer, I've always heavily relied him for fleshing out CSL XML syntax ideas, creating unit tests, and proof-of-concept implementation in citeproc-js, and CSL 1.0 and 1.0.1 wouldn't exist if it wasn't for him. But clearly he has a lot on his plate already.

I think that to get CSL development to speed up again, we'd need either:

• some financial incentive for at least Frank and me to work on CSL. They have been some discussions about seeking grant money, but it might be hard to get any (and I'm not familiar in the world of grants). Still, it always seems to me that it should be possible to convince a big publisher like ACS to pay for a chemistry-specific feature like compound-citations (Support multiple items per citation-number (for chemistry journals) schema#36).
• restructure the CSL development process a bit. The design-by-committee of the xbiblio list doesn't work very well, so often I would try to just push my opinion through once I was convinced of a design decision, had Frank on board, and had done my best to listen to any objections. Perhaps other people could step up.

[romanraspopov]

Stripping out non-validating parts of the styles will cut significant functions, so there is no much sense in placing "cut" versions in repository.

I`d rather place it in this non-validating state here on Github (in separate repo maybe) or somewhere else, in order that any user could easily download and use it.

[rmzelle]

I`d rather place it in this non-validating state here on Github (in separate repo maybe) or somewhere else, in order that any user could easily download and use it.

You could put up a link to your styles at http://chetvericov.ru/stil-oformleniya-dlya-mendeley-i-zotero-csl-po-gost-r-705-2008/#.Uflc143FV1a (and mention that these CSL styles only work with citeproc-js based reference managers, such as Zotero and Mendeley). But we're not going to add a repository for CSL-m styles ourselves.

Perhaps @fbennett would be interested in hosting your styles at https://github.com/fbennett/mlz-styles (they would still have to validate against his CSL-m schema, though, which they currently won't because of issue (4) I highlighted above).

[romanraspopov]

Yes, that`s clear.