Skip to content

Editorial tweaks to definitions up to REFINE_LS_CLASS. - #654

Merged
vaitkus merged 2 commits into
COMCIFS:rc-3.3.0from
nautolycus:techeds6
Sep 9, 2026
Merged

Editorial tweaks to definitions up to REFINE_LS_CLASS.#654
vaitkus merged 2 commits into
COMCIFS:rc-3.3.0from
nautolycus:techeds6

Conversation

@nautolycus

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator

No description provided.

@vaitkus

vaitkus commented Sep 9, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator

Please note that the PUBL_CONTACT_AUTHOR is now a looped category, so the descriptions should probably be updated accordingly ("of a contact author" changed to "of the contact author", etc.). Alternatively, the category could be reverted back to a Set category (I think it became looped immediately after migration from DDL1 to DDLm). However, I am unsure why the change was made in the first place, maybe to accommodate journals that allow several contact authors?

@vaitkus
vaitkus merged commit 72418ba into COMCIFS:rc-3.3.0 Sep 9, 2026
3 checks passed
@nautolycus

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator Author

Please note that the PUBL_CONTACT_AUTHOR is now a looped category, so the descriptions should probably be updated accordingly

Good catch. I suspect it was changed to Loop to align with AUDIT_CONTACT_AUTHOR, where presumably databases allow more than one contact author. I checked with IUCr journals before making the changes in this PR, and they are emphatic that there should be only one article contact author. However, it may be that other publishers are more accommodating (though I foresee administrative difficulties with a policy that allows more than one point of contact).

Anyway, I propose to address this in the next PR by generally changing the introductory sentence to 'The name of a contact author...' etc. and making similar changes to the AUDIT_CONTACT_AUTHOR items. However, I will leave the definite article in place in subsequent references within such a definition, e.g. 'This is the person contacted by the journal editorial staff.' This may be understood at least by sophisticated English language readers as assigning a (linguistic) categorization to any one of the authors designated as a contact author. The result is a constructive ambiguity that I think permits publishers to have both single- and multiple-agent policies, and preserves the Loop category structure.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

2 participants