[seqfan] Re: Format for references in OEIS.

[Alonso Del Arte]

And I have to admit that I myself have been inconsistent with references
I've added myself. Sometimes I'll copy a citation from another entry and
change only the page numbers even though I would format it differently if I
was doing it from scratch.

Al


On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 8:03 PM, Neil Sloane <njasloane at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am strongly opposed to requiring a rigid format for references.
> I add a lot of references myself, which is very time-consuming,
> and if I had to put them into
> a standard format it would take
> twice as long and I just wouldn't do it.
> Plus there really cannot be a standard format which
> will apply to journal articles, conf proceedings,
> theses, preprints, newspaper articles, articles
> on home pages, blog posts,
> etc
>
> Plus we have about 240,000 refs and links right now (I just
> counted them) and it would be impossible to
> make them uniform.
>
> References are like people - or dogs - they come in many
> different formats and we just have to be tolerant!
>
> Neil
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 7:45 PM, Alonso Del Arte <alonso.delarte at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Yes, there is disagreement. Part of the issue here is the dividing lines
> > between things we want to keep for the sake of tradition, things we want
> to
> > keep for the sake of convenience, and things we want to keep due to an
> > irrational attachment to the way things were.
> >
> > Consider this mildly contrived example:
> >
> > C. M. Bender & G. V. Dunne, Polynomials and operator orderings, J. Math.
> > Phys. 29 ('88), 1727-1.
> >
> > "C." abbreviates "Carl". Maybe we're not worried about Carl M. Bender
> being
> > confused for Clark M. Bender. In my opinion, it is not a good practice to
> > continue to abbreviate first names (or in some cases middle names as
> > applicable).
> >
> > I feel differently about abbreviating journal titles, even though
> sometimes
> > the memory and bandwidth savings are just as negligible (e.g., "Phys."
> for
> > "Physics"). I don't worry at all that "Math. Rep." could be
> > "Mathematicians' Repetitions". The MR abbreviations may be entirely
> > practical.
> >
> > Trying to abbreviate page numbers could sometimes lead to the mistake
> > illustrated above: the paper starts on page 1727 and ends on page 1731,
> not
> > page 1721.
> >
> > Even if we were to decide a consistent format needs to be adhered to, the
> > most practical way to go about it is to enforce it for new entries and
> > gradually bring older entries into line.
> >
> > Al
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 5:13 PM, L. Edson Jeffery <lejeffery2 at gmail.com
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > There seems to be disagreement regarding the format for references. For
> > > journal references, in particular, should the preferred format for the
> > > journal title be as adopted by Mathematical Reviews?
> > >
> > > This practice is widely accepted in professional and technical
> > > publications. An example is having a preference for J. Integer Seq.,
> > > instead of Journal of Integer Sequences.
> > >
> > > A comprehensive list (as of Oct 2011) of journal title abbreviations
> > > adopted by Mathematical Reviews can be found at the following link:
> > >
> > > http://www.ams.org/msnhtml/serials.pdf
> > >
> > > Ed Jeffery
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > >
> > > Seqfan Mailing list - http://list.seqfan.eu/
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Alonso del Arte
> > Author at SmashWords.com<
> > https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AlonsoDelarte>
> > Musician at ReverbNation.com <http://www.reverbnation.com/alonsodelarte>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > Seqfan Mailing list - http://list.seqfan.eu/
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Dear Friends, I have now retired from AT&T. New coordinates:
>
> Neil J. A. Sloane, President, OEIS Foundation
> 11 South Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA.
> Also Visiting Scientist, Math. Dept., Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ.
> Phone: 732 828 6098; home page: http://NeilSloane.com
> Email: njasloane at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Seqfan Mailing list - http://list.seqfan.eu/
>



-- 
Alonso del Arte
Author at SmashWords.com<https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AlonsoDelarte>
Musician at ReverbNation.com <http://www.reverbnation.com/alonsodelarte>