Re: [Bibulus-dev] Bibulus DTD: An concrete example

[Torsten Bronger]

Halloechen!

Thomas Widmann <address@hidden> writes:

> Torsten Bronger <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Thomas Widmann <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> Agreed.  But there could be a case for leaving out certain parts
>>> (e.g., I might include "USA" in the example above if publishing in
>>> Europe, but not if publishing over there).
>>
>> Granted, but then I'd suggest to have only <address> (with #PCDATA
>> inside) and <country> (with optional ISO code attribute) in <place>.
>
> What about <address country="us">Boston, Massachusetts</address>?

This forces the processors to include huge ISO tables, and doesn't
allow for alternate versions of the name that the author of the item
would prefer for some reason.  I think a <country> tag is not too
costly.

>>> Also, some placenames have to be translated, e.g., Aachen should
>>> come out as Aix-la-Chapelle in French, and Glasgow as Glaschù in
>>> Gaelic.  This might be easier to do correctly if the structure
>>> is there.
>>
>> This I don't like.  The city name is some sort of part of the
>> publisher's name and should not be translated (except for the
>> case if the publisher does so itself).
>
> As far as I've been able to find out, this depends on the style.

Well, somewhere you must draw a line anyway.  A style that wants to
translate City names is very stange in my opinion.  After all, it's
not about finding and visiting somebody, but about a tag for
identification.

> [...]
>
>> [...]  The other way round, there are multiple spellings for some
>> cities:
>>
>> Frankfurt                         New York
>> Frankfurt am Main                 New York City
>> Frankfurt a.M.                    New York City/New York
>> Frankfurt a. M.                   New York City (NY)
>> Frankfurt a.&#160;M.              ...
>> Frankfurt&#160;a.&thinspace;M.
>
> Yes, this is a problem, but this is also a problem for consistency
> in bibliographies -- you wouldn't want to see both 'Frankfurt am
> Main' and 'Frankfurt a. M.' in the same document.

Surely automatic canonicalisation would be a nice thing, but it is
impossible.  In the case of city name you'd need an additional city
name database.  Keep in mind that BibTeX data files may contain
thousands of entries added by almost as many people.  One writes
"civilisation" the other "civilization", one capitalises all words
in the title, the other doesn't.

There is one thing however that needs to be canonicalised, namely
the journal name (if it's a paper).

Tschoe,
Torsten.

-- 
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus