(original) (raw)

"[Python-ideas] Add a __cite__ method for scientific packages"

Which CPython source file should contain this __cite__ value?

... On a related note, you should ask the list admin to append a URL to each mailing list message whenever this list is upgraded to mm3; so that you can all be appropriately cited.

On Thursday, September 13, 2018, Wes Turner <wes.turner@gmail.com> wrote:

Do you guys think we should all cite Grub and BusyBox and bash and libc and setuptools and pip and openssl and GNU/Linux and LXC and Docker; or else it's plagiarism for us all?

#OpenAccess

On Wednesday, September 12, 2018, Stephen J. Turnbull <turnbull.stephen.fw@u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote:

Chris Barker via Python-Dev writes:



> But "I wrote some code in Python to produce these statistics" --

> does that need a citation?



That depends on what you mean by "statistics" and whether (as one

should) one makes the code available. If the code is published or

"available on request", definitely, Python should be cited. If not,

and by "statistics" you mean the kind of things provided by Steven

d'Aprano's excellent statistics module (mean, median, standard

deviation, etc), maybe no citation is needed. But anything more

esoteric than that (even linear regression), yeah, I would say you

should cite both Python and any reference you used to learn the

algorithm or formulas, in the context of mentioning that your

statistics are home-brew, not produced by one of the recognized

applications for doing so.



> If so, maybe that would take a different form.



Yes, it would. But not so different: eg, version is analogous to

edition when citing a book.



> Anyway, hard to make this decision without some idea how the

> citation is intended to be used.



Same as any other citation, (1) to give credit to those responsible

for providing a resource (this is why publishers and their metadata of

city are still conventionally included), and (2) to show where that

resource can be obtained. AFAICS, both motivations are universally

applicable in polite society. NB: Replication is an important reason

for wanting to acquire the resource, but it's not the only one.



I think underlying your comment is the question of *what* resource is

being cited. I can think of three offhand that might be characterized

as "Python". First, the PSF, as a provider of funding. There is a

conventional form for this: a footnote on the title or author's name

saying "The author acknowledges [a]

grant [grant identifier if available] from the Python Software

Foundation." I usually orally mention them in presentations, too.

That one's easy; *everybody* should *always* do that.



The rest of these, sort of an ideal to strive for. If you keep a

bibliographic database, and there are now quite a few efforts to crowd

source them, it's easier to go the whole 9 yards than to skimp. But

except in cases where we don't need to even mention the code, probably

we should be citing, for reasons of courtesy to readers as well as

authors, editors, and publishers (as disgusting as many publishers are

as members of society, they do play a role in providing many resources

---we should find ways to compete them into good behavior, not

ostracize them).



The second is the Python *language and standard library*. Then the

Language Reference and/or the Library Reference should be cited

briefly when Python is first mentioned, and in the text introducing a

program or program fragment, with a full citation in the bibliography.

I tentatively suggest that the metadata for the Language Reference

would be



Author: principal author(s) (Guido?) et al. OR python.org OR

Python Contributors

Title: The Python Language Reference

Version: to match Python version used (if relevant, different

versions each get full citations), probably should not be

"current"

Publisher: Python Software Foundation

Date: of the relevant version

Location: City of legal address of PSF

URL: to version used (probably should not be the default)

Date accessed: if "current" was used



The Library reference would be the same except for Title.



The third is a *particular implementation*. In that case the metadata

would be



Author: principal author(s) (Guido) et al. OR python.org OR

Python Contributors

Title: The cPython Python distribution

Python Version: as appropriate (if relevant, different versions each

get full citations), never "current"

Distributor Version: if different from Python version (eg, additional

Debian cruft)

Publisher: Distributor (eg, PSF, Debian Project, Anaconda Inc.)

Date: of the relevant version

Location: City of legal address of distributor



If downloaded:



URL: to version used (including git commit SHA1 if available)

Date accessed: download from distributor, not installation date



If received on physical medium: use the "usual" form of citation for a

collection of individual works (even if Python was the only thing on

it). Probably the only additional information needed would be the

distributor as editor of the collection and the name of the

collection.



In most cases I can think of, if the implementation is cited, the

Language and Library References should be cited, too.



Finally, if Python or components were modified for the project, the

modified version should be preserved in a repository and a VCS

identifier provided. This does not imply the repository need be

publicly accessible, of course, although it might be for other reasons

(eg, in a GSoC project,wherever or if hosted for free on GitHub).



I doubt that "URNs" like DOI and ISBN are applicable, but if available

they should be included in all cases as well.



Steve

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