Overriding style (i.e. dependent styles not only for locale)

Blackhole1

Hi,

as far as I understand it, CSL allows for dependent styles to override the locale only.

Is there a solution for creating dependent styles that are allowed to override more than just the locale?

I am currently working on an adaptation of the style "Juristische Zitierweise (Stüber)" for German law journals.

Citation in most journals is quite similar. Citation of journal articles and books would be identical for many of the journals.

However, there may be slight differences, e.g. in how to cite court decisions. This could be like

<court>, <decisiontype> v. <date> - <docketnumber>, <journal> <journalyear>, <firstpage>, <locator>
=> BGH, Urt. v. 1.1.2012 - I ZR 121/09, MMR 2014, 123, 124

or

<court>, <date with blanks> - <docketnumber>, <journal> <journalyear>, <firstpage> (<locator>)

=> BGH, 1. 1. 2012 - I ZR 121/09, MMR 2014, 123 (124)

Thus, it would be great to have a "base set" CSL (for journal articles and books) which can then be overridden.

Thank you.

adamsmith

A way to keep track of this internally might be nice, but expanding dependent styles to allow complex overrides like this would add more complexity than it'd be worth it. It's easy enough to just copy the relevant code.

zuphilip

You should use the template link to indicate where you did copy stuff (this link then also gives kind of the credit for the parts you might copy, i.e. you don't have to worry about copyright [if it exists here at all]). Moreover, you can use the summary field for describing any dependencies between different styles.

I am very exciting the German legal styles you will create. We are happy to include these styles, which implement the guidelines of a journal, in the CSL-repository.

fbennett

@Blackhole1: It would be great if you could consider contributing to the CSL-m styles for MLZ.

I've been thinking about the problem of legal style variants for some time. MLZ is used by Masters and PhD students in the faculty where I teach (Nagoya University), and their writing calls for citation of resources from jurisdictions with differing legal traditions and citation conventions (for example Mongolia, Uzbekistan, China [CN], China [TW], South Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Japan, the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany ...).

Currently, each of the MLZ styles is a monolith, maintained by cloning style code for each jurisdiction from its "master" to the others. This makes for heavy styles, and maintenance is too awkward to be sustainable across the full range of jurisdictions to be covered.

A solution to our scalability problem should also address your concern over minor style variations within a single jurisdiction. I have been thinking in terms of extending CSL to provide for modular coverage of primary legal resources. To make that work smoothly, we will need some sort of API convention for the macros implementing each jurisdiction. The design of the "API" will be a little tricky, since the base citation form is generally a property of the target jurisdiction, but the back-reference conventions are a property of the local style. With care, though, I think the problems can be solved.

Tackling legal styles in a serious way across a wide range of jurisdictions is a huge, long-run task, and at some point it will need an infusion of funding. I made a stab at that a couple of years ago, with a preliminary application that was rejected at the first stage on the grounds that the funding body "Does not support CSL projects that target a single field." I was discouraged at the time, but MLZ has been performing well since, and the user base is slowly growing; it may be worthwhile to cast the net again sometime soon. In any case, modular legal support is something that I do intend to pursue "with all deliberate speed."

Blackhole1

Hi,

sorry for answering with delay. The notification spent some time in my Spam-folder...
It is a pity that there does not seem to be a possibility to prevent having to multiply code, since it would make the correction of errors much easier.

@fbenett: I will definitely take a look on the MLZ citation styles.