In MHRA3 citation with no author, 'suppress author' suppresses the title

AndySymons

In an MHRA3 citation with no author, using the 'suppress author' option suppresses the title instead.

Easily reproduced:
1. Create an item with no author (which is normal in, for example, a Dictionary Entry)
2. Generate a citation using MHRA 3 standard, and select 'suppress author'
The citation shows with no title.

If the item has one or more authors then it is / they are correctly suppressed and the title is shown correctly.
I tested with several item types and they all do the same.
i did not test with any other citation standard.

adamsmith

Why is that a problem?
The way the style is coded, this is correct behavior: in the absence of an author, the title takes the place of an author and so that's what gets ommitted when you use the option. Same logic for e.g. ommitting the editor of an edited volume.

Why would you use suppress author for an item without an author?

AndySymons

I don't see the logic of replacing the author with the title, they are not the same thing! I first came across it with a series of dictionary entries. I suppressed the author because I did not want to see it even if there is one. Of course, having established that none is given, the workaround was to not suppress the author. Feels like a workaround rather than following any logic, though.

I can see the utility in having a feature to suppress the title, and have asked for that feature as a separate post.

adamsmith

The idea of suppressing the author is to suppress the primary marker of an item, because it may be used in the text. That could very well also apply to the short title.

Pretty sure we're not going to change it and I don't think we've seen anyone pre-emptively use the checkbox, so the issue you're describing is going to be very rare (and easily fixable in those cases)