Re: [pygame] Citing PyGame in papers

[Joe Ranalli <jranalli@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think one thing to pay attention to also is the purpose for citing it.  Because that really guides the information that appears in the citation.

If you're writing about some software you've created USING pygame, then the purpose of that citation is to identify what pygame is for people who haven't heard of it.  In that case, the main purpose of the paper is your software, not pygame, and the most important part of the citation is communicating with readers how to find out about pygame.  While you'll list the year and author and everything, ultimately all people need to know to follow your work is the pygame website.

If instead you're writing about technical details of pygame, then it would be much more important to format the citation in a more elaborate way, including things like version number, maybe platform, etc.  Since PyGame isn't really research software, those facts are probably more important than the exact way you choose to credit the authorship.  That is, the reason you're crediting the authors in this case is more to acknowledge the hard work of the people who created and contribute to PyGame, and where they can get it, rather than directing readers to somebody who conducts technical research on this particular software.    

There are indeed groups out there who are extremely picky about exactly how every single citation is listed and will throw a fit if you exchange a comma with a period.  In my experience with technical writing in the sciences though, it's largely not addressed in such a specific manner.  You said that you don't have an explicit citation format for open source software. I don't think it's unreasonable for you to use good judgment in trying to create a citation that approximates the closest specified citation format (maybe general software), but provides enough information to allow readers to figure out what you've done.  If that means listing the version when not explicitly called for, or omitting something not relevant from the style, you're well justified in doing so.  If anybody bitches about it, explain your reasoning, and ask them to explain what they'd like to see added/removed.

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 6:08 AM, René Dudfield <renesd@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Maybe "PyGame Development team" would be best.

From this thread there are some examples of how some projects are cited:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1230811

"""R Development Core Team (2005). R: A language and environment for
statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing,
Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org. """

""" GRASS Development Team (<year>). Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS), GNU General Public License. http://grass.osgeo.org """

It's very interesting that there is no standard way to cite FOSS projects.  Or maybe that thread shows the standard way?

Maybe the original author is Mark Baker, the original author of pysdl that pygame is derived from?  How are derivative works handled?

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Florian Krause <siebenhundertzehn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I personally would always cite with the original author(s), because
(at least for APA style) there is no clear rule when it comes to
citing Open Source software.
PyGame would then look something like this:

Pete Shinners (2011). PyGame - Python Game Development. Retrieved from
http://www.pygame.org

Hope this helps,
Florian

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 12:09 AM, Ryan Hope <rmh3093@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I realize its an open source project. However, I can't cite 40+
> authors nor is there any sort of unifying group which I could cite.
>
> On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 10:30 AM, René Dudfield <renesd@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I don't know of a preferred way, or what is usual for open source
>> projects...
>>
>> That entry looks like it could be fine I guess?
>>
>> Does the year have to be the start year, or just the current year?  It is
>> published continuously from the year 2000 until now.
>>
>> Also, for Author I see pygame as a community open source project these days
>> with many contributors. At least 30-40 people have made significant
>> contributions to the source code, and many more to other parts of pygame
>> (releasing projects, wiki edits, writing tutorials, etc).
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 3:30 PM, Ryan Hope <rmh3093@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> Is there a preferred way to cite PyGame in a journal article? At the
>>> moment I am using the following BibTex entry but I am not sure how
>>> correct this is.
>>>
>>> @Misc{pygame,
>>> author = {Pete Shinners},
>>> title =  {PyGame},
>>> howpublished = {\url{http://pygame.org/}},
>>> year = {2011}
>>> }
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ryan Hope, M.S.
>>> CogWorks Lab
>>> Department of Cognitive Science
>>> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Ryan Hope, M.S.
> CogWorks Lab
> Department of Cognitive Science
> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
>

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