# ibid, first/subsequent rules

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/ibid-first-subsequent-rules/261>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [April 15, 2007, 8:11am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/ibid-first-subsequent-rules/261 "2007-04-15T08:11:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2007, 8:11am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/ibid-first-subsequent-rules/261/1 "2007-04-15T08:11:41Z")

</div>

I didn’t hear anything on the ibid rules, so guess I’ll just make an  
executive suggestion. How about …

The scope of ibid behavior distinguishes between notes and primary body  
content. A citation shall only be treated as corresponding to an ibid  
situation if it is within the same scope. For example, if a citation  
appears in the body of a document and then immediately subsequently in  
a note, the latter shall not be considered an ibid citation.

That seems straightforward enough to me, and the behavior in my code is  
probably a consequence of the fact that scope can’t matter for things  
like numbering and such (e.g. I wrote it for the general problems, but  
it’s a bug). I don’t at the moment see any need to make it  
configurable.

This raises an interesting related issue though: how should we treat  
first/subsequent? Can a “first” citation only be in the document body?  
Relevant really only to note and in-text (like Bluebook) styles, so the  
potential issue I am imagining would only be possible in the latter.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/ibid-first-subsequent-rules/261/2 "2007-04-15T23:48:02Z")

</div>

FYI, from John. I’m away next week, so talk among yourselves …Begin forwarded message: