The current priority order of tests for the value of the implicit
“position” variable, from broadest to most specific test result, is
“ibid-with-locator”, “ibid”, “subsequent”, “first”. Accordingly,
these should be tested for in reverse order. This is very clear and
works perfectly well, but it is a little cumbersome for one use case:
Some extra code in the conditional construct under the link is needed
to make “ibid-with-locator” behave the same as “subsequent”, and
differently from “ibid”. Looking at the current ranking, it seems as
though reversing “ibid” and “ibid-with-locator” would be logical,
since you would then have test results that trend toward closer
identity with the preceding cite at each step. Currently
“ibid-with-locator” is in a sense out of sequence, in that sense.
I’m not sure whether it’s worth the effort to make this change in a
future CSL release (and check through all styles to make sure nothing
breaks). But it would make things a little more intuitive for the
style designer, so I thought I’d flag the issue here for comments (or
for posterity, as the case may be :).
Frank