Following up from a discussion at
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/42317/duplicate-harvard-styles/, I’d
like to propose removing two duplicate “Harvard” styles
from the github and Zotero CSL style file repositories:
harvard1.csl is a almost-duplicate of harvard-anglia-ruskin-university.csl;
both are based on http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm,
http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm
harvard7de.csl (German) is a almost-duplicate of
harvard-institut-fur-praxisforschung-de.csl; both are based on
resp.
http://www.institut-praxisforschung.ch/Portals/0/Jonas/Harvard-Zitierweise.pdf
(the second link is dead, redirecting to
http://www.institut-praxisforschung.com/,
http://www.institut-praxisforschung.com/ so this is/was clearly the same
guide).
My proposal is to keep only those with the more specific style names -
harvard-anglia-ruskin-university.csl and
harvard-institut-fur-praxisforschung-de.csl - and to remove harvard1.csl
and harvard7de.csl entirely.
Huge bonus: Getting rid of styles with overly generic names such as
harvard1.csl and harvard7de.csl would reinforce the important message that
there is no such thing as a single, official Harvard style, removing a very
common source of confusion among students and, sadly enough, librarians and
certain brands of commercial library and referencing software, too. See
also
http://docs.citationstyles.org/en/stable/primer.html#author-date-author-styles:
“Note that many style guides use the confusing term “Harvard” to refer to
author-date formats, even though most of these styles have no connection
to Harvard University. There is also no such thing as a single official
“Harvard” style.”
Any platforms where harvard1 seems popular would have to inform their users
that they should switch to harvard-anglia-ruskin-university.csl (or some
other author-date style) instead.
Are there any objections?