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R Foundation publish citable Manual for packages

2 messages · stephen sefick, Achim Zeileis

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On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, stephen sefick wrote:

            
This still keeps coming up from time to time. By now, many editors have 
accepted that a software+manual published on a web page can be something 
that is worth citing - others still don't allow it. But hopefully this 
resistance will die out eventually.

The standard workaround is, of course, to cite a journal paper or book 
about the software. This was always one of the most important objectives 
of JSS: to give software authors something that is considered citable. 
And hopefully there will be a JSS paper on lme4 in the not-so-distant 
future.
Well CRAN already hosts a web page with a standard URL where the manual is 
posted. So this is considered to be a credible source for many by now and 
it's probably not worth the effort anymore to set up such an artificial 
documentation series with ISSN etc.
Yes, keep up trying and hopefully sooner than later citing the software 
directly (rather than a paper about it) will be accepted by almost all 
editors.

Best,
Z