WDscholia
al. et as author name instead of complete author list being provided by crossref
What is the issue? Some metadata providers provide "al. et" or "al et" instead of the complete list of authors. This is fundamentally a metadata provider issue, but one that Scholia could help detect and check to autocorrect after flagging for verification.
I discovered this on 10.1556/aph.18.2003.2-4.10 and contacted Crossref for the following others with al.et.
Why is this a problem? incomplete author lists to resolve
From a quick test via https://author-disambiguator.toolforge.org/names_oauth.php? using "al. et" the following have al. et issues of not showing the full author list as of 8 Sept 2025 in Wikidata. Some, but not most have source issues. Some at the bottom have the source metadata fixed, but the author string is still an issue.
10.2337/DIABETES.45.2.157 (this also 404s) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q56592178 10.2337/DIABETES.43.3.389 (this also 404s) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q57398317 10.2337/DIABETES.42.9.1238 (this also 404s) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q57398336 10.1556/APH.18.2003.2-4.52 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q62044842 10.1556/APH.18.2003.2-4.48 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q112161378 10.1556/APH.18.2003.1.9 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q63956712 10.1556/APH.17.2003.2-4.1 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q63956699 10.1556/APH.16.2002.1-4.36 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q58342805 10.1556/APH.16.2002.1-4.41 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q58342807 10.4152/PEA.2023410105 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q125799704 10.4461/GFDQ.2016.39.19 (does not resolve to any metadata on Crossref currently, may have other system issues going on or blocked) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q114346546 10.1556/APH.25.2006.2-4.9 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q125298396 10.2516/OGST:2005060 (error even on DOI landing page, PDF shows many other authors and affiliation strings missing from the web description) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q59657385 10.1556/APH.18.2003.2-4.33 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60561312 10.1556/APH.18.2003.2-4.34 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60561314 10.1556/APH.18.2003.2-4.15 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q61066350 10.1556/APH.16.2002.1-4.34 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q58379143 10.1556/APH.16.2002.1-4.10 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60571375 10.1556/APH.15.2002.3-4.5 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q58373836 10.1556/APH.13.2001.4.3 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q59221526 10.2337/DIABETES.44.10.1227 (this also 404s, but looks like the format changed to 10.2337/DIAB.44.10.1227 and other old formats might need this as a redirect) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q57159129 10.2337/DIABETES.44.1.90 (this also 404s) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q56567186 10.1183/09031936.93.03080954 = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123241974
Metadata provider resolved al et, but wikidata has not detected and fixed: 10.1126/SCIENCE.8009220 ("al et" metadata was resolved at some point since import, but not updated on Wikidata) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22065512 (has multiple issues with authors original import, plus Europe PubMed Central import conflict - 1 August 2017) 10.1126/SCIENCE.8351519 ("al et" metadata was resolved at some point since import, but not updated on Wikidata) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27731976 10.1126/SCIENCE.2772657 ("al et" metadata was resolved at some point since import, but not updated on Wikidata) = https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22299423
How could this be addressed? Flag Q with author strings "al. et" and "al et" to potentially report to crossref.
I've reported the list here for the metadata providers to correct their supplied information, but a larger check and update process could autocorrect these import issues by monitoring for when or if these DOI metadata values are corrected after flagged/reviewed as needed fixed because of the "al. et" or "al et" issue.
What are good places to discuss this?
I have looked on the first one and that also has resulted in a double entry in Wikidata https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q56592178&redirect=no and https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34370207 I have fixed some of it: https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q34370207&diff=2411334406&oldid=1808308676 but wonder how the double DOI arose.
I have looked on the first one and that also has resulted in a double entry in Wikidata https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q56592178&redirect=no and https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34370207 I have fixed some of it: https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q34370207&diff=2411334406&oldid=1808308676 but wonder how the double DOI arose.
The duplication may be due to the Metadata via Crossref is duplicated for the two DOI which both have a valid lookup, but the metadata source didn't map the DOI and there are minor differences in capitalization and author strings -
https://search.crossref.org/search/works?q=10.2337%2FDIABETES.45.2.157&from_ui=yes
vs
https://search.crossref.org/?from_ui=yes&q=+10.2337%2FDIAB.45.2.157
I've emailed Crossref to alert them to the metatdata duplication and alterted to the metadata differences - 10.2337/DIABETES* (404) vs 10.2337/DIAB* (resolving) to hopefully stop the duplication if the 10.2337/DIABETES* format is used.
@fnielsen It was just reported back to me at least one of the et al instances may be by practice and across an entire journal.
From my report with Crossref that the journal associated with 10.4152/PEA.2023410105 (Q125799704) "due to limited resources, their journal follows a practice of listing only the first three authors followed by “et al.” in their metadata deposits." so this will be an issue where metadata will be incomplete by practice and if we want all author strings a user would need to enter them as part of the import process.
There probably needs some process to handle any imports of this type and monitoring for any other journals with similar practice.