On 5/24/2021 22:12, Alan Braslau wrote:
> On Mon, 24 May 2021 17:53:49 -0400
> Rik Kabel <ConTeXt@rik.users.panix.com> wrote:
>
>> This is intended. Or rather, it is a side-effect of the intended
>> behavior.
>>
>> If you add an editor ("editor={Baz, Bar}") you will get something
>> like:
>>
>>      Foo, B. (1983). Title of the paper. In B. Baz (Ed.), /Booktitle/.
>>      Author.
>>
>> And if you then add a publisher ("publisher={Paymefirst}") you will
>> get:
>>
>>      Foo, B. (1983). Title of the paper. In B. Bar (Ed.), Booktitle.
>>      Paymefirst.
>>
>> The APA presumes that you have both an editor and a publisher for
>> pieces contained in other works. It calls for the use of the author
>> as publisher if no publisher is present. It is silent about what to
>> do if you have no editor.
> It looks like a missing editor field should be caught. What should the
> rule be?
>
> Actually, @inproceedings should not be used without an editor - makes
> no sense. If the author of the paper happens to be the editor, then the
> .bib data file should define this with an editor= field.
>
> We can change the behavior if a clear case can be made as to what
> fallback would make sense. Keep in mind the dictum: "garbage in/garbage
> out"...
>
> Alan

For the case of works within works (inproceedings, inbook, incollection, 
perhaps conference) I would think that the simplest solution is to 
simply drop it, so that in the example above one would simply get:

    Foo, B. (1983). Title of the paper. In /Booktitle/. Paymefirst.

Although I do think that, at least for inproceedings, lack of an editor 
should at least be flagged. A simple compilation of works may have no 
named editor, of I see no reason to require it for inbook or 
incollection. Cheap publishers regularly put out such collections of 
out-of-copyright works.

The implicit assumption that a work with no documented publisher is a 
self-published work is not especially to my liking -- publishers may 
have good reason to not identify themselves (think of the publishers of 
the works of Spinoza and, in part, Voltaire) -- but I understand that 
the APA thinks it important. Of course, if you cannot document the 
publisher for an entry, you can explicitly list it as unknown or /sine 
nomine/, as appropriate, to avoid the infelicity of having the author's 
name just stuck in there.

-- 
Rik