Unwanted initials in text reference (Pandoc Ref List + Zotero + Obisidian)

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Hi everyone,

My setup: Pandoc Reference List + Zotero + Obsidian - all on MacOs. My reference list is a .json that sits locally. It can be pulled and read fine in Obsidian. I’ve created many .md files including references with this setup, and successfully extracted several as Word documents with Pandoc. I used APA reference style. My setup is designed for, you guessed it, academic work.

I think it’s best that I explain my issues with examples because it’s unexplicable to me.

Single author:
If I call up the reference for, say, @sminia-2024sminia-2024, the ref is returned as Sminia (2024).

Multiple authors:
If I call up the reference@schuessler-et-al-2023for, say, @schuessler-et-al-2023, the ref is returned as Schuessler et al. (2023).

Single author ref - for certain authors
If I @teece-1986all up the reference for, say, @teece-1986, the ref is returned as : D. J. Teece (1986) - with the initials!

Single author ref - for certain authors
If I call up the reference for, say, @teece-et-al-1997, the ref is returned as : D. J. Teece et al. (1997) - with the initials!

I write “for certain authors”: I’ve actually encountered the issue with just this one example for now, but I don’t know, there might be more.

The only actual explanation I can think of: this example author is very profilic, I happen to have many references (51 as I write) in my Zotero library from him as author, or coauthor. But wouldn’t that be counter productive? That my citation plugin breaks… for one of the authors I cite the most?

Things I have tried

  • Restart Obsidian - No joy
  • Reboot my Mac - No joy
  • Checked that my Library export .JSON file is updated - Yep
  • Changed the citation style from APA to another - No joy
  • Fiddled with the author’s initials in Zotero - No joy

I appreciate this might be a plugin specific issue but it looks like this particular plugin’s Github has gone quiet. Perhaps others here may have ideas, at least ideas on a replacement plugin to pull my Zotero references, if nothing else.

Thank you so much for the support.

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Edit: out of my 51 references from the one author with the issue described (again, there might be others), I noticed that 3 had a slightly different labeling in Zotero. Two were missing the middle initial, and one only had an initial as first name. I changed that, so that all 51 Zotero refs are labelled the same. The problem was gone instantly.

Learning: Pandoc Ref List does not like it when your authors’ name are not consistent throughout your Zotero library.

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Upon further tests, I’ve actually fully solved. It would appear that this behaviour is actually intended - this is used to identify citations from authors who may have the same last name but different first names (and initials). This might help someone, some day…