Nalini JoshiAug 18, 2023
What a gorgeous and brilliant but whacko idea by Erik and Martin Demaine 👇🏼
[2304.01393] “Every Author as First Author”
https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.01393
Every Author as First Author

We propose a new standard for writing author names on papers and in bibliographies, which places every author as a first author -- superimposed. This approach enables authors to write papers as true equals, without any advantage given to whoever's name happens to come first alphabetically (for example). We develop the technology for implementing this standard in LaTeX, BibTeX, and HTML; show several examples; and discuss further advantages.

arXiv.org
Show threadMatteo Capucci
@monsoon0 this is the best thing ever lmao
Aug 18, 2023 at 11:09amWeb
Show threadNalini JoshiAug 18, 2023
@mc Lovely isn’t it? But, apart from legibility, the trouble is how to refer to a cited paper verbally?
Show threadMatteo CapucciAug 18, 2023

@monsoon0 well, this can't be more than a joke... it's an eyesore and, as you point out, doesn't really solve the problem (eventually one needs to read the authors and they are going to be in some order)

taking a leaf from the CS book of tricks to represent an unordered list in an ordered medium, you impose a standard order (e.g. alphabetical) and normalize everything to that.
once you stop pretending you can communicate meaningful information about authorship simply through the order of authors, then you can start having 'authorship' sections listing what each author did, like you see in ML papers nowadays