List pipelines alphabetically : no special treatment for 'preferred' pipeline
The current behaviour (as in O3, and as per Brandon's reply at #79 (comment 676411)) is to list the 'preferred pipeline' ie the pipeline with the 'preferred event' first and others in a semi-arbitrary order resulting from the GraceDB query.
The request is to replace this with a strict alphabetical order of pipeline names.
- There is no visible scientific case for putting a 'preferred pipeline' first in the list - i.e. what useful information should observers derive from the order of citation.
- If there is useful scientific information contained in the ordering, this should be explained in the User Guide.
- It is contrary to the spirit of the collaboration, and could result in unhelpful zero-sum competition, to give unequal credit to different subgroups within the collaboration by means of citation order. (Similarly, all collaboration full author papers treat LVK authors strictly in alphabetical order.) The deliberate inequality of treatment in GCN Circulars, considered as LVK publications, is part of the reason that all-sky search pipelines have been requesting since the end of O3 to remove the concept of 'preferred pipeline' or at least make sure it has no public visibility.
- Alphabetical order is easier to understand, communicate and implement.
Edited by Thomas Dent