Remove user from contributors list

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Thiago Brasil

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Aug 22, 2023, 3:02:10 PM8/22/23
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Hello community!

Is it possible to remove or edit a user from the list of contributors of a dataset?


Screenshot from 2023-08-22 15-00-29.png

Philip Durbin

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Aug 22, 2023, 4:18:28 PM8/22/23
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Currently, the only way is to edit the database directly, which we don't really recommend. There are some details at https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues/6274

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Thiago Brasil

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Aug 23, 2023, 5:28:43 PM8/23/23
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Hi Philip,

Thank you for your response.

To provide clear context about our issue: In the Dataverse plugin for OJS/OPS 3.3, we use the API token linked to a single account to perform Dataverse operations through the API. These operations are carried out within a specific Dataverse collection (for example: a specific journal or preprints server). Typically, the account is associated with a collection administrator.

As a result, this user is included in the list of contributors for all datasets, which can be viewed in the versions table.

We had a similar situation with the "depositor" metadata, but in this case, it was possible to overwrite its value via the API. We chose to indicate the names of the authors, concatenated with information that indicates they were deposited via the plugin.

Could you provide some guidance on how this could be achieved, or even different approaches to this issue?

Best regards,
Thiago

Kris Dekeyser

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Aug 24, 2023, 6:24:11 AM8/24/23
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Hi all,

FWIW, at KU Leuven/LIBIS we also have an issue with the Contributor list. As you may already know, we work with a strict reviewing workflow where the reviewers are the only ones that are allowed to publish a dataset. Currently after publication the reviewers also end up in the contributors list which is undesirable and does not seem correct.

We have already discussed this internally and because now Dataverse is a bit too keen to add users to the Contributors list, we believe this can go two ways:

- change Dataverse behaviour to not add the current user to the Contributors list for certain scenarios and possibly based on some configuration parameters.
or
- change the name of the list into a more generic name. One that does not imply an active contribution to the dataset content or description. I think we came up with a decent name, but I cannot recall any more what it was.

Cheers,
Kris

Philip Durbin

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Aug 24, 2023, 6:24:18 AM8/24/23
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Hi Thiago,

Yes, your use case makes complete sense. Can you please open an issue at https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues ?

Thanks!

Phil

Dieuwertje Bloemen

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Aug 24, 2023, 8:09:35 AM8/24/23
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@Kris, I think we thought to replace the 'contributors' naming to 'editors'./'edited by' As reviewers and admins can edit the dataset without necessarily being seen as contibutors as researchers are familiar with for for example papers and journal articles.

Regards,
Dieuwertje

Sebastian Karcher

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Aug 24, 2023, 8:17:48 AM8/24/23
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I'd agree that changing the label from "Contributors" (which is also a metadata category) is a good idea. I think a verb form like "edited by" or "modified by" (I think I like the latter) works better than "editor" (which might again suggest a specific role or contribution.)

Sebastian 

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Philip Durbin

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Aug 24, 2023, 10:09:06 AM8/24/23
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Does anyone happen to know if the contributor names are exposed via API? I found the getContributorsNames* method that's used only by the web interface (DatasetPage and FilePage).

I'm asking because the new frontend** relies entirely on the API for information. If the API doesn't return contributor names and we need to add this functionality, perhaps it could be an opportunity to think through suggestions in this thread.


Kris Dekeyser

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Aug 24, 2023, 10:30:07 AM8/24/23
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I second that. Especially in the context of the versions table, "modified by" makes a lot of sense.

Julian Gautier

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Aug 24, 2023, 10:52:04 AM8/24/23
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I don't know that contributor names are exposed via API. Maybe it's undocumented?

When the versions table was designed and developed, I would guess that it wasn't anticipated that the same account would be used by multiple people to do things to datasets. So does it seem okay that the name of the same account is used to indicate who made changes to a dataset?

Also, does this list of "contributors", this record of whose made changes to the dataset and not necessarily who's contributed to its content or curation, need to be available to everyone who can see the dataset page?
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