"Why Are Publishers and Editors Wasting Time Formatting Citations?" is an interesting Scholarly Kitchen post on the potential use of structured metadata to streamline the tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone process of editing citations to fit whichever of the thousands of available styles a particular publisher requires. The author, Todd Carpenter, wonders why a structured citation schema couldn't be developed, so that authors could just paste in the appropriate identifiers and let cross-linking take care of the rest. In his vision, each identifier would take advantage of existing databases that can act like authority files (e.g. ISSN supplies the correct journal title, ORCID supplies the correct form of the author's name, and so on), eliminating many of the errors that creep into the citation process. Each publisher would be able to take the citation metadata record and turn it into a human-readable citation using whatever style was preferred, freeing authors from the tyranny of having to proofread each citation for minutiae like punctuation and given name vs. initials.
For a complete trip down the rabbit hole of citation metadata, publisher practices, and author habits, be sure to read the comments. There is a lively debate regarding the pros and cons of this proposed schema, as well as information on some recent initiatives to develop prototypes that would include this functionality.
When I worked in publishing, authors would either follow established citation rules or make up some stuff that defied all logic. The biggest problem is too many cooks in the kitchen and stuff gets all confabulated and confusing. As you say, it's a "rabbit hole."
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