@danielskatz @kyleniemeyer @labarba - could you take a look at these changes and see what you think?

While I'm ok removing the paper authors question, I'm hesitant to rely too much on automation, at least based on ORCID—the vast majority of ORCID profiles do not have affiliation listed (anecdotally, based on profiles I've visited), and if there is one it may not exactly match what's in the paper.

Checking authors & affiliations should probably be an editorial job; I usually ensure that they are complete (i.e., with full details) when I'm doing a final check as AEiC.

I'm also comfortable with modifying the specific question about DOIs, with these caveats:

• whedon's DOI checker is not foolproof, and should only be used as a guide. I don't want authors, reviewers, or editors to assume that they don't have to look at references themselves. As is, I find some people over-relying on this output, for example when it misidentifies something as needing a DOI.
• So, with that in mind, perhaps the question could be something like "Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)?"

The rationale for removing the author question is that the paper simply doesn't compile without the authors and affiliations in the paper.md so it seems weird to check something like this.

That said, I agree, these do need at least eyeballing but I figure this is part of the editor's (and reviewer's) job when reading the paper.

I'm also comfortable with modifying the specific question about DOIs, with these caveats:

If you look at the changes proposed in this PR, I don't actually think there are any changes to this now.

Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)?

I actually think this phrasing is better than what we have now and would be happy to add it.

There are reasons why affiliations on a paper would not match even a well-maintained ORCID, such as when the work was done at a prior institution or as part of a visiting appointment. This is especially prevalent for software in which key authors may have founded the project several years ago. We might want to document this publishing convention because I bet lots of submissions just list the current affiliation.

Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)?

I would add here: "and do references in the text use the proper citation syntax"

... since bad citation syntax is such a common problem!

Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)?

I would add here: "and do references in the text use the proper citation syntax"

... since bad citation syntax is such a common problem!

I agree with this, and also think we might want to adjust our sample paper to use some of the citation syntax other than [@abc]

@danielskatz regarding citation syntax, in the # Citations section we do now include the different formats authors can use (@author:2001, [@author:2001], [@author:2001; @author2:2010]).

Thanks - you are correct - I hadn't read this lately.