[CWuestefeld]

I don't buy that argument. A person who is responsible for nothing more than the research research ought not to be an "author" of the paper. Research is nothing but data; the choice of what research to use, and the conclusions drawn from that data, are what make the paper.

The argument you cite does not support listing all those folks as authors. For example, one could have papers "Authored by X, featuring original research by J, K, and L".

[loup-vaillant]

Oh, I don't buy that argument either. But I have heard it in more subtle forms. I just didn't know how to convince the very people that use it of its invalidity.

For that matter, your suggestion to classify the various authors by the nature of their contribution should shatter my argument to pieces. Adding something like "supervised by C" should blow those pieces to smithereens.