Got it,
Yes, to EndNote these are not the “same” author, each set is different and *not* ambiguous according to the formatter currently, so it isn’t a bug it is just the way EndNote is interpreting the author ambiguity. For instance:
Smith, J. L., Thomas, R. A., Jones, D. B., 2008
Is not the same as
Smith, J. L., Williams, B. D., 2008
Nor the same as:
Smith, R. S., Thomas, R.A., 2008
We would need to add another option to the “omit” settings that says “if the first author last name is the same, then omit repeated authors”, disregarding all other authors in the reference. But then we get into a hook if the first authors initials are different and the year is the same because they will be in different places in the bibliography. For instance:
(Smith, 2008a, 2008b) and (Smith, 2008) could refer to two different Smiths, writing in 2008–so which one is which? adding initials after the authors will settle this issue (which is the preferred method) but if this option is not turned on then the reader will indeed have an issue finding that citation.
The idea behind a reference citation is that it should be easy for your reader to refer to the exact citation in the bibliography, if they cannot find it easily or cannot determine which Smith 2008 they are referring to things may get messy.
I’ll sumbit a suggestion to our development team for further investigation.
Sincerely,
Cheryl – The EndNote Team