biblatex authoryear with very similar author lists

Question

I'm using biblatex with the authoryear style, and I happen to be citing three papers:

1. Authors A, B, C, D, E, 2009.
2. Authors A, B, C, D, E, 2012.
3. Authors A, B, C, E, D, 2009.

When I cite all three, they're cited as:

1. A et al. (2009)
2. A et al. (2012)
3. A, B, C, E, et al. (2009)

This is a problem, because the citation to paper 1 is not uniquely specified to the reader (though of course the link goes to the right place).

If I remove the citation to paper 2, then 3 is cited the same and 1 becomes A, B, C, D, et al. (2009) – which is correct, if inconvenient.

Is there a way to either:

• Cite 1 as A et al. (2009a) and 3 as A et al. (2009b), which would be somewhat unusual since the author lists aren't actually the same but is probably what I want, or
• Give all the citations as the long versions, which is probably the most "correct" thing but is pretty annoying since it has to show four (long) last names to do it?

MWE with my actual bibtex entries:

\RequirePackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@inproceedings{sriperumbudur:kernel-choice,
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Lanckriet, Gert R. G. and Schölkopf, Bernhard},
booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems},
pages = {1750--1758},
publisher = {MIT Press},
title = {Kernel choice and classifiability for RKHS embeddings of probability distributions},
volume = {22},
year = {2009}
}

@article{sriperumbudur:ipms,
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
arxivId = {0901.2698},
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Schölkopf, Bernhard and Lanckriet, Gert R. G.},
eprint = {0901.2698},
title = {On integral probability metrics, $\phi$-divergences and binary classification},
year = {2009}
}

@article{sriperumbudur:ipm-estimation,
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Schölkopf, Bernhard and Lanckriet, Gert R. G.},
journal = {Electronic Journal of Statistics},
pages = {1550--1599},
title = {On the empirical estimation of integral probability metrics},
volume = {6},
year = {2012}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\usepackage[style=authoryear,maxbibnames=10]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\cite{sriperumbudur:ipms}

\cite{sriperumbudur:ipm-estimation}

\cite{sriperumbudur:kernel-choice}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

Answer 1

You could certainly use e.g. maxnames=10 (rather than just maxbibnames=10) to get the full author lists in citations for such entries. (Obviously you could also set maxbibnames=10, maxcitenames=8 or something.)

For example:

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@inproceedings{sriperumbudur:kernel-choice,
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Lanckriet, Gert R. G. and Schölkopf, Bernhard},
booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems},
pages = {1750--1758},
publisher = {MIT Press},
title = {Kernel choice and classifiability for RKHS embeddings of probability distributions},
volume = {22},
year = {2009}
}

@article{sriperumbudur:ipms,
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
arxivId = {0901.2698},
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Schölkopf, Bernhard and Lanckriet, Gert R. G.},
eprint = {0901.2698},
title = {On integral probability metrics, $\phi$-divergences and binary classification},
year = {2009}
}

@article{sriperumbudur:ipm-estimation,
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Schölkopf, Bernhard and Lanckriet, Gert R. G.},
journal = {Electronic Journal of Statistics},
pages = {1550--1599},
title = {On the empirical estimation of integral probability metrics},
volume = {6},
year = {2012}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[style=authoryear,maxnames=10]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\cite{sriperumbudur:ipms}

\cite{sriperumbudur:ipm-estimation}

\cite{sriperumbudur:kernel-choice}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

EDIT 2

One way to limit this effect to just the problem cases is to use the shorthand field to override the default labels for affected entries. For example:

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@inproceedings{sriperumbudur:kernel-choice,
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Lanckriet, Gert R. G. and Schölkopf, Bernhard},
booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems},
pages = {1750--1758},
publisher = {MIT Press},
title = {Kernel choice and classifiability for RKHS embeddings of probability distributions},
volume = {22},
year = {2009},
shorthand = {Sriperumbudur, Fukumizu, Gretton, Lanckriet \bibstring{andothers} 2009}
}

@article{sriperumbudur:ipms,
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
arxivId = {0901.2698},
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Schölkopf, Bernhard and Lanckriet, Gert R. G.},
eprint = {0901.2698},
title = {On integral probability metrics, $\phi$-divergences and binary classification},
year = {2009},
shorthand = {Sriperumbudur, Fukumizu, Gretton, Schölkopf \bibstring{andothers} 2009}
}

@article{sriperumbudur:ipm-estimation,
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Schölkopf, Bernhard and Lanckriet, Gert R. G.},
journal = {Electronic Journal of Statistics},
pages = {1550--1599},
title = {On the empirical estimation of integral probability metrics},
volume = {6},
year = {2012}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[style=authoryear,maxbibnames=10]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\cite{sriperumbudur:ipms}

\cite{sriperumbudur:ipm-estimation}

\cite{sriperumbudur:kernel-choice}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

EDIT 1

Note that I do NOT recommend this. I think alphabetic suffixes should be used for disambiguation only when the author/author list is the same for two different publications from the same year. Using them to distinguish a case where the author lists differ - even if only in ordering - is a misuse, in my opinion, and confusing. (Note that two items disambiguated in this way would normally appear grouped together in the bibliography. Here, of course, that is not the case.)

If you really want the first, non-standard option, you can just specify the year field to override the default label:

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@inproceedings{sriperumbudur:kernel-choice,
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Lanckriet, Gert R. G. and Schölkopf, Bernhard},
booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems},
pages = {1750--1758},
publisher = {MIT Press},
title = {Kernel choice and classifiability for RKHS embeddings of probability distributions},
volume = {22},
year = {2009b},
}

@article{sriperumbudur:ipms,
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
arxivId = {0901.2698},
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Schölkopf, Bernhard and Lanckriet, Gert R. G.},
eprint = {0901.2698},
title = {On integral probability metrics, $\phi$-divergences and binary classification},
year = {2009a},
}

@article{sriperumbudur:ipm-estimation,
author = {Sriperumbudur, Bharath K. and Fukumizu, Kenji and Gretton, Arthur and Schölkopf, Bernhard and Lanckriet, Gert R. G.},
journal = {Electronic Journal of Statistics},
pages = {1550--1599},
title = {On the empirical estimation of integral probability metrics},
volume = {6},
year = {2012}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[style=authoryear,maxbibnames=10]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\cite{sriperumbudur:ipms}

\cite{sriperumbudur:ipm-estimation}

\cite{sriperumbudur:kernel-choice}

\printbibliography
\end{document}