[Taxacom] Open review as a wiki

Thu Apr 3 17:36:12 CDT 2008

Here are a couple of other points to consider.

I went through a number of entomology journals to look at the current
editors, managing editors, subject editors, editorial boards, etc. MANY
systematists/taxonomists fulfill these roles for journals, even if they
are broad subject (i.e., perhaps including, but not focused on
systematics) journals. I think this reflects that systematists are
typically broadly knowledgeable across taxa and across biological
concepts related to those taxa. So by sequestering taxonomists in the
ways being discussed, I believe we would be ultimately removing
ourselves from being part of the machine driving better science. One
could say that these people could continue in these editorial capacities
for the journals, but why would they, when they would rarely, if ever,
have the opportunity to even publish there? It would cause a mass
removal of the influence of systematics and taxonomy from the rest of
science. 

Another thing that hasn’t come up, but is certainly relevant. Taxonomy
and phylogenetics is often linked, i.e., many taxonomic papers also do a
phylogenetic treatment of the group being treated. Since the proposal
here is about standardizing taxonomy, where does that leave the rest of
systematics? Wouldn’t this be the split of the field of systematics? The
boring (not to me!!) taxonomy stuff goes here, and the interesting
hypotheses of relationships among taxa (i.e., the things that people
approaching evolutionary questions in
behavior/ecology/physiology/biogeography/co-evolution/etc. are using) go
to actual scientific journals? This looks to me like taxonomic papers
will then VERY RARELY be cited, while the phylogenetic papers will be.
And I do not believe that phylogenetics could be included in this
sequestration concept – there are many more systematists who are not
also “describers of new taxa”. After all, many phylogenetic treatments
are utilizing already named taxa, and without necessarily coining new
names. 

And on a related note, many excellent taxonomic treatments go well
beyond the descriptions and phylogenetics, e.g., working on historical
biogeography of the group, host relationships and co-evolution, etc.
This obviously is beyond the scope of a sequestered taxonomy. Will these
broadly-scoped works just cease to exist? Do taxonomy in the
wiki-environment, and everything else goes to journals for publications?
This seems pretty unrealistic and even silly to me. I think these more
comprehensive and all-inclusive monographs are great! So much
information in one place.

As I see it, sequestration = isolation. And this is not something that
will bolster the field, encourage universities to hire, encourage
promotions of those in place, encourage more resources to be put into
the field (e.g., from grant funding bodies), or increase the impact
factor of taxonomy as a whole. I would like to see one real-world
example where sequestering has led to A) an increase in the visibility
of a field, B) increased the importance of a field, C) an increase in
the quality of the work being done in that field, or D) sparked greater
interest in that field.

And just to adjust one of Doug’s observations to the way I see it,
because I think it is backwards as is:
“all those new fossils and other charismatic taxa published in Nature
and Science get huge numbers of citations, which only help boost Nature
and Science's IFs (the rich get richer)”

All those new fossils and other charismatic taxa published in Nature
and Science - TWO OF THE MOST WIDELY READ JOURNALS ACROSS THE SCIENTIFIC
COMMUNITY – get huge numbers of citations (AND READERS), which only help
to boost THE IMPORTANCE AND VISIBILITY OF SYSTEMATICS (the POOR get
richer). 

I think that the price to potentially prevent a few synonyms, to
prevent a non-systematist journal editor from dealing with a taxonomic
paper, or to _______________ [insert your reason here] is far too high
for this field of science to pay. Our
 field is a very important one, but
we shouldn’t feel so self-important as to remove ourselves from the rest
of the scientific community. We need to act as part of the scientific
community if we are going to be an visible and important part of it.

Cheers,
Steve

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Stephen D. Gaimari
Program Supervisor (Entomology) &
Co-Curator, California State Collection of Arthropods

Plant Pest Diagnostics Lab
California Department of Food and Agriculture
3294 Meadowview Road
Sacramento, CA 95832-1448, USA

916-262-1131 (tel.)
916-262-1190 (fax)
sgaimari at cdfa.ca.gov 
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/ppd/staff/sgaimari.html  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>> Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu> 4/3/2008 11:23 AM >>>
Frank Krell wrote:

>The question is whether Thomson decides to consider the Unified 
>Cybertaxonomic Webjournal as source journal for its Impact Factor. 
>Zootaxa is a good model. It has an impact factor, it is a somehow 
>central journal for taxonomy - and the impact factor is 0.612.
>The IF doesn't work for taxonomy even if there is one central 
>journal. First, we don't have the critical mass of authors citing, 
>and second only the citations in the first and second year after a 
>publication count for the IF. Have a look at any taxonomical 
>monograph and count how many citations were from the two years 
>preceding publication. This pattern won't change significantly with 
>a centralized web-journal.

Actually, yes, it would, and it would be MUCH higher than 0.612 - 
right now, all those new fossils and other charismatic taxa published 
in Nature and Science get huge numbers of citations, which only help 
boost Nature and Science's IFs (the rich get richer). Until Zootaxa 
becomes the place where descriptions of ALL the new birds and 
dinosaurs and orchids and monkeys and such are published, it's going 
to continue to have a low IF. It's called a "vicious circle".

I also very much suspect that we are not far from the point where 
online manuscripts will all start having their "impact" measured by 
how many links are made to them; if links are made to taxonomic 
descriptions every time that taxon's name is cited somewhere else, 
then that WOULD change the impact of taxonomy (again, thinking of 
spelling them out in a bibliography is, as others here have noted, 
utterly impractical - but a hyperlink to a name that appears in text 
is NOT impractical, even for a giant faunistic/floristic listing) - 
though, obviously, most of the links will STILL be to charismatic 
taxa. The kinds of descriptions that would see the most dramatic 
change in perceived impact would probably be new descriptions of 
organisms that are either pests, biocontrol agents, biochemically 
interesting, or endangered; these are things which can have many 
papers written ABOUT them shortly after they are described, but those 
papers ordinarily might *not* include a citation to the OD, or be 
indexed by Thomson.

>There will remain lots of private society journals anyway besides 
>the professional UCW.

But there's no good reason that those journals should be the place 
where new taxa are first described. That puts quality control in the 
hands of the private society journal editors, who may not even be 
taxonomists, or send papers to taxonomists for review. Just because 
the majority of them are good publication venues (with good editorial 
practices) doesn't mean they ALL are.

Along these lines, Donat Agosti wrote:

>If all the new taxa and articles are as well registered at
institutions like
>Zoobank or IPNI/Tropicos then we might not need just one journal,
because
>the 1,000 or so are virtually one.

They are NOT virtually one, because each of those journals has its 
own editorial policy, and editors, and reviewers (if any!), and a 
number of them do NOT adhere to standards that the taxonomic 
community considers essential
, like Code-compliance. If all 
"registration" is to you is a "rubber stamp" that can be used to 
condone *bad science* simply because it made it into print, that 
would do *nothing* to help ensure standards that we, as a community, 
wish to have in place, some of which even the Codes do not require 
(because the Codes are about nomenclature only, and not ethics). The 
only way that review can be standardized is if every manuscript is 
submitted to the same reviewers: namely, every taxonomist in the 
world, simultaneously (open review, in the most literal conceivable 
sense).

Sincerely,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research
Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not
UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

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