[Taxacom] Sorry, but you are out-of-line

[Arthur Chapman]

I'd just like to add something to what Doug has said about PDF

PDF/A is the archiving standard for storing documents (used by 
businesses, banks, governments and others to archive documents).  It is 
neither platform dependent or indeed, software itself. It is ISO 
standard 19005-1:2005.  It is a reduced version of PDF (also an ISO 
standard) that has been developed specifically for long-term Archiving.

PDF/A will be readable into the future for a number of reasons - the 
document itself stores everything internally (fonts, metadata, etc.) 
allowing it to be read into the future without having to have the 
specific fonts available in the operating system.

PDF/A is open source and as such the code for deciphering the document 
can be stored along with the document itself, making the document 
completely independent of software, operating system, etc.  Digital 
Archiving agencies/organisations already store this information. PDF/A 
compliant documents can be prepared directly from a range of software, 
or even directly from XML or *R*, etc.

As to Peer-Review.  The problem I have is with mandating peer-review 
into the Code(s).  There are many different degrees of peer-review (as 
already discussed), so it would be impractical to police. Also, it would 
be extremely difficult 50, 100 years down the line to try and determine 
if a name was validly published through having to determine if a 
particular article in a particular journal had been peer-reviewed or not.

Many of these issues are discussed in the supporting documentation for 
changes to the Botanical Code cited earlier in this discussion.

PS - I have removed the "replied to" information for the sake of brevity!

Arthur

Arthur D. Chapman
Toowoomba, Australia