[Taxacom] Journal/Wiki publication and dissemination of a new taxon description

[L Penev]

ZooKeys published a
paper<http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/803/abstract>showing
simultaneous description of a new species and creation of a wiki
page for the taxon on www.species-id.net. The link to the wiki page (
www.species-id.net/wiki/Neobidessodes_darwiniensis) is published in the
original description under the ZooBank's LSID, so that readers may always
link to the wiki page to see if there is any new information on the taxon
there. Vice versa, readers of the wiki page will have always the possibility
to link to the original journal description that will stay unchanged, as in
any other conventional journal article.

While the original author(s) should always be credited through citing the
journal article, further contributors to the wiki page (either the authors
themselves or other interested students of that taxon) may edit/add content
and be credited consequently, as well. Consequent changes could be tracked
by using the wiki "page history" option.

We consider that such an approach could help in resolving the lively
discussed contradiction between the "fixed" character of conventional
academic publications and the dynamic nature of scientific research and of
the Internet as media.

Species-id.net is a wiki-based environment that aims at creating species
pages (descriptions, data on ecology, biology, distribution, keys, etc.) in
addition to Wikispecies (catalogue) and Wikimedia Commons (image
repository), as well as to any other biodiversity platform  that may wish to
link to it. Species-id is expected to be used/edited mostly by biologists
with professional interests in a particular taxon.


-- 
Dr Lyubomir Penev
Managing Director
Pensoft Publishers
13a Geo Milev Street
1111 Sofia, Bulgaria
Fax +359-2-8704282
www.pensoft.net
info at pensoft.net