[Taxacom] electronic publication in zoology: who are the biggest idiots?

Tue Jul 24 15:58:36 CDT 2012

The article is Chinese in authorship and subject matter, I guess that is what was meant.

We could endlessly debate details, but the main point is perhaps this: the Internat. Code of Zoo. Nomenclature is not a perfectly well defined logical system. Rules and definitions are vague. It is particularly bad with regard to electronic publication. I now think that the "Chinese article" possibly can be seen as validly published, but, somewhat fortuitously, by Art. 8.1.2, not 8.6. Nevertheless, the situation is a very complex "can of worms". Consider this:

if the authors had (stated on the PDF that they had) deposited 5 copies *of the PDF* into 5 libraries, then this would make the PDF itself a valid electronic publication. This would be preferable from the point of view of verification of the new names, i.e. one could verify them from the PDF. As it is, they deposited 5 *hard copies* (printouts) into 5 libraries. This is exactly equivalent to depositing all 5 copies into one library. It has nothing to do with Art. 8.6! What they have done is to create a valid publication consisting of 5 printouts. The new names must be verified against these printouts (and only the 5 originals, not any subsequent copies). To assume that the printouts are identical with the PDF is risky, particularly since it seems that the PDF is not yet in its final form. There are also some implications for the publication date. This will be the date that the libraries made the printouts available for general public to access. It is
 *not* the date that the authors/publishers mailed out the copies to the libraries. It is *not* the date that the libraries date stamped the printouts (which usually provides a latest possible date of publication, but is in this case earliest possible date)... it is all very messy ...

Stephen

From: Roderic Page <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>
To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, 24 July 2012 9:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] electronic publication in zoology: who are the biggest idiots?

To clarify, BMC Evolutionary biology is not a "Chinese journal" (and it's unclear to me what relevance being Chinese would have). It is published by BioMed Central, based in London (see http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/contact) and is owned by Springer.

BioMed Central publishes a large number of articles in many journals, and these will go through a production pipeline. They've obviously decided that once an article is accepted it is more important to make the article available as soon as possible, rather than wait for the final formatting to be added (e.g., adding clickable links, making the nice web pages with the figures shown at various resolutions, etc.).

Regards

Rod

On 24 Jul 2012, at 08:56, Eduard STLOUKAL wrote:

> This is also very "funny" information in THE mentioned article of the Chinese 
> journal:
> 
> http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/12/113/abstract
> BMC Evolutionary Biology 2012, 12:113 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-12-113
> Published: 9 July 2012
> ...
> The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted 
> PDF and HTML versions are in production.
> 
> SO TWO WEEKS AFTER BEEING PUBLISHED, IS IT STILL NOT PUBLISHED BUT "in 
> production"?
> PECULIAR ATTITUDE...
> 
> Best regards,
> Edo
> 
> Eduard STLOUKAL
> Department of Zoology, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia,
> http://zoology.fns.uniba.sk;/ phone: +421-905-570149
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 6:56 AM
> To: TAXACOM
> Subject: [Taxacom] electronic publication in zoology: who are the biggest 
> idiots?
> 
> Are the biggest idiots authors/publishers who misinterpret the Code? Or the 
> writers of the Code, for making it so difficult to interpret??
> 
> Here is a recent example:
> 
> Tan, J. et al. 2012: New fossil species of ommatids (Coleoptera: Archostemata) 
> from the Middle Mesozoic of China illuminating the phylogeny of Ommatidae. BMC 
> evolutionary biology, 12: 113. doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-12-113
> 
> The journal is e-only, but in the methods section the authors state: [quote] 
> To comply with regulations of the International Code of Zoological 
> Nomenclature (ICZN), we have deposited paper copies of the above article at 
> the Natural History Museum, London; the American Museum of Natural History, 
> New York; the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris; the Russian Academy 
> of Sciences, Moscow; and the Academia Sinica, Taipei.[unquote]
> 
> the relevant articles of the Code are:
> 
> 8.1.2. it must be obtainable, when first issued, free of charge or by purchase
> 
> 8.6. Works produced after 1999 by a method that does not employ printing on 
> paper. For a work produced after 1999 by a method other than printing on paper 
> to be accepted as published within the meaning of the Code, it must contain a 
> statement that copies (in the form in which it is published) have been 
> deposited in at least 5 major publicly accessible libraries which are 
> identified by name in the work itself
> 
> Clearly, although they don't specify, the authors think that they have 
> complied with Art. 8.6, but they have not, because because paper copies are 
> not the form in which the article was published, it was published 
> electronically (in the form of PDFs). It is hard to know how one can deposit 
> PDFs into libraries, and, as we all should know by now, Art. 8.6 was written 
> in the CD ROM era, before PDFs on the web became the preferred form of 
> electronic publication...
> 
> So, can we "shoehorn" this case into compliance with Art. 8.1.2? Probably not! 
> The PDFs satisfy 8.1.2 (but fail 8.6), but the printed copies do not satisfy 
> 8.1.2. Giving them to five libraries is surely like giving them to five 
> friends. It does not make them "obtainable" by general public. GP can perhaps 
> read the copies in the libraries, but I don't think that makes the copies 
> "obtainable"?
> 
> All the authors/publishers had to do was to state that some number (not 
> necessarily 5) of printed copies had been made on the date that the article 
> was electronically published, and these copies can be purchased, or are freely 
> available, by writing to the authors/publishers until stocks run out ...
> 
> There is an urgent need to clarify these matters relating to electronic 
> publication ...
> 
> Stephen
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---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
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