[Taxacom] Pre-submission peer-review and online import of specimen records from BOLD
JF Mate
aphodiinaemate at gmail.com
Tue Sep 22 20:19:19 CDT 2015
"...to prevent readers from being misled by misinformation published
by others, particularly if it contradicts what I might tell them, and
yet the misinformation is selling itself as authoritative on the basis
of "reputability" of institutions, equally carefully "groomed"
reputations of authors, etc. Misinformation is worse than no
information."
I honestly can´t understand what is bugging you so much Stephen.
Intentional or unintentional misinformation? I will assume the latter
and simply say, so what? The more "expert" you become the more you
realize how little you know and how much knowledge is based on
educated guesses. If you let this be your guiding principle you will
be paralyzed by fear of "misinforming" and not publish anything. The
point, as Robin said, is to tell others what you know so they can use
it. If wrong somebody else will then correct it later, maybe inching
closer to the "truth"
I think Pensoft´s new peer-review is the best thing to have been
developed recently in publication. DOIs and hyperlinks are just lights
and whistles but this will actually make life a lot easier. Now for a
fully digitized biodiversity library that is not pre-1920´s...
Jason
On 23 September 2015 at 10:01, Stephen Thorpe
<stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> wrote:
> Robin,
>
> It is a tad unclear what point you are trying to make, and if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me (which, incidentally, is exactly the sort of thing that a reviewer should address for manuscripts, i.e. clarifying the point that the author is trying to make). Whatever your point, I would just like to comment that, for me, the most important thing is not to publish what I know so that others can know it as well (which is not to say that this isn't important), but rather to prevent readers from being misled by misinformation published by others, particularly if it contradicts what I might tell them, and yet the misinformation is selling itself as authoritative on the basis of "reputability" of institutions, equally carefully "groomed" reputations of authors, etc. Misinformation is worse than no information.
>
> Cheers, Stephen
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Wed, 23/9/15, Robin Leech <releech at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Pre-submission peer-review and online import of specimen records from BOLD
> To: "'Stephen Thorpe'" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "'Doug Yanega'" <dyanega at ucr.edu>
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Received: Wednesday, 23 September, 2015, 11:37 AM
>
> Stephen,
>
> Shortly after I had finished
> my PhD, and the thesis had been accepted for publication,
>
> I had finished and had published several
> short but contributive papers in a fairly
> short period of time in several journals. To
> me, getting the information out there was,
> and always is to me, far more important than
> the particular journal I publish in.
>
> At that time, I was in Ottawa. At coffee one
> morning, an older, estblished taxonomist
> said to me, in front of others,
>
> "Robin, what are you
> doing? Setting yourself up as an expert? Everywhere I
> look I
> see another new paper of
> yours."
>
> I replied,
> "Not at all. I am trying to put the information out
> there so that others
> know what I know, so
> that they do not have to ask me for IDs. They can look and
> ID
> things for themselves."
>
> There was a moment while he
> and several of his buddies guffawed, then I added,
>
> "But, on the other hand,
> if you don't publish much, everyone has to send material
>
> to you for ID. In that case, you are seen
> as the expert."
>
> I
> heard no more caustic comments from him - ever. In fact,
> he became rather pleasant
> after that.
>
> Robin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu]
> On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
> Sent:
> September-22-15 4:03 PM
> To: Doug Yanega
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Pre-submission
> peer-review and online import of specimen records from
> BOLD
>
> I wouldn't take
> too much notice of Doug's sermon about Wikipedia. It
> works OK for very simple stuff, but not for anything else.
> It isn't only vandals and/or crackpots who get blocked
> from editing. There are many "power games" going
> on behind the scenes. Everybody wants to do things their
> way, and nobody likes anyone coming in and making
> contributions on a significantly large scale. Actually very
> little taxonomy/biodiversity related stuff gets done now at
> all on Wikipedia. Doug's own contributions are really
> loittle more than a drop in an ocean of oceans! The reason
> why it comes up first in a Google search has nothing
> whatsoever to do with the quality of content. It is
> unfortunate that the very first thing a young person might
> find on a topic could well be a load of Wikipedia
> rubbish.
>
> Stephen
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Wed, 23/9/15, Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu>
> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re:
> [Taxacom] Pre-submission peer-review and online import of
> specimen records from BOLD
> To:
> Cc: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu"
> <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Received: Wednesday, 23 September, 2015, 9:38
> AM
>
> On 9/22/15 12:50 PM,
> Neal
> Evenhuis wrote:
> >
> No Doug, the problem is
> not the print
> journals. They do what businesses do
> >
> -- they make money.
> >
>
> > The problem(s) are
> academic systems
> that evaluate their professors on the
> >
> basis of the journals they publish in (the
>
> higher impact the better). That
> > has
> resulted in the "Big Power
> Publishers" to have
> academics by
> the
> > short-and-curlies
>
> (actually more like racketeering) and can thus charge
> > oodles of money to subscribe and
> authors
> are forced to shy away from
> > online
> only/low impact
> journals in order to get high ranking,
>
> rewards,
> > evals, etc.
>
> >
> > Once the evaluation
> system for taxonomists changes, taxonomists
> can feel
> > free to publish elsewhere
> than high impact
> print journals because
> they are
> > no
> longer
> being held hostage by the current academic evaluation
> system.
> I'm not trying to
> be overly
> contentious, as I do see your
> point, but:
> can anyone offer any
> statistics to back this
> up? Specifically,
> if you
> ignore fossil taxa
>
> entirely, just for the moment, what percentage of all
> cumulative taxonomic works, worldwide,
> appear
> in legitimately "high
> impact"
> journals? My
> impression is that it is a very small
>
> percentage;
> in fact, for many of the
> taxonomists I know (mostly working on
> arthropods), if they stopped publishing in
> their present journals of
>
> choice and
> switched to, say, Zootaxa or
> ZooKeys, their impact factor
>
> would probably go UP rather than down. I
> honestly don't think I've ever
> heard of a taxonomist (who did not work on
> fossils) whose job was
>
> imperiled by the low
> impact factor of their
> publications, as opposed to
> how much grant
> money they brought in, or some
> other less
> arbitrary
> criteria. As such,
> while I have little doubt it exists, I have to
> wonder
> just how serious a force this is
> behind our
> present predicament.
>
> Peter
> Rauch
> wrote:
> > How does the
>
> "peer", as in "peer review", play in
> this
> >
> still-vaguely-described "open
>
> access" process ?
> >
> > What mechanism(s) would be needed /
> useful
> to deal with the presumably huge
> > number
> of
> "reviews" of also-presumably
>
> still-not-published draft documents ?
>
> >
> > It's easy enough
> to say that poor quality reviews can simply be
> ignored,
> or
> > can be
> put to rest handily by other,
> more
> competent reviewers. But, that
> >
> itself implies that there will be such more
> competent
> reviewers who will
> > indeed have the time
> and
> patience to read, think about, and comment on
> > those incompetent reviews.
> >
> > I understand --I
> think!?!-- the notion of removing physical
> paper from the
> > final production
> process, and I understand
> --I think-- the
> notion of "open
> >
>
> access" to information.
> >
> > What I am asking about is what will be
> the
> mechanisms to address the
> > then-open
> floodgates to
> gratuitous(?) commentary on draft works such
> that a
> > "fair"
> (and
> authoritative / professional) handling
> of all that input
> is
> >
> possible ?
>
> Open resources
> like Wikipedia deal with this
> easily, and
> admirably, and
> routinely. Any
> Wikipedia article has one visible
> manifestation, open to
> editing, while
> commentary goes on a linked
> "talk
> page". The editing
> history
> is timestamped, and visible, and subject to
> reversion to
> previous versions if
> necessary - as is the talk
> page. There are
> many
> rules in place
>
> regarding proper editing procedures and especially
> etiquette, and editors who cannot abide by
> those rules (e.g., vandalism)
> have their
> edits reverted, or
> if they are persistent and disruptive,
>
> they can be banned (short-term or
> long-term), as has happened to many
> trolls
> and crackpots who have
> tried to set up shop on Wikipedia.
> That
> kind of behavior is spotted and weeded
> out very quickly, because there
> are lots of
> eyes watching.
> The floodgates on Wikipedia are already open
>
> - to the entire world, in
> fact - and yet it
> functions quite well,
> because it is
> self-policing,
> based on explicit policies. Transparency
>
> and inclusivity go a long way, and synergize
> well. Articles on WP
>
> increase in quality,
> ratchet-like, over
> time, and setbacks are always
> only
> temporary. If you had a single public
>
> review forum that included
> all of the
> world's taxonomists, then it would
> function wonderfully
> well,
> because nothing would slip through
> the proverbial cracks, and if we
> followed
> the example of
> Wikipedia for editing policies, your worst
>
> fears
> about gratuitous commentary would
> not
> be realized.
>
> I suggest this
> challenge for
> those of you who are skeptical: take a
>
> moment right now to enter the name of a
>
> higher-level taxon you know very
> well
> (family or higher) into Google. The odds are
> very good that
> a
>
> Wikipedia entry will be the top hit, or
> at
> least one of the top 5. Open
> the
> Wikipedia article, and see how much of it is
> legitimately
> inaccurate
>
> (not incomplete - that is
> unavoidable - or
> slightly out-of-date, I mean
> actual
> factual errors as in "this is not
> true
> now and never has been
> true"). It
> should be pretty rare to find such errors, and
> it would be
>
> even rarer if
> more taxonomists spent more
> time on
> Wikipedia.
> Self-policing is an
> approach that can and does work, and works
> better
> and better with increasing
> community buy-in. I
> maintain that the same
>
> would apply to
> online
> review of scientific works.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> --
>
> Doug Yanega
> Dept. of Entomology
> Entomology
> Research Museum
> Univ. of California,
> Riverside, CA 92521-0314
> skype:
> dyanega
> phone: (951)
>
> 827-4315 (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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>
> Celebrating 28 years of
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> Celebrating 28 years of Taxacom in 2015.
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