[Taxacom] two names online published - one new species

[Doug Yanega]

On 1/21/16 5:41 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> Yes, but the question is whether (4) could ever be expected to be the responsibility of an author?
>
I shouldn't have to remind you, but...

For the better part of a decade, during the struggle to get a provision 
into the Code to allow for e-only publication of nomenclatural acts, one 
of the BIGGEST concerns that taxonomists expressed - one of the major 
points of resistance to change - was the fear that it was impossible to 
ensure the longevity of electronic documents. I have an archive 
containing piles of such comments, posted right here in Taxacom, to 
demonstrate this.

It was considered by the taxonomic community ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that 
the Code amendment make it *mandatory* that any author who wanted to 
make an e-only work that was also Code-compliant be required to tell 
readers where that work was going to be archived, so in 50 or 100 years, 
people could still find and link to online copies - i.e., ensuring that 
no nomenclaturally-relevant works could ever vanish into the ether. This 
is what you wanted, and we gave you what you insisted upon - the best 
possible mechanism to ensure archival longevity and accessibility of 
e-only works.

It is entirely up to the author whether or not to publish in an e-only 
journal; they are making that choice themselves, and thereby knowingly 
choosing to subject their work to additional criteria for availability, 
and ALSO thereby making themselves responsible for knowing whether the 
publication venue itself fulfills these additional criteria. When an 
author chooses a particular e-only journal, it is perfectly reasonable 
to expect that they know something about the journal they are submitting 
to - in particular, knowing whether the archiving practices of the 
journal that's chosen are Code-compliant, and then making sure that 
readers know where the work is archived - is ALSO quite clearly an 
author's responsibility. It all goes along with the choice to publish 
digitally in the first place.

Of course, if a journal can't or won't assure you, as an author, that 
their archival protocol for digital works is Code-compliant, then you 
shouldn't publish in that journal!

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