[Taxacom] Important note Re: two names online published - one new species

[Stephen Thorpe]

We are slowly making progress Laurent.

8.1.3.2. widely accessible electronic copies with fixed content and layout

A PDF uploaded to and accessible even temporarily on the internet is "widely accessible" (anybody on the internet can access it) and has fixed content and layout. The whole point of archiving was so that it remains accessible in the longer term. But because Zootaxa is too prolific to actually be able to archive everything quickly enough, the archiving requirement was watered down to a statement of intent to archive.

So, yes, technically, the e-first PDF is the published work (assuming that it complies fully with the Code). These important documents are being deleted without trace every day! That is part of the problem. It isn't a total disaster because they are typically being replaced by documents of equivalent content (and layout). But it is typically impossible to objectively verify actual dates of availability, because the original documents are lost and also the ZooBank records don't have publicly accessible edit histories! Note that none of this matters to Zootaxa, conveniently for them! Who is responsible for this mess? Well, you know who I blame.

"Preliminary version" has been left undefined. "Metadata" was "pulled out of a hat" to save the day from objections that unpaginated e-first dovuments were "preliminary versions".

Article 9. What does not constitute published work. 
9.9. preliminary versions of works accessible electronically in advance of publication (see Article 21.8.3);

21.8.3. Some works are accessible online in preliminary versions before the publication date of the final version. Such advance electronic access does not advance the date of publication of a work, as preliminary versions are not published (Article 9.9).

A "preliminary version" is now understood (and probably was the original intended meaning, but not made clear in the Code) to be one that differs in content and/or layout, but differences in mere "metadata" don't matter!

Stephen



--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 27/1/16, Laurent Raty <l.raty at skynet.be> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Important note Re: two names online published - one new species
 To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
 Received: Wednesday, 27 January, 2016, 10:53 AM
 
 Ok, that's at least
 an interesting new reading.
 
 You mean you do *not* regard the final pdf file
 as a copy of the 
 published file at all; and
 you consider that the early view file, having 
 been obtainable for just a few weeks on the
 publisher website, before it 
 was deleted
 from the Internet, stands alone as "published"?
 
 Do you really think that the
 so-defined "published work" satisfies 8.1.3.2 ?
 
 In my reading the early view
 file cannot differ from the final one in 
 content and layout, and they *must* technically
 BOTH TOGETHER form the 
 "version of
 record" (ie, they cannot differ in any aspect of their
 
 "content and layout"); if this is
 not the case, the early view file 
 cannot be
 deemed published, because it would automatically be excluded
 
 from what constitutes published work by
 Art. 9.9. It's only the fact 
 that it is
 not a preliminary version that allows the early view file to
 
 stand as published.
 
 L -
 
 
 On
 01/26/2016 09:57 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
 > Laurent,
 >
 > Once again you are mistaken, but that
 doesn't reflect badly on you,
 > it
 reflects badly on the the almost bewilderingly confusing way
 that
 > the Code has been written.
 >
 > As long as the early
 view file is considered to be the version of
 > record (with preregistration on ZooBank
 truly indicated within), all
 > that
 matters is that the PDF file for it contains something which
 can
 > be reasonably interpreted as a date
 of publication. If the subsequent
 > print
 edition is different in any regard, this is irrelevant.
 >
 > So, in your example a
 statement "Systematic Entomology (2015) ..." in
 > the online edition contains a date of
 publication (incompletely
 > specified as
 2015), so, all other things being equal, is Code
 > compliant. It is irrelevant what happens
 after that. What is
 > technically made
 available is the online first PDF (which probably
 > never gets archived, but actual archiving
 isn't actually a Code
 >
 requirement!)
 >
 > It
 is all a big mess but a few things are clear enough.
 >
 > Cheers,
 >
 > Stephen
 
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