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

[Stephen Thorpe]

>And I'm still waiting for you to explain to me why the Amendment as ratified favors the Zootaxa model more than any other model, and fails other models, when most of the "evidence" presented so far suggests that they benefit much less so than other publishing models. (e.g., they continue to publish on paper anyway, so the Amendment technically doesn't benefit them at all)<

I thought I had already covered this (several times actually)? But I see you are trying a slightly different angle this time, so, OK, I will answer: 

For now, Zootaxa (as far as anyone can really tell) chooses not to publish e-only or even e-first. However, Zhang is a player of the long game, and could at any time decide to change that (for a long time he resisted doi, but eventually changed his mind). The Amendment as ratified will make seamless any transition of Zootaxa to e-first or e-only. They don't need to worry about anything. There are no gray areas, no i's left undotted or t's left uncrossed. The (online) reader might not even notice the transition at all. And it is also like this for any other publisher who uses the same model as Zootaxa. That is not the point. It doesn't matter who else uses the Zootaxa model. It just matters that Zootaxa uses that model. The Amendment fails other models (models that publish e-first or e-only, models that publish preliminary versions, etc.) by simply not addressing crucial issues which determine the availability of new names published using these alternative models. Crucial issues like what exactly is a preliminary version? It speaks volumes that only Frank thought to raise that one, and nobody else was interested because it was too late in THE DAY! Wow, you set aside a whole day to sort out matters crucial to the Amendment and that matter didn't make it!

The Amendment set up Zootaxa for a seamless transition to electronic publishing, but left crucial matters relating to alternative publishing models in a prrorly thought through and messy state. The owner of Zootaxa was one of the main architects of the Amendment. 1 + 1 =2! I'm not suggesting that he deliberately tried to kneecap the competition in an act of industrial espionage! I have no idea. I'm just suggesting that the Commission thought through the Zootaxa situation very carefully, but made less effort to consider other models sufficiently. It is the simple consequence of a fairly obvious COI, which should have been avoided.

Stephen


--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 27/1/16, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> wrote:

 Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Important note Re: two names online	published	-	one	new species
 To: "'Stephen Thorpe'" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "'Paul van Rijckevorsel'" <dipteryx at freeler.nl>, taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
 Cc: "'engel''" <msengel at ku.edu>
 Received: Wednesday, 27 January, 2016, 11:23 AM
 
 > Rich, I hope you can
 now appreciate why it would have been better to
 > carefully consider a selection of
 different publishing models BEFORE issuing
 > the Amendment, and not one (and we all
 know which one!)
 
 Stephen,
 
 I
 hope you can appreciate that we did very carefully consider
 a selection of different publishing models BEFORE issuing
 the Amendment, and additionally considered them during the
 review process.
 
 And I'm
 still waiting for you to explain to me why the Amendment as
 ratified favors the Zootaxa model more than any other model,
 and fails other models, when most of the
 "evidence" presented so far suggests that they
 benefit much less so than other publishing models. (e.g.,
 they continue to publish on paper anyway, so the Amendment
 technically doesn't benefit them at all).
 
 > 8.5.3.3. An error in
 stating the evidence of registration does not make a work
 > unavailable, provided that the work can be
 unambiguously associated with a
 > record
 created in the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature
 before
 > the work was published.
 > 
 > The key words are
 BEFORE PUBLICATION. One possible interpretation is:
 > 
 > temporally prior to
 'publication' in the sense that publishers use the
 term;
 
 This is the intended
 meaning of "before" (i.e., temporally) the work is
 published in the sense of the Code. 
 
 > This would imply that if an electronic
 work is published without
 >
 preregistration, then it can never comply with 8.5.3.3,
 unless you have a
 > Tardis or other means
 of travelling back in time!
 
 > Now certain revisionist Commissioners are
 trying to reinterpret 8.5.3.3 as
 > really
 meaning that "before a work can be considered to be
 published
 > according to the Code (i.e.
 validly published), it must be registered on
 > ZooBank.
 
 Which Commissioners are you referring to?  I
 haven't seen any Commissioner "trying" to
 interpret 8.5.3.3 at all.  Perhaps I missed something? 
 Can you refer me to an example?
 
 It's pretty clear that the Code
 consistently refers to "published" as meaning
 published in the sense of the Code.  The Glossary defines
 "publication" as follows:
 publication, n.
 (1) Any
 published work. (2) The issuing of a work conforming to
 Articles 8 and 9.
 
 Art. 8
 defines what a "published work" is. (i.e.,
 "What constitutes published work").  Art. 9
 defines what is not a published work (i.e., "What does
 not constitute published work").
 
 I don't know how it could be any more clear
 that whenever the Code uses the word "publication"
 or "published", it means so as "published
 work", which is a work that is published in the sense
 of the Code.
 
 Aloha,
 Rich