[Taxacom] Important note Re: two names online published - one new species
Stephen Thorpe
stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz
Thu Jan 28 15:49:12 CST 2016
Yeah, but Donat, we all know that literature accessibility is your particular focus. Such a focus may prevent you from seeing the bigger picture. There is not much point having accessible taxonomic literature if there is a lack of proper regulation on what names are being used for which taxa.
Stephen
--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 29/1/16, Donat Agosti <agosti at amnh.org> wrote:
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Important note Re: two names online published - one new species
To: "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Received: Friday, 29 January, 2016, 10:42 AM
What I am saying is that
the house never collapses because of this kind of missing
bricks, Rather the opposite, if a publication is open
accessible and registered in Zoobank then we don't have
your bricks anymore.
The problem of names
is, that the original literature is not accessible and has
never been compiled. A problem of the past and anyways, the
system you defend is so broken anyways and rather becoming
obsolete rapidly, especially with this sort of
discussions.
d
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Thorpe [mailto:stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz]
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2016 10:15
PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu;
Donat Agosti <agosti at amnh.org>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Important note Re: two
names online published - one new species
Donat,
While I
agree that nomenclatural priority is not "a
priority" in the wider scheme of things, buildings are
made out of individual bricks, and a crumbly brick in the
wrong place can bring down the whole building. We need to
get nomenclatural priority sorted out so to minimise the
instability of different people using different names for
the same taxon, thereby causing confusion that could hinder
wider issues. Do you think that biosecurity or conservation
managers want to have to keep track of who is using what
name for which taxa? Besides, there is a whole industry
nowadays of "aggregators" who rely on fixed names
for taxa, or else their websites and databases become too
complex to be of any practical use.
Stephen
--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 29/1/16, Donat Agosti <agosti at amnh.org>
wrote:
Subject: Re:
[Taxacom] Important note Re: two names online published
- one new species
To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu"
<taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Received: Friday, 29 January, 2016, 9:56 AM
The issue is, that we
neither now nor have access to the
publications and the names therein. If all articles would
have to be registered at Zoobank, irrespective if they ore
e-only or not and a pdf copy is available, and the names
are registered at zoobank, then we do not have this
problem solved at once.
We have all this in place, no
technology
needs be developed, but we keep bridling at this option
and keep discussing things that we will not and cannot
control with our system.
Furthermore, if we want taxonomy to play a role in life
sciences we need to convert to such as system. A system,
that also allows mining content, or even better provide
the content in a form that third parties can use, link and
thus make our data part of big data.
Only this openness will raise
the value of new research, new data, the creation of
specialists who can make sound taxonomic (scientific
decisions).
Again,
this
discussion on this list serve is a
great disservice to the community, not least because
priority is such as minuscule problem in understanding the
diversity of life. It just gives the wrong impression
where the priorities of our community is. The problem, the
huge murderous problem is, that we even today do not know
what we describe as new species, how they look like, can
provide a link from GenBank or BOLD to the respective
taxonomic treatment that everybody can consult, finds link
to external resources, and ultimately can use the data for
their purpose - one of the most important is to save
diversity of life.
Donat
-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu]
On Behalf Of Richard Pyle
Sent: Thursday,
January 28, 2016 7:58 PM
To: 'Laurent
Raty'
<l.raty at skynet.be>;
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Important note Re:
two names online published - one new species
I agree
with everything
Laurent says below, but I
don't see that as the real problem.
I believe the
following
scenario is not as rare as some people would believe; and
indeed may be increasingly common:
1) Journal issues a
provisional electronic edition online, and clearly
indicates it as such (no LSID)
2) A
revised version,
including LSID (and
properly registered with archive, etc.) is posted online,
and the correct date of publication indicated. Pagination
is from 1-20.
3) An
important error is discovered, and a revised version is
posted online, replacing the previous one, and the website
(but not the PDF) indicates that it was revised. The PDF
contains the original date, and Pagination is 1-20.
4) A paper edition is produced, which
includes the corrected error, and indicates the correct
date of publication for the paper edition. Pagination is
364-384.
Each of the
above happens on a
different date, in the
chronological order indicated.
Most of us would probably
agree that #1 is not published in the sense of the Code,
based on the missing LSID. Even if there was an LSID
included, we could probably all agree that Art. 9.9
applies, and it's not published in the sense of the
Code.
At the time #2 was
obtainable
(on the date indicated within
the work itself), it was intended by the publisher as the
"version of record". There is no evidence in
the work itself, or on the website, that it's not the
final version.
So, how
do we interpret #3?
Is it the
"real" version of record, retroactively making
#2 unavailable under Art 9.9? Is it a distinct published
work, establishing a new objective synonym and homonym
that we must track? Assuming both #2 and #3 include the
same ZooBank LSID, which version is the LSID
"actually" associated with? Does it matter which
version is deposited in an archive? What if neither
version is ever deposited in the intended archive? What
if both are?
Or, does
it
depend on the nature of the error that
was corrected? Examples could include:
-
Correction of the
word "teh" to
"the" in the abstract
- Addition
of an accent to a character in an author's name
- Revised or corrected map
showing the distribution of the taxon
-
Correct spelling of the genus name for a new
species-group name
- Altered spelling of
the new
species-group name itself
- Addition of the
location of
the collection where the type specimen is to be
deposited
- etc., etc.
Some of these have relevance to
nomenclature, some do not. Does that matter in our
determination of which edition is the "version of
record" that should be considered as part of the
public and permanent scientific record, and thereby
represent the date of availability for purposes of
nomenclatural priority? Do we need an enumeration of all
possible changes that do result in a changed "version
of record"?
And what
about the changed
page numbers in the paper
edition? For those who don't like the
"metadata" argument, are you suggesting that the
paper edition represents a new published work (with
objective synonyms and homonyms) simply because the paper
edition is not an "exact copy" of the electronic
edition? Even if the page numbers were identical, how
does one define "exact copy" in such a way that
one physical object consisting of paper pages with ink on
them is an "exact copy" of a binary object
stored on a computer?
I'm sure we
could argue about it enough
to come to some sort of consensus on this specific
example. But there are a near-infinite number of
possible examples out there, and the scope of possible
examples will probably continue to expand in the future.
Why? Because despite what some have argued, electronic
dissemination of scientific information is still very much
in its infancy. The playing field is constantly
evolving. Electronic publication began as a digital
representation of a paper work (e.g., a scanned image of
the actual printed pages). As time goes on, publishers
are increasingly exploiting the power of electronic
information and its dissemination (and rightly so). As we
move closer to a world that resembles the vision of a
Semantic Web, the parallels between the old paper-based
publication world and modern electronic means of
information exchange will evaporate to the point where
they are essentially unrecognizable.
This
"problem"
isn't going away; it's going to get worse. Even
God Herself would be challenged to come up with wording in
a revised Code that accommodated all conceivable
scenarios.
I
completely understand why we still cling to
the old notions of "publication", where the
economics of producing multiple subtly different
versions of a work produced as thousands of copies on
paper effectively ensured that problems of the sort
described above were rare outliers. The new electronic
information dissemination model completely changes the
cost-effectiveness of producing incrementally altered
versions of pseudo-static works. We could
"encourage" publishers to respect our
traditional notions of publication, but how effective will
that campaign be? And do we really want to burden the
field of taxonomy with additional handicaps? (Even if we
could?)
We
are tasked with
finding a way to maintain
nomenclatural stability in the context of this rapidly
changing playing field. I find it helpful to step back and
remember what, exactly, "stability" means, and
how, fundamentally, we attempt to achieve it.
- A system of latin
words
universally shared and used as labels for taxa
- A mechanism for unambiguously linking the
names to the biological world through type specimens
- A mechanism for unambiguously establishing
priority among potentially competing names (subjective
synonyms; homonyms)
That's really the essence of nomenclatural
stability. We still need a complex series of rules to
deal with legacy names until a complete and universal
registry exists (i.e., the uber-LAN). However, if we
continue to try to force-fit the rapidly changing modes of
electronic information exchange in science into a model
that was fundamentally designed around ink-on-paper
documents, these problems will continue to dominate our
time and energy.
We can
probably maintain the
status quo for a few
more years; but if we don't get serious about
fundamentally adjusting (and future-proofing) our system
of nomenclatural availability (and, by extension,
stability), then the "problems" we fret about
now will seem trivial compared to what's ahead.
Aloha,
Rich
Richard L.
Pyle, PhD
Database Coordinator for Natural
Sciences |
Associate Zoologist in Ichthyology | Dive Safety Officer
Department of Natural Sciences, Bishop Museum, 1525
Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817
Ph:
(808)848-4115, Fax: (808)847-8252 email: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html
> -----Original
Message-----
> From:
Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu]
On Behalf Of
> Laurent
Raty
> Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2016
3:30 AM > To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Important note Re:
two names online published -
> one new
species
>
> Producing
an
"exact copy" (bit-for-bit) of a pdf file is, on
the > contrary, one of the easiest things to do. Just
select the file in > your file manager and hit
<Ctrl>-C, <Ctrl>-V:
done. Of
course, in a
> vanishingly
small proportion of the cases, you may get a
"mutation", > and end up with a corrupt
file. However, this is not a real problem, > as it is
also extremely easy to check that a file is an "exact
copy" of another file, using things like hash values
/ checksums.
>
> On the other hand, checking whether
the non-metadata portion of the
>
content and layout that
will be displayed when viewing a pdf file is > the
same as that which will be displayed when viewing another
pdf > file, that otherwise differs, is a nightmare.
(Most likely plain impossible.) If you adopt any
"copy"
> concept that departs
from the
"exact", bit-for-bit
copy, you basically > accept, knowingly, never to be
able to check for the integrity of a > work in pdf
format.
>
> The
problem (?) is that some publishers NEVER
produce pdf files that > are "exact
copies". If you download twice the same work from,
say, > http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ , the
two files that that you get will > be "exact
copies" of each other. But if you do the same from,
eg., > http://www.tandfonline.com , the
files will differ: each downloaded "copy"
> is in fact a *new* pdf file, generated
on demand by the website, with > each page
"tagged" in the margin with your IP and the time
of download. If "copy"
>
means
"exact copy", this method
does not produces "copies" of a single >
work at all, it produces a unique file at each download,
and nothing
> is
published (Art. 8.1.3.2 not
satisfied).
>
>
Cheers, Laurent -
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