[Taxacom] A lost world in Wallacea

Fri Jan 17 18:24:09 CST 2020

 Hi Rich,Yes, but, unfortunately, there are two opposed schools of thought:(1) [Ours] Treat everything as available unless conclusively proven otherwise;(2) Treat nothing as available unless conclusively proven to be so.Where it gets a bit muddier is when there is some (inconclusive or controversial) suggestion that availability has failed. This is always subject to disagreement about how conclusive it is, i.e. many people choose an interpretation of the Code which makes it seem conclusive, but that is only their interpretation of the relevant Code article(s).Where it gets muddier still is when some groups of taxonomists feel self-justified (and self-serving) in imposing standards of peer review which simply aren't a requirement of the Code. This isn't a problem in the present case, but is a well-known problem in contemporary ant-Hoser herpetology.So, where does all this leave us? As in most/all facets of real life, I suggest that it leaves us all in a bit of a mess!Cheers,Stephen
    On Saturday, 18 January 2020, 12:10:28 am UTC, Richard Pyle <pylediver at gmail.com> wrote:  

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Hi Stephen,

I (and at least several other Commissioners) agree with you.  Our fundamental goal is nomenclatural stability.  In most cases, I believe that such stability is most often achieved when following the axiom of “available until demonstrated to be unavailable” (to paraphrase a core legal philosophy in many societies).  

Aloha,

Rich

From: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> 
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 2:06 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] A lost world in Wallacea

This case is clearly a determined attempt to achieve Code compliance in supplementary materials, and, as such, it would be IMHO nuts to attempt to disqualify it on any Code technicality which isn't 100% unambiguous (I doubt there are any!) There is a certain amount of sense in not looking to disqualify publications, i.e. just accept them unless there is a really clear reason not to.

Stephen

On Friday, 17 January 2020, 10:57:16 pm UTC, Richard Pyle via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote: 

Hi was hoping others would chime in to address this, but I'll take a stab:

Geoff wrote:

> Has anyone examined if the taxonomy in the 'Science' new Indonesian birds
> article, with respect to only being in the author supplement, is code
> complaint?  

Yes.  In fact it's been discussed at some length among the ICZN Commissioners.  Most of the Commissioners I have spoken with feel (as I do) that the Supplementary Materials themselves fulfill the requirements for publication under the Code, because all criteria for electronic publication have been fulfilled.

> Frank Krell once wrote an article in BZN in which he firmly stated "Electronic
> supplements are to be considered unavailable for the purposes of zoological
> nomenclature."  Is this incorrect? Surely there are qualifications needed for
> that statement?

That's an excellent question! The full quote from the abstract (https://doi.org/10.21805/bzn.v72i1.a14) is "Electronic supplements should not contain nomenclaturally relevant information as they generally are neither immutable, nor permanent, nor published in the sense of the Code."  The quote you cite ("Electronic supplements are to be considered unavailable for the purposes of zoological nomenclature") is later in the article (p. 28), under the heading, "The problem of electronic supplements".  These are two different assertions.  The former uses words like "should" and "generally"; whereas the latter is definitive ("...are not to be considered...").  I could be persuaded to agree with the former, but not the latter. In any case, while this article raises many excellent points, it does not carry the force of the Code.  

Personally, I had always held the interpretation that "Supplementary Materials" should be regarded as distinct "works" in the sense of the Code, and as such evaluated for Code compliance entirely on their own, independent of the associated "main" article.  Even in this context, the recent publication in Science fulfills the criteria (although, ironically, the main article does not -- at least in terms of electronic publication). So in my mind there is no doubt that the ten species-group names established therein are available under the Code. Less clear to me (now) is whether the "main" article should be regarded as the "same" work, or whether the main article and the supplementary materials should each be considered as distinct works, in need of independent evaluation for Code compliance.

In light of this recent example and associated discussion, I'm now questioning my own prior interpretation that Supplementary Materials are necessarily distinct works in the sense of the Code, rather than being parts of the "same" work as the primary article.  After all, paper-produced works appear across multiple sheets of paper.  Why can't electronically-produced works appear across multiple electronic files?  One could argue that the sheets of paper are (usually) physically bound together in a paper-produced work.  But "physically" has no real meaning in the context of electronic documents, so one could just as easily argue that explicit cross-links between multiple electronic documents constitute the same degree of connection as the glue holding the paper pages together in a printed work.  For example, in the case prompting this discussion, the two PDF files share the same DOI.

My current (new) interpretation is that the Code does not explicitly state that electronic works must consist of only a single electronic file; any more than the Code requires paper-produced works must be contained on a single sheet of paper (or even be physically bound together).  As such, I regard this as (yet another) example of ambiguity in the Code that should be resolved and clarified in the next edition of the Code.

In summary, my answer to your question is that there is no "correct" answer to your question.

John followed with:

> However, there may be a few "flies in the ointment" - 1. Is  there an entry in
> ZooBank that states directly that the taxonomic supplement (e-only) is
> archived and state where it is archived or does it rely on an assumption that
> the Supplementary Material is archived along with the main part of the
> journal; 

Yes: http://zoobank.org/References/8114B399-C68D-43C2-B6D3-B51AA898431E 

> 2. Does the Supplement Material have a separate ISSN number from
> the main part of the journal ( or do we assume that it has the same ISSN
> number as the journal itself)?

It's clearly part of the body of work produced under the banner of the Journal "Science", so I see no reason why you would ever assume that the ISSN for the journal did not apply to this Supplementary Materials as much as it applies to any other article associated with that Journal. The relevant part of the Code is this:

8.5.3.2. The entry in the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature must give an ISBN for the work or an ISSN for the journal containing the work. The number is not required to appear in the work itself.

I don't see how you could argue that this criterion was not fulfilled.

> Is there an official declaration by the ICZN on the availability of nomenclatural
> acts published in e-only Supplementary Materials? 

No.

> I have always assumed
> that nomenclatural acts published in Supplementary  Materials sections are
> not available because they do not normally comply with the code, but this
> example appears to do so.

As noted above, this had been my general interpretation as well (but only in the cases where the Supplementary Materials fail to fulfill requirements themselves, which is not the case here).  I'm now questioning my own interpretation, and wondering on what bases we need to consider Supplementary Materials as distinct works, as opposed to parts of the same work as the primary article.

Aloha,
Rich

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