Taxacom: Clarification RE e-publication (zoology) - new name has ZooBank LSID (or doesn't), publication does not

Sun Mar 26 16:12:40 CDT 2023

 "Taxonomists will always need to publish, because taxonomy is science and science should be published"
Nah, we just need to broaden our concept of publication and get rid of the arcane and disingenuous idea of "prestigious" (=expensive!) journals. Get rid of all forms of snobbery from science, I say.
Something is published if it is uploaded to a publicly viewable (or even subscription viewable) website. The "pub" in "published" refers to the public, so to publish something is to make it available (either free or by subscription) to the public, whether by hard copy or whatever other durable ("permanent") medium you like. Given that we now do have e-only publication, potential issues relating to the permanence of the record on online databases applies equally to e-only journals.
There actually isn't much difference between an online database-type system and an e-publication. Indeed, one could get the database to spit out a report in PDF form, give it a journal-type title with an ISSN and what's the difference?
The only things holding us back are a certain resistance to change, particularly when linked to some sort of institutionalised snobbery going back to the good old bad old days!
Stephen
    On Monday, 27 March 2023 at 07:51:41 am NZDT, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> wrote:  

Taxonomists will always need to publish, because taxonomy is science and science should be published.  The only thing that needs to change is the technical/quasi-legal mechanism of nomenclatural availability.  Except for Code warriors, almost nothing would change.  People would still describe new species in scientific publications.  They would just deal with the technicalities of nomenclatural housekeeping on another platform.

Aloha,

Rich

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Senior Curator of Ichthyology | Director of XCoRE

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

1525 Bernice Street, Honolulu, HI 96817-2704

Office: (808) 848-4115;  Fax: (808) 847-8252

eMail: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org

BishopMuseum.org

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From: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> 
Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2023 1:35 AM
To: 'Tony Rees' <tonyrees49 at gmail.com>; Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
Cc: 'taxacom' <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: Taxacom: Clarification RE e-publication (zoology) - new name has ZooBank LSID (or doesn't), publication does not

I guess that the dilemma is between the science itself and the "sociology" of the science. Taxonomists still need to publish as part of their job, because publications are still perceived at "the metric of choice" for judging performance. However, in terms of the science itself, we could simply move away from publications per se to an online system whereby a taxonomist simply submits a treatment (and illustrations) for a new taxon to a centralised online repository, something along the lines of ZooBank and that is all it takes to name a new taxon. The process could be standardised in such a way that it fails unless the submission fits all the relevant requirements, so if it is successfully submitted to the repository, then it is by definition made available.

Cheers, Stephen

On Sunday, 26 March 2023 at 10:37:55 pm NZDT, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> wrote: 

Thanks, Tony – I missed this email from you.

Yeah, I have a LOT of thoughts about how cumbersome the modern era is with regard to publications and Code compliance.  The authors of the fourth Edition of the Code understood that this problem was coming, and wrote the following in the introduction:

“But it seems likely, in the longer term, and with the development of new information systems, that the solution will not lie in patching up a definition of publication but, rather, in scrapping it and finding a means of replacing "publication" as a primary determinant of availability.”

Amen to that!  I, and other Commissioners, feel strongly that we need to heed this sage advice in Code 5.

Aloha,

Rich

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Senior Curator of Ichthyology | Director of XCoRE

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

1525 Bernice Street, Honolulu, HI 96817-2704

Office: (808) 848-4115;  Fax: (808) 847-8252

eMail: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org

BishopMuseum.org

Our Mission: Bishop Museum inspires our community and visitors through the exploration and celebration of the extraordinary history, culture, and environment of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.

From: Tony Rees <tonyrees49 at gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2023 12:17 PM
To: Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
Cc: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>; taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: Taxacom: Clarification RE e-publication (zoology) - new name has ZooBank LSID (or doesn't), publication does not

Dear Rich, all,

Now I do see that there is something in the Code Online that covers this situation:

----------------

Examples. Evidence of registration is given by stating information that would be known only if the registration has occurred, such as the exact date of registration or the registration number assigned to the work or to a new name or nomenclatural act introduced in the work

-------------------

So the error was on my part, not reading/understanding this example sufficiently.

However in my defence I did search ZooBank for this work (by first author surname) and did not find it (because as we now know the ZooBank record for it had not been upgraded to "published") which led me to believe that the *work* had not been registered. However due to your (Rich's) familiarity with the system, you will know that a name cannot be registered without being accompanied by a corresponding registration for the work - I did not know this.

I think the issue is that the world has changed. Prior to e-publication, if a work was not available, that flowed through to its included nomenclatural acts being unavailable as well. Now it is the other way around - if a minimum of one of the included nomenclatural acts is registered in ZooBank, then the work is available, since it must have been registered as well, even if nobody can see that...

Regards to all - Tony

Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia

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