[Taxacom] Do rogue taxonomists need rogue publishers?

[Doug Yanega]

Bob Mesibov wrote:

>Readers can draw their own conclusions. My point in raising this on 
>Taxacom is again to urge that if the ICZN allows e-publication only, 
>that it restrict this to a select set of reputable journals.

Speaking as an ICZN Commissioner: (1) not to be nitpicky, but it is 
"e-only publication" that we're pushing to allow - the phrase you use 
makes it sound like we want to only accept electronic publications. 
I've gotten occasional comments that imply that a few people think we 
*actually* mean to ban paper publication (that's a different matter 
entirely, and not on the ICZN agenda). (2) Restricting e-only pubs to 
a "white list" of reputable web journals will not do anything to 
prevent disreputable print journals such as "Calodema" from 
continuing to damage the taxonomic community. The problem is that it 
may be perceived by some (in the Commission and outside it) that it 
is easier and more desirable to simply refuse to acknowledge 
electronic publication altogether than it is to introduce subjective 
criteria such as "Reputability" into the Code.

It would be easy if we had a licensing system and could revoke rogue 
taxonomists' licenses, independent of Code-compliance issues. But we 
don't. So, we're stuck with them.

Sincerely,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
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