[Taxacom] Start of online early

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

I am still trying to find my way in how to establish the
date of publication of an e-publication. It is easy when
the PDF has a date of publication: see Art. 31 Ex. 5:
Solanum baretiae was published in Phytokeys on 
3 Jan 2012 and you can go to the Phytokeys-site and
download a PDF that says exactly that, thus meeting
Art. 31.1 ("the [date] appearing in the printed matter 
or electronic material must be accepted as correct.").
This is a PDF last altered on 30-12-2011. 

The Melbourne Code does not require that the final 
version of the PDF may not be altered later, see Art. 30 
Note 2 and Ex. 6-8. Thus, the date on which the PDF 
was last altered is meaningless for the purpose of 
establishing the date of publication. If an e-publication 
does not include a date of publication, as in the case
of Nanobubon hypogaeum then there appears to be 
no way, for the average user, to establish a date of 
publication in retrospect, other than going to IPNI and
looking up what that says. It is not that I don't trust 
IPNI, but this suggests that registration has already
been implemented? At least for e-published names
that were established in PDF's that do not include a 
date of publication in the publication.

If registration in IPNI is not accepted as proof then 
surely Art. 31.2 comes into effect ("31.2.  When a 
publication is issued in parallel as electronic material 
and printed matter, both must be treated as effectively 
published on the same date unless the dates of the 
versions are different as determined by Art. 31.1.")?

Paul

P.S. take-home lesson: make sure a PDF has an explicit
date of publication (as in Rec. 31B)!