[Taxacom] are journal-ranking algorithms code-compliant?

[Stephen Thorpe]

But Doug, publishers would presumably object big time to a single journal for taxonomy, or at least would fight it out to get ownership of it. You are effectively proposing a monopoly, which is surprising for an American!

Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 14/4/15, Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] are journal-ranking algorithms code-compliant?
 To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
 Received: Tuesday, 14 April, 2015, 12:29 PM
 
 On 4/13/15 4:01 PM, Fred
 Schueler wrote:
 > Quoting Neal Evenhuis
 <neale at bishopmuseum.org>:
 >
 >> However, until
 employers (mainly in academia) do away with evaluating
 >> their employee taxonomists based on
 where they publish (i.e., high 
 >>
 ranking
 >> journals), many taxonomists
 will not switch over to this zero-ranking
 >> registration/repository system.
 >
 > * I'm glad I got
 my unemployable badge before this ranking of 
 > individuals by the ranking of the journals
 in which they publish came 
 > in. This
 practice has always seemed to me to be an 
 > institutionalization of pure stinking
 cowardice - those seeking to 
 > violate
 the commandment "judge not, lest ye be judged"
 rank journals 
 > by popularity criteria
 solely because they're afraid they (perhaps as 
 > administrative trolls luring under
 academic bridges) couldn't 
 >
 understand the work of the person they're supposed to be
 evaluating. 
 > They fob the job off on a
 numerical assessment of the journals, and go 
 > home to supper.
 >
 > This is a total inversion of the taxonomic
 notion of "publication," in 
 >
 which it doesn't matter where you publish something, so
 long as it is 
 > available.
 Before this devolves any further (and I'm
 not accusing Neal or Fred of 
 doing so, but
 I can anticipate some of the responses this may generate),
 
 PLEASE consider the following question very
 carefully:
 
 If there is only
 a *single* electronic venue (call it an e-journal if 
 you must), where ALL new zoological
 taxonomic/nomenclatural acts and 
 descriptions MUST appear in order for them to
 be available, including 
 paleontology, all
 vertebrates and invertebrates - ALL disciplines - then 
 what impact factor do you think that single
 venue will have? Thousands 
 upon thousands
 of new works produced every year, all in one place, all 
 with a single cited source? This is a
 no-brainer. No one has to worry 
 that such a
 venue would not have enough of an impact factor to satisfy a
 
 tenure committee; in plain fact, any
 taxonomist who is worried about 
 impact
 factor should be BEGGING for such a system to be
 implemented, as 
 soon as is humanly
 possible, so they can start submitting to it! Look at 
 it this way: when less than 1% of all new names
 appear in high-impact 
 venues like Nature or
 Science, then the OTHER 99% of taxonomists have 
 *everything to gain and nothing to lose* by
 joining all together into a 
 single digital
 venue, instead of staying scattered across hundreds of 
 different venues with a microscopic fraction of
 the readership.
 
 Sincerely,
 
 --
 
 Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology 
      Entomology Research Museum
 Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314 
    skype: dyanega
 phone: (951)
 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
               http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
    "There are some enterprises
 in which a careful disorderliness
      
    is the true method" - Herman Melville,
 Moby Dick, Chap. 82
 
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