[Taxacom] Proofs for opinion

[Stephen Thorpe]

This is getting too messed up. There WAS something much stronger than Art. 8.5.3, but it seems to have vanished! The subtle distnctions between "published", "published according to the Code" and "issued" are just to ephemeral to get a handle on. The Code has always equivocated between "published" and "validly published"(="published according to the Code"). To cut a long story short, we really don't know where we are with electronic publication. It is all one big mess. Everyone is in just too much of a hurry to care, apart from those with vested interests, but they don't care about anyone else. Looking at the Code online, I am now rolling my eyes, for I have just noticed that Art. 8.5, which is an amendment regarding electronic publication, is listed in the contents side bar as 8.5. Works produced after 1985 and before 2000. So much for consistency ...
Cheers,
Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 9/1/15, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> wrote:

 Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Proofs for opinion
 To: "'Stephen Thorpe'" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "'Paul van Rijckevorsel'" <dipteryx at freeler.nl>, taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
 Received: Friday, 9 January, 2015, 2:21 PM
 
 > No. Possibly Paul
 can corfirm this, but, somewhere, there almost certainly
 WAS
 > AT SOME STAGE a strong
 implication to the effect that a publication must
 be
 > registered on Zoobank
 before it is published electronically. 
 
 Yes. As I said, Art. 8.5.3 is about as strong
 an implication as one can get
 that
 registration must happen prior to when a work is considered
 published
 in the sense of the Code.  Note
 my use of the phrase "published in the sense
 of the Code" (which is all the code
 "cares" about).  Something may be
 "published" in the common, vernacular
 sense well before it is published in
 the
 sense of the Code.
 
 > The
 problem of
 > course is that once it is
 published without registration, you can't go
 back in time
 > to
 preregister it, so it cannot be published electronically.
 But now Art.
 8.5
 >
 doesn't seem to say that! Hmmm ...
 
 No, you can't go back in time.  However,
 if an electronic work fails to
 fulfill the
 requirements of the Code, then it is not
 "published" in the
 sense of the
 code.  An electronic work cannot be "published
 without
 registration"
 ("published" in the sense of the Code), therefore
 there is no
 need to go back in time.  From
 the perspective of the Code, it is only
 published when all criteria are met.  It may
 have been obtainable in
 pre-published form
 (again, "published" in the sense of the Code)
 without
 included evidence of registration. 
 But it is only considered "published"
 (in the sense of the Code) if the criteria are
 met.
 
 > I think that the
 meaning of "issued" is actually quite clear, and
 so that
 a pre-
 > 2011
 electronic publication cannot be rendered valid by adding
 registration etc.
 > In fact,
 nothing before mid-2012 can be, because the archiving
 statement
 could
 > not be
 made on ZooBank before then. There is published discussion
 on this
 > point, somewhere.
 
 All electronic works (without
 paper equivalents) issued prior to 2012 do not
 exist as publications in the sense of the
 Code.  If an electronic work that
 is
 obtainable on January 1 2012 (regardless of whether it was
 also
 obtainable prior to this date) fulfills
 all the requirements of the Code for
 electronic publications, and no paper edition
 was made obtainable prior to
 that date, then
 why isn't that work considered to be published in the
 sense
 of the Code?  Of the 17 instances of
 the word "issue" or "issued" in Art.
 8,
 only once is it qualified as "first
 issued" (Art. 8.1.2).
 
 > You say [quote]I think that the earliest
 reasonable date in that case
 would be
 > the date on which all requirements were
 fulfilled[unquote]. But that is
 the
 > problem! How can you tell on what date a
 missing LSID was added to a PDF
 if
 > the publisher doesn't come clean and
 state that date?
 
 Yes, and
 that's only the tip of the iceberg.  And that's the
 issue I was
 driving at in my post.  First
 we need to clarify exactly when the date of
 publication (for purposes of priority) would be
 in a case where we had
 perfect knowledge. 
 We don't even seem to have consensus on that yet. 
 Once
 we get consensus on that, then we next
 have to figure out how we determine
 when a
 work fulfilled the requirements of the Code.  But as I
 said, this is
 a problem that has always
 existed for works produced on paper. It's just
 that electronic publication has afforded us an
 opportunity to shine a
 spotlight on this
 long-standing problem.
 
 >
 We don't have the same problem with dating paper
 publications as we have
 for
 > electronic ones, as I'm sure that your
 colleague Neal can explain to you.
 Ever
 > been to a library? Journal issues in
 libraries have accession date stamps
 (and
 > librarians have no reason to falsify
 them). 
 
 Yes, and people get
 emailed PDFs, and files on hard drives have date-stamps
 when they were downloaded.  In my experience
 it's MUCH easier to figure out
 when a
 PDF was first obtainable than it is to figure out when a
 paper
 publication was first obtainable.
 
 > The original idea behind
 archiving
 > electronic publications was
 to make such archives the electronic
 equivalent of
 > libraries,
 but, because Zootaxa output is faster than archiving can
 keep
 up, this
 >
 requirement got watered down to a mere statement of intent
 to archive.
 > Hmmm...
 
 That's pretty weird to hear you say that,
 given that Zhi-Qiang was a very
 strong
 proponent of archiving requirements during the discussion. 
 If you
 really want me to explain the
 Pandora's box that would have been opened by
 requiring archiving (rather than intent of
 archiving), then brace yourself
 for some
 really long emails.  Suffice it to say that we would have
 had a
 MUCH bigger mess than we have now.
 
 
 Aloha,
 Rich