[Taxacom] Proofs for opinion

Fri Jan 9 02:26:29 CST 2015

Perhaps Robin has a point; there is a specific ZooBank discussion list where this thread would be more appropriate, if only because it is less likely to be lost among other subjects in the archives.

Regards,
Lynn

> On 9 Jan 2015, at 01:30, Daniel Leo Gustafsson <kotatsu.no.leo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Why do you need to kill it? Does your mail server not allow you to erase
> emails unread?
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel
> 
>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 6:26 PM, Robin Leech <releech at telus.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Yee Gods, what does it take to kill this thread?
>> Robin
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of
>> Richard Pyle
>> Sent: January-08-15 6:22 PM
>> To: 'Stephen Thorpe'; 'Paul van Rijckevorsel'; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Proofs for opinion
>> 
>>> 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
>> 
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