[Taxacom] Electronic publication

[Stephen Thorpe]

Well, the slight potential problem with that idea, or so it seems to me, is that either an accompanying publication is necessary for new name availability or not. If so, then the publication will still need to be in some way Code compliant (e.g. what counts as published, etc.?), so we get at least some of the same problems. If not, then why would publishers bother to publish descriptions of new taxa that are already made available by other means? What happens if a new name is made available "entirely within the registration system", but for some reason it doesn't also get published?

Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 10/1/17, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> wrote:

 Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Electronic publication
 To: "'Stephen Thorpe'" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "'Hinrich Kaiser'" <chalcopis at yahoo.com>, "'Scott Thomson'" <scott.thomson321 at gmail.com>
 Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
 Received: Tuesday, 10 January, 2017, 12:58 PM
 
 Stephen Thorpe said:
  
 > There is some doubt in
 my mind. The issue is complicated, but this would, on
 > the face of it, require taking the work of
 taxonomists out of the system of
 >
 publication metrics which dominates professional science.
 
 
 No it wouldn't. 
 Taxonomists would continue to publish their science exactly
 as they always have, including detailed new species
 descriptions, etc.  The only difference -- which many
 (most?) people probably wouldn't even notice -- is that
 the technical compliance with the ICZN Code would not occur
 within the publication (as it has for centuries), nor in a
 combination of the publication and registration systems (as
 it does now for electronically published works), but would
 occur entirely within the registration system (a much more
 robust version of the existing ZooBank).  
 
 The key point here is to
 separate the legalistic aspects of conferring availability
 on new names and associated acts from the science that
 taxonomists do (and will of course continue to do).  There
 would be no "glory" in registering names any more
 than there is glory in registering GenBank sequences.  The
 glory (and reputation) of the researchers would continue to
 come from their scientific work, which would continue as it
 has been in the current scientific publication paradigm.
 None of that would change.  What WOULD change is the
 increasingly messy ambiguity that currently exists
 concerning whether or not a modern publication complies with
 Code requirements and (perhaps more messy) *when* it
 complied.
 
 Aloha,
 Rich