Taxacom: an idea on data reuse preprint for systematics

[Douglas Yanega]

I'm not good at being brief, but I'll try:

For very small contributions of acts that affect zoological 
nomenclature, *in principle* the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature - 
the ICZN's journal - is a venue that handles several of the sorts of 
things you refer to. The reality is that the turnaround time for 
submissions to BZN is not fast, though it pains me to say it, as I am 
one of the assistant editors.

Not too long ago, I asked the other Commissioners if we might want to 
set up some sort of "fast track" method of getting minor nomenclatural 
notes into circulation, like within a month of submission, and the 
response was lukewarm.

I honestly think that there are a lot of taxonomists, myself included, 
who are sitting on one to many minor things, like corrections to 
spellings, unreplaced homonyms, unrecognized synonymies, gender 
agreement corrections, First Reviser actions, and other small but 
important items that need to be published, but are not part of some 
larger revisionary work. I'm not a snail taxonomist, for example, so 
what do I do if I discover a snail name that is being demonstrably 
misspelled in the literature? To my mind, these sorts of things are 
unified in that they should not require *significant* review, if any at 
all. In many cases, all it truly requires is one *qualified* reviewer.

The idea of a venue to disseminate these sorts of acts is, in that 
respect, potentially very valuable if it can be implemented in such a 
way that three crucial things are part of the model:

(1) there is an interface where *multiple* people can see any and all 
works submitted for publication, and *everyone* can act as a reviewer - 
the model of "only a tiny number of anonymous reviewers" is the most 
harmful self-imposed constraint on science that exists. This is why 
papers keep getting published that contain homonyms, synonyms, 
misspellings, multiple variant spellings, and other errors - NOT ENOUGH 
REVIEWERS. There is literally no reason why a paper can't have several 
dozen people review it, and catch every error before it makes it into 
print. The system is not hard to implement - everyone who subscribes 
gets auto-notified about every submission, and is free to review any of 
them. A submission could have a dozen reviews or more within 24 hours.

(2) submissions are time-stamped, and assigned useful keywords. It is 
not helpful, for instance, if someone submits a new replacement name for 
a homonym, and then someone else sees this and submits their own 
suggestion for a replacement of the same name. A time stamp will ensure 
that it's "first come, first published", and mandatory keywords will 
make it easier to spot overlapping submissions. We can't have people at 
one another's proverbial throats, and there is already - absurdly enough 
- a cutthroat competition to replace homonyms. That sort of 
unprofessional behavior should be discouraged.

(3) the new e-journal complies FULLY with the provisions in the Code for 
digital-only publication, so nomenclatural acts published in it are 
*available*, and not technically unpublished (a MAJOR problem with many 
existing e-journals, whose editors do not know or enforce the Code's 
strict regulations).

If you can address those three issues, I'm fairly sure you'll find there 
is a real demand for that sort of venue.

I might note that features #1 and #2 are both fully implemented in 
Wikipedia and Wikispecies, so they've been proven to work. What these 
venues lack is Code-compliance, and well-defined administrative oversight.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314  voicemail:951-827-8704
FaceBook: Doug Yanega (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffaculty.ucr.edu%2F~heraty%2Fyanega.html&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C4eb7d4fcf9254bb3c08808dd9a1067a1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638836117421697240%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=yuFLYh5acdjm0qPAwNSBSQCVi4JUtt8MkguR2lDf5GQ%3D&reserved=0
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82