[Open-access] Crowdsourcing request + BMJ OA Policy

Tue Mar 25 11:01:27 UTC 2014

Dear Mike,

I agree with you on almost everything. Perhaps I should have said
""versioning" is completely unacceptable for taxonomic literature under
current code". Yes, rules can be changed, and should be changed, however,
until it is done we must follow them. It is possible to implement
versioning, but it needs universal acceptance. What happens if in version 2
you and Darren decide to change diagnosis and, thus, circumscription of the
taxon? Should not it be a new name if it is a new entity? Nobody can decide
it unilaterally

Cheers,

Vlad

--
Dr Vladimir Blagoderov, FLS
Department of Life Sciences
The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road, London
SW7 5BD, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 6629 (office)
Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 6895 (SBIL)
Fax: +44 (0) 207 942 5229

e-mail:
vlab at nhm.ac.uk
vblago at gmail.com

Fungus Gnats Online:
www.sciaroidea.info

On 25 March 2014 09:41, Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com> wrote:

> On 25 March 2014 09:20, Vladimir Blagoderov <vblago at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear Douglas,
> >
> > As one of the authors of the publication you mentioned I must say that we
> > criticised some inconsistent practices of modern methods of publication,
> not
> > methods themselves. For example, "versioning" is completely unacceptable
> for
> > taxonomic literature as it jeopardises stability of taxonomic names. Once
> > published, the paper must remain immutable, and any errors as Mike noted
> > above must be corrected in a new publication even at expence of several
> > months.
>
> I don't agree at all. The proper nomenclatural authority for a name
> need not, as now, be of the form "Xenoposeidon Taylor and Naish 2007".
> It can be "Xenoposeidon Taylor and Naish 2007, version 1". So long as
> that version of that paper can be obtained, we have taxonomic
> stability. If Darren and I subsequently revise the paper to produce a
> version 2, that needn't affect the authority for the name Xenoposeidon
> at all.
>
> > It may not be ideal, but this is the rule, laid down in the codes of
> > nomenclature.
>
> The rules are our servants, not our masters. They exist for our
> benefit, not us for theirs. They can be changed when changing
> circumstances mean they no longer serve us, as happened with the
> recent electronic-publication amendment. There is no reason why the
> ICZN/ICBN rules shouldn't similarly be amended to take account of
> versions.
>
> Self-referential example: see this version of Wikipedia's page on the
> ICZN, from 5 July 2012 (before the electronic-publication amendment):
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature&oldid=500828278
>
> It's ridiculous that upstart organisation like Wikipedia are running
> rings around us as a scholarly community. We should be the ones
> pioneering new and more powerful approaches, not trailing reluctantly
> along behind Wikipedia.
>
> -- Mike.
>
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