Introduction

Several issues now confronting the zoological community make desirable the development of a 5th edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (Code) ¹. Prime among them are electronic publication, registration of names, and typification of newly discovered rare and endangered species.

Production of the 4th edition of the Code involved extensive discussions in the zoological community, as documented in the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature (52: 228-233, 294-302; 53: 6-17, 80-88, 235-237), but nonetheless it is not always clear why particular changes were made, and some aspects of the 4th edition have remained controversial or difficult to interpret.

The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature intends ICZNwiki to be a tool for developing the 5th edition of the Code, with several goals:

• ● to make the process more transparent, by allowing broader participation of members of the zoological community;
• ● to preserve a record of the deliberations leading to the text ultimately adopted;

• ● to develop more examples and explanatory sections, making the Code easier to use and understand.

The starting text of the wiki is that of the fourth edition of the Code (1999), as found on the ICZN website, with some errors corrected to make the text correspond to the print version. The text of the Code is used on this site with the permission of the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, which holds the copyright.

Access
Initially, editing access is restricted to members of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and its secretariat. We anticipate broadening access after an introductory testing period.

Starting points:

• ICZNformatting: a summary of formatting conventions most used with Code text

• Quick links: a compact list of Code articles and sections

• RecentChanges: see where people are currently working
  

• HelpForBeginners to get you going; HelpContents for all help pages.

• WikiSandBox: experiment with editing on this page

• FindPage: search or browse the database in various ways

• SyntaxReference: quick access to wiki syntax

To learn more about what a WikiWikiWeb is, read about WhyWikiWorks and the WikiNature. Also, consult the HelpMiscellaneous/FrequentlyAskedQuestions page.

This wiki is powered by MoinMoin.

Preamble | Articles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 | Glossary Appendices Constitution