Rather than distinguishing between "published" (sense 1 of the Glossary), and "published for purposes of zoological nomenclature" should we adopt the botanical terminology of "effectively published".
In the diagram on page 123 of the Code, another level would be added, with "Published" divided into "effectively published" and "not effectively published". The "effectively published" side would have "available", "unavailable" and "suppressed" coming from it. "Not effectively published" would be for e-works before 2010 and CD-ROM/DVD without the claimer of Article 8.6. (Gary Rosenberg, 12 Nov 2008)
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
| Peer Review? | External Peer review MUST be an essential criteria for publication. Otherwise people will self-publish hundreds of names and create a major mess - even easier with the internet. There are many sad cases of this happening, and the ICZN should not have the burden of trying to rectify the nomenclatural mess. |
2009-03-16 19:07:54 X | ||
| httpgate | test |
2009-03-16 19:04:25 X | ||
| FranciscoWelterSchultes | I understand that this should be the site where the proposal of the amendment can be discussed. General comment on the proposed amendment of the Code, section Article 8. I have serious concerns about allowing electronical publications to be recognized as publications in the sense of the Code, as media to make nomenclatural acts available. Electronical publications in textual and image formats are a great advance, they are enormeously facilitating communication among researchers, especially open access files have opened an excitingly new dimension of making knowledge available to a broad community. We are currently moving into a completely new world of distribution of knowledge. Techniques, carriers and formats are in a state of continuous and rapid development. All zoological authors, also taxonomists, should be encouraged to make use of electronical files. But the Code would be the wrong place to mention this. The main problem comes when the published contents carry nomenclatural acts. Nomenclatural acts have the absolute need that information contents in image and text format must be available without any loss of quality or information for several hundred years. We have almost no experience at all with sustainability and long-term availability of electronical files. The only thing we know is that radio and TV broadcasts from the 1950s and earlier are not properly readable and decodable any more today, if the data carriers were preserved. There are no machines existing any more to read the data carriers without an enormeous loss in quality. This is different in the case of mechnical films produced earlier, which can still be seen with mechanical machines in the same quality. In the 1950s they already had electronical data, which provides serious and definite obstacles today. The only approved way to transmit information in textual and image format without any loos in quality from one century to another time 300 years later is printed books, issued in certain minimum numbers. Unless we are in possession of proven methods that electronical ways of publishing provide the same results, no risk must be taken to lose basic nomenclatural information. At the Stockholm Biodiversity Informatics Symposium 1-4 Dec 2008 specialists for long-term digital preservation and sustainability of electronical files confirmed that at the current state of knowledge and technical development - preserving digital information for a time span of several decades is a highly complex process needing constant input of effort, time and money to keep up with rapid technical developments, - preserving electronical files for a time span of several centuries is completely unpredictable. The ICZN has no solid long-term financial background to ascertain such a continuous input for keeping all digital files continuously up to date with current technical developments in software and hardware. The only way of keeping published information available for several centuries is by printed books stored in libraries. We do have sufficient experience that public institutions (as well as private persons) continuously provide sufficient personal forces (by payment or voluntary work) to continuously protect with a suffiently high efficiency a precious collection of printed books from being stolen or destroyed by fire, water or abuse. In many countries people have a high respect for old books, and authorities tend to invest time, money and energy to protect such treasures. This is the background why the books survived for so long time. We have no experience with electronical data carriers in this respect, but it may be expected that not the same effort will be undertaken to continuously update file formats. If we run the high risk and allow electronical publications now to become published work in the sense of the Code, then it is likely that after estimated 80-120 years zoologists will have two alternatives: 1 - not to recognize any electronical publication of the past 100 years, or 2 - to abandon the historical system of Linnaean binominal nomenclature. The first alternative would have a likewise impact than in France in the late 1700s when zoologists decided not to use Buffon's French names of species any more (and to shift to the Linnean system), and by this way ignore 30 years of extremely productive zoological research in France between 1758 and 1788. As a result from these considerations I would strongly recommend not to recognize any electronically published file as published information in the sense of the Code. In particular, the CD-ROMs and DVDs deposited after 1999 must in any case and without any exception be excluded from being accepted as published work. Any nomenclatural act contained must be neglected, and the authors should be requested to publish their nomenclatural acts paper-based under the new conditions, with new dates of publication. I would not allow any exceptions, particularly not in case of priority conflicts, such names cannot have become widely used in 10 years. The number of printed issues of a published work should be set to at least 50 as the obligatory minimum number, not only as a recommendation. I see the urgent need to have a much stronger and much more restrictive definition of an acceptable published work. Printing on demand and printing single or few sheets in low numbers must in any case not be recognized as published work. I would be in favour of producing different rules for monographs and journals. Journals that can provide a list of at least 30 subscribing public institutions or libraries shall be accepted, given that at least 20 more issues are printed. Journals that have a lower number of public subscribers can include private institutions, or a list of libraries to which the issues are sent as a donation. For commercially produced monographs of less than 100 pages, issues of the printed book must be sent to at least 50 different public libraries (the ICZN can provide a list of suggestions, publishers should be required to select at least 10 libraries of that list, and could add 40 of their own choice, for example in their own nearby vicinity). For monographs of more than 100 pages these numbers can be reduced to 30 (10 selected of the recommended ICZN list and 20 of the publisher's choice). For monographs exceeding 500 pages the number of libraries could be reduced to 20 (10 + 10). The addresses of the supplied libraries would have to be supplied to the Commission, and any negative test will have the consequence that the book will not be accepted for nomenclatural purposes, if the publisher does not provide receipts for all of the remaining libraries. Monographs of less than 50 pages should be disallowed. Making sure that all nomenclatural acts will be available in original prints in 300 years is an increasingly serious concern, and in my opinion only a very restrictive ruling in Art. 8 is able to ascertain that. This is my first and general comment, written and submitted at the Stockholm Biodiversity Informatics Symposium 1-4 Dec 2008. A more detailed comment should follow later. |
2008-12-02 15:52:32 | ||
| FranciscoWelterSchultes | I do not think that we have a need to implement a switching of the meaning of such a term in different editions of the Code. Not all users have the most recent edition of the Code. I never had a problem in understanding that "published work" as defined in the sense of the ICZN Code shall mean a work that is officially accepted to contain acceptable nomenclatural acts, conforming with the explicite definition given under the chapter "What is published work?". I consider this chapter as one of the more solid, useful and strong parts of the Code (though it should be considerably improved). The term "published work" is not an expression you could find in a standard dictionary, so it is okay to give a zoological definition for it. I have many more problems with the term "valid" - this term indeed is confusing because it has a completely different meaning in a standard dictionary than in the ICZN Code, see my comment under the chapter "Glossary". |
2008-12-02 14:33:30 | ||