David Marjanovic <
david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:
> An ISSN is trivial to get; as far as I've seen, all journals published by predatory publishers have one. Remember that _all_ periodic publications can get an ISSN, not just scientific ones (however defined).
Yes, that's true. I was merely putting an ISSN forward as a starting
point. A number of quality control measures are required to
deter/prevent rogue taxonomy.
> The ICZN fixed this back in 2012: online-only and online-early publications are now fully acceptable provided they fulfill the new Art. 8.5.3 by being registered in ZooBank and containing evidence of this registration.
I'd hardly call it a "fix". It's a workaround that treats online-only
and online-early publications as exceptional. I think the Code needs
to better accommodate on-line publications, while putting safeguards
in place against those who choose to exploit loopholes (regardless of
the publication medium).
> The trouble is that almost the entire journal Scientific Reports, as well as a few cases elsewhere, have ignored this, and the names published that way are treated by the community as available anyway. Now we live in a world where
> common usage does not agree with the letter of the Code.
I agree. But I'd say that the Code has to catch up with common usage.
I entirely agree with the sentiment that the Code should serve the
community, not the other way around.
> How, though? The only idea I can come up with is that the ICZN could require peer review for availability from some future date onwards (as the PhyloCode will do, BTW). But peer review is a bit hard to define, a bit hard to prove the
> presence or absence of, and it can be rigged (keyword "peer-review ring": authors, editors and reviewers are all buddies who make sure nobody else can interfere with publication), let alone fail for innocent reasons (we've all seen this
> happen); maybe the ICZN has been letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and therefore still hasn't adopted this criterion.
How to deal with taxonomic vandalism? Good question. I wish I had a
good answer. Rogue taxonomists are a perennial problem, and a threat
to nomenclatural stability (among other things). The ICZN considers
taxonomic vandalism outside its purview. Even if a "publication"
flagrantly violates the voluntary Code of Ethics, so long as the
publication conforms to the 'black letter' of the Code, then the
Commission's hands are tied. This draws attention to the deficiencies
of the Code, not those tasked with enforcing it in such cases.
In Case 2531 (back in 1991), the ICZN made it clear that communities
of researchers, not the Commission itself, have to deal with rogue
taxonomists. Therefore, the only recourse workers have is to
ignore/boycott unethical names that are nomenclaturally valid. This
can lead to parallel nomenclature, which is hardly ideal.
I agree that using peer review as a prerequisite (which has been
proposed before, e.g., Kaiser et al., 2013) poses its own challenges.
As you say, it's sometimes tough to determine what constitutes "peer
review", and it isn't a panacea against bad science; plus it leads to
claims of academic elitism. But a major policy shift by the ICZN is
needed to weed out unethical behavior that finds _expression_ in
self-published and predatory journals.
> Historically, nothing distinguishes a rogue taxonomist from Linnaeus.
I'm not sure it's helpful to cite anything that happened in the 18th
century as a precedent. ;-)
> The Code is about nomenclature, not about science, so the quality of science is at best awkward to use as a criterion for what makes a name available. Similarly, it's
> obvious why the code of ethics at the back of the ICZN is just a list of Recommendations and not of Articles: it is bound to run into edge cases where situations look fishy but nothing can be demonstrated.
Yes, well put. No matter how much it deplores unethical behavior, the
ICZN is not equipped to be a taxonomic gatekeeper. However, "edge
cases" are not going away any time soon, and it might be preferable in
the long run to have stringent measures (not just Recommendations) in
the Code to nip them in the bud.