Hi,
I'm forwarding a message from Thomas Pape, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature President.
In addition to his concerns about e-only publications it is important to be aware that efirst-before-print names are NOT valid (until the print issue) if online without a ZooBank registration LSID statement included in the work. If a journal doesn't do ZooBank registration for you, it is easy to do it yourself, then insist on the nomenclature statement being included in your article.
Also a warning that nomenclature-related statements relegated to ad-hoc author supplementary files are NOT regarded as ICZN published. The nomenclature must be in the journal's pdf. This includes type-fixation and -deposition statements (Article 16.4). Do not let journals damage your work like that. Supplementary unedited files are not part of the permanent record, and journals are careless about keeping them.
I hope this is helpful. The deal allowing electronic-only publications requires just a small extra step from authors (or the good publishers who do it routinely) so that an independent record of verified names and publication dates is available to all.
The Code is online at: http://iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp
Geoff Read
-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces from mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Thomas Pape
Sent: Sunday, 2 October 2016 7:48 p.m.
To: taxacom from mailman.nhm.ku.edu; iczn-list from afriherp.org
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New taxonomy in Nature's Scientific Reports
The number of electronic-only publications failing to comply with ICZN requirements certainly is an issue of some concern. The Commission is currently looking into this.
The scale of the problem is not known, but it certainly involves dozens of 'works' and most likely a non-trivial number of zoological names and other nomenclatural acts.
The criteria required for electronic-only works to be regarded as published for the purposes of zoological nomenclature were advertised widely and are contained in ICZN Article 8.5 [see www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp or BZN 69(3): 161-169]. Some editors and authors have evidently missed these provisions (in all, or in part) and have inadvertently provided new names (or other nomenclatural acts) in non-compliant publications, which for that reason are to be considered as not published (i.e., non-existent in a nomenclatural sense).
One issue that has added to the magnitude and complexity of the problem is the occasional misconception that only the *names* need to be registered in ZooBank. While this is highly desirable and strongly recommended, the basic requirement is that the *work* (article, paper, book) be registered, including a specification of the intended archive and the ISBN or ISSN number (along with some other requirements).
Another issue is that some journals, when discovering the shortcomings of a given paper, have provided a 'corrigendum', but being unaware of the full implications of Article 8.5, this has in many cases not provided Code-compliance as intended. Often, the corrigendum refers back to the non-compliant work, but as this is to be regarded as not published, the content in it is not nomenclaturally available, and the corrigendum fails to include all the criteria necessary for making the name or act available.
Further, non-compliant electronic-only publications may contain not only names but also other nomenclatural acts (typifications, spelling issues, First Reviser acts, precedence, etc.), which like the work itself will have to be considered as not published and as such not available for zoological nomenclature.
As mentioned, we are looking into this, but I should like to encourage everybody to help disseminating the relevant criteria for e-only Code compliance to editors, colleagues, students, etc. throughout the zoological community. And it is worth noting that the fraction of names passed to ZooBank by an automated registration workflow is rapidly growing.
Thomas Pape
ICZN President
