[Taxacom] Do rogue taxonomists need rogue publishers?

[Wolfgang Wuster]

There is a very simple remedy to this problem: restrict new taxon 
description to a whitelist of peer-reviewed journals, irrespective 
whether electronic or paper. Among the advantages of such a system are:

- it is impersonal - nobody is debarred form publishing taxonomic 
papers. After all, if the Makhans, Hosers and Wells & Wellingtons of 
this world can get their act together and produce evidence-based 
taxonomic papers, then those should be published.

- it does not interfere directly with taxonomic judgement

- availability of names is unambiguously clear - the journal is either 
listed as an available outlet or it isn't.

While I am all in favour of allowing e-only publications to be 
available, unrestricted avaailability would simply lead to what a 
colleague has termed "blog taxonomy". That's not the way taxonomy should 
be heading. Of course that would require the world of taxonomy to accept 
the notion that vandalism is a problem (and there is a clear distinction 
between poor taxonomy and taxonomic vandalism).

Cheers,

Wolfgang Wuster

-- 
Dr. Wolfgang Wüster  -  Lecturer
School of Biological Sciences
Bangor University
Environment Centre Wales
Bangor LL57  2UW
Wales, UK

Tel: +44 1248 382301
Fax: +44 1248 371644
E-mail: w.wuster at bangor.ac.uk
http://biology.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/



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