when parsing names, consider Benichou L, Buschbom J, Campbell M, Hermann E, Kvacek J, Mergen P, Mitchell L, Rinaldo C, Agosti D (2022) Joint statement on best practices for the citation of authorities of scientific names in taxonomy by CETAF, SPNHC and BHL. Research Ideas and Outcomes 8: e94338.

[jhpoelen]

Benichou L, Buschbom J, Campbell M, Hermann E, Kvacek J, Mergen P, Mitchell L, Rinaldo C, Agosti D (2022) Joint statement on best practices for the citation of authorities of scientific names in taxonomy by CETAF, SPNHC and BHL. Research Ideas and Outcomes 8: e94338. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.8.e94338

as referenced by Nancy Simmons .

[jhpoelen]

note that the manuscript says:

If the publisher’s guidelines do not allow you to list it as a reference, cite it properly as a bibliographic reference (by adding the page number after the date for instance). Make sure it is considered a valid bibliographic reference by the journal so you can list it in the bibliographic reference section. For instance prefer the notation Infrantenna fissilis Liu and Sittichaya 2022: 48 instead of Infrantenna fissilis Liu & Sittichaya, 2022 (for a species described in EJT http://dx.doi.org/ 10.5852/ejt.2022.828.1851 p. 48). Placed below the taxonomic treatment this mention will also refer unambiguously to the bibliographic reference and will have to be listed in the bibliographic references

Whereas the GBIF name parser explicitly translates and into & -

$ echo -e '\tPteronotus paraguanensis Linares and Ojasti, 1974' | nomer append gbif-parse
    Pteronotus paraguanensis Linares and Ojasti, 1974   SAME_AS     Pteronotus paraguanensis    Linares & Ojasti, 1974

the globalnames parser produces something slimilar

$ echo -e '\tPteronotus paraguanensis Linares and Ojasti, 1974' | nomer append gn-parse
    Pteronotus paraguanensis Linares and Ojasti, 1974   SAME_AS     Pteronotus paraguanensis    Linares & Ojasti 1974

[jhpoelen]

@dimus @mdoering Nancy Simmons pointed me to a recent publication with recommendation about how to format authorship parts of scientific name, preferring the "and" over the "&" to facilitate the inclusion of the name in a bibliographic reference section. I noticed that the (old) global names parser and the GBIF parser prefer "&" when dealing with dual authorship.

I was wondering whether you were aware of this publication

Benichou L, Buschbom J, Campbell M, Hermann E, Kvacek J, Mergen P, Mitchell L, Rinaldo C, Agosti D (2022) Joint statement on best practices for the citation of authorities of scientific names in taxonomy by CETAF, SPNHC and BHL. Research Ideas and Outcomes 8: e94338. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.8.e94338

and what you think about it. . .

[mdoering]

No I wasn't, thanks. IPNI still prefers & though: https://www.ipni.org/n/77237454-1 and I don't see the need to change that now. You can easily replace & with and - the other way around might be more problematic.

[mdoering]

Uh, that proposal is quite demanding. I am not sure if I really like to advertise Infrantenna fissilis Liu and Sittichaya 2022: 48 as a scientificName with authorship. Also the publication author is not always the name author...

[jhpoelen]

@mdoering thanks for taking the time to respond. I agree that the proposal is quite demanding . . . and I expect that it'll take a while for the dust to settle on this one. Also, I agree that substituting & with and is easier to do than the inverse operation.

[dimus]

My rationale for & was:

• It is shorter and easier to visually parse.
• It gives less incentive for people so start introducing their native language into authors by mistake (like y for Spanish)
• Dominant convesational languages in science come and go, so I would actually prefer et :)

[jhpoelen]

@dimus also thanks for chiming in on the "&" and "and" conversation. I can see your motivations for sticking with "&" . Also, I appreciate your take on looking ahead to a (near) future when English is no longer perceived as a dominant conversational language in science.

@dimus @mdoering I'll make a point to bring your arguments to the attention of others via email in the hope it'll lead to even more fruitful discussions.

[jbstatgen]

@jhpoelen @dimus @mdoering Hi everybody, thanks a lot for your interest and comments.

Are the contents of the recommendation really demanding? As far as I understand your points, they seem to be primarily matters of UI & UX. This seems especially the case, once everything has its own resolvable etc. PID - I know, @jhpoelen you argue that there are only quasi-permanent IDs, thus we are back to (good old) bibliographic references.

@mdoering yes, these bibliographic references need to provide citations for both, whole publications, as well as in-text verbatim or paraphrasing citations, eg. taxon treatments, taxon name publications within a text.

The important question to me is: What do we want? Where do we want (or need) to be in 5 years? Why are we doing all this?

If we want linked data, aka the digital extended specimen concept technically realized eg. by a Digital Object Architecture based on openFDOs - which have a chance to sufficiently support larger-scale, transdisciplinary ambitious biodiversity conservation applications, as eg. the CBD's post-2020 GBF monitoring - then the recommendation seems to me the way to go, or more precisely, there doesn't seem to be a way around it.

Happy to hear about alternative ways forward.

[myrmoteras]

it is not about andand &

it is about linking an implicit bibliographic reference to a bibliographic citation. It is about linking an implicit treatment citation to the respective treatment, as @jbstatgen points out.

Eventually it is about annotating a bibiliographic citation with an PID attribute, similar to adding an attribute including the PID of the cited treatment to the treatment citation annotation. This allows to use and or &, and in fact any sort of abbreviation of the names.

I agree, it is asking a lot, but at the same time, the current status does not allow to measure the impact of a publication, nor what an individual contributes to science, because we do not allow this under the current circumstances by not linking a name to the original publication not treatment.

If the decisive factor is whether "has this has been done before" then we would never accepted a mobile phone instead of a land line.

Bénichout et al is NOT about GBIF names parser, it is rather a step to makes all the many name parsers obsolete in prosepective publishing.

[jbstatgen]

In the context of this thread, maybe it is of interest that a new RDA working group on Complex Citations is under review. The group developed an informative case statement.

Have a happy, peace- and restful time between the years and a good start into the new year!

[jhpoelen]

@jbstatgen thanks for sharing the link to the case statement of the RDA working group on Complex Citations. How are you affiliated with this working group?

In reading through the linked content, I particularly noticed [1] -

---

[...]

Specific Outcomes:

1. A recommendation for the best practice in creating a collection/package of digital objects that are hosted by one or more data centers.

2. Research infrastructure that enables credit to be acknowledged for each individual element of a collection/package of digital objects. 

3. Journal guidance that supports authors using a collection/package that enables citation of each individual digital object.

[...]

---

In the context of biodiversity data, we've developed some methods ([2],[3], cc @mielliott) and explicit use cases [4] to achieve exactly that. For example, recently, we've shown that a collection of >800k herbarium images (photos of cataloged squashed dried plants) from the Botanical Research Institute can be cited ([4], cc @jbest), distributed, and copied using many methods (e.g., physical transport via postal service, digital transfer via transatlantic internet, local transfer via USB, distributed publication across heterogeneous storage solutions) without losing the ability to cite and retrieve the original tracked content.

In other words, I believe we've developed some methods, prototypes and use cases that may be of interest to the RDA Complex Citations working group. What do you think would be the best way to bring our work to their attention?

-jorrit https://jhpoelen.nl

PS Note that the RDA Complex Citation Working group page does not offer a citation methods to track specific versions of their working group page. This is why I tracked a copy of the page using Preston and published a copy at https://github.com/jhpoelen/rda-complex-citations. Also, I archived a copy of this page via https://softwareheritage.org .

references

[1] RDA Complex Citation Working Group https://www.rd-alliance.org/group/complex-citations-working-group/case-statement/complex-citations-working-group-case-statement (accessed 2022-12-23) section line:hash://sha256/58358ca2aa36da999b23899beb6a7088856d6f513832dabc80f0675acbb85b1a!/L1023-L1034 accessed via hash://sha256/064976329122fce99c80f769d3cdece0345ff91bb9b5a5fb7615fc0621eb1b60 using preston cat 'line:hash://sha256/58358ca2aa36da999b23899beb6a7088856d6f513832dabc80f0675acbb85b1a!/L1023-L1034' --remote https://softwareheritage.org --remote https://linker.bio. See also https://linker.bio/hash://sha256/58358ca2aa36da999b23899beb6a7088856d6f513832dabc80f0675acbb85b1a .

[2] MJ Elliott, JH Poelen, JAB Fortes (2020). Toward Reliable Biodiversity Dataset References. Ecological Informatics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2020.101132

[3] Elliott, M. J., Poelen, J. H., & Fortes, J. (2022, August 29). Signed Citations: Making Persistent and Verifiable Citations of Digital Scientific Content. Submitted. https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/wycjn

[4] Botanical Research Institute Texas (BRIT): Origins of BRIT collection records and associated images tracked in period 2022-06/2022-07. hash://sha256/76d40abccfc71bc2cdaf4ea4a6003b9ac49123b27abe9f0d81e233299baf5e94 https://github.com/bio-guoda/preston-brit-2022 https://linker.bio/hash://sha256/76d40abccfc71bc2cdaf4ea4a6003b9ac49123b27abe9f0d81e233299baf5e94

[jbstatgen]

@jhpoelen The RDA announced the review of the new working group in their latest newsletter. I'm not associated with it. You can either contact one of the chairs of the group (listed here) or join the group as a member. Thanks for the references with more background information on your work.

[jhpoelen]

@jbstatgen ok - thanks for sharing!

[jhpoelen]

Just sent an email to the RDA Complex Citations Working Group folks. Curious to see what comes of it.