[CPN] time to move towards a decision on the Cellinese et al. proposal

[Cantino, Philip]

David (M.), I do hope you can send the comments you have received to the CPN next week.  In fairness to Nico, Brent and David B., we should try to make a decision soon on their proposal.

The bylaws don't provide any guidance on how the CPN should structure voting on complex proposals.  A simple up or down vote on the whole proposal doesn't seem appropriate because it incorporates several distinct ideas and many detailed changes in individual rules and recommendations.  Based on our discussion to date, it seems likely that most of us as individuals agree with certain elements of the proposal but disagree with others.  Kevin and I have been talking about how the CPN might address the Cellinese, Mishler and Baum (CMB) proposal, and we suggest the following procedure:

David Tank (as Chairperson) could ask the members to vote by email for one of the following three options:
1) Adopt CMB in its entirety
2) Reject CMB in its entirety and end discussion
3) Reject CMB but subsequently try to find aspects of CMB that we agree should be implemented

If option 3 wins, a subsequent discussion and vote will be needed on specific elements of CMB.  For example, the majority of the CPN may agree that the definition of "species" in the glossary should be broadened to be neutral with regard to species concepts.  Some other important elements of the CMB proposal are prohibiting the use of species as specifiers, permitting specific epithets to be converted to clade names, eliminating all use of the word "species" in the code, and the CMB mechanism for naming clades (all clades, not just those approximating species in composition) to eliminate homonymy.  There may be additional elements that others of you will add to this list.

Rather than have the CPN try to draft the wording for what could turn out to be many changes in the code, we think it will work best for the CPN to select elements of the CMB proposal that the committee would like to incorporate in the code, then ask Kevin and me to draft a set of revisions, which the CPN would then discuss and vote on.  Before voting, there would be an opportunity for the CPN to fine-tune the wording that Kevin and I propose.  This is the procedure we have followed for many other changes in the code and it has worked well. 

I agree with Dave T. that the first item of business is for us to decide how to structure the vote--whether through the mechanism proposed here or by some other mechanism that someone else suggests.  This decision could apply equally well to voting on any complex proposal and is independent of the details of the CMB proposal.  The decision can therefore can be made before David sends us the few additional comments that were posted on the website.  So I urge members to comment soon on this question.  Do you like the mechanism proposed here?  If not, please suggest an alternative.

Phil



On Mar 7, 2012, at 5:09 PM, David Marjanovic wrote:

>> There have been several weeks of silence on the discussion re: the
>> Cellinese et al. species proposal, and I believe it is time to proceed
>> to a vote.
> 
> Although it's true that I haven't received any comments for several weeks (and very few, I must say, before that! Few people, it seems, ever visit the ISPN website!), a vote is not yet possible because I still haven't posted the comments I've got.
> 
> I hope to have Internet at home next week. When that works, it'll be much easier to browse or search my e-mails; then I'll post the comments, you can read them, and we can vote in short order.
> 
>> At this point I would like suggestions from you on how a vote should be
>> structured.
> 
> Is there nothing about that in the bylaws? (...I'll have to check.)
> 
>> the Cellinese et al. point of view is in press. 
>> http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/recent
> 
> Good.
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