[CPN] Art. 22.10 (reply to David M.)

[Cantino, Philip]

On Sep 10, 2012, at 5:53 AM, David Marjanovic wrote:


If you've already incorporated them into your editing, I do think you
should present them to us as soon as possible; it shouldn't be difficult
to discuss two or more proposals at once. I don't doubt that they'll be
accepted, but authors might be unhappy if you make them follow rules
that aren't actually there.

I agree that we should present our proposed changes soon, but I disagree that it should be done before we finish discussion of the species proposal.  It is already difficult to keep track of the strains of this weekend's conversation of several different topics, sometimes in the same message.  I think adding a bunch of additional proposals to consider would be so confusing that it would bring the committee to a standstill.


Besides -- I've been a bit out of the loop -- what exactly is delaying
the discussion about the species proposal? We don't seem to be waiting
for the six months after publication that Art. 22.10 appears to require;
is that because the Code isn't implemented yet, or are we counting the
publication on the ISPN website as opposed to that in Systematic Biology?
(Art. 22.10: "Proposed modifications of this code may not be voted upon
until at least six months have elapsed from the date of their
publication, to allow for discussion by the systematics community and
communication of opinions to the members of the CPN.")


This is a good question.  In my mind at least, the answer is that the code isn't implemented yet, so Art. 22.10 doesn't apply.  The CPN is dealing with the CBM proposal in much the same way that it has dealt with many others during the pre-implementation period.  The approach during this long development period has necessarily been less formal than what will be required by Art. 22.10 after the code is implemented.  "Necessarily" I say because the post-implementation process, while fine for occasional proposals for modification of particular articles, is too slow and cumbersome to accommodate development of whole new drafts.  Can you imagine how long this whole process of preparing the code would have taken if every change that Kevin and I (and occasionally other people) wanted to make had to be published and then discussed for six months before a vote?  Come to think of it, I wonder whether this process is too slow and cumbersome even for the after the code is implemented.  If publication requirements are changed to include electronic publication (and I agree with David and others that they should be), it will speed up consideration of proposals somewhat, but a six-month delay before a vote may be unnecessarily long.

Phil


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