Dear colleagues, it is very trendy recently to publish articles, about zoological taxonomy/systematics, on personal web pages. Obviously skipping the fundamental passage of peer-to-peer review. Should these “papers” be taken into account? If yes, should be clearly stated in the paper that your statements are based also upon “unreviewed“ data/information?Is this new approach correct and acceptable, even though produced by renowned specialists?
Thank you all.
Willy
Well, obviously no new nomenclatural acts can be published in this way under ICZN, if someone describing new taxa in this way it should be discarded. Regarding everything else there is no difference from publishing anything on personal web pages. Most people will ignore such stuff, or will be not aware of, so it is ok to ignore it, but if you agree with it and want to follow some placement you can cite it. Though reviewer, if disagree, may write later that some more widely accepted work should be followed. I think I know exactly whose personal web page you're meaning, such stuff is not that much trendy, and in this case when it is a well-known expert in his group it is not too weird to cite his manuscript from his page if it is relevant, he will likely publish it in more appropriate way later anyway. Though "mainstream" taxonomy is rather what in Molluscabase.
Thank you Igor, much appreciated contribution. You know exactly who I’m talking about. I’m forced to cite his “papers“ in the manuscript I’m currently writing, as dealing exactly with the same stuff. Concerning his recent contributions, luckily people don’t need him to explain my papers. People knows reading and getting their viewpoints by themselves. Thanks again.
Dear Willy
Quality of published or peer-reviewed work is mostly better than self-published or non-peer-reviewed work. Publication and peer-review is the scientific voluntary self-imposed discipline we should follow. In taxonomy we have no choice as ICZN dictates what is allowed.
But... the peer-reviewed product is as good as the reviewer, editor or publisher. A poor or non-constructive reviewer can do as much harm as no review at all. I have experienced forms of censorships in reviews. In contrast, a good reviewer is a gift only improving your work. A really tough but good review is a reason to go back with another paper.
I have seen good quality self-published books by specialists or non-specialists and also not so good ones by non-specialists. I also appreciate any non-reviewed paper and use it for reference if it is publicly available from a reliable site (e.g. technical notes, user manuals, inventories of collections from institutes or museums).
My work would not be possible without the many non-reviewed publications and hence I answer your first question with a strong YES. I do not see the added value of a statement of non-review in these works. Nobody ever checked all my data underlying my work; there is a limit to what a reviewer / supervisor can do. If it is not done for a Nature article, why bother for a self-published one. The second question therefore gets a NO. Finally it is a free world and free thinking and writing is also the foundation of science so your final question gets a YES.
Dear Willy,
as already mentioned, the problem is not that they are not peer reviewed. Rather, I think the main problem is that those notes are unpublished. Therefore they may be removed by the author at his/her discretion or even personal pages may disappear and, being unpublished, they can no longer be cited. Further, being unpublished, the content of those notes is not definitive and multiple versions may exist. I suggest to treat those notes as unpublished works.
Dear Leon Hoffman and Angelo Vannozzi thank you both so much for the valuable inputs and interesting comments. In order to solve the problems such "papers" bring, would it be a solution publishing them as "supporting information," in order to "fix" them somewhere if original author deletes them from his own private web site?
I think you will not be able to do anything similar, it is not your own material and you cannot use it for your purposes. If those notes remain unpublished, they will have the same value of the so-called personal communications. Maybe the author changed his mind in the meantime.
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