Talk:2015 in arthropod paleontology

Publication dates

• If an article is published electronically in 2014, ahead of print in 2015 (for example), then the date of publication for the article is 2014 (Unless it is a preliminary version with different content). Whether or not any new zoological names in such an article date from 2014 or 2015 depends on complicated details involving ZooBank preregistration. It is better not to cite 2015 as a date for anything which hasn't actually happened yet! It might not happen! ZooBank (talk) 01:49, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I was under the impression that the article is meant to be a list of new taxa rather than the publications they are named in, so the year the taxon dates from is the most important information. Admittedly I far as I can tell this wasn't really discussed until now.
    Wikipedia doesn't have a general page for new taxa of uncertain date of publication, so it's easier to keep track of them by listing them here. It's possible that some of the taxa listed here will be formally named after 2015, but we don't know which ones, and in any case starting "2016 in paleontology" would be premature at this point; we can always move them there when such a page is created.
    I should also note that the reason that the taxa named in the articles published in Historical Biology were listed here rather than in 2014 in arthropod paleontology was that until very recently the articles they were named in were not listed on ZooBank's page for Historical Biology, meaning that we lacked confirmation that they were indeed registered in ZooBank. It seems they were added to ZooBank, or at least made public there, at most a few days ago. --Macrochelys (talk) 09:59, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
    • A couple of friendly comments in response to yours:

1. I made those Historical Biology articles public on ZooBank at the same time as I was editing this article. They don't automatically go public upon publication, but instead rely on someone (of at least editor status on ZooBank) to do it manually (but nobody is obliged to do this). With editor status on ZooBank, I can see "in press" records and edit any record.
2. Regarding this article being meant to be a list of new taxa rather than the publications they are named in, I'm not sure that is a good idea. Wikimedia sites don't normally attempt to keep track of information before that information officially exists! The taxonomic names don't officially exist until they have been validly published. However, the publications do officially exist from the time that they go online, and this doesn't require any kind of technical verification, so it might be best to make the article more about the publications than about the taxonomic names. Verification that taxonomic names "officially exist" [=are available names] is actually more complicated than just checking ZooBank preregistration. Strictly speaking, Wikipedia might have to wait for a secondary source to cite for the availability of names. Otherwise, a lot of OR/SYN is involved!
3. It would make more sense to include all online 2014 publications simply as 2014 publications, so this article would currently be blank. Even the new names in such publications could be listed as 2014, with the caveat that they may not yet be available names. New names can fail to be available for all sorts of other reasons (e.g. no mention of holotype deposition), and I really don't think it is within the scope of Wikipedia to be able to work out whether names are available or not, except by way of secondary sources... ZooBank (talk) 19:58, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

• I must admit that I don't have a strong opinion about what exactly pages such as this one should list. I'm not sure how many people visit this page, so perhaps it would be appropriate to point these problems out somewhere else to start a discussion - perharp the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology would be a good place to start. Regards. --Macrochelys (talk) 23:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)