EJP

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Date
Henry, I think we all take your point about standards and I don't know of
anyone who is advocating that an EPJ publish anything and everything that
comes across the network. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken (as if
you wouldn't ;->  ), but you seem to fear that because an EPJ wouldn't be
as constrained by things like paper prices, halftoning prices, typesetting
prices, etc. that editors would go "whole hog" and let standards slip. If
such came to pass, that would be unfortunate and the readership of that EPJ
would deserve to go down. However, I don't see that such practices would
necessarily result from the start up of an EPJ. Do you? Moreover, as your
own example points out rather nicely, such problems occur in all forms of
publishing. They are, if you will, characteristics (synapomorphies?) at a
lower level in the publishing hierarchy than the one we are discussing,
which is whether to add a new crown OPU (= operational publishing unit) to
the science. [Note: Is there any more jargon-laden a field than
paleontology? I just love it...not.]

As for George McGhee's question about compatibility [Hey, George. Where's
that PaleoNet Forum article?] I know that there is some concern on that
score. However we've passed the infancy of desk-top-publishing and the
formats in terms of text and graphics files have pretty much identified
themselves. I'm sorry you can't read your disk, but I'd be willing to bet
you  a case of beer that you could get it read and converted to a usable
format if you make a few discrete phone calls or even e-mail inquiries. As
for web publishing and EPJ, we're talking ascii text files and .gif or
.jpeg graphics files. It's hard to think of anything more standardized or
basic than that.

Have I missed something? I have yet to hear a single criticism of
electronic publishing and distribution of technical paleontological
information that can't be easily surmounted by a little open mindedness and
creativity and I've heard a lot about the advantages and EPJ would bring to
the field. All the really bad problems (such as those brought up by Henry)
cut across the process of publishing in any medium, or at least that's how
it looks to me.


Norm MacLeod



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Norman MacLeod
Senior Scientific Officer
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (Internet)
N.MacLeod@uk.ac.nhm (Janet)

Address: Dept. of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
         Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Office Phone: 0171-938-9006
Dept. FAX:  0171-938-9277
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