AOU-NACC Proposals 2016 (1 Viewer)

[Nutcracker]

A very general experience in life: if you want to achieve something, make it as easy as possible for the people that matter to agree with you. That includes in this case to write a decent synthesis of what the two papers (and those that preceded them) says.

Niels

That depends on how badly they want proposals! At the moment, I'd say the balance is toward discouraging people from making proposals.

 

[thomasdonegan]

This remark also astonishes my inner pedant:
"Committee members are mostly overworked academics who don't get any official credit for proposal writing."

There are obviously some very active members of these committees, who deserve credit and do a great job. However, one has to remember that the AOU checklist, its updates and the SACC website are probably THE most widely-cited publications in the whole of ornithology. And yet all of these groups include a large number of "hangers on", who barely ever write a proposal and (in the case of SACC) rarely seem to comment on other people's proposals more frequently than annually with more than a cursory comment, or who joined recently and so made almost no contribution to the list's development. These people free-ride the most cited publications in ornithology as coauthors. And yet we are to feel sorry for them not being credited.

Adding insult to injury, it is very frequent to see publications cite AOU committees as authority for new taxonomies, not the primary sources. AOU itself sometimes does not even refer to the primary sources on which its own decisions are based (cf. e.g. Schiffornis turdina). So not only do these poor neglected people, who deserve our greatest sympathy, freeride their way to citation nirvana, they often do so to the exclusion of those in the field and in the lab analysing actual situations.

It is very difficult to feel sorry for them not being credited for writing proposals! A bit of quid pro quo might not go amiss.

 

[Mysticete]

This remark also astonishes my inner pedant:
"Committee members are mostly overworked academics who don't get any official credit for proposal writing."

There are obviously some very active members of these committees, who deserve credit and do a great job. However, one has to remember that the AOU checklist, its updates and the SACC website are probably THE most widely-cited publications in the whole of ornithology. And yet all of these groups include a large number of "hangers on", who barely ever write a proposal and (in the case of SACC) rarely seem to comment on other people's proposals more frequently than annually with more than a cursory comment, or who joined recently and so made almost no contribution to the list's development. These people free-ride the most cited publications in ornithology as coauthors. And yet we are to feel sorry for them not being credited.

Adding insult to injury, it is very frequent to see publications cite AOU committees as authority for new taxonomies, not the primary sources. AOU itself sometimes does not even refer to the primary sources on which its own decisions are based (cf. e.g. Schiffornis turdina). So not only do these poor neglected people, who deserve our greatest sympathy, freeride their way to citation nirvana, they often do so to the exclusion of those in the field and in the lab analysing actual situations.

It is very difficult to feel sorry for them not being credited for writing proposals! A bit of quid pro quo might not go amiss.

Uhh...no offense, but the checklist might be frequently cited but I doubt including a few past checklists in a citation list is going to wow a tenure committee or Grant reviewers. It pads a CV sure, but the committee members (at least those in academia) would benefit more from original research papers, grant writing, and mentoring students. It is a distraction from those tasks.

 

[Mysticete]

That depends on how badly they want proposals! At the moment, I'd say the balance is toward discouraging people from making proposals.

If you don't want to put in the time to lay out an argument and deal with obvious rebuttals, why should they?

 

[Nutcracker]

If you don't want to put in the time to lay out an argument and deal with obvious rebuttals, why should they?

Because they want to see ornithology advanced?

IOC generally seek out research work and don't require outsiders to make proposals before they will consider something, they just get on with it.

 

[DLane]

nd yet all of these groups include a large number of "hangers on", who barely ever write a proposal and (in the case of SACC) rarely seem to comment on other people's proposals more frequently than annually with more than a cursory comment, or who joined recently and so made almost no contribution to the list's development. These people free-ride the most cited publications in ornithology as coauthors.

Except... SACC has no publications. So the "hangers on" don't get their names on any such papers at all. So what are you talking about here?

As for Nutcracker's comments... IOC sometimes acts with no research publication at all (and SACC pretty much only acts on publications). Again, not sure what you're talking about.

 

[DMW]

Regardless of the criticisms, warranted or not, I think it's worth giving praise where due, and the transparent way in which these committees work is surely a model that should be replicated more widely. In particular, the requirement for committee members to make a reasoned opinion in public to support the way in which they vote must surely help raise standards of appraisal. If nothing else, if a member makes too many "What he/she said" type comments, it's not going to go unnoticed.

 

[thomasdonegan]

Except... SACC has no publications. So the "hangers on" don't get their names on any such papers at all. So what are you talking about here?

The SACC online checklist (Remsen et al) is cited in pretty much every paper in Cotinga full stop, and in pretty much every paper on taxonomy affecting a neotropical bird species. (I'm not saying that is a bad thing, I'm just saying it seems trite for committee members to moan and grown about not being recognised for their work.)

 

[James Lowther]

The SACC online checklist (Remsen et al) is cited in pretty much every paper in Cotinga full stop, and in pretty much every paper on taxonomy affecting a neotropical bird species. (I'm not saying that is a bad thing, I'm just saying it seems trite for committee members to moan and grown about not being recognised for their work.)

more than 1000 citations across the different versions:-

http://scholar.google.co.uk/citatio...J&citation_for_view=FrqiEmQAAAAJ:olpn-zPbct0C

not to be sniffed at!

 

[DLane]

The SACC online checklist (Remsen et al) is cited in pretty much every paper in Cotinga full stop, and in pretty much every paper on taxonomy affecting a neotropical bird species. (I'm not saying that is a bad thing, I'm just saying it seems trite for committee members to moan and grown about not being recognised for their work.)

Sorry, didn't mean to suggest that they hadn't grown.

But I see your point, it IS trite when people moan and groan about not being recognized for their work. It really wears on others...

 

[njlarsen]

The first post on this thread was posted exactly 1 year ago today. Anyone knows when the first 2017 proposals will be posted?

Niels

 

[Mysticete]

Hah thanks for reminding me. Sometimes they post the pdf without updating the rest of the page. I'll go and start a new thread with the 2017 A proposals