I have managed to get a few papers on moth identification published in peer-reviewed journals. In those papers, I sometimes refer back to iNaturalist journal articles I’d written on the same or related topics; these appear in a “Literature Cited” section in the published work, such as:
While this type of reference to online material has become pretty standard in the published literature, I have often wondered if the posting of an iNaturalist journal article in and of itself is considered “published” in a journalistic or scientific sense. Such journal posts certainly aren’t peer-reviewed, but that is a different level of validation. My curiosity has been perked because I’m about to submit another article to a peer-reviewed journal in which I claim that an iNat image included in the article is the “first published” image of the species, even though it has existed as an iNat observation since 2021 and I had included it previously in an iNat post. No previous editors have remarked one way or the other about this publication priority question.
I would say this is a pretty gray area. Nomenclatural codes are the only place I know of that define what counts as published or not, but even that is pretty broad in the ICZN:
A work must satisfy the following criteria:
8.1.1. it must be issued for the purpose of providing a public and permanent scientific record,
8.1.2. it must be obtainable, when first issued, free of charge or by purchase, and
8.1.3. it must have been produced in an edition containing simultaneously obtainable copies by a method that assures
8.1.3.1. numerous identical and durable copies (see Article 8.4), or
8.1.3.2. widely accessible electronic copies with fixed content and layout.
By that definition I’m not sure a website counts though, as you could argue it wouldn’t have fixed content and layout.
As far as the journalistic or common sense of the word published, if the observation is what was posted anywhere first, I think most people would consider the observation itself to be the first published location, as it is public and easily accessible to anyone.
in the sense of general publication, I would agree that this is a grey area at best, but I think it’s fine to refer back to iNat journal posts as web resources and to cite them in that format. of course, it would be important to archive them (e.g. via web.archive.org) so that they can be checked elsewhere if they are lost from iNat somehow.
in the sense of nomenclature, no, an iNaturalist journal post is not considered effectively published. these posts involve neither the distribution of printed material to institutions such as libraries, nor the dissemination of PDFs with an appropriate ISBN or ISSN. therefore no one should attempt to publish names via iNaturalist, naturally.
I was literally about to say this exact same thing lol.
I would say- if you have a journal post you’re proud of, make a copy to save offline just in case. There’s been a few journal posts on this website that would be just about academically publishable.
As for something representing the “first published” image, I think that area is a bit gray. After all, the whole point of “publishing” something like that was to document its existence/presence, and iNat does that very well. So the iNat record “published” the documentation in 2021.
I guess an iNaturalist record should be considered in the same light as a photo submitted to an Ebird record or as a submission to the regional Bird Records Committee. Are those considered published records in ornithology?
I consider iNat journal posts the equivalent of field notes, except they are in a public and accessible place. They remain in an editable form and thus are not really permanent. It is interesting how what is considered citable in scientific journal articles has changed in recent years. Personally, I think citable references should be in a more permanent form (i.e., published, if not on paper at least available in PDF). Back in the day, even unpublished research reports could not be cited in most scientific journals.
Both observations and journal posts on iNat are subject to the whims of observers (and to a lesser extent other people such as identifiers, curators, and site developers). Many of the photos in my older journal posts are broken because something about the image hosting or HTML formatting was changed. That’s less so the case in formally published journals or books where there are standardized physical copies that are out of the publisher’s hands once they’re released.
The answer here definitely depends on which definition of “published”/“publication” is relevant in a particular case.
The most restrictive definition of being “published” relates to taxon descriptions, which are governed by the relevant codes, such as ICZN and ICNafp. For example, under ICNafp, for a name to be “effectively published” in an online publication it must have “an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) or an International Standard Book Number (ISBN)”.
Less restrictive would be the operating definition of “published” used by the style guide for a particular journal. If information comes from an unpublished paper or a personal communication the journal may want that to be noted in the text and prefer to exclude it from the “published” references cited in the reference list. Most web pages are typically acceptable “published” references and all the major scientific styles have guidance for web resources; generally, you need to provide a date when the page was accessed, and ideally a URL for an archived copy.
Then there’s the usage @gcwarbler mentioned. What is the “first published” image of an organism? I think it’s reasonable to say that adding an iNat observation doesn’t really count as “publication”, and an informal web entry, such as a journal post doesn’t really equate to publication either. Using an image to illustrate the species in a journal or book for the first time seems like it fits with my expectation of what the “first published” image would be.
Of course, it’s best if all this is happening with the agreement (and maybe participation) of the observer. You can imagine scenarios such as this: Alice adds an observation with CC-licensed photos of an Ivory Billed Woodpecker; Bob writes an iNat journal post using the photos without Alice’s knowledge; then, Charlie writes an article for an ornithology journal that is promoted as the “first published photos of an Ivory Billed Woodpecker in nearly a century”. Bob and Charlie may not be legally required to get Alice’s agreement to use her photos, but they have a clear moral responsibility to involve her.
For digital publications, I’d suggest using PDF format since it’s pretty universal and self contained. Restrictions can be set that prevent alteration.
For me, maybe my scientist background first published means it is a peer reviewed publication.In such a publication reference may be made to a iNat journal, or other “published” photo on the web. For me this solves the issues you and other brought up.
The first published photo of a species is difficult in that others may have photographed it but did not know what it was.