My understanding is that the IOC relies on local experts. In the case of the White-naped Honeyeater split, the following comments are made on the World Bird Names listing www.worldbirdnames.org/index.html
Swan River Honeyeater is split from (paraphyletic) White-naped Honeyeater (Toon et al 2010); Swan River Honeyeater preferred English name over long Western White-naped Honeyeater (and change to Eastern White-naped Honeyeater)
Based on Toon et al. (2010), Swan River Honeyeater / Western White-naped Honeyeater, Melithreptus chloropsis has been split from White-naped Honeyeater, Melithreptus lunatus. They also found evidence that the White-throated Honeyeater, Melithreptus albogularis, may contain more than one species, but more study is necessary to clarify the situation.
Toon, A., J.M. Hughes, and L. Joseph (2010), Multilocus analysis of honeyeaters (Aves: Meliphagidae) highlights spatio-temporal heterogeneity in the influence of biogeographic barriers in the Australian monsoonal zone, Mol. Ecol. 19, 2980-2994. See http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04730.x/abstract
These authors are all Australian.
Regards, Bruce
