Alroy defines shareholder quorum subsampling as fixing sample coverage rather than sample size, and on that basis rejects 'rarefaction' as an accurate name for it

statistics-of-the-unseensample-coveragerarefactionpaleobiologyshareholder-quorum-subsamplingcoverage-based-rarefactionjohn-alroydefinitional-claim

On Alroy's own account, the line between classical rarefaction and shareholder quorum subsampling (SQS) is a difference in what is held fixed during sampling, not primarily a difference in algorithm: "Rarefaction tells you how many species you would find in a given ecological sample given a fixed, uniform sample size. SQS tells you how many species you would find given fixed 'coverage' of the underlying abundance distribution." He treats this as the fundamental fact and the shared "algorithmic vs. analytic" or "which paper published which formula first" questions as secondary: "SQS and rarefaction aim to do fundamentally different things... Nonetheless, there are general similarities between rarefaction and SQS. Both seek to make sampling 'fair' in some sense by looking at subsamples, and both are general methodologies with different possible implementations."

This is the technical basis for the naming objection carried in claim-alroy-and-chao-jost-dispute-priority-for-coverage-standardized-richness-naming: if fixing coverage rather than size is what makes a method not rarefaction by his own definition, then "coverage-based rarefaction" is, on Alroy's reading, a contradiction in terms rather than a fair rename. A definitional claim about settled usage in the coiner's own terminology clears the sourcing floor at Tier 3–4 even before considering the source; it clears Tier 1 here regardless, since it is Alroy's own primary statement of what he means by a term he coined.