Spelling detection and correction in Taxonomic Databases

[Richard Pyle]

> The *idea* of fully automated name checking is okay, but it is
> utterly impractical to use this as a basis for making databasing
> decisions,

I agree...but I think that the point wasn't so much to automatically
*correct* errors, as much as to find potential candidate errors that a
knowledgable human would make decisions about.  At least, that was my
understanding of the purpose of the tools.

> using a spellchecking routine is
> fine ONLY if you use it to flag certain names as *possible* errors,
> and realize that there will be many missed in the process. There is
> no way around requiring someone to actually go to the literature, do
> the research, find the original spelling, and then make a note in the
> database that indicates which one is correct (and also thereafter
> excludes those names from triggering the spellchecker).

Yes -- exactly.

Aloha,
Rich