[Taxacom] ZooBank - names in common use

[Peter Stevens]

You are so right about the obscenity. Following up an earlier comment 
in this thread, I wish we in botany had something like names in 
common use (the earlier proposal failed because of politics), and 
then we could get around the need to use all the literature that we 
waste time checking just because we have to. We can still use the 
older literature for what it has of value - sometimes very great 
indeed - but it will not affect us nomenclaturally.  We talk about 
the taxonomic impediment, but of course some of the greatest 
taxonomic impediments are those that we taxonomists erect ourselves. 
We need a new business model, and I don't think it is web-enabled 
business as usual..

P.


>Rod makes a good point. So, all these colleagues around the world do have
>access to the Internet
>http://clustrmaps.com/counter/maps.php?url=http://antbase.org
>, we know now for sure, since they looked at antbase during the last 8 days.
>
>So, Rod makes the point, that he has a more restricted access to ZR than
>Frank. What about all those outside a Northern University System?
>
>It is almost obscene that we want to keep up the barriers to scientific
>information we finally can torn down. It is like building up a zoological
>garden with a glass wall, where the have-all watch the have-much-less.
>Google frees for us a tremendous amount of data - see especially google
>earth and google scholar. At the same time, the barrier to the access to our
>digital journals (we are aware because of free google scholar) is raising
>because subscription rates raise far above inflation rate, and thus more and
>more of us loose journals at their universities.
>
>And then there are all our colleagues in the developing world where most of
>us get (or got) their specimens, who are living at our merci to get those
>publications via email. Publications they will never be able to access
>otherwise.
>
>But Rod's point has also to do with scientific integrity. If I know, there
>is so much data out which need to go into my scientific analysis, but need
>to omit it, because I can not get access, then it is bad. And that is, what
>selective access to scientific information is.
>
>Donat
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Now, never one to let an ugly fact get in the way of a good story, 
>observe how I turn this embarrassing cock up into yet another stick 
>with which to beat the poor folks at ZooBank. So, my access to search 
>results (never mind the actual literature) is limited by whatever 
>subscription my institution has! Imagine if Google did this, so that 
>results from a search while you are in a coffee shop are different from 
>those you get at work, or at home. To me, the notion of search results 
>varying based on subscription is a recipe for disaster.
>
>Regards
>
>Rod
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>----------------------------------------
>Professor Roderic D. M. Page
>Editor, Systematic Biology
>DEEB, IBLS
>Graham Kerr Building
>University of Glasgow
>Glasgow G12 8QP
>United Kingdom
>
>Phone:    +44 141 330 4778
>Fax:      +44 141 330 2792
>email:    r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
>web:      http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>iChat:    aim://rodpage1962
>reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html
>
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>Biologists Website:  http://systematicbiology.org
>Search for taxon names: http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/
>Find out what we know about a species: http://ispecies.org
>Rod's rants on phyloinformatics: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
>Rod's rants on ants: http://semant.blogspot.com
>
>
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