[Taxacom] Open review as a wiki

[Mary Barkworth]

Include full citations in the bibliography? I wish that I thought you
were joking. How many times have we cited the authors of a name in a
paper because that is editorial policy without ever reading the original
article, let alone examining the type? At least now we do not include
the article in the literature cited. Doing so without at least reading
the article could be considered fraudulent. Please, let's keep
literature cited for items that we have actually read. Scientific names
are supposed to be meaningful. Yes, their interpretation can change -
but that is not necessarily resolved by citing the place where they were
originally published; it may require citation of a more recent work
(identified using .., as interpreted by ..). There are a lot of things
that I would like ecologists and others to do (deposit vouchers being
number one) before I would ask them to give complete citations for
articles that they have not read particularly when their reading of the
article would add nothing to their research, just to the length of the
paper.  I would agree with those that argue that unless we are
discussing alternative interpretations of a name, adding the authors
usually does nothing but increase the amount of paper or number of
electrons used by a publication. 
 
I write as a botanist. We are blessed with TROPICOS, IPNI, and ING for
information on who published what, where. Although not complete, these
are phenomenal resources that are getting better and better (more
rapidly than ITIS). TROPICOS is even linking names to images of the
original publication and types. Again, this is not something happening
overnight, but it is happening. It began not because of some huge
international initiative but because it helped the Missouri Botanical
Garden in curating their collection. Perhaps a path to follow?