[Taxacom] iSpecies with Wikipedia

[Barry Oconnor]

As an example of such an impediment caused by experts, the  
Entomological Society of America's official "Common Names of Insects  
& Related Organisms" list places the house dust mite genus,  
Dermatophagoides, in the family Epidermoptidae, where it was placed  
prior to 1964. It was reclassified in the family Psoroptidae in 1964,  
and then transferred to the family Pyroglyphidae in 1967 where it has  
remained since. Several efforts to update this classification with  
the ESA, using both the formal submission of names process and direct  
contacts with the committee responsible for the list have gone  
unanswered. Wikispedia and GBIF both have the current family  
placement; ITIS does not yet have an entry.
- Barry

On Mar 27, 2008, at 7:33 AM, Mary Barkworth wrote:

> I am not completely opposed to a consensus treatment but I am very
> concerned about its becoming, not necessarily because of the  
> beliefs of
> those initiating or even working in all its IT aspects, an  
> authoritarian
> wall. Therefore please, from the start, discuss how decisions are  
> going
> to be made about changing parts of the consensus.  These would  
> probably
> need to be group-specific but they should be open and transparent. If
> they are to be decided by some Council of Eminent Classifiers -  
> selected
> by themselves, it will be a wall and systematists will have another
> impediment to content with.

Barry M. OConnor 				phone: 734-763-4354
Curator & Professor 				fax: 734-763-4080
Museum of Zoology 				e-mail: bmoc at umich.edu
University of Michigan
1109 Geddes Ave
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079