[Taxacom] Wikispecies is not a database

[Bob Mesibov]

Rod Page wrote:

"Hmmm, let's imagine the web without Google. Imagine how much fun that would be. I'd suggest that if we don't have a decent aggregation of what we know, then we can kiss the field good buy (or, maybe we've done that already...?)"

Please don't confuse a search engine with the data sources being searched for. And let me rephrase what you wrote this way:

"If we *only* have a decent aggregation of what we know, then we can kiss the field good bye."

If 80-90% (pick your estimate) of the world's life is undiscovered or undocumented, then 80-90% of the world's life isn't in taxonomic data aggregations and can't be found through Google. You won't find information about a single new, undiscovered species on the Web. If taxonomists stop discovering and documenting life and sit in their offices manipulating Web-based data, then we can indeed kiss the field goodbye.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Website: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html