[Taxacom] Wikispecies is not a database

[Stephen Thorpe]

Hi Bob, Tony, and list:
Although I am not myself Tasmanian, I still hate to contradict me ol'  
mate Bob, but he is going a bit troppo with his "I only need to know  
about millipedes, and everybody else only needs to know about their  
speciality group" line. For a start, I have a friend who is a risk  
assessment person for Biosecurity New Zealand, and she NEEDS to have a  
comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date source of information for  
presence and absence of species across all groups in various countries  
(particularly N.Z. and Australia). Also, sensible conservation  
management decisions about areas of forest relies heavily on good  
information about the species living in them, across all groups. We  
really do need more of a synthesis, rather than just taxonomists  
working independently on their own particular little specialities,  
though these people are vital, just not the whole story. Also, species  
have associated organisms (parasites, etc.), so someone working on  
parasites needs good info on hosts, etc. Sometimes, taxonomists do  
like to mention other examples of the same biogeographical patterns  
(not to mention biogeographers). A local coleopterist published a  
paper on subantarctic beetles in which he have the fly genus Howikia  
as an example of a genus endemic to the subantarctic. Actually, not  
only is it not a subantarctic endemic, but I have seen no evidence  
that it is even present down there! And then there is the occasional  
person like myself, who just has a general taxonomic fascination  
across the board...
Cheers,
Stephen


Quoting Tony.Rees at csiro.au:

> Hi Bob, all,
>
> Well, to take your argument further, libraries *need* books to put  
> on their shelves and organize, but authors do not *need*  
> libraries... however I think you will agree that if not them,  
> somebody does. A book which is on no library shelf is effectively  
> inaccessible (at least in the pre-digital age) to the majority of  
> potential readers.
>
> OK, I know this analogy has its limits, but consider the following  
> more appropriate analogy:
> The 'OLs (COL, EOL, GBIF, etc.), also wikiXXX are the first port of  
> call for many users interested in biodiversity - who do not have  
> time or the facility to consult every original primary publication.  
> Now EOL and GBIF get their current core taxonomic "backbone"  
> information from COL, which is the sum of "taxonomic slice" specific  
> efforts from the likes of Index Fungorum, AlgaeBase, etc. plus ITIS.  
> Let's focus on shall we say Index Fungorum. If someone publishes a  
> new fungus species or makes a taxonomic rearrangement, then it is  
> IF's self-appointed task to pick this up and reflect it in the  
> current online version of IF, feed it through to COL for the next  
> annual edition, thence it will reach EOL, GBIF, and the others in  
> due course (presuming all the relevant data flow mechanisms are in  
> place and functioning as intended). So in almost an exact equivalent  
> sense, if IF anf the other aggregators are not doing their job  
> properly, the new information is not visible to the vast majori
>  ty of persons likely to require it, who may not be familiar with  
> the specialist fungus literature (or whose library may not have a  
> current subscription to the relevant journal maybe). As well  
> expressed by Stephen in previous posts, there may be at least one  
> alternative route for expression of new work in widely visible  
> systems of the wikiXXX variety, but the issue is essentially the  
> same - exposure/integration with related information is good, maybe  
> even essential, not bad.
>
> I think we have had this conversation before... Taxonomists may not  
> strictly *need* aggregators in order to do their taxonomy, but for  
> it to have its relevant impact they possibly do...
>
> Just my 2 cents' worth (as always), and greetings to a fellow  
> Tasmanian - maybe we will meet and share a millipede some day...
>
> Regards - Tony
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