[Taxacom] Wikispecies is not a database

[Roderic Page]

Dear Bob,

>
> Much of this bile, incidentally, accumulated after reading Rod  
> Page's memorable comment about kissing the field goodbye if we  
> didn't have a decent aggregator of what we already know. Excuse me?


I can only repeat Dean Pentcheff's comment in an earlier TAXACOM post (http://markmail.org/message/bps7zrtabylxc6zl 
  ):

> A very telling remark was made by an (actually the only)  
> undergraduate at a recent small working group crustacean  
> taxonomists. After hearing us thinking about and muttering about  
> beginning to tackle digitizing access to the literature, he said  
> (paraphrasing): "You folks should realize the importance of the  
> decision you're making here. If you don't get the literature online,  
> no one in my generation will go into this science. We aren't going  
> to spend the better part of a Master's and Ph.D. program amassing  
> the paper literature for a group. We'll just do some other kind of  
> biology."

Of course there's much more to taxonomy than taxonomic databases, and  
I agree there's a colossal waste of resources in this area, much of it  
generating acronym soup. But, if we are concerned about the future of  
the field, then a good chunk of that future depends on being digital.  
Otherwise, I doubt the next generation will get involved. And for me,  
a key element of being digital is being able to show what we've learnt  
so far (as well point out how little we do know in many cases).

Regards

Rod



---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
DEEB, FBLS
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
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