[Taxacom] the dangers of closed source taxonomy

[Stephen Thorpe]

Hi Jim and list,
You say client survey here is indicating a user preference for a ...
Although end user clients are of course the canonical authorities on  
what it is that they want, they may not be such a good judge of the  
best way of achieving it! The named authorities and acknowledged  
specialists and experts stage is at the primary taxonomic literature  
stage. What are in fact needed are acknowledged specialists in the  
area of compilation of primary taxonomic literature into secondary  
sources! Particular specialists often promote their own favoured  
theories and often disagree with other specialists in the same area.  
As you say, your idea could work with enough collaboration,  
coordination and good will ...
At any rate, even if your idea could work, the fact remains that many  
closed source online and offline resources which claim authoritative  
reliability in the world today are missing the mark, and there don't  
seem to be any major initiatives of the kind you describe in the  
pipeline as alternatives. Wikispecies, on the other hand, already  
exists as a fully functional infrastructure, and already does provide  
better information on some taxa than any other available secondary  
source. Still a mountain of work left to do to make it comprehensive  
and reliable, but the same is true of all other alternatives, so I had  
better get on with it ...
Cheers,
Stephen

Quoting Jim Croft <jim.croft at gmail.com>:

> While not dismissing these facts, client survey here is indicating a
> user preference for a wikipedia-like resource (with the facility for
> on-line correction and annotation by the community) but with the named
> named authority of acknowledged specialists and experts.  In other
> words they want a comprehensive resource they can trust.
>
> It may sound like a foot in both camps, cake and eat it solution, but
> with a bit of collaboration,coordination and good will it could work.
>
> jim
>
> On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Stephen  
> Thorpe<s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>> Here are just a few illustrations of how far from the truth some
>> apparently "reliable" closed sources of taxonomic/faunistic
>> information are:
>>
>> (1) Australian Faunal Directory on the genus Apteropanorpa
>>
>> compare
>>
>> http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/fauna/afd/taxa/Apteropanorpa/checklist#selected
>>
>> with
>>
>> http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apteropanorpa
>>
>> (2) TOL on Penichrolucaninae (version dated 2007)
>>
>> http://tolweb.org/Penichrolucaninae/104775
>>
>> Actually, Penichrolucaninae was rightly synonymised with Lucaninae by
>> Bartolozzi (1989)
>>
>> Bartolozzi, L. 1989: Taxonomic revue [review] of the genus
>> Penichrolucanus Deyrolle 1863 (Coleoptera Lucanidae) with notes on its
>> biology. Tropical zoology, 2: 37-44.
>>
>> Even if this were disputed (which it isn't), it is surely worth a
>> mention on the TOL page? Moreover, Nikolajev (1999), proposed that the
>> two genera of "Penichrolucaninae" were unrelated and proposed
>> Brasilucanini and Penichrolucanini as independent tribes. Again,
>> surely worth mentioning even if disputed!
>>
>> Nikolajev, G.V. 1999: On the polyphyly of the subfamily
>> Penichrolucaninae (Coleoptera, Lucanidae), with the erection of the
>> new monotypic tribe Brasilucanini. Tethys entomological research, (1):
>> 171-172. [in Russian, with English summary]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> (3) Larivière, M.-C.; Larochelle, A. 2004: Heteroptera (Insecta:
>> Hemiptera): catalogue. Fauna of New Zealand, (50)
>>
>> Although this contribution attempted only to organise existing
>> information in collections without doing very much additional
>> taxonomic work (!), just a little bit of effort could have saved the
>> following two HUGE gulfs between what was written and the actual truth:
>>
>> (i) Stizocephalus brevirostris: stated to be known in N.Z. only from
>> the unique holotype from a mountain in South Island (and also present
>> in Australia). In fact it is extremely common in the parks and
>> reserves of Auckland City, where the authors live! I didn't discover
>> this until it was too late to include in the publication, but why was
>> it up to me to discover it? It's not difficult to find!
>>
>> (ii) Paradrymus exilirostris: first N.Z. record stated to be
>> Wellington 1976. In fact, there are specimens in the collection where
>> the authors work and have control over, collected in Auckland
>> (Lynfield) in 1974! Why was it me to first bother to find them in
>> unsorted material, and identify them, unfortunately again after it was
>> too late to include them in the publication. They had been sitting in
>> the collection since 1974! It wasn't difficult to notice them... And
>> note that these same authors have now had me banned from the collection!
>>
>>
>> Stephen
>>
>>
>>
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>> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either  
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>>
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>>
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>>  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here
>>
>
>
>
> --
> _________________
> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
> http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
> ... in pursuit of the meaning of leaf ...
> ... 'All is leaf' ('Alles ist Blatt') - Goethe
>



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