[Taxacom] source of quote about keys: PS

[Neal Evenhuis]

In my experience, the lament of the quote is:

1. the person writing a key "obviously" knows his/her organisms and 
really doesn't need a key; and

2. people don't use them because they really don't want to have to 
read something to identify it. They would rather a) go to a 
collection and picture match; or more commonly b) go online and ask 
people (on taxacom, for example [I thought this was a discussion list 
but is has lately been an identification service]) what something is 
based on a photo.

-Neal

At 10:44 AM +1200 9/1/09, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
>Robin,
>
>think of it another way: yes, keys are used only to IDENTIFY things, 
>but there are 2 quite different cases:
>
>(1) identifying (in the sense of placing it within a classification) 
>a new taxon for the very first time; and
>
>(2) routine identification (in the sense of putting a name to it, or 
>just placing it within a family, etc.) over and over again by 
>various people
>
>both cases involve keys, but the keys for (1) will be more difficult 
>and use less "convenient" characters, but it only has to be done 
>once (or very few times)