[Taxacom] Wikipedia classification
Roderic Page
r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
Wed Jul 1 12:06:00 CDT 2009
On 1 Jul 2009, at 03:38, <Tony.Rees at csiro.au> <Tony.Rees at csiro.au>
wrote:
> Dear Rod,
>
> Perhaps a hybrid approach is feasible - use a proper relational
> system to drive the taxonomic backbone but import relevant content
> from the wikiXXX world. However issue (1) above does not go away -
> the only way to deal with that is to have a moderating process so
> that content does not go live until it has been reviewed by some
> trusted party, and also there are structural issues with the free
> text approach versus a greater degree of atomised content and, as
> appropriate, controlled terms in at least a subset of the fields.
> Whether wikiXXX can be morphed into such a beast remains an open
> question, of course - probably not very likely in my view - systems
> like WoRMS (e.g. see http://www.marinespecies.org/about.php) are
> much closer to that ideal already, and thus will always have more
> authoritatative, structured and relational content, as well as buy-
> in from relevant experts to contribute.
>
> Just some food for thought, possibly.
One way to have a hybrid process is use a tool such as Semantic
Mediawiki, which can impose considerable structure on the data (e.g., http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2009/02/wiki-demo.html
).
I 'm not a huge fan of the "moderating process" simply because I've
not seen it work on this scale, and it raises the issue of who is the
"trusted party"? So on the spectrum of completely open wiki to close,
expert-only system I lean towards the open system.
>
> FYI if you want to see undesirable things that can happen when
> arguments develop over taxonomic issues in wikiXXX space, take a
> look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sperm_Whale#catodon . It's
> enough to put you off contributing really - (I did elsewhere and
> decided to stop when things got too annoying).
Yes, this is unfortunate, but not unique to wikis. I suspect some
scientific dialogue between taxonomists approaches this level of
animosity (if not expressed so colourfully), and one only has to trawl
through TAXACOM to see similar levels of conflict. The irony is, the
arguments tend to get more vicious the less there is at stake.
> One thing I forgot. In the blog mentioned, Rod picks up that there
> is a problem with the Wikipedia style page URL e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latreillia
> in the case of genus level homonyms (in this instance: Diptera or
> Brachyura?), where it is possible to go to the wrong instance, and
> does in this case, following a link from the crab family page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latreilliidae
> . There are LOTS of these at genus level - in IRMNG my current
> count of non-unique genus names is currently 68730 and rising. So
> the problem is non-trivial; see for example http://www.marine.csiro.au/mirrorsearch/ir_search.go?searchtxt=Ceratium&hlevel=genus
> or, perhaps, http://www.marine.csiro.au/mirrorsearch/ir_search.go?searchtxt=Wagneria&hlevel=genus
> (using David Remsen's favourite example).
>
> The problem is less severe when the hierarchy is embedded as the
> URL, but then a set of different problems is engaged, as previously
> noted...
I don't think this is show stopper, indeed Wikipedia is set up to
handle this through disambiguation pages (see http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2008/10/modelling-guids-and-taxon-names-in.html
). There's no reason we can't edit the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latreillia
to list the different instances of "Latreillia" (as has already been
done for the genus Morus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus ).
Embedding a hierarchy in the URL strikes me as a recipe for disaster.
Regards
Rod
>
> - Tony
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> ] On Behalf Of Tony.Rees at csiro.au
> Sent: Wednesday, 1 July 2009 11:55 AM
> To: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: [ExternalEmail] Re: [Taxacom] Wikipedia classification
>
> Dear Rod,
>
> This is really a follow-up to your comments as per the i-phylo blog http://tinyurl.com/lcxn2s
> - however I thought I would post it here rather than there as the
> issues are certainly relevant to this group.
>
> Most of the problems you encounter with the wikipedia/wikispecies
> type of collation are the result of (1) uncontrolled data entry
> (anyone can enter anything they want, also change previously entered
> content ad hoc), (2) lack of a relational DB back end to enable any
> required linkages (such as true parent and child records and re-use
> of content already entered at a different level of the hierarchy),
> and (3) - in wikispecies at least - hard wiring the species pages to
> a taxonomic hierarchy in the form of the URL - which is therefore
> not a stable identifier e.g. if you want to shift a species page or
> concept around in the taxonomic hierarchy in the light of new
> information or a changed opinion, to support multiple alternative
> classifications, or simply to correct an error. Without addressing
> these issues I believe that you will never get a decent scalable and
> maintainable system (which is why databases get the usage they
> do :) )
>
> On the other hand I agree that (a) there is nevertheless a lot of
> valuable content in these community-driven sites that would be nice
> to be leveraged somehow, (b) many hands make light work i.e. can
> accomplish much more than a single individual or small group, and
> (c) community driven sites can be very responsive to new information
> as it is released.
>
> Perhaps a hybrid approach is feasible - use a proper relational
> system to drive the taxonomic backbone but import relevant content
> from the wikiXXX world. However issue (1) above does not go away -
> the only way to deal with that is to have a moderating process so
> that content does not go live until it has been reviewed by some
> trusted party, and also there are structural issues with the free
> text approach versus a greater degree of atomised content and, as
> appropriate, controlled terms in at least a subset of the fields.
> Whether wikiXXX can be morphed into such a beast remains an open
> question, of course - probably not very likely in my view - systems
> like WoRMS (e.g. see http://www.marinespecies.org/about.php) are
> much closer to that ideal already, and thus will always have more
> authoritatative, structured and relational content, as well as buy-
> in from relevant experts to contribute.
>
> Just some food for thought, possibly.
>
> FYI if you want to see undesirable things that can happen when
> arguments develop over taxonomic issues in wikiXXX space, take a
> look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sperm_Whale#catodon . It's
> enough to put you off contributing really - (I did elsewhere and
> decided to stop when things got too annoying).
>
> - Tony
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> ] On Behalf Of Roderic Page
> Sent: Tuesday, 30 June 2009 2:46 AM
> To: TAXACOM
> Subject: [Taxacom] Wikipedia classification
>
> As an exercise I attempted to recreate the Wikipedia classification of
> life by extracting information from all pages containing a "Taxobox" .
> I've posted a blog post about the results ( http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2009/06/wikipedia-taxonomy-good-bad-and-very.html
> http://tinyurl.com/lcxn2s ). You can go directly to the very crude
> browser I knocked together to navigate the Wikipedia pages here: http://bioguid.info/demos/wikipedia/
>
> 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
> Tel: +44 141 330 4778
> Fax: +44 141 330 2792
> AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either
> of these methods:
>
> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or (2) a Google search specified as: site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/
> pipermail/taxacom your search terms here
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either
> of these methods:
>
> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or (2) a Google search specified as: site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/
> pipermail/taxacom your search terms here
>
---------------------------------------------------------
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
Tel: +44 141 330 4778
Fax: +44 141 330 2792
AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
More information about the Taxacom
mailing list