[Taxacom] reproduction of error on the www

Sun Mar 22 21:35:30 CDT 2009

Hi all,

I don't think that the propagation of errors via the web will be stoppable - 

To take an example - in uBio NameBank (which basically looks for all names and author variants it can find and then catalogues them), in an example genus Paraphysomonas with which I was once acquainted, you will find the following (via the link http://www.ubio.org/browser/search.php?search_all=Paraphysomonas): 

  Paraphysomonas antactica as well as P. antarctica
  Paraphysomonas bourellyi as well as P. bourrellyi
  Paraphysomonas coryneophora as well as P. corynephora
  Paraphysomonas diademifera as well as P. diademinifera
  Paraphysomonas faveolata as well as P. flaveolata
  Paraphysomonas foraminifera as well as P. formanifera

and so on...

once these start in circulation, there is probably no stopping them I fear. Really the only solution is a master list (uBio or other?) where such errors are identified and reconciled. A few quiet evenings' work should fix it, for all taxa, living and fossil...

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees
Manager, Divisional Data Centre,
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research,
GPO Box 1538,
Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Ph: 0362 325318 (Int: +61 362 325318)
Fax: 0362 325000 (Int: +61 362 325000)
e-mail: Tony.Rees at csiro.au
Biodiversity informatics research activities: http://www.cmar.csiro.au/datacentre/biodiversity.htm
Personal info: http://www.fishbase.org/collaborators/collaboratorsummary.cfm?id=1566

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Mike Dallwitz
Sent: Monday, 23 March 2009 1:14 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] reproduction of error on the www

Paul van Rijckevorsel wrote:

> In the database of the "Genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and 
> Swartzieae" there is the typo 'Vittienia'

Thanks for pointing this out. We've now corrected it.

> [It] may be of interest to those who study how errors are 
> reproduced across the world wide web. [It] looks to be a unique 
> error. A Google-search results in 635 hits
> http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=vittienia&btnG=Zoeken&meta=
> but browsing through the links this drops to 35
> http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=vittienia&start=30&sa=N
>
> A Google-search for the correct spelling Uittienia results in 565 hits
> http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=uittienia&btnG=Google+zoeken&meta=
> but browsing through the links this drops to 49
> http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=uittienia&start=40&sa=N

There are actually 9 occurrences of the name (in HTML files) on our Web pages:

The Families of Flowering Plants: Description of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae
    http://delta-intkey.com/angio/www/caesalpi.htm
Genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae: Index page
    http://delta-intkey.com/caes/en/
Genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae: Description of Uittienia
    http://delta-intkey.com/caes/en/www/uittieni.htm
Genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae: List of Taxa Studied 
Anatomically
    http://delta-intkey.com/caes/en/www/sample.htm
Genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae: Classification
    http://delta-intkey.com/caes/en/www/class.htm
Genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae: versions of the above 
in the French version of the data set
    http://delta-intkey.com/caes/fr/
    http://delta-intkey.com/caes/fr/www/uittieni.htm
    http://delta-intkey.com/caes/fr/www/sample.htm
    http://delta-intkey.com/caes/fr/www/class.htm

These come from 4 sources in our data; of course, these were propagated on 
our own computers, not on the Web.

Many of the occurrences on the Web came via the the list of names in 
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesalpinioideae, which evidently came from The 
Families of Flowering Plants, not from The Genera of 
Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae, because the former is cited. 
There is also a stub http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittienia containing only 
automatically generated information. The error would probably have been 
picked up as soon as anyone entered information in this stub (provided they 
didn't take the information solely from our Web pages). I've corrected these 
Wikipedia pages. Derived pages such as 
http://dictionary.sensagent.com/vittienia/pt-pt/ will presumably be 
corrected automatically, eventually. The derived page 
http://www.melhordawiki.com.br/wiki/Vittienia is already correct, and 
http://paralaxe.org/index.php?option=com_awiki&view=mediawiki&article=Vittienia&Itemid=57 
is partially correct (its main heading still has the old spelling).

There are quite a few Google hits (out of the 35 or so) representing failed 
searches, e.g.

ITIS Results of Search in every Kingdom for Scientific Name ...
Results of: Search in every Kingdom for Scientific Name containing 
'Vittienia'. No Records Found.

Can anyone explain how this happens?

Another hit is a copy of an old version of one of our pages (a practice 
deprecated in http://delta-intkey.com/www/data-from-web-publications.htm):

The Families of Flowering Plants - Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae Kunth
... Tessmannia, Tetraberlinia, Tetrapterocarpon, Thylacanthus, Trachylobium, 
Umtiza, Vittienia, Vouacapoua, Wagatea, Zenia, Zenkerella, Zuccagnia. ...
www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/delta/angio/www/caesalpi.htm

Finally, out of left field:

artic: wiki V-011-pt | Progressive Music & Classic Rock portal
(17320) Vittarville (17321) Vitteaux (17322) Vittefleur (17323) Vittersbourg 
(17324) Vittetia (17325) Vittienia (17326) Vittoncourt ...
portal.progressiverocks.com/nahp/artic-pt/wiki_V-011

-- 
Mike Dallwitz
Contact information: http://delta-intkey.com/contact/dallwitz.htm
DELTA home page: http://delta-intkey.com

_______________________________________________

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