[Taxacom] RSS feeds for new (or newly digitised) names

[Roderic Page]

On 10 May 2009, at 08:04, Paul van Rijckevorsel wrote:

> From: "Roderic Page" <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>
> Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 9:35 AM
>> I don't see this as a case of either/or. However, I'll make a couple
>> of points.
>
>> Specialist projects are great, but that doesn't mean that they can't
>> benefit from opening the data to a wider audience. Each project I've
>> encountered has errors (I've found some in IPNI as a result of making
>> the RSS feeds, see http://tinyurl.com/qp2yhp ), and often these  
>> errors
>> are only found when one tries to integrate the project with the wider
>> world.
>
>> I also agree that we need people to do the fiddly bits. One reason
>> I've been playing with wikis is that in every integration project  
>> I've
>> played with I keep coming across errors (from all kinds of sources,
>> not just taxonomic) that need to be fixed. Some of these can be found
>> by machines, but some need people to detect and correct. Note that
>> these need not be specialists. Anybody can figure out that frogs  
>> don't
>> live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
>
> ***
> On and off, I have been thinking about this, as well as about the  
> "Species
> Pages" of Roger Hyam (February 23, 2009 12:44 AM). I do see a  
> dichotomy,
> between websites with a limited objective (bottom up, driven by  
> information)
> and sites trying to do 'everything' (top down, driven by a desire for
> information). There is ever more available on the web, more scanned
> literature, more useful information on species (including pictures),  
> and
> more and more databases (and databases that harvest other  
> databases). The
> actual information on species is usually not in the form of a  
> Species Page,
> and it certainly is no rarity to need five or more sources to gather
> anything like a complete whole.
>
> A lot of databases appear to have no function other than to clutter up
> Google searches by having their empty pages show up higher than  
> pages that
> do offer content. Whether adding (yet another) a wiki would be  
> useful is
> debatable (wasn't EoL a wiki? It does not appear to be moving  
> forward all
> that fast).

EOL isn't a wiki, which I think in part explains why it's moving so  
slowly (don't get me started...).

I think there is a need for aggregators, tools to bring things  
together (e.g., Roger's species pages, my iSpecies, EOL, etc.). I also  
think we need tools to make sense of that aggregation, and to refine/ 
filter/edit it.


> I am quite dubious about the "Anybody can figure out that frogs
> don't live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean." as negatives  
> generally are
> not particular useful. Noticing an error or potential error is not
> necessarily useful; it is fixing them (properly) that matters; that  
> usually
> takes a great deal more work (and skill and knowledge).


Not sure what you mean by negatives are not particularly useful. The  
fact that, for example, the GBIF distribution map for the amphibian  
family Caeciliidae (http://data.gbif.org/species/13148933 ) includes  
insects found well outside the amphibian's distribution (due to  
homonymy) is likely to adversely affect sensible inferences about  
these amphibians.

I agree that fixing errors matters, but I'd argue that we need to be  
able to find them (which is best achieved by aggregating stuff  
together to discover contradictions), and provide simple means to fix  
them (i.e., not sending an email to some unnamed database curator who  
may or may not bother to deal with the issue).

I'd argue that many errors don't require specific expertise. A lot of  
taxonomic research is essentially bibliographic and lexicographic (who  
published this name when, how did they spell it, etc.). There's a lot  
of things that anybody with generic research skills (finding sources,  
reconciling conflicting accounts) could do (let's not kid ourselves,  
this ain't rocket science). Of course, there will always be areas  
where expertise is vital, and some errors or inconsistencies will  
require skill to resolve.


Again, I don't see this as either/or.

Regards

Rod




>
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> 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