[Taxacom] Rocket science, not?

Mon May 11 02:37:28 CDT 2009

On 11 May 2009, at 08:21, Paul Kirk wrote:

> A couple of points ...
>
> All newly published names are not necessarily new species, although  
> I'm
> sure those published by Bob are OK ... ;-) ... so, they do not all  
> need
> a page on EoL. Unless, of course, everything gets an EoL page and some
> pages just become deprecated to synonymy over time. Is this a  
> realistic
> option - sounds like it's close to the results from a search in Google
> where one is never sure which of the many hits is the 'correct' one.

Surely EOL needs to handle ALL names? If a user enters a synonym they  
will want to get something, whether a page on that name, or a page on  
the "accepted name" of that synonym. A page for each name is the  
approach I'm exploring in my wiki project.

>
>
> The CoL is an aggregator, dependant on the underlying database for
> content, so it's unfair to say that a newly described species is not  
> yet
> in the CoL if it's not yet in the relevant contributing database.

Alternatively, CoL needs to expand it's set of contributing databases.  
I understand how CoL works, but it's slow pace of growth has all sorts  
of knock-on effects, including limiting the coverage of EOL (which  
uses CoL as its main source of names).

>
>
> I think we all know that UBio is in stasis because the driver moved to
> another vehicle ... ;-)

>
>
> Paul
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Roderic Page
> Sent: 11 May 2009 08:05
> To: Bob Mesibov
> Cc: TAXACOM
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Rocket science, not?
>
> Dear Bob,
>
> This is a frustration that I share. These large projects are failing  
> to
> keep up with the pace of discovery (something I complained about here
> http://blog.eol.org/2008/05/29/sos-state-of-observed-species/ ).
> There's no intrinsic reason for this, but I think it reflects the fact
> that some projects appear to be in stasis (uBio?), and others don't  
> have
> a mechanism for rapidly aggregating information.
>
> Regards
>
> Rod
>
>
> On 11 May 2009, at 02:37, Bob Mesibov wrote:
>
>> Just an observation, not a criticism:
>>
>> I published a new genus (Noteremus) and two new species in it last
>> month in ZooKeys, which is gaily adorned with LSIDs, and thanks to
>> the superb efforts of Richard Pyle and others, you can find the
>> names today in ZooBank. You can't find them through the webpages of
>> ITIS, or the dynamic Catalogue of Life checklist, or uBio.
>>
>> By mentioning this here I may have wetted my chances of finding out
>> when they would have naturally gravitated to those aggregators. I
>> can, however, disclose the result of my silent watch on
>> Ginglymodesmus, which I published in Zootaxa in 2005. It's not in
>> Zoobank, or ITIS, or CoL or uBio.
>>
>> If you Google on Noteremus you get both of my specialist websites
>> (one on Tasmanian multipedes, the other on Australian millipedes in
>> general), ZooBank and ZooKeys. If you try Ginglymodesmus you get my
>> two websites, Zootaxa, a specialist-maintained Photobucket page and
>> an amateur Flickr group on Myriapoda.
>>
>> I agree with Rod Page that we're not talking about an either/or, and
>> didn't mean to suggest we were. It's a 'both', but bottom-up seems
>> to be growing vigorously while top-down is still working on data
>> standards.
>> -- 
>> Dr Robert Mesibov
>> Honorary Research Associate
>> Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
>> School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
>> Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
>> (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
>> Website: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
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>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 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
>
>
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>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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>
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> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here
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---------------------------------------------------------
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