[Taxacom] progress on globalnames.org
Peter DeVries
pete.devries at gmail.com
Wed May 13 16:21:23 CDT 2009
The globalnames.org project looks great.
I was wondering if you would be able to extend it a little bit by exposing
the data as RDF.
So in addition to these:
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}.xml<http://globalnames.org/name_strings/%7Bid%7D.xml>
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}.json<http://globalnames.org/name_strings/%7Bid%7D.json>
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}<http://globalnames.org/name_strings/%7Bid%7D>
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}.rdf<http://globalnames.org/name_strings/%7Bid%7D.rdf>
<-
Add
The site appears is written in rails so this should be fairly straight
forward.
The way this would be interpreted on the semantic web is:
This would be considered the identifier for the name
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}<http://globalnames.org/name_strings/%7Bid%7D>
This would be for RDF data about that name
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}.rdf<http://globalnames.org/name_strings/%7Bid%7D.rdf>
Why do this?
Because it will allow those creating web documents (html, rdfa, rdf) to make
the following statement about their document.
this page foaf:topic
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/{id}<http://globalnames.org/name_strings/%7Bid%7D>
For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlerotatus_triseriatus foaf:topic
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/5719254.xml
This would allow EOL, Google, Yahoo and others to recognize that a page is
about a particular species (name)
* There are other advantages, but I thought I would keep to simple examples.
Respectfully,
- Pete
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 3:55 PM, David Patterson <dpatterson at eol.org> wrote:
> The reason for suggesting a decade or so is not because of technological
> constraints. The architecture and tools are being assembled today.
> Agencies
> such as GBIF, EOL, nomenclators and the like can and do invest in a
> semantic
> names architecture, and through a variety of workshops dozens of skilled
> bio-informaticians have contributed their wisdom and enthusiasm.
>
> Rather, the rate of progress to achieving a comprehensive, authoritative,
> and effective names architecture is all about political will, and the
> social
> challenges of engaging all of the key players rather than having to
> reinvent
> wheels, and the relocation of resources to finance the transformation.
>
> There is no difficulty to embed, say, the names of Australia's biota within
> this architecture within much less than two years, and for a very small
> fraction of the $30M. The challenge is extend this to the full spectrum of
> our needs inclusive of the quality and authority we seek.
>
> I would rather not defend the decadal statement, but my experiences over
> the
> last 9 years suggest that this is realistic. If we can mobilize
> enthusiasm,
> resources to achieve a comprehensive names architecture within the next few
> years, I for one would be delighted - because then we can get back to the
> real biology.
>
> Paddy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Croft
> Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:17 AM
> To: Roderic Page
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] progress on globalnames.org
>
> Yesterday $30million was flagged in the Australian budget to enhance
> the Atlas of Living Australia, over two (!) years. I would be very
> surprised indeed if a major push on a list of known taxa and their
> names and associated information is not going to be a major part of
> this.
>
> Decadal time scales are no really going to cut it with governments who
> need something to show within a single electoral cycle.
>
> Two years is totally scary and we are definitely going to have to look
> at alternative approaches to sourcing, evaluating and capturing the
> data.
>
> jim
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 5:04 PM, Roderic Page <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>
> wrote:
> > Am I the only horrified by this timescale?
> >
> > On 12 May 2009, at 16:45, David Patterson wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Expectation management: How long before this all operational? Best
> >> to think
> >> decadally.
> >>
> >
> > Why can't we have this sooner? Like, *cough*, now? Is it crazy to
> > suggest that if all these names were dumped in a wiki, together with
> > annotations (e.g., links to literature), any our community set about
> > adding/annotating/cleaning, we could have this done rather sooner...?
> >
> > 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> _________________
> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
> http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
>
> "Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality."
> - Joseph Conrad, author (1857-1924)
>
> "I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said,
> but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."
> - attributed to Robert McCloskey, US State Department spokesman
>
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> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these
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>
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>
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---------------------------------------------------------------
Pete DeVries
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
445 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706GeoSpecies Knowledge Base <http://species.geospecies.org/>
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