[Taxacom] Author inclusion or non-inclusion with species names

[Stephen Thorpe]

>not meaning to have a dig at Stephen in particular 
Does this make you a spade?? :)

Anyway, if the relatively "simple" task of a database of bare names is proving "difficult", then what chance have the relatively "sophisticated" projects which aim to database every published (and even unpublished) namestring?? Surely, the first task is a subtask of the second? We need to learn to crawl before we can win the 100 meters world record, taking things one step at a time (but not keeping everything back until it is all done!) From what I can tell, the "acronyms" like CoL are just using data from other available databases, rather than creating new data. There may be some benefit in such an "amalgamated database", but then it is probably just as easy to Google up the particular database that you want anyway!

Leading on to your Aussi marine species problem, you say: 'finding which of the 40k+ Australian marine species names I have on my list are actually the same species variously classified by different sources ...'
This tells me that there is a fundamental flaw in the approach here. You need to approach it group by group, and search for the latest taxonomic publications on the group, and using those to build up a solid list. If you are lucky, but you probably wont be 'cos it ain't yet strong on marine taxa, Wikispecies might already have an up to date taxonomic synopsis for you, to help you along. I hope whoever sets your deadlines has an inkling just how much work is involved here???

Nobody (or at least not me) was suggesting that we abolish authorship/date except in popular (non-taxonomic) publications. Has anybody ever seen an author/date citation in, say, National Geographic, or something? Perhaps they ought to be subtitled on the Discovery Channel! :)

Stephen
________________________________________
From: Tony.Rees at csiro.au [Tony.Rees at csiro.au]
Sent: Monday, 5 October 2009 1:52 p.m.
To: Tony.Rees at csiro.au; Stephen Thorpe; p.kirk at cabi.org
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Author inclusion or non-inclusion with species names

To set the record straight re my last comment as below - not meaning to have a dig at Stephen in particular - but this is the task numerous operations have set themselves, only to come up short so far once the magnitude of the job becomes apparent. E.g. - Catalogue of Life (drawing on its excellent contributors) has some 65% of "current" names and a subset of synonyms accessible after how many person-years accumulated activity (tens, hundreds?), only another 35% to go, plus all the synonyms missed, plus all the non-extant species; uBio claims 11+ million names (I think) of which a subset at least are minor spelling or author variants of the same thing, and nobody knows the true number to be indexed out there but my guess would be 20m+ ... basically it's a bit like saying yes, I know how to win the 100 meters world record - all you have to do is run faster than anyone else: easy in theory, a few obstacles in practice.

Maybe the GNA will save us all - but not deal with my problem of today - finding which of the 40k+ Australian marine species names I have on my list are actually the same species variously classified by different sources, or just plain misspelled (hence my appreciation of the value of author names when supplied - giving 4,000 candidates for multiple classification based on identical or near-identical "species epithet plus authority" combination, all to be checked further via numerous scattered resources).

I too look forward to the complete "Catalogue of life and death" (   :-)   ) but not very soon.

Regards - 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: Friday, 2 October 2009 5:11 PM
To: s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz; p.kirk at cabi.org
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [ExternalEmail] Re: [Taxacom] Author inclusion or non-inclusion with species names

Stephen Thorpe wrote:

<snip>
So again, we need a centralised database of synonymic information, but it needn't be anything very complex ...
</snip>

hahahahaha

That's solved then...

- Tony

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