[Taxacom] Read... and believe...

[Mary Barkworth]

If specimens could only be identified/annotated by people who had
examined the type specimen and read the relevant protologue, there would
be few collections with identified specimens. I cannot speak for other
organisms, but in vascular plant taxonomy in areas it is not too hard to
find out what was meant by a name. The best thing to start by doing is
find out what references were probably used in an area or by an
individual. Going forward, however, it would help if we all adopted the
practice of adding sensu ... And cite a reference used - a person if one
is working from a published paper. But to think, as one person with whom
I corresponded with several months ago seemed to think, that we can
retrospectively add taxon concepts more easily than re-identify a
specimen is nuts. 
Mary