[Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et

[Richard Pyle]

No, in a database it would be most sensible to have something like this:

TaxonNameUsageID: 62D43041-06BE-45A3-8D6B-D3853F0B3121
ProtonymID: 62D43041-06BE-45A3-8D6B-D3853F0B3121
ReferenceID: 13798543-078E-4B8E-B176-52DF4D0173EB
TaxonRank: Genus
NameElement: Goneplax
[Plus a few other fields...]

The fact that TaxonNameUsageID=ProtonymID tells us that this record
represents the original creation event for this genus name.

The ReferenceID would resolve to the full bibliographic citation for Leach,
1814.  Part of the metadata in the resolved Reference would be a
ParentReferenceID, which might look something like this:
42E69941-A574-4E4E-901E-14EAC95F3CF4. Resolving the ParentReferenceID would
give us the full bibliographic citation for Leach, 1813-1815.

Oh, and before anyone starts qivering with fear about those ID values that
look sooooo scary; keep in mind that the only thing a human would likely see
is something along the lines of:

"Goneplax Leach, 1814 [in Leach, 1813-1815]"

Or 

"Goneplax Leach 1814 [in Leach, 1813-1815]"

Or

"Goneplax Leach [in Leach]"

Or....whatever the personal preference of the end-user is for formatting
such things.  

The database doesn't care how its data are formatted for a human -- that's
something only humans care about.  What the database cares about is that
nothing else on the planet uses any of the 3 identifiers listed above
(62D43041-06BE-45A3-8D6B-D3853F0B3121; 13798543-078E-4B8E-B176-52DF4D0173EB;
42E69941-A574-4E4E-901E-14EAC95F3CF4), and that these identifiers always
resolve to the same "thing". And, of course, the database cares about how to
resolve these identifiers, and that the resolution service returns a result
that it understands.  In the example given, the assumption is that the
database resolves these identifiers internally, against its own data tables.
If it needed to resolve the identifiers from an external application or
service, then the identifiers would need to be wrapped in an appropriate
resolution prefix -- like a URL, or an LSID, or a DOI.

Oh, and when the human sees the name + authors in the preferred format, each
component would likely be a hyperlink to the associated full metadata.

Speaking as a (gradually) reformed
taxonomist-who-designs-databases-like-a-taxonomist-would-design-a-database,
I can say that as a general rule, taxonomists who design databases like a
taxonomist would design a database (myself included) are lousy database
designers.

Aloha,
Rich

P.S. the example above is actually dumbed down a bit. Besides the missing
fields (most of which are equally obtuse identifiers), the "TaxonRank" would
most likely be "TaxonRankID", and would (most likely) be another identifier
that resolves to a pre-defined taxonomic rank.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of 
> Stephen Thorpe
> Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 6:32 PM
> To: fwelter at gwdg.de; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with 
> Mc, Mac, et
> 
> But in a database, it would be most sensible to have it like this:
> Name: Goneplax Leach, 1814
> Original publication: Leach (1813-1815)
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
> [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Francisco 
> Welter-Schultes [fwelter at gwdg.de]
> Sent: Saturday, 5 September 2009 5:21 p.m.
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with 
> Mc, Mac, et
> 
> > Goneplax Leach, 1814 [in Leach, 1813-1815]
> 
> The name of the genus is Goneplax Leach, 1814, but if there 
> is a divergence between nomenclaturally and bibliographically 
> relevant years, I also would recommend to cite a name in a 
> way Dean proposed here. Or if there is a divergence between 
> authors (Boettger, 1909 in Wohlberedt 1909). This is often 
> done, and can be very helpful to find the original source, 
> especially in rarely cited names. It is not ruled so by the 
> Code, but makes much sense. If there was a movment in the 
> community to incorporate this into the ICZN Code, I would be 
> in favour of this idea.
> I would not use a comma between author and year in a 
> bibliographical citation.
> 
> Francisco
> 
> 
> University of Goettingen, Germany
> www.animalbase.org
> 
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