[Taxacom] globalnames?

Fri Sep 18 04:44:24 CDT 2009

Hi David:

> Indeed you have published your information on Wikispecies and it's easy do because you can just open a page and type.   Unfortunately, there is no clear way for me to access those data from that page and place it into the appropriate places on the summary taxon page.   This is where data exchange standards with identifiable entities that are in a consistent type are needed.   Simply put the wikipedia information is visible, but it's not particularly re-usable

Oh come on! The information on this page: http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tillyardomyia, and thousands of others, is structured more than enough to be re-usable, if there was a genuine will to do so! Here is a very easy way: put links to Wikispecies pages on GBIF pages, just like I have put the (vacuous) GBIF link on my Wikispecies page. Then, when a user finds nothing useful on the GBIF page per se, they can click on the Wikispecies link and see linked references and distributional info (and maybe an image, if they are lucky, like these ones of mine:
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Holarchaea
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strepsiptera
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cyloma_stewarti
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Microtrombidiidae
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Waipapamyia
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Maaminga_rangi
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Motuweta_isolata
etc., etc.

>Indeed you have published your information on Wikispecies 
To be clear, I have "published" published information, and it is not "my information", but rather public information. This was my point: GBIF doesn't seem to be able to harness published information unless it is "repackaged" in a precise form to make it "GBIF digestable". This, in my opinion, is a serious flaw with your enterprise ...

Stephen
over quota by one (big deal!)
________________________________________
From: David Remsen (GBIF) [dremsen at gbif.org]
Sent: Friday, 18 September 2009 9:27 p.m.
To: Stephen Thorpe
Cc: David Remsen (GBIF); TAXACOM; cschwedt at gbif.org
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] globalnames?

Hi Stephen,

Indeed you have published your information on Wikispecies and it's
easy do because you can just open a page and type.   Unfortunately,
there is no clear way for me to access those data from that page and
place it into the appropriate places on the summary taxon page.   This
is where data exchange standards with identifiable entities that are
in a consistent type are needed.   Simply put the wikipedia
information is visible, but it's not particularly re-usable.

I agree that it doesn't make much sense to display an empty map.  This
is an interface (not infrastructure) issue and is on a list of portal
changes.

The capacity I am referring to is in progress and you are right, it's
a bit slow.  The data standard, Darwin Core, that contains the updated
terminology that allows for more consistent and useful data
publication that the wiki model, has gone through a lengthy comments
and review process.   This is just one component of building
architecture that supports additional uses than a wikipedia page.  The
GBIF page you pointed to is not the end objective of the network.
It's a mechanism to discover published data with sufficient detail to
decide if the data has some value for a particular use.

Lastly,  I entirely agree that we must make it easier to publish data
and work on all issues of latency.

Cheers,
David

On Sep 18, 2009, at 11:13 AM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> Thanks for your reply (at very least it gives me an excuse to
> complete my quota of 3 taxacom posts for the day - use it or lose
> it, as they say!)
>
> I wish to comment openly and frankly on some of your points, but
> please don't take offence
>
>> In order for this to occur, however, or for any of the other
>> information you pointed out, to appear on a summary page, someone
>> needs to use the network and publish those data
> Hold on, the information I pointed out (and have put on Wikispecies)
> is all already published information. There is absolutely no reason
> that I can see why the GBIF page cannot have just as much info
> content as my Wikispecies page! It seems odd that you need to wait
> to be given information that is already in the public domain!
> Something is a bit funny, don't you think, when I, or anybody can
> get substantive info on to Wikispecies in a few minutes, when there
> is absolutely no sign whatsoever of such information appearing in
> GBIF? As I already stated, the info on my Wikispecies page is very
> "bare bones" - just a reference to the New Zealand distribution,
> plus citations of the most relevant published references. I'm sure I
> can't be the only one to get annoyed when I wade through a GBIF
> legal page only to find a taxon page with just a name and an
> "umblemished" (=no spots!) map of the world!
>
>> This will be changing...
> Yes, but when? When would the Tillyardomyia pages be populated with
> real data? This milennium, next milennium, ... ? Meanwhile,
> Wikispecies, despite it's imperfections, makes steady progress day
> by day ... Perhaps GBIF is the hare, and Wikispecies the tortoise ...
>
>> But the content comes from you
> Then you must make it easier to add that content if you want people
> to be bothered to do so! Wikimedia makes it extremely easy...
>
> Cheers,
>
> Stephen
> signing off for today...
>
> ________________________________________
> From: David Remsen (GBIF) [dremsen at gbif.org]
> Sent: Friday, 18 September 2009 8:51 p.m.
> To: Stephen Thorpe
> Cc: David Remsen (GBIF); TAXACOM; cschwedt at gbif.org
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] globalnames?
>
> Stephen,
>
> The GBIF page http://data.gbif.org/species/13345061/ refers to
> Tillyardomyia gracilis and the data displayed there is derived
> entirely from the Catalogue of Life which in turn, received the
> taxonomic and nomenclatural information from the efforts of Chris
> Thompson.   No specimen point (occurrence) data comes from this
> source.  It provides a taxonomic framework for informing the
> organisation of the 180M occurrence records in our index.  It provides
> basic taxonomic status, for some resources, synonyms.
>
> Currently,  our network has not supported the publication and exchange
> of more rich taxonomic, nomenclatural, and species-level information.
> This will be changing as we have refined and expanded data standards
> and our publication framework to support species-level (as opposed to
> species-occurrence-level) data.   This includes the endemic status of
> the taxon so that we could indicate this information on the taxon
> summary page.
>
> In order for this to occur, however, or for any of the other
> information you pointed out, to appear on a summary page, someone
> needs to use the network and  publish those data. The network was
> built in response to countries coming together to build it yet the
> resources and incentives to populate it remain elusive for many
> potential users of it.  We can work to add capacity, improve
> visibility, provide better tools, and identify ways to showcase
> utility (of the data, not the network).   We can improve credit and
> tracking of usage.   But the content comes from you.
>
> Cheers, David
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 18, 2009, at 3:52 AM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
>
>> Name harvesting is useful as a FIRST STEP, nothing more or less than
>> an automated literature search, but not as an end in itself. It also
>> would be an advance on the current "database boom", all of whom seem
>> to be stealing what scanty data there is from each other. I have
>> just been creating a Wikispecies page for the (officially) monotypic
>> fly genus Tillyardomyia:
>> http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tillyardomyia
>> Although my page is still rather "bare bones", it is, I suggest,
>> still a heck of a lot more substantive than what you get from the
>> EoL or GBIF links that I put at the bottom of the page! These
>> illustrate one of the main current problems, i.e., nice
>> infrastructure, but no data! Since the genus is uncontroversially
>> endemic to N.Z., you would think that the GBIF page could somehow
>> indicate this in some way at this time - but no points at all
>> plotted on map (as per usual), and no words "New Zealand" on the
>> page at all...
>> Stephen
>> 2/3
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> ] On Behalf Of Richard Pyle [deepreef at bishopmuseum.org]
>> Sent: Friday, 18 September 2009 1:23 p.m.
>> To: 'Bob Mesibov'; 'TAXACOM'
>> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] globalnames?
>>
>> Thanks, Bob -- you have indeed confirmed my inability to communicate
>> on this
>> issue, because you portray it as though my perspective is at odds
>> with
>> yours; whereas in fact, they seem to be quite similar -- indeed,
>> nearly
>> identical (unless you, too, are as bad at commicating this stuff as
>> I am, in
>> which case I may be misinterpreting you).
>>
>>> Names are not an adequate link
>>> to biodiversity information. In biodiversity documentation -
>>> whether species/higher taxon lists from sophisticated ecology
>>> projects in 2009 or nature notes from some short-lived
>>> lepidopteran newsletter of the 1930s - both scientific and
>>> common names can be wrong or simply missing*.
>>
>> I don't believe I ever used the word "adequate".  But in the context
>> of
>> historical literature, what else is there?  Why else do we even put
>> names on
>> taxa, if not to put associated information into context?
>>
>>> Name harvesting from digitised literature and other sources
>>> is just that, name harvesting. Harvesting the biodiversity
>>> information that Rich says 'MANY MANY MANY' people want is
>>> done best by human processing. Taxon specialists are the
>>> people to do this, but trained librarians are nearly as good.
>>> Grabbing only the biodiversity information tightly and neatly
>>> linked to names not only guarantees confusion and errors, it
>>> also guarantees a shallow and uninformed result.
>>
>> Wow!  I couldn't have said it better myself!  Indeed, it's obvious
>> that I
>> didn't say it better myself -- if you were left with the impression
>> that I
>> disagree with anything you say above.
>>
>>> I can hear Rich grumbling as he reads this, muttering 'But
>>> name harvesting would assist taxon specialists to find
>>> sources they might otherwise miss.' Maybe. But it would hide
>>> those sources in a mess that I, for one, wouldn't have the
>>> patience to sift through.
>>
>> I guess we have slightly different views here (but only slightly). I
>> have
>> more confidence that the good stuff can float to the top.  Google
>> somehow
>> manages to pull off the trick for billions and billions of web
>> pages. With
>> our (comparatively tiny) dataset, I imagine we could do something
>> similar.
>>
>> And the only thing I'm grumbling about now is myself, for my evident
>> ineptitude for communicating effectively on this thread.
>>
>>> *Yes, missing. There are many, many valuable documentations
>>> of loosely categorised species ('caterpillar', 'worm'), and
>>> it's often the case that only a human, reading the report or
>>> studying the pictures carefully and applying prior knowledge,
>>> could possibly decode just what the report is talking about.
>>
>> "Often" is way to soft a word here.  I'm tempted to use "Always",
>> but to be
>> fair, it may be most appropriate to say "Almost always".
>>
>> Aloha,
>> Rich
>> Third (and final) Post Today
>>
>>
>>
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