[Taxacom] data quality vs. data security: a survey

[Richard Pyle]

> Interesting, that is, for IT folk and historians of science. 
> For those of us poor buggers at the bottom generating the 
> data, the 'trickle-down' effect is just about non-existent. 
> There's now a whole world of people making a living from 
> biodiversity information per se. A question more interesting 
> than yours is whether these folk understand where and how the 
> data get made, or whether they're like the hypothetical 
> consumer who thinks that milk is something that comes in 
> cartons in a supermarket.

Speaking as one of the poor buggers at the bottom generating the data, I,
for one, am VERY excited about what the IT folk (among whom I also dwell)
are up to -- including ALA, including EOL, and, indeed, including most of
the rest of the alphabet soup.  The reason I am so excited about it has
nothing whatsoever to do with funding (not directly, anyway).  I am always
trying to get away from IT work and back underwater, regardless of where the
funding is.  I'm driven by passion, not money.

No, the reason I am so excited is because I see the potential of what the IT
community is currently building (and what I am devoting a lot of my time to
help build) in helping me, the poor bugger generating the data, to be able
to do much much more (more species descriptions, more checklists, more
monographs), using much, much less (less time, less money, less frustration,
less tedium.

I see both worlds clearly, and have concluded that both are very good.

Aloha,
Rich