[Taxacom] the hurdle for all biodiv informatics initiatives

[dipteryx at freeler.nl]

Van: Paul Kirk [mailto:p.kirk at cabi.org]
Verzonden: za 20-2-2010 12:46

do not confuse databases of biodiversity information (e.g. IPNI, IF, CoL, which are mostly full) with (some) biodiversity information aggregator portals which may be patchy and sometimes "mostly empty"
 
Paul

***
Yes, there is a huge difference between bottom-up intitiatives, with (on the one hand) 
a limited purpose, but (on the other hand) real content and the top-down aggregators 
with a grand purpose and mostly just an ambitious infrastructure. Obviously websites
with real content like IPNI, ING, IF, etc (to name just a few of the most prominent) 
are invaluable. As I pointed out earlier, it is not at all unlikely that as these 
continue to grow and link-up they will make even the idea of data-aggregators 
superfluous. 

Generalization is quite risky, which is another of the problems with the 
data-aggregators as they are aggregating taxa (or names) across the Codes, 
as if there really existed a unified taxonomy (one more way of generating 
confusion!).

Paul